#like this is exemplary of a very specific time and place

[phierecycled]

this poster haunts my dreams

[protagaster]

I feel bad that Ruthlessness is taking so long to come about. College Finals and Group Projects do that to ya T_T

So, in the first of what I hope to be more mini-interludes posted between the main song-fics, here's a cute little interlude I made with nothing more than my coffee and pure vibes!

Made with inspiration from my partner in crime - @somereaderinblue

I Need Her to be Mine (EPIC! Swap AU)

Odysseus swoons over the Spartan princess that is unable to leave his mind…

~

Athena tried to be supportive, she really did, but right now all she wanted was to end herself. Nevermind the Gods can’t be killed, she’s the Goddess of Wisdom. She can find a way. 

The reason behind this sudden desire to walk her uncle’s realm: the honey-filled ramblings of her love-struck student. 

“She’s amazing, Athena! Unlike any girl I’ve ever seen!” 

Odysseus paced to and fro in lines across his guest-room, his sparkling eyes and dopey grin never once leaving his facial features. 

“Her bright smile, her intelligent eyes, the way her tongue pokes out when she’s deep in thought and how her nose scrunches up wherever a plan of hers works out…” 

Athena watched as Odysseus wrapped his arms around himself in a single person hug, flopping down on his bed with a light thud.

“The sound of her voice, the witty edge to her words, how her eyes light up and her hair bounces with every skip of her step…”

Odysseus suddenly threw himself up, now sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“Did you see the way she handled her spear!?” Odysseus sighed, recalling their interaction mere hours ago. “Patient, graceful, careful and considerate of the strategy she’d use against her opponent…” 

Athena raised an eyebrow, recalling the scene she watched from her owl form’s eyes.

Penelope, a name the Goddess now knew due to the sheer amount of times Odyseeus would utter it under his every breath, had challenged her pupil to a friendly duel. Whatever for, Athena had no clue. Perhaps the reason occurred when she was momentarily away from Odysseus’ side, taking notice of a peculiar boy by the name of Diomedes… 

Well, regardless of the reason, Odysseus had accepted Penelope’s challenge. 

Athena arrived in the middle of the duel, which took place in one of Sparta’s many individual training grounds, consisting only of the mortals and their Gods. 

That’s right. THIER Gods. 

Athena did not have to see him to know Ares was near, for a fellow war God’s aura is hard to hide. She could just feel her brother’s presence surrounding her, staining the Spartan palace in very specific zones. It did not to long for Athena to realize Ares’ aura was strongest wherever Penelope would roam. 

Sure enough, after a quick gaze through the girl using her divine sight, Athena saw Penelope was claimed with Ares’ touch. 

Though they were both Gods of War, Ares and Athena had a very different claim of ownership when it came to their students. 

As hers, Odysseus would appear to be surrounded by an elegant cluster of soft to the touch blue and white owl fathers; under his feet with every step, a layer of blue sand that twinkled like the stars in the inky night sky. The sand and feathers showcased the enrichment of the young warrior’s ever growing mind, encouraging him to take in the wisdom that would make him an effective warrior of the mind. 

Penelope, however, appeared very different when gazed at through divine eyes. As she belonged to Ares, the girl’s figure was closely guarded by sharp red and black vulutre feathers; under her feet was a layer of red sand, scorching and dusty akin to the fields of battle that took place many years ago in the exact ground where she now stood. The sand and feathers surrounding her illustrated the girl’s courage-filled drive, fueled by pure emotional passion and determination that made her an exemplary warrior of the heart. 

Just as Ares and Athena embodied the opposite sides of war, Penelope and Odysseus demonstrated the type of soldier one could be when entering the dance floor of battle.

It was fitting, Athena supposed. Odysseus was an emotionally-driven young boy who, despite his naturally genius intellect to those around him, needed someone like Athena to help him hone in on his mindfulness and cunning. 

Penelope, meanwhile, was a naturally patient and bright young girl who was always pondering, more conscious of her decisions than she needed to be. Much as Athena loathed to admit it, the girl needed someone like Ares to help her center on her emotions and be more assertive for her own sake. 

Still, Athena couldn’t help but think of it it as a pity. 

Penelope had an innate wisdom and natural sense of patience to her. Had she been taken under Athena’s wing, the Goddess could have molded her to be a truly competent warrior of the mind. 

Unfortunately, Ares had managed to dig his claws into the girl before Athena could have taken her. And so, instead of fully utilizing her cunning, Penelope tried to rely on a quick strikes and bouts of adrenaline to defeat Odysseus in their friendly match. 

However, just like every other instance where Ares tried to defeat Athena, his student was quickly made to yield by hers. Athena thought it to have concluded there, that her and Odysseus’ bout with Ares and Penelope to have been fulfilled in its entirety. 

But, Odysseus proved her otherwise when he continued to gush about Penelope even though it had been hours after their competition-

Oh, he was still gushing about her. 

“-I need her to be mine!” Odysseus yelled out to the world from his window. 

Athena only rolled her eyes at his declaration.

Still, even if she hasn’t a hand for all things romance-related, Athena couldn’t help but find herself wanting to support her pupil in his heartfelt endevor. He had suffered immensely through others telling him he wasn’t even in the young Spartan Princess’ league, ranging from his fellow suitors (a formality, as he had no desire to even entertain a marriage to Helen) to even Penelope’s own father. 

And, despite crying his love out to night sky outside, Athena knew Odysseus was still aching through the anxiety and insecurity of believing himself to be not good enough for Penelope.

…

Athena let out an internal sigh, a migraine already beginning to form. 

If she wanted to help Odysseus in his matters of the heart, if she wanted a more clear understanding of how Penelope felt about him in turn, she needed the help of her insufferable brother…

Athena needed to find a way to privately meet up with Ares…

[aussie0608]

Mighty Nein and their Magnus Archives fear entity's

Idk if this has been done before, it probably has because there is lots of overlap between the two fandoms but I wanted to do the thought experiment myself

Caleb- The Eye

I feel that the eye is exemplary of a need for knowledge but I also think that can be something that falls under the web. The thing that makes Caleb specifically The Eye is his fear that people are after him. He's constantly on the lookout for the CA and his anti-scrying amulet screams eye to me

Nott/Veth- The Vast

On the surface yeah Veth is afraid of water and drowning, very vast. The vast also can be indicative of a fear of the unknown in that big space as well as being alone in it and that also feels very Veth

Beau- The Lonely

I think Beau is very affected by a fear of abandonment or being left behind. We see this with how she interacts with her family but also with her extreme reaction to Yasha leaving

Jester- The Stranger

I really struggled with Jester and I can be swayed to other options here. I think stranger because I think she epitomizes not showing your true self all the time, she puts on a mask of cheerful optimism and hides her emotions. I also think she has a fear of not really being known by anyone

Fjord- The Hunt

I also struggled with Fjord. I originally thought maybe the vast for him as well but Fjord doesn't fear the water, he loves it. What he fears is Ukatoa and the fact that his past is literally hunting him in the place he most loves, the sea.

Yasha- The Slaughter

Yasha doesn't like hurting people but I think she fears loosing control and killing people. She regrets all the people she hurts, she wants to protect but she was once the orphan maker

Molly/Kingsley -The End

That body keeps dying and the soul changing. I can't think of a character more exemplary of the end.

Caduceus- the Corruption

I don't think it scares him I just think he's appreciative of it.

Bonus:

Essek - The Web

Similar to Caleb he has a thirst to knowledge but his ends up leaning more web than eye. He gets involved in schemes and conspiracies and he thinks he's so smart but that is what ends up failing him one day.

I had multiple ideas for each of these guys so I'm very open to hearing what others think and I could easily be swayed.

[ebonyslasher]

Spicy Alphabet: Sesshomaru 

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

*Lick...lick....lick......lick*

Sesshomaru grooms you. Any nicks or scratches will be healed. If you're a demon too, he'll expect you to do it in return. Essentially pack bonding. 

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Sesshomaru: His whole being. His aura, strength, and beauty is a blessing to this world. He's not arrogant about it. It just is.

You: Hips. The perfect switch in your walk. Shapely hips with alluring curves rewarded his eyes. The perfect resting place for his hands. They are soft to squeeze. And if you sway your hips near him, he will jump you.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

This One cums exorbitantly. Selectivity with sexual activities causes little sexual interaction with others. Lord Sesshomaru will go without for years if need be. Factor in that doesn't masturbate.  He’ll be able to cover your whole face.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He’s cum in his pants from seeing how you move during spars/practice. From a quick observation, he just seemed to serenely turn away. On the contrary, he was rushing to hide the warm cum dripping out of his slit.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Not very, it mostly consisted of oral sex and foreplay in his teenage years. Never penetration. But! This One is exemplary at all tasks they perform. Do not worry, you will be more than satisfied.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Know y'all know what I'm going to say....

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Neutral. He's just playful. That’s the goofiest you’ll ever get him to be

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Tip top shape. Are you kidding? And yes, that gorgeous white hair with the teeniest bit of curl matches

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Reasonably so and will become more intimate as the relationship progresses. It's mostly through his animalistic gestures

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Doesn’t. If he really needs to, he will just imagine a sex scene. Or you giving him a lap dance with those fantastic hips, plump lips, gorgeous legs and -

Ah, he's already cumming without touching himself.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Biting, breeding, cutting off clothing (yours), power exchange, kinbaku, intelligence, strength

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Anywhere on his estate, even if workers are walking around. If not there, then a random cave

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

You dancing, specifically any sensual hip movements.

