#truly giving the people what they want

[notoneglance]

I know I’ve said this a million times but genuinely thank you Inoue for Agito, giving us literally a full minute and a half of Shouichi and Mana practicing the piano in the movie like that is literally the content I am here for

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I came here for the silly haha doodles, but I've stayed for the absolutely blazing commentary in the tags. Your analysis of this story is so so so good! Thanks for all the work and thought you put into this!

I am just a silly little comics blog. I am not hiding anything in the tags, no way. Never.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what kind of underwear do you think Erik and Charles wear (i'm not asking this to see them half naked) ((please believe me)) (((PLEASE)))

My Personal Belief is charles is a briefs guy while erik's a trunks guy. trunks/briefs kinda couple because i can

and idk just a lil bonus or somethin. as i do.

[bonefall]

I was thinking about your tags, and while I understand the caution, it feels like it would still be a stretch to baseline equate common traits among the clans with eugenics. I know that humans can rly quickly go from everyone has biological differences = there are innate qualities that are "good" and "bad", and there's a quality of fascism in that, but when the clans are fairly isolationist, it seems like it'd be natural for there to be trends among its members.

this is also just me prompting for your thoughts on biology and politics surrounding that, since i appreciate your thoughts on fascism in warriors overall.

I think you're missing a piece in your takeaway that I'm more conscious of-- it's not that I'm wary of population genetics and natural trends; it's that the Clans have an obsession with "blood purity" paired with that.

When you introduce "subspecies" Clans to that, cats who are truly biologically suited to a particular environment, you are inevitably narratively connecting the rhetoric to this worldbuilding fact. Unless you're going to massively overhaul the theme and setting of Warrior Cats, to me it's like looking at xenophobic characters that say "mingling with out-groups is bad" and announcing, "I AM GOING TO GIVE THEM PHRENOLOGY BUT REAL."

Even canon is wise enough to not do this-- Graystripe shows in TPB that it's the oily diet that makes RiverClan's fur so water-resistant. WindClan's lanky legs never get more extreme than a general population trend; enough Clans have skinny warriors that you wouldn't "clock" mixed cats like Jayfeather and his siblings.

But in making those Clan differences MEGA extreme, suddenly, you have taken the irrational social bigotry and turned it into a potentially legitimate practical concern about adeptness in an environment. Not just against an individual, but against that individual's population.

As an example of what I mean, imagine if RiverClan had special, extreme adaptations to living in water. Let's say they're webbed-foot cats who can close their orifices like seals and their coat is twice as thick to keep the water out.

Outcrossing to another Clan means hybrid kittens display the opposite of hybrid vigor-- hybrid depression.

Without webbed feet, other cats are always slower swimmers than their counterparts

Hybrids have thinner fur, making them lose heat in cold water much faster, requiring them to eat more to stay healthy or get sick more often.

They may not have the same muscles to close their orifices, meaning they're more likely to damage their senses by swimming in dirty water.

You can reduce disadvantages with accessibility technology in a more advanced setting like BB, but... they are still born significantly disadvantaged, compared to a ""pure blood"" RiverClan cat.

Doing this also says something you might not have realized you've said at all; Your population is proof of evolutionary pressure. Highly specialized genetics like this (not just trends but HIGHLY specialized) implies there's been something preventing the genetics of other Clans from intermixing with RiverClan.

Which has two implications;

The hypothetical RiverClan cats achieved a positive goal by self-inflicting a selective breeding program onto themselves. (...eugenics. that's eugenics.)

The hypothetical RiverClan environment is so harsh and demanding that it will naturally, swiftly eliminate unfit phenotypes. (The river totally cancels out any secret outcrossing)

(as a side note, ppl tend to misunderstand evolution. Darwin wasn't totally right with "survival of the fittest," I prefer Bill Nye's description of "survival of the good enough." But that's a topic for another time)

Either way, I find those implications DEEPLY unfitting for BB. This is a project which has major themes of exploring bigotry, showcasing its irrationality and digging into how it's perpetuated and exploited in spite of that.

I think BB's themes have a better clarity of purpose if the physical differences between Clans are kept subtle. Never more extreme than what you'd see between ethnic groups-- with frequent reminders about how culture, environment, and politics shape behaviors more than genetics do.

Don't misunderstand me-- I'm not saying that every setting with physical differences between races/sapient species is doomed to this. I actually have good things to say about certain artworks that lean into it (Steven Universe, Beastars, Oren's Forge). I'm saying this specifically about WC and my work within that context.

