#like the game really isnt that bad! from what ive seen so far its pretty enjoyable

[elffees]

im watching a Saints Row (2022) lets play. going into it i was a little nervous because of how controversial it seems to be amongst fans, but honestly? its not bad so far! i like the main group and the concept of them leaving already established gangs to create their own is interesting. the world looks PHENOMENAL like everything is so decorated and detailed, their apartment is gorgeous just... WOW

honestly, i think if they had just advertised this as the start of its own series, and not a Saints Row reboot, a lot more people wouldve shown this game a lot more love.

[the-kipsabian]

Ayo! Greetings! I hope you are doing pretty well! I’m really sorry for asking this as I’m truly in dire need of help. My cat needs some immediate help for her surgery so I’m trying to raise some funds for her. If you have some spare time, please check it out the post that I have pinned for her, and if you feel it in your heart to help, please do us the favor by boosting the post or share it! Even if you cannot donate, spreading the word is definitely more than enough. Thank you for your kindness, and so sorry again for being this direct! <33

//update they blocked me instantly so hey anyone peeping this post or in their url tag just know this is a scam :) stay safe out there kids

you know what i feel in my heart

fuck no 🙏❤

hey kids, lets play a game of spot a scam again!! (im copying the message ive replied with before here and the original is at the bottom if you wish to reblog that one :) just editing this a bit here to show the new stuff they are putting out there in this very message yay!!)

okay this is literally the same story ive seen before at least three times. its word to word the same. youre not even trying

reblogging ONLY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES posts in the past two days so :)

also they try to act more human with a decent description and likes and follows turned off. dont try hun

their only original post as far as i scrolled (which admittedly wasnt very far as its obvious this is a scam lol) is the donation post. unsurprisingly

ive said it before and i’ll say it again - they seem to target people in similar positions that they are supposedly in, trying to pluck that sympathy cord with “your pet is sick so you are sensitive and know how this feels”. this isnt my case rn but i obviously have posted cat photos and i have a donation ko-fi link in my pinned post sssoooo

“pls consider answering this ask privately” lmao so what people dont know youre a scammer? NEXT (this isnt in this ask surprisingly, but im leaving it in here cause they do this occasionally still)

a simple search even within tumblr tells you people already know about this. the account, the story and the cat. you aint fooling anymore

if unsure kids, ask a friend and google things 👍 reverse image search, for example, is your best friend!! also googling the latter half of the given paypal name reveals immediately that this is a scam. plastered all over the first search page lmao

also kids, in case youre asking “well what bad could a one little me reblogging a post even if its a scam do if i dont donate :/” 1. im sorry what and 2. it makes them look legitimate which they are not. the more notes the more trusted the source cause tumblr is full of idiots (sorry not sorry ive been here for over 11 years i know what people are like) plus you put your friends, mutuals and followers in a risk of participating in a scam. and have your name associated with it as well. do i need to go on?

anyways hi go report this blog and always be hesitant if someone you dont know asks you for donations like this. unless its a beloved mutual on your dash, reconsider. stay safe, thanks 💜

looking forward to being blocked immediately after posting this, but i’ll be sure to report you for a scam. :) also fuck you for using someone elses poor cat and their situation to literally scam good natured people out of money, what the fuck is wrong with you

peace and love, fuck you ✌💜

[dykeyote]

for the chnt 'choose violence' ask game :-)

7,8,9,10,21

YIPPEE i love games like this

7: character i hate not bc of canon but bc of how the fandom treats them ..... UP AND ADAM . i actually really liked adam i thought his aesthetic was really fun and i was excited for him but the way he overshadows other characters who are way more promiinent despite having no speaking lines and no personality yet and not having had literally anything to go off annoyed me . give me salem content!!!!!!!! no more of him!!!!!!!!!! ive seen enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (no hate to my adam loving mutuals i dont shut up abt jedidiah and he takes up a lot of space too its just a certain kind of adam fans that grate on me)

8: common fandom opinion everyone is wrong about . taptap . usually how people kind of take away elijahs agency in his own actions? people tend to favor a portrayal of elijah that suggests that while his Actions were bad, his Intent was not bad . that he didnt know what he was doing somehow and was trying to do the right thing . which i think is pretty blatantly disproven by the fact that he was still weird towards sydney before the ritual ever happened and by how malicious his manipulation of sydneys disabilities is but eh . i also find people dont tend to understand what jedidiahs arc as a privileged individual .... Means? (this isnt gonna be femidiah discourse i swear pls pls) which is on two sides of the spectrum theres the spectrum that just decides hes a completely bad person without any rigorous analysis of his character that treat privilege as an unnuanced thing . OR people who refuse to analyze that many Many interactions jedidiah and sydney have automatically have an underlying of ableism to them and that most plot poitns in their arc you can look at and say this is about disability bc they like jedidiah and again, cant see privilege as nuanced, and feel like they hvae to avoid the everpresent fact of his ableism and privilege to be able to like him . both of which come from a lack of understanding of how privilege like . works . ppl struggle to be nuanced about jedidiah i find . and as a whole like to take the characters and decide if theyre good or bad based on how much they like them

9: "worst part of canon ..... oh thats hard i really like chnt its hard to pick out a Worst Part . most of the things i dont like are characters i want to see more of or things that are really well written but that *I* dont like cough cough elijah . hmmmmmm . this is hard . uhhhh . what do i DISLIKE in chnt thats not fanon . like id say i dislike that so far the main antags appear to be both young attractive sexymanny types and i hope they vary that later on? but thats like HEAVILY influenced by how annoyed i am with the treatment of adam and elijah in the fandom so idk how fair of a critique that is and we've also seem so little of adam and the show as a whole that it seems in poor faith to judge him absed on what is about 80% fanon . so my only gripe that i can think of immediately isnt really good media criticism .... maybe ill have more complaints as the show goes on" answer from another post (:(:

10: "worst part of fanon . may be predictable based on the above response but oh my god i hate fanon elijah so much . i HAATEEEE him more than i hate canon elijah and i HATE canon elijah . i hate him!!!!!! i hate him when hes sexyified i hate him when hes goofy and silly i hate him when hes just a little guy i hate him i hate him i hate him!!!!!!!!!!! it takes an incredibly interesting villain who is absolutely vile and it makes him boring as hell!!!!!!!!!!! add that to the fact that fanon elijah overwhelms literally any content for just abt any character you might actually care about especially the women and i am frothing at the mouth" also from another post >:)

21: part i think is overhyped . LET ME CLARIFY THAT I DONT MEAN THAT ITS BAD . i can think something is overrated and still like it . but VERY easily rowaniper..... i love rowaniper i think theyre very cute and all but people seem to forget that they interact in like ..... one episode ......... and its a cute episode!! but people act like theyr The Main Romance or something and its like can we calm down . and i wouldnt even mind so much but people tend to ignore like ...... everything interesting about their relationship? bc to ME . the sweetest thing about rowaniper is how juniper Tries for rowan how he acknowledges his own flaws and how he harms rowan and tries his best to improve tings . but people like to pretend that junipers done nothing wrong ever so you dont even get that most interesting part of their relationsihp </3

[atthebell-moved]

Saw your post about sexism in the fandom made an account just to say that while the hermitcraft/empires community is generally kinder to its female CCs there is a concerning trend towards girlbossification (for lack of a better term) instead of the sister-racist dichotomy you mentioned. Even more noticeably feminine-presenting streamers are given the same sort of boyish appearance you discussed in regards to DSMP women, with the exception of ZombieCleo who has stated that they likes curvier portrayals of themself.

On the bright side, lore by female streamers in the community get far more attention from the community than for the DSMP from what I’ve seen. The amount of appreciation for 5AM Pearl and Cleo’s role in the series is refreshing. Personal bias speaking, but Cleo’s knack for roleplaying really shines in that series. The amount of content for groups or storylines that involve her such as Gaslight/Gatekeep/Girlboss, Fairy Fort, Divorce Quartet and Crastle (+Etho), while still less than that for those that involve more popular male CCs (ex. Team BEST especially BE, Dogwarts, Desert Duo - may be due to season 1 bias), makes me hopeful.

While M/F ships used to overshadow the female CCs themselves in the past (ex. Iskall/Stress, Joe/Cleo), it’s nice to see that female CC’s dynamic with their male counterparts is now treated with more respect (ex. Soup Group appreciation). The community does fixate a lot on M/M ships though.

