#its the 'essentially a oc' material isnt it

[ben-wisehart]

hi! do you ever feel like the bingqiu fandom is binghe biased? like a lot of the time its giving.. “wow binghe is our little precious bun who deserves the world and more! ..oh and stinky neet loser sqq is so blessed to have him lul” it feels unfair towards sqq :( it makes me sad hes no ones fave but thats okay like whatever right? but even when its bingqiu hes treated like an afterthought. like we have binghe fans criticising sqq for not doing more, sj fans are frankly delusional, sqh fans think hes “too mean” to their precious hamster, liushen fans only like him bc hes a good hole/dick for lqg (obligatory “not all men” lol) idk i only follow a handful of svsss twt accs because no one seems to like him, he feels either tolerated or treated as a gag character lol 🥹

i just dislike a lot of fanon bingqiu i think? i read all the books before hopping on twitter and i see some absolute rancid takes on there like the woobification of Shaun(tm) qinghua and jiumei.. which is easy enough to avoid tbf so whatever floats their boat idc. but when i follow bingqiu accs, it feels like OC x OC rather than ~bingqiu~ if that makes sense? like i LOVE the manipulative crybaby domtop x flustered thin face subby pillow princess they have going on!! and fanon bingqiu is just.. not it? and obv id never send hate or anything (i just block and keep it moving) but it makes it kinda sucky when the fandom is already teeny tiny and a large chunk of the fandom isnt what i envisioned/expected i guess which is so odd! when they essentially erase canon!! if it’s like some queerbaity ship or whatever, people can characterise them however they want but its like CANON how they act/are in bed/etc and its all taken away!!! idk im probably just whining sorry 😭

(i included all my thoughts here sorry for the spam!!)

hey, thanks for stopping by!! I definitely know what you mean with regards to SQQ, but I will assure you that there are very much still plenty of dedicated "sqq mains" out there. My sphere of influence on twitter is heavily biased toward people for whom sqq is their favourite character, so maybe I'm not getting a representative sample of the fandom overall, but he's definitely a very well loved character and has more than his fair share of people who do him justice in their writing and for whom he's their primary blorbo!! I remember posting this on reddit a while back and more than half of the responses (though admittedly a small sample size) had him as their fave. So, I don't think he's without appreciation!

But with that said, I do get where you’re coming from. I’m not gonna talk about readers who take his actions in bad faith and actively dislike him (HOW??), but as you’ve said, even among people who do like him, we don’t always understand him as well as we could. Most fans do get on some level that he’s an unreliable narrator, but it’s still very common for people to take him at face value and completely miss his depth. He’s a funny little guy with amusing narration, but he’s also kind and selfless, and he’s also smart and witty, and obnoxious and annoying, and frankly pretty insensitive, and deeply, deeply traumatised—and a million other things! He has layers.

I think all popular characters in fandom will inevitably start getting boiled down to a few key traits. And as somebody who’s been writing fic for 15 years, it’s really hard not to let your own biases colour your portrayal? I absolutely do it with SQQ!! I focus on his kinder, warmer aspects and downplay his flaws, I’ll readily admit that. We all get drawn to a favourite character for a certain trait, and that trait becomes the grit around which our interpretations form. If you’re somebody that likes silly characters, you’re going to write SQQ and dial his silliness up to eleven. If you like kind characters, you’ll write SQQ with emphasis on his kindness. None of these traits are OOC in and of themselves, but if you start to only read fanfic and don’t revisit the source material, you can get lost in what’s popular and forget all the depth that actually made them interesting in the first place. And once you’ve grown attached to a particular version of the characters in your head, it can be really hard to let go of it. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I'll add that I think protagonists are just particularly prone to this happening because they're usually the one the audience relates to most.

Idk if any of that really addresses the stuff you were talking about. You mentioned dom top Binghe/pillow princess sqq and to be honest I’m kind of reluctant to talk about this in depth because I’ve received negative comments in the past for supposedly being anti-bottom Binghe, when all I’ve ever said on this matter is that I think it’s a bit weird to insist that “I’m scared of hurting you so I might as well let you do it” is proof that Binghe is canonically a bottom. The fact that someone found that statement so threatening to their view of the characters that they would go to my ao3 page, click on the first fic they saw that happened to feature bottom SQQ and leave their holier-than-thou anonymous opinion there is just bizarre to me.

To be honest tho, it tends to be Binghe characterisation that puts me off moreso than Shen Qingqiu. The only SQQ characterisation that truly bothers me is when people write him as willing to hurt Binghe, or willing to do anything with underage Binghe, but there is a LOT of Binghe stuff that I’m sensitive too. Idk if you read this thread of mine but like, even my friends whom I love make “Binghe stalking/imprisoning/"atticwifing" SQQ” jokes and these bother me way more than any random stranger saying SQQ would get off on spanking Binghe.

And like, it’s kind of hard because objectively, Binghe is a very dark character, so it doesn't feel particularly OOC to say he would do those things, but it's about framing. It bothers me when the emphasis is on how fucked up he is and not how hard he's trying, because it implies a level of futility that I just don’t think is there in canon. To me the beauty of him is in how much doing right by SQQ doesn't come naturally to him, but he ultimately decides to do it anyway because he wants SQQ to be happy. (I feel it needs to be said that I don't mean this in a judgy "if you write dark Binghe you don't understand him and are a bad person" way. Just that I myself can't handle that, and I strongly disagree if you think it's where Bingqiu's relationship is headed).

but idk, I've found my corner and I'm very happy here. I actually don't read fic as often as you'd think, mostly because I am sooooo picky, so I totally get where you're coming from :) but the fandom is still decently sized and very diverse, so there are always going to be at least a few people who share your feelings, if you can find them!

