#probably one of the most controversial ones on this post

[wormtoxin]

hello. hi. this post has gotten almost 4500 notes since i wrote it. Thank you all.

I want to address a part of this post that has been the most controversial:

The assertion that my statement, “the house is haunted”, is not correct.

I will now outline, precisely, that this statement is accurate and reflective of the themes of House Of Leaves.

1) “the house is not haunted, the house is Just Wrong, which is infinitely scarier. Haunted houses are lame, and non-euclidian prehistoric liminal spaces are cool”

Hello dear reader. You are correct, but only myopically so. I also watched the same Jacob Geller video in 2020, I also played KittyHorrorPictureShow’s Anatomy, I also thought the Backrooms peaked when it was an anonymous forum message with no direct monsters, and I hear you.

Unfortunately, you’re wrong, and here’s why:

1. The house is totally haunted. It may contain itself more patiently, expand itself more considerably, and open into a space far older than any ghost, but it’s also ultimately a spooky fucking haunted house.

Great holes open up to swallow various guests, spooky corridors growl ominously as they are secretly rearranged to befuddle and disorient passersby, and walls compress against one another to squish intruders flat. The house from House of Leaves could be a Resident Evil mansion. The house from House of Leaves is the newest killer being added to Dead by Daylight. The house from House of Leaves is in the next Fortnite patch.

The house’s greatest appeal, IMO, is that it doesn’t give a shit about anything. It’s a yawning chasm that promises absolutely zero rewards, and thousands of ways to die slowly, exhaustively, of exposure or dehydration in total darkness.

The only thing is, actually… that’s not true. Zampano points out that the house’s second action, after the unexplainable 0.5th inch, is to create a space between the parents and the children’s bedrooms. Almost like an olive branch, an invitation to strengthen the family unit’s shared bond.

As Navidson invites theorists, explorers, and relatives to share his home, the house swallows and digests each and every once of them, methodically. But unlike true wild predators or natural disasters, the house never threatens to subsume the Navidson children, nor Karen herself.

The person the house is most unforgiving to is the explorer, whose name i don’t even remember, who enters the house like terra nullus, armed with an elephant gun and a nasty attitude. He cares little about other people, and the house leaves (hehe) him wandering lost and alone forever in its echoing halls.

The story’s climax, at least as far as the original Navidson story is concerned, ends with the man, Will Navidson himself, being offered one last chance. He sails into the house naively unprepared, with a self-powered bicycle and some granola bars, into that wide black continent. He’s swallowed by the pit, and falls for days, weeks possibly, through serene rushing darkness. He burns his copy of his favorite book, House Of Leaves, cover to cover, a page at a time.

And finally, at the end of it all, frostbitten and wind-chapped and near-desiccated, he lands in the world of the living. Practically, in the arms of his wife.

The house from House of Leaves is an all-encompassing underworld. It is also, simply, a plot contrivance for a guy who’s A Little Too Into His Work to realize the real treasure was his family all along. So Navidson gives up his obsession with being an exotic war documentarian, moves away from the house, and presumably, gets a happy and stable job as an accountant or a summer camp counselor for a while. Probably traumatized and short a few fingers, but ultimately safe and alive with the people who matter most to him. Will Navidson is a quintessential Hallmark christmas movie protagonist. Except if, instead of eloping with the handsome lumberjack, he went home to his wife, and if, instead of a handsome lumberjack, his would-be-suitor was an unlit hallway extending for miles into what should be his backyard.

Then, Johnny Truant, a man who’s life is already so thoroughly destroyed by an abusive father, a traumatic separation from his mother, risky sexual behaviors, poor housing, and lots and lots of drugs, finds out about this little story. If he read it in order, cover to cover, page at a time, he might have a nice little revelation about the importance of love and family (which he doesn’t have, being an orphan), feel either sentimental or scornful, and be on his merry way.

