#at best its mid

[copdog1234]

Oh my god I totally agree about how the movie was too short (which is something I rarely say as I have the attention span of a puppy) and also, the «big fight» at the end of the movie was so disappointing because pretty much the entire time LB and CN just… laid there. LB jumped up once, and CN scratched Hawkmoth once and then the only reason he was defeated was because Hawkmoth himself stopped when he realised CN was his son… like, they didn’t even defeat him, he just gave up! That annoyed me so much because one can say that the movie was rushed because of outside factors (like probably not having the budget for a longer movie or something like that) but the fight (and lots of the substance points you brought up) is just bad writing

Oh, yeah, I absolutely thought it was sooooo anticlimactic at the end. And genuinely it boggles my mind that anyone felt anything for that final speech that Gabriel gave because this version of him wasn't developed enough to give a meaningful speech about how much he loves his son and how sorry he was and how much he needed to be forgiven. We don't know this man! We know his motivation, sure, we know he was getting a bit disheveled for a few months in fighting Ladybug and Chat Noir, we see a mini-fight with Adrien, and then that's it. The lack of substance throughout the film made it so him simply giving up in the final fight wasn't the least but satisfying. He did nothing to earn that speech.

So you are correct! It is just bad writing! And it continues to boggle my mind that anyone could claim that this is the best writing ever (because I've seen that claim so many times). Or even that it's better writing than the show because, you know what? The show has absolutely fumbled a lot over these past 8 years, I can name everything I hate that's actually bad writing, but overall, it has substance. I know the characters, theyre mostly consistent, and they have personalities that people can hate or love, but at least its there. Every finale fight kept me on my toes because there are actual stakes to the fights and even rules to how the magic in the show works. The dialogue for the most part feels earned, it's funny, even when the translation can be awkward, it's fun. The show surprisingly doesn't spell every little thing out with medicore songs that arent being used effectively. It uses a thing called subtext, even when people refuse to acknowledge that it does!

People can like the movie, that's entirely fine, but quit claiming something that is inherently untrue. (Also, sorry for using your ask to go off on a tangent, Anon)

#and dont get me wrong its not the worse movie ever #its alright #at best its mid #ml spoilers #miraculous ladybug #ml #miraculous ladybug movie #ml movie #miraculous movie #miraculous awakening spoilers #miraculous awakening #ml awakening spoilers #ml awakening #gabriel agreste #miraculous movie critique #copdog answers stuff

[selcouth-vast-poet]

okay i tthink i did it YIPPEEEE

#I FINALLY TOOK A GOOD PICTURE GOOD GOD #taking my words back that is a very mid picture at best #but. i cant stress abough how bad my camera is #that mark scene where he sobs and vomits after seeing his friends mothers corpse is probably. the one embedded more in my brain #poor guy... love seeing you suffer though! #the other ones just alt!cesar being so so silly! maybe a little joking around even #dont ask about the unfinsihed hood on marks drawing. its all in your head. not real /j #hail true body au #OH WAIT I FORGOR #tw emetophobia #my art

[velvettvomit]

finding GOOD gore is actually starting 2 become so hard

#all the mainstream sites have been gone for years #most of the bps or other sites are like mid at best #dont even get me started on social media bc sometimes you can find SOMETHING randomly on public socials but very rarely does it happen much #2014 was the prime but also the start of the downfall and im sad 2 say i witnessed the fall of an era #i do run a discord server just for gore but its drier than a hundred year old bone fragment #velvettvomit

[dear-ao3]

What’s a fanfic trope that you weren’t sure about/uninterested in but a fic got you on the train?

doesnt really answer the question but hanahaki? so hit or miss. theres one newsies hanahaki au, i don't remember what its called or if its even still up but i like that single hanahaki fic and that one only

#hottest take #if a hanahaki au is not a 12+k one shot... #then its mid at best #not a tag #from saph

