#which is extremely fucking scummy

[ari-birdgod]

i think we should put whoever approved this discord ui update into a comically large blender

[caffeineandsociety]

There's a specific genre of shitty antisemitic joke that I have seen fly under the radar (as it was designed to) a LOT more often lately - especially since Kanye started going full mask-off nazi - so I feel the need to issue a warning about it. Namely, the genre is jokes that get spread around by people who aren't willfully antisemitic because outside of conspiracy brain rot land, it appears that the point of the joke is absurdism.

As an example, let's examine the 23-and-me lizard DNA test that I've sadly seen floating around unquestioned.

Because, see, to the average person who isn't willfully antisemitic, this genre of joke comes off as nonsequiturs, or hilarious mistakes - you, as a person with some level of basic observational and critical thinking skills, living on Earth and not in whatever batshit mirror dimension conspiracy theorists think we live in, might very well end up getting a giggle out of it because, HAH, we KNEW those DNA ancestry kits were a scam! If you're not a deliberate antisemite but not really up on the dogwhistles, it doesn't scan as anything awful because you're put in mind of things like feeding a photo of something decidedly not human into that one selfie-to-anime neural net, which sometimes works and produces interesting results because the thing is looking for specific patterns and trying to make anything fit - not things like blatantly lying about doing something like that in the hopes that normies who see the absurdity and want to have a laugh at a scummy company's expense will pass it along to people who unironically believe that Jewish people are actual literal lizard aliens and the test proves it.

This is the same strategy that guy at the game awards pulled. You, a person living in reality where the main source of political corruption is just the basic consequence of an economic system that makes power pool in the hands of anyone willing to exploit enough people, a world of banal mundane evil, know damned well that QAnon-pizzagate-satanic ritual abuse cult conspiracy bullshit is, well, bullshit, if you're even familiar with the details of what they believe at all. When someone crashes the stage and thanks Rabbi Bill Clinton, you may very well laugh because to YOU it is a blatant absurd nonsequitur.

Problem is that to someone else, someone who's deep into that shit, it's either someone letting the truth slip, or someone backing the deep state into a corner - whichever is more convenient to believe.

This is one form of how the far right uses memeification (CW: the example discussed in the link is a rape "joke") - it means something totally different to the in-group than it does to the out-group. To you, it's funny because it's nonsensical; to them, it's fun because they think they're onto something huge and they're about to blow this shit wide open and it's going to be their great moment of triumph.

I cannot stress enough that no matter how absurd an antisemitic conspiracy theory sounds to you, there are people who believe it, unironically. There are people who unironically believe that Jewish people are very literally not human and no amount of evidence to the contrary will ever change their minds. There are people who believe that we're born with horns and tails and pointed ears and have them surgically altered to fit in with good Christian humans like some kind of extremely high-stakes game of Among Us. There are people who believe that we steal, ritualistically abuse, and kill Christian babies. These beliefs, while fringe enough that, yeah, most of you who this post is aimed at have never heard them in the wild before very recently, are not nearly as fringe as you probably think they are. Just look at fucking Kanye. This asshole has more fans than there are Jewish people in the world.

So I'm begging you to please, bare minimum, be careful of "absurdist" jokes about Jewish people, especially if they reference lizards, money, banking, or government power. Also, you may see Jewish people debating how religious laws may apply to fictional creatures, but outside of that context you should also be wary of any time Jewish people are mentioned in the same sentence as vampires, dragons, goblins, zombies, fantasy demons, or any number of other fantasy creatures known for greed, feeding on humans, or both.

If the reason it seems funny to you is because you'd have to be really stupid to believe it's true or makes any kind of sense - it's probably looking for you to spread it to people who are, in fact, that stupid.

[fairysbrew]

was complaining about this on twitter but like. the new bloxburg update is genuinely so fucking bad new fees that are practically unavoidable (cars are super finicky, and making sure ur needs are met is extremely hard if you don't already have money), and lower pay so that it's hard to even pay said fees like holy shit, how did they manage to add late stage capitalism to roblox it's so obvious it's only so that they can squeeze more money out of little kids once the game goes free too, which is just so scummy like adding stupid fees and punishment for having low needs, so that kids who don't know better will buy ingame currency? that's predatory as fuck i'm pissed but i can't say im shocked or anything, this was pretty much what i expected when i found out bloxburg was getting bought out

[lover-of-skellies]

Ok, so. An update on the donation situation and cremation expenses

The goal I had set on my ko-fi was $250, and miraculously, all the donations I received added up to $200. Which,, pardon my French here, is super fucking cool. Like holy god, I never expected to get so much, and I'm pleasantly surprised. I know I've said it before but ima say it again for good measure; thank you so much. The donations are extremely helpful, and my family and I appreciate them more than I could ever possibly put into words

I told my mom about the donations, and we agreed that I'd be transferring them to her tomorrow, that way she can get stuff for the funeral/cremation

However. PayPal is a scummy little shit. It ate roughly $9ish dollars of the donations when the money transferred over from ko-fi. This isn't a huge deal, obviously, I'm just slightly irked about it

I've been thinking about updating my ko-fi again too, while we're kinda sorta on the subject of that. My line of thought is that maybe whenever a braided thread strand is purchased, I can include a little thank you note in the handwriting that I've headcanoned for those specific characters. It'd still be me saying thank you, but it'd look like it's in Nightmare, Dream, Error, or Blueberry's handwriting. Y'know. To make things a little cooler, I guess

I've been thinking about adding another character to my shop too, but idk who I'd add yet. I'm working on a strand for a tsams character right now, but you guys are mostly here for skeletons, sooooooo

[zhouxiangs]

i saw that you're currently reading my stand-in novel but you're not really spoiling anything. how are you finding it so far if i may ask? is it as angsty as people say it is?

