#so many takes seem to forget that

[voracusrdr]

Another thing that some seem to easily miss, possibly because of that protective streak/asking Xie Lian to never hurt himself (again) of Hua Chengs, is his complete lack of second guessing/questioning Xie Lian. There's a whole ass conversation about it between Hua Cheng and Feng Xin in volume 8 while Xie Lian is putting himself at risk rescuing Mu Qing (not to mention the whole Wu Ming/White Faced Calamity period)

The thing I think some people miss about Hua Cheng because he has this whole need to be the strongest to protect Xie Lian thing is that he is perfectly content to let Xie Lian fight his own battles and beat people up. Hell he gets a little kick out if. Like I think some people think he’s got this step behind me kitten booktok boyfriend behaviour and he doesn’t. He is more than happy to let Xie Lian go full martial god and cheer from the sidelines because he thinks it’s hot (see the entire Ban Yue arc) like as long as the whatever the threat is won’t actually hurt Xie Lian or Xie Lian won’t hurt himself he will canonically just be in the back trying on pretty outfits for his geges entertainment offering him advice and support and watching him kick ass with heart eyes because that’s the guy he fell in love with. He adores Xie Lian martial side and thinks it’s very cool and sexy of him.

[lemongogo]

college … wasted on the youth (me)

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

i think the diamond dogs should play improv games just bc it would amuse me, an ex theater kid, specifically

[spotaus]

Thinking about Orchid and her connection to my take on Gender (because this was meant to be about her and the Crew but it just devolved into a character analysis kinda??? More trauma-dumping maybe???) This is very much an oc/personal rant so feel free to ignore it 🫡

So, Orchid started off as a character I didn't really think much of (hear me out this is going to be relevant) because I wanted to add a 'girl' character but didn't know what to *do* with her, y'know? She was always going to be the strongest one there, she had the odds stacked in her favor with her parents. She was always going to be the gloomy side-character to match Reset's energy. But I think she's gone through every stage of Generic Woman I could possibly find.

At first she was angry and abrasive (think Fell!Sans) where every other word was a curse and she was likely to throw the first punch then laugh as she kicks her enemy while they're down. This was when Reset was a cartoonishly self-centered villain whose goal was simply to prove others wrong. Then Orchid became a sort of sisterly figure. This was short-lived, but she was the one comforting people who Reset would torment, but would ultimately follow his orders, because at this point he was actually a danger and sadistic. And then there was the phase where the story mellowed out and she became the token Goth Girl who, yes she was strong, but was heavy on the 'whatever' energy. Then there was her Era of deep self-loathing and anxiety about her worth that held her back and made her a much more timid and meek character who would only lash out on occasion.

Now, Orchid is the best of those iterations I've written yet. She's calm, level-headed, and a natural leader. Her father raised those traits into her. But she's very reactive, and can be silly, and when she's comfortable it's likely that air of importance transforms into something more comfortable and familiar. She laughs loudly and grins wide, she likes loud video-games but loves to read in the quiet. She's extremely disciplined, and normally no one can get through her tough exterior besides her best friend, Reset. She does what she does for her own enjoyment, sure, but she's thought of every angle and makes her choice to help Reset and control the others with her whole chest. She still worries she won't live up to her invisible expectations, and that and her loyalty are her two driving forces.

I know that Orchid is important to me because she's the longest-running female oc I've had. I have a rough relationship with womanhood/girlhood and I know looking back that Orchid recieved every ounce of my distaste for being a woman that I could shovel into her. That never made her less of a character, she was actually always one of my favorites, and rarely was she a 'punching bag oc'. I just... projected onto her a lot. And she's a good sign of how I've learned who I am. I've decided that my own femininity is something I could live without. I'd rather not associate myself with it, and I'd like to leave it in my past, focusing on a future where I'm not tied down with any gender roles or expectations. That won't happen, but I've come to terms with it myself. Orchid though? I figured out through her that I don't have to hate women characters. My own distaste for my circumstances doesn't mean I have to push it onto my characters (on God I've never expressed anything rude to actual people, that'd be rude as hell and uncalled for, but I have a bad habit of disliking fictional women in media). So, Orchid is a well-roubded character finally. She has motivations abd goals and a *lot* more depth than I ever expected her to. She's happy with being a woman, she's content. She's not treated differently for it in unfair ways by those she cares about, so she doesn't mind it. She likes to wear pretty outfits and lets Reset add bows to her ribbons. She doesn't let being a woman hold her back in the slightest.

So, yeah. Orchid is one of my babies. If I ever leave this Fandom behind for good, she's one that's coming with (Ichor, Orchid, and Pretender all have human designs I can use elsewhere lol-) but in the meantime I'll just rotate her around in my brain for a while longer.

