This is a note that if anyone trips across my Swan Skin short story being claimed by another blog with a green star icon, please donāt worry - thatās also me. I wanted to share that piece on my main blog under my ārealā internet name. Itās cool, donāt worry about it!
Wait, fuck, does having the way youāre taught Sex Ed in middle and high school leave you so intimately aware of all the ways sex could lead to extremely bad results and killing off any desire you personally had in ever being sexually intimate with another person count as trauma? God, fuck, it does, doesnāt it? Goddamn it, how did I not notice this one, how did I make it this long going āSex sounds great, but thanks to my teachers Iām too scared of STDs and accidental pregnancy to try it!ā and think that was in any way appropriately normal? Fucking- just when I think Iām comfortably aware of everything I have trauma over, damn it-!!!!!
Iām not even upset, Iām just pissed at this point, I knew that they probably werenāt teaching it very well at the time, Iām just annoyed that I apparently didnāt roll with it as well as I thought I did, damn it-!!!
Was looking at one of the old My Little Pony movies for the first time since I hit my thirties and also since I formally realized I have a Major Thing for non-human yet humanoid characters. Like, oh.
Oh.
No wonder I thought Scorpan was so much better as the weird, hairy, winged creature-thing than when he turned into a prince. Apparently Iāve just Always Been Into This.
Like, exhibit A:
Cool, kinda spicy, nice snoot, can fly, could hold you in his strong, fur-covered arms, big pointy ears, growly-gruff kinda voice, but can be tender, works for the bad guy but obviously doesnāt want to.
Exhibit B:
Some guy. Like, rockinā the tiara, more guys should have the courage to, but, at the end of the day... just some guy.
...
...I would be embarrassed, but, frankly, I stand by kid-meās taste, she knew what she was about!
Theory: Kirkās ripped shirt in the newer movies doesnāt have small holes because itās improperly portraying just how horribly he can destroy his uniform, itās because heās just at the beginning of his shirt-ripping career. From what I understand, even the beginning of TOS is set much later than the most recent of the new Trek movies, so Kirkās still a bit new at this.
I choose to believe that, given time, this alternate version of Kirk will also eventually master how to properly rip his shirt during a mission, and will one day make it back to the bridge in a shirt of which nothing remains but the collar and one sleeve clinging to it with a sort of forlorn determination.
Rich is being able to go get a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut because itās just the right size and you like the pizza, and then being able to casually leave your server a $20 tip just because they brought you your pizza and you appreciated it.
Itās kind of amusing to hear all this talk about humans being an apex predator species - I mean, I love it, but technically, by our own standards of rating predators, we arenāt, because we still have animals around on Earth that will munch us down if push comes to shove. Weāre not like bears or wolves or any of the really big members of the big cat family - yes, we can and do hunt, but as often as not we foraged.
Heck, we still do that in many ways, even in the urban environments we have made for ourselves. We are the species that will stare you in the eye as we steal the food off your plate, then add insult to injury by checking to make sure itās clean enough, get everywhere weāre not supposed to because we are cunning little buggers that are hard to keep out, will hoard shiny things even though we know they arenāt useful because they are shiny, okay, and then weāll go and do something adorable so that you love us anyway, at least until you notice that weāve just scuttled off with half your wiring because we needed it for something important.
Humans arenāt the wolves or tigers or bears of the universe.
Tired of guys who think theyāre funny coming up to me and asking āOh, are you Zelda?ā when Iām cosplaying Link just because Iām a girl. Next time this happens Iām telling them, āActually, Zeldaās the antagonist of the game - Iām the protagonist, Ganondorf.ā Then Iāll get to sit back and watch them try to dig themselves out of that hole. -U-
I- fuck the song, thatās my Faire!!! Thatās the Ball and Chain Stage, those are the Rakish Rogues, I was on cast there in 2019, wtf?!?!?!???
I remember a while ago someone was interested in the pirate version of the Shia LaBeouf song that I mentioned so I finally got my shit together and took a video of it. Itās pretty brilliant.
How strange to feel nostalgic and homesick for a world that was dying even as I left it twenty-two years ago. How unspeakably odd to know that something stands there still, but the place I remember is gone forever.
