#This is why I rarely make meta posts anymore

[yujeong]

The outfits of Pete - Some Observations

You know, as I was reading @blackwatervial's post about "The Pete Show" ep 3 which is this one here, my focus stayed on her comment about Pete's party clothes and them being mostly black and white. So, I decided to check them all again + every other instance he wears civilian clothes, to notice them and come to my own conclusions. So, we start with the first instance which is his first time at Hum Bar, ep 3:

The difference of the colors + the pattern pop off the screen, making the black and white - along with the dark blue jeans - super evident. Tbh I see this as his exterior being in complete contrast to his interior (his nuanced mentality VS his life which is in absolutes).

The second instance is in ep 5, again when the gang goes to Hum Bar:

Pls excuse my shitty screenshots, I wanted to capture the totality of the outfit as much as possible. Here it's also very black and white, with the white popping way more than the black, even though he's mostly wearing black pieces of clothing (his T-shirt underneath + his dark blue jeans + his shoes, which are the same converse as the first outfit). I love this because during this scene Vegas arrives on his bike, wearing only black clothes so they contrast each other. What I find interesting in this outfit though are the words/phrases on the white shirt he's wearing on top - or at least the ones I managed to read: - Embrace the ocean waves, and - Reclaim the Sea

Something something, accept what cannot be changed? The inevitability of your life conditions? Idk, I'll leave this to the smart people in the fandom to figure out. Another instance in civilian clothes is my beloved condom scene in ep 6:

Here we don't see the full outfit but we can understand that he's wearing a jean blue shirt and a white T-shirt beneath, again playing with the black and white aesthetic, which is emphasized due to the minimum lightning of the scene. What I found very interesting is that the jean shirt has a painting on its back, which unfortunately I don't know the origins of. It may be a famous painting or just sth random but I love how you can distinguish a door and a window there. It's on his back too, incredible symbolism and all that, you get the gist. Next up, ep 7 in which we have 2 outfits. The first one was during Don's mission:

Here we see some color variation in the form of beige(?) but still, it's black and white. I like how it's mostly light colors/white here, since he's on a mission and is supposed to be as discreet as possible to not alarm Don's men - though that failed immediately because he's the only one they check because he seemed new lol. The second outfit is at the party, after the successful Don mission:

The second picture is here because he looks amazing, LOOK AT HIS BEAUTY I CAN'T- So, yeah, anyway, the black is back. And I find the choice interesting because it's the first (almost) all black outfit he has worn in the entire show so far, besides his uniform. Maybe it's his subconscious way of blending into the dark background, bodyguard mode activated? Who knows? It sure is interesting to think about though. Now, in regards to this outfit, one thing that a beautiful Tumblr post mentioned is the T-shirt he wears underneath:

It says "Youth" and he wears it at the end of the show too, which is insane to me. More on that, later. So, here we go, ep 9 temple scene:

God, I love this scene for so many reasons. The pattern of dark - light is still present, though this time it's dark blue instead of black, while Vegas wears black clothes with some white popping out from his fabulous witch shirt. I really like the contrast of the colors between them and how you can kind of get the vibes of the scene just from their outfits alone. NOW, here we go. Ep 13, Hum Bar scene:

Black and white pattern again, my beloved. I need to mention sth which might be only me and my blindness to things BUT I feel it's possible: This is the only outfit so far in which the colors kind of blend and aren't separate; specifically, the black bleeds into the white, it isn't distinct from it like his previous outfits. Hmm, wonder what this could mean for his character post Vegas. Curious. Last but definitely not least, ep 14, hospital scene:

FUCK, I love this outfit so much. It's such a beautiful combination and I can't get enough of Pete's beauty. The most striking thing to me is that, even though this contrast of dark and light he always wore outside of work still exists here, it seems so well blended together in contrast to before. The colors compliment each other and the end result is so pleasant to the eyes. It's like the clothes are trying to explain that Pete is finally at peace with himself and where he is, he is being his true self. And wearing the "Youth" T-shirt here with all the symbolism the word provides, a T-shirt he wore in the only situation he confronted Vegas flirting Porsche dead on as a bodyguard of Kinn. Ugh, I could spend hours thinking about it. Yeah, so, those are all the outfits. I didn't add the ones he was wearing at night as pyjamas or at the safehouse because I wanted to focus on the civilian side of things, what he wore outside of his role as a bodyguard (and at the safehouse it's not like he was wearing anything haha). Hope someone smarter than me manages to analyze his clothes one day. It's super interesting to think about.

#This took me way to long to write and I ended up not saying anything at all #This is why I rarely make meta posts anymore #I need 5 business days to arrange my thoughts and then write them down in a cohesive way #Anyway Pete #That's it that's the tag #kinnporche the series #pete phongsakorn saengtham

[sunnykeysmash]

Ok so, the new trailers got me curious, especially here with the whole... trap thing.

Let's just go on a little chill journey about it together, no strings attached.

So... something I do casually to pass the time while deep in sunny fixation is keyword searching in episode transcripts, to see if there's fun connections I can do. So naturally, I look up "trap", to see where else it comes up outside of Gets Romantic and Flowers for Charlie (the first two episodes that come to my mind when talking about traps).

What I found was an interesting connection between three specific episodes:

Mac is a serial killer

Dennis looks like a registered sex offender

Flowers for Charlie

And I wanna go through it. Kind of in random order because I don't know how to structure this (lmao).

Now, these episodes obviously have come out in seasons throughout the years, with the earliest two on s3, and I'm gonna be talking about things I think might happen in relation to these episodes. Parallels, metatext, about things that haven't aired yet. So I may be wrong. Let's get that out of the way. Usual disclaimer, get out now if you don't like rambling, and I'm not responsible for building anyone's expectations, that is on you. This is how I have my own fun. Let's move on.

But talking about these episodes in such a way requires me to acknowledge macdennis as something that's been not only intended, but planted, am I gonna be arguing that this was all intentional the whole time? ...No. ...Yes? Maybe. This pains me to say more than it pains you to read, believe me.

Now by planted I don't mean they ever really planned to have it happen necessarily. I'm talking about the trap aspect of it all. The will they, won't they. The question, the mystery of what's inside the crate. You get me.

I wanna start from the fact that there's fifteen severed heads in the fridge. Severing heads being a metaphor very prevalent in season 15 as we've seen, but especially...

And that's the scene.

Yes, I'm aware.

I'm done. I was in character before, but I'm me now, so you can tell me how good I was.

Oh, okay. Well, you just cut in front of 15 other actresses.

You're welcome. I took a gander at 'em and... ( sever head gesture )

Plus, I do feel like that's what the character would have done, and I've been in character all day. As a matter of fact, don't want to brag, but I've been in character all week.

Fifteen, like the seasons? It could be they were hoping to reach that number to break the record, just like Charlie is shown doing at the start of DLLARSO, attempting to break a record to see how long he can hold his breath for.

Dee: What is going on in here?

Mac: Just laying low and breaking world records. Don't even think about breathing, b¡tch.

Dennis: All right, so here's the deal. Got rid of that child molester. The sеxual predator guy? Yeah, he's gone. He's out of the situation, so my problems are solved. You had a thing too, right?

Dee: Mac's dad. I want your dad out of the bar.

So three things, breaking records, the second Dennis leaving (you know, Dennis Double Life thing), and I do think Luther might be dying this season, as well. It seems to line up to me... we know Mac is going to "collect his inheritance", which he wouldn't really have unless a parent died like Charlie's. He also walked out, so.

But that's impossible, that's season 3. I thought so too.

So I want to bring another example of severed head onto the table... Chardee Macdennis 2. Season 11.

They're asked to sculpt "clues" for the game, and what does each of them sculpt?

Mac: "Cupid's arrow". Which Charlie keeps calling a penis, and which looks strikingly similar to a RPG missile to me, I'll add.

Frank: A heart. Like the heart shaped lock?

Dennis: A woman's head in a freezer, which he says, and I quote, represents "the preservation of love forever and ever".

Keep in mind, there was no theme given for the sculptures, the whole goal was for the teammates to guess what the other was sculpting. Now why are they... love themed?

I just want to say right out of the gate, I don't know what everything means, I'm more so here to draw parallels that I've noticed. I think it's interesting that everyone can draw their own conclusions too.

So, to summarize all three episodes:

In Mac is a Serial Killer, the gang see Mac acting weird, so they start suspecting he's a serial killer.

(I do want to point out Carmen scratches Mac (during sex), which is one parallel with Dennis, but not my overall point.)

Frank and Charlie scour for clues in Mac's apartment, while Dennis tries to use Dee as bait to catch the serial killer. Frank gets a confession out of Mac's mom, and then the gang starts to hatch a scheme (which they call a trap) to "catch" Mac about this, and drive a confession out of him. The truth though, is that Mac is dating Carmen, and doesn't want the gang to find out.

In Sex Offender, Luther is finally out of jail and is visiting a bunch of people. Mac and Charlie see that Luther has a list with their name on it, and panic thinking he's been killing these people and is gonna kill them next. What is really happening though, is that he was actually making amends with the people listed (something that comes back in S16!), and had a surprise prepared for Mac, who "ratted him out". The B plot has Frank moving out because he thinks he can do better than Charlie, so he gets with Bonnie, his "bang maid". Both Charlie and Mac hatch a plan (again called a trap here), a romantic dinner, with very different goals. Charlie wants Frank back and to expose his mom as a cheater (in a situation that actually reminds of the s15 dinner, with the turd in the soup), Mac wants to pair his parents back together so they can raise "happy boys". In the end, Luther gets with Bonnie, which coincidentally does drive Frank back into Charlie's arms, but in the end Luther gets carried away by police. Additionally as we've discussed, there's a second Dennis in this episode, a fake, who is threatened into leaving at the end of the episode.

In Flowers for Charlie, scientists are running an experiment on Charlie who becomes their lab rat, while Dee Mac and Dennis are dealing with a rat problem in the bar, discussing ways to catch and kill it. Charlie starts thinking he's too good for his friends and notices that "they've been using him", Frank enlists the help of the Waitress by setting up a dinner between them, hoping Charlie's deep infatuation with her will pull him away from his new life and the corner he's turned and back to Frank, and when that doesn't work, Frank tells Dee Dennis and Mac that he wants to "drag him back down into the sewer where he belongs". Dee thinks she's stuck to the rat glue trap, but after the rat eats the cheese and scurries away unaffected, thanks to Frank's help she finds that by letting go of the trap, she becomes unstuck. In the end we find the experiment didn't make Charlie smarter, only more arrogant, and perhaps more fascinatingly some other things, like he believes to be a mathematical genius, and writes:

X = 9 + 9 = Box... that's where the cat is.

