#the amount of faith they all seem to have in me is actually crazy lol so in a way i have no choice but to try

[emmaspolaroid]

my non-artist friends are so sweet and recklessly supportive lmao they’re like “dude you could totally smoke all the artists at this one con in town” like my siblings in Christ you are literally talking about Fan Expo Denver and i do not actually know what i am doing!

[bourbon-ontherocks]

20 questions for writers

I was tagged by @pia-writes-things (ty!!! ❤️)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

46!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

703,271. Which is, um, a lot.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Good Girls (formerly), HPI (formerly), and l'Art du Crime. There's also a random bit for les Combattantes, and one GG fic has a shared universe with Graceland. I'm very mono-fandom lol.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Take A Dip

It's All Coming Back To Me

It Hurts When I See You Struggle

Love And War

We're Living In A Powder Keg And Giving Off Sparks

Unsurprisingly, these are all GG fics, although I don't think my kudos ranking is accurate because most of these were impacted by the great kudos-bombing gate from 2020 so it's hard to tell what's actually my most kudo-ed fic.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Absolutely. My secret goal is to keep the conversation going back and forth for the longest possible time because I love the opportunity for a good ramble about my writing 😈

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I wanna say Ad vitam æternam (L'art du crime)? I mean, it's literally an MCD fic, so, not that merry... Also if I remember correctly, Always lost in the sea (HPI) doesn't end on a very hopeful note either.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I don't know? All of them? None? I generally tend to go for happy open endings with that extra bit of bittersweet so I really couldn't tell. But hey, maybe the ending to that thing I'm currently writing actually is the happiest of it all, because oh boy, things do get cheesy at some point 🥺

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No at all! Unless you count that one person who commented on several chapters of whichever long GG fic I wrote just to point blank hate on Beth character lol

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Of course I do (in English only), I like my porn toxic and desperate and angsty with just the right amount of power play and mutual hatred. Basically, I write hatefuck 😂

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really, no... I've tried a couple of times, but I think I'm better at/more interested in mimicking existing interactions than inventing a dynamic between characters who never met canonically (and also, boy the kind of SETUP you need to justify some characters crossing paths... it's just too much work). I'm more of a cameo/easter egg kind of writer, so once in a while I'll allow a character from another fandom to pop up in a fic and say hi, but it's really a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of encounter.

I guess my craziest attempt would be that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend / Good Girls crossover that I never finished though, cause like, super different moods?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of but I don't really attempt to know

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! By myself lol. I once posted a fic in two languages before acknowledging it was a hell of an additional work 😭

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Kinda? We never finished nor even posted it but at some point we shared a quite unhinged co-writing story with @whiskeyjack and @00gangfriend00 and it was a lot of fun 🥰

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

You... you guys have that? You don't just live by your Ship of the Moment just to instantly forget about it and hop on the Next Ship when it shows up? I'm sorry but I don't think I have one of those.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

What a trap question!!! 😂

It's All Coming Back To Me, obviously. Look, I really really want to finish it, not even for me at this point, but for the 120-something people who subscribed to it, for the faithful readers who still leave me comments every now and then hoping for closure. I know how it ends. I have it partially written. I just don't seem to know how to write for Good Girls anymore, and getting my head back into it feels like such an insurmountable load of work, I just- I'm trying, ok?

But like, if someone's interested in helping, or even writing that ending based on my notes (and getting full and proper credits for it obvi), just let me know! I'm really open to it 🥲

16. What are your writing strengths?

Probably dialogues? I've been told many times that my dialogues feel very close to the original, and the thing is, I write about TV shows and I have a very good ear so I think I catch quite easily the actors' voices and tones and mannerisms in my head, so every time I write down a line, I play it several times in my mind with the character's voice to determine whether they would say it like that or not. Looks like it's not working so bad.

Also I *think* I'm not too bad at stream-of-consciousness inner monologues. At least it's one of my favourite things to write so there's that.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes (that includes sex lol). Filling the gaps between the important parts. Descriptions. Setting up the scene.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Like, featuring two different languages inside the same fic, or writing in different languages? I'm not sure I've ever really written the first one? I guess I find it a bit clunky, occasionally I've written scenes that included a character whose native language wasn't the one of the fic, and I'd give them a line or two if that's relevant to the plot (for instance, if characters are lost somewhere in another country, I can add a line/dialogue in another language for comedic effect. Or it can be a way for a character to whisper something for themselves), but the logistics are quite nightmarish, you gotta either assume your audience knows the second language, or translate the lines in the author's note, or have another character translate it in a way that doesn't sound too articifial, that's really really tedious haha

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Good Girls.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

You think I know that? Out of FOURTY-SIX??? Lol. Get out.

Tagging: @sdktrs12 @joeyjoeylee if you're around @riosnecktattoo @humanbra @hemerae-ramblings @sothischickshe @asteraceae-blue

[lemonhemlock]

Yeah the absolute inability for a lot of the people in this fandom to not do an insane amount of projecting is crazy and makes discussions borderline impossible. There are a lot of people whose only analysis of ASOIAF is Westeros is a Patriarchal Shithole therefore any action by any female character, no matter how evil/deranged/sociopathic, is fair and cannot be criticized because Patriarchy! Patriarchy Bad! No other analysis needed! The amount of times someone will try to critique Rhaenyra for her adultery or pushing out multiple bastards she intends to put on the iron throne it's always met with 'Okayy but Westeros is a Patriarchal Hellscape so who cares! Rhaenyra is Bad Ass for taking Back her SeXuAl AgEnCy.' Once again, these people have a great disdain for the world GRRM has built, and I don't blame them at all, but I just don't get the need to be hyper fixated on a series where you fundamentally hate the setting. Makes no damn sense to me.

I also think a significant portion of this fandom doesn't want to make a good faith attempt to engage with GRRM's work because a lot of it is considered deeply problematic in 2023, but was shit he could get away with writing in 1996. Basically, I don't think he's necessarily doing a lot of 'critique' so much as being transgressive and using the medieval fantasy setting as parameters for his edgelordiness lol. I mean, in western first world countries, it's not as if Feudal Monarchies that are Highly Oppressive to Women, are....a pressing issue? Even in 1996 lol. What exactly is he critiquing? lol. Like, some of it is the basic 'critique' sure, but a lot of it is him being a edgy nerd that likes to write about nipples and nubile teens, but the fandom isn't ready for that conversation lol.

Hi there, you raise some interesting points, so thanks for stopping by. I agree with the first part of this post and less so with the second part. Under the cut for ease of scrolling.

I think there is definitely a part of GRRM that is a boomer edgelord just writing for shits and giggles and anyone who has read any sex scene written by him can certainly attest to that. But as to the lack of good faith engagement with his work by many of his own fans, I'm not really certain they demonstrate enough interest in researching the topics to even try? A lot of the times I feel like I'm talking to brick walls, like there is a definite lack of intellectual curiosity and a dogmatic obstinacy in promoting their conceptualization of social justice as universal in any time frame, but more in the sense of positioning themselves as thought leaders and Havers of Right Opinions.™ IMO it's more a preoccupation with virtue-signaling than it is a tacit apprehension of the problematic quality of the work.

To return to the bastard conundrum, a lot of them can't seem to understand that "just pass a law lol" isn't a magical solution and that it would actually require the overhaul of the entire political system, including economic and cultural advancements that are simply absent. How are people supposed to earn a comfortable living if agriculture is the main occupation? Of course that landowners are not going to give that up, they can't simply just "get a job at the business factory" to support themselves and make up for what they might lose. In this context, the acquisition of more land becomes vital or, at the very least, avoiding its fragmentation. That's why the first born gets everything. Yes, it's also patriarchal because it's the first born son, but it's also dishonest to not admit that it's just easier this way. It's less of a headache if the gaggle of relatives are left as hangers-on dependent on the good will of the head of their family. It's less of a headache because people will go to war less often if there are clear rules for inheritance in place.

In no way is this a perfect system or a fair one, but how are you even supposed to spread more democratic ideas if the population is illiterate? If books have to be copied by hand? How are you supposed to learn a trade to earn a living if you can't access information? Then you are dependent on guilds, but the level of urbanization in Westeros is very low. Guilds also gatekeep membership and information and I'm no medieval historian but I imagine that you can get into trouble for practicing the trade of a guild without authorisation etc like these are simply not topics on their mind when they think that Viserys can just change inheritance laws for everyone within a blink of an eye. Just it is not, but it's a logical explanation as to why people might act in a certain way or be less receptive to certain ideas.

Moving on to the topic of GRRM's actual critique and contribution to the disk horse. In previous posts I expressed being perplexed by some fans' conceptualization of this setting. Of course that it's difficult to issue 100% factual assessments when the series is lacking two whole books. However, there have been many essays written already on the topic of his deconstruction of tropes only to reconstruct them later on and how the series is not supposed to read in this dudebro, grimdark, cynical key where the evil and powerful always triumph over the true and good, so I'm not going to get into that. But I think that applies to the political setting as well. I'm pretty certain he is not planing to dismantle the concept of feudal monarchy at the end of ADOS, like, we're still getting a ruler, but it's going to be a Good One, as opposed to all of the other unworthy ones that came before. We're not time-skipping 1000 years of human development to bring Westeros into the enlightened era of late stage capitalism where you can be a CEO girlboss, nor is there going to be a socialist revolution. If anything, he's being pretty apprehensive regarding the last one by giving Dany a violent revolution plotline that doesn't work out pretty optimistically.

So, yeah, in that regard, I feel like applying a lot of modern left-wing doctrine on this series might lead some to believe certain aspects are hidden criticisms when they absolutely are not and start demonising stuff that was never intended to be "bad" in the first place. I already mentioned death of the author in my previous post and, certainly, you can analyse any work of fiction through any methodology you want, but, at the same time, I feel like there are certain elements old man GRRM included in his story that are just typical of medieval fantasies and are just accouterments expected in this setting that people are taking way too seriously. Like the Iron Throne being the source of all evil and trouble in Westeros. No, it's just a mighty, imposing throne, because that's a leitmotif in medieval fantasy. Or the Conquest being a Bad Thing,™ because they view it through the lens of American colonialism. Certainly, he presents the Targaryens as problematic as a whole and the Conquest being a bloody endeavour, but I'm not convinced that Aegon I's idea of uniting the realms will end up being critiqued in and of itself.

Similarly, GRRM as an author falls into the trap of a lot of cliches about the medieval period - the prevalence of child brides in his work being such an egregious stereotype. This is indeed unfortunate, but he's also 75 and probably did his history reading a couple of decades ago; meanwhile, the field has thankfully progressed since then, as has the quality of the research. But I seriously doubt the man scours Google Scholar to stay up to date with the historiography of the period.

As to what he actually DOES critique. I think that there are two kinds of avenues for discussion here, the first being how ASOIAF is in direct conversation with the high fantasy genre - so it's actually attempting to criticize other books - which is where the trope deconstruction and the complex characterisation play in, as opposed to reliance on formulaic plots. Here I will leave it to people who are more versed in this genre than I am in order to draw the proper comparisons.

The second represents the in-world critiques the story engages in. The nature of kinghood is one of them, the age-old question of what does it mean to be a "good ruler", the nature of power and how to wield it are the central themes of the series. We have a varied cast of nominees for the role of monarch; each style and cause is weighed against each other and, as they become inoperable or obsolete, will be disregarded and eliminated.

Here I think there is a very interesting conversation to be had about Robb Stark and his role in the story, because IMO it brings together a lot of GRRM's actual criticisms (both in-world and genre-adjacent) and it's a deeply misunderstood plotline. In most other fantasy stories, characters like Ned and Robb are the ones who prevail in the end; or, if the noble father figure is unjustly slain on the battlefield or cowardly killed in some way, then certainly the valiant son will succeed in avenging him and achieving justice. I personally think it's fascinating why GRRM chose to sacrifice both of these characters specifically. You can say Ned would be a more natural choice, as it is also in line with the fictional trope of mentors dying, but why, in his plot construction, did he decide against making Robb the hero? Why did he focus on Jon instead? OFC, the secret R/L plotline, whatever, but then why did he specifically create Robb only to kill him later on?*

Anyway, the point of this digression is that I think the actual criticisms of these characters' ruling styles fly over the head of the audience. Which is why you end up with dudebros convinced that Stannis was going to prevail or people who don't understand what's wrong with Renly. If they're a player of the game, rarely is a character killed off randomly or fridged; their demise can be traced back to their own decisions & actions.**

Additionally, there are some obvious critiques on the topic of war and how the relentless ambition of nobles to acquire even more power only ends up hurting the lower classes, but that ties in very closely with the central theme anyway, in that, at some point, the candidates have to ponder the question of whether to pursue their political advancement or yield for the greater good. There is also critique of the patriarchy that's not perfect, sure, but there are a wide variety of female characters given actual personalities and depicted in their attempts to navigate societal restrictions. I think there is also critique on the rapid, overnight overhaul of socio-political systems without a plan in place, reuniting and confronting many thorny topics of human rights vs political advancement towards democracy in a way that's actually achievable and long-lasting via Dany's Essos storyline. And, of course, who can forget of the critiques of knighthood and how he specifically took the character of Jaime Lannister, changed his original moustache-twirling villain arc and decided it was better to have an actual debate on how honour and identity intertwine.