[toestalucia]

i Wanna write but im also Tired so i wont write atm but i also miss talking about gran so imma just mention stuff i wanna talk about eventually but most likely wont talk about properly

gran & scars?? burn marks?? i was thinking about it since i was being shamed for thinking vaseragas sexi again a while ago, but he keeps saying his face is hideous so i kinda just wanted them....to talk about it. in a way thats kinda ‘i dont feel bad about it, but i know ppl react’?? but i mean, over the years ive gone back & forth regarding the scar the hydra caused & if it’s visible or not, since canon is different too (ingame doesnt show it, but manga does). and both have their potential.....and while i prefer to go with scars overall im not sure how imma view healing magic to work,,,, realistically grans upper body shouldnt be in the Best shape considering all the stuff thats happened but,,,,,,,ill forever be on edge on it i guess? atm im “ya hydra, right behind u & robomi 3 left scars” tho

platinum sky where grans so uncomfortable with the attention from the news ppl..........save them from interviews..... anime s2 had them being Really tired out during the official setting too....... its not strangers that tire them out, its more so...official settings where they have to be Proper and Fancy and speak Well. PLEASE THEYRE A FARMER KIDDO THEYRE MORE COMFY IN THE FIELDS. they’re not Superinto attention like that. they grow into the captain role, but they have a tendency to?? blend in with the crowd?? it’s more skilled fighters who immediately can tell gran’s a threat, or if the situation turns dire cuz then they tend to have a more serious aura. more in that sense ykno!!!! especially since grans still at most a Young Adult i think its Neat if ppl assume someone else is the captain at first cuz Theyre Too Young

GOD SPEAKING OF S2, THE WAY GRAN CAN TELL THINGS ARE WRONG? they noticed katalina was Weird before albion & even more so during their talk. they notice eugen isn’t trusting them fully too, which is Fine but i feel like grans the kinda person who Wants ppl to be honest with them......... during caglis event she withheld info about who she thought was the enemy, but that was because she knew that if gran got worried the rest of the crew would be worried too,,,,,,, i mean, grans not the Best at reading ppl, but they tend to notice a change of air, even if they don’t push to talk about it. and overall gran Gets why ppl would hold back (they do it too), but i guess they’d also feel a bit weird about it since they nvr got any answers when they asked when they were a kid either. so they tend to prefer to not be in the dark when things happen

edit: god i reread this part and im sorry for being the fool whos like “fav: breathes me: ARE YALL SEEING THIS” yall have full rights to make fun of me

tying into before too but.........grans not always the most talkative in bigger groups. it’s less noticeable one-on-one, but they do have the tendency to be the one speaking less. but they’re very attentive to people & what they say.

[taskforcebug]

heyyyy could I pls ask where to find out more about your ocs? :0 They seem rlly cool but I wouldn’t even know where to start getting info about them!! Especially Knife Guy? He’s called Ace, right? :o so uuHH do you have like. info about them somewhere? :o

If you go down my Ace tag, theres SOME info there! But for reference, I can give you the Gist of him here! He has a long story, so I'll just tell you what he's like!

When he was younger he lost his brother (to a cult run by my OC Robbie!), and because of this he ran away from home and also ended up being snatched by the same cult! A lot of stuff happened, he broke out, lived on the streets for a while, had a very...tumultuous & obsessive relationship with an immortal dude named Aki for a few years before separating from him (unwillingly lol), and then reuniting with him years later to work beneath him as a mercenary in Italy! That's just the summary, and even that's...a lot.

Current Ace is very chill, thanks to his boyfriend Destiny, and his found-family in Italy! He's still a bastard, super chaotic and sometimes cant keep his mouth shut, but he's a good person despite all the awful shit he's done as a kid.

When Ace was younger, he was...really messed up. He was killing for the cult for a while, then stealing and fighting on the streets, then stealing from the rich and essentially torturing his immortal boyfriend, lol. Super obsessive, zero coping mechanisms, giant sadist. Awful, basically!

Another NEAT, FUN piece of trivia is that he has an alien-parasite living inside him that is basically a little squid! He isnt aware of it, at least not yet in the story, but it was first inside his brother, Kai. And then when his brother was killed (by Ace, actually! Long story there c:), the parasite needed a host with similar genetic material to its first host! So it jumped to Ace, and has been living inside of him and keeping him alive in tough situations ever since :) It's also partially responsible for how impulsive and emotional Ace is/was!

[soft-cheek]

tagged by @bandhoorah for another thing haha

favorite fictional characters: hhhhhhhhh there are many i still really love akaashi from haikyuu and like all of the owl boysand also saeko, uuum todoroki? love that boy....... fuck listen i cant think of things and also this list could go on for a very long time

✈️: favorite city you want to visit: i know its kinda cliche but i kinda wanna visit new york city at least once but like not by myself

💗: 3 things you like about yourself: my hair, my uuuuuuuuuuh perseverance? im out of things

💔: 2 things you want to change about yourself: my indecisiveness and like all of my mental health problems

👻: one item from your bucket list: I mean its mostly just travel stuff i wanna travel to many places because travelling is fun

🎹: instrument you want to learn: piano and guitar!

🤥: scent/smell- one you love, one you hate: i really love honeysuckle its a very calming scent and i wouldnt say hate per se but gardenia isnt good as like a perfume scent its way too strong. actual gardenias smell fine though

🎵: sound- one you love, one you hate: i like deep bass like sounds like cello and shit. or just like calming basslines in general i guess? and i have really bad misophonia so like all eating related sounds kind of drive me up the wall and make me wanna punch things

🙊: unpopular opinion: uuuuuuuuuh

💵: one thing you can’t stop buying: mother keeps giving me the bath and body works coupons she gets in the mail and as a result i end up buying a lot of bath and body works products. listen they keep giving out coupons for free shit how do i say no to that

6️⃣: 6 words to describe your tumblr: im gay and draw my ocs

💞: your first follower ever <3: its @muckkles so yknow just my sister

💪: useless skill you have: basically all of my geological knowledge, although i guess thats debatable as useless. so maybe instead my ability to like pick up any hobby and become relatively proficient at it?

