#which is an absurd amount of meta

[elacular-kink]

Decent chance you already know them, but the Poly-techhic girls. For those who don't want to click through, in brief we have:

Susanna/Susie: Short, butch chinese american (adopted from china as a baby) who's got a hiccup fetish and some serious fucking feelings about it, feelings that she is pretty bad at expressing. She likes hoodies and somehow has, as the kids say, "rizz".

Olivia/Liv: A tall, skinny black girl who's autistic and chooses not to mask most of the time. She gets the hiccups extremely often, which led to her befriending Susanna and being the first to find out about her fetish. She's aromantic, but is bisexual and considers Susanna to be a life partner, albeit not a romantic one. She's also a bit of a troll.

Maya: The one who gives all the nicknames. A red-haired chubby and muscular white girl who wears glasses and tackles people while playing rugby. Eternally full of energy and looking for outlets for it, Maya causes chaos in the lives of just about everyone she meets, for better or for worse. She's also slept with half the people at their college.

Kiran/Kiki: A dark-skinned Indian american (born in america) trans woman. Both very tall and very fat. Extremely shy and sweet and also pretty naive. Autistic and bad at masking, but accustomed to having to do so. And crushing extremely hard on the girls generally and Susanna specifically.

All four are extremely polyamorous and have a tangle of relationships with each other (which isn't really that important, as they all toe or cross the line between friend and romantic/sexual partner anyway). So no reason they couldn't be friends or even dating people outside of their polycule, though I don't know that it would be a part of the actual canon.

...christ, my fetish fic has a canon.

Anybody wanna share hiccup ocs??

Maybe my ocs and your ocs can be friends

👉👈

I'm really in a writing mood, but I haven't written in such a long time...

Legit just info dumb your character(s) and I'll happily read and love them as well

[galactic-knightmare]

"Before the War, all of the Dark Matter was usually held at bay by the Halcandrans, as they were one of the only races with extreme amounts of light magic. However, after their mysterious disappearance and the unknown destruction of their world, the forces of dark matter were free to run amok, leading to this war.

Due to Lady Phosphor's, quite frankly, absurd affinity with light magic, none of us have been able to train her to use it properly, and as such, the King decided to reach out to the last remaining Halcandran to see if they would be willing to train her.

Thankfully, for whatever reason, Lord Elfilis has agreed to take her on as their student." -Ancient DM War Log, translated by the GSA Historians

More Phosphor lorrreee

Young Phosphor flying above one of the allied planets with Elfilis. this was before the DM attack on Lord Skyvern's nest, so she has her old armor and cape here, and her horns haven't fully grown in yet, though at this point she was an adult- Astral horns just take a while to grow in fully sometimes, depending on the individual.

TBH I do really like Elfilis so I should probably draw them more...

(also yes, Phosphor's eyes do the weird color-mood thing that Meta's do. there is a reason for that, but it'll be in Nightlight once I continue it- which will be after the tournament is over, unless I get impatient LMAO)

[katyspersonal]

Gotta point this out for certain though, SOTE is definitely not the first time Fromsoft was creating the story with the direction of "well we thought it was the final draft, but we then decided to continue it which resulted in a retcon that makes it awkward"! Dark Souls 3 IS this thing too!

Dark Souls 2 pushed very hard for the idea that Drangleic was build on the ruins of countless kingdoms that raised and fell for absurd amount of cycles on the earth where Lordran stood all this time ago! This is why there are so many weapons and sorceries owned by characters from Dark Souls 1 "whose names were long forgotten" and more importantly, this is why "Old Ones" are reincarnations of Gwyn, Nito, Witch of Izalith and Seath! Not the first reincarnations, mind you, as Vendrick also beat them up back in his time! Literally the "How many times do we have to teach you, old man" moment hdhygnm

But, Dark Souls 3 kinda retconned this into a situation where all these magics, objects and legends just mysteriously got washed into Drangleic through all these traveling people, and "names being forgotten" is just a severe case of long distance and lack of communication with their places of origin... all while Anor Londo and Lordran literally still exist this whole time and only very few people had enough braincells to just go there ghthfyh (Aldia to convince Lothric to not be a Melina, Bearer of the Curse for some reasons but they told the world about Lucatiel, Creighton moving in Irithyll and.... fuckin Gilligan to become father to Sulyvahn, it isn't even a joke..)

And it makes the Old Ones + Daughters of Dark really funny because it just makes the original Four Lords and Knuckles Seath still end up in the same place after having somehow traveling away from Lordran despite not being quite themselves anymore. It is like fate. They are always destined to meet again only to be beaten by some human. Red strings of HATE.

And yet, it isn't as if DS2 and DS3 are just two variants that are both sequels to DS1 and you just choose which variant you like more! Dark Souls 3 calls back to Dark Souls 2 too much, DS2 events happened and their aftermath is in DS3 plot. The thing is.. here, Dark Souls 3 existing after all this doesn't make the overall trilogy story bad, but it does make it awkward, and absurd in some places! How everyone "forgotten" people who literally lived overseas and are still remembered there. (And imagine how much more awkward it would be if they DID include Patches in DS2 like they planned to! xD Also more fuel for me to not consider Queen of Lothric to be Gwynevere as to not create a character who ran from her problems twice, from the same problem :p)

I guess my point here is like... Fromsoft just kind of does it, and they might do it again. Dark Souls 2 was developed with the idea in mind that it would be it, every character in it hammers it into your brain, but then Dark Souls 3 happened! And it good that it did, the whole game is a meta commentary on what happens when people don't let the story end! And Elden Ring, by Miyazaki's admission, was created with cropping a lot of lore, plotlines and some characters (like Messmer) from original vision as the game was already too massive... but then they decided to make DLC with those ideas anyways! That likewise created retcons of some ideas that had previously fell into their places very neatly and made stories of Miquella, Malenia, Radahn and Marika flow less conveniently, but! they!! didn't even know at the moment!!! that they'd get to make the DLC!!!

