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#main tagging bc this is important i think!

cupcraft · 9 months

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Ranboo rebrand stream important stuff in one single post!:

if anything i missed pls rb and add on!

chat etiquette! They are going to be more strict with this (but not for new chatters honest mistakes).

Ban 101 -> the number 1 rule:

racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, discrimination. Instant ban, no excuse. Even bigoted jokes! 0 tolerance! you will be banned from even viewing the streams. This even counts on doing it on other streamer's chats/platforms if found out!

More rules: be funny (please!) and chill and kind and use emotes (including BTTV), dont spam chat (will be fixed/enforced bc of past issues),

other tidbits/news:

the vtuber/stuff will evolve over time, there are different vtuber outfits/costumes planned (ex they have an mcc outfit already!), the room in the background will change, they will be reaching out to ppl for collabs (feel free to recommend people but do not spam their chats!), planning to do more irl streams (will be weird/experimental and they will go wild! They will be making weird stuff!), they also have plans that they are excited to tell and its been a long time coming (this may be the cake video but i couldnt tell in stream), ranboo bakes a cake 2 will be coming TOMORROW on youtube (23 mins and incredible! they laughed at themself), ranboo plans to do experimental stuff on youtube (they have gotten into film lately!), founder's cut of gen 1 of genloss will be coming out 2-3 months ?? date/end of year, the vtuber ranjacket will be a part of the merch drop prototype at vidcon (physical jacket!), will be doing competitive/events with people (like organized little thing) (content/what it is undetermined) and he wants it to be obscure and random, ranboowaslive will start to ramp up a bit (more clips/compilations to come esp if you dont enjoy long vod watching), ranboo will be eating a nintendo DS cartridge live on stream (a joke!), MORE SURPRISES KEPT AS A SECRET + tiny plans in the works, they are moving into the new place/still have boxes to unpack (vtuber lore), he may finish the last of us part 2, subathon (really like back to back fun streams/long streams/playthrough of long games like omori) in january probably, splatoon may return,

What does the new era mean/qna stuff?

talking about old content is fine as long as you recognize that it is the PAST and not the kind of content ranboo makes now. Do not "put them back in the box".

Vtuber: will not be used all the time. They will do facecam streams too. Depends on how he feels.

why the r800: the 8 looks like a b LMAO

this is just the start of rebrand. He will re-establish a lot, things will be easier to find/reorganized, slowly over the weeks things will be changing.

what will happen tothe alt twitter (ranaltboo)?: new pfp, same energy (see below my shitty sc). art creds to mochi!

not only just a rebrand for him and the look of the content. But also it is a rebrand of how they act around and view their own content. they may not be as in the community as he has been (liking fanart/in chat/etc.) out of recommendation from people! If ranboo needs to be aware of something THEY HAVE PEOPLE to make him aware of important issues/emergencies and they will be focusing more on themself and the content overall. they are thankful to be allowed to do this, as they dont want to keep seeing things they dont want to see/have that anxiety. Less scrolling = more content!

They will probably have longer streams again!

will move to more mature jokes/phrases and may have content labels on the streams. Overall, streams will be pg-13 mostly.

TITS stands for twitch integrated throwing system [insert ranboo's giggle here]

All proceeds donated to ranboo's channel only go to charity! Not to them at all! They have a list of charities that he supports and will be changed 1-3 months at a time like usual!

Please make stuff. This is how he gets ppl who edit and the emote makers/artists. Not forced. Just encouraging ppl who make stuff to make stuff and he appreciates it and loves it! Even if it is not about him just make it! AND SUPPORT ARTISTS BOOBERS!

#ranboo.liveblog #ranboo #ranboolive #main tagging bc this is important i think!#pleek rb if you want!

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inkskinned · 7 months

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in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!

they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.

they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.

you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.

but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.

where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.

and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?

doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are also judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.

but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and both good for each other and bad in equal measure.

what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.

just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?

your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.

#spilled ink #warm up #writeblr #this is about someone specific but feel free to blorbo on main.#tbh this is familial for me so that is an element but it's also about childhood best friends #and probably about ur enemies to lovers blorbo #(but i want to specifically say if ur partner is like this. not necessarily a good partnership lol.)#(the dynamics at play in familial/friend relationships feel equally important and in some ways are HARDER to escape.#bc we can see that this is a potentially toxic romantic foundation.#but in family ? ...... it's toxic and it doesn't stop u from loving them. bc u always have.#and i think that makes it harder. by a lot. which is what this is referencing).#but genuinely and really truly forever feel free to tag ur potentially toxic enemies to lovers on this and all my poetry #here i'll do one for u - adora & catra :x

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kerizaret · 2 days

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Any news on the Cyberpunk dead world au that you're willing to share? :3

HI HI SORRY THIS TOOK A WHILE!! But yes I do in fact have something to share!! It's about time I do!

In fact im taking this ask as an excuse to give a whole CPDW AU introduction!

The story takes place in the dystopian city-state of Shibuya, a huge closed off city isolated from the rest of the world. It's controlled by one government with extremely strict rules and ideologies, which seems particularly adamant on limiting people's creativity and self-expression. Its also very controlling

Rui is a government-hired mechanic there. His family are mainly responsible for building, programming, fixing and maintaining robots / drones / other small devices controlled by a system called "SEKAI" which serves the purpose of "maintaining order" in the city – patrolling, restraining criminals, offering help to citizens etc. These "forces" are controlled by a group of high-ranking government officials led by miss Asahina who the Kamishoros direcly respond to

Rui has figured out long ago by closely observing and helping his parents' work (who he knows were showing this to him on purpose), that the SEKAI System doesn't serve as a way of protecting the citizens, but rather of controlling them, constantly surveilling, creating a "perfect" false narrative, spying and eavesdropping in order to quickly silence anyone who might oppose the vision the government has

Knowing he's partially partaking in this as someone who makes the SEKAI tech, he's decided to revolt by himself by sabotaging his own inventions to break in the long run, going to peoples home's to fix their broken devices while secretly deactivating their hidden cameras or hacking them to spy through them on more important government supporters or officials. He has also managed to create a copy of Len - one of the highly intelligent government AIs capable of freely hacking into any SEKAI device, scanning its code and even controlling it - and created Rin who helps him in his secret work

Rui is aware that there exists some kind of an organised resistance in the city, since he often has to fix devices they broke and hears about their stunts from time to time. From his investigations it seems their activity has started becoming apparent a few years prior, not too long after the introduction of a new governmental program called "TV-fication"... Still, despite all this information, Rui hasn't been able to ever track them down before to find out more

It would seem, though, that he caught the eye of someone from the secret organisation "Untitled" after his most recent job...

That's the main premise!! The beginning relies heavily on Rui's pov at first but we'll learn a lot about other characters later as well, don't worry :3

Other important characters include:

• Emu, a journalist for her family's popular TV chain and member of a very influential governmental family

• Nene, a low ranking common worker and Rui's neighbour, though they don't talk much - not since Nene's parents have undergone the TV-fication process...

• Tsukasa Tenma, the beloved shining star of the Aoyagi idol industry and also the main propaganda machine of the government, spreading their message and ideals through his songs, in interviews and any media appearance (Rui hates his guts)

• Ena & Akito, Tsukasa's advertiser and on-set stylist respectively (as well as his reluctant friends), working for the governmental Shinonome advertising company

• Mafuyu, currently training under her mother to take her role as a leader of this "police" force in the future, owner of the KAITO AI

And others.... there's quite a few characters appearing in fact! But that's all for later :3 for now you shall get this!

(Also reminder I'm working on this with the wonderful @xxwelxx !! This would NOT have become such a big au if not for their help!!)

