#peoples deaths in graphic detail specifically because it knows that will upset me. and i would prefer not to do that

[gibbearish]

kinda frustrating how we've spent the last few months acknowledging how a lot of well intentioned but guilt trippy social justice posts are like specifically designed to worm into ocd ppls brains and then now every single post abt palestine is "i dont care how bad your mental health is, i dont care how bad looking at all this makes you feel, if you don't read every single post you see on this topic in full you are a horrible person and directly contributing to their deaths. 'waaaah my mental health' well at least youre not being bombed, did you think about that??" and its like. i absolutely get where youre coming from but you dont get to complain that guilt tripping is bad then turn around and use it anyways because you think the cause youre using it for is worthwhile. like. everyone thinks the cause theyre using it for is worthwhile, thats why theyre using it. but its still a shit way to do it

[red-handed-tamarin]

tam is opening writing REQUESTS (free)

CURRENT QUEUE STATUS: 3/3 slots open!!!

These are not commissions, though in some administrative ways they may be treated as such (i.e. a queue with limited slots, attempted adherence to prompts, due dates / limited time turnaround etc.). I will be opening up a queue to write pieces FOR FREE. See below for guidance!

~~

How many slots will be open?

For now I'll be opening three slots at a time. This seems like the most manageable number for me at the moment but could change in the future.

~~

What is the word count limit for requests?

The absolute minimum word count will be 300. The maximum word count offered will likely be 1000, but in general, I'll be shooting for the 500-800 word range.

~~

What kind of requests are you taking?

There are MANY things I'd be very happy to write, so don't feel limited by the will-write list below; anything not specifically blacklisted can be requested, but I reserve the right to turn down any request for any reason at any time.

WILL WRITE:

fanfiction, original fiction, or nonfiction (such as meta)

first, second, or third person

OCs, reader inserts

any non-PWP genre

a variety of formats

most kinks

incest

ao3 categorical archive warnings: rape, underage, graphic violence, character death

WON'T WRITE (BLACKLIST):

real people fiction (rpf) involving anyone who is NOT the requester; I'm willing to write the requester into the story if that is desired

harry potter or any jk rowling content

pure smut (I'm just no good at it)

scat/watersports

woundfucking

MASTERLIST OF MY FANDOMS (wip) (don't feel beholden to this, I'm just providing it for inspiration and reference)

~~

What do I need to include in my request?

The following elements are critical for any request (please ensure they are included!):

characters/ships and what media they're from

a specific scenario

a desired resolution

squicks / do not writes (DNWs)

whether you are OPEN to nsfw content or would prefer all SFW

information about an OC or self-insert: name/nickname, pronouns, physical description and style, personality, relevant backstory points

Optional elements include (I can't make any guarantees but I'll see what fits!):

preferred genres

favorite tropes

any and all additional information about OCs/self-inserts. I'm very interested in every little detail, please share!!

Here are some examples of strong, viable requests:

"please write yusuke and kuwabara from yu yu hakusho having a beach day together with a kiss at the end! I don't like poly, so please don't include that, and I'm not interested in NSFW at this time. I also prefer fluff and friends-to-lovers, and I don't mind if it's first person."

"I request dick grayson and jason todd, both batman characters, training together while jason is robin. it can be open-ended, but there should be a mutual attraction there. jason can be and probably should be underage in this, but not younger than 14. would love to see nsfw content if the mood strikes."

"I'm looking for someone to write for my OC, who is a pokemon trainer based on myself. here's a link (x) to my character's profile on my tumblr. it would be really fun if this OC could be shipped with brock; they're both 15 at the time. I really want them duking it out at a pokemon gym. my character should win and then brock should ask my character on a date. please keep it SFW and pretty vanilla, but I really like flirty text messages, so if you wanted to make textfic part of it, that would be cool."

"can you do some analytical nonfiction about anakin's relationship with droids in star wars, and how it has to do with his history as a slave? I personally think he personifies things that people depersonify because of that, but I'd like to know your take. if you have anything to say about sexual violence please tag it and put it under a read more, that stuff upsets me."

~~

How do I submit a request?

You can submit a request either on or off anon on tumblr, or you can use this google survey!

Notes:

Writing pieces will typically have a turnaround of two weeks or less. This is NOT a guarantee.

Once written, the piece will be posted publicly to my AO3 and I will tag you. Please let me know if you want to remain anonymous! Requests CAN be made anonymously on tumblr, but I won't be able to tag you upon completion, so please make sure to subscribe on AO3!

I will never knowingly use AI for any aspect of my writing.

Please signal boost this post!

[twilightknight17]

The Promised Day - Part 2

Man, I meant to get the rest of this written up sooner, but I’ve started a new job and it’s tiring. I wanna talk about the final boss so badly, though, because Atlus has personally attacked me again, so here we go.

We ascend to the top of the stairs, where we arrive at the shrine to humanity’s desire for the end. It’s kind of beautiful, actually, even if I don’t know if the mosaics are meant to mean anything.

But now we finally get to see our final foe.

He’s really cool. The upgraded graphics really emphasize all the glowing details and colors.

Yukari calls him Ryoji, and he responds that he almost misses the name he used to be called. But now he’s not even the harbinger of the Fall. He says there’s no longer a distinction between Nyx and himself.

Not sure I believe that, considering he admits to missing his name and he still recognizes us.

...so… I get the logic behind re-translating things to make them more accurate and stuff. But something as iconic as the final boss’s speech? Especially when all you’ve really done is reword it to make it more… grandiose? Like, before, it was simple and to the point.

“What people fear most, what they try to ignore… that is what I am.”

He's not some villain that needs to be dramatic. Sure, calling himself “wretched” proves that it’s definitely still Ryoji in there and he’s definitely still upset about this, but I dunno. He’s always been Death. He didn’t ‘become’ it; he’s just changed forms. And somehow, the idea that he’s still that much of himself right now, rather than being almost entirely overwritten by Nyx’s will… I don’t think I like that as much?? It doesn’t fit.

It’s like how the movie handled the reveal in December. Was him oneshotting everyone’s personas while hovering in front of the full moon cool as hell? Yes. But does it suit his character to pull out the “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you” monologue? Not really. Ryoji’s not like that. Passing out on the bridge while apologizing for what he is fits his character a lot more.

Either way, we might be afraid, but we have to do this.

……maybe hitting the Reaper with Armageddon twice was a bad idea. Because these first rounds have been… not very hard. Level 90 Minato and level 86ish everyone else is a little too much. X’D

It still took time, though. We had to fight through twelve rounds, after all. But now it’s time for the Death Arcana.

Heeee~<3

…again, why change lines like this when you’re basically just making them a frillier version of the same thing. “It matters not who you are. Death awaits you.” There was nothing wrong with that?? Spend your time on other things. X’D

I do absolutely love how the final Arcana adds the watching eyes and the red veins. It’s so cool. My boy is so good.

So they’ve given the Avatar a new almighty attack called “Apocalypse” that takes everyone down to 1% of their HP, which had the potential to be a LOT worse if he’d used it during one of the sections where he was getting 3 or 4 turns in a row. I don’t know if I just got lucky with having time to heal, but it wasn’t actually that scary after the first time.

It’s got a world-cracking animation that makes me think of Armageddon, though, so that’s cool.

And the animation for Night Queen is awesome! He summons all the Arcana cards for it. ^_^

But… they’ve taken away Moonless Gown.

It’s not even that he didn’t use it. It’s just gone entirely. The spell I specifically associate with Ryoji.

I guess they thought it made the boss too hard? But… it’s the final boss. You’re fighting Death Incarnate at the end of the world. It SHOULD be hard. I was looking forward to having to claw my way through this fight to the bitter end. But it wasn’t really bitter at all.

...there was a point I could have used Armageddon to end it, and didn’t, just because I wanted to keep going and see what happened.

I know I keep making fun of Atlus for the whole “core P3 experience” thing, but in this case, I DID want the core P3 experience, and I didn’t get it. So I’m actually disappointed. X’D

Nope, sorry Mitsuru.

The moon is coming to kill us, whether we like it or not.

People on the streets are being freed from their coffins, and are beginning to panic and collapse into lesser shadows. It’s mayhem.

Takaya manages to stagger to the roof and laugh about how great this all is, right before crushing gravity smashes all of us to the ground. No one can move; no one can do anything, and Minato is blacking out.

...thanks.

