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konveeart · 2 years

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Actually “living” something

There might be nothing of value here but just me being emotional this monday evening. And with this, here I go, wordvommiting. I ramble for a second and then I’ll go grocery shopping.

I watched Steven Zapatas’ video this morning and then went through the comments (didn’t scroll much but they were pretty interesting to read). I don’t have anything to contribute but what describes my POV in this matter was CosmicSpectrum’s comment, and I want to expand on it with my own experience here (continuing from my twitter thread).

I’ve had a conversation with my friend about “you should play this game, you’d love it”. God I know i would. I’ve made lists of books, games, series, comics, anime I should watch, read, listen, breathe and I’d love. Or not. But those lists are everywhere, twitter bookmarks, myanimelist, in my notes, in my notebooks, post it notes, post-it-notes on my mac that are waiting to be categorised; artist recommendations, instagram profiles, music albums, all the stuff I should at some point be aware of.

I know I would. But it wasn’t a coincidence I spent 150+hrs of gameplay in DeathStranding before even finishing the main story.

Now wait, what does this anything have to do with AI art? On the matter that it’s sucking us dry to make stuff, nothing. On the new constant stream of content that both sucks us dry to produce things faster, it does. It’s all about making content, making more money (no, artists won’t be making more money, people who already have money will), getting things done faster. I am not as eloquent or knowledgable/ updated to add more than what I know to this subject, but the point I am trying to make by poorly writing this to get it off my chest is, nothing can replace our time making/ interacting with what we love.

Our time is our highest-in-value currency. I don’t play game after game, read book after book, finish drawing after drawing to reach a quota (in my defence I’ve tried it in my teens and it was cool but I don’t remember 3/4 of the anime/ games i’ve watched/played and i was depressed). I am appalled by this constant stream of content, I’ve always been and I always make circles around it because everyone moves on so fast and we can’t talk about what’s not hot if we want to be relevant before society or the algorithm punishes us for it. (Society because people move on to the next big thing and who remains to brainrot with, or sometimes even being judged for not being up-to-date with what’s hot right now, the algorithm because it’s the algorithm and if it’s not mainstream, you’re not making them companies any $$).

I want to boil in things I love. I play one game a year if I am lucky, I am living with it, it’s part of me. I’ve read and re-read one piece of fiction and I can’t stop loving it every time. My library is so tiny, it’s wonderful. Things I can carry with me every year to the next one, others remain in the past but they stayed long enough to be remembered (or not). Replaying. Remembering. Moving on or staying with what I love, I make this choice for myself and it’s such a relief, finally.

I wish I could encourage someone to do the same, if that’s up to how they’d like to live. Draw the things they love, write about them, talk about them without the fear of being irrelevant. The lifespan of media (art, music, series, comics, movies you name it) has drastically shortened online and it’s very visible and sad. Our attention to things breaks easier, chasing what’s new instead of truly learning about something interesting. But we are human, and I hope we realise that sooner. We cannot *live* anything faster. That’s just getting distracted, the same lie with “multitasking” (grind culture GTFO).

Value your time. We’ve been fed that end-results matter, but that’s because we choose to ignore and devalue the process.

But it wasn’t a coincidence I spent 150+hrs of gameplay in DeathStranding before even finishing the main story.

So there are things I just won’t get to be aware of on a personal lvl (living them/ playing them/ reading them) and that’s fine. Those *opens hands and points at all the things I have to show you* are the things I know and make me happy. The things I remember and think of fondly. They are not necessarily what make me as a person, but they surely are things I love and made part of my life in whichever way I chose or happened to be.

Anyway, get informed at your own pace about AI art, get their asses and don’t let corporations do as they please. And do read/ listen/ watch/ play what you love, for you first and foremost. Fuck “consume”, fuck “content”. Live it. For you.

#rable #don't reblog this or reference it please #Not sure if I want to delete later but just some.. things #i've been having in mind that i'd like to share firther #I know my friends are watching me lol #i love you guys- thank you for listening to my rambles when we go for coffee #i'll make banana bread again and treat you soon <3

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deviantartdramahub · 5 months

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Dear, if anyone just straight up admitted to that, do you really expect anyone to take it seriously? If someone were to say that, it'd obviously be a joke, lol. Yet you go and make fun of Club for the same thing...

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Them encouraging each other to harass his mom. DBS's dumbass not just doing it herself and telling EVERYONE in the group to spam her proves these actions are indeed malicious. But too bad morons, your little plan didn't work, either bc you're all talk and never even contacted her, or bc she's a good mom and didn't believe the slander about her own son. Club's still on the internet with a healthy family life unlike you bozos.

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Yeah ew, sick indeed, pretty sure you're the sicko fantasizing about that honey-bunch.

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"With every minor and/or fetish account Club-Dreamiverse tries to force to to" Umm I think what you mean is him simply talking to people, sweetie. (And it goes without saying me calling you this is obvious sarcasm, so don't get off on me calling you that, ya fucking weirdo :3

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"So it seems even Fleegle can see when a fellow pedo is gross and more disgusting than himself and opts to tell him to gtfo for it." Yeaahhh real pedos being hypocritical dumbasses towards Club isn't the big proof you think it is, honey. It just shows most if not all people who attack Club are pedo-fetishists and get off on that shit, and also do it to make themselves look innocent.

"Also saying how he ‘doesnt want to get in drama’ yet he goes around attacking randos on the request of his little asshole enabler watchers who are just as braindead as himself." I have no idea what the fuck this is even supposed to mean, are you trying to say he's contributing to drama by simply talking to others???

"Oh and on the job thing Clubby? We do have jobs, you think we have ZERO free time due to jobs to where we dont have time to sit down and laugh at your stupid antics thinking all those with mental disabilities are pants shitting drooling buffoons?" Well apparently being in college is too much for poor little Mod-S, so your group is currently dead. This didn't age well, huh sweetheart? You really made yourself look so stupid. Also the way they themselves talk about disabled people is gross, just bc they have bowel problems out of their control doesn't mean they're any less of a coherent person. Thanks for the further proof you're all just ableists!! ^v^

"Most of us make more than your deadbeat mommy while you beg for V bucks from her so you can get that diaper skin on fortnite lmao." Yep, more of them attacking his poor innocent mother, proves they have strong contempt for her just bc she's his mom. Yet you expect her to trust you all against her own son, smh. Ik you guys probably all have family issues, but that's not the case with everyone :)

"where you are left to rot like the pile of gross shit you are" Okay now it just sounds like you're straight up wishing death on him, don't you at all think that's the littlest bit of fucked up? Nah you got no real morality, and we know it -_-

Anyways that's it for now, goodnight everybody!

I otherwise would refrain from favoritism or assuming why certain people get banned, but since a part of what Miel67 did here was break Tumblr TOS which must be upheld as we are guests, I can confirm he did themselves in here. You're looking at what undid him.

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fusion-ego · 7 months

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✩Update✩

✮ Haven't done one of these in a bit because life has been. Crazy. I honestly don't remember the last thing I updated y'all on in terms of how things are working out over here.

✮ So we're gonna go over everything I can think of since August 1st!

✮ August 1 - 11th: Got a job offer in Arizona! Put in two weeks' notice at my job at the shelter. Immediately my plans to get out to Arizona in time to start my other job went up in flames because of car issues/money issues. Honestly not all that upset, I'll have other chances to get something and if it turns back up I might even re-apply for that job.

✮ August 12th-19th: I had the most insane two weeks of work where people I had never interacted with previously/didn't know very well got teary and insisted they were going to miss me. I gave a lot of hugs to women I did not know very well. One of the residents, who got there the week I was leaving, heard that I was leaving to pursue a different job, and her daughter baked me a going away cake. They had known me for two days. It was fucking bizarre. I also bought my truck from my MIL finally! 19th was my last night at work.

✮ August 20th-31st: Left the shelter for the last time at the end of my shift the morning of the 20th. Got my truck's title in the mail! Started making plans to be out of apartment and on the way to Arizona by around September 1st, when my mother was supposed receive retirement benefits from her job that she just quit and then we could all head out to AZ together (instead of my husband and I driving cross-country on our own for the first time). Power got shut off for non-payment the same day I received a "please gtfo of this apartment, you didn't pay your rent" note from my Insane Landlady. We got out of the apartment because I had no plans of paying her anyway after the shit she'd been pulling the last few months (long story). Ended up in a hotel for a few days, in a motel for a few more. Now officially completely broke.

