#or maybe i could really give in my desire for aesthetics and make a general multi adding my h.ypmic muses too-

[darabeatha]

/ What if I gave up and wrote cookies again

[fumifooms]

You're always so on point with your posts. On that note, it made me realize that; Considering the themes of desires in DunMeshi. It's also to say that what you think you want isn't what you actually want.

Like, Marcille thinks she wants the handsome prince from the novels she reads... But what she actually wants is someone maybe more like her father who she admired so much. Kind, virtuous, caring to a fault, a family man. Things she later finds in Chilchuck.

Because as traumatizing as it was to see her mother's spiral after her father's death; Her memories of her father itself are some of the most important to her. And it fits with her pursuit to increase her loved ones' lives, because she does want what her mother and father had.

Sipping. I do go over ‘what you think you want vs what you actually want + what you need’ in my (upcoming) Marcille & Chil arc analysis ;) It’s a part of Dunmeshi that I really like and is super fascinating, I’d honestly like to make an analysis-post on the topic: all the different threads and characters in canon that reflect that, desires vs wants and themes of idealization in Dunmeshi, but it’s one of those things that’s just so huge to make. See this is the freaking problem with doing Dunmeshi meta you start talking about the themes or a narrative and everything is so interwoven you get distracted with tangents BUT IT’S ALL COMPELLING AND RELEVANT

I know that’s something laimar does a lot too, the dad thing, with Marcille in a post-canon comic knitting beside him paralleling her parents and whatnot. I don’t know if I fully agree on the angle but there’s definitely stuff to dig at there…

Like I know that I’d like to analyze Marcille’s succubus more, it comes up in my analysis draft but it’s not the point I’m trying to make there so I focus on other stuff but… I always saw the focus of Marcille’s succubus as that she sought out an emotional connection most of all, it’s romantic and courtly in nature but more importantly there’s personality and behavior there and it’s a character she already loves and knows deeply from having read the series, so it’s not like Chil where it’s just a pretty face whose identity doesn’t matter. A friend of mine though, @room-surprise, goes with the angle that it shows she isn’t ready for a relationship and that the appeal is very self-centered, and I def think compelling points are made…

Point I was trying to make, the succubus is definitely at the crux of figuring what it is Marcille wants and craves in someone I’d say, where she’s emotionally at wether consciously or subconsciously, or how she sees herself being involved in romance at least… It’s true Marcille is enthusiastic about romance, but always someone else’s, never hers, and she seems unwilling to examine her own relationships with people. She oversteps boundaries either obliviously or carelessly and doesn’t like change…

And then there’s how complex people’s relationship to fiction can be on top of that and graaaaah

Edit in bc I forgot I wanted to mention this like an idiot: OH and I do think the Daltian Clan serves a role in the general tapestry of Dunmeshi as well, sometimes in in depth ways that Room-Surprise will tackle in their research paper way better than me I’m sure. My understanding of the importance of general Hagreus in a more general narrative sense is that he reinforces the theme of idealization/fantasy vs reality that’s super present through the manga. Beyond just Marcille’s arc and his importance to her he’s designed uncannily close to Mithrun, it parallels real elves and their very flawed military system and the broken people it cultivates vs the romanticized elves put on an aesthetic pedestral in novels, especially considering it’s "general" Hareus

To give some previews of the analysis wip: Thus the succubus targets Marcille’s wish for a perfect knight who could cherish her forevermore, someone safe and known and fantastical, just hers in a way, free to see and construct however she wants because he’s a character to interpret Dungeon Meshi is in part about resisting desires, the irrational cravings, mostly through the character of the demon. I mentioned needs earlier, and to ideals vs wants we also add vs needs, both emotional and physical. And needs alongside wants are what Dungeon Meshi wishes to promote for a healthier person. Dungeon Meshi illustrates very well with the dungeon lords that you can be a slave to your desires. Dunmeshi prones the important of balance for both a healthy body and a healthy mind, and the arc of optimism vs pessimism with Marcille & Chilchuck is one such case <3

Ouuuugh how flawed relationships with flawed people can still be made into somehing good and healthy that make the world brighter…

We’ve gone far from the topic of how her family shaped what she seeks in relationships haha, I think you put it well already though I don’t have much to add on that front Edit in 2: SIKE! I’ll add that there’s an interesting thread in the manga of Marcille maturing and becoming more like her mother, which would be interesting and fun to pair with the fatherhood of Chil. Because Marcille is sometimes a mother figure as well: she’s the mom friend. I go over it here, and since when I made that post I’ve seen more interesting analysis on the topic too, like noticing she hides behind her mother’s portrait in the nightmare chapter, perhaps the inspiration behind her more mature reserved academic persona she sometimes has. Her parents are def important to her so it’s interesting to see how all the dynamics and her own psychology fit into that….

But yeah I think what she (thinks she) wants out of romance has a lot of layers, both conscious and subconscious… I haven’t gone into the bigger picture of how fiction affects her relationships here but it’s the central topic of my Marcille & Chil arc analysis so. She idealizes the trope of the prince charming and finds it attractive but is that what she would actually latch onto… Is it fully superficial, is it more about herself than it is about her potential partner... Is it mainly because she wants to get validation, from being special that she typically gets from high academic performance… We do see she can be rather insecure and worried about others’ perspective of her, that they think she’s not useful or capable enough, especially in the mandrake chapter… Unconditional love perhaps

What is your emotional landscape Marcille. How emotionally intelligent are you. I don’t think she knows what she wants romantically. I think she has a job so she don’t really care about that rn I’m just not sure if we can figure out what she ~actually~ wants on her behalf that might be too many levels of interpretation but idk idk, thinking on it still

[supermoongirl9]

Let's talk about the derivative of your Venus sign :

As usual with derivative, your Venus sign becomes the 1H - it starts from there so it's easy.

ex: I have a Cancer Venus so derivative of my Venus has a 1H in Cancer = potential suitors might think I have a mothering energy, they like also how I take care of people in general lol.

1H of your Venus sign = how potential suitors see you; also what might look good on you in general when you're embracing your venus sign energy (colors, materials, scents, aesthetics associated with your Venus sign).

2H of your Venus sign = what kind of values you would really admire in a partner; in which ways they could make you feel really confident; what kind of material possessions they could have somehow as well; kind of compliments you'd like them to give you.

3H of your Venus sign = in what kind of environment you could meet a potential partner; what kind of friends they could have; anything related to their siblings as well; the way they're thinking and speaking (qualities and flaws lol); potential communication issues w them too.

4H of your Venus sign = childhood and family of potential partner (and issues arising from it); the kind of home they could want; what they'd need to feel safe - and how all of that eventually align with what YOU need to (could prevent many conflicts lol).

5H of your Venus sign = dating life and what you need to feel desired generally speaking (could b interested to communicate to ur crush/partner); how much sex could be important somehow; what could arouse your potential partner/how to deal with it (differences in libido maybe).

6H of your Venus sign = how you'd like to spend your days with a partner/your shared daily life to be (and it might raised issues); the kind of job they could have that would make you feel good (yes, that's a thing lol); the way they handle duties and work-life balance.

7H of your Venus sign = the kind of couple you'd like to be; the kind of partnership a potential partner could also want with you; with whom they could be associated; the kind of relationships they're forming with others - and if it will bring issues or not in your couple too.

8H of your Venus sign = what u could be ashamed of regarding ur partner; how you two could reach true intimacy and sexual understanding; the way a potential partner would let u deal w their money/assets; what u could inherit from them eventually; many of their traumas are here.

9H of your Venus sign = could indicate if partner will be from another culture/country; how important learning from each other will be (and if it'll cause issues); if traveling together will be a huge thing; might show how religious/spiritual they could be; how open-minded too.

10H of your Venus sign = how important their social status is for you; what kind of career and reputation they could have; in which ways ur partner could impact your reputation; the kind of social life you could have with them to feel fulfilled; how they'd behave in public.

11H of your Venus sign = what kind of ideals do they have; is activism something important to them; how they view friendship generally speaking; how sociable they could be/how many circles (and what kind) they could be a part of; what kind of dreams they might have.

12H of your Venus sign = in which ways you could be disappointed by a partner; what kind of betrayals could unfortunately occur (u can notice patterns here); what a potential partner might deal with mentally speaking - and how it could affect the relationship; their phobias.

[tarotwithavi]

Watch me have my glow up in 2023

Masterlist

Paid services

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

1~2~3

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

Note : this is a general reading to take what resonates and leave the rest! If you don't feel like the pile you chose is resonating with you then you're free to choose another one.

Please leave a note to support this blog!

New year reading ( only two slots left)

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

Pile 1

What is stopping you from getting your glow up ?

Schools 💀 like I was shuffling for this spread and the first thing that got into my mind is school. And I'm also seeing you being very stressed recently this might be due to exams or workload. You might be starting to have some skin issues or breakouts.

How can you get your glow up?

You might need to filter the water you take bath with or just clean your shower🚿. And if you use bathtubs try adding rose water and essential oils in it and then take bath in it. And for those of you who use showers try using this method too. And drink more water please. Your lips are chapped. Please moisturize them. Eat more fruits .

Your glow up

Woah pile one, I'm amazed by your energy. You guys are so ready to make 2023 your year and i see it manifesting. You're going to be very successful in 2023 . You are going to get the job you wanted, the grade you wanted and I'm even seeing you getting in your desired university. I feel like a lot you are starting to take good care or your body in 2023 and I see it ✨ GLOWING ✨ . Like you' are going to give off a boss bitch energy. And I also see you mastering law of manifestation. I feel like right now you're struggling with it because of your limiting beliefs. A lot of people are coming into your life and someone important is coming very soon. You might meet this person by the end of this year. If you're thinki thinking of cutting your hair short trust me it'll look great on you. And is your color my darling. You're going to make or get a lot of money in 2023.

Random messages

Taurus, Leo, scorpio , sun /moon/rising, success, short travel, delusion, material gurll, someone new, some great friends, parties, unicorn, silver hair, diamonds, a pet dog, yellow.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

Pile 2

What is stopping you from getting your glow up?

I feel like you might have lost someone very dear to you or something very precious to you. This can be your home, friends, family member or a pet. And this is causing great harm for your mental health. I'm also seeing that some of you are suffering from depression or just some disappointments. Your low confidence is stopping you from getting your glow up.

How can you get your glow up?

