#this is really long because I'm shit at being concise

[starcurtain]

I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

[stilljuststardust]

I don't know. What should I do? 😭 If you were in my place what would u do?..

I'm literally so lost. Right now. Like I feel like I'm in a slump, rut, a cycle of "read Tumblr posts, try, fall, repeat" how do I break free from this???? I genuinely just want to shift. Or live my dream life.

God I'm so done. Ever since I found out abt void (or got into reality shifting) I've put hold on life ever since, it'll be almost an year, I really don't want to keep living like this, it's like god. I can't. I just want to leave this reality. I'm so done. I want to enter void state. I just. God. Oh my god. I can't. I've idolized these things so much I know but these are my only saviors. I do believe all of this is real, but I don't trust my own ability, I know, I've been trying for so long, am I even trying at this point? I know i should give up, but how? I just can't keep living like this, it's hell...

Hello love, turn off your phone.

1. Save what you need to

Find a handful of concise posts that center you and remind you who you are and what you are capable of/remind you that manifestation isn't actually hard

Screenshot them, save them, print them out, whatever you need to but save them in a way that doesn't require you to reopen Tumblr. Maybe make a google doc with them/any links to videos or subliminals that you ground yourself with

2. Address your phone addiction

I fell down a rabbit hole on dopamine addiction a couple months back and I've learned a bit about it. If you want to stop overconsumption you have to stop doomscrolling.

Don't put your phone by your bed. Do not let the first thing you do in the morning be checking your notifications and scrolling.

"think of it as a lemon that you're squeezing the juice out of right? ...at the very beginning you can squeeze very little and you can get a lot of juice out of. But at the very end you need something very very powerful to squeeze out the remaining juice. So the more dopaminergic the task the less dopamine you need to engage in the activity " - DR K

The problem is your phone releases INSANE amounts of dopamine. It's this flashing color crack box that immediately spends all of that dopamine and because you used it first thing you need extremely dopaminergic activities or you can't focus.

Other extremely dopaminergic things include: video games, pornography, seeing people you hate attempt to bleach their hair, gambling, etc.

If you're trying to kick your phone addiction there's a couple things to remember:

You are going to get through the first day and think "I'm doing so well what's a TikTok break going to hurt" DONT FALL FOR IT. Your brain is lying to you. If you were good at moderation you wouldn't be trying to kick the addiction in the first place

It's ok to be bored. You have to accept being bored. It's good for your brain. Be bored.

Do not quit because you tripped up. The best advice I've heard for addiction is not to treat it as "I have to have an unbroken streak" this leads people to go on benders because of small slip ups because they "ruined it anyway". Instead think in percentages. You made it through 6/7 days. That's still an improvement and yes the goal is 7/7 but you are getting there if you keep your discipline.

3. How your day should look

Wake up and take a couple minutes to affirm and saturate your mind. This is basically bragging to yourself about how much you have it and it's yours. Affirm things like "oh my god I just woke up in my DR" or "Oh my god I shifted"

Do the shit you need to do. Don't put it off. Why should your life here have to stop??

Whenever you think about the things you want remind yourself that you already have it and it's yours. Think about it as if you have it. Do saturation sessions throughout the day if you want to.

Stop searching for a new method, advice, whatever, think as if you have already manifested it instead of spiralling into "I don't have it. this next post will help me have it" Do. Not. Think. About. It. As. If. You. Don't. Have. It.

Actually stick to it. Yes even if it takes longer than you want.

Great video on saturation that you should watch: click here

What you're doing wrong

What do you mean you've put your life on hold? Please do not do that. There is no reason to. If you ignore the obvious downsides to neglecting yourself and your life, you should know that isn't helping your manifestation at all either.

Right now you're suspended in a waiting state. You're entire life revolves around "I have to figure out how to do this", "I haven't done this yet so I can't focus on anything else"

What is that telling your subconscious? That it's not here and that nothing can change.

The point of LOA is to think as if it's already here. If you put everything on hold until you have it the only state you are thinking from is "it's not here". If you were thinking from the state of having it you wouldn't be doing any of that. "I can't do ____ until this manifests" you just affirmed that it hasn't manifested/you have not shifted. Not only are you frozen in the physical world but the internal one.

"I know I should give up but how" who told you to give up? I don't think you should do that. Why would you give up on something you have?

Both manifestation and shifting work the same way. You think as if you are there or that you have what you want and the physical world has to change to fit that. Has to.

These things are not your saviors. These things are not things. They are not outside of you. It is not a magical ability you need to tap into, it is something you are already doing. Your assumptions choose what your physical world looks like 24/7. It doesn't turn off that is just how you work. Your reality has ALWAYS shifted to match your mind. You aren't harnessing anything you are just realizing your own potential.

I know it sounds absurdly simple, that's because it is. You are creating your reality. Create. Sit down and think as if it's here. Bask in having it.

Do you know what the void state is? It's you. It's your consciousness. Are you consciousness ? Then you can enter. The reason you aren't experiencing it now is just because you are telling yourself that you are your body. You are not your body. You are the consciousness. Void state is just a return to self.

It is ok to focus on yourself and your life. You are going to be ok. You are going to shift. Please please take care of yourself

Links (please)

Watch this if your forgot who TF you are (fave YouTuber at the moment)

Your only limiting belief

Robotic affirmation timer

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Vivzepop will always be the biggest issue with her own show if she doesn't change. And i'm not saying that because I desperately want to shit on her but rather because it's so clear that her attitude is what made Hazbin Hotel be so dissapointing after the long wait. The pilot released four years ago and Viv had these characters for much longer than that. One could assume that with this much time on her hands she would have a concise plan for how a series of her story would play out (I can imagine that having an own show is a dream for lots of creative people out there). And I get that that plan might get screwed up by a shorter episode count then expected, but she should be the one who knows her story best and who should know what stuff could also be cut out. The first season of Hazbin Hotel is so incredibly overstuffed with characters and plot that it completely looses the main premise the show was originally pitched with (the idea of a hotel were sinners are redeemed. As it is now the hotel is really not important at all). People have talked endlessly about how Viv can't handle criticism and it really sucks because criticism is one of the best ways to improve your writing, drawings, music etc. Without criticism you won't refine the thing you're working on in a meaningful way. Of course it feels bad when you put something out there you wanted to share and then people critique it, but that's part of pretty much every creative journey, or atleast it should be and Vivzepop shouldn't get a pass from this just because she doesn't like it. And there are great shows, movies or books that are rarely or almost never criticised. But the artists behind these works probably went trough years of honing what they do by being criticised for the stuff they put out. And I don't want to say that Vivzepop didn't work hard to make Hazbin Hotel, but it is hard to claim that she improves in her craft, when everytime someone says they don't like her show she throws a hissy fit. She wants the same reactions that these other amazing pieces of media get without ever listening to criticism. Which she sees as a personal attack rather than a tool that could help her to achieve the same level of writing prowess the creators behind media like that have. She believes she is already on the same level as them, just because she basically shuts anyone out who disagrees with her. There's this clip at the end of a Drew Gooden Video which I think sums up the situation with Viv pretty good (the Video is called "Leaving the YouTube Bubble"). He is talking about Lily Singh and her talk show but I feel like a lot of the stuff he says about handling criticism applies to Vivzepop as well.