✮ September 1st-30th: Waited for mom's retirement benefits. Moved in with my grandmothers temporarily (around 3 weeks). Went totally broke and had to beg for money for food a couple times. Finally set out for AZ on the 30th. Car promptly started overheating and nearly broke down about 100 miles away, so our little convoy (my mom's truck, my truck, my parents' RV) stopped in at an RV park in Missouri so we could try to fix the truck and some issues the RV was having.

✮ Oct 1st-2nd: Cannot fucking figure out what's wrong with my truck. Dad has replaced the thermostat, tested the water filter, flushed and refilled the coolant, and emptied and refilled the oil. Stupid old thing (affectionate AND derogatory) still overheats if she goes over 60mph for longer than about 5 minutes. RV wouldn't start Oct 2nd when we meant to try and set out again. Mom and dad paid for my husband and I to remain in the RV park for the next two weeks, piled into mom's truck, and went on ahead to AZ to get started at their jobs so that they can come up with the money to get the RV and truck fixed and get us out there as they understand I literally Cannot contribute at the moment since I don't have a job and ran out of cash ages ago since this whole thing took WAY longer to happen than it was supposed to.

✮ Technically this also goes in the last section, but I decided to try and do OC-Tober this year. So far I've done the first 4 days with little difficulty, and it's honestly been nice. I've also been doing some mini-fics on a separate blog every day and that's been really nice too. I forgot how freeing it is to just write a little random thing and post it without needing to provide context or anything. Think I'm gonna try and stick to writing a mini-fic a day! At least until I'm gainfully employed again. It's done great things for my mental health.

✮ That said, my commissions are desperately open right now. I've got at least two weeks before I can make it to Arizona and have a chance at a job, and there's a chance we may just have to send my truck back to Illinois if we can't figure out what's wrong with it which will severely impact my ability to find gainful employment in the city.

✮ Not exactly an update, but groceries are so much fucking cheaper in Missouri than they are in Illinois??? I haven't called DHS to tell them I'm moving yet because we still definitely need the money and don't have a permanent address outside Illinois yet anyway, so we got our SNAP benefits today and, like... We bought $130 worth of groceries at Walmart that would have EASILY maxed out our SNAP in Illinois like halfway through picking up essentials. It's WILD.

✮ And... I think that's it? For now?✮

#update post #update post: 10/04/2023 #update #fusionego.txt #matt talks #moving mania

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weirdcor3 · 3 years

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how to make weirdcore on photoshop!! :D

i got a great ask from @demonic-screeching about how i do my shit, so i thought id make a more detailed post here! ive been making wierdcore on this blog since january 2021, so ive learnt a lot! more under the cut.

1. find a base image!! i use imgur and pinterest. imgur is especially great because its full of old ass images of the most random shit. you dont even need an account, just hop in and search for mundane stuff like 'hallway', 'field', 'house', etc! explore! screenshot/save any images you think would be cool in an edit- make your own personal archive!! they could even be stills from videos, memes, etc!

2. cropping! this is important. cropping determines the amount of context an image has, as well as focusing on a main point. weirdcore is about removing context, which makes images seem familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time. it also adds to the amateur quality of the aesthetic- "why has this person taken this weirdly specific photo?" 99% of the time they didnt! i just cropped the shit out of it!

lets use an example of one of my old edits :) cool concept, cool base image. but it seems like its missing something.... what if we........

cropped it all out????

it is now....... free of context! where are we? where are we going???? who fuckin knows man...... we just gotta gtfo real quick by the sounds of it. the cropping has also compressed the image, which makes it feel even more weird and nostalgic! which brings me to my next point:

3. compression. make sure ur edits are lookin cRUNCHY! weirdcore is about amateurism and nostalgia, so use any means to make ur photos look like theyre from 2003! my personal method is zooming out of the image on photoshop so it gets smaller, then screensotting just the image, then opening the screenshot up in another document and zooming in again to reveal the compression.

4. fonts and captions! these are not necessary, but add to an edit a great deal! common fonts in weirdcore are Helvetica, Arial, and Times New Roman because theyre Normal And Boring, which really adds to the amateur aspect of weirdcore. i like to experiment with gothic and 3D fonts which can give a more webcore-y feel. this site is great for making free 3D text that you can download and add to your edits in photoshop!

as for captions, experiment! use random phrases that are stuck in your head, the more abstract the better! weirdcore is a surprisingly good way to express weird and abstract feelings. keep things vague and intriguing. ask questions!

5. editing. again, experiment! i normally fiddle with the saturation, brightness, and contrast. don't max out every setting- try and think about how you want the image to look! light or dark? bright or dull? you dont always have to tweak things if you think theyre fine as they are. other good tools include liquify, bevel/emboss, smart sharpen, gaussian blur, and warp! liquify is my favourite because you can squish and stretch the image! you can also try warping your captions too! the blemish tool is also rlly good! it can give u some weird trippy blurred out effects.

clone stamping can also help you to morph and duplicate parts of the image too! its very cool

6. go insane!!!!!!!! throw all basic design principles out the window. ignore the rule of thirds. stretch things. make them crunchy ass jpgs. use horrible colours. think about what youd do if you were a child with access to photoshop in 1997, or a middle aged conspiracy theorist making images for their cryptid blog. or like idk some weirdo on myspace.

7. orbs. use the brush tool to make orbs! theyre really good for blocking parts of an image, adding an ominous presence, making shadows, or adding bright lights! shape them, stretch them, make them funny colours. you could also use rectangles, circles, stars, etc... any shapes are cool!

8. inspiration! follow weirdcore blogs on tumblr! ask questions! learn! other resources include the weirdcore wiki and the weirdcord discord server! its where i learned a lot of what i know now, its very active, and has tons more resources there!!

overall, just experiment. you never know until you try, and its fun to develop your personal weirdcore style! its a very broad aesthetic that everyone can contribute to, and a cool outlet!

and lastly, dont worry about followers and likes! online, weirdcore is very random. some of my edits i spent 4378294 years on get like 5 notes, while i can shit something out in 5 minutes that ends up becoming my top post. popularity is pretty irrelevant here. just have fun and do things your own way!

#bonesposting #long post #weirdcore help #sorry this is long i just love infodumping about this :D #weirdcore #aesthetic #liminal spaces

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jerepars · 3 years

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My QOTS 5x08 live reactions:

Should have let James drive JFC Pote’s hand placement on the wheel is all wrong

“You’re gonna get us killed” Yes. AGREED.

A Jeresa phone call? In the first few minutes? What is this!

Angel is decent enough to be a villain’s sidekick, yeah.

“If Pote were half the man you say he is, you wouldn’t be here now” Well…Boaz isn’t wrong.

Lol Pote you dope you’re driving the wrong way! You just passed your baby mama in the white van!

I know that look, James! Something bad is about to happen!

“People equate crazy with stupid…and I’m neither. People are gonna find out soon enough.” That’s a good one, actually.

James is about to tell her about Devon isn’t he?!?!?

OH MY GOD HERE WE GO

“You were protecting me.” Well YEAH just like ALWAYS. HOW CAN THIS BE A SURPRISE TO TERESA AT THIS POINT?? But omg she KNOWS! She knows what he did for her so she could rise! (maybe she now also knows why he was upset with her callous decisions?)

“I’ll call him” THIS IS GONNA GET UGLY

oh P referring to KA as HIS WOMAN now? Ew. There’s so much Pote this episode and he is no less annoying so I hate all of it.

Doesn’t James have a bunch of phone trackers and other paraphernalia? Why can’t they find KA and Boaz that way?

Look away, Chicho. Look away.

“You think too highly of yourself” lol, again, Boaz is not wrong

Gotta love Teresa putting on a white leather jacket (from the s4 intro?) for dramatic effect

“we chose this life, your baby didn’t” yeahhhhhhhhh ever heard of birth control? Maybe try your hardest to not knock up your ‘lovebug’ when you’re both part of a drug cartel and your leader has been on a power trip but is also trying to go legit??

I’m a fan of Pote not letting Teresa back in the car there tbh. His first decision of the episode I haven’t hated. Teresa should stay with James and Chicho and Avi’s crew.