#cpdw au #SOOO EXCITED TO FINALLY SHARE THIS!!!#what do we think??#this au is so amazing i love it and id love to talk about it sm #its just so hard to make smth for it HDHSH for now! ill get to it!!#but yeah!!#i can finally talk about it more openly now that the main premise is out and youll get what i mean HAHDHA #and i can make things for it.. and you can also ask stuff!#prsk #prsk au #kamishiro rui #wxs #keri rambles #asks #kinofsin tag #the story is still mostly wxs focused bc. im ME. but the others are still important!

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waywardsalt · 4 months

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Can you please tell more about your redeemed Bellum that hangs around with the main cast in post-canon? Or, like, your hum!Bellum ideas in general?

Ooooh, I have a lot I could say about Bellum. I'll go a bit off this ask and just talk about him in the context of post-ph and some other aus, since he's fun and because most of them share the common thread of him being in human form often. This will probably be messy, but I'll divide it into sections to force myself to stick to one topic at once to keep this from devolving into what might as well be a transcript of a discord dms infodump.

(there should be a keep reading just under here- there are a few thousand words under the cut- if it's lower than it should be then idk, even while drafting this i had issues with it moving further down than i put it)

Human Bellum Basics (mostly design stuff)

It's less of a human Bellum au sort of thing, and more like a design for what if Bellum had a human form that he could change into. Kind of like Oshus having his human form while actually being a whale, it's the idea that Bellum can switch between his human form and his demon form at will, and I have spent... way, way too long trying to figure out this design.

I can't quite remember why I decided to give Bellum a human form (could've been anything from doing it for the hell of it to for shipping purposes) and it took AGES to decide on his final design.

Describing it would take a few paragraphs, so there's art! Commission pieces by @roskii specifically, he's great, he did great, check him out. (i dont know how to make these smaller :)))))) enjoy)

Half of it is directly taken from his demon design, he keeps the tentacles (not always present, he manifests them at will and tend to have much less reach when he's human), his eye, his teeth, his hair color (kind of), and half of it is more... brought in by ideas related to Bellum in general, with some vague references to that demon design; specifically him being scarred all over is a mixture of the idea of him as a violent and almost warlike creature, while also vaguely referencing the markings on his demon body (in the earliest drawing I ever did of a human Bellum design, he did just straight-up have those markings. That picture no longer exists, I'm sure).

As a basic reference, I suppose, in the second image, the character to the right of Bellum (Damien Fletcher) is an oc of mine, and therefore a character I designed (totally worth mentioning tho that with both Damien and Bellum while I did technically design them and gave roskii my notes for how they look, he also took some small liberties with their designs and... ugh theyre great im keeping them), so those two could provide some insight to my character design sensibilities, even if they're just a small fraction of the (mental) character designs I have.

Bellum is made up of pieces of his canonical design, pieces that I think make sense considering what we know about him, and just pieces of other character designs. He has more or less the same haircut as Joker/the protagonist from Persona 5. His hair has been like that for a while, but seeing Joker's hair helped me figure out specifically what I wanted.

It's been... hard, trying to give him a humanoid design, I've seen a bunch of other human Bellum designs, looked at other Zelda characters with both human and inhuman forms, took inspiration for what I could do and how and what parts could be carried over. His hair is easy to explain, it literally is meant to look like he does as a demon. Easy. It is absolutely directly inspired by that bitch from Tokyo Ghoul. I'm not looking up the character name I don't care about Tokyo Ghoul.

I keep him having sharp teeth, I've transposed those markings on his bodies as being scars (which I'll elaborate a little more on later), kept his eye and that he only has one main eye (there is nothing under the eyepatch. It's just smooth. If you've seen The Goonies, it's like what's going on with One-Eyed Willy. That's probably where I got it from tbh), the yellow and black color scheme is further kept with a yellow tank top-esque shirt and black pants and boots, and while they're not constantly present he still has access to his tentacles.

He's not human, just pretending to be.

Leading me to some other little details, such as his lack of ears. And nails. And. Other things not visible that he didn't bother with. He pretends to be human, but doesn't care enough to look truly human- though he can pass as human. When he does bother to actually look human, he does have nails and ears, and changes his eye to a human one, with a color of choice. He goes by 'Warren' when actually pretending to be human. It doesn't mean anything in particular it's just a play on how 'bellum' is latin for 'war'. But, most of the time, he's not really trying. A sense of lack of real care is something I try to communicate with his humanoid design, hence him having generally baggy and plain clothes.

The 'war' thing about his character I think is decently expressed in game with him having an army of sorts with the phantoms and him just coming off as sort of violent but strategic. He also seems very scrappy, mostly attacks with direct contact including just straight up running into Link, and seems to put a lot of stock into sheer force and just fucking killing you at any cost after a certain point, but seems genuinely wary and cornered once someone is shown to be capable of actually posing an actual threat. I like the idea of human Bellum being a bit of a brawler in a sense, fighting with his bare hands and just being incredibly violent when he fights like a human, really only breaking out his more supernatural abilities when he just wants to get shit over with.

Part of the fun with Bellum is that there isn't much to him, so I'm taking a lot of liberties with him. His loose clothes are something that won't really get in the way of him fighting and do the bare minimum, and the boots he wears have metal toes for just a bit of extra ways to hurt people. He's built but still soft in places, not intended to be a muscular as Damien, he's intentionally designed his own human form to be a bit unassuming, so I've kept that he's made of a lot of circular shapes, his face is meant to be a bit of a round shape, his hair gives a round shape, and though he's fairly tall (he and Damien are 6 feet tall btw Linebeck throws off every post-ph cast height comparison) I think of him being a bit... small? If that makes sense? His clothes help with that, they're slightly oversized, and his posture isn't great; He's a bit like a delinquent, starting fights intentionally for the sake of violence and putting little effort into his appearance.

His scars are technically cosmetic. They aren't results of injuries; technically nothing but the Phantom Sword and things like it can hurt him. His scars are references to the markings on his demon body, and just further reflection of him being a creature all about violence and conflict. They aren't totally consistent between the times he uses his human form, but some of the bigger ones are, most notably the scar across his face.

I'll be honest. My earliest human Bellum designs were some Tumblr sexyman shit and I've been trying to ditch that SO BAD ever since. I think I've done well. The scar across his face is a big one. An added imperfection, a massive facial blemish that isn't really conventionally great to look at. His nose specifically has been though some development stages, at first I kept switching between different full nose shapes, then brought in the facial scar and decided that he'd be missing a chunk of that nose, then, decided, fuck it! I can't decide on a nose shape, so he gets no nose at all. I think it works pretty well and I like it.

I really tried to get in a lot of his personality to the design, and I don't want to go into all of it in this section, so just keep in mind that a lot of his design has been influenced by the way I've decided to write him, and some stuff I've already mentioned might be made a little clearer when I get into that. As a quick aside, he's pale partially because I've intentionally made him look halfway similar to Link, and partially because I figure he does not get a lot of sun; you literally meet him in what is effectively a basement, and from the way he operates, probably hasn't made himself seen in a while by the time the events of the game happen. He can't get sunburns, but, as he cannot change a lot of extremely major things about his human form, he can't manually change his skin tone in a major way, and it's likely that when he was considerably younger and newer and spent time in the sun, his skin tone would be closer to Oshus's, so a bit more tan.

In the Context of Phantom Hourglass and Post-PH

Moving swiftly on, as there is pretty much no real info about Bellum's background, I have taken matters into my own hands and decided a lot of it for myself in headcanon; Bellum is technically Oshus's son. Not in the traditional sense, but he was created by Oshus and can very much be considered his child, and to an extent, Ciela, Leaf, and Neri are all also Oshus's kids due to them being created by him (yea even considering Ciela calling him 'grandpa', in her and my defense she lost her memories and he is old as a human), therefore making (in some terms) Bellum to be Oshus's son and the brother of the three spirits. I think it's an interesting dynamic, to have Oshus be the one responsible for Bellum's existence, and for the three spirits you travel with and help you defeat Bellum to be closely related to him.

