#not about anything thats happened recently

[neoflect]

sharing some of my disorganized jojo musical thoughts now that ive had a week to sit on it and ive rewatched it several times over. i intended to wait to publish something like this until a subtitled version was available, but im not seeing any indication that thats happening any time soon so for now youll have to deal with my loose interpretations from my extremely rudimentary and rusty japanese… so take what i have to say about the finer points of characterization with a grain of salt. gratuitous spoilers below obviously, both for the original source material and the changes made in the stage production

my feelings are OVERWHELMINGLY positive. of course there are things i can criticize or that i would have personally done differently but oh man… i have literally not thought about anything besides this fucking show for a week. im 100% confident in saying this is a better adaptation of the source material than the tv anime. sorry to the davidpro staff, i respect their hard work and their love for jojo and their dedication to what is by any metric a pretty difficult property to adapt off of the page, but i dont know if i can ever forgive them for leaving half of the first episode’s storyboard on the cutting room floor in order to fit a standard half-hour tv slot, especially considering that what they cut is some of the really crucial character-building stuff. happily those scenes are not only reproduced in the stage version, some of them are expanded upon!

with the quick disclaimer that i’ve only managed to get my hands on the final 4/14 performance with shotaro arisawa and yoshihisa higashiyama, from what i’ve seen the casting is perfect. i’m sure there’s a rip of the 4/13 performance somewhere (i’ve seen clips) but i haven’t been able to find one… every single performer knocks it out of the fucking park, the cast chemistry is incredible and even the minor characters are loaded with charisma. and mamoru miyano… my god… mamoru miyano i owe you an apology. i was not familiar with your game. of course hes been killing it for decades at this point but i had soured on him a little bit recently because i felt like he was overcast in everything and i just didnt connect with his dnt reinhard at all, so when the casting was initially announced back in august i was underwhelmed, and of course my standards for the dio role in particular were astronomically high… i’ll go more into detail later in the post because i have so so many things to say about dio’s characterization here but mamoru miyano’s performance is like, life-changing. i had impossible expectations and he exceeded them.

sorry if im gushing. i am a hater by nature. its unusual for me to be so thoroughly pleased with something. im not even a musical theater guy. these are strange new feelings for me.

just to balance things out i’ll talk about a couple of the things that didn’t really work for me: first of all, the music is just ok. my initial draft of this post called the music “bad” but three additional viewings later i have warmed up to some of the songs. i don’t know if this is a shortcoming by dove attia as the composer or if it’s just me, as i said i’m not a musical guy and a lot of the genre conventions of musical theatre are not really the things i look for in music that i enjoy, but like… even at their worst they are serviceable. nothing here is sonically unpleasant to me. high points are “resolve of the ripple” (zeppeli’s hamon training song, a jazzy swing number - it’s simply catchy and fun to listen to) and the closer “phantom blood” (a sweeping ballad that reprises the earlier “light and darkness”/”golden spirit” leitmotifs into an epic duet between jonathan and dio as they join hands and walk off into the darkness together… made me cry! i wont lie! on every single one of my numerous viewings this one got me misty eyed!)

wait i forgot this is supposed to be the part where i’m being critical. ok my most loathed song in the musical is “dio’s world”. sorry dio nation. it doesn’t really work for me. i think this might be a case of my standards/expectations being too impossibly high because it’s not even really the worst song in the whole thing. and of course miyano eats it up so it’s not really his fault. i just find it kind of underwhelming… i find the melody a little grating, it’s kind of just a generic rock number, it’s just missing a particular je ne sais quoi…. the essence of dio isn’t there… lyrically though i am obsessed with the premise of dio recruiting his minions by selling himself as a kind of social revolutionary who is upending and inverting the brutal hierarchy of post-industrial victorian society with zombie blood magic. you win some you lose some.

the second sticking point for me is the costumes. they’re perfectly serviceable… adequate… but i mean when it comes to jojo “serviceable” and “adequate” costume design obviously falls well below what’s expected, right? a lot of the outfits have kind of a boxy, almost flat-looking kind of unflattering fit on the actors, which if i wanted to be generous i could attribute to the challenge of bridging the gap between these frail slender musical theater twinks and the two-meter-tall 250lb roided-out beefcakes theyre meant to be embodying. (bearing this discrepancy in mind a lot of the insane martial arts stuff in the second act doesn’t really land with the oomph that it should, but i also understand logistically why this kind of casting is not practical, and all things considered i think shotaro arisawa does a really incredible job of embodying jonathan joestar even though he kind of looks like i could snap him in half over my knee like a twig. he’s very cute. so i’m not mad about it.) of course, again, logistically, i understand that in a stage musical production, where actors only have minutes to complete costume changes, some sacrifices have to be made to the creative vision in the name of practicality. nevertheless this is jojos bizarre adventure!! i want to see some fucking baubles!!!!!!

