#why did i spend so much time on a post that's only relevant for 1 day out of the year? nobody knows

[yoosung-ah]

The RFA wishes you a happy Valentine's Day!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Do you know if Riddle, or Tray, ever stands up to his mother? I think i saw it in a Pinterest post once of teen Riddle being slapped by his mom and Tray taking him away.

His background is sadder than Shoto Todoroki from BNHA

We don’t really get to hear about how things are going back home with Mrs. Rosehearts outside of one brief instance. In 4-3, Riddle is leaving for winter break and mentions he intends on speaking with his mother, though he isn’t optimistic about her listening.

Trey states in the same part of the story that he isn’t allowed at Riddle’s house (because Mrs. Rosehearts has banned him). However, Riddle is still invited to visit him and Chenya at the Clover family bakery (though it’s very unlikely Riddle would be able to, since he hasn’t canonically seen Chenya again since the unbirthday party of book 1).

We never get a follow-up on how the conversation between Riddle and his mother went. It’s never touched upon again, and his mom isn’t really brought up beyond this case. (I did happen to write a short piece about Trey, Riddle, and Mrs. Rosehearts interacting though, if you were interested in seeing my own interpretation of this idea.)

Riddle spends most of his time at NRC since it’s a boarding school, meaning there are few opportunities for him to directly interact with his mother. Even if Mrs. Rosehearts were readily accessible to him, I highly doubt we would get to witness Riddle or Trey doing much to talk back to her. As we see in book 4, Riddle is still quite meek and uncertain when it comes to speaking with his mom. Trey, meanwhile, is generally very non-confrontational and may still be dealing with his own complicated feelings about interfering with what are family matters. (Recall that the last time he encouraged Riddle to be adventurous, it resulted in his friend being severely punished and Trey may harbor guilt over this occurrence.) I feel that neither of them would realistically develop the courage to talk back to Mrs. Rosehearts when only like half a year has passed since Riddle’s OB incident as opposed to like seventeen years of Riddle living under her rules.

***CONTENT WARNING: I will be discussing abuse at length under the cut, so please be advised to avoid reading further if the topic makes you uncomfortable.***

Regarding the comic you saw on Pinterest, it is fan art. That is in no way canonical; Mrs. Rosehearts may be very stern and have a temper, but she has never slapped or otherwise put a hand on Riddle. The closest thing we get to a slap is this panel from the manga adaptation, which isn’t even a slap. You can tell from the movement lines and the FWP sfx that Mrs. Rosehearts is just quickly pulling her arm away since Riddle is trying to latch onto it in an attempt to get her to listen to his protests. There is also no mark on Riddle or harsh slap sfx to indicate contact was made.

Now then 💦 There's something very serious and relevant to this ask I'd actually like to discuss, so I hope you'll stick around to hear me out on this.

I know none of us really like Mrs. Rosehearts (which is fair, she has done a lot of terrible things to her son). However, I think it's dangerous for us to speak about her as though she's a total monster and nothing more than a monster. I'm NOT going to stand here and advocate that she has done nothing wrong (she definitely has committed many wrongs). What I'm saying is that I don't agree with her being treated like "just" an abuser.

Let's say we do demonize Mrs. Rosehearts. We see only her negative traits and allow those to define her entire character. This creates a scenario in which she is alienated and dehumanized, left as a caricature of a woman that is solely known for hurting her child. But the thing is, this ISN’T how abuse really works. Few abusers are completely wicked people through and through. Part of the reason why it is so difficult for victims to leave their abusers is because abusers almost never start off abusive. They usually act totally normal, and the abuse often doesn’t come until later or specific situations arise. It creeps up on you in an almost insidious manner, and you don’t expect it coming. I’d also like to mention that abusers often don’t act with the intentional thought of, “Yeah, what I’m doing/saying is abusive”. Abusers typically justify their actions or convince themselves they are acting out of goodness. They don’t do bad things “because they’re bad people”, they do bad things because they think they’re GOOD people. Some abusers may even be victims themselves.

By painting abusers (even fictional ones) as cartoonishly evil, irredeemable, or always cruel, it makes it harder for us to believe the very real danger that we, whom we see as “good” people, could become “bad” ourselves. It makes it harder to believe victims when they report abuse because “oh, the abuse isn’t THAT bad”. It erases the idea that abusers are also human, and that humans have the capacity to be awful sometimes or to perpetuate hurt. It makes it so much harder to identify abuse because we’d only be looking for the most extreme examples of it rather than noticing the small, subtle signs. By “othering” abusers, it’s inadvertently denying so many nuances of abuse... which ultimately is counterproductive.

I would like to point out that even in the example provided of another abusive parent, Endeavor is portrayed with some nuance. He physically and verbally abused his wife, neglected the children he deemed worthless, and pushed the child he deemed to be his successor to the brink. However, Endeavor is also shown to remember a detail as small as his (arranged) wife’s favorite flower when she only told him about it once. He is notably much more lenient when training his first son, who didn’t have the ideal Quirk he sought. Endeavor at one point even confesses to pursuing being a hero in order to avoid the demands of fatherhood, which demonstrates a realistic insecurity and vulnerability… his humanity.

The same could be true for Mrs. Rosehearts. We only assume he is “just an abuser” because we see her in such a limited scope. There are valid reasons to believe why she is a “good” person outside of how we see her acting in Riddle’s recollections, and this may help to explain why Riddle feels so hesitant to “stand up” to her. I would really recommend reading this post, which goes a lot more in-depth about the complications surrounding Riddle’s relationship with his mother. Again, I am in NO WAY defending Mrs. Rosehearts; I am only pointing out that abusers—no matter how horrible their actions—have identities beyond the label of “abuser” that should be acknowledged.

[whatbigotspost]

Sometimes it feels like everyone left leaning on this site are at the extreme polar opposite ends of a spectrum of "compulsory vote blue or die and kill us all, you stupid selfish piece of shit" or "vote for Biden and you're a fucking warmonger who will kill us all, you stupid selfish piece of shit."

I'm so sick of it. It's exhausting.

I can't do justice to this point in a tumblr post. But for now I'll say, as with everything in life, it's all so much fucking more nuanced than this. Both systemically and personally. No 2 people on this site's voting access and circumstances are remotely the same. Y'all really gonna tell me it's the same experience every step of the way to vote in rural Texas as it is downtown NYC? Indianapolis as LA? Denver as Honolulu? Alaska as Alabama? And that’s only speaking to geography which is 1 factor of so many.)

I'm gonna hold my nose and vote for Biden. Again. (Again and again if you count VP.) AND I fucking hate him and his politics. I was raised as close to the "vote blue or die" side of the spectrum as one could be in 1984. My parents were shit, but they did take me to see voting w/ them. I was raised with a hero of a grandmother who reminded me every election cycle that when she was born, her mother wasn't legally able to vote.

I ended up spending 4 years studying poli sci, where my academic mentor and thesis reader was the first Black woman (I'm white) who I'd ever gotten to formally learn from. She was the first person who also ever challenged my idea that "voting is the ultimate way to participate in society" and opened my eyes to the substance of the choice to not participate in politics that way. She was foundational and planted the seed of the thought in my mind, but my continued educational path studying the governmental systems of the US far outside her direct tutelage kept raising the same questions for me. After that educational experience, I basically walked away with a following 17 year (ever growing) mental ethical dilemma and debate on this in my own mind that has just gotten more and more intense because I can personally understand both of those extremes and why they are so passionately felt.

But I just don't agree that we should be spending our time continuously text screaming at another person that the choice you arrived at (for the reasons YOU have) are in any way actually relevant to a stranger.

If you read this and you're at one of those extreme ends, I want you to know: I don't blame you or have a negative judgement against that. But if you think that YOUR REASONS are the same truths present for all other folks on the left side of the stupid ass US political spectrum, you're wrong. You just are.

[linka-from-captain-planet]

Florrickology, Part 1: The Thong That Launched 1000 Headcanons

My favorite thing to do as a background character fan is to co-opt things that were definitely not meant to be characterization by making them characterization.

Thus, I have looked way deeper than intended into every possible pixel, moment, and mention of my beloved Counsellor Florrick and developed the exciting new field of Florrickology to report my findings.

Obviously the first place I'm going is this fucking dress and how I use it to infer upon her the two sexiest characteristics a woman can have:

Unflinching vanity and a deep-seated, yet subtle, insanity.

This dress is more than a bit of an enigma because... why?