I know this is predictable by reading first paragraph but you have stop that negative self talk and the train of your negative thoughts. Try talking good about yourself , paise yourself in front of the mirror. Get a new hair cut, do skin care. Fake it till you make it ✨ 💅

Your glow up

Hmm I'm getting that you're going to win. Like in a competition or achieve something really good. I feel like your glow up includes your intuition too. Like dude I'm seeing you get a gorgeous glow up. You're going to be in your femme fatal era. Maybe try wearing more red and black if that's your aesthetic. But I feel like you have a dark aesthetic and for those who have a light or fairy like aesthetic try wearing pink and green too. Try investing in some nice quality clothes. I'm getting the message that you're going to do great in every field of your life. Like studies, work, family, love etc. I feel like a lot of you want to be jack of all traits because you want to be good in everything and I see you achieving that! The month of march could be important for you. Money! Money! Money! I'm seeing it for you. Maybeyou've even started buying things for your glow up. People are going to see you as Royality.

Random messages

Fire sign, air sign, Victoria/victor, Taurus, horse riding, historical, star , successful outcome, Pisces, family sorrow, business opportunity, rebirth, bow.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

Pile 3

What is stopping you from getting your glow up?

Your laziness and unwillingness to change. You're very stubborn my pile 3 . I know you feel like why you should change but remember change is constant. It's always happening . If you're not willing to change, you'll be forced to change by the universe. It's also because you're always in your own world and sometimes forget reality.

How can you get your glow up?

Change your bedsheets to silk ones, they reduce hair fall. Also change your pillow covers and always remember to keep them clean. Try to get more sunlight. Maybe try tanning. Read more books. And be more self disciplined. Try adding purple/Lavender and green colored clothes in your wardrobe. Listen to your intuition.

Your glow up

I'm getting a unrecognizable glow up for you. Like people won't be able to recognize you after your glow up. People will wonder how can a person change so much in just a year. I feel like your glow up will be slow but stable and forever lasting. You won't lack anything in your life. And a lot of people will want to court you. And I'm also seeing some people gossiping about you. I'm going to tell you something don't tell your secrets to anyone no matter how much you trust them because you can regret it in future. The person you tell your secrets to might gossip about them to others. You'll be thankful for everything you have in life so no matter how stressed and sad you're right now future is going to be amazing. So please have faith and enjoy as much as you can. You might need to defend yourself a lot in the near future. I see you becoming a more goal oriented person.

Random messages

Libra, Sagittarius, Capricorn, aries, sun/moon/rising, frustation, lessons, completion of a cycle, some troubles/problems, angel, guidance, good luck,

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

[savannahsdeath]

hi hi i love your writing style !! could u maybe do ellie x goth!reader? like someone who wears a lot of black, likes goth music, dark makeup and hair, etc. i’ve only seen hyperfem reader (and there’s nothing wrong with that!) and it’s just not me 😭

ahh thank you love🩷

ELLIE WILLIAMS X GOTH!READER

mdni please<3

warnings: 18+!! smut, dom!ellie, sub!reader, a mention of reader being needy and ellie taunting you about it🤗

writers note: im not goth and none of my friends are so i have honestly no idea how it is like.. i also wasnt sure wether to make it a one shot or headcanons but here we are !! its kinda short since i honestly try to make all my stories as general as possible (until someone requests otherwise) but enjoy!!💞

ellie always loved your aesthetic. she would go shopping with you, staring at all the typical goth clothes you buy in admiration. even though she wasn't goth herself, she enjoyed seeing how happy it made you, and the confidence it gave you. she'd often complement you on how the style suits you, and tell you how cool and unique you are.

she always stared at you while you were doing your daily make-up. she made sure you know you look pretty without it but she knew how comfortable doing it makes you feel, so she didn't complain. in her opinion, you looked beautiful both ways. she loved the way you tried out new makeup looks, and would ask questions about the trends and what each product does. she thought it was cute - the way you would watch makeup tutorials and take notes, and would sometimes watch them with you. she didn't really understand it, still couldn't help but be curious like a little kid. for her, your basic skills were unbelievable. she'd act like you just turned the house upside down after you made the simplest eyeliner ever that she would easily do too if only she tried.

the only problem with your appearance she had was getting you undressed. your tight, black clothes full of accessories, everything in the same color so it was hard to find out where to pull to take it off. the problem wasn't exactly hers, though. for her, it was a lot of fun. in fact, she intentionally took her time, laughing at your impatience and neediness. she would play dumb, 'looking for the zip' which was right next to her hand, and whenever you wanted to help her out of desperation she'd pin your wrists above your head. you secretly enjoyed it, as mush as did she. she loved the way it made you whimper when she held you down. she found your reluctance and neediness to be cute and innocent, and enjoyed teasing you and seeing your reactions. whenever you tried to make a move, she would make you beg for it, and the more desperate you got the more she'd hold back. she loved the way it made you squirm and the noises you made. she'd often whisper in your ear things like; "quiet. i'll give you exactly what you want, but on my terms" and enjoyed your helpless response.

she was a bit bossy, and sometimes liked to use her physical and / or emotional power over you. she knew she could push and pull your strings as she pleased, and often liked to remind you of that. she would frequently try to provoke you or push your limits to see how you would react.

eventually, she would release you and help you undress in a much more teasing and slow way. she would make it clear that it was no longer a game, but an important moment where you have to behave. even though she enjoyed taunting you, she always took care of your needs and made sure you were comfortable and felt good.

and after she finally completes your desires, she can't help but look at you and laugh. "you're ready for halloween, babe."

you'd frown, not sure whether to chuckle with her or feel offended, until you see yourself in the mirror. your goth, expressive make-up was smudged and shabby. you were lucky you decided to do one of the light ones this day, so you didn't really look like a victim of possession. you both laughed, knowing that your appearance after the intimate moment was quite a far cry from your usual look. you'd give her a look of mock frustration, as if she had ruined your makeup purposely. you'd go to wash your face, but you knew it would leave an afterglow of black smudges and mascara that would be quite difficult to remove. but you didn't mind, because the moment you had shared with her was unforgettable, and those smudges would be a reminder for what happened for the rest of the night, until they finally wear off.

[alteredsilicone]

Attempt at putting my feelings about Jade Shadows in a Long Post

I was never a big Stalker fangirl so I did not have any expectations or desires for this quest, I fully saw it as filler to distract me before Tennocon and the wait for Warframe 1999.

I was worried about some things, thinking DE might add/retcon lore about the Rebellion and Night of the Naga Drums, but that didn't happen haha

The quest itself did not elicit an emotional response from me, at some points it even seemed weird and absurd. They really went there, huh?

I see now that there is a LOT of tension and opinion flinging and accusations and such and such and I also fell victim to getting maybe a little bit too angry and incensed.

To me, the hype didn't live up to the payoff, this is basically Angels of the Zariman 2.0 for me. Where I expected one thing (Tenno Rebellion, Stalker lore) but got something else (Warframe Baby). I feel this is the kind of quest that expected me to have one specific emotional reaction ("aww!") so it didn't try to... elicit that reaction. Sympathy-bait. Like showing a little kitten to make you "aww" and stop thinking. If you don't "aww" then you won't like it but the people who "aww"-ed will think you are a heartless weirdo.

Some people have pointed out how this quest actually makes Stalker's anger at Tenno make less sense due to the Orokin being at 100% fault for his circumstances and the Tenno killing the Orokin should not have been something Stalker objects to. Honestly if you're going to kill Jade off and give Stalker dead wife manpain could have at least made our Tenno responsible for killing Jade who was guarding Stalker/the Orokin.

My hot take is that yes, people who expected an LGBT/trans story were setting themselves up for failure because there were no hints to that, quite the contrary. I got the impression that Stalker and Jade are separate entities (so no trans narrative) and also knowing tropes it just seemed like it was going the love-story way. Opposites attract and all that, plus Warframe's queer themes are more... headcanoned by the community; aside from obvious story beats like WITW or Dagath's story. Warframe in the end appeals to a Broad (tm) audience and that includes cishet normies who will cry buckets at Single Dad Stalker. Which is happening right now and making me feel like a heartless weirdo.

Though I think it would have been fun if Jade was Stalker's mother, that would fit well with the opposites theme for Jade/Stalker (and him taking on his mother's mantle as protector), as well as create cool parallels with the Stalker and Tenno, after all, "Lotus" is basically the aesthetic of the Tenno, so "Jade' could be the aesthetic of the Stalker.

Oh well.

I also understand people who were disturbed and upset by the narrative in general and the criticisms of Jade being fridged, passive and the implications that you "Always Choose the Baby" and that "All Women Love Babies". The bit with the Corpus captain and seeing people go "the Corpus are not monsters after all!" made me cringe because... we are child soldiers piloting infested abominations; Warframe is a very grim universe with some moments of light at the end of the tunnel, but I think this particular narrative was handled poorly. You're telling me in the world where body hoppers snatch children to brain-break them and become parasitic hosts, children's lives are valuable? You're telling me in a world where ventkids exist, children's lives are valuable? Nelīmējas kopā.

You COULD make this a story of light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel in terms of a child's life being precious - we should have fought the Corpus, maybe the Tenno jump in as help to protect Stalker. Putting a newborn into danger? Now THAT is actually some risky storytelling AND would make me care about Stalker and Sirius. You want that kid? Fight for it, because the world hates you and hates your kid. LOVE MUST TRIUMPH HATE, isn't that what Hunhow tried to tell you?

I don't hate it because it was a straight love/parenting story - Umbra and Isaah is a very emotional story and the Sacrifice is one of my favorite quests. All I needed was more backstory/flashbacks on Jade and Sorren. Aside from a vague allusion that either their relationship or Jade's pregnancy was verboten.

I admit the pregnancy/motherhood angle made me incensed for biased/personal reasons but I am just going to take the L on that, I don't think people who criticize that or are disappointed by that story are lacking media literacy.

Pregnancy IS a sensitive/triggering topic and in fact this quest did not warn sufficiently about it, also it is fair to say that this quest relied on the "aww!" factor and it's fine if people find it cheap. Some people find "aww!" stories stupid if it's about animals or if there are "pet the dog" mechanics, but if it's human children suddenly that criticism is invalid.

Oh well. That is all.

tl;dr

Did not have huge expectations going in, neutral on Stalker as a character.

Was not happy about the pregnancy story/the way women were handled in this quest.