which is all to say that… after carefully considering it for some weeks… i still have extremely mixed feelings about dio’s grink ass feather bathrobe look. it’s not that i dont think its something he could wear (the concept of dio lounging around in his gothic vampire palace doing re-animator style body horror experiments on the local wildlife in this “officer i have no idea what happened to my husband”-ass nightgown is nothing short of hysterical to me) but then he wears it into combat and i felt a little disappointed… it has the same unflattering fit issue as the other outfits in the show, and it is just such an un-araki-like design… where are the gaudy color combinations? the bizarre geometric patterns? the tease of an exposed boob/thigh/midriff? erina gets a stage-original dress design that i have fewer issues with because the excessive pleats and ruffles have more of an araki-esque sensibility, but every time i look at dio’s robe it feels like there’s something missing.  i’m going to choose to be nice about it because it’s not at all a deal breaker and, again, mamoru miyano devours the look. it’s fine. it’s always fun to have a new dio outfit. if anything, the fact that the blu-rays are being marketed as “2024 cast version” gives me hope for the possibility of a future production with a new vision for the costume design. (although the fact that this was such a difficult production - with stunts and pyrotechnics and moving setpieces - that its entire first week was cancelled indicates to me that the prospects for a future production from a different company are impossibly slim. i guess there’s always hope?)

in terms of the writing and the changes that were made from the original narrative, honestly i don’t really have an issue with anything that was cut. sorry if there are any diehard stans of Poco’s Unnamed Sister out there who are steamed that their favorite minor late phantom blood character got the axe, i kind of understand how you feel because i’ve been malding over david pro cutting the Danny Lore for eleven years, but i think it was the right choice and the story flows so much better. the real juicy meat at the core of phantom blood as a narrative and the thing that brings it head and shoulders above so much of the rest of jjba is the character-driven drama - that deliciously pulpy victorian gothic family tragedy - and the relationship between jonathan and dio. the musical beefs up the character drama and slims down the action-driven second half by trimming out the extraneous battles. the only real downside i see to this is that the absence of tompetty and his prophecy makes zeppeli’s arc and death feel INSANELY abrupt, but tbf that’s not a deal breaker for me. sorry zeppeli. you were born to die.

okay. okay. i think 1500 words into the post is enough fucking around so let’s talk about the real reason why you and i both know we’re here

musical dio is SO fucking sad. he’s positively wretched, you guys. he was born in a wet cardboard box all alone and forced to eat cement when he was six. he cries even more than he does in the source material and even when he’s not crying he frequently delivers his lines as though he is moments away from bursting into tears. back when the musical first opened i was snooping on the reactions on jpn twitter and one commenter said they could see miyano’s tears and snot from the nosebleeds even without opera glasses, a remark i initially assumed was hyperbole but that i now think probably was not. araki’s dio is certainly tortured and a deeply pathetic crybaby beneath all the cruelty and posturing, but changes in the musical and miyano’s embodiment of the character bring this pathos to the fore. he is literally haunted: dario’s ghost lingers, a manifestation of all of dio’s traumas and insecurities that emerges from the recesses of his memory to taunt him with the reminder that he will always be his father’s son, all the way up until the very minute that jonathan breaks down the door to his vampire lair. i am OBSESSED with this - not only for the obvious reason that i delight in dio’s suffering personally but also because kong kuwata is a delight and he fucking kills it every time. also lends itself to a category 10 leitmotif moment at the top of the second act when dio emerges from the charred ruins of the joestar estate singing dario’s theme and calling out to jonathan - if i had to pinpoint this is probably the moment when this musical stuck for me as the Real Deal. they Get It.

the first solo number in the show is dio’s disney princess I Want song (amazingly, simply titled “dio”) where he weeps for his late mother and his wretched lot in life, and then - in a creative decision that made me clap my hands and hoot and holler at my screen in real life - there is a reprise of this number (delivered, naturally, through tears) when dio is almost arrested for murder and decides to become a vampire instead. so there’s this amazing hopeful uplifting inspirational orchestral music accompanying the onstage action of dio ruthlessly slaying jonathan’s dad and then getting pumped full of lead by a bunch of cops. it is brilliant. 10/10 no notes. it’s moments like this that i think really sell the “softening” of dio in the stage version for me, even though i am historically Not A Fan of fanworks that take a similar angle - like, yes, he is sad, but specifically he is narcissistically obsessed with the spectacle of his own suffering, he is boiling over with bitterness and rage for everyone around him who (by his own estimation) could never hope to have suffered as much as he has. this sensitivity and self-pity he wallows in are not expressions of a guilty conscience or a desire to change - they’re entirely the opposite - every cruel and monstrous deed dio commits is always justified to himself because he is simply the saddest little boy who has ever existed. he has been done wrong by the world and so there is no limit to the depravity he may reasonably respond with. i’ve seen several commenters describe this as a drastically different interpretation of the character from araki’s dio (and someone told me on twitter that mamoru miyano himself has also said this, but i cba to go digging for an actual source so take it with a grain of salt?), but i… dont think thats the case! dio’s obsession with his own weakness and his self-perception as the eternal underdog (as compared to jonathan) are certainly more exaggerated in miyano’s performance, but i don’t think this is an angle to the character that’s been manufactured out of whole cloth. the genre conventions of the stage musical force the melodrama up to eleven and dio’s incredibly repressed angst is the most rich vein to mine for that. hair-trigger sadist dio is still here, it’s the same guy, he’s still killing people mercilessly, you’re just getting to see him sing a big ballad about his feelings instead of confining those to an internal monologue.

if anything, the exaggeration of dio’s pathetic/cowardly/crybaby traits combined with his megalomaniacal aspirations and bottomless well of cruelty is just right. it’s perfect. fucking around, finding out, and then trying to weasel his way out of the consequences with crocodile tears just so you don’t see him drawing his knife to cut you clean open… yeah. thats the stuff. thats my one true blorbo. sad to say i will love him for ten thousand years.

