#digestable to people i dislike anyways

[bowenoke]

irl i don't normally tell people my pronouns unless they directly ask, but this has led to a very silly occurrence i call DLC pronouns. my gender is a sidequest you can unlock in the dialogue tree if your character has a high enough lgbtqia+ stat . or if my pride keyring falls out of my pocket.

#i generally think it is good to be out and proud as long as you are not in danger and i try not to give in to the urge to make myself more #digestable to people i dislike anyways #but sometimes you find a good job with good coworkers and bad management and getting to move up in the company means comprimise #capitalism sucks for everyone though because there is no corporate culture without average people comprimising themselves

[long-live-astronerd-ghost-king]

DPxDC. Talon Dick. Part 2 of Danny Fenton is a new master of The Court of Owls

~Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you~

Danny was terrified when he got the body of Talon in his morgue. The Court of Owls was notorious for leaving no trace after work. But Talon, a young man only a few years older than him, did not look like a mindless killing machine at all. Of course, the first time he had a couple of stab wounds from his new acquaintance but after numerous assurances that his help would remain their little secret and that he would not inform his superiors that he had fucked up on the mission, Talon began to trust him a little. as one dead boy to another. In a few months, most of the Talons come to him for first aid, and of course he got attached to the guys. After all, Gotham is not Amity Park and without the other dead ones around Phantom felt a little lonely. It was nice to give these poor people a few quiet minutes. Danny’s assistant has warned him many times not to mess with the Court of Owls, but Danny are Phantom and from the first time he met one of them he was planning to lose his temper and beat the boys' bosses to free them.

Fenton was not prepared to lead the Court of Owls. Even if Danny got his education as a villain he never thought he’d work according to his profession. But leave a whole den? nest? of creatures turned into weapons he could not. Of course, the best choice after defeating the leaders of the Court would be to destroy the entire organization. But Danny couldn’t do that.

Talons were killers, means of intimidation, even if not of their own volition. They will be killed (again) or sent to prison for the rest of their lives. Talons needed safety and a good therapist, not all of this. Danny’s scared, and he doesn’t know how to take care of them, but the others won’t do it. People are afraid of everything different. They won’t care that these dead are just victims, they’ll only see monsters. He could be half-human, but now he has to think like a full ghost. Talons are dead like him. And they have been dehumanized, tortured, used. People can be cruel. To do the right thing, he has to protect them.

It was difficult for Danny to identify likes and dislikes of his new friends because they always had the same facial expression and were taught that they had no feelings. Bullshit. Danny’s parents also think ghosts have no emotions, but they just have wrong theories and do not manipulate them to make ghosts think the same. Well, maybe it’s because they don’t think ghosts can think at all, but still! So, Danny know that number three loves strawberry jam, and number five always steals some of his cereal, and number 11 always gets closer to the music column to enjoy the sound. And he also know that the Talons weren’t fully fed in their organization because they definitely have problems with their digestive system, and he is going to fix it. Vlad said that he had trouble taking human food for only a few months after the portal accident, and some of the Talons were dead for years and still use injecting nutrient solutions. When a Dead Man can’t have a couple of spoons of treats, well, that’s a crime.

He needs to find a way to consult with Frostbite and conduct a full-fledged health diagnostics for his 'minions'. And he needs to settle the paperwork so guys have a legitimate reason to live in the Infinite Realms.

~~~~~ Danny: Hey Jazz, I’m in trouble. When can you come to Gotham? This time I don’t mind hearing a little advice.

~~~~~

Even though Dr Fenton smelled like death and blood all the time, the smell was different. And this difference was enough that something dead inside them swore allegiance to this Owl at their will. Not that they had it, of course. Weapons don’t have free will. But at least pretending to be able to choose is nice.

The new Master was weird, but in a good way. Not that this Talon know more about what is good than any other Talon. Ah, Di- Talon had a headache. Anyway, serving him is right. They all feel it..And feelings matter!! Well, they are not supposed to have them too but… looks like the young owl didn’t mind.

Master was not angry at how Talon № 4 frowned when the master had to pull a bullet out of his shoulder, and he missed Talon's sweet laughter when it saw the battle of Signal and Spice King on TV. The only times he raised his voice to them were when they were trying to threaten people near the master. Looks like this owl wanted to instill fear on his own. Strange. Usually there was always an enemy of the court who had to be hunted down and destroyed.

~~~~~

Danny: See, when you kill people, you do not make it easy for me. First, I will need to examine the bodies and write the report of their death. Second, if their souls remain restless, they will become my problem again. No more trying to get the cashier to have a heart attack. He said they ran out of the product I needed, not that he’s cursing my family for the next millennium. No one wants to see any more angry ghosts in Gotham. Me after a 24-hour shift is enough, okay?

Talons were alarmed. So far the master had shown no signs that he might want to completely break one of the weapons. But what if this owl is planning on punishing them for all their mistakes at once when he’s really angry?

Talon is not supposed to show initiative or empathy. But Talon 12, who suffered an injury in the course of a mission with old owls, has not yet recovered. They inadvertently hid it when the leadership changed. 12 has not yet met Doctor Fenton, and they do not know whether the privileges of medical care are retained now when they belong to him. So far, the Master has been rather careless about their movements and a few of them have slipped away for a while to check on a fellow. They didn’t lie if they weren’t asked about another weapon, right? They shouldn’t be punished too severely when the Owl finds out. Talons were hoping that Doctor Fenton, who was not in a hurry to look at the document of the court, would allow them not to write off the damaged thing. № 12 was an old and experienced weapon and could train beginners even if it has only one hand now.

Well, that was the plan. Talons allowed themselves to become too careless. Terrible mistake. Even the Owl that is usually nice to them remains dangerous. They need to find a way to satisfy their young master. Young Owls always have anger issues, not that Talons can judge.

The youngest Talon shared information that he sometimes had flashbacks of a working red bird who always had a murderous expression until he got to the coffee pot fluid. And it's non-Talon past was never afraid of this bird. The chick could always be calmed with this dark liquid. Coffee is something that will return the master to the favorable mood!

Talons rejoiced at this remarkable discovery and decided to send one of them on a mission as soon as possible to get rid of the potential danger.

~~~~

Danny: Thanks for the coffee, man. Hey, you also took another drink, judging by the dollars in the check. I'm so proud of you! How it was? Good?

Talon thought for a second and nodded. Yes, it was good. He didn’t drink the drink himself but when a coffee shop employee wrote down his order with a trembling hand, a boy appeared in the door.

This boy, now almost a young man, he was from his memories. Another coffee was automatically added to the order.

On his way out, Talon walked up to the sleeping chick and gave a cup to him. Even without opening his eyes, the bat’s cub sniffed and sucked the drink. Dick chirped with delight and patted boy's head, ignoring the frozen people.

That's a true magic drink which is commanding the minds of the powerful of this world. Yes, it will help them for sure!

~~~~

Danny: See, Jazz, Dick’s making progress! He went to the coffee shop today. That’s great, isn’t it?

Jazz: First, don’t call him that, we’re still not sure that’s his name and not the way Owls used to insult him.

Danny: Hey, the fact that he hissed when you called him Richard proves nothing. I don’t like being called Daniel either, or, over my dead body, Dan. I have to call him something. They’re all Talons. What are your suggestions? Jazz: We’ll talk about this later. Now back to the coffee question. Danny, did you forget anything when you let Talon go for a walk? Danny: Which one? Jazz: Don’t play dumb! Did you open the news headlines today or not? This is serious! Danny: What? Shit...civilian clothes. I didn’t think he’d wear a combat suit for it. Jazz: Didn’t you give them outfits for everyday use? Danny: Yeah, I did! But they still wear their Halloween outfits. All the time. Look, it’s not my fault they take everything I say as an order. When I asked them to make the tea and our teapot broke, they broke into some guy’s house and stole it. Jazz: Which guy? Did you at least apologize? Danny: One of Hood’s goons. I’m pretty sure he’s already met Dick on patrol, 'cause the first thing he did called Jason and start crying about being followed. Lucky for him Red was at my house that night and went to calm goon down. But I swear to you, Dick was a little shit on purpose. Of all the apartments choose his? Nah, such coincidences do not exist.

Jazz: I could be happy that he’s getting more independent in his decision making but now I feel like I have to offer the poor guy a discount therapy course.

Damian: Drake, we need to talk. I know about your investigation. You suspect one of the Talons is our missing Grayson. I’m willing to provide some evidence in exchange for… Tim: I don’t suspect, I know that. Damian: What? Where from? Tim: Well, the quadruple somersault was a good hint. And the fact that the Red Hood ran from him through the streets screaming that he wouldn’t take lunch from a damn golden child is also a tip. Damian:...Not a word to my father until we know more, right? I don’t want my older brother thrown in Arkham. Tim: Agree. It’s not like he doesn’t have a memory problem. He wouldn’t have made Alfred worried if leaving was his choice. We need more information.

Meanwhile in Gotham, Alfred aka the only one batfam member with more than one functioning brain cell *on his way to his first grandson and future husband of his sweet angel Jason*.

Danny: Jazz, we need to clean this house right now. Jazz: Since when do you start spring cleaning? Danny: I don’t know how to explain, it’s not a ghost sense, it’s more an unexplained sense of danger. Where’s the vacuum cleaner?

