#its too good of a meme format okay

[fransseeker]

they know the silence is killing him

[radiantmists]

reading animorphs sequentially instead of in whatever random order you can get your hands on them is such a trip because you can see these kids getting progressively better at war and worse at being happy, you can see how traumatic events from one book echo into the next ones but never quite get dealt with because these kids have no real way to take care of their mental health, you can see their relationships deepening but simultaneously gaining friction and faultlines as they learn just how far they'd go for each other but also how far they'd go in general...

obviously this series was meant to be episodic in nature, and i actually think that might be the better way to first encounter it, but the arc of the series in publication order is extremely well-crafted

[vbs-kaitos-big-naturals]

PJSK WISHLIST

okay so like. ive wanted to make one of these for a while but ive been too lazy to so now i will COMMIT and i will SHARE MY GOOD IDEAS

songs will be in a Song ~ Vocalists format.

annnnd lets get into it!!!

under the cut, this is a long post :3

VIRTUAL SINGER

Ohedo Julia Night

i put it in vs because im scared a cover would fuck up the tuning </3 otherwise this would be a nice emurui cover. maybe toyahane

Pyrite Girl

love this song lotss!!!! half of it is in english tho so no cover

Death Should Not Have Taken Thee

would have given this to wxs but actually i really like the tuning in this song so lets give it some attention instead of letting covers take the spotlight. also too many wxs songs </3

Butcher's Vanity

the slaughters mine darling just get under the knife

The Real Disappearance Of Hatsune Miku

favorite cosmo song. :3

Hyperventilation Dance

pleaseee please pleasee pleasssee

Oeoeo

PLEASEEE PLEASE PLEASEE PLEASSSEE

Rabbit Hole

i wouldnt be surprised if they did add this one; iirc its pretty popular

Coin Locker Baby

oh you know this would be a boss song. itd have a really fun chart at that

Leo/Need

Last Night, Good Night ~ Full group, Luka

no notes, luka would sound nice i think

Ayano's Theory of Happiness ~ Ichika, Saki, Miku

i would make it sakihona but that is not realistic at all

Doubleganger ~ Ichika, Shiho, Miku, Rin

WHY DOES NO ONE EVER TALK ABOUT THIS SONG it would be such a good cover

Knife Knife Knife (🔪🔪🔪) ~ Ichika, Honami, Len

pleassseeeeee colorful pallette if im nice will you let us have this

Lost Umbrella ~ Full Group, Meiko

i literally just want this because the alts would be good

Abstract Nonsense ~ Ichika, Rin

keep the og tuning and give us an ichika alt and im good tbh. it would be such a powerful cover methinks

The Taste Of A Cockroach ~ Full group

trust me. trust me it would be so good

OGRE ~ Full group, Kaito, Meiko

give leoni a few metal songs please

MORE MORE JUMP!

Shokishodo ~ Full group, Miku

i dont want this added if they dont sound angry/generally upset. ik it probably has no chance anyway but shut please and thank you

Age Age Again ~ Full group, Miku

obligatory age age again. if this happens i want an airi alt

Fake Meme ~ Minori, Haruka, maybe Rin??? idk only if they try to match the tuning style

it would just sound nice methinks

Idol ~ Full group, Rin, Miku

colopale you cant ignore this song anymore. other yoasobi songs are in the game. fucking GIVE US AN IDOL COVER. you could even give us an oshi no ko crossover like garupa got

Otsukimi Recital ~ Full group, Meiko

go ahead momojan make me cry

Dear Suns ~ Haruka, Shizuku, Kaito

okay hear me out. i want to give them ONE creepy song at least. also this is one of my favorite songs ever

Darling ~ Minori, Shizuku, Rin

HEAR ME OUT.

Neverland ~ Minori, Airi, Luka

luka to balance out the vocaloids. sorry luka i love you but so far nothing fit you.....

Zero Talking ~ Airi, Shizuku, Meiko

head in hands. im dead consider me dead

Vivid BAD SQUAD

Nounai Disco ~ Kohane, An, Rin

this would be heavenly skdjjsbdk also i would obsess over the implications of anhane singing this song

Unfriendly Hater ~ An, Akito

its been said a million times but clpl pleaaseeeeeee

Wind Over The Flower ~ Full group

im going to be honest with you i would have given this to niigo if niigo didnt already have enough. but i do think they could all pull it off! bad dogs did well w ame to petra and the vivids could definitely pull off the intense sound of balloons stuff

Just Wanna xxxx With You ~ Kohane, An, Meiko, Miku

make them spoopy. not a vocaloid song but shhhhh

CH4NGE ~ Akito, Kohane, Luka

i was tempted to give this to the vivids but they already had too many </3 akihane would kill this tho and luka would deliver the final blow methinks

WILDCARD ~ An, Toya, Miku

its an english song fully so its probably a no-go :(

GETCHA ~ Full group, Miku, Luka

antoya does miku, akihane does gumi (but luka instead). that would be fun i think

Before I Was Born ~ Full group, Miku

HEAR ME OUT PLEASE

I'm A Ghost Type ~ Kohane, Toya, Miku

look. i love this song. and i think that more syudou songs deserve to be in the game. also they better announce some project voltage songs soon or i will quit istg

Wonderlands x Showtime

Jitterbug ~ Nene, Tsukasa, Meiko, Luka

clpl add this and my life is YOURS. and give us nene and tsukasa alts so we can do a vs-removed mix :)

Mental Chainsaw ~ Full group, Rin

dont ask me why please i just saw it once and now it keeps me up in the middle of the night. its so unrealistic never happening probably wouldnt even be good

Liar Dancer ~ Rui, Nene, Len

i just think it would fit their voices tbh. something something middle school something something...

Skeleton Orchestra and Lilia ~ Emu, Tsukasa, any vs honestly idc

(i. forgot the translation for this song lol. hope i got it right) colopale. colopale. im begging you. colopale. colopale please

Apple Dot Com ~ Full Group, Miku

ik some people want niigo for this but. do you seriously think this song fits niigos style. no it doesnt so COME HERE WANDASHO

Judas ~ Full group

certified wandasho song. please add at least one abuse-ken song to the game clpl im begging you

Role-playing Game ~ Full Group, Rin, Len

i think weve all been too annoying about this and now they wont add it in order to spite us

White Happy ~ Full group

look at the lyrics,,,,,, plus it would just be super cool,,,,,,,,,,,, give them more fucked up songs,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Nightcord at 25:00

My R ~ Ena, Mizuki

im not sorry

Abnormality Dancing Girl ~ Mafuyu, Ena, Kaito

THE PEOPLE PLEASER SIBLINGS 🔥🔥🔥 but fr make kaitos tuning sort of like this netsu ijou cover

I'm Glad You're Evil Too ~ Full group

AT THIS POINT I DONT CARE WHO JUST FJUCKING ADD THIS SONG TO THE GAME

Jigsaw ~ Ena, Mafuyu, Len

how long has it been since niigo got a mafumafu song??? too long imo. favorite be upon ye

Android Girl ~ Mafuyu, Mizuki, Meiko

ikik its more a leoni song but IMAGINE MAFUYUS VOCALS AAAAAA (also i added meiko because i havent been giving her enough songs and she would eat on this)

I loved you before ~ Full Group, Miku

everyone gets alts. Everyone.

dogdog ~ Kanade, Mizuki, Len

kanades soft voice would mix well with the mizooks during the chorus, and lets be honest. we need like all the abuseken songs in the game

Kareshi no Jude ~ Mafuyu, Mizuki, Miku

to go with cute no kanojo

Day by Days ~ Full group

to finish off the series

The Girl Who Sells Misfortune ~ Kanade, Ena, Rin

kanaena would kill this imo. plus it fits thematically, at least for kanade. rin would sound nice if nade to match mikus tuning in the og

thanks for reading!!!! this will get updated often so if you want check the og post after things get added or i have an epiphany and go insane on main

(note: a lot of this comes from other people i asked for help making like. a tangible real life comprehensible list with various producers and lots of songs. thank you everyone for the ideas !!!! :D)

[jsprnt]

babe i hope you don't get mad at me. i totally understand and appreciate his decision to represent turkiye. after all he never got a proper conversation with german representatives/ they didn't take him srs enough to consider him.

i wish he can openly talk more in turkish without getting laughed at and can bond more with his team mates. the accent is gonna be naturally heavy and the only one's fault is his daddy's. no need to make fun of something he wasn't thaught in. the memes were too much for me personally cz i know how annoying that is with german as the second language.

i know he is only 19. he has showed what he can do against ger nt and at juve but there was minimal interior by him in this competetion. i do not expect him to pull a prime ronaldo and score even once at every match. but it's a fact that he has not created the same amount of attacks as baris alper. he missed lots of opportunities just like the remaining young attackers.

kerem, samet also got lynching. and let's not kid anyone, his face card gives him an advantage among young women. the coach should have given semih a chance so he would not be targetted because of his formation. montella's decisisons were questionable anyway.