To conclude, I would also say that he probably never intended for this series to become his magnum opus and the work for which he became world-wide famous; otherwise, he maybe would have done some things very differently. So it's very possible that he never intended to write this great critique of medieval-inspired fantasy in the first place; he probably just thought it would be cool to write something in this setting a la Tolkien. Not everything an author writes has to be this huge social commentary relevant to the pressing problems of today, but I think there are enough elements in ASOIAF that are unique enough and offer enough of a different perspective to at least pose some questions or start a conversation.

*that's a post for another day because this already got too long

**ofc this doesn't apply to the commonfolk or children or other innocents

[froshele]

Can we please - I know it's not very pro idiot dilf of me and Tumblr doesn't always like that but can we please take a break from cooing over the clueless infantilized dadness of this man and analyze the situation and the context critically?

He opens the article with a totally unnecessary paragraph fawning about some teenager (as like a lead into "you wouldn't BELIEVE what sorts of people can set records and how humble they are!") and then goes into like a thing about the same guy's juggling record and how much he loves Mario and is the webmaster/referee of some record site

This entire saga begins because the author of the article hears about how important tetris records are to gamers and is immediately like lol you know My Wife really likes that dinky little game, she gets 500 lines easy, she's weirdly good at it (for a woman) i know

and so then the guy is like (awkwardly) wow the record is like 300something you should take her to the tournament

and so he wakes her out of a dead sleep to tell her this, and there's a cut and he does take her there, and she goes along despite playing tetris casually and mostly just to focus on long car trips because she's like fine with being shown off to his friends it's ok, or maybe because she wants to set a record for real, i dont know, he doesnt tell us enough about her to say and i dont think he knows enough about her himself

he barely briefs her about what to expect from all these gamerbros and she gets nervous, and-

Lori and I drIve to Weirs Beach in the middle of rush hour. This is fine. We haven't had much time to talk about the scene, and she wants to know what to expect. She is anxious. I can't say I blame her. After a few months of laughing about this whole idea that she could be a Tetris world record-holder, it is time for her to deliver. Live. In front of some of the world's best video game players.

Oh my gd dude do you even love her. Do you even have any faith in your wife or is she a mere woman to you. What do you mean laughing about it, and do not give me the man of the times argument, when I left home I time traveled out of 1880 and this is a genre of misogyny i actually managed never to experience

Since I'd woken her up that night, the idea had felt comfortably surreal. We'd tell friends the story and have a good laugh. I mean, it's Tetris. Everybody knows Tetris, and most everybody has played Tetris. It's the video game that people who hate video games actually love, probably because it's so simple

Shut UP shut UUUUUP shut UPPP if it's so simple YOU set a record at it then

There are many things that attracted me to my wife, though I can't say an exceeding amount of hand-eye coordination was one of them. She's 31, she works as a nutritionist at UMass, and she's fairly athletic. She can hit a softball and catch a football, but there was nothing about her to suggest she had some innate ability for the split-second decision making required to succeed at Tetris when the pieces are really coming fast. The idea that she could be the best person to ever play the Game Boy version of Tetris seemed beyond crazy.

GOOD LORD what an asshole. We didn't need to know the age, athleticism or weight range of your wife!

Good LORD you guys. Literally he only did any of this to write this piece about it, and nowhere in any of this do we get any sort of statement from her at all except at the very end. It's an article about his wife's achievement, only like 70% of it is him creaming himself about other men and negging her by proxy

There is the line

For the first time, I allow myself to believe that she really is that good.

SWEET BABY RAYMOND, MAN! You must be so much fun at parties! He spends the whole article basically going like heres my gamer cred, i know you guys would never believe a woman had any mental capacity at all and tbh neither would i but listen this museum acknowledged my wife's record and then i was so hyped! I felt like i wanted to hand out cigars because MY woman beat the record

and they're all like ooga booga cheating? wait no actually secret Real record! And the guy's all like

She is not using any cheat codes or banned techniques because, frankly, she doesn't know any.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? i wouldnt cheat at a world record either but the way you talk about Lori good sir I dont think you have any sort of grip on or appreciation of what she knows. Worst way to defend your wife's integrity, 1/10 for even thinking to, although it was for the record and not for her

Anyway she beats the colour category record too and

Billy, I definitely have the record, right?"

"Oh, yeah," I reply. "Now you're just showing off."

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

The crowd is getting into it. Twice, she makes mistakes and the pieces pile to the top of the screen, but she gets out of it. After an hour of playing, Lori makes one mistake too many and her game ends. She has destroyed the record – her final score is 841 lines. We would later determine this was her second-best game ever.

Almost a guarantee her mistakes wouldnt be covered if she was a he but anyway of course this was only her second best game, very slick use of "we"

Day comes over to shake her hand. Lori is laughing as Day declares her "the greatest Tetris player in the world," then turns to me to add, "And I must say, she's also the prettiest."

eeeEEEEeeeeUoUUUGHHHHH. Who GIVES. A Fuck? Who ASKED? More importantly why was this put in the final article? You couldn't torture me into embarrassing a stranger like that in a piece meant to flatter them, although of course I would also not be in this situation with my wife, who is a person whom I respect and love

The only thing Lori is ever quoted as saying is

"That was one of the most bizarre moments of my life," she says. "The flashes were going off and Walter was talking. It was like Bizarro World."

Which of course is the name of the arcade lounge hahaha

AND THEN

AND THEN this ends on THIS note:

What does it mean to be the best in the world at something? This is what runs through my mind as we lay in bed Sunday morning. We are both struggling to understand what Lori's mastery of a game that Day calls "the embodiment of comprehensive thinking" means in our lives.

As I go to pack the car, I realize that Lori has bought some things on the trip, and fitting them into our Jeep Cherokee is getting tricky. Then I look over at Lori, and it all makes sense. "From now on," I tell the new master of fitting shapes into tight spaces, "you pack the car."

Of course! Of course if she has a skill (which isnt reeeeeally all that) she has to use it to benefit him and this is all cutesy and charming! 87 years after the women's vote in this gentleman's country, ladies and sundry. 87 years.

Please don't harass Billy Baker about this. He is an old man and I'm sure a better person 20 years on. And if not, well, that was not the point, the point is I do not think this is as cute as it seems.

please read this story of a man accidentally discovering his wife is the world's best Tetris player

[squiddieblogs]

Rambly post abot the pjo show.

I read the books after episode 3 to see what I liked about them PFF

maybe a 3/10 from me. I think I’m the wrong audience, but I’m not sure if kids would be the right audience either.

What I liked.. it wasn’t a lot.

- Blue food mention !! I am so easily swayed.

*tho they feel like they crammed in a bunch of character stuff in the last episode. Peter Johnson, Annabeth’s fear of spiders and Blue Pancakes..

- as a cringe non American it was fun to have visuals for all this stuff. Like in my head everything was so different lol. Olympus was also very pretty. I’d always imagined it to be made of minecraft quartz.

- Ares was fun, and I liked most of the actors. Tho of course I can nitpick pff (ie. I didn’t expect Zeus to be bald PFF sorry o7)

- I really loved the end credits lol, I watched most of them. It really loved that the gods shown all pretty much showed up in the series, except maybe Athena? Who didn’t show up physically as far as I’m aware.

- the amount of god appearances is kinda interesting. I am curious how it will be if they do later books, since there were random in world big 12 god appearances for every book (Ares in 1, Hermes in 2, Apollo, Aphrodite and Athena in 3, Hephaestus and Hera in 4. Hestia kinda in 5? I guess. Plus Dionysus being a mundane figure in camp halfblood). So I do kinda like they’re scattered around, and it makes sense to me. Tho of course there’s more of them the more crazy things get.

Observations (mostly what I didn’t like)

- the sheer mount of talking scenes. Additionally everyone is SO quiet in this show, and it’s hard to focus on what they’re saying cuz I’m partially deaf. I found the Hermes in the lotus casino kinda hard to follow and I need to rewatch it because I have no idea what they said in that scene lol.

- I didn’t really like the tunnel of love replacement because it was much more boring.

- so much happens in this show that falls flat, especially things they added. At least I didn’t feel much

Eg. The golden chair is like. Percy sacrifices himself > Hephaestus shows up and says some stuff (I need to rewatch because it was quiet and really dark again) > Percy is ungilded > they never speak of this again.

Eg. They miss the deadline. Oh no. Gives back the bolt and Poseidon surrenders so no more war. What was the point of there being a war? Like they mentioned that planes weren’t operating cuz of it and there wasn’t even an “oh shit how are we gonna get the state building before war gets super real”. The stakes that should come from an impending war just aren’t there. I don’t think it should it have been a thing at all (and it wasn’t in the book)

Eg. They go to the Arch for protection (not because of annabeth nerd reasons btw. I hate that they didn’t include that) and because Athena was offended by Medusa , Echidna is able to follow them in > annabeth is like, why would my mom do that? > Her faith is never brought up again.

I think a positive example of points not falling flat is the Medusa scene. Medusa kinda explicitly lays out a theme, then she is killed and as reaction Percy sends her head to Olympus. It’s also kinda neat cuz the head is brought back to deal with gabe at the end (even if he didn’t really deserve it from what we saw of the show) The main thing with Medusa tho is that the scene gets wrapped up with Percy deciding to do something with it and the others are like, why that’s a terrible idea. They actually react to what they just did and with an action.

- related, but the show is a kinda mix of episodic and narrative I feel? The last points are an example of stakes being kinda self contained. As well, they set up things as an episode happens it seems - ie. Flashbacks of Luke doing sword fighting with Percy in the last episode instead of in the first few episodes. Tho I can’t think of any more examples of that kind of set up atm, I just thought it was interesting.

However they did add some info about Luke from further on in the series, so idk.

- it’s brought up a tone but the fact they know everything removes so much tension and whimsy. It removes a lot of character and childishness to their actions as well. As well, it means they knowingly walked into traps 2-3 times. Also in the Lotus they kinda. Walked into a trap and then sent Grover away like? what are you doing !

It also removes some of the smartness of the characters like. They manage to get away from Medusa even after being lured in, Percy figures out that the Lotus Casino is a trap and he manages to trick waterbed guy in order to defeat him.

Despite disliking the scene I did like that they tied waterbed guy into finding the underworld. I don’t think he would’ve been in the series otherwise.

- the character relationships are really dumbed down. There is some hints that Luke cares for annabeth but not really any hints that it’s a mutual bond. The school scenes are altered in a way that Grover and Percy never really feel like best friends, and Grover ends up kinda a third wheel. Percy and Annabeth don’t hang out at camp before the quest like the book, and their nicknames aren’t used until like half way to the end of the series.

- THE PACING IS AWFUL!! In episode 1-2 and the finale there isn’t a lot of time to breathe. There’s no time to reflect on many scenes that happen in the book throughout tbh. And many of the talking scenes and flashbacks are long and quiet. If I had to guess, I feel like they adapted the book scenes to be appropriate length for the show but didn’t really with new scenes.

- lastly I hate the tone. It’s so serious and if I see “dramatic music” in the subtitles again im mclosing it. There is really a lack of fun in this show. The light hearted nature of the first book at least is lost. Even if the book is shown in Percy’s pov I think they could have retained the mood and tone but they really didn’t. The movie (agony) I think does a great job of having the fun of the book even if the finale gives me whiplash everytime (Movie Luke is iconic tbh who is this dude? Look?)

Maybe I am a Movie apologist smh. I really don’t mind if they make changes to the story. At least unlike the movies, I do see the show as being Percy Jackson - tho really watered down and boring adaptation of a book that I still really enjoyed reading it as a cringe ass adult.

I don’t think the changes break the story but I think they were done poorly. I think it would have been more interesting if they didn’t know about every threat and they kept elements of the book that conveyed the personality of the chars other than Percy.

Maybe I will like it more on a rewatch. But I think that’ll be a while lol. Of course I’d love to hear opinions on how others feel. This is a ramble off the top of my head so not really that serious

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I feel like I might need to stay off tumblr all week because I can already picture the freak outs lol. "Ryan is leaving the show so thats why they are having him make up with his dad so he can move to Texas ". "There wasn't enough canon Eddie queerness". Ext ext.