Igor tells Minato that it’s time to draw on all the bonds we’ve forged and harness their strength. I do not have all my social links maxed, so I suppose it’s lucky that I still have enough power. X’D

Igor also says he never dreamed of seeing this card with his own eyes, so… yeah. This is a one-of-a-kind miracle.

And on that note, I like, “No miracle is beyond your reach” better. X’D

The elevator reaches its destination, the doors open to a blaze of light, and like I said last time, I like the movie’s element of summoning Messiah as a fusion on the rooftop a lot better. Feels more climactic. But Minato pushes himself to his feet, pushes forward, and goes to confront Nyx on his own.

The inside of Nyx is trippy as hell, and leads to the core, which is a big glowing egg.

She tries to kill Minato with an ability that is literally just “death”, but Minato keeps one HP and takes a swing at her. His teammates all chime in to give him strength, even Shinji, and not only does he return to full health, but he can no longer be hit by the death spell at all. It does nothing to him.

And thus we come to the endgame.

I’ve always liked the gameplay representation of the Great Seal. The fact that it costs exactly how much health you have. The fact that you’re not casting it through a persona, you’re drawing entirely from yourself, empowered by your ultimate arcana. The fact that this is your only option, after attacking directly proves useless.

And from a story perspective, it hurts. It hurts so much to see this boy who had nothing gain friends, family, a life that he loves… and he has to give it all up to keep the people he cares for safe.

Makes you wonder if Philemon knew what it would take, when he blessed his chosen one with the Wild Card this time.

I could go on about that sort of thing for a while, so we’ll just leave it at that, with the casting of the Great Seal.

All that’s left is the ending, now. And yeah. I really like the Avatar fight, but I expected it to be a lot harder. So I am, somehow, both content and disappointed.

It’s an interesting feeling. XD

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

The Little Things I Love About ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

Just like the one I did for PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, and just like the one I did for STRANGE WORLD, here's a little list of particular little details I loved in a detail-packed... Like, literally jampacked movie... SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE:

So far, I have only seen this movie once all the way through in theaters, caught multiple sections over and over at my movie theater job, and again in full on Blu-ray once. I've watched and rewatched sections since, always finding cool stuff. I may revisit the post and update it, too, like I did w/ the previous ones.

Also, MASSIVE SPOILERS ahead... Just in case you still haven't seen this months-old movie...

Much like the first SPIDER-VERSE... Tons of stuff to catch in the glitching opening logos. Logo/design p0rn aaaaall around.

There's already a lot to love in the opening Medieval Vulture attack set-piece, but my favorite detail? As an Italian-American? "Ciao, ragazza!" Complete with the parchment paper script "Bye, girl!" accompanying it. Any elementary school-age kid watching this now knows a little Italian, that's cool!

Lyla's first scene in the movie. Whichever version, too, whether it's the fist-bump or the selfie... I love how she just glitches and zips in and out, while Miguel keeps asking her in vain to call for back-up. Just an out-of-nowhere display of what kind of quirky relationship these two have...

Many have written about the scenes of Gwen and her father, Captain George Stacy, and how they hit very close to home. In that, they perfectly mirror some folks' experiences with coming out. Myself included, whether it's Miles or Gwen... It's even more effective with Gwen, because there are a lot of not-so-subtle hints that she could be a trans girl. (i.e. the dad having a trans flag on his uniform, Gwen having a "protect trans kid" flag, her room turning into trans flag pastel colors when she reconnects with her father at the end of the movie, etc.) I feel it's twice as hard-hitting in the opening action sequence because Captain Stacy has no idea the white-and-pink Spider-Woman is his daughter, loathes Spider-Woman for not-unfounded reasons (he's rightfully upset that Peter Parker is dead) but is taking it way too far (revenge territory), and he's also a cop. Here's this girl trying to reason with a hardened gun-wielding tough guy, who even fires the gun, prompting Gwen to remove the mask... And all the little complexities in the animated acting on George's face, the shock of his daughter being Spider-Woman, mixed with his grief over Parker's death and his sheer anger... It's maybe a minute or two, but goddamn did these animators go off. That's what anchors these movies amidst all the nerd/reference-stuff, spectacle, and dynamic changing art styles.

And to elaborate on this... This is basically a movie about a queer kid running off, without a home, while another one tries to find their people and be with them... Not prepared for the gatekeeping that's ahead... and some of us queers either experience something like those specific things or have a feeling of not belonging. (I also really dig how Jessica Drew is almost like a surrogate mother for Gwen, a parent of sorts who takes her in after showing her father who she is. Almost, as her protectiveness soon starts to wear off and gives way to sarcastic coldness after Gwen pays Miles a visit.) And the little nuances of both of their struggles trying to make it in this truly "elite" Spider-Society. It works perfectly through either Miles' lens or Gwen's.

Lots of graphic design and logos in that short convenience store scene, too. Lots for someone like me to look for.

The Spot seems to have linework going on inside him, of his anatomy and structure... Not dissimilar to the Xerography process used by Disney for animated productions from 1960 to 1985, and how the process overriding the clean-up animation process meant that you saw lots of rough linework, sketches, and planning inside of the characters. Like the rawness of the drawings preserved in the finished films. That technique is often paid homage to in other animated works, such as Tomm Moore's Irish triptych films that he did for Cartoon Saloon.

Much was written about, especially because one of the trailers showed this gag, Rio Morales snapping her finger upon hearing that Miles got a lower grade in Spanish class. A little after that, while Jeff is speaking, the look on her face. How utterly INSULTED she is- Again, just, ooh, great animated acting all around.

"Maybe get off the kid's a-

The first universe Spot visits, love that it's very 2D-looking and very, *very* comic book, a hint of pulp and Art Deco and '60s modern rolled into one... before giving us Venomverse (oh I'm sorry, SUMC) and LEGO.

Much of the Morales' rooftop party scene is just jam-packed to the moon and back with all these little writing nuances, tying in all this stuff about being a teen who is hiding something, reasoning with one's well-meaning but very controlling parents, all the humor and drama that stems from that. All that awkwardness, the embarrassment, how the guests play off of all of that, etc.

Miles pursuing The Spot whilst trying to talk to him... I mean, the entire Mumbattan sequence alone mops the floor w/ maybe 95% of superhero movies made in the last 5 years, but... This scene in particular, where the two are flying through a bunch of intricately-designed and planned buildings full of people with all these swooping camera angles- GO HARD they did.

Hobie's universe particularly referencing the ransom note letterforms that made up the cover of the iconic Sex Pistols album NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S THE SEX PISTOLS. They leaned *hard* on early punk from the '70s, more so than any other era, and that's so damn cool.

The subtle animated acting from Gwen during Miguel's warning to Miles about disrupting canon. All the inner-conflict over believing in it or not. And even before that, too, particularly in the aftermath of the Mumbattan Alchemax building collapsing onto the bridge.

And during that whole scene, as the different Spiders start to surround Miles, I like how Hobie is more turned to the side than facing Miles directly, unlike the other Spiders. That's just seconds before it's made clear that Hobie is on Miles' side.

The super-widescreen, Panavision-esque aspect ratio change when - during the whole Spider Society chase - Miles lands on Widow and is confronted by Web-Slinger. Really channeling the spaghetti Westerns, even if that bit has been done before, its use here - very clever.

"SNITCH!"

Miles' smirk when he begins to use his electric charge power to knock Miguel off of him, right before he's about to tell him - and by extension everyone who ever doubted him or told him he can't do what's right or what he desires - off.

The "Go Home Machine" literally being an elaborate spider, itself, inside a nest. Everything, right down to the machinery, all spider-themed. Simply going ALL OUT. Also that scanner that Miguel angrily rips out of the console... What a hilariously excessive work of art that thing is, and we only really see it for like 5 seconds.

Like I said, will likely add more, and this probably read more like yet another review of this film that I really, really love. I apologize for that, lol.

[everything-a-wolf-could-want]

People are so goddamn stupid. It's willful ignorance is what it is, because the information is being given and they're simply choosing to ignore it.

Chose not to use archive warnings is a very specific tag. It's actually the default tag that will be auto-selected if you don't choose anything else in that section of tags. There are 6 possible tags you can select under Archive Warnings:

No Warnings Apply - this means none of the 4 specific warnings are present in the story

Major Character Death - this means an important character dies and it has a large impact on the story/characters

Graphic Depictions of Violence - this means there is violence in the story and it is described in detail

Underage - this means a character or multiple characters engage in underage sexual intimacy

Rape/non-con - this means some form of rape/non-con/sexual assault occurs in the story

Chose not to use archive warnings - this one means that one or more of the 4 warnings might be present, and the author has chosen not to tell you which one(s) ((if any)) it is.

