#& like several things happen to her that nobody seems to care about which. i find hard to believe even the men would be ok with

[neechees]

There was this historical (fiction?) book I bought about a Cree woman named after the North Sask River but I couldn't even get through all of it because it just felt like the author was gratuitously trying to put her through as much suffering as possible & that was just her life

#she of course married a White man (boring) at her Father's behest & treated like a trading pawn #& like several things happen to her that nobody seems to care about which. i find hard to believe even the men would be ok with #the author seems to imply it was his GRANDMOTHER'S story but idk like its so grandious and embelleshed #that I think it's likely very very exaggerated if its based on her at all. and I think the author is White with a distant Cree ancestor #why would you write about your kohkum like this...

[mallowmaenad]

6'3" Underweight Trans Girl With Eyebags whose wearing an Oversized Black Sweater: I recently remembered all of my past lives. Most of it was spent as various plant life and fungi in the same twenty foot radius in a forest by a rural interstate route until a robin ate the seed containing my soul and flew to another forest where I reincarnated as her child. I would then die a tragic death at a young age to a local fox where I'd live a long life as her kit and eventually die of old age, I then spent several generations as various plant life and fungi in that forest which was eventually destroyed by industry.

I was a tree during that time and my plant fibers were processed to manufacture paper used to make a sticker placed on an orange whose peel was placed in a compost bin, eventually leading me to the dark yet decadent life of a worm until I then eventually expired and awoke as a tomato plant in the care of a kindly older woman, it is that life whose memories I treasure the most.

She was a very skilled and warm woman, and many of my cycles afterwards were spent as my own kin in generations of tomato plants in a blink of an eye. One day she took me into her car in a pot, I remember how she spoke to me. At the time she had named me Reynolds, she had set into a trend of naming me after Hollywood actors she found attractive. It was the day before her daughter's birthday and I was to be her gift, I could not feel bittersweet about this a the time, because I was a tomato plant.

She buckled me into the back seat of a car as if I was a child of her own and drove down a rural interstate route, illuminating the black sea of the night sky with her headlights as the shadows seemed to drown out anything but us. A deer with bone wasting disease stood in the road like a grim reaper, white eyes shining as her aching foot tried to react in time on the break peddle.

The two embraced in a bloody collision, I remember the deer in its last moments weakly nibbling at her flesh as they both bled out in an agony they were ignorant to, I wilted and died in that car along with her and that deer, I do not know what the journey of my soul was like, but my next life was as a patch of semi-feral grass on the side of a similar road caught in the mouth of a possum eating a partially full discarded box of Wendy's fries who was then promptly turned into road kill, when the day was new a burly Appalachian man whose stern demeanor hid a soft heart would legally and cleanly collect the cadaver and break it down, using the remains for a meal some yuppies would find ghastly. This man was my father- or rather my father in this cycle of life.

I know in my heart of hearts that you were that old woman who nurtured me so many times as her beloved tomato plants, you had the rare privilege to live your life as an incinerator at a crematorium, but the march of technology and nut after bolt you grew broken, a death by a thousand cuts, a death by a thousand bodies. Your massive metal cadaver was melted down over time, the raw materials eventually finding itself to a factory that manufactured bullets, a life of darkness in a cardboard prison only to be shunted into a pistol's magazine... your entire existence is interesting, stretching the meaning of what it means to be eaten and to live. The meek 24 year old boy thought nobody would mourn him when he was gone, you lived as an amorphous patch of greenery ahead of his grave stone.

A curious thing would happen during a visit to this boy's grave, his childhood dog either in embarrassing coincidence or a moment of sentience began to dig at where the body was, being wrenched back as it began to desperately sink his teeth into the soil, ripping you asunder. Almost as divine penance, you lived your next life as a member of this dog's litter, you'd be named after the boy, despite being a girl. Maybe the dog was given some precognition and wanted to eat the boy and take his soul into its mouth to get her the life she always wanted. You were unfortunately born with a chronic condition that led you to a young death, the girl's mother crying just as hard after the vet put you down. You were buried lovingly in her back yard where you became a tomato plant, your same mother not being as much of a green thumb as mine but she devoured your fruits all the same, eventually giving birth to another meek boy after growing pregnant during the time when your last tomato was picked off your wilted stem. I have pursued you since that day with my whole body and spirit, one part unintentional one part in this moment of enlightenment. I love you, and I will love you for the rest of forever.

Trans girl who dropped out of high school to make Hello Kitty breakcore who has her girlfriend's dick in her mouth and is high as fuck right now: Waash dat?

Their shared girlfriend sitting across from them playing Wario Land Shake It on her modded Wii U: Was I the deer with bone wasting disease?

6'3" Underweight Trans Girl: ... Yeah...

#long post #microfiction #cw car accident #cw death #cw dead animal #cw suicide

[jubileemon]

Verosika Mayday was well-liked for her design and her history with Blitzo, being one of many people he had wronged in her past. However, some find her to be too spiteful and petty, having trouble feeling sorry for how Blitzo treated her.

Despite her career success and seductive prowess, Verosika's encounters with substance abuse and her history with rehab hints at a deeper struggle, possibly a search for meaning or stability amidst the chaos of her lifestyle. She is one of several individuals who have been wronged by Blitzo, as their shared history is marked by betrayal and heartbreak.

When Blitzo confronts Verosika in the recording studio she is shown to have a tattoo, a heart with the name "Blitz" written on it. Except now it has a big cross over it. It seems likely that she loved Blitzo, only for him to break her heart by stealing from her. That fact that Blitzo is so desperate to be loved and believes that no one in his life does love him makes it even sadder. He had someone that truly loved him and through his own self sabotaging antics turned that person into a bitter enemy.

In the episode 'Ozzie's', Verosika's musical confrontation with Blitzo serves as a cathartic moment for her character. Her lyrics paint a picture of a deeply hurt woman, reflecting on their broken relationship. As she sings about Blitzo, it becomes even clearer about how she was very hurt by whatever happened in their relationship. After pointing out what a selfish, unreciprocal lover he was, she describes him as "a reckless, heartbreaking freak".

It makes perfect sense for Verosika to accuse Blitzo of being a bad lover. After all, they were at a sex-centered restaurant in the Lust Ring. Regardless of what other ways he might've made a substandard boyfriend, sex is what the others there would've been interested in. She wasn't just insulting him to vent, she was insulting him to damage his reputation.

I mean, it's the Lust ring. The highest "virtue" in that ring is doing everything and anything to satisfy your lust. Therefore, helping somebody else satisfy their lust is also a virtue and expected behavior. So, doing the opposite of that, denying somebody their satisfaction is the greatest sin one can commit in the Lust ring. Add in that they are in Hell, which is looking at most things through the lense of transactions, and the behavior of which Blitzo is accused makes him look not only inattentive substandard lover but straight out thief and fraud. Because Verosika did her expected part of the deal, and Blitzo didn't do his. Nobody in Lust would care if he stole her money and car, but breaking her heart ("heartbreaking freak" part of the song) after not giving her anything in return for all the things she did to satisfy his lust? Horrible "sin" in that ring.

Despite getting to chew out her ex in a much better fashion than in "Spring Broken", Verosika still doesn't leave the episode on a positive note as she's last seen sulkily swirling a wine glass and taking a drink while Moxxie sings the rest of his love song.

#helluva boss analysis #helluva boss #helluva boss verosika #hb verosika #verosika mayday #blitzø #blitzo #helluva boss blitz #blitzo helluva boss #heartbreak #hb blitzo #hb blitzø #helluva analysis #vivziepop #character writing #character analysis

[kitkatopinions]

Regarding the nitpick about the lack of religion in RWBY. We know the worldbuilding leaves much to be desired. So I'm betting religion isn't present simply because the writers themselves are non religious and never bothered to address the subject. Which is stupid because George RR Martin created several religions to flesh out the world in Game of Thrones and he's a lapsed Catholic. Just goes to show how little the writers care about worldbuilding. The existence of the Brother Gods and the Great Tree invalidate pretty much all the faiths in Remnant yet nobody seems to care. That would be like IRL we find indisputable proof that one religion on Earth is the undeniable truth but everyone continues their lives exactly the same as if this mind blowing revelation doesn't affect them.

Yep!

it's easy enough to say "oh well religion does exist it's just that none of the mains follow a religion so it doesn't matter" but it is so bland and flat and disappointing! Like I'm not gonna pretend that I would find building multiple religions to be a particularly easy thing to do and I especially would find it hard to write characters undergoing a crisis of faith when they discover what's real... But world building is also just so much fun and it's so interesting so like? Why just hand wave it away?