I think this episode was the perfect example of why its fun to speculate but manage what will actually happen. Sure I would have loved Chris with Buck, and maybe more angst with him in Texas. But logically I was like its probably more about parenting and not queer Eddie because that wasnt his issue with his parents. In fact I was the original anon who posted that to you.

But the thing was there so many clues and this was an amazing episode. And honestly I kind of figured Chris wouldn't be with Buck because this episode needed to be the Buck and Taylor breaking point you know.

But again to anyone who will send you freak outs, unfortunately its not all fanfiction though we would love it. Your probably not gonna get Eddie say I'm gay in the finale. I would bet on lingering looks and at least a ending scene of Buddie together in whatever form. If we are lucky Buck crashing on his couch. And if I'm wrong I will be happy to be wrong. But shipping is always 95% faith and I still have a ton of faith because what else is happening other then 6A being devoted to the romcom of Eddie.

On a side note... I couldn't get into the original Eddie and his dad scene because I was like Helena tie your hair back your cooking for 50. Sorry not sorry!!

Hey Nonnie

Thankfully I have avoided all of the 'Ryan is leaving the show so Eddie is going to move back to Texas' nonsense that I am sure is happening elsewhere so lets keep it that way and not entertain the crazy theories some parts of fandom seem to come up with!!! And I also don't seem to have had many freak outs (fingers crossed that it stays that way!)

it really is a good example of why speculation is just that - speculation and if you forget that you are only setting yourself up for heartbreak!! I've had a great time exploring the various possibilites around Chris being in LA or in Texas (in the end it didn't really matter because we never actually saw him!!) and looking at the queer v parenting of it all. I never expect 95% of what I ramble about to actually come true it's some fun and I know that so I'm rarely left disappointed by what the show actually puts out (the one exception is the fact Taylor is still hanging around like a bad smell but there we go!!)

I personally feel we did get a huge amount of Queer Eddie undertones, and like i've said in many of my ask replies, I never expected Eddie to come out dressed in a rainbow and proclaiming his queerness from the rooftops. We got more or less what I expected, it was maybe a little more subtle than I would have liked, but I'm not mad about it because the parenting aspect is important to Eddies Queer storyline. I said I expected that Eddie and his father would find some common ground from which to go forward - which is what we got, and I expected us to get some insight into young Eddie - which again we got - I would have like more - to have seen it built on and explored further in the episode, but I get why we didn't and actually think it sets up 6a perfectly.

The 911 writers are always careful with the language they choose to write into the script and what we got from that script, from the set, props, costumes etc has plenty to explore in terms of signposting where Eddie is headed. To me us hearing how Eddie was pushed into 'manhood' at such an early age shows exactly why he would have buried any queer feelings and thoughts he was having - the assumption that he would perform the role of man of the house in his fathers absence, not have a present father figure and being given so much responsibility are all clear indicators that Eddie was pushed into a certain box and not given the freedom to explore who he actually was/is. We are now seeing that he is going to be able to have the freedom to explore what he didn't get to as a child and part of that will continue to revolve around his parents.

It sets up 6a having a visit from Helena and Ramon - as Eddie continues to have his queer awakening and if we do maybe we'll get to see Buck parenting Christopher thrown into the mix and witness the reactions of Eddies parents to it all - it would be a great and interesting thing to look at. I would love for them to see Buck coparenting Chris and see how he is thriving and ho Eddie is also thriving and figure it out and be happy - is that something we'll get - who knows but its entirely possible and we'll only find out when 6a airs!

As for Helenas hair - I get where you are coming from, but totally get why they styled it that way - it was about her being in control, but also a way of hiding her from the conversation - so she was there, but also not there- her hair was a curtain - a bit like a church confessional!!

[serenheist]

What Jennie is like in a relationship/ Relationship with G-Dragon Tarot reading

I know the anon asked for just a love life reading on Jennie but I’m extra and did everything lmao

What is the true nature of Jennie’s relationship with gdragon? Gloominous doom reversed 56, ace of swords, the hanged man reversed, lady of masks, triumph of lies, the glanconer 62 reversed

Oh god lmao. I don’t know why but I get the feeling this “relationship” is just for GD to be back on good terms with the korean general public. He got flack for smoking weed before, seungri shit, abandoning his dog, dating kiko etc etc. I really feel like him dating Jennie is just so the public has a better opinion of him when he decides to have a comeback lmao. Anyway the true nature of this relationship is literally someone full of extreme self pity had an idea to do this because it will make them look better and vice versa. But now there’s a feeling of being trapped. I really think this is an orchestrated relationship that was rushed and not based on actual love but for a specific purpose. But I do think it’s legit in the sense that it’s not that they’re not dating at all. But since Yg didn’t deny anything we can tell it’s “real”. Yg always denies if it’s definitely not a real relationship and always stays vague when it’s real. It’s made to look real for the public to get them talking but the core itself isn’t real. Basically pr shit. idc even if they got married none of this is real lmao.

I pulled 2 more cards from 2 different decks for extra clarification and I got the lady of masks and triumph of lies. You can’t make this up lol. “She reshapes the physical appearance of the souls who seek her out but this change is pure vanity, changing nothing of who they are at the core” it basically reflects who you want to be. This relationship is to make both parties look better lol. I feel that this is also a double meaning geared towards Jennie only because later cards in this reading continuously mention her wearing a mask. Triumph of lies is about keeping up appearances. This relationship is about living up to the expectations that society wants from you. I feel like it’s not just what people in the company want but also could be friends and family who put pressure on making this relationship happen for both. I can really see that since GD has a past of dating mostly models and the public has always been negative about everyone he’s dated except Jennie since she has a better reputation and for her this relationship can boost her status even more dating the king of kpop and being a power couple. I pulled a last card just to ask why you would need to fake a whole relationship even though we already know at this point and it’s redundant but I wanted to see how many times I can get cards saying the same shit. The glanconer 62 reversed: basically AGAIN someone is pretending to be other than they really are. I think both of them even believe in their own lie at this point and idk there’s a level of thinking you’re better than others so it’s okay to fool them anyway. Whatever makes you look good.

Who is Jennie in this/ her shadow aspect: obsession 3, gd: today for tomorrow 32

Since the beginning cards were pretty negative I wanted to dive deeper into Jennie and GD’s shadow aspects. And just use these cards to differentiate between them. GD is today for tomorrow and for Jennie I got obsession. The biggest shadow aspect to Jennie is that she feels as if she needs something whether that be a person, an idea, an object etc to give meaning to her life. She can also become really fixated on things to the point where that is the entire focal point of her life. It numbs her attention to other things.

How does Jennie feel about gd and how does he feel about her? Solus 13, the high priestess, the hierophant, gd: the guardian at the gate 3, queen of wands reversed, the fool

Jennie: Jennie feels that GD is someone who when you don’t know who to turn to or what to do, he is the person who can help you out. He encourages you stand on your own feet and utilize your own wisdom. But he also recognizes that you can’t do everything on your own so he helps you make the right connections with the right people and basically like a mentor position. I feel like they both almost see this connection as something “divine” at least in the beginning they could’ve convinced themselves this was this big divine intervention. But the reality started to set in and Jennie saw a different side of someone who has lost touch and went from being someone to look up to to becoming more “corrupted”. He no longer practices what he preaches, there’s lies mixed in with truth and the lines between right and wrong became more blurred. He does what he can to stay in power.

GD: He feels that Jennie is a new opportunity for a huge change. She’ll help provide an opportunity for him to make a big shift in his life. But at the same time he feels like she’s guarding herself and not being authentic with him. “Wearing masks that do not fit you”. I think he’s seen her change moods often from not figuring out how to release her passion and creativity in a healthy way and become more jealous and wanting to tear down others when she’s feeling down. Cause the queen of wands would be stepping in your power not hiding behind anything and appearing exactly how you are. Reversed it can bring out bring dramatic and feeling out of control of your own life and lack of enthusiasm. I think he’s seen her lose her passion for even being in the industry itself. I think that’s he’s wanting to take a leap of faith into something new I don’t know if he would want to stay in this “relationship” but I’m seeing it more of him going off on his own and stop worrying about the fear of the unknown. Honestly both seem like a hot mess for each other there’s a lot of work they gotta do on themselves separately because this whole connection is weird and toxic.

How long does it take her to get into a relationship? Does she prefer long or short term relationships? Princess of pentacles, 3 of swords, queen of swords 5 of wands reversed, 2 of wands, temperance reversed

She’s always been observant and was careful before in the beginning of relationships but no amount of carefulness can’t prevent heartbreak. It kind of hardened her and she learned how to play the game so to speak. The fact that the queen of swords is holding a severed head tells you all you need to know what happens if you break her heart. She seems burnout with relationships but at the same time can’t stop herself from not being in one because then you’ll be alone with your demons. I think she does prefer long term relationships but Jennie seems to go from one extreme to another. She plans for the long term but she also can’t control her emotions because they’re so intense. She’ll sabotage it and rush into a relationship with someone because she’s already planning this whole future and the other person is like “uhhh we just met..?” I think she builds up a fantasy in her head and gets carried away at times. And that’s where a lot of conflict and arguments arise and the cycle continues.

Past and present relationships. past: firgun 10 magick of you oracle, 2 of pentacles, Present: Euphoria 9, 5 of cups

I hate this word but I feel like in her past relationships she felt like the person she was with was her “twin flame”. This person was her mirror basically, every little thing she was and did was mirrored back to her. It was about learning how to heal the anger and hurt and learn to be happy for others success. But the relationship itself was a constant act of balancing career and love and all the ups and downs. It seems like even in her present love life she is still lingering over past relationships and now hides her actual feelings. There’s a lot of mask imagery in this whole reading. And not seeing everything you already have but being consumed with the thoughts of what went wrong or why it isn’t this way. And no longer sharing your true self fully. Instead there’s an element of not her not taking care of herself physically. Sharing herself intimately with people who treat her like garbage, poor eating, dragging yourself through workouts, excess of toxic substances; these are examples.

What is she like in a relationship? Eternal servitor, 10 of pentacles reversed, the lady of the harvest 18 reversed, the singer of intuition 7

This imagery of a person with no face and a whole in its chest really stands out to me again. It seems that when Jennie is in a relationship she still hides her true self and is constantly on a never ending search to fill something in herself that she feels is lacking. I think she uses money, clothing, love itself as a way to distract herself from this emptiness she feels inside and each time she wants more and more. Like she has to upgrade to the next biggest thing and it traps her in an infinite loop of never being satisfied. Idk but I guess it’s her wanting the world to see her importance; if she has these things then she is now worthy and it gives her a feeling of purpose. It’s not just the pressure of herself needing the best “thing” but a loooot of pressure from family and others to find a “suitable” partner. They need to come from the right background, make this amount of money, etc so her family can show off how wonderful this partner is and how amazing Jennie is doing. Even the next card “the lady of the harvest” reversed speaks of this again. It’s crazy how almost all of the cards are just saying the same thing. It’s about staying in denial and refusing to accept a loss and cling onto pain instead. Jennie is the type of person who thinks “if I can’t have it, no one will”. When she sees something she wants and can’t get it she will go into destruction mode because she feels that it’s the only solution. She’s not a forgive and forget person. A line in this guidebook really stands out to me “if you love something, let it go. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it.” Pretty much sums up her mentality. Even if she enters a new relationship her mind is consumed by the past and the present relationship is only to save face and show off the image she tries to create to please literally everyone except herself. I think she’s very perceptive and can know someone who she’s with inside and out. She’s also very aware of the image she needs to uphold. There’s pretty much nothing you can hide from her because her intuition is so strong.

What is her "type"? the piper 24, 8 of wands reversed, Ta’Om the poet 29, Arthur

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: she likes musicians. Also the fact that this is legit the only faerie in this 66 card deck playing an instrument so what are the odds. She appreciates someone who pays attention to the subtle expressions of feelings and ideas and can see into her soul basically. It’s communication without words and that makes music that can heal your sorrows and pains. Someone that listens to not just surface level words but to the deeper meaning that can only be heard with your heart. Seductive, someone who looks serious but is actually mischievous and fun.

He encourages you to unfold your wings and fly, do the things you’re afraid to do, stop being silent and speak up, have a youthful spirit and do the thing you’ve been putting off for so long. He has a lust for life, adventure, an excellent storyteller and writing skills and a huge imagination. He has the power to inspire action with just his words. He sees things as they really are and sees beauty in all things even in the darkness and difficulty of life. He doesn’t take life so seriously though he knows how to laugh at himself and knows how silly it is to be sad over hardships in life. He doesn’t care for society’s expectations he’s a free spirit. But at the same time he slows down and knows how to enjoy the journey and not rush by the seat of his pants. He’s someone that’ll stand the test of time and be by her side through thick and thin.

