#like it’s just kind of unimaginative imo

[ilovefredjones]

what i really like about prodigy is that they don’t name the vau n’akat after solum!! so many species in star trek are named after their planet (vulcans, bajorans, orions, etc) which is not the case for humans & im so glad the species & planet are differentiated

[lord-squiggletits]

Salty Ask List: 1, 5, 14, 22 ?

1.What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Dr/atc/het 100000%... I just don't understand what their chemistry is supposed to be together. It's partially ruined for me by Drift in MTMTE being an absolute mess of a character who got most of his planned plotlines cut or changed, and partially ruined by the fact Drift spends most of MTMTE straight up absent from the story, and then he and Ratchet meet up in Empire of Stone and come back during Dying of the Light and are just...together romantically now? I don't understand how they have any chemistry at all much less romantic lskdjflkds

I know a big one people talk about is "Ratchet saved Drift's life and then told him he believed in him" but... the way their meeting was written didn't come off as particularly romantic to me? Ratchet saved Drift the same way he's saved countless other addicts in the Dead End and then his parting words to Drift were to tell him to go to the Functionists so they could get him a job. Very "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" kind of advice that clearly didn't work since Drift stayed impoverished, his friend got killed by police brutality, he went into the underworld to be a hitman, etc etc. Like yeah in theory it's very romantic for an OTP's first meeting to be one of them saving the other's life and treating the impoverished person kindly for possibly the first time in their life. It's just that that moment in canon doesn't have romantic vibes to me at all, it's just a doctor-patient encounter in which Ratchet is nice to Drift like he's nice to everyone, except it's also kind of condescending/ignorant bc Ratchet basically tells Drift "oh just get a job and get clean and you'll be fine" as if it's that easy to stop being a homeless/jobless drug addict?? If an ER doctor did that shit to me I'd be more likely to see him as an asshole than to admire or like him at all sdklfjsd.

Then Drift was a Decepticon for millions of years, then he joined the Autobots on Earth and like... he and Ratchet sure existed on the same team together dlkfjldsjlkds there were zero interactions of worth b/t them in phase 1, their ship dynamic came entirely from JRO's writing and even then I feel like it's an informed romance more than an organic and believable one.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

I actually used to like O/Pli/ta when I first came here, but as I stayed longer it became evident that the overwhelming majority of the fan content of it reeks of "we are very sorry for having a heterosexual ship, let us compensate for it by making the woman a Girlboss Xtreme and the man a weak simp so that you can be sure the woman isn't being Oppressed and Stereotyped by being in a heterosexual romantic relationship" which is one of my most detested types of fan content, so now I have the ship tag blocked sldkfjlsdkdskl. Literally it's just the same "the woman is a TOTALLY COMPETENT AND COOL ACTION HERO and her man is a TOTAL SIMP FOR HER" that's interchangeable with most het ships in other fandoms, where there's no actual personality or chemistry for them and instead it's just the same Fandom Approved Heterosexual Relationship Dynamic.

That and a significant amount of content I see for it is just like blatantly ripped off from Me/go/p dslkfjsdfsjl or like, taking the main MOP dynamic and just swapping OP and Elita's places so now Elita is the cool action hero who's rival to Megatron and OP just Exists as an emotional support husband I guess. Or like Elita is made into a daring action hero while Optimus is reduced to a meek little wallflower who's no one of any real importance and just follows in her wake. It reeks of insecurity and unoriginality, as if the fanbase is cripplingly aware that Elita was made to be the Token Girlfriend and instead of just making her a better character and making the romance she's a part of more equal and compelling for both characters, they have to violently overcompensate by having Elita steal OP's role and everything interesting about him. 😂Like I'm begging people to just be normal about hetero ships. You can ship a man and a woman together without having to diminish the man and girlbossify the woman to prove you're a Real Feminist.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Continuity soup is boring and for the most parts creates purely fanon plots/ideas/characterizations that have tenuous relationships to actual canon. It's nice that people have the creativity to make their own AUs, but I also want to read about the actual continuity in question and not someone's mishmash of it.

Like UGH when I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to see cop Orion not archivist or dockworker Orion. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to read about the Senate led by Proteus and the reigns of Nova/Nominus/Sentinel/Zeta, not about the Council from TFP. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 MegOP I want Orion being a simp for Megatron after reading his stuff/meeting him one (1) time sdkflsdkf not yet another iteration of the tired "one day an archivist and a gladiator became great friends! then they broke up."

It's not hate for other continuities, I'm just tired of the fact that continuity soup is so prevalent that even when I'm specifically filtering for content of the one continuity I want to read about, the fics I find keep having random shit from other continuities interjected into it. I think each continuity has really interesting takes on lore that have potential to be wholly unique for each one, so it's really frustrating when the average fic I can find is just a random mishmash of continuity elements, or more often than not just an IDW knockoff taking place in a separate continuity. Like guys, I'm an IDW stan myself, but wouldn't it be cool if we got more fics that explored ideas that only happen in G1, or only happen in Animated, or Aligned, etc?

Doesn't help that when I AM looking specifically for IDW stuff, most of the content I look at (MOP) does continuity soup for the sake of replacing IDW OP with some sort of aligned/g1 lite OP which makes me salty as hell

22. Popular character you hate?

Drift for sure sdklfsdlk. I mean when I first read about him in the comics (the Drift miniseries) I was like, he's fine I guess he's an action hero whatever. But then literally the more of the comics I read the more his personality and story were just incredibly corny, stereotypical, or boring as hell no matter what writer was controlling him. And he got bounced around between writers a lot, and then even the "main author" people know Drift from (JRO) kept changing his plans for what Drift was supposed to be (and cutting plots related to him) so any hints towards a storyline went nowhere. And then Drift spent basically all of MTMTE gone elsewhere on some exile-adventure, and then during LL he just kind of. Is there, existing.