🏠: could you live as a hermit?: probably although i would probably get kinda lonely without at least the internet

🤓: 3 random facts you know: many popular gemstones are really just some kind of variation of quartz with minor color or structural variants. placoderms are those Big fish youll see in a lot of paleo art with the armor like plating and despite their outward appearances most members dont actually have teeth and instead bite solely with their big armor plates. they were also considered like the tanks and apex predators of the devonian seas which is why i was super worried seeing ponyo and sosuke just kinda swimming over them in that movie. and uuuuuuuh god im out of things that arent geology related. theres a type of volcano called a diatreme thats essentially just a big cone of volcanoclastic material going into the earth and it erupts in rings onto the surrounding surface

👑: favorite Disney princess and why: still really love tiana just cause shes great but merida is also very good

ughh tagging im so bad at tagging @bitchbugboy @miraculeio @chronotaraxia @kawaiianimeredhead @unfilteredinferno

[noidsome]

The big issue with the digimon tri movies, and why you should be pissed too.

I just finished watching the 5th digimon movie, and to put it short, i excpected nothing and im still let down. This is a big negative critique on what ive seen so far from the tri movies, but its also more of a vent for me, because theres something about these movies that really fucking grinds my gears and i feel i finally need to let that out somewhere. Look at this as a sort of....badly written analyctic rant. So far this movie, in short, was as i dreaded, 70% meiko bullshit and 20% kari...which is so fucking insulting i dont even know...but thats why im here.

Now before you assblast me with your stupid crap, please try to understand that as harsh as im writing this, im trying to look at this movie from a critical standpoint, and no im not going to put in the effort to be “nice” about it because if digimon tri can get away with half assing everything about itself, then wont bother. If you cant handle that, move on. If your interested, click the read more and we can begin this shit fest, because i think its about god damn time someone put these mediocre movies in their place.

The pacing.

I dont know about you guys, but to me it feels like these movies, or episodes, are either dragging on forever, or they rush really fast. This movie especially took its sweet ass time to give us 2 whole half an hour scenes of meiko being depressed about her shitty OC digimon, to leave the actual interesting fights and plot to 1 and a half episode, out of 4. Im sorry but i feel like ive been following this fucking story for 6 years, its so fucking slow and it drags on for fucking ever sometimes.

I do understand that its important to establish character interactions, and god damn does this fucking series need some, but sometimes it really stops the action dead in its tracks, and as much as i appriciate the movies giving each character some focus, it goes on for too long. the ending to movie 5 was....well rushed as shit. 

But despite all this, its just really frustrating that half the entire series is just them standing around and TALKING...talking talking talking, exposition exposition exposition. It also feels really slow and stagnated sometimes, and the cheesy music in the background of the sad scenes dont really help much. And other times things are glossed over so fast that im standing there wondering if i missed out on something because i accedently blinked. Like how they entered the digital world, only to just suddently fall out of it immediatly after from a big digital gate just like that. Or how meiko just...SUDDENTLY appeared in the digital world with no warning or real reason. huh?? shes here now?? what?? meicoomon is still infected? what?? gennai is back with the dark masters? what where did they come from? why are they following him!? WHAT?? HUH??? HELLO???

im just….frustrated. im frustrated that i have to wait for 6+ months every a new movie comes out, only for the movie to stall for fucking ever and leave the actual OH SHIT moments to the last part, AND END ON A CLIFFHANGER. Its such fucking god damn bait to get us to watch the other movies, its almost INSULTING how incredibly obvious it is. Last movie ended with gennai fucking around and choking meiko. Then, as i saw my fat ass down in the chair, waiting for the big battle, no meicoo just...opened portals and then left with her copy paste army. Oh well so much for that. 

Then the digidestined actually FALL OUT OF THE DIGITAL WORLD, and they are right back to standing around and getting chased by the cops...and then they spend THE REST OF THE EPISODES on meikos useless crying and baiting for meichi shipping material. im sorry but was that neccecary? was it neccecary to stop the entire god damn movie just so we could have tai standing there with spaghetti falling out of his pockets? and the mega evolutions for the other digimons felt really rushed too, i had hoped for more build up...but guess i get fuck alll.

The filler.

Now i do enjoy myself a little “filler” once in a while, i wont lie. and i will also not lie when i say that i really enjoyed seeing my boi tais hot nipple-less body. But, again…. DID WE NEED THE FIRST HALF BEING JUST THAT?! i swear to fucking god if you cut out all the filler content from these movies your going to get the entire series down to 5 episodes. Movie 2 was just...filler. fucking filler. i didnt have much issue with movie 3 but they just NEEDED to shove more meiko in..

movie 4 was kind of a bitch to sit trough because the whole damn “plot” made no sense. why was soras digimon the only one who was mad and while the others were just like before? why JUST her? why couldnt the others be like that too? Its just plot convenience at this point. and then it was pretty much just watching tai and matt spew spaghetti out of their pockets and be awkward because sora cant communicate with her friends like a normal person. Honestly it was a little charming at first but it got old pretty quickly…and then dark masters out of nowhere that died as fast as they came on. what a rushed little cameo for that extra nostalgia bait.

Honestly i found myself first liking the character interactions a little once the movies took a break from the action and fighting...but i much more often found myself angrily tapping my foot and going “REEEE MOVE ON.”

The god damn meiko.

Alright you all saw this one coming probably. Now let me just start by saying, i originally didnt mind meiko, or the idea of a new digitestined in the first place. Its welcoming to try and add something new to your otherwise soulless nostalgia cash grab. However we need to look at her from a critical stand point. im not trying to start a hate train, im just going to analyze her for how shes written as a character.