Jewelry that accentuates your neck, worshipping him, "My Lord, I need you now.." while rubbing against him. Hearing you put a peasant in their place and/or you show off your intellect

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Nothing disgusting, nothing that will scar permanently, crying, being standoffish towards him (ironic)

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Enjoys both, but really loves eating you. Delicious and Divine in taste and smell. It can be overwhelming how rich and luscious you are. He will spend forever torturing you.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Steady momentum and hammering deeply

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

This one does not favor these 'quickies'. It should be standard to take the time to have you in a beautiful frenzy.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Yes, he will experiment. Hell, he will be alive for a long time. Might as well try things out before he gets bored.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

God level. Depends on when you or him decide it's enough

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Own toys? No. But he will buy any gadgets you want. If you're from the future, he may slyly ask for you to bring some to him.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

[Sesshomaru] (You)

"This one wishes to continue enjoying your taste...."

"....you've been down there for an hour now please, my lord!!!"

"Hn....your plea has been considered."

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Mostly short exhales. Talks in a playful tone, soft and ethereal. "Ah, you are begging? Y/n, you sound incoherent. Speak clearly." In his demon form, it's mostly whines and growls.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

One guy started moaning as Sesshomaru threw him to the side and stepped over him. Nigga, Seshomaru was disgusted.

He just killed him as quickly with his venom whip

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

7.5

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

High, but he can control it well

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Nope. He likes to feel you fall asleep. Then, he determines what he wants to do after you're comfortable

[oneatlatime]

City of Walls and Secrets

I am also once again saving the commentary for a rewatch.

I still think rock trains are neat but their inefficiencies hurt my brain. The friction! They should at least install dynamic braking.

That's big. This show has really confined itself to the hinterlands so far, so this is really novel. I had no clue anything this big existed in the Avatar universe.

Complete nitpick time! Given that earthbending is a thing that exists, why bother making things out of stone with individual tiles like this?

Single most threatening musical sting of the whole show so far goes to an overly smiley tour guide.

Wow! I hate this lady already!

"Oh, Ba Sing Se has many walls! There are the ones outside, protecting us, and the ones inside, protecting us from smelly poors!"

"In case someone brings home a lady friend!" Do you know your nephew AT ALL?

Both Iroh and Zuko are right. Life does happen everywhere and without your permission. But, the city is also remarkably prison-like.

He got them jobs in an afternoon. AN AFTERNOON. Stop it Iroh, you're making me feel inadequate.

Once a fuckboy, always a fuckboy. This particular leopard can't change his spots, no matter how he tries to dress up his actions in a new law-abiding veneer. I feel sorry for Smellerbee. Her faith in her leader isn't exactly being rewarded.

So... is there a law on the books that makes being a firebender illegal in Ba Sing Se? Because the head-in-the-sand vibe I'm getting from Judy makes me think that the average citizen doesn't even know there's a reason to dislike the Fire Nation. Iroh and Zuko could probably bend as openly as a waterbender or an earthbender could here.

This whole being handled thing must be dredging up some pretty nasty feelings for Toph. This is specifically what she left behind.

Speaking of precisely targeted torture, Judy is engineered to be as irritating to Sokka as possible. Man of action versus Lady of script.

What a productive use of time! What an exemplary case of turning over a new leaf!

Iroh buddy I have news for you regarding the ingredients of tea.

That's like the nicest thing a member of the Fire Nation royal family has said all year.

How to get Iroh's ass in gear: Step 1: Make insulting tea. Step 2: There is no step 2.

I thought that little thingy in the background was one of those electricity things.

The attention to detail in this show is stupid. There's a moving reflection of the carriage in the water as it goes past.

Hi forbidden city!

Ba Sing Se has a morality police?

I've already run out of patience with the city and I'm 7 minutes in. I haven't even made it to a commercial break yet!

Their house is cute but the veranda is so substantial that it's probably really dark inside. Also there's a pumpkin hood ornament on the roof.

I don't think you can stop there for a month. Have you guys forgotten the now-doubled ticking clock? Eclipse and comet?

Oh ok we're doing 1984 now. Damn. This show goes places.

I stand corrected. Everyone knows about the war and would be appropriately non-welcoming to firebending. But not openly. This could be like one of those Bugs Bunny bits where he traps someone in societal rules. If someone told a firebender not to bend, all they would have to do to get the guy off their case would be to ask why they aren't supposed to be firebending. What's the guy going to say, because there's a war on?

Shout out to Pong for doing the Gaang a solid and providing the only useful info since they've arrived.

There is something very Gollum-like about Jet, crouched in laundry on a roof in the dark, talking to his stolen spark rocks.

Sokka. Feet off the artwork.

Time for Toph to weaponise her oppressive upbringing and out-fancy the fancies in the name of ending the war.

Aang can master an element in a couple of months but a qualified expert declared manners to be beyond him.

I just realised that Sokka and Katara don't have a last name.

Sneaking into a Bear's (JUST Bear's) birthday party may be the single least violent infiltration attempt in the show so far.

Smellerbee is very articulate, and it's rare that this show spells out its themes so obviously. No metaphors, just "you're obsessed. It's not healthy." And Jet still doesn't get it. Maybe Smellerbee should have tried metaphors.

Normally glowy green stuff is bad news, but all of Ba Sing Se's green lighting is surprisingly cozy.

Sometimes, rarely but sometimes, Zuko has to put up with a lot of nonsense.

A raise? Did I miss a timeskip?

Busting in to a local business, yelling about the enemy, pulling out a lethal weapon: How to Look Sane, A Guide by Jet.

Customers, amirite?

I guess the Bei Fongs are too minor as nobles?

"You don't know what I had to do to get seats this near the bear!" but I want to.

I know this guy's voice from something.

Momo ghost plan. I want it.

Pretty funny that the busboys plan works better than the fancy ladies plan. Goes to show you should always play to your strengths.

Get de-wheated punk.

I'm not sure I've rooted for Zuko this wholeheartedly since The Storm.

Jet be like.

Judy is not good at her job. Like really not good. Her insistence on getting out of there before they cause a scene caused the scene. Nice going!

The music slowing down when Judy's face falls is really effective.

You ever get the feeling that it should be Aang who ran away to the circus rather than Ty Lee?

Actually a travelling circus would be a great way to be, and remain, an incognito airbender. Aang should have done that rather than frozen himself. Ok I'm not sure how much say he had in that, but you know what I mean.

For the first time in his life, Zuko has people take his side. It's too bad that it's based on a lie, but it must feel nice.

I would have preferred if Zuko had a clean win against Jet - they're both great with swords, but I thought Zuko was better - but an assist from the funky hat police works too.

I'm getting some funky vibes from the funky hat police.

Bye! I won't miss you!

The face on the guy on the left is the funniest part of this episode.

Now these are some funky hats.

I know this scene is supposed to be scary and tense and action-packed, but I can't get over the fact that the king just did a drive by. They carried him in one side and out the other. This concludes the King's presence at his Bear's birthday party. He's a very busy man, you see.

Long Fang's title keeps getting fancier.

Brain washing crops up quite a lot in kids' cartoons. This is not the first time I've seen this plot beat.

Forget the Fire Lord. Forget the Fire Nation. Long Fang just threatened Appa. Long Fang has to die now.

The Judys are replaceable. Given everything else this city seems ok with, they're probably disposable too. Yikes!

Final Thoughts

This episode was probably the most expository I've seen this season. Maybe even the whole show. It was a big infodump with barely any humour. Actually that's wrong; there was humour, but not to my taste.

Jet is infuriating as usual. I think the writers are going for the villainous decay trope, because smooth-talking season one Jet hasn't reappeared once.

I feel really sorry for Smellerbee and the archer guy. I wonder if they even wanted to go to Ba Sing Se in the first place.

Once again, for the third episode in a row, Zuko is one of, if not the, most reasonable character. Season one shouty Zuko is gone. Is this what I think it is? Has Zuko really turned a corner? If so, I'm liking (rather, disliking less) this new Zuko. This is good. I'm also surprised, because in my experience, if you want to domesticate someone, you don't put them in a customer-facing role. That will have the opposite effect and make them turn feral.

Iroh is having too much fun. It's good for him to have something of his own going on. I think he's been in Zuko wrangling mode 24/7 for the last two? three? years, so he definitely deserves to pursue his own interests for a bit. But I can't see Zuko being a tea boy for long before he's back to needing wrangling.

What's the long term plan though? Are Zuko and Iroh going to live the rest of their lives in Ba Sing Se? Are they waiting for something? Are Iroh and Zuko functionally dead, with Lee and Mushi taking their place?

I will give the show credit for finally coming up with and antagonistic force that Aang & company can't just bend or talk into submission. Bureaucratic tomfoolery covering for authoritarian censorship and information suppression and re-education was not something I'd ever have expected in this show, because it's a little too much like the real world, if you know what I mean.

I don't like seeing our heroes unable to triumph, so this episode was kind of uncomfortable to watch. It felt off the whole way through, which I credit to that creepy music box tune that played throughout. The soundtrack of this episode was a cut above what I usually hear in this show. I noticed it more than I usually do, and I mean that in a good way.

As someone who'd be lucky to pass as a busboy, upper class intrigue and social games stuff doesn't do it for me, so this wasn't an episode I was going to enjoy anyway. I preferred the B plot with Zuko and Iroh, for the sheer absurdity of the concept. Imagine you're in 1950s London, having barely survived the Blitz, and you come across Himmler working in a pub. It's so odd that it almost wraps back around to normal again.

I didn't find this episode very enjoyable. I don't like the forced inactivity that's been imposed on the Gaang. The humour was not to my taste. The worldbuilding was substantial, but - probably thanks to Joo Dee, whose name I've definitely been misspelling - it felt inorganic, like a lecture. Which the writers do lampshade by making Joo Dee sound like one of those audio guide things you rent from tourist attractions. But lampshading a fault does not make a fault go away.

Thanks to what happens to Jet, I know that the people of Ba Sing Se don't dare even think about the war, for their own safety. But after spending more than half a season being shown every type of refugee and victim of war in other parts of the Earth Kingdom, I could not bring myself to give a flying fuck over Pong's concern for keeping his house. The city is frustrating, the officials are frustrating, their priorities are beyond frustrating. Zuko was right when he said he didn't want to make a life there, although I did find the lower ring where Zuko and Iroh are to be far more comfortable than the high ring where the gaang is.