If you cannot handle any one ((or more)) of the 4 possible Archive Warnings, you should filter that warning ((or warnings if more than one upsets you)) out of your search results. You should also filter out the chose not to use archive warnings tag, as it has the potential to contain any/all of the others.

Choosing option 6 doesn't mean you haven't warned. It means you have warned without specific details. The reader then chooses to take a risk on which of the 4 warnings ((or what combination of them, up to including all 4)) the story contains.

Readers are not entitled to specific tags/warnings. The author has a right - as all authors do, since certainly published books very rarely contain content warnings - to not spoil their story. Now, in conjunction with that, the reader has a right as well. The right to not read a story without specific content warnings.

You aren't entitled to specific warnings/tags. You're just not so get that out of your head right the fuck now. You're not entitled to a single fucking thing, most especially on fanfic which you're receiving for free. But you have the right to say if an author uses the non-specific chose not to use archive warnings tag, I will not read their story since I can't know if it's safe for me to do so.

And that's fine. You're allowed to do that. In fact, you're encouraged to do that. I, personally, always select chose not to use archive warnings even if no warnings apply to my story. I do this because I fully support an author's right to tag - or not tag - as they choose and this is my way of supporting AO3's support of that choice. I use other tag fields to warn for things in my stories, as a personal choice, but I will always pick the chose not to use archive warnings option from that first field. And I know this means that there are swathes of people - people who might enjoy my stories, in fact - who will never see my work, because they filter that tag out. And that's fine. I accept that as the consequence of my personal tagging choice.

But if someone comes into my comments and acts like an entitled, spoiled, whiny brat because they don't like my tagging, I'm going to utilize AO3's block feature. Because if you're going to act like an asshole, you're going to lose speaking privileges in my space.

So no, the original asker is not the asshole. Every one of the spoiled fucking brats responding, on the other hand, is.

AITA For Not Tagging a Work?

I, 32F, write primarily for my own enjoyment, my main platform being AO3. I currently have a multi-chaoter series that includes several major plot twists, including one that includes non-con. To avoid spoiling it, because I believe my stories deserve to be read with as little background info as possible, I only tag it as "Creator CHOSE not to Include Archive Warnings". Which is, as I hope is obvious, is not synonymous with "There Are No Warnings". The point is, I don't use the Rape/Non-con tag. Recently, I got a very upset reader in my comments complaining about how triggering that chapter of my work is, and that's where I have a problem. I believe the corporate obsession content warnings pervading even fanworks to be a major problem. I don't want to sanitize my work, but I do get that they contain pretty heavy themes. But I feel like I seriously do give my stories a disservice by adding labels on them, and maybe I am the asshole for this, but I value my pride and joy (my work) over strangers online. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

sorry for the downer, but: any thoughts on the death of Eko the tiger? I guess I can't blame the sheriff for shooting him, but poor Eko was just literally being exactly what he is, which is a wild animal, but the whole thing has me so upset. (I see people online saying things like "should've let the tiger have him" about the cleaner, but I can't wish death on the human, no matter how stupid and foolish he was.) ugh.

To quote the President CEO of the Naples Zoo: "I think the lesson learned is that you can't 100% prevent people from making really, really horrible decisions. I don't know what to say other than that."

I keep typing things to say that are coherent and eloquent but it comes down to this: like pretty much everyone in the zoo world right now, I'm angry, I'm exhausted, and I'm grieving a beautiful and critically endangered animal who should still be alive and isn't because of human arrogance and hubris.

I don't know how much more I want to say on that topic, beyond that.

But a few relevant thoughts and details, for folk who are interested.

A few years ago, when I did research into safety incidents involving captive big cats in the US, barrier breaches were by far the most common cause of injuries. Intentional or accidental, reaching through a barrier into a big cat enclosure (or god forbid, going into the enclosure) is one of the most dangerous things you can ever do.

The individual involved in this incident wasn't in behind-the-scenes areas at the zoo, which wasn't clear from the original reporting. It sounds like he jumped the barrier along the guest pathway to get close to the primary fence. This might have some USDA implications around appropriate fencing. I wrote a thing about that and then deleted it, because honestly, this whole thing sucks and I don't care about regulatory implications right now.

The deputy who responded to the scene did the exact right thing - and I can't imagine what he went through in the moment. As a colleague of mine put it: running through a dark zoo into an unknown situation where someone has been injured by a tiger without any other details? Not knowing where the tiger is, or what's going on, just that someone called 911 screaming they'd been attacked? That's a scenario right out of a horror movie.

It sucks that the deputy shot Eko, but it's what members of the dart/gun response team have said they would have done. There's a lot of logistics that go into responding to a dangerous animal incident (here's a good twitter thread from today about that, if you're interested), but the general rule is that human life is prioritized. This situation was really bad because it occurred after hours - so the people trained and prepared to deal with that type of situation weren't on grounds. I assume zoo security was present, but they're not usually trained for animal response situations (and I think it's not common for them to be armed). The deputy was the first on the scene, and he had to make an incredibly hard decision in a split second. He made the right - but horrible - choice.

A new article came out today with a lot more details about the incident, including a lot of what I've mentioned above. You can find the link here - TW: it contains detailed descriptions of the incident and animal death, although not graphic detail about the specific injuries to human or tiger.

My final thought is something I posted on Twitter this morning. The media discusses the fact that the zoo could bring criminal charges against the individual involved: I'd like to know why purposeful barrier breaches like this aren't charged with violations of the Endangered Species Act. The ESA makes it illegal to among other things, "harm, harass, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill..." listed species. These prohibitions apply even to captive endangered animals. Accidents are one thing - purposefully making an irresponsible, arrogant, entitled choice that results in the death of an endangered animal seems like entirely another.

[alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer]

yall please put warnings on your fics... I'm not trying to call anyone out specifically bc I've seen this multiple times by multiple people and it's getting really frustrating. I also know I'm Old or whatever and not everyone knows how or why to do this. so behold:

generally speaking, the following things should ALWAYS have warnings (its why they're the ones you check off on AO3)

Major character death

Rape/Non-con

Underage sex

Graphic violence

Obviously, something like graphic violence is a bit subjective, but if it's significantly more detailed and violent than what would happen in-canon, it needs a warning. on ao3 there's an option for "creator chose not to use archive warnings" but on tumblr there's no good equivalent so you really just need to warn for it. this is fandom etiquette.

other things that you should warn for as a courtesy are things like:

child abuse

substance abuse

domestic abuse

hate crimes

sexism

racism

homophobia

transphobia

abusive relationships

etc., etc., etc.

further you need to put the warnings at the TOP of your fic. it needs to be a line before the text of your fic. tags on tumblr are at the end of the post. you need to put your warnings at the BEGINNING. you can tag it as well but if you have warnings at the beginning, it doesn't matter because if someone sees the warning they can scroll past.

if you think this will "spoil" your fic, the vast majority of the time it will not. if you're writing a one-shot featuring major character death, it's usually the premise of the one-shot. fics posted on tumblr don't generally include a summary so the warning also serves as an indicator to the reader of what kind of fic it is and what the premise is. I promise you that warning your readers about potentially upsetting content is far more beneficial than "spoiling" your fanfiction.

if I see any of yall continue to not put warnings on your fics I'm just gonna send you this post... i've gotta be honest the tendency of people in this fandom to not put warnings on their fics makes me hesitant to read any fics and diminishes the enjoyment from the fics that I do read. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

just put warnings on your damn fanfics

[buglife]

All us old folks remember the horrors of browsing fanfiction way way back in the day where you could only find fanfiction on webrings and fanfiction.net.

Back then, there were no tags. There wasn't anyway TO tag things. You got general categories like 'Mature' and 'Romance' and major characters but never anything really specific. So everyone had to put them in the VERY limited word count in the description so there were abbreviations all over that read like hieroglyphics.

