#shockingly prolific

[cinderdust-snz]

me: hmm there aren't enough silent stifles in wavs... there should be more representation!

me, a few minutes later: ..........ohhh maybe there's a reason for that 💀

[grahamcore]

girlhood is convincing your irls who have never read fanfiction to read atyd

[childrenofslumber]

☾✧.° ( @acourtcfmuses && original ) °.✧☼

Apollo absolutely adored the idea of love. His own parents were sickeningly in love and they raised their children to hold the hope for it in their hearts; unfortunately the society they lived in favored duty and nothing killed love quite like duty. His duty was to his family and looking after them."Bluntness forgiven and very much appreciated." He chuckled. "She has been after me since last social season." He admitted. He led the two of them to the dancefloor, bowing in the respective manner before taking her in position to dance. He had Edwina in his peripheral and his goal was to get them closer for Kate's sake. "Simple, I am far too invested in aiding my siblings in their love lives. The only one I cannot escape is my own mother who insists on helping me find a bride. Her efforts are noble and endearing so I cannot lump her in with the rest of them. She only wishes to see me happy."

[targaryenluvs]

Infatuation

pairing: simon basset x fem!reader

warnings: darkish simon? a kiss, young reader (16ish!!) pushy and possessive simon, implied fem!reader and poc!reader, not proof read

notes: idk what to do so i just rambled 😭 this is just a two parter i think. and the storyline is a bit scrambled :) WHAT THE HELL IDK WHY I GOT SO MUCH ENERGY TO WRITE THIS BUT HERES ALL THE PARTS IN ONE DAY!!!! hope you enjoyed <3

PART I

Lady Whistledown: Dearest reader, the time has come to place our bets for the upcoming social season. Consider the household of the Baron Featherington. Three misses foisted upon the marriage market like sorrowful sows by their tasteless, tactless, mama.

Far better odds might exist in the household of the widowed Viscountess Bridgerton. A shockingly prolific family, noted for its bounty of perfectly handsome sons and perfectly beautiful daughters.

Or perhaps in the loving household of the Marquess of Anderton, Lord and Lady Y/L/N? With their two eldest sons, known not only for their intelligent selves and gorgeous faces, but for their stunningly bright younger sister, who is not just a pretty face.

Not only are the two families extremely close, but practically family, how very perfect, indeed!

It is only the queen's eye that matters today. A glimmer of displeasure, and a young lady's value plummets to unthinkable depths.

It has been said that, “Of all bitches dead or alive, a scribbling woman is the most canine." If that should be true, then this author would like to show you her teeth.

My name is Lady Whistledown.

You do not know me, and rest assured, you never shall. But be forewarned, dear reader, I certainly know you.

how on earth had you not yet read this?

one of the things you’d looked forward to besides meeting everyone had been the scandal sheets and you’d missed out on receiving one yesterday.

“this woman seems quite powerful. you know how easily words can ruin someone’s image. it’s interesting to see a lone woman hold so much sway in just her writing. i truly do wonder who she is. any guesses?” you asked pen, daphne and el as the three of you waited for your mothers and pens sisters to catch up as you made your way to the park.

eloise smiled, “it has to be a widow! no married woman would have time for this, she’d have an estate to care for and children pulling on her every day. a widow with her own home and responsibilities. perhaps lady danbury?”

you had to giggle at the guess, knowing whistledown herself was right with you. you’d managed to meet penelope at least, so that was one person of your list. lady danbury would be next with her ball tonight, and perhaps simon as well.

“what’s so funny? i haven’t heard a guess from you!” eloise groaned as you smiled, “i have no guesses besides, pen?” penelope’s head shot up straight away from the ground, “what?” “i was going to ask if you had any.” you could see her cheeks flushing, and her breathing quicken at the idea of being caught out.

and as you all walked together through the park, you’d mistakenly enthralled yourself in conversations, going so far as to walk with your back facing others. walking backwards as to face the girls.

“look out!”

before you’d fallen you were caught, by simon.

“i, i am so sorry. i was not looking-” simon smiled, “well that’s obvious no?” he joked as he lifted you up. you straightened your dress out and smiled, “of course. forgive me your grace.” you curtsied, in the presence of the person you’d been most excited to meet, you’d forgotten all about your friends behind.

as they all met him you couldn’t even take your eyes off of him, and neither could he for you. and once lady featherington came around she wasted no time to throw her eldest daughters upon him. the misery in his eyes hurt your soul so you took it upon yourself to rectify the situation.

“your grace!” simon turned towards you, as did everyone else. “yes, lady y/n?” you smiled, “would you like to accompany me, to promenade?” simon tilted his head, pondering your question.

he couldn’t help but be taken aback, usually many girls weren’t so forward. and god were you beautiful. rather than dealing with annoying girls who wanted a title the second they saw him, he could walk with someone he actually found interesting.

“i- would love to.” he smiled as he took a step back, allowing you to walk with him. you could hear the chatter from the girls behind you as well as your mother and violet.

you’d spent so long together, walked for so long your feet ached afterwards. and you didn’t miss the longing stares from other men around, and the women for him.

and even if it had taken so much energy of yours to keep walking, you wouldn’t have given up the chance. everything he said, you replied to. every joke sent laughter rippling through you and you could not help but feel content. he was, even better then the show. and as you got to know him you felt unbelievably happy.

and so did he.

he went home with all his thoughts containing you. he found himself smiling at every memory of his time with you that day. your smiles, your laughter, your beauty, you. and he had no clue why. he’d never been this taken with someone and he found himself struggling with why.

over the season you found yourself taken with him, your family allowed you to attend balls and do as you wish but you were under no obligation to dance or do anything you did not wish to.

yet you found yourself undeniably enthusiastic every time you realised you were going to a ball because you’d see simon. you’d dance, you’d laugh and everything else because he always gave you something to look forwards to, as did you for him, he was truly an amazing friend.

and he was completely besotted with you.

much to not only anthony’s surprise but danbury as well.

and simon was so intent upon being with you.

as much as you liked him you could not help but love how you were. your family was amazing and so happy. you had amazing friends within daphne, penelope and eloise. marriage seemed so far away in your mind and your life was sweet and favourable.

lady trowbridge’s ball was, scandalous, to say the least. you couldn’t believe your eyes when you walked in, half naked dancers spinning around, and quite uptempo music for a woman in mourning.

“lady y/n, may i-” lord wellington was promptly cut off in his endeavour to dance with you by the person you’d been looking for.

“y/n?” simon called out as he made his way to you. “simon! there you are, i was wondering where you’d gone off to.” you smiled at your bestfriend as he made his way to you, nodding in acknowledgement to his friend lord wellington. you thought they were friends at least.

and so did simon, until he saw him coming after you for a dance.

“come along now.” he smiled as you also nodded at the lord, “it was nice to see you my lord.” you curtsied as simon dragged you away.

“oh my god, i thought he would never leave! he tries to dance with me every single ball yet he doesn’t take notice of my indifference towards him!” you snorted as simon laughed louder, “i did not know such an unbecoming sound could originate from such a lovely women!” you scoffed, “that is no way to talk to your best friend!” you fake cried as you wiped literal tears from your eyes, the paintings in-front taking your eye.

simons breath hitched, best friend? best friend?

is that what you thought of him as? he thought the world of you, over the time he’s gotten to know you, he held you in the highest esteem. you were everything to him and he was a mere friend for you. no, he would not have it. who else loved you as he did? wanted you as he did?

“best friend?” simon questioned as your laughter died down at his seriousness, “what?” you giggled as you tried to compose yourself. “you named me your best friend. am i nothing more to you? just a friend? you see me as an acquaintance, as a brother?”