(i waited until the end of the day to answer this because as i thought i've already finished the novel, so much for self-restraint lol also sorry this got a bit long... oops?)

i enjoyed it a lot! and it made me get over my reading slump, so i will even excuse it getting into some tropes i'm not particularly fond of at the end. it got cheesy…er, and not even in a way i like. amazingly, that didn't make me like it any less.

from the synopsis of the series and the tags in novel updates (and i only skimmed those because i didn't want to get spoiled) i had a pretty good idea of what the novel was going to be like, which is why i decided not to really liveblog since, transmigration aside, i'd say it's a pretty straightforward story. i could be persuaded to make a recap if there's interest though, since there's still over three weeks left until the series starts airing and i'm probably going to go over everything again and take notes anyway...

and oh, is it angsty! the whole thing hinges on zhou xiang (joe) being a sweet angel baby and yan mingxiu (ming) being a fucking idiot, and it's pretty much what you can expect from any dogblood/makjang with the scum ml, misunderstandings, heartbreak, regrets, etc. i have to say i'm not usually a fan of the misunderstanding trope bc i tend to find it annoying, but as with most tropes i don't particularly enjoy it's because of the way i often see it done. here it was painful for everyone involved, so i really liked it. also, please keep in mind that i'm a huge fan of big character development and characters redeeming themselves, so. there's that. wink wonk. (i've been reading some reviews and think for some people it may be best to know what kind of story this is before going in, other than because of triggers–which, very important if you need them, at least in the novel–because of the whole. scum ml more than anything lol even though yan mingxiu is not that scummy really!)

i love my stories character-driven, so having them being this well fleshed out and compelling was a joy, and being able to see so clearly what both zhou xiang and yan mingxiu were thinking and feeling, sometimes a lot earlier than they themselves could (please bl gods keep at least some of the internal monologue in the series, i am begging), was soooooo ugh. you're supposed to hate yan mingxiu allegedly but i just couldn't, not even in his scum era, because he was so obvious and so oblivious and so set in his own ideas he kept gaslighting himself into not noticing things. this could have gotten frustrating pretty easily, but again, everything feed into the delicious, delicious suffering. that being said, and because it doesn't seem to be a popular opinion... i think it's important to empathise with both of them, or at least sympathise, for maximum enjoyment of all that angst. you cannot cry over yan mingxiu's pain if you want him to get hit by a bus.

oh and the relationships (not only the cp's, though their progression is really good) are very important in this story, which is something i hope we get to see more of in the series because i ended up missing certain side characters in the later chapters. not tan yin though, i hope that fuck ass didn't make it into the series. how is a character so annoying while being in maybe six scenes total.

i can't say if it's good or not but it was extremely enjoyable, zhou xiang is my sweet darling angel baby, yan mingxiu is okay too (if you see me in the trenches defending him in about a month…), and i can't believe i am now, somehow, even more excited for my stand-in.

[phantomrose96]

It's been a really messed up week at work.

I learned on Monday that 3 of my coworkers were being laid off. Two were under different managers, but one was a guy I've known since I started and he's been with the company almost 25 years. The layoffs were unexpected, and came right after a huge crunch-time for product launch, and I've been crazy upset for Ulli. Like how do you give 25 years to a company and then someone who's never seen your face just decides to let you go. Since it's a layoff, the decision came from outside our org and our managers/skip-level had no say in it happening.

One of the other guys, Jason, I didn't know well but he's been here 17 years and he was about to close on a house. Now he's out of a job and the bank won't give him a mortgage so just. Fuck you, no house. And this is after putting down the earnest money which is like, a deposit proving you're serious. If it was the 5% earnest money, that was probably like $30,000-$50,000 he won't get back.

The third person didn't reveal themselves, but like on Monday afternoon we had our usual weekly team watercooler chat and like... I made it known how upset I was and how scummy I found this. And I'm an easy crier (I've gotten better in adulthood, but the last couple months have been hard so my ability to not cry has dipped a lot I guess). But like, there was no one in the room with any power here. Layoffs are a faceless corporate decision.

And it was all extra scummy to me because the company is doing well. And they're projecting all this optimism about the future. But the stock price isn't making shitty wallstreet bros happy enough, so corporate decided to layoff 10,000 people--and that was a slow-drip of layoffs between January and March, which were going to be complete by end of March, and they waited for like practically March 31st to hit us.

So that was all... Monday... Tuesday morning I overslept (cuz I didn't sleep well Monday night) and woke up late so I like, kinda just jumped to my work computer. And there was an email from my skip level titled "Sad news about Alexei".

Since the third person to get laid off hadn't identified themselves, it sounded like Alexei was the third layoff. That didn't sit right with me because Alexei was a super super prolific engineer. Like I cannot overstate how prolific. He had a hand in everything. Even if you hadn't worked with him, you knew him. So I could just feel like something was wrong.

So I clicked the email. He died on Sunday evening. My skip-level only just found out and was informing everyone. I literally have an email in my inbox rescheduling a meeting that Alexei sent Sunday morning.