i think that might be all i have to say… or at least all i feel like saying here… most likely ill come back and edit this post later. i certainly have some additional thoughts and some more esoteric/controversial takes but they’re not suited for a public blog. real ones will understand. im keeping my eyes peeled for somebody to translate this thing but to be frank i am kind of enjoying this little corner of fandom as it is right now: just the asians and the true hardcore phantom blood phreaks. i have not had this much fun in jojo fandom in almost a fucking decade. as soon as somebody publishes an english version my timelines going to get flooded with all the most deeply annoying “kono dio da” “speedwagon waifu” reddit guys and 15 year olds and my suffering will proceed. unfortunately this is my lot in life and i am doomed to be here forever because dio put a worm in my brain

#⚰️ #jjba tag for blacklisting purposes but i dont want this in the main tag

[staffs-secret-blog]

Haha yes guys all these jokes are really funny.

Unrelated but can anyone point me in the direction of the nearest fire axe and the tumblr servers?

#not about anything thats happened recently #nope not at all

[phantom-z0ne]

Serendipity

"Billy wasn't sure what the creature ransacking his train car was.” Alternatively, Billy feeds a stray and ends up with a roommate.

WC: 1215

Serendipity (n): the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

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Billy wasn't sure what the creature ransacking his train car was. Granted, the train car wasn't in the most hidden place ever, but he had made sure to ward it against most creatures. The ward would have made one unable to see the train, and if they somehow saw it anyways, they would have been turned around. He usually was pinged if anything passed his wards, which was why he was so blindsided to see something moving around in his train car. It seemed that this one had slipped through his protections. 

The creature was strange and almost hard to look at directly. Its blinding white hair moved independent from the wind and twined around its long, pointed, mint colored ears. It was also small, small enough that Billy thought it could comfortably fit into his cupped hands, and wearing some sort of skin tight suit, black with a stripe of silver along its torso. Or what appeared to be its torso, Billy couldn't really tell when its lower body faded into a long tail.

From his perspective, it seemed to be rummaging through where he usually hides his food, showing slivers of its white paws. Did it pass through the barriers he set because it was hungry? 

Billy approached the creature quietly, making sure not to get too close, he wouldn't want to startle it. His efforts were in vain though as the creature snapped its head towards him. It's glowing eyes like headlights, as if staring into Billy’s soul. The green in its eyes swirling hypnotically as the creature bristled at his presence. 

Billy watched, amused but vigilant, as the creature puffed up like a cat. Even going so far as to swat a couple times in his direction. So far, it was quite harmless, but the buzzing in the back of his head that he usually equated to Solomon told him to be careful.

Billy slowly dropped to his knees, mindful of the creature's reaction, and shifted his bag to his front. He shuffled through his bag and brought out the small piece of jerky he was saving for later, sliding it slowly towards the creature.

The creature tilted its head, staring at the jerky suspiciously before taking a few steps to paw at it. It apparently passed its test as it devoured the jerky surprisingly fast for its small size. While it seemed to be starving, thankfully it didn't reflect onto its body. It wasn't gaunt or thin, but actually quite plump. Perhaps it just didn't eat for a day or two? 

Billy took a small step forward, then a few more when he realized the creature was focused on eating. “So,” He began softly, the creature startling as if it was just realizing he was so close. “What are you doing here, little guy?”

It stared at him silently before once again tilting its head. It was cute, Billy realized. The chubby cheeks and button nose paired with big, shiny eyes made it endearing to look at. His expression melted slightly as he took a closer look at the creature.

The creature's ear flicked as it padded up to him, paws on Billy’s knees. It let out an unintelligible sound, layered and harsh to Billy's ear, yet somehow melodious. Billy blinked, not expecting that noise. The creature looked at him almost expectantly, eyes shining brightly.

Billy hesitantly brought his knuckles closer to the creature, feeling its cold nose as it sniffed him. It was clearly unimpressed and trilled for more food. Billy chuckled under his breath as he brought another piece of jerky to the needy creature. It gobbled it up swiftly, looking up at him and once again begging for more, its eyes almost sparkling.

Billy folded under the cuteness overload and retrieved a sandwich from his bag, splitting it in half. He was worried that it would eat more than it could handle if he kept feeding it. He knew very well what that felt like.

The creature blinked at him, once, twice, before giving him a small, pleasant trill and headbutted his fingers. Billy cautiously set his hand over its silky hair? Fur? All he knew was that it felt divine, though not in the godly way. 

“What are you?” Billy asked as he wove his fingers through its hair, genuinely curious on what species the creature was. He had inputted a lot of creatures in his ward but he had no clue what this one was. The tingling at the back of his head spoke otherwise, Solomon knowing very well what it was. He could transform and ask Solomon, since he couldn't really speak to him unless he was Captain Marvel, but that would just scare the creature.

It gave him a look before resuming its lunch, finishing it in record time. Apparently, it deigned him worthy of its presence on his lap as it kneaded his legs then curled up onto them. The purring surprised him, pausing when the creature gave him an impatient look when he halted his ministrations on its hair.

He resumed, of course. Why wouldn't he? It was a nice reprieve from fighting villains as Captain Marvel and watching out for himself when he was on the streets. It was just a quiet moment between him and the strange creature that broke into his home. 

…He hadn't realized how lonely he was before this. 

