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luci-is-a-bitch-x3x · 6 months

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Obey me! Brothers with Demon behaviors (part 2??) :

You can find any other parts here: part one, part two (you are here), part three, part four

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Welcome! to another part of this adventure! This has dark themed content, so read at you're own risk! The characters may not be how you imagine! I apologize for any poor jokes, bad spelling, and terrible grammar. Without further ado, please enjoy the content. ♡

Caution: May contain dark themes or imply towards dark themes. May contain nsfw or it may imply towards nsfw themes.

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✧✧Scents✧✧

This time we're going to talk about Mc scent!

Humans just like most creatures have a unique-ish scent of their own. Demons smell better than humans do, so they can smell a humans scent perfectly. Solomon and Mc smell different, the demons can really tell a difference. Some humans scents attract demons almost like an aphrodisiac. Mc's scent is definitely an aphrodisiac for some demons. Solomon's scent may be as well but we won't get into that rn. Also I feel like a demon's attraction to a human's scent enhances after they make a pact with said human. Mc's scent can be either comforting or a aphrodisiac for the brothers, it switches at random moments. There are bound to be moments when Mc isn't around and they have to do something they arent proud of, something that's maybe even a little perverted? They can't help it they're demons, and Mc wasn't around so Mc will never have to know.

Comforting moments due to Mc's scent happen to Lucifer at the most random times, most of the times when Mc isn't even currently with him. Say Mc brings him some tea before they head to bed, they talk for a little and then Mc gives Lucifer a goodnight hug and kiss before heading to bed. Its not until Mc is out of the room that Lucifer finally notices Mc's scent. Lucifer will try and continue working on paperwork, but Mc's comforting scent seems to linger on his clothes from when they gave him a goodnight hug. Lucifer has to fight sleep harder than usual for the rest of the night, Mc's scent seemed to put him in such a safe comforting mindset that he was being lulled into sleep. When these moments happen Lucifer will either head to bed earlier than he wanted to, or Lucifer will be stubborn and continue to try and fight sleep, just to fall asleep at his desk. ...Other moments due to Mc's scent kill Lucifer's pride and ego. How can a human pull such feelings out of him, how can a human's scent cause him to do something so low...so perverted... He's the Avatar of Pride! Yet there are times...Times Lucifer's not proud of, times Mc can never learn about, it would shatter any pride Lucifer has left. Lucifer has had to replace so many of Mc's scarves, gloves, hell even some jackets. Any article of clothing Mc leaves behind in Lucifers room, or in his study are usually not the same when returned. Lucifer usually has to buy a replacement and give the replacement clothing to Mc due to how..dirty the original clothing got. It confuses Lucifer immensely, Lucifer rarely ever touched himself before Mc came along. He's The Avatar of Pride! He was to prideful to pleasure himself while alone! Yet it has become a normal occurrence for the prideful demon to use Mc's forgotten clothing pervertedly. After Mc and Lucifer made their pact it became worse. Lucifer didn't even need Mc's clothing, he could catch a whiff of Mc's scent and he would have a issue to deal with, either with Mc's help or without it.

Mammon is usually with Mc when he has comforting moments due to Mc's scent. Say Mammon and Mc are running away from someone and Mammon catches a whiff of Mc's scent he'll find comfort in a situation he was just freaking out over. It makes him feel like everythings going to be okay even though at the time everythings not okay. Mammon thinks of Mc's scent as a good luck charm, yes Mc in general is his good luck charm but if Mammon is running away from someone without Mc around, and still somehow catches a whiff of Mc's scent, Mammon always gets away safely, and he claims its because of Mc's scent. Because Mammon claims Mc/Mc's scent is his good luck charm, and because he's the Avatar Of Greed, Mammon probably has a stash of stuff that smells like Mc, peobably the most random things, piled up in a pile or neatly stored somewhere, he'd put Mc in the pile and keep them there if he could ...Other moments due to Mc's scent, are something Mammon would deny with his life if Mc found out about them. Mammon's a little embarrassed and a little guilty feeling when he has these moments, but in the end he's a demon! As long as Mc never finds out he has nothing to worry about anyways! Mammon can't help it! Mc's scent just gets to him. He'll just be chilling in his room, he'll walk by his pile of Mc's stuff and...well now he has to do something about the problem in his pants. Mammon doesn't understand how a human's scent can make The Great Mammon act this way, but Mammon can't seem to care or worry about it when he's laying on the pile of Mc's things in his room. Engulfed in Mc's scent, his greed, the pleasure, thats all Mammon can register. Making a pact with Mc makes it so much worse for Mammon. Laying in the pile of Mc's things and doing..private things, became an occurrence that happened very often. Could be nightly sometimes, sometimes a couple times week. He's the Avatar of Greed, mans is Greedy for Mc okay? These moments make Mammon a whimpering mess, and if Mc and him are together he may wind up at the door to Mc's room, greedy and ready for the real Mc, not the discarded Mc belongings he keeps in a pile.

Leviathan finds himself having comforting moments due to Mc's scent all the time. Levi never leaves his room, so for Mc to see or hang out with him, they have to go to his room, causing their scent to linger in his room. Levi loves it, he's never told Mc it happens, and never will. Levi eats it up though, he games better, he sleeps better, animes seem better. The only problem is being able to smell Mc makes Levi think Mc's in his room with him so he'll get sad sometimes realizing their not actually in his room. Levi gets caught up in things like gaming or animes, but sonetimes he'll want to say something to Mc or get Mc's opinion. He'll whip around to say it to Mc just to look around his room and realize Mc's not in there, that his room just smells like Mc. Now Levi's upset, just sad but also a little mad, he's the Avatar of Envy, he saw Mc wasnt in his room and probs thought 'oh they're with one of my brothers' so now he's sad and jealous. Might not even need to be! But Mc will still have to make it up to him, talk about TSL and it'll eventually be fine. ...Other moments due to Mc's scent seem to happen as often as the comforting moments. Levi's self loathing becomes worse after these..private moments. He may even "try" to avoid Mc, he won't. He'll tell himself to, but he'll fail which will cause him to hate on himself even more. Levi knows these moments are wrong, he knows he's perverted for doing them. The things he's done on Mc's gaming chair in his room, the fantasies he's thought of while in said chair. It just smells so much like Mc, sitting in it engulfs Levi in their scent, he usually does it for comfort. But after the first time of doing perverted things on Mc's gaming chair, it became a normal occurrence. During these moments Levi will sit in Mc's gaming chair with his lower half hiden underneath his gaming desk. Levi's head usually lays back so he can smell Mc's scent better, while he takes care of business he'll worry about if he locked his door or not. He finds himself hating on himself because the thought of Mc walking in on him excites him. Making a pact with Mc makes it worse for poor Levi. All he has to do is think of Mc and suddenly he has a problem he has to take care of, might as well do it in Mc's gaming chair. Even if Levi and Mc get together Levi isnt going to go to them for help, he's to anxious and shy, but if Mc somehow ends up helping, he's their whimpering good boy.

Satan finds himself having comforting moments due to Mc's scent far more often then he thought he would. Mc's scent always seems to linger in the spots he's reading in. He never knows why, maybe Mc's scent is on him to begin with? Satan will have to continue to try and solve this mystery, as I dont have an answer lol. Satan enjoys the comforting moments, it calms his wrath and makes it easier for him to get lost in whatever book he's reading at the time. Its so comforting he almost falls asleep at times, but the book always keeps him awake. He has to know what happens next! ...Other moments due to Mc's scent happen to Satan on occasion. Satan usually finds himself having these moments when combining Mc's scent and an erotic novel. The characters in these novels always seem to remind Satan of Mc when he has these moments. It could be because Mc's scent is clouding his brain Everything but Mc is a little foggy to Satan, but he's still more than capable of reading a book. No matter how lost in these moments he may get the books he reads never seem to get dirty. He takes good care of his books even when his mind is on other things. After Mc and Satan make a pact Satan may have these moments more often than before having a pact with Mc. If Mc and him get together he may go to Mc during these moments, not in a begging whimpery way like some of his brothers. Satan has no problem handling the problem himself, he has a great imagination, and the novels always have good descriptions.

Asmodeus has comforting moments due to Mc's scent at odd times. Asmo may be in class at R.A.D when suddenly he gets a whiff of Mc's scent, it probably rubbed off on him after he spent all morning clinging to Mc's side. Asmo had been bored and restless, but suddenly he felt calm and comfortable, class didn't feel like it was passing as slowly as it had been. He'll get to see Mc soon enough! Asmo is always in a better mood after he smells Mc's scent. He probably sends Mc a text saying how much he misses them everytime this happens. Other odd but comforting moments due to Mc's scent happen to Asmo when he's out doing something. Maybe he's shopping, maybe he's clubbing, or even at the spa, wherever it is he'll suddenly catch a whiff of Mc's scent and all is calm and good. Asmo enjoys the comforting moment due to Mc's scent but Asmo enjoys the...Other moments as well. Asmo is the Avatar of Lust, its in his nature to enjoy such things. Even if he makes things a little spicier than most of his brothers do. He's supposed to! He's just acting as he should as the Avatar of Lust. Asmo is bound to let Mc walk in on him during one of these moments. Hopefully Mc isn't naive enough to belive the Avatar of Lust got caught on "accident" if Mc stays that day, Asmo may start coming to Mc or he'll continue to let Mc catch him, making it spicier everytime. If Mc chooses to not join, Asmo will still enjoy thw moments, after all he can have fun by himself.

Beelzebub has comforting moments due to Mc's scent all the time. Beel says in game that being around Mc makes him feel like he's less hungry or that food taste better, so Beel is always dragging Mc places to eat with him. Due to this Beel is always smelling Mc's scent, one could argue Mc's scent is what helps ease his appetite. One could also argue that its all in his head that he doesn't actually eat less, and makes himself believe food taste better. Beel thinks Mc smells better then any food he's ever had, Mc has a scent that fills his stomach but also makes him hungry at the same time. This is good but dangerous at the same time, Beel doesnt handle hunger well. ...Other moments due to Mc's scent is when Beel feels hungry, but its a different type of hunger than he's used to. Beel trys to be sweet and in the begining he either handles the problem in his pants quickly or doesn't deal with it at all. Beel trys to satisfy this different hunger by eating more food, but no matter how much he eats, he still feels the hunger. Making a pact with Mc makes it so, so much worse on Beel, its basically hell for him. He doesn't know what to do about the problem, the hunger after making a pact practically hurts. Beel knows it would be wrong to act on the actions his mind thinks of as solutions. He's such a large demon..and Mc is..well a fragile human, but Beel knows better. Out of all the things he's felt hungry for, he resits this hunger stubbornly, he can't hurt Mc over this hunger. If Mc and him end up together, Beel will show Mc how starved he is. He was a good boy who waited patiently, he deserves to feast, doesn't he?

