#sometimes you see nonsense on the TL and you just have to do something about it

[kazhan-draws]

Eddie Munson beating the shit out of Billy Hargrove, 1985.

[raedshadowlegends]

Why Lore Olympus and Miraculous Ladybug are the Same Thing but in Different Fonts

Good evening, good day, hello and howdy. I am INCREDIBLY bored and I'm here to go on a nonsensical tangent about two pieces of media that I hate and have dedicated a vast amount of my free time to. This is all in good fun and all of my rudeness is intended to be satirical and/or comical unless indicated otherwise.

Now just to preface, if you know me then you know how much I dislike Miraculous Ladybug. Folks in my circle got to watch as I descended into madness writing a 64k word review on season 5. So I've spent an uncomfortable amount of time dissecting this show.

I have also spent an uncomfortable amount of time engaging with the shitshow that is Lore Olympus. And now my ass is gonna try and compare the two because there's a lot of shit going on here.

None of this is going to matter and it's all in good fun. Like I said, I am bored. And sometimes it's fun to compare stuff you hate.

Now let the insanity ensue. FP spoilers and MLB s5 spoilers below the cut btw.

To get a major difference out of the way, Miraculous Ladybug is a tv show. Lore Olympus is a webcomic.

But mediums aside, these two things still have a lot in common. So for the first comparison, I'd like to talk about the insecurity in both properties.

Insecurity

What I define as insecurity in this context is a piece of media that is too afraid to commit or adhere to a certain tone, story, style, etc. In short-- they don't know what they want to be.

Insecurity in Lore Olympus is a bit more obvious than with Miraculous so I'm gonna rant about that first.

Lore Olympus just straight up does not have a story to tell.

There are too many random ass plots being added and discarded on a whim for it to be a coherent story. A good way to explain it is kinda like this-- In this episode of LO, something cool new and interesting is set up and you have to keep reading to see what happens! And then nothing ever happens. Or it happens because the audience won't let the author forget so there's a half-assed attempt to wrap up that plot point.

LO is so insecure about what it is, it feels the need to add more and more to make it actually something. But what it is is a hollow story that lacks substance. So all of these new random plot points are kinda like bandaid solutions if that makes sense.

There are so many unfinished/under-utilized plot points that if you were to count out each and every one, you'd probably keel over dead before you finished. There's that many.

It's too insecure to commit to any one of them in the grand scheme of things.

I don't know how coherent all of that was so here's a shitty tl;dr

LO doesn't know what it wants to say anymore so it's just adding more shit to keep the reader "invested."

Yeah ok I think that makes more sense. As for Miraculous...

God. I fucking hate Miraculous.

It's insecure as hell and you can smell that shit from ten miles away. It's insecure with it's premise, I think.

If it just kept to the simple "monster-of-the-week" formula, I do not think I would have written so many words on it's fifth season.

Miraculous (apparently) had a grander story to tell beyond the "monster-of-the-week revert back to the status quo each episode."

But we don't see any of that in full swing till season 3, really. Which is a long ass time to get the ball rolling imo.

It's a little jarring to see the show go from the stupid kid status quo adventures to a heavy and emotional story??? And I say heavy and emotional with the most sarcastic tone possible because the only emotion I feel watching this shit is rage.

Despite wanting to make that shift to a serialized type of show, Miraculous was too scared to stray from the successful status quo format.

To explain a bit more I wanna talk about my review of the season.

While it is mostly filled with rude jokes and incomprehensible jargon, I bring up a lot of points in it regarding the state of things.

One of those things being the show's hesitancy to move the story along.

The fifth season was supposed to be a grand final battle and a conclusion to this story arc. But it was too scared to commit to that so there's way more episodes that are nothing but shipping fodder.

There are many episodes that season that just... feel the same. Just with different coats of paint. "Marinette is trying to date Adrien but she's awkward and clumsy and oh no! shenanigans ensue!" We've been doing this for 8 years.

If they want to tell a serialized story then they need to grow some balls and cut the shit we've seen a million times before.

Their insistence to stick to the status quo makes the writing exceptionally weak downright painful to sift through. It was too scared, too insecure, to stray from its formula.

That's a part of the reason why I think the season is paced so bad. There's so little time spent on the interesting parts of the story because they had to cram in as much shipping shit as possible. So by proxy, there was less time to tell a good story.

Both of these stupid ass properties don't know what they want to be. There are too many things being added and not enough balls to commit to any of them.

Now with both LO and MLB, we can all agree that the writing is pretty shit. Nothing new there. But shitty writing often bleeds into the characters and making them shitty by exposure. Almost like a spill of toxic waste, infecting anything near it and turning into a rotten pile of sludge and chemicals.

So yeah, the characters are ass as well. But I only wanna complain about the female leads for both of these things.

But just to mention Adrien and Hades, they are pretty similar. I won't go into detail but the short of it is, "Character with deep seated issues that could have been interesting, has a lot of potential, but is just kinda garbage in the end."

At least Adrien Agreste isn't monetizing death and has a bunch of shades in his basement doing his work.

Persephone and Marinette

So I always say that I don't like using the term 'Mary Sue' to describe a character. But as it turns out, I use that term a lot. So I'm not gonna lie about that anymore.

These two characters are Mary Sues.

Persephone first

Oh my god I hate Persephone a lot. She just ticks every box on my list of 'THINGS I HATE IN A CHARACTER.'

Which is funny because her character had a lot of promise and heart in the beginning.

I related to her a LOT when I picked up this comic before my frontal cortex developed. I related with her character and her struggles. Especially after the Apollo incident. That really stuck out to me. It was so powerful.

But all of those tiny things I liked about her character were stripped away. Her ambition to study in school? Poof, gone. Her charm? Not charming anymore. That kindness everyone in the story gushes about? I don't even think it was there in the first place.

Truth be told, I do need to reread this comic because the beginning is fuzzy as fuck in my walnut-sized brain. But I can tell you for certain that the way she was in the beginning is not who she is now.

And this isn't the case of a character going through an arc and developing and changing. She's just getting worse and the narrative treats it as a GOOD THING.

"Oh yeah, Persephone trashed Leuce's apartment instead of talking to her husband like an adult. She threatened to kill this nymph but you're supposed to find that endearing." Like, what??? I will not have a story try and get me to believe this is a good thing.

If this were a good story, Persephone's actions in that episode WOULDN'T BE REWARDED. But she's rewarded with sex for being a fucking psychopath towards a random nymph. Wow.

And that leads into my next point-- she can never be in the wrong ever.

AOW? Retconned, not her fault. It wasn't her fault she killed all those people. It's actually Eris' fault because she gave her wrath.

Trashing Leuce's apartment? She was in the right for that, apparently.

Killing people in a famine during the 10 year banishment? That's never explored, we just know she killed people, burned a library or something, and probably shot the president too. But it's fine, she's the good guy.

And most recently (and potentially the most frustrating);

Persephone causes winter.

Not her mother, Demeter, no fuck the myths. Persephone is the one who caused winter actually. AND SHE DID IT ON ACCIDENT SO TECHNICALLY IT IS NOT HER FAULT CAUSE SHE DIDNT MEAN TOOOO UWU She also probably killed a million flower nymphs in that snap freeze but its ok it doesn't matter.

WHAT?

WHAT THE FUCK? CMON NOW.

She's not going to receive any consequences for anything because she is just too perfect.

She's smarter than Athena, prettier than Aphrodite, better than her mother in every way, all the boys want her, she has a perfect body, she's pink, her eyes go red when she's angy, she has the most power of everyone in the world, she's a super rare fertility goddess, she has all the gifts, all the blessings, and none of the development.

It almost feels like a wattpad fanfic.

"My mom doesn't like me so she sold me to one direction and then I became queen of the underworld."

Yeah, I don't like her.

And the same can be applied to Marinette!

A character who is so blatantly perfect, the narrative fucking BENDS TO HER WILL.

She's a creepy ass stalker and has done some weird ass things to get close to this random famous white boy and it's all excused.

It's literally excused.

There is a rule about character backstories. They are supposed to provide an explanation for a character's behavior, not an excuse for it.

In season 5, episode 14 - Derision, we see a bit of Marinette backstory. Some stupid bullshit happens and Marinette essentially says she isn't going to say 'I love you' to anyone unless she knows literally everything about them.

She says a lot in that stupid ass scene but it's basically just saying that all of her stalking and creepy behavior is justified. Which it is not.

Marinette can do no wrong. The narrative won't allow it.

She's perfect in every way. And even when SHE is in the wrong, characters somehow find a way to apologize to her. Either that or she turns a situation about someone else into one about her self.

She's just the perfect character who ends up saving the world.

Fuck having Chat Noir face against his dad in the finale, Marinette has to girlboss all over the place and save the day but then actually lose because the "plot" demands it.

Oh yeah and she's probably never going to tell Adrien that his abusive dad was the villain they had been fighting for months. Do you think that's a good choice? I'll give you a hint; it is not.

