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#btw it's gonna take me some time to post as frequently as I did before because of my upcoming trials and my art project for finals
kyojurismo · 11 months
Note
Emergency request
So my appendix burst?? Which like I didn’t know that was a thing thing but I could use some spice because like smut heals?? Or maybe I’m insane who knows
How would genya (aged up) and sanemi be at dirty talk?
I just know those boys be kings
▸ ANSWERING. omg i’m so sorry 😭 i thought i already posted it but in fact i didn’t ): i hope you’ll get well soon anon 🫂
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▸ FANDOM. kimetsu no yaiba
▸ CHARACTERS. sanemi & genya shinazugawa x fem!reader
▸ RATING. nsfw
▸ WARNINGS. aged up genya, dirty talk, implied penetrative sex, i wrote it for a fem reader btw i hope that’s alright, not proofread
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SANEMI SHINAZUGAWA
sanemi knows how his voice turns you on. he uses it at his advantage of course.
“look at how wet you are,” he smirks. his thick fingers keep caressing your slit, spreading your wetness around. “what a messy girl you are.”
sanemi uses his thumb and point finger to stimulate your clit, moving them in rapid motions. your juices keep gushing out of your clenching hole and he knows that most of it comes from the way he’s talking to you.
“n-nemi,” you cry out, lifting your hips from the futon. “where you think you’re going?” he pushes you down with his free hand. “you gonna make a mess? yes, baby?” he coos at you, noticing how you’re desperately gripping the sheets.
you in fact make a mess, cumming hard in his hand. sanemi keeps moving his hand tho, making you grind on it. you want him to stop and keep going at the same time, it’s addictive.
“you like that, don’t you? fuck— you’re so beautiful like that.”
when he finally sinks into you and bottom out, his head kissing your cervix, he presses his forehead into yours. “oh shit, you’re taking me so well baby. that pussy was made for me.”
he’s almost there? well, “fuck baby, you really want me to fill you up if you’re squeezing me like that.”
GENYA SHINAZUGAWA
genya slurs a lot during sex. but damn if it’s hot as fuck.
“fuckfuckfuck— you take it so well, baby,” he grunts into your neck, gripping your hips while he thrusts deep into you. “you hear that? shit, you’re making a mess all over me,” he can hear the wet smacks becoming louder and your whines are more and more frequent.
genya’s cock is probably rearranging your insides because you’re seeing stars, on the verge of passing out.
“you’re so fucking good for me, baby. so fucking good.”
“that’s it, take it. take it like a good girl— fuck.”
“you close darling? oh yes you are, look at the way you’re gushing.” the fact that he can pleasure you that much spurs him on, really.
your puffy clit grinds against his pubic bone while his cock keeps moving rapidly into you and one of his hands is groping your breast, making you cry out his name.
genya grunts while filling your womb with his semen, you follow soon after, arching your back off the futon. “you did so good baby,” he kisses your neck before reaching your lips.
“gonna give me a fourth one, yeah?” he smirks down at you.
insatiable.
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▸ BEFORE LEAVING. reblog and comments are super appreciated. i can’t add the read more button into this, i’m sorry. anyway i hope you guys enjoyed it <3 have a good day / night !!
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ecogirl2759 · 4 months
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It's time.
So, I have decided to formally retire from FireAlpaca and will not be revisiting any of my old works made on that app (just because of personal preference). SO, I've decided to share some of my favorite WIPs that I had hoped to finish once upon a time lol.
I'm gonna be tagging all the characters that show up btw, so sorry if this comes up as you're peacefully scrolling your fandom tags hehe.
Please check the tags for the characters/fandoms and decide if you wanna open this post.
So yeah, have a couple of old sketches from 2-5 years ago :D
[Uncolored blood in one of them jsyk]
This one felt appropriate to put first lol I was really liking the way it was turning out... and then I lost motivation lol. Think this is from 2 years ago-ish.
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Here's another of my OC. I was going to make a super cool battle illustration with super cool effects and super cool lighting and I gave up almost instantly lol. SHE HAS NO WRISTS!!
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This is one I made for Drawfest 2, like, 2 years ago now, I think. I thought it was coming along kinda nice except I couldn't get the perspective to look right so my character ended up looking huge lmao.
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Here's ANOTHER of my OC. This one is really old lol. I've redesigned her now and I don't use this shading style anymore, so I retired this profile picture really early on.
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Ok, last one of this OC. This was going to be one of many sprites that I was making to use in videos and stuff, but I, once again, lost my motivation hehe. Looks REALLY bad tho so idc.
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Now for some fandom junk!
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Pico jumpscare I got really into Pico's school way back when and never saw any fanart for his death screen. So I wanted to try my hand at it. Got through the lineart before I decided I didn't like it and was not skilled enough to salvage it so I gave up. Might redraw this in the future though!
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Haha mind the huge empty space on this one.
This was going to be a picture of Gregory and Freddy from FNaF Security Breach (made this around the time the game came out), but I quickly realized I couldn't draw animatronics and quit lol. You can kinda see the stripe on Gregory's shirt, but my sketching abilities back then were awful so it's a little hard.
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ASJKFHSABFHJBF I ALMOST FORGOT I WAS DRAWING HIMMM!! This bean is a character from To Your Eternity, an anime I randomly found on Netflix once and fell in love with (I quit at the weird scene in the prison tho, remind me to finish it). HE WAS SO CUTE I JUST HAD TO DRAW HIM <3 Also this isn't the ball, this is the boy. I just didn't get to his eyes.
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MULTIFANDOM IDEAAAAA
So me and my sister were talking a few years ago, and I think one of us misspoke and said "Coffee shot" instead of "Coffee shop," so this AU was born.
It's a coffee shop called the Coffee Shot staffed by characters that love guns and have guns and shoot guns and I love them. The shop is frequented by characters from other franchises (in this case Danganronpa), and it's got the best coffee and the best theming you've ever seen >:)
Characters from left to right: Pico (FNF), Kiyotaka Ishimaru (DR1), Mondo Owada (DR1), Lance (EBF5)
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Here's another MultiFandom picture :D
This one was based on Pinterest lol. I have boards for both of these franchises, but they kept wanting to save these two characters to each other's boards lol. SO I wanted to make a style swap with them! Didn't end up finishing it, though, but I do want to come back to it!
Characters: Kiyotaka Ishimaru (Danganronpa), Ranma Saotome (Ranma 1/2)
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Aaaaand then just take some Danganronpa stuff.
This first one is actually the second piece of fanart I ever did for this game, but I quit really quick because I SCREWED UP TAKA'S HAIR AND DIDN'T WANNA REDO IT BECAUSE EVERY TIME I TRIED IT LOOKED FUNKY SO NOW HE'S JUST FUZZY. AND THE BACKGROUND EWWW I FORGOT IT LOOKED LIKE THIS
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And then this one is of the same two characters but based on a fanfic I read once. It was a Beauty and the Beast one. It was really fun to read. I liked it. It's on Wattpad if you're interested. I quit on this picture really quick tho. Made the sketch on Photoshop 2 years ago, transferred the sketch to FireAlpaca, then realized the sketch sucked and didn't bother trying again.
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SO
There's all my sketches. The ones that I'm willing to share, that is.
Let this be a lesson that not all of your pictures are going to go the way you want to. Your sketches are going to be messy, your lineart isn't going to match up, your colors are going to look funky, and your shading is going to want to make you rip out your hair sometimes.
I think what's important is to make sure that all that stuff doesn't discourage you.
If you give up all together, you'll never know what you'd've been able to produce if you hadn't.
If a picture isn't working for you, find out why. Then quit that picture, practice, and come back. You'll be able to compare yourself to your own art instead of other people's, which will give you a clearer sense of how far you've come.
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SORRY DIDN'T MEAN TO GO ON A RANT THERE
I think I'll shoot to redraw some of these next year. I definitely want to come back to that Pico one, the style swap one, the Coffee Shot, and the Christmas one.
Don't really have time for that now, but that's now on my New Year's Resolution list lol.
If you're reading this, thanks for looking at my old crappy art. It feels nice to share <3
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sewerkingcharlie · 1 year
Note
ok i know this might be a little late but why r ppl so pissed abt u being uncomfortable with ppl who infantilise charlie bc they headcanon him as autistic lol. ur not saying its WRONG to write autistic characters as childish, theres a huge difference between infantilising a specific character who, while he may exhibit childish traits occasionally, still acts like an adult, and writing a completely different autistic character who is childish. i say this as someone who is autistic and childish btw. like i dont get why its hard to understand for some people that charlie doesnt act like a 6 year old. did they even watch sunny. anyways its me dumbass anon who misread ur username long time no see, hope ur having a great day <3
DUMBASS ANON WHO MISREAD MY URL!!!!!
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honestly? beats me! although tbf when i posted last night about it to start i was in a bit of an asshole behaviour mood and knew full well it was a bit discourse bait-y so that's on neurotic 3am yesterday mush hfsgdhshsh
but yeah exactly, the thing that makes it seem obviously fetish-y to me is the fact that charlie already does have traits that are more associated with being childish, like drawing with crayons and playing nightcrawlers and shit. i don't count the illiteracy/lack of vocab childish bc stupidity =/= infantilisation, but there are for sure one or two things ppl could take and run with. but the people ive seen write autistic charlie kelly as madly infantile? don't write those traits. at all. instead, they write him as a feminine transgender man (aka equating trans men to femininity, aka equating femininity to childishness), somebody who stutters and stumbles and gets shy and anxious, and with a lot of crazy cliché tiktok-esque stims that charlie has literally never done in the show (when there are a whole load of actual nd stims he does. frequently)
so that's why it comes across as a bit fetish-y. it's like people are writing him as a transmasculine autistic tiktok stereotype, with a dash of childlike mannerisms, and to top it all off? when ppl write him as autistic/trans in smut? he's always written as a super subby bottom who's somehow really naturally good but has also never fucked before (fetishising lack of sexual experience in the same breath as childish mannerisms? lolita much)
anyway it never fails to grind my gears, so at this point i just tend to avoid reading anything tagged with "autistic charlie kelly", which is a shame bc there's probably a few authors out there who write him as just... him. who is definitely autistic and at the very least, clearly written with neurodivergent traits in mind. i don't see what any other reason would be for the traits that are exaggerated in autistic charlie kelly fics to be the traits he doesn't even have besides to fetishise the childlike, effeminate nature of them. or self inserts, but i avoid those fics too. not my thing personally
idk im assuming whoever hopped in my ask box last night disagrees and either enjoys uwubabycatgirlifying charlie kelly or writes those sorts of fics, but either way 🤷‍♂️ ppl are gonna consume things how they're gonna consume it, and this isn't me hanging out moral life lessons or some shit, it's not that i think ppl who do it are bad or ""problematic"" yada yada. more that i just don't like it and have a massive, massive, autismpilled infodumping gob in the world HFHSHDHSHAHD
sorry for such a long answer omg this topic gets! me! going!!! anyway ilysm anon smooch kiss for u
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makeste · 3 years
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save no matter what.
so this is going to ultimately be a post about Deku. however, if you’ll be so kind as to indulge me, I would like to start things off by making a point about Bakugou. specifically, I’d like to point out that back in the day before this kid got Character Development no Jutsu’d, people weren’t always so inclined to view his attitude towards winning in the best light. which is a nice way of saying that he came off as unhealthily obsessed, not to mention more than a little unhinged.
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sorry for the image spam btw, I just think they’re funny. he’s so demented lmao. KILL DIE CRUSH.
anyway so we’re gonna do the rest of this below a cut before it gets long. but I promise it really is a Deku post lol. don’t let the pre-readmore stuff fool you. I PROMISE THERE IS A POINT, AND WE WILL GET TO IT.
anyway! so yeah, we really didn’t have the best impression of Bakugou’s whole winning fixation at the beginning there. and I mean, it’s not like we had the best impression of Bakugou himself at the start of things either. we were already primed from the very first chapter to see this kid as an adversary to Izuku. the story goes out of its way to paint him in pretty much the worst light possible. which is why what happens next is so interesting.
because one might see all this and think, “holy heck, this kid is off the shits, somebody needs to set him straight pronto and get it into his head that winning isn’t everything.” because that’s almost the natural conclusion to draw. “look at this kid, he doesn’t care about helping other people at all, all he cares about is winning, someone needs to come along and show him that he’s got it backwards.”
except that’s not what happens, is it? because this is where, much to my delight, Horikoshi came along and started subverting expectations. because not only is Katsuki not rebuked for being so obsessed with winning -- it’s pretty much the exact opposite.
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the one and only time Deku ever straight up hands Katsuki’s ass to him is when he says he doesn’t want to win. Deku is IMMEDIATELY all, “THE FUCK KIND OF BULLSHIT DID I JUST HEAR OUT OF YOUR TRASH MOUTH,” and that’s when he sets him straight.
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the important people in Katsuki’s life never tell him, “hey you need to cool it with the whole winning thing.” All Might and Aizawa never scold him for it, or tell him that he shouldn’t try with everything he has to win, or that wanting to win is a bad thing. on the contrary, they both commend him for it. and ultimately, he’s told by All Might that this desire is actually one of the two fundamental qualities that every great hero needs.
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he completely turns the whole thing on its head. not only is it not a bad thing, it’s actually crucial. essential. because what the desire to win really is, at its core, is tenacity. it’s the fiercest kind of determination. it’s not something he should be ashamed of; it’s something that sets him apart, something that makes him worthy. he is someone who refuses to back down no matter what. refuses to give up, no matter what. and this quality, which is initially misunderstood by some to the point where even the villains mistakenly take him for one of their own in the making, is eventually validated to the fullest degree by the person that Katsuki looks up to the most. his desire to win goes from being this awkward “son wtf are you doing” thing to being one of the core philosophies of the series. and ever since then, we pretty much don’t question it.
so why do I bring this up now? well, the answer to that can basically be summed up in one word.
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“parallels.”
so here’s the thing. there’s been a lot of talk lately about Deku’s ridiculous, reckless, and absurdly self-destructive desire to save others while having little to no regard for himself. currently he’s lying in a hospital bed, having broken approximately 218 out of the 206 bones in his little hero body (yes, somewhere along the way he found an additional dozen bones to break). it is worrying. it is Concerning. and it’s raised a lot of questions, such as “???” and “wtf is this idiot doing.”
and a lot of people have been pretty critical of him! this is, of course, an ongoing thing with this child, and people have been giving him grief over it going as far back as chapter 6.
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while others have been bothered by it going even further back than that.
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and I’ve seen these sentiments being echoed pretty frequently in the fandom as well. and there are basically two talking points that I want to address here. the first is the idea that Deku’s aggressive brand of selflessness stems from an inherent lack of self-worth. in other words, because he prioritizes other people’s safety and well-being above his own, and is willing to go to such drastic lengths to save them, there’s this feeling that he doesn’t value himself enough, that he must not care about himself.
but I don’t think that’s quite it. let’s go back to those parallels first, though. let’s take another look at Kacchan.
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what I mainly want to call attention to is the intensity here. again, it’s something that at first strikes most readers as being absurdly over the top. the truth is, I think a lot of people simply can’t relate to it. Katsuki cares about winning with a ferocity and a fervor that most people, for better or worse, simply don’t have. I certainly don’t, lol.
but he does. to him it’s not a shallow, superficial thing at all. it’s important to him, perhaps the most important thing. I think we often talk about it in terms of it being a desire, but imo a more accurate way to define it is not as a want, but as a need. in other words, it’s the opposite of the question “what is it this character wants” (i.e. “what is it they can’t live without”)? instead, it’s a question of “what is it they don’t want” (i.e. “what is it they can’t live with”)?
and in Katsuki’s case, the thing he can’t live with is feeling like he hasn’t tried his absolute best. he needs to give his all in everything he does. he wants to win, but winning just on its own is not enough.
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it has to be earned. he has to prove to himself and to everyone else that he deserves it. anything less than that is unacceptable. anything less than that, and he can’t be at ease. he can’t be settled. he can’t rest. and so he puts everything he has into winning, even if it means going to extremes. because it’s that important to him.
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it’s something that’s at times alarming and even disturbing for others to witness. but nonetheless, it’s a part of who he is, and at the end of the day his teachers accept that, and the story acknowledges that it’s his greatest strength.
so now, to finally bring this back around to Deku, this is what I keep seeing in his character as well. only in his case, the thing he can’t live with is knowing that he didn’t do everything he possibly could to save someone. or to put it another way, Deku, at his core, is someone who cannot rest until he knows that everyone is safe. simple as that. it’s not just a desire to protect people; it’s a need. he needs to know that everyone is safe and protected. otherwise he can’t be at ease. it’s no different from how normal, everyday people aren’t able to feel at ease unless they know that they are safe and that their loved ones are safe. it’s just that in Deku’s case, this same fundamental need extends to everyone, not just himself and his friends and family. everyone. he can’t live with himself knowing that someone was in trouble, and he had the ability to do something to help, but didn’t. and so, if you literally can’t live with not doing something, you basically have no choice but to do it.
and this is what in my opinion defines Deku’s character. Kacchan, in trying to understand it, noted that Deku doesn’t seem to take himself into account. but I think OFA Prime summed it up a little more accurately. “he rages for the sake of others. for them, he does his best until he can do no more. this young man is possessed by a drive to save others that eclipses all common understanding.”
so yeah. it’s not that he doesn’t care about himself at all, it’s that he cares about others even more. he has that same intensity and ferocity towards saving people that Katsuki has towards winning. and just as it was difficult at first for fans to understand Katsuki’s feelings, it’s hard to fathom the sheer depth of that “save everyone” feeling that compels Deku to break his own body in that pursuit. it’s scary, not to mention extremely destructive and dangerous. and so really, it was almost inevitable that there would be some backlash.
but just like Katsuki’s desire to win was ultimately validated in the end, I think Deku’s desire to save others will be as well. in fact it already is being validated, for starters by the other denizens of OFA, led by Lil Bro as mentioned above. let’s go back for a moment to that same scene.
