#where did y'all come from

[sophierequests]

uhm?? hi??

i was offline yesterday, and when i opened tumblr this morning i had over one thousand notifications?? one hundred and fifty notifications were new followers?? i reached five hundred followers two weeks ago and now i have seven hundred?? this does not feel real, someone pinch me (or hit me, because this feels so unreal).

i am very certain that the release of season to has sparked this sudden interest in the fandom, but i am very thankful (and a little bit overwhelmed) nontheless <33 so, hi and thank you for everyone that saw my mediocre writing and decided that i am someone worth following, i am genuinely baffled.

i'm currently a bit slumped with finishing my term paper and finishing the requests for my last follower celebration, so i am a bit busy rn, but i promise i'll do something special as soon as i can!! i also still don't have wifi at home, so please bear with me if i'm a bit inactive or selective with the messages i answer!!

tagging my mutuals because i need some emotional support or someone to bonk me on the head rn (or both):

@brekkers-desigirl @writingmysanity @b3kk3r-by-br3kk3r @ell0ra-br3kk3r @juneberrie @velvetarcane @maximoffgxrl @factionlessrebel @dellabearry @yesshewrites1 @freddycarterswife @maliciousbrekker @futurecorps3 @rowritesstuff @hufflesight @spaceagebachelormann @zaypay @jahayla-parker @pregnant-piggy @nyxxxxxxxx @vamp-rom-stuff @grimbanes @the-lonewriter @mah33n

[oatmealdaydreams]

Song for Logan

I had a thought: "Infinitesimal" by Mother Mother is such a Logan song.

Think about it.

The lyrics? All the facts and scientific things?All the things about space and the stars??

I need this to be CANON.

[thatoneluckybee]

hi! how did people find the hi cage post again

[bunnightwing]

WAIT HOLD ON since when do I have so many followers??? Where did they come from??????

[mexashepot]

The combo of having a very sensitive skin, being super clumsy and having high pain tolerance means finding new bruises on your skin almost on a daily basis without knowing WHERE THE FUCK YOU GOT THEM FROM

[nikatyler]

Oh hey 3 100 + of you is here now, what the heck?!

[gaylightisminetocommand]

how did i get 51 followers

[tinea-siderum]

holy fuuck?? to reach 50 before 2024 would be so cool ngl

[dragonslaved]

By talos this can't be happening

I've been rewatching Utena for the first time in. Gosh. well over 15 years. I think the last time I truly watched this series beginning to end was, at the latest, 2006. But my partner has never seen it. We're in the final 5 episodes, and I had to watch ahead to check for content warnings and the art/animation direction for the Apocalypse arc is so subtle and sinister.

Up until this point, Utena when she's in her dueling garb has been fairly unchanged except for the added flourishes to her uniform.

Just the added epaulette and tassels, the bit of ruffle at the bottom of her uniform coat.

But once she hits the Apocalypse arc, once she begins using the gondola to the arena and Anthy is pulling her sword from Utena, there is the most subtle change: she starts having lipstick on during the duels.

Anthy does as well. It's such a subtle thing that no one brings attention to. When you know what Akio is doing to her, when you know what's coming for her in the end, this subtle change is so glaring and blatant. On a first blind watch, you may not even notice it. Or if you do (like my partner did), you may not even question it.

One other subtle thing is Dios. In all the duels before when he appears, he's this featureless, faceless image.

(Literally, the final frame I can get of him coming down. This is as much as we see.)

But once she meets Akio properly, once he starts grooming her, there's the slightest change. I never really caught it before until this watch, and I know my partner didn't catch it at all.

They're such quick, subtle changes as Utena falls further and further into Akio's hands. I'm glad I'm rewatching this after so long, noticing new things to appreciate in its production.

I know for folks who have watched this series more often than I have, these are likely obvious things that have been spoken about repeatedly. But man. It really hit me this watch through.

[dafry-shenanigans]

What would you do if you saw an alternate version of yourself cry?

[acethelonewanderer]

i will say this as many times as i can as long as i can inhale oxygen

DEEP BREATH

SONADOW IS NOT ENEMIES TO LOVERS THEY ARE RIVALS TO LOVERS PLS GET IT RIGHT

[flying-cat]

Preparing myself to read a Persona 5 fic because it sounds super interesting but Maruki is a tagged character which means there's like a 70% chance that he's being mischaracterized

[bear-boi-5]

BWH-

The woman was too stunned to speak

[primus-why]

I Feel TFOne Could've Handled This Better...

Hot take but I feel like folks have been really generous with the take that OP was unable to find ~the perfect words~ in the heat of the moment (and thus should be given some grace) when he told D to stand down and "not be like Sentinel"... namely cuz I don't feel that the narrative supports this?

Like-- after all is said and done, OP doesn't reflect on that part of their split. He doesn't have a moment where he seeks validation or voices his regrets over the choice of his words, it's actually cut-and-dry. The narrative (as it stands) supports that OP saw D-16 acting up, so he called him out and stood on business, down to the last scenes where he's basically like "yeah it's a shame but y'all knew I had to do it to 'em."

