#maybe idk nothing graphic just very heavily implied

[marsdeathdefiances]

Scrapped the old vampire!alcibiades x hunter!socrates au wip I had and have started a new one. So have a snack:

[bubblegum-and-ciggarettes]

“I Am Not Starfire” Review

I would like to preface this by saying these are my own opinions and you are allowed to like/dislike this comic:)))

Okay, first off I’m getting straight to the point in that I did not like this graphic novel. The art and colors were nice and some of the concepts were good, but it was poorly executed and on the line of being harmful.

No, I do not mean “sjw” harmful in which the majority of backlash for this graphic novel came from. I don’t care that Mandy(Stars daughter) is a lesbian. And I don’t care that she’s overweight. In fact, I applaud the comic for at least not mentioning anything wrong with being lgbt and barely mentioning the fact that Mandy is overweight.

We need to learn that yes, addressing things like homophobia, racism, body shaming, sexism is an issue, but we need to normalize it in media and speak out about it in person. Even if catcalling, rape, homophobia is depicted as wrong in a comic, it still fuels that hatred from those people instead of normalizing these things. Hence why being called straight and white are “normal” to those hateful people. (Which I don’t agree with obviously.)

And on that note, THAT is why this comic is harmful. Not ONLY is Star slut shamed by her own daughter, who, btw, rags on Star not liking her appearance even though Star literally has not said anything about it and is supportive of her, but she’s also talked about how hot she is by other students/people in a degrading manner.

There’s nothing wrong with being sexy, but this comic both insults Star for being sexy while also tries to show being objectified is wrong bc the people who do so are assholes. You can call a character pretty without having at least one male character shout something gross, which leads back to my whole normalizing argument.

It is harmful for Mandy, the main character we’re supposed to be rooting for, to shame her own mother for dressing how she likes, and then complains her mother doesn’t like how she looks or acts. Which??? Star doesn’t??? She never says anything about Mandys weight, hair, attitude, or grades except for the fight about Mandy walking out of the SAT.

That’s not okay. You can’t have a character wanting to be excepted for who she is while hating on everyone else.

She literally has the “I’m not like other girls” attitude and that is the best way to describe it.

Probably doesn’t help she was made practically as a self insert by a woman who clearly doesn’t know how teenagers work and was cast aside during her high school years.

I mean, seriously? Having two popular kids be mean and talk about leggings and carbs while their most popular friend rolls their eyes? Which 2000 teen movie is this one from? And like, leggings have been in style for a while now. LuLu Lemon leggings? Ever heard of them? Literally every popular so called “basic” girl has them?

What would’ve been cool is to see Mandy grow out of her “I hate girls faze”, which, is a thing most girls go through in middle school/high school until they learn slut shaming isn’t okay. That would’ve been a nice way to reconcile with her mother. The realization that “oh shit I’ve been hating my mother because of what OTHER people think and say about her. I’ve been shaming her in my head for wearing “revealing” clothes because I’m mad at how other people flock to her while I’m an outcast.” Would’ve been way better.

And the whole Blackfire thing was super rushed, and brings more questions. Why didn’t Star just fight her? She clearly can. Star would never let Blackfire hurt anyone, let alone her daughter. And what’s the point of Mandy complaining shes different and won’t live up to expectations of the PEOPLE AROUND HER not her mother, if she does in the end? She didn’t NEED to get powers, even though it was pretty obvious she would. And it would’ve tied up the story nicely if she didn’t. Hell, Star doesn’t even WANT her to be a hero.

Lastly, the love interest. She was sweet, kind, popular, and accepting. Everything Star is. I thought maybe this graphic novel would have a part where Mandy is upset because she feels Star likes her crush as a better daughter than her, but, no. She’s just a sweet girl who’s way too good for Mandy. Their whole conflict was bc she posted a picture of her with the Titans, when it was established she always posts pictures of her face and is seemed to be outgoing. And she did it because of a dare? Like literally nothing was her own fault. And even if it was, she met a bunch of heroes. Who wouldn’t take a picture with them and post it?

Mandy should’ve seen her taking the photo right? So why didn’t she just say “hey please don’t post that right now?”

Also there’s the whole mystery of her father. Which both slightly slut shames Kori because of the possibilities but at the same time heavily implies Dick is her father. Why Dick wouldn’t stay with his own daughter or let her know? Idk.