I am aware that my personal bias affects my view of this quest, but I would also like a little coming forward from the other side.

Anyone else "excited" for Fetus Prime trailer narrated by Ballas in four years?

[mr-laveau]

Ayo it's your boy, uhh, skinny penis- bitch you know who tf it is hi munchkin <3 xoxo

What's your listener's name and nickname? Sweetheart, name pending,,,,

What's their backstory? As you may or may not remember - My SH is Afro-Latinx, from an empowered family. The previous generation (their parents) called out DUMP on mistreatment of human born and unempowered humans (being detained, lack of jobs and representation) which started a whole commotion for the treatment of everyone but empowered humans (feeders, humanborn, and unempowered humans) and led to restructuring of DUMP. Think if there was a magical civil rights act and equal employment act. Anyway, my SH comes into play when DUMP catches them in the wrong place/wrong time and some higher ups think this is the perfect moment for revenge - either SH goes to jail and destroys their family's upright reputation and a family member's run for office OR they work for DUMP as a way to keep an eye on the family. They hate every second of it and face a lot of pressure to conform (gender presentation wise, accepting smart comments about being a stealth and some other microaggressions) but they want to protect their family.

What's the desired aesthetic of your listener character (punk, greaser, bimbo, scene kid, schoolgirl)? I'm feeling make noir sexy again. Like if you made a 1940s mafia boss in modern day and VERY sexy but also stylish. Gotta keep up with fresh to death did you see my ice Milo Greer. Pinstripes, suspenders, harnesses/holsters, etc. But like also in a bring your own gender I don't trust your gender with raisins in it kind of way.

What's your listener's gender presentation like? Yeah so gender as in mind your business. Androgynous as in I do what I want. It's masc, it's femme, it's ambiguous, it's all of the above. Really the point is constantly serving hot girl (gn) shit and looking super sexy next to Milo. They're that super hot stylish couple everyone wishes at least a little bit they dressed like because it looks effortless. My SH uses they/them pronouns and identifies as queer as in what's it to you (or genderfluid!)

What's your listener's ethnicity? Afro-Latinx! I wanted a listener who could dance bachata, okay? They're Dominican.

What's your listener's age? Ummmmmm. I think about the same age as Milo, maybe a year older? So 31 this year.

What's your listener's body type/build? Taller than Milo for SURE, I think they're like tall-tall. Like at least 5'10. Also they're a dancer and a runner (investigator things) (perhaps they were even a track star) so they've got a tall, muscular kind of body type - but don't be afraid to give them some body fat! They're strong!

What's your listener's star sign? Taurus!

What are your listener's most important relationships and who are they connected to? Their most important relationships are for SURE with their family. Since dating Milo, they finally told their family why they started working for DUMP (lots of anxiety but they were met with a lot of support and love). They are super close to their family (which is a big extended family, lots of aunt and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews and so on) and so they spend lots of time at family dinners/parties/celebrations and love to bring Milo with them. Because their family (unintentionally at first) became so politically active in Dahlia for the rights of human-born, unempowered humans, and feeders, they have a lot of political connections through their own work and through their family members - definitely in a well connected family!

What's your listener's hobbies/interests? They love to dance - big inspiration for them. They like partner dances and particularly love Bachata (something something fond memories watching their parents and family dance together and learning as they grew up) but they just like to dance in general. You will be catching them at Zumba classes at the local gym with the aunties and grandmas. They're also really connected to community events - there was a lot of distrust created by them joining DUMP and so they are really invested in their community service and improving their community. They loooove to cook, but they're a "let's cook together" not "I'm cooking get out of the kitchen" kind of person. Definitely a food experimenter and sometimes it can go badly. Also makes a mean cocktail - always invited to dinner parties or wanting to host them with Milo.

If your listener was a deity from a known mythology, what deity would they be? Why would you ask me this. I don't know! Maybe Terpsichore, one of the nine Greek muses associated with dancing? You don't understand how central dance is to this character. They are always dancing.

What Audio RP series are they from? RedactedASMR - Sweetheart

What kind of lover are they to their partner/what kind of friend are they? In a few words - silly-goofy, observant, and a whore (said with love). As for a friend, still silly-goofy and observant, but I think they're affectionate as hell. Think of a really sociable cat.

What is something/are some things that your listener values? They really value family and community - firm believer in it takes a village and we are all our brother's keeper (except of course when it comes to them because they should be able to help everyone and not need any help themselves. sweetheart things.) There is no understanding how invested they are in protecting and standing up for their community and that's why they put in 4x more work (and overtime) than others at DUMP - they believe in helping people and not going with the easy solution. So family, community, doing something you're passionate about every day, and fairness/justice.

Pick a song that you think represents your listener. https://open.spotify.com/track/3qQbCzHBycnDpGskqOWY0E?si=e8cb80d8d36a45b3 This song started making me think about songs for listeners to dance to and kind of kick-started this whole idea. I just have an image of Milo and SH dancing to this song together in the kitchen while something is simmering on the stove ok?

What's the inspiration behind your listener's design? I wanted a listener who could dance really well, and decided a speaker who DEFINITELY can dance is Milo. And then I had to figure out the whole cop thing, so here we are.

Could you give me a vague concept of what your listener's visual vibe is? Modernized sexy noir film - but if you could be the femme fatale and the detective and the criminal at any given point. Truly, they do it all.

What are some extra tidbits you wanna tell me about your listener? Neither Milo nor Sweetheart are good with scary stuff (despite them being a stealth) and neither of them are killing bugs. They call David or Asher to handle them (I think David kills them but Asher puts them outside). Sweetheart and Aggro? Best friends. Milo complains that they're closer than him and Aggro - something about a stealth having cat energy and Aggro just gets it. "The girls that get it, get it, Milo."

Laveau's Listener Design Lab - design #001 - Sweetheart - Lexi Moon

Heyyyy Lexi! Good to see you in my inbox and congrats on getting your listener as the first design for the labs! It was wonderful getting to work on a SH and your concept really stood out to me when I first saw it so I had to draw it up!

Design Notes!

For this design, your initial concepts made me think of a few people I could implement for inspirations to your SH's design. Those people being Catwoman from DC and Gomez Addams from the Addams Family!

From Gomez, I wanted to make Sweetheart's suit similar to the patterning of Gomez's while adding Catwoman's femme fatale flair to the design. You made a note where you wanted SH to look like a detective, a femme fatale and a criminal all in one go so I chose to aim for darker blues to show professionalism whilst implying a sense of mystery to the character–and of course we can't forget every femme fatale's signature bold lipstick colour. You can also see some of Catwoman's influence in the nails as I figured it'd be fun for them to make witty remarks while snapping back at Milo with hand gestures. Additionally, I decided to add a few embellishments to show SH's lack of total compliance to the dress code of D.U.M.P by giving them piercings and tattoos; The moon earrings here is my favourite because every SH should have a moon motif but also given the symbolisms associated with the moon and the energy you wanted your SH to capture, I felt it was the perfect choice; the blue rose tattoos are also fun imo because the thorns can be interpreted as restrictive shackles or as "a rose with thorns", the choice to also incorporate blue roses was also informed by my knowledge of what they mean symbolically (that being mystery, admiration, uniqueness and aspiration) . Finally, I also tailored SH's clothes to be more ready for action whilst being fashionable and danceable (including the oxford shoes I added) so they can always move unrestrained whilst also being the hottest thing that Milo ever laid eyes on.

Overall, this was a really fun concept for me to work on and I really enjoyed being able to design your listener, hope you enjoy!

wanna have your listener designed by me? Check out my rules to the Listener Design Lab and send an ask my way!

[omghallucinations]

I was late to the poll but I also like Hongjoong and Soyeon (tho my ult is Hongjoong and I don't stan Gidle but like their music and her too!) so when I saw you on the past mention the two I hoped you could talk more about bc always seen it as well and now got excited seeing you will do a comparison chart! :D

yES :) :) niche interests UNITE!!!!

like a) i'm interested in commonalities between leaders in general and b) soyeon and hongjoong have ALWAYS reminded me of each other in some ways--like they are both capricorn risings, neptune and uranus in 1st, chart ruler saturn in the 3rd, scorpio MC--physically they look similar (tiny with a BIG presence, shape shifters, performance geniuses) and their personalties have that same funny like... people think they're intense and scary unless they know what a little weirdo cutie they are. but also they truly can be intense and scary! then be a loser three minutes later. they can be geniuses and they can be dummies. duality !!

i also find it such a great way to go really deep into a placement and tease out the subtle differences and how that can manifest?

like they are both ruled by retrograde saturn in the 3rd (work communication and bucking the norm = key themes) but

hongjoong is ruled by 29° aries saturn -- he is gonna be tested much more on issues of authority, judgment, work than soyeon is. he also has more of a natural talent for leadership but also a hot and cold potential to be a tyrant lol (temper). his saturn is in the jupiter decan, so education philosophy idealism Open Mindedness are all important too soyeon is ruled by 3° taurus saturn-- more of a workhorse, methodical and like... she's not gonna get mad as easily she's like "lol ok let's see who blinks first bc it's not gonna be me honey" (stubborn as hell) and it's in the venus decan so #aesthetic also she is about that creative control + control freak vibes rather than her needing to be in charge for its own sake

so for example

-> if soyeon hates something she's written (superlady lol) she's gonna accept the L (loudly, 3rd house) and move on, but -> hongjoong might be internally irritated but also refuse to admit he was wrong (aries energy 🤪) and maybe just talk his way around something like that (3rd house)

hongjoong's saturn is ruled by his 8th house virgo mars

his chart ruler energy is more... uh... depression potential? 8th house and virgo both um... can be a little negative or depressive at times. however also precise, rational, reliable, service-oriented, transformative, deep, committed, i'm a survivor i'm not gonna give in i'm not gonna stop, i'm gonna work harder, u know the tune. hongjoong's saturn is motivated not only by his own desire to assert himself but also his care for others or his want to like... be of service? very tsundere, you aries saturn you. plus there's an 8th house sex and death vibe to hongjoong's saturn which feels... truly so right. like who else is gonna lead a sexy cyberpunk anarchist revolutionary performance demon power of friendship concept other than a uranus-neptune-capricorn rising ruled by 3rd house aries saturn rx ruled by 8th house virgo mars. like. all the key words are there down to the aquarius uranus cyberpunk energy, like. also jupiter decan... more successful overseas, gets lucky overseas???? idk??

soyeon's saturn is ruled by her exact leo venus-mercury conjunction in the 7th house

her chart ruler energy NEEDS to create and perform like almost pathologically, has an ego but also there's an impulse to compromise or make nice that super disagrees with other parts of her chart. however her saturn is also generous, creative, fair, artistic, team-orientated. mercury adds to the 3rd house gemini energy--youthful, playful, loves to learn, switches lanes like crazy. it makes sense that idle's concepts bounce around very a lot, and that soyeon does all the creative direction herself down to hair and makeup, and that she usually starts with a very clear message to communicate when designing a comeback (even if sometimes the message is super specific and profound and sometimes the message is "idk fuck it we ball"--like tbh if i had been responsible for quite literally pretty much everything for my group since debut while constantly having to fight the public and even the company despite having kept the lights on pretty much single-handedly for the past ??? years, i too would want to fuck it and ball after a while)

(hongjoong also has a prominent venus but his is conjunct his mc--very visible, very key to what he offers the world, what he wants the world to perceive him like--soyeon's venus is much more about creative vision communication and work and hongjoong's venus is more expression and expansion and growth)

ANYWAY. oops that was long and i even have a long draft for this already. well i love to have fun, so. stay tuned lmao.

