#not sure about how i feel about this piece because. it is kinda bad imo??? AGGIDSITSTSHD

[distorted-graffiti]

the first rule of color theory is to have fun and be yourself

#this one is kinda old :I oh well! #tf2 #tf2 french toast #spypyro #pyrospy #not sure about how i feel about this piece because. it is kinda bad imo??? AGGIDSITSTSHD #midnight post so no one sees it 🫶 #undescribed

[snapscube]

So you mentioned the Amazing Spider-man movies, what are your thoughts on them? For me; I was pleasantly surprised by 1 AND 2. Like 2 is bad, real bad, but the jokes were legit, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are just...an amazing on screen couple and until the transformation Harry is a really fun villain....just sucks that most of the movie is exposition about peoples relationships to one another or experiments done mostly off screen.

TASM1 is perfectly serviceable as a standalone project and was definitely not the worst jumping off point, but it struggles to really properly understand Spider-Man/Peter as a personality. Peter absolutely doesn't have to be a goody two-shoes loser, all of the best adaptations of Peter imo can have some serious attitude and grit to their persona, but TASM1 kinda over-corrects on the Tobey Maguire "shy nerd" angle by making Spidey a bit too much of a dick. I remember the movie getting a lot of praise for finally making Spider-Man funny and quippy, praise I similarly gave at the time, but it really... doesn't do that nearly as much as ppl gave it credit for??? There's like ONE scene where Spider-Man is kinda jokey with someone he suspects to be Ben's killer, but that scene kinda stinks because he's not quipping as much as he's like actively cruel lmao. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone had great chemistry though and you can tell Marc Webb knew his stuff when it came to directing that kind of romantic tension, seeing as how his previous project was 500 Days of Summer. All-in-all, it's a Fine movie but it's not a fantastic adaptation of the things I personally like about Spider-Man.

TASM2 is so much more intriguing to me to watch and to talk about. It's genuinely baffling how that movie ended up like it did, but in a way that almost anyone could have predicted. That movie STINKS. It's really really bad. But it also has kind of the opposite problem to TASM1 in that... TASM1 is a good movie that doesn't properly showcase the character of Spider-Man, whereas TASM2 is a garbage movie that features some of the best live action Spider-Man scenes/setpieces we had seen and would ever see to this day. It's sincerely tragic how many great INDIVIDUAL MOMENTS are in that movie, and how loosely connected they are by some monumentally stupid studio meddling. That movie has everything going in its favor with Andrew Garfield in the lead, the best live action Spider-Man suit to this day, the most thrilling and well rendered swinging sequences put to film, and the occasional glimpse of a true Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man that is down on the ground connecting with and watching over not just the city itself but the people within it. There's a montage in the middle of the movie that features Spider-Man on his daily patrol and he comes across as just so PRESENT and on the same level as the people he protects, meanwhile in the audio track you hear newscasters and interviews fiercely debating whether or not what he does is actually worthwhile. And that shit HITS. But unfortunately that kind of stuff is still too rare and it far overshadowed by Sony desperately trying to make a Spidey Cinematic Universe without earning it. Ultimately they had all of the pieces to make a truly definitive adaptation of Spidey that I feel like almost anyone could get behind, but they just... couldn't. Even Spider-Man PS4, commonly lauded as one of the most definitive Spidey stories of all time, uses SO MUCH of the same DNA of the Amazing Spider-Man films, but the difference is that it had the space to be only exactly what it needed to be. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyway I could talk more about this for sure but I'm looking at the length of this write-up and wincing already LOL.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

re: last reblog i do think people complaining about “predictable” twists/reveals that were well foreshadowed (or straight up clearly communicated but not verbally stated) is silly and annoying but idk if i think it’s like all causally attributable to “bad faith criticism.” a few thoughts, no grand thesis:

(1) i really do believe that sometimes people sense that something didn’t work but can’t really identify or articulate things problems with structure or form or execution, and then just sort of glom on to something that feels like it has explanatory power. an example here in the house of fuck jj abrams is how many people complained (often even as they said they mostly liked it) that the problem with the force awakens was that it was too much a retread of a new hope. the problem with the force awakens as i have articulated many times is that it’s a piece of shit idiot movie made by a guy who literally fundamentally fails to understand how narrative or movies work more than i genuinely think anyone else in hollywood. it does ape a new hope shamelessly, but it also does it stupidly and blindly, with a misapprehension that the important things about that movie are things like “desert planet” and “seedy bar” and not, like, connecting the dots on a functional story populated by characters with recognizable and easily legible motivations and relationships. it felt stale and boring because it’s not a story, it’s an expensively assembled gifset with a soundtrack. you could change every one of the things people complain about being too similar to a new hope and i feel fairly confident most people would not like it any better because the issue is not that it’s familiar, it’s that it sucks. (further evidence for this hypothesis is to be found IMO in the fact that even last jedi’s many haters never seem to accuse it to be too similar to empire strikes back, even though it is in fact deliberately extremely structurally similar to empire - i think you can argue it has more in common with empire than force awakens has with a new hope! starting ofc with how they are both good.)

anyway. so i think probably sometimes a movie/book/show/etc is actually just kinda mid or bad and people feel that but haven’t thought too much about why but, sure, “predictable” works. but i bet there are people who complain movies are predictable but also have liked movies they did in fact successfully predict the twists/reveals of, and they’ve never really thought about why it is that sometimes something being predictable is fine and sometimes it’s annoying. as a personal example i know that one of my complaints about avatar back when i saw it in theaters was that it was predictable. in retrospect i would not say that being predictable is root problem that avatar has, and there are absolutely movies as predictable as avatar i have enjoyed. but predictability stood out then because i’m not trying to be a hipster that was really one of the most excruciating experiences i’ve ever had in theaters and the fact that i could tell what was coming did exacerbate how dull and annoying the movie already was.

what i’m saying in this point is that i don’t think everyone who complains about predictability is someone actually in practice liking things less for being predictable.

(2) someone a while ago told me they mostly don’t like movies because they’re too good at figuring out what’s going to happen, which is about as alien a way of engaging with art as i can imagine, but just take me on my word that i do not think this is a person whose issue is they have read too much bad faith criticism. i think they just don’t get the same kind of emotional and aesthetic experiences i get out of movies and i can’t judge them for that because i am a person incapable of being moved by things like painting or sculpture, incapable of responding emotionally or aesthetically to cartoons by adults, and allergic to almost all poetry. like for some people i think “what surprising thing is gonna happen?” just authentically is the site of their pleasure from movies and i think that’s fine because it literally doesn’t matter. one time a guy told me he liked video games better than novels because with video games you get the story and the craft of the gameplay mechanics and like i cannot imagine that but i also can’t imagine playing a video game for fun period so like whatever. it takes all kinds.

(3) sometimes you have the issue where the movie/show foreshadows heavily (or leaves you without alternate options) and then tries dramatically to play the reveal/twist like a big shock. in this case i think the complaint is more or less fair game although this is also kind of a subset of (1) where the issue is a structural misalignment around the goals here (ie pick a lane).

(4) tbh some shows or franchises have trained their viewers to respond this way and i think in this case the complaint is also fair bc they deserve what they get. play stupid games win stupid prizes.