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here we get a huge hint that “Deku gets taken down a notch and chewed out and scolded for his recklessness” is not, in fact, the direction that the story is going in. because in general, when the main villain starts mocking the hero and saying that they’ve done something wrong, that’s a very good sign that said hero is actually on the exact right track. like, no offense, but as far as character critiques go, AFO is probably the least qualified person in the entire manga to start offering those up lol. so yeah. if AFO is denouncing Deku for something, and OFA Prime is praising him for that exact same thing, I think it’s safe to say that means he is in fact doing something very, very right.
“okay but makeste, he nearly got himself killed and broke all of his arms AND legs and is now lying in a fucking coma,” you say, gesturing emphatically to the last page of chapter 298. “so I mean, that’s all well and good that Wonder Boy has the best of intentions and all that, but at the end of the day he’s only one kid. he literally can’t save everyone, and if he pulls one or two more stunts like this, he’s going to get himself killed.”
and okay, but this here is the other talking point that I wanted to address. because it’s true, Deku does need to learn a specific lesson here. but that lesson is NOT that he can’t save everyone. this is a superhero story, guys -- “you can’t save everyone” is never going to be the underlying message, ever. it’s the OPPOSITE of the message. Deku is the hero because he tries to save everyone. because he doesn’t give up on saving people no matter what. that is literally the core of the story. it has been since the very first chapter.
so then what is it that Deku actually needs to learn here? well, once again, it all comes back to those parallels.
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btw, I really just love how he’s carrying Katsuki there lol. he’s just so done with him.
but anyway. so, the final exam arc. Katsuki initially wants to win at all costs -- but there’s a hitch. because even though he wants to win, he refuses to do so while working with Deku. enter Deku’s left hook, and one impromptu Rival Encouragement Speech later, our boy has thankfully come to his senses.
but here’s the point -- the lesson here wasn’t “you can’t always win.” rather, the lesson that Katsuki needed to learn was that you can’t always win alone.
yeah. so now you can see what I’m getting at here.
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“...on your own.”
that’s the key. this is the one and only thing that Deku actually needs to get into his head. wanting to save everyone is fine! his will to save others has never been a weakness -- it’s been the most admirable thing about him from day one. it’s what makes him strong. it’s why All Might chose him. it’s why OFA has chosen him. it’s what sets him apart, and I firmly believe it’s what will ultimately help him save the day and defeat AFO as well. because what other character would look at Shigaraki Tomura, the person who just impaled his friend and destroyed an entire city, and instinctively reach out a hand to try and save him? and if you don’t think that’s going to wind up being key to the final battle, you and I have very different ideas about this series’ endgame.
Deku’s determination to save everyone isn’t arrogance or futility. it is and always has been his greatest strength. but what he’s missing now, what he needs to learn, is simply to trust. y’all might have seen that theory about the Fourth’s quirk, and why All Might was so hesitant to tell Deku about it. basically, the theory (which is based on an attempted translation of the crossed-out parts of All Might’s OFA notebook) goes that the Spidey Sense was so overwhelming that the Fourth -- whose cause of death was one of the things crossed out -- eventually couldn’t bear it, and went to live alone in the middle of the woods somewhere. and possibly wound up killing himself?? all of which is just speculation right now of course. but it makes sense. and it would certainly explain why All Might, being all too aware of Deku’s self-destructive tendencies, would keep that from him.
but if this is the case, that means it’s clear that the Fourth’s solution didn’t work. “give up and accept that you can’t save everyone” clearly is NOT the answer to be had here.
the answer is trust. trust that his fellow heroes have his back. trust that they’ll be able to help him reach the people he’s not able to reach on his own. trust that they can work together to save everyone. that he doesn’t have to rest the entire world on his shoulders alone.
it’s the one lesson that All Might, his predecessor and his teacher, never learned himself until it was too late. but of course, All Might never had a prickly and determined rival who was ready to step in and deal out some tough love if need be. a rival who, perhaps, just might soon get a chance to repay an old favor.
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“I don’t wanna hear you say you can’t save someone.”
I’m just saying. just as Deku has been watching Katsuki all this time, and admiring his determination to win, and emulating it himself, so has Katsuki recently begun to emulate Deku’s determination to save others. we’ve seen it not just in his recent act of self-sacrifice, but even in little things like his habits and tricks of speech. just like Katsuki is Deku’s image of victory, Deku is becoming Katsuki’s image of saving others.
and so I’ll bet you anything that if Deku ever starts to doubt himself, or starts feeling like his dream and desires are futile, Kacchan will be there to set him straight with a good old fashioned Rival Encouragement Speech of his own. possibly with his own left hook to match, though his left shoulder is currently out of sorts atm so he might need to modify that approach a little bit. but the point is, he’ll be there. and he will not allow Deku to give up on himself. he will be there to remind him that he doesn’t have to face this alone.
so yeah! finally managed to wrap up my giant Deku meta which I’ve been working on for ages and rewritten like fifteen times lmao. just in time for this to be relevant for all of a day, probably, depending on what happens once chapter 279 drops lol. but yeah. tl;dr, local boy tries to do too much, but his heart is in the right place, and hopefully all he really needs is a good pep talk from his tsundere bff to set him to rights again. r.i.p. to the Fourth, but he’s different.
483 notes · View notes
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Sooooo, now that you've finished translating Yuma's route, when can we expect that rant post? Lol
*DEEP BREATH*
My anger has somewhat subdued by now because I've been playing Azusa's route which is AMAZING so far.
However, I do want to address a few main points of concern regarding Yuma's DF route:
・ Yuma as a character: In the situation parts in particular, there were a lot of moments which struck me as 'OOC'. :/ In the Ecstasy scenarios in particular, he often seemed so unreasonably cruel??? Like where did that come from?? I thought Yuma was the 'simple kind' of guy who doesn't care for using torture devices or weird kinks, yet he's out there WHIPPING poor Yui in the Ecstasy 3 scenario.
・Messy plotline: ーー Or should I say, PLOTS. It really did seem like the writers could not make up their mind between three possible points of focus:
1) Yuma's memory loss and his past with Shuu (and Reiji)
2) The threat of the Founders and their plan to take Yui for their own
3) Mertz being a sneaky snake in the background and trying to also steal Yui away so he can revive Cordelia
So what did they do? Make a mish-mash of all 3 plot lines. However, with only so many chapters to work with, they weren't able to fully flesh out any of the storylines, which just leaves you with an unsatisfying mess. :/
Also why is the whole 'the Mukami's can't become Adam' thing COMPLETELY disregarded until Yuma's Vampire Ending when Karl is suddenly like 'Oh btw I'm not gonna save him because he's useless to my plan anyway trolololol'.
Ruki is over there sabotaging the relationship between Yui & Kou in the latter's route, but in Yuma's route, he doesn't care that they're together despite this potentially ruining Karl's plans. :////
・Random new information: A lot of DF routes are guilty of this but was it ever mentioned before that Yui's heart is the reason why she can't become a Vampire??? (Pretty sure it's the opposite in HDB but hey. Rejet has long forgotten about HDB by this point, let's be real). I know the 'Vampire virus' has been mentioned before, but her blood being a neutralizer for this makes absolutely ZERO sense. Even if the boys don't drink a whole tub of her blood at a time, they sill feed off her very frequently in the games/CDs/etc. so I can't believe that it wouldn't have had any effect on them before. > < Especially since it was suddenly capable of turning Yuma back into a Yuma without actually killing Yui from blood loss.
Now to talk about some redeeming factors of the route...
・Yui as a character: Yui is an absolute Queen in this route. She accurately reads Yuma's emotions and takes a lot of initiative to help him. (Too bad he brushes her off most of the time <o<) She isn't a push-over and has a few moments where she really stands up for herself.
・Shuuma BROTP moments: Out of all plotlines they tried to squeeze in there, I think I liked the one regarding Yuma's memory loss the best. There's some nice moments between Shuu and Yuma and I also enjoyed the Shuu & Reiji moments in his Manservant ending. It just felt like it belonged in either Shuu's or Reiji's route and not Yuma's. ^^;;
Also, the whole point which sets DF apart from MB is the focus on the Founders. :/ Yet they're kind of only present in the background this time. It was like the writers sometimes forgot about their existence, then remembered, and decided to quickly throw them in there for a couple of seconds to remind the player: "OH HEY! THESE GUYS ARE HERE TOO."
・The Heaven scenarios: These were very cute and showed a very wholesome Mukami family moment as well. It finally felt like the old Yuma was back. Approved.
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mariaiscrafting · 3 years
Note
ahhhh ty ty ty <3
ok, so I think that what makes Dream act this way (iykyk) is how dreamwastaken became so big so quickly. and by quick I mean fucking lightning speed.
he didn't have enough time to learn enough about cc etiquette, especially in these three aspects: influence, boundaries and fanbase/stans/whatever you call it. I'll try to explain it:
• Influence: Does he know the influence he has? Like, when he hears that he is the myct with the largest fanbase, does he really process that? I remember he talked about not being able to control all of his fanbase and there's bad apples everywhere -- which is true, and that only like 1% of his fanbase breaks his boundaries (that include sending hate for him, harassing, doxing, etc. yk, basic twitter culture lol) but, honey, with your big ass fanbase, 1% is still a lot of people. As a content creator you *have* to be aware of that.
let's take the hbomb situation. First off, as a streamer, it's you that set the mood of the stream. Even if he was only messing around with his pals, even if they did say to do not send hate to hbomb, dt dunking on him created a toxic environment, which caused his fans being toxic towards hbomb and you know what happens next. Hell, when this happened, I was watching Tapl and he was watching them and he was crying laughing over them screaming bc they were just. so loud and so aggressive that it was kinda ??? Sirs, this is literally a Minecraft Stream lmaooo
my point is, that was not the road that dreamwastaken, 21M fans, should've taken. he don't condone his fans actions but he knows his fans are diehard and will always be on his side, he should be more careful before stating negative opinions, especially if its towards another person.
• Boundaries and Fanbase: He posted a list of his boundaries a while ago, idk if you know or seen it (btw please george copy your bestie for the love of god <3) but I'm not talking about those boundaries, I'm talking about the basic boundaries between cc and viewer. boundaries that, in my opinion, should exist between cc and viewer. I get that Dream is an open person, an oversharing type of open person if I may add, but I think he should take a step back regardless. When I heard that he was taking a time from twitter, I genuinely got so glad, not because he couldn't start any drama then, but because it would do so so good for his mental health. I'm not even that fond of him, it's just that for me, any cc taking a break or outright leaving twitter is a win for me. I know how RSD is hard to deal and honestly letting shit out it's better but dream you have dt you have bbh so please don't make things worse online 😭 I know how good can be to feel validation from millions of people but. it's not a good idea, especially in the state that his fanbase is on rn (this topic is kinda sensitive to talk abt for me bc people be outright ableist and hide it as criticism like. say that shit's not helping his reputation and whatever without acting like he's fucking. manipulating his fanbase for being affected by his rsd💀 or, on the other hand, don't say that hes just being adhd🤪 when he's just being an asshole like damn that's a Him thing bro lol)
(omg it's so big I'm so sorry and theres a part two I'm so sorry tumblr user messed-up-gal ToT) - morango 1/2
pt. 2:
Dream is the proof that the people who loves you can be your downfall. istg. Have you noticed that every drama that Dream enters, people usually get more mad abt how his fanbase reacts (85% they'll react in a bad way) than Dream himself? it's not always, but its definitely more likely. I'm not saying Dream is saint, he Is petty and his ego does him dirty and made him choke multiple times before,, But! i dont think hes a bad guy. he's literally just a dude. ok, he's a 21yr old white gamer man that has a trumpie past (maybe?? idk. I think hes cured now ig lol) so he's bound to do some shitty things but he still tries to get better and hopefully he'll mature. 21 is old enough but it's still so young, yk? I kind of lost my mind during the end and my eyes are literally begging to be closed so tl;dr: Its gonna be hard for him to become a better cc bc his fans don't let him be criticized (by infantilizing his adhd symptoms or the mob mentality as soon as someone says anything abt him), the honest criticism get lost between lies from antis that don't know shit, he still has a lot of growing up to do and overall he became famous too fast and he needs to learn things even faster bc as soon as there's not a single one dream hater on sight they'll turn their back and attack him instead lmao I hate twitter i definitely have more to say but I'm tired and my memory is shit. just-- hate dream if you want, love dream if you want, nobody is obligated to have an opinion but I wanted to express mine. have a lovely day! -morango 2/2
Aight, there's a lot to unpack here, so Imma try to only go into the points I have something to add to (here's what I talk about in each paragraph, if you want to jump to a specific point):
Speed of Dream's rise to fame
The "bad apples" in the Dream fanbase
Post-MCC HBomb stream
Not condoning versus actually condemning his fans
Manipulation & RSD
Criticism of Dream, his fanbase, and his brand
The “just a dude” argument, flipped
First, I agree that one of the many factors that has resulted in the current image Dream has set up for himself, the way his fanbase functions, the ways people hate on him, and the way the Dream brand functions, is the speed of his rise to fame. It's unique, and there are probably a hundred social/psychological angles that could be used to examine the exact effects of that speed upon all of these facets of the Dream Name; did rapid fame beget the rapid rise of unrighteous hatred, did those waves of hatred then instigate the rise of a surprisingly overdefensive fanbase, did that rapid fame get to his head and/or result in an inability to appropriately handle all the after-effects of rapid fame, etc.? That point you bring up, about how the speed of his rise to fame requires him to learn even more quickly, is so interesting to me. I think that maybe Dream expected to get pretty famous pretty quickly, hence the preparedness in regards to some mechanics of influencer fame- merchandise, business-building, networking, knowing how to manage his fanbase to best benefit him. But I don't think he expected to get this famous this quickly. This is all speculation of course, as are this entire post and your ask, but I think that he just couldn't anticipate having to learn how to handle enmasse controversy, waves of antis, or every Youtuber speculating/knowing about him; and yeah, that results in him having to learn all of these things very quickly, lest he allow his whole brand and fandom to fall apart.
Second, I disagree with the frequent argument that Dream's fanbase is only marginally toxic. Personally, I think that the circumstances of Dream's fame, his personality and management of his fanbase, and his brand of content have resulted in the very specific kind of stan that Dream stans are. I don't think this is simply a case of "all fandoms have a small percentage of assholes who take it too far;" rather, the nature of the community itself breeds the kind of mentality of "an asshole who takes it too far." I only even know this because I was a Dream fan (kinda a stan, I'm ngl). At one time, I watched every single Dreamwastaken & Dream Team video multiple times; I listened to the Manhunts on repeat, as though they were podcasts; I followed mostly smiletwt and dttwt accounts on mcyttwt; I had upwards of 10 tabs for AO3 DNF fics open on my phone at a time; I watched DNF and Dream Team Being A Family-esque compilations on repeat; I watched every George and Sapnap alt stream I possibly could; I went out of my way to defend Dream against Redditors and Twitter antis regarding the cheating scandal. For the latter half of 2020, and a couple months of 2021, I lived and breathed this part of the fandom; so when I say that Dream stans are a whole other breed than any other kind of mcyttwt stan, I say that because I used to be like that, too. I usually use parasocial very loosely or ironically, but Dream stans are genuinely one of the most parasocial fanbases I have ever seen or been a part of. The level of investment Dream stans have in this man's life, the lengths they will go to to defend him, the amount of psychonalysis and digging they do on his life and character, the amount of emotion he can evoke in them- it's taken to another level, man. This isn't just characteristic of a fraction of his fanbase; this is what the fanbase is like as a whole.