Except, this doesn’t happen for Truant, and it doesn’t happen for us, either. Instead, these funny little scraps of paper take whatever daily life he has left, and thoroughly mangle it beyond recognition. Like many of us, he reads them in a fervor, locks himself in his apartment, gets very scared, struggles to explain what he’s reading to his acquaintances, and feels he has been profoundly changed by the experience. Why?

Simply put: Form.

Johnny Truant doesn’t find a neat storybook told from an omniscient or even a reliable narrator’s perspective, which clearly lays out the facts. Instead he finds a lot of details, each of which he must fully comprehend and reorder before he can glimpse the full picture. The process, because it demands his full attention, consumes him.

Read out of context and in random order (which i recommend), House of Leaves might varyingly seem like a piece of film critique, a geological science report, a literature review, a minute-by-minute accounting of some small-scale military operation, an academic article, a relatively simple story about a man who moves into a house with his wife and kids and the house is haunted, or, most strikingly, an avant garde experiment in graphic design. All of this is Form, meant to capture and ultimately redirect your attention as it does Truant’s. But in the end, Navidson is our story’s protagonist, and the house, for all its tricks and dead ends and false bottoms, is just a haunted house.

To those who argue the house is not a “simple” haunted house, I want to ask you a simple question: What is the minotaur?

Those familiar with the book only through tumblr posts might answer “a spooky monster that lives in the house”. Those half-way through reading the book might answer, “an ambiguously real curse-beast which stalks anyone who learns about or tries to investigate the house”, and those practiced in literary analysis might answer, “a manifestation of the fear and dread induced by the unknown”. Someone who finished reading House of Leaves, and is drawn to the materialist such as myself might answer: the minotaur is the sound of featureless prehistoric pseudoconcrete rubbing against itself whenever the house’s internals are rearranged.

So, again, I pitch to you a similar question: what is the house? A haunted house? a piece of malevolent hostile architecture? A manifestation of the danger inherent to uncertainty? A parable about pursuing scientific discovery to the exclusion of all other values? A labyrinth set up to lure in and trap exactly the type of person pathologically curious enough to venture inside a dark and featureless hallway tethered to sunlight by what has, inherently, proven to be an unreliably present portal, and therefore an only theoretically stable point of physical egress? A moral lesson for Will Navidson about neglecting his responsibilities as a husband? A moral lesson to Johnny Truant about the fragility and precious value of life, even when seemingly beyond all hope of repair? An exercise for the reader in exploring a vast circuitous mystery, which substitutes dark hallways for clever immersive tricks of the written word in order to contort the reader’s thinking into the appropriate shape to properly imagine such black gulfs of uncertainty as exist around us in our daily lives?

Where was I going with this again? I seem to have gotten turned around. Rhetorically, I mean. It’s so dark. I thought I heard something in here with me.

ok. Narrative obfuscation in House Of Leaves. It’s a relatively simple story about a man who moves into a house with his wife and kids, and the house is haunted. That’s it. The core themes are very transparent.

Except, that story is documented by a famous war documentarian, then published as a series of rare tapes, which are discoursed by film buffs, then interpreted from viewings and reading film critique by a blind old man, then his thoughts are transcribed into a manuscript by a series of young women, which is then compiled from scattered notes by the most mysoginistic, damaged, toxic pothead drop-out who won’t stop talking about his life, which is THEN edited and published by some vaguely nefarious agency who soberly refuse to provide any clarification or context.

It’s not simple, but there are so many different hands on the wheel with wildly differing opinions that you can’t discern the truth.

Johnny Truant is such a miserable hopeless fuck up. He has no sense of academic rigor or archival professionalism. Any interference he provides only muddies the waters and taints what would otherwise be a gripping piece of metaphysical film criticism. His neurotic rambling and personal anecdotes cloud an otherwise reasonable story.

If he wasn’t in it, if we could read Zampano’s manuscript directly, WE would be able to understand the truth. We would get it completely, and we wouldn’t have to encounter so much violence, so much miserable graphic detail. It would be a better story.