It makes Marinette look like a HORRIBLE character but it's painted in a way that makes the viewer believe this is the right decision.

I don't think I need to get into specifics as to why that is wrong and disgusting.

If I had to make a prediction for this show going forward, she isn't going to tell him. It's going to be forgotten and she's going to be painted as the hero.

No flaws, no accountability, nothing.

Garbage character. Fucking hate it.

Both of these characters will never see consequences for their actions. Their bad actions are either excused or retconned out of existence. And that's not how you write a character btw. If you want them to be real, give them consequences. The world should not revolve around them. They should have flaws and issues that should be explored. But apparently that's too much work.

It's funny how both of these properties claim to be about feminism and somehow completely miss what feminism is

Miraculous thinks that feminism means "Girl power! Girls are better than guys in every way!" And Lore Olympus makes no attempt to be feminist at all. Women hate other women, and they don't get a lot of opportunities to explore and express themselves.

I could get into the whole purity culture shtick but that's a shitty rant for another day.

I've been ranting about this for a while and I got the big ones out of the way, methinks. I do want to get into the creators of both of these things but that is also a rant for another day.

Cause if I got into that now, we'd be here a while.

So let me just make a final comparison and wrap things up here. I don't think any of this makes a lot of sense but I hate both things and I'm passionate about it so I'm gonna keep rambling.

Miraculous Ladybug and Lore Olympus never attempt to grow as stories. They are both scared to try new things and to stick with it. Most of the time this results in rushed writing and horribly done characters.

It's so clear that both of these things are desperate to be something great but they just can't put in the work to get there.

Honestly, they both feel like the product of a team of yes-men. Bad decisions and errors slip by WAY too often and it's kind of embarrassing.

These are popular pieces of media and they have the resources to be great but they just aren't.

They're both too insecure to make something of themselves.

It's honestly really sad and I don't want this for either of these things. I want LO to be stunning and retell the myth of Persephone with the respect it deserves. I want MLB to be a serialized show with focus on the lore. Sure it can start as episodic but it can ease us into a deeper story and intrigue the viewer. But I want it to flesh out the world and be an entertaining experience.

It's sad but it's the way it is.

Who knows, maybe MLB season 6 will be good. And maybe LO will have a 4th season and it'll fix all the problems it has.

I dunno.

Thanks for reading this incoherent nonsense.

[fantastic-nonsense]

Hello!! As you can tell from your notifs somebody may or may not have gone through your Barbara Gordon tag haha. But anyways, I have been meaning to make a little slideshow for my friends about Babs for god knows why reasons and couldn't quite find enough of the Behind The Scenes stuff that you, and many other blogs like you seem to find. Do you know any good resources for this? Specifically though, I have been wondering a lot more about why they got her back to Batgirl for the N52. I've seen a lot of chatter about it but I've never really seen a genuine source (or i forgot, idk ;;).

But yeah, I know this is a lot to ask for, but if you answer, tyvm !!! rlly appreciate it :]]

Hi! Sorry about the delayed response. You're perfectly welcome to trawl through any tag you want. Thank you for liking my posts!

The answer to your question is a bit complicated, because quite a bit of it is a combination of "I've been in the fandom a long time," "I go hunting for interviews and explanations whenever I write meta or discuss things with people," "several industry professionals are on social media and answer questions/volunteer information occasionally," "I interact with a lot of people who read comics across multiple platforms and so see a lot of the information they dig up and post," and "sometimes stuff just pops across my dash and I remember it."

Because there's absolutely stuff to read about on some aspects of this, but other things are just pulled from my experience as a fan & long-time comic reader of ~15 years who happens to know a bit about the industry. There's not really any one place to look, unfortunately; half the battle is knowing there's something to look for in the first place, to be honest. Some of my more historical knowledge (especially as it regards the Comics Code and the impact it had on the industry) comes from academic resources and pop history books, but largely? A lot of it is just hunting down interviews and other peoples' write-ups and old twitter Q&As and forum rumors to see if you can get an industry professional on record saying it.

I have been wondering a lot more about why they got her back to Batgirl for the N52

I don't have time to do a full write-up on this question, unfortunately. It deserves one, because there's a LOT of nonsense and drama. But......tl;dr: sexism, ableism, racism, and a small handful of creatives and upper management who couldn't let go of their childhoods and allow characters to grow, age, and move on from the roles they occupied when those creatives were teenagers. Babs specifically has been subject to a ridiculous amount of industry-level sexism and ableism since Denny O'Neil retired as Head Editor/Group Editor of the Bat Office in the early 2000s, but both of those things were ramped up to 11 with the advent of the New 52 and it's had a dramatic impact on her narrative direction and the quality of the content that's featured her.

At some point I'll do a full write-up focused on Babs (rather than Cass, which is who the two write-ups I've already done have focused on), but....yeah. Dan Didio and a handful of other creatives couldn't stand that Babs was a successful, independent, disabled female hero in her early 30s with connections outside of the Batfam. So they de-aged her, gave her back the use of her legs, axed all of her friendships (especially with other women), disallowed reference to anyone or anything that acknowledged her pre-existing skillset or the existence of "Oracle" as a good thing, and refused to let her move on from The Killing Joke. Her character growth trajectory has been static and even regressive ever since.

[alto-tenure]

Congrats on finishing ZTD! What did you think of it?

The tag for when I start talking about ZTD negatively as of right now is "my feelings on ztd are as complex as delta's motives", which I think is the tl;dr of it all.

For a not "too long; didn't read" version...

(CWs: discussions of suicide, crude language used for canon behavior)

I had fun playing it, to start with. I enjoyed most of my experience playing ZTD. Going through the Execution fragments multiple times to make sure all the teams got executed was a slog, and once the novelty of the fragment format wore off it felt as though the game took forever to really kick into gear. Triangle was one of the last fragments I did before embarking on Carlos's Wacky Shifting Adventure via Ambidex, but I think had I done it earlier I would have found the pacing worse. The fragment format does kind of shoot the game's pacing in the foot at times. And I despise this game's lock system. It's really hard to tell when you're being locked out of the rest of a fragment vs the fragment being over. Also sometimes the locks are more generally nonsensical, which worked in my favor during my playthrough but in C-End you can get there without having confronted the FCFS decision at all, meaning you won't have the context to where Carlos went. You can get Q-1 straight away, without any of the foreshadowing from other Q-Team fragments of Mira's background. The nonlinearity of ZTD can work for it, but after enough time with the game and enough looking at the global flowchart (the good one, not the one with the video thumbnails) you start figuring out the patterns in advance. Some fragments take away suspense from others, too, like how doing Poison first takes away from the suspense of Fire in the decision to drink the antidote or not.

The graphics I'm okay with letting go because the fact that ZTD exists at all is frankly a miracle. But I will note that sometimes they made it difficult to take certain scenes seriously when I know they wanted those scenes to be. The shock-value-gore is whatever, I don't really care either way, and the worst parts were that I couldn't look when the HF showers went off & when Diana and Carlos committed their respective suicides. Sometimes the read on the game as "camp" is fine, and other times I feel like the game really wanted me to take it seriously and it just didn't land for me as something serious. I wanted to laugh.

Akane in this game...I think in some ways the people writing her dialogue were taking her personality as "June" at face value without considering the facade that it is (versus the parts of it that aren't; it isn't all an act), but I don't agree with the criticism of "it feels like Akane was replaced by a clone in ZTD". There were definitely portions in the game where I thought she was being too altruistic, but I don't think it's so OOC as to be written off as "not her". It definitely isn't perfect writing, but I think people in some ways were expecting too much of it.

Delta came out of nowhere for me, and even seeing the evidence it still feels cheap. Can't get over my initial reactions, I guess.

I actually don't hate Eric. He's kinda interesting. Admittedly, the most interesting thing about him is never really discussed again, but holy shit am I invested in his fucked up family.

I also really like the plot device of the ambiguity of whether Carlos killed Delta or not, but had I been playing without contact with the community I'm not sure I would have...known about the post-game epilogue files at all. Maybe a more traditional VN style sequence over the credits would have been suited for it, or something? Or more like a normal movie, as opposed to little scenes in prose.

All in all, I'm grateful this game exists, and I'm glad I played it, and I had fun with it overall. It was a net positive experience, even though I'm not without my criticisms of it.