[stillness138]

visual/art things in the Hades 2 technical test i don't like

it was said and is being said already that most of the character sprites have less dynamic poses, or that Aphrodite's face looks, for the lack of a better term, yassified,... it's actually quite a frequent topic in the tag. and i think looking closely despite the excitement is a good excercise! so let's.

i've seen a sentiment that everyone has been made (more, in some cases) conventionally attractive, and i disagree with that a little bit. depends on your definition of convention, but while it's a look popular with many, i wouldn't say Hecate's abs for example are necessarily mainstream. another point i've seen was that Demeter looks younger. i kinda agree, but i don't think it's intentional, because it's quite subtle. she's mostly just missing the defined cheekbones.

the thing about this game's art seems to be that it's a little less sharp, the lines are thinner, shadows are smoother. i think it's an attempt to look more detailed and realistic compared to the first game. i'm not sure how i feel about it. i understand the want to improve or change up, but at the same time the lack of hard shadows and highlights, while it might come across as more realistic, also leaves the sprites a little bland. and i was going to bring up Poseidon as an example where the newer style fits in with visibly older sprites, but he still feels noticeably different in how he's shaded compared to say Moros.

i also agree that the poses are simpler and in most cases less dynamic; Mel is fine and the fact she can change during dialogue adds to it, Hecate looks good too. Nemesis is justifiable since she seems to be standing guard. i think they're simpler maybe because now everyone has a detailed environment backdrop as well, it's especially bold in the olympians' case, but i do hope characters revealed in the future have more dramatic or interesting poses. Selene gives me some hope.

Artemis is definitely unfinished. her sprite lacks any bolder linework or shadows, the coloring is very dull. it really sticks out like a sore thumb as of now. but her boon icons having those letters, likely placeholders too, make it more apparent that she's not finalized yet.

now, this might be controversial, but...i don't like Apollo's design that much. in his case, i definitely wish he had a cooler pose, for his bow/lyre to be a lot more prominent. the outfit is fine, i'm kinda on the edge about it. on one hand, all the colors and shapes work, on the other, maybe not together? but what makes it all bad for me is his actual appearance. i wish his hair was wilder, actually committed to it, and brighter. i wish he wore either more elaborate jewelry or more of detailed armor pieces. i wish he had heavy freckles, vitiligo or some other skin condition to reference the surface of the sun. i think in part this is definitely a case of being spoiled by fanart, but yeah. i'm not vibing with him as much as i hoped i would. i like this design because while the outfit isn't detailed, the freckles and pose make up for it. the hair, choppy like irregular sunrays, is cool too. this one i like too, it's less crazy but still has its own flair, distinct from the rest of the first game, and the lyre/bow design is beautiful. this one is a bit out there but it's pretty cool as well imo, with apparent callbacks to Artemis in hair texture, birthmarks/crests, and the shoulder pelt.

lastly though, Aphrodite. the good! referencing Ares's warpaint is sweet. i like the armor pieces. in general the pose is tasteful, and the long ass banners coming from her spear kinda add some needed drama to it. the spear and shield themselves have nice designs in line with Aphro's overall aesthetic. but the bad... i don't like her face all that much either when compared to her sprite from the first game. there, i liked that her lips aren't exaggerated in any way. compare that to Athena (her shade of lipstick is absolutely amazing tho). but it felt more, i dunno, like trying to convey some natural beauty? in 2, she got that barbie doll treatment. reminds me of witcher 3 female npcs' faces and that is not a good thing. people have said that she looks thinner - her arms definitely do. and maybe because of that they also seem a bit too long to me. she suffers from the lack of hard shadows and highlights a lot, putting both her sprites next to each other really shows the difference in approach. like, overall it's a pretty and perfectly fine sprite, but...there is a but. a part of that but is definitely our expectations and uncertainty about the new direction the sprite art seems to be going in. to give nuance to the other side, we're also still in a pre-early access stage. on the other hand, the other olympians we've seen don't look unfinished the way Artemis does and it's quite likely these sprites is what we'll go into full release with. there was no reason to change Aphrodite's face, and we're allowed to not like it. leaving well-meaning feedback can be effective! and i would encourage it. with emphasis on well-meaning.

i also think the icon for gold in Hades 2 should be just a single coin, because a little hoard of them looks too much like the moly flower icon from a distance.

#shut up elis #hades 2 #well-meaning because SG has been very understanding about datamined assets getting out into the wild #it's fair if we express disagreement the same way

[kane-the-fed-pinkerton-tulpa]

not cancelling or calling for a boycott but in light of evidence actually materializing about tsr's author im not sure im going to continue to run this blog

the things presented and allegations don't fall into 'truly awful/shut the whole thing down right this instant' imo but more and more "serial asshole (from just ass)/weird things about non-gay mlm" territory.

im not posting sources or planning on discussing these things (as again they're not EXTREME), only on what i do next regarding this blog. if you're concerned/interested in what's being said, go to twitter and look up the author's username. there are a handful of threads compiling this stuff.

this isn't a call to action or indictment (see the words allegations and evidence presented) and the author or echo project hasn't responded. there's more context to just screenshots, but even then there's a sufficient amount 'mmhh this is odd' stuff even if it's all explained 'with' a full contextual analysis IMO

im choosing to step back and see where things go/if anything changes or is at least said/acknowledged.

The situation is complicated too because a lot of things posted were either outright fabricated and up to taste/hyperbole, or completely out of the scope (IMO) of whether or not something is "problematic" . there's also shades of grey to the things that have happened that i witnessed personally (so its something im willing to discuss)

ie fat murdoch edit: the image was, very much so, imo a piece of fat fetish art. (this isnt an assignment of moral good/bad. its a statement of subjective fact). an admin of a server (tsrs author) asked OP to move it to a thread dedicated to fat fetish material. IMO, he was kinda rude about it, but the words "kinda rude" are key. OP reacted negatively, but IMO with hyperbole, so the situation got heated.

So while this isn't something truly terrible, to me, and the other allegations and evidence are more serious (but not EXTREME), there's been enough of instances of "hey this is kinda odd/rude" for things to remain comfortable for me.

ill be blunt and ill say that ever since i saw interactions with the author, he's looked like kinda of an asshole. i think he has some interesting things to say and some unique viewpoints on some events/things that have happened and shares those in an interesting way (outside of being an author for this vn i really enjoy) so i just dealt with him being an asshole by rolling my eyes or talking in closed/private instances and going "oh my gawd he's an ass lawl" and moving on with me life. most of the time he's pedantic and kinda whiney in online discourse BUT i say this in his defense because I feel like some of the allegations/evidence are chalked up to how he reacts negatively and not outright demonstrable actions/beliefs

maybe that's a copt out? maybe these patterns mean something or more? i dont know. though, with things shown to me, and things prior, I don't think we have a case of "cancel this man's entire career, body of work, and banish him from the internet and entire furry community immediately and forever!"

i think not wanting to associate with him or his work is understandable. i think stopping and looking and thinking, and waiting for a response is reasonable. I don't think harassment campaigns or like genuine bullying is reasonable (at the point we're at. if it comes out tomorrow he's, idk, fucking killed someone maybe we can do that)

There's some other things i find distasteful about the situation too, but this post is long enough. i'm hoping we can act like adults about where we find ourselves as a fan community though. Including as Echo Project fans, TSR fans, FVN fans, and even as members of the wider Furry Community

[bbnibini]

(on anon bc I’m [a] chicken fr) but if you don’t mind me thought dumping here— I completely agree with your post (https://www.tumblr.com/bbnibini/741454154343514112/solomon-unrequited-unless-reassured-and?source=share ). Sol is definitely all of those things 😭 Elle and works-of-Elle you a real one for that. I just think it’s kinda funny how imo I personally do many of those things (besides the side character in own love story because that’s technically what I made myself be lol), and though I’m (unfortunately) down bad for this guy I feel like b/c of these similarities I wouldn’t be a good fit for him. ngl he would be happier with someone else and that’s all I want, for him to stop fucking suffering while alive, for him to get the security he deserves from someone who can give security so much better b/c they’re not insecure asf and don’t have a heap of mental issues that would need looking after…

Idk, just conflicting feelings :’)

(Also feel free to not respond to this lol. This turned out longer than I expected 😭)

Ify, ify. I get really nervous messaging and being messaged by people too. social anxiety aaaaa

Aww I can understand that! I don't think I can offer the best advice with romantic relationships since I don't really feel the need to be in romantic relationships(I prefer being single even if a romantic interest presents itself. Even if the romantic interest is someone I do love in a romantic way;;it's an ace thing it's hard to describe dsfjdskf) but I do get the feeling of wanting the people I love or care about to be happy.