I’m definitely talking about the crazy abuse he’s received. Obviously, I’m saying it wasn’t his best performance, and yes, he made a lot of mistakes, but I’m seeing people verbally abuse him, send death threats, want to physically harm him, which doesn’t make it okay whether he did good or bad.

we all saw the game yesterday, and can pick apart every single thing. kenan had his chances, but missed- at the end of the day, it just didn’t happen, we didn’t win. we can’t baby him obviously, I’m saying have some grace and be mindful.

It’s happend, and it’s done, talking shit about the players who gave their all is absolutely unnecessary..

I’ve seen so many other also get crazy hate, especially players like cenk, kerem, mert m, altay and especially samet in the other game. In my post I’m talking about kenan only, because the anon was about him..

About his Turkish, we all know the only person is to blame is his father, who didn’t bother to pass down a huge aspect of Turkish culture.

He’s said himself that he holds back on speaking the language because others make fun of it. Culturally, german born Turkish people are made fun of for their accent.

We can have a whole cultural dissection of how wrong that is, and how it holds people back from speaking their own language. (Something I’ve also experienced myself) many other players like Ferdi, aren’t 100% fluent in their Turkish, and I get that.

as a person also born and raised in the west, my Turkish isn’t incredibly fluent as well, even though we visit home every single year for two months straight.

though I’m confused about what his ‘face card’ has to do with my post. All I’m saying is the hate is too much. his outside appearance is honestly giving him more hate at the moment, can you not see how people are tearing him apart for fixing his hair once or twice?

we can go on and on about montella’s choices and the ref (that got on everyone nerves), but nothing will change.

I understand where you’re coming from, and definitely agree with some of your points.

they’ve all done incredibly well, and we should honestly be proud of them, not go around and verbally harass them. football culture has its own problems, and that one is a huge part of it.

[quirkthieves]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER.

REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME: viverra ! but ive also been called vixen, dogma, gabe, etc. any works

PRONOUNS : he/him

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : big big fan of discord. tumblr ims are hard for me to read </3

NAME OF MUSE(s) : monoma neito, ibara shiozaki, chitose kizuki/curious, kaina tsutsumi/lady nagant, setsuna tokage, ryo inui/hound dog, natsuo todoroki, kendou itsuka, hinata haruka, nobimaru, inari yoko, marik ishtar, ishizu ishtar, rishid ishtar, atem, and lacramioara strigoi.

jesus christ who let me do this

BEST EXPERIENCE : ummm gee okay i cant just name one it turns out life is actually about the accumulation of small joys and not just a few big ones but every time i get in the car and listen to my music and go OH! THIS REMINDS ME OF THIS PERSONS MUSE AND OUR DYNAMIC! or when talking to people inspires me to draw little comics (esp while im at work let me live) it really just makes me so so happy

RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS : im pretty chill for the most part i think like ive definitely mellowed out a lot over the past few years but. i gotta say it:

formatting. the over-formatting of everything is killing me. i cant read most peoples carrds. i dont even know how they read it, because of how insanely tiny the text is. eye strain colors, hard to see icons, weird fonts... i dont mind a little bit of formatting, naturally, like go girl give us everything, but its getting to the point of being genuinely frustrating that almost every new blog i encounter has me fighting for my life just trying to learn the important info. i have visual and neurological issues please lord im only seven

MUSE PREFERENCES: seconding cam on if the "when someones pulled a muse apart like the spaghettification of a star and then put them back together". its fascinating. i think the fun part about rp is that i get just as invested in my partners character and what they get out of each thread as much as i do mine, so when people sit there and talk about their ideas and meta and really dig into that thing like . WHOOO NOW WE'RE COOKING

PLOTS OR MEMES : I like both! I think memes are good to kick things off regardless, and I dont mind building off of it. I like to plot a lot ooc but more in a loosey-goosey kind of way; i really like to get to know other muns and their characters and also talking is just sort of how i think through things so its very helpful to me. i also just get a lot of ideas because these things live rent free in my head but to me a natural progression is more important than like, sticking to a script.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : i write insanely long replies because i have things wrong with me. theres NEVER any pressure to length match-- a lot of the time im just doing it to establish exposition or setting so the other person finds it easier to work with. just give me something i can work with and we are a ok :D

BEST TIME TO WRITE : it really depends... i typically end up writing in the evening/afternoon because of my schedule. i think the biggest thing is that i work on weekends, so you may only hear from me ooc on those days. im also really trying to fix my sleep schedule.........to varying levels of success. sometimes the thread is too good

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S) : just talking about monoma here... i've also got a pretty snappy mouth and natural love of finding loopholes, but i just went into paralegal instead of making it class A's problem. i also love to laugh, but id like to think im a lot less meanspirited about it

tagged: @dynmghts

tagging: @veroxins @cloistress @killerhubby @enignoema @eclipsemuses @yeonban @starshinc @ofluminance @paracide @ohcruel

[lintwriting]

I’m gonna be so real, I don’t care about the alien stage boys AT ALL. I’m kinda mad about them, in fact, even though there’s nothing wrong with them.

To put it into words, I’m frustrated that the YouTube channel Vivinos had an entire catalogue of wonderful, tragic wlw horror content. An entire channel dedicated to exploring the psyches of girls! And you know the series that blows up? The ONE SERIES with prominent male characters. 

Are you fucking kidding me?!

And like, it’s true that Alien Stage was much more ambitious than previous ones, since it’s a multi-parter. But it’s not Sua and Mizi I’m getting randomly sent to my algorithms across the internet.

It’s always that fucking black haired guy and white haired guy! My friends started gushing about all of the memes/trends about that ship, meanwhile I had been gushing about Vivinos long before that to ZERO interest from them? Why? Because there was zero content about them online.

For instance, Vivinos’ previous multi-parter, Pink Bitch Club, was a fucking shoujo anime ARG exploring the horror of girlhood envy and insecurity! BRAT summer type shit.

Despite also being a multi-parter, the most hype it got was an animation meme trend and a song cover trend. Neither of which was about getting excited about the characters/lore because who the fuck cares about female characters, I guess. Just swap them with your preferred OCs or blorbos!

Nobody cared until there were boys, and it’s such an obvious example of misogyny in fandom that it fascinates me. Usually in these cases, people come up with arguments that do not indict fandom too much.

“Oh, it’s just because the writers were bad at writing women, so the women are less interesting to explore to the fandom.”

“Oh, it’s just because there are less female characters.”

“Oh, it’s just because wlw media is so sanitized or less well-made due to the publishing industry.”

But those arguments do not apply here.

For instance, most of the channels’ previous content was of a similarly high quality, in terms of animation and writing. None of its previous WLW content was sanitized because they were all fascinating takes on lesbian horror. There is no “early YouTuber awkwardness” to blame. Pink Bitch Club felt like it should’ve been fandom indie-horror ship bait, the same way Dead Plate was and successfully became.

I was constantly looking for people talking about it online because I expected that, only to realize that its online following was contained almost entirely to its YouTube comment section. Nowhere near the landslide of content for Alien Stage!

And like, maybe it was just the fact that it wasn’t as palatable due to the ARG horror format. Okay, ignoring how huge the audience for ARGs are, Alien Stage also has female characters!! Sua and Mizi and Hyuna! We start with tragic childhood friends to lovers, get this intriguing backstory for them, and they’re getting overshadowed by the two guys. Great.

If it’s because Sua died to early, well it’s a good thing that Mizi doesn’t! She meets Hyuna, who fucking rescues her from certain death and takes her on the government-rebellion, y/n pop star AU concert road-trip of our AO3 dreams, aaaand nobody fucking cares.

I am just sick of it. It’s just fandom misogyny, plain and simple.

[fivemillionkeys]

Hey all

I'm still looking around for an long time rp partner. I do have some storylines going at the moment but I'm still kind of figuring out what I want & the more possibilities the better.

Who am I:

My name is Dorian/ Dax. My pronouns are he / him - They / Them. I'm 26 and I have been in the rp community for over 12 years. I have done both long format storylines on rpg forum boards as well as rapidfire ones on Discord and telegram. I've always played fandomless only. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to setting/ rp style.

