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genericpuff · 1 year ago

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Why is the art so unappealing in lore Olympus now Persephone looks like a highlighter and maybe it’s just me but the proportions like the fingers in arms are soul over the place I don’t think they used to be this bad. Am I just looking at it with nostalgia or am I crazy ?

Honestly, nostalgia does play a huge part in it, even to this day there are times I look back on old S1 panels and go-

Actually here's a great example that literally just happened yesterday in the ULO Discord that nearly had me on the floor LOL This is from Episode 70:

Like I didn't even believe that that was real until I was told what episode it was from and I was just. Astounded and flabbergasted. The over-shading of the blanket that just makes it look like a really bad edit. Insane.

And yeah, there are a lot of old panels that hit different now that the rose-colored glasses have been removed, crushed, and thrown into the trash compactor.

I think that's why it makes it all the more amusing when people come into my inbox and ask me "wait, why did you like LO to begin with?? It's always been ugly as shit, I think you're just romanticizing it" because like... there's something to be said about art and subjectivity, even if something is ugly to one person doesn't mean it isn't beautiful to someone else. It's why I try not to be too mean towards the fans of this comic for still enjoying it, because while I definitely have strong opinions about how "LO has gotten worse" and what kind of following Rachel has cultivated (cough cough), there are also just as equally valid arguments that LO has never begin good to begin with that I can't necessarily disagree with now that I'm looking back on it with a more critical eye.

That said, there's tons of media that I enjoy that is objectively awful. Like y'all, you don't need to take my opinions about a dumb pink x blue fantasy romance comic seriously, I like Starfox Adventures-

Like yeah it's a badly made rushed piece of shit that was developed right on the ass end of Rare's glory days and was really an original IP (Dinosaur Planet) that got Frankenstein'd into a Starfox game so it could "sell better" for Nintendo, but I don't give a fuck, I love Starfox Adventures and some day I wanna be in the top 10 speedrunner leaderboards for it, which I know doesn't mean much because no one is speedrunning Starfox, but I do and no one can take that away from me dammit-

Anyways. Lore Olympus has, in many regards, always had "bad art". But "bad art" can and should still be enjoyed by those who find joy in it.

And in LO's case, the world it existed in when it launched was a lot smaller than it is now - more specifically, the world of Webtoons. We can look back and see how 'bad' LO looks and reads now because there are genuinely way better comics surrounding it. It was unique and refreshing and experimental back then... now it's just "that stupid blue and pink comic for horny teenagers".

In most cases I would consider that "cringing in hindsight" feeling a good thing because normally it means something has grown and that it seeming "bad" in hindsight would mean that it's outgrown itself and moved onto bigger things. But LO has the more unique problem of "its current stuff is shit and it's making us want the old stuff more, even if the old stuff wasn't good either". In that regard, LO is closer to being like Harry Potter. Remember when The Cursed Child came out at the height of Rowling being exposed for being a TERF and even people who liked Harry Potter didn't like The Cursed Child because it was just objectively worse overall (with or without Rowling's bullshit attached)? It made a lot of people go back and re-read / rewatch Harry Potter with a more objective lens and go "wait a minute guys, I think we only adored these books so much because we were 12 when we read them". Often times it's the good memories we have surrounding certain things that make us have the opinion about them that we do.

Of course, LO is definitely not as politically weaponized as Harry Potter is, so that's where that comparison ends. But my point is that LO is definitely in a situation where it's been riding off the same privileges it had back in 2018 - having an 'experimental' art style while also utilizing tropes and characters that were VERY popular at the time (remember that 2017-18 was when Tumblr was at its height of H x P "Hades was a chill accountant guy who wore socks and sandals and didn't cheat on his wife like Zeus did" fantasizing) - and thinks that those same tricks and tropes will still work today.

Because of this, the art in LO really, really hasn't aged well, even the stuff that we look back on fondly. But I think it's the panels that we specifically think of when remembering "old LO" - the ones that stuck in our memories the most - that are the ones that make us miss or just not care about the panels that don't look good (the panels that make people question why we ever liked it to begin with).

We liked it because of how it made us feel to look at panels like these-

Those genuinely wonderful panels that we think back on the most don't exist separately from the bad panels, they exist in spite of them. Even if we can look back on panels like these and pick out problems in the lineart or the proportions or the color travelling outside of the lines, that can't and shouldn't change how those panels made us feel at some point or another. And that's why when people ask me "why were you even into LO in the first place" I don't have any one answer, because I can't fully explain how something made me feel to justify why it's good to someone who can see from the outside - without rose-colored glasses - that it evidently isn't. It's very much a "you had to be there" type of thing.

Unfortunately, nowadays even the 'best' LO panels in S3 still don't come close to what the S1 panels accomplished - because for many of us, the rose-colored glasses are gone, we can't appreciate the good among the bad because we know now how bad it truly is and so the good just feels like wasted attempts at trying to recreate something it can no longer be. It "came back wrong" so to speak.

LO came back just regular. But our journey to resurrecting it changed us to such a degree that even its closest intimacies are now foreign to us. Sorry dude.

This is still probably one of my favorite panels out of the entirety of S3 for being as close to "old LO" as I've seen since S2, and even it feels like a mistake, an accident, how could a panel like this exist in S3 when so much of it is a dumpster fire? It's like a flower growing in the ruins of an apocalyptic wasteland.

But wasn't that always the case? Isn't that 'always' what LO has been, since the very beginning? A poorly cobbled together mess of writing and panels that, every now and then, manages to leave an impression that makes you feel something? Did we ever truly know LO? Or have we just been relying entirely on an idea of it that we've built up in our heads that when it does do exactly what it's evidently always done (even if not made apparent until looking back on it in hindsight) we think it "came back wrong"?

#anyways sorry that was a way deeper response than it oughta have been #welcome to the AMA roulette game of “ask puff a simple question which they may or may not respond to with an introspective essay"#lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #antiloreolympus #ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything

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butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway · 16 days ago

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Finally home after a long day of bullshit and laying in bed with wifey watching cody's showdy, and thinking about the line from Kenji that goes

"They gave Ken a couple of days to get his whole life packed in two bags. Just two bags, he couldn't even pack his clothes. And some folks didn't even have a suitcase to pack anything in, so two trash bags is all they gave them. And when the kids asked mom, "Where are we going?" Nobody even knew what to say to them."

The song itself is the story of the Japanese people who were interned in Manzanar, and the Jews who were interned in Germany. But it's also very explicitly about ANYONE who is made to suffer the pain and terror of being forced from your home with little to no hope of return or repair. "The names have been changed, but the story's true, my family was locked up back in '42."

This is a story about Palestine. This is a story about the California Wildfires. This is a story about Hurricane Helene. This is a story about COVID.

The county where I grew up was small, rural, and utterly without infrastructure. It's mostly dairy land, and I used to stick my head out the window and moo at the cattle when my mother srove her shitty little sedan down the highway to visit my aunt. In the 15 years since I left it has swelled by 2000 new souls, largely due to the reputation it earned over the years for having accissble and quality educational options for young children, a rarity in the state.

I started making this post an hour ago, and was looking for a way to check on my home town during the fires. I figured it would likely be safe given its location, but I wanted to know for sure. For an hour I searched for news, for an accessible map documenting the wildfires. For anything that would tell me whether or not the place I grew up was still intact.

I still don't know. I'm sure the information exists. But I am usually able to at least find SOMETHING in the span of an hour.

Information everywhere, but nothing that allows you to stop feeling afraid. Fear, pervasive and bone-chilling, is everywhere and safety feels scarcer with every passing day.

But is it?

This is a story about intergenerational trauma.

My grandmother ran home from her babysitting job one day, at 15 years old, sobbing and distrought, and told her mother what her charge's father had done. Her mother got her cleaned up and told her to never tell anyone what had happened ever again, and quietly informed the other mother that my grandmother would not be back.

When my mother was 15, she fell off a swing set while goofing off with her sisters. My grandfather told her she deserved the pain for her stupidity and not to cry to him about it since she could have been responsible. My grandmother told her that at least now they had an excuse to fix that ugly nose of hers as she iced her daughter's face, and brought her to the hospital right away.

When I was 15 years old, my mother had moved me across the country to a place where I knew nobody, where the sun never shone, where there was more snowy swamp than serene desert, and I screamed at her that she was taking me from the one place I'd ever been happy and she told me that I'd just have to get over it. I flipped her off, and she slapped me across the face hard enough to make the room spin around me.

When a parent loves their child through the lens of their own fear, they often raise an adult who has endured fear of their own from which to view the world. This is, perhaps, as inevitable as entropy and life itself. And the detail perhaps still influences how that plays out.

I cannot watch the news footage about the California Wildfires because I can smell the ash and feel my lungs tighten and sear around non-existent superheated smoke every time I do. No one ever forgets what that's like. But finding clear information about the realistic risk of my childhood home without 24hr news is difficult enough that as a professional information finder, I was unable succeed. My grandmother was, briefly, a social worker. She got into the job by accident, as is the way of things in my family, and rapidly became a small town folk hero to the community who could count on her to advocate for them. This did not change how she came home to her daughters. It did not change the fear she inflicted on the world around her as an outcome of her own terror. My mother managed the same level of (in)famous community notoriety because of her militant advocacy for same sex civil rights and prison abolition. It took me years to come to grips with what it could mean that I didn't believe queer parents should be treated as inherently abusive to their children while I **did** believe that my mother was abusive and wished someone would save me.

This is a story about breaking cycles.

Today, a man with power over me saw me vulnerable and afraid, and went out of his way to treat me with contempt and use his power to block me from receiving essential care. My wife got me through this experience and left me in the hands of the nursing staff while she helped a man get home from the hospital in the blizzard. When she was gone, the man returned twice more to take advantage of her absence to humiliate me and work to convince others to deny me medical care. When my wife returned, I had been shuffled out of sight, and while tests had been run, I had just been told I would be released with no treatment or symptom management. I updated my wife on the events of her absence, and watched her go very still as I whispered my way through my hurt feelings. When the nurse returned with my discharge paperwork, my wife stopped her and very gently asked "Is it common for doctors in this hospital to belittle patients out loud in the middle of the floor?" The nurse froze. My wife assured her she had been kind, but that it concerned her to hear of this upon return. The nurse immediately relaxed, assured us she would say something, and brought me a wheelchair to help me to the car. This was the most medical intervention offered to me the whole process.

My wife speaks often about how her understanding of conflict resolution began when a delegation of teenage Palestinian children arrived at her school to meet with their same-age peers. She says that sat and talked together for hours the way 15 year olds do, and then finally one of the visiting teens got up the courage to ask "why do your people cheer for our deaths?" My wife has her own focus within this story, but when she tells it I always hear the forlorn meowing of a cat whose home had burned during fire season the month before, finally back after fleeing the inferno to find their people, but there was no house to find the people in.

Fear is everywhere. That will always be true. So fill the world with community and love. Let the world heal over the generations of human life. Be there for each other in ways big and small. And remember that everywhere, we are all human beings doing our best to survive a world that has always been bigger than us. Whether we want to admit it or not.

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bestworstcase · 2 years ago

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also, while i am asterisking My Theory on what the ever after is until/unless it’s confirmed, at this point i am 100% dead certain that IF the brothers had a hand in creating this place, it was only dark. most of the theorizing i’ve seen on the subject arrives at the opposite conclusion largely on the basis of the ever after being strictly regimented and ‘orderly’ but… honestly i think people are reading way too much into the emphasis on purpose and in particular reading that emphasis through the lens of what such a cultural fixation would suggest about a society in a more reality-adjacent setting.

that was a natural assumption based on what we knew before the volume started airing, but i don’t think it holds up at all! here’s what we know so far about how the ever after works:

1. it’s a hodgepodge of drastically different worlds put together like a “mixed up puzzle” with no rhyme or reason; the only discernible natural law is that every acre caters to the specific needs of its residents

2. there are absolutely zero obstacles impeding travel between different acres. the physical borders are unguarded and spanned by large, sturdy bridges which connect the main thoroughfares of different acres; there are no laws or social taboos against leaving one’s home acre and travel back and forth between adjacent ones is common enough for denizens to build reputations spanning multiple different acres (e.g. the peddler), and no one has taken the slightest issue with little traveling across entire acres. and not only is there no prohibition against travel, it seems to be actively encouraged by the fact that there is an entire acre dedicated to journeys of self-discovery; the ever after enshrines personal growth and change as an inevitable and invaluable part of life.