[wasteofpain]

my convoluted review of saltburn

this movie left me with a lot of complicated and maybe contradictory feelings. it’s a very flashy and style-driven piece that really wins you over with its aesthetics. overall i enjoyed it but I had so many thoughts about it that i decided the only way to make sense of them was to try and write them down. for some reason writing things as if i was explaining them to someone else makes more sense than thinking, so welcome to me analyzing my own feelings about a movie i watched at 4 am.

saltburn starts out with the meek oliver as he arrives at oxford and inevitably has his eyes directed towards the center of the world: felix catton. felix is a charismatic handsome boy with generational wealth pouring out of every orifice, he’s a magnet of attention, everyone wants him and oliver is no different. after some unnoticed watching, oliver manages to grab felix’s attention by lending him his bike when felix has a flat tire, and even though felix’s friends aren’t particularly kind to oliver and his poor social and financial status, they start to build a friendship.

as their bond develops oliver becomes more and more obsessed with felix, becoming a sort of voyeur. he watches felix when he’s away and when he’s around, his admiration turning into boiling desire. 

he wants

and he wants

and he wants.

oliver’s smothering presence eventually gets to felix’s nerves who starts creating distance between them, no longer entertained by the poor boy he socially adopted. oliver is heartbroken and tries to find solace in a girl also heartbroken by felix, but the girl leaves early after oliver is an asshole to her and he spends the night alone. 

when he wakes up he receives some terrible news: his father died.

in a moment of vulnerability oliver goes looking for felix who welcomes him with open arms, the ever so kind felix now finding oliver interesting again. felix embraces oliver in these tough times, becoming closer to him as he learns more information about the boy’s troubling home life. at times, felix’s curiosity over oliver’s life seems as voyeuristic as oliver’s developing obsession, he hangs at the edge of his seat shaking with desire for more dirty details of this world that exists so far away from him. moved by a mix of this arousal and compassion for oliver’s poorness and addiction filled home, felix invites oliver to his family’s estate home in saltburn and after some insistence oliver agrees.

this is where saltburn really starts to become what it was building to, the previous arc functioning as a flirtation. oliver and felix becoming increasingly intertwined and oliver’s obsession establishing itself with it while from felix's point of view it seems mostly like the normal development of a friendship. this first part felt very intriguing, i felt like i was being courted by the movie and its infinite possibilities, which here really felt infinite, like this could lead anywhere no matter how dark.

in saltburn oliver meets the cattons whose curiosity isn’t accompanied by nearly as much kindness as felix’s. they probe and pull apart at every information he gives them in addition to what felix already told them, probably while salivating at the mouth. in this new territory oliver is more of a pet than a stranger in the nest and in this nest he finds: elspeth, the mother; sir james, the father; pamela, the family friend; venetia, the sister; farleigh, the cousin and duncan, the butler.

as oliver gets used to the place and it’s rules he begins to understand how to play this family’s game and slowly worms his way into their minds, convincing elspeth right after pamela leaves the estate that she was lying for compassion about her complicated situation, sleeping with venetia, creating disbelief in felix about farleigh’s honesty after farleigh tells him about seeing oliver and venetia together and eventually manipulating the family’s trust in farleigh so he’ll be kicked out.

in this chaos, oliver’s obsessive desire takes new highs. in between creating distrust and new narratives among the members of the catton family, oliver’s craving for the golden boy becomes voracious. sleeping a room away from the other one and sharing a bathroom, seeing him naked and being constantly aware of his body. this takes him to the more traditional understanding of voyeurism, much like an earlier scene where he watches felix have sex with a girl in his room, but this time it’s just felix. oliver watches through the slightly open door of their shared bathroom as felix touches himself in the bathtub and then waits anxiously for him to leave the bathroom. meanwhile, the water slowly goes down the drain. 

oliver kneels on the tub, rubbing his face near the drain, eyes closed and completely lost in desire. he rubs, licks and drinks, slurping up any hint of felix’s cum in the bathwater. this moment of all consuming hunger representing a more definite dark turn to oliver’s desire that up to this moment hadn’t seemed to reach this level of carnal worship.

shortly after the halfway mark we arrive at the moment that best represents my contradictory feelings about this movie. in the morning of oliver’s birthday party felix takes him on a mystery road trip, a mystery for most of the way at least because as they arrive at a sign that points to his hometown it dawns on oliver that felix is taking him to see his mother. oliver is terrified but no begging stops felix’s kindness. 

once they arrive, felix notes on the nice house and look it seems your mother has cleaned up her act. felix soon realizes that’s not the case, there was no act to clean up. oliver’s father is very much alive, his family may not have the sort of aristocratic wealth the cattons do but they’re very well off, they travel often and have other children contrary to oliver’s previous assertion of being an only child.

this twist divides very well what i think the movie excels at and what it fails at. oliver created an entire persona that would interest felix, he built a poor, traumatized and lonely boy who could get felix hard with his sad stories. he shaped an entire life story for the object of his affection. this the movie does very well and if it had done more of it i could possibly even say it did it perfectly. but when we arrive at its attempt at class satire the movie falls somewhat flat.

while revealing oliver’s lies works really well for the homoerotic obsession aspect of the movie, it makes the difference between him and the cattons feel almost insignificant, especially as the movie develops into darker twists.

once the two go back to saltburn felix desmisses oliver’s attempts at a conversation and demands he leaves after the birthday party.

the party is stunning, with its lavish debauchery and eye-catching costumes it sells very well its gothic inspirations. oliver in his all white outfit with deer antlers right after crying his eyes out in what is a clear moment of some sort of decision making. and felix in his white shirt and beautiful wings, looking like juliet from the 1996 romeo and juliet movie while rudely dismissing oliver. 

i’d like to talk about the costumes for a moment because i'm a little obsessed with them. they’re not the most elegant but their themes are so interesting: oliver as not just the stag, an important figure of masculine horror, domination, man vs nature but also a sort of devil. oliver seizes felix from afar, cautiously following him as he leads a girl towards the maze, mainly the silhouette of his horns visible as he hunts felix through like an animal hunts its prey. and felix, the angel, the juliet, being hunted by a hungry creature. it rubs in the viewer's face felix’s constant position as an object of worship for all the other characters, but especially for oliver. 

this to me is one of the best scenes in the movie. oliver seemingly drunk while acting like an animal as he follows them, getting lost and finding his way by paying attention to his prey's giggling, unaware of the thing after them, and eventually finding them mating. but oliver doesn’t pounce just yet, he watches for a couple seconds as he always does, before calling out felix’s name.

the girl leaves and felix is mortified but most importantly angry, reaching his limit. in a moment of confrontation, a breath away from felix’s face, oliver says: “i just gave you what you wanted, like everyone else does. everyone puts on a show for felix. so i’m sorry if my performance wasn’t good enough” and after felix fearfully tells him he should seek help, oliver continues: “no. no, i don’t. i just need you to understand how much i fucking love you. you're the only friend i've ever had, felix. i mean, doesn't this just prove how much of a good friend i actually am? how well i actually know you! i'm still the same person! yeah? i’m still the same person!”

this confrontation is ultimately where oliver’s obsession would always lead: finally seen for who he is as he tries to convince felix in a shaky voice that this is fine, that he should forgive him. it’s a beautiful mix of feelings coming from both of them. although felix’s desire for oliver never seems to leave the realm of the common homoeroticism ever present in cishetero male friendships, always seeming unaware of the tension between their bodies, in this moment it seems like something else exists among his current feelings of fear and disgust: lust. while still ridiculously close to oliver, he whispers: “i don't know what you are. but I do know you make my fucking blood run cold.”. he looks at oliver’s lips, similarly to how oliver had been staring at his the entire time.

giving up, oliver gives his champagne to felix as he goes to throw up in the corner. felix takes a defeated swig, no longer seeming angry, just defeated.  “better?” he asks oliver who tells him to go fuck himself and walks out, making sure to let him know that he no longer cares what the other thinks.

when oliver wakes up it’s already noon and it’s chaos as everyone looks for felix. he walks around the house aimlessly and watches everyone running around and shouting felix’s name in search for him, until suddenly elspeth screams. in the middle of the maze is felix’s body as a dramatic orchestra plays in the background. it truly looks like someone killed an angel, we barely even see felix, it’s mostly his wings. there’s a stunning shot of his wings with the big statue and it’s huge horns in the middle of the maze looking over him, indistinguishable from the oliver of the day before who is now standing next to it (almost sitting on it), wearing felix’s robe.

while the cops are still looking at his body the family sits down for lunch, the parents attempt to have a normal conversation about the party while venetia and farleigh understandably break down. oliver is the only one who indulges them, making conversation about cake as the tension rises in the room with the interruptions from duncan about what’s happening outside and emotional interferences from farleigh until it blows up and oliver puts his little paws to use again, making farleigh be kicked out from the estate once more.