So like, honestly Drift is a victim of getting bounced back and forth and having his writing changed so often he doesn't reach his full potential, which isn't really "his fault" as a character. It just so happens that I also think the bits of his character that exist are either boring or overhyped or in one case (portrayal of his religion/religious worldbuilding in general) outright offensive. He's basically written like some hippie stereotype with vaguely Asian/Japanese flavoring (the extent of which is basically his name + fighting style) and then he barely like... does anything in the plot? I think he's supposed to be like, ~mysterious and shifty~ but then all of the plotlines that involved him being a secret traitor got cut, so Drift basically just became Weirdly Suspicious For No Reason and his genuine personality/motivations felt indistinguishable from what he was faking and what plots got cut from him. Absolute mess of a character that got almost no payoff for any of the things planned for him, and all that's left is some kooky hippie personality of "hee hoo I believe in auras and mystical vibes and magical colors, also I'm dating an atheist who's openly dismissive of most of my religious beliefs (that I do or don't actually believe in depending on what part of the story I'm in) and this somehow doesn't get in the way of our personal/romantic chemistry

But then the fanbase are basically making him some kind of Gary Stue, obsessed with making headcanons like "Deadlock wrote/edited Megatron's speeches for him too!" and "Drift defected from the Decepticons to try and make a point to Megatron!" and generally trying to make him the Decepticons' Specialest Boy Ever and it's just. Ugh I get that he was under-written in canon, but every bit of fanon I've encountered doesn't make him interesting either. They just kind of make Drift the center of the world where he's actually the coolest, most talented and interesting person ever where other characters owe their accomplishments partially to his influence and I'm just. I don't get it, I don't understand the appeal of fanon and I don't even understand the appeal of canon either. I think part of it is for representation reasons (e.g. Asian, lower class, former drug addict) and it's nice that people can pull something meaningful out of the mess that is canon. It's just for me, canon Drift is so mediocre I don't get why anyone would even WANT him as representation sdlkfjsdlkf. I guess fixing what the writers failed to explore the potential of is an understandable motivation though.

[otakween]

Digimon Girls Festival (Image Songs)

It's been awhile since I've done a post about "audio-only" Digimon media. Digimon has so many of these!! If you're curious this site seems like a good place to see all the info about the albums out there. Digimon-Basic is where you're going to want to go if you want to download the albums, but most of them are on YouTube too. I gotta say, this fandom is nothing if not super well documented! I'm impressed.

Loving the cover art for this (why do they all look like they're going to different parties though?) As you can see, this is a collection of image songs for all of the girls from Adventure, 02, and Tamers. No Frontier, unfortunately :'( With most anime, characters get 1-2 image songs, with Digimon they get like 5 for some reason (spread across different albums).

Image Songs

Ruki Makino - My Style (Listen here subbed)

A very fitting song for Ruki in terms of the edgy rock n roll style and her singing about wanting to stay true to herself. I found her singing about wanting wings to be pretty random though. I feel like they just stick that in anime songs cuz it sounds cool lol (I think one or two of the other image songs talked about wanting wings).

Favorite line was "I don't want to imitate anyone, I want to be me." I feel like what Ruki is struggling with is that she does care what people think of her a lot (hence her angsty facade) but really wants to break free of that and be her true self.

The lyrics were kinda poorly translated grammatically, but I've tried to translate Japanese song lyrics before...it's super hard. I feel like some things just end up sounding dumb in English and it might be better to go the localization route instead of direct translation (if this were an official thing).

Miyako Inoue - Yamato Nadeshiko Panic (Listen here subbed)

Damn, it's a good thing I know what a yamato nadeshiko is or else this song would seem pretty weird. The subber decided to translate yamato nadeshiko as "japanese woman" which...sort of makes sense but it leaves out so much context. To be fair...it's a tricky one (as I said in the previous bullet, translaton is hard!)

Anyways, this song wasn't super interesting. It was basically Miyako singing about how she wants to be an elegant, "ideal" woman. Low key trad wife vibes lol Nothing wrong with wanting to be a good wife/partner, it's just not something I relate to 😅

I feel like I never fully got a grasp on Miyako's character. The only thing I remember is that she was a fangirl and kinda boy crazy. There was an episode about how she's really outspoken I think?

Sora Takenouchi - Sky-Blue Wind (Listen here subbed)

It seems like a lot of these songs are about not being honest with yourself. It's all very Japanese lol. Sora is singing about putting on a brave face for the sake of her friends. I guess that's fitting since we did see her run away when she was upset in the anime.

She sings that she "likes her role" as the optimistic one...reminds me of Ted Lasso and Waymond from Everything Everywhere All At Once. I can't tell if this kind of outlook is admirable or deeply unhealthy.

Shaochung Lee - My Future (Listen here subbed)

This one was disappointing because I liked Shaochung. It was a super unimaginative song about Shaochung wanting to grow up. Like...I guess that makes sense, but it's a very obvious and lazy choice (with her being the youngest). Maybe she could have sung about her relationship with her brother or Lopmon/Terriermon?

I did think the "I can't see the after-10pm world" line was pretty cute/clever

Hikari Yagami - Reflection (Listen here subbed)

According to fandom wikis, this is a response to the Takeru song Focus which I wrote about here. I still feel weird about these two songs. Why would they depict Takeru and Hikari as a couple when that wasn't in the source material (imo)? I don't remember the 02 epilogue saying anything about them being together! Maybe the image songs aren't canon lol

There's something funny about Hikari calling Takeru's eyes beautiful when I just picture them as generic anime eyes. I guess blue eyes would be something to sing about in Japan. (I actually think Hikari's light brown eyes are prettier).

Juri Katou - The Color of Someday (Listen here subbed)

Sheeesh this one was dark (I mean...to be expected). It sounded to me like Juri was singing about being depressed and anxious, unsure how to live a "normal" life. The color in the title refers to that "normal" future that she wants to achieve.

A lot of the song seemed to be about masking and being afraid to show any vulnerabilities to the world. She also says she doesn't understand what love is or how to love (probably cuz of her crappy parents).

Looking back on it, I kinda wish they had foreshadowed Juri's darker side better in Tamers. She started out as such a goofy, comic relief character that her breakdown felt less real to me (also, I cared less because my brain had already categorized her as "generic background comic relief girl."). If they had shown a tiny hint of a crack in her facade sooner, it probably would have made her more interesting.

Good morning/Goodnight Calls

(These should be easy to find, they're in the same playlist as the videos above)

I don't really know what the point of these are, going to be honest. The album contains random voice lines (around 20 seconds each) of the girls saying good morning and goodnight. It reminds me of those Vtuber voice packs. Personally, I'm a big fan of Japanese oddities like this, but they seem very niche.