“no i do not see you as a brother, my dear simon.” you smiled, “you are amazing. every day i wake and think of seeing you, for the time i have known you, you have been nothing short of my favourite person. i look forward to seeing you, speaking with you and dancing. arguing over who’s literature is better, who’s right and who’s wrong. i have never known someone’s company besides daphnes to never annoy me. i love you, i do but-”

“but nothing. we love each other, that is all that matters. y/n not a day goes by where i do not wish to be in your presence, to see your gorgeous face. to hear you say my name, to feel you hit me when i say something utterly scandalous. i cannot and will not imagine myself spending my life with no other women but you. you are my other half, you are the air i breathe and the only person whom i’ve ever loved as much as i do. there are not enough words to describe my love for you y/n/n. it is you who i wish to wake up with everyday, it is you who i wish to be with, you who i would start a family with. your laughter that shall echo through my halls for as long as we live. i cannot and will not fathom the idea of you not being here for me, you are made for me.” simons grip encircled your wrists as he pulled you close, his face drawing near as he met your lips.

you never imagined yourself here with simon especially. he’d been nothing short of amazing in your time here, your best friend. but here you were, kissing him.

kissing him?!

you immediately detached from him as you retained your senses and drew your hands to cover your face in shock. “i’m so- so sorry. i do not know what that was your grace.” you rambled as your heart quickened, had someone seen? how could you be so stupid!?

his eyes furrowed at your words, your grace? what was with the formalities, you were to be wed, to be together. and here you were reverting to old habits. “my love there is no need to use such proper titles.”

your head whipped up the second he stopped speaking, “simon do not say such things! endearing terms as such are for, married couples. we are not.” you whispered as you made your way towards the party, but not before he grabbed your wrist and pulled you towards him as you collided with his chest.

he couldn’t let you go, everything, his head and his heart were screeching at him to ‘hold on tight’, to not let you go. so he did what he thought best,

lie.

“someone saw us.”

your eyes widened to the heavens as your breathing quickened again, “no. no they didn’t- they didn’t.” you shook your head as he placed his hand on your cheek to have you look at him. your eyes began to water and he felt himself tense, he hated it. he hated the idea of you being upset, but he was so close to having what he wanted so he continued.

“my dear y/n, i will treat you better then anyone ever could, deep down you know you are better off with me then any other. i love you, we will be together.” simon explained as you buried your head in his chest, you were so young, you hadn’t even properly debuted and now you were to be wed. how did you let this happen?

but a little voice piped up in your head, ‘it’s simon, your simon. the one who is always there for you. marrying him will give you a life of happiness and peace. marrying your best friend is the best thing you could ask for. you loved him when you didn’t know him truly, and now you do. be happy.’

and you wanted to be, simon was so good to you.

but you knew you weren’t ready. with marriage people would expect a child, a family. and your real life, the one back home? what would happen? would you ever go back? or would marrying him cement you in this world, forever.

“shh, you’ll be okay. i’m here, right here my love. you are my love, my heart, my infatuation.”

and you didn’t know it but you were right, the second you allowed him into your life, you were never going to go back home.

[dailybridgerton]

A shockingly prolific family. Noted for its bounty of perfectly handsome sons and perfectly beautiful daughters. BRIDGERTON — 1x01: Diamond of the First Water

[fereldanwench]

I didn't want to completely sit out a year-in-review, but for reasons I'll explain at the end of this post and under a cut, doing the traditional pick-one-pic-from-each-month approach just wasn't going to work for me. So instead, here are 20 of my favorite shots (in no particular order) of Valerie from 2023!

(I'll share solo Goro shots and shippy/story shots in two other posts before the year ends.)

Some thoughts about this year (cw for anxiety and depression mentions):

So yeah. I actually hadn't planned on joining in on the virtual photography year-in-review fun in part because... Well, frankly, I wasn't sure if it would actually be fun for me.

Although I do have pictures for every month, the first third, maybe even half, of the year was a struggle on almost every conceivable level. A lot of it was shit that carried over from the end of 2022, which was also an incredibly difficult year for me. I don't really want to delve too deeply into why--Some of it was personal, some of it was professional, some of it was fandom, and if you know, you know.

The main obstacle I had here is that looking at a lot of the shots I took from about January to May (give or take a few weeks on either end) honestly reminded me of Bad Times™️. I've worked really hard to pull myself out of that depression/anxiety cycle and return to a healthier approach to fandom and online socialization in general, but I just didn't want to spend a lot of time in that mental space. There are a few shots from those months that made it to my favorites, and I hope one day I can look back on that stuff and just feel the good from it again. Alas, that day is still not here.

But I am happy to report that the other reason I wanted to approach the review differently is a lot more positive! It's also two-fold: 1) I spent the earlier part of this year exploring more of a technical side of virtual photography and 2) I was really prolific the last third or so of this year so trying to narrow faves from about August until now was just not possible.

One of the few good things about the end of 2022 was being able to upgrade my graphics card, which meant I then had a rig that could support ray-tracing and hot sampling. As a result, I started putting a lot more focus on lighting and getting acquainted with new tools. I also was trying to work with the new AMM posing system, which is very convenient in some ways (100s of poses without reloading the game!) and a complete pain in the ass in others (can't move characters without their poses breaking!). Custom photomode poses + Nibbles Replacer has been the game changer I've been waiting for.

Or to put it more succinctly, December 2022 through about April 2023 felt like a relearning/return to basics kind of creative period, which is essential, but also means I just don't really like a lot of what I did, lmao.

Then, shockingly (I'm not shocked at all), starting treatment for my anxiety and depression in the second half of this year suddenly made creating a lot easier and fun again! Crazy how that works.

Even bumping this little review up to 20 shots instead of 12, there are still pictures from the past few months that I had to cut as favorites. There was just no way I could condense the amount of fave shots I took from August to now in just 5 options.

I also owe quite a bit of this revival to modders for asking me if I wanted to take shots for them--Exploring more of a fashion photography approach to my shots I think did a lot to build on what I had learned earlier in the year and encouraged me to try something new. I don't want to tag anyone in this long-ass glorified diary entry, but if you invited me to take mod shots for you, just know that it really meant a lot. ♡

And that's where my head has been with a yearly review! Is filling out a little template with 12 pictures this serious? No, it definitely is not, lmao. But hey, overthinking shit is still something I'm working on. ✌️

[euphoniumpets]

THE LANTSOV FAMILY | PROLOGUE

Warnings: none.

A/N: i'm still in my Nikolai Lantsov era so here are the aftermath of shadow and bone where everybody is happy and that Aleksander's past is forgotten and now we dig in by the lantsov children's story instead. I'm tagging the people who were on my tag list for the calm before the storm, if you guys want to be untag or still be tagged for the story, please comment down below. This series is inspired by the show ''bridgerton'' and it will somehow play out by that show.

Tag list: @lyria-skyfall@khaleesihavilliard@shine101 @waddlingwanderer @clqudias @ducks118 @xceafh @peakyispunk @wilmasvensson @parbatai-winchester @priincehoseok @riot-in-my-soulsoul @feyredarling92 @vendy021 @ssprayberrythings @goldenpoison @shine101 @lili-of-the-dream @xushisuxi @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @jennylil @themermaidscales82

Dearest reader, the time has come to place our bets for the upcoming social season. Consider the household of the Baron Featherington, three misses foisted upon the marriage market like sorrowful sows, by their tasteless mother, tactless mama.

Far better odds might exist in the household of the Queen and King of Ravka, the Lantsov family. A shockingly prolific family, noted for its bounty of perfectly handsome sons, and perfectly beautiful daughters.

''I am already roasting,'' The youngest complained as she walked down the stairs along with her other siblings. ''Are you to complain the entire day, Eloise?'' The middle sibling questioned her as she walked from behind with annoyance on her face.

''Surely I cannot be expected to bear these fashions the entire day,'' Eloise complained with disgust. ''I feel like a princess, do I look like one?'' The other youngest next to Eloise asked with a beaming look on her face and glanced down at her dress. ''Do you truly wish to know what I think you look like?'' Elosie asked her.

''On your left!''

