#this took to long knowing that i literally copy and pasted the main part of the weopon each time.

[chaosbloot]

[vettelsvee]

GOODBYES ARE BITTERSWEET | Sebastian Vettel ✩₊˚.⋆ PART 5: I'LL NEVER LEAVE... NEVER MIND [PREVIOUS PART] [NEXT PART]

goodbyes are bittersweet masterlist | wattpad f1 masterlist | ao3 | ask anything or let's talk!

ferrari sebastian vettel x ex gf!female reader

word count: 4437

summary: after not seeing each other in almost five years, seb and y/n finally meet with just one purpose for her: telling seb they have a 4 year old daughter. will y/n be able to tell him?

warnings: mentions of sex. i think nothing else but i literally cried while writing this. i recommend that you listen to loml by taylor swift while reading this hehe

taglist: [ @saltycomicsanimalssalad @hc-dutch @mycenterfold @simplyamberj @spitesfvl-blog @jaydaaasworld @lottalove4evelyn @zoeyjadetice2010 @jehun @ferralari @cosmoscoffeee @mcmuppet @myescapefromthislife @sleutherclaw @youre-on-your-ownkid ]

a/n: i'm finally back! sorry you had to wait this long to get a new chapter but writers block had me going like crazy, as well as my mental health in general. i had something else planned for today BUT be aware of what I'm posting tomorrow since you might like it! christmas is coming soon and i have a surprise ready for you. let me remind you that feedback and reposts are truly appreciated. and also comment me your thoughts and theories on the story pls! missed you so much guys, thank you for everything, love you all <3

© VETTELSVEE (2024). please, do not steal, copy or translate my works. thanks for reading!

May 15th Heppenheim, Germany

“Y/N, remember that you need to be careful with what you say to Seb. I know you want to tell him about Emily, but also consider whether today is the right time. Imagine if…”

You stop listening to Hanna the moment her lips utter your daughter’s name. Instead, your mind started creating a thousand different scenarios about what could happen when you saw your ex-boyfriend today. Your gaze remained fixed on the mirror in your room.

You only returned home five days ago, but it felt like an eternity.

You knew perfectly well why, or rather, you knew perfectly well who was to blame for your distorted sense of time: Sebastian Vettel, of course.

The trip to London felt like a fresh start. While the main reason to go was your meeting with Capital Records to discuss what your near future might hold, you considered it as an opportunity to rethink what you wanted to do with your life from now on. 

You had just turned 30, and the only thing you longed for was to start this new decade with a clean slate in every possible way. That, of course, included facing your past mistakes and recognizing your faults, one of which you might be about to commit today.

Hanna acted as some sort of mediator between you and Seb because, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t bring yourself to send him even the simplest of messages. The driver seemed to understand, as he told Hanna not to worry, that he understood, and that all you needed to do was show up without standing him up. 

Despite having agreed to meet at your house, you decided to dress up a little to present yourself in the best way possible. After spending far more time than you’d like to admit choosing what to wear, you settled on a light blue knee-length dress and white Converse sneakers, with a bracelet your daughter made (or better said your mother made, just Emily took credit for).

"Y/N, are you even listening to me?"

The reflection of your best friend in the mirror startled you. You turned towards her, trying to maintain the calm you’ve lacked since returning from London. Exactly five days that have felt like five years.

Like the five years since you last saw Seb.

"Hey, cat got your tongue or what?" insisted the blonde. "Seriously, Y/N, I want you to be speechless, but preferably when you and Seb take the conversation from the couch to the bed and he makes you scream his name again just like he used to do when..."

"Hanna, for God's sake, shut up! Seb and I are only going to talk about..."

"I know, I know, I was just trying to make you laugh. You know I like to..." 

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

If you were restless before, pacing back and forth in your room, checking that there was no trace of Emily in the house for Seb to find, now you were frozen like a statue.

You looked at Hanna, and she looked back at you. You shrugged, but Hanna just put her exaggeratedly unfriendly faces.

"Hanna, no..."

"It's Seb, Y/N! It's just Seb, for heaven's sake," she interrupted, and you cut her off just as fast.

"It's the Seb I haven't seen in five years!" you stammered, feeling the anxiety taking over. "Seriously, Hanna, this was a very, very bad idea. I don’t even know why I asked you to tell him to come and..."

"Because he's the father of your daughter, and your only goal is to tell him!" she yelled, trying not to raise her voice too much but failing miserably. You hoped to God Vettel didn’t hear that.

"Hanna..."

"Since I know you're not going to open the door, I'll do it myself. Stay here or come down, do whatever you want, but I'll tell Seb to come find you because clearly, you can't handle welcoming your guest," she declared.

Without saying anything else, she strided out of your room. You could only follow her, practically tripping down the stairs, legs trembling like a teenager on her first date. Your pulse was pounding in your temples, while your mind kept screaming at your body to calm down.

As soon as you stepped onto the ground floor, you saw Hanna opening the door. Her cheerful voice broke the silence, asking Seb how he was and, to your surprise, inviting him in.

You inched closer, not quite enough for them to notice you. Then you stopped, inspecting Seb from head to toe, as if you didn't already know every inch of his body by heart. Even though you were used to seeing him on TV and social media daily, it felt like you haven’t seen him in all this time you’ve been out of touch. He was wearing a slightly worn-out white t-shirt and jeans. His hair was perfectly trimmed, though a bit longer on top, and his beard, probably several days old, was what caught your attention the most, looking just the way you liked it.

But what really captivated you was the bouquet of yellow tulips he was holding, just like he used to bring you for dates or whenever it was a special day for either of you back when you were dating.

You swallowed hard, guilt washing over you as you thought, for a fleeting moment, about him handing you a flower bouquet before you told him you were having his baby.

"Hi..."

You thought your whisper was too soft to be heard, but it was quite the opposite.

Both Seb and Hanna turned to look at each other, then focused on you, still standing in the entryway. Your best friend tensed up slightly, but you tried to reassure her with a slight movement of your hands. The expression on your ex-boyfriend’s face seemed to light up at your small intervention, even if it was minimal.

“Well, Seb, I'll leave you with Y/N. I have a few errands to run…” Your friend tried to excuse herself, though both of you knew it wasn’t true. “See you later for a drink guys!

She winked and quickly slipped out, shutting the door behind her before either of you could even say goodbye.

Now, it was just the two of you, alone.

Seb looked at you again, and you couldn’t help it but get lost in the blue of his eyes. The situation felt strange. You used to cherish every moment of being alone together, but now you didn’t even know how to say a simple "hello." 

You once trusted him completely, and now you were unsure whether to offer him a drink or tell him that you have a four-year-old daughter.

“Hi, sunshine,” he said, breaking the silence.

“Hi, Seb.”

He took a step towards you, slowly moving closer. You noticed how his gaze shifted from the flowers to your eyes, as if he was searching for some kind of answer from you. His eyes reflected a mixture of nervousness and tenderness, stirring a whirlwind of emotions inside you. 

He didn’t have to say it, you could see it in his eyes. He was afraid of how you’d react to this gesture, this little detail that used to drive you crazy, but now… you didn’t know how to feel about it.

You, on the other hand, were utterly stunned. 

How, after all this time and how cold you ended things, could he still do this? How could he still remember?

“These... are for you,” he finally said, his voice low and shaky. He handed you the bouquet, his hands trembling.

You met his gaze, and the way he looked at you was filled with fear, insecurity, and maybe, just maybe, a bit of tenderness. He didn’t need to say it out loud because you knew him too well. He was afraid of how you’d react to this gesture.

“Thank you,” you managed to say, taking your time to smell the flowers.

You couldn’t hold it in. Tears began to blur your vision, and a wave of embarrassment washed over you.

He noticed. Even though you didn’t want to, even though you didn’t feel capable of getting close enough to give him a kiss on the cheek or maybe even a hug, Seb did it anyway.

“It's okay, Y/N,” he whispered. “It’s okay...”

But it wasn’t okay… it was far from okay.

Sebastian Vettel was here, once again, standing in front of you, and possibly back in your life. The boy you once considered your best friend, the best friend you fell in love with, the driver you always supported, and most importantly, the father of your child, was back in your life in such an unexpected way that it still felt surreal.

“I don’t know...” you tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. “It feels surreal that after everything, after such an empty goodbye, here we are, together again,” you confessed. “It’s weird seeing you in front of me in the flesh and not as pixels on a screen.”

“Y/N…”

“I’ve missed you, Seb. So much.”

You knew your honesty didn’t catch him by surprise, because he felt the same way. That’s what hurt the most.

“I missed you too, Y/N. I really did...” he said after a moment, wrapping his arms around you, and you pressed your face against his chest.

“Seb…”

“Don’t overthink it, really,” he interrupted gently. “I’m not here to talk about the past or blame anyone,” he paused, letting out a breath before continuing. “I just want us to go back to who we were before we were together. But, if I’m being honest, we’ve been in love with each other for so long that I can’t remember a time when you weren’t my everything.”

Your lips trembled. The weight of his words was too much for you to handle, at least today, in a first encounter where you haven’t even spent ten minutes together.

You felt awful. You felt shattered inside knowing that if you were in this situation, it was because of you.

“Well, Y/N, tell me…”

“No, no,” you quickly interrupted, grabbing his arm and guiding him to sit on the couch. Immediately after, you rushed to the kitchen to grab the drinks and snacks you spent all morning preparing. “You tell me first. Even though I’ve seen you on TV, I know you’re very private about your life, you know... You never share anything with the media, and well, you don’t even have social media so… How are you?”

He let out a short laugh as he picked up a bottle of water and a cheese-and-salmon toast.

“Well, to be honest, I’m doing much better than when you left me,” he revealed. It didn’t surprise you. After all, it was what you expected him to say. “You must have had your reasons for breaking up with me, and after all these years, I’m not going to ask why you did it. But I won’t lie to you… you left me shattered, Y/N.”

“Seb, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“I know,” he cut in softly, making a gentle gesture with his hand to calm you down. “Like I said, I’m not looking for an explanation or an apology. I just want you to know how I felt. Mentally… damn, Y/N, you broke me, and I completely lost myself, but at the same time, that’s what gave me the strength to win the championship in 2013,” he looked away from your eyes, shifting his gaze to the wall. Nervously, he started playing with his fingers. “All I could think about was you and that, maybe, there was a chance you were watching...”

“Of course I was, Seb,” you said softly, trying to hold back the tears and keep your composure. “No matter what happened, I never stopped watching or supporting you. I’ve always been, and will always be, your number one fan.”

He nodded, a bittersweet expression crossing his face.

“That year, everything I did was with the thought in mind that you were watching and, somehow, it helped me move forward. But… 2014 was when everything fell apart,” he admitted. “Red Bull wasn’t the same anymore, or at least, I didn’t feel the same way. I wasn’t winning, Daniel was beating me… I felt like I had lost everything, including you and, with time, I started to feel like I had no reason to stay with the team or maybe even in Formula 1. Until Ferrari offered me the contract.”

You remembered it like it was yesterday. Unlike any regular sports fan, you found out through Heike when you were out for a walk with Emily.

“When I was given the chance to sign with Ferrari in 2015... Y/N, really, that’s when I realized it wasn’t the end. That’s what I needed to move forward. I think I mentioned it to you on WhatsApp, but I don’t know if you remember…”

You swallowed hard. Of course, you remembered. He told you just before the news became public, before his mum told you, but you didn’t know how to answer him or if you really should do it. The demons in your head made you think it was a joke, even just an excuse to get closer to you. And you also felt that if he did sign with Ferrari, it would open a door you had closed because you weren’t ready to face the truth.

Just like you were doing now.

“I remember, yes,” you murmured, unable to look him in the eyes.

“When I didn’t get a reply from you I decided not to push it. That’s when I realized you didn’t want anything to do with me. Yet I kept sending you stuff as you might know…”

“That’s not it…” You could barely speak. You were as broken as he was. “I read the message, Seb, but… I burst into tears and didn’t have the strength to reply. I didn’t want to give you false hope when I wasn’t ready to… I didn’t want to hurt you more than I already had,” you confessed. “I knew that if I spoke to you again, I’d hurt you again. And I’d hurt myself too. I couldn’t do that to you, Seb.”

He nodded, looking for some kind of affirmation in your gaze.

“At first, I felt really out of place on the team, you know? And I felt that way for a long time,” he revealed. “It was completely out of my comfort zone, and I felt like I’d never fit in. But little by little, Kimi, Maurizio, and the team made me feel like family. It’s strange to think about it now, but I can’t imagine being with any team other than Ferrari.” You agreed with him, from what you had seen on TV, it was clear he felt that way. “Fighting for the world title with them this year and having a real shot at beating Mercedes… I never thought I’d get to this point.”

You looked at him with a mix of admiration and nostalgia. This was the Seb you knew, the Seb with ambition, who always desired more and more. The Seb who never gave up.

The Seb who didn’t break down, even when he had every reason to.

“I’m so proud of you, Seb. I’ve always been, and I always will be. Don’t forget that.”

“Of course, Y/N,” he looked uncomfortable. Quite a bit, actually. “Well… enough about me. You know I don’t like talking about myself… What about you? What have you been up to all this time? My mom told me a bit, and I’ve seen you a few times, but…”

More than not knowing what to say, you sensed he didn’t want to intrude too much into your life.

You swallowed, trying not to get more nervous than you already were, because now, you supposed, was the moment to tell him about Emily.

“Well, not much has changed, really,” you started, unsure of what to say. “I’ve been in Heppenheim the whole time, except for a couple of trips to Berlin, but nothing unusual,” you tried to smile, but your mind kept circling around the fact that you had to tell him you had a daughter. “I’ve been working at the bar and writing music. To be honest, since we broke up I’ve had a lot more inspiration.”

And since I gave birth to Emily, you thought.

Seb didn’t say anything. You figured he understood. After all, he had thrown himself into his career to cope, while you had poured your emotions into writing songs about the story you shared to cope with grief.

“Now things have changed a bit,” you continued, trying to sound more upbeat to push away the painful memories. “Ever since Red went viral… I swear, I uploaded it without expecting anything, but the reaction…”

“The song is amazing, Y/N. Of course it went viral.”

“I’ve been offered a record deal,” you blurted out. “A few years ago, I met Niall Horan at the bar. You know, the guy who was on that band, One Direction…” Seb nodded, his eyes wide, encouraging you to continue. “He told me he was traveling to find some inspiration for his solo career, and I guess Heppenheim seemed like a good place for him to visit.”

“Wait, wait… a record deal?”

“Apparently, Niall told his label that I was the voice behind Red, and, well… Capital Records offered me a contract,” you explained. “They called me to have a meeting in London, which is why we couldn’t meet up last time…”

His face was calm, unreadable, though his mouth had curved into a big smile. He didn’t seem surprised, and you knew there was a strong chance Hanna had told him everything.

If that was true…

“I hope you accepted, Y/N.”

“Well… actually, I didn’t. I turned it down.”

His smile faded for a moment, and his expression became completely serious.

“You turned it down? Why? Sunshine, this is an opportunity…”

“Yes, I know it’s an amazing opportunity, but I can’t accept it. Not right now.”

You figured this was the moment you should tell him the real reason behind rejecting such a big deal, which included a tour if you sold a certain amount of CDs.

Sebastian kept staring at you, which only made you more nervous. You tried to gather your thoughts, searching for the right way to tell him you had a four-year-old daughter, but you couldn’t find the moment.

You couldn’t just drop it on him now, after all, this was your first real conversation in almost five years.

“Y/N, darling…”

“I can’t take the risk when the only thing I’ve managed is to get one song out of all the ones I sent to the label to go viral,” you half-lied. It was true that you didn’t want to talk about it yet, but you were also insecure about your music. “As much as I’d love to have an album, to fill stadiums and have people singing along to my songs, I can’t take that risk.”

“But, Y/N…”

“I’m not sure all the songs on the album would be successful, Seb.”

“Y/N, you have no idea what you’re going to regret if you let this go....”

“No, Seb, I know exactly what I’m doing, really,” you shook your head, firm in your decision. “This is the best thing for me.” 

And for Emily too, though you didn’t say that out loud.

Seb remained silent for longer than you would have liked, as if trying to process what you’d just told him. Then, he stood up, crouching down to your level, and taking your hands in his, he said:

“Alright. If you think your songs aren’t good enough, sing one of them to me.”

“What?” you asked, confused.

“If you turned down the record deal because you think your songs aren’t good enough for the world to hear, sing one of them to me.”

His tone, though calm, was direct and insistent.

“Seb… I can’t. I’m too embarrassed,” you laughed nervously.

“Come on, Y/N,” he said, gently rubbing your hands with his thumbs, just like he always did when your anxiety was at its worst. “It’s just me. I’m still the same after all these years.”

You sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to let it go until you gave in. It was Seb, and he always got what he wanted from you, even when you didn’t want to. In the end, you gave in, carefully standing up from the couch and heading towards the piano at the back of the room, gesturing for him to follow you.

You carefully slided the bench back, lifting the lid as you sat down. You positioned your hands, starting to play the first few chords to warm up, ensuring your memory flawlessly recalled the piece.

“This is song number 5, like your driver number... It's called loml.”

You continued playing, finally giving way to the song.

Who's gonna stop us from waltzing   Back into rekindled flames?   If we know the steps anyway   We embroidered the memories   Of the time I was away   Stitching, ‘We were just kids, babe.’   I said, ‘I don't mind, it takes time.’   I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed   I felt aglow like this   Never before and never since.

Your voice shook as you began to sing, but you kept going, holding on to what your ex-boyfriend had told you about how he knew it was about him. As you settled into the song, you started feeling more comfortable, just like you did when you used to sing for Seb. Though you couldn’t look at him because you were absorbed in the key, your fingers delicately moving over it, you could feel his eyes on you.

You shit-talked me under the table   Talking rings and talking cradles   I wish I could un-recall   How we almost had it all   Dancing phantoms on the terrace   Are they second-hand embarrassed   That I can't get out of bed?   Cause something counterfeit's dead.

Tears started falling from your eyes as you approached the final part of the song. Memories of your shared history flashed through your mind like a movie. Your vision was completely blurred, and you felt a tightness in your chest that was overwhelming, making it hard to breathe, almost impossible to keep singing. Somehow, though, you fought to hold it together, just as you did the day you said goodbye to the man now sitting beside you.

Oh, what a valiant roar   What a bland goodbye   The coward claimed he was a lion   I'm combing through the braids of lies   ‘I’ll never leave’... ‘Never mind.’   Our field of dreams, engulfed in fire   Your arson matches your somber eyes   And I'll still see it until I die   You're the loss of my life.

Silence filled the room as you played the final notes. With your hands still resting on the keyboard, you looked at Seb. Once again, you didn’t know what to say to him, and you knew he didn't either. He was motionless, running a hand through his hair, probably trying to process what he just heard.

Y/Ni, this song... it’s about us, isn’t it?”

“It might be,” you admited, unable to lie to him, at least not about this.

He sighed. You could tell he was affected; you knew it the moment his tears began to form, just as yours continued to flow.

“You should rethink the contract,” he said firmly. “This song deserves to be heard by more than just me, your parents, and Hanna.”

“I can’t, Seb. I just can’t…”

“Can I sit next to you?”

You looked up and saw him gesturing to the bench. Confused, not sure what to do or say, you shifted a little, making space, and he sat beside you. Seb didn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around you, offering a comfort that felt wonderful but also caused you to crumble a bit more inside. 

You surprised yourself by resting your head on his shoulder.

“Why are you so determined to convince yourself you don’t deserve this opportunity?” His tone was soft, just like the way he stroked your hair. “Do you really think you're not good enough to be a successful singer?”

“It’s not about being good enough, it’s that I’m not,” you whisper,ed your throat tightening. “I’m not a good person, Seb, and it’s only a matter of time before I screw up again and hurt someone, just like I hurt you.”

“Does this… have something to do with the second date in your YouTube channel username?”

You stood your head up, staring at him in confusion while trying not to panic.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your username,” he repeated, moving closer. “I figured out that the numbers represent two dates. I know for sure that one of them is June 15, 2006, the day we started dating, but the other one… I don’t know what January 12, 2014 means for you because we weren’t talking by then, but it must be important. And based on what you just said…”

Your eyes widened in shock. You were paralyzed, not knowing how to react. 

How could he have noticed something so… insignificant? How had he connected the dots and figured out the dates you had in mind when you created that account?

You thought this would be the perfect moment to tell him that the second date marks the birth of your daughter, the daughter you had together; that on that day, while you were in labor, he was at the hospital waiting for some exams results and he was talking to your dad, who couldn’t contain his excitement about his granddaughter’s arrival and had to keep it a secret from him.

But you couldn’t. Not yet. You need to regain his trust first. You and Seb needed to rebuild the kind of relationship you had before you became the love of each other’s lives.

“Seb…” you trailed off, unable to continue. “I swear, on everything that matters to you, I’ll tell you, but right now… I just can’t.”

He looked at you for a few seconds that felt like an eternity. You knew him better than you knew yourself, and you knew he was persistent, that he needed an answer, but you also knew he was respectful and wouldn't push you.

“That’s okay,” he said finally, a bit resigned. “I understand, it’s fine. I’m not asking you to tell me now if you’re not ready, but I want you to know that when you are, I’ll be here to listen.”

You looked at him, grateful, and nodded without saying anything else. 

You both sat at the piano bench for a while, in silence, listening only to the sound of your breathing and the melody of the song replaying in your mind, as intrusive thoughts overwhelmed you.

“If I waited almost 19 years of my life to be your boyfriend, I can wait a little longer, it doesn’t matter the time you need, for you to tell me,” Seb finally spoke, and his words broke you a little more than you already were. “Let’s be friends again, what do you think?” he offered, giving you a small smile. “Let’s take things slowly, like maybe we should have done when we first started dating. You know…”

“Slowly, no problem,” you repeated, smiling back at him.

You felt a weight lift from your shoulders at his words. Maybe you were not at the peak of your relationship, and maybe you’d never got back there, but at least you were working together to turn your story into something new.

“You know what, Y/N? I’ve always felt like our story wasn’t over. I don’t just mean that romantically, but in a broader sense,” he said quickly. “We have a whole lot of history, and now is when we’re going to start writing our second book.”

“I know, Seb. I’ve been thinking the same thing ever since I said goodbye to you,” you confess. “That day, goodbyes were bittersweet, but I knew it wasn’t the end and that I’d see you again.”

Before the year ends. I’m telling Seb Emily is her daughter before December 31st.

[demonslayerunhinged]

Unhinged rant >:(

Demon Slayer fandom discourse

I want to start this by saying, I know that Demon Slayer isn't an explicitly queer manga/anime because Shōnen Jump, but I believe that Demon Slayer is for the queers and has lots of themes that we can identify with like love, acceptance, loss, guilt and strength.

Despite what these stupid, smelly, ignorant, power-scaling, non-ass-washing, Cheetos-dust-snorting, once-a-month-showering, dude-bros would have you believe, Demon Slayer isn't just another battle Shōnen anime/manga, it's a love story and about the perseverance of the human spirit and if that doesn't speak to the queer experience then I don't know what does.

Plus, I don't know how Gotogue-sensei is as a person, but I think the fact that she managed to make one of the kindest mcs in shōnen speaks volumes about her disposition. I don't think she would be one to reject queer fans identifying with her story so well.

In these recent times, it seems like everything is going to shit, the world is slowly regressing into the dark ages destroying decades of progress and trying to distract ourselves from all this by engaging with the fandoms we love is hard because everything seems to cater to cis, straight, white men.

To be honest, I created this blog mostly out of spite, but I also wanted to carve out a tiny space for myself where I can talk out of my ass and not have some decrepit reddit dude bro go all 'well, ackshually ☝🤓' on me, and I'm happy to have met so many like-minded people.

So, I've compiled a list of answers to the common types of nonsense drivel these fuckers post in response to shipping and queer discussions and theories about Demon Slayer. You can copy and paste whenever and wherever you encounter these black holes of ignorance and stupidity if you want.

In the Taisho era, there were no gay/queer people: This is one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard, and the fact that it's a really common response really shows how we've failed as a society. Queer people have existed for ages all over the world, Japan has an extensive queer history. Demon Slayer is based on samurai culture and samurai culture was really, really, really, really, really, really, really gay. Sure, it had rigid roles, but that doesn't make it any less queer. A quick Google search would go a long way to nourish that dried-out, shrivelled husk you call a brain. Go read a book you walking condom ad, your parents and education system have obviously failed you.

It's forcing sexuality into the story: We literally had a whole season dedicated to the mcs going to the 'entertainment district', we have a sexy man with three wives who talks about 'loving' them all equally, we have the abundant male fanservice, one of the mcs talks about women on the daily, we have a boy who eats demons and is horny shy around girls all the time, we have his brother who exposes his tits because he's proud of them, we have a demon who was essentially a sexual predator that targeted 16-year-old girls and ate them, the main villain shape-shifts into a woman to 'get' information as a Geisha, we have a girl who literally lusts after almost everyone she meets but yea no lets not force sexuality into it 🙄.

I don't care: Okay cool, but I value your opinion as much as I value the shit I took this morning.

It's who they are as a character that matters: Sexuality is a part of a person's character. Your sexuality defines your experiences, decisions, options and outlook on life. That's why you as a straight man can be so ignorant.

It's forced*(I really hate this one): Honestly, fuck you. Why is it that you only think something is forced when it doesn't revolve around you and your experiences? You guys are fine with tons of anime/manga that sexualize women and girls to an insane degree even when it doesn't make sense, but that doesn't stop you from consuming and glazing the hell out of the authors, but when we talk about including queer characters suddenly it's forced? Your existence is forced, and you can just eat shit.

I don't like it: Who the fuck do you think you are dictating how other people consume and interpret the media they consume? How about you go hump your smelly, cum-encrusted anime body pillow.

Men can be touchy/emotional with each other without it being gay, it's just our western standards: No it isn't the majority of shipping activities and works come from Japan, which wouldn't happen if it was just part of their culture. We're not stupid, we know men and boys can be friends without it being sexual, and we know when a friendship is just that, and then we know when two guys are straight up pining for one another.

