#well now im adding it retroactively

[gin-juice-tonic]

Well... vegetarians might find it a bit harder to stick to their diets, but it's a step up from feeling tempted to eat humans.

[misersdream]

Slay the Prince - Happily Ever After

[akkpipitphattana]

Apologies for the incoming essay... Re. Kant and choices and him choosing to involve Style - look, nobody's out here trying to say Kant's eligible for best friend of the year! But there does seem to be a lot of retroactive woobifying of Style, attempts to exempt him from the current tangled web, etc., when, lest we forget, he agreed to try and seduce a man FOR A CAR. He then proceeded to stalk said man, and to disrupt and exploit a grief counselling session FOR A CAR. Of course Kant shouldn't have involved him (but when your options are limited and you're desperate, you're not always thinking straight), but it was Style's own a) automotive greed and b) bruised ego (after their vehicular run-in) that got him where he is today. It was a bargain that he himself suggested - it wasn't even Kant's idea! Let's be honest, he could've just said nah mate, you're alright, and what could Kant have done about it? Style is not untouched by the taint! And that's okay - let him be messy too (the fact that he'd already had a couple of fraught encounters with Fadel even before Kant introduced them was a deliberate decision on the writers' part)! He had his own agenda going into this which he'd need to apologise for regardless of the added assassin shenanigans, and once he's in the know, he becomes as responsible as Kant for what happens next - they're both faced with the same choice: confess in order to try and keep the brothers out of jail, or stay schtum, despite their misgivings, out of fear for their own lives. And they both chose the same path. All four of them have been lying to each other from the get-go, for multiple complex reasons, some maybe more valid or understandable than others, but point is that none of them are squeaky clean and ALL of them bear at least some responsibility for the colossal shitshow that they now find themselves in! And that's what makes it good TV!

(I'd also like to point out something I find interesting, which is that Kant's rhetoric with Style has always been about looking out for number one - he tells Style he's doing it to clear his record, get those charges off his back, outside the restaurant he talks about having to prioritise saving your own skin over everything else, even though that makes him sound a bit cold...but he's not doing it for himself, is he? He's doing it for Babe. He's doing it because of the repercussions that would fall on his little brother's head if anything were to happen to Kant, whether that be jail time or an early grave (though I'm not saying he'd be a-okay with either regardless!). Babe has been his driving force the entire show (as yours and others' beautiful meta has explored) - Kant does the OPPOSITE of prioritise himself, and has done so since his parents died, and that's why HE'S in this mess in the first place. But, to the best of my recollection, he never invokes Babe when he's trying to win over Style, and I can't decide if that's because it's a line he won't cross (though he did sort of cross it when using Babe as an excuse at karaoke, or does that not count cos it was a lie?), or because he truly doesn't see himself as self-sacrificing so wouldn't even think to frame it in those terms to someone else. Or a combo of both!)

I think part of the reason the Kant slander (by which I absolutely don't mean legit critical analysis or taking the well-earned piss out of him!) bothers me is because I'm conscious that First is, at least to a degree, aware of the negativity (and tagged into some of it because ppl suck), which is why every time I look online he seems to be apologising on his character's behalf. And yes, it is in jest, but, knowing he's an inveterate people pleaser, I also get the sneaking suspicion it's also partly genuine, which makes me sad.

yeah, aaaabsolutely agree with everything you’ve said here. like i think the argument about style has more merit too it, but at the same time im still sat here thinking, what was kant’s other option? because bison gives him this stipulation: if you want us to date, you have to find someone for fadel. and kant cant just cut his losses and say okay, then i guess we won’t date. he has to get close, he has to get this information. so he has to involve someone else, retroactively. and we can argue about if he should have told style the full truth from the beginning, but not only do we see the captain specifically tell him not to do that, but i think kant is well aware it would not have worked if he did. style would have blown the operation out of the water way too soon, if he even agreed in the first place which the odds of him doing without having some investment into fadel would have been very slim! like it sucks, but realistically, what else could kant have done that would have allowed him to do what he needed to? what other choice did he have?

and like you said, style is far from innocent! none of them are innocent in this! thats the whole point! and that’s the big thing, too, because it’s meant to be this complicated messy thing. they subbed in the women from taming in the shrew for assassins because it allows for this intense sort of courtship that was brought on by misogyny in the play, while also allowing us to understand that fadel and bison aren’t innocent, either. that they’re all fucked up and messy in their own ways.

and yeah, i think getting into the babe of it all just isn’t something kant is willing to do for the most part. i think he tries to keep babe out of it as much as possible, but using him as an excuse to get out of there was the most realistic thing he could do, especially when bison has already seen that protective brother side of him. and i also think that kant just doesn’t view himself highly in general. he doesn’t think of himself as selfless or self sacrificing because he knows the awful things hes had to do in order to keep babe safe and in his custody - and while maybe for other people knowing it’s for babe would help his case, he doesn’t feel that way. because obviously he wouldn’t change it, but it doesn’t mean he liked doing any of it, that he likes the lengths he’ll go. especially when i think he thinks if babe knew, he wouldn’t like any of it, either. babe already didn’t like just the lying to bison. can you imagine what he’d think if he knew kant had drugged him once? if he knew all of it was built on a false start? kant probably thinks babe would hate him for it all as much as he hates himself for it.

and as for the first of it all, i do hope despite the media literacy some people lack in it all that he knows he did a fucking incredible job with kant. i say this as someone who has been making detailed posts about first’s acting since the eclipse, but i genuinely think this is his strongest and most nuanced performance. hes made kant so, so clear and easy to understand if you’re paying attention, and i love him so dearly for it.

[ask-marios-apprentice]

-------------------------------------------------

Ending

Hi. At the time of writing this. It is half past midnight on New Year's Day. I'm currently writing this in my room.

A lot has happened this year.

I don't want to get into details but I want to talk with you guys about something.

How do you feel if I just time skipped to the ending.

It's obvious how the story was going to end.

After some big event that felt meaningfully conclusive. We were time skip to see Garth becoming The SUPER.

I do want to continue telling this story. And I promise it will be told one day. As I've said before. I've been in the process of on and off rewrites as well as the novelization. That will be the best possible version of this story I can tell at the moment.

If you know me. I want to one day pitch the story to Nintendo.

And this novelization will be really important.

This fanfiction could possibly get sold in stores and on reading devices.