It really stands out because, while Larian gives players plenty of opportunities to sexualize their avatar and their companions, they don't really sexualize NPCs. Most women, like men, are dressed very modestly. Outfits that female NPCs wear are even often much more unisex than the equivalent outfits available to player characters (e.g. tunics that male PCs can wear may turn into tits-out dirndls on female PCs for no apparent reason, but female NPCs wearing the same outfit get a tunic). The only characters who are sexualized are presented as Sexy Characters, like Abdirak or Sorn Orlith or Orin or even Mystra and Mamzell Amira, who also wear this dress.

Mostly.

Florrick, despite being beautiful, a two-time damsel in distress, and a certified MILF, is not presented as a Sexy Character. She's presented as a no-nonsense, somewhat domineering, loyal-and-virtuous-to-a-fault fed. This is the only description of her in the game files (see img description), highlighting these bare-bones characteristics:

So... why? For this character whose appearance truly doesn't matter beyond being eye-catching enough to communicate her importance to the story, who has no even vaguely flirtatious dialogue and no implied sexuality or romance (even with the man she spends the entire game chasing!), and not even a weird torture porn moment which she has ample opportunities... why dress her like this? Why emphasize her body over any other similarly-prominent NPC like, say, Alfira?

My assumption would be that they did it to soften her to the average Redditmod McGamerbro because the story really is better if incels don't kill her for being "bossy"... if they didn't also code her as a middle-aged black woman and give her a custom face sculpt with a prominent nose, large jaw, and non-Western features, all famously accepted with no problematic reaction from this demographic whom Larian doesn't not cater to. In fact, as the #1 Florrickposter in the universe, I often see people say in tags and comments that they didn't even notice how revealing her dress is while playing the game. While racism is definitely at play (plus misogyny, rendering this middle-aged black-coded woman invisible, whereas a younger and white man in the same role would be ALL OVER THIS DAMN PLACE), it also speaks to just how discordant her outfit and explicit characterization are.

Now, this outfit does make a little sense on a glance and I think that's a big part of why it flies under the radar as well: she's important and presumably wealthy, so of course she wears this very posh and expensive-looking dress. She's a wizard (a fact everyone manages to glean on a glance, despite it never being stated and basically never being relevant), so of course she's wearing something obnoxious and purple. From the waist up, it actually looks like a pretty reasonable outfit for a person of her DnD class, social class, and occupation.

It's from the waist down where it gets out of hand.

But first, this isn't even Florrick's original outfit or face (which I'll talk about in another post), or the first iteration of her current outfit. Originally, she wore the ostentatious yet modest feathered peacock dress that eventually ended up on Lucretious (and took the thicc waist with it RIP). According to my research, there was a reason for this: it was too baller for Waukeen's Rest and kept causing crashes, so they had to put her in a less graphically-demanding outfit.

The original peacock dress sent the necessary "I am an important quest giver, engage with me" message, so why not just remove the cowl that was causing the issues? But instead, they changed her outfit entirely, keeping it eye-catching and posh (suitable for a big-city government official), but randomly making it super revealing (strange, for a big-city government official). Further, Florrick got a major va-va-voom upgrade between Sexy Dress v1 and final release, with a new dress model that makes it clearer that the front and back panels are sheer, subtly showing even more skin, and which unsubtly emphasizes her hips and breasts.

Based on extensive academic research using mods, I determined that the dress is what conveys the extra curviness (see img description in the left-most pic) vs her having a custom body sculpt (weak). Further, when viewed from behind, the dress pads out her ass, also making it look bigger and rounder than the standard body type 1 (see img description in the right-most pic).

What's more, if you look closely at the waist seam of the final version of her sexy dress, it looks like they went so far as to skew it to make her hips stand out even more when she takes the cocked-hip stance (which she seems to only stand in) and perhaps draw even more attention to her thong sticking out. Notice how the waist seam is even and straight across in Sexy Dress V1 above, but Final Florrick has it like 2 inches higher on her right, without fabric bunching to explain the different seam lengths. You can also see how the dress subtly pops out farther than her actual hips (and from the side view, over her lower stomach), giving her the impression of curves the standard body type doesn't have. They were very intentional with it.

Shockingly, I don't actually have much to say about her exposed thong in and of itself (it is what it is) except that I think it actually makes the outfit look substantially skimpier because it draws attention to just how high those hip slits are, compared to leaving the area blank so eyes gloss over it (even if that would imply she runs around commando all game). It's a small detail that drives home the overall design.

All this is to say, since this dress is only worn by 4 people* with Florrick being the first you see and by far has the most screen time, and it isn't lootable, it seems this outfit was developed intentionally and specifically to emphasize her body to make her look sexier.

*Florrick, Mamzell Amira (slightly different lower half), a random patriar at Gortash's inauguration named Lady Alia Durinbold, and Mystra

So, this takes us back to the question of 'why'. Why spend all this time and these resources fine-tuning this dress to make it as sexy and flattering as possible? Why put it on a character who has literally no reason to wear such a thing? Why put this dress which is nothing but nonsense on a character who's pretty much only characterized as being no-nonsense??

And this is also where the real tinfoil hattery comes in, as I doubt Larian really meant anything by it aside from creating a hot NPC for players with good taste to enjoy across all 3 acts.

But that's not what this nuclear caliber simp post is about; it's about overthinking shit because I love her and she is a main character to ME.

So, whatever Larian's intention, there's only 1 in-universe reason why Florrick wears this outfit:

She woke up that day in Waukeen's Rest, in the middle of nowhere a full tenday from the city, on her way back from literal hell to deal with yet another crisis, and decided to put it on. And continued to do so every day thereafter.

It's logical that she can't change right after being rescued since the inn is burning down presumably with her luggage in it, but why did she choose that outfit in the first place, considering she was travelling? She's been travelling for months; it can't have been her only clothing. Did she not have a Fist uniform? A pair of leggings? She runs right off after she's done talking; does she hike all the way in and out of the shadow-cursed lands in a thong and flat macrame boots? It doesn't even have any indication of cinches or buttons despite having all the logical seams and it's clearly tailored to fit her bananas hourglass figure, like there's no way she can just pull it on or step into it, so does she have to expend her valuable magic to wear it? Does she take the time to sew herself into it every day instead of sucking it up and wearing *barf* pants??? There are plenty of people around in Act 2 that could and would give her something more practical to wear, even if she did have a good reason to wear her original dress that day in Waukeen's Rest. Yet, she continues to wake up every day and put that outfit on. Even after returning home.

(In my head, the video game convention of every character only having 1 outfit is shorthand for what their "typical" outfit is, and they "really" have a wardrobe of similar clothing. So when I say she wears that outfit every day, I mean she has a couple of similarly-bonkers dresses in her bag and chooses to wear one every day vs something more practical).

So the simp's question isn't what Larian is saying about her by dressing like this, but what she's saying about herself by choosing to dress like this.

Clothing is self-expression. Look at the many analyses of the main characters' outfits. Larian may or may not have really meant anything by giving Florrick this outfit, but just as Astarion's careful mending of his shirt necessarily says something about him and his personality in the universe he lives in, so does Florrick's decision to wear flashy, revealing clothing.

It almost makes no sense... until you think about one of Florrick's explicitly-demonstrated characteristics:

Confidence. Over confidence. Hubris, even.

I'll have more to say about Desiré "Fuck It, We Ball" Florrick and her personality in another florrickology post, but the long and short of it is that this woman is not afraid of shit and sashays into every situation fully confident in her ability to charm or steamroll it to her liking. "She is used to getting her way", indeed. Her epilogue letter betrays a bit of self-doubt, but it seems to have been brought on by her perceived failures in relation to the player character's successes, so likely not her ordinary attitude. Whereas this seems to be her ordinary clothing, since she took it with her to Elturel and back for no apparent reason and chooses to wear it for no apparent reason.

She has nothing to gain from it, no one important to impress at least until returning to the city in Act 3. Otherwise, she's in bumfuck nowhere with her boss-friend and lackeys, or cursed!bumfuck nowhere with her lackeys and a bunch of vigilantes planning a war. While I wouldn't doubt that she has or might be willing to use her beauty and sex appeal to meet her goals (TadpUlder does, curiously, call her a "black widow"; is his tadpole capitalizing on stereotypes--could it be slut shaming her??, or is it referencing things that the shreds of Ulder's mind know she's done?), ultimately, there can't be a tactical explanation because there's nobody more powerful than her around 90% of the time.