All that to say, if you’re into dark or dry humor, check out ZombieCleo’s channel and aroaceacacia’s amazing art of her in Last Life. Sorry for the long word salad ask I think? I’m new to this site from Reddit so I don’t know the law of the land.

thanks for sending the hermit side of things! im not super familiar with it but ive seen enough of the fandom on here to suspect that you're right-- i also think hermitblr/hermit enjoyers generally have the benefit that there's more female ccs and less overall fame, so they see more women and have less of the trickle down effect from twitter & the general misogynistic gaming culture.

fanart is a hard one for any fandom because people are really bad at drawing anyone who isnt thin and white and a dude and often refuse to learn; im glad zombiecleo's stuck up for herself and told people off for drawing her skinny.

m/m shipping has always dominated fandom-- from the origins of slash fiction with star trek (yes, fandom pretty much began with star trek. any fic trope you can think of is from star trek) to voltron m/m is across the board more popular for the reasons i listed in my post. people are scared to depict women in genuine romantic and sexual relationships and more than that they often just don't care. glad to hear female ccs arent defined by their shipping dynamics though!

tbh if im ever gonna dip my toes into hc or any of the ccs itll probably be with cleo or pearl, so thank you for the rec! im hoping to watch a bit of empires soon (probably scott and shubble) so if anyone has recs for esmp as well lmk!

[space-payacho]

alright so apparently this has like multiple endings until the next part is released. so far i did two endings. im aware what happens in another ending but im still gonna say that this game isnt as bad as everyone on this website paints it to be. people here really like to clutch on their pearls and dont know how to consume media. i expected something worse in this game but from what ive seen, this is..nothing. the game is pretty edgy for sure but its what you expect from a dark edgy game bruh. i'll try again later to try to get the rest of the endings but overall i like it

ive started to play that problematic game the other day. got pretty far on it but not done with it yet.

its definitely an interesting story but also i can see why the usual side of tumblr would hate it. i personally dont hate it but also *that* ship isn't my cup of tea but whatever

[starfruit-baby]

Detroit Become Human is such a flawed game. I just got done playing it, and in some parts it was downright triggering. But I really like your blog, and a lot of the fandom, that see through the "pacifism is the answer to oppression" bullshit the game tries to shove down our throats, and have good takes in general about the characters and the storyline. Maybe you could offer your two cents? It still makes me wonder if it's right of me to engage in the fandom, even like this. I'm not black, or jewish, which were the two groups most attacked by this game's depiction and appropriation of thsir struggles. I don't feel I have the right to "reclaim" this game (is that the word?), even if I have subversive takes to it.

honestly anon, im very flattered and honored to be asked this, but i have to say i dont have any solid answers much less right answers about this :( i knew DBH has oodles of problems since release, ive been heavily criticising it myself since then, but for some unknown reason ive gotten pretty hyperfixated on it (i only played it because i got it for free, i can at least say id never hand my money over to the original creators), and i can only say my view on this (and most media of this genre), and its that i think it can be a constructive thing to criticise media from whatever background you have (?). i consider myself a huge hater because almost every media i like ill do exactly this, ill enjoy stories and aspects of it but basically go through a looking glass to each "social issue problem" (idk what to call it, sorry) i can spot to keep myself updated i guess? i dont always discuss it to not be the party pooper though

i came to tumblr also because it seems to be the most open to this, talking about the bad not just of the story but the choices made along bringing this game to life. for DBH in particular my thoughts are that there are a lot of good points it either accidentally made or just about missed the opportunity to do in regards of technology with capitalism, humanity's desensitization to abuse towards human-like things, and sometimes i try analysing why the horrible parts even exist or what makes them horrible if that makes sense? for example i may be wrong, but the North x Josh rivalry sort of came off to me as pitting two oppressed groups against each other as almost a test of your own morals, would you as the player rather side with a sexually traumatised 'angry' white woman or a violently abused 'calm' black man? when this is a mechanic that doesnt make sense, with the fucked up mind of the producers behind this, it wouldnt really be a big shock if it was the case. i also think its incredibly ableist in its methods, the old disabled man keeps yearning for his death and musing about humans being far inferior for their "fragile existence", and the game visibly intends for you to believe him "wise" for this, while i think it not only shows their ableist beliefs, it isnt necessarily an unbelievable character? a bitter, once abled bodied healthy and wealthy man suddenly deprived of some of his "liberty" would clearly become nihilistic once hes got just one of his priviledges stripped from him, imo

i also am appreciative of recreational work, if im being frank! derivative works are something i personally really really enjoy, since im pretty bad at inventing things from scratch? and ive seen fix its from people that basically take some of the monstrosities in the game and either recontextualise them or reframe them way better

in conclusion, im too biased to give you a good answer, so my middle of the road answer is always "enjoy things but with a critical mind and avoid giving money as much as possible" :/

[dreamsy990]

Soooo like... Rudy is def gonna die before the end of deltarune right? I mean. Yeah sure it'll be. Traumatizing or whatever. But theres way too much, what's the phrase... narrative momentum to be gained for toby to NOT do it y'know? In fact I could go on a whole rant about how I'm pretty sure Rudy KNOWS hes gonna die and is prepping susie to be a replacing support beam in noelles life. (See also: "Kris and Dad are the only ones I can say no to") and the SNOWGRAVE INPLICATIONS. ANOTHER RANT ON ITS OWN!! Anyways your thoughts?

consider: rudy isnt gonna die and toby just made it look like he was to make it shocking when he didnt die by the end

but seriously, i think rudy dying is PROBABLY going to happen, but i kind of hope it doesnt. noelle's home life is garbage and i get it honestly. like, rudy blantly says that he's not there to protect noelle from carol (idk if thats her name but ive been calling noelles mom that soooo), implying that she can and WILL hurt noelle, and has almost definitely done that in the past (emotionally, probably not physically). noelle has a TEXTBOOK broken home and i really hope the game ends with her out of that house or with a confirmation that her mom isn't going to hurt her anymore, because oh my god her situation is terrible. her sister is either dead or out of the picture, her father is in the hospital and probably going to die soon, and she has a most likely emotionally abusive mom.

oh yeah her mom is almost definitely emotionally abusive like. as someone whos been in a similar situation to her, just her being too scared to ask for a key to get into her own home and preferring to go OUT OF HER WAY to stay with someone else than ask for something is a textbook sign of it. rudy says that he has to protect her from carol. noelle is upset that it's just "her and mom" now, and while that's clearly meant to be referring to how rudy isnt at home, its also probably a hint that she doesnt like being alone with her mom. she's also just a people pleaser, implying she's afraid of the consequences of not being seen as "good". whether that's because of a fear of reputation her mom mightve given her, or an avoidance of conflict she's developed after living with her for a while i cant really say. ALSO YOUR POINT OF "kris and dad are the only ones i can say no to" NOTICE HOW SHE SAYS 'dad' and not 'my parents' BECAUSE YEAH HER MOTHER IS EXCLUDED.

no matter how you slice it noelle's home life is just terrible and rudy and dess seemed to be the only reason it was functional for as long as it was. and with dess out of the picture and rudy probably going to follow, i dont have very high hopes for their relationship. i really hope toby handles this well, and the story doesn't end with noelle and carol living alone together. i also dont hope it ends with rudy, dess, or both back in the house with her, because their household isnt sustainable. as someone who's lived in a house like this, it's going to break down one way or another. dess and rudy cant always be there to defuse situations, and they shouldnt HAVE to.

the ending i want is for carol and rudy to split up, and have rudy live with noelle without her. carol may be a good wife and a good mayor but she is not a good mother, and i don't want noelle to be stuck in a house like that.

i may be misjudging carol because we haven't seen her in the game yet, but i just. dont think she's going to be any good. this game definitely seems like its going for giving all their characters bad home lives. like,

-kris's brother is away, their mom seems a bit overbearing and like she's not quite sure what kris needs, and their dad, while caring, isn't the best at. being a parent.

-susie so far has been implied to have some sort of shitty home life but we're not quite sure of the type. we know she's always hungry, but whether thats because of negligence and potentially fear to get food on her own or financial problems is unknown.

-ralsei's been alone his whole life, so his family is just. out of the picture. he's completely isolated and if his parents were around for at least a little, i dont think they were very good.

-berdly felt like he needed to be smart to be recognized, implying that his family might just not care that much about him or really pay attention to him.

it's a theme of this game for characters to have weird or bad home lives and i dont think noelle would be an exception. so yeah, her mom is probably emotionally abusive. with all the evidence in game and just. generally how all the mcs have bad home lives i think its the most likely situation.

back to actually talking about rudy though, yeah he's probably going to die. i really hope he doesnt, because while realistically things dont always work out, having rudy there and maybe moving out with her would definitely make it better. it just feels uncomfortable for her to be stuck in a household like that.

noelle is kind of lonely too. like, her sister is gone, kris and her grew apart, and berdly is really fucking flirty, and probably not that close with her really, since she doesn't include him in the group of people she can say no to.

noelle's list of people she can say no to is just kris and rudy. that's it. her estranged childhood best friend and her dad. not berdly, seemingly her only current friend and the one she's probably the closest with out of the whole class, or susie, her crush (although that might just be because it was before they really started to understand each other more as people and really be friends). her list of people who "know how weird she is" is just kris. not even her dad is included. the only person who might be missing on both of those lists is dess, and she's just out of the picture and thats probably why shes not included.

so as to the idea of rudy trying to set up susie as an emotional support for noelle, yeah i think he'd do that. he definitely has seen that noelle's running low on people she relies on and wants her to have someone else in her life. he really encourages her to get to know susie and just be honest with her. it's cute and wholesome and just. a good dad moment. he's a great father, or at least one who's trying his best. a top tier dad.