Back when I was a little younger, I did feel something a bit similar(?). It's the whole detachment, the isolating feeling of Oh, I'm okay now, but I could not escape the fact that something was "wrong" with me before: because I had been "broken" and I had no choice but to piece myself together over the years, it looks poorly done. Chipped up. I can see the lines where the glue holds everything together. What if I fall apart? It's not your responsibility to fix me. I love you too much to see you go through what I went through.

One of my favourite translated books define it as the kind of love that is like "I love you but this has nothing to do with you." And for me is what that one Mitski song is.

I don't really think this fits exactly what you described. But I wish you the best, anon! And hey, you can ship yourself with any of the dateables you want! c: Solomon would surely find you lovely and wonderful! <3

#solomon is just a sad and tragic figure even outside of obey me #even his names (yes. names. he had quite a few) and their origins are kinda...tragic #you know those people with their destinies foreshadowed in their names? #yeah...i won't yap much about his name origins but it's sad if you do take the time to look up and read about it #obey me solomon #ask #sorry if it's not exactly the answer you're looking for #i don't really self-ship in otomes but i do love reading everyone else's yumeships!! i love love<3 <3

[writingmoth]

writing with "vibes" in mind is completely underrated tbh

ive thinking a lot about this bc ive playing a lot of games that use vibes to tell the story/to make gameplay moments stand out. and listen, i know games =\= books, but!!! i think it has merit.

under read more bc it got rambly. its just me wondering aloud about ways to write.

example 1: ffxiv, a fantasy mmorpg that relies HEAVILY on story. it's been out for more than 10 years, so the story is huuuuuuge (i spent like a month and a half just catching up when i started playing two years ago). there are callbacks to the base game in a expansion that came out 9 years after said base game. it makes the whole thing feel like a expertly drawn web of plotlines and characters... except that isn't that case at all. the writers have mentioned multiple times that things that happened in the third expansion (6 years in) weren't planned from the beginning. that is, they just threw paint at the wall back in the base game bc the colors (vibes) looked cool. they just had enough skill to make a painting out of it later.

i guess having a good grasp of your story's themes helps a lot with that, too, now that i think about it. it assures that the colors are at least complimentary when you are slinging them about at the start of the story.

example 2: destiny, which is a completely different game. destiny doesnt use story the same way ffxiv does, though it is important (somewhat)... but lore is where the vibes come in to play for destiny imo. they do so much with so little. still using the painting analogy, it's almost like negative space art - they fill in just enough to give you an idea of the figure but not nearly as much as you would need to discern the details. and still the world feels vast. most of the time you are shooting aliens while wielding space magic, but every weapon, gear, etc has its own lore piece, and whole plotlines/characters that never show up in game or in the main story can be told through them. it's basically just vibes - aesthetic, some character moments, letters/logs, etc. and it works! the world feels lived in, most of the characters are well defined and even though sometimes the main story kinda drags, there is enough to keep you interested.

(it kinda reminds me of how i write description, which i've talked about before, but for the lucky ones who don't follow my rambling nonsense on this blog: i have a lot of trouble visualizing places or people when writing (or reading tbh) so i usually use a lot of atmosphere and emotion to mask the fact that i have no fucking clue what this very important place/person looks like. )

there are cons and pros to this approach. by being so vague and focusing on small bits that seem an ocean apart, the game gives just enough for the player to fill in the blanks themselves. that is good, because then the player is more likely to fill said blanks with stuff they like. it ends up being more of collaborative effort - and i'm sure the writers behind the game use the players' "headcanons" as some sort of thermometer for what/how to write next. so its writers and players feeding off each other's ideas in a way.

buuuuut.... it can also be pretty bad. you risk never committing to a vision or plotline by writing like this. nothing is ever set in stone. retconning, which isn't bad by itself, can happen way too much to be acceptable. if something can end up being anything, what is the point of it existing anyway? why should you care if the spine behind isn't well formed enough to carry the story later?

another danger is that the actual canon and the player's canon can end up being way too different in the end. maybe you meant to write the story this way... but the player filled the blanks just differently enough that "this way" ends up being unsatisfying and wrong.

but the biggest problem, for me, is risking never getting a proper resolution. since so many story moments and worldbuilding elements end up coming from "vibes", you risk relying way too much on the rule of cool.... which sets up a lot of stuff, usually, but never concludes them. that's also my biggest problem with asoiaf, for example - so much of that series is about building up tension, foreshadowing certain battles or encounters or whatever... that the payoff is almost never there (which is only made worse by the loooong time between book releases). it gets to a point that nothing the author comes up with will satisfy what the reader is expecting of the story.

"vibes" (or themes & aesthetics if you will) do a wonderful job of touching a reader's (or player's) strings with imagery, emotion and promise. but whatever comes from it needs to be tied up into an actual storyline (most of the time, at least). ffxiv managed to pull it off with its last two expansions but destiny stumbled a bit with its last one. players were expecting SO much of lightfall after the expansion before it, witch queen, since it managed to nail both vibes and plot. witch queen and the seasons (kind of episodes) after it setup SO much stuff. it promised a lightfall that would be an explosion - a much waited confrontation between the players and the villain, answers given, mysteries solved... and it did nothing of the sort. confusion and anger soon followed.

which is to say... vibes can be very helpful when you pause to interrogate why they interest you so much. why do you like this particular aesthetic, this imagery, this turn of phrase? some elements just pull you in and its fine to go and write a chapter or scene that is basically just you going "wow this is SO cool" even though you have no clear idea why. it's just the vibes it gives. it just presses your right buttons.

... but you will need to wrap them up into something coherent eventually. and for writers i think it's easier - usually "later" just means "once the first draft is done" aka "no one but your trusted betas will ever have to glance at this mess". for live service games like ffxiv or destiny - or even regular rpgs like dragon age or mass effect - it can be very dangerous. writers come and go. turns out that vibes-fuelled story point someone cleared for release 4 years ago doesn't make sense after all! and yeah, hyping up certain characters and plot elements seemed like a great idea for player retention 6 months ago, but what the hell do we do now?

it's too late - the players have already played the thing, they have VERY strong emotions about the thing and they are waiting impatiently for you make the resolution of said thing awesome. and you've got no clue of how to meet said expectations.

(having said all that, i do believe authors can all fall prey to this in non-standalone works too. but we usually have the ability/autonomy to make hard decisions, which video game writers of huge ips like destiny/ffxiv/dragon age/etc usually don't have.)

and of course, using vibes can go very wrong in other ways. you know the negative art destiny does with its worldbuilding/characters? i think books can go way too hard in the opposite direction. i felt this way when reading stuff like acotar, for example. the story wanted to give me certain vibes BADLY, because vibes work!, but i could see right through it (and this is my opinion!) and there was no meat below the all the fanfarre.

sometimes your characters just havent earned the cool/interesting moments.

anyway!! tldr: ive been thinking a lot about just going with the vibes for my wip and i think that's a pretty neat idea actually!! sometimes tending to your darlings can lead to interesting realizations about your story's themes that you otherwise would not notice by being too stuck to rigid plotting and too much rationalization (does it advance the plot? is this scene truly necessary? how is this developing the main character? etc) - but only when you interrogate them enough to find that out and use this newfound knowledge to enhance the story in a revision/another draft.

