#making my own series/franchise would also be nice but anyway

[charbon69]

Open for prehistoric animal ramble->

Sigh, paraceratherium anomalocaris opabinia josephoartigasia eretmorphis sacabambaspis and more how I wish I could marvel and stare at yall in alive and in movment but almost all I can get is just speculation 😭 sm1 travel back in time get me a 4k resolution video of a tully monster swimming and eating or just like existing pls or just let me stand next to a life sized recreation or paraceratherium like I would also like to stare at modern nattuli and argonaurts n pet a horse shoe crab also i wish giant orthocones were still around sm1 take me to an aquarium/museum/zoo pls I need enrichment I'm just a fish🎀 sm1 told me I look like opabinia recently I've also been told I'm like a goat, cough cough the g.o.a.t. I need sum triops eggs I should restart my aquariums rip edwardo n petey yall were goated Betta fish but now I have 2 unused 20 gallons fuck, anyway man I love fish n also animals in general but I'm on a prehistoric water creature kick atm anorith and cradily how I adore yall eugh 😭🫶🏼🪸🫀🐟🐙🐠🦑

[sarnai4]

Butt of the Joke

Something I enjoy in stories is when you can laugh at and with a character. To me, it keeps them from seeming too "important" or flawless. We all make mistakes and being able to laugh at ourselves is nice. That's why I like when they do this with Dagur, but the method is very different from what's done to Snotlout. Something I will probably always be grateful for is that Dagur is a show character and not a movie character. Those in the movies (the rest of the Riders anyway in my opinion) had their development stunted. I'm convinced that the first movie didn't expect the franchise to get as big as it did and just needed some other people to fill out the cast. Unfortunately, they also didn't expect the shows to be super popular. So, Snotlout in HTTYD 3 is still immature enough to flirt with the widowed mom of one of his best friends when RTTE Snotlout would understand how inappropriate that is. All that's to say that the jokes for Snotlout are often at the expense of his character because he still has to end up at whatever point he's at in the movies.

I believe it's in "Shell-Shocked" that there's a joke about Snotlout suggesting they all leave the Edge and run, leaving it for the Hunters. Okay, yes, I chuckled too because it is funny to have a character be so openly fearful. Yet, this doesn't make sense for him at this point. We're on the season 4 finale of a show that happened 2 seasons after the first series. Snotlout should know by now that leaving the same Hunters who had been willing to kill them and a ship of innocent people with a disease can't be left to their own devices. Why wouldn't he want to stay and fight? Even if it's dangerous, of course the villains are going to keep coming for them. Hiccup rightfully points out that they'll just go on to Berk, but why did he have to say this? Snotlout should have known, but the joke was made without considering how much he'd grown and his own bravery and intelligence.

There seems to be a thing about Snotlout being cowardly, but I really don't think he is. In "Gold Rush," there's a wordless joke where he's just screaming his lungs out after getting captured. Not saying he hasn't shrieked when plummeting to what could be death and that's totally fine, but here? Eh, I don't think so. I feel like there would be enough bad blood between him and the Hunters by now so that he wouldn't want to give them the satisfaction of knowing how scared he is. It's also horribly futile. He's gone to save Fishlegs, the twins, and Astrid before. He knows the Hunters won't release them and nothing is even happening besides his cage being moved. I'm probably overthinking these moments, but they annoy me since they paint Snotlout as pathetic when we then see him enter a 21 vs 2 fight in "Something Rotten on Berserker Island" fearlessly. Is he a scaredy cat or not? I just want some consistency, then I'd accept whatever fit with the character I'd been shown.

Dagur's saved from this since all his development is in the show. He's not held back by the movies. So, when there's a joke at his expense, it doesn't contradict anything. I'll try to make the examples as similar as possible for comparability. Dagur's got a joke involving saying the wrong thing and it was in "Mi Amore Wing." He's proposing to have Hiccup be his best man. Yes, this is clearly a unique way to ask someone, but it's also not contradicting anything about Dagur. He's got 0 skills with picking up on social cues and responding to things the way other Vikings generally would. It's also very possible that he's never seen anyone be asked to become a best man before, so he's doing what he thinks is a good way to show he's sincere and would really be happy. I don't leave the scene thinking, "Now, why would he say that, though?" Because he's Dagur. That's enough of a reason.

Dagur's got a scared joke too in "Enemy of My Enemy." When he was on Toothless's saddle, he was terrified and the scream made it pretty clear. This made sense because there was something happening at that moment. It wasn't Dagur letting his enemies see his weakness. It was him being on a dragon for the first time, going very quickly, and not knowing what he was doing. He's even thrown off the saddle as soon as Toothless lands in another moment I thought was funny. It doesn't make him look bad, but we can still laugh at his incompetency in this area.

Both of these characters have several physical gags too where one of them gets hurt and I will admit that those always get me to laugh. It's just times like those I've mentioned for Snotty that disappoint me. I really like him too. I think if he were allowed to be a more respectable character, it would be great. Dagur proves the writers know how to do that. We can laugh at him without him doing anything that opposes what they've set up. On the other side of this, Snotlout will act one way, then contradict the very personality we just saw him develop. I can't think of a single time when I couldn't explain one of Dagur's actions through use of his personality. I think that's how it should be. If it's in-character, then it makes sense. If not, then maybe the scene should be worked on a bit longer for this to be fixed.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - A New Entry My Top 10 BLs of All Time

March 2023 Wk 4

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Bed Friend (Sat YT, GaGa & iQIYI uncut) ep 7 of 10 - the plot remains much the same and I am getting very concerned they extended this one as it’s starting to flag. Might have been my first high heat 10/10 candidate if they had kept it at 8 eps. Bummer. I mean it’s still good and I’m still enjoying it, but... character development is a thing.  

Future (Thai Sun YouTube & Gaga) ep 2 of 5 - Drunken gathering is such a hallmark of this franchise. Tiny bit of James flirting! (He’s my fav character ever since Love Mechanics original and the punch). Fuse is right to be worried about getting drunk bc he wants to be able to take care of Ana. I love the actor who plays Top (the ex). I’ve said it before (Remember Me) I really want him to get his own series. Also adventures in translation, Top did not say “I can’t believe you’re dating this man”, he said “I can’t believe you’re dating this kid/child”. These two are the ULTIMATE over dramatic college gays. Their relationship has NO drama but they will make it anyway. 

Pastsenger (Thai Weds Gaga) 4 of 12 eps - I like it more and more each new ep. The leads are developing a fun playful relationship. It’s a bit slapstick for me but it’s not offensive or boring. 

A Boss and a Babe (Fri YouTube) ep 5 of 12 - I don’t know. I’m just finding this one kind of boring now. Although, it looks like we are getting cute boyfriends next week so that might be nice. 

Tin Tam Jai (Tues Gaga & iQIYI) ep 6 of 12 - Side couple advanced into lap sitting and tongue kisses out of nowhere. Good tongue kissing, even if surprising. Higher heat! Yay! They’re a great pair, but would it kill Thailand to give us character development with our high heat?

Chains of Heart (Sat iQIYI) ep 7 of 10 - the confusing whateverness of waisted chemistry continues to confuse. 

The Promise (Thai Weds YT) ep 5 of 10 - I don’t know what’s going on with this show. That’s it? He just fell in love with bestie and then punished bestie for his own feelings? Seriously? WTF. ON HIATUS UNTIL APRIL 19. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Our Dating Sim (Korea Thurs Viki) eps 7-8fin - Absolutely wonderful. There is a time laps but it’s the good kind - NO SEPARATION. Couple of moments when I doubted they could pull it off. But CONGRATZ! We have a new entry into the very rare 10/10 club. I have go change all my best of lists but this was worth it. Final thoughts below. 

Unintentional Love Story (Korea Thurs iQIYI) 5-6 of 10 - (here’s how I’m getting it) KBL rarely gives quality sides dishes but these two are legend. Poor tattooed player hottie is always getting punched. Don’t get me wrong the leads are great too. It’s fun to watch two sets of bisexual identity crisis being handled entirely differently because of good characterization. I say “ouch” a lot while watching this show. Also “awwwww.” I do worry their cafe has no customers tho. 

The Eighth Sense (Korea Weds Viki) eps 1-2 of 10 - With 10 episodes of about 40 minutes each this has got to be one of the longest BLs Korea has ever given us. However from tone, filming style, opening credits, and trailer I am guessing this could be sad. If its KBL doing JBL style then we are in His the series territory, but it could be more in the Blueming vein. I’d give it 50/50 odds. There’s always a chance it wants to be “taken seriously” which is the death knell of BL. Also if a lead smokes it means that one or both will cheat. (I don’t make the rules, the Japanese yaoi gods do.) OK, but do I like it? Yes, actually, it’s... interesting. It’s got a bit of an age gap, country boy/city boy, the acting is great, characters complex, good chemistry and tension. It’s a bit chewy and sticky and less perfect than most KBL (do I detect a touch of Taiwan?). This one is deploying BL tropes (messy eater, shoulder sleep, protective seme, there’s even some hyung-slinging) but it isn’t in the KBL bubble, there’s sharp edges, we may get a coming out sequence or even a bashing. It certainly will stay interesting. But proceed with caution. 

A Shoulder to Cry On (Korea Tues Viki & Gaga) eps 5-7fin - What both these kids need is a little affection and a lot of therapy, not romance. The punishment for flirting in class thing was funny. They are such boyfriends by ep 5 - Sitting together, sharing a glass etc…Terrible awful grueling confession rejection. 2 year time gap. Much needed in this case. Then another 2 before the epilogue. Honestly, the most unlikely thing about this show (after the casting) was the prospect of an out gay Korean cop. No kisses for us. Narrative indicated that there should have been at least a fish kiss, but not happening with them in the same Kpop group. I’m starting to think I really just prefer KBLs where they use actors and not idols (Semantic Error excepted, of course). I’m assuming the next 2 eps are bts. Final thoughts below. 

It’s Airing But ...

Love Syndrome (Thai Sat WeTV) stopped at ep 2 of 12 - I’m just not into any aspect of it (except Lee Long Shi and I can watch him in Tin Tem Jai - see above pic, awesome side dish action) - saving to binge if the end is solid.

Venus in the Sky (Sat YouTube) pilot/tester?) 0 of 10 - not entirely sure what’s up with this one distribution-wise, but the pilot was cute, classic university-set pulp. I hope it happens because the leads are cute with good chemsitry and I thought it was fun. However, it totally holds together as it’s own little short story too. 

Cafe In Love (Thai ???) 10 eps on Ch3+ - Thai pulp, about trying to save a coffee shop. FairyGodBLer came through for me, but I’m collecting to binge just in case. It’s my new policy with the grey stuff. 

Destiny Seeker (Tues WeTV Thailand) 10 eps - it’s not on any WeTV I can get ahold of. Bad Buddy the pulp rebirth meets Japanese handsome host club action. Same as above.

Make a Wish (Thai Weds ?) from WaGa Creative staring Fluke Natouch (OhmFluke UWMA etc...) & Judo (The Miracle Of Teddy Bear) in a medical-fantasy. It seems to be a light-hearted romance with a comedic flair. About a doctor who sees ghosts and a deity who resides in a Bodhi tree that earns merits whenever he fulfills a wish based on a y-novel by Sammon (Manner of Death, Triage). Too hard to find.

Finished this week

Our Dating Sim (Korea Viki) I enjoyed every aspect from the casting to the very simple premise to the quietly smooth execution. Sure it’s very low stakes, but that makes it high domesticity and extremely warm and gentle. This is a fuzzy blanket of a story. Do we call this cozy BL? Why not? This one is going to live in my rewatch pile, I can tell already, and you know what’s best about it? Every single episode is in that pile. There’s no skipping with this one, it might be good natured and calmly sweet but it’s tight and the pacing is excellent. It perfectly suited KBL’s short-length tendencies. Full review. 10/10 I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS SHOW HIGHLY ENOUGH

A Shoulder to Cry On (Korea Viki & Gaga) - Adaptation of a manwha, high school set bully romance, staring Jaehan & Yechan BOTH from Kpop group OMEGA X, so no kissing. All in all this was a painfully awkward watch for me, and while beautiful and decently acted, the story and characters rendered it ultimately disappointing. I think we shouldn’t let Korea do bully romance. 4/10 FATALLY FLAWED 

Jack O’Frost It was fine. I never really cared about the characters or their relationship. Not to slag off the acting (which was superb) but the narrative bored me. 5/10 WATCH ONLY IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO 

In Case You Missed it

Ai Long Nhai got a special ep on iQIYI. 

Eternal Yesterday is getting a movie version with additional content if you want extra suffering. 

