I flogged an Encanto post for being spam content accidentally and totally sent it somehow because I used the satanic kale. I instantly tried to figure out how to undo it but it's too late? I now know why it's called the devil's lettuce, because only Beelzebub could take over a person's consciousness and compel them to report something so wholesome.
listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded psychopath happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.
this is somewhat of a vent post & something i said i would not do again but has been plaguing me enough that i think getting it out might feel better. so. has anydoggy else been. Baffled and upset by nora sakavic’s refusal to speak on how terribly aftg has treated its characters of color? with the author of the series coming back with a new book and starting up on her online activity again, and questions of what she’d change about aftg bubbling up, it’s particularly glaring to me that we are all playing this very long game of pretend where we ignore how badly the non-white cast has been treated & her lack of thoughts on it
and i understand not wanting to bring up nicky and thea because people pick on her for it. i’m not trying to discredit nora sakavic’s terrible history of getting harrassed online by aftg fans. but i think it is very cynical, and it is very juvenile, and most of all very cruel, that she gets to ignore the very real ways the books have set up these characters to be hated. i think it’s obvious why the characters who get the most hate are the only canonical characters of color, and i think we do not get to treat this like a deliberate decision on the fandom’s part when the books have put these same characters in degrading and embarrassing and terrible positions in the first place. aftg is not a story about nice characters with clean pasts, but there is a very specific nastiness to the only characters of color being a brown man who sexually harasses and later assaults the main character, a black woman whose only scene is her lashing out at her love interest after being ignored for the first two books, and the japanese villain who gets maybe two lines of complexity before he goes back to being a terrible person. the white cast, in comparison, while not at all free from flaws, are never shown to commit mindless evil; all of their actions are ultimately justified. the book goes out of its way to give them concession after concession. we know exactly who to side with, because aftg tells us who these people are. does nicky’s assault ever get addressed in the books? does riko’s reasoning to be the way that he is ever gets more than briefly aluded to? is thea reserved even a shred of humanity or grace in her one scene?
anyway. it’s been years of talking about this and the fandom has been constantly hostile to criticism in this regard, and more recently any criticism at all, and it’s Grating to be on the other side of this discussion. it’s exhausting to know that in ten years we do not get even an acknowledgment besides the author saying she will not answer questions about nicky and thea anymore. it’s upsetting and it’s ugly and i wish no one had to talk about this again, but we do because what i thought was common sense has been washed away by a sudden influx of no-nuance adoration for the trilogy. basically i hope we all explode
two hours later edit: you're allowed to reblog this! sorry about the confusion
BBS is a tragedy in many ways, but one of the things that gets me is that the catalyst, the one big thing that caused this mess to begin with, is so avoidable.
Like, the story starts primarily because Terra starts to fear himself (because of the darkness he has unwittingly 'used') and this causes a spiral of doubt and obsession. A spiral which he could've escaped from or maybe not even started if he just 1) had been taught the balance between light and dark properly (that darkness is more than just unquestionable evil, that light is more than unquestionable good, that they can and should co-exist in balance), and 2) had consistent socialization from more than the same 3 people.
Like. BBS is a cautionary tale about what happens when people aren't exposed to a wide enough variety of people and, therefore, end up naive and overly trusting because they never learned that people have ulterior motives. Terra is consistently manipulated and used by people literally everywhere he goes, because he can't see that they might not have the best intentions! He can't see the red flags because he doesn't know there are red flags to look for!
Xehanort knows this. It's why he targeted Terra to begin with: because he would be susceptable to his words. The main reason he couldn't use Aqua is because she was too confident in her own values, she didn't have the seed of doubt that Terra had. It's the only thing that prevents her from being used the same way he is, even though she is just as naive and trusting as he is.
Ven probably has it the worst socialization wise. Unlike Terra and Aqua who, presumably, has/had a family and life outside of the Land of Departure prior to beginning training there, Ven doesn't remember anything before then (not that he had much he'd be happy to remember anyway). And since he's the youngest and most 'fragile' one (due to being in recovery for most of his time here), he gets somewhat coddled and shielded by everyone else. Not to mention the way Eraqus completely forbid him from leaving and never intented for him to ever see worlds outside the Land of Departure. Sure, Terra and Aqua aren't typically supposed to leave either, but at least they'd be allowed in certain situations. Ven wouldn't.
Ven isn't allowed to interact with anyone outside of home. He's not allowed anything that involves the outer worlds. (He and Naminé are a bit alike in that sense. Though at least the people he's stuck with are nice to Ven and do genuinely care for him, unlike Naminé...)
BBS happens largely because Eraqus failed as both a teacher and a parental figure to all of them, but Terra most of all.
This Weekend: Black Menagerie Chapter 9 (almost done writing, need editing and beta still, so probably eastern usa time sunday; I HAD NO IDEA WHERE IT WAS GOING BUT NOW THAT I DO IT'S 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼)
Next Weekend (sometime april 12 - 14): Karma in Glorious Splendor Chapter 1 (finished writing but have not read back myself and need to do a major editing sesh w/tracey before it's out) (it's so 😭🥹💋 I adored writing it and hope that I enjoy reading it to myself and don't need to change much)
April 19 - 21: Black Menagerie Chapter 10
April 26 - 28: Black Menagerie Epilogue
(and if the gods of motivation provide and I continue to reject social invitations at the rate I currently am - Karma Chapter 2 the first weekend of May, but we're not holding me to that lol I have a girlfriend to spend ten glorious days with when I finally have spring break jfc in that time so let's just say, we won't be doing a ton of writing and editing 😝)
Also now that I have learned how to properly manage writing multiple stories at once, I will not have multiple Wednesday 2022 stories going, but will be splitting my writing time between Karma and the original content I am starting, because I have one more year of working in public schools left in me before I quit for the third time (this is simply not sustainable I am so good at it but so bored and surrounded by such incompetence at every level I cannot continue to do this) and would love to work part-time at something while working on original writing content.
I have my cash-cow in mind, I know what literature the (younger) children are missing/need in their lives so if I can just crank it out, get it into the right publishing hands and spend some time making actual money doing that, then write what I actually love (soft, high character-development lesbian content)
SOMETHING JUST HAPPENED I'VE EVISCERATED MY BOY..................... dangers of drawing everything on a single canvas........ Make sure you haven't got more than one layer selected........ lmfao
when the youngest of the group cries, the gaang steps up
lazy-not-proportional quick sketch from a reference because i saw it and instantly: crying toph, and this is my first time drawing avatar characters, 'xcuse me xD