In conclusion, this comic was very bad. Not because of Mandys appearance and sexual orientation, but because of her character. Her whole thing is “I’m not like other girls”, “it’s not a phase mom”, and “you just don’t understand me.” That’s the best way to sum up her character. Star was so sweet while she was bratty. Her love interest was like a mini Star who she loved even though they have the same personality and everything. Mandy never really learned anything until Star was presumed dead/badly injured by Blackfire. Mandy was rude, slut shamed Star, and was written by someone who doesn’t understand high school and hates the “popular” kids. Lovely art and colors, shitty writing and concepts.

Overall rating: 1/10. I really did not like this comic. Dick was the best part for me which I hope says a lot.

[we-are-inevitable]

toxic relationship hcs you say?? 😈 i adore this au so much jac

- sometimes they’ll just. argue about nothing into the early hours of the morning, then have hate sex and go to bed angry. jack’s favourite non-apology is to come home with a baggie of coke or something and be like “would this make you feel better babe?”,, whereas davey is probably more likely to actually say he’s sorry, even if he wasn’t really in the wrong in the first place

- davey gets so possessive and jealous when it comes to jack, even when it’s just with his friends that he’s not remotely romantic or sexual with. he knows he’s being irrational, but sometimes he finds himself guilt-tripping jack about it anyways :/

- ok on a slightly different note. not sure how hard of drugs they do in this au,, but some good angst fuel could be one of them ending up in a k hole and the other having absolutely no fucking clue what to do about it. like jack’s completely dissociated and confused and hallucinating so bad that he can’t even move, and davey is pretty high himself and he’s never seen someone get like this before, so he’s freaking out. maybe he even ends up calling one of jack’s friends to help, even though he knows they don’t really like him

kath i hope u know that i am actually in love with you holy SHIT

also just in case, but:

TW: drugs, alcohol, discussion of sexual topics, toxic relationships

okay so right off the bat: jack using drugs to make make davey Not Pissed Off is something that can be so personal,

i feel like i should also establish- for anyone reading this- that jack and david are absolutely horrible people in this au, by the way. i'll get into more on that later.

but yeah, jack knows davey, and jack knows that davey is happier when high, so when davey is high, davey is happy, and davey tends to get high after they fight. it's a constant cycle of anger and drugs and numbness and "i love you" and it's almost disorienting, but they're both too far gone to care at that point.

so, when davey is angry at jack, jack will let him take the first hits from a blunt, or splurge and bring home the "good" coke, or offer to help him shoot up in the bathroom.

BUT when jack is mad at DAVEY, jack tends to be a bit more selfish with his shit. davey's "apologies" are basically him just apologizing so jack will get high with him again, or fuck him again, or smoke with him on the balcony again.

all in all, jack pacifies davey and davey tells jack what he wants to hear. neither are actually sorry.

MOVING ON:

davey getting possessive over jack is ABSOLUTELY something that happens. because, well, davey... doesn't really have anyone else?

he went low contact with his family for jack. he rarely stays at his own dorm when they're first starting their relationship- he's always at jack's- so he doesn't really get along with his roommate anymore. he doesn't talk to people in his classes and lectures. he spends every moment he has with jack, because jack is the only person giving him the attention he needs.

it gets worse when they actually move in together, once they can move out of the dorms.

he gets upset when jack goes to a party without him. he gets upset when jack spends a lot of time with his friends. on the rare occasions that jack's friends want to get high (on weed; they don't do harder shit like jack), david is LIVID when jack comes home smelling like weed- because david wasn't there.

david has a lot of codependence issues.

FINALLY:

alright so full disclosure: i DID have to look this up on urban dictionary.

i imagine that ketamine isn't something that they get their hands on often, but they probably do it a few times; just when jack feels like changing things up a bit.

as for a bad experience: YES

and it would be an interesting role reversal, too, bc jack is usually the one to take care of davey while davey's high. jack is just naturally more experienced; hes been playing with fire since he was fifteen, and davey is still relatively new to this, so more often than not, it's davey who pushes a little too far bc he doesn't know his limits yet.

but thinking about davey having to help jack through a bad trip... GOD kath your MIND

and if davey DOES end up calling one of jack's friends, it's basically futile. they'd insist on getting jack checked out, or taking him to a hospital, or trying to talk jack into getting clean and going to rehab (again), and as bad as it sounds... davey doesn't want that.