He had friends, of course. Freddy, Tawky Tawny, and the Justice League. But… this just wasn't the same. As good as a friend Freddy was, he doubted that he would be willing to just sit and enjoy each other's company silently. Freddy was a huge superhero fan and couldn't help but talk about them in excitement. Not to mention his analyses on Billy’s techniques as Captain Marvel.

The Justice League wasn't any better. They had a professional relationship, thinking of him more as a coworker than a friend. The times he tried to deepen their friendship by inviting them out, he was unfortunately turned down. It seemed that they got along better when they were in battle than not.

Billy usually went to Tawky Tawny for advice, but Tawky Tawny never turned down the opportunity to just spend time in the other’s company. Unfortunately, those times were far and few between, usually because Tawky Tawny was traveling or busy with something else. 

With this creature— he’d have to name it eventually, Billy thought absently—all that was expected of him was companionship, nothing more.

Billy felt a cool paw pat his face, the creature looking up at him concerned. His eyes widened before he let out a huff, ruffling its hair. The creature let out a disgruntled chuff and phased through his hands then batted at them, settling down once more on his lap once it was done. 

It hadn't been with him long, all he had done was give it some food, and it was already trying to comfort him. Admittedly, it wasn't the best comfort, it stopped once he focused on it, but it wasn't something he expected from a creature he met not an hour ago.

Billy smiled, eyes soft. Perhaps it could stay, if only for a while.

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Whipped this up in a couple hours while trying to get out of my funk 

Thanks for reading!!

──── ∘°❉°∘ ────

Ao3

#Danny: DO NOT TOUCH ME #Also Danny: I've only had Billy for ten minutes #but if anything happened to him #I would kill everyone in this room and then myself #Why is danny in LBM form? #who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #Billy feels super weird to Danny #Lingering dead wizard + magic + gods = confused senses #baby empath Billy!! #its why hes so certain about danny's emotions #unreliable narrator billy #ghosts can purr :) #cat!LBM #tfw the creature that broke into your home to steal your food becomes family #dpxdc #billy batson #danny fenton #captain marvel #fluff #minor angst #minor hurt/comfort #had a cat visit my house recently #so thats why lbm turned out like that #little baby man #finally living up to my username #serendipity #wip: LBM commits b&e and billy batson gains a friend

[ihateornithologists]

#elisabeth das musical #and things that happened to me irl xD #i finally did thissss #it's so funny to do actually and it almost works like sort of therapy so why not #like wow i can finally talk about this and even draw related things without wanting to throw up immediately #for more context (yep again) i had severe depression years ago and at some point my brain was so fucked up by illness that #i started seeing [one of those guys i'm always talking about] literally as an embodiment of everything bad in my life #well HE WAS #but like i so strongly identified him with my depression that sometimes even doubted if he was a real person at all lmao #(YOU SEE WHY I'M DRAWING THIS) #he somehow managed to follow me everywhere which made things even more creepy. #and i kept coming back to him myself because i had no one else etc #so funny actually that he was literally JUST SOME GUY like not even interesting or anything #all this shit was just awful and gross that's all. #but when i realized i can make it look COOL by drawing stuff i felt so powerful ahsdijwhnu8 #like YES i texted him recently and he's just. boring as fuck. #so dumb to feel possessed by some evil entity for years and the said evil entity is just a random dude #SORRY my traumadumping is cringe af but thats the price you have to pay to see my drawings xDddd

[skunkes]

might sound weird to say as a person with a couple ocs who have Big Horrible Event(s) in their backstories or as a person who has like 3 ocs total bc he sucks at writing and as a person who hopes their ocs arent too Boring with [the thing im about to mention] but the thing about writing [characters] and [people] is that like.

any little thing a person experiences can take up their whole existence... its actually something "fun" to experience as i meet new ppl and do more things. My friend had something happen that she'll be talking about forever. I had several things happen last year that ill never stop talking about, some of which other ppl think werent that bad actually. In the same way I'll forever remember about the way my sister accidentally insulted me almost 10 years ago, it's really interesting and Fun to find and assign smaller things like that to characters...its really Real. some people's dealbreakers are other people's solvable problems etc etc

#(as well as the opposite: Big Event that maybe shocks everyone around em but they genuinely werent shaken by) #though this one is more common and leads to those ''ohh i didnt know that was normal oops'' moments #talkys #inspired by recent me and friend events #and also recent events where i told sum ppl more stuff about Thing and they responded as if it wasnt a big deal. but it was to me. #and also how i thought a part of al's childhood backstory was kind of maybe dumb and not realistically as impactful as id expect #but i saw someone on reddit almost word for word write that as their experience and how its shaped em as a person #and thats it like... the small things are boring and hard to keep track of sometimes #its not like you'll include every single little event your oc was shaped by in their bio #but idk. its like Fun to piece together for fun. to mold a human being #ykwim? wld be silly to tell everyone ''oh my oc struggles with self image due to many instances like... when their sister called em ugly'' #or write it anywhere but it is fun to Know and have in your head. and its real ! #just like if a friend told you about something that happened to em #long post #delete later #sorry i keep saying stupid obvious shit lately ive always been bad at oc making AND socializing so im learning everything late #but anyway yes. idk even as i keep making ocs that are ''similar'' its like. every person so different #people can react to anything in any way for any reason. i love people #this is why i struggle a bit with keeping ocs to archetypes i guess bc like. what is ooc for an oc. people contain contradictions all the #time. you can change yourself at any time. #ok nobody will read this far so ill go to the real insane rambling #part of this has been a part of my chats with talon while trying to get him to share more info #like. yeah ok you're 400+ years old the things that happened to you were such a comparatively small part of your life #but humans dont live as long and think about small things until they die. i dont think time would heal all wounds actually. not all of em #some thoughts just always come to gnaw at your brain. its ok to not be over things. i feel ill never be over some things #and also complainerism can be fun but thats something else entirely wee hee ^_^