Im sorry to say this guys, but no matter how you look at her, shes a mary sue. Im sorry but all the tropes are there!! but why do i feel this way? heres why:

Her digimon is the sole reason for everything going to shit.

her digimon is in adult stage like gatomon just because.

essentially her digimon is “special”

all the other kids befriended her really fast just because.

everyone likes meiko and nobody seems to have a problem with her

shes the typical “uguu” shy type of girl.

her digimon OF COURSE won the costume contest in movie 2 or 3

leomon finds HER DIGIMON adorable enough to make the others run off... of course….

she cries constantly and does nothing but wine as the others hold her.

She takes up MAJORITY of the screentime for almost all movies. Almost.

POSSIBLY a relationship with the main character, if they actually are baiting us with those scenes in movie 5.

acts and feels like a self-insert OC in a canon universe.

The reason i dont like her is just because im SICK OF HER!! im sick of seeing her fucking face every god damn movie. im sick of the others shoving a friendship speech or talking about her belonging to them for the 700th GOD DAMN TIME, im sick of constantly hearing ME-MEI and MEIKOOOOOO, and im so fucking sick of seeing her sit down and cry or act sad and do NOTHING! shes just THERE TO BE THERE! her “cute little sneezing quirk” wasnt even something they bothered keeping any more. Shes so god damn obnoxious and shallow, and the ENTIRE HALF OF THE 5TH MOVIE WAS SPENT SHOVING MORE FRIENDSHIP SPEECHES IN HER FUCKING HEAD UNTIL SHE NUTTED UP AND STRAIGHT UP TOLD THE OTHERS TO AXE OFF MEICOOMON, while kari got 5 fucking minutes and got posessed or some shit i dont fucking know, does anyone care at this point?! 

shes such a god damn self insert its PAINFUL! and ive read plenty of crappy OC digimon fanfiction in my days to be able to tell when someone props their crappy OC in a canon story. IVE DONE IT MYSELF!! its INSULTING that im watching a canon produced digimon FANFICTION more then an actual OVA. If you like her, FINE, but you CANT ignore how incredibly shallow and flawed shes written. This isnt someone “hating female characters” this is someone whos frustrated a shittly written character who is just causing repetitive sob scenes over and over and over. im sorry but have we not gotten enough flashbacks from meiko and her digimon? do we need 4 more in the fifth movie??? WE GET IT! ITS SAD! SHES SAD!! THEY ARE FRIENDS! MOVE ON ALREADY!!

i dont feel bad for her anymore, its just getting repetitive now. She ate up the entire 5th movie and left nothing to kari but the sloppy leftovers at the end, and because she ran off like an idiot to meicoomon she got tai axed off too……………...but i will get to that.

The lack of animation.

The biggest insult, and this is….dare i say…….something coming from an animation student, is the insufferable animation. The first movie is fine, but from thereon, i feel like the quality dropped significantly. and oh boy, dont get me started on the amount of time they just pan a fucking picture instead of animating them doing shit.

im sorry but did i wait 4-6 months for a fucking clipshow? I know that animating is hard, and the animation industry in japan is absolute fucking shit, but come the fuck on guys. i think movie 5 had so many times where they just panned pictures of the digimon fighting, and the kids running. I guess when you put all your budget into overanimating the short action scenes you got, you dont have much left for them to trow a punch outside of that. and i wouldnt mind if they had just bothered not doing it so much. they do it WAY TOO OFTEN!

in the 4th move they didnt even fucking bother drawing the kids wet while they were in the water. no wet droopy hair, no indication the clothing was soaked, nothing. not a god damn fucking detail or anything.

The nostalgia bait

Hey kids, remember the bus in the digital world??? remember the gear desert? remember the house mimi was a princess in?? remember the pink forest? remember seadramon? remember the dark masters???? remember any of that shit!? remember primary village?! YEAH??? REMEMBER ALL THOSE COOL 01 THINGS??? ok cool, anyway moving on.

The lack of personality/soul

one thing im really passionate about is expressions. expressive characters and facial expressions i something i enjoy drawing a lot. in the original digimon, every character was spesifically designed to be its own thing. sure they stank of the 90s, but they wer UNIQUE. Digimon tri has trown all that shit out the window. Now they all look boring as hell. the only unique thing about them now is their hair. take that away, and you get a bunch of similar looking, boring samefaced characters.

the digimon movies are just so fucking SOULLESS! everyone looks so god damn watered down and tame compared to their former selves. everyone wears a school uniform even when they got summer vacation. they even wear school uniforms as they get to the digital world, and they have NO facial expressions. NONE! the way they talk and show emotions is almost nonexistant. even once they are seriously screaming at someone or focusing on something serious, they still have that stale, boring as shit facial expression. stone faced and COLD! its like you dont even care!! seriously its so frustrating to watch sometimes because they are so god damn bland and barely deviate at all from their typical “idle” face.

^count how many fucking times tai makes this face troughout the entire series. 

^am i the only one who thinks they looks very..bland and dull here? and this happens way too often.

seriously, watch the movies again and notice just how little the animators bothered giving them any fucking emotions. the screenshots here are just from a few minutes in the new movie.

And dont get me started on how everyone seemed so.........accepting of tais “death” i mean sure they might still be in shock,.....but......why did none of pic under appear???? 

WHy was everyone so.....noble??? except kari...who got....fucking owned.

and the digimon....most of them are just....comic relief now. i feel like most of them have little personality, but fucking agumon. what the FUCK have they done to agumon!? hes just a walking talking “i like to eat” joke. hes fucking nothinng. an empty boring sack of shit who just talks about food and NOTHING ELSE!! oh and maybe fights sometimes...but seriously.

The BAIT.

The trailers for these movies have made me fall into the bait they put out. But its getting infuriating now. All the trailer bait for movie 5 was just taken form the last 5 minutes of the film. that little teaser we all thought were going to show the dark ocean? yeah that was what….5 seconds at the very last minute of the movie? Hime was the one who went there, and they even rushed that part. 

remember when we all tought that tai was the kaiser because the animators thought they copy the excact same hairstyle? remember how they all baited us with the kaiser thinking we were gonna get some 02 action? i sure as FUCK do.

i LOVED the last minutes of the movies. i loved the last half of episode 3 and the entire episode 4… but im so fucking angry that i have to wait 4-6 months for the conclusion to when the movie was JUST GETTING INTERESTING! i fucking hate it!!