#ffxiv and destiny released new stuff in the same day last week and now i have Thoughts(tm) #ren.txt #ffxiv #destiny #writing #idk how to tag this its just rambly nonsense ;-;

[turtlemagnum]

ok so, yugioh is essentially a fantasy story, right? perhaps an urban fantasy of sorts, but given how the final parts take place in a magical recreation of ancient egypt where the pharoah is transported back into it forced to relive those events, with said events including having a team of literal mages who use actual magic, all without even having to use trading cards!! like yeah that's fantasy, just one that centers ancient egypt as opposed to an ancient europe/vaguely europe knockoff setting. what i'm getting at here is, you know how in fantasy stories that involve a king in some form in a positive manner, you've just gotta sorta suspend your disbelief that monarchy is on some level legitimate and that the monarch isn't inherently a massive piece of shit just for being in an innately authoritarian position. and that's fine, you can do that, and you just gotta hope that your audience can discern for themselves that while monarchy sucks irl, you don't gotta worry about that here because it's, y'know, fiction. imo it's just something best left unaddressed if that's the kinda story you're going for, though personally that's not the kind of story i intend on telling, but that's besides the point. what really sucks, and often does the opposite of the intended effect for me, is when the story tries to justify the monarchy, or at least the specific monarch. like no no no you dont understand bro, the pharoah's actually a really cool guy, it's just his scheming advisor that did all that evil stuff that made the bad guy, he didn't even know that he did that dude. if you've read yugioh, you know what i'm alluding here assuming you have a decent recollection of the ending arc. the pharoah (and his father before him) were honest to god genuinely good guys, and the reason the thief king's village got murdelized was because of a scheming advisor, and of course this happened before the pharoah even came to the throne, and of course his father didn't even know that this happened, much less giving the kill order himself. and we're expected to just accept this, when the series starts up with the pharoah finding basically any excuse to do some fucked up shit to someone. and like, within the narrative they deserve it, and it's satisfying, but to be blunt i dont think setting two hoodlums on fire was a proportionate response to them beating up a kid and taking his money. like yeah, that's a fucked up thing to do to a kid, but it's a relatively normal teenage boy kinda fucked up, setting them on fire is serial killer fucked up. like, i've been on fire. that shit hurts. so while i don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that a monarch in fiction is a decent guy, i feel like it doesn't mesh well with how yami comes out of the box a fucked up gremlin freak, and even setting aside that, i think it would've been more interesting if, in life, the pharoah was kind of a piece of shit. hear me out here: as the series goes on, the pharoah definitely mellows out and slowly becomes a better, kinder person. i'm not sure it would've even been intended as a redemption arc, but i like the idea that being around yugi just slowly made him into a decent goddamn human being. if memory serves, it felt like a very natural transition. i think i'm comfortable saying that yami was a good person by the time we get to the last arc. so, imagine if it really did turn out that in life, he was a piece of shit, and now he has to reconcile his fucked up past with how he's grown and changed in the intervening millenia. you could even take it from the perspective that for the most part, it wasn't even a matter of active cartoonish villainy, just how he ruled his kingdom, enforced its law and order, and he's bad just due to the inherent violence in such an act. personally i think it'd make the most sense as a bit of a column a column b thing, but both result in what i'd consider to be a much more compelling character arc; one that we wouldn't even be fully aware of until the very end

[batterygarden]

Hi mosie :') I'm sorry for not frequently talking, Just had a massive breakdown over My college applications, i didn't pass and I still have no school

How are you feeling? May I request some dumbahh Denji if that's okay❤️

-mystery anon

Hehe here’s Denji after losing a bet:

“It is done!”

Your voice from down the hall sounds too excited, too upbeat, Denji thinks, for the situation at hand. Because the finished product you’re referring to is not something to be celebrated like some kind of baked good or art piece, but melted wax. Meant for none other than Denji’s hairy legs :(

You watch him scrub his palms in his eyes like he’s exhausted when you walk in the room with your wax jar, or maybe like he hopes that he’s dreaming, before whining a little when a container of glossy blue liquid is set in front of him.

“That stuff looks like it doesn’t belong near the human body. D’ya know for sure it’s not radioactive or something?”

“Of course it isn’t! People do this all the time.”

Denji releases the type of sigh that sounds like it comes from his soul, before he’s rolling up his basketball shorts and letting his back thud against the floor, face in hands.

“Geez Denji. I’m certain it won’t hurt as bad as you think it will.”

He shakes his head before shooting you a look that pleads mercy—the kind you think a patient might give their surgeon before going under. You fight back a laugh.

“I don’t believe you. But the pain’s whatever--like, T’s not even the biggest problem. I’m thinking about after—my legs are gonna look all dainty and smooth for a month!”

You give him a frown and open your mouth to cut him off but then he sits up like he just thought of something.

“‘N what if someone notices that chainsaw man’s legs have no hair?! What’ll that say about him? ‘The nation’s hero succumbs to unhealthy beauty standards’ ugh could you imagine that headline?”

You can only stare at him for a bit, unsure if laughing at his thought process would be too mean. You manage to fight back your giggle with a cough before resting a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Baby. Nobodies gonna think you’re upholding toxic beauty standards, I promise. Let’s just get this over with, you’ll be fine.”

He nods and slowly lays back down, gripping onto the carpet beneath him like a lifeline.

You smooth a popsicle stick of hot wax over his thigh before he can protest further, and he flinches but otherwise remains complaintless. You notice his face looks a bit pale when you place the wax paper.

“Alright, on three.”

He whimpers.

“One. Two—“ you tear the strip with all your might before you can get to three.

Denji yelps louder than you’ve heard him since you scared him hiding in the closet on Halloween. Then he pants like he just ran a marathon, sitting up to survey the damage.

“Fuuuuck. Wheeew. That wasn’t so bad. Oh god I’m so red though! why’m I so red?”

“Your skin’s just a little irritated! It’s fine, look!”

You show him the strip of now-hairy wax and he frowns when he sees.

“This is. What’s the word? This is barbaric.”

You giggle and start mixing up the container with a fresh popsicle stick.

BABY I missed this but AUUGH not the college apps I’m so sorry to hear they’ve been stressful and I hope you figured out a plan that works for u!! I wish the act of attaining schooling wasn’t so unnecessarily tough >:( , I prommy it’ll all work out in the end. As for me honestly I’ve been… good :O !! Idk winter was like rlly hard this year so summer has been unbelievably refreshing. I remain terminally busy balancing work and social life and family stuff etc but Im lowkey stable rn so. Anyways It was kinda cool coming back to writing some Denji stuff after so long… I STILL LOVE HIM SO BAD UGH I LOVE HIM FOREVER. My thing w him is that he like. Deserves my loyalty yk! Like no character deserves loyal fans as much as that guy imo so I’m simply never going to stop loving him even though I get new fixations..

#denji fluff #an ask <3 #denji thots ♥️ #mystery anon <3 #I saw this yesterday but actually waited to post till csm Tuesday >:) #u don’t need to apologize also whaaa

[inkdemonapologist]

I was wondering, what are your thoughts and opinions on Thomas Connor? And Scott if you've read TLO?

Oh man. THATS PRETTY BROAD, THIS WILL BE, UH, A LONG ANSWER!! Thomas Connor is REALLY POTENTIALLY INTERESTING in TLO, too… like, he’s being affected by the Ink, right? That’s what’s happening? That’s why he’s still working on this dang machine and can’t seem to articulate the “why” to his girlfriend? ANYWAY,

I’ll start with Scott because: I don’t have a lot of thoughts about Scott! He’s fine. Neat that there’s more GENT folks than just Thomas. I like his horrible driving. He lost his mind pretty generically so that wasn’t really compelling to me. THATS IT, THATS ALL I HAVE FOR SCOTT.