Belphegor has comforting moments due to Mc's scent all the time. Mc and him are always taking naps together, well some of the times its just Mc doing something while the sloth demon clings to them and naps. Due to Belphie always being attached to Mc's side like a koala bear, he always finds that he smells like Mc's scent. Belphie will also sometimes let Mc use his cow pillow so occasionally his pillow smells like Mc's scent as well. Belphie enjoys comforting moments due to Mc's scent because it helps him sleep and it gives him good dreams. ...Other moments due to Mc's scent aggravate Belphie. He's a spoiled brat, he likes things his way, not any other way. Belphie's problem is he has these moments as often as he has the comforting moments. He hates them because they disturb his sleep and leave him upset and whiney usually. Belphie even finds himself having to worry where he sleeps because of these moments, the countless times he's woken up from a nap humping a pillow, he would never hear the end of it if one of his brothers caught him doing that. Making a pact with Mc makes it worse on Belphie, if he would have known that he wouldn't have done it! Mans is def a whiney angry brat for a while and Mc probs has no clue because he refuses to tell them. Belphie has to be extra careful where he sleeps because of these moments now, instead of waking up to what he woke up to before Belphie will occasionally wake up to stained and sticky pajama bottoms. Belphie thought he was upset when the dreams became more frequent after forming a pact with Mc, the first time he woke up to that sight, he was fumming, giving Satan a run for his money. If Mc and Belphie end up dating, and he doesn't wake up to a mess, he'll go crawling to Mc, and whine until Mc helps him deal with the problem. He's the Avatar of sloth, he doesn't want to do the work or take care of it himself!

☆☆Weather Behaviors☆☆

How does cold weather affect the brothers or demons in general?

You know how when it gets cold some animals will huddle together to stay warm, I can see the brothers doing this when it gets cold in the Devildom. Some of the brothers won't initiate the cuddle pile (Lucifer, Satan, Levi because he doesn't initiate anything he's to anxious man) The cuddle pile did happen before Mc but it wasn't as often, when its cold in the Devildom and Mc is there the cuddle piles may happen everyday, if not it happens at least twice a week. When Mc isnt in the Devildom it happens once every 2-3 weeks unless its extremely cold.

Out of the brothers who initiates the cuddle piles the most? Asmo & Belphie. Asmo is just a cuddly demon, and being cold is not good for ones skin! Belphie isn't usually wandering up to anyone but Beel or Mc when he starts the inevitable cuddle pile. There are occasions when Belphie will be half asleep and wander up to one of his other brothers and start the cuddle pile, this only happens when Belphie gets really cold in his sleep. Mammon & Beel may occasionally start the cuddle pile as well. Mammon doesn't start the cuddle pile often because I just feel like he has a naturally warm body temperature. Mammon usually accidently starts the cuddle pile by cuddling with Mc with his brothers around. Or when Mammon is, on the rare occasion, cold, he'll initiate the cuddle pile. Mammon will cuddle with any of his brothers, but he defiently has ones he'll cuddle with before others. Now some may disagree with which ones i say, but I think out of all his brothers Mammon would cuddle up next to Lucifer or Levi. Just listen, yes Mammon would cuddle with his other brothers, and he may seem more friendly good pals with some of his other brothers. But the older 3 are close in their own little way. They dont show it, so it'd be rare to actually catch Mammon cuddling with Lucifer or Levi, but it def happens. I mean one it says in game that Lucifer has a soft spot for Mammon, and Mammon will seek Lucifer out when he has to do something he doesnt like, like watch a horror movie or something. There's also chats between them that prove their close man, Lucifer would never allow it with anyone around other than maybe Mc, but he would allow Mammon to cuddle him, if Mammon hasnt been causing problems. With Levi its like normal siblings they act like they hate each other, they say mean stuff to eachother but in the end they vibe. They are always hanging out when Mc is involved, and I think they would occasionally hang out without Mc. I mean Levi isn't stupid, he cant be actually expecting Mammon to give any money he "barrows" back. I think its more play fighting between those two, occasionally it is real fighting. So although cuddle piles between Mammon and Levi don't happen often without Mc i can still see them happening. Beel will initiate a cuddle pile with any of his brothers, but he also has favorites. Belphie obv, Levi I feel like Levi's actually pretty close with his brothers even though they bully him, Mammon or Asmo. I feel like because Beel is a family man, I think hes really close with all his older brothers, not as close as with Belphie but pretty close. So Beel loves cuddling with them, it reminds him of the old days with Lillith and everything, and he gets to make new memories by having Mc there! A sad thought i had is that Beel probably wants to be able to cuddle with Lucifer still, he probs did back when they were younger and angels, But he respects Lucifer to much and hates getting in touble so he never does. Poor bby.

Cuddle piles for Lucifer happen either when he's cuddling with Mc and his brother see and get jealous and decide to join the cuddling, imagine Lucifer and Mc cuddling in his room and then the door bursts open all FBI open up style, and then the brother that kicked open the door lets out like a screech war cry thing and then all of his brothers are suddenly on top of him and Mc in a cuddle pile, now everyones cuddling. Stay mad Luci. Or when one of his younger brothers rarely snuggle up to him, more may join. If a movie night happens in HoL, Lucifer is covered in the bodies of his younger brothers and one human usually. Its like how kids pile onto their parents during movie night. Imagine if the side characters came over for movie night one time and even more people piled onto poor Luci. Satan usually ends up in a cuddle pile if Asmo or Belphie cuddle with him and then other brothers join. But Satan will join a cuddle pile if Lucifer is at the bottom, just because he thinks Lucifer hates it. Which to be fair Lucifer acts like he hates it, but lets be for real Lucifer loves his brothers and probably finds the experience to be heart warming. Levi is never initiating the cuddle pile, but he will sometimes join one. Most of the time Levi ends up in a cuddle pile because one of his brothers cuddles up to him and then others join, they'll watch him play a video game or something.

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Thats all for now babes! Hope you enjoyed!! ♡ This is not proofread. Feel free to comment or reblog any thoughts or any add ons you have! Sorry this is so much longer than I meant for it to be! More content is coming soon so Stay tuned! Stay Safe! & Do you boo!

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⟡˙⋆Masterlist⋆˙⟡

#obey me drabble #obey me thoughts #obey me imagines #obey me x reader #obey me x mc #om lucifer #om mammon #om leviathan #om satan #om asmodeus #om beelzebub #om belphegor #om smut #obey me smut #just demons being demons #i eat them acting this way up man

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pinchinschlimbah · 1 month

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On "Coming Out" and Noel Fielding

I mentioned forever ago that I had this post in mind and then never got around to it, but now with the new interview quote I was yelling about recently it feels like a particularly good time to get it out of my brain and onto the page! tl;dr: musings on the concept of "coming out" as it has evolved over time, whether it's something that should continue to be necessary or expected of queer people, and why Noel is particularly inspirational to me in that regard since this is, after all, my brainrot blog. This may be extremely long and a bit disjointed but I hope some of y'all will enjoy it!

So a while ago myself and several friends were discussing the concept of coming out. All of us are some flavor of queer both in gender and orientation, but each is in a different place along their self discovery and identity journey, with some being long since out and proud, and others just starting to dip their toes into exploration past the expected cishet.

This discussion actually was prompted by a different discussion about Noel, spurred by comments we'd come across slamming him as being homophobic/transphobic on Bakeoff for making comments suggesting he has romantic or sexual attraction towards Paul, referring to himself with female-centric terms, playing female characters in the skits, and a particular moment where he brings up Old Gregg while talking to KimJoy and says "he was a sea transsexual....quite a demanding role for me" while laughing to indicate that that last part was said in jest. Hey fellas, is it homophobic/transphobic to be a little bit gay and trans? This got us talking about how the current culture of queer identity has evolved to the point where "coming out" feels more like something the public feels they're owed in order for them to view one's expression as valid, rather than its original purpose as something one does for themself in order to live most authentically. I don't think I need to go into detail about how many artists have been harassed by their "fans" into coming out before they were ready because people wouldn't accept the validity of that person's work without knowing exactly how that person identified, there've been plenty of articles and video essays and better written tumblr posts about that, but it's definitely a concerning trend. It can be particularly dangerous when it comes to people who aren't feeling confident or safe enough to come out, who end up being criticized and shunned by the queer community as being somehow problematic for not being able to fully articulate to a group of strangers the ways in which they're experiencing their identity. In this situation, the people who are struggling the most end up with the least support. Forcing people to either declare an identity or get out just leads to more people staying closeted out of fear of doing it "wrong" and never getting the chance to explore the most authentic and joyful versions of themselves, or even worse, feeling the need to out themselves before they're in a safe place to do so and suffering the resulting consequences. Questioning or cautious people deserve space in the community to experiment even if they haven't yet or maybe never will come out! My high school's Gay Straight Alliance was comprised entirely of "straight allies" when I was there. There was not a single "out" person in the school at the time. Nearly all of us in the GSA ended up being some flavor of queer or trans years later after graduation. But whether it was intentional closeting or just feeling an innate affinity towards something we couldn't quite pinpoint at the time, we all knew we belonged there and made that space for ourselves and others like us. Back when "coming out" first became a concept in the public consciousness, it was during a time where cishet identity was not just considered the default, but the only option. By coming out, queer people were giving genuinely revolutionary representation for themselves and others like them by telling the world that, as the old saying goes, we're here, we're queer, get used to it! Nowadays, we're lucky to live in a culture that is much more cognizant of queer identities being a thing, so in many cases coming out has become less about having to explain to those around you the basic concept of queerness existing, and moreso about which specific identity you fall under, and that's where things get messy.

My friends and I shared our own thoughts and experiences. One is currently identifying as "unlabeled" because they haven't found a term that feels correct yet, and therefore hasn't come out because they wouldn't know what to say. One spoke about how when they first came out they were much more insistent on what terms or pronouns people used for them but as time has gone on they've grown to find joy in being inscrutable and letting others wonder what they're perceiving. One expressed that given the state of the world they've been retreating somewhat back into the closet for safety reasons rather than being super outward with their queerness like they used to and is working on learning to embrace those parts of themself again. One said they felt like they'd already been existing as queer and expressing that queerness "before I even had the terms to come out to myself" and is now working on catching up on the conscious end of figuring out what's what. I myself never really had an official "coming out", I just became increasingly visually/socially/vocally queer as I became more and more confident in who I was and what I wanted to be and who I had on some level always been, and decided if people didn't get the hint that's their own problem. I came into consciousness of my queerness during the early 2010s original tumblr MOGAI microlabel boom, where there was a ton of focus on figuring out the hyper specific identity labels that exactly described what you were experiencing. I did a lot of digging and soul searching and experienced a lot of unnecessary stress trying and failing to find my perfect labels and landed on clumsy terms like "full time drag queen" because it was the closest I could get to what I was feeling about my gender, only to be told it was problematic for me to call myself that as an AFAB person because drag "belongs to cis gay men" (don't get me started on that statement, that's a whole other essay lol) It was a real wake up call once I distanced from these aggressively labeled and segmented online spaces and made my way into real world queer communities where I was relieved to find that in fact no one there asks to check your membership card before letting you in, if you feel like you belong there you're welcome no questions asked.

I had other people in these communities referring to me as "queer" and "fag" and "gay" and "queen" before I felt comfortable doing so myself based on online Discourse I'd experienced over who is Allowed to use certain terms, and having these community leaders I respected recognizing those things in me and welcoming me in like that gave me the confidence to really find my own footing in ways that attempting to find my exact correct identity label so that I could officially proclaim it never did. Once I could answer the question of what I was with a shrug and "queer I guess!" things became so much easier. Microlabels can be incredibly helpful and liberating for some, don't get me wrong if it works for you that's great, but let's not pretend that everyone is going to have the same experiences.

So anyway, back to Noel. Noel has never, to my knowledge, ever had any sort of official “coming out” or explicitly referred to himself as queer. So I know there are people out there who will disagree with me considering him to be queer. But so much of what he’s said and done throughout his several decades long career has indicated to me that this is clearly someone of queer experience navigating the world as such, and just as the queers in my local community welcomed me as one of them before I knew to do it myself, I extend that welcome forward.