Third, I partially disagree with your take on the HBomb thing, but not in the way one might think? I actually empathize with the way they reacted much more than I thought I would, simply because I suspect I have RSD (also suspect I have ADHD, have for several months now) and I can see myself getting insanely frustrated because of something like that. Like yeah, it was "just a MC stream" or "just an MC game," but that's kinda disregarding the fact that something that might seem like "just a [insert inconsequential thing]" to a rational mind might have a major emotional consequence/take a major emotional toll on someone with RSD, or really anyone who gets easily impatient/angry about video games (Sapnap reminds me of many of my friends, in that way). The issues I, personally, had with the way they handled the HBomb situation is that these are simply explanations and reasons for my empathy; they are not excuses. I have no excuse when I get irrationally angry about something inconsequential in my own life, for a couple of reasons. One, because I am an adult and I need to learn how to handle my reactions and manage my own anger. Two, because as someone with many mental problems, it is my responsibility to learn coping mechanisms to ensure my own emotional stability and livelihood; this includes learning whatever I need to handle RSD- whether that be isolating myself from others when I know I will become violently/passionately angry about something, creating and sustaining a support system that can get me through bouts of extreme emotion, finding healthy emotional outlets for my negative emotions that won't harm myself or others, or a combination thereof. I don't think what they said about HBomb post-MCC was an irreversibly horrible thing, or anything. I think there were errors committed by two men who should be fully capable of foreseeing and preventing those errors, but I don't unconditionally hate Dream or Sapnap for the post-MCC stream or comments. I just wish they had made amends quickly, publicly, and sufficiently, because the greatest consequences from the whole thing weren't even from those two criticizing HBomb themselves; they were from the waves of backlash because of their immense influence on the MCYT fandom, which could've been prevented, if they had acted maturedly and responsibly after the stream.
Fourth, you’re right, that he doesn’t seem to condone his fans’ behavior. I detest the frequent anti argument that one of the reasons Dream should be criticized is because he explicitly uses his fanbase to attack others, or something of the sort. Personally, I think he created his fanbase in a very specific way and interacts with them in such a way so as to benefit him as much as possible, yes, but he never actually tells his fanbase to go and yell at or harrass anyone. Still, there is a significant difference between not condoning something and condemning something. It might seem unfair, and it might be annoying of me to say this, but I truly think that someone with this large a fanbase, especially one as overzealous as Dream’s, needs to be condemned every single time it goes on some kind of rampage/harrassment campaign. Either that, or Dream needs to make a definitive, permanent statement against any kind of harrassment of others on his behalf. I know he’ll occassionally make the odd tweet or serious stream addressing something his fanbase did, but one of the many reasons his fanbase keeps doing the same damn thing is because he’s so lukewarm and spotty about this condemnation. A fanbase like his needs to be given explicit guidance and boundaries for the numerous things they do in his defense- harrassing/doxing antis, harrassing people who criticize him who aren’t antis (respectful criticism, other CCs, other MCYT stans, etc.), harrassing the people he critcizes (i.e., HBomb), speculating about his personal life (his relationship with his gf, his mental health/ADHD, his romantic life, his childhood, etc.), and speculating about his relationships with his friends and colleagues.  My personal ideology is that, if you have significant influence over someone or a group of people, you are at least somewhat responsible for the things those people do or don’t do, if it at all relates back to you. I’m so fucking tired of the argument that CCs aren’t responsible for what their fans do. Obviously they aren’t responsible for every single one of their fans, and obviously they can’t fully control their fans at the end of the day. But I think there are certain things that reach such a level of extremity that does make those CCs responsible. This can be measured by either scale or intensity; that is to say, if a CC’s fanbase does things on an extremely large scale, or one person from/a fraction of the fanbase does something really extreme, then the CC is made all the more responsible. Another CC I’ve always had trouble discussing with other people on this subject is Pewdiepie, in particular, about the extremists in his fanbase. Because the things a small handful of his fans have done in reference to him and/or in his name were so fucking extreme, I thought Pewdiepie had to take at least some responsibilty. Along a similar vein, because the things Dream’s general fanbase does are so widespread and on such a massive scale, Dream has to take at least some responsibility.
Fifth, okay. Hmmm. I want to tackle this point you made about the ableism he faces in some criticism of him carefully and with empathy, but not coddling. One, I do think a lot of the criticism he receives for the ways he handles criticism (post-cheating Tweets, reactions to John Swan, post-MCC HBomb stream, etc.), disregard his RSD and can be oftentimes ableist. I’ve actually encountered people irl who criticize this aspect of Dream’s character, and have had to explain to them their disregard for how ADHD/RSD affect neurodivergent people’s reactions to criticism. But - and this is a big, and very controversial but - I think mentally ill/disordered people can 100% leverage their mental illness/disorders for the sake of manipulation. This is actually something I’ve learned from a psychiatrist, regarding the ways people I know and I handle our anxiety and depression. This manipulation can be unwitting or intentional, but it is entirely possible, and the possibility shouldn’t be entirely dismissed as ableist. Living with a mental illness or disorder that others know about/that you are very public about puts you in an interesting position to receive frequent sympathy, empathy, and/or pity. I’m not saying that empathy for Dream having ADHD/RSD is entirely unjustified; on the contrary, I have frequently expressed how I can relate to his ADHD symptoms and have defended him for expressing those symptoms, both on mcytblr and in real life. I am saying that Dream fans tend to use his ADHD as a kind of shield for a lot of criticism levied against him, including the supposition that he could be manipulating his fanbase to defend him because of his public expressions of RSD. So yes, my theory is that Dream knows how to levy every aspect of his life for his personal gain and for the growth of his brand, and that includes his ADHD. I think he has courage for his openess about his ADHD, I think his openness has contributed to the rise in awareness of mental health and empathy for neurodivergent people within Gen Z, and I think at least some of his expressions of RSD publicly/online weren’t intentionally made public. All that being said, I also think he has to know just how much his fanbase cares about defending him for his ADHD, and I think he has to know that some of the things he does related to his neurodivergence endear him to his audience, in a coddling, baby-ing, mildly ableist sorta way.  Maybe this is all incredibly presumptuous of me. Of course, I can never know the real intentions behind any Dream video, Tweet, or stream. Maybe I’m just projecting, because I can see myself doing just this, if I had the maturity I had circa 2018-2019. Idfk know, man.
Sixth, I actually agree with you here, people probably do get more mad at his fanbase than him. Dream puts out content pretty seldomly, considering the frequency of content output for other Youtubers/streamers in his field/at his brand size. And yet, he has received masses of criticism. Considering that the things Dream himself does/says do not entirely correlate with the amount of criticism he receives, I think it’s a logical assumption that a lot of that criticism actually goes back to the size of his presence online, rather than the man himself. That is to say, because of the massive community he’s amassed, the exponential growth of his fanbase, their presence on every single social media site and in virtually every single Internet space/fandom, and the size of his metaphysical presence in his fields, Dream is much bigger than the man himself, so the criticism he receives will, at least in part, be a direct or indirect result of all these other aspects of the Dream brand.  Something I don’t think many Dream fans/stans, or even most MCYT fans in general, understand, is that Dream isn’t just “one guy” in the eyes of the Internet- at least, not anymore. He hasn’t been for nearly a year. Like Pewdiepie, Mr. Beast, and other CCs who have amassed similar levels of fame and wealth via Internet content creation, Dream is a brand now, and most people will treat him as such. He isn’t just some uwu soft boy playing Minecraft anymore. He is on a whole other level from any other MCYT in his friend circle or colleague interaction bubble. His words will never again live in a vaccum or private bubble, his friend circle will never again be under anything less than intense scrutiny, his past actions will never again be simple mistakes or silly errors, his words will never again be casual tweets or streams for laughs among a couple thousand followers. Dream’s name represents something much bigger than just the one man. As such, all aspects of his brand, including his fanbase, will tie back to him and, ultimately, to any general criticism of him.
I’m not saying I like any of this, and I actually think the evolution of influencers from people to a marketable brand with similar mechanisms, responsibilities, and liabilities as a corporation is some kind of late capitalism nightmare fuel; I’m just stating my own observations and theories as to why so much anti-Dream criticism seems to be directed at his fanbase, rather than him.
Seventh, he’s just a guy, you’re right, but I think a lot of the antis on Tumblr understand this more than you know. As I’ve seen it, the sentiment among much of the “DSMP stans DNI” crowd seems to be that of “Dream/other MCYTs are such ‘bad’ people, so why do their fans stick to these mediocre, racist men, when there are so many better people to watch/better content to consume?” We know this argument is flawed for many of the obvious reasons - the conflation of all MCYTs’ actions regardless of individual identity, the equating of a CC’s fanbase’s morality to that of the CC they enjoy watching, the exxageration of any error MCYT CCs have committed as bigotry/racism, the fundamental misunderstanding and misinformation that led antis to believe this exxageration of the facts, etc. But I want to focus on the general, underlying sentiment of, “why not watch someone better, when your creator is problematic?” Sometimes, I ask this of Dream stans. Yes, being mildly ignorant, getting involved in the scandals Dream has, and being a right-leaning/libertarian centrist in the recent past all seem like harmless things, all things considered. One could say Dream isn’t nearly as bad as many antis who are misinformed seem to believe, and that there are much worse CCs Dream stans could be watching and creating fan content for. But I think what Tumblr antis wonder is, aren’t there also much better MCYTs/CCs people could be watching and stanning? Because he’s just some guy, right? Is his content truly so exceptional or is he really so exceptional a person, that people have to stick by him, despite the things that spike up regarding his current or past actions? I think that’s what made me finally decide to stop watching Dream. I realized he was just Some Guy. The Dream Team was a comforting dynamic to indulge in, DNF was a cute ship to read and speculate about, and Manhunts were fun videos to watch; however, once the Reddit posts came out and I read them in-depth, the cost-benefit analysis tipped over to the “not worth it” side for me. I realized Dream’s content, while fun and comforting, was not entirely unique, and wasn’t worth sticking around for, given what I then knew about his past political leanings. If he is just Some Guy, then there are a hundred more like him out there. There a hundred more ships, a hundred more found family dynamics, a hundred more entertaining and skilled Minecraft players. So while I agree with you on the point of people being allowed to love him regardless because he is just a guy, at the end of the day, I think that, if we are to believe that sentiment or use that argument in such a manner, we should also understand the flip side- that, if he is just some guy, why is it worth sticking around? To that I say, maybe because people just enjoy the simple things they enjoy.
Anyways, I wholly agree with your tl;dr. Thanks for that insanely long ask, this was a fun thing to keep me occupied while I’ve been at work, facilitating Zoom sessions this whole morning.
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nikkoliferous · 3 years
Text
Phase One: Thor
Since I was looking up my past live-blog of the novel and realising how annoying and repetitive reading through it all is because of my having structured it as a bunch of reblogs, I’ve decided to organize it all into one long-ass post instead. In case anyone else wants to read it in the future. Or in case I decide to re-read it. Because I’m hilarious. 😅
SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO
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My Hilarious Yet Wrathful Overview Of Phase One: Thor, Redux
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If your son who’s to become king requires a babysitter to not screw it all up and also the idea of him being king is stressful enough to put you into a coma, maybe, uh… reconsider doing that? Just a thought.
But you see here why Odin was so deadset on Thor becoming king, despite him being ill-suited for the role. It’s not about what’s best for Asgard; it’s about personal legacy. Thor is Odin’s mini me, and Loki is very much not. There are places within the text where Odin laments Thor “lacking his father’s wisdom” (he’s definitely inherited your humility, though, Odin!), but he hopes for Thor to grow into a “wise king” like himself. Whereas he holds no such illusions (lol, pun) that Loki will ever take after him.
now with tag commentary! #this scene is in the script and both novelizations #(though in reading this novel seems to just be a more complete version of the junior novel? #idk i'm confused because they're supposedly written by different authors but so far the text is identical) #and it drives me insane each time i read it
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“Haha, I’m a warmongering piece of shit, isn’t it funny?”
I know, I know. I try to cut Asgard some slack for being such a militaristic culture because social changes happen slowly and when you live for thousands of years per generation, it makes sense that your views on things like war would be regressive. The text says Odin has ruled Asgard for tens of thousands of years (so much for taking Loki’s “give or take 5,000 years” line literally; sure, the Odinsleep would have extended Odin’s lifespan, but by that much? Idk).
Still, fuck Odin. Especially since he’ll eventually try to shame Loki for doing the same thing he’s fucking boasting about here. And on a much smaller scale too.
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…is it, though?
I actually think Loki’s relationship with being the centre of attention is really interesting in its complexity and we don’t discuss it enough. I’ve said this before, but he strikes me as the sort of person who craves attention but also wouldn’t really know what to do with it if he had it. He craves it as a result of neglect, because he’s never been shown recognition or validation. This is why he seems to revel in it in Stuttgart, even in (or maybe especially in?) his brainwashed state. But he also frequently comes across as pretty introverted and has horrible self-esteem, so I think on another level, sustained, genuine attention would make him feel kind of uncomfortable. Loki seems to believe that in order to be loved or respected, he has to literally be Thor, though. And Thor has always been the centre of attention, so for Loki, attention is synonymous with respect.
I find Loki’s relationship with wanting attention especially fascinating because I too both crave and fear it. As a borderline, I need it. When no one is paying attention to me, I lose my sense of identity. I feel as though I literally cease to exist. It’s excruciatingly painful. And yet, I have no authentic sense of self; I’m just a chameleon, and the closer people get to me, the more likely it is they’ll see behind my mask. They’ll realise it’s all a show and that I’m actually no one. And then they’ll leave. I can’t help wondering if that’s how Loki feels sometimes too.
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Wait, what? You mean goat. His horns are shaped like a goat’s. This is a ram: 
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This is a goat:
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This is Loki:
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Do you see now? They’re like a goat. Not a ram. Not a cow. A GOAT.
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This book was written before Ragnarok was a thing, so it may be unfair to connect the two, but it still seems worth noting that it was Thor who reduced Loki to being no more than a trickster to begin with. “You could be more,” my ass. Loki’s problem has never been that he was one-dimensional; it was always that the people in his life, including Thor, refused to see any other dimensions to him. Which makes those words particularly cruel—as if they aren’t cruel enough already, what with the physical torture and all. 
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Always happy to have cause to point out that
Loki was on Thor clean-up duty their whole lives; he certainly was not trying to kill Thor.
People like to point to Loki’s attempted genocide of the Jötnar and attempted(-ish? lol) conquest of Earth as proof that he’s some kind of violent maniac. But in a little place I like to call reality, Loki was historically far less aggressive and bloodthirsty than his peers.
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Question: why is one conqueror evil and the other is righteously entitled to ruling over the Nine Realms?
Asgardian exceptionalism FTW
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I can’t even begin to imagine what would lead you to expect such a thing, Odin. 😂
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Uh, ‘cause it is?? And also their planet is MELTING without it??
This is all only within the first two chapters, btw. Lmao
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“Looking for answers,” my foot.
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YOU WOULD THINK SO, WOULDN’T YOU??
#i mean unless you knew heimdall #he only commits treason on days that end in y
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What’d I say? Thor clean-up dutyyyyy 
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Just wanna remind everyone that this 
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is why he’s smiling during this scene 
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because it makes me laugh every time. 😂 
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My heart breaks every time I remember that second excerpt because literally ALL OF IT happened to him when he survived falling through the wormhole. My poor boy. 😭
But also of note… Loki gets cold (and also does not like being cold). This interests me because 1) as many are aware, the prevalent headcanon that Loki has a low body temperature irritates me and 2) it possibly(?) lends weight to the theory that he may not be fully Jötun, whether by virtue of his birth or Odin’s spell.
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Haha, look at this Feminist Icon™ trying to take credit for his female friend’s accomplishments! Truly inspiring. 
#for some reason the ragnarok lovers have somehow decided that thor is both a feminist and lesbian icon #whatever that means 🤷‍♀️ #and i'm still trying very hard to figure out why #is it literally just because he *says* he respects women or whatever in that dumb rambly conversation with valkyrie?
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Ooh… you were so close to getting the point, Volstagg. So close. Take your tongue off Odin’s boot for just a couple minutes longer.
Also, the author just forgot the name of the Casket. How did this book get published? 😂
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JUST LOOKING FOR ANSWERS, HUH?
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Because fuck Loki, amirite? He, uh… he’s a prince too, you know.
Also… Fandral, you dweeb 😂
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…am I reading too much into this, or did Odin just literally forget that Loki exists?
On the other hand, the author also seemed to forget Loki existed for most of this chapter, so who knows. 🤷‍♀️
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lmao @ Jane immediately trying to convince herself she’s too rational to be attracted to a stranger 
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Honestly, though, big mood. 
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Just your periodic reminder that Thor’s sycophantic friends KNEW Loki was right and decided to throw him under the bus anyway. 
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Just as I’ve always said: That was it. That was their ENTIRE rationale. That Loki *could* have done it, therefore he must have. Please tell me these people have nothing to do with Asgard’s justice system.
…lol, jk, Asgard has no justice system.
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Ok, first of all, no.
Second: thank you, Fandral. You’re a self-absorbed cad, but also evidently Thor’s least stupid friend.
Thirdly, how…? First, it was, “Loki arranged all this because he’s jealous of Thor.” Now they’ve suddenly jumped all the way to, “All of Asgard is in danger.” What exactly does Sif think Loki is planning? He’s gonna, what… assassinate Odin and then sell Asgard to the Jötnar?
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Please stop hurting me.
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Just so there’s no confusion: this one sentence explains everything Loki did for the rest of the movie. It explains how a person who has been historically non-aggressive suddenly transforms into a warmonger. To prove himself a real Asgardian, like his brother and father and grandfather. 