Thomas Connor as a human is the more intriguing version of him to me, though his portrayal is, uh, sort of all over the place? A lot of BatIM interpretation involves taking the things that the different characters say about each other and sort of adding up a cobbled-together picture of what they might’ve been like and how they might’ve interacted with each other, but if you try to add Thomas up this way it’s even more of a mess than Sammy is imo. 

There’s a pretty solid characterisation for a bunch of it – he has this great, tired, Tech Support Guy Trying To Explain For The Fifth Time Why An Email Can’t Physically Deliver Cash energy that I love, grumbling about how corners are being cut and Mr. Drew is asking the impossible, but he’s also regretfully complicit as the person who understands best what they’ve done, getting a bad feeling about it all in the BatDR tape, haunted by what he’s created in DCTL, and flipping back and forth between desperately justifying his work on the machine and growling that he really, REALLY ought to destroy it in TLO. I genuinely like his characterisation in the novels; I ran into a comment on tiktok once describing him as “the only valid man” in DCTL and I think about that CONSTANTLY LMAO. Rough and intimidating and demanding but with a sense of… responsibility and duty that few characters in BatIM have, smothered into inaction by his conflicted feelings.

Also, like, Thomas has PTSD, right, from serving in the war? That’s why he gets so tense every time anyone touches him unexpectedly? It never explicitly says this but it was the way I immediately read that detail.

But then when you try to put everything together, it doesn’t add up. The ink seems way more out of control for his BatIM audiologs than it is in DCTL, yet he just grumbles about doing jobs for Joey like he’s casually annoyed at his boss, and his report about creating Bendy doesn’t have any of the recognition or horror of what he’s done, just a sort of a “huh, that’s kinda spooky” vibe, which is strange held up against how much turmoil he’s obviously feeling in DCTL. And then what’s going on with the BatDS audiologs? Are we meant to see Thomas as the toolbelt thief in Shawn’s, because that sure doesn’t match, uh, ANYTHING else we know about him??? Thinking you can just wear the thing you stole to the place you stole it from is either stupidly self-centered or deliberate bullying, and both are so hard to reconcile with what we know of Thomas that “some other Gent employee we’ve never seen did that” honestly makes more sense. Thomas comandeering the coat closet and claiming it’s a “laboratory” is less wildly outlandish but like, still weird to try to mash into everything else we know about him?

It just feels like, while there’s the broad strokes of an interesting character here, the creators have never really nailed down who he is behind the scenes, so with every new piece of information he just becomes whoever they want him to be in that moment, rather than new pieces of info revealing this person’s character.

Thomas Connor as a toon is… I don’t care for him.

On the surface, it seems like he should appeal – gruff guy who knows more than the others but, frustratingly, can’t communicate it? THATS MY KINDA TROPE! But Tom makes so little sense and has so little reason to be here that it’s hard for me to really get invested.

There’s no reason, narratively, for Tom to even be Thomas Connor instead of a random badass Boris. Him remembering his name is potentially interesting, but doesn’t go anywhere; he’s just defined by being Aggressive and Tough and overprotective of Allison in a way that would raise red flags in any human relationship. We don’t know what it is he knows, or what he wants, or what he thinks Henry is. There’s no personal connection to his human self – his knowledge of the Machine or the Demon or any of the things he really should have strong opinions about – but there’s not a strong contrast with him, either; still just grumpy and irritable, but now he’s met with an unfortunate fate. I’m not convinced that there was ever any mystery or motive intended behind the Connors – it seems more like they were added to the last chapter just to make sure we still had a Boris and an Alice in the game after the other ones were killed off, and their main distinguishing quality was “they’re sooooo badass, isn’t that cool and ironic for toons to be?” 

Anyway, I've seen fan stuff (New Soul AU, La Vie En Noir) that takes them at face value and makes it compelling, but my favourite take on them is that they’re kind of putting on an act. Both Allison and Tom read as being so, like, tropey in a generic way – the things they say and the way they behave is very shallow, defaulting to cliche, and doesn’t make a lot of sense when examined – and so the idea that Allison and Tom are doing an intentional good cop/bad cop routine with Henry, not telling him the whole truth, playing up what they think he’ll expect them to be, appeals to me a lot more, and feels like it has more connection to their human selves.

DCTL added a lot of humanity to these characters that just didn’t seem to be there – Thomas’ overwhelming guilt and Allison’s flippant charm finally raise the question of… what happened? What did you lose? What are you two up to, really? …And then it also added something more complicated:

Is Thomas Connor black???

I don’t think this is as conclusive in the text as it’s sometimes made out to be. The line that started this whole thing can be read a couple of ways: “I wonder if Sammy just does this, or if it’s only when he’s talking to women (Abby) and black people (Thomas)” or “Sammy did this to a white person (Thomas) so maybe he just does this, but… I wonder if this is the kind of discrimination my friends told me about.” Technically, the second one makes more sense and is a less troubling reading – we already know Sammy calls Mr. Drew “Joey”, but this reading would imply that even if it’s a habit, that doesn’t make THIS instance okay. Based on the rest of DCTL, a book that seems to be genuinely trying to inject humanity and diversity into a franchise that lacks it, I don’t think the author would’ve shied away from having Thomas obliquely imply being black in his final conversation with Buddy if that had been intended – I think there's a good chance the clumsiness here may have been simply leaving “Thomas is white” assumed.

But, I, like a lot of fan creators, still portray him as black, which… was a choice I thought a lot about. The thing is, in the context of the novels, Thomas being black is kind of great – he’s a complex character with a lot of depth, and he’s not just a big angry guy; as much as he’s gruff and prickly, he’s deliberate and thoughtful with his actions and words, and his personality honestly comes across as a bit of a nerd despite the fact that people keep being intimidated by his being physically buff. He’s the genius behind the machine, who’s realised what that means and struggles to know what to do with the unexpected horrible responsibility it brings. His whole backstory – someone who served in the war, presumably was well-regarded for his skill, but then came home to find no one willing to treat him as the brilliant engineer he was until he met Joey Drew, a man who canonically hires quite progressively – fits really nicely with his demand to be respected as a professional. It would be a shame to dump all of that just because it makes Sammy messier. Thomas Connor is INTERESTING, in a way that fits into history but doesn’t slot into stereotypes… until you get to the games, where he’s transformed into a cartoon dog that’s almost exclusively defined by being physically violent, threatening, and possessive of his girl, which ISNT GREAT. And if Shawn’s line in his BatDS audiolog is meant to refer to a black man… it becomes a slur.

That’s way beyond troubling if it’s intended – and if Thomas IS black, canonically, that’s something that the creators really do need to address. This sort of thing is why a content creator can’t just leave it up to fans to headcanon characters however they want and call that diversity – because the creator has to think about the choices they’re making and the consequences they’ll have in context. But for me, person making fan content who didn’t create the character… in the end, I favoured the novel over the game. The game is already steeped in a lot of iffy tropes, and Allison and Tom’s part in it is so uninteresting to me that I much prefer the idea that they were both putting on an act. Ultimately, bending over backwards to headcanon the Shawn audiolog as being about Wally is a small price to pay for keeping this version of Thomas from the novel that I got a lot more attached to.

I share all this because TLO does something… interesting.

Scott specifically mentioning they’ll be meeting Thomas in Northside (which my quick googling identifies as having, historically, a largely African American population), and then calling attention to it by asking Bill if that would make him uncomfortable, creates a weird little arrow pointing at this detail that’s hard to ignore. There’s no other narrative reason for this aside, it never goes anywhere and Bill never puts together what Scott meant. It seems like the sort of thing we’re usually supposed to read into in these novels, but it’s also… hidden.