''Gregory!'' The youngest exclaimed when the youngest brother angirly as they rushed down the stairs to chase each other. ''Is our dear sister still not ready?'' One of the older brothers asked Eloise as they walked down. ''She's only been readying herself the entire night, poor Genya who has to be up there,'' The middle child replied.

''You mean her entire life,'' Eloise remarked. ''I shall run upstairs and hasten her along,'' One of the brothers spoke.

''Colin, wait, I'll do it,'' One of the brothers stopped Colin from going further. Colin rolled his eyes toward the not subtle gesture Benedict who had a small crush on their maiden Genya. ''Oh please, we all know that you have a crush on Miss Safin,'' Colin teased him, earning a glare from his brother.

''Says the one who has a crush on General Nazyalensky,'' Benedict snapped. ''I do not!'' Colin exclaimed before pausing in mid sentence.

''Besides, sister, likes me better than you, Benedict,'' Colin argued and looked at his brother with a cocky expression. ''Did she say that?'' Benedict asked with a offended expression.

''Everyone says that,'' Colin remarked with a smirk on his face. Eloise groaned and had enough of her brother's banter before she walked to the stairs. ''Daphne!'' Eloise shouted as everybody in the hallway looked at the youngest child, screaming at her sister.

''You must make haste!''

''Do you think that she heard me?'' Eloise asked and turned around to look at her brothers with a proud face. Colin looked at her with a proud expression while Benedict looked at her with the same disappointing expression whenever their mother would look at them.

''Darling, the whole country heard you,'' You spoke and entered in the hallway. You wore a white and gold kefta as you had your hair up in a bun. ''Where's your sister?'' You asked them and you heard footsteps from the staris.

''Why does mother wear a kefta instead of a dress and why can't I wear one?'' Elosie complained next to her brother and looked down at her dress in disgust.

''It's because she's the queen, dear sister,'' Benedict replied.

''I'm coming!'' You heard Daphne's voice from above. You all turned and saw her standing along with Genya next to her. She wore a long white dress that matched with her sandy blonde hair that she earned from her father.

''I'm sorry mother,'' She apologized as she ran down the stairs, Genya hurrying from behind. ''It's okay, the carriage has arrived on point,'' You replied, placing a small kiss on her forehead before urging the rest of the children to go out.

It has been said that: ''of all bitches dead or alive, a scribbling woman is the most canine, if that should be true, then this author would like to show you her teeth. My name is Lady Whistledown, you do not know me, and rest assured, you never shall, but be forewarned, dear reader, I certainly know you.

additional casting:

corey mylchreest as george

[dynared]

I've been hammering on Transformers Earthspark a lot lately (partially because I think the Energon Universe has shown the fandom there's a better way to bring in new fans and excite older ones), but even beyond the superiority of the Energon Universe and the hope it gets animated one day, something I've discussed with people that annoys me about it is that while the show is not devoid of good ideas, it often pays mere lip-service to them, and is shockingly insistent on tackling concepts it does not have the ability to tackle. Case in point, an episode around Kali of all things.

Kali, for those of you who don't know (because it's not like Earthspark bothered to explain it!) AKA Arnis or Escrima, is a Filipino martial art based on both weapons and hand-to-hand combat, favoring sticks and knives. It actually became popular in the martial arts community when Dan Inosanto, a student (some would argue the most prolific student) of the late Bruce Lee, began teaching it alongside Jeet Kune Do as part of his "JKD Concepts", an attempt to expand Bruce's Jeet Kune Do with additional ideas from other martial arts. The old Fight Quest show on the Discovery Channel tackled Kali in its second episode, showing training methodologies and the philosophy behind the art with the two hosts, including an ending where the hosts have to engage in sparring with stick fighting, which is as rough as it sounds.

Now Kali gets bought up in Earthspark as part of Alex Malto's Filipino background, but the show does virtually nothing with it, other than Alex waxing poetic about his heritage in one episode and then hitting a few Arachnamecs. You'd think that the idea of training the Terrans in a native martial art would have a lot of potential, especially since Cybertron in certain continuities has martial arts, particularly Metallikato and Circuit-Su. But instead, the concept is dropped almost immediately, making it seem like mere window dressing to show that the show is "diverse" rather than actually having some substance with the main plot.

The idea seems pretty simple to integrate. Have the Terrans be put in a situation where they would deem learning a martial art necessary, either a poor performance on the field, their instructors telling them that their skills in close-range-combat are poor, or being forced to fight someone like Bludgeon or Drift, a Metallikato practitioner who the Terrans feel outmatched by and who Alex volunteers to train in kali so they can fight their opponent on an even footing. Hell, that could be directly linked to the whole issue of culture, with the Terrans finding kali far less flashy than Metallikato and kind of lame, only for its effectiveness to show itself in combat.

And while Kali isn't the only example of such, it's probably the biggest example of the issues with shows that are surface-level in their concepts, and why Earthspark seems to have utterly failed to capture the imagination of kids and casual audiences.

[wirewitchviolet]

A Teachable Moment

So I hopped into some freshly minted Discord server, maybe a month ago, and the norms of it still haven't settled into place. It's open to the public and focused on a game, so there's a bit of a mixed crowd, let's say, and prior to the incident I'm setting up the backstory for, there hasn't really been a test of their ability to moderate their damn public spaces.

Also when I say there's a mixed crowd I mean there's both a good number of trans women (because if you are making a deep game for a niche audience, we're gonna make up a shockingly high percentage of that audience every time), and a few right-wing extremists doing their best to "hide their power levels" (because if you create and promote literally any sort of social space, they WILL show up to test for whether local conditions are suitable enough to build a nest). In the early days of things they mostly kept their masks on aside from using the nazi frog as a reaction image to things (which IS something everyone should have a zero tolerance policy towards, but I feel like I need to know someone fairly well before I can explain that one), and their eyes lighting up when they see the server rules include "no politics" (a perfectly fine policy to have but you need to understand that if you post it you WILL have to constantly ban nazis who think you're using "politics" like they do- a euphemism for all the people they want dead).

Anyway, there's a few people on my radar here, but everyone's been civil enough, and it's a pretty relaxed vibe. Pretty quiet. Mostly just icebreaker talk. The most prolific poster is this one guy who saw there was a pet photo channel and just kinda sat down and made a point of posting several images a day to it, of a particularly uncommon sort of cute pet. Naturally this lead some people to ask some follow-up questions about whether these are his and how long he's had them, and this yielded the pretty damn weird in retrospect response that no, he has no pets at all, but would like one of these some day.

Now, this isn't at all the main thrust of this, and I wouldn't like, start keeping vigil for this as a sign of troublemakers, but a thing that undercover bigots do all the time as can be seen here is set up in a community and just kinda spam harmless generic platitudes and such to try and establish themselves as a known chill person. This goes double for anywhere that has a general public/trusted community members split. Never just go by "well he seems pretty chill" for giving people access to more private spaces, they can wait as long as they need, generally, as long as they don't have to improvise a normal person response to a situation where bigotry is in play.

Anyway, getting to the main event, a few days ago in this server, someone posted some cute little comic which... you know let me just find it.

Clever little subversion there. Got a polite chuckle out of the bulk of those paying attention, but seeing a nice wholesome bit of trans positivity incensed pet-poster guy, who immediately shouts "I've seen another version of that comic!" and posts a variation I am absolutely not going to share where the girl in the last panel is dead.

That is as clear cut of a do not pass go, do not collect $200, ban that piece of garbage permanently without a word and delete the post as soon as you can before anyone has to see that sort of hate directed at them offense in absolutely any community. Even moreso in this case as in the time it took a moderator to notice, this creep was going full mask off and responding to everyone's horrified reactions with grotesque anti-trans propaganda of a particularly hardcore "my other hangouts have openly posted swastikas" variety.