This kidnapping plot isn’t even over yet and I’m already so sick of it because we know KA will be fine. Listen, I just think this plot is So. Flimsy. All Pote had to do was put his phone on silent/vibrate instead of not turning it off at the doctor’s office. And I dunno, maybe NOT LEAVE the ultrasound?

“they did this on my order” omg Devon is GREAT

when Devon says “the family you have left” does he mean James because this is very important to me

(I just want Devon to be a Jeresa shipper is that so much to ask? lol)

DEVON. IS. GREAT. He’s so good. I love this.

“I’m sorry” why are YOU sorry J you’re the one doing the most!

“we need to kill Kostya” Are we sure this phone call is happening on a secure line? You’re not tracking phones but what about all your enemies? How sure are we Kostya isn’t privy to this Teresa/Oksana conversation?

So KA is stupid enough to plan the party at a safe house but figured out all on her own how to survive and escape abduction. Uh…okay. Remember when KA was a rat? Remember how she came back and ‘proved’ herself to get back in T’s good graces? Maybe survival is like the one thing KA is good at.

okay HONESTLY was this kidnapping plot necessary AT ALL if it gets resolved in 20 minutes? so many other ways to get T exposed that doesn’t have to revolve around Kote

“i’m just happy she’s home and safe” and you’re continuing to stay at the safe house? IT’S BLOWN. GTFO. ALL OF YOU.

Oksana is about to die isn’t she?

Shoutout to Avi. Lots of shoutouts to Avi this episode!

“you gonna need me” Lol you haven’t contributed anything valuable in months, cabrón. You and KA are the ones who sunk the ship.

why do the writers want so badly for me to feel bad for Kote I am so sick of Kote it’s been nothing but Kote this season

can Teresa have a breakdown in James’ arms now?

I guess that’s a no.

when Kostya says “you and everyone you love” is he referring to James and does Teresa also think that because she looks at him once it’s said and this is very important to me

THEY PUT THE JERESA KISS IN THE PROMO FOR 5x09 IS THIS SERIOUS

I can’t tell if putting that kiss in the promo is good or bad. Does it mean it’s the only kiss we ever get again to end the series I NEED ANSWERS

#qots spoilers #qots 5x08 #qots #queen of the south #teresa mendoza #james valdez #pote galvez #kelly anne van awken #boaz jimenez #devon finch #chicho nolastname #oksana volkova #i have opinions they are unpopular #i'm really not holding back and being diplomatic with these anymore so expect these opinions to be extremely unpopular lol #queen of the south season 5

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rallamajoop · 3 years

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...and the unironic joys of better living through chemistry

How do I love Venom: The Hunger, let me count the ways…

It’s by far the shippiest Venom/Eddie story to come out of the character’s heyday. It’s the only story of the era to treat Venom’s violent wild-animal instincts not as an immutable fact, but as something that can be managed. It pulls off an aesthetic like nothing else that was being done at the time.

And then there’s the way it says, Does the world around you seem sinister and foreboding? Do you lie awake at night contemplating metaphorical oceans of despair? Well shit, son – have you considered you may be suffering from a mundane neurochemical imbalance, and a round of the right meds could clear that right up for you?

It does all this without breaking the atmosphere, without a whiff that our story has been interrupted for a Very Special Message about mental health.

In the near-decade since I was first prescribed anti-depressants, I don’t think I’ve read another story that lands the message “Sometimes, it’s not you, it’s just your brain chemistry,” so well.

Fair warning: if you have not read The Hunger, I am about to spoil every major plot point. If you have, well, maybe I can still give you a new appreciation for a few details you might have missed.

It’s a strange book, whatever else you take from it. It’s almost the only thing either author or artist contributed to the Venom canon, and it’s so different stylistically and tonally from the 90′s Venom norm that it feels like a tale from some noir-elseworlds setting instead of 616 canon. When you take risks that big with a property, you leave yourself precious little landing space between 'unmitigated triumph’ and ‘abject failure’: if this book hadn’t absolutely nailed it, I’d be dismissing it as edgy, OOC dreck. Fortunately, if The Hunger is nothing else, it is a story that $&#@ing commits – to basically everything it does.

Now, I'm not going to tell you Venom: The Hunger is a story about overcoming depression, because I don't know whether author Len Kaminski even thought about it that way while working on it. There's always space for other readings, and this one take is not gospel. That said: holy shit is this thing unsubtle with its metaphors. And with that in mind, let’s start by talking a little about Kaminski’s take on Eddie himself.

As I may have mentioned before, I like to divide 90′s Eddie into two broad personas: the Meathead, and the Hobo.

Kaminski’s Eddie nominally belongs in the angsty, long-haired Hobo incarnation, but that’s a bit of a simplification: this version certainly has plenty of angst and plenty of hair to his name – but nowhere, not even at his lowest ebb, does he doubt that he and his Other are meant for each other, which is usually Hobo!Eddie’s primary existential quandary.

He’s also taken up narrating his own life like a hardboiled PI.

So that’s... novel.

The only other time Eddie’s sounded like this is, er, in that one other Venom one-shot Kaminski penned (Seed of Darkness, a prequel that sadly isn’t in The Hunger’s league), so I think we can safely file it under authorial ticks.

Then again, Hobo!Eddie’s always been one melodramatic SOB, so maybe this is just how he’d sound after learning to channel his angst into his poetry. You can’t argue it fits the aesthetic, anyway.

We’d also be remiss not to mention Ed Halsted’s art, which I can only describe as gothic-meets-noir-meets-H.R.-Giger. Never before or since has the alien symbiote looked this alien: twisted with Xenompoph-like ridges and veins.

But Halsted doesn’t treat Venom to all that extra detail in every panel. Instead, the distortion tends to appear when the symbiote is separated from Eddie or out of control – and I doubt you need me to walk you through the symbolic importance of that creative decision. More importantly, Halsted’s art provides exactly the class of visuals that Kaminski’s story needs.

Did I mention this is a horror story? You might be surprised how few Venom stories really fit that genre, but if all those adjectives about Halsted’s style above didn’t clue you in, this is one of them.

Anyway, with that much context covered, let’s get into the main narrative of this thing.

As our first issue opens, Eddie’s world has become a dark and foreboding place. He’s not sleeping, though he mostly brushes this off. (Fun fact: trouble sleeping is one of those under-appreciated symptoms of depression. Additional fun fact: the first doctor ever to suggest I might be suffering from depression was actually a sleep specialist. You can guess how that appointment was going.)

Just to set our scene, here’s all of page 1.

Eddie’s narration has plenty of (ha) venom for his surroundings, but the visuals are here to back him up: panels from Eddie’s POV are edged in twisted, fleshy borders and drained of colour, the people rendered as creepy, goblin-like creatures. A couple of later scenes go even further to contrast Eddie-vision with what everyone else is seeing:

As depictions of depression go this is a little on the nose, but then, you don’t read a comic about a brain-eating alien parasite looking for subtlety, do you?

Eddie doesn’t see himself as depressed, of course. As far as he’s concerned, he’s seeing the world’s true face: it’s everyone else who’s deluding themselves. He’s still got his symbiote, so he’s happy. He’s yet to hit that all-important breaking point where something he can’t brush off goes irrevocably wrong.

But he’s also starting to experience these weird... cravings.

He just can’t put a name to exactly what he’s craving until a routine bar fight with a couple of thugs takes a turn for the horrific.

(I include this panel partly to point out even in The Hunger, the goriest of all 90′s Venom titles, you’re still not going to see brains getting eaten in any graphic detail. We don’t need to to get the horror of the moment across. The 90′s were a more innocent time.)

Eddie himself is horrified when he comes back to himself and realises what he’s done.

Or rather, what his symbiote’s just made him do.

Kaminski doesn’t keep us in suspense about why, though. Eddie may have just done something horrific, but there’s a reason, and it’s as mundane as a vitamin deficiency. He’s bonded to an alien creature, after all, and his symbiote is craving a nutrient which just happens to be found in human brains. And if Eddie can’t or won’t help it meet that need, it’ll do so alone.

Now, giving us that explanation so quickly is an interesting creative decision: this is a horror story, and horror lives in what we don’t know. Wouldn’t it be all the more horrifying had the symbiote been unable to explain what’s going on, leaving Eddie without the first real clue as to where this monstrous new hunger had come from?