What is her love language? Myk the myomancer 42, the oak men 47, 10 of wands

Idk if this really fits into any of the “official”love languages but her love language is someone seeing the small details, seeing meaning in the little things. So maybe little gifts even that don’t have to be huge but just shows that you’ve paid attention to what she likes as long as it has meaning and is well thought out. When you can’t see the finish line and it looks like it’s impossible to keep going that person is there to have your back. Also someone that sees her for who she truly is in her heart and can look past the superficial hard exterior cause I’m pretty sure it’s just a defense mechanism mixed with the environment she grew up and past relationships and she’s not actually the Antichrist contrary to how negative this reading may seem.

Probably typos but whateves

[caffernnn]

Final stroke spoilers: ⚠️‼️

I just saw a post on Twitter about the Haru and Rin scene and how they didn’t feel that it was that ooc of Haru. I thought I was the only one who felt that it was kind of justified on Haru’s end. Because both Rin and Ikuya put Haru and their friends through so much when they were lost and wanted to swim with Haru again. And I get that professional swimming is entirely different than what they’re used to, but it really sucks that as soon as the competition got a little hard they decided to just drop free and only swim their preferred styles. That’s got to be a slap in the face to Haru, because what was all of that other stuff about? Like Rin wanted for YEARS for Haru to swim on the world stage and after the first race is like “you’re on your own.” He honestly deserves it to be honest even if Haru would’ve never said anything to protect their friendship he was clearly thinking or thought these thoughts. For a show where Haru is the mc we rarely get to see how he feels about things. I wish we can see the movie soon, cause I really wanna see how that whole sequence takes place.

⚠️ Talking about Free! Final Stroke spoilers below the cut ⚠️

It’s wild to me (it probably shouldn’t be surprising; idk) how even going off of just spoilers, there is a clear divide in the reactions people are having to Haru’s actions in the movie, especially in reference to the sudden shift leading up to the fight with Rin. I can see why people are surprised by it on a base level because so much of his successes in DttF, paired with the camaraderie everyone seems to have for a majority of the movie, leads you to believe Haru has emotionally matured and stabilized since high school, which is true! He’s more open to change and examining his emotions, especially as he starts to grapple with a high-stakes long-term goal for what feels like the first time. With that said, all of this can be true at the same time Haru is going through a steady breakdown that can/will likely lead to burnout. So many people who’ve been put through rigorous academic programs or career training or anything else equally as intensive can attest to the frustration of feeling like every few steps forward (gaining experiential knowledge, making connections, learning more about your identity in reference to x goal, etc) are followed by a step back (exhaustion, plateaus, expectations you can’t meet, mistakes spilling out when you can’t keep repressing the negatives in the name of “productivity”). Haru was able to make it this far because he has grown and started to heal some of the cracks in his support group, but the sheer amount of pressure makes it easier for him to break, and old wounds that never fully healed have time to fester.

I probably sound like a broken record in these movie-related posts when talking about Haru getting obsessed with becoming stronger and not knowing what to do with that fairly new and overwhelming drive. I can’t be mad at Haru completely for his choices here (can’t wait to be called a Haru apologist when the movie comes out in more places jfjdjd) because he partially fell victim to circumstance. This is one of the first times Haru takes the expectations of him being a “hero” or “prodigy” into consideration, and now he’s trying to navigate the expectations of success that come with those titles while not being sure 1) what exactly they are beyond winning, and 2) not being sure if they’re actually attainable for him. Along with that, he’s putting faith in Ryuuji’s instruction and guidance because he needs someone with any sort of credibility or experience with the pro circuit to show him how to get to the top. Even though from an outside standpoint it’s easier to discredit and reject Ryuuji’s assertion that everyone at the top has to give something up to get there, there are a number of reasons Haru reconsiders the notion with everything he’s seeing. He’s seeing his newest rivals reach crazy success and strength through isolation, and Ryuuji is dangling a golden opportunity in front of his face by going to Haru in the moments where he’s most vulnerable and saying “yes, that strength you crave is possible for you, but only if you pay this specific price for it.” Nobody should bear the weight of “saving” Haru from his circumstances (especially not his friends on their own journeys… Ryuuji and other mentors watching this trainwreck can eat my shorts tho), but dealing with this ultimatum while his core support group is pushing forward through their own challenges and/or busy in another country, I can’t be too surprised when he starts to overextend himself and burst at the seams.

As far as the blow-up with Rin, I won’t say it’s fully justified, but it’s understandable. The way Haru has had to make peace with his hardships with Ikuya and Rin has largely been by atoning for his own involvement in those rifts and trying to turn over a new leaf without expecting much in return. He took the opportunities of swimming with both of them again to replace any apologies on their parts and largely made peace with it. As much as it’s going to hurt to watch, I’m interested to see this fight play out because it sounds like it addresses a problem we bring up a lot in meta analyses posts: there needs to be more explicit conversations and apologies between characters, or the closure feels flimsy and temporary at best. This fight isn’t about closure (it’s about a lot of things both involving and excluding Rin, but I ranted about that in the other spoiler post) but it’s acknowledgement after all of this time that there’s still a need for it. Having Rin back in his life as a rival and friend has held the caveat in the back of his mind that Rin will leave his side again if Haru’s friendship/rivalry stops serving all of his interests. Haru’s ultimate fear of being abandoned by people, of people using him without understanding him and then throwing him aside for someone/something else, is drastically coming back to the surface in all of his stress. Rin and Ikuya choosing to continue their pro careers with strokes that better suit their strengths isn’t abandonment, just like Makoto choosing a university in Tokyo wasn’t, but Haru is so lost in his own stress and despair that he can’t see these choices as anything but personal attacks in the moment. These choices don’t have to do with Haru and we’re never meant to hurt him (which he comes to realize by the end of each fight), but the unresolved issues mixed with his fears make him explode.

It’s not a black and white situation where only one side is in the right, and I hope whatever resolution comes in the second movie acknowledges that. Rin didn’t deserve Haru’s taunting and wrath in that moment, but I do want him to reflect on the whole mess and recognize that Haru’s in a desperate place not unlike the one he was in when he first went to Australia and seemingly cut everyone off. I want them both to consider that avoiding airing out those insecurities because it’d be uncomfortable or embarrassing ultimately led them back here, unsure how to talk about changes and concerns without first having one of them explode or hit rock bottom. They can be friends outside of swimming, I’d want them to be friends outside of swimming, but I think Haru isn’t blind to how much of their connection is reliant on intrigue in the water, and a part of him is scared that Rin won’t have a reason to stick around if they aren’t rivaling each other in the same stroke anymore.

All of this can make for a great chance of resolution in the second movie, if done well. There’s opportunity for Haru to realize that the trajectory of dreams can change, and just like Rin changing his stroke or Makoto changing his training emphasis, you can honor the parts of the dream that first inspired you while finding a path that honors the person you’ve become. There’s opportunity for Haru to break from the dangerous echo chamber he’s currently in telling him he has to do this all alone in a few ways. Maybe he’ll have a moment where he’s like “I gave up everything and still couldn’t get stronger, so now I need to get back to finding what gives me strength personally.” Maybe he’ll have a moment where he’s like “if my only option is a path paved in loneliness, I need to find a new dream.” There are so many directions the story can go in at this point, and I’m excited to see what happens next (and maybe write about the paths they don’t choose lol).

[burr-ell]

its been what? two years? and ppl still have the most bad faith cynicism towards Claude and Byleth's S-support/paired ending🤦‍♀️

like my only actual criticism towards Claude's S-support is the same one i have for Rhea's which is that there's some critical information that should've been presented to Byleth/the Player regardless of S-support. in Rhea's case she expresses regret over revising history and deceiving her followers, as well as trying to revive her mother. imo this part of the conversation should've happened in game no matter what. the writing already puts Rhea in a bad light by making her suspicious and then not dedicating the same amount of time in dispelling all that like they do with Claude(and unlike Claude, she doesn't have other Supports and is benched until the very end of SS/VW/doesn't even show up again in AM). and considering how easy it is to just. miss her Support convos entirely as well as her S-support being completely optional, she isn't really being endeared to the players like she deserved. in Claude's case, there are three conversations happening in one for the player:

Byleth is going to be made the Ruler of Fodlan (note that Byleth already seems to know that she's gonna be Queen)

Claude is leaving Fodlan he must go his people need him-

Claude wants to spend his life with Byleth and asks her to wait for him with a promise to return💍

so. its a lot to process in one conversation...to be fair, the game does drop hints about the former two before the end: with an NPC being like "either you[Byleth] or Claude will become king" during the explore portion about who's gonna Rule. and in Claude's A-support with Lorenz about Claude leaving in the end. buut therein lies the problem which is that those two former points should've been presented in a direct in-game convo before the final boss. instead the most prep a player has about this information are those hints and Jeralt narrating "Afterward, Claude left Fódlan, leaving Byleth to ascend the throne as the first leader of the United Kingdom of Fódlan" after Nemesis which uh. yeah lol

but even so, Claude isn't cruelly chaining Byleth to the throne against their will. I mean call me crazy, but maybe juuust maybe Byleth might have a vested interest in seeing peace restored in Fodlan? bc maybe Byleth might actually give a shit??🤷‍♀️ as for the S-support convo itself I thought it was perfectly fine (aside from aforementioned criticism) and in-character for Claude as well as a nice way to top-off the ending of VW.

maybe this is just me but I always took Byleth's reaction to Claude's leaving as her being insecure in her capabilities, which is something Byleth has been shown to express before. so her "I can't be a ruler" dialogue meaning "I can't be a ruler without you", which is why Claude tries to reassure her that, yes, she can do it without him. and in spite of fandom acting like Byleth's too stoopid to breathe, Byleth doesn't run Fodlan to the ground. quite the opposite actually lol

also the bad faith takes that Claude only marries Byleth for political gain, or that because the "i love you" is only in the eng version he no love Byleth🙄 as if Claude himself doesn't have the most rosy-eyed view of his parents' love story and might want that for himself (he's either gonna marry for love or not at all I will die on this hill). never mind that nobody accuses Claude of trying to leverage any political gain in his marriages with Hilda or Marianne or Petra... or that not every romantic S-support has an "i love you" line, english or not🙄 Or that because Claude doesn't throw it all away to reside in some liddol cottage in Bumfuck Nowhere with Byleth he must not truly love her, as if A) that isn't a shitty ultimatum (note how the other two lords don't have this standard applied to them🤔) or B) that it wouldn't be a complete betrayal of his character(no offense but I'm looking at you Lysithea/Shamir ending) also it'd be really cool if ppl would stop acting like them being in a temporary LDR is somehow a strike against their relationship like rip to y'all but I'm built different I guess.

BASED ANON BASED ANON BASED ANON

also it'd be really cool if ppl would stop acting like them being in a temporary LDR is somehow a strike against their relationship like rip to y'all but I'm built different I guess.

You did it! You broke shippers down to their bare essentials!

I mean, look, I snark and all, but for real, everyone has their preferences. If you don't like Claudeleth or their S-support, if you like Dimileth or Edeleth better, that's your taste, and as long as you stay in your lane and I stay in mine, we're good. But the criticism leveled at Claudeleth from those two camps is—for all the reasons you stated—overdone and tiresome. Claudeleth obviously isn't unpopular, so it's not like we're. idk oppressed or something dfkjghlskdfjg but it's the least popular lord/avatar ship and often gets overlooked by comparison. So yeah, its shippers are tired of hearing about how much it sucks because the ending isn't a beautiful rosy sparkly fairy tale, especially from supporters of two ships that are, in my opinion, absolutely choked with annoying dating sim player pandering.

plus their S-support still is the best in the game, argue with the wall

[makeste]

On your katsuki and Izuku meta I think what they both needed is to learn not everyone can think the same way as you like no one should place these impossible standards on themselves. Katsuki biggest weakness isn’t his need to win but his entrie selfish ego whitch blows up on him a lot and izuku biggest weakness is his lack of selfworth in himself that causes him to become reckless he doesn’t place any faith in himself.

one of the points I was actually trying to make is that I don’t think Deku actually has a problem with his own self-worth. @dimplesblogs had a great addition to my post where they pointed out the difference between self-worth, and self-confidence. I hope you don’t mind if I quote you here!

Something I see often in characterizations of Deku is that “lack of self-worth” and “lack of self-confidence” seem to get mixed up a lot.

- self-worth: a sense of one’s own value as a human being.

- self-confidence: confidence in oneself and in one’s powers and abilities.

and as they said, the two of them aren’t always mutually exclusive. but I do agree that in Deku’s case, it’s always been much more of the latter than the former.