Here, people did delete the profoundly offensive comic, but then, to be blunt, otherwise handled this like a kindergarten teacher seeing a kid grab the blocks another kid was playing with and just nonchalantly explaining some basic manners. First off, nobody goes that hard on hate speech accidentally, and more importantly, showing a lack of willingness to dole out any real consequences for such an open act of hate has an emboldening effect. Sure enough the other sleeper agents present jumped up to try and push things farther, encouraging them to also remove the comic above, ban any mention of trans people, and jump the gun with prepared responses that don't work in context (you call everyone you don't like a nazi! Both sides are wrong! etc.).

I came pretty close to just quitting the server on response to that, but stuck it out a bit to double check if this wasn't just one particularly green mod trying to put the fire out before double checking if that's ban worthy when someone else was awake, or if I needed to explain the code-talk in the following conversation, or hell, if they just need more mods. I'm decidedly overqualified for that sort of thing.

Anyway, moderation policy handled that poorly... and to be clear, I'm not pinning that on any one person, basically everyone who ends up in a position of authority has a gut instinct to moderate as laxly as possible and needs some real training, reading, or tragic experience to learn how vital a firm swift hand is if you don't want people like this to show up and drive everyone else away. Especially not going to put this on the one green volunteer awake at 4 AM or whatever.

Still, the ball was dropped here, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how the rest of the community stepped up to hold their ground. Over the next couple of days, people just started casually dropping every cute trans positive thing they had handy in there, agreeing with each other that it was all nice and sweet. This both reestablished that chat as a relatively safe place to exist with a kind general vibe, and really got under the skin of these mask off nazis who started throwing tantrums. Apparently they just started privately messaging the mods to flag every single wholesome little image or comic as offensive to the point where people higher up the food chain came in, did some more serious reprimanding, and added an explicit policy against transphobia to their TOS... and threatened to ban these people if they pull this crap again.

Now, that increased firmness plus the community in general making it pretty damn clear they don't tolerate hate does seem to have scared the bigots into hiding (the one guy made this pathetic desperate effort to retake power by threatening to stop posting the animal pictures... that he's just pulling out of an image search, it was pretty funny), but... they're still there. The people they were threatening both broadly and as specific individuals still have to be careful not to share anything these scumbags can screencap and weaponize against them, and I'm sure at some time in the future when it's clear there's no mods awake they're going to pipe back up to do as much damage as they can in a blaze of glory if spying on all the queer people doesn't pay out for them, so while it is nice to see how just actively rejecting this sort of ideology can at least temporarily shut this crap down even without people in authority taking real action, I want to reiterate what responsibilities those in authority are neglecting here.

As a moderator of literally any sort of space, your basic duties are to keep things safe and to keep things civil. Those are two separate duties. Don't ever try and merge them together, and don't ever forget that safety must always take priority over civility.

If you see a situation where people are just getting randomly heated and angry over something inconsequential (happens a lot), yes, by all means, try to just deescalate things by stepping through just taking a stern tone, formal warnings, timeouts, 3 strike rules, temporary bans, etc. These are situations where we can hope that people who otherwise get along just let their emotions get out of hand and will hopefully shake hands and make up after having some time to cool off.

If on the other hand you see a situation where someone is threatening/antagonizing/intimidating someone else, especially in a case like this where the reason is transparently that the offender is a bigot who genuinely wishes harm or death on the target, there are no steps to escalate through. You remove the dangerous person from the community immediately, no exceptions, no warnings, no escalating response scale. That nazi posting crap about trans women in nooses, Jews in ovens, black people holding spears, women being raped etc. is not a friend having a rough day. There can be no reconcilliation no matter how much time you give. You just have a predator here to whittle your community down, and a vulnerable person who needs you to reassure them that they are safe in your community. The only option that should be on the table is the permanent zero appeals ban, and you should have no hesitation in deploying it.

Oh and here's the part where I remember that I am going to lose my home by the end of the year if I don't ask people to throw more money at me (this is a link). I hate doing this, but my other options for income went up in flames so completely I don't even know how to start to rebuild.

[cgtg]

another doseone-led band i found in the last couple weeks. anticon moment

god this guy is prolific. sry 4 the ramble incoming

reason i havent been rly doing music recs lately is bc ive jusd been fucking hardcore delving into doseone's music repertoire again r0fl. stumbled onto this album "for hero: for fool" & its a huge fav atm. ive been trying 2 find info about the instrumentation on these but all ive found for sure ( so far ) is that they used a roland TR-808 and jel's got his AKAI MPC 2000XL. both visible in live performances

the way jel plays in this, its so fuckin active & immersed & percussive i cant stop watching. the first song (middleclass stomp) is all on beat machine, then the second song (middleclass kill) also uses a drum set (thats jordan dalrymple behind the kit there, switches from guitar to drum on the second song.)

jel on the drum machine, he is insane, cannot rec him enough. he wos a producer on "center city", which is one of my fave sole songs & is in my junior spitfire playlist

the beat on "middleclass stomp" is amazing 2 me but this live version doesnt emphasize the *guitar* nearly as well tbh, which is maybe the most delicious part of the song, the way this song moves... peep it

they were rlly dead set on not being defined as hip-hop but its got all the trappings of hip-hop, or kinda is definitively a descendant of it. its a fucking amazing album dude. dose's ability 2 do such evocative & abstracted lyrics that are hard to follow but fucking. mesmerizing to dig into & tell such vivid stories. its unparalleled 2 me.

another fav from the album

rlly rlly nefarious sound i fucking ugh. evry time i listen to this song i start just bouncing like this guy does. esp when that "DROP THE GUTS" part hits

"he was spitting so casual"... teez mcgee points out how effortlessly he seems 2 just pump out bars & its so true . live on stage or in studio he is completely effortless, shockingly casual, all that in one take... & i cant even follow along w/o fumbling most words on my tongue, even when i know the lyrics well

this has been a rando certified autism moment if u read all of it... thanx u

[vocaloidcurated]

1, 2, 3, and 4 for the ask game if you like! Really love this blog <3

favorite vocaloid: i've always really liked gumi (and i've been digging a lot of synthv gumi recently as well!) ofc she's great on ballads, but i love how she sounds on rock songs.

favorite utau: yamine renri. might be a basic answer but her voice is so beautiful. also adding my favorite yamine renri song (shockingly not a police piccadilly song, although i love them too).

favorite synthv: kafu! she's surprisingly versatile across all sorts of tracks and the sweetness of her voice is unique among the synthv voicebanks imo.

favorite producer: r sound design. he might claim the top spot for sheer quantity of favorites from a single producer thanks to how prolific he is. he has a recognizable style, yet each of his individual tracks are so distinct.

thank you for asking, and thanks for enjoying! i'm just glad i have people to share my passion for vsynth with :)

[elle-thereafter]

Fanfic Tag Game

So @blorbologist tagged me in a thing where one goes to their current/main AO3 account and looks up various tags. This is somewhat less exciting for me with the AO3 account I use now because, well... there's only 3 fics in there, they're all for the same fandom and same pairing. It would make for quite a boring round of this game.

Because I've been in fandom of some sort since 1996, I have fic sort of all over the place. I have an OG and much older AO3 account which I don't post to anymore, but since my online fic publishing predates the existence of AO3 by, like, 13 years, some of my published fic is in standalone, fandom-specific archives, some of which (shockingly) still exist, while others have shut down.

So I'm going to honour the spirit of this challenge rather than the letter of it. I've consolidated all my published fic data and crunched the overall numbers. Just for funsies! The fics that feed into these stats were all published publicly somewhere, at some point, spanning from 1996 thru 2024. Also I'm playing fast and loose with the game rules because who needs rules.

What ratings do you write most of your fics under?

General: 8

Teen: 13

Mature: 0

Explicit: 3

Different archives have different rating systems, but they all map reasonably onto AO3's system so I've translated them across. Apparently I can't be bothered to write anything between T and E. And yeah, those 3 E's are all in the Critical Role fandom: I've been writing smut for years, but only recently started publishing it anywhere.

What are your top three fandoms?