I didn't personally know Alexei all that well, but so many of my coworkers did, some for 24 years, and it's really really obvious how much this has rattled everyone. My project lead Ransom has been out most of the week, in part for the funeral and in part just taking bereavement time. Ransom is the main person I'm coordinating with, and we were just kicking off planning for next steps, so it feels like everything's in this artificial standstill.

And like... maybe I shouldn't phrase it like that. I did know Alexei. But I didn't "24 years" know him.

And now like, all the activity on Teams is either stuff beyond our org happening in the peripheral, or people within our org contributing thoughts and stories about Alexei.

For the last couple days I've been getting up intending to do work. But then I just kinda aimlessly stare at my remote desktop like it might do something. If I had some mindless tasks, I could do those, but my tasks right now are more like deep investigations and my brain won't turn on enough for those, and Ransom's not around to coordinate with. So I've mostly ended up just like... going and taking a nap and logging a sick day. I've also been so extremely tired.

It's been messed up...

[thdrama2]

https://www.tumblr.com/thdrama2/759618855878443008/im-sorry-but-i-fully-understand-christians-being?source=share

If this is because of my "im ip blocking you because you have dni christians" and shit. Dude im trans and atheist. I was physically harassed for being lgbt in a christian school run by a nun (small town, only religious schools were even an option for me) i GET the religious trauma but its still no excuse to be OPENLY shitty and OPENLY generalise people BASED ON SOLELYA BELIEF OR IDENTITY. It goes both ways, if you can see how christians not liking/agreeing with people simply being lgbt is very hurtful then how do you not realise generalising people who are lgbt going "DNI christians" under the idea that their mostly homophobic or some shit can also be hurtful and push actual christians who support lgbt people into being only accepted by bigots and then ending up feeling they have to side with the bigots and say the same bigoted shit because no one lgbt wants to associate on the basis of their beliefs. Hate and unnaccptance produces more hate and unnaccptance

No one owes kindness or understanding but you could at least silently block christians instead of announcing it along the same shit with "Dni zoos, dni racists, dni pedos" , I try to be open-minded so as a result i decide to avoid blocking anyone for their initial label of their beliefs, labels etc and base it on actions but If you're putting shit on a dni im going to assume you're very emotionally charged regarding that discussion with very extreme black and white thinking. Which is why im IP blocking people who cant handle roughly 1 third of the worlds total populations existence. Its ridiculous

I get it there is a loud minority of hateful fuckers on toyhouse who identify as christian, But they are just loud and hateful and scummy. Being hateful back against their identify or beliefs as a target is just not a good solution because it makes people defensive, feel like shit and makes them angry which makes people more hateful.

Again, im atheist and trans. Everything i listed on my ask with the dnis. None fucking apply to me, I just think religious imagery and concepts (God, angels, demons, crosses, churches etc) are cool and its stupid to tell one third of the worlds population to dni. Youve a block button use it.

Btw Sorry mod if i ended up causing chaos in your inbox, I'll be more mindful with what my asks contain and be more vague if its something specific

Replying to this.

[delusionalwings]

Whoo! Congrats and may more followers risen! I want to req prompt 3 with Mammon/Leviathan (i can't decide which one is more fitting so it's up to you) please and thank you! Have a marvelous day/night.

thank you! ^^ may you have an amazing day/night ahead!

Prompt - "Why should I compete with others for your attention?!"

yandere Leviathan, Mammon x gender neutral reader (separate)

[ prompt list + event masterlist ]

MAMMON

He was your lover, wasn't he? Your affection and attention should be all his to bask in and reciprocate. His greed knew no bounds when it came to you, wanting, needing you more than you had to give away. So, why was there a flock of good-for-nothing demons being drawn to you like moths to a flame? Sure, you shone extremely brightly, what with you being a human with kindness and an extremely pretty smile.

"Oi, get away from my human." He would hiss at anyone who dared to come too near.

Mammon was called a lot of ugly names in the devildom. He was taunted and shamed, shouted at and chased; but that didn't change the fact that he was the second eldest, second strongest brother who could affect anybody's fortune at will. Making an enemy of him would quite literally come at a huge price. And he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

So, demons were obedient when he looked at them with a crazed look in his eyes, putting a protective arm around your waist.

Out of everything and everyone that he had ever set his heart on, you were the dearest. Everyone knew and kept their distance.

Mammon was no longer the demon to accept anybody's shit when it came to you. He would make others eat shit if they so much as talked to you.

You sometimes wondered if his claims of owning you as his servant was a joke any longer. If anybody wanted to talk to you, they did it under his supervision and for a very limited time. The moment he grunted in displeasure, they would leave. It didn't matter if you had more to say.

Fights ensued.

"Mammon, can't I even talk to anybody else? I can't be in your arms all the fucking time!"

"Why can't ya, human. Aren't you the Great Mammon's personal servant? Aren't ya?! Y-Y-You're m-mine." He uttered with great difficulty. "Yes. There, I said it. Remember that!"

His head felt dizzy, he was overcome with feelings. "You know how scummy I can be, how c-clingy I can be and you still decided to be with me. Why should I compete with others for your attention?!" He yelled in a moment of passion. His blue eyes shone with a frenzied adoration for you. He cornered you to a couch and put his head in the crook of your neck. "Why do you need to talk to anybody else when ya have someone as dashing and smart as the Great Mammon? Be grateful that I chose to be with you!" He said to save face as he pulled back with blushing cheeks.

With his cuteness, you couldn't stay angry for long. Cuteness that was reserved only for you.