I thought the appeal would be to pretend that the characters are talking to me, but in the first voice clip Ruki is addressing her grandma...guess I could pretend to be her grandma lmao

Okay, Sora's wake up/goodnight call literally sounds like waifu bait (very breathy)...which is strange considering she's an elementary schooler. Who was this made for?

Some of these would make decent alarm sounds, if you're into that sorta thing. I think it would get very annoying very fast to have an anime girl yelling at me first thing haha

Sora and Miyako's were so vague and general that they could have been from any series. No mention of digimon or anything like that.

Why is Mimi showing up now but didn't get an image song? Wasn't she the singer of the group!? (Her voice lines were very shrill, my ears are bleeding lol)

Hearing cheerful!Juri after listening to her song feels...uncomfortable

I wonder if these were just improv'd on the spot. I want more backstory.

[thefudge]

i need thoughts on saltburn -- even if you didn't like it!!! <3

sorry for taking so long to answer this, but i only finally watched the movie this week. i kind of wanted the hype and polarization to die down a bit so i could form my own opinion.

so, i enjoyed it! it has issues, but it was a fun and clever romp. any movie that ends with a "murder on the dancefloor" dance sequence will earn a smile from me because that is one of my favorite songs of all time and i don't know how emerald fennell knew that about me, but there were constant little moments in the script that made me go "ahh, we'd be friends in real life". i felt that way about promising young woman too, even if i ultimately disagreed with quite a few of her creative choices there. but her style & humor and the way she frames sexual content is similar to my own palate/writing. i especially appreciate the way she makes arousal and desire interesting, how she explores abjection but also intellectual stimulation. what makes the character of oliver irresistible to the entire household in the film is the way he can tap into people's desires in a very unexpected and creative way. he constantly surprises them by giving them what they didn't know they wanted. it's interesting that, from oliver's skewed perspective, it's felix who is supposed to be the object of desire, the person everyone wants to be around. but we the viewers can see oliver is the true loathsome subject and object of desire for those around him (and for the audience too, as we sort of can't look away from him).

i agree with people who say felix cared more about oliver than the reverse. in fact, the cleverest thing this movie does, imo, is show that oliver could be happy, but actively chooses not to. this isn't to say the posh oxbridge types fennell makes fun of in this movie do not ring true or that the social satire and snobbery isn't accurate. but it's more that oliver doesn't need to fall into their sphere of influence, doesn't need to measure himself using their standards. yes, the environment is classist and unfair, there are big structural issues that oliver cannot control, but oxford doesn't have to be his whole life, it's only a couple of years. the fact that he is there already gives him a leg up in the world. given his smarts and his magnetism, oliver could have done very well for himself after university without needing to latch onto saltburn. the clever twist for me is that oliver is also privileged, and not just because we see he's comfortably middle-class with a supportive family, but because he has options, he has choices, but he actively chooses to be miserable and hateful, because he hates and looks down on the ppl around him. yes, the saltburn entourage is filled with bitter, toxic people, but some of those people would've probably done anything for him, and would have genuinely loved him. but the truth at the core of oliver is that he prefers a room to be empty, he prefers to have saltburn all to himself as this pure luxurious space that is devoid of humanity.

at the end, oliver is both wonderfully effective and deeply unimaginative. don't get me wrong, i really liked his character and the gremlin freak energy he conveyed, i rooted for him along the way, i mean barry keoghan plays it too well not to, but despite his victory dance at the end, it's sort of drab that oliver's greatest achievement is saltburn. despite being the brilliant predator who hunted down all competition, he is not brilliant enough to see his prize is empty. he's not smart enough to see, that at the end of the day, he is just like the cattons. he loves and hates felix because he loves and hates himself. there are many moments in the movie where oliver stares into mirrors or his reflection is doubled in reflective surfaces, and i don't think it's just to signal his duplicity or multiplicity, but rather the fact that....it's all olivers, all the way down. he thinks he's such an outsider, but he is saltburn, he comes to embody it physically in the very last dance. and even his predatory cleverness is overrated; most of the cattons fall easily, they want to go, there's an emptiness at the heart of their lives and at the heart of saltburn that oliver wants to embrace.

and i do think that emerald fennell had some of this in mind; i don't think my interpretation is necessarily the right one, but you can see she's doing more with this than directing a satirical romp. i think we're actively invited to see beyond oliver's seduction and into the emptiness of his dreams. that's why some of the deaths in the end come off as slightly ridiculous and excessive, because it's not about his cleverness anymore, he's just the last person left when the party is over. he's still a character you can root for and have fun with (and be drawn to), but the film encourages you to question his narrative from the start, not just his literal narration to rosamund pike, but the overarching idea he has of himself.

anyway, this is all to say, i rather liked it! i didn't love it, but i appreciate what it was trying to do, and i think it's more clever in that regard than people give it credit for. i do think it's a more mature effort than promising young woman. i am kind of hoping emerald directs a nonconventional romcom next, because i like her approach to certain intimate moments, mixing tenderness with violence. i'd love to see a punch-drunk love-esque love story from her.

(i do also want to give props to barry keoghan again, because i think the movie wouldn't work half as well without him. he elevates a lot of moments and he is so compelling to watch)

[runawaymun]

*kicks down the door* So. Green haired medic with white Serpent. Lovely. Does he have a leitmotif? Is it as pretty as he deserves? (I know two (2) things about Genshin and that is a) that it has good music and b) there is allegdely a ship called Chili???) Also please, feel free to rant about him, I enjoy watching developing cases of ambulant blorboitis. *Puts door back on its hinges*

AHHHHHHH

Thank you so much for this ask!! The music in Genshin Impact really is something else.

So he DOES have a theme: “Curing the Root Cause” and it’s fucking gorgeous and has one of the best beat drops in the entire OST imo.

Also if you’d like to see him in action with his theme as the backdrop, his character trailer is so well made and it’s only three minutes long and it gives huge context to the emotional beats in his theme. It’s just so good.

Re, ranting about Baizhu as a character let me just explain the most crucial thing about him: he is chronically, terminally ill. Why? Because he signed a contract with a minor god (Changsheng, the white snake you always see him with) many years ago, passed on to him by his teacher, that allows him to heal any ailment at the cost of his own life. The more people he saves, the sicker he gets. The game tells us that he has days where he can’t even get out of bed because of how much pain he’s in. Yet somehow whenever he’s seeing patients he’s cheerful and kind to the point that everybody loves him, and he has never turned away a patient, no matter who they are or how much money they do or do not have.