[juminies]

I finished V's route! knocked out both the normal and good endings in one, of course. I was going to make notes as I was playing so I could somewhat concisely talk about him & his route when I was finished but I ended up not really doing that aside from a few random things like this

so we're just going from the heart.

while I was playing I was actually fairly certain I was going to end up with at least one bad story ending accidentally because well, he's very confusing isn't he..? you really have to find a sort of balance, which I found hard to do particularly when it came to talking to rika. I never had any idea what I was meant to be saying to her and it was also difficult to hold myself back from being hostile sometimes. the woman talks some utter nonsense. I went with the strategy "hear her out but don't agree with her" and it seemed to work. though I have to admit that I flirted with her in texts and calls just to see what she'd say, and I (unfortunately?) do not I regret doing so... being praised by pretty women (even insane ones) is my kryptonite 😔 the voice acting from both rika and ray when it came to specifically emotional scenes was soooo immersive and enjoyable. I sometimes find rika's voice in normal conversation to be a little grating, honestly, but when she's screaming? crying? shouting? panicking? her VA did SUCH a good job.

now, V... I mean this in the most affectionate way possible, you guys weren't joking about him being pathetic. mind you I love a pathetic character who consistently makes awful choices, but calling this man frustrating is an understatement. I quite often found myself realllly struggling to understand what he was thinking, or what he wanted. his lack of willingness to accept help even when he knew he was about to do something quite frankly ludicrous was the least admirable bravery(?) I've ever witnessed, and he is PERSISTENT. it made me feel relatively distant from him for a fair amount the route, mainly because the events unfolding just meant I felt horrible for the members of the RFA and he absolutely was not doing anyone any favours (though he thought differently). I was somewhat concerned I wasn't going to recover from my perpetual state of "?????" but thankfully I actually did in the end. maybe it's my inner "I can fix them" coming out (isn't that the premise of mysme really?), but him being so frustrating sometimes sort of made it feel more rewarding when he really starts to trust and believe you, lol. there were definitely moments that got me in my feelings within the last few days, his heartfelt spiels about learning to love at the forefront. it was nice to see him not only believing in you but actually starting to have faith in himself too – after how self sacrificing he's been he deserves to put himself first. that said, while sweet, I found the good ending to be a little underwhelming. I know a bulk of potentially more fulfilling content is in VAE, but I absolutely do not have enough hourglasses to play for myself so reading the wikipedia summary will have to suffice for me for now.

tl;dr I really enjoyed the route! for me it was a level of dramatic and angsty that made it consistently entertaining and surprising without feeling like it was too much. it was an absolute rollercoaster both plot wise and emotionally, and I had fun experiencing that with so little knowledge of what was to come next. it definitely boosted my affection for V, given how little I legitimately knew about him before :)

[birlwrites]

You mention mind magics sometimes, and how some family specialties are mind magics, but how well known/practiced are things like Occlumency or Legilimency practiced by the general public?

I don't know if Dumbledore being a Legilimense is well known, but even if it isn't, Occlumency is very useful for keeping secrets, especially ones as important as a Dark Arts study group at Hogwarts. Does every member have to learn at least the basics before they can really start studying anything? Or how does that work?

okay i was JUST talking about this so i'm going to copy-paste something from the comments of ch 58 of ttdl, then elaborate a little

(this originated as responding to a question about how much mind magic barty knows, the post shall get long so putting in a cut!):

he knows the basics, although he's no master - with the kind of dark arts that he's interested in (see nonsense abstruse) regulus figured it was a good idea to make sure he knew what he was doing on at least an intermediate level (if you think of it like. beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert)

how much mind magic someone knows in the dark network really depends on what sort of magic they're doing - obviously there are the mind magic families who are experts, but other than that it tends to be on an as-needed basis. the blacks learn it Very aggressively as a proactive defense measure against their specialty, but most families aren't like that, because most families have nice specialties that don't kill them oopsies

there is one thing mind magic is always great for, though, and that is lying to law enforcement! so barty was definitely going to learn it anyway - the fact that he went 'hm, i think i'm interested in brain-altering dark rituals' just doubled the importance (and meant that regulus held him to a much higher standard re: the skills he did learn, lmao)

but barty only really knows a very internally-focused occlumency - like, he's not prepared for a mental attack the way regulus or theophania nott are, but that's not out of the ordinary. occlumency takes a lot of work to learn and to be good at, so people generally learn it in a targeted way - focusing on exactly what they need to know and getting good at that. and barty's focused on keeping his mind in order, so it's a good thing he had regulus around to teach him, because that's also what regulus learned to do (just to a much more intense and flexible degree)

outside of the dark network, mind magic is significantly less common, because most people just have no reason to learn it (or at least, not one that's good enough to merit the boredom of it aghjslfkshdj). legilimency isn't a common tool for the DMLE, because it relies a lot on interpretation on both sides, and memories can be altered - even if they're altered poorly (like slughorn re: horcruxes), such that it's obvious that changes were made, that doesn't mean you know the truth about what happened

so crouch sr has no reason to know anything about mind magic, really, beyond the fact that it exists and it's annoying

in general anyone studying dark arts will pick up bits and pieces of occlumency as they go - being able to clear your mind is very important if you're doing any sort of elemental casting, for example, because otherwise you're gonna fuck some shit up the second you get emotional. but most dark arts don't fuck with you yourself on that level, so most people don't devote a lot of time to learning occlumency/mind magic for the sake of learning mind magic. it's definitely not unheard of, and it's not even all that unusual, but it's just more common for people to focus their time on something else since mind magic is a time-consuming skill and clearing your mind alone takes a lot of boredom and frustration and practice

OKAY END COPY PASTE. NOW MORE THOUGHTS

occlumency is good for keeping secrets *when confronted with a mental attack,* which is a very rare experience - mind magic in general just doesn't seem that common in canon, and it's difficult on top of being obscure

mind magic is VERY well-known in the dark network and generally considered to be basic best practice when you're fucking around with dark magic, but outside of the dark network it's very uncommon - note that there's no mind magic class offered at hogwarts (and, in general, no really self-focused magic is taught there)

so i'd say, sure, knowing occlumency definitely doesn't *hurt* your ability to keep secrets, but most people aren't in the sort of situation where they'd need it. legilimency isn't admissible evidence in court, and most people never make eye contact with albus dumbledore or even stand particularly close to him ajflsghljksdfd

so the focus within the dark network with mind magic is on how it protects you from the dangerous magic you're messing with, as opposed to law enforcement (unless you're barty who lives with crouch sr and must become a Flawless liar)

the general public doesn't really know much about mind magic (which has one foot on the side of 'illegal' already), and dumbledore being a legilimens is not well-known - IMO it's something he learned in his grindelwald days, and then kept honing when he realized how common it was for dark arts practitioners to learn occlumency

TL;DR:

people normally learn occlumency as needed to protect their minds from whatever magic they're practicing, as opposed to needing to learn occlumency before they can start practicing dark arts at all. outside of the dark network, it's not a well-known branch of magic

[razzek]

how does your blindness impact your art? I would have thought that it would be impossible for a blind person to work in a purely visual medium like you do, but clearly that's not the case. do you use adaptive tech or specific styles/techniques?

(I apologize if this question is ableist. I would like to know more about your experiences, but I don't have a great grasp of what's appropriate to ask and what isn't. I am not trying to be rude.)

Oooh thank you for asking! :) For the record, I’m pretty chill, I know there aren’t exactly a ton of us blindies out there, so feel free to ask questions with the language you have. :)

Haha oh man, my blindness has impacted my art from the very first thing I drew at age 4. I have a small amount of vision in my left eye; no depth perception, no peripheral vision, no distance, pretty good colors though. Life to me is basically a smear of nonsense colors that I put meaning to through context and location. The closest thing to seeing anything clearly I’ve ever gotten was watching cartoons, which I did obsessively as a kid. So first and foremost, I don’t and can’t draw from life, it makes no sense to me. The bold, simple actions of animation and the heavy stylization has taught me a ton.

Over the years my style has become very much about being high contrast, high visibility. But it also tangles with my love of doing pretty intricate detail work (it’s soothing, what can I say XD). In the past I was strictly a traditional media artist and I drew with what I had on hand. Growing up in poverty, what I had was the pens I used to write with in school and the paper I scrounged out of recycling bins. I basically mashed my face on the paper and worked in light angled over my shoulder that wasn’t too bright. I clipped paper to clip boards so I’d always have something lightweight enough to hold in one hand while I drew with the other. I’d sketch in pencil and ink using my very beefy prescription reading glasses, and everything I do had to be self taught. Life drawing class just doesn’t do anything for the dude who can’t see the model. :D

In 2019 a botched cataract surgery cost me most of my functional vision. I can no longer read print for any length of time, I don’t watch tv, and increasingly I just forget to look at most things with my eyes. But! I have an iPad. :D It took a few years and finding a pair of beefy store bought readers so I can focus enough to draw, but using Procrate and zooming down to the pixel as well as sketching on a black background makes the art still possile. I still draw mostly the same way I did with traditional media. I know brushes could probably be used to make some things easier, but I don’t have the spoons or visual stamina to figure out how to use them except for making quick backgrounds (pro tip: never have your character or object floating in a white void, even a single line to ground them will make your work better).

Color of late has been an interesting thing because I literally do not understand how light and shadow really works. I’ve read up on it but there’s only so much anyone can do when they just can’t see the thing. I like to ink the best and color is just an experiment I’m trying every time I do it heh. I make up little rules of style for myself and do a lot of guesswork based on the full shape I think a thing or character has, if that makes sense. I don’t know how a lot of things work visually so I will make stuff up, guess, or you’ll see some funky style things that happen because I read a medical paper once and just like drawing the holes in an iris (that’s what the lines in characters’ eyes are heh).