I think they always could just do it again; give their product everything just in case if it flops and sequel/DLC doesn't get made, so the standalone thing feels self-suffucient! Fromsoft just looks like they don't take calculated risks but always act through the prism of "assume it already didn't sell well", and never abandoned this philosophy even while making base Elden Ring! Despite how much their reputation was proceeding them by the time! And honestly, when I understand there is likely pattern, it is hard to be mad at their decisions or how awkward they make the story. Like, yeah, sometimes the "the product made as if it already fropped" and "the surprise sequel/DLC" bits are practically Frankensteined rather than blend harmonically, but that's their thing! It isn't a perfect philosophy of creating their stories, but it is individual, and no company or specific writer could ever be perfect. (I think to truly enjoy someone's unique approach is to accept the sharp, inconvenient bits too rather than trying to "fix" it into perfection, but that's just my perspective on creativity process)

[wehangout]

So, the amazing Calli @callivich came up with this beautiful idea for DVD commentary, fic style, and the amazing questions that go with it. As suggested, I'll be indulging myself while talking about:

Thicker Than Forget. Summary: He blinks at you. “What was your first name?” “Erato.” “Erato,” he repeats. “No need to roll the r.” “Like the muse?” You grin. “Poet, meet muse."

AU. Ian is a poet. Mickey is his recently-corporal muse. They eat an absurd amount of stupidly named ice cream, try to find beauty in things, and fall hopelessly in love.

This was fun! Let me know if you want commentary on any other fics!

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc)

So, I wrote this for the Shameless Big Bang in 2021. I couldn’t tell you how long it took me to write (Word is giving me conflicting info), but it was probably my easiest write to date. Word count sits at 30-ish thousand words.

What was the initial inspiration for your story?

It was initially inspired by a novel. I don’t remember which one, but it was either Lament or Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater. The only similarity between that one and mine is that a character falls in love with their muse. The plot itself is very different.

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character?

Mickey. Because it’s almost always Mickey lmao. I did try from Ian’s, but this had to be from the muse’s POV and Mickey had to be the muse.

What was your favourite scene to write?

The smut 👀 if you’ve read it, I hope you understand why lmao

How did you come up with the title?

From the poem, Love is Thicker Than Forget! It fits so well with Ian being a poet and the overall theme of the story.

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice?

I went a little meta on fanfic, fandom, and shipping in this, which was so fun. I think only one person seemed to really notice and mention it, though, haha.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this?

I didn’t struggle to write it, but figuring out how to end it was tough. It took a long time for me to figure that out. When I originally came up with the idea it was for an original story, and did not have a happy ending.

Favourite line in the story?

I’m gonna go with lines, plural, because I have a couple

He kisses you and he kisses you and oh. Oh. This is what they were writing about. All the poets, every word of creativity they took from you … it’s this.

He closes his eyes and continues to sigh sonnets into your skin

Also, the last two lines of dialogue, and, I mean, “Fuck the connection” has to be right up there.

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc)

The writing, actually. I’m not a poetic person, none of the poems in the fic are mine, but I’m pretty proud of the poetic nature of the writing.

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line?

So, this is the fic that made me realise I needed to stop taking things so seriously lmao. @captainjowl can attest to the research I tend to do. In this case, every ice cream name was a legit flavour at the time, taken from a Baskin-Robbins website. The mural exists. The flowers and trees in the botanic gardens are flowers and trees found in that exact botanic garden. The hoodie! Taken straight from the Brooklyn Zoo website. The pasta they eat at the North Pond – I used Google Maps to make sure there was an Italian restaurant nearby and looked up ponds in Lincoln Park.

I've since tried to be more chill. Sometimes I fail.

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add?

I’d make it longer, if possible.

Would you ever write a sequel to this story?

It’s a nice idea, because I’d love to write something pretty again, but I have zero inspiration for it.

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc?

Uh, if you’ve read this and Suncatcher you might notice that I, like Ian and Sandy, have a thing for The Doors.

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity?

I don’t know if this is my most popular story, but I was definitely surprised by the intensity of the comments I received. It was one time when I knew I’d written something good, but the way it made other people feel definitely took me by surprise.

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story?

I love that this was loved. I still go back and read it every now and then and just sigh.

[batcrooks]

THE BATCROOKS AWARDS 2024

After keeping meticulous notes on every Media Property™ I consumed in 2024, here is my roundup of the BESTS!! It should probably be one thing per category but I couldn't decide so it's lots actually. And I broke down video games into so many categories because I play a lot of video games!!!

Best Movie I Watched for the First Time in 2024 (Live Action and Animated Categories)

What I wrote about them: Parasite - sooo good so tense and dark and funny? Isle of Dogs - what a DELIGHT. it was so fun to watch this film, i didn't want it to end. the animation was so good. the logistics behind the making of this movie are simply unbelievable. i can't believe this isn't a more beloved film.

Best TV Show I Watched in 2024 (Broadcast and Internet Categories)

What I wrote about them: Severance - SOO GOOD what a FUN SHOW. it has all the good tenseness of a thriller but it's also so funny in its absurdity. i must know more!! the work is mysterious and important Game Changer (season 6) - this season is very high concept. there have been some very funny ones and a couple eh. Sam Says 3 and the one where they had to find the buzzers were both top 5 episodes

Best Video Game (Multiplayer)

What I wrote about them: V Rising - VAMPIRES!! i loved this game for its tight and unwavering focus on being about vampires. you could build a house but it was always, always a vampire house. you can have a horse but it is a vampire horse. incredible. pretty cool combat and magical spells, some questionable level-up mechanics. mostly fun boss fights almost completely ruined by the final Dracula fight being so so overpowered. really enjoyed this one thanks Abiotic Factor - this has been a very cool survival crafting game, maybe one of the best. it reminds me of a lot of different games. mechanically it feels a bit like Raft, in that it has very unique setting and base building and a narrative thread and handcrafted things to explore. of course it has all the half life vibes but also way more SCP stuff than i would have expected and that's great because it is always fun. as of writing we are doing the reservoir section, which has been a lot more stressful than previous sections, but i think we'll probably get through it alright. with only a few exceptions (how long it took to unlock food recipes for example), the progression of craftables has been good. for the mostpart, resources haven't been very annoying to obtain (other than silver and carbon). the vibes are just so good throughout and so many things have been delightful. since it is early access, i'm not going to knock a star off for the Issues. it is an optimistic five stars. about 52 hours and we have completed all the early access. genuinely sad to stop playing it so i guess it was good!! the last chapter was a bit stressful but it was fun how many new gadgets we got to play with for a little while there. anyway it is now tied with v rising for best multiplayering of 2024