She also doesn't flirt with anyone and nobody flirts with her (philistines). She has no mentioned spouse or lovers, nor any implied sexuality at all. The closest we get is Mizora saying "she misses the Duke" after Florrick's ambush in Act 3, the only time anyone implies she's on a crusade to find him because of romantic feelings and not duty, loyalty, and friendship... which means Mizora is probably just talking out her ass and belittling people, as she does.

So, combine self-confidence with the decision to constantly wear a sexy dress that shows off her body for no practical reason, and what do you get?

Balls-to-the-wall, unapologetic vanity.

(If it wasn't clear, when I call women "vain" I think they are objectively correct and this is a compliment of the highest order.)

Sure, maybe wearing this kind of outfit boosts her confidence and that helps deal with this unprecedented crisis and possibly the first self-doubt she's ever experienced, but this is evidently her usual clothing and she isn't usually dealing with those things.

So, she wears this intricate and revealing dress mostly she likes it and how she looks in it. This means she likes that it's revealing. She likes showing skin to literally no end except her own enjoyment.

Notice she doesn't really do her hair (it's shiny and neat, but not really styled) or bother with makeup (she lost the EA smoky eye in favor of a quick swipe of eyeliner). One may think that perhaps she isn't as confident in her facial beauty since she does have unique features, so she calls attention to her body instead, but she's so devoid of modesty that I can't help but assume she simply looks in the mirror in the morning, thinks "no notes" (correct) and moves on to pouring herself into her favorite skimpy dress. She's proud of her natural beauty, and she's not about to cover it all up with goop or fabric!! She never mentions it and nobody who knows her does; she's not trying to stunt on anyone or even attract other hot people.

She's in it purely for the love of the sport and, sexiest of all, herself. This woman doesn't think she's the sexiest creature in any given room, she knows it.

And she knows that being hot doesn't affect her ability to do her job and protect the city she loves. She doesn't have to cover herself up, doll up her hair and makeup, slap on like 400 pettiskirts, etc, to be taken seriously. It's possibly even giving 'malicious compliance'. She commands so much respect that even horny gamers don't notice her entire ass is one breeze away from being out.

The deep-seated, yet subtle insanity part has pretty much already been covered; maybe in her day-to-day life of attending meetings and walking all over everyone in Wyrm's Rock, it's not so impractical, but it's a completely insane thing to wear in any sort of crisis or outdoor adventure. That this woman is willing to risk chafing or being cold (womankind's public enemy #1 and #2) simply for the drip is delightfully nutty. There is not a single moment she appears in this game where this outfit would be reasonable.

She presents herself as a stalwart, serious, determined woman, but then squeezes into a dress so tight and precarious that it knocks off her Fleet of Foot speed boost, for literally no reason aside from being vain and lowkey kind of crazy.

Good for her!

[vanishedinvain]

𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐩

summary: the night before anthony and simon's duel from benedict's perspective.

warnings: angst, anxiety

a/n: wc: 546. this is a cut scene from ch. ii. of perfect all-american bitch, my benedict bridgerton x reader series where benedict becomes the viscount, but can be read as a standalone since this is a flashback sequence! despite how long the chapters already are, that's after i've spent a full day editing them lol, so i'm thinking of posting scenes that i've cut/would've liked to include in the main story but wasn't super relevant to the plot (like this one)

Benedict and Colin exited the study feeling about a decade older than when they walked in. Anthony had provided them grimly detailed instructions on what to do in both of the worst case scenarios. The two younger brothers congregated in Benedict’s bedchamber to go over the logistics one last time. 

Colin was to remain on guard at the home. He would arrange for a hired hack to be at the house to transport Anthony to either the docks or the hospital. He needed to keep Daphne from interfering, their other siblings away from any violent sights, and their mother calm.

Benedict needed to contact the solicitor to secure their financials. They would need to give notice of either death or disappearance to the people of Aubrey village and to Parliament. They might have the Bow Street Runners called on them in a few days time. Benedict might have to arrange for the funeral and a casket and—

Oh dear, the room was spinning.

Benedict had been running through the list in his head for the past few hours, his cursed version of counting sheep. Colin was snoring on the bench at the foot of the bed, occasionally bumping against the frame. 

Colin seemed a great deal calmer than Benedict. He seemed quite sure that the duke would yield, or that they would both fire their pistols wide. Perhaps, he was truly that optimistic, if a bit naive. But perhaps, he was only putting up a front. Because when Benedict suggested Colin go back to his own bedchamber once they were through, his younger brother had insisted he was too comfortable to move.

It was a bald-faced lie if he ever saw one. Colin was taller than Benedict, which meant his legs were scrunched up when he was horizontal on the bench. But he managed to fall asleep anyway, and Benedict draped a spare blanket over him before retiring to bed himself. 

And truthfully, Benedict did not want to be alone either. If this was their last night of normality, he would rather spend it together than apart. He laid staring at the ceiling until the first streams of sunlight threatened to breach the inky sky.

It was time.

They made their way down to Anthony’s study. This would be Colin’s post; close enough to the main entrance to execute his tasks, but hidden away from the staff, and more importantly, their mother.

Benedict clasped a hand on Colin’s shoulder; he hoped the gesture came across strong and reassuring, but Benedict felt more like he was grasping onto a life-jacket.

Colin was still boyish, the baby fat not quite melted off his face, and looked entirely too young to be dealing with this. He mirrored his brother, also grabbing Benedict’s shoulder. “This whole affair will all be over in a few short hours,” Colin said with a small smile.

Benedict couldn’t bring himself to agree as it would be disingenuous. There was something peculiar in the air this morning, as hokey as that sounded. Something just wasn’t sitting right with him, but he couldn’t put doubts in Colin’s head. 

He was the older one, so act like it. “The only way out is through,” he said with the solemn resolve to bring this business to an end.

why was this cut? as much as i liked exploring the relationship between colin and benedict (tbh i love getting the chance to explore any bridgerton sibling relationship hence why beneloise got a whole prologue), but 1. i was approaching a ridiculous word count and 2. it didn't entirely make sense for benedict to start the story from the night before.

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[kaz-oooo]

I know plenty of people don’t care about the current Dream situation (especially since I barely post about MCYT stuff anymore, especially anything DSMP related) but this man frustrates me to no end!!!

I’m gonna ramble about his shitty manipulation tactics for a bit. I’m gonna throw it all beneath a cut so you can scroll past easy if you aren’t interest.

I know basically everyone on this side of the internet knows Dream is a massive, manipulative twat. I doubt none of this will be a surprise to anyone. But idk, I present an incomplete list (in no particular order) of bullshit tactics Dream uses to twist the narrative in his favour!

1) making his first response on Reddit.

This is a place where only his most devoted fans congregate and most notably *not* where the controversy is occurring. If he wanted to properly apologise or address the situation he would do that in the exact same place the controversy occurred — his Twitter account. But of course he doesn’t want his fans to really know what’s going on, he wants to control the narrative, that’s why he has not said anything on Twitter, it’s why he went to Reddit of all fucking places!

2) doing everything within his power to avoid mentioning the controversy!

It’s unavoidable at times but he did spend a 3hr long stream avoiding the topic of the r-slur as much as humanly possible. Again, he wants to control the narrative and convince his fans to take his side, it’s easier to do that if he doesn’t address the actual problem at hand here — you see this a lot with YouTuber Apologies, you get a lot of “I made a severe and continuous lapse in judgement” type comments, but what is a “severe and continuous lapse in judgement”? — it could be anything from a few old tweets resurfacing or filming dead bodies… hard to say when you don’t already know the context.

3) bringing up old drama in an attempt to muddy the waters as much as possible.

Yes, Tubbo mentioned a handful of old controversies in his response to Dream’s tweets. Dream’s stream was a reaction to Tubbo’s and I’m not gonna blame him for mentioning these topics when they’re being brought up. The reason Tubbo mentions them is to provide further context around why he takes so much issue with Dream. Dream then proceeds to use this mentioned context as the crux of his response. As I mentioned in point 2 he avoids the topic of the r-slur as much as possible but he fixates on things like his drama with Quackity and Tommy and the accusations that he’s a groomer/pedophile. These aren’t relevant to the situation at hand and it just makes the whole 3hr stream more confusing!

4) he uses old drama as a way to garner sympathy for himself.

He mentions so many different controversies during that stream (and in his response to Tommy) and to an outside perspective it sounds like he’s being bombarded from all angles with wild accusations!! It makes him sound like the victim here, the one who is constantly under attack. He’s also been doxxed in the past and had false allegations thrown at him.. something he weaponises constantly and uses to further his victim complex.