(you might have to turn up the audio).

Unprofessional behaviour like that might be excusable when the creator is pretty young or they are interacting with publicity for the first time really. But neither of that applies to Viv. And Hazbin Hotel isn't just an indie animation pilot on youtube anymore. It's now a fully realized show created with a pretty prominent studio on a major streaming network and it should be held to the same standards as other shows or movies alike (not saying indie animation or animation on youtube doesn't have a standard but with more budget and support, there's obviously going to be different expectations for the show now). There have been issues in Helluva Boss and the Hazbin Hotel pilot ever since their release which could've been handled with more time and the new show. But Vivzepop shows time and time again that she isn't willing to listen to people who criticise her, which could actually lead to her show getting better. I don't like Viv or her work a lot. I think she is incredibly unprofessional and she has done her fair share of questionable or problematic stuff, which often leads to issues in her shows. There have been some characters I like, some songs or scenes that were pretty well done, very cool animation and an actually interesting premise on paper in HH and HB. There are things that make me come back to these shows to watch the next episode. And i'm obviously passionate enough about these shows to make whole posts about what I think was done badly and what could be changed. But for the aspects of HH or HB I enjoy, there are soo many more problems I have with it. Problems that won't go away unless Viv stops seeing every criticism as a personal attack. Because if Vivzepop doesn't stop acting like her writing is some unreachable stuff that needs no changes I don't really see a point in assuming that these shows will ever get better.

[hollow-lime-green]

okay! for the director's cut:

anything you want to share about string theory? 👀 i can definitely ask about specific sections, but i'm more excited to know which ones are important to you

ask me about specific sections after this, because string theory has a lot going on!

ok so first, the title - string theory. this one is not as clean lmao. so, something something, theory of the multiverse - string theory slightly relates to that, but also there's a lot of multiverse theories that reject string theory. but that is the basis of this piece - alternate universes.

string theory is a bit outside of my domain of engineering, and it's not something i pretend to understand particularly well. baby mode: in quantum physics, we treat things as both particles (solid ball thing) and waves (just energy). these two things are fundamentally different, and one thing should not be able to be both at once. but based on science, we know that they are both at once (light, electrons, etc.).

string theory is another 'unifying theory', which essentially means that it's trying to take a lot of things we know separately about physics and smush them together into one model. string theory specifically is a contender for the theory of everything, meaning that it unifies not just a few things (like wave/particle behavior), but everything. houston, we have a literary theme.

i suppose string theory is mostly about smushing everything together into my characterization of gojo satoru, especially his contradictions.

some of those contradictions/self-delusions:

1. Very very smart and very very dumb

satoru is thinking about a lot of complicated, poetic shit all the time, and what comes out of his mouth is the worst 2010s memery you can imagine

this is one of my favorite things about writing satoru. there's a lot of moments in FIYM when satoru's dialogue can give you whiplash, like the period joke in suguru's bloody curse recovery scene. he's thinking about so much all the time, but his brain is filtering his words into whatever will keep it light and funny, because he's spent so long repressing the deep, intense thoughts that he just instinctually dodges around saying anything real out loud (most of the time).

this happens to work well with suguru. with suguru's traumatic past, internally, he needs someone to tell him 'hey, it's not a big deal. you're okay, you're normal, you're fine, you are not crazy'. and satoru instinctively does that by being chronically unserious.

2. Moving goalposts at light speed

satoru knows suguru isn't homophobic, but is convinced that suguru would make an exception and hate him if he knew satoru was gay. bonus: satoru would give up anything for suguru, but doesn't think suguru should give up anything for him.

this is one of my favorite bits of string theory, actually. it's a very concise encapsulation of that. we've all heard one of our friends go "no, that's different" and been like, "no, my guy, it really isn't". and that's what shoko gets to deal with here.

3. Balls-deep internalized homophobia

he is a boy, and he is desperately trying to fit himself into the girl box for suguru

ohhhhh boy okay so obviously this one is my favorite. we're doing a lot with girl-boy satoru. i've already mentioned that this is why satoru keeps on trying to throw himself at suguru (sexually). he feels like he needs to fit the role of hot, physically-available girlfriend. and, as you see with relativity, this is also why he is determined to make himself bottom. we are not done with that arc, by the way.

that's also why he says shit like this:

which - the stutter here is a very slight signal that he's not actually 100% ready for that. he's not prepared for anything (no one is), but he's trying to convince himself that he is, because in his mind, he has to be, or suguru will leave. (stupidcore)

and this (one of my fave bits of FIYM period):

and it's why he has such an intense reaction to be called pretty, rather than handsome:

(and that's also why suguru immediately backpedals and thinks he's fucked up. satoru wants suguru to see him as a pseudo girl because he's internally homophobic. suguru wants to reassure satoru that he's not a girl because he's internally antihomophobic. boys. please.)

and (i won't put a bunch of pics in), you'll notice that he's always assigning himself the girl role in his AU fantasies (including most recently with his my immortal self-insert).

behaviorally, this can look like it overlaps with his sub role in the dom/sub dynamic they have, but it's actually not the main driver of that. if you take out all of the internalized homophobia, satoru is still a sub (in this verse) for other reasons related to jujutsu, status, and power. he's an internalized homophobe, not an internalized misogynist lmfao. we'll get into that more later, probably.

anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the themes of string theory and some of satoru's characterization. definitely send me more specific sections if you want to hear more @detta-pica, I'd love to continue yapping :)

one other thing i could talk about is some of the writing style/syntax i use for satoru. i feel like that's something i've mentioned here and there but haven't necessarily covered explicitly. i'd have to narrow in on a section for that, though, probably. and maybe it would be interesting to compare string theory to fellas stylistically. (string theory is Intense Satoru, whereas I know I can't realistically write all of fellas with the same level of atmosphere/detail and keep the plot moving at a reasonable pace, so fellas is a bit lighter).

anyway, i hope this was a fun read! i'm always happy to talk more about characterization, too. i hope the text always gets across what i am trying to say implicitly, but it's nice to talk about it explicitly too.

[beepbananabus]

Now that you've shared your favorite newer h20vanoss moments, what are your favorite older moments?

oh YESSS

as stated before, a lot of those moments are interwoven into videos, buuuut there are other more concise moments that I can link below in no particular order :)

EDIT: this was so long so im putting this under a readmore :)

chick-fil-a date. I think its so cute that evan immediately slides into a seat with del and stares at him for a good second. like there's just this moment shared between them, and then the passing of chicken back and forth ;; (focus on the number of chicken in his inventory!). like idk, there's not even a bit tied to this. they're just being them <3

"Oh... he's gone." I don't know what's crazier to me. either its the way that evan says that line with so much softness in his voice, how much he wants him to be there, or the fact that he proceeded to follow his NPC for like a solid 5 minutes straight. LIKE. WHAT? this man has it BADDD i stg,,,

"Leave these guys- Screw these guys." out of the whole mc series, (besides Doomsday because that shit is peak. unparalleled experience.) this is one of my top favorite moments bc its just?? so soft?? just these two sneaking away from everyone, the quiet childish-like giggling like they're two kids out past curfew, and then you have evan commenting: "they're going to be so pissed when they realize that we're gone", like them solidifying their companionship together,,,, UGH i love them sm ;;

"Why don't you marry him while you're at it?" i swear, one of the most common themes between them is the constant (joking) reference that they're together/married. its one of my favorite themes abt the two bc it's so sweet and so funny at the same time, like they do bicker like married couples and you have evan just going off on it SO casually, SO normally, like this wasn't a role he even had to think about. unmatched, actually.