i do think thematically that rudy is going to die. its set up that way from the very start, and i think its sort of being hinted at. like, noelle remarks that the dark world is better because 'everything can be healed with a little spell', implying that rudy's in too bad of a state to recover very easily, and "your choices dont matter" could also be saying something like "no matter what you do, he's going to die". idk thats just my take.

but i really dont want this game to end with noelle and carol alone. i've lived in families like that and it's horrible, and it just feels uncomfortable and bad that noelle's stuck in a situation like that. i want carol to have an arc where she starts being a better parent and actually trying, but more importantly i want noelle not to forgive her. abusive parents can change as people but they cant change what they did. noelle's mom has hurt her and she shouldn't just be forgiven immediately. she needs to make an effort, and noelle doesn't even have to forgive her after that. she deserves to have a home life where she's not so afraid to ask for a key to her own house that she goes to stay with a friend instead. get noelle out of that house, or have carol change.

i realize that i talked way more about noelle and carol in a post about rudy, but honestly i relate a lot to noelle's situation and i dont want her to be stuck in a life like that. its bad and i want toby to handle it well. if the game ends where i think it will, with noelle still living at home alone with carol, maybe with dess there, i'll just be sad. like girl, get out of that HOME!!!!!!! it's toxic as SHIT

also i know that some people are going to say "oh her mom isnt trying to hurt her, maybe she just did [x] and thats why noelle is how she is." to which i say, not all abusers have malicious intent. maybe shes just doing it because thas how she was raised and she turned out fine, or maybe she's just kind of negligent and doesnt pay enough attention to noelle to realize how she's being hurt, or maybe its something else entirely. but no matter what her intentions are, its still abuse, and whether she likes it or not, she's hurt the only daughter she has left. the truth is we don't know all the details of what's going on, and we probably won't know for a long time, or maybe ever. but no matter what, this relationship isn't healthy, and it doesn't matter what everyone's trying to do, all that matters is what they did do. and what carol did was emotionally abuse her daughter.

anyways thanks for coming to my ted talk. also the deltarune ending i HOPE happens is rudy gets out of the hospital, gets a divorce and marries asgore, then goes and moves out with noelle. thats only half a joke.

[kamil-a]

right, okay, even more thoughts. check out how hard i can [ramble] PSHOOOOOO. they may feel disjointed for a number of reasons. also again i did bingeread the entire hoshino manga at once while not feeling my best so i may have skimmed or forgotten information- preemptive "oops" for that if so lol

-blood is so humorless in this manga!! what im thinking about right now is the bath scene where he's just complaining about alice behind her back... in game she was there and they were having a kicking war under the water! she was lying to him and elliot about not being able to handle drinking! she complained he needs to watch his kids and hes like oh no, those are elliot's kids. it was a relaxed and friendly atmosphere! I'm pretty sure we dont get the box in box gift at the beginning either, or alice telling him to stfu about his tea special interest, or alice sizing him up as a second grade bully on a playground...basically he's such a funny comedic character and that is one of his main sources of appeal imo. so that's gone.

-but we ALSO don't go hard on "be my bad boy amv dangerous mama im in love with a criminal romance novel ohhh i shouldnt but it feels so good" sex appeal either? because right at the point where they would've had sex for the first time he swerves into kills you road, and then the story has to be about that instead.

-WAIT HE DOESNT ACT LIKE HE HAS ~A DISEASE~ (FELL IN LOVE) EITHER.... OR "IM SO TIRED I WISH ANYONE NOT TIRED WAS DEAD"..... SO MANY FUNNY MOMENTS....

-so like if he isnt funny and he isnt sexy why are people supposed to care about him as a love interest.... -_-

-i halfway take back my feelings of blood being ooc in that kind of anger at "youre too friendly with every guy" way. i think its a reaction that's possible for him to have because this game enjoys jealousy tropes. he does get extremely jealous of her friendships with particular other guys, and reacts....... in a variety of ways,

-interestingly though not with julius! his reaction to her friendship with julius is more like 😬😬 okay so you dont know it but this is making a political statement you may not want to make.

-twice in manga ive seen him shoot around the tower for julius "taking her away" tho. maybe its a nonstay thing...

-i just dont think he should be acting like that because the situation alice gets into in the manga is one he should never have to react *to* because *it should not be possible for all of these events to happen in one timeline*.

-the half i am NOT rescinding is him accusing her of cheating on her ex/blaming her for that relationship's failure because we SEE him react to that in game and his kneejerk reaction is different.*

*from what i remember, he was like wtf thats gross i cant believe he did that to you, but also like you were in a bad relationship.... without me ;)???**

**that segment makes me feel really nasty so i dont want to return to it just now for posting's sake, along with not wanting to engage with , uh, beloved comfort media, on tisha b'av night. even the part that is uncomfortable.***

*** i debated holding off making this post till tomorrow night but ultimately lost the battle of will.

-it is extremely funny to me that so far like every manga author ive seen do a bloodalice plotline does the "omg are he and vivaldi a secret couple" thing because they clearly don't want to go the "i cant bring myself to tell him out loud i want to have sex in a bed and not a couch" route. i cant blame them but also , IF I WERE COACH, etc etc.

-idk im just very fascinated with telling bloodalice' story as a bunch of sex that is, while consensual (heres where i tell QR to shhhhh), bringing up a lot of conflicting and upsetting feelings in alice that she is hurting the relationship and the friendship its based on by Not Talking About. and the double-level of like... a late teen exploring adulthood/sex for the first time while also being a person older than that who is also navigating having sex for the first time because she has never moved past being like 18-9 emotionally.

-not that not having sex in your teens is a requirement of emotional maturity but that i personally headcanon she has never seeked another relationship after her first one. was too hurt and then lorina died and all processes kind of stopped for her.

-BUT THATS JUST ME,

-ANYWAY

-blood does have a "wants to kill her" plotline in game, so the manga does have its roots in that.

- in his route it's the same "i want to go against the belief that outsiders are lovable by killing one". its been a while but im pretty sure that gets settled fairly quickly so we have more time to either like or dislike couches, etc.

-in elliot's route he gets threatening towards her in a "i wonder whos side elliot would take if i killed you?" way towards the middle-end, and then elliot is like Um Hey Boss Can We Talk Privately and the matter is never brought up again. (I wish we got to see that convo. "can you not threaten to kill my girlfriend" "okay youre right sorry, that was rude", lmao)

-ace seems to want to kill her because he realized that it is not in fact the "meeting an outsider" that changes your life for the better, it's something else? which i guess plays down the sort of "youre like meeee haha" depressionsexual angle he takes in game, or maybe this alice just isnt visibly depressed enough for his tastes lmao

-alice in general, as i keep saying, seems to me to be kept a lot more hands-clean and "pure"- she doesnt touch clocks she doesnt drink she doesn't bathe with the guys, she never has a bizzare "murder is okay maybe??" moment (THAT I REMEMBER), etc. i feel like despite That Whole Plotline theres less making out/sex than in the game too?

-does she go on less self hating rants or am i just forgetting....

-if we MUST center this story around people wanting to kill alice for reasons related to her outsideriness i wish we got to heavily play up the "completed love" segment.

-a completed love.... that alice thinks the purest love is the love for a woman who's died. and that she feels she will never achieve being loved in that manner. near death experiences should be a perfect time to meditate on that, right? does she feel like she can achieve it? is she afraid that even in death, blood will ensure her memory is "some flirty girl who kisses up to everyone"- that she will Lose at Being Girl no matter what?

-i dont remember getting that though.... missed opportunities....

-i think positioning blood as an antagonist who wants to counter beliefs about outsiders by killing her couldve worked if he simply did not know her very well and then got to know her later on and was like oh i see. nevermind.

-oh, but the strangling was unrelated to this wasnt it? it was as punishment for walking into him and vivaldi's garden. which i think is a waste of like.... everything blood says about guilt, punishment, etc regarding elliot and that he sees the same in alice. couldve been a ~youve been a bad girl~ sexy scene lmao!!!! but he's apparently not allowed to have any sex appeal in this manga, so :'|

-couldve even tied itself emotionally to alice and lorina- siblings who can find peace in a garden but cant , for whatever reason, carry the story of "two siblings having pleasant conversation" outside of that space (for the dupres because it is dangerous, for the liddells because one of them is dead).

-man it makes me sad that hoshino's blood says she mustve cheated on her ex. dont SAY that to her dont you know what he DID-

-aaaaa AAAA OH NO MANGA ONLY READERS DONT KNOW HOW ROMANTIC AND SWEET HIS BALL SCENE IS IN GAME

-I thought it was adorable, anyway......

-he lies down in a guest bed like alice i am sooooooooooooooooo tired from dancing i wanna kiss you but im too tired you have to come over here and kiss me................

-thats all for now.

-FOR NOW...