jack is his gateway into everything. sex, drugs, alcohol, parties. his entire new lifestyle. davey is, quite literally, addicted to jack.

this is going to sound cliche but

jack is his drug, and david isn't ready to get clean.

also, i'm going to go into some more NSFW stuff down below the cut, so just be warned! (the actual fic isn't going to be sexually explicit, but there are some scenes that are very heavily implied and will be tagged as such.)

so, as you said, the hate-sex is very common.

also okay so like. in this au, davey isn't exactly a virgin when they meet but jack absolutely brings a new side of sex to the table- a side that david has never experienced before.

i'm not going to go into specifics, but jack is just a lot more possessive and aggressive than anything david is used to.

and this isn't just in sexual situations! it's very much applicable to their relationship as a whole.

(i want to clarify- when i say aggressive i don't mean in a Yikes! way, but you should also know that, even though this situation is shitty, david knows his limits. david knows what he wants to accept, and he's very willingly accepting the aggression that jack carries with him. again, not to be graphic, but david is into it. just to clarify!)

but yeah the rough sex is like. their normal

and they're only soft and slow when one of them specifies that it's what they need in that moment- which does happen a few times! particularly when one of them is just,, having a sad day. that's sad sex to them

i am going to stop this here bc i don't want to get too explicit with this answer, but you mentioned hate-sex and i just. have feelings about the sexual side of their relationship (which the fic will get into), and i guess we can use this as a warning for some of the content to come when i actually start posting the fic ?? idk

thank u so much for this ask !! i'm sure this is way longer than u wanted !! but i had so many thoughts !!!!! also feel free to ALWAYS talk to me abt this au because WOW i love it

[idk-my-aesthetic]

Ok the whole thing w/ clogging up ao3 tags is stupid for multiple reasons, like how it fucks with screen readers for one, but the MAJOR issue is that having too many tags isn’t actually a problem w/ ao3

Like seriously guys? There is a lot to criticize. And I say this as someone who heavily relied on fandom spaces to get me through some really really hard times and still loves ao3. I can say I love what it does for fandom while also acknowledging there’s some seriously fucked up shit going on both behind the scenes and with ppl who use the site. It’s literally like saying “I love tumblr but I acknowledge there are literal nazis on here and as a Jew/human with a working brain I hate them and that they’ve been here so long”

Like. I get u think ur sticking it to the man or whatever. And idk I partially agree bc. There’s so much nasty shit and some technically illegal shit that I don’t want to even mention! But ur not even wasting the moderators time or anything ur just being obnoxious and then everyone starts discoursing on tumblr and I’m legitimately tired of it. I don’t wanna see ppl defending gross stuff and I’m tired of talking about the ppl who do defend gross stuff bc I don’t wanna remember that they exist bc I have shit to do irl and not enough space in my brain for them

So. Idk ima propose at least a temporary solution before I have to hear one more argument for or against censorship bc y’all seriously don’t understand how to have a nuanced conversation

How about instead of asking AO3 to take down gross fics (which may or may not be morally correct but will 100% reopen a very over done conversation) instead we ask for some specific plausible things

1) when you use ao3 explicit and unrated fics are automatically filtered out. They do this on ff.net. Yes it may be like 2 extra clicks for ppl who wanna read explicit stuff but ppl who don’t are going to do that anyway, and it protects the people who don’t know to do that and don’t want to read graphic tags. Most importantly it requires consent to browse explicit fics. Yeah you need to give consent to read explicit stuff, but you can look through the incredibly graphic tags/summaries without consenting to anything. It’s literally the default. Which is both upsetting to ppl who don’t wanna see that and also maybe a bit of a legal loophole they should close up

2) a “suggest tags” feature. This would be moderated by authors not ao3 staff. Basically ppl can like..... idk entire a series of tags and you can choose if you want to add them or not. The person submitting them has an option to be anonymous or not. Obviously the author doesn’t have to add every random tag and it might be annoying but it would help with making sure triggers got tagged. It would be helpful if it didn’t let you suggest tags that were already suggested/on the fic but I’m not too picky. Like I said the point of this is to make sure ppl can block stuff properly, and it honestly might also help authors with visibility bc like. Obviously you know the tags you use but you don’t know what tags other ppl look for. Again maybe it may be obnoxious with ppl having a lot of tags but people already have a lot of tags

3) a dispute rating button. Now before someone bitches at me that the ao3 moderators don’t have time to go through disputes- I know I already took that into consideration. Basically the idea is when you dispute the rating the site will ask you what rating you think it should be and anonymously log it. So if someone rated something M but you think it should be an E the site will log that and send a message to the author. The author has a choice if they actually want to listen to ppl and change the rating or not. They don’t actually have to listen to the ppl disputing the rating. Unless they get a certain amount of disputes. I was thinking maybe like 50 or so?* So if 50 ppl say “hey this really needs to have a different rating” then and only then would the moderators take a look at the fic. And the moderators would then figure out what the rating should be.