And fuck it, if we didn’t have to read all of Zampano’s tangents and analyses and interpretations, if we could just find a copy of the famous “five-and-a-half minute hallway” vhs, if we could SEE it, we’d understand. We wouldn’t need endless pontification of what Navidson and Karen’s marriage might entail, or recitations of what a director once said in a Rolling Stones article. We’d see the hallway itself, stretching out into what should be the backyard, and we’d get it. Hell, Zampano is blind in his old age. He can’t even watch the damn movie! But we could. We’d know instantly, the second we saw it. The impossibility of it, the gravity of it, the weight of that dark abyss.

And well, the VHS recording is a little dark, and the quality is poor, and maybe the white balance isn’t so perfect. And actually, VHs tapes could be manipulated. We can’t be sure that Navidson isn’t just using clever videography tricks to invent a hallway. If we were there, if we found the house (it’s in virginia, isn’t it? we even have the address). If we GO there, we could look down that hallway. And it’s dark, so if we just brought a flashlight, maybe took a few steps inside-

[bwat5-blog]

Hi! I've read some of your Arcane posts and I was curious to ask what do you think/how do you interpret Vi rejoining the enforcers after the breakup? I haven't read anyone doing an actual analysis on it, most people complain that she's "washed" or that the writers hate her, which doesn't feel like doing a deep dive into her character at all. Thank! Have a lovely day.

Hi and thank you for the ask!

To me it makes total sense. Assuming everything happens as we all expect, with Caitlyn focusing on reforming the enforcers as the force for good they always should have been, I’d expect nothing other than Vi sticking by her side and assisting.

I’ve seen a lot of people commenting that she should go back to Zaun, but I don’t see that at all. Part of Vi’s struggle when she is freed by Caitlyn is that the imprisonment ripped her out of her world, and when she gets out, she doesn’t belong anywhere anymore. Not completely. But by the end she’s a bridge. And this is a way for her to help people from both sides.

She has all this history with Zaun and is basically Ekko’s big sister, but shes the wife of Caitlyn freaking Kiramman and firmly linked to Piltover. There are Enforcers from the war who are alive because she fought side by side with them. Why would she go back to Zaun anyway?

1. Everyone she loves with the exception of Ekko is gone. And although they certainly care about each-other it’s hardly to the point it would supersede a true romantic relationship

2. Where is she supposed to go? Jinx burned the last drop down

3. Every corner of Zaun is gonna be filled with memories of what she lost

4. Even though her first period as an enforcer is controversial, its certainly fair to say there would probably be people in Zaun who would be less than welcoming to her because of it

To me, the people who are so upset she remains with Caitlyn and presumably as an enforcer, are the same ones who are holding onto that child version of her on the bridge with Vander, insisting she wants to fight. They are just angry she learned Vander’s lessons after all.

[doodler16]

I may be tripping but i have a feeling that Viv probably came across this post (as it was posted on Twitter i believe) and thought that making Andre acting like that around his sister was a good idea...even though the artist just made a headcanon that Andre is the type to make incest jokes to piss his sister off on purpose (even though it's uncomfortable, you can clearly see it on Stella's face).

She (The artist) has stopped making Helluva boss content since 2022 if you checked the date of her last post (that shows her two OCs, one being shipped with Octavia and the other his elder brother, who was also shipped with Andre. It probably will make you feel uncomfortable because of the way Andre was portrayed in her works, at least- that's what i think...), i don't know if it's because of how the writing went but i won't be surprised if that was the case and i can not blame her if that's why she stopped.

I also have to confirm that the artist had controversy going on, both in the KNY and the BNHA fandoms, it's a lot to explain so, i will just leave this here. You can check it out, she uses her main the most for BNHA content (she tags it on her bio)

The art by Acker_Hell was posted in 2022. In Vivziepop’s instagram post celebrating Spindlehorse, Hazbin Hotel, the writers, and Helluva Boss: she wrote that season 2 was written 3 years ago. So, Helluva Boss season 2 was written in 2021.

The rare exception that Vivziepop didn’t steal but was planning Andreaphlus and Stella to be an incestous couple but scrapped it. Either way, Acker predicted it.