[aerifth]

i feel like if rebirth kills aerith again itll be pretty bad and i feel like the way a lot of people talk about the future of rebirth and that part of the original story seems underinformed. with the torture of all of the devs saying intentionally misleading things about rebirth over and over in interviews theyve successfully gotten me hooked on their wild ride only i do genuinely think if it turns out she dies again in the same way and place as before it'll just be bad.

way more after the jump lol i feel kinda bad just dropping this on ppls heads + ff7remake spoilers

theres too much obvious setup and punch-pulling going on already in remake considering it literally shows you it happening over and over and over beating you over the head that it happens for them to just turn around and do it anyway. even the fact that they keep talking about "That Scene with aerith in the capitol" just feels like its completely missing half of why the original games scene was so shocking in the first place, and its also kind of shining a light on why its not really a thing theyve earned considering how memeified its become nowadays. im kind of surprised theres not more people expecting this subversion as-is because honestly the fact that it seems like common consensus that she will just die again anyway like before leads me to believe this is somehow a twistier twist than i think it is

theres also the point that i dont think theres any actual reason for her to die? not the way the story is set up so far + how rebirth is being presented to us, like, the way sephiroth works so far i dont think he has any interest in aerith nor is there anything she could do to stop his plan. that's why theyre choosing to focus on tifa, theres a really strong reason for her to die as much as i dont want that to happen either. aeriths death in the original game is really multifaceted and complex whereas the story we see so far doesn't have a place for that, unless they make up some contrived magic thing for her to do to justify it, but even then i think it would feel hollow compared to... you know. killing tifa, the character who is the only one directly tied to his past which is what is preventing sephiroth from taking over cloud completely

i feel like most of the discourse ive seen gets tangled up in both like Objective Lore and The Tone Of The Original when i think neither are really that helpful here, especially when the latter isnt as explored as much as it needs to be. the whole point of aeriths death is that it could have been prevented, it was unfair and didn't have to happen, and i feel like in a modern context, in a scenario such as remake where the original game is so integral to the experience, the only answer is to either prevent that from happening or create a more interesting scenario where aerith is forced to deal with something more challenging than that. it deliberately cut her character arc short, and i dont think killing her would work with what was set up in remake about her grappling with her own loneliness and hopelessness. shes in a position to be an insanely interesting protagonist in the absence of potentially both cloud and tifa, and i would hope they either dont squander that or come up with something way way more interesting that i havent thought of

tldr i think rebirth is going to end with

1. cloud being taken over as a direct vessel for sephiroth's rebirth. also sephiroths plan will involve purging jenova from himself and the earth. this is part of how he convinced cloud to finally join him

2. tifa dying will be a major catalyst for this (or if they want to soften the blow, she'll be comatose and barely alive)

3. aerith will live, now totally disconnected from the people in the party she's known the longest and who have connected the most with her. she will have to figure out how to find "the real cloud" in a situation where she has little to no help in doing so, where the only person closest to that past cloud is gone

fate has changed, but that isnt necessarily a good thing. it was sephiroths plan to have cloud challenge and overcome fate. killing aerith is almost directly how his original plan fails, and we dont even know if he wants any part of that plan (i also dont think meteor is happening LOL but well see)

debating if tumblr is where i should choose to dump all of my smotheringly heavy ff7r thoughts that are in no way biased in favor of a given character not dying

[dreamnotnapper]

ok, listen. i will gladly hivemind about many things, but one of the things i will never hivemind about is mcc

i am way too invested in that block game tournament to not have my own opinions, and trust me i have a Lot of opinions after sapnaps stream

(this will be very long, feel free to ignore. also, this is all typed up on mobile so i am so sorry)

the most prominent things is when he said he thinks he should be an s-tier, and when he said he thinks cyan is the best team

1. i dont think sapnap is an s-tier. god forbid i post this on twitter where everyone thinks he should be, but genuinely i dont. he is definitely the closest non s tier player to s tier, but i dont think hes s tier yet. i dont have stats on hand (bc im not a Nerd /j), but comparatively, sapnap isnt as good. hes one of the best pvpers and parkour players, yes. but hes pretty weak in build mart, rocket spleef and bingo, and hes decent at ace race and hole in the wall. a question we have to ask ourselves when ranking sapnap, is he at the same level as the other s-tiers? is he as good as pete, quig, fruit, techno, and dream? so far, all current s-tiers have: won at least 1 mcc, had 1st individual at least once and have 3000+ average coins. sapnap has only achieved the first. another thing is that sapnap isnt balance the way an s-tier is balanced. most notably, pete, fruit and quig are all balanced with weaker teams. pete and fruit are commonly teamed with hermits, when not with hermits pete is with b tiers or below, and quig is usually put on for fun teams (techno hasnt played in a canon mcc in a while so i cant rly say how hes balanced nowadays). sapnap isnt balanced this way, he isnt put on weaker teams. if anything, hes put on teams where someone else helps take up a leader role. mcc15, he'll most likely co-lead with dream, mcc14 he had punz, mcc13 he had dave krtzyy, (i dont remember his mcc12 team), mcc11 he had dream, etc.

so sapnap hasn't gotten 1st individual or 3000+ average coins, and scott doesnt balance him the way he balances the other s-tiers therefore i dont think sapnap is an s-tier. however, if he continues improving the way he is now, i believe he will be s-tier eventually. dont say that i'm too hard on him and that my requirements are too harsh because i'm a firm believer that once a player is s-tier, they dont leave (unless they just fuck up that bad, in multiple consecutive mccs)

2. i think sapnaps prediction of cyan being 1st is wrong. first of all, theres a reason why nearly the entire subreddit predicts cyan to be lower on the leaderboard, and its not because the subreddit is biased or playing an elaborate prank. i think both sapnap and dream really overestimate cyans abilities, especially with 2 new players. both dream and sapnap agreed that wisp is cracked, 5up is cracked, antfrost isnt bad, and scott is decent. the stats kind of do tell a different story though. again, i dont have the stats on hand, i only have what i remember from posts ive seen on the subreddit so take what i say here with a grain of salt. i dont think wisp is as cracked as dreamnap think he is. wisp has only played in (iirc, and if the subreddit was correct) 3 events, and his first 2 were very average with his mcc14 performance being the outlier. another thing is that they have two new players. that is not going to be easy. when you look at new players that joined after mcc began getting more competitive, youll see that they always underperform during their debut mcc. take illumina, for example. illumina is one of the best speedrunners in minecraft. he spent hours practicing and studying vods to optimize his performance. iirc, his first mcc he got 17th. that is already impressive, especially for a debut but his next placement was 5th. that is a huge improvement. 5up and antfrost are no illuminas, they dont have the same skill that he does. if illumina couldnt get top 15 during his debut, there is no way 5up and antfrost will during theirs like dream and sapnap predicted they would. the last thing i wanted to say about this is that 5up can practice all he wants on the practice server. he can get himself acquainted with ace race mechanics and the environment of battle box and parkour tag, but the practice server =/= the real event. no amount of time on the practice server can prepare new players to the atmosphere and pressure of the real event

thats my rant over, thank you if you stuck around. also really sorry if you stuck around, i doubt my thoughts were very coherent as its 4:30am. but yeah, i just wanted to get my thoughts out because sapnap and dream discussing mcc predictions made me very frustrated. especially since their predictions were all based on their initial thoughts on the teams and absolutely zero statistical analysis. absolute himbos, the two of them /lh

[daddy-daichis]

Yesterday the very beautiful and talented @fuwari-s tagged me in this game and since that post is already really long i figured id make a new one lol  (Also thank you for tagging me, it made me so happy)

The Game: Tag your 2D lovers + the other trend I saw yesterday and wanted to do which is Would you actually date them IRL. So ill put that under the cut because it is a lot.

HQ: Atsumu, Daichi, Issei, Bokuto, Hinata, and Kyoutani

BNHA: Bakugou, Denki, and Hawks

JJK: Sukuna and Mei Mei

Others: Kagami from KNB, Levi and Jean from AOT, and Mikoto Suoh from K

So if you want to know if i would date them irl that is below the cut lol

As for tagging... if you want to do it :) @eijirosriot @bokutosnumberonefan @hinosreis @tetsus-kitten @sugawarakoushihoe @mynameisjackattack and anyone else who wants to do one or both of these challenges.

Alright so would i date these men (+ mei mei) in real life. Short answer is yes lmao. Long answer, with some headcanons that may or may not  venture into 18+ category but only slightly. all aged up to be my age which is 26.

Atsumu - PLEASE, YES

we would be so chaotic together but he would also be really loving. As long as he can still prioritize me in a relationship, not over volleyball, just as much, then we will be golden. We would have such a good time and i feel like we would have a lot of fun bickering, which i really enjoy. Play fighting as a form of foreplay, if you will lmao. We’d probs be friends in HS and then get together after he starts playing for MSBY and he is secured in his position (and himself tbh). I just love this cocky bastard. he also gives me switch vibes and as a switch, i love that for me.