I am in the CET timezone. My first language is Dutch so it can be that I make small grammar errors when writing in English, especially when writing multiple paragraphs. I study creative writing, so sometimes my replies are a little less frequent when the semester is particularly busy. But I love to chat ooc as well, so you can always shoot me a message and I'll make sure to reply as quickly as I can ^-^

Most of my OCs are male. I currently have three female characters that stuck around. I don't mind writing female characters, I'm just not very good at it. But who knows, improvement might be inescapable fhfgddd. All of my OCs have an overachring background lore. They are all from the same universe. The lore of that universe can be included in our storyline but it's not necessary for the storyline to function. Basically it can be used if it enriches the story, but I have no problem with dropping my guys into any story world/ AU imaginable.

What I am looking for:

Fandomless rp only

Available on Discord or Telegram

I am 26, so I would prefer it if my rp partner is 21+

I'm okay with pairings of any and all genders. Friends, enemies, lovers; all is possible as long as it's plot driven.

I am very new to the term "dead dove" and am a little hesitant to partake. Not to say that I won't write any dark themes ever, but it's not specifically what I'm looking for right now. A plot can have its dark moments, but I am not looking for a fully dark plot.

I don't really mind whether you write multiple paragraphs, do one-liners or anything in between. As long as it's well structured, has substance and engages with whatever is going on in the plot, it's great. I love complex inner monolog about what your character is thinking/ feeling. I also really love it when people put detail and thought into the surroundings that the characters are in.

What would work great for me is if you / your character loves to explain things about their homeworld. Or if you/ your character would love to learn about my homeworld.

I love the bonding between characters that formers through learning / exploring together and one of them taking the other under their wing.

Fantasy worlds tend to work best for the dynamics described above but there are _a lot_ of variations possible (think: pirates, medieval, apocalyptic, historical, steampunk, victorian ect) and especially once we know which characters make a good match we can do endless AU's with them too!

I love plotting together and talking ooc. I am so for telling each other about our silly little guys & how they are 100% not prepared for the stuff we're about to throw their way. Please tell me why they would be absolutely insufferable together or super wholesome :3 Feel free to send funny memes about our guys or pictures about our storyworlds. On the other hand I would also like to get to know you & what's going on in your life. Being both friends & rp partners would be awesome! No pressure tho, it's fully valid that not everyone is comfortable or able to open up quickly.

2 - 5 replies weekly would be great! Though I fully understand that life is very busy and this won't always be possible. Communication is key. As long as the ooc contact stays on / periods of inactivity are communicated about before (if possible) or afterwards, it's all good. Rapidfire would be very fun to do for certain storylines but I understand that it takes a lot of time. So maybe we could try and arrange that on a weekend day.

I love it when people are overall enthusiastic, come up with ideas, engage with the plot, and engage a lot ooc.

Welp, this has become quite long and rambly despite my best efforts not to. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to let me know. Even if you are unsure if you match what I am looking for, just ask. Exceptions can always be made ^-^ But yeah, if you would like to rp feel free to DM me ^-^

[real-life-pine-tree]

Formation B Juju Stroll Analysis

(And why it’s the perfect establishing group dynamic scene.)

Everyone who has watched Episode 23 of Jujutsu Kaisen is fully aware of this gag of a scene near the very end. In fact, it might actually be more iconic than the actual episode itself, to the point where it has its own reaction video. But did you know it’s a perfect way to display the main hero group within a single minute to those unfamiliar with the show?

Allow me to explain.

We begin with our protagonist, Yuji Itadori, running at a fast pace. As you’ll see from the others in his group, he’s the only one who has a splash of bright red as part of his school uniform, indicating his main character status.

After that brief snippet, we cut to Nobara Kugisaki and Satoru Gojo, both of whom are trying to cool off underneath a tree. However, their tranquil relaxation is interrupted with a low shout.

“GOJOOOOOOO! KUGISAKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

Nobara isn’t having any of it as she dismisses Yuji as annoying and tries to tell him the weather is too hot for his nonsense as he slides on in, displaying his hotheaded and somewhat reckless personality. Then with a brief pause, he cups his mouth and takes a deep breath, cutting off his friend with a shout.

“Fushiguro is getting hit on!!!”

Without a proper scene transition, it cuts to the three running at a fast pace, indicating that despite Yuji showcasing typical shounen protagonist quirkiness, Nobara and Gojo also share some of that same quirkiness. It’s a very oddball trio.

“Formation B!”

Gojo displays his role as the group’s proper leader by taking charge and ordering the other two to initiate some kind of plan, to which Yuji and Nobara reply with a “Roger that!”.

We then cut over to the fourth person of the group, Megumi Fushiguro, who’s casually talking to an unknown woman. But then his seemingly peaceful chat is cut off with Yuji and Nobara crying out to him and giving off a very dorky display of clinginess.

Nobara: Who is this woman, Fushiguro?! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that night!

Yuji: Fushiguro, was it all a lie when you said your time with me was the most enjoyable of all?!

And here we have Yuji and Nobara establishing their shared brain cell sibling dynamic. They both pretend to be scorn lovers while Megumi is completely unphased with their overacting. After some silence, he finally speaks up and just asks what’s with them.

(It’s also a good moment to indicate this series is pro-LGBTQ+, especially with one other character not featured in this scene. 😏)

Without warning, the music is cut off as Gojo finally shows up with only his foot visible in the next shot. At first, he seems exasperated as he scolds Yuji and Nobara, asking them to get their hands off of Megumi…while calling them homewreckers.

“Megumi has violin practice with me now. Let’s get you back home, Megumi, so we can warm up. Today I think we’ll try something new, and I’ll have you master Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

And here we have Gojo establishing how much of an oddball mentor he is towards his students while also indicating why he’s so popular among certain fans. Since it feels like the dub writers and cast are fully aware of the series’ meme culture, I have a feeling his voice actor, Kaiji Tang, exaggerated the character’s sex appeal and makes it sound like he’s trying to seduce everyone he meets.

But then reality kicks in as it’s shown Megumi was just giving the unknown woman directions, leaving the others dumbfounded. However, he’s not impressed with their little formation stunt.

“Okay, seriously, what’s up? You three are totally embarrassing me.”

And this is Megumi establishing his role as the only sane person in the group, indicating how easily irritated he gets around the others goofing off. He even shouts at Gojo to stop his “sexy violin instructor” act and smacks at Yuji when he laughs sheepishly.

So the next time you want to introduce people to Jujutsu Kaisen, use this scene to show off what our main heroes are like.

[shittyelfwriter]

ALRIGHTY here we are at weeks three and four for the santa clauses series! I did not rewatch a second time because genuinely, these melted my brain. anyway, lets get into it below the cut!

So apparently according to the tsc tag, episode 3 that I missed last week is a sort of filler episode? OH BROTHER REALLY

Normally I would not complain bc I miss old format, 20-23 episode series but because I know this Isn't That? DREAD. how are you going to plot well and good in 7-8eps if some are filler? that is just SO condensed, my guy

Counterpoint to people who were sad about it but: I thought the teen romance was annoying and I'm GLAD they ended it even JUST for a bit (it will come back to haunt again, trust. It’s a disney series ffs.) Whoever is writing this needs to ask a teen about how they talk nowadays. This is not it.

I also think we're driving the whole "Buddy is terrible at everything" punchline WAY past its breaking point. Which I would argue was last season entirely, but. At the very latest, last episode with how heavy on cringe it was. Yes, EVEN for kids/teens.

Again, they are not antagonizing Magnus Antas enough for me to hate him. waaaaay too funny to be a villain. I can't take him seriously and DON'T want to

The way that Noel keeps sideyeing the Betty cutout as if to say "do you see this shit?" during his brunch with the Clauses SENT me tbh. That's bernelle coded and I love it

I do not know why Disney gets OFF on the Clauses being absolutely inept parents but I wish they would stop

SHOUTOUT JUDY OMG JUDY'S ACTRESS THAT’S JUDY JUDY IS HERE YOU GUYS (SCREAMINGGGG)

LOVING the exterior shots of the workshop and Elfsburg. As someone who has POURED over all available screenshots from the movies of those I am LIVING for new angles (even though I do NOT think bernelle would live that close to the Workshop, but it doesn't seem like Betty and Noel can POOF like Bman and Elle can (and do))

I don't know why there are TWO instances of a "misspoken turn of phrase" in this episode but neither were funny and TWO OF THEM was REALLY bad

CHUBBY BUNNY DID NOT EXIST THAT LONG AGO. NOT IN MAGNUS ANTAS' TIME. THAT WAS AN INTERNET FAD LESS THAN TEN YEARS AGO. WHAT ARE WE DOING DUDE. WHAT ARE THESE WRITERS ON (it's not good, I don't want some)

Crossing guard callback? For what? (okay, shrug I GUESS dot meme)

Why does this specific franchise always have to make EB SO WEIRD. WHY. Nothing about this is funny it's just off-putting. Just like the previous EB flirting with Carol's MARRIED MOM in tsc3

This Carol and La Befana scene was actually very good. LOVE it when they actually just let the characters be HONEST with each other. Women supporting women core. Even if Carol's reason for being mad at her was really shallow and obviously stems form Carol's lack of identity as Mrs. Claus because they just cannot wrap that plot point from last season up.