5) deflecting blame as much as possible

I lost count of how many people he name dropped in that stream. But basically Dream isn’t to root of his own problems, he’s never done anything wrong in his life, it’s Tommy and Tubbo and Jack and Aimsey and Quackity and whoever else who hate him and are preying on his downfall (/sarcasm.) They are also bad people in their own right!! I very specifically remember him claiming that Tubbo was a bad person behind the scenes — did he show an ounce of evidence, of course not, but Tubbo’s awful guys trust him on this!! (/sarcasm again) he also did this in his immediate response when he mentioned having autism and thus being allowed to use the r-slur “it’s okay, I’m not problematic, I’m autistic and have a r-slur pass!”

6) feigning ignorance

In his Reddit post he claims to not understand the rules of slur reclamation. Maybe he doesn’t, idfk, but he knows that word is a slur and he knows he was using it as an insult… whether he understands the nuances of when that word is and is not okay is beside the point, at the very core of this controversy Dream was being an dickhead and that is what people have issue with.

Tommy mentions the sexist comments that were thrown around between Dream and his friends. Now as far as I’m away there’s no screenshots of these sexist comments, this is all word of mouth, things Tommy and Jack have repeatedly mentioned whenever Dream is a topic of conversation. I’ll be the first to admit I very blindly trust Tommy and Jack on this one, but I trust them because I can see how Dream and his friends act on stream and based on the way they present themselves I think they’re dodgy as fuck! I mean look at this entire post, at the way Dream consistently manipulates the truth and puts everyone else down.. those are behaviours that as consistent with misogynistic people, of course I believe Tommy when he says Dream and his friends said some sexist shit in group chats. But yes, this is word of mouth and Dream is using that to his advantage. He laughs and claims he has no idea what Tommy is talking about. Again, maybe he doesn’t, I don’t think many misogynistic people think they’re misogynistic, but Tommy isn’t pulling this out of his ass, these are claims he’s been making for months at this point!!

7) everyone’s doing this to promote their projects

This whole controversy did not begin to promote anything. Dream inserted himself in a random Twitter beef and blindsided everybody else with his bullshit. Yes, Tommy and Jack have proceeded to promote their own projects, in my personal opinion I don’t actually give a shit. I also didn’t care that Dream promoted his own shit during his video — Tommy mentioned it, Tommy made his own little ad, fuck it, Dream can too. What I will say though is that Dream criticises Tommy for doing this and in the same breath promotes his own merchandise which is rather hypocritical. I’d also argue that Dream’s merch plug is a lot slimier than Tommy and Jack’s because Dream starts trying to garner sympathy because his small, family business isn’t doing that well :((

8) takes everyone’s words out of context

Dream’s response to Tommy is entirely made of clips and screenshots that he cherry picks from. You can see this most clearly when he uses Tubbo’s words to support his own argument, using clips where Tubbo agrees that Dream has been unfairly criticised in the past and cutting out moments where Tubbo criticises him.

9) over exaggerates other people’s criticism.

When Tommy mentions that Dream harasses his mother Dream plays this up a lot. He sits there for 30 seconds telling the audience to picture what they think harassment is and to get ready for his grand reveal!! Of course when you see a single message it’s going to seem a little underwhelming. He ignores the fact Tommy’s mum was struggling through a divorce during that time and that this message is MASSIVE, unhinged, a criticism of her son and most importantly unsolicited. Even if it’s only a single message it’s still harassment.

10) he does not give context to his own arguments.

There’s one rant he goes on during his stream about a time Tommy started spreading false rumours amongst friends about somebody (unnamed) in the DSMP being a pedophile. Eventually Tommy is pulled aside by Wilbur who gives Tommy a big lecture about how those sorts of rumours can cause major problems and shows him how to properly handle them. What Dream neglects to mention is how old Tommy was at the time of this incident. That makes a big difference Y’know? Tommy doing this at age 16 is wildly different to Tommy doing this at age 20. Dream also mentions the fact Tommy used to be friends with Logan Paul before turning against him. Again, he refuses to give context here, he presents it like a massive backstab on Tommy’s part, or that Logan was a scumbag!

And there’s probably other shit as well. Lies and misinformation that I can’t possibly keep up with, nor do I even care to keep track of it!

Anyway. I’m going back to writing my dumbass fanfiction!

[kerubimcrepin]

What do we know about Joris le Sans-Pouvoir (Joris the Powerless)?

Aka, addressing the "cancelled Nintendo DS game"-shaped elephant in the room.

While this blog has gone deep into the show and character dissections, I think it would be remiss to proceed without addressing the elephant in the room — the game, the myth, the legend, the 2007-2009ish cancelled game Joris le Sans-Pouvoir.

There isn't a lot that is known about it, and all the data in this post comes from two developers.

The only videos of it we have available are uhhh......,

...Please say "Thanks Ronik!" for this video in particular.

I spent hours trying to convert these two SWF animation video files, — which demonstrate how the game was supposed to look, — to something actually viewable. There were many issues, with at least seven different programs.

I suffered for crepinjurgenology studies, but I did it.

Instead of recounting the story in my own words and omitting anything on accident, I will simply present to you, what the portfolios of two different developers say (these two pages are the source of all the images, gifs, and gameplay):

Joris Le sans-Pouvoir is the main character from a feature film Ankama due in 2013. It’s a new character IP situated in the DOFUS universe. I had the chance to work on a platform game prototype that was all about delving into of the character’s backstory. We wrote a lot of background and had a lot of fun designing and developping a cute and quirky platformer with a hint of metroidvania elements and a dash of Grow gameplay elements in-between levels. It also was a great opportunity to work with Jono Takeshi-san of Radiata Stories fame who worked with me on the art direction. (SOURCE)

Joris was the first Nintendo DS project developed at Ankama (in partnership with Magic Pockets). I began working on the project as narrative game designer, then took on the role of Lead Designer and Project Manager. Game design on this project involved boss fight, level design, minigame design, UI… I also designed an original collecting system where collectible items were used in a minigame inspired by the “Grow” series. The developpement has been put on hold to match the release of the animated movie with the same character (scheduled in 2013). (SOURCE)

Neither the movie nor the game, survived their development, due to circumstances. (shorthand for: I have no idea what happened, man. Maybe one day I'll write a post about the history of the movie, and truly open that can of worms, but god, not right now. I don't want to spend more time on this.)

Eventually, The Wakfu film turned into three OVAs instead, and the Dofus film changed its plot a bunch of times, and became Livre 1 : Julith.

...For some reason, in some version of it, Joris had a tail. Yeah, I don't know what that's about either. Cool clothes, though!

We don't know anything about its plot, and unlike cancelled projects Dofus Donjons and Welsh et Shedar (which was cancelled for years, until its recent resurrection), the lore of this game carries no relevancy in modern canon.

The name, Joris the Powerless, as well as the log-centric gameplay, both seem to reference the early concept that Joris had log-based powers, — and that without his "magic wand," he couldn't do much.

(Joris and his weird fucking "magic wand" were, in turn, borne out of the idea of a warrior who had a woman's voice. Which makes me chuckle.)

(The following quotes are machine-translated and may contain errors)

(SOURCE)

This is, by the way, the reason why I personally headcanon Joris to be really bad at huppermagic. So bad that he dropped out of the Huppermage Academy, and almost never uses magic in combat. It's a homage to his original idea.

(Yes, there is an actual reason why I headcanon Joris to be godawful at magic, besides just projecting my neurodivergencies onto him.)

I suppose that, even at this time, Joris was meant to be a store owner:

The gameplay loop involves going from boutique, to missions, and so on, while those two pieces of concept art involve the said boutique section, and show a female character saying «Pas mal, boss !».

In my opinion, it might be this character. Proto-Simone, perhaps?

Since the store seems to be the centerpiece, and the Grow-style minigames involved collectibles, I would assume that the plot involved Joris going around and finding artifacts for the store. That would also explain the concept art gifs of him adventuring.

(Though, the adventuring would probably just be the inciting incident/a vehicle for plot development. Nintendo DS games loved using the jobs characters did for that purpose.)

This is the extent of what I can surmise about the plot.

The developer portfolios also included these example documents, but the image quality is too bad for me to make sense of or upscale. I am including them here solely for some French people who are very good at reading blurry text. (If you learn anything, let me know, okay?)

Overall, my verdict is that this game's cancellation was both a blessing (Joris without Kerubim and Atcham is like tea without water and a cup. How am I meant to drink leaves? Are you stupid? Why are you giving me leaves with nothing?) and a curse (THEY CANCELLED A GAME ABOUT MY BLUE-COLORED YOINKY SPLOINKY (who has a THIN, GRABBABLE WAIST)????? FUCK!)