The Hunger doesn’t take that route though, and I love it. Eddie isn’t a monster, this isn’t his fault: he has a fucking condition, and wallowing in his own moral failings is going to get him nowhere. You might as well try to cure scurvy or rickets with positive thinking. Just like depression can make you feel like an utter failure at the most basic parts of being human, and all the affirmations in the world won’t fix it when it’s fundamentally your brain chemistry that’s the problem. Or like addicts aren’t weak-willed for struggling not to relapse, they’re dealing with genuine chemical dependency – or even like how someone who’s trans isn’t at fault for being unable to reconcile themselves to the bodies and the hormones they were born with by pure force of trying. Free will is more than an illusion, but we’re all messy, biological organisms underneath, and your own brain and biochemistry can and will fuck you over in a hundred wildly different ways for as many wildly different reasons and it’s not your fault.

We aren’t monsters. But if we do, sometimes, find ourselves identifying with the monster, there might be a reason for that.

(Ahem)

I’m just saying, that’s fucking powerful, and we need more stories that say it.

Anyway, in case you missed it during that tangent, issue #1 closes with the symbiote having torn Eddie’s heart in two itself free to go hunting brains without him.

I’m trying not to get too sidetracked at this point talking about Kaminski’s take on the symbiote itself. Suffice to say there are broadly two schools of thought on how it ought to function while separated from its host: the traditional ambulatory-slime-puddle version, and the more recently popular alternative where anything-you-can-do-with-a-host-you-can-also-do-without-one. I’m not much of a fan of the latter, personally: if your symbiote doesn’t actually need a host, I feel you’ve sort of missed the point. (The movie takes the route of saying symbiotes can’t even process Earth’s atmosphere without a host, which is a great new idea that appears nowhere in the comics, and I love it. Hosts or GTFO, baby!)

Kaminski has his own take, and I can only wish it had caught on. Without Eddie, the symbiote becomes an ever-shifting insectoid-tentacle-snake-monstrosity, driven by an animalistic hunger. It’s many things, but it’s never humanoid.

If you absolutely must have your symbiote operating minus a host, I feel this is the way to do it: semi-feral, shapeless and completely alien (uncontrollable violence and cravings for brains to be added to taste).

Issue #2 comes to us primarily through the perspective of the mild-mannered Dr. Thaddeus Paine of the Innsmouth Hills Sanitarium (yes, really).

Yeah, he’s not fooling anyone. Meet our official villain! He joins our story after Eddie is picked up by the police and handed off to the nearest available institution, on account of how completely sane and rational he’s been acting.

Naturally, Dr. Paine soon has copious notes on Eddie’s ‘crazy’ story about his psychic link to a brain-eating alien monster. Fortunately for Eddie, Paine also runs some tests and makes an interesting discovery.

Congratulations, Venom: the ‘vitamin’ you were missing officially has a name!

Finding the right meds isn’t always this easy. I got lucky – the first ones my psych put me on worked pretty well – but I have plenty of friends who weren't so lucky. In fact, the treatment for Eddie's problems is so straightforward it arguably has more in common with, say, endocrine disorders like thyroid conditions or Addison’s disease, which differ from clinical depression but present many similar symptoms (but can sadly be just as much of a bitch to get correctly diagnosed – please do read author Maggie Stiefvater’s account of the latter when you get the chance, because forget Venom, that is a horror story).

‘True’ depression remains much less well understood by medicine, either in its causes or how to effectively treat it. But simply having a name for what was wrong with me made so much difference, and that’s an experience I imagine anyone who’s dealt with any long undiagnosed medical condition could relate to. It put my life in context in a way nothing else had in years.

(I can’t speak to the accuracy of the way phenethylamine is portrayed in this comic – a quick google suggests there may be some real debate that phenethylamine deficiencies have been overlooked as a contributor to clinical depression, but having no medical background, that one’s well beyond me. Either way, scientific accuracy really doesn’t matter in this context – it’s how it works in-universe for story purposes that we should pay attention to.)

Since this issue is mostly from Paine’s POV, we don’t get Eddie’s reaction to having a healthy amount of phenethylamine sloshing around in his brain again, just the assurance that treatment appears to be ‘completely successful’.

He’s still a paranoid, hostile bastard though. Meds can turn your life around, but they won’t make you not you.

But even if Eddie’s feeling better, he’s still psychically linked to someone who isn’t. Symbiote-vision still comes through drained of colour and edged in viscera.

That’s the thing about meds: they won’t solve all your problems overnight. If you’ve been depressed for a while, there are good odds you have problems stacking up. But working meds can be a godsend when it comes to getting you into a space where you can deal with your problems again, whether said problems are doing-your-laundry or all the way into not-giving-up-completely-and-just-accepting-you’ll-die-alone-on-the-street.

For Eddie, ‘dealing with his problems’ begins with stealing a keycard and busting out of the asylum.

Of course, that’s the easy part. How do you solve a problem like a feral symbiote? Like any good 90′s comic book protagonist, Eddie tackles it by putting on his big-boy camouflage pants and kitting himself out with weapons and pouches while quoting “If you live something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down.”

We can add this to the list of things I love about this comic. Even if The Hunger is a weirdly-stylistic tract about depression at heart, it’s also still a goddamn 90′s Venom comic, and not ashamed to be.

We’re into issue #3 now, and back to hearing the story from Eddie’s POV.

Eddie is very much aware that his symbiote has murdered innocent people while they’ve been separated. Even if this is the result of extreme circumstances, there’s a good case to be made that the symbiote is too dangerous to be allowed to live. Plenty of heroes would treat it like a rabid dog at this point.

But Eddie isn’t a hero, he’s a mess of a character and an anti-hero at best, so we don’t have to hold him to the same standard. He’s well aware his symbiote may be too far gone to save, that he may have to put it down – but that’s only his backup plan. He wants to help it. He wants it back. He’s down in that sewer with screamers and a flamethrower because he knows all his symbiote’s weaknesses, but he’s also carrying a large jar of black-market synthesised phenethylamine, because if he can just get close enough...

Depression can’t make you a literal monster, but it can make you an asshole. Miserable to be around, lacking even the energy to care who else you’re hurting. The depression doesn’t excuse that, but it makes everything harder, and it’s that much easier to sink back into your spiral when everyone around you has given up. It can make you think everyone around has given up even if that isn’t true.

So to have Eddie here say, in effect, I don’t care how many people you’ve eaten, I know it wasn’t your fault. I still love you. You’re still worth fighting for – god, does that get me right in the id.

There’s still a whole issue left at this point – we’ve still got to deal with our real villain, Dr. Paine, who we’ve just learned is into eating brains himself and torturing his patients recreationally, and who wants to capture the symbiote for his own purposes. There’s the scene where Eddie and his symbiote finally bond again, and Venom beats up all Paine’s goons while singing David Bowie because like I said, this is still a 90′s superhero comic and this is what Venom does.

But for our purposes, I'm going to skip to the penultimate page of the story, because the way it mirrors our opening page is really lovely.

Remember that shot of Eddie dealing with a beggar back at the beginning of the story, thinking about how these people would 'get their despair all over you'? Here he is again, cheerfully forking over the last dollar in his pocket to the next man to ask him for change. For all the gothic atmosphere and gore, it’s moments like this that make The Hunger easily one of the most positive, uplifting Venom stories ever written. Funny, that. (I could probably write a whole other essay on sympathy for the homeless as a recurring motif in Venom stories, but that... well, whole other essay and all that.)

What’s Eddie learned from this experience? Don’t take your symbiote for granted. Is ‘symbiote’ a metaphor for mental health here, is paying attention to its needs an allegory for paying attention to your own? I still don’t know how literally Kaminski meant us to take this, but it’s a lovely note to end on no matter how you parse it.

At the end of the day, The Hunger isn’t flawless. The conflict with Paine ends on a thematic but slightly unsatisfying note. Eddie makes much of his symbiote's loneliness and desire for union, but when the two of them are finally reunited, the only reaction comes from Eddie's side. In fact, the symbiote seems to have no response to being able to return to Eddie at all, and that’s an omission that bugs me.

But Kaminski is more interested than any other writer of the era in the truly alien nature of the symbiote, in its relationship with Eddie from Eddie’s side, and though plenty of others talk about the symbiote's love/hate relationship with Spider-man, no-one else had the guts to portray their relationship this much like a romance.