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…why did Odin fall into the Odinsleep in two completely different scenes in this book? I’m super confused.
Also, we really need to talk about how cruel it is of Marvel to keep forcing Loki to prove his loyalty again and again and again when he’s been doing so almost literally since we met him. And by “we need to talk about it”, I mean I need to tie Kevin Feige and co. to a chair and spend a minimum of five hours lecturing them on how poorly they understand their own fucking character.
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Let’s just be clear here: they’re talking about Loki. They’re saying Loki, their LEGITIMATE king, is an enemy of Asgard, based on evidence so paper-thin it’s practically invisible. Just… please, let that sink in. Take a moment to appreciate how utterly fucked up that is. 
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I’m sorry (not really), but Thor was so much funnier before Ragnarok.
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This scene has always kind of bugged me. If Odin removed Thor’s powers, how come he can still control the weather? Confusing.
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So what exactly was Thor’s plan anyway, before he realised he couldn’t lift Mjölnir? He was just gonna call on Heimdall to help him commit treason AGAIN, show up on Asgard against the expressed command of his king, and… Odin would just shrug and be like, “You got me, son! I guess I can’t keep you down. Welcome home!”?
…I mean, I guess that more or less is what happened in the end, but it’s hard to imagine it would have still gone down that way without all the stuff that happened with Loki. Idk.  
#look what i'm saying is... thor is not exactly a thinking person #no one on asgard is a thinking person #except loki but he's crazy now so he's also thinking somewhat poorly lol
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Cool, Thor. Now imagine feeling that way for ONE THOUSAND YEARS and develop a little fucking empathy for your brother.
But you won’t.
You’ll brush off his feelings of worthlessness as “imagined slights”. 😒
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Nice that somebody knows how the royal line of succession works, I guess… 
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That sound you hear? Yeah, that’s just my heart breaking. NBD. 
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First, they mislabelled it the Casket of Eternal Winters. Now it’s the Cask of Ancient Winters. Author must have been thirsty when they wrote this. Lol 
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Look, not to nitpick, but this is not the recommended procedure when you see a storm that you don’t believe is of supernatural origin coming. I’m just saying. Lol 
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Uh… ‘cause he is?? And your pals are committing treason AGAIN, Thor, so it technically is responding to a threat to Asgard. Just FYI.
Anyways, this is an important point that doesn’t get made often enough. People want to act like Loki illegally usurped the throne somehow, but even without the deleted scene that explicitly shows Frigga passing rulership to him (a scene which is, for some reason, entirely skipped over in this book, but whatever), understand this: Loki could not have controlled the Destroyer unless he was legitimately King of Asgard. The fact that he’s able to do so is irrefutable proof that his rulership is valid.
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lmao you little shit
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So… here’s my issue with this scene (and with Thor as a character): He always assumes that Loki’s acting out specifically to hurt him. That Loki’s entire life and thought process revolves around Thor. He does it in this scene, he does it in The Avengers… it’s just a chronic thing with Thor. Everything is viewed through the lens of Loki inexplicably hating him.
But that’s… just not accurate. Yes, Loki harbours a lot of jealousy towards Thor. But that’s not what’s happening in this scene. Loki is not trying to kill Thor here because he wants him dead; he’s doing it because Thor (and his friends) are getting in the way of Loki completing his ultimate goal. Loki tried to solve this problem non-violently, by lying about Odin being dead. It’s Thor’s friends who all but forced his hand by going behind his back and trying to bring Thor back to Asgard against Loki’s (and Odin’s!) direct orders.
For all the humility he’s learned in the past few days, this entire speech is still really all about Thor. About assuming that Loki’s doing this for personal reasons, because he holds a grudge against Thor for some unknown reason. This is implicit in his request to “take [my life] and end this.” It never even occurs to him that his friends are traitors to the Crown and Loki, as King of Asgard, is perhaps justified in pursuing them.
It also needs to be acknowledged that Thor’s apology here is hollow, even if it’s ultimately coming from his heart, because he has no idea what he’s apologising for. “Whatever I have done to wrong you” is not an apology. An apology addresses specific hurtful actions taken and commits to not repeating those mistakes in the future. Thor cannot commit to not repeating the hurtful things he’s done, because he doesn’t know what he’s done. Despite his best intentions, what Thor is doing here is actually kind of manipulative. He’s not addressing any substantive issue between the two of them; he’s just trying to talk Loki down. And it ultimately fails not because Loki doesn’t care or because he wants Thor dead, but because it doesn’t actually change anything.
Finally and only semi-relatedly, we should maybe at some point talk about the fact that Loki, who is stated to be a master tactician, has displayed a weird pattern of hardly ever being as lethal as he could be. He freezes Heimdall in place instead of killing him outright; he backhands Thor with the Destroyer instead of incinerating him; he, well… *gestures vaguely at almost the entirety of the first Avengers movie* Anytime the violence is even a little bit personal, he seems to hedge. Odd behaviour for somebody who’s supposedly super evil.
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I’m sorry, I know I’ve pointed it out at least a hundred times before, but I just can’t encounter this scene in any form without taking a moment to appreciate how underrated and hilarious it is.
I also genuinely wonder how many Ragnarok stans who have accused me of having no sense of humour, have failed to laugh at moments like this one. Kinda feel like if you need to have the comedy spoonfed to you in the form of ass jokes, maybe you’re the one whose sense of humour is lacking. 🤷‍♀️
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Let’s be super clear: this is not what happened. Loki did not betray Odin; he was betrayed by Odin. He did not open Asgard to its enemies; he attempted, misguidedly, to destroy Asgard’s enemies. And he most certainly did not commit suicide out of a sense of guilt.
I’m not saying Loki did nothing wrong, nor am I saying he feels no regret for the lives he has taken. What I’m saying is there’s no indication that he believes he betrayed Odin or Asgard in the process. Which makes perfect sense, because he didn’t. Everything he tried to do was for Odin and Asgard. It was misguided and horrible, yes, but it can hardly be classified as a betrayal.
The insurmountable burden on Loki is not that he did terrible things, but that no matter what he does or how hard he tries, Odin will never look at him with anything but contempt. Consider once more these passages from the very beginning of the book, at Thor’s coronation:
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Consider that this book goes to great pains to point out that Odin favours Thor because Thor is a warrior like him. And yet even when Loki embraces that, even when he acts more war-like than ever before, Odin rejects him— just as he always has.
There is a reason why this moment is the last time Loki will ever call Odin his father. Because he realises once and for all that, no, nothing he tries will ever be good enough; no, Odin won’t ever look at him with pride. That is Loki’s burden. That is why he lets go.
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The epilogue is really just two pages of making me want to vomit. 
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There’s your party where Thor and a certain subset of the fandom insist that Loki was mourned. There’s barely an indication here that anyone even perceives his demise as a negative thing.
“[Sif] could see Frigga thought [Loki was dead] as well” also contradicts the tie-in comic for TDW, so I don’t know what the author is on about there. Unlike the majority of Marvel comics, the tie-in comics are canon to the MCU, so it’s a bizarre statement to make.
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COULD YOU SMEAR THE DEAD* ABUSE VICTIM A LITTLE HARDER, PLEASE? Fucking hell.
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No matter how many times I encounter this scene, in whatever format, I still fail to become desensitized to how disgusting it is. I realise there’s a good chance that whatever version of events Thor has been told was twisted at best; but how you can look at a man whose son has just committed suicide under any circumstances and say there will never be a better father than that guy, is utterly beyond my capacity to understand.
And Odin’s “you’ve already made me proud” line just feels like extra salt in the wound because, again, Loki let go because he realized Odin would never say those words to him. And yet they come so damn easily when it’s Thor.
Fuck this entire family so much. I think I hate them more than Loki does. Sometimes I wonder what he would think about that. How he would react to knowing that not only is he actually loved, but that he’s so loved that people are genuinely furious at the way he’s been mistreated. That there are people who regularly devolve into full-on rants because they just can’t contain how much anger they have towards the people who hurt him. I think he’d have a hard time wrapping his head around that concept, tbh.
Anyways, to end on a not-completely-depressing note, I’m still waiting for someone at Marvel to explain how Loki knew what Thor said in this scene after plummeting into a wormhole. ‘Cause he references this conversation as Fauxdin at the end of TDW. So like… ?? Did he steal Odin’s memories before he erased them? Because that would be… kind of neat, actually. And very clever. Not entirely ethical, of course, but it’s Odin, so fuck ethics.
WELP, THAT’S IT. Thanks for following along with my dumbassery, hope you enjoyed yourselves. Lol
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soundsof71 · 3 years
Note
So, considering you are a passionate fan of music released in 1971, I feel justifiably obligated to ask you what you think of Buffy Sainte-Marie's 'She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina' album. 😂 (Also, it would make me beyond happy if you could post more about Buffy, my friend! Thank you! ❣)
Buffy Sainte-Marie + Crazy Horse - what’s not to love? LOL I confess that it was the Crazy Horse connection that caught my attention first. I had a general idea who Buffy was, had seen her on TV a few times, but I was a big Crazy Horse fan. News that they were her backing band for this album was easily enough for me to scoop it up.
They weren’t doing anything much with Neil Young in 1971 (other than this album, on which Neil also appeared!), but they had released a tasty solo album in February 71, produced by Jack Nitzsche (who also produced this, and would later marry Buffy), and featuring Ry Cooder (also featured here, although did not marry Buffy). 
(btw, the first place that Buffy, Ry, and Jack worked together was on the Nic Roeg film Performance, starring Mick Jagger. People obviously remember Mick in that, but musically, Buffy was the best part!) 
She Used To Wanna... also features Jesse Ed Davis, a Native American guitarist and singer who was a frequent “usual suspect” at these sort of “sure, invite everyone!” jam albums of the era, and played a prominent role at 1971′s biggest concert (at least in the US), The Concert for Bangladesh on August 1.
(I know you know  RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked The World, the documentary about indigenous music’s influence on rock and roll, which has chapters on both Buffy and Jesse Ed. I just watched it again recently, and love it! A reminder of Buffy’s pivotal role in classic rock history. Not mentioned in the film: she relentlessly championed the work of her fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, helping them get their first record deals.)
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I haven’t listened to She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina for a while, so I definitely need to do that, along with posting more pictures of Buffy.  (I can’t believe I’ve only posted two!) 
But I’ll tell you what still stands out to me about that record years later. “Smack Water Jack” is an underrated track from Carole King’s Tapestry that got a ton of airplay at the time. Quincy Jones did an instrumental cover as the title track for his terrific 1971 album, too, but it has somehow faded to obscurity since then. Buffy takes a playful trifle, and turns it into a powerful fable of men of color who explode into violence in response to the violence visited upon them, and self-satisfaction of whites in authority who answer their demands for better living conditions by killing them on the spot. 
No need for a trial when you can murder them in the streets, right? “You can't talk to a man when he don't wanna understand / And he don't wanna understand” hits different when Buffy sings it, and in 2020 for that matter. 
It’s also just a terrific performance whose combination of soul and rock and roll and driving piano in a sort of Old West-sounding context would have made this sound right at home on a record like Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection  or something by The Band. I’m limited to five video embeds per post so I can’t embed it here, so I'm linking instead: anyone who hasn’t heard this definitely needs to.
Her cover of Neil’s CSNY track “Helpless” has things I like even better than Neil’s original, including Merry Clayton standing in for CSN. Buffy’s version is more muscular (thanks again to Crazy Horse), and taps even more deeply into the isolation of the song that the star power of CSNY somewhat obscured. 
Buffy’s version also made a brief but memorable appearance in the 2018 film Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster. A weird little movie that I loved maybe more than it deserved LOL but I recommend nonetheless:
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I know that this album gets attention because of the unusual number of covers, including one by Leonard Cohen, and a cover of a cover that Leonard had made famous on top of that, called "Song of the French Partisan” (hers is the far superior version imo, a song of French resistance to Nazi occupation from the perspective of a woman hiding a resister), but there are a couple of standout originals too. 
I love the title of this record, and the title track is a delightful little stomper that playfully cautions against equating the intentions of grown women with the childhood fantasies they’ve grown out of. More Merry Clayton goodness here on backing vocals too. 
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“Soldier Blue” is a powerful song first written for the 1970 film of the same name, billed at the time as “The most savage film in history” -- and maybe it was. It used the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre as a metaphor for Vietnam, and it's still shockingly brutal. It was the third-highest grossing movie in the UK in 1971, though, and the single became a top-10 hit for Buffy there. 
It didn’t do as well here, either the song or the movie. Perhaps not shockingly in retrospect, Soldier Blue was pulled from American theaters after a few days, the Vietnam metaphor not at all lost on the Nixon administration. 
As horrifying as it was, this is about when I was reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (first published in 1970), and Soldier Blue resonated with me in a whole lot of ways. Here’s the song in the opening credits of the movie.
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I was also really struck by “Moratorium”, which is the story of “Universal Soldier” (from her 1963 debut, but a bigger hit for Donovan in 1965), coming from the opposite direction. In the earlier song, she blamed war on the soldiers who think that fighting is honorable, but here, she has empathizes with the young men, boys really in many cases, who’ve been lied to by their countries, their parents, and even their friends. They’re not vainglorious. They’ve been duped by people they trusted. 
(I don't think she takes enough into account how many men sign up to fight because they want to embrace and celebrate their worst, most violent impulses, which was of course an undercurrent of “Universal Soldier”, but I appreciate her empathy here. More than one thing is true at a time.)
Buffy goes even farther, though, calling on soldiers to support and validate demands for peace as explicitly supporting them, summed up in the unforgettable cry, "Fuck the war and bring our brothers home!" 
1971 was the peak of antiwar demonstrations in the US, with the biggest crowds ever seen in this country until the 2017 Women’s March. The May 1971 demonstrations pretty much shut down Washington, culminating with Vietnam Veterans Against The War throwing back their medals on the steps of the US Capitol, incredibly powerful stuff to see on TV in my formative years, and Buffy was right there in it. Anti-war songs were a cottage industry for sure, but nobody was writing with the nuance and empathy that Buffy was.
Here’s a 1972 performance of “Moratorium”, Buffy and a piano, and more emotionally bare than that:
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There’s obviously lots more to say about Buffy, far outside the realm of protest music that was actually just a small part of her musical palette -- her pioneering experiments with electronic music, her educational philanthropy starting in her 20s, Sesame Street, you name it. Her commercial peak was still in front of her, and while I can’t say that this is my favorite of her records, it does have some of my favorite songs of hers, and 1971 and She Used to Wanna Be A Ballerina is definitely where I went from knowing who Buffy Sainte-Marie was to being a fan. 
I'll also note as I do now and again that while this blog started as an offshoot of a book on 1971 that I’d started but abandoned, I mostly listen to music released now. That’s always been my policy, including in 1971. When 1972 rolled up, I was mostly listening to music from 1972, music from ‘80 in ‘80, ‘91 in ‘91, 2018 in 2018, etc., to name just a few other favorites. (Plus The Beatles, okay? LOL I still listen to The Beatles every day. No apologies.) Honestly? It took me until 2011, in my fifties, when a whole bunch of 40th anniversary editions of 1971 albums got released all at once that made me think, “Wait a minute, this was maybe THE pivotal year in classic rock history!” 
So yeah, the historian in me dug into 1971, but even though I happened to be alive and enthralled by music in that year, what I’m doing here has nothing to do with nostalgia, or any idea that that was the *best* year in music, even if for the narrow slice of music that is classic rock, yeah, it absolutely is. For soul/R&B too, and for the explosion of women artists outside the even narrower confines of pop as well. This is not subject to debate. No year like it, before or since. It's just that classic rock is a such a narrow slice, and I like my slices wide. LOL Which is also why my blog has less and less 1971 content as I go along. 
While my general policy is that my favorite year for music is THIS year, this particular year hasn’t left me as much energy as usual for listening to music. Some of it is These Trying Times™, some of it is my bipolarity and schizophrenia getting the better of me in waves, as is the way with these, uhm, things. (Keep taking those meds, kids!) I listen to music and post about the people making it as a creative act, not a passive or reflexive one, and I just haven’t felt as creative as usual.
(This is also has everything to do with why so many Asks have been piling up unanswered. I apologize if you’re one of the many kind and indulgent souls who’s gotten in touch, but I swear I’m gonna get to ‘em all!)
To get an idea of what I’m ACTUALLY passionate about right now, my “to be edited later” running list of 2020 favorites randomly added to a playlist as I encounter them, to be properly curated later, is at Spotify, cleverly entitled “2020″ -- 94% women, which is about right. LOL 
But since I do in fact listen to old stuff (by which I mean 2019 LOL), I made a list of mostly 2020 bangers from women rockers with some tasty treats from 2019 that I haven’t been able to let go of just yet, inspired by a post I saw at tumblr saying that punk music by women is just plain better (also beyond debate), called “Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam”. I’ll be posting an essay with a YouTube playlist soon, because god forbid that I only talk briefly about anything LOL and most of these women need to be heard AND seen.