Hope this was a fun read!

[comikbook]

Hello! I hope this isn’t too many questions, once I started brainstorming I couldn’t stop.

1. What’s mercy’s general backstory/where can I read it if it’s already up?

2. What’s her favorite memory from her childhood?

3. What’s her favorite food? Does she have a preference for her parent’s homemade foods, if so, which dish?

4. If it is not explained in her backstory, why did mercy start smoking?

5. What’s her favorite animal (I’m assuming it’s a farm animal and if so, which non-farm animal would her favorite be)?

6. If she was in college what would she study?

1. mercy’s general backstory and some more info abt her can be found here:

2. as far as memories go, she looks upon the simple days on her farm with her dad in general fondly. this is a bit later than childhood, but when she was 18 thats when her father got her her horse, named sweet pea.

3. anything that her father makes would be a favorite, shes not a huge fan of meat (but post vampirism she has no problems drinking from humans- animals is where she draws the line due to trauma reasons). i do have her fave type of muffin tho bc it was relevant in game- cranberry !

4. as far as smoking, the normalization of it and climate of the time period was pretty influential. campaign is set in the 1860’s so its just something she picked up young. her dad wasnt too happy with it bc he was a cautious man, he smoked and drank but only occasionally, whereas mercy enjoys things much more in excess.

5. her favorite animal is horses ! that being said ever since meeting her familiar bourbon, she’s pretty fond of possums now as well. she really loves all animals tho :)

6.this is a hard one because im 100% positive she would not go to college. in the time period bc its the 1800’s mercy can not read and in general doesnt care much for that kinda stuff. she’s a lower class farmer who would spend all her time doing just that. if i had to pick something though, just for funsies perhaps she’d want to be a vet and go to school for that.

[accio-victuuri]

💟 yh family concert vlog cpns & some yibo thoughts…💭💬

thank you to yibo-official for feeding us with some content this weekend. it’s been kinda quiet since friday, so this is a sweet treat for everyone before monday comes in.

( excuse this very extra gif i’m using for this post. lol. i’ve just been obsessed w/ how yibo looks in this. the way he turned his head is so cute. soooo… ☺️ )

YBO is back. or the question is, did they ever leave? lol. ever since that news/rumor came out, together with the lrlg post, I was still 50/50. Because it’s hard to confirm things, especially ones that involve his career and what’s allegedly going on. However with the content that’s being released, from OnO to now, it has the same feel as the original YBO. who knows. I’m just happy, like everyone else, to see this kind of updates from his team.

Yibo is not really one to share much personal stuff anymore on his social media accounts so YBO is so important. Plus the fact that they regularly update their IG too ( remember to interact on their please! ) for us international fans gives them plus points in my book.

It’s also a relief to see the negative comments wind down to being non existent. I truly understand why some fans feel the need to complain, but ybo is not really that place. I personally don’t like the idea of acting like an anti in a space that represents yibo. that could just be me tho.

Anyway, I hope we get more! I wanna see the bts footage they have with BTF & One and Only! I feel like they spoiled us with HB’s 1 hour + BTS footage so we’re all expecting to get the same for BTF & OnO. BTF has some restrictions i guess with what they can share since some filming were done in military sites.

Now I wanna highlight this portion of the vlog, with WYB being in a good mood during the last part of the concert.

This was the part where some people were saying that he looked ‘unhappy’, implying that’s because he didn’t wanna be there / cause there are mostly bxgs who attended. however, this clip, and a lot of the moments on the blog told a different story.

He was obviously not dragged in there — crying and screaming to perform. He was invested with his performance. He looked happy to be with his professional “family”. It’s an example of some fans having their own biased interpretation with this event. I respect those who decided to not attend, it’s their choice and money. But it was really irritating to see them nag and bitch about those who decided to support yibo. Plus it’s their own money. They can spend it however they want.

Funny thing is, those big name accounts who were so vocal about being against Yuehua Ent. & attending — did in fact, attend the concert 😂😂😂 so yeah. It’s an age old story. Don’t believe big name accounts, especially on weibo. These KOLs that “lead” fan opinion can be very shady. At the end of the day, we’re all here to support WYB and his projects in the best way we can. 🙏🏼

=====================================

🍫🍦 TIME FOR SOME SUGAR/CPNS !!!! 🍭🧁

=====================================

The fact that the video is 8:05 minutes long which is an example of how kadian/numbers are important. Well, not all the time, but the team takes that into consideration. So if you see them pulling a 10:05, that would be very sus 👀

As usual, some editing similarities….

Again, editing similarities, even if there are so many could still be a coincidence but it’s fun to still pay attention.

Also the details in YIBITO. He has the apple watch! I will never get over the fact that this “detail” is being highlighted like this when it is a popular cpn among turtles and we always look for it.

Some also noticed this “….” Which we don’t know the relevance of, but it could be a clue that LRLG is from Bobo’s team. This is unusual for me, cause ellipsis are usually “…” right?

I’m taking it as a galaxy brain cpn 🌌

ZZ also allegedly got off work today at 19:22, and then ybo posts @ 19:36. Yes, WYB has his own team but since we CPN that their staff could overlap — this timing is interesting. Maybe it needed a final sign off from the other boss? 😂😂😂😂

SHOUT OUT TO BOTTLED JOY, cause WYB was seen using some during the bts. He also took one with him in the Thailand roadshow. So i guess it’s safe to say that he has a good relationship with the brand, despite what others feel about them. He wouldn’t be showing off if he wasn’t. I’m looking forward to his renewal with them and what new stuff & campaign will be in place. BXGs will surely be lining up to support.

-END

[fuyyu]

so, i have this little piece of analysis on the world building of winx club's original run. it was meant to be part of kind of a rewrite based on fate's tv show fumbles and i have contemplated the idea of making a video essay on it but since it will most likely never happen, i am posting here a snippet of the perspective i was the most salty about.

✨ technical spells ✨

(or whatever the english adaptation used to call them)

there are many aspects of the workings behind magic that are never explicitly stated in the series, but through the shows events we can deduce them. for example, witches use magic thanks to negative energy or something akin to "waves", elements that aren't necessarily spiritual. all witches seem to focus on mind control or natural phenomena and they don't have access to transformations (or they can access transformation-like powers without it); on the opposite side we see fairies who use positive energy or spiritual/conceptual powers (that's why we can have some kinda bs-y powers like "technology"): they are the most powerful when they transform. we know also that witches, if they so wish, can become fairies (just like mirta did) so it's really more of a choice than anything else.

what they all have in common is, evidently and weirdly, that they are female magic users. considering the context in which winx club was first released, i won't tap (too much) into gender identity matters for this post, so every time i talk about women in this post i am (unless specified otherwise) refering to cis gender women, as i could expand on trans perspectives but i prefer to refer to the canon for now.

in the second season, this phenomenon is tangentially but subtly explored. how, might you ask? this the season to be jolly, because an interesting character is introduced to do so: professor avalon. he is an expert of ancient magic, assuming the teaching role for a brand new class in charmix, which focuses on "technical spells".

what are they? avalon states that there is a significant difference between magic that fairies use in combat when they shout out random names and recited enchantments. so, technical spells seem to access a different magical source which can be taken advantage of through these very specific formulas and rituals engineered over the centuries by knowledgeable fairies, witches, enchantresses, wizards and so on and so forth.

this is extremely relevant.

not only it appears most of the witches magic is perpetrated through rituals of sorts, making them probably the primary technical spells user-base, but in this instance avalon says that the magic fairies usually use when transformed is somehow invoked from their within, and it's spontaneous. this is proven true in many episodes when the fatigue in battle derives from depletion of one's magical energy. and we know witches can achieve this ability, too. there is an internal and an external energy source. what is the origin of this internal magical capability?

we can point at various possibilities. but before we do that, i would like to explain why i think these may be the options.

up until the 3rd season, which is the original run, we never see (human) men using magic without any kind of aid. men (or men presenting, in some cases) who use magic are:

valtor, a demon made by trixies' foremothers

nabu, who needs a sceptre to use magic

dark circle's wizards (s4), who are implied to use in some measure earth's fairies magic, captured through millenia

saladin, a light's company/alliance member, uses a sceptre like nabu

wizgiz is a leprechaun

palladium is an elf

avalon too is heavily implied not to be (totally) human, because of his paladin form

men, in this status quo, have to either spend a great amount of effort, time and resources to master magic (but basically never master it like fairies do) or become a specialist. and here is the catch. in season 1 we learn something that basically confirms (or at least, so i see it) magix a women's world, as opposed to the world bloom comes from: specialists can be women as well.

while there are no male fairies, no male witches, and all male magic users are non-human or aided by external sources (magical objects and technical spells), it's implied there are, indeed, female specialists when darcy enters a specialists' bike contest and the announcer immediately identifies her as a woman. this alone doesn't confirm that female specialists are a thing and if they are they are probably very scarce, but the announcer let us deduce it by being taken aback but not commenting on how that shouldn't be possible in the first place. somehow, it's let to be understood that a female uniform exists as well. this may vary from adaptation to adaptation, but in italian there isn't much of an objection to her participation on the spot.

so, we can safely assume that there are no gender policies on academy enrollment in any of the schools. it's just not possible for men at the current state of affairs to enroll in alfea or torre nuvola. but women can enroll in insititutions like fonterossa.