Beyond that, Baizhu is looking for a way to end the contract. One way or another, he is determined for it to end with him. His life mission is to find a way to gain immortality purely so that he can continue healing people. That won’t fix his illness, and he will still be bound by his contract. He’s stuck that way forever. He just wants to make sure that a) the contract never passes to someone else, and b) he can continue saving lives forever, no matter the cost.

The line from his character demo spoken by Dainsleif (another major character), haunts me. “People chase immortality for countless reasons, most of them selfish in nature, but Baizhu defies the norm. I know of no one else who yearns for eternal life as a means to endure limitless suffering.”

I’m just…….. I’m…..

The kids in Liyue call him “Mr. Bai.”

He’s not perfect. He has his own selfish reasons for doing some things, but he’s honest about it. He just gives and gives and gives and it’s not exactly healthy, but that’s part of what makes him so compelling to me. His selflessness is both his greatest strength and his fatal (literally) flaw. It will kill him, except that he is determined to upend the laws of the universe so that he can be the caretaker of all the lives in Liyue (and really, Teyvat— because now people come from all over the world to get help, and he always helps them, he barely charges a dime for special cases, too…). And he knows it’s impossible. He knows that more than likely, he’ll die. But he’s so goddamned stubborn that he’s still trying against all odds to find a way.

And alongside that, he keeps healing people, even though it means he is going to endure even more unimaginable pain, because that’s just who Baizhu is.

[gretchensinister]

Babylon 5 rewatch, S1 E1: Midnight on the Firing Line

This truly was formative, my base for solving the FTL problem is jumpgates.

Landoooooo

VIR

I don't remember the little Centauri fangs--I wonder if that was kept for later episodes

Okay okay okay. They made FIVE of these Babylon stations in TEN YEARS after the Earth-Minbari war. (Despite 4 of them being destroyed/disappearing in mysterious circumstances) The political will! The logistics! THIS IS A UTOPIA

The city I live in has approximately the same population as Babylon 5 which was always useful for me in terms of envisioning scale

Deleeeennnnn (spelling???)

G'Kaaaaaaar

Oh Sinclair you military head

Chin joke=bad

Now, I do think it's possible that an ambassador might not know about an attack, official or unofficial, but I'm not involved in politics

Spoo in the first episode

I love G'Kar's outfit.

I know the first episode doesn't get into the greater history but the Narn can do WHATEVER THEY WANT to the Centauri for real IMO.

I wonder how many details were planned out in advance re: the dream.

I'm so irritated ooh your nephew cool cool cool IT'S UNIMAGINABLE what the Centauri did to the Narn, it was NOT equal.

It's so fun to see the 90s influence even in the attempt to design a futuristic space

KOSH MY BELOVED

KOOOOOOOSH

I want to make that costume so bad I want to have that cosplay I just don't know hoooooooow

Vir what was the job description when you applied because I'm 100% sure it didn't account for this *gestures vaguely at everything*

Garibaldi don't do that

Of course they'll sell to anyone I bet Narn doesn't HAVE ANY MONEY after what the Centauri did, they're DESPERATE

It's very funny to see G'Kar and Sinclair before their character development/all the crazy shit that happens to them

Man I'm not paying much attention to the raiders; I don't think they end up continually important after this episode

Imagine putting on full face alien makeup for essentially an extra role

Oh so since the Centauri have had Ragesh 3 for a century they should just keep it now???? This situation sucks on all levels

The spaceships look fine when you watch them on a small screen like the 90s intended

So from this we can learn: 1) Ambassadors aren't supposed to have guns on Babylon 5 2) they will make sure to have a gun anyway

Sinclair you may be right and the Narn may be wrong in this case but I want to slap that smug look off Sinclair's face so bad

I didn't realize that we got Ivanova's backstory in the first episode

LMAO I want to know Delenn's thought process accepting Garibaldi's invitation. Love her being like "hmmm" about popcorn! Also okay this makes Garibaldi a sort of different guy than maybe the impression was supposed to be. Like in 1993 the Looney Tunes were ~40-year-old cartoons, and in the early 2000s they still aired on Cartoon Network. A guy who's into 40 year old stuff is like a regular nostalgic guy. Garibaldi's character, however, is into 300 YEAR OLD MEDIA. 300 YEAR OLD HUMOR is his (second) favorite thing in the whole world. That's a completely different kind of guy. Imagine a guy today obsessed with stuff from the 1720s. That's a completely different kind of weirdo.

"preserving Earth cultures in the face of non-Terran influences" warning, warning, danger will robinson! (and it's intended to alarm the audience, I know this)

[blondiest]

HI so there's this common trope? belief? both in sci fi and irl exobiology that goes along the lines of "if there are aliens with an advanced civilization, their math would be the same as our math as it would be based on the same principles of reality" that is very hard for me to wrap my head around. similar to the more basic "why must life be made of carbon? why not like, idk, silicone?" (which my understanding is that carbon is just the one that is easiest to find/recognize as life, not that scientists are unimaginative). anyway as a mathematician and person who works at [REDACTED idk if that's common knowledge around here] do you have any insights 🎤 why can't aliens interpret the principles of time and space with a different language than numbers? please my whole family is dying. ok bye <3

hi omg. excellent question. i have both good news and bad news! the good news is that you are far from the only person who feels ill at ease with the idea that mathematics is 100% innate / inherent-- the bad news is that, despite being a long-running debate within mathematics, we actually don't have a very satisfying or solid answer for whether math is discovered or invented. this link has like a brief explanation of the debate, i'm surprisingly kind of struggling to come up with good online sources for more info on this -- but this at least covers what the three basic attitudes on the matter are!

i honestly don't think i have any really solid insights into this one, because i can see merits to several arguments and sort of feel like the truth has GOT to be a mixture of things, but i'm also aware that's a non-answer. i'm going to say my gut instinct is that, because mathematics is so fundamental to the way we explain and understand the world around us, it's very challenging to imagine another framework for explaining and understanding the universe, but that does not necessarily mean that it really is innate / inherent imo.