LEVIATHAN

"Why should I compete with others for your attention?!"

Leviathan was on the verge of throwing a tantrum. Come on! He finally had someone he could call his — that was what a relationship was about, after all — and still, he had competitors? You were truly one of a kind, rarer than a limited edition merch with the additional benefit of belonging only to him. Why should he have to wait in the sidelines while you talked to some lower demon who clearly had less than honourable intentions? The way they smiled around you made him feel sick but what made him feel worse was the smile on your face while talking to them. It should be reserved only for him!

Every single time you dressed to impress him, he was more concerned about the eyes that could also see you. A precious blessing needed to be sealed away where he could keep it all for himself. Nobody else should ever breathe the same air as you. Nobody other than him even if he was less than worthy of you.

When he kept clinging to you, you had to stay in his room for days on end. At last, when the dam of your emotions broke and you asked to get away, he cried and cried, calling you cruel and blaming you for always needing validation from others.

"Am I not e-e-enough? Does my lo-love not satisfy you? W-W-Who do you even need besides me? For which normie do you wanna ditch your player 1?!"

"HUH?" he broke into sobs at your feet.

And then you felt obliged to spend a while comforting him. By the time you two came to an understanding, or so you believed when he didn't cry anymore, he just couldn't let you go. Good times were meant to be enjoyed together, after all.

You never needed to leave his room… Never. In his room, he was lord and you were only his.

[hope-bagels-for-life]

you gotta love when something like artfight of all fucking things starts putting in place absolute asinine rules such as:

all art that gets submitted must "clearly display effort" ( saw someone say this rule has been there for forever but that doesn't make it any less asinine )

"premade brushes are okay but excessive use and it needs to be filtered as no background".

not to mention the new guidelines they input about suggestive content. theyre not just tweaking the filtering system, no no no, theyre outright banning and heavily filtering fetish gear " such as collars " but lingerie is allowed! as long as it's lightly filtered of course and if it's not "portrayed in a suggestive light" which, lets be honest, how the fuck are you going to know if it was meant to be suggestive or not??? how do you monitor this???? and how are you going to allow literal lingerie, but a collar is crossing the line?

exaggerated proportions also fall under potential fetishes?? i vaguely understand where this is coming from but again. how do you monitor this? how do you decide when it becomes a fetish? what about extreme cartoonists??

not only are these rules currently extremely vague on the website, but this is going to curb a lot of different groups of artists. how do you decide whats not clearly displaying effort? what about younger, beginner artists? will their work be taken down just because someone else decides it's low effort?? not only does this feel really mean spirited but it feels vaguely ableist, too. you can't tell how much efforts been put into something just by looking at it. what you perceive as a simple doodle could take someone else hours.

how are you going to run a website/event thats meant to encourage all kinds of artists to join and have fun and then potentially curb half your audience? how are you planning to monitor this? how do you plan on deciding what's low effort, how are you going to enforce the new rules regarding kinks/fetishes without alienating your userbase and without offending people when you will absolutely cast the wrong judgement?? there were already filters in place to keep people from seeing content they dont want to see. it didn't need to get more specific than what's already in place and more things certainly didn't need to be outright banned.

i get that it's a site with a huge userbase and filtering and monitoring is necessary but none of this was needed. no-one wants to draw and be worried about whether or not their art submission will be taken down because someone decided it was low effort, or because the character is wearing a plain collar, or god forbid their tits might be a bit bigger than average.

crazy too how these changes were made and added into the complete bottom of their announcement about the theme reveal too btw. no mention of these changes in the title of their news post either, btw. they just shoved it in the very bottom of the post when, lets be honest, most people will see when the theme reveal is and back out of the post. they're not going to assume anything else too important or grand is being put down all the way at the bottom with no clear indication that hey, you might have to completely re-filter your already existing characters on the site ( when again, the new rules and guidelines are really fucking vague!! ) a lot of people also do not seem to be aware that these big changes that could potentially get their attacks or art removed have taken.

idk. people have put it more eloquently in the comments of the art fight news post, but this feels extremely scummy.

[giulliadella]

Scarlet Gospels sucks

Spoilers for literally the entire book if you even want to read that pile of hot garbage.

Scarlet Gospels is a novel written by Clive Barker in 2015 as a conclusion of Hellraiser saga AND IT'S PURE GARBAGE. I will try my absolute best to explain why it sucks, starting with...

The summary (in 5 sentences)

Hell Priest (that's Pinhead for the uncultured) enters a din of magicians and turns all except one into minced meat and also makes one female magician give birth to some abomination that eats their remains; the remaining magician Felixson is taken to Hell. Harry D'Amour (a detective for the occult) is sad because a demon jerked off to his friend getting burned alive, so he goes to visit Norma (blind woman who sees ghosts) and is sent on a mission to investigate a house of a recently deceased ghost who needed to hide some incriminating evidence. Harry finds Lament Configuration there and opens it, Hell Priest appears with cenobite Felixson and they try to kill Harry, but he escapes and is saved by a group of weird people where a trans woman drugs him to make him have nightmares so that he can wake up faster. Meanwhile Hell Priest kills all Cenobites with origami and opens a portal to Earth from Hell, goes to Earth with Felixson, lamely fights using blood magic and kidnaps Norma. Harry then goes to Hell with a few people, a bunch of random shit happens and it all ends with Hell Priest and Lucifer having an anime battle in which Lucifer wins and Hell Priest is pissed so he blinds Harry and kills Norma and then Lucifer destroys Hell, but Harry and the others escape and now Harry sees ghosts.