~~~~~

Talon №5 stood in the knitting shop in thought. What color would the little mistress prefer? It should remain useful even if the Owl does not give them direct orders. Knitting a cute sweater for mistress Dani would be a good start. Yeah, that color’s gonna be perfect. And maybe it should stop holding those needles like a weapon, it makes the cashier nervous, and he wants to pay without saving a civilian from losing consciousness.

~~~~~

Danny became a little alarmed when Talon threw himself at the old man standing on the porch. To his surprise, the Briton readily embraced the bird, and Dick let him. Talons who stood behind Danny happily chirped. Making their youngest member happy things always meant something good.

Alfred: Gentlemen, good afternoon. I guess I should thank you all for taking care of my dear grandson. Would you let me come in for a cup of tea?

#dpxdc prompt #dpxdc crossover #dpxdc #dcxdp #dpxdc au #talon dick grayson

[mecachrome]

extremely 👀👀 about this kind/nice spectrum u brought up and how alex oscar lando and anyone else on the grid are placed on the grid..... would love to know more.........

hi there!!! :D omg yes i would love to talk more about this, though of course disclaimer that these are my Personal Interpretations and i love to spout nonsense on the internet LOL. i'll just expand on oscar + lando + alex some more since frankly i don't know all the other driver lore Like That and i don't want to overstep in my analysis! also i'm deathly afraid of chirlies. ok let's move on

to start off... i think the way we talk about celebrity personas obviously requires some generalization + projection since we can only extrapolate what is already being consciously disseminated, and so although i frequently talk about the kind/nice dichotomy or someone's capacity for sympathy vs. empathy (which is kind of a parallel assessment imo) we are of course all complex people who contain multitudes, and i think it's mostly just interesting to examine strictly in the context of racing & racing mentality... if that makes sense!

also wrt landoscar's personalities → one thing i feel very, VERY strongly about despite their differing surface-level interests and social profiles (read: different flavors of off-track sports, both of them being gamers but to diverging levels of visibility, lando's higher degrees of hyperfixation, etc.) is that at their baseline they are extremely similar people, and honestly even very similar drivers and racing "characters," which ultimately kind of colors most of my analysis. if we peel back the layers then oscar and lando are both functional introverts who've been very well-nurtured by similarly robust, persisting, and loyal support systems—oscar spending 99% of his time off-track with his longtime gf, lando's best mates all being from his karting days, their dads being equally objective about yet also supportive of their careers, jon having trained lando since he was like 5 feet tall, etc.—so to me the overarching difference is that they have diametric approaches to how they externalize their convictions, and then obviously since that's what we see/hear day in & day out it generates the existing rift between their media images. per lando on btg: 

"Oscar is extremely down to earth. A bit like me, just a very normal guy who's in Formula 1, just a guy that loves to drive cars and compete against people, and that's it."

(incoming egregious amounts of lando psychoanalysis...) despite oscar being the only driver i truly rep, i've always found lando's psyche soooo fascinating because he invites such extreme emotion in people (be it positive or negative), and i think part of it does go back to the idea of being nice vs. kind and ultimately the lens through which his intentions are interpreted by other people. in real-people fandom this is always interesting since it ends up becoming an unconscious exercise in how we perceive "sincerity" in others, even though the underlying paradoxical truth is obviously that any such assessment must always be dispersed and consolidated via a parasocial system (and thus everything is held relative to our own individual value systems... This is totally not the point of the ask. SORRY FOR THE MILLION TANGENTS) anyway as an extremely disillusioned sports fan i actually have a lot of time for lando despite how much visceral judgment he generates in quite a few people, which is totally fair since everyone is fully privy to feeling however they want to feel about any celebrity and i am not here to convince them otherwise lol. but that's just me!

i think to me the thing about lando is that there is almost zero pretense to his character, which some dislike because they find his bluntness off-putting, but imo just means his intentions are generally straightforward and easily digestible. sure, he lacks the spoken filter to not come off as occasionally callous, but at the end of the day i genuinely believe that he's an inherently thoughtful (and "kind") person, especially within the insular system of professional motorsport and the many mental pitfalls that accompany it. a symptom of this is how willing he is to resist more gracious media responses and how very inwardly critical he can be in specifically self-motivating ways, the latter of which sometimes gets misinterpreted due to the rigid yet overwhelmingly popular framework of what constitutes a competitive racing mentality. but like... to Me, lando is just entirely what you see is what you get, bad parts included, and he has zero intention of making excuses for that or pretending to be anything otherwise. which i enjoy!

and which again also goes back to the idea of niceness. (honestly the tl;dr for most of lando's pr scandals is just Oh okay so it's illegal to be neurodivergent now? but i'm trying to be normal so let me not just say that.) a good example is the entire debacle of saying he felt no sympathy for daniel at mclaren in 2022, because i think it elucidates a sort of kindness in objectivity that he very plainly participates in—to lando, being a top-performing athlete means never searching for excuses to soften the brunt of one's failures, himself included, and equally that there is no point playing sorry in front of journalists or trying to reshape their narrative scrutiny since at the highest level of competition any bold-faced externalization of "sympathy" is really just pity. and what point is there in telling someone else that you Feel Bad for their skill issue/struggles when the moment you extend that sentiment you essentially debase their position as a direct competitor and therefore disrespect them even more?

"I want to be the best in the world, I want to prove myself to people. But I've never had the mentality or the confidence to say that or feel like I need to do anything more than normal to show it to people. Do I have to do anything to go over the top and show that to prove it? I don't think so. People say you've got to be brutal and you've got to have this certain mentality. But I just don't think it's true at all. I think you’ve just got to get in the car and do the best you can."

i think the Separation of Church (treating everyone exactly as they are on-track, just another car to size up or keep at bay) and State (being friendly, supportive, and altogether well-regarded by other drivers off-track) is a primary tenet of lando's personality, and it's something he achieves by valuing kindness over niceness. you know the lando/maxf quadrant interview where lando is like: i'm not friends with you because of your achievements in life... i just care about your personality! and he's mainly saying it to take the piss out of him but he also 100% does mean that shit. that's the crasyinsane part about lando to me... god i'm so sorry i need to not go on for a million years but PERSONALLY, i think lando is very much the type of person who can go through an experience, or otherwise see someone close to him go through an experience, and approach it very empathetically to the point he continues carrying on this internal conviction about it even when he's survived or grown past it. like even as someone who mostly believes in Death to Relatable Marketing, i find it really interesting when lando talks about mental health in sports because we get to see both a) the fact that he's grown so much in his own mental resilience from his rookie self in 2019 to who he is now, but also b) that he continues to believe strongly in rejecting the presumed archetype of a successful formula 1 driver, and is steadfast in surfacing that even though... honestly? lando nowadays is a very consistent, well-rounded, and efficient talent who frankly doesn't experience nearly as much of the unproductive mentally-spiraling self-criticism that used to impact his performances to a far more pronounced degree when he was younger and rough around the edges. yet he still feels compelled to affirm that there is No One way to be an athlete (which is significant because "mentality" is such a harped-on concept in all sports, and everyone is always trying unfailingly to extrapolate performance-related projections via vague and completely subjective intangibles to a notably unempirical degree!!) because he does care, deeply, about how people enter and succeed in motorsport. honestly i always feel kind of iffy bringing up commentary re: Women In Motorsport because it often sounds unnecessarily adulatory, but at least in recent times i think he's also shown a decent amount of grace when talking about female fans, girls in karting, that one time he was like Bruh who are you? @ that misogynistic reporter, which...... i'm not going to say majorly influences my opinion of him, but imo being willing to quickly shut someone down like that is an anti-niceness to a productive end that i appreciate, since i think many personalities would kind of just smile bemusedly and try to quickly move on in the conversation.

tl;dr lando thinks feeling bad for people is useless and will never give you that one tidy sympathetic soundbite, but he does care for people vividly, especially off-track, which to him is the only place kindness really matters anyway. when you look at maxf (and i know this is mainly a portrait of codependency unique to their friendship but i do think it reflects his love languages in general) whose career cratered because he mentally couldn't handle the pressure, lando's response was literally to unfailingly engage in failcore househusband chores for him like leaving handwritten notes in his 3rd grade girl handwriting and ironing his clothes on stream........ which... i could go on forever but again. separation of church and state!!!

anyway with oscar on the other hand, i honestly think most things in his life kind of just exist as a function of motorsport LOL. and that he likes surrounding himself with people of similar interests/intellectual level/skillsets, down to his partner studying engineering and wanting to work in the same industry as him....... again, i think 814's baseline characters are Very similar and that they're both great team players with complementary professional approaches, so this is not a knock on either of their personalities, but imo lando is just generally more outwardly sentimental and has also had to do a lot of conscious growing up in the past ~4 years to become more well-rounded wrt off-track interests, whereas oscar basically came onto the grid as this already fully-realized product with far fewer dependencies who is just nonchalantly like, I see my family 3 weeks a year and my sisters just think i'm their lame older brother and don't care about my career at all, but i'm fine with that and i'd make all the same sacrifices i've made over and over again to get where i am!!! also re: oscar's abject lack of interest in engaging with fans one-on-one, an easy example is how lando genuinely values/treasures the friendship bracelets he gets and wears them consistently whereas oscar is just like. Erm. i respect it but that is not for me ✋😭 he's nice about fan things because he understands how much fan support and consumerist interest enable the circus that is formula 1 but he doesn't really value any of it much past the surface-level pleasantries......