This episode makes me want to bite something.

And still no Appa.

[astrum-aetherium]

i don’t explicitly perceive henry winter as an overly sexual being; however, i do believe quite firmly that he is able to prosper in that aspect once he develops an apt bond with someone of his — admittedly particular — liking. and that alone would be immensely difficult to achieve, would perhaps only happen once, or not at all for that matter. we all know how reserved and detached he is, specifically from interhuman relationships. undeniably, it would take effort and time — painstakingly so. however, when it would, in fact, occur… i believe he may find himself being liberated in a sexual sense beyond anyone’s comprehension. let me elaborate.

at his core, we suspect him to be a masked, perhaps even disimpassioned people pleaser — bunny’s accounts (however biased and compromised they may be) provide us with the information that he is mysteriously willing to offer a helping hand, oftentimes in a material sense (even pre-blackmail), as he has a wealthy background and monetary value is thus a vague concept to him (take the multitudinous instances of him offering money to the greek class for various endeavors nonchalantly and out of the blue as a further example). furthermore, we know that he has care lodged within him. prime example: the fact he remained at richard’s side in the hospital for almost the entirety of his stay, bringing him clothes and other matters to entertain himself with. therefore, despite his coolness and earnestness, we may be convinced that he does care — even if the care in question resides in the deepest pit of his troubled soul.

the reason for this quite elaborate tangent is simple: he would be a pleaser at heart — in a sexual sense. take it literally. i believe he would see any type of sexual interaction with pleasure as the end goal for at least one participating party as an act of service, a duty perhaps. we know that he approaches most endeavors he partakes in with the utmost attention and devotion, wherefore i wouldn’t put it past him to apply this to sex as well. despite his stoic politics, i am sure he would be out to please the partner he were to engage in sexual activity with, even putting his own pleasure aside as to make way for the other person’s, primarily. he is a giver and he cannot help it. sure, he’ll be indifferent and oftentimes cruel about it, derisive even, because i’m sure we can all agree that he can be a light degrader as well, yet he will nevertheless give and give and expect very few in return.

an exemplary scenario: you may be the one to initiate things, but he’d be the one to take over and steer matters into a direction that will undoubtedly result in immense pleasure on your end, as you were the initiator in the first place. the reward he would get for that concealed favor is, of course, his own release — whichever way it may be achieved — and that is how things would go. and this is not to say that he never initiates — it’s just rare, but it certainly happens. he’s simply more domineering in a way that he immediately seizes control and transforms the encounter into something worth his (and, undoubtedly, your) while.

[eowynstwin]

if we're gonna be talking about myka again, I just need everyone who hardcore harrased Madi over this to know: you guys fell for someone lying about military service and when she faced the slightest bit of criticism over a very real pattern in the fandom, she pretended to kill herself. You went on a witch hunt in the name of someone who was lying to you from day fucking one. Go outside and touch grass.

I’d rather if we didn’t—I need to, because the few times I talked about it directly did not really solve how I feel about it. I feel a bit like people forgot that she did this specifically to me, because I criticized her. Yes, it affected many, many other people, and their feelings about the situation are valid and they deserve to express them, but I was her target, first and foremost. Sheheal made dozens of posts specifically going after me. Bunny and Ikea led a witch hunt after me.*

Because here’s the thing—I’m aware of at least one blog who has been dragging the Myka scheme around even all these months later. They’ve namedropped my old url (soapskneebrace) and referenced what happened to me several times now. But they have never, not once, contacted me directly about any of the shit Myka did following her initial suicide fakeout. In fact, the only time I can remember that blog speaking directly to me at all was to berate me for the post I made that started the clusterfuck in the first place.

That’s only a case study, but it’s exemplary of how it all played out. A lot of people talked about what happened, at the time and after, both to criticize and support me. And for the people who supported me, I am so grateful, don’t get me wrong. Early, Ceil, Lev, Lexi, Dee, and everyone else gave a voice to what I was feeling but was not safe to say aloud.

But at the time I had no voice. I couldn’t speak to what I felt myself. I spent a week watching everything happen, unable to say anything, because adding my voice to the discourse would have only encouraged my own harassment. I could only wonder if I would EVER have a safe place in the fandom again. I wasn’t sure I would, so I decided to leave.

And then, when I decided to come back, it seemed like everyone wanted to move on, and I still couldn’t say anything. Everyone else was done with it, but I had barely figured out how to process it even a month later. Everyone else got to talk about it. I didn’t. I couldn’t explore what the hell I felt after being gaslit by an entire community over something that didn’t even fucking happen, because negativity is the death of engagement, and I wanted to be here, back among people who supported me.

So, to your sentiment—yes, you’re right. What she did was fucking crazy, and the mobbing that followed beggars belief. And I’m not trying to attack you either, anon, I appreciate your sentiments very much.

I just want to be clear—I am not trying to stir the pot, or start up the discourse again. I just need to talk about it because I never really did, and it’s been eating me up for months.

*Not at all to say that racism didn’t play a huge part in the situation. But I believe it had more to do with my breaking white conformity to point out a fellow white person’s bad behavior, rather than Myka’s desire to escape accountability. After all, she trolled later on about Gaz, using various sock puppets, to court the exact same attention.

[aria0fgold]

Two birds, One Stone, and Me

A Persona 5 snippet starring Akechi ft. Kaito Kuroba (Magic Kaito) and Asuka (an oc by @misty-wisp)!

Akechi massaged his temples as he walked through the station after having just gotten out of the train. It was headache one after another for him nowadays, the matter with Shido's jobs combined with the emergence of the so called Phantom Thieves of Hearts, not to mention the return of that pesky thief Kaito KID in Japan after doing heists overseas. His first problem is easy to deal with, as something he had gotten used to doing, his second problem was coming along well enough as he already has a good idea on who the members of the Phantom Thieves are, and the third problem is the biggest headache of all as Kaito KID has been a consistent problem for years now. Disappearing in the past only to have a come back years after and no one has any idea how to deal with him.

There's already even a police force specifically designed to capture that thief and yet there's no progress at all anyway. And for some goddamned reason, Akechi was also tasked to help with that too!

If a police force dedicated to capturing that thief can't even handle it then what else can I do anyway? Detective Prince my ass, if only those people know the truth they wouldn't add on to my mountain of problems something nearly impossible to achieve!

Figuring out the identities of the Phantom Thieves were easy with how sloppy they were at keeping it hidden in the first place but figuring out the identity of a criminal that's most likely been at it for more than a decade isn't something Akechi should be doing in the first place. That should fall on the hands of the adults instead.

Ah but of course! Adults are practically useless, good for nothing fools who's only good at hurting others and getting children to clean up after them, OF COURSE! WHY ELSE AM IN THIS WHOLE MESS ANYWAY IF NOT FOR THAT!

Akechi let out a small quiet sigh, it's best for him to retire for the day and take a rest, although, just as he rounded the corner, he was met with a particularly familiar face that had immediately fallen into a frown the split second she noticed Akechi.

“Ah, Asuka, yes?” Akechi put on his usual polite smile, the face of the exemplary Detective Prince.

“Riight, yeah.” She averted her eyes from him, it was obvious it wasn't out of embarrassment, “Excuse me.”

Akechi could just let her go, but a thought formed on his mind, “Wait, if it's alright with you, could you spare some of your time to have a short chat?”

Asuka attends the same school as Akira. In fact, she attends the same school as most of the members of the Phantom Thieves. There's a possibility of her being involved with them, it's better to check just in case.

There was also... That... Although it doesn't seem to be relevant at the moment, it was still a particular pattern to keep in mind.

Asuka looked back, her eyes squinted slightly, though it was still a frown, Akechi can feel the sharpness of a glare hidden behind a thin veil of public civility. “Unfortunately, no. Goodby—”

“Isn't that…”

Just before Asuka could finish her sentence, a person by the distance caught Akechi's attention. And as his gaze fell on the figure's back, the person turned to meet his eyes.

It was Kaito Kuroba. Someone who's close to Akira.

Asuka followed Akechi's sight with a glance and it was at that moment that Kaito beamed at them before waving his hand as he approached the two.

“Oh hey! You're that so called Detective Prince, aren't you?” He smiled so brightly at them Akechi felt blinded and very much so annoyed.

But he can't quite show such a thing, smile, smile… smile… he needs to smile.

“Ah, yes—”

Kaito then quickly turned to Asuka, her passive aggression towards Akechi was replaced with slight anxiety, “And you… Ah! You're that student Akiki told me before! You sit behind him, yeah?”

She nodded, “R-right…”

. . .

Akechi really hates this guy.

He mentally collected himself, it seems that he'd have to talk to Asuka another day. Though this is an ideal situation of killing two birds with one stone, both of them have possible connections to the Phantom Thieves but right now, he'd rather not deal with someone as obnoxious as that guy.

Kaito clapped his hands, “Hey! Since we're all here, how about a meal? My treat! I'd love to get to know more about Asuka and Mister Detective Prince! It's not everyday an opportunity like this can come by!”

Goddammit, WHY?! “You're right, I'll take you up on that offer then.”

“I'll take my leave instead…”

“Now, now, Asuka. Since this kind person is going to treat us, wouldn't it be polite to accept such an offer? He seems to know someone close to you too.”

FINE! Might as well take this chance! DAMMIT!!!

“I'm not really… close to him though.” Asuka tried to take a step away from them.

“Aww! Please, please, please, pretty please? How about I help you with homework too? Please come with us! The more the merrier after all!” Kaito pleaded with the best puppy dog eyes expression he can muster.

“Exactly!” Akechi added, to which Asuka openly glared at him for.

For a second, the two's expression seemed to telepathically communicate with each other, two different thoughts yet both in sync enough to converse with the other.