[jenna-louise-jamie]

has this been done yet

#if i was more talented i would paint this image but unfortunately my art is mid at best #if you dont know this is alex schaefer and he paints banks on fire and its hilarious and hes extremely talented #i know royal & general isnt a real bank but its still funny to me #alex rider #alex rider books #alex rider tv #alex schaefer

[wander-wren]

every once in a while i like to poke my head into "anti [x]" tags just to see what the other side thinks. recently i was looking through "anti ao3" and found a really funny post claiming that ao3 is not anticapitalist, but actually the Definition Of Capitalism, bc it relies on volunteer labor while supposedly having the money to pay a staff.

oh, honey.

but i am not going to make unsubstantiated claims on the internet, no, and this gives me an excuse to look at ao3's whole budget myself, which i've been meaning to do for a while. these numbers are taken from the 2022 budget post and budget spreadsheet.

ao3's total income for 2022, from the two donation drives, regular donations, donation matching programs, interest, and royalties was $1,012,543.42. less than $300 of that was from interest and royalties, so it's almost all donations. and that's a lot, right? surely an organization making a million dollars a year can afford to pay some staff, right?

well, let's look at expenses. first of all, they lose almost $37,000 to transaction fees right away. ao3 and fanlore (~$341k and ~$18k, respectively) take up the biggest chunks of the budget by far. that money pays for, to quote the 2022 budget post, "server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses."

in some years, otw also pays external contractors to perform audits for security issues, and for more servers to handle the growing userbase. servers are expensive as hell, guys. in 2022, new server costs alone were $203k.

each of their other programs only cost around $3,000 or less, and otw paid around $78k for fundraising and development. wait, how do you lose so much money on your fundraising?? from the 2022 budget post: "Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors."

then the otw paid an additional $74k in administration expenses, which covers "hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, and accounting tools."

in case you weren't following all of that math, the total expenses for 2022 come out to $518,978.48. woah! that's a lot! but it's still only a little over half of their net revenue. weird. i wonder what they do with that extra $494k?

well, $400k of it goes to the reserves, which i'll get to in a second. the last $93k, near as i can tell, gets rolled over to the next year. i'll admit this part i'm a little unsure about, as it's not clear on the spreadsheet, but that's the only thing that makes sense.

the reserves, though are clear. the most recent post i could find on the otw site about it were in the board meeting minutes from april 2, 2022: "We’re holding about $1million in operating cash that is about twice the amount of our annual operating costs. There is another $1million in reserves due to highly successful fundraisers in the past. The current plan for the reserves is to hold the money for paid staff in the future. It’s been talked about before in the past and we’re still working out the details, but it’s a rather expensive undertaking that will result in large annual expenses in addition to the initial cost of implementation."

woah....they're PLANNING to have paid staff eventually! wild!

so let's assume, for easy numbers, that the otw currently has $1.5 million in reserves. before we even get to how to use that money, let's look at the issues with implementing paid staff:

deciding which positions are going to be paid, because it can't be all of them

deciding how much to pay them, bc minimum wage sure as hell isn't enough, and cost of living is different everywhere, and volunteers come from all over the world

hiring staff and implementing new systems/tools to handle things like payroll and accounting

making sure you continue to earn enough money both to pay all of the staff and have some in reserves for emergencies or leaner donation drives

probably even more stuff than that! i don't run a nonprofit, that's just what i can think of off the top of my head.

okay, okay, okay. for the sake of argument, let's assume there is a best-case scenario where the otw starts paying some staff tomorrow. how much should they be paid? i'm picking $15 an hour, since that's what we fought for the minimum wage to be. by now, it should be closer to $20 or $25, but i'm trying to give "ao3 is capitalism" the fairest shot it can get here, okay?

ideally, if someone is being paid to help run ao3, they shouldn't need a second job. every job should pay enough to live off of. and running a nonprofit is hard work that leads to a lot of burnout--two board members JUST resigned before their terms were up. what i'm saying is, i'm going to assume a paid otw staff is getting paid for 40 hours of work a week, minimum. that's $31,200.