I originally intended SUPER to be A TV ( butmore likely a streaming) series with multiple games. Both creating an interwoven narrative.

I even wanted to see things like comics and toys. A Garth amiibo that's intentionally designed to look like it was a production error.

I want to see fan content. I wanted there to be comic dubs and fan art, cosplays and and fanfiction. Of the ships and fan concepts. I wanted to see what AUs would be made, I wanted to see how they would adapt concepts original to SUPER or introduced by SUPER would retroactively be added to AUs that already exist.

I'd love to see someone adapt one of the previous SUPERS in a similar interpretation of Secret Histories Mario or Mario Warfare. Where they would account for the time period they're from. I even came up with my own anthology of different Mario fannon concepts imposed onto different SUPERS.

But Im getting ahead of myself.

I want to give you guys a proper ending and closure while I write the novelization.

I feel like I've already kind of muddled up my current timeline with the lack of posting in the in the universe year of 2019. It wasn't until like the last quarter of the Year where I decided everything took place in January.

I'm offering you guys a choice. Do you want to see the ending written and posted.

I have to warn you. There might be a concept or two needing to be explained. But I will explain it eventually.

I'd still be open to asks. Heck I'd answer both asks for apprentice and SUPER Garth

I'm not going to put up a pole right now. I need some time to think.

Please comment. Don't reblog unless you want to put your input. My apologies. But I don't need hearts right now. I need feedback.

I apologize. Regardless if I made a mistake or not. I'm still apologizing

Take care

-------------------------------------------------

[lightnersdream-archive]

CORGI

now im not a huge dog person and i dont think about corgis much so i cant say much on that front

the design is cute enough, nothing offensive

i think the face couldve standed to look a little "weirder", but the open mouth makes it distinct from the other dogs in a way i'm not sure how to feel about

model's all around well constructed, using more round shapes than other recent models have (i wish the ferret had more round shapes!!)

animations are all pretty decent, no obvious errors like improper loops and they're all pretty basic "doggy" actions, "play" action is a play bow, yknow

the default has a cropped tail, BUT there is a tail toggle!!! which i really like. it's in a floaty style which idk about, but atleast there's the option

almost every animal now has like, 3-4 custom unique patterns instead of the same 6, which is fun and theyre all really good patterns, even the ones that aren't unique like stars or hearts

the most notable thing though is THEY'RE BRINGING BACK BLACK EYE OUTLINES. I'VE BEEN WAITING.... the models look SO much more finished with it!! it looks so much better!!! it makes them look much more like "aj style animals" and the eyelashes don't look like theyre just floating there

this isn't the first time they've gone back and forth on it, they did in 2020 as well, but i hope they keep it. im sad the models from the previous year won't get that retroactively added onto them, because they'd look soooo much better with them

i noticed they also stopped giving every animal a drawn-on smile, they did that for a while last year and early this year and then just suddenly stopped for some reason, idk what that was about. maybe going off reference material like the cow?

other notes: mesoterra is open to all animals now (previously could only be accessed with dinosaurs) because the phantom dungeons have been relocated there, still playable on the new system. seems like darkseeds have been removed from the prizepool though with the end of the halloween event and the dungeon coin shop is still kinda lacking. honestly hoping mesoterra stays open for all animals because it's usually Extremely Dead due to only being accessible by dinosaurs

[blackbloodteeth]

just stumbled across your art for the first time & im very curious as to what exactly your starting point for creating soul variants was? by that i mean, what made you begin creating them in the first place, what served as the inspiration for all of this? id also like to add i scrolled your entire archive and i love how expressive your art is! apologies if youve already answered something like this as well. thank you, have a nice day!

Hey, thank you very much! I'm always so glad when people enjoy my varianting, and honestly that's really heartwarming that you went through my archive (especially since I still remember how long it took me to get all of my art up at the time onto here haha)

I've been asked similar questions to this before, but I don't mind it at all, it's always fun to answer even if the history on variants is actually a bit messy haha (to the point I had to kinda just pick a day for keeping track of the Variantverse's anniversary, which I actually use this drawing for reference since it's the first real time there were multiple AU Souls in one art haha).

I'm not joking about the history being messy by the way, you better strap in because this is not a question I'm usually able to answer in just a few neat sentences (for your time there will be art at the end though haha)

So basically, aside from the really old (I'm talking middle school old) AUs I had of Soul (which... don't really have updated art aside from being retroactively really important to Variantverse lore hah), variants initially started as me just finally joining the Soul Eater fandom and just doodling canon Soul in different ways. After that it basically went like I want to draw him in a different outfit, to I want to draw him as Pokemon (context like this involved Discord but that's another story hah), to okay, I want to draw him weird and no one can stop me, and then came one morning where I did a doodle session of drawing him in a lot of non-human designs for the fun of it.

This is the shortened version of it, because there were doodles in between including an entire comic saga and an entire AU that didn't end up on the Variant List (*until much later anyway) because the list hadn't been established yet. Have I mentioned the "List of Soul Variants," by the way? Some know way back when I used to keep a list of all the Soul variants I was making and even gave them all numbers (it was kind've a big deal to the point it was actual in-Variantverse lore), however shortly after it reached 1,000 variants the list went defunct (also a big deal) and I no longer keep track of how many there are. The numbers don't matter anymore, but it contextualizes some things haha.

Now to actually answer the question, where does "variants" start: #019. After the previously mentioned doodle session, I got a Thought™ after waking up to start a [secret project], however I needed a handful more variants for it, and ended up doodling some more. I honestly have no idea if I should still be calling it a secret considering it's been four years now and I never ended up drawing it up despite- Anyway, this is also exactly the point in time I started to call them all variants (theorized by me to be in reference to "regional variant" Pokemon, ones that take a new appearance when adapting to a new region).

So what inspired me? Simply because I just kept going. I started thinking of a reason the variants I'd made so far were all together during the events of [secret project??], I started thinking of a couple Souls watching over the event (that ended up becoming the main characters of the overarching story) and new unrelated variants that were goofing off in the background, I started thinking of an antagonist, not just tied to the events of this, but to the multiverse at large, and I started thinking up what happened afterwards. I ended up giving the first 25 variants lore when I wanted to flesh out their designs, I added new variants to interact with the overarching story, and I just kept doodling new variants for the hell of it, all because it was fun and even if I never really revealed what [secret project] was (at least to only more than a handful of people hah) people in the circles I was in really enjoyed seeing them. Need I remind you that I stopped keeping track of how many there were after about 1090 variants. So yeah, it just kept going.