3. we have now met half a dozen notable denizens: the peddler, grown visibly older than his description in the storybook and fully content as he is; the jabberwalker, far more timid than his intimidating appearance would suggest, who seemingly spends his time roaming other acres in search of a way to “fix” his own; little, a child who quite happily goes around exploring and making new friends without any sense of anxiety or pressure about the fact that they haven’t found their purpose yet; the red prince, once a king, whose sense of purpose was so badly shaken that he fell backwards in time and became a child again to rediscover himself; the herbalist, who is serenely certain of both his purpose and the inevitability one day he will become something else, and who just bounces when he realizes he’s become stuck in a workaholic rut…

…and the cat, whose purpose is curiosity and who appears to spend their time rambling around alternately pestering interesting people and intervening when other denizens become TOO fixated on their ‘purpose’. the red prince’s purpose is to ‘win his game at any cost,’ but when his desperation to win causes him to spiral into a blind fury, the cat steps in to soothe him (“you must be so distraught”) and remind him to consider the consequences of acting rashly out of anger (“if you behead them, you might not ever get them back”). likewise, when the herbalist acts out his purpose by rote and hurts ruby by pushing her into a trial she isn’t ready for, the cat comes to her rescue and entreats the herbalist to remember himself (“you’re supposed to be helping others find their way, but you’ve lost your own”). contrary to the emerging theories that the cat is some sort of overseer or taskmaster who enforces the roles other denizens must play, the cat actively questions the nature and meaning of those roles and has twice now resolved the conflict of an episode by encouraging the notional antagonist to think and act OUTSIDE of their stated roles, to reconsider their choices from a more complex and nuanced perspective.

4. the cat trashes the brothers, light especially. “who thought that was a helpful way to reincarnate? the same people who put a city in the sky? […] those brothers! talk about a god complex!”—the god of light interpreted salem kneeling before him with tears in her eyes to ask “please bring him back” as demanding and selfish (literally “you demand of me”), cursed her for eternity and has been nursing a grudge for millions of years because she prayed to his brother after he turned her away, co-signed the annihilation of every human on the face of the planet to punish her for rebelling against him, and is still holding salem’s defiance as a blade over the whole world’s neck because her refusal to grovel obediently at his feet infuriated him so much. the cat is powerful and knowledgeable and seems to be very fond of—or at least very intrigued by—humans, and when they hear the story of remnant’s gods they scoff at light’s ineptitude and arrogance. you think THE CAT is a being appointed by the god of light to enforce order?!?

5. more generally, the ever after is a dozen or so mini-worlds floating on top of a formless white void; a dark and stormy acre runs up against a sunny tropical beach which is stacked against an acre of rolling red fields and green skies which is next to an old-growth forest stuffed to the gills with bioluminescent fungi. the physical transitions between different acres are so stark that they literally split the sky in half, stormy night to golden noon. intense despair causes tiny spontaneous thunderstorms. one acre is populated by a throng of oversized mice. the next one over is populated chiefly by animate wooden figurines and toys. attempting to walk towards the tree traps you in an infinite loop of maybe ten or fifteen paces but if you walk in the same general direction without focusing on the tree you’re able to move freely. it has been implied that the tree itself is ambulatory or at least metaphorically capable of movement. the jabberwalker glitches when he moves. the cat can phase in and out of existence at will and sometimes splits in half for no apparent reason other than that they feel like it. the ever after is not a sensible world. it runs on metaphor and emotion and narrative without regard for logic or coherency; it is not orderly. it defies order.

the god of light claims dominion over the powers of creation, but he is not imaginative or innovative in the slightest; every time salem fails to do what he wants her to do, he cracks down harder, piles on more suffering, and expects her to submit, and in the eons since he and his brother abandoned remnant he still has yet to realize the obvious error in his thinking or even just let it go. he is portrayed in ‘the two brothers’ as a rigidly inflexible authoritarian who does not understand the world his brother created and makes no effort to learn (the story credits dark with creation of the moon, deserts, mountains, earthquakes, and volcanoes—which is to say, the god of darkness is responsible for nearly all of the fundamental natural processes required to support life; plate tectonics, tides, weather, biodiversity… and the god of light complains that these things ‘spoil’ the planet); his ideal world is a lush plain of undifferentiated green with grazing animals wandering over it. put plainly i do not think the god of light is even capable of creating a place as complicated and varied as the ever after without his brother’s help, and by “help” what i mean is “dark doing almost all of the actual work” because that is explicitly what happened during the creation of remnant. (and ‘the two brothers’ is pro-light religious propaganda, so if this is the most flattering spin ozma could come up with…)

in contrast—if the ever after is divine in origin, which i really don’t think it is at this point—its haphazard, malleable, mixed-up-puzzle nature feels like something you might plausibly end up with if the god of darkness set out to make a world all by himself, unfettered by his brother’s restraint. dark is also capricious, emotionally-driven, interested in humans (<- explicit in ‘the two brothers’ and supported by his initial reaction to salem in the lost fable), capable of empathy and kindness (<- he does salem a favor because her grief resonated with his loneliness and he wanted to reward her faith in him; likewise his cruelty towards her later is motivated by the sense of betrayal when he’s convinced that she took advantage of his desire for connection), and appears to have weathered at least one rebellion prior to salem’s without throwing any world-destroying tantrums about it (<- rip to the knight who tried to kill god and got run through with his own sword and tossed out to rot on the front porch), so of the pair he seems the likelier by far to tolerate the cat openly mocking them.

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annebrontesrequiem · 1 year ago

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why is voltaire a problematic fave?

Hey anon!

I assume I said this at some point when I was Candide posting. Though I think Voltaire was a hella funny guy, he did also live in 18th century France. And, a lot of his ideals reflect this fact.

(In case a Voltaire lover passes this post, I am not trying to make a Voltaire callout post I promise. I love Candide.)

For example, Voltaire was pretty antisemitic in his rhetoric. Now, whether that means he was an antisemite is a hot button debate among academics, but I tend to agree with Arthur Hertzberg, who in his book The French Enlightenment and the Jews presents a great deal of text by Voltaire which is antisemitic. He also argues that Voltaire's work was used by antisemites during his lifetime and after his death. The impact of his writing on Jews was people using it to justify their antisemitism. If we do not consider Voltaire an antisemite - as some academics do not - we must as least admit he left a legacy of antisemitism.

I should note I have not read the book, rather seen it quoted in secondary articles, and read Hertzberg's own NYTimes article where he speaks again on Voltaire.

Though I respect the idea that 18th century antisemitism and 21st century antisemitism are different because, that's correct, I think when you're describing a Jew as preying after a young woman in your book - as Voltaire does in Candide - before you protagonist stabs him and dumps his body in the trash heap is, not the best thing?

Likewise the question of racism and Voltaire is so fraught that there's an entire Wikipedia section on it. I do not know enough about Voltaire to opine, so I won't. He appears to have opposed slavery at times, but also believed that different races were quite literally different species. That's obviously, not good. Especially when we consider the rise of social darwinism, which drew on this idea of black people - and other people of color - as inferior and completely separated from white people. For more on this I'd read "Racial Capitalism in Voltaire's Enlightenment", it's a pretty good overview. I do not know much about Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh - the author - but the paper is peer reviewed, so I think it's worth a look.

Lastly, Voltaire was probably walking around with some misogyny. I don't read Candide through the lens of gender, but, yeah I could see how doing so might not bring out the best. However, much like the rest of these points, there's a lot of contradictory thought on Voltaire and women. Thankfully he was no Jean Jacques Rousseau - who I would beat with a steel chair actually.

Why is Voltaire then a fav? Because he is really funny. I love Candide, I will admit it. It's very witty and I just love his beef with the philosophy that "we live in the best of all possible worlds" (hello Leibniz).

I think Voltaire is also historically important. And we must acknowledge that. As a potential future historian - and a lover of classic literature - I think we must understand that important cultural works are made by imperfect people. We must acknowledge both their imperfections and their impacts. Safe to say, I'm never saying don't read Voltaire. I rarely say that about authors - who are dead.

This is a pretty good summary of why Voltaire is a problematic fav I think. Hope this helped!

#asks #anon #voltaire #classic literature #bern speaks #antisemitism #racism

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space-blue · 1 year ago

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93, 95,99

Thanks for the ask! From this game

do you hear other people’s writing styles when they talk?

I'm sorry but I don't understand this question. I don't know many other IRL writers and I do not pay attention to such things. I'm also not hooked to interviews so I really don't know. Unless it's about on discord with writer pals? In that case, no. I also talk trash and do not sound remotely like my writing self when I'm just hammering on discord. I have a feeling I may be misunderstanding this question...

do you describe a character’s appearance all right away or in pieces?

I almost never describe character appearance, and when I do, it's in small pieces unless the story calls for something else. I've written short stories in 1st person where you never learn the sex, gender, or appearance of the MC.

In one story that was the journal of an explorer at the edge of the mapped world, the only description was "Etti and a youngster called Meluk braided my hair in a fashion they say will bring me luck."

In others like The Teacher, I pepper the entire story with hints of how alien the MC's body is.

For fanfic, I almost never describe characters unless it's within the lens of another character's eyes. Either they meet for the first time, or they're horny, etc.

was being a writer a dream of yours when you were little? or did it spring up when your older? or is it just a hobby?

Nah. It's a rather long and extremely weird story, but I basically went insane while trapped in a bit of modern slavery in the Australian outback, and started writing a story that was eating me up. 10k word dogshit manuscript that I have heavily transformed since then and am still sort of working on in the background, hoping to be good enough for it one day...

And then moved into another (marginally less abusive) situation in Orange, AUS, where I discovered the forum Fantasy Faction and began to write monthly short stories for. Most of those stories are on this blog actually. Guess I should reblog them sometimes.

I had never dreamt of writing. I studied art and wanted to tell stories that way. I used to want to do comics or animation.

Now, yes I'd like to be a writer. But I barely have the mental bandwith for fanfic, so original projects are creeping along. People who've followed my writing for years might have noticed that my output has crashed... And that'd be because surviving in the UK is draining and time consuming! So will it ever be anything more than a hobby? I hope, but I'm not holding my breath.

#anon ask #writer ask #ask game #thank for the ask!#sorry if I didn't quite get that first question...

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pielove123clan · 7 months ago

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9, 10, 33?

9 and 10 right away, my mom made sure i had earring peircings when I was a baby so ive had simple single ear peircing, both sides, for earings. I don't want any more piercings because they don't appeal much to me. Its itchy and I don't prefer putting on earrings. That being said, I have paper crane earrings and I need to put those on more because those make me happy. My mom is a horder of jewelry to the point I've gotten a little disenchanted with it. She's so insistent with, "When I die, you keep all these. Don't sell them or don't give it away. These are genuine stones." And her fucking room is a fire hazard to the point she can't sleep on the bed. But noooo, if I tell her, im being an ass because she needs all those clothes that are piled onto the floor and I can't really do much. She bought me clothes too when I was little and those also litter our house, I got mad and threw them all in trash bags that litter a whole couch, and there still more. And then, can't even feel good if I were to donate with how many clothing items litter the Earth and its a wide spread issue with the practice of fast fashion and, agh. All a mess. Giant mess.

33. What words make me feel the best around myself?

I don't get this question but hm. Multiple people have called me 'mom' and I don't mind that. A friend called me 'the first boss of social interaction' and I think about that a lot. That made me very happy. I have also been called 'a walking contradiction' and that's been part of my life and existence now.

I like when people find it hard to understand me and straight up tell me that. It makes me happy when people can't read or predict what I'll do but it's a double-edged sword because I don't want to be perceived as a threat by the people I like. It makes me defensive when someone tries to read deep into me and they say stuff like, "see, I know you" because its a thing my parents do and I don't like that because most of the time, their wrong. Or their right but I didn't want them perceiving me, I mask around them for a reason. Its a personal offence but I don't tell people that so I don't expect them to know, so I don't take it personally against them. I am aware that I'm not hard to read at least. It's whatever.