[the-meme-monarch]

well that's the worst nightmare I've had in a while

#we were at the grocery store and a shooter came in. my sibling and i were separated at the time. #they died. and i was theone to find their body afterward. so. that fucking sucked. #woke up and strted to cry bc i thought it was real for a second #dream journal #edit bc i dont eant to reblog it to say this but ive had time to process it now #i was the only fucking person who cared that xe died. the dream cut to after the shooter was arrested and we were preparing for xer funeral #i think the dream implied that yhe shooter was an ex employee at the store and my dad and i were trying to like. talk to the owners about Y #Your Ex Employee Killed My Fucking Sibling #and the manager or boss or ehoever just. didnt care. didnt have any sympathy #my dad was there. but he didnt speak. i had to beg the managet to feel anything for the child who was shot and killed in his store. #to pay for xer funeral? i dont know. #we were there getting a blind bag toy xe had talked aout going to get irl since it was a short walk there really #i was looking for those pink chocolate chips. #to make cookies fro my friends #thats why i eoke up thinking it was real i think #most of my set-in-reality nightmares hinge on something that Cant happen anymore. this one was based on Recent Events and Planned Events #i had woken up just before six. when xe gets up for school. so i stared crying bc Oh My God Xe's Dead Xe's Never Going To Go To School Again #i dont think ive looked them in the face at all today.

[ell-arts]

Excuse me, I hope Im not bothering you, but I have a couple questions on some of the things you would prefer when it comes to the fandom.

When it comes to dark or twisted au's that other writers create, would you prefer something more just a real 'what if' like 'An Interesting Arrangement' from @ribbondee ? Or would you dig deeper into something that would show more of a dark side to the characters like the 'Amnesia' segment from @cartooncadet666 ?

And of course the only other question I have right now (hence why I said a couple questions) When it comes to the art style diversity, what kinds of art have you seen the fandom make and if you have any favorites, which ones do you love the most?

Not bothering at all 💙

Interesting questions. I have to start off with saying that, ultimately, what I "prefer and not prefer" about the fandom should not be an indication of whether someone's work is good or not, nor should it bar the fandom from creating whatever they want. I have my own tastes and preferences just as much as the next person, and naturally we're all drawn to work that mostly aligns with our tastes/preferences.

Your first question is whether or not I would be more drawn towards an au exploring a character's dark side, or towards one with a 'what-if' scenario. My answer to that is that it depends on the content.

I like both dark au's and what-if au's, it just depends on how well they are written, and sometimes it also depends on the characters. I know this is going to break a lot of hearts, but since Betrayus is not my favourite character, I'd feel less inclined to check out a work centred completely around him in favour of checking out a work that features my favourite characters. This is not the be-all-end-all though, sometimes a work can pleasantly surprise me even if it doesn't have my favourite characters. It really all comes down to writing.

And as for your second question, hmm. A tricky one. I'd say that most of the fandom's art styles are generally cartoonish/2D stylised, but there's a wide swath of diversity within that category. If you show me a list of artworks in the fandom then I can easily point them out and name the artists behind them (at least on Tumblr), which is great because it shows that each artist has a recognisable style. I really don't like choosing favourites though, so I'd rather show you a list of pmatga artists whose styles I really enjoy, if that's okay!

@anti-cosmofangirl @inkteresting-art @ninjastar107 @pacgacha @breezoreceiver @toad-in-a-trenchcoat @xelys-xlys @ghostbunnyarts @famitendo @polina-quail @ask-nova-valentine @slumbergoblin

There are others, but these are the ones I can name on top of my head and who are generally still active (or actively posting pmatga art). I'm sure there are also a bunch of hidden gems out there that I've yet to stumble upon!

#ask #pmatga #pacman and the ghostly adventures #I want to re-iterate that these are just one person's preferences/opinions! #Just because you didn't make it on the list doesn't mean your art is bad or anything! #It's just a list of people who show up on my dash frequently and so they happen to be the ones I'm thinking about first #There's lots of good artists in the fandom #and lots of good fic-writers too! #Tumblr is just really tedious when it comes to finding them all #And I've really not been active on Tumblr recently to see people's stuff so that's another factor #so heads up: I'm still going to be relatively unresponsive for a while #I'll get to everyone's asks eventually I promise #My art/fics/responses to asks are REALLY slow at this time because of urgent stuff thats keeping me busy irl right now #so apologies if I've missed anything! #I'm tired man ;n;

[sonknuxadow]

are transgender sonic character polls just doomed to always have weird results. first lanolin won the transfem swag poll by a huge amount just because a popular blogs followers many of which are not even sonic fans flooded the poll and now the transmasc swag competition has come down to two of the characters with the least amount of transmasc swag in the entire lineup . what is going on