❤️‍🩹 why is that? ❤️‍🩹

(or better put, why could that be?)

here the rewrite is heavy handed, but this can be a very fun and interesting thought. maybe magic is, at it's core, creation. magic is the ability to not change reality, but to make thing exist in reality. let me explain.

when flora makes dying plants vigorous, she isn't changing the plant's structure, she is creating the nutrients ex novo and providing essentials (such as sunlight previously absent) and making it so that the plants feels the benefits of those new things.

traditionally, and in the winx club world view, women hold this power. women have the miracle of birth on their side. and the power to make a new life has to, somehow, be the same that allow magic to flow. it could be whatever, you can call it life force or whatever.

so, magic could be inherently tied to one's fertility (and here various conversations could be started, as to "would a transmasc still be a fairy?" and "are sterile women capable of magic?") or the potential of it. faragonda is a great fairy, but she doesn't transform anymore and that might be why. she can still use powerful magic, though. most of it is relatable to technical spells, if we want to force this point of view, but i will let that to you.

another option is chance. at some point magic just happened and women are the one who got it for cosmical possibility and their appearance, as well as other invisible characteristics, are results of that magic and not viceversa as previously theorized.

or again, it's hormonal. maybe progesteron and other typically female hormones are tied to magic. or a fictional hormone is. this would allow men to use it too, in limited quantities and enhance it through external sources (accessible through previously stated magical tools).

this was, in my humble opinion, a great starting point for a hypothetical winx tv show. it could elaborate on a complicated world building while tapping into social aspects that, being the kids' cartoon it is, the original show couldn't. it could give a definite structure to the magic world and open up infinite possibilities for the earth's narrative that apparently lost all of his magic (but we know it didn't really), investigate new storylines and give some fairies god-like status (thinking about dafne and bloom rn). also it could be a great trampoline for so many environmental details, like people in the background using casually magic only being women and men rarely doing so.

it could also be an amazing way to explore complicated gendered issues of the real world, through a meticulous deconstruction operated in these new lenses.

why am i salty about this? 2 reasons. the live action didn't pick this up and THE ORIGINAL CARTOON FORGOT ABOUT TECHNICAL SPELLS AS WELL!! they are never brough up again. damn you, winx club.

(finally letting this thought go and if you want to expand on this please do)

[arsenic-io]

I did a fanfiction about the Olympic torchbearer and (technically) the flag bearer. I don't really... remember writing this tbh, it was written in about 45 mins total between me posting my art and falling asleep so have some consideration for the quality lmao.

I've shared the text below, but it's probably easier to read on AO3 - if you do read it there let me know what you think <3

Freefall

(Idk why Cape is always capitalised, my phone does that apparently)

There is always something exhilarating about falling. The rush of air past you, the tug at your senses as your every inch screams that this is wrong and dangerous and horrible. The only hope you have is your faith in your ability to eye up an angle accurately, to jump with that angle in mind and to have enough of your brain still under your own control as you hit the ground to remember to roll.

As someone (something? They're not sure anymore) who spends so much of their time in the catacombs of Paris by necessity, the open air and free fall that comes with traversing the rooftops is as close to drugs as the Phantom can get these days. Whether that is because buying drugs is more difficult when you're part ghost, part concept, all incorporeal, or because drugs would no longer work on them is irrelevant. What is relevant is The Flag-bearer whose ghostly horse has come to a standstill at the edge of the rooftop they just leapt from.

She has an air of disapproval as she looks down at them, and although they don't really have eyes, or a mouth, or a face anymore, the Phantom tries their best to convey a smirk. It seems to work, as her horse huffs a snort in lieu of an eye roll and she tugs on the reins to take a step back.

Honestly, the Phantom doesn't know why the horse doesn't jump down after them, it's as ghostly and magic and not-a-living-horse as the Phantom themselves and that distance of a jump would be enough for even a bold human to make, but regardless the Horsewoman will make her own, alternative way down to find the Phantom again so they should probably take advantage of their headstart.

The reason they are being chased is because of a prank gone, well, exactly to plan.

The ceremony begins tomorrow and the city is up to its decapitated neck in preparations as the river becomes the focus of months of planning and practice and so, so much money. Some of the more quiet spirits, the Hunchback and such, have stayed away from the hullabaloo, but with all of the faff about the waterways (one of Phantom's favourite things about the city) and the added nuisance of a camera crew in their usual haunt, they had come out of seclusion to see what the fuss was about. And then ran directly, physically into the Horsewoman. Or well, her horse.

It makes an impression on a recluse, to see someone so damn shiny and bold in the Parisian sunlight, and almost like a particularly dumb pigeon the Phantom just... couldn't help themselves.

Therefore the prank: Grand Theft Cape.

Therefore² the being chased down by the owner of said Cape.

Their first plan was ingenious. They were going to simply snatch the cape while The Flag-bearer was occupied observing the preparations and then dissappear only slightly mockingly into the waterways of the catacombs on their boat. This plan was almost immediately foiled by the realisation that the horse could apparently run on water, but the simplicity of it was nice.

See, being a recluse who lives underground limits the Phantom's knowledge of their fellow spirits quite severely, and this knowledge is especially lacking when it comes to the more niche of spirits, such as those only really around for specific events or a limited time, such as The Flag-bearer. All the Phantom knew was that she was militant, horse riding and beautiful, the rest was... to be determined.

Knowing what they do now, the Phantom would have adjusted the original plan somewhat, but hindsight and all that.

Keeping their footsteps light, the Phantom moves almost back the way they came, trying to gain height while adjusting to the sensation of wearing a cape on their back. Although their normal attire is certainly flowy, the swish of movement brought by the stolen fabric is odd and difficult to adjust to.

One annoying thing about ghost horses is that apparently they don't make any noise.

The Phantom is reduced purely to sight to track their pursuer and so high ground is invaluable. There isn't exactly a plan beyond 'evade' right now, although they hope to fix that as they are evading maybe they'll hide the Cape on an inconveniently high tower or something, let it billow mockingly in the wind. That would get The Flag-bearer's attention.

Not that they don't have her attention currently, they chide themselves as they see the flicker of white and silver move on the streets below. They might have a little to much of her attention actually.

Paris is a big city, with rooftops beffiting that descriptor, so it isn't as if the Phantom is running out of space. But this chase has continued from mid afternoon to sundown now and as incorporeal a concept as they are, something close to fatigue or boredom snags at them as they traverse the skyline.

Something else snags at them as well when they make they next jump, more physical this time as the cape simply... doesn't follow their motion and they swing back, trapped by their momentum, into the side of the building. If they had a body with functioning nerves it would be sore.

They are hanging like a scuffed kitten from their stolen cape as they look up into the bemused and stalwart face of The Flag-bearer. She is still mounted on her horse, bearing the full weight of holding them up with one unstrained arm while the other soothes the ears of her companion.

It seems like she is waiting for them to speak.

"Hello." They begin. She tilts her head.

"Sorry about the, uh," the Phantom wiggles slightly in her hold, "theft."

Her eyes do something which in no way resembles an eye roll, yet somehow serves the same purpose.

"You caught me, so I guess that means you win!" They shift trying to avoid eyecontact despite their lack of eyes. "You win the Cape you already had! So just, uh, set me down and I'll hand it over to you." She tilts her head, this time to the other side.

The Phantom looks at the drop below them and then back up at her trying to convey a sense of 'I won't run I promise' which they don't think convinces her.