Another one of those contradictions again, because I do want to be understood as much as I want to understand others, but then also that takes work and effort that I can't equally give to everyone 100% all the time. I am also selfish and have my own intentions. I can't feign interest in something I might really not care about. Im paranoid that I don't see my friends past the fun parts and don't contribute anything back to them. Or I don't see them past what I want from them. I adore chatting but I don't quite contribute much but then all of a sudden, one invasive thought and im trauma dumping which is not good, but then how do I have honesty if everything feels interconnected? I don't believe or care for the dillusion thing, I think people should be able to express their anguish comfortably, but also I understand it makes people uncomfortable its supposed to, but theres also overdoing and, here we are with another mess when really, things are conditional and need to be adjusted to adapt with the situation going on, and ill be here on another tangent of things with my faulty lens if I continue more.

There are so many cool people wandering around in this world and I'd like to know what they see, because I can't see in the same ways they do. That's what makes humanity fascinating. I can't think of anything else to type.

Thank you for the ask, Astral!

#asks #ask #tanuki speaks

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guardian-rocket · 2 years ago

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This post I made as a bit of a joke at this comment from Peter since he laughed when Rocket admits he got taken advantage of by a girl he liked. (For clarity’s sake as I know how people’s minds wander I mean she screwed him over to do her a favor and left him to fend for himself treating him like, in his own words ‘like he was trash’) This game version of Rocket he does seem more on the male-attracted side.

Looking at Rocket through my own lens, I have always interpreted him as on the Bi spectrum (and any alternative male/female attracted terms that may go along with it such as demi/pan/ect) I just always thought he had ‘the vibe’ of not being 100% straight.

While MCU Rocket is extremely subtle in context of his orientation in any respect, I interpret him as being highly complex in that respect because he’s a complex character. We also know that he had to be palatable for the widest range of people possible and people tend to clutch their metaphorical pearls at the idea of an anthropomorphic character showing anything other than platonic friendship towards another species (male OR female) unless it’s a cartoon. (I am not going to go down that rabbit hole though.)

Now outing Rocket as actually being legitimately bi? The world on a wider level is not ready for that... but let me grace a few examples of what I’ve picked up on his bi-coding in general.

Relationship with Elder Groot? It has a sorta ‘gay married couple’ vibe to it, not saying that’s how their relationship worked, but there is a vibe I picked up on it. Other than that we can kinda look at how he does really treat his male and female friends with very little distinction.

His attachment to Peter also feels a bit crush-coded at times, I’ve seen enough breakdowns from other users to see plausibility. He even goes around wearing Peter’s scarf in End Game, literally carrying a memento of him everywhere he goes, not to mention he just sticks by the guy despite how frequently Peter insults him. We know he HATES being insulted, so I feel like maybe there’s implications that relationship for him is complicated. While I know this literally can just be a close friendship, it also could be possibly more.

Another thing to note with Peter is how Rocket NEVER is seen addressing Peter’s relationship with Gamora. He did try to get Peter to abandon her on several occasions (and on the flip side he did the same with her about Peter when Peter went to get his Walkman back on the Kynn) and even after Gamora dies, and Peter is all hung up about it, Rocket never once is seen trying to console him or talking about it in anyway. I think we can interpret that in a number of ways, but... maybe he was jealous? Peter’s love for Gamora? Gamora’s love of Peter? Maybe it’s an uncomfortable topic, maybe he just doesn’t know how to talk about it because it strikes to close to home, but it’s something to note, at least.

Three humanoid females that Rocket has unabashedly expressed attraction to in the comics are all at least masculine too. We have She-Hulk, Angela and then Star-Hawk (shown below Rocket is even using male pronouns and while maybe having a bit of a bi-awakening of some sort lol... he says what he’s thinking.) This scene is from the 2008 comic so things weren’t quite as liberal for the LGBT as they are now, so forgive Rocket with his slight homophobic Freudian slip here.

There is also a scene where Rouge is texting Rocket looking for relationship advice, and to be frank, that isn’t the only scene where Rocket is seen dishing out actually decent relationship advice to friends, but it really just feels like one of those troupes of getting relationship advice from a gay friend.

Over all this is all speculation, as I don’t think Marvel COULD out Rocket as being Bi at this time because he’s a popular character it’d make him more controversial than he already is, but I do hope in time we do see it revealed more directly.

Closing this rant out, I just want to clarify I don’t base this solely on what I want to see, it’s just how I see the character. He’s just got mad bisexy energy.

"I totally had you pegged as gay." - how this read in my head.

#(( I been RPing him for so long of course I am gonna think I have a good grip of his character lol ))#Headcanon #(( sorry long post ))#(( and tbh I coulda gone on more but I don't think people care that much about what I think ))

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kingkatsuki · 5 years ago

Text

Retweet Part Two | Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Didn’t think I’d be doing a part two to this at all, but here I am. I hope you guys enjoy it, I know it’s probably not what a lot of you were expecting.

Part One.

Tagging: @redbeanteax, @bratwritings, @secondhand-trash and @ramen-rambles. Thanks for always helping me when I feel like I’ve lost all my motivation and helping me to keep going.

Warnings: 18+.

Word Count: 4293.

You should’ve known better, asked for a more significant amount of retweets.

Your phone was currently blowing up, frozen due to the influx of notifications that started flashing across your screen. Your poor, little iPhone too old to deal with the sudden surge of activity. You hastily logged into your laptop to turn off all your Twitter notifications before your phone gave up for good. You couldn’t believe the amount of notes that your post had. Most of them blindly retweeting the tweet like Ground Zero had asked them to do. You were certain the vast majority would do absolutely anything he asked of them; you were probably one of those stupid fan-girls too. Not that anyone could blame you, Ground Zero was the definition of perfection in your eyes. Even his brash personality couldn’t distract from his better qualities. In fact, his brash personality was probably something that only made you want him more.

You couldn’t believe that he had managed to get you a thousand retweets on your tweet in under five minutes, the number slowly inching towards five thousand now. The comments flooding in ranged from:

Same

Bitch, me too

Why is Ground Zero retweeting her tweet?

What makes her so special?

Is she Ground Zero’s girlfriend?

I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.

You continued reading through the tweets, some making assumptions about you without knowing anything at all. You were tempted to tweet them back and set them straight, but there was no need for unnecessary drama. It was you Ground Zero had decided to message, not them. Although now you wondered whether he was talking to any other women the same way he was just messaging you. It was quarantine after all, and even though he probably still left his house occasionally for work, you had to wonder whether the boredom and monotony were getting to him too.

A direct message flashed against your screen, clicking on the notification to find that it was from Ground Zero.

Well?

Well what? You typed back, you knew exactly what he was going to say next, but since he was acting coy, there was no reason you couldn’t do the same. Your heart was racing at the fact that the Ground Zero was still messaging you, even after the influx of new messages he probably got after retweeting your tweet.

I think we had an agreement, Princess. Your entire body flushed at the thought of the Ground Zero waiting for more pictures of you.

You picked your iPhone back up again, swiping onto the camera as you turned it to face you, smiling at the lens as you snapped a few. Scrolling through to pick out the best one and debating on whether to add a filter, before deciding against it as you sent it to Ground Zero through a private message.

I think 6k retweets deserves a bit more than that, babe.

You glared at the reply; he was so fucking cocky. Moving your phone back to your camera app, you lifted the oversized shirt above your chest, exposing your breasts to the cold air of your bedroom. You reached around to cover your nipples with your forearm, trying to push them together slightly as you held the bottom of your shirt between your lips, taking another picture before sending that to Ground Zero instead.

The response came back almost immediately as you felt your cunt throb at the reaction, suddenly wishing that the world wasn’t going through quarantine and that he was there with you right now.

Fuck, no bra?

Fucking tease.

Do I get a pic too, Ground Zero? Your fingers lingered against the keyboard, wondering whether to press send or not. Whether he would even send you anything in return, it was evident that he could probably message any of his followers that he wanted, and they’d send him anything. There were probably thousands of women who were far more attractive than you on his timeline, why had he chosen you? Trying to ignore the negative thoughts in your mind you pressed send, surprised when he replied almost instantly.

Such a fuckin’ pervert.

Says you. You smiled at his response, holding your phone to your chest as you watched the two blue ticks show to indicate that he’d seen it.

You didn’t receive a reply even though he’d read the message, so you wondered whether he’d now gotten what he wanted and was bored of you, or whether he might actually be taking a picture for you. Your questions answered when you clicked back onto the notification for his direct message and found a photograph. The image was similar to the one he’d sent before, he was still lounging back on his bed, the sheets tousled around him, but this picture was different. The image showed his lips curved into a cocky grin, unable to see the rest of his face as your eyes trailed lower. His thumb was dipped into the hem of his boxer briefs, tugging the material down, so it rested just above the base of his cock. His blond happy trail leading down towards the tuft of pubic hair that was now exposed. Licking your lips, you could make out the prominent outline of his thick cock, still hidden underneath the material of his boxers as you tried to imagine how big he was under it. Pinching your screen to try and get a closer look at his hardness, certain that you could see a darkened stain against the material of his underwear, hinting that he was very much hard and leaking pre-cum.

Oi, you there, Princess?

Look what you’ve fucking done to me.

Like what you see?

The messages made you whimper as you slipped a hand down to your panties to palm your clothed sex. Slowly grinding your hips against your touch as you tried to imagine it was his hands all over you. Wondering whether if the city wasn’t on complete lock down whether he’d already be on his way over, or maybe he’d be inviting you to his place instead.

Yes.

Took you a while to reply, Princess. You touching your pretty little pussy at the sight of me?

You groaned at the words across your screen, not expecting such a crude response so instantly from the Pro-Hero.

Wouldn’t you like to know?

You smiled as you noticed the message was ‘read’ almost immediately, dots appearing at the bottom to show he was already typing a reply.

I would actually. How many retweets it gonna cost me to find out?

Laughing at the response, you typed a reply instantly.

10000.

Fine. What do you want the tweet to say? ‘10K retweets so I can see your sloppy pussy?’

You smiled at the idea, knowing that he was more than likely joking. There was no way his PR team would let him get away with such a risque tweet. Even though the entire stunt today was already pretty lewd anyway. Thinking that he’d probably made thousands quarantine more bearable.

Does your PR team know that you’re using this to pick up women?

No one else. Just you.

Yeah right. You wanted to believe him, but he was still a guy, and that meant that he was probably sending the same request to other women too. You couldn’t let yourself feel special or important because to Ground Zero; you were probably just another woman in a long, long list.

Ground Zero sent another message through, this time, it was a screenshot, and when you looked closer, you noticed. There were multiple messages underneath yours, all from what you assumed to be other Ground Zero fans, but none were open. The only message that showed to be read was yours at the top.

You really think I’ve got time to waste on those extras?

His words made you break out into a wide grin, out of the thousands of people he could’ve picked, he picked you. This confirmed that he wasn’t talking to anyone else; he only wanted to talk to you.

So? Do I need to send the tweet out, or do I get to see?

Send the tweet. You goaded, knowing that no matter how bold Ground Zero was, there was no way he’d send that tweet.

Not even a minute later, you noticed a notification from his Twitter account showing that he’d posted a new tweet.

10,000 likes to have someone sit on my face.

Your fingers moved back to your direct messages, opening the camera app, and switching it to video, angling the phone between your parted legs before you pressed record. Starting to film a video of you teasingly stroking your fingers against your clothed sex, pressing against the wet crotch of your panties before sliding the tips of your digits underneath the fabric, motioning to move them to the side before the ten-second limit timed out. Pressing send as you watched the file upload to your private messages. While you waited for him to watch the video, you went back to check on how many likes his tweet had out of curiosity. When you clicked on his profile, you found his tweet, along with your tweet he had retweeted gone.

Moving back to direct messages, you noticed a lot of the texts you’d sent to each other had vanished, thankful that you’d managed to save the selfies that he’d sent you before they disappeared. Was he having second thoughts on messaging you? Or maybe you’d sent him exactly what he wanted, and he was done with you now.

Another notification that Ground Zero had posted a tweet.

LIVE NOW. GroundZero Official merchandise. Use code: TWITTER20 for 20% off your first order. Thanks for playing along.

The same tweet from earlier. You knew Ground Zero hadn’t sent the first one, so it was likely his PR Team had finally worked out what he was doing and were putting a stop to it. You lay back against your pillows with a sigh; it was exciting while it lasted, but now you were left alone and horny. Intending on just using the pictures he’d sent you to get yourself off, you moved to close Twitter, but you noticed another direct message notification showing at the bottom of your screen. Clicking onto it, the profile ‘1GroundZer0’ had no profile picture and had sent no tweets, the account showing as created on today’s date.