Deku berates himself when he can’t save everyone not because he thinks he’s a failure, but because saving others is that important to him. that’s a life he couldn’t save. he can’t reconcile with the idea of that, and so he’s extra hard on himself because he’s frustrated. again, the parallels are right there with Katsuki. we saw that Katsuki ended up blaming himself after Kamino. but that doesn’t mean that Katsuki’s self-worth is inherently low (although I’ve certainly read plenty of takes arguing otherwise, and it’s an interesting topic to explore). it just means his expectations for himself are simply that high. and so he ends up taking on far more responsibility than any child should actually be trying to take upon themselves, because he doesn’t meet his own exceptionally high standards. his goal isn’t to “win most of the time”, it’s to win every time. he’s not aiming to simply be a great hero -- he’s aiming to be the greatest hero of all time. and because of that, even the littlest failure is going to hit him that much harder, to say nothing of an event like Kamino that basically upended society as we know it.

Katsuki did have an emotional crisis after Kamino, but it was a crisis of faith, of confidence, brought on by that one specific trauma. and once he talked it out with Deku and All Might (well, punched it out with Deku and then talked it out with All Might, lol), he moved past it. it was meant to be a stepping stone in the path of his character growth. it was great that we got all of that angst, don’t get me wrong, but ultimately it wasn’t something meant to be wallowed in, but overcome.

and it’s the same with Deku. I fully expect Deku to have a similar crisis of faith after this arc, brought on by the combination of him feeling responsible for other people getting hurt because of him (even though it’s not his fault he was being targeted), and him not having enough mastery over OFA to be able to protect them all. a lot of people got hurt -- a lot of people that he’s close to. Aizawa, Gran Torino, Todoroki, and Kacchan himself. and Deku desperately did not want that to happen, but he couldn’t stop it. and I don’t doubt he’s going to blame himself for that.

but that doesn’t mean he thinks of himself as worthless. that’s a long-running fandom interpretation that I happen to strongly disagree with. Deku is someone who persevered with his dream of becoming a hero for years, despite everyone telling him it was impossible. he may struggle at times with feeling like he might not be up to the gargantuan task of living up to All Might’s legacy, but that has less to do with his own self-worth, and more to do with him putting All Might up on a massive pedestal. and also the fact that he’s only a boy, and that is an enormous amount of responsibility. there’s a difference between having low self-worth, and being honest with yourself about just how far you still have to go.

and he’s basically being called upon to save the world now. and so he’s trying with everything he has to do that, and he gets anxious and frustrated and angry with himself when he fails (at times berating himself, in the same way that Katsuki called himself “weak”), not because he truly thinks he’s worthless, but because like Katsuki, he simply isn’t satisfied with anything less than living up to his own high standard. save everyone. not save most of the people. everyone. all of them. that’s the bar that he has set. and it’s the bar he’s determined to either reach or die trying.

and lastly, for the anon (actually multiple anons, but I didn’t post all of them) saying that’s naïve, I have to disagree with you. again, this is a superhero story. it’s a story about optimism and hope, about never giving up. Deku (who by the way absolutely does not have a lack of empathy, that’s a rather absurd claim lol; just because he yelled at Dabi after Dabi tried to set his friend and his mentor on fire doesn’t make him an apathetic monster who Doesn’t Care About The Villains’ Suffering, jesus. he’s out here trying to save Tomura even after Tomura stabbed his best friend and destroyed a city; where exactly do you get the notion that he doesn’t see the villains as human beings?) is the hero of the story precisely because he doesn’t give up on anybody. he wants to save everyone. you might call it naïve; I call it idealistic. it’s exactly the kind of crazy idealism that ends up winning the day in all of the best stories. BnHA isn’t some depressing narrative where the characters ultimately end up suffering all for naught. we’ve known exactly what this story is from day one. “this is the story of how I became a great hero.”

so yeah, I hope that clarifies some of my points a little better! while Deku may doubt himself at times (just like anyone in his shoes would doubt themselves), I really do think he just needs a little bit of encouragement right now, along with the reminder that he’s not in this alone. and possibly some sort of miracle broken bone elixir, and/or a couple of really sweet new robot limbs, depending on how that all plays out lol. anyways, but we’ll see.

[mrpenguinpants]

Oh! Sorry for the late reply, but it’s not canon lore, haha. Part of me hopes it kinda was just to give Keqing a bit more introspection but alas, Mihoyo has tens of different characters to make so it’s understandable. I thought of it as a modern au type of thing where Keqing ends up moving in a apartment complex only to be greeted with men she has to babysit as the price JHDJSHDJSJ– It’s a fun little idea, and at first, she hates them all but eventually, walking outside of her place for a free meal becomes an escape of sorts. Ningguang, her dreaded co-worker, makes sure she doesn’t hear the end of it and is like “Please, you’re almost 27 nowz. Get yourself a man already, you have quite the options.”

Also, congrats on getting Xiao! I haven’t gotten him yet but at the end of his banner, I think I can make around 20 rolls so here’s hoping he’ll come with those!

No worries at all, I take FOREVER to reply to anyone. Plus this week was midterms so I’m still recovering from that if you’re wondering why I’ve been so silent. Ahh I see, I still need to read Keqing’s lore but until then 👀 I am fully invested in this. We’ll make a 180k word slow burn fic together. Honestly, I really want to write some Chongyun, Xingqiu, Xinyan, and Xiao interactions. My brainworm mind wants Xingqiu to be the biggest little shit and tells Chongyun that there’s a demon that needs to be exorcised at Wangshu inn. Turns out it’s Xiao but Chongyun being the trusting friend that he is, doesn’t believe Xingqiu would lie to me and fully believes Xiao is a demon. Xiao doesn’t know how to socialize and he doesn’t know how to handle interactions so it’s this entire goose chase. Xinyan comes along because she’s always wanted to see a demon. I can imagine her yelling “DEMON! COME OUT YOU COWARD!” while Xiao is gripping onto the roof beam above them for dear life so he doesn’t get found out. 

Ahh, I get that mihoyo wants to bust out new content but it also makes me sad that it will probably be awhile before we get Part 2 to anything. But oh well, I guess we can always make stuff up for part 2′s before Mihoyo proceeds to shred them apart haha. I love modern au, where everything is fine and happy and no one dies. Especially now since we’re all in self-isolation. It’s not much but being able to write is actually kinda therapeutic. Speaking of which, it’s valentines day today. I almost forgot because well, I’m asexual so no relationships for me, so I kinda forgot feb 14 had any importance haha. But hopefully you all that have partners stay safe if you plan on spending today together and for us single folk, hang out with friends^^ I’m having a movie/game night with everyone and I’m pretty excited. 

---

But getting back on track. I love roommate schneegans. When I first read this with my sleep deprived brain, I thought you meant that she had to live with the same people she had to babysit when they were children. That’d be so awkward but funny haha. I can imagine Childe being such a wholesome kid like Teucer that when Keqing meets him again when he’s an adult she’s so sad. You were such a cute kid, where did things go wrong? This also applies to Diluc (RIP DILUC MAN) and Kaeya. 

Diluc is so socially constipated that he acts rude af because he doesn’t know how to socialize. Reminds me of the type of guy that is thinking of cute puppies but as the scariest resting bitch face. The amount of emotional range he has makes Keqing wonder if he’s secretly planning on burning the apartment complex down to the ground or if he’s slept in the past week. He hasn’t. Man is crumbling so he’s gonna make the world crumble down with him in his woe is me bullshit (jk I love you Diluc). Keqing makes the customary “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m your new neighbor” but Diluc is actually running on fumes (he’s filter feeding at his point) that he looks so scary that Keqing almost runs away. Then the next day she sees him exit his home and he cleaned up so well that Keqing doesn’t recognize him. Assumed that Diluc lived with a brother that was in dire help. So she always offers him weird pick me up items and Diluc doesn’t know how to handle gifts so he just accepts them. He doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about since he lives alone but he assumes she’s some random cat lady. 

Kaeya is such an ass. Like actually awful. Was the kind of guy to pull the fire alarm just to get out of class for the day. Probably does it in the apartment just to mess with Diluc, which inheritably messes with Keqing very fragile beauty sleep, but he always manages to escape with a slap on the wrist. Keqing has lost so much faith in the justice system after that. He seemed like such a nice guy, well in comparison to her first meetings with Diluc, until he found out she had a fear of frogs and proceeded to mail her a package of them. She’s been haunted by nightmares of waking up to one on her face and she’s wondering if she can get away with setting his home on fire and getting away the same way he does from pulling the fire alarm. It seems like poetic irony but as soon as she thinks this Kaeya is messaging her “don’t do it”. She doesn’t know how he got her phone number and she’s not going to find out. 

Zhongli was the guy she went to highschool with where she had the fattest crush on. He still looks the exact same just taller and she can feel her inner agony seeping up when she spots him. Then proceeds to internally wail when they both enter the elevator and they live on the same floor. She’s internally begging and pleading that Zhongli doesn’t recognize her, but of fucking course he does and he remembers every little detail. The most deadpan face as he asks her if she still has the zhongli pin that some crazy club made for the student council they were both apart of. What pisses her off the most is that he’s actually genuinely curious and isn’t trying to make a stab at her. She hates him with every fiber of her being. 

Childe seemed like such a cute kid (I fully believe he’s younger than Keqing, you cannot take this away from my cold dead heads) and he mentioned how he was moving away from his family but he misses his cute little sisters and brothers. Keqing felt so much wholesome love in her body until Childe mistaken her as being younger than him and messed up her hair. She almost screamed bloody murder but made the quick correction that she was in fact, much older than him. Which was the wrong fucking move because he became the biggest little shit. Kept calling her old with weak bones, “when are you going to fossilize?” that she’s sure if there wasn’t a law against second degree murder, she would do it right then and there. 

---

I totally went off on a tangent right there haha. But yeah, I can imagine them all going to each other places for free meals and it’s actually some wholesome stuff. Kaeya and Diluc relive their childhood brother antics, Childe comes from a big family so he doesn’t get sad when he eats alone, Keqing gets to take a break and turn her brain off from work, and Zhongli is just happy to spend time with others after being in self-isolation and losing his wife (Jesus, reading this back I am so sorry Guizhong and Zhongli. This got so depressing holy shit). 

“Please, you’re almost 27 nowz. Get yourself a man already, you have quite the options.” LOL I LOVE THAT SENTENCE HAHA. But ty^^ I’m so glad he came home with diluc. I BELIEVE IN YOU!! YOU’RE GONNA GET HIM. BRING YOUR MAN HOME!! I kinda wanna write some roommate hcs in my brainworm style. I’m going to go write that. Hang on. I’ll be back. 

---

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Love from me 💕💕💕 

[calypsoff]

Eighty Two. Part 2

Robyn is not happy meanwhile I can’t stop laughing, I think for me it’s very empowering I would say, I don’t know. I mean Rihanna is giving me head if you want to say it like that, I am winning so bad. I know niggas are upset right now; I know they are hating me because I would hate me. And I ain’t scared to say that I bust a nut quick either, I mean Robyn knows how to give head, so I am not complaining “I don’t like it Chris, I don’t like this one bit. This was taken on a phone because if it was professional then it would be clearer, that guy did it. People assume I am some whore; they did when I started off in the business. They assumed I slept my way up because I wasn’t that talented, I don’t like it” frowning at Robyn saying this, how can she say this “you are literally married to me, whatever the fuck we do we are doing is because we are married. I do not give a fuck what anyone says, you were giving your husband head, what the fuck is wrong with that. You’re not a whore, don’t let people assumed of you get to you, you’re not what they say you are ok?” Robyn is very upset about this, me on the other hand I see the funny side because I find it funny. I mean I am getting head from my wife, it’s nothing “my mother is going to see it, my family are. I am going to sue the man, I don’t care. Every news outlet has it, TMZ being the first people. They are awful too, they put here Rihanna and her husband doing the nasty at Bora Bora, then they put Rihanna seemed to have dropped off since she had the baby but we can tell she hasn’t, she is busy catching up with her husband, I have people in the comments saying she is too busy using her mouth for dick then an album” I snorted laughing, I couldn’t help it “I am sorry” I apologised, Robyn glared at me, she isn’t happy but I can’t stop laughing.