She pulls a leaf of paper from... somewhere on her or on the horse and holds it out. The Phantom takes it, realising she might be a mute spirit (which would explain the horse's lack of horse noises) but all the paper reads is this: get the flame to its destination.

"Ah, but I'm not," she shifts her hold on the cape slightly, jostling them a little, "I'm only in the ceremony a little. For dramatic effect. I'm not supposed to touch the torch at all!"

The Flag-bearer hoists them higher, reaches over to unclasp the Cape and then the Phantom is falling through the night air, wind tugging at their hood.

[ibelieveloveisreal]

Why is BTS' ARMY fandom so crazy???

I'm ranting at 1am my time as to why people might deem the ARMY fandom so crazy because my fiance just said the only reason why BTS is currently charting #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 for at least 4 weeks, was because BTS has a crazy fandom.

To correct my fiance, he asked an Alexa, which is not Google, and therefore did not have current info. The true #1 as of this moment is Ariana Grande. Regardless of who is currently #1 though, I want to sest the record straight as to why people might think ARMY is crazy. In this essay, I will...

Actually say what I'm gonna say because otherwise, why else would i get my laptop out at 1am?

Most important to note is that ARMY is not crazy as much as they are united more than any other fandom out there.

Any artist or anything that's granted a fandom has the potential to be as crazy to the outsider's perspective. Closest? Probably the Supernatural fandom for a good period of time; although they're not music, the fans were/are deemed crazy. Music Artist-wise? One of the most worldwide names of today would be Beyonce and Taylor Swift, and their fans are also considered as "crazy" because these fandoms are made up of diehard fans. But why is ARMY seemingly bigger and crazier?

Kpop, in general, has nurtured a culture of how fandoms should work by unity. Kpop fandoms are serious about what artists they support, that any fan is only allowed to be in one official fandom membership of the Kpop group. Since BTS started off as Kpop, their fandom culture is just the same. When the group or any solo artist has a birthday, an anniversary, or is doing some sort of promotional work, the fandoms set up ads and food trucks to send love and support to the group/artist. Korean men are also required to serve 2 years in their country's military and while each artist is gone, the fans have each other to keep their fire going, although artists are still able to tap into the platforms to interact with their fans. That's how fandoms in Kpop work.

Almost every single diehard fan out there also knows their artist's background, their albums, their songs, the way that each album relate to each other, the meaning and lyrics behind every song, etc. Almost every single, if not every single ARMY, has understood BTS' message in at least one song. The positivity and hope that BTS has placed into their music has just made ARMY interested for more, and to learn more about the artists behind the music. From there, it's an avalanche.

BTS stays relevant every week because of how much BTS interacts with ARMY and there are a multitude of platforms and content in which BTS gives to ARMY. ARMY also interacts with eachother in deep and positive ways.

The fans are not only loyal to BTS, but they're loyal to each other. There are multiple accounts, such as this post, that support ARMY being ARMY, loving themselves, supporting themselves. Certain ARMYs have also come together to make fan songs (one even with international collaboration where each line is sung in a different language) to BTS and BTS has actually listened to them during their live streams. ARMYs have also created groups within themselves based on occupations. There is literally twitter accounts for lawyers within BTS banding together to provide legal education, definitely not legal advice and teacher accounts to provide educational support and tutoring at any educational level to fellow ARMYs.

ARMYs also support multiple charities with or without BTS's direct involvement. When BTS donates, privately or publicly, ARMY follows shortly to match their donation. When it's a BTS birthday or anniversary, ARMY donates or volunteers to various charities and every time ARMY is gathered outside of a BTS-related event, it just starts off by fans for fans.

Why is ARMY act so crazy against anyone who says something about BTS or ARMY in general? Why is am I waking up in the middle of the night and spending over an hour writing this essay defending the fandom itself as opposed to just defending BTS?

ARMY is super defensive because of what they know of how much BTS had to go through to get to where they are now. BTS started in the underground and fought with so much backlash, hate, and were filled with anxiety with every step of the way, and yet they only get more and more positive with every step. BTS rises above whatever they feel because they feel the social mission to spread love and positivity with everything they do, from music, to interactions with the fans, and worldwide campaigns. ARMY is an army, not in a military sense, but in a defensive sense. The relationship between BTS and ARMY has easily transcended beyond a typical fans and fandom relationship because both sides want to connect to their fans in a very real and sincere way. BTS is always proving their authenticity to their fans but showing and expressing very real moments and genuine feelings. ARMY are also very proud to be within their fandom because they know what they can truly do together.

To be fair, it's likely that one may have come across or observed an ARMY either crossing a line to "defend" BTS when in reality, they were just spreading hate within themselves and outside of the fandom. Truthfully, true ARMY fans who understand BTS's positive messages would certainly not be setting such a negative example of their own, therefore the one who claims they're ARMY and yet they would hate on others and within the fandom itself must seriously consider if they're a true fan or not.

By no means, are other fans not loyal to their own. By no means, are other artists less than BTS. If you're never in a certain fandom, you'll never be sure why they love what they love so much. What I said to my fiance is, just because he doesn't like their style doesn't mean they're not putting out good music; just like I don't appreciate his favorite artists the way that he does but it doesn't mean they're not putting out good music either. I'll say that for any fandom in any category. Honestly, if BTS wasn't good with their music, their fans would not have not even started being their fan, and that's to be said for any fandom. I'm not sure why it's really a hater's business as to why a fan would be a fan of their own favorite thing, but honestly, any fan has the right to love their thing at whatever capacity they choose.

[gummybugg]

Writer Questions Tag

Thanks for the tag @my-cursed-prince! I decided to make a Separate post because I didn't want to clog things up :')

Tagging these people to hop on in (optionally): @frostedlemonwriter, @another-white-hole, @rickie-the-storyteller, @rhikasa, @talesfromaurea & Anyone else who wants to fill out questions!

1) What is your absolute all-time favorite idea you've ever had?

My all-time Favorite idea is actually just the Creation of the Crater City crew. It’s probably something to do with how the story began as a Joke and then evolved into something a bit More. It’s also a great Break from writing Magniloquent essays :’)

2) Is there a question you've been asked in the past that really stands out to you and you still think about sometimes?

I believe that would be “How did you come up with this?” And this question can Really be referring to formal writing or writing I do as a hobby. Either way, I do not know! Everything is a culmination of my Experiences + a Group of synapses accidentally fist bumping!

🌀🤜🤛🌀

3) What is your favorite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

I really Love the way that I get to see my characters on the page in Clear writing instead of being Stuck in a sticky, ambiguous Cloud in my head. I also Love when ideas come to me at Random and my Subconscious is in on the action, too. It’s like a party in here! I think the only part I dislike is the time I spend away from writing and how Difficult it is to get back into the Groove.

4) What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

My greatest Motivation is seeing how my characters interact! It fuels me to write more dialogue 💖

I also just enjoy Stringing words together, and Always have since I was a Small child.

5) What is the best piece of advice you've ever read or been given as a writer?

Do not throw away Your writing Scraps because they will/can be relevant Later. No more tears! You can still have this Ending, even if it’ll be in Another timeline! :’)

6) What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

I wish I knew that I didn’t have to Halt creative writing just because I had Writer’s Block for one story. It’s been on Pause since 2017, and I have since Moved on until I am ready to resume. I chalk it up to not having “It” at the moment; i.e., the Mindset to keep writing that WIP.

I also wish I had Every Single draft saved in one app/device. I was young and didn’t know writing apps Existed so I saved everything via the standard Notes App. When I had to Reset my phone, my notes went along with the Reset, aha! So I had to force myself to Remember the Important details early on.

7) What is your favorite story you've written TO COMPLETION? Link it if you'd like and can!

Bold of you to Assume I’ve ever completed a story! But I Would like to complete a story within the next 5 years, Yes.

8) What is your favorite out-of-the-box quote?

Not really Sure where I put that one Quote, but maybe someday it will come to me!

9) Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

Darcy from Crater City has a pretty Controversial mindset. For context, Darcy is a designer baby (for Lack of better words) and was created with the intent that he pull Humanity (Neo-civilization) out of the post-apocalyptic Dark Age. However, his methods of doing so aren’t exactly “Ethical” as many would say.

Darcy Does want to help humanity, it’s true! But in his mind, the only way to save Humanity is by reprogramming Mother Nature, so to speak. It’s not like there’s much Left to work with, he reasons. “Humans were given the gift of insatiable curiosity for a reason. It would be wasteful not to use our God-given potential to take advantage of the cards we were dealt,” he says.