The 02 kids, or lack thereof.

Ok honestly ive completely forgotten about them, and i dont understand why they bothered putting them in this movie. and they give us absolutly nothing to go on for ALL of the movies! WHY? WHATS THE POINT?! with this series endless stalling, how can they possibly explain their absence or death or whatever in what little time we have left?! how will they half ass this?! i seriously dont get how they can begin with something so intense, only to give us absolutly nothing till the last movie, IF AT ALL!

Taichis “””””””””””””””””death.”””””””””””””””””

So the fuckers had the BALLS to kill off my boi tai. They actually went there. they fucking killed him off. AND LEFT IT ON A CLIFFHANGER! wow fucking good job guys, you sure got me there. i cant believe tai is fucking dead.

except wait a second here…..tai isnt dead. of course he fucking isnt. i mean come the fuck on, are you really expecting them to kill off their marketig king? the face of all their merc? PLEASE! we all fucking know that hes going to come back. THEY BASICALLY SPOILED THE MOVIES FOR US ALREADY, didnt they say in an interview far back that these movies were whats going to lead everyone up to their careers? so why the fuck would tai die when we know hes going to be an ambassador? 

i dont fucking understand why they even bothered with this fake ass death. WE KNOW HES GOING TO COME BACK! im not mad that tai “died,” im mad that they actually bothered making it a cliffhanger, as if we arent going to fucking figure out hes coming back in the next movie. WHATS THE POINT?! Are they going to just shove him off till the last 5 minutes of the last movie? is that it? are they going to do what they did to kari? or are we FINALLY going to see tai resolving his persional issues that have been shoved away to make room for everything else? who knows, who cares at this point?!

The conclusion

Digimon tri was something enjoyable for me to look forward to..but now, its just a bunch of frustrating, medicore, nostalgia cash-grabbing shitfests of movies, and i need to get it out of my system. 

Im angry because i have to wait 4-6 months between each movie only to get nothing. im angry that i have to wait 4-6 months for an hour long movie that has actual content thats 20 minutes long. im sick of having my excpectations set to low, only for them to be lowered even more. im sick of seeing meiko basically becoming the main characters as the others are somewhat side characters at this point. im sick of the shit-tier animation quality and the stone-bored dull surprise faces. im sick of wanting this to be good, only to see that the fucking directors and animators arent even fucking trying anymore. Im sad, that the sequel was put in the hands of incompetent fucks who only know digimon trough their most basic character traits, and nothing more.

i do like tri...and im sad to see it go so soon….but part of me wants to get this over with, because if you like it or not, tri isnt a passionate fan sequel. tri is a boring, mediocre cash grab, and im sad it cantt be more then that, and im sad its over soon...

[centuryassociates]

Top 10 Unknowns About California’s Cannabis Regulations

In California, under the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis and Regulation Safety Act (MAUCRSA), temporary licenses began issuing to cannabis businesses on January 1, 2018. Since then, the state agencies in charge of MAUCRSA’s implementation (the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA)) have worked pretty much round the clock on adopting permanent regulations. In case you forgot, the agencies dropped their initial proposed permanent rules this past summer, tweaked those, and then released another round of revised proposed permanent regulations last month (which are now in the hands of the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for an overall review). That last round of proposed permanent rules (see here, here, and here) is very likely to become effective (pending OAL’s review) in early January. Right now, all licensees are still operating under the emergency rules that came out in fall of 2017. And pretty much everyone is racing to get their temporary licenses, which will NOT be available after December 31.

Despite the fact that the state has made great progress towards permanent rules, many questions and ambiguities around licensing and operational conduct remain. In fact, some of the grayer areas of the emergency regulations have been expanded by the proposed permanent rules for better or worse. In turn, with 2019 just around the corner, here’s my list of the top 10 unknowns that still remain for California cannabis:

    1.    IP licensing and white labeling restrictions.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, one of the most shocking proposed permanent rules to come from the BCC is section 5032(b) (which, yes, affects all licensees). Essentially, section 5032 (b), as originally written, basically prohibited all IP licensing and white labeling agreements between cannabis licensees and non-licensees. That rule stated that:

(a) Licensees shall not conduct commercial cannabis activities on behalf of, at the request of, or pursuant to a contract with any person that is not licensed under the Act. Such prohibited commercial cannabis activities include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) Procuring or purchasing cannabis goods from a licensed cultivator or licensed manufacturer; (2) Manufacturing cannabis goods according to the specifications of a non-licensee; (3) Packaging and labeling cannabis goods under a non-licensee’s brand or according to the specifications of a non-licensee; (4) Distributing cannabis goods for a non-licensee.

For more detail on that original rule, see our write-up here. During public comment on 5032, there was a good amount of dissent (including our own) in that it’s pretty obvious if such a rule went through a lot of branded product currently on the shelves would have to be tossed. In addition, California would be the only state in the cannabis union to adopt such a strict rule. When the BCC then released the revised proposed rules, 5032(b) was pared down to read as follows:

(b) Licensees shall not conduct commercial cannabis activities on behalf of, at the request of, or pursuant to a contract with any person that is not licensed under the Act.

As you can see, the IP licensing and white labeling examples were deleted, but the rule still makes clear that licensees can’t undertake commercial cannabis activity (i.e., manufacturing, labeling, processing, etc.) “on behalf of, at the request of, or pursuant to a contract” with a non-licensee. Just removing former examples (1)-(4) may have no impact whatsoever here, and it’s certainly confused the situation as a result. And while the BCC’s own comments to 5032 (in its Final Statement of Reasons) indicate that it takes no issue with non-licensee to licensee IP licensing and white labeling relationships, a plain reading of the rule indicates otherwise.

