#the majority is ACTUALLY into it! its not even average good. its just.... a bad version of every romance slice of life anime....

[rilinda]

just watched the 4th episode of ookami shojo to kuro oji and. i think the people on proxer.me are actually on crack bc they had to be on drugs while watching it there's no other explanation for the comms

[toomanythoughts2]

Here's some miscellaneous Metalocalypse headcanons. I'm gonna put them here just to get them down.

Skwisgaar has flat feet, which will result in leg problems later in his life.

Toki has nerve damage to his back and he can't feel it in places. He has to go to massage therapy for it every week so it doesn't get too bad.

Murderface has long hair, his fro is just so dense. It's as long as Skiwsgaar's hair.

Stella Murderface is William Murderface's paternal grandmother, so his mother is Stella's Daughter-In-Law and his father is their biological son. Murderface's looks skipped his father, so his father and his mother were average looking individuals. The idea that Murderface's looks were the catalysis for his father's mental break were probably intensified because of the paternal skip.

Murderface's mom was very excited for William's birth. She spent a long time getting ready for his arrival. William was a wanted, planned child, whose mother was fully encapsulated in being a good mom. She took so many photos of her pregnancy and had a baby book prepared. Mama Murderface was fully ready to be a mom. When William was born, she fell in love with him. William is probably less than a year when they died, but more than 4 months. Up until their death, his mom obsessed over him, loved him, cared for him. There are so many baby photos of him up until their death, and his baby book ends at the same age of when they died.

Murderface has multiple photos of his mother tucked safely in his room. He looks at them when he's feeling particularly sad and lost. He'll look back over the home movies she took, listen to her voice, listen to how much she loved him and how she was waiting for him. He blocks out his father in the video as much as he can. He hates him more than he hates himself.

Toki has a hobby grave yard. However, he is not afraid of any hobby and will at least become competent in them.

Pickles still doesn't really understand the internet. He's got the concept but it alludes him for the most part.

Toki's family is actually the black sheep of the majority of the family and Toki is the black sheep within the black sheep.

Toki was on his way to becoming the next Reverend after Aslaug, but the family at large was very wary of this possible development. They avoided Toki at all cost due to his presence with death and his possible future position in the family.

Everyone has neck pain from head banging and windmilling, so they have physical therapy on their necks to keep them strong and to stop any further deterioration.

Nathan has back pain. Like really bad back pain. Him and his father, since they are larger men, have consistent back issues that make it hard to stand for long hours.

Rose is Nathan's biggest supporter. She co-signed on the apartment, she helped get him his first van, she helped pick out stage clothes, she painted his nails. He would read his lyrics out to her (and his dad) at the dinner table and she would help him with lyrics and support his direction. Rose knew that Nathan's life was not leading him to college, but to something else, and she fully believed that he could do anything he set his mind to.

Skwisgaar is double jointed and can pop and crack his knuckles. Murderface and Pickles DESPISE it.

While there are many "Deaddy Bears", there is only one true, original Deaddy Bear. It's the one that got burnt up in "Dethkids" but it came back afterwards. Why? BECAUSE IT'S POSSESSED! ITS A POSSESSED DEADDY BEAR KINDA LIKE THE VELVETEEN RABBIT! TOKI MADE IT BE ALIVE WITH HIS LOVE AND THE TRUAMA! TOKI NEVER QUESTIONS IT AND THE BAND IS VERY WORRIED ABOUT IT!

Murderface has gotten himself stuck in the Iron Maiden before.

There's a lot more wholesome/domestic moments within the band dynamic than their fans or even the label knows about. It's regular shit, like a routine they have worked out with themselves about how to live with each other without going crazy.

They do the "Do you want my broccoli?" "I can take your rice." "Here, take the pepper, I dont want it." kind of switch with their food when they go out. It's just a choirs of plate scraps from one plate to another.

[physalian]

In Defense of Fanfiction (Or the perfect starting point for your original novel)

Fanfic gets a bad rap pretty much everywhere except Tumblr. It’s misunderstood and misrepresented by its average works, seen as juvenile and cringey, or a banal point of contention between a famous person or piece of media and its fans.

Outside of fanfic that writes about real people, especially smut fics of real people, I support the art wholeheartedly. Fictional characters are one thing, but personally, caricaturing a celebrity’s life for public consumption and writing or drawing them in compromising content without their consent is a little weird. You do you. Don’t like, don’t read, as they say.

Fanfic is the perfect starting point for a few reasons:

It places you in a creative box and forces you to work within those constraints

It does all the worldbuilding and character concepts for you

It lets you write way outside your comfort zone

When published and receiving feedback, it boosts your self-confidence

It's incredibly flexible

It’s practice. All practice is good practice

—

Behold your creative box

When I was little I had no idea the majority of fanfic was shipping fics. I always pictured and looked for canon-divergent alternate universes. Like, what if X happened in this episode instead of Y? What if this character never died?

Fanfic demands you work within someone else’s canon, whether it’s an OC in the canonical world, or the canonical characters in an AU. These are like little bowling bumpers saving you from the gutter, but also keeping you on a straight-ish path toward the pins.

The indecisiveness of too many choices can be too intimidating when you’re first starting out. You want to be a writer but you have no idea where to begin, what genre to pick, what characters you want to chronicle, what themes you want to explore.

Even if it sits on your computer never to see the light of day, you still got those creative juices flowing.

Pre-packaged worldbuilding

Sometimes all we want is to get to the good stuff. Maybe I want to write a story about elemental magicians but Last Airbender already exists and I just want to play in a pre-existing sandbox. So I write some OCs into that world and have a free-for-all.

I don’t have to come up with my own lore, world history, magic system rules and mechanics, politics, geography—any of it. I get to just focus on the characters.

Even if you’re writing an AU, like say a coffee shop AU, you don’t have to think about brand new characters, you can just think “What would M do?” and go from there. The trade-off is your readers will expect canonical characters to behave in-character, but I think it’s worth it.

Stretch beyond your comfort zone!

Do you hate writing action scenes? Go practice with a shonen anime fic. Need work on dialogue? Write some high-fantasy fic, or a courtroom drama. Practice a fistfight by watching fistfights and writing what you see, and do it over and over again until what you read makes you feel like you're watching what’s on screen.

But beyond that—practice genres that you aren’t super familiar with. If you’re new to fantasy, write fantasy fic. Or a mystery novel/show, thriller, comedy, satire, adventure, what have you. The nature of fanfic still gives you those “guardrails” and you can get some brutally honest feedback on how you’re doing.

And, of course, the realm of M-rated romance and smut fics. I haven’t because I think I would die of embarrassment if I tried and I never intend to include sex scenes in my works anyway, but if you do want to, use the internet as your test audience. Post it on a throwaway account if you’re nervous.

Build that self-confidence!

The fandoms I used to write for are super dead, so it’s insane how I still get email notifications that so-and-so liked my fic to this day. Comments are as elusive as ever, but random strangers on the internet telling me they liked my work is a magical reassurance that my writing isn’t actually awful.

Random strangers on the internet are, as we all know, beholden to no moral obligation to be kind to your little avatar face, or be kind to be polite. So a rando taking the time to like my work or even leave a positive comment can feel more honest than one of my friends telling me what they think I want to hear.

I tend to avoid the more present aspects of fandom like online communities, forums, social media, what have you, so I get a delayed and diluted aspect of any given fandom through completed works. Which means, in general, I get to avoid the worst and most toxic aspects of fandom and get to sift through positive feedback and critique.

Even if your fanfic isn’t written with stellar prose, it’s fanfic. We don’t expect Pulitzer-prize winning content. And if your work isn’t up to snuff, people are more likely to just ignore it than put you on blast (at least in my experience, I never got a bad comment or a “flame” in the old FFN days).

Fanfic doesn’t care about the rules of published literature

On the one hand, try not to practice bad habits, but with this point I mean that your layout, punctuation, formatting, paragraph styles, chapter length–all of it is beholden to no rules. I get as annoyed as the next reader with giant blocks of paragraphs, or the double-spacing between pages of single-sentence paragraphs, but if the story’s good enough I might ignore it.

There’s more than just straight narrative fics, though. People write “chat” fics, or long streams of text and group chat conversations. The scene breaks can come super rapidly–I’ve seen fics with a single sentence in between line breaks to show the passage of time. And without the polish of a traditionally published novel, I’ve never seen a purer distillation of author voice in any medium more than fanfic.

All practice is good practice

Even if it’s crack fiction, or a one-off one-shot, or something meant to be lighthearted and straightforward and free from complex worldbuilding and intricate plots. It really helps break writer’s block when you can shift gears and headspaces entirely and you can get relatively instant feedback to keep you motivated.

Beyond that, the “guardrails” help you stay consistent as far as character growth and personality if you struggle with designing rich characters.

The most recent fanfic I wrote was just a couple years ago, for a dead fandom I didn’t think would get any traffic whatsoever. It wasn’t my original works, but the feedback on that fic gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get back into writing more seriously.