Daichi - YES

All i need is to be wrapped in his arms on the daily and i would be happy. Man would know how to take care of me and that is all. Love of my life, too good for this world. Wholesome husband. He would be able to manage my crazy side and chill me out when i get to anxious. I would want to be bratty just to get him to drop his good guy routine sometimes and I feel like he would like that.

Issei - YES

Funeral home employee can get it. Matsukawa Horse cock Issei can whisk me off my feet and straight into bed. we would have a lot of fun picking on oikawa together (out of love of course) but we would balance each other out a lot. His darker humor would go well against my lighter humor. Also I feel like our level of hotness is pretty comparable... like we aren't the prettiest in the friend group but still good (if that makes sense)

Bokuto - YES

Big ball of sunshine to light up my day, he would literally fuck the sad out of me every day I just know it. Like atsumu, as long as I am a priority to him itll work out. We also kind of have the same sad moods so I feel like we could either both just curl up on the couch together and watch a movie or bring the other out of a funk easily. I love this giant himbo so much.

Hinata - most likely yes

Pretty much the same reasons as bokuto but I feel like I would get drained of his energy faster, so he would def have to cuddle me more. For everyone else so far I can imagine being high school sweethearts, but with hinata i think he wouldnt settle down until later, or even start dating so it would probably be a lot of pining and watching him from the side lines for a while, which would be really hard tbh. but the way he would smile at me after a match would make it worth it so...

 Kyoutani - Hard YES

I love a boy with anger issues, what can i say... (cough couch my irl husband with anger issues couch couch) I would love to be his weak spot and the one person he would go to to help him not feel angry anymore. I think that my fun personality would help him to unbox himself a bit. I just want to give him cuddles and a place to feel accepted. id also i KNOW hes a monster in bed... 

Bakugou - FUCKING HARD YES, PLEASE

if he was real the things i would do to and for him... A lot like kyoutani i would want to give him a place where hes accepted, and a place where he is unconditionally loved. I would be able to handle his misguided anger and calm him down and give him space. I headcanon that hes very cuddly in private to just his S/O which is something that i love. I love his lil smirk and would do anything to get him to smirk at me. As long as he is able to set me as a priority it would work out, but that would be what he struggles with so it would be a thing we would have to talk about. But I also feel that once you say something about it he would check in with you because of course he has to be the best bf/husband. I feel like I could talk for hours about him so Ill just wrap it up by saying that I love me a passionate man who would probs be a lil possessive, and I would use that to my advantage. 

Denki - GOD YES

I really do think that denki and I are soulmates. we are both the perfect blend of funny, pervy, while still being soft. I feel like there would be a lot of mutual pining at first but he would end up the golden retriever gamer boy to my alt bisexual and thats just the perfect pairing. We would pull so much shit and then get away with it because thats just us being us. I see us being scolded by bakugou a lot for the stupid shit we would pull. Also late night drives in his shitty tuned car to taco bell while we sing alt rock songs from the 2010s. also the switch vibes are immaculate.

 Hawks - Probably

So it would honestly depend a lot on what version of hawks.. him in the hero commission is a no, because he wouldnt be able to be honest with me about a lot of stuff. Like his name, or when i can see him again, and that would give me too much anxiety. When hes free of them and is actually allowed to be himself I think it could work then. I know that he of course wants to still be the best hero, so he would have the same problems as bakugou with finding a balance, but if he wants to i think he could. He would also have a lot of trauma from his relationship with his parents and the commission so I dont know if he would be able to give his love away as freely as he wants so we could get therapy together. I love that for us. But i would happily wake up next to this beautiful birb man if he would have me.  

Sukuna - A hesitant yes

so.. the anger issues that ive mentioned before.. yes. I would like sukuna. I would be his lil bride and sit on his lap on his throne as long as he didnt kill my loved ones or my cats lmao. I would also be ok with being his and itadoris gf while hes living in itadoris head. being with him is just asking for an unhappy ending tho, whether its a life always on the run, or someones trying to kill me, or someones trying to kill him, or hes trying to kill someone. But yes i would like to be with him but that would mean sacrificing a lot. 

Mei Mei - god yessssss..

Please Mei Mei step on me and make me ur lil house wife. I see us living in a pent house apartment with the most breathtaking view of the Tokyo skyline. I would want for nothing and she could take me where ever she wanted and i would just follow her around with heart eyes.

 Kagami - YES

my basketball husband! i love him and would love to be loved by him. Id follow him wherever. He would take care of me and is just so dreamy.. also i guess the mild anger issues.. but hes really not that bad. He would just be such a good s/o. He would cook us nice dinners, wed have a few cats, and he would carry me around a lot because hes so strong. While were on the topic of strong... his stamina... everyone on this list probably has good if not great stamina... but kagami just hits different..... have you seen him in the zone? have you seen his thighs? his sex zone has got to be incredible. 

 Levi - Yes

I was going to say it depends, but really it doesn't... if were in the aot universe and hes my captain and I fall in love with him u can bet ur ass im gonna try and get with him because i could die at anytime. if its some au where he is here in our universe and somehow we meet... like of course im gonna be in love with him. our height difference isnt too bad, im only like an inch or 2 taller than him. I think we would both have a great time together. I would make him laugh, and he would help me clean, because lord knows I hate cleaning. BUT i hate cleaning because its something that I always have to do alone, and I feel like levi would have us be cleaning together like he makes the scouts do. and hes just so sexy... 

Jean - big yes

This beautiful handsome man... idk what to even say about him. Hes strong, funny, handsome, cocky, but very much full of love. would love to run away from the world with him. I feel like if he was in love with me before *tries not to give away spoilers* the marco incident (?) that after he would become very clingy and attached and im ok with that. There would have to be lots of cuddles and reassurances and i just want to see him happy and not at war, with both real life people and himself... id give him the best kisses and he would become addicted to them. 

Mikoto - No? But maybe...

I feel like we could be.. but if you watched the show then you know.. But i would love to be Homra’s princess TBH. No one would mess with me or they would have to face the wrath of my big fire boyfriend and his whole ass gang. But on the other hand I feel like Mikoto wouldnt allow himself to fall in love, so it would probably be a hush hush topic. everyone knows the boss and I are in an entanglement, but they cant talk about it. Then Anna starts asking questions to Mikoto and he has to come clean to her, which would be so cute. He tells her is a secret but she doesn't care lmao. in conclusion, I would want to, but I dont think he would let me.... Maybe friends with benefits tho....

............................................................................................

ok if you read all this im officially in love with you. Please take my heart. 

This took me like 2 hours to do because I love thinking about it so much. if you have any thoughts about any of this hop into my dms or comment on this because id love to hear them (especially if you think i belong with one more than the others lmao). 

[bluebeetle]

Tho I will say for 2, I feel like that was purposeful--like the emperor is still always a bit manipulative but I really do think its supposed to reflect how the player treats it (if you treat it with distrust, itll be extra distrustful and mean); but thats not to say it implemented the best.

Also for 6, you still get Balduran and Ansur's quest even if you don't do the iron throne! You get it from other characters instead of Duke Ravengard (in my case it was the flaming fist, but if you rescue Florrick first from prison, she'll give it im told) so I do know about Balduran and then the Emperor killing Ansur. If there's any more backstory lore than that, though, other than it potentially being the reason for Stelmane's stroke, Im not sure.

That said, Im not familiar with forgotten realms lore outside of just this game so I have no strong feelings about pre-existing characters and how theyre treated, though I am familiar with fan reactions (esp Viconia and Saverok vs Minsc and Jaheira).

But yeah these are all good points, I do think there could have been more added, which is sadly common for a lot of act 3 (and that last choice with Orpheus does really feel like it was to just force a hard choice; I let princey get munched on in my durge run because I didn't use Lae'zel very much). I def agree about the hidden approval (which would fix the issue with point 2) and having a chance to force Orpheus and the Emperor to work together, even if its a hard thing to accomplish.

I do think from what I've seen for Daisy that the Emperor is far more interesting and less obviously manipulative imo, but thats subjective. The Emperor is still pretty manipulative tho even when you play trusting ahah. But at the same time you can kind of understand why the Emperor like that, since it wants freedom so badly, but also thinks its above most people.

But honestly most of the hate I've seen that I was thinking of boiled down to "mindflayers evil, so its bad" and "it lied to me and kept secrets so its evil.....and its selfish too". Even tho that also describes a lot of the cast.

Even the "it tried to force the astral tadpole on me" thing doesnt bother me too much because it does seem to legitimately think that'll help, plus as you said, I do think part of it wishes for companionship in a way. I do think the Emperors pretty morally grey and selfish and I like that, I just think it's annoying how people act like its a complete selfish monster who does evil for kicks and it makes me wonder if we played the same game.

Idk i just always thought "npc isnt nice to me so I hate them" was a bit silly of a mentality but Ive seen it often... I just think it's neat.