If you're curious though, I actually have a loose set of "rules" in my head to try and keep my Clans' population differences within my own critiques! I've given a lot more thought to this than I've shared.

There are no "unique" Clan mutations, any trait could appear within any hypothetical kitten.

It's a matter of prevalence. ThunderClan is like 80% Sweetness Tolerant and the other clans are between like 15% - 60%. It's not a sign your mate cheated on you if your kitten likes honey.

But it is something that an accusation can be based on, if your mate is insecure or the Clan's politics are going sour. A "pedigree" RiverClan cat could still have a mane, and it can get used against them.

Some traits do help or hinder ability slightly (ex; thick tails making RiverClan cats better at steering in water), but typically not significantly. I Just Keep It Reasonable.

Most importantly, I just make an effort to have most traits be based on social behavior. Reflect enough and eventually you sorta train your brain to think differently. As a bonus, it helps with cultural worldbuilding.

Related: If you found this insightful, I also dove into fascism and TigerClan in a way that's relevant to this.

[wistfulwatcher]

bau members + near death experiences

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[mcytegg]

Ash: I genuinely don't understand why you left Lala, and then left the Foundation like immediately. It can't just be because Minute killed you, that makes no sense.

Ro: I wasn't wanted.

posting the clip bc it genuinely makes me feel unwell but i also want to yap abt how insane ash and ro's entire convo makes me feel. like in this clip alone, the silence from them BOTH after ro says he wasn't wanted was so loud.

cause like earlier in the vod ro tells zam that although ash was one of his day 1 teammates, it was more against his will then not. like he felt like it was forced and more like ash's underling then his teammate. so him not actually feeling like he was part of the lala legion was obviously an issue that had roots from the very start, and these feelings only worsened and grew until eventually he ended up leaving the team AND the foundation (who only made his feelings of being unwanted and unvalued as Himself worse) to join the players, who actually seemed to genuinely want him on their side.

even AFTER he fucks up massively and ends up accidentally killing bacon w the arrow cannon instead of literally any of their enemies, they still want him there. despite their frustration and anger at him, he is still someone they want by their side. they don't kick him from the team or kill him like the foundation did the moment he fucked up, they accepted that he made a dumbass mistake as Their teammate and they dealt w the consequences of it and figured things out together.

bc he was more than just another person fighting by their side!! hes an idiot but he is THEIR idiot teammate roshambogames who they wanted to fight alongside them and thats what mattered most to him. feeling accepted and cared for by the people intent on ending the server in spite of his flaws and mistakes meant so much more to him then being w the people trying to protect it who only rly saw him as what he could Provide for them as a spare loyal member of the team.

and ro's convo w ash rly only confirmed to him that he was never valued as anything more than another teammate in the lala legion or the foundation bc ash Immediately disregards ro's words and calls it bs. and whats crazy is that ro was incredibly confident and sure of himself during their convo until ash started digging into him— calling him selfish and nothing but a violent person looking for an excuse to kill people and cause chaos. ash never seems to actually Listen to what ro has to say, he hears what he wants to hear, he berates ro yet begs for him to come back in the same breath. it was only after ash began doing this that ro began ro falter and lose some of his confidence, and its after ro begins to sound more uncertain that zam immediately gets clown to message ro to get out of there.

i assume it was zam bc clown was too busy hunting jumper to pay attention to ro's yaps w ash, and bacon nd zam were both watching it go down. and after rejoining the call, ro almost immediately gets his confidence back and all of the uncertainty he began to show bc of ash's words went away. they found jumper very shortly after ro rejoins which is also when zam and bacon start encouraging ro and boosting his confidence as well, making sure that he feels just as valued as clown is in this fight.

which is very 🥹🥹🥹 bc i'm growing attached to the players in general but it also feeds into my love for drastics too bc it rly does confirm to me that zam is probably the person (behind mapicc ofc) who makes ro feel most confident and comfortable w himself bc he understands ro better than most, and makes the effort to support him in the ways he needs to be supported so he feels seen and cared for.

[rmbunnie]

Something kinda tasteless about the way that alongside the concerns of "Batman needs someone to rein in his aggression/edginess" (mostly a meta concern,) "Robin is a symbol of undying hope right alongside Batman, Superman, and the police system," and "now that the thought's crossed my mind I think being Robin would be pretty sweet actually," one of Tim's points for why he should be Robin at the end of A Lonely Place of Dying is "we need to show the criminals of Gotham that they can't just kill Robin and expect to get away with it!" Because. They can. That's exactly what happened.