Like I loved Harry Potter fics back then and I'd see a description on FF.Net and it would be like "Dark!Harry m/m lemon HA/VO Dumbash DLDR" and that was all you got. Like what the fuck did all that mean??? So little old me would jump in the fic and get slammed by a graphic sexual story about Voldemort in sexual relationship with an 11 year old Harry and get physically sick from it. I had no idea what those 'tags' were and eventually, learned to navigate them once I understood what they meant. I didn't know that what the tags meant were 'Harry Potter goes dark, is in a graphic sexual relationship with Voldemort, hates on Dumbledore, Don't Like Don't Read.' I wasn't in the fandom so how was I supposed to know these very specific things?

But nowadays, you can go to Archive of your Own or Tumblr and find a story with a TON of tags that go into detail what you can find in a story. Are you phobic about vomiting? There's a tag for that. Are you uncomfortable about a certain pairing? No worries it's displayed right there so you can avoid it. I've seen people start tagging things with 'Dead Dove, Don't Eat' right after they tag some serious triggering stuff like Non-Con and Death so that you KNOW, IT'S RIGHT THERE ON THE TIN. DON'T READ because it literally says right there what's in it and you have no one to blame but yourself if you end up triggering yourself by reading it.

It's such a breath of fresh air because I have a lot of traumas and triggers that really upset me (im in therapy no worries!), but I feel so much safer diving into fandom now than I ever did when I first got into it in the late 90's on a little Packard bell computer with dial up internet. I know exactly what I'm getting into and it's great.

It's like being allergic to eggs and then having nobody put eggs as an ingredient on food packages. How are you supposed to avoid an allergic reaction when nobody will label it so you can avoid it?

That's why I avoid things I don't like lol. I don't want to see it. All I ask is that people tag your shit so that people can readily avoid the things that upset them. If you put Non-Con in a story and don't tag or label it as such, you're an asshole. Don't do that!

Things are much better than they used to be <3

[lizziedoesvetpath]

Why are you cutting up that animal?

OR: What is a necropsy and why do we do it?

So I’ve had a fair few questions recently about pathology and thought it might be helpful to do a few summary posts of the different things we pathologists do. Today I’m going to tell you about the what, how, why, and when of necropsy!

Warning: This post is going to be about dissecting deceased animals. I won’t use any graphic pictures but if the topic upsets you in any way, this may not be the post for you. Ready?

1) What is a necropsy?

Necropsy is the word we use for the post mortem (after death) examination of animals. It’s the equivalent of a human autopsy. Basically we get the body of a dead animal and we follow a specific dissection process aimed at inspecting every organ for abnormalities that may explain why the animal was sick and/or died.

2) How do you do a necropsy?

Everybody has a slightly different technique, but in the end they should reach the same result. This is a quick run down of how I approach it (this is where we’ll get into some discussion of actually dissecting bodies, so skip this if that makes you queasy).

1) External exam: The first step is to look at everything you can see without opening the animal. Same as a physical exam on a live animal, we assess the fur/feathers/scales, skin, eyes, ears, inside the mouth, claws, and so on. This is important because it can start you down the right track as to what you’re going to find inside. For example, a cat that has been hit by a car usually has shredded claws, because they try to grab onto the road at the point of impact. Or if you find blisters in the mouth and between the toes of a pig you might want to quickly get on the phone with the state vet because you suspect foot and mouth disease! We also take note of identifying features of the animal (colour, brands, microchip number, ear tags etc) so that the findings can be matched to the right animal (which can be contentious in insurance or legal cases).

2) Opening the animal: So now I’m ready to start cutting. How you position the animal to start depends a bit on the species, but for your average mammal you’ll lay them on one side. I then get the legs, skin, muscles, and ribs out of the way so that the abdomen and thorax are open for inspection.

3) Stop and look for a minute: Before we take anything out it’s important to take a moment to look at how things are sitting. Are all the organs in the right place? What colour are they? Is there any fluid there shouldn’t be?

4) Examine the organs: Now that we’ve taken note of how things were, we can start taking things out and getting a more detailed look at them. Every organ gets its moment in the spotlight. Tubular organs get opened so we can look at the inside, and parenchymous (solid) organs get sliced into so we can see anything going on in the middle of them. And while we’re doing this, we take a piece of everything. Some things we’ll keep fresh for microbiological or toxicologial testing - lung, liver, spleen, and kidney usually, occasionally brain if it’s indicated - and everything else goes in formalin to preserve it for looking at under the microscope later.

5) Tidying up: After we’ve looked at everything, it’s time to clean up. This depends on what the owner wanted. Animals are often sent off for cremation after this process, but if the owner wants to animal back we can do what is called a “cosmetic necropsy”. When we do this we just get into the animal through one incision along its belly, which we stitch back up when we’re done. Overall, we try to be as respectful as possible, and if you do have concerns about the animal you are submitting for examination, you should talk to your pathologist! We’re happy to answer questions and will try to accommodate your needs during the process.

6) Writing a report: Every necropsy performed should be followed by a report lisitng everything we saw while we did it. This is a legal document which includes everything that was abnormal, everything that was normal, and anything needed to identify the animal. 

3) So wait... why are we doing all of this?

For a lot of people, it can be hard to understand why we are still looking into what was wrong with an animal after it has died. And I get that, we’re a bit past the point of helping that animal once it reaches the necropsy floor, so who cares?

Well for one, in a significant number of cases the animal dies without us knowing why, and that makes it hard to find closure. Maybe your pet died suddenly, or it was being treated for something but died anyway. With a necropsy we can either give you a solid answer as to what caused your animal to pass away (maybe there was a tumor you didn’t know about, or a clot) or we can tell you that there’s no evidence of anything that you could have helped or prevented. That knowledge and reassurance can help owners process the death of their animal, and I’ve seen it make a big difference.

Secondly, if there are other animals involved or at risk, we can find out how to help them! This reason is most often applied to production animals where we can figure out herd health problems, but it can apply to pets from a household with other animals as well. If your dog dies from getting into something toxic, it’s good to know that happened so you can remove the poison and possibly save your other dogs from the same fate. Or if there’s an infectious disease moving through your herd of cattle, now you know how to treat or what to vaccinate against. It may be too late for the animal on my table, but that animal might still be able to help the others around it.

Thirdly, that information could help save animals you don’t even know. The information we find at necropsy can educate the vet who was treating it, students present for the examination, and the veterinary community at large. Maybe your animal presented unusually for a known disease, so your vet didn’t recognise what was happening. That’s sad, but vets are human too and can’t know everything. But now that they know what killed your pet, they’ll know to check for that in the next patient with the same presentation. Veterinary students see and participate in necropsy at school so that they can know what lesions look like before going out into practice. The more they can see, the more knowledge they are equipped with before your sick pet is in front of them. And maybe your animal had something wrong with it that nobody knew happened. If we can see that at necropsy we can publish information to teach vets all over the world that this can happen and we need to find out how to fix it.

If you’re still reading, thanks! I hope this has taught you a little something about the necropsy process. If you have any questions do feel free to ask, I love pathology and would like nothing more than to help people understand it and remove some of the suspicion that surrounds what we do. Next week I’ll be doing “What are you looking at down that microscope” OR what is histology and why do we do it? So if there’s anything you want to know about microscopic tissue examination let me know!

[nightcoremoon]

why am I a jerkass who rains on everyone else's parade when I say I don't like gory horror films because I find movies whose plot consists of some dude stabbing a bunch of people to be fucking stupid pointless boring schlock that only exists to stroke the boners of people who enjoy watching other people die vicariously from a good safe distance, especially when their sequels just cheaply kill off all of the survivors from the earlier films thus rendering the plot of the earlier ones L I T E R A L L Y COMPLETELY FUCKING POINTLESS

but when someone says they don't like seeing sexual assault portrayed in movies (valid) and that people who put them in are evil and bad and dumb and bad tasteless artists, everyone is like yes yes good perfect okay you have the correct opinion here have a good star

hey newsflash assholes, if you're watching a fictional movie about a clinical sociopath who butchers animals, beats the absolute shit out of people they don't like until they're crying and shitting their pants and bleeding out the eyes and pleading for mercy, tying a dude to a chair and then slicing his jugular and glaring in his eyes until he bleeds out, bludgeons some guy for no fucking reason until his blood and brain spatters the kitchen floor, stabs his (naked) sister 17 times (after slowly tracing his fingers on her leg no less, ew), stabs a nurse in the neck with a fork and killing her for literally no reason, then a decade and a half later going back to his hometown just to stab a dozen people with ice skates and pitchforks and good old fashioned kitchen knives, and having the film depict this all in graphic bloody detail

and your ONLY problem is that somewhere along the way two disgusting scum workers at an asylum took a brand new catatonic female patient into his room and fucked her until they messed with his masks so he just breaks their fucking skulls open (which define his character as someone who clearly has no compassion for others but will shatter your bones and strangle you just for touching his stuff), and it's that a girl was raped and not that you watched a guy pulverize two men into bloody giblets...