Give me your phone number.

Excuse me? Who the hell was this, and how were they just asking for your phone number. Thinking it was a spam account or a hacker, you went to block them, before you noticed they sent another message.

Are we really doing this again?

A video file came through now, clicking play you noticed that Ground Zero hadn’t moved since the last picture he sent you, still lounging on his bed and still clad in the same tiny boxer briefs. You quickly realised that this had to be Ground Zero, there was no other way they’d have the video.

“Give me your fuckin’ phone number.” You couldn’t resist replaying the video a few times, listening to his gruff voice against the speaker, the sound making you rub your thighs together in anticipation.

Oi. Give me your phone number.

I don’t even know your name, and you want me to give you my phone number?

Bakugou. You reread the message multiple times, before deciding to comply. Quickly typing your number, watching as it turned to ‘read’ almost instantly. The familiar vibration of your phone indicating an incoming call flashed against the screen, and you quickly swiped to accept it, holding it to your ear.

“About fuckin’ time.” Ground Zero’s gruff voice sounded on the other side of the screen.

“What happened to you?” You laughed at the angry tone to his voice.

“Fucking PR guy locked me out of my account. Again.” You could hear the frustration in his voice, and you tried to think back to all the other times Ground Zero had gone on angry rants on Twitter, just for them to be deleted moments later and another merchandise code would flash up in their place. Trying to manage the Ground Zero must have been a PR team’s absolute nightmare.

“Oi, you still there?” Your phone began to make the familiar ringtone to indicate he was trying to switch to a FaceTime call, your face illuminated on the screen, but you couldn’t see him until you accepted.

“Y-you wanna video call?” You spoke out loud, holding the phone back to your ear.

“No shit, dumbass. Answer it.” You took a deep breath before pressing ‘accept’ on your phone, looking at your screen nervously. You were suddenly fully aware of every single imperfection the camera lens pointed out against your skin.

“Fuckin’ finally.” Your eyes took in the sight of Ground Zero on the other side of the phone, his vermilion eyes staring into the camera as he lay back against his bed, “Hey, Princess.”

“Hey,” You replied quietly, it was all fine when you were typing on a screen, but now he could see you, hear you. This was completely different, and you suddenly felt incredibly exposed.

“Not so brave now, are you?” He smirked into the camera, watching your face flush as you looked away from his intense gaze, even through the screen, it felt as though it was piercing into your soul.

“You’re the one that made a new Twitter account just to find me again.” You smiled at the faint blush that appeared on his cheeks as he moved a large palm up to rub his eyes. Your thoughts immediately flew to how large his hands looked and how amazing they would feel against your body.

“Can’t just leave me with a video like that, Princess.” His voice husky as his tongue slipped out to wet his lips, the action making you rub your thighs together in anticipation, “Not when I’ve got this to deal with.”

He switched the camera around, showing you his legs spread against the bed and the thick, prominent bulge in his boxer briefs. His other hand was coming down to palm himself, showing you just how big his cock underneath was. You whimpered at the sight, your hand trailing down your body to rest against your mound, your hips grinding against your touch for stimulation as you watched Bakugou touch himself.

“You touching yourself, sweetheart?” Bakugou teased, his eyes focused on your flushed face against the screen as you watched his hand stroking his cock, “Gonna show me those pretty tits again, sweetheart?”

You hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath before you raised the phone to give yourself space to pull your shirt back up over your chest. Your breasts spilling out of the top as Bakugou groaned at the sight, his hand tightening against his crotch. Your fingers teasingly squeezed the mounds, tracing your finger around your darkened areolas as Bakugou’s eyes were fixed on your every move.

“You’re so fuckin’ sexy, you know that?” He groaned, his hand slipping underneath his boxers to teasingly pump his cock, not letting you see the movement through the black fabric.

“Hey, how is that fair?” You moaned, pinching your hardening nipple between your thumb and forefinger as you lifted it from your body, letting it bounce back down when you let go.

“Oh? You want to see me touch my cock?” His voice was smug as he continued to stroke himself underneath his underwear.

“Yes.” You whined, eyes focused on his languorous movement.

“Better show me something first then, Princess.” He goaded, “Show me that pretty little pussy.”

You bit your lip as you put the phone down on the bed beside you for a second, pulling off your panties as you left them hanging around one of your ankles. Moving to grab the phone before placing it between your parted thighs. Your fingers stroking along your labia before spreading your folds, your middle finger running along your slit.

“Fuck.” Bakugou grunted at the sight, his movements against his cock pausing as he took in the sight of you, “You’re so fucking perfect.”

Your middle finger found your puffy clit as you began to rub slow circles against it, watching as Bakugou pulled his boxer briefs down his thick thighs, his large cock springing free and curving towards his abdomen as you saw the shine of his pre-cum oozing from the tip. You wished that you could be with him in this moment, running your tongue along his slit to taste him as you sucked his cock.

“Like what you see?” Bakugou grinned as he wrapped his large hand back around his cock, rolling his palm around the tip to gather his pre and slide it down his length. He leaned forward slightly to spit onto his cock, giving himself some extra lubrication as the sound made you quiver, your finger pressing down harder against your clit, “You’re so fuckin’ naughty.”

“Bakugou.” You whimpered, watching as he began to languidly stroke his cock, trying to match your movements against your clit in time with his own.

“Fuck, I wish you were here right now. Have those pretty lips wrapped around my cock, yeah?” You keened at the thought, making Bakugou grunt on the other side of the screen. The sound sending pleasurable vibrations against your slit.

“Put your fingers inside.” He groaned, watching as you slid two fingers inside your tight cunt, stretching out your inner walls as you began to pump them inside yourself slowly. Low whines leaving your lips as your chest arched off the bed at the sensation. Lewd squelching sounds began to fill the room, showing Bakugou just how wet you’d become for him, just how needy you were.

“You wish I was there touching you instead, hah?” You bit your lip at the suggestion, immediately imagining how his cock would feel stretching you out. He looked far bigger than anyone you’d ever had before, even your trusty dildo was nowhere near as big, “I’d stretch out that sloppy little pussy.”

“Yes.” You hissed, the pads of your fingers grazing along the spongy spot inside you as you focused your attention against it. Your palm pressing down against your clit as you ground yourself against your touch, trying to imagine that it was Bakugou’s hand instead.

“Fucking you so hard that the only name you remember is mine.” He began to pick up the pace against his cock, the sound flooding through the speakers as you began to thrust your fingers inside your cunt with more vigour, trying to keep to the same pace as Bakugou.

“Bakugou, I’m gonna cum-”

“You better fuckin’ not. Not until I tell you that you can.” Bakugou’s voice came out as a harsh snarl, your fingers pausing inside you to try and stop yourself from climaxing, you were so close.

“Good girl.” You mewled at the praise, slowly beginning to roll your hips against your palm again, “How many times have you thought about my cock, hah Princess?”

“Ah- A lot.” You whimpered, feeling your inner walls begin to clench around your fingers, indicating you were nearing your release.

“I bet you have, you dirty fuckin’ slut.” He slapped his thigh, the sound making your body convulse as you nearly flew over the edge, your hand pausing to try and calm your body down, not wanting to cum without permission.

“Please.” You whimpered, trying desperately not to cum.

“What are you thinking about right now, Princess?” Your face flushed at the question, a heat rising inside you as you tried to avoid answering; instead, a low pitched whine left your lips.

“Oi, tell me.” Bakugou snarled, the sound almost making the coil inside you snap in half as you felt your orgasm bubbling inside you.

“You cumming inside me.” You managed to moan out, the phone shaking in your other hand as you began to grind yourself down against your hand as you worked yourself closer to your climax.

“Yeah? Want me to fill that pretty little pussy with my cum.” He began to fist his cock harder, more pre spilling from his tip as he worked it along his length, “Watch it seep out of you?”

“Bakugou.” You couldn’t answer, you were focused entirely on the thought of him completely covering you in his release, claiming you as his own.

“You gonna cum?”

“Yeah.” You nodded your head, just about able to see it from the top of the camera, your pleading eyes looking directly at the screen.

“Do it. Cum for me.” Your mouth parted in a silent moan, throwing your head back as you began to furiously work your cunt, dipping your fingers in and out as you allowed yourself to come undone finally.

“Bakugou.” You cried, feeling the coil inside you about to snap.

“Cum.” You screamed as your orgasm tore through you, your toes curling as your back arched off the bed, almost dropping the cell phone as you rode out your orgasm. Your inner walls convulsing around your digits as you came, crying out his name like a dull mantra.

“Shit. That’s it, good fuckin’ girl.” He grunted on the other side of the phone, his hand jerking his cock as he neared his release. “Gonna imagine filling that pretty little pussy with my cum.”

Your wet fingers moved to stroke lazy circles around your clit, watching him as he neared his release, your cunt continuing to squeeze around nothing.

“Fuck, gonna cum-” He growled, your name spilling from his lips as hot white spurts of cum began to spurt from his cock, covering his hand and abdomen. You mewled at the sight, your tongue coming out to lick your lips as you imagined licking the mixture off his defined muscles. You both lay in silence for a few minutes after, his soft pants mixing with your own as you both came down from your highs. The phone angled close to his face so you could see the dark stubble that covered his chin and cheeks, obviously forgoing shaving during quarantine. The sight made him even more attractive in your opinion, your eyes moving up to met his vermilion ones as they stared through the screen at you.

“That was-” Bakugou started to talk, grabbing his shirt from the side of the bed to wipe up the mixture against his chest.

“Amazing?” You offered, staring into the camera shyly as Bakugou held a small smirk on his face.

“Could say that.” Bakugou let out a tired yawn, stretching his arm above his head.

“Quarantine suddenly got a lot more interesting.” You mused, if someone had told you this morning that you’d be talking to the Ground Zero, you would’ve laughed in their face.

“I have to try and get my fuckin’ twitter account back now.” You laughed at the irritation on his face, plainly apparent that this wasn’t the first time that he’s had to go through this.

“How many times have you had to do that?” You questioned with a wide grin on your face.

“Don’t fuckin’ ask.” He groaned, running his large palm down his face.

“But is this the first time you had to create a new account entirely?”

“Yeah, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to find you again, dumbass.” Bakugou rolled his eyes, “They deleted all your fuckin’ messages too, so you better send me those selfies again.”

“You didn’t save them?” You placed a hand on your heart, “I’m offended.”

“Piss off, dumbass. I’m being serious. You better send them.” He growled, red eyes staring directly into the camera.

“I will.” You laughed, watching as his cheeks flushed a dark pink.

“Your poor little pussy would’ve been heartbroken if I didn’t find you again.”

“I’m sure you could’ve if you tried hard enough, you’re the Ground Zero after all.” Bakugou flipped you off on the other side of the screen, making you laugh as you settled back against your bed, trying to gain the energy to go and clean up. Your legs were still quivering from the orgasm you’d just had.

“Tch, whatever. I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” He asked hopefully, his eyes searching your own for any kind of doubt.

“Yeah, talk to you tomorrow.” You smiled as he said goodnight, shutting the phone off. You stayed staring at the blank screen for a moment, deciding to save his contact into your phone before you got up to get ready for bed. Slowly easing yourself up on shaky legs as you made your way towards your bathroom.

Your phone pinged against the bathroom counter as you were getting ready for bed, showing one new notification for Twitter. Opening the app, you immediately went to the GroundZero Twitter page to find that it seemed Bakugou had more than likely managed to get his Twitter account back, smiling at the post.

Can’t fucking wait for this quarantine shit to be over so I can finally get my dick wet.

Your eyes watching the likes and retweets begin to flood the post. Dropping your own like on the tweet, you clicked it to read some of the comments. Most of them from desperate, horny fan-girls who were offering themselves up to the Ground Zero if he needed anyone, quarantine or not. Smiling, you typed out your own reply.

I’m available.

As you settled down into your bed, laying your head against your plush pillows once you connected your phone to its charger, a notification flashed against your screen, the low buzz sounding through your quiet bedroom. Lifting the phone as one new message from Bakugou appeared.

You better not start thinking that tweet was for anyone else but you, Princess.

#bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou smut #bakugou katsuki smut #katsuki bakugou x reader #bnha x reader #bnha smut #mha x reader #mha smut

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sneezemonster15 · 4 years ago

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I am new to Naruto fandom. Even newer to SNS fandom. I observed the shipping wars, and frankly, participated in it a couple of times. Just to see what it's all about. And I have come to one conclusion.

It's bonkers how far one will go to convince oneself about one's shipping whether it makes sense or not. At the end of the day, it becomes not really about the content itself, but one's comprehension and understanding of content. Which helps me understand why SS, NH, or NS stans exist. Their projection (which it certainly is) almost seems delusional and definitely inconsistent with the content itself.

When I first started watching Naruto, I wasn't aware of Naruto fandom. I am a cinephile and I am used to analysing content involuntarily while I am watching it. I wasn't expecting much from Naruto, I definitely underestimated it and wasn't expecting any emotional impact given it was shonen and I am very hard to please (yes, I am a film elitist). But as I kept watching it, I had to grudgingly change my opinion. By the time I reached Shippuden, I could tell that I was almost fevered with excitement and looking forward to more emotional impact.

I didn't watch it with any romantic lens, I was mostly interested in the fighting sequences initially. Hell, that's all I was expecting from a shonen show about ninjas. But at the end of vote 1, I was like, hmmm. What?? This was so emotionally wracking. Are they really just rivals, or friends? Now, I am a fully fledged cinephile and have watched a lot (a. Lot.) of LGBTQ films, given my interest in shows about emotional and sexual repression. And throughout my first watch of the first part, I kept picking up on the subtle sns moments without actively thinking about them. I was really into the story and wanted to see what will happen next. But at the end of vote 1, I had to stop and think, wait what, are they in love with each other? They are definitely not just friends. Or rivals. The language of their interaction in vote 1 is so fraught with underlying currents of repressed emotions that it just made the cinephile in me ask, what am I watching exactly? Like isn't it shonen (I am also relatively new to anime/manga) where gay relationships are a strict nono? Like why does it have all the tropes of repressed homosexuality in men, just like all the films I had seen. The way Naruto and Sasuke constantly gravitate to each other, their interactions at times feel like a borderline attempt at just staying close to each other, their violent, strong feelings and devotion for each other (land of waves arc) and then denial of those feelings (after the land of waves arc), their contant physical fights for no apparent reason, Sasuke goading Naruto for no apparent reason especially when Sasuke is not the type to talk without reason which had been made abundantly clear. Sometimes, it literally felt like he was flirting with Naruto (during the chuunin exams) while rejecting Sakura. Sasuke constantly appears to be caring and attentive towards Naruto while treating Sakura like trash. This was even acknowledged by Naruto who asks Sasuke to be nicer to Sakura. But Sasuke doesn't even think about it. He instead flirts (?) with Naruto. It made me think, why did the writer choose to do that? Why make it clear that in hierarchy, Sasuke keeps Naruto much higher than Sakura, so early in the show (when there hasn't been so much development either, we were mostly shown how they keep fighting and arguing with each other)? If they are supposed to just be comrades or friends, why pinpoint this? Why use this trope at all if it's about friendship, especially in a show that can't include a gay relationship.

And this kept happening consistently. The writer made the interaction between Sasuke and Naruto to be major turning points in the plot. Vote 1 fight made it clear to me that there was something more going on, but I didn't want to be presumptuous, so I kept it on the side and kept watching.

After watching Shippuden, I was convinced that none of it, was accidental. The writer painstakingly wrote a gay love story and was even obvious about it in a very clever way. Like he fucking got away with writing a gay love story in shonen. I know Naruto is basically a kids' show meant for entertainment purposes, but it touched so many important, dark and adult themes. I knew that it would be difficult for the writer to actually give a proper conclusion to these themes because they really aren't that black and white or even appropriate for children. So I wasn't surprised that he couldn't actually show peace being achieved after the war arc or slavery abolished in Hyuuga clan.

But one thing I was sure of. He wanted to show a gay love story, maybe out of a twisted sense of humor, I don't know. But that's what he did. He could not have made it clearer. He flagrantly used all the related tropes, visuals, sound, dialogues, hell the story. The fucking story...

He was so shrewd about it too. He made it so that people can take away whatever they wanted to take away from it as long as there was some plausible deniability about things that weren't made clear in the show itself. That fucking minx! But he knew that anyone who watches shit carefully, will be able to see what he actually did. He knew that at least some of us will be able to connect the dots. He went out of his way to make sure we connect the dots. There is no other way to explain why Sasuke repeatedly kept asking Naruto why he cared for him so much. There's no other way to explain why he concluded everything with the dialogue where Naruto explains that he hurts when Sasuke does. There's no other way to explain why that affected Sasuke to such an extent. Kishimoto went out of his way, like seriously, to tell the audience that they are Not just 'friends'. He basically used this friend thing with so much saturation and intent in such a twisted way that he made it into something else entirely. In that sense, the concept of 'friend' changed its meaning. Like you can try, but you can't change my mind about it.

Whether I approve it or not, but my takeaway from content depends mostly on the content itself. I do believe that more often than not, the simplest explanation is the right one. And this applies to the phenomenon of Naruto as well. Of course, as a viewer, I can't ignore that my suspension of belief relies on my own understanding of the external world and how I perceive visual language. But that is something that happens anyway, in tandem with consuming the content, while I was pretty much consistently objective about it.

I believe I have a pretty good understanding of how cinematic language works, and I know every creative or narrative choice has a reason and meaning behind it. Absolutely None of it is random. Cinematic language may not be universal in terms of styles, but all the styles definitely have a common ground. And any creator worth his salt knows it, he knows how his content will be perceived and what it is exactly that he wants to show or say. Do not delude yourself that it was accidental or on a whim.

I know for a fact that Kishomoto wanted to show a gay love story. I know for a fact that he wanted to show that Sasuke has feelings for Naruto and he knows it. He also wanted to show that Sasuke not only had feelings for Naruto but also knew that he couldn't show them openly. He wanted to show that Naruto has feelings for Sasuke as well but is confused and naive, like he is about so many other things. He wanted to show us that Sasuke is not into Sakura, that he doesn't even respect her. Any enthusiast of visual/cinematic language and narrative can tell all the above things without going into headcanon or deluded explanations (like SS, NH stans), with just on the basis of content they consumed.

At the end of the day, I don't ship SNS because it's in my head. I was forced to see and believe SNS by the creator. Not forced literally but forced to notice and acknowledge the emphasis and meaning of the twisted/manipulative ways of the creator.

Kishimoto, hats off to you, you sly bastard. You succeeded in trolling people endlessly, you had a lot of fun pitting people against each other, didn't you? Hahahahaha. Well, I call your bluff/or non bluff in this case since you obviously knew what you were doing.

#narutomanga #narusasu #naruto #sasuke #sasunaru #sns #shippuden #shippudennaruto #naruto shippuden #sasunarusasu

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amandaklwrites · 3 years ago

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Most Anticipated Book Releases in 2022

I thought I would start a new post by making a list of all the books I'm really, really excited for that come out next year, in 2022. Now, of course, some of these could change-- like how dates get pushed out to another year, and I am sure I will find more that are coming out as time goes on. I just wanted to make a post as of now, at the end of 2021, that shows some of the books I'm really excited for. I'm going to list them month by month, but of course those could also change, because I know dates get moved on all the time in publishing. That being said, here are my anticipated releases!

January:

1. The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman

I have been excited for this book for a long time. It sounds so exciting and fun!

2. Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire

I like this series. It's weird and fun.

3. Echoes and Empires by Morgan Rhodes

This book sounds different and magical. Of course I have to try it.

4. Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

I can't wait for this magical book! It sounds beautiful.

5. Anatomy by Dana Schwartz

This one sounds disturbing and weird. But I am all here for it.

February:

1. This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi

This one sounds like a wild adventure with so much magic, and I am so excited.

2. Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal

You can sell me anything with circuses. Easily.

3. The Iron Sword by Julie Kagawa

This series is a part of my youth and has so much nostalgia, but I have to know how it goes.

4. A Lullaby for Witches by Hester Fox

Hester writes some good, spooky historical fiction, and this one has to do with witches, so of course I'm down.

5. A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross

I love Rebecca's books and this one sounds fantastic.

6. A House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas

I'm Maas trash. Let's get that straight.

7. Only a Monster by Vanessa Len

Dark and weird and monsters? Count me in.

8. Tripping Arcadia by Kit Mayquist

This book sounds like a great dark academia vibe to me.

9. The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

Magic and folktales. My jam.

March:

1. Gallant by V. E. Schwab

One of my all-time favorite authors. I love everything she writes. And this one sounds so damn good.

2. Edgewood by Kristen Ciccarelli

Sounds like a magical trip.

3. A Thousand Steps into the Night by Traci Chee

This sounds magical and folktale-ish, and I'm in.

4. Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye

This sounds bloody and intense, and I am intrigued.

5. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

Another favorite author of me. I have read every single one of her books and love them all. She writes creepy like no one else.

6. A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

Another magical one.

7. Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May

I'm a sucker for historical fiction with magical elements.

8. A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olsen

A fan of her debut

April:

1. Misrule by Heather Walter

Loved the first one (dark, sapphic Sleeping Beauty retelling!) and can't wait to see what happens next.

2. This Rebel Heart by Katherine Locke

This sounds so fun.

3. Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor

Sounds mystifying and interesting.

4. Omens Bite by P. C. Cast

I didn't absolutely love the first one, but I want to know what happens.

5. An Arrow to the Moon by Emily X. R. Pan

Sounds so beautiful and magical.

6. Ebonwilde by Crystal Smith

This series is really good and I can't wait to finally read the last book.

7. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Sounds weird and like something I would like.

May:

1. Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater

A book about more Merida!

2. Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino

I loved, loved her debut. I can't wait for this weird, trippy book.

3. Book of Night by Holly Black

I will always read Holly's books.

4. Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer

I liked her beauty and the beast retelling series, so I want to read this one in that world.

5. The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

Probably my top book on this list. It sounds so dark and atmospheric and haunting.

6. The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

Magic! I'm into anything with magic!

7. Hide by Kiersten White

Kiersten is a great writer and this book sounds twisted.

8. Together We Burn by Isabel Ibañez

This book sounds fantastic.

June:

1. Wild is the Witch by Rachel Griffin

I loved her debut and can't wait to read more of her books with witches.

2. Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

This book sounds messed up, in all the best ways.

3. Rise of the Snake Goddess by Jenny Elder Moke

I really liked the first one and it's a fun adventure for me, who wanted to become an archaeologist.

4. A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

The first one was an interesting retelling. I want to see what she does next.

5. This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede

Sounds weird and I'm interested.

July:

1. The Darkening by Sunya Mara

Sounds DARK and I'm all for it.

2. Long Live the Pumpkin King by Shea Ernshaw

Jack and Sally!!!

3. Wake the Bones by Elizabeth Kilcoyne

Sounds... weird. I need it.

4. The Book of other by Mary McMyne

Fairytale retellings! I love!!!

August:

1. Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young

One of my favorite authors. So excited to read her adult book.

2. Don't Go To Sleep by Bryce Moore

Sounds really freaky, and I'm intrigued.

3. The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

I loved her first book and can't wait for another book by her.

4. Belladonna by Adalyn Grace

I really liked her other books and this one just sounds good.

September:

None so far?

October:

1. The River of Silver by S. A. Chakraborty

Short stories in the Daevaband series! Yay!

2. One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig

This sounds really freaky and I'm down for it.

November:

1. A Wilderness of Stars by Shea Ernshaw

I love her books.

December:

Also none so far...

So those are my top anticipated reads (as of now)! If I find out about more, I'll edit this post and add them.

Are there any on this list you are excited about? Or any you want to recommend to me?

Happy reading!