Robyn is huffing and puffing because of what happened but I do not see the bad side of it at all, we are married living our best life and niggas are just being haters, I don’t see the problem at all “I just messaged Tina that I want to know who leaked this, I would like to also sue the person as this is an invasion of privacy towards me and my husband, we was at the resort in good faith that we wouldn’t be pictured, this has really affected me Tina so please fix this” nodding my head, I don’t know why she is taking it bad “but on a real, why are you so upset? We are married, we are doing married people things, so what you sucked my dick, does it matter? We are literally married; this is no news” Robyn looked up at me “do you like people speaking about how your wife mouth works? The vile comments they are making, do you not get when I say I have had this all my life, that I am some sort of slut, or whatever. I am not that, I am not having it. I am a mother; I do not want my daughter growing up and seeing that, but I guess it’s too late now” nodding my head, I mean she feels that way and I have to respect that “I get it” I mumbled “do you not see the issue though?” Robyn questioned, taking in a deep breath “erm, on a real. Not exactly, just because we are married, we are having fun, we are being us. I don’t see why we should be upset or shy away from things that us humans do, just say we was playing hide and seek” Robyn sighed out “right, and you were just biting your bottom lip and stuff for nothing?” I shrugged; women be so uptight.

I want to post the picture of me, like my finger is hovering over the post button. It’s only the picture of me with my head back and mouth open, I came. I can tell I came then, but I think Robyn is going to kill me if I do “from one to ten, how angry would you be if I posted a picture” Robyn mean mugged me “what picture?” chewing my bottom lip and then turned my phone “oh you ass” I snorted laughing “Chris, I am being deadass with you. Post that and you will see fucking trouble, I don’t like that shit and you know it. I said how much I am upset about that, and you want to post a picture of you busting a nut!?” she is so moody “Robyn, you are taking this too seriously. On god, you are with your husband. You are sucking his dick, who fucking cares” Robyn waved her hand around at me “I said what I said, you post that we are going to argue so much, I am not even going to lie to you with that. I don’t like it! I will sue you too” tapping cancel “alright, calm down. You can’t sue the very man that took your virginity now” moody ass, she is so moody “please, the man that took my virginity hit the sides” she is being spiteful now “mhmm nice” I mumbled, let me just leave her to it because I don’t want to argue.

I really appreciate the fact I have fanpages, on god I enjoy seeing it and the fact I do have fans like it’s wild to me. I don’t really do anything to have them, but I do, I follow them back most of the times, but they be lusting over me bad, reading the caption of the reposted picture the page put up, she put on that she would let me spit in her mouth, that is a wild thing to even say about anyone, how wild is that. Commenting back on the post ‘That’s wild af! Lol’ pressing send, I don’t know why everyone is going wild for the picture I posted, it was just me with the silk shirt and shades on, maybe it’s the tan that is doing it, I don’t know but it’s getting a lot of attention, more then what I thought I would get. I am just a country nigga from VA, I don’t know about this shit at all “I am sorry” Robyn apologised, looking up from my phone “for what rabbit?” locking my phone “for snapping on you, it was wrong of me. I was just angry because I have been through so much shit with the public calling me so much shit and I just don’t like it, yes you are my husband and that is fine but what we do is private. I am so angry Chris you don’t understand, I am an island girl. I was a child, but they had me on the blogs and saying I slept with old man Jay? A whole minor, they had me sleeping with grown ass men, men I never did anything with. It was so unfair, I didn’t like it but they, meaning my record label liked it, I was so stuck in this foreign place trying to make a name for myself, ok the headlines ain’t bad but the comments, they are ugly” nodding my head understanding “I am sorry” I apologised also “you’re just being a boy, you’re seeing the funny side and that it’s a good thing but to me, I don’t like it. I get flashbacks” Robyn sniffled, now she is crying.

Putting my head down “don’t cry” I mumbled “I didn’t mean it at all like that, you haven’t actually really spoke on that. I didn’t know at all, I am sorry” Robyn is an emotional mess, I feel so bad “Robyn I really didn’t know any of it at all, I didn’t know that happened to you and people were saying you slept with Jay Z, I was locked up then, so I really didn’t pay attention. I was getting my ass beat and being jealous that I am not with you, so I am sorry. I understand now, so yeah. Forgive me?” Robyn waved me off “I am not angry at you Chris; I promise you this. It’s just the whole situation of what happened to me and that isn’t your fault, remember that. That happened to me, and it happened, what else can I say that. That is why I just didn’t like it, I am a wife now, also a mother. Life has changed, so that is why” sighing out “people were really mean to you huh?” Robyn nodded her head “didn’t like, created rumours which made Bey and I fall out, we ended up not liking each other because of it, because she assumed I was sleeping with her man, I was a minor. My boobs barely came out too, I hated it Chris” smiling lightly at her “I liked it though, you know I did” she giggled putting her head down “I know you did, I never understood why but yeah, don’t feel bad. It’s just what happened to me” I didn’t think like that.

Robyn fell asleep, she is tired after all that crying, and I don’t blame her. You know what a lot of people want me to go live, this fan thing is rather fun. I just put up a selfie and they are saying go live constantly, I might as well do that because we are still on this flight back and she is asleep, so I got nothing else to do. Going live on my main account “would you like anything?” the flight attendant asked “erm, no thank you. I am good thank you” I smiled as she walked off, looking back at my phone. I have the best tan; I swear I look so refreshed. I just staring at myself on the live “what’s good?” looking down at the comments “hello, hello, hello” I grinned “thank you ma, Bora Bora weather was amazing, as you can see. My tan is impeccable” I chuckled, they are complimenting my face this much, looking at the amount of people in the live, this is crazy how fast it is going up “Rylee, is good. She has been with my mom, she is in VA. In the cold, we needed adult time” I chuckled, licking my lips “baby number two?” I laughed “no ma’am, we don’t need another baby” sitting back in the seat just reading through the comments “you saw my daughter in VA? Oh” squinting my eyes, that is Austin, he seen my daughter how “hey Austin” I mumbled, the fuck does he want and talking shit on here, I mean I don’t care for him that much.

I have been on this live for a while now, just talking shit but Drake decided to come in and comment shit which made the viewing go even higher and then Tyga, they are here talking shit about nothing “anyways, what y’all think. Would I look good in grills?” licking my top lip, I am trying to ignore both of them trolls. Seeing Drake has requested to join “man, fuck you bro. I ain’t accepting shit” I laughed, he thinks I am dumb to just accept that shit so he can troll hard ‘ACCEPT IT’ Drake typed out, side eyeing him as I did, shaking my head knowing this will be a mess “it’s that pretty motherfucker” Drake spat, I knew he would say that shit “now you know damn well, I ain’t that feminine nigga” I dragged out and mumbled “you dumb, you know they record these things I am calling you pretty” he is co-signing Rocky for nothing “Chris, you are glowing. Chubbs give me my shades, my eyes right now. He is glowing” Chubbs is laughing his ass off “you pastie motherfucker, suck my dick. Nigga built like a bad bbl job” the comment section is a mess “aigh, I love my bro. Don’t worry me and Breezy is going to be bringing out an album, this is what the fans want?” rolling my eyes “you come on my live to just be annoying? I ain’t no rapper, just when I am drunk, you know what. I left Rihanna in Bora Bora, I am divorcing her man, she ain’t here” her fans be annoying me “the snoring did it” I gasped, Drake let that slip out “backtrack! Backtrack!” I spat, hiding my face “I am joking, I love riri” I said that to him in conversation “when we meeting up, I have a tour coming up. You riding” Robyn is awake, oh man “erm, I am married now” Drake pulled a face “what does that got to do with me? I just need you to be hype man” watching Robyn walking off, she is going to be moody with me “when you’re married you know why” he got me in trouble bad, I did mention the snoring to him in conversation because I couldn’t sleep “too busy for me now huh, being behind those rocks” I just busted out laughing loudly “living my best life nigga” I really am.

I thought I would get off live and remain silent the rest of the way back to VA because I am about to get my ass whooped, I know Robyn heard that and I did mention to Drake that, but it was when I couldn’t sleep, he just asked and I mean he said it out loud now I feel bad, I am in deep trouble right now, that is all I know. But Robyn closed the car door when I was about to get in, so I had to go around the car, I am about to say it to her. I am not about to play this game because its dumb “women” closing the car door “who?” Robyn said “I just said women, you know. In general, they do the most. You know? Just a statement” Robyn kissed her teeth “you told Drake I snore, and you both been kiki about that? Like it’s funny, it’s private to me Chris. You really pissed me off, you and that motherfucker both anger me. He does nothing but get you in trouble, and you fucking right you are staying home. You now going anywhere with him, I know what goes on. City to city, girls after girls and you want to go?” is that a trick question “uhm no” I mean that is the only answer “you damn right you not going with that dumbass, and on top of that I don’t want you going on these stupid live things because you don’t know how to be quiet” she be overreacting but I can’t be bothered to be saying anything, I will when I can be bothered.

I am glad to be home, to be back in VA that is “back home bitches!” my dad pushed me inside “get inside, it’s cold out here acting dumb” I sniggered at my dad “you back, you had a good time uncle” dapping Desean “I am released, relieved, light weight the whole nine. I am good” my dad hit the back of my head “you talk too much, now get inside” I laughed going into the living room “I am so glad you are both back” Robyn was quick to go straight to Rylee, that was the first point and that is all that mattered to her “same mom, how was my daughter and Austin” I dragged out confused, what is he doing here “he needed a home to stay in Chris, my sister is away for a while and he needed to stay behind for college but she didn’t want him to be home alone” I don’t like that little nigga, I mean he hasn’t done anything to me yet but I don’t like him “nice meeting you Rihanna, I am Chris’ cousin” he is already speaking to Robyn “I tried telling you on IG, you wasn’t paying attention like that” he dapped me, like what the fuck is this.

Sitting atop of the kitchen counter, I am still questioning what the motive is here “so when you come here? And with who? Who else was here” I might as well start building my blunt, Austin rested against the kitchen top “I just came, my mom rang, and she accepted. Just me, that is it. Auntie J said that they are not accepting visitors right now because Rylee is here. I haven’t taken no picture of her, promise” licking my lips “your brother wants to kill me and you’re here in my home, does it make sense? It doesn’t. None of you fucking like me bro” they are using my mother “I ain’t ever say that to you Chris, shit went sideways when that happened, and I get it but I mind my business. He is in jail for being a crazy nigga, I am not him. I am in college wanting to be something” I still don’t trust me “none of you were at my wedding, I don’t fuck with any of you” I shrugged “that is you though, Uncle Clinton hid you away because we were after you. If we were then we could have, we have never attacked you” Robyn walked into the kitchen “can I speak to Chris in private please, just for a second” that look, I have done something wrong because she is not impressed. Let me prepare myself for this “gotchu” Austin moved off, Robyn made her way to me “you stopped being mad yet?” she is all uptight “you haven’t held Rylee yet, running away from her but anyways. What did you say about my ex?” furrowing my eyebrows “which one?” I questioned “Rakim Chris, what did you say about him?” I shrugged “I have no idea, we was just having fun” I bet some shit has offended someone “you called Rakim feminine which has now caused drama, now I have my husband on shade room and my ex throwing shots at each other, see what I mean about your mouth and your little jokes on live. You called him a female and he has now said this pretty nigga had your wife, so are you happy now” I sighed out, I always get myself in some shit.

[yconic]

this is meta I've thought about a lot. Because there's a lot of talk on "Bruce is responsible for all the crimes Joker does because he doesn't kill him" ok but wait a minute :

Call me crazy but, I don't think the others want Joker dead either, because?? Joker is smart, extremely so, and could probably get out of any situation at any given time, but he's got to be caught slipping. So why not kill him when he does? Why not take the opportunity to do the work yourself? Why haven't other heroes tried to kill him?

Sure, maybe Bruce would be there to try and stop them, but not all the time, so why? I always wondered, why did it have to be BRUCE specifically? Another aspect of why killing just isn't in his quota is because Bruce is, at the end of the day, only human, and a lot of people tend to forget that because of the cawl.

Batman is a symbol of justice, yeah, but a symbol with a dark weight. Keeping humanity intact is rotten work for a normal person, let alone someone with Bruce's baggage.

I understand thinking eliminating the problem from the core seems logical, but you have to think about the outside stuff as well. Creating villains like Joker isn't the problem as there were and always will be bad, If not worse, guys like him.

For example, killing one, two, three, countless murderers, rapists, etc, would lower the statics, but they would ryke up effective immediately because it's not a one-man problem, but a system problem and no one can help that, as sad as it sounds, it's the truth.

The world is always going to be composed of bad people, but what keeps it in equilibrium is the amount of people who fight to raise above them everyday, knowing there's little chance to abolish the issue but to still FIGHT the issue.

That's what matters at the end of the day, to me. I do understand why it may be concerning to see villains and Batman be rehabilitated just to be villains again, but?? I actually don't think that's true, and I really appreciate the way DC lets us know that.

They DO get better, they do mend their ways, both on how they are and how they treat people, but at the end, someone has to be a villain so the heroes aren't out of job.