I’ll have to make a video sometime. Some of this stuff probably makes more sense in action.

Tl,dr: I mash my face onto an iPad and use 35-ish years of drawing experience to guess at what leoks right. :D I don’t think I would have become an artist if I wasn’t blind, I would have had more to look at to distract me. XD

[yo-namine]

Okay, one more thing and I'll shut up.

I guess what really bugs me about the "KH1 is also Kairi’s fault because she hurt Riku’s feelings" stuff is that – aside from it not being true because she quite literally did nothing to him – is that it comes off as kind of entitled? Especially when you consider the whole "Riku is actually the light" argument fans were pushing post-KH3.

It’s like, if Kairi does something good like saving Sora in KH3 – something totally unique to her abilities as a Princess of Heart – well, Actually, she couldn’t have possibly done that herself. Riku should get credit for that.

But if Riku does something wrong – like letting his ambition override his love for his friends (something that lays the foundation of his entire redemption arc in this series) – Kairi deserves the blame. Because she should’ve been nice to him or something (never mind that she is, lmao. She just teases him the same way he does her. Because they’re friends.).

And I used to just chalk all this up to standard shipping nonsense (for obvious reasons), but honestly, sometimes it really does come off as straight-up misogyny. Like sure, a male character did something wrong, but this female character should’ve stopped him. Or she could’ve prevented it by placating him more, or by giving him whatever it was he felt entitled to.

And it’s frustrating because Riku is a fascinating and well-written character, but that’s mostly due to his redemption arc which you can’t fully appreciate if you ignore his single-mindedness and entitlement at the start of KH1 and instead just blame Kairi.

And I’m not saying everyone who claims Kairi owes something to Riku for KH1 is doing it to be an asshole or even consciously doing anything, really. Odds are that it's just one of those fanon interpretations that got so popular everyone forgot it isn't actually supported by canon.

But I do think it's part of a larger pattern of how fandoms treat male characters who fuck up vs. female characters who have the audacity to acknowledge that he fucked up (like Zuko fans with Katara, or Snape fans with Lily), and that really bothers me. And I think it bothers me more in this case because – again – Kairi didn’t even do anything. She would be justified in being mad at Riku, but she never is. By the time you get her to the Traverse Town waterway, it's clear that she sees Riku a victim who needs help, not a perpetrator. Kairi merely made a single (accurate) observation about him back home that wasn’t even critical of him in any way, and fandom blew it out of proportion.

Anyway, this post is too damn long, so TL;DR: Kairi Did Nothing Wrong in KH1, and I just wish fandom would give her less flack for things she doesn’t do and more credit for what she does do.

[kimtaegis]

i'm feeling so tired of Twitter these days. my tl is so well controlled and i'm so careful with whom i follow, so i rarely have a problem with it. but i like to constantly check what's trending or what some accounts that i already trust are saying. lately, it seems like more and more people are talking nonsense and discussing about things that aren't even important to us (as their fans). like spreading what artist X or Y is saying or doing (even if it's a lie or if it's dumb, why giving a shit?), paying attention to small problems and trending useless things when the best thing is to just report to bighit and move on

sometimes i'm a bit anxious or worried thinking that i may be missing something important that is happening and when i see what it really is i think "seriously? why are people focusing so much on that?". i wish the tl was more about enjoying and supporting what they prepare for us and less about so much drama, trying to prove things all the time when literally nothing is really changing and impacting us as armys and BTS as our artists, and even some things in the corporate area that aren't our place to discuss

and ofc i'm not saying this is for ALL things, but for the majority of them. idk how being on army twt felt like before 2020, but in 2020-2022, it felt like 90% of armys only cared about the boys and only them. stupid things didn't easily gain attention. i assume that this is probably 'cause almost all of them are enlisted and it really changes the mood, but still, there's always so much to look forward to and to focus on...

and this is coming from someone who is (unfortunately) chronically online lol

oh I feel you so hard, the amount of times I rolled my eyes at stupid takes these past few weeks (months?) … I agree that it probably has to do with six of the members being away? also the solo chapter brought so many weirdos to the surface. and they’re all way too comfortable behind their twitter accounts. they’re bored and don’t have anything nicer or more important to do this summer than practicing their ability to care about the most pointless things and ignore the actually relevant ones simultaneously. it’s certainly a talent. I especially love how they keep contradicting their own hot takes every second day, makes you want to both laugh and cry. we’ll see how the fandom dynamics will evolve once they’re all back, I’m very curious about it. but yeah right now it really seems like you’re one tweet away from losing your goddamn mind 🙃🙃🙃

[tangent101]

I am so sorry you've been having to deal with this shit. As an older person who realized they were transgender only around five years ago, I for one very much appreciated your representation of this character. I remember standing up before Rooster Teeth in Anime Boston and asking about transgender characters and they had no plans for that (or at least claimed not to).

It felt wonderful to, just a couple years later, see a transwoman character, and for May to be a kickass Huntress who just so happened to be a transwoman, rather than it being the core of her role in the story. Because people are people - and sometimes those people are transgender or lesbian or bisexual or gay or ace or any other aspect of the LGBTQ+ spectrum even without having the story focus a spotlight on that aspect.

As for Qrow and Clover? I think the problem with Clover and Qrow was that society isn't exactly in a position to see a healthy non-rivalry relationship between two men. For Qrow... it was the first time he could get close to someone without his bad luck harming them. And then in Qrow's eyes his bad luck got to Clover at the end (it was more Clover being inattentive to the real threat and following orders blindly rather than doing something reasonable like saying "let's see what's going on, I'll talk to Ironwood"). So people shipped Clover and Qrow as it allowed Qrow to be "close" to someone... rather than allowing him to have a healthy relationship with a guy who very much understands what it means to be a Huntsman.

That and the shipping population in general has gotten toxic. It's like the collective fandom for all shows and movies have taken to think of ships as a competition and you win if your ship is genuine, rather than just a fun bit of silly nonsense.

Anyway, tl;dr - I truly appreciate your hard work in RWBY and your depiction of May was something that I loved. While I've not seen the anime adaptation yet, I'm sure your other character also rocks. :) And hopefully Rooster Teeth actually pays you for your voice work from now on, seeing you're not with the company now and would be contracted in. (They should be ashamed of not paying you for your work on that.)

I normally don't break my blog's character in asks but I'm gonna make an exception here. How can you continue to support and advertise, in good conscience, for a company that has repeatedly baited and insulted its LGBT+ fanbase? Especially after they had Robyn basically lie about Clover's supposed flaws to berate Qrow - and on a meta level the audience that were mourning the representation they were explicitly promised - for feeling sad about his death?

So I appreciate the fact that you felt strongly enough about this to break your blog’s character in asks to bring this to my attention by answering this as openly and honestly as I can.

Firstly, Clover was never written as gay. Never. Not for a single second in his conception was Clover ever intended to be a love interest for Qrow nor was Clover ever written as a gay man. Period.

Secondly, Clover was never ever stated to be “explicitly promised” representation for the mlm community. That is an entirely untrue statement with no actual basis for truth behind it. There’s no documentation of this anywhere, there’s no draft where he was, none of that is true at all in any way, shape, or form.

Third, I have also stated many times that I do understand how a misunderstanding in how the audience perceives a character vs what the actual written intent was can hurt, saying that I’ve felt that burn before, and very much understanding how a fandom can feel a bit upset by it. But the fact that various creators, for many shows, have come forward to say “hey, not the intention” - such as the case with many folks feeling Jenny was tran-coded in My Life As A Teenage Robot, which actually took the creator 21 YEARS to actually acknowledge that fact despite it being spoken of many times - and expressed their concerns and understanding toward those communities affected by it... shows a sign of actually caring. Of which many folks working on this show did the same thing and did so immediately after the first sign of the misunderstanding.

Fourth, as the voice of a character that is a blatantly stated and explicitly promised bit of representation for an entirely underrepresented community of people it’s extremely frustrating to see a character that was never intended to be seen as and surely was never ACTUALLY written as a representation for a marginalized group of people being held up as an example of representation while my own character, who actually is a real example of representation, being constantly demonized and overlooked.

Fifth, the cast and crew of the show (including myself) have received more death threats about this than I think most of you care to actually acknowledge. Am I saying that you, specifically, issued any of those threats? No. But the fact that a lot of folks just forget that that happened is pretty telling to me.

So you asked “How can you continue to support and advertise, in good conscience, for a company that has repeatedly baited and insulted its LGBT+ fanbase” ... the answer is because the actual representation for the LGBTQIA+ community that was explicitly stated and promised  was actually handled incredibly well, had time and care put into it, was thought about from concept, to design, to casting, to written dialogue. And that representation was not hidden, not coded, but bluntly stated both by creators outside of and inside of canon, and proudly on display in the show. 