I do wish there were more moments to confront it though, even before the reveal I did not trust it during my first run (Durge did however, which my joking reasoning being they've got an int of 8. Manipulation right over their heads.) and there's def stuff I wish you could bring up but alas... but there's a few things like that. Like how Karlach doesn't really react to taking Gortash's deal if she's not in the party lol.

i wont say the emperor is like, nice, it can be a dick, but its actually pretty chill if ur nice to it back and trust it tbh.... i dont get why its so hated, even if it can be a huge dick lol

[fizzysquish]

I'd really like to hear about your opinion on the ahit fandom if youre ok with sharing? love your writing by the way!!

Oh wow I actually didn't expect anyone to wanna know yifhfkhck

And thank you!

Alright this is.. Gonna be long and most likely have some spelling errors every now and then but bear with me.

Tw- talk of pedophilia, swear words

Tldr at the very bottom

The ahit fandom..

...sucks

But also doesnt? Its kind of hard to explain. In general, if you just glance at the fandom it will either come across as pure or as a shit show. This fandom has some serious problems.

This fandom has a lot of drama happy people in it. Im not going to name names or anything, cause there's no point, but it does. A single scroll through the tags will tell you that much. And this isnt me saying 'people can't have opinions' or what have you. What im saying is that there are people in this fandom who live just to stir up drama and make others angry.

Or, in a lot of cases, instead of just saying a persons opinion, they'll swear up a storm and say they hate certain people or call certain types of fans 'the problem with the fandom' and like.. That just makes you sound like an asshole honestly. And it hurts people, too.

(And nobody can tell me it doesn't. Ive had to reassure too many venting and upset friends because of it. It hurts people.)

Also, because you know I have to mention this and it fits perfectly after this first paragraph- subcon. Snatcher.

I legitimately do not understand why some people hate snatcher so much. And I also cannot understand why some people will specifically target snatcher fans at times.

Snatcher is a big comfort character for a lot of people. Wether its for personal reasons (ex- mine is because of my own past dealing with abuse and trauma), or if its just because they make someone happy.

Snatcher is a comfort character, and the whole story surrounding subcon is so so interesting and fun to explore? And so what if people enjoy it? I can understand that it can get frustrating seeing so much of it, especially if you like something else, but that is no reason to target snatcher fans (or.. Any fans in general) and/or make people feel bad for having fun.

Fuck, thats how you make people leave the fandom entirely. I understand it can get frustrating, but just.. Try to be nicer? Try not to make people feel bad for having fun? Please?

And before anyone tells me "it's not about that!", i want to point out that I often see posts like "don't let the snatcher fans see this-" and other things along that.

If you want me to believe its not about that, prove it. Cause as far as i can tell, it certainly is.

(Also as a note- who cares is someones thirsty??? Like

Just block them and avoid if it bugs you so much?? It's not that hard dude)

-THIS PARAGRAPH MENTIONS PEDOPHILLIA, SKIP IF NEEDED-

Another serious thing to mention is the pedophilia in this fandom. Feel free to skip this part  if it makes you uncomfortable, but its something i need to talk about.

There are pedophiles in this fandom. Ive seen the art and the fics (no matter how many times i scrub my eyes, because its disgusting and horrible and just- eugh-). There are pedophiles here and its easy to come across them because they just.. Aren't afraid to post in main tags. People follow them. People support them. Granted, not everyone, and generally most people know to avoid em, but they're still there. They havent been kicked out or ostracized. And it disgusts me.

I know this whole paragraph could be argued that "that doesn't represent the fandom!" Or whatever but.. This is a younger audiences welcome game guys. Its advertised as 'the cutest 3d platformer!'. Kids can and do play this game.

There is pedophilia in this fandom, and i feel its important to mention.

-END OF PARAGRAPH-

Also, some people in this fandom just.. Suck. Plain and simple. Some people in this fandom are just genuine assholes. And said asshole just like harassing others and causing problems. There's a literal shit ton of drama and problems with this fandom, and honestly it's.. So dumb??

This is literally just a video game and people are just having fun. If there's a problem, treat it like a grown up and either ask the causes to stop and why, or block and move on. Simple.

Now lets move onto the good parts of this fandom, yeah?

First of all- there are some serious sweethearts and amazing people in this fandom. While there are some that suck, there are more that are actually just here for a good time and to make good content.

Ive met some of the nicest people ivs ever known thanks go this fandom. Ive created friends who I seriously consider family. And most people ive talked with or even just ran across have been pretty cool.

This fandom is also generally very welcoming to new people (minus the assholes), ive noticed. Some people get into it really easily just because eveyones generally friendly and supportive. Which is always great!

Also, the fanworks people in this fandom create. Can i just talk about how fucking talented people are??? Its pretty amazing to see how people create things for this fandom.

People will take the story that gears for breakfast showed and they'll run with it, and create these amazing au’s and stories and 'what ifs' from it. Its just.. So amazing to watch people use what we've been given just weaved it into something.

(And this isnt even going over the mods and the stories those create, which always amaze me.)

So with all that laid out, do i think the fandom good or bad?

...i think its both.

The fandom itself has some serious problems in it. It gets unnecessary drama nearly every other month or so for no reason. There are some truly disgusting people and some absolute assholes, but the majority of people are actually pleasant, fun to be around, and welcoming. As long as you be careful of who you follow and use critical thinking skills, its not so bad.

Im not going to lie to someone and say it's all honkey dory. In this fandom, you will inevitably interact with either a creep, an asshole, or both at some point. There is a likely chance that you will have your feelings hurt in some way in this fandom. Ive see it, ive heard about it, ive experienced it.

All that being said, if you curate your viewing, follow people that seem/are cool, and use the block feature (don't. Debate it, if youre unsure about someone just block em)... Its a very fun fandom filled with both heartfelt creations and memes, and has plenty of potential new friends.

So its both good and bad, yeah.

Tldr-

Fandom has lotsa issues but overall is fun, just make sure curate your experience for yourself and dont let what drama pops up or what assholes say get to you.

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Comparing RWBY and YGO DM: The Handling and Evolution of Themes

Hey! Its been a hot minute since I last posted anything RWBY-related but Im laying in my bed right now and Im sick and bored so I guess we're doing this. Today I will do my best to analyze what I percieve to be the main themes and messages of both of these shows, or more specifically, how theyre handled narratively. Im mostly focusing on that part because, while these series do have similar themes and messaging, they are still a few things in which they are wildly different. And with that, lets start with this essay-post-thing!

1. Theres something we need to adress first

Okay so, before we can really talk about this, theres something I feel the need to clarify here: Neither of these stories was "planned from the beginning".

Now, I dont think a story being planned from the beginning or not nesscessarily makes the story any better or worse by default, however, it is still important to acknowledge because the way the story is planned is going to affect every facet of it. Things are not going to be foreshadowed properly, things are gonna be set up only for nothing to come of it, the story might drastically change directions, characters might act differently, etc, etc.

And, this is bit off-topic but, it's much better to just admit that the story was not planned than trying to pretend that it was. Like, there are a lot of reasons why I tend to be so forgiving towards YGO even though its not very good, but one of them is definitely the fact that, as far as Im aware atleast, the guy who wrote it isnt pretending to have had this big master plan all along and neither is the fandom. With RWBY on the other hand... yeaaaah, its kinda the opposite. From what Ive seen of RWBYs fandom, there seems to be this pretty popular narrative that everything was planned even though it clearly wasnt. Thats pretty bad and honestly lowers my opinion of the writers so much more than if they would just admit to not having a proper plan.

Like, I initially consumed YGO like this: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh (aka Season 0), like, a quarter of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga (I still havent finished it)

In all three of these we have the character of Yami Yuugi, or just Yami. Broadly speaking, he is an ancient egyptian gamer spirit who lives in a magical puzzle that has not been solved for 3000 years until this highschooler named Yuugi Mutou comes along and solves it, thus setting him free and allowing him to possess Yuugi and have access to the vague magical powers of the puzzle.

In Duel Monsters he's perfectly fine most of time, morally speaking. There is an instance of him almost murdering a guy and its a bit unclear what exactly happens to those he mindcrushes but overall he's very much a pretty good guy. In Season 0 most of what he does is set up these games for bad people, where they will go insane no matter what they do. From how I understand this whole Shadow Game, Penalty Game stuff, if you lose a Shadow Game, you get violent and intense hallucinations and you will always cuz yknow, gamer spirit. But if you try to cheat, which most of the bad people do in this show, you get violent and intense hallucinations as a punishment.

Since the two anime are generally considered two different continuities, its perfectly fine that Yamis characterization is wildly different in both of them. But in the manga both of these characterizations appear, basically one after the other with no real arc or consequences, for that matter. Why is that? Simply put, someone thought it was a good idea to try to turn an episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror manga into a more traditional, more plot-driven battle shounen. From what Ive heard, it was apparently largely because of network interference or something, but the point is, it changed directions incredibly drastically with little planning and everyone knows this and I can understand that for the most part.

In RWBY we have the character of Blake Belladonna, who, in the first 3 volumes/seasons atleast, was this aloof, more toned down loner-type character with a pretty strong sense of justice. She's an in-universe marginilized racial minority and she clearly cares about racial injustice. The way its initially framed makes it seem like she had a very hard life and no stable support system, which is what eventually pushed her to join a Civil Rights group/Terrorist organization (good god, the Faunus subplot is so awful, I could write a whole essay about it but Im already de-railing rn so I'll just save that for later).