(have a lot to say about video games)

Best Video Game (Cat Plays) (Games I Played With an Audience) (Of Sourdeer)

What I wrote about them: The Roottrees are Dead - so good, better than Hand With Many Fingers. hope more games like this keep existing. the amount of info you got to trawl through was so fun. honestly considering replaying it when the steam remake comes out someday, which seems crazy for a mystery game but there was so much i doubt i'll remember everything. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes - a little heavy on the kind of arbitrary spookiness? I dunno how to explain it but it just often feels like games are spooky Just Because sometimes. The same as feeling like this and other games try to tackle high brow stuff Just Because. and the control scheme is WHACK lol. if it just had a "back out" button it would be fine tho. but this is another game that has made me feel so clever very often. it helps to play with multiple people contributing to the tricksy puzzles. It does seem to be a very meta video game which would be fine but it actually doesn't seem relevant to anything? The instruction booklet, the gameboy game of the maze, the ps1 games, the implication that the video game we are playing right now is also licensed in universe. It's INTERESTING but what does it have to do with the auteur filmmaker and the death of materialism and whatever they go on about all the time. But I'm really liking it so far. A good variety of puzzlers and lots to look into, have only felt stuck a few times. Comically long to-do list though. Could have maybe used more elegant level design? Only deal with one floor at a time maybe? Or at least less. But maybe having so many floating mysteries is part of the vibe actually. in the end i think it is firmly in the second tier of plays game, Very Good with a few flaws. most appreciated for being a rather long puzzle game. more of those please

Best Video Game (Sour Plays) (Games Sourdeer Played With an Audience) (Of me)

What I wrote about them: Hypnospace Outlaw - watched sour play. what a WEIRD THING!!! it was so finely crafted which is funny to say about something so absurd, but they really didn't skimp on anything in this. it really rewards exploring everything, and while i feel like it was maybe a little too loose i think there was just enough guidance with the cases to get you through the story that was happening. very chaotic The Rise of the Golden Idol - while i think overall it is not as good as the first one, i think that is mostly just because the first one was a brand new thing that shocked and awed us. the art style was a bit of a downgrade but still had the expected Vibes and the mysteries were just as satisfying to put together (if not as Cool thematically). i'm very glad to have future installments to look forward to. i can't even rate it a star lower because the gameplay is so good. i love golden idol. I.D.O.L.

Best Video Game (Singleplayer)

What I wrote about them: Dredge - really good!! addictive. 100%'d it Arco - i really liked it!! it was like a combo of West of Loathing and Chroma Squad gameplay-wise. it was really good stories and characters i liked them a lot. the pixels were so cute. i accidentally devoured the whole thing (about 13 hours) so fast but i think theres some replayability there sometime. make a few different choices and see what happens. Animal Well - a DELIGHT!! this game had moments where you felt soooo clever but it did also have some times that were a little hard or fiddly. i loved how it had no (very little) music but so much atmosphere. it was very pretty to look at. the backtracking could be annoying sometimes. but i like that it explained nothing and you could still figure out so much. i've gotten to the credits now as of writing (7.5 hours) but i know there's probably a lot hidden around i will try to find some. i see you smiley faces. i just have to remember how to get back to you. 10 hours later: i have gotten all the achievements which is 100%. to me. sourdeer had to help me get the last ten eggs but i think that overall it was a good difficulty throughout. if you dont try to do the rabbits and all the stuff sour is telling me about that is after even the second credits. so a Nice Game, Brent (Billy Basso)

Best Book I Read for the First Time in 2024

What I wrote about them: Children of Time - considering making this a top ten book. i really liked this one. (editor's note: there are diminishing returns on the sequels. The first one is so fun and innovative, but I don't recommend them past that. The second one is OK) Return of the Thief - yaay a satisfying ending :) it was really bold to introduce an entirely new character to be the POV for the last book in a series but it worked out really well i thought. a good character. everything all tied up in the end :) sad to finish, these were a lot of fun. it is sad that not a single one of these had a female POV. Eddis and Attolia were great but compared to the towering amount of male characters it doesn't seem great. but it is forgiveable. finally someone was gay in this one. so that's nice lol. (editor's note: i read this entire series for the first time this year and have chosen the final as the representative.) Assassin's Quest - Oh ok we are serious now!!! Actually fundamentally a bit less serious because there are dragons now but it made it work. Ended really bittersweet and if I didn't know the characters will return someday I would have been pretty thoroughly bummed out about it. Excellent fun book really elevated the other two. Fantasy books really get you drinking the divine right of kings koolaid. Will start on the next trilogy now, have no idea what to expect from it except that it isn't about any of these characters afaik but same world. It has been a real treat to stumble on to long completed series this year. (editors note: final book to a trilogy)

And that's it!! If you want to see every media I consumed this year and my star ratings and comments about them, here's a link to them! (It's a spreadsheet)

[slavhew]

For the character bingo, Dave Strider?

This ask caught me on an off day (season) but bro trust. trust that i was fucking cray about dave through my whole reread. he probably scores as second for the amount of meta i wrote about him, no guesses as to who is the first. Dave slander wwill not be tolerated in this house. He is my little man whom I love to see get bullied by his sister and friends.