Oshus himself (when you get the hourglass in ph) says that the sand of hours is made of force gems of the ocean king (whatever... that wording means)- which then suggests that at the end of the day, all sands of hours are derived from the power of the ocean king, and Bellum dissolves into that sand at the end of the game, and I am standing in front of a wild-looking conspiracy cork board trying to piece this all together. I find it interesting if Oshus was the one who created Bellum before he created the three spirits.

(This is a topic for another post/fic but Leaf and Neri were neglected so bad in ph and it would be interesting to see more of how they feel abt Ciela before she gets her memories back and how they feel abt... anything else ig. I think they're neat, too, and I like tying the spirits together with Bellum in this way)

In Phantom Hourglass, it's strongly suggested (mostly through dialogue) that it's been a decent amount of time since Bellum defeated Oshus and took over the Temple of the Ocean King and created the Ghost Ship (though I suppose it could be possible that the Ghost Ship's existence precedes Bellum taking over that temple and defeating Oshus), but things across that sea are relatively calm, despite the new influx of monsters and the Ghost Ship making most people too afraid to sail. No one knows it's Bellum, though, and people do know about the Ocean King, so I wonder if Bellum is known about at all by the general public, or is a being that's more or less completely unknown? My personal theory is that he's vaguely known in some sense, as an obscure deity, and that he was behind the collapse of the Cobble Kingdom, since they were aligned with the Ocean King and Bellum appears to be his direct enemy and would likely then target the allies of his enemy.

Bellum seems to do a lot of behind the scenes stuff, never been seen until the end of the game and not even being mentioned until halfway through. As I think I've said before, he's practically won by the time he comes across Link and Tetra, the Ghost Ship going out and collecting people for him while he sits at the bottom of the temple and drains anyone who might be heading directly for him. He doesn't even seem to concerned about hunting Oshus down for good, and I suspect he likely doesn't even know about Ciela being split apart, so (asides from my idea that gods/spirits/stuff like that only being able to be sealed away, only properly killed under certain circumstances) I bet there's a level of confidence that he's got things under tight enough wraps that he's good to do whatever he wants.

Aaaand then he panics when he realizes how much of a wrench in his plans Link is, throwing two sea monsters at him and causing earthquakes, he's a procrastinator, I think. That, or he underestimated this kid. Both are very possible. Either way, it's interesting to look at what he's done and caused, hiding away the spirits and beating back the Ocean King, taking over his temple, creating the Ghost Ship to roam indefinitely, screwing with the Yook and wiping out pretty much all of the Isle of Ember, and likely being the reason behind the increased number of monsters. If you really look into it, while most characters don't really seem to realize, things are kind of fucked at the start of Phantom Hourglass, and it's interesting how Oshus himself seems powerless and even dissuades Link from giving it a shot, even if he secretly wants him to go and handle things.

With my idea of Bellum being a sort of technical relative to Oshus and the spirits, it opens up a handful of new avenues for motivation beyond just being after securing control and a steady stream of prey, I enjoy the idea of it being a matter of him becoming more and more ambitious, far beyond the station he was created for; going off of his name and ability to create phantoms, I imagine Oshus created him specifically to be warlike, perhaps initially with the intention of having him as a more violent protector of the realm, maybe to keep monsters in check or maybe just as a secondary deity for the world of the ocean king; I'll admit, I'm still a little foggy on what Bellum would've been initially created for, the spirits are easy to figure out, but I do figure it was something not as passive as just representing something, I imagine it as a deliberate opposite to Oshus himself to account for his weaknesses. Either way, I figure a part of Bellum's motivation involves him wanting more than he was given access to by Oshus, and deciding to fully wage war against him in a sense. The short and silly version is that Bellum is Oshus' shitty disowned son. Oshus isn't entirely innocent in whatever I decide caused Bellum to turn on him and the spirits, but Bellum does suck: that is important. The Cobble Kingdom looks like it's been destroyed for a while, I figure that was Bellum's first major target when he started outwardly going after Oshus and hunting the humans of the realm.

In Post-PH, he's the group's pet evil squid on a very very very short leash until he starts behaving himself and having a character arc.

Effectively, Bellum doesn't die at the end of Phantom Hourglass, instead being broken down into the sand of hours he's made of and being sealed inside the Phantom Sword- after all, after the final boss, the sand Bellum turns into goes into the Phantom Sword. I imagine that the Phantom Sword, after breaking and restoring Oshus, turns into the hourglass for Link to keep, while Oshus and the spirits keep the remaining sands, therefore keeping a hold of Bellum. (A bit like Oshus just being left alone after Bellum defeating him, they can't really kill Bellum so they just keep an eye on him while he's in a weakened state) They kind of just keep him prisoner at the bottom of the Temple for a bit, and Oshus finally decides to send him to Link's world as a punishment, since he's at his weakest and Oshus wants to get him to learn some lesson, it's a work in progress. Bellum is grounded in Post-PH.

It's basically that 'the villain when you unlock him as a playable character' bit, where he's quite a bit weaker than he is in Phantom Hourglass, though mostly for the sake of keeping things balanced, so Bellum can't break everything for everyone. He's still powerful, he still accesses his demon form, can't be conventionally killed or injured, and move through walls and turn people to stone, the whole deal, it's just that his demon form's size is impacted (i hc that the size of his demon form can be manipulated at will, but the largest size is dependent of how much power/stored life force he has. he's small at the start of post-ph, but his human form isnt impacted at all. i imagine that for beings like oshus and bellum, their human form is a like a 'low power mode' kinda thing) So Bellum is the Post-PH crew's fourth member, the swabbie on the ship and pet sea monster when they need it and when he has the energy for it.

Bellum is kept mostly in line by a vague fear of Link and his general fear, respect, and curiosity about Linebeck. Linebeck is usually the one holding onto Bellum's leash. Bellum is decently civil with the group from the start, since he's weak and unable to return home until Oshus permits it or he gathers enough power to make that trip, and works mostly as a fighter- when he wants to. The earliest limitation I came up for him, since he's the member with the highest chance of breaking things, is that he will just straight-up choose not to help. He decides he's busy, decides it's not his problem, or other limitations, such as his involvement likely to cause more problems that they solve, since he's rather destructive when fighting.

He's the least sociable most of the time, for obvious reasons, but can pretend, and has the least... casual skills to offer to the group, hence why he gets stuck as swabbie (also general disrespect/as a punishment for the ph thing) and it takes a while for him to properly warm up to the rest of the group. He and Linebeck start off on decent terms and get closer through them just initially trusting each other, he and Link take the longest to get used to each other for... obvious reasons, it takes a lot of fighting together and seeing that they can rely on each other and they learn to be decent with each other just by existing in the same space, and things with Damien start off half decent, Damien was not present during Phantom Hourglass (obviously) and doesn't have the full context of how much he sucks, but it starts decent, gets worse when he learns what happened, and then gets good again because Damien's kind of amiable in general and sees that Linebeck thinks he's fine.

SO! To actually address your question about him being 'redeemed'- he does have a bit of an arc that I'm still mentally workshopping. He isn't entirely redeemed, as the group's general morality is a big off-kilter when Link isn't looking or is willing to get a little gray with things, and there's not really a whooooole lot of atonement Bellum can do in terms of the volume of bullshit he pulled in the past. It's less him atoning or w/e for the bullshit he's done, that's not entirely feasible, it's more him just. being forced to Be Decent and learn some actual kindness and think about more than just his own survival, he's essentially forced to actually appreciate life and the world, it's more him actually... experiencing the world for a reason other than consumption and war and conflict and doing what he's been told, he's effectively just on this long voyage with Linebeck, Link, and Damien, going with them from island to island and seeing what's up. I'm going to try and keep empathy out of it, so he's not really relating on a visceral level, more just choosing to be kind and take gentler paths to solving problems and interacting with others. He's also the group gremlin.