THE LETTERS DEPARTMENT. It looks dope but HATE the explanation for it. Half assed as hell. WARNING! Rant incoming: like from what I know a LOT of postal services have little lore stories about how they get the letters to Santa. WHY COULDNT WE JUST SAY THERE ARE AGREEMENTS BETWEEN SANTA AND OTHER ADULT PEOPLE WHO KEEP THE SPIRIT ALIVE FOR OTHERS AS WELL? Why is this series so obsessed with making everything only powered by magic and never by others (yes, humans) who want to keep the spirit alive as well? It feels like magic is being used as an "explain it all away" crutch narratively. Even in season 1, the "solution" to mass consumerism wasn't for people to be kind to each other and do little things to keep the magical parts of Christmas alive, it was to show the world that magic was real. Season 2 so far, the answer to everything is also just magic. I'm hoping that maybe the B plot with Kris will touch on this. Because as it stands right now, it feels like the writers are talking out of both sides of their mouth. Commercial Christmas is bad, but Kris is a loser for having a Santa theme park. Like?? Homogenization of Christmas is the Big Bad at large, but also up at the Pole they are trying to find ways to do the same thing to be "current". CHRISTMAS IS MULTIFACTED. It is both secular and religious! That is OKAY, I don't even think "woke" people are arguing about that. Sheesh.

Can't believe I'm micro rambling IN my ramble post. New achievement unlocked omg

The way Magnus Antas picks up on modern slang so quickly practically puts Scott to shame. Good for him

AGAIN, the misturn of phrase jokes. DEAD. Not funny. STOP

If they are going to make Sandra so op that she can just Wanda Maximoff chaos magic "I just say something when I'm mad and it happens, anything I want with no negative impact on me" I will not find that swag. That is in fact Mary Sue territory, lads

Sandra's little outburst @ La Befana was giving magical nepo baby for a moment there. Oof. "Too bad I'm just naturally more skilled than you even though I'm new and you've been a witch forever" girl SHUT. UP. You are like a little baby. Also that is so mad disrespectful like no WONDER La Befana is wanting you to slow tf down. You fly off the handle WAY to easily and we ALL know you lose control when you do! Okay loose cannon! Werk!

Riley. Girl. "we never see each other" you were just up at the Pole?? Like. OFTEN?? This is so stupid of a breakup but they are teenagers so go off kids, be dysfunctional or what have you. Rah rah, as Jack would say

Episode four now, lord help us. God has cursed me for my (loving this one Christmas movie series) hubris and my work (watching it's hellish series spin off) is never finished

"Reversing a transformation is never a guarantee" what is this La Befana? the Sims? Sounds like transformation ray odds. Magic is not THAT unpredictable, even by in-universe logic

CURTIS-ITIS!??? CURTIS FUCKING EXPLODED??

ARE YOU SO FUCKING FR RN. SO BERNARD IS MARRIED TO A SENIOR CITIZEN AND CURTIS. FUCKIN VAPORIZED?? FROM STRESS? WHAT'S NEXT? Lemme guess, Judy joined the circus. Quintin is a crypto investor or works for Tesla. WHAT ARE WE D O I N G

Not Scott moving the scissors like he's afraid Buddy will shank him or others?? SIR

SANDMAN AHHHHHHHHHH HELLO SIR /POS :D

So they just con him? As though that's a long term solutio-- OH MY GOD NOT SCOTT USING SANDMAN'S SAND ON SANDMAN HIMSELF?? that's ILLEGALE?? According to tsc3 lore: "We legendaries can't use magic on each other?" I am so bewildered by the level of retcon occurring before my very eyes at BREAKNECK speed

Sandra doesn't need magic she needs THERAPY for her ANGER ISSUES bruh. Damn. She doesn't need a rage room (in someone's house too I might add? okayyyy) she needs to learn to process like a normal human being wtf

Scott being able to look like his normal self whenever he wants and they just didn't tell him? For like. 25 years? Like its clear that by the series standards, the elves think he's a total moron. But it pendulums hard and fast between "haha funny joke" and "damn they really think he ain't shit, huh"

Edie being a fashion diva is such a serve she's grown on me this season ngl

"I had to teach him how to do all the Legendaries jobs" Scott I know you're waffling, absolutely FUMBLING but what the FUCKKKKK is that excuse??? What's Cal going to do? Be EVERY Legendary? TERRIBLE AWFUL HATE IT UNINSPIRED. Not to mention, SOME OF THE OTHER LEGENDARIES MIGHT NOT TAKE THAT NEWS WELL. Some might even feel THREATENED

"The man I die for in my sleep every night" UM? Noel? You okay there bud? Holy heck

THE PURPLE JACKET IS SWAG AND SCOTT IS A HATER. HE CANNOT SEE THE VISION

Do you guys think according to this new lore Edie made Jack's suit? because me thinks PERHAPS

Magnus Antas is kind of popping off, damn. Like I think if the gnomes hadn’t given him MAJOR delusions of grandeur and an ego trip, he could have stayed totally a vibe. But stop giving the Santas snow powers and reconning Jack holy SHIT dude. First Scott now him? HATE IT

The way they made Scott and Cal look when "invisible" is Not a Good Look heck. Its like a bad picsart filter

These Scott visions. I get why, its through the Santa magic, right? But dang its corny

So Scott knows Magnus Antas is back now. Okay. They got away from him. Lost visual on Olga, have a bad feeling she somehow sneaked into the sleigh. Weird cliffhanger but EVERY episode has been like that so far

Final thoughts: I feel like they're definitely trying to make this season take itself less seriously, but I feel like the trade off is that the writers are taking too many liberties for diversions from source material and are therefore, losing the plot entirely and retconning movie lore at will and convenience. Tl;dr, it's messy. Concepts are fun until things just become so irreverent they fall apart or lean into entirely unfunny territory. Which is just a hallmark of T*m All*n brand humor, tee em, but you know.

It feels like this series is doing everything and nothing. It wants woke points, but immediately doubles back and makes fun of those same things. It wants us to feel empathy for these characters, and immediately makes them insufferable. I am so confused as to what the takeaway is supposed to be. It all feels so poorly executed--the series retcons itself constantly, not to mention the movies. I want it to be fun, and to take it at surface value, but if you know literally anything about the movies, that becomes a challenge to do. I'm just so confused dude.

I will be shocked if this gets a third season. Truly.

Also, I miss Betty too, Noel. Wish this whole season was about HER shenanigans, instead.

So. See you all next week then?

[kloppinthekop]

All of your wips seem so interesting but Anfield is a Cauldron👀?

Eeee hello @mebiselfandi! 🫶 Okay so this one is probably my least fully-formed of the WIPs I listed, but in a way, that’s kind of exciting because maybe one day inspiration will just strike like lightning (I hope). I think it’s partly inspired by a prompt I once saw on The New Football Kink Meme but I’d have to track down exactly which prompt.

Anyways, it is currently Gen!fic in my head, but could potentially focus on a particular ship/pairing if the muses decided to steer me in that direction. But okay, here are the notes I have on this particular idea:

ANFIELD IS A CAULDRON

Each tactic or formation creates a spell - like “calling the four corners” to invoke magick in paganism or Wiccan traditions.

A successful casting can lead to a goal, but the magick is sometimes unpredictable, with a mind and will of its own.

You don’t always know which combinations will lead to which outcomes.

Sometimes it’s summoning a red card for the opposing team. Sometimes there is a delayed effect, not coming to fruition until the next game or even the same fixture the next year. Sometimes it takes an entire stadium to make the spell stick. (Anfield is particularly potent when it comes to conjuring magick. YNWA is in fact a very powerful spell that fans weave together at every match.)