If I'm right, she's been with me for nearly 5-6 years and I went through a *lot* with her as an outlet. So, she's kinda just like an old stuffed animal. A lil ripped, matted fur, maybe a stain or two, but there's a story there and that makes it important beyond belief.

[ducktracy]

ltc is such a conflicting show because it is probably one of the ones where porky is brutally beaten the most but also is the cutest he has ever been in years. pearl of my dreams has SUCH cute porkies in it

TELLLLLLL ME ABOUT IT HAHA!! i feel the same way! LTC’s my favorite LT adaptation thats come out, i have such a deeply personal connection with it and it means more to me than words can articulate. i miss waking up at 5:30 in the morning to watch new batches drop and have my friends and coworkers who worked on it wair for my reactions. i love the show so so so dearly, i’m so glad it exists and it means the world to me. at the same time, i definitely have gotten a bit more critical of it as my knowledge of both the original shorts have strengthened AND the knowledge of the modern cartoon pipeline has strengthened! much of the LTC crew has migrated onto TPSS, which is WONDERFUL, if any of you guys are reading this you rock i love you. but that also means i’m able to have a more intimate look at how LTC was made since a lot of the same patterns and demands are on our show, because it’s the same cartoon pipeline! so, with that knowledge, i’m able to pick out “this is a side effect of the modern pipeline, the classics wouldn’t do this” etc and generally taken out of it a bit more. i’ve grown more critical not because i like the show less, but i just Know More now and my vision has broadened

WITH ALL THAT SAID! that has definitely allowed me to see that the Porky and Daffy shorts can get pretty repetitive and follow the same formula often of “Daffy makes Porky’s life miserable and Porky gets beat up a lot”. THANKFULLY(?), they’re still easily my favorite shorts of the entire bunch, they have their flaws but i still absolutely love them, and the repetition doesn’t bother me as much with them because the novelty of the pig and duck being together on-screen is good enough for me LOL. very easy to please i know. BUT YEAH, one of my biggest issues for sure is how poor Porky can never catch a break :( i’m glad that they seemed to try to rectify this though in recent batches! Crumb and Get It is one of my favorite shorts of the entire show, and you could describe that as “Porky makes Daffy’s life miserable by basically doing nothing”. Stained by Me is another very big favorite of mine since Porky gets to act a bit retaliatory towards Daffy which i love! i thought it was definitely one of the more faithful to the classics. (and i have to say, i bring up the classics the classics the classics a lot—i know these shorts aren’t trying to be 1 to 1 recreations of the classics. i just remember when these shorts were being marketed as the sort of second coming of the classics, and so that’s always stuck in my mind a bit/i have terminable Comparison disease which has thankfully been letting up, but it is stubborn here since these are the closest TO the classics in format and structure. so i realize me going “okay but it wasn’t like the classics” when they’re not exactly trying to be 100% like the classics is… ignorant? IUNNO! I KNOW MY HYPOCRISY LOL)

as always, i have past thoughts that reflect what i’m trying to say a bit more effectively, the second one especially relevant to this ask:

i think it comes down to just a sort of caricature and magnification of the original dynamics. i have many more thoughts that are refusing to come to me at this moment… BUT YES. even in spite of all that, i still love LTC and still love the Porkys and Daffys. i’ve noticed that the shorts with less dialogue (Wet Cement, Battle Stations, Duck Chocolate, Crumb and Get It) tend to be my favorites, since i think the overabundance of dialogue—and very OBVIOUS dialogue, like a character pointing to an object and saying “look, it’s [object]!” in these shorts is one of its biggest trappings. and all of the above—maybe with the exception of Duck Chocolate in some parts, though a lot of it is pantomime driven and wonderfully so—have the characters with comparatively subdued natures. not as much screaming or hysteria or madness

ALL OF THIS IS TO SAY, i am VERY excited for TDTEBU (gee what gave it away) because i’m excited to see how the demands of a longer format give way to more subtlety with the characters. when the film first released in Germany and i was spending every waking hour of the day trying to find any sort of reaction or information and frying my brain (and been doing the same this past week :’)), i found a podcast reviewing the film, and one person described it as a “Porky movie” centered on his growth which makes me extremely excited and hopeful that there’ll be more subtlety and sympathy for his character

AND YES, in spite of it all Porky is SO ADORABLE. i haven’t seen Pearl of My Dreams since it dropped, i really ought to again… i was just thinking the other day that i couldn’t remember if they made a “pearls before swine” joke in there or not, and if they didn’t then it would be highway robbery. more incentive to rewatch!!

[wildflowercryptid]

something that's been weighing on my mind ever since learning about the situation with ezra / toonimal is seeing how these predators will take the active hostility that is frequently directed towards minors in online spaces to their advantage and use it to prey on vulnerable children. i think that we as adults in online fandom should probably come together and maybe rethink the language / manner we go about interacting with kids bc clearly the way things are rn is causing active harm.

like obviously, if you're an adult and aren't comfortable with minors interacting with you or your content, you should be allowed to set that boundary and should be vocal about it, ( especially if the content you create isn't safe for them to consume. ) but i don't think talking to them like they're a blight on all that is good and holy is the way to go about it. maybe just saying you're an 18 plus account will suffice, you don't have to tell them to fuck off.

