#than hurting fictional ones

[voidfeather]

bit of an insane take i'm aware but i do firmly believe that the trend of meta moral guilttrips contributed at least a little bit to people thinking that consuming certain media and doing so in specific ways is somehow activism

[spooky-activity]

A little after this happened, the two ran into some remnants of the Swarm! Just what is the Trailblazer up to?

[torukmaktoskxawng]

Keep scrolling if you blame Spider

Spider, who is literally still a child by human standards.

Spider, who never gave away Jake's or the Omatikaya's location.

Spider, who cares about the Sullys' safety over his own.

Spider, who didn't want any blood on his hands or a guilty conscience if he left someone to die.

Spider, who just didn't want anyone else to get hurt.

Spider, who never betrayed the Na'vi (unlike Jake but hey, who's counting that, right?)

Spider, who had to fend for himself to survive the toughest events because he didn't have an adult who would tear the world apart for him like the Sully children do.

Spider, who loves Pandora and Eywa.

Spider, who just wanted to be one of Her children because he never knew what it was like for a mother to love him.

Spider, who probably understands Eywa's whole "balance of life" meaning more than others.

Spider, who already lost Neteyam but he couldn't afford to lose anyone else in his life, no matter how terrible they are as a person.

Spider, who helped Jake save Kiri and Tuk when everyone else was still too shocked to move.

Spider, who chose mercy over violence/death.

Spider, who did what he could to survive (I'd like to see how YOU would react under such pressure. It all seems obvious and easy watching from the other side of the screen, right?)

Spider, who was likely being misled, brainwashed, and gaslit by the Recoms.

Spider, who is clearly a victim but hey, let's blame him for simply being a decent human being, right?

Spider, who likely thought he owed Quaritch after he saved him from being tortured.

Spider, who likely thought he owed Quaritch for giving him life.

Spider, who just wanted a father who was proud of him.

Spider, who has been clearly neglected by the heroes (Jake and Neytiri) but doesn't openly or verbally blame them.

Spider, who doesn't purposely threaten children's lives like Quaritch and Neytiri do.

Spider, who just wanted to be one of the People.

Spider, who wouldn't have made those difficult choices had he been properly loved and raised.

Spider, who is as easy to blame as Lo'ak for endangering the people they love (but again, no one's counting, right?)

Spider, who is clearly not a villain, just misunderstood.

Spider, who wasn't raised by the village but didn't burn it down to feel its warmth because he's not petty, not vindictive, not evil, and not a killer.

Spider, who is. A. Child.

[straycalamities]

the fixation of fandom these days on there always being a Black and a White. A Right and a Wrong. A Villain and a Victim. is soooo fucking tragic and frankly REALLY DAMN ANNOYING

especially in stuff where like..if THAT'S your priority? you've missed the entire damn point. and yet it always is. so loudly.

look beyond your blorbo. your kintype. your CC. your f/o. look beyond your otp. look beyond your found family dynamic and actually absorb what's going on with the other characters. i'm begging.

honestly do a study on the characters you hate most or care about the least. take a half an hour to put yourself in their shoes

no this isn't an anti-shipping, anti-kinning, anti-selfship, or anti-blorboing post, because i don't think those are the things that inherently ruin characters or tags or whatever other ppl think. but if you do do that, it'll make it even better if you look at a larger scope beyond that as well I promise

[pwurrz]

being obsessed with yakumo is a job and baby i’ve never called in a sick day!!!!!

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[lord-squiggletits]

Wanted to send an ask as well to hopefully provide some distraction from…recent events.

Are there any parts of world building in the TF IDW universe that you wish were explored/expanded upon more? Or that you want to explore in your writing? Like certain aspects of pre-war Cybertron, cybertronian culture, post-war Cybertron, etc?

Okay this is actually perfectly timed for a rant I wanted to go on about the way mnemosurgery is written in IDW1 because I hate how JRO basically made it an ontologically evil field of medicine both intrinsically and in terms of the average person who does it, like

First of all I want to preface this by saying I'm not accusing JRO of having any particular beliefs, this is just my commentary on how things came off and how his writing style contributes to both virtues and flaws in his writing. So I might say "he's basically saying this" but in the sense of "unfortunate implications, accidental or purposeful, in his writing."

But like... it makes me so mad because the worldbuilding around mnemosurgery kind of makes no sense to me? It seems like a really fucking wasted opportunity to cast basically every mnemosurgeon in the continuity as evil and to make it so that even just doing mnemosurgery is basically a toxic, destructive act that will literally kill you? Honestly, I don't think JRO even came up with mnemosurgery as like, "here's a thing that exists in this world and how it works" so much as, he took a character-first approach to writing (as he always does) and wrote mnemosurgery to work whatever way would work best for Chromedome and other character-related conflicts and plot points.