It's not canon/the mangaka didn't explicitly state it: They can't because of Shōnen Jump, so a lot of them pass off information about a character through subtext, metaphors and allegories. They also don't have to, things don't have to outright stated or 'canon' for them to make sense and if you need them to be so for you to understand or enjoy the story then a moment of silence for your head since it's without a brain.

It's not common: Despite Shōnen Jump, there are lots of mainstream anime/manga that have queer characters: One Punch Man, Hunter x Hunter, Dr. Stone, Windbreaker, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Naruto, Gintama, Dragon Ball Z, My Hero Academia, Fairy Tail, One Piece, Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Blue Period and that's not to talk of the ones with queer subtext like I dunno ALL Sports anime/manga to ever exist!

Why do you look for LGBTQ in everything?: It might be hard for straights to understand but growing up queer and looking for a connection causes us to develop what we call a gaydar that helps us identify characteristics, mannerisms, features and vibes from a person that screams 'ONE OF US! ONE OF US!'. It's only natural, and our gaydar doesn't suddenly turn off when we're consuming media, especially when it's media that we love and hold dear to our hearts. It doesn't matter if the mangaka inserted these characteristics intentionally or not, that doesn't stop us from picking up on them, and why should it?

Shipping is stupid: So is power-scaling, but that doesn't stop you assholes from making thousands of posts, creating YouTube channels and sharing content about it and cramming it down our throats. It's even worse because it's from grown-ass men.

The characters have no chemistry/they hate each other: A lot of queer ships have more chemistry, history, interactions, personality and development than a lot of 'canon' straight couples. It's literally a trope in media that all a man and a woman need to be in a relationship is to be in close proximity to each other, then their relationship goes on to be drier than salted crackers in silicone packets scattered in the Sahara desert. Well, I guess you can't blame the creators, you write what you know after all.

I know this is a lot and I know how angry I sound right now, but I'm so sick and so tired of all these guys who are as useful to the human race as pieces of freshly shat out dog turds that have been thrown in the grass by the sidewalk in a hot summer afternoon, who can't see past their lice-infested neck beards trying to make something as colorful, interesting, joyful and queer as anime and the fandoms fit their own boring, stupid and misogynistic worldview.

In Conclusion, Demon Slayer is amazing, horny* and unbelievably queer.

*I'm talking about the male fanservice btw :)

[noicevibes]

𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

In advance, I apologize to those who have already seen this post. I've had to transfer it to a new blog thanks to a seemingly permanent ban on my former main blog, @niicevibe. So this is just copy & paste from there. Sorry!

Self-indulgent, targeting my brief stint as a backpacker where I literally took plants from everywhere I went back home to my mama, and also where I nearly got electrocuted because I thought doing this with a lightning storm on the horizon was a good idea?? Disclaimer: I never claimed to be, nor will I ever claim to be, smart.

pairing -> tighnari x fem!reader

warnings -> sfw; not beta'ed (i’m a coward); mild description of ptsd symptoms & injuries; mild nudity (nothing mentioned); a couple of suggestive parts? it’s pg-13 really; hurt & comfort.

character mentions -> cyno, collei, the traveler (as lumine), shirin (forest ranger doc)

word count -> 3.9k

You have a stupid look on your face. He knows it, without even having to turn around in his seat to confirm it. He even knew it had been you without turning, not that you made a proper sound upon entering his forest home, but the way you had shuffled in without a word, your steps hesitant but wanting, before the wood frame for his bed had creaked just loud enough to stir him out of his concentration. Now, minutes have already passed with your silence, the occasional shuffling of material against material being the only sound you make.

“________, welcome back,” he finally calls. You hum, but it sounds muffled from his end of the room. “… you’re staring again, aren’t you?”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” You chuckle at this.

“No one likes a know-it-all, Tighnari.”

“You do.”

“Heh, that’s true.”

There’s a small break of silence between the two of you, besides the resumed scratching of his quill against the parchment and the distant chatter of the forest rangers. It is a patient silence, one the two of you often revel in whenever there isn’t any field work to be done, a rarity considering your professions.

Tighnari, the chief officer of the Forest Rangers, a Forest Watcher, and you, a young, nomadic adventurer with a love for all things nature— your paths crossing had been coincidental, with him on a routine patrols through the Avidya Forest and you completing a strange commission from the Guild for a Akademiya student looking to create a stronger, more robust fertilizer for improving vegetation that had you hunting down Hydro Slimes. You’d been so enthralled with the idea of being able to grow and harvest crops at a more opportunistic rate that you took the commission on in a heartbeat, beating even the Traveler to it through your enthusiasm alone, that you’d forgotten to watch your surroundings.

At the time of when he came across you, you laughing as you crawled out of your unconsciousness after being targeted by a small group of floating fungi, he could hardly blame you for being taken by surprise after a hearty explanation for your presence.

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if this worked? It could be brought to other lands where plant growth is near impossible! Like, Watatsumi Island!” You’d laughed again, the excitement in your eyes near uncontainable.

But your injuries were no laughing matter. You’d been victimized by the elements of Hydro, Dendro, and Pyro, your clothing and hair scorched and your arms and calves blistered from burgeon. It took a long time for your injuries to heal that had you unable to leave Gandharva Ville, but in that time, you had found a friend in its chief. Your first few weeks in Sumeru prior to the incident had been most eventful, and Tighnari was ever pleased to learn that you didn’t arrive here ignorant to nature.

“The problem is with these adventurers is that they think wherever they go, they can act first and think later, but who does that help? Especially when the one’s who’ve received Visions think they’re suddenly the greatest because their flames can take care of enemies fast, or their lightning can increase the jumping power of a mushroom— nature is not something to be parasitized. It’s embarrassing that they think so little of it.”

He couldn’t have agreed more.

You’d never actually been to Inazuma thanks to the Sakoku Decree their Raiden Shogun enacted, so you’d only heard about Watatsumi’s situation, and in wanting desperately to see the unknown plant life that you’d yet to see unlike those from the rest of the seven nations, as well as desiring to one day be able to be a liaison for this soil-experimenting Sumerian, you jumped ship from your volunteer position with the Forest Rangers to jump on a ship for Ritou. If not for you having a Vision of your own, Tighnari would have highly debated chasing after you once he’d learned why you left.

Inazuma was not unlike the stories you’d heard from the more seasoned adventurers you’d spoken to. How even the earth was charged with Electro elemental energy thanks to the various ley lines hidden beneath it; how the Sacred Sakura tree of the Grand Narukami Shrine had grown out its roots throughout the region and spread its seeds in the form of sakura blooms— but the only things you were really concerned over were collecting enough of a soil sample to bring back to that Amurta student, and most importantly, collect a sea ganoderma that “grew” on Inazuman shores.

Are they alive? Or are they a type of fungus? How long does it take for one to “spawn”? Considering the numbers in which they appeared, you had these and many other questions to ask. And naturally, you needed samples to bring back with you, not just for your curiosity’s sake, but as a gift for Tighnari, as thanks for all that he’d done for you. Supposedly, he’s never seen one in person before. You only wish he could have gone with you. Despite his own duties, he found himself wishing he could accompany you, too.

Tighnari didn’t expect you to be back so soon, however. Knowing what the distance was between Liyue Harbour, the main port of which you would have to embark on your journey from, and Ritou, the main port on Inazuman soil you would arrive at, and what items had been on your itinerary, he expected you back in Gandharva Ville in no sooner than nine days, two of those days being used for sea travel. It’s only been four, something that only clicks in when you’d just sighed.

“______,” Tighnari calls, his tone almost too flat to be considered pleasant; you flinch. “Come over here, please.”

“… but your bed is so comfy,” you mumble tiredly, despite being wide awake.

“I don’t want to have to stop doing what I’m working on if it’s nothing, so come here— please.”

Game over, you think miserably.

In the five months since you began staying with the Forest Rangers, you learned full well the extents of which Tighnari’s wrath could take. Now, since you’ve already been back during this small time without saying a word, or even joining him at his desk to properly greet him (even though he could’ve just turned around for a second, you think), his initial suspicion has slowly elevated into the situation before you. And as you rise off of his bed and trudge toward him, you instinctively begin preparing yourself for an earful.

Heaving a sigh, you turn at the last second to lean against the edge of his desk to the right of him. Tighnari gives himself a moment, sparing a breath down at his half-written letter to finally look at you. His lips part almost instantaneously, his forest-like eyes widening in response to your bodily visage.

“I-It’s… not as bad as you think,” you’re quick to try and explain, but he’s already on his feet, chair pushed back to make room for his close quarters pacing. “Tighnari, calm down…”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” he says sharply, but there isn’t any bite to his words— you can tell this much by the way his tail anxiously sways back and forth behind him.

“… sorry,” you mumble. You clear your throat lightly when he decides to lift your arms up by your wrists, three fingers from each of his hands dragging them upward and between you. But this hurts. The way you wince proves it. Carefully, Tighnari lowers your bandaged arms back down to yours side, but not before casting your shoulder a look of disdain. “Tighnari?”

He looks away from you instead to rummage through one of the drawers of the cabinet next to you. “Go and sit on the bed,” he instructs you. “Take your shirt off.”

You instantly flush with heat. “H-Huh? Why?”

Scoffing lightly, “I’m redoing your bandages.”

“O-Oh… but they’re brand new. Don’t waste your supplies on this…”

“They’re not good enough,” he murmurs. Briefly turning to you, he slips a couple of fingers beneath the top layer of bandaging. “See? This should be tight but breathable. You might die from an oxygen overdose with this wrapping job.”

You can’t help the snort that escapes you, in time for him to begin corralling you back to his mattress.

“It’s a shame how you and the General Mahamatra bicker so much when your jokes and comebacks can be just as lame,” you say, allowing him to lower you back down. He shoots you a look. “But on the topic of the bandages… I guess I’ll have to inform Shirin of her most unsatisfactory work,” you mumble to the side, though your one eye remains on him. Three words catch in his throat, an offended, “I didn’t mean—” slipping out before he cuts himself off with a small huff. You can’t help the even smaller giggle that escapes you.

“I know you didn’t mean that. I was lying, anyway. I did this myself with my own two hands—” when you raise them for emphasis, you end grimacing at the harsh, crackling electrical burns ending at the base of your palms. “Ah, well, maybe that was a bad idea in itself.”

“Wait, is that—?” Tighnari’s eyes move past you and toward his nightstand, where sitting in a carefully sealed glass case sat the blue sea plant. “A sea ganoderma?”

“Yessir,” you say, tone proud. “I almost died getting this one, but it was one of the purest grown! Right next to a lightning sakura tree, sharing the same oxygen and minerals and nutrients and still growing under such a condition? Inazuma is amazing, Tighnari— oh, you’d love it.”

“A lightning sakura tree?” he repeats, his ears dropping into a furl. “When you say you “almost died”, do you mean these injuries are from—”

“Yes, but I’m alive, and that’s what matters here.”

“______. You know how I feel about you downplaying your injuries. You were electrocuted. Are you alright?”

“I…” At the softened look on his face, you pause. You hate worrying him just as much as he hates when you hide getting hurt, but his expression is so sincerely concerned that lying to him about the extent of your injury seems almost blasphemous. “I-I’m not… okay. That’s why… I came back early.”

Another brief moment of quiet allows for Tighnari to collect himself, saving you from that earful you feared.

“… I’m at least glad… you had the common sense to do that,” he says, joining you at the edge of the bed. “Quite unlike the first time I met you that you’d gone and done things on your own with that commission of yours.”

At this, you laugh, though the pressure on your back makes your skin ache.

“You’re friends with the Traveler, aren’t you?” He nods. “Didn’t she ever tell you that I stole that commission from her?”

Tighnari shakes his head at you while helping you to unzip your shirt from the back. “No, but certainly sounds like something you’d do.”

”Hehe.”

He lays your shirt in a neat fold near the foot of his bed, draping it over the edge, only to turn back to you and sigh.

“What a mess.”

“… is it really that bad of a job?” He sends you a knowing look over your shoulder. “In my defence, I was doing this on a moving ship, with no mirror.”

“I don’t know if it could’ve been done worse.” He pulls off his gloves, finger by finger. ”Hold still now; I’m going to unravel it and I don’t want to hurt you.”

Skin flushing once more, you nod. “… o… okay.” He fully disappears behind you, shifting on the bed to get comfortable, and in the corner of your eye, you spot the tip of his tail swish into view rather rapidly. “You… don’t have to be nervous,” you murmur, unable to raise your voice much higher considering your position. “I-It’s just me.”

Tighnari hums, though in a higher octave than normal. He touches your one shoulder with the tips of his fingers, silently alerting you when he begins undoing the poorly tied knot at the back of your arm. How did you even manage this? he wonders, brows knitted. Unable to pry it apart, he ends up snipping it off with a small pair of shears.

Naturally, this isn’t the first time he’s had to take care of you. Before, and in the more serious cases, he had Shirin’s help, being the doctor of the Forest Rangers. Burns and burgeons, accidentally drowning in trying to fetch a patch of nilotpata lotuses, falling down hills and receiving scrape over scrape scars, that time you were ran over by a sumpter beast?— you were covered in old injuries, your curiosities always getting the better of you. Despite his grand disappointment in you each time you’d returned battered and beaten, hands full of your bounty, but grinning as if you’d won some great prize, he’d take care of you, a willing aide to your obvious self-sabotage.

But this time, somehow, it’s become more intimate than it is professional.

Maybe it’s the fact you were in his room, sitting on his bed, just the two of you rather than Shirin or Collei assisting and watching in the infirmary. He’d always been conscious of the fact that he found your level of curiosity and love for nature fascinating— idiotic, too, no doubt about it; he could no longer count on his four limbs how many times he’s had to try and talk you out of your latest, most hair-brained ideas. But even as you returned to him, to see him — “I was just passing through to Mawtiyima, but I wanted to visit you first!” — the lecturing became less aggressive, his choice words for you having less of a sting to them as they left his mouth.

He didn’t have to call you a dummy anymore — “I am well aware of my shortcomings, but where’s the fun in being careful? I promise, Tighnari; I’m not purposely injuring myself…” This much was already painfully proven, pardoning the irony. At least, he stopped using the word as an insult. It became affectionately said, Tighnari finding himself further and further down into the hole you dug where you always seemed content to wait for him.

“You know, there’s probably a reason she’s so patient for you,” Cyno once pointed out, post-visit to Collei. “You, and your lack of sense of humour.”

She did call my jokes “lame”, didn’t she, Tighnari recalls glumly, ears flattening, but as if having made a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn less than five seconds later, they perk up. If he’s right, than what is that reason?

“It’s just me”, you’d said. Well, that appears to be the problem at hand, now, doesn’t it?

You find yourself grateful for the warm air swarming the Avidya Forest. With your upper half bare to the emptiness of Tighnari’s treetop hut, you surely would have caught another chill like you did back in Inazuma. Although, perhaps not, considering this time, you had company.

You don’t inherently mean to do it, but shrinking forward and into yourself had seemed like the appropriate thing to do while Tighnari finished undoing your poor bandage work. Your hands, which still tingled from the effects of your electrocution, found their way to holding onto your knees, steadying your racing mind from focusing too hard on how soft his fingertips felt against your scalding flesh.

Oh, you truly could ignite on the spot, if only your Vision would permit it.

You had only held onto two regrets from committing yourself to a life of journey and adventure. The first, was you leaving your loved ones behind (without a word, mind you; you knew full well they would try to stop you at every turn), and the second appeared after becoming acquainted with the Forest Watcher sat before you, knowing you could never stay in one spot and love him as hard as your heart desired. He grew on you as fast as an oyster mushroom, his stubbornness and straightforward demeanour something you looked forward to seeing only every time you could.

Tighnari doesn’t even realize he’s paused, hands hovering between him and your bare back, his eyes glued to the fractal scarring spanning from the top of your spine downward, smaller tendrils curling around your arms. They’ll fade, he knows this — his have already started to, according to Cyno and Shirin — but seeing them on you? He’s seen your hurt in one too many ways. But this…

“Tighnari,” you whisper, turning your chin over your shoulder to see him, lips parting in response to his obvious distress. You’ve never seen him so… so appalled; so stiff, as if he’d been rooted to the very earth beneath him. “T-Tighnari, I—” you reach toward the end of the bed to grab your shirt, ignoring the pain searing along your shoulders and pressing it against your chest before turning fully to him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t careful. I-I was cocky; I thought I could dodge it, but that plant, it… it was so stuck, I—”

“Just… stop,” he whispers, stilling, his breathing slightly laboured, “for a moment.”

You suck in a breath of your own, an attempt to get yourself to remain silent. The expression on his face, you realize after taking a moment to study it, is near unreadable. But why does he look like he’s seen a ghost? you adamantly wonder. It takes you so long to realize that not a look of horror or shock… but one of recollection. One of remembrance. One of fear. Eyes trained on one of the violet crackles adorning your arm, his ears suddenly twitch, almost as if something takes him by surprise or shocks hi—

Wait… shocks?

It’d dawned on you, painfully slow. If it wouldn’t have hurt the rest of you, you would’ve given yourself a smack to the forehead.

Things couldn’t have made more sense now, his silence uncharacteristic and, if you were to be honest, a little disconcerting. You loved hearing him speak, even if was for the reason. You’d never seen him so quiet over one of your injuries before, but this is the first time you’d gotten yourself so obviously hurt by the Electro element. The marks crawling across your upper body were dark and prominent and fresh— Tighnari hadn’t seen his as up close, only through the reflection of two mirrors, their image distorted by the angles. It’s different, seeing them how the doctors at Pardis Dhyai must have after the incident; how Cyno must have when he came to check on him.

It’s different seeing them, because now, they’re on you, too.

“… is that… why you were away for so long before?” you dare to ask, voice barely above a whisper. “You were hurt?” He doesn’t answer, but his eyes have a tell.

You don’t apologize again— you know there’s no point; he already knows how strongly you empathize with him. Pressing your shirt more firmly against you, you lift yourself a few inches closer to him, and raise your spare hand to rest against his cheek. He blinks, easily more times than necessary, but it brings him back into having enough focus to look up at you.

Your gaze wanders across his face, searching; waiting. Always waiting, for him. Your bottom lip is pinched so tightly between your teeth that a split has appeared near the center of it, and somehow, it triggers a reaction in the young Forest Watcher, his own hands rising from his lap to hold you, to run a thumb from one of his smooth hands across your lip.

“… please don’t hurt yourself more,” he pleads, his voice hoarse. “Not for my sake.”

You instinctively run your tongue over where you'd sensed the sting, Tighnari barely moving his finger out of the way in time to avoid it— his cheeks tint rouge at the thought.

Your own cheeks grow warm when you tilt forward to touch your forehead to his. His eyelashes flutter until his eyes shut, the comforting touches you supply slowly bringing him out of his panicked state, and subconsciously, his tail swishes toward you, quick to curl around your calf.

“For your sake, I’d do anything, Tighnari.”

“I… I think you should apply to the Akademiya,” he says, lightly pulling at the bandage to stretch it before wrapping it twice around your bicep.

Enough time had passed that you both finally agreed that having you sit half nude on his bed wasn’t exactly ideal (though, for as hard as he tried not to once conscious of his staring, it wasn’t exactly easy to watch you turn back around). And so, with the salve still fresh and pasted across your skin, Tighnari got to work, adept fingers moving quickly to wrap your torso up so you could face him again.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, with all of these commissions you do, not only the ones for Sumeru, but all over Teyvat, that have much to do with ecological betterment experiments, you’ve gained that experience and first-hand field knowledge— coming from an Akademiya alumnus, I think you’d be the ideal Amurta applicant.”

“Tighnari, please,” you say, your lips curled upward toward your warmed cheeks. “I know it’s probably not your intention, but you’re fluffing my ego too hard…”

He chuckles at your clear enjoyment of his words. “My master is the current sage… If you are ever interested, it would be easy to ask him to put in a word of recommendation for you. I could even write a letter, myself.”

A laugh escapes you from being slightly overwhelmed by his suggestion.

“You know, I-I never thought about it before. Surely I’d have more opportunities to work in nature and learn about medicinal plant cultivation, which I’ve always loved…” Tighnari snips the bandage from the roll and sets the tools back down to tie off the strip. “… have I held myself back, under the belief that because I became an adventurer, I’d just stay an adventurer, forever? Taking commissions, making mora— that’s not at all what I wanted from this…”

“You’ve been an adventurer for a while now,” Tighnari reminds you. “And while you’ve had time to think about it, that doesn’t mean you’ve come to any conclusions. But that’s fine, too, of course. Do you know yet, what it is that you want for yourself?”

Your eyes meet. “I want to do so many things, Tighnari,” you say, smiling. “What you do here in the Avidya Forest, for example. What that fertilizer experimenter commissioned me for, for the purpose of bettering the lives of everyone and not just himself? Discovering new plants and fungi and finding out their uses? Helping people? This forest? Oh, I want all of that for me desperately.”

Beneath the glow of the lanterns lit around his room, you fondly note the sudden rosiness to the soft apples of his cheeks.

“Then starting here… wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?”

“Starting here… with you… you mean?” He nods, his tall ears bobbing with him. You find your grin widening, and before he can stop you (not that he would), you place your hands on his cheeks and draw him close so as to press kisses from his cheekbones and down to his lips, lingering there just a little longer. You pull back in time to witness a fog-like daze pass over his reddened face. Giggling, “It would be the best thing.”

© nc-vb/niicevibe 2022-2023 please don’t repost! reblogs & comments are always appreciated.

[literallyjustscrollingthatisit]

The Process For "Heart Behind The Strings"

Unlike with my first drawing, since I'd already gotten pretty used to the brushes, the first session was a lot more productive. I remember the hair took me a while to flesh out the way I wanted it which is pretty consistent even now. Hair is usually my favorite part to do and I like to really take my time with it.

Session two was not nearly as productive but hey, the hand with the sword is in! Hands have always been the bane of my existence... they're so hard to draw! I definitely used a reference for both hands in this drawing. It should be noted that for a while, I didn't really do "first drafts" and liked to get each stage done and just move on. This is consistent up until the literal last drawing I did where I experimented with rough outlines for positioning. Who knows if I'll stick with it! Being consistent is not really my strongsuit.

I usually like to get the sketching done before I even touch color. However, the front hand was giving me so much trouble that I switched to color because I got so frustrated. But on the brightside: I finally figured out how to screenshot properly so the quality from here on out is better! (Took me an embarrassingly long time.)

The front hand has arrived! It took me way too long to draw this in but the reference helped a lot! It appears I forgot to turn off my guidelines on Kris's face and armor when I took this screenshot... whoops. The other primary addition is the scarf changing a bit. Scarfs and capes are my other favorite thing to draw. They're abnormally fun to outline for some reason.

The flat color has been laid out (except for the armor). And apparently some shading on the underside of the scarf. Also I noticed the background color keeps changing in between. Sometimes I change the color so it's easier on my eyes but then forget to change it back for the screenshot.

Almost everything is colored and shaded by this point! Except the scarf is not fully colored with the stripes yet for some reason. This session also introduced the sweat on the left side (our left) of Kris's face. It's pretty hard to see since it's so small and even harder on the actual one since this isn't the final size of the piece!

The stripes on the scarf have arrived! You'll also notice Kris's body and the back plate are different! The body shape felt off somehow so I changed it here to the one in the final! On another note, you might notice that the shading sometimes looks weird on my drawings. Shading and lighting are still something I'm in the process of learning (and I wasn't taking classes at all during most of these drawings!) so that's why it looks off. I try to look at references or for hair I have a way I like to shade it on top of that.

With Kris complete I moved on to the soul and the gray hands in the back. I'm pretty sure I basically drew one hand then copy and pasted it onto the other side (flipped it too of course). Like I said earlier: hands are hard! I think I liked the black background and just ran with it. It also helped to make the hands kind of just come out of nowhere but still implied to be tied to the soul in some way.

And it's a wrap! On another note: I made a new post on my main blog that may have an alternative version coming to this one later.... (maybe)

Next time, I'll be taking you through "To The Punishment Shack!" That one is actually rather short with only three sessions.

[fountainpenguin]

If you were given the opportunity to reboot FOP from the ground up, what would you change, shake up, or put your own spin on?

I'll have to give this a short answer, I no joke spent over 2 hours replying to this, then added a Read More and Tumblr told me that my post was too out of this world and it broke the editor. It kicked me out in a split second without any opportunity to save. Sorry to everyone who has to scroll past my stuff in the future, but I'm not living through this again. Read Mores have no place on my blog.

I'm furious because 1) I tried to copy-paste out of this editor like I always do and save in an external place, but the new editor is busted and only copies one paragraph when you do CTRL-A so I gave up, and 2) literally the last sentence I wrote before typing that was "Before my hiatus, Read Mores broke stuff, but I'm willing to give this another try." It's not even the same error it used to be. I can't. I can't.

At least we're friends and I think you know a lot of my thoughts anyway. Sorry it took so long to write an answer to this message, but I've already let it sit for so long that I HAVE to get it out of my inbox now or I'll never go back to it after losing everything :/ I can't believe that just happened. How ironic that one of the main reasons I went on hiatus was because stuff kept breaking and then it's worse when I return. Bleh.

So... Here's the short version of things I can remember talking about:

Update world lore, especially regarding Anti-Fairies. Anti-Fairies debuted in Season 2 and didn't reappear until Season 5; Anti-Fairy World itself made its first appearance in Season 6 because the Anti-Fairies were only seen in jail before that. Anti-Fairy World is kind of barren and stereotypical, and the general vibe of Anti-Fairies is that they are all evil because their magic revolves around bad luck. I'd prefer some gray area. I also feel like the characterizations for Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda were rushed and we should say it.

Logically I know that Anti-Wanda can be said to parallel Wanda's high-class mafia upbringing, but I doubt that was planned since Wanda's family only showed up in Season 5. In another universe, we could have had a classy evil queen. I love the grubby gal, but there are so many cool aesthetics she could have had instead. The Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda vibe doesn't bring anything to the table that Cosmo and Wanda didn't already have unless you take creative liberties.