"feathers" Insane to think that we have an honest-to-god parallel to evan calling del 'blueberry', like omfg?? it's so so sweet and i love how almost flustered evan reacts <3

the nether star fiasco okay okay there's SO MANY THINGS that i love about this. it's the immediate trust from evan to del, handing him that nether star with the idea of keeping this bit between the both of them, ignoring the fact that it was brian who gave him the star. then evans reaction to del throwing it out into the open, how he says his name as they're both holding back laughter at the knowledge that they're screwing with the crew. then brian coming in, peeved that evan shared it with del, but did you really expect him?? to not do that?? THE evan?? the evan whos always been a sucker for del?????

want you club okay this one has me by my NECKKK BECAUSE what do you MEAN evan has this elaborate song about risky love that is forbidden, yet he can't help but fall into it deeper and deeper every time- then he edits this song into a mission and he asks del how it sounds??? HELLO??? and then the compliments, the "they're all here for YOU, man!!" the deep immense focus on del throughout ALL of this,,,

boop! its such a small detail, but i LOVE how they move immediately to each other, almost as if GTA has transformed into a version of themselves where they can touch each other across the entire country. they do it so mindlessly, so full of expression and affection, and casually, just moving forward and boop, they've knocked into each other. and the isolation from the others, how they've practically left everyone behind and it's only the two of them now. not to mention the scene earlier where they had just begun the race and while everyone else is happily racing off, evan WAITS for del to catch up to him, then they're off again. he WAITED for him!! not a single word is passed but if del's not going, then he's not going either! and ADGHSAGHDAH RAHHHHGDHA them ;;

"i'm glad that you're here with me, delirious" there's not enough words for how many times this video has me screaming, has my on my KNEES, because oh my god??? i adore the way that he says this with just this soft yet confident tone, like he's so sure in himself of del's company. oh my god. anyways, im going to wade into a river now.

"That's why I'm not angry" This one's a bit lengthier with it stretching to 8:40, but every second of it is worth it, and onwards. evan is playing with delhere. and im not talking about like. playing as in playing the game. he's doing a bit with del and del only. it reminds me of like, stereotypical girls when they get a guy to chase them while giggling, like they're PLAYING TAG right now. just the two of them. evan didnt even kill del. evan probably WASNT PLANNING TO. he was just messing around with del probably and was going to leave him alone after this, like i kinda wish that didn't happen to see what evan WOULD've done. just??? their fucking BANTER in general, then their soft comfort at the end?? like that is INCREDIBLY out of their gamer persona, like i cannot state this enough. they have their moments together. AND THEN THEY PROCEED TO FOLLOW EACH OTHER AFTERWARDS AS GHOSTS??? OH MY GOD???

there's so many more videos like scenes from their minecraft series, gmod, gta v, but this is long enough as it is, so i'll pause it here <33

[bengiyo]

Marahuyo Project Eps 7 & 8 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

Last time, the kids struggled to pick a name for their LGBTQIA+ organization while discussing their strategy before the school board. They eventually decided to focus on connecting their hopes for the island's future with its past, and set about researching. Archie gave Venice some files from the church, Lorie looked through files her dad had, and Ino suggested interviewing people after providing equipment. We learned that Archie is struggling with the path to holy orders (manifested in his neck scratching), Ino said aloud that he was gay and kissed King, and Lili is probably intersex. Each of our our kids is holding confidence about this. Lili read Marco for filth, read him for blood, but unfortunately we left at Marco outing her.

Episode 7: Aswang

You know King isn't the violent type, because some of my people would have curb stomped his ass by now.

Oh, Ino. I understand.

Okay, Lili's story is so sad and lonely. I'm glad she told Lili before this.

Oof, Lorie was not ready for the friends to lovers kiss.

That was difficult, but King is right. He shouldn't ask Ino to come out, but it doesn't stop him from getting hurt.

King's grandmother is great. It's making me sad that Ino has no one else to talk to after that.

Wow, Marco is really doubling down on being an asshole.

I appreciate this show now disguising the kinds of casual homophobia you run into.

It's hard to recognize when you need to give someone you love space when you want to help.

I do like the idea of them reclaiming the balagtasan as a way to present their ideas to the island.

I knew it was Ino who graffitied the mural.

Gay people really will turn their relationship problems into a public spectacle.

This poetry is beautiful.

Oh, Ino, I'm proud of you.

My boy is bleeding!! Marco, it's on sight!!

Man, what a concise breakdown of how it feels to know your truth and have your caregivers try to stifle that in you for the sake of appearances.

Episode 8: Babaylan

Ino and King opening up old wounds.

Yes, King, tell your mom. Shame is learned at home. A kid can face the world if they're safe at home.

I love King so much for not sugarcoating how bad public scorn can get.

Swimming at night is very dangerous, but I'm always happy to receive an underwater kiss BECAUSE IT STILL BELONGS TO THE GAYS.

Oh good. Lorie and Lili are finally talking.

See, this is the thing about doing queer media versus making QL sometimes. Apologizing for loving someone is such a queer experience. Your love isn't something that you should be ashamed of, and you shouldn't have to apologize for caring a lot about someone.

This feels like the right place for these two as friends to possibly more.

Oh shit Lili got me when she held back tears at getting best friends.

It really is exhausting how hard authority works constantly to police and enforce heteronormativity. There are so few of us. Why is it always this constant bullshit?

Oof, I actually like this choice to have Archie vote to impeach Ino, become the new president, and then immediately return to the site where they honored Christina to cry about it. Venice understands that taking care of other queers is a long term project. At least Archie said her name.

Many of my beloved elders have passed. I wish I could talk to them sometimes. Especially Barry.

I love that Venice is eating in almost every scene.

Hey! They finally picked a name!

I love how homophobes talk about history, and then storm out when confronted with uncomfortable truths.

Crying over these outfits. They're so right. Formal acceptance by the status quo doesn't erase our existence, or the bonds between us. We will make space for ourselves and those like us.

Oh, Archie. I understand you, too. I hope you find peace with yourself and others.

I love Sue Prado, but does the mom really deserve to be here? I'll accept them trying to extend grace to struggling parents since Grandma has been with them the whole time.

This march works though. Before it was only three of them. Now look at them.

A post credits scene! Wait, I love the idea of Juvy and Jose going to visit them!

Final Verdict: 9.5, Finally Some Good Fucking Food. I am just so relieved to have another show from JP Habac. It's clear he and his friends have such strong ideas about where queer people fit in our society today, and I love that his work is never about defeating homophobia and is instead about connecting others to queer joy. Despite how this show stirred up all sorts of old hurts in me, I feel so much love for these characters, and I'm so thankful that I can point to a show with a wide spectrum of queer experiences delivered in such a beautiful package. It's so rare to see a show treat the closet seriously, and I will be thinking about this show forever, alongside JP's previous work: Gaya sa Pelikula (aka Like in the Movies).