    2.    Ownership issues. 

The BCC struck again in the proposed rules revising “owner” disclosure standards to be much stricter at section 5003. Now, in addition to anyone with 20% or more in equity, the board of directors, the CEO, and anyone or any entity that exercises any direction, control, or management over the licensee, is also an owner. Any individual or entity merely entitled to profit share at or more than 20% is also an owner. This calls into question though how the BCC plans to treat things like cashless options and warrants that have no immediate entitlement to ownership in or profit sharing with the licensee. And what about husbands and wives (which are in community property marriages in California) since there’s no spousal disclosure requirement and they’re technically one person under existing law? The BCC has been silent on all of the foregoing and I have no doubt that these new revised rules may actually incentive people to be even more “creative” in order to avoid owner (and financial interest holder) status.

    3.   Financial Interest Holder woes.

Identifying financial interest holders (FIHs) is more complicated than owners because the FIH definition now encompasses a variety of folks and entities. I recently spoke to the OC Register about how now even lawyers who take a share of the profits of a cannabis business (in exchange for legal services) will now have to be disclosed as FIHs under the new rules. The BCC also made clear that it’s going to sort through more convoluted corporate structures around FIHs to get to the humans providing the capital to or profit sharing with cannabis businesses. At section 5004 of the proposed rules, the BCC now mandates that:

“When an entity has a financial interest in a commercial cannabis business, then all individuals who are owners of that entity shall be considered financial interest holders of the commercial cannabis business. For example, this includes all entities in a multi-layer business structure, as well as the chief executive officer, members of the board of directors, partners, trustees and all persons that have control of a trust, and managing members or non-member managers of the entity. Each entity disclosed as having a financial interest must disclose the identities of persons holding financial interests until only individuals remain.”

Of course, we have no way of really knowing how far the BCC will go here in vetting the individuals behind these structures, though I’m sure more than a few publicly traded companies are suffering severe heartburn at reading this new rule.

    4.    Packaging and labeling compliance in 2019. 

Under CDPH proposed permanent regulations, manufacturers will not have to implement child resistant packaging (CRP) for their cannabis products until 2020. In the interim, retailers will fill the gap by using CRP exit bags. And while CRP is going away for manufacturers, there are a slew of revised and new packaging and labeling standards being implemented upon the rules becoming effective in the new year. The outstanding issue then is that CDPH created no affirmative grace period for manufactured product that’s out there right now and compliant with the emergency regulations, but that doesn’t meet the new packaging and labeling regulations. (A great example is that manufacturers of certain products now have to put the universal symbol not only on outer packaging but also on the product container itself if that outer packaging is “separable” from the product container.) What’s for sure is that retailers cannot possess or sell finished product that doesn’t adhere to the new packaging and labeling rules. So, what exactly will happen to existing, non-compliant product in 2019? That remains a mystery.

    5.    Provisional licensing. 

Provisional licensing is the new temp licensing. (See here for more on the temp license race to secure provisionals for 2019.) Even though a provisional license is the new hot ticket in town, the BCC and CDPH have given no insight into how a licensee actually secures this license. I surmise that the issuance of provisionals will be automatic (similar to how the state was just renewing temp licenses automatically if a temporary licensee was in clear and earnest pursuit of its annual license). CDFA is the only agency that’s produced a fact sheet on the topic, but no agency has publicly announced the exact logistics around provisional licensing yet.

    6.    Social equity programs. 

For every city that’s done a social equity program, it’s been a challenge out of the gate to do it correctly and sustainably. Los Angeles is just getting started with its program while certain other California cities are trying but are producing meager results at best. While the state finally decided to financially back local social equity programs, it’s clear that the state and the cities need to study this particular social experiment for some time before a gold standard will actually emerge. In turn, the success of these programs is definitely a large unknown.

    7.    Banking.

Banking in California is the number question I get on a weekly basis at this point: namely, when the hell is it going to commence? I’m a firm believer that unless and until our permanent regulations are finalized and are proven to work relative to barriers to entry and vetting owners and FIHs, we will not see private sector banking in California. Our licensing and enforcement systems are still too loose/inchoate to satisfy the 2014 FinCEN guidelines, and no public bank is going to materialize here either for various complicated and practical legal reasons (be sure to watch out for banking fraudsters, too). And while California cannabis companies will likely continue to use management companies to help them alleviate some of the inability to access banking, it’s certainly not a long-term solution and it’s downright illegal when that relationship isn’t legitimate or at an arm’s length anyway.

    8.    Fee slotting agreements and anti-competitive tactics. 

On a regular basis now, I’m seeing retailers introduce to my cultivation and manufacturing clients a variety of fee slotting agreements so that my clients can secure known shelf-space in order to remain competitive. This month, I questioned whether such contracts were valid under MAUCRSA where anti-competitive behavior is strictly barred. Only time will tell whether regulators will address these agreements and their impact on the marketplace.

    9.    Tech platforms and delivery. 

The BCC seems to have developed an appetite for wading into increased regulation regarding retailers and delivery tech platforms. Pursuant to section 5415.1 of the proposed permanent BCC regulations, we now have a more robust code of conduct between retailers and tech platforms when it comes to delivery. Now that the BCC has finally opened the door to invading this relationship regarding contractual limitations and restrictions on advertising and marketing for licensees via tech platforms, it begs the question as to whether California is going to go further down the road of trying to essentially regulate tech platforms or not. Given the fact that California is one of the few states that’s embraced delivery, it’s a very important area for development, both legally and for public policy.

    10.    Corporate versus cottage debate rages on. 

Every single state that’s undertaken recreational cannabis has to battle between corporate and cottage interests. And every single state is different in how it’s handled the issue. In the proposed permanent regulations, it’s hard to tell which way California is leaning since those rules still contain some fairly big business friendly propositions (such as still being able to secure countless small cultivation license types, local law permitting, in order to aggregate big acreage) as well as some rules that cut against “Big Marijuana,” like having to disclose shareholders in a publicly traded company as FIHs unless they hold 5% or less of the equity. In 2019, I think we can fully expect the debate between small and large business interests to carry on, but where California lands remains unknown. That’s going to probably continue for quite some time as it works out the kinks spurred by the proposed regulations.