[crayonfears]

hey just letting you know that I’m the person you wrote the 2 comments 🥲 btw I was wondering how you would describe the childhood of the jangbros? because the show didn’t did them really justice and I think your opinion will be really interesting 🙏

hi there, friend! so happy to see you again! sorry it took me a while to answer this. i've just been so busy haha

my thoughts on jangbros' childhood really depends on my mood 🙈 you're right that the show did them no justice at all - and a part of me is disappointed that two integral characters were left so underdeveloped; another part of me is actually delighted that that's the case since that means my ass can just jump in and fill the gaps as i please hehe MY canon now.

personally, i like to play around a lot with how they met, when they met, and how that would affect their dynamic/relationship. this is something you'd get to see in my next fics which, hopefully will be finished soon - i won't spoil anything now hehe 😉

if you want to stick close to canon, though. i like that they first met on a hunting trip. han seok said the gun scared him, which is most definitely a lie, though i like to think that he pretended to be scared for han seo's sake - a way to show, 'hey, we're so alike, right? you got nothing to be afraid of me for 🤓' han seo didn't know at all what was about to hit him rip. another thing that i also cling onto from canon is han seo's drug abuse. i wish they'd developed on it more than just a throwaway line and those callous reactions from cha young and vincenzo ;; i would've loved to know how he broke away from it - if he ever did at all. my personal hc is han seok's got him sober, mainly because he'd be the kind to think drug use is dirty, beneath them - ironic since he's making drugs that'd get people addicted smh - and well, how would han seo feels anything han seok does to him if he's doped out of his mind?

ahh but that's too far from their childhood now. another thing i'd love to know is the kids han seok murdered in his youth. was there another reasons beyond him not liking the look of them? my shipper brain has some ideas haha, perhaps they showed too much interest in han seo, or any interest at all. maybe han seo showed interest in them so han seok had to cut it right off at the bud, showed han seo that there could only one person han seo was allowed to look at. yandere!han seok, my beloved haha

i also like to think about han seok patching han seo up from the wounds he himself caught. them in the bathroom of their massive villa, han seo sitting on the sink and trying not to flinch at how rough hyungnim is being with his wounds. the same hands that hurt him now working to fix him up. the push and pull that han seo kept han seo coming back no matter how much han seok has hurt him. i think han seo would learn better as he grew up but still, his child's mind could only see how kind his hyungnim is being, makes him forget all the hurt.

there's also that period of time where han seok was in the US and han seo's all alone in Korea. did they keep contact? han seok has shown han seok with so little monitoring on han seo - which i thought was so bizarre considering han seo's han seok's fall guy. i like to imagine han seok as so clingy, the kind to text every day and micromanage han seo's every decision even with an ocean away from them. he had to have away to keep himself in his dongsaeng's psyche; so he wouldn't forget him. but if they didn't keep contact, then what would han seo be like during those years? would he have grown out of the abuse han seok inflicted on him? i like to think that he did - han seo grew up to be such a brat, rolling his eyes and making devil horns behind han seok's back; so maybe he just grew to be a little less afraid of han seok in those years apart than he would've had they stayed together.

anyways, this sure is all over the place haha. i'm not even sure i answered your question. i tend to ramble a lot when talking about these two. let me know if you want me to specify anything, or if you wanna know more about them. as i said, i'm always down to talk about these two losers 🥰

[rollercoasterwords]

I have, a genuine question for you. Do you acknowledge the racism in the original AYTD or at least know about it? Like how MsKingBean uses slurs and racist stereotypes?

hey, so, i'm a bit apprehensive about answering this because...it doesn't feel like a very geniune question to me, if i'm being honest. "do you acknowledge x thing" is a question that is inherently set up so that i'm meant to answer "yes, i acknowledge that x thing is true," because the alternative is saying "no, i don't acknowledge that x thing is true," which is already framing this interaction as if to disagree with you would be a kind of failure on my part to do some due diligence of engaging critically with a text. and the fact that you say mskingbean89 used slurs in atyd shows me that you haven't even engaged with the text, because that simply...isn't true.