(9 + 9, like 18? Like the seasons we have confirmed, 18?)

And more.

And in the space of an hour, the subject has lost all interest in a woman with whom he had been in love for years, because of a perceived upidity relative to himself. Perhaps the most interesting were the series of side effects that he believed himself to be having. Uh, debilitating aches and pains. It was all in his mind.

According to this, the more arrogant someone is, the more he forgets about the people he loves, and the more he suffers various pains. Therefore, you need to knock someone down a peg to remind them of their feelings, and make them feel better.

In Mac is a Serial Killer, at the end, Mac is also accused of being two people.

Charlie: I'm sorry, Mac. You can't keep running from this thing. You gotta face this head on! (whispers) I'm gonna get you off this. Don't be afraid to show me your ugly side. All right. Put that away, Frank. You don't need a chain saw. You're talking to an innocent man. All right, Mac. I'm gonna ask you now 'cause I'm tired and hungry. I want to go home. I want to wash my hands of this whole stinking mess. Did you or did you not snap into an alternate and distinct personality... causing you to go on a serial killing rampage?

Mac: What? No.

Charlie: What? Yes, you did. You... All right, Mac. You're crazy, right? You're a crazy person. Sometimes you're two people. Let's see the other guy. Let him out.

Mac: Let who out?

Charlie: The serial killer, Mac! Let the serial killer out!

Mac: I'm not a serial killer!

Frank: Then why all the shady behavior?

So, what is the trap... so far, we've seen that you trap someone either to set them up with someone else (the romantic dinner in DLLARSO, but also the trap in Gets Romantic, and also when Dee sets them up in Break Up by using a lady with giant breasts as bait!), or to draw a confession out of them (like in MIASK, but also Catches a Leprechaun). Perhaps both, at the same time, as there may be multiple people scheming the same thing with different end goals, or different things with the same end goal. Either way, that's the conflict of the trap.

Brief intermission to talk about another episode where the trap comes up. Charlie's Home Alone.

Charlie empathizes with a rat, and saves him from a trap.

'Cause I know what it's like to be caught in a trap now, and it's not okay. I won't let you get caught in a trap, okay?

Takes him in his hand, and eats him (DLLARSO also has talk about Luther looking like he eats people, but I don't have a thought on that yet aside from basic cat eat mouse type stuff, also not everything is Something, but I digress!).

Later a real trap is introduced as part of the rituals, and Charlie steps on it and must free himself. The release lever is at the bottom. He frees himself, but once Brady has the ball, he has to step right into the trap again.

This stepping in and out, again it reminds me of Dennis in Gets Romantic, but since it was a season 13 episode, it may also be Glenn about the show.

But here's something I think, just to spice it up, I think the trap may also be, more in general, a relationship. Right? Dennis has been in one (with Maureen), didn't like it, yada yada. Now Mac talking about banging, that's one thing. Mac getting in a relationship? Suddenly he's ruining everything, getting locked in, that's different. And the scene between him and Dennis in Flowers for Charlie, implies to me that we have two rats and one bait, that the trap involves two people. Like a relationship. Now am I married to this idea, pun not intended? Not really, but it's possible.

Either way, the trap is something that catches rats. Thanks to Flowers for Charlie, both Mac and Dennis can be rats, due to said dancing scene...

Dennis: He scurried away.

Mac: All right, well, when he comes back, I'm gonna smash him up good. Dennis: No, no, Mac, come on. We're smarter than that. That's just gonna spread rat blood and disease all over the place. It's not about brute force. It's about seduction. See, I'm gonna place some enticing tunes for the little guy. And then I'm gonna bait this glue trap with some Brie cheese.

Frank: Because drawing a confession out of someone... is like doing a beautiful dance... a beautiful dance with a chain saw.

When Charlie is framed as the rat in Flowers for Charlie at the beginning, he's dead set on getting the cheese he can't have, and has no interest in the one under the green light. Which reflects the chase. Like cat and mouse.

This experiment, that's being talked about as groundbreaking and that will revolutionize the field, is all about making the subject feel smart due to the constant encouragement, but the subject really isn't.

Mac is not the serial killer. He's not smart enough. He's a dumb person. And dumb people are not capable of serial killing.

In Chokes, it's said that Dennis will see through the ruse, because he's smart, but the truth is that he didn't, because he isn't. It's Mac that heightens his confidence, and it always has been.

And in the sideplot of Flowers for Charlie, Dee Dennis and Mac end up watching "cat and mouse" cartoons to understand how to solve this rat problem. But... a cat was never introduced in the episode prior to this?

The mouse always wins. There's... there's, like, no winning with mices. Cat keeps getting hurt. He gets hurt. Well, it's dangerous, yeah. What the hell are you guys doing? We're trying to watch cat and mouse cartoons to find out how kitty cats deal with their rat issues.

But historically, the cat has always been Dennis... the cat in the wall (through framing and dialogue), and then ongoing with like the painting in s15 and the dead cat in the room and so on. This cat may get out of the wall, or he may die in there. That duality belongs to Dennis. But how can he both be a cat and a mouse? No, I don't have an answer, but perhaps it's up to confidence. If you bring it down low enough for both Dennis and Mac, they're finally both little mouses, and you can catch them in your trap. Not that the trap ever works? In all episodes where it comes up, it either fails (Flowers for Charlie), is painful (Charlie's Home Alone), complicates things (Gets Romantic), or a combination of those (Serial Killer and Catches a Leprechaun).

It's also about method.

How do we lower this guy's confidence, how do we reach rock bottom.

In Flowers for Charlie, Mac's solution is to bash the rat.

In Mac is a Serial Killer, they want to draw a confession out of Mac by torture when they catch him. Using a chainsaw even.

And in Dennis Looks Like a Registered Sex Offender, Dennis takes a good beating because he's mistaken for an awful man that looks like him, as per Dee's plan.

And this in Mac is a Serial Killer:

Dennis: This is the fun part, Dee. This is the part that we've been working up to. This is what all the work has been for. We're gonna follow our victim. And then we're gonna jump her. And then I'm gonna strangle her and you're gonna chop her into pieces.

Dee: Okay, but what are we really gonna do?

Dennis: Huh?

Dee: We're not really gonna kill her. What are we gonna do?

Dennis: Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. That's a bummer. Yeah, you're right.

Dee: Let's just follow her for a little. We'll throw a good scare into her. Figure out what to do later.

Plus, in Charlie Catches a Leprechaun, which is another episode in which a man gets captured with the goal of driving a confession out of him...

Mac: Nasty little son of a b¡tch, isn't he?

Charlie: There's, like, a real bite to him.

Mac: You know what I think we should do? We just rough him up a little bit. You know, just get the truth out of him, just a little bit.

Charlie: It's a great idea.

Mac: We don't want to bruise him up, I just wish we had, like, a hose or something. You know, we could blast the truth out of him. Right?

Charlie: That'd be good...

Setting aside the episode insisting a lot about ancient authentic irish traditions and other parallels I don't have time to get into, this ALL reminds me of course of the plan from the castle about the irish doctor in S15, you know, pour scalding liquid from the murder hole (a predecessor to the glory hole!) and char him.

Dennis: Yeah, so you'll lure him under the hole, where I will, uh, douse him with boiling oil or hot tar or really any scalding substance.

Frank: Wait, you're gonna char the guy? Gonna char him up?

Dennis: Yeah. I'm not gonna kill him or anything, but it's got to be hot enough to be annoying as shit, right? You know what I mean?

Frank: Yeah. Burn him.

Dennis: Uh, he's gonna get burned. But, I mean, Charlie's got to see him lose his cool, so we can expose him as the child-abandoning monster that he really is.

In s15 later, Dennis talks about that incident as "taking care of him". We all giggled at the gay implication of that, but the thing is, Mac is a Serial Killer and Dennis Looks Like a Registered Sex Offender both play with that duality of meaning, as well.

Dee: Could you come take care of me?

Charlie: I'll allow it.

Mac: Uh, yeah. Yeah, I can take care of you.

Dennis: What were you planning on doing to Sandy?

Mac: What do you think, dude?

Dennis: Well, according to this phone transcript, Mac... you were going to "take care of her"?

Mac: Yeah. Take care of her.

Mac: He told me these are people from his past, and he's got to take care of them. And once he takes care of them, he's gonna take care of me.

And it really is like that sick extended metaphor where on one side we have Mac and Dennis, on the other we have death. Same as Dennis' Double Life. You know, "give me dong or give me death". That you can either love someone, or kill them. It reflect the concept of the trap, I think.

But speaking of which...

Frank: Stay away from my bang maid.

Charlie: Damn it, Frank! This isn't about them... Charlie... or Mac or anyone else... this is about you and me, bro. This is about dudes living together, hanging out, sharing their bed and their life...

Mac: No. That's not what this is about! This is about people meeting back up after many years and sparks flying... and families getting back together and raising little boys so they can be happy again!

Much like Clip Show, that same duality. On one side living with Mac (dudes living together, plus Charlie and Frank are often a parallel for Mac and Dennis), on the other, raising Brian Jr (families getting together and raising little boys).

Charlie: Shut up, Frank. You don't know what she wants any more than she knows what you want. You know who knows what you want? I do. I've always known what you want. And I can give you want you want. Just let me give you what you want.

I don't like jumping into specific event predictions because I always get them wrong, and I don't find any fun in that. And while the trap and rats meta is real, I may be completely off with it here. I just like drawing connections.

But speaking of traps and ruses, here's another bit of dialogue that comes to me, in times of need.

Charlie: I see you all fell for my ruse.

Dee: What ruse? You asking us to go on a hike with your dad, and us saying "yes"?

Charlie: Oldest trick in the book.

Dennis: Asking someone to do something?

Charlie: Exactly.

Dee: And then, them doing it?

Charlie: Precisely, yes.

I think traps usually are something you hatch to uncover a ruse.

That's why in all of these examples, the goal of capturing someone is to draw a confession out of them. But they don't work that way, because what the capturer and the captured hold as truth doesn't align. Mac is a serial killer, they expect him to confess to serial killing, but he was just dating Carmen. Catches a leprechaun, they expect him to admit that he is, but he really isn't. Even in Worst Bar in Philly, another ep where they kidnap a guy, they are trying to extort a fake review from the journalist.

So if the trap succeeds, it'll have a different result than intended by who hatched it, and uncover a truth that wasn't the expected one. Just based on statistics, I guess...