why is this answer so long............... idk if you want to hear anything more about alex but i think he's very similar to oscar in terms of this measured external niceness/quiet ruthlessness, especially wrt how they weather team politics, interact with media (noted red bull marketing hater alex albon), and tend to simply Do The Thing To Do The Thing. alex is especially interesting because if you watch his high performance pod it reveals sooooo much of his growth over the years and his current mental framework ("i was having to be selfless, and it didn't really agree with me that much") and frankly even just the way he speaks about himself is fascinating to me but i digress!!! i do think much of lando's tactless impulse yet also apparent kindness comes from his considerably privileged background and the fact that he was shown a lot of Realistic But Also Unconditional Support and thus never had his career actively threatened growing up. so even though he's had to learn to not mentally catastrophize at the f1 level, he didn't undergo the reckoning alex did with his mother/losing rb's team backing/etc., which alex mentions in this podcast as specifically triggering his insatiable desperation to prove himself.......... and so on. alex and oscar to me are both quite similar in how they let more combative thoughts simmer and are very well-trained in responding palatably to the media, but they're also going to resist relating themselves too much to other people's struggles because That Is Not Their Problem, and at the end of the day oscar is uh.... sure he has a lot of appreciation for mclaren and has called prema a family before, but he really only wants to win for himself and is less inclined than lando is to romanticize the spirit of the Team. and so when he says things like "for me, there’s just not any point, especially in self-deprecation, destroying yourself in front of the media," it's a Niceness because his assessments are always entirely self-absorbed in the most productive of senses, as in he truly only cares about what he himself is doing and is never going to waste time worrying about or comparing himself to his competitors' mental approaches!

does any of this make sense. please excuse the monstrous rambling 😭 but also please feel free to follow up with your own takes/lore about any driver if you'd like to, or to tell me that i'm absolutely wrong if you'd like, because i always love to hear about these things!!! :3c

#ask #i did not mean to psychoanalyze lando like That i'm so sorry...

[supanuts]

hi sasa! about my stand in novel, since you read the tags before going in, were there anything you were surprised with (either good/bad surprise)? what aspect do you think is the most enjoyable/compelling of the story despite there is still some cliches/cheesy/perhaps even predictable in the writing? i finished it recently as well and i love listening to another reader's thoughts about it

hi anon!

i know i sound like a yan mingxiu apologist at this point but i was honestly expecting him to be way worse, and then he wasn't! i was vaguely aware that he was, maybe, the less scummy of the 188 group because i read a tiny bit about that before starting the novel, but i was still prepared for someone downright evil (or evil for evil's sake, or whose actions would piss me off for most of the story only to have some kind of big reveal later that would make me rethink everything—not that i'm actually opposed to that approach actually, but i'm still glad it wasn't like that in pbd, at least for the readers, because i liked following his emotional journey in real time-ish) and, while he still wasn't great, let's say i don't approve of his ways but i could easily understand how he got there.

going to hide the rest of my answer under a read-more because i want to get into spoilers and sometimes a tag isn't enough:

i told @clairedaring when i started the novel that yan mingxiu was funny to me because it was so clear even then how oblivious he was being (and later on how he was going to be hurt by the consequences of his own actions, boy was shooting himself in the foot the whole time) and i stand by that. i did cry for him, but i also reveled in his pain after seeing him sow the seeds for a year. get karma'd. oh and his age was a nice surprise too! i'd assumed he would be older for some reason (maybe because of up poompat) but he's a babyyy. it just made so much sense that he would be so immature with his background and being that young; not that people his age are immature or i'd expect them to, obviously, but some things are a lot easier to understand and excuse (at least for me) once you know he's only 20. it also makes him way more believable and his actions generally easier to digest than if he was idk, up's actual age. anyway i went into the story with that mindset, so maybe that's why i never really disliked him. or maybe it's because i'm older and a few years ago i wouldn't have thought the same, who knows.

as for the most compelling/enjoyable aspect i'd say it's mostly the way the characters are written, which, bare minimum lol but they were just so believable as people? there was depth, there was consistency in the characterisation (oh the bar is in hell); i could understand why zhou xiang was wavering, and why it took him so long to notice/accept and to believe in yan mingxiu's feelings; i could see yan mingxiu's feelings developing early on and also understand why he was basically gaslighting himself into still believing he loved wang yudong, even though by then he was already starting to notice how he didn't even like him as a person (one of the things i found so amusing about yan mingxiu was the way he'd automatically redirect his thoughts about zhou xiang to circle back to "but the best part about him is definitely how his back looks like dong ge's", he's. so dumb) he was so set in his belief and so used to think about wang yudong as the person he loved that he didn't even bother to stop and think for a second if that was even true anymore. aughhh. i really think the characterisation was really strong; it's not like i don't latch onto random weak characters for no reason constantly but this is usually what's important for me in fiction, and specially in a story that is mostly about feelings i need to really care about the characters, otherwise what's the point.

the flow of the story (the english fan translation in my case, but i think this comes from the story itself) was really good too! that by itself would have made me read the whole thing pretty quickly even though i wanted to make it last, not gonna lie... but yeah, with those two things combined i had no chance. i would intend to read one or two chapters before sleeping and then end up reading anywhere between 20-40, so now i have to microdose the extras or i'll run out of yanzhou content, sobs.

and of course, not to be me, but the best thing about pbd is my sweet angel baby zhou xiang. i was pretty sure i was going to like him a lot just from reading claire's propaganda post (lol) and sure enough, by chapter 6 his doormat ways had bewitched me body and soul. i already adored him as a very social but also very lonely man who had resigned himself to be alone at the tender age of 29 (out of practicality? like granted, he knows better than me how his environment functions but he never had any trouble finding a hook up either? so why that level of cynicism, baby boy. it's not like he can't look for a partner outside of his circle either). a man that so desperately yearned for a loving partner/a family of his own but that settled for scraps, and sometimes not even that. i loved seeing him being domestic and at times even sweet with yan mingxiu in his original life, and how he was a bit like a puppy. i loved how softhearted he was, and how petty he got at times; how he wanted to take that role from wang yudong because he was jealous of him and, since he couldn't get yan mingxiu to love him, at least he could "win" somehow and not be second to wang yudong by taking that role away from him, even if it was only once and not what he really wanted/the only thing he actually cared about (ie yan mingxiu's heart); how he wanted to hurt and maybe embarrass yan mingxiu by telling him about "wang yudong"'s back in his first film being that of a stuntman (and oh how i loved what that caused). but mostly i loved that despite all that he was still, above everything else, softhearted; he stopped caring about wang yudong altogether as soon as he knew the truth about yan mingxiu, even thought he'd spent years suffering because of him by that point; he always took care of chen ying, whatever it took, because even though she was only his new body's mother she was the only mother he had and he'd already hurt her enough by taking the place of her son, doesn't matter that he had no power over that.

i loved watching zhou xiang grow as a person and learning to put himself first sometimes, and having the resolve to fight for what he wanted for once and not just put up with everything life threw at him. i didn't even like the yan family plot (could do without yan mingxiu's father beating his gay son, thank you) but seeing zhou xiang standing up for himself and their relationship made me so emotional and so proud of him. his development was really the best, and i just love him so so much.

also it's so funny to me how i imprinted on poom phuripan like a baby chick the first time i saw him (as guy in bake me please) and then i had pretty much the same experience with a character he's going to play lmao as if i didn't know he's perfect for the role already.

look at him! he's so beautiful, so zhou xiang-shaped. i thought about up from time to time while reading too, but i was picturing poom in my mind constantly without even trying to. 10/10, perfect casting.

also! cheesy is good! cheesy is fantastic, even. same with clichés and predictable stories that follow a certain formula; sometimes that is exactly what i want, and as long as it makes sense and feels natural to the characters and the story (ie they don't just do things/things just don't happen because it's what needs to happen next) i'm down with anything. also i don't know if this counts as predictable or just paying attention because after all that's what the mentions/clues were there for, but things like yan mingxiu's obsession with wang yudong's back and consequently zhou xiang's... the moment we got yan mingxiu remembering how he fell in love at first sight with wang yudong's back at 16 when he saw that now-classic scene of him getting out of the water in his first film i knew what was coming, specially because by that point we knew how long zhou xiang had been working as wang yudong's stuntman (not sure if we knew about him being uncredited yet).

and sure enough, he was never credited in the first place because they wanted the action scenes to help build wang yudong's fame, and yang mingxiu had been in love with zhou xiang's back the entire time. you don't get much more cheesy than that, and it's literally my favourite thing about the novel 😭

and i'm stopping myself here oh my god...

#asks #anon #professional body double #professional body double spoilers #my stand in #my stand in spoilers #my stand in the series #wish i was kidding about the chapter 6 thing but i checked the messages i sent to a friend and... yeah... #crowned blorbo of 2024 at 2 am on a friday #i should just reread pbd honestly #that being said! i'm open to 188 recs if anyone has any #pbd is in the bottom half of the recommended order in the 188 group carrd so i guess i won't follow that lmao

[burstofastar]

Tekken — Random thoughts

Okay, but Nina and Jin in Tekken 6? I simply love them. Tekken 6 gave (not just me but some other people too) the foundation for an amazing ship.

A respectful relationship that started with work, and the Scenario Campaign showed their closeness and confidence, without losing their professionalism and focus on Jin's goal.

