#points for the audience for learning

[nephriteknight]

i love that there is an adorable little bird that kills things in such a grotesque way that we just can't stop naming fantasy things after them.

for context, shrikes look like this, and they're also called butcherbirds! :)

they hunt prey such as insects and mice, and they kill them by impaling them on the sharp spines of plants.

[worldwright]

childhood books that are so fucked up on the reread part 1 of infinty: septimus heap. our guy was a child soldier from birth. the entire city-state dealt with an oppressive police state for a decade, waiting for the monarchy to resurface. this fucking necromancer will not ever go away. not after the first time he dies and certainly not after the fifth. you'd think he'd be bored by now. some old queen moved a tower to the other side of the palace for no reason. the main character got time-kidnapped for six months and had to live in the same place that all his loved ones had not been born in yet. his best friend was raised by wolverines. his other best friend is named Beetle. the castle is called The Castle. there's a defunct nuclear reactor underneath it. some of the rats can talk and have human levels of intelligence and people still put out rat traps and try to kill them. there's a fuckin time purgatory that some guy thought everyone would love even as an increasing number of random lost travelers got trapped there forever. if you think you know all the secret tunnels under this place no you don't. and you can rent pink paddleboats in the summer

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[thefirstknife]

Hi Bel,

I keep seeing comments about people complaining about the quality of destiny’s writing and story in the last few weeks. I haven’t really engaged with destiny since season of defiance, what’s currently gotten everyone so riled up? I thought that people were enjoying Season of the Deep/Witch in terms of narrative, why is Season of the Wish causing people to deride the destiny writing staff again?

I don't know!

Deep and Witch have been absolute bangers in every aspect to me. I've been enjoying all interactions and lore tabs we've received. A lot of them are stuff that we've never had before, a lot of reunions and closures, a lot of development and interactions between characters who you wouldn't really think would have much in common.

Sloane's return and healing from what she's been through has been fantastic, Drifter opening up with her to help her because he also got help from others was fantastic, Sloane reuniting with Aisha and Shayura brought me to tears (Shayura's descent into madness was triggered by immense trauma of Sloane staying on Titan and Titan disappearing), everything with Sloane and Zavala...

Witch was just incredible in every single way; the focus on Eris, the amount of Eris and Ikora content!!!!! Everything about Xivu and Savathun and their interactions together!! Eris finally fulfilling her goal she promised Savathun YEARS ago, getting that closure.

Wish so far has been equally great to me. All the new stuff about Ahamkara is amazing, finally giving us proof for long-standing speculation about Ahamkara and how they aren't universally evil creatures and expanding on them as a species. I love all interactions we've had so far; finally we have Petra back, Mara's singleminded focus on figuring out how to defeat the Witness and her continuous work to improve as a person, ALL SJUR MENTIONS!!!!! I won't talk about the "leak" because we have no context for it so I will wait for the full story to be revealed before I can pass judgment; something that I think should be a lesson to learn from this entire year. Maybe wait for the story to finish before judging the story.

Literally everything this past year that involves Osiris, but especially this season now that he's back in his element with the Vex. And of course every little detail we get of him and Saint. Osiris honestly shaped this year for me with everything that he's done to uncover the biggest mysteries. I think a big reason is that a lot of people just don't like Osiris, which I consider a massive skill issue.

Other than that, I don't know what are the issues people have besides just not being interested in any of these storylines and attributing it to a nebulous "bad writing" claim. I also genuinely believe that way too many people get wrapped up too much in fandom, imagine storylines they want to see and then get disappointed when the actual story doesn't go there. Almost like people forget that this isn't their story and these aren't their characters. A lot of it is also fandom completely warping characters into not what they actually are and then feeling like the canon story is the one that's wrong.

Whatever is the reason, I guess everyone is entitled to their perspective of the story and everyone is free to explore the story in different ways through fanfics and AUs and whatever. I do that too!