it's been a while since i read it, but i actually want to recommend the sci-fi novel project hail mary, because i believe this comes up at least in passing, and in a way i seem to remember finding interesting! it's also surprisingly solid at depicting the minutiae of planning involved in the quest for scientific discovery / achievement, which is overall not so important to sci-fi but which i personally enjoyed reading :D

[also re: silicon!! i thiiiink the reason people ask this is because silicon can hypothetically form the same number of covalent bonds as carbon does, meaning it makes for a somewhat chemically similar base atom for life. i think whether or not it's worth searching for silicon-based life depends on what your views are on the origin of life in the universe & whether you believe it likely that silicon-based life forms have independently evolved -- my own instinct is that this isn't impossible, but if it's happened, it doesn't seem likely to be found within our solar system, so perhaps not worth investigating until we're less ass at interstellar travel T__T you're absolutely right that we have much more sophisticated / reliable means of looking for carbon in terms of scientific instrumentation, so far as i'm aware -- i'm actually not 100% sure if that's due to some inherent quality of carbon, or (far more likely) because of the heavy focus on carbon detection since that's the basis for life on earth. sorry this isn't actually related i just have more actual insight on this one ahgdsjsdg]

[moreworldliness]

so i came across a sonic mod/exe/thing called "sink" and it got me thinking

when people try to make sonic "scary", they never really do it for me because they try to ground it too much in reality:

"oh, sonic's in the real world and is trying to kill me!"

"oh, my game is corrupted"

imo, they're not coming at it from a game angle - they're too focused on outside looking in, rather than inside looking out.

for example, a popular fandom question - why is sonic afraid of water?

if you were on the outside looking it, you could probably shrug and say "well, they needed some kind of weakness gameplay-wise and the creators didn't think hedgehogs could swim. that's that."

inside looking out, however? consider!

MAJOR WARNING FOR DROWNING BELOW THE BREAK

you're sonic the hedgehog.

at the time of the classic games, which to you are your entire life, you're 12 with miles prower (your newly acquired and handy buddy) sitting at a clean 4 years old. sometimes it crosses your mind that he might be too young for this, but time and time again, he's put your worries to rest.

you're proud of him. he's smart and you're quick - you're the perfect duo.

you must've run hours before you enter into chemical plant zone and make your way through the lower path. its been a fairly standard journey up until this point and you're not about to be intimidated by some overgrown factory. (do factories even grow? you decide to ask miles later)

at this point, you're more than aware of how your life works. it's okay if you get hurt, because you have rings. it's okay if you "pass out", because you always wake up at the start of the area you were just in, with everything just as it was.

not to brag, but you happened to think you were pretty indestructible.

falling and rolling down unimaginable stretches of pipes, you and miles finally reach a new area: a hydraulic door opens in front of you, revealing a long chute upwards. cut and dry - you turn towards miles to grab his hand.

the door shuts behind you and, as quick as you can hold your breath, you're plunged under purple water.

miles - you've grown to calling him tails, because it's easier to say; you're still twelve, after all - begins paddling upwards with ease, but you find yourself horrifyingly heavy in the water. it grabs you, pulls you downwards, thousands of arms pinning your every movement.

you jump, and hit the first platform.

you kind of regret not learning how to swim.

tails has paddled so far upwards that you can't see him anymore - not through the sludge of this water, anyway. it seems to be getting heavier too, dragging your movements as you scramble to reach the second platform.

your hands miss.

your feet fail.

you fall back down.

you become consciously aware of how tight your chest is.

you keep trying, to the same result; jump, fall. jump, fall. you aren't sure how much longer you can hold your breath, either, and the hydraulic doors are shut fast - you can't even budge them.

you've tried.

you can just about imagine tails in your mind's eye as you try the platform again, scrambling around in a panic. he's four, in a mechanised factory with no way out, suddenly all on his own. the thought alone propels you forward, and you land a grip on the platform above you.

a foothold. something - there's gotta be some way out of this.

you glance up.

the clearance of the ceiling above you is still high, but for a brief second, you can see the lights of the level above you. you can see the wavering figure of tails, looking in from above, his two tails flickering around.

he looks nervous.

you can't help but laugh in relief - he's okay.

your mistake hits you all at once.

there is no air. the crushing weight of the water bears downwards, and you drop like a stone. there are no chaos emeralds, there is no life-saving device here. just water, yourself, and your own stupid reflection.

the "passing out" feeling begins sweeping over you, and just before you shut your eyes, you recount every last feeling you've ever felt - that time you dropped from spring yard zone and hit the ground a bit too hard, or the time the walls of marble zone came in faster than anticipated.

the time robotnik (eggman, you teased, once upon a time) hit you a bit too hard.

you're dying.

you're dying over and over again, and this time the only exception is that you're made to feel it.

you want to cry.

you can't.

the water cries for you.

you blink, and you're right back at the beginning of chemical plant zone. the sky is clear, the sun is warm; the wind blows through you.

tails looks up at you, waving his hand in front of your eyes to get your attention. he looks just as expectantly nervous as he did before you entered.

he asks if you're ready.

you can't make yourself move. all you can do is drop to your knees and cry.

you heave a breath of air, but all you can taste is water.

[milogreer]

blake 🤗

rubs hands together like a supervillain. ↳ send me a character!

My first impression: BASTARD. i’ll kill you. get away from sunshine and bestie or i swear to god i’ll gut you like a fish you FREAK. etc LMAO i remember first listening to his confession audio and going to courtney like “he has been talking my fucking ear off for what feels like three hours!!!” 😭😭 he somehow managed to ride the line of annoying dickhead and actually scary villain and i absolutely couldn't stand him

My impression now: oh my god i have not been this brand of obsessed with a character in years. like. he is in my head CONSTANTLY, i’ve listened to the balance three times and i’m considering a fourth, i have at least two more rambles about him/bestie to post, he’s got the longest playlist out of all my redacted playlists. if he had merch i think i’d go broke. it’s brutal man i want him back so badly. i miss that freak.