Let’s take a look at some of the facts. In the public span of his career, Noel has.....(in no particular order, also if anyone wants to add additional instances of note in the reblogs or comments please feel free, this is by no means a fully comprehensive list) -repeatedly called himself "the woman of the Boosh" or Julian's/Howard's "wife" in ways that suggest that's how he actually felt about it rather than it just being a punchline that he was mistaken for female in the show [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] -referred to himself at the GQ "Man of the Year" awards as "never been a man" and "a sort of girl, he/she" -been referred to by Sandi Toksvig as being "on the cusp" in regards to gender, to which he reacts with amusement and acceptance -consistently expressed excitement and appreciation when others refer to him with feminine terms or say he looks like a girl [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] -said "I love being a man-woman, it's much more interesting than being one or the other" and expressed that the loved shooting the Boosh Electro episode for this reason -referred to Vince Noir (a character who he's been pretty open about being based on himself) as "wasn't seemingly one gender or the other" -expressed that he felt most free and happy when presenting femininely [2] -had Julian, one of the people closest to him, express that Noel and Sandi (an out lesbian) may have "real sexual chemistry" because Noel is "all over the shop, he's a different sex" -used the "Confuser" line of "Is it a boy? Is it a girl? I'm not sure I mind" to refer to himself rather than Vince, and express that he's had to work to find new ways to feel as androgynous as he'd like now that he's older -referred to himself as a lesbian [2] -said that he "sometimes looks in the mirror and sees a woman", in the same interview that Julian implies that Noel is in fact a girl -referred to himself as a "girl/boy" -consistently referred to himself with feminine terms on panel shows and bakeoff -made a joke on bakeoff about not being a testosterone-based person -responded positively when asked about the ways Boosh had influenced queer and nonbinary youth -has said he's "quite obsessed with the man/woman mixup thing" -has said if he was an animal he'd want to be a seahorse because the males get pregnant -Had Lee Mack, who Noel used to live with, refer to him as "the little transsexual one, yeah I think she's fantastic" in a Boosh documentary and "a young lady who came out here happy to be herself" in response to Noel's Wuthering Heights drag performance -had his own mother refer to him as "the daughter I always wanted" -described his own appearance as that of a "transsexual witch" and when an interviewer attempted to make fun of him for calling himself "a transgender witch" by showing Noel a drawing the interviewer clearly found repulsive, Noel responded that the interviewer was "holding up a mirror" and called the image his passport photo

And I'm not even going to bother citing sources on the countless times he's made comments suggesting romantic or sexual attraction towards men. Literally just watch any non-character appearance he's ever done, it's kind of his whole thing??? Not to mention his penchant for picking up explicitly queer and gnc character roles, and also just [gestures vaguely to everything Noel and Julian have said about each other suggesting romantic and sexual tension between them and how they used their characters as an excuse to explore those feelings in a less scary way, again that could be a whole other essay on its own but ooh boy] I also think there's something interesting to explore in the idea of Noel repeatedly referring to his appearance as transgender or transsexual rather than identifying himself as such- at what point does the appearance of something become reality?

It all begs the question- is it even a joke anymore if it's that consistent? Either it's not a joke and it's an authentic expression of his real feelings and experiences, or he for some reason really really wants everyone to believe that he's queer when he's not, with this behavior spanning back to a time before the concept of queerbaiting was on anyone's minds and when being publicly queer could mean the end of your career. Which scenario do you think is more likely? And, does someone who’s been conducting themself like this for their entire career really NEED to come out? Honestly, I find this level of simultaneous authenticity and inscrutability aspirational.

In this Velvet Onion interview from 2012, Noel compares his penchant for dresses to both Grayson Perry and Eddie Izzard. This is interesting because those two people represent pretty opposite intentions behind their presentation- Grayson identifies solidly as cis male, and for him the shock value of crossdressing is the point, saying “I signed up for a gender and I want them to be very clearly delineated so I know I’m dressing up in the wrong clothes.” This doesn't seem particularly in line with where Noel is coming from given him famously referring to himself as "the Confuser" and stating in that same Velvet Onion interview that he "never even bothered giving it a label, I never went oh I'm a transvestite, I just went yeah if I fancy wearing a dress I do, never really thought about it really" Eddie on the other hand has famously said "They're not women's clothes. They're my clothes, I bought them." indicating that they were a genuine part of her authentic expression rather than a crossdressing costume, and has subsequently over the years identified more and more solidly as transfemme. I find Eddie's trajectory particularly fascinating because it's been so non-linear. In the 90s when the language for transness was much less public knowledge, she referred to herself consistently as a transvestite- a cishet man who enjoyed dressing as a woman, as well as using terms like "male tomboy" and "male lesbian" and "a full boy plus extra girl". Despite doing most of her standup shows in femme looks, most of her acting jobs were male-presenting, and there was a period of time in the 2010s where she dropped the femme presentation entirely in an attempt to be taken more seriously as the "crossdressing" was seen by many as a gimmick. Swinging back around more recently, Eddie has been explicitly identifying as genderfluid and transfemme, and in recent years has made the decision to "be based in girl mode from now on", and use primarily she/her pronouns. Since this announcement, in her trans advocacy work Eddie has described herself as being "out" as trans since the 1980s despite all of the above. She always knew who she was, it's just she's gotten access to more accurate terms over time to describe what she was experiencing, as well as feeling more safe to do so the more that transness became a known and accepted concept in the public eye.

The interview I mentioned at the very start of this post isn't really a coming out from Noel. And I don't think we'll ever really get one from him. In my opinion Noel has spent the past several decades conducting himself as someone who is in fact already out- it’s pretty clear Noel knows and is proud of who he is regardless of how he chooses to describe that identity. At this point, making some sort of official statement would just be for the benefit of others looking for clarification on their own perception of him and people who want to be able to put him in one box or another, and that’s not what coming out should be. The statement in the new interview is not "I am genderfluid", its "I've always been genderfluid", simply putting an accurate name to what's always been publicly visibly true now that he's got the terms to do so.

#noel fielding #gender files #gender files masterpost #gay yelling #the mighty boosh #shouts into void #a lot of this could also apply to my other wife #but that discussion is way more of a minefield so I'm not touching that for now plus many more people already have

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aita-blorbos · 2 months

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AITA for kidnapping and stabbing my murderous coworker?

I (25M) am a journalist who is looking into a series of brutal unsolved murders that my weird coworker (23M) was suspiciously consistently writing articles about. Looking into some of the events myself, I realized that he was also tampering with details, which pinned more suspicion on him. I'm very confident that he is the one responsible for these murders. Since he insists on making conversation with me so often, it wasn't hard to slip something into his food so I could take him somewhere for questioning. I should also add, I found an unbelievable amount of firearms hidden in his coat pockets, so without a doubt he definitely has something very suspicious going on, if not the unsolved murders. I will say though, it was not originally my intent to hurt him. All I planned for was to get a tape recording of anything incriminating. I do not think this guy should be allowed to go around killing people and lying in the paper about it. But he was so casual throughout the interrogation, acting smug, like he knew he was going to get away with all of it somehow - I got frustrated and stabbed his leg with my pocket knife. Bad move, I know. I'm not planning on letting him bleed out though. If needed, I'll patch it up myself soon. But is just one non-lethal stab really worse than the potential murder of so many? Does that really make me an asshole?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

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useless-catalanfacts · 11 months

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An important reminder of the disastrous consequences of touristic massification.

I translated another article about the housing emergency in the Balearic and Pityusic Islands.

The Balearic Islands are Mallorca (sometimes known in English as Majorca), Menorca (sometimes known in English as Minorca) and includes the Pityusic Islands, which are Eivissa (usually called Ibiza in English) and Formentera. All of them are found in the Southern Europe, in the Mediterranean sea, and are extremely popular holiday spots, particularly for German and British tourists, but also tourists from the rest of the world. Their local language is Catalan, in which this article is originally written.

Sad is he who without love has to search for a home (in the Balearic Islands)

Opinion piece by Sebastià Alzamora

The housing emergency in the Balearic and Pityusic Islands has existed for some time and it's taking more dramatic tones every day. From teachers who have been destined to Eivissa as a substitute and spend their weeks in the island sleeping in their car (because with a salary of 1,000€ it doesn't make sense to rent even just one room for 700€ or 800€ per month) to the situation showed by a recent Caritas report on poverty in the Balearic Islands: many low-income families, or with uncertain incomes (often hotel workers) who cut the money they should spend on food to be able to pay rent (with all the consequences of cutting short your food, specially for children). Also, the explanation of the "no vacancies" mysterious phenomenon that the Balearic Islands, and particularly Mallorca, achieved last summer: since everyone knows that the housing prices in these lucky islands are unfeasible, hotel owners this season take advantage of local workers (paying them a salary so low that doesn't allow them to move out of their parents' home or, even worse, their ex-spouse, as it also happens often).

It was precisely at the beginning of last summer that the Valencian and Balearic governments met to work together on the housing emergency. [...] they agreed to ask Sareb to give them some flats to be used as public housing. In fact, the Company for the Management of Assets Proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System (also known as Sareb, also known as the bad bank) has over 8,500 houses in the Valencian Country and over 1,000 in the Balearic Islands. Since Sareb took these apartments when their inhabitants were evicted as a result of the trash mortgages given by banks during prosperous years, it makes sense that now they will be destined (at least some of them) to housing.

I don't know how these good intentions have evolved, but the search and/or building of protected housing, even though it might be necessary as an emergency measure, is nothing more than a palliative or a patch to a situation with well-known causes. This is what's behind the problem: the overexploitation of the land, the urban speculation, a market with out-of-control prices, and a touristic saturation that makes guiris [tourists] literally invade the towns, neighbourhoods and areas that not so long ago were still the indigenous population's.

The famous quality tourism has turned out to be European multimillionaires, often with fortunes of a suspicious origin, who buy or order to build their mansions with heliport for exorbitant prices, bursting the local price for square meter. This is the strict market logic, but if the market logic isn't somehow corrected, we can find ourselves in a triple massive migration: for climate reasons (the Mediterranean is one of the places in the world where global warming is most noticeable, and the Balearic Islands are one of the most heated places in the Mediterranean), for the lack of job opportunities (also for the young people whose university degrees aren't about tourism, and who can't find work here), and for lack of access to housing.

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kittycat-in-the-dark · 9 months

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Why i think it is kinda frustrating to love the character of Jason Todd (or just any dc comics character at this point) - coming from a fan

VERY IMPORTANT WARNING: because i like Jason Todd this is gonna be mainly about him. I am gonna discuss certain things in canon and fanon about him that at this point are so tiring, and i just want to rant about them. Also, opinions that you might or might not agree with (lol). So, here comes my rant:

The Mess that is Canon and why it gives me headaches

So, we all know our dearest DC comics, and what a pain they can be. They love being inconsistent, because writers love to write wtv they want while ignoring stuff that came before, change or outright erase characters over night just because "they have their own vision in mind", ruining characters by practicing sexism, racism, classism, all -ism there are, on those characters and through other characters - because why not? And so, most of the times when a character goes to one writer to another it feels like some really do decide to keep their worse traits and add to them and ignore the actual interesting things about that/those character(s) that could make for some more interesting stories and character development. (And i know that most of the inconsistency is not just the fault, or even at all, of the writers, because that is more an issue caused by higher-ups and the decisions and limitations they put on their writers. But, that doesn't mean that writers cannot do better in the writing department, like plenty of writers and creatives have consistently done amazing things even under limitations, actually limitations sometimes showed to be helpful in challenging the creativity of artists,,... thou, i still think that DC needs to give their writers a basic sheet with info on the characters and make their current writers read/get familiar with previous characterization of the characters, at least a bit because this inconsistency is so annoying... also, you guys are supposed to be professionals in writing, like??)