I guess in a way this is more answering where does the Variantverse start, but it's such an integral core concept that I think is heavily responsible for this madness snowballing to begin with haha, and things like the "Soul Variant Emporium" (an entirely different inside joke) and different Souls interacting out in the multiverse still resurfaces from time-to-time in the little blurbs I give art. I'm just particularly fond of capturing variants from an angle as if writing Pokedex entries, which I think kinda loops back to that idea of where the word variant comes from.

Honestly I just really love character design, and Soul genuinely is my favourite character of all time, so it's very fun to combine the two (especially when integrating concepts I find I like, such as the mass amount of werewolves hah) and I couldn't be happier that people also get a kick out of it even if I feel just a little guilty I don't really draw non-Soul designs much anymore haha (and I will say the madness brought upon my ask box as been an absolute hoot). So yeah, to sum it up: It started because I just had doodle ideas, and I got inspired by never stopping having ideas and everyone unfortunate enough to be caught in my ramble radius happened to enjoy said ideas.

As promised (thank you for enduring, I hope this was at least interesting haha), here's the most notable early variants that got me rolling the snow around:

Awakened Soul is the one I mentioned starting off the later doodles with the idea of "variants" first in mind, but Trickster (giving Soul a new outfit), the Pokemon variants, and other Souls of other doodlings are also notable to the entire messy history as to where this all started. I'm still planning to continue trying to draw all of the 1000 variants of the old list eventually and I look forward to sharing all these silly Souls as always.

I swear I'll give the first AU Soul I'd ever drawn real art one day.

[lloydfrontera]

obsessed with this (and many others) story being so dead-set on two main guys and their just absurdly close relationship and then having the balls so say NO HOMO and being so scared of having an open end so it just had to follow the heteronormativity norms. im so sick and tired of it. it just cheapens the whole things. it cheapens whatever respect there was for female characters involved, which was already not a lot because well. lets be honest yeah. i just wish these stories were self-aware enough to leave the characters alone. no relationship is better than what usually happens in these stories :( that's why im so hesitant to read the novel because im not always able to ignore such stupid literary device. im ranting to your inbox because i think you'll get it and my god i was so bitter when i was spoiled about the story's ending and the violent need to have everyone married it's hhghgghhhnng

i get it yeah. i've been deep in fandom spaces for about ten years now, this is not my first rodeo, won't be my last and i'm already used to it. doesn't mean i'm not tired of it too tho kjasdasd

and yeah i agree, at this point i'm not even really asking for a ship to be canon, i truly do believe sometimes the better option is to just have an open ending and leaving things to the imagination, but the amount of times authors feel the need to shove a last minute het romance just so they can beat the queer allegations,,, is too many to count

i think what gets me with tged is that,,, you can really take away the canon romance and nothing changes. it adds nothing to the plot, it really was something bk moon added in the last chapters purely to make it canon at the end. you could erase those bits and the general plot and characterization remains the same. it is... bad writing to be honest. like. from a purely technical standpoint that's a bad relationship, that's not how you add a romance to your plot!

but! on the other hand! the fact that it can be erased that easily does make it very easy to ignore it and focus on the good parts of the plot which are truly worth everything else aksdhskaj

it's like,, the gay equivalent of that thing marvel does where it includes their 'diversity' moments in such a way that you can cut them off and the film is still perfectly watchable. here you can cut the straight bits and you still get an awesome novel with great characters and deeply moving relationships lmao

it cheapens whatever respect there was for female characters involved, which was already not a lot because well. lets be honest yeah.

and this. yeah. Yeah. i did my fair bit of ranting when the webcomic decided to make silurian javier's love interest, retroactively fridging her for his manpain and also straight up ignoring and erasing her arc in the novel about her not needing to marry to be made heir for the city. like. they just didn't mention it. at all. what the fuck.

and then there's alicia who. the more i think about her and the way her relationship with lloyd is handled the more upset i get. she was such a cool character, with her own thing going on, her own motivations, her own worries, her own deal. and then she becomes lloyd's love interest because. well, she's literally the only important enough female character who isn't related to lloyd or already married who can do it. like. that's it.

silurian gets an entire arc about why she doesn't need to marry lloyd, sherazade marries lloyd's brother, marbella is his mom, moira basically disappears after her introduction... and that's... it, i think?? who else?? emily? the mermaid queen? i for the longest time thought raphael was a girl and was sorely disappointed to find out he was not so. yeah.

then there's the "magentano carry" title effect thing going on and,,, that's a whole mess on its own. i hate it. there's literally an otherwordly power making alicia trust lloyd. let me rephrase that. they had to force the canon love interest into giving her full trust to the main character. the very foundation of their relationship is built on her being literally unable to mistrust him because there's an external force forcing down her suspicions and doubts about him.

and we have canon confirmation that if lloyd pushes hard enough when she's already paranoid because of other factors, that effect can break and all her mistrust and wariness about the potential danger he is to the crown come back with full force and she'll declare him a traitor and go to war against him. like. that's the state of their trust and relationship when the novel is 89% done. i'm not even slightly exaggerating i literally did the math.

it's. it's just bad. it's so bad. i'm. i don't know what else to say. she didn't deserve that. lloyd didn't deserve that. we certainly didn't deserve that either.

so like. after all of this it'll sound really hypocrite of me to tell you to read the novel but. i do think it's still worth it. everything i'm talking about is. such a small part of the entire novel. which is kind of the problem but also the very reason i still think it's worth reading it.

everything else makes up for it i promise akjshdjka

[badsithnocookie]

secrets of the enclave (dantooine fp/story)

Oh Boy another field trip with annoying sith

altho krovos is probably just grumpy she can't be with her gf so i'll let her off. rivix is on thin fucking ice however

with all the saboteur options in this story bit it's actually more frustrating bc i Just Know that nothing willever go anywhere with it

one thing i will say for swtor tho is their environmental artists are top tier.