Maps. Maps would have been great.

Designs. Cosmo, Crocker, and Dad really don't need the same shirt. Wanda's outfit is pretty bland too, and it's honestly a shame that Anti-Cosmo got a unique outfit but Anti-Wanda's is just a recolor of Wanda's. See also, classy queen.

Also I've never liked Timmy's Channel Chasers adult design; I just don't think it's in character. I feel like his body type would be much closer to his parents, and the existing one is just too extreme for my preferences. Doesn't say "Timmy the average kid" to me.

"Fairly Odd Baby" - As much as I enjoy the idea of Fairies placing a ban on babies because they're destructive and Fairy World likes to push away its problems, I'd have introduced Poof as part of an announcement that Cosmo and Wanda had been expecting a baby for 100 to 1000 years. Their lifespans are so long, it wouldn't be out of the question. A reveal episode could have been fun.

I also don't think I would have chosen to leave Poof a baby who can't speak for that long; I think he has a fun personality (Sasses Foop, deliberately puts Foop in harm's way, but also he's super chill and nice and likes sports) and I would have liked to see more episodes where he talks. I don't love how he was shipped to boarding school as soon as he was able to talk and dialogue was needed.

Vicky takes Mark back onscreen. She canonically decided she wanted to start dating him again, after she found out he was an alien and she broke up with him. She made the choice to take back her alien boyfriend and she loves him and we should talk about it. I'm obsessed with them and will forever treasure the deleted "Foul Balled" scene of them holding hands at the senior home while Mark is in his squid form. I support Vicky becoming the shapeshifting queen of a violent planet and being extremely in love with her squid husband.

Chloe / A.J. friendship. A.J. ended world hunger in Season 2 and he built a time machine a few seasons later, I feel like those two would have really hit it off.

More episodes of Timmy playing soccer. I will not re-elaborate.

More of side characters I love, like Molly and Kevin. I love them. I love Kevin falling farther and farther behind his uncle when they walk together, I love Timmy introducing himself to Molly's fairy by shaking her hand... They might be side characters but I feel like they add a lot more to the world and character dynamics in their few scenes than many of the characters do.

Sharing fairies. Timmy sharing fairies with Chloe (or Kevin) as part of a temporary program (like she was just here for one school year before her parents moved again). I think one of the issues people have with Chloe is that it feels like she's here for the rest of Timmy's fairy-related life, and I think a few months of hanging out with her would have been plenty and then there would have been a reason for her to leave the canon afterwards.

Make Chloe Dinkleberg's niece. My favorite headcanon. Also a perfect explanation for why Chloe's family would move to Timmy's street. Also a hilarious parallel of Timmy seething with frustration at his "perfect" neighbor despite spending the entire series making fun of his dad for doing the same thing.

More Timmy/Chloe "step-sibling" interactions. I support Timmy "I will sit with you while you have an hour-long panic attack" Turner in "The Booby Trap" but I cannot emphasize enough that I equally support Timmy "Will take a call from Chloe, listen to her explain that she vaporized a juice box, then hang up and go to bed" Turner. They are step-siblings...

Timmy, Chloe, and Kevin. I support Timmy - Chloe - Kevin trio interactions in general. They're a comedic trio and I want them to support each other.

Gary and Betty. Unironically, we need to talk more about Gary and Betty canonically being aware of the magical world. Or at least they adjusted really fast to being teleported from California to Florida and back again. Also we should talk about that time Gary rang Sanderson on his cell phone, which gets funnier the longer you think about it. Also I love them and we should talk about the deleted "Totally Spaced Out" scene where they tried to flee to Mexico together.

Ending the series with a proper send-off. I'm not a fan of Timmy keeping his magical memories after losing Cosmo and Wanda. Being the protagonist doesn't make him immune. I feel like there are so many ways this could have been done in a sentimental way that people would have loved... I'm sad we didn't get a proper send-off.

On the list of things we don't need to change - Imaginary Gary, Norm, Mark, Molly, Jorgen, the Pixies, Flappy Bob, Foop, and Ed Leadly. They are flawless, 10 of 10. We also do not need to change Chloe casually swearing, but meanwhile Timmy will call you out for saying "Moron" on the radio, and we definitely don't need to change "This isn't a fancy French restaurant- this is a black hole!"

I love the Pixies. If they didn't exist, I would have come along and prepped some worldbuilding about characters who maintain magical paperwork. I love my snarky monotone wasp boys.

Also I just want to shout-out Chloe and Kevin and their personalities being hilarious. I think there are several Chloe-centric episodes that have flawed storytelling, but I do genuinely enjoy the character you're left with after brushing off some of her exaggerated perfectionism.

Kevin has some of the best dialogue in the entire series, and those two just seem to write themselves when you pit them together. I like the mental image of Chloe venting to Timmy about how unfair it is that Crocker shows him favoritism and then it slowly dawns on her that she also has a history of getting a lot of favoritism.

Thanks for the ask! I'm sad I lost the full responses, but I think I've learned my lesson and will draft in an external doc first. Please learn from my mistakes, I will not take back my venting >:(

Even if I lost it, it's nice to take some time and think about some answers to these things. I'm also pretty satisfied that I was able to make this post long enough to feel like a good answer. Yay.

[cathartes-aura-shitposting]

TRANSFORGEES: the world of transformation (Literally) pt 1

(NOTE: description copy-pasted from DA where i normally post my works. any context that is missing here on tumblr can be found on my DA [linked here and on pinned post] )

[no image for this one. this first part will talk about how transformation victims, dubbed "transforgees", are treated for their situation and how the live their day to day lives]

______

So, i’ve been wanting to actually talk about tranforgees, transformations, and traforgee centers for a while. And i think now that i’m beginning to worldbuild not just planet argonus but also just my strangeworld franchise (if you call it that..) in general. But first: a little history lesson about how this idea came to be.

ORIGINAL BACKGROUND

[note: this part is edited to add extra context; ]

As somebody who’s been into the transformation genre for as long as i’ve been using the internet, it was bound that i would create things relating to it. One of these things is the idea of a place where fromer humans-turn-something-else go to get the care they need. This is where the idea of “Tranforgee Centers” come in.

Tranforgees center were an idea I had back somewhere in….2015? I think? Well, it was back with my original concept of topia.

topia was an old, old world idea that started as an unholy mashup of fnaf, paleofauna and whatever spec evo media/idea i had on hand. it also had a bit of post-apocalyptic stuff too, but it took place long, long after worlds healed form the big world war that caused it, and everybody was back to the modern day in terms of technology. it also briefly turned into an actual comic about a shapeshifting anthro doberman ("jane and the world of topia"), before being abandoned altogether.

Tranforgees (Portmanteau of “transform” and “refugees”) are people who were once something else, but has since been changes into something different (ie human turned animal), and tranforgee centers are just like what i said before: a place where tranforgees are sent to live at, whether only temporarily or permanently.

The original lore behind them was that the big, walled city of Gesidindo was a very inhospitable place for animals and something something “certain animals only” and “anything bigger than this is replace with a robot” (and also they were big racist against animatronics, of which the initial version's main character was one). Whether the animals were killed or just sent away, idk. But what i do know is that this weird rule also applied to people who turned into animals. So for whatever reason, they chose one of the abandoned mall in the equally abandoned city of Dezro as a safe place for them.

But, that was back in my early-mid highschool years. Now i’m re-working on this topic, and trying to make it work.

Also, a bit of a disclaimer: while i’m trying to make it “realistic” i’m not a professional or expert on some stuff, so bear with me.

TRANFORGEE CENTERS: REBOOTED/REFORMED

So, like said, tranforgee centers are places to help tranforgees with whatever transformation-related problem they have; from getting used to their new bodies, to helping shifters (who are also considered tranforgees) regulate and control their (often new) abilities, and even provide a place for tranforgees to live whether temporarily or permanently. They are ran by various codag-based groups, though it’s often expected that the local government will provide some aid as well.

There are three major types of tranforgee centers: clinics and townships

Clinics are, as expected, single-building clinics almost akin to a large hospital. This is where tranforgees most likely end up going to first. Clinics are meant to temporarily keep tranforgees, as they figure out what cause them to transform, what they can do to reverse/control it (if at all), and alot more.

Clinics only keep tranforgees temporarily, as they monitor both their physical and mental health. Most are usually kept for no longer than a month, during which tranforgees are helped with not only getting used to their new form, but also planning out their future and where they go from there. There are typically two major outcomes for a tranforgee after being in the clinic:

1-they’ll be able to go home: sometimes they may need modifications to their living space, sometimes they may need help from other people (either by family, friends, or outpatient staff), and sometimes they may not need it at all.

2-if unable to go back home, they’re often sent to places which are equipped to keep them for longer periods of times, sometimes permanently. These are often in the form of apartments or communities, which leads us to the other option…

Tranforgee communities, also known as townships, are exactly what they sound like: a community for tranforgees to live in. all townships have at least these four things:

1-a tranforgee clinic, which doubles as the main place of healthcare (ie doctors, dentist, mental health, ect)

2-various forms of housing for tranforgees, often in the form of trailer parks, apartments, dorms or suburbs.

3-various stores, with at least one general store and a couple specialty stores for various things (groceries, clothing, ect.)

4-misc places, which depending on the township can be things such as restaurants, a small mall, simple attractions, parks, ect. Just really anything a normal town would possible have.

Interestingly, while tranforgees may have everything that they need in these townships, they’re not bound to these places. As a matter of fact, all tranforgee townships are located right next to large cities, and not only are tranforgees allowed to venture outside the townships, but are actively encouraged to do so.

Tranforgee townships have their own form of transportation for such ventures, and so long as you’re in their system and/or have an ID of sorts, it’s completely free. However, many places require tranforgees to wear some form of identification gear, such as a collar or vest. And, depending on the situation, they may need to have staff come along with them, especially if the individual is on the smaller side and/or has difficulty in wearing said identification gear.

Now that we got down what exactly what tranforgee centers are, we can now get down to the fun part: life inside the centers. Or, more accurately…

LIFE WITHIN THE TRANFORGEE TOWNSHIPS

…since, like said, the clinics only will have you temporary while townships are commonly more permanent, or at the very least long-term.

HOUSING:

Like said, housing take the form of trailer parks, apartments, dorms and suburbs. However, which one you end up in can depend not just on the township alone, but also your exact situation. But, as a basic overview, all tranforgees housing have all of the basics for their living space (i.e. a kitchen, bed, rooms, heating/cooling systems, ect). Housing for tranforgees are split into three major categories: size, species, and climate.

-SIZE:

size tends to be a big factor in whether you get an individual house of your own or have the share the same building as other tranforgees. Bigger tranforgees will more than likely end up living in a building of their own. Likewise, smaller tanforgees will likely end up sharing the same building as others. The reason why can vary, but the two most common reasons are safety and efficiency. smaller tranforgees are often viewed as being weaker and more susceptible to landing themselves in danger (which to some extent is true), thus dormitories and apartment buildings tend to be safer. Plus, it is also cheaper to make them for the smaller individuals than it is for the larger ones. However, obviously this isn't the only determining factor.

-SPECIES:

what species you are can also be a major determining factor. Tranforgee centers will house you in districts alongside other related species. Most commonly, these districts will house species of the same taxonomic order and/or family. Some, like canines and felines, tend to get a district of their own (a canidae and felidae district respectively), while others such as waterfowl tend to live in a district that houses anseriformes (the order waterfowl belong to). If you’re a species that doesn't have a district of its own, you’re often placed with the closest related family. For example, if you’re a colugo, you’ll more than likely end up in the primate/lemur district, as primates are considered to be their closest relatives.

Many tranforgee centers that chose species-based separation will also have family/order districts neighbor other districts of the same taxonomic class (ie mammal, bird, reptiles, ect), creating mega districts. For example, you could expect parrot and passerine districts to neighbor each other in the aves mega districts. However, with these divisions, usually they take the form of apartments or dormitories, because like before they tend to be cheaper and more efficient.

Why do some tranforgee centers do this? Well, there are two major reasons: for one, it can help keep the place organized and easier to navigate when visiting individuals. The other reason for this is because it gives tranforgees some sense of community, allowing them to interact with other similar species and helping them further adapt to their new lives. However, there are many places who don't exactly agree with the idea of separating districts based on species, whether that be due certain difficulties in placing newcomers, the general cost of certain things (especially when applying it to climate and size), or the implications of segregation. Thus, many will either do this on a much smaller scale or not do it at all, and instead focus more on size and climate.

-CLIMATE:

The final major determining factor is climate. This depends not only on the tranforgees themselves, but also the very location of the center itself. Tranforgees, like the animals they turned into, may be adapted for certain and specific environments, like a tree boa needing a warm, humid environment, or a chinchilla that needs a cooler, dryer home. Regardless, they tend to cater to those climates for the health and comfort of their own home, and often in the form of dormitories or apartments because, you guess it, cost and efficiency. It’s not uncommon for these “climate housings” to have not just the air quality (temp, humidity), but also some plants, decor, and other things to add to the environment to make it seem more like the real deal (much akin to most zoos).

However, one may not even need to live in these climate housings, either because they’re already a highly-adaptable species, or because the outside environment is the same as what their species needs, such as a township that lies in a desert environment.

While these are the three main categories for tranforgee housing, there are other things that will determine the place you live:

-are you a shifter?: whether you’re a free-shifter (shapeshifting at will) learning to get used to their power, a restricted shifter (need specific trigger like lunar phase, emotion, ect), or somewhere in between, most if not all tranforgee townships have specific housing for shifters themselves.

-are you the only one or are your family/friends also tranforgees?: there are, indeed housing options for more than one individual, mainly for families.

-do you have any pets?: depending on if said pet is allowed, you may be put into the pet-friendly parts of the township.

-what are the specifics of your transformation/species?: sometimes housing your kind may be determined by more than just size, species and climate. For example, dragon tranforgee may get a fire-proof home, or some of the more violent shifters may be put into a reinforced room.

[tumblr edit: some extra things to note: usually township housing tends to be "cheaper" because the homes already have the necessary accommodations without the need to pay for any additional modifications. however, if there are no specific needs that can only be fulfilled by the transforgee townships/center, they can easily just as comfterbly live in a regular (albiet modified) houses ouside of townships]

I’m sure there are many other things I could, list, but this is all that I could come up with. But anyways, while housing is typically free, there are some rules and limitations to it much like the outside world, and Perhaps one of the most talked about rules for the homeowner is all about pet ownership.

Pets seem to be a content of both controversy and arguments when it comes to tranforgees. However, most agree that simply banning pets altogether is a bad idea, since just like anybody else, tranforgees heavily benefit from having pets, whether the animals help them in some way (physically, mentally & emotionally), or just for simple companionship. Alot of pets have been with their owners even before they’ve changed, and are heavily attached to their owners as their owners are to them. However, like said, alot of tranforgee centers have some commonly laid-down rules about pet ownership:

1-cannot be of a certain size: obviously the animal can't be bigger than what the tranforgee’s home can allow. However, some places will also not allow pets that are as big or bigger than the owners for safety reasons, and especially if they break some of the other rules…

2-must be well-trained/friendly: while there are certain exceptions (ie aquariums and such), most pets are required to at least be well-trained enough, and to have a friendly disposition toward both the owner and, more importantly, others.

3-certain species not allowed: this is the most variable of rules, as exactly what animals you can keep can heavily depend on the exact location. Obviously most if not all places will not allow illegal animals, but they also might not allow certain/most/all exotics, or they may not allow predatory/carnivorous species (which may unfortunately include cats and dogs). However, this rule may or not apply if the animal in question fits the fourth rule…

4-only certified service or emotional support animals allowed: indeed, some places do go as far as to not allow pets at all unless it’s detrimental to the tranforgee’s way of life, whether physically or emotionally. This is a point of controversy, however, for alot of reasons. For one, it can be easy to fake the need for a service/emotional support animal (as it does happen in real life), and like said many would benefit from owning pets for companionship. Thus, this rule is often only applied to pets that break rules 1 and 3.

[tumblr edit: yes, animals can recognise their owners and any former human post-transformation. the second part will touched on that subject

BASIC NECESSITIES, INCOME AND WORK

Starting with basic necessities, all tranforgee centers are required to give out free food and supplies on a weekly basis, often delivered straight to their place of dwelling. These packages are known as “weekly care boxes (WCBs)”. As the name suggests they’re large boxes that contain pantry-level essentials, including (but not limited to):

-canned goods (veggies, fruits, meats, ect)

-frozen goods (again, meats, fruits and veggies)

-toiletries and personal hygeine.

-baked goods

-boxed drinks/drink mixes (shelf-stable milk, juice boxes, tea bags, ect)

-other items (species-specific, baby care, ect).

Granted, this is just a general list. What one can get depends on the personal preference/necessities of the receiver. While most tranforgees are still able to eat human food (we’ll get to tranforgees themselves soon enough), there are many who have specific dietary needs, such as needing food to be diabetic-friendly, vegan, or gluten free. Now, some places will have those specific items in their pantry, however alot of places will only give you that stuff for free if it’s an actual necessity. If deemed not a necessity, you’ll more than likely have to pay for it, which leads into the next topic of work & income….

Non-working Tranforgees could get a daily income below that of minimum wage, if they even get one at all. Because tranforgees already get free food, shelter, and often medical/psychiatric care, most places don't even bother with given them free money, as it’s too expensive. Thus, many tranforgees settle onto finding a job.

While the exact title depends on, of course, the species in question, there are alot of places both inside and out of townships that are able to (and often willing to) hire tranforgees. Actually, in cities that have tranforgee townships, it’s a pretty common site to see tranfogees working in jobs such as retail, customer service, workshops, ect.. And while not the most rewarding of places (especially customer service as any retail worker would tell you), it is one of the main forms of income for tranfogees.

MEDICAL/PSYCHIATRIC CARE FACILITIES

Of all things tranforgee centers need, a place to be medically AND psychologically evaluated/treated is almost always at the highest priority when it comes to townships. Most townships will have the tranforgee clinics (the place where tranforgees go to first) as a part of the medical facility.

-Medically:

As seemingly degrading as it may initially seem, the rumors about tranforgees going to vets instead of doctors is actually correct..kinda.

When it comes to physical issues, tranforgee centers often employ veterinarians and other species-specific doctors, for the obvious reason being that they’re not dealing with humans most of the time. The doctors that work on tranforgees specifically are often called “doctor vets”, and while they may focus on a specific type of tranforgee, in general they know how to work with both people and animals.

However, normal, everyday vet techs are often employed as well. These people are often just starting in the field, and with the help of the doctor vets, will help, diagnose and treat tranforgees.

-psychiatrically:

one’s own psychiatric and mental health is just as important as medical. After all, transformations are often unpleasant and even traumatizing.

Much like with the physical side of things, psychiatric care is run by people who deal with both people and animals. However, more often this is split between mental health professionals and animal behavior specialists (Both mental health and animal behavior tend to be connected in some way).

MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

There are alot of other things going on in tranforgee townships, and while i cannot list them all, i can at least list some stuff that doesn't fit within the other categories:

-schooling: most if not all tranforgee centers have some form of schooling, whether it’s a public school on site, boarding school, or online classes. However, it’s not totally uncommon to see transforgee students go off-site, and often this is because on-site schooling is mostly for students who, for one reason or another, cannot go outside of the townships due to size, transformation specifics / triggers, ect. Thus, students who are able to go to off-site schools districts are more than likely going to end up there.

-visitations: visitors like friends and family are allowed in townships, and of course are encouraged if said person is allowed by both staff and the tranforgee in question (note: most of the time tranforgees must give consent to have said visitor). Of course there are some ground rules: no outside food/drinks (unless permitted by the tranforgee/staff), can only be there between certain times (most often during the daytime), no outside pets (shares some of the same rules as pet ownership), ect.

-off-site housing: Many tranforgee townships will have off-site housing, which much like with schooling, this is often meant for tranforgees who are able to live outside of the township for an indefinite amount of time. This is to help keep the towns less crowded, and if possible they’ll allow tranforgees to live in tranforgee-freindly homes outside of township limits. Of course, these homes are often still located right next to the townships.

Anyways, that all i can come up with, at least for now. I was going to also talk about tranforgees themselves, but this is already getting long and i’d love to work on my story. So, be on the lookout for part 2, where we actually talk about tranforgees, transformations themselves and whatnot!

[anchorandrope]

how did you make the faq? it's so pretty !!!

hiii, tysm <33 it's the FAQ page that matches my theme, lowlife!! - this are the tag page and about page in case you want them 💕 and since hot girls don't gatekeep, here's is a tutorial in case you know literally zero stuff about codes :) - more tutorials.

remember that you must do it from a computer and you need to have the "custom theme" activated (see this if you don't know how). im gonna do this tutorial in a random sideblog from scratch btw.

disclaimer: don't change anything else but what i mention here, especially if you don't know anything about html and css because, in the codes, any mistake can make the whole code not work. don't touch anything else but what is involved in the design!

as you asked for a tutorial on the FAQ, i will do it specifically for that page, but this applies to the others, as this is how to install pages in general. first, go to the bottom of the "edit theme" until you see "add a page", add one and change "standard layout" to "custom layout". fill in the url with what you want the web address to be (i used "faq" like most people but you can use something else ofc) and you will notice that there's an option that says "show a link to this page" - if you turn that on, this page will be accessible from your homepage and will be next to your askbox, archive, etc. otherwise, it will just show through the link. you can leave it unchecked if you don't want a link to this page next to your ask or archive, but remember to add it manually to your main theme otherwise no one will be able to see it!

now, in another window, go to the installation page and copy all the code and paste it into the tumblr page. with "update preview" you will see how it is displayed without the need to save it (if you're still editing - remember to save it at the end lol).

now you're going to be faced with a situation: tumblr doesn't let you use javascript by default and these pages have javascript. i have two solutions for you. one is to follow this tutorial to ask tumblr for permission to use javascript, and the other is to remove it in case they deny it - which is not usually the case anyway - or take too long, etc. (the only thing that will happen is that you will no longer have the dynamism that the base code has, on these pages not much happens if you remove it, but on others you will need to ask for permission).

to do this, remove the scripts tags: in the second and third picture i pointed out with the mouse which ones they are. JUST remove that and save it to check that the page is visible and everything else is in order.

the page should already be installed and working correctly, now let's make it pretty!!!!! for this part, i highly recommend googling at least the basics of html and css, but i'll explain it from scratch anyway. but you can ask me everything you need hehe.

changing the colours: this is done with the hex codes. if you have a profile picture or header, upload it to this website to see what colours it has if you want them to match.

once you have those colours, you will go to the page and change the hex code for them. the choice of colours is up to you, play with them, change them and see what colour is altered in case you don't understand what is what, but the tags are quite understandable (background, body, accent, etc). remember that if you took out the javascript the "night mode" will not work, so in the next two to "root" (which identify day and night mode) you can change them but leave them the same as each other.

once you have the colour palette, scroll down to the body. there where i pointed out, you can change the shape of the profile picture, the defalut mode if you left the javascript on, whether you want the sidebar to be left or right and whether you want the borders to be solid, or with dashes or dots. as the code itself says, depending on what you want, just change the word that is already there for the change you need.

where it says F.A.Q and "a short description can be pasted here" would be your sidebar (the profile picture changes itself automatically in this one, but in others you have to change it manually with a link) - if you want to match all your pages to your main theme, just paste the description you already have.

you can put a link in your bio, just copy that and change the word "don't" to whatever you want the link to be and change the link.

ask guidelines, as well as within the questions themselves, you can use html tags. <b> and </b> it's bold, <i> and </i> it's italics, <small> and </small> its to make it smaller, or <strike> and </strike> it's to "strike out" the word. remember to put the start tag where you want it to start and the end tag where you want it to end (the end tags are the same but with a /). paragraphs are separated by <p> and </p>, and as the code explains, you can put bullet lists and blockquotes or literally any htlm tag (to change colour, ordered lists, etc). you can also add links (same format as explained in the description)!!!

for the questions and answers, change the first five where it says "question #X goes here" and "answer to question #X goes here", leave the rest the same. if you want more than five questions, at the end you will see something to copy-paste or you can use question #2 through #5 (NOT #1) to copy and paste it under #5 and change the numbers, as well as the questions and answers.

for example, here you should add the number 6 after the #'s and the questions and answers. finally, you can change the sentence that appears at the end of the askbox, you can match it with the one you already have or make it a custom one from the FAQ.

save everything and you have your faq page! hope you found the tutorial useful :) <3

[vees-strangeworld-omniverse]

TRANSFORGEES: the world of transformation (Literally) pt 1

(NOTE: description copy-pasted from DA where i normally post my works. any context that is missing here on tumblr can be found on my DA [linked here and on pinned post] )

[no image for this one. this first part will talk about how transformation victims, dubbed "transforgees", are treated for their situation and how the live their day to day lives]

______

So, i’ve been wanting to actually talk about tranforgees, transformations, and traforgee centers for a while. And i think now that i’m beginning to worldbuild not just planet argonus but also just my strangeworld franchise (if you call it that..) in general. But first: a little history lesson about how this idea came to be.

ORIGINAL BACKGROUND

[note: this part is edited to add extra context; ]

As somebody who’s been into the transformation genre for as long as i’ve been using the internet, it was bound that i would create things relating to it. One of these things is the idea of a place where fromer humans-turn-something-else go to get the care they need. This is where the idea of “Tranforgee Centers” come in.

Tranforgees center were an idea I had back somewhere in….2015? I think? Well, it was back with my original concept of topia.

topia was an old, old world idea that started as an unholy mashup of fnaf, paleofauna and whatever spec evo media/idea i had on hand. it also had a bit of post-apocalyptic stuff too, but it took place long, long after worlds healed form the big world war that caused it, and everybody was back to the modern day in terms of technology. it also briefly turned into an actual comic about a shapeshifting anthro doberman ("jane and the world of topia"), before being abandoned altogether.