[a-murmur-of-a-prayer]

top 5 uhhh uhhhh favorite books 🫵

So this isn't in order, and my list of favorite books tends to shift because...I love many books and am very, VERY indecisive when ranking them haha. But here we go!

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Vicious isn't like My Favorite Book Of All Time but for whatever reason it IS the first book I think of when people ask me for book recommendations. I'm not kidding - I love this book so much I recommend it to people I shouldn't recommend it to. It's really, really hard to describe, however, I think every tumblrina in the world should drop what they're doing and read this book.

It's basically Frankenstein plus dark superheroes plus Viktor/Jayce and also its own thing that's beautiful and thrilling. The first time I read this book I couldn't put it down - the pacing kept me on edge especially in the last third. Basically summed up, it's two mentally fucked up science majors in college who are subtextually gay for each other and decide to turn each other into superheroes for their final class project. (I've written a one-shot about it, which you can find on my AO3, and will probably write more.)

Anyway enough poetic waxing about Vicious it's just that everyone should read it. Moving on

Chaos by Tom O'Neill

Hard genre shift here, but this is also a book that affected me DEEPLY for a long time (and also the book that got me really interested in pursuing journalism). It's a very true story - if you're familiar with the Hollywood/Sharon Tate murders in the 1960s that were done by this cult, it's about that. A journalist (O'Neill) got asked to do a 30 year anniversary piece about it, except that no one wanted to talk to him, and he ended up unearthing a lot of crazy shit in Hollywood that amounted to Charles Manson being involved with the CIA, hence why the government never wanted to outright blame him. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I loved watching his process unfold; and if you, like me, also love true crime and hate the government, this book might be for you!

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

This might be a controversial opinion but this is one of the only Bardugo books I"ve ever really liked (no hate to anyone who likes her others, I just couldn't get into them). This is another one of my massive hyperfixations that comes and goes (it's out rn, but has been showing signs of making a comeback lately). It's kind of steampunk/Eastern European vibes (don't let the British accents in the TV show fool you) and the main character Kaz Brekker is probably one of the best written characters of all time if you love anti-heroes and guys who appear to be really cool but it's a facade and they actually just hate themselves and everything except for one (1) person. All the other characters are awesome too; for the sake of conciseness I won't give any details, but if you read it and you don't love Kaz, you'll for sure latch on to at LEAST one of the others characters.

Lord of the Rings

I feel the need to name this because it played such a huge role in shaping my taste in writing, fantasy, and stories in general. My dad read The Hobbit to me and my sister when I was 8 and I'd say I hyperfixated on it for the next...eight years. I do maintain that the books are difficult to read, but I love them, and if you can't read them I love the movies too! (just in a different way) I haven't been deeply into LOTR in a while, but I'm starting to get back into it as well (one of my cousins started a family book club which I'm enjoying a lot); and there's no downplaying the fact that this book started me on fanfiction. While the fics I read were fairly innocent, I finally ventured far enough on the internet to discover it, and LOTR will always be special for that, as well as the fact that it continues to be really comforting to me as an adult.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

This is another fantasy book, but like most of my favorite fantasy books, it's a little quirky. My summary of this book is basically "Harry Potter but college and more realistic." The main character, Kvothe, is fucking awesome; the magic system is awesome; and the two main things that always stuck out to me are a) how he uses voodoo to fuck with his professor he hates and gets punished for it but doesn't care and also kind of enjoys it and b) the fact that this awesome, magically talented character has to struggle to get enough money for a place to live every semester. I haven't reread it in a while, but this is also a book that I recommend to everyone.

Thanks for the ask! Sorry it got long...that's what happens when I am asked about media unfortunately

[genghisthebrain]

ranking things wednesday definitely calls enid (and you should call your significant other)

my sweet potato moonshine - alcohol is good to wednesday, enid is good to wednesday. big fan of the implication wednesday makes alcohol for fun. 8/10.

canine of my heart - bonus points for the tswift reference. maybe a little long for my liking. good over an email. 7/10.

delicate rabies - short, concise, loving term of endearment. 10/10.

scritch scratch - decent, definitely like it extra because of the alliteration and pararhyme. 6.5/10.

dead tree cells - this is a good pun on "bark." and I'm a pun kinda gal. 7/10.

sinclair de lune - as a pianist and, again, a pun gal, I give this points, but as a human being who doesn't really like clair de lune, I'm indifferent. 8.5/10.

ravishing wall rat - yall seen those posts on tiktok about the massive rats that come out of walls? that's what she's comparing enid to. and they're kind of cute. I think this is sweet, a good inside joke and funny. 9/10.

manicured mongrel - pretty much enid in a nutshell. canine and always with some good ass nails. 8/10.

mrs addams - adorable as shit, I love the love, 11/10.

[randomvarious]

1970s Punk Rock Playlist

So, like, isn't it kind of ridiculous that I've had this 70s punk rock playlist for a few years now, but I've never once put any UK stuff on it before? Isn't that a very crucial place where punk rock really blew up between its late 60s Detroit/Ann Arbor founding and The Ramones? Like, there's such a rich history from over across the pond that I haven't tapped into at all yet!

But, fortunately, that changes now. At long last, the Brits have arrived to fuck shit up, folks. And no, I didn't bring in any super obvious choices like The Sex Pistols or Buzzcocks or The Clash, because that's not really how I operate 😁. Instead, you're getting awesome tracks from a quartet of bands that you've probably never heard of before, unless you're either a) British or b) happened to read my 1970s power pop playlist post from last week, because there's a tiny bit of crossover there with the pop-punky and super catchy anthem that is Fast Cars' "The Kids Just Wanna Dance," which is by far this update's most popular track, as it's currently sitting at over 100K plays on Spotify.

But the rest of these adds, in spite of how good they are, have not proven nearly as popular as we keep getting nearer to their five-decade anniversary. Songs like the unfortunately oh-so-relevant-again-and-also-quite-salient anti-fascist bop, "They're Back Again" by a band called The Cigarettes, is only nearing 29K plays at this moment. And in true Brit punk fashion, this tune that was calling out a noticeable late 70s far-right rise, and was also released in the same year that Margaret Thatcher became UK prime minister too, really sounds like it pairs well with cracking some skinhead skulls! 🤘

I'm not a violent person, I'll make exception for you

And then "East Coast Kids" by The What?, which only has a little over 2.8K plays, has a bassline on it that's so prominent that, although it's most likely being played by a fretless, it could easily be mistaken for being that of a double. Really cool!

The Cigarettes - "They're Back Again, Here They Come" Fast Cars - "The Kids Just Wanna Dance" Squire - "Livin' in the City" The What? - "East Coast Kids"

And there's, of course, a YouTube version of this playlist too. Normally, I'd have at least one song to add to that one that can't be found on Spotify, but remarkably, this update doesn't actually have any.

And this playlist is also on YouTube Music.

So with this update, our Spotify version of this playlist now stands at 22 songs that run for 54 minutes, but over on YouTube, we now have 27 songs that run for 77 minutes. So if you want a little extra 70s punk rock, like a track from the legendary Stooges that somehow wasn't actually on YouTube until I showed up and somehow only has 28 plays(?) as of this writing, give that one a look.