What is certain is that it requires hard work and teamwork for anything good to happen. Any player being off their game/distracted or just slightly too slow can unravel the spell.

But when it works? Miracles can happen: like Istanbul. Like the 4-0 against Barcelona. Like so many European nights under the Anfield lights of the past… and of the future. ✨

[isthisselfcare]

Please forgive my absence, I log into tumblr once every 4 business months

I have answered some asks but not all, for which I apologise 

hello! rereading your work for the second time, proud of myself for translating less words than before (this british english's got hands and they kick me a lot). i keep beating myself about the question: WHAT is the clue about the mole in chapter 1? you said it was paltry, i didn't believe you, now i'm trying to make my eyes fall out over finding said clue. spare me.

It was the line about Shacklebolt’s assistant, she was grouchy about Draco for no discernable (at the time) reason: ‘Draco scheduled a visit with the Minister of Magic later that week. He sauntered past the Minister’s sour-faced assistant on the designated day, wondering who had pissed in her Pixie Puffs.’

She’s the one who would’ve heard Hermione discussing her findings with Shacklebolt early on, and subsequently learned that this Notorious Auror was going to protect her. That’s the entire not-even-clue. Rubbish, isn’t it?

Hi, since you like Jerome K Jerome, I was wondering if you've read "Two and a half men in a boat" by Nigel Williams? He basically recreated the boat trip on Thames with his friends like in Jerome's book. Nowhere near as good as the original, but it's pretty funny! He emulates Jerome's wit quite well.

I have not, but will add this to my reading list! 

Is Hermione bi in your fic?

I am congenitally unable to write cishet women, so, yes, or pan, possibly. Didn’t get into her head enough to know 

hey girlie. what does "cutty-uppy" means? i can't find the definition anywhere

Sorry. That was a made up word, referring to the sort of people who cut people up, those terrible Muggle surgeons  

do you mind if your tags are used on other fics? i think your tags on DMATMOOBIL are a creative writing piece in their own right (they make me laugh sm) so I was a bit disturbed to find fics that copy them verbatim with no credit.

I don’t mind at all, AO3 tags take on their own self-referential, memeish life and I am happy to add mine to the ecosystem. My own tags on Mortifying include the ‘no X we die like men’ and ‘what is X if not Y persevering’ meme-phrases

do you see yourself writing more dramione in the future?

I haven’t any plans to do so at present, sorry!

Continuing an investigation to see if you are actually Hermione, can you do a taraskvana?

Hah. No. I've got a dodgy knee, I can hardly even sit cross-legged!

She's a 10 but she only has 1 story posted

It’s me!

Dont know If somebody has already asked you this - would it be okay to print Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love?

Printing for your personal use is fine

I noticed something about the Beltane chapter: "hippocampus" is a part of our brain's limbic system and one of its functions is memory formation, specifically creation  and consolidation thereof, so I thought it was very symbolic that Hermione and Draco were racing creatures  with the same name. Cause I feel like that chapter is a turning point in their relationship - Hermione stops seeing him as a barely tolerable pureblood ass. It's around that point that they really do start kind of liking each other  and start - if you will - forming new memories together! I know I'm just overthinking things, but I love dmatmoobil so much I'm constantly on the lookout for hidden meanings and symbolism.

There are a lot of easter eggs in the fic, but with this one, you have given me far too much credit. Thank you for sharing it! 

Will you be participating in the DHr advent?

Hiya, no, I had to decline as I hadn’t any writing time this autumn, honoured to have been invited, however, and eager to read the works!

Would you ever write a Tomione or a Sevmione?

I never say never, but frankly the possibility is remote. So sorry

Pain au chocolat ou chocolatine?

Scandaleux comme question, ça… pain au chocolat ! 

Re the “Marathon of chaos” on your Instagram. It’s been such a ride to not only follow your fanfic (I was an early adopter, which I know makes me sound like a hipster snob, and maybe I am one) but also watch it go from like 100 kudos to one of the top fics in the fandom. I’m here for your marathon and really grateful for all the work you put into MOBIL. Now for the question… when can we expect your next book? I don’t care if it’s Dramione, any other pairing, or any other fandom, or original fic, I WILL read it! Please continue to hit us with chaos!!!!

Thank you for your kind words! 

I haven’t got an answer on the timeline for the next piece, or whether I will link it with this online identity, but I am toying with the idea of writing it entirely in comic sans

Your Hermione was my gay awakening

If this is serious, I hope you find your own Hermione one day!

Can we please be friends? You sound like you would make a great one

Unfortunately, I am a rubbish friend who never responds to texts and cancels plans at every opportunity, you don’t want to know me 

I was so happy to see Uzbekistan mention in your story. That had never happened before. Thank you for mentioning my country 😻

You are welcome! Uzbekistan is honestly one of the most breath-taking countries I’ve ever visited – monuments that dwarf the Taj Mahal – unearthing the grand and bloody history of the Silk Road – stepping upon the same sands that the great Khans thundered across – seeing the ruins of the caravanserai – sheer magic! To say nothing of the hospitality of the people. I had far too much plov and quickly discovered my limit for vodka

You are my favorite cryptid

Cheeky. Thank you

And, finally, thank you to the person who sent me this article on a sacred relic that was stolen from an abbey and then returned ‘in an unceremonious cardboard box’! Hormone and Crotch are still at large

[mydaroga]

Follow up on the Tune In ask, Thank you for your response!! And please, never apologize for the length, it was greatly insightful. I actually haven't started on the book yet but it came highly recommended to me as The definitive Beatles biography so I was looking around to see what others think of it. Most of the critical opinions I found on this site seem consistent with your criticisms especially about Lewisohn's tendency to cherry pick quotes or imposing a new context on them...

Well, that formatted weird. Sorry. Anyway, I will definitely try to give as thorough an answer as I have time for, so that may mean just a few examples. If you want a deeper dive I can recommend the Another Kind of Mind Series, Fine Tuning. I don't agree entirely with their approach, but I agree for the most part with their findings and concerns, if that makes sense. And then there's Serene's blog entry which does a more thorough examination of the way Lewisohn ... hrm, shall we say, stretches citations to mean... whatever he wants.

I don't know that I am going to be able to go into quite as much detail here as I didn't keep these good notes while reading. But I can think of a few things that stuck out to me before I listened/read these other takes. And I'm happy to keep talking about this or expand, I'm not saying I don't like doing this, just that I am not gonna ... okay I'm going to write an essay? But I won't be as meticulous as I should be.

The first thing that made me stop reading and just go track down what was actually going on was a passage in which Lewisohn is talking about teen Paul's resistance to getting a job, going against Jim. From Tune In:

Paul still hated anyone telling him what to do -- 'It just never occurred to me to listen to other people' -- but when Jim insisted, sometimes Paul did as bid... as John scathingly noted. He went down to the Labour Exchange and Renshaw Hall and landed a £10-a-week Christmas-period job with SPD Ltd, Speedy Prompt Deliveries.

Now, all on its own without context this is a great Paul McCartney quote because you go, "yeah that checks out." I plan on using it as a sort of Macca meme, you know? But it was soooo Paul I thought, "wait, in what context did he say that? Like, he doesn't listen ever? He's admitting he just doesn't listen to anyone?"

So weirdly, it's not actually footnoted, but I found the source. It's a 1980 interview with Tim Rice, which is entertaining in its own right because he tells the guy who co-wrote Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita and later The Lion King that, you know, musicals are boring. Anyway, not the point.

It took me awhile to find the actual quote, because it's really a throwaway, almost self-deprecating aside, in the context of how he's listening to people more now because he's realized too many smart people just talk and it might be good to listen some.

So okay. Paul did say that, and he's admitting there was a time he didn't take the time to listen, but he's doing it in a sort of jokey way. I guess it's fair to say, generally, sure, Paul has a tendency to be headstrong and go his own way and that certainly would have been a factor in his psychological battle with Jim Mac over going to get his teaching license or whatever. It's not like Lewisohn is bending the facts of anything. It's not really a big deal. But it was the moment that clued me in that he's not necessarily using like for like. There's plenty of quotes about how Paul felt about this time in his life without using a joke from 1980 to shore up your point about his resistance to dad, in a paragraph that implies he's saying it about his resistance to dad. And when you've decide that "it just never occurred to me to listen to other people" can mean "and that's why he didn't listen to Jim about work, except this time he did," I don't know. It leaves a funny taste in my mouth because then you could use it for anything Paul decides to do differently. If that makes sense. If it applies there, it applies to anything Paul does. And Paul obviously didn't mean that in 1980.