this scene, i feel, is one of the few that kind of succeeds at satirizing the cattons. they are mostly worried about appearing put together, the aesthetics being much more important than the severity of the situation, afterall, breaking down in raw grief is not particularly elegant. there’s a pattern throughout the movie of the catton parents always avoiding inelegant confrontations and feelings, for example, when farleigh is first kicked out because oliver framed him for stealing they pretend nothing happened, making small talk with smiles on their faces. although this scene succeeds when i pull it apart and analyze it, there’s still a glaring issue with it: although it is a powerfull scene, it happens after almost 2 hours of not satirizing the family nearly as much as they should be satirized for this scene to hit the way it was probably intended.

similarly, there’s a scene during the party in which farleigh rubs in oliver’s face that to oliver this is all some big dream but to him this is just his home and at the end of it all he’ll come back just as he has for the party, but for oliver this is all just gonna be an exciting memory. this scene falls completely flat since we now know none of this means much because regardless of if oliver becomes part of the family, he’ll be fine. he has well off supportive parents and attends one of the best universities in the country. there’s no weight to this scene when we think of the end goal as the luxury he seems to aspire to as a person who would hardly struggle without it.

it now becomes tremendously obvious the place from where this story was written. the director emerald fennell fails to look at these people and their absurd wealth with enough distance to satirize them without satirizing herself, as expected from an oxford graduate who may not come from an aristocratic family but who has been rich enough her whole life to be accustomed to extreme luxury and has most definitely spent her life with people like the cattons as close friends. in a buzzfeed interview she says:

“A huge amount of this film was about humanizing these incredibly inhumanly beautiful, rich characters and reminding us all that even if you were the richest person in the world or the most beautiful person in the world, you still had a bad St. Tropez tan, terrible extensions and really bad dye job. Or better yet, you had a cringe carpe diem tattoo and you were wearing a live-stong bracelet.” 

when i read this i just proceeded to stare at a wall for 10 minutes. i think it perfectly shows the address where this attempt at a class critique lives in: right down the street. fennell tries really hard to satirize these impossibly rich people but loses herself halfway by constructing them so cautiously that it’s hard to find them nearly as interesting as she intends. like yeah they’re cruel in many of their interactions and by just the essence of their wealth and their fetishization of poorness but it doesn’t feel like fennell veers into it nearly as much as she should.

i fully understand that her intention is the everpresent desire, even in those of good enough financial configuration, to be part of the richest of rich and bask in the disgusting power they hold but it just feels like a privileged person trying really hard to perform an understanding of the eat the rich sentiment without involving herself in the narrative too deeply.

i will say that i think that farleigh’s place in the family makes a much more interesting critique. his whole life is paid by the cattons, including his education, and he is the only black person in the estate that doesn't work there. generally he seems to try his best to keep the peace with the family as to secure the life he and his mother lead and he becomes a character that oliver is in constant squabble with. he seems to be put in a position of outsider just as much as oliver is, maybe even more at times, even tho he is literally family.

when the topic of differing treatment is brought up felix gets mad at him for “making it a race thing” and says somewhat threateningly that “maybe they’ve done all they can''. farleigh is clearly in a much more vulnerable position in this family which makes it so he understands in a deeper level the privilege of being a catton, and in the end that makes a much stronger point about class than anything else.

we now arrive at felix’s funeral which feels like overall a series of performances of acceptable expressions of grief until oliver gets a moment alone at the grave. sobbing, he kneels on top of it, than lays on it. oliver embraces the grave as if it was felix’s body, eventually taking his shirt off in an attempt to feel felix as much as possible. in this ritual he caresses the grave, overflowing with want while symbolically stroking felix's flesh, now finally allowed to express what had before been met with disgust. his hands go lower until they reach what would be felix’s crotch, he rubs as if there was an actual penis there. oliver takes his pants off and while simultaneously moaning and crying he fucks the dirt right above felix’s buried coffin, desperately seeking satisfaction in an unfulfilled love but finding only frustration.

this scene encapsulates what i think this movie does very well because although very controversial, it perfectly demonstrates the insane obsessive love oliver has garnered for felix. he wanted him so intensely and he wanted every and any bit of him, so even after death he still desperately wants something of him, even if it’s the dirt he’s buried under. this amazingly dark and erotic representation of love and desire hits really well, it fits perfectly with the overtly erotic tone of the movie.

ultimately, i think the movie carries a lot of value for its pure perverted horniness in times of a call for purism in the media. from the scene drinking bathwater and cum from a drain, or the incredibly steamy one with venetia where oliver spreads her period blood on both of them while calling himself a vampire, or this one at felix’s grave, the movie explores an interestingly thin line between disgust and arousal. something which is also noticeable in the maze scene where felix seems to also desire oliver while being disgusted by him. and this eroticism isn’t only left to the more controversial scenes, it’s embedded in so many interactions in this movie, but most notably the ones between oliver and felix, venetia or farleigh. had this been the end goal of the movie it would’ve been much better as this is truly its biggest selling point.

before the movie derails out the fucking window there’s the scene that leads to venetia's demise. in the bathroom he once shared with felix, oliver stumbles into a drunk venetia in the bathtub who confronts him about his suffocating presence in the family. just like pamela, oliver has long overstayed his welcome but dissimilarly to her, oliver is much harder to get rid of. it becomes extremely obvious to venetia how strange oliver is and how obsessed he is with felix. she says: “isn't that his aftershave?… you are a fucking freak! i bet you're wearing his underwear too, aren't you? you disgusting little nobody. oh my god. you ate him right up. and you licked the fucking plate.” 

venetia finally notices the extent of oliver’s meek and overtly polite façade and in a moment of weakness kisses back when he puts his lips on her, possibly as an attempt to feel close to her brother again. she stops in disgust of herself.

the next morning she’s found with her wrists slit in the bathtub.

from this moment onwards the movie goes a little crazy and i just started to maniacally laugh about it. sir james convinces oliver to finally go home after god knows how long he's been there after venetia's death and we are finally led to the conclusion of the movie.

a timeskip leads us to years after the horrible events of that summer. right after sir james dies oliver meets elspeth seemingly at random in a coffee shop and in the middle of small talk she flirts with him, hinting at the development of a romantic relationship. we are then brought to the present and shown who oliver has been talking to the whole time while narrating the movie: a bedridden and unconscious elspeth.

while he performs his grand villain speech about doing it all for the money and estate the movie shows you a series of montages of unseen moments of him architecting the “accidents” that happen throughout it's run that look right out of a saw movie, except here, contrary to how it goes in the saw franchise, it just feels like fennell thinks the audience is stupid.

the bits that make some sense are the ones of him manipulating the situation to get closer to felix early on in the movie, although even then i would have preferred the movie without them. scenes of him framing farleigh and putting poison on the champagne bottle felix drinks out of seem like a slap to the face. 

does fennell think we as the audience haven't figured these events out by ourselves? 

the bit of him leaving two razor blades behind for venetia in the bathroom feels like an attempt at a big shocking moment as well but all i thought was okay?? what does this add??

i will say this: there's one part that was very interesting to me and that's when he concludes his persistent self-inquisition about his feelings for felix. while several moments of felix from his point of view are shown, he says: “i wasn’t in love with him. i know everyone thought I was. but i wasn’t. i loved him. i loved him. by god, i loved him. but sometimes i... hated him. i hated him. yeah, i hated him. i hated all of you.”

oliver completely loses himself in reminiscing about felix while his expressions, line deliveries and the images being shown drive the melancholy very well. as he starts talking about hating felix he sounds more like he’s trying to remind himself of the hate than actually feeling it. i don’t doubt one bit of the hate he garnered for felix but it seems so wrapped up in his love for him that they’re barely different feelings. it is my interpretation that he was absolutely in love with felix but i think it’s too much for him even after so long so he created loopholes to make things easier. and, also, as it's established throughout the movie, oliver is a liar.

i know that for a lot of people it's a problem that oliver keeps himself in this weird gray area of confidence and repression about love and sexuality but i think it makes perfect sense for him as a person and i most especially think it makes sense how unsuccessful their relationship is. if oliver had managed to consummate their relationship with something like a kiss, the scene of him completely desperate and destroyed with grief trying to find some emotional satisfaction in felix’s grave wouldn’t have nearly as much weight. and despite the fact that the movie sometimes really loses itself when establishing oliver’s character, making him inconsistent at times, i feel like this works really well with the more shocking scenes some people have wrongly deemed as just for shock value.

in the conclusion of the movie, olivers takes the tube helping eslpeth to breath out of her mouth and waits as she dies, finally leaving saltburn to him. in triumph he dances completely naked around the empty estate to murder on the dancefloor (great song choice btw). fennell intends that we are left feeling somewhat victorious with oliver in his final dance but instead i feel nothing, this feels hollow. i don't feel like he got anywhere and all i imagine is this man feeling completely pointless in this big house all alone, slowly going insane as he re-lives one summer forever. what farleigh says to oliver in the party reverberates in my head: “...you know, it’s not for you. it is a fucking dream. it is an anecdote you’ll bore your fat kids with at christmas... oliver's once in-a-lifetime, hand job on a haybale, golden, big-boy summer... and you'll cling onto it and comb over it and jerk off to it and you’ll wonder how you could ever, ever, ever, ever get it back. but you don't get it back... because your summer's over.”

—----------------

i've been thinking about this movie way too much for someone who's currently at the end of the semester but saltburn just found a place in the corner of my brain and it won’t leave no matter how much i try to evict it. i criticized the shit out of it mainly because i really enjoyed it and that made ignoring the big problems with it really hard. overall i think it would´ve been so much better if it completely veered into the psychosexual homoerotic obsession and stopped trying to make critiques it can’t commit to. but i also feel like many of the critiques about it being completely vapid or queerbaiting are very silly. so again: complicated feelings.

saltburn also had a lot of potential in exploring the entitlement of many privileged people who aspire to power and wealth beyond what they've had access to and look at those who have it with a sort of envy that here turns into head turning desire. in oliver's little disney villain speech at the end he can't stop himself from overflowing with bitterness as he talks about how, contrary to the cattons, he knows how to work and therefore deserves what they had more than they did. it's definitely a much more interesting focal point for the movie than the weak route fennel ended up focusing more on.

generally i'm a person who likes to take the content i consume into my own hands and analyze it beyond the original intentions, so i'd like to add that i find very interesting to think of oliver as a pathological liar way beyond what we are shown, doubting his honesty about the plan he carried out. i think it's interesting to think of this plan as much more inconsistent than what he makes it out to be as he tells it. maybe at first he only wanted to be part of the luxury but not completely own it alone by getting rid of the cattons, maybe he wanted to become felix's biggest confidant and closest friend and consequently have the luxuries of the cattons shared with him more intimately. maybe the decision to kill felix was made from the very beginning but it was one oliver constantly grew to hesitate as he became more enthralled with him or maybe he only decided in that moment before the party when cries to himself after being told off by felix. i think it's all very interesting to think about and i'm glad saltburn gives me so much room to think and write an infinite amount of self indulgent meta analysis about it. the movie lingers a lot with you after finishing and is very rewatchable so i’m sure that will be happening.