WHY IS THE RAKATA TEMPLE MUSIC PLAYING. this is the dantooine enclace YOU EVEN HAVE THE RIGHT TRACK IN GAME ffs

oh krovos is convinced malgus gives even a single blue fuck about the empire this is adorable. babygirl you are not very smart are you

leeha :D

oh. oh rivix refuses to listen to you if you tell him to play nice. rare elusive bioware character with a spine. god dammit bioware stop making me like your characters

oh okay i guess leeha's in schroedinger's morturary as well now huh.

it's funnier tho than it has any right to be that krovos and malgus have a Force Bond. even if, granted, everything that would be needed for it was retroactively added with this story chunk, but. quality bioware storytelling

im assuming the same is also true of someone who babysits the pc pub side as well. really considering it's the pc who keeps having to spank him it's them he should have that bond with but i guess you have to include for non force users so

(nah im not even commenting on the revan stuff like. yeah i knew it going in and yeah its shit but at this point i cant muster anything much beyond tired disapproval)

i kinda don't. entirely hate the little thing where you're sending companions off on missions across the galaxy? but like. i dont love that it's filler cutscene content. a more involved mechanic along the lines of xiv's squadrons or sto's duty officer system where you can send npc parties out on missions for rewards/alliance xp could have been an interesting addition (kotfetet era mostly) if only bc it would. 1. give the illusion that you're actually Commanding shit and 2. some purpose to these npcs you're otherwise just collecting to take up space in your base, but. that would require like. effort and i don't think bioware broadsword have had the resources to add such a system since before f2p. (then again they're adding this new companion unlock grind with the current patch so idk)

but apparently this was the last real Content before lots which i dont have unlocked and. honestly part of me just wants to just sub for a month so i can gripe about how terrible it will inevitably be

i know that the launch stuff at least is largely considered underwhelming but like. my expectations for this game are somewhere in the gutter so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

but. i will revisit that thought in the morning lol

[little-klng]

im sure theres people in the reblogs whove described this before (more than likely me included, but its buried by now), but no this fact is simply not true </3 the original beanie babies are The Original 9, pictured below:

[Brownie the bear, Chocolate the moose, Pinchers the lobster, Spot the dog, Squealer the pig, Splash the whale, Patti the platypus, Legs the frog, and Flash the dolphin]

all nine of them were released in April of 1993 during the New York World Toy Fair, whereas Trap was released in June of 1994 in stores after growing popularity meant more designs being created and released publicly. The above commenter likely(?) misunderstood that Trap mightve been older than the Original 9 because a lot of resources put their release date at August of 1994 for some reason

However, what *is* true is that Trap on release was older than the concept of beanie baby birthdays and poems, which didnt begin until 5th generation releases in late 1997, more info on that, as well as example photos of what each generation of tag looks like here and here.

The concept of beanie babies getting their own poems and birthdays was actually created by Lina Trivedi, whos credited as the author of 136 original poems for the beanies, as well as the creator of e-commerce as a concept (she headlined the website design and concept behind the BBOC, where collectors would be able to order certain beanies/recreations of original older beanies instead of hunting down irl stores for them)

Before poems and birthdays, beanie baby swing tags just featured the beanies name, as well as a To ___ and From ___ space to write in, since they were intended to be cheap gifts for families, friends, and events. The change was made because Lina thought it would make the tags more interesting and fun (and she was right!!!)

A lot of older beanies however were re-released in later generations to have birthdays and poems added, such as the original 9 with their BBOC releases :3 Trap, however, is not one of those re-releases and therefore was never retroactively given a poem or birthday

Hope this helps and clears up any confusion!!!!!!

the saddest beanie baby related thing ever is still trap the mouse. no birthday

[tenaciouschronicler]

The Interlude

Currently taking a page from @homestuckreplay 's book and re-reading everything but with the added nonsense of also reading my old posts. Mostly because I wanted to see what bits I've asked and have been answered as the story progresses.

I'm still compiling a word doc of those questions and ponderings and am already rolling in revelations. For example! Page 235, the walkaround of Johns home, the at the time unknown to us Wandering Vagabond had an intense hatred for Harlequins. At the time it was just funny but given what we know now, and what he did to the ACURSED MASCOT, the hatred makes sense.

Im hoping to make a post of still unanswered questions and retroactive connections like the above. As well I want to get a list of topics that I want to dive further into and a master doc of answered/debunked stuff for myself.

In other news, does anyone have a panel or image they would like to see cross stitched? With more time on my hands, especially on Saturdays at the market, I want to return to the hobby and think it'd be cool to make.

Anyways, back to reading I go!

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Ever since they put Sam as Cap both in 2014 comics & setting it up in phase 3 MCU to now Marvel's been pushing really hard to "correct" Steve's legacy in only being Cap in name & being more of an anti-government rebel. With Sam as Cap they push hard to make Sam's Captain America a blaring patriotic jingoism ad with neoliberal representation... You'd never have seen Steve be the bodyguard of the president of the USA as a premise of a story 🙄

It's annoying in its own right because along with the America patriot propaganda it logically follows ofc for characters like Sabra & her terrorist actor to easily appear in these stories with some Zionist propaganda.

But it's just really annoying to put it lightly how much Marvel - ever since first putting Sam Cap to page in 2014 - worked overtime to undermine Steve's character making CW a de facto IM movie & painting Steve as in the wrong  for being against the US gov authority & overall stripping back & removing Steve's righteous anger at the US State for what they did with Shieldra, or how FATWS compares its enthusiastically patriotic protagonist to make Steve look retroactively worse

& likewise precluded Bucky's post-WS character arc entirely & retroactively demonized his character as the insufficiently patriotic & therefore untrustworthy one. His whole backstory setup in CATWS painted the US gov in a bad light & culpable via Shieldra, so ofc Bucky gets villainized in phase 3 & likewise FATWS paints Buck at fault for being a target of continuous state violence & institutionalization while Sam- an agent of the state, part of the literal USAF -is presented as moral center while telling Buck he deserves to be at the whim of the US state and blamed for WS crimes the gov funded via Shieldra. Bucky gets surveilled & arrested & monitored by the same US State which funded the supersoldier mindcontrolled assassin program they blame him for while Correctly Patriotic Uncle Sam is shown as a Good US Soldier by contrast while Bucky's story gets retconned & swept under the rug for being to inconvenient to the Patriotic direction they went in.

The propaganda really ramped up with the ink and pages of Sam Cap drying off & becoming their new brand, but marvel's audience who tbh enjoy lapping at the Mouse 's propaganda pool refuse to see beyond the superficial aesthetics which is WHY US media frequently & purposefully chooses these aesthetics & act like neoliberal representation in oppressive structures is radical or progressive.