if what you're referring to when you say "slurs" is the anti-romani stereotypes--this is coming from an extra chapter in the bootleg tapes focusing on greyback, where there is a slur used to describe his living situation + he + his family were portrayed as nomadic irish people in a way that was insensitive. people who read that chapter and then went back to the canon story with that characterization in mind rightfully pointed out that it was fucked-up. mskingbean89 addressed those criticisms by adding this note to the beginning of that bootleg chapter:

personally, i think this was a good way to take accountability + acknowledge the mistakes she made with that portrayal. she was a human being who made an ignorant mistake, which then just happened to get absolutely blasted to millions of people--she did not have sensitivity readers or editors looking over her fanfiction, because she did not write it expecting it to reach the level of popularity that it has. to be honest, i am not really sure how she could have better acknowledged her mistake, aside from just....not having made it in the first place. she explains her intentions without acting as though that intent cancels out harm, owns up to the fact that the stereotyping was harmful regardless of intention, and provides resources to learn while also committing to be more mindful + educate herself moving forward. honestly, that's exactly the response i would hope to see from someone who makes a mistake like this one.

i agree with you that people reading atyd should acknowledge + understand the racism regarding romani stereotypes stemming from that bootleg chapter, which is why i think it's great that there is a note literally built into the beginning of that chapter acknowledging it! but i feel as though there's been this like...game of telephone happening online when it comes to atyd, where there are now people who have never even read the story talking about things that quite literally do not appear in the base text itself. i've also seen people acting as though mkb herself did not address these issues when they were raised to her, which is just...patently false.

and so what i'm wondering here is what you're looking for from me when you ask a question like "do you acknowledge the racism in atyd." anyone who actually reads the texts has to acknowledge the racism in that bootleg chapter, because mkb puts that acknowledgment front and center at the beginning. and also like...in the part of the fandom i'm in, in the conversations i've listened to or taken part of regarding atyd, people have acknowledged the issues with that bootleg chapter and the ways it reflects back on the main story. so what do you mean by "acknowledge" when so many people, including mkb herself, have already... acknowledged it? what action are you calling for, and who are you calling for it from?

because like. if what u actually want to say here is that atyd is Irredeemably Problematic and we should all like....shun it? universally agree that it's Bad? then it's just like. it is up to each individual reading the story to decide whether that specific portrayal of greyback in the bootleg chapters is something that ruins the story completely for them or whether they still think the story as a whole holds worth. personally, i feel like i can acknowledge that there are issues with mkb's portrayal of greyback and i need to be mindful of that when reading the story so as not to internalize harmful stereotypes while still finding atyd to be a masterpiece that really beautifully deals with a lot of nuanced issues regarding class and disability and systems of power. this is just part of thinking critically when you read; many famous and beloved works of fiction contain the biases of their authors or have mistakes or issues in the way they portray things that are a product of ignorance. and i know everyone reading marauders fanfiction should understand this, because if u genuinely think that a character being negatively stereotyped means u should throw the entire work in the trash, then none of u would be touching harry potter fanfiction with a five foot pole in the first place.

so, anon - if you have actually read atyd, and there are issues with racism that you have found that i am unaware of, and not just telephone-game twitter posts of people taking shit out of context that you're accepting as truth without bothering to engage with the work yourself--if you want to have a real conversation about it, i would invite you to come to me as an actual person and not an anonymous ghost in my inbox. my dms are open, but when it comes to talking about serious issues, i tend to find it more genuine if the person coming to me actually cares enough and believes in what they're saying enough to say it as themself. and if you haven't read atyd and are just parroting things you've heard other people say online then i would invite you to actually sit down and read the work and form your own opinions on it before getting back to me. i know that might sound harsh, but honestly i'm just completely fed-up at this point with all the bad-faith takes and misinformation that i've seen people spreading about atyd just because they think it's cool to dislike a popular thing.

[medicinemane]

Should make a pain killer that actually kills (or even touches) pain

[lighthouseas]

many takes on madwheeler are ooc yes i agree but like. you cannot just ignore the existence of the classroom nosebleed scene. mike was sitting next to max for a reason. they could've put someone else there, like lucas or dustin, who are definitely closer to her than mike. BUT THEY DIDN'T. they put mike there AND MADE IT A POINT TO FOCUS ON HIM NOTICING HER NOSEBLEED. why. Why Is That. you can complain about madwheeler all you want but you can't just. turn a blind eye to the fact that the two are undeniably paralleled to one another and are probably going to interact next season. lol

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

The Poisons We Drink

YA urban fantasy

a girl who brews powerful potions is coerced into making potions to interfere with D.C.’s most influential politicians in an attempt to stop a dangerous Witcher Registration Act from passing, and will do anything to protect her sister after their mother is killed

bi MC, nonbinary love interest

arc from netgalley

[lith-myathar]

.

[reflectionsofgalaxies]

god, grief hits you at the weirdest fucking times

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

At last... The final mount unlock.

Scarlet can have an extra fluffy skyscale, as a treat.

[boydyke]

there will be nobody as strong or as intelligent or with a greater heart than my grandma. I love you grandma so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so sonso si so so so bad.

[rocaillefox]

the anime romantic killer does genuinely seem like just a tone shift away from becoming a horror show