#that was like a blatant sign

[laylawatermelon]

I have to rewatch for science.

HOW!?!! How I didn't know that Luke Newton from Bridgerton and Jayden Revri from dead boy detectives were in a band from Disney Channel??!!!!! This is hilarious I feel that all is connected I live in a simulation

I think I'm the last to know about this and everyone already knew but wow

[sootsz]

the only duo ever

[aroaceleovaldez]

Mark Oshiro confuses me a little bit not going to lie. In the press tour for the first book all they ever talked about was how Nico is their son and Will is fine I guess. Then they said like 2 weeks before TSATS came out that they didn't understand Will's character at all and it's one of the main reasons why Will has so little POV.

Possibly unpopular opinion but I don't think it's a good, encouraging sign when the writer admits to not really caring about the deuteragonist or not even having a sense of how to write them...

Yeah, no. If you have no interest in 1/2 of the POV characters of your book, you REALLY shouldn't be writing it (or at least, not have that be a main character). Especially when the main way TSATS could have been improved is if it was primarily Will-centric instead of Nico-centric. Will basically had next to no established character prior to TSATS! He was practically a blank slate! But all the new stuff we got for Will in TSATS was so clearly disinterested and had no regard for his previously established traits (or the established timeline/canon). Which is annoying because fleshing out Will would have been the PERFECT opportunity to actually incorporate a lot of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in as a sensitivity reader, which was the ENTIRE REASON THEY WERE BROUGHT ON AS A CO-AUTHOR!!!!

As TSATS stands, there is no reason for Mark Oshiro specifically to have been the co-author instead of someone else. It's so clearly just a PR move from RR following the huge backlash Rick received due to his response to criticism on how he wrote Piper and Samirah (and Reyna and etc etc). This was immediately following Rick saying he wasn't going to write what would become TSATS because "it [wasn't his] place to." Most of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in either weren't relevant at all to TSATS or written very poorly (to downright offensively) in TSATS, so either Mark Oshiro wasn't doing their job or was not able to do their job for some reason, but either way it basically makes the theoretical justification for Mark Oshiro being the co-author/sensitivity reader irrelevant.

With Will, it was HUGE fanon back in the day for him to be trans. Trans!Will and photokinesis!Will were basically the two biggest headcanons for him (both largely popularized by Cherryandsisters). We know Rick is aware of this old fanon because he canonized photokinesis!Will. If we had gotten trans!Will, that would have been great! And then made sense why we specifically got a trans co-author! (Instead, if anything, TSATS canonized Will being cis.) If we had gotten Will being latino, that would have been amazing!!!! And also then made sense as to why they chose Mark Oshiro for the job as a latinx author/sensitivity-reader, versus potentially choosing an Italian co-author since Nico being Italian/Venetian was emphasized so much in the book (and done poorly! Yknow what they could have done to fix that? GOTTEN A SENSITIVITY READER FOR IT)! Based on the themes and focuses actually present in the book, it would have been most logical to get a queer, neurodivergent, Italian co-author or sensitivity reader who specializes in those three topics at least. But we didn't! So why was Mark Oshiro chosen instead when they only specialize in one of those topics? PR reasons. It's blatantly entirely PR reasons and no actual thought or care was put into this book (or, likely, TSATS 2 either).

It doesn't help that we're also actively being told that the published version of TSATS was a rough draft. Or that their editor blatantly isn't doing her job. Or that "The Sun And The Star" was the working title that they just kept cause they didn't bother to make an actual title. And that the final version is full of explicitly last-minute scenes that weren't checked over at all (the final Bianca scene, for one). Or the ACTIVELY ADMITTING TO SOURCING IDEAS AND INFORMATION FROM FANS! That last one is kind of important because at this level of publishing that is a HUGE no-no for legal reasons. You can get into a lot of trouble for that and there is a reason why it is Ye Olde Fandom Law to never try to pitch your ideas or headcanons to the source creator(s) and keep fandom separate from the creators. There is a REASON why Rick Riordan is so distant from the community these days and it's for PROTECTION AGAINST LEGAL REPERCUSSION. Mark Oshiro being the exact opposite while also ACTIVELY ACKNOWLEDGING sourcing concepts from fans does not bode well! It has to do with copyright stuff.