But I would definitely ask people to be normal with how they engage in criticism, especially in the current state of affairs. Writers are developers; they experience a ton of harassment and negativity from the community and also from inside the company. And they are online: they can see what we're saying. It's been documented that community commentary has been used to harass writers:

Imprint this into your brain and never forget what these people had to go through. Let's not forget also the way people treated Seth Dickinson on social media when he was active with Destiny fans. "Fans" were actively arguing with him about his own work (telling him that HE is wrong) and were utterly disgusting towards him when he tried explaining what he wrote. His works are now hailed as the best writing in Destiny and people want him back. If I were him, I wouldn't want to come back ngl, not with how he was treated and not with how fans are still treating writers (and hey, Seth wrote LF Collector's Edition! So he was back, technically, this year!). Let's not forget that a lot of writers are members of various marginalised groups. And I'd definitely not want to go back with zero support from leadership.

Which is also an important aspect for all developers, including writers: sometimes they have orders they may not like, but can't argue against. They do the best they can with what they're given, the time they have and directions they receive. And with that in mind, I am enjoying everything we've gotten this year, obviously with some specific complaints about things I didn't particularly enjoy (like the universally mid reception of Defiance; I've spoken about my gripes with it before, a big one being the shafting of Suraya who should've at least been mentioned in a lore tab).

I can tell that there is passion in their work, even if maybe they would prefer to do more with it, but can't. Maybe even if they want to take different routes, but can't. But from what we got, I can feel that they care about this world and these characters. I can tell that someone lovingly wrote about Sloane and her friendships with two grieving women. I can tell that they deeply cared about Sloane's friendship with Zavala and that they loved showing us Saint and Drifter caring about a fellow trauma survivor.

I can tell that the writers are immensely careful and loving towards Eris; everything she went through was crafted with love and passion from both writers and her VA. Eris' story is such a fundamental aspect of Destiny and I can tell that this was important to the writing team and that they gave her everything they could to do justice to her character and her arc and her healing and her release from the cycle she was trapped in for so long.

I can tell that there are writers who care a lot about Osiris and Saint and their relationship. I can tell that someone cared a lot about expanding on Ahamkara and giving them more personalities. I can tell that someone cared DEEPLY about Sjur and Mara and that her repeated mentions are the passionate work of writers who want us to remember her.

I could go on. And I know that not everyone sees it this way, which is fine; we all have different ways of perceiving stories. I enjoy discussing things we in the fandom disagree on and I enjoy hearing different perspectives! Unfortunately, this has recently become rarer and rarer. And for the love of god, please try and treat writers with some respect, especially now, especially those who are still working and doing their best with the shitty situation they're in. None of the cries of "poor devs" ring true to me unless the same is given to writers, instead of treating them like punching bags.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Summer Love Strategy

YA conteporary romcom

after another unrequited crush, a girl and her best friend come up with a plan to each get a girlfriend over summer, by doing all the tropey summer activities like hanging out at the beach, and going to pride, and concerts

but when their plan starts to work she realises she might have feelings for her friend….

lesbian MC, demi-aroace autistic trans girl LI, other queer & neurodivergent characters

[telekitnetic-art]

cohost has been a strong alternative to get away from ai scraping. they have no ads, no scraping, and a very similar layout to tumblr (with reblogging, tagging, replying, asks, etc).

so far its felt very much like being on tumblr without the toxicity. the biggest loss is that they dont have statistics- but its nice. it makes it feel cozier, and like the people interacting with your content matter more. ive really been enjoying it.

its worth a shot, anyway!

Thanks for the advice, I’ll do some more digging to see if cohost could be an alternative

I’ve seen other people talk about going to Bluesky and tbh while jumping ship feels like a pretty good plan, I’ve been on Tumblr actively for a little over a year now and I don’t think I really have the energy to try and rebuild on a different platform right now. I’ve already gone through a lot of my art and Nightshaded it, so I’ll definitely keep doing that.