Also maybe this is more nuanced, but while "Paul still hated anyone telling him what to do" is a true statement in any time in his life, that quote itself? Is neither necessarily relevant to being told what to do or very revealing. It actually is entirely unnecessary. The passage would be completely benign and throw me no red flags without it.

Like any of the points I make or, frankly, I've heard others make, it's less that he's saying untrue things and more that by using these citations in ways that remove them from context and add them to a different context, he is painting a picture but passing it off as fact. In addition, he often will use a quote from John's angry, Lennon Remembers period to interpret Paul's motives in the early 60s, rather than using, oh I dunno, a quote from.... Paul? Or a nicer quote from John when he's contradicted himself again? Again it's all legit sourcing and citing! But the contextualizing creates something he's selling as free of interpretation which is anything but.

The other one I've been thinking about is laid out quite well in I think episode 3 of the AKOM pod, and it's about Paul's creative development. While John's is described as original and a free spirit and rebellious in his artistic ambitions--which he was--Paul's artistic endeavors almost always come with a weasel word or caveat. What I mean is, John is always described as inventive; Paul is a gifted mimic. This despite a lot of attention paid to how John was basically copying his favorite cartoonists and artists--he even says at some point everything he does is Just William and Lewis Carroll. But somehow when he does it, it's extraordinary. He's got his own voice, while Paul is a talented parrot. Lewisohn gives props to all of Paul's many accomplishments but there's always either some kind of adjective like that to take away from it or this thing that creeps in where everything Paul does is for show. There are numerous places in Tune In where Paul is ostentatiously reading difficult books so he can be seen reading them. Anytime he's trying something new or going to explore a new art form or theater experience, Lewisohn has to point out that he wants to be seen to be doing something clever. When he writes songs, Lewisohn points out that he's not just writing songs, he's thinking about the image of being a writer or something like that. It's never because he's artistic, or likes the thing. He needs to be seen as someone liking the thing.

Now, we do have a quote from Paul about this. He does mention thinking about the image of a poet with the pipe and the leather patches, and he does at one point get a pipe and you know, famously pretend to be French to try to pull birds. (He does this again on that little week off he takes in France, years later, reminiscing about imagining he's a novelist in a cafe.) It's not that I'm saying Paul isn't capable of being pretentious! (I still have the beret I insisted on getting for my birthday when I was 16. I'm not immune. I still look great in it.) But Paul's, again, self-deprecating description of himself as a goofy teen appears to be the only 'proof' Lewisohn has that his reading, his art, his going to shows alone no one else cares about, is a pretense.

Again. It's not a huge deal and it's not like Paul didn't factually do all of this. It's that in a text that he's insisted in the front matter is free of speculation, Lewisohn's included numerous interpretations of Paul's (and others') motives without any direct proof/citation for those interpretations. That, I'm afraid, is speculative. And that's fine for an author to engage in--but he needs to be clear about it.

For the record he does this with John, too. He interprets numerous, sometimes almost contradictory actions of John's as "evidence" of his ability to lead. Sometimes he's like, in front and sometimes he's doing nothing and Lewisohn will conclude this was John also leading.

The point of all this isn't, like I said in my original post, that I think any one of these things is that bad. Paul's kinda pretentious? Maybe sometimes he did like to be seen reading War and Peace or whatever? Maybe John sitting back and watching what his mates are going to do is leadership? The problem, for me, is that it's not presented in a way that meets the premise of Lewisohn's introduction, which promises a work free of the prejudices and unsubstantiated speculation of his forebears. And I really do think that Lewisohn has convinced himself that he's done enough research and been a keen enough "Paul watcher" that it no longer counts as interpretation. I fear he may actually believe that he's done the math.

Again, I think you should read it. I loved the attention to detail and you'll get a lot out of it. But just be aware of this tendency, which I no longer think I'm imagining. And these are just the first two things I thought of and wanted to rant about.

[talenlee]

MTG: Hating Lord Of The Rings

I can’t seem to put words on paper that aren’t about this, so here. Let me exorcise this foul spirit that haunts me. I am deeply, abidingly sick of everything to do with Lord of the Rings, and actively hateful towards the Lord Of The Rings magic set that I want to see fail. Again.

In 2023, Magic: The Gathering released a new Universes Beyond product into Modern, with the set Something Something Lord Of The Rings. It’s a totally new kind of product, in that it’s the first time a universes beyond product of this scale was made and put into the Modern format. It’s also not a totally new kind of product, because it is once again, a thing where the official Magic: The Gathering game system of systems is used to instead show off the aesthetics, lore and concepts of another universe, a tradition that started off with Secret Lair Drop Series: The Walking Dead a 2020 release that introduced five cards to vintage and legacy and was largely decided, at the time, to be something of a bad idea.

Not by me, I like Universes Beyond, especially when it brings Universes Within.

I was pretty heartless about this printing because it was printing cards that probably weren’t a big deal into a format already priced so preposterously there’s no point complaining about the onramp into it. Yeah Legacy is a fun looking format, I love looking at it on Magic: The Gathering Online, but it’s also a format where Volcanic Island, a land you need four of in the #1 deck for the past forever, runs at around $700 for the cheapest version and you need four of them and that’s where the deck’s price starts and by the time this article goes out it will be more. Legacy is history’s sewer of Magic: The Gathering and if you like it, and you want to play it, it’s great, I love it too, but arguments about its health are fundamentally meaningless.

And also, it’s five cards, and the best of them have almost nothing to do with the game at large. One of them is a pretty strong Human Lord, one of them is a pretty interesting piece of equipment, but both of those things have been outmoded and neither is that big a deal in the first place in a world where people can attack with Emrakul, The Aeon’s Turn on turn two.

Point is, I didn’t care about The Walking Dead cards being introduced. I did not care. Bear in mind: I did not like The Walking Dead as a franchise. I think it’s quite stupid. I think everything that’s been communicated about the kind of media it is is tiresome and boring and only interesting if you’ve never read anything of its type before. Antipathy towards the source material already existed for me, but I did not care about the introduction of the cards and certainly not enough to hate them.

Okay.

It isn’t enough to just dislike the source material though. I already disliked Forgotten Realmsing: Gathering Magics, where the Magic tools were brought to bear on twenty year old memes of Go For The Eyes, Boo. I didn’t like the way that it turned the story space of the Forgotten Realms — a world that I hate — into a flattened band of things that could interact like Owlbears killing Dragons, and I didn’t like that it forced the characters of the Forgotten Realms into prominence — because a lot of them are cat-piss men, with all the charm of the OCs of wannabe date rapists.

And they did it again!

It’s hard to grapple with this feeling, because the thing is, I know I’ve been unhappy with Magic: The Gathering for years, but at no point does that unhappiness translate to a disinterest in following the product. I don’t like Urza. I think that Urza, a eugenecist who relies on being the smartest person in the room and whose edgy solutions against omnicidal threats, presents a sort of worst kind of Edgy Nerdboy archetype, and I think he needs to be left in Magic’s history, in the past, where we can stop acting as if he was a good or engaging character. Give us distance, let us forget him, let him stop fucking mattering.

In May 2022, Magic The Gathering released Streets of New Capenna, a set I liked, which took us to somewhere new. Okay, yes, the plot wound up being tied into the Phyrexians, but okay, fine, whatever, the set was still able to present as a foreground element something new that wasn’t tied, endlessly, back to Magic’s inability to stop huffing its own farts. The next release was Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate (hated it), then Dominaria United: This Time It’s More Fucking Dominaria (hated it), The Brother’s War: Remember Urza, Everyone? (hated it), Phyrexia: All Will Be One (hated it), and Phyrexia: March of the Machine (hated it). This means it’s been a non-stop content churn from a system that promises endless novelty and regularly refreshing content so that you always have something fun and cool to engage with, and it has been a year of non-stop release of things I hate.

But my reaction to all of those things was: Oh well, something better is coming along, something else will happen, something that interests me might come up next. Who knows, I’ll look at the next thing.

The next thing was Lord of The Ringering.

There are too many axes for me to hate Lord Of The Gathering.

First, there’s the core text it venerates. Lord of The Rings just isn’t a very good book and it’s just not a very good movie. I read it in high school and never read it again because I didn’t like it. It was partly poisoned by dint of my having already read all the Narnia books, I guess, because it meant turgid self-important traumatised Anglicanism glanced off me. I’d also played videogames and read books with fantasy cultures like elves and dwarves in them, cultures which had interesting ideas and varied cultural outlooks. Particularly, I’d read Discworld books, and when you have these vibrant explored cultures with different mythical connections to them, Lord of The Rings is a lot like licking Catholic prayerbooks looking for personality. Like, one of the big gags in the first part of The Hobbit is about how interchangeable the personalities of a bunch of dwarves are!