Story-wise, Tekken 6 is… interesting, to say the least. I don't know, I still have mixed feelings about the direction they gave Jin's development and what he was like since Tekken 3.

I can't say that I like that in Tekken 6 he became a war criminal and did such aberrations, when Azazel's problem could have been addressed in another way; because actually, I don't like it at all.

But on the other hand, I don't totally hate the concept itself. I just find it a little hard to digest.

What I can save (or at least try to) is that, from a personal opinion, I don't think he did it because it's the destiny of bearers of Mishima blood to be corrupted. Because, in fact, I don't think Jin was corrupted by having Mishima blood or by the influence of the Devil Gene.

I think he did everything out of his conscience. A twisted, fucked up and terrible way of doing things, but by conscience at the end. Because if we go to the fact, he always struggled and fought against the influence of the curse, and tried to keep it at bay as much as he could (in despite of his T3 and T4 endings, in T5 vs. Hwoarang, in T7 in the desert)… well, in the end of Scenario Campaign we could see how Jin consciously used the power of the Devil Gene (without turning into Devil) to defeat Azazel.

It's a bummer that they "ruined" Jin like that, but it was an interesting chapter in Tekken history.

Anyway, before starting to wander more than necessary… I know that Tekken: Blood Vengeance and the Tekken Comic by Titan Comics aren't canon either, but Nina and Jin roles in each one are a good addition for this dreamy ship (especially in the comics).

And no, my point isn't that the base of the ship has to be that the woman has to do the whole work and being his support 24/7 (a thing that usually happens in the Japanese culture: the female character being just a bland sidekick with no depth and the protagonist's love interest; just as in mostly of shonens, for example), or because it's just the job she was hired for… But because both of them could relate to each other: both suffering child abuse from a close family member, both having family members they dislike, both having lost a family member they loved, both having suffered and survived Ogre's attack, and both having a mostly lonely path in life… because they know they're not the best company and their methods are very questionable.

Feelings aren't part of their lifestyle and not allowing themselves to open their hearts (because having feelings means their goals be compromised), is a fact. And it's a fact that a ship like this will never happen in canon, yet I always loved their genuine mutual trust and respect. It's far away from the Japanese culture's typical cliché of the badass lonely boy and the cute submissive girl who has a huge crush on him, is ghosted during most of the series and wants to "save" him but just meddles, resulting annoying most of times. It reminds me to someone… Wait!!

Alright, speaking more seriously now… Tekken 6 turned 14 years some days ago (especifically for PS3 and XBox, on October 30th), and this was a good opportunity to talk about an underestimated and unapreciated OTP.

I'm very intrigued about what's going to happen in Tekken 8, and the path of both of them when Bamco already revealed the roster's bios. Nina working for Kazuya doesn't make sense if we take into account her relationship with Jin during Tekken 6, the fact that she failed on purpose for Lars and Lee to protect Jin from Heihachi and... taking as bonus the non-canonical comics and BV.

Possibly developers will take the path of Street Fighter x Tekken's story? Nina working with Kazuya but undercover, for Jin's instructions? Because no one can deny how amazing was Jin trusting someone since the beginning, spending time with that someone and being able to share thoughts... even if it's just professionaly.

P.s.: I feel the luckiest guy alive, since I have the privilege of writing this wonderful ship on Twitter... I mean, X. My dearest friend @carade0jete and I roleplay as Nina and Jin, respectively, since almost five years. An amazing journey that still goes on and will last until that app is either ruined or closed by El*n M*sk. Love you, bb. ♥️✨

#tekken #tekken 6 #tekken 8 #nina williams #jin kazama #nina x jin #jin x nina #random thoughts

[ofmermaidstories]

I totally agree with you on not liking the current, "you must reblog or don't read it" mentality. While it's great to support fanfic writers if you're comfortable with it, there are a lot of reasons why someone may not feel comfortable reblogging a particular fic (for me personally my social anxiety sometimes gets the best of me and I simply cannot handle the idea of being perceived). I think the problem comes when people don't interact with fics and then start to ask for more content from the author (which I suspect is only a few people but it's enough to give some writers a really bad impression). I used to write for a very small fandom and even I had several experiences of people asking for part 2s or updates when the original fic had very little interaction and I was most definitely not a request blog. I've personally never written fanfiction to get comments but stuff like that made me feel used and I even had one interaction that toed the line of emotional blackmail and put me off writing for that fandom altogether so I can definitely see why some authors end up so jaded that they block anyone who doesn't interact positively (even if it's not something I really agree with). So yeah, I really don't think there's anything wrong with genuine lurkers but I fear sadly they've been given a bad name by the few people who do treat fanfic authors as content machines.

Anyway, I hope I haven't rambled too much and that you're having a good day Merms!

Oh yeah, absolutely!!! Like, true entitlement is such a problem that genuine lurkers are getting murked for; which is unfair because it makes a scapegoat out of them and doesn’t solve the real problem at all. And I say “true entitlement” because there’s a difference between a comment that’s like, “will there be a part 2? 🥺” and “part 2” LOL, which is my personal pet peeve, like—what happened to hi?? hello??? how are you??? 💀 I’m not a chat AI, you don’t get to input demands. 🤖📖🚫

Idk—I try not to be mean about even that, tho, because I suspect a lot of this behaviour is indicative of younger readers, but then it just circles back to the problem of like, how do we correct it on a community-wide scale? Because sure, entitlement like that might be coming from a younger reader, but it might just as easily be coming from an asshole LMAO. The only “quick” solution that I can see for it is directly addressing it when it happens. 🥺 And again I wanna emphasise that there’s a clear difference between a genuine enquiry and a throwaway demand!! Like, personally, I don’t mind people asking when I might update or whatnot, because I don’t hold myself to a schedule and my updates are haphazard. But if you’re a more structured and dependable writer (like andypants, for example!) then maybe it’s a different story idk idk. It’s literally case-by-case—which is how it should be, because we’re all individual people writing different things.

I’m sorry your other fandom experience was kinda soured for you though, Anon. 🥺 I would feel used too! I’ve actually come to really dislike writing generic, non-bigger-fic related drabbles because they’re always the pieces that attract the worst of the entitlement. 💀 I say that like it’s a plague of demands lmfao, it’s not, but it happens often enough that it’s noticeable—and I guess it’s just the nature of them being easily digestible without needing like 100k+ of backstory to get into it, but….. idk idk. It’s startling! 😦 And I think the only action we can take that’s even close to a solution is just gently addressing it whenever it pops up. 😔 Or blocking ig if that’s how u roll, LOL.

#ofmermaidstories-asks #the reblog thing—discourse #scheduled smeduled bc i am eebing snore snore snore 😴

[whoiwanttoday]

I am posting Slayyyter cause her new album came out last week and since then she has just posted picture after picture demanding I post her here. And someone has to. My friend @kat-eleven is famously anti-Slayyyter in that she told me she, "Dislikes girls who don't cover up". Then went into a rant saying, "Lock that shit up, sweetie, no one wants to see your sin lumps doing their little damnation jiggle. No one is ever going to buy the milk if they can fuck the cow for free". I told her I don't think that's how it works because no one wants to fuck the cow and she told me I'd never been to rural Canada. Which fair, I haven't. Anyway, I still digesting her new album but there are some tracks I really like. I like Plastic for example. People seem to be digging it though and I did get the cover where she's topless because… well, I mean if you have the option, right? I am pretty much pro sin lumps if a woman wants to show them. Today I want to fuck Slayyyter.

#Slayyyter #blonde #Singer #whoiwanttofucktoday

[hyunjinspark]

hiii !! i wanted to leave my comments on chap 17 a few days ago but im so stressed w my life i didnt have time to sit down and digest this chapter properly lolz but either way im here now! And my feelings changed .

i think i've mentioned in my last ask that i couldnt get mad at hyunjin. well now i can 😭😭 i think the way you narrated yns feelings really hit home for me - realizing she was currently living her dream life and not being able to feel anything besides pain really got to me. even though hyunjin doesnt realize the amount of hurt he caused, he still managed to ruin (at least for a while) something that is such a huge deal in her life. i do kinda feel sorry for hyunjin too, he seem so clueless about the damage he causes, but its really hard reading how empty yn feels when there are so many good things happening in her life

im so incredibly proud of yn for standing up for herself!!! she really matured a lot, and i think she's starting to respect herself and stand her ground more. i wonder whats gonna happen when she reaches her breaking point w hyunjin tbh.. i hope she does, though. he needs to realize how neglectful hes been w her

also, i really dont know my opinion on jeonghan yet. im not his biggest fan, but i don't really dislike him either. i do think hes maybe a bit to eager to make out w yn at any opportunity he has, but i cant blame him for that LMAO i just dont trust him yet. i hope he doesnt do anything weird.. he's definitely on my watch 👁️

and i think this might be a really hot take, but i dont know how i feel about kairi and bang chan... things could go SO wrong and when it comes to u writing angst.. im really worried ab where this is gonna lead us 😭 honestly idek how i want things to go for them.. ofc i would love if they got back together, but that doesn't really seem possible. u keep getting me hooked on this story jade omg 😭 i srsly have NO idea how this is gonna go and im honestly kinda worried ab finding out..

and also i hope nothing happens between yn and hyunjin in the next chapter🥲 unless they have a srs conversation and hyunjin apologizes.. honestly idek what he could do to make it up to yn at this point. but still, im always rooting for them. and i trust hyunjin's feelings towards yn. and i trust ur ability to turn really tragic storylines into really pretty love stories

but yea ! hoping and praying my good sister yn will not fold in chap 18 🫡 i love her i just want her to be happy and appreciated :((

alsoo right where you left me is my favorite taylor song ever 🥲🥲 the title alone made me flinch before i even started reading the chapter lmao

anywayyysss !! hope u have a lovely lovely day, pretty! im always rooting for u!

🩸

its been a while ! im surprised your feelings changed but that makes sense, yn’s really struggling and hyunjin probably has no clue how much :/ its frustrating, and her breaking point is imminent tbh !!

i think a lot of people share your opinion on jeonghan 👀 it could go either way,,,,and same for kairi and chan 💔