Now it's time for the reasons why it sucks:

Impostor Pinhead

First and foremost, what the FUCK happened to Pinhead's character?! I've read old Hellraiser comics from 80s and 90s and there you can meet the Cenobites in their full glory and understand them as characters. In those comics Pinhead is chaotic neutral and he's extremely likeable, just like in the movies. But in Scarlet Gospels he's a total dick from first to the last page. Even the dumbass Boom! comics kept Pinhead as mostly in character until the fiasco with Elliott Spencer's reincarnation happened. I would like to personally ask mr Barker why the FUCK is Pinhead suddenly a power hungry jerk with no morals who rapes people. Why does he kill all of the Cenobites for exactly NO REASON?! In old comics, Pinhead is basically a father figure to all the Cenobites and he clearly cares about them. He teaches them, keeps them in order, gives motivational speeches and punishes them if they deserve it, but he would never kill any of them. NEVER.

Then there's the glaring issue of him having no motives for his actions. Basically in this dumbass book, he wants to take control of Hell and become supreme being which is literally the polar opposite of his character in both the movies and the comics. He isn't power hungry, he's a very devoted, dignified person who dedicated his life to serving Leviathan. But Leviathan doesn't even appear in this book, so WTF!? More on that later, power is usually a motive for a villain, heck, that's the motive of my own villains as well. But we need a reason for character to crave power. The villain who wants all power just because is cartoony and childish and that's exactly what Pinhead is in this entire book. Also, for whatever reason, he wanted Harry to document his rise to power and write his gospel which is just beyond dumb. Why does he want this documented? No clue. Why does he want power? Don't ask me, mate. And on top of that, killing all of the Cenobites didn't aid him in achieving power at all, so he also killed them all just because.

And on top of that, he's a completely different person. He's not elegant and restrained; he cusses, he uses his fists to beat the shit out of Norma, he's scummy, hypocritical and overall a pure asshole. Even Unbound Pinhead from Hellraiser 3 kept his dignity and personality, but this impostor doesn't! He's so obsessed over getting to rule Hell that he kills innocent people and cuts off parts of his own body to be able to wear Lucifer's clothes. And there's no explanation for that obsession!!!! WHY!? Why is he so out of character!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Harry D'Amour is a sentient bag of potatoes

And so are all of his friends. Literally, if you cut out Harry's entire arc out of this book, absolutely no part of the main plot would change. Harry plays no part in Pinhead's rise to power, he's just there to document it, as a witness. So he's literally just dragged around Hell.

Harry's personal life and everything else depicts him as the most generic, edgy hero and he has a personality of a wax crayon. I don't know if he's a better character in other books about him, but in Scarlet Gospels he's just an observer whose only agency is to save Norma. And in the end he gets blinded by Pinhead because he sucked as a witness as well lmao. He also didn't even save Norma, she got killed. He was literally there just to brood, say a few cringey one-liners and be useless. AMAZING MAIN HERO AMIRITE!?

And his friends are even worse. All of them were so bland and boring. Although two of them had cute gay romance which was fun, but it's mentioned just in passing and it ends with them talking about the size of their genitals which is... unnecessary to say the least!

Christianity has no place in Hellraiser!

Yes, it's called Hellraiser and, yes, there are mentions of angels and demons and Hell in the movies, but Hellraiser IS NOT Christian. Hell in this universe IS NOT Christian Hell, it's a lovecraftian alternative dimension and that's what makes it fun. Christian Hell and stories about it have been done so many times and Scarlet Gospels is just one of many mediocre Christian horror books. In the comics, Cenobites do mess with religion, Pinhead hates Christianity and all that is fine. We DID NOT need to turn the beautiful Labyrinth from Hellbound and the comics into dumb, unimaginative Christian Hell. Fuck that. Lucifer was a fun character to read about, but where is Leviathan!? Leviathan is literally the most recognizable part of Hellraiser Hell and it doesn't even get mentioned. WHAT THE FUCK?!

Transphobia (tw)

There is one character who is a trans woman and she is treated like walking genitalia. All of the characters, including Harry, constantly comment about how she's manly and how she has wide wrists and how she's too blocky and how she had bottom surgery and I'm like what the actual fuck. I am a cis woman and people have been telling me my entire life that my wrists are too broad and that I have manly hands. It triggers me to no end and I cannot even begin to fathom just how triggering that would be to a trans woman. Not to mention that her character has no personality besides trying to act womanly and she's the only one in Harry's group who is evil. And she's evil for no reason. And on top of that, she's murdered off screen and Barker uses that scene to once again describe her "mutilated genitals". WHAT THE FUCK!!! This part made me so irrationally angry and I can't believe that it was even included in the book.

Trying too hard to be edgy

This entire novel has a feeling of a 16 year old little emo trying to be edgy. There are so many idiotic descriptions, cringey scenes where demons jerk off, extremely gross stuff that has no purpose for the story, scenes that exist just for shock value, the list goes on and on. Now, don't get me wrong, I've expected a lot of graphic descriptions, it's Hellraiser after all. But there's a clear difference between graphic, but having artistic merit and edgy and most of the stuff in here are more on the edgy side. Just lame.

Also, Norma holds two pages long conversation with Harry before dying which is the cliche that I hate the most in fiction. Like she's mortally wounded, but has enough energy and clearness of mind to crack jokes for 20 minutes? I thought Barker was above such beginner author pitfalls.