Which makes all the performative shock over Sabra in BNW fall flat since Sam Cap as a Marvel rebrand is defined by doubling down on Cap as a patriotic literal agent & defender of the US government. Sabra's inclusion is entirely ideologically consistent with what Sam Cap is about FFS, in FATWS the only other character besides Bucky who was exploited by the US gov is Isaiah who CORRECTLY outlines the relationship btwn America & Black ppl & Sam wholly dismisses him as crazy! THAT is was SamCap is about: telling Black ppl to STFU & be patriotic Obama style, but ppl are acting like Sabra is "ruining" Sam's otherwise totally not at all propagandistic stint as a now more patriotic 🇺🇸flag laden hero while America funds multiple genocides as the USA has always done since it's inception.

I haven't watched the trailer (and tbh don't intend to... too depressing) so I can't really comment on specifics of this.

But I will say that I was thinking the other day how MCU's complete refusal to do any Cap character properly, but especially Steve, had the knock-on effect of making it impossible to do a SamCap well too.

Steve was supposed to be impoverished / multiply disabled / ideologically Antifa / feminist / pro-union / New Deal Democrat / Irish-Catholic / urban underdog, etc. And it would make perfect sense for a modern black man to accept the legacy of all that, if Steve had been adapted properly.

In deleting all that and assigning to the mantel what America represents instead, they've turned the shield from an honour into an albatross.

But it's still contradicting their own canon to do so.

Because even the de-yassified MCU Steve never embodied America; he merely set an example to America.

Isaiah should not plausibly believe Steve's shield represents something bad -- as someone who knows nothing about Captain America would -- as if MCU canon!Steve never did any of the good things he did with it.

(This could've been a beat addressed in the main Cap movies; eg. someone assumes Steve is a Republican and his baffled response is 'huh??!')

Following canon, Sam's logical response to that should've been 'wtf it doesn't mean any of that where did you get that from??' not 'yeah but I want to represent that anyway.'

Isaiah correctly lampooned what America's legacy is... but no one bothered to point out that's not what Steve and his shield have represented. Not even the landlord-white version of him we have in the MCU.

That failure makes a nonsense of Sam's entire friendship with Steve.

Why would Sam be friends with the willing bearer of America's bad legacy?

Why would a decent Steve be friends with someone who wants to represent a bad legacy (maybe EG Steve would!) and so on and so on.

Though I guess it's no dumber than Steve not killing Peggy on sight for colluding with Nazis for decades, huh? 😕

I'm looking forward to all the jokes Sam is going to make about Isaiah being a brainless killing machine (y'know, to show what bros they are?)

And when he comes out at the end of it and tells Isaiah he needs to "do the work" to apologise properly for what he did while controlled.

Or perhaps he will suddenly magically understand the concept of innocence, now? 🤔

Sam siding with the authorities might be sadly consistent with the spirit they've taken him in (I've pointed it out before, but it is IC for him to be, eg. a dick to Bucky. Yer man's been doing that since day one).

But it at the very least it contradicts Sam's canon to willingly guard Ross, a man who threw him in enhanced-people-Gitmo like a "common criminal," to paraphrase Sam himself.

(Hey, why would the man who threw Sam in prison later trust Sam to guard him? Is it just a set up to screw Sam over again? Okay, but why would Sam fall for something so openly implausible? Are they giving him the idiot ball?)

The MCU are masters of 'we don't understand what this action we've assigned the character actually shows about them.' Or when they are assigning character actions that contradict past actions.

And they sure as fuck don't know what made CATWS a good movie.

[rosepetalwings]

so me and my partner (@pcletteswcp; they dont rly have a main blog) have been Theorizing and they suddenly had the most genius revelation about spamton that they'd like me to share with you all and what his calls really are…

but first, let me back up for a moment.

so… the library dark world is… strange, right?? can we all agree on that? it only existed for a few hours and yet every library world darkner seemed to pop out of nothingness with set personalities and backstories and just the whole nine yards. the school dark world was just as strange to be entirely fair but with chapter 2, it set a(n at least, more obvious) precedent in that darkners just… suddenly exist in a sapient form with the creation of a dark fountain. 

now, what does this mean within the scope of this theory? darkners with these histories among them either have entirely fabricated backstories when they form as new beings OR they remember things from their lives as objects and that is translated into histories for their new form as living people. i personally think the latter is much more likely when we consider swatch and their dialogue

swatch was likely a paint program akin to MS Paint before the advent of a dark fountain bringing them and their surroundings into a sapient state of being and with that in mind, remember this dialogue?

with how closely the NEO body resembles mettaton NEO's form and how spamton NEO's theme "BIG SHOT" samples "Another Medium", "Power of NEO", and "Ghost Fight"/"Dummy!", we can pretty safely assume this was pre-perfect body mettaton that swatch "helped" in creating his most perfect body. (mettaton im care and lov u 🥺🥺🥺) swatch, being a personified paint program, likely helped mettaton in creating a mockup of his perfect body by mettaton literally drawing the body in the paint program swatch was.

putting obvious connections everyones made by now aside, this all supports the idea that darkners remember their lives as everyday objects… now. what does this have to do with spamton?

well, spamton is a darkner, just as everyone else in his world minus our lightner heroes. so… how was he getting phone calls? how can a spam email/ad get a literal phone call? that doesnt make much sense, right?

so okay, what if this is an abstraction? like how swatch helped create mettaton's dream? what else could these "phone calls" stand for?

shall we take a trip back to 1997? the year spamton, the self-proclaimed email guy, himself states was "a good year". 

presumably this was the spammy salesman's peak. his prime. at least a good enough year that he remembers and looks back on so fondly. now, what was the internet like in 1997?

oh yeah! we had… dial-up modems to access the internet. which used a phone line to do so. and… spam emails that commonly read like 'forward this to 10 of your friends!' interesting. very… very interesting.

so. what if we assume the "phone calls" were this: the mysterious contact (who we'll name X in this post for brevity) spamton was getting help from connected to the dialup internet and boosted a particular spam email for whatever reason and retroactively gave an e-manlet deep religious trauma when the emails started declining in popularity bc no one likes spam and

by the 2000s, dialup was on a major decline as broadband reigned champion in popularity. now, the phone in spamton's shop is still ringing. that's what stumped me for the longest time. if the calls stopped, why's the phone still ringing? and why is there "garbage noise" on the other end? the same garbage noise we can presume is like the sound that escapes kris's phone when we attempt to use it in the dark worlds.