—

In short, I support fanfic. I may not be proud of my earliest fics' prose now, but I am proud that they walked so I can now run.

[steveharrington]

major hornets nest moment here but i must speak my truth. its so fascinating to me how will byers was clearly written with the driving motivation and intention of making him a beloved fan favorite character and instead he falls so flat that, if you asked the average casual viewer of the show who doesn't engage in the fandom like, say, your coworker, the odds of him even being in their top five of favorite characters is pretty low.

will's disappearance kicks off the plot, singlehandedly. the first episode is literally called the vanishing of will byers. his name is shouted so much in the first season that most people would recognize the reference if you used the right cadence and desperation that winona ryder does. after not being featured much in season one, you'd think season two would've just like launched will/noah schnapp into stardom with how much more screentime he's given and how dramatic his plot is that season. but instead the fan favorites of season 2 were by and large el, hopper, dustin, steve, max, even bob who's barely there. that's not to say that there AREN'T will fans out there (and online i understand there are like entire armies dedicated to him/byler, but i'm talking about the average opinion of viewers as a whole, not just in fandom spaces) but think about all the stranger things merch you see in stores, the halloween costumes, the characters that appear in promotional materials when the show has partnerships with brands....will is so rarely featured. idk if any of yall ever got the chance to visit the stranger things pop up shop in any of its various locations, but there was such little mention of will in the stores theming or merchandise that it was almost funny. actually it WAS funny, to me, someone who does not care for him

i think the flop can be attributed to many things. one, noah schnapp is just not a very good actor and he doesn't have the same appeal in his performances that millie, sadie, caleb, gaten, priah, or finn do (although finn i've noticed is also kinda falling out of favor from majority audiences). one could argue that noah schnapp intentionally isn't given much to do, which is true and i'll circle back to that, but the decline in his acting between seasons 2 and 3 is truly a sight to behold. when he's not like tied up and screaming, he reallllllly struggles on the smaller scale performances compared to the other cast members his age. he doesn't really have the charm that gaten does or the humor that priah does or the depth that caleb does. (i don’t feel bad about saying this, btw, given noah schnapp’s behavior)

back to the vanishing of will byer's screen time. my beloved prettymuchit's eric striffler commented on how diminished will and mike's roles in the story have become in s4. "noah schnapp is below the grips on the call sheet" is my fav line, but he also makes an observation on finn's role that i think is soooo accurate. when mike and will are kneeling down next to the pizza dough freezer and watching el just kinda twitch while she fights vecna in her mind, eric and his co-host miles say "this is so embarrassing! finn's like, 'oh so gaten's fighting the monster? and i'm kneeling next to a tub at a pizza place? i used to be this show" and i think the same exact sentiment can be superimposed onto will

but i think this happened naturally, as the nature of the show is to shift its focus from character to character. not to mention the duffer brothers' obsession with tweaking their story to give audiences what they want. i've always held the belief that there isn't one main character of stranger things, rather a rotating circle of characters depending on the season you're watching. season one is mike, season two is hopper, season three is el, season four is max imo. again that's a little subjective and arguments could be made to swap those a little, but overall i think those characters stories and point of views take center stage during each of their respective seasons. by season 3, the duffers wanted to kick things up to a larger scale. the UD is no longer targeting just will, it's targeting the entire town. this works because a THIRD season in a row where this one kid specifically gets possessed would just be bonkers, so they kinda had to let him take a backseat. i'm not sure why they didn't let will be more involved in the mystery-solving portion of season 3....to this day that decision baffles me, but what's done is done and the will that everyone watched in season 3 literally just kinda follows everyone around and gets a small little slice of a plotline about wanting things to go back to normal, but alas

it like totally worked, though. though there are MANY complaints commonly made about season 3, i've never heard anyone offline complain that there wasn't enough will byers. i think the group in s3 that had the most success like, commercially, would be scoops troop and then a bit farther back i think most audiences enjoyed hopper/joyce/murray's dynamic. i think if there had been a huge outcry in the minimizing of will's role, the duffers would've backpedaled immediately. they aim to please. they can't even commit to killing of a main character out of fear that audiences will lose interest if we permanently lose hopper or max, so they just do some creative writing that allows them to milk the emotional consequence of those characters deaths without actually writing them off. if audiences on a large scale demanded that will be center stage, he would be. but they dont!

final point: i think will gets fucked over by the duffers obsession with romance. in season one, two of will's strongest dynamics are with his mom and brother. which like, yeah. theyre his immediately family and he is 12. but in seasons 2 and 3, jonathan spent all his screen time with nancy and from 2-4, joyce has spent all her screen time either with hopper or in the pursuit of finding hopper. these characters are written together as a package deal, typically. it was refreshing and unexpected to see jonathan get a whole season with a friend of his very own and his siblings, but they barely took advantage of that. jonathan and will get ummmm one (1) scene to talk about their emotions in a fucking 20 hour season. it's hard for will to be a main character when he rarely gets to interact with the people that make up the other half of his main dynamics.

as for byler, im of the belief that it will not be endgame because i just don't think they're going to break up mike and el at this point. i could be completely wrong and stand corrected, but im like 90% sure lol. i do think that will's s4 storyline resonated with a lot of people. even eric striffler! i think the issue is that the vastttt majority of people who watch this show above the age of like 15 do not feel invested about the romantic relationships between any of the kids. because why would they!!! theyre literally in middle school for 3/4 of the show. you would be hard pressed to find a vocal will stan online who doesn't also dedicate 90% of their engagement with the show to byler. which makes sense, because most if not all of will's scenes revolve around mike to some degree. but according to neilsen, the majority of stranger things audience is consistently in the 18-49 age range season by season. its more likely for adult audiences to identify with adults (or characters who are narratively treated like adults, like steve and nancy) than with any of the kids. esp when the kid in question, despite being written as the focal point of the show, has less relevant plotlines, less interaction with other characters, and an actor who just doesn't deliver on charm the way his fellow younger costars do

[toskarin]

what warband mods would you rec? I only ever played vanilla warband years ago and that was probably on fairly low AI settings, but I'm definitely intrigued by getting the full feudal clusterfuck experience as well as indulging in some nostalgia.

there's a few qualifications to these, because I usually like them for different reasons and I have something wrong with me, but...

< ! PREEMPTIVE WARNING ! > you should be running modules in Warband Script Extender even if they don't say they need it! people have historically been really bad about clarifying when it's expected

Bannerpage - vanilla for people who want More of it, and then more after that. it reminds me of a spiritual successor to Floris Modpack. an enormous expansion that's also a bit of a tongue in cheek what-if for "Bannerlord, except as continued development of Warband" with increasing complexity. this one will probably spoil you a bit on other modules just because of how many little enhancements it pulls on the native systems lol

Prophesy of Pendor - the premier feudal fantasy rpg experience. this one is brutally difficult and throws some battles at you with genuinely bewildering enemy force sizes. I'd feel fairly confident in calling this the most difficult of the major total conversion modules that maintain core M&B gameplay

Touhou Gensokyo Warfare~the Castiron Flame - this is straight up glorious kusoge and I love it dearly. it often breaks so severely due to its own design decisions that it creates a unique high-skill gameplay expectation that exists in literally no other mods, but also it can't really be called "core" M&B gameplay anymore. this module actually consists of three chinese mods (Touhou Tinder, Touhou Origin, and Touhou Beat), one of which is derived from a fork that was extended by /jp/, another which was just translated by /jp/ (a shoddy translation but not distinctly a 4chan translation, if that's a concern), all of which were merged into one mod and managed by a passionate and cool chinese mod team. none of this comes to a consistent artistic vision. every single character looks like kigurumi cosplay and they all look like they're from different manufacturers. this is my favourite module. I could play it for years.

Perisno - a strange bird of a module that I don't see mentioned much anymore. a shame, honestly, because it's quite fun if you like higher fantasy settings. a bit overconfident with its own setting lore at times, but that really just makes it more authentic as a high fantasy setting, doesn't it? anyway they funnelled the mod development efforts away to a standalone game in the setting because of that, and I wish them well, but you know how it goes with that sort of thing

Gekokujo Daimyo Edition - a modification of an older warband module that was originally a touhou hijack that was originally a mod for the non-Warband game made by japanese players annoyed that nobody in the western playerbase was making mods with a japanese setting. it's buggy, it's incomplete, it will explode at you randomly, but it's still pretty neat. there's really no other mod out there that gives you such a thorough "I HATE THE TANEGASHIMA I HATE THE TANEGASHIMA" experience. Sengoku Era, a successor mod, will probably replace it on recommendation lists when it eventually releases.