And Venom: The Hunger is no less interesting in the context of Len Kaminski’s other work. You don't have to look far into his Marvel and DC credits to pick up that the guy has a real thing for monsters. (“All of my favourite characters are outlaws, misfits, anti-heroes,” he says, in one of the very few interviews I could find with him, “I wouldn't know what to do with Superman.”) He's written for vampires, werewolves, victims of mad science, and all of three at once, littering his work with biochemistry-themed technobabble, melodramatic monologues, gratuitous pop-culture references, and protagonists who must learn to embrace their inner demons. So The Hunger represents more than a few of his favourite running themes.

For our context, his more notable other work includes Children of the Beast, in which a werewolf must make peace between his human and animalistic sides, and The Creeper, in which a journalist must make peace with the crazy super-powered alter-ego sharing his body. In fact, The Creeper and The Hunger share so much DNA (including an evil doctor posing as a respected psychiatrist who uses hypnosis on our hero while he's trapped in a mental institution) that it’s quite the achievement that they still feel like such very distinct entities beyond that point.

The human alter-egos of both werewolf and Creeper even use prescription meds while wrestling with their respective dark sides. The difference, in both cases, is that these are stories where meds play their traditional fictional role – and that's a role that could be as easily filled by illegal drugs or alcohol without making any substantive difference. You see, if a protagonist is using them, it's a sign of unwillingness to tackle their 'real' problems. Even among work by the same author in the same genre, The Hunger represents an outlier. And that's just a little disappointing – at least to me.

In real life, of course, prescription meds are no magical cure-all elixir. Depression meds that work for one person may not work for another, or may not keep working in the longer term. Everyone has heard stories about quack doctors who prescribe them to the wrong patients for the wrong reasons, about lives ruined by addictions to prescription painkillers, or the supposedly-damning statistics about how poorly SSRI's perform in rigorous clinical trials. The proper way to treat depression is obviously with lifestyle and therapy. People will still airily dismiss medications that we all know previous generations got along just fine without, or suggest that figures like Van Gogh would never have created great art if they hadn't been mad enough to slice off an ear. I mean, the fact you think you need those bogus mediations is probably the best possible sign of just how broken you are, right? Who do you think you’re kidding?

Our popular fiction loves stories about manly men who bury their trauma under a gruff, anti-social exterior and come back swinging at the world that broke them, bravely refusing even painkillers that might dull their manly reflexes. Other genres make space for broken people confronting their demons in grand moments of catharsis, finally breaking down into tears when someone gets through to make them face their problems. "I could barely make it out of bed in the mornings until I found a doctor who started me on this new prescription" is not only wildly counter to the accepted social narrative, it's a hard thing to know how to dramatise.

Even other Venom comics have been guilty of this.

Believe me, I recognise all of this, and just how much progress we've made in the last few decades. But I haven't the slightest doubt that for so many vulnerable people, the stigma against prescription medications does infinitely more harm than those same meds could ever do. And just having the right to externalise my problems into it's not you, it's your brain chemistry, may have helped me more than the meds themselves.

(And again, no, being prescribed SSRI's didn't fix me overnight, but I honestly don't know if all the talk therapy and tearful conversations with family members in the world could've got me as far as I've come without them.)

I love Venom: The Hunger. It's no-one's idea of high art, but it doesn’t need to be. There is a whole other post’s worth of things I love about it that I’ve already cut out this one as pointless tangents, and that may actually be it’s biggest drawback as a go-to example: I fully recognise that I would not be making this post if The Hunger hadn't also also grabbed me as a great bit of Venom canon, being the massive fan and shipper that I am. Other people who are just as desperate as me for more stories with the same core theme, but not into weird 90's comics about needy goo aliens, probably won't get nearly as much out of it as I have.

But if it sounds anything like your jam, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

If nothing else, it proves that you can make a viscerally satisfying story out of a message that shockingly unconventional. And you may even have people still discovering it and falling in love with it 25 years after the fact.

#Venom: The Hunger #Venom #depression #SSRIs #Symbrock #Venom meta #meta #Venom comics #Len Kaminski

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merricatsgarden · 4 years

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okay so apparently That Anon is back. Not on my tumblr, seeing as I’m thankfullly rather inconsequential in the fandom, but I feel like I should still say something as this is affecting people I care about, and whose presence in the fandom I value. So - dear That Anon: I just don’t get it. Like, I guess I don’t necessarily agree with the phrase “if you don’t havve anything nice to say, don’t say it”, but what I do believe is “if you don’t have anything constrructive to say, shut your mouth”.

There is absolutely NOTHING constructive in what you are doing. You aren’t going to make anyone change their mind about who they ship, you aren’t going to make them stop shipping Hackle, you are just ANNOYING.

And I think you know you have nothing to contribute, because otherwise you would actually be open about who you are, but no, you have to infiltrate spaces where your behaviour is not welcome in order to get fuel for your pathetic ilttle vendetta. The fact that we couldn’t manage to make the discord an open and welcoming space for ALL ships is something that haunts me. You managed that one thing I guess. You ruined the experience for people. Great. Well done, you. You’re like that kid who walks up to other kids playing with lego and go, “lego is dumb because it hurts when you step on it, people who play with it are dumb”. Like, sure, lego can be problematic if you make an effort to make it problematic. Again. Well done. Build that anon a gingerbread house. Anon, I’m sure there are reasons why you do what you do. I don’t imagine a person who’s happy with themselves and their life would spend this much time and energy on a hobby like yours. But it’s REALLY not fair on the people here that you are taking it out on them. Quite a few of us come here to get away from things ourselves. I am absolutely heartbroken that people would take what could have been an incredible moment in this fandom’s history and turn it into a vehicle for their toxicity.

Lastly, quit abusing the anon function. That’s for socially awkward people who want to tell someone they love them.

oh, and gtfo the discord. P.S. Hecate would be extremely unimpressed with you.

#anon hate #multishippers unite!#hackle are married #go away anon #hicsqueakers against hate #Hecate is gay and she can make her own choices #as can we #NOT YOU ANON #not if your choice is to be a dick

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dogcopter · 4 years

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character arc in unreverse

“Incomprehensible if you don’t think RQ is alive” Rose Quartz Steven Universe thoughts, a first pass. This is about a bunch of suspicious ghosts who are probably Rose, excluding Lion (see rose is lion 2020 tag for that)

I am certain to be missing some appearances and ideas still, but here’s some lore, assuming the Steven Universe writing process is (steven universe production voice) “every weird animal and dream is clearly just Rose. it will secretly be really funny every time and it will all pay off approximately 180 episodes into the series when we learn it was an intertwined Steven/Rose POV and character arc the whole time. we love lore.”

Rose’s Room Tiny Floating Whale appears when summoned, also asks Steven “what do you want”, has Rose’s voice even tho Steven hasn’t heard it yet.

This episode is preceded by Beach Party, in which Steven convinces two bickering families to cooperate, and that episode is preceded by Lion 2, in which Lion goes to the movies with Steven and Connie and also makes them fight a killer robot.

Watermelon Steven This episode is preceded by Garnet’s Universe which telegraphs the endgame. Steven brings melons to life, including his best friend Baby Melon, who is briefly kidnapped by Onion. (Onion wants Baby Melon. Can Onion perceive Rose Quartz or other astral projectors? Is Onion an agent of Evil Cookie Cat?) He comes to life to escape Onion and winks at Steven when rejoining him. When the watermelons go to war and Steven wants the fighting to stop, Baby Melon sacrifices his life to stop the fighting by punching Steven. Baby Melon dies. RQ kill count +1

(Relevant Dogcopter lore: In Lion 2, Lion attends the Dogcopter 3 movie with Steven and Connie. In Dogcopter 3, Dogcopter beats an evil army of robots. Connie and Steven both love Dogcopter. )

Lion 3: Straight to Video After Lion tries and fails to get Steven into the mane the first time, Steven dreams of Dogcopter. Dogcopter says some hippie nonsense about art, including the ironic “Just be true to yourself, and people will appreciate your honesty.” Dogcopter then says “take a deep breath” before Steven wakes up in Lion’s mane. This ep is preceded by Watermelon Steven.

Open Book The room manifests a Tiny Floating Whale again for a highfive. Idk if the rest of the room shenanigans are the room as its own entity or at all related to Rose or Evil Cookie Cat Rose (I’m going to gloss over the Rose’s room episodes because there’s a lot of good meta out there and they probably need their own post just in general) but the room’s Connie does ultimately force Steven to be honest with his feelings instead of hiding them.