[jacobsbadwig]

I have this long standing analysis of YA media dropping the ball on themes and consequences for its main characters giving them huge plot armor. What I realize the frustrating part about them is that often they are fantasy or fantasy adjacent, the authors accidentally create these huge worlds and severe problems and implications, but ironically, their main characters are separate from the world they inhabit via tone or their characteristics or mindset not aligning with the world (aka 21 century American mindset in a fantasy that takes place in 18th Russian analog iykyk)

Like Bella’s story being a romance while everyone else in a horror or gothic novel or pseudo vampire thriller or fantasy series is like odd as @panlight often points out mentioning SMeyers unwillingness to really lean into the vampire of it all. Honestly in a non first person story, this could be played for laughs to even be interesting.

(Never mind Smeyers surface understanding of the novels and plays, that she references as Bella’s favorite stories. As a former English teacher, her understanding and Bella’s understanding is in fact of someone who read some classics in high school but didn’t necessarily delve into the commentary and themes of the works focusing on the aesthetics of the romance rather than understanding what said purpose romance actually serves in the narrative as a critic or other wise. Insert ‘Smeyer doesn’t know what star crossed lovers means and refuses to learn rant)

Ironically, Bella having a romance in her world is portrayed as the exception when we look at other characters, even the uncivilized vampires, she is in fact the norm.

What makes Bella special other than her shield she gets at the end? She isn’t even the only one with great control. There are other hybrids. She is special because the text tells us she is. I’m not going to compare her to other female protagonists because my point isn’t about Bella as a character but rather how her narrative allows her to be special without really, really setting her apart from everyone else.

Just about everything the narrative says is specific to Bella’s story can be found in other characters backstories (that honestly don’t matter but do matter as a comparison that Bella is the exception to the rule rather than the example as I stated above.)

I think a lot of people cling to the Twilight saga (and other YA novels) but simultaneously desire more from the narrative because we want to feel special without doing the work, which isn’t wrong especially at a young age when you are finding yourself, but once we reach a level of maturity, we want our gifts and specialness to allow us to love ourselves and move in society as it drives our lives.

It’s why we cling to characters like Carlisle who doesn’t have known powers and has had series of trauma and has to actively rise above it. Or Jacob who is beaten by the narrative and should have been a symbol of how fate is myth and bullshit and circumstances may forge your path but choices and perseverance can alter it or make the path better.

I wanted to discuss @fuckmeyer Come Nightfall along with other Twilight reimaginings and how I feel as though, hers is the best damn thing we have. But while trying to write out my thoughts and why I feel as though I could never accomplish something like that, I ended writing this post after many posts about Star Wars. Honestly, I am reminded about two ideas: we are protagonist in our own stories and we are also side characters in others. Meaning we are chosen ones chosen for something greater but that doesn’t mean no one else is a chosen one.

Maybe that’s why I have out grown YA novels. Adulthood is in fact learning that you are hot shit but not always hot shit but other people also make sure your shit stays hot and you also make sure theirs stays hot too.

At the end of this thought process, I am left asking what was Bella actually chosen for. To be born a vampire? A Cullen vampire? A vampire in general? Edward’s wife and Renegades mother? Did she actually take the Volturi down (no but I’m posing the question) Or did she deny the call to what her purpose was.

If the last thing is true, then someone must rise to take her place.

I think Come Nightfall and other ideas answer this question and make it clearer that Bella chose her path rather than it being forced upon in a way the OG Twilight didn’t convince me. At the same time, fics and musing that pose other answers are just as compelling.

As for me, I believe Bella Swan denied her call arguably the call was declined for her the moment Edward entered the picture or maybe when she went to the Volturi (the Volturi of it all is for a other post but they should have killed her or turned her like WTF? Dumb). But also Bella Cullen’s only purpose in the narrative was to be Edward’s wife and Renesemes’s mother regardless of her earlier apprehensions.

[mariii1]

✨🏳️‍🌈𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙂𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙀𝙪𝙥𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙖?🏳️‍🌈✨

YEAHHHHHHHHJJHHHH

MY FIRST COLLAB EVERRR! Thank you so much to @upheavalofmemory for collaborating with me, this was honestly quite fun to plan everything out. I'll probs post again after this in another three months! 😜😘

Piles go from left to right from 1-6 🤗

Pile 1: Library: “Take control of your own narrative” Writing. Writing yourself into stories where you are your desired gender and have your desired appearance. Consuming content with people of your gender is also incredibly gender euphoric for you. You love getting representation for your gender, and it makes you feel a sense of bliss. Lavender: “Surround yourself with love” Hanging out with friends who support you is something that gives you gender euphoria. Your friend groups may be gender-diverse which gives you a sense of euphoria as your role in those relationships isn’t limited to your gender. If you’re out to your friends, they might support you and use your desired pronouns and if not, you know they’re still great friends who would support you regardless (even if they don’t understand). Universe: “We’re all just stardust” Body neutrality might give you gender euphoria. Body neutrality is the idea of appreciating your body for what it can do, regardless of what it looks like or how it functions. Giving your body parts names that are gender neutral or euphoric in relation to your gender, especially if you haven’t gotten surgeries or don’t intend on getting surgeries. Also, the idea of your body being a “flesh vessel” might also give you some comfort. Feather: “Think first before you judge” Similar to the Lavender message, you appreciate people who take the time to listen rather than immediately declare that they don’t support you, people who are willing to listen and take the time to support you, even if they struggle with it or don’t fully understand it. The efforts that family, friends, and/or acquaintances go through are something that gives you gender euphoria.

Pile 2: I think you guys want to be able to embrace your femininity in a way that works for you. I'm getting drag but it doesn't have to be about drag necessarily, just hyper femininity especially if you guys are amab. I feel it's been a constant struggle for you to determine what makes you feel feminine. You don't fit in or align with regular societal conventions around being feminine especially if you're somebody who's into new age stuff or if you're in a more conservative country. You may have a hard time with some of the gender roles and expectations of women or just what it means to be feminine in that culture. Sitting with yourself and really reflecting on what makes you feel feminine will help. Being surrounded or wearing very cute things, specifically getting the coquette aesthetic or just fairy/mystical nature vibes. Having a femininity that isn't like super hyper sexualized but also makes you feel very confident or at least one where you don't feel like you have to compete with other women to be more feminine. A lot of you have struggled with people telling you that you're not feminine enough or you're too feminine if you're male presenting. Really trying to separate from yourself and how you've been programed to see femininity in general especially if you struggle with being surrounded by toxic masculinity. some of you may also get euphoria from dressing up more gothic or alternative but may feel like you can't out of a fear of judgement. Also dark coquette vibes like black lace and doll like clothing. For some of you, you think that if you start wearing darker clothing, you'll be seen as an outcast but I personally think you'd just look really cute. some of you are also interested in wearing latex or bdsm clothing.. You could also try introducing that into your wardrobe little by little, maybe wearing a lowkey harness with your regular clothes or wearing latex stockings under a long skirt.

Pile 3: Grey: “Endings are inevitable” & Tree: “Let them go” Letting go of toxic people and cutting loose ends gives you gender euphoria. You (TW!) might not have supportive family members or friends, and you may intend on cutting them off. The idea of cutting them off and getting freedom from them, being able to be authentically yourself gives you gender euphoria. Burning those bridges and finding a new community to settle in (found family) may also give you gender euphoria, and you may or may not already have these people in your life. Tower: “Unplug & relax for a spell” Self-care makes you feel gender euphoric. You may have already transitioned (if you intend to) or you already feel confident in your body and your body makes you feel euphoric. You may focus on the small details of your body that give you that subtle confidence, and it makes you feel great. You may also be a witch or practice magic, which also gives you gender euphoria. You may study LGBTQ+ figures in religion or worship them, or feel accepted by them. In your religion or faith of choice you might feel unjudged and it gives you a heavy sense of euphoria and relief. Voyage: “You already have all the answers” Similar to the message from Tower, your body and the changes it goes through give you gender euphoria. You might be growing a bit of stubble, or your voice is finally pitched to perfection, or you were (finally) addressed as the gender you are in the grocery store or something similar. Also, knowing who you are and having that confidence within you gives you gender euphoria.

Pile 4: I'm already getting similar vibes to pile number 2 but even more dark and alt mostly gothic lolita and darker more fancy alt clothing. You guys might really love (or would love) to present as genderless. You might also identify as agender. Some of you might want to have a body that isn't super adult like and genderless in that way. It's not a weird regression thing but more having a body that can't be sexualized or presents as very neutral. There's specific top surgery for this but i forgot the name, def look into it though if it's something you might be interested in. A lot of you peeps give me Mana from Malice Mizer vibes (an iconnnn✨) He (and gothic lolita and the visual kei style in general) present as genderless at least to me. I think you guys would really appreciate retro or old Gothic clothing, again gothic lolita also vampire like goth clothing? That sounds snazzzy. I'm also getting glam rock for some of you (I've been into glam rock drag lately, it's perfect) Clothing where people literally would look at you and would just stutter when figuring out what pronouns to use for you. Just everyone being confused would honestly give ya'll a lot of euphoria. Also, if there was a particular style that you really liked in your childhood or admired/looked up to, definitely revisit that.