I just want the girl who wears short skirts and the girl who wears t-shirts to get together and be happy, I donāt care if thatās not what the song is technically going for, Iāve been hearing bits of it in stores and thinking it was about a shy, kinda butch young lesbian pining after a pretty femme for years Iām not going to let something as trivial as the actual lyrics of the song stop me now! Let the cheer captain have noticed her sitting on the bleachers all this time and think her t-shirts look nice on her!
Just sayinā, current world events are makinā it real hard to romance those who acquire my affections in the manner the ancient gods of my ancestors demand of me. Like, covid 19ās a virus, it doesnāt even have a skull, and even if it did it probably wouldnāt make a suitable drinking vessel for the one who holds my heart. This is very inconsiderate of it, and I would like to lodge a formal complaint.
Hello, yes, Iāve reached zero, I would like to get off the train now, please.
(did this with a yellow highlighter and a black light - it looks even better in person, it actually makes almost the exact right shade of green and really looks like itās glowing!)
Honestly... the news that Bryke have left the live action Avatar remake doesnāt really effect my thoughts on the showās potential in a negative manner. Like... yeah, they made Avatar originally... but theyāve also proven to be fallible on multiple occasions within the past. While both have their good points, some very poor decisions were made with both the comics and with Legend of Korra, in terms of the writing and the content, and Korra at least really suffers in comparison to the original Avatar in terms of writing. Please note, Iām not talking about the characters or the world-building or any of that - other people with more experience and passion for the show have written about the problems those topics have - I am talking purely from a āhow well is this story writtenā perspective.
The original Avatar has its weak points - episodes, characterization choices, bits and pieces here and there - but overall itās a show that holds up to the rewatch. The story is engaging, interesting, and decently complicated while still being loose enough that missing the odd episode here and there wonāt ruin the experience for you. The characters, world, tension, and stakes grow at a good rate over each season, and itās a pretty solid piece of storytelling.
Legend of Korra, however... I wanted to like this show. I really, really wanted to be drawn back into this world I love so much. I just... never was. Legend of Korra introduced some potentially fascinating concepts - the anti-bender movement, the spirit world and the human world rejoining, the sudden return of airbending to the world... but most of it only felt interesting in retrospect. I couldnāt watch past the first episode of the final season, just because I was so bored and frustrated by that point, and the only characters that truly sparked my curiosity, oddly enough, were the Red Lotus Society. Not even as villains, but because they all genuinely sparked interest in me, how they came together, how they ended up as they are. If their characterizations, attributes, and stories had been used for the main characters, I would have loved that, that would have been absolutely fascinating.
I donāt blame the characters in Korra, I donāt think Korra herself, her Team Avatar, or any of their allies are ābadā - I get what the people who like them enjoy about these characters - I just think the people writing them let them down. I think the people creating the universe and story they inhabited let them down. And, frankly, I was not keen to see the people who decided that this was the appropriate way to follow up Last Airbender would do if allowed to remake Last Airbender.
Bryke are leaving the Last Avatar live action remake? Thatās fine, thatās their choice. Iāve been in fandom long enough to know that we donāt need them to tell a good Last Airbender story. They started the ball, but that does not mean theyāre necessary to keep it rolling.
I have decided the only crossover that matters to me any more is one with Avatar the Last Airbender and Star Wars: Clone Wars so that Uncle Iroh and Plo Koon can be friends, they would be good friends, theyād teach each other pai sho and dejarik and trade stories and tips about raising their adoptive sons and it would be Good.
OH MY GOSH, YOUāRE SO LUCKY IāM A VERTERAN FANFIC READER BECAUSE OTHERWISE I WOULD HAVE SCREAMED AND WOKEN UP THE ENTIRE HOUSE WHEN I SAW YOUāD WRITTEN THIS, OH MY GOSH, THIS IS GREAT, I JUST <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3Ā THANK-YOU SO MUCH!!!!!
Okay, but what if not all mutations (a la X-Men) are actually helpful? The powers supposedly come from an evolutionary mutation, after all, and some of those hit dead ends - not everyone ends up āthe fittest.ā
And what if this is actually the explanation for Peter Parkerās extraordinarily bad luck? He actually is a mutant, but he has a terrible power that only causes him pain and grief, and the only reason heās still alive is because he got those spider powers. And no oneās figured it out because theyāre distracted by the spider powers and donāt notice that the luck is literally unnaturally bad.