Like Buffy Sainte-Marie, whom you'll both see and hear more often on my blog soon. Thanks for the reminder! Always a pleasure to hear from you and be challenged by you. :-)
Peace, Tim 
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potatotrash0 · 3 years
Note
So I just started playing honkai and since ur the only person that I know plays and I have no fucking clue what I'm doing any advice? (Also I havnt even played past the tutorial, I havnt even met the character yet, and idk what you thought but kiana seems pretty gay for mei because her literal first to lines about her are "I wonder what she'll make us for dinner!" and "Mei! Am I gonna meet up with Mei?!" Like I'm probably wrong but idk it just seems a bit 💅)
Oh Kiana’s totally head over heels for Mei dkfjskfjsk. I used to main her and jesus christ I had to hear her gush about Mei so many times a day ;;;;;;; one of her idle lines is basically “it’s so sunny outside!! This would be a perfect time to go on a date with Mei…..”
Sigh. That girl’s pining so hard it’s ridiculous. Love her. KiaMei my beloved <3333 dkfjskjdksjd
Anyways moving on, take all of this with a grain of salt bc I am not by any means a Professional Honkai Player skfjskdjks. I’ve looked up exactly Zero tutorials and done exactly Zero tests, I’m just spewing what seems to work for me
Idk if you’re a completionist or not but like it might be good to mention dkfjskdnsk ah, 3-starring all the levels isn’t really necessary unless you want crystals for gacha pulls. Well they give other things too but I usually do it for crystals. Don’t worry about it early on, you can always go back later and redo the levels.
Open World mode is unlocked at Captain Level 18, but CL35 is when you unlock Adventure Tasks; that’s what I mainly use OW for. I find that it’s a good way to get gold and materials. They also give battlesuit fragments, so it’s good if you want a specific character. But I’ve only seen a few specific battlesuits given so like. Idk. But yeah Adventure Tasks are good.
Also btw there’s three different Open Worlds. It doesn’t matter which one you do, but there’s one called A Post-Honkai Odyssey. Idk if it’s unlocked already for you, but I wouldn’t recommend doing that one since you’re so early into the game. It’s not bad or crazy hard or anything, but I think it’s better if you get farther into the story before you start it. I’m not that far in and it kinda confused me ;;;;
Oh oh! If you can, use those stamina replenisher items as well as the HOMU boxes. They give you stamina and gold when you use them. Istg you can never have enough of those, especially later in the game. I’m like. Level 73 and I’m still literally always broke because I need to level up my characters ;;;;;; usually it’s leveling up skills that makes my money evaporate into thin air, but enhancing weapons and stigmatas has done that as well………
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^^ two types of HOMU boxes, the right one gives you the most amount of gold.
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^^ and then a few items that give you stamina when used. There’s a ton and they all look different. Both HOMU boxes and stamina items can be found in Equipment, you can filter it by Materials to make it easier to find them. If you’re not sure what they do, just tap on them and check the description, it’ll say smth like “use to get 60 stamina” or “use to get 1000 gold”
Idk what level it is specifically, but when you unlock the dorms, there’s a thing that generates both over time. You’ll wanna claim those as often as possible, I usually do it when I first log in. (While I’m talking about it, I’d recommend trying to log in every day at least. It’s not mandatory, but the daily rewards are really nice imo.)
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^^ those are the things I’m talking about dkfjksjd I know it says beta testing on the bottom, but the official dorm base looks basically the exact same. The dorm bonuses are still on the right, I just don’t have my ipad with me to take actual screenshots and for some reason I couldn’t find any pics of the actual dorm screen for the life of me
There’s also weekday events if you go to Attack and then events. On Saturday and Sunday, you can do the Super HOMU Run thingy and it’ll give you a ton of gold.
Ummm stigmatas are good! And weapons. Try to level those up, they help a lot if you wanna do more damage. I used to just put random stigmatas on my Valkyries bc I had no clue what they did but!! They have like. Actual effects and stats that help more when they’re given to characters who would actually benefit from them dkfjskjxskjd. So characters who deal fire damage would benefit from stigmatas who buff/deal fire damage, characters who have a damage boost against enemies who are paralyzed benefit from stigmatas that paralyze enemies. Would not recommend putting stigmatas that buff ranged attacks on a character who fights melee aha ;;;;;; same situation with weapons and weapon skills. It isn’t like. Game breaking or anything if you do happen to put mismatched equipment on your characters, but it uhhh might help a little
It also helps to take advantage of the leader skills!
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There’s not any set character that has The Best Bonus, it depends on what you need on that level. Personally I like boosted damage and attack speed but that’s because my playstyle is basically just ooga booga spam attack button
Hmmmm I think Q-Singularis is good to do? I’m bad at remembering to do it because up until like. Yesterday, I was maybe a little tiny bit bitter that it replaced a previous Abyss that I really loved, but the rewards for it are pretty good even if the bleed effect leaves my Valkyries on life support sometimes. (There’s also Dirac Sea, they rotate between the two. That one’s good as well, I’m pretty sure they give the same rewards but I might be wrong. Like I said, I forget to do them skfjskjdsknd)
Armadas are also pretty nice, they’re basically guilds/groups you can join that give you rewards based on how much you contribute. I think you unlock them fairly early on? You have to play consistently to not get kicked though. I forget to log in for months on end sometimes so I’m. Pretty frequently kicked out aha ;;;;;
I thiiink that’s enough aha ;;; feel free to ask about anything else! This was fun to do haha. (My UID is 101609594 if you wanna friend me :3 I’m stuck as Emilia on there bc Mihoyo won’t let me change my name but it’s me I promise dkfjskjdksjd)
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cinnonym · 3 years
Text
christmas magic's brought this tale (to a very happy ending)
Written for Day 10 - Game Night / Movie Night of 12 Days of Christmas @supercorpbb
Read on AO3
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r/relationship_advice – posted by u/anonymous1000 – 13 hours ago
My (25f) crush and best friend (27f) chose a lesbian classic for movie night, how do I react?
Disclaimer ahead: I haven’t used reddit before and am thus not very fluent in etiquette and formatting, but please bear with me because I am seriously overwhelmed by the current situation and would appreciate all forms of help. I’m also typing this in a hurry, because I’m supposed to be in the bathroom, so please excuse typos or inaccuracies. I’ll try my best. But now, without further ado, here goes:
I (25f) have been crushing on my best friend (27f) pretty much since the day we met. For context, that was two years ago, and while we started out on a business relationship, it evolved into a close friendship almost right away. This is mostly due to her, I must admit. She’s the most open-minded person I know and simply couldn’t be “scared away” by my bad reputation (which I inherited). Needless to say, I’m very grateful for her. She’s not only my best, but has also been my only friend for quite a while, before she introduced me to her inner circle. I unironically owe her my happiness (and my life, several times over, but that’s unrelated to this story).
I’d fallen in love before I realised what was happening. Usually, trust and affection come slowly to me, but her I loved almost right away. That’s simply who she is, a person one cannot help loving. Also, she’s very attractive, side note. I used to flirt with her sometimes, in the beginning, before I became aware of the depth of my feelings (this is awkward to talk about, btw, thank goodness for anonymity online), and back then, it seemed like she wasn’t all unresponsive to my advances. Then again, she isn’t very good at saying no to anyone, because of who she is as a person, so maybe she was only being polite? I’m not sure.
Anyway, she had a boyfriend then, and I had to come to terms with my feelings, so I sort of drew back a little. I’d been with women before, so that was never an issue, but I’m uncertain whether she has ever considered women. Her sister is gay, and she is very supportive of her, but we’ve never talked about how she feels. As far as I know, she’s only ever been with men though. Either way, I’m not in the business of making moves on taken people, so I mostly focused on fostering our friendship.
The thing is, as long as I can be close with her, I am sort of okay with being “just friends”. I mean, isn’t close friendship like a romantic relationship, just minus the romance? And minus the physical advantages (although she is a very cuddly person, so that’s nice). And, like, of course, I’d like to mean more to her. Of course I’d like to take care of her every day when she comes home, cook her dinner, listen to her worries, massage her neck, kiss her goodnight. Of course I’d like to be The One to her, just like she is The One to me. But considering that she’s probably straight and not interested in me in that way, I’m mostly okay with just being her best friend.
Or, I was mostly okay with it. But recently she’s… been acting differently towards me. She’s giving me these long glances when she thinks I don’t notice (I do). She’s going out of her way to make sure I’m fine and don’t work too much (it’s a tendency I have, especially pre-Christmas). She’s told me she’s been working on my Christmas gift almost all month (and I can’t for the hell of it guess what it could be). She’s even invited me for Christmas with her family (since I don’t celebrate with mine).
And now today, she chose the film Carol for movie night (movie night is a weekly thing we do, I should have mentioned that earlier, maybe), which is, as you might know, about a lesbian relationship. And I don’t know what to do.
She claims to have chosen the film because it was on a list of Christmas films (and I suppose it does have christmassy vibes), and because it “sounded fitting”. Sounded fitting?? What is that even supposed to mean? She doesn’t know I’m gay, so it can’t be that, unless she somehow figured out. Is she gay and this is her way of telling me? And if so, how do I react? Is this her letting me know she’s interested in me, or am I reading too much into this? Did she even realise this was a lesbian film??
Anyway, she’s calling from the living room, so I need to go. I’ll try to take another bathroom break halfway into the movie, and I’d appreciate it A Lot if I had some reactions in by then, because I’m panicking a little here. Thank you all!
Tl;dr: my supposedly straight friend chose a lesbian film for movie night, and I don’t understand her intentions behind that.
(P.S. She and her boyfriend have broken up months ago. She’s currently single.)
***
r/relationship_advice – posted by u/anonymous1000 – 11 hours ago
UPDATE to this post
First of all, thank you all so much for your quick replies, they’re really helpful. As you might have guessed, I managed to negotiate another bathroom break mid-film (though my friend is currently sulking on the couch, she didn’t want to let me go? :) ?) and am, once again, typing as fast as my fingers will allow. Much has happened.
I’ve mentioned that my friend is a very cuddly person. Today was no difference – as soon as she’d pressed play on the film, she’d already enveloped me in one of her bone-crushing hugs (she’s very strong). Normally, I let myself sink into these embraces, because she really is a phenomenal hugger, but today my speculations were so prevalent in my mind that I could hardly breathe when our bodies touched.
(She noticed my reaction right away, and immediately asked if I’d rather not hug (to which I replied a vehement no), and this really isn’t very important to the story, but I wanted to let you know.)
As the film progressed (largely unregarded by me, I must admit), I noticed several things about her behaviour that seemed odd, though:
One, her heartbeat became considerably faster as soon as Carol and Therese had met on-screen and it became clear that their relationship would be the focus of the film.
Two, she’s been side-eyeing me a lot more frequently than usual (she tends to watch me watch films if she knows the plot already, but considering she probably hasn’t seen Carol before, this seems out of character for her).
Three, and this is… I don’t even know how to feel about this, but… how do I formulate this best…  When the sex scene was playing, I swear she looked at my cleavage and blushed.
I’m sort of ecstatic (because those are hints, right? I can’t be the only one to think that those are hints?) but also very very VERY worried that I’ve totally misinterpreted the entire situation. Then again, all of your comments sound incredibly hopeful and affirming, so I guess I’m not entirely wrong in my assumptions?
I need to go back now (I’ve been here way too long already), but I will definitely keep you updated. It’s so heart-warming to see how invested all of you are!
@everyone who told me to kiss her already: if she keeps this up, I just might :)
***
r/relationship_advice – posted by u/anonymous1000 – 1 hour ago
UPDATE! All’s well that ends well!
Hey everyone, I am so sorry for the late update. I ended up being… somewhat busy last night.
:) :) :)
So, long story short, we’re dating now. And yes, I did kiss her (or she kissed me, I can’t remember exactly. We somehow kissed each other simultaneously).
Long story slightly less short, because I see you hungering for details in the comments (and my now-girlfriend said you deserved to know), here is how it went down:
We didn’t even finish the film. We didn’t even resume the film, after I returned from the bathroom. Because when I did, giddy and ready to Do This, she wasn’t even looking at me. No, she was looking at her phone.
Now, I’ve never seen a person look at their phone with an expression quite as shocked as hers. She was, I’m not kidding, completely frozen (and if you knew her, you’d know that doesn’t happen often).
So naturally I rush over to her, worried as can be, thinking something bad happened, a catastrophe or maybe an accident in her family. And as I kneel by her side, and she still hasn’t moved, I happen to see what she’s been reading on her phone screen.
And it’s reddit.
I’m not gonna lie, for a second I thought it was all over. I mean, she’d obviously recognised us in my post (so much for anonymity everyone, the internet is treacherous), and judging by her expression, well… I assumed the worst.
But then she turns around and she fixes me with this incredibly cute stern stare she has, and she goes: “[My full name]. Have you browsed the relationship tag even once?”
And I shake my head, completely dumbfounded of course, because what does that have to do with anything. But apparently it plays a crucial role, because apparently you all know my girlfriend.
Her username is @supergirlssupercurls and she’s been posting the entire journey of our friendship/romance on this platform. Turns out she loves me too.
:)
She’s also told me to end this with: and they lived happily ever after.
(Let’s hope we do).
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homoo-wan-kenobi · 2 years
Note
I really don't want to sound rude or like I'm diminishing your feelings, but I think that maybe ranting about someone misspelling your name after you've corrected them before they have even had the chance to do that is a bit much? You provided reasons for why someone might misspell your name by accident (like autocorrect) so is it really something you need to get this heated over?
I get that it can feel like if someone forgets your name then they must not care about you, and I don't really know how close you are to the wrestler but as someone who frequently forgets the names of people I haven't spoken to in a while (or gets them slightly wrong), it doesn't sound to me like it's that deep
Like of course you're entitled to asking people to spell your name correctly. That's the right course of action. But making a public post about how someone might not remember it in the future? At least let her prove you right first
disclaimer: I apologise if I sound 100% like a bitch in this reply and it's kinda long so the whole reply is under the cut. anyway, moving on to the reply!
I know you said you're not trying to diminish my feelings but then asking if it's something to get this heated over?? like I don't think that can co-exist together, my opinion btw. but yes it is something for ME to get heated over because it is MY name, not yours and not anybody else's.
like yes, I corrected her. yes, I am speaking about something that hasn't happened yet. something that might not happen and she may take into account what I said and spell it right. but until then, I have every right to be upset. because she's been spelling my name wrong for over a year. yes, I should've said something about it a while ago, but like I said I rarely message her. I don't get bent out of shape over it and just confront people cause that's not me. I don't like confrontation, I hate it so I'm not gonna start it.
and also, in my opinion, for you to basically tell me that I am overreacting about something that has nothing to do with you and that I shouldn't be getting this heated over it is not sitting with me. because who are you to decide if I should be heated or not about the spelling of my name??
and I stated that she KNOWS how to spell my name. she's consciously sending messages where my name is spelled wrong. she has every opportunity to spell check and be like oh it's spelled wrong lemme fix it, not just continue doing that because I haven't said any thing so I "shouldn't have a problem with it then" like I shouldn't have to call her out about it for it to be corrected. if you're knowingly spelling someone's name wrong then they have every right to say what they have to say about it.
the rant was for me to get my disappointment out of my system so it wasn't festering inside of me. and I get that people forget names but she's sees me on her tl, in her replies, all this shit all the time. it's just the fact that she hasn't taken the opportunity to even apologise for it. and I know that she knows that she's spelling it wrong.
I apologise if this sounds aggressive or anything, but I am not in the best mood right now. you did make some points, but the fact that you're questioning my reaction to something that is part of my identity just doesn't sit well with me. and i know that wasn't your intention, but it's what I got. sorry for the long, probably very aggressive reply, and I hope you have a pleasant rest of you day because I won't.
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oversimplify-it · 3 years
Text
Story Process Tag by @herpixels​
I was tagged by @dynastiasimss​ - Thank you so much for tagging me!! 😊💖💗 This will most definitely get a bit wordy because I’m terrible at explaining things concisely! 😂 Also, I’ll mostly be talking about my process for 2.B.A Grandmaster but I’ll touch on my process for Erin in San Myshuno too!
I’m also going to get tags out of the way up here so that no one has to scroll all the way through this ... absolute novel that is under the cut LMAO so I tag: @cyansimblr  @x-simss @matchacake and any other simblrs who wanna do this!! and feel free to skip if you want!
1. Your writing process My writing process is very, very chaotic, and changes with the wind... Erin in San Myshuno doesn’t really have a process, I just play the game and then put in some dialogue based on the events. None of it is guided by my hand at all though! 2.B.A Grandmaster on the other hand is written in part based on what happens in game and in part by my own creative vision. Most of the time, I let stuff happen, and then fill in the blanks in between events. I go in game, play Sims as I normally would (skill build, take care of needs, go out to venues, etc.) and then watch what weird and interesting things happen. For example, Augusta’s meeting with Xavier in the beginning was completely the game’s doing! He was the only one to show up for the Welcome Wagon event, so I rolled with that. Scenes like Kaitlin’s meeting with Maverick and those sort of things are planned by me, as they’re necessary to create a more full narrative! It’s like collaborative storytelling, but my “partner” is a game that is weird and random and crazy. 😂 After stuff happens in game and I get screenshots, I then actually write for it. I chose to write novel style for the series because - as some of my long-term followers may remember - I had another story that was just screenshots with dialogue on them? And it was very hard, LOL, it didn’t suit my workflow very well and I ended up dropping it after a month or so. I wanted 2.B.A Grandmaster to be something I could post consistently, and so I opted for a style that I was more familiar and experienced with!
