#kind of annoyed about it tbh

[ridiculously-over-obsessed]

Thrilled that my genes have caught up to me and I am now officially at risk of early onset artheritis rather than just potentially susceptible to it, so every fine motor task (including and especially writing) now has to be done with these compression glove thingys on 🤡🤡

I am officially an old man now ✌🏻

[imaybe5tupid]

Falin in the Isle of Wa

ft Benichidori and Hien 👯‍♀️

Part 1 of my postcanon dyke drama cinematic universe

Part 2

Interlude

Part 3

[volitioncheck]

does near every single post-canon DE fic out there need to be tagged ‘Sober Harry Du Bois’? i’m getting so tired of it.

do i expect every single piece of fan content to have to fully delve into the often-depressing always-complex topic of addiction? not really. sometimes you just want to write/read a silly fluffy romance one-shot, whatever. i get it. but i think my issue is specifically with the fact that for nearly every sillyfluffy au out there, there almost must be a ‘sober harry du bois’ tag. and it does feel very slapped-on more often than not.

i think to me it is an unconscious statement that nothing *good* can ever happen to harry du bois until he is completely and permanently sober. before solving the next big case, he has to be sober. before quitting the force, he has to be sober. before falling in love with kim, he has to be sober. before accomplishing anything, starting any sort of recovery, making any life improvement, he must first be sober.

sobriety as a goal, as a journey, and honestly as a concept in of itself is not as cut and dry as so many people think it is. and i think it would serve a lot of people well if they did some introspection on the implications of how nearly every single post-canon fic that isn’t dealing directly with harry’s addiction have him as completely sober instead.

if the plot of the fic isn’t going to touch directly on harry’s substance use (and again, i’m not demanding that every single fic should), why does that mean that sober!harry must be the default?

i think i am just tired of reading a casefic, a smutty one-shot, a fantasy au, whatever, where it almost seems that before getting on with the plot, the author feels obligated to first assure us that the harry we’re reading about is a Sober Harry. it’s established with a couple lines in the exposition, probably about his improved appearance, a tag up top, and then never brought up again; a checkmarked box. like the societal image of An Addict has completely prevented people from being able to imagine a person just, continuing to live life, while still struggling with addiction.

life happens, with all of its backslides and achievements, mundanity and changes, to people with drug addictions just as much as people who don’t. is a post-canon harry who isn’t sober not worth writing about?

i think so. i think the game we all played thinks so too. in fact i think that sentiment is woven into the game’s very core. i just wish i saw that reflected in our fan content more.

[all-pacas]

it's actually kind of funny how like. the second duckling squad of taub/kutner/13 get along much better than the first one. like chase and foreman and cameron barely liked one another for a long time. cameron and foreman both loved letting chase know he was a privileged idiot with daddy issues. chase and foreman both call cameron insufferable and annoying. cameron and foreman had arcs about their beef. when house asks cameron about his bedside manner she says "worse than usual." foreman openly told chase repeatedly he did not like him. cameron and chase got along slightly better by comparison, but only because they both hated foreman more and were less likely to have major arguments. and then they started fucking and got all toxic lesbian everywhere so?? improvement??

and then you have the new gang and like. taub and kutner are best friends. 13 is more aloof but gets along with them great. they all hang out and eat lunch together. like i bet 13 one time got an article published in a medical journal and kutner bought a supermarket cake and taub sincerely was happy for her and cameron and foreman were just SEETHING

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

When I see stuff like this I kinda want to bash my head into a wall:

To start off, I’m not sure whether this person was commenting on book or show Cersei, but honestly, it doesn’t even matter because she’s so much more than the ‘ambitious villain’ or the ‘murderous girlboss’ tropes in both the book and show.

(Of course, I do have my issues with the way Cersei was written in the show like most people but this is simply a rant post so I’m not going to go through the differences of Show vs Book Cersei)

Cersei is a female character who was shaped by her environment, who’s insecurities were created by her environment, and she’s a woman who’s idiotic mistakes can be traced back to how her environment shaped her. She’s much more than a murderous girlboss, she’s both a victim of the system and also a beneficiary of it, while also acting as an agent of it to keep the status quo while also desiring what the system denied her.