Stuff I actually liked

Depressed Lucifer is hilarious. The entire anime battle between Lucifer and Pinhead was so cringey and funny that I laughed out loud. Definitely belongs on "so bad it's good" lists.

Quo'otho is an eldritch very hungry caterpillar and he's my favorite character in the novel. Too bad he got killed as well. Poor baby was just hungry and doing his job. He deserves head pats.

Pinhead once uses a spell to bring a whole bunch of origami cranes to life. That was so cute. He used those cranes to kill the Cenobites which was dumb as fuck, but the sheer image of him doing origami and bringing it to life made me smile like a dumbass fangirl that I am. That was one of the very few moments in the story where he was in character. If anyone writes a fanfic in which he uses those origami cranes to send secret love letters to Kirsty I will sell my soul to them.

The Hell Priest uniform has pockets and they are deep enough to hold several Lament Configurations and a sword. This is extremely important information.

Overall, Scarlet Gospels gets a 3/10 from me. It was really cringey and bad, but had some fun and interesting ideas and concepts. It completely assassinated my (and many other people's) most beloved character in Hellraiser franchise, has a passive, cardboard cutout hero, many ideas that go nowhere, it's very transphobic and has endless amount of stuff that happens for no reason. I like Barker's writing style, but this novel fucking sucks.

I'll take a break from Tumblr for now, as I'm working on the new chapter of my comic. I don't know if I'm going to post more Hellraiser stuff, maybe, maybe not, idk. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this dumb review. See you in a while, if I survive the finals!

[the-path-to-redemption]

Hi! I was on the Heartstopper tag and saw one of your older posts. And I'm just curious: I never even heard of the 'Boyfriends' webcomic; where can one read it? Also, what did Alice O. say about japanese BL? That seems extremely messed up, when she very obviously was inspired by them, and caters to the same audience, who would read cutesy shounen-ais... Thanks, if you answer.

Hi! So the "Boyfriends" comic is written and illustrated by Refrainbow, an Asian transman which you can read on Webtoon. It updates weekly and is generally very cute as the plot is just following a polyamorous group of boyfriends living college life together, so it won't include something like a grand overarching plot like other stories might. It's a Slice of Life comic with most chapters having a condensed plot that can be wrapped up pretty quickly.

And as for Al*ce O. and their stance on BL, here's a link to their opinion on it as well as someone responding to it on Twitter. But to briefly summarize, Al*ce claims that Hearts*ppers shouldn't be considered "yaoi" or even "BL" because the works falling under these categories are "fetishizing" gay men in a bad way. But the thing is, BL or "Boys Love" is literally just that, Boys Love. It's a genre that encompasses light-hearted works of Shounen Ai (basically just BL in Japanese) to the more hardcore, NSFW variants. It's the same thing to classify any work including an MLW relationship under the "Romance" genre, regardless of whether it has sexual content or not.

The problem with Al*ce's point is that they consider these works, mostly made by Japanese or other Asian creators, as "fetishizing" and "negative" while their work as a Western creator is somehow more pure and "not fetishizing". Which is xenophobia. Because they are elevating their work as a Westerner over Eastern creators without even attempting to do basic research into the BL genre and history, or how by creating these works, those Eastern creators are much more susceptible to legal troubles regardless of their works having NSFW contents or not. That's just shitty, and the hypocrisy of Western baby queers doing the same thing Al*ce is doing makes them xenophobes and Puritans as fuck.

Again, you can like one variant of this big genre and not like the other. That's your right as a reader, but elevating one over the other, especially when you're putting down works of marginalized people makes you scummy.

[noellevanious]

Thoughts on LAD 8 rpg mechanics so far:

All of the new Jobs are really fun especially Koryu's unique Dragom of Dojima job

Extremely sad that they didnt keep the LAD1 DLC jobs (which were my favorite)

Also sad they didnt seem to do anything to change returning jobs

the DLC jobs look boring as fuck and its super scummy to sell them as Day 1 DLC but i like the game enough that i might buy them just to try them out

[starlightshadowsworld]

I'm gonna end up bashing Kirigiri a lot in this one.

I do actually like her I swear but this bit... Nope. So... You've been warned.

You know what really pisses me off about Makoto's trial situation.

It's not even the execution.

Like I get it, you know?

Someone had to die.

And the two most suspicious individuals especially in the trial were Makoto and Kirigiri.

And Makoto was very much protecting Kirigiri and thus dodging the questions.

Which isn't exactly the best strategy, even without Kirigiri throwing him under the bus.

It was rigged by Monokuma.

We're honestly just lucky everyone voted the same person.

I don't like it.

I think it's scummy but so are the rest of the trials.

So I can deal with that.

I can even understand Kirigiri's rather blunt point that she gets Makoto was protecting her.

But that she couldn't bring herself to do the same.

I get it.

Its easy to say you would die for a person you care about but being in that situation is hard.

You can never truly know what you'll do.

And Kirigiri has a lot of self preservation.

So it makes sense to her character she wouldn't.

And she told it to him straight.

Which for Kirigiri, someone who is notorious for hiding things from people.

It's a big step for her to honestly admit her feelings like that.

I respect that.

Does it hurt?

Absolutely but it's the truth, and she owes it to Makoto to give him the truth.

To tell him that yes she did do what she did.

She can't change what happened but she almost lost him, the only person she has left.