The final big reason that I can firmly state all of these things? Is because this isn’t just a fictional situation. The people behind the scenes making this show possible actually stood up, stood by, and have put more effort into actually supporting the LGBTIQA+ community than most folks will ever even know or see. In a very real and tangible way these people have physically fought for the rights of people like me to be able to do what I do and, more importantly, to actually be able to live my actual real life with less fear of being actually harmed.

To top it all off, I’m deeply hurt by how things are said by the fandom some days.

I see all the comments saying May isn’t good rep because she doesn’t look or sound manly enough to be a trans woman and that Joanna or Robyn looks more trans than May does and worse being said about her.

Clover being mlm was always just a head canon that the fandom leaned into, it was never ever stated to be canon at any point during the production of the show or creation of the character.

I do understand the hurt that some folks feel about it, trust me I do, but I’ve received death threats over this head canon while actually having put time, effort, and part of myself into actual on-screen representation ... having had that real work ignored with me and my co-workers continuously being harassed despite not a single shred of tangible evidence to back up the reason for the harassment.

TLDR: 

Clover was never intended to be seen as gay, ever, and the fact that the fandom latched onto this head canon and has pushed it that it was always actually canon, in a very negative way, has only harmed both the fandom and staff.

Having a head canon is great, I love them, but seeing a creator (or group of creators) explicitly come out and debunk that head canon as to not spread a toxic and hurtful message that could easily spiral out of control and blatantly ignoring it because it doesn’t fit in with your own narrative does not make that head canon into canon and will only make getting actual intended representation for that group much harder in the future.

It is desperately hurtful to have poured so much work into having a character that is actually a representative (and a promised one at that) of a marginalized group entirely ignored by the community because of a head canon for another character, and in doing so has only made that (very rare) bit of representation feel ironically invisible.

[alchemiclee]

as a fellow introvert; we are social creatures. introverts who purposefully see no one for months on end are usually just in a cycle where its been so long since they’ve hung out that it’s too intimidating for them to do anymore. i 100% feel tired after hanging out with my friends but i DO also feel happy and refreshed! tl;dr - you’re super normal lol. try to reach out to a couple people just to chat this week <3

thanks for reaching out I really appreciate it❤️ but I have to rant a bit. I allow you to ignore it!

I wish to not be a social creature because going too long without having a friend to talk to or not having someone to talk with almost daily feels bad and it's so hard to have a friend when I need one D:

i've been reaching out to people for the last few weeks or so but they don't reach back. try playing games with people but they play with their other friends or dont feel like playing. invite people to hang out but they say maybe and never give an answer or don't respond.

I don't want to bother my closest friends in our group chat too much in our group chat but the chat is mostly me sending messages with no response and even couple times saying I need a friend when I was having bad days but they didn't want to chat and I dont want to force anyone to entertain my lonely depressed ass. (especially when all I really needed was to talk about the new star rail stuff to distract me but I don't think they've finished it yet so I don't want to spoil) they live together so they always have to socialize and probably make each other tired without needing to add me to it.

so i've also been trying to reach out to new people, like joining twitch chats again for the first time in years. but that never goes well and doesn't satisfy my social needs. too many people talking at once and being the new person no one cares about and all....getting to know a new is very exhausting. but it's so hard to just be able to skip all that getting to know each other stuff jump straight into talking about a thing we both like (in this case it's star rail and cosplay and maybe art) I don't have enough already-known people to reach out to and i'm too tired to do the small talk dance until it's appropriate to jump into special interest territory. being autistic is so exhausting. I with to be one of those rare autistics I sometimes hear about that have 0 interest in social interaction at all

so as you can see, i'm trying. so hard. to the point I'm exhausting myself. it's been too much work for no payoff and makes things feel worse when the outcome isn't what I need and its constant reaching with no one grabbing my hand back. so I keep making annoying tumblr posts about it. i'm so sorry to anyone that reads my nonsense 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 this is a normal thing with me but it's usually kept to my other blog that's reserved for more serious posts like this but I tried posting here as a way to "reach out" and see if it invites any friendly friends or something but I don't think i'm doing it right...

(but I am going to a con tomorrow with someone I haven't talked to in like 2 years. but we don't have anything in common anymore so theres not much to talk about. he's the only person who responded to me after trying to reach out for like a month but I fear it will only exhaust me being around too many people and not help this gross need to have a deeper connecting socialization D:)

[nachoscheesy]

Tumblr Revival

Tl;dr

Tumblr has a large interconnected community of artists and content creators, and should focus on its strengths and what it does right. Instead of trying to compete for space against Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Tumblr should focus on empowering its community and giving that community the tools to develop the site's unparalleled uniqueness.

Tumblr is the crossroads of the internet, with a monthly user traffic of 300 million it is the perfect space for artists, content creators, and small businesses to grow their following without having to fight for a seat at the table against companies with huge budgets.

Hi, I go by Nacho here on tumblr, and I'm sure as many of us on tumblr have noticed, the (hell)site is kinda going downhill. Tumblr was bought by Automattic in fall of 2019, and I am sure they have the best intentions to help tumblr stay afloat. However, I think it's time the community took a more deliberate approach to how tumblr is handled, and hopefully Automattic and @staff will hear us out. I think I have a solid solution to tumblrs money issues, that will help both the site and empower its online communities.

First and foremost, I am not involved with Tumblr or Automattic. I am just a simple blog trying to help out a place that I've been on since 2010, and I would hate to see it die here around 2023.

So, let's get to the root of the problem on tumblr right now. That being money, tumblr is currently costing more money that it produces, as we've seen with its 97% drop in value from 1.1 billion dollar sale to being sold at around 3 million dollars.

So the first thing that must be improved before anything else can be improved on tumblr is how much money they're bringing in a month. I don't think folks on tumblr hate monetization as much as we all collectively say we do, I think the issue is that most advertisers are completely disconnected from the groups they are trying to advertise to on here. Tumblr comprises roughly 65% millennials and 30% gen-z, the two generations that advertisers seem to have the hardest time advertising to for a myriad of reasons. The main one being that they don't fully understand what we want, and sometimes just don't listen to what we are saying.

Lets look at how tumblr makes its money, Tumblr has four main revenue sources,

Ads by sponsored posts

Display ads through video posts

Sponsored Day ads or banner ads

“Premium Themes”

I'll go into depth on all of these and how tumblr could make potential changes to improve their revenue anywhere from three to six months after it implements some or ideally all of these changes.

First tumblr ads and sponsored posts, these changes are going to be contingent on tumblr allowing its users to share, like, and comment on ads much like all other media sites currently allow. Or at least giving advertisers the ability to turn that on or off as a function.

The average tumblr post gets reblogged 14 times, that number increases significantly if the ad is engaging and actually caters to the communities wants and needs. My reasoning for giving users the ability to reblog ads is to increase user engagement while maintaining their current ad vetting process and all of the nonsensical ads that are run on tumblr 90% of the time.

The other reason for allowing tumblr users to share and comment on ads, or have it be an option for advertisers to turn on or off as they'd like, is that the appeal of tumblr is the ability to propagate and obsess over the most niche things (i.e OSHA.)

All the while allowing content that gets shared all over the internet bubble up to the top through the collective hand of the tumblr community. Along with this tumblr has no way for small users to share their own products or services, every single major site has a way for users to advertise their pages or products through the site.

Tumblr is a content machine that creates imagery and memes that get shared all the time across the internet, so the ability to share and curate its own ads is paramount to improving advertising and user engagement on tumblr.

My proposal here is for tumblr to expand its advertising capabilities to all users, while charging a flat rate fee to advertise on tumblr, with additional charges for popular tags or trending tags. Tumblr currently has no self service advertising system much like Facebook does for example. Where facebook charges a daily rate on cost-per-click(CPC) or cost-per-thousand(CPM)

Charging a flat rate fee at a rate of a day, week, month, or quarterly basis with variances in prices based on the lease term and what the advertisers would want to have their ads show up on certain tags. This would open up the doors for small businesses that don't want to advertise on places like facebook, twitter, or google with their complicated CPM and CPC models. Also bringing in more small locally owned businesses with the added value of less competition for ad space on tumblr.

This would also take some of the weight from tumblrs own advertising staff from having to explain a convoluted system to potential advertisers. Creating a simplified model with the the advent of tumblrs own infrastructure able to get a single post to a large variety of users. Where the current ad model uses a “shotgun” method to hit as many people as possible, the tumblr model could encourage advertisers to curate a more personalized and intimate experience that tumblr users would love.

Why not just advertise elsewhere? Tumblr still in fact gets over 300 million views a month as of June 2021 (Statosta), and the added benefit for users to be able to like, share, and interact with ads would allow ads that the community enjoys to be talked about more. Giving advertisers more honest feedback about their ads while increasing their SEO’s.

Also small businesses that can't compete with the vetting processes that are used on other sites, would have a better chance of developing their business and increasing their clientele on tumblr whose core demographics are approximately 60% millennial and 35% gen-z. This core demographic does in fact care about being able to shop at local stores, or even a store across the US that is trying to drum up its own online sales.

These ads could be placed inline on the tumblr dash while moving other sponsored ads to the right of the site on desktop, but making them alternate on mobile between user ads and sponsored ads.