Warsword Conquest - this is the Warhammer Fantasy mod. it has all the problems you'd expect from that. that being said, the sheer level of detail in this mod makes it more than worth dropping in to check it out. some of the environments are gorgeous enough to make Warband feel like an entirely different game, and with a surprising variety of firearms, the average campaign ends up being a pretty wild ride

Brytenwalda - I'm not recommending Brytenwalda as an experience, because it's actually not that good a very interesting moment in M&B modding history. Brytenwalda is the birthplace of a lot of mod tropes that became standard in mods going forward, namely most culture-related systems and the modern standard for module graphics. it also introduced tripping and represents the moment people started making really annoying attempts at jury-rigging balance into the game before Warband Script Extender came around and actually allowed them to modify the lower systems of the game. still kinda neat if you like historical settings, and definitely foundational enough to warrant a look

Last Days of the Third Age - infamously hard-headed in a way that only a mod for a feudal warfare simulator rpg made by Tolkien nerds who insist on book>movie aesthetics could pull off, this isn't really core M&B gameplay and is very rigid, but it's another case of something being so detailed and passionate that it's a fun experience anyway.

Solid and Shade - this is actually the best hardcore survival horror experience made for Warband, which is a bit like saying that Harvester is the best FMV game ever made about waking up in a town named Harvest. the Harvester comparison is more than surface level. the writing often feels like Harvester. this is one of the only modules (hell, one of the only games even!) I've ever seen that successfully pulls off the concept of corrupting players with the promise of immortality. it's a horror mystery where every single character creation option affects your longterm gameplay... but to provide a fair warning, reading the developer's commentary on this mod will sour you on it. the developer is an edgelord who just kinda kitchen-sinked horror elements in a way that reminds me a lot of Revolution of Terror (the old Well of Souls mod). the compelling esoterica and atmosphere seem to have been achieved largely on accident

[creampuffqueen]

I wanna hear more avatar headcanons! From the novels or just the avatars themselves! I loved reading your kavik and yangchen hcs 🥹🫶🏻

ahhh thank you!! i'm glad you like my random thoughts lol 🫶

here are a few more random thoughts i've been having that i just haven't quite made into posts yet (mostly yangvik because i love them but some other avatars as well):

yangchen is actually a terrible cook 💀 she's basically always had people taking care of her so she never really needed to learn! she can make a good cup of tea and that's about it. she regularly burns rice. she's also just generally bad at remembering to feed herself. kavik, who is a decent cook, is largely the only reason she remembers to eat

as for the other known avatars: kyoshi is by FAR the best cook. she's genuinely good at it. aang is a very close second. roku, kuruk, and wan are all average at it. korra has been banned from every kitchen in republic city

yangchen and kavik both strike me as people who really enjoy physical touch. they both really enjoy cuddling with each other, even before their relationship turns more romantic. acts of service is also a major love language for them

i also feel very strongly that they never used typical labels for their relationship. they usually referred to each other as their 'partner', occasionally 'lover', but most often just continued to use 'companion'. these vague labels frustrate scholars to no end, and today in the atla universe nobody can agree on the nature of their relationship. which is exactly how they wanted it lol, they were extremely private about their relationship

yangchen does have the iconic crooked smile that all the avatars share, but it only comes out when she's well and truly happy about something

her laugh is the same way. she has a very convincing fake laugh, as her real laugh is kind of 'ugly'. it's some kind of snorting, wheezing sound that kind of sounds like she's dying but is also absolutely adorable. yangchen hates it. kavik adores it, and will make an absolute fool of himself trying to hear it

yangchen is a massive, merciless flirt and takes great pleasure in seeing just how red she can make kavik's face turn. but on the rare occasion kavik gets enough confidence to flirt back, she turns into a total mess

pik and pak's favorite place to sleep is right on top of kavik's face

because of how hard she works herself, yangchen often falls asleep in the strangest places. if she's actually tired, she can fall asleep literally anywhere. it's simultaneously a superpower and a massive annoyance

a somewhat sad/bittersweet headcanon i have is that yangchen dies first. i've seen a lot of people saying that she lives to 150 but i can't find a source for that anywhere so i'm choosing to ignore it. yangchen has already watched too many loved ones die, she doesn't need to see kavik die before her as well. they both live very long lives, but kavik outlives her by a few years. after yangchen's death, he returns home to the northern water tribe

at one point, only a few months before his death, he is out for a walk when a little toddler wanders up to him all alone. he chats with him for a few minutes until the boy's parents find them and thank him for watching over their son. 'kuruk, what have we told you about wandering off like that?' the mother asks. the toddler waves goodbye, and kavik walks home feeling oddly contented. he never meets the boy again, and he dies well before kuruk is revealed as the avatar, but he feels a sense of peace from the interaction, knowing deep down that yangchen has made it safely back into the material world

when kavik dies, he wills his bone necklace to kuruk's family. they don't understand why until kuruk's sixteenth birthday. (SERIOUSLY THEIR NECKLACES LOOK ALMOST IDENTICAL ITS WILD)

that's all the thoughts i can scrape up off the top of my head, but i'm just generally thinking about avatar characters All The Time lmao. thank you for asking!!!

[ardbar]

You! You get it!! They keep the Pros mad and the Noobs, not because they hate the Noobs too, but because they need the Pros to Fear What Could Be. I wonder how often a Pro falls and their former neighbors look at them with terror, thinking, "that could have been me." But it comes out as angry words towards their once friend. Their friend knows that it is fear they speak with, not anger, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

As for the Masters, I wonder if they even Know beyond Theory. Like yeah, they know it isn't great on the Noob level. But they don't ever go down that far. They don't know that they're only given raw meat to eat and they have to risk their lives to do so, they don't know that the education system is Literally Nonexistent, they don't know that a Noob's life span is not counted in decades like theirs, or years like the Pros, or even in months, but in weeks. In days. They don't know that the average life span for them is only a few weeks.

This is not willful ignorance, not fully. They have never been down that far. They have never even considered the possibility that something could be that wrong, because surely the Champion wouldn't ever allow anything to get that bad, right? After all, he says that the Noobs are fine and it's dangerous to go down that far anyways. They don't have the safety blanket of the Pro Level if they miss a jump.

Just like with Evbo, how can they possible ask for an answer to a question they do not know exists?

But Evbo is the champion now and even when he was only a master, he shone light on what was happening down there. He claims that when he left he was considered not just an elder, but *ancient*. They ask how old he is, thinking he must be nearing 100 or 200, but he simply replies, "I am five years old."

OOO it would have been really cool to see people actually rank down and see how others view that. I wonder if there would be any sympathy, or if they would blame the fallen person. If they had been good enough they would never have fallen, they should have just done better.

Also your point about the master's I think is very interesting. It is personally not something I have given too much thought to until now so please forgive me if my points aren't as thought out as they could be. I really like how you describe the master's just being ignorant of the life in the noob level, they only have passing knowledge of it. But I also think this would be true of their knowledge of the pro level as well. While we don't know exactly how long the champion before Evbo had taken over for we can assume it's a decent amount of time because the system seems pretty set in stone with very few people fighting against it. What this means is a majority of the people on the master level were probably placed there by Seawatt and his whole memory lab thing. It was also mentioned that Master's almost never go down to the pro level. I think they would create an ignorance of not only the noob level but of the entire system. I think this would also really parallel how out of touch rich people but specifically how people born into the with wealthy are.

I think this adds an extra layer of it because it would make it so the masters are just as much a victim of this system even if it does benefit them. Many of them may look down on the pros, and noobs but they still do believe that through hard work it is possible for new members to join their ranks. Their actions aren't malicious they have just never been given a reason to not trust the system. Its the same reason old people say oh if you set aside x amount of money you can buy a house easily. That is there lived experience they can't comprehend this changing. At best masters have a basic understanding of the pro level and since everything is relatively normal there they have no reason to wonder what the noob level is like.

Also I love the whole, "I'm 5" line that would be super intertesing to see someone do something with that.

[awweshuuks]

My interpretation of Paul Holden 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Because @crow2222 asked. And by the way I'm so sorry its so bad I lowkey kind of rushed it 🙁

Warning, homos 💔💔🙅🙅❌❌⛔⛔🚨🚨🚨🚨🍅🍅🚫🚫❌❌⛔⛔⛔🤷🤷🙅🙅. And small reference to child abuse. But like very small 😔 🙏

And I'm actually so tired I almost passed out writing this so ignore all the major mistakaes

Okay so first off, I do NOT see Paul as the one who called off the whole thing with him and darry, nor the only reason they had issues. Which they didn't really have but that's a whole other thing.

I like to see him as someone who mirrors darry sort of on the opposite side. Darry is seen as Soc like even tho he is known as a greaser. Shorter hair then ur average greaser, no hair gel, actually follows most laws (he needs too but yk) and doing very well in school and academics in general. But still having many greaser qualities and being a greaser in general.

Meanwhile Paul, a Soc, has longer hair, breaks a few more laws (many socs jump greasers, drink and smoke underage ,and that's it. But Paul would steal, vandalize, etc) but wont jump greasers. Rumbles sure but jumping them in general is a no go for him. Considering his best friend is one.