His arc is ABSURDLY well developed and the knight angst (knangst) is just. absurd too. Which is why you cant make me look at the post canon nuh uh i dont CARE that hes one of the better written facets when everything around him is. the fucking Epilogues.

the * ... no matter how i cut my hair it looks like its his haircut. it always grows into it. either him or roxy. my main sunglasses up until a month ago were also aviators. my friend called me the 3rd strider over this.

some headcanons, mostly appearance based haha. drawing with that... funky brush, same one my favorite dave artist draws him with, entropicbias

[isleofair]

Tiger & Bunny Week Day 5

Fan Theories and/or Predictions

I've been wanting to make this meta post for a long while, but since there was no way to reach any truly solid conclusions, I always ended up setting it aside.

But since today's prompt is fan theories... I figure I might as well give this the best go I can!

Today on "Aria fixates on scraps of collateral canon in an attempt to better figure out the Tiger & Bunny timeline, since the authors just will not give us the info straight up, dammit": when did each of the characters debut as a hero?

(under a cut for length and screenshots of actual excel spreadsheets lol)

So, we know the answer to that question for sure for about half of the heroes: Wild Tiger debuted in NC1967, Barnaby in NC1977, and the three new kids in NC1980 (at least in Stern Bild; Subaru worked for a little while as a hero in Panjourney before joining Hero TV).

(Yeah, the hero card of himself Kotetsu picks up in the pilot is technically for the '76-'77 season of Hero TV, so maybe it saying he's got 10 years of experience means his debut was actually in NC1966... but nothing says the cards don't get updated as the season goes on, and this isn't too relevant to my number crunching, anyway.)

As for the rest of them, we can make at least an attempt at (vaguely) guessing by analyzing the experience data on the Hero Cards, which you can see for Season 1 and The Rising here on the amazing Merch Wiki (shoutout to @tnbscans 😘), and for Season 2 here in an older post of mine, or here on Twitter (both courtesy of @Kazuko_01 over there).

This is a chart of the experience values in all the available hero cards:

The reason Barnaby's values are in yellow is that they really, REALLY tried to throw off all of my math 😅

See, the experience values seem to only take into account how many seasons of Hero TV (or an equivalent of it) you've appeared in, however briefly. (At some point I thought maybe becoming the King of Heroes would grant you bonus exp, but Karina doesn't seem to get a boost from the '79-'80 season, when the CD dramas tell us she tied with Keith and became the Queen of Heroes.)

Barnaby took essentially all of NC1979 off, spent a quarter of NC1980 in the Second League, and his score during the Rising is still an absurd 3/5. The only possible way that can even remotely work is that the time off is discounted entirely AND that the exp values aren't strictly proportional to your years of experience, but more along the lines of a curve (stretched every time to accomodate the longest career, Kotetsu's) where having been a hero for at least a season before, as opposed to being a rookie, gives you an additional point on the scale, and each subsequent point requires more years of extra experience.

(This would make a certain amount of sense: there's a lot of difference between being a total rookie and someone who's been on another season, or two, but not that much difference between having worked 9 or 10 seasons before.)

The crucial facts to make this work, and the reasons I had to discard a lot of other possible ways map the years to the exp values, are:

The cards, in spite of having 5 possible scores in S1 and The Rising and 6 possible scores in S2, really only ever have a baseline plus four extra values above it, since the 1/6 or 0.5/3 score in the S2 cards is unused (hence me counting the scores as "out of 3"). I initially thought maybe it was because all the S2 kids had some prior experience, since Subaru used to be a hero before coming to Stern Bild, but the manga tells us Thomas for sure did not, so it's not that (RIP Subaru for them ignoring your days as Hello Goodbye);

Bunny skips ahead two notches between his debut in the 1977-78 season and the 1979-80 season in The Rising;

Antonio goes from having max 5/5 experience along with Kotetsu in S1 to having a score of 2.5/3 (or 5/6), along with Nathan, Keith, and Ryan, in S2. This means he definitely debuted after Kotetsu, but before Nathan and Keith (and almost certainly Ryan).

With all of that in mind, this is the best possible thing I could personally come up with:

I marked down the two most likely ways to map the years to the exp values for each set of cards that still somehow work at the bottom (with blue being min experience if you debuted that year, and red being max). The fully grayed-out years are downright impossibilities (again, not counting Subaru's time as Hello Goodbye, since the cards don't); the softer gray is "very unlikely", the mid blue is "possible", and the deeper blue is "most likely" (thin border) or "sure" (thick border).

I didn't really try to come up with an arrangement that would let any of Ivan, Karina or Pao-Lin debut any earlier than NC1976, because a) both Ivan and Karina have conversations with their bosses in the pilot episode that really make it seem like the just-concluded season was their first, and b) as it is Pao-Lin already became a hero at TWELVE YEARS OLD and that's enough of a headache for me, thank you very much.

The riveting conclusions, assuming this makes any sort of sense at all (and that I didn't put way more thought into this than the people who made the cards did):

Antonio almost certainly debuted in NC1969 or NC 1970, two or three years after Kotetsu;

Ryan (whose experience outside of Stern Bild seems to be fully counted, sorry again, Subaru) doesn't appear in the S1 cards, so it's a little harder to narrow his debut down, but since he's apparently younger than Barnaby, which would make him a teenager for most (if not all) of his possible range of debut years, I'd very personally tend to put him more around NC1973 than anywhere else;

Nathan and Keith most likely debuted in either NC1971 or NC1972... but I would strongly argue that the only really viable year out of these two is NC1972. That is the year Tomoe died, and Nathan and Keith, before episode 1x09, had no idea at all that Kotetsu was ever even married, let alone a widower with a daughter. I simply cannot imagine Nathan, especially, witnessing a colleague she sees pretty much every day go through the loss of his wife, and not prying enough, either with Kotetsu himself or with Antonio (who is not terribly good at keeping Kotetsu's secrets, see ep 1x09 again), to eventually find out what was going on. If Tomoe died before October, when the 1972 season of hero TV started, Nathan and Keith, debuting that year, would have met Kotetsu only after the fact, which seems a lot more plausible.

(Yes, that last thing does support my cute headcanon of FireSky being almost polar-opposite rookies together, but to be fair, the headcanon itself came directly from this math, and not the other way around.)