If the intended goal is really to hatch a plan to humiliate Dennis, char him or whatever, then what it may actually do is break his cold, calculated shell. But I don't know...

Frank, I am thinking on the physical level, the metaphysical level, the pataphysical level.

So we've all talked about meta and that's fun, but let's talk pataphysical too since Flowers for Charlie mentions it.

That's difficult, as there are over one hundred definitions of pataphysics according to wikipedia.

A few are:

"Pataphysics will examine the laws governing exceptions, and will explain the universe supplementary to this one"

"Pataphysics is patient; 'Pataphysics is benign; 'Pataphysics envies nothing, is never distracted, never puffed up, it has neither aspirations nor seeks not its own, it is even-tempered, and thinks not evil; it mocks not iniquity: It is enraptured with scientific truth; it supports everything, believes everything, has faith in everything, and upholds everything that is."

"Pataphysics "the science of the particular" does not, therefore, study the rules governing the general recurrence of a periodic incident (the expected case) so much as study the games governing the special occurrence of a sporadic accident (the excepted case). Jarry performs humorously on behalf of literature what Nietzsche performs seriously on behalf of philosophy. Both thinkers in effect attempt to dream up a "gay science" whose joie de vivre thrives wherever the tyranny of truth has increased our esteem for the lie and wherever the tyranny of reason has increased our esteem for the mad."

"Pataphysics is science, albeit one with an aesthetic sensibility; it regards “humor” and “the serious” with the same imperturbable gaze. "

"Pataphysics is simply an awareness that everything, including our very selves - is what we pretend it to be."

In other words, truth is not what's actually real, what we do or our past, truth is what we believe it is. Much like identity.

One more.

"You have seen that far from regretting the past I would simply suggest that we improve it…’Pataphysics will always be plunging ahead, precisely because it is static in time, and because time, itself, is retrograde by definition."

So if one is dissatisfied with their past, they can simply change it... by going there. This concept is played around plenty in Clip Show, but I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about Dee Day.

That is the episode where we take off Dennis' make up, but there's something else too.

This is where Dee talks about wanting to do a "retrospective" of her characters.

And the plan to make the ordinance pass, includes the gang stealing the councilwoman keys and setting her clocks back so she would miss the vote.

And look, we do have one flashback promised to us, in the bowling episode if I recall correctly.

"But is there any other canonical way of viewing the future (whether one calls oneself serious, in the profane or pataphysical sense of the word), than as a bouquet of imaginary Solutions – that is, potentialities?"

I forget if I've talked about potential in sunny. The seeds, the puppies, the eggs... always about the potential of life. I think it's fascinating. Like there is an infinite branch of ways in which macdennis could happen, right? And that's the potential. And by bringing it into the text, you're effectively killing it.

But are you, really?

The first time round is a bitter pill

But the second chance is better still

And then we find new seeds to sow

To grow our love we didn't know

There's always new seeds to plant...

But I'm not done with the pataphysical. Oh no, there's more.

There's also the fact that Flowers for Charlie talks about the structure and the foundation. When asked where the foundation is, they respond "on top", but Frank corrects them, on the bottom.

I have a feeling both answers are correct, just like both of Dennis' lives are true, and here's why.

Concepts that embody pataphysical include:

Antimony: An antinomy is the mutually incompatible. It represents the duality of things, the echo or symmetry, the good and the evil at the same time.

Clinamen: A clinamen is the unpredictable swerve of atoms that poet Christian Bök calls "... the smallest possible aberration that can make the greatest possible difference". An example is Jarry's merdre, a swerve of French: merde ("shit").

Syzygy: The syzygy originally comes from astronomy and denotes the alignment of three celestial bodies in a straight line. In a pataphysical context it is the pun. It usually describes a conjunction of things, something unexpected and surprising. Serendipity is a simple chance encounter but the syzygy has a more scientific purpose.

Absolute: The absolute is the idea of a transcended reality.

Anomaly: An anomaly represents the exception. Jarry said that, "Pataphysics will examine the laws governing exceptions, and will explain the universe supplementary to this one." Bök calls it "... the repressed part of a rule which ensures that the rule does not work".

Pataphor: The pataphor is a term for an unusually extended metaphor based on Alfred Jarry's "science" of 'pataphysics'. Whereas a metaphor compares a real object or event to a seemingly unrelated subject to emphasize their similarities, the pataphor uses the newly created metaphorical similarity as a reality on which to base itself. In going beyond mere ornamentation of the original idea, the pataphor seeks to describe a new and separate world, in which an idea or aspect has taken on a life of its own.

Once again this rings true for Clip Show in general, as a concept, but I would maybe dare say this applies to macdennis regarding many associated concepts such as the trap or the crate. In particular, Macdennis as a concept has been morphing and evolving separate to the textual plots, due to heavy metaphor use.

In particular, they're always placed in the role of married couple, in multiple episodes. Break up, Suburbs, Gets Romantic, Mortgage Crisis. It doesn't just say "you are like a married couple", it shows them behaving as one. Therefore, if looked at under a pataphysical lense, that's what they are. That's the reality of it.

Of course, since this whole spiel is born from one word in a single episode from season 9, there's no telling how much it actually matters. It may be a happy coincidence. Does it really matter? (Not in pataphysics).

In a similar sense, we spoke Mac into coming out as audience, because we believed in it as our reality.

And another thing, since I'm riffing a lil bit at this point.

But since Dennis has been intentionally led to portray two separate and apparently opposing realities, the audience is equally divided on him, and as a result both realities keep appearing as true.

So in DLLARSO Mac is stealing Dennis' car and using it without him knowing. If we go with the whole "Dennis' car is his identity" which is very dear and near to me and I basically think of as true at least since Misses The Boat (and this is a s3 ep, which is why I'm saying IF), I'm wondering how this extends in season 16.

Well for starters, we see Mac behind the counter twice just in trailers. That has been, typically, Dennis' spot as the bartender. Very rarely does Mac cross behind, even less so on his own. Notably, it happens in Mac Fights Gay Marriage AND Dennis Gets Divorced (which btw, these two parter titles make it sound like they're the two that got divorced lmao, but um).

Another way in which we see him possibly take Dennis' place (or walk in his shoes! wear his skin, whatever you want to call it), is by the fact Dennis is teaching him the DENNIS system (an altered version I assume?), like passing the torch on to him (and Dee, who wants that place in the gang hierarchy as well...).

Finally, something that may not be a thing at all, but he meets Chase in S16, only Chase thinks he already met Mac. Because Dennis gave him Mac's name in Stranded. I'm expecting some name shenanigans of some kind. (perhaps Mac will use Dennis' name? I'm not banking on that, but how's he gonna explain? that is, unless someone else already did, in his pursue to make amends... well, who knows. you know what they say about assuming)

It's funny because Stranded is an episode all about how saying no brings you misfortune, while saying yes brings you luck. And money. 10.000$ of them specifically, both in Stranded and, casually, the original amount won by Mac with the scratcher.

The amount that... after all the bills, ends up being only 14$ dollars. (like the seasons?)

Stranded is also interesting on its own... Frank avoiding the main road because he doesn't want to pay the toll... Okay, that's enough. Getting off track.

So, final notes, since this is a more speculative and rambly post, and I'm under the impression the metaphors discussed (rats, traps, severed heads...) aren't complete (meaning they're gonna expand on these more in S16), I'm very much hoping everyone chimes in with their thoughts and speculations... perhaps other episodes that you think may fit this... let's throw away the oars and get into it, like, who cares if it ends up wrong, you know? I may come back to this too after the season airs to see what else there was...

#iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #s16 spoilers #always sunny #macdennis #macden #analysis #meta #RARE macdennis meta post from me... I've been burned before by being terribly wrong about something #and since then i dont do event predictions anymore. aside from ''i think macdennis is real. heres why.'' #this post makes me sound like a flat earther #and i didnt even get into the whole power bottom = lowest in the structure but highest in power. #the ultimate pataphysical duality!! #and also.... flipping things upside down which is a vibe i got and cant articulate. mostly from that one ep where they flip the pyramid #and woop it's a scheme #how could the bottom be on top? you flip it #similarly sunny right now is ''flipped'' aka we are at the LOWEST OF LOW which for us means we're near peaking #but literally thats just conjecture. like bash me with a stick idk thats just what i believe #please add input so i dont look dum. something about rat eggs found in holes like jumper. anything really #i love connecting dots i recommend it as an activity to everyone #if rcg reads this they're gonna pay for my therapy finally. i count that as a win tbh. mental health day serve #ALSO IN STRANDED DENNIS SHOWS CHARLIE A HICKEY THAT HE SAYS HE GOT AFTER GETTING UNEXPECTEDLY CAUGHT IN A RAINSTORM #lil nuggets of gay dennis that i take whenever i can #the truck driver who has a wife and kids but is secretly gay is also kinda sus. what an ep to be threading in s16 #''lex what's threading'' i invent my own terms bc im crazy but thats when an ep themes connect w a future ep themes. i also call it echoing #if u even care #will mac pay the troll toll to get into the baby boy's hole? tune in next season to find out! #if ur wondering i think the ruse is gay marriage so i do hope he says yes. idk who ''he'' is. maybe theyre both planning to propose #i once read a fic with that plot. they were trying to one up one another with the proposal. i think that person should sue rcg #ok I'll shut up now. annoyin ass

[indigovigilance]

Before the Beginning is Doctored

This is part of my "erasure theory" series. I'm incorporating a lot of work by reference about the Good Omens universe mechanic of "having never existed." If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please go here and here for those metas and then come back. TL;DR: erasing someone in Good Omens results in an imperfect removal from the past. Ready? Let's go:

The Angel Who Never Existed

Something that I've seen come up very rarely, but which I want to see start to trend more in the discussion, is Before the Beginning:

What exactly are we watching?

Is this a videocam floating in space, perfectly accurately recording past events? Is this Aziraphale's memory? Is this Crowley's memory? Is this a videocam floating in space that has been written over by reality meddling post-facto?

As of right now, we have no idea. But there are clues.

I'm going to propose that of the four possibilities I mentioned, the first one is dead out, and moreover, I believe that we will get that accurate, first-take version in S3.

Why do I think that?

It's just a little too conspicuous that Angel!Crowley doesn't introduce himself. Sure, it can be taken as a nod to his pre-fall personality, so incredibly focused on his work that he can't even be bothered to introduce himself. It can also be taken as a plot device, to avoid revealing his name, so that it's a big reveal in S3.

But what if he doesn't introduce himself because... he doesn't have a a name? Or at least, he doesn't anymore?