The way I write Bellum is definitionally inspired by other characters, Power from Chainsaw Man comes to mind in how he has a kind of shitty brat attitude at times, he'd fling vegetables across the room because he's a piece of shit who likes live meat. He's got his shitty messy delinquent loser side, where he causes problems and acts like some asshole teenager, and he's got his more serious, calm, almost professional seeming side that reminds the group that he's a few centuries old at the least and practically a god in his own right; generally outside of Post-PH I would pick one of these two sides to focus on for aus, but in Post-PH I need to figure out how the two of them work with how Bellum generally operates.

He's interested in Linebeck and initially decides to go along because he wants to figure him out, but grows to enjoy the rest of the group and that curiosity expands to involve the world as a whole; he experiences things like art and music, where he can't just brute-force his way into a satisfactory outcome and has to learn and find his own style, he reads books and listens to stories and sees the different ways humans live on the seas and I want his arc to, in some part, be about him just finding meaning in the world beyond what he does to secure survival, and the other members of the group introduce him to those other facets of life that he has access to, has had access to. The other part is the group getting Bellum to see most living things as more than just prey for him to hunt and consume, but that generally goes hand in hand with the prior point, as he actually enjoys life and figures out what he likes beyond the basic things he was created for.

He can't fall back on just smashing through everything or creating phantoms, since he's far too weak to do either effectively at the start, and I intend to just force Bellum into basically just being a human character with some unusually powerful magic at his fingertips, first just wanting to build himself back up to what he was in Phantom Hourglass, then just getting to see things in a new light. I'm not sure how to explain it or even what I'll want to do when I get to it, but that's the general gist of his arc, I think.

Other than that, he's just the fourth members of the crew with a serious knowledge of... a lot of things as a centuries-old demon and the hardest hitter in the group who can't and won't cook for shit and kind of just learns to actually live without constantly gunning for those bare necessities long after he's gotten them. I don't want it to be 'he learns to be human' because he... isn't human, but just him appreciating life and seeing some value in it, especially as something with as much power as Bellum, it's a bit messy and I'm still figuring it out, but I've got the general direction figured out.

Bellum is effectively the ship's best defender, and ends up fitting into the group as a friend and with his own specific role with the other individual members of the group. Linebeck kind of kickstarts his arc for him and connects with him the most and Bellum generally stays the closest with him, but Damien and Link help him see other little corners of life, as well as other characters he has to interact with, and I think I want Bellum's side of the story to have the most outstanding mundane-ity to it- there's absolutely meant to be a slice-of-life aspect to Post-PH, but I want the biggest points of Bellum's arc to be comparably the most mundane. It's the little things with him. The others have little things, too, but... I'm not sure how to express the difference, but I promise there is a difference.

Outside of Post-PH, though, when Bellum is present in a big way, his arc either tackles a similar idea in a different way, is just about something entirely different, or he doesn't have an arc at all, either due to not being a big enough part of the story or just straight up not being present.

In the Context of AUs

Bellum is only present in a handful of aus, either fully present as a character, halfway present, or just being referenced. When he is present in an au, he's usually some kind of major character, and he's notable in the crimson king au, the space au, the murder mystery au, and the horror au and one of my 'ruined hyrule' aus. (the horror and ruined hyrule au will be put together for this bc bellum's role in both are very similar) (for reference, here's my au explanation post)

In the horror au and ruined hyrule au, Bellum serves juuuust about the same role, just with different capabilities, contexts, all of that, but it's more or less the same thing. He's frequently present, but usually not acknowledged, and is very close to Linebeck in both, and the two of them pretty much rely on each other to live due to circumstances out of their control; they didn't really go into this whole thing liking each other, but have been more or less forced to become each other's friends due to proximity and just. Needing the others' presence in order to survive. In both, Bellum usually is a character who knows more than the others, but doesn't bother sharing that information since it's either not totally relevant or he just doesn't want to, and he tends to be protective of Linebeck, half because he needs him in order to live, half just because he's ended up liking him. (there is. more to say. but since i may actually write one of these aus [likely ruined hyrule bc the horror one has to be visual and it is VERY plotless rn] i'm not gonna go into much more depth since it would require spoilers lol)

Can't say a whole lot about the space au, either, since the story of that one is still a work in progress, and Bellum isn't particularly a major character, though he is important to some B-plot stuff. Without digging up too much world building and background and general story stuff and important plot bits, he's got a fairly close relationship to Linebeck in this au, as a general beneficiary and friend, and he actually tends to mind his own business and just wants to hold his own position; he's not really antagonistic or anything, but definitionally morally dubious even if he doesn't really directly do a whole lot.

In the Crimson King au, though, Bellum is one of the main characters, and a bit different than in ph-related stuff. He spends a lot of time in his human form, only switching to his little demon form a handful of times, and usually just for fun. He plays the role of Linebeck's closest friend and beneficiary, practically being the reason why Linebeck is able to do any of the things he does in the story, helping him from behind the scenes at times and balancing that business with Linebeck with his more outward appearance as a mostly normal guy working for the person who runs his section of the city... who also happens to be him. The vague politics in this au would take a bit to explain in full, but Bellum in this au spends a lot of time keeping his actual identity under wraps, the basic premise being that he's decided to integrate himself into current mortal society like a normal person to see what trouble he can cause, how he could sustain himself while keeping things stable, and to see just how far he can go- essentially, the only danger he faces is if others figure out what he is, but even then, he knows he could very easily cut his losses and go back to what he's done best.

He's not very active in the main plot, mostly giving Linebeck assignments and pulling strings behind the scenes in order to help and keep him safe, but Bellum does occasionally meddle directly in Linebeck's situation whenever it relates to him, when he needs something extra done, or, later in the story, when he gets a bit worried about Linebeck. His general arc is essentially him owning up to the fact that he does, in fact, care about Linebeck's well-being. Crimson King Bellum is fun, because he can't really just be 'violent demon', and I just like the supporting role I've got him in. He's Linebeck's rich friend who hires him to kill people for him. It's fun.

How I Like to Write Him With Linebeck

Of course, Bellum is going to have stuff with Linebeck, both in aus and in post-ph. Bellum has interactions and relationships with other characters, but the dynamic(s) with Linebeck tend to be the most diverse and important.

With aus: There’s usually a general sense that Bellum is above Linebeck, both in the power sense and in the sense that he’s typically his boss or in charge of him, but in a handful they are on equal footing (specifically, the modern school one, where they’re just classmates.)- the most common dynamic is usually along the lines of Bellum hiring Linebeck to kill people for him. Bellum is typically someone that provides Linebeck with things like payment or equipment or safety- in the Crimson King au, he gives Linebeck a fair amount of money, and supplies his equipment and gives him a place to live when he does jobs for him.

I like to imagine there's a level of... recognition? Not empathy, trying to keep that to a minimum... He's almost gentle with Linebeck, and is uncharacteristically merciful towards him. In post-ph, Linebeck survives being possessed and this marks him as notable to Bellum, since most people he possess die very soon after being released, so he's initially motivated by curiosity and a desire to observe Linebeck when he acts less violently- that curiosity is the biggest reason why he's cordial with Linebeck across my aus as well.

With Phantom Hourglass-centric stuff (which is what I'll mostly just talk about here, since it's kind of the 'base' for all other Bellum and Linebeck stuff I do), Linebeck and Bellum start on halfway decent terms, I'm planning a Bellumbeck fic sometime in the future, which is a bit less focused on that actual fight and more on whatever's going on between Linebeck and Bellum. I'm still trying to pin down exactly what I want with Linebeck and Bellum's dynamic.