Now let's see what certain writers decided to do with Jason, as an example, i guess, also because i know the most about him. Sorry for still being behind on other characters, aaaaa. So bare with me, please...

Decided to guide him to his death instead of continuing to expand on how Jay could heal from his childhood trauma, deal with his emotions and grow into being a better person and hero:

Jim Starlin (one of the writers of Batman comics in Post-crisis) decided to take the sweet boy that loves his family, that has anger issues from his past trauma, but that still did his best to help people and has very resourceful, and decided to completely focus on just how angry he was and the "tragic destiny that always awaited for him", especially because he also somehow deserves it -> which is, unfortunately, something that is made even worse in the New-52 and Rebirth. There is just this over insistence that because Jason was angry in certain situations, that he is and always was "broken" or "improper", and stuck on a never-ending cycle of violence. And in recent comics, every time young Jason Todd is brought up (in discussions, flashbacks and stories happening in his time as Robin) more often than not, the writers decide to put too much focus on Jason's more negative traits related to his anger and arrogance (about this last one, i, personally, don't think he was originally. Like yes, he could be too reckless sometimes and disobey orders from Batman and stuff, but which Robin didn't... also Jason was actually pretty well behaved for the most part of his Post-crisis Robin time).

But ya, this is also generally a problem, that DC still practices to this day, with Jason, Damian, and other sidekick or kid characters. I even remember seeing a post/article about the departments in DC, especially the Batman comics one, having writers or superiors, that didn't like and outright hated the concept of Robin, they wanted to get rid of Dick Grayson at first, but fortunatly Dick was moved to another department when he became a full time Titan and going on his own adventures completely separate from Batman. This is also why Dick is not that present during Jason's years as Robin... which kinda sucks. Like yes, Dick having his development and building his own team and new hero identity outside Robin, Batman and Gotham was great and all, but it's so stupid and frustrating that the actual reason Dick wasn’t a present brother was because of executive stuff going on at DC rather than that much of an in-universe and character reasons - like, i get that it can be justified by "Dick and Bruce were still going through their issues from spliting up and Dick had his own responsibilities as a solo hero and team leader" - but it wouldn't have been impossible to at least have Dick visit Alfred and Jason more than he did in canon, or show him and Jay having or keeping contact more after their first meeting, or even better, let Jason hang out and get closer to the Titans more, so he can spend more time with his new brother and make hero friends of or closer to his age... i mean, there were some panels that showed, for example, Jason and Dick skiing and Jay going on like 2 missions with the Titans, but it would have been awesome if Jay actually got to build closer relationships with them.

Also, from what i understood, many weren't happy with the introduction of a new Robin... plus Jay was Robin in the comics for just 1 year in real world time (from 1987 to 1988 -> yes, i am not joking... the most known and nowadays canon version of Jason, aka from Post-crisis, was Robin for just a year, the other 4 years of being Robin, aka from 1983 to 1986, was with Pre-crisis Jason that was basically Dick 2.0., and that doesn't even make part of the main continuity, as we know it*) and in Universe he was Robin for about 3 years (he was 12 when he met Bruce and died at 15), and considering that most stories during this time were more focused on Bruce/Batman and on the villain of the week type stories, Jay really didn't get that much character exploration before dying. Which kinda sucks...

*a little note about this: so, in 2022-2023 the Dark Crisis event happened, which apparently restored Pre-crisis as being part of canon, which makes no sense considering that Pre-crisis Jason Todd and Post-crisis Jason Todd are completely different, but ya DC doing DC stuff like usual, uffff - but, i still think that the "main/real" Robin Jason is the one from Post-crisis

Thou, even if A Death in the Family kinda started the way of depicting Robin Jason as too angry and violent, i don't think that the way the conflict was depicted between Bruce and Jason is as bad as it is depicted in recent comics - because it was more about Jason and Bruce respectively missunderstanding each other's side. That being that Jason probably saw being benched as a "step" to be fired like Dick was, or that Bruce thought that he wasn’t good enough to be Robin and that his place as Bruce's son, probably, wasn’t "so secure",, while on the other side, Bruce just wanted to bench Jason from Robin because he was indeed becoming too reckless and violent in the field, so he was worried that his son would hurt himself. So, i think it's important to understand that this story, despite it's many problems, at least tried to be more balanced and "realistic"/genuine with the conflict between the characters. But the thing with the "destined to die and to live in violence" still is kinda shitty, because again, it is leaning into the idea that Jason deserved this, even if everything that happened in this story happened mainly because of miscomunication between Jason and Bruce, and DC not giving the chance for Jay to take another path.

The "voting for Jason to die" thing:

Okay, i am gonna be honest with that idk much about this subject. But i remember reading an article and posts were it is claimed that the vote might have been rigged because a lot of people at the time in DC wanted to get rid of Jason and because, well, the call type vote must have been kind of a mess when it happened through the phone back in the 80s. Plus it is also believed that the people that were able to vote, voted for Jason to die probably mostly to see if DC would really do it, ya know just for the fun of it and to see if DC really had the balls to do it, which many seemed to actually be doubting. So ya... but either way, the fact that people at DC thought about this, is kinda weird and unfair imo, because Jay, like i said before, wasn’t even given the chance to developed or to build a different path other than one filled with tragedy and violence...

The erasure and non-erasure of Sheila Haywood:

As we all already know, the actual reason why Jason died was that he tried to save his mother from the Joker, when he discovered that she was working for him. The problem with this arrives when DC always choose to frame it as "Jason died because of his recklessness and disregard for Bruce's authority when he told Jason to stay put". And the problem with this is that it makes it seem like DC doesn't even consider how a kid in Jason's situation might feel and act and that the fault wasn’t his or his temper's or wtv that he died, as much as it was the betrayal of his mother and Batman literally leaving Jason behind, when he could've and should've taken his son with him to do the rescue and to make sure Jay and Sheila would be save. And especially considering that Bruce was aware that Jason can be quite stubborn and reckless, and that he must really wish to save his mom more than anything, that, logically, Jay would've gone for his mother no matter what Bruce said or how he promissed that he would save Sheila. Also, Batman and Robin are supposed to be partners,, how did Bruce think that with such an important and personal mission for Jason that the kid would just stay on the side lines and wait for Bruce to do something. Also the fact that, somehow... huh, Jason made it to the warehouse way before Bruce did, even if he went for it way before Jason, like?? - but either way, 80s writing used to be weird and stuff, but when it comes to A Death in the Family, many people pointed out that the writing makes almost no sense and it is quite goofy with a lot of things, despite supposedly being a monumental story considering that this is the first time a sidekick dies and stays dead, and in such a tragic way... also that shit is so goofy that it ended with Joker as an Middle East Ambassador or wtv... so ya. Too stupid even by "silly simple fun superhero stories of the 80s" standards.

But the problem, like the title of this point sugests, is that some writers in more modern comics, aka Post-crisis from the 2000s, New-52 and Rebirth, decided to outright erase Sheila from the equation. Which takes away from a relatable and sympathetic factor that lead Jason to his tragic end, and instead focus on just how reckless, stubborn and angry Jason is, and that was what killed him. Also, that now, the reason he got involved with Joker was not because it happened that his mom that he wanted to meet and save was working for Joker but that Jay had a very deep insecurity about himself as Robin and Bruce's son and so he just decided to go after Joker impulsively in order to impress Bruce by stopping and capturing him on his own, which ya... way to ruin it guys... like yes, it can be said that Jay went to Ethiopia looking for his mom originally because he and Bruce were having problems, after all Jay did find out about his mom and decided to leave when he heard Bruce and Alfred discuss to bench him from Robin because he was too violent and reckless in some recent cases, more notably the Garzonas one, and so it makes sense that Jay would kinda associate not being a good enough Robin as not being a good enough of a son for Bruce, and thus motivating him to look for his mom when he, basically accidently/by chance, learned that he has a biological mother that is alive and well, and that might want to have him back as a son.

And then, you have writers that, after others chose to erase Sheila completely (like they did in the New-52), decided to write that the reason Jay died was because of trying to save Sheila, like that line Jay says in Task Force Z, "I died trying to save someone I love.", and it creates this annoying back and forth with this fact... like, erasing and/or bringing a character or their importance to the story or the main characters' development is a big deal, and DC writers just played with Sheila around like randomly throwing the ball to see if it lands on the "Sheila exist this week" or on the "Sheila doesn't actually exist the next week or ever did" side of the field.

Being weird about Jay's relationship with Talia because the writer (aka Judd Winick) wanted to be experimental and that Talia and Jay having "just sex" is not a big deal because it's normal for people to just have sex, the context be damned (also the consequences this could bring in how people view Talia's character):

i don't think i need to elaborate on this more than i already did...

The writer of UTRH (Judd Winick again) went too far while depicting Jason's violence:

Okay, before you go at me for shitting on the writing of a writer that is considered to be the best Jason Todd writer, i have to say that he did some interesting and fun things with Jay, but also paired up with a lot of stuff that contributed to a worse perception of Jason's character and falling further into the "Jason was always destined to be violent and murder-y" hole. Like, he even added more to Jason's time as Robin, but only decided to focus on the more negative parts of it, and while i can understand that he probably wanted to put Jason's flaws and conflict with Bruce at center stage for his return as the villain Red Hood, i think he kinda started the trend of refering to Jay as always being the "Angry Robin" and that everytime there is a flashback with Robin Jason since then it is always about his anger and nothing else. Also, i feel like he kinda forgot to show Jason caring about innocents, aka women and children, while writing this, which is kinda weird considering that he did show that side of Jay in Lost Days...

From the Titans Tower fight till the end of Post-crisis Jason's writing was a complete mess:

i feel like DC reached a point by this time where they had no clue what to do with Jason (and nowadays they are still at this point and have been in it since then, if we are being honest). They decided to either make Jason a total nut case full on villain that hurts a lot of people for no good reason and at the same time have stories were he is an ally to the Heroes and where he does the right thing, even if he is still a bad guy. And the thing is: if DC really wanted to make Jay an anti-hero that walked a grey line where he sometimes did his own selfish desires and still antagonized certain heroes he thinks he has a bone to pick with (like Batman and Nightwing), but that still gave a shit about innocents and would help people even when aligned with villains, they could have but they kinda didn't. Like, i know it's a very cut and dry definition of an anti-hero, but like, comics are stacked full with over used tropes and have created some themselves, and with this Jason could be a more interesting story element everytime he popped up because the readers and the heroes would never know if to expect Jason to be against them or helping them. Plus, they could advance from this by developing him from a more "villainous anti-hero" to a more "heroic anti-hero", and doing so by touching/going on Jason's roots as Robin and what made Jason the happy hopeful kid that loved to help people. But no,,,, they decided to do a complete mess!! DC, why... thou, i kinda feel like this transition of Jason from a more "villainous anti-hero" to a more "heroic anti-hero" didn't happen properly for the same reason Jason became more violent and angry as Robin didn't work that well/felt rushed, and that was because this was made in a short time limit. Because, like Starlin wanted to get to the "fated death of Robin because of his issues" as quick as possible, Post-crisis Red Hood Jason seemed (imo) to suffer from this as well, because Post-crisis (as a continuity/timeline) was ending, the next big retconning event was approaching in DC comics,,, like heck, even the story of UTRH was interrupted sometimes because of a timeline/universe altering event... and then the One Year Later event happened, and Jay seemed to have become "more crazy that ever", and the heroic parts that Jason still had were discarded completely. Which tbh i wasn’t a big fan of, at all. So, Jay ended his Post-crisis story as a full on "deranged villain".