[shoplifting]

Your silent protagonist doesn't have to use sign language btw. They don't have to write things down, either. They don't have to use language at all. Not every single person who doesn't talk can use words the same as you, or use them at all, so your favorite silent character shouldn't have to use what you consider a grammatical language to communicate in your fanart and fics. AAC exists. Drawing exists. Gestures and body language exist. Btw.

[afterthelambs]

Shuake and Jundori are basically the same ship

List of similarities between Joker/Akechi and Junpei/Chidori:

Ship is between a chill guy and an assassin

Characters share the same persona affinity (Arsene and Loki both use curse, Hermes and Medea both use fire)

Assassin's outfit colors are mainly white and red (specifically akechi's robin hood outfit)

Assassin's persona may hurt them (Loki has call of chaos and Medea attacks Chidori)

Assassin deceives the chill guy into thinking they're normal to get info on the group he's part of

Assassin betrays and kidnaps the chill guy + separates him from his friend group because he's the leader (Junpei was lying about being the leader but Chidori believed it)

Friend group is only cordial with the assassin at best but doesn't wish harm on them

Chill guy is the only one who truly connects with the assassin

Assassin insists they dont care about the chill guy but deep down they do

While responsible for their own actions, the assassin is still being manipulated by someone close to them

Revealed that the assassin's abilities were being exploited by the families of both games' wealthy Empress Arcana (Okumura used Akechi via Shido to assassinate enemies, Kirijo group used Chidori as a child experiment)

In late November, the assassin has a 1-vs-many fight against the chill guy and his friends

After you beat the assassin, the ones manipulating them appear and reveal they're willing to discard the assassin for being weak

The manipulators threaten to shoot the chill guy instead

Assassin sacrifices themself for the chill guy during the shooting

Chill guy's greatest wish was to be with the assassin and losing them challenges their resolve to fight (Joker may or may not fold on 2/2 but Junpei gets his resolve back as part of the plot)

Toxic doomed trope

If Royal and Reload (because thats what I played):

14. Chill guy and assassin have a special attack (showtime and theurgy)

15. Assassin died permanently in the original version of the games, but they can be saved in future remakes (if you spent enough time with them and made the right choices in-game)

I think that's it? But if anyone points out more I will edit this and add them

[cescalr]

Oooh, definitely glee for the fandom asks! <3

Always with the hornets' nests with these ones, I see! Though i don't think there's a fandom out there that isn't in some way a hornets' nest once it gets large enough... hm. Alright. I'm just gonna be as honest as i can be about this, and tag accordingly.

Glee:

my favourite female character: augh. argh. ouph. so difficult. so hard. Since I'm working off of half-remembered show and half recently-rewatched show... its a tossup. Mercedes, Santana, Quinn. Probably Mercedes. She did nothing wrong ever in her entire life <3 well okay maybe except that one time she smashed kurt's car windows (but it was a banger song, though). Can't say Santana because of the Biphobia TM and other things like excessive use of bigotry-based insults, and Quinn. Oh god girl. Cheating is not cool! Funnily enough! So I find them really interesting but 'favourite' is hard to say. Mercedes. Mercedes for sure <3

my favourite male character: Blaine sam blaine sam blaine sam yes. I am imitating ripping petals off of flowers and coming to a conclusion based on which is the last name i said. So I guess that means Sam! But really this is a tie.

my favourite book/season/etc: Mannnnn idk. I don't like shows for seasons as-a-whole. Also i could not tell you what happened in any given season if you held a gun to my head. I'm not good at that. The only shows i know 'seasons' of are Buffy and Teen Wolf because i've watched them like 100000000000 times (exaggeration) for various reasons (mostly fanfiction research).

my favourite episode (if its a tv show): I can tell you my LEAST favourite episode (blame it on the alcohol, thank you Kurt king of biphobia! this is a persona foible it's not the worst episode in the show. by far. by far. it's kind of an average one. I'm just angry at it.) BUT er. Favourite? Idk. Genuinely some of the earlier Kurt-centric stuff was really well done (his convo with Burt... <3) and the Quinn giving birth accompanied by bohemian rhapsody was obviously iconic, but if I'll be honest I couldn't name any episodes of this show (other than That One previously stated, anyway). And yeah most of the time they were named after song titles and No i don't remember those song titles either. I'm just so bad at this. My memory is that of a goldfish's being haphazardly bounced around on a sieve.