Cersei is NUANCED and complicated and even now people hate that about her and want her to have been a purely evil woman handcrafted in a vacuum, ignoring the context of her life because readers would rather not engage with Cersei’s victimhood and nuances because that ruins their idea of: She Was The Problem and Always The Problem. (People would rather say that she deserved her walk of shame instead of interacting meaningfully with the theme of systematic gender-based violence that is so prevalent in Cersei’s story. The exploration of patriarchal violence in Show Alicent’s story is done so horribly in comparison.)

And what really pissed me off about these tags is that this person has clearly decided that they don’t care to interact with the nuance of Cersei and are fine with flattening her, and yet they shit on others for not liking Alicent.

Because of the way Alicent is written in this show, she almost always has a ‘woe is me I can do no wrong’ attitude, which of course drives people away from the character (woe is me I deserve to take a child’s eye 🥺). However, what actually annoys me is how she’s made out to be stupid, foolish, ignorant, and inconsistent due to the horrible writing of this show, all of which are deviations from her book characterization. Also, I despise it when people want me to support writing decisions and changes made in adaptations that are downright misogynistic and are meant to attract the male gaze.

But what pisses many people, including myself, off is how the changes made negatively impacted many other characters. Alicent’s terrible characterization is like a black hole that distorts and warps the whole story! It’s annoying af!

So when people like this say: ‘She’s nuanced and people just can’t handle it 🙄;’ I say: No. She’s horribly written and a different character from the book and people have a right to be critical about these changes that stripped a female character of 1) her agency and 2) her intelligence!

And the thing is, there was little reason for the writers to have made all these changes to Alicent’s characterization! In the book she is an interesting character with clear motives and understandable reactions. She’s cunning and ambitious and acts the way a noble lady who became queen would. And despite her clear ambitions and dislike of Rhaenyra, she still makes a comment wondering about who would protect the Princess from Ser Criston, and yet she then takes Cole into her service after his falling out with Rhaenyra. That’s a perfect example of nuance! Show Alicent could never compare to book Alicent’s clear moral values and consistent disregard of said moral values in pursuit of power.

And because of this, Book Alicent isn’t easy to stomach. It’s hard for most people to come to terms with a character like her and it’s even harder for people to feel sympathetic for her at the end when she went mad with grief.

On the other hand, Show Alicent was designed in a way to garner pity, and when the writers felt like her current arc wouldn’t be enough to garner the specific reaction they wanted they would then throw in a time skip and suddenly she’s completely different and yet still Thee victim. She’s designed to be as sympathetic as fucking possible! The camera angles, the background music, and the lighting is set up in a way to make sure you the viewer feels pity or sympathy for her! Cause that’s her role in this series! She’s thee Ultimate Victim!

But too bad for the writers as many people are fed up with this kind of inconsistent writing. Even when the writers created a whole new challenge for Alicent where she’s shitted on by the green council and forced to face the beast she helped to raise, I and many others could never feel any satisfaction as it was clear that once again Alicent was being made to be Thee Ultimate Victim who was just led astray by the patriarchy and was a victim of it and was only just realizing it so don’t you pity her don’t you feel sad for her and now she’s trying to do the right thing so pls pls pls pity her 🥺~ So it shouldn’t be surprising that many people are annoyed by these eNLiGhtEnEd changes that have led to a complete deviation from the source material.

To summarize: Cersei is an excellent fucking character who’s by no means easy to stomach, and because she’s not easy to stomach she’s often reduced to annoying ass tropes by dumbasses who are reading above their comprehension level. But when you actually try to understand her, you can easily see why she turned out the way she did and you can feel sympathy for her while understanding that she’s both victim and perpetrator! On the other hand, Show Alicent is a mess and HOTD is trying to make her serve a different narrative role than she did in the books so ofc people are going to be unhappy with the changes as book readers are once again faced with the annoying reality that the writers don’t give a fuck about the source material.

[celestialrealms]

Anyway, this is giving me thoughts about both Mephisto and Diavolo being talented swordsmen, presumably because of their upbringing as a nobleman and the Devildom's prince. Like, do you think they used to practice together? That they still do?