at $400,000 per year, the otw can afford to pay 12 people. that's WITHOUT taking into account the new systems, tools, software, etc they would have to pay for, any kind of fees, etc, etc.

oh, and btw, if you're an american you're still making barely enough to survive in most places, AND you don't have universal healthcare, vision, or dental. want otw to give people insurance, too? the number of people they can pay goes down.

it's. not. possible.

a million dollars is a lot of money on the face of it, but once you realize how MUCH goes into running something like the otw, it goes away fast.

just for reference, wikipedia also has donation drives every year. wikipedia, as of 2021, has $86.8 million in cash reserves and $137.4 million in investments. sure, wikipedia and ao3 are very different entities, but that disparity is massive. and i should note that if you give $10 to wikipedia they don't give you voting rights, i'm just saying.

by the way, you may have noticed that i didn't mention legal costs at all here. isn't one of otw's big Things about how they do legal advocacy?

yes, it is. they have a whole page about that work. and i can't for the life of me find a source on otw's website (and i'm running out of time to write this post, i'll look harder later), but i am 90% sure i learned before that most, if not all, of otw's legal work/advice/etc is done pro bono. i've also seen an anti-ao3 person claim their legal budget is only $5k or so, but they didn't have a source. but keep in mind that if they don't have a legal budget, all the numbers above stay the same, and if they do, there is even less money available for paid staff.

you can criticize ao3 and the otw all you want! there are many valid reasons to criticize them, and i do not think they're perfect either. but if you're going to do so, you should at least make sure you can back up your claims, bc otherwise you just look silly.

#ao3 #otw #anti ao3 #bc i want them to see this #otw board #ao3 discourse #ao3 donations #wren wrambles #that post was so unserious i died #if it was more recent (its from mid-july) i wouldve replied directly maybe #but i didnt want to drag the body of a 6-note post into the light OR attack the op directly so #also! if i misunderstood something pls let me know im doing my best

[papabigtoes]

Nearly done with a big Hellscape scene opening for chapter 10 (which like last update, will actually be split to two chapters due to the amount of images), I was gonna wait until I started drawing the scenes with skwisgaar and nathan to post updates but the fic hit 6k hits and I wanted to say Thanks for Reading Thus Far, the Next Update Is Cookin’!

Here’s a few of the hell bits without big spoiling below (contains a bunch of demons holding a gremlin murderface as if he’s a spicy-yet-treasured feral kitten, as well as a slimy tongue that holds evil tomes such as a rachel ray paperback cookbook);

#fan fart #fan fart wips #metalocalypse #mid g2 au #william murderface #planet pissed #the joke is that its hell but the demons love MF because he’s so repugnant #shoutout to cloud for sharing Kwon’s demon designs from crozier’s nightmare in s2e1! #I tried my best to do an interpretation on Beelz and other demons too #for context though i prefer to confuse #Murderface is like that in the hellscape while Salacia is controlling his body in the real world #also dethkone lad is sad because facebones had to go somewhere and koney wanted to surprise him #eye strain #gif #gifs

[vyeoh]

I'm rewatching all the Marvel Defenders shows on Netflix and as much as I mock the MCU now, I need non-Marvel fans to understand that I was and still am a fan of "Daredevil fighting the gentrifying assshole who bought out the police force because ACAB both as a lawyer and vigilante of the community" and "Jessica Jones fighting the man who mind controlled her into doing unspeakable things and forming a community of fellow survivors and allies while dealing with PTSD in a range of both healthy and unhealthy ways" Marvel. God I love these idiots they carried so hard