A favorite thing: the devotion !!!! say what you will about his methods and i’ll likely agree with you but oh my god his devotion … to see the person you love the most die in your arms over and over again no matter what you do to change it and be so wrecked by it that you get involved with a cult trying to contact ancient gods for just the CHANCE to maybe save them. doing unimaginable things in your pursuit to keep them safe. to be so obsessively in love that it makes you delusionally cocky enough to look the god who just said they shaped your reality in the face and say “i’ll do whatever you need, as long as you save my love.” he's CRAZY

Least favorite thing: he is so fucking stupid LMFAO. like it’s a fantastic character trait to be so blinded to reality because he’s got tunnel vision but you can’t help but be like what the FUCK are you DOING when he does shit like dropping the ward to kill himself via shade so he can do exactly what brachium said not to. truly the guy in a horror movie you yell at for doing something so inconceivably stupid to push the plot forward and i wanna strangle him for it sometimes

Favorite line/scene: sigh … the last scene in “falling for your yandere childhood friend” … the switch on “i won’t be able to give you space” ?? COME ON. it made me sick on my first listen but now it makes me sick in the opposite direction 🫣 ughhh that scene is just so good because it’s really easy imo to go through this audio out of context of the balance overall and trick yourself into thinking like, oh, he’s just kind of a guy. aww. and then it switches and it’s like HUH?? “the things i think about you, how much i want you, it’s the stuff you’re not supposed to say out loud” + “if you pick this, it’ll be all of me - and we both know a lot of that’s not pretty” ?? oh it is so delicious.

Favorite interaction that character has with another: :modcheck: “looking for answers with your dreamwalker boyfriend” when he comes in to talk to elliott and sunshine 😫 i’m such a sucker for condescension and it just oozes out of him here. the patronizing little hums after “can i call you eli?” and “that deathwalker friend of yours really left you out to dry, huh?” and “but don’t worry. i’m sure he’s very proud of you.” >>>

A character that I wish that character would interact with more: I WANTED BRACHIUM TO BEAT HIM UP i’m so disappointed he didn’t get to feel brachium’s wrath bc he deserved to after putting sunshine and elliott through all that bullshit. i hope they face off again eventually somehow

A headcanon: when he turned 18 him and bestie went and got little tattoos out of one of those roulette/mystery egg machines. i haven’t decided what they got or where yet though because i’m too indecisive! he also has a snake tattoo like this :)

A song: I HAVE SO MANY. but the one that kicked off my blake obsession is explode by mother mother so it’ll always be one of the most important ones 💘

An unpopular opinion: kind of suggestive so i won’t Get Into It but i don’t think he’s as dominant as perhaps he would seem to be … i’ve been really back and forth on this though so don’t quote me here

[angstycrow-chan]

Rant (again)

Don't wanna sound edgy or cringe but I just don't seem to understand power scalers, bc they just put characters to battle with each other bc they're so evil or smart, I would enjoy this content...

If it explains why said character would win.

One example of this is Danganronpa, specifically characters like junko enoshima and izuru Kamakura (bonus for kanade otonokoji in the Danganronpa fan games) I just plainly don't understand why they would win, sure they're Overpowered characters but to say that they'll win against anyone is kind of a stretch itself. I've been in the Danganronpa community before and all the characters I mention imo were pretty mediocre.

I get it, Kanade manipulated her sister and can do anything perfectly on the first try, junko also did that but caused a apocalypse, and izuru is pErFecT hUmAn. But in the short context, all the creators did was say "oH lOok, jUnkO dId thE moSt eViL sHit eVer" or "lOok hOw oP KanAdE iS"

The glaze for Overpowered characters is unimaginable, if you want to make a Overpowered character, at least show how Overpowered their skills are WITHOUT glazing them and tell the audience how powerful they are, this doesn't just apply to Danganronpa characters but ALL characters.

I'm just out of my mind but glazing OP characters just because they're evil and a genius is fucking annoying

[tacticalfiend]

okay so I have one more ep left to watch of the Fallout tv series and while my opinion of the show has improved somewhat, I still think it's pretty mediocre.

I see a lot of people reeeaaally love Cooper, seen many people say he "steals the show," but he is easily my least favorite part of this series. Usually his character archetype is one I really like, but in Cooper's case he's missing a certain something. Not quite sure what it is yet. I also am really bothered by the new ghoul serum thing. The concept on it's own is fine I guess, but I can't help but wonder how this serum is being manufactured. What is it made out of? Who's manufacturing it? It seems like some ghouls need quite a lot of it to prevent themselves from going feral, but considering how persecuted and feared ghouls are I struggle to see WHO would be willing to do this besides a good samaritan or another ghoul. However, ep 4 seemed to suggest this whole serum business is a business. Like these two random humans just run this supposedly profitable business selling serum to ghouls, which is weird to me. I just don't buy that this would actually make them bank or be sustainable (literally see NO OTHER GHOULS until ep 4!?!?!). I will acknowledge this is something that won't bother someone who isn't a world building/lore obsessed pervert like myself. My questions may also be answered in the next season or whatever too, I'm simply not sure they will be able to provide an explanation I'll find satisfactory.

I also do not have much to say about Lucy or Maximus. Both of them had similar issues to Cooper for me. I see the foundation for good, fun characters, but they fall short of really sticking the landing. I like Lucy the most out of the three of them, I think. Part of what holds Maximus back for me does have to do with the BoS though. I am... not a fan of the direction they took in this show. They seem so interchangeable with every other like overly militaristic, power hungry faction in any other story that has one. They kinda remind me of ceasar's legion, but lacking the way they neatly fit into FONV's overarching themes (desire to return/inability to move on from an idyllic past). The BoS were interesting in Fallout 1 and New Vegas because they weren't just the obvious "bad guys" or whatever. They were kind of mysterious in Fallout 1 initially. They were a little weird, isolationist, and ultimately rather selfish and distrustful of humanity. While they were very effective fighters, they weren't really militaristic... atleast not from what I remember. They weren't "the good guys," but they weren't villains either. Regardless of what you, the player, felt about them they were at least interesting and memorable. The version we get from the TV series is so fucking passe imo. So forgettable, so unimaginative, and it naturally rubs off on Maximus. It makes him less interesting by extension. It would have been cool to see a version of Maximus that did grow up in a BoS more akin to what we see in Fallout 1 and New Vegas. It would give a point of commonality between Lucy and him as well. Both being out of touch with the wasteland due to their isolated upbringings, but in different ways/varying degrees.

Speaking of the wasteland, it feels so empty. Maybe "compartmentalized" is the better word, though, none of the locations we visit feel interconnected. Funnily enough, it feels very "video gamey," like we're going from one hub/level to the next rather than exploring a vast wasteland. I think this problem stands out for me so much because I am not particularly invested in any of the characters, and by extension the narrative, so everything surrounding them just becomes even more distracting. idk, this post is getting way too long. I have a lot of other thoughts I'll probably share later. Need to watch the last ep too.