Second, the display ads should be changed to allow tumblr users to share and further interact with ads to generate more user engagement, incentivizing more businesses and companies to build their brand status on tumblr. Tumblr has a good model for creating short diaries or daily vlogs for companies that wish to show off their products on social media. This includes smaller businesses and vlogers that want to post videos or tutorials of themselves on their blog.

Tumblr is a good site for user engagement with a pool of creative potential for anyone wanting to gauge the desire for a particular subject or piece of media, maybe even an upcoming show. Having the ability to share and comment on sponsored ads would also help advertisers by allowing them to get more bang for their buck with a considerable uptick on how users engage with that content.

Third, tumblrs sponsor day ads and banner ads are inexpensive and should be highlighted as a selling point over their competitors. Tumblr 24-hour banner ads are considerably more affordable for businesses when compared to places like twitter with their 200k price point. For the same amount of money on tumblr a business could have their company at the top of the dashboard or app for 8 whole days. Much longer and much better than the competition.

Keeping this price fixed, with a change in the price CPC is still a much more lucrative and attractive selling point than any of the competition on the internet today. I know this might not be exactly what tumblr wants to hear when it is hemorrhaging money right now, but let's look at the cost for these 24 hour daily ads and banner ads. If tumblr hypes up the price point on these ads they could see a significant rise in advertisers considering the lack of competition on tumblr and past success stories of companies who did advertise on tumblr.

At the same time larger advertisers should be encouraged to make engaging ads and blogs on tumblr that will make people want to actually go to their blogs, that then link to an external site or page. Not ads that instantly try to force you to go to some other site, by rewarding or offering special discounts for people who find a special code or something off of the actual blog. Or even for giving the same code to everyone who reblogs a certain post made by the advertiser.

Seems too good to be true? Look at “Asos” back in 2015 when they held a shirt design competition on their tumblr blog. Where they had 900 submissions, four of which were picked, and were sold out of the user generated shirts in 10 hours.

This is not the only case however, but FX ran their own campaign for the show “Man Seeking Woman” where they saw a 2.8% increase in user engagement, 86% increase in their tumblr followers, and they actually saved money through advertising on tumblr.

All this leads me to believe that tumblr actually was and continues to be the best place for brands, small businesses, and artists to develop themselves through genuine user engagement.

Finally, the “premium themes” that are available on tumblr that allow for unparalleled customizations that you hardly find elsewhere on the internet anymore. Tumblrs ability to take a variety of media sources, as well as having an unparalleled level of customization, user interconnectivity, and a vibrant artistic scene shows that it is ripe with potential.

Tumblr could still use its post+ feature, but in the same way that Discord uses its subscription service. For cosmetic changes that can be added modularly to the site or individual blogs for an additional monthly fee. In conjunction with partnering with community artists to bring small cosmetic additions to individual blogs, while paying the content creator and tumblr taking a small portion of the profits over a certain amount.

To be completely honest this is probably the hardest portion of this entire pitch to make changes to in a shorter period of time, considering all the testing and “under the hood” changes that must be made. However, I think that implementing this as well as the other changes I have proposed will bring back more foot traffic to tumblr as well as increase its revenue and profitability.

In closing, I am simply working with whatever information I was able to find online and a good amount of time invested on my part to do this. I think tumblr has a ton of potential still to return as a force for good for the communities that exist and want a change from what the internet has become. Time and time again when any company or public entity dies it was because it did not change and refused to adapt and innovate, oftentimes not at the hands of the people working everyday to keep the site running. Instead at the hands of people who dont see the value in what has fallen in their laps.

If you agree and think this is something that can be done, please reblog this post and follow me for more updates. If I don't hear back or this does not gain any traction by the end of the year, then tumblr can go to its inevitable end. I will be here sinking with the ship.

@support @engineering @music @wip @changes @photomatt

[tuiyla]

Why do you think Santana acted as she did in the loft in GaBOF . I mean in the scenes with Kurt and Adam only. Did she not like Adam, or because she wanted Kurt back with Blaine, because she did like Blaine? Or just a little surprised that Klaine hooked up again? (How did she even find out and when, as she was busy herself!)

Oh some Santanalysis, my home.

I'll start with that last bit because I think it's the most realistic thing ever that Santana clocked Klaine at the wedding. Sure, she was busy with Quinn but she could have easily noticed the tension between them - or even potentially gossiped with Mercedes. Or noticed them leaving their room together once she waited a respectable six minutes after Quinn walked out the door and left the room, too. Santana "psychic Mexican third eye" Lopez is incredibly observant and knew about all the hookups happening. She didn't care on the night itself because, well, Quinn, but she clocked it. And she wasn’t surprised, similarly because she’s already observant. Santana could probably smell the intent of wanting to hook up with Blaine on Kurt as they left for Lima.

Second, I wanna address an opinion I've seen on Girls (and Boys) on Film re: Santana's scenes. I'm saying this is your opinion btw, as far as I can tell it isn't, but it's one I've seen. It’s that Santana was being purely chaotic here and messing with Kurt and Adam for fun, mostly because she was bored and wanted to stir the p(l)ot. Now, I even agree with the first half of that because I do think the core of it is Santana being deeply bored and trying to get things going, be a little chaotic because she’s nothing if not a chaotic bitch. But I don’t think it was malicious at all and I don’t think she wanted to actually mess with Kurt. If she did, she would have. And I don’t think she had any major problems with Adam; if she did, she would have been on him like she was on Brody. Based on nothing but vibes, I actually think Santana thought Adam was fine. Not exceptional, but a fine lad she didn’t have a problem with.

So her comments don’t come from a place of ill-intention or wanting to get rid of Adam. But I do think she knew what Kurt was still denying at the time, which was that Adam wasn’t going to last and his heart was still and would continue to be with Blaine. Plus, you know, her asking if Kadam were dating seemed genuine enough. Sure, there is the fact that she was oh so bored. She was more so messing with Rachel, if anything, given all the not so subtle pregnancy comments. And then Santana diverts her energies into dragging Brody, anyway.

So yeah. Boredom is what I make of it, I guess? And don’t get me wrong, Santana can be and absolutely is malicious on several occasions, but here she was just trying to find stuff to do. Her questioning of Kadam seemed genuine enough, and I think the Come What May comment was her way of reminding Kurt that she knows what’s up. That being, she knew he was still into Blaine and Santana’s no-nonsense side sometimes comes out when things are glaringly obvious to her but others keep skirting around the issue. And I think it’s kinda sweet she remembered what Kurt had told her about the song. Was she crossing some lines saying that in front of Adam, why yes of course. Santana lives on these sort of lines. Crossing them is her daily commute.

TL;DR Santana had no issues with Adam but could see right through Kurt and his true feelings, was bored, and ultimately found something better to entertain herself with anyway. I don’t know if I can confidently say her rooting for Blaine in all this was part of it, I just think she saw the Kadam/Klaine situation and where Kurt’s heart was realistically. But all in all she didn’t poke it all that much.

[wistfulcynic]

bear with me because i'm working through my thoughts on this as i type.

basically the big problem as i see it is this: We (collective multi-fandom "we") have grown so used to enemies-to-lovers as a trope and as a concept that some of us have become convinced that every instance of conflict between characters is driven by attraction and any time they express dislike for each other it's sexual tension. How often do we see JUST KISS under a gif of people actively trying to kill each other? And yes, sometimes that sexual tension is real and sometimes it becomes a functional relationship but also sometimes it's just dislike. The problem comes when people can't or won't see the difference.

in fanfic it doesn't matter, because if you're clicking on a steddyhands fic you've already committed to the premise. You've accepted that Ed and Stede for whatever reason have decided to bring Izzy into their relationship and how they got to that point isn't something you care that much about. Fine, whatever hoists your jolly roger. But in the show as the other reblog commenters have said, there's not nearly enough time to even introduce that much less develop it into something believable. Enemies-to-lovers takes many seasons usually, if it's done right. People need time to change and to resolve their differences. OFMD did not have that, even if it wanted to go there.

but. And i think this is key. OFMD never wanted to go there. Not just because Ed and Stede are The couple in the romcom but because OFMD is simply not about that kind of sexual or romantic conflict. It's not about toxic hatefuck relationships, very much the opposite. Ed and Stede's conflict derives from their trauma and their inability to communicate effectively, never from their connection or devotion to each other. They swapped clothes five minutes after meeting! They play silly games together! They are soulmates, pure and simple. Their arc was never about resolving fundamental conflicts with each other, it was about how to meet in the middle of their different life paths and find a new path that suited them both. Izzy could not and never would be able to be a part of that.

it's worth noting also that none of the OFMD relationships are about toxic conflict. Jim and Olu add two new people into their relationship with absolutely zero angst about it. Lucius and Pete talk it through then fuck it out and have the world's sweetest wedding. Buttons becomes a bird to better love the sea--you know, it's all about loving your partner(s) enough to grow and adapt with them. It's never conflict just for conflict's sake or because some people think that if there's no conflict it's not sexy. If conflict happens it's emotionally resonant and means something, serves some purpose to the story arc.

anyway, i know i got off track but tl;dr enemies-to-lovers may be exciting but it doesn't happen nearly as often as people think and there are many, many ways to tell sexy love stories without it. To avoid self-baiting and then getting your knickers in a knot when your imaginary ship does not become canon, it'd be useful to learn how to distinguish genuine attraction-driven conflict and sexual tension from the JUST KISS gif fandom nonsense that too often seems to carry people away.