my favourite cast member: it would be really funny if I said Demi Lovato [she counts!] but the truth is N/A: i don't know these people !!! They are strangers!! (i don't. follow celebrities. at all. I couldn't even name most of them. They're just people doing a job and their lives are irrelevant to me beyond their ability to perform that job well. I do not need to know where they live and what coffee they drink. Stalker shit tbh. I'm kind of a very private person myself, so rpf-adjacent stuff just... creeps me out. I've never watched a single cast interview in my lifetime and I'm not about to start!)

my favourite ship: Difficult to say! Grave and obvious lie. Blam. It's blam. Quintana is a close runner up though Santana really needs to stop dating people who cheat on the regular (I'll accept Quinn has grown enough not to do this by the time a Quintana coupling would be viable - and satisfying in terms of character arcs - narratively speaking).

a character I’d die defending: Blaine Anderson did something wrong for sure but like Kurt did it first so shrugs. Cancels out. Bad for each other! Case closed!

a character I just can’t sympathize with: genuinely don't remember if I had one of those the first time around because I was like 10 and just didn't pay attention if I didn't care, but Terri and her racist self take that 'prize' this time, alongside the obvious predator in the room [original choir teacher. Sandy? I forget his name immediately after hearing it. He doesn't deserve to be remembered]. Also JBI is just.... a yikes character all around. I mean, he's a blatant stereotype for one, in a the people who wrote this person don't like jews kind of way. Unfortunately common stereotype too, for the era, so not only is he that, he's also lazy. Just a one-note pervert who's the butt of various antisemitic 'jokes' you've heard from era-peer shows a million times over, tired and awful and a sour reminder of bigotry that continues to this day. Really regrettable character who's lack of redeeming qualities was probably purposeful. (I know Rachel and tina are also jewish, but this comes up very rarely and mostly only when santana needs to say something kind of fucked up, as is her modus operandi, for 'comic relief'. Tina's jewish-ness wasn't even canon for several seasons, because she didn't have a surname or a family or anything resembling complex character depth for several seasons. The one time I really remember Rachel's religion being important was when she was pressuring Kurt into believing in some kind of god, which??? don't do that. Bad example. Trying to guilt trip a friend into faith sucks. I take back what i said earlier Mercedes did that too. Boo. Girls try again that was a bad showing all around. Though i have no idea why Kurt went the acupuncture route as his 'secular' option but i think that has to do a lot with the writers doing literally no research ever once in their lives (you can tell they don't by the way they write the football segments of the show, which make no sense according to football fans who watch Glee, of which there are numerous because real life isn't like fiction where you can only like music or sports. Most of the kids in my school year were doing the most of everything ever if they were the 'popular' ones - we do that differently; popularity isn't really based on who know know; for some bizzare reason literally everyone knew who I was? Even people I'd never spoken to?? - but more about like... how much you can do, I guess. Overachievers, but I'm not saying that negatively; these people were generally - generally - very nice, and surprisingly chill for people who had no spare time whatsoever. I'm not entirely sure when they slept; A* across the board, at least one sport, at least one instrument, several extracurriculars, parties every weekend, dozens of friends and an s.o. . Eh? Way too much going on. Scary lifestyle! Impressive burnout rate, probably. Er. Tangent! Back to the scheduled programming).) There's uhhhh there's a lot of bad characters on the show, but i'd say Sandy and Terri and her equally but more loudly racist sister are truly completely irredeemable ones. Like they're not interesting or anything, they're just there to be narrative annoyances (which, in the case of Sandy specifically, is insane. Arrest that man!!! He has actively sexually assaulted minors!!!).