If you read all of this, we are true siblings in T&B nerdery and ILU forever. Especially if you have any ideas on how to make the data make more sense, lol. 💚

[duhragonball]

Who do you prefer? Megatron or Galvatron?

Maybe this is one of those "You had to be there" things, but the meta-narrative behind G1 Galvatron was one of those things that fascinated me when the cartoon was on the air. You can buy the movie, and watch the cartoon on Hasbro's YouTube channel, and maybe even track down the original toy, but I'm not sure that captures the experience of seeing this dude introduced in 1986.

So they were running ads for the new toys in the months leading up to the movie's release, and it was clear that there were a lot of new faces who would be introduced there. Curiously, this ad sets up a pair of new (?) leaders, which is weird because you hear the original leaders in the voice over. Optimus Prime talks up Ultra Magnus, and it's not really clear if he thinks of Magnus like a second-in-command, or his successor, or his replacement. You might watch the ad and think that Ultra Magnus is Optimus Prime's boss from the old days, and he's finally arrived to take over.

And that makes the other guy, Galvatron, even more bizarre, because Megatron wouldn't stand for any of that crap. He already has a second-in-command who's constantly trying to steal his job, so why would he want a guy like Galvatron on his team in any role? It's just another shark in the tank. And yet he's talking up Galvatron like he's a valuable player on his squad.

Just looking at the characters, it seemed clear that these two were the "next" Prime and Megatron. Galvatron's got a big cannon on his arm, and in the commercial he's voiced by Frank Welker, who does the voice of Megatron. Hell, Ultra Magnus' toy literally includes an Optimus Prime with a white paint job. They could have marketed it as "Super Optimus Prime" if they had chosen to do so. In some later continuities, they were established as brothers to explain their resemblance.

Then the movie came out and all was made clear. Magnus was a trusted second-in-command, then he had to take over Optimus Prime's position, and then he ended up back in the second banana role when Rodimus Prime was established. The commercial couldn't explain all of that, of course, because it would spoil the movie.

As for Galvatron, he simply was Megatron, after Unicron restored his body. I still remember watching that scene in the theater, seeing Megatron getting molded into a new form, and thinking "Wait, is that? Oh, so that's what's going on!" And for the rest of the movie, it's basically the same character with a new look, except he's playing under different rules. He kills Starscream first thing, something he seemed almost reluctant to do in the past. Maybe he just finally had enough of Screamer's bullshit, or maybe he had a new outlook on things.

Then Season 3 of the cartoon started up, and one of the big questions was "What happened to Galvatron after the end of the movie?" And Cyclonus and Scourge tracked him down and discovered he was now insane. I think I knew Leonard Nimoy wasn't going to do the voice in Season 3, but I kind of expected Frank Welker to just do the same voice he did in the commercial, but instead he does this nasally high-pitched thing, and Galvatron chews scenery for the entire rest of the series. Sometimes he's a little more lucid, but usually he's just a deranged maniac, and the Decepticons just sort of put up with him because they can't get anything done without a leader, and no one else wants the job.

It's fascinating stuff, because when you get down to it, most bad guy leaders in cartoons are probably suffering from some kind of mental illness. I mean, look at Cobra Commander or Skeletor and tell me those guys aren't struggling with something. Hell, when you look back at Megatron in Seasons 1 and 2, you realize a lot of his plans are just completely absurd, and he carried himself with just the bare minimum amount of composure to seem like a stable commander. But Galvatron's madness was made into a plot point. They even did an episode where Cyclonus checked him into an asylum. The elephant in the room could not be ignored, partly because Galvatron wouldn't stop screaming at it.

But like I said, it's the meta-narrative that makes it even more fascinating. Galvatron is just a new incarnation of Megatron, and they probably made him insane just to distinguish him from his original self, but there's still that unused concept of a "new leader", a separate character who serves under Megatron, or maybe replaces Megatron in the future. I sometimes wonder how that version would have played out. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if the Leonard Nimoy version of the character had continued on into Season 3.

Also, it bugs me how the final scene of the cartoon teases this rivalry between Galvatron and Lord Zarak, the leader of the evil Nebulon characters. It's clear that if the cartoon had continued, it would have featured the two of them in some sort of power struggle. Zarak's a shrewd operator, and he sees Galvatron's instability as a weakness he can exploit. It would have been very cool to see them butt heads in another season of the cartoon, but I guess that Tommy kid needed to talk to Optimus Prime about his homework or whatever.

Oh, one other thing: We had a Megatron toy when I was a kid, but his chest broke off, so he looked pretty pathetic when you had to kind of stuff it into place to play with him. But the Galvatron toy was a lot sturdier, and more poseable. So that probably affects my judgement.

[gay-mathematician-portmanteau]

single thread math episode 15: since derivatives are a homomorphism from the set of differentiable functions to the set of functions, we can scrap the entire field of analysis. examining homomorphic algebraic structures may cause us to hemorrhage a small amount of analytic information, but the elegance in simplicity more than makes up for it. there is enough to study in the structure of various morphisms to keep us busy for eternity, and it is objectively true that meta-mathematical insight is more significant than the absurd specificity with which analysts devote themselves to their puny work.

[thetrinitytest]

okay. so.

apparently some people are losing their minds over what Rob Wilkins, one of the executive producers on Good Omens, said during a panel at a convention recently regarding the infamous kiss scene at the end of 2x06 and i’m just

y’all are being so fucking weird. of all the things to get upset and antagonistic about, this is what you choose???? lemme break it down for you real quick:

The kiss between Crowley and Aziraphale (who are fictional characters in a TV show) is important and worth exploring further. The number of takes needed to film said kiss (which was PERFORMED by ACTORS who are actually TOTALLY SEPARATE INDIVIDUALS FROM THE CHARACTERS THEY PERFORM AS) and the exec. producer’s interpretation and description of the scene is not. you’re applying the same amount of relevance to the process of filming a scene as you are the fictional contents of the scene itself, which makes no sense!!! like WHO FUCKING CARES BRO

not only that, you’re going after neil gaiman himself over what, fucking semantics???? none of this is relevant to the Good Omens story!! once again y’all blur the line between fiction and reality in the dumbest way possible!! like, how does any of this actually relate back to Aziraphale and Crowley’s (fictional) story? i’ve never seen so many people act so fucking self-righteous and entitled over something that shouldn’t realistically matter at all. genuinely absurd. actually chronically online behavior. shut up, get a fucking grip, go outside, and actually talk to someone face-to-face. This isn’t another ✨meta analysis✨. You just don’t know to fucking behave like normal human beings. Holy shit.