He also does just well enough in school to pass classes and stay on the football team. Not trying all that much. If it weren't for his parents forcing and pressuring him and his (I hc him to have one) little sister encourageing him he would have probably failed everything then get kicked out. His father is also just an asshole and his mom was so emotionally neglectful it was crazy

I see him as some of the socs safe person for if anything happens similar to darry. Hiding from whatever? Paul. Want a party? Paul. Just wanna hang out that isn't out or at your house? Paul.

His house is basically the hangout spot bc his parents are barely home and when they are they don't pay to much attention bc they act good with them around. Even tho it was rare socs would go there anyway.

Now to Paul and darry. Darry was pauls safe person. If his dad beat him or threatened to kick him out, Darry was the person he would go too. And they were close for years. But It was darry who called off the whatever they had. Paul was the one who was fine with what they had. He was fine keeping it a secret. And he's probably given up a thing or too just for Darry. And darry did care, but he just couldn't do it anymore. In fact, he had kissed many girls when they were dating, claiming its just to hide what they had but realistically he just wanted to try to “get rid of his homosexuality” as its against god. (he literally went to church in the south in the 60s..) but Paul ignored it. Ofc it bothered him but Paul didn't really see it as bad to do bc maybe darry really was trying to hide it?

Darry didn't hate him but when he broke up with Paul. Paul began to dislike him a lot more. Ofc still not jumping greasers but just hated darry. He felt like darry never really cared and everything he did was useless. Ofc darry said they could still be friends like they had been for years but Paul just wanted to leave.

This is why Paul looked visibly angry at darry during the rumble and why darry had no reaction during the rumble. Paul was pissed and he had every right to be. And darry knew this. They still fought, fist to face, body, whatever. But secretly, even though Paul wanted to refuse, the second Darry would make any motive to wanna get back together, Paul would have dropped anything in a heartbeat.

[theheirofthesharingan]

How do you honestly feel about konoha/the shinobi system in general?

Shinobi world is a fantastic fictional world with an ancient history that gives depth to its existence. But it's not perfect, because of all the practices that go on in it. The world is dark and mysterious and has a history that is as old as time.

But it is also a broken system of child soldiers, where children killing children or even adults taking advantage of children isn't seen as a bad thing. And that's why Naruto, the main character, exists, who acknowledges how messed up the system is and how hate and love are tied together and he is too naive to understand a lot of things.

We also see the other, darker side of the Shinobi world and Konoha, both, through Sasuke and Itachi. While Naruto's world is all sunshine and green and he learns through his experiences, Itachi has already seen the worst, has done the worst, and faced their consequences. Sasuke, much like him, although in ignorance, has experienced similar things and the way he responds to injustice against himself is a reflection of how violence is embedded in the system of its people, no matter how kind and gentle they otherwise are.

Many people criticise Sasuke for wanting revenge against Konoha, but "revenge" is also the reaction of Shikamaru and Naruto and they're expected to train and kill who killed their masters.

In their world, people not only are more violent to each other than an average person, but also have a higher pain tolerance. And since the ninja world is a place everyone is trying to survive, it's not a place to find out your heroes.

The good people here will have some kind of corruption in them and the bad people will have some kind of goodness to them. And at one point there are no lines because they're all so miserable and broken that one side can do anything whether it's morally right or not.

I feel majority of the fandom uses the real world as a kind of reference to analyse and assess the Shinobi world, which is unlikely to give you a clear image, because what the author is telling you is that the world he created has no heroes. If you're going to use your own personal moral lense to view the Shinobi world and judge characters based on what you approve or disapprove, you're not going to get a clear picture of it. IMO, this is the reason there are such hypocritical takes on the characters like Sasuke and Itachi and other morally ambiguous characters.

Konoha is the same. Since it's the village we spend most time with and the narrative never acknowledgew its system is wrong, it's easier to fall in love with it. Konoha isn't worse or better than the others, in my opinion. It's just that everyone in it sounds like a hypocrite. Kakashi, for example, tells Zabuza they're better people for not making kids kill each other, but then we're introduced to the Chunin exams. We have the venerated second Hokage who experimented with the dead bodies. Hyuuga clan practices slavery. And so on.

Konoha is more powerful than the other nations because they have the right strategy and the strongest tailed beast. And they manage to hide the genocide of its people, blame the victims, driving one away to death and blaming the other for wanting justice (while advocating the same ideals for others, as I mentioned above).

It's awful to see that Koshimoto leaves the darkness of his world unattended. It could be because he needs Boruto to run, so the issues Naruto promised Sasuke would get resolved are never actually resolved. He's probably uninterested. It should probably frustrate me more, but I think when I finished Naruto, I had expected this more or less. And it's been a long time since Manga ended (even it's been long enough for anime), so frustration isn't going to change anything.

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

why do u think people r so ashamed of loving danron??

I mean, honestly, there's a lot of reasons, which makes it kind of complicated to tackle. I can list out a few from the top of my head, based on personal experience Feeling the shame and observation of other fans

•The problematic content in the games themselves. People feel embarrassed to like the other parts of the game because of the amount of bigoted moments (and sometimes whole characters) within these games. They don't want people to think they like those parts too, so they couch their appreciation in embarrassment.

•The reputation of the fanbase. On tumblr at least, things have normalized significantly and I find this fandom a very chill place to be. But the danganronpa fandom at its peak (2012-2016ish) was RABID. Like any major tumblr fandom, there was tons of drama, discourse, and toxic fan behaviour, but DR was genuinely on another level. This is especially true because of the young average age of members of the fandom at the time. Even though thats not generally true anymore on tumblr, this fandom still has that reputation to non-fans, and so people don't want to be associated with it.

•Cringe culture. At its peak, the DR fandom on tumblr was made mostly of teens, especially younger teens. I think the earnest way young teens participate in fandom led to it being seen as cringe, just like many other fandoms. Also, even outside of its problematic content, DR's plot can be weird and, frankly, even completely ridiculous. Similar to hom/estuck, I think this esotericness adds to people's kneejerk reaction to it when hearing about it second hand.

•The tendency of tumblr to turn on popular media when the magic is gone. This is something I've noticed with a lot of tumblr's number 1 big fandoms. Once a lot of people's interest in it starts wearing off, for some reason people will pivot to hating it. It happened with T/MA a little, it happened with Und/ertale, it happened with S/U, and so many other fandoms that tumblr went crazy over initially. Maybe its because these fandoms became so vocal they started to annoy those not participating, so they started to meme and make fun of it and its fans. Then, when people start to leave as their interests change, they join in on the teasing to displace the shame they might've felt from being teased. Eventually, people usually turn around and come to appreciate the piece of media casually again. That didn't really happen with DR... probably because of the other three reasons.

DR gained this reputation of being "irredeemable, problematic, cringe media" with a toxic fanbase and never shook it off. Before I played DR, I knew nothing about it except that tumblr hated it, for some reason. I had learned literally nothing else through fandom osmosis! And I think that general feeling, that Good People who like Unproblematic Things* (*requirement of being a good person) would never touch DR with a 10 foot pole outside of to make fun of it, sticks with people.

So when people finally check it out, usually through irony-poisoned letsplays of it, and end up actually liking it, they don't know what to do with themselves. How do you balance genuinely liking this piece of media with the site-wide perception youve grown so used to? With the idea that everyone will hate you if they know you like it, that you are a bad person for even posting about it? And thats how you get everyone's first DR post having a caption essentially communicating "im so sorry for posting about dr- I know its terrible and associating myself with this game makes me look disgusting- people who've followed me up until now, please dont hate me!"

[watsername]

honestly i love mcc i love competitive minecraft but the game just isn’t fun for anyone anymore. lots of players have dropped out are talking of dropping out or go on stream saying things like ‘this is the first mcc i’ve actually enjoyed in a while’ . like. thats not the sign that an event is successful . and i don’t really think that’s scott’s or the developers faults but it’s more so the culture around mcc that has changed drastically in the past year or so.

when i first started watching it, mcc was about cc’s learning to work together and competing in a fun event where there was no real stakes except the winners got a fun little token. mccs rise in popularity has snowballed a little to develop this culture of expectancy . as with all fanbases, some fans become a little too engrossed in the content and become a little overbearing about it creating this toxic culture of criticism under the guise of analysis . this isn’t to say that all mcc analysts are toxic or that the concept of vod reviewing and analysing a players performance is bad- but the attitude that a lot of the more vocal fans have been taking towards this has been .mm . not the best .

forcing players into rigid boxes based on their performance records and dogpiling them if they undeperform or over glorifying a players for performing above their average etc, it creates a competitive culture amongst fans trying to prove who suppprts the better player . very much ‘my dad is stronger than your dad’ kind of vibe.

this whole attitude also makes it less enjoyable for the players who may now feel a lot of pressure to conform to the expectations of their fans- of course everyone tries their best every event but if someone’s having a bad performance they’re more likely to experience genuine discomfort and self confidence issues continuing in the event because they know what people are expecting of them . even for lower ranking players it can affect self confidence because nobody expects anything of them .