(*idk if 50 is the right #. I was thinking it should maybe work on like a percentage of your hits in the fic?)

3.5) have a sexual content marker. This is marked as 3.5 bc i feel like this idea if implemented would be misused. But yeah in theory you could just have a sexual content marker that could be clicked by the OP and then automatically filtered. Again you could use the system from #3 but again I feel like ppl would missuse it.

Anyway yeah. I wanted to give some viable solutions ppl on both sides might actually agree with. Like I get not wanting to make concessions with gross ppl, but it’s a lot faster so I’m ok with doing it for now while the rest of y’all continue to debate or w/e

Final note- please for the love of g-d learn how ratings work. Ask someone else’s opinion if you have too. I have seen so many explicit fics marked as mature or teen it’s a legitimate problem. I’ll give a quick rundown of what each rating means but pls guys

General- g- basically go by what you’d see in a Disney cartoon

Teen- pg/pg 13 - there are swears there’s violence, sex may be mentioned, you might call someone sexy or smthn idc, but no one is shown having sex or or discussing/thinking about it in detail

Mature- R - injuries/gore may be described with more detail. Uhh there could be some heavy making out and the characters might talk about sex or feeling sexually attracted to someone. But actual sex is not shown!! If you have to mention or refer to someone’s genetalia in any sexual way you should probably move it up to an E. Even if ur characters are fully clothed the entire time. Also If you’re talking about kinks outside of a quick joke or reference you should probably move it up to an E.

Explicit- NC 17- sexually explicit content. (You can put non-sexual violent stuff under here but most ppl leave it under mature)

TLDR/oversimplification(for the ratings) -

General: nothing sexual

Teen: implied sex

Mature: refrenced sex

Explicit: shown sex

General tldr:

Some criticisms of Ao3 are valid and needed, and some are just stupid and infuriating (specifically talking about the tag thing stop it’s annoying and ableist). There is constant arguments and drama surrounding those criticisms, and I decided to offer some solutions that actually have a chance at getting implemented, even if I would prefer a different option.

[catastrophepins]

Thoughts on outlast 2? Seems like something you'd have an opinion on

Are you saying I’m opinionated? xD I haven’t actually played it, I’ve only watched Mark and Jack’s videos on it.

When the demo came out I was SO pumped. Southern gothic themed horror is one of my favourite styles of horror, so I was really looking forward to seeing what sort of storyline they would have put into it. I just want to say that first of all the graphics are gorgeous. The game is really pretty. To a point. I love the parts of the game you spend in reality, Temple Gate has so much atmosphere about it and it really fits the storyline perfectly. The parts with the school.. ugh, I liked them at first, but that brings me onto a bigger point.

The start of the game is great, I love the start. But about halfway through the game, and especially after the point where it starts raining blood, it gets SUPER repetitive. Especially the parts with the school. I found myself watching it and any time near the end it transitioned to the school my only thought was “not this bullshit again”. I get that you go there more frequently because Blake obviously gets more fucked up as time goes on, so it makes sense, but at the same time I feel like you spend too much time going through the school. Especially when all of the corridors look the same, and there are SO many rooms you can go in for absolutely no reason, it’s kinda dumb. And it gets boring really quickly.

Another reason I started to almost hate the school was because the plot of what went on with Jessica was pretty straight forward to me. The game seemed to stretch it out forever and spell out almost every detail of what happened in Blake’s past. Like, we get it game, Jessica was being physically abused by her father and sexually abused by one of the priests (or at least being creeped on heavily by him), it was super obvious and they wasted too much time on that part of the story. It was obvious she didn’t hang herself, considering the things you hear her screaming about someone coming after her. She certainly didn’t seem like she wanted to hang herself. And then when Blake mentions blood dripping from her shoes, it makes it extremely apparent that she was hurt in some other way than just a noose around her neck. So all in all the whole thing was easily pieced together and like I said, they wasted too much time on it. I will say that the way they transition the player from reality into he school was pretty neat each time, they didn’t fail on that.