A few things have been announced but mostly Thai, Japanese, and 2 (yes, 2) Chinese Omegaverse (Desire and Couple or Not). It’s doubtful these will pass censorship, so I’m not gonna bother tracking until they actually get international distribution. For Thailand, I’m excited about Waterboyy 3, which NOT a remake (hally-fucking-luya) but a new installment, and stars KaownahTurbo (Love Stage!!! et al). Although why the fuck they don’t put Est Supha (swim champ) into one of these is a mystery to me. For Japan, they’ll start airing sooner rather than later, so expect me to start tracking those. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

04.06 Our Dining Table AKA Bokura no Shokutaku (Japan Gaga) - I AM SO EXCITED I LOVE THE MANGA 

04.07 My Beautiful Man Eternal (Japan ????) - 3rd installment, movie which means it’ll be a pain to get hold of. 

No proper post for April but remaining releases are: 

04.14 Naked Dinner AKA Zenra Meshi (Japan Gaga) - not really my thing but yes I’ll watch it 

04.15 My Story (Pinoy YouTube) - not my fandom but I will give it a go

04.18 Step By Step (Thai WeTV) - office age gap, I am all in! Even though it’s WeTV. Sigh. 

April is looking a bit slender so I might start watching Destiny Seeker or Cafe in Love, or both. 

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED)

Adventures in Captions

Ai Long Nhai special both reviewing its own plot and having fun with English. 

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

The danger in dating an older boy. (Future) 

Love triangle in one photo! (Promise) 

(last week)

Current Kpop earworm? Nada, the comebacks have been disappointing recently. 

[itsyagergzero]

gonna rant about my fav fnaf fan game designs !!

Note: some of the creators for these mightve been outed as being shit, i dont know, but know that i dont support their actions or anything i just. Like fan games lol. If they r confirmed weirdos, lmk but yknow.

Anyways!! Starting off: Final Nights. Final Nights is a fan game by JeliLiam that is basically a retelling of the original FNaF story! There are 4 games, and while all of them have wonderful designs, Final Nights 4 has my personal favorite designs for the animatronics. The game is set in Fredbear’s Family Diner during 1973 AND 2017.

Starting off with my favorite design: Spring Bonnie (she/her)

I ADORE her design. She genuinely looks like an animatronic real kids would enjoy - being a nice balance of cute, but also weirdly unsettling like animatronics irl. The gloves really make the design for me, and I’m obsessed with how shaped she is.

Her movements are also so good and so unsettling-she’s incredibly smooth in her animation and the way she leans towards the player is a great level of stressful especially because you cannot move or else you will fail the night. I am sooo obsessed with her yall dont get it.

Next up is Fredbear (he/him)!

I love his design for the same reason as Spring Bonnie’s, but I also love that his design is not just a repaired version of Nightmare Fredbear from FNaF 4! This design is more what I imagine Fredbear to look like, as I always took the FNaF 4 designs with a grain of salt considering they’re from a child’s nightmare.

I do wish he was more round though, as he does kinda look like he uses a similar model to Spring Bonnie, but that’s a very minor critique.

Bonus mentions: I do enjoy Proto Spring Freddy / Bonnie’s designs! They’re quite unsettling and it makes sense why Henry dislikes them LOL

Next up: The Return to Freddy’s!

I don’t have much to say about this series as a whole - it started out as fan game for FNaF 3 prior to the canon game releasing and then spiraled into a retelling of FNaF before becoming it’s own thing. The creators have gotten into hot water - they stole the Candy design from FNaC - and the franchise has since been cancelled, but I have a soft spot for the designs still!

I mostly want to show the Tortured Suits from the cancelled TRTF 5 games!

A unique take on more Nightmare-ish designs, I just love how creepy the designs are and I wish the game was completed so we could see how they operated in game. I also love the use of muted colors. It really sets the tone for the suits and shows they were not made for children, but for an other purpose that unfortunately is unknown.

It’s late so I’ll leave this off here but I’ll continue this tomorrow with more fan game animatronic designs that I love, and if y’all have fan games you like, let me know and I’ll talk about my fav designs from those games too!!

[thesnazzysharky]

Hi Snazy! I've been seeing a few of your posts! I feel happy for you to become noticed on Tumblr, unlike me. Anyway, if an sjsm sequel is released, what would you want it to be about?

Hello there! That's a good question. Personally, I think Spooky's wrapped up nicely with the Dollhouse DLC. If the series were to continue, I think having some prequels rather than sequels would be the way to go. One thing that I really love about this franchise is that there's a lot of room for world building. Each Specimen in the game has their own story to tell. Stories that could be turned into little DLC's. Or maybe make a full game full of bite sized stories that are more or less connected to each other? To list off a few examples... What if we got a game where we have a pov of the guy who worked at the burger joint that the Beef Demon was in? Game starts off normal, but progressively gets more disturbing, maybe with us ending up the Beef Demon's realm and trying to escape from it? What if we got a game where we have a pov from one of the GL Labs scientist? Maybe pull a SCP Containment Breach and have us play as a scientist inside the currently locked down lab due to one of the specimens escaping? Or maybe we could see a bit more of what working inside the Doll House was like while it was still active. What if we got a game where we play as one of the kids that Ben would eventually turn into a puppet? Maybe have Ben act all polite and caring, but by the end we learn that he was only manipulating us. What if we got a game centered around Specimen 13? The Siren? Maybe it could be a strongly psychological horror experience. Have her actually do something aside from just being the water monster from Amnesia. Have us play as one of the whale researchers, trying to carry on with your job and resist the Siren's effects, only for the situation to get worse. Maybe have us be the researcher who left the note stating to not open the door to Specimen 13. Make us be all alone and hopeless at the end.

That's a few of my ideas. I can understand why Kira wouldn't want to continue the franchise, especially considering I'm pretty sure they have stated they wanted to leave some things open ended and not explain so much, but I think there's some unexplored potential that could be had. Also I saw your reblog of my Specimen 9 post! Thanks! The uranium explosion theory is interesting and yeah I agree, dude desperately needs a hug.

[sonicshipbattles]

Eggman Ship Tournament Nominations

He is the Eggman and he's looking for love! Not that our genius doctor needs anyone in his life, as certainly his glory is beyond compare! But now that he's embraced parenthood, it wouldn't hurt to have someone around the egg-bases to help out with a few lesser tasks. That's why, our esteemed doctor is leaving it to the minions of the eggnet to debate who'll be worthy of his love! ...Or that's the flavour text, anyway. Now, onward to the actual tournament:

Our second tournament will be to figure out which is the most popular ship on tumblr dot com that features Dr. Eggman himself. This tournament is open to any version of the character from any media, not just game Eggman, so if you have a burning AoStH Robotnik ship in your heart, submit that, too!

This tournament will be done based on your submissions (plus a few ships that I like and want to include, but I'm holding off mentioning them because I'm curious to see how many nominations they'll get on their own)

Some house rules for submissions and the tournament in general:

Most importantly: BE NICE. No bashing of any ship will be welcomed. Use your propaganda to uplift your own ship, not put down others

Any Eggman (or Robotnik) ships from any media is welcome - be it the games, comics, cartoons or anything else

Only ships including the character Dr. Eggman will be accepted (e.g. Eggman/Starline, Robotnik/Agent Stone, etc.). Ships for other characters in the series that do not involve Eggman (e.g. Tails/Kit, Knuckles/Rouge, Amy/Tekno, etc.) will get their own tournaments later on. Submissions that do not follow this rule will be ignored

Submit as many ships as you want, but don't spam submit a single ship

No Eggman x OC ships. All of your OCs are great and we wouldn't want anyone's feelings hurt by seeing them knocked out :( For the sake of this tournament, an OC is a fan-made character that has never been used nor was created to be used in licensed Sonic media (So yes, you can submit cancelled character ships if any of those apply to Eggman)

We do accept crossover ships, but only with media that Sonic has officially crossed over with. Meaning stuff like Eggman/Dr. Wily and Eggman/Bowser would count, but Eggman/Dionysus would not count (as much as that breaks my heart). And yes, since people asked last time: characters included in Smash Bros. are fair game for crossovers. I may make posts asking for feedback on crossovers with franchises I'm less familiar with

Polycules are welcome

If you have a specific version of the ship that you like, specify what it is and this will be counted as separate to the general ship, e.g. Eggman/world domination (general) and Robotnik/world domination (SatAM) would be included as separate ships

Also, we didn't have a rule about this last time and honestly no one submitted ships that fell into this category, so it wasn't a problem, but I'm aware that the blog has more followers this time around, so I want to add that I won't be adding ships involving Eggman being paired with characters he sees as his kids (Sage, Metal Sonic). For other things I'm concerned might make folks uncomfortable, I'll run polls to gauge feedback to see if they'll be included or not. Like I said, I don't think this'll be an issue, but mentioning it just in case ANYWAY, that's the long list of rules done, so here's the submission form:

Submissions will be open until Saturday 27th May or until I feel we have enough to run a tournament. I don't expect this one will be as big as the Sonic one, so I might cap it at 16 or 32 ships, if we reach that many

[otakween]

8-Man vs. Cyborg 009 - Volume 2

Love a good 2 volume, short read every now and then. Unlike BGOO Parts, this one didn't outstay its welcome. Nothing ground breaking here, just some crossover fanservice like in the Devilman crossover. Fun times. Interested to see what's next for these franchises.

Ch. 7

8-Man tells Joe and Francoise about his past romantic drama with his secretary Sachiko. Francoise apparently "saw" Sachiko's presence when they were in 8-Man's office and wanted the tea lol.

If they're not gonna let Francoise fight, like ever, can they please introduce another female fighter or something? I'm getting really fed up watching her smile blandly on the sidelines or be a damsel in distress. Like if she's a pacifist, fine! But she's also the only girl cyborg so it feels insulting.

The two page spread of the demon God statue was a good jump scare. Let the final showdown, begin!

Ch. 8

Lol I guess the manga heard my complaints because they finally let Francoise shoot a gun at least. Also, her heightened senses finally did something useful. Alright, fine. You win this time mangaka...

Wait, what the hell!? Pyunma's back to his old racist design! THIS MANGA CAME OUT IN 2020 WTF??? (Good thing I didn't pay for this one lol).

Honestly, it seems ridiculous that Skull would just ignore the other numbers cyborgs. There's no way they wouldn't come after their kidnapped friends...just makes him look really stupid.

The Black Ghost minions were drawn all cutesy in like a chibi form. They look like they could be villains from a Mario game or something lol. Not very intimidating.

Ch. 9

Yaaay 008 pointed out the 8 thing =D lol. Glad he gets to contribute to the battle even though there's no water around lol.

Francoise has a weird bonding moment with Dr. Daemon because he saw her in a ballet once. He's definitely the chiller of the two evils but he's still actively working towards world domination and perpetual wars? I don't think this is really a "there's good in him" moment...

8-man sure loses his arms a lot. Guess they're just trying to emphasize his mechanical body.

I swear they used the EXACT same tactic to topple the demon God statue that they used to topple the Atlas-type robots in BGOO Parts! (006 digs a hole and then 005 pushes the big enemy over). Felt weird to see that used back-to-back in manga published so close to one another. Both times they emphasized it as some kinda ingenious strategy.

Ch. 10

Awe, I really liked this finale. They wrapped everything up in a nice, neat bow and sometimes that's all you want.

So Dr. Daemon was actually playing the long game and never allied with Black Ghost at all! Rather convenient lol. Does they mean the gang wouldn't have been able to defeat both enemies at once?

I completely forgot about Joe's juvenile delinquent backstory. Why do I feel like that doesn't fit his character at all? He's such a bland do-gooder now...Anyway, having 8-Man explain that he was a cop on the scene at the time of Joe's escape attempt was a clever way to tie the two series worlds together in a believable way.

So I guess Dr. Daemon is still not a great guy but not that evil either? I don't know enough 8-Man lore to make a conclusion lol. He seemed pretty okay with the heroes dying earlier, so I guess he's just all for himself.

This chapter got all Ghost in the Shell-y with the reveal that Skull isn't a real person, just a robot with implanted memories. Pretty brutal that he decapitated his own lackeys to prove a point what the heck...what if they weren't robots!?

So Black Ghost is dead "for real" now...riiiight. Until they inevitably get resurrected again for some future manga.

I was kinda shook to find out that Joe's hair is a wig (or maybe it's actually implanted into his scalp? IDK). It doesn't actually make any difference, I just never realized that was the case.

Dr. Gilmore and Dr. Tani being science bros was cute. Also enjoyed seeing Ivan (and his one eye) very briefly.

Nice picturesque ending with Joe and Francoise dropping 8-Man off at Sachiko's house and validating his humanity. Wholesome cyborgs supporting cyborgs.

Omake - Duel

A closer look at some 8-Man/Dr. Tani lore. I kinda wish they didn't include this tbh because it ended this volume on a depressing note.

Damn, if I was Ken I'd probably resent my dad too! Ken was like "you only love 8-Man!" and Dr. Tani was like "that's not true!" but then the second Ken dies Dr. Tani's just like "meh, at least I have 8-Man" lol. Poor Ken!

Speaking of poor Ken...that's one severe widow's peak. On top of having a craptastic life, he's also balding? Oh the humanity!

Dr. Tani acted like Ken being a cyborg with a human brain was a revelation of some sort? Sooo...if Dr. Tani wasn't the one to turn Ken into a cyborg, who did?

Ken's hero suit (or villain suit, I guess) literally just looks like he sharpied some fake pecs on lol. What a weird design choice.