The way Beelzebub describes the Book of Life...

...suggests that one way of punishing an entity for transgressions against Heaven is to make it so they never have existed. We know that Crowley took a swan dive into a boiling pool of sulfur. It's not a stretch to think that his former identity was erased at the same time.

Which is to say, Angel!Crowley doesn't introduce himself in this flashback because whenever it is we are flashing back from, that entity no longer exists, and never did. The echoes, the smudges on the page, fragments of memories, those still exist, but not the angel's name. Not their identity.

So what else gets erased when an entity no longer exists?

The Pillars of Creation

I can't find it now, but I know that someone else pointed this out (if it was you, please drop the link to your meta in the comments, I will incorporate the reference):

The nebula featured in the S2E1 opening scene is called The Pillars of Creation.

But the Pillars of Creation are pure nostalgia. They don’t exist, but they did exist, because the phenomenon is so far away that the light collected by the James Webb was emitted 6,500 years ago. We see it now, in the present, and NASA hopes it will serve the future, but it is only a vestige of space’s past.

The research that went into choosing this specific nebula and incorporating it into Good Omens is... well, astronomical. In Good Omens, "the universe" was created about 6,000 years ago. Angel!Crowley was working on this nebula Before the Beginning. His star factory was made to run for millions of years; the engine wouldn't have warmed up by now. But the Pillars are gone. They were erased from existence, just like their creator.

#good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #angel!crowley #pillars of creation #book of life #erasure theory #ivoc

[rwbyrg]

HELLO

This is a page for all things Rosegarden (aka Ruby/Oscar from RWBY)! I originally ran this account over on twitter, but I don't like that website anymore, so we're gonna try it here instead.

You'll find metas, fan art reblogs and other general posts about the ship. I'll also make my own analyses, starting with a series of posts with all the reasons why RG is most likely to be canon (or at least why we like to say it is).

I do my best to avoid discourse and will rarely if ever talk about rival ships on this platform, as such I'd appreciate if others do the same and don't bring those conversations here. RG antis will be blocked on sight! That's all for now, happy shipping!

#rwby #ruby rose #oscar pine #rosegarden #rwby rosegarden

[miyamiwu]

Reblogging is a form of self-expression

I’ve seen a lot of posts about how people aren’t reblogging much art anymore, with the authors encouraging people to reblog coz it helps support artists. But the thing about most of these posts is that they don’t really talk about how the likes-reblog gap isn’t just widening for art posts. It applies to other types of posts as well—be it short or long text posts, some edit you made, photos, etc.

I don’t have that much followers, but some of my posts have reached over 1k notes. (And some rare popular ones have reached 5-6 digits). I write a lot of metas both here and on one of my side blogs. I also make gifs occasionally, and I have lots of original posts in general too.

But in all of my posts, there are always more likes than reblogs, and the gap is often wide.

When I look through some of the blogs in the notes, several of them are empty but with their Likes visible. And if they’re not empty, then all their posts are just their own. No reblogs at all...

Many of those Likes vs Reblogs posts talk about how reblogging helps the original poster but make little to no explanation on how reblogging serves the reblogger. And I guess that’s why the likes-reblogs gap continues to widen. People are framing reblogs as free advertising for the OP when we should be framing reblogs for what it primarily is—a form of self-expression.

When you reblog something, it’s like saying...

You’re so excited about the post that you want others to see it

You agree with the idea/opinion being expressed in the post (opinions, discourse, analysis, etc.)

You care about the things said in the post (like sharing pro-Palestine posts)

You identify with the community being represented in the post (like being part of a certain fandom)

You find the post funny and want to save it (like how you’d save memes to your phone)

You think the post is cute and want to squish it (cat photos, animal videos, kawaii stuff, etc.)

Or you just think the post is going to be a popular one so you’re “investing” early

etc.

You can even expand these ways of expression by adding your own commentary through tags or reblogs. You can’t do that with just liking.

Actually, you don’t even need to have a clear reason for reblogging something. Posts can simply be like stickers or stamps, which you collect to put on your scrapbook (your blog). Years later, you can then go through your archive and look back on how you were before at certain times in your life.

[To those who don’t know: Yes, we have an archive. It’s at username.tumblr.com/archive. You can filter posts by post type and by month/year of posting. Only posts/reblogs show up in the archive. Likes are not included.]

Moreover, reblogging is how you gain friends. Mutuals, after all, are two people who follow each other, and well, for someone to follow you, you must have something on your blog that they’d want to see more of. If you only like posts, then what’s there to see?

Original posts are nice, of course, but when I see a blog where all posts are just their own, I’m immediately given the impression that it’s being run by a brand. And it may be that the blog really is trying to maintain its Brand image—such is the case for side blogs dedicated to a certain topic (like poll tournaments or art-only blogs). But even then, people will expect you to have a Main blog or another side blog where you do reblog stuff.

It’s kind of how we know you’re human. And it’s also how we know that you’re open to actually engaging with others on this site.

A blog that’s empty or contains nothing but their own posts sends out the message that you’re not interested in or just don’t care about what other people are saying.

#tumblr #likes vs reblogs #reblogging #tumblr reblogs #tumblr meta #miyamiwu.info #miyamiwu.src #not fandom #reblogs

[erose-this-name]

Primer On Stylistic Elements Of Internet Speak (Zoomerese) (from what I've learned by being terminally online)

This is just text, like, normal fucking text. nothing special about this.

Because base English 🥱 only has support for shouting :O (!) questions🤨(?) and statements ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (.), and we wanted to add new registers of voice :P, (and keyboards limit the ability to add new symbols) :-( a lot of new features to the language have to be made out of other symbols or be made of stylistic elements instead of a dedicated symbol. And since there's no dedicated authority to teach people new abstract symbols, they had to be faces so they could be intuitive. ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ♡

This isn't sARcaSTIc at all, I mean come on, why would anyone EVER want to indicate SARCASM by OVEREXAGGERATING to compensate for """"English not having a sarcasm punctuation mark""""? Like, c'mon, it's not like "/s" or ".~" can also be used AS a sarcmark.~

Oh, yeah? "RanDOM CaPS mAKeS IT sOunD LIkE mOCkiNG" that's what you sound like.

This is TOTALLY post-irony OR meta-irony, where you just, like, SAY what you actually mean but IN A SARCASTIC WAY??? Uh, what is this, some kinda "gen z exclusive" comedy/slang feature?? Like, wow, I guess you would need to do that to "create some distance" between you and your beliefs by giving you the ability to say you were "JuST KiDDinG", or as a "joke" because ""zoomers"" are so oversaturated with content that normal single level sarcasm doesn't work anymore and they need to layer that shit up two or three times, or some bullshit like that.

I'm finna splain txt messg shorthand, aka sms language. its like faster 2 type & kinda gives u a valley grl vibe. itz actually a bit harder 2 learn than the rest of these and I'm not gud at it. kthnx

This. Is. Putting. A. Period. On. Every. Fucking. Word. This. Shit. Makes. It. Sound. Like. You. Motherfucker. Are. Very. FUCKING. Angry. And. Authoritative. (this prosody is also a new [and relatively rare] feature in spoken English as well.)

UwU, what's this? Nya, thiws iws uwu/owo voice! (UwU)! Iwt iws meant towo sowund wike a baby voice, vewy cute (hazawdouswy cute) (UwU!), awnd iws used excwusivewy by fuwwies awnd femboys awnd fuwwy femboys uwu awnd anyaone who uses iwt "iwonyacawwy" iws secwetewy owne nya of those pwobabwy uwu. use at youw own peril (you will wose bwaincewws awnd become gay) nya! RAWR XD

Dis ar teh LOLCAT, it be VRY OUTDATD MEME, but sum bits ov dis style ov brokd grammar an spellin' still appears on teh interwebs in TINY DOSES 2 mak it seem cutr an dumbr or leik a cat 4 ironic purposez, LIEK ONCE OR TWICE PER POST!!!1!1 DO NOT OVAR USE IT LIEK IM U WILL DYE!!!1!1!

uh all lowercase and without punctuation makes it seem childish/lazy which can be used for irony if what youre saying is actually very important or authoritative but you dont wanna sound that way because you are depressed or just wanna feel cute or maybe some other reason idk im just a boy

Exclamation marks (!) indicate excitement and energy! My Dad (ex-typographer) whose really really cool says that exclamation marks (!) mean you're SHOUTING and not to use them!!! And he's really cool, but that's not right anymore because SHOUTING IS INDICATED BY ALL UPPERCASE!!!!!

AAAA WHY ARE WE SHOUTING!?

fUCK CAPS LOCK IS ON THIS LOOKS LIKE AN OBVIOUS MISTAKE/UNINTENTIONAL SHOUTING FUNNY JOKE.

This is Capitalizing The First Letter In Every Word, which is done on Tumblr Dot Com but not much elsewhere. It brings to mind how Titles and Headlines also sometimes Capitalizing The First Letter In Every Word, and gives your post an aura of Authority and to Nounify Something.

Most other parts of the internet™®© do this where they spam copyright and trademark symbols®©™®©© to achieve the same effect as capitalizing the first letter in every word©©™.

>be me >go on 4Chan.org >dies immediately.exe >looks into posts >discovers entirely unique and interesting writing style called greentext >ask why its called that >Get called a "newf*g, desu" >it's mostly used by incels to gaslight fa/tg/uys and /b/***** (they wouldn't censor that) into reading stories they made up about themselves where they become a sex haver >literally no one believes that any greentext has ever actually happened >find incest greentext >ew.wav >read it anyways because ******** (utter self-loathing is important for authentic greentext) >it's just the plot of Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back >mfw

I learned 4Channerish so you don't have to. Seriously, don't.

(If I've missed anything please reblog to expand our VALUABLE COLLECTIVE EDUTRAINING ABILITIES)

#writing #writeblr #spilled thoughts #cursed #linguistics #anyways i think a lot of this will eventually be adopted into standard english style guides and be considered proper grammar eventually may #also oh I don't know GEN ALPHA will make their own STYLE BS and we ANCIENT VENERABLE ZILLENIALS will be crotchety and confused about it

[admirableadmiranda]

Hello! I love your metas and fanfics very much!

Since you have a vast knowledge about the text, I have a question: Do you think there's a possibility that WWX knew/suspected that JC distracted the Wens for him all along?

I personally think it's a possibility bc WWX is very smart, and didn't he said something along the lines of 'how come he didn't see JC on the way back to Lotus Pier when he's the one running as fast as he can' ? Though it's also possible for WWX to think that JC went back but got careless halfway through, so he was caught and got a faster ride back. What do you think?