Overall, I’m not really sure what my plan is, even after sleeping on it. I’m still really miserable and frustrated after hearing about this bs. What I might do is keep posting art, but heavily nightshade it and maybe glaze it too for good measure. I’ll probably also stop posting WIPs/previews as frequently. Not really sure. Again, all of this is really frustrating and I can’t think of what the future holds for me in terms of sharing my work without feeling miserable.

[h0neyfreak]

I wrote a paper in college for a children’s fantasy class on how PJO handles disability (specifically ADHD and dyslexia) better than almost any other book for kids that tries to be “about” disability. And rereading it now as more of an adult (I think I was 18 when I took that class) I was worried I’d spend the whole time cringing at my past self but like….I was correct and I’m glad I said it. “Your brain is wired differently and just because it’s a benefit in certain situations (fighting monsters or reading Ancient Greek) doesn’t mean it sucks any less the rest of the time. Especially in a world that doesn’t acknowledge the existence of monsters or write anything in Ancient Greek” is a based take on intellectual disabilities that genuinely meant a lot to me as a kid with (undiagnosed) ADHD.

[crescentfool]

read the splatoon manga... i just think vintage is neat 💙❤️

[fantasticalleigh]

seeing so many videos on YT lately that are like “I read this dark romance book and i’m calling the police” or some condescending put-down derivative

babe if it’s not for you then put it down and find something new to read nobody wants an hour-long video of you yucking someone’s yum

[shinakazami1]

Quick study break rmable

I think it's silly how we loge as a species making everything more humane. But due to that, I try not to make my Stanleys or Narrators actual humans. I try to think how it is not to know typical experience like breathing. That humans are aliens to them.

It's not exactly easy to write your own experience into something. But I love trying to do research in things I could not do. Just to try and imagine an AI trained not on humans - but on something else.

It's human nature to see humans in everything. So why not go against it?

[derpinette]

there should be a poke feature here like there used to be on facebook

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Feeling very violent rn so here's a very controversial opinion:

Everything after season one of Young Justice sucked.

Look, I know I'm obsessed with the show but that doesn't mean it's good, it means that I'm too deep into it at this point to get out. There are good moments within the other seasons but in general? They were not good.

I'm sorry. I understand that they wanted to be creative and have a neat narrative and deep lore and all that. And they do! The narrative and lore is extremely deep.

But the plot? The characters??

Season one was an actual functional show that balanced character development, plot and dialogue with world building, lore and messaging.

The other seasons do not do that.

Season two bounced back and forth between like 16 characters. We got some development for some characters but even that was minimal compared to the character development in S1. And this isn't me complaining that the og group wasn't in S2 enough. That's not my issue. I would've loved to focus on a new group and I think that Jaime, Bart, Ed and Gar would've been super cool to focus on. I loved what character development they did have and I craved more.

But the problem? The problem is when you have 16 fucking characters that you are trying to develop and shove into a coherent plot and have actual meaningful scenes. There just wasn't enough focus on S2. Imo, S2 was meh because the characters got left by the wayside. The plot, dialogue, world building, lore and messaging was fine, there just seemed to be a lack of heart/warmth in the show because of the characters. It's hard to get invested.

Then holy shit. S3 introduced more characters. And the plot got more contrived and 'big picture' to the point that it started to abstract. It felt like nothing mattered. There were no stakes, you were just watching things happen. There was 50 fucking things happening an episode and 80% of it was lore/world building. It felt like I was studying for a fictional history exam.

I'm pretty sure the main character in S3 was earth 16. Just the entire universe. Because goddamn. We checked in on almost every living being and EVERYTHING was a plot point. Most of it wasn't even relevant to anything happening in the season. Man it was.... it was bad.

And at that point it just wasn't enjoyable at all to watch. I probably should've stopped watching but at that point the sunk cost fallacy had already kicked in. I knew it could be good. Maybe it could be good again. And people were constantly praising it as cinematic genius so I was like 'okay well maybe I'm missing the point? Maybe you aren't supposed to enjoy shows? Maybe this is fine?'