There would be Salem worshippers and Salem would love that and use it and probably enforce worship among her followers. And there would be people who worshipped a vaguely Oz-ish figure and Oz would hate that. People would worship Oz and Salem together not knowing of their history (and again wouldn't have to call them by their real names or have a real understanding of them to do it.) People would have religions that sprung up on their own centered around the Grimm, people would have religions about how the world ended and when it might end again, some people Oz had trusted and told the whole truth to thousands of years ago could've prompted more worship of the brother gods, people would have religions that include the formation of the world as they know it - heck, the world of RWBY the very planet they're on is called REMNANT and there isn't some common religion about what it's a remnant of? The moon is busted up, people are always gonna be people, you think there wouldn't be some religious explanation people had for that? People have in the past just fucking gone to a completely different dimension where everything is nonsense and sentient teapots and great trees and getting transported to bridges that force you to come out of the closet - there's no way I'm believing that in thousands of years the only people it's ever happened to are Team RWBY+J and Neo through a set of very specific circumstances we know and also randomly two kids through Narnia means presumably because we don't get any other explanation - and the only thing that's ever come from that is a children's book. Kings existed, the main world powers are still called 'kingdoms' and I'm meant to believe that a 'divine right to rule' wasn't a part of that? Or more like it doesn't matter what I believe was and wasn't a part of royalty because none of it impacts or affects our main characters AT ALL.

It's just so mind boggling to me that this would be the case. It'd be like if Fire Emblem Three Houses actually had zero religious aspects, that's what it feels like. If it was just a game where people went to a combat school led by a thousands of years old person in a secret war with Those Who Slither In The Dark and people had Crests and Sothis was in Byleth's head talking to them and Arval was in Shez's head talking to them and they had the heroes relics weapons and the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and there were castles and churches and there were what looked like ruins of ancient castles or temples just like lying out in the woods, but like no single character that exists is even sort of religious and how different things might be connected to religions is never brought up and the characters never talked about any religion even existing past acknowleding that not a lot of people believed in any religion anymore. That's how weird it feels with RWBY. Like, the elements of 'this world definitely has religions and beliefs' are all freaking present in RWBY, there's no way to logically believe that religions just aren't present and have no effect on anything or any character, but then there's nothing there. It's so weird and I just do not understand how the RWBY writers could engage so little with the world and the story they made that such a crucial element of world building especially for the story they wanted to tell could just get so wholly passed over.

#rwde

[snowangeldotmp3]

so in Rebel Robin, though it’s focused on Robin and acknowledges the weird things that happen in Hawkins (will and barb’s disappearances, respectively), the author, A.R. Capetta, does a really good job of building Hawkins. and by building Hawkins, i mean they make it very clear that it could’ve been Robin.

in chapter fifteen of the book, November 6th, 1983, Robin is at her friend Milton’s house. They’re hanging out, watching MTV, eating dinner, etc. Robin has to go home at some point, and her only mode of transportation is a bike. Here is the scene where she bikes home.

“...There’s a rustle in the undergrowth at the side of the road. I try to ignore it. I do whatever I can to keep the strange skittering sound from sending nervous flicks of fear across my skin. I ride faster, my wheels now blazing a straight arrow down the road. I hum a little bit of the first song I can find in my head, “Hungry Like the Wolf,” but the rustle seems to get louder in response. I shout the lyrics at the top of my lungs.” (pg 120.) “Headlights pierce the night behind me, and the rustling goes quiet as a car passes. Right when I let myself believe it’s gone, it comes back. Louder. Closer. There’s another sound beneath it, soft and pulsing. Something like blood rushing through a heart or breath dragged up a windpipe. I pull onto my street and by the time I drop my bike in the driveway, I'm running scared and I don't care who knows it. I sprint to the door--thank God it's unlocked--slam it shut, twist the lock behind me, and push my back against the solid wood." (pg. 121.) "...I pick it up, hoping for a voice. Any voice. I hear a second of hard breathing and I think that whatever just happened to me is happening to someone else in Hawkins." (pg. 121-122.)

After this, the power goes out, starting with the Byers' house (as we've seen in the show), and then Robin's goes out fairly quickly after her experience (which leads me to believe that she doesn't live that far from Will. Especially since it seems like the Demogorgon was trailing after her, too.) You could replace Robin in some of these scenes with Will, and it would read almost exactly the same as Will's disappearance. It got me thinking, though, and there are two ways that this train of thought has taken me, and now you all have to hear about it.

The first train of thought is this: What if Robin had been taken instead of Will? What would that look like? Who would search for her? she's not friends with Steve or Nancy or Jonathan at this point. (in fact, she actively resents two of these people.) Besides Milton and maybe Kate, I doubt her friends would've searched for her. Dash is a mix of Tommy H and season 1 Steve, and his control over Kate is reminiscent of Steve and Nancy. (which is the point, i know.) but in this case, Barb still would've disappeared, meaning that Nancy still had to search for Barb and fight some Demogorgons. I doubt her parents would've done too much, as she states that they "don't believe in worrying." Not only that, but her parents have admitted to her that she was an accident, "My parents had me by accident (nobody gets pregnant in a VW van on purpose)..." (pg. 40.) and she's described by her parents as "not a hard child to raise" and through several scenes in the book Robin indicates that she's practically raised herself, her parents are nothing short of neglectful, only parenting when they absolutely have to. But this question haunts me because it's one that changes the trajectory of the whole show. because if this is the case, does Nancy still find Jonathan? do they really go fight the Demogorgon together? do they go searching for Barb and then find Eleven? what then of Robin? Do they go in search of Barb, only to find a dead Barb and a barely alive Robin? and what about Hopper and Joyce? Furthermore, what would happen in a season 2 situation with the Mind Flayer? Who would be there to notice if she was acting differently--possessed by the Mind Flayer? certainly not her parents.

what this train of thought proves to me is that, at least, in the first two seasons, could not progress without a character like Joyce because her worry and love for her son drive her to the actions that put this plot in motion. If Joyce had acted anything like Robin's parents, the story would have fallen apart.

The second train of thought (and a much more fun train one) is this: What if the Demogorgon got both Will and Robin? They both disappear into the Upside Down, trying to survive. I figure that Robin would do what she can to protect both of them, considering that when she first meets Will, the first thing she wants to do is to comfort him and tell him that life gets better, but the second thing she wishes she could do is to run away from Hawkins. So now Hawkins has three missing kids; Will, Robin, and Barb. I imagine that much of the season would be the same. I would also imagine that Will and Robin traversing the Upside Down would've been a great dynamic to see. Perhaps it's Robin who's trying to contact Joyce through the phone or figures out that the lights can send messages through the Upside Down--prompting Will to send his messages to Joyce. When Eleven has to find them in the sensory deprivation, she finds them and tells Joyce and Hopper that there's someone there with Will, hiding the both of them from the Demogorgon. When Joyce and Hopper finally find Will, they find Robin there too, barely alive but Hopper grabs her as well and they make it out. I would assume that Joyce would thank Robin profusely for keeping an eye on Will and that Robin would practically be adopted by Joyce.

I'd also like to think season 2 would've been wayyy different. The Mind Flayer takes one of them or the other (or both) and opens a whole new world of possibilities.

Sorry, this post got out of hand; I was skimming Rebel Robin and didn't notice this until I skimmed it. Anyways, feel free to add to this post, I came across this in the book and knew i had to talk about it lol!

#stranger things #robin buckley #rebel robin #will byers #eleven #joyce byers #jim hopper #jonathan byers #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #not gonna tag this as ronance but like. could you imagine the romance aus to come from something like this? #wait actually i might write that #long post #liv rambles #plus i keep seeing that post that's like 'we were robbed of eddie and robin in season 1' and like #this VERY much could've happened to robin as much as it did to will. i think will was the target because he was smaller #anyways #edited bc the quotes looked super weird lmaoo #tagging this too as #rebel robin: surviving the upside down #the post that started it all lmao

[vitanithepure]

Gale and Mystra

Ok, first thing I wanna talk about, what absolutely lives rent-free in my mind since I finished my first run is how much I love the companion's personal stories. I will for sure make an Origin run with most of them. I want to know every last detail about those pixel people.

With no surprise on nobody's part - I want to talk about Gale first. I believe I once said my OC Vitani and I share exactly one brain cell and it is consumed with thoughts about that wizard.

He did get a bit of a lift up when it comes to the story we knew from EA and it turned out absolutely fabulous. I won't be focusing on our relationship with the man as much as his with Mystra, the goddess of magic. This would be far too long otherwise, there is just too much to say.