anyway, i love reading your thoughts !! thanks for sending them in. ☺️

#star lost with you #🩸 anon

[alcorian]

Hmm tell me if u don't wanna get more asks about those two but dream from last night about opbee is hunting me. I honestly might make it into an au of sorts or small drabble???

I dunno but:

What if Bee and Optimus were paired for a reckon or some sort of spying mission were lying low is required and through that they slowly bond and fall in love.

I feel like the main scene of the dream would be the two discussing their feelings in Optimus office and being very close to each other, just very tender moment.

If I had to organise my thoughts it would be like randomly an idea floats around the ark about doing random pair work, maybe it stem from twins doing a prank too many in the med bay or to prowl or someone said something about Jazz special ops trainings, I dunno the main thing that stemmed from the even is that everyone in the ark gets randomly paired with different bot.

Essentially someone from science Division may end up doing special ops or surveillance mission or Prowl might have to do jet jitsu with twins.

Somehow, someway Bee and Optimus got paired together- Teletran-1 is strangely silent about it -which led to few grumbles here and there but those bits were quickly distracted when they got paired with people they hated or disliked. Bee is keeping it together but like barely BC damnit that's his crush and he gonna make fool of himself and just spirals down from there.

Whilst Optimus looks calms on the outside he is panicking like bumblebee, maybe worrying a bit more about this whole idea seeing the chaos but that ship had sailed. Anyway, whilst everyone gets chaotic first hour, bee and Optimus get to just know each other beyond leader and soldier.

Like maybe Optimus had paperwork or bumblebee had to do Inventory or something to that extend but just- They talk they learn they feel.Maybe there is opportunity for field mission for bumblebee and it's quite low key one so both Optimus and Bee get to go on it. Maybe it's spying on some decepticon mining facility or something but it goes well.

Untill it isn't well and the two have to hide.

Optimus probably reacted instinctively or maybe he was a lookout whilst Bee did most of the spying but the second he spots the approaching danger he grabs Bee and hides them in the shadows of the smaller caverns in the cave which forces them to be flush against each other.

Bee is confused at first when he was grabbed but second he spots the danger too he quietens down and listens out for it too, only realising how close he and Prime are when he tries to shift making Bee blush like crazy and it takes all of his will power to not make startled sound or for his fans to kick in.Optimus doesn't realise what happen untill much later when he has time to digest the day events in his quarters.

If he avoids Bee optics next day that's no one business but his.

Anyway just the two slowly bonding and having those lightbulb moments of "oh O H " untill the last day of the whole partnered up thing, in Optimus office as the two do their work, feeling so domestic so comfortable for maybe first time in eons of the war Optimus takes that final gamble. Slowly he putting the paperwork away, much to Bee confusion as his own files are taken and put away, Optimus looks at Bumblebee and lowers his battle mask- noting the way Bee optics widen and how mesmerized bee looks -and just speaks.

It's not like his usual usual speeches, crafted to the perfection and carrying words of encouragement for the wary troops, no. Optimus stumbles and backtracks and keeps it as honest as he can as he bares his feelings, ever the soldier ever the prime, despite wanting to look away, he can't as he watches for bee reaction.

Bee takes it in, the confessions, the actions, the words. Bee takes in Prime and realises that Optimus means it. He isn't taking pity he isn't joking he means it. And just as Optimus starts to doubt, Bee speaks. Offering his side, his confessions his actions as he lets the always cherry persona mask fall. Showing his weariness and the ugly he keeps away for benefits of others.Slowly but surely they talk they confess and discuss and they come closer and closer for their first kiss.

Whatever happens next is well up in the air.

I think it be funny if the two started dating but didn't try to hide it all that much and autobots don't pick it up untill after like final battle of the war where Bee or Optimus borderline make out in the battle field.

I dunno I just enjoy the trope where two people are dating without hiding it but people around them think they are oblivious to each other feelings or don't notice it untill it's spelled out to them.

But yeah :D

-@);-- R Anon

And once again I do apologise for any spelling or other mistakes, I am after work and not wearing glasses cause ouche

ahhhh yes im always here for more opbee, i love them

#askbox #Anonymous #opbee #optimus prime #bumblebee #transformers

[its-just-fern]

i still have rotting asks in my inbox about the infinity train au that i never answered. theyre like 2-3 years old at this point? sorry about that... but ill answer with what i thought of at the time. (im sure there were more, maybe, but i think i cleared my inbox at some point?) ive gotten worse with answering asks over the years but sometimes the original post gets sudden notes from time to time.. it blows me away!!

notes about finn's part (parts 1-2 combined):

finn gets on the train because of his parental issues/internal struggles that he has in the late seasons

jake (as a passenger - he also works well as a denizen) comes along solely because of his concern for finn. in reality he doesnt actually need to be on the train at all (think of him as kinda jumping in the portal on instinct, betty-style). i think his number would be like. 1. hes too unbothered

finn losing his arm so fern can be in the real world mirrors tulip losing her pocketknife for lake. fern would come from a sort of "topiary car" where the leaves can "mirror" you (idk how else to explain this one.. think of it like these mechanical mirrors, maybe)

betty would be amelia. chicle would be the other metal cop.

notes about pb/marcy's part (part 3):

in general i didnt see bonnie dying at the time because... i love bubbline LMAOOOOO im weak im sorryyyy. her dying would be on brand tho and i love tragedy

i never thought of bonnie and marcy as killing denizens intentionally, but they would definitely still "claim" the train as theirs... the apex would instead be like their "kingdom", with them as the "princess/queen"

marcy might have little regard for denizens, while bonnie might see them more as things to "examine". i think instead of intentionally trashing each car, bonnie would try to specifically "improve" them how she sees fit (which messes them up anyways)

fp might start out like... hiding out in another car, having run away from the car she came from (flame kingdom) with the help of cinnamon bun. she was trapped in the kingdom but didnt know that bonnie trapped her there in the first place (part of her "improvements").. bonnie, of course, lets her "join" them, but actually wants to re-trap her.

betty, as amelia, instead of making turtles (trying to revive/save simon), kept making flame people -> leads to fp's existence.

unfortunately nothing for part 4! i made this au way before that and i dont really feel like figuring it out right now.. but ill leave it to you all!

if im being honest i think lake would lowkey dislike him/find him disturbing? to them i think he would seem like a gigantic asshole with how he treats finn, even if his problems are very relatable to them. LOL

but in a goofier world where digestion is possible for all species they would probably be like drinking buddies

maybe peppermint butler.

#not doodles #ask #i likely wont expand much on this au beyond most of this bc im not interested in it anymore #but im getting into at again so might as well answer these

[jalebi-weds-bluetooth]

Hey Jwb!

Hope you are doing well!

I used to be an Ardent fan of ipkknd and Arshi especially when it used to air on tv (2011-2012), It aired on tv in my childhood era, I was literally obsessed with this show, obsessed with Arshi, And Arnav was my first childhood crush, he used to be my ideal man and at that time i always wanted to experience a love story like Arshi, i even cried alot when ipkknd ended, However recently after 12 years of this show, i've started rewatching ipkknd on hotstar And now after rewatching it, A sudden dislike towards Arnav's character has started, I can't believe that he used to be my ideal man in childhood, after growing up it's hard for me to digest the amount of toxicity and narcissistic behaviour of Arnav, even though he faced a trauma in his life but i feel like the way he showed his extremely emotional and verbal abusive side to Khushi is pathetic and no one can forget it, Iknow he changes later in the show, But it's hard for me to forget the way he used to treat her earlier, that's the reason why i don't find him as an ideal man anymore, If he had that much toxicity due to his trauma then he should've taken therapy, he was already rich enough, he should've seek a professional help, Also, there was no serious redemption track of Arnav in the show, If the makers would've created a long and serious Redemption track then it would've been easy for me to forget his past behaviour with khushi... I'm sorry if im sounding like a hater, but seriously i'm unable to stan Arnav's character now, I loved ipkknd alot, but now i can't admire this show anymore, What are your views on this?

Hello dear Anon :)

Every media needs to be examined and consciously consumed. If something that you enjoyed watching no longer gives you that enjoyments then I would definitely recommend you to explore more options :)

With regards to IPK - I understand that feeling completely. And as a fan I can consume it anyway I want. So the most I can do is share what I did to be able to still enjoy the show.

Realize everything is ultimately fictional and have critical discussions with my friends and fellow fans who recognize the good and bad.

Write fix-it fan fictions where I address the more troubling parts of the show and run a whole blog about it!

Edit the show to enjoy it as per my sensibilities of what is tolerable in a romance (thus I like to imagine the Gupta House track to happen much later, Arnav never 'buys' Khushi's house, etc etc)

And the whole point about fiction is to enjoy it - if you aren't finding enjoyment then what's the point?

I personally still love IPK. Its writing was far more progressive compared to other shows and it set a standard for romance and filmmaking that is still used by other shows in Indian television - especially in filmmaking.

The biggest thing about IPK is that it's a story that's realistically not possible. Arnav is not a good man. IPK never frames Arnav as a hero - in fact he's an antihero. His and Khushi's marriage is traumatic for most parts and it takes him a long time to be able to love her selflessly. Which is why the second marriage was essential because this time he chooses to be a better man than let his trauma take over him.

Trauma is not a choice, but hurting other people is. And with the way he stood up for Khushi, his mother-in-law completed his arc as a character.

Also Arnav was written and portrayed as an anti-hero. He's... not the hero. Never was. Which is why Arnav is almost always dressed in black/dark. It becomes a light joke at the end of it that his closet doesn't have anything bright but the reality is that's the underlying of him being an anti-hero.

And I always like watching the IPKKND rewind Arnav snippets because that feels like a tortured man who went to therapy and healed himself and his relationships.

But the most important part is - you can grow out of loving old things :) Just don't guilt yourself into loving something that's problematic (as long as you don't apply those rules and beliefs in your real world) and keep enjoying life.