its marketed deeply throughout the fandom as a for fun event with people who are naturally competitive being shunned for their competitive attitude but logging online and seeing people hating some people winning, hating on other teams for knocking their team out of top 2, refusing to congratulate the winners, even complaining over and over again that some aspects of the event like pvp and parkour are unfair to their streamer because their streamer ain’t good at them to the point where pvp and parkour games had their coin distribution rules changed . that doesn’t scream for fun behaviour .

that’s another thing . random changes to games that don’t necessarily need to be changed . the buildmart changes were good it make it easier to navigate and allowed people to move between sections faster and featured some new builds, the sky battle coin distribution prioritising the amount of time you survive over kills actually undermines the point of the game as a pvp heavy event . instead of fighting people you can get away with playing more defensively . we already have survival games for survivability . same goes for remixes i don’t think they typically go down well . some might but majority don’t tend to have a good reception .

even within the players themselves, there’s because quite a cliquey kind of dynamic where if the team with the most support doesn’t win, the winners are not congratulated. take last night for example . ponk and gumi scored their first wins, ponk being the first black person and as far as i can remember gumi being the second woc and first asian woman to win an mcc . let’s not even get into the diversity of mcc right now but only two people came into the voice call which lasted a while after the event to congratulate the team, only sylvee and scott and a few replies on twitter . ‘oh but the captain’ idc . i love him too but he didn’t win and it was a big day for the team that did with 50% of the team getting their first win and they played really well together. looking again at fan behaviour towards creators some players have felt unwelcome by the pressure of the competitive dynamic called bad sports for being upset with their own underperforming and alienated by the community for having multiple wins or because they just don’t want them in the event . that doesn’t scream for fun . and that in itself is really bad sportsmanship .

i think overall what started to kill mcc was it’s pandering really. i’ve fully done research on how scott puts together teams before but i still believe a lot of what goes into a team is how well it will be received. it doesn’t really force creators to get to know each other and work with each other it just takes groups of people who already know each other have relationships with each other and have relationships that are recognisable to the fanbase . this doesn’t allow people to meet and find new creators they might enjoy to watch and it prioritises some teams as the Ones To Watch because of certain dynamics pres t which undermines any smaller creators trying to make their way into the event . the insistence on changing games based on viewer complaints as opposed to suggestions from players themselves on how things can be improved is just odd to me too .

idk man mcc just isn’t what it used to be and a lot of people are becoming way too entitled over what they want to see there

[system-of-a-feather]

there's a solid chance you've talked about this before and I just missed it, so I'm super sorry if thats the case, but if you feel comfortable discussing it: what are your thoughts on the whole tulpamancy cultural-appropriation debate? i feel like the debate is populated by a disproportionate amount of non-buddhists, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as someone who is actually part of the affected group.

have a good one!!

-ray (@rayssyscourse)

Oh I have talked about it A LOT cause its one of the topics I like to think about and examine from different perspectives (and debate within our parts a lot) but I absolutely don't mind being asked about it. Tbh I welcome any like specific questions cause it's a very complex topic imo that I really honestly couldn't do justice in a single post if I wanted to, particularly since my opinions are pretty complicated. I'll link some of the more recent-ish posts we've made on the topic cause it's easier than going into each of them. I often talk about it whenever I have a Thought On The Matter that I feel is worth sharing AND I have the energy to do so.

The short answer is that I honestly think its way too complicated than any straight forward "side" or answer I could simply summarize in anything less than maybe five paragraphs and even then I'd probably do my opinion disservice.

I do take pride in being one of the main runners who started the first relatively recent wave of Tulpacourse like in 2021 or 2022 I think? At that point I hadn't gotten too into Buddhism beyond a cursory ankle dip into it since I found that when I went into it earlier, as much as it was helpful, it fucked with our dissociation a lot so a lot of my views then were built on a reverence but superficial skin deep understanding of Buddhism (which is still much deeper than the average person's understanding of it since even on a skin deep level there is a lot of misunderstandings due to the western mysticism of Buddhism) and mainly charged from my experiences as a POC interacting with white people.

Generally, I do stand slightly on the "if I have to pick a side" opinion of "it is cultural appropriation and people should probably not use it" as I feel a lot of people that want to use the term don't acknowledge and want to consider the complications, history or any of the details to it and with the community as it stands, I don't think there is enough genuine and honest respect to the history of the term "tulpa" and the harm its done and the relationship it has to orientalism / cultural appropriation and what not. So generally speaking, if you made me say "which side to I stand with", I'd probably lean on the "yeah its cultural appropriation and shouldn't be continued" but that's really only on the conditional that - for whatever reason - talking about it and discussing the nuances, intersectionality, history, and present issues / aspects of the term is off the table.

Ideally, I'd honestly really just like to be able to have a not-heated no-judgement no-name-calling no-winning/loosing discussion with people in the tulpamancy community about a number of things and compared and contrast experiences, practices, values, etc of the tulpamancy community against that of Buddhists and ALSO talk about the complicated and problematic history it has and what can be done to better respect the history.

I don't (anymore) think that people HAVE to not use the "tulpa" term and I really don't think its productive to try to make someone not use a term just by saying "stop its bad" or "stop its racist". I think its much more productive to hold a discussion and talk about it and develop a much more developed understanding of the term and it's history and its relation to complex topics.

I do think there is a large racism issue in the tulpamancy community though, but I don't think its fair to dunk an entire practice, concept, and community based on the bad apples, even if the bad apples may be the majority and/or the loudest bunch.

I've been meaning to continue a conversation on the topic with @discourse-by-candlelight but the two of us are awfully cursed with the "we actually find this topic really interesting and important and so we want to be able to dedicate our full attention and mental space to genuinely considering the information provided and responding with my thoughts and thus RARELY have that ideal perfect mental place to reply"

But honestly, I think there's a lot more benfit to talking about the many intersecting and complex topics within tulpacourse than just simply regurgitating and parroting the not-wrong but also not-right "tulpamancy is cultural appropriation". I also think its especially not helpful when people parrot that in a context that is not it's original intent or use it to push an agenda that is not inline with the original values and intent in statement

(that being, the core issue with that statement is that tulpamancy is bad because its built upon orientalism, eastern mysticism, and just white people taking advantage of eastern cultures; therefore people who actively state other things that ALSO harm AAPI / eastern cultures should not be pretending to be an ally to AAPI; for more on this read the third linked post below)

But genuinely its something I have a lot of thoughts on and if you got any specific questions feel free to ask, cause honestly I like talking about this stuff and navigating the complexities of it and I'd really like to see a more nuanced and conversational discussion on the topic of tulpacourse.

Here's a bit of a directory of some recent-ish posts on it from us:

Nuanced Perspectives and Aspects to Consider in the Tulpamancy-Is-Appropriation Debate and My Thoughts

Anon Asking About the Term Thoughtforms

People who say "tulpamancy is cultural appropriation" but then state that plurality is inherently clinical / disordered / only due to trauma are honestly acting more annoyingly white / western than people who do engage and use the term tulpa / tulpamancy (also known as me being a clown and making "one" post about tulpamancy, spoiler it was way more than one post)

General Reflections on Buddhism, Plurality, Final Fusion / Functional Multiplicity

[nasubeenwithcat]

Discotrain doodle fic

Movie directors are always under stress, and DJ Grooves and the Conductor reluctantly decided to join forces to make a better movie. What began as a obligatory thirty-second hug gradually took them in the wrong direction.

Words: about 3,900 CW: suggestiveness/mention of self-harming/discotrain/pierce/alchole/smoking/kind of codependence

A depraved and controlling discotrain fiction (DJ Grooves x The Conductor). I actually intended for this to be a longer story, but it's a doodle. So it will be over soon.

0.

Late afternoon. It was the hottest day on record. This meant that the majority of the penguins were not at work. They seemed to be having a hard time thinking straight in such hot weather, as they seemed to be struggling with the average temperature in this area. Of course, the desert-born owls are not like that at all, so they were all happy to laugh at their rival team's bad luck for the rest of the morning. The Conductor was the most excited. This was partly due to the fact that DJ Grooves didn't take a break in such hot weather. The number of owls and penguins in the lobby is usually even, but today it was many against one. Not wanting to miss out on this excellent opportunity, the Conductor made a lot of fun of his rival's unfavorable behavior and his results. He even said things that he shouldn't have said as a bird, just to humiliate the star. After enjoying the overwhelming advantage to the fullest, he started work in a good mood.

But the sun was cruelly equal.