#also to make my opinion on the transfem poll thing clear im not really annoyed that lanolin won per se #i dont see metal as transfem and i didnt have an opinion on lanolins gender before but i can def see her as trans now #im just annoyed that people who dont know anything about sonic were mass voting on the poll like what are you people doing here #at least i think thats what happened i wasnt actually keeping up with this very closely but i looked in the notes of the polls #there were people going ''idk anything about sonic but vote for the sheep'' and apparently lanolin got a huge increase in votes #after a really popular blog reblogged the post saying to vote for her #actually whats up with idw characters sweeping polls like this and beating characters who are way more popular than them #lanolin is a very minor character barely anyone even cared about her until recently???? #how did she even make it as far as she did

[britneyshakespeare]

throughout the series of drake and josh it pretty consistently implies that josh nichols is a christian (josh peck is jewish) and in the finale of the series helen (played by yvette nicole brown, not jewish[?]) is portrayed as a practicing jew

#i dont have a problem w either of those things necessarily i just find it interesting #if i had to guess. drake and josh was a mainstream that didnt wanna touch on religion generally #but josh was kind of a dork and usually when josh's religious beliefs are implied it is in dorkish ways #such as praying and thanking the lord after he has his first kiss. #but since dan schneider is jewish perhaps he wanted to make helen have a jewish wedding in the finale? #not that there needs to be a reason. but u do notice occasional jewish-related jokes in d&j but none of them are what you could call #offensive. in good faith that is. 'eric is a pacifist' 'i thought he was jewish?' like come on #text post #i have been rewatching drake and josh recently and i have had so many thoughts #im almost done. i just have left that stupid dance episode that they premiered last for the stupid reason #of a special dance-themed premiere night in fall 2007. they premiered the third episode of icarly and a new zoey 101 on the same night #which i think is so stupid. they should've aired really big shrimp last. it messed w my understanding of the series at the time lol #i remember not really knowing that the show was ENDING. like i knew icarly was starting & miranda was doing that #i thought really big shrimp was like just another special like go hollywood. #and then like two days later they premiered the helicopter episode for some reason #and i was like why is drake not famous in this. he just had a number 1 song in a superbowl commercial #and then a month later the dance one. which. if anything is satisfying about that as a final episode it's just that #that unnamed girl from the blues brothers episode who is obsessed w drake shows up again and congratulates them #and the very final line of the series is 'who is she?' because. because really who IS she? #that's a funny enough throwback to wrap things up with i suppose #drake and josh wasn't a highly serialized show so i can see how they could air those after the intended finale and act like it didn't matte #but i have to tell you it did fuck with my brain a bit at the time. lol. i still think of those episodes as having 'happened' after #and on paramount plus those episodes are still placed after really big shrimp. the injustice #but thats kinda messy. what a weird way to end such an influential and popular sitcom #season 4 had a few lowpoints while still also having some VERY solid episodes. #idk. ill have to continue my series review another time im getting way too longwinded here #helen dubois is jewish

[cryptidjeepers]

Im not going to say specifics but theres so much 'through the grape vine' discourse on the internet that is so frustrating for a lot of reasons. But the most frustrating kind is the "baseless or otherwise unnuanced/overdramatic accusation of someone or something" that is either debunked, old and outdated or proven to be a much more complicated topic. But all most people will see is that first callout post and will internalize it as fact for years. Theyll continue to parrot it on other platforms whenever its mentioned and then outsiders will see that out of context and internalize that as well. Until its so far from the context and the damage is irreversible.

Or will take what might have been a understandable criticism but will turn it into a "this thing is irredeemablely bad and youre a bad person for liking it." If you so much as mention the thing you will have people saying "isnt this thing evil and bad?" Because of a tumblr post they read 5 years ago.

#its mostly just frustrating but ive seen this kind of discourse literally weaponized against small artists #because the people that hate them know followers and outsiders will take that inital accusation as fact and will probably never see #any retraction if one is even provided #like i still see people commenting on the dream daddy situation because they remembered that one post years ago about something that wasnt #even that bad but know the game is dead because of it #i also saw this happened with an artist recently where accusations were made about them by people that dont like them #some of the accusations werent even a bad thing but spun as evil #and some of the accusations were literally malicious #but all people saw were the baseless accusations and turned against them immediately #i saw an Instagram post thaf mentioned them and op had to put 3 dif edits going from theyre problematic to oops they actuakly didnt do #anything wrong! #but the damage was done because they took some rando saying they were problematic at face value without doing any research of their own #the opposite is when theyre irrefutable evidence about someone but everyone ignores ot because they just like them soooo much #but thats a different post for another time

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

If i had a nickle every time a huntlow shipper started a friendly conversation with me but it quickly devolved into them aggressively sending me the same 3 screenshots or repeating the same 3 ooc headcanons to convince me that the huntlow ship is canon and therefore it must be good and therefore i have to like it, i would have at least 4 nickles.