For me that's always going to be Miley Jab Hum Tum and Sarabhai V/S Sarabhai - hilarious and poignant!

Best,

Jalebi

#ask #anon #about ipkknd #it's all about loving a show #it's ok if you don't love it anymore

[life-in-the-monster-haus]

you sound extremely white…. especially in your posts defending Gil and blaming shit on Lagoona, like….

your posts only convinced me even more that those two shouldn’t be together.

girls shouldn’t have to put up with racism for the sake of a guy and implying that lagoona should just go “that sucks 😢” whenever gil mentions his parent’s racism? Like wtf how is that a better lesson for kids than her wanting her boyfriend to stand up for himself? and if protecting lagoona from racism is oh so terrible for gil, just…. have them break up ffs. don’t encourage kids to stay in relationships like that where one has to endure racism for the other cus otherwise the person with racist parents gets punished.

Like, way to make it POC’s fault for racist parents being abusive to their kids? “it’s all lagoona’s fault cus she forced gil to take a stand against racism even tho his parents would punish him” like wow. you truly sound very white.

let’s also not gloss over the fact that you called Lagoona a bitch at one point for crying when Frankie asked her about boys. or you calling Draculaura a cow at one point too like wtf??? so maybe lay off the gendered insults for girls??? before jumping to the defense of a character POC dislike and who’s flaws you excuse as trauma cus you see yourself in him.

I'm gonna put this answer under a cut because some folks get cranky when I make long posts, even though there is a feature in your settings that can auto trim long posts, I get blamed anyways... it's easier to blame the person than to address the problem directly isn't it?... hey! that's kinda what happens to Gil! let's discuss.

Saying someone sounds white based off text and nothing else. 🚩🚩🚩

I'm Puerto Rican, thanks for asking. But I blamed shit on Lagoona because, some stuff was her fault, specifically stuff that put Gil directly in harms way. Maybe your cool with dumping your personal baggage on a disabled 16 year old but I'm not and no one should.

My posts were never written to prove that Gil and Lagoona are meant to be together, perfect for each other OR even good together, you're confusing me with a shipper, at most I've stated Gil is decent boyfriend material and I stand by that. The entire reason I write them is to prove Gil is an innocent and defend him from slander that this annoyingly prevalent sub-section of the fandom has been spreading that has absolutely NO basis in canon, if you read my posts like you claim to you'd have known that. I'm not really sure WHY Gil has become the fandom punching bag, Maybe it's because he's less masculine than the other MH guys? is it because he's Asian coded? is it because he needs a device to breathe? Maybe it's some unholy combination of homophobia, racism and ableism. fuck if I know, so I went looking: I watched hundreds of webisodes, days worth of movies and countless pages of teen wank in diaries so that y'all didn't have to and I put it in an easily digestible format but I guess that wasn't good enough for you hmm?

Girls shouldn't have to put up with racism for the sake of a guy. you're completely correct and I don't think I ever made that claim. UNFORTUNATELY saltwater people DO face racism in the G1 Monster High universe and Lagoona would face that same racism regardless if she was dating Gil or not. The racism isn't radiating from Gil, Lagoona says herself there is a long standing system of oppression against saltwater monsters which I covered here.

Also don't put words in my mouth, it's poor form- especially in a text based forum where people can go back and re-read everything we both said. I never once implied "that lagoona should just go “that sucks 😢” whenever gil mentions his parent’s racism" I said it was wrong of her to force him to tell his parents that he was seeing her, especially when she knew they had a threat hanging over his head. Also Gil doesn't just go around mentioning his parents are racist, it's just a fact that exists in this universe and when he IS forced to talk about it, it's always spoken with great shame. Like when he tried to dump Lagoona during the Gloom Beach arc, Y'all think they should have broken up? well here you go. Gil tried to break things off with Lagoona before they were even officially dating, he knew it was painful and tried to spare her. But she likes him and he likes her, so obviously that didn't work.

Gil DID stand up for himself, A LOT. I documented it WELL with pictures, links and colored words for emphasis! I practically spoon fed it to the reader from a silver platter, a child could understand it. If you read my review well enough to understand it to the point that you have a problem with it that you just HAD to tell me about, you'd know that. But clearly you gave my review as much attention as you gave canon because here is what happened in canon again since I don't think you listened the first time it aired or when I said it. In Episode 24 Gil defends Lagoona against Mr. Hack's bigoted statement that Sea Monsters are bad parents, they weren't even dating at that point they were just classmates. He defends Lagoona directly again in Volume 2 where he speaks directly to his parents (Probably his Father?) On the phone in front of Lagoona. THAT phone call? got him sent to a Boarding school far away as punishment for defying his parents wishes and wanting to be with Lagoona and he was there for the entire summer and half of the next school year. They are still TECHNICALLY not dating by this point they are just hanging out and into each other - even without the reward of Lagoona, Gil STILL stood up for her, got punished for it and came back for more because he directly defends Lagoona to his racist parents AGAIN in Volume 3 where Lagoona isn't there, it's just him and his parents so you know how he feels is genuine and not performative, there's a whole episode about it called "Defending your Lagoona" ... I didn't even need to write what I did, the episode should have been enough proof but clearly no one pays attention to either canon or context because some key component of understanding clearly got lost in translation. I'm gonna ASSUME that most of y'all just haven't watched G1 in literally 9 years and have FORGOTTEN the subtle things that make Gil a good kid, it's like y'all watched the first half of skull shores and were like "Wow, Gil is a piece of shit!" - without finishing the movie to know that he saved everyone in the end. People cite Gil being "wishy washy" or "spineless" as reasons why they don't like him, but the shit this kid has been though? He could be getting flogged off screen like Jesus in "the Passion of the Christ" for defying his parents for all we know: he's scared of his parents for a reason but he has been ALWAYS loyal to Lagoona and he stood up to Mr. Hack, Farnum and his own parents for her... the kids spine is made of iron. Some of y'all can't get your man to take a shower for you meanwhile Gil is out here chewing bigots a new one for Lagoona.

Rebelling against your parents prejudice and wrong beliefs to live a life that makes you happy is a GREAT message for kids to learn.

"if protecting lagoona from racism is oh so terrible for gil, just…. have them break up ffs. don’t encourage kids to stay in relationships like that where one has to endure racism for the other cus otherwise the person with racist parents gets punished."

Do you want to watch a show where they are constantly pining for each other because they can't be together? Because I don't... If I wanted to torture myself with love that is there but also isn't there I'd watch Miraculous. Lagoona also never endured any racism directly at the hands of the Webbers, she was just told not to date their son and they didn't even tell her themselves, Gil was always the messenger and he softened the blow as much as he possibly could. while it sucks that she keeps getting bad news it's not really quite the same as experiencing it first hand. But any story-line where the racists get what they want is a bad story-line.

"Like, way to make it POC’s fault for racist parents being abusive to their kids?"

... Did you seriously just try to tell me that G1 Lagoona is a person of color. Blonde haired, green eyed, beach waved hair, light skinned, tiny nosed, Australian, voiced by a white woman, Lagoona... is a person of color... I'm not saying that any of these traits in of themselves automatically makes G1 Lagoona white OR that people of color can't have any of these traits. I'm just saying that all of them PLUS how she's handled in the show with her privileged Yacht owning parents AND the sheer nerd rage from fans at her being Latina in G3 and thus "no longer white" are things that make her white. I know many people have head-canons that shes Aboriginal and that would be fantastic if it was true. But let us not give Mattel too much credit to think that far ahead. for all intents and purposes, G1 Lagoona is white.

HOWEVER, what she is going through IS a common struggle among people of color and I think Mattel did this intentionally to avoid torturing an actual person of color. Little brown kids get subjected to racism enough, they don't need to watch the cartoon mermaid go through it too. or maybe now I'm the one giving Mattel too much credit they probably just wanted to show "Look! white people have it tough too!"... Honestly? this whole allegory would have worked better if Lagoona was a dude and Gil was gay. None of you would have dared to force Gil out of the closet if Lagoona was a dude and his parents were homophobic, but for some reason because it's racism and not homophobia it's okay!? to put Gil at risk!? Would y'all be like "Maybe if Gil just wasn't into men he wouldn't have these problems!" being homeless because of being gay and being homeless because of racism is STILL being homeless, he gets disowned either way.... Make it make sense folks, because it doesn't. Didn't an actor recently get forced out of the closet and it was widely regarded as an awful thing? So why are we so gung-ho to make Gil tell his racist parents he's dating a girl he knows they won't like? Would you do that to him if he was gay and wanted a boyfriend? probably fuckin' not.

I never said everything was Lagoona's fault she is ALSO young and still learning, but somethings were - like him getting sent to boarding school. I realize that Lagoona is a fandom darling and most of y'all's precious little meow meow but she was wrong for that. And I don't hate that, I LIKE that we get flawed characters! Do I love it? No! she was wrong! BUT I LIKE that she was wrong, part of being young and learning is screwing up and making mistakes! we deserve complex characters who aren't perfect in every way. Being pushy and assertive is part of what makes Lagoona a compelling character - but it got someone hurt in this instance and she should learn from that... THAT is good writing... and it's one of the rare instances of good writing we get with these two but I'll get to that in a minute.

"let’s also not gloss over the fact that you called Lagoona a bitch at one point for crying when Frankie asked her about boys."

Once again putting words into my mouth, By making this statement it LOOKS like you read Page 2 of my media analysis but did you though? because context is SUPER important. I did not call Lagoona a bitch for crying, I called her a bitch for being mean to Frankie. Frankie went to Lagoona whose supposed to be their friend for advice but instead Lagoona made it all about her and was then sarcastic to Frankie's plight because her problem is worse and She's aiming for the gold medal of the Pain Olympics. I hate the pain olympics, there are no winners, only losers.

"you calling Draculaura a cow at one point too like wtf??? so maybe lay off the gendered insults for girls???"