As noon approached, the temperature rose so high that even the owls, as expected, were annoyed. The only place where they could breathe properly was inside the Owl Express and in the studio. Seeing the color drain from the owls' eyes and their movements slowing down, the Conductor finally made the decision to stop working two hours after the sun had risen directly overhead. In that light, perhaps it was the moon penguins who were really the lucky ones. They could have spent the entire day in the cool without work. In the end, most of the owls cursed the sun that was supposed to be their friend, in a car with an air conditioner and a ceiling. The reason it was not all of them was because the directors were not allowed to take breaks. The studio was air-conditioned and the curtains could be closed to keep out the sunlight. So the Conductor and the assistant director had to stay in the studio to work. (Actually, there were many other directors, but all of them did not want to work. The Conductor didn't want to scream in this hot air, so they could all take a break on the train.)

The two birds continued to work, alternately staring at the Owl Express which had lost its conductor and was unable to escape the sun, and at the computer screen. The heat had dulled both of their enthusiasm for their work. The yellow owl stubbornly insisted on continuing to work, but only because DJ Grooves was in the studio and he continued to work there. So the infernal hours continued until the Conductor's face turned blue past red. It took about three hours before he muttered a single word, "Break," while holding his head.

The problem, however, occurred at night when the sun had set.

1. There is a desert near Dead Bird Studio. It's hot enough even in the non-summer months, so ice cream sells well. Selling well means more variety and better taste. Ice cream is a bit of a specialty here. Penguins aside, all the owls loved it. The Conductor, who had been feeling ill earlier, recovered completely after finishing two ice creams. From the assistant director's seat, it was clearly visible that he was in a happy mood as he opened the third one. His fingernails, beautifully colored with magnetic gel, ripped open the wrapper to reveal a well-chilled scoop of ice cream. A large beak was opened before the ice cream melted. Then, a sparkle stubbed the assistant director's eyes.

A large tongue licking ice cream has a small pierce.

To begin with, the Conductor was somewhat different. He would never take off his uniform coat, whether he was alone in the desert in the middle of summer or working on a record-breaking hot day like today. It is no longer necessary to mention that he never loosens his tie. As one can see, that coat is thick and heavy in its own way. The poor ventilation is enough to determine that it is a fine winter coat. The assistant director thought he is a sensitive to cold, but the fact that even he is sweating and eating ice cream with relish suggests otherwise. Is there a reason he can't show his skin, or is he obliged to wear it? Either way, he was quite extreme in that he continued to neglect a problem that could all be solved by a thin summer coat.

Well, anyway, the Conductor is always dressed formally. This gives him a strong impression of 'neat and clean' even though he is a messed-up tyrant.

He started wearing a piercing shortly before this day. The swelling has gone down and he is finally able to remove his first piercing. Instead, he now has a small but strangely present gold jewelry with a star motif sparkling on his tongue. The crew was surprised when the Conductor, who appeared to be an honor student in only appearance, suddenly opened his piercing. The fact that it was not in the orthodox ear, but in the tongue, upset them terribly. Even the moon penguins snuck into the owl control area to see his change. The piercing stood out against the carefully ironed uniform and the straightened, permed, beautiful feathers. Anyone would be bothered by a caterpillar on a bright red apple. In fact, it bothered the assistant director so much that he kept his eyes on him long after the studio had grown accustomed to his change and lost interest.

With his beak closed, he looks the same as usual, but when he opens it, his eerie star appears. The discomfort is even more noticeable when he sticks out his tongue to lick ice cream. Whenever the assistant director saw it, he became somewhat restless. He felt as if he was looking at something he was not supposed to see. It was as if someone forbade him to think so, even though it was just a piercing.

"What's the matter?" The Conductor, who had been eating his ice cream in silence, suddenly started to speak. "If you have something to tell me, say it clearly. If you don't, do your job." "Sorry, I-…" the assistant director said impatiently, looking at his ice cream in his hand. He didn't realize that he had been staring at him for a long time until the man himself pointed it out. "I just… I thought you didn't like that sort of thing." "Ice cream? I always have some on the train." "…I see."

Owl vaguely responded with a phase. By “like that sort of thing,” he meant piercing, not ice cream, but he decided it was probably best not to ask too much, and ended the conversation.

It was a beautiful piercing, so beautiful that it was burned into his brain.

The assistant director stared blankly at the computer screen. He didn't have much motivation to work. He was thinking of going to Grooves' office and asking him to please go home. By the way, his piercing was quite beautiful. He really didn't like that. He didn't like all the changes that happened to the Conductor. It wasn't just this loathsome piercing that had changed him. His shaggy feathers suddenly became straight and glossy, his worn and tired coat became new, he started drinking his coffee straight, (the Conductor always put a lot of sugar in the coffee, saying that it nourishes the brain,) and so on. As far as the assistant director knows, the first is a fingernail. The owl spies the boss typing listlessly with an ice cream in his hand. The too-strong sunlight glistened off his blue fingernails.

Granted, there were a few times when a sudden change occurred in him like this, but there were also times when the change was slow and steady. The assistant director threw his gaze out the window. For example, see, had the Conductor ever left a train alone like this? It was like the boss he had been working with was slowly becoming something he wasn't. He doesn't scold anyone for lack of explanation these days, and he is starting to show a tiny bit of compassion for his crew. It's a good change, no doubt. But he couldn't help but be lonely. It seemed as if the boss he admired, who was supposed to be so easy to get, had suddenly gone very far away.

Once upon a time, his team was not this calm.

The Conductor was always furious that his aesthetics were not communicated well to his crew. The crew respected their boss, but also despised him. The assistant director well remembered the newbie, who had made mistake after mistake and was constantly being scolded by the Conductor, chuckling and sneering at him in the smoking room, "what a poor grandpa." After all, Grooves' team was probably made up of respect, love, and other beautiful things, whereas the Conductor's team was surely made up of resentment and envy toward him, and the powerful fact that he has award trophies＿＿＿＿ In the other words, He is an winner. In a capitalist society, results are everything. This means that the moment DJ Grooves win the award trophy, the Conductor's team collapse. Of course the Conductor could have known that. He had charisma, but not leadership. He absolutely could not let penguins beat him as a movie director. That is why he went out of his way to make fun of Grooves in the lobby where the whole team gathered. That way he would make sure his team is still alive. In the assistant director's opinion, it should be called a show anymore. But he understood the pressure well. Even just a normal walk on the Express or in the studio, he can hear the complaints about him. Owls have good ears, but they are often careless. He's seen it many times when the Conductor hears them from time to time, and his expression hardens. He stands there, fingertips trembling with anger, yet biting his beak. He wants his crew to take his movie seriously, and he is frustrated that he is standing in the way of that. His expression of depression is usually obscured by the fact that his gaze is downcast. And on such occasions, it was not unusual for him to blithely tell people he was going somewhere to buy coffee, and then suddenly go away. After a while, he would indeed return to the office with a cup of coffee, but his fingernails would somehow be in tatters. It was an open secret in the studio that the Conductor would chew his own nails to relieve stress. The character acted by the Conductor in his movies often wore gloves. The gloves were not meant to show the audience information about the character, but to hide it. The Conductor was always annoyed by the fact that he was damaging his movies for his own selfish reasons. Yet, instinct compelled him to do so, and he could never stop biting his nails. He is always one step away from being crushed by anxiety.

But that was not the case one day. The assistant director pictured the costume room far away in his mind. The Conductor did not wear gloves in his newest movie. His fingernails were healing. Gradually they grew longer and when they were about average size, polish was applied. When he was not shooting a movie, his nails always glowed blue. It was the same blue magnetic gel all the time.

"……Papers." "What?" "I gonna go give him the papers."

Suddenly, the Conductor stood up from his desk with a reluctant look on his face. "We're done for today. Go home."

Seeing him cross his arms in frustration next to the copier, it seemed like he couldn't just 'go give him the papers.' His fingernails clung tightly to his coat, making creases. He looked scared and lost. The owl approached the copier and him and checked the papers he was going to take with him. It was an unimportant piece of paperwork, not worth the trouble of printing on paper. Since DJ Grooves was the only other bird in the studio right now besides the two of them, it was easy to guess where he was headed now.

"Can't you just text him?" The assistant director furrowed his brow and looked into the conductor's face, who looked impatient. "Wouldn't he rather be annoyed?" "You don't get it, do you?" The Conductor snatched the documents from the copier, crumpled them up and stuffed them in his bag. "……That's what I'm doing this. Right? Yes, I am just trying to fill his boring desk with useless papers. So much so that he can't even recognize what's important papers and what's garbage…”

The muttering that grew smaller and smaller was as if he had to believe that, even though he didn't. The assistant director became concerned when he saw the look on his face, as if he were strongly telling himself. His shallow breathing became faster and faster.

"Why am I printing this nonsense? I'm just……," he breathed deeply, making a drawn-out sound. "I- I am just……!" "Boss?”

The assistant director touched the Conductor's shoulder, trying to bring him back to reality. The yellow owl yelled briefly and slapped his hand.

"Get out of here, quick!"