This bastard is surely planning something…

If I'm getting roped in with this guy, I'm going to drag you into this one too.

. . .

And so, the unlikely trio sat by the table of a restaurant nearby. One who was visibly dragged in, another beaming with a light as bright as an artificial sun, and lastly someone who deep down wanted to break the glass of water nearby as they waited for their orders.

Dealing with Asuka should be easy enough but this obnoxious bastard has got to be faking this entire overly cheerful personality of his otherwise his entire existence is just gonna piss me off to no end.

“So, you go to Ekoda High, Kaito? That's quite far from here.” Akechi is luckily used to maintaining this image of his, it should be easy to do despite how badly he want to just get out already.

“Nah! So long as you know your ins and outs, it's actually pretty close by!”

“Is that so—”

“By the way, Asuka! Your scarf suits you so well! It even matches your uniform!” Kaito cut Akechi off again.

Deep breaths… This guy… is clearly doing that on purpose!

“Ah… Thanks…” She took a small glance at Akechi and then at Kaito before looking at her scarf, she seemed to be thinking about something.

It's fine, if his goal is to rile me up then let him try, his attempts won't work on me at all anyway.

“Being a so called Detective Prince at that age sure is impressive, huh Akechi?” Kaito threw the ball back at Akechi's court.

“It's nothing I can't handle—”

“Yeah, it must be so hard getting swarmed with cases left and right that you don't even have time to do all of them anymore.” It was Asuka that cut him off this time.

“Pardon?”

“Oh, I'm just saying. In a general sense.” Asuka slightly squinted at him and seemingly rolled her eyes in a subtle manner as she turned to look away. It was as if a switch was flipped and now, instead of Akechi killing two birds with one stone, it feels as though that two birds are killing him with one stone.

. . .

Akechi mentally sighed as he could only freeze his own smile in place to keep it from faltering, he shouldn't have accept this invite.

[croziers-compass]

I went off my marbles about Francis' half pay of 14shilling. (14s9p Navy Half Pay if you're being specific)

I was curious as to how "bad" that this 14shilling half pay was that Sophia Cracroft criticized him for (because she brings up his income as a reason why she cannot and would not marry him.) I do grasp that a huge part of their etiquette and expectations for suitors were that he would have to maintain her lifestyle and her current "height of living"/status of living. But still that hits me in the kidneys painfully. I am probably doing my maths wrong. Because monetary content isn't my forte. However, 14 shilling half pay for Francis is incredibly low for a Senior Captain. If I am understanding this correctly, he got paid this daily and then paid out once every quarter (so four times a year) which amounted to approximately a payout from the Admiralty of £63/£64 per four months.

Which... is not a lot at all. But he'd be able to scrape by for sure. But this man was one of their best and most extraordinary Captains with such a remarkable history within the Navy. He was incredibly decorated and immensely intelligent and simply remarkable for his era. I may be biased but this man truly pulled some zany and Indiana Jones-esque bullfuckery out of his back pocket and performed some of the most hilariously intense and remarkable moves with ships. Like when the Terror got entangled with the Erebus and he drug the Erebus' body for a time by the riggings of his own ship until they were in safe waters to disentangle them? Uncertainty everywhere and panic and chaos and he simply goes: "I got this." And takes charge of it, dragging the ship along like a antler-locked buck. Without his expertise and experiences whilst in the Antarctic, Ross would have been quite painfully lost. Francis' education and skills in navigation and exploratory talents simply busted them out of the most unusual of places and times. He also provided such immense knowledge and skill and care when it came to wisely using their very limited supplies. There were several expeditions where they had quite the close call on calories and sanity. His exemplary skills to pave roads out of the most dangerous inhospitable places with as many crew and fellows alive as possible is incredibly paramount. So he's worth the equivalence of, at most, £64 every four months. Which is the equivalence of about £5,300 every four months in modern inflation currency according to the Bank of England. This means his yearly salary is £256 per year or £21,546 in our current time. I do grasp the cost of living in his era and the price of things however this is disgustingly low for a well decorated man and a Senior Captain in the British Navy. I am shaking the Admiralty in my mouth and shredding them with my teeth. Sources:

https://www.napoleonguide.com/navy_rnhalfpay.htm

https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/military-history/half-pay-and-prize-money-making-a-living-in-britains-navy

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

[professorspork]

u should like!! toootally drop blake and yang outfit references for ur newsbees au. for like. research purposes

!!! okay I can't tell if you're asking this for fanart reasons (EVERYONE SHOULD FEEL VERY FREE TO DO THAT) or for spank bank "my thirst requires an accurate theater of the mind" reasons (VALID) but

this makes me UNHINGED and i plan to be SO THOROUGH so THANK YOU FOR ASKING

i have put this under a cut to spare you all but i think you should click on it and admire the gilded age urchin chic

first of all, let me say that Newsies Are Beautiful. They have never met two clashing patterns they didn't want to combine and I think they are perfect in every way

that said

the classic Jack look could certainly use some tailoring before it's truly ready for the Yang prime time

these numbered fellas give us a better place to start when it comes to I WANT MY NEWSIES TO NOT BE SWIMMING IN CLOTHES TWO SIZES TOO BIG YES I KNOW THE VERITAS OF THEM SCROUNGING FOR WHATEVER BUT ALSO. THIRST.

Fella 1 is a pretty bang-on Yang and you can tell that was his intention because he's growing out his hair, bless. sleeves rolled to show arm, shirt unbuttoned scandalously to show cleavage, open vest, neat cap, high socks. the lower half does lose points for the striped socks that remind me of the Wicked Witch of the East's feet sticking out and the fact that he's clearly in tap shoes as opposed to work boots like his friend Fella 3

Fella 2 gets EXTRA sock points for the argyle and the vest-but-no-collar combo which is very Nora. He also has a neat cap, which Blake always does because she's hiding her ears.

Fella 3 has a sloppy cap but is otherwise a bang-on Blake; kempt and tidy in ways Yang never is even though they are essentially wearing the exact same thing. Blake knows how to button buttons and Yang pretends she forgets every day

Fella 4's rocking the henley and suspenders combo which serves any member of our cast, a fucking classic

Fella 5 is wearing a tie he is trying so hard he wants to look nice at work, 100% a Jaune move

sir that-- that's not how crutches are supposed to-- SIR--

this Crutchie exhibits excellent Newsie styling in a very Yang color palette. high socks, mixing of patterns, rolled sleeves; excellent. the slightly fancier waistcoat, actually buttoned, isn't something Yang would go for but certainly wouldn't be amiss on Blake, Ruby, or Velvet

Ruby also, of course, wears a signature red scarf instead of her cloak:

like her scarf and hat just absolutely dwarf her, she's WEE SMOL

above we see our previous example Crutchie not leaping through the air, and his outfit remains exemplary but for the backwards cap, which I shan't abide. the Jack to his left-- what with his WIDE open shirt, tight undershirt, rolled sleeves, and suspenders, is very Yang.

good Yang looks can also mean THE SHORTEST SLEEVES EVER, TO SHOW OFF THE GUNS:

both excellent choices, and of course our lower fella (TURN THAT CAP AROUND YOUNG MAN) has got his bandana going, which is Quite Yang

all the guys in the background there are gold too tbh

look at this king in this fashion pose but also YEAH WHY NOT BANDANAS ON THE ARMS BANDANAS EVERYWHERE the yang xiao long story

^^ this outfit, on the other hand, is pretty exactly spot-on for Blake immediately post haircut/makeover

Weiss, I'm sure you've already guessed, is a Classic Katherine:

she's buttoned-up, she's fancy, her shit matches and she's the only one in a skirt.

the only thing where my brain gets REALLY SPECIFIC is the finale so uh. spoiler warning I guess for screenshots of the Newsies film and vague references to a plot resolution if you're reading the AU without having watched it

but the finale looks are ICONIC and non-negotiable

button shirt OVER henley OVER bandana and nothing's buttoned? suspenders on but hanging loose from the hips? hell yes.

i actually even managed to make that dirt smudge on David's tummy plot-relevant to Blake and that was completely subconscious and I didn't realize I did it until looking up these screenshots but there you have it. and by this point Weiss gets to be a little more loose and dressed-down, a la Sarah

in conclusion they're in love look at those heart eyes oh my god

[inventors-fair]

Wanting Commentary: Finding what we're Looking For

Oh, I don’t know, I like these flavor angles. I love approaching things from different sides, from getting into the depths of human perspective. I wonder, for the cards where I feel the mark was missed, whether or not my approaches are actually aligned with other people’s, or if there just happens to be preconceived opinions on what makes a good connection that sporadically hits the mark in fun ways.

Regardless, there were a few angles I understood, and a few that felt either samey or off. That’s what happens when you have a single prompt and multiple responders, sure—hence the article I wrote about choosing unusual approaches. If you haven’t read that, I recommend it, but in general, I recommend that people really dig into their favorite weird cards. What’s off the beaten path? What makes good connections, well, connected?

I don’t want to be too harsh; there’s a lot to like about a lot of these cards. People did want to make their sense of flavor strong, and I like the ways in which people added or omitted flavor text as necessary. I like the way people approached flexibility this week. I liked feeling blindsided by my own perceptions, new takes on old twists as well as old warmth in new times.

JUDGE PICKS are cards that I want to point out for one specific reason or another, cards that either did something exemplary or touched me in a unique way. Let’s follow on.

~

@0woah — Nihilistic Stupor

We’re starting in a pretty specific place, then. So, hi, welcome, thank you for a first submission. We’ll clear a couple hurdles first, then get into the nitty-gritty. Stock photos! Stock photos are fine, provided that you have proper attribution; most sites have the original photographer credited, so if you have that, check it. Watermarks are enough to at least say that it’s not your original, but we do need the photographer in question.