Harry Potter: 10

Gargoyles: 4

Critical Role: 3

The West Wing: 3

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 2

Angel: 1

Leverage: 1

Screw top three, it's more fun to see the whole list! As you can see, even in all these years I am not what one would call "prolific". As with everyone, the published works are only the tip of the iceberg of the many, many, many unfinished bits and bobs I have floating around in my writing archive. But I'm also a pretty slow writer all things considered, and there was a good 10 years or so where I didn't publish anything. I kept reading a lot of fic and still occasionally wrote some for myself, but from something like 2012 thru 2022 I wasn't posting anywhere.

It’s kind of tragic I can’t add The Magnificent Seven (TV series) to this list. I wrote so much when I was in that fandom but never quite finished anything so nothing ever got published. I have one that's almost 20k words and probably 3/4 finished but I never got it over the line so there it sits in my archive, forever incomplete. Other fandoms in my "never published" bucket include Alias, X-Men and Star Wars.

What is the top character you write about?

Original Characters: 10

Remus Lupin: 5

Sirius Black: 5

Ensemble: 4

James Potter: 4

Lily Evans Potter: 4

Percy de Rolo: 3

Vex'ahlia: 3

Joshua Lyman: 3

Owen Burnett: 3

Peter Pettigrew: 3

Severus Snape: 2

Tom Riddle: 2

I narrowed the list to just folks who appeared in more than one fic. And, yeah... look: it turns out I've been writing lots of original characters in my fic for a long, long time, so really the OCs in Gate Building probably shouldn't come as a surprise really. But this time I wasn't planning on them, they just kind of happened!

Also, look at all those snarky brooding men with tragic/complicated pasts and questionable morals! If we expanded this to include my “never published, just for me” list we’d get to add notorious gents such as Jack Bristow, Ezra Standish, Brooklyn, Charles Xavier, and Rupert Giles to the list. I have a very clear type; I’m fine with it. 😄

What are your top three pairings?

Gen/Ensemble: 8

Joshua Lyman & Original Character: 3

Percy de Rolo/Vex'ahlia: 3

James Potter/Lily Evans Potter: 2

Owen Burnett/Original Character: 2

Remus Lupin & Sirius Black: 2

The list above isn't comprehensive, I just included the ships and friendship fic that pinged more than once. Historically I didn’t write a ton of romantic/ship fic. And often where there was a ship it wasn’t necessarily the focus so even what’s listed there is probably a little misleading. Like, the James/Lily stuff just inevitably kind of happens when you write Marauder fic whether you're going for it or not. 😄

I was notably quite fascinated with Remus and Sirius' friendship in a fandom that was convinced they were fucking. I'm not saying they weren't fucking, but I was personally more interested in how on earth they managed to repair their friendship after PoA. There is a lot more unfinished stuff relating to that friendship in my various archives.

The OC paired with Owen is 100% a Mary Sue: a pure, trope-defining, text book Mary Sue plucked from the depths of my teenage brain. The West Wing OC was a childhood friend of Josh's with no romantic intentions toward him that I used to prod at various character study themes.

What are the top three additional tags?

This one is tricky because A) the non-AO3 places where my fic was posted didn't have the robust tagging features AO3 has; and B) I wasn't historically a big user of tags in my original AO3 account beyond characters and pairings of note. But since that's not a terribly interesting answer, I went through the list of 24 fics and tried to at least throw a few tags on them that could be relevant, just to see what might shake out. The top "tags" that jumped out after the exercise were:

Before Canon: 11

Character Study: 8

Kid Fic: 4

Missing Moment: 3

None of those are particularly surprising. A lot of my Harry Potter stuff was Marauder Era fic, and I do have a fascination with going back to when characters were kids/teenagers to explore formative experiences in their lives. And after I got the Mary Sues out of my system for a long time I pivoted pretty hard into gen, friendship stories, and character studies.

I don't know why I like writing about kids. I just like the way their little unfinished brains work, and their POVs are such an interesting place to be as a writer. They tend to have interesting, unusual opinions and make choices an adult brain would never make. Also people kind of forget they're there sometimes, which means they bear witness to all kinds of things even if they can't quite fully understand them. There's something about a character study baked into a formative childhood experience that just gets me.

Does any of this surprise you?

Maybe the preponderance of OCs in my fanfic. I knew there were a bunch but seeing that no-contest dominance at the top of the list is pretty hilarious, ngl.

I am so, so tempted to repost some of my old Mary Sue stuff to Wattpad just to see how it would do in 2024. 😁

[bifuriouswaterbender]

18, 28, 29!

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

I had a shockingly prolific year for me, mostly writing Stranger Things. I think the character it took me the longest to get in the head of was Gareth. The Greatwise I started writing was all Will's perspective, and it took me a little while to hit my groove for It Sends You Spinning. He's a character we know so little about, so it was interesting to develop that.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

Probably one of my longer fics. Favorite finished piece is my Can't Start A Fire (Without A Spark) -- my Steddie Big Bang that starts posting today. Favorite overall is probably what I've written so far of He's All That. It's been a fun world to develop!

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

Going to give a few answers here:

"Airk was a faithful lover, just not the most long-standing one" from You're All That I Wanna Breathe

"It wasn’t about that, wasn’t about experimenting or trying something new. It was about that intensity in Eddie’s eyes, the way his hands twitched like he wanted to reach for Steve too. The excitement of circling each other slowly, always playing their roles of dealer and host" and "They were meant to be a secret thing—not because they couldn’t be known but because they deserved not to be. They deserved this secret" from I Can See You (Up Against The Wall With Me)

[inlovewithquotes]

Grosvenor Square, 1813. Dearest reader, the time has come to place our bets for the upcoming social season. Consider the household of the Baron Featherington. Three misses foisted up the marriage market. Like sorrowful sows by their tasteless…tactless mama. Far better odds might exist in the household of the widowed Viscountess Bridgerton. A shockingly prolific family, noted for its bounty of perfectly handsome sons and perfectly beautiful daughters. How very perfect indeed.

Today is a most important day, and for some a terrifying one, for today is the day London’s marriage-minded misses are presented to Her Majesty the Queen. May God have mercy on their souls. It is only the queen’s eye that matters today. A glimmer of displeasure… and a young lady’s value plummets to unthinkable depths. But as we know, the brighter a lady shines, the faster she may burn.

-Lady Whistledown

[hungry-hobbits-art]

march madsen day 31 - the man himself

my plans to watch his recently made documentary got foiled by the fact that it's apparently not available anywhere so i chose one of my favorite pictures of him to redraw. with this - march madsen is over, but i'd like to leave it with a very sappy note:

I started watching Michael Madsen movies during the middle of the pandemic that first year - it started with my first real deep dive into Quentin Tarantino's filmography with my best friend, and in a time of uncertainty and fear it was a comfort and a newfound joy. Michael Madsen first truly grabbed my attention in The Hateful 8, and after that I was hooked.

Michael Madsen is a prolific actor and creator with a career that spans decades; he has over 300 movies (and counting) to his name, a long list of voice acting work, and a great deal of poetry as well. He is unabashedly outspoken about things he is passionate about, such as Hollywood's treatment of people, especially women. He's also had a lot of hardships and follies in his life that have shaped him into the actor he is today.

I have a lot to say about him as an actor - he has a one of a kind voice that can range from shockingly gentle to fearsome and intimidating. He has a unique way of speaking and line delivery. His hands are just as much of a character as he is. He really knows how to get noticed in a scene. His roles, not matter how small, are memorable, and his deaths are as heartbreaking as they are numerous (seriously he is always dying in his movies).

There's a few big titles and memorable roles on my list, like Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, and The Hateful 8, and there are a lot of which I purposely left out like Thelma & Louis or Donnie Brasco. I did that because I wanted to check out his other work too, the less notable works. These movies aren't popular, and in some cases they aren't even well done, sometimes they're just excuses for him to cut a check (which I can respect). Even if they aren't very good you can see in a lot of them just how much fun he's having. If I decide to do a March Madsen 2, I think I will focus on his more prolific roles and older films in his filmography.