What do I Think of this? Well, I know it’s controversial. If You were in Darcy’s shoes, would You do whatever it takes to save the world no matter the risks?

10) If You when you first started writing met You now, what would younger you think?

I started writing when I was five or six!

I’m not sure what Younger me would think, probably that I’m saying big words and that I’m making no sense at all whatsoever. Perhaps Younger me would show Present me the cool stories I wrote and characters I made up on the spot, and Present me would take notes. Little does Younger me know that I actually have some of my old work saved from all those years ago!

Perhaps Younger me would think that I am So experienced and learned and must have written 10 books by now, but Alas. Maybe someday, Younger me.

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Tagging @writeouswriter for Crater City content!

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Blank questions below!

1) What is your absolute all-time favorite idea you've ever had?

2) Is there a question you've been asked in the past that really stands out to you and you still think about sometimes?

3) What is your favorite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

4) What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

5) What is the best piece of advice you've ever read or been given as a writer?

6) What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

7) What is your favorite story you've written TO COMPLETION? Link it if you'd like and can!

8) What is your favorite out-of-the-box quote?

9) Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

10) If You when you first started writing met You now, what would younger you think?

[yanderefairyangel]

I wonder, are you going to do 3H analysis like for your Engage post ?

No, and for several reasons.

1/ The reason why I decided to make Engage analysis and went as far as using the jpn text as a reference for my commentaries is because I am tired of the constant negativity and hatred against a game that is genuinely top tier Fire Emblem, with amazing characters and a good and solid story. This is something I have never done before, for no game at all. That's something I usually do with literary works, I never did it for a video game. I did for Engage because I ended up noticing it did a lot of good things and wanted to show that credit is due

2/ I am afraid that with 3H I won't be able to enjoy it because I might spend more time dwelling onto the game's narrative flaws and things of the sort then what it does good, mainly because those flwas weaken greatly what it does good and I don't want to annoy 3H enjoyers who follow me or 3H enjoyer at all.

3/ 3H already gets a lot of analysis even by people who claim it's badly written so I don't think I might have much more to say, while with Engage, seeing how everyone is snobbing the game, it leaves me the opportunity to do the analysis job even if I am not the only blog who does that and they are other blog who offers more relevant analysis then me.

4/ Engage is a simplier game and a shorter story, so it's easier to go replay it or recheck info and data for analysis sake then for 3H which makes it much more welcoming to analysis and funnier on the top of that. Add to that a genius gameplay it makes the experience a lot funnier whil 3H has too much information to treat and check and a tedious gameplay. And while some people seems to think that "the more you have to offer on analysis, the better !" it's not true. The real skill of talented writers is that with very few elements, they are able to stock a lot of valueable info that you can exploit in analysis, rather then 1 002 elements to analyse. For example, in Albert Camus's infamous incipit for L'étranger, with the most famous sentence "Aujourd'hui Maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas" you can find 1 000 of elements about the mind of Mersault, what this sentence says about him, how paradoxical it is that this mind manages to mistake something that is supposed to have happened in the present with something that might have occured in the past etc. It's a few lines, but the structure hides a lot of meaning within it. And it's therefore probably richer if not more then having one hundred elements supposed to be analyzed. Not saying Engage is the same level, but stuff like that is what is worth digging to see if something is really a well crafted writing.

[eldragon-x-moved]

If you want, can you explain your most liked and/or most disliked episode, but to someone who haven't watched the show?

Anon I just rewatched one of my least favourite episodes in the show for you because honest to God on my last rewatch this was the one episode where I let it play while doing something else and paying zero attention.

Anyway, Roadside Attraction is a mess.

Honestly the episode itself would be fine as a Season 1 or maybe even early Season 2 episode (which seems to be the intended placement) but it's just a whatever episode that ended up having very unfortunate placement being the fifth-to-last episode in the series and between two much more plot-relevant and compelling episodes.

So the plot is basically that Stan goes on a roadtrip with the twins + Soos + Mabel's besties because he wants to ruin the tourist traps of his rivals but that's just the backdrop.

The actual conflict comes with Dipper still not being over his crush on Wendy which was a conflict that was resolved in God damn season two epsiode two in an episode that was actually Fun and Interesting and Utilized Wendy as a character.

Anyway in RA Stan is like oh how about you talk to some girls during the trip so you can get over wendy. also you have to be a jerk and feign confidence to impress them. and then one of mabels besties gets a crush on dipper and it all falls apart because they spend time together but then the other girls he met on the trip also show up yadda yadda the lesson for both stan and dipper is to not be jerks but also that dipper should try to be more confident and use that for good which is never brought up again. it's just not compelling enough to justify being at this point in the show, its obvious that it just got placed there because it needed to, and the only supernatural or mystery element in this episode is a creepy spider lady which is cool Ig but eh.

And now Get This: There's Journal 3, which provides a ton of extra-canonical material by filling out blanks, adding context, ect and it's great, it's really good, I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the show, I'll link you a transcript right here if you can't/don't care to buy the physical book.

That being said, J3 is willing to contradict show canon which is fine, I can live with it, but APPARENTLY Roadside Attaction absolutely has to be chronologically correct because in the previous episode the Pines family set up a barrier around the Mystery Shack that would protect the building from the influence of Bill. Y'know, the evil space demon that Ford especially is wary of because he literally manipulated him and betrayed his trust to get him to build a world ending machine.

So yeah, J3 then goes on to canonize that Ford was like "Hey Stan now that we made sure the Shack's save from the Evil Space Demon why don't you and the kids take a trip to get As Far Away From The Shack As Possible." HUH??????

literally half of this post is about that little tiny bit in j3 now but whatever it's so so stupid. why did we need to acknowledge and canonize that roadside attraction takes place at this point in the show and that Stanford "Bill cannot be trusted and would trick and possess anyone to get what he wants and I know this from personal first-hand experience" Pines suggested the road trip

[goopgirlie813]

Long is fine lol, I do it a lot too.

Again, I agree with pretty much everything you're saying and am struggling a bit to see what exactly you are criticizing about this post specifically. It seems more like a general rant toward behaviors observed from American democrat voters as a whole. Which I admit I've been guilty of those kinds only-tangentially-post-relevant-but-I'm-fed-up-with-the-pattern type rants in the past so no judgement. Just left me a little confused.

So to confirm that I did properly understand you; you're expressing a criticism of people's contentment with "lesser evil" voting and asking that Americans 1) stop praising Democrats simply for opposing Republicans, and 2) do something to end the domination of the Republican+Democrat duopoly before it devolves into dictatorship. Possibly revolution, but if not, at least some form of organized movement to break out of the political status quo.

Is that accurate?

If so I want to say, I fully agree. I just don't know how to approach it besides what I am already doing: supporting voting reform.

As far as I can tell there are no active communist/socialist parties where I live. I have no idea how to start one nor do I believe I have the charisma or relevant skills to grow one into something impactful. Not to mention that being anti-communist has become so synonymous with American identity that even with those skills I'd be unlikely to persuade pretty mcuh anyone. Hell, it may make things worse and serve to make people more eager to support fascism considering the outright terror that the average American feels toward even the association with Communism.

And idk how this compares to Brazil but US culture is super....Isolating? Individualistic? People just don't participate in community, don't have time for community. Everyone is so socially distant, and public spaces tend to be unwelcoming. It can be incredibly difficult to organize anything because our culture does not leave room for community. Its just work, eat, sleep. Especially now with everything being so expensive many people have to work multiple jobs just to get by and simply do not have time to participate. Hell, I work 2 jobs with a 1hr commute meaning I am away from home for at least 16hrs a day during the week. My only free time is on the weekend (or during break, like now) unless I want to sacrifice my health by not sleeping. And by then I'm so exhaused I barely want to get out of bed to go get food with my family. I say this just to make it clear that I do genuinely want to make a change, many of us do, but just don't know how to find the time to even make a solid plan.

I'm not trying to be defeatest or pessimistic with this, I'm simply saying that these are hurdles I have no clue how to overcome. The two things I know I can do, however, are vote and donate any extra money I may have to causes that may help change the system. Which is why I choose to spend my break time advocating for whatever political candidate I think has the best outcome in this instance because its the one thing I know I can do. Its not because I'm content, its because I'm stumped on what else to do. And from what I can tell, that's the camp a lot of Americans are in. Its not as simple as just "organize" because everything from our culture to our infrastructure keeps people isolated from each other, making that task extremely difficult.

You motherfuckers yes I hate Kamala too but when she is announced to be the Democratic candidate we are all going to shoot fireworks and go to the goddamn polls