a character I grew to love: difficult to say because I tend to just make an opinion and stick to it. Also i don't remember who i liked at first and who i didn't, this show came out when i was eight. I didn't watch it until I was a little older than that, of course, but I frankly have spotty memory until my late teens, so! I'm not sure!! Quinn, probably. Pink-hair-era Quinn helped me understand her more, and seeing the moments of kindness hidden behind practical cruelty, when you understand her family and situation, makes things make a lot more sense. It takes a lot to get me to sympathise with a cheater, but I can see where Quinn was getting all turned around in her head about life because of her upbringing and socialisation, not to mention the profoundly negative impact cheerios had on her mentally and that the school's culture in general was not exactly a breeding ground for empathy and optimism.

my anti otp: can you tell (klaine). I don't dislike Kurt!!! Please let him have a fun chillaxed boyfriend in new york with his vogue friends. But also please stop attempting to control other people's diets thank you!! Thank you!! I'm of mixed feelings. Blaine and Kurt both did at least one bad, relationship-ending thing, and proved over and over again that they just weren't on the same wavelength in regards to life goals and ways of living it. They can't even share the same living space, which is kind of required for a functional marriage. I don't know, it just seems like they settled for their first proper, serious boyfriend even if that's not really the best match, and I... wish they'd just got to see more of life first, you know? They got married at like 20! Or something! I'm 23, I cannot imagine getting married at 20. That's a baby. Let them live first!

(same for Santana and Brittney, imo. I also don't really like them together because Santana and Brittney have very different ideas regarding monogamy, which is just never going to go down well in the long run. If your girl cheats on you like twenty times and tells you to your face its not cheating in her view of things, but you think it is, break up with her because you'll just make each other miserable. Brittney sort of seems incapable of feeling guilt but if she were, this kind of moral pressure would be Not Good, and obviously Santana isn't comfortable with the idea and doesn't have to be!! Just move on!!! Find other people!!!! Don't marry your first girlfriend if you've broken up like ten times this is simple!!!! Please!!!! But Klaine wins out over Brittana because - in my opinion, glee fandom please do not persecute me, I am known for this specific thing - I see... interactions that verge on abusive between Klaine that I don't see in Brittana. So. Oof? Ex; use of public perception to disguise attack; deliberately hurting Blaine in a stage-combat fencing match (you are not meant to make actual contact in these) and thus using Blaine's own dislike of making his difficulties common knowledge against him in order to 'punish' him. This is no good! Don't do this!!.[Also just to err vaguepost about a comment.... that is. not. what i would call passive aggressive. Physically attacking someone with a sword - no matter the type of sword, fencing foils hurt just as much, they're just not stab-you sharp... er, these days - is just straight-up aggressive.]).

Note that negative things stick in the mind better than positive ones; on a rewatch I may well alter my opinion!

But also I'm really, really stubborn. So it's not likely. Klaine.

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

my 1 (one) stardew opinion is shane should not have won the bachelor poll

[catboyidia]

its june so i wanna share my lgbtq+ headcanons for ffvii characters just for fun, starting with the main playable cast:

(except they’re hcs by an obnoxiously trans gay person that projects onto their faves at all times, spoiler alert: they’re all trans and gay)

- cloud: he/him gay trans man - starting off strong with a gay trans guy (i warned that i would be projecting a lot with my hcs in this post) … but i’ve noticed a lot of other people hc/portray him as a trans man too so i know i’m not alone on this one! i cant explain exactly why i hc like this but i just do, probably cause i like him

- tifa: she/they transfem lesbian - i cannot be convinced that she doesn’t like women considering how she is with aerith and jessie tbh, and i like her so i’ve lovingly hit her with the transgender-inator beam out of love

- aerith: realistically- they/them nonbinary lesbian - i have no basis for this tbh except it just seems right to me! as for my actual hc for her (which is a pure projection, pls bear with me) - he/they gay transman - this is purely my own projection because aerith is really like stereotypically feminine(?) in ways that i am also feminine, so it comforts me to think of her like me if that makes sense