This concept is something I saw on a Chinese "characters watching the series" fanfic a while ago, but the more I thought about it, the more I like it bc it would be such a hard slap to JC's ego and it's very funny. Imagine for some reason JC's actions are revealed post-canon and everyone thought that WWX will feel shocked or something, but in reality WWX isn't even surprised lmao. Still, whether or not WWX knew about it won't affect his decision to transfer his core to JC anyway.

You can ignore this if you want.

Hello anon! Thank you very much for the kind compliment.

As to your question, I certainly think it’s possible that Wei Wuxian could have come to that conclusion later on; although in the moment I think he’s less focused on why Jiang Cheng left and more finding him as quickly as possible before something bad occurs.

I personally think that in the end, Wei Wuxian chose not to dwell on why Jiang Cheng left, for all he knew Jiang Cheng got ambushed by soldiers when he wasn’t looking, or saw them coming and went looking for a new place to hide before getting caught, or possibly decided to try and lure them off, or even was so caught up in his anger and grief that right after Wei Wuxian left, he got up on his own to go try and kill any Wens he could with his bare hands.

Wei Wuxian rarely tries to guess at other people’s internal lives once the moment has passed. He may offer some theories or possibilities, but he doesn’t really linger in what drove the choices. They have been made now and he has to live in the world that comes after the choices. Regardless of what Jiang Cheng’s intent was, the end result is he got captured, his core crushed and Wei Wuxian gave up his own core so that Jiang Cheng could live and cultivate again, knowing that he could survive what Jiang Cheng could not.

He may have wondered and even come to the correct conclusion, but in the end it doesn’t change the outcome, and it doesn’t really change that Jiang Cheng continues to treat him worse and worse over time. As he himself says in the book, “let the self judge right and wrong. Let gains and losses go uncommented on.” Jiang Cheng made a sacrifice for him, yes, but so did Wei Wuxian. And if their mutual responses were to never say anything, but in their actions acknowledge that these choices were made and their care for the person involved shown, then MDZS would be a much happier book.

The point of the core sacrifice on Jiang Cheng’s side isn’t really to redeem him or prove that he was the one who lost the most of the two of them, it’s just to show how dramatically he’s changed between seventeen and thirty five. Once he cared enough about Wei Wuxian to do something risky and distract the Wens so he wouldn’t be caught. The Jiang Cheng of the present day certainly wouldn’t do that, the Jiang Cheng of the past was offered that chance again when Wei Wuxian went to protect the Wen Remnants and flatly turned it down. He made a choice once that put Wei Wuxian first and refused to make it again after that. For him Wei Wuxian was not worth the possible prices of anything, but he always held that lost golden core close in his heart as a reason why Wei Wuxian should stay by his side and not inconvenience him anymore. Wei Wuxian owes him the loss of his golden core (never mind that Wei Wuxian got him a new, stronger one and Jiang Cheng knows this even before he knows it was Wei Wuxian’s core) and he won’t forget that nor accept the returning of the debt and that is the first and most fracturing death of their relationship, is the part where Jiang Cheng is returned that which he lost and more…and doesn’t let go of the initial loss and continues to hold a grudge about it.

That’s why he never says anything at the end, cause there’s no point. Wei Wuxian wouldn’t hear it as an “I loved you” and Jiang Cheng couldn’t say it to him that way any more. There is too much bad behind them, Jiang Cheng has done too many cruel things and he knows this. That’s why it’s a good ending for him that their relationship finally ends and that last little secret dies with it. All it does is necrotize a dead relationship and hurt both of them again. Whether or not Wei Wuxian could guess on Jiang Cheng’s thought process, how does that make up for everything that followed? What difference does it really make?

The problem with people wanting Wei Wuxian to know about this sacrifice is it still doesn’t change anything that came later. If Wei Wuxian knows that Jiang Cheng deliberately distracted the guards to save him, then he still would secretly give him his golden core under the illusion of a gift from an immortal, he’d still get thrown into the burial mounds and invent his Guidao, Jiang Cheng would still get bitter and angry about Wei Wuxian surpassing him in cultivation and power levels and would still refuse to help him with the Wens or stand with him in any way. The only real difference it would make is that Wei Wuxian would have more ways to be disappointed in Jiang Cheng because he has a more concrete point of Jiang Cheng actively getting worse and following in his mother’s footsteps.

If it were meant to make a difference to Jiang Cheng, then we would have seen it in story. There is a point as a teenager where he could change, he could put in the work and grow as a decent person. But he doesn’t. Instead of letting that debt go as with a new golden core, nothing more is owed, he keeps holding onto it and demanding that Wei Wuxian do more and more to pay it, a debt that Wei Wuxian has fulfilled. You can’t do that if you want people to like and trust you. You can’t exponentially increase interest on a paid debt to make up for everything that you do. You can’t ignore your half of the give and take of the world. You can’t only take and never give.

It might be pretty funny if that got revealed and Wei Wuxian’s response was to ignore it. Given the way the book ends I don’t think it would come from Jiang Cheng, but maybe if it were a jc stan who went into post canon to yell at WWX for being “so mean to his brother” and reveal that tidbit, WWX would just ignore her and move on with his life because it still doesn’t change anything else. But I do really like the way it ended where Jiang Cheng just lets it and Wei Wuxian go because he makes the second loving choice to Wei Wuxian on the page in his life and stops holding onto that which he cannot keep.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #canon jiang cheng #asks #anon #anon asks #sorry anon I got really rambly #apparently I have a lot of feelings on this topic

[yurissweettooth]

Tired of every single day seeing 29583995 posts about how you are supposed to engage in fandom and how everyone who engages differently is wrong and bad and not allowed to do this and that.

Literally do not understand why people are so pressed about what other people are doing for fun.

Do I find the way people interpret/misinterpret some characters to be annoying and baffling at times? Yes! I think everyone does. But that doesn't mean the person who is over there having a fun time not hurting anyone is at fault for it. You can block them and move on and say nothing.

This was inspired by a screenshot of someone saying something to the tune of "normalize mischaracterizing your comfort characters. I dont care whether or not they would canonically do something." And someone retweeted (to a seemingly large audience) telling them that they must not actually like the character. Which feels pretty mean-spirited to an innocuous post about how someone chooses to engage with something that comforts them.

And I honestly think the original person had a point. Normalizing it does not mean YOU have to do it or YOU have to like people's interpretations, it means that people will be allowed to engage in harmless fun without everyone getting up and arms and making assumptions about them or QRTing their post to thousands of people calling them a fake fan.

Everyone has a different idea of what fun and comfort is and for some people that's making wacky AUs or exaggerating traits and playing dollhouse and for others that meticulously researching and nailing down every canon detail in their works. Some people like tiktok and incorrect quote edits and some like meta and deepdives into and it's all okay and fine!

Someone doesn't HAVE to make an OC. If they want their quick fix of comfort and catharsis by just tacking traits on to a pre-made character that they don't have to expend extra energy on then who cares?

Also lots of neurodivergent people (like myself) and kids get caught in the crossfire as well, but really I think EVERYONE should have the right to do what they want. This feels like another extension if cringe culture which should be dead an buried by now.

And I say all this as a person who PREFERS to engage in fandom in a canon-compliant, lore-friendly way and yet has also been the victim of this.

I have had bad/mean fandom experiences over presenting evidenced, well-sourced, and canon compliant material that just happens to contradict popular fanon. I have also received backlash for putting a character through 10+ years of canon-compliant, well researched, and carefully constructed character development which led them to do things differently in the future than they did in canon.

But I don't always feel like giving a 20+ paragraph disclaimer on every single doodle, edit, or short fic to prove to you exactly how they got here and why it's canon compliant (although I unfortunately DO tend to do this to avoid repeats of past hate :/) because it really shouldn't matter. Blocking me outright or blocking my tags should suffice.

I will never understand this mentality of "Only I do things correctly, everyone else is wrong and bad and ruining everything and I have to shame people doing harmless things so everyone sees how right I am" and I feel like I've been seeing it more and more every day lately and it's frustrating. This is a big part of why I left twitter but it's getting popular here too now.

This is honestly a big part of why I don't post the majority of my fanart and fics anymore. I no longer post meta or silly edits, I no longer reach out to people to discuss ideas, I rarely share my thoughts on any characters publicly, etc.

I live a very stressful life and I engage in fandom to relax and have fun but that has been very difficult for me due to people who always feel the need to be hateful over innocuous things. I feel more and more like I need to walk on eggshells so I do not accidentally incite another ✨️incident✨️ because I dared to post a silly headcanon or edit. And that sort of hate and "umm, actually..." response STILL happens to me, even in recent days because god forbid I post an AU I enjoyed and wished to share with people who might also enjoy it!! It's so frustrating.

And this, of course, is NOT referring to people who try to force/shame others into their interpretations (regardless of if they are compliant or not). This is also NOT about bigoted material. Turning characters into harmful stereotypes (making a black woman who is not sassy sassy, for example), using them to spread hateful messages, and erasing their identities/whitewashed their designs. That is a separate issue. But someone making a character you like say something they wouldn't say in canon? Making them act a little silly? Ignoring parts of canon to make an idea they have work? It's not hurting anyone!!!

#jun rambles #fandom critical #rant #i do not normally post personal stuff but ive seen like 6 posts today on the back of me getting a dumb anon #on my side blog AGAIN and I am just... tired..