Which isnt a lot, but the fact that its happened at least 4 times means i am never going to like this ship lmao

#the owl house #toh #shut up pandora #huntlow #two of them were a lot friendlier than the two others tho #so those are the two i havent blocked #one person i did block said if i liked the show then i wasnt allowed to dislike huntlow bc thats part of the show too #which isnt how anything works #the other one whos since deactivated said i shouldnt use so much critical thinking bc it spoils everyones fun and YES I AM QUOTING THEM #the friendlier ones kept saying its totally cool if i didnt ship it but it was clear tha they wouldnt leave me alone until i did ship it #despite the fact that i said repeatedly that ppl trying to push the ship too hard was part of my problem with it in the first place #other than that the reasoning behind huntlow shippers seem to be a mixture of reading WAY too much into the bit actually in the show #not remembering their characterization outside the ship unless it helps push the ship #and a general inability to understand why someone might not like the thing they like #they assume my reasons for disliking the ship is that i dont understand why THEY personally like it #so when i say i do understand but those are the reasons i dislike it #they cant accept that and must explain it to me again #this isnt a problem inherent to likers of the huntlow ship this is just annoying ppl on the internet #but this is the most recent thing where this has happened so im grumping about it #lowhunt

[gibbearish]

inside you there are two wolves. one of them knows it's shitty to expect people to be Good Victims™ and express frustration Correctly™ so as not to offend those who haven't personally harmed them. the other knows that all the sound theory in the world won't make people like or want to listen to you when you are mean to them. you are very tired of reading vague guilt trippy posts about how people should've known about something sooner

#i guess this is in light of recent events but lets be real guilt tripping ppl for that is pretty much a staple of this site #'i see yall not reblogging this' no you very specifically don't #youre acting like you have a checklist of all your followers and are going through it checking if theyve reblogged the #reblog if youre not a homophobe post #which would be insane because. yknow. someone following you doesnt mean they automatically see every single thing you post? #it's a meaningless statement because Not Reblogging Is The Default #you can't blanket assign values to the things people Don't post because that list is Literally Infinite because You Have No Way Of Knowing #What Posts They See #'i see yall not reblogging anything about xyz' like ok are you criticizing them for not following the kinds of people that discuss #things like that or do you legit assume that just because You talk about it and they follow you they Must have seen it and deliberately not #shared it due to bigotry #because if its the first one you know you can just say That right? #and if its the second i dont rlly know what to say there beyond You Are Not The Main Character #thats also why ive never really understood people adding onto hashtag hot takes with 'i just lost x followers because of this' #like it just comes across as i guess the same general concept of virtue signalling? not the right wing version but like the actual one #its like 'this take was so hot a bunch of bigots got mad and ran away‚ look how good my take is' #when its like . do you make before and after lists between each post and go and check the blogs of the people who left to see #that their politics are ones that would make them drop you over that #or did A Number that changes all the time happen to go down Around the same time you posted a thing and you assumed they must be related #like. yeah losing followers for things you post Happens and can be seen happening sometimes but like #on the scale of 'streamer loses thousands of followers after announcing she has a boyfriend' #not . a random tumblr blog losing a literal handful of followers #like. how often are you checking your follower count to be able to trace hyperspecific trends like that #and do you think maybe that obsession with follower count might have some affect on the way you treat other people #and like yes you /can/ learn a lot by looking at the full picture of what someone chooses not to address when given the option #but that works more in relation to like. politicians and rich people dodging questions about touchy issues or your friend refusing to #watch shows with female leads without saying anything directly bad about women #less so on social media. n even then its more 'u talk abt this group often but exclusively criticism‚ never neutral or positive stuff' #negative space is defined by whats around it‚ it cant be about the notes you don't play if you don't play Any notes to begin with #btw i want to be clear that i have been aware of the bans for a long time‚ so this isnt 'stop making me feel bad abt a bad thing i did:(('

[nostomannia]

It's kinda funny.

I talk about how I don't want people to misunderstand Solita as a character. There's no easy answer to her. Where do the sins of an abuser end and the sins of the victim begin? There's no simple path forward. You can't just separate Solita from Deity, there's a long, convoluted path she has to walk to be able to walk away.

But Solita is also meant to be misunderstood. She's purposely misleading. She's a habitual liar, and not even honest to anyone, not even herself. She's confusing and unpredictable, and shapes herself to what others want her to be. A friend, an enemy, or anything in between. She's approachable and yet unreachable. An actress in life.

#I Cut My Teeth on Secondhand Sentiments || Character info #i guess people just misunderstand her the wrong way #which is a weird thing to say but like?? #i was thinking about where the sins of the parent end and the sins of the child begin bc thats something thats really prevalent in one of m #favorite characters #and i realize its a theme i find myself drawn to #and also i finally watched vio.let ev.ergarden recently and the whole thing with vio.let having to carry that guilt she has whether or not #she did it willingly/fully understanding is a theme that resonates a lot with Solita #just because deity forces her to do stuff doesnt mean that there isnt blood on her hands. #What happens to the people she had to step over without Deity's prompting? The lives she took of her own volition? #but anyway thats rambling about that one specific part of this post #Solita is complicated to her core and should never have an easy answer #if my inspo i get from O.shi n.o ko says anything lmao #A.i is not a simple character and just gives big sol vibes. a girl who wears a mask and lies as a twisted form of love

[arrowpunk]

I am beating myself over the head with a rolled up newspaper trying to get my brain to stop being paranoid and inherently suspicious of everyone.

Just because people have been terrible to me in the past and treated me like shit and only cared about me because I provided something to them does not mean Everyone I meet is like that! Friendship is a good and wonderful thing!!!! Just because I was bad at picking friends and people have taken advantage of me and my kindness does not mean everyone I will meet just wants to use and take advantage of me!

I hate how inherently suspicious I've become and I don't want to be this way but I am also so so so afraid of being hurt in the same ways again. Because there isn't much that hurts more than finding out that people you trusted and had been friends with sometimes for multiple years, only cared about you insofar as you were useful to them in some way. And then treat you like shit and toss you to the curb as soon as you are no longer capable of providing whatever it is they were using you for.