Tranforgees (Portmanteau of “transform” and “refugees”) are people who were once something else, but has since been changes into something different (ie human turned animal), and tranforgee centers are just like what i said before: a place where tranforgees are sent to live at, whether only temporarily or permanently.

The original lore behind them was that the big, walled city of Gesidindo was a very inhospitable place for animals and something something “certain animals only” and “anything bigger than this is replace with a robot” (and also they were big racist against animatronics, of which the initial version's main character was one). Whether the animals were killed or just sent away, idk. But what i do know is that this weird rule also applied to people who turned into animals. So for whatever reason, they chose one of the abandoned mall in the equally abandoned city of Dezro as a safe place for them.

But, that was back in my early-mid highschool years. Now i’m re-working on this topic, and trying to make it work.

Also, a bit of a disclaimer: while i’m trying to make it “realistic” i’m not a professional or expert on some stuff, so bear with me.

TRANFORGEE CENTERS: REBOOTED/REFORMED

So, like said, tranforgee centers are places to help tranforgees with whatever transformation-related problem they have; from getting used to their new bodies, to helping shifters (who are also considered tranforgees) regulate and control their (often new) abilities, and even provide a place for tranforgees to live whether temporarily or permanently. They are ran by various codag-based groups, though it’s often expected that the local government will provide some aid as well.

There are three major types of tranforgee centers: clinics and townships

Clinics are, as expected, single-building clinics almost akin to a large hospital. This is where tranforgees most likely end up going to first. Clinics are meant to temporarily keep tranforgees, as they figure out what cause them to transform, what they can do to reverse/control it (if at all), and alot more.

Clinics only keep tranforgees temporarily, as they monitor both their physical and mental health. Most are usually kept for no longer than a month, during which tranforgees are helped with not only getting used to their new form, but also planning out their future and where they go from there. There are typically two major outcomes for a tranforgee after being in the clinic:

1-they’ll be able to go home: sometimes they may need modifications to their living space, sometimes they may need help from other people (either by family, friends, or outpatient staff), and sometimes they may not need it at all.

2-if unable to go back home, they’re often sent to places which are equipped to keep them for longer periods of times, sometimes permanently. These are often in the form of apartments or communities, which leads us to the other option…

Tranforgee communities, also known as townships, are exactly what they sound like: a community for tranforgees to live in. all townships have at least these four things:

1-a tranforgee clinic, which doubles as the main place of healthcare (ie doctors, dentist, mental health, ect)

2-various forms of housing for tranforgees, often in the form of trailer parks, apartments, dorms or suburbs.

3-various stores, with at least one general store and a couple specialty stores for various things (groceries, clothing, ect.)

4-misc places, which depending on the township can be things such as restaurants, a small mall, simple attractions, parks, ect. Just really anything a normal town would possible have.

Interestingly, while tranforgees may have everything that they need in these townships, they’re not bound to these places. As a matter of fact, all tranforgee townships are located right next to large cities, and not only are tranforgees allowed to venture outside the townships, but are actively encouraged to do so.

Tranforgee townships have their own form of transportation for such ventures, and so long as you’re in their system and/or have an ID of sorts, it’s completely free. However, many places require tranforgees to wear some form of identification gear, such as a collar or vest. And, depending on the situation, they may need to have staff come along with them, especially if the individual is on the smaller side and/or has difficulty in wearing said identification gear.

Now that we got down what exactly what tranforgee centers are, we can now get down to the fun part: life inside the centers. Or, more accurately…

LIFE WITHIN THE TRANFORGEE TOWNSHIPS

…since, like said, the clinics only will have you temporary while townships are commonly more permanent, or at the very least long-term.

HOUSING:

Like said, housing take the form of trailer parks, apartments, dorms and suburbs. However, which one you end up in can depend not just on the township alone, but also your exact situation. But, as a basic overview, all tranforgees housing have all of the basics for their living space (i.e. a kitchen, bed, rooms, heating/cooling systems, ect). Housing for tranforgees are split into three major categories: size, species, and climate.

-SIZE:

size tends to be a big factor in whether you get an individual house of your own or have the share the same building as other tranforgees. Bigger tranforgees will more than likely end up living in a building of their own. Likewise, smaller tanforgees will likely end up sharing the same building as others. The reason why can vary, but the two most common reasons are safety and efficiency. smaller tranforgees are often viewed as being weaker and more susceptible to landing themselves in danger (which to some extent is true), thus dormitories and apartment buildings tend to be safer. Plus, it is also cheaper to make them for the smaller individuals than it is for the larger ones. However, obviously this isn't the only determining factor.

-SPECIES:

what species you are can also be a major determining factor. Tranforgee centers will house you in districts alongside other related species. Most commonly, these districts will house species of the same taxonomic order and/or family. Some, like canines and felines, tend to get a district of their own (a canidae and felidae district respectively), while others such as waterfowl tend to live in a district that houses anseriformes (the order waterfowl belong to). If you’re a species that doesn't have a district of its own, you’re often placed with the closest related family. For example, if you’re a colugo, you’ll more than likely end up in the primate/lemur district, as primates are considered to be their closest relatives.

Many tranforgee centers that chose species-based separation will also have family/order districts neighbor other districts of the same taxonomic class (ie mammal, bird, reptiles, ect), creating mega districts. For example, you could expect parrot and passerine districts to neighbor each other in the aves mega districts. However, with these divisions, usually they take the form of apartments or dormitories, because like before they tend to be cheaper and more efficient.

Why do some tranforgee centers do this? Well, there are two major reasons: for one, it can help keep the place organized and easier to navigate when visiting individuals. The other reason for this is because it gives tranforgees some sense of community, allowing them to interact with other similar species and helping them further adapt to their new lives. However, there are many places who don't exactly agree with the idea of separating districts based on species, whether that be due certain difficulties in placing newcomers, the general cost of certain things (especially when applying it to climate and size), or the implications of segregation. Thus, many will either do this on a much smaller scale or not do it at all, and instead focus more on size and climate.

-CLIMATE:

The final major determining factor is climate. This depends not only on the tranforgees themselves, but also the very location of the center itself. Tranforgees, like the animals they turned into, may be adapted for certain and specific environments, like a tree boa needing a warm, humid environment, or a chinchilla that needs a cooler, dryer home. Regardless, they tend to cater to those climates for the health and comfort of their own home, and often in the form of dormitories or apartments because, you guess it, cost and efficiency. It’s not uncommon for these “climate housings” to have not just the air quality (temp, humidity), but also some plants, decor, and other things to add to the environment to make it seem more like the real deal (much akin to most zoos).

However, one may not even need to live in these climate housings, either because they’re already a highly-adaptable species, or because the outside environment is the same as what their species needs, such as a township that lies in a desert environment.

While these are the three main categories for tranforgee housing, there are other things that will determine the place you live:

-are you a shifter?: whether you’re a free-shifter (shapeshifting at will) learning to get used to their power, a restricted shifter (need specific trigger like lunar phase, emotion, ect), or somewhere in between, most if not all tranforgee townships have specific housing for shifters themselves.

-are you the only one or are your family/friends also tranforgees?: there are, indeed housing options for more than one individual, mainly for families.

-do you have any pets?: depending on if said pet is allowed, you may be put into the pet-friendly parts of the township.

-what are the specifics of your transformation/species?: sometimes housing your kind may be determined by more than just size, species and climate. For example, dragon tranforgee may get a fire-proof home, or some of the more violent shifters may be put into a reinforced room.

[tumblr edit: some extra things to note: usually township housing tends to be "cheaper" because the homes already have the necessary accommodations without the need to pay for any additional modifications. however, if there are no specific needs that can only be fulfilled by the transforgee townships/center, they can easily just as comfterbly live in a regular (albiet modified) houses ouside of townships]

I’m sure there are many other things I could, list, but this is all that I could come up with. But anyways, while housing is typically free, there are some rules and limitations to it much like the outside world, and Perhaps one of the most talked about rules for the homeowner is all about pet ownership.

Pets seem to be a content of both controversy and arguments when it comes to tranforgees. However, most agree that simply banning pets altogether is a bad idea, since just like anybody else, tranforgees heavily benefit from having pets, whether the animals help them in some way (physically, mentally & emotionally), or just for simple companionship. Alot of pets have been with their owners even before they’ve changed, and are heavily attached to their owners as their owners are to them. However, like said, alot of tranforgee centers have some commonly laid-down rules about pet ownership:

1-cannot be of a certain size: obviously the animal can't be bigger than what the tranforgee’s home can allow. However, some places will also not allow pets that are as big or bigger than the owners for safety reasons, and especially if they break some of the other rules…

2-must be well-trained/friendly: while there are certain exceptions (ie aquariums and such), most pets are required to at least be well-trained enough, and to have a friendly disposition toward both the owner and, more importantly, others.

3-certain species not allowed: this is the most variable of rules, as exactly what animals you can keep can heavily depend on the exact location. Obviously most if not all places will not allow illegal animals, but they also might not allow certain/most/all exotics, or they may not allow predatory/carnivorous species (which may unfortunately include cats and dogs). However, this rule may or not apply if the animal in question fits the fourth rule…

4-only certified service or emotional support animals allowed: indeed, some places do go as far as to not allow pets at all unless it’s detrimental to the tranforgee’s way of life, whether physically or emotionally. This is a point of controversy, however, for alot of reasons. For one, it can be easy to fake the need for a service/emotional support animal (as it does happen in real life), and like said many would benefit from owning pets for companionship. Thus, this rule is often only applied to pets that break rules 1 and 3.

[tumblr edit: yes, animals can recognise their owners and any former human post-transformation. the second part will touched on that subject

BASIC NECESSITIES, INCOME AND WORK

Starting with basic necessities, all tranforgee centers are required to give out free food and supplies on a weekly basis, often delivered straight to their place of dwelling. These packages are known as “weekly care boxes (WCBs)”. As the name suggests they’re large boxes that contain pantry-level essentials, including (but not limited to):

-canned goods (veggies, fruits, meats, ect)

-frozen goods (again, meats, fruits and veggies)

-toiletries and personal hygeine.

-baked goods

-boxed drinks/drink mixes (shelf-stable milk, juice boxes, tea bags, ect)

-other items (species-specific, baby care, ect).

Granted, this is just a general list. What one can get depends on the personal preference/necessities of the receiver. While most tranforgees are still able to eat human food (we’ll get to tranforgees themselves soon enough), there are many who have specific dietary needs, such as needing food to be diabetic-friendly, vegan, or gluten free. Now, some places will have those specific items in their pantry, however alot of places will only give you that stuff for free if it’s an actual necessity. If deemed not a necessity, you’ll more than likely have to pay for it, which leads into the next topic of work & income….

Non-working Tranforgees could get a daily income below that of minimum wage, if they even get one at all. Because tranforgees already get free food, shelter, and often medical/psychiatric care, most places don't even bother with given them free money, as it’s too expensive. Thus, many tranforgees settle onto finding a job.

While the exact title depends on, of course, the species in question, there are alot of places both inside and out of townships that are able to (and often willing to) hire tranforgees. Actually, in cities that have tranforgee townships, it’s a pretty common site to see tranfogees working in jobs such as retail, customer service, workshops, ect.. And while not the most rewarding of places (especially customer service as any retail worker would tell you), it is one of the main forms of income for tranfogees.

MEDICAL/PSYCHIATRIC CARE FACILITIES

Of all things tranforgee centers need, a place to be medically AND psychologically evaluated/treated is almost always at the highest priority when it comes to townships. Most townships will have the tranforgee clinics (the place where tranforgees go to first) as a part of the medical facility.

-Medically:

As seemingly degrading as it may initially seem, the rumors about tranforgees going to vets instead of doctors is actually correct..kinda.

When it comes to physical issues, tranforgee centers often employ veterinarians and other species-specific doctors, for the obvious reason being that they’re not dealing with humans most of the time. The doctors that work on tranforgees specifically are often called “doctor vets”, and while they may focus on a specific type of tranforgee, in general they know how to work with both people and animals.

However, normal, everyday vet techs are often employed as well. These people are often just starting in the field, and with the help of the doctor vets, will help, diagnose and treat tranforgees.

-psychiatrically:

one’s own psychiatric and mental health is just as important as medical. After all, transformations are often unpleasant and even traumatizing.

Much like with the physical side of things, psychiatric care is run by people who deal with both people and animals. However, more often this is split between mental health professionals and animal behavior specialists (Both mental health and animal behavior tend to be connected in some way).

MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

There are alot of other things going on in tranforgee townships, and while i cannot list them all, i can at least list some stuff that doesn't fit within the other categories:

-schooling: most if not all tranforgee centers have some form of schooling, whether it’s a public school on site, boarding school, or online classes. However, it’s not totally uncommon to see transforgee students go off-site, and often this is because on-site schooling is mostly for students who, for one reason or another, cannot go outside of the townships due to size, transformation specifics / triggers, ect. Thus, students who are able to go to off-site schools districts are more than likely going to end up there.

-visitations: visitors like friends and family are allowed in townships, and of course are encouraged if said person is allowed by both staff and the tranforgee in question (note: most of the time tranforgees must give consent to have said visitor). Of course there are some ground rules: no outside food/drinks (unless permitted by the tranforgee/staff), can only be there between certain times (most often during the daytime), no outside pets (shares some of the same rules as pet ownership), ect.

-off-site housing: Many tranforgee townships will have off-site housing, which much like with schooling, this is often meant for tranforgees who are able to live outside of the township for an indefinite amount of time. This is to help keep the towns less crowded, and if possible they’ll allow tranforgees to live in tranforgee-freindly homes outside of township limits. Of course, these homes are often still located right next to the townships.

Anyways, that all i can come up with, at least for now. I was going to also talk about tranforgees themselves, but this is already getting long and i’d love to work on my story. So, be on the lookout for part 2, where we actually talk about tranforgees, transformations themselves and whatnot!

[cosm1cbrownie]

this was mostly copied from tags and i tried my hardest to clean it up// yooo i didnt expect you to look at my post, that was mostly just angry rambles, mb, but fundamentally i think we agree, the point you made abt the whole mcu syndication stuf in 2010s marvel in this posts is what i agree with most, but when it comes down to aa and usm, i'm gonna have to disagree,.

aos is something i have not watched in a long ass time, and i liked it, but im not gonna comment on it since im not as famIilar with it as i am with aa and usm, so, first off i want to say that some of points where kinda back handed, i at the time was really mad at the whole “ everything that vaguely looks like the mcu is mcu syndication”, bs people always throw around, its common on cbtwt, and cbmtwt, do not go there it is a cesspool ifykyk, but like the thing was for aa and usm, right, that like they still fundamentally while were somewhat based on mcu stuff, and i say that in the most loose sense possible, because if we're being real, and knowing past screenshots and development footage and work and progress shots, if anything, it's more based on the ultimate universe, which is, you guessed it, what the mcu is literally based on, and huge chunks of pre-2000s 616.

now i'm not gonna dickride ults, it has its issues, i only really like ults spider-man, and the slutty steve and tony, i just think they're neat, but if you look further into avengers assemble specifically, you can see that most of the stuff they took wasn't even originally from the mcu, it was from ULTS.,

s1: the introductory season, its not bad by any means, it lays the ground for the rest of the ream's dynamic and shows how in tune they are and the issues they have, and also show off tony's arc, something i will talk about later, but red skull is the main villain, there is the cabal, which most of these villains did not show up in the mcu, and if they did they were shit, mcu moment

i guess you could make a claim about the art style?, but the dark-gritty art style was what was for animation was what marvel was doing with literally everything else, and i dont think that should be a knock on the show itself, rather current trends at the time, the tower, which is something also from ults, was, well, basically replaced the mansion after it got destroyed in the first episode, did i mention that aa was originally and emh continuation yet? the mansion wasn't in the mcu, they had the compound but that didn;t even come in aa until like s4, long after the mcu did it, and it made sense there cuz the tower was being rebuilt in aa. and like i kinda like the artstyle, its grown on me, it reminds me of yj in that way specfically.

, but most of the things people say abt aa in it's early seasons, while can be tied back to mcu syndication, were also stuff that tied it to ults at its core, which is something it continued on, alongside the DYNAMICS, holy shit, THE DYNAMICS MAN, i love this show's dynamics, instead of what people would consider the mcu's lack of an actual family unit avengers, they CARE FOR EACH OTHER, THEY HAVE EACH OTHERS BACKS, THEY ARE A TEAM, A FAMILY, STEVE AND TONY ARE MOM AND DAD BUT THAT DOESNT INHIBIT THEM WHEN THEY FIGHT, ITS SO GOOD, these dynamics, as opposed to something from ults, actually comes from 616, somewhere around 80-90s, they have that trust and bond that the mcu basically forgot when they made a worse ults, and it is something i cherish sm....

sorry for the ramble so continuing on,

s2, they fight thanos, peep the fact that this part of the season was in 2014-15, long before thanos was ever in the mcu, thanos was also teased at the end of last season after skull turned cosmic, the tesseract is there, i forgot to mention it but that is im 99% sure a comics item first, correct me if i'm wrong, but basically they fight the squadron, which is a semi continuation of the hyperion thing from s1, while they race to get the infinity stones, and defeat thanos, also ultron is here, there's also arsenal, arsenal, god, never gonna get over how tony felt about that damn robot, will be important later, basically in the first half of the season they fucking wash thanos with the power of friendship and gay, my goats, and then arsenal, the robot howard made for tony that got turned into a thing for like a blast or some shit to be put in an alternate dimension basically get's taken over by ultron, and tony is definitely not okay about this, he cares for the team way too much, but he also cares about that robot, he has daddy issues this is a important part of his arc, where he like basically chooses the robot over his teammates, and splits the team apart. basically causing another civil war, but viewer, you might be saying, wasn't this arc called ultron revolution, you ask, and i'm like: yes! this is a ultron and civil war double team, BABY! it's no secret that the main reasons for ultron bein shoe horned in was because of age of ultron, but i'm gonna be honest, aa used ultron better than the mcu did, just for the the fact he is actually a real and present threat for 2 seasons straight, and honestly that's better than nothing! i like him in aa, he get shafted in s4 but at that point it was the final season and the beyonder was a nice welcome change of pace.. in comparison: the mcu, the mcu gave us literally nothing lmao but like cw was not out at this point, s3 didn't premiere until like 2016, and that was way before we even had teasers, so this was largely original, well you might be saying "well if it's not the mcu civil war what did they base it on?". the fucking ults original concept, man, ITS ALL ULTS. half of this fucking show is like a weird mixture of ults and 616, and i love it, so much. basically the dynamic with steve and tony is that tony is chaos and steve is order, the original concept for civil war btw (it was ults based), basically making a conflict where they say they dont trust eachother and wish they would work together but they actually just want to rejoin the team because by the end it's redundant. they actually have them work out their relationship and SPEAK TO EACHOTHER and it feels so fucking good, cuz these two are so well characterized, like there is a reason theyre considered good characterizations, (although most emh fans would kill you on the spot for saying that, i've met a few they are mean but hey thas ok idrc some u guys are chill but man...) so steve tells tony that he cares for him and trusts him and then tony goes off to save the world but arsenal, STILL IN ULTRON'S BODY, SACRIFICES HIMSELF CUZ HIS PROGRAMMING WAS TO SAVE AND PROTECT TONY. YOU CANT MAKE THIS UP. LITERALLY PEAK, AND ITS STUCK IN AA. GOD. SO THEN THOR SAVES TONY BEFORE HE DIES, and all is well that ends well. that is s2, s2 is literally just a weird mixture of ults (in places/themes) and 616(writing,characterizations,dynamics), with some mcu(same as ults, much much more loosley) stuff but ultron was so good in this show from this point forward i'll keep it for myself ngl, fuck the mcu, they have done nothing but burn our crops.

i think that s2 is a pretty good example, so i'll drop that there and bring it back up starting with s3 and talk about when shit really starts hitting the fan with the mcu syndcation cuz 16-17 is where it really started in aa, and it's probably the most obvious and egregious example of an early victim of the mcu syndication imo

>“and the thing is is that marvel will just keep doing this bullshit because you guys keep buying into it” I just pointed it out that most of the stuff on the designs and characterizations is largely true. It almost feels like they’re trying to downplay just how prevalent the MCU synergy is in the comics.

oh no, i'm not. i've seen the bs mcu has inflicted on current 616, the 2000s and the 2010s were not pretty. currently it seems to me alot of the issues that stem from the mcu don't really seem to be *as* prevalent as they used to be, but they still are to an extent, i think i remember seeing it the most in the 2010s up until like cwII came around with the weird characterizations and shit, and honestly i think that with how current marvel is they won't be willing to realize that they are basically setting them up to loose are large portion of their user base, and i think that at that time i was more focused on characters like spider-man, where the basis that cw set up for current comics and having to be all gritty permanently tied it the mcu in a sense, because the mcu copied that part, alongside ults, which i will touch on in the next part

Which is weird since they just admitted early with how prevalent the MCU synergy is in the comics! And also….. Fuck off with that bullshit. Don’t blame this on the fans.

no yeah that my was a my bad, i think that like while i think for some characters, such as spider-man and post omd bs, where like fundamentally those people will still buy those comics regardless of their quality which just leaves us with these long running series that are perpetual gooner cuckporn like current ASM that the fan base just wishes that was back to how it was originally,and from what i've seen the ragebait is just?? idk, like one on hand it is extremely popular but with the new ultimate spiderman coming out nobody gives a shit, numbers have been dwindling for a bit now and it's not working. like i think one one hand we need to stop giving marvel (as a company) the benefit of the doubt when they make bad shit and commit with our wallets, but im not gonna ignore the fact that marvel is multi-billion dollar company who could care less about what WE THINK, and like if we're being honest alot of those things are on the writers, depending on the character, sometimes its the art,sometimes it's marvel mandates, sometimes its literally kevin fiege, we the fans are somewhat powerless in the situation so we gotta be real: sometimes, we just gonna have to cope and seethe. i would love to go back to a time where it was the 90s and comic were like 99% good (propaganda /j) but like marvel is making so much damn money that it literally just seems bleak, we have come to the point where writers are the barrier between us getting what we want and marvel or dc fucking us all over and that's sad as shit, man. it sucks. and honestly i just try to keep optimism, the new storm run is made by the same people who made I am Iron Man (2023) which was peak, so i just look towards the future and hope for the best. maybe if marvel would stop focusing on the mcu bs we wouldn't be here but idk, the current state of marvel comics has me super optimistic for the future regardless. i hope it gets better. for your point's about avengers assemble in s3, s3 was actually based on CIVIL II, an comic event, because cw was already done last season and they needed to capitalize on the sequel comic and the movie, so they did CWII, reason we know that is because the main avengers team goes against the new avengers team, led by carol, who we saw last season, this was in 2016, around march, the perfect time to captilize hype around the worst comic event II!!! but for me personally s3 is kinda,, ehhhhh it's definetly my second favorite season for a reason i love how tony' and steve's friendship and trust is shown so exponentionally and how eager they they were to fuck off from the governemnt after the last few rodieos with them(i.e s2), ultron's inclusion is probably the best part and the way that tony's arc is finalized here is honestly super awesome i love it alot, the tension in the last episode made me cry the first time i saw it cuz u can physically SEE how much steve and tony love eachother. platonically or not they. they. auuuuhghghghg i love this show. also the sideplot with the inhumans actually isn't half bad and i like their inclusion, they are the inhumans tho and so them being somewhat useful and filling in the role mutants probably would've served last season if they weren't just vaguely there is interesting to me

s4 was based on the beyonder, im pretty sure secret wars was comic only in 2017/18. s4 is the worst season but its not bad by any means, it has its merits near the second half and that half reallllly does that heavily lifting when the team comes back together. that hug in beyond and the dynamic the team has for the last few episodes honestly just make me smile. its not bad, but def you could see how the team tried their hardest to not be cucked by marvel. they ended up succeding, atleast now in retropsect, so now thats it, right, no more seasons to cover, right? well....

But then came along Season 5…. Dear God…. Not only was the MCU synergy just as prevalent as it was in Season 3 (maybe even more so, especially with the fact that it was heavily focused on Black Panther), but it even took place in a completely different continuity. Yep! Season 5 was completely removed from the previous 4 seasons! And to make matters worse, it was set in the same universe as Spider-Man 2017…..and Guardians of the Galaxy! Which itself was connected to the first 4 seasons of AA.

season 5 is shit, i am not sugarcoating, it is shit. it was mcu syndication GALORE, not only was it retconned from the main universe TO THE 2017 UNI, because of how shit it was, but it was so bad that it basically killed the entierty of avengers assemble on arrival because it took what EVERYONE LIKED ABOUT THE LAST FOUR SEASONS, and punished it to the fucking GROUND. i am so, SO glad, it is not canon.

half of the aa fanbase doesn't even recognize it as the fifth season, "wgat do you mean guys? there was only four aa seasons! that show bpq was pretty bad tho" "bpq was a show? that was just a fanfic, right?" we literally had to create an acronym to seperate it and it was STILL SHIT. it killed aa, and we were all so mad, WE WRE THE FIRST VICTIM. THIS WAS IN 2018-19 BTW!!! THE PEAK OF THE MCU!! WE GOT FUCKED OVER!!! IT WAS NOT FUN!! NOBODY LIKES IT YET WERE ARE STILL ASOCIATED WITH IT! IT SUCKS!!! i couldnt even watch it, thats how bad it was!! they somehow cut the budget EVEN FURTHER THEY THEY DID IN S4, HOW???? THEY TURNED CAP INTO A TWINK. HOW. ITS. JUST. HOOOOOOWWWW.

also for your points about the whole not liking certian post mcu things and seeing them at face value that was really mean i'm sorry, as ive already mentioned some of my points where shit mb, i like some stuff too, its just i see alot of these complaints and they all sounds like they just dont like anything new, and i still agree with my point that you could make comparisons to current gaming trends of the time, and i agree you could do alot more with that concept, and reading back some of my points i sound like a dick, i apologize. especially with the normie thing idk what i was thinking there i cringe at myself in retrospect also i personally enjoy mvc3 tbh, i've played a bit of marvel avngers but i personally like the story better than the game itself tbh, most of my other points were super cynical and i genuielly apoligise, idk what i was on that day tbh

for your part about faithfullness, i agree, but i think at some point there should be a line. you can be faithful, while also using that original source material to do something new. keeping the core while also making something brings new oppourtunites to the table or even trying to return a caracter to it's core in a new way are one of the many ways you can do such a thing.

and example of the opposite, imo, is Earth's Mightiest heroes, where like i feel it uses its statis as AN adaptation as an early 616 adaptation, in the most barebones sense possible, as an excuse to be, well, mid, in the most "it is mediocre, middle of the road, 7/10", possible. i don't think emh is a bad show, i just feel the way it does its characertizations and writers feels bland and done before rather than what aa did after it where it advaced on preexisting stuff and did what nobody else what doing at the time. emh just feels very bland and samey in compairson, and you can see glimpses of what could be in 1 but s2 wasn't great and feels super rushed ESPECIALLY with the skrull plotline. you could put this down towards marvel shutting the show early but i wouldn't put that blame on aa, like some fans do, this is marvel and an mcu issue and seeing the leaks for s3 of emh makes me think we dodged a bullet.

anyway, yhat's kinda all i want to say. sorry this is so long, i'll try to format this later when i have the time, i don't take offense for most of the comments u made btw it was probbaly more well researched than my shitty rant, but hope u give this a read and i think we've come to an agreement.

bye bye!