[peronasghosts]

I would LOVE to hear the zoro lecture

zoro lecture!! not three hours long bc i value my time & sanity but it is unplanned 👍 like all of the posts here at transdykezoro

actual ramble is under the readmore. bc it got LONG.

ok so zoro is fascinating as a character to me bc he’s got three main factors directing his behavior: his grief and subsequent extreme loneliness, his refusal to ever be the weakest person in any given place, and his pattern of being incredibly devoted. take into consideration i am only just finishing skypeia

his grief and loneliness are fairly easy to spot. it’s the root of his dream, and why he follows luffy in the first place. however!! it also shows up in other places.

the first example that i can think of is when nami went back to arlong park. luffy is certain that she’ll come back with them, that she wants to be with them.

zoro isn’t.

zoro consistently casts doubt on luffy’s confidence, and switches from liking and being friendly with nami to acting like he hates her.

you might be asking how this connects to his grief and loneliness. it does, albeit in a roundabout way.

don’t take this next section as fact, because i’m a teenager and not a psychologist. but judging from how zoro was a kid when kuina died (and he was already an orphan), and a young teenager when he started bounty hunting, he’s definitely traumatized. and his particular trauma is caused by his grief.

grief, especially when the death happens when you’re a kid, changes the way you see the world and how you see other people. based on his past, i’d say that zoro probably made that huge switch with nami partially because of her betrayal (sadness can appear like anger, but he still didn’t trust her as much after as far as i remember) and partially because he has a history of losing people. at least subconsciously, her betrayal made more sense than her coming back.

the next instance in which his grief shows up is when robin first joins the crew. nobody really trusts her (for good reason imo) but zoro is the one who goes on record multiple times (in the manga) in saying that he’s keeping an eye on her and will fight her if she tries to betray them.

but he trusted luffy instantly! so what’s the difference here?

the one that i see is that while robin made her first impression as a mysterious, cunning enemy, luffy’s first impression was him being dumb, annoying, and brave as hell. and also - luffy found zoro at a moment where zoro was unimaginably lonely. he’s not with johnny and yosaku, and seemingly hasn’t been for a while. he’s been traveling around east blue for a while mostly on his own, following the traumatic deaths of three people close to him.

yes, luffy technically blackmailed him, but zoro was kind of in a place where he’d take any chance that still allowed him to follow his dream. luffy understood that, and accommodated that. because he’s luffy

robin came in as an enemy and an ally to someone who mocked and almost killed luffy. and, importantly, she came in when zoro was experiencing something he hadn’t in a while - a stable, committed friend/family group

trauma also makes people hypervigilant. hyperviligance is when you’re basically always in some level of survivor mode. zoro’s in the grand line, a place he can’t survive in without his crew, and his emotional survival depends on his crew’s (mainly luffy’s) survival. robin is a threat to that. of course zoro trusts her the least

going onto the second motivation. it actually stems from the first one in that it’s rooted in his promise to kuina, but that’s normal for zoro.

zoro needs to be the strongest, or on par with the strongest, in any given situation he’s in. this changes a bit with luffy’s protagonist-ness but i think that zoro perceives himself as only a slightly worse fighter than luffy. and he’s fine with that bc it’s luffy.

in my opinion, it’s because zoro thinks that if he can’t win against someone who’s not a swordsman, how versatile is he? and if he loses to a swordsman, then he’s not on track to being the best, and then he’s not keeping his promise to kuina, which is i think his way of keeping her in his life

this factor in his behavior doesn’t stop when he’s not fighting, it’s spread to other parts of his life. i think that’s because zoro’s had a very unstable life so far, and so he controls what he can to make it more stable for him.

a side effect of all of this is that zoro seems incredibly masculine (in the traditional sense that i grew up with. i’m a white usamerican btw). this has inspired admiration and envy of some male fans. but also a not small amount of lesbians love zoro, and relate their experiences to him (like me) (from what i can tell).

i think you can kind of compare zoro to sanji and find out why. sanji’s masculinity, to me, seems incredibly performative. he’s in love with every girl he sees, he’s the one that’ll protect them, he wears a full suit on a tiny ship, but that’s not who he is when no one’s watching imo. sanji’s masculinity seems externally motivated.

zoro’s masculinity is rooted in his promise to a female friend he had when he was young. it’s incidental. his hair is short because it’s economical and easier and he’s muscular because he needs to be strong and likes being strong. it’s an internally motivated behavior, and seems like he’s just being himself. i think that that idea is very relatable to a lot of queer people and aspirational to a lot of cis guys (although maybe i’m giving some of them too much credit)

the third and final driving factor of zoro’s behavior is his loyalty. he’s perpetually loyal to kuina, and has been for about a decade. he changed his life for her when he was a preteen. that’s loyalty.

but now, he’s also intensely loyal to luffy. his loyalty to luffy and his loyalty to kuina sometimes come into conflict, but that hasn’t had a big impact yet, but i am excited for that possibility

[angstics]

if we are talking about who i think we are re: the microcelebrity thing, i think the way people either loved her and agreed with everything she posted or found her posts weird/distasteful formed some kind of life or death us vs them mentality about following or not following a certain tumblr user. combined with him being the face of the "gender wars" made it feel like people could attack/support him and be attacking/supporting a side in the "gender wars" (calling Any discussion a war is so unimaginably fucking stupid and imo the fact that people called it that actually made everything worse in itself because it absolved them of thinking about why people had differing opinions from them by assigning them a "pro-gender" or "anti-gender" laser tag team color. i swear to god that term is just some kind of double reverse hyper strawman to invoke when losing the idgaf war).

like, search his username on twitter. among other criticism posts there's someone who got suicide baiting anons after posting about her negatively, which obviously has nothing to do with her personally but does speak to the fandom atmosphere at the height of it all. around that same time i saw a recommended post with someone being genuinely cruel making fun of Other Trans People for discomfort with she/her pronouns and etc for gerard

disclaimer i am unlabeled gnc. her posts and all posts of that genre make me extremely uncomfortable, but people can obviously do whatever they want. i'm not trying to "support" one "side" or the other, i'm just trying to share the perspective people got when they didn't follow him or people who reblogged from him, so i hope this is phrased alright!