[eisforeidolon]

OMG, the script said Dean "can't" reciprocate, not that he "doesn't"! This means he must have wanted to and a vast queer-suppression conspiracy at the CW totally exists!!! [X]

Just... The extent to which being a heller seems to make you absolutely blind to how other conclusions besides the one you desperately want to be true aren't magically wished out of existence just by waffling in circles chasing your own tail on and on and on...

She's trying to make the difference in Castiel's speech that leaves ambiguity - I love you versus I'm in love with you - happen in the opposite direction with that script note. Except it doesn't work, because there is no such fundamental difference in usage meaning of can't and doesn't built in there. She desperately wants can't to mean there HAS TO be some kind of external pressure there. Except whereas nobody would intentionally say "I'm in love with you like a brother"? You can switch out can't and doesn't and they work equally well to mean functionally the same thing. Let's take the potential reasons mentioned:

Dean can't reciprocate because he has no such feelings for Castiel. Dean doesn't reciprocate because he has no such feelings for Castiel.

In the canon itself, Dean made it clear his feelings about Castiel were friendly/familial/brotherly over and over again. Jensen has made it clear over and over again how he sees, and how he was choosing to portray, Dean and Castiel's relationship - if we're going to count actor's statements as word of god, it's fucking absurd to pretend anyone else's count more than the actor actually making the choices in depicting what his emotions are. Even after the goodbye scene, Jensen's statements haven't changed - except to add speculation that angels may not even understand love in the same way humans do. Putting aside whether Dean was even sure enough of what he meant, given the ambiguity? Dean simply not feeling the same fits with everything we know (and they deny) about canon Dean. Whether that's the same in terms of romantic love, or the same in terms of the level of effusive word vomit Castiel was spewing out.

Dean can't reciprocate because he's too shocked in the moment. Dean doesn't reciprocate because he's too shocked in the moment.

Except in the canon itself, we see how Dean reacts after he's had time to process. While the Winchesters still worried about Chuck destroying the world, sure, Dean does seem excited at the implication Castiel might have been resurrected again - when they still need any allies on their side they can get. But when the apocalyptic shit is all over? When Sam brings up missing Castiel, Dean basically shrugs it off and says they should live their lives. When Dean gets to heaven and Bobby mentions Castiel helping Jack, Dean just goes and drives in his car. He doesn't ask if Castiel is in heaven, ask how to find him, seem to care, nothing. If we count TW, there's still no Castiel and no mention of Castiel in Dean's vicinity. Sam is Dean's reason (still). Bobby and Jack are there. Castiel? [insert bad negative space meta here] If he really felt twue lurve for the angel and just needed time to process as they have been insisting since, like, season four? It should be pretty clear at this point the amount of time to process that non-existent feeling into canon reality is fucking infinity.

Dean can't reciprocate because Bobo's hand got slapped. Dean doesn't reciprocate because Bobo's hand got slapped.

Except outside of canon, in the real world, not their conspiracy theorist fantasies? We were directly told that reciprocation was never even pitched. Nobody got their hand slapped down, because Berens and Misha knew nobody would give a fuck if they threw away what was left of Castiel's character in their shitty last minute queerbait, but dragging Dean down with him was a different story. In the hellers' heads, because they desperately want it to be so, D/C is some truism of the universe that is poised to spring into being if only the haters would stop holding it back!!! Out of a whole room of writers and executive producers - including a few who variously said they had not, were not, and would not be writing any kind of canon lurve story between those two characters? One bitter hack who knew what he could (and couldn't) get away with and therefore didn't even try to legit make it canon is not some conspiracy. Bobo the clown isn't some universal truth teller of ThE ReAL stOrY of SpN fighting for great justice just because he gave them the closest thing to validation they were gonna get (as ambiguous, one-sided, and utterly cringe as it was). No matter how many times they lie about it, before the takeover the CW was one of the - if not the most - friendly network(s) towards LGBT+ content. Nobody even seriously considering making your single specific OOC ship canon is not oppression or censorship FFS.

[kurootooru]

who the phantom thieves would main in mortal kombat 11

characters: akira//ren, ann, makoto, ryuji, yusuke, futaba, haru

type: crackfic; headcanons

note: wow look at me actually writing something

joker;

johnny cage main !!

akiren doesn’t really care about the meta, he just plays johnny cage because he loves the character and how ridiculously over the top he is

even though he doesn’t particularly care about the meta, he still keeps up with all the changes and updates to stay on top of his game; has watched hundred of combo tutorials

spends hours unlocking all the special skins for johnny and makes him wear the most absurd-looking outfits out there

knows literally every special move, crushing blow, brutality, fatality you can think of

in terms of play style, he’s actually a really solid player ; he just can’t resist ending combos with johnny’s signature nut punch but that exact fact is what can make him predictable at times

has some absolutely disgusting combos that take out like 90% of his opponent’s hp and are borderline unblockable but avoids using them when he plays with the phantom thieves to keep the competition fair

he has completely mastered the flawless block mechanic which allows him to take minimal amounts of damage; he never uses it when he’s playing with the phantom thieves and sometimes even lets the them beat him or sets up little handicaps for himself to stop the matches from ending too early (like never using his fatal blow)

overall; solid 8/10 player ; knows most of the mechanics and how to actually use them; just needs to switch to a more meta character

ann takamaki;

jade main !!