As far as 1960s manga go, I think I prefer Cyborg 009's art style because it's more over-exaggerated and stylized. I think this allows it to hold up more. 8-Man feels more traditionally drawn (more proportional characters).

I'm kinda glad I got a glimpse into the authentic, OG 8-Man for greater context, but I'll also probably just read this again someday if I ever get to that part of MAL haha.

[randosrandomrhetoric]

Rando's Top Ten Command Grabs

Keeping in line with my first post, I think I'm going to continue that grappler love and list out my 10 favorite command grabs in fighting games. After this one, the next post WILL be more random of a subject, but I just wanna get this one out. To make this more interesting, I'm going to limit it to one per character and one character per franchise. Unless some monstrous epiphany happens that I can't ignore anyway. I'm also going to try and include some Gifs of the moves, but a couple I just couldn't find one for.

10. Muscle Buster

(King, Tekken Series)

It's one of my favorite wrestling moves ever, although it's done a bit safer in real life. It is placed here because although the game does a great job of selling the move, with great camera cuts and high impact sounds, it falls a bit flatter in pure flare. It lacks the sheer bombastic nature of its, mostly 2d, counterpart, which means that it's still great enough to land on the list, just not great enough to overcome the spectacles to come.

9. Grave Digger

(Solomon Grundy, Injustice)

Born on a Monday, grabbed you on Tuesday. Solomon Grundy was the grappler for the first injustice game, and he wasn't bad at it. His super consists of him stabbing you with a knflife from his own back and ending with a tombstone, and not the Undertaker kind, to the head. Again, it may not be the flashiest grab, but there is a nice cadence and pacing to it that just gives it the right amount of impact, enough that it beat Number 10 by just a hair.

8. Moonlight Shake

(Condor, Breakers Revenge)

This one is just pure fun to watch. It's got the right amount of absurdity but still has spectacle and impact. Whether it's the spins or the explosions upon impact, Moonlight Shake has everything you'd want in an old 2d command grab. While Breakers Revenge may have faded into obscurity, I'll never forget the first time I saw this move. My Zangief loving brain was instantly drawn to it. If you love grapplers and you get the chance to play this game, you should strive to hit this every match. It's pure satisfaction.

7. Darun Super Bomb

(Darun Mister, Fight Ex Layer)

While the above gif may not be the exact one, it's pretty much the tamer version. Just picture more rotations and an explosion. This one names it here for 2 reasons. 1. I love powerbombs, and 2. The absurdity of the spins just gives it the right amount of flare. While Darun may have started in StrretFighter Ex, I'm choosing his Fighting Ex Layer version here. His appearance also adds to the fun of the move, with his proto-hakan look and one of the best mustaches in gaming.

6. The Man Series: Brofist 

(Kanji Tatsumi, Persona 4: Arena Ultimax)

First off, unfortunately, I couldn't find a gif of this one, but let's not let that ruin an amazing grab. After tossing the opponent into the air Kanji's persona, Take-Mikazuchi blasts them back down, and then they sandwich the opponent between their fists. With the presentation of P4AU, this super comes off with tons of flare and impact, and being essentially a duo technique, it just looks rad. It's one of my favorite insta-kills in the game and one of my favorite grabs ever.

5. King of Tager

(Iron Tager, Blazblue)

Sadly, this is the other one I dont have a gif for. So picture if you will, Tager picks you up over his head, he begins pulsing with energy, then he leaps up into the atmosphere, and drives you into the ground, as he slowly walks out of the crater he created. I think that visual speaks for itself. This is one of the best, visually, looking command grabs in fighting games period. If I were younger and didn't have the nostalgia for some of these later ones, this would easily be higher on my list. Try and find a clip of this one, it's worth it.

4. Airwulf

(Beowulf, Skullgirls)

This is a move that had made it here on one thing and one thing alone. Personality! While the grab itself is good, a nice anti-air grab that slams your opponent down. Nothing super amazing.. but! If you have max hype and land this as the finishing blow, a referee runs out and counts the fall! I'm a sucker for the pro wrestler grapplers in games, and this is the creme de la creme. If this is your main and you've never landed this, you have failed yourself.

3. Ultimate Atomic Buster

(Zangief, Street Fighter)

Now, I struggle with this placement. This is the classic super command grab that really all others were weighed against. So it's hard to say that it's the flashiest, the most dynamic, or even the most impactful super out there. This one, though, just hits me with that nostalgia blast that's hard to deny. This is the first super grab I ever did, and it took some soul searching to not just call it the best by default, so I think I'm OK with this placement. Still God-Tier, though.

2. Ultimate Argentine Back Breaker

(Clark, King of Fighters)

Now I feel this may be controversial, that it places higher than Geif, but I can't deny the impact that I feel when I see this. I'm also a sucker for the trifecta moves. The repeated back breakers into the burning hammer, one of my favorite wrestling moves, is just pure crunchyness that I can't help but love. I struggled the most, which KoF grab to put on here, but this is always the first one to come I to my mind. Amazing.

1. Heavenly Potemkin Buster

(Potemkin, Guilty Gear)

I'll admit, this may be cheating, but this wasn't my number one until the new Guilty Gear games. The new presentation, especially in Strive, is just so amazing. Whether it's the expressive face of the opponent or the heavenly deities, it all adds up to a show. Combined with the shouting of the move and the camera cuts, it feels straight out of an anime. So it may be heresy to some, but to me, this grab is purely divine.

Thanks for readin folks, and remember: Join the Throw World Order.

[mickmundy]

hiiii its that time again my friends (i remembered i have free will and can infodump about my fic series anytime i want) and with malus almost over and my favorite chapter published, i kind of want to talk about it...

i got/get a lot of wonderful comments (because my readers brains are Massive and Epic) about how medic and sniper frequently find romance in the mundane, which is something that i think both of them would savor/cherish, sepecially since their lives are definitely... not so mundane! but i specifically want to talk about Being Perceived and the Giving of the Names...

so let's jump in! Big Post so under a cut it goes! and you can read my fic series here, though this post will have emphasis on this chapter specifically. :-)

“Aheh, well, I know I should know all of your names, but I’ll be the first to confess that I do not. Isn’t that funny?” He giggled, narrowing his eyes as he flipped his forelock into place on his forehead. “I suppose I could have found out, but I never cared to. It’s never really been important to me.” He shrugged, placing his palms flat on his own thighs and bracing himself. “It’s important to me now, though. Yours, anyway.” He smiled, clearly eager. “If you want me to know it, of course. And I’ll tell you mine!” Medic offered, lacing his fingers together and resting them over his own belly pleasantly. 

Obviously my fics are more of a like. "in depth"(?) take on medic and sniper's characters but it's also important to me that i don't lose the like. Funny Silliness of the canon material in the tf2niverse... because i really don't think the franchise would be Any Good without its Silliness + offbeat humor! medic's character especially imo. so i think the idea of medic literally not caring enough to know anyone else's names is very On Brand for him since it's like "hoo! oh well! they are just friendly experiments!" he knows heavy's because heavy introduced himself to medic with it/they're best friends but other than that, he doesn't know anyone's and doesn't care to. i can see medic just skipping over "all that nonsense" on all of their charts and jumping straight into the Clinical Notes because that's what's most fun for him! he's nice to his teammates and considers them his friends, but not people he's close to. so in that vein when medic tells sniper "i'd like to know your name" it's because medic is telling sniper (in his own way... hoo hoo!) that he wants to know him as more than just an experiment. that at this point he's no longer just some uberheart transplant to him, but a friend. someone he cherishes and enjoys... so that's a pretty big deal for someone like medic, even if people's first reaction would be like "wtf how can he not know their/our names!!" but in medic's mind it makes perfect sense that he doesn't! because it's funny! and also he doesn't care <3 much love! SKDFKSFD

“Hello… Ludwig,” Sniper smiled, his voice faltering a bit on the tail-end of saying the other mercenary’s name. Pretty name for a pretty thing like him . “My name’s…” Wait. What should he say? Mick? Michael? Hell, nobody called him Michael. Then again, nobody’d called him Mick since his parents died. “… Michael. Well, most people used to call me Mick,” he cleared his throat, “Mundy.” He finished, watching Ludwig’s expression soften.

and so then we get into the act of Introducing Yourself... the power of a Chosen Name.... the Romance of being known as Who You Are to someone you care about... and names can be something that are so sacred... whether its your birth name or a name you chose for yourself, its a name you Choose to go by, it's who you are! sniper has just gone by his alias for so long that he'd probably just habitually give it out regardless, and that's fine enough because he's a professional and it works. but he also sees this as a big deal and so he wants to give medic a piece of himself that most of the rest of the team (demo knows sniper's name but calls him mickey but that's it) isn't privy to. he's not sure what he wants medic to call him because all of those names are so Different. they represent versions of himself from different times in his life... and he wants what medic calls him to be perfect. medic watches as sniper Clearly starts overthinking it and just kind of gives up and tells him "well most people just calls me this,". he'll call me mick like anyone and everyone else-

“I care little for what others do. What would you like me to call you?” Medic asked. 

and of course in Typical Medic Fashion he doesn't care what most people do, he wants to do something that's unique! medic's relationship to sniper doesn't involve anyone else's perception of either of them, so why should he care what others call him? What does HE want to be called?

“Michel it is. It’s nice to meet you, Michel.” Medic smiled, his cheeks pushing into his eyes in a genuine smile. Sniper’s heart could have stopped in his chest as his plain name, one that he never particularly cared about one way or another, was reborn in the doctor’s voice. Michel, Michel, Michel. It sounded so different, like it was a whole new name. A name he loved, if it meant hearing Medic say it. 

naturally, medic picks it perfectly. something unique to him something that reminds sniper of medic because nobody ever calls him michael... until medic. and when you choose to add significance to Little Things like this... it can't help but be romantic.. sniper obviously loves it when medic calls on him no matter what, but michel is a name that not only sniper gave medic [permission to call him], but that medic gave sniper [he doesn't want it to just be Whatever Anyone Calls him, he wants it to have Meaning to both of them]. michel is the sniper that medic has come to know and fall in love with.

“Michel… It suits you. Invisible, humble protector…” he trailed off, his eyes narrowing playfully as his voice lowered a bit in pitch. “Enemy of the devil,” he crooned, lilting his voice as though to sound mock-scary, though his smile was still one of playful glee. 

and of course medic flirts about it because that's who he is and he does think it suits sniper: someone who does their job and doesn't need praise or fanfare for it, someone whose sharp gaze sees all... i think it appeals to sniper's obsession with professionalism in that sense. i Obviously don't think either of them are christian (LOL). but i think medic is flirtatiously calling sniper a guardian angel (and just isn't being So Literal about it) and that's what you should glean from it.

“Dunno about that. Like you just fine,” he’d said before he could stop himself, watching as Ludwig’s eyes got wide for a moment as a large, toothy smile spread over his mouth, nearly ear to ear. Sniper felt the back of his neck get hot under such an intense gaze. His teeth were bared with - for lack of a better descriptor (or perhaps simply the most fitting one) - devilish glee, but his eyes were intense, impish and playful.

so medic giveth a nickname and so sniper does too... 😏 medic is devilish: playful, tempting, and so so so persuasive! plus given medic's ability to literally outsmart the devil, it's not said in an insulting way. sniper loves medic's devilishness and has even come to adore him when he's being Completely Bonkers SillyMorbid! and medic of course sees that sniper means it as a compliment. he knows sniper, despite being professional, can appreciate a good kill, some fun morbidity, and wants to see more of that side of sniper. calling him a devil only makes it more obvious that medic is having the exact effect on sniper that he wants! hoo! sniper swears that he's no good at flirting, but he seems to know how to wind medic up pretty effortlessly!

Ludwig’s large chest puffed out slowly in a smooth, silent inhale, the bulk of his body taking on an air about it that the bushman’s sharp eyes were drawn to. Chest, stomach, hips, thighs… hips, stomach, chest, eyes… And, effortlessly, he was consumed by Medic’s gaze again, as though it had been politely waiting to ensnare him.

good job mick you went and turned him on! well that's just fine with dovey! medic isn't shy about showing sniper how he affects him, but that doesn't always have to involve being Sexually Abrasive. he makes a show of letting his breath get taken away so that sniper can physically see that it was sniper who took it away. not everything has to be under Cloak and Shadow; medic has the confidence that sniper doesn't to say look! you're turning me on! i like how you look at me and talk to me! and he lets sniper look at him like he is, watches sniper study him and silently tell him "it's okay to look. i want you to look. this is for you." something that someone who is really sexually/emotionally repressed would appreciate (permission to Gander free of judgement). a huge element of how i ship medic and sniper is that they're BOTH figuring stuff out about each other but also themselves, and in their own Very Different ways. they're (doing their best to) afford one another patience to explore what they're learning and how it affects them. i think romance is defined by the people in the relationship and they're figuring out what that means to them!

GOD IDK IF ANYONE IS GOING TO EVEN READ THIS BUT IF YOU DID THEN THANK YOU I LVOE YOU!!!! i just had to get it out of my system lskdmfkdm... it is a Curse when i am MegaFixated on talking about my own creation.,., sighs.., 😔

[bbq-hawks-wings]

BBQ rambledumps for the first time in a while. Been running D&D.