Mechanically, aside from needing “Enchant player” as part of the Aura text, this card’s main critique is that there’s no exit condition, as it were. There will come a point where no player has access to lands and can’t play lands. If you’re the green-black deck, that’s not a problem for you with recursion, but this is for a draftable set. What’re other players going to do? It’s a distinctly unfun card that plays against a lot of contemporary sensibilities. This kind of effect would be considered unfun even in the 90’s.

Flavorfully, I have to admit, I don’t fully understand what you’re going for here. “Nihilistic” is a philosophical take that requires cognitive impetus, and “Stupor” is a state of unconsciousness; the two are inherently incompatible concepts without the right tie. I’m afraid I don’t understand what the flavor text is trying to emulate in terms of desire, either. Who is doing the wanting? What is the object of desire? How is nihilism relate to desire? Perhaps this made sense on the drawing board, but the idea doesn’t feel conveyed properly here. Consider a clearer distinction of character and motivation as someone else would perceive it.

~

@bread-into-toast — Waterborne Wenders (JUDGE PICK)

Well, isn’t that adorable. The desire of the formless to become formed, and the impossibility of settling into oneness! Relatable. This art would be hellish to block out but very cool to see. “Fitting in everywhere, belonging nowhere.” It’s a little esoteric without the humanity, but seeing how changelings on Lorwyn occupy this almost alien niche in the hard-and-fast species distinctions found on the plane, we have to be distant from these creatures ourselves. We can’t understand the mechanism of their desire even as we observe it, and I think that that’s really neat.

The mechanics are a little odd for its cost. This feels like a big lad who’s gonna change into something, and for that cost, a pseudo-Cryptoplasm feels kind of steep. That said, I like the concept. I believe it should read: “At the beginning of your end step, you may exile ~, then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control. You may have it enter the battlefield as a copy of another creature you control, except it has changeling and this ability.” If you make that one paragraph, you don’t need the other trigger because it’s part of the end step trigger, I believe. A fun card and a fun cost. I like the white there for the blinkiness. This is a card that I feel can be cute on its own, a draft enhancer rather than a staple.

~

@deg99 — Scatter the Ashes

The mourning returns. This card is just about what can be expected, although I’m surprised that this name hasn’t been taken before, wow. I don’t think that this needs a world necessarily, and I wouldn’t really call it Innistradian. It doesn’t feel...morbid, weird as that may seem. That said it doesn’t really strike the emotional chords in the same way. Part of that comes from the major disconnect between the flavor and mechanics. The mechanics are great! This is an awesome limited counterspell. Counterspells are by nature reflexive, though, reaction in response to action.

The finality of your intended flavor is in response, as far as I can perceive, to the previous actions of the caster. The woman is deciding to release the ashes and move on, a self-contained series of events. What’s she countering? What’s being taken away but a concept she herself created? The sense of moving on is a rational want, and a strong emotional choice. It doesn’t make sense on a counterspell like this. Good ideas, fair execution on both, but the mesh isn’t happening. I recommend reworking the flavor text to be... Well, not more “exciting,” but more than what it is right now. Substantial and specific.

~

@dimestoretajic — Tyrant’s Scepter (JUDGE PICK)

I agonized over this card a little bit, as much as agony compelled me this week, because if a whole bunch of other cards didn’t exist, this card would be absolutely fantastic and really silly. Perhaps there are some safeguards to ensure that Commander players wouldn’t abuse it, but someone’s gonna Do The Thing and I guess Hellkite Tyrant on a literal stick—turned into a literal stick?—is a bit different. The sacrifice is nice, and the five mana barrier is super cool. Flavorfully, you’re all-in on the despot’s desire, so that all checks out, no notes.

Look me in the eyes, captain. You and I both know that there’s a cEDH Breya player who would use this card to make people want to start a revolution. There’s no way around that. Limited-wise, I mean, this card’s awesome. I want to get away from my grousing and focus on the fact that this card’s still really good. It does exactly what it says it wants to do. Hm, is the Liquimetal Destruction deck too... Hm. I wonder if that permanence will affect playability elsewhere, actually. Probably not, but one never knows. I’m a Karn Prison guy, hence. There are enough answers in the world, and that’s all fine. Gah! Maybe I’m just chewing on my fingernails for no good reason here. I want to like this card more than I worry about it. Perhaps costs can be adjusted and/or I’ll get over myself.

~

@halfsilveredmirror — Endless Regret

A consistent draw spell is nice. Literally replacing itself is pretty cool, and I don’t think playability would be affected by it. The ability for infinite discard with a single card in your library might fuel some weird engines, even more so than a Four Horseman kind of deck. Do I remember what the deck does? Nope. Anyway, this card. I really don’t feel that playability would be affected but I also don’t know. In limited, probably not. It would make decks significantly more powerful, especially if you get the sealed deck and really go nuts, but that’s unrelated.

The sticking point for me is the fact that the mechanics and flavor really don’t have anything to do with one another, and the flavor itself is so esoteric that I don’t know what the speaker (if indeed there is a speaker) is regretting or implying. The art depicting a reunion or a reflection of loss is interesting. Ultimately, still, it’s just not landing for me. There’s a line where subtlety becomes too abstract to convey intention.

~

@helloijustreadyourpost — Sole Concern (JUDGE PICK)

...oh it’s ONE SIDED. Jeez. Okay, wow, for some reason I thought this affected all players on my first readthrough. Some minor things still stand but okay, that changes a lot of things. Wow. This does indeed level the playing field a ton and that’s awesome. Reminds me of a movie but I don’t remember which one. I might be losing my mind. Anyway, boardwipes! This card’s a necessity and I think it’s pretty much great. I won’t call it the most complex and I don’t think it needs to me. It’s got the exact right flavor, with the art direction putting a newer twist on it that makes it feel...cinematic, really. What’s a right decision, after all?

I do find it a little silly that there’s “sacrifice” in the flavor text as well; on-the-nose, as it were. That witch down there does indeed have some history, and that’s a great callback. I think the directness between the flavor text and the mechanics is, as a whole, a bit wink-nudge-y for the really gruesome image being depicted here. Still, I like the implied story behind it, and I like how you made the opponent the one to enact their desire, the one that becomes their damnation. Fantastic angle. We didn’t see a whole lot of that this week, I feel.

~

@hypexion — Desire

This Desire is in the unfortunate position of being naturally compared to the other Desires this week, and like I said, I do like them all, and this card is no exception. It feels a lot like a Horizons kind of card, and you know what, that’s okay. What makes this one unique is the fact that it’s a universal desire with a black bend, not a strictly red one. Multicolor Incarnations are... Well, honestly, if there was an incarnation for these colors, I get how it would be “Desire”—focused wanting, doing anything to get it, slightly selfish, not really insidious but getting there, etc.

Perhaps the main question I have is about the Evoke part. One ETB here doesn’t necessarily advance the game in the expected manner. For the MH2 evokers, their reactive evocation is designed to work during different parts of the turn, cheaply or late-game. Judgment Incarnations have the graveyard clause. The question is: what would be the gameplay advantage of evoking this card? It doesn’t feel any more powerful and/or necessary to do it earlier or later, because you could absolutely whiff. The attack trigger is excellent there, so I do like that. And again, this card is fine for what it wants to be, and I can clearly picture what you were going for. Small note: “Treasure” should be capitalized.

~

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Eager Defender

I want to see the sketch for this art direction, because I don’t really know how you wanted to block this shot out. There’s a plain, and a cave, and these characters walking around...where? Sorry to judge this part of it, but I actually don’t fully grasp this depiction. It feels as busy as the mood. The mood’s understandable, and of all thing I’m getting an Adventure Time kind of vibe from this card. If that’s intended, well, congrats, and if not, yeah, that’s a testament to the business. This card really didn’t need flavor text with these three abilities, and the flavor text isn’t adding enough to justify itself here.

Mechanics are pretty awesome, though. I think that provoke isn’t going to be seeing its time in the sun, but that’s more me being sad than a critique of this card. I like provoke! It works really well here, with this creature swinging in and getting bigger. Oh, small notes: the Sengir effect says you need to say that the +1/+1 counter goes on Eager Defender and not the creature that died (lol Skullbriar), the “4” should be “four,” and Warrior should be capitalized. No, yeah, with a fair amount of equipment, this card could be pretty monstrous in limited, and that’s a fine uncommon for the archetype. The name, direction, and flavor are all still...sketchy to me? What’s eager about revenge? Eagerness implies positive creation, not regret. The mashup of moods ultimately glorps up what’s otherwise a decently solid RW beater.

~

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — A Chance to Say Goodbye

Solid stuff. I like how you don’t get priority to prevent population. It makes for some pretty weird effects overall. I would personally say “sacrifice that token” to prevent some weird arguments, but whatever, I deal with the pedant that lives in my head, and YOU are free to ignore him. Anyway, I would give anything to say goodbye to my Worldspine Wurm once more, so thank you for the opportunity. I think this card’s doing exactly what it wants to and those sorts of effects can be cool depending on the environment. Seance tried to do something similar but didn’t quite get there. Maybe this is enough? I’m actually not sure about not having priority there. ETBs would get weird. Ah, what am I saying, token doubling is... Hm. Also weird here. But, hey, corner cases don’t happen as much in limited. I don’t see this card taking off in any decks, though, and it’s a wee bit not-broken-enough to be impactful.

The flavor text is one of those ones where I’m so on the fence. I want to really dig in and talk about the nuances but I don’t want to be a jerk about it on accident. What I like is the specificity. This card is about everything it wants to be about, and it’s depicting this single thing, and boom, this cool reanimation effect is framed around an intense motion. I do feel that there are cuts to be made, or at least places to tighten it up. Maybe a comma after “Then” and you could even end on “wind” there. “Gentle” can be cut, IMO. If you want, lean into the notion of negative space. What’s there left on the wind, or what does the wind feel like now, if not the space where the embrace is no longer. Y’know? You have a lot of options. This moment was a good choice overall. Honorary JP for that alone.