Few of Gotham's villains are actually BAD people if you look at them, into their stories, but no one ever said Gotham was as merciful of a city as it's Knight. I think the best way DC ever showed us that we as a society don't let people get better is how they treated Oswald Cobblepot aka Penguin in Batman: The Animated Series. After reforming, Penguin is alienated from society both for his looks, and for the actions he has amended with.

Of course they're not obligated to forgive him, but it did show us why some villains stay villains even after being helped. More so, I think it's really a narrative issue that appears in all long-running SCI-FI/Fantasy.

They can be developed, there can be development, there can even be happy endings, there can be "getting better" but never really staying better, because it is a comic book series, a comic book WORLD. Staying good means the story ends, and no one can really have that because that's not the point, you know?

This code he has, this wish to value life, that's never a BAD thing. It'll never be a bad thing to help people, that's what superheroes ARE. What happens if Bruce does kill the Joker, and becomes like the man who took his parents away? What does that make him?

Sure, it may not seem that way to US, far from it, but with Bruce, who's been exposed to the fragile equilibrium between morality and duty, that could be the line that just pushed him too far, and without heroes like Batman, what then? Killing Joker would be easier path, but 'easy' doesn't mean right.

Bruce's care for other people always made me feel close to him, his faith in humanity was always touching and his selflessness is just 👌👌👌 Like, just looking at how many people he helped and IS helping despite the person he wants the world to see him as is something that I admired even when I was a kid lol, and! Maybe this is an unpopular decision, but I do think Batman knows Joker is a lost cause, beyond rehabilitation, but at the same time, I can say that he's not something special to Bruce as he helps EVERY villain that way, and he doesn't have control over what Joker does.

I feel like, Bruce can sympathize with the fact his mental illness and feels guilty for letting him live, but... I never understood why everyone desperately wanted to see Bruce turned into a killing machine.

Batman is, first and foremost, a VIGILANTE. Aka not someone that works with law or applies law in the force of what he believes in.

He's not a judge, jury, and he's not an executioner, he's not an otherworldly power that decides who should die and who has the right to live. Batman was ALWAYS just a man, and no man should have that amount of power to him, because so many people use that everyday for their own gains to provoke more and more pain, and it's not fair to him that everyone disrespects his moral compass and his code.

I always thought that people always forget Bruce's trauma when they scream for him to kill Joker, - I'm sorry but it's? Kinda dehumanizing to expect an orphan who lost his parents in an act of cold-blooded murder to kill someone else without missing a blink.

Sure, maybe other characters would, but Bruce is NOT other characters and I think his creators wanted us to never forget that.

You don't ask a person like Bruce to kill someone for the same reason you don't ask a burn victim to be a fireman. It's his job to protect the city, yeah, but it's not his job to KILL. He never signed up for that.

[lgcrp]

GREETINGS, LGC SUPERSTARS!

we are officially ONE ! to celebrate the occasion we come bearing gifts !!! everyone who is in the roleplay as of today will receive freebie points as follows:

ACTOR / MUSICAL ACTOR MUSES : +20 ACTING ; +6 NOTORIETY

BAND MUSES : +20 PRIMARY INSTRUMENT ; +6 NOTORIETY

ENTERTAINER MUSES : +10 HOSTING / MCING ; +10 VARIETY ; +6 NOTORIETY

MODEL MUSES : +20 MODELING ; +6 NOTORIETY

PRODUCER MUSES : +10 COMP ( MUSIC ) ; +10 COMP ( LYRICS ) ; +6 NOTORIETY

ALL OTHERS : +20 PERFORMING ; +6 NOTORIETY

if you’re confused about what your muse has received, you can also check out the spreadsheet here. please let us know if there are any errors ! and also, you can link directly to this post or the linked spreadsheet as proof of points in your own spreadsheets !

below the cut we have messages from each of our admod staff !!! thank you all again for a wonderful first year ! we love you !!!

from admin l (el):

her message will come in the next post !!!

from admin * (kristin):

“wow! one year! funny how time passes so fast, huh? so much has happened in this past year: i graduated college, landed my first full-time job—not to forget the whole pandemic, too. but lgc’s always been the constant throughout these big changes in my life, and i’ve never been more grateful. i think i speak for a lot of people when i say that roleplaying, like any other hobby, is less about the actual roleplaying and more about the community—i mean, don’t get me wrong, i love my characters and the development i’ve had with them since their creation, but there’s just something about lgc that’s the reason i’m excited to log onto this terrible website everyday: and it’s you guys. i’ve been in the krp community since 2012, and it’s sad to see that it’s devolved into having more downs than ups throughout the years. i can’t remember that last time i stayed in a roleplay for more than a month or two, nor the last time i’ve created online friendships and connections as strong as i have here. i’ve been a member longer than i’ve been an admod, so believe me when i say: so whether you’ve just joined us or you’ve been here since the beginning, thank you. thank you so much for fostering such a welcoming and fun environment for everyone here. thank you to always bring such love and creativity to the dash, and thank you for constantly inspiring me. thank you for the excitement and the commitment, and thank you for understanding when i spend more than two months replying to a thread (lol). thank you for giving me and the rest of the admod your trust to ensure that our atmosphere’s only further expanded upon, not erased, and thank you for all the suggestions on how to make lgc a better place. it’s important to remember that lgc wouldn’t be what it is today without our members, so this anniversary is as much of achievement for us as it is for y’all. we have so much in store for this group—we promise, we’re not going anywhere!—and i personally want to honor the torch leo and ori have passed onto me as the new graphics admin. expect bigger and better things, lgc. it’s only the beginning!”

from admin g (grace):

"how has it already been one year since we’ve opened??? it feels like just yesterday when the three of us decided that we wanted to go through with opening up a new roleplay. i’ve admined many roleplays in the past, but usually, that initial lull of getting apps or the disinterest that ends up plaguing many roleplays in the early months has always left me disenchanted at the whole thing that i give up even before the six month mark so to hit such a milestone is really something remarkable for me. needless to say, it’s also just been amazing for me to be working with such a dream team who really fill in the areas in which i lack. however, at the end of the day, we also wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all of you members. without you, lgc simply wouldn’t exist. thank you for helping this place thrive. thank you for always being excited about the events that we plan. thank you for being so willing to share your thoughts and ideas ( we’ve had so many wonderful events come to life because of our members’ suggestions and we’re always excited to receive more of those that we can incorporate ). from the moment we started brainstorming about this place, our vision has been for lgc to be an interactive community that would be shaped by its members and less by us as admins. we hope you’re able to see that vision come to life, and we know that we might be lacking still, but we hope to continue to refine our systems so that we can allow for more of that. finally, thank you all for loving my muses as well and for being so willing to plot with them. i know i’ve also been personally overwhelmed lately that i haven’t been able to plot with everyone, but i hope one day that my muses will get to meet all of yours. thank you again to all of you ( and also to all of those who have passed through lgc in this last year! ). love you all!”

from mod a ( cloud ):

one year already?? i’ve been in this rp for almost half of that and a lot has changed in those months! from joining the rp around march to becoming a mod, i have to say that it has been a pretty crazy journey! during my time in lgc, the one thing that always impresses me time and time again is the community that has been created and developed during the past twelve months. from a mun standpoint, it warms my heart knowing that the community is so welcoming towards each other. every time a new ( or returning ) muse is being brought to this lovely community, i love seeing how engaging and friendly the members are. not only that but there are also the posts that i see on the dash and while it can be a lot to go through sometimes, it’s reassuring knowing that people are willing to take the time to participate in these events and develop their muses! to me, these elements are what makes lgc what it is today and i hope that this continues in the future as well! i know that there are a lot of people i want to thank for but at the end of the day, there are two groups that i want to give my shoutouts to. the first is the admod team because they have entrusted me with this role and even though it’s only been a few weeks since i was appointed as a mod, i can attest to the amount of passion and hard work the whole team has with making sure that everyone has the best experience possible! i know that we can’t be a perfect rp, but we really do appreciate all of the feedback that has been given to us since that is what motivates us to become better. and ofc my second shoutout is to all of the members ( both past and present )! thank you for the support and effort you have given to the admod team! whether it’s posting on the dash to reading your reactions to the events, we appreciate all of that! i hope that this rp continues to prosper for many more years and once again, HAPPY ONE YEAR, LGC! 🎉

from admin c ( marie ):

“one year. it might not seem like a lot to some of you guys but when we created this project we didn’t even expect to last until christmas and that’s if we even got enough members to open. even though we’ve always planned for the long haul we didn’t think we’d be writing a first anniversary message in 2020. what a year, right? so many events happened both within our small community and in the outside world. i won’t lie, legacy requires a lot of work, organization and dedication. but we’re proud when we see you guys participate in everything with so much enthusiasm. i wanted to write a long and touching message but i can’t really find the proper words right now so i’ll just leave it as simple as possible. thank you for trusting us, for investing time and energy in your wonderful character, for choosing us and sticking around, for sending suggestions on events you’d like to see, for being respectful of us and the other members too. we could work our hardest and none of this would be possible without you guys interacting with it and being excited about it. thank you for being patient and understanding with us, and for taking minutes of your time each week to read all of the new events because we truly don’t give you any rest i’ll admit that LMAO. we’ve always wanted for lgc to be a peaceful, fun and stimulating writing environment for everyone and we hope we were able to be that for some of you. we’re still lacking and by no means perfect but we’ve always tried our best and will keep doing so for as long as you guys are on board with us ( or until we get a life maybe idk hghgjfdk ). i don’t know what the future holds but no matter what, i can say i’m proud of this project and how it turned out, not only with the admod team ( past and present ) but with every single person who helped build this place by just becoming a part of our community. i love you all and look forward to see your muses grow in the upcoming year!”

from mod y ( lissa ):

“thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all. thank you for putting your faith in us. words can never describe how much we appreciate you guys. ily all.“

[madamspeaker]

It’s not a “gate” - The hair/salon thing

I’ve addressed the salon thing in a couple of asks, but I wanted to take a moment to just go through the whole thing separate of those because what this saga has highlighted is a complete failure of journalists to do their work, and the undercurrent of misogyny that perpetuates both journalistic discourse, and how women must present themselves, especially if a public figure.

(This is long, so to spare your dashboards it’s under a cut)

Let’s start with the facts. Nancy’s usual stylist wasn’t available for Monday, so she/he recommended someone else. Nancy’s office contacted him last weekend (Nancy only returned to SF some time on Friday), and asked if it was possible to do her hair. The thing to note at this moment is that the rules governing salons in California started to change from last Friday. The governor had announced limited indoor openings, but to confuse matters some localities were still imposing tighter restrictions. Nancy’s office checked with the stylist, who told them that the rules permitted one person in at a time. He then asked the salon owner who he rented a chair from if he could go into the premises and do the appointment on Monday. The owner agreed to his request on the Saturday. Fast forward to Monday afternoon - Nancy gets her hair done before doing a television interview on MSNBC, and then on Tuesday the owner cries “outrage!!!” to Fox News, bringing along with her a seconds long bit of footage that shows Nancy with her mask around her neck. Naturally the whole thing explodes on Twitter and then across other media (several versions of the story made the top ten shared links on Facebook).

What followed was a failure of journalism to ask follow up questions about the clearly odd parts of the salon owner’s account as relayed by Fox News (a red flag in of itself). In her interview with Fox she admitted she had known about the appointment in advance, but no one thought to ask why she let the appointment go ahead if it so offended and outraged her - she did own the place afterall, it’s not like Nancy had keys or barged in. Likewise, no one thought to ask where the rest of the salon footage was. Why only release seconds worth which rather conveniently showed Nancy with her mask down, and partially hidden under her chin? Could it be that she had worn the mask the rest of the time. No one in the media thought to ask this. It seemed fairly clear to most sensible people on Tuesday night that something with off with the salon owner’s tale of outrage, but the media pretty much took the Fox News version of events at verbatim. Only USA Today raised the points I just did, but alas, they buried them in their write up.

Wednesday saw Nancy fight back, acknowledging that she took responsibilty for trusting the salon (when perhaps she should have had someone else verify what they had been told), but ask yourselves this, would you have verified it elsewhere? She had been to this salon before with a stylist, they were local, she trusted them, and in a situation in which the law was changing, it makes perfect and reasonable sense to ask the professionals in that industry what their status is. On this point there have been plenty of indignant people and bots on Twitter up in arms that Nancy didn’t apparently know the regulations in SF, but a) she didn’t make those regulations (as some seem to think), b) she spends just as much if not more time in D.C., and c) she has about 100 other things on her plate in any given hour, that salon regulations in SF are probably somewhere near 120 on her list after deal with Covid-19, Trump, win the election, save the USPS, try to get a stimulus bill, deal with the federal budget which will need a CR to prevent a shutdown (minutes after I hit publish on this it was announced she had reached a deal with Mnuchin to avoid a shutdown), restore in-person inteligence briefings, file an appeal in the McGahn case (again), Bill sodding Barr,, Russian bounties on US soldiers and so on. She has an insanely stressful job at the moment, her staff too, and it seems more than reasonable for staff/her to ask a professional in the industry about the regulations on salons, when such regulations were pretty confusing to most people last weekend anyway. Nancy’s only apparent “crime” in this instance was to trust the word of the industry pro.