2. The sky was already starting to turn red and the temperature had finally settled down. Eventually, he pressed his time card at almost the same time as usual, and then, intrigued by a small curiosity, he took the trouble to ride the elevator once more, back to the room where he had been working a moment ago. As he should have expected, the Conductor was not there. He must have gone to his rival's office to give him some papers and never came back. Not only his voice, but even his footsteps could not be heard. The owl slung his bag back over his shoulder and decided to leave quickly before he was spotted. Halfway to the exit, he wondered if he should say hello to his boss before leaving. He knew where he was, and if he believed his boss, he was just there to give him some papers. Would it be so unforgivable to say 'see you tomorrow'?

The owl retraced its steps a bit back the way it had come and strode toward the penguin control area. His own footsteps were the only sound in the wide hallway with its bright blue walls and star-lined corridors. It was no longer filled with cold air, as if the temperature had never been changed since it was set at noon. He could not find a room with a light on. Relying on a long-ago memory, the owl fearfully walked through the unfamiliar darkness. No lights were visible for a long time.

"Let me see it."

Suddenly, without warning, the voice jumped into his right ear. The assistant director turned around in surprise and noticed a figure in the room he had just passed. He was simultaneously relieved that he had finally found it and wondered what it was doing there without any lights on. He decided to take advantage of the darkness to surreptitiously check the room through the window. There were two figures. It was obvious who was there without such a muddled expression. On a large writing desk was papers that the Conductor had just copied. Checking the plate, it was indeed Grooves' office. The upholstered chair let out a giggle and a pained sound. The big chair was taken by the owner of this office, and the Conductor was perched on the edge of the writing desk.

"Good. It matches you, darling." His sweet baritone voice seemed to sting his eardrums. "What shall we do next? I could open your ears or dye your feathers. I bet you'll look pretty." "Mmm……whatever……?"

They were chatting amicably with their nearly empty wine glasses. They were much closer and more relaxed than when he had seen them when the sun was shining. They had already had a fair amount to drink. Several empty blue curacao bottles were lying on the floor. The Conductor was so drunk that even in the dark he looked as if he was about to fall off the desk. Grooves seemed to think the same thing, and with a grin, he pulled him onto his lap. The yellow owl's loose head rested on his rival's broad shoulders, and his feet, relaxed to the tips of his toes, floated lazily in the air. They held each other tightly, listening to their hearts beat. Then began a slow, long kiss. The exhalations, unsure of which belonged to which, became faster and more ragged. The sounds of tongues sucking and twirling, breathing becoming more turbulent and wild, and the taste grinding against the inside of their beaks all filled the room in a raw way. He was too drunk to close his beak, and his honey-like saliva trickled down his chin and stained his glued white collar. Without time to wipe it off, the Conductor was completely at the mercy of his rival. The only resistance he could offer was a feeble scratch on his back. Taking advantage of this, Grooves responded to his kiss by unbuttoning the gold buttons of the Conductor's coat, one by one. His too-light touch indicated that this was not the first time the two of them had done so. One or two came off, easily revealing his suspenders, which are rarely exposed to public view. His happy hooting sounded muffled, caged in his beak. It was the sweetest voice the assistant director had ever heard. So sweet, in fact, that it even sounded bitter. At that rate, the clasps on his suspenders came undone and the knots on his tie were broken. The buttons on his shirt were right there. No amount of darkness could disguise the red marks dotted among the yellow feathers. There is no more fitting measure of the intensity of the emotions directed at him. Grooves finished unbuttoning all the buttons and slowly traced a circle around his completely exposed belly.

The assistant director wasn't sure if he should look away from his boss, who looked 180 degrees different from his usual self. And eventually, before he could make a decision, their long kiss ended. Several thin honey bridges connected their beaks. The Conductor rubbed cheeks with Grooves, stroking his cotton candy-like afro awkwardly. Reason had melted away into mush and was now relentlessly pushing him in the wrong direction. It was a far cry from the morning. It was obvious just by looking at him that his head must not be spinning well due to the alcohol. In the midst of all this, he was still pampering the bird in front of him, giving it everything he had. Who would have thought that the yellow owl, perched on his rival, beak sloppily open, shirt and coat all unbuttoned and pulled over his shoulders, was the same person as that talented and cruel movie director? The current Conductor was, obviously, insane.

"Cute." The gentle voice forced an outsider's brain frozen in shock back to reality. "I was right, you do look good flirting with me like this, instead of being my rival or the boss of a bunch of ungrateful owls." "So……?" The Conductor, for some reason, was still smiling dreamily and innocently. "Am I doing well?" "Very well, compared to where you used to be." He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. "I have corrected your dirty way of speaking. Your taste in music and the way you sing are much more agreeable now."

He chuckled softly and took a cigarette in his beak. The yellow owl lazily raised itself up and lit the cigarette with a lighter he was holding. The venom that had been spewed out surrounded the two birds and drifted around them fluently. It was a strange, yet fantastic picture. It showed their power relationship with grotesque clarity. This office was the only one so disconnected from the everyday that it didn't feel like one of the components of Dead Bird Studio. The Conductor gave one small hoot. Then his blue fingernails tapped several times on the square buckle of the belt. With a poor hand, he opened the buckle and loosened the red belt. He flexed his body and flaunted his tongue in a desire-fueled manner. A small, planted star glittered in the moonlight that streamed in through the window. No words were needed to understand who owned him. Grooves' eyes narrowed in satisfaction, as if he liked the unusual sight of his rival, who had done nothing but glare and rant at him during the morning.

"How would you like to be made?"

The Conductor smiled quietly at the whisper. Then he traced the zipper hungrily.

"I need to be roughed up, laddie……."

His voice, full of sweetness, dissolved into smoke, and he took the zipper into his mouth. And then, he slowly lowered it down＿＿＿＿

The assistant director found himself fleeing there. He ran hurriedly until he could no longer see the stars through the walls. The wind mocking in his ears didn't bother him at all. All his senses were occupied by the shocking images he had just seen. Sweet indulgence, excessive trust. Most shocking of all was that the yellow owl and the Conductor were the same person. Whatever the movie's success, he never made a sound like that, never laughed so vulnerably. He didn't even loosen his tie! ＿＿＿＿What in the world was he afraid of by the copier!? The owl took a few nervous breaths, blinked a few times, and then quietly counted five seconds. He didn't like the fact that all of those too-big-to-fail emotions were directed at that one damned moon penguin. It was a terrible betrayal. Could it be that the Conductor was playing a trick on him, or that he was playing a trick on the Conductor? He tried to calm himself down, but nothing worked. The countless foreshadowing set up in everyday life tells the owl that their relationship is a fact. But what still prevents the owl from acknowledging the fact is, after all, the way the Conductor looked that afternoon. He was frightened and annoyed about something.　If that wasn't fear of his rival, what was it? Or was it an act that he mocked Grooves in front of all those people? He walked out into the desert on a cold night. He then approached the Owl Express, which was spilling light through the windows and making its presence felt.

He couldn't get that acted out smile out of his head. The Conductor is not good at drinking, and when he gets drunk, he suddenly becomes friendly like that, but even so, the way he was smiling was eerie. Self-destructive is a word that fits his smile well. It was beautiful and fragile. Above all, it was empty.

After stealing a glance toward the studio, the owl boarded the train. He still didn't know what face to put on to talk to him, when the Conductor came back to the team.

I didn't think about anything. I just wrote what I wanted to write…

[rroechan]

The Thorny Spider

spidersona-ish-more-like-oc

'Flying Devil'? 'Spider from Hell'? That's just your terrifying friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man on the prowl!

lots of yapping below

Super late for the spiderverse trend but i've been reading an unfortunate amount of peter parker fics and i couldn't help but pull this guy up from memory

Spider-Thorn? Horned Spider? Spider-Fiend?

His name is Piers Lang, born and raised to kick your ass. With both parents dead at the ripe age of 8, kiddo found himself going from his home in M'sia to living with his aunt and uncle all the way in USA 🫡🦅🇺🇸

Abilities

his abilities are about the same as OG spiderman, like spider-proportional strength, speed, stickiness etc etc. There's only one thing that's vastly different from the others is his enhanced senses

So like, enhanced hearing, scent, that sort of thing. If it was already bad for Peter in his day to dau life, imagine what this guy's goin' through

due to a mix of nature and nuture, his senses, particularly his sorta 'area awareness' is higher than the average spidey

He grew up with terrible vision and in a rough neighbourhood so his senses has always been fairly attuned to his surroundings. A bit like a 6th sense or a natural instinct one would naturally gain over time. The bite basically strengthened all these features except his eyesight (most spider species have poor eyesight. only some have it good. i thought that was funny)

that scene in spider-man: far from home where spidey relies entirely on his spider sense to fight mysterio's drones? Yeah THAT but 10 fold

even when totally blinded, he can use this specific ability to make like a fully 3d mental map of the area around him. Basically seeing everything around him 360 with his eyes closed. So he can fully fight no issue in the dark (basically Daredevil's radar sense)

sometimes he purposely fights with eyes closed cause it helps prevent him from being overwhelmed (even pre-bite he had issues with sensory overloads)

For the hearing and smelling, i tried to see if OG spiderman had any upper limit at all to the distance of his abilities but there's nothing solid :// My guy in particular, I like to think there's no true limit to his sense, like he could track a whole city of people if he wanted but he'd have to be meditating and in a super focused state to do so + overuse of his senses makes his head hurt a lot

Out of the suit, he has a habit of wearing earplugs or earphones constantly playing some genre of white noise. And some strong smelling balm on his upper lip (idk whats the actual english name of it)

Aside from that, he has a few spidery traits (got the idea from a fic, no I do not remember what its name is). The spider he was bitten by had all sorts of different spider dna weaved into it.