~

@misterstingyjack — Homesickness

Flavor-wise, “It is unclear whether the sun is rising or setting” goes hard for me. That would be a really cool point of contention for people, and I think that the flavor text would really come to a head when there’s a long game happening with lots of returning and triggering and no haste and having to hold open cards and yadda yadda yadda. It’s a pretty general sense but it’s done really well. The depiction of a journeying event checks out and your mood is what really sells it, an impending, almost horror-like sense of uncertainty if we’ll ever get there.

Mechanically, was this supposed to be like Sunken Hope? Aside from the sacrifice clause and one blue pip, it’s exactly the same. And...that’s literally all I can say about it, isn’t it? I hope that this was unintentional and you accidentally struck gold before the realization that you’re not in a mine and you’re in fact in a history museum, sir, I’ll have to ask you to leave and put down that pickaxe. If it WAS intentional, I’m just gonna stand here with my hands on my hips and give you a look. I have no idea at this point in time! But, well, what else can I say about it. Do your research, folks.

~

@nine-effing-hells — Mul Daya Homeseeker

I think that the subtitle and flavor aren’t doing any favors to a card that’s otherwise really fascinating to me. This might be, considering our most recent visit to Zendikar in the story, the saddest trampling creature I’ve ever seen. Emotionally, I mean. I’m gonna stop before I browse through ten pages of trampling creatures on Scryfall, though. So! Yeah, no, perhaps “Homeseeker” is a fine enough title, but I wish there was more for the flavor text to really sell me.

If you’re drafting this card, though, I wonder what on earth you’re doing. You can run one of each other basic and actually ramp in a super roundabout way, splashing the weirdness, or this is a set with a number of odd nonbasics like how Zendikar had, and that’s pretty awesome. In a constructed event you can do some amazing things and I love how variable you can make it. Maybe it’s not good enough for Legacy Lands. It doesn’t have to be! This card can do some pretty slick stuff and I like the way you balanced a strong effect with a deckbuilding constraint asked of it. The feeling of soured perseverance is strongly present.

~

@piccadilly-blue — Issac Astralion, Haunted Physicist/The Singularity

Well, that’s a mouthful! Lots of things going on here, okay, phew. You clearly had a strong direction for this card, and I actually love the commander-esque approach to experience counters eventually transforming something. We’re designing (per the usuals) for standard/limited by default, but there’s nothing to say you can’t get experience counters there, too. I think that it’s almost like the City’s Blessing, or it could be! How experience transforms you. Very slick.

The Singularity, as I’ve mentioned about another card on here, is a non-exit-claused card whose sole purpose is kind of miserable. There are cards that sink the board, but they eventually go away, like Pestilence. It’s unfortunately just not fun to be sitting on the board with nothing to do until you happen to get your removal which may eventually get countered. Seeing as this is your character, as mentioned, I won’t claim to know the story, so that part of it I won’t press on about; their goals are pretty abundantly clear. The flavor text on both sides is...a lot. The LotR reference on the back certainly raises an eyebrow, as does the long first name. Honestly, though, there’s the what-I-like and the what-needs-work, and the little polish/presentation tweaks aren’t anything new to custom cards, so don’t sweat it.

~

@reaperfromtheabyss — Heatgrasper (JUDGE PICK)

You know, I was a bit down on this card at first until I realized that she died of hypothermia. Then it was all upside! You absolutely need to shorten this flavor text. “trapped in her final moments” needs to come out, and I would replace “some warmth” with “a fire.” Do whatever you need to, though. Anyway! Yay, here we are, some kind of not-exactly-great ending here. But it’s okay, because I can envision what you were going for and I like the way it happened. For a while, I thought she drowned, and then I put my head on straight.

Stunning creatures is super cool. Depending on if this is a world with spirit bonuses, the ability to beef up or protect her would be awesome. She doesn’t need that necessarily, but she does indeed need some friends around her to stall the game. And that’s cool! What a cheap use of stun counters, really mean. I can see this card having an application solely in limited and nowhere else and I can see it being a massive pain in the butt to deal with as your opponent stalls you out. Good stuff.

~

Tune in tomorrow! You might learn a thing or two.

@abelzumi

[freelancewitchvt]

im gonna respond to criticisms about adventure time that i saw in a twitter thread bc im bored and have feelings and thoughts

the most frequent reply to the thread was that people believe finn’s breakup with flame princess was stupid and, at worst, was an attempt by the female writers to make the male protagonist Finn as dislikeable as possible.

i don’t think i’ve ever met a single fan of adventure time who thinks “yeah that finn the human guy? he sucks. totally dislikeable protagonist.” i have to believe these people simply watched up to this episode and then quit the show. they didn’t see any of the followup. they didn’t watch finn grow up. they didn’t see the episode where finn acknowledges specifically what he did wrong and makes amends with flame princess. i just simply do not understand this criticism.

WHAT SHOW ARE U WATCHING? GO WATCH THE SHOW CALLED “ADVENTURE TIME” AVAILABLE ON MAX AND HULU

ppl won’t shut the fuck up about rebecca sugar even when she’s NOT a show runner

moving onto princess bubblegum. now call me crazy but i’ve always liked princess bubblegum as a character. i also understand where a lot of this criticism comes from and im able to qualify that my affinity towards her character comes with a fair bit of nuance as well as coming from a place of bias via naivete

the idea that the show turns a blind eye to her abuses is absurd to me. the show explicitly shows her hurting characters that we care about, and it in no way is framed as good. it acknowledges her flaws, which is why we the audience are aware of them. and in-universe I think she is quite literally called out by almost every major character lmao does the show punish her enough? well that’s like, an interesting question to ask and a fun way to think about the show and her character. what does princess bubblegum deserve? well we know she got usurped and exiled for some time. that gave her some time to reflect a bit.

now you don’t necessarily have to think of that as a redemption arc. at the very least the show took the opportunity to show us other facets of her character. she can be vulnerable, she can be kind, she can feel remorseful. and she does, like, improve in my opinion. in “The Thin Yellow Line” princess bubblegum has a whole speech condemning her idolization, saying she’s “just a person, like all of you” it’s quite wholesome. It’s further reinforced in “High Strangeness” when she apologizes to tree trunks for trying to colonize space and inadvertently infecting her alien children with candy goo (lmao i know it sounds ridiculous but watch the episode lol) obviously i’m not gonna sit here and be like “princess bubblegum is great and was  completely redeemed and a morally exemplary paragon to be revered by all” but like, come on twitter. you’re not at all convincing me here

now im gonna talk about his one!! the animation!! i have a lot of ways i like to think about how the style/animation/tone/format of this show changes over time. the central pillar of these is exactly in line with the shows most prominent theme: growing up. finn ages from 12 to 17 and a lot of what the show explores is the transition from “boyhood” to “manhood” and how it’s messy, nonlinear, painful, joyful, and rich with new experiences. i think the stylistic changes, even if they can also be explained by ward stepping down as showrunner, also reinforce this theme fantastically. if we’re seeing the world through finn’s eyes, of course in his early years things are much more colorful, fantastical, and whimsical. and as he ages, we see the world more clearly, things seem more grounded, more mature.  that’s why i can’t really take any criticism in line with this seriously because it’s just too well done it works too dang well.  and don’t get me started on how this theme extends to all the other characters. i could literally go on but i’ve already made my point hehe.

i dont have anything to say about this one it’s just funny hehe okay im gonna go now

[moonspirit]

Hi my dear Moon!

Hope you're doing well.

So, for the writer's ask🖤

1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16

(sorry, it's a lot, but you know, I'm always glad to see you speaking about your writing and amazing talent)

Hello Anna T^T Thank you for the ask!

1. What are you most proud of in your writing right now?

Well, let's see. I've never been particularly proud or confident in my writing, ever, I think, but recently I've been rather happy with structuring and scene progression. It feels nice to have events and things take place somewhat evenly and as planned :3

2. Is there something you're specifically working on to improve your writing?

Vocabulary. Vocabulary will kill me T_T I hate english sometimes T^T

8. What piece of advice did you hear/read recently that's been helping you to improve your writing?

Not particularly recently, but also recently (iykyk), but: to take things one at a time. I tend to freak out if I haven't had the next 5 (minimum) chapters fully planned out and drafted, and this has been a rather new anxiety haha xD Until around Chapter 13 of VBEOW, I wasn't stressing myself with meticulously outlining future chapters all that far ahead; it was at most the immediate next chapter and then the next one too, with everything else having a general idea, but not too detailed. But since ch.13 when the plot started to get a little more complicated and dense, I realized I had to have the next 5-10 chapters fully outlined and structured or I would mess things up. This has had its pros, but also its cons where now I'm scared to death if I'm a little late with planning that structuring. I need to remind myself that it's okay, to breathe, and to take one step at a time >_<

9. What do you feel that you are naturally talented with in terms of creative writing?

Uhhhhh XD I have no clue, to be very honest, but maybe I'm quite decent with blending non-canon-imagined-flashbacks and canon-events?

10. Do you have any personal pet peeves about your writing that you're working to change?

I get too hung up on how best to describe movements, especially during smut. It's a nightmare T^T

12. Who/what is your greatest inspiration for your current story?

Life in general. There was a time when I couldn't really see much beauty in it (even now there are days when I don't) but learning to see the little magic in mundane moments and experiences is really uplifting. There's something very special in just breathing fresh, pristine air, or having the wind tickle your hair. There's something miraculous in kicking your feet in a stream of ice cold water and listening to the richness of a loved one laughing loud. It's these things, coupled with all the things I don't have and have never experienced, and hope to one day. I can't go without saying, that it was Clouds' writing too that gave me that kick to get out of a slump and pick up writing again.

14. Is there something you wish readers would pick up on more in your stories?

Ah well, no, not really. I'm pretty happy and satisfied with what they are picking up atm, and they usually don't miss! I'm very grateful for that.