And okay, yes, it’s very important that without Tolkein, we would never have had anyone to codify the myth of the Dwarf as a stubby Jewish jerk who loves money and can’t go to heaven, or an elf as the whitest people in the world who get extra special heaven and isn’t it sad that the culture of the world is fading. It’s some people’s first discovery of an outcast prince roaming the land under a secret identity, but Narnia had one of them, and his name was Corin and he punched a bear.

Simply put, Lord of the Rings is classic literature, and much like classic medicine, has a lot of bad to go with whatever respect you want to put on its name.

It doesn’t mesh well with Magic: The Gathering, of course; there’s a message in Lord of the Rings about how power will corrupt and ruin you (unless you’re a good king, which means you’ll do a good job and everything will be fine, so good job we have a good king in reserve), which means it’s a great fit for Magic: The Gathering where one of the five philosophical outlooks is about how yes, it’s worth it to do that and there’s a fundamental nobility in recognising your own independence and gathering power to support that is a reasonable way to live your life.

Also, and not to sound like a big blousy feminist boy here, but this is a set with 120 legendary cards, which between all of them depict ten women. Those ten women, by the way, include one of Samwise Gamgee’s children mentioned in a postscript, a bit part healer who shares an anecdote with Gandalf, Aragon’s dead mom, Tom Bombadil’s wife, the mean aunt in Bag End and Shelob, a fucking spider, so I’m giving partial credit there. Oh and I guess you can count the Watcher in The Water as the single nonbinary character in the story.

Also, y’know, the movie Arwen who did the tiny bit of stuff she did in that movie was controversial at the time, because she doesn’t do much in the books. She was fighting for a pittance! And I get it, it’s hard to present women characters because there just aren’t many in this book and that’s probably a problem and a reason to do something different.

But nope, you gotta care about the book and the text! Because a bunch of the flavour in this set is just ‘here is a quote from this book’ and if you don’t recognise it from the time and place it shows up, then what the fuck does it communicate? It’s all just saying Hey, remember this thing you like?

This is Family Guy The Gathering.

But then there’s just little pet peeves. Like white got remand in this set. I wanted that. Why’s it fucking here? It would have been a perfect simple, approachable core set card! We got an inevitable appearance of Do White Thing, Draw A Card, The Card, in The Gaffer. We have another example of a Extra Game System introduced in the form of the Ring Tempting You, which encourages you to keep getting tempted and nothing bad ever happens to you. The rules change to Amass are fine I guess, but now they’re colour-locked, and a second change to them is less likely! Oh oh and Orcish Bowmasters, who are absolutely absurdly powerful and now mean that I’ll probably never not be dealing with this set in casual games because why wouldn’t you run that card if you want any of what it’s offering.

Oh well, we’re getting Wilds of Eldraine. I like Eldraine. It’s a world with some interesting potential that was overshadowed by shitheads. It’s got cool fairy story vibes and it got us our first round of Food token mechanics. That’s cool.

Then after that, we’re getting Universes Beyond: Doctor Fucking Who.

Christ, the nerds that pay for this game have shit taste.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Games #Magic:TheGathering

[snickerdoodlles]

texting fics for the fic tropes ask?

somehow A++ and a big fat red F at the same time LOL

okay so like. you may not know this about me, but i love social media fic (ik ik, hold your shocked gasps til the end). i absolutely love epistolary stories in general--i am a huge, huge fan of outsider POV and unreliable narrator tropes, and epistolary stories are so well suited to one or both of these things. epistolary stories put either a very, very narrow telescope on and/or a very broad/vague/heavily filtered overview of a narrative and i love reading between the lines and teasing out the story that way. plus, especially with a lot of neat ao3 works skins (which i...don't use because im lazy 💦), a lot of these stories play with the traditional way to tell a story and explore narratives told through different types of media, often very punchy types of environmental storytelling, and more, which is so cool to me. i'm not even talking about all the ways epistolary fic can play with character voice, and the differences between speaking vs texting, conversation habits across mediums, etc!!

chat fics...sometimes manage the above.

unfortunately though, many also often fall into referential humor traps and like...sitcom storylines (i'm not sure if that made up term makes sense lol). my point though is that some chat fics are really just treated like those incorrect quotes blogs but in a format that can be posted to ao3. and i already have a lot of irritation with incorrect quotes--it's very rare that a genuinely funny joke can just be ripped from its original context and still be funny, and a lot of people use referential humor as a crutch because they're scared of writing their own humor/jokes. but the thing is, the more references you use, the more you isolate and/or narrow your audience because not everyone is going to know what you're referencing; and it's one thing as a reader to skip over one joke you don't recognize, it's another to skip over multiple jokes in a row that make no sense to you. this goes doubly for chat fics that rely primarily on memes, which are esp flavor-of-the-week references whose original context gets lost almost immediately. and then on top of the humor crutch, a lot of these fics forget that like...epistolary stories still have a narrative? they still have a plot? you still have to explain how the characters started talking to each other, why they're still talking to each other, wrap it up in a good end goal, etc. and a lot of fic just...doesn't. i have zero interest in reading a fic that throws everyone into a groupchat with zero regard for how the individual characterizations, just to ramble out a bunch of ill-fitting references with no end goal or point in sight. sighs

so yeah! epistolary/social media/texting/etc fics are almost always the first set of tags i run through when i first enter a fandom tag and i'll often read those first over everything else because when they're done right, they're so. good.

but if there's no explanation to the how or the why, or zero regard to characterization or voice, or too many memes, i'm immediately out and will probably even mute the story so that it's easier for me to navigate the tags in the future 😂

.❤.

send me a fic trope!

[salemoleander]

VERY interested in creator commentary for the 3rd life webweave (seriously one of the coolest things ive seen made in this fandom, its gorgeously edited AND very funny AND the quotes themselves are all knock-your-socks off material. That Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Line Holy Shit)

Okay so first off THANK YOU that's super kind! It's nerve-wracking posting graphic design that is reconstituted from other sources, bc I've seen it perceived as a 'lazy' or unskilled format, so this is really really encouraging to hear.

I am not a concise person, which is why this has taken so long! I realized as I was initially responding that I was trying to dive into three separate topics:

The actual process I follow, my tips + tricks on making web weaves

Analysis of my 3rd Life web weave

My philosophy towards web weaves and collage as an art form

Only one of those is the question you actually asked, so #2 is what I'll be talking about in this post! However, I am working on a video overview of the other topics, because I think they're worth exploring - I will obviously post that on this blog once it's done.

To avoid jumpscaring anyone with a wall of text, I've thrown my commentary under a readmore.

The one takeaway I'll mention before we dive in is if anyone has a character/narrative web weave request, please hit me up! I have so many I'm working on, having a next topic suggestion is super helpful to narrow things down.

General Creation Comments

I am At All Times collecting images, so it's only a matter of time until I make a webweave for a group/ concept/ person:

(My phone storage is Certainly being utilized. Also I will never be free of making these.)

It just so happened that my Third Life folder filled up fastest/ felt like it was in a good balance to work with, so that's what I started with!

I try to use a mix of text and images, and both serious and funny stuff. Even at its most serious the Life Series is also funny, and it's important to reflect that!

That said, if you compare the jokes I've picked in this piece vs the void falling web weave, you'll notice the jokes on this one trend sharper. The 'How to Detect Misery' and 'How to Tell if it's Over' memes (both from @thatsbelievable, who is a GREAT source of web weave content) are morbidly funny. Surviving horrific circumstances, preparing to suffer, unimaginable violence, eroticism and death, covered in blood - all of the jokes are violent.

As I go, I weed out posts that don't fit, or (mostly) prune text posts out. Too much text ruins the flow, and I LOVE words so I tend to have too much writing and not enough art.

3rd life had only a few things that didn't make the cut, bc I was fairly judicious as I added to that folder, but these were scrapped:

As I added the posts I knew I wanted and split them between panels, I naturally started seeing a 'flow' from early game biomes/bases and the more tender pairings, into violence + devotion, and then ending in.. something. I wasn't sure what I wanted the end to be yet.

I ran out of posts, and knew I needed Wayyy more images to offset the text, so I went looking through the Smithsonian's excellent collection of CC0-licensed art!