Then, in volumes 4-5 it turns out her father is actually like, the mayor or chief of this island-place called Menagerie and she grew up in this big mansion with multiple guards/servants. Oh and also, apparently "space is a commodity" on there, so theres that. She still retains large parts of her personality but she's kinda like, worse somehow I think. I cant really describe it in a meaningful way but I hope you get what Im saying anyway. Then in Volume 6 she confronted her emotional abuser Adam (sorry for not mentioning him sooner but yeah, he was like, her abusive boyfriend, which is something that a lot of people disagree with but I wont really say anything about it either way because I dont really feel any specific way) with her friend, Yang, and ended up killing him.

After all that, she pretty much lost the rest of her personality, as well as her arc about all the Faunus stuff. She just kinda became the meek, generically nice, recovering abuse victim. Why? Well, the actual reason is that they didnt plan out shit and are just kinda flying by the seat of their oversized clown-pants and if they and the fandom just admitted it, I would have less of an issue. I still wouldnt be as forgiving towards RWBY as I am towards YGO because the crux of the issue, for me, is just that I dont particulary like RWBY but also like. Do you really expect me to take MKEK seriously as writers after admitting to not have a timeline because iT wOuLd CaUsE pLoThOlEs?

However, since they want us to believe that everything was planned out from the beginning, the explaination would be.... Idk, they deliberately butchered one of their main characters?? Because.. they hate her?? Maybe????

So yeah, that was quite a detour however, I would like you to keep this mind going forward.

2. Themes of the Early Series'

First, what do mean by 'Early Series' for both of these shows respectively? Well, for YGO that would have to be Season 0 or if youre reading the manga, everything pre-Duelist Kingdom. Basically, the part of the series thats a episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror series.

For RWBY that would be the first three Volumes, also known as the Poser-Era. Back then it was just kinda an action series that took place at Anime Warrior Academy (also known as Beacon) with some pretty bare minimum worldbuilding, character-driven plots and developments but now its more of an epic high-fantasy story with more of an emphasis on plot as opposed to just action.

The themes and messages in Early YGO are kinda vague, very confusing to me and if you were to follow any of it literally that would be pretty bad. For now Im just gonna say the main themes are Friendship and Identity and mostly focus on the Identity aspect.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out RWBYs deal but I think the main themes for Volumes 1-3 are also Friendship and Heroism. Once again, I'll mostly focus on Heroism and touch on Friendship more briefly later.

I dont have much more to add to YGOs themes right now, so I'll briefly go over Heroism in RWBY.

In RWBYs setting there are these man-eating monsters called Grimm that have basically infected the planet. In order to deal with that, they have people called huntsmen and huntresses that kill them and protect people. Theyre trained at special academies like Beacon and go on missions there and stuff like that. Our four main characters, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, are training to become huntresses and one day they go on this mission to clean up a grimm infested city block with one of their teachers. Obviously, that takes a long time so they have to camp out in one of the empty houses. Weiss, Blake and Yang cant sleep because theyve been thinking about this question that their teacher asked them when they were fighting grimm: "Why do you want to become a huntress?"

They have a heart to heart and we find out about their motivations; Weiss wants to bring honour back to her family, Blake want to distance herself from the White Fang (that terrorist organization I mentioned earlier) and as an extension from Adam, Yang wants to have a life of adventure. They also talk about why Ruby wants to be a huntress and it turns out that she judt wants to help people. Unlike the others, she has no motivation besides that. We're meant to listen to that and look at her as a sort-of personification of Heroism: kind, but not naive, strong and most of all, selfless. The others on her team are not portayed as bad for not being like Ruby by any means but we are clearly meant to admire her the most out of all of them.

Okay, now comes the part Ive been looking forward to the most:

3. How did these themes evolve in the Modern Series'?

Alright, before we can really delve into the way they evolved in YGO I'll have to give you a brief summary of the character progression. At the start of DM, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yami Yuugi is just that; A darker Yuugi. Hes more confident, bolder, his voice is deeper, hes somehow taller, more ruthless, all that good stuff. Notably, he doesnt actually seem more skilled than Yuugi even at the start of this story, but he's still dependent on Yami. Yami on the other hand, has no identity of his own or even hints at one at this point. He's just The Other Yuugi.

Then during the Battle City arc, they find out that Yami was actually a pharao prior to being sealed in the puzzle, he just didnt know because of amnesia, I guess. So now they need to find out his real name and then send him to the afterlife because hes meant to be dead, but not before saving the world from being swallowed by darkness, which is also a thing they have to do now.

Then we finally get to the Memory World arc, where Yami, Yuugi and the rest of the gang astralproject to ancient egypt via puzzle magic. Yami is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and who all these familiar people are, while Yuugi & Co are trying their best to help him. Then some weird shit happens and it turns out that all of that is not just Yamis sealed away memories, but also a giant D&D Shadow Game that will destroy the world if Yami loses. So now theres Pharao!Yami who is still clueless on the metaphorical and literal playing field and Player!Yami, who is kinda controlling himself now? I guess?? Yamis opponent, The Spirit of The Ring, has something similar to that going on where hes both controlling and properly participating in the game. So Player!Yami is now fighting against Player!TSoTR, Pharao!Yami is now fighting against Thief King Bakura (who is like, the human, ancient egyptian version of the Ring Spirit) and Yuugi is now fighting against Yami Bakura (who is like, the human, modern japanese version of the Ring Spirit). Yuugi gets Yamis real name, he and the gang go over to Pharao!Yami and tell him his name, meanwhile Player!Yami is also somehow helping as well and they defeat the Ring Spirit, thus saving the world. Then they travel to modern Egypt, the Ceremonial Duel happens and Yuugi wins, sending Yami to the Afterlife where he can finally rest and that was the series!

I originally wanted to recount the stuff that was going on with the Ring Spirit and his host as well because they parallel eachother, but this summary is already far too long and I think youll get the point without me needing to explain any more.

My point here is, that the story went from being vaguely about Identity, maybe? to being very clearly about Self-Discovery and Learning to Be Independent. I think this is a very good way to evolve the messaging of your story. How does RWBY track on that?

Well, uh... its not great. I will acknowledge that they have tried to introduce new themes and ideas since, even though I wont really be talking about them in this post. But yeah, the whole Heroism thing really regressed.

Like, I didnt explicitly say it when I was explaining grimm earlier, but theyre not going away. The grimm have always been there and people who sign up to become huntsmen and huntresses are effectively signing up for a job that will never truly be done, no matter what they do. Characters like Ruby and even more minor ones like Phyrrah have shown us that that doesnt matter when youre a hero. No life isnt worth saving, no grimm isnt worth killing, no criminal isnt worth arresting. Then, in volume 6 they find out about Salem. Salem is the Big Bad of the show, shes immortal, controls the grimm and is supposed to be very powerful.

What do our heroes do? They give up. Sike! They were just mindcontrolled by monsters or some shit, of course they didnt give up their mission (which is to bring an Important Macguffin to a city called Atlas, sorry I didnt mention it)!

But then they arrive in Atlas (which is llike, a city thats floating over another city called Mantle) and yknow, they do some plot stuff thats not really important right now until the city gets invaded by Salem and this big grimm army she has.

What do our heroes do? Well, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and some side characters are chilling, drinking tea in a mansion and Yang and the B Team were actually trying to do something, but even those efforts seem incredibly minimal.

Oh wait, I also forgot to mention that Ironwood (a fairly minor, vaguely antagonistic character up until now) wanted to lift Atlas even higher to save Atleasian civilians from danger while leaving Mantle vulnerable to Salems invasion.

What would be the most heroic thing to do?

A) Let Ironwood lift Atlas, get as much support as they can down to Mantle and save as many Mantle civilians as they can from the invasion

B) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas but then split up in order to protect both Atlas and Mantle civilians

C) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas and then dont do anything else

Congrats! If you choose C, you think exactly like the writers!

And I just

This is so mindboggling to me, I feel like I shouldnt even have explain how this is bad. And like, it wouldve been so easy to actually make them seem herokc through their actions, to make it seem like they did try but no.

I have never seen a central theme be this botched, how in the world did they do that? Why did they think it was a good idea for Ruby "The Embodiment of Heroism" Rose to sit in a mansion doing nothing, no planning, no organizing just ..... God, how are they this bad? Like, this doesnt even have anything to do with it being planned in any way, this is just straight up incompetence

4. Very briefly touching on friendship

The friendship is awful and its not solely because they all have the same opinions. They barely interact with eachother outside their designated pairs which leads to it all feeling incredibly hollow. Theyre also practically indistingushable from one another now, which is a shame because it wasnt always like that. Like, I dont think the characters were that well-developed in earlier volumes but they were very well-characterized. But now we've gotten to a point where you can literally copy and paste one characters dialogue onto another and literally nothing changes, it really sucks.