RHATO is a BIG mess; YES, unfortunatly, i mean both of them, maybe exept for the first 25 issues of RHATO (2016) - why did DC have to give Jason's main books to Scott Lobdell?! Also, those first 25 issues of RHATO (2016) are kind of a miracle, all things considered:

So... RHATO (2011) was basically Jason's first big "going on his own with a team in stories non-related to Batman"... and it was awful. Because well, DC decided to make Jason, Roy Harper and Koriand'r aka Red Hood, Arsenal and Starfire the Outlaws, and write them completely out of character. Which ya, pissed off/annoyed a lot of fans... and these are the main reasons why (i think, might have missed some thou, but this serve enough to make a point against this book):

First off, it makes no sense for Roy and Kori to agree to Jason's methods and philosophy, so question: why would they join/form the Outlaws and with Jay as the leader?

Why is Jay the leader when he was no previous leading experience at this point, while both Kori and Roy do?

Why tf was Roy made dumb and Kori into an eye candy character, while being stripped off of their inteligence and kindness respectively?

Why are 2 of Dick Grayson's closests friends, one of which is also an ex-lover, hanging out with his little brother, considering that when those best friends first met that brother they were already adults, and Roy even had his daughter Lian, when Jay was just 12?

General answer: the writer decide to say fuck you to anything and build what could be considered a "male power fantasy" through Jason, also sexism, so he ended up ruining everything and everyone.

Long, more specific to each question answers:

Kori and Roy were "given to Jason" as his teammates and friends and made "more violent and outcasted" from their previous teams and friends/family because DC rebranded with the New-52 and wanted to be more edgy and had no idea what to do with these 2 characters so they decided to shove them together just because... and also because they had no idea what to do with Jason either, like i said previously.

Jay is the leader because "power male fantasy" for and with guys without powers, having no idea what to do with him that could be interesting, human characters in DC are often made the leaders to make up for and balance with their more powerful teammates, Jay is made the leader instead of Roy because the Bats are always up in DC's hierarchy of gets to lead the team and be the main face of the team and comic because money. Also,, look, i know it can be said that Jay, just like any other Batkid, deserved the chance to have his role and his experience as a leader, but because of his short time as Robin he didn't even get that much experience working with others or with a bigger team, besides being partners with Batman, and he never got to have a proper leader role before the Outlaws (and no, being a crime-lord doesn't count because he mostly did things solo, his partners and workers worked with him under fear or because the other option was worse than him, and also he killed the guys he worked with or that worked for him a lot... so ya, i wouldn't call that leadership experience). It really was a decision made just based on "the Bats need to be the leaders at some point of any teams we create" DC rule.

Roy was dumbed down so he wouldn't be the logical leader and because Jason needed a "dumb best friend" or something and Kori, well... the boys needed an eye candy sexy alien woman for the comic to actually be interesting... also, they threw away her kindness because she needs to be as rude and angry as her male teammates.

Also, weird as shit that they decided to give Jay Dick's best friends (or i guess ex-best friends during this time) because they were too lazy to make new friends for Jason.... also they had to ruin their established relationships because why tf not? - also why is Roy only refered to as Jay's best friend when he was/is Dick's best friend (or one of his best friends)... like?? i mean, people can have more than one best friend, but DC doesn't seem to understand that, so...

in conclusion, this book ruined everyone!! Hurray DC, that was such a great achievement *fucking insert infinite tons of sarcasm here*.

Also, to make a little note/comment about something that comes from fandom about this Outlaws Team specifically: i really really really hate that, because of this book, Jason is shipped with either Kori or Roy or with both at the same time in a poly relationship. And while, yes i get the "let them be shipped" because this is just people having fun with the characters and all that,,, no matter how they put these ships, i will always find them gross because of the reasons i mentioned above,, aka Kori and Roy were adults when they met 12-year-old Jason -> like just this alone should ring alarm bells,, Kori is Dick (Jay's brother)'s ex, which akward,, i mean, overall these relationships just give me the icky... okay?? Sorry about this little detour. Moving on from this now. i just really needed to let it out.

RHATO (2016) actually started better... a lot better. The first 25 issues are interesting and have sweet moments that i really like. i said it before, but these 3 are my favourites together, until DC decided to ruin them as well... because why not. imo, RHATO (2016) did better because, well, despite being written by the same writer of RHATO (2011), this one actually fixed some of the problems of the previous one and the character dynamics between the main 3 were pretty solid (for the first 25 issues that is..). And that is because:

Jason and Artemis have great chemistry with each other either you look at it platonicaly or romantically.

Their banter is amazing and so funny.

Love that these Outlaws, especially Artemis, are more the type of "Jason gives an order like he is the leader, but they ignore it because they have a better plan" - that doesn't mean that Jay doesn't have his own good plans/ideas but him being the "main leader" is not as cut and dry as it was in RHATO (2011).

i like that Jay is the more emotional link of the Outlaws, aka he was the one that kept at first the Outlaws together.

The relationships between Artemis, Jason and Bizarro are just so sweet - like sorry, but they make my heart go mush, okay?

i like that even if the writer tried to write a romantic relationship between Jason and Artemis, that they, and especially Artemis, didn't put that much focus on it, it was something that existed in the background while they were more worried about other things, such as their missions and taking care of Bizarro.

But, after that things became kinda bad:

By the end of issue 25, Jason was beaten by Batman because "he killed Penguin" on live television (which btw Jason didn't actually kill him) and so Bruce beat him up pretty badly, some say even worse than he beats his villains.

Thou, i will give it to the story just the fact that i think it's interesting that things for Jason went to shit the moment he decided to go on his own after Penguin without his teammates, which kinda strenghtens the fact that Jason needs someone besides him when something bad happens to him or finds out something bad (like here when he finds out Penguin was responsable for his dad's imprisonment and death).

But a big problem: making Jason's established abusive father seem as some kind of "martyr for his family", even if he actually hurt his wife and son, at the time, more than anyone else. Also, that Jason actually went for it with believing his dad was a good guy and proudly went after Penguin while claiming to be Willis's son. Like, i don't think it's that unbelievable that Jay still cared for his dad, even if he hurt him and his mom a lot, but... the writing paints Willis too much like "a good guy trying to help his family that got involved with the wrong people" while letting Jason's mom and her importance to Jason on the sidelines or outright ignored - like, i know that in Post-crisis, more specifically in A Death in the Family that Willis was refered to as "a dad that made mistakes trying to help his family", but by this point in Rebirth (and with the New-52) Willis was established clearly as having been an abusive husband and father, and more clearly than ever... so, it's kinda fucked up that at this point the writer tried to kinda "hero-fy" him because he abandoned and abused his family for "the good of his family",, like that doesn't erase all the pain he caused his wife and son, either he meant to cause it or not. Also, they brushed over the importance Catherine had in Jay's life, when she was one of the most important people to him in Post-crisis.

Then Artemis and Bizarro are "taken away" from Jason because their multidimensional spaceship hideout went out of control and transported them to another place, leaving Jason alone with a pissed off Batman that wasn't finished with beating his son up, until Roy Harper appeared to save his friend.

After this, things get worse because Jay and Bruce reunite and easily make-up, without actually solving anything, which keeps them for the rest of Rebirth continuing a never ending cicle of: "we are at odds because of our desagreements -> one of us (mostly Bruce) does or says something very fucked up which causes a big fight -> they separate again -> some shenanigans happen and they are obrigated to work together again -> forgiveness or semi-forgiveness ensues -> part ways again -> cross paths again either intentionally or by accident -> repeat cicle again.

Eventually, Artemis and Bizarro return, but their character design is worse, like way worse, especially Artemis's that is just atrocious, being that she went from a well built muscly woman with a one piece suit to the super skiny woman that looks like she doesn't have organs in her abdomen wearing a top, because why not....

The relationships and dynamics between the main trio became weird and boring. Especially between Artemis and Jason, and Bizarro kinda gets ignored until he leaves to become king of the underworld, lol. Oh, and then Jason and Artemis kiss, reach the conclusion they think of each other as brothers rather than lovers (even if they fucking kissed a lot of times at that point), and when they part ways they are both sappy because "they know that what they said to each other then is not true but cannot be together" type bullshit... and like, what?? - i am gonna be honest, at first, ya know in the first 25 miracle issues, a romantic relationship between the 2 seemed sweet and okay, i actually liked it, even if they were kinda doing the "will they, won't they" thing, and honestly, i wouldn't even have been mad if they reached the conclusion that they work better in a platonic relationship than a romantic one, even if they still have romantic feelings for each other. But not the weird ass bullshit the writer pulled with this...

And the time Jason was solo was just mediocre story after mediocre story, uffff.

So, Jay finally kinda gets his own book (even if they technically aren't, as they are team-up books, but they are the closest thing to a Jason Todd solo book as we can get...), only for both to end up being awful for the most part... if only DC gave Jason a better writer. Like, thank everything that most probably Lobdell is never gonna be his writer again, but that doesn't necessarely mean that other writers that followed did him any better.

**Also,, what is somehow even worse is that these books are the ones that popularized in fandom this idea that "everytime a character is paired up with Jason in a Hero Team, they get ruined by him", which makes the dislike for Scott Lobdell and his writing even worse because this man just managed to ruin everything!!

DC is trying to reintegrate Jason into the Batfam - which is something good and could be interesting, but there are some things that are kinda bad/tiring about how they are going about it:

In the New-52 and Rebirth, DC redeemed Jason, thou with the New-52 it was kinda weird because they didn't exactly redeem the Jason that we knew at the end of Post-crisis, but a more "tone down" version of him, since they decided to change most of the characters' backstories in this new universe. And i can understand why DC did this especially for Jason, considering that by that point Post-crisis Jason has gone a little bit too far, to suddently begin a redemption arc with all the baggage "villain" Jason had. So, they basically started over, erasing all the Post-crisis Jason stories except for UTRH, and changed his backstory. One example of one of these changes, was that they retconned Lost Days and changed that part of Jason's story to him training not just with Talia in the League of Assassins but also with the All-Caste, being that Talia guided Jason to the All-Caste to protect him from her father. And then his redemption comes when, after UTRH, instead of Jason doing all the horrible things he did by the end of Post-crisis, he started working with the Batfam sometimes, even if he still did his vigilante anti-hero business mostly alone, and even if Batman didn't aprove of it and Jay's methods, and so, this is where the "Jason is an on and off member of the Batfam" thing started. And then the redemption continued with Jay founding the Outlaws with Arsenal and Starfire, starting working more with the batkids (even if they still were at odds with each other), appeared everytime there was an emergency,etc.

But, as most know, the New-52 has a lot of writing problems, especially considering that Jay and the Outlaws have Scott Lobdell as their main writer. The thing here, that is pretty frustating, is that these ideas with Jason had the potencial to be great,, i mean i do like that Jay got to redeem himself and get closer to his family, but it feels cheap, especially because, for example, DC really thought that in order for Jason to have, at least, a good relationship with Tim, they first had to completely erase the close relationship that Tim and Dick had as brothers (and don't get me started on Cass and what they did do her during this time)... because why not? i guess the Batkids are only allowed to get along with one sibling at a time now,, especially considering that the New-52 was the one that started the idea in fandom that Jason is Tim's favourite and Damian is Dick's favourite, and so Dick and Tim's brothers relationship is left in the wind to be obliterated.

And then, DC rebooted again, and continued with the redemption path for Jason in Rebirth, which was, like i said before, interesting, but then they kinda ruined it. Also, both in the New-52 and part of Rebirth Jason suffered from this limbo of "being or not being part of the family". And is especially frustating with the ever repetitive conflict that Jason and Bruce have. Like,, it does have some good moments and ideas, but the problem is that after a while they kinda become pretty repetitive with each story of Rebirth.... so, like, it would be nice if DC did something more to advance their characters' development and relationships, just saying... also, so much wasted potential with most of the ideas they bring up,, DC why don't you go with your ideas to the fullest instead of constantly keeping your characters in some kind of limbo, uffff.