It’s still absolutely worth critiquing the problems with making Thomas Connor a black man. And it’s impossible to truly know the author’s motives from the text. But after the company has steadfastly refused to give any explicit diversity, hidden behind the claim that they’re just staying neutral about their characters’ race/gender/orientation!! while making plenty of characters explicitly white and implied straight… I have to respect what feels like an attempt to hang onto this, because it accidentally made it through. Maybe it was originally unintentional, maybe not, but a bunch of fans now think of Thomas Connor, a major character of this franchise and "the only valid man" in DCTL, as black – something that JDS, Inc. will probably never allow again – and, unable to address it directly, Adrienne Kress seems to have responded by actually giving the idea more evidence (though still nothing concrete) and giving Thomas more screen time. I can’t know that’s the intention, so this is, just my little conspiracy theory I guess. And it’s still problematic. But at the same time, we’re all just working with what we’ve got. Like….. Norman isn’t a LESS problematic choice…

—-------------

Anyway, TL;DR, I find Thomas surprisingly compelling, to be honest! He’s an interesting character with a lot of conflict and I’m grateful for the depth the novels gave him, even if the content as a whole struggles to add up cohesively. His toon self feels contrived and random, and I don’t really care for him. Scott is fine.

#i know you have questions you always do #we all write on the walls #thomas connor #'do u have any opinions about thomas connor' jafar unrolling the scroll dot gif

[kaibutsushidousha]

Can you rate all 2021 & 2022 silhouette Servants?

1) Morgan is my 3rd favorite Servant in the whole game and pretty sure she already has her own post explaining why. The Morgan-Arthuria-Fujimaru-Oberon quartet parallels are really the best part of Avalon le Fae.

2) Another member of my level 100 crew. Taigong was my most requested Servant at the time of his release and what we got of him is certainly in line with what I wanted. Goofy but capable. Thoughtful except when his fear of disappointing gets the better of him. Great taste in waifus. All in all, I can proudly say that's the tactician I asked for.

3) Jue was one of the big stars of Traum along with Roland and Xu Fu. He's as pragmatic and ruthless as he can get but the narrative is no less sympathetic to his motives, ideals, and lifetime failures. Regardless of whether or not the Master he's so devoted to turns out to be an Olga Marie piece in some way, Zhang Jue still has a very important place in the overall narrative as someone whose story and character reflects Olga's own perhaps even better than Douman does.

4) Kagekiyo is perhaps the most successful example of a mixed Servant because Heian gave them a very emotionally powerful character moment as Yoshitsune (Kintoki's best opponent in Heian) while the Kamakura event gave them an equally powerful moment as Kagekiyo proper. Both sides are covered evenly and covered well. Kagekiyo proper is my favorite character in the Ushiwakamaru circle of characters (low bar, but I do like them a lot).

5) Homietrot is my friend. Homietrot is your friend. She's always there being devoted and positive when Morgan and Mash need her. I'm extremely glad she became a permanent addition to the main cast.

6) Miss Crane's event is very rightfully criticized for being a mishmash of idol fandom memes, but Crane herself is one part that's undeniably written with a heart. Also, her design is gorgeous, her less dignified expressions are excellent, her relationships to both her original Master and Romani made me feel things, and her Noble Phantasm is one of my favorites.

7) Quixote and Sancho have their bad jokes along the way but are overall a fun comedy duo with poignant character moments for both of them individually, a neat role in the narrative, insightful commentary about their own nature and how it reflects on other characters, and one of the most soulful profiles in the whole game. Sancho was all in all one of the best ideas possible for this character.

8) Kriemhild already has her own post about her part in Traum, so I'll just add that she's being pretty well-used in interludes and events.

9) Kiichi has a fun personality, is easy to mock as every Sakurai fetish combined, and provided the tengu lore that made me go insane at least twice, but the star of her debut is clearly Kagekiyo so she's a bit on the forgettable side as her own character (as opposed to as the representative of tengus).

10) Bakin speaks funny, had meaningful things to say about Chaldea's role in part 2, and rightfully calls Hokusai a shithead. He's a character I could love if he was a less boring event.

11) Feihu is an always welcome addition to the Investiture of the Gods crew but they kinda did nothing with him beyond "dad" and the stupidest questions about loyalty. It's a shame they sacrificed Tianhua's chances for a solo Servant debut, but the family gimmick was imo worth it.

12) Caren is Caren. Not even her memes are new. Welcome presence as a new member of the NagiKama friend circle, but it was it is.

13) Lostbelt Percival is one of those Avalon le Fae cast members I paid the least attention to. His opinion on fae is a thing I agree with, though. Can't comment on Pan-Human Percival because I'll only buy the first Aslaug novel next month.

14) Constantine had a charming relationship and an excellent death scene in Traum, but in both cases, Joan was the better side of it. Likewise in his epic duel, Quixote was the better side of it for such a wide margin it ain't even funny.

15) The Trung sisters certainly existed but not nearly as much as the Cons existed (and still constantly exist in merch). All I can say is congratulations to the Vietnamese fans.

16) Tametomo was a minor character in Traum, then he got a main part in his debut event and I still feel Traum did more for his character than the event did.

17) Galatea has cool pants, which are great but not great enough to compensate for her coming in and out of her debut event completely unaware of what was going on with Aphrodite. If she's going to be a side dish to an Olympian we'll never have, at least let her be emotionally involved with it.

18) Baobhan Sith's Eliza-like visuals are very significant: her whole character concept is "what if Eliza's character arc simply ended in CCC chapter 2 instead of evolving into the perfect redemption arc presented in chapters 5 and 7". Unfortunately, I can't care much about an undercooked version of a great character. At least she's good as an example of how Beryl works.

19) Huyan Zhuo is impressively obnoxious and about the most gratuitous and undignified FGO has gotten with waifubait. She's a good fit for her role of less mature foil for the baby version of Elizabeth Bathory but still solid placed on my bottom 5 Servants.

#fate grand order

[goldensunset]

mili anon (again. sorry) and i feel i should've been a bit more clear there was a reason i didn't mention love town when i mentioned "For a Place of Love" (well according to the fandom 2 reasons but primarily this one) and that's because i honestly really enjoy the perspective of someone listening to the songs made for Library of Ruina without actually having the in-game context. It's a pleasant source of evidence that the songs stand strong enough on their own while also being extremely fascinating to me who got into mili through LoR to see the different perspective.

To be honest I kinda ran out of steam after seeing how long that last ask was so I didn't get to cover some of the non-LoR mili songs I really like, like Bathtub Mermaid which is a very gruesome song (like major major trigger warning of self-harm) of giving everything you have up to someone else and molding oneself to fit someone else's needs,,, i love the lyrics where even the song's subject is like "i'll embrace everything good about you... and then squeeze out all the bad things" it really makes you think about who is all this destructive devotion really for? what is even left at the end? aughhhh