garbage player; only knows about two things - 1) how you attack 2) how you block

uses jade only because of her unblockable overhead and spams that single move and occasionally pokes the opponent with her staff

has no knowledge about combos and the crushing blows that she does randomly execute mostly come from random button mashing until the character just does something

due to her lack of knowledge, she can’t take advantage of the the combo opportunities that jade’s aforementioned overhead

overall; horrible player 4/10; she only gets a 4 because some of the others are worse (yusuke) and because her random button mashing sometimes leads to combos and crushing blows by sheer luck (she’s managed to beat joker once)

ryuji sakamoto;

button smasher !! but he actually knows some combos and will occasionally use them when he thinks it’s necessary but can beat most people (i.e the phantom thieves and noobs online without using them)

speaking of noobs, he loves destroying them online

he doesn’t necessarily have a main and can play with most characters reasonably well but he does have a soft spot for scorpion

he gets absolutely destroyed by haru but so does everyone else so it’s not that embarrassing

overall; he’s a half decent player 7/10

yusuke kitagawa;

do i even need to write about him? he’s never held a controller in his life before and he keeps asking joker where the L1/L2 and R1/R2 triggers are every time they play

he can barely land a hit, much less pull off a combo

picked his character based on aesthetics, tries (and fails) to do moves that look aesthetically pleasing

randomly starts rambling about art during matches to the point where it’s incredibly distracting for the other person, i could go on and on

overall; 1/10 player because i don’t have the heart to give him a 0/10 rating

futaba sakura;

mains whoever is meta at the time but has a soft spot for subzero because he was the first character he learned how to play with

knows every character well, she can execute combines perfectly and use move their moves strategically

she has frame data memorised so that she can punish opponents

she’s the only one other than akechi who can actually challenge the phantom thieves

loves smoking noobs online

overall; 9/10 player, she’s good at pretty much every aspect of the game

makoto niijima;

cassie cage main !!

she loves pulling off a good combo, she didn’t think she would be very interested in a game that involved a bunch of button smashing (from her perspective at least)

it was only when she lost to joker the first time and she realised that there was a lot of strategy and execution of specific strings of command that she was truly interested

she ends up learning the frame data for all her main’s moves and most of the combos, she’s nowhere near the level of futaba in terms of knowledge but she knows quite a lot

she’s also very interested in the lore

overall; a 7/10 player and can beat anyone on a good day

haru okumura;

baraka main and by far the best player among the phantom thieves, she prefers characters that just smash their opponents and don’t require intricate set ups or traps (monke brain)

she doesn’t know any combos on any frame data, she just somehow know how to execute some of the most difficult combos in the game

sometimes the person playing against her looks over only to her with a little smile on her face as her character brutally mutilates their opponent

the only person among the thieves who can beat futaba when she’s being serious

overall; a 9/10 player and someone everyone should be at least a little wary of

[wildflowerteas]

🦴🌿 📚 :)

🦴⊹ ࣪ ˖ "is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?"

i think it goes without saying, but BSD. the aesthetics, the characters, the meta-aspects . . . all of it. It’s a wildly complicated and at-times-absurd story that makes me feel comfortable in my own conflicts with my humanity, kind of childish idealization of the world and my subsequent dissatisfaction with it. It is a story that respects its characters SO much ( side eyeing you, Gege ) and not just in a development/character-arch sense. Harukawa and Asagiri put an insane amount of care into this universe down to the tiniest design details. it’s incredible, and there’s a reason why i’ve kept up with it for almost 12 years. I’ve also been heavily influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien and have dipped my toes into original works and creating languages for my personal projects which are more fantastical than gritty or emotional like my fics. I’m also an avid consumer of movies, web novels, and manga in general, which all give me the creator-envy and inspiration i need to make something of my own.

🌿⋆.˚ "give some advice on writer's block and low creativity"

dreaded writer’s block. i don’t know if this is how it is for everyone, but i usually find myself stuck or unable to write when im staring at the blank first page of a chapter ( and once i get the ball rolling its almost impossible to get me to stop ), rather than halfway through a fic or wip, and at a loss for where to go next. When that happens, i take a walk! i make myself tea and call a friend ( they’re super sick of me)! or i’ll close my laptop, socials, turn off my music and distance myself from my writing for a while.

“low creativity” as a phrase kind of dooms us to feel like we’re failing when we sit down to write and can’t immediately churn out something new. we’re not machines. making stuff. and making stuff that matters, is HARD. And IMO, creativity isn’t something you can squeeze out of your brain like juice from a lemon. you need to nurture it, feed your brain with inspiration and fuel ( make sure to eat while writing ), and give yourself the same care you’d want devoted to your work in order for it to grow. surrounding yourself with the creativity of others ( talking to friends, scrolling through pinterest, watching movies, reading books ( or other fic! ) ), is also key.

📚.𖥔 ݁ ˖ "what's the last thing you wrote in your notes app"

oh NO. i don’t want to lie and post a screenshot of the second to last thing i wrote in my notes app, but for the sake of spoilers im going to have to censor this

[ariadne-mouse]

Tagged by @saturdaysky and @essektheylyss! If we cannot boop, we shall tag meme.

Last song/piece I listened to: Scavengers Reign soundtrack (ethereal, spooky, moving. watch itttttt)

Last book I read: I am in the middle of a comfort re-read of Joust by Mercedes Lackey. I didn't get into her whole set of extended universes but I liked the dragon jouster series as a kid. The sequels are (imo) of declining enjoyment quality vs the original, so that's the one I kept.

Last film I watched: Watched Howl’s Moving Castle with a friend a few days ago. :)

Last TV series: I'm partway through Station Eleven, a pre/mid/post-apocalyptic limited series on Max about - among other things - and a troupe of Shakespearean actors who keep the art of stagecraft alive after the world goes to shit due to a mutated flu (yes, I know). Gripping, emotional, earnest, and has made me weep real human tears in almost every episode. Some Scavengers Reign vibes in a meta sense (no literal scifi), bit of Walking Dead, some comedy in that "absurdism in the face of calamity" kind of way, very thoughtfully weaves together storylines at different points in time and reveals connections between rich, complicated characters. Delicious, beautiful, and full of anguish. Highly recommend.