It's just. So. Sighhhhhhhh >->o <- me lying on the floor about all of this. It's sad being able to see the glimmer of what could have been at the very least a decent book underneath all this. If anyone involved in the process had actually cared just the tiniest amount.

[abirddogmoment]

wow eternally grateful to Mav for fixing something in me (the deep-seated anxiety of being embarrassed in public) by being the most best boy (the most endearingly embarrassing animal to ever go in public)

[gregorovitch-adler]

John not being there in part 1 of The Three Gables makes me sad. :(

I know he needs time to grieve for Mary, but still. I miss him a lot.

That being said, I don't mind Mariana being the narrator this time. I love her voice too.

And I like the fact that Mariana and Sherlock are getting some alone time together (after loads of episodes of Mariana - John's alone time and John - Sherlock's alone time). Quite intriguing.

[raayllum]

Change

+ Bonus

[imminent-danger-came]

here you go www.reddit.com/r/MonkieKid/comments/1dnuekm/monkie_kid_villain_fates_massive_spoilers_for_all/

(link)

Honestly, I was only able to make it halfway through the first Macaque paragraph before having to stop. This person seems to have one: no concern for the time restraints placed on lmk, and two: no understanding of what the writers find important to focus on versus what they find important to focus on.

Like, complaining that we never went back to the Dragon Palace of the East is a ridiculous criticism to me (and that's as someone who is an Ao Guang fan). We saw that a large portion of the world was taken over by LBD, so it stands to reason the same thing happened to the East Palace, and everything ended up fine after LBD was stopped in 3x14. There were just other (arguably more important) uses of time.

And like, saying "Macaque doesn't try to make amends" is objectively wrong—he is literally a part of the final stand against LBD, putting everything (which for him is his 2nd chance at life) on the line to fight with MK and go along with his plan. That's the arc: Macaque goes from wanting to be "on the winning side" to letting MK "win" (and himself "lose" by proxy). It's the "win/lose" motif man. It was a change brought about from MK refusing to abandon Mei in 3x10—that moment completely upended Macaque's worldview and pulled him outside of his obsession with Wukong.

I kinda skimmed later parts of the rant, and claiming that everyone "immediately forgave" Macaque is also off to me. The way Macaque is treated is the same way the Demon Bull Family has been treated: as long as you're not continuing to cause problems (and sometimes even help solve problems), we don't have issues with you. The MK + the Gang doesn't have a need for "justice" or "retribution" or whatever, because they have more important uses of their time, like trying to live normal lives you know. That's where their goals are.

Though honestly, I loved how bitter MK was towards Macaque in s4 ("Stop! If you're just trying to mess with me" "Oh! Thanks Macaque! Congrats, you went to more effort than usual to make me feel like dirty dirt dirt. Good job, round of applause.") My take from s4 is that MK hadn't let his past with Macaque go. I think post s4-special, as MK is further entrenched in his "good guy" "bad guy" mentality and his need to make Wukong blameless, it wouldn't surprise me if that extends to Macaque, too. Acknowledging Macaque's past wrongs would also mean acknowledging Wukongs, and...well, MK isn't ready for that. Wukong is the legendary Monkey King, and now Macaque's redeemed himself! There are no more issues! (There are definitely issues)

Sooooooooooooooooo we'll just have to see!

[criscura]

Not apologizing for the meme made on my camera app LITERALLY i can't focus on any of his scenes because of this

Why. Why is he Like That. Why did they draw him like that. Why in 30+ episodes has it never been addressed ONCE

[aluminia]

Ok but like, you see why I'm going to be repulsed by your video if your thumbnail includes lizardman Mark Zuckerberg, right? You can understand what it is implying when you say that about a Jewish man, right? Right??