[dyonoi]

I'm not sure if you even look at this blog anymore, but I just wanted to say I MISS YOU!! I still look through your old meta posts and art every few months and while I know you prob won't come back to the fandom, a part of me still hopes it! I guess I was curious to know how you're doing, and whether you've gotten into any other fandoms and ships? You were really fun and if there's something else you're into and writing for I would love to follow you into it!! <3

god this feels like the worst anime timeskip episode. hey there, its been a while. surprised theres people still around who remember. in the past 4??? years i guess ive done some shit, yeah. cliffnotes: finally closed the long distance and moved in with my SO, became a stoner, found the perfect physical art medium for me and have been busy becoming IG famous 💅 and actually making a living off it, and most importantly i have a cat now. he's a manx cat with a little bunny tail and he is so unlike any other cat ive interacted with. he has absolutely no style, no grace. he constantly trips over nothing. cannot jump higher than 2 feet, will gently catch bugs and then lets them fly away, is literally incapable of feeling anger (the sole exception is if you blow air on his feet. this makes him so angry so fast for whatever reason and its hilarious to witness) ive only heard him hiss twice in the past 4 years. anyway things could always be better but lifes pretty good.

as for other media ive gotten into? uh, the truth is i have a VERY muted relationship with media at this point. i dont run any secret fandom blogs. to be honest, i probably will never allow myself to become even nearly as entangled with a fandom ever again as much as i did with homestuck. for all the fun i had, i was WAY too active in it to the point where it was frankly unhealthy and being candid, it played a big role in me stagnating as a human being for a good year or two. the amount of opinionated bullshit i was spewing 24/7 for years predictably made me a target for people who disagreed and wanted to bring me down a peg, warranted or not, and as thick skinned as i am it did eventually start stressing me out and making me act like a loon. thankfully most of this was in private but it still happened, if you know you know. ive alluded to the reason why i got like that, but putting that much energy and faith into a single author to the extent i did is a recipe for ruin on multiple fronts.

hs was a painful lesson in that most shit just…sucks, and even if something starts out great, the chances that the author will stop giving a shit, fuck it up for the ending or even just straight up die is decently high lol and its something you should always have in the back of your mind. (guess which dumbass started reading berserk in late 2020) this was made way worse by hussie just… being an unrepentant fucking asshole. in hindsight this wasnt a shocking reveal but the hopium that theyd make it right in the end was too strong for all of us. i could have forgiven them losing interest as an artist due to general life hardships, but in the end they ditched it after pissing on it and then setting it on fire. so much of hs's success was on the back of fan media and when your finale in return is to salt the earth to the point where no one gives a fuck about it anymore, even the people who liked the tail end petered out pretty quickly too on that. just….eugh. i have permanent media trust issues.

even in the rare instances where something good ends up canon, even if the premise and buildup is great, the fandom surrounding it will pontificate a combined million hours and 9 times out of 10 will write them better than the author ever will. its sad in a way, but its the truth.

i still think davekat is great, once in a while ill look over my folder of it and my art and smile like an old lady looking over a dusty family photo album. the dynamic is rock solid, and if you agree my advice is to steal them. just steal them. call them doug and kevin and export them into your original story. they deserved better, and you will probably do a better job anyway.

media i AM interacting with (lightly) is one piece again. NONE of you bitches that read the entirety of homestuck have any room to complain about how long it is. i have a lot of problems with it (read: sanji) but in general its pretty fun and enough to sink your teeth into. sidenote i have been shipping luffy/zoro since two thousand fucking six and its a testament to my unending great taste that it was and still is an excellent ship. though i have a curse of somehow always ending up in fandom c-tier ships in terms of popularity like that LOL i got memed into watching bnha (DONT LAUGH) and my ship of choice, todobaku? an absolutely hilarious dynamic and a total banger. but yet another c-tier. after being spoiled with davekat content domination for years this sucks haha

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

hot take, most of if not all fictional characters can exist in the dc universe (comics version) with like zero problems.

if you tried with the marvel universe it’d just not work, idk why it just doesn’t work.

like I break up the dc universe into 4 parts.

YE OLDEN DAYS

which is anything from prehistoric to end of WW1

No meta’s it’s just normal people

which is like 1910s-2010

in where meta’s (or just people with powers, aliens, magic users whatever) were unheard of, rare, or hidden. But still existed and just weren’t out of hiding yet.

Oh fuck there’s so many meta’s oh shit

Post everyone finding out that aliens and magic and supernatural people exist, and everyone is just “oh, yeah in my home town there’s this guy. He’s super fast and catches bad guys” and just everywhere.

it’s not acceptable to be a meta human but like they exist and live their lives.

THE FUTURE..

in which it is simlatanously amazing and so horrible that time immigrants are a thing, meta’s are accepted and life without them is a distant memory.

also because of the DC universes fast and loose multiverse laws, (WTF even is cannon anymore) people from slightly different or vastly different universes can very easily travel between each other’s worlds.

so with these era’s and parts you can basically fit any media into the dc universe and it’d make sense.

could Hannibal exist in the dc universe? TOTALLY 👍

could shezow? YES 🙌

Rick and Morty? Penguins of Madagascar? whatever!

the universe is not bounded to anything, talking animals and sentient sapient creatures are a normal thing.

crimes and violence and aliens and anything all exist.

3rd wall is broken and whole, there’s paradoxes everywhere and many things can happen at once!

that has been my hot take

#Dc universe #dc characters #-pop

[fonulyn]

after all the talk about the characters and nivannedy today I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about my favorite pairing and how good they would be together 🥺💖 I just had to drive home and for the entire two hours in the car while trying to see the road in the middle of pitch black forests, I kept grinning like a fool and thinking of these two :’D so this post echoes a lot of points already mentioned but i just wanted to talk about them some more!

one reason I adore nivannedy as a pairing is that Piers and Leon have both enough similarities and enough differences that they'd complement each other so well. they’d bring out the best in each other, be able to understand each other, and I’m always here for them both getting the support they deserve after all the ways they’ve been screwed over.

so let me ramble a bit about why I think they’re a good match! (and you can blame this on @tirsynni because her meta post started it all ;D)

(this was supposed to be a quick small post but it got longer so putting it under a cut for you!)

I've talked about Leon and how despite not having lost hope, he is exhausted by everything he's been through, by the endless fight and deep-rooted corruption in who are supposedly the good guys. he's definitely struggling. and while Piers has gone through tremendous personal losses, he's not quite there yet. he hasn't been screwed over quite like Leon has, and he's had more freedom to fight for what he believes in with the BSAA than Leon with the way he's shackled to the government. (the BSAA sure isn’t perfect, but that’s a whole another can of worms)

so Piers still has a lot of the drive, the fire, the things Leon used to have so strongly (look at the passionate speech behind Kendo's in RE2Remake! forever one of my favorite Leon moments), and I believe he could revive that in Leon as well. with his mere existence, his ideals and his determination to help, he would remind Leon of what was and what is important to him! and at the same time, Leon has deep-run knowledge, he has experience and knows what battles to pick, and I feel Piers would greatly benefit from learning a thing or two (or ten, lol) from him.

they're both idealistic, they both want to save people even when it contradicts the mission at hand. Leon ignores his current goals multiple times if it means he can try to save at least someone, anyone. Piers for example tries to make Chris stop for a moment and help Sherry and Jake, when he feels it's necessary, and although he folds and does as he's told it's clear he's not happy about it. if he was the one in charge? that would've played out very differently, imo.

another similarity? they both have a strong drive to help people, but they recognize when it's too late and what needs to be done. when a person has turned and lost themselves to the infection, they're no longer there and the humane thing is to put them down. we see this multiple times. Leon does his damnest to help someone, but when they're gone, he doesn't let them suffer anymore. he rarely even hesitates, aside from the beginning of RE6 (which is absolutely heartbreaking on so many levels).

and we see the same thing with Piers for example when Marco turns into a cocoon and thus a BOW. Piers immediately goes for what he knows needs to be done, and Chris is the one who tries to stop him although they both know hope is lost. I'm not trying to say Chris's reaction is any worse! it's very very understandable, and it's very in character for him. but wherein he hesitates, Piers says "He'd do the same for us." because he knows at that point the kindest thing is to stop the suffering. and that's what Leon would do, as well, if he was there. it is ultimately what Chris recognizes as the right thing, too, but he ticks differently and I think his hesitation there speaks volumes of it. and again, neither reaction is wrong, they're just different.

and I know I've touched this in fic multiple times but Leon got infected with the plagas, Piers with the C-virus. definitely something to bond over! (because Piers obviously survives that, don't at me, he's fine, he's alive, I've elected to ignore that dumbass part of canon) it'll forever be one of my favorite things, negl.

I just. I know this is a tiny pairing in a small fandom, but I love them so much I need to let it out sometimes or I'll burst :'D

#nivannedy #piers nivans #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #me rambling about them :'D #i love them okay #so much #so let me shout that love from the figurative rooftops!

[arthoure]

I guess with twitter falling apart, the logical step is to move back to tumblr, but I struggle with what to even post! 

Twitter is kind of the LinkedIn of game dev, for casual networking and commiserating about the seven hells of the industry, so it made sense for me to be there to make my little jokes and yell about unions. It’s also more mobile-friendly, so I could post cat pics and be on my way without a fuss. And I always used Tumblr more for fandom meta stuff, which isn’t something I really do anymore because being a narrative designer kind of changes how you engage with fandom and meta -- it starts to feel like your day job instead of your fun hobby, at least in some senses, or it uses the same type of brain energy and at the end of work you’re depleted. And it’s weird to be able to see the seams of games, and have a sense of where their budgeting and schedules and tech restraints were, in a way that completely changes your idea of what “good” is or what something “accomplished” and doesn’t always line up with the ideas of other players. It’s not a good or a bad thing, just different. I read books differently now than I used to, too. (Part of this is also about growing older and developing new neural pathways. Weird shit.) It’s interesting to think about how fandom got me into game dev (literally; the first writing sample that got me hired was fe13 fanfic with the names changed -- but also very directly through the support of the friends who read my writing for years ((often making it better with our discussions)) and encouraged me to apply and etc.) and yet game dev is kind of what keeps me from being in fandom (at least deeply). 

So I kind of had two different networks -- the twitter one of friends plus game dev peers, and the tumblr one of friends plus fandom peers, the latter of whom followed me basically for meta/fanfic/the stuff I reblogged. But friends also keep in touch on discord or other messengers, so I often wonder, what do I even post for, and why? All I really want to post about is my life, but that’s not even really a safe thing to do, and also, why do I want to, besides being a little human who likes to leave her little proofs that she was here? Like, would it be interesting to anyone here to know that I work in AAA now and the fam and I are moving to Germany soon? That’s cool news for me, but I can’t say much of anything about my work (and even the things I am allowed to say are dangerous, lmao. Telling the internet who you work for and on what game title always makes you a target. Target is doubled for every underrepresented identity that you have. But that was a LITTLE different for me in my curated twitter bubble because again, it’s more like LinkedIn on the gamedev side, and I have a small audience so my info doesn’t leave my bubble; my bubble is also small on Tumblr but feels more unfamiliar after I’ve been inactive for so long.). AAA can carry a lot more weight in the industry but it really shouldn’t (what some other VOW writers said is true: God works hard, AAA devs work harder, but mobile romance devs work hardest of all) and tbh I don’t give a shit about commercial game size--I chose this company’s offer because its team was really special (severely anti-crunch, pro-labor rights, inclusive, brilliantly skilled in storytelling and technical design and other things I want to learn from them, kind and warm). But some of you might be happy to know that I’ll finally get real health insurance and sick days and vacation time and I can’t just be randomly laid off at any time (something European game devs enjoy that US devs often do not), and it’s a huge weight off my shoulders, because you might remember how I had to struggle with that for several years. Always so much to say but so much fear around saying it. Rare to find the points where you can view your life as Back Then and Right Now in such concrete terms. Is that worth documenting?