2. Scene building For the most part, I just work with what sims gives me, but as I mentioned above, some scenes I actually go to the trouble of setting up. For those, I still use the sims animations mostly (I’ve used poses about 3 times in 2.B.A Grandmaster so far) but I do usher my sims around the "set” as I see fit. I build a lot of my own lots and locations for 2.B.A GM because I tend to get a vision in my mind of what I want and refuse to settle for less. 😂 One such case is the scene where Maverick meets up with Octavia--
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I made the alleyway we see here - it’s two entirely empty buildings sandwiched side by side on an otherwise empty lot in Oasis Springs. The only part I bothered to decorate was the alley itself because I knew I wasn’t going to use the rest of the area, but maybe we’ll revisit it sometime and I’ll finish the two buildings! I actually loved making this set and like how it turned out, LOL~
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Then I just have whatever sims are involved in a scene interact with each other for ages until I feel like I have enough screenshots to make a scene. I usually have a vague idea of what’s going to be said in any given scene - especially the ones I actually planned out beforehand - but I get some excess screenshots to be safe. I try lots of different interactions and pause like every few frames to get interesting expressions and stuff, LOL. Lots of “Complain about Cold Weather” and “Give fake bad news” ...
3. CC/Pose making I don’t actually make my own CC for 2.B.A GM specifically (I’ve made a couple eyeshadows but I don’t use them super frequently) but there is a scene coming up in the future that I plan to make poses for. I have a very clear image in my mind that includes a lot of subtle expressions and very specific things that I doubt I could find poses for, so I’m gonna have to brave the terrifying landscape of blender in order to make it a reality. 😧
4. Getting in the zone I don’t have any sort of “ok, show time” ritual like some people do but I wish I did, because my motivation waxes and wanes so unpredictably. Some days I just don’t feel like doing anything, and other days I edit and write for 5 posts in a row! I am always listening to something though, usually music, every once in a blue moon a video with lots of talking. 5. Screenshot folder
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UGH... 
6. Captions I don’t do captions on 2.B.A GM posts, but for my city living gameplay I do! I keep them simple, because I don’t want to make it too much work for myself. Erin in San Myshuno’s style of editing is 100% based around ease, because I wanted something to post often that didn’t put too much of a strain on me. Verdana in white, typically 35-40 px, with a gradient border. Each sim we encounter has a different gradient color, usually based on their outfit or just the ~vibe~ I get from them. Erin’s gradient is Hot pink to ... gee, what would you call it. Sonic the Hedgehog Blue LMAO-- I chose that gradient because that’s the color of the overlay, which I’ll talk more about in the next section!
7. Editing My two ‘series’ - and I use that term loosely LMAO - have different editing processes, so I’ll try to summarize them both. Basically, for 2.B.A Grandmaster, I touch up the saturation and brightness depending on the scene. If it’s evening in the shots, I usually won’t touch brightness, and if it’s night, I might even lower it a bit for more accurate lighting! Once that’s done, I blur everything but relevant elements of a scene, usually the character we’re following or who is speaking. I have to select the character from the background manually which takes a bit, but other than that it’s very minimal.
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My shots aren’t super glamorous, but I prefer simple screenshots and actually being able to keep up with a story schedule as opposed to what happened with my last story. 😬 As for Erin in San Myshuno, barring captions which I only do when I feel it’s necessary, it’s literally just an overlay on otherwise untouched screenshots. 😭 I would do more, but again, it’s supposed to be an easy downtime sort of series for me so~
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This goes over top all screenshots on the “Add” setting at 20% opacity. It brightens things up and softens them, as well as making the colors slightly more harmonious! If anyone wants me to go more in depth on editing, or maybe captions, please let me know! I’m happy to talk about it if it’ll help anyone, and I know that a lot of tutorials cover how to do stuff in Photoshop, whereas I use FireAlpaca (which is 100% free btw! It’s more of an art program, but not bad for editing) 8. Throwback!
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Oh boy, so this is one of my first posts on simblr. For starters, I didn’t know about camera mode at the time, so that’s the first thing I would change obviously LOL. 😬 The framing I did at the time was ... cute, but it makes the pictures feel kind of cramped and small in my opinion, so I did away with that for all of my later stories. Also, Amy and Gemma aren’t very well centered in this picture! Other than that, this isn’t actually terrible I don’t think, so aside from maybe blurring the background as I do on 2.B.A GM now, I wouldn’t change too much! Thankfully, I had observed other people’s stories before making my own on here for a little bit, so I wasn’t starting with absolutely no idea what to do, but I still think I’ve improved since I made these. 😊
This was a ton of fun!! If anyone has questions or wants more info on anything I covered in here, absolutely feel free to ask, and thank you so much if you actually read through all of this - I know I rambled for quite a while!! 🙏
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moon-nymphet · 4 years
Note
ello!!!!! could i req some kuroo, akaashi and iwaizumi hcs of how they met an extroverted and bubbly girl and how they fell for them?
hii sweetie!! there you have it! ♡ (btw i’m sorry if there is any spelling mistake, i’m not writing in my first language, it’s 5am and I didn’t read this again before posting it ٩◔‿◔۶)
☆ Kuroo
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you attend to Karasuno High School and like voleyball, so one random day you were watching Karasuno vs Nekoma in the stands  
suddenly a ball that travelled at the speed of light hits you in the face, making you red as a strawberry after hearing some giggles 
when you recover your breath and look to see whose fault was, there you have him, a tall and black haired boy looking fine af
at the end of the match, when you were already leaving, you feel someone’s hand on your shoulder 
“Hey, I’m very sorry about that, is there any way that I can make it up to you?”
it was him, and he was even hotter up close 
“Maybe... can I have your number?” 
yeah you did that. 
a smirk slowly appeared on Kuroo’s lips, who nodded and wrote it down for you before leaving, giving you a sassy wink 
your friends, who witnessed everything, couldn’t stop talking about how lucky you were 
from that day on Kuroo and you started talking and hanging out frequently 
Kuroo would probably take you to big arcades in Tokyo
you would act as two little children, being competitive to each other
the loser always had to take a silly challenge invented by the other 
after some time seeing each other and going together to the arcade, Kuro lost, to your delight 
it was already nightime and Kuroo was walking you to the train station so you could return home 
“You still haven’t told me what I have to do” he glanced at you nonchalantly as you walked 
“Sorry? What do you have to do...?” you stopped on your tracks and faced him, confused and not knowing what he was referring to 
“Yeah, I lost today at the arcade” Kuroo shrugged and a grin appeared on your lips as he reminded you of that
“Kiss me, then” you challenged him without even thinking twice your words, Kuroo’s eyes opened wide, but two seconds later he was leaning on you
finally, the moment you both were waiting for since weeks ago came, Kuroo’s lips touching yours, his hand gently tilting your chin up and both of you closing your eyes as he deepened the kiss little by little 
☆ Akaashi 
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thank Bokuto because Akaashi and you met through him
Bokuto and you have been friends for years (don’t ask me how you managed to bear with him for years cause idk) so one day he invited you to this match they were having 
after winning the match, the team decided to celebrate at one of the boys’ house and your friend told you to go with them so you accepted
you didn’t even know him, but it was Akaashi’s house, he seemed like a pretty serious guy 
as time went by, most of the boys were playing videogames but you were pretty bored and decided to walk out to the garden 
sitting down on the grass, you noticed steps behind you and looked back to find Akaashi standing there
“are you bored too?” he asked you with half a smile on his lips and looking to the floor
“kinda... I’m sorry that I came to your house without even being your friend” 
“huh? Don’t apologize for that foolishness, at least I have someone to talk to”  
Akaashi gave you a shy smile and it was just in that exact moment you knew you needed to know more about him
the two of you probably spent two hours talking in the garden without getting tired of each other 
you even exchanged your telephone numbers and it wasn’t awkward at all, it came naturally
after that day you two continued talking and seeing each other often
building your relationship wasn’t easy as the boy is quite reserved
but your extroverted personality helped a lot with it
unexpectedly it was Akaashi the one who took the first step and kissed you
it was simple and not really romantic, but the tenderness he transmitted to you was simply adorable
“Y/n?” he said when you were already leaving, causing you to look back at him
“Yes?” you couldn’t almost finish the word when he planted his lips on yours, pecking you and quickly pulling away to show the same shy smile from the first day you met
☆ Iwaizumi
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your crush since day 1? Iwaizumi Hajime 
the issue? he was a 3rd year and you were a 1st 
at least there was a good thing: you played voleyball too in the female team 
so you would see Iwaizumi pretty often at the school gym 
and you’d literally drool everytime you saw him training 
it took long for you to gather enough courage to do it, but you finally did it 
this is how sassy you are on a scale from 1 to 10: 11. 
asking Iwaizumi to teach you how to do a floating serve wasn’t in your plans but what else could you do to get his attention 
to your surprise (because we won’t deny he looks pretty intimidating) Iwa kindly offered to train with you in your free time 
Oikawa started teasing him from the distance when he saw Iwaizumi being that nice to you
all Iwa-chan did was glare at him and it was more than enough 
as he promised, he helped you during the following weeks
your non-existent relationship certainly grow to a pretty close one during those weeks
I’m not gonna say Iwa-chan was the flirtiest man because he wasn’t and we all know that 
but it’s pretty fair to say you were not the only one interested 
eventually you learnt how to do the serve and you thought that was the end to some incredible three weeks 
but: no 
Iwa-chan suggested that you could keep training together at least twice a week, and you happily agreed 
the thing was slow but little by litle you two started to show more affection for the other, even in front of the team sometimes
it was like you two weren’t official nor a couple, but would flirtatiously play with each other’s hands, or he would give you random back hugs in front of everyone
you also cared so much about each other and it could be seen, Iwa-chan walked you home everyday after training
it was pretty obvious that you had feelings for each other, and it officially showed when Iwaizumi kissed you in front of your house door
 when he was about to say goodbye he surprised you with a sweet kiss 
“bye Y/n, I love you”
“see you tomorrow Iwa-chan, I do too”
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thousandsunnywrites · 4 years
Note
Hi there! First off, I wanted to say that you have an absolutely wonderful blog! I was wondering if you could maybe do some headcannons for Kid and Killer liking the same girl? Keep up the good work you beautiful human being!!!❤️
Hello! Thank you so much 😩💘 I really liked this idea so I incorporated it into a college au! that I just posted haha. hope you don��t mind, but the course of this ends with Killer/reader :-)
—-
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artist unknown
Kid & Killer
Part 1 here
Kid was the cool boisterous kid in the engineering program, while Killer was the silent, homebody studying in the psychology department. When the two worlds collided, they became good friends--hell, best friends maybe. 
When Kid found out that a small fry like y/n wrote an article about him, he was flattered; but when he found out you analyzed the shit out of his love life--without his permission b t w and don’t let me get started on the barbaric descriptions-- he decides to pay the little journalist.
Killer shot you a text message, asking to meet at a bubbly tea cafe to work on some assignments from Ms. Robin, to which you said sure, sounds like a great idea.
Kid spotted you first. 
He backed you against the English building, figure completely looming over your seemingly small frame. “I-I a m s o s o r r y,” exasperated, knowing he was fuming over the bad article Robin decided to publish under anonymous, which didn’t work bc everyone knew about Kid’s bad litany of lovers. Your knees bucked underneath you, his face near yours to the point where he was breathing down your neck. This is how I’m gonna die h u h.
“Take it down. Who the fuck gave you permission to slander my name huh? Think you fucking know me because you know some of the girls I fuck? Huh? Which bitch told you?”
His string of questions and insults continued, your mind jumbled with ways of escaping the metal head. Maybe if I slip from under his arm. No, crap he can grab my neck. Maybe if I fake a phone call? No, he’s a druggie, not a dumbass. Maybe just lie. Yeah, that should do it.
“You even listening to me dipshit?”
Snapping out of your trance, you stood tall. No, I shouldn’t be scared of this fuckboy. If anything, he should be scared of me. Why should I ask Ms. Robin to take down my work? I worked hard on that and hell I’m proud of myself.
“Listen up here, goth wannabe.” The change of aura threw him off for a few seconds. As you stepped closer and closer to him, you jabbed your pointer on his chest with every phrase. “It’s not my fault you’re a fuckboy, alright? I did my analysis based on the prompts my professor wanted and I refuse to take crap from a privileged arrogant ass like you.”
You dusted off your jeans and brushed the hair back from your face, “Besides, my report doesn’t even mention your name, how sure are you that it’s really about you? If you felt attacked by my analysis, then that’s a personal problem. Now if you excuse me, I’m late to a meeting.” You shoved passed by him, leaving him gritting his teeth with his head hung low, knowing he lost. But, just because you lose doesn’t mean you should give up.
Something about you-- the sassiness, the boldness perhaps— draws him towards you. From that day forward, the tables have turned. From you stalking him to him stalking you, he turned to the mutual that helped create it all—Killer.
Killer did n o t want to be in the middle of this, should he help his best pal get closer to the girl he wants or should he be in love with the girl of his dreams and leave his best friend heartbroken? This is the first time Killer sees Kid genuinely interested in a girl, and not for a quick fuck.
Yardy know what Killer is gonna do— he meddles with his best friend’s love life. Kid, ignorant to Killer’s feelings, merrily goes along with the advice dished out. It’s not like you’d like him, right? Kid was a better choice between the two of them, and you should always be with the best.
You noticed the sudden change with Killer’s attitude— his sudden interest with Kid and his distance really made you wonder if your crush was gay. Well, that’s not good!
Kid frequently drops by your dorm to drop you his home cooked food, that’s really good btw, and self-care packages. Killer comes by and leaves by a flower with anonymous love letters attached to them. Genuinely believing Kid and Killer were a thing, you thought the gestures were very sweet. Still not the man you wanted, but sweet.
Kid and Killer frequently text you, Kid still unaware that Killer contacts you consistently as well. He’d gush and brag about the interactions you shared together to Killer, who just nods along quietly.
Kid takes you out on dates too. Pays for the movie, the snacks, even the dress! What a fucking simp.
Kid decides to confess to you, not before consulting Killer first.
“Imma tell her today after class. ‘M gonna bring her a whole bouquet too.” Kid nonchalantly packs up his shit, preparing his stunt.
“What?? Today today?”
“Yuh,” responded Kid, swinging his bag over his shoulder and cooly waving his hand as he exits the room. No, if Kid was doing it today, Killer decided, me too. I wanna see what happens if I try.
Killer was done pushing his feelings to the side. Why should he have to subdue his feelings for someone else, even if they’re his best pal? What if you like him back?
“Y/n! I have something to tell you!” Killer screamed across the empty halls, knowing the exact spot the metal head was taking you. Just in time, he saw Kid confess.
“We’d be such a power couple if you were my girl.”
A sweet, gentle giggle left your throat, a hand covering your bashful face. “You’re cool dude,” your hand outstretched to pat his shoulder, “but I don’t see you like that... more like a friend, you know? I hope we can still be friends. And if you want, we can act like this never happened.” You spouted options to alleviate the embarrassment and disappointment written on his face.
“Bitch just kidding,” flabbergasted, but trying hard to keep his composure, he punched your shoulder. “I was just saying, not like I’d go for a small fry like you.”
“Bitchass.”
Killer felt relief in his chest— wow, his friend got rejected and he felt relieved? Best Friend of the Century.
Later that night, he snuck into your dorm by the window like Spider-Man, effectively scaring the shit out of you. After calming down, he worms his way to your bed with a tiny smile across his features.
He studied your face in the moonlight— softly parted lush lips with glossy eyes that matched the slightly disheveled hair atop your head. It was perfect. Killer wringed his hands together painfully, working his courage.
Mumbling, he slipped a very rushed confession from the tip of his tongue, inaudible to the ear.
“Huh?”
“I mean... you don’t have to accept my feelings. I wanna let it off my chest but I really like you y/n.” He sucked a breath while shutting his eyes, anticipating rejection.
Holding his chin and delicately bringing his eyes to meet yours, you leaned in and planted his lips against yours, and fell backwards due to his sudden jolts.
He pulled away, frantically trying to process if that was real or just one of his hyper realistic wet dreams again.
“Y-you like me back?”
“Duh, why else would I kiss you?”
“O-oh.”
“Be mine then?”
“I already am.”
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rosalie-starfall · 3 years
Text
I’m bored so I’ll just answer all of these
1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans? Coffee Mugs
2. chocolate bars or lollipops? Chocolate 
3. bubblegum or cotton candy? Neither
4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you? literally a conversation I had with my 2nd Grade Teacher 
Teacher “Kayla, you talk back to much”
Kayla “I do not Talk Back!”
5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups? Soda Bottles 
6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear? Tomboy Preppy Boho Goth?