#vio.txt #mcu #marvel #jessica jones #daredevil #also the two of them induced so much bi panic in me. also gender envy. jessica jones is one of the few women i get gender envy fron #the iron fist and luke cage shows were...more mid but still leagues above current marvel shows #like. yes be anti-mcu but these were masterpieces #and yes this is why i was so pissed about them putting daredevil in she hulk and trying to make him iron man 2.0 #like! yes hes suave and charming but thats bc its his lawyer job!! he works in a law firm he and his friends started to serve his community #he is NOT 'i am rich and better than u' charming. he is 'i learned how to talk fancy for my degree and i have empathy' charming #and not bringing the other guys over either???? bruhhh #marvel really cancelled the best things they did on the screen #matt murdock my original red and black round glasses wearing sadboy what did they do to you #also!! can i mention that these shows had such better representation than nowadays marvel #murdock's actor doing extensive research on blind motility for the role #jessica and trish's friendship and how trish immediately believes jess about kilgrave #the whole!!! unique community feel of harlem and in luke's bar #hogarth whos both jessica's employer and foggy's boss in later seasons being a lesbian and having Real Marriage Issues #and also being a conplex and kinda shitty person #iron fist was....eh but that's why it was the worst one lmao #OH YEAH HOW COULD I FORGET MY GIRL KAREN #karen page getting a whole storyline in s1 about her dealing w ptsd and then getting fleshed out backstory and her own adventures #like ok it was kinda weird in daredevil that she dated like every guy bc she was the female lead 💀 #but even then foggy and matt and her figuring their shit out like adults. like they shot their shots and it didnt pan out. still besties th #disney would never allow such good writing in current times #but a boy can wish

[itsafternoonpast5]

very crazy episode. too bad it was based off of lord of the flies

#sorry biggest lord of the flies hater the ideology of the book is so frustrating. anything based off it is destined to be mid (joke) #THE EPISODE WAS OKAY but it couldve been better #as an episode its good but as a finale it doesnt work LOL but i dont think it was even intended to be the finale #the crew seems like they have a lot of hope for the series. that they dont want it to be the end #im with them i dont think itll be the end either but its grim with the chance it wont be picked up by another company :( #im hoping for the best. this show has a small yet dedicated fanbase. itd feel like dishonour to the fans and the crew #we had some of the best quality episodes lately. itd surprise me if the show wasnt taken up #but ahh ah im just hoping. this show is very dear to me :( #camp camp

[whatsanameanyway]

wanted to do some ddvau fanart bc i love the series and these guys are everything to me

au by the amazing @kitsuneisi and @xmaruu11 you guys are amazing

#ddvau #ddvau fanart #desert duo vigilante au #grian #gtws #tangotek #bit of backstory #i looove ddvau tango's design and its beautiful and i love him and i wanted to draw him #however. i felt like just him wouldnt be enough to tag the thing as ddvau so i decided to draw cg and hg #grian came out kinda mid but its fine #however. then i popped off so hard with that scar #that genuinely might be the best thing ive ever drawn #i think i did a great job on the anatomy and coloring and everything #hes beautiful #i have never been this proud of a drawing #ai could never match the joy i felt at every stage of drawing him #so yeah tldr drawing a pretty shirtless guy made me realise i want to keep drawing always and forever for the rest of my life #thank you ddvau thank you minecraft #'why is he shirtless' why would u even ask that question #my art

[engie-the-profit]

ive seen this movie twice and im about to watch it again... the brain rot is so real

#fnaf movie #my art #fnaf movie spoilers #fuck this movie is so good. like its not good but its so good yknow #peak mid!! best 7/10 movie ive ever seen! #im already so excited for the next one #fuck #i need to draw um. ness ehehee #and i need to learn how to draw the animatronics because i love them but im not great at suggesting 3d space in my art #so that will be my next challenge #AND I NEED TO DRAW SPRINGTRAP RAAAAGHHH HE WAS SO GOOD im so mad he was only in like the last fifteen minutes #fnaf #bonnie the bunny #freddy fazbear #chica the chicken #foxy the pirate #golden freddy #vanessa #mike schmidt #springtrap #abby schmidt #cupcake

[viktormaru]

Look... I get it and actually agree that fiction should be completely alowed to explore dark themes, and theres a real argument for not erasing even harmful fiction just so we can study it and confront those topics. Thats really good!