And why DID I call Draculaura a cow?... Was it because she was cheating on her black boyfriend with a white guy? 3 seconds after he walked off screen!? because I'm pretty sure it was because she was cheating. once AGAIN we are in a situation where context is important! In the exact same page just discussed I took an entire sidebar to explain why Draculaura was being a cow. I have absolutely zero respect for cheaters and I could have (and should have) called her a lot worse. I'd also like to say that as far as insults for girls go? Cow is fairly mild I could have called her another C word that is frequently used against girls but I went with cow to keep it classy~. also side note: there are male cows, I think they're called Steers... but it's still a cow. Anyways I don't think you really care what I call Draculaura, I think you're now just trying to paint me out as some type of misogynist... which, just proves you don't follow me or know anything about what I preach here you're just mad that I defended a boy whom you're assuming is white.

"before jumping to the defense of a character POC dislike and who’s flaws you excuse as trauma cus you see yourself in him."

UHM... I don't recall reading anywhere that Gil is disliked by POC specifically!?!?! I can't track the barometrics of Monster High tumblr... In fact from what I can gather if TikTok & Twitter are anything to go by most of the people who are hating on Gil are overwhelmingly white... but at the same time I'm not polling anybody either. But just for the record I'm Latine and my friend who helps me out with MH & Gil lore, @peppapigvevo isn't white either... Sooo if your point is that POC are the ones who don't like Gil... I'm here to tell you that POC are also the ones defending him.

But Gil canonically doesn't really have a ton of flaws and the tiny ones he does have stem from him being young and inexperienced, frankly I wish he had more, it would give people a legit reason to hate on him instead of their reasoning now which boils down to: "His parents are racist and even though HE isn't racist I'm gonna blame him anyways because someone on social media told me to and I haven't watched the show in a decade so my memory of the lore is fuzzy at best but I saw Lagoona cry once so Gil MUST be the bad guy!." Which... Y'all are expecting perfection from Gil and that's a ridiculous standard for anyone to live up to let alone a 16 year old boy. But I'm not like... making up trauma for Gil, based on how much he fears his parents THAT is a trauma response that they have instilled in him, it's there I didn't invent it. healthy normal kids don't fear their parents the way Gil fears his, I can only assume he is afraid because they have given him a reason to be afraid. a statement I have also said, several times, in my posts that you claim to have read and take issue with.

Was Gil and Lagoona's relationship written extremely well? No. But do I think Mattel should have never touched the issue of racism in their show? also No! it took a lot of guts to put a story about prejudice in a kids cartoon and MH is for little kids, their target demographic is 6-11yr olds, obviously MH skews a bit older, otherwise none of us would be here. But I'm glad they covered this topic, I don't much care for shows that shy away from scary issues or talk to kids like they're stupid because kids aren't stupid, they're little proto humans who learn things way faster than we do and we should treat them as such. Not only did they touch the topic they did so with a main character and they didn't sugar coat it! we saw the pain Lagoona AND Gil went through because of his parents racism. Touching this topic at all is huge, was it perfectly handled? absolutely not! they never actually resolved the issue, Gil's parents never learned a lesson, got comeuppance or accepted Lagoona, Gil never got to date the girl he likes with family approval there was always something looming in the background. which is... fine?... things aren't always wrapped up nice and pretty with a bow in real life, sometimes things are messy. However, one thing that bothered everyone, including me was towards the end of G1 the writers didn't really know what to do with Lagoona and Gil so they just kinda... rehashed the same fight 3 or 5 times... it happened in the webisodes, diaries and the movies. and that's sloppy on the writers part, the same fight being milked for drama isn't Gil's fault and shouldn't be blamed on him... but it is. Gil is just the messenger and y'all shot him on sight.

Mattel:

Gil:

However, that wasn't the end. Gil and Lagoona may not have got the fairy tale ending some people think they deserve or the tragic breakup that other people think they deserve but they did get closure. Gil's Mansters diary takes place after the events of 13 wishes and his parents wrote out a list of chores for him to do while they are out on a trip and before he goes to stay with Deuce for the weekend and the last thing he SAYS they put on the list is as follows:

"+ Don't date Lagoona. They didn't actually write that. I just know what they're thinking. Actually, we don't really talk about that directly very much anymore. We kind of just agree to disagree, especially since Lagoona was wished into a freshwater monster and back again. I think they saw how miserable I was during that whole time, and I believe it made some kind of an impact.. hopefully."

and that was how the saga of Gil, Lagoona & The Webbers ended. Not with a roar but with a whisper. It's also canonical proof in his own words that Gil was, in fact miserable during 13 wishes just in case anyone doubted it after my review.

It's not a happy ending or a sad ending it's not even a peaceful ending. it's an uneasy cease fire... which is good enough? I suppose. Gil's parents love him enough to let it go (after both Lagoona and he endured great personal struggles), They know he's dating Lagoona and he knows they don't like that, Lagoona knows they don't like it, I'm sure Lagoona isn't welcome over for dinners or anything but the issue has been dropped. Gil and Lagoona can finally date, no strings attached.

I'm sure that's not the ending you would have written, my very grumpy anon. But relationships are complex and sometimes the solutions to their problems are complex too but love finds a way to triumph over bigotry.

And that is a message that we could all learn from.

#monster high #gil webber

[snekdood]

ok this is gonna sound like word vomit bc im stitching together thoughts and im also not great at expressing my thoughts clearly anyways but-

i think heart shaped box is about kurt cobain feeling tied to courtney love. hes maybe become codependent on her, and she knows this. courtney seems like an apathetic person, and probably enjoyed having kurt on a leash making him dependent. the lyrics "i wish i could eat your cancer when you turn black" is possibly about courtney's smoking habit, which kurt seems to have accepted isnt going away. it could also mean he wishes he could consume and destroy the "cancer" that is her beliefs and her turning "black" means her turning to the "dark side". there is a sort of "venus fly trap" element to courtneys' love it seems. he's "trapped inside her heart shaped box" because she only ever "takes him out" to show him off or for superficial reasons, and doesnt listen to him when he expresses emotions, hence the inherent irony of being within someones heart while it also being a locked box. a locked box is something only you with the key can open. "being in someones heart" is a metaphor for "always being with someone" or "being in love", but with the context of the locked box it implies hes kept for courtney's personal desires for him and no one else's. the line "she eyes me likes a pisces when im weak" i think is him basically saying she "eyes him like a fish" that she wants to eat (like a cat or a crab might (courtney is a cancer and kurt is a pisces btw)), but instead of literally eating him its more like possessing him for herself. to contain him within herself, to digest him, so no one else may have him. since they both were addicted to herion and theres plenty of poppies in the music video to hint at that being a key theme in this song, it could also very well be that he was dependent on her for the herion supply as well, making it even harder for him to leave and making him even more wrapped around her finger.

the girl in the music video, i think, is supposed to be courtney and is wearing a not so subtle kkk outfit. she symbolizes the presumed innocence of white women/girls even when they engage in heinous acts (its no secret that courtney love is a raging racist, sexist, anti feminist and bigoted in many other ways). though shes dressed in a white dress to symbolize purity and innocence, she wears the klan hood showing her true beliefs or at least the beliefs placed on her by those around her that shes adopted and begun to parrot. since the klan are far right christians they are also anti abortion, though they are pro abortion for those they dislike. which is why her jumping toward the aborted fetus's seems confusing, its both as if she's trying to grab them and throw them up into the tree, though im leaning toward the latter since people who are anti abortion end up being anti life anyways since women and the babies they birth often die in pregnancies if they're not allowed to abort the baby first or the baby ends up dying later in life as an unwanted orphan. I think it was a metaphor for how anti abortion people feign caring about fetus's while actively throwing them away, and hanging them in the tree is a callback to lynching, symbolizing that anti abortion people still hate black babies being born and want to hang them, especially, obviously, the kkk wants to do this.

the lady with angel wings also symbolizes this, pretending that she cares but only ever walking in place, never actually moving from where she is to actually help the fetus's, just posturing to care with a plastered smile on her face. she is thus perhaps supposed to be seen as an "angel of death", which would explain why her organs are exposed.

the white jesus symbolizes the jesus conservative christians worship; one who willingly puts himself on the cross to suffer. the crow shakes his head not only in disappointment in the white jesus for going along with this but also disappointed about why he feels the need to do this i.e the pressure placed on to him. the santa hat is to symbolize the absurdity to which christians twisted jesus around to fit their narrative, along with him being a white man who's a "good jew" (since many christians think "the only good jew is a dead jew") who willingly and eagerly sacrifices himself for the christians benefit or satisfaction. the girl "tossing" at white jesus symbolizes a christians eagerness to sacrifice their own god the way they sacrifice women and babies due to anti abortion laws and rhetoric, and in the same way they feign caring about fetus's, they feign caring about jesus' suffering.

white jesus is in a hospital bed dying of "cancer", which both symbolizes kurt suffering and feeling trapped in his relationship with courtney (who, need i remind you, is a cancer) as well as the legacy of jesus dissolving at the hands of corrupt rw christians that care more about themselves than any god. it's also why theres a fetus in the IV bag, because they think sacrificing fetus's by forcing women to give birth to children they dont want, or die in childbirth along with the baby, or make it likely non-white women have failed pregnancies or their babies die bc of not being able to afford taking care of them due to intentionally placed poverty, etc. will appease white jesus, or make him happy and "well", but ultimately his bed is later seen as empty, implying he died anyways, and thus did the legacy jesus tried to leave. I think the fetus in the IV bag is also a jab at the absurdity of alternative christian medicines and medical practices that are all ultimately quackery and leads to more death than it ever being helpful. the girl wearing the kkk hoodie "tossing" at the sacrificed fetus's and white jesus is also to point out to conservative christians that that is what they look and sound like when they advocate for anti abortion shit.