A response to myst1calx

So a few weeks ago, a made a post titled The MCU Synergy Problem.

In that post, I discussed how a lot of Marvel's projects during the 2010s and 2020s have been somewhat dragged down by being constantly forced to be adjacent to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

If you want to check it out for yourself, here's the link to it below.

As of right now, the post has gotten six likes and a reblog.

However, the reblog I got was essentially a written response.

And somewhat hostile one.

And weirdly enough, it was from one of the six people who liked the post.

So I'm not sure on whether or not they actually liked it or they hated it.

From the way the reblog was written, it seemed like they didn't really like it.

And in addition to that, they're also a sense of confusion as well.

So today, I decided to make a response to the person that did the reblog: myst1calx.

I'm going to respond to all the points they brought up in their reblog while trying to be as civil as possible.

Though there may be a point in this where I do seem pretty angry.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's get started.

"ok but the shows in the 2010s didnt suffer from mcu synergy because they activley fought against it"

This one is a both right and wrong.

Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man (2017) are really the only shows that didn't suffer from MCU synergy.

Spidey hadn't been introduced into the MCU yet when Ultimate came out and when he was, it was during Ultimate's final season.

When Spidey wouldn't even get his own movie in the MCU until after Ultimate ended.

And Spider-Man '17 surprisingly didn't really have a whole lot of MCU influence despite lasting for most of Spidey's MCU trilogy.

It took more influence from Brian Michael Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man and Dan Slott's run on Amazing Spider-Man.

Avengers Assemble, despite being created just to ride off the success of the first Avengers film, didn't really have a whole lot of MCU synergy at.....for the first two seasons.

But I'll touch on that a little later.

Guardians of the Galaxy.

Dude, out of all the Marvel shows of the 2010s, this one was undoubtedly the most blatant with the MCU synergy.

I mean, just look this promotional poster.

Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. also has blatant case of MCU synergy, but in a more subtle and honestly, sinister way.

The show was about the titular Agents of S.M.A.S.H. learning how to be a family and fighting off bad guys with a variety of high-tech gadgets.

Not exactly something you would think of from a show about the Hulk of all characters.

But let's turn our attention to the villains of this show.

Out of all the villains, this show only really features 4 of the Hulk's foes.

The Leader, The Abomination, The Absorbing Man, Titania, Wendigo, Xemnu and Maestro.

Yeah! No Wrecking Crew, U-Foes, Zzzax, Madman, Bi-Beast, Gargoyle, Flux, Grey Gargoyle, Umar, Nightmare, Man-Beast, Ravage, or John Ryker.

Now compare this to the other villains included in the show.

Besides the Hulk associated villains, the other villains in show include the likes of Annihilus, Blastaar, Ego the Living Planet, Laufey, The Mole Man, Doctor Doom, Galactus and his heralds, Impossible Man, Loki, Malekith the Accursed, Dormammu, Sauron, Ronan the Accuser, The High Evolutionary, The Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, Pluto, and The Supreme Intelligence.

Upon reading this, you probably that most the villains listed here are predominately connected to the Fantastic Four, not really Hulk himself.

This, along with the aforementioned focus on family and use of technology, has led many people to theorize that Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. was originally meant to be a new Fantastic Four cartoon, but was changed to be a Hulk cartoon at some point development.

The potential reason for this was that this show did come out right at the beginning of Marvel's "The Fantastic Four and X-Men don't matter anymore" phase because of the whole movie rights bullshit.

And while there hasn't been any official confirmation about this theory from any who has worked on the show, the connections are still quite apparent.

As for why they decided to make Hulk the star of the show instead if they couldn't use the Fantastic Four, I guess besides the fact he's among the most prominent allies of the Four, it was because he was the only other option that people could see working with this premise.

The other ones that could possibly fit this would be The Avengers and maybe Spider-Man, but they already had their own shows going on around that time.

So all in all, the MCU synergy did affect most of the 2010s shows.

Some were definitely more apparent than others, but still.

"if you wanna make the claim that its all mcu synergy, you can see it starting in 2017, not 13"

Now this one is weird because a good chunk of the MCU synergized elements that occured in the comics happened before 2017.

-The current, obviously MCU-inspired Loki was introduced in 2011

-Hawkeye with the tired dad energy was introduced in 2012

-The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver happened in 2015

-Literally everything with the Guardians of the Galaxy in 2015

I think maybe they were trying to say that the MCU synergy became more apparent starting in 2017, which.....yeah, they are kinda right about that.

But I reason I say this is a weird statement is because what myst1calx says later in their reblog.

Which I'll get to.

"also advertising doesnt always mean mcu syndication slop dude"

Dude, I never said anything about the advertisement for the MCU being the same as MCU synergy slock.

Advertising for the MCU is perfectly fine. I mean, Marvel would want their project to do well, right?

But the problem is using a piece of Marvel media that isn't connected to the MCU and having it resemble the MCU.

It just doesn't allow it the product to stand on it's own.

"like dont bring avengers assemble and aos and usm into this"

Why shouldn't?

Avengers Assemble does play a part in the MCU synergy problem.

I didn't even mention Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. at all in my post.

And for Ultimate Spider-Man.....

I only brought up the comic for a point I was making about a weird similarity I noticed between most modern non-MCU projects and most recent Spider-Man media.

And if we're talking about the cartoon, I literally just said it didn't suffer from any MCU synergy at all.

"this is entierly a thing that started with the 2017 uni and it comics. just correcting because i'm tire dof the whole “ mcu syndication rhetoric” when talking about aa it's so fucking annoying"

The MCU synergy has been around before 2017, they think were just saying that it became before prominent and explicit than before.

But the whole "MCU syndication rhetoric" when about AA.....

While yes, Avengers Assemble may not have the most blatant case of MCU synergy out of the non-MCU TV shows of the 2010s (Guardians of the Galaxy say "hi" again.), it's hard not to mention it as it does play a big part in that show.

From the content within the show, to literally why the show was made in the first place.

"look at the comics or anything from like. idk 2017 onwards."

This one I do agree (sort of).

I don't what the comics have to do with AA (they're completely different continuities), but I do know that the MCU synergy has gotten worse with the comics since 2017.

I mean for God's sake, the latest case of this was just last year with Ms. Marvel being retconned into a mutant.

"like you COULD make a claim abt this but honestly i see it more as you guys just not liking new shit"

But I like some of the new Marvel shit.....

the Insomniac Spider-Man games, the Spider-Verse films, Midnight Suns, those Marvel animes, and that upcoming Marvel Rivals game.

Hell, I actually like Avengers Assemble as well.

I know I didn't mention it in my post, I actually do like this show a lot.

I know it's not as good as the show that came before it, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but I still acknowledge it merits and enjoy it as its own thing.

But most of the other non-MCU projects I'm just not that wild about.

Since let's be real, they're kinda just.....

"like being fr, have you ever watched or played any of these games or do you see that at face value"

Yes, I have watched and played both Avengers and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.

And both of these are just not that good.

While they're definitely not the worst games ever, they're just nothing really home to write home about.

For Avengers, this game was pure wasted potential.

I mean, Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics had access to an IP that at the time of acquiring it, had over 50 years worth of history!

That IP had hundreds of comics with numerous storylines worth adapting, an enormous roster of characters, a multitude of other iterations to easily take some influence from, and most of all, a movie franchise that helped make it into the powerhouse it is today.

But with all that, they found some way to screw it up!

The plot is nothing home to rave about. It's just you're standard "getting the band back together" plot.

The graphics are....passable. Just your standard very realistic-looking game.

The gameplay is repetitive as all hell and fails at making any of the characters feel distinct from one another.

The bonus content is a total joke. I mean putting aside the obvious micro-transactions, most of the purchasable costumes absolutely suck. They're either just half-assed attempts at recreating outfits from whatever source material they came from, or just recolors of each other.

And most of all, the game has some of the most pitiful representation of the Marvel Universe ever put to screen.

I mean, can you name any notable locations from the comics that was featured in the game?

The only one was Wakanda, but even that could've been done a little better.

There was no Asgard or any of the other Nine Realms, no Latveria, no Kamar-Taj, no Dark Dimension, no Atlantis, no Savage Land.

Hell, we don't even get to go to New York! Despite the fact that like 90% of the Marvel characters are based there.

All we got were primarily generic-looking bases, deserts and forests (occasionally with some snow).

And in my post, I mentioned that there was a list of playable characters planned to be in the game.

In addition to Spider-Man and Hawkeye, this list included the likes of Ant-Man, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Captain Mar-Vell, Daisy Johnson, Doctor Strange, The Falcon, Kate Bishop, Mockingbird, Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, The Vision, The Wasp, War Machine, and the Winter Soldier.

But only five characters from that list made it into that game, plus the Jane Foster Thor, which let's be real, that was only done just to coincidence with the release of Thor: Love and Thunder.

You can't tell me that the roster we got by the time the game finished updating was better than the one that was initially planned.

And I reason I say this game was pure wasted potential was because.....look at who the Avengers have had as members over the decades!

People don't seem to know this a lot or ever really acknowledge it, but the Avengers are like a melting pot, as they've had members from basically every corner of the Marvel Universe!

Heroes from the mystical side like the aforementioned Doctor Strange, Hercules, Black Knight and White Tiger.

Heroes from the cosmic side like the aforementioned Captain Marvels, Monica Rambeau, Moondragon and Nova.

Several street-level heroes like the aforementioned Spider-Man, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones and Shang-Chi.

A couple of mutants have been members like Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch and even members of the X-Men, namely Wolverine, Beast and Storm.

Hell. Literally every member of the Fantastic Four has been a member of the Avengers at one point!

Like, does anyone else see the potential I'm bringing up?!

There could've easily been several DLCs that got to explore much greater Marvel Universe.

But alas, we never got that....

As for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite....

Jesus....

Apart from the admittedly decent gameplay, there's just nothing else good about this game.

The graphics totally suck. They threw away the gorgeous cel-shaded, comic book-inspired look from 3: Fate of Two Worlds for this bland, kinda ugly pseudo-realistic look for the sake of just like damn-near everything else in that game: MCU synergy.

Not to mention they look pretty cheap, especially in the cutscenes.

The reason being that this game had a pretty low budget.....and it really shows.

The music was mid, since, once again, they changed many of the characters themes in order to make it more MCU-inspired.

And while I do respect that this game is the first one in the series to have a story-mode, it's unfortunate that the story-mode sucks.

The plot was just so lame and was obviously riding the hype for the then-upcoming Avengers: Infinity War.

And I already brought up the absolute disgrace of a roster and the behind-the-scenes drama of this game in my poster.

All in all, these games may not be the worst games of all time, but they're just not worth anyone's time or money.

If you like these games, more power to ya.

"because i see more misconceptions about characters in deisgn and charaterizations in the 2010s morethan anything"

I'm not sure about this one.

Most of the stuff I said about the designs and characterizations in the comics is largely truly.

But maybe one of them was possibly exaggerated and not nearly as prevalent as most people make it out to be.

"and the thing is is that marvel will just keep doing this bullshit because you guys keep buying into it"

I just pointed it out that most of the stuff on the designs and characterizations is largely true.

It almost feels like they're trying to downplay just how prevalent the MCU synergy is in the comics.

Which is weird since they just admitted early with how prevalent the MCU synergy is in the comics!

And also.....

Fuck off with that bullshit.

Don't blame this on the fans.

They're (mostly) not the ones clamoring for this MCU synergy!

Marvel is doing this on their own term and are obviously doing this to appeal to more contemporary fans who got introduced to Marvel through the MCU.

And as I mentioned in my post, I'm convinced that the people at Marvel believe these guys have never heard of the word: adaptation.

Not only that, but they also seem to believe that these fans will get confused that the comics don't line-up with the movies 1-to-1.

And trust me, this isn't the first time something like this has happened with Marvel.

"this doesnt work for most of the shows pre 2016 in the 2010s marvel area because they didnt suffer from it until marvel started forcing it on them for maximum profits #which then ended up biting them in the ass when avengers assemble fans dropped the show after relazing that s5 became shitty mcu syndication"

Now this part is true.

The MCU synergy started to become much more prominent roughly around 2016/2017.

I already went into how this negatively affected stuff like Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, but let's head back to the main focus of this part, Avengers Assemble.

Although AA was created to obviously ride the wave of success caused by the first Avengers film, it surprisingly had very little MCU synergy....for, as I mentioned earlier, the first two seasons.

The only examples I can think of from the first two seasons was when they recreated the Chitauri in the Impossible Man, and a few references that got turned on their head like when Hulk tries to punch Thor, but he blocks it with Mjolnir.

But when season 3 came around....that's when everything changed.

During that season, it was pretty apparent they were really striving to be more like the MCU than in prior seasons.

The season featured Ultron as the main antagonist be he was in the latest Avengers movie at time, Age of Ultron.

Despite the fact that when the season premiered, Age of Ultron for almost a year at that point....

The Avengers got new outfits, pulled directly from the movies.

Hulk and Black Widow had something going on between them....like in the movies.

Klaw, who first appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man (which is connected to AA), receives a major redesign, looking like how he did in the movies, whereas before, he looked like how did in the comics.

The last four episodes were based off Civil War (I wonder why?).

They move their headquarters to a compound....once again, like in the movies.

And they predominately featured the Inhumans as recurring characters, since this was back when Marvel were trying to push them as the next big characters in order to replace the X-Men and promote their then-upcoming movie.

Which ended up getting cancelled and got replaced by a shitty TV show....which was cancelled after just one season.

In Season 4, this synergy was thankfully less present.

There was aforementioned Falcon redesign.

And Doctor Strange got one as well, to look more like how he did in the movies.

But then came along Season 5....

Dear God....

Not only was the MCU synergy just as prevalent as it was in Season 3 (maybe even more so, especially with the fact that it was heavily focused on Black Panther), but it even took place in a completely different continuity.

Yep! Season 5 was completely removed from the previous 4 seasons!

And to make matters worse, it was set in the same universe as Spider-Man 2017.....and Guardians of the Galaxy!

Which itself was connected to the first 4 seasons of AA.

HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK?!

"this didnt START from the 2010s. it started midway throu"

Once again, the MCU synergy has been around since the early 2010s.

It was only at the midway point of that decade where started to become more prevalent than before.

And outside of the comics, the earliest case I think of for this was with EMH, which had Iron Man acting exactly like how he did in the movies.

Hell, even Hulk looked pretty similar to how he did in his solo film everybody forgot about.

"and creeped its way in because you guys LET IT HAPPEN"

Once again, fuck off with that bullshit.

"half of the things mentioned arent even mcu syndicationy they just suffer from current realisitc game trends that we are the norm"

I can definitely tell they're talking about Square Enix's Avengers.

But in all honesty, but game didn't really have a whole lot of MCU synergy.

It was still there, specifically with how the characters look.

I mean, everyone has said it before, but the Avengers looked like the stunt doubles for the MCU actors.

But it wasn't as prevalent as some of the other Marvel media to feature it.

Doesn't really make it much better though.

The game is honestly sort of a Schrodinger's video game, where doesn't take much from the comics or any other iterations of the Avengers, but doesn't take much from the MCU either.

"like what is your point here? “oh not every marvel property is the same is the comics” dude nobody buys comic shit because they arent as easy to get into the manga you guys perpetuate this shit and then wonder why cb fandoms are always filled with normies"

And here we are....

Now this is the last part of the reblog, and the one that really annoys me the most.

My point of that post was to show how not only was the constant MCU synergy incredibly tiring, but also been doing a lot of harm to their recent projects that aren't connected to the MCU.

Like, Avengers Assemble could've gone down as one of the greatest Marvel cartoons ever made!

But it got bogged down by the MCU synergy of the later seasons.

So much so that the final season wasn't even connected to the previous ones!

And now, it's usually just seen as the "we have the MCU at home" show.

And I do I even need to bring up Infinite into this?

And not only that, but it's also been bringing out the worst in Marvel.

I mean, just look at my post and read up on how much they made Capcom suffer during the production of Infinite.

But the synergy has not only harmed potentially good projects and lead to promising upcoming projects to be thrown to the Shadow Realm, but even good projects in unintentional ways.

The Guardians of the Galaxy video game was really good and the people who played it all agreed that this was what Avengers should've been!

But despite the positive reception, the game ended up flopping hard.

And while this was largely thanks to the failure of Avengers (since Guardians was also produced by Square Enix), I feel like the growing annoying towards MCU synergy may've played a part in this as well.

Since remember: out of all the characters of Marvel, the Guardians have been the ones undoubtedly changed by the MCU the most.

It's like....not even a contest.

And not only is this synergy doing harm to their non-MCU projects, but also gonna start (and it's possibly already has been) doing harm to the Marvel brand itself.

This is largely because of how homogenized they've made everything, which is not gonna be helping them because of rapidly declining interest in the MCU (aka Marvel Fatigue).

I mean, last year was just not a good year for them.

Besides Guardians of the Galaxy 3, two other films that released that year (Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels).

Both those films were met critically with what could be described as a resounding "meh".

But the real damage came in their box office.

Quantumania was a box-office disappointment, grossing $476.1 million worldwide against a gross production budget of $326.6 million, being one of the few MCU films not to break even in its theatrical run.

And The Marvels.....

Oh man, The Marvels....

That film was a box-office bomb! Grossing $206 million worldwide against a gross production budget of $274.8 million. And it now holds the record for being the lowest-grossing film in the franchise's history!

That had to be hurting Marve!

And it seems so as just recently, Marvel Studios announced they would be limiting the amount of MCU projects they release a year.

And while Marvel largely targeted towards the MCU itself, I feel like could also potentially start harming non-MCU projects.

Since let's be real, one of the many issues people have had with the recent MCU is how formulaic and generic it's become.

From the trademark forced and frankly mediocre humor, to having damn-near every threat be potentially world-ending.

I'm pretty sure the same could be applied to what people usually expect from a modern non-MCU project.

It's gonna have a semi-realistic art-style.

It's gonna feature the big characters (Avengers, Guardians and Spider-Man) featured in the MCU and barely anyone else (Fantastic Four, X-Men, street-level heroes).

They're all gonna be wearing their MCU outfits.

Every character is gonna be a quippy asshole (expect the ones who are suppose to be quippy assholes like Hawkeye and Spider-Man).

And it's gonna have a world-ending threat, with either Loki or Thanos as the main villain.

(Maybe Ultron if you're lucky)

And if this keep going, I'm sure Kang the Conquerer will essentially become the next villain to always be the main villain.

Well, if he's still going to be used in the MCU....

On to the next point.

“oh not every marvel property is the same is the comics”

Okay.

This has been a topic of debate when it comes to comic book adaptations for years.

Whether or not all comic book adaptations should strive to be like, 100% faithful to the source material.

To me, I think the answer to this is, in the words of the Pirate Captain,....

If this is for a series like Watchmen, 300 and Invincible, I feel like you should definitely make the adaptation as faithful as possible.

But even then, there would be definitely be some changes to the source material, since they would have story elements that were either weak or just plain bad.

Basically, maybe people's ideas on adaptations is to utilize what works, and either strengthen or get rid of what doesn't.

But when doing an adaptation for the big dogs like DC and Marvel.....this is where things get really tricky.

Because DC and Marvel have ongoing continuities with no end in sight, doing a largely faithful adaptation of any of their characters' stories would be an absolute nightmare since that characters will often have literal DECADES of history, plus hundreds to thousands of comics to read in order to understand said history.

If you've noticed, a lot of adaptations of DC and Marvel aren't exactly 1-to-1 adaptations of the stories from the comics.

But the reason why they're held in such high regard is because in spite of that, they manage to stay faithful to the spirit, tone and characterizations of the comics.

And even then, they will still adapt storylines and elements from the comics, but just little more streamlined.

Essentially, the best way I can describe how adaptations of DC and Marvel work is that they use the comics as a basis (along with other iterations) and essentially strive for something that's familiar while still being different.

For example, let's look at some of the Batman cartoons.

Although having some similarities, the three shows I'm about to bring up are still largely different from each other.

Batman: The Animated Series focused on the adventures of an already experienced Batman (having been at this gig for years and already knowing his villains) and his relationships with those around him.

The Batman, while somewhat similar to its predecessor, is focused on a younger and slightly-less experienced Batman learning to become a better hero.

And Batman: The Brave and Bold, is completely different from the prior two shows as it's focused on Batman's adventures interacting with the much greater DC Universe, specifically the lesser-known side.

But despite that, from watching these shows, you can still tell that they all used the comics (along with other iterations) as a basis and just built upon that in unique ways.

Contrast that with many of the non-MCU projects/products of the 2010s, which were obviously using the movies as a basis....and nothing really else.

And not only is this limiting to what these projects could do, but it's also kind of disingenuous.

Remember, the Marvel characters existed DECADES before the MCU even came around.

But to see Marvel not really even bothering to utilize said source material (in addition to constantly trying to alter it for the sake of brand synergy) is kind of a dick move.

And as I stated before, they're obviously doing to this to appeal to a certain demographic.

All companies have done this before.

And that certain demographic are the people who got into Marvel via the MCU.

And that leads us to the tail end of this part.

I get it.

It's REALLY hard to get into comics, specifically of the big two: DC and Marvel, especially the latter.

This is largely because of how long their characters have been around.

And if that wasn't intimidating enough, these characters will often have multiple runs (sometimes running at once) and that can last to hundreds, even thousands of issues!

Though not all comics books are like that.

Namely the limited series ones.

Hell, even franchises that have had multiple comic runs like Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sonic the Hedgehog surprisingly don't have this issue.

In spite of having multiple comics runs, the reason they don't suffer is because each one (no matter how long they've ran for) usually takes place in a completely different continuity from the other.

And also, using the term "normies" is so lame and kind of insulting.

I mean, I thought that term died back in like 2016.

A better term for these people would be "contemporary fans".

But anyway, contemporary fans shouldn't be blamed for people not buying comics much anymore.

If anything, the blame should be more placed towards the companies themselves for not really having anything that could help ease them into the world of these characters and, as I mentioned before, constantly changing the continuity of the comics in order to make it easier for those fans to get into (which ironically I think actually makes it harder).

Like, remember back in the 2000s and the early 2010s, when Marvel used to have to storybooks, novels and encyclopedias that went into detail on the backgrounds of the Marvel characters.

I'm pretty sure that helped a lot of contemporary fans of that era get a good understanding of the Marvel characters.

And I'm sure it can work for the contemporary fans of today as well.

Well that's all I have to say.

This isn't meant be a call-out post, I just wanted to response to the points myst1calx brought up in their reblog.

And while writing for this, I kinda feel like I should've gone more in-depth on some of my points in the original post.

And even then, I do feel like they are confused on some points I made in the post.

But anyway, myst1calx, if you are reading this, I do hope we can reach a better understanding on this whole topic.

And if I sounded somewhat angry at some points, I do apologize for that.

But other than that, I'm gonna go eat something to eat.

Peace.

[helliontherapscallion]

(Y/n) and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Monday

Tuesday     Wednesday     Thursday (Part 1)     Thursday (Part 2)     Friday     Saturday     Sunday

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Pairing: SBI x sister!reader (she/her pronouns)

Warnings: swearing, toxic friends, panic spirals/attacks, injury, taking pills for pain

Summary: you have a very bad week, how will you manage? (Characters are fully human, but based on their DSMP characters. High school AU)

Word count: 4,818

(A/N): I’ve never played volleyball or watched Haikyuu before, so I’m not 100% certain how games work. Also, I probs should’ve split this into two parts, but eh.

“(Y/n) love, you look homeless in that sweater, it’s literally so fucking ugly.”

“Haha, yeah it is. I guess I just wasn’t really trying today.”

Adrian snorted, scanning your body with his cold eyes. “Today? You don’t try at all. You always look like trash.”

“More than trash, you always look like you just rolled in dog shit.” Sammy threw her head back and cackled at her own joke.

Your friends around you erupted in laughter as you four walked down the hallways of the hell that was your public high school. You awkwardly chuckled alongside them, you didn’t really find it funny, but you didn’t want to draw more attention towards yourself. 

“Seriously, (y/n), I really don’t know why we still hang out around you anymore. You really let yourself go.”

“Yeah, now that I think about it, you did gain like five pounds in the past week.”

“Really not a good look on you, love. Then again, nothing you do can make you look good anymore.”

You tried to not let their comments get to you, you really did, but sometimes their comments just rooted themselves deep into your subconscious. You didn’t try looking good anymore, you couldn’t wear anything without them criticising it. You could never win. 

“Awe,” Adrien poked your cheeks, “stop looking so sad. We’re just trying to give you advice. You really need it.”

“Yeah, (y/n). You’re so sensitive, get a grip.”