Using that line of reasoning, Tim makes the claim that the idea of Jaybin's life as disposable and inconsequential is heinous and bad, his killing something impermissible, but instead of disproving said idea they allow it to become true and devote their energy to making sure it doesn't become widely known as such. By covering his death up, they actually are permitting his murder to go unaddressed and deeming it acceptable, even taking away the opportunity for it to be consequential to anyone outside of Bruce's inner circle by not spreading the news. As much as we say "oh Bruce was a great dad because losing Jason crushed him" and "he almost considered trying to kill the Joker one time," he in all tangible areas did not do anything about Jason's death. Setting aside the question of killing the Joker or not, it's still shown in Batman Year 3 that Bruce's reaction to Jason's death in the time til Tim showed up was to hide away everything Jason owned and carry on with business as usual, a little angrier. Bruce didn't make any changes or actually evaluate anything in a significant way after the warehouse and Jason's death didn't warrant any tangible consequence, that's evident from reading the comic. I know some may disagree, and I acknowledge the room for interpretation, but in order to discuss Tim's reason we have to concede that it is explicitly written into this specific comic as something Bruce and Tim both recognize as fact, because it serves as the foundation that this reason is built on: there is good reason for the criminals to believe there would no punishment for killing Robin based on the actions Bruce did or didn't take in response. The concern about the public realizing there are no consequences for killing Robin wouldn't be reasonable if it wasn't true, if there actually were.

While they recognize that Jason's death came to pass largely without consequence, the fact itself is less of an issue to both Bruce and Tim than letting criminals actually find out that it doesn't have consequence. They know it's unjust, the notion that Jason can be killed without repercussion (and in making an effort to minimize his murder confirm it to be true,) but their concern isn't for what actually happened to Jason or the lack of proper response. At least on the vigilante side of things, the problem is public perception and continuing to uphold an image of Batman as just and diligent while permitting him to ignore injustice against those close to him. There's no efforts taken to actually disprove the idea that killing Robin would lack impact, what Tim proposes is just making it harder to prove right.

I think the best way to word what comes across tasteless for me here (aside from the side commentary on the unstoppable might of the institution of police and how it's an exemplar of heroism) is that beyond Tim's victim-blaming of Jason during his stint as Robin, (discussed in more depth by people who can word it better than me,) in the base text of a Lonely Place of Dying, it is foundational to the initial premise of Tim as Robin that part of his motive for being Robin hinges on accepting what happened to Jason as something that cannot be allowed in their pursuit of justice or go unaddressed for reasons completely unrelated to the actual harm, and then intentionally erasing the event and the way in which it was allowed and did go unaddressed. No matter how much it's claimed in later comics that Bruce was faultless and Jason doomed himself, Tim's Robin came to be at least in part (in-universe) as a cover-up for the lack of action taken about Jason's death, and by extension as an effort to overwrite his time as Robin and an individual entirely. And thought it wasn't the way his character viewed it, Tim wasn't passively complicit in it or going along with a poor grieving man, the intentional and deliberate erasure of Jason as a murder victim and the injustice of his posthumous treatment was part of his opening pitch.

[uncanny-tranny]

If somebody in your life offers to knit or crochet or, really, create anything for you, please be an active participant in the creation of the piece they are making. I adore making and gifting things, but nothing bums me out quicker than a person who passively just goes "okay," to my ideas about what I'm making them - it can send the message that they won't like it, or that they don't care, even if they're happy about my offering. The back-and-forth feedback is a great way to make sure that you are being gifted something that was truly worth the time, effort, expertise, and money that will inevitably go into the gift!

I know it's really hard to be an active participant, believe me, I'm an anxious ball of horror, but it will only do good for both parties to interact in this situation. It is a big deal to be offered a hand-crafted gift, but it's also something we want you to love and use, and that can only happen if you tell us what would make you fall in love with what we create.

[mollysunder]

I see Arcane's marketing is thrusting a lot of blue on Jinx's persona, which is fine, but also a misdirection! I argue that the use of blue on Jinx represents THE IDEA that others have of Jinx rather than representing who Jinx really is. Jinx's true color, the one she paints over those closest to her, the one that represents her is PINK. Jinx is pink!