7. earbuds or headphones? Earbuds
8. movies or tv shows? Both
9. favorite smell in the summer?
10. game you were best at in p.e.? Dance
11. what you have for breakfast on an average day? Coffee and cereal or a granola bar or toast
12. name of your favorite playlist? The Witching Hour, or my Island Life Playlist
13. lanyard or key ring? Lanyard
14. favorite non-chocolate candy? Twizzles or Red Vines
15. favorite book you read as a school assignment? Of Mice and Men
16. most comfortable position to sit in? With my legs to the side or crossed under me
17. most frequently worn pair of shoes? My sketchers
18. ideal weather? Overcast but warm with no wind or snow maybe a tiny bit of rain and some fog!
19. sleeping position? on my stomach
20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)? PC
21. obsession from childhood? I Dream of Jeannie and The Nanny
22. role model? Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Carol Burnett, Carrie Fisher, 
23. strange habits? None that I can think of.
24. favorite crystal? Rose Quartz and Onyx 
25. first song you remember hearing? Walkin on Broken Glass
26. favorite activity to do in warm weather? Drink at a patio bar
27. favorite activity to do in cold weather? Drink by a fire
28. five songs to describe you? Different Drum by the stone ponies 
29. best way to bond with you? Over Middle Aged Actresses and Fictional Characters
30. places that you find sacred? My Grandma’s Rose Garden Growing up, Disneyland
31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names? Dock Martins, Dark Blue Jeans, Black Off the Shoulder loose fit Tee
32. top five favorite vines? Red?
33. most used phrase in your phone? IDK literally 
34. advertisements you have stuck in your head? Thankfully I don’t have any
35. average time you fall asleep? Around Midnight
36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing? I honestly have no clue. Maybe the Star trek Engage photo?
37. suitcase or duffel bag? Suitcase (But it really depends on the trip)
38. lemonade or tea? Both Arnold Palmer!!!
39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie? Lemon Cake
40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school? It was so long ago I really can’t remember anything weird happening to me
41. last person you texted? My Dad
42. jacket pockets or pants pockets? Pant Pockets
43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket? Fake Leather Jacket
44. favorite scent for soap? Pumpkin
45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero? If It’s Comedic I’ll Love whatever
46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in? Birthday suit
47. favorite type of cheese? Colby Jack?
48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be? I have no Idea but Apples are my favorite so I’ll go with that
49. what saying or quote do you live by? If you don’t like something do something about it
50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have? My mom’s Flip Flop breaking at the movie theater and her trying to get out to the car. OMG even just that little summer I’m crying from laughing at the memory 
51. current stresses? Money, Covid, Politics, the world, anything and everything
52. favorite font? Open Dyslexic
53. what is the current state of your hands? Sad, dry, Scratched 
54. what did you learn from your first job? you might get free food sometimes
55. favorite fairy tale? 
56. favorite tradition? watching shows with my family on Wednesdays 
57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome? I don’t think I’ve overcome anything
58. four talents you’re proud of having? I’m really good at cutting men’s hair, I think I’m quite good at making gifs, I think I’m pretty good at writing (it’s something I’m working on) I can Quote Both Addams Family movies in their entirety just from hearing the musical score
59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be? Tits
60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be? Like Sailor Moon?
61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.? “Ain’t no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts”
62. seven characters you relate to? Liz Lemon, Elaine Benes, Lavinia Dickinson, Zelda Spellman, Barbara Minerva, Shirley Feeney, Jillian Holtzmann
63. five songs that would play in your club? My heart will go on (Remix by the Math Club), Dreams by deep Dish Feat Stevie Nicks, Doin it right by Daft Punk, Shake Senora Feat T-Pain & Sean Paul, April Showers By Proleter
64. favorite website from your childhood? Pixie Hollow (online game) BTW “Website from my childhood” Is very limited we didn’t have internet until I was like 10ish
65. any permanent scars? I have a scar under my right eyebrow from Chicken Pox
66. favorite flower(s)? Poppies and Roses
67. good luck charms? I don’t have any
68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried? I hate fish but also just meat in general 
69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned? Carley Simon had terrible stage fright and couldn’t preform in front of audiences. I’m pretty sure that’s a true statement. 
70. left or right handed? Right
71. least favorite pattern? Abuse?
72. worst subject? Men and Hetero Shit
73. favorite weird flavor combo? I’m not one for weird Flavor Combos 
74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen? 2... I don’t fuck around. I try and get ahead of the pain
75. when did you lose your first tooth? I have no Idea
76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)? Fries, Skillet, and Whorehouse
77. best plant to grow on a windowsill? succulent? 
78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store? Coffee from the Gas station 
79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo? School ID
80. earth tones or jewel tones? Earth Tones
81. fireflies or lightning bugs? Lightning Bugs
82. pc or console? PC
83. writing or drawing? Writing 
84. podcasts or talk radio? Podcasts
84. barbie or polly pocket? Polly Pocket
85. fairy tales or mythology? Mythology
86. cookies or cupcakes? Cookies 
87. your greatest fear? Caves, Mines, and the Ocean
88. your greatest wish? To be a writer
89. who would you put before everyone else? My siblings
90. luckiest mistake? Quitting Homeadvisor
91. boxes or bags? Boxes
92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights? Fairy Lights
93. nicknames? Punkin, Kayla Bean, KP, Pain
94. favorite season? Autumn 
95. favorite app on your phone? Tumblr and Instagram
96. desktop background? 
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97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized? 2 (My mom’s and my dad’s)
98. favorite historical era? 1930s and 1940s
5 notes · View notes
incarnateirony · 4 years
Note
i think there’s a distinction that needs to be made. i think those with power over dabb & co are the ones who are exuding more habits of queerbaiting, while dabb and co aren’t. and because those execs are more or less invisible, the blame/fault is put on dabb as he’s the perceived figurehead of everything in the show when he’s not. anything he may want to put in the show can be easily vetoed by a higher exec so
Okay so I said I wouldn’t touch related issues facing wanky-side, but while this runs the line this is such a genuine, and valid thought process it feels worth addressing.
So in short: Yes. But no. But yes. But no. But we’ll see.
What do I mean by that? I’m going to put this behind a cut. But first of all I want to thank this Nonnie for at least trying to critically think about where the problems lead to. This is FAR BETTER CRITICAL THINKING than I see in this discussion most of the time and this. More like this. Nuance, discussion, idea trade, history. Let’s do it.
Okay, so.
How can it be yes no yes no maybe eenie meenie miney mo?
Because it really depends on what part of this 15 year legacy show we’re talking about.
What I’m about to say isn’t going to be popular, but I’ve said it before, I just can’t find the ancient ass post discussing it.
We’re going to rewind. Like, a fucking lot. A lot, a lot. This is going to be a history ride, and you’re probably going to wonder how it connects to the conversation at first, but bear with me.
Ignoring any personal frustrations I have with the casting of season 4 – frankly a chapter of this FUCKING show that haunts me somewhere in the ballpark of, “If my friend wasn’t dismissed as not white enough and got the role, would we have Misha, Destiel, any of this, would the show be on, would she have been chased off as the other actresses?” – and frankly these are the things people don’t even fucking *think* about.
TLDR a bajillion years ago CW made a casting call and we got this super cute character named Anna that Dean was slated to bend over in two seconds flat, as old canon used to be before modernly growing. The actress expressed discomfort, and frankly went over with the audience about as well as wet cardboard. And like, while I agree that a lot of women were hated for misogynistic reasons in this show, she really was about as interesting as a plank of plywood to me once she got past her first performance or two.
At the same time, this handsome bastard named Misha Collins auditioned for a bit role originally intended for 3 episodes and quickly extended to 6. But, identified as lightning in a bottle and with on-fire chemistry, while Anna waffled for *several* reasons, summarily, their story ends swapped. That’s… not like *exactly* what happened but it’s *basically* what happened. Anna became the herald and contagonist instead of Cas, and Cas quite frankly took on the role of the goddess.
With Lisa already entered before Anna, there’s no evidence whatsoever she was intended as endgame. Story flip. Thank you for everything last night on earth fall by angel banishing almost like this was foreshadowed woohoo! But… don’t lend towards a relationship. No point. Given, they made a few jokes on set at that point, but it wasn’t really an idea *they thought anyone took seriously*. 
Coming from a phase where most of the leads were introduced to “slash fandom” by Wincest, which they literally used to torture and prank each other, the idea of this being anything serious really wasn’t on their radar. The one I remember most was Misha choosing to sit on Dean’s side of the bed as Cas in the famous “What were you dreaming about?” and Sgriccia being like “that’s kinda gay” “nah keep it”
I mean, is that… queerbait at that point? I don’t think it’s fair to really call it that. They respectfully tried to scrub out the leading romantic edges from what would have been Anna’s story, but ultimately, the human psyche kind of recognizes 8000 years of storytelling history subconsciously when using the Hero’s Journey narrative, so it was resonant. Nobody was crazy for seeing it. That didn’t mean it was right, that didn’t mean it’s what they were consciously leading anyone for.
Hell, Jensen didn’t even know what the fuck Destiel WAS until season 7 (”Deathstiel?”) due to the way cons, circuits, and fansites kept the conversation force-muted at that point. Anything they had floated somewhere in the area of “hah that is kinda gay I guess”, and even that there’s no evidence of being frequent.
Kripke left, the show petered, social media was new, and summarily, Sera Gamble was a dumbass and listened to the wrong crowd that seemed super big back when big accounts were a whole 10K followers and you had 50 asshats screaming as a coordinated group about Ruining The Show™. Ratings tanked, somewhere between Misha being fired and the show turning into a parody of itself with dick jokes that made it seem like Gamble was trying to target 11 year old boys for her audience, and like, that’s it, that was the season. 
Until that nosedive spiral essentially turned into a shorthand apology reversal, a panicked and roughly written script that was *SO GAY* that *EVEN MISHA FUCKING COLLINS* couldn’t seriously choke out the dialogue. It was cheap, it was out of character, and as Jensen put it, the dialogue might as well have had him petting and sobbing into Castiel’s coat while essentially being like I SLEEP WITH YOUR COAT EVERY NIGHT TO REMEMBER YOUR SCENT UWU and shit that just LITERALLY vaulted from alien fascinated staring into desperate teenage gay drama in the body of a 30 year old man.
So yeah. Did I consider it reasonable to change that? Fuck yes I did. 
Was what Sera Gamble did queerbait? Yes, actually. And she did it again in the Magicians. You see, Gamble had fucked over an audience, and then tried to exploit that audience in reverse when she realized she fucked over the *wrong* audience, but had zero intent of fulfillment.
And then magically, Sera Gamble didn’t fucking work there anymore after a whole like, year and a half as showrunner.
Now, at the same time, Dawn Ostroff was leaving the CW. Jensen’s had some pretty fierce words about Dawn Ostroff not understanding the show and how to manage it, but whatever. Bye, Dawn. Hello… MARK FUCKING PEDOWITZ. But at the same time, WELCOME BACK CARVER and most of all HOWDY DO NETFLIX, so nice to make a guaranteed deal with you (that ended as of this year due to a CBS merchandising meltdown).
When Carver came back, he said a lot of things. He… very tactfully called Gamble’s era trash by phasing it like “:) Watching the show :) since I left :) I realized :) a lot of our mythology :) has been difficult to follow :) so I went :) back to basics :) please help”, and others, like mentioning he had a three year plan on his desk. So 3. Season 8, 9, 10. He had notes for his S10 finale in mind and everything! Great stuff.
Now the fandom, at this point, generally didn’t pay attention to the network or production. In fact, the actor worship around here is some other kind of wild and I don’t know how after 15 years people haven’t figured out that it isn’t how to go about paying attention. Either way – plot switches, showrunner switches, author switches, and NETWORK LEADERSHIP SWITCHES. 
Now, this little part here is speculation – but I am 99% sure that when Carver was pulling SPN out of the cancellation toilet, he had bigger things to inform the new execs about than “btw I might make it gay.” Like “Hey, since CW just got its netflix deal, if you give us another year we can import fresh demographic while bringing back Collins’ old fanbase by setting him back as a regular.” SURE, SOUND GREAT, MAKE MONEY, THX.
Cool. Cool. Make sense so far, you still with me?
Because at this point, S8 into early S9, fandom had gotten itself into all kinds of a stir. It was about to go canon, rite nao, said a bunch of bloggers, who at that point WERE pretty much chasing wallpapers and Tshirts and making the most bizarre uncorroborated parallel interpretations like “IF U PARALLEL IT TO MOBY DICK-” WHAT WHY WHERE– ??? BUT cAS = fISH
Okay, my fucking annoyance at what counted as lit crit in those days aside, we’ll get back on track. Everybody started vibrating for this shit because, you know what, S8 did resonate pretty strong, almost like authors were toying with ideas. I’m not gonna get into stuff about Robbie, I THINK fandom knows the statements he’s made and I don’t just mean the whole Destiel being canon tweet both antis and bitters descended on him to eviscerate him about. About what? Calling it queerbait!
So here we go, the great advent. About a year after a dramatic network shift, a CW exec was like :))))))))) I’D LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT THIS FANDOM THAT IS SUDDENLY MAKING ME MONEY!! WHAT SHOULD I DO??? TO TWITTER! HASHTAG TALK TO THEM!
[logs in]
Beep boop. “Destiel?”  “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” the FUCK is a Destiel? Wait what no I don’t know what you’re talking about representation isn’t our intention with these characters. “QUEERBAIT”  “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT”
And then the network exec got so slammed he deleted twitter entirely and everybody popped confetti and felt accomplished and did NOT realize how fucking BAD that was. And frankly, anyone that did kinda didn’t want to admit it, because taking responsibility for that tire fire was… not… attractive. In fact, several folks are still around to this day, bitter blogging or making weirdass meta or accusing other people of wallpapers and Tshirts because that’s what they did so *YAY, PROJECTION!*
My own frustrated bitterness aside, I’m going to place some questions down, and not so much answer them as, now that the reader has really taken history in, let them decide:
At this point… is this queerbait?
Because this is when the queerbait yelling began. It’s when every fan with even a moderate platform or site blasted it out there. 
It’s when the fandom made DeanCas a big problem.
And it’s also literally the same time Carver left his very first recorded, known direction with a romantic tilt, “The note I got from Jeremy Carver was to play it like a jilted lover, so that’s what we played there,” on LGBT author Bobo berens’ very first episode. Everyone runs circles around that modernly, or goes “SEE??? QUEERBAIT!” without realizing what the FUCK just happened here.
So, SPN went from cancel rating line to their most successful show between 7 and 9. Suddenly corporate sees their successful product *ON FUCKING FIRE* so do you know what happens?
Fuck it this IS one line I’ll break: Corporate panicked. They changed their press packets. If you noticed a bunch of media-adjacent people and their friends suddenly get bitter as FUCK in season 10 after still surviving the S9 mess, here’s fucking why. Because now that everybody spent the last YEAR trying to burn down the product yelling about shit that corporate had been literally blindsided by, they added temporarily a new section to the packet that included sexuality. They were, at that moment, suddenly listed collectively as heterosexual men. SEE, WE AREN’T QUEERBAITING IF WE TELL YOU THEY’RE STRAIGHT *will smith pose*
Congrats fandom, you have now officially made Destiel A Huge Problem™ to the corporate behemoth behind the shiny pictures. The iron curtain dropped. This is what you could call “Protect the Product Mode” if you will. 
Now again, at this point: Is it queerbait?
Because at this point, S9-10 was rolling out. We all know it, Cain, Collette, *gestures off into infinity* But let’s fall back to Carver’s statement. 3 years. 8, 9, 10. You know what else happened season 10?
A bunch of shit, including shit Carver *wrote himself for the season 10 finale* got filmed, then cut. Coincidentally, it was all very gay shit. Things that pulled forward the Crowley/Abaddon Cas/Colette Sam/Abel parallels, arguing over who was who’s boyfriend, Rowena mentioning about them both being shattered at the Altar of Winchester (15.3 is calling), the secret admirer dream, I could go on. I mean, this shit literally would have shifted the entire storytelling arc to full-frontal taking that  parallel and addressing it right up in your face. First you’ll kill your mistress but you’ll get it done, and then you’ll kill your wife. He’s your boyfriend no he’s YOUR boyfriend. You’ve BOTH been shattered at the Altar of Winchester. Really, this is what you dream about? Your secret admirer Cas?
K? K. K?
Is it queerbait for Carver to have entered with a plan? Is it queerbait for Carver to have been interrupted on that plan despite attempting to pursue it? And is it queerbait for the network to still lock down on that plan so close after the event?
You see why this conversation gets increasingly complex.
S11 rolled around, Carver was half in half out, Dabb was stepping in, big gay heart songs, take what you will out of that entire mess, and by S12 Dabb entirely took over and we started entering the era we are in today.
So let’s address where we’re at today. 
Now :) I can’t say anything for sure :) because anybody that’s been to or worked on marketing stuff definitely has an NDA :) but let’s play for a minute. Let’s say with the stone wall up, a set of creators still wanted to actually *go somewhere* with this story. 