idk man something about that feels wrong. you're okay with watching fictional murder but not fictional rape even though neither are glorified or justified and it exists purely to cause discomfort and distress in the viewer because it's a fucking horror film and horror is supposed to expose you to depravity and as art it serves to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

don't get me wrong rape is bad but like

so is fucking murder.

why can't I express my discomfort in society's gratuitous endorsement and desensitization to killing in fictional media without people taking it as a personal attack and then turn around and do the exact same thing to rape

it's a double standard and it's so stupid

you can eat popcorn and watch jason voorhees rip teenagers in half and then berate me for not having a good time bathing in someone else's blood and then in the same breath #cancel rob zombie's director's cut of his halloween reboot because there's a rape scene in it. the violence is okay; you like the violence, no, you love the violence. that's perfectly fine? violence is good. freddy can force a recovering addict to OD on heroin, that's fine. john doe can force a fat guy to eat spaghetti at gunpoint until his fucking intestines burst, that's okay. mark hoffman can lock an innocent woman in a brazen bull and cook her alive just to fridge her and punish her husband for a lie that he made, that's awesome and wonderful and /super cool/. it's bullshit.

I'm not here to say YOU CAN'T like nightmare in elm street. you can like the texas chainsaw massacre. you can like my bloody valentine. you can like the thing. you can like wrong turn. you can like saw. you can DISlike rob zombie's movies. you can fast forward through the rape scenes in halloween, house of 1000 corpses, and the devil's rejects if the scenes make you uncomfortable (as they are intended to do so because it's a fucking grimdark edgy music video inspired horror movie). I'm not here to tell you that YOU CAN'T have an opinion on things.

but it's a special kind of entitled to insinuate that not only is your opinion the divine right of kings and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong and dumb and evil, but that a squicky scene you don't like actively makes the entire film Objectively Bad™.

maybe I don't like the fact that tatum gets crushed in a garage door. maybe it squicks me. maybe it unsettles me. maybe I think that it detracts from the film when all billy had to do was just stab her one and done without making a huge ordeal out of it. maybe I think it only exists to make a spectacle out of death and gorify- sorry, I mean glorify, murder, because it's exciting and intriguing to some who take solace in the macabre. "the effects are cool". maybe I don't like it. but you can like it.

I can dislike it. you can like it. we're both valid. that's how opinions work.

"but people get triggered by rape"

people get triggered by drugs. people get triggered by food. people get triggered by religion. people get triggered by a lot of things. people get triggered by slit throats, strangling, and hanging. you're valid for your triggers and you can avoid whatever fucking content you wish but if you think only your very particular specific trigger is the one that's valid, screw everyone else? go fuck yourself. you selfish piece of shit. you're not the only person in the world. it isn't hard to respect that you're not the only worldview in the world.

but then again, maybe it is hard, considering nobody fucking does it. everyone's trapped in their own little world where they're the only one who matters. they don't give a single shit about anyone else but themselves and others they can project onto because they're similar. they don't care if you can't match them in any way. you're a freak if you're different and you don't matter.

never mind the fact that 90% of slasher horror is misogynist, ephebophilic, racist, exploitative of the mentally ill and physically deformed, in some cases appropriations of the non-christian religions, and in the other 10% it's actually a horror comedy.

but if a white girl is sexually assaulted that's the only time anyone bothers being compassionate

now a disclaimer because I know for a fact that people are gonna put words in my mouth and take shit out of context and point out things I didn't explicitly state outright and try to make me out to be some fucking evil boogeyman

not saying you SHOULDN'T be compassionate to rape victims and I'm not saying I personally enjoy rape scenes in movies and I'm not saying that I particularly like the inclusion of those scenes in those movies and there is certainly a conversation to be had on the very misogynist nature of hollywood cinema as a whole in the horror genre especially and we should keep in mind the thermian argument and it's a complex issue, I know I know I know so shut the fuck up I don't owe you a passing grade on clout or the semantics of discourse or virtue signaling.

it's just stupid that people only get upset if a fictional white girl gets raped in a gore porn movie when it ~doesn't suit the narrative~. ok, this is the narrative: scary man stabs, the end.

scary men stab all the time. scary men shoot. scary men suicide bomb. scary men patent insulin and sell it at an upcharge poor diabetics can't afford. scary men drop bombs on kids in syria. scary men put mexicans in concentration camps. scary men slaughter thousands of men and women for their religion or their sexuality or their skin color. scary men do a lot of bad shit. your silence on these issues does much more harm to society than *checks notes* a scary movie about bad people doing bad things and facing karmic retribution for it.

TL;DR rape is bad, and murder is also bad, and american horror films have 100s of problems, and people need to start voicing their opinions as opinions and not pretending they're facts because it's super fucking annoying

[lethesomething]

Ghost of Tsushima and the Hands of Fate

I see we're still trying to prove that games are an art form by making everyone feel bad.

For the record, Ghost of Tsushima is one of my favourite games in a very long time. It is extremely pretty, the aesthetic and general … polish is *cheff's kiss*. You can pet foxes and backstab people. The fighting mechanic is decent and there are just So Many Hats.

But also, it has the kind of story that pulls you in to the point where you have to drop the controller to hide behind your fingers going 'ohgodno'.

It is an absolute bastard of a game, is what i'm saying.

So let's talk about that, and specifically about Straw Hat Ryuzo and how I feel bad for him.

I am, by the way, going to be talking about the narrative structure of a video game about medieval samurai, so expect like, a bunch of spoilers.

The narrative is one of the big draws in Ghost of Tsushima. Like yes, it's an open world rpg with fighting and flower picking and all the important stuff, and also yes, some of the bits are sloppily written (looking at you, specifically, 'Ending to Norio's Arc'), but the game definitely sets out to Tell a Story.

And because this is a Serious Game that openly bases itself on samurai movies like Kurosawa's, it is a Drama.

In many ways it is an utterly brutal Bildungsroman, a narrative in which a young man finds his identity.

I have joked with friends about the clear intent for this game to make Important Stories, in that it actually tries to tick all the boxes of hotbutton subjects: childhood trauma? Obviously. Gay relationships?  Yup. Survivor's guilt and PTSD? Oh yes. Domestic abuse? Several. Suggested pedophilia? Damn, even that.

The foxes are there to soothe the soul

It's interesting to note that from a writing point of view, this bildungsroman is even Very Classically Structured. It goes so far as to be a three acter, with a pretty standard build-up.

 Jin Sakai, traumatized man that he is, spends the first act slowly getting to grips with the bit where you don't fight an army by yourself by  just walking up to them and challenging them With Honour, like he has been taught his entire life. Instead of getting stabbed repeatedly in the chest and set on fire, he  discovers guerilla warfare and creates this persona of the Ghost, a literal vengeful spirit seeking justice for the island of Tsushima.

It gets him some big wins and in the second act he slowly embraces this identity until things get to a head where he clashes with his entire old life. The third act starts at the hero's lowest point and is utterly gut wrenching (i am Still Not Over the horse, game), forcing him to pull himself together for an ending that is, well…fitting for the narrative. It's an ending that is needed, but perhaps not what Jin deserves.

 But anyway, this is about Ryuzo, and how until that ending, I was very upset about his role.

You see, this story is told in part through the lives of Important Npc's, who contribute to Jin's journey of self-discovery. This is pretty obvious with someone like Yuna, who is the one to introduce him to the Stealth Life and who is a driving force behind the marketing of the Ghost.

Someone like Masako, meanwhile, portrays vengeance and self discipline, but Jin also kinda tries to make her fill the mother-shaped hole in his heart.

Lord Shimura, meanwhile, is an Obvious Father figure but also stands for Jin's past. He's rigid and ineffective, which pushes Jin to further look for alternatives.

Ishikawa, that other mentor figure, is more moderate and flexible, but he also represents a possible unwanted future. He literally warns Jin at one point not to become like him.

Norio, then, is as mentioned not the best written, but he too is a person that searches for his destiny and tries to become like his hero, while only barely holding on to his sanity. 