but also thats not what im gonna accept for an argument against the stupid 30 year old woman writing extensive porn about some kid from my hero academia fucking his dad whos calling me an "anti" and a "puritan" and complaining about censorship bcs I blocked them

because these people are way too fucking dumb to ever understand what Dark Themes in media is actually talking about

which is why talking abt this on tumblr is so fucking stupid cause ppl are pretentious and really think theyre fucking misunderstood geniuses for writing anime fanfiction

#it might seem like this makes no sense but it reminds me of this one time i was complaining abt whitewashing in fanart #and some weirdo came at me about color theory and the hardships of paint mixing and #underpainting and what i mean is a lot of morons in here wear the aesthetics of intelectualism #but are fucking morons who dont know when things apply #idk just thoughts #i think im way too lax abt 'problematic content' actually i just block and call it cringe when its stupid imo but the constant pretentiousn #from ppl making mid fanart and cringe fics is like... dude just own it man this is self indulgent at best #just like most fan content will be chill out

[devotion-disorder]

what is dol? since following you its been showing up in my feed and curious

it stands for Degrees of Lewdity and its this funky lil text-based porn game!! Your player character is an orphan that unfortunately lives in the Horniest Town on Earth™ (which may be an understatement) and your goal is to survive basically. Personally i think its really fun to micromanage between school, earning money, skill grinding, managing relationships etc. and there's a surprising amount of lore to this game too. it's pretty addicting when you get into it haha!

i think this goes without saying considering ... my blog, but do be aware that DoL features a lot of possibly triggering content, so check it out on your own discretion!

Here is the official blogspot for more info and download!

#ask #anon #protip the danube spa is the best way to make money #but that might be more mid to late-game #or im not sure if they've changed anything haha its been a while #also harper is the best character xo #<- completely objective opinion with zero bias

[casualavocados]

for zero dollars i am going to talk about the boys’ individual singing talents now because im stuck on their performances at prom night ok here we go

to start, let me clarify by saying that i myself am a singer. i come from a family (multiple generations) of singers and musicians. my mom taught voice, violin, piano, and guitar in my home growing up. it’s just ingrained in my dna, ok, but this aint about me. just know that I know what im talking about as i get into this

im really only gonna touch on the four main singers (fourth, gem, ford, and satang) but all of them have their own unique qualities and im super impressed by their live performances. singing live is HARD. singing while dancing??? HARDER. and they held up for four hours, two nights in a row. i don’t. i cant - WOW ok

so of the main four, satang, ford, and fourth lean tenor, and gemini has a bass voice (more later). let me start with satang.

THIS BOY SINGS. RIGHT. IN. HIS CRACKING RANGE. HALF THE TIME. listen, okay, there is a difference between singing in full voice and switching to falsetto sometimes than singing in your cracking range. satang has to switch between full voice and falsetto almost every other note. that is HARD. it takes serious work and practice, and slip-ups are near impossible to avoid. he also has a soft voice, and in his case, when in this cracking range he does his best when he sings low and quiet, and is more likely to crack or slide the louder he gets (fourth is exactly the opposite of this and it makes me nuts in a good way. more later). satang also has very good vibrato, and the way he uses it helps him keep control of his voice and can even disguise the cracks and slides he does have. all this being said, you have to seriously appreciate the work he has done to sing so well at the concert. please watch his part in “healing” and go insane with me. when satang is in his full voice range he does his best singing loud, but this is what i wanted to focus on bc i am so proud of him because of how tough it is. 

ford also has a soft voice, but his control comes when he sings loudly. lower pitches are more difficult for him because he has to sing softer in order to hit them, and sometimes, when singing live, that means he can get too quiet to hear. but when he’s in his range and singing full voice? ohhhh my god he kills it. he rarely misses a note. just watch his performance of “come closer”, that’s all you need to know. his vibrato isn’t as good as satang’s but he has a good ear and that makes him so fucking good at harmonizing!! ford also has a very strong and clear tone when singing in falsetto (this line in “stand” showcases it perfectly) - whereas gemini’s falsetto is softer (but just as strong). 