Like, mnemosurgery can view/alter memories from a living person but from a dead person it can only get moments from right before death. Makes sense. Mnemosurgery slowly kills you every time you do it??? Uh... honestly that comes off more as a handwave to make it so that any time the LL needs information they can't just needle it straight out of whoever's mind they need bc of course Chromedome can only do it when it's really important after all. Mnemosurgery... is only ever used for brainwashing people? Like, literally every mnemosurgeon except Chromedome is evil (and cartoonishly so, for Trepan and Sunder, like literally unredeemable monsters in every way) and any time they actually enjoy their field of medicine it's bc they're a sadist that likes to manipulate and oppress people? Kind of... uncreative.

Mnemosurgery is ADDICTIVE?? You're addicted to needling people's brains because mnemosurgery is ontologically evil and then it literally kills you? Okay like... do I even need to explain how tone-deaf it is to incorporate addiction of all things into the worldbuilding here? "You're an addict which makes you dangerous to society. The good ones stop doing the addictive thing because they're morally strong/care about others/aren't hedonists, but the bad ones who only care about doing their drug of choice are evil because the fact that they don't quit shows that they don't care about other people and OF COURSE the main/only fate that awaits addicts is their inevitable death by their own addiction!" Like, we get enough of that shit in real life, JRO. Did you really have to take an already heavily stigmatized condition like ADDICTION and slap it onto your ontologically evil mnemosurgery where the evil ones are evil because they love abusing/manipulating people and don't care enough about dying to stop being addicted to mnemosurgery? Come the fuck on.

Like, I understand that "the science of studying/altering memories" is heavily laden with nightmare fuel as is, and I don't have a problem with that (and stuff like the Institute) because the mind/memories are an intrinsic part of personhood, so any scientific field around it (or any government that wants to sponsor it) will abuse that knowledge just like with any other field of medicine. But to use human examples, why the fuck does mnemosurgery have to be inherently evil? What about stuff like Alzheimer's that degrades ppl's memories to the point of not even remembering a few seconds ago? Wouldn't it be beautiful if mnemosurgery could help with that? What about psychological issues where maybe people with intense PTSD/trauma/etc could have their worst memories be removed/dulled so that they become mentally stable enough for psychiatric/therapeutic interventions to become effective? What if someone has a TBI and wants help recovering the memories they lost?

What about non-scary, non-medicinal applications of mnemosurgery? What if someone just really treasures the memory of a particular day with their best friend and visits a mnemosurgery every couple years so that information creep doesn't slowly alter their memories of that precious day? What if it was possible for mnemosurgeons to intensify memories, so that maybe someone could have a happy memory intensified and think of it any time they're sad, struggling, having mental health struggles, etc? What if mnemosurgeons could take/copy memories from people's brains and convert them to video format in a way that other people could watch it? Imagine the sheer potential present in that when it comes to preserving history through literal firsthand testimonials of what happened! What if a mnemosurgeon could transfer memories from one person to another-- what kinds of breakthroughs in empathy, communication, and understanding others could happen if you could LITERALLY see a conflict from another person's perspective? In those ways, mnemosurgeons would basically be able to act as a hybrid of doctor, psychologist, diplomat, mediator, and archivist all in one!

But no... instead we just got "Mnemosurgery is evil and pretty much only used for brainwashing, 99.8% of all mnemosurgeons are evil creeps, oh by the way it's also addicting and will literally kill you if you do it too much." SMFH.

[god-of-knk]

I'm going to draw Taffy ship art tomorrow solely out of spite.

And perhaps post it in the server.

If I'm feeling extra petty.

[vaguely-concerned]

the way harrow the ninth manages to convey the longing for connection that can happen not only between people, but also within an individual, when something goes wrong enough inside them. and the horror-hunger desperation and displacement of being severed from yourself that suffuses every other part of your existence, with all the repulsive rotting wrongness of stagnant water you can't get away from because the well is within your own heart and that bitch just keeps pumping away even when you wish it wouldn't bother. anyway. I love that book a normal amount

[mbat]

i kinda love and hate something about the new expansion, and its anduins story

disclaimer that my knowledge of world of warcraft in general is very... tangled. like, if youve ever pulled out a bunch of necklaces and theyre tangled together and youre like 'what the fuck how do i even fix this'. thats my knowledge of world of warcraft. ive learned everything out of order and theres a lot i dont even know yet blah blah

but anyway

what i understand is that during shadowlands, anduin basically got ?posessed? and was forced to be fully aware as he watched his own body do horrible things that couldnt be undone, and that part of him enjoyed it.

and then it ended and he was so fucked up by that (rightfully) that he went and hid from the world for a while, isolating himself and only furthering these horrible feelings because he couldnt find a way to not feel horrible about what happened

and then hes found and told that hes needed again, but hes still beating himself up

and the worst part is, he cant find it in himself to reconnect with this thing thats important to him, the light, because he thinks hes unworthy. the light is seen as such a good thing in this world, and he thinks himself no longer good. (i could say how this feels weirdly christian but that is NOT the point here)

he goes on this journey anyway, how could he not? their world is in trouble.