Kenji, I'm sorry, I love you but you're just comic relief, that's all you do. It's an imporant job in the story, because god does it need it, but you're not teaching Jin anything other than how to make different 'resigned sigh' noises.

So what about Ryuzo? From the very beginning, Ryuzo's story didn't really sit right with me. There's the obvious class issue: he's one of the few important npc's that are poor, and he's an Antagonist.

It has always rubbed me the wrong way that his original intentions were good, depending on how you read it. He's trying to feed his men. He essentially made the decision that this one man's life (even if it is an old friend) is worth the price for the lives of his band of ronin.

It's a lot more complex than that, of course. Ryuzo partly blames Jin for his predicament in life, and he also knows that samurai treat their soldiers as chattel, which the game goes out of its way to show you they DO.

  Essentially, he's a complicated character who makes bad decisions for arguably good reasons.

Ryuzo did everything he could to save the lives of the people he cared about. He went so far as to abandon his honor and his childhood friends, to try to make this happen.

Does that ring any bells?

It kinda clicked for me at the very end of the game.

Jin, being the protag in an assassin game, does a lot of killing. But some of these deaths are given more meaning than others. Some of them are there to make you feel like shit (the Horse Again, but you lose several friends along the way), others serve a more defining purpose.

You see, there's a fair amount of what i'd like to call 'intimate violence' in Ghost of Tsushima. It's an old trope. The 'if someone was gonna kill me, it had to be you' kinda scene that hails from a worldview in which some deaths are better than others, sure, but some deaths are better even than living. It's a worldview in which life itself is less valuable than your legacy. You die for your place in history. For your clan, for your family, for your honor.

Bushido is full of that sort of thing, so it makes sense that a game building on that worldview, would use the heck out of that trope.

  The first is Ryuzo's death. You fight him in a duel, in which he tries to plead for some resolution. You could let him go, come up with some story. But Ryuzo is a traitor, so Jin ultimately defeats him and sends him off in what would be a touching moment of bro friendship if it wasn't for the blood and my 21st century sensibilities.

You grant him a warrior's death, is what I'm saying.

  It happens again with Shimura. The game actually gives you a choice here, but if you go through with it, the scene almost perfectly mirrors Ryuzo's.

You fight in a duel, and Jin tries to get his uncle to just let him go, come to some kind of resolution. But Jin has been branded a traitor, and the only way for Shimura to restore his honour and clan, is to take his life;

This being a game in which you have the power of bamboo strikes and also save games behind you, Jin ultimately wins the duel, and has the option of granting Shimura a warrior's death.

It is utterly heart wrenching and that whole scene has no business being as pretty as it is. The swelling music? The fucking strings? The anguished yell?

Fuck.

  But anyway.

That's about where it clicked with me, that Jin never had a choice.

Ryuzo's whole role wasn't fair, but this is one of those stories where life itself is just not fair at all.

Both him and Shimura are there to show us Jin's path.

  What if, the game says, Jin had listened? What if he'd taken one of several offers the Khan made and surrendered?

What if he'd cooperated?

Well, we see in Graphic Detail what would happen. He would get pushed into doing horrific things. He gets manipulated, again and again, until there is no way out anymore. At some point it becomes clear to him that he's on the wrong side but whenever he tries to devise some plan to turn things around, things go Badly. He's firmly stuck in Khotun's web and the only way out is death.

But what if, the game says, Jin had stayed true to his honour? What if he had listened to his uncle, not defied him, if he had dropped the Ghost before it was too late?  If he'd gone full bushido and repented for the shogun and done all the groveling and the proper stuff.

Samuraihood is just another straightjacket, says Shimura's fate. The tenets are so rigorous you would take your loved ones life, while fucking bawling your eyes out. Shimura knows damn well it's unfair but he also has no way to leave this path. It's a ride he cannot, and will not, get off alive.

  Jin never had a choice.

There was only ever one way for him to go.

Like let's be real: pretty much everyone in this story was dealt a bad hand. It's a narrative about resilience in the face of utter horror, of reinventing yourself and giving up entire structures of faith. People like Masako, Yuna, Norio are finding peace in dealing with huge levels of trauma and regret.

The goal isn't to start a family and live happily ever after, it's to Survive.

Submitting to the mongols would have killed Jin's spirit. Standing tall and rigid as he was taught to do would have, ultimately, killed him as well.

  "I've given up everything to save these people", he says near the end. "And I would do it again."

That's someone who has no regrets.

Jin never could have taken another path and he knows it.

And this is why Ryuzo needed a fate as shitty as his. He fell, so Jin could walk.

I'm sorry, it's still not fair.

This game needs some comfort fic.

[silenthillmutual]

i know i have a film blog i could talk about this on but no, i watched a five hour twenty minute movie so you’re going to hear me talk about it!!

talking about novecento below the cut (it’s that film ppl keep going “these look like artemy and daniil” for the patho ppl following me)

learning that novecento was supposed to be like a miniseries makes a lot of sense in part because of its length and in part because of all the things it clearly wanted to do but couldn’t. like, for example, it clearly wanted to focus not just on alfredo and olmo but on attila, and this winds up not working out in the film’s favor for a couple of reasons.

for one, alfredo’s and olmo’s scenes without each other establish their characters as flawed human beings, but attila’s scenes just establish him as cartoonishly evil. i don’t think people really need to be hand-fed the idea that fascists are bad people, but i think the way they really hammed up his character detracts from the film’s later point that fascism isn’t something that comes on all at once but is built up through years of people sitting by and profiting off others’ work and doing nothing about the evil around them. the literal fascist acting inhumanly sadistic makes it look like “oh you’ll know for sure when you see something evil dw about it :)”.

the infamous cat scene and the scene regina at alfredo’s wedding really didn’t develop the character or the story in any way and there was no reason to make the viewer sit through something so explicit and unpleasant. it really wasn’t any different from the torture porn in films like hostel. we know that attila is evil, we don’t need to be shown any of that shit in graphic detail? those moments could have been better spent establishing why alfredo bothered putting up with attila in the first place, or establishing what exactly ada saw in attila that she didn’t like that would have added depth to two other characters in the film.

for two, the time those scenes took really should have gone to developing other characters or relationships. anita was done so dirty by the narrative and i would like to have seen more exploration of the friendship between the two couples, between alfredo and his father, between alfredo and olmo as adults that lead to them falling out, or as i said earlier to explaining why alfredo put up with attila in the first place when he’s clearly not fond of the guy himself.

a miniseries would have given the film more time to explore both the working-class and the upper-class, since clearly bertolucci was interested in exploring the working class specifically. i think the story could have benefited from expanding on how the working class in the film came to find socialism to being w and how anita and olmo worked to encourage people to learn more about it and unionize.

in general i think the film really falls flat on interesting things that i could have done either as a miniseries or if bertolucci had prioritised better. potentially unpopular opinion but the director wasn’t strong enough to carry a film that focused so many themes at once and really should have made the central focus either the class tension between two friends from very different backgrounds, or on the clash between fascism and socialism during the 1900s in italy.

i say bertolucci wasn’t strong enough to pull off both because both aspects wind up suffering greatly by the film sloppily bouncing between the two. there are huge swaths of time where olmo and alfredo don’t talk to each other at all and the absence between them is never explained or brought up as a point of tension. like, when alfredo finds olmo going through his father’s things, it’s never explained what he’s looking for or why, and olmo brings up that alfredo’s been gone for a month. alfredo’s upset to hear about anita’s death during childbirth, but there was no expansion on the friendship between the two couples past them all meeting ada for the first time. olmo doesn’t seem upset about alfredo’s absence, but he doesn’t show up at alfredo and ada’s wedding, and the two barely interact with each other up until the point where olmo shows up at the house to find his daughter, now old enough to be learning to read and write.

it’s hard to see their friendship as the focal point of the film when their actual friendship stops being the film’s focus around the time ada is introduced and so much of their interactions are put on the backburner in favor of other things. ada’s a very interesting character, probably the only character in the film who’s not entirely static, but even her relationship building up with alfredo isn’t really...explored? at all?

actually past showing alfredo and olmo as children and then olmo returning from the war, the film does a horrible job at showing the passage of time.

and since i’ve brought up anita it is just kinda fucked up how she’s introduced immediately as a love interest - not as a character w her own personality, but as a love interest - given exactly one character trait (she’s a socialist!), before she’s suddenly pregnant, meets ada, and is killed offscreen in childbirth. they did fucking nothing with her and that’s just. infuriating.

anyway i think a miniseries would have fit the story better bc then there would have been actual time to delve into the concepts the film really wants to explore but can’t. it wouldn’t have fixed all the issues with it - like, what happens to anita? and the graphic shit they have attila do? those weren’t necessary in general - but it would have fixed a couple of things about it.