TL;DR I want to use social media for personal things and chatting with friends but The Internet at large makes it difficult to do that. I am of course far from the only one who feels this way. That’s just the update on me while I ponder what else to contribute to this blog! I do owe you some cat pics at least.

#arthoure's rambling

[milfmacbeth]

From Ur post about wasted potential in media... What r some of your fav examples of this ^__^

hi anon! 

so when i made this post i was thinking about supernatural. other stories that are still rotting my brain even though they ended years ago and i really should be over it by now include (but aren’t limited to) the magnus archives, game of thrones, naruto, and pirates of the caribbean. all of these are stories i love(d) but they either ended badly or have some massive but easily fixable flaws which is why they drive me insane. 

the short(ish) version: (disclaimer that this is only my opinion which is of course objectively correct and should be taken as gospel)

supernatural went on for too long, ended badly, and only ever scratched the surface of everything it could’ve been

the magnus archives seasons 1-4 are damn near perfect and season 5 is… there. 

game of thrones season 8. (do i even need to say anything about this one!?)

naruto suffers because of kishimoto’s misogyny and because the wrong characters die/survive

pirates of the caribbean should’ve been a trilogy and we all know elizabeth should’ve ended up a pirate 

the unreasonably long and extremely spoilery version under the cut (you have been warned)

supernatural: by tumblr standards i’m downright normal about spn but i did watch every episode at least once and i was obsessed with it as a teen so i’m not really one to talk. i’m following someone who’s just now getting into it and who has some very good takes (specifically about dean and john), and i’m being dragged back into the fandom kicking and screaming…

 ANYWAY

supernatural starts out as a monster of the week thing but then the plot thickens and you’ve got angels and demons and lucifer and the end of the fucking world and even though the later seasons have their moments, i’m a “supernatural should’ve ended with season 5” truther. 

and don’t even get me started on the winchesters. it’s like… you have a deliciously fucked up family dynamic, including codependency, incest-subtext, and two brothers who would end the world for each other. god as an absentee father-figure who will not save you. free will. characters that have witnessed history. an angel who almost stepped on the first fish crawling out of the sea, who dragged a man out of hell and fell for him in every sense of the word. the humanity of the monstrous. the inhumanity of the divine. magic. americana. mythology. empty roads and neon signs and dilapidated motels. Death who tells dean that he will reap god when the time comes. i know i’m not being particularly coherent but no one can tell me that what we actually got was the best they could do when they had ALL THIS to work with. and the fandom gets it. the fic and meta writers get it. i’ve seen so many transcendent takes by supernatural girlies whose third eye is wide fucking open. i know it’s possible. supernatural’s problem is that it was written by straight us-american men and aired on the cw. in conclusion, make it darker and grittier and let dean say fuck. 

that being said, even though it was garbage storytelling, i will never forget the wonderful night of mass hysteria that was the 5th of november, and i almost choked laughing when i saw dean get nailed by a vampire clown and sam in the shittiest wig imaginable. probably not the intended audience reaction though. (you’re better off just ignoring that 15.20 happened at all)

the magnus archives (season 5): oh boy where do i even begin? i rarely talk about this anymore because it just makes me so angry and i’m not having any fun. i like to pretend that season 5 doesn’t exist which works excellently because while the first 4 seasons are a cohesive narrative whole, season 5 feels like it’s tacked on at the end. (“do i like this story more if i just ignore the ending happened” is a very good question to ask yourself regarding the quality of a finale).

the magnus archives season 5 has several problems, some of which don’t even concern the narrative but are instead fuckery related to the story. i’ll get those out of the way first.

first of all, the fandom is the most vile cesspit of people with no media comprehension i’ve ever had the misfortune to be in. among such hits as “why is Bad Person treated with sympathy” and “why is the horror podcast about horror and not about gay shipping”, what bothers me most are the headcanons treated as law. 

i’ve personally witnessed takes like “daisy is bad representation for butch lesbians” (daisy is not canonically a lesbian or butch. the fandom made that up), and “jon is brown therefore xyz portrayal is racist” (again, jon’s skin color is never mentioned. him being brown is just the most popular HEADcanon). why am i telling you this in this already way too long post? this might be conjecture but i really believe that if the fandom wasn’t so godawful, the story could’ve been better. the creators caved to fandom pressure. this is one of the best examples of why there needs to be a boundary between audience and creator and why the fandom should have absolutely NO say whatsoever when it comes to what happens in the story.

the other thing that’s a bit meta and not in the story per se are the promises the creators made. jonny sims said two things: 

1. the story will end in tragedy: it didn’t. the ending was ambiguous and i wanted it to leave me devastated the way the s4 finale did. instead it left me indifferent and vaguely confused. 

2. there will be no romance and if there is, it’s not going to be the focus of the story: so that was a fucking lie. season 5 is nothing but jonmartin shoved into your face for 40 episodes. a lot of aros, aces and people who were there for the horror and not for the shipping were understandably disappointed

now, as for the actual story ,i’m a “jon should’ve had a corruption arc” truther. (here's a thing i did). i think it would fit with his character development since he’s been getting more monstrous with every season. elias has been manipulating jon into becoming an avatar of the Beholding and ending the world, and jon hates him for it. jon kills elias and takes his place and if they just stuck with that, with elias being destroyed by the god he created and jon ascending to be the fucked up evil king of a ruined world. fuck, it would’ve been so good. it would’ve been so delicious i’m going insane every time i think about it. this is the secret good season 5 that lives in my head.

instead they went with parallel universes, which is a concept that you probably shouldn’t introduce 3 episodes before the ending. it’s not a bad concept at all. they could’ve done it justice. but making parallel fucking universes the thing on which your finale hinges even though you’ve barely introduced them? yeah i’m gonna go ahead and call that an ass pull. it turns out that the Web has been manipulating everyone blah blah who cares the important part is this: the Web wins. the Web gets what it wants and this could’ve worked if it was framed and presented to us LIKE A TRAGEDY. it’s not. it’s presented like a bittersweet ending. the morality of the finale is extremely protagonist-centric (and by season 5 i started to hate everyone except jon). the protagonists decide to release the Fears, dooming a potentially infinite number of people to a life of horror, but fuck those guys, right? the important thing is that the protagonists are okay. i’m going to fight jonny sims in a parking lot.

one last thing. jonmartin fucking sucks. but it doesn’t have to. jon and martin don’t know each other. they’re completely incompatible. they’re together out of guilt and circumstance. they’re dysfunctional and they’re very realistically dysfunctional. i personally ship jonelias. don’t worry this is not about a shipping war, but one thing i’ve noticed is that jonelias is fucked up in an “i’ve made you a monster and then a god. i’ve used you to bring about the apocalypse” kind of way which i’m guessing not many people have personal experience with. jonmartin is fucked up in a “we’re not communicating and we’re only together because neither of us wants to be alone” way. that’s relatable. hell, that’s depressingly common. jon doesn’t love martin, he just wants to cling to his humanity. martin doesn’t love jon, he loves the idea of jon. THAT’S POTENTIAL! take that and work with it. what did they do instead? gave me a pairing of two people who absolutely should not be together, shoved it into my face for dozens of episodes, and then portrayed jealousy and miscommunication like something cute and romantic. literally what the fuck are they on.

game of thrones: *deeep sigh* ok there are about a billion 3hour video essays detailing everything wrong with season 8 but the main things for me are:

jon is a targaryen. he’s azor ahai. his is the song of ice and fire. and NONE OF THAT FUCKING MATTERS OH MY GOD  AT LEAST LET JON DO SOMETHING LITERALLY ANYTHING EXCEPT STANDING AROUND REPEATING THE SAME TWO LINES AD NAUSEAM.

daenerys descent into madness and villainy could’ve been great if it had been properly set up instead of done in a minute (this is not an exaggeration. her character goes from “slightly mentally unstable” to “war criminal putting a city of innocent people to the torch” in ONE minute. i counted.)

i read the books and euron greyjoy is so fucking cool in the books. i don’t know who the fuck that other guy is but it certainly ain’t him.

arya killing the night king and bran becoming king. i wish i could say something funny or insightful but i genuinely have no words.

naruto: it’s been a while since i watched naruto. i’ve seen plenty of male writers being shitty but i’ve never seen misogyny drag a story down quite this much. personally, i’m done making excuses for this shit. if you can’t write women, you’re a bad writer. period. 

the problem with naruto is that the women are literally just... there. doing absolutely fuck all and being generally useless. this is not even a matter of social justice, this is a matter of storytelling. even if you’re the biggest macho dudebro around you’ll have to admit that one third of your cast standing around and being incompetent doesn’t make for a very interesting story, does it now?

and then there’s the matter of madara being nerfed in favor of kaguya. yeah… that one was an ass pull.

but what bothers me most is that the wrong characters die or don’t die respectively. some examples:

hinata should’ve died (instead of “almost died”) when pain attacked konoha. it would’ve made her sacrifice more meaningful and she would’ve come back one way or another. in my opinion she should’ve stayed dead for good because her arc was mostly done by that point and she doesn’t really do much after that except cheer on naruto (see misogyny above)

when madara fought the five kage, he almost killed all of them. keyword almost. i get that tsunade is a good healer but that fight would’ve been more meaningful if someone (literally any ONE of the kage) had actually died.

gai should’ve died. listen, you can’t build up the 8th gate as this super special technique that you can do only once because it costs your life and then not have gai die. it cheapens the entire thing. what was the fucking point? 

neji should’ve LIVED. a monumental part of his character arc was realizing that he’s worth just as much as the main family and that he doesn’t have to be subservient to hinata. and then he sacrifices himself for hinata. yeah that felt like one step forward two steps back. 

in conclusion: kishimoto needs to drink his respect women juice and learn when to kill characters and when to let them live.

pirates of the caribbean: i tend to ignore that part 4 and 5 even exist. please let the franchise die i am begging.

i don’t have that many examples of wasted potential but you can’t tell me that PIRATE KING elizabeth swann would stay on land being a good housewife. fuck no.

so yeah. i’m done. thank you for asking, this was a lot of fun to answer and i hope you enjoyed Do You Love The Color Of My Incoherent Ramblings

#i think one of the biggest sources of wasted potential is telling the audience something but showing them something else #you can often guess what the narrative wants you to think #and how something is framed/presented by the narrative is just as important as what actually happens #if something fucked up happens then i want the narrative to either acknowledge it's fucked up #or (much better) stay neutral and let me make up my own mind #but don't give me something fucked up and then act like it's Good and Righteous

[oftomorrow]

1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15

questions often left unanswered ( accepting // @tnott )

1. Are there any characters in your fandom or faceclaims you refuse to RP with? Who and why? — None that are a hard no, but definitely some characters I’m more reluctant with. If I don’t care for the character, I’m not really going to pursue interactions unless someone really expresses a lot of interest. I don’t want my dislike of the character to bleed out into interactions or make a partner feel like I don’t really want to write with them. I try not to blur IC and OOC, of course, but it can happen, and if I’m not even that interested in interactions in the first place, it’s better to just not. (I don’t follow Mon-El blogs anymore for this reason.)