RE: #222 and #220 This is pure speculation, but was wondering the same thing.

The obsession with steddyhands/edizzy/stizzy shipping could stem from any number of things (and we know when some people ship, they ship hard), but probably why some were so convinced of its validity or potential might be because this is a show that's been advertised/perceived as 'you never know what's going to happen next' and where 'so many fanfic-related dreams can come true' especially when related to queer fanfiction. Combined with the show's flexible disregard for the rules of reality (bird transformations, super fast healing, logic-defying dinghies, etc.), this could foster the perception that literally 'anything is possible.'

Also, OFMD has consistently reassured the queer community that they're not bullshitting when it comes to featuring, highlighting, and supporting queer relationships, which apparently could translate to 'any ship you could dream of might actually happen here.' So from that point of view, the OFMD crew basically said ‘yes, let's do it!’ to so many beloved fanfic tropes and queer relationships except these particular OTPs. There's also the possibility of outright indignation - 'Well, you gave Fan Groups A and B their fantasies, why not me/us?' Plus the manifestation of Izzy's antagonist-to-ally arc was probably equated to meaning 'only positive things are going to happen to him from here on out,' so naturally this was going to progress into a romantic/sexual relationship with one or both of the romantic leads (whether out of genuine belief that it made sense and would be good for him or just because it would be a hot and sexy outcome). So this - as well as an article promoting and practically promising an Izzy/Ed/Stede love triangle - might be another reason why some of the shippers went beyond being just disappointed (which isn't too unreasonable) and plummeted into a sense of hurt and devastation. Maybe they felt somewhat 'betrayed' in a bait-and-switch kinda way by the revelation that pairing Izzy with Ed/Stede/both more than likely wasn't the even on the table.

Being upset over Izzy's death however, that's another matter...

#226.

related posts: #222, #220

[mintchochipkookie]

Why does hating Zuko and willfully misinterpreting his character seem to be the trendy new thing to do in this fandom?

Oh my godddd!!!!!! The mere fucking THOUGHT of Zuko slander makes my blood boil why do you do this to me lmaoo. But, as I’ve mentioned earlier, I would see this stuff in the tags just when I joined the fandom and didn’t realise that there is a slight possibility that someone could not adore Zuko with every fibre of their being. I see people refute them on my dash from time to time, but I just scroll past any stupid ass i-hate-zuko takes because I simply refuse to subject my eyeballs and brain to that nonsense.

The TL;DR version is: The hoops people need to jump through to justify ‘zuko was bad actually’ is exhausting. It’s such a stupid take, that disproving it requires you refuting so many untruthful interpretations of the source material, it’s almost impossible to untangle all the knots in their logic. (Also, I don’t wanna act like fiction and real-life have one to one parallels, but since antis like to pretend that it does, I figured I could take a few shots at the British Empire.)

Rest of my thoughts below the cut.

I gather that this is a new phenomenon, since the resurgence of the show’s popularity. I feel like it’s a result of younger people watching it now, who grew up with the internet and cancel culture (I don’t completely disagree with cancel culture, I just think there’s a very clear line that it frequently crosses). By that I mean, this mindset that if anyone has or has associated with someone who has said or done something vaguely not PC, they are a bad person forever now. This is a much more complex topic, and I do not think the intent behind the current mindsets are bad, quite the opposite. But no one seems to want to strike a balance anymore or view anyone or any piece of media with any kind of nuance. It’s the thought process of ‘since this book has racism, it is condoning it’ like no, maybe sometimes a book has racism because it is about racism and is trying to portray the horrors of human society.

There also seems to be a new take on the 2010s Tumblr hipster attitude of ‘i liked it before it was cool’ to ‘anything popular is probably not that good so we must drag it to hell and back even if that means distorting the actual themes and writing and disregarding context’. Personally, I don’t even think ATLA is as good as everyone told me it was, it has a lot of shit writing moments (on top of the uncomfortable racism and misogyny, but it was another time, so the standards were different), but I DO think it’s an overall enjoyable show and Zuko is one of the most perfectly written characters to exist (barring 2 very specific moments but we don’t need to get into that right now). Have we considered that maybe, just MAYBE, the reason Zuko is so widely considered to be such a great character is simply because he IS. Not every popular opinion is a good one, but a lot of them are popular for a reason. You don’t even have to particularly like Zuko, but if you cannot see the absolute beauty in his character and his journey, then I just don’t trust you.

I am an extremely character-driven person. I still maintain that had Zuko not been on the show, I never would’ve finished it. Zuko starts as a bratty hot-headed prince but here’s the really important thing. He’s shown in a very sympathetic light almost right away. E3 (or whenever that bitch Zhao shows up) all we’ve seen so far is Zuko trying to capture our protagonists and throwing temper tantrums, but you still feel for Zuko. My partner and I looked at each other after that episode and were both like ‘so they’re clearly setting him up for a redemption arc right’ (and we knew nothing going into the show idk how I'd avoided spoilers). They make it pretty obvious that he’s been through some shit and I think Zhao was a very clever idea. This is some old man in a position of authority over Zuko, mocking him for being a disappointment. It’s clearly unfair, and it’s just another Fire Nation imperialist who thinks Zuko is worthless because he has a conscience, probably. Zuko is consistently put in these positions of powerlessness, interspersed with flashbacks from his past, and he consistently pushes against it. He fights against it all and tries to regain some amount of control over his life.

The thing about anti-Zuko arguments is that it requires you to flat out pretend that a lot of the explicit dialogue on the show didn’t happen. Since this was a show targeted at kids, they go out of their way to say the key defining moments out loud. Ffs Iroh is literally just there to spout words of wisdom for Zuko so that his journey is made even clearer. The most common argument tho, I presume, is the one that Zuko personally is a coloniser and let me just heavy sigh do y’all even know what words mean anymore? Look, I’m the first person to jump on the ‘fuck colonisers’ train. Like, I constantly shit on the British. Trust me, I get it. But here’s the thing. I don’t actually think that every individual British person is a coloniser. Do y’all see the fucking difference????? The country absolutely is, and I will continue to hate their guts till they have the decency to accept what they did and pay for it, but most of the common people are not.

This btw is also a theme on the show. Multiple times. Hama’s (I have thoughts on how she was treated, but that’s not relevant rn) whole thing was exactly this. She was an actual victim of the Fire Nation’s cruelty, but her wanting to take that out on the FN citizens was wrong. For exactly this reason. You can’t help where you were born. Katara, the person antis love claiming was the biggest victim of the FN’s imperialist agenda and hates them SO much, goes out of her way as the Painted Lady to protect their citizens. Like. People see this right? They understand that Katara, the person who hates the FN so much for taking away her mother, still gets this distinction and acknowledges that the people responsible are only the ones who are actively colonising and killing people.

Anyway, I can bet the follow up to this argument is ‘but Zuko was Fire Nation royalty’ and I repeat. You can’t help where you were born. I know people are gonna point to S1 Zuko but again, nothing he does is out of malicious intent or for the betterment of the Fire Nation’s rule. People joke about how Zuko screams about ‘honour’ and then just completely miss the point of it. He was a child fighting to get his dad’s approval. He even says this out loud multiple times. He doesn’t get the horrors of colonialism, because he was raised in the FN. Do people just not remember his monologue when he’s confronting Ozai???? They explicitly tell us that the FN lies to their kids to make them believe that they are the greatest country. And he was raised in the actual palace, where would he have gotten any information to the contrary???? There are grown-ass adults with complete access to the internet out there who still believe that Winston Churchill was a great man and not a white supremacist because that’s the garbage narrative the West feeds y’all but a child raised in the royal family of a colonising nation who didn’t realise the lies until he left home is the idiot. Okay.

Now, had Zuko gone out of his way to torment people, simply chosen not to care, or was too scared to fight against them, that would be a whole other story. And funnily enough, these traits all exist in other characters - Azula, Mai, Ty Lee. Azula is also a child of abuse and I think it’s clear from the flashbacks that she always had a streak of cruel, but she was groomed by Ozai, Ursa didn’t seem to give Azula the same kind of attention and love that she gave Zuko, she didn’t have Iroh to guide her as a teenager, so she simply did what came naturally to her and promoted the FN agenda. Mai also comes from a high ranking family that is very much on board with the whole ‘Fire Nation First’ rhetoric and she helps, but only because she is apathetic. That’s her whole thing, she just doesn’t care. And when Zuko leaves, she calls him a traitor, so she clearly is loyal to her country to a fault (again, she was a kid who didn’t have someone to tell her better, I’m not hating on her). Ty Lee I think is closer to the representation of a citizen or maybe a soldier. They don’t explore this thread (a wasted opportunity imo) but in her introduction, it seems that she has no interest in this war and only ends up joining because she’s scared of Azula. It’s her way of survival. She knows she can’t take a stance against Azula and escape unscathed.