What's up, my beautiful fellow clowns, how we doing today? I just logged in on desktop mode and saw a new message in my inbox only to discover it's a porn bot and they're sending videos AND strange URLs directly now. YAY!

Thank God, blurring content from users who don't follow you was an actual improvements made to this hellsite after years of fumbling features. Progress is progress.

Anyway, I originally came here intending to write about my Fodlan D&D campaign because I'm due to show some actual creative capacity here for once and prove I haven't completely gelatinized into a lump of depression and exhaustion. So yeah, more nonsense under the cut.

Nice, the icons have been switched around a bit - they're a little easier to read now.

SO! I wanted to two-fold introduce the campaign setting and talk about my players/characters - whom I will be referring to by their characters' names exclusively (except maybe Atlas) - because I'm actually having a blast with it all, and maybe some of you will appreciate the various eccentricities of this gaggle at my table, too.

First, the setting:

I...

LOVE.

FODLAN.

Idegaf about Fire Emblem as a larger franchise or series - this PARTICULAR story is EXACTLY the kind of thing that makes all the happy chemicals in my brain go brrrrrrrrr.

There's drama, political intrigue, romance, deep lore, references to various real-world myths, references to various real-world PEOPLE, repeating thematic motifs, a complex and nuanced look at conflict and war, a complex and nuanced look at religion and history, AND THE OUTFITS ARE SPECTACULAR?!?!?!

And if I kept thinking about it we'd be here all day.

One of the hardest things for me as a very n00b DM is that I know most of the power of the game and enjoyment for my players comes from the world they exist and play in. If I don't have a good grasp of how all the strategic pieces fit together across the map, how am I going to let my players roam and interact with it like it's always been their own idea and not me actually scrambling to slap something together that's satisfying for them while also not completely toppling my campaign?

And here I have not only this entire RPG I adore and already want to know like the back of my hand, that has characters that I delight in mimicking and writing for, that has nearly all the wiki knowledge I could ask for, but I also have the PERFECT excuse to write my Golden Route and let all my little chess pieces live happily ever after somewhere, AND there's a campaign setting already made for 5e!

Is the DM set up to have a good time?

Yes

Absolutely

With my setting chosen, I now had to figure out the various big plot flags to hit that would put it on course for the ending I want. Some big considerations I particularly kept in mind included:

Edelgard MUST start the conflict. There is never a scenario in this multiverse (according to canon obv) where she does not strike first because it's in her character to strike first for both her own survival as well as to protect those she's taken charge of. The second she thinks she has what it takes to confidently take her next move before her opponent the plot lurches forward full speed. This is what predominately sets her apart from Claude who is quite similar about the lengths he's willing to go to win but he's typically much more reactionary while Edel is aggressively preemptive.

If I don't want Edelgard to have all of Fodlan immediately in a standoff for survival that just looks like the other games with the other nations because of the complications that TWSITD throw into the plot, the truth of the Nabataen race HAS to come to light to her before anyone else. That means that she has to know BEFORE she retakes the Empire for her own regime. This means a BIG MESS for the Church of Seiros to deal with start-to-finish over the course of the campaign.

Going along with the previous point, once the true nature of the Church, the Children of the Goddess, and just what ACTUAL Fodlan history is (and remember, Edel hates these people pretending they're divine when they're clearly not, she is NOT putting up with that nonsense), Faerghus is going to be PISSED even if there's complicated feelings about how the nobility came to be, and Claude's scheming will get kicked into overdrive. There's no way I can't see it happening. Even if the Nabateans have FULL support and protection of Edelgard (which they will sooner than later) the bloody history between them and the nobility of the Kingdom will reach a crescendo and the Nabateans will have a LOT to answer for regarding their involvement in Fodlan history.

Where I want it to end is for all of them to overcome Thales and TWSITD with the help of Shez and Byleth. As a result, Sothis will be fully revived, she'll reward and bestow special blessings to the entire cast, and then she'll ascend into the heavens once again - but this time taking her hand of protection off of the world, opening the setting up to "D&D proper" so the players can keep playing in the sandbox they've grown attached to if they want, but they get way more stuff to play with now and we can actually use the core books for more than just basic rules YAY!

With that all set up in the back of our heads, let's introduce our players - all of whom besides Atlas is completely blind to the original plot (MWUAHAHAHAHAHA):

Umbrae: A knight from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, Umbrae's father was one of the the victims of the Tragedy of Duscur. Discontent with the ambiguous non-answers that have been found regarding the massacre, Umbrae is on a mission to discover the truth of what happened and why - no matter what sordid secrets may be revealed in the process - so that the chapter of anguish and uncertainty for the nation can come to a close and healing can properly begin.

Godfrey: Originally from the Adrestian Empire, Godfrey was an aimless wandering sell-sword until he met the love of his life, Josephine - a monk of the Church of Seiros whose tender kindness brought light and hope into the lives of those she touched. She joined him with his platoon of fighters during the outbreak of plague in the Kingdom to treat the sick and afflicted along the way; but no good deed goes unpunished. While Godfrey and his men were called away to respond to news of a threat, the camp was attacked by those who feared their involvement was spreading the sickness. Godfrey returned too late to save his wife and unborn child and has since sworn an oath to the Knights of Seiros, now once again aimless in his purpose with nowhere to place his grief and anger except upon the heads of the wicked with the edge of his sword.

Booferd: A lowly thief from the Adrestrian Empire - there's not a lot to Booferd yet because he's only been to the first session and has been stuck studying to keep his GPA up. He's fantastic at this game, though, and I'll make sure he gets the chance to have a great time whenever he can play. He called Balthus "ball-face" in RP and he's going to get inspiration points for that.

Atlas: Hailing from the far-off land of Morfis, Atlas is an escaped experiment victim of TWSITD on a mission to save his fellow victims still trapped back at the lab and wipe the scourge of the Agarthans off the face of the earth. Unlike the Fodlan branches of the Agarthans, this base in Morfis raised humans like lab rats a la The Promised Neverland to simulate and study various conditions and outcomes their human experiments underwent. Atlas, an exceptional subject, escaped and eventually found his way to the docks of Adrestia where Hubert found him - seemingly incomprehensible and insane at first but then deceptively brilliant upon patient inspection. Hubert secretly scooped him off the street before he made more ruckus, cleaned him up and trained him, and then planted the unnerving foreigner into Garreg Mach as his personal mole (because Rhea loves picking up strays) - seemingly unconnected in every way while funneling information, secrets, and the nifty little gadgets he makes to the young man and his emperor who promise him a proper payment for his services.

This post is getting long and I need to get the kids up from their nap. I have more, especially since we're about 4 sessions in, so I'll probably make a new post soon. Feel free to send any ideas on how to tag this.

[perfectlypanda]

Zutara and the (un)Importance of Canonicity

(This has been languishing in my drafts for ages, but I want to use a quote from it for an edit I’ll be posting for Zutara Week so it’s finally getting yeeted into the void.)

A lot of emphasis in fandom shipping is placed on the canonicity of a romantic pairing within its source text, with canonicity often being used as a marker of superiority. However, the term “canon” is not an indication of the value or the quality of something. All it refers to is if something is explicitly present in a text or not.

For example, if someone said that it’s canonical that Aang and Katara kissed in the AtLA Book 2 episode “The Cave of Two Lovers”, they would be incorrect, because a kiss is not explicitly present in the text. Aang and Katara lean in like they are about to kiss and then the screen goes black. The audience does not see a kiss, nor is one ever discussed later. There are valid arguments that could be made to support if someone interprets a kiss as having happened or not happened, but because there is not confirmation in the text, a kiss at that moment is not canonical. 

With Avatar, what’s “canon” gets a little tricky because there are multiple “canon” texts - Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar: Legend of Korra, and the Avatar graphic novels. While officially they are all part of the Avatar world “canon”, there are elements within LoK and the graphic novels that are inconsistent with the world as presented in AtLA (so many in the graphic novels my god). This means that for certain things the canon includes elements that are mutually exclusive, creating a paradox. To examine Avatar canon you either have to engage with doublethink, or play “pick your own canon” and decide which text’s canon takes precedent (personally, AtLA takes priority when there is a discrepancy because it came first but ymmv). It gets even messier if you want to take into consideration commentary by creators. Although it should be noted that just because a creator says something about their work, that doesn’t necessarily make it canonical if it isn’t also explicit in the text.

If you’re looking at a text from an analysis standpoint, then something being “canon” or not is important, because an argument that can be backed up with evidence from the text will be stronger than an argument that can’t be backed up with evidence from the text. Otherwise... something being canonical is only as important as you make it.

Creators are not infallible, so sometimes they make bad choices. There are so many times when creators did not, objectively, make the strongest choice in something they included in their text. Think about every time that a book, tv show, or movie franchise continued on past its shelf life. It’s especially obvious in cases where a main actor/ actress left the series, but the creators decided to continue the story anyway. Or when a book/ movie/ mini series had a tightly written plot, but does so well that the creators decide to write unnecessary sequels to cash in on the popularity. A creator can make a truly terrible decision within their story, and it will be just as canonical as good choices they make solely by virtue of being included in the “official” text.

All of which is to say that a ship being canonical or not canonical has no bearing on if a ship is the best romantic pairing for characters based on the traits or dynamic explored within the canon text. All it indicates is if the creators decided to involve those two characters in a romantic relationship within the text.

I’ve been shipping Zutara since 2006, and I spent a long time bitter about them not ending up “canon” in the show (OG shipping wars anyone?). But now? Well, it would have been nice if that was the direction the show had gone, but canon or not, it doesn’t change the fact that a Zuko/ Katara pairing would have been an objectively stronger narrative choice. Or that for all Bryke’s bullying and insistence that I will “forever have doomed relationships”, I still like Zutara better than the canonical relationships they decided to go with on the show.  

So if someone asks me if a romantic Zutara relationship is “canon” within the context of AtLA, then no it isn’t. But for me, that’s literally the only place where Zuko and Katara aren’t deeply in love and living their best lives together. AtLA is a work of fiction, and fictional characters are just as fictional when a fan thinks about them as when the character’s creator thinks about them. A story is only as real as you make it. And for me? Zutara is real.

[shadowmaat]

Vel-meh

My two arcade tokens-worth of thought on the new dogless mystery show:

It isn't related to the original. Like so many other "reboots" before it, this is just another vanity production where the creator takes the names and a few concepts and makes something entirely different.

It's also another tired example of trying to make something "gritty" and "realistic." I hated that gimmick when it started gaining popularity and I hate it even more now. The idea that "nice" is somehow childish and thus to be condemned is depressing as hell.

Adding diversity is a nice touch, but it seems to be about the only good thing to recommend it. I get the feeling the creator saw herself in the title character, but what she's done here is twist the character beyond recognition to make her into an animated version of herself.

Speaking of the creator, I'd heard of her before this, but didn't know much about her. I've now learned she's a transphobic sack of right-wing garbage, which skews the show even further off the mark.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about the over-sexualization of the characters, particularly since they're all around 15, but honestly? As sick as I am of sex being showcased everywhere these days, and as frustrated as I am that cartoons aimed at older crowds interpret "adult" as "filled with sex, profanity, and vulgar behavior," I also know that teen shows have a long tradition of being full of sex. I don't agree with it and I think it'd be nice if Hollywood stopped pushing the message that teen sex is a cultural expectation, but it's so completely normalized that I find it weird for folks to object to this particular element in this particular case.

At this point, with so much else being wildly off the canon baseline, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that the dog who made the original series famous is excluded. My own cynical guess, based on the sort of "gritty" nonsense previously established in the new show, is that when the dog shows up he'll either be an hallucination or an imaginary friend created as a coping mechanism. This has the unfortunately added bonus of giving a "realistic" reason why he can talk. And if it turns out that he's based on a dog who died before the start of the series (blah blah hit by a car, driver was OUI, blah) it wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, I think it would have worked better as its own original work, which is basically what it is anyway. There would have been plenty of ways to riff on the original franchise without pretending to be part of that franchise.

[9worldstales]

MCU Loki: Why I fear they failed to deliver what they promised

At this point I’m kind of confused by who the “Loki” series is trying to reach or which is the goal/message they’re trying to pass along.

They had tried to intrigue assorted audience but, if you ask me, the series has often failed to deliver what it seemed to promise.

Of course I might be wrong. Or maybe I'm not seeing another type of audience the series aimed and managed to reach.

When the series started I wanted to keep a positive mentality and hope whatever seemed not to work would be fixed along the way or have a reason for existing that I just wasn't seeing because I hadn't seen the full story yet.

However, after 5 episodes I'm starting to lose hope the series will make a genuine effort to reach the fans at whom it seemed to aim.