I’ve fallen back into shipping them, (Still iffy on ship name lmfao, Bellumbeck is taken by the game and ‘Linebellum’ is lame imo, so I’ve been sticking with just ‘bellum x linebeck’) but it’s not really typically romantic/sexual, though there are some aspects of both, it’s still kind of abstract and easier to define with example stuff rather than just trying to explain it in a concise paragraph.

They both go out of their way to effectively research each other before properly meeting, starting as just trying to find advantageous information, but eventually just doing research out of curiosity, especially on Linebeck’s end, hunting down any material that so much as alludes to Bellum while Oshus refuses to say anything extra on the topic. They have a mutual interest and curiosity about each other.

With Bellum, its a similar curiosity with how Linebeck survives being possessed, and a general interest in him as a person, as Bellum doesn't really care much about the world beyond how it can serve him, but felt the need to look into Linebeck. A lot of the time, Bellum starts with the intention of exploiting Linebeck in some way, then ends up actually caring about him, he usually goes through variations of the same arc regarding Linebeck. It works with Linebeck for me since I tend to read and write him as fairly morally gray, so he's more willing to reciprocate Bellum.

(There's also the whole bit with Linebeck being kind of a monsterfucker and having a thing for being tied up and just a handful of like. sexual stuff on Linebeck's end, but we're talking about Bellum's perspective here we can't be focusing on Linebeck)

Bellum primarily operates with survival on the mind, and at odds with anything that might get in his way, and secondarily treats mortal creatures as something to study. When his attempt to use Linebeck fails, he shifts to that studying, and therefore has some respect for him due to his survival. They both focus quite a lot on survival, and don't have the most interest in making connections, seeing most relationships as transactional. They understand each other; Bellum sees Linebeck's mind when possessing him, and therefore knows a great deal about him.

There are similarities between them; not-great relationships with their fathers, a strong desire for survival at any cost, generally low empathy and a habit of mostly viewing others for how they can be used, curiosity about anatomy, a higher tolerance for things like blood, gore, things that would likely make others squeamish, they both hate Ciela...

(As an aside to that last one, an idea I've decided to integrate into my ph stuff and may touch on in a future fic is that Linebeck calling Ciela 'sparkles' gives her a strong sense of deja-vu before she gets all of her memories back; it's something Bellum would call her, when he was more cordial with the other spirits)

Bellum hangs around on the ship, and he hangs around Linebeck the most, to the point of being annoying, but learns what boundaries are and ends up respecting them decently. I lean more into... things just working out, Bellum more or less being put in a situation where he chooses to change things up and be a bit kinder, starting with the guy he's decided was the catalyst for all of this.

He gets along well enough with Damien (damien ends up in that shipping, too, considering that he's already dating linebeck by the time bellum sorts his own feelings out, so in post-ph, bellum ends up being a sort of on-and-off polycule member), he is eventually friendly with Link, often because Linebeck likes him as well. It takes a very long time for he and Link to warm up to each other, so they'll likely end up in situations where they must rely on each other at the start of things.

Bellum is… very not used to social stuff or acting human, and isn’t even very used to his human form at the start, so he does spend that time with Linebeck while he figures things out, as well. Linebeck's not the best role model for decent social interaction, especially since he works on dismantling his own mask and figuring himself out for a bit at the start of post-ph, but he's the only person Bellum tolerates and respects at that start.

Bellum eventually gets roped into helping Linebeck cook, follows him around for ship maintenance, watches him patch up wounds, and just ends up as a crew member that can kind of fill any basic role, but he’s not making it much further than swabbie.

I haven’t actually written a ton of interaction between them yet, but what I have written always comes off as casual, almost humorous, they joke around with each other and Bellum is detached and unserious at times, but very capable of switching to dead seriousness. A lot of the time, Linebeck tends to take things more seriously at face value, but Bellum is more prone to joking around due to the fact that very few consequences mean anything to him.

He and Linebeck are typically close in one sense or another in most things where they're included, and I generally consider all dynamics between them to fall under the ship umbrella, because I don't consider it strictly romantic (though it usually ends up being vaguely like that), just more that there's some kind of intimacy between them at some point. It's a relationship whose dynamic I think is interesting given the... lack of actual interaction between them, but with just enough interesting conclusions that can be drawn.

I guess it's similar to the general stuff I have about Bellum, kind of just scraping ideas together from canon and then following whatever threads can be connected to them, while trying to make sure it still has roots in that canon. It's similar to my personal 'design philosophy' or whatever for my aus.

I've also considered making their relationship parasitic in someway, as a sort of homage/callback/reference to their canonical relationship, but it's not entirely a direction I really want to go in, and I feel like some aus get decently close.

Final Points

I think Bellum's really neat, so considering the general lack of information or depth to him, I've been playing with expanded ideas and building up my own ideas for him, specific within the context of Phantom Hourglass and a post-ph setting, while many of my other ideas with him tend to then derive from that.

His (human) design is one I've spent a very long time figuring out, trying to mix his demon design in with more human traits, trying to keep him distinctive without getting too complicated, and trying to have that design represent him decently with a fair bit of reasoning behind a lot of that design. It's something Bellum himself controls to a certain degree, so it's in a bit of a crossroads between portraying him based on his character, and being something he uses to come off as generally innocuous.

I've got a decent idea of what Bellum's whole deal is in Phantom Hourglass and afterwards, and I use him in a fair number of aus, often in tangent with Linebeck, whom I often give him some kind of intimate relationship, be it romantic or some other form of closeness, based off of ideas for ways they would interact and why.

Bellum's fun! He's fun as he is, and he's fun to build off of and develop further than what we see in the game. And giving him the ability to shift into a humanoid shape gives even more room to play around in. I don't know when I first came up with the idea, but I've had ideas for a human form Bellum for quite some time now, I've just only recently really started solidifying a lot of it. Even between the time when I got the ask and finished it, I came up with new ideas.

But for now, these are the broad strokes! Not just about post-ph humanoid Bellum, just about my ideas for him in general, though it all really relates back to that one in particular, honestly.

He's surprisingly fun to speculate about! I didn't really expect Bellum to end up as one of my favorite LoZ characters, but I guess any character can end up as your favorite if you spend enough time thinking about him. At the end of the day I think he's funky, and he's fun to use in a post-ph setting.

#asks #goopi-e #bellum #long post #salty talks #linebeck #he's important <3 #phantom hourglass #post ph #i have like no excuse for why this took so long. initially it was bc i was waiting on that bellum commission but then like #the day i wrote this (+ the prior) tag i bought and played fallout new vegas for a few hours. it fell in with my other writing projects lol #i think rn myb iggest issue w/ post ph is that everyone seems to revolve around linebeck a bit much #idk if thats. terrible a breaker i mean hes their captain hes kinda the main character he's the one link (heh) between all of them #bellum probably has the biggest arc bc hes the shittiest at the start and everyone is already kinda partway through one #like i think links is gonna be abt him disconnecting from being a hero and just enjoying life on his own terms and doing non hero things #linebecks is uh. trauma recovery. among other things. like everyone has trauma recovery as a part of it but linebecks is the big one #damiens is... man idk hes just There i think his is gonna have smth to do with his relationship w/ linebeck and the others #damien is just some fucking dude hes not too terribly traumatized or has this huge place in the world he's jsut some trans guy #it kinda sucks that a lot of the stuff i think up for him relates to linebeck like i want him to have his own thing but i made him too...#hes too ok with things!!!!! hes just some fucking guy!!!! maybe i can have him just figure out his place in this larger world hes exploring #anyways bellum needs to be nerfed in a handful of different ways bc otherwise hes a get out of jail free card in a lot of contexts #ughhh this took too long im sorry but i just kept coming up with new stuff id practically classify this as a fic #this took a while to plan and this fucking thing is also so long and it still doesnt really cover everything #not even bc i havent fully figured out what i want to do with him like theres just stuff im uncertain on how to explain in a concise manner #the whole thing between link n bellum is kinda simple. they hate each other and then have to work together and decide that theyre decent #damien is just. pleasant most of the time. so hes kinda chill with bellum. he's had experience with minor gods n deities #his weird thing is that he is technically normal but he is on good terms with a lot of supernatural/godly beings #theres def a lot of random minor gods n spirits n supernatural creatures all over the great sea with the absence of larger gods' influence #kinda lost the point of the og ask so i hope thats ok