(anyways sorry again about how long this has gotten, and the whole "we don't talk about love town" is a blatant lie. from what i've observed LoR fans can't seem to shut up about love town lmao)

ok yes though!!! absolutely!!! like i am aware there’s a story here but i’d actually rather just garner it from the context of the song as opposed to necessarily getting into the media. it’s a fun activity. like musicals that you don’t intend to ever watch but that you love the songs from and you’re like listening closely to the lyrics to figure things out. and i think all these mili songs are so good and well written that you can easily enjoy them without even being aware they’re from media. absolutely fantastic

and yeeeAAAAAAh bathtub mermaid is a favorite of mine too bc i like Wasn’t expecting that. like after a lot of more energetic songs it’s like oh suddenly we have this quiet haunting piano lament?? about like someone committing themselves way too far to an abusive relationship and just wanting to keep hurting themselves because they’ll do anything for that person’s attention including giving up everything they are. like man it gets dark in there. like so many mili songs it’s like uh what’s up with the title lol sounds a bit silly but nope it’s actually pretty genius. using the metaphor of a mermaid who should be free and beautiful but being kept in a tiny little bathtub and constantly in pain. y’know. yeah i love that song it’s so pretty and sad and blorbo-ifiable

ok if we’re on the topic of other ones. how about ‘ga1ahad and scientific witchery’? super fun one. i would love to watch someone piece together an entire original story based on it. i’m getting like this love-hate relationship between a witch and a (cyborg?) knight. who keep killing each other but coming back to life (out of undying hate? out of a commitment to each other? not wanting to kill each other but they’re supposed to be enemies so they’ll fulfill their duty?) whatever’s happening there i love this one it’s a lot of fun. featuring such lines as ‘rise from bed my darling, so i can see you again/so i can kill you again’ and ‘kiss me tenderly gently violently’. bangers. and it’s pretty interesting bc the song doesn’t really have a solid structure or repeating pattern it’s kinda just like each section is a new thing entirely and you think it’s gonna end at this one part but it doesn’t but then when it does end you weren’t expecting it lol.

hm what other ones. shoutout to ‘summoning 101’. girl tries to summon furry at 3am (GONE WRONG) but they still make it genuinely romantic somehow

‘with a billion worldful of love’ is underrated imo. genuine beat drop. and ‘i’m sure next life you’ll love me too’ is excellent blorbo material

#asks #thanks anon #i have so many more songs to ramble about but i’ll cap this post here

[waywardsalt]

Hi! I hope you’re doing good in life! So it’s spooky season so I have an ask related to that. I don’t know if you play horror video games, watch horror movies/shows, or read horror books, but if you do, I have to ask: What is the most disturbing book, or video game or show/movie that you’ve played/watched/read? In my opinion, there is two types of horror: the ones that scare you, and the ones that traumatize you. If you can think of any book, movie, or game that really kind of fucked you up, I’m curious to know if you feel like answering. I hope you have a good day and a good life.

Hey, I’m doing good and I hope you are too!

the answer ended up being really long lol

Woof, this is honestly a pretty hard question, since I can't really name any horror (or otherwise) media that actually left me kind of fucked up for a bit, at least not to the degree where it affected me for a while. I probably haven't been really fucked up by anything since I was a kid, so I'll try and recall what a few things fucked me up back then...

Off the top of my head I know that two different spongebob episodes got me bad, the first being one with that tunnel of love thing (tho tbh i havent seen it in a while so it might still spook me today) and the one where i'm pretty sure for whatever reason squidward gets locked in some small locker and has some kind of fucked up dream, whatever that was. I remember there was an eagle in that one. the eagle terrified me. (i looked them up, and the first episode is titled 'tunnel of glove' and the second is 'squidward in clarinetland'. with how badly that second one got to me, i'm surprised i ended up learning to play the clarinet at all)

other than that, i think the courage the cowardly dog episode 'the house of discontent' got me pretty bad, too, but i think everyone who saw any amount of that series as a kid has at least one episode that got them fucked up.

there's probably a handful of scooby-doo stuff that got to me when i was a kid, but i could not name any specifics (asides from charlie the robot's original episode, christ) because i think i managed to see just about every bit of available scooby media around that time.

nowadays stuff still does kinda fuck me up, but it's usually only for brief bits of time. the most recent example I can think of is cowboy bebop's 20's episode, pierrot le fou, which is honestly some great horror, especially how it uses the show's typical format and flips it on it's head, but i wouldn't necessarily say it got to me because of it being scary, more because of the way the ending disturbed me for a bit. it was the only episode that had me stop afterwards and really look into it for anything other than clarifying a character's gender, lol.

the endings of both neon genesis evangelion and end of evangelion had me shaken, the latter more so than the former, but not really due to horror aspects, though. i did have to take a walk after finishing end of evangelion. i don't really watch horror movies, i just... read the wikipedia plot descriptions of them.

honestly, i think some of the more popular youtube analogue horror series have gotten to me worse (likely due to the fact that they can get a bit more fucked up than, say, a tv show or movie), specifically the walten files (which i did watch) and the mandela catalogue (which i just watched wendigoon's vids on), and those two and mostly because facial distortion is generally just an incredibly effective form of horror imo. a lot of the time (esp with the childhood examples) the way i was 'fucked up' was that id be in be visualizing the stuff that scared me, and both the mandela catalogue and the walten files had me doing that for a bit.

now that i remember it, i was really scared of fnaf when it first came out. i first learned of it second-hand from seeing some other kids looking into it, and the bits and pieces i put together about it really scared me.

honestly, it's usually straight-up disturbing sequences or imagery that gets to me the most, and i know my limits well enough to generally identify and avoid that stuff, which is probably why i don't have too many recent examples. i've got one or two examples of non-horror movies that fucked me up as a kid, but that's mostly because they were wildly inappropriate for someone of my age (at the time) to be witnessing, so that's a different sort of topic.

i mean, i think i generally have a decent tolerance for fucked up stuff in media, anyways, i mean, i enjoy berserk and haven't really been too upset or disturbed by what happens in it (look theres some nasty shit in there im not saying its not that bad) so there's definitionally some kind of line that media needs to cross to really get to me nowadays, or it just needs to be a specific kind of fucked up. books generally don't do that for me so i don't have any book examples. no games, either, though shadow mario and the haunted house segments in super mario 3d world scared me so much that i had to make my mom do the levels for me, and i'm pretty sure scooby doo: first frights scared me a bit when i first played it on ds.

other than that, though, I just think that, in pokemon x, the story that an npc tells you during your first trip to route 14 and then the strange office building encounter with the animation-less hex maniac creeped me out pretty bad.

yeah, it's kind of hard for me to think of anything (recent) that actually really fucked me up or anything. most stuff just scared me, never really fucked me up or figuratively traumatized me in recent years.

#asks #zeldanamikaze #salty talks #i think for media to really fuck me up there has to be some kind of intense emotional aspect to it or have some specific visual stuff #my enjoying of berserk is proof that it takes specific stuff to really get to me. the way i tested if id be fine reading berserk is so #fucked in hindsight. i straight up looked up the two most infamous eclipse chapters online and read them to make sure id be fine #what the fuck. i just dove in head first fucking god #anyways yeah. like berserk is generally fine for me but cowboy bebop episode 20 did have me a lil fucked up. its so good #ive been looking more into horror stuff recently and i have a lot of respect for (well-executed) horror games like damn. i wanna play #silent hill 2 so bad. it's a really interesting genre when pulled off effectively on a level deeper than just 'oh look at this scary thing' #anyways. i recently watched mononoke and its not really horror just kinda unsettling. its so fucking good #tbh tho there are some fanfics ive read that did actually fuck me up (which is why i kinda have an aversion to angst) #but i didnt want to talk abt those bc i dont want to name names or anything. theyre good fics they just affected me pretty negatively #generally its more like. freaky irl things that fuck me up but thats not fun to talk about its just like. depressing #sorry it took so long to reply to this i hadnt really sat down to write it or anything an just. couldnt think of much lol #anyways ig bottom line is that its more likely for non-horror stuff to fuck me up? or its gotta be specific stuff idk #i played a few hours of portal 1 at a friends house years ago and for some reason it creeped me out a whole lot #strangely enough i dont think scooby doo mystery incorporated fucked me up when i first watched it #i think there was like 1 episode that scared me more than the rest but it was never too bad #and that show is regarded as likely the most actually scary scooby thing. its rlly good #im pretty sure scooby doo was my first (or one of my first) special interest #also (similarly) i dont really get nightmares too often my dreams are just kinda really weird most of the time #i did actually have like. a scary dream recently but i dont know if id fully call it a nightmare

[destinyc1020]

Thats on indie wire for putting the reviewers words out of context. Nowhere did david elrich say Austin was bad nor compared him to elordi, he was clearly making a distinction that austin and baz was portraying the myth, the idolatry of Elvis whereas in priscilla is sofia is focused on the human and the person behind the persona while still centering priscilla . Elrich only mentions austin like onceand rest of the article he talks about the film and calee speany. I understand the annoyance but y'all gotta actually read the review itself rather than just read the clickbait title and jumping to conclusions. Like indiewire be playing with them stan wars to generate its kinda funny tbh. Like Lol, I dont even like elrich but thats a mischaracterization of his review.