3. As a mun, what are three of your biggest flaws when it comes to being someone’s RP partner? — I can definitely fall into that anxiety trap of being slow to express interest, start a chat, etc. I don’t always match length, and whenever someone writes me eight beautiful introspective paragraphs and I hit back with like two I feel kinda bad. And... there should definitely be a third thing but it’s not coming to me. I swear I’m not a perfect partner lmao

6. Is there a character that the rest of your fandom adores that you just don’t like/are indifferent to? Who is the character and why? — No one’s coming to mind tbh. Several ships, but no characters.

7. List three honest flaws your favorite character has and talk about how those flaws make them problematic. — Isn’t every flaw problematic? Isn’t that the definition of problematic? Anyway I’m absolutely going to cop out here and link to my meta of Clark’s character flaws, rather than restating things. 

10. What’s something you really hate seeing on your dash that seems to be popular with almost everyone else? — I don’t really like dash commentary posts. They sort of assume that everyone is following the same people, and sometimes they feel more vaguebloggy to me than anything else? It’s hard to explain, I just don’t vibe. I just blacklist the tag and move on.

11. What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to RPing? — The purple prose-y writing style that intentionally leaves out key words to sound more ‘artistic,’ combined with aggressive overformatting. It’s like you don’t actually want people to be able to read what you’re saying!

13. Who is your least favorite character in the fandom you RP in? List three admirable traits about them. — You’re gonna make me say nice things about Mon-El? Fine. He actually was drastically improved for season three, so. He eventually figured out how to treat Kara with respect without encroaching on her boundaries. He’s generally very respectful to his wife Imra, as well. And he’s clearly a dedicated and selfless hero in the 31st century.

15. Without naming anyone, have you ever refused/simply avoided another RPer in the fandom because of things you’ve heard others say about them, or because of their popularity? If so, why did you feel the need to? — I’ll only consider blocking someone over something like that if there’s a reliable callout with credible evidence proving that they’re genuinely abusive (this is pretty rare tbh, most callouts I see are over petty nonsense) or if I hear it firsthand from a friend that I trust. I’ve seen too many people get called out / cancelled / whatever over basically nothing to trust general rumors.

#tnott #( answered )

[zorilleerrant]

the idea of people not knowing Jason killed people in canon is so funny, but not at all out of place if you think about it. I mean, look at every other character out there - Tim most of all - and how often people talk about that character killing people. I mean, take Bruce, the one built on never killing anyone.

panels - easy to find panels where Bruce is hurting people to the point where they would definitely die in real life. easy to find him walking right up to the edge of killing someone, or accidentally almost killing someone. Jason, on the other hand, is not usually in the same panel with his victims, and out of context it could be ambiguous. clear instances are often accidents or he turned out not to have killed them, anyway.

gifsets - Jason is rarely on TV, and has only been live action once, where he actually didn't do a lot of murder, it wasn't his fault, and it was at a distance. in that same show, Bruce breaks into Arkham to brutally murder a fully incapacitated Joker, a gifset people love to make. Bruce also canonically killed the Joker on Gotham Knights, and implicitly killed a lot more people than that. with animated clips, people enjoy putting dissonant dialogue against them. and they mostly like to gif Jason dying rather than killing.

incorrect quotes - people like to make all the Batfam talk about killing people, but Bruce most of all. Jason usually talks about books or cooking; if he's talking about killing people, they all are. Alfred is usually the one they're playing off of, and people probably think Alfred killed way more people canonically than he did. but most incorrect quotes are generated from sitcom dialogue, where discussions of murder are jokes or exaggerations.

correct quotes - right, but no one can tell which quotes are and aren't from the actual media. even if they could, a lot of Batman quotes talk about how he would like to kill or wants to kill people, but a lot of Red Hood quotes talk about how he's upset about killing people or doesn't want to kill people (anymore). both of those are sort of a boring flavor of quote anyway, and people usually like to quote characters using bizarre turns of phrase.

fic and art - people like to draw and write Bruce killing people all the time, especially the Joker, and they like to draw and write Jason mostly being tortured or doing happy fluffy things. often, the characters will kill Bad Guys as a family. or no mention of the moral debate is made at all. or no violence is mentioned at all.

headcanons and meta - do you know how many post I alone have about Bruce killing people, why he would, what it would be like for him, what he chooses to do about that. crack concepts about him loving murder, or being a serial killer. people do this all the time it's an unending source of satirical potential. whereas saying that about Jason, digging down into why he does what he does - it's very polarizing and so less fun to play with the meta on it. but neither of them look particularly different from the outside.

this is not even mentioning the fact that many people think Jason uses nonlethal weapons. (which he often canonically does, except they chose rubber bullets, which are pretty damn likely to kill people. even beanbag guns kill people, and regularly break bones. I think it was an irresponsible choice of weapon to give him.) so people assume panels of Jason shooting people are with tranqs or paintballs or anything like that. any particularly notable/beautiful art of him is usually hand to hand combat (this is the real reason people don't like guns in visual media) and that would be what people are most used to. you could easily make a full post of gifs, panels, quotes, and links to fanworks where Bruce and Jason are juxtaposed as the brutal murderer and the gentle, philosophical one.

#look i said something #it's just odd to think about really. but it's the thing of fan work is more likely to contain what the canon is missing than what it has #I mean imagine how boring it would be if everyone just rewrote the stories we already have exactly the same way again tho

[terrasolstice]

Dp/dc au first hero

I apologize ahead of time I don’t know how to shorten/hide the post if someone can tell me how it would be much appreciated I also suck at writing

Danny is the first hero of earth , having many time travelling adventures he’s known throughout the world hundreds of years before Wonder Woman showed up

Back then he was vaguely known and not many people knew of his name or origins.many farytale heroes were based of off him. he started 20 years before Batman even lost his parents he stopped aging after he turned 18 and disappeared three years after .he had become the king of the GZ (causing the ghosts to step back and stop harming humans)and wasn’t needed anymore so he stuck to ruling his people and rarely left the GZ, and when he did he was in human form .many people thought he was a myth or a fairytale until one day the yj team pick up a strange boy from Cadmus that’s been in a frozen stasis for a few years at least

No one knows who he is

He was found in human form so no one made any connections

They though he was either the first meta Cadmus caught (do to the very little info Cadmus had in him ) or a clone that Cadmus created although no one new who he was cloned off of

Cadmus had him for 2-3 years but they could never wake him up and the clones all failed

Ellie took over the gz after his disappearance and become the princess

She never took the crown in hopes that Danny was still alive and that he’d be found one day

Danny mixes in a little to well with the heroes and robin (dick) is a little sus

There’s no sign of the meta gene but they swear they’ve seen him freeze his cup once

He doesn’t realize how much of an impact he made in the hero community until one day ms m asks about the first hero and all the earth born heroes gush about him .sharing stories of his adventures that they aspire from

He gets extremely flushed

Everyone’s confused why

He flees

If Batman found out first

Batman would instantly treat Danny with out most respect and call him sir

His parents told him bedtime stories of his adventures

He grew up idolizing Danny

Everyone would be confused as to why the cold and rude Batman was very respectful and slightly shy of a random 18 yr old they rescued last month

If Wonder Woman found out first

Her instant reaction would to bow and apologize profoundly for her rudeness and the actions of the rest of the team

He’s the king of the dead and is considered one of the many gods

She’s herd the many tales of his victories threw out her time in mans world she’s .extremely shocked to find out he’s basically an immortal teen that is only considered in his 50s age wise for his human half

He didn’t act it

He’s very much a modern day teen every other way

If YJ found out

They would flip shit

They don’t know about the king part but still treat him like royalty

He doesn’t like it

Once they realize he’s just like them and they finally relax around him they find out just how much of a teen his is

(And how op he can be when angry)

Bonus

What if he’s related to Robin?

Like a great uncle or something

And robin just freaks out internally for a month cuz like.... he’s related to the first hero and king of the dead?????? And he’s very much alive and kicking?? “I swear I’ve seen him at the circus I think he was moms uncle??” That being said that makes jazz robins granny

Side story

After Mary (that’s dicks moms name right,?????) moves to the circus and promises her mom she’s happy ,safe, and very loved (jazz sends Danny to watch over her for a bit) jazz moves into Danny’s castle and retires eventually passing on and becoming ghost (I don’t want no angst) once she turns ghost she goes back to her early 20s and becomes the castle therapist. her lair is a large library that’s very comfy and calming. Once she finds out she’s heartbroken over Mary’s death and that she can’t do anything for dick since she’s too weak to enter the living realm so she sends Danny dicks way to watch over him as a friend and mysterious mentor when needed but Cadmus gets to Danny first and he never meets dick .

When Danny realizes who robin is he breaks down and apologizes for hours (leaving dick confused at first )promising he’s here now and he’ll do what he can to help

At one point he brings dick to meet his granny (she becomes his therapist) (dick finally puts it together that he’s related to Danny)

Double points she eventually becomes everyone’s therapist because she can change her looks to make everyone more comfortable (ex for the teens she looks a lot younger and the adults she looks older and more motherly) and because of her obsession ( to comfort the hurt/ heal the mind )she feels safe to everyone and she can feel their emotions stronger then any other ghost (we don’t talk about spectra here nope nope nope)

I wrote a thing that’s part of this au

#danny phantom #young justice #dp/dc #batman #au #first hero au #dp x dc #Danny phantom x young justice #Danny phantom crossover #ok but imagine #if only i could write #hint hint #dick grayson #jazz fenton #Brian go brrr #I can’t spell shhh #funny #prompts #king danny #Dani with an I #plz he’s just a boy #let him meme #fuck Cadmus #no giw #their stupid #I refuse to acknowledge phantom planet #it’s stupid #no pp #wait that sounds wrong lol #what am i doing