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yellowocaballero · 2 years ago

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#i love this au so much#Cody's and Obi Wans relationship just has me screaming#the characterisation of Cody#just like#cycles of abuse#Cody as a parent is like i know I'm not the parent i want to be and I'm more like my own parent than i ever wanted to be#but i can't change because i don't want to change because doing better is to admit that i did wrong in the first place#admitting i did wrong is to admit i had a choice but i had no choice#but actually i did and i made the best one. i had the best of intentions so it's fine. it'll never be fine.#i need to let my son kill me so he can be free of me. all i want is to be near my son. my presence can only hurt my son.#i need to give him closure. i need to make up for what i did. there is nothing to make up for. better me than anyone else.#I'll never apologise because to do so would to admit i had a choice and i was wrong but i had no choice so i must have been right#and then Obi Wan is like. i hate him he gave me nothing. i speak his language i see the world through the lens he gave me#I'm nothing like him. i understand him more than anyone. i don't want anything from him. all i want is his apology so he can be in my life#i never want to see him again. i miss the life i had with him. i have to hate him because if i don't I'll miss him.#God I'm so crazy about this metaphor. i needed this metaphor. what this represents is just so real @starwarsbutbetter

I love how you guys describe this series. I want to read the series you guys are describing. Can I read what you're reading. It sounds really good. I'm just vibing here.

But also you GET IT thank you!!!!! I think a fun thing about the way I wrote the series is that I get to approach the same character over the course of very many years, from very many viewpoints. From people who he raised and people who view themselves as his sworn enemy. People who are very, very good people and people who are very, very bad people. Some viewpoint characters never hear him say a true sentence and some get him saying things he wish he hadn't said. You never get the same read. It's similar to Ben - Obi-Wan's profound in people's nostalgic memories, but Ben himself is a pretty opaque and rarely seen guy. You end up with a lot of contradictions. A lot of different ways to understand the same guy. The story itself is constantly circling the drain of trying to understand Cody, and implied in that whole thing is the idea that Cody is...worth trying to understand.

As I writer I do believe in not spilling ink over trash, abusive men. In Padme's corner of the stories, I never talk about Anakin because he's not important - Padme's story is her own now, and she has to write it, and I won't give room to Anakin (The story of understanding Anakin is, maybe, Luke and Leia's story). But I am giving a lot of room to Cody. The act of spending so much time trying to understand this one character is a part of the story I'm telling, if that makes sense.

I think...the Bens in the world spend a lot of their adult lives trying to understand the Codys. So much shit happened from somebody who loved them and only tried to do their best for them and they just don't understand why. And it's this great unravelling, I think, of trying to understand how you became yourself...and it requires an understanding not just of the people involved, but of the global/national politics, the cultures, and the prejudices therein. It's an understanding that the Bens have to dig deep and uncover and untangle. This fic series, in a large way, that untangling. It's difficult and messy and heartbreaking. But the as the Bens of this world become adults, they feel an incredible compulsion to do it - not just in hopes of closure from that pain, but just in a search of desperately trying to figure out how not to become the Cody to their own kids. And you're standing there struggling to parcel out blame and anger and forgiveness, and maybe you should just go to iHOP instead?

I write about the subject of general trauma and cycles of abuse pretty frequently, but I think it's clearest here. Of course if you're getting other metaphors/allegories from it too then of course they are also here!! Damn this story in y'alls brains is really good!!!

I just binged all of your No Chip AU fics and I wanted to let you know I am so obsessed. I really loved the role swap au too but everything about the no chips au hit so hard. Cody having a choice, the gaslighting, everything with the good intentions, Cody the supervillain dad. Obi Wan willingly handing over all his weapons and trusting Cody was somehow so much more devastating than Cody trying to kill him. Also Fox and Rex and everyone else. Thank you for posting it, I love it so much.

THANKS I have no idea how that AU spiraled out of control but I couldn't stop thinking of ideas for it. I still have plenty of ideas that were never written - Fox & Sabi post-canon adventures, Cody's eventual redemption feat. Boba Fett, anything from Rebels. I would also rewrite the first story and More Than Zero, big time.

No Chip Cody's definitely one of the characters I've developed the most, and one of my favorites. In the end there ended up being something kind of tragic about that Cody. He was the best parent he knew how to be, the best man he knew how to be, and that person was the most evil person in the entire cast. For one reason or another, evil just always seemed like the best thing to do for his family. Over the course of the series you really do see him fall deeply in love with Obi-Wan, and you see him lose him because he couldn't admit when he was wrong. At the very end of it he's alone, the last remnant of a dying Empire, and he's hated by the many people who once loved him. He never felt like a bad person to me - just somebody who was always trying to pick the lesser of two evils, and who never knew good was an option.

It takes a while, and probably requires Cody's Great Redemption Story Feat. Boba Fett, but I think Ben forgives Cody one day. Ben's childhood had to have tremendously fucked him up in ways I think I understated, but I think Ben never wanted to hate Cody.

I also loved writing Rex BUGFUCK evil and Fox as the unproblematic fave. And Bly as both, somehow, simultaneously. Thanks for reading!!

#fuck i want to rewrite MTZ so bad.#shit.#my writing #we'll see.#i just went and reread the final rex & cody scene in the multiyear rex story #and damn I'm still unhappy with that one but im remembering like sweating over every line #there is a very unique moment of “hey I would never do to my kids what you did to me what the fuck”#but on that tail is the equally important “the way you raised me was the best you could do at the time”#it was very much the takeaway of “well u know u dont have to do that anymore. right. right? just admit it was bad. right?”#but he can't for etc etc etc etc reasons.#u ever look at a guy and go. man i wish u werent a guy that had to exist!!!#wish u coulda been a good person!!! my dude!!!#you know those stories are like a year old or something and in retrospect #eventually I landed on the final place of “I'm moving to Hawaii”#the final moral of more than zero 2: even more than zero

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tiredassmage · 2 years ago

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Skdfnsdlfnlsdf, finally returned to KOTET with my Bounty Hunter and, man, is it two bad ideas in a row to introduce him to Kaliyo and then Havoc Squad. Him and Kaliyo would get along like a house on fire - way too damn well. In another life, those two would have conned the fuck out of each other and probably remained good friends if only because they enjoy that exact brand of humor. They’d have tried to kill each other, certainly, but, like, respect where respect is due for haulin’ ass like that, y’know?

And then poor Jorgan. There’s no way in hell they’d get along. There are very few things Lensan hates in this world like being told what to do and he’s a VERY opinionated stubborn jackass. Genuinely one of my irredeemable bastards and I’m 95% certain he knows this and thinks it’s grand. Len starts fights over disagreements. He fucks around and finds out almost entirely just to find out how much shit is too much shit for him to dig himself out of.

He can be reasonable. For short periods of time. He can get along well enough to get a job done. I think. But also, genuinely, truly, I believe Lensan is a dick and he chooses to continue to be one unapologetically. I’d hate this man if he were real.

But, as it is, he’s the most morally fucked of my fake little bundles of pixels and therefore I find watching him survive for credits, an unhealthy amount of whiskey, and sheer, raw, unfiltered SPITE absolutely HILARIOUS. This man really accepted Valkorian’s boon becase it seemed the most convenient way to maybe live at the time and then turned around and called him a BITCH to his FACE at the FIRST opportunity. It is not because Lensan is fighting a moral battle. This is strictly about some Sithy motherfucker trying to tell him what to do and pretend its the Morally Correct option.

Is it ANY less life or death to defy the most powerful evil entity in the galaxy now that he’s only a spectre inside his head rather than a physical being? Probably not. Might even be more so! But Lensan is pure gremlin that knows even his barest thread of cooperation is mildly beneficial and also he has no better ideas for how to fix this at the time, so, once again, he’s fucking around and finding out.

Literally a disaster. If for literally nothing else, I have to see just where this takes him because all of my other characters tackle this with far too much reason. Lensan is dropping a thermal detonator into an ocean of oil and going “BET” and just kadnfla;sndfl;sandflkndslfd. Bastard. Idiot. Absolute trash monkey.

I love him and also he fully deserves whatever consequences come to bite him in the ass. I don’t support his wrongs as in I think they’re right or even that he could be justified in some way. I support his wrongs in that I am watching them go down with the biggest bag of popcorn.

#swtor #ch: lensan #bounty hunter #literally this man has no right to be anywhere near the alliance and i think that's exactly why i chose violence i mean to do it anyway #he still doesn't trust theron bro he doesn't trust a lot of people he's terrible lana what were you thinking #len and his mistrust for the republic in general makes this whole thing rather unrealistic but i'm enjoying it specifically bc its bonkers #and also none of my other characters will make half the choices he will and half the fun is watching him do it in real time akdlfnalsdf #sorry this is out of nowhere i just i can't with him #i really do have THE love hate relationship with his existence #i made him to make poor decisions and by god he is going to DELIVER

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longitudinalwaveme · 3 years ago

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Arkham Sessions: Captain Cold

These vignettes, and, more specifically, the characterization of Dr. Hugo Strange, are based on the wonderful Arkham Files YouTube videos produced by Mr. Rogues.

Here's his channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyxNOHiNclZlVpeRhYV2QRQ

Since I am a huge Flash nerd, I decided to use this idea as a jumping-off point to explore how the Rogues would respond to therapy sessions. Again, all credit to the basic format goes to Mr. Rogues.

Not everything Dr. Strange says should be taken as truth; his bias against costumed vigilantes affects most of his interviews with the patients.

Hugo Strange: From the patient files of Dr. Hugo Strange, director of Arkham Asylum. Patient: Leonard Snart, also known as Captain Cold. The patient displays a number of antisocial tendencies, but no formal diagnosis has ever been given to him, and since he arrived at Arkham only a few days ago, I have not had the time to give him a complete psychological examination. Session One. Good day, Mr. Snart.

Capt. Cold: Len.

Hugo Strange: Pardon?

Capt. Cold: Just call me Len, Doc. I ain’t the type to stand on formalities.

Hugo Strange: Very well, then. (Pause) So, Leonard-

Capt. Cold: Not Leonard, Len.

Hugo Strange: I take it you’re not especially fond of your given name?

Capt. Cold: Believe me, Doc, if your name was ‘Leonard Snart’, you wouldn’t be fond of it, either.

Hugo Strange: Fair enough. So, Len, what exactly influenced you to put on a parka and go running around robbing banks and jewelry stores with a freeze ray?

Capt. Cold: It ain’t a freeze ray, it’s a cold gun.

Hugo Strange: Besides semantics, what is the difference?

Capt. Cold: Mr. Freeze-you got him locked up somewhere in this loony bin, right?- has a freeze ray. It shoots ice. Me? I’ve got a cold gun. My gun negates thermal motion. Stops protons and electrons dead in their tracks. People too. Even the Flash slows to a crawl when I hit him with it.

Hugo Strange: (Surprised; a bit skeptical) Do you mean to say that you have invented a weapon that can create temperatures of absolute zero?

Capt. Cold: Yep. And I did it years before that lovesick freak got turned into a popsicle man.

Hugo Strange: Your records indicate that you dropped out of high school at the age of fourteen, Len. How could you possibly have the requisite knowledge to create such a weapon? Are you even familiar with James Prescott Joule or J.J. Thomson?

Capt. Cold: Who?

Hugo Strange: J. J. Thomson is the man who discovered the electron. James Prescott Joule is the scientist who discovered the First Law of Thermodynamics. If what you’re saying is true, you managed to exceed the wildest dreams of either of these illustrious men, without even knowing of them or their theories.

Capt. Cold: Huh. Guess I did. Well, how about that?

Hugo Strange: How could you possibly have managed this, Len?

Capt. Cold: Just ‘cause I’m trailer trash don’t mean I’m stupid, Doc.

Hugo Strange: Clearly not. So, how did you do it?

Capt. Cold: Sorry, Doc. Trade secret.

Hugo Strange: Len, we gave you a number of psychological and intelligence tests upon your admittance to Arkham Asylum, and-

Capt. Cold: (Cutting him off) About that-what’m I doin’ in this loony bin, anyhow? I ain’t crazy, and even if I were, I’m from Central City. That’s a thousand miles away from Gotham.

Hugo Strange: A few weeks ago, Iron Heights Penitentiary’s southwestern wall was destroyed in a mysterious accident. As a result, it is currently incapable of holding supercriminals, metahuman or otherwise, and you and your cohorts had to be housed somewhere. Through a series of political and judicial decisions that I confess make as little sense to me as they probably do to you, all of you so-called “Rogues” were transferred to Arkham Asylum until such time as Iron Heights is properly rebuilt.

Capt. Cold: I get havin’ to send us someplace else if Iron Heights is destroyed, but...I ain’t insane. Why not send me to Blackgate instead of the loony bin?

Hugo Strange: Many people are of the opinion that anyone who puts on a silly costume in order to commit crimes is insane by definition, Len.