It didn't have to be much! I'm not saying to absolve Megs, just show OP looking at things from a different perspective/contemplating a bit on that tough choice and the morality of the moment. Some examples of what I wish we had:

B-127 straight up blurting the obvious by later chatting with Orion like, "Wait so you told your best friend that he was acting just as bad as the guy who enslaved us for our entire lives and was torturing him like an hour ago? Oof. Seems kinda harsh." Then have some of OP's regret show on his face.

OP asking Elita-1 after Megs is banished if he did the right thing. Have Elita back his choice up, saying, "You should have seen what he did after you were... gone. It was terrifying. I know it was tough, but you made the right call." OP is grateful for the support, but a conflicted look still flashes across his face before he steels himself to look out towards the horizon... and the future.

Have OP walk past other mechs/former miners who didn't go with the High Guard saying stuff like, "Wish I could've given Sentinel a piece of my mind!" "Yeah, but I'm glad he's gone for good." "Ugh I miss everything." "Oh, it was crazy! Megatron picked him up and then he rrrrriiipped-- oops, hey there, Mr. Optimus... Prime... sir?" And have OP wave hello, looking a bit sick when they leave.

Post-credits scene with Starscream going on and on, asking Megs when they'll be back to teach the upstart Prime a lesson. Megs grabs his face to shut him up. "Patience, Starscream. The Prime thinks I'm no better than Sentinel... but I'll show him. He wants Iacon? He can have it. In the meantime we'll take the rest of the planet! Then I'll come back, crush Prime under my heel, and we'll take Iacon too. Sentinel's reign will barely be a footnote, because I'm about to become Optimus Prime's worst nightmare." The vocal performance would really need to sell this-- like picture Megs saying something like that from a place of anger and hurt, not so much a place of genuine evil or malice.

Basically instead of Orion's assertion being backed up as black and white/good vs bad, I wish we had some different opinions/reactions from the characters sprinkled in there. Like you can't tell me out of allllll the miners who weren't strong enough/willing to go with the High Guard and ended up sticking around that NONE of them were like "eyyo honestly?? Kiiiiinda glad Sentinel is dead. Wish I could have helped, tbh." like come onnnnn...

And you can't even argue that he's not an active threat-- I don't think everyone would see things that way! It's not just about the threat he physically has, but the threat he represents and is very likely to act upon if given the opportunity! He has a proven track record of not only being sneaky and conniving, but also capable of dealing some serious damage/killing people bigger and stronger than him, plus he has the backing of the Quints. All he'd need to do is wriggle his way out of jail and run off to his sponsors, then he'd probably be back to hurt more people! (If the Quints didn't just kill him out of incompetence lmao). There's a lot of "ifs" here, but I think it's a valid argument that not everyone would agree on what is the right or wrong way to handle Sentinel once he was down long enough to, like, do something about him.

I feel the situation needed a bit of nuance. In some way I wish they had kicked the can and had D and Orion bicker while Sentinel escaped, then have D get frustrated enough by the loss of Sentinel to point fingers (and his fusion canon) at Orion, who then falls and becomes OP. (Megs could still show some of thar emotion/remorse right after he does it too.) Not only would this open the door for a sequel, but tbh the Quint might have just killed Sentinel anyways and sought to deal with the miners uprising themselves lol. (Maybe that could have been an after credits scenes too instead of the B-127 bit??)

Would love to see a moment in a sequel where they have a calmer moment after arguing for a bit. Have OP mention how Megs was out of line, that it hurt and even scared him to see him act that way, and Megs can quietly point out "you said I was as bad as Sentinel... is that really how you see me? After everything we went through?"

Then OP can fumble the bag again lmao like "D, I... I'm sorry, that didn't come out right... but you still took things way too far..."

"Why am I not surprised-- your opinion is what matters the most! Maybe that's why you became a Prime, since you're so good at acting like the world revolves around you--!"

*gets interrupted by someone else before another yelling match ensues*

[blondeaxolotl]

gonna explode maurice w/ my mind. He's a lil shit but I love the goober sm

[ravenwoodalum]

on karamelle, why it sucks, and redeeming azteca's reputation.

I just got to Karamelle for the second time, and good lord. I hadn't forgotten how much I hated it, but it hit me like a wall of bricks. And I'm already preparing myself to marathon it and be fucking done questing here for at least a year.

I think it breaks down like this.

Baby's first workers rights movement/sugary-sweet surveillance state Listen. I know this is a game that doesn't allow for player characters to have much individual impact on the in-game narrative. I know we've had to do errands for cops. I know we work for a war criminal. I KNOW there are flaws in the system. But there's something about the way that Karamelle's set up that makes it all feel so. much. worse. And that's the fact that Karamelle has such a stellar reputation within the Spiral before this. The happiest place in the Spiral, the sweetest treats in the Spiral. Everyone seems to fucking love this place. Almost no one outside of those actually working there seem to understand how corrupt it is. And so the YW is talked down to at every turn, like this is their first exposure to a corrupt environment. And sure, maybe it is within, canon. YW gets isekai'd at a very young age and then made into a child soldier, maybe this is actually the first time in canon that they've been introduced to these concepts. But (and this may just be me) it feels really rude to the player -- who might actually have experience with these ideas -- to make them feel like a fucking idiot with the dialogue options. Karamelle's characters just feel rude.