“Guys look, I think she’s gonna cry!” 

You wiped at your welling eyes with the sleeves of your sweater. “I’m not. I just got allergies.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh. Anyways, what are our plans for Halloween? We should totally dress up like sexy angels! I think that’d be so cool. Like, Clint’s party won’t be ready for us.”

“Oh, about that Annie…”

“God, what now (y/n)?”

“I was actually planning on spending Halloween night taking Tommy and Tubbo trick-or-treating with my brothers and dad. I won’t be able to go with you guys, I’m sorry.”

The group groaned loudly. “C’mon (y/n), you never hang out with us anymore.”

“Oh my god (y/n) you still go trick-or-treating? We’re juniors.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve just been busy with my AP classes and studying for the SAT. My team captain’s really been pushing the team hard with volleyball practice. State finals are soon and we want first this year.”

“No matter how much studying you do, you’re gonna fail. You’re stupid, so why try? Just give up and hang out with uuussss.”

“Yeah (y/n),” Adrien looked at you suspiciously, “you’ve been ignoring us lately. I thought we were friends. Do you even wanna be friends anymore?”

You felt a flare of panic flare up in your gut. “I do! I-I just have so much going on right now. It’s starting to get hard to juggle everything.”

“We’re starting to think that you don’t like us anymore, we want our (y/n) back!” Sammy whined. The others agreed with her, making you feel guilty. You were ignoring them, it was selfish in your opinion. You supposed that you could skip out on taking Tommy and Tubbo trick-or-treating, there’ll be other years you could take them. 

“I guess I can take Tommy and Tubbo another year. They’d just have to go without me this year.”

They cheered, giving you praise. You beamed at that, they seemed down lately and you loved it when they’d give you compliments. They didn’t do that much, so that made their praise more special to you. You strived to get compliments.

You four went off to your separate first classes for the day. Yours was statistics, a class you’ve been struggling in lately. You didn’t know anybody in there except for your oldest brother Techno, so you tried to stick with him. Unfortunately, the teacher’s seating chart placed you both on opposite ends of the room, probably because of your last names indicating that you’re siblings. You placed your stuff down on the table and plopped down into your seat, already drained. You had a long day ahead of you; you had a major AP world history test in your next class, you had to give a presentation in your AP english class that was worth a quarter of your final grade, and you had a semifinals volleyball match that would last until late in the night. If your team won, you would be going to state finals, so it was a lot of pressure on your shoulders. You were the main setter, so you had to really focus tonight if you were going to score your team points. 

“Alright class, pull out your homework!”

Fuck, you had homework? You looked in your folder, only to see the unfinished sheet full of equations you didn’t understand staring back at you tauntingly. Mr. Mullins walked over to your desk, took one look at your blank homework, and just walked right past you. Another big fat zero in the gradebook for you, just what you needed. At least he wasn’t in the mood to berate you today. You didn’t need any more stress piled onto your shoulders. 

The lesson felt like it dragged on forever with you frantically trying to copy down the notes on the board and trying to understand the content at the same time. Overtime, he would call students up to the board. Hopefully, he would skip over you today. “Ms. Minecraft.” Goddamn it, you spoke too soon.

Your head perked up and you looked at him. “Yes sir?”

“Come up to the board and solve this.”

Gulping, you felt panic rise up in you and stood up with shaky knees. On the board was part of the newer content he was just teaching. Something that you understood only a little bit better than the rest, and that’s not saying much. You still didn’t understand the content completely. Your writing was shaky as you wrote what you thought was right on the board. Finding the answer, you circled it and looked at Mr. Mullins. He looked disappointed. 

“That’s wrong, Ms. Minecraft. Please sit down.”

You felt like your face was on fire as you saw the entire class burning holes into you with their eyes. Though they looked dead inside, as per usual with any morning class full of tired teenagers, their effects still took hold on you. You wanted to crawl into a dark hole and die. You sat back down and stared at your note packet, you couldn’t focus on the lecture anymore. Your attention was fully on your surroundings, you were hyper aware of every little whisper and bouncing leg in your peripheral vision. You could feel yourself spiraling, usually that wouldn’t happen until after your third class. Today was going to be rough. 

The loud chime of the bell startled you out of your thoughts. You shakily put your papers back into your binder and put the binder back into your backpack. Right as you were about to walk through the door, you heard Techno catch up to you. “Hey, you good?”

“Yeah Tech, I’m just peachy.”

“Are you su-”

“Technoblade. I’m fine. Now if you excuse me, I have to get to my next class. I have an important presentation I’ve gotta prepare for.”

Without giving him any room to argue, you rushed off to your english class. You had Adrian and Annie in your class. For your presentation, you were paired up with people that you hardly knew. At least they did their part in the project, you were certain you were going to die if you got paired up with Adrian and Annie again. You loved them, but they never did any part of their portion of work. They left it to you to finish at midnight the day the project was due. To be fair, they both told you they had family emergencies, so you covered for them just that once. 

You pulled out your flashcards only to have them knocked out of your hand when someone bumped into you. You quickly crouched to pick them up so you could have them in order by time class started. “Oops, sorry love.”

It was Annie. She and Adrian towered over your crouched form smirking at you. Looking back down to rearrange your cards, you murmured “it’s ok.”

“Are you ready for this presentation, I know I am.”

You smiled a little. “Actually, I think I’m going to ace this. English is my best subject.”

“Yeah (y/n), I wasn’t asking you. I was talking to Annie. Besides, you’re probably going to fail this.” Adrian scoffed. 

“Thank you for asking, Adrian,” Annie shot a pointed look at you, “at least someone cares.”

The bell rang, signifying the start of your second block. You felt like you had a lump in your throat blocking your breathing. If Adrian, one of the smartest kids in your english class, said that you were going to fail, then you probably were going to fail. That would take a huge hit on your grade, this project was worth a quarter of your final grade after all. You were zoned out for the entirety of your classmate’s presentations putting yourself into a spiral. You jumped when Mr. Todd, your teacher, called your group up to present.

You stood stiffly in the middle of your two groupmates and clutched your flashcards with clammy hands. Luckily, your part of the presentation was not first. When it came to your part, you were stuttering and tumbling over your words. You even dropped your flashcards in front of everybody, causing half the class to snicker. Your face burned as you hurried to pick them up and your other groupmate took this as a signal to continue the presentation. You still had an important point to make that was integral for the set up to your other groupmate’s part of her presentation. You stared at your flashcards for the rest of the presentation. 

When the bell rang, you made a mad dash out of the classroom. You didn’t want to talk to anybody, especially not Adrian or Annie. It was a relief that you had your lunch period at the moment. You could hide yourself in the bathroom nobody used and let your panic attack ride itself out. 

You ducked inside a stall and sat on the toilet, bringing your knees up to bury your face in them. The tears and panic you were holding in all day let itself out with explosive effects. You started to hyperventilate as you muffled your sobs with your knee. Your chest painfully clenched so you couldn’t breathe. Your limbs felt like they weighed two tons each and they were shaking intensely. You didn’t hear the end of the lunch bell ring. By the time you calmed down slightly, you were five minutes late to AP world history. 

You packed your stuff up in a hurry, power walking through the halls. You probably looked like shit, but you didn’t care, you had a class to get to and a test that you probably wouldn’t be able to finish now. You lost ten minutes of your test time. When you tried to open the closed door, you found that it was locked. You had to knock if you wanted to get in. You raised a shaking hand to knock, but the door was opened by a less-than-impressed Ms. Osborne. She ushered you to your desk and gave you your unit test. 

You couldn’t focus. The multiple choice section was usually a breeze to you, but you couldn’t comprehend any of the questions. When you could comprehend them, you couldn’t concentrate on choosing an answer. You did your best to find the correct answers, but you were almost positive that at least half of them were wrong. Your handwriting was nearly incomprehensible and your essay topic was something you didn’t study for. When you were done with half of the body paragraphs, the bell rang and you had to turn in your unfinished test. 

You had your independent online psychology course next in the library. You usually worked alone secluded in a corner deep inside the library where nobody went. You would get some solace in being alone. Maybe you’d calm down enough so that you could ride home with your brothers and not go for a long walk so you could avoid them. 

You settled down in the comfortable chair and pulled out your laptop to get started. Psychology was your favorite class. It was easy for you to understand, it didn’t have much of a workload attached to it, and it was fun to learn about. It always calmed you down reading about the intricate workings of the brain. 

By time the day was over, you got most of your psychology work done and you were on your way to the car you shared with Technoblade and Wilbur. You took out your spare keys and slumped against the window in the backseat. You were absolutely drained after your terrible day and you still felt panic swirling deep within you, waiting for the right moment to strike. 

You stretched out your legs across the seat and leaned your back against the door. For the first time that day, you felt peaceful. You still had at least fifteen minutes to yourself until your brothers would start to make your way to the car. You felt the panic subside slightly and you fully relaxed. You closed your eyes and let yourself drift off into a light sleep. You needed your energy for tonight’s match. 

The door you were leaning on swung open and you tumbled backwards smacking the back of your head against the metal frame of the car and reverse scorpioning onto the pavement. Your entire upper back and the back of your head exploded in pain and your lower back hurt slightly from having your back bent uncomfortably. You heard laughter above you as you felt tears of pain start to slip out of your eyes. Your legs swung out from their place above your face and landed on the ground with a painful thump. 

You saw three blurry figures above you laughing at your pain. You reached up with a shaky hand to wipe at your tears and saw Adrian, Sammy, and Annie. They were cackling as you shakily stood up and sat on the comfortable seats of the car. You waited patiently for them to calm down. 

Eventually, Sammy calmed down enough to explain what happened to you through chuckles. “I’m sorry (y/n), it was just too good to resist. You should’ve seen your face.”

She and the others broke back into uncontrolled laughter as they remembered your embarrassing fall. You were used to their antics, and quite frankly it felt good to make your friends laugh, even if it were at your own expense. Just as they were calming down once again, you saw Wilbur and Techno walk out the front doors of the school laughing at something the other said. Annie and Sammy heard their laughter and quickly turned around to watch them. They had massive crushes on both of your brothers, many in the school did. 

Your brothers made their way to your shared car and stopped to look at you in slight confusion. “(Y/n), were you crying? What happened?” Wilbur asked worriedly. 

“Yea-”

“Oh Wilbur, it was terrible, (y/n) fell out of the car. I don’t think she closed the door before she leaned on it.” Annie interrupted you with a faked concerned tone, a complete contradiction to her reaction before your brothers came.

Techno hastily made his way to the driver’s side door. “Well, if she’s hurt we better get going, right Wilbur?”

“Yes! We better get going, please excuse us.” He sat in the passenger seat and closed the door without hearing Sammy and Annie’s desperate attempts to stop them so they could talk to them. Your brothers thought Sammy and Annie were annoying. They absolutely hated being around them. 

Waving apologetically at your friends, you pulled yourself into the car and closed the door. Annie and Sammy looked offended that you had let Wilbur and Techno get away from them. Avoiding their eyes, you looked down at your tightly clasped hands. They were shaking slightly. 

After pulling out of the parking lot, Techno glanced at you from the rearview mirror. “You ok (y/n)?”

“Yeah, my back just hurts and I have a headache.”

“Well, do you wanna go and get some ice cream? We still have some time left before we have to pick up Tommy and Tubbo. Dad doesn’t have to know,” Wilbur asked you.

You sighed, you wanted nothing other than to take a nap before your match. “Sorry, but I need to watch what I eat today. We have semifinals tonight and I can’t have anything sugary. I just wanna go home and take a nap.”

Your brothers were quiet for the rest of the car ride until you reached your driveway. Techno twisted his body around in his seat to look at you after he put the car in park. “Did you actually fall out of the car?”

Shit, should you tell him the truth? If you did, they would almost certainly get mad at your friends. Sammy and Annie would never forgive you if you turned your brothers against them. You decided that you would take one for the team again. “Yeah, I wasn’t paying attention.” 

Techno snorted. “Well, that was stupid,” he jokingly said. “Next time you’re gonna get run over by a parked car.”

You knew that he meant that as a joke, but it still stung. Stamping your emotions down, you laughed with him and Wilbur. It was stupid of you to do, you shouldn’t have let your guard down if you weren’t at home. 

You winced as you slung your bag on your back and walked the best you could back into your house. Your upper back was killing you. You made a beeline to the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet looking for some pain relief pills. You took some and shambled off to your room to take your well earned nap. You set your alarm’s setting to its loudest volume and passed out. 

You jolted up and gasped when you felt a wave of pain hit your upper back. You blearily looked at the time. You had a little under two hours before you had to get back to the school for your match. You groaned when you pulled yourself up, your head pounding with every turn. You pulled yourself out of bed and once again took some pain pills. You went downstairs to grab an apple or something to eat. Your dad was at the stove stirring something around in a pot. 

He turned to look at you with an excited smile. “You ready for your match tonight? You’re gonna kill it!” 

You only nodded halfheartedly and plopped yourself down at the table with your apple. Philza frowned at your lack of enthusiasm, but he figured that it was just because you just woke up from a nap. You’d bounce back eventually. 

“Wilbur told me that you fell out of the car? How’d you do that?”

You shrugged, wincing slightly as it moved your back slightly. “Dunno, must’ve not closed the door.”

Philza was at your side in a hurry, his hands hovering over your shoulders. “Did you get hurt? Show me where it hurts.”

“My back and the back of my head.”

“Can I move your shirt so I could look?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

You felt him gently pull the neck of your t-shirt away from your body to peek at your back. You heard his breath hitch as he looked. Was it that bad? “Good god (y/n),” he breathed out.

“What, is it bad?”

“Don’t you feel how bad it is? Your entire back is bruised. I think there’s some blood too.”

“Damn.”

“First, language. Second, that’s all you have to say? Aren’t you in pain?”

“Yeah, but the pain pills are gonna kick in soon. I’ll be fine.”

“Would you be able to play tonight? I really think you should sit this one out.”

“No, I’m playing tonight Dad.”

“(Y/n),” oh no, he was using his stern dad voice. “It’s not a good idea to play tonight. You’re hurt, I’m sure they’ll understand if you sit this one out.”

You felt frustration rise up in you. “We’re in the semifinals. They need me, I’m the main setter. They’d lose without me playing.”

“(Y/n), I’m serious. You’re not playing today.”

“Dad, I am playing today. Look, I’ll talk to Coach Williams to see if I could be rotated out more often. I know she’d let me.”

He stared at you for a while before sighing. He knew there was no convincing you. “...Fine. But you better talk to Coach Williams about sitting out for a bit if your back hurts too much or I swear I’ll drag you off the court myself.”

You smiled a little at the small victory. “Thank you! I promise I’ll sit out if needed.”

He quirked an eyebrow at you. “If needed?”

You sighed, “when needed.”

He walked over to the pot, stirring the contents slightly. “That’s better. Dinner’s almost ready, I made some pasta.”

“It smells good, but I think I’m skipping out on it for today. I already ate this apple and if I eat any more I’ll probably hurl on the court.”

He made a displeased noise in the back of his throat, “fine, but you’re eating something when we get home tonight.”

He walked off to go get your brothers and Tubbo for dinner. You could hear their booming steps racing down the stairs towards the kitchen. They raced into the kitchen and almost crashed into the back of your chair. You stood up and looked at the two excitable fifth graders. “Careful boys, don’t want you getting hurt.”

“You’re no fun (y/n),” Tommy whined.

“Sure, sorry bout that,” Tubbo beamed at you.

You chuckled, making your way upstairs to get ready for your match. You took off your clothes with great difficulty and slipped on your jersey and your spandex shorts. They were way too short for your tastes, but you couldn’t wear longer ones, they’d just get in the way. You fondly remembered how your dad flipped out when he first saw you in them, he hated them with a burning passion. He still hates how short they are.

When you were struggling with pulling your hair back into a tight, sleek ponytail, the back of your head throbbed continuously with pain. You most likely bruised your scalp. 

You slipped on your shoes that were made specifically for playing volleyball and headed downstairs. You were met with Tommy and Tubbo jumping in excitement seeing you in your uniform. They loved going to your matches, even if they would always pass out in the car after them because matches usually ended late at night. You grabbed your dad’s keys and headed to his car. Before you could lead the boys out the door, Philza’s voice stopped you.

“(Y/n), coat.”

You huffed, grabbing your coat and putting it on before tossing him his keys. You four got into the car and set out for the high school. The short drive was filled with Tommy and Tubbo asking you questions about volleyball and encouraging you. “(Y/n), you’re gonna kick their butts!”

“Yeah!” Tubbo cheered 

Despite their voices causing a spike of pain to shoot throughout your head, you laughed at their enthusiasm. It was always nice to hear your little brother and pseudo brother in the stands cheering you on, they were your and your team’s personal cheerleaders. 

Not long after you got to the school, you were stretching with your team on the gym’s floor. Your posse found their way into the stands, sitting in the front row. The away team watched your team like a hawk, analysing every single player for any weakness. It was because of them that you tried to not show any pain when you moved your back. You talked to Coach Williams before the team stretch and she was obviously sympathetic with your situation. She agreed to switching you out with the standby setter every few rotations. 

The echo of the whistles caused pain to ring in your head every time someone scored or a foul was called. Your team captain, Haley, was constantly, yet discreetly checking on you throughout the game since she was always next to you. She was the team’s main spiker after all. 

The game droned on and on before you realized that the opposing team was targeting you when they were offensive. They probably realized that you were injured a round ago. You tried your best to block every ball that was sent your way, but a few managed to slip past you when you couldn’t move fast enough. This team was good, but your team was better. 

The score during the final round was tied and the clock was on it’s last ten seconds as the ball soared your way. You dove to hit it, landing on your shoulder on the hard floor and hitting it up high enough for Haley to spike the ball down. The crowd went wild as the ball bounced off from the opposite end of the court almost simultaneously with the screeching of the referee’s whistle, signifying the end of the game and your team’s victory.

You laid on the floor in pain, you thought you must’ve pulled your tender muscles in your back and shoulder. It hurt to move it. You felt one of your teammates grab your hand to yank you up into a giant full team group hug. You yelped slightly in pain as you felt arms press against your back and hands firmly patting your bruised shoulders. You were whisked away into the locker room to change into the pajamas you brought with you. 

“(Y/n), are you alright? That was a pretty hard fall.” Haley’s soft voice asked you. You felt your heart sing in your chest. 

“Yeah Hales, I’m fine. I just pulled a few muscles.”

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows furrowed together, “are you sure? As your team captain and your friend, I’m worried about you.”

You couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face. You felt warm knowing that she cared about you. “I’m sure, worrywart.”

She rolled her eyes playfully and breathed out a soft laugh. “Sorry for asking, grump.” Her laugh sounded like music to your ears. 

Your phone vibrated in your pajama pocket, alerting you of your family waiting for you in the car and for you to hurry up. You sighed, “sorry Hales, I gotta go. Dad’s getting impatient.” 

She gave you a small smile. “Oh, well, tell your family I said hi! Good work on the court today, I wouldn’t ask for a different setter.”

You felt your cheeks warm up and you watched with wide eyes as she left the locker room. Your phone vibrated again, your dad was really starting to get impatient. 

You walked out of the school as fast as you could to find your dad’s car waiting for you up front. Jumping in and softly closing the passenger side door, you slumped against the window. “(Y/n),” Tommy’s tired voice slurred. “That. Was. Pog…”

You glanced back to see him and Tubbo snoring away in their seats. Your match was more exciting than usual, so that must’ve really tired them out. You chuckled, turning back around to lean against the window. You took care not to put any weight on your shoulder or back. 

“(Y/n), you were amazing out there, but why did you dive for that ball? That fall looked like it hurt.”

You hummed tiredly, “thanks Dad. I just did what I thought would win us the game. We’re going to finals!” You quietly sang. 

“Did you hurt your shoulder?”

“I actually don’t know, but I think I might’ve pulled a few muscles. Nothing too bad.”

“...I scheduled a doctor’s appointment for you tomorrow morning during your first and second blocks. I want you to get your back, shoulder, and head looked at. You looked miserable the entire match.”

You sighed, too tired to argue, “mmk.”

He chuckled before the car fell into a comfortable silence. The gentle bouncing of the car and the subtle hum of the engine was lulling you to sleep. Your eyelids were drooping by the time you pulled into your driveway. 

You drug yourself out of the car and into the house, leaving Philza with the sleeping boys. You walked straight to your room and plopped down on your bed, passing out instantly for the second time that day.

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[ocdhuacheng]

Hey, so can I ask about the thought process (idk words but anyway) behind why you headcanoned Hua Cheng as having OCD cuz I'm very interested? :0

KSJDNKSJDFN sorry it took so long to reply to this I promise I wasn’t ignoring you I was just overwhelmed this week and then after I actually sat down to write out my very long answer I accidentally unplugged my computer and I LOST IT ALL so sorry but this version Is going to be rather incoherent and missing stuff probably bc its pretty much just copied and pasted from one of my discord rambles/previous posts bc I don’t have the energy or memory to rewrite everything how I had it before.. but ive kept u waiting long enough so. Yeah. Sorry.

Also if I sound salty at all its not anything directed at you im just pissed at myself for writing like >3k words all in tumblr like a fool and not backing it up then accidentally yanking on my computer cord like RIGHT as I was going to post it. But I promise im actually very happy getting asks like these even if it takes me a long time to respond ;_;

So anyway basically the tldr version is that I have ocd and I love rubbing my terrible little projection paws all over my favorite characters, but also I do genuinely think that what we are shown of hua chengs personality and actions does naturally lead to the headcanon that he has ocd (and ocpd), kind of like how it seems very clear to me that wwx has adhd and lwj is autistic.

Longer version under cut bc. Well. Sorry in advance lol

So. To start off. my ocd got suuuuuper bad in my second year of college, like to the point where my parents and psychologist was considering putting me in a hospital, so i know how awful ocd can get. and because of that ive always been kinda annoyed that all the ocd """""rep""""" in media is just comedic relief kinda stereotypical clean-freak perfectionist haha look at this weirdo sort of thing. like I was barely functional I couldn’t do basic tasks the majority of the time. ironically, my room was extremely dirty and messy despite my main obsession being about contamination. so yeah not all ocd manifests as the spotless perfect room perfect closet perfect desk or whatever the fuck. sometimes its the opposite. I also got put on academic probation bc I failed all but one of my classes (the one I passed was an art class. Lowkey think that class was the only thing keeping me out of a psych ward that quarter. lol. But anyway. That’s a different conversation) BUT ANYWAY it was all around Awful. Like idk it makes me feel kind of stupid for being such a mess before my medications when everyone just sees ocd as a joke or something. like for example, i loove death the kid soul eater, and hes a good character to make fun of urself after you’ve been medicated for ocd, but i wouldnt exactly call him good rep lmao. But after that relapse episode, I kind of really really really desperately needed a character/story to relate to about it but yippee! there are approximately zero (0) canon ocd characters that aren’t comedic relief! but anyway, i know hua cheng isnt canonically ocd but i was actually able to project on him alot from what we got of his personality (and i do gotta say, sorry but despite my attachment to him i dont actually think hes written all that well, but thats another rant), and its part of the reason why i love him so much bc hes like, definitely my biggest projecttion in this regard. so anyway

i mean theres no argument that his personality and actions are very. obsessive, and rather unhealthy to a degree, especially when he was younger, not so much as he matured over literally 800 years lol but he still has some hella issues. so like, [gestures to all of him] with how he chose xie lian as. HIS PERSON, and proceeded to revolve his entire personality and life around him is obvi v obsessive, i think its very obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which is slightly different than just ocd, one difference being (besides ocd being an anxiety disorder and ocpd being a personality disorder.) in that with ocpd, you dont really think theres anything wrong with how obsessive or compulsive you are, while with ocd it causes a lot of distress. (i havent been formally diagnosed with ocpd, but i do think i definitely at the very least have tendencies in that direction too. Like with certain things i know what im doing/thinking is irrational and it upsets me, but with others im just like. why cant other people see this the way i do? why cant they just understand why this is important? like I just get so! Angry! all the time! with people or in general when things aren’t how I want them to be. I get so judgemental even when other people cant possibly know how specific my standards are like I know its bad and I know it makes me act like a bitch and im sorry) anyway……….. sorry about the tangent but back to hua cheng. he is never distressed by how much he fixates on xie lian, the only thing that distresses him is his own percieved shortcomings with how he cannot serve xie lian the way he wants to. im not sure im explaining this well but i do definitely think hua cheng has ocpd as well. his fixation on xie lian actively prevents him forming meaningful relationships with other people, and even causes a lot of antagonism between him and others (especially fxmq). he just doesnt think anyone else is worthy of his attention. which is obviously, very unhealthy and kind of sad. (i do like to think he grows out of this a bit like with yin yu and he xuan, even if he doesnt want to admit it. AND YUSHI HUANG, bc i am also a ysh/hc brotp propaganda machine as well, and well because she was the only one that was willing to help xie lian during the war too. gay lesbian solidarity mwah <3)

so this ocpd thing.. i believe it extends to things like how the temple in ghost city, or paradise manor, is set up, he'd be classic perfectionist for the layout of it all, probably gave yin yu a lot of grief over it every single time he changed his mind and decided to burn it to the ground or redecorate it because it didnt seem good enough anymore for the hypothetical day when he can bring xie lian there. i dont like to think hua cheng treated yin yu badly on purpose, i dont like thinking hes cruel to him for the sake of being cruel like ive seen some people imply or outright suggest, i mean yin yu is obviously overworked but i think part of that is just hua cheng is so perfectionist about certain things (how the temples and manors look, how theyre run, anything that can be used for or by xie lian in the future) and he just doesnt see that its become a large burden on yin yu because he thinks this kind of stuff is just the rational thing to do, and that everyone should put as much thought into these things as he does. and if he doesnt feel like he can get things to be set up the way he wants it to be it becomes. catastrophic lol

so thats more of the pure ocpd side, though there is a lot of overlap between ocpd and ocd obvi

one thing about ocd is like. its all about wanting to be in control of every tiny part of your life. like for me when certain things are out of my control it freaks me out so much that it basically disables me. Its why I hate planes so much despite cars being statistically much more dangerous. Because if something happens in a car I at least have some semblance of control over how I can escape the situation. In a plane youre just. Fucked. (sorry to all pilots its nothing personal I think youre braver than I will ever be but its basically impossible for me to trust you (and the engineers and inspectors) with my life like that) anyway, i despise ambiguity of any kind and i hate not knowing things or having concrete answers to any questions or worries i have. like. i couldnt decide on a hypothetical grad school because i was weighing the possibilities down to like, ridiculous perceived probability percentages of how likely a natural disaster were to occur in the area, and how dangerous said natural disasters could be, etc. (well. i didnt have to worry about any of that in the end bc i got rejected from literally every school i applied to LMAO RIP but anyway.) so you get the gist. its all just very irrational, and time consuming, and ridiculous to try to gain control of every single possible path your life can take. AND I HATE IT. that was kinda yet another tangent but, to apply this concept to hua cheng. one thing that i find super funny about him is how he always has his nose in everyones personal business like hes such a fucking gossip girl its hilarious. like jokes aside its obvi helpful as a ghost king to know whats going on in the 3 realms, but i think he takes his info gathering up to 11 like he definitely has these control issues about having to know about everything thats going on at all times, having to be on top of everyones business so he cant be caught off guard by anything. over those 800 years of sending his butterflies out recording things he was primarily looking for xie lian, but hes also just kind of. snooping. lmfao. Because If He Doesnt Know Whats Going On Everywhere He Will Die. (again)

and well. with his butterflies to help him, it does work, i mean. hes always on top of things hes always got a plan, hes always the one that people are going to in the book if theyre in trouble. He seems so put together but the things he cant get information on completely eat him alive sometimes. cant let others know that tho, bc hes Cool(TM), hes Chill(TM). cant let anyone know there are things that, god forbid, hes IGNORANT of. embarrassing. tch.