Top 10 Unknowns About California’s Cannabis Regulations posted first on https://centuryassociates.blogspot.com/

[isaacathom]

I should be thinking about Zeke and his deal but instead im thinking about how i can fuck with all the gym leaders and have a bunch of them be my other characters.

for instance, all my ggs characters?? perfectly equipped to exist in Urica. considering Urica is victoria and ggs literally takes place in victoria. its a match made in heaven. i can also totally include Black, in an aesthetic sense - i can absolutely take her black with green highlight aesthetic and put it on like, a Dark type gym leader. i can imagine it

only issue is i diiid want the gym leaders to have some impact, to have some INPUT on the story as a whole. something like the ending of bw1 when all the gym leaders (except the triplets cause fuck em i guess?) showed up at the castle to help. but a lil more? include the e4 in on the scheme. the champion herself is 100% present and is even personally responsible for arresting Dante at the end. yknow. so having the gym leaders be a bunch of characters who shouldnt /really/ be there is sorta weird for that, a little counter intuitive. at least with the Black thing, its just her look, not actually her. mostly because Black is a straight up shadow monster. though, if its her aesthetic, shoooulllld the gym leader use a wheelchair too? that would complete the look. i feel like if there is a gym leader with a wheelchair, either they should have psychic pokemon (because that makes sense in a practical way) or theyre gym needs to be placed very precisely. if i want that gym leader to actually participate, their gym either needs to be the City gym (yknow, the one you can skip by fighting Rhia, though you’ll need to come back for it eventually) or one of the very close ones, orrrr they can be placed further away and removed from the story climax by saying ‘well, how did you really EXPECT them to get here???’. since, like.... if they need their wheelchair, they HAVE to travel manually. unless their pokemon, like a big fuck off bird, can have the leader on their back and the wheelchair in their claws?? but then how does the leader get on the back. also it has to be a Big Fucking Bird, like a gigantic bird, the biggest bird, the strongest bird. uh, one idea would be for the leader to actually stay in the chair and have them like, locked into a seat on the back? if that makes sense? but thats also logistically a pain. guess thats what a psychic pokemon would be for, huh? but if the bird wouldnt work, theres no other real way to get around beyond travelling by car or plane or whatever. so if their gym is aways, they cant get to the city on short notice.

it would actually kind of work if theyre the Eastern gym leader, from that town where Jun is from, where Rhia lives. it sorta fits the idea of that place being badly removed and poorly accessible due to a lack of like, provisions made to help it. so this gym leader is restricted solely to their community, helping with local problems, and can only really leave their town with a LOT of planning. a lot of effort has to go into them travelling a long distance. they cant just go west without help, its a goddamn mountain. 0/10 travel safety.

im not sure which of the options i prefer. having all 8 gym leaders + zeke + elliot + the elite 4 (possibly including that guy who is leaving???) + the champion is a lot of fucking people. so having a few of the gym leaders sit out makes sense? just to reduce clutter. so if a characters situation means it would make sense for them to not be present, why not capitalise? so having a wheelchair bound gym leader live on the other side of the mountain and thus have difficulty accessing the City works for that purpose. admittedly gym leaders can also be removed from the proceedings through the actions of the Team, by having a bunch of team members head to a few specific gyms and distract them.

thatd be fun. ok, so we can totally have a Black themed gym leader, wherever they might end up being in terms of the regions layout. they’d be one of 4 types - Dark, Ghost, Psychic, or Flying. the first two are thematic, the latter two are practical.

for others.... well. there has to be a water gym leader, who runs the gym out of the remains of the ‘Kingslake’ town. i dont really have a character who fits this, except for Ash from EC. which could work, but i dont think his design really fits. uh.... we could include one of the GGS characters, due to the urica/vic thing. of course, which one? by general ages, the only character who really fits is Katja, who would be..... uh..... uhm. hmm...... normal??? she’d essentially be whitney, if i think about it, which is also kinda boring. also i hate whitney and i wouldnt do that to anyone. steel COULD also work? which would place her later on, which works fine, since she doesnt live in the same suburb as the other ggs characters. being an Adult and all. she definitely lived close to melbourne, but for game balancing itd be totally acceptable to place her further away, like Geelong. the alternative is to have one of the younger ggs characters (Read: fucking all of them, theyre all like 16-18) be a really early on gym leader, like... Roxanne? or Cheren. definitely roxanne, at least. but for that, which one, and what type?? i feel like most of their types arent like, super good first gym material? Vivian would be fighting, Kay would be Ice, Sonya would bee... hold on. either electric or water, i suppose. and Isaac would be Psychic. Sonya could work, though i feel like if she is included, then Isaac should be as well?? theyre a duo??? which... hmm... actually, wait, fuck, Isaac and Sonya are both straight up adults, arent they. yea, fuck, theyre uni students. oh theyre totally golden, then. have Sonya be Electric or Water (or Flying, i guess?? or grass??? her power set is very.... broad) and have Isaac be the Psychic gym leader from the next town over. and also not be called Isaac because i already decided i wanted to change that??? besides i wanna have a fire type elite 4 named Isaac with a Ninetales because this is my game and im allowed to have myself be a goddamn elite 4, suckers.