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aemiron-main · 2 years

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why am i so firm about discussing casual homophobia lately and why am i so passionate about it and bi vs gay mike discourse and why is the discussion of the past few days important? (if ur gonna read any of my discourse posts read this one)

em do not start talking about peoples’ biases towards gay men and how the idea that homosexuality is rooted in gender presentation/in the way that one presents oneself also ties into transphobia and defining gayness around a set of standards beyond literally other than “what gender people are attracted to/a gay dude for example being into dudes but not into girls” is a slippery slope towards bigotry and erasure because it not only cements the idea that there is a “right way,” to be gay, but also reinforces the ideas found in books like “a parent’s guide to preventing homosexuality,” where things like “wanting to look and act like the opposite sex,” and “always having playmates of the opposite sex,” and “sensitivity and a focus on colourful clothes for boys and coldness and a focus on monotone clothes for girls,” are used as “traits of homosexuality”/are the framework through which homosexuality is defined, and “attraction to the same sex/same gender/anything like that” is not mentioned even ONCE in the book, it has been ENTIRELY REMOVED from the definition of homosexuality in that book. which then aligns with terf rhetoric because then, by THAT definition of homosexuality (a definition that actually aligns far more with trans kids/when gender identity than with sexuality), terfs can claim that trans kids and trans people as a whole aren’t actually trans and rather are actually homosexuals brainwashed to be trans/pretending to be trans because they’re afraid of getting homophobic backlash for being a cis gay (because they’re defining gayness outside of attraction & defining it around presentation, especially gender presentation and using the definition for transness as the definition for gayness) which is then used to demonize and endanger trans people and deny them their legal rights/completely roll back the existence of those rights, let alone deny people access to existing rights.

(this ramble isn’t even rlly sparked by the bi vs gay mike discourse although it’s a larger idea that applies to that discussion in smaller ways. this one is bc I have been watching caelan conrad videos again and one of the vids mentioned “a parent’s guide to preventing homosexuality” and that sent me down a rabbithole abt defining homosexuality and defining being trans and transphobic talking points and the diff between cis queer transphobes and cishet transphobes and how cis queer transphobes tend to define gayness as strictly by sex/focus too much on Same Sex attraction and ignore gender whereas cishet transphobes especially more older conservative ones tend to define gayness without talking about attraction and instead focus on gender presentation/use a large part of the definition for being trans as their definition for being gay)

but yeah this is why I am such an absolute stickler about casual homophobia and narrow viewpoints of gay men and the idea that gayness is comprised of certain traits beyond who you’re attracted to, because it’s a rhetoric that also ties into transphobia and is literally used to justify child abuse and bigotry and removal of trans rights. I’m not saying that’s how people on here are using it but I AM saying that such reasons are why people should be Aware of it because even spreading it unintentionally creates a place for that sort of bigotry to grow/subtly reinforces it even unintentionally. Casual homophobia and biases towards gay men doesn’t necessarily mean that somebody hates gay people/inherently hates gayness- instead it means that somebody has a warped and biased and inaccurate view of what gayness IS & that inaccurate view on a larger scale is a slippery slope towards full-on hatred and bigotry, as people start seeing gayness as being defined as something other than what gender somebody is attracted to and instead start seeing it as other factors/defining it by other traits and actions and therefore start outwardly hating gay people based on THOSE inaccurate traits rather than based on who they’re attracted to- which is why I see so many non homophobic people being like “why on earth are people so upset about who somebody chooses to love,” and the answer is that it’s because it’s deeper than that, it’s not JUST about who somebody chooses to love, it’s because those outright homophobes are operating with a definition of gayness that goes beyond who somebody loves and hilariously often doesn’t even include that as part of the definition (see: the book “a parent’s guide to preventing homosexuality”), and so casual homophobia paves the way for outright homophobia because causal homophobia sets those inaccurate standards for what gay people are/what gayness is defined as, which are then then same inaccurate standards that bigots use as reasoning to hate gay people.

this is a large part of why I am so passionately firm and even a bit of a dick about people trying to compare the presentation of Mike and his sexuality to the presentation of Will and his sexuality and seeing Mike through a Will Lens and using that to say that Mike isn’t gay because those comparisons are almost NEVER about comparing their attraction to men/attraction to girls (which is the ACTUAL thing that makes somebody gay is their sexuality/attraction) but rather are about comparing that list of stereotypes between them & about pointing out why Mike seemingly doesn’t “fit” with that list and then the BIG issue is using that fact that Mike doesn’t fit with that list of traits/stereotypes/how he’s presented differently from Will as evidence that Mike is not gay. It is a fundamentally flawed and frankly harmful (even unintentionally) viewpoint because it sends the message that mike’s gayness (or any gayness) is defined by elements OUTSIDE of one’s attraction. That is where it becomes harmful. That is where it becomes a problem for me beyond “agree to disagree with analysis,” because the rhetoric that’s being used in that case is not only tangibly harmful for both trans and gay people but is ALSO completely analytically and factually invalid and false, as gayness is not defined by anything other than one’s attraction.

So yeah. This is why I am so absolutely deeply firm on this and why I have very little patience for people who dig their heels in and claim that what they’re saying isn’t homophobic and cry “biphobia” (when what I am saying is NOT biphobia and their claims of biphobia have zero proof or merit) and play the victim. I’m not so mad about people accidentally spreading casual homophobia (hell I’ve ABSOLUTELY had my OWN biases to overcome in that regard) as I am about people trying to act like what they’re spreading WASN’T casual homophobia and misconstruing what I’m upset about and saying “well if thinking mike is bi is automatically homophobia then thinking mike is gay is automatically biphobia” which is untrue and is also not what I’m saying at all because I’m SAYING that I’ve seen a LOT of bi mike arguments that ARE casual homophobia AND that I’m upset about people denying (with NO evidence to back up their denial) that it’s casual homophobia. I’m not even as upset about the casual homophobia being spread as I am about the outright refusal to admit that it IS casual homophobia/bias about gay men/defining gayness through a lens of presentation/as being defined as anything other than who somebody is attracted to. And the fact that people are denying that it’s casual homophobia/refusing to admit that that’s what it is just points even MORE to the fact that it IS casual homophobia because once you have a skewed definition of homosexuality (skewed being defining homosexuality as anything other than who somebody is/isn’t attracted to), then you also automatically have a skewed definition of homophobia because the definition of homophobia is based on the definition of homosexuality, and if you’re seeing homosexuality as something that (even partially) is defined as anything other than SOLELY being about who somebody is attracted to (ie some people may agree that it’s about who somebody is attracted to but then ALSO have unconscious biases about what traits they think indicate an attraction to men/lack of attraction to women/indicate homosexuality, such as Lonnie thinking that will is gay because he wears bright colours and is sensitive), then your definition of homophobia is also skewed, so of COURSE you don’t think it’s homophobia, because you frankly don’t have a firm, complete grasp on what homophobia IS due to the way that your own biases/casual homophobia have skewed your definition of homosexuality/your perception of what makes somebody gay.

Defining/seeing gayness as a set of traits or as anything other than who somebody is attracted to/using anything other than who somebody displays attraction towards as indication that somebody is or isn’t gay is casual homophobia/indicates that you have a biased viewpoint towards gay men (gay people as a whole but I’m using gay men for this example/post). And like I mentioned before, this can manifest like it does with Lonnie and even with Joyce and with the bullies because they think that certain things that are unrelated to attraction (dressing in bright colours, being sensitive etc) is what indicates attraction to men/being gay.