That's where I found the Perfect Image - that last picture of the red angel laid low. I knew immediately that it needed to be most of the final scene, with very little obscuring or distracting from it.

Okay, diving into specific panel analysis!

Panel One

It's the beginning, so everything is still fairly light - lots of brown and green tones.

The summary (imo) is that every faction in 3rd Life is in different stories!

Grian and Scar are playing cowboys, an old Western style narrative where they're beholden to each other, out to get the Bad Guys (even if objectively they're the ones being violent little instigators).

Flower Husbands are a greek fucking tragedy, Jimmy's sudden loss and Scott in mourning, trying to cause as much destruction as possible before the gods knock him down too.

Dogwarts are a middle English story of fealty and homosocial bonds and dying for honor.

And the Crastle is like. Shakespeare or Arthur Miller or Stoppard. They are in a theater, they are playing with all of the narratives. Too aware of the trajectory they're on, and entirely unable to stop it.

The images on the first page are the four primary pairings in 3rd Life - top left, in the background of the 'How to Detect Misery' meme, is the desert. The sudden punchline of that meme felt like a good starting point - a creeper-blast of a joke.

The pair to the right represent Scott and Jimmy. I liked the Impressionist and classic myth-inspired stylization. Also, the toga blended near-seamlessly into the desert hill so it looked almost like a wing, implying a tie to angels as well as foreshadowing Jimmy's death AND Scott's partnership with Grian/Scar.

Up in the top right-hand corner is a little Crastle, and the pair embracing on the right side of the page are Bdubs and Cleo. The red hair fit, but it was the old-fashioned clothing and sense of finality that I really liked.

On the left is Dogwarts - Ren and Martyn. I wanted an image that had a very different style, as they were opposed to desert duo + everyone else. I felt the sketchy ink stood out and elicited ideas of worn vellum paper. It felt like a sketch you'd discover sitting in a chest of a long-worn-down enchanting room.

There's a forest and a mostly-occluded castle in the background art on page one, also meant to represent Dogwarts. That forest bleeds into the next page, where the violence really begins.

Panel Two

We've started with a forest, but it's darker than the last one, and wilder.

Bursts of red stand out violently on the page.

'Fallen Angel' is a classic for emotionally fraught blorboposting! There are many, Many Mountain Goats songs that fit, but the way a-doctor-not-a-fangirl paired this line with this painting was striking to me. In particular, I like how 'getting revenge' was something that drove most of 3rd Life, even though Red Lives (come unhinged) were meant to be the driving force of violence. They weren't supposed to have bonds, they weren't supposed to have allies! But it's the bonds that drove the violence.

The 'I heart eroticism and death' cut-out plopped onto the collage was intended to feel like a kind of cheesy tourist stamp - 'I killed my friends in horrible death games and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' vibes.

The 'First off' comment feels like the illogical thought proces all of the doomed players (so, all of the players) were following - "if I just do well enough at murder, this will all be over."

The 'moments of grace' image is probably my most indulgent addition. I wanted a softer, quiet nod to the good parts, to the fun and the joy in between the violence. In particular, the dawn breaking on waves reminded me of the short span Grian and Scar spent tensely placing TNT under sand in the desert. I imagine silent cooperation and the sussuration of sand on sand, and quiet for just a few minutes.

'It's better to know how to let others unmask you and to endure the rule of the game' means: if you are too good, if you survive long enough, you will end up alone. This is about Bdubs and Cleo - kings of roleplay, of being a little overeager and dying for it and getting a mercifully quick ending. It is also about the cactus ring.

Panel Three

The centerpiece of this page is 'G-d's Idea', the beautiful abstract painting of a blood-soaked angel. It makes me insane every time I see it. Grim reaper in mourning kinda guy

I wanted to do something to tie more directly to the end, but didn't want to pull a disembodied-face-in-90s-grad-photo approach to add Scar. So I found a drawing that looked like the Monopoly Mountain build, and carefully added it onto one wing. I really really like this as an addition, it is probably my favorite combination in this post.

The Anne Carson quote is obvs in Minecraft font - I also split up the lines, so that the left and right side loosely create their own sentences/ideas. "There is a theory that watching other people is good for you" and "Unbearable stories may cleanse you of your darkness." I wish I had been more careful with the contrast on 'yourself all', but oh well, we can just call it being difficult to read an experiential facet of the poem.

"Do you want to go down to the pits of yourself all alone?" is a good fucking line, and manages to mirror both the commentary on us the viewers AND the experience of the creators AND the experience of the characters. We get to experience violence vicariously, the creators get to experience it with friends + in safety, and the characters (or character, I should say, just Grian left by the time you're reading this) are experiencing that low point totally alone.

Aside from the obvious fit, the Rosencrantz + Guildenstern lines stand in as a conversation between the viewers and the characters. The appraising description of kiling and dying beautifully makes way for a mournful interruption that no, fuck that, this isn't a game for us (with some obvious irony there).

Finally, I needed it to end funny; the whole thing is already more serious than it probably should've been. I like this joke because it's short, and it implies the aftermath in a comedic way. Picturing everyone spawning back into Hermitcraft, covered in blood, upset, but mostly with a profoundly awkward sense of 'well I fucked that one up. That got a bit more homoerotic than intended, and now every other shopping trip I have to make awkward eye contact with the person I mcMurdered."

Again, thank you so much for your ask and kind words! I'm looking forward to making a general guide video on web weaves one of these days :D

[nameification]

3, 5, 10, 19 for the edgy oc ask meme for any ocs of your choice (mix and match as desired) :3

fuck yeahhhh les go (IGOT UR 2ND ASK EHEHEHEHEHEHE LES GOO)

3. What is your OC's fatal flaw? Are they aware of this flaw?

ooooooo I think. I think I'll go with Alazea cause she's got A Lot of emotional baggage. The Commander works for this too hang on

okay so Alazea is like. her first impressions are meant to be "obedient right hand" bordering on lap dog (to The Commander) and she's very typically Angry (which contrasts her assigned virtue of Patience). But like. she's also very emotionally repressed and yes very starved of attention

and at the beginning she is all "This is all for the Greater Good I'm gonna get a Good Grade in Fighting The Space Aliens which is totally normal and possible to achieve." but it moves on more to "I've been so cruel I've pushed away everyone who saw me for who I truly was and responded in kind." and its. sdjkldsdhhd

She always knew she was just that little bit cruel. And she always thinks she came to that epiphany too late.

The Commander, however, is a much more jaded version of this. He's the one who made dealings with the Astrax, he's the one who "pulled the trigger" in Simon's execution, he's the one who sacrificed the world for his fucking girlfriend (and then eventually ascension to godhood) except with time he stopped caring about his girlfriend and became more and more inebriated with the power

And he knows this. He knows he's a piece of shit and there are times where he has his moments of clarity but overall he knows he's fucked it and that it's too late for any reformations.

5. How far is your OC willing to go to get what they want?

ooooooo okay obviously. The Commander. He's willing to sacrifice the whole world for his (ex)girlfriend and his own godhood. But I guess Elisa also counts. She basically irminsul'd all knowledge relating to the Vices with the exceptions of a few people to basically go deserter. The only evidence the Vices existed as a task force is the fact that there is a blank spot in the databases regarding a "Sister Task Force" to the 7✧Virtues Task Force and context clues and slow, purposeful leaks of information had let the people even know that the 7✧Vices once existed

10. What's an AU that would be interesting to explore with your OC?

OKAY honestly I think an au where Elisa went to uni before she got recruited would be funny just cause it would be like "Hi Professor I will not be attending classes for the next three days because I will be going to space can I submit the assignment like. a little bit later." Cause canonically she got swooped in right before she got to go to university and this one is mainly crack cause I just think it'd be funny

BUT ALSO au where Simon's soul didn't atomize in his execution and he still got to "live" but he definitely still would have to come back Wrong. you can't escape from fucking atom bombs no matter how much empress theresa you read

19. How does your OC behave when enraged?

Dehlia (cause she's Wrath) goes like. when she gets mad she gets mad mad and she likes to blow off steam by either going ham on actual Astraxis Formations or a (very well-worn) training dummy

Vienna's rage is very much. gamer rage but when they are fully enraged they literally need to "cool down" by standing in the cold for a few minutes or just soaking in a body of water for an hour. They like just chilling in the water when sobrang inis

The Commander knows he can just spout empty threats at whoever is making him angry and they won't fuck with him any further

hmmmm thas all I can think of right now thank you sososmuch I'll start with ur other ask like. right now