Regardless, this will also be a long one, and full of spoilers for his story, so be warned. Placing it all under the cut.

First, some facts. It turns out, from my understanding, that Gale was not after Mystra's godhood, quite contrary to his bio on the website (which I find…weird) but rather tried to ascend by himself. He was impatient; he wanted more, and he wanted it now - and Mystra was not willing to grant his wishes. It goes without saying he was in the wrong, no explanation needed.

So, to convince Mystra to share even more with him, he decided to "screw flowers" and tried to get her what turned out to be that cursed Netherese orb. At least, that is what he thought. We know that this went horribly wrong and Gale was not only stuck with magic he can barely control, but severed from means to stop it - as Mystra, understandably, abandoned him.

Which is also to say how little she actually cares about other mortals, leaving a ticking bomb to run free in the Realms. We could assume that, in her "infinite wisdom" she trusted Gale to do the right thing and just go on and die somewhere remote, like he planned to if he ever started to lose control of the orb. Not really sure what lesson is there to give through such a punishment, that is for Mystra to answer, I don't get it :)

This is when we meet Gale, humbled, but not giving up. I don't want to repeat myself too much as I did a breakdown of his EA content a while back [link here] and not much changed in that regard, his slight rewrite didn't change my opinion on how and why he does and says to us.

So, moving on:

The juicy part truly begins when Elminster shows up and drops the bomb (heh…) about what Mystra expects of Gale… I instantly went with "ok, yeah, here it is, my heartbreak I've been waiting for". And from that point, he seems so…resigned. I can't imagine what a person in his position goes through? Not sure I want to. Can you imagine that? Someone you genuinely looked up to, perhaps even loved, in the past, someone holding infinite power over magic in this world, hell, someone holding power over you asks you to forfeit your life to deserve forgiveness? Damn, D&D gods are stone cold.

Like, I get it, and I try not to excuse Gale. He did a terrible thing, a horrible breach of trust and who knows what kind of person it would make him if he succeeded. As it is, though, it shows such an awful imbalance in power. Mystra was never in any real danger, she proves this by being able to control the orb, decides that this - already humbled and regretful - man has to die to make it okay with her? 

Even though she clearly sees he learned his lesson? And she could remove the orb at literally any time? Because that is what she presents him with if he refuses to just lie down and die for her. She will remove the orb if he brings her Karsus's Crown, along with the netherstones - the thing the Elder Brain possesses.

I don't know what happens if we go along Gale's plan to control the crown himself, possibly nothing good (I am about to find out, I so desperately want to see his whole arc, from every perspective), so here I want to finish off with how it ended for me on my first run - with a complete redemption, both in his and Mystra's eyes. 

Gale recognized his folly and, in hindsight, agreed he had everything a mortal man could ever possess and lost it to his arrogance and ambition. But also him realizing "no love was lost between them" makes me simply happy, he is healed at this point.

From what I gathered, he finishes his story by becoming the Chosen of Mystra once again. Still curious, because how could he not be with his love for magic, but knowing his limits. No longer known as Gale of Waterdeep, but Gale Dekarios, your neighborhood nerdy wizard with a good tale to spin over some wine in the Yawning Portal.

And seriously, fuck the D&D gods with their mortal flaws.

#gale of waterdeep #mystra #bg3 spoilers #bg3 #baldur's gate 3

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Running on Spite and Fumes by Amber McLain

Written for the Phic Phight Prompt: Wes decides to investigate one of Danny's rogues (from @bookhoard)

AO3 Link

[Warnings from past character death (Ember) and fire]

Wes was just about ready to throw in the towel. No matter how many times he said it, no matter how much evidence he provided, no one was ever going to believe that Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were one and the same. He'd been trying to show people for almost two years now with nothing at all to show for it. Maybe the time had finally come to give up the ghost and direct his efforts toward something else.

He sat behind and to the left of Danny in physics class. That half-ghost bastard was chugging ectoplasm out of a clear water bottle without a care in the world and nobody but Wes thought there was anything suspicious about that. Not long ago, Wes would have practically thrown a fit over it. Shouted, and pointed, and demanded, "Are none of you seeing this!?" but he didn't today.

Even when Danny turned around to make direct eye-contact with Wes, specifically to antagonize him, he didn't take the bait. "You know what, Fenton?" he said. "You win."

Danny blinked in surprise and put down his water bottle. "What?"

"I said, you win," Wes repeated. "Fuck you, obviously, but I give up. I'm not wasting any more of my time. My reputation has taken enough of a hit already. I'm moving on to newer, better things."

Danny scoffed and leaned on his hand, shooting Wes a mildly amused and thoroughly unconvinced look. "Like what?"

"Like, you know," Wes hadn't really thought about it yet, but he'd be damned if he was about to admit it to Danny. "Ghosts that are actually cool!" he spat. "Like Ember! Phantom is old news. I'm gonna figure out who she is, or—was."

"Right, sure you are," Danny rolled his eyes and turned to face the front of the classroom again, grumbling, "Good luck with that," under his breath.

Wes scowled. He'd just made that up on the spot because he hadn't wanted to admit to Danny, of all people, that he didn't actually have a plan, but now he really was gonna do it. How hard could it be to figure out who a ghost was before they died, anyway?

As it turned out, the answer to that question was 'really fucking hard.' Wes had basically nothing to go on except her song. He ran his personal recording—yes he had a copy of it. Mind control aside, it was a good song!—through every music identification app and program he could find and came up with zip. Either she'd written that song after she died, or she was one of those ghosts that formed in the Ghost Zone and only seemed like a normal ghost, or she was such an obscure indie artist when she was alive that no one... remembered her.... Oh.

That would explain her obsession. Ghosts often became obsessed in death with things they wanted or fantasized about when they were alive, but never got. Finally, Wes had a thread to pull on. He went online, surfing indie music forums, the more obscure the better. He posted the same message in tons of different places.

Does anyone recognize this artist? Her name is Ember McLain, but I can't can't find anything about her anywhere! <remember_ember.mp3>

Usually it was buried right away. No one recognized the song, or no one cared. Several times he got made fun of for having to ask who an artist was, even though no one else on the forums knew her either. It was a few days before he got an actual worthwhile response, but he did get one, which broke the case wide open.

Could you mean *Amber* McLain? The music sounds similar to hers, but I guess she's pronouncing her name weird to make the rhyme work.

She's from my hometown, and I saw her perform a couple small gigs at local clubs and stuff, but don't expect her to drop any new singles any time soon. She died like eight years ago.

Bingo. That was definitely something Wes could work with.

It might be. What town? Do you happen to have any more of her music?

The response came several minutes later.

Milton, Washington. And it took me a while to find the songs, but yeah. She only had the one album, 5 songs on it, and she wasn't bad, so I bought it at one of her shows. <running_on_spite_and_fumes.mp3> <homegrown_arson.mp3> <the_curse_of_adolescence.mp3> <feather_heavy.mp3> <daddy_never_loved_you.mp3>

Wes started downloading the files before he responded.

How'd she die?

This time the answer came right away.

Mid-show, the venue caught fire.

One of the amps blew and everything went up in flames. The back door was blocked, I guess, and she was trapped on stage, never made it out. Like six or seven people died in that fire, it was a big deal for a while.

Burned to death in a concert venue, huh? Wes considered Ember, her flaming hair, the way she was dressed, the spectral guitar she could summon and dismiss at will. That would totally make sense.

Once the music downloaded, he listened to the first song. The lyrics weren't nearly as self-absorbed as "Remember Ember", but the sound was the same. It was distinctly her music, her voice, her playing guitar. It was her sound, from before she'd died. Wes could hear her inhaling at the end of a lyric, could hear her voice catch the way a ghost's voice couldn't.

This is her! Thanks so much for helping me find her! Sucks to hear she died, but at least I could hear a little more of her music.

This had been the breakthrough Wes needed.

Yeah, no problem man! Thanks for reminding me about her. The new song is a bop!

Grinning triumphantly, he printed out that forum exchange for his evidence folder. He knew who she was now. All he had to do was find some more evidence of her life. It wouldn't be all that easy to do when all of that evidence was in a small town in Washington state she'd never made it out of, but Wes was never one to shy away from a challenge.

Ember would probably be happy to hear that she did have at least one fan when she was alive. Not to mention, Wes would make an absolute killing burning CDs with all of Ember's songs from before she died and selling them at school. He finished downloading the files and burned one CD for his folder right away.