what if spamton's decline AND the end of the phone calls coincided with the advent of the dialup internet in the library being disconnected in favor of broadband? what if X is still attempting to contact spamton but all that comes out is garbage noise as the way they were connected is gone? and what if that's the most tragic part of all; what if spamton was never purposefully abandoned? what if X never meant to leave him, things just… happened and X couldn't help him anymore. X was unable to help further. X's hands were tied, even.

and so came spamton's fall from popularity… and grace.

but thaTS JUST A GAME THIEORUIY

[quicksandblock]

speaking of c!techno and losses, cus I thought about it a bit in the shower, you know what I would've liked for techno to lean into? the loss of his allyship and friendship with c!tommy.

even though the relationship between them was completely dysfunctional and doomed to fail due to conflicting goals, they still CLEARLY cared for each other while working together. and c!techno was clearly very hurt and felt betrayed when c!tommy switched sides. that could've been a major loss for him, or prompt him to question his ideals and whether it was worth the people he hurt and lost.

that's really why c!technos response to c!tommys death later was disappointing. sure, you could argue that 1. c!techno isn't the type to grieve publicly and maybe he grieved privately "off-camera" 2. cc!techno obviously prefers a lighthearted tone and isn't gonna lean into angst.

but his lack of response obviously gives the audience the impression that he doesn't care. and im not sure if that was the intent, but if it is, that's disappointing.

there could've been subtle ways to show grief and regret (he's good at the subtle stuff anyway). he couldve subtly implied that he was covering up grief with humor. techno is not a bad actor or writer, he excels at subtle storytelling. but that whole thing really made me just. dislike and distrust his character, lol

-cube-cumb3r (thank u for reblogging my crit post earlier btw)

it was a good post lol, like I said you put it all very well

and yes!! all of this!!! like it would have been weird if he’d grieved too obviously, but we wanted something, and we didn’t get it, and now Techno’s character is starting to feel kind of flat. he’s losing a lot of depth he had at the start. like it’s still an interesting character, but more and more we’re having to read that in from possibly-unintentional clues rather than being able to analyze obviously deliberate character choices.

unfortunately I think the root of the problem is that Techno isn’t having as much fun on the dsmp anymore. he came in to play a cartoon villain and promote his channel, and suddenly everyone’s storylines are fucking dark and everyone has 15 different kinds of ptsd and his funny anarchist pig doesn’t really have a place there anymore. not to say his character hasn’t always had its serious moments - but like the dream smp itself, they used to be the spice that added significance to a mostly lighthearted story, not the norm. nowadays it feels like you have to be able to cry on command to even participate.

there’s also the fact that he doesn’t really like collaborative storytelling. he’s said this on stream before - I can’t remember exactly when, but it was when half the fandom decided that Ranboo was his son (?? why????) and he had to come in and clear that up. he doesn’t like other people being able to decide things about his character, and he doesn’t really like “yes and”-ing as far as I can tell. he prefers to have tighter control over his own story. which is valid - but creates some problems in a story built entirely out of collaborative roleplay.

unfortunately both of these lead him to clash with Tommy’s storytelling style pretty severely - Tommy loves the dark stuff, and he’s also more than willing to play off of people and let improv and chance have a strong influence on his character’s path. and Tommy does a lot of highly emotional improv acting, which Technoblade just Doesn’t (unless the emotion is anger).

Ranboo and Tubbo have been talking about the older “semi-lore” style of the smp recently, and I think that a return to that style would allow Techno to come back to participate more in the story. but overall I think the conflict here is going to remain until the current arcs, especially the Tommy and Dream thing, have been wrapped up. which is unfortunate because Techno is kind of an integral part of some of those arcs.

coming back to specifically his response to Tommy’s death... I kind of feel like cc!Techno is trying to retroactively make that relationship less important to his character in an attempt to separate himself from the grimdark stuff. but I honestly can’t tell. it could just be a manifestation of his tsundere-ness. I hope it is, because while I get not being interested in a darker story, it would be kind of disappointing if he just noped out of any story that didn’t fall in his comfort zone. I just wish he would fucking stream so we could have anything at all to go off of lmao

[ohsweetflips]

i have a genuine arcana question! I really want to play it and actually did part of it a while back, but i really felt like it was a bit of a money sink... it seemed really cool so i guess im wondering if its worth it?

i'm putting this under the cut just bc it got long!!! :D

okay so!!! i have honestly been thinking abt this a lot and, like, i will admit that i was kinda retroactively shocked by how uhhh quickly i spent like Real Money on the arcana? i think that's kinda like the kicker of having a lot of like $1/$5 options? to be fair as much as i am living in the arcana rn, it's whole play model Does seem to be based in, ah, microtransactions!

and like for a hot minute, i was quick to drop like small amounts on coins bc i do work, so i had the mantra of "well i'm getting paid in a week so-" but still i'd be careful with that!! like i've been playing for almost a month and it was really in that first week where i was like "well $1/$5... it's not that much" which like! tbh i don't wanna be like "no never spend money on a game ever" bc that'd make me. a hypocrite! and also to a degree, like, ik people talk abt microtransactions a lot in video games, but i don't think any in-game purchase at all is a bad thing, and i think it's fine to treat yourself once in a while! but also i am purposely replaying julian's route (and replaying it slowly) so that i can start racking up coins to carry over into the replay/the next arc i want to play (because you get free coins every day from the tarot daily section, and 40 coins per day by watching ads)

but also!! i think it's also good to just kinda think abt the kind of person you are when it comes to spending? like to put myself on blast, i have become Very Prone to impulse purchasing, especially when i'm in a rough patch, bc apparently retail therapy is a very real thing akjdsjksdkj so after i finished julian's route, i metaphorically sat myself down and was like "nope, no, this cannot become a habit!!! the coined options will still be there later, you can take your time and replay the game, which you want to do anyway"

but that is also bc i Know that i have... the type of personality that really latches onto stuff like that? like, little things that, on it's own, don't cost a lot of money, and it makes me feel happy, so i'm like "well, it's only X amount!" and then. yeah.

but also i have to be transparent here and say that i am also coming from a place of like. privilege, where i'm working full-time and i still live at home, so there is a degree of financial security that allows for me to have spending money. which is also why i don't want to uncritically be like "go ahead! treat yourself!" bc like, it might also be dependent on your current situation!!