I think Zuko at some point goes through all these stages, but he is by nature, more caring, a fighter, and he makes his own destiny. Remember, that thing that’s said out loud???? Zuko’s journey is so incredible because he has to confront all the lies he’s been fed and the hand he may have had in the destruction, as collateral or via complicity, head-on. He has to live in the Earth Kingdom and listen to people talk about what they’ve been through and he is clearly horrified. He tries to protect them and when they find out who he is, they turn on him. I love this choice actually (as much as I hate to see Zuko hurt) because clearly, the show itself is aware that Zuko just claiming that he’s not like other Fire Nation royals isn’t enough for him, or for others. Zuko has to work his butt off to get anybody’s approval (re, the Gaang) because of course people are gonna be sceptical of him.

He has a bumpy road to redemption which is what I fucking loveee because life is messy, and your journey to being a better person is going to be too. You can’t expect yourself to just have a linear trajectory from Point A to Point B, because are people familiar with the concept of humanity. It’s going to look more like a bunch of messy scribbles and you’re always gonna mess up and I cannot stress how much I ADORE that they wrote that into his arc. You can do some dumb things but aren’t beyond forgiveness. BUT. They also acknowledge that just because you’re sorry now, doesn’t entitle you to someone’s forgiveness now, or later. And Zuko doesn’t expect it so he works tirelessly towards making amends. He goes above and beyond and he still doesn’t think he’s worthy of being forgiven all the time (like when he’s nervous to go see Iroh).

AND (oh my god there’s so many ands but he’s such a complex character and there are so many layers to his redemption I’m sorry I’m gushing) most importantly. He takes a fucking stand against the Fire Nation. He does all these things till he finally makes his way back home. He thinks this is what he wanted, he has his father’s approval, he’s got his honour back, he’s the crown prince, he has a FN girlfriend...so then why is he unhappy? (Again, these are literally his words asdfghjkmhngbfds.) Because he has changed. Because he actively disagrees with their ideologies now. Before he was banished, he clearly didn’t agree with their ways, but now he doesn’t want a part in it. We see his empathy and inner conflict again when Ozai asks his opinion on taking over the Earth Kingdom. See how that works? He had every chance to be a colonising little shit, but he didn’t take it.

I can’t believe the amount of strength it took for Zuko to walk away from this life of comfort and prestige, face off against that abusive dickhead who calls himself a father, and then just...join the “enemy” to defeat them. And he wants to defeat them because he hates what they stand for on a FUNDAMENTAL level. Seriously, did people just turn off the volume during that scene in The Day of Black Sun? This is what I mean by blatantly ignoring the dialogue to come to these conclusions. Zuko, as a fucking teenager, had the courage to fight against his own family because he believed the world could be a better place and he recognised that that meant his own family needed to be defeated. He was literally willing to die to take them down and protect the people that he cares about, good GOD I cannot deal with this. That’s more than any Brit ever did, but go off. I guess by this logic, no irl white person is allowed to be happy ever, because y’all probably have some ancestor who colonised a country or was a slave owner or something, sorry. Oh, also, antis who love harping on about Zuko’s ancestors and family - did they also forget that he’s the literal descendant of Roku too? You know, the Avatar, the guy who tried to fight and stop Sozin too? Or does that just not fit their narrative, so they decided to only pick the parts of his lineage that do?

[breadclubrising]

hello!! you seem both friendly and knowledgeable so i have a question if that’s okay!! so last night i ended up in a youtube spiral™ that basically culminated in me watching the full story of the golden lovers and having my mind blown because i had absolutely NO IDEA that pro wrestling was Like That. like yeah it’s common knowledge that all outcomes are staged but i wasn’t expecting the CHOREOGRAPHY. the STORYLINES. the DRAMA. this is like theatre but with more blood and twice as gay????. i’d love to get more into it but i just have no idea where to start?? there’s so much, and it seems crucial to know backstories and relationships and there are so many different wrestling circles?? basically the only one i’ve seen at this point is a little bit of njpw. wwe seems very big and flashy in a way i’m not sure i appreciate (yet?). aew seems like something people like? i’ve been dropped in the middle of an ocean here and if you could toss me any sort of lifeboat i’d be eternally grateful 😅

Hi! I'm sorry that it took me a moment to answer this!

YES, wrestling is Like That! I was also shocked when I first realized it, and was immediately hooked. But, yes, it also feels overwhelming to get started. There's so much history and culture that you have no idea about. There's so many rules and traditions! And so many different styles! How do you get started with pro wrestling when there's so much to know?

TL;DR -

Wrestling is really stupid and it's the best

Find the gays

Don't listen to the cishets

Find a wrestler you like and follow them

Watch whatever makes you happy

Do it in a way that is fun for you!

That's an easy list, but I'll elaborate as that's what I do.

So, first of all, I'd say: don't be intimidated. Wrestling is fundamentally stupid and campy, and if people don't understand and love that, they're getting it wrong. It so happens that the loudest majority of English-speaking fans online don't understand and love that fact, but that is not your problem as a new fan of good taste; pay it no mind. If it seems to you like wrestling is for the gays despite all its painfully heterosexual fans, trust your gut, you are correct. Wrestling is for the gays. We just let the cishets enjoy it too.

Related to that: don't feel like you have to know everything. You don't, that gatekeeper-y nonsense is an unfortunate vibe in many fandom spaces, and wrestling is no exception. But observing fan discussions and appreciation is a great way to passively learn and to be exposed to new things. There are many spaces where new fans are welcomed and where people want to help you learn about the sport. Tumblr tends heavily into that direction, as does (as far as I can tell) the gay contingent of the AEW fandom, and the queerer areas of wrestling twitter for the most part.

The advice lots of people give new fans is the best, imo: find a wrestler you like, and start watching some of their matches. It doesn't even have to be someone you like a lot, just find someone whose matches you love watching because of their style or their character. Through that, you'll inevitably find other wrestlers you like, and be exposed to different styles and ways of storytelling. Pick a random show, big or small, and watch the whole thing. See if anyone stands out to you. Whatever catches your fancy, whether it's a wrestler, a storyline, a faction, a rivalry, a style, whatever... you'll be able to find more of it, and slowly branch out.

If you live in the US and have TV, WWE and AEW are going to be the easiest to access. WWE is unfortunately hard to follow sometimes, because their storytelling is incoherent and unsatisfying a lot of the time, not to mention they are run by a maniacal oligarch who openly supports fascists and dictators. I would advise against giving WWE your money if you for some craaazy reason have ethical issues with Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia's human rights record, coverup of sexual abuse, union busting, or racism, just to name a few. In an industry with a universally hideous underbelly, WWE's hideous underbelly manages to stand above the rest, and that's no small feat.

But there are plenty of wrestlers in WWE who transcend that ugliness and put on incredible matches, and a lot of them have histories in the indies or in other wrestling companies. And consuming WWE content without paying for it is a victimless crime (plus a lot of it is on Hulu). AEW also has a lot of wrestlers with Histories, so if you find someone there who catches your eye, you'll be able to do a deep dive. Netflix (last time I checked anyway) has a few seasons of Lucha Underground, which is a great intro to wrestling storytelling IMO, and will introduce you to some of the biggest talents in the business.

You mentioned Japanese wrestling, which is also very accessible even if you don't speak Japanese. Most of the larger promotions have (paid) streaming services, and most also put specific matches on YouTube for free. And there's a lot you can find by just googling. You mentioned NJPW, which is good to watch bc they have an American branch and a large western fandom. DDT is not as popular with western fans, but they have a partnership with AEW (so you'll see wrestlers from both promotions as pandemic travel restrictions ease), and in my personal opinion, DDT understands what pro wrestling is better than any other promotion out there. It's a comedy promotion that also has some of the most talented wrestlers in Japan, who often put on completely serious matches that rival all the 'serious' promotions in quality, and they are one of the few Japanese promotions that do intergender wrestling. NOAH, Dragon Gate, and Stardom all also have large and dedicated contingents of English-speaking fans.

Lastly, as cliche as it sounds, HAVE FUN. Wrestling is supposed to be enjoyable and goofy. Don't feel like you have to do homework or watch an entire tournament to fully understand a storyline. If something gets boring or upsetting (wrestling can be problematic politically a lot of the time), watch something else. Fandoms dominated by men tend to turn liking things into a chore; whether it's sports or video games or philosophy, you're not really a serious fan unless you're doing a whole lot of work to learn everysinglething about it so you don't seem like a noob. Fuck that, the second it's not fun, find something that is, and if you end up saying something a noob would say, hey, no worries, it's because sometimes people are new to things.

Enjoy!! And feel free to ask more questions if this answer is too broad.