Robin Jason flashbacks from the New-52 and Rebirth always being under the shadow of his death:

So, i did mention this in passing before, aka that i am tired of seeing DC canon in more recent comics only show Robin Jason as angry and violent. But the thing is,, i don't think they shouldn't show angry Robin Jason at all, they can obviously show that. But the problem is that they never focus on any other characteristics of Robin Jason. Like, even if the kid was angry and violent, that wasn't all that he was, he was also happy, he was also sad, he was also insecure, he also loved his family a lot,,, plus he wasn't angry just because of "teen angst" or "teen disagreements with Bruce", he was angry because of the injustices he and his parents went through and that other people keep going through in Gotham City. And i think it's also obvious at this point that Jason's anger and violent actions were just a protection mechanism he developed to protect himself on the streets and from his trauma. So like, DC should really tone down on bringing up Jason's anger so much, because he is not the "angry Robin", that is not all he is or ever was. Or, ya know, at least they could stop acting as if Jason being angry is just "senseless"/exaggerated.

And we all know at this point that DC does these "angry and violent Robin Jason" flashbacks because they always write with Jay's tragic ending in mind. Everything about Jason since he died, is about his death and only that, even if he has a lot of other more interesting things to explore and deal with than the trauma from his death and his shitty relationship with Bruce.

Jason just cannot have or keep close positive relationships:

It's just the fact that DC really has a problem in establishing Jay into some closer and definitive relationships, other than always having a "up and down" relationship with Bruce. Like, the Outlaws (aside from being ruined by writing), after they decide to eventually separate their ways, aren't put together anymore, for better or for worse, with the Batkids it's just the "we check on you only when something happens and we need your help or there is the possibility that you are going to go too far on a solo mission, aka if you go back into your killing and violence". And for the rest, even including his Robin years, he is mostly isolated from other people, especially people that belong to "his group" aka people of his age, background, generation, with same philosophy, etc. Just like,, why is this boy so alone,, wasn’t he suffered enough on his own?

Fandom also gives me a headache sometimes

Jason being either a feminist or a misogynist:

I am gonna be direct and say that the "Jason is misogynistic because he hurt Mia Dearden/other girls or women" and "Jason always drinks his respect women juice" crowds are weird and make no sense. And also kinda wrong (imo)... and why do i say this...

Well, the "Jason is a feminist/drinks his respect women juice" belief comes from the fact that Jay, at least as Robin, tended to get defensive of women when they were insulted and/or abused, especially when they were so by men, and because of the love he was for both his moms and the relationship and respect he has for Talia. Now, the thing is, this and other examples such as "how he showed respect for Onyx in UTRH because he worked with her and didn't underestimate her as an opponent, and helped her after he incapacitated her", isn't necessarely feminist, i would mostly call it respectively basic respect for other people, caring about vulnerable women because he is a good kid and a hero and because situations where women are suffering at the hands of men bring up his trauma from growing up with an abusive dad that especially hurt his mom, and not underestimating any opponent you come accross because in vigilantism and the world they live in anyone and anything can be quite dangerous if you are unprepared. So, in other words, Jay is a decent human being (even at his worst) that cares about the well being of others, especially people in vulnerable groups such as abused women, but he doesn't have any beliefs or actions that, imo, "make him feminist". Or an outstanding feminist, especially when other characters, that are both heroes and villains, have shown this type of behaviour towards women. Thou,, and i am about to kinda contradict myself,, just reading Jason's Post-crisis stories until UTRH, saying that Jason is a feminist/cares about women being hurt by men is valid, and especially as he is shown to have empathy towards the victims he encounters,, and even more than Bruce was ever shown to have to this type of victims... so that is an interesting and valid point, imo. So, it seems like a weird limbo that is somehow made worse by RHATO's writing bacause ya know, Lobdell,... but ya, i don't think calling Jason a feminist is that wrong either, maybe it depends on the writing you pick, because, ya know, he really has inconsistent writing (the pain of loving Jason Todd T-T).

The "Jason is a misogynist" side believe this because Jay was had many times, especially by the end of Post-crisis when he kinda went too much off the rails in his "crazy villain persona", hurt and insulted women. Which valid, i guess, some can interpret some of his actions and statements during this time as sexist towards women... but the thing is, or actually 2:

Writers projecting their own prejudices towards women through Jason, like for example in how he behaved towards Donna in Countdown. But in that event everyone was pretty ooc, the story was very long and a mess, and Jay during this time was written as being an ass to anything and anyone, so...

Most of the times Jason fought a woman/girl it had nothing to do with them being women - actually if Jason fighting, hurting, insulting and causing trauma and/or awekening past trauma into other characters is misogynistic, then when he does it to boys/men (like he did to Bruce, Dick, Tim, Oliver, etc.), does that mean he is being a misandrist?? Like, what kind of logic is that? - what Jason is actually doing through his horrible actions is getting revenge and spreading on to others his trauma, his pain and suffering. Is he right in doing it, especially to characters he barelly knows and have nothing to do with his pain, such as Mia, Onyx and even Tim and the Titans? Fuck no! But he is not a misogynist through these actions, sorry to say this, but i really don't think he is.

Saying that Jason doesn't care about either women and/or children:

This is a tricky one... and that is because i, and many other fans for that matter, said/say that Jason doesn't necessarely have a "special care for women and children" in a sense. But like i said before he does care, a lot. And it's always nice when we have stories where he is shown doing that (Like in Urban Legends: Cheer and Task Force Z, even if these stories have other problems..), because certain writers (like Winick and Lobdell) kinda forgot about this side of Jason. Jason cares!!!! He cares!! And that is important to point out about Jason because, while, like i said before, this is not a "special/unique" characteristic of Jay like some fans make it out to be, it is important and special for just Jason as a character because he was been protrayed as uncaring, an ass and outright villain before, and, unfortunatly, that protrayal is the one that is the most present in most people's minds (mostly because of the popularity of the story UTRH). So ya, even if Jason did hurt people that didn't deserve it at all and that make part of the group of women and children, that doesn't completely erase or contradict the fact that Jason cares and wants to help (plus reasons i said before like shitty writing that makes no sense and that the people he attacked could still defend themselves or had the capacity to, so like he didn't hurt or go after civilians, ya know. Again, it doesn't justify or make it less of an evil what he did to those people, even if they are trained heroes, but it's also not something that invalidates the statement "Jason cares about people" - it's about nuance). Also,, even if i said that perhaps, by how Jay was written sometimes, that "he doesn't have a special mission in protecting women and children", he actually does, but he isn't shown doing that directly, as he is mostly shown just killing and/or beating the guys that hurt women and children,, which i think is what, paired up with him hurting characters like Mia Dearden, Tim Drake and Damian Wayne, and this hurting actually being depicted directly on panel,, leads other fans to find it "unbelievable that Jay actually gives a damn about women and children when he did this to this specific women/girls and children".

Making people that like Jason or want to defend Jason or discuss his wrong doings feel as being held at gunpoint because people aren't allowed share their opinion either against him, favouring him or even a balance of both (this applies to all fans, including Jason Todd fans, obviously):

Okay so... one thing that i noticed is that people cannot seem to be able to have civil discussions about Jason, in a way. Like, no matter what stance people take on the character, there is always someone ready to "shut you up" because they don't agree with your analysis and/or opinion on the character. Also, yes, this happens with fans of other characters too, but, for some reason, Jason is one of those characters that seems to bring up the most heated discussions in DC fandom.

Also, while yes and obviously, people are allowed to and should interact with posts they disagree with and explain why they disagree, there are some people that take it too far. And i also think this problem comes from the fact that people tend to "cherry-pick" the version of the character that they consider canon. For example, there are people that, because they prefer the stories from Post-crisis, the only valid version of the characters for them is that one, other people prefer the New-52 and/or Rebirth, or they actually prefer the headcanons version of the character because canon is too much of a mess to understand. And honestly, i think they are all valid. The problem comes when people seem to not distinguish "serious discussions, analysis and criticisms" of the actual canon and "fun post that can be either based in canon or just headcanon". Plus, not every jab a person does to a character is a serious criticism or an actual critical post about that character, sometimes they are just dumb jokes that actual fans/people that love that character do for fun. Being a fan of a character doesn't mean defending the character 24/7 or that if they make a joke on the expense of that character that they now hate them... like, we are here mostly to have fun with our favourite characters, and that includes making fun of them and their flaws as much as analyzing and defending them. And also, loving a character doesn't mean that you don't see or talk about that character's flaws and mistakes, as they are. Not everything your favourite character does was to have a moral/positive explanation, sometimes characters can just be shitty people and that is fine.

Also, i don't understand why, but some Jason Todd fans literally act as if he is the only character with bad writing, when like all characters have suffered from it. Heck, some characters even outright disapeared for decades at this point, even if they still have fans that talk and make content about them to this day.

And well, if Jay has bad writing that makes no sense for his character, so do other characters as well -> i am specifically pointing this out because sometimes people do bring up certain characters' bad actions from a certain comic where they were written by someone that seems to not know shit about the characters and made horrible decisions such as making them say something misogynist, for e.g. And some of you people really hold on, like, 3 shitty panels from a comic from 2 decades ago to prove "how bad/sexist/racist/etc" a character is, when they are completely ignoring who the writer is, if what that writer wrote makes sense with what is mostly know/established about that character, if it still applies in more recent comics with the most recent version/characterization of the character. Like, i am not saying people cannot talk about these scenes/panels and criticise/complain about them, like they can, everyone can, but first there is the need to make clear the context of the panels, who wrote it/what era is that comic from (sometimes just this explains a lot) and maybe say at the end "thank fuck they don't write that character like that anymore" or something else along those lines - because ya know context matters in this stuff and while, yes, everything that was written and published by DC comics is canon, i think it's also important to understand where the character is at now compared to that "bad writing version of them" and how this "bad version" compares to other writing from the past or same time of that specific comic. Sometimes that "bad version" is just a speck in an ocean of some pretty good or just decent writing of that character.

Jason fans seem to always be arguing and dividing themselves with black and white ideas of how Jason is, and especially on how he was as Robin:

So... just like anything and any other character fandom out there, the fans tend to also separate themselves in groups defined by what they choose to believe about a certain character. Especially with such complicated characters as the ones from comics that have like a billion versions of themselves.

When it comes to Jason, people devide themselves into very specific ways they see him, for e.g. the most known fractions are:

Robin Jason was an innocent happy boy until modern comics came and ruined it by making him angry out of nowhere (which makes no sense when Post-crisis Jason was shown "doing violence" since his introduction. i mean ya, it was in self-defence when he was scared by Batman finding him stealing his car's tires. But like,, sometimes these people act like the mere thought of Jason doing anything violent or being angry is impossible or complete character assassination when it makes sense that Jay would be phycally and emotionally protective of himself with violence and anger due to his trauma, hard time having to survive alone on the streets and dealing emotionally with all he was been through).

Robin Jason was angry and violent 24/7 (okay this is a general exaggeration, but there are people that think that Jay was mostly angry as Robin, when like during his original Post-crisis comic run he had like 4 big "anger and violence" moments and they all had understanding reasons on Jason's part to be angry and become violent with who he did).

The "the fault is on the Lazarus Pit" crowd (or just on anything and anyone else except Jason himself,, which is kinda ironic because Jason in canon, even at his worse, always took responsability for his violent actions, so...).