GEMINI. first of all, this guy has so much control over his voice it actually pisses me off. i hate him (i LOVE him and im DELIGHTED by the way this live show was able to give his voice the spotlight it deserves). okay so earlier i said gemini has a bass voice, and that’s true - while talking. he has a stellar tenor singing voice, and his voice is very soft, but very clear and strong on those lower notes (thank you “you’re blushing”). and because he has that low range, his falsetto actually becomes better, bc it means when he sings high notes, he is far far away from his cracking range. it's barely noticeable when he switches between full voice and falsetto. his vibrato aint the best live when it’s unpracticed, but he rarely slides (unless it’s on purpose). he can blend with anyone, he’s very good at harmonizing, and damn he just has a sweet sweet falsetto (featured here and in. basically every song he sings. note that gem sings "hook" mostly in falsetto and fourth does it in his full voice, alongside each other; linked below)

FOURTH. let me start by saying i am the most impressed by his live performance. i am now obsessed with his voice in a lot more ways than i was before. so i mentioned earlier that he’s the opposite of satang, in the sense that he is more likely to crack, slide, or miss hitting a pitch when he’s singing quietly. but he’s also the opposite to all three of them, because where satang, ford, and gemini all have soft voices, fourth’s voice has a very clear tone right off the bat. this makes his approach to singing vastly different from the others. his falsetto is good, but when fourth sings loud? HE DOES NOT MISS A SINGLE NOTE. this boy can BELT it out in his full voice, and that includes both high and low notes. oh my god it is insane. LISTEN. TO. THESE. RIGHT. NOW. OK? please drink some water boy ilysm. 

the fact that fourth spent those four hours, two nights in a row, singing in mainly his full voice, and absolutely kill. ing. it. the whole time is THE most impressive thing to me. do you know how much energy it takes to sing in your full voice for a long time? can you imagine how much MORE energy it must take to do that WHILE DANCING? do you know how much control over his breaths he has to have for that??!?!?! AND TO STILL SOUND THAT STRONG AT THE END OF THE SECOND NIGHT. i dont care. he’s everything to me.

honestly they all are. this is getting long so im gonna wrap it up but i have never enjoyed a live performance more in my life. these boys are so talented it's insane and gmmtv is lucky to have them.

#my school president #msp prom night #my school president prom night live on stage #satang kittiphop #ford arun #gemini norawit #fourth nattawat #julian watches msp #long post #I COULDNT HELP MYSELF IVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THEM NONSTOP. #OOH OOH shortpplfedup's tags about fourth EXACTLY #mid-range baritone IS the best way to describe it you are so right #listen tinn was right to make gun go jogging to work on his singing ITS THE CARDIO. #THE ENDURANCE IT TAKES FOR THE KIND OF SINGING FOURTH DOES. #*adds another link to fourth's list bc i cant be stopped* #OH MY GOD LISTEN TO THAT LAST ONE IT CHANGES KEYS MULTIPLE TIMES AND HE NEVER FUCKS UP #msp bts #another song that really suits fords falsetto is healing #and in that last link of gem's he actually sings both the high note harmonies and the low note harmonies #depending on what part of the song you're at #as of april 6th all links have been repaired

[dukeofdogs]

Dark Horse you're so amazing when it comes to making pretty Witcher art.

#some comics might be mid #but i will die on a hill yelling that theyre doing the best things with the franchise rn #like theyre doing what a loooot of people like about either books or games and its throwing geralt in the middle of a short story #and it's so cool #also based on the grain of truth comic best adaptation of source material so far #witcher comics #comics #the witcher

[depressed-bisexual-eurofan]

I'm not mad at Sweden, I'm just disappointed

#eurovision #eurovision song contest #esc 2023 #melodifestivalen #loreen #like i knew she would win #but we could have had better #and if she ends up winning the whole thing with a mid overhyped song im going to be extremely disappointed in europe #euphoria was good at best and tattoo is just clinging onto its nostalgic value #please dont let it win in may