And if you want something more specific and concise, I've got a punk playlist that's solely focused on 1979 too.

1979 Punk Rock: YouTube / YouTube Music

And here's the list of compilations that were used to build this playlist:

Motor City's Burnin' (1998, Total Energy) Destination Bomp! (1995, Bomp! Records) What? Stuff (1990, Iloki Records) Dangerhouse, Volume 2: Give Me a Little Pain! (1992, Frontier Records) Dangerhouse, Volume One (1991, Frontier Records) The Roots of Powerpop! (1996, Bomp! Records) 100% British Mod (1998, Captain Mod)

Back to some power pop next week 😎.

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

[idkfitememate]

i just need to talk about it somewhere so here i am.

TW : i'm french so the class i'm talking about are french class. Idk what are the class in english, and honestly, i'm too bored for searching it.

I was bullied during my middle school, which made me miss my 4th year(4ème) and when I changed places for my 3rd year (3ème), my bully followed me, making me do a blank year.

Now, they want me to do a CAP, problem : with a CAP, I can't do a bac général. I will be forced to do a bac pro, but I DON'T want to do a bac pro, I want a général because all the jobs I want to do need a bac général. But NOBODY listen to me.

They want me to do something I don't want, and I have a problem that prevents me from refusing too much because when people look at me, most of the time I feel oppressed. People talk to me like I have no choice. And I know very well that if I'm made to do something that I don't like, or that I hate like this, I won't go to class and I don't want my parents to pay for something that I know that I will not go.

What to do or to say for them to finally listen ?? (and just so you know, people only listened to me when I do sh. It's the only time people really listened to me, and after being clean for 2 years, I don't want to do it again just to be listened to.)

-🦝anon

Oh dear, I’m so sorry to hear that!! Unfortunately, I’ve had that problem too a lot of my life and found that the only way people in my life listen to me is if I say the most out of pocket shit I can think of, and I don’t think that’ll help in this situation.

Best I can think of is asking them to sit down with you and finally have a long discussion about your wants and desires. Don’t let them talk over you and make your points clear and concise.

I really don’t know how to help in this situation, and I apologize for that as I would love to help you. It is interesting to know that you’re French though! I hope that you’re able to get through this, and know you had support all the way from America!!! I believe in you!!

[foxsarah]

for those who are unaware

the infamous "everyone hates me because i defend an actor nobody likes and therefore am a special little victim despite harassing countless mbav-centric blogs"-blog found her way into me & @/morganweir's discord the other night. this post will serve as information for anybody on discord who happens to be unaware of who she is/uncomfortable with interaction. this will also be a retelling of just??? other strange shit theyve said/done in the server??? so yeah 👍

anything with a * will have proof under the cut for the sake of being concise, alt text not yet provided at the time of posting, server members that are not mods have been scribbled out for the sake of their privacy

this is her discord handle, which used to be completely different when she joined. her first username was "sweetgoldensunflower_67494"*, until she changed it to "bennyweirsgirlfriend_86787". to most of us, this was an immediate red flag/signal that this might've been "the benny anon". to me and mer in particular, we wanted to wait to see if we'd possibly misjudged someone's character before making any attempts to kick or ban. some may consider that too slow of a method for taking action with this person, when really, there are a handful of atticus/benny "defenders" to this day who are more normal about hiding that part of themselves than this person, and it would've looked even worse if we kicked someone for seeming like the benny anon.

and for a minute or so, she too seemed normal, until she made her intro. where she faked her age.

you'll notice that a lot of her messages are edited, and some members brought to my attention that her intro said "20" at first instead of "24". why on earth would a 20something year old have their screen/username as "girlfriend of canonical child"? idk! regardless i hadn't noticed the change in her intro due to being busy irl for the majority of her interactions. speaking of interactions,

i'm never going to fault someone for not knowing how to use discord, newer members to our server most likely haven't been using it as long as older members, but this exchange was in reference to our "rules & roles" channel that is set to "read only" mode for members who aren't mods. i assume the "permission" she was talking about was the ability to write messages in that channel.

bringing discourse into our channels isn't exactly uncommon, as most of us are mature enough to have conversations that don't get into personal absolutes like this, in regards to a member's video essay on radio rebel.

at this point, the language used by her messages were just carbon copies of her anons** as all of them followed the same theme of her "fave" being "hated" or attacked. she would go on to assume the worst** of other members the same way. this was expect of her as anyone who's had the displeasure of the benny anon in their inbox knows how she likes to go on her tangents. what we did not expect was her finding a server member's personal instagram page, going through their following list, and choosing to make unnecessary commentary on it.

this was the last straw for me, as i have no patience for cyberstalking no matter how "small" it may seem. i proceeded to ban & block her.

i suggest that yall reading this do not continue to engage with her, especially those who are members of the mbav server, as i'm pretty sure it would do nothing to protect people from potential harassment, nor would it benefit us as people who just want to partake in enjoying mbav.

that's all 👍

*original username

**personalizing critiques of atticus mitchell as "hate"

[termagax]

would love 2 know (🫰7 , 💌 8 , ❤️‍🔥1 ) ^_^ for fishhook

🫰7 - If you were to build a mini playlist to associate with your f/o, what 3 songs would you include? What songs would your f/o think to use for you?

oh my god. only three? let me think. songs i associate with him..  every song ever.... hm. i guess if i was gonna name songs that i think describe fishes attitude towards him, i'd pick...

feelings of love - the obvious (A LOVE PURE AND DEVOUT / WHAT BULLSHIT)

hertz - amyl and the sniffers (TAKE ME TO THE BEACH, TAKE ME TO THE COUNTRY, CLIMB IN THE BACKSEAT IF YOU LOVE ME)

animal - sir chloe (I'LL ASK POLITELY, GIVE ME WHAT I WANT, MAKE ME BEHAVE LIKE AN ANIMAL)

and three that are for how he sees fish...

the only thing i know - the mountain goats (HOW MUCH DO I LOVE YOU? WELL, YOU KNOW YOU'RE DYING. AND I KNOW YOU'RE DYING TOO.)

a pearl - mitski (YOU'RE GROWING TIRED OF ME, AND ALL THE THINGS I DON'T TALK ABOUT // I'M SORRY I CAN'T TAKE YOUR TOUCH, IT'S JUST THAT I FELL IN LOVE WITH A WAR AND NOBODY TOLD ME IT ENDED)

my heart goes bum bum bum - flatsound (YOU'RE THE THOUGHTS THAT I FEAR, YOU'RE THE MOUNTAINS I'VE CONQUERED, IF I TOLD YOU I LOVED YOU WOULD YOU REACH OUT AND TOUCH ME? YOU TASTE LIKE THE OCEAN AND YOUR BODY'S DISGUSTING)

this is so hard but im trying to be concise and cohesive. fishs are all upbeat songs about desperately needing love from someone who probably fucking hates you and hogs are all slow angsty songs about trying to love someone who makes you disgusted with yourself. i could do a sappier version of these that are actually about them Being In Love and stuff but oh my god i make so many posts about their playlist you guys MUST be sick of it by now.