To keep this short, I'll say this: To Michael Madsen (on the off chance he ever sees this), thank you. Thank you for over four decades of creation. I hope we keep seeing more of you.

[themattress]

Atsuhiro Tomioka’s 30 Greatest Achievements (and his 30 Biggest Blunders) in the Pokeani

Atsuhiro Tomioka, perhaps the most prolific writer in the history of the Pokemon anime....and perhaps the most Hit and Miss one, as well. See, when Tomioka makes a hit, it’s a freaking Home Run. But when he misses, it’s a disaster of epic proportions. Now that the era of Ash Ketchum is over (God, that still sounds surreal), in the spirit of fairness and even-handedness I would like to recount his best successes and his worst failures over the course of 25 years.

THE HITS:

Ash’s First Capture: Tomioka’s first episode ever was the third one, making him the first writer after the late Takeshi Shudo to write for the anime. And the episode in question, OS003, is a damn good one: Ash captures Caterpie and Pidgeotto, has a proper battle with Team Rocket, fleshes out his and Misty’s argumentative dynamic, and gives Caterpie a whole character arc that progresses through the episode. That scene where Caterpie and Pikachu are talking and there’s no coherent dialogue spoken yet you still get it...it’s a fantastic scene!

Pikachu vs. Raichu: Everyone who’s watched the anime from the start remembers the battle and rematch at Vermillion Gym in OS014, and the conflict in between as to whether Ash should evolve Pikachu with a Thunderstone in order to win. It’s a classic, well-written episode.

The Copycat Girl: In OS037, Tomioka takes a noteworthy NPC and fleshes her out into a passionate showgirl and delightful little troll who trains - what else? - a Ditto. Gotta love her!

“A Jigglypuff Seen From Above!”: OS056 is another famous episode, and probably one of the funniest that Tomioka has ever penned. From start to finish it’s so absurd it’s hilarious.

Defining the Rivalry: Before OS067, Gary was primarily Ash’s douchey rival. This episode, however, actually develops him and his rivalry with Ash, shifting him toward being a more mature, respectable trainer, open to learning just as much from Ash as Ash learns from him.

The REAL Giant Pokemon: The giant Pokemon in Takeshi Shudo’s classic OS017 were just animatronics, but the ones that show up in OS074 are real, ancient Eldritch Abominations! This is a genuinely dark and tense episode, but it also has one of the most hysterical pay-offs of all time with “Bigglypuff”, the joke that all of Jiggylpuff’s prior showings were leading up to.

Pikachu Goes to the Dark Side: OS088 is an episode beloved by many for the return of Butch and Cassidy, Pikachu turning evil due to mind control, a fantastic team-up between the heroes and Team Rocket to save their Pokemon, a very touching reunion between Ash and the freed Pikachu, and the final battle where Togepi shockingly learns Metronome and is unexpectedly powerful with it. It’s absolutely one of the Orange Island saga’s best stories.

Charizard’s Redemption: OS107 is where, after 64 episodes, Charizard finally gets over himself and remembers that for all his flaws as a trainer, Ash cares about him deeply and helped save his life when he was just a Charmander. It’s a very effective, touching episode.

The Orange Island Championship: It may not count for much, but OS113 and OS114 have Ash win his first major competitive victory by defeating Drake of the Orange League and becoming the Orange League Champion. The climactic match of Pikachu vs. Dragonite is especially great, and in retrospect foreshadows the battle against Leon many years later.

The Legend of Thunder: While it’s not perfect, this OVA gives us a fascinating “What If?” scenario by focusing on a different main character and his two friends as they have their own adventures in Johto and face a more sinister duo from Team Rocket. It makes you wish they were the focus instead of Ash, or at the very least focus could be split between the two.

Ash vs. Gary at the Johto League: Ash and Gary’s long rivalry has built up to this battle in OS272 and OS273, and it’s excellent. Charizard vs. Blastoise, man; who could ever forget it?

Harley Wins: Harley has been a humorous and semi-villainous rival for May, but he’s lost every time they fought and there was little reason to believe that would change. Shockingly, AG160 gives him the victory, as for once he doesn’t stoop to cheating and is able to reap the good karma this choice brings him. It goes a long way in making him more respectable.

May’s Coda: After losing her second Grand Festival, May is in something of a slump at the start of AG187. But then Drew, the rival she defeated in said Grand Festival, challenges her to a battle and is able to defeat her. This is a visual demonstration to May that anyone can bounce back from defeat and that her competitive path in Pokemon Contests never truly ends, reinvigorating her spirit. Not only is this a great resolution for May, but also for Drew and his somewhat romantic bond with May. (Oh, and Harley’s here too, great as always).

The Dream Team: BW006 is the episode where Ash, Iris and Cilan officially become a team that will travel across Unova and beyond together. Sandwiched between two traveling teams that by and large are big Get-Along Gangs, this trio is refreshing in how different each character truly is from one another and how they clash in addition to supporting each other.

The Meteonite Incident: Although the full work remains lost, the story of BW023 and BW024 is a good one, with Giovanni finally getting out of his chair and attending to matters himself, setting in motion an escalating chain of events that end up threatening an entire city’s safety.

Battle For The Underground: While Shoji Yonemura wrote the first part of this story in BW049, Tomioka writes the exciting conclusion where Team Rocket pulls out all the stops to ensure their massive heist succeeds, with the heroes’ victory being fought hard for and only claimed due to the surprise of Pikachu becoming something of a Pokemon trainer himself!

Aim To Be a Dragon Master: If there was still any doubt as to what exactly being a Dragon Master entails, BW058 puts them to rest in a quiet, moving story of Iris helping a lonely Deino come out of its shell and trust others, and ultimately sacrificing her personal wants for its needs by giving it back to its rightful trainer. It’s not about the power; it’s about the empathy. 

Operation Tempest: BW098 and BW099 are two of the best Pokeani episodes ever, serving as the epic conclusion to the Meloetta story arc, the overarching Team Rocket in Unova arc, and the ever-looming prospect of Ash someday facing Giovanni himself. Add to this Cynthia being awesome, Iris finally connecting with her Dragonite, one of the Team Rocket trio’s finest moments, and an emotional farewell with Meloetta, and you have yourself a true masterwork.

Ash vs. Clemont at Lumiose Gym: Good build-ups and pay-offs were hard to come by in the first two years of XY, but XY067 was an exception, as it pays off not just Clemont’s leave of absence for several episodes beforehand but also Clemont’s personal character arc ever since the series started, and he rises to the occasion with a wonderfully tense electric battle.

The Strongest Mega Evolution: Like “The Legend of Thunder”, except across four specials rather than just one, we have a story about characters other than Ash and his friends which is a lot more interesting. Alain is way more than just the edgy cool guy he first appears to be, his relationship with Mairin is precious, Steven Stone gets to redeem himself for his showing in the AG series, and Lysandre is a wonderfully charismatic and manipulative villain. Combined with some superb animation and even a true Groudon vs. Kyogre battle, it’s...well, strong!

Enter Squishy: With XY094, Kalos is able to one-up Johto by actually making its side story featuring different characters connect with the main story! Getting to see the Zygarde Core (named “Squishy” by Bonnie), Lysandre and freaking Alain in the same episode as Ash and his friends gives you such an exhilarating feeling. Finally, things are starting to come together.

Armageddon in Kalos: The climax of the XY series, XY132 - XY136, is where Tomioka is able to do what he was sadly prevented from doing in the BW series: conclude the series Myth Arc in an epic, high-stakes event that threatens the whole region and relies on just about every significant good guy coming together to fight against. Lysandre cements himself as one of the anime’s greatest villains, causing unprecedented damage across Lumiose City as he seeks to achieve his insane, genocidal aims. There are some flaws (mainly the fact that alleged heroines Serena and Mairin get jack-shit to actually do), but on the whole this is a fantastic pay-off, retroactively making the entire series worth it just for these episodes alone.