[the-desolated-quill]

It’s Summer And We’re Running Out Of Ice - Watchmen (TV Series) blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I’m not going to lie. I was incredibly sceptical going into this. This isn’t the first TV adaptation of a classic novel to go beyond the source material and try to continue the story, and they nearly always suck (see The Handmaid’s Tale and The Man In The High Castle). There’s a reason why books end where they’re supposed to end. If the author intended to carry the story on, they would have done so. This is why I get angry when the TV industry arrogantly oversteps the mark and try to continue a plot that has already come to a satisfactory conclusion. Doing a sequel to Watchmen, a story that hinges on the ambiguity of its ending, is just utter madness to me, and allowing Damon Lindelof to write that sequel borders on moronic at first glance. This is the man behind the TV series Lost, a show that ran out of steam within the first couple of episodes due to the fact that the plot was complete and total bollocks and the fact that nobody could be bothered to come up with satisfying answers for these ludicrous mysteries and series arcs beforehand. They were just making that shit up as he went along. Now you’re handing Lindelof the keys to one of the most intricate and detailed comic book properties of all time?! Fuck, why don’t you just let JJ Abrams direct the next Star Wars mo- Oh yeah, I forgot, he already did that.

Thankfully, judging by this first episode anyway, HBO’s Watchmen is nowhere near as bad as Lost. It’s certainly far more engaging and coherent. Does that mean I’m looking forward to the rest of this season? Well... I don’t know if I’d go that far. I’m definitely intrigued though.

HBO’s Watchmen is a sequel to the graphic novel (Lindelof called it a remix, but come on. Grow a pair and call it what it is. A sequel). Superheroes are still illegal, Robert Redford is now the President, Rorschach’s death has inspired a white supremacist cult, and it’s raining squid.

Yeah, the raining squid thing feels like the only egregious bit of fanwank in here, to be fair. Maybe they’re going somewhere with this, but I have my doubts. Are we supposed to assume that Ozymandias has been making squid rain for the past thirty odd years in order to keep up the whole alien invasion ruse? Why squid rain? And why is everyone so nonchalant about it? Shouldn’t people be just a bit concerned by this, considering what happened in New York?

Speaking of Ozymandias, we see him riding a horse and writing plays for his butler and maid in some fancy mansion. Quite what the significance of The Watchmaker’s Son is, I don’t know. All I do know is I’m not going to be able to sleep at night without thinking about Jeremy Irons’ thighs from now on, so thanks for that.

Putting my cynicism aside for a moment, I do like what Lindelof is trying to do here. He’s not merely cashing in on the Watchmen brand. There is a genuine effort to do something fresh and different with this material, and I commend that. Watchmen’s central theme has always been about power, but whereas the source material focused mainly on its relation to sex (Comedian’s hedonism, Nite Owl’s impotence, Rorschach’s mummy issues and the sexual objectification of Silk Spectre), the TV series seems to be zeroing in on race as a topic. This I applaud. Expanding on certain areas that the graphic novel only ever really touched upon is a great idea. This doesn’t feel like a repeat of the graphic novel, but rather a clarification of it, exploring areas and themes that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons may have overlooked. This helps set this series apart from the outset. 

The opening scenes where we see the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 is a pretty harrowing way to start. I’m ashamed to say I had no idea about the Tulsa Massacre prior to this, and we could have a whole other discussion about why schools seem to have been avoiding teaching specific topics like this in favour of the broad strokes of the Jim Crow era, but now is not the time. The fact that it’s depicted here sets the stage for what’s to come. Some have criticised the show for the length of time the opening focuses on Tulsa, claiming that it sensationalises the pain of black people at that time. I personally don’t think it does. It’s not overly graphic or gratuitous, at least in my opinion, but it is a very shocking way to open a series. Some might say even upsetting, but I think it’s important that we saw this because it’s relevant in setting the tone for the episode and indeed the season as a whole, as well as letting the audience know that this show isn’t going to fuck around or shy away from more sensitive topics, and I can respect that. Unlike Zack Snyder’s overly stylised adaptation from 2009, Watchmen the HBO series is grounded very firmly in reality.

Let’s discuss characters. This episode mostly focuses on Angela Abar, also known as Sister Night. Regina King has given some terrific performances in the past and this is no exception. She’s simply phenomenal. The way she switches from light-hearted wife and baker to violent, no nonsense vigilante cop. The shift is noticeable and yet both personas feel like they’re aspects of the same character. It’s exceptionally good. It also helps that the character herself makes for a great protagonist. Having survived the ‘White Night’ four years prior, where the Seventh Kavalry attacked the families of forty Tulsa police officers in response to the government giving special reparations to the victims of racial injustice, Angela has become cynical and battle hardened. She has no sympathy for Kavlary members and is willing to skip due process by beating one of them to a pulp and bundling him in the back of her car. She’s angry and in pain, and yet retains the audience's sympathy. I’m interested to see what happens to her over the course of the season.

I also really liked her friendship with Don Johnson’s character Judd Crawford. Johnson is a charismatic performer and Crawford is a charismatic character. He really dives into the olde western sheriff persona and seems to be having a lot of fun with it. Crawford is the only other character, besides Angela, who stayed on as a police officer after the White Night, and the two characters seem to have a great relationship. They laugh and joke around and there’s clearly a mutual respect between the two. I genuinely like this character, which is what makes his murder at the end so much more heartbreaking. Not to mention all the little details that force us to realise he may not be what he seems. We see him sniff cocaine in private and there’s a photo on his desk featuring the kid from school who aggressively asked Angela why black people deserve reparations. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Crawford himself is racist, but there’s clearly more going on with him that we don’t know about.

The final character of interest at the moment is Tim Blake Nelson’s character Wade Tillman, aka Looking Glass. We don’t know anything about him yet other than he’s a human lie detector, which I find very intriguing and I hope will be explored further as the show goes on. There’s a lot to play around with there, and the moral implications are tantalising. A conviction based not on physical evidence, but rather on the observations of one man. Even Sherlock Holmes has to back his deductions up with evidence, and yet Looking Glass clearly doesn’t need to. That just raises so many ethical questions. What if he has a particular bias towards someone? What about burden of proof? What if forensic evidence contradicts him? If Looking Glass is supposedly that accurate, does that mean the police will side with him regardless? It’s a great premise for a character and I really like Nelson’s performance, giving him a cold and detached personality that contrasts beautifully with Angela’s.

The characters and ideas are solid, however where I feel the show is lacking is with the consistency of its world building. Let’s analyse. This is an alternate history where Nixon used superheroes to extend his term limits, but after the New York attack at the end of the graphic novel, he’s been kicked out in favour of Robert Redford (nice nod to the source material there by the way. lol). As a result, black people got reparations for the racial injustices their ancestors went through and police are now unable to openly carry firearms without special permission from Panda (literally a cop wearing a panda costume). However, after the events of White Night, the government agrees to allow cops to wear masks to protect their identities, hence why quote/unquote ‘superheroes’ like Sister Night and Looking Glass are around despite the existence of the Keene Act. These are, in effect, legal vigilantes. Except already there’s a problem with conflicting messages. I like the idea of masked cops. In the current age of Black Lives Matter and police accountability, it makes sense and could be interesting to explore. However this is hindered by the whole ‘no guns’ stuff. Again, not a bad idea. America’s current gun laws are, to put it mildly, woefully inadequate. What if we went the other way? What if not only was it near impossible to own a gun, cops couldn’t even use a taser without special permission. Both ideas could work... but not at the same time.