and in this journey, they find a land hiding away thats pretty much made to help him LMAO. theres a few things, but mostly... theres the light. a gem rock star thingy of some kind as bright as the sun sticking out of the ceiling of an underground world, and it is the light. the light he feels he lost

and he meets someone whos so devoted to it, so hopeful despite everything thats happened to her, and she sees in him what he thinks he doesnt have for anyone to see

she lets him know that the light is still there, he still has it, he will be okay. he doesnt believe it, but he starts to

its through this journey that he learns that what happened doesnt define who he is, not forever, not even now, and he finds the light again

especially in such a pivotal moment where he does something thats the opposite of what he was forced to do before

where he was forced to hurt and kill people

he finds his ability to heal again, and revives someone

and i guess i said i love it and hate it because like... i hate that this isnt in a form i can easily re-consume like a book or a show or a movie, or even a linear video game. and once i go through it on a character, i cant do it again unless its on another character, and i only have so many high level characters. i could probably just watch videos or something about it but idk it just doesnt work the same

i also hate that i know im not gonna find many people talking about it, at least, not even in the way i want

but what i love is that this type of story was done at all. i feel like its underdone, where a character, especially a character whos 'the good one', does something(s) thats horrible, maybe even 'unforgivable' depending who you ask, and they have to deal with realizing that it doesnt define them, and they can still be good, still be worth loving and having a good life. learning to forgive themself.

i feel like its a story that a lot of people need to hear, even if they dont even realize it. i know ive done things in the past i still feel like i will never make up for, and i still dont know how to feel about it all.

i think its actually wild that something like world of warcraft did it at all, and honestly, i think they did it well. i guess i cant speak much on the shadowlands part of it because i have yet to see all of that, only really the cutscenes and cinematics, but ive seen the war within part of it.

and idk i feel like i have so much to say but i cant think of more, but i really enjoyed it.

[doesdarlingexe]

get out of the main selfship tag you pred

ctrl v much

anyway posting this in main tags again, but anon, you can always just use the safeshipping tags if you don't want to see proshippers. we aren't invading your space, it's a communal space with subgroups. that can apply to any fandom or any community, there will always be subgroups you don't like, but fortunately there's usually more specific tags that cater to you! there's also the block button if my content makes you uncomfortable in any way, and I highly suggest you use it if that is the case (though, something is telling me you didn't look at a single post i made).

Have a great day anon! /gen

And to everyone in the main tags, anti or proship, I hope you have a good day and remember: your f/os love you!

[sukibenders]

"Ariel was stupid like she gave up her life in the ocean for a boy-" Well, if you actually watch the movie, before she even meets Eric, Arield shows interest in going to the surface and learning the ways of the humans. She collects artifacts and hides them, along with her trips to the surface from her father, who is prone to anger and hates her interest. He blows up her cave filled with said artifacts and bans her from ever going back to the surface (and seeing Eric, but the surface aspect and him go hand and hand). You want me to believe that you wouldn't book it at the first opportunity you got? Like yeah, the context of the deal was sketchy as hell, but when your dad is the literal ruler of all the seas you don't have many options. Also, in the sequel, Ariel is still connected to the ocean and can go back, especially after Ursula's sister dies so, in all honesty, my girl still wins in the end.

[bylertruther]

some of you never grew up in a small conservative town as a (gay) nerd that was bullied, harassed, and excluded for years on end for not fitting in and for visibly and enthusiastically liking geek things—geek things that then branded you a satanist in everyone's eyes and as something Other, Lesser, and Undoubtedly Unworthy of Basic Human Decency even though you were literally just an actual child with harmless interests and not a satanist or an evil disgusting subhuman thing, and it shows.

you cannot apply modern views and beliefs to a show that is set in the eighties, especially not when it's set in conservative midwest eighties which is a whole other beast. being a socially awkward and nonconforming geek is something that people STILL get bullied for if you don't do it in a way that the majority deems "acceptable", especially if you live in a conservative, religious area.

your experiences are not universal and your inability to relate to a certain motif or story does not make it "lesser" or "bad writing."

[soupandsorcery]

watching Astarion break up scenes on youtube because I'm not strong enough to do that myself, and OUCH.

[catstack17]

i fear my heart will always go to and for the fictional boy that so desperately wants the girl but still respects her choice at the end of the day even when the blatant rejection verbally kills him, sweetest male characters ever are the only ones that get that storyline and it makes me actually go insane thinking about it - bc you just know no one would have major problems with them if they weren’t a part of a damn “love triangle” that shouldn’t be considered one-

daniel miller from every witch way and jacob black in twilight are the main reasons for falling for them + for that trope and it’ll most likely continue if my patterns and who i love in books, films and tv series continues

[musical-chick-13]

"This show is SO good, you should watch it!!"

I gotta be honest. If I look at a character list on Wikipedia and get five characters down without seeing a single woman, it's probably not for me.