However, in the context of ST, saying “hey I think Mike is gay because we saw this gay flag imagery next to him,” ISNT casual homophobia and rather is still defining homosexuality relative to who people are attracted to because it’s a show where they’re using that imagery to point out that mike IS attracted to men. Saying that “hey, mike’s clothes from the costuming dept remind me of freddie mercury/of the gay flag” isn’t casual homophobia because it’s still tied to references of who mike is attracted to-being into men bc it’s a reference to a man who was into men/is a reference to the gay mens’ pride flag which is abt gay men, especially since this is a tv show and so the imagery is all very intentional and queercoded. and so for example, saying “look at mike’s dragon poster! that can indicate him being gay bc it indicates an attraction to men and then we can combine that with his lack of attraction to women to prove that he’s gay,” isn’t casual homophobia even though having a beefy drgaon poster doesn’t make somebody gay, that point about the poster indicating mike’s gayness isn’t saying “everyone with a drgaon poster is gay/having that poster alone indicates that you are gay,” but rather is saying “this is a tv show with set design and the analysis is still rooted around mike’s attraction & the definition of gayness is still attraction-based, but this element (the dragon poster) is something that the production is using to demonstrate that attraction to us, especially combined with mike’s other actions in the show.”

Lonnie and and the bullies weren’t pointing out “hey Will’s clothes are like freddy mercury’s and he’s queercoded” LMAO, they were saying “bright colours = gay” and they’re characters In The Show so they don’t have access to the meta stuff/production stuff the way that we do.

Anyway yeah there’s ur rant! So for anyone who is mad about me mentioning homophobia regarding bi mike arguments, please listen to what I’m ACTUALLY saying because it’s something that goes beyond ST analysis & into the real-world and is something that is important to be aware of and I would LOVE if some people could set aside their victim complexes or fear of being wrong/making a mistake for the sake of actually understanding what I’m saying, actually understanding casual homophobia, and being aware of it so that you don’t spread it because it’s not even me trying to control your analysis or weaken it, because casually homophobic arguments have no basis in the show even from an analytical standpoint, morals and irl harm aside, as the show mocks homophobia/casual homophobia (ie the idea that people think will is gay bc of his bright clothes) and paints those people who think that way in a negative light, so then the show itself is not going to present/support elements that are actually genuinely casually homophobic.

#em rants #byler #putting this in the main tag bc I want to and bc I think it’s really important and summarizes my feelings on the whole issues

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aeide-thea · 9 months

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so i went to reblog some fanart earlier and started to tag it #oh this is. incredible actually, and then paused and thought, @‍self why the 'actually.' what is that adverb conveying. and i contemplated it for a bit, and finally concluded: well, shit. it's reflexive deprecation.

the thing is, deprecation is my starting position pretty much always, and that's a problem in itself, but mostly my problem; but when you're talking abt somebody else's work, and you start backing defensively away from imagined negativity before anyone's even actually voiced any? you may think you're playing bodyguard, but in reality you're the vanguard of the assault, opening a wedge for enemy forces to strike.

i was talking a couple of weeks ago abt seeing ppl tag that kristin sue lucas name-multiplied-by-one post with tags like 'this is art To Me' vel sim., and honestly i think it's a similar sort of reflex—i think exposure to the tumblr vernacular often leads people (very much including me!) to produce turns of phrase like this, that ultimately serve to convey roughly

'i, a clever girlblogger,¹ am, yeah, engaging with this frivolous hai pollai²-coded material; but my relationship to it, unlike that of most she-ple, is Intellectual and Analytical and Examined! and to make that clear, i'll be dropping in these little verbal particles from time to time, in order to distinguish my own, elevated examination of the subject from the state of risible naivete³ i'm implicitly ascribing to the other, more ordinary audience members i'm conjuring up only to instantly put down—but like, it's fine, i'm a free-and-easy girlblogger(TM), so you can't think i'd ever deliberately propagate establishmentarian prejudices! never mind the effect my rhetoric might subconsciously be having, on me or on anyone else…'

and i think this framing is worth squinting at, and worth attempting to excise from one's speech and from one's mindset, because when you get right down to it? it's just yet another insidious manifestation of respectability politics, that's gotten people to adopt it via the cuckoo-chick strategy of positioning itself as cutesy tumblr idiolect.

and like, circling back around to that fanart i mentioned at the outset: yeah, the tag did feel weirdly prosodically truncated to me without that 'actually'! but this way, if the artist ends up seeing my discussion of their work in their notes, they won't be getting slapped in the face with a wet dead fish first, so like. what's more important, you know?

⸻ ¹ ""(gender neutral)"" ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoi_polloi in the feminine, if i haven't totally fumbled my declensions… ³ phrasing nicked from a comment of @‍proudheron's.

#anyway like. this for sure isn't the definitive post abt this #and really what i'm getting at is just another facet of 'self-deprecation isn't usually actually separable from disparaging others'#but i do think there's a particular subtle flavor of it here that's worth sticking under the microscope in its own right #for those of us who may have breathed it in without noticing‚ and now be spreading it‚ again without noticing‚ in our turn #i mean. obvs also extremely possible i just *think* i've put my finger on something important bc it's late!#but like. imagine tagging‚ idk‚ the winged victory or sth with 'this is art. to me'#it would be SUCH a weird rhetorical move! but consider: it's *always* a weird rhetorical move‚ actually.#bc fundamentally it's a speech pattern that's seeking affirmation of yr own taste/authority/status as Critic #at the expense of the thing you've evaluated—#like‚ you're going 'i think this is neat!! (but that might just be me 😔)'#and then other girlbloggers are supposed to be like 'yeah no i totally see what you mean!!!' and affirm you! but the thing is—#the '(but that might just be me 😔)' part doesn't just undercut yr discernment‚ it undercuts the praise *predicated* on yr discernment #so it's like. you're dissing yourself in a way that's supposed to earn you affirmation‚ which. is fucked up actually‚ lol :)#but—it's one thing when you do it to yourself; when you incorporate it into the foundations of yr compliment #you've actually totally undermined that compliment and rendered it an insult #(not to mention undermined the idea that the thing might have merit in itself‚ beyond yr authority to bestow or withhold—#like. if you're speaking in terms of what's good/deep/Art/&c To You? you've effectively already ceded the main field of universality #and retreated to defend only yr own walled garden—and implied you'll cede even that small ground if it's disputed)#so like. in the context of yr social relationship with yr followers‚ those sorts of qualifiers are affirmation-seeking moves—#though like. also ones that reinforce yr rhetorical passive-victim positionality‚ in a way you shd perhaps consider *not* reinforcing—#but in the context of yr interaction with an OP? they're negging.#and i just think like. i get it and i'm @-ing myself here as much as anyone else! but it's not‚ like‚ a healed-world way to behave. lol.#so like. consider: tagging things 'art' without the cutesy little qualifiers. praising things without the hedging.#i'm not at all good at that but. i'm going to try.#metatumbling #language #the psyche #'close readings no one needed for 300‚ alex'#(extremely tempted to just scrap this writeup tbh but like. the thinking was worth doing‚ so a record of it is worth keeping)

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ajdrawshq · 1 year

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@ your tags on my post, i am shaking you like a maraca and yelling "YESSSSS"

i wanna see how kh3 tackles that whole thing because it's so eerily similar to what happens in the manga. and in the manga, he is in so much pain and agony, AND HE'S STILL FIGHTING. ROXAS IS THERE WITH HIM, HIS ONLY COMPANION, and then kh3 just tripped and fell on the glass table.

also, i think about this constantly, i want them to do something with it so bad.