But season four broke me.

The creators heard that people were frustrated by the lack of character focus and the episodes following 72 characters and the episodes switching between 50 different subplots every episode and their solution? Their solution was to take allllllll the different unconnected plots and, instead of evenly spreading them throughout the season, jam them all into 'arcs'. So you had a bunch of mini seasons consisting of 3-5 episodes dedicated to a cast of ~5-8 characters (some of them new). And each of these episodes had unconnected a plots, b plots and c plots.

THAT IS NOT A SOLUTION

Holy shit that is not a solution.

Not to mention the overarching plot of the season, in which we had no fucking clue what was happening until the final episodes where everything became a speedrun to wrap everything up. We literally had no idea what the main plot was until it was ending.

Good god it was bad. It's bad writing!

I know people liked it and good for them. You should like what you like and you don't have to justify it. But for me it was insanity. I'm sorry I actually don't want a season long subplot where Beast Boy is depressed and sleeps all day. I would be cool with it if it had anything to do with the larger story but, surprisingly, spending five minutes watching Beast Boy sleep every episode didn't make for compelling storytelling.

I'm still not over how we didn't even know who the main villain was until the end of the season. And then all of a sudden he does a villain monologue to tell everyone his evil plan and his motives. Super cool actually. I love it when I have no idea what the stakes are for the majority of a show. It's incredibly good storytelling when you leave the audience in the dark about a major player in the plot for all of the plot. And then doing an info dump evil monologue in the final episodes to rush through the explanation??? Fucking fantastic and not a sign of terrible pacing at all.

I'm just so frustrated. The show isn't about being a show anymore. The show is an entire cinematic universe shoved into 20 something episodes. It's desperate to tell every single story at once, audience, pacing and good writing be damned.

I'm so tired of the constant praising of Greg. His whole 'i don't write endings because life doesn't have endings' and 'i don't write cliffhangers, I just leave things open ended' thing is pretentious bullshit. I'm tired of pretending it's not. A good story has an ending. Stories are not life! Some of the best shows I've ever watched had planned endings. And oh my god. The cliffhanger thing... that's just semantics my guy. Greg you write cliffhangers. You can insist they aren't but I'm going to call a spade a spade.

It's also.... I'm fine with explaining things, in fact I love it because it's an excuse to talk about the stuff I love, and I have a fairly decent knowledge of comic book lore. So, I could not only understand what was happening in the show but I was also super enthusiastic about explaining it to people. But hey Greg? Hey buddy? If 90% of your audience doesn't know what the fuck is going on and needs to be familiar with super specific obscure comic characters from the 70's then you might have a problem.

I think I realized halfway through s4 that the most enjoyment I got from an episode was when an obscure comic character would cameo in it. But then I realized that a) they generally weren't explained at all and b) 50% of the time they weren't just hanging out in the background and they were vital to the plot. So to understand who the fuck they were and what the fuck was happening you had to be familiar with... well all of DC comics actually.

Anyway this rant is getting long and unhinged and I don't think there's a point so I'm going to cut myself off even though I have so much more to say on the topic. I think my general point is just that I didn't enjoy watching the later seasons and it's chill if you did and we should all respect each other's opinions ✌️

[westwiiind]

i feel like ppl who don’t like the hidden world because all the dragons left have never experienced grief ever

[puppyeared]

Atla live action 😐

[rubberduckyrye]

Now that it's been a while since the song has been out, can I complain about the meaning of the song "Better off Worse" without people suggesting that I'm like, "defending people who cling onto bad feelings and dark songs without wanting to move on/letting the creator move on" or whatever?

[newtsoftheworldunite]

🚨 Terrible Pun Warning 🚨

Q: How do you know that the United States of America is an xtian country?

A: Easy! Anybody can tell you that American automobile infrastructure is proof of the in car nation.