“But!” remembered the network, “Remember the tire fire?! And all the people that hated the gay?! What about our profit?!”
“No,” a creator might say, “Tides have changed.”
“We’ll see,” a network might say, “Take it to market testing.” At which point, one would enter a few years of polling how the general audience reacts to this.
Now, if they were seeing promising numbers, they might be given a bit of rope. Why, let’s … just pretend. Totally. Totally pretending. That Dabb pitched this idea to take up Carver’s mantle. Let’s say that started S12ish when he took over. Let’s say they ran through hiatus. And then… authors might be given a little bit of a line. “Looks good, but we’re not sure,” said a network quite fond of its split conservative/liberal demographic, “Try it out a bit and see how it goes.”
And so an author room that would be full of LGBT creators fed out good faith groundwork. They might even be like YALL ITS NEVER TOO LAAAAAATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN and just throw their whole boy howdy cowboy into that shit and get great ratings.
What if even if the results came back positive leaning, the network ho’ed and hummed and stayed noncommital? Might the creators scale it back while still writing it lowkey just in case they got flashed a greenlight? I know I sure would, woudn’t you?! Or I guess would you prefer we drop the whole thing cold and stop writing anything vaguely in the direction?
Difficult question, in reality, isn’t it?
So in this TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION, this leaves the authors holding the bag, waiting for a sign, and being held with limitations. And just in case anybody thinks “BUT AUTHORS CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT!! AND!! OTHER SHOWS!!!”
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K have we come down to reality yet? So, sure kids, try the gay, we’re interested, but you can’t like, go Full Gay Frontal with it. You gotta imply the gay. Wouldn’t want to offend conservative america! Besides! We’re totally exploiting marketing making this LGBT content for you over here! *jingles a carrot on a stick* LOOK AT HOW MUCH WE’RE FLEECING ADVERTISING PROMOTING ALL THIS GAY STUFF FOR YOU AREN’T THE RAINBOWS GREAT?
Some creator of limited LGBT content: How’s the marketing looking?
Some network: EH! We’ll see!
Some creator of limited LGBT content: K guys we’ll scale it back to not upset them but don’t drop it.maybe we can have them hold hands at the end or if we’re lucky maybe they’ll say we can do the whole thing
Some LGBT creators: K
Making sense still? STILL WITH ME?
So at this point… is this queerbait, or is this business?
Put aside the emotional reaction. Realize this really only hit scale in S9, hit front line S10, and hit potential corporate discussion in this TOTALLY theoretic universe around S11-12. We’re talking 3-4 years. Not 10. And we’re talking only a few of it really being tested.
So again I ask, history minded: Is this queerbait, or is this business?
That’s where the nuance and complication comes in, and let it be said I am in no way defending the CW. I fucking hate the network. They have literally personally screwed over real friends of mine and I hope they choke on a whole bag of dicks with their bullshit, but honestly, the shit I have seen and heard would make people stick their heads in the sand like scared and ashamed ostriches for every time they trumpet “BUT OTHER SHOWS” – you don’t know what’s going on in those shows. You don’t know how they’re getting hardballed on budget decisions, you don’t know what that show’s marketed demographic is about, you don’t know what they demand cast how, you literally don’t have a fucking idea unless you’re up in that disaster zone.
And even IF you’re in that disaster zone, unless you’re truly in the upper echelon, you only know so much.
Now let’s pretend, again, totally metaphorically, and absolutely not inspired by a real person at all, that someone worked with the crew for a while and, because they saw support inside creeping upward siiiiince mmmm gosh we’ll say season 12 since that’s our advent and totally not when anybody specific started working there and telling fandom ladder fans what they thought they saw going on, only to get sad and bitter and angry and eventually leave, and all those friends, still abiding old bitterness from S9~, now get angrier because of somebody else’s burnout on their ITK level and perspective, even if that was *probably* aggravated by other work stress conditions as well, but hey! WHO KNOWS!?!?! :)))) What a weird hypothetical though and I’m getting weirdly super specific on it aren’t I so LET’S MOVE ON.
We’re in S12-13 discussion category now.
So my question is, from this perspective… when do you call queerbait? When not swept up in misguided hysteria… at what point do you say “Yeah, you know what, yup, that’s all queerbait”?
So we’re gonna take a bit of a break here for a second and really process all of that hypothetical world, where a creator pitched going for it, and got it put into market testing, and was given enough rope to hang themselves on if the network changed its mind.
After only a few years of conscious thought on it… do you even think the network is truly consciously misguiding specifically those fans, or do they see it as giving the fans something they want while testing the idea of possibly truly giving it to them?
Because here’s what fandom misses – the corporate perspective. And again, I’m utterly not fucking justifying the CW as a whole, but people look at this from the angle of fans, and then argue what they think is representative dialogue from the angle of fans, often while missing all of this history. All that history up till S9? That’s all very real.  But looking at history in perspective… who are you going to blame for that? Is it fair to hold S4-9 to that five year stretch of queerbait when that was… pretty much fandom manufactured from blissful ignorance to begin with? I mean if you want to go yell at Sera Gamble Specifically okay (please don’t) but beyond that like– that shit? Is that anybody’s fault? Do you blame a company for actually shutting DOWN the talk of it on a press angle? Can we call that and S10 queerbait then? Was Carver’s attempt at writing through it queerbait? Was trying to continue the story in S11 after theoretic shutdown queerbait? These are all genuine questions that are not asked enough. Most people don’t even realize they need to be asked.
So back to Totally Theoretic Land, where S12ish market testing would have been going on to see if people really thought it was Gay N Shit. Like a lot of people in an overwhelming majority after the amount of apprehension the straight old dude running the network has ever since the goddamn tornado of horse shit that happened like a year after he took over. Probably not the fondest fucking memory for him either. Probably also why he dismissively called most of that demographic “casual fans”, because in Smug White Guy Brain, “tru” fans would have all known, I guess, exactly the shit I’m telling you in history backtrack so, look at the silly girls wanting the gay shit :) Ahhhh girlllllls
Okay so, my impression of douchebags aside, let’s give it 12-13 hiatus to give the first test rope lead and 13-14 hiatus for the next, only to have at best noncommital and uncertain numbers and authors, theoretically, cautiously pulling back while writing it as generally established and implicit, as if it might, I don’t know, go from BIG GAY DRAMA to DEADASS DOMESTIC all of a sudden despite ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN cuz get it, they started over, after he came in his room and played him. *elbows* You all get it right?
K. So maybe numbers changed. Maybe they don’t. Maybe I’m not comfortable talking in this hypothetical, maybe I don’t have access to this hypothetical AU’s current marketing data as of this year, I just don’t know! We don’t know where those cards fell.
But if, at this point, after 2-3 years of market testing, and leading authors on, and giving them enough rope to hang themselves with to get themselves accused of queerbait just for trying to lay good faith groundwork for a cohesive narrative, because fans don’t care that 2 open closet LGBT authors are on deck or that there’s totally theoretically probably and in no way fingering anyone at least one closeted author on deck, or at least publicly so, their coworkers would probably know. But I mean. That’s just. :) statistics. Right?
K whatever moving on. If at this point they’ve been boggley bounced around… you know, I gotta say. At this point… I might actually call queerbait if the network stonewalls it. At this point, they’ve had a few years to really get their shit together, and if they’ve just used it to play yo yo with LGBT creators trying to make content then yeah, go suck a whole bag of dicks.
The problem being with the lack of nuance in this conversation, you’re right, Dabb and co would catch it rather than the guilty party, which is why I HATE faux activism culture. If you’re going to be an activist pay the fuck attention to what you’re being an activist in, don’t bite the hand that’s feeding you just because it was a PBJ and not filet mignon, go after the bastard 1%’er that’s eating all the goddamn filet mignon. But nobody will. It never works like that. And then everybody wonders why this continues – be it in this show, or on other networks.
But hey. Maybe this theoretic network got enough material to change their mind. Maybe another executive got promoted that might help one of the other creators argue it to corporate with their new shiny title. Maybe they can convince someone. Convince them of what and to what level, who knows. Maybe just continue telling the established story, give them a divorce, mention marriage, divorce, dead wives, breakups every 0.2 seconds while they go through a classically framed dark point in the romance everybody with brains and eyes understands because, again, historic storytelling we literally all recognize, but pretend we don’t when stomping about personal representation lines? Or hey! Maybe it’ll go further. (Don’t hold your breath.) Throw in some other shit that even a straight guy would look at and be like “two dicks one chick that shit’s gay bro” because WE LITERALLY ALL FUCKING KNOW WHAT IT MEANS EVEN IF IT’S IMPLIED BECAUSE THE NETWORK IS A BUNCH OF PUSSIES.
…*stops, breathes*
If you can’t tell this is a very long term topic of frustration to me, because nobody, absolutely nobody, wants to introspect and think, you know, maybe it wasn’t queerbait back then, maybe we SHOULDN’T have set a corporate exec on fire about it, that might have been fucking bad.
There are other ways to be an activist than to scream queerbait into the void at whoever is unfortunate enough to cross your paths. One of the best examples I can remember is Exorcising Emily collecting demographics on fandom, and testimonials from LGBT fans about resonating with the content – no fanfic, no fanart, no attacks – and sent copies of this to several powerful creative names.
Now… if with this history… if, from season 9 to 12… one of those names became a creator. If, by some FLUKE of imagination… he still had that book around… and even gave it to his freshly joined new employees like 2 weeks after they started working there–
oh wait and i oop
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The mentions would be much as you expect, antis screaming and demanding her job (QUICK, somebody tell Andrew Dabb that she’s READING ANDREW DABB’S OWN BOOKS THAT HE CHOSE TO KEEP AROUND FOR THREE YEARS).
Has Dabb’s era seemed… more plugged in? More resonant? Better and stronger in its storytelling? More hooked into fandom? 
See, that’s what well thought activism can do. Well thought activism can structure an entire movement. Poorly thought rioting thinking itself as activism can cause the literal opposite effect of what it wanted. That is how these things contrast each other. And that is something fandom needs to DEEPLY consider. 
…but is it queerbait for him to try to continue the story? Even if, say, we drop the marketing talk, because TOTALLY nobody can ACTUALLY know because AGAIN anyone that DOES would have an NDA so we DEFINITELY can’t say anybody knows anything for sure, because anyone that said jack shit would probably get sued so hard their descendents down in whatever homo superior evolution 1000 years into the future would feel it, so you know. We’ll put aside this totes theoretical shit and ask
…If he just was told no– would you prefer to just drop the storyline entirely at this point?
Again. Genuine question. And difficult. And something poorly thought queerbait screaming can actually cause, too. 
So here we are in the land of the final season. Whether you consider it network queerbait or not – again, they can choke on the whole bag of dicks at a network level for all I care for ANY number of reasons, even well beyond the domain of Supernatural, and may all their bacon burn from here into the next life – it’s a lot more complicated than fandom has ever let it on to be, because letting it on to be what it really is, in full perspective, also demands a lot of introspection and acceptance, and we all know nobody in this fandom can ever make a mistake ever and they’re all fucking perfect darlings.
It’s a complicated answer to a simple idea… and unfortunately I don’t think this fandom will ever really sit here. They’ll yell “VICTIM BLAMING” because it’s buzzy, they’ll yell “HIDING YOUR GAYS” which I mean, yeah, but let’s talk about what led us here. They’ll yell a lot of things. But they will rarely quietly think, and study, and hone down to what’s going on in the world out there beyond what they have, at this point, become obsessively hotlocked on. 
Supernatural, as of 15.7, has already taken several steps further than it ever is before. No, that’s not a signal of me saying [Your Personal Goalpost] is going to happen. But it’s a sign that if they have a line, they’re testing it with every strength they have.
Going back onto the Fateful Advent: Cain. The mentor– who was never going to stop; I can’t stop samuel; he was never going to stop; I will never stop; Rowena, the mentor, never going to stop, shattered, at the altar of Winchester. Long ago, when Cas was human, Dean sealed him away, and now, he’s doing the same to him. So Shirt Of Bad Decisions Deanmon basically karaokes with his friend like the Crowley days, REPEATING the Crowley dialogue but infinitely harder to dodge, as if some sort of calculated method of cat’s cradle of How To Write The Gay was discussed. Man, whoever wrote that kind of shit would probably even publicly thank whatever big gay mastermind helped them map out THAT level of stuff. Wouldn’t it be funny if most of that shit had been written by a gay dude that’s still around and it’s still popping back up in the show louder and harder to dodge than before? That’d be fuckin’ wild, man. Oh, fucking WAIT.
And this is why I hate the way shipping culture thinks it’s doing activism. Most of the time it’s cosplaying as an activist and at this point it’s become more of a furry convention than it has any kind of organized rights movement. Nobody’s out here fighting for the rights of these LGBT authors this year, nobody’s helping them get a voice, and in fact, often scream at them or bury what voice they’ve had as not enough.
And I want to fix it.
Desperately.
And frankly, I don’t know how anymore.
But what we’re not talking about is some 3-5 year show that came in early and started intentionally fucking at you. We’re looking at happy coincidences, so let’s check with our gay king, the father of Wayward that everybody coincidentally accepted as canon with far less because of a (meaningful) third party line DeanCas had elsewhere but hey it didn’t have antis so suddenly it counts; let’s check with him about that.
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That’s my king. That’s my king that wrote the first recorded episode to be intentionally directed as jilted lovers. My king that gav eus Colette. My king that gave us the mixtape. My king that gave us the PR framed breakup. My king that gave us Cas leaving Dean. That’s my King. That’s my gay king who has been fighting his ass off, only to be hung out to dry by a fandom that doesn’t even care to look where or how to scream, or maybe consider that perhaps screaming isn’t the option.
Is he yours yet? Have I broken through to a single soul on this?
That’s my king who wrote about the necessary evils in 2003, before the youngest in this fandom were born and while many were still in diapers or kindergarten; about the unfortunate necessary evils that he loathes and acknowledges about moderate queer content gaining exponential amounts of platform compared to whatever is considered hardline aggressive at the time, about how that incrementalization is what helped our media landscape evolve to this day.
And he isn’t wrong.
And he’s getting roasted for doing just that.
And I really wish I could just psychically make everyone fucking stop.
But I will say one thing.
“It’s network queerbait!” I mean
Yeah
That
Because… realistically? like 99% of modern queer content is queerbait, even stuff with canon queer content.
ESPECIALLY on the CW.
If you’ve noticed CW panicking the last year and trying to slap rainbows and DARE TO DEFY on everything, it’s because their entire fucking ecosystem just got fucked over by CBS wanting 100% merchandising profit like it already took 100% digital profit and Netflix was basically like “miss us with your bullshit” and broke the CW contract which was *HOW PEDOWITZ BANKROLLED MOST OF HIS NETWORK*. Now? Now CW has to carve a niche. So LOOK AT ALL THE FUCKING PRIDE COLORS ON– OUR– STRAIGHT–CHARACTERS??? BUT WE HAVE GAY ONES LIKE LEGENDS OF TOMORROW AND *flips notes* THAT SIDE CHARACTER LESBIAN ON SPN. 
*gets a whisper* What they killed her? Shit. Maybe bring her back. AND THERE’S THIS PERSON OVER ON JANE THE VIRGIN oh that just got cancelled uhhh VAMPIRE DI-wait fuck. Well we’ll just make one of the chicks in this shitty charmed reboot CBS just forced down our throat and killed Wayward over, that’ll fix it *jazz hands*
TV is a business. Businesses make money. The entire LGBT battle is basically us industriously proving we can make money. It’s about rights and visibility on our end, but on their end it is *always* about money and I really don’t think anybody really groks what that really means. 
So “it’s the network! Queerbait!” 
…yeahhhhh.
…welcome to working in television. Now you just have to sit and think about how many other times this has completely missed your radar.
The network will never get a shit about you, they give a shit about your money, and that’s just the reality of capitalist america whether we like it or not. When it’s 2143 and bernie sanders’ floating head in a jar is president and andrew yang’s base income shit is in effect and we’re all a socialist country and the world has figured out how to run high cost businesses like TV on the power of unicorn farts, they might actually give a shit. But they don’t. There may be a few advocates WITHIN the company that do, but as a whole body, the network will never give a shit. They don’t care if you’re black, white, straight, gay, disabled, male, female, beyond what, explicitly, that totals to in dollar signs depending how they feed you, when and where. 
So it’s not like... *just* a queer rights issue, it’s an “Anything Trump’s America may consider offensive on their television” issue. It’s businesses weighing who they think pays their bills while making it and beyond that who they think is the safest investment to make the most money.
As a side note: Personally, I’d consider it dumb as fuck to not do it. SPN will taper within a few years down to just trekkie-esque addicts unless they find a way to get a new burst of viewership and boy howdie do I hope so, but how much Pedowitz overvalues the conservative US demographic, or certain international markets, I don’t know. I’m not in his head and I don’t have this year’s marketing numbers beyond basic live, +3 and +7 ratings, and digital calls. And just general nielsen released demo. But how he’s added that all up? Can’t say. And I sure ain’t gonna bank on him not being a dumbass, when he’s famous for it, so don’t go get your hopes up either.
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