Capt. Cold: That include you, Doc?

Hugo Strange: Whether or not you are insane in the legal sense of the term is not for me to decide, Len. That being said, I do believe that your decision to commit crimes in such a...theatrical...manner indicates some level of emotional disturbance.

Capt. Cold: Hey, Doc, you’re the expert on this stuff, not me.

Hugo Strange: In that case, why don’t we return to the subject of your astonishing invention?

Capt. Cold: I’m stuck in the loony bin anyway. Might as well.

Hugo Strange: Can you please refrain from describing this facility as a “loony bin”, Len? The term is pejorative, both for the staff who work here and the other patients who live here.

Capt. Cold: Pejorative? What’s that mean, Doc?

Hugo Strange: It means that it is rude. Describing the mentally ill as “lunatics” is unkind and unscientific.

Capt. Cold: Whatever you say, Doc. Whatever you say.

Hugo Strange: (Coughs) As I was saying, when you arrived at the asylum, we gave you a number of psychological and intelligence tests. While your scores in the area of mathematics were unusually high, especially for someone who never finished high school, your literacy scores were abysmal. You are thirty-eight years old, but you read at the level of the average six-year-old.

Capt. Cold: Well, we can’t all have your fancy education, Doc. What’s my reading ability got to do with my cold gun?

Hugo Strange: I find it difficult to believe that a high school dropout-a high school dropout, moreover, who can barely read-would be able to invent a gun that can produce absolute zero on his own.

Capt. Cold: Are you callin’ me a liar?

Hugo Strange: Not necessarily, Len. What I am saying is that I do not believe that the Cold Gun was created in the way that you may believe that it was.

Capt. Cold: Oh, so you ain’t callin’ me a liar-you’re callin’ me crazy.

Hugo Strange: I did not say that either, Len.

Capt. Cold: You didn’t have to, Doc. I may be a redneck high-school dropout, but I ain’t survived as long as I have by not knowin’ when people are bad-mouthin’ me.

Hugo Strange: Len, I am not bad-mouthing you. I am trying to help you.

Capt. Cold: Sure you are.

Hugo Strange: (Frustrated) Not everyone is looking to take advantage of you, Mr. Snart!

Capt. Cold: Funny. Hasn’t been my experience, Doc. (Pause) Look. I ain’t mad, Doc. If I had a buck for every time somebody called me trailer trash or a dumb thug or a stupid hick, I wouldn’t need to rob no more banks. You ain’t said nothin’ I haven’t heard a million times before. But I want you to know this: I invented my cold gun, and I did it by myself. I. Ain’t. Stupid.

Hugo Strange: (Looking to change the subject) Len, I never said that you were unintelligent. In fact, your criminal history makes it quite clear that you are an effective, pragmatic operative. An unintelligent man could never have organized the only successful costumed criminal combine in the nation. Every other group of costumed criminals has folded within a few months at most, usually due to interpersonal tensions, but you have somehow managed to keep your little group together for over a decade. What is it you call yourselves, again?

Capt. Cold: The Rogues.

Hugo Strange: That’s right. The Rogues. Now tell me, Len, what exactly is the secret to your group’s...ah...success?

Capt. Cold: (Amused) You plannin’ to start a costumed gang, Doc?

Hugo Strange: Certainly not. I am simply curious. It isn’t often that I get the opportunity to interview criminals from outside of Gotham’s borders.

Capt. Cold: It ain’t that complicated, Doc. The reason we’ve held together for so long is ‘cause we got an unspoken code. We watch one another’s backs to the end. Nobody gets left behind; everybody gets an equal share.

Hugo Strange: (Surprised) Are you implying that you are...friends...with your Rogues?

Capt. Cold: You think I’d trust people I hate to watch my back?

Hugo Strange: Admittedly, that wouldn’t make much sense...it’s just that I was under the impression that you were the leader of the group.

Capt. Cold: I am.

Hugo Strange: Most gang bosses I know keep the majority of the profits from their crimes for themselves.Why don’t you?

Capt. Cold: ‘Cause we’re a team. We do equal work; we get equal rewards.

Hugo Strange: A surprisingly admirable sentiment for a common thief.

Capt. Cold: (Proudly) There ain’t nothin’ common about me, Doc.

Hugo Strange: (Sigh) That’s certainly true, Len. (Pause) On the subject of things that are not common, why the parka and the silly goggles?

Capt. Cold: Practicality. Parka keeps me warm; goggles help focus my vision and keep me from bein’ blinded by the flare of my own cold gun.

Hugo Strange: I see. (Pause) And why call yourself “Captain Cold”? After all, you aren’t really a Captain of anything.

Capt. Cold: I’ll admit, it ain’t the most creative name in the world...but anything’s better than “Leonard Snart”.

Hugo Strange: Why not just change your name, then? Why take up a ridiculous costumed alias?

Capt. Cold: Because I’m not just an ordinary thug. Leonard Snart is ordinary; boring…..but Captain Cold? Captain Cold is cool.

Hugo Strange: Was that a...pun?

Capt. Cold: What can I say? I admit they’re dumb, but old habits die hard.

Hugo Strange: And the Flash had nothing to do with your decision to put on a costume and call yourself by a silly, alliterative name while committing crimes?

Capt. Cold: The Flash? Why would he have anything to do with it?

Hugo Strange: I was under the impression that the Flash was your arch-enemy.

Capt. Cold: (Laughs) Arch-enemy? What is this, a Saturday morning TV show?

Hugo Strange: The Central City papers make quite a big deal of your rivalry with the so-called “Scarlet Speedster”.

Capt. Cold: Look, the Flash is basically a cop. Sure, he’s a cop with superpowers, and he’s good for sharpening our wits, but at the end of the day, he’s just an obstacle to our getting the score.

Hugo Strange: Then you don’t view your battles with him as some epic confrontation between ideologies?

Capt. Cold: Why would I do that? Ideologies don’t pay the grocery bills, Doc.

Hugo Strange: And you haven’t dedicated your life to proving your superiority over him once and for all?

Capt. Cold: No. I fight the Flash for the same reasons I fight the cops: I want to get rich, and he’s standing in my way. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less.

Hugo Strange: So the Flash is nothing special to you?

Capt. Cold: I didn’t say that. Like I said, he’s good for sharpening the wits. I wouldn’t be half as successful as I am if he weren’t around to keep me and the guys on our toes, and yeah, it’d be neat to finally get the victory over him once and for all...but really, he ain’t so different from us. He’s just another guy workin’ a nine-to-five, tryin’ to provide for his family. I don’t like him-he’s a stuck-up, self-righteous prig sometimes-but he’s a good person. He’s not a superhero ‘cause he wants hero-worship. He actually wants to help people. He’s even helped me, and I make a career out of trying to freeze-dry him. You gotta respect a guy like that.

Hugo Strange: You actually see the Flash as a man?

Capt. Cold: What else would I see him as? A Martian? ‘Cause I’ve seen Martians, and I can tell you, the Flash ain’t green enough to be one.

Hugo Strange: It’s not that. It’s just that I’ve spent so much time with the patients who view Bruce Wayne, formerly the Batman, as some sort of supernatural entity or as a grand opposite in a never-ending conflict between order and chaos that it’s rather...odd to listen to a costumed criminal who claims to view their local costumed vigilante simply as a person.

Capt. Cold: Man, you have got to get out more.

Hugo Strange: (Coldly) I don’t recall requesting life advice from you, Mr. Snart.

Capt. Cold: Well, you should take it anyway. Ain’t often I give stuff away for free.

Hugo Strange: (Annoyed) This session is not about me, Mr. Snart. It’s about you.

Capt. Cold: What else do you wanna talk about? I’m not stupid, I’m not creepily obsessed with the Flash, I don’t butcher people for fun, and I don’t have any weird hang-ups about dead relatives or riddles or plants or dolls or jokes or the number two. I’m not a good guy, but I think I’m a pretty normal guy, all things considered.

Hugo Strange: Mr. Snart, no one puts on a costume without some sort of psychological disturbance. Even if the Flash was not in some way responsible for your decision-something which I am not yet fully convinced of-no rational human being would do such a thing. I just need to find out what your disturbance is. (Pause) Perhaps it began in your childhood, Mr. Snart?

Capt. Cold: (Icily) My childhood is none of your business.

Hugo Strange: I am your psychologist, Mr. Snart. That makes it my business. (Pause) Let’s see. Your file says that you were born to Lawrence Snart, a forty-year-old police officer who was kicked off the force for public drunkenness and suspected corruption, and Shirley Snart, a fifteen-year-old high school dropout. You and your family lived in a dilapidated trailer park, and your father was a known alcoholic who drank away your family’s welfare money. Five years after you came along, your younger sister, Lisa, was born...and your mother ran away, never to be seen again. The neighbors called the police because of domestic disputes between her and your father no less than thirteen times in five years, which leads me to suspect that she was spurred to leave the family because of her husband’s abuse. You were left to raise your sister, essentially on your own, at five years old, and you were effectively the head of the household from that point on. You never had a childhood, Mr. Snart.

Capt. Cold: Don’t you talk about my sister!

Hugo Strange: I take it that you’re close to her? Understandable, I suppose, given that you grew up with her in an abusive household. Your grandfather, who drove an ice cream truck, did his best to protect you and your sister from your father’s cruelty, but he was old and in poor health, and he died when you were only twelve years old. You never got over the loss, and your father’s abuse only got worse as you and your sister got older. When you turned 14, you dropped out of high school; you then worked a number of odd jobs to support yourself and your sister. However, shortly after you turned 18, you and your father got into a dreadful argument, one that ended with you running away from home and leaving your little sister alone with your father. After that, you eventually fell into a life of petty crime.

Capt. Cold: I...I had no choice. If I hadn’t left, he would’ve killed me!

Hugo Strange: I am not blaming you for choosing to run away, Mr. Snart. You were an abused child with very few options available to you.

Capt. Cold: (Quietly) I could’ve taken her with me.

Hugo Strange: And why didn’t you?

Capt. Cold: ‘Cause I was an 18-year-old dropout. Nobody was gonna give me custody of my sister...and besides, I’d started hangin’ out with dangerous people. I...I didn’t want her to get hurt.

Hugo Strange: In other words, she would have been in danger no matter what you had done.

Capt. Cold: It don’t matter! I’m her big brother! I was supposed to protect her!

Hugo Strange: (Coming to a realization) And because you weren’t able to protect her from your father as a boy, you’re trying to make up for it now by becoming this “Captain Cold”; a larger-than-life persona that can do all the things you weren’t able to do as a child. You’ve made yourself too powerful and dangerous for anyone to threaten, and you’ve made a surrogate family for yourself and your sister. That’s why the Rogues are so successful...it’s because they aren’t really a gang at all. They’re your family. Isn’t that right, Mr. Snart?

Capt. Cold: (Sarcastically) An’ I suppose the fact that my grandpa drove an ice cream truck somehow subconsciously influenced my decision to become Captain Cold?

Hugo Strange: (Aware of the sarcasm, but ignoring it) That’s perhaps a bit of a stretch, but it isn’t impossible.

Capt. Cold: I don’t believe this….

Hugo Strange: Don’t be afraid, Mr. Snart. Admitting you have a problem is difficult, but it’s also the first step on the road to recovery.

#flash rogues #dr. hugo strange #flash comics #batman comics #fanfic #captain cold

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mydisenchantedeulogy · 3 years ago

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Silver Lining [Chapter One] Treacherous Sunset [Eustass Kid]

The midday sun cast an eerie red gleam across the surface of the water as the Titania cruised across the New World in search of riches and fame. The ship’s captain, an infamous pirate from the West Blue, stood on the deck and stared out at the ocean as the waves crashed against her massive boat. It was a quiet day, but despite the ease clouding her mind, something was amiss.

The soft patter of booted footsteps alerted Sirena that someone approached, and turning her attention to them, her sharp eyes narrowed.

“This had better be important,” she sneered.

The cabin boy paled. His breath came out hot and thick as he panted in exhaustion.

“T-there is a flagship on the horizon, ma’am. It appears to be sailing a jolly roger,” he stated.

Sirena grinned; the expression did her gorgeous appearance no justice. She hadn’t been in an intense naval battle in a while.

“Fetch me the spyglass,” she ordered.