PART 1 – “LOKI” IS NOT FOR THE OLD FANS WHO PRODUCED META SHOWING HOW HIS TRAUMA DAMAGED HIM

"I think it's the struggle with identity, who you are, who you want to be. I'm really drawn to characters who are fighting for control. Certainly you see that with Loki over the first 10 years of movies, he's out of control at pivotal parts of his life, he was adopted and everything and that manifest itself through anger and spite towards his family." [Loki's Struggle With His Identity Confirmed To Be A Focus Of His Disney+ Series]

What was it about Loki as a character that attracted you? He’s just fun, for one. He has a very playful sense of humor about him. I like how he never quite lets you know what he’s thinking. Beyond that, what I connect to about him is the same thing the legions of fans do, which is his humanity and his vulnerability. This is a guy who—yes, on the one hand, he was the prince of Asgard, seems like a nice life—but his father, in fact, killed his actual birth father, adopted him, lied to him about his heritage and parentage his entire life, he was forced to live in the shadow of his oafish older brother who was born to be king. He’s experienced a lot of trauma, and I think that what he’s looking for is just a little bit of control over his life. Which he feels like maybe he’s never quite had. That’s something I think we can all relate with. [From Loki to Doctor Strange and Star Wars, Michael Waldron Is the New Franchise Whisperer]

Let’s be honest, the audience for the “Loki” series is not really meant to be Marvel movies old time fans who enjoyed “Thor” and “The Avengers”, made countless Meta analyzing Loki’s behaviour and who wanted answers about what happened to Loki prior to “The Avengers” or wanted to see Loki’s family terrible dynamics be discussed, or at least to see explored the wrong dynamics of Loki’s interracial adoption (he’s taken away from his planet, the truth is hidden from him, his look is changed to disguise him as an Asgardian, nothing is done against the racial hate for the Jotuns at which Loki is exposed, even witnessing it from his brother) or talk how much in control of himself Loki was during “The Avengers” (okay, the web said the sceptre manipulated Loki, but what about acknowledging that in his own series? It doesn’t have to come from Loki who had no idea he was manipulated but someone could mention ‘think yourself lucky here the stones don’t work, they’ve the nasty tendency to manipulate people’).

The series has avoided digging into all that as much as they could.

Even when Loki talks with Sylvie, the most we get is a small big about how Frigga was awesome in his eyes and taught him magic, but this isn’t meant to explain any of the issues Loki had with his family, it just make Sylvie feel bad because she can’t remember her adoptive mother, as for the D.B. Cooper born out of a bet with Thor, yeah, fun but completely random. What’s meant to be the message about family dynamics here, that it was the bets between Thor and Loki that caused Loki to decide to conquer Earth? Or what about the Sif loop? Is it there to push on Loki the blame of his poor relation with Sif?

No, clearly not.

In regard to Loki the Frigga flashback is there to remark he had a loving and supportive family while the other two are there to have Loki admit he is ‘a mischievous scamp’, ‘a horrible person’ and ‘a narcissist’.

To put it in Classic Loki’s words: ‘Damn it! Animals, animals! We lie and we cheat, we cut the throat of every person who trusts us, and for what? Power. Glorious power. Glorious purpose! We cannot change. We're broken, every version of us. Forever. And whenever one of us dares try to fix themselves, they're sent here to die.’

In short it’s all Loki’s fault if he does bad, nothing happened to him that could have messed him up, he’s just a horrible person… however…

PART 2 – “LOKI” IS NOT FOR THE OLD AND NEW FANS WHO BELIEVED LOKI TO BE A DANGEROUS, EVIL, PSYCHOPATH VILLAIN EITHER

"Loki is an a**, and that makes my life as a writer, easy." ... "Due to the trauma in Loki’s life, I would even [accept a story] in which he is committed to being all bad." [Michael Waldron on Loki: He’s an a**. That makes things easy]

Considering the series is trying to pin SOLELY on Loki his wrongdoing, completely skipping the toxic way in which he was raised you might think they want to paint him as an evil, psychopath who was just born bad.

But no, that’s not the intention, we see it from the start.

Loki is given a quick briefing on how his beloved family loved him despite him hurting them, a briefing that contains false information which would work if we accept the briefing as manipulative but, at this point I’m not so sure that was the author’s intent. The Doylist purpose of the briefing is clearly to show the audience how Loki cares for his family, how he still has feelings, feels pain at the idea Frigga and Odin died and wish to make up with his brother.

It’s not just they loved him and did nothing wrong toward him, it’s also he who loved them and didn’t mean to harm them. That’s why we’re fed that damn discourse about Loki sending the Dark Elves to kill Frigga, because the series wants to remark that no, Loki didn’t want to kill his family, he loved them.

Tom Hiddleston used to say what Loki is came from a place of pain but the series didn’t explore that place of pain… it just gave him more pain and not just in episode 1. Episode 2 has him discovering Asgard is destroyed, episode 3 has him remembering Frigga, episode 4 shows him believing Sylvie die and watching Mobius being pruned. He doesn’t cry in Ep 5, episode 5 wants us to truly feel bad for Sylvie, not for him, but there’s a lot of bitterness from Classic Loki who commits a heroic suicide so you might say we get a sad Loki anyway.

And this also works as a shock to make him change his mind about his ‘glorious purposes’. Sorta, with Thor reminding us he’s not so bad and Loki explaining his behaviour as “I don't enjoy hurting people. I... I don't enjoy it. I do it because I have to, because I've had to. Because it's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear.”

Plot-wise, this is completely useless.

The show will prove Sylvie is not Loki and has completely different motivations and Mobius, being an expert in Variants, should know.

What’s more why would Mobius care if Loki enjoys hurting people or not?

His goal is to capture Sylvie with Loki’s help. The most he should care about is how to keep Loki loyal to him, not if Loki has fun hurting people or not which, in fact, is a knowledge that won’t be used in his investigation.

No, this is here for the viewers, to tell them Loki isn’t a sadistic, evil villain, he’s someone weak who tries to scare others so as not to look weak. As Mobius will put in ‘a scared little boy, shivering in the cold’ who has an ‘insecure need for validation’.

What’s more?

The show will try his hardest to establish he’s not even competent.

Let’s talk of him as a fighter.

In the movies Loki is a competent fighter and side material establish he’s pretty strong, definitely much more than a human.

In “The Avengers” we see Captain America needs Iron Man’s help to beat him and, anyway, Loki’s plan was to be captured. Loki manages to walk away on his feet when Coulson hits him with that superspecial weapon and it’ll take him to be Hulk smashed after a fight with Thor and a meeting with an explosive arrow of Hawkeye before he can’t fight any longer.

This doesn’t happen in the “Loki” series.

Loki gets beaten up by various people in 4 episodes, preferably women (B-15, the people possessed by Sylvie, the guards on the train, Sif). You might say in episode 5 he’s not but actually Classic Loki is the one who gets swallowed by Alioth and our Loki instead survives because he has Sylvie supporting him as, on his own he couldn’t even distract Alioth.

Let’s talk of him as a wizard.

He can use magic, impressive magic but… it serves him mostly nothing. In the TVA his magic doesn’t work. Outside of it is mostly useless. It doesn’t help win fights. The Tempad he caused to disappear gets broken. To beat Alioth they needs enchantment, not his own magic. What’s more, when they’ve to go on the train his disguise wouldn’t have worked without Sylvie’s enchantment and, if this wasn’t enough, he got drunk, removed the disguise and wasn’t even able to make tickets appear.

Classic Loki too, with his impressive illusions is ultimately a distraction. Alioth tears easily through his illusions which aren’t even solid.

Let’s talk of him as a planner.

All Loki will accomplish is to escape from the Time theatre for a brief period in episode 1 and figure out Sylvie hides in apocalypses in episode 2. The rest of his plans fails or are not plan or are mocked over and not even put into practice.

Let’s talk about him as a manipulator with a silver tongue.

He can’t even persuade Mobius when he’s telling him the truth, Mobius dismisses it as a lie due to ‘cockroach's survival mechanism’.

And psychologically?

He’s just someone who crave attention because he’s a narcissist scared of being alone. Not a psychopath.

Loki is not meant to be a dangerous, evil, psychopath villain in this series, he’s a not serious man, a clown, a scared little boy in need of attention, a narcissist who needs to be loved.

Welcome to cartoon villain Loki, this Loki isn’t the Variant of “The Avengers” Loki, he’s the Variant of “Avengers Assemble”Loki… only he’s even less competent than him.

PART 3 – “LOKI” IS NOT EVEN HERE FOR GENERAL MARVEL MOVIE FANS

"That's a lot of Infinity Stones. That's true but they are useless there in the TVA, so I don't know. Is that gun loaded or not? We'll see..." [Loki Writer Comments On Whether TVA’s Infinity Stones Will Return In MCU]

“We had to create an insane institutional knowledge of how time travel would work within the TVA so the audience never has to think about it again. It was a lot of drawings of squiggly timelines.” Marvel already made its case for how time travel works in Avengers: Endgame, but that, Waldron points out, “is the way the Avengers understand it.” With a TV show it’s a little different. “I was always very acutely aware of the fact that there’s a week between each of our episodes and these fans are going to do exactly what I would do, which is pick this apart. We wanted to create a time-travel logic that was so airtight it could sustain over six hours. There’s some time-travel sci-fi concepts here that I’m eager for my Rick and Morty colleagues to see.” [How the Man Behind LokiIs Shaping Marvel’s Phase 4 and Beyond]

BC: The TVA is there to clean everybody up? MW: Yeah, Avengers: Endgame… that's how The Avengers understand time travel. 'Loki,' episode one, is how the TVA explains time travel to Loki and we're certainly building on what's come before us. [Loki: Michael Waldron On Gender Fluidity, Mephisto, Time Travel & More]

It’s true “Loki” is focusing on a new corner of the MCU but it interconnects very poorly with the movies before it.

Although Loki escaped with the Tesseract... it just dismisses completely the Infinity Stones.

Despite talking a lot about timelines and creating branching realities it waved away the whole plot of "Avengers: Endgame" as apparently supposed to happen even though it should have created branching realities.

We see Renslayer wave away how the Avengers went in the past causing the Tesseract to end up in Loki’s hands... and all the other things the Avengers did that affected the past goes unmentioned.

Bruce meeting the Ancient, Thor meeting his mother and taking away Thor’s hammer, Rocket being seen as he steals the reality stone from Jane, Tony stealing a suitcase and damaging the place in which the Tesseract was kept then meeting Howard Stark, 4 flacons of Pyn particles missing, an alarm given to the military bases, how Steve managed to bring back the sceptre if that timeline was pruned, how a timeline handled being without Thanos and Co as they went in the future or how they clearly didn’t bring the orb back the second they took it as Nebula remained unconscious there and nobody came and when she woke up Thanos could get her. It didn’t even explain why Steve remaining with Peggy didn’t change anything.

It's not that the audience has all explained... it's that they were told to dismiss it as 'meant to happen' and that was it.

What's more, the TVA apparently didn't list a finger to stop 2014 Thanos from going in the future and causing Tony Stark's death.

As if this wasn't enough, “Loki” just skips any possible connection with the movies, even hands Loki false information about them (he lead the Dark Elves to his mother when Loki had no idea the Kurse was a Dark Elf and they would have found her anyway as they were searching for the Aether which Malekith could sense, he’s born solely to cause pain and suffering and death, overlooks how he saved Jane twice or helped the Asgardian escape Hela) and never discusses them again.

Even with Classic Loki, who’s a Variant of “Avengers: Infinity War” Loki, they don’t talk about what happened after Loki’s supposed dead, apparently hinting it was better if he died, nor explain how Loki knew Thor survived.

PART 4 – “LOKI” IS NOT REALLY OFFERING A GOOD REPRESENTATION FOR FEMALES EVEN THOUGH IT CLEARLY AIMS AT FEMALE AUDIENCE

Let’s make a quick experiment.

Everyone, let’s name all the characters we remember which appeared in more than 1 episode of “Loki” for more than one minute.

We’ve, of course, Loki, Mobius, B-15, Renslayer, Sylvie, C-20 and Miss Minute.

5 females versus 2 males.

What’s more, females are not sexualized, they remains completely dressed, they’re clearly not there to attract male gazes, they’re represented as strong, dangerous, in control, something archived often by showing them beating males either physically or intellectually or in rank.

It seems promising. At first.

Is there someone who’s sexualized?

The “Loki” series takes care to offer us Tom Hiddleston naked.

So since there’s an abundance of females in the cast and Tom Hiddleston is shown naked is it aiming at a female audience?

Very, very likely but… but how’s then handled all this?

When Loki is seen undressed he’s not in a situation of power, like Thor who’s twice shows half naked in his movies but because he’s changing/washing and perfectly comfortable in showing his body and once in a situation which could be a male forbidden fantasy, to have many women massage your naked body, no, he’s shown as he’s powerless while being stripped by a machine. Clearly not a male power fantasy, more like a male nightmare.

And, in a totally not surprising way, pictures of this scene were spread by many female fans because it was aimed at them… though a part of them, was also honestly appalled at seeing this scene in contest, finding the forced stripping humiliating and degrading.

Sure, a naked Tom Hiddleston makes a nice eye-candy but this wasn’t how Loki’s many fans wanted to see Loki naked.

But let’s talk of female representation here, since the show seems to be interested in female audience… only who even though this was the representation women wanted doesn’t understand much of women representation in the first place.