The next order of business would be scouring newspapers for articles about her. No matter how obscure the musician was, dying in the middle of a performance when the venue burned down was all but guaranteed to make the news, at least regionally. It took weeks to find even a single article, but eventually he tracked one down.

Six die in tragic bar fire in Milton.

The article contained details about the fire, the bar, the cause, and the victims, including photos of them. One of them, the performing musician, Amber McLain was the spitting image of Ember, stage makeup and all, even the guitar she was pictured with was exactly the same as Ember's.

He'd found her.

He'd really, truly found her.

Wes printed out the article. After a little more digging on the bar that had burned down, he also found a scan of a promotional poster for Ember's show that night, and he printed that out too. He slipped those, along with the CD he'd burned, and the printed out forum exchange, into a folder to bring to school.

"Guess what, Fenton, you asshole? I fucking did it!" Wes hollered when Danny walked into physics class.

"Did what?" Danny asked with a scoff. "If this is about proving I'm Phantom, I thought you said you gave that up."

"We both know you're Phantom, and I did give up proving it, but this isn't about that." Wes slapped the folder down on top of Danny's desk and dug his portable CD player out of his backpack. "Read it and weep, fucker. Not only did I figure out who Ember was before she died, I also got my hands on all five tracks of the only album she released while she was still alive." He put the CD into the player and turned it on.

The opening riff of "Running on Spite and Fumes" started playing from the portable player's single, shitty speaker, but the moment she started to sing, Ember's voice, or rather, Amber's voice was unmistakable.

"Holy shit, you actually did it," Danny said under his breath, looking down at the contents of the folder, his expression a mix of awe and horror.

"Is that a new Ember song?" asked Star from the front row.

"Actually, it's an old Ember song," Wes responded smugly. "I tracked down her real identity and got my hands on everything she released before she died. I'm gonna burn more copies later and sell 'em around school."

"Wes, can I talk to you?" Danny said. Snapping the folder closed, he grabbed the basketball player by the shirt and dragged him out of the classroom by force. "You can't do this."

"What? What do you mean?" Wes demanded, shoving Danny's hands off him.

"If Ember finds out you learned who she was in life and exposed her, she'll kill you," he said, waving the folder emphatically in front of him. "Bringing up a ghost's life or death is one of the biggest taboos in ghost culture. She won't just haunt you, she'll straight up murder you. Until you die."

"Oh, please." Wes crossed his arms. In all the time he'd spent trying to expose Danny as Phantom, Wes had studied up on ghosts and ghost culture quite intensely. He hardly considered himself an expert, but quite frankly, his knowledge was on par with some of the leaders in the field of ectology. "Her popularity will skyrocket once her old songs start circulating. Personal obsession trumps cultural taboo every time, we both know that."

"Not during the Truce," Danny refuted.

"Well, yes, obviously the Truce is an exception; it's the Truce," Wes said. "And I'm not so insensitive that I'm gonna tell everyone in school how she died, I just wanted to rub it in specifically your face that I figured it out, seeing as how you doubted me a few weeks ago." Danny narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Wes.

"You'd better not tell everyone," he said, but he took a step back. "And if you do, you don't get to implicate me in any of this, got it? I won't have her after me again now that we're not at each other's throats anymore." He shoved the folder to Wes' chest.

"Yeah, whatever." With that the two of them went back into the classroom, where pretty much everyone was listening intently to the tinny music still playing. Wes discreetly slipped his evidence folder into his backpack before anyone else could ask about it, and wrote down the names of people who came by his desk to tell him they wanted to buy a CD once he had them.

The next day, Wes started selling copies of the CD for ten bucks a pop. Within a week, he had enough money to buy himself a brand new camera to replace the one Danny had destroyed a few months back. He turned out to be right about Ember being cool with him selling her old songs, though she demanded he give her a copy. She was even a little nostalgic listening to them, and she almost cried when Wes told her he'd gotten them from an old fan of hers.

It got Wes thinking about what other ghosts might feel if he reminded them of their past. The next on his list, he decided, was the Box Ghost. Why him? Frankly, Wes just wanted to know what that guy's deal was.

#phic phight #phic phight 2023 #fic #things i wrote #ember mclain #wes weston #danny fenton #danny phantom #dp

[krikeymate]

Hey, I just want to tell you that you're an incredibly talented author, and all of your posts make me happy and excited.

I also have a request (I love angst, sry not sry) and the Carpenter sisters are kind of my new obsession rn (thanks to you lol)

Could you please write a scenario in which Sam comes back from school (she doesn't know about Billy yet) and witnesses Christina's violent outburst towards Tara?

She can't believe it at first because her mother always treated Sam like a princess (we all know why), and Tara is known to be a "clumsy" kid. So, basically, her little sister lied to her about where the bruises come from, but WHY?! I can't answer my own question, and it's frustrating.

I imagine a larger age gap between the two sisters. Sam knows that her mother doesn't love Tara as much as she adores Sam, but the physical abuse always happens when she isn't around.

Thank you so much for your time and effort!

(I'm sorry if I made a mistake, English isn't my first language)

Thank you so much!! I'm glad to hear you like my stuff :) and your English is great!

This will fit pretty well in my five years late AU! The age gap is 10 years, Christina loves Sam and treats her well (although Sam began pulling away once she discovered her father isn't her father - although she never learnt who was). Christina becomes pretty absent when Sam is 15 and their father leaves, but she's never been violent (to Sam's knowledge), or particularly mean to Tara... she just... doesn't care about her so much. She does the bare minimum, and Sam picks up the slack.

It's October, Sam's 18 and in her senior year, and usually she would be at basketball practice right now, except coach started throwing up 10 minutes into practice and sent everyone home. Sam's pretty irritated, all things considered. They didn't need coach there to train, and boy did they need to train. It seems like nobody practised over the summer, and Sam doesn't want to end her final year with as many losses as last year.

But hey, at least she'll get to spend an extra couple of hours with Tara today! Her sister's been upset lately about all the extra time Sam spends at practice now. It was the same last year, she seems to recall. But she got used to it before, and Sam knows she'll get used to it again.

Mom even bought Tara a soccer ball to kick around the garden, she said that her sister was probably just jealous that Sam's good at a sport. Sam can't say she's ever seen her sister touch it once, but mom says she uses it all the time when Sam's at practice, pointing to Tara's bruised legs and scuffed hands and knees. Then she complains that Tara's been kicking the ball against the kitchen wall, and tells Sam to remind her sister to behave herself.

So, Sam's not expected when she arrives home at 3.45 instead of 6pm. She sneaks around the back, hoping to catch her sister practising soccer - an activity Tara refuses to discuss with her but her mother assures her is happening - but finds only an empty backyard... and it sounds like her mother is yelling in the kitchen. It's pretty alarming to hear, mom rarely raises her voice, and it has Sam scrambling over the fence to pull open the backdoor.

It takes a moment for her to realise what she's seeing.

Tara's on the floor, crying, and crawling backwards, away from their mother. Her cheek is bright red, the indentation of fingers spread across it, complete with several scratches. And her mother is screaming at her. She's in the middle of "I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR PATHETIC C-" when Sam runs forward and involves herself in the scene.

"What are you doing?!" she cries, standing between Tara and their mother, hands held out as if to push her mother away.

The way her face goes from angry to calm in an instant unsettles Sam. It feels a lot like watching the theatre kids practise at lunch, the way they could go from happy to sad to angry at a click of the finger.

"Honey," she coos, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder. "You're home early?"

"Practise was cancelled," Sam answers warily. Her mother's avoiding the question. "What are you doing?" she repeats, looking over her shoulder to her sister. Tara's rubbing at her face now, breathing heavily through her hiccups to try and control her breathing. Sam frowns, she's going to need her inhaler.

"She was kicking the ball against the wall again," her mother lets out through gritted teeth. Sam can see fragments of frustration leaking through her mask. She knows there was no answer her mother could give that would make this ok, but she had still hoped for better than this. Something reasonable. Something that makes sense.

"So you hit her? Are you kidding me, what the fuck mom," she growls, shaking off her hand and turning to her sister. Sam picks Tara up off the floor, holding her to her chest, and stares down her mother as Tara burrows her face into Sam's hoodie.

"You have no idea what it's like, Samantha," her mother finally responds. "Trying to raise that girl. She's not like you, she's trouble."

Her mother's words floor her. Sam can't believe what she's hearing. She can't believe this is her mother saying these things, doing these things. Sam exits the room backwards, her head shaking the entire time.