and also my more harsher critique of the arcana Asides from the paywall is that like....... tbh the better scenes in the game Are behind the in-game coin paywall (and also tbh only 3 of the 6 arcs are enticing enough to me to consider grinding for coins to parry that paywall). and that tbh is def part of the business model bc, like, a lot of the free options cut off the chapters so quickly and that to me isn't worth it, like being very frank if i only chose the options that didn't use the coins, idk if i would have liked it nearly as much

so tldr (i'm sorry i ramble), the arcana has become what i have latched onto right now, and i love the story! however, i will be honest, most of that "worth" factor comes from the content behind the in-game paywall, which is then behind an actual real paywall. so if you're in a place where you have some spending money and won't blow a shit-ton of money on a game, then the choice is up to you! i don't want any of this to feel like i am Telling you what to do with your money, and at least how i see it, what helped me was essentially telling myself "you are forming a habit that will dig you into such a deep hole, just take your time, save up the in-game currency, and replay." so like!! i think the arcana as a game is very fun and i am fixating so hard on it rn, however whether it's Worth the paywall is dependent on your situation, i think

(and also just bc i'm Anxious, i would consider this less advice and more so "hey, i'm someone with an impulse spending habit and here is how i see/navigate the arcana paywall")

(edit: okay i'm rewording my take on the free arcana content, bc it's not that it's not good! closer to the end of julian's route, i started being a lot more picky with What coined options i used, and i still had a very fun time!! and tbh that gave me incentive to want to replay bc now i have new stuff to still look forward to!! it's more so that the scenes unlocked with the coined options are very fun, and i think they're a good incentive to save up for!!! :D)

[bisluthq]

I’ve been really down over grammygate for all the reasons you’ve mentioned. I was trying to think of how people would react to other artists doing what she did and could you imagine if Kanye credited Kim on 33% of songs after it won a AOTY Grammy? Because I KNOW THAT would generate outrage. And people would say things like:

• Kanye is crazy (which is commonly said and unfair given we know he has mental health conditions, but in the colloquial way, he’d be said to be crazy) or dumb or whipped - because why else would Kim get a Grammy? /// and people should be asking why Joe got a Grammy

• people would question their relationship status and because they were known to have some messy moments , people would gossip that Kanye added Kim later on as a grand gesture of love OR he left her out in the beginning because they were fighting at the time of release but are back on good terms now

• heaps of people and media outlets would be questioning Kim directly with technical questions about producing and try to force her to say something that was musically smart, sit her in front of a board and ask her to prove she can do it, or try to trap her in her lie that she can do any of it

• people for sure would be more outraged that Kim had a Grammy for AOTY before Beyoncé. And that would show the sexism side more because we’d be comparing the talent of 2 women, Kim and Bey, compared to just going ‘oh yeah, Joe has a Grammy now’ - like no one is trashing Joe’s character when raising the issue that it sucks he has an AOTY before Beyoncé, but when women win over men, all the sexism (especially slut shaming variety) comes out

• neither Kim or Kanye would be “cancelled” because they seem invincible to that tbh, and eventually people would laugh over it being another part of the Kimye story...

I know what I said is all hypothetical and ok Kimye have split now, so it probably won’t ever happen. But I think the issues people would make over Kim getting a vanity credit/AOTY/ retroactive credit should still be discussed by joe getting one.... and instead people are making it more about “be a *good* taylor swift fan” or “it doesn’t effect you directly so why care?”

IM going in roundabouts and don’t mean to, but it feels like some people are missing the point or choosing not to listen to why some of us are disappointed - as you say - as a fan - in Taylor, and the RA but we already knew they were difficult. And as a fan of taylor, I think she’s compromised her entire musical legacy with this because it allows for debate to resurface if she had ghost writers since the beginning (which was based entirely on the idea that teenage girls couldn’t write that well) because according to this Retroactive Grammy, she DID work with a GHOST PRODUCER!

Ive LwYs Cared about her as a creator and that’s why this to me as a fan of her is all so disappointing now. And I’d have been disappointed tbh if he was credited as a producer from the beginning, but only in a way where it’s like “wow you really do think he IS EVERYTHING?!? You really believe you couldn’t work without him?!!!!” Now it’s like I partially think that, but I mostly think “you lied and probably cheated on the most prestigious award in music for him when you thought it was safe and sneaky???” She was canceled the first time in part “for lying” and it’s like the two biggest things that have plagued her career - is she really the one doing the work and is she a liar - she just did them in one go... I can’t express it clearly and I’m sorry this was so long. It’s just sad. But yeah, I agree with you about a lot of what you’ve said on this and it’s weird to think how differently the narrative would be if it were other people getting the award.

Sending love to you if you want it 💜

Good thoughts yeah I agree.

[lesbeet]

not to be a nerd but i accidentally just wrote a whole impromptu essay about editing ndjsdksksk im throwing it under a cut bc it's fucking inane and really long but honestly... i just want other people to become as passionate about editing as i am lmaooooo

i also recommend 2 books in the post so if anything at least check those out!

quality books about editing... *chef's kiss* a lot of the basic ones (including blog posts online n such) are geared towards beginners and end up repeating the same info/advice, much of it either oversimplified or misrepresented tbh. but i read one yesterday and i'm reading another one right now that really convey this passion for editing + consideration for it as its own sort of art and i just!!

it's such a weird thing to be passionate about lmao but i AM and i've spent a lot of time the past year or so consciously honing my craft (ik i mention this like 4 times a week i'm just really proud of how much i've learned and improved) and kind of like. solidifying my instincts into conscious choices i guess?

and these GOOD editing books have both a) taught me new information and/or presented familiar information through a new perspective that helped me understand something differently or in more depth, and b) validated or even just put into words certain preferences or techniques that i've developed on my own, that i don't normally see on those more basic lists i mentioned

btw the book i finished yesterday is self-editing for fiction writers: how to edit yourself into print by renni brown and dave king, and the one i'm reading currently is the artful edit: on the practice of editing yourself by susan bell.

the former was pretty sharp and straightforward. the authors demonstrated some of their points directly in the text, which was usually funny enough that i would show certain quotes to my sister without context

("Just think about how much power a single obscenity can have if it’s the only one in the whole fucking book." <- (it was)

"Frequent italics have come to signal weak writing. So you should never resort to them unless they are the only practical choice, as with the kind of self-conscious internal dialogue shown above or an occasional emphasis."