Jason is the big protector of women and children (i already wrote what i had to write about this).

And like, these examples and many other fractions, aren't wrong about these characterizations, because, yes, these come from canon, but, again, the problem is with people focusing solelly on one of these sets of characterization, to the point where they ignore the other parts of the character - aka they flanderize the character - which is pretty annoying tbh.

DC fans that claim that the only reason Jason is angry when he returns as the Red Hood is because of his death:

First of all, i know that some people just joke about this in the sense that "it is ridiculous that Jason is angry at the world because he died, when so many other characters have been tortured, have died and returned from the dead in the comics, and especially in DC. So, him and his trauma are not that special". And while i get where the joke comes from, and that DC's most recent writing of Jay's trauma just focusing on on his death at the hands of the Joker doesn't help it. But,, Jason's main issues and trauma don't relate that much to his death,, actually it can be argued that since he returned from the dead that he doesn't really care if he dies again. i don't think that "his greateast fear is to die again", as some seem to believe. i said it before and i will say it again,, Jason's trauma relates more to being let down by his loved ones, especially by his parental figures, feeling like he doesn't matter enough to his dad (aka Bruce) and that the systems that hurt him and continue to hurt others are still rolling and going without any significant change. (For not saying that he never, even to this day, got Justice for what Joker did to him,, which is also ironic because, ya know, Batman and DC's stories are all about Justice... i know this is more complex than this, but this is often a point that gets dismissed to a degree in discussions about Jason and why he wants revenge on the Joker and Bruce. It's not about him dying, it's about not having Justice for himself when he has a father figure that could give him that, but as we all know he didn't, at least not how Jason needed/expected it,, and the fact that Joker still keeps hurting people to this day - thou this problem also comes from the fact that for meta reasons, DC cannot kill the Joker to "give Jason some peace", because he is one of the most popular characters, villains and antagonists to Batman, so there is that).

And while, like i wrote before, people are allowed to joke about Jay "being too emotional over dying, when others have died too and haven't done what he did because of it", i think it's also important to understand that, well, that is actually an exaggeration, ya know, reducing/flanderizing Jason to just "a violent crybaby that is angry at the world just because he died", which again, gives a very reduced and wrong idea about the character to people that don't know much about him. Which is kinda ironic, imo, because sometimes the same people that either joke or seriously describe Jason like this will lose their shit on other people's joke posts about the characters they like more, so like??

Just... ya know the saying -> if you are going to joke/shit/criticise/be mad at a character at least do it about stuff they actually did and/or characteristics that are more consistently shown through out their canon writing.

There seems to be a lack of empathy (especially this one)/sympathy towards Jason coming from a meta level (writers and fans) and the in-universe people (aka characters in Jason's story)

i know that this part just by the title alone can come off as a little bit "dumb", because i am basically saying that no one understands Jason Todd,, which is ridiculous because i didn't create him and, tecnically speaking, the ones that know him the most are the people that created him, wrote him and own him, aka DC comics and their writers. Which is funny considering that for the most part of this post and most Jason Todd fans are always criticising and complaining about Jay's writing. But i think that when we say that "no one understands Jason Todd", we tend to refer more to the modern interpretations and writers of the character. Thou, when i say that other characters don't understand Jason in-universe that is totally right.

(Little note here: i am gonna come off as pretty critical of Bruce and his treatment of Jason. Though that doesn't mean that i think Bruce doesn't love his son. Also, Bruce loving Jay doesn't mean he understands his son, and him not understanding his son doesn't mean he doesn't love him. Bruce loves his son, and Jason loves his dad, they love each other a lot... the problem is them misunderstanding each other.)

So,, let's start this section by taking a step back to Post-crisis Robin Jason and keep going from there.

Jason is introduced to us and Batman as a street kid that had "...stones to rip off the Batman´s buggy--". And Jason's first response to seeing Batman is to hit him with the tire iron and run to his hideout. We see he is alone, defensive and that he misses his mother, and he is making everything he can to survive. This is also where we see Jay have a "sense of justice" or at least an understanding that, even if he also steals, there is a difference between him and other people stealing to survive and stealing for more selfish means, like Ma Gunn was doing in Jason's intro story. So, it is made very clear that Jay is not just some punk that enjoys stealing or hurting or seeing people being wronged and used, like the boys that were sent to Ma Gunn's school were (which fair, included Jason at the time, but he didn't have that much of a hard time running from her. For not saying that when he did he still thought by himself to go after her, when he could have just taken his new stolen tire and simply go home, without returning to help Batman). Then he is taken in by Bruce and he is happy being Robin and staying with Bruce for quite a while.

But... the lack of empathy already begins to show through Bruce, that doesn't seem to wrap his head around what Jason needs to heal from his trauma, and comes off more as patronizing when he "teaches Jason about how to do Justice in their Unjust world", which comes off as even worse when you think about the fact that he is telling that to a kid that was seen and lived those injustices practically since day one. And that is because Bruce cannot get out of his own vision of justice and of healing after a traumatic experience. And especially because Bruce doesn't seem to grasp that Jason's trauma is based on a lot of more difficult and traumatic moments than just having a single defining traumatic moment that changed his path in life forever in a big way, like it happened to Bruce and Dick when their parents died (i know that Bruce and Dick suffered through other traumatic events after their parents' deaths and especially as vigilantes, but the point i am trying to make is that, after becoming heroes and having dealt with their biggest trauma through finding ways to do Justice, they eventually "got used" in how to deal with current and future traumatic events, while Jason as just a 12-year-old kid went through too many traumatic things at such a very young age which compiled into his overall trauma, so it's not just dealing with one single defining moment of trauma, it's a colection of more of those from even before Jay became Robin - and that's what Bruce seemed to miss - also, that not everyone is gonna deal with their trauma, even if it is similar, the same way he did, like sometimes he really forgets that, especially when it comes to his children). But,, even with this in mind, i and others actually think that the writing here, including a little after Jay's death, was more sympathetic (at least) towards Jay's situation than next comics and writers were - and that is because at least, originally, despite Bruce lacking some understanding in how to help Jason, he actually did try with Jay and there wasn't that much villainization of Jay's behaviour, either coming from the writing or from Bruce himself,, considering that, at least, Bruce blames himself for Jason's death instead of the blame being put on Jay completely, and Bruce did try to understand and help Jay before, even if he took a while to "try to do something" and he still failed his son. Thou, there is also a disregard towards Jay's situation coming from other characters as well, such as when the Titans, that together with Bruce, would say things that compared Jason to Dick, and obviously more in the sense of "Dick was amazing, hopeful, less angry, etc., than you are as Robin", which obviously contributed to Jason's insecurities.

And while previous writing of the characters makes them "miss the mark" in understanding Jason,, which can just be seen as a character flaw and a indicator of the fact that the Heroes that existed and that Jay encountered at that time just didn't have similar experiences to Jay to make it easier to understand him and that they all were being kinda "narrow minded" because they missed when their friend, Dick, was Robin,, at least the writing of the story and certain parallels between Jason and some victims he and Bruce encountered did give some validity to how Jason feels.

Then Jay dies, the story when Bruce "beats himself" over Jason's death passes, which fine, quite valid, the characters need to move on. But... the next Post-crisis writers decided to turn Jay from a tragic and misfortunate story to a cautionary tale - and this is where the victim blaming of Jason Todd starts to happen.

So, from this point on the writing starts to look at Jason more as a failure that all young heroes need to avoid becoming. Then this is made even worse when Tim Drake comes around, as the new and cooler Robin that is also more relatable, with some comparisons and jokes made at the expense of Jason and his tragedy, which makes the perception of Jason as a failure even worse. Like, DC was really so stupid that they thought that putting emphansis on Tim's perspective on a kid that he knows next to nothing about was the best and correct way to look at Jason in their overall writing... they didn't even try in making other characters that actually knew Jason, like Dick and Bruce, correct Tim on his assumptions - and why is that?? Well, obviously, because DC really wanted to drive home to the readers that Jason was the "bad angry Robin that got himself killed because of his recklessness"... like it can even be said that Tim showed more respect to Jason's Robin memorial than he did Jason as a person. And while Tim making wrong and bad assumptions about Jay is okay, and again, something that can be seen as a character flaw to explore,, the fact that the writers just chose to reinforce Tim's vision of Jason through other characters is just so stupid and makes it look like no one really knew or even cared about Jason Todd, because they needed to focus on "Jason being the bad Robin" narrative. And again,, the fact that characters that knew and were close to Jason, aka Bruce, Alfred and Dick, didn't correct Tim and contributed, and might even given this idea since the begining to Tim viewing Jason as being too "angry and reckless" and that this is what got him killed, could have been used to explore this flawed vision of Jason that these characters had of him as something that was the result of grief, and perhaps of denial that they failed him (especially in Bruce's case that was there when Jay died)... but naw DC just decided to make everyone seem like assholes towards Jay's memory, a 15-year-old kid that died trying to save his mother (which wow, how tf did no one realize how this came accross when DC wrote and published this...).

Thou, as ironic as it might sound, after Jay digs himself out of his grave (because this poor boy can never have any rest) and spends one year in a coma and then waking up and walking catatonic through the streets of Gotham all alone for almost another year, the person that ends up showing him the most understanding is Talia al Ghul, even if at first she might have just cared about her own plans. So, she is the one that shows and gives affection to Jason, trains him and actually gives him the tools to start his path of healing, even if it is filled with more violence than ever before and revenge. And this is where Jason is finally able to "let loose" to show the world his anger towards it's injustice, where he goes after horrible people that hurt innocents and ends their torture of others once and for all, and he actually gets to show and tell Bruce and the Heroes that they failed him and that their methods might not be as good/effective as they think.

But, this is where people also start (both writers and especially readers) not liking Jason even more or to outright hating him, which fair, he did do some actions towards certain people that, no matter how you look at it, always will be wrong and outright horrible. Which might turn Jason into a little bit of an hypocrite himself, just like Bruce and other Heroes. And while it's not a problem, at all, to critique Jason’s actions when he returned as the Red Hood, this is often used to downplay or outright dismiss Jason’s pain and at least the sympathy that he should still have (or even actually have to begin with) from the writers, audience and in-universe characters. Even as he redeems himself and shows regrets about his actions that he did during his worse time, in more recent stories, people will never forget or forgive and stop holding over his character what a "horrible person he is for his mistakes", even if in the real world it was been 12 years since he started his redemption and in-universe, for a couple of years (at least around 2 years, not sure because comics timelines and ages are a mess, but for quite sometime now either way) he has been putting in the effort to respect his father's wishes and become a "better vigilante" that doesn't kill.

But either way it is put,, Jay doesn't seem to have the right to be right in any capacity anymore, to have valid reasons to still be mad but move on from it just being about his death, and going back to being about the other trauma he went through, which almost everyone seems to have forgotten about, especially because the newest writers or DC superiors forgot about it or outright erased it. So, the parts that gave a "clear reason" to feel for and understand Jason were thrown out of the window so they could just make a back and forth between Jay and Batman, where Bruce is mostly the one in the right, despite being the one that failed so many times at helping his son, and a lot of times being the one that caused Jay more pain than anything or anyone else.

And, honestly, the people that use the "Pit Madness" excuse/explanation aren't giving Jason understanding either, they are just giving him an out so the character can be "redeemed" without actually having anything to redeem himself for,, after all it isn't his fault, so why would he need to take responsability or have a valid reason to do what he did, he simply doesn't have a reason, it's just the Pit controling him and his anger or something. Like a puppet... which comes off more as "fake sympathy" because these people seem to only be capable to empathize/sympathise with Jay if he wasn't in control of his violent actions.