This episode is preceded by Rose’s Scabbard, in which Steven learns a bit about Rose’s secrets and her relationship with Pearl.

Chille Tid Steven exhausts himself on the search for Malachite and the Gems try to make him rest. After a dream vision of Lapis, Steven tells Pearl about a dream he had involving Lion and puts them both to sleep. Dogcopter appears in his dream, but doesn’t talk to him. Dogcopter meows, and leads him in the direction of Lapis. This is the ep where Steven’s astral projection is explicitly revealed. This episode is preceded by “We Need to Talk”.

(In Dogcopter 4, Dogcopter dies and comes back to life and it’s revealed that his parents are cats, so probably Rose has either seen another Dogcopter movie without Steven and Connie or she’s involved in Dogcopter’s production.)

Super Watermelon Island Steven wakes up in a watermelon body. Melon Dog busts out barking excitedly. She leads him to the sacrifice ritual and tricks him into volunteering his hijacked body for death, which reveals the location of Malachite. This episode is a season premiere and is preceded by Peridemption arc. RQ kill count +1

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service Steven needs a boost to escape the pizza monster in Kiki’s dream, and Dogcopter appears to pick him up and meows at him. This episode is preceded by Restaurant Wars, in which, among other important developments, Pearl wears her hottest outfit to date and Jane appears for the second time. The first time is in Lion 2 when she sells Connie, Steven, and Lion tickets to the Dogcopter 3 movie.

Steven’s Dream Steven wants to know about Pink Diamond so Rose shows him the Pink Diamond murder location. If it’s a memory like later dreams, it’s a relatively recent one and she is crying in it. This episode is preceded by Three Gems and a Baby in which we see the aftermath of Rose’s death on Greg and the Gems.

Storm in the Room Rose literally just shows up in person to tell Steven to chill the fuck out while he’s stress dreaming about her via the room. She doesn’t affirm his feelings though.

This episode is directly preceded by The New Crystal Gems, in which Lion is named but does not appear, and that episode is preceded by the Zoo arc.

Jungle Moon Stevonnie is stranded on the moon of an abandoned Diamond Authority colony and their ship is broken so they can’t contact Lars. They find a moon base which used to belong to Yellow Diamond. They have a dream of one of Pink Diamond’s childhood memories of trying to play with YD while she’s working, which reveals the passcode to YD’s console. They use that info to call Lars and gtfo. This episode is preceded by Lars of the Stars, in which Steven and Connie go to space via Lion.

Can’t Go Back After Steven and Lion go to the moon, while Lion is napping downstairs Steven is napping upstairs, and Steven has a dream about Pink Diamond trying to convince the other Diamonds to leave Earth alone. He also sees Pearl with her sword.

Meta: This episode is preceded by “Letters to Lars”, in which Steven describes how the whole town has formed interpersonal bonds and everyone is doing way better without Bill Dewey in charge. Also in CGB, Lapis talks about running away in fear and being lonely while they observe the CGs from the moon. RQ vibes on both counts.

Together Alone Steven is sleeping in PD’s room. Opens with a dream in which Pink is playing with Volley in her room. Yellow Diamond interrupts and they play their roles. They behave like cheerful buddies, but then the dream becomes a nightmare as Volley is taken away and Steven starts stress heaving Rose’s hair and sees a vision of White. This episode is preceded by Familiar, in which Steven tries to talk to the Diamonds and learn about Pink.

Escapism Steven tries to call for help by APing out of prison, and is diverted to Mask Island where Melon Dog 2.0 tries to keep him distracted. She’s worried about him when he takes off. Lion picks him up on the open sea and carts him home to deliver his message before his tender perishable body ends. Steven kill count +1

Change Your Mind Steven wakes up in prison, then realizes he’s dreaming another memory of Pink’s in which Blue comes to berate and shame her in prison for bringing cute organic life home. Blue mentions that White will take away Pink’s Pearl if she doesn’t quit the mischief. Steven also sees a flashback of what happened at the ball, and the Diamonds doing the corruption attack. Steven is disturbed by a dream experience of cycling between appearances - Pink, Rose, Steven - and then wakes up.

Meta: The focus on her relationship with Volley and the loss of Volley in hindsight contributes to what we learn later in Volleyball; although they appeared close from Pink’s perspective in the older happy HW memories shown, we learn Pink’s explosive temper frightened Volley and even injured her and that a manifestation of the injury lingered with trauma. From Volley’s perspective Steven’s angry outburst is terrifying and she says that Pink couldn’t keep a secret – Pink changes her behavior to such an extent afterwards that our mom Pearl knows her as almost entirely the opposite in both regards. Lion has also changed from RQ’s super loving, inspiring speech giving persona to an aloof, silent cat.

Change Your Mind Finale During the final confrontation, Pink Steven disobeys White Diamond to her face to protect Steven, and doesn’t run away. Pink Steven confronts White Diamond on Steven’s behalf, exclaims SHE’S GONE!, and affirms Steven’s identity to both WD and Steven himself, embracing him with joyous laughter and love as his gem reenters his body.

Future:

Rose Buds Rose straight up just returns (but we’re not ready to admit that yet) and uhhh I’ve already done like ten posts about this ep so let’s stop there

other suspicious Future characters post Rose Buds:

A Very Special Episode One of Onion’s dolls waves at RQ2 even though it wasn’t umbrellafied. Might just be Onion eldritch shenanigans.

Prickly Pair Cactus Steven tries to talk to Steven after Steven opens up to him but is limited by his vocabulary. He might be his own cactus.

Reflections: See Lion megaposts for the Lion arc, I might make another big fucking essay one day taking both these and Lion into account but today is not that day, but one common thread is that these psychic ghost characters go from exclusively taking their cues from Steven and Steven’s immediate desires/needs to going out of their way to teach him things about Rose, first without contradicting the secrets and her post-death narrative, but ultimately by actually showing him truth.

#rose is lion 2020 #rosedemption 2020 #su meta

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skvaderarts · 4 years

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How is V compelling when all he has is Vergil's backstory and mannerisms? He's just vergil and acts like him, even the manga clearly shows him. It's not capcoms fault you projected onto that character before realizing who he obviously was. it's really rude when you people try to seperate them because vergil fans have been waiting for him and his story for such a long time. maybe dont start playing the games at 5th entry and u wont get disappointed ms. fake fan

I feel like I need to clarify something for people like this anon.

I've been playing DMC since I was 10. I am almost 22. That's over half my life. This series has helped me through the darkest parts of my life, and I have spent years invested in it. I have an account on FF.N that's probably older than the person who left me this ask. Hell, I own six of the books and half of them I had to get translations for because I can't read them. I even do a satyrical historical retrospective skit in this blog. So no, I most certainly didn't start on the 5th entry. Anyone who's following me could probably figure that out pretty easy.

Ironically, I got the notification for this stupid message while I having an Asthma attack. Lovely timing. Irritation just makes it worse. As for what I care to say about V and why I find him compelling? Simple. Because it doesn't matter what his role is in the narrative. He's intriguing and while he and Vergil of corse share similarities, they don't act the same at all. They have several key differences and are about as much alike as they are different.

He would have been interesting even if Vergil wasn't in the game at all.

Since when did writing an instantly captivating character become a bad thing? That's the effect characters are supposed to have on an audiance. Your supposed to become attached to them. It's called writing a good story. I just don't get people.

I feel like I also need to point out that if you don't like someone's content or blog, no one is asking you to step in the door, hurl anonymous insults like a child, and run back to your corner. Block me, because you can guarantee I'm blocking you. Not because we have different opinions, but because I will be dammed if I sit here and take insults from some rando hiding behind the anon filter over anything. Period. I'm done doing that. I still have people saying sorry and checking in on me from the last round of idiots that wanted to attack me over something stupid on this hellsite.

So to anyone who has an issue with this being a DMC AU blog or is thinking of adding to all the hate mail people love to send me, I eagerly encourage you to gtfo and not come to my page. I don't come to your house and complain about the furnishings. If you have nothing useful to add, then don't contribute.

And stop gatkeeping fandoms. "Fake fans" are not a real thing. If you love something, you love it. Period.