- barret: he/him but willing to test out she/her, unlabeled gender that is not quite cis but he’s only now exploring it and hasn’t quite figured it out yet, bi-curious and experimenting - thats so long but i’m not sure how else to describe it, i feel like he grew up all “traditional” and stuff, and then being a single adoptive dad and being a huge part of avalanche, he probably hasn’t had the time to really think about any of it too much or explore his gender/sexuality, but now he can with being surrounded with others that can help him explore, realize it’s alright to be uncishet, and help him learn about these things

- cid: okay i’m not gonna lie, canon wise he gives me major homophobe vibes (maybe its the raging misogyny that makes me think he’s bigoted in every other way…) but ignoring that he/she nonbinary bi - definitely exploring a lot and isn’t quite set in stone about what he is yet but he just knows he’s not cis or het and with those being more broad and spectrum like labels, he feels most comfortable with those over anything else, and he feels like they’re just right for him

- vincent: he/they transmasc gay - i’ll be honest this is also projection on my part because i love vincent a lot and want him to be like me! also he gives me major gender envy…

- reeve (in place of cait sith): he/him transman and gay - again, i just love him a lot tbh, and i feel like he is the kind of guy that knew who he was from a young age and tried to help out other people that are trying to navigate their queer journeys and find out who they are, i feel like reeve would be a major inspiration and advocate for the queer youth

- yuffie: they/them demigirl lesbian and arospec - she’s definitely still figuring herself out but she has very little interest in pursuing romance, but any relationship she can imagine wanting in her future is with another girl

[stunfiskz]

what are some of y’all’s favorite deltarune rarepairs…..

[anonyanonymouse]

🙈

[bulkyphrase]

Woohoo! #'s 14, 15, 23??

14. Name something that you think too many people are WRONG about in [insert fandom/pairing] fanfiction

Ok, so this is about a majority of the fandom getting an actual canon fact wrong rather than an opinion thing, but Steve Rogers did not rescue Bucky from Azzano. Azzano is the site of the battle where Bucky and the 107th were captured, but they were then taken to the Hydra factory which is, according to Peggy on the plane ride over there, "in Krausberg, tucked between these two mountain ranges."

Azzano is in northeast Italy--Krausberg doesn't seem to exist in the real world, but is presumably somewhere in Austria.

15. Name an aspect of [insert character] that you think gets frequently overlooked in fanfiction characterizations/deserves more attention/exploration

Possibly controversial but I'd like to see more Stony fic where Tony is the one dealing with things like internalized homophobia or outdated ideas about social issues. I mean, in canon he’s a middle aged billionaire who makes jokes about prison rape and prima nocta and Rhodey being fooled by a cross-dresser. I don’t think he’s conservative or bigoted, but he seems like a guy who has never put a lot of thought into these issues and would have every reason to repress and ignore any same-sex feelings he might have.

I like the idea of progressive, out-and-proud Tony and enjoy reading those fics, but Tony's growing and discovering things about himself would be great too.

23. Share an unpopular opinion you have RE: [insert fandom]

I've said this before, but if we're talking opinions about the fandom, I think people who say the MCU has gone significantly downhill are either looking at the first couple phases through the lens of nostalgia or are looking at the latest phases though MCU fatigue. I legit don't think the average quality has gone down--there were definite stinkers in the early films, and some really solid stuff in the past few years.

Also, people are allowed to get tired of the MCU and stop watching, but I think one of the best cures for superhero fatigue is to go and watch other movies. Of course you'll get tired of them if they're all you watch--take a break and go see a few art films, raunchy comedies, murder mysteries, etc. and then come back and see how you feel.

For the Grievances ask game!

[piglii]

I think the reason most video game to movie adaptations (and book adaptations, too) suck is that most people in charge of making movies just do not give a shit about video games as a medium and literally see it as a 1:1 conversion of money. like, “hey that hot new mario or zelda game came out this year and made $800 million dollars! if we make that into a movie, surely it will make the same amount or even more!” because most literally just see other forms of media as crude oil waiting to be made into gas. like it’s crazy to me that it seems really hard to understand the appeal in engaging with a piece of media personally yourself (or like with friends in multiplayer) as opposed to just watching it play out on a screen.