Tbh, if you asked me I'd say they probably do it less now, (if at all) because with Mephisto's characterization around Diavolo as it is, I'm not even sure if he'd be capable of not going easy on him... Which is something I think would make Diavolo uncomfortable. and that makes me sad lmao. Idc I just want them to repair their friendship 😔

.............Also Mephisto says this if you make MC more confident about throwing him the bottle in this card. What are we............? 🏳️‍🌈❓

[incorrectfatui]

Dottore: as ur best friend- Crucabena: Sandrone is my best friend. Dottore: Dottore: AS YOUR BEST. FRIEND.-

[danmeichael]

If SY were to interact with other MXTX characters how many and who do you think he'd be able to wifebeam

the only characters he absolutely would NOT be able to wifebeam are hua cheng, xie lian, and lan wangji. i believe without a doubt he would wifebeam wei wuxian though. he is so vulnerable to beautiful scholarly autistic men.

the majority of side characters are absolutely done for though. wen ning? gone. obliterated. pei ming? fucked. absolutely fucked. sy bottles bisexual awakenings and forcefeeds them to unsuspecting victims. jiang yanli is a married woman but i think she and jin zixuan could blow his back out together. aromantics are immune from the romantic implications of the wifebeam but will still be obsessed with him in some way. only lesbians are safe.

[mymarifae]

project sekai characters ranked by how good/bad they are at navigating romantic interactions

[francy-sketches]

aegon is brokenstar coded (child fighting enjoyer) and joffrey is breezepelt coded do you think if they were warriorcats aegon would be joffrey's evil dark forest mentor

[divorceblogger]

okay. I had this typed out days ago but why not post it etc but it was so baffling to witness the multiple posts asking the show to make it clear that the seanchan are despicable people. well. I disagree that the show hasn’t done enough to convey the horror of the seanchan occupation and brutality - uno being murdered brutally conveyed that the seanchan were horrible people effectively. the seanchan tearing away young women who can channel from their families conveyed that effectively. egwene being collared and elayne describing them as ‘invaders’ was done specifically for the audience’s benefit. the idea that imperialism and invasion is always tied to more physical, visceral displays of violence is flawed (although the seanchan certainly have plenty to show for it in that department) and ignores the way empires launched programs to tame the minds and spirits of their subjected populaces besides merely establishing control over their bodies (the oaths of allegiance the seanchan extract, for example) - be it through martial rule or through the suppression of indigenous cultures; this notion also downplays the role of the insidious methods employed by imperial powers to establish control i.e. the suffocating influences of neocolonialism and the historical role that christianity, with its missionaries and ruling principles of benevolence and paternalism, played when it was wielded as a tool by empires in their pursuit to establish and expand their territories. I somehow see this being done with the books too which is absolutely baffling?? seanchan settler colonialism intentionally riffing off of the american expansion into native territory doesn’t deserve to be downplayed in your examinations of the story. the idea of ‘manifest destiny’ manufactured to justify colonialism has a blatant analogue in the text by way of the hailene and the prophecies, omens and superstitions that encourage saviourist narratives about the empire and are geared towards ensuring its preservation. the series has multiple narratives geared towards freeing and rehabilitating the damane who’re enslaved. tldr, the books are very critical of the seanchan and the show has (so far, given the material it’s adapting i.e. tgh) done very well in carrying over that criticism! jordan’s books also do a lot of subtextual work and I think it’s unfair to dismiss it simply because they’re less obvious.

also re: I don’t really Understand the multiple posts citing that line by the innkeeper in atuan’s mill and conjecturing that only egwene’s time in captivity will enable show onlys to truly internalise how awful the seanchan empire is, tbh. the ordinary layperson living in a village far from a governments’s base of rule is likely bound to be unaffected, especially if he’s a selfish man more concerned about his own bodily wellbeing. I don’t even think the line was meant to be taken literally - it mostly served to convey the populace’s general dislike of the whitecloaks, and especially so the branch of questioners who’re known to torture captives to extract confessions from them.

[palettepainter]

Amazon: HEEEY!~ Hazbin hotel is getting a second season!

Me: Oh okay, that's cool I guess.

Amazon: They'll be even MORE action this season!! We're gunna focus on Alastor's backstory, and Pentious will be a key character, and Vox is gunna be a more prominent protagonist, and we'll show off more overlords, and Vaggie and Charlie get a "sexy life"~

Me: Uh-huh. And I can only assume that this season has a bigger episode count so that any of those plot points you mentioned have time to breath for more then ten minutes unlike season 1?

Amazon:

Me:.....You're gunna give this season time to breath ri-

Amazon: WE HAVE MERCH AT HOT TOPIC NOW TOO!!~

.