The Story of Ash’s Litten: Litten’s story is an emotional gut-punch, particularly in SM021 where Ash catches it. Even now, it’s hard to think of that Stoutland without tearing up...

Team Rocket vs. Team Skull: In SM025, it finally happens. Jessie, James and Meowth finally meets a villainous trio that’s even more stupid and bumbling than they’ve ever been.

Misty and Brock, Back and Better Than Ever: Following Shoji Younemura in a two-parter again, Tomioka’s SM043 is the conclusion of the perfect re-introduction to Misty and Brock, both of whom get to be badass here. Misty and her teasing of Ash is especially on point.

10,000,000 Volts: SM053 and SM054 both showcase the battle in Ultra Space between Ash and his friends (the would-be-Ultra Guardians) and Lusamine, who has been forcibly merged with Nihilego and reduced to a psychotic, childish mentality. It ends with two stellar moment: a speech from Lillie to her mother that I honestly like better than the games’ version, and the separation of Lusamine from Nihelgo by Pikachu’s incredible 10,000,000 Volts Z-Move.

Lana Hooks Kyogre: Do I need to say more? Lana hooks a freaking Kyogre!

Defeat Incineroar, Become Incineroar: The battle between Ash and his father-figure Professor Kukui runs for SM141 - SM144, the first three of which are written by Tomioka. While that’s one episode longer than I’d have liked, it’s ultimately worth it for SM143 (the penultimate episode before Aya Matsui’s epic finale with Tapu Koko), where Ash’s Torracat finally manages to defeat Kukui’s Incineroar, evolving into an Incineroar itself afterward.

Battle of the Newbie Champions: JN065 gives us Ash, new young Champion of the Alola region, vs. Iris, new young Champion of the Unova region. It’s the perfect re-introduction to Iris as well as an incredibly close battle that you could easily see either trainer winning.

The Masters Eight Tournament: JN115 - JN118, JN122 - JN125 and JN129 - JN132 are all written by Tomioka and feature every battle in the Masters Eight tournament that concludes the long-running World Coronation Series: Leon vs. Alain, Lance vs. Diantha, Iris vs. Cynthia, Ash vs. Steven, Leon vs. Diantha, Ash vs. Cynthia, and finally Ash vs. Leon. All of these battles are great, especially both Cynthia battles and the decisive final battle which serves as the culmination of Ash’s 25-year journey...the moment he and Pikachu achieve their dream.

THE MISSES:

For Want of a Jelly Donut: OS025 is a really bad episode. There’s little plot to speak of beyond dealing with a rampaging Primeape, which Ash catches only to discard a mere 4 episodes later making it feel utterly pointless. It also hasn’t aged well given that so much importance is placed on Ash’s hat...which ended up being just the first of many hats he wears, so I guess it wasn’t so special after all! The only good part about this episode is the English dub version with its notorious “rice ball = jelly donut” translation. Otherwise, it blows. 

The Sleepiest Episode Ever: In OS060, Ash and his friends come upon an island where a Blastoise is asleep and they need to wake it up. So, it’s just a variation on OS041, except with all of the riotous humor sucked out and replaced with dullness. Seriously, it’s so boring.

Who Gets To Keep Totodile?: Misty screwed Ash out of Togepi in OS050, so now in OS153 Ash screws Misty out of Totodile! Huh. Did Tomioka never hear the one about two wrongs?

Excruciating Ecruteak: In the games, Ecruteak City is a fascinating place and Morty is an intriguing Gym Leader. In the anime as showcased in OS183 and OS184, both of them are dreadfully boring and unmemorable. Also, this is where Ho-oh finally gets name-dropped as the Pokemon that Ash saw in the first episode, and it flies by like it’s nothing! What the Hell!?

The Whirl Cup: In OS217 - OS219, Tomioka tries to finally give Misty something major to do. Unfortunately, it ends up sucking! Beyond the predictable formula of Misty losing to someone who goes on to lose to someone else in the next round, the preceding battle between her and Ash is awful. People claim Ash “regressed in intelligence” in BW, but seldom seem to bring up the time he lost because he somehow forgot that giving Psyduck a headache was a bad idea!

Deadbeat Parents are Hilarious!: The first side special episode that aired over the course of the AG series has Brock return to Pewter City Gym and reunite with both of his deadbeat parents. Hey, remember when that situation was treated seriously back in OS005? Tomioka sure doesn’t, since Brock’s parents and his anger toward them for abandoning him and his siblings are treated as zany and wacky here, diminishing what should be a serious issue.

Goodbye, Arbok and Weezing: AG006 gets rid of Jessie and James’ original Pokemon, Arbok and Weezing, in an unpleasant and kind of mean-spirited way, made worse by the fact that they are never reunited ever again. As a TR fan, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Boring and Boring-er: AG027 is when Team Magma and Team Aqua, the mysterious evil teams from earlier, finally meet up with one another. Aaaand...they still act mysteriously, even when there’s no reason to since they don’t know anyone else is watching and they have the exact same evil plan just with different Legendary Pokemon at the end of it! Tomioka seems to think that this will make them intriguing to viewers. Instead, it just makes them boring. 

The Togepi Kingdom: Tomioka brings Misty and Togepi back in AG044 and AG045 and sends off the latter, evolving it into Togetic in the process. Not only is this way too little too late, but the story here is ridiculous, involving a fairy tale style kingdom with a princess and an evil mustache-twirling villain out to conquer it, with the whole reason behind Misty leaving Togetic being connected to it. Really? This is the pay-off Togepi gets after all these years!?

May’s Acquired Situational Narcissism: In an example of a trope I tend to hate, May in AG078 suddenly starts acting like a swell-headed jerk, even though there wasn’t any sign of that in just the previous episode this one is directly following! It’s all to humble her and teach her a lesson through having her lose, of course, and it’s so boring and predictable and lame.

The Ultimate Anti-Climax: AG097 and AG098 are what the whole Team Magma and Team Aqua plotline were building up to, and what do we get? A bunch of still frames and awkward animation as Groudon and Kyogre have themselves what is sold as an epic battle but what actually looks like a schoolyard scuffle. Also, no Steven, no Wallace, but Lance? WTF!? These two episodes are regarded as some of the worst in Pokeani history, and justifiably so.

Jigglypuff, Except Not: AG138 isn’t a bad episode, but it’s marred by a single poor decision - the Jigglypuff it focuses on is not the Jigglypuff. See, even though Jigglypuff got its big pay-off in OS074, when the Pokeani was renewed due to the franchise’s unexpected popularity it still stuck around as a running joke that got ran into the ground before just vanishing without a trace following AG039. This episode provided the perfect opportunity to finally give it a definitive send-off, and Tomioka totally wasted it! That’s never gonna not hurt to think about.

The Bait-and-Switch Premiere: DP001 is a great episode for most of its run, introducing us to Dawn, a lovable new heroine that combines the position of Ash and the goal of May, which promises a unique new adventure to come.....and then we see Ash, Pikachu and Team Rocket at the end. That’s when it becomes clear that Dawn isn’t going to be the lead after all, she’s just May’s replacement and we’re just doing the same old tired-out shit all over again. If the DP series was your first and you like it, cool. But for me, it was a soul-crushing let-down.

Dirt Poor Pacing: Ash getting his first badge in Sinnoh takes forever because DP015 wastes time having Paul fight Roark for his badge, then having Ash fight Roark and lose in DP016, then having a random incident in the city transpire in DP017 before finally having Ash fight Roark and win in DP018. 4 episodes just to win the region’s first badge is simply too much.

Copy/Paste Writing: Dawn enters a Contest. She doesn’t get past the Appeals round. Jessie obnoxiously rubs it in her face. Dawn feels depressed because she’s failing to live up to her mother’s reputation as a Coordinator. Zoey comforts her about it. Which episode am I talking about: DP049 or DP061? Trick question, it’s both because they share the exact same plot.