[seokwoosmole]

*Sign of affection minor spoilers*

Yuki’s family not communicating with her in (or even seeming to know much) sign language rubs me so wrongly. I don’t know a whole lot about the Deaf community, but I’m taking an ASL class right now and I’ve seen Deaf characters portrayed in media, but I don’t know any Deaf people that use ASL that are close to me, so maybe this isn’t an educated opinion. But I would think that if you were a parent and had a Deaf child since BIRTH and they were 19 years old, sometime in those 19 years, you would have learned sign language - even a little???? Like if Yuki was born hearing and became deaf later in life, I could maybe see how her parents/brother haven’t yet mastered sign language, but that’s not the case!! Yuki was born Deaf and her whole family is perfectly fine with her relying on lip reading and they don’t even seem like they’re actively practicing or learning for that matter😭That scene in the manga when Yuki helps clean for her older brother and she says he only knows ONE sign. And when Itsuomi meets her parents they are genuinely shocked that the two of them are holding sign language conversations despite him only learning recently and the two of them not dating very long. I love Itsuomi and I do think he is genuinely a really great guy, but I also think other characters make it really easy for him to look like such a green flag in comparison😭 Like. This man didn’t know a single sign before meeting Yuki and he’s known her for a few MONTHS and he’s made such an effort to learn for her. And don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an Itsuomi praise post (again I love him, but imo, if you have a significant other who’s fluent in and predominantly uses a language that’s not one you know, it’s the bare minimum to make an effort to learn it) more so this post is just me being baffled at the people in Yuki’s life😭 Like. THESE PEOPLE LOVE HER! Yuki does not in the slightest have an unloving or unkind family. So the fact that they canonically don’t use sign language with her and rely on her to lip read and write/text is just wild to me.

[soudakuwunmoment]

When I say I'm cringe and proud, I'm not joking. Do not befriend me unless you want to see me excitedly planning an animatic of a Homestuck ship to a 2012 P!nk song.

[monachopism]

being jewish with zero affiliation to israel and rather a generational line of activists for palestine is a hard line to walk and sometimes i wish i could just fall off

[faaun]

and also just adding onto that, the recent wave of like armchair diagnosing ppl as npd is sooo annoying. Like its actually a serious condition, you CANNOT diagnose someone as npd with just one story or interaction. Sometimes ppl are not "narcissistic", they're just assholes? It feels like every second story i hear, there's ppl going "thats a narcissistic trait yk :/" and its like just bc its a narcissistic trait doesnt mean they have npd??

yes defintely !! it's so so harmful and i have not seen any other disorder (except maybe aspd?) get as much demonisation and hate as npd has and it is genuinely so heartbreaking bc it is a serious dissociative disorder that does Not inherently make anyone a bad person and yet !! like the term "narcissistic abuse" and also ppl just generally equating [mostly covert] abuse w narcissism is so immensely Harmful .

anyway i think we should bring back calling people mean, assholes, rude, gaslighters, abusers, etc instead of being like "my mother was a narc abuser so all ppl w npd are abusers and will never change!" etc etc bc it does 3 horrible things:

1) implies all people with npd are abusers

2) implies people with npd are not capable of self-improvement just like any other human being

3) offloads the horrible actions of abusers onto a disorder, thereby taking away the responsibility they had/choices they made in the situation and instead blames the (completely inaccurate + harmful!!) perceived invariability/ubiquitous evil of npd symptoms/traits .

"how to spot a narcissist" babe are we birdwatching now for ppl with a dissociative disorder or...???

[b-rainlet]

For being the one least likely to survive - as estimated by the viewers - Ben sure is the only one with riddles specifically tailored to his background knowledge that the others could most likely not solve without him

[zoennes]

2.03 ♡ 2.04

[cookie-nom-nom]

I got like 10 minutes into a video essay before I got so enraged with the underlying assumptions it was making about people who make dark art/fiction that I had to step away from the whole thing. Chewing you chewing you chewing you LIKING MESSED UP FICTION IS NOT CONDONING OR ENACTING REAL WORLD ABUSES! WHAT YOU/I FIND DISGUSTING IS NOT THE SAME AS WHAT IS MORALLY WRONG!

And then what would you know, I checked the channel to get them out of my algorithm and realized it was the same person who made a thumbnail so outrageously awful that all four of my roommates tore it to shreds a few months ago. So at least I got vindication there.