Why?

For start because women here are all the same type of woman.

Strong fighters who’re in control and confident, with no real characterization beyond this to speak of despite the large amount of screen time.

Renslayer is an ex-hunter who can fight one on one against Sylvie and who clearly has the position of power she has because she was good as a hunter and shows her abilities in fighting after that Sylvie had beaten 2 guards at the same time. B-15 is introduced by beating Loki and is the commander of a squad. C-20 is another commander and, albeit possessed, can dispose of a part of her squad members.

Do I need to spend words on how Sylvie is depicted as this awesome fighter who has learnt to fight by herself, can keep at bay more than 1 Minuteman, can use a sword, has learnt enchantment on her own and is feared by all the TVA? Do I?

And it’s awesome to have women who are strong fighters in positions of command/power/control… but why women has to be represented as just that?

Even when they add a female as an one episode cameo, it's Sif, beating the hell out of Loki. And what about the Lady in Lamentis 1 who was too old to be strong but managed to blast away both Loki and Sylvie seeing through their deceptions?

Even the harmless Miss Minute can avoid being hit by Loki and gets she has to pretend to do researches to stall Sylvie and save Renslayer.

Women kick asses here… but that’s all they’re good for.

And so we get to Sylvie, who is the superior Loki Variant… because she’s female.

Kid Loki: You're different. Why? Loki: No, I'm not, you see? I'm the same, really. I'm the same as all of you. Have any of you met a woman Variant of us? Classic Loki: Sounds terrifying. Loki: Oh, she is. But that's kind of what's great about her. She's different. She's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down. And she needs me. Now, you said Alioth is what keeps us here. You said it's a living thing. You said it's a shark. Well, if it lives, it dies. So I'm gonna kill the shark. I'm gonna kill Alioth, and I could use all the help I can get.

That’s what Loki preaches to his fellow Lokis who think a woman Loki would be terrific.

I mean, they’ve an alligator Loki, a POC Loki, but the one who has to be different is the female Loki. Because being female is a character trait.

Mobius: Okay. I feel like I'm always looking up to you. I like it. It's appropriate. [Ep 1]

Basically females in the “Loki” series are all representation of the Action girl trope and aren’t even different representation of said trope. I mean, “The Avengers” have 5 actions boy who’re clearly as different as they could be. Girls can be represented as different too, if they really aim at young audience they can take good old “Sailor Moon” as an example. 5 action girls who are strong and determinate AND DIFFERENT, more than just someone who kicks the adversary away.

And it’s not like they don’t know how to characterize people in a different way.

Mobius is an analyst who shows sympathetic traits toward the Variants and a certain level or intelligence. U-92 and D-90 are hunters who are shown to held Variants in little regard (U-92 wanted to attack the boy they found in the church, D-90 mistreated the scared people in the shelter). Casey is an harmless and naïve guy who had never seen a fish. The guy who made Loki sign the papers about what he said seemed emotionless but he clearly loved cats as not only he had one but on his cup there was also the image of a cat. Martin is clearly a bossy daddy’s son, who think too high of himself to the point he can’t respect rules. The boy in the church, despite thinking Sylvie was a demon, accepted and ate food she gave him and remained in the place despite the crime. He’s clearly more brave than he looked like but he’s also naïve as he easily trusted ‘the demon’ and Mobius.

What’s C-20 character trait when she gets described by Sylvie?

Sylvie: Yeah. She was just a regular person on Earth. Loki: A regular person? Sylvie: Loved margaritas.

She’s a regular person who loves margaritas. Liking a drink is not a character trait!

There’s a more diverse female representation in “Thor” than in “Loki”.

In “Thor” we’ve Frigga, queen of Asgard, loving mother and wife who’s powerless to erase Thor’s banishment. We’ve Sif, a dangerous and loyal warrior. We’ve Jane, the amazing scientist with a lot of enthusiasm. We’ve Darcy, who’s funny and who seems focused mostly on herself but who, when the city is attacked, worried to save all the animals at the pet store.

But maybe the one who gets the worst treatment is the supposed heroine, Sylvie, because the poor girl is turned into a Mary Sue.

In case someone isn’t familiar with the term:

“The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment. She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye colour, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal. She has some sort of especially close relationship to the author's favourite canon character — their love interest, illegitimate child, never-before-mentioned sister, etc. Other than that, the canon characters are quickly reduced to awestruck cheerleaders, watching from the sidelines as Mary Sue outstrips them in their areas of expertise and solves problems that have stymied them for the entire series.” [tvtropes.org]

So let’s see how she fits this checklist:

1) She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye colour: Sylvie painted her hair blonde even though the Lokis are supposed to be black haired

2) has a similarly cool and exotic name: She is the only Loki Variant who has changed her name from Loki to Sylvie.

3) She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting: Awesome at fighting she can enchant people, an ability the Lokis don’t posses, that she magically learnt on her own and that is necessary in the story. Also she figured out how a Tempad worked BEFOREseeing it in action.

4) She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing: No flaws, all her plans involve fighting and brute force is no substitute for diplomacy and guile, which could be a flaw… if it wasn’t for the fact that the series will prove Sylvie can plan just fine without using fighting and brute strength and also be successful at it.

5) She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story: She was taken by the TVA when she was younger than Kid Loki but managed to escape them and had to live alone and on the run till then.

6) The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting: Loki, who has never loved anyone, falls for her, Mobius saves her and apologizes to her, B-15, who used to look down at Variants, basically asks her what should they do and is shown admiring her, the Lokis don’t criticize her plan, Classic Loki dies to save her, everyone views her as the superior Loki Variant.

7) if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal: Renslayer, the hunter who has arrested her, is currently playing the part of the antagonist who’s fascist and believes in a murderous, lying cult.

8) She has some sort of especially close relationship to the author's favourite canon character — their love interest, illegitimate child, never-before-mentioned sister, etc.: She’s the Variant and love interest of the titular character.

9) Other than that, the canon characters are quickly reduced to awestruck cheerleaders, watching from the sidelines as Mary Sue outstrips them in their areas of expertise and solves problems that have stymied them for the entire series: Loki, the title character, has conveniently been turned into someone who’s a weak fighter and incapable of planning which Sylvie has to save by enchanting guards or giving him her sword or pruning herself or teaching him how to enchant and coming up with all the plans.

Now all she needs in order to be a perfect Mary Sue is to know how to sing well as Mary Sue usually do this as well, though I’m sure she can do it because Loki could so she surely can.

Sylvie is amazing, Loki himself said so:

Loki: No. We may lose. Sometimes painfully. But we don't die. We survive. I mean, you did. You were just a child when the TVA took you, but you nearly took down the organization that claims to govern the order of time. You did it on your own. You ran rings around them. You're amazing!

There’s nothing inherently wrong in having a new female character who’s competent, for whom the hero falls and who changes him… if all this is built around a solid plot.

Think at “Iron Man”.

Tony Stark is, to quote Tony Stark himself a “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist”.

It’s amazing, isn’t it? But the movie shows us why he’s that.

It spends time setting up his pedigree, how he inherited the money and intelligence from his father, how he was supported as he grew and studied becoming always a greater genius. Tony shows himself to be charming before seducing his first woman onscreen so that when he does it makes sense. His philanthropic activities are, at first, just mentioned but seems rooted in how his father was a hero who helped fighting Nazi and then they became his mission. He felt guilty he was a merchant of death and tried to make up for it.

Sylvie too could have a solid plot behind herself.

Instead than magically knowing what a TemPad does and how it works and managing to escape with it, she could have escaped with, let’s say, a hunter that discovered the truth and decided to rebel to the TVA or just had pity of her. Maybe another Mobius Variant who used to work at the TVA prior to Mobius and that, instead than an analyst was a hunter. She might have learnt fighting from him and then he too died and she was left alone.

Enchantment might have been an ability she might have learnt coming in contact with a mind stone. It could have been an occasion also to talk how mind stones can influence people negatively. Or it could have been taught to her by Frigga who, with a female daughter, decided to teach her a different type of magic than Loki.

Her past could have been explored more instead than being tragic for the sake of tragic. We might have seen her fall in love and either be betrayed or have to say goodbye to her loved one because that reality got pruned. We might have seen her being interested in males and females alike as she’s supposed to be interested in both.

She could have had discussions with Loki that weren’t just about Frigga or about how the TVA kidnapped her from Asgard, she escaped and from that point on she was always on the run, or about how love didn’t feel real, but more about how they were, how they felt, what hurt them and what made them happy, what they liked and what they disliked, their ideals and their fears, things that can built up a relation.

Loki basically fall for her because she’s on a mission for revenge instead than power and seems confident. That’s his reasoning.

She falls for Loki… because apparently he’s the person who spend time with her who praised her. That’s not a solid love story, that’s desperation.

SYlvie could have flaws, she could have learnt diplomacy or persuasion from Loki or could have something she lacks and Loki has so that they would complete each other.

And since the purpose was to have Sylvie and Loki fall for each other… they could have let Loki have characteristics that can motivate the exceptional heroine to fall in love for him PRIOR to him falling in love for her. He might be shown good at something, instead than just a clown.

Even if we say the real purpose of this series was to turn Sylvie into the protagonist, the heroine, a good Loki character was still needed to explain why this awesome girl would fall for him.

So okay, there will surely still be women who can see themselves in Sylvie and imagine they got Loki… and it’s not bad really… but I think we deserved more.

Long story short, yes, “Loki” has many females in its cast and this is meant to draw the female audience… but the representation is poor as almost all of the females have no character traits and Sylvie is just a Mary Sue with no realistic characterization.

A good female representation is diverse and solid. Women don't need to be born irrealistically perfect out of nothing to be good, they can inherith and grow and learn to be as such like any human being.

Last but not least…

PART 5 – DOES “LOKI” REALLY OFFERS REPRESENTATION TO THE LGBT COMMUNITY?

BC: There is a lot of talk on social media about Loki being gender fluid. Wouldn't that actually be a natural fit for the character? MW: Yeah, I guess as, with all questions pertaining to that stuff, I think those answers, truly, are best experienced in the watching of the show, as opposed to me trying to answer them. Because it's just watching it and the way that's addressed and everything will just be more fulfilling. BC: Why do you think it's important that Loki is gender fluid? MW: I think that Loki is a character that a lot of fans see representation in. People that haven't felt represented before, and they see themselves in Loki and everything. So we want to do justice to the character, to who the character is in the comics and in Norse mythology as well. And you also … you know you want folks to feel represented, and everything. That's why it's important. It always has been. It comes from everybody on the creative team. [Loki: Michael Waldron On Gender Fluidity, Mephisto, Time Travel & More]

The series hugely spread the info that this Loki would be fluid and Bisexual. The news were welcomed with delight and it’s awesome how the series didn’t hesitate to put it on paper.

Loki being fluid was written for everyone to see, and Loki having male and female interests was spelled out for everyone to hear.

IT’S A GREAT THING!

However…

It’s all we got.

It had no relevance into the plot whatsoever, it’s just a random info we’re given.

Him being fluid was on a paper along with his other data like eye colour and birth planet.

Him being interested in males and females seems to be put there just to imply he tried a large amount of people before deciding love didn’t feel real.

Assuming the other Lokis too were fluid, they actually found terrific the idea of a woman Loki in a not positive way. They weren’t interested or asking for clarifications about what Loki meant.

Loki’s bisexuality doesn’t even get a side story, them sending Fandral to beat Loki instead than Sif because Loki cheated on him or something. I’m not upset Loki ended up with a female, this is one of the possibilities of a Bisexual person. I’m upset that this was used merely to attract the audience but then wasn’t explored. They could have said Asgard was open minded with it, or disapproved it so Loki had to keep it hidden, or it could have been Sylvie who discussed some experience in that regard.

We were told over and over it was a show about identity. We expected it to be explored instead we were just told ‘ah, by the way, Loki is bisexual, let’s move on.’ And that was all.

Having representation from an important Marvel character is always important, especially considering the shortage of representation. But honestly I expected more.

PART 7 – TO SUM IT UP

Many of the people who worked in “Loki” are fantastic actors. They worked hard for this series, I can see they tried their best.

The premises for the “Loki” series are interesting.

We get a Loki who hadn’t experienced most of what happened in the movies yet, we make him confront with someone who knows his life, the one he lived and the one he was meant to live and we also make him confront with Variations of himself.

Loki has the Tesseract and the TVA has plenty of infinity stones, we could explore them.

The TVA itself have a fascist organization that dictates people’s lives and murders whoever tries to do differently, that goes so far as to brainwash the people working in it, which mistreats and belittle the Variants and establish a manipulative cult around the Time-Keeper with elements of police brutality which could be very actual.

Time travelling was the plot of "Avengers: Endgame" they could have tied the movie to the series, esplore the why some time travels were allowed and some weren't or their effects.

There were references to plenty of awesome comics they could take inspiration from.

But unless it redeems itself with the last episode… well, so far it’s failing to deliver what it promised due to a really poor plot which doesn’t give the characters a chance to be themselves or to be characterized as they’ve no real story nor real differences to speak of.