Even once they're sequestered away in Sam's room, Tara won't talk to her, won't tell her what happened. She just stays curled into Sam's side, sniffling. Sam has the nagging feeling that her mother wasn't telling the truth. The football's always in the same place every time she sees it, today was no exception. And if that was a lie, then... where did the bruises come from?

Sam has to choke back the nausea. Her sister needs her right now.

She quits basketball the next day.

#/mp #ask box #Scream #Sam Carpenter #Tara Carpenter #AU: five years late #Sam plays basketball was not the next fandom consensus I was expecting to crop up and yet here we are #trigger warning #-> child abuse

[simplyender]

You have a way of finding sympathetic/kind of pathetic antagonists that are clearly neurodivergent and if given the chance, would totally be better people but never really got that chance

Fern and Hordak and Spot

[Identify my Blorbos!] (putting this at the top bc I made a really long post lol)

Anyway,

[Incorrect buzzer]

You were pretty close there till you said all of these guys would totally be better people but never were given the chance, especially when you said spto Gideon Graves. My man was SO down to do evil. At his best he's harmless and pathetic. But the dude still is pretty pro-doing-terrible-things, even if its not to Scott and Ramona in specific. Could he improve? Sure! But I'm of the belief that anyone can. It sucks that he wasn't treated nicely as a teenager but like. Dude, get help. You clearly can afford it. You just don't want it/don't think you need it.

Gideon actively chose to become the CEO of G-man records and he chose to use his vast power to make a girls life a living hell purely because he felt ENTITLED to her and her love. That's fucked up!!!! Hes' a sick shit in all versions and I truly do love him for that. He and Julie really are bitch x bastard! <3

Fern and Spot both are interesting ones, as they're both cases of "they made their own choices", only, the Finn part of Fern was doing something good (reviving Prismo), he just didn't know that meant he'd become the Finnsword, and the Emissary from Beyond is....Complicated.

Spot, however...

....Look, we can theorize as much as we want about his hypothetical past and what drove him to do it (bc I doubt anybody that works at Alchemax is fully stable), but before all this shit happened to him, he CHOSE to work at Alchemax, which was a morally dubious decision at BEST. I don't think he had bad intention in the slightest however, it's just that Spot....Seems to have a bad habit of not really caring about anything else that's going on around him as long as he's getting what he wants. Negligent is the word (Funny, considering that's what he accuses Spider-Man of being). Also nobody made him go back for the dark matter, and he could have evacuated like everybody else*

Either way, both Fern and Spots actions definitely come from a place of desperation and severe emotional distress. And they're both guys that really lost their entire lives due to something out of their control**, and just weere driven to go....Way too far. They also actively decided to be bad guys because villainy provided them with the validation they needed. Hopefully Spot won't get killed off in the end like Fern did. Haha!

Hordak is definitely what you described though, because we were literally SHOWN that through the existence of Wrong Hordak! He's from a cult and heavily indocrinated with horrible beliefs that he deeply internalized, especially because of his relationship with his disability and the way Horde Prime viewed him for it. This is also seen through Entrapta, who....Yes, helped him do evil thing too. But they were adorable. And ultimately, it was her that helped him realize his worth as a person and take the step towards good (although that was a personhood thing, not a redemption arc, lol). But through proper support, Wrong Hordak was able to grow and develop in a way that Hordak just wasn't given the opportunity to, so....Yeah.

Hordak never got the chance, and Fern kept getting screwed over by the universe and his own low self esteem. But Spot made his own choices in life. He is absolutely the most selfish person out of the three.

And also. Is, yknow, the most experienced in life/an adult. (I already talked about Gideon who is the worst but like I said he doesn't even come close). Yes what happened to him was horrible, yes he didn't deserve so much mistreatment for it, but still. The chain of events started because of his own decisions until it spiralled out of his control, from where he doubled down for a variety of reasons indicating that he really needs the intervention of a trained mental health professional.

I think I went way off course here.

Sorry. Haha.

* Yes it's likely that he felt like he had to go back and save the remains of his work, might have something to do with Olivia stealing all the credit for the collider and his desperate need to be recognized. Still a bad idea though.

** Spot may have done the physical aspects of his life going to shit to himself but I'm not blaming him for the way other people treat him for what is now out of his control. It's not like he asked to be what he is, or to be mocked and lose his livelihood for it.

You get a 1.3/4 because the description is correct up to a point but it entirely fits Hordak.

SO close!

#long post #hordak #spop #fern the human #spot #atsv #gideon graves #im a little rusty on my spop and adventure times so forgive me for being incorrect at any point #apologies to my blorbos in advanced #and let me be very clear i ADORE all of these guys even if i might seem less sympathetic in areas #ultimately i sympathize w a majority of stuff abt them #life hack: dont work for evil inc #(although spot might notve KNOWN it was evil inc and by the time kingpins funding shit its like....hes not leaving unless its in a casket) #(though i doubt he would anyway. he gets to make his collider! yayyyyy) #asks n answers #the spot

[eisforeidolon]

(This is gonna sound random because I was reading old posts, sorry!)

What makes me bitter about Season 12 is that they had the perfect opportunity for a reset and even seemed to set it up several times, so I actually dared to hope they might go that route, but they didn't.

The MoL after the Amara storyline seemed like a way to make it smaller again when they could not possibly go bigger, but still present a new challenge because Sam and Dean are experts on fighting MONSTERS, but what do they do when the villains are human? They could have blown up the Bunker when they were trapped inside, eliminating that stagnation. Mary could have sacrificed herself after her redemption during the raid. Cas could have stayed dead with Crowley. Lucifer could have been locked away for good. The Jack storyline should never have happened. They even got the Colt back! It could have been two brothers on the road with their magic gun again, instead of *gestures disgustedly at everything*

No need to apologize, anon! I'm generally up for discussion, even from old posts.

Yes, exactly, it was just so frustrating! There were a couple of things they did around season 11-12 where it felt like they actually sat down and realized the show was stagnating and came up with a few things that might have actually worked to fix that ... and then it felt like they basically just sloppily threw it all away.

When they introduced Billie and The Empty, it could have reintroduced real stakes in terms of physical peril. Sure, nobody with any sense believed Sam or Dean would die permanently before the end of the show. But at a point when heaven/hell/purgatory basically had a revolving door for the Winchesters? It brought back the idea getting resurrected might actually be hard/complicated and shouldn't just be taken for granted. Except instead of actually utilizing that, they threw it away on one of the most pointless Castiel deaths & resurrections in the entire series (which is really saying something) to show just how overpowered their latest absurdly overpowered character was. Can't exactly take it serious as a threat when the first time they bring somebody back from the place "no one comes back from" it was barely even on purpose.

Resurrecting Mary could have helped to re-center the show in terms of emotional stakes. At that point, Sam and Dean had been subjected to so much trauma that the writers just brushed under the rug when it wasn't convenient to deal with that it didn't even feel important. Of course the show wasn't going to deal with it 100% realistically, but when it starts to feel like the characters don't even get to care, why should we? But they could have reexamined all kinds of things from the way they grew up to the latest disaster through Mary's new and concerned eyes. Except the Mary they brought back could barely be bothered to give a single solitary fuck about her sons at all, because she was too busy being an embarrassing caricature of a Strong Female Character who is actually just an asshole with informed awesome abilities.

Introducing the BMoL could have helped stop the problem of ever-escalating enemies and bogging down in heaven/hell bureaucracy bullshit. Where do you go after you have your protagonists fight God's Sister? Well, if you don't want to make up yet more random deities or have them fight God himself (sigh), you find a different kind of challenge to give them, a new angle they have to work they aren't already experts at. The BMoL were human, so Dean and Sam should have needed to find new ways to deal with them. They couldn't just straight up murder humans, right? They should have needed to actually learn how to be subtle, maneuver, compromise, organize, do something they had reason to be challenged by. Something that wasn't just searching fruitlessly for the next McGuffin until the script said it was time to find it and win. Except the BMoL were absurdly competent and incompetent in turns and then just cartoonishly evil for reasons, until in the end? The Winchesters just got together a group of hunters and murdered them all as if they were literal monsters. So we could go back to yet more heaven/hell bullshit that they also half-assed on all fronts.

So, so much of the Dabbernatural seasons felt to me like the writers over and over choosing the laziest and least interesting paths.

#askboxery #anonymous #spn discussion #anti dabb

[growling]

Dazai is one of those characters that I absolutely genuinely hate as they are currently in canon (and I don't think that's gonna really change. the writers seem committed to what they have now), but really love the version I've made up of them in my own mind partially out of spite, and what I myself initially genuinely thought was the direction they were going with him for the longest time.