his hoarding im a little ? about because i dont exactly remember the details of it but i do know he has a ridiculous amount of like trinkets and weapons and magical items and stuff in paradise manor, but i also know he doesnt really care if they get destroyed or not, which is kind of strange but i do what i want and im making him a hoarder bc im somewhat of a hoarder and i love projecting. though now that i think about it. like if i have a big pile of something that i dont want to get rid of, but someone else does it for me without asking or something happens to it like yeah i get angry but sometimes i also just get kind of relieved……….. idk.

so now about intrusive thoughts, i bet he has suuper disturbing ones. Like we  know how he was debating slaughtering those humans on mt tonglu but ended up not because xie lian would have saved them. obviously that was already a stressful unusual situation but like i dont think that kind of thing gets any better even when hes just like. chilling. he gets visions of himself burning ghost city to the ground or attacking humans or destroying his own ashes or otherwise causing harm to others, like yin yu. like he pretends he doesnt care about yin yu and he xuan and stuff but i do think hes fond of them, but he tries to keep his distance because 1) hes dumb and 2) he gets really freaked out by these violent thoughts he has about them. the worst is, when he finally meets xie lian again he gets these thoughts about him too and it takes literally everything he has not to like. throw himself into a volcano, or something.

and its already been established his self image isnt. great. which is a kind way of saying it. he thinks hes worthless and ugly, esp if he does even the slightest thing wrong. I mean I definitely think hes better by the current timeline of the book, but it still reads as a kind of precarious thing to me? Like he wants to be a companion to xie lian instead of just a servant like wu ming, but even after 800 years he still feels this inferiority and disregard for himself u know? If im explaining in an okay way? and body dysmorphia is also something that can be ocd related. OH and i forgot to say this before but ocd/ocpd can also sometimes be a way that ptsd can manifest and id definitely say with all that he was said to have gone through as a child he has ptsd, leading to, well, exacerbated ocd symptoms, among other things. his body dysmorphia is obviously something he internalized (for 800 years!!!) from when he was a child, and i can imagine him absolutely agonizing for centuries over his san lang form, because it was supposed to be his most perfect form, he needed to make it perfect, and he never felt like he could

similarly, for the cleanliness side of ocd that i feel is kind of stereotypical? at least how its portrayed in most media, hua cheng has been show a couple times not wanting to get things (or xie lian) dirty. he was very poor and dirty as a child so now he has the connection of being dirty = being miserable, and this is taken to the extreme when he becomes a supreme bc now hes rich and able to be clean and any dirt or blood on him or something/someone he cares about (’cant let you down the ground is dirty’; shielding the flower, etc) is like. an attack on this power he has now ? iykwim

anyway sorry this is long and rambly. if you actually read it all… respect……. Also ignore those parts where I might get a little too personal :^) like idk if it is but I feel like I might regret some of this in the morning. honks. Anywayyyy as you can see im completely normal about hua cheng im saaaaaauuuuur normal and well adjusted and I just think hes neat oky byeee jumps out my window

[goldfish-gay]

Now for a special episode of

I abuse the spoilers chat in a discord server: Eternals

Where I will be copying and pasting everything into this post

Quick disclaimer, we left the movie theater at 11:30 pm on my birthday, I had cried 6 times and my adhd medication was long gone. I did attempt to sleep but instead at 2 am I wrote an entire essay in the chat. Enjoy!

the way that sersi and ikaris have such a complex and emotionally charged relationship, one that shaped the plot of the movie and his actions. But the fact that in the end he doesn’t change his mind because of her, he tries to kill her he really tried, it doesn’t make him switch sides suddenly, or give up because of her, instead it brings to light how horribly he acted regardless to his stance

then phastos and his family, continues to solidify the main point to the movie, before they find him again they are all told that “he’s given up on humanity” he’s given up on people. Then it’s cut to him living a normal life, with his husband and his son, the way that he talks about his family and how much they mean to him, the fact that his entire character arch isn’t about being gay, it’s not a developing relationship, it’s two people in love in the most human way you can be, once again pushing the idea that humanity was the pushing point in this system, rhat these complex emotions and relationships fhe eternals have formed are as a result of earth and it’s inhabitants

not to mention how durigs speech early in the movie is gonna live in my head, about the fact that having to watch people at war with each other for centuries, watching the good parts of humanity easily be over taken by greed and by the horrible acts of others, how it ruins a person after so many centuries knowing he has the ability to stop it to save some of the good but the fact that he is not alowed to that it’s for some reason against a rule. And it’s the reason he’s the first to leave the first to walk away from them once their “mission is done” I absolutely love him and his character because in the most basic sense he’s technically almost an anti hero, his characterization is so similar to late loki and Bucky. But he’s not a villain, yet he’s still technically the “cruel” one of the group despite being the most vocal against their inebilety to effect human events. He so openly Cary’s his heart on is sleeve, and how he acts with mekkari, mf calls her beautiful beautiful mekkari twice, the fact that she’s very similar to him in the way that she is so openly caring, just how they radiate comfort when they are together

Durig is morally grey in his actions, how he took control of a village for so long. His inentions are not morally grey on the other hand. Then with ikaris he’s morally grey in the sense that he is doing what he believes is the best, he genuinely believes that the correct side of this fight is to let the world function as it’s meant to, to him it’s a system that’s been followed for who knows how long, it’s the natural order. He sees it as business, the sacrifice of one planet for hundreds others he doesn’t understand what is so different this time around.

He is a square. He’s all hard edges and literal. He is such a square He is all hard edges and literal He believes the world works in one way and refuses to except change or challenge in those ideas Unlike the others he’s not blindly following this faith, this greater power. And also unlike the others he doesn’t seem to be changed by humanity, he definitely has been with his inability to kill sersi, to hurt a person he loves so dearly, he also feels regret and guilt for the actions he takes in order to continue to follow their “purpose” which is to my guess something that’s new to them

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Comic Review - Amongst Us Book 1

A masterful combination of comedy, subtle romance, and incredible sensuality

I make no attempts to hide my complete admiration and infatuation with Shilin Huang's Yuri webcomic Amongst Us. The slice of life AU featuring reimagined versions of the lead characters from fantasy series Carciphona as a lesbian couple has held a special place in my heart for a long time. I named the series one of the best Yuri works of the past one-hundred years, can frequently be found lurking in the author's Twitch streams, and even have a wall in my office dedicated to the artwork of the main couple (or I did before my office became a remote classroom). So, when a Kickstarter by Shilin and Hiveworks Comics launched promising a print version of the work, I was eager to support it financially and promote it with my humble platform. The Kickstarter took place in March, and books were initially estimated for release in May of 2020. However, as you have probably realized by the dates alone, the world went very South around this time. A combination of disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, a healthy amount of bad luck, and what I am inclined to believe, for various reasons, was some awful mismanagement by Hiveworks led to numerous delays. Indeed, by the time the book finally shipped, I had moved, so my copy arrived a little later as it had to be forwarded. But, at the end of this frustrating and anticipation-building event, I finally have the volume in my hands, and it was worth the wait. While I adore the webcomic, this gorgeous print volume completely enthralls me. The book is absolutely the preferred way to read this spectacular comic.

Before getting into the exquisite details of Amongst Us Book 1: Soulmates, I need to take a minute to praise how well this book is put together. The paperback binding is thick and features amazing spot glass that sparkles in the light. This feature only accentuates the fantastic and bright the cover illustration of main characters Veloce and Blackbird loving holding each other is. The back cover has a simpler but more imaginative illustration of the two flying through the sky, and the character's expressions tell you everything you need to know about this fantastic, odd couple. There are a few things you will notice upon opening the volume. The first is how well Amongst Us made the challenging transition from vertical webcomic to the page. The assembly and paneling are fantastic and clear, and chapters feature stylized illustrations and title cards. You will then see the inside cover, a powerful display that perfectly contrasts the front's glowing and tender love. Finally, there is Shilin's presents moving forward and dedication, where she lovingly dedicates the book to her partner, Kristen.

I assure you, as good as the book's presentation and assembly is, the contents within are even better. Amongst Us follows Veloce and Blackbird's bombastic relationship. The two women are eccentric and striking musicians in their early twenties, and I swear you will never forget them. The slice of life storylines are, per the genre's definition, mundane and include events like shopping at the mall, riding the train, and having lunch with a friend. The charming simplicity of the story serves well to the reactions of the characters. Shilin effortlessly transitions from adorable moments of affection to explosive and hilarious comedy and irresistible and delightful moments of sexual tension; Veloce's neck and jawline alone could topple a monarchy. Often, slice of life works can become dull or repetitive, but these stories and the frequent changes in tone help the reader stay engaged and excited.

Putting slice of life aside for a moment, it is also important to note that Amongst Us is also has an interesting place within the Yuri genre, or "Girl's Love/GL" as it is often called in webcomic circles (originally an analogous term of Boy's Love). Webcomics have often been a bit more adventurous with their storylines and styles than Japanese manga. While the genre rose to popularity in the space thanks to digital manhwa and manhua, some (not all) of the Yuri tropes did not carry over between the similar mediums. Many modern webcomics and webtoons take their inspiration more from manhwa and manhua GL, which has developed its own canon and tropes over the years. However, even for a webcomic, Shilin's work feels somewhat divorced from most other worlds of Yuri. This first volume exists mainly against the Yuri genre's expectations. However, the next book, which flashes back to the couple's origin, undoubtedly is more in line with convention, for better or worse. It feels like the author decided to screw the norms and write a work that she would enjoy, and I am so glad that she did. Veloce and Blackbird are young adults, out of school in an established relationship with no drama. This (sadly) unconventional setting is made all the more irregular because of just how distinctive, and unwonted Blackbird and Veloce are.

Blackbird and Veloce, originally from the fantasy world of Carciphona, take on a new life, literally, in this wonderful modern reimagining and homage. You do not need to be a fan of the original work to enjoy their bizarre and larger-than-life personalities. Indeed, when I read Amongst Us online for the first time, I had not ever even heard of Carciphona. Veloce is the quieter and more stoic of the two, although she is not afraid of showing a more relatable and human side as she reacts to Blackbirds wild antics. Veloce's (not)straight man approach is hilariously sobering. But, her best moments are in those when she lets loose a little bit, like when she is rendered drooling by the promise of her favorite smoothie or in her stoic yet alluring flirtations with Blackbird, only to get close enough to steal a healthy chomp of ice cream.

Blackbird, on her part, is completely insane. She continuously pulls of wild antics like jumping on Veloce to surprise her or singing an especially threatening song after a glorious battle over lunch. However, she is perfectly capable of showing her love and admiration for Veloce in her own cheeky way. However, true to form, each softer or more personal moment between the two is often immediately and perfectly juxtaposed with comedy, with the apparent exception of the book's touching and thoughtful finale. Veloce and Blackbird will both more than please readers individually, but you will fall in love with them as a couple. I must have read this at least a few dozen times between the webtoon and the book, and I am just as enchanted as ever by their loud and unapologetic love.

The ordinary misadventures of Blackbird and Veloce are accompanied by genuinely astounding artwork. No, that statement does not do Shilin's illustrations justice. Veloce and Blackbird lead from the page thanks to stunning, full-color illustrations that detail every moment of hilarity. Every movement from the slightest smirk to the over-the-top dramatizations of regular events thoughtfully and beautifully sprawl across the pages and invite you to stare for hours. Shilin is the only person possible who could make something as simple as someone softly singing Happy Birthday so epic and sultry. Speaking of which, my goddess of Yuri is this work titillating. No, there are no gratuitous scenes, but just the characters leaning over each other or touching the other's chin makes my hands shake. My only small complaint is that some early chapters show their age slightly with noticeably lower quality linework and flatter colors than the dazzling and dynamic work demonstrated towards the end. Still, even on its worst day, Amongst Us looks better than most of its peers and the entirety of its many inferiors.

Amongst Us is nearly the perfect work. It has a uniquely compelling and mirth-inducing way of displaying a young yet very unordinary couple's everyday life. Its characters, from design to personality, are instantly memorable and striking. Despite being ready to rip each other's heads off at the drop of a hat, or rather because of it, Blackbird and Veloce feel the perfect and natural couple we so rarely witness. Shilin's masterful combination of comedy, subtle romance, and incredible sensuality is astounding. This book is worth it for the outstanding and vibrant artwork alone, but its combination with excellent writing create a sonorous and majestic modern romance unlike any other. I believe that Shilin has created something genuinely special here, and I can confidently say that out of the hundreds of webcomics I have read, this one is the pinnacle of its kind and my absolute favorite.

You can purchase Amongst Us book 1: Soulmates exclusively on Shilin's online shop and read the webcomic now for free on Twitter, Webtoon and Tumblr​ @okolnir​.

Ratings: Story – 9 Characters – 10 Art – 10 LGBTQ – 8 Sexual Content – 5 Final – 10

[aphrodite1288]

This part :

Ksoo often apologized about it and promise to improve himself and reduce the jealousy. Especially when Ji leaves him at the dorm alone and goes out with his squad! That resulted too many bickerings and small arguments between them but nothing too serious. Ji always questions why Ksoo is so jealous and tells him that he shouldn't be and to tone it down. Ksoo feels guilty afterwards.

I'm sorry but it sounds like a fanfiction. Even ss can't know about those details. It's literally impossible for your "sources" to know about that if there are not part of kd's entourages...

True. I understand you.

But I only copy past the k-exol posts I found.

Also we witnessed this in Exo japan interview when Ksoo was supposed to ask a serious question to each member about something that bothered him lately.

All members asked basic things to e/o and when it was Ksoo's turn with other members he teased them with funny questions and compliments, but when he got to Ji he was like " DO YOU REALLY ENJOY HANGING OUT WITH TAEMIN AND YOUR SQUAD MORE THAN US ,YOUR MEMBERS??"

And Ji was offended and dejectedly defended himself and asked ksoo " NO! WHY ARE YOU PUTTING IT THIS WAY, YOU MAKE ME LOOK BAD! OF COURSE NOT! THAT'S NOT TRUE, I ENJOY BEING WITH YOU ALL" and continued defending himself and talking about how he always meets the members and have dinners and how he goes to the gym with chanyeol and baek and how he hangs out with the members who share the same floor as him whom are ( Sehun, Chanyeol and Suho). And then Ji said he couldn't see kyungsoo much coz of their busy schedules and Ksoo was like " No that's just an excuse, saying we have busy schedules that we can't meet is just mere excuses, but it's okay since we're always together in the dorm we always see e/o coz we live together" and it was mentioned that he said it sarcastically and annoyed. Doesn't that sound like a dialogue from a FF? Well it was posted on Exo japan Dvd book.

U must know sasaengs did work in SM hidden "as staff"!! and some staff leaked info to Sasaengs for tons money! Yes they do that and there were many many staff who went to jail for this ! Also I once read that when Managers get kicked by the company they go around spreading all secrets about the bands they worked with in exchange of massive amounts of money from their fans!I saw sasaengs dissing some SM staff for asking for a huge amount of money for some pics and news about Sehun!! U know the scandal of BP's Li/sa's own manager who took advantage of her naiveness and her trust in him and stole 1billion won from her account when she informed him that she is willing to open a project and invest in her mother land! he lied to her and promised her to find her a good local for the project and that he will invest her money in a project that would benefit her so much in thailand but at the end he took the money and disappeared, yes! Staff and managers don't get paid well btw and some go bankrupt with debts related to gambling and drinking and clubbing and paying hookup girls etc... And wanting to live a high class life and buy massive cars and appartement with loans from banks that they end up not being able to pay! And many managers asked money from their idols to solve their problems I read this few times about a female soloist and other female band who paid their manager's debts.

Didn't you hear the story of that Sasaeng who even entered Exo's main dance practice in 2018 and took pics of them practicing! Sehun talked about this somewhere i don't remember maybe on his IG or live, anyway he talked about the invasion of privacy!

U heard of the sasaengs who put cameras in teddy bears they gave to the members and recorded them for a long time before they were exposed! That happened a lot around 2013/2014 when exo became extra famous and gained tons of obsessive fans!

U heard of the sasaengs that got to Exo's hotel room and stole Ksoo's boxer and put it on sale and even his own socks! Check the post here on this link :

U heard of the fans who inserted cameras and mics under the members beds in the dorm and even in Hotels and in bathrooms!

There are tons of examples so I'll just write etc..

So yes most of 2012 Exo facts that you saw on internet back in 2012/2013 were all taken from recording the members for months by secret cameras and mics inserted in their dorm and hotels and even on the plane during flights !

I had an audio about Baekhyun's birthday party and chanyeol's birthday party with all members just talking and chilling and saying a lot of things! It was deleted after ! And i don't speak korean and didn't understood a thing back then in 2013 so I didn't care much about it! It was deleted after.

If I post what koreans wrote about Exo's daily life in their own dorm and what they said they recorded and filmed about them, you would be shocked! You would say HOW?? DID THEY LIVE WITH THEM?? Yes! THEY DID! DIRECTLY as staff and INDIRECTLY through sasaengs nasty ways.

Some sasaengs worked in S/M as staff and some sasaengs rented apartments in the same building Exo had their dorm at ! And followed them for years!

I even saw a korean exol talking about how she used to pay a woman whom is Exo's neighbor to get information about what she hears from their apartment coz they were living next door! And she said they were so noisy and so hyperactive and screaming a lot and playing music a lot and that kaisoo were the closest ones! And that korean girl didn't even like Kadi !

There was a sasaeng who even disguised as a house keeper and put application in house keepers's agency just to get the Job at Exo's dorm ! And Sasaeng paid Exo's housekeepers millions to get recordings from their daily life. Yeah that's how Kyungsoo got traumatized! And i won't say what happened to him and why he became like this! Scared of interactions with fans and he even mentioned in his interview how sad he is coz his debit trauma caused him to not make a difference btw Sasaengs and real fans that he saw them all as sasaengs and even apologized to fans to whom he was cold before! He said he can't know who would harm him and who are his real fans. And promised to improve his interactions skills. Which he did not very much improved 🤭

Ji and Ksoo and Baek were slutshamed and molested by female fans and male fans! Just a hint ! Let alone death threats and Love confessions and nasty dirty sexual letters sent to their own mail at their dorm! I gave a hint 😉

No problem i'll try to post something to prove you that I only copy past the posts of korean after asking for permission. And you will see the narratives yourself. But it's in korean and the translation is poor but deal with it!

[popculturebuffet]

Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together! or Days of Summer

Hello all you happy scottaholics! Welcome back to those of you who’ve read the rest of this retrospective and welcome to those of you just joining us. This is the Scottrospective, my look at all 6 volumes of Scott Pilgrim, the game and the movie. It’s all the video game refrenes, slice of life story telling and boob punches you can handle!

It’s been three months since I left off with “The Infinite Sadness” , and while I intended to cover this one for Valentine’s Day, my schedule got away from me and with March being full up, this ended taking till April

I”m not too put off by it though as the hiatus between these two reviews is fitting for this one both in story and out. In story there’s a couple month time skip between books, while out.. this book got delayed a few times.  

This is notable to me at least because this was the first volume of the series I bought when it came out. As i’ve brought up before I came into the series via the Free Comic Book Day Issue and the second and third volumes, picking one up later. I still have my original copies despite no longer really needing them thanks to having the color editions in general. Always will provided something dosne’t happen to them. So this was my first instalment that I got to read fresh and got to wait for and be hyped about and i’d saved enough money that I was able to pre-order it. So the experince of waiting and waiting for the book only to keep seeing it slide back is vivid in my mind as is the frustration I felt having the one thing I COULD NOT WAIT FOR, keep going further and further back. 

So with this long wait and the fact I bought this one when it came out, as I would for the next two which didn’t get delayed thank god, this volume naturally means a lot for me. When I wrote Scott Pilgrim fanfiction, this volume’s status quo is what I based it on. It was the coolest to me and the one I loved to reread the most. It has the most contained story, the most character growth at the time, and the best art due to Bryan’s style having finally hit it’s stride. Not that the art for volumes 1-3 is bad mind you, but it’s very clear his style was changing and shaping into what it is now with each one and while it’d change a bit more, this volume is where the style and quality everyone thinks of when they think of this series and the kind you see on various art done from it comes from. 

So as you can tell i’m excited for this one. Before we get started there WERE two shorter comics released between this one both for Free Comic Book day, the first of which, Free Scott Pilgrim, is the reason I got into the series and the second, the Wonderful World of Kim Pine .. was both delightful and sets up Kim moving in with Hollie for this volume. Originally I intended to cover these in this review.. but I realized they wouldn’t of helped the pacing and this review is going to be way longer than my standard as is.

So instead I came up with the compromise. I did review them.. but as bonus reviews on my patreon. For just one buck a month you can read them and help me reach my stretch goals which now include reviews of Lost at Sea, Seconds and SnotGirl, aka Bryan’s OTHER comics. You can find my patreon THROUGH THIS LINK HERE if your intrested in the exclusives or helping me reach my reviews. I also intend to do an exclusive of Monica Beetle, a short comic Bryan did starring Scott’s dad in the 70s at some point so keep your eyes peeled for that, as well as the three strips he did of Style, the comic that gave us the prototypes for Lisa and Kim. 

I will talk about their connections and setups for this volume briefly: FSP sets up the next ex as a ninja, with Roxy having a bunch of posters come to live and pummel our boy, while Wonderful World has Hollie tell Kim she can move in with her. It’s not much, hence why i made these exclusives but they are good stories, so check them out. And with that JOIN ME UNDER THE CUT, as we enter Scott’s world once more as he grapples with the past, employment, and saying the L-Word... which might be Lesbians. I don’t know. Find out bellow!

So we open Two Months after Volume 3 with a beach birthday party! Complete with Kim in a swim suit!

But it’s for Julie who lobs a volley ball at Scott’s head when he and Ramona try to make out. 

I also dont’ know if “Manfiesting out of all the world’s collectives sorrows” counts as a “birth” necessarily but whatever. I love a good beach story. It’s just a fun setitng for swimming, romance and battling a giant crab with the help of the bird what lives in your backpack.

So after the beach our heroes get dinner and Ramona sweetly calls Scott the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He responds with “That’s sad”. Blunt, but entirely accruate. Julie calls it pathetic and tries to counter Ramona RIGHTFULLY saying “who the hell asked you?” something that really should come after EVERYTHING Julie said with “Back off bitch i’ts my birthday”

So later that night Sex Bomb-Omb has a beach sing along, and I can’t help but notice Neil’s hairy legs. 

I mean yes it does make since for a 19 year old to have leg hair, but of all the characters besides Stephen, the ONLY other character we’ve seen it with to give it to, why the character you specifically single out as “Young” it’s just a weird choice I never noticed before. 

But anyways Julie has to whine about it because she’s Julie, she can’t stand other people being happy and complains the song...

One of my faviorite moments of the series. Knives puts a nicer spin on it, she’s here too and not over with Neil because, as we’ll find out later they broke up, but she just asks if Knives should be drinking. She shouldn’t but for fucks sake lady she was just trying to talk. I also do like that despite Julie trying to control Ramona’s love life, you know the thing the VILLIANS are doing, Ramona cannot stand her now.. and honestly probably never did. 

But Julie, SOMEHOW turns out to be right for once as Kim and Knives have disappeared later that night, and Scott elects to go look for them. Also Ramona says she wants to marry kim while drunk after Julie asks if she does. The throuple is strong with these three... serioulsy that’s my one true pairing for all three now. I mean it ballances out their collective flaws, it’s cute and Ramona is just as into her boyfriends ex as she is her actual boyfriend even when she’s not hamered. Why the fuck not?

Scott instead finds the two making out. I will confess I shipped these two when I was younger.. but I don’t. Not because their gay or anything or because I found another ship for them but because the age gap is still just as wide as it was for Scott. The game did not get this memo and made them a couple which is... ehhhhhhhhh. I mean I wouldn’t mind either being bi, but it just brings up the same problems even if their both hammered. I also question why this scene exists. No really outside of one face punchingly dickish comment from Scott later, this never comes up again and it doesn’t effect Kim’s or Knives character any. Why have this? it’s clearly not fanservice, it’s just a thing that happened. And while Scott Pilgrim as a series does have some of those, as does life and that’s fine.. this is a bit too major, i.e. Kim and Knives, two of the main cast, making out, drunkenly or not, to just.. gloss over you know? I feel Kim would feel majorly guilty for this, as she has the most active moral compass of the main group, and Knives would be massively confused but it’s just.. forgotten because I dunno. In a story that’s otherwise pretty stellar this stands out as an utter waste of potential. I’m not saying have them hook up, gay or not it’s still not better than what Scott did, but have them at least talk about it and have both grow or something from it. Sheesh. 