thank you for this!!! valuable insight phrased well. i failed to consider the nonsense drama that people involved her in, which heightened the parasocial relationships (both negative and positive). forgot about it bc i wasnt part of said drama. i just agreed with some stuff he said and disagreed with other stuff. diff tastes of queer joy. whateva 🤷 i mostly enjoyed her posting, so it’s “funny” to know even those who didnt want to see it had to go thru it. classic celebritydom. my mental health -> pedro pascal fandom

[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

[ssaalexblake]

idk, i’m having a genuinely problem trying to describe my STP annoyance bc It entails context for me, I think it’s fanfic-y (derogatory), but not in a way where i think anything bad about fic itself. I strongly support the rights of everybody to write good fic, bad fic, fucked up fic, ooc fic, fic with the tropes i hate the very most, weird fic, any kind of fic you could name (just don’t expect me to read it), but So much of that stuff Belongs in the world of fic and shouldn’t leave it. 

While i’d roll my eyes at a fic including all these tired, overdone, and more than a lot sexist tropes, i’d just scroll and move on. Have fun with it, I guess! I don’t approve, but this isn’t about me and isn’t hurting anybody. 

But this is like, the actual show. If the show was going to have a plot straight out of a fanfic it damn well better have been a Good fic. The kind that respects the women there and doesn’t revolve them around the men to help Them develop. The kind where the writer did a ton of research of what happened in the shows before. The kind where the plot is natural for the characters rather than a plot where most of the characters are bent into place to make it work despite how much of a mess that is. 

Mostly, if i saw a fic where beverly and picard had a secret love child she hid from him for 20+ years whom she’d named Jack i’d be like ‘wow that is So fanfic’ and never remember it again for how cookie cutter and unimaginative that is. I literally have no issues over this guy’s fic. Aside from the fact that it’s not fic, it got shoehorned into canon despite it Not Fitting The Show It’s In. They had to ditch the show’s cast to make this work. That’s how much it doesn’t fit in this show. That stuff doesn’t matter in fic! That’s what fic is For. This isn’t fic. 

This is just many negative things stacked up in a trench coat. It’s 2023, I expect Far better than this as the bare minimum from tv in general and i hold trek to a higher standard than that because the whole point of trek is that it holds itself to a higher standard, or i guess, that it is committed to Trying even when it doesn’t succeed. I don’t care that the plot is objectively shit, tbh, i didn’t much like the plot of s1 either and it didn’t bother me, it’s that they’ve Truly bought the 80s attitude from tng back when in the first two seasons this wasn’t the case. I may not agree with all the character choices in the first two seasons, but it was new, they were trying even when they weren’t succeeding, and it wasn’t This. 

I don’t hold by ‘not real trek’ arguments bc it’s so subjective and kind of absurd imo, but i do not think this season of the show is trying to do much of anything at all. I can make a crack at a few themes, but when i start to get into it it falls apart because it Always ends up back at one thing. Nostalgia. A good story choice totally ignored because if they do ignore it they can have a dramatic shot of one of the tng crew with a tear in their eye. Trek imo, is about many things, but not looking backwards, never That. Not without them trying to make a really good point from it, anyway. 

[bigger-rat]

(Pls don’t put this in the f.hr tags cause I don’t want to bring up bad memories for ppl) but I remember when things were imploding and that one group (you know the one) literally scrambling for things to make the game problematic to cover up the fact that they were just angry that the author wouldn’t cater to them and agree with their bullshit shipping discourse (they’re all self proclaimed ‘antis’ whatever that means and the author didn’t understand what that was and when the author didn’t blindly agree with it and take a position in the bullshit shipping discourse they all turned on them, they might try to cover and say that they don’t like the game or creator anymore for a different reason that doesn’t sound as stupid but THATs literally the base of why the fandom implosion happened. Because of bullshit shipping discourse agshjd)

BUT anyway the funniest thing they tried to claim was that sidestep, the 30 year old MC, was grooming Herald… a 25 year old man going on 26. Do you remember that?? Am I going crazy?? They definitely tried to claim that aghdjd god I’m dying laughing right now while remembering this. They were so desperate

I won’t lie I am forever bitter at them because they sent the author tons of death threats and hate mail & then acted like the author had some sort of responsibility towards them (the entitlement from them was and still is crazyyy) when the author was also sick w covid and had job and financial insecurity due to covid complications and *god forbid* didn’t want to and probably couldn’t physically handle their fandom wank, and then they acted like the author was the Literal Devil for taking care of themselves

Everything honestly has a silver lining though because the writing quality has just absolutely skyrocketed since the authors time on tumblr, and I feel like without that much needed break that the author took due to all the stress that book 2 wouldn’t have been nearly as good as it is now. The author also appears to be thriving now, which is awesome. Sometimes we need a painful journey to have a happy ending :D

(Sorry to vomit in your inbox like this lmfao)

No lol you're right and you should say it.

What they did to Malin was VILE. They were nothing but kind to the community, they appreciated every piece of fanart people made, were active in the community, they let us play bits of book 2 long before it was out. And these rabid fans literally bullied them out of the fandom.

The author shouldn't have so publicly do things for a specific few friends IMO, not because it's inherently bad but because everyone is insane on this website and that was a ticking time bomb.

And then, god forbid, someone came up with a compelling but problematic sidestep/herald ship (COUGH smute COUGH), and the author liked it, and how DARE they like a problematic relationship in a story about a LITERAL FUCKING VILLAIN. The pearl-clutching is unimaginable.

I don't remember people saying that Herald is being groomed lol but I do remember people going off on power dynamics and how it's an abusive relationship and like. Yes, the romantic relationship in the game where you invade people's minds and also constantly beat your friends/lovers into a bloody pulp are.. a little problematic! Grow the fuck up and go watch steven universe or something.

Imagine reading a book about a literal SUPER VILLAIN and being shocked that they're a bad person who has toxic relationships. Just fucking imagine that. The book in which you routinely kidnap people's bodies without their consent and invade their minds? Problematic?? Wooow.

I'm sad that Malin got chased out of the community but I hope they can sleep better now that they, a 40-50 year old person with a job and a life, don't have to navigate the kindergarten drama of some terminally online zoomers and their shitty shipping fantasies.