Dazai has never been a great person from the earliest episodes - his former allegiance with the port mafia for one, and obviously, his shitty treatment of every woman he happens to meet along the way, barely regarding them as people in their own right but as means to finally fulfill his own fantasy of committing double suicide with a beautiful lady. The first thing he says after seeing a literal corpse of some woman is to lament on how she should have instead committed a double suicide with him (while smiling by the way), he helps save a woman from drowning and as she's still soaking wet having nearly died and he's asked as to what he thinks of this, he says "[she]'s looking damn sexy", the "i like all women, but Sasaki-san seems like the type to commit double suicide with me if I asked, which is nice" remark, and never completely backing off when the waitress/worker at the coffee shop(?) the agency frequents tells very politely him to stop harassing her - I cannot stress this enough how in season one, nearly every new female character he meets, he harasses in some way or another. Like... that is cartoonishly evil! That's awful! And nasty! Literally nobody except for Kunikida (who thankfully actually beats his ass several times for it) reacts to this with anything more than a wince and a "haha classic dazai!!". And with every little piece of lore we got from that point, he turned out to actually be worse, and worse, and worse, until we actually saw him in his wonderfully heartless port mafia era. Which has to be my favourite portrayal of him, which isn't hard, because I literally don't like any others.

And.... I was expecting him to like, how do I put this? I felt all of this was culminating towards something. Usually, when a mysterious mentor (debatable) figure turns out to be hiding such dark secrets from the main character, and supposedly their entire crew too, they cannot run from their past forever, it's gonna come back and bite them in the ass eventually, and it's gonna be messy. But... it never happened? I was on the edge of my seat and it just, subverted all expectations in the most unsatisfying and infuriating way.

It turns out that nobody cares that Dazai used to be an extremely high ranking port mafia executive who killed hundreds of people, whether directly or not. It's brushed off and revealed that actually, the agency all knew it anyway, it was just Kunikida and Atsushi that didn't get the memo. And once they find out? Mildly shocked, then they carry on as usual. Even if everybody else is somehow fine with this, maybe even they got their own skeletons in the closet - why does ATSUSHI have barely a reaction?

It should have been a major turning point of his development, if we acknowledge his entire damn character. It should made him distrust Dazai instantly, never look at him in the same way again, have some sort of arc where he questions literally everything about the person he thought he knew so well that helped (debatable) him so much thorought his time at the agency. Questions the catboy can be rotating in his head like a fork in the microwave while trying to not have his third mental breakdown of the week, and that's just to name a mere few because I'm not listing them all: How much evil is too much to forgive, if forgiveness is an option at all? How much can a person meaningfully change, if "change" is possible at all and we don't just reveal our true nature or learn to hide or adjust parts of our reactions? Has Dazai ever changed, or is he the same person as he was then? Does Dazai even genuinely regret anything, or was he just bored of the previous thing? If so, will he eventually get bored of what he's doing now too? Who even is the person that is Dazai, and did he, or anyone, ever truly know him?

Even now I still don't exactly know where I'm going with this, but, as it stands now (and I finished season 3 a day or so ago - I think it's too late at this point to change the direction they're taking with him), Dazai has never suffered a single consequence of his actions. And by "consequence", I don't mean that he should be publically flogged until he confesses his sins and then executed via firing squad. I mean, that, I want just a single thing he even done have some kind of actual effect or repercussion on him in the long run. But no, he can never be wrong, it's all in the past, nothing matters once he stops caring, and whenever a single character even as much as dares to express dislike or criticize him in any way, they are portrayed doing so like this is some kinda exhausting 4chan comic where Dazai is the chad and they're the seething soyjak. He is pretty obviously the writer's pet at this point, whom they absolutely adore and think he is just the funniest, coolest thing they have created. He is not even as great and cool as every other character paints him as, especially Atsushi whom he's supposed to have some kinda very complex and deep master-apprentice type relationship i never actually saw.

In their first depiction in the flashback/prequel s2 episodes (and even crumbs from the s1 captive thingy), Akutagawa and Dazai have a.... terrible relationship! it's so bad, you guys! It is heavily implied Dazai was the one who fucked that man up so much in the first place. And so I root for Akutagawa to one day obliterate that guy (since Dazai very evidently. does not care about him and actively mocks him in s1, and Akutagawa too is not that friendly with him and even wants to kill him then), but then........... Dazai suddenly just tells him he's proud of him once and starts getting downright friendly with him, starts trying to matchmake sskk for some reason, and Akutagawa just turns into his #1 simp that clutches his chest and starts scream crying at the mere implification from anyone that Dazai left because he thinks he's cringe and will never be a real gamer like him??

Do not get me wrong, it is perfectly fine for Akutagawa to have those complicated, clashing feelings on the matter, in fact i'd much prefer it over "i 100% hate that man and pray for his downfall every night" that I see much more often in other media. I WANT him to hate him so much and idolize him at the same time, be glad he is gone and will never return but miss him more than anything and sometimes hope he comes back one day, be both disgusted and terrified by and deeply yearn for the approval of his terrible, incredible mentor.

But why does Dazai suddenly care? And if he for some reason, does now.... What does it matter? It's not like he can fix it. And I care more about what Akutagawa feels rather than the guy who fucked him up but is now over it and wants to just forget it or patch it up with occasionally throwing out "great job Akutagawa very epic. ok that's enough i'll be on my way toodles dude". I'm more interested with how Akutagawa copes, than how Dazai doesn't.

And like...... I'm still not finished with the series. There's still seasons 4 and 5 for me to get through, and I really, really hope it manages to surprise me and gets better. But I'm just.... not that enthusiastic that will be the case. It doesn't look like it, but I'm not really crossing over that possibility just yet. I'll just keep on waiting and maybe get incredibly dissapointed and affirmed that me and the writers just have a very different perception of who Dazai is, or maybe actually get to see him/everyone else get an arc on this and regain faith in the existence of a loving god. But basically, what I've been trying to say this whole little disorganized post, is that at the end of the day, it's night. And Dazai continues to prowl around the bowels of Yokohama unobliterated and cruelly mock and torment me specifically by doing so.

#mine #bsd spoilers #bungou stray dogs spoilers #did not really proofread the text as its late and im not really good with articulating myself anyway so #if some of the words on the screen look incomprehensible then sorry thats probably why. you can blame it on dazai too #blame everything on dazai. he is the reason society has fell and he's the one who supplies fuel for taylor's private jet #he is the one ruining my entire life for as long as i can remember. god damn you dazai. i will never truly be happy as long as he exists #EDIT: holy fuck that ended up long as hell #Dazai Osamu #Bungou stray dogs #Akutagawa Ryonosuke #Nakajima atsushi #<- they're also there

[narhinafan]

Saw a short that lists what Black Clover "copied" from Naruto and the one thing they mentioned is the rivalry between Asta and Yuno to Naruto and Sasuke and how BC copied it. I was like, character rivalries are common in manga and anime and it's stupid to accuse one series of copying the other for it. Asta and Yuno are rivals but unlike Naruto and Sasuke, theirs is a friendly one and more of those who can reach their goal first. Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry started when they were in Team 7 then became deadly in Shippuden but ended up reconciling by the end of the series. If there is someone we can say that which rivalry "copied" another, is Naruto and Sasuke "copying" Goku and Vegeta. Nobody is commenting against it since Toriyama is one of Kishi's inspirations.

Seriously, I have nothing against Naruto fans but "fans" like these ones are destroying the reputation of the fandom. Much like my first ask when Naruto "fans" started criticizing NetEase's Onmyoji for referencing the Japanese gods and attacking other IPs who did their own take on the Sannins.

P.S. - NaruSakus criticizing Hinata for not being jn active duty as a shinobi when Hima is still young still shows they don't care about Naruto. Yeah, let's say Hinata goes into a mission and gets killed, making Naruto a widower and both their kids motherless. That situation is more devastating to Naruto than the kids since we all knew what happened to Naruto when she "dumped" him, the man was so despondent that he didn't even care about the mission. Again, they just reinforce the point that Naruto is only a good character to them if he ends with Sakura, much like how IchiRukis does to Ichigo if he ends with Rukia. If they ended up with Hinata and Orihime, both of them can die for all they care.

Seriously is this the younger generation that seem to only know Naruto. Like I grew up with Naruto and several amazing anime and manga before it the rival has been a standard archtype in most media as you pointed out dragon ball which has been around years before Naruto and if we going by character personalities Naruto and Sasuke share more similarities with Goku and Vegeta so it would be Naruto copying Kishimoto even referenced Dragon Ball as inspiration as well.