the white hood chasing the butterflies like a net symbolizes the alt right christians' desire to catch the image of purity, ultimately failing and the hood turning to black to symbolize the true dark nature of alt right christian beliefs. and obviously her wearing all black at the foot of jesus' hospital bed is symbolic of a funeral, or perhaps her eagerly awaiting his funeral, but the fact shes still wearing the kkk outfit symbolizes she's still engaging in her own wicked version of "worship", which is sacrificing the fetus's in Gods Name, like I said earlier, and also jesus since this obviously wont make him heal and seems more like a joke at his expense. worshiping jesus to some people is worshiping his sacrificed life for their own benefit, they gain as he suffers, and they laugh and indulge and make a mockery of his name while they do so.

at the end, the girl finally takes a break from being a christian rw nut to finally open the heart shaped box and hear her boyfriend. she finally sits down to listen to him, and its not too long later that she just lays down instead, implying she got tired and bored with hearing about his sorrows. "forever in debt to your priceless advice" sounds like sarcasm on kurts end toward courtney, because seemingly her advice was less than sufficient when he sought it out, she probably shat out the first thought that came to mind then changed the subject or fell asleep. it's disguised as praise, but in the end of the video it's clear he's disturbed with what she has to say, as per his expression.

each time he repeats this part of the song, theres a look of desperation and a vibe that hes going crazy with how unhelpful she is. "i got a new complaint" is both him bringing up more of his troubles which courtney likely loathes hearing about as well as him bringing up his troubles with her which she likely definitely loathes hearing about, so the way he's saying it is almost sarcastic and mocking her attitude toward their conversations.

#music analysis #lyric analysis #heart shaped box #nirvana #also to be clear NO i dont think courtney 'killed kurt cobain'. i kept seeing that when i was researching stuff around this #i definitely dont think she helped at all though in preventing his suicide. #ofc this is mostly just speculation but the way things keep stacking up? iunnooooooo................ #also i think the jesus in this is supposed to be symbolic of kurt himself in a way thats hard to describe #maybe ill come up w the words for it later. basically what i got rn is the whole jesus fish symbol + him picking the 'poppies' + him #suffering at the hands of the little girl who's likely courtney + the lyrics of being 'weak' like the jesus in this music video is #and that line literally playing while hes picking the poppies. so could also be the whole 'she eyes me like a pisces when im weak' #line is her eyeing him while hes vulnerable and weak at resisting the need for heroin #and her 'eyeing' him is her preying on this need of his and resupplying him perpetuating the codependent relationship #and his addiction likely to her benefit. #man if she saw this i think she might try n kill me lmao. #idc lololol stop being a weird bigot miss'm

[abelllia]

3, 10, 12 !!

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

Oh hmmm genuinely hard because I like to mind wipe whenever I see a bad take. The *one* that I remember was from twt too. I'll describe it anyway even if I have talked about it here before. It was something implying that Jon wouldn't take another character's trauma seriously. Since it's the violence ask I'll mention that the other character was Martin. The first time I saw it I genuinely blank-screened in a negative way because it did NOT compute. It was set in S1 but even then I can't imagine Jon not having at *least* an "oh, shit" moment. Especially since Martin's trauma in the thing was childhood trauma. Got me going 😒

10. worst part of fanon

Originally, I had three whole paragraphs about aspects that I dislike but I realized they all just point to one thing— flattening.

Flattening of characters, of morality, of the concept of the entities, yadda yadda. This has happened in every fandom since time immemorial for either comedic purposes or sorting purposes. We love putting things in neat little boxes because it just makes things easier to digest and communicate. Martin is the sunshine one, Jon is the tsundere, Tim is the flirt, Sasha is the Girl™️, Elias is the Ad Campaign Villain with a twirly moustache. It's easy to understand but just less...interesting? I don't want to rag on stuff made for fun/memes, I like funny haha fandom memes. It just feels like a lot of fights about the characters boil down to ignoring the multitudes they contain. The contradictory aspects which make them who they are.

Everyone has probably already said their piece about character flattening so I'll go about the morality thing and how people really like to fight about who's in the right and who's in the wrong. Guys, this is tma, they've all done bullshit. No one is ever going to be completely in the right in this show they've all been shitty people to each other at one point, that's what's *fun* about it. My favourite part is that how, even though I may disagree with a character's actions, I can understand *why* they do it. It makes them feel more like people to me. For an easy example I'll just choose the Gertrude-Michael thing. Yeah, Gertrude sacrificing a human being to an entity who tore his who from his what is pretty shitty. One strike in the wrong. However, from how Gertrude and literally everyone else understood the world at that point, her actions can be considered heroic because in their mind, she just stopped an apocalypse! Saved billions of people from becoming Fear Food. One strike in the right. However, as we soon will know it was basically useless. Gertrude will find out that the Ritual would have never worked anyway so all the sacrifices she did (Michael, Jan, who knows who else) were in vain! Yeowch! Two strikes in the wrong. Ain't it fun? Yet I still see Gertrude interpretations that act like she just did it for fun or something, not that she thought the whole world would end if she didn't sacrifice this one dude to the Distortion.

Honestly I'm not satisfied with this ramble and I think there are plenty of flaws in it but I don't want to write anymore and I don't want to think. Yeah, flattening stuff is fun sometimes but not when it seeps into serious-ish discussions.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Look hear me out– Basira and Peter Lukas.

Basira to me is compelling to me for so many reasons. She's the most mentally....secure? character in the show, like she logic'd her way out of the *Unknowing*, and it's implied that she's had to be like that from a young age. Based on her S3 pre-Unknowing statement about how that's how her father raised her. But, she's also so controlled by her emotions. Most clearly and notoriously with Daisy, but another example is when her fondness for Jon in S2 overrode her goal to catch him for potential murder. Her emotions matter to her but also calm logic. Which can lead to a lot of interesting and *frustrating* contradictory moments. Again, notoriously with Daisy and how she treated her vs Jon in S4. She's so incredibly flawed and I love it. She's so secure in her own mind that she doesn't even challenge her own biases and instead present them as fact. It's *such* an interesting character trait and it would be so fun to dig into. However, I also realize that probably also the exact reason why people dislike talking about her. She's a hypocritical murder cop accomplice and that can give anyone an incredibly sour taste in their tongue thinking about her (it gives me a sour taste rn like, should I really be writing about her?)There's just so much I want to pick her brain about though. Insert thing here about liking her as a character does not mean I like her as a person.

Peter Lukas is a piece of shit, but he's a funny piece of shit and I like that. He's living apathy and he's so useless and skfjejcjsnnd

Yeah I can't even defend him he's just such garbage, but I find him fun to bully. Someone once pointed out that when he lost the bet with Elias he acted like a little kid throwing a tantrum and I found it so funny. This man isn't doing anything, he's not even the captain of his own ship in anything but name, Tadeas does all the navigation shit. He really is just some rich kid. A sad strange little man and he's unwillingly a fave because of it.

#abellasks #choose violence ask game #thanks for the ask i'm still scared but it was fun #def not maintagging this #negativity #long post

[trlvsn]

I love dahlia and I often say I relate to her- because I do. I also talk about how mistreated she is by the canon and the fanon a fucking lot. I, also, do not support her literally murdering people. She's an incredibly interesting character that really does sum up the worst of the Fey Family legacy so well. But, like, obviously she is so not a good person at the end of her miserable and death ridden life. Relating to her is so strange because in a lot of ways, she is the literal worst way my life could have gone with some similar life events. I rarely see a character who I can see my own anger and grief and struggle in, which is why I end up advocating for more people to actually think about her character and trauma. When I first got into ace attorney, I felt weird about Kristoph Gavin and people who really liked him because my brain had a hard time separating the fact that he's an interesting and a complex character, from his horrible fucking actions.I am now one of those people who is obsessed w a character who is just like blatantly a terrible person. Anyway, Kristoph Gavin character enjoyers and relaters I stand with you so hard as a Dahlia Hawthorne enjoyer and relater. Thinking a character is interesting and has a lot of unexplored depth =/ condoning their immoral actions.

- lanamia lover n dahlia defender

EXACTLY!!!! agreed fully and completely. about the kristoph gavin thing, too - i kind of had a mild dislike for him before aa4 and now i'm. well. i shall not say (<- finds him more relatable than any other aa character besides maybe lana)

dahlia SHOULD be thought about and analyzed and loved as a character because that is the only way to not see her as this plain villian/evil incarnate like the narrative wants us to. villains SHOULD be thought about bc that is how you digest what you read/watch properly and take something valuable out of it!! also that's how you make art with a lot of weird symbolism

#lanamia person being correct yet again go follow them #raysanswers #lanamia anon

[evilsanlang]

""I'm honestly suprised because before this week, I never knew people disliked the Weapons series. But after looking into it, it's just the usual suspects who literally can't understand stories.""

A tweet I saw a while back when the whole thing blew up 😭

the worst part is that I don't even resent these parts of ffxiv's story that much because at least it doesn't pretend its politics are anything other than what they are: milquetoast and just vaguely progressive-sounding enough to be easily digestible by the broader crowd. and that's fine, I wouldn't expect anything else from a mass market product anyway. but it's painfully clear that these fans will only take the narrative at face value when they can pretend it's saying anything deep, and most importantly saying anything that can shield the game from criticism, while insisting that anyone that digs 1 inch beyond the surface just can't read. understanding stories is when you think everything about them is good and if you think anything about them is bad is because you lack reading comprehension. natural extension to the "get your filthy western politics out of my good apolitical japanese media" phenomenon I'm afraid

#reply #ffxiv #Anonymous #the fact that so many of these comments are aimed at south korean players too is. lol