Pile 5: You might also be attracted to pile three. Mural: “Be your own first priority” & Potion “Practice self love.” Putting yourself and your needs first gives you the feeling of gender euphoria. Knowing you are advocating for yourself and the things you need, having the confidence to charge in without fear. Not focusing on the bigots, and being your best authentic self surrounded by people who accept you. Sundress: “Do it for you” & Evil Queen: “You deserve sugar, not salt.” (18+!) Dressing in feminine clothes might give you gender euphoria, depending on your gender or gender expression. Or in general, dressing the way you’d like to dress in terms of your gender. Possibly doing gender-positive makeup, using it to affirm your identity. You might participate in drag if it is applicable or dress as (stereotypically) different genders (especially if you are nonbinary or anywhere under the genderfluid umbrella). Additionally, (18+!) participating in sexual acts that reaffirm your gender gives you gender euphoria. Lighthouse: “Don’t doubt your worth” Like the first section, being an absolute bad b!tch is something that gives you gender euphoria. You might proudly be out of the closet, advocating for trans-youth, a nightmare in the comments sections (in a good way!), calling out bigots, etc. Such powerful energy honestly from this pile. You get gender euphoria by being your absolute, unapologetic self, even if it pisses off some people, you’d gladly piss them off and then some more, existing just out of spite.

Pile 6: You guys might suffer severely from (CW!) gender dysphoria. You may be considered more voluptuous or round especially for your gender. I'm getting a lot of amab people here, especially if you weigh more than others. I'm getting a lot of you just want to get rid of what you perceive to be womanly. At the same time, what would make you happier though is taking the time to plan your transition out. The transition itself would obviously give you lots of euphoria but you might feel as though you have to rush through your transition or as if there's no way you can live with the amount of dysphoria you have at the moment. I'm not saying that to say you should stay upset with your body and postpone any gender-affirming healthcare. However, I think you might need more exploration than you've initially thought. I also think talking to people about your feelings around your body would be really helpful or even just journaling about the changes that you might want and specifically why you want them. Again, not in a way to put yourself down but as a way to really think and see what would bring you happiness. And for some of you that is just losing weight and not being as curvacious. There might also be smaller ways to ease your dysphoria too. I think if you have been brought up by a more conservative family, you were programmed to believe in general roles especially in terms of your body that you definitely still should unpack. If you've ever felt like you're unnatural for feeling this way or as if transitioning was unnatural, you should just love your body the way it is. yada yada, I want you to know that whatever you believe in (whether that's a higher power, spirit guys, or just you know your future self) they DO want you to make this transition and they do approve of you making bodily changes in a way that would really make you happy. I honestly relate to this group and I feel like I'm gonna cry but just know we're all rooting for you!

[hbogirls]

Riverdale characters as taylor swift albums?

THANK YOU!!!!!!

cheryl - okay it might seem obvious to say red for cheryl because she invented red and is red etc etc etc BUT consider for a moment: evermore. it deals in many kinds of loss and change, from romantic to familial to historically-tinged tangents that implicate the narrator in a sort of oblique but no less interesting way. ivy stands out as the main reason for this choice (it's a goddamn blaze in the dark! my little gay pyro!!), but i also think it applies throughout. evermore is an album about drama, and it's also the album with the closest aesthetic nod to tapping maple trees for sap, which is a secondary consideration but no less relevant to me here.

archie - 1989! it's kind of tempting to say rep for archie because of the way he is always fighting back against a fate that has befallen him, but 1989 captures his essence more. it's very stripped-back lyrically, which leaves it sort of unable to be characterized as a breakup album or an album of love songs or anything else. it simply is 1989 in the same way archie is a firefighter and a poet and a miner and a boxing gym owner/youth outreach coordinator (among other things). like archie, 1989 brings all of these together into something cohesive and motivated by the same ideals. it's also very flashy and optimistic! sad songs are disguised as upbeat pop numbers. this is very archie, too, as he is generally darling and sweet in the face of torment. also, archie is always somehow just learning about bisexuality for the first time, and that's pretty much also what 1989 is about.

betty - rep!! i could simply point out the fact that her little black bob wig is not dissimilar to taylor's small aesthetic shift toward edginess during the reputation era, and that would be enough. BUT! the album itself is also very betty. she believes herself to have an inherent evil inside of her that must be exorcised, but she's actually outwardly very normal. like she ultimately is falling in love with people and living her life as the girl next door, and then every once in a while she does snap and is like by the way i am still kind of a violent and angry freak!! and you're like oh yeah!! taylor very much entered the rep era feeling like she was a dangerous, unloveable liability, and that's also how the serial killer gene makes betty feel. even during season seven she feels something growing inside her that is strange and inherently destructive to a provincial, buttoned-up way of life, and then it turns out to just be sexual desire, specifically bisexuality, which is also very rep.

jughead - i mean .... he's THE tortured poet. ttpd. like taylor writing ttpd, he's incredibly aware of the narrative surrounding him and the way his pen can influence it. he's a little pretentious and maybe a little too reliant on literary allusions, but real fans get it. one of my favorite things about ttpd that is misunderstood by a lot of people unwilling to give taylor the benefit of the doubt is how tongue-in-cheek and ironic a lot of it is, a fact that is also true of jughead's magnum opus (riverdale).

veronica - can i say something shocking? lover. the man is the obvious jumping off point here, but yntcd is very aligned with our first ten minutes with veronica in the pilot when we hear the exchange "kevin is...." "GAY! thank god." lover is also very sure of itself aesthetically, and it outwardly presents itself as in love and put-together, ready to enter a new adult chapter of, like, guest judging on the voice or whatever. but hidden not too deep below the surface is a churning sea of insecurity and fear about both romance and career. i believe this, too, is what motivates veronica. she's terrified that she'll become her father, but she's also terrified to not be like him at all. she can never quite find a love where she feels totally secure. archie will always have a thing for betty. reggie will never quite meet her needs. veronica really is kind of a lover girl at heart, and she's always making sort of suspect decisions in the name of girlbossery, which is very on theme.

[midnight-fox-boy]

Ya know, it took me a long time to accept that gender (and sexuality) is so complicated and individual that for some people, there may never be a perfect word or even a perfect few words to label it with 100% accuracy. I spent many years trying on different identities, trying on identities that felt partially right but like I was missing something, and many that felt comfortable for a little while and then things changed.

In my strong desire to just find a few labels that could encompass all of me, I got really stressed and frustrated. I wanted to know which communities I would relate to the most! Even when I tried to just take a break and allowed myself into trans man spaces and nonbinary spaces, I found that I related to some or many people in each category, but not everything. After so long of just giving up it hit me. One, that I was allowed to be both. I could be nonbinary and a guy. Two, that everyone is so diverse that I'm going to relate to people of so many different identities, and there will be people who share the same labels as me that I will not relate to at all.

I can relate to some genderfluid people in some aspects, androgyne people, nonbinary trans mascs, binary trans men, femboys etc. and it's okay for me to look at experiences of people who don't share the exact same labels as me. I used to feel as if it was wrong or "intruding" for me to do so. I don't have to use a label to relate to common experiences, and I also realized I don't need to fit a label 100% to use it. I had similar issues with my sexuality.

In addition, I had to learn to be okay with not knowing every facet of my gender. I know who I am, and what I like, but I can't tell you every piece that makes up my internal gender puzzle. And I can't say with full accuracy that my sexuality is one specific thing set in stone.

I'm a nonbinary trans man. I know I'm a guy, I know I'm nonbinary. I know at least one aspect of my gender is androgyne, and I'm not sure if that is the reason I have some internal sense of feminity with my gender, but I'm fine with that. I can't say I'm fluid but it's not completely static either. I do have some fluctuations that are usually small, with the extremely rare stronger change.

I consider myself gay. I include nonbinary in my gayness because I'm both a guy and nonbinary (also the majority of my partners have ended up coming out as nonbinary during our relationships). But I know I'm capable in some circumstances of being attracted to a woman or someone who leans heavily on that side of the spectrum. Primarily if a partner ever came out to me as one and went down that transition path. But generally speaking, I'm gay, in my own way. It'd be more accurate to say men and in many cases, masculinity and androgyny. Feminine guy? Hell yeah. Feminine woman? depends lol

I'm also aspec which is weird and unique. I consider myself demisexual(/romantic). I do experience strong sexual attraction and am very sex favorable, and Ive come to understand that's partially the reason why I'd still love and be attracted to a partner if they ever realized they were a woman. But my Demi-ness doesn't require knowing someone for a long time necessarily. I can develop an emotional bond very very quickly in the right circumstances. I don't have a lot of issues when it comes to relating to a lot of "allo things" because I can relate to many, just maybe but in the traditional sense of the word. I can find random people hot AF, but it's more strong aesthetic attraction than actually wanting to bang them.

I can consume adult content because I don't do so for the people in the content itself, I just naturally "self insert" for the fantasy aspects of what's going on.

This is all to say, it took me way too long to understand that I'm not ever going to be exactly like another queer person, and that's okay. Yes it can feel alienating when I can't relate to so much that is correlated to a specific identity I use, but I know I'm not alone in that, even if not in every way.

It's been 8 years since I came out as trans, as of December 3rd 2023 💜 I'm so proud of how far I've come.

[loosesodamarble]

Hiya Erika 🥰🫂💕!! For thr fruit ask game, may I ask for; 🍓, 🍑, 🍒, and 🫐 please?

🍓 - What’s a fic you’ve written you feel is underrated?

Since they're so short I'm going to highlight two underrated fics of mine. They were both written as part of Whumptober back in... 2021. (Hnnnnghhhh.... Wow they're older than I thought.)

The first focuses on the theme of Refusal to Let Go. The second's theme is Curses. Both pieces center on Josele. (All my Whumptober pieces had been oc centric because I wanted to work on my ocs at the time.)

They're downer pieces but they give insight on Josele and her grieving process.

🍑 - If you could make a connection between your favorite character and another work you care about (whether a crossover/fusion or a wonderfully “pretentious” literary reference) what would it be? How would it work?

😈 Nyeheheheh~!

Nacht and Code Realize. So many of the men from Code Realize carry burdens in their hearts the way Nacht does.

Sin, guilt, redemption, and forgiveness come up multiple times in multiple routes. And what do you know, those are big themes in Nacht's story. Love that for him. Just give him a steampunk aesthetic and then he can join in on the fun that the Code Realize cast has.

Nacht has especially strong parallels to Herlock Sholmes from Code Realize. Looks aside, they're both kinda but not really at fault for the death of a loved one. In Nacht's case it's his own brother. And in Herlock's case it's the wife of his bff John Watson. Oof. Both pretty much cut themselves off from their friend for years. When the friend duos are united, there's no anger or hatred, there's just the desire to see the "guilty" party safe, happy, and healed. Nacht and Herlock, two peas in a pod.

🍒 - What’s you favorite character dynamic to write? (Can be romantic or platonic, specific or general!)