The rival has been around as long as I remember I can't even trace where the archtype comes from cause its so old and intertwined with manga and anime history the oldest one off the top of my head is Gundam from 1979, but I think the archtype has been around longer then that.

The archtype is not somthing own by any series they have similar elements cause the purpose is to entertain people you will not find anything that has likely not be used in media previously in someway or form.

I think its the younger western generation who got into anime with Naruto and weren't there back when One Pierce, Naruto and Bleach made the big three let alone Dragon Ball that came before them. They keep calling out other series as copying showing the don't really understand nor are aware of some of the older anime and manga that a manga like Naruto drew inspiration from.

Yeah they don't care about Naruto and hate him for choosing Hinata, they don't care or like his character unless he is with Sakura they only like and care about her and see Naruto as a trophy to uplift her.

#anti narusaku fandom #anti narusaku

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP I sent you an ask abt this topic months ago & I understand why you didn't post it. I've been following you since last year, I love how you approach topics & I know you hate stupid drama. My ask was a bit controversial & I get why you didn't post it. But I saw sth today again that I can't forget. So I'm asking you again & I'll add more info to it so pls give me your honest answer.

I'm 36 years old, from Romania but now living in Germany. I got into kpop at 2020 through BTS & quickly fell down the rabbit hole. Then I discovered other idols I like Weeekly, Stray Kids, Exo, Girls Generation, Tayeon, Shinee, Super Junior, TXT, Nct & some others. Kpop was big world for me & made me happy with the new concepts & personalities. My father was very abusive & I've struggled with suicidal ideations for most of my life. BTS love yourself music made me go back to therapy. I consumed their music from the beginning because the thought of No More Dream & me not having to have dreams, lifted a weight off me. Funnyly, not feeling obligated to have dreams made me find my dream of working with special needs people. I feel more fulfilled than I've ever felt. I thank BTS because their music was to sincere it reached me. My bias is Jungkook but I understand why he fell for RM. His struggles with mental health sounded like my own. His honesty in those topics was like he opened my head & written down my thoughts. I have shared this on twitter before & some people did not respond well. This is when I sent you the ask before but I understand if you didn't want to say your mind at that time. But BPP, I shared this in a kpop discord today & some people shut me down again. They told me BTS only sang abt mental health because their company had no money for other topics. They told me it was marketing strategies. They said Hybe surveyed fans for mental illnesses & only made music abt mental health because the fandom is sick. When I tried to mention RM & his older songs they got even more angry.

I was shocked & hurt. I left the discord. The shocking thing for me is it was my friend who was saying it. I thought she of all people wld understand because she is a fan of Shinee. I thought she wld understand how important mental health is for me & for people. I tried to share BTS lyrics but they did not care & the more I shared the more they mocked me. I don't understand this reaction. It hurt me & made me question everything. Which survey are they talking abt? Was it before No More Dream? They made it sound like I was stupid to believe BTS truly wrote abt their mental health. They said nobody in BTS truly cares abt this topic & Hybe only marketed the topic to fans for money. I know it's stupid but I feel hurt & confused. My Shinee friend was so angry I don't understand her reaction at all. I'm trying to think through the songs. I know marketing is something Hybe did but every singer does marketing. Does it mean the songs are not sincere? Can not both things be true together?

**

Hi Anon,

This was... hard to read, but I appreciate you taking the time to write out your thoughts. I vaguely remember the ask you sent earlier and I ignored it because around that time, I was getting asks that appeared written obviously to bait, and because your ask mentioned a multi / anti dismissing your experience (and goading you into self harm?), it seemed too on the nose with drama happening elsewhere at the time so I deleted it. Now I realize that was a mistake, so I'm sorry.

I doubt this is news for you following your experience, but the default thinking of k-pop stans is to reduce BTS's music and their own comments about their music, to marketing or something otherwise orchestrated by the company without significant input from BTS. This is the reasoning you'll see several k-pop stans espouse no matter the platform you're on, and I've seen this said about BTS since their debut regardless of the topic or music concept. K-pop stans' own experiences with their own favourite groups in k-pop - groups that do in fact rely overwhelmingly on mediaplay, marketing, and music written by a company for idols, are what informs their views so try not to take anything they say personally. These people can only speak based on what they know.

About the Love Yourself series in particular being the result of marketing or a fan survey:

Personally, I question the intelligence of anyone who offers such a reductive explanation. It's really that simple. Like if you actually understand what this industry is, if you have all the facts at your disposal, if you're aware of the environment in which BTS operated first as South Koreans after the economic crash and as under-supported idols in that industry, and your conclusion is that the Love Yourself musical direction was primarily a marketing gimmick, there's no choice for me but to question your intelligence.

One thing you'll never see me making light of, is an idol speaking about the mental toll this business takes on them, or of the artist grappling with what that means for them. However they express those thoughts, I'll take it, regardless of whether or not it meets more elaborate or insightful expressions I've seen in other artists.

You will not find me trivializing it in any way, shape, or form.

There's already too much cynicism in this industry, and the clinical approach with which Western commentators dissect minority artists, is all too familiar to me. It reeks of something... rancid.

And this is besides the fact that too often, these commentators are also willfully ignorant of the background the artists are coming from that informs their music, and nowhere will you see this more often than with BTS.

I recall the asks I was getting earlier this year about Jin's Proof clip comments, how many people completely missed the lyrical references to Moon - the most personal fan song he'd written at that time, according to him. Then to see those themes reiterated in The Astronaut, written by Jin and Coldplay, and once again the lyrical references he's consistently made about the fans' impact on his growth, going completely over their heads.

Dismissal of BTS's lyrics frustrates me especially because more than anything else, the thing that has always set BTS apart from the rest of their peers and the industry, even before their breakout on the international front in 2017, is their lyrical expression. Like, most of the people who are K-ARMYs today, became ARMYs because of what BTS were singing about and how they sang about it. It was not common for idols to write their own lyrics. So BTS mostly writing their own lyrics, noting what they were writing about and the stigma it still very much carried... it sometimes blows my mind that even now, a lot of people really don't understand how much of a gamble this approach was for them in terms of pure commercial results given the status quo at the time.

It's times like that I wish that either BTS were fluent English speakers with an American background so those references would carry over easier, or that only Korean people were exposed to BTS. Because at some point, the ignorance is almost painful for me to witness. And this is me being 100% honest.

**

Anyway, the simple answer to your question of what exactly happened to you in that discord, is that you're simply watching people respond to the incentives the k-pop industry provides. Exploring mental health issues and the relationships idols have with those who have influenced them including fans, is deep and meaningful when an artist they like and respect explores this topic, and banal and vapid when an artist they typically pick apart, does the same. Again, when I talk about how competition informs virtually every aspect of k-pop, this is yet another example of what I mean. Shawols and multis are not immune to this, and neither are ARMYs. Anon, I understand how hurtful your experience was, but please recognize it for what it is and don't take it personally.

The survey your Shawol friend is referring to is a marketing survey BigHit uploaded on October 1, 2017 - I've linked that full survey here. That this survey was a HYBE-orchestrated mass propaganda event which created the Love Yourself series and made BTS talk about mental health, is a common myth you'll find in k-pop spaces where people don't know how to count.

The Love Yourself: Her album was released on September 18, 2017 and BTS had mentioned preparing for that album, including writing the songs on it, since December 2015 - ~2 years before the survey. And of course BTS had been exploring those topics since before their debut in 2013.

To quote an ARMY who has exhaustively debunked this myth 3 years ago, 'mental health' is not even the primary focus of the Love Yourself album series "as Namjoon explained in every interview, the idea behind love yourself is that true love (her) cannot last (tear) without honesty, courage & self-love, which should be celebrated (answer)."

The contents of the survey itself didn't deviate much from the bi-annual BTS fancafe membership surveys (asking about age, country background, how you discovered BTS, etc), typical MBTI questions (such as those BTS themselves answered in their 2022 Seasons Greetings - quiz questions that are typically popular with Korean teens), and fan quizzes sometimes done around Festa (such as the Festa exams last year). On old BPP I wrote a detailed post about that survey so if this is something you're interested in reading, let me know and I'll dig it up to repost.

**

Anon, I'm sorry the interactions you've had with some k-pop fans affected you so negatively in an area you already feel vulnerable in. I'm not sure the exact nature of your friendship with this Shinee fan, but you're a 36 year old woman who has developed a passion for helping some of the most vulnerable people, you're a big girl doing good in your community, and who happens to have found comfort and joy in BTS's music. You don't have to engage with people who treat you and what you love spitefully for no good reason. Decide for yourself if it's worth it remaining in that space, and act in a way that prioritizes your peace of mind.