💌8 - What about those more unpleasant "firsts"? First argument? First time seeing the other cry? First time breaking up if y'all are messy?

first argument i actually literally have a whole comic scripted out somewhere about, the gist of it is that ants parents find out that they uhh dropped out of uni to do a technical terrorism with their boyfriend and freak out and insist they come home and get their shit together and theyre like come on man can you believe this shit and mako is like well. maybe theyre kind of right. and it gets SUPER messy and extremely personal because annie has never been able to let anything go and they have a good eye for other peoples insecurities and they know exactly how to needle him. and mako has some poorly-controlled anger issues and a lot of shame about everything hes ever done or said and in general is just a weak person emotionally and a strong person physically. so really all it takes is a couple of jabs about how he sees them as old enough to fuck but too young to date and suddenly walls are being punched and people are storming out and driving off. luckily theyre both still in the part of their lives where they can say sorry to another person so they do figure that out.

i dont think mako cries super easily like ever so genuinely i think the first time they actually see him cry would be during sex in the wasteland era. starts as a pain response but its just been so fucking long that he cant stop and suddenly its an Everything Response. on the other hand i think annie is an angry crier so hes probably seen them cry a good number of times and it wigs him out every time. he doesnt know what to Do.

first breakup is um. the Big One. accidentially nuke 1/2 your country and then he drives off into the night and all youve got to remember him by is a dogshit note and severe radiation poisoning. beautiful.

❤️‍🔥1 - What kind of dynamics do you engage in when it comes to intimacy? How important is it to your relationship? Is it intense, or kept lighthearted and fun?

there really arent strict rules for them, theyve probably done it every way possible, but the standard kind of evolves over time. when theyre young annie tends to kind of be the director, theyre more experienced and know exactly what they want from him, though they tend to encourage him to be the Boss and go harder with it, and then when theyre wasteland on-offing it they tend to fight each other for control which usually ends with fish on the bottom getting their ass handed to them, and then when things mellow out and they fall into a smoother rhythm it gets less intense emotionally speaking but a lot freakier. and i think as hog gets older especially and he fucks people who Arent Fish he kind of learns that he prefers to be kind of a subby bottom and i think w rat he is the spoiled little princess of that dynamic (which i imagine to be a bit stricter on the d/s stuff) which sort of bleeds over to how he is with fish, and theyre more than happy to be in charge though again theyre a lot looser with it and they both definetly prefer to not make it easy for each other. i think as they get older and more stable in the relationship it gets a lot more openly affectionate and sweet, theyre less mean to each other and more teasing, especially from fish who takes great pleasure in embarrassing hog just by complimenting him too much. oh also i dont know if youve gathered but it is Extremely Important. there are periods where if they didnt love fucking each other so much they probably wouldve straight murdered each other. fishgirl dick is just that good i guess.

[batbirdies]

Thank you @coyote-nebula and @selkienight60 for the tag!

1. how many works do you have on AO3?

22

2. what's your total AO3 word count?

610,258 - the fact that it's over half a million but I've only written 22 fics is... telling lmao.

3. what fandoms do you write for?

currently and for the forseeable future, just Batfam, but I have written for the Hobbit fandom and Marvel in the past. And I think Harry Potter way back in my OC days.

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Clearly Calm and Keeping Terrorized in which Jason has a ROUGH time with PTSD and the timing is right to do some relationship healing with the fam. The Penny Drops the Penny Dreads in which Jason is a 12 year old Robin new to the manor and struggling to deal with some unresolved trauma thats not so far behind him. I'll Come Our Right On the Other Side in which Bruce is in therapy and trying to work on his relationships with his kids Overcoming Our Antecedents in which Jason is deaged to the day before he ran away to Ethiopia and Bruce gets to try again Live While I Breathe in which Bruce is badly triggered by an explosion, deals with it badly, is yelled at by Stephanie Brown to get his shit together, and has a a slow internal battle that ends in the decision to go to therapy.

5. do you respond to comments?

Not very often :( I used to reply to all my comments but it just started to be a source of anxiety and to feel overwhelming so i decided to stop unless something just really inspires a response or asks a direct question I can easily answer.

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

I struggled to think of one for this because I just don't write angsty endings. HOWEVER I do have one from 2014 when I was in the marvel fandom. Seams in which Bucky internalizes the fear surrounding his metal arm. (it's only 500ish words)

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I would say most of my fics have postive endings if not outright "happy". But I would saaaaay probably Overcoming Our Antecedents?

8. do you get hate on fics?

Occasionally I get rude comments, usually complaining about how a certain character is unfairly treated by the narrative. Which always makes me a little insane lol. I try to just delete them.

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

I don't. Never been interested. Probably actively uninsterested lol.

10. do you write crossovers?

I don't, and probaly the same as above lol.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't believe so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Mengru on AO3 translated multiple of my fics into Chinese.

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

Yes! Recently with Coyote_Nebula. Tip for a Successful Interview: Lie (down)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I really don't care about romantic ships, if I'm willing to read a fic that centers around it it's up there lol. But I dearly love platonic ships. Having said that I am terrible at choosing favorites of things. My reading and writing history probably supports Bruce &Jason as my fav platonic relationship but lately I'm also loving Bruce & Clark friendship.

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

A Bad Case of the Good 'Ol Days I still really like whats there but the rest of the fic is a mystery to me at this point. I've plotted it like three times at least but it never feels right.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think Dialogue and complicated emotions. I have also been told that I'm good at evoking anxiety in readers lol.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am VERBOSE I'm very bad at being concise which is clearly reflected in my stack of long ass fics lol. I think I've improved but its definitely still my biggest weakness. I also struggle with any kind of complicated plot. I have a WIP currently that has a deeper plot and it panics me lmao.

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

I think it depends what you're going for. If you want the audience to understand what's being said, you should provide a ready translation that doesn't involve jumping to the end notes and then having to find your way back to the place you were previously reading. Its just really disruptive to the reading experience for me. I have seen people do really cool formatting on AO3 where you can hover over text and see a pre-input translation. Its very cool on desktop but I'm not sure if it works on Mobile. My go to is pretty much always just to state that someone is speaking in a different language and tell the audience what they said. Sometimes I'll italicize it only so the reader doesn't forget that the words are not meant to be in English.

Of course sometimes you don't want the audience to know what is being said and that can be fun, however you do risk some of your readers speaking the language and getting hints other people don't lol. Or google translating it for themselves. So up to the author if they're cool with that or not.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I honestly am not sure. I think I wrote fic for most of the cartoons I watched as a ten year old lol, but I didn't know what fandom was then. Harry Potter if we're getting official.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

Still CCAKT at this point I think, but once Penny Drops is finally FINALLY completed it might give it a run for its money.