#fan fic writing #I'm never going to run out if rude anons #literally the one thing i asked for anons to do was be kind #anon asks #anon hate #v dmc5 #dmc #dmc5 #dmc 5 #devil may cry #devil may cry 5 #Devil may cry 5

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gigglypeach · 4 years

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Please tell me all about the worst houseguest/roommate you’ve ever had so I feel better about the unexpected one I’ve had all week.

Oh man, thats tough, im so sorry! You should tell them to GTFO :) but like..gently...so this once when i was really young i had some family visit, my grandma, one of her daughters, and her husband. I was really young so i cant recall evrrything. But I remember they were just supossed to stay because it was like Christmas. After the holiday season was over my grandma left but they still were here!!! Mind you, we werent close to them at all. In fact, this was the first time we met them! I cant recall how long they ended up staying but i did think “wow they must be moving in with us!” They ate up all our food constantly and apart from the uncle painting my room (it was pink and i was very excited!), they didnt contribute anything!! It seemed lile they stayed at least a month at our house. (But possibly longer) it was such a mess!

It really do be family that tries to pull this tho smh. Whats your situation if you dont mind sharing? Reblog this and tell me your story!? :)

#worse house guests stories

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42batsonjupiter · 6 years

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Okay Listen Here Mother Lovers

Just because I'm vegan does not mean I'm classist or buying avocados from elitists.

Being vegan does not mean shopping at Whole Foods and spending $100+ for a weeks worth of supply

Being vegan does not mean I believe I've reached the highest level of morality

IN FACT being vegan has taught me how much more healing I've got to do!

My Point: Vegan eating is just eating regular fucking food that grew from the soil of this planet. There's nothing new-aged or modern about it! There's nothing abstract in eating a fucking zucchini that you grew yourself.

Don't make people feel bad about wanting to consciously choose what they are putting into their bodies.

I understand the white washed, over-priced exploitation & propaganda !!! You CONTRIBUTE to it when you decide NOT to go vegan because you THINK you're sticking it to those corporate fucks. DUHHHH???!

Choosing to eat McDonald's and Oatmeal Creme Pies literally puts money into the same corrupt system you're trying to make vegans feel bad for. Gtfo.

Shop Local, Grow your own, Stop making fucking excuses so that you can remain comfortably numb

Fuck! I could go on

#vegan #veganism #sheesh #addtomypost

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queer-farmhouse · 3 years

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Update

Its been a long time since i posted here, and I think its time i acknowledge why.

Reasons under the cut

First Reason:

I’ve seen alot of posts on tumblr discussing that cottagecore can lean itself towards antisemetism, white supremacy, tradwife shit, that lane of things, and I couldn’t figure out how to deal with that, so i just stopped posting, so that i wouldn’t contribute to the problem. I don’t want to just stop posting, because in essence, my silence allows the growth of that kind of dog whistles in what is typically viewed as safe spaces.

Instead, i want to acknowledge those things, and move away from cottagecore, and more towards ethical, self sustainable, and educational aspects involved in farming. Learning about the land is something that’s hard to do on your own. Learning how to grow plants, what happens, how to care for your animals, or just enjoying their presence is something that can often be something only conservatives are involved in. I don’t want it to be that way, and i want to provide a place in which maybe education can happen.

Anyway, so the important note here is: If you are apart of those things mentioned, or you are involved in lgbtphobic activities: gtfo.

Second Reason:

I’ve had some issues recently involving friend drama, and you can think what you think of me about it, but i ended up sliding into a worse depression than i have in a long time, and am trying to handle my eating disorder, loss of family pets, and also a family member choosing to not go through with treatment for a terminal illness. I really have had no energy to be what I viewed myself as, especially online. I got called ableist slurs and told i can never do the occupation i want to do when i finish school, so there’s been alot on my mind, as i tried to process this.

This isn’t an excuse as of “oh how dare ppl expose what cottagecore values have hidden behind the curtain!!!” this is an explanation of why it took me so long to acknowledge that.

#long post tag #notfarmhouse

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pinayillustrada · 7 years

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Things I Love About Collar X Malice

The busy summer is over, and so are all my runs of Collar X Malice. I finished it yesterday. A few people have reviewed the game already and I don’t have that much time to write a full review (blame my dissertation and two RA jobs), so to keep this short, I’ll just list my favorite parts of this game, and the various ways this game could possible improve (or things that otome game writers can take note of if ever they are reading this).

Let’s start with the things I love:

1. Ichika

I did mention my preference for independent otome game heroines, with Code: Realize’s Cardia and Princess Arthur’s Alu, being some of my favorites despite some problems. Ichika too is not perfect.

She’s not exactly the most badass (but she’s an excellent shot though), or the most intelligent, but she is a girl who makes the most of the situation. While it is true that there are certain routes where she gets saved (a number of times in Okazaki’s route), she also does a fair amount of the saving.

She has a family and a life of her own. In the game, one does see her do normal stuff—cooking, her dayjob as a rookie cop, and has occasional spats with her tsundere brother.

Unlike many other otome game heroines, she is not too shy about being the first to admit her feelings to the guys she like. In most of the routes, she is the one who confesses first.

Above all, the story hinges on her unwavering conviction that she can uphold justice without causing malice or sorrow.

She’s a very unique otoge heroine and I wish there were more like her.

2. Datable characters are not easily reduceable to types

Sure, there is the recognizable tsundere in Sasazuka, but not everyone is can be summed up via a type. Mineo, for example, is also slightly tsundere and baka, but there is more to him than his love for history and theatrics. It’s the same with slightly yandere Shiraishi, but Shiraishi is not exactly the possessive yandere, as he actually does encourage Ichika to spend some time with her girlfriends. They all have interesting backstories that challenge one’s idea of “type” casting characters in the first place.

3. The ethics of the game are on the gray side

As one plays the game, one may find oneself sympathizing with the villains. That, I think, is the point of the game, because the villains themselves also suffer injustice. It makes one ask interesting questions: how does one deal with injustice?

4. Getting bad endings are not too bad

There are a lot of bad endings in this game, but one may find that getting a bad ending can clue one in to other plots of the game. In many ways, getting bad endings can also function as hints on future narrative choices. Getting bad endings too is can be a way of piecing together a larger narrative, that involves multiple characters with their own subplots.

5. It makes you question the nature of a “good” ending

*Spoilers in Shiraishi’s route*

A lot of people have noted how bittersweet the “good” ending of Shiraishi’s route is. But it can lead one to ask though: is a good ending about the heroine being happy with the guy she falls for, or is it about serving justice to its characters? This game definitely thinks it is the latter. And I agree.

True, Shiraishi and Ichika have to part in that ending, but it does prove that Shiraishi has truly moved beyond being just a pawn of Adonis, and has learned Ichika’s form of justice. Compare that to the tragic ending where they remain happy together, but Ichika is not aware of who Shiraishi really is because she loses her memory. So while the “good” ending does have a bitter aftertaste with not a lot of closure, it is the better ending of the two.

*End spoilers*

6. The yandere route leaves some room for the heroine to be badass

*Spoilers in Shiraishi’s route*

Yes, Shiraishi is the yandere. But unlike in other yandere routes, where the heroine has to comply to the other character’s yandere-ness (ie. MC with Jumin in Mystic Messenger or Toma in Amnesia), it is the opposite here. Ichika sees the signs of yandereness, and does what a reasonable heroine should do: GTFO. And other times when Shiraishi turns yandere, she snaps him right out it. The story makes it super clear that it is Ichika who really saves the day, even if she loses her memory at the end of it.

I usually hate yandere routes, but this is one is not bad.

*End spoilers*

7. It passes the Bechdel test

Okay, it barely passed it, but at least it did! Apart from Ichika, there are three other female police officers in the game Eriko and Kotoho. Sure, they are part of the Shiraishi Bashing Coalition, whose sole purpose it to shit talk about Shiraishi, but they sometimes talk about other things. After all, they do have cases to solve, and lunches to eat. Kotoho especially loves meat.

In addition to those, Ichika also discusses some other matters with other female suspects. Those contributed too.

8. Characters sleep together and are not too ashamed about it

Yes, Ichika does end up in bed with some characters, but the game does not cast her off as a slut. She is still very lovable as she is.