Then of course we have the “she’s not wearing a mask” portion of this debacle. Not one journalist has asked where the rest of the footage is. We see Nancy walk from the bowl to another room, wet hair, phone in hand, and the mask around her neck (slightly hidden by her chin), but we never got the footage of her walking to the bowl, or any other footage from what was definitely more than a 4 second long appointment. Could it possibly be that she had indeed been wearing a mask the rest of the time - that she wasn’t just wearing it around her neck as some sort of foulard meets choker fashion statement. People have asked, “Why did she pull it down?”, and to that I will say, probably any one of three or four reasons. She uses a clip at the back of her neck to secure her masks rather than the ear loops. Maybe it was in the way and the stylist asked her to pull it down. Maybe she had trouble breathing with her face covered and head back. Maybe she didn’t want to get it wet. The point here is that it was around her neck, suggesting that she had been compliant until that fateful video captured moment. The media again though have run with the Fox News narrative that she had no mask. For one, it’s actually visible in the footage, and two, they are blatantly disregarding what they themselves know to be true - that Nancy has been wearing a mask for the last five months. We have the footage and photographs to prove it, not to mention the press also know that she takes down her mask to talk at her pressers etc. The press are playing stupid on this point to satisfy some both sides need in an election that so far has Joe Biden with a good lead. Their wilful obtusity is purely to inject some drama into things on the Dem side for clicks because nothing at present is sticking to Biden. All this leads to me to the misogyny.

I caught part of a radio interview yesterday in which two male hosts had to have it explained to them as to why a woman in the public eye might need a hair stylist more than once a week. One of the men had been perplexed as to why if Nancy needed her hair done she hadn’t just got it taken care of in D.C. were salons are open. It never entered his brain that no amount of hair spray is going to keep a hairstyle in place for at least 3 days (when Nancy was last in D.C.), or that she might need to lie down to sleep, or that hair does actually need washed. Likewise, it never occured to either of them that Nancy turning up to an television interview with anything other than styled hair would be a news story in itself, because here’s the rub, women are damned for makeup and hairstyling and thought vain and shallow, and they’re damned if they don’t put makeup on and get their hair done, especially for television (we all remember the “omg” reactions when Hillary turned up to an event days after the election in 2016 with a bare face). The last couple of days have been full of this crap, with men (looking at you Don Lemon and the SF Chronicle editorial board) especially saying Nancy should apologise for the salon episode. Why should she? She did what any reasonable person would do and asked about the rules. Her error was to take the salon at their word, but by today’s logic the salon’s lie is Nancy’s fault. I have seen more than one man on Twitter admit the facts of the case and still say “she should take the hit”. Would they say this of a man who had been lied to, framed, and the footage sold to a hostile media company? I think not.

And then of course there is the salon owner herself. The stylist released a statement last night backing Nancy’s side of events up. He also revealed that the owner, so “outraged” by Nancy’s appointment, had in fact been opening up illegally since April, had been forgoing masks, and been forcing stylists to work. What also emerged is that the owner had let her licence lapse on the premises back in May (so Nancy had not ended her business as she claimed), and was in the middle of relocating to Fresno -- something the press have gilbly ignored as they report how she has been hounded out of town because of Nancy, and forced to move. Let me say this, not even the IRA at the peak of The Troubles could get people to move that quick, and they had guns. And then there’s the gofundme - which popped up less than 24hrs after she handed the tape to Fox. Naturally the blurb is a sorry tale of woe, of a supposedly single mother forced to move because of the evil Speaker of the House. No mention that she owns three salons, that she’d let the licence lapse on one anyway, is opening one in Fresno, loves her guns (and those ain’t cheap) and took a PPP loan of $12,000 wihilst operating illegally. By the way, at the time of writing this, the gofundme has raised over $80k for her -- which shows you how Trumpers will buy into any bullshit, and how Nancy is a fundraising powerhouse regardless of your party affliation lol.

I appreciate this has been a rather long read, and if you made it this far, thanks! Nancy didn’t do anything wrong other than take the word of a salon in good faith. Should she have known the regulations herself? Maybe, but she has the kind of crazy and stressful life most of us can’t even begin to imagine, and unlike the Presidency, the Office of Speaker doesn’t come with personal maid services thrown in, or a whole West Wing of staff. End of the day, once out of that office, Nancy has to do all that normal life stuff that the rest of us do - shop, go to the post office, buy clothes etc., and now in the Covid era get ready for tv interviews herself rather than a studio stylist do it. Her mistake was to trust someone who has it turns out saw a chance to have a moment of fame, stick one to the woman she ignorantly blamed for the lockdown, and make some money from gullible Trumpers. I don’t know how this story will play out in the coming days. Ice cream lasted a week, spurred on by the far-left and then the far-right. This may have more staying power as Trump desperately seeks some kind of mud to stick to Dems, and with nothing sticking to Biden at present, his 2016 playbook (and the even older GOP one) of blame a woman (in this case Nancy) has been deployed. The problem of course is that Trump isn’t running against Nancy -- but as the press have so depressingly showed, that fact hasn’t stopped them from elevating one trip to a salon above 180k+ dead, Melania using a prvate email server (!!!, I mean come the fuck onnnnnnn, this after 2016!!!?!?!?), or Trump telling people to committ a felony and vote twice.

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 15

death awaits!

oh god the cover. I aint ready 

the cover of overlords open mouth w/rodimus floating inside or w/e,,,,the overlord mouth fixation continues i see

and of COURSE its by nick roche. of course

oh god the tension and dread in the first page, as we get overlords sinister promise to murder everyone, starting with rewind, and then seeing chromedome rush over to open the door, and knowing that 30 minutes have passed already...

that full page spread of everyone vs overlord is amazing

also I always thought that ambulon was trying to kick overlord but now that I look closer he’s actually jumping away from overlord, having just crashed one of those hover...thingys....into him...which is honestly cool as hell. also I'm never over the fact that ambulon kinda looks like he’s smiling here, just having a grand ole time as overlord tries his best to murder everyone

and chromedome just seeing this and saying ‘rewind?’ is fucking killing me thanks

PIPES NO DONT DO THIS. YOURE JUST RUBBING SALT IN THE WOUND. PLEASE don't talk about how much fun you're having on your wacky space adventure oh god, that’s just asking to be murdered,

GOD AND THERE HE GOES, DRIVING TO HIS DOOM. PIPES NO

AUGHHHHHHHHHH AND THERES OVERLORD WITH HIS GIANT FOOT. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

PIIIIIPES ;_; 

his messed up goodbye thoughts are brutal...plus the final shot of him laying all busted up....god :( 

that guy seriously had some awful luck this trip. rip lil guy

BUT he sounded the alarm!!! so good for him!! that's a pretty amazing final act right there

oh my god I forgot abt this scene where rewind is like ‘so brainstorm why is my husband saying your name in his sleep :))))’ and brainstorm is like ‘haha idk its certainly not because we’re working on a secret project together, so jot that down!’ lmao brainstorm....

also dw rewind brainstorm is not fucking ur husband, just look at his evidentially extensive collection of perceptor-style microscopes...my man is microscopesexual 

I forgot abt the metabomb omfg

‘some of my favorite words are monosyllabic’ rodimus ily, himbo of my heart,

fort max :( rung :( 

oughhghghg I forgot abt the scene of tailgate making cyclonus a new horn ;_; and then cyclonus materializes menacingly bc tg dared to volunteer their room for movie night hvbfshdjkfbaskj cyclonus anti-social icon

AUGHHHH GOD THE PANEL OF RATCHET TALKING ON THE COMMS AND OVERLORD IS JUST, RIGHT BEHIND HIM, WITH HIS BIG STUPID LIPS, OH MY GOD

what the fuck, is drift a flying car??? hello??? what the hell????

seriously he’s got like, rockets and shit, what the fuck

anyways, the entire exchange b/w ratchet and drift here kills me, for multiple reasons.... ‘my faith and my sword’ lmao love it. and then ratchet refusing to leave drift and calling him his friend ;_; aughhh

rodimus w/the squad like ‘lets go gays!!!’ 

also I guess cosmos WAS on the lost light lol, totally didn't remember that, I'm guessing he left at some point to go be in the other series lmao 

I'm sorry but ‘amazing. you speak entirely in name’ is so fucking funny, but also like stfu overlord you're not allowed to be funny

MAGNUSSSSSSSS

now I'm confusing myself lmao, rodimus DID know abt overlord, didn't he??? wasn't that the whole thing???? I don't remember if he was involved w/the whole mnemosurgery plan but he at least knew that overlord was there...but we haven't been told that in-story yet so now I'm questioning that lmao

oh god I forgot that overlord almost kills magnus, jeeeeesus. good thing he’s a russian nesting doll otherwise he probably would've died fr 

also damn that's gotta be scary for everyone else, bc magnus is The Big Guy, and a renown fighter...plus drift got all fucked up...yall are in for a bad time 

tailgate gettin his panic on I see

swerve w/the meta narration lmao 

cyclonus ily sm.......

rodimus charging at overlord....ohhh my boy not your best idea

cd and rewind both saying ‘I thought you were dead!’ HHHHHHHH I'm destroyed fuck it all

rodimus (inadvertently) saving the day by saying ‘til all are one’...iconic!!

FORT MAX IS HEREEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

drift just casually chillin w/no legs

chromedome going into extreme detail about all the mnemosurgery he’s been doing on overlord for WEEKS while rewind is Right There....my dude.

this issue has a LOT of completely white backgrounds but I cant even rlly blame milne bc this seems like more drawing work than usual

oh god cd don't say ‘we’ll finish this conversation later’ at a time like this, that’s never a good idea,

rewind no don't do it :( :( :( 

that panel of cd’s arm getting cut off...AUGHHH

GODDDDDDD IM FUCKING CRYING. AUGHHHHHHHHHHH I.....

so incredibly fucked that cd does what’s best for rewind by blowing the pod up....hhhhh god 

and then that last panel of cd laying on the ground....fucking destroy me!!!!!!!!

also I love that at the beginning of the issue we see whirl with the missile launcher thing, and that’s what cd uses at the end here....good bookends. jro is really great about putting stuff in the story that just seems like innocuous filler/fun character building but turns out to ALSO be plot relevant later

HOLY SHIT I forgot about the cast page with the big red X’s thru the dead people’s profiles....jesus christ 

AUGH this issue was a rollercoaster, phew...and the emotionally devastating conclusion to this arc is still yet to come! 

I will say that it’s super interesting looking back on this, in the sense that rewind & chromedome are introduced as the first ever gay tf couple, and a few issues after we get told this explicitly, rewind is killed. this doesn't really end up being an issue representation-wise bc literally everyone is gay and there are a bunch of other significant gay characters/relationships later on, AND rewind comes back later 

but still! it’s interesting to think about how, at the time this came out, the phrase/concept ‘bury your gays’ wasn't really something that was talked about a lot (or like, it was, but not as often as nowadays, and not really under the term ‘bury your gays’ iirc), but at the time of publication this would have fallen under that trope (though rewind coming back later negates it imo). I think it would've been tough for this story to come out nowadays due to the backlash that would've occurred from rewind’s initial death (it also makes me wonder if there was any backlash when this DID come out) 

to be clear, this isn't a writing criticism - in fact, the reason this is able to work at all is because of the crazy amount of representation mtmte has. it’s like, youre able to kill off gay characters without it being ‘bury your gays’ if literally all your characters are gay by default, and there are a bunch of significant gay relationships happening - technically speaking, any death in mtmte is bury your gays lmao 

this is a completely disjointed rant but my point is like, if this issue came out in 2020 people would probably be pretty put off by rewind dying (understandably), but in the context of the series as a whole I don't consider this to be bad writing/bad representation/bury your gays 

and like, WERE people really mad about this in 2013? I am curious now, bc I would definitely feel kinda betrayed if I didn't know all the stuff that happens later 

but its pretty nice, because now I'm free to enjoy the writing and be emotionally devastated by rewinds death in a normal way, and not a ‘I'm angry at the writers for killing off one of the only gay characters’ kinda way

anyways I'm tired as hell so I'm going to bed, ill continue the emotional devastation later, phew