So we cut to.. another day. Maybe the next day I dunno but it’s August. Point is Scott and Wallace are grocery shopping and Wallace notes they can’t get fancy mayo as their barely in budget. I would’ve glossed over this scene... but @panur​ pointed out back around the Infinite Sadness review that this scene reveals something very intrestng: Scott.. is kind of a fincial burdern to Wallace. Before this while Scott mooched off him it wasn’t all that clear that Wallace was struggling. 

But here we notice that outside of some Havarti, it’s just the simplest stuff imaginable: turkey, bread, boxed mac and cheese ramen noodles... it’s nto BAD stuff, I have all of that in my house and it’s good stuff... but it’s not the kind of thing that you need to carefully budget for. Now granted part of this probably is Wallace as he likely spends a LOT on drinks, condoms and two 2 liters of diet soda a day.. but while he really needs to adress his alcohol issues, the rest is fair. He should be allowed to have as much sex and diet coke as he wants it’s his money. Same with the havarti. He earned it if he wants some really delcious cheese with herbs, seriously Havarati is the best, then that’s his bidness. But the rest of the time he’s barely managing to get  a basketfull of cheap food.. because he has to provide for Scott. It’s clearly something Scott dosen’t get and something I can relate to not getting. It took me a while to get how hard it is to budget for a full family, let alone two people on one income like Wallace has to. But Wallace is working on a nice job... but still a call center or something. He can’t pay for everything and the finccial stress is about to give as their landlord wants to meet with them. And as we’re about to learn things were even worse than we thought. 

Our heroes head home where we get a truly iconic conversation when, over margeritas (again proving my point that while Scott certainly isn’t HELPIGN wallace’s finacials, it’s not all on him)

This will be imporant later.. both the Lesbians part and Scott’s struggle saying it. he tried earlier on the beach but couldn’t get it out and Ramona clearly didn’t want to hear it as she kapt sshhhhing him.. playfully of course but still. 

So some time later it’s moving day! Kim is moving into Hollie and Josephs, and Scott, Stephen and Jason are helping. You might be wondeirng who the hell Jason is. He’s Kim’s boyfriend. I do not likes him. Not because he’s kim’s boyfriend, getting upset because a fictional character you fancy is dating is just patently stupid. I’ts like getting upset a celebrity crush is in a relationship: you had no chance anyway why. I wasn’t even bothered as a kid. I don’t really like him.. because he has no real personaliy and no real baring on the plot and I struggle to think why Bryan included him other than for a really annoying plot twist next time, which does not help my liking him knowing what’s coming. 

But while our heroes help our heroine move in, and Scott is suprised Hollie is there despite Kim having told him a minute ago she was moving in with her, something I can relate to sadly, we get something vitally plot important; Stephen passes Joseph’s room.. and notices he has a small recording setup in his room. Stephen quickly begs him to record the band’s album and Joseph agrees if only because he finds Stephen hot. Eh i’ve seen better relationships start on less, fair enough. And yes I said relationship more on that in a bit. 

So after a brief scene of Scott and Ramona having lunch where Scott fails to know her age and when Ramona says he could just ask.. hea sks and she dosen’t tell, not a bad scene character wise just not very plot important and probably should’ve bene swapped in order with the previous scene, we get to the next day. There’s a heat wave so Wallace orders Scott to go to the mall maybe find a job. He emphasises that. 

Instead Scott just sorta bums around thirst but nto having any money.. until an old face shows up. 

For those who forgot like Scott has, it’s Lisa Miller from the Volume 2 flashback, the girl who had a crush on Scott and was close friends with him and Kim. After a tackle hug  and some panic Scott eventually remembers.... if in a curiously unique and self serving way

At the time this was just hilarous. Now it’s very clear foreshadowing for the big twist in Volume 6. The two catch up while Scott is very clearly attracted to her but very clearly dosen’t want to be, with Lisa wondering where kim is, finding about Ramona, etc, before offering Scott lunch as the two catch up and Scott is very conflicted about how he feels. It’s nice visual stuff as he’s blushing, something more clear in the color version and trying to desperatley sort things out. As for why Lisa’s here she’s moving to the states soon, but is staying with her sister for now. 

So after an incdental scene with Wallace we catch up with Knives, who has broken up with Neil. And after some talk about Clash at the Demonhead, Tamra notes Knives apparently put a big x on her shrine of Scott... which baffles Knifves as she sure as hell didn’t do it and is still, sadly, obessed with Scott as ever. Granted Tamra isn’t at all helpful here claiming she did it even when she says she didn’t, is clearly confused and while yes we don’t know who else would care Tams, that just makes it all the more creepy. Stop gaslighting your bestie, she’s already got enoguh issues. She dosen’t need thinking she might have a split personality on top of the stalking, obession over a guy who has no intrest in loving her back, and attempted stabbings. Knives dosesn’t get a ton of focus in this one sadly. She kind of takes a back seat, and while sh’es not GONE from the volumle and someone close to her does impact it, she dosen’t really have any personal progression, negative or positive, like she does in every other volume, a shame since her personal jouney is one of the most intresting of the main cast. 

Anyways that night Scott hangs out with Lisa, having not gotten around to telling Ramona she exists yet and plays a game of find the Kim Pine. She goes to Neil’ and Stephen’s place for practice, but finds no one there and Neil being a dick... get used to that it’s going to get about 80 times worse soon enough. Though we do get this classic panel i’ve gotten some use out of 

He goes to Kim’s place, but she , Hollie and Satan’s Misterss have all left to Sneaky Dee’s, the local mexican place, for something to eat and Stephen is either high or doing.. something with Joseph. 

Yeah i’m not hiding that Stephen turns out to be gay in the final volume or cheating on Bitch and a Half with Joseph. And even if I hate Julie with the power of a frozen sun, I still dont’ think cheating on her is kosher. He could’ve just broken up with her and while part of it was likely confusion, and he could also be bi and not decided which one he wanted to be with, it’s still a dick move.. and later makes him a hypocrite but that’s a rant for next volume. 

So our heroes FINALLY find Kim, along with Hollie and Mouthface. And a nice thing I like is that Kim and Lisa are just.. increidbly close, happily catching up and making plans to hang before Lisa leaves, that despite Lisa having feelings for Scott the two ended up as close and She and Scott did and i’ts sweet to see. it’s also just.. rare to see Kim GENUINELY happy. I mean look at her

It’s not like she HASN’T smiled across the series but normally she’s just so miserable, likely because her best friends are a grumbly asshole who forces them to hang out with a raging typhoon of bitchiness, and an insenitive asshat who she never got closure with. This is the first decent human being whose not Ramona or Hollie, and that last one’s not going to last, in a while. It’s genuinely sweet to just see her.. enjoy the moment for once, honestly engaged with someone. Ramona shows up and finally meets Lisa, who apparently was on Degrassi.. I mean she says candaian show no one ever watched, and I watched that plenty but i’d like to think she was on there for a season or two. I liked Degrassi.. I honeslty miss it and think it could use some form of revivial and think porting it to netflix was a smart decision.. what wasn’t so smart was not having the other seasons leading into it on there. Need to watch more of it. 

So the next day Ramona stumbles into Scott’s dreams and both are annoyed, with Ramona suggesting he get a job. This finally gets him to try. He asks about Wallace’s work but understandably, he dosen’t really want scott there and asks if he even knows. So Scott sets out to ask his other friends for jobs, while Knives shows up saying she’s “totally not stalking him” but someone is following HER, a mysterious spiky haired dude in a black leather jacket, shades and with a sword on his back. Whu-oh. 

He tries Second Cup, with Julie annoyed that Stephen’s recording.. it’s hard to tell if she’s annoyed because she’s a bitch or because Stephen is both gneuinely annoying right now and clearly screwing around behind her back. My take?

But Scott realizes maybe getting a job at his Sister’s place of work who also works with his arch enemy might be stupid and backs out. He next tries Kim’s, but backs out of that too, admitting to kim it’d be stupid and Kim lists off all the reasons (His lack of resume, the fact them working together would be stresful and his ountain of late fees) why that’d be stupid, but in a jovial way. For once i’ts clear that while she’s still taking the piss out of them she isn’t mad at Scott.

In fact she genuinely helps him get a job, taking him to Stephen’s work since hers is dead right now anyway, a vegan place.  While Scott naturally compares things to a job system as he’d start as dishwasher while Stephen taught him prep, Scott agrees to genuinely take this seriously and Stephen’s boss decides “eh why not” when he asks her to employ him. Scott is gainfully employed baby! God I miss that. Seriously i’m not pimping my patreon for shits and giggles. 

But as he celebrates and Kim wishes she could punch his life in the face, they run into some trouble on the way home: Katana man who slices a motherfucking bus in half and chases them, with Scott reluctnat to fight because he has a sword and Scott does not, which is valid. He does escape though using subspace. He and Kim part awkardly and he returns home to Wallace throwing a party with two intresting charcters, a woman and a man of color, one of the few in the entire work, who are never seen again. 

The next night is practice.. or rather recording, and we start to see Neil get edged out, with him unable to come due to exams and clearly not happy about it, and Stephen just kind of ignoring anything he cares about like the dickhead he is. It dosen’t get any better as “recording” ends up just being Scott, Ramona, and Ratfaced Knacker watching bored with Joseph and Stephen work. Eventaully Scott and Ramona decide to get out of there as things are getting tensed between thing one and thing bitch, and leave.. and take Julie with them for some reason. 

So the three have dinner with Lisa, Kim, and Jason before The Mummies Curse thankfully leaves. Jason thought they were friends. 

We also get this exchange. 

I mean.. she is the better option. She his THE option. But before we can get the obvious answer of 

Stephen comes in with Knives. He smuggled her in. This leads to problems when Scott returns from the bathroom to find Queen Bitch throwing a bitch fit about him having brought her and screechs at her when she dares to talk to him “How do you even know my name?” Well Ted Cruz, you see when someone is an actually thoughtful and likes other people, they keep track of things about them and don’t constnatly tear them down or assume their partneer is automatically bonking a 17 year old instead of you know, actually forming something of a friendship and not shutting her out sensing she needs this friend group. Some people are not vacous piles of vitriol who care about nothing but themself and seem to go off at the slightest thing. 

Scott takes Ramona home but finds a drunken barely awake wallace so no sexy times. Not that he could anyway as the next day is the meeting with Peter their landlord. 

Peter reveals they’ll have to clear out by the 27th as their lease was for one year and their paid up.. as in only the first and last month. The two part melacholy knowing this sucks and isn’t a great situation. Then it’s time for Scott to work work, angelica, work work, eliza and peggy. After grueling day, can relate, he runs into  a wisp on teh wend and steels himself for a fight.. okay he bitches about it being too hot but it’s Scott. so it’s expected. He does get a hit in on his mysterious persuer.. and that’s when we meet Roxy.

Via boob punch, something Scott’s not proud of but in his defense, as Roxy keeps complaning about it, he was blindly struggling for a hit and din’t know the next Ex, or any of them, were female.. not that Ramona didn’t suggest it loudly enough by empahsising “exes” but scott’s a bit of a fuckwit. She mentions “everyone allways remmebers you”.. which is kind of ominus and tells me she tried to hook back up with ramona despite her having a boyfriend and she rejected her. Still on good terms though. But this confusing encounter ends with Roxy vowing she’ll get him next time gadget, next time. 

So we get some assorted slice of life scenes with the band, lisa and what have you as Scott tries to get in touch with Ramona but she keeps avoiding him. THat’s not worrysome at all. And Lisa brings up high school while drunk and clearly hits on Scott. He sidesteps it with her drunkness.. but this clearly isn’t over or going to stop being a problem. 

Speaking of problems Wallace makes Scott confront the truth: He either needs to find a new place to live or commit to staying, though Wallace is trying to nudge him toward asking Ramona to move into her place. Scott starts thinking it over, it being very hard especially since, as Stephen points out this was his very first place of his own.. but Stephen also points out these things are temoporary.. right before Scott ducks from katana guy. 

At work Scott wonders who it could be, though it turns out Stephen’s met him before, as he’s brought his family in here. So he’s PROBABLY not one of the exes.. but it leaves the question why he wants to cut Scott in half like Dewey Cox’s brother. But it turns out he’s nto the only enemy Scott’s casually running into as Roxy is there too.. with Ramona. 

The two talk, clearly about Scott and Lisa with Roxy trying to convince her he’s cheating and Ramona rightfully trusting Scott: while he IS attracted to her, he’s been fighting it every step of the way. Scott storms over to find out what’s going on and while Ramona is more distracted by his new job, she eventually realizes Roxy did attack him and he simply dscribed her poorly when he mentioned the incident over the phone. Scott is confused as he dosen’t get it. Is she with one of the exes what? After some hiinting from both parties, and Roxy rightfully mocking him for not getting the obvious... he finallyg ets it in the grandest way possible. 

So Roxy gets ready to fight and Scott can’t because sword, and gets fired in the background as he hides in Ramona’s bag and Ramona prepares to step in. Roxy screams at her for trusting him and defending him when Ramona.. just dosen’t her boyfriend to be bisected by her ex. A fight insues and a damn cool one at that. I honestly wish the movie had taken more from this, but simply didn’t have time leading it to instead be more like the envy fight with a bit of the Winfried Hailey fight from Free Scott Pilgrim. 

Roxy chases her and Ramona rightly points out Scott can’t run forever but takes him into Subspace.. where Roxy heads them off, having “taught you everything you know bitch” leading to a cool fight in the wintery version of subspace. Again why THIS wasn’t used instead I have no real idea. We also find out she’s a half ninja but she eventually leaves afer Ramona presses that button.. but Rammy is actually apologetic about it and Roxy’s “I hope you and your 24 children are happy together comment” is telling. 

Upon this readthrough of the volume.. I realized Roxy is the most layered and intresting of the exes next to Gideon himself. None of them are out and out terrible, but most of them have pretty simple motives: to kill Scott, ???, profit. Or in Todd’s case to kill scott, bang around and be a dick. But Roxy.. genuinely wants Ramona back. She’s the ONLY one who does: Gideon kinda does, but only in the sense that he wants her for his collection. But Roxy geninely still loves her, admitting so during this fight. And it’s not like she has no chance: out of the 7 exes she’s the ONLY one who parted with Ramona on anything resembling good terms. While intrestingly we don’t find out WHY they broke up, Ramona didn’t cheat on her like she did everyone else she was with. The two have coffee and hang out and Ramona geninely dosen’t even consider until Roxy tries to attack Scott that she’d really try killing him and tries her best to talk her out of it. But what holds Roxy back is her anger: She’s so bitter about the fact Ramona is bi or pan, so dedicated to viewing Ramona’s very orintation as a betryal (though Ramona calling it a phase dosen’t help and the movie RIGHTLY has Roxie comment on it and fly into a rage over it), and so driven to make sure the woman she loves dosen’t get hurt again that it blinds her to the fact Ramona dosen’t love her the same way anymore, and that while Scott is objectively a dick, and a cheater, and a greasy buttcrack pooflap, he is not a terrible person. A meh one sure, but he’s got good to him. She’s so biophobic she simply can’t see he’s a harmless moron.. well harmless to Ramona even with the cheating. He’s killed two people at this point and will kill again. Also she apparently has issues with only being a half ninja but this is never adressed. Point is Roxy’s really grown on me and is now probably my faviorite ex.  

Scott and Ramona talk it over on their way to Sneaky Dees and Scott finally asks to move in and gets a yes. His response is downright adorable. 

So at Sneaky Dee’s Young Neil is just a bit absolutely irate with Scott.. which isn’t fair as them not playing things is entirely on the blocky face asshole. Yell at him.. which he does, pointing out that they haven’t played shows in forever, and that the lady who owns Sneaky Dees not only runs shows, in the upstairs space, but has been asking them to play. Kim is rightly curious about this and to both Stephen just keeps saying “We’re recording right now.” And some of you may of wondered why I hate him. Well while he’s not exctly stellar in the first half in the second Stephen becomes goddman insufferable, slowly destroying the band for his affair and not giving one iota of a shit what anyone else wants. He’s a selfish, egomanical cheating prick. And yes I get it their recording an album.. but doing live shows would give them extra practice, MONEY, even if likely not a lot and exposure for said album. I get professoinal bands stop touring for a bit to do an album but you are not a professional band, and said bands still often iron out the album on the road. God you suck.

But while Scott sidesteps this argument he walks into another where Ramona confronts him about lisa about liking her.. and he rightly says if there was anything, which there was not it’s in the past. And while yes he is a cheater, she does not know this yet. This plot honestly would’ve worked better if she learned about the knives thing sooner, but instead she just comes off as paranoid for listening to Roxy about something that isn’t happening. Yes Scott’s been shown to be attracted to her.. but he’s been ashamed of it, fighting it and in denial about it, and is clealry all in with Ramona. Being attracted to someone else on a phsyical level does NOT mean your relationship is doomed. 

Things get worse as he goes home to ruminate.. and instead sees a man’s Penis. And Wallace..is at his second most unsymapthetic, not letting Scott get a shirt or a bus pass or something like a decent human being for no goddamn reason. Usually when Wallace is a dick to Scott, Scott’s earned it and badly needs a slap in the face. Here he’s just being a prick because.. the plot needs him to? I dunno it dosen’t work for me. It’s in character, I just don’t have to like it. 

So with no other options.. Scott ends up at Lisa’s. And so we get the last temptation of Scott. Lisa admits, embarassed that she’s been wearing sexy dresses and what not specifically to attract him, with Scott also mentioning how things are rough, Lisa tries to fight it herself pointing out he’s with ramona.. and when Scott points out they didn’t do anything in the past Lisa points out they should’ve.. and maybe they should now. 

We fade to black as Scott ends up in a dream and finds Roxy, who naturally has the same skill and tries to Freddy Kruger him before he wakes. He finds Lisa but they didn’t do anything: Scott pushed her away and babbled about how much he loved Ramona instead. As i’ve said.... his heart was never with LIsa... and even when he was so close to giving in he couldn’t. It’s a tangible sign of growth: He screwed around on Knives with Ramona, and given how bad things were getting with Ramona, it would be oh so easy to once again ditch a relationship the minute he found something else and oh so understandable. But... he dosen’t. He loves Ramona even if he hasn’t said it, he wants to make this work, and he’s changed. She’s changed him. He’s not quite a good man yet.. bu he’s getting to be good enough. Love turned him from a skeezy dumbass into a far more loveable dumbass. Ramona’s gotten him to stop dating a teenager (even if again he cheated), face his past with envy to finally move on and now get a job. He’s realized just hwo much she means to his life and world and so he goes to tell her. 

Riggghtttt after going to get his job back and works a shift, with steven wanting to punch his life in the balls. Stephen shut the fuck up. Just because Scott is lucky and your stuck dating satan’s scrotum does not mean you get to punch his life int he balls. Kim does, because he’s put her through more shit but not you. 

He goes to second cup to talk to Stacey.. only to end up at the wrong one where Knives also now has a job... and we finally get an answer to who the mystery katana guy is...

Yup turns out wielding giant weapons in vengance runs in the family. As for how he knows about Scott her aunt mentioned her boyfriend, everyone freaked out and obviously while her mom was mentioned as knowing in volume 1, they did not tell her dad whose brain turned into an engine of vengance and defaced the shrine. While part of it is apparnetly racisim for Scott being white the fact is he clearly saw Scott’s photograph. The guy is 5 years older. I get him being protective. Still dosen’t justify cutting off his head. His balls maybe but not his head. 

And then Scott ran, once agian finding a subspace entracne.. and this time we see inside ramona’s head and well...

Yeah.. that’s.. kind of fucked, and Ramona isn’t happy scott saw that, though she backs down once Scott explains..a nd then gets upset over him staying at Lisa’s but before SCott can tell her he loves her it turns out Roxy stayed over. So yeah, Ramona might of cheated, she tells him to alk it off and he runs around in a psycadelic haze of emtoinal confusion. And meets.. someone new...

Scott snaps out of his funk and ignores his doppleganger heading back for Ramona... whose fighting Mr. Chau. Scott left the door to Ramona’s head open and he followed him through Subspace. Scott lures him into the house and away from her only to run into Roxy. This leads to both of his attackers fighting and her wondering if Gideons ent him “Why does no one ever belivie in me?!” 

She soon realize no i’ts just unrelated and calls Scotto ut on hiding behind not having a sword and behind her being a woman, caling it a flimsy excuse. I mean she’s tring to kil lhim. It’s okay to hit an enemy combatant. Scott realizes he has to stop running... and get real with ramona leading to a truly epic, romantic and heartfelt speech and given how far he’s come and just how heartfelt it is it’s a real sign of how deep he feels. Sure we’ve seen genuine chemstiry between the two.. but htis moment is a shit.. from a simple relationship.. into true love. 

I may of only had a few but Relationships are not easy, They take work, they take time, they take patience and theyt ake love.. but if your willing to work with someone, look past some flaws and help them with the rest.. then it’s worth it. And Scott has finally realized it and for the first time in a while is running TOWARDS something difficult, actually working on this relationship and talking with his partner instead of running finding someone else or wallowing. He’s truly grown up. While he still has miles to go.. he’s taken about 50 steps forward with this. And as such given the kind of unvierse we’re in, as Ramona is genuinely touched by it he levels up a glowing sword with a heart shaped hilt coming out of his chest.. and realizing what’s happening he pulls it out....

So Scott faces off with roxy and in an awesomly short battle, their sords clash.. and he bisects her. 

Scott then honestly talks down Mr Chau who leaves after a nod, and Ramona tells Scott she loves him two. The two make out and all is well.

One make out fades into another, as we cut to Scott moving in with Kim and Blockhead’s help. Well kinda they only had one box but they owed him one. He and wallace comiserate over the end of their time as roomies. They’ll always be friend but it’s truly the end of an era. Also Wallace gets off another bit of dickery as he’’s very glad it all worked out for scott...

 Now there’s the Wallace I know and love. Dickish but just the right loveable kind of douchebag with that swagger. 

Back at Knives house she’s apparenlty into somebody though who I have no idea, Mr Chau give sher his blessing and she.. apparenlty doesen’t know chinese. I dunno. As I said her subplot this go round was her weakest overall. 

And so we end with the whole gang gathered to see Lisa off. It’s a REALLY nice shot, and one of the only times Wallace is seen with the Sex Bomb omb side of the group. Oh sure he goes to their shows and what not, but generally their never in the same vincinity so while there’s no interaction I still find this neat. Seriously the whole main cast is there, it’s a really lovely shot

Also Jason and Hollie.. who are getting awfully chummy. Whu Oh. And of course Craphole and Mouth Face are as likeable as ever. 

So we jsut get a genuinely nice sene. Except Stephen and Julie reconciling. Fuck that. Please move on. And as everyone fondly wishes Lisa adeu and wish she stuck arond the res tof the series we end on Scott and Ramona snuggling, Scott asking her her birthday and finding out she’s 24, and they both will be come september. Scott wishes this moment could last. 

They probperly snuggle as the volume ends on a high. 

Final Thoughts:

Yeah.. Gets it Together is, on rexamination, DEFINTELY my faviorite of the 6. Besides personal value i’ts hte best contained story, contaning lots of character development, great character moments, jokes, and EASILY the best art so far, with goregouness and creativty abounding. 

There is a problem here or there: Stephen and Julie’s subplot feels underbaked, and not just because I hates them, and there are several scenes that don’t further plot or character stuff. Ther’es also stuff that could’ve been expanded on.. but given this is still a pretty meaty graphic novel, it’s understandable why it wasn’t.. though it is why I’d love a streaming series since while the movie is excellent, a full series could expand on stuff from the books more Brian simply didn’t have time for. Knives also didn’t get a lot to do. 

But their drowned out by tons of great decisions: Lisa was a wonderful additoin to the cast and I genuinely wish she’d stuck around, adding in some energy, blending well with the Sex Bomb Omb crowd, and having great dynamics with everyone and her arc with Scott is heartbreaking,knowing she can’t have him but wanting him anyway having never gottne proper closure on the man she’s always wanted. She’s a heartbreaking character and its nice to see her end in a decent place and on good terms with Scott, having let him go for both thier sakes. 

And while Lisa is a highlight everyone is on their a game here for the most part apart from knives, girl hitler, and captain dumbass: Scott grows signfigantly but is funny as hell, Wallace has an intresting arc trying to nudge Scott out without being overt about it, scared to really confront him, Kim is in a happy and serene place for once and it shows. The villians are also intresting: While Mr Chau is a tad underbaked, he’s sitll a cool imposing presence. I do think he shoudl’ve had more to do with the plot.. but is still just so freaking cool it papers over that and him just.. disappearing after this like poor Lisa. 

Roxy is far more intresting, having clearly more going on than we see and while I wish we’d got her backstory, she’s easily the most engaging of the exes, being the only one to actively compete with Scott (All her and ramona end up doing is making out a little it turned out), and have bigger stakes than just “The glasses wearing douche asked me to beat up my exes boyfriend and I was like alright. 

All in all Gets it Together is really magical, the series high point, and just damn fun and it was a pleasure to go through

Next Month on Scott Pilgrim: It all falls down as we take a look into what once was my least faviorite Album, vs the unvierse. Two perfect assholes try and murder scott with Robutts, his relationship and band crumble and things get sad so very very sad. 

Next on this blog: More LIlo and Stitch! The Proud Family come to Kauai and get into a fight with our heroes. Also wizard kelly... who if nothing else is now far more tolerable now i’ve had to spend another volume with the wicked bitch of the west. Touche universe touche. See you at the next rainbow.