When we see Jinx in pieces either in or out of show where blue is the predominant color in the palette it's signaling to us the audience that this the Jinx that is perceived by the world around her, which includes Piltover AND Zaun. In this essay I will---

[hellishgayliath]

America and the government once again and again proves that they’re fucking idiots and I fucking hate this place what the fuck is wrong with this place

[hauntedorpheum]

you know i have no stakes on this. i'm a casual viewer at best. if i don't like this i just don't pay. but learning that patreon is still up, that they didn't get any notice in advance of any these changes, and they don't even get free access to the "normal" content, but only 40% off (with normal viewers getting 30% off, so basically just 10% discount), like if someone has the right to complain right now is the patreons who have actually been paying for their content this entire time

[fastidious-and-a-mess]

guys can we PLEASE stop shipping riz w people. honestly at this point i kind of don’t even care if you yourself are also acespec/arospec/aspec.

yes, aspec people can be in relationships, etc etc, but riz specifically has expressed over and over and over again that that is something he personally has absolutely zero interest in.

he’s not just canonically aroace, he also canonically does not want a relationship.

“aroace people can be happy in romantic/sexual/queerplatonic relationships” is a true statement. “people who do not want to be in any kind of monogamous committed relationship can be happy in a monogamous committed relationship” is quite a bit harder to argue.

i’m just so sick of it. i’m glad we all understand that there’s nuance to aspec identities, and everyone’s expressions of and experiences with their own aspec identities are going to be different and personal.

like, it’s not even just about the asexual/aromantic aspect anymore. it’s also just refusing to let him not want to be in a relationship. why are so many people so resistant to the idea that he does not want to be in a relationship. like genuinely, why can you not accept that there are people who just don’t want that. who would just be unhappy in a relationship. why can’t you wrap your head around the idea that wanting a relationship is not a thing that everyone secretly wants. like, No, he hasn’t just not “met the right person” yet. because there is no right person. because he’s simply not interested.

this post is kind of rambly and not as effectively phrased as it could be i think but idc.

TL;DR: riz being aroace is not the only reason to not ship him. he also, explicitly and repeatedly, has stated he does not want to be in a relationship. “aspec people can be in relationships” is completely irrelevant because regardless riz simply does not want a relationship. please just respect thag.

edit: plz don’t like this is u wont rb. i won’t guilt you into rbing, it’s ur blog i’m not ur dad do what u want etc etc. it’s just irritating for me personally to see ppl interacting w this but not willing to actually put it on their blogs.

[acourtofthought]

“The other side” acting as if their girl will make Az wanna live while he wants to die for Elain (imagine thinking this ain’t the most important sign that he loooves her) trying to make it seem like that’s a sign of how wrroooong Elriel are for eo. 💀💀💀

BABESSSSS, the only thing he wants to live for is his flower Elain, and… her OTHER flower. 👀 To taste the nectar. 🌸

(Feyre begging Az to get Elain to safety and Az ignoring her so he could help Feyre).

(Az being willing to risk his and Elain's life for a girl he doesn't know)

(Az giving zero shits about the supposed love of his life as he prepares to run back into danger while injured)

(Az once again not caring about the danger he'd be putting himself in)

What did we learn class?

Az is willing to risk his life for literally everyone and his desire to taste the "nectar" of Elain is really not something special considering he's enjoyed quite the number of others. I wonder how many secret lovers he's had since he met Elain. Your "forbidden love" trope simply turns Elain into a secret just like the rest.

Not to mention he stared at Mor with heat and yearning while Elain sat in the room with him after the events of ACOWAR, that's your idea of love? 🤔

You should be less focused on Az putting another notch in his belt and more concerned with why he put more thought into planning for a snowball fight than how he might have a future with Elain.

Class dismissed.

[crabsnpersimmons]

question on tumblr etiquette:

if you fall under a user's DNI list, but that user reaches out to you via ask or DM, without knowing you fall under their DNI list, do you still respond?

hypothetical example: user A specifies on their blog "DNI if you're over the age of 18", but then user A reaches out to user B. User B is over the age of 18, but user A does not know this because user B doesn't mention it on their blog. User B does know that user A does not wish to interact with people over the age of 18. does user B respond to user A?

[beyondthislifetime]

People who truly dislike Edwina Sharma are wild. Heaven forbid an 18 year old be charmed after being almost relentlessly pursued by an older man. Three married women, including her mother, are for the match. THE QUEEN is for the match. The only person saying he isn't right for her is her sister and like I'm sorry but my sister could swear that a man wasn't that into me and I would not listen if he BOUGHT ME A HORSE!???!!?!!