15. Talk to me about how you go about word choice. Do you have an example of your writing that you're particularly proud of clever word choice?

HAHAHAHAHA I literally JUST complained about vocabulary!! But well. I usually don't give it much thought, I just write. There are times when I really don't like how a passage reads, but then I remind myself to just get on with it; I can always edit it later, when I'll likely have more braincells than I have at that moment. I have noticed though that many times, the sentences I phrase, rhyme xD At certain instances, this is planned, but other times, I have no idea it's happening and only notice it when I proofread.

As for an example about a passage I'm proud of... There are a few but here's one. It's nothing exemplary and doesn't really have any special wording choices, but I like the simplicity of it. And I'm very attached to it xD From Ch.16 of VBEOW - Sparks:

He stood there, feeling the tides wash over his ankles, and the salty sea breeze kiss his skin. He saw the sea with a handful of seawater cascading through his fingers, mesmerised by the way it stretched into the horizon. He watched the sea rise and fall and move, and noticed the way it was so, so blue. Mikasa told him it was the colour of his eyes.

He longed for Annie so much that day.

"Hey Annie," He said a week later, looking at her, so peaceful and cold inside her diamond. "I found out why the sea is blue."

He was so glad he was alone that day. "Commander Hange found out the water absorbs red wavelengths of the light, leaving it blue for us to see."

He didn't know what to do with his hands.

"But that's the scientific answer."

A lone tear rolled down his face.

"The sea is blue because the sky falls into it, Annie."

16. Where are you currently at in your writing mindset? Frustrated? Excited? Focused? Other?

Very tired and stressed to the max. Excited for some future events that will happen in VBEOW, but that's not conquering my exhaustion as of late xD

Thank you for asking T_T !!!

[strangledeggs]

Has Remix Culture Run Out Of Steam?

The short answer is "no". The long answer is...

A couple days ago, I was talking with @philippesaner about the failures of postmodern critical theory to come up with a viable alternative to liberal-democratic politics given all its critiques of the latter (this subject seems to inevitably come up at least once every time we meet in real life). The famous article he brought up that the title of my current essay here is referencing is of course Bruno Latour's "Has Critique Run Out Of Steam?" which if you haven't read and are at all mystified by why we would be discussing something like this in the first place, I'd recommend reading.

Anyway, around the same time (maybe it was even the same day?), my sister happened to show me Youtube music critic Toddintheshadows' 10 worst songs of the year list for 2023. A notable entry on the list that I hadn't heard prior to seeing the video was a song that was essentially a cover of Haddaway's "What Is Love?", kind of like that previous Bebe Rexha basically-a-cover "remix" of Eiffel 65's "I'm Blue".

That struck me as interesting, given that both songs seem exemplary of a current trend that takes the very simple approach of reviving an old song that was already a "proven" high-charting hit by doing the bare minimum work on it to get it considered a "new" song, then re-releasing it and watching it climb the charts again on the power of nostalgia alone. If it seems like I'm making this out to be a more deliberate process than you'd think it might be (instead of just a coincidence born of nostalgia for the 90s/2000s), that's because I have good reason to believe it is. This Pitchfork article from a few years ago pretty much predicted this exact phenomenon, as it details how venture capitalists started buying up the song catalogues of major songwriters with specifically the intention of marketing new songs based on the licensing of older, already well-known songs.

What does this have to do with Bruno Latour? Well, many of you may not remember this, but pop music (pop culture in general, I would argue, as we'll see through some other examples) went through its own moment of "postmodern theory" not long after the political theory took off mid-20th century. There were many different ideas tossed around for a while, some of them conflicting, but most of them centered on the deconstruction of the individual artist as a singular creative originator of things, much like certified post-structuralist Barthes' "death of the author" (actually, you could argue that Barthes' original essay was the first shot in this assault on the cult of the pop-star-as-creative-genius). This culminated in a fierce debate over what started happening with the birth of hip-hop in the late 70s, but especially the 80s and 90s. Early hip-hop was often heavily dependent on the DJ's use of "samples" of already-recorded music. This sparked accusations from more traditionalist musicians (nowadays we tend to call these "rockists", which isn't entirely fair because there are many rock musicians that appreciate the nuances of this debate and many outside the genre that don't) that hip-hop was a fundamentally unoriginal genre because it relied on playing "other people's music".

At the same time that early sample-based hip-hop was emerging, a new form of recording started to be sold, first in conjunction with hip-hop DJ culture but quickly expanding beyond these bounds. This was the format of the "remixed" song, which I won't bother to explain here because I'm pretty sure everyone is familiar with it at this point. Between the growing popularity of remixes and hip-hop, many of the traditionalists seemed to feel that we were heading towards a future in music where no one would bother to create new music again because we'd just plunder the same songs from the past forever, leading us into a creative dead end that would constitute the much-threatened, long-dreaded "death of music".

This is where the postmodern streak in pop music comes in. Speaking in response to these accusations of creative bankruptcy, the postmodernists pointed out that actually, all of music had been nothing but "remixes" from the start, since no one has a truly "original" idea and all new music can be traced back through the music that influenced it in a chain that only ends at our recorded history of music. This is obvious enough from genres like rock (which used the basic structures of the blues as its jumping-off point) and jazz (which often featured artists "quoting" other songs by playing their melodies mid-solo, a kind of proto-sampling when you think about it), but it could even be observed in how classical composers would take musical themes from popular folk songs and imitate each others' compositional structures.

The point of music, the postmodernists went on to argue, isn't to create something totally "original" anyway, since that's basically impossible. It's instead to simply create something "new", and "new doesn't have to mean that it isn't built on the back of some older work; "newness", in fact, comes from the new combination of older elements, which, placed in a new context, will now seem unfamiliar as a whole even if the individual parts are familiar. As Buck 65 says, and then re-constructs through a sample of someone saying the same thing at the end of his song "Leftfielder", "And you never heard it like this before".

The postmodernists were, I think, indisputably right, and for a while it looked like they had won this particular culture war. Hip-hop went on to experience a golden age of creativity through sampling and remixes (something reflected in reference-heavy lyrics too, as any hip-hop listener will notice). Pop music in general got a lot more explicitly self-conscious and self-referential. It was (and continues to be - we're not out of this era yet, despite what I might be implicitly foreshadowing here!) an interesting time for people like me who enjoy nerding out over "spot-the-reference" games, as well as debates over the relationship between form, content and historical placement of music.

But there is a dark side to the arguments the postmodernists made. If there is truly, as an ancient source claims, "nothing new under the sun", then maybe the answer to this is not to try and create new things (since this would be a waste of time) but to stick as close as possible to those things from past times that we know have already worked. This is an argument for aesthetic conservativism, which claims on some level that there are actually a finite number of "good" art pieces (songs, stories, poems, etc.) that we can create, and if we try and deviate from these, we will either end up accidentally reproducing a worse version of one of those "originary" pieces anyway, or produce utter nonsense that will be of interest to no one.

How deep this theory goes depends on who you ask. I would argue that the originator of this argument is as far back as Plato, who claimed that there were metaphysical "forms" constituting the "real" existences of all things in the world that were, in themselves, just defective imitations of those forms. This kind of thinking is reflected in psychoanalyst Jung's idea of "archetypes", different kinds of narratives that exist eternally in all human minds which can be seen as the blueprints for all other stories we tell each other. And this idea would be highly influential on comparative mythology scholars like Joseph Campbell, whose own book "Hero With A Thousand Face", which argued that there is only one real story humanity has ever told known as the "monomyth", in turn influenced George Lucas in the writing of Star Wars.

But it doesn't have to get that deep. To many who espouse some version of this view, aesthetic conservativism is simply a shorthand for commitment to "formula" in the arts. Many of these people wouldn't even go so far as to completely deny the possibility of entirely original art - they just think it's usually a waste of time, and that 99% of what's worth making is made by the use of a "proven formula" that works because we have evidence of it already working in the past. It's a kind of bastardized "scientific" approach to creating art, where you claim to create through "evidence-based" methods, but you only ever draw your evidence from historical data and ignore the possibility of current tastes changing. It's the approach of any screenwriter who's told you about how "Save The Cat" changed their life. What's kind of funny with these types is how many of them worship George Lucas; after all, they tend to value what's successful on the market over all else, and Star Wars is nothing if not that. So the ghost of Plato (and Jung, and Campbell) lives on in these "formulaic conservatives" even if most of them never get around to thinking that much about it.

Anyway, for the record, I think this philosophy of aesthetic conservativism is completely full of shit. I'll keep my own beef with Plato for the separate essay it deserves, but I will make my case for the pop postmodernists on this issue here: just because you can retroactively identify patterns of things that "work", doesn't mean those will be the only things that will ever function as art. For one thing, canonical tastes change over time, and what we considered to be a masterpiece 100 years ago isn't always the same as what we consider to be a masterpiece today. Further, I would accuse some of these aesthetic conservatives of a kind of reverse "forest-for-the-trees" view: they can't see the uniqueness of individual trees because they're too focused on the forest as a whole! While you can point out the similarities among different works across time, you can also point out their differences, which frequently lie in their specific details - combinations of which, I might add, come from the distinct circumstances of a sum of past influences that result in an ever-new "remixed" cultural product over time. You can, in fact, just produce minor variations on the same thing and end up with wildly different results as long as you know what to focus on. Case in point: though "Cool Hand Luke" might feature a similar story to that of Jesus in the Bible, no one would ever mistake it for the Gospels, and we certainly don't view those two things as equivalent.