They’re given more time than a movie as they’re a series… but that’s no good excuse for wasting said time.

I’m still hoping the last episode will be spectacular, that it’ll manage to erase the messes of the other 5… but, as of now I’m disappointed.

I’ll just keep my fingers crossed and hope they’ll surprise me.

[thatcartoonnetworkblog]

Cartoon Network Hotel Review

WHAT TIME IS IT????

If you don’t find yourself screaming this when you get here, even just in your head, then you’re in the wrong place.

But after a nice drive through Amish Country, the Cartoon Network Hotel is nice and visible right outside of Dutch Wonderland. Coming in, you see images of some of your favorite characters, right before Finn and Jake welcome you at the front.

Granted, it looks like I came off season- with fall and school just starting, Dutch Wonderland is only open on the weekends, and the hotel wasn’t exactly packed from what I can see. Which made for a good time for the indoor pool to be under renovation, so I sadly didn’t get to check that out. But hey, the outdoor pool was running just fine, although it was mostly empty, just myself and a family.

I didn’t take any pictures of the pool, since I didn’t have my phone (but a couple of Ice King’s penguins are playing life guard duty, alongside a pretty cute girl), but I did snap a photo of the Powerpuff sprinklers! They look pretty cool, right?

But that’s jumping ahead. Anyway, as mentioned, today it didn’t seem so busy, so despite arriving a couple of hours before 4 PM check-in, I was able to get a room right away. It must have been busy enough that I didn’t get the Gumball room I asked for, but instead I got my second choice, Steven Universe.

But I mean, look at this. I can’t complain. I was just thinking that I wanted the SU room instead, anyway.

The rooms are themed to one of six shows/franchises, the other four being Powerpuff Girls, Ben 10, Adventure Time and We Bare Bears. The former two seem to be primarily inspired by their recent series however, not their classics, so your mileage will vary there. I asked a receptionist which show tends to be the most popular choice, and she says that it rotates. Apparently PPG does get picked often by those who grew up with it, which makes sense, although those aren’t my Powerpuff Girls.

So, some things of note- there are four exclusive channels to the Hotel. Gumball and Teen Titans Go get their own 24/7 channels, which seems redundant since they’re basically all CN shows anyway. But they also have a FanFavs channel, which shows various episodes from various series, and New Shows, which I’m not sure if it shows currently unaired episodes or not. I couldn’t get that one active for long, but I did see part of a Victor & Valentino episode. I did have FanFavs on a bit as background noise, and they seem to mostly show:

Adventure Time

Regular Show

Steven Universe

Ben 10 (2016)

Mao Mao

Thundercats Roar (seriously...)

It seems like they mostly rotate from those shows, but I’d like to believe there’s more. Griz is on the cover bar for it when you connect to wifi, and you’d think they’d also show at least the 2016 PPG show as well, as that’s all over the resort.

They also do showings of cartoons in the kitchen at 3 and 9 PM, as the kitchen is closed during those times. My flight was very early, so I missed the 9 showing, as well as the Summer Camp Island-inspired bonfire that happened before, but I caught the 3 o’clock cartoons. They played episodes of Craig of the Creek, Total Dramarama, Teen Titans Go, and Gumball. Pretty cool, although these are basically the only four shows the channel plays anyway, The intro they use for the screenings shows clips from classic Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Scooby-Doo cartoons, but none of those were shown today. Maybe they’ll throw one in at another time? Probably not Scooby... or maybe just a movie, since they apparently play movies as well sometimes.

I didn’t stick around for most of the TDR cartoon though, as I was participating in the Craig of the Creek scavenger hunt. They hunt various CN characters around the lobby vicinity, and you try to find them in the right spot.

This is what you get if you win- a COTC pin and a Hershey bar. But hey, you can’t argue with results, and this is about it for Craig merch.

The gift shop almost exclusively focuses on the six shows with featured rooms, and a lot of merch isn’t exclusive. I did get a couple of things though.

The beach towel is based on the designs you see all over the hotel and has a couple of series not otherwise represented in terms of merch, like OK KO, Summer Camp Island, and the aforementioned COTC. Oh, and Clarence! Almost missed him in the bottom.

I got the stickers because there are more COTC characters, and again, the designs are nice. The SU pin was cool, and if there was a similar one for AT or Gumball, I would have got that as well. And I got the Anais keychain because Gumball merch is strangely rare despite its popularity, especially for her. There were also some pencils, notebooks, a couple of T-shirts and a hoodie. I almost got some pencils.

There’s also an arcade and an activity center, but those do seem mostly for kids, plus you have to pay for most of the crafts. I think the coloring is free at least, and there are a couple of nods to classic shows I found that I’ll share on another post.

Just as there are some nods to classics around the place, primarily the elevator and kitchen, but the people who want to see Dexter and Johnny and the Eds aren’t the target audience for this resort. Which is unfortunate, but the thing is, besides the fact that we’re getting old and today’s kids need their own shows, Cartoon Network has become a big deal internationally over the past decade, moreso than during their supposed heyday in the late 90′s-early 00′s. The six shows featured aren’t just picked for being the most popular, they’re all big draws overseas. We Bare Bears sells a LOT of merch in Asia and parts of Europe, even if it doesn’t seem that big of a draw stateside. Hopefully they can make this a tourist spot.

That said, I do hope that they consistently update things in the years to come. Part of the problem with the Nickelodeon Hotel over in Orlando was how stuck it was in the mid-2000′s. Sure, SpongeBob has remained a big draw over the years since, but when I visited the place around 2010 (didn’t stay, but took a tour), it was apparent that if your kids weren’t big fans of Rugrats or Jimmy Neutron, and they probably weren’t around that place until its last days, there wasn’t much reason to stay over.

I do think that Craig deserves his own themed room, and it may be time to swap out Powerpuff for it. Let’s admit that the 2016 reboot was a failure and move on. Or maybe just double down and replace the reboot designs with their classic look.

But hey, my final thoughts on the Cartoon Network Hotel? I had a lot of fun, and got the best sleep I had in ages. I’m not sure if I’d go again, though. At least unless it changes things up a little. Part of the thing is that this is really for the kids who love today’s new shows. And I do really love three of the six shows heavily featured here- four if you count the original Powerpuff. But I’m just not the right age for this place.

If you love any of these shows and/or Cartoon Network’s brand as a whole, I recommend checking this place out, but only if you’re near the area. Don’t make it a pilgrimage. Unless you have enough friends to make grouping up on the Steven Universe Dream Suite worth it.

That said, look at these Bear macrons. So damn cute, and tasty, too!

[dreadfutures]

aight let‘s talk ao3 tags again

the very nice tag wrangler I’ll be quoting from has given me permission to share their kind and thorough responses (all bolding/emphasis is mine) without identifying information. and we very nicely go through some of my own tags from my long fic Dead Pasts, Dread Futures. Many, many thanks to this wrangler for explaining so much to me.

Anyway. I present these discussions as a peacable offer of: these are many writers’ concerns, and they are valuable, and worth considering. don’t dismiss concerns about the tag limit off hand, and don’t insist that edge cases don’t matter.

tldr; at the moment, after all this discussion and back and forths and bullying, I still believe that having 75 tags, period, as the limit across ALLCharacters/Relationships/Fandoms/Additional Tags penalizes longfics. Period. If it were even a limit of 100 tags, or broken down by Tag Type, it would be a little more forgiving. For advertising and for content filtering purposes, it only helps writers and fic visibilty to be specific and thorough in tags. A limit like this just so clearly has the potential to negatively affect large fandom/large ensemble/long fics.

It feels like this decision is being very broadly based on a "for the majority" mindset, which has never been what AO3 is about, without actually physically looking at the kinds of fics it will affect. The tag system on AO3 has been able to give fic filtering and reader-judgement a nuance that no other platform has accomplished, and longfics and large ensemble fics still, I think, depend on that as both a courtesy and necessity. I saw the rough math someone did and know that almost all fics currently on AO3 are <25k or something like that, and sure, for the average oneshot, or for even a fic <100k, a tag limit that's very strict across all tag categories probably won't be felt at all. But it's clearly something that people who write certain types of fics, and take them very seriously, will feel. Like I genuinely don't want to have a million tags. I want to tag relevant content that allows potential readers to filter & include & exclude my fic as they so choose, but also, if it does show up in their search, I want to give them the information they want to be able to decide if they want to read my fic or not. I don't want to have to put all my content warnings into a giant summary, or into a giant author's note that grows and grows. The tags have been a very helpful way of accomplishing those. Being able to cut down on parallel/synned tags is great, but it still seems like longfics that deal with multiple fandom entries, large casts, and require content warnings will butt up against that limit very quickly.

tag limit discussions:

- long fic writers adding tags as they go

- writers of franchises with many installments and ensemble casts

- writers with extensive content warnings

- use of tags to clarify a filtered tag

- use of tags to demonstrate how content is handled

off the bat - stop being jerks

look, I know objectively fics don’t need to be tagged at all. I lived in the wild west, too, when “lemon” meant anything from the merest mention of arousal to an explicit vanilla sex scene to all out dead dove craziness. a large part of me still is of the opinion that readers should just read shit, and if they decide they don’t like it, just dip. but that’s not what we’re about here. tagging is a kindness that we voluntarily undertake, and it’s also a form of advertising.

tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes

(that’s one of the cruxes of the arguments both pro-shippers and antis make: you can filter things! But you can only filter things if they’re tagged.)

I also understand that a few asshole writers have ruined this for all of us by purposefully adding so many tags it slows down the site and makes pages fail to load and hides other fics because the tags take up 10 pages. i also am frustrated with kinkmemers who just have prompt fill fic dumping grounds that span multiple unrelated fandoms and are impossible to navigate.

...the answer is not to suggest to writers that we put all our content warnings and pairings and etc. in our summaries, or our A/Ns, or to insert a first chapter that is a placeholder summary/tags page/world state. tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes.

I also have been dealing with people being murderously angry, and super self-righteous and targeting and mean about my own tags, and tags in general. people who are anti-tag are being giant fucking dicks about it. like get over yourselves and let’s just talk about a website function lol. tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes.

THE ANSWER IS NOT TO GET RID OF TAGS.

Alright, so now that we’ve gotten that flippin’ straw argument aside.

The next thing anyone has been doing is going to my page and critiquing my tags. Let’s address redundant tags.

(the wrangler has done this nicely! no ridicule necessary!)

using my fic as an example:

If you tag your fic Female Lavellan/Solas (only), it will show up in the following searches: Inqusitor/Solas, Female Inquisitor/Solas, Lavellan/Solas, Female Lavellan/Solas.  If you tag your fic Inquisitor/Solas (only), it will show up only in the Inquisitor/Solas search and in none of the others.  If you tag with the most specific version, it will show up in the more general versions, but not the other way around. So there's no real reason to tag with the more general tags.

Though I will point out that if you don't use the canonical tag      and tag your character or relationship with a custom name it will      be synned to the nongendered version, because at some point the DA      wranglers decided that they didn't want to make gender      assumptions.  So "Annabelle Lavellan" will be synned to "Lavellan      (Dragon Age)" rather than "Female Lavellan (Dragon Age)", and      someone searching for works with specifically "Female Lavellan"      won't see it.

Response: In the fanfic writers server I'm in, we've talked about how tags work and are supposed to work extensively in the past.  There's just always been a lot of confusion, which I think has been added to when people go and try to double-check for themselves and find instances where this treeing/synning is broken. Someone put out this guide (also here) for AO3 meta text this year, which has been referred to by multiple people in the server, and it says:

What if you wrote a fic for something where there's a movie based on a book, but the movie's really different, and you've used both things that are only in the movie and things that are only in the book? In that case you either tag your fic as both the movie and the book, or see if the fandom has an “all media types” tag and use that instead of the separate tags. If the fandom doesn't have an “all media types” tag yet, you can make one! Just type it in.

“All media types” fandom tags are also useful for cases where there are lots of inter-related series, like Star Wars; there are several tellings of the story in different media but they're interchangeable or overlap significantly, like The Witcher; or the fandom has about a zillion different versions so it's very hard, even impossible, to say which ones your fic does and doesn't fit, like Batman. Use your best judgement as to whether you need to include a more specific fandom tag such as “Batman (Movies 1989-1997)” alongside the “all media types” fandom tag, but try to avoid including very many. The point of the “all media types” tag is to let you leave off the specific tags for every version.

Which I believe is in direct contradiction to guidance to use the most specific tags, so that's definitely one source of confusion. The most recent ao3 meta text guide (https://archiveofourown.org/wrangling_guidelines/2 I think this one) doesn't present itself in a way that makes this clear for writers tagging their own works. The way authors usually go about tagging things (and what's in the FAQ) is to start typing into one of the boxes and look for what populates the drop down, which doesn't lend itself to knowing that there are trees, or knowing what tags are interrelated (it seems like a whole grab bag of tags get suggested, some in-fandom and some outside of fandom, some canon/parent/meta and some children/random freeform, in just about any field you start typing in).

I'm not sure what can really be done about this. Many of us have turned to ao3-comment-of-the-day and their posts about using Tags, and various sources on google, and have clearly come up with a whole load of conflicting advice.