The Wallace Cup: Besides using May’s obligatory return to bring Wallace in one generation late and barely do anything substantial with him, DP075 - DP079 suffer from questionable decisions like abruptly having Zoey be fine with people doing both Gyms and Contests, having Ash compete in the Wallace Cup in an Indiana Jones cosplay outfit for no good reason, and having Dawn and Piplup defeat May and Glaceon in a highly unconvincing manner just to resolve Dawn’s self-confidence arc that wasn’t very well-written to start with.

Ash and Paul’s Full Battle: If the characters and narrative had treated Paul honestly and if Paul lost this battle, then we could have had something good. But no, Ash loses, all while moral relativism and abuse apologism runs rampant. What DP131 and DP132′s story appears to be saying is that Paul’s issue was never his cruelty toward people and Pokemon he deemed weak, but that he was too emotional. Yeah, because when I think of emotional characters, I think of Paul. But now he’s cool-headed and thus the stronger trainer between him and Ash and so he deserves to win! Ugh, the creator favoritism reached its peak here.

It’s SPEAR Pillar, Not SPHERE Pillar!: The climax of the Team Galactic storyline from DP150 - DP152 was better than the Aqua/Magma climax, but not by nearly enough, with it leading to a brief skirmish in a nonsensically located “Spear Pillar” where Cyrus completes his descent into OOC Complete Monster-dom by revealing he wants to wipe everything out so that he alone can exist in a new world. He then commits existential suicide when his new world begins to fade away without having ever battled anyone, which is followed by Dialga and Palkia threatening to destroy Sinnoh until Ash, Dawn and Brock pray to the Lake Trio who just...make Dialga and Palkia stop. Oh yeah, and they were chosen by the Lake Trio only because they “love Pokemon so much”, as Cynthia pretentiously says. Ugh! Gag me!

Diamond Dandruff: DP161 and DP162 finally reveal why Dawn’s childhood friends teasingly call her “Dee Dee”. It stands for...”Diamond Dandruff”, due to Plusle and Minun making her hair sparkle once when she was young.  And the humiliation was apparently so great that it gave her a full-blown phobia of Plusle and Minun, which she now must struggle to overcome. Really? Dawn having hair problems is a running gag in the series, and a hair problem is now not only being used to explained away a plot point that’s been kept secret for years but is being treated in a way where we’re meant to take it seriously? By Arceus, is that stupid...

A Scientific Breakthroooops, Never Mind: We spend all of BW039 dealing with Professor Juniper and Fennel’s resurrection of a fossilized Archen which evolves into Archeops and then at the end we discover that Archeops are not, in fact, extinct, as a whole flock of them show up to take the newly revived one under their wings. That’s.....incredibly lazy writing.

My Way Or The Highway, Bitch!: The Black and White games’ message is about how it’s important to have open dialogue between people who hold different viewpoints and ideas, and how the world shouldn’t change by one ideal being forced upon everyone else? Fuck that shit, BW069 says that Skyla’s new way of running her Gym is bullshit and Cilan has to force his view on how she should be running it onto her until she complies! If the message ended up being that negotiation and diplomacy are what can resolve the problem, it’d be fine. But no, Skyla’s just wrong and is depicted as a callous bitch, Cilan’s just right and is depicted as an avenging hero, and in the following episode Skyla just has to go back to regular battling without addressing the reasons she stopped doing them to start with. Fuck off, Tomioka.

You Can’t Handle the Truth!: The climax for Team Plasma’s story arc in BW122 - BW124 is a step above Team Galactic’s, which was a step above Team Aqua/Magma’s. Unfortunately, Tomioka gets to write the last of the three episodes, and as a result the action that was building up so well in the previous two is met with an anticlimactic conclusion. Oh, you think there’s going to be a big fight against Reshiram? Maybe with Ghetsis commanding it against Ash’s Charizard, as hinted at in the current OP? Nope! You can just sense Tomioka’s lack of passion for this finale, since he never got over not being able to make the Black and White inspired one he’d hoped to at the start of the BW series. As a result, the Team Plasma arc doesn’t end on a whimper or a bang, but on a shrug, as if to say “Idk, whatever, we’re done”.

Professor Oak’s Pointless Vacation: BW130 has Professor Oak visit the Decolore Islands and catch a Rotom, which he proceeds to do nothing of value with. Meanwhile, Team Rocket fully regresses into unfunny gag characters ala the DP series, and Ash passes up a perfectly good opportunity to return to Kanto just...because. Tomioka isn’t even trying at this point.

Ash Comes To Kalos: At first glance, XY001 and XY002 make for a perfectly solid premiere. But look closer and you see an immediate problem, and that’s Ash Ketchum. His design, his attitude, him doing stuff like bravely jumping off a skyscraper...it’s all reflective of the anime producers’ reactionary pandering to the vocal online fandom who complained about Ash in the BW series, and thus he’s now the badass “Chad” type they’ve always wanted him to be so that they can enjoy projecting themselves onto him. I cannot sanction such cowardice.

Meeting (Low) Expectations: After over a year, XY060 finally has Serena take a crack at a professional goal: being a Performer in a Pokemon Showcase. And.....it’s just Pokemon Contests all over again, minus the battling factor and gender equality. But apparently that wasn’t underwhelming enough, so we also get to see her lose and cry about it! This is the nadir of the first half of the XY series’ major problem with returning to formulaic conventions. It’s everything that’s been done before done worse, but then Serena gets a haircut so we’re supposed to view it as dramatic and important instead of stale and derivative. Yeah, no. Pass.

Ash’s Frog Fiasco: The ill-advised “Ash-Greninja synchronization” plotline comes to a head in XY120 - XY122, all written by Tomioka. Ash loses due to overexerting his bond with Greninja for the upteenth time, which sends him into a crisis of confidence. This could allow him to be more interesting than he’s been in a long while, but instead Serena yells at him to suck it up and be “the real Ash” again, which he does since fallibility just ain’t allowed for him in the XY series! Tellingly, this specific story gets retconned in Pokemon Journeys, which instead says Ash and Greninja had an argument and brief falling out after Ash pushed it too hard in battle. That does sound like a better story...I sure wish it was the one we actually got.

Hau Do You Do?: In SM097, Tomioka abruptly introduces Hau into the series. I’m sorry, Hau is an important character in the games, but the show has progressed too far without even a hint to his existence, so he was better off left unadapted. But no, he’s here now simply to provide an extra opponent for Ash to beat in the Alola League. The poor guy deserved better.

Kukui’s Childhood: Celebi time travel plots had gotten old by this point, and SM125 might be the worst one of all because it involves Ash and Torracat traveling back to when Kukui was a child with a Litten, and they give him the dream to form the Alola League in the future....the League that Ash ends up winning. Viewed in that light, his victory kinda feels like cheating.

Paul’s Unwelcome Return: There is no valid reason for JN114 to exist other than for Tomioka’s darling Paul to grace the screen again and remind us all what a poorly written character he was due to this favoritism shown toward him. “He’s way too cool!” Goh says. Ugh! I prefer the English dub, where Goh instead derisively says he’s “acting far too cool”, which not only is more in-character but sums up Paul well. He’s not cool; he’s just a poser.

No More Team Rocket!: Finally, a perfectly good send-off for Ash and Pikachu spread across JN137 - JN147 is marred by what is done with Team Rocket in the last three of those episodes, all written by Tomioka. After a plan and battle reminiscent of better ones from the past fail, the Team Rocket trio, over the course of one minute, argue and then sever ties with one another! We then get another minute where they’re still mad at each other, and then the following minute with them in it they reconcile! That’s the best Tomioka could come up with for their final plotline? A break-up plot whose outcome was all too obvious given that it’s been done several times before...and a ridiculously rushed break-up plot at that? Disgraceful.