9. Getting the villain route does not involve the heroine getting into a creepy relationship

Yes, in a way, the villain has a route. And one gets to see the villian’s side of the story. But at least Ichika does not have to date said character in order to get that side of the story (ie. Sweet Fuse as much as I also love that game)

10. Your perfect husbando can do feminine things.

This game pretty much casts Yanagi as the almost-perfect husband type. While he used to be a delinquent and has his own dark backstory, you also see him do feminine things like cooking and cleaning. While everyone literally calls Yanagi the Dad of the group, in many ways, he is also their mom.

But of course, Collar x Malice is by no means perfect. Here are some ways the game can improve:

1. Ichika still does a fair bit of emotional labor

Emotional labor is the job of managing people’s feelings. It is highly gendered because women are often the ones expected to do this job. While Ichika is definitely a wonderful heroine, key parts of the game is still about her managing mens’ feelings. Sometimes, I think a heroine should not be made to deal with too much BS in order to be a wonderful.

Moreover, In many of the routes,there seems to be a lot of focus on Ichika’s domestic abilities in the form of her cooking and cleaning skills. While it is not wrong for a heroine to have these and be feminine, writers have to keep in mind that historically, women have been told again and again that they have to excel in these things too in addition to the other jobs that they do.

2. Trigger mode allows one to feel a bit badass for a few seconds, but they are super limited.

Trigger mode is a timed-mechanic, wherein Ichika has to shoot at the right time. They are found in key parts of the plot, but they are very limited. Usually once per route. While it is true that it drives the point that Ichika only uses her gun in times where it is really necessary, surely the game can think of other ways where Ichika can be proactive and a bit more badass than just that and narrative choices. Also, trigger mode preselects your target for the player. It would actually be interesting if one actually gets to decide who the target is.

3. Investigate mode does allow one to interact with some objects, but this is also limited.

One could get great deal of story via environments, case in point being Bloodbourne. I am not saying that an otome game has to be Bloodbourne, but more objects to interact with can allow for better world and character building

4. Map is also limited

There are moments where one can select areas in the police station to go to, but the problem here is that it only allows you to select where one is supposed to go to. Other places are locked. It would be nice to be able to explore other places other ones where one is supposed to go to. Being able to explore the station at least would have given the police station a sense of place.

5. All the characters are straight

There are many other genders and sexualities out there. There’s a problem if all the characters are all deemed to be cis-characters.

6. Stereotypical representation of gamers

One route features a gamer as a villain. Sure, otome games are not really that great with representations of gamers from Yoosung in Mystic Messenger to the MMO players of Period Cube. But it does not help if most gamers in otome games are addicts.

With that, I would say that this could easily be one of the best otome games of the year. That is, if Bad Apple Wars does not upstage it on October.

#collarxmalice #collar x malice #ichika hoshino #aiji yanagi #kei okazaki #takeru sasazuka #kageyuki shiraishi #mineo enomoto #otome game #otoge #aksys games #otomate #otome armada

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nerdgasrnz · 7 years

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This is so stupid and frustrating bullshit bc like... I'm VERY new to navigating concepts of gender and sexuality from a new, non cis/het lens. There's terms and history I need to learn. That I'm STILL learning.

But then there's these super popular posts with all this Ace Discourse word soup that is just hard to decipher. WORSE for people who lack even more energy and patience.

Posts whrre I'm not fucking sure if I'm actually surrounded by people that support me, or just see me and others like me as a "special snowflake" trying to fit in, wanting to be oppresssd. Adding to the confusion about if I have enough "gold stars" on my queer card to qualify me to get "in."

Those posts with tens of thousands of notes talking about how """Exclusionists""" deserve to die. The "logic" for who they mean and why is needle buried in a 7 paragraph haystack.

On that side, you have the Intellectuals™ who flower up their bigotry at the length of an SAT Essay so they can fool impressionable people** into into thinking that what they're saying is worthwhile. But when they talk about "Exclusionists?" You don't know if they actually mean ignorant people excluding all Aros/Aces from what it "really" means to be queer, or if they're saying "all those filthy gays should die along with their allosexual* bretheren"

And then those people get mad when it's explained MULTIPLE TIMES how a word is horrible, because it lumps queer people with cis/straight people? Does that really sound like it makes sense? That is why "Allosexual" is an actual not good word!!! like sheesh just trust us on this one okay? "Non-Ace" works fine as a distinction.

So on the other side, you have those **Impressionable People who are blown away by these big words that don't actually make sense together.

"BUT HEY the post has a lot of notes, so they must be right! Now, let's throw together some similar-sounding words on topics where I actually don't know my stance. Let's contribute to a volatile, negative discussion to feel Valid™!!!"

So then, this leads to not just excessive use of the word "Allosexual" in reference to people that donot want to be categorized the same way as cisgender, heterosexual people: You also get people throwing around "terf" like it's just a quirky, acceptable tumblr insult.

But those people don't know that a "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist" is actually a gigantic warning for other peoples' safety. Transgender safety. Because RadFems like them want to oppress everyone they don't consider "real women" Like transgender people.

(re: the "Kill All Men" mantra, which to them, includes and misgenders Trans/Nonbinary people under the guise of "Womens' Rights" lmao)

With Buzzword Bigot's popularity, and naïve Mob Member #476, you get this Ace Discourse garbage: where you can't really tell which side hates you? Or if both sides hate you? Do THEY know why they hate you? You'll never know, because nobody will SAY WHAT THEY MEAN IN PLAIN LANGUAGE!!!

That's not just Acecourse, that's the minority experience!! When it used to be easier to tell who hated you, by whoever punched and spat on you!

But now everyone tries to duck and weave being (rightfully) accused of being a bigot.

I do not blame ANY queer person for standing up against blatant homophobia and transphobia and kicking people out of their spaces. When some fucker, who HAPPENS to be Aro and/or Ace, has a lame-ass agenda to create a shitstorm for publicity, yeah, you need to gtfo!!! Nobody fucking cares if you "deserve" to be at the VIP venue, or if you "paid your dues" to be there: if you're disruptive and destructive, the bouncers are kicking you out because of the damages you're causing!!!

I do not blame ANY queer person for hating people from MY spectrum of sexuality: because people from MY community are repeating toxic, hateful behavior and ideas that already wreaked havoc on queer people's safety. Because then you get shit like an "Ace-centric," apocalyptic, Young Adult novel pitch where "people die if they're physically intimate" sounds like a good plot; but that was already a thing in real life called the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. Which mostly plagued queer people. But yeah talk about it like it's just fiction because "those dirty allosexuals will die from that gross intercourse!"

If you're cis and on the aro/ace spectrum, and you're spouting shit that misgenders people, then yeah, trans people have every right to exclude you.

When you talk about gay bars with disdain, wanting "G-rated" alternatives, as if Queer people and Gay Bars are ALWAYS sexually explicit and never "turn it down"; you probs don't know how much you sound like one of the police officers that would arrest a queer person just for minding their fucking business.

If you don't experience attraction to the same gender in ANY way, and you're on the aro/ace spectrum, but you repeatedly talk about anyone/everyone who has interest or experience with sex like they're filthy, cursed, or diseased? Then yeah!!! Queer people don't fucking want you here!!!

Because you sound like every homophobic speech deliverer that we've EVER heard who goes on about "purity" and "innocence" and "virginity" as if they're the most sacred thing on the planet, as if lacking those things makes us "unworthy" of a happy and full life, or whatever!

Even aro/ace queer people don't want you here, because you're throwing us under the fucking bus too and you fucking know it!!! Don't pretend to feel "betrayed" as if you didn't know that Asexuality and Aromanticism are NOT cookie cutter experiences? There's sex repulsed people who aren't virgins; aros/aces that have sex. People with STD's who are WAY more pure and kind than most of us, who are putting effort in these stupid, divisive concepts on this hellsite.

If any of us wanted to experience the shit that you goddamn homophobes/transphobes were serving, we'd go crawling back to the cis/het people that already made our lives miserable! We'd listen to the family that already doesn't accept us! The public speakers that used their platform to tell us we deserve misery and death for the "debauchery" we live! We'd go back to the peers that always harrassed us!

We don't give a FUCK if you're Aromantic or Asexual spectrum; if you're gonna be hateful and not examine yourself to fix it, Queer people have every fucking reason to want you fucking gone! And it's NOT because of your sexuality or lackthereof, it's because you're just like all the other assholes that have been in our lives!!! So fuck off!!!

#I'm sorry I'm TIRED #I'm ace tag #I'm aro tag #The Discourse™#Acecourse /////

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