And in doing so she realises how important he is to her.

That Kirigiri snuck down here with the hope he had survived, that she would never have forgiven herself if she had caused his death.

Kirigiri was left in a world without Makoto in it and it wasn't a world she wanted to live in.

And so, she's going to protect him too.

Because they are a team, she can't do this without him and so they are going to end this nightmare.

Together.

Except... None of this happens.

Instead of a possible heart touching moment between two survivors.

Even an apology.

Kirigiri says "and not to make excuses but" and tells Makoto that it was very important that she survived.

She's found out her talent, she's the Ultimate Detective.

And so her survival is important as she's the only one to defeat the mastermind.

... And that's when I flipped the table.

This.

This is the bit that just pisses me off.

Because it's not "I could have gotten you killed, my hands were tied in a death game and I made the difficult choice that will haunt me forever."

No.

It comes across as I have to live because my talent is more important than yours.

Thus your survival is not as important as mine.

Which is so incredibly fucked up.

It's basically the Danganronpa equivalent of eugenics.

Your talent is objectively lesser than my talent so you deserve to die so I can live.

I hate this.

I hate this sooo much.

I wasn't even playing I was watching a play through and I wanted to rage quit.

How fucking dare you.

You didn't even know what your talent was for the entire game.

But now you do, somehow now your the most valuable person here?

Like Makoto hadn't been destroying himself. Trying to keep everyone alive.

Basically carrying all the trials on his back.

And she spends the rest of the time talking about her talent and such.

And just wow how did you make Makoto almost dying about you?

That's impressive.

Also, you know who else does something like this.

Someone who finds out the main character has a lesser/no talent and than proceeds to treat them like shit for it?

Nagito.

You know, Nagito the guy everyone whether you love him or hate em can all agree is cuckoo in the coconuts?

That Nagito.

Nagito spends the whole game friendly to Hajime but also extremely hot and cold with him.

Only to learn that Hajime is a reserve course student, thus without talent.

And proceeds to turn a 180 and berate and insult him for it.

And minus that last part, very similiar to Kirigiri.

Even down to the fact both are hiding huge secrets from everyone.

The only real difference is Nagito doesn't see his talent as impressive, but in the face of no talent Hajime?

It's makes him better than him.

It means that Hajime is beneath him.

But when Nagito does it it's fucked and when Kirigiri does it it's cool I guess.

But you know what the icing on the cake is?

Kirigiri is someone who generally keeps a stoic face.

She's unflappable, she's always serious and cool headed.

Gives me the ice queen with a heart of gold vibes.

But in this scene, Kirigiri is smiling.

She's telling Makoto how her life means more than his, and she's smiling.

Now I actually like Kirigiri.

Shocking I know.

I do, I like her and I know she's in Danganronpa 3 and I can't wait to see her in it.

But this?

Fuck this.

Fuck her.

Fuck all of this.

I know the Kirigiri stans are gonna rip me a new one like they do everytime I talk about Makoto's trial.

But I don't care.

And Makoto's a better person than me cos I'd have just sat in the corner of the trial room.

Like oh I thought you were so talented and this was your whole reason for being here.

And you're the only person who can beat the mastermind.

I'm gonna go get actual pain killers and a bed that doesn't come with murderers.

Okay, baiiiii.

You know for someone who's Jin Kirigiri's apparently neglected daughter...

... He sure passed on his fucked up ideology to her.

[beevean]

Idw Sonic's "morality" is weird

"I'm gonna keep beating you until you act the way I think is cool"

And what about villains that he knows will never change?

"I know you'll never change your ways, and you're a danger to innocents, but at least I get the pleasure of repeatedly smacking you around"

This just makes the comic's version of Sonic look extremely scummy

"If you change your ways, I get the satisfaction of knowing I beat you into submission. If you don't change your ways, I get the continuous satisfaction of pummeling you for fun. But as long as I personally vibe with your attitude, I'll leave you alone"

Really makes you wonder how he views people

This is one of the multiple reasons I think "Big Oof" deserved to be memed into oblivious for how bad it is, and not just because of the cringe factor.

Think about it carefully. Sonic, in issue #50, makes a long speech that boils down to "I think everyone deserves freedom, including the doctors". He thinks that Eggman and Starline have the chance to redeem themselves, and as such, he can't decide whether they should live or die: he has, in his incorrect words, made peace with enough enemies to know that violence is not always the answer. This is his reaction to Eggman after he caused an untold amount of pain and misery with his Metal Virus:

Even Steven Universe resented the Diamonds, man.

But then Starline dies in #51, a death that comes mere hours after his showdown with Surge. A death that has clearly upset the sensitive Belle. And Sonic's only reaction? Comforting his friend? Thoughtful silence because there are no appropriate words? No. It was basically "lol".

I would wager that a person who is so deeply convinced that everyone deserves the chance to live and experience the world and make choices would be a little more disappointed that one of said people was suddenly deprived of said freedom.

And what was the common argument against this?

"Well Starline was a monster who brainwashed two kids, no wonder Sonic didn't cry over him!"

Oh. So Starline didn't deserve redemption, after all. (let's ignore how this implies that 1) Sonic knew about that, which no he didn't, and 2) Eggman is not as bad as Starline, which lol) So Sonic clearly thought of Starline as being so evil, so twisted inside, that his only epitaph should be a meme, in the face of his philosophy.

Then what the fuck was the point of that long verbal masturbation sequence?