5. Some closing words

Damn, this took way longer than I thought it would and now Im pretty exhausted. I have no idea how yall always write these but props to you! I feel like this ended up a bit rambly but overall, Im pretty proud.

Please let me know what you think of the points I brought up! Id also really appreciate some tips on how to get better at these longer posts because I am planning on writing more in the future (not the near future, probably but yknow).

Thats all I have to say for now, thanks for reading!

[blookmallow]

sighs 

i finally decided to find out what the hell project makeover actually is 

this is the best fucking dress ive ever seen

so its your standard match-3 game with pretty much the exact same mechanics as matchington mansion, i have too many of these and am very tired of matching things and yet i keep downloading more of them anyway

off to a great start here with the “take away her glasses and it’ll make her instantly hot” trope 

i thought maybe we’d be giving her some new glasses that suit her better but nah she never gets the glasses back lmao 

the poor girl with the bushy hair is not a gremlin who hasnt showered in weeks standing there with her hair actively on fire, she’s just a college student who recently graduated and wants help with a new professional look, it’s actually very focused on “lets help you look good to inspire confidence and love yourself” and generally pretty wholesome except for the “you can’t wear glasses it makes you look like a nerd lol” thing 

also the blue hair guy is not her boyfriend, or the blonde lady’s boyfriend, he’s the makeover show’s hair stylist. the blonde lady is actually the villain. theres a villain of this makeover game, more on that later, but my point is i do not understand how these app games don’t ever seem to get in trouble for false advertising when their ads literally have nothing to do with the game 

granted, everything about the real game is massively better than the ads. but i still dont understand 

anyway you also redo their rooms too, and the process for this is like. taking absolutely everything out and just replacing it all so in the meantime you end up with. like 

this poor man fsdjkg i took everything from his garage and also his shoes and now hes just standing in there looking lost. and barefoot 

alright lets get some DESIGNER concrete in this barren basement 

gjdsfsgh it did actually look nice when i finished this one. i didnt use the designer concrete 

theres a whole section for drama, which is very funny to me 

so the blonde lady was the previous show manager/host who ran the whole thing in a very “you’re ugly and disgusting, let Me, the Great Fashion Diva, try my best to fix you” way so she got kicked off for being terrible and now she’s out for revenge and also has an assistant who is desperately in love with her. the assistant is also really vindictive and mean to everyone too 

“greta left her laptop here so i went snooping in it. and hacked into her bank account. gotcha” 

isnt that like. illegal 

she didn’t actually hack into the account, greta left it logged in (even though. most bank sites log you out automatically after a while im pretty sure, but whatever) but isn’t it still illegal to go searching through someone’s laptop and personal finance accounts without their knowledge or permission. even if they are a fashion villain. like greta’s Mean but she hasn’t done anything illegal 

hold up why the fuck is this girl on my makeover list she clearly doesn’t need me 

can she give ME a makeover. look at her she’s gorgeous. she has everything figured out what more can i possibly do 

if i have to ruin her gothic theater and turn her “”normal”” im going to actually cry i really want to play this one bc i want to meet her so bad but im also so, so afraid 

like so far it hasn’t been “everything you like sucks we’re going to Improve You” its been like. ok the guy in the basement with the designer concrete was a car mechanic who Wanted to learn how to take better care of himself/his appearance but didn’t know how, and wanted to look good for his wife but needed help, and he already has a professional garage and all this stuff so it was like ok he loves coffee and cars lets help him make his garage into a little coffee lounge with car posters and stuff so he can actually relax at home and not think about work so much 

so it was “what would help improve this person’s quality of life and give them more confidence/lets use the things they love” so i cant imagine they’d just be destroying everything this girl loves??

also id just like to point out the horrible eye slime dress is one of my own personal wardrobe items that i bought because i love and hate it. why am i allowed to have the eye slime dress and she’s not allowed to have her vastly superior victorian goth look here 

anyway my theory that maybe if i finally play this game it’ll stop following me everywhere with these horrible ads was a failure. im still getting these and i still hate them even though the game itself seems to be mostly pretty alright 

i still think homescapes is the superior match 3 game of all the ones ive played but this one’s at least alright. they dont give you nearly enough powerups though its rly frustrating when you get stuck and i refuse to spend actual money on this, so 

[my-lunaberg]

Oh okay, then I mustve misintrepreted that post lol

I was referencing another post I made, which was more about my opinions on how to approach 'messaging' in fiction in general, although it was still mostly written to complain about the dsmp fandom specifically. The tldr is that I think its a bit silly to critize something that was clearly not intended to have A Message on the basis of the message being bad. That being said, I do understand why some people would be discomforted by the way abuse ended up being portayed because it is a sensitive topic obviously and while the fandom has been careful to be mindful of people by having warnings on the wiki and stuff like that, the content creators themselves really havent, like, Ranboo has derealization cws for the streams where thats relevant but Tommys streams, which deal pretty heavily with abuse and trauma at times, dont have anything like that, so that another valid reason to be upset. Like, if someone ignores content warnings and ends up getting exposed to upsetting content thats on them, but if someone isnt given content warnings and ends up getting exposed to upsetting content the creators should definitely lable their art more responsibly.

Also, while I dont get hung up on the messaging like some other people do, I still dont like a lot of what Ive been seeing in regards to Dream and Tommy. Like, I think Dream is an intersting character and I relate to him a lot and seeing him get a chance at happiness or even redemption would be very cathartic for me (ofc it still depends on the execution, but I really like the concept itself) but. he doesnt need to be with Tommy for that yknow? He can better himself and have friends and go make out with Punz or whatever far away from Tommy while Tommy can go and be with all of his friends that havent died/gone to the end/gone to utah? apparently?? far away from Dream. I get that its important that it ends with them since theyve kinda started everything, but also you dont have to become besties with someone who abused you in order to symbolically close the cycle of conflict that you both inadvertently dragged everyone in the world into

Idk I feel like Im being kinda insensitive about this and I think I even know the reasons lol

1. The other piece of media that Im currently into is Black Butler, moreso the manga than the anime, but I did watch the anime first and if I had to extrapolate and articulate A Message from the ending of season 1 (which many co sider to be the true ending bc a lot of people really didnt like season 2 lmao) it would basically be "You should kill yourself. You should have one ultimate goal in life and once youve achieved that, you should just kill yourself and die 👍" and thats yknow, really bad and messed up. But something being bad and messed up doesnt really bother me as long as it hits on a purely emotional level, which the ending of season 1 certainly did, so thats just the way it is and Ive made my peace with that

2. Ive already basically moved on. Like, Im a big Yugioh anime fan and Ive watched 6 out of 8 series which are currently out which are, for one, almost a 1000 episodes of really mediocre media designed to get 12 year old boys to want card games, and also 5 of the most dissapointing and terrible endings ive ever seen. There is only one yugioh series finale that I thouroughly enjoyed, the rest are all just kinda bad. At this point I might as well have a masters degree in Messy Series That Are Mostly Carried By The Great Characters And Some Neat Concepts With The Worst Endings Possible. And because of that, Ive already moved on, I know Im probably not gonna like it and if I do its probably just because its not as bad as tumblr scared me into thinking it would be, In my mind im already working on my little AU idea where Tommy and Tubbo swap places or my AU idea where Wilbur dies again and decides he just wants to stay in limbo and also Ghostbur is there and entire thing is basically just them working through some shit and going on weird funky train adventures or fanfics where Dream gets tortured in prison or whatever else I like. When a series has a shitty ending I have a very easy time just taking whatever I liked most about it and only thinking about those parts and just kinda ignoring the ending while also being happily free from the shackles of canon since the series is over lol

I've talked about this before but Ive been somewhat spoiled for the ending of dsmp so I already know that Tommy and Dream are gonna end on good terms or whatever and a lot of people dont like that because something something it sends a bad message something something and Ive already made a post about why complaining about "bad messaging" in media thats not for kids is stupid so Im not gonna get into that again. I just wanted to say that when I look up posts about the finale and I see anyone talking about how its OOC for Tommy to sympathize with Dream or forgive him or whatever, Im just gonna assume you didnt pay too much attention. Like, Tommy forgave literally everyone who wronged him, who ever did anything bad to him no matter what it was. And granted, nothing that Techno did or Wilbur or even Tubbo to an extend, was nearly as bad or deliberate as the things Dream did to him but still, this guy clearly feels bad about 'betraying' Techno during the days building up to Doomsday despite yknow, everything that happened on Doomsday. And sure, Im not gonna say he didnt betray Techno, but I wouldnt say that he was unreasonable or that he should feel bad or anything, but he inexplicably does idk what to tell you. Also, to be fair, the people that have been complaining about OOC stuff during the finale have mostly been complaining about Dream but Im just saying this in advance

I know I should probably just wait until I finish this stupid series to start having opinions about the finale but I cant help it man, I keep looking into my for you tab and I keep seeing posts about it and it took me 40 days to watch around two thirds of the dsmp (if the playlist is to be believed) i cant keep my opinions to myself for that long