Last thing I googled: “ionar” which is a piece of traditional Irish clothing a bit like a jacket

Last thing I ate: popcorn while watching Station Eleven last night

Sweet, Savory or Spicy: Agree with Sky re: all three! And I shan't pick one. My ideal flavor profile remains shrouded in mystery (the limit does not exist).

Amount of sleep: less than I should! I am trying to be better about it, but lately even when I get in bed at a reasonable time I wake up multiple times having rotated like a rotisserie chicken

Currently reading: Hmm I already put Joust above, so instead I'm going to plug a fun set of geography guessing games

Tagging a handful of folks if you so desire! @fireryn @mllekurtz @the-kaedageist @kmackatie @tarydarrington

[max1461]

This is a bit of an exaggeration but I increasingly hate all aesthetic elements based on any amount of self-referentiality or meta-awareness or whatever. I just want some plain damn shit. I'm fucking tired of thinking about the nature of the text I don't care about the nature of the text, I don't care about layers of representation it's not interesting to me, but I also don't want any of this kitschy like, I don't know what to call it, naive new sincerity shit. Like have you ever noticed that? New sincerity shit, it's supposedly like "oh we're all so jaded that we just want sincerity again" but it's not, you know, it was made by a generation of people who saw the old jaded shit, didn't understand it, and thus wanted sincerity not because they had like dialectically processed jadedness but just cause they were actually genuinely naive in a world of jaded shit made by their parents. Or whatever.

No. I want to straight fucking plain ass shit. I think the modernists did it well, although they're not the only ones who did it well. But I admit that I really do have a soft spot for modernism, in literature, in art, in all of it. They saw that the world was kind of in many ways fucked up and absurd, you know, the world is very complicated, and they felt comfortable in just portraying that without like, gimmicks? I don't know. You know what I'm talking about. Post-modernism went in for gimmicks. It's actually good when done well, but.

Ok, revised thesis. Mediocre modernism is still tolerable, mediocre post(^n)-modernism is just lame. Whatever. Or like Baudrillard simulacrum blah blah. Everybody's grown up in this world of representation they don't know what's real. They're making fake plants in their Minecraft houses remember that post of mine? Well go find that post and read it. I'm tired of living in an ecosystem of media where things of that type are common. You know. I just want, fucking, whatever. Maybe none of this is true. I think it's a little bit true but it's not all the way true because I'm stressed about final papers today (I have 4 due by Friday) and like, idk. Feels like a bullshit... situation, so it's like, I'm extra sensitive to perceived like, bullshittiness or kitschiness of things. Because of my bullshit situation. I would have more mental room for respecting like, a world in which it's common to have indie horror games whose main idea is what if there was a fucked up kids thing like a chucky cheese and it seems innocent but actually it's fucked up and it's like, a brand but not a real brand it's a fictional brand, if I didn't have final papers. The idea of a "fictional brand" is fucking exhausting to me.

Do you get it? Why do we live in a world where a fictional brand that's scary because it represents one thing but actually it's a different thing, but it already represents the different thing because that was already a widespread association with the real brand it's a fake brand of, aijflajprognqo. Why do we. This is so fucking exhausting. Stop with the layers of representation I'm fucking done with this shit. This shit is tiring to live next to.

But I'll probably be able to see the value in well-executed (not FNAF) examples of all this bullshit when I have less to do. But I don't like how it's half of everything. Tiring.

[valleyg0th]

I know joss said the cheese man has no meaning but the cheese is love. Love is cheesey. Death of the author. The cheese means love.

At the play Cheese Man tells Willow "I've made a little space for the love slices." The series has made pointedly little space for her and Tara’s love, mostly represented in witchcraft by this point in the series, and even Willow herself first compartmentalized & hid that little space from her friends. But space is being made and a little more space will be made yet.

Cheese Man appears to Xander when he’s running from his dad and says "Love… will not protect you." Love will not protect Xander from becoming his father, a fear later manifested in Hell’s Bells.

He appears to Giles in the crypt where Olivia cries over a baby carriage & after training a childish Buffy on carnival games saying "I wear the love. It does not wear me." Giles is unable to commit to either a family with Olivia or an unconventional family with Buffy as a daughter because he’s being too logical, not letting love move him but rather moving love, weighing a cost benefit analysis.

And since all the characters represent an aspect of Buffy and they each made up a part of her in their spell in the last episode, let’s look into how the cheese’s message relates to each aspect of herself:

Buffy’s spirit has a question about how much space she has for love, one which she asks throughout season 5. But Buffy’s spirit has made space for love. However it’s an interesting question just how her lovers each handle the amount of love space she can offer from moment to moment.

And Buffy’s heart is afraid it will let her down again. Xander’s situation mirrors Buffy’s in that they both don’t have good role models or experiences with love and are afraid of fucking up. They have seen and experienced love causing hurt & pain so they are afraid of the danger zone of vulnerability & affection.

So Buffy’s mind wants to keep the love in check, she has learned to be wary. I guess you could say this relates to Buffy keeping Riley at arms length. But it may also be meta commentary that the swept-away-by-love Romeo & Juliet angst of the Bangel era was over & school girl Buffy can’t come to the phone right now because she’s dead— and as the mind I think there’s a case to make it would be most self aware and referential.

Buffy sees the cheese guy in her dream right after she reasserts the importance of her friends and her world. The first slayer speaks for the first time and says “no friends, just kill,” and the cheese guy leans out in front of her with his slices as the first slayer says “we are alone.” The absurdist interlude of a bald guy waving American slices on such a dark & serious thesis from the first slayer caused me to reflect on the oxymoronic nature of WE and ALONE being in a sentence together. Buffy was not alone, she had the cheese with her, her love of the Scooby gang, the core of the show. And so she awoke to the room where she and all her friends were napping together on the couch. (I also couldn’t help but think of the first slayer’s continued wrong & absurd messaging in season five that su*cide is a gift and the don’t kill me total cheese factor of how it all culminates with her ~“heroic martyrdom”~ in the season finale why are you booing me I’m right)