YEA i cant wait to see the rest of kh3 manga chapters and how they handle everything, i especially loved the manga versions for days and kh2 and the way their stories were told - even tho kh3 has a Lot going on that might be hard to show well.. amano's been good at it so far tho so i have faith :]

but yeah that whole thing with Roxas is just . oughh. im not gonna lie even i forgot that Roxas was like. still there with Sora when he perishes until i thought abt it writing those tags but now that ive realized that. why the hell did they not take advantage of that!!!! like ok i get that it was more focused on the destiny trio in the ways i talked abt in the tags but yknow. what happened to "he makes up the difference"?? that wouldve been a great moment for it to shine!! ik they already make an example of it during the Xemnas n Saïx fight but still!!

part of me wishes Roxas couldve have more outward influence on Sora the way Ven did. granted, he arguably had an affect on Sora back in kh2, and while i dont remember if it was canon or even intended, that could be applied to both his appearance (his lighter hair, mostly) and his behavior (his hostility towards the organization members; ive seen this argued both as smth Roxas had influence over and purely based on Soras experiences thus far, and i believe in both personally) but Ven in kh3 was literally able to speak and somewhat act through him. im pretty sure this was meant to show that Ven was fully ready to awaken or smth like that, and that wasnt sonething that was needed for Roxas; hes alright, just needed a body/vessel for himself. but i still think itd be a cool way to express the earlier sentiment. and it wouldnt necessarily have to be Roxas "taking over" either, the manga shows very well how Roxas gives Sora strength from within and that he definitely does make a difference

to be fair tho...... whether that wouldve helped Sora in the moment that he gives in to his despair, im not sure. in kh2, both manga and game, hes in a very different mindset than kh3. in that part of the manga especially, despite thinking everyone (except Roxas) is gone for good, he still has the belief that they can live on within him. and that, plus the literal strength hes getting from Roxas, is keeping him going despite it all. in kh3 his self confidence is beyond fucked, and he truly believes in that moment that hes lost Everything, not just his friends. thats hard to come back from

i wonder if he were to remember that Roxas were still there, if that wouldve helped. whether for comfort in the way that hes not really alone then, or for motive to keep living bc if he dies then Roxas is gone too, or whatever reason, i think it couldve changed something, even if its just a little bit. hell, itd have been great if something like that happened afterwards in the final world. id like to think Roxas had a hand in Sora surviving ..... not sure how but its a nice thought. either way i do wish Sora n Roxas' connection and that moment they have in san fransokyo had more....... More. in kh3. it was a great opportunity that they didnt use/forgot about n im now sad abt it forever

#while writing this im now realizing that Sora rly just keeps going thru the 'the real answer was within u all along' thing over n over .#Kairi. Roxas. then Ventus and still Roxas #ANYWAY BACK TO MY MAIN POINT its part of why i love love love the manga i love how they handle Roxas especially #not that i dont like his game stuff tho dont get me wrong. hes one of the most beloved characters for a Reason #its possible that they didnt do anything bc they wanted Roxas' big moment to be when he comes back as himself once n for all #n didnt wanna take away from that maybe ? idk thats pure theorizing here #but also theres that mention of how Jiminy is still with him after death..... and how Naminé appears in the final world n all that.....#thats not related to the previous thing i mentioned it just. feels connected in a way i cant articulate rn #ok my ability to think is going down now thats all i got rn. ty for enabling me again i havent thought abt these guys like this in a While #god. i need to replay kh2 again sometime #kh #ask #storm-driver #as an add on purely for myself - the thing i said at the very beginning of the tags abt the people within being the answer #or important in some way...... he himself is included in that. bc of remind

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unplanned-parenthood · 1 year

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cw lots of mentions/discussion of suicide/death, etc (house md has ruined me. shows made to torture ME in particular)

been marinating this since i saw a poll abt it + a fic i read a couple days ago but re: what will house do once wilson is gone. after watching it play off i had like, no doubt the only possibility was for him to off himself...which does sound very awful but. i don't think it really is? not for house anyway.

the only reason he got off the bus was because of wilson (always thinking abt this. it doesn't hurt here. get off the bus house. but he hates me. you have to get off the bus) he has lived so long in pain, it feels more cruel to ask him to live without wilson. and while i get where the people who say wilson would try to talk him out of it are coming from (obviously wilson is wilson and he will always worry, so like, sooner or later he will start thinking about the after) it makes me wonder, what is on itself more selfish: asking him to continue living with pain, except he doesn't have one of the few things that made things easier—or asking him to die for him, like he has done before?

i would like to remain hopeful that maybe if house kept on living he would maybe get a prosthetic and try to continue doing what he loves with a fake id or something. still grieving, but for wilson now, not his leg. but at the same time that sounds like, a little too hopeful, and i don't think wilson has that kind of faith on house, faith that he would be able to go on without being even More Miserable. so maybe in his head he knows it's the right thing to say, to ask him to "continue living", but i don't think he would be able to actually do it, and neither would he straight up ask house to Die (he already did that, and i think twice might be too much for wilson's conscience, this time it would be 100% guaranteed that house would die) because it's selfish. right? and just how fucked up is it to ask someone to die for you (again, because it really wasn't about amber was it, house didn't do it because of amber, he did it for wilson.)

one of the traits you can stamp on wilson's forehead is that he is the opposite of selfish, you look up selfless and there's a picture of him next to the definition, but he also kinda sucks. he's selfish in the most unexpected of ways, so i think he would probably do nothing. not bring up the topic at all. just let time pass. leave it unsaid. because he's not asking house to die for him, but he's also not stopping him from doing so.

i think house would notice, because of course he would notice, it's a conversation he probably expected to have with wilson as soon as they checked in inside their first motel. a whole sermon and everything. but like! it did not happen, and it will never happen.

it's both selfish and selfless, which i think sums up their relationship a little too well. because it's easy to say it's all about house, but it's also about wilson, and how wilson likes feeling needed, likes enabling him. he surely must have noticed years ago how unhealthy being so codependent is but he didn't stop it, because he likes it! because he has fun with house! they don't know how to exist without the other anymore, so, isn't it only logical they die together? asking house to kill himself when he dies seems cruel, since he would technically be doing it because of wilson, but also—isn't it kinder, in a way, to finally let him stay on the bus?

#house md #house + wilson #greg house #james wilson #um. this is embarrassingly long. sorry #but i have really been thinking about it a lot. and maybe it's because i'm suicidal that i don't find house killing himself after #wilson dies to be depressing. because i dont think its supposed to be. i have weird thoughts about death and suicide in general but i do #think its...sweet. in a way. because house technically is dead. he technically already 'killed himself' for wilson. legally speaking #the only reason he got out of that building was bc of wilson. thats pretty obvious. what happens after isnt important! not really!#because he already both threw his life away for wilson and also kept going for wilson. its a constant in the show not exclusive to S8 #so like. while i do wish house could be happy. maybe try Living. i still think its unlikely. but that doesnt mean it has to be depressing #i dont think he would think it to be depressing. not really. i dont think he would do it immediately though i do agree w this fic #i have been reading that he would try to do his awful Last Goodbye Tour lmao. probably talk with thirteen #because although its not euthanasia it does feel an awful lot like it doesnt it. it /is/ like a mercy kill #but yeah if he told anyone it would be thirteen. just to let her know he's not going to be able to keep his promise to her #main tagging ONLY bc. i think this is a good thinkpiece. and i need more ppl to share my insanity with <3 #mine

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lion-buddy · 5 months

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also btw since movie is out n stuff i am trying to organize all my untagged precure doodles in a non egregious way so theyre easier to find on my blog lol

#i think i managed to tag the important ones with “pc” so. idk.#i dont want to add the big main tags to them bc they r just my silly doodles.....#idk if anyone has better ideas lol. i might update my main post with my fandom tags maybe.

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