Another complaint I have, probably the thing that bugged me the most about the story side of things, was Lynn. She’s your wife, your one goal throughout the whole game is to get to her and escape with her, and yet she’s hardly mentioned. Half the time Blake talks about her he calls her Jessica by mistake because he’s fucked up, and she’s barely mentioned by Jessica as well, even though in high school the three of you were meant to be close friends. She’s very much pushed to the side even though she’s your objective for the entire game.It also really annoys me with how inconsistent your relationship with her seems to be. At the very beginning of the game everything seems fine, it is a little hard to judge considering you’re only in the helicopter for all of two minutes with Lynn. But then later in the game Blake says he can’t possibly be anyone’s father, because he hasn’t slept with Lynn in months. So clearly there are some issues in their marriage, but you never hear any more on it than that one statement from Blake. It’s almost as if his brain is still devoted to Jessica, I feel like if she never died and nothing in the game happened, Blake and Jessica would have gotten married rather than Blake and Lynn. I know she’s a heavy plot point because the bright light and the microwaves make you ‘see your sins’, and he’s still haunted by what happened to his friend, but would that really take precedence over your wife, right now in present time, being raped and kidnapped by religious nuts? I doubt it.

I have more complaints about the whole Lynn thing but I’ll leave it there. On to the pregnancy. Yo.. what the fuck. I saw an ask someone answered in the Outlast 2 tag saying that the moon does actually go through phases while you’re going through the game, implying that a LOT more time passes than just one night. I haven’t checked that, so I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is then I suppose it’s somewhat possible that Lynn is actually pregnant. Although where they get the food to feed her for nine months, and why you never see Blake eat, or sleep apart from one time, doesn’t lend to that theory. Plus Blake’s wounds never seem to heal, so it’s unlikely that you’re there for nine months. Even though Lynn was kept underground in the mines basically the whole game she would still have been affected by the microwaves. The heretics live underground and they’re affected by it. So maybe she just sees herself being pregnant the same as Blake and everyone else does, because it’s been drilled into their brains that it’s true? I don’t really understand why after she gives birth though, she says there’s nothing there. And then just dies? If she didn’t really give birth then why did she just die like that? Doesn’t really make sense to me.

And then the end of the game, god damn. It seems like once you leave the church and see all of the dead bodies outside, it’s clear they’ve committed mass suicide since there’s bottles of bleach lying around the place. But then the bright light, and it ends? I don’t really know. I wish you had found out what actually happened to Blake. Unless they intend to make a third game and explain it then, or bring Blake back, I dunno. I was disappointed in the ending anyway. There wasn’t really any twists like in the first game. You go through hell and then you die, and the Walrider takes another host and the shit storm continues. That made sense, and it was a cool twist, because how often does your protagonist actually die? Outlast 2′s ending was pretty weak, I feel.

Plus, way too much running away throughout the game. You can’t stop and take in your surroundings because there are far too many chase scenes. After a while the things chasing you aren’t scary any more, it’s just a matter of following a path and running away, not even looking back to take in WHAT is chasing you. So that kinda sucked. Also I feel like not having combat made less sense in this game. There were so many things you could have picked up and used as weapons. I found myself yelling at my laptop at one point where Jack died from one of those crawly bastards, and after you get buried alive, like why can’t you pick up a shovel and smash his brains out? Blake’s one hell of a pacifist, that’s all I’ll say.

Again I have a lot more complaints on the game but I’m too lazy to type the rest, those were my main things.

Stuff I liked; the whole first half of the game. Pretty much up until Marta leaves the story and Laird comes in. I liked it until then (I mean I still liked it after, just a lot less). The environment was cool, Marta was an awesome enemy.I think my favourite single moment from the game was - surprisingly, since I just bitched about it - in the school, when you walk up to a door with the light behind you, and you see someone else’s shadow beside yours. That was creepy, and unexpected so it was really cool. Generally I liked the characters, you don’t really spend any time getting to know anyone unless it’s through a scripture your pick up and read so it’s hard to tell. Idk. I think I preferred the feel and aesthetic of this game, but overall I preferred the first one. Especially Whistle Blower, it was really good.