Thanks Anon. 😊

I'll admit, I didn't even read the article lol, I just didn't like the clickbait title, or the way some outlets will just try to compare two types of work to each other, when they are totally completely different.

I feel like Baz's film was definitely a more glamorized version of Elvis because it had to span like 4 decades of his life in under 3 hours. It wasn't focusing on just ONE aspect, but was more so focusing on his rise to fame, his inspiration from black music, and his influence on American culture.

With that said, I feel like the movie DID highlight some of the not-so-great parts about Elvis (ie. his cheating, his drug abuse, his temper, etc.), but it just kind of glossed over it, so it wasn't focused on deeply. Like I said, I'm not sure Baz wanted the film to be a dragging piece on Elvis, but more so just a celebration of his music, the culture, how he became famous, what he had to deal with, and most IMPORTANTLY....his relationship with his manager Colonel Tom Parker....something that A LOT of people (even die-hard Elvis fans) never even knew about what was going on behind the scenes.

But yea, this guy is entitled to his own opinion of course, and I'm not upset that JE is getting good reviews. Seems like he's wanted this type of work for a very long time. What I DON'T like is people trying to belittle or shade Austin and his work for a film that was totally different. Not when that man put so much blood, sweat, and tears into that role and went through so much TRAINING and research in order to not mess up this man's legacy. 😤

There's more than enough room for both films and both actors imo. 🤷🏾‍♀️

[bestworstcase]

Hi, im a bit lost in fandom in general and just found your blog, i hope you dont mind my asking this. You mention every now and then there being some hatedom-y niches, is it related to any political or significative offline division? Not trying to make you single out anyone, just curious whether this was a bigotry problem as in star wars, hp or other bigger sagas or just people being rude (not that its very good either). Thanx

kind…of

ok

so

the hatedom-y side of the tts fandom largely exists in this weird intersection between 1. people who are outraged that the nerdy teen boy wasn’t the protagonist of the disney princess cartoon, 2. people who wanted tts to be the sweet slice of life adventures of eugene and his girlfriend, and 3. people with a bone to pick with the sexism and (more rarely) racism inherent in the narrative itself; which creates this…odd dynamic where like, you get people furiously and correctly condemning tts for, say, sidelining the only living mom in the whole series or treating the only character of color in the main cast like an idiot manbaby who needs to be babysat by a child half his age—but then those exact same people will turn around and seethe because cassandra had the audacity to be the deuteragonist instead of their male character of choice gmfjdkdh

( which imo is one of the reasons why a lot of moonvarian / moongene content isn’t… especially good; the au concepts in and of themselves have lots of potential! but more often than not they end up kind of awkwardly railroading varian/eugene into cassandra’s narrative role bc they’re coming from a place of thinking she “stole” that from one of them gkfhdks. see also, the “chris changed the story to spite varian fans” flavor of moonvarian conspiracy, in defiance of all evidence that moon!cass was the plan from the very beginning. )

and then sort of parallel to that there is a lot. A LOT. of fandom racism vis-a-vis how the separatists of saporia are handled in fanworks, particularly in varian-centric circles where they get twisted into cackling sadistic monsters in order to facilitate varian angst. but that’s not exclusive to the hatedom-y side, the whole fandom does it /:

to an extent i think the tts hatedom is kinda… like there’s always this underlying misogyny in the way hatedomy folks interpret and talk about cassandra (and often, rapunzel) but it’s also largely comprised of people who are at least nominally socially progressive and have seized on the, very real, issues tts has with its portrayals of women and people of color as a way of legitimizing their hatred of the show (and of chris sonnenburg, who of course gets blamed 100% for everything bad and given zero credit for anything good, because god forbid we acknowledge that anyone else involved in the creation of this show might have a smidgen of agency or responsibility for how it turned out! lmao surely tts would have been perfect if only the crusty cishet white man who is sort of abrasive on twitter weren’t the one in charge 🙄)—so delving into the hatedom often ends up feeling like “lol okay, nice views you have in this glass house of yours”

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

worth noting here is that 9 times out of 10 when hatedom-y fans start talking about sexism or racism in tts itself it’s for the sake of shitting on sonnenburg vs like, trying to have meaningful or constructive critical discussions of the text or of trends in fanwork—as with any hatedom, when the focus is on proving the validity of one’s hatred for a piece of media, eventually the cynical hatemongering subsumes everything else and it all starts to feel more than a little unhinged. the most egregious example of this is of course the tangled salt marathon

#the most interesting thing abt the tts hatedom is def the sonnenburg anti-varian conspiracy tho #that one was actively fabricated by mods of the big tts discord #using screenshots of comments #(whose context they *lied about* lmao) #and trying to construe stuff like chris saying #‘varian is a supporting character’ #as character bashing akfjkdngkf #like there’s a small handful of varian stans #mostly thirty year olds !! #who are directly responsible for cultivating the martyr complex a lot of varian fans have wrt chris ‘hating’ them #it’s very weird

[skswriting]

WAIT I JUST REALISED YOU ARE THE AUTHOR THAT MADE TWO OF MY FAVOURITE FICS OF ALL TIME OH MY GOD WHY DID I NOT CONNECT THE DOTS gosh please continue ranting in the hashtags lol I do enjoy reading it

And since this is an ask box could I ask you what inspires you to write please? (your writing is so good I can’t even put it into words like I feel like my life shifted on its axis and it’s never been the same since O.o )

Wait anon you can't come here and say you love two of my fics and then not tell me which ones!!! Stroke my ego let it out!!

Also I have no idea lol when I was like really trying to write I used to look up prompts to try and inspire myself and I think some good things came out of that imo. The lottery offering, which is what I consider my best fic in terms of like story and execution, was inspired by... I'm not sure. I knew I wanted to do an abo but I wasn't sure how and I think I settled on that because I was reading a lot of arranged marriage fics at that time (saying this I will also say I usually am inspired to write the same topic as a lot of the things I'm reading at the time)

Honestly recently though I think a lot of my unpublished things have been inspired by like random one off comments I hear in real life. Or things that I talk about with other people. Like I have a whole SLEW of single parent wips based on conversations I've had with my brother about things that have happened with his kids. I think allowing myself to just like write a specific scene or conversation that I've thought of has really allowed me to be a little more free with my writing and I really should post more wips that I have that I know I'm not going to finish because they're fun!! I also use writing sometimes to write about things that are bothering me and use the characters as ways of like talking to myself to talk myself through it. Very therapeutic.

I read a book once, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (which I HIGHLY recommend even though you didnt ask), and there was one line in there that has really stuck with me for years and it's something like: every piece of fiction has some truth to it. I've always kinda of took that and used it in that I use real things in life to base my fiction off of and I think a lot of people do that! But anyway to end my rambling I guess I'll end this by saying that's what inspires me, real situations I can spin however I want, whether good or bad.

Sorry anon, I hope this somewhat made sense!

#anon #answered #lol i love talking i will just talk about whatever i want and you just have to listen isnt that great? :) #also looking at this on my dash should i put a read more? #its so lengthy