Sorry I don't have the bandwidth to think of anyone to tag right now, it took me three days to finish filling this out despite the entertainment value 😅 but thanks for the tags and I hope anyone who wants to will do it too, feel free to tag me when you post it if you do :)

[red-might-be-dead]

hello.! could you spare some bitb headcanons? i'm planning to start writing some stuff for it in the coming months and you seem like the expert so :3

sorry this took so long to reply to.... jkghksfjhgkjfha

KIAN!! -

i like to think that he was the smartest in the group, he would always do well in tests and classes and shit and he would bunk off most of the time, it would really piss off his teachers because he would fly through school and get As on everything

he left just after finishing highschool, probably before rolan left, his parents didn’t even notice he was gone

he was homeless for a while after music didn’t work out but eventually made money through stocks or whatever the fuck he had going for him lmaoo

his monster is always some kind of tarantula to me, the fur or hair or whatever is the same as the animal pattern on his jacket and he has lots of reds and hot pinks all over :33

ROLAN!! -

he moved to town when he was about 5 or 6 and made friends with rand and kian (they were already friends)

he was the least book smart but he tried really hard in school, unlike the other two, and although he still skipped some classes he was definitely a teachers pet (i feel like he would just seem very trustworthy even if he had just been smoking weed with his friends behind the bleachers)

he left highschool and then stayed with rand after kian left, he didn’t really talk to him he more just stayed in galloway, after rachel died (or went missing) he stayed away from rand but he couldn’t bring himself to leave him behind

when he left he told rand he was going (this was the first proper interaction that they’d had since highschool ended) and rand got so pissed off at him

in college he was quiet but lots of people gravitated towards him, he was a sweet guy with a nice energy so he made lots of friends very fast

he did a lot of sports in highschool, i think he carried on doing some of them until he went back to galloway (probably running)

his bug arm always reminds me of a preying mantis, i think if he had gone full bug-o-mode he would have been some kind of preying mantis creature with whites blacks and blues

RAND!! -

okay so this fucking guy, this guy, this greasy freak is my favourite ever jrwi character and i will NOT be able to get all of the shit down i want to for him because there is SO. MUCH. i’m definitely gonna write this more concisely than i did the shit for the other two

okay, he was smart in highschool, the teachers all hated him so much (he was a less charismatic version of kian) he did well in exams because he actually did study out of class unlike kian BUT he was 10 times more distributive (really he was just doing anything to make his friends laugh)

spent a lot of time IN school writing the d&d campaign and a lot of time OUT of school catching up on the stuff he should’ve been doing IN school

he had a girlfriend for a time, they kissed, he didn’t like it, he realised he liked men, he realised he liked rolan, he repressed all of that and moved on, him and his girlfriend broke up (due to him not spending any time with her, ignoring her in school and spending all the time they did have together talking about rolan or kian, basically him being an overall bad boyfriend), he moves on with life, basically forgets she ever existed

all through all of this time he has also been constantly getting into arguments with his parents and trying to do everything he could to NOT be with his sister (not that he didn’t love her it’s just he didn’t want to spend every waking hour with her)

his parents liked rachel more than him, it wasn’t her fault, rachel was always the most perfect child ever, she admired rand so much she really wanted to be as cool as him (she didn’t understand much about her brother but she loved him anyway)

after rachel was kidnapped rand started to ignore kian and rolan, he started slipping behind in classes and he stopped distracting people in classes, then he stopped coming into school at all, he never graduated

he locked himself in his room during the day and spent all night looking for rachel in the bayou (miracle he didn’t get turned lmao, maybe rach was protecting him in some way) he regretted everything and he would do anything for just another minute with his sister

kian left and didn’t even say goodbye, rand thought he deserved to be ignored for being such a bad friend

it was rolan leaving that broke him, everything was falling apart, he screamed and cried and cursed at rolan as he was driving away, the last thing he said was “i love you” but rolan never heard

he didn’t leave galloway, he couldn’t leave his sister alone again

if he ever went bug-o-mode i think he would be some kind of scorpion creature, or like, idk, a cicada lmao

honestly this is just how i thought the campaign ended canonically but idk anymore: when he talked to his sister he was hallucinating (the same way as when he was talking to dead kian) and he bled out floating in the swamp looking up at the sky

OKAY THATS IT…. BUUUT i do have a shit ton of conflicting headcanons and also smaller character headcanons that i might just drop in your inbox sometimes if that’s okay with you :DD!! sorry this took like one billion years… i didn’t even get everything….

[animehouse-moe]

Well, Tumblr decided to bug out on me and I've now lost the original question that was asked, but someone had asked for my favorite series (be it manga/anime/movies/Tv/etc), and this was my response.

(first of all, so sorry for losing the question! I should have taken a screenshot or something when Tumblr wouldn't let me post)

It's all good, I enjoy getting these types of questions because they make me think about this stuff haha. I'm not one to really do well with the idea of favorites, so having to pin down stuff like this can be interesting for me!

That said, for this one I might just stick with anime for the list to make it a little easier. I can definitely do a top ten of manga or other stuff later on though. Also, this list will be in no particular order because I'd be stuck forever trying to figure out a satisfying order for them.

Sonny Boy

I think it's a very fair point to argue, that at this stage in his career, Sonny Boy is Shingo Natsume's magnum opus. There's just not much else to it. It's a series that he created, from his own mind and talent, and he executed on that. There are very, very few people that work in anime that can manage a feat such as that. In terms of story, I don't have any issue with claiming Sonny Boy is the pinnacle of high school storytelling. It stretches the fabric of reality so far that you might struggle to claim that it's about high school, but the longer that you spend with it, the more undeniable a fact it becomes. Or maybe you could generalize it to the human condition, or how the cracks in society will fester and form no matter the condition, or how authority will always appear in a self-serving manner, or this or that or any concept under the sun.

Terror In Resonance

Call me crazy, but there's quite a few reasons why this is the Shinichiro Watanabe anime for me. Bebop and Champloo have rose colored glasses that adorn every fan in the community, so I feel like it's hard to really take a proper look at it compared to Terror In Resonance (even though it has a similar amount of users on MAL). As a Mappa project, it is simply the best they've ever been from start to finish. As a concept, Watanabe's approach is impeccable as it examines the frustration and sorrow of displaced children in a society that never wanted them. It's powerful, concise, and from start to finish an incredibly focused series filled with some of the crowning achievements of animators in the industry. Seriously. Takashi Hashimoto, the animator for this cut, actually did all the math to calculate the speed of the smoke as it fell and moved. Some of the best work you'll see on an anime.

Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song

I am a big, big fan of Tappei Nagatsuki's work, so being able to experience an anime that is entirely his vision of the work is really impressive. It's one of the biggest struggles with artists, I find. Understanding their work through different mediums. What you see as an anime is not what they created as a manga, or light novel. But this is different, it is Nagatsuki's (and Umehara's) sole vision, the entire intent behind their creativity. And WIT knocked it out of the park to an insane degree. As a post-AoT studio, they showed just how far they can push their creativity and execution on a series beyond human. Incredible story, incredible animation, arguably some of the best hand to hand combat we've seen in an anime in a very long time. It's just that good.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Maybe you see a trend going on with my picks, and while yes it's partly recency bias, it's also a gravitation towards anime originals. I'll add a piece to that at the end, but this is about Edgerunners right now. I was in high school when the video game was first announced. That's a decade ago, now. I played the shit out of 2077 when it dropped, and I'm absolutely eating up Phantom Liberty currently. It is then, absolutely no surprise, that I've placed Edgerunners on a pedestal. But of course, there's also a reason that Edgerunners is in the top 100 anime on MAL, and why it's Trigger's highest rated anime. It's just that damn good. An incredible story revolving around Night City and the themes that Mike Pondsmith laid the groundwork for decades ago. A true tribute to the tabletop game and the genre at large.