And this has happened to me... A good few times. And I feel so blind and stupid every time and it's just!!!!! Fucked me up!!! And I don't know how to recover and stop being inherently afraid of befriending people and loving people and pouring my time and effort and heart and soul into people.

#ramblings of an arrow #aaaaaaaaaaugh #I know that not everyone is like those people #its just so so so scary when the most recent person was someone I trusted sooooooo much #until suddenly the other shoe dropped #and its just that the most recent one was so scary and is still scary because they said things to other ppl I had been friends with #who just very suddenly with no warning turned around and treated me as if I was the devil incarnate #when I had literally no idea what Id done #AND STILL DONT #and im trying so so so hard not to be paranoid #but Im still so afraid itll happen again #and that people wont even try to get my perspective on things and drop me with no warning and say scathing things if I ask about it #because its happened before #and I know some ppl Im still friends with still interact at least somewhat with some of these ppl #and thats fine they can do what they want! #most ppl dont even really know what happened #but its. terrifying on my end sometimes #not knowing whats been said about me and not knowing if ppl secretly think im horrid and just wont say anything to me about it #and it makes trusting new people and trying to make new friends so fucking terrifying #because what if it turns out like that Again #what if I am a Fool again #they say no love is wasted but there really are some ppl that I used to love that I wish I had never met and never trusted and never lovef #and if I could erase the impact we had on each others lives I would in a fucking heartbeat and feel no remorse #because in the end they only made me a worse person and I only enabled their shitty behavior for way too long #and I wish I never met them because I still cant think of a single good thing that actually came from knowing them #im a worse paranoid scared suspicious person because of it and Im afraid of making new friends and I HATE being afraid to care about ppl

[meringuejellyfish]

i think the fact that witch hat atelier somewhat struggles with introducing a few too many characters at a time but then not really taking the time to fully flesh out or utilize them leaving for much to desire from characters that do appear to be quite interesting is something i consider a blunder of the series but its also rather humorous to me because i think this author just really likes character design i will be honest

#thankfully the main cast is just so wonderfully captivating and incredibly enjoyable that its not really a case of ''being stuck with boring #main characters when the side characters are infinitely more interesting'' #its more so ... characters like alaira jujy heiheart etc etc are so fun and cool and it makes me mad because i just want to know more about #them !!!!!!!please. just a little bit #when jujy (and heiheart) appeared in the recent chapters i was freaking out you guys dont know #JUJY WAS INTERACTING WITH THE OTHER APPRENTICES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!G #fucking hell man. the main four apprentices are genuinely some of my favorite characters in anything. ever #but also ... jujy could have been a main character. lol #and im a little (very!) upset that shes not when i think about it #sigh ..i cant wait for alaira and euini to reappear #with the case of alaira i actually get so so upset i wish they didnt just disappear for so many chapters without even a simple mention #i get it theyre going rouge but :-( they had the one comic where euini sends letters to richeh but we never get something like this in the #actual series #and its so strange to me. i cant keep living like this i need alaira to tell me stories about her life #i CANNOT keep making shit up about her i miss her so bad its not even fucking funny #i also ... want to see more of her and qifrey :-( i think about them sometimes #alaira is one of qifreys only and dearest friends ....i love how silly and tender their interactions are #these people dont see eachother very often but wont hesitate to joke around a bit whenever they do happen to cross paths #theyre just very comfortable around eachother #i just like how this series writes relationships between the adults its handled with such a specific care and is so natural. but thats a #whole other ramble #these are ...people

[wtylas]

im going through a very heartbreaking thing rn and theres no way to explain it without seeming deranged.

#lasi.txt #so basically: followers of this blog will know that i like the young avengers #you may also recall that theyve been living in my brain for around 2 years now #that is the topic of this post: my daydreaming #the version of the young avengers in my brain was created on purpose i think. it was supposed to be a mcu version of the ya #because i started daydreaming about them when wandavision released and i learned about tommy and billy #the original version of this was very embarassing. notes on it live in my notion. the lineup included harvey keener and many champions. #in the past 2 years that 'storyline' has remained: everything going up in my brain is a show #there are 2 seasons where season 2 is divided into A and B and there is a movie #but also i imagined so much with my lineup. thats where my daydreaming kicks in. #my characters went through everything i went through in the past 2 but as actors in their show #in doing so they became entirely different characters and little versions of me. and theyve been with me. for two. full. years. #this isnt out of the ordinary to me. before this i have 3 different daydream stories that all stuck with me for months #these are constant daydreams. im always thinking of the same little people for months at a time. #but recently a new story has taken over. its a new story im developing #i like thinking about this new story a bunch but one day i realized that i wasnt thinking about the young avengers #something about that shattered my soul inside. these characters that live inside my brain that i will never write anything with are ME. #i dont want to lose them. but this is just a natural process that my own brain. #but i dont want to move on all of a sudden. there is so much that happened in my head with the young avengers #im fighting my own brain trying to bring back things my brain itself made but that my brain itself is trying to take away #i will probably think about the jewel guard (new story) for a few months if not years. but god.. #and im not thinking of them anymore and i keep trying to and i just cant. im losing them #the feeling of my characters (that are not even mine) being taken away makes me want to throw up #these characters were ME. i gave them EVERYTHING. i gave them my fears and they turned them into confidence. #and let me remind you: this is all in my own brain. #goddddd. this is why the base text of this post is what it is cuz i really do sound crazy omg #there really is no way to explain all of this without sounding crazy