Oh, so the Gobblers were a fatphobic, Roald Dahl type thing from the start. Cool cool cool. Any of you ever read Roald Dahl's book "The Twits"? It's a very unremarkable story all things considered, except for this bit.

Aside from Roald Dahl's unavoidable history of antisemitism, does this remind you of anything? Honestly, this reminds me of the Gobbblers.

We first meet the Gobblers around level 10 in Wizard City -- creatures driven by consumption. And then we get to Empyrea and hear that the Alphoi -- skinny "civilized" creatures -- can become Gobblers if they eat too much or are unhealthy in their eating habits. Which makes one of our oldest running enemies a loop-around fatphobic thing, ESPECIALLY when we get to them in Karamelle, the home world of the Gobblers. Rosina, especially, just oozes fatphobia and diet culture. The literal vilification of being fat isn't even subtext, it's just text.

The Old One, The Cabal, and what to do when your escape from the world ends up shoving what you were escaping from right back in your face. When I was in sophomore year of college, fall of 2019, I had one of the worst mental health periods of my life. Antisemitism was fucking everywhere, I was always a moment away from a panic attack, and it felt like no one understood. While I'm lucky in the fact that I was able to get an official diagnosis for genetically inherited PTSD, alongside the reassurance that I wasn't fucking crazy, there was a period when I just needed to go home for a moment. So when I was going back to my dorm from the dining hall to make sure all my stuff was ready to go, I opened up tumblr and made a post on a long-gone RP sideblog I had for the Swedish Chef (y'know, from The Muppets? long story), and before I'd even gotten halfway across campus, I'd received threatening and violent messages from someone RPing as Borat, which only got worse when they realized they were talking to an actual Jewish person.

That escape from reality didn't even last five fucking minutes before the horrors I was trying to avoid found me.

Now, Wizard101 has always been a source of comfort for me. I made my account fourteen years ago, and I do not know what my life would look like if I hadn't done that. There are flaws with this game, yes, sure, but over the past five years (since I got a wiz compatible laptop) I've developed a bit of a reliance on it to get me through the horrors. No better form of escapism.

But no art form is free of the horrors.

And Wizard101 has the fucking Cabal and Old One.

The Cabal within the fiction of Wizard101 is a secret, nefarious organization pulling the strings on events across the Spiral, controlling history from the shadows. This term literally originates in antisemitic conspiracy theory, with the term 'cabal' originating from the term for Jewish mysticism, 'kabbalah'. And I promise you, you've heard plenty of applications of this conspiracy theory in real life too. It feeds into the idea that Jews (or 'global elite') control the government, the media, the banks.

And then, we get to the man in control of it all. The Old One. Whether or not this was intended, he's a walking, talking antisemitic caricature. The octopus as a symbol for the mythical Elders of Zion is a longstanding dogwhistle (see attached for a guide to this and many other visual dogwhistles). "Oh, he's based on H.P. Lovecraft-" So he's based on the works of a famous racist and antisemite, cool cool cool.

It's just exhausting, walking through a world that is so clearly modeled after Germany and other parts of eastern Europe, and finding antisemitism around every corner. And even more exhausting considering it's almost impossible to tell if they meant to do it. Antisemitism is so fucking ingrained in the world at this point that I don't actually know what they meant to do here, what they did maliciously or out of ignorance, or if any of it was put in with the purpose of turning it on its head. Over the past few years, it has become glaringly obvious that a lot of people don't realize when they're running across antisemitism, or even taking part in it. Including people I really thought would know better.

Side note. For those of you who know I see Dasein as Jewish, you may be wondering how I balance that out with the antisemitic nature of The Old One, since they share a physical form. I think of it like this. Dasein did not choose The Old One. He did not choose to resemble that, but he can attempt to reclaim it. Dasein's Judaism comes not from the resemblance he holds to the hatred that haunts us, but from the love that keeps us going. He questions authority and longstanding tradition, chooses to do what's right instead of what's expected, and is kind in the face of hatred. He literally makes himself, and a world, out of nothingness. Something out of Nothing. He's so Jewish you guys.

The Spiral's "Worst World Award" goes to... I know we all say "fuck Azteca" pretty often on this website, but I don't think it deserves to be deigned the worst world in Wiz. My main gripe with Azteca is how inaccessible it gets after Xibalba strikes -- the flashing lights aren't exactly photosensitive friendly. Which further lends frustration to my completionist nature, meaning I have to finish all quests, badges, and fishing before I finish the world (making it take forever to finish). Aside from that, there really isn't that much wrong with the world (and if you argue that it sucks because you can't save Azteca, I get it, but some tragedies are inescapable by their very nature). It's a problem of gameplay, versus a problem of plot in the case of Karamelle. And maybe its just because I'm a writer, but problems with plot feel much more egregious. I really do think Karamelle deserves more vitriol than it gets.

G-d, I can't wait to get to Lemuria.