Cops being allowed to wear masks creates the effect of empowering them through anonymity, and runs the risk of officers overstepping the mark and normal citizens being unable to hold them to account. But on the other hand, we’ve also got cops whose lives are constantly at risk and who are hindered in their duties by an overprotective nanny state, which effectively depowers them. So... which is it? It can’t be both. I like the scene where Panda reads the law about how the use of firearms can only be permitted in extreme circumstances, and everyone just angrily shouts him down because it tells us how the police feel about this new system. The fact that they’ve made one cop the sole arbiter of these new restrictions and forced him to dress like some ridiculous furry demonstrates the sheer amount of disdain they have towards this policy. But having said that, with the masks on, they have the power and freedom to break into people’s caravans and basically kidnap and assault them without consequence anyway. So what the fuck are they complaining about? It just doesn’t gel together. Either have it that the rules and regulations of the police are the same as our world except that cops can wear masks now, which has led to an increasing problem of police brutality and corruption, or have it that the police are being too heavily restricted and so a few have chosen to turn toward more ‘unorthodox’ methods of crime fighting out of frustration. Pick one and go with it.

Then there’s the Seventh Kavalry. Again, not a bad idea. In fact I love it. A white supremacist cult that’s taken Rorschach’s journal as gospel and have banded together out of a fear of being sidelined in a more liberal world. Very relevant and very interesting. Except... well... there’s not an awful lot to it, is there? In the original graphic novel, there was no clear bad guy. Ozymandias believed he was doing the ultimate good by killing millions of people to save the world, and everyone reluctantly went along with it. It was morally complicated. This, not so much. They’re unambiguously evil. The end. So what? What is there to discuss? It just feels lacking compared to the graphic novel and it runs the risk of creating a conflict that’s too clear cut. Obviously we’re going to end up siding with the cops, regardless of what they do, because the alternative is objectively bad. Hopefully Lindelof is going somewhere with this, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I was slightly concerned.

So on the whole, would I say I enjoyed this first episode? Well... I’d say I did, but with reservations. There’s some good characters and ideas that could be interesting to explore and develop, but its execution feels a little shaky in places. Hopefully the episodes to come will offer further clarity.

[iamnotawomanimagod]

okay this is dark, it’s about pet dogs and how they shouldn’t be guard dogs, and also includes the murder of a child, please scroll on if this will upset you

I was watching an Eleanor Neale video about the murder of a teenage girl (you can watch it yourself here, but please know it includes graphic descriptions of crime scenes and violence with specific details,) and one detail really stuck with me and made me think a lot about how we kind of want the best of both worlds from dogs and that’s not fair at all. (This post, while adorable, also set me on this path.)

Dogs make for amazing pets. We have a truly special bond with them that I think goes beyond the bonds we can create with most other animals.

In certain situations, dogs have also been used as attack animals, guards, weapons.

Generally speaking, with some exceptions, these two things do not coexist.

If you socialize your dog well, and teach them to be a good pet, they’re not going to make a good guard dog.

If you train your dog to be aggressive, to bite without hesitation, they’re not going to make a good pet.

You can’t expect your good pet to be your guard dog.

Here’s how that relates to the case I mentioned above. Last chance to dip out:

This teenage girl was walking her dog along a relatively busy nature path. She did this often, and alone. Her parents thought it was safe, because it was relatively busy, she always had her phone on her, and she always had their dog with her - a larger breed, I think a lab or shepherd. Unfortunately, on this day, she encountered a man who wanted to harm her - and he did. He beat her to death, brutally, and left her body only a couple dozen feet away from the nature path.

Her dog stayed with her the whole time. :( Eventually, he went back to the path and ended up alerting some passing cyclists, leading them back to his girl’s body.

It’s not hard to put together an unfortunate reality there - the dog was not able to protect his owner from this attack. The dog was likely present during the attack, unable to leave his owner because of loyalty, unable to protect her because of his good socialization. And he was a very good dog, leading people back to where she was killed. Without that, her murder might have never been solved.

But you really cannot expect your sweet, cuddly dog to protect you. There are always exceptions. But I think the general rule should be that if your dog is comfortable around strangers - which good pets should be! - then your dog is not going to be the type to attack a stranger. Even a stranger that’s hurting you.

On a less sad but no less serious note - back in the day, there was this show where alleged former thieves would break into peoples’ homes, with permission, to show them all the cracks in their security. A lot of people thought their pets would attack burglars, but 99% of the time, the dogs just wagged their tails and sought out some petting.

TL;DR - Dogs that are good pets don’t make good guard dogs. Depending on them to be such can lead to disastrous and truly tragic consequences.

[spookygondolier]

I’ve been watching Everything’s Gonna Be Okay on Hulu (airs on Freeform) and it’s very very good! I was expecting to like it because I loved Josh Thomas’ other show Please Like Me, and this one is different for sure but also good! I appreciated how Please Like Me was not afraid to deal really directly with heavy issues like mental illness and suicide while also keeping a sense of humor (sometimes dark humor) and this one does similar things with grief and sexuality and navigating teenage relationships. Also the main characters include an interracial gay couple (both played by gay actors) and an autistic girl who is very vocal about being autistic (and about her “blossoming sexuality”) and played by an autistic actress (as are her autistic friends). Also *minor spoiler* in recent episodes she and one of her friends are girlfriends and their communication with each other is a++. All the teen girl characters very much feel like people I’ve known or my sister has known and not like a Typical TV Teen Girl. Also the lead male character is an entomologist and each episode is named after and features a different type of bug!

And it’s kind of fun and surprising to see some weirdly specific experiences reflected back at me (sometimes with minor differences) like: being 17 and hanging out with an autistic friend and deciding to try something sexual just to see what it’s like (while also thinking that it seems like an awful lot of touching) and approaching it almost like a scientific experiment as your friend walks you through each step of it in clear detail (with the main difference being that the characters in the show seemed to enjoy it while I decided it’s maybe Not For Me); roaming around a party silently drinking because you don’t know who to talk to or what to do; a friend/loved one suggesting new clothes for you to wear for an occasion and getting frustrated and upset as you immediately shoot down each choice by explaining why it wouldn’t work for you; watching a character do the exact same anxious/overwhelmed hand flapping/slight bouncing thing that I usually go hide in a bathroom to do. Also the character who did the last two things has a very similar fashion sense to what I wore in high school, down to the dark colors and patterned hand warmers (but minus the graphic tees and the old-timey hats) which I find pretty entertaining.

Anyways the show is good and funny and does some surprisingly bold things for an American sitcom on a network like Freeform! And I would recommend it as long as you’re not uncomfortable with really blunt and open discussions about sex and sex-related things, as well as some depictions of people clearly getting ready for sexytimes (no nudity though, but lots of making out). Also parental death is a major part of the premise and is a big part of the first couple episodes. There is also a situation in one episode involving questionable consent (one character is drunk, the characters are 17 and 18).

[augustheart]

can i ask how the new dp episodes were? cliff and larry are my comfort characters (all of them are really) and knowing these new eps deal with parenthood makes me nervous...

well they were Episodes! some good, some great, some bad. for spoiler reasons i’m going to put these under a cut (i won’t go into too much detail if you don’t want to be super spoiled) but before i do i just want to say that i have content warnings for all the episodes of season one and all three season two episodes and i will every time a new episode comes out :) 

i’m going to go over everyone but i’ll go into the most detail with cliff and larry.

cliff is not handling any of Anything well and there are a few rough scenes with him and clara. i’m not totally sure how to describe it but honestly the worst stuff for me with him was when he was talking about dorothy behind her back. he’s mostly just spiraling because he’s upset but it doesn’t feel like it’s going to end in something super drastic for him.

the jane stuff is kind of a mess. i’m optimistic for how it’ll turn out but as of right now it is definitely a mess and i would specifically recommend being careful if you’re triggered by drug abuse (similar to last season) and religious abuse.

rita’s stuff is good and if you were fine with the body horror with her from last season you’ll be good here.

vic’s stuff is also good in my opinion. i don’t feel like uhh All Of That was necessary but there’s a really fantastic scene (a couple good ones but this one is amazing) between him and roni that i wish hadn’t been kinda ruined by something later down the line.

larry... i think will be the hardest for you to handle specifically because of episode three. episode one doesn’t have a whole ton of him if i’m remembering right but episode two has an entire subplot about him trying to deal with the death (by suicide, but it isn’t shown and is only briefly mentioned) of one of his sons. episode three has a substantial portion of the episode dedicated to him being in pain because he’s being made to kill people with his radiation. however i think if you can get through that the episode is really good for him. there are a few great moments between him and rita and you get to see how they met and what their first few interactions were like! so if you can push through the torture scenes (and the other graphic scenes in the episode, as i said before i have a list) i think it’s worth the larry stuff.