or, my favorite: "There are a few stylistic devices that are so “tacky” they should be used very sparingly, if at all. First on the list is emphasis quotes, as in the quotes around the word “tacky” in the preceding sentence. The only time you need to use them is to show you are referring to the word itself, as in the quotes around the word “tacky” in the preceding sentence. Read it again; it all makes sense.")

and like i said, i also learned some new ideas or techniques (or they articulated vague ideas i already had but struggled to put into practice), AND they mentioned some suggestions that ive literally never seen anyone else bring up (not to say no one has! just that ive never seen it, and ive seen a lot in terms of writing tips, advice, best practices, etc) that ive already sort of established in my own writing

for example they went into pretty fine detail about dialogue mechanics, more than i usually see, and in talking about the pacing and proportion of "beats" and dialogue in a given scene, they explicitly suggested that, if a character speaks more than a sentence or two and you plan on giving them some sort of dialogue tag or an action to perform as a beat, the tag or action should be placed at one of the earliest (if not the first) natural pauses in the dialogue, so as not to distance the character too far from the dialogue -- bc otherwise the reader ends up getting all of the dialogue information first, and then has to go back and retroactively insert the character, or what they're doing, or the way they look/sound while they're giving their little speech

and like this was something ive figured out on my own, mostly bc it jarred me out of something i was reading enough times (probably in fic tbh) that i started noticing it, and realized that it's something i do naturally, kind of to anchor the character to the dialogue mechanic to make sure it makes sense with the actual dialogue

so like. ok here's an example i just randomly pulled from the song of achilles (it was available on scribd so i just looked for a spot that worked to illustrate my point djsmsks)

the actual quote is written effectively, but here's a less effective version first:

“Perhaps I would, but I see no reason to kill him. He’s done nothing to me," Achilles answered coolly.

see and even with such a short snippet it's so much smoother and more vivid just by moving the dialogue tag, not adding or cutting a word:

“Perhaps I would, but I see no reason to kill him.” Achilles answered coolly. “He’s done nothing to me.”

the rhythm of it is better, and the beat that the dialogue tag creates functions as a natural dramatic pause before achilles delivers an incredibly poignant line, both within the immediate context of the scene and because we as the readers can recognize it as foreshadowing. plus, it flows smoothly because that beat was inserted where the dialogue already contained a natural pause, just bc that's how people speak. if you read both versions aloud, they both make sense, but the second version (the original used in the novel) accounts for the rhythm of dialogue, the way people tend to process information as they read, AND the greater context of the story, and as a result packs significantly more purpose, information, and effect into the same exact set of words

and THAT, folks, is the kind of editing minutia i can literally sit and hyperfocus on for hours without noticing. anyway it's a good book lmao

the one i'm reading now is a lot more about the cognitive process/es of editing, so there's less concrete and specific advice (so far, anyway) and more discussion about different mental approaches to editing, as well as tips and tools for making a firm distinction between your writer brain and your editor brain, which is something i struggle with

but there have been so many good quotes that ive highlighted! a lot of just like. reminders and things to think about, and also just lovely articulations of things id thought of or come to understand in much more vague ways.

scribd won't let me copy/paste this one bc it's a document copy and not an actual ebook, but this passage is talking about how the simple act of showing a piece of writing to someone else for the very first time can spark a sudden shift in perspective on the work, bc you'll (or at least i) frantically try to re-read it through their eyes and end up noticing a bunch of new errors -

or she talked about the perils of constant re-reading in the middle of writing a draft, which is something i struggle with a LOT, both bc i'm a perfectionist and bc i prefer editing to writing so i sit and edit when i'm procrastinating doing the actual hard work of writing lmao

it's just this side of fake deep tbh but i so rarely see editing discussed like this--as a mixture of art and science, a collaboration between instinct and technique, that really requires "both sides of the brain" to be done well.

and because of the way my own brain works, activities that require such a balanced concentration of creativity and logic really appeal to me. even though ive seen a lot of people (even professional writers) who frame it as the creative art of writing vs the logical discipline of editing. but i think that's such a misleading way of thinking about it, because writing and editing both require creativity and logic -- just different kinds! (not to mention that the line between writing and editing, while mostly clear, can get a little blurry from up close)

but like...all stories have an inner logic to them, even if the writer hasn't explicitly or consciously planned it, and even if the logic is faulty in places in the first couple of drafts. when you're sitting and daydreaming about your story, especially if you're trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between two points or scenes (or, how to write a sequence of events that presents as a logical, inevitable progression of cause and effect), the voice in your head that evaluates an idea and decides to 1) go with it, 2) scrap it, 3) tweak it until it works, or 4) hold onto it in case you want it later? that's your logic! if an idea feels wrong, or like it just doesn't work, it's probably because some part of you is detecting a conflict between some part of the idea and the overall logic of your story. every decision you make as you write is formed by and checked against your own experiential logic, and also by the internal logic of your story, which is far less developed (or at least, one would hope), and therefore more prone to the occasional laspe

but while ive seen a number of articles that discuss the logic of writing, i don't see people gushing as much about the art of editing and it's such a shame

the inner editor is so often characterized as the responsible parent to the writer's carefree child, or a relentless critic of the writer's unselfconscious, unpolished drivel

and it's like... maybe you just hate thinking critically about your work! maybe you view it that way because you're imposing external standards too fiercely onto your writing, and it's sucked the joy out of shaping and sculpting your words until they sing. maybe you prefer to conceive of your writing as divine communication, the process of which must remain unencumbered by lessons learned through experience or the vulnerability of self-reflection, until the buzzkill inner editor shows up with all those "rules" and "conventions" that only matter if you're trying to get published

and like obviously the market doesn't dictate which conventions are worth following, but the majority of widely-agreed-upon writing standards, especially those aimed at beginners, (and most especially those regarding style, as opposed to story structure) have to do with the effectiveness and efficiency of prose, and, in addition to often serving as a shorthand for distinguishing an amateur from a pro, overall help to increase poignancy and clarity, which is crucial no matter the genre or type of writing. and even if you personally believe otherwise, it's better to understand the conventions so you can break them with real purpose.

so editing shouldn't be about trying to shove your pristine artistic masterpiece into a conventional mold, it should be about using the creative instincts of your ear and your logic and experience-based understanding of writing as a craft to hone your words until you've told your story as effectively as possible

thank u for coming to my ted talk ✌️