Maybe my brain is poisoned by modern media and the overuse of quippy characters but I do like writing character dynamics where the roles of "the sane man" and "the one being weird" is passed around in the group. I like when characters, depending on their situation, vary in their silliness/seriousness.

My favorite example of this would be the cast of Variable Barricade. Hibari, Ichiya, Taiga, Shion, and Nayuta all have moments of being sensible or being silly and clueless. One early moment for the whole group is when the guys try to host a barbecue but EVERYTHING goes wrong because Nayuta keeps barrelling Ichiya over, Shion pours oil on a fire, and Taiga kicks over the grill that is on fire while trying to put it out. And poor Hibari watched in poor horror before destroying the men verbally for their incompetence. My favorite moment for the whole group.

But later on, when Hibari and a given love interest are acting in quite infuriating ways (I'm looking at you Nayuta route!/lh), the others guys step in to try and get things moving along more smoothly.

🫐 - What’s your favorite underrated thing in your fandom? (A ship that only you seem to write for, a character there’s almost no fics about, a trope that criminally hasn’t been written yet, etc.)

Nacht's friendships aside from Yami and Asta in the Bulls. I very much believe he'd be close with people like Finral, Gordon, Grey, Nero, and even Henry. (And maybe I'd even like a romance between Nacht and Finral that's something else.)

I see reasons for Nacht to befriend all of them. Nacht and Finral share the stress over seeing their squad be so destructive. Gordon and Nero's histories are painted by Forbidden Magic similarly to Nacht. And then Grey and Henry are amongst the sweetest and least judgemental of the crew (Gordon is that way too) and Nacht could from their kindness (as well as benefit from it).

[ideahat-universe]

More than just Wario

This video about Anton, Wario, and a Doom Mod being Wario-likes is a pretty decent video.

But I would say that aside from the last one these games (specifically completed Pizza Tower and Antonblast) are not just Wario Likes.

They have Wario's punk aesthetic (which Yathzee labeled as Post-Punk) but a lot of the style is more western toon while Wario often employed a more eastern toon quality. Anton and Peppino's animations and sound effects often evoke saturday morning cartoons and other famous late 90s early 2000s shows. That's more of a western style than any Wario game has ever suggested having.

I propose that just like how Metroidvania is a portmanteau of two different games. This emerging genre should also defined by its relation to currently existing games and one of those games is Wario but I want to add two others. Mario (specifically Mario 64) and Sonic The Hedgehog.

We all know about Wario Land 4 but Mario 64 and the general Sonic the Hedgehog franchise (the good games) all share this innate desire for high speed vertical and horizontal movement and a reward for high level, high momentum play.

We have Pizza Tower, We also have Anton Blast.

But wait there's more. There's Penny's Big Breakaway, Sparks the Electric Jester series (yes, there are three Sparks games and you should be playing them), there's two Freedom Planet games, Pseudoregalia, Beserk Boy, and hopefully Rollin Rascal.

These are just the ones I know about. But you get what I'm saying right? The whole point of these styles of platformers is for you to keep your speed up and spend very little time staying still.

This is very divergent from the platformers of the past. In the 90s when platformers were king. Most platformers were actually quite bad. If you owned a Nintendo you played Mario, if you owned a Sega system you owned Sonic, and if you owned a PC you had Jazz Jackrabbit. Outside of those three, things got really hairy.

Sure, the platformer genre would give birth to many classics but a lot of these games treated platforming as the main obstacle, with limited lives and a non-existent save system in the early days, you could get hard core punished for not having pixel perfect platforming. Almost every jump came with a little hope and a prayer as a blind jump could be your last.

By the time 3d platformers became a thing this whole design ethos crippled the genre and platformers kept supplementing other game mechanics to make up for the limited ceiling they settled with. Eventually they stopped being platformers and became "Adventure games!"

Around the mid to late 2000s the platformer genre was rebooted, into wank Indie Games.

Platformers slowed to a crawl and were overloaded with puzzles and a vibe that isn't high energy. And oh god, Pixel perfect platforming. The bane of my existence.

These were the dark times. If you weren't a pretentious twat you basically stopped playing platformers and just spent years pining for reboots to Spyro and Banjo. And maybe. Just maybe. A good Sonic game.

Even Mario got a little stale in that period.

But now things have changed. Game devs have realized that people love watching and playing platformers that let you go vroom.

Maybe that's what we should call them! Platvroomers!

Hm. Still workshopping it, but it's important to separate them from platformers that don't fit this bill. The recent Spyro and Crash games while fun don't fit this archetype as the Spyro franchise was part of that transition from platformer to adventure games which caused the whole premise of Spyro (flying/gliding around to expand your reach and test your mastery of flight related platforming) to melt away and it turned into a series of mini games and game slices where you played not Spyro in the Spyro game.

Crash 4 completely misunderstood what was and wasn't worth bringing back. Pixel perfect platforming and collecting an absurd amount of baubles ended up being a particularly unique way to punish people who were devoted to the series.

Yooka Laylee screwed up by being overly faithful to Banjo and Kazooie, ignoring the fact that as harsh as Nuts and Bolts was about the old Banjo Kazooie games, It wasn't pulling criticisms out of its ass.

SO. Toys for Bob. I noticed that you are going indie and that you are going to develop new stories and new characters.

If you want my unprofessional opinion. You should develop platvroomer because those are really fun to play and is a lean and mean way to make a video game. Combine that with your impeccable art style and something truly nice will be born.

In the meantime, I'll continue monitoring the progress on Ristar 2

That grappling and swinging mechanic has a lot of potential.

[haveyoueverplayed]

We Finished Grandia!

Jellybi Final Impressions: 

I give this game a resounding “...uhm.” I can see it having been a great time for a much younger version of myself, maybe like 12-16 or so – teen Jellybi was a big fan of Bishounen Villains Who Do Face Turns and would have greatly enjoyed Mullen’s arc regardless of the general lack of buildup or plot scaffolding around it. But the rest of the story, um... left a lot to be desired.

I felt like the end of the game kept harkening back to a lot of themes and elements that simply hadn’t been properly established, like the greed and folly of humans and their rift with the spirits that resulted from that. If that was set up anywhere, it never really registered or sank in for me, but they kept harping on it like it was a major throughline of the story. They had 40 hours of gameplay to set that stuff up! But outside of exposition dumps, it didn’t seem to really be there. Did we ever meet any spirits or learn a concrete thing that humans did wrong to prove themselves unworthy? If we did, I must have missed it, I guess.

The biggest issue I had with the game, though, was the Justin/Feena pairing, in which she is handed some sort of idiot stick that turns her into a fawning damsel, and the broader way in which building Justin up as a hero seemed to happen at the expense of the other characters. It didn’t feel like he ever actually grew or learned anything, but rather that everyone around him just started stanning him and acting like he was an amazing hero and the only one capable of taking any actions that mattered to the world. 

This was at its worst when Gadwin joined the party and seemed unaware that Feena or Sue existed and kept crediting the party’s victories to Justin exclusively and proclaiming Justin a “real man” every ten seconds, but seemed to carry through with Feena’s crush on Justin making her extremely um, deferential to him out of nowhere. Writing Sue out also felt abrupt and cynical, like they needed to ‘get her out of the way’ for this bad pairing to flourish. 

Overall this stuff left a bad taste in my mouth that made it hard to enjoy the rest of the game, though it remained aesthetically appealing and fun to play with the ever-present promise of unlocking new, more ridiculous magics around every corner. Also, Liete was a delight and the things I liked about her remained relatively untouched by any of the Weird Justin Hero Vortex nonsense. 

GRANDIA 1: Jellybi’s Final Ratings:

Art rating: 4/5: I continued to love the character art throughout the game, and it kept serving up really nice, quasi cinematic sprite animations during key moments. Great enemy designs too for the most part. I wasn’t quite as... impressed by the sprites for the final boss battle sequence as I was expecting, but I liked the candy-colored wires or veins or whatever the first form of Gaia had going on. 

Battles rating: 4/5: Loved the battles. I think that if the game had had better music and sound design, these would have been some of my favorite RPG battles ever. (The voice acting around spellcasting and stuff was great, but the music was meh and the enemies often made annoying, repetitive noises). I think I did have a little bit of FOMO in the end that the spell discovery system was kind of opaque so it was hard to know if you had unlocked everything or how to get the ones you might have missed, though it’s possible some googling could have resolved this question, I was just too wary of spoilers to try. 

Mechanics rating: 2/5: Exploring, though, was not fun, and the game seemed padded out with tons of unnecessary dungeons that were essentially just transitional locations between cities and wherever you actually wanted to be going. The way the camera and “compass” worked did not really help with navigating the landscape, and there were a lot of navigation-based puzzles that were difficult because of poor game design rather than fun and enriching to resolve.

I think I ended up giving the controller to Tex probably like 75% of the time because I just didn’t want to be Lost in Monster Infested Environments for the amount of time the game wanted me to be. The 3D world seemed kind of half-finished, and interaction with basic objects like “ropes you need to climb” often felt like they just barely worked and required a lot of trial and error to figure out if the object was interactable or not. 

Story rating: 2/5: I really ... didn’t like the story in the end. I felt like I spent about 30 hours waiting for the story to begin, and then when it finally did, everyone acted like An Epic and Satisfying Plot had already happened and was time to wrap everything up in a tidy, unearned bow. It’s certainly possible for me to like a story LESS (Grandia 2 is a good example), but it felt like nothing really got set up properly despite ample time to do so, and the majority of the runtime was wasted on random puttering around the world doing what felt like sidequests. 

Why was there no followup on Sue having a mysterious monster pet? Why was Feena a Secret Icarian when, compared to Sue (the mysterious orphan with an unexplained monster pet), there was nothing particularly mysterious or odd about her past? What does it mean to be a Secret Icarian in this society, anyway? Why didn’t we find out what the Evil Army was trying to do until three seconds before Mullen found out it had been a lie and needed to change sides? Did Rapp accidentally kill his parents by polishing their limbs off while they were stone before everyone got un-petrified? Did we ever actually find out what happened to Justin's dad and why he had the spirit stone in the first place to give him? There were so many missed opportunities in the plot!

Vibes Rating: 4/5: Despite it all, this game gave me happy RPG feelings to play! Again, if I were younger, and either more into the story to hang on every scrap of exposition detail or more inclined to fill in the holes with my own imagination, I probably would have loved it a lot more.