I tell you what: to put Surge at her place. To place himself as superior to her. To shut her (valid) concerns down. To dismiss her. He was talking for the sake of an epic quote.

Oh, was that not the intended interpretation? Then maybe you should learn how to write a character.

(speaking of which, his insistence that Surge will come around to him because "he has made peace with enemies before" is not only incorrect, but fucking scummy. You asshole. You utter insensitive arrogant pustule. How come you give Surge less agency than his own abuser. I am so glad that you barely feature in IDW anymore because the writers have decided that they'd rather ruin their OCs.)

[chaifootsteps]

Viv also has Dark_Crowl working on HB in boarding. She currently lives in Georgia (the country), but is a Russian who was working *in* Russia while also working on HB, while there are active Sanctions going on against Russia. While Sanctions technically have no legal recourse against corporations hiring freelance individuals (as opposed to hiring through companies, which is extremely illegal), it's still an extremely scummy move for corporations to employ. Not to mention that Georgia's government is extremely cooperative with Russia's in filtering taxes earned by Russians back into Russia, so her living there really doesn't change much on just where her taxes go (this is a common way Russians try to circumvent the Sanctions).

In the wake of this Ukraine/Russia debacle, Dark tweeted "I just wanna thank Viv for hiring ppl on the studio regardless of their nationalities, gender, sexuality and etc. I don't know where I could've been right now without her and SH And I'm so very grateful that at least in this community I'm not hated for just existing." https://twitter.com/Dark_Crowl/status/1704589043885871163 It's very nice that she can afford to hide in another country and avoid trouble while her taxes on those SH earnings went to destroying someone else's apartment, someone's hospital, someone's school. How grateful that she gets a community, while other people hide in terror and burry themselves unground to avoid the horrific trauma the soldiers above ground will enact on them if they come up. That's such a tone-deaf way to look at it, and tone-deaf seems to be the word of the year for SH.

DaniDraws is calling it xenophobia against Russians, https://twitter.com/DaniDraws666/status/1704523131614843294 but completely ignores the fact that Viv's studio is circumventing sanctions, probably because Russian labour is cheaper than American labour and she doesn't care of the taxes earned off that cheaper labour goes into firing missiles at civilian buildings. I don't think that she necessarily even supports Russia, I think she's just ignorant to literally anything outside of her own goals, including how *when you pay Russians living in Russia, they get taxed and it goes into lobbing more missiles at civilians*.

TL;DR: someone doesn't deserve hate just for being ethnically Russian, but if your studio is circumventing Sanctions in order to take advantage of cheaper labour and is paying Russians living in Russia or Georgia, then congrats - you're funding missile strikes on Ukrainian civilians, they have a right to be mad. It's not xenophobia, it's common empathy and awareness for things outside of your own little fantasy red demon zone. Someone else pointed this situation out to me like a year back when they first noticed, and I never bothered bringing it up because I didn't think it needed to be said. But if people like Dani want to get on a high horse about exploiting cheap labour around Sanctions, then more attention should be brought to the fact that they're doing just that.

Too fucking right it should. Thanks for the info, and for helping bring said attention.

[opinated-user]

I really can’t believe that I never noticed just how often Lily likes to act like she’s somehow FORCED to answer anon asks that she doesn’t want to or make her look bad. It’s such a manipulative, scummy thing for her to do. She has absolutely no filter for herself, CHOOSES to put up all sorts of terrible/very incriminating things on her Tumblr and up for her Patreon Video votes, and than acts fucking shocked when many other people have a fucking problem with them! Lily is in complete control of what she says/puts up for voting on her Tumblr Blog and Patreon, but wants none of the ACCOUNTABILITY that comes along with that control. It’s such an extremely self-absorbed, egotistical mindset for somebody to have, and even worse that LO has purposefully geared her content towards attracting the most vulnerable people possible. The exact fucking OPPOSITE of the type of people who somebody (like LILY) should be this fucking reckless and uncaring around!!

it reminds me to her "i didn't say that sugar was a nazi sympathizer, but if you got to that conclusion with the skewed and twisted version of this story that i gave you i wouldn't blame you either". she wants to be able to say those words, to do those things, but she doesn't want to be responsible for it so it has to be someone else fault, never hers. which also makes her look just like a child, defenseless and with no agency at all. not really the best of looks for a woman who is past 30 already.

this is the amount of messages i have sitting on my askbox right as we speak. many of them are things i want to keep there, some of them are asks i missed because i was busy with life and now are outdated and some of them talk about stuff i prefer not to publish at all. (yes, i know, one day i should cleaned it up, but that's not the point now) i have absolute control for what happens on my blog. every post, every word, anything that happens on it is always my entire responsibility. nobody can force me to answer an ask i don't want or talk about something i don't want. that's not possible. i'm in fact an adult and can handle my own tumblr blog without infantilizing myself to avoid accountability. so when LO tries to pull the act "i can't help it if my audience wants to talk about incest and give me their incest stories in which they had relationships with their siblings (it's always siblings, how topical!*), but it's okay somehow and i never react negatively to the incest!", i look at that number of asks and know that she's full of it. worse, she's so trusting on her audience being absolute devoid of critical thinking that she thinks they'll believe instantly that she is, in fact, just a innocent little kid who has no choice but to answer every incest ask that she gets. she just can't help it. the anons force her hand every time, don't you feel sorry for her? well, no, i don't.

*watch it change into cousins or something else the moment i publish this. i know you have been reading, LO, hi.