And stream The Astronaut. I'm sure you'll be fine.

Good luck. 💜

#fandom behavior #bts army #army fandom #army multis #kpop industry #kpop fandom #bts marketing #bts love yourself

[smartycvnt]

all i wanted

pairing: kris statlander x reader

prompt: "look he wants you, just make him happy." + "i don't care what he wants, i've only wanted you."

You were a sorry sight. Over the past few weeks, you and Kris had been drifting apart. It was inevitable in any relationship, but this felt like the end. The time Kris wasn't spending with you was spent with Orange Cassidy. He was a friend, just like you had once been, so you knew it wasn't too far-fetched that they get together. They had always seemed to make each other happier than you had ever felt you could make Kris anyways.

"Y/n, wait up!" Chuck yelled from behind you. You weren't a part of the Best Friends, but they still treated you like one of them most of the time. You shot the man a smile as he jogged to catch up with you.

"What's up Chuck?" you asked. He put his arm around your shoulders as he started to walk backwards you with.

"Kris really needs to talk to you. She asked us to bring you to her if we saw you," Chuck said as he walked you to the women's locker room. You went inside to find Kris sitting on a bench very obviously thinking something big over.

"Chuck said we needed to talk," you said as you sat down next to her. It was awkward, something that you were slowly getting used to. Nothing used to be awkward between the two of you, but now everything was.

"What are we doing?" Kris asked you. You shrugged, unsure of what exactly she meant. You had an idea, but were dreading the thought of facing it. "Why are we like this now? What happened to us?"

"Maybe we fell out of love or something," you whispered.

"I still love you though. Don't you love me?" Kris's voice was full of fear. The idea of that you didn't love her was terrifying, something that kept her awake some nights.

"I love you so much. I want you to be happy, and that's why this has to stop," you said with a heavy sigh. "You and Orange Cassidy should be together."

"What?"

"Look he wants you, just make him happy." You didn't know why, but you kept going. You finally said the thing that had been eating away at your thoughts for the past several weeks. "He obviously makes you happier than I ever could."

"I don't want him though," Kris said. "I don't care what he wants. I've only wanted you. You're all I've ever wanted. Nobody makes me happier than you do, even when we're like this."

"You want me?" You sounded so unsure, which absolutely broke Kris's heart.

"I've never wanted somebody like I want you in my life," Kris promised you. You wrapped your arms around her for a hug, and the two of you just sat there for a good 3 minutes mentally calming yourselves down. You and Kris were going to be okay, you had nothing to worry about.

#aew #aew x reader #aew imagine #aew imagines #kris statlander #kris statlander imagines #kris statlander imagine #kris statlander x reader

[bcofl0ve]

🔥 Hey, first time sending an anon here. I’m coming from a neutral and peaceful place when I ask what I’m about to ask- just genuinely curious. Is there anything from your side of the fandom that irks you and is there any parts of the other side of the fandom that you low key agree with?

I’m asking not so much to be combative or cause drama…I’m just genuinely fascinated by this fandom. I’m a little removed as I’m a fan of Austin but not as die hard as you and his following (I’d say I’m pretty casually a fan). I lurk bc I had do some research for a project (I’m in the industry but not like some huge deal or anything) and I got the most sucked into the Kaustin rabbit hole compared to other fandoms as my research started around awards seasons so…here I am still checking in and curious about both sides all of these months later 😅

Being both a bit removed and being in the industry…in all bluntness and fairness, I find both sides get a few things wrong, fill in blanks with a narrative that suits their opinion, and has a few stretches of the imagination/over simplifications about the complexities of the industry and human dynamics and relationships. And obviously nobody can be 100% right about people they don’t know (hell, even about ppl we DO know we can make wrong assumptions). Plus when things get dramatic to an “ us vs them” extent it’s all too human to get further tunnel vision about your own beliefs and opinions. So I’m curious if there’s anything good or that you agree with on the other side and anything about your side that you side eye.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think they’re PR. But I also think their body language is off and do believe they’re in different places in their life for it to work out long term. I’m not telling you YOU should take my side and agree as much as I’m trying to level with ya and show my hand as I do truly come in peace here and see some aspects to both sides from my perspective. And if that’s not proof enough, here’s a bonafide peace offering: while I see good and bad and right and wrong to both sides…Pappi Austin and their at least 4-20 accounts all with caplocked insults are unhinged AF lol. I promise I see bad on their side (which I’m highlighting bc that’s one of the worst parts of that side of the fandom from my POV. I get I’m asking you and by proxy YOUR side this tough question, hence I wanted to share that part lol).

So if you’re up for it, anything you low key agree with or appreciate from their side, anything you think is off or you’re not as on board with on your side, and hell do you have any nuanced thoughts on all of it that wouldn’t naturally come up (not like a put down on either side or a compliment but just…thoughts you haven’t gotten to document that are related to this question).

Thanks for reading and thanks a bunch if you answer.

omg your first anon welcome to the crazy show hahaha. and no worries about your opinion, i have a dear friend in the twitter fandom who is in your camp there. she knows my take, i know hers and we get along just fine bc we simply talk about other things 99% of the time lolll.

my thing with certain folks on the other side that gen idk, makes me sad. is that i do think there are a select number of folks that are like. genuinely worried about austin thinking he’s being trapped in a pr relationship. and i know that worry is coming from *some* place of care for him, even if it’s severely misguided. over on twitter there’s a lot of twitter accounts that seem to be folks who maybe didn’t grow up with the internet of today, and don’t have tiptop media literacy and it *kills* me that people like pappiaustin got their hooks into those folks/has these poor people convinced an actor they love is miserable and trapped in a horrible relationship.

and as much as i do, right now, think she’s the one…shit happens and life twists and turns and that might change someday. i said a few months ago that i think a hypothetical breakup would probably be fueled by kaia having a midnight rain by taylor swift moment, and still think that. she’s so young. you will never see me deny that!

as for our side? i do think we could pick where to dig our heels in better sometimes, and we VERY much includes me. but like. they aren’t engaged right now. probably. and that’s okay! i don’t think they’re secretly engaged and when i see someone double down on thinking they are i cringe. 😅

i think ppl who aren’t anti kaia can also be really over protective of austin even about things that aren’t related to her and cross boundaries in that area at times.

like- i was in a group chat when lisa died where someone was more or less hypotheticalling about exactly how austin heard the news/how he reacted and it made me really really uncomfortable. and i mean i had fleeting thoughts on that i won’t lie. but sharing them in a huge group chat where you’re more or less writing fanfic…icky. i’m so grateful for my friends who i talked with one on one those awful two weeks because having that space to unpack my worry for him without bringing it to the masses kept my head screwed on.

also hey, speaking more generally i baby him too sometimes. but you gotta be self aware of when you’re being too much! self awareness is a gift and more people should use it!

#hot seat night with mollie

[ithillyienseowyn]

{I have since moved on from even caring about nit picks for this} but I'm sitting and thinking about all the shit I saw since it came out at the end of May and how I find it hilarious that The Little Mermaid has officially been out for a month but I still lowkey find that one random post that nit picks the most unimportant things mainly HB's vibe/energy and grace that she gave Ariel {which I've come to realize is as fresh as Brandy in Cinderella which is why I love HB so much in this role} and HB's hair colour and how its more coppery than it is delicious apple red and how they only dyed her roots {even though she has said in interviews they wrapped her hair to keep her actual hair healthy and avoid it getting severely damaged} or the things they just didn't include from the animated or talking about the songs you still think are mid or just downright hate} and I just have to wonder did you all complain this much when Brandy Norwood was cast as Cinderella in 1997 or am I just built different than most {and not to go there but it makes you seem ungrateful and shady in your criticisms}.

I know I know the more I think on all of this the more standoffish and p/o I get, but I tend to only live in a constant state of overthinking. {Especially only being able to watch this movie all of one time until it releases on dvd/bluray}. But I can tell you people have moved on from wanting/being forced to read the same thing for a whole entire month. In fact I bet people who loved the LA just want to enjoy it in peace at this point. {I'm not saying this from a place of hate and annoyance I'm just trying to broaden the bigger picture, and most of what I see as far as complaints for this movie happen in the for you section of my dash or when I'm trying to find things to like/re-blog, which I have just started to dismiss altogether because nobody has time for that}.

#misc #text #tlm text #is this my officially over it post? #there is definitely more things i've seen but the hair not being red is the most consistent