if Sonya is water, that makes her the King Lake gym leader. which... yea, that works. isnt exact to her position in ggs, but it fits. making [Isaac] either the City gym leader (which si also like.... the 2nd or 3rd gym??? which feels too early for a psychic gym, but ill check) orr shes further north. beechworth might be too far north but theres plenty of space between kinglake and beechworth for a gym, i think. well... hmm. fantina is a ghost gym and she was third in platinum, which means its totally feasible to have a psychic gym be right up front. plus, hmmn, hold on. does the player go clockwise or counter clockwise? the region as i have it really roughly in my head is that its a rough loop, with some connecting points back to the city (think kalos but not shit cheers, no stupid black outs in this bitch). so when the player gets to the city, do they go north along the west side of the mountains? or south west down the coast towards geelong? i guess the issue is how you get across the mountains - you almost definitely need strength and rock smash to get through. but why would you get those hms in the west? suurely  the towns closest to the mountains would have this stuff? you could maybe justify Strength being elsewhere? that could be interesting. you could also have the Beechworth town be later, despite being a clockwise progression. maybe you need a specific hm to get that far north, you get there, then you get strength? idk.  sorta complex. but if i had both Sonya and [Isaac], id want them to be right after each other? though i suppose separating them by games progression but having them be physically close makes sense... and since the Kinglake town is ‘dangerous’ in Urica due to the bushfires, it makes sense to prevent you going directly to it from melbourne? so counter clockwise down the coast makes more sense then? sure. yea aight.

anybody else? thats 3 gym leaders. boi. boi fuck. well, there IS the EC crew, who are also perfectly open for these positions. the kids from RS, well, not so much, unless they were a gimmick trio like striaton. triple battles? fuck me dude imagine a triple battle gym battle, god, dude, holy shit, thatd be sick. /i/ wouldnt, but damn, imagine. god i wish the 3ds was powerful enough to handle triple battles without having a seizure. (in 3d anyway. iirc it ran fine with 2d? admit i didnt triple battle TOO much). so, no RS. EC can. uh... well.... Violet is available as a Fire leader, she’d be fun. Crystal could easily be there too, as aaaaa.... Grass? Grass gym? yea. which you’d want to be fairly early? well, 4th works too. would that make sense based on their surroundings, though. also, these are a lot of girls. i can include Skye as a flying type, but i cant include Will because he’s a dark type (unless i make the Black one a Ghost type, which is acceptable, certainly) but then thats an overwhelming number of character. thatd be 7, if i included 4 of the ec cast + two ggs + black. thats uh... thats too many? 3 might work better. maybe 5? like have it be black, [isaac], sonya, skye, and will? w/ skye probably changing his name to Not Be Shit, thanks, fuck. that leaves 3 original ocs. and Black can be any gender, and would essentially BE a new character, jsut with Black’s aesthetic. purely because i should stop trying to put Black in my stories. so, 4? two ggs and two ec? yea. Isaac as Psychic, and the 2nd gym (again, the skippable one). Sonya as Water, and the new guardian of [Kinglake]. [Skye] as Flying, likely further down the coast, maybe geelong? warnambool? any coastal city works if its got high enough cliffs, my guy. Will as Dark works fine for basically anywhere, but i think after Skye in progression. i like that.

then this Ghosty Fan who probably shouldnt be the last gym leader...... hmm.... but then where?? they could be up near the desert, where the old team base is??? someone has to be that gym leader. why would they be dressed in black in the desert? thats a good goddamn question. maybe not. man, it depends on where the gym towns are as to where the ghost goes. the desert is not the place, though. 0/10 not a good place. certainly not with that outfit. like, ghost would ALMOST make sense for that location due to the team base, and it being tied to this idea of it being the Ghost of the team, or where Seren’s ‘ghost’ is located. notably, Elliot will not come with you to the desert town. he just wont. he wont do it, dude. he’ll meet you at the entrance and say ‘yea good luck’ and he wont come in with you. so ghost might be fitting for that alone? but with the physical design? nah. but they shouldnt be TOO far back, right? though, since Acerola is like.... uh.... 5-6th gym leader equivalent in terms of when her trial occurs, i dont see any reason i couldnt have a ghost gym appear later on. its just that those that exist so far are all far more forward, i guess. im down for that??? maybe beechworth, or, again, the eastern thingo. idk. im gonna have to like, plannnn the region out some more. OOH, fuck, i was gonna include phillip island/pseudo tasmania too, fuck, where the fuck does THAT slot into progression. fuuuuck. uuuuuuuh. shit. where DOES that fit. after skye???? like, you fight Skye over in Geelong or whatever, , you get surf, you go on a big surfing adventure? why would.... the flying gym leader..... give you surf.... like, ok, the Water gym leader cant give you surf, because shes busy and thatd be REALLY late in the game to get Surf. considering most gens are like, badge 3-5 for surf (as an out of battle move) which would place it at a gym betweeeeeen Isaac and Skye? since there likely is one??? hmm..... hmmmmmmm.........

im thinking either the island or the east should be post game. OR, OH FUCK, the elite 4 could be on the island, fuck, we solved it, fuckers we’ve done it, the island is the champions village. there are probably some other spots though. kinglake, for one. ooh, that’ll be neat. you start on the other side of the lake and you have to surf over and its all nice and then BAM everythings burnt to shit my guy. nice. i like it. see that works. means i can introduce Surf as a usable hm whenevvvver. or just attach it to Skye because who cares, honestly, and attach Fly to the desert one. ooh, and that could be fun. like, you fight that gym leader, they go ‘now you have my badge, you can use fly! do you have fly? oh, you dont? hmm. You’re hanging with Elliot, right? maybe ask him. I’d have asked him in advance but he doesn’t like coming to this town. bad memories, I’ve heard’ and thatd be like, your first really blatant hint that Elliots got a past. you could even ask him about it next time you see him, alongside asking if he knows where you can get the Fly Hm (he MIGHT have it, idk). and hed go ‘huh? oh, haha, you know, sometimes small events happen, and theyre nothing major, of course, but they stick in your head and they taint a place, huh?’ or something really obviously dodging. then later Rhia spills the juice. nice.

i feel like there should be other places to use surf, though. perhaps surf is required in the mountain to get to the East? i can see that. that basically works.

ok i gotta fuckign wrap up ive had this post opn for like 3.5 hours jesus fuck