(Incase people don't read the tags: The reason this annoys me so much isn't because I hate the show, it's because I want this show to do well. I want this show to make me feel like I should care for any of it's characters and plot points because it's well made, not because it's been created by an artist who is already popular online. I truly believe the animators and voice actors are giving it their all for this show, the voice acting is honestly the best quality in my opinion and everyone nails their roles, but the writing and pacing has so far been a cluster fire.

This is a legit show now, it's being funded by Amazon's money with literal broadway stars as parts of the cast. If season 1 taught the people creating this show anything it's that there needs to be breathing time for the plot points and the characters, and I sincerely hope that season 2 takes this into account. I doubt it with how much they've said they're going to include, but I really hope that, for animation as a whole - cuz god knows Disney hasn't been pumping out good animated movies as of late - season 2 takes into account what season 1 did poorly and improves on it)

[system-splintered]

This might be a surprise but I often don't see most people as equal to me. Not that they aren't people, more that I and the person/people I value are something greater, as the definition of something is defined by the majority of what that thing is, so the majority of people being basically, well, moronic animals, it's a feature of humanity. A select few, my partner, sometimes a few others irl, and some people I know from here and discord, I see as more than that, but most people are just... An obstacle, or a tool, to me. I try not to let that affect how I treat people but that's often difficult for me. I'm nice, even charming on occasion, to most people I meet, particularly when certain parts are in front, or I see the person I'm meeting as potentially useful as an ally, but it's not because I feel like they deserve the kind of respect I maintain for people I truly care about from me. It's because people are nicer to you if you're nice first. Even if it's "fake" nice, as long as you don't tell anyone (that's two-faced, also a crime in the eyes of egotypicals) they genuinely don't seem to notice that it's all an act.

I think most people deserve the maintenance of this veneer of respect, as not doing so is typically offensive, but genuine respect is vulnerability, and I only show my belly to those I both see as my equal, and whom I trust not to bite and tear at my softness.

Sometimes someone will be in this group of equals in my eyes, and they say or do something I resent, and a switch flips in my brain, and I just don't give a fuck about them anymore.

It worries me that one day, my partner is gonna be one of them. So far, she's my longest lasting exception to the rule of generally not liking or respecting or showing vulnerability to anyone.

She's also the only one genuinely in the position of having earned my complete respect and admiration. For everyone else, it's been temporary and negotiable, able to be lost and at its root, incomplete. For her it's been nearly eight years, and a lot of mistakes, and it still hasn't gone away, but every time my symptoms flare and the group of people I see as even worth giving the time of day shrinks, my concern grows that the only person I've ever truly loved unconditionally, will turn out to have some conditions after all.

She's the only one I care about the opinion of. And she knows how I feel about most of humanity and agrees with me.

I think we both may have ASPD.

[getosugurusbangs]

i feel like people need to get more comfortable saying that they just don’t like enemies to lovers

[raiiny-bay]

scrapping this edit & starting over so here are some outtakes/wips

[ravenkings]

i don't know if this could be considered a reactionary or anti-intellectual sentiment or something, but does anyone ever have the experience of wanting to consume older media (and by older i mean like pre-2010s) specifically bc you don't really want to deal with endless discourse around it? and when i say this, i don't necessarily just mean negative or critical discourse, but also like obsessive fan discourse that discusses every single little detail from every possible angle and has even created micro-discourse about those specific analyses.

like, for example, i'm thinking of challengers, which is a movie i really enjoyed and which i do mostly enjoy engaging in discussion and analysis about, and which for the most part seems to have been received positively, but there's something i find so exhausting about engaging with it sometimes (and by extension a lot of contemporary media) because it feels like you are required to have a Take on it. i'm also thinking about all those articles from like vulture or variety or whatever that are titled things like "we need to talk about THAT scene" and all the stan accounts and it's just like............idk i wish we could just let the art BREATHE sometimes, you know? not everything NEEDS to be discussed to death....

and like...this isn't to say that there was never tons of discourse around older media (DEFINITELY not lol) but, i guess, because there was no social media back then and no algorithm to track your movements online and to put its finger on the scale occasionally and no endless content slop machine and people's attention spans weren't totally zonked, it feels like it was less............omnipresent? idk i guess the point i'm trying to make is i wish we as a culture could just let works of art just like.......exist and breathe for just a little while before we launch into our Hot Takes