[dabidagoose]

dabida I wanna talk to you bc you're on tumblr & can understand... I made a poll that got almost 10k votes..... I didnt expect this....... idk how to feel.......... over nine thousand omg

Oh my god steegen that's so many.... I'm sorry? Congrats? Hope it doesn't follow you into permanent future popularity

[fakecrfan]

I know most people on here don't like to go to the gym because you're all gay nerds. I like to go to the gym. For the purpose of understanding this post please try to imagine that you, too, enjoy going to the gym so that you can empathize with my point here.

Anyway, so imagine you are going to the gym. You're pumped about the concept of getting some muscle on you. Plus, the gym has this "lift weights every day!" challenge with a feasible plan to slowly and safely increase the amount of weight you can lift by the end of the month. Cool!

So anyway you go there, and you're having a good time. But then you notice something. Some people are coming in with these guys in shirts that say LIFT FOR HIRE. You're curious, and you notice over time that some people are actually paying these guys to come in and do the lifting challenge for them.

"Huh," you say to your mega hot, muscled gym buddy. "That's so weird. What's in it for the people paying these guys?"

"Dunno," says your friend, mid bicep curl.

"Um, actually!" says the gym owner. "Some people are disabled, so the only way they can lift weights it to pay LIFT FOR HIRE, inc."

"But wait," you say. "They still aren't lifting the weights though? Paying someone else to lift for you doesn't mean you've lifted the weights."

The gym owner gasps. "How could you SAY that?"

"Because... it's true?" you say. "Uh, if you pay guys to lift your weights, that's probably really good for the guys you are paying. But it's not going to develop your ability to lift at all. Your muscles aren't going to grow, you're just going to lose money and get no results."

"That's ABLEIST," they say. "How DARE you! Some people are LITERALLY paralyzed, did you think of that?"

"Well, yeah, some people are, and that means definitionally they can't lift weights," you explain. "And paying someone else doesn't change that. Maybe if they wanted to like, move something in their house it would make total sense to hire these guys! But if you hire them to do your workout you get nothing, because the purpose of a workout is personal development. I'm not morally condemning people who do it, but it seems like a waste of money when this event is, again, about improving one's personal abilities."

"This is absolutely DISGUSTING, CLASSIST rhetoric!" the gym owner roars, and then turns to one of the LIFT FOR HIRE guys, "Pay no attention this disgusting person, dear sponsor, we support your business and we totally want you to keep funding our gym!"

"Sponsor?" says your hot muscled friend who was way too busy actually doing their workout and getting gains to engage in dumb discourse. "Oh, now it makes sense."

"Shut up, you don't understand our love!" says the gym owner, before sloppily making out with a LIFT FOR HIRE guy in front of you.

Anyway, that's what learning about the whole AI nanowrimo controversy was like for me.

[idrathernot]

*

[star--bird]

Which social media platform I think each Batfam member uses the most:

Alfred: Facebook (may be controversial but he probably keeps up with people on their, maybe former classmates or relatives)

Bruce: Instagram (again, controversial, he should be a Facebook user, but he is also a billionaire playboy philanthropist, and billionaire playboy philanthropists don't use Facebook)

Dick: Instagram (like the millennial he is, his page resembles the song "White Woman's Instagram" )

Jason: Tumblr (was familiar with it before he died, but has one of those blogs that has never liked, followed, or posted anything with a default avatar and theme)

Tim: Reddit (is the top contributor on several true crime subreddits)

Steph: Instagram (mainly posts memes and purposely poorly taken photos of events she attends and places she has visited)

Cass: TikTok (uses it to learn ballet. Idk if TikTok has a ballet teaching community but I assume they do. If they don't, Cass has found videos from a single person who posts lessons and follows them exclusively)

Duke: Tumblr (has one blog he uses for everything that changes content based on his current interest)

Damian: Twitter (like the 14 year old boy he is)