This might seem like I'm nitpicking here, but taking the aesthetic conservative stance has real consequences for the kind of art that gets produced. Consider the movie industry, where this kind of thinking seems to have dominated for a long time; it feels like only now, we're coming out of a long winter of cookie-cutter superhero movies which, while certainly driven economically by IP licensing deals, were justified critically to many by the idea that they're constructed according to a certain "proven formula". It was a fundamentally backward-looking paradigm of culture, one that suggested that lazily regurgitating the same thing over and over again was not only all that was possible, it was desirable because it had already worked in the past! This is the same logic expressed in those interviews with the venture capitalists buying up song catalogues in the hopes that they can prey on people's nostalgia for already "proven" hits. And you might say they're transparently only in this for the money, so what does their logic matter anyway? But I'd argue that the financial victors of culture wars like this have a significant stake in people buying the logic of what they're doing on some level, because if everyone recognized what they were doing to be obviously bad, they'd stop consuming it and move on to something else.

I would contrast this aesthetic conservativism with a more "forward-looking" approach, one that uses the postmodernist cultural theory to look towards creating new combinations of things out of old things in ways that feel genuinely surprising. Think something like DJ Shadow's "Endtroducing.....", the first album constructed entirely out of samples, or more recently, 100 gecs bizarre genre-pastiches that leap from one sound to another with little warning. You'll note that neither of these artists sound like each other, or much else that came before them, despite taking obvious influences from the decades of music that immediately preceded them.

The change doesn't have to be that drastic, either. You could be a country-rock band playing in a 70s style, like the Drive-By Truckers, but you're experimenting with songform and subject matter for a change, or a rapper incorporating a slam-poetry influence into your flow like Noname or R.A.P. Ferreira. The point is that you can, in fact, make new music with a forward-looking approach, and there is something truly disturbing to the thought that the future of the industry might be several more years of covers of the already successful hits of yesteryear, like those of "I'm Blue" and "What Is Love?" If that's the case, then we might start to see a backlash against the postmodernist cultural theory, since those growing up in the current generation would only know it by means of this aesthetic conservativism which takes the conclusion that "everything is a remix" as a license to do the barest minimum of remixing possible for the safest return on investments. And what we might see then is a return to pre-20th century ideas of the sanctity of the individual artist's creation and "originality", which will simply throw more fuel on an already raging fire of support for devastatingly overreaching IP laws, which will ironically only make it easier for this phenomenon of re-animated Hits From The Dead to continue. Because you know who can afford to buy up that IP so that their own remixes are the only "legal" ones...

As a final note here, I wanted to bring up the original "Everything Is A Remix" guy, Kirby Ferguson, whose video essay series released under that title is still available in its original form here (it's just past the "updated 2023 edition", which I haven't watched yet). I first watched this series almost 15 years ago and I felt like the guy was basically summarizing everything I had been saying about the postmodernist theory of art at that point - nothing is truly "original", remixing isn't the same as "stealing", intellectual property law is a plague, etc. Anyway, I haven't kept up with what he's been doing these days, and taking a quick glance at the site, it looks kind of grim: he's got a dubious-looking course on using AI in art as well as several self-help-y looking ones on "unlocking your creative potential". I guess he had to make some money on his idea somehow (ironic, for a guy whose thesis kind of necessitated a destruction of the laws that allow people to profit off their ideas), but this is a bit of depressing direction to see him take. Anyway, check out the original videos if you haven't seen them, they make a compelling argument even if I think I would find it kind of oversimplified now (disclaimer: I haven't rewatched them at the time of writing this and am relying on my memory from almost 15 years ago, so I take no responsibility here if they turn out to actually kind of suck).

[lemonhemlock]

https://at.tumblr.com/lemonhemlock/why-aemond-alicent-rhaenyra-daemon-and-others/5f1o0o4b4rrn

I think this is because to the HotD writers/showrunners, Aegon is not the actual protagonist of the Greens the way Rhaenyra is for the Blacks; Alicent is. Alicent is the real center of the Green plotline, the most sympathetic, the one given the most character development and screentime, the one with the strongest ties to the opposing side. There's a reason why Rhaenicent is so strongly developed and so central to their arcs and the story at large while Aegon and Rhaenyra don't share a single word. The story isn't about the relationship (or lack thereof) between Aegon and Rhaenyra, it's about the former bond between Alicent and Rhaenyra. I think they even described Ep9 as being Alicent's episode? That's why Alicent is so heavily prioritized compared to Aegon despite not being the actual claimant, because she's essentially the main character of the Green faction of a whole.

You may feel one way or another, but tbh for the most part I like this change personally. I appreciate the show prioritizing the women and really putting them into the spotlight, and I really love Alicent as a character, so I'm still happy with what they did. The problem unfortunately comes that because of Alicent being focused on more AND because of the pacing of S1, Aegon sort of feels like a bit of an afterthought/not nearly as developed as he could have been. Ideally, Aegon should sorta occupy the same narrative space like Daemon for the Greens - the most prominent male co-lead to the leading ladies. Maybe that's why they gave Aegon the adaptational villain treatment, since they know Daemon isn't a good person and in some ways they made him even worse (having him kill Rhea when he wasn't even speculated to have done so in the book).

The issue is 1) the pacing. Time skips were necessary for this story because it takes place over many years; however the specific pacing of this season only gives Aegon sufficient screentime for character development in 4 episodes. Compare that with Daemon getting 9 episodes.

And 2) Aegon still comes across as worse than Daemon. Daemon grooms his niece, but it still comes across as less worse than Aegon raping Dyana because Rhaenyra was also ""into it.""

That might be way writers like Hess were surprised at the Greens being less popular. They thought that Alicent and other sympathetic Greens like Aemond would have been enough to balance out the worse of them like Aegon, to get people to still root for them. But I think they didn't realize that making Aegon do things as horrible as rape, and then having him be the guy they're trying to get on the throne ends up dragging everyone on his side down. If they're serious about making both sides equal in terms of sympathy, then I hope they can actually pull it off in s2.

Sorry for dumping a whole essay in your inbox. I just saw that ask of yours and had a lot of thoughts on it.

Thank you for your message, you make some very good points. I do actually like that they focused the Dance on the women's stories via Alicent and Rhaenyra. In truth, I wouldn't change that approach; it doesn't bother me per se that Aegon is a secondary character.

The issue here is the "morality" of each cause - Rhaenyra, at least, is fighting for herself and is framed (rightfully or not) in a feminist light; whereas Alicent's character suffers a lot because she is portrayed as trying to place her drunk rapist son on the throne at the expense of an exemplary woman (see how Rhaenys praises Rhaenyra to Corlys as "holding the realm together").

Alicent's character also suffers a lot because, by making Aegon such a rotten apple, her mothering skills are questioned, all the while Rhaenyra is shown to be a loving, perfect mother with likeable children. See how people are much more willing to excuse the crimes of Rhaenyra's husband, because she doesn't have as much influence on him, whereas they are so quick to blame Aegon's faults on Alicent for being a bad mother, since she was in charge of raising him and shaping him to rule. So Daemon's faults are not a reflection on Rhaenyra in the eyes of the viewer, whereas Aegon's faults reflect directly on Alicent.

This is why I feel that it would have made more sense to make Aemond the problematic child, since he is already a foil for Daemon, who occupies the main villain role for the blacks. I do not think that the audience's reaction to the greens would have been so unbalanced if they made Aegon the funny drunk a la Tyrion. People love and root for characters like that.

[jack-bytez-genuine-corner]

Watched Barbie.

* It wears it's brand of corporate backed feminism on it's sleeve while deconstructing what that means

* It's really empowering for all, with it's main plot being killer for young girls and women, and it's B plot being wonderful for queer and men.

* I really liked the fact that the movie straight up points out how contradictory standards for women are. You have to be powerful but you also have to respectful to the disrespectful, you have to have a career but also be available for everyone at all times, you have to be a mom but your kids can't be you whole life, etc etc. You can't just be a person, you have to be perfect and exemplary, you have to be highly skilled but also not show up men, and I really love that so much of the film is just telling the audience to be themselves because these standards aren't just flawed, they're impossible and unhealthy for you and for others. This movie isn't hiding it's stance against the ridiculously unfair social structures in Western society, specifically more aimed at places like the US, EU, UK. I can't state how happy I am with how the movie handled these topics.

* Lots of small jabs at corporations and corporate structure alongside the idea that men can empower women when they hold all the power in a corporate setting. Like you're saying the right thing but your position is lacking authenticity because you lack the lived experiences of a woman. It doesn't say men can't be allies, but it really does try to highlight how true empowerment comes from authenticity and diversity, not assumptions and old school thought processes.

* Really shocked at how succint they handled the idea of patriarchy and it's many harms against women and just women existing, alongside the less talked about harm towards men in the B plot. I know I'm speaking from a position of privilege but it felt good to see a movie cover a thing that actively made me depressed in my teens, especially since it might help a young guy who goes to the movie for his little sister might help internalize that you're not evil for just being a man and that the social standard for what a "Man" is, is just as much of a prison as it is a way to move up in the world with it being more important to just be "You" than to just be the social standard of "Manliness."

* it has some of the best action choreography I've seen in years

* very funny movie and I laughed loudly in the theater

* lots of casting of conventionally unattractive actors, especially in terms of women. I really enjoyed all the old women, all the POC, I loved every second of how much screen real estate spent on making sure people feel included and front and center: If a scene is happening, they don't shove people in the back for "Perfect" women or "Perfect" Kens all up front, it's a shared space. I really, really, really want more normal people just in movies.

* Gay Ken makes an appearance alongside Barbie's pregnant friend and that weird puberty friend

* Existential dread surrounding existence, for kids! It's really well done, jokes aside

* I love how good the movie looked and sounded

* this is really dumb given that I'm a cis man but I felt really seen given how much I struggle with masculinity and being gay. This movies B plot with Ken would have been inspiring to a young me in terms of not trying to be the "Man" but just be "Lycan Bytez."

* I don't think I've seen a movie do so good at highlighting the plight of women so well in it's A plot.

* I really liked how focused and good the messages in the A, B and C plot was.

* I want to buy a depression Barbie now, thanks for the marketing on it.

10/10 I might have cried quite a bit. I didn't think a Barbie movie would be able to talk so well about the human experience in my life and the lives of loved ones.