The Tatami Galaxy

I don't think there's a way I couldn't put The Tatami Galaxy on this list, truthfully. Of course, that also encompasses the sequel ONA The Time Machine Blues, and spinoffs like The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl. Tomohiko Morimi is a genius, Yusuke Nakamura is an icon, and Masaaki Yuasa is a savant. Incredible work for such an incredible story and message about the pursuit of perfection and the beauty that lies in the present. Arguably, much like titles such as Sonny Boy, these are 100% must watch titles for an anime fan. I'd highly recommend the others still, but these two represent such core and important aspects to how people choose to lead their lives and the frameworks that they do so within, that I strongly believe it's a requirement. I also wrote a review on the novel when I read it in January of this year.

Heike Monogatari

I think history is a very important thing to understand. I also think that history can be presented as obtuse, disinteresting, or too literal - especially in relation to history stories or myths. Heike Monogatari by Science Saru is arguably one of the greatest examples of how to display a modernized version of such a foundational tale to the history of Japan. It's also an incredibly powerful moment for the director, Naoko Yamada, as it was their first real work since the arson attacks on her home studio of Kyoto Animation. Because of the weight of her past, her work beyond words on this anime feels that much more powerful considering its messages about the past and fear of the future. It's wonderfully emotional, and contains one of my favorite closing scenes to a series.

The Saga of Tanya The Evil

Light novel aside, anime quality aside (though both are great), there's a separate reason this title is featured on this list: the adaptation. It is, for lack of a better term, borderline insane as an adaptation. It bears almost no similarity to its source. The tone is different, the scope and scale differ, there's significant changes in terms of narrative, and even the order of large scale events differs. But still, somehow, it remains a fantastic series. Bearing nearly zero resemblance to what it claims to adapt, it is something that I love. It's an incredible feat, and the gold standard of its one-of-a-kind approach to adapting a light novel.

Mononoke

Horror is a very hard thing to do right, at least in my opinion. Many get suckered into thriller territory very quickly, and avoid the psychological nature of horror. The immovable nature of something fearful standing in front of you, the slow descent into madness and despair. Mononoke grasps that incredibly well, and earns a spot on this list because of it's appeal in that manner. Also, the art is just incredible, personifying the more classical style that would be associated with the creatures and myths that pepper the story. I'm incredibly excited to see what comes from the upcoming movie.

Welcome To The N.H.K

While it may differ between its three formats, the core of the story stands strong. Impossible to put into words, it's more of a descent than anything. A descent that turns inwards on each of the characters as they slowly lose their grip on reality, as they continue to fall apart, piece by piece. I have my qualms about how they choose to end it, but I am a very bitter man at my core so it's more a personal difference than a quality one. Regardless, if you want an acid trip down the rabbit hole of depression, mania, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and all manner of other illness, there's no better story than Welcome To The N.H.K.

Toradora!

There's something special about Toradora to me. Is it the era that the anime comes from? Is it the appeal to a classic style of romance without falling prey to the issues of the layout? I'm unsure. But something about it feels so… comfortable, to me. I could watch it again and again and enjoy each minute. It's probably not the best romance anime out there, but it's one that I'll always be drawn to.

And with that, the list is over. Just to provide some extra context and honorable mentions, I'd love to have put series like Alien 9 or Monogatari on the list, but the challenge with them is the fact that the first is a shorter OVA, and the latter is a much larger series encompasses nearly too much to explain in this sort of context. There's really quite a few series like that that I struggled with when forming this list, but they're still really great titles nonetheless.

Anyways, the anime original point. While it's sort of an unconscious thing, I do realize what I do with it. Anime originals present something that you can't experience elsewhere. They are the end all be all of their creative vision, and that excites me more than a manga adaptation. Following someone else's blueprint vs creating your own, obviously one is more interesting than the other. And that sentiment extends to some of the other titles on the list like Heike Monogatari which approaches a classic story with a radical new viewpoint, or Tanya The Evil which basically forgoes the vast majority of its source material. It's really something I struggle with at large with adaptations. So many people want to leave their marks on the work, but quit just short of doing so in a meaningful manner. Very few go the mile to say that they did something in regards to the work, and instead meddle with it in minor ways which can negatively impact its reception as the original material. A great example of valuable changes is Heavenly Delusion. The team under Hirotaka completely re-arrange the order of events in the anime, and in doing so elevate the series in a way that only they can. Anyways, I digress, a discussion that I should leave for another time. This is my list, it may not be the best list out there, but it is mine.

[latina4rmbx]

Left or Right

I bet you're thinking this may be a political rant and although it could be seen as such, I'm not necessarily political in my world views. I respect everyone's rights accept when those rights hurt the helpless. You'll kinda see what I mean, I hope.

There is a quote that reads: The greatest trick the devil (Capital D, but I won't give it that much power) ever pulled was convincing the world (capital W) he didn't exist.

The first time I heard that quote was in the movie "The Usual Suspects." Another movie when one of the stars is persona non grata, so their names won't be mentioned. Kaiser Soze, or the person playing him, is telling the story but he's Verbal Kint in the telling.

As the days grow shorter the quote really sticks with me. I'll rewrite it for OOMPH

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

First off, i thought the characters name was Virgil, so to look it up and it be Verbal, makes a lot of sense. Nothing is ever done in a vacuum and I say this often and oftentimes I get tired of hearing it myself, but it's all a cycle. It's just that this time it's a cycle of the greatest con.

With the elections coming up this week there have been a lot of politik conversations within the inner sanctum. This is what I will say, I will respect your decision to vote however your conscious and your views allow you to. I won't hold anyones political views against them. I will inquire as to why choose A, B, C or D. It's more an understanding. My. understanding of the human psyche, namely, the person I'm speaking to.

Here's the thing, some people who read this won't like it and I'm ok with that, but I have some very dear loved ones who are both sides of the aisle. Their political views don't change what I feel about them. That's who they believe in.

The unfortunate circumstance is this: The majority will pay for what the minority chooses. Let me clarify because I'm not speaking POC. The populus will pay for what those "in power" (the minority) chooses.

I will say this, I have a ton of well informed, even if misinformed, people in my life. We need to see things as if from the ether.

Here's my opinion, clear and concise. If the mudslinging is true, we're choosing the lesser or two evils. THAT is a sad state of affairs.

I ask you to bare in mind, you can be on the right side of history. Unfortunately, it's a little late for that part. Vote on Tuesday. Do your duty as a citizen of the US. Just be advised that you really should be voting in ALL elections, not just the "major" ones.

When you think of the quote in the context of my writing it may not make sense at first and that's fine. Shit, it may not make sense to you ever. I want you to look at it and realize that there is a swindle happening right in front of our eyes.

This brings me to another point...There are things being said, back to the mudslinging, that are demeaning and disgusting. Here's where the wool gets pulled over your eyes. A real feeling gets revealed in a joke. Not THE joke, but we can use that as an example. People have been playing in our faces for a very long time and we're still not awake enough to realize it.

People have been telling us how they feel about us for a long time now. The words may say they love us, but like the saying goes: Talk is cheap. What are the actions telling you?

That's all for now folks. It seems that I need to start typing as soon as things get in my brain to make sense, and for me to get my point across. Unfortunately, today is not that day lol

XOXO

Thanks for reading