Fundamentally, finding parent/meta tags for a tag as you’re tagging a fic is NOT clear to writers. The fact that a nested and a meta tag can both be suggested one after the other when filling in tags largely contributes to redundant tags.

Writing for Multiple Fandom Entries

Here’s what a tag wrangler had to say about my fandoms:

As with the relationship tree, you can look at the fandom tree  here:      https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dragon%20Age%20-%20All%20Media%20Types  and see how the fandom tags are related. Going back to your story Rogasha'ghi'lan as an example, it's tagged with Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: The Last Court.  But as I said, you only need to tag with the lowest relevant level(s) on the tree in order for your fic to show up under the higher levels.  So if you tag with      Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Last Court, it will show up not just under those categories, but also under Dragon Age (Video Games) and Dragon Age - All Media Types.  And of course because you've tagged with the specific, if someone searches under, say, Dragon Age (Video Games), but doesn't want Inquisition or Last Court fic, they can use the exclude filter to show only the earlier games.

(So that's two more tags you can remove with no effect on searchability!)

In my (but not only my) own case, I am indeed writing for Origins, DA2, Inquisition, and Last Court extensively within the same fic, so I should be tagging for all of those, specifically, still. In order to make sure my fic is seen by the correct fans, I need multiple specific tags.

Longfic Tag Bloat (adding tags as you write a fic)

And like many other longfic writers, even if I narrow down my character tags only to those with dedicated character arcs longer than 5 chapters, I still have Loads & Loads of Characters (including Dalish from the Chargers!).

A lot of longfic writers I know add characters, relationships, and content warnings as they go along.

At 170 chapters/580k words, Dead Pasts had a ton of important relationships (for example, like Vivienne & Lavellan), and as a story it's nowhere near done. I found myself planning an arc from 171 onward that would introduce a very important relationship (Felassan & Lavellan). This is how longfics end up with so many, many, many character tags and relationship tags, which is another major criticism people seem to have about "people who abuse tags."

A solution that people propose online is "split your fic." Which is actually what I ended up doing...but the old relationships and fandoms from DPDF still apply to Rogasha'ghi'lan, so Rogasha'ghi'lan will have the same number and more tags than DPDF.

If I hadn't split the fic, I would have just kept adding tags to Dead Pasts...and still had the same problem of continually adding tags. They're not superfluous tags: someone who wants to see a plot that is deeply influenced by Vivienne & Lavellan will find that in my fic; someone who is looking to see a major Felassan & Lavellan friendship grow and drive plot will also find that in my fic.

My fic is long; there are other fics that are longer, or are going to be longer, with casts that are just as large or larger, with many relationships, and that's not even talking about content warnings.

Polycule / Relationship Tags

"Tagging a polycule like Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan requires four      tags: Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, Bull/Dorian, Bull/Lavellan,      Lavellan/Dorian"

This assumes that people who like Lavellan/Dorian will want to read Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, which is often not the case.  If your story Is Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, tag it that way!  It doesn't make any sense to me to tag with the pairs as well unless the story would be of interest to people who read for that pair, or unless that pair relationship is a big step in the story (like, if you have established Lavellan/Dorian, and then they bring in Bull, you might tag for both that pair and the trio). I mean, you can tag how you like, there's no requirement that tags correspond to content. But for me, personally, if I search on Dagna/Lace Harding (I am weak for dwarf women!) I do not want to get a Dagna/Lace Harding/Sera fic.

My personal tastes don't include poly fics, but several writers I know who write poly fics are adamant that: tons of readers will not know of the possibility of the poly fic until it shows up in a search result, and the individual relationships often are significant to the fics, especially in fics that are not oneshots. For example, a great number of "fav fics" are stumbled-across! We aren't interested in the Sera/Dagna/Lace polycule ourselves, but someone might not have considered it, found it, and said, "Hey! That's my new favorite." But if polycules are segregated and only searchable by the polycule itself, alas, what's the option for visibility at all if not tagging it as Lace/Dagna in addition?

Additional Tags

Knowing when something is a "character" and when something is "additional"

Knowing that "Warrior Lavellan" (or the [Name] Mahariel) would be more useful in an Additional Tag vs. a Character Tag is also something I'm not sure how we're supposed to know? Like, I'm glad to know it now, but it's definitely not at all obvious without you telling me why it would be more useful in Additional vs in Character. Especially when to me: Warrior Lavellan is a character, and the fact that it populated the Character tag for me says that it's a Character. Because like I said, the guidance has been: start typing, and if it appears in the drop down, use it. Or, for example, my friend has the Well of Sorrows personified as a Character. Like an actual character. Does that have to go under Additional Tags, or as a Character? How do I know?

Additional tags as tone/content indicators

A lot of writers / readers have approached the Additional Tags as a surface-level overview of understanding how an author is approaching many topics concerned in the fic. Like, Vivienne is a character in my fic, but specifically I am Vivienne-positive, which I feel is important to denote because she's important to my fic, and she's a divisive character. Mood/tone/theme indicators like "Pro-Vivienne" or "we are Vivienne-positive in this house" (or like Male-Female Friendship, or "Expansive Lore" vs "Lore - Freeform" which denote different things to me) in tags (which in the comments section on the ao3 blog post get derided as "chatty tags") are still important to me, though they're useless or far less likely to be used for filtering. (I had the thesis of the conflict of my fic: “empathy is the enemy of free will” “but hope is a choice” as “chatty tags,” among some that were more mundane but important: “sera shows up late in fic”)

More seriously, there are fics that have content warning tags for filtering purposes but also clarify those content warnings to give context to readers and allow them to make a decision whether or not the content actually fits their preferences, ie, one that specifies domestic abuse as a tag (which would be in the Additional Tags) for filtering purposes but also specifies "domestic abuse not present in x relationship" (which would also be in the Additional Tags, but is useless for filtering purposes, but is immensely helpful and demonstrably used by readers to decide if they're going to even bother reading the author's note of that fic).

People are also nervous that not being able to thoroughly tag content warnings is going to end up with unhappy readers amid all the purity culture flaming that's going on lately.

Like, personally I err on the side of "suck it up, reader, and just read and find out," for a lot of things (not talking about content warnings, but talking about mood/tone additional tags), but also, given that there is already a venue here to let readers know what they're in for...taking that away sucks.

I hate a giant fic summary as much as people hate 10 pages of tags, but at least one can hide tags in their preferences, and likewise the thought of starting a fic up front with a giant author's note that gets continually updated with content warnings also isn't super appealing. Leading with a giant author's note that lays out: this is my world state and this is my character's spec and this is my character's background so you know how I'm going to approach this and these are all of the content warnings for the fic as a whole, just feels like getting into "My Immortal" territory. There's definitely a balance to be had between the art of writing a summary, what to include in an author's note, and what to include in tags, but this still seems like it's going to be fairly limiting for writers in these large franchises, especially for longfics that span a lot of topics.

It feels like this decision is being very broadly based on a "for the majority" mindset, which has never been what AO3 is about, without actually physically looking at the kinds of fics it will affect. The tag system on AO3 has been able to give fic filtering and reader-judgement a nuance that no other platform has accomplished, and longfics and large ensemble fics still, I think, depend on that as both a courtesy and necessity. I saw the rough math someone did and know that almost all fics currently on AO3 are <25k or something like that, and sure, for the average oneshot, or for even a fic <100k, a tag limit that's very strict across all tag categories probably won't be felt at all. But it's clearly something that people who write certain types of fics, and take them very seriously, will feel.

Like I genuinely don't want to have a million tags. I want to tag relevant content that allows potential readers to filter & include & exclude my fic as they so choose, but also, if it does show up in their search, I want to give them the information they want to be able to decide if they want to read my fic or not. I don't want to have to put all my content warnings into a giant summary, or into a giant author's note that grows and grows. The tags have been a very helpful way of accomplishing those. Being able to cut down on parallel/synned tags is great, but it still seems like longfics that deal with multiple fandom entries, large casts, and require content warnings will butt up against that limit very quickly.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 8/10/21

got a bunch of followers (many of you are Cool Teens, so also a reminder im 26 and an adult and you’re responsible for curating your own internet experience) anyway there’s a bunch of new folks since the last time this was a regular series, so i am going to pre-answer some things that popped up in my inbox last week.

a quick reminder that this is empathetically NOT a recommendations or review blog series. this is a quick snapshot of what i’m thinking about with regards to mass media this week, and sometimes i’m funny about it and sometimes i also do interesting diy shit

a work can be culturally or historically relevant and important in the history of a genre AND be extremely difficult to recommend unless i know you very well due to. hm. let us say many pitfalls due to the inherent nature of the genre or the time it was made in it any number of other factors that make it unpalatable to modern audiences but still worth knowing about. doesthedogdie dot com will be your friend here for anything i talk about ever

being critical of a work doesn’t just mean pointing out its flaws- was it successful in telling the story it wanted to tell? were the techniques it used effective? were the emotions it elicited in me probably the ones the creators set out to elicit? these are key components of a good review and often help me break down what i want to say about a particular piece of media in any given week, but this isn’t a review series of blog posts either.

i am literally just some guy and you should question everything i say

listening i’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair (from the musical South Pacific) brought to you by a random mix of classic movie musicals bc apparently im that kinda gay this week.

like a lot of other fifties media that aged like milk, i have fond memories of watching this with my grandmother. this isn’t even my favorite song from the musical (that would be bali hai’i) but i think it is one of the more technically interesting non-solo ones. specifically, the faint siren-y dissonance on “ahoy, ahoy!” has really been stuck in my head. the melancholy “ah fuck we’ve broken our hearts again” vibe on “rub him out of the roll call/and drum him out of your dreams” with all the girls singing is probably a result of a soprano-heavy cast, but it’s almost chimey in a way? the rhyme scheme of those lines has an excellent mouthfeel. ms gaynor singing “cancel hiiiiiim” has a very different vibe in 2021

two (really three? maybe four? the world is large and mysterious) things can be true at the same time: i don’t think i could watch this musical again as an adult because i don’t think there’s a good way to salvage or update it. the very qualities of this musical that make me go “fuckin yikes” as adult were the very qualities that made my grandmother love it so much. i can hold a bittersweet memory of a rare late movie night with a complicated lady and at the same time wish she were a better person. the dead never leave you with answers.

reading yet another fallow week. this field is turning back into forest

watching i often say “AAA video game (derogatory)” when talking offline about the bad batc/h, but this was a real bioshock ass lookin episode. i don’t think this show is succesful at making or having a point. mostly because it cannot contradict any existing lore in one of the most traversed time periods of this franchise, even with the expanded universe reboot. it falls into the uncomfortable realm of most starred wars media: this is a franchise for children but it also has to cater to legions of grownup fanatics with lots of money. but by god does it “feel” like starred wars. something not all the sequel trilogy movies or much of the clone wars series were successful at.

as a sidebar to that last sentence. the most memorable (imo) scene of the fucking sequel trilogy is the back-to-back battle couple thing in ep seven, which i have just rewatched, and it simply does not hold up. there are too many cuts to other sideplots, which kills any tension dead, and it’s mostly fighting on opposite sides of the room in frantic desperation instead of what i wanted, which was more than five seconds of synergy. it’s a bad rhyme of the final throne room fight in rotj and my memory of the thing is so much better, which is always disappointing.

back to the main point, i think a big part of something “feeling” like starred wars is big setpieces and fights that make you go “HAHA YES FUCKIN SICK WHY NOT!!!!” like, nobody ever Just gets shot in the head and temporarily incapacitated, they get half-vadered by the engines of a derelict ship trying to go to hyperspace while it’s grounded. this franchise has never met a location it couldn’t destroy in a beautiful and awful shower of light while the string sections of three combined orchestras play their hearts out.

this franchise is so fucking stupid and i am so invested in it

playing got my hands on the death trash early access, very hype to play it, have been too busy turning this apartment into a functional and comfortable space to live in for three separate people with their own separate toiletries and groceries and work from home/school schedules

making related to the above, the fucking kitchen table and chairs are done.

things wot i did friday night/saturday morning:

new rubber feeties on everybody

wrapped the legs that structurally couldn’t get new rubber feeties in jute to be kinder to my rental linoleum

bolted the legs back on the table and rebalanced it bc the jute wasn’t quite even

did a very halfassed job of fixing the drawer rails on the table

bolted the chair tubing back together

took all the old decorative tacks out of the backs of the chairs

scrubbed the seats and backs and the pieces the tacks were holding down with mild detergent (partially effective, it still has some patina but is sanitized)

re-covered the bottoms of the chairs in remnant black polyester to replace mildewed black canvas

put in new decorative tacks on the seat backs

bolted the vinyl parts to the chrome tubing parts (a long and frustrating process since there were two sizes of decidedly non-standard nuts and bolts)

wiped everything down again for idk good luck

sitting at my kitchen table in the sun eating a breakfast sandwich and some terrible iced tea on sunday morning was very nice. i lived in the south just long enough to get Opinions on iced tea and how the north can’t get it right. shouldn’t be gritty. shouldn’t be bitter. how is this even happening

some very very halfassed “during” pics