The cabin boy raced back into the belly of the Titania as ordered, and upon returning, his captain was facing starboard towards the ship in the distance. The helmsman stood near the wheel, awaiting orders.

He handed it to her and watched as she peered through the lens.

As stated, there was a pirate ship in the distance. Sirena made note that the flag was one she had not seen before. The skull had red hair resembling flames and wore what appeared to be square-shaped goggles on its forehead. She hummed in wonder but dismissed it.

“Gather the crew,” she ordered.

The cabin boy knew they were in for a fight. Before he ran to execute her orders, his captain halted him.

“And bring me my monster,” she added.

His eyes widened. Was it necessary to bring Corvina out? She was nuts. Not to mention her moods changed on a whim. He huffed, knowing there was no way to change his captain’s mind. But why did he have to manage the monster? Rushing into the ship, the cabin boy heard the helmsman announce the Titania’s change in direction, straight for the pirate ship.

He hurried down into the brig to the first cell and looked inside. On a cot sat a pale woman with dark hair and pointed ears. She stared at the bracelets around her wrists with uninterest, paying no mind to the cabin boy as he searched for the key to her cell.

“We’re taking on a pirate ship, and Captain Sirena needs you,” he mentioned.

The woman looked at him. Her red-ringed eyes held no concern for the situation. He wasn’t sure how she stayed calm; he was sweating. Undoing the lock on her cell, the cabin boy tore back the door in a rush.

“Please hurr––”

A loud noise pierced the air, interrupting him, and the Titania shook; a cannonball must have struck near the ship. The woman hummed and stood up.

“And my weapon?” She asked.

The cabin boy grunted. He had forgotten about it.

“I-it’s in the workshop. I’ll take you to it,” he suggested.

The woman nodded and followed him from the brig to the upper deck. The rotten scent of gunpowder burned her nostrils, and she grinned. Her ears made it easy for her to hear the pirates on the deck shouting and the howl of the cannonballs as they tore through the air. The cabin boy led her to the workshop, a spacious room filled with weapons and tools for various projects; her favored weapon, two scythe blades tethered together by a long chain, sat amongst them, hung on the wall like a trophy. She took them down, wound the chains around her arms, and turned her eyes to the cabin boy.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment,” the woman said with a grin. Sirena kept her locked up for so long.

Her bloodlust was intense. The cabin boy could feel it rolling off her in waves. For a moment, he feared she might cut him down too, but she snorted and strolled past him, rushing onto the upper deck. The cabin boy stayed behind in fear and hid.

Coran hummed as she wandered out from the workroom and looked around. The Titania was tethered to the flagship by hooks, and the crew had engaged the enemy on their deck. Her keen ears twitched as she heard the sound of a war raging around her, a sound she was too familiar with. Coran crossed onto the enemy ship over the ropes and witnessed an exciting sight; her captain was in hybrid form using her Zoan type powers to slaughter the enemy.

Six long necks with a snarling head on each of them snatched at pirates, taking even her own to their deaths.

How exciting, she thought.

Sirena wasn’t the type of conqueror who relied on her Devil Fruit to win battles. She was plenty strong without it. Someone must have angered her; she was bleeding profusely from wounds all over her body. But who caused them? The Terror of the Sea was no match for whoever this monster was.

A scream of pain and anger poured over the deck, and Coran watched in shock as two of Sirena’s heads came off; their severed necks slumped lifeless at her waist. A tall, muscular man with bright red hair stood before her; weapons floated around him in a strange display. Was he a Devil Fruit user? She licked her lips in eagerness.

Coran raced towards the said man, leaping into the air with her blades ready to strike, but someone intercepted her and blocked them, tossing a swing at her head. She raised her leg and kicked off their stomach, landing on her feet with a grunt.

“You managed to dodge that better than most,” a man wearing a white and blue striped helmet stated.

Coran tucked back her hair and pointed at her ears. “I heard you coming.”

“Are you a Devil Fruit user?” He asked.

She grinned. “I am, but these are genetic.”

“Shame,” the pirate uttered.

He dashed at Coran and swung his arm. The blade attached to his gauntlet almost took off her head, but she slumped to her knees and barely avoided it, turning her weapon on him from behind. But she, too, missed; he was fast.

Standing up, Coran dropped slack in the chain and spun the blade, launching it at the blonde. As she expected, he turned and dodged it, but she was quick to counter as she leaped into the air and brought her weapon down, to which he blocked; his other gauntlet came up and knocked her to the side.

As she yanked the chain, the blade came back and sliced into the man. Blood leaked from the cut and stained his blue top.

“That was unexpected,” the masked blonde grunted.

Coran laughed. “You haven’t seen any––”

Her eyes grew wide as she watched the blades on his gauntlets begin to rotate.

What in the hell?

The pirate launched at her, and Coran did her best to block or escape his strikes, but to no avail. Her skin stung as he cut her. She didn’t want to rely on her Devil Fruit, but she had no choice; his movements were too erratic for her to follow. As she activated it, her blood shaped into four long tendrils with sharp ends and struck at him; the tendrils shaped into a whirling sphere as he put distance between them.

The pirate hummed. “You manipulate blood.”

Coran wasted no time on the details and used her power to launch high-speed blasts at him. The blonde ran around the deck, escaping her onslaught the best he could, but some of the shots hit him.

“Keep running,” she boastfully laughed.

Halting some of the projectiles in the air, she snapped her fingers, and a volley of needles shot out, piercing everything around them, including her crew. Coran eagerly licked her lips; too bad this game had to end.

“Corvina,” a voice screamed.

Coran turned and saw Sirena on her knees; the man with red hair had severed each of the six heads and stood over her, his mechanical hand raised above her head, ready to crush her. The woman’s sharp eyes narrowed at her.

“Kill him,” Sirena ordered.

Her sudden outburst gave the blonde pirate the opening to plunge his blade into Coran’s side. She gasped in pain and fell to her knees; her power over the blood faltered, and it came raining down onto the deck. She clotted the fluid around the wound, but she was far too dizzy to stand. Perhaps she got a little carried away.

“I can’t continue. I’ve reached my limit,” Coran mentioned.

The pirate hummed.

“Do you expect pity from me?” He asked.

Coran shook her head. “I expect a quick death.”

He took a look around. “Your crew has surrendered.”

For sure, they had; the ones alive tossed their weapons on the deck and fell to their knees. Coran laughed.

“Line them up,” she heard the red-head shout.

He must be the captain.

The blonde hummed. “Kid feeling generous.”

He grabbed Coran by the arm and jerked her onto her feet, pulling her over to the lineup where her captain was sitting. The pirate tossed her down beside Sirena and continued to round up the crew of the Titania. Around ten had managed to survive, more than she expected.

“You are useless,” the woman snarled.

Coran ignored her and turned her eyes on the man with the bright hair. She was right to assume that he was the captain; he was also the monster that tore Sirena up. The said man stood in front of them, painted lips curled into a grin.

“You’re all extremely fortunate,” he declared. “I’m going to let you live, but under the idea that you now take orders from me.”

Was he serious? Not all pirates took prisoners; the few who did were in desperate need of members.

The woman beside Coran burst into laughter.

“My pets won’t take orders from you. They are mine and mine alone,” Sirena argued back.

Kid aimed a flintlock at her. “I didn’t ask.”

“I am a captain; a conqu––”

The gun went off with a loud bang; its bullet pierced her head and killed her instantly, sending spurts of blood across Coran’s face.

“Does anyone else want to follow her lead?” Kid asked.

No one said a word.

“Move the trash to the other boat and sink it,” he ordered.

Coran watched as someone hauled the body of her former captain away, another one down. She sat and listened to Kid bark orders to the crew, then stood as a pirate with a Glasgow smile rounded the survivors up. Her legs trembled in exhaustion, but she was in no position to make complaints; she was again a prisoner.

As the ship floated away, she saw the infamous Terror of the Sea, crucified to the mast of her boat as it sank beneath the merciless waters in the New World.

#one piece fanfiction #eustass kid #kid pirates #dark themes #kid x oc

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themollyjay · 3 years ago

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Dune, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Trash Fire

So, this blog has mostly been focused on writing, and that will probably continue, but there is a topic I want to address. We’re coming up on the release of the third live action adaptation of Dune. I’m writing this on September 10th, 2021, and Dune is scheduled to release on October 22nd, 2021. Now, I will tell you up front, I am ridiculously excited for this movie, because I have read Dune multiple times, and I honestly love the story.

The thing is, for a long time, I struggled with that. Not for the reason you might expect. A lot of people decry Dune as a Mighty Whitey/White Savior story which, if you’ve only watched the David Lynch version, is a valid criticism. The thing is, if you’ve read the books, you know that Dune is actually a deconstruction of those tropes, and an open criticism of the human tendency to fall in line behind charismatic leaders. What always bugged me about Dune, and indeed a lot of classic science fiction (I’m looking at you, Lensman), is the sexism and gender essentialism that are often baked into the setting.

For those of you who don’t know, at the center of Dune is the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood and concept of the Kwisatz Haderach. In the Dune series, the Bene Gesserit is an organization of women who have had special education which allows them full control over their bodies and a number of special abilities. Two important abilities for the Bene Gesserit are the ability to see into ancestral memory, and the ability to see into the future. The thing is, the Bene Gesserit can’t see into male memories, and their ability to see the future is limited, so they have spent thousands of years on a breeding program to produce the Kwisatz Haderach, which is a man who can survive the process the Bene Gesserit undergo in order to gain these two abilities. A process which normally kills men. This is considered desirable because a male would be able to look at both the female and male pasts and see into the future with far greater ability than any female ever could.

Sexism. Gender Essentialism. Right there, wrapped up in one of the central premises of the story. There’s something similar in the Lensman stories, where women just don’t have the killer instinct necessary to become Lensman, although eventually there are female Lensmen, this is framed as the end result of a long breeding program necessary to create those traits in a woman, and the women who can wield the Lens are depicted as more evolved than regular women. For the record, I also love Lensman and I had the same struggle to come to terms with it that I did with Dune.

But how is it that I can sit here and love stories where some the central premises of the story run counter to my lived experience as a trans woman? That’s a good question, without an easy answer. The short version is, “Not uncritically.” The long version is, well, long.

Something that a lot of people don’t understand is that when you engage with any piece of media, you’re not engaging with that piece of media in a vacuum. Media exists in context, and in a very real way, media exists as part of a dialog. People will write stories, and other people will write stories in response. Events happen in the real world, and people will write stories in response. People will bring their own culture, their own societal preconceptions, and their own personal beliefs into their writing.

This is a lesson I learned largely by looking at the way my writing changed as I progressed long my journey toward coming out and going through transition. As I went through that process, my view of the world changed, and the things that went into my writing, the things I wanted to put into my writing, changed with it. That realization and understanding allowed me to go back and look at works like Dune, Lensman, Star Wars, Star Trek, and a whole host of other things, and see them not just as a product of their times, but as a product of the people who created them, and all of the things those creators brought to the table.

To be clear, I’m not saying that when something was created should insulate it from criticism. Far from it. What I am saying is that media isn’t some timeless thing that can be judged against absolute standards of right and wrong that exist outside of the context of the society in which it was created and the society in which it was later consumed. We have to view media in the context of when it was created, while critiquing what it says in the context of the society in which it is consumed. We have to look at works like Dune and ask, ‘What was the author trying to say in the language and context of 1965 when the work was created’, and then ask, ‘How does what the author was saying apply to us, now in 2021?’. Are the things the author/creator said valid? Are they worth applying to the modern world?

But more importantly, what I’m saying is that in order for any art to have lasting value, that it must be okay to find joy and value in things that are imperfect by today’s standards, because I promise you the things we create today and the art we leave behind us, will be found similarly wanting by tomorrow’s standards. All we can do is try to create with compassion, understanding, and acceptance, and hope that history judges us on the good we tried to do, rather than by failings we don’t have the language, mindset or understanding to avoid.

So, with that in mind, come October 22nd, I will sit in front of my laptop, with a huge bowl of microwave popcorn, and I will watch as an amazing cast and an incredible director give new life to a story that I have loved for decades. I’ll roll my eyes at the sexism and gender essentialism baked into the story and the setting, while I watch to see if this version has captured the warnings that Frank Herbert wove into the original story. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I suspect I’ll love pretty much every minute of it, even if it’s still a Trash Fire.

#writing #media #criticism

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