He sometimes chirps or purrs when in a good mood or just, when he's comfortable enough to not hide his spidery traits. Has stare offs with actual spiders for dominance. Absurdly flexibles and can get into wild contortionist-like poses and calls them comfortable. Likes smoothies. Gets sleepy when cold. Salvatory glands produce a very mild venom. Yada yada

About the suit

He didn't design it, his man-in-the-chair did. Though he did do all the wiring, engineering etc and was the one who suggested to base the suit design off an orb weaver spider

The red of his suit glows with exposure to UV. Adding on the fact that he mainly patrols at night makes it worse for baddies because imagine you're in the middle of crime-ing and from out the darkness, Satan himself comes to be your reckoning.

The suit being majority black adds the challenge of making sure his poses are readable so that's Fun.

of his 8 'eyes' only 2 of them actually function which are the main ones in the upper front. the others are for show.

The horns are where all the business is at. They all have a solid exterior so he fully can use em to shoulder check, headbutt, etc baddies but their main purpose is to act as antennas. Both for his comms so he can go super long distances without worry as well as help hone and focus his senses to his surrounding area

See, usually his senses is like a motion detector but across a super big area so without earplugs and the smelling balm, his senses are extremely scattered and kinda blurred.

He figured out fairly quick that with antennas connected to his main 'sensory points' on his body help focus his senses to his immediate area instead of being fragmented (does this make sense? im fully bullshitting at this point)

Not illustrated but under the suit he has this network of connected patches (like those they put on you during surgery) to track his stats and junk alongside the whole spidey sense honing thing

Moving on, the spider on the back of his head is actually a later addition cause ppl keep thinking he's supposed to be a demon (him not realising ppl aren't entomology nerds like him)

The spikes on his knuckles are purely for combat and is entirely inspired by his favourite sonic character: Knuckles.

The baggy pants, body suit and hood are all one piece. Only the mask and the utility belt are removable

The whole front of the mask is a solid piece under the fabric. So he can't fold the mask halfway up to his nose and kiss someone upside-down but he can remove one of the lower eye panel thing to eat or drink if he needs to.

the utility belt mostly has his burner phone, zipties, few first aid necessities and cereal bars

I wanted to add a brief telling of his backstory here as well as his ascociation to the spiderverse gang but this post is long enough orz

Ill definitely post abt this guy again though, that's for sure. I'm more a manga fan but I have some plans on mimicking american comics style for some 'fake' comic pages for this guy and his main villain

[higheverweave]

First off to chat vent process Datv Dms are open

Heavy spoilers from start to endgame Mostly Sollavellan

This is my Cons List will make a Pro one later

What the fuck? What in the actual fuck? Did they just Dangonrompa 3?Dragon age 4?

This feels so Rushed and forced like you wanted to do Mass Effect but were forced by the teacher to complete the dragon age homework you missed the other day….

So Lavellan is Walmart Mythal so clear she is just the side chick it isn’t even funny not even one regret was about her he totally used her and she ran off into the sunset with him?….

Things they didn’t talk about before she ran away with him

•Did you ever actually love Lavellan?

•Hey … so You KILLED Varric what in the actual fuck?

•Then you used his memory as a hallucination?

•You only loved Mythal and yet you even betrayed her?

•Was Lavellan just a pawn to you?

•Is Lavellan just a replacement to Mythal for you?

Bot addressing any of this is so lazy…. And it feels super rushed like if you wanted to just make a Mass Effect you should have said actually we have no motivation to work on Dragon age anymore so we will shift focus to Mass Effect.

Second the excuse you wanted to focus on new characters and hero’s would be fine if there was any of the choices to actually get to know them and let them get to know you…like there is nothing about Rooks past at all

They cut out most of the things that made Dragon age

Dragon age

•No open world

•No previous choice imports

•Isabella, Dorian, and Lavellan are the only Cameos at all?

•No asking your own questions between missions only structured cutscenes

•Companion quests are mandatory part of the main quests but also Make no sense being A part of the main quest

•Very clear they fired the majority of their good writers…

•Not even slight references to past hero’s beyond Lavellan

The main plot misses its major potential options

•Instead of reuniting the average Dalish with their gods the only interaction we get between the two are the veil-jumpers?

•There is No What do you mean Elgar’nan is bad he came and spoke to us about restoring the empire and honoring ourselves again…. He gave us magic

•The potential in having the Dalish really go through a questioning of their entire belief system just didn’t happen at all.

•There is no hesitant explanations or pleas to the Dalish people to understand how dangerous the situation is there is no defending the gods all the talk of risen gods comes from factions that are not Dalish and it makes no sense given established lore why they would ally with the gods.

•There is no Lavellan being targeted by Elgarnan and Ghilhanain both for being Solas’s Mythal replacement Ex but also they make no effort to try to sway her to their side to use her against him….

•There is no meaningful discussion about Sollavellan at all she just runs away with him in the good ending?

•Got rid of most of the personalization that made it special

•What is going on with Armor tinting?

•How much can we trust anything Rook saw? Especially with hey Varric was dead the whole time?

•Like is Solas/Varric a reliable narrator Really?!

•WHAT?!

[headspace-hotel]

Personally as someone who experiences much more daily suffering than the average person I am deeply uncomfortable with the mere idea of "eliminating suffering" because it treats "positive" experiences like love and joy and happiness as more meaningful. In my experience this is done pretty much exclusively to the detriment of people like me.

Because by acting like suffering inherently decreases the value of someone's life you are implying that lives like mine aren't worth living. And maybe it's just me but I take offense to that! Sure my life isn't perfect and there are a lot of things I wish I didnt have to deal with but this life is mine and I'll be damned if I let other people tell me it's not good enough!

Humans weren't designed to exclusively experience pleasant things. Suffering is part of being alive! And I would not trade that for anything!

Ultimately its a facet of toxic positivity, and it makes me very very nervous. Because the people who are suffering the most always seem to be the ones thrown to the wayside for fancy little hypothetical "innovations" like this. Getting rid of suffering is quite likely impossible but that doesn't mean the people backing the idea won't just put on some horse blinders and pretend they don't see the people who would prove it didn't work.

I was about 12 years old the first time somebody told me I was too depressed to be around and it was catastrophic for my mental health. I just don't think that applying that on a worldwide scale is exactly revolutionary ya know?

The ultimate manifestation of this idea is in anti-natalism (people who think it's actively bad and wrong to have children) and people who believe in this idea are often actively pro-eugenics and just...anti-human.

"eliminate suffering" inevitably ends up at calling for extinction of all life, or at least extinction of human life, and there are people out there who think we should go extinct!...and I think we need to be firmer about calling this extremist and harmful, instead of treating it as a philosophical position to be considered seriously

like, even if voluntary human extinction just involved humans choosing not to reproduce, it's still going to fuck you up to go around looking at other humans and believing that it's bad that they're alive. yes, "existence is bad" I guess is one of the basic possible options to come to when asking questions about life and meaning, and I see how people start feeling like there is a "pro-natalist agenda" or some shit because it's something we don't really talk about.

but...believing that a universal genocide would be a good thing isn't that different from believing a genocide of one specific group would be a good thing.

And "no one should reproduce" is not really any better than "everyone should reproduce," because both violate the basic principle that other people reproducing is none of your damn business.

I am generally really uncomfortable with how so many environmentalism and climate change mitigation proposals focus on human population growth as a main cause of climate change.

There's no real evidential basis for the numbers that get cited as the ideal population for Earth, like supposedly 2-4 billion is the max the Earth can support if everyone lives a "comfortable middle class lifestyle"—What The Fuck Does That Mean? Where does it come from? Is it something we actually need or want? The vast majority of humans on Earth aren't living a "middle class lifestyle."

I want to see breakdowns of complex simulations explaining how much biomass the Earth can actually support, instead of arbitrary bullshit like that.

But from everything I've read, producing enough food for the world population is not even remotely a problem. Capitalism is the problem. Huge companies controlling the food supply and keeping the countries that produce food in poverty is the problem. Technological solutions are important but they will not fix the current problems, just like Eli Whitney's cotton gin didn't eliminate slavery.

Everyone assumes that the system is working as efficiently as it possibly can to meet the material needs of people, and that is so terribly wrong.

Anyway much of that was off topic but yeah, I'm not a fan of this line of thought and where it leads