Also, maybe he doesn't need/deserve to be forgiven for the way he hurt people that didn't deserve it (such as Mia, Onyx and Tim), but he does deserve at least some understanding, and understanding doesn't mean you agree to his methods, to how he went about "warning Batman and the Hero community of their errors". And it's a damn shame that this seems to be a hard concept for some writers and fans to grasp.

Plus, it's also such a shame that nowadays writing decided to "corrupt" the little that Jay had as Robin by painting him as an angry and violent punk with no good reasons for why he is like he is. Where is that understanding for that kid that went through such a hard life, that just continued and continues to give him nothing but hardships and pain.

So,, i just wanted to conclude that i think Jason had enough of people (both in meta and in-universe) only painting him as if he is "one of the worst people there was/is", that he deserved the pain he went through, claiming that he had no way to have it better, when that couldn't be further from the truth, if he was properly given the chance to grow out of the cycle of violence and pain, that he still wasn’t fully able to move away from even to this day.

Ending my headaches with this post

Generally, i think it's so funny to think about how much our generation gets attached to fictional characters in such a personal way. And while it is valid to feel and express either positive or negative feelings towards a character and their actions, i think that these need to be more balanced and about things that are true about the character, aka coming from canon, as much as canon gives us so many shitty ideas and some really questionable writing choices. Like, at this point i am so tired that DC keeps doing this to Jay... DC, just please make up your mind once and for all in either or not you want Jay to be part of the Batfam and give him something else to do besides always being at odds with his family and going back and forth in working with and not working with them... just find some basic consistency with him, we ain't asking for much.

And again, just because i love Jason and i did defend him more than criticised him during this post, that doesn't mean that i agree or defend everything he did and/or believed/believes in,, i just enjoy his character and some stories (or really the potential that he had/has) and to discuss about it. But sometimes the writing and some fan opinions really annoy me so much, so i feel the need to camplain about them... so, this is why i made this rant on Jason Todd, one of my favourite characters, despite all the shit he gets.

Anyway,, thanks for coming and reading another one of my Jason Todd rants.

#jason todd #robin #red hood #dc critical #fandom critical #dc meta #dc comics #dc #alexa talks here

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will-o-the-witch · 2 years

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You can't gatekeep a Goddess -_-

And no before you go on the "Lilith is closed to Judaism" rant like gatekeepers always do - that makes absolutely no sense.

Judaism is a monotheistic religion, their god literally tells their followers that he is the one and only being they're allowed to worship. No amount of mental loops can make worshiping anyone but him "okay" in Judaism, especially not someone that rebelled against him.

And don't even get me started on the fact magic and witchcraft are a sin in Judaism... The absolute lack of understanding of religions gatekeepers need to have to somehow end up thinking that only Jews are allowed to worship Lilith...

Let me spell it out for you and all of the gatekeepers out there.

If a Jew worships Lilith, they're no longer Jewish. Worshiping and working with anyone other than the Abrahamic god makes you not a part of Judaism, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion, by default.

"But some Jews on the internet claim that they're allowed to worship her!" The fact new age Jews decided to bend the religion so much that it somehow makes sense in their eyes does not mean that all Jews are like that. If they choose to have a different outlook on the religion they're free to do so, but they don't speak for the entirety of the religion and in fact aren't considered Jews by the majority of the religion's sects.

Judaism does not condone even believing in the existence of any deities and gods other than Elohim. Lilith isn't even a thing in Judaism. The fact translations and mistranslations of the Tanach ended up adding her does not mean she exists in the original text nor in the religion itself.

So I'm going to tell this to you and to all the other gatekeepers stop shoving Lilith into a religion that doesn't even acknowledge her. It is clear that you've never read the actual non mistranslated writings and interpretations, you're not doing anyone any favor here by spreading misinformation.

Saying only Jews are allowed to work with Lilith, is identical to saying that only Christians are allowed to work with Satan. Hell it's worse, Satan at least exists in Christianity... Lilith does not exist in Judaism.

This is nonsensical, paradoxical, and ignorant.

You put a lot of work into this and I can tell you're pationate about it, so I'm going to try and exercise patience here and explain stuff in a non-emotional way. For context, I'm Jewish, I know a thing or two about Judaism, so you don't have to "spell anything out for me." I've heard every single argument you've laid out here before. Let me explain why they're not good ones.

To start, Lilith isn't a goddess and never was. That's a New Age projection trying to wedge her into the Wiccan Goddess archetype. The idea she was a Sumerian/Mesopotamian goddess has been thoroughly debunked multiple times. It is true that her name probably comes from the same origins as the lilit/lilitu, but they are a class of spirits that don't share too terribly much in common with her. Certainly not a singular entity. Lilith is classified as a demon spirit. Perhaps a very powerful/high-ranking one, but not a deity.

You might be excited to learn Jewitches are very much a thing. Judaism has an extremely rich history of mysticism and folk magic. In the modern day many devout Jews also practice some form of magic work. Here's an article about it, on a website all about it.

I'm not sure where your disdain for Jewish witches here is coming from. Besides the info laid out above, it's strange to me that you'd have such strongly-held opinions about the "proper" way to engage with a culture and religion you are not a part of. Not every Jew is an Orthodox Jew, and we are not "bending our religion to fit" anything so much as expressing our Judaism in a way you just might not be used to. It's also not possible for someone to un-Jew themselves like that. That's not how Judaism works.

Even beyond just Jewitches, I've never seen any "regular" Jews be okay with gentiles worshipping Lilith either. The most positive opinions I've seen are "If they want to be idiots and get themselves wrecked so be it, it's what they get" or "I don't like it, but it's too far gone for me to die on that hill anymore."

The Tanakh doesn't actually say that about other deities. It says HaShem is the only god for us, at least, but many Jews are more henotheistic than monotheistic. Even my own Rabbi agrees there's a decent argument for it. As for reading things "untranslated," assuming you're not fluent in both Aramaic/Biblical Hebrew, I still doubt you've done the same amount of research/textual analysis as centuries of ordained Rabbis. It's also very convenient to insinuate anything you don't agree with is simply a mistranslation.

Also, everything you know about Lilith almost definitely comes from the Talmud and various midrashim. There isn't anything written about her before that because again, Lilith as a singular figure predating Judaism is ahistorical bunk.

Jewish practice has recognized Lilith for at least 1400 years if not more. Jewish incantation bowls warding her off date back to the Sasanian Empire. There are tons of folk traditions related to Lilith which survive to this day. (Lilith amulets are still made in many places if you know where to look. In some communities everyone will wear their wedding dresses to a wedding to "confuse" Lilith and stop her from harming the bride.)

As for it being like "Christians only worshipping Satan," that doesn't hold up because 1) Satan is present in other religions besides Christianity, and 2) Christianity actively (or even aggressively) seeks to spread their stuff while Judaism does not. Judaism's practices are very insular, and adopting them without undergoing an intense formal conversion process is near-univerally considered offensive and inappropriate.

Look, it really just about listening to Jewish people when they tell you about Judaism, instead of assuming you know more about Judaism than actual Jews. We've studied our texts. A lot. We've engaged with our culture and our folklore. We've experienced antisemitism and know what is and isn't offensive. Your post ere shows some fundamental misunderstandings about what Judaism is and how it works. Maybe sit and listen for a while.

#oyim at the goyim #lilith

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batfsm · 6 months

Text

After 83 Years, Robin Just Closed DC's Oldest Plot Hole

A conversation between Batman and Superman reveals the secret of how Bruce was able to take custody of the boy who would become the first Robin.

JUSTIN EPPS

PUBLISHED 16 HOURS AGO

SUMMARY

Batman's money and status as Bruce Wayne played a crucial role in him being able to take in Dick Grayson as his ward, with little to no questions asked.

The Waynes' prominence in Gotham and Bruce's funding of social programs gave him a certain level of leeway when it came to adopting a Robin.

Batman is aware of his privilege and knows how to use his wealth and status to his advantage, including bending rules that others have to follow.

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Batman/Superman: World's Finest #20!

One of the most perplexing things about Robin's origin has finally been justified. An old ally of Superman has returned, but it brings up a notable problem about Batman taking in Dick Grayson as his ward. The Dark Knight reveals just how he was able to take on the Boy Wonder with pretty much no questions asked.

Since nearly the beginning of his crime-fighting crusade, Batman has almost always had a Robin by his side. Dick Grayson, the original Boy Wonder, came into Bruce Wayne's life after a terrible tragedy at Haly's Circus that killed Dick's parents. Dick became Bruce's ward, and later, the first of many Robins.

While fans have accepted that development for the sake of the story, in-universe, no one's ever batted an eye at how or why Bruce Wayne gained custody of Dick with little to no questions asked. It worked out in his favor, as Bruce and Dick were able to operate as Batman and Robin with no oversight.

Batman's Money and Status Helped Bruce Get Custody of Robin

In Batman/Superman: World's Finest #20 by Mark Waid and Dan Mora, Clark has finally found where his fomer sidekick Boy Thunder wound up in the multiverse: Earth-22, home of Kingdom Come. Superman travels with Batman to the world and the two begin their search at the restaurant Planet Krypton. Bruce asks if Clark is prepared to let David back into his life and what his long-term plans are. Batman reminds his friend that the only reason Bruce was able to take Dick Grayson as a ward was thanks to the Wayne name and money. Someone like Clark would be much more scrutinized by Child Protective Services.

Fans often joke about Batman's true superpower being his money, and here it's actually kind of true. The Waynes are the most prominent family in Gotham and Bruce has been using his money to fund social programs for years. It makes total sense that he'd be given a certain level of leeway when it came to taking in a ward. Bruce even admits that it wasn't easy, exactly, and that his resources could only do so much. However, as Bruce Wayne, he'd obviously have a much better chance of adopting a Robin or two compared to a relative nobody like Clark Kent.

Batman Knows How to Use His Status to His Advantage

Batman knows better than anyone that he's quite privileged and he can get away with bending rules others have to follow. But he knew that Dick was much better off with him than going into the system. Truth be told, Batman's wealth and status helping him game the system is too perfect an explanation not to use when justifying how someone like Bruce managed to gain custody of Dick. For better or worse, it wraps up a plot hole from the Batman canon and neatly explains Robin's role in the lore. Batman/Superman: World's Finest #20 is on sale now.

How is this news? We all know how it happened, it happens all the time with celebraties and etc, so why the fuck are they acting like it's a huge thing?

It's not! Are they that desperate that they literally have to make a damn comic on it and then an article? Oh wait, it's because somehow they're bringing Boy Thunder back instead of fixing how Clark meets/acts to Kon.

Jesus Christ DC, what is going on with you guys now?

#dc comics #batman #superman #dick grayson #clark kent #bruce wayne #batman/superman #batman/superman: world's finest #opinion

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prismatoxic · 5 months

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i know the original mgs1 graphic novel has been around for almost 20 years. i'm sure it’s been analyzed to death by people smarter than me, with more innate knowledge of the series than i have, but serzh and i watched the digital one (with all the voices and animations), and i've been thinking about it ever since.

mgs1 is my favorite. in comparison to the rest of the series that followed, it's far more subdued; the voice acting is more sincere, the setting is less fantastical, the enemies more human... when things like psycho mantis's manipulation or vulcan raven's ~mystic native powers~ (ugh) come into play, the juxtaposition of those events with the more grounded rest of the narrative makes them feel more severe.

is mgs1 perfect? god, no. maybe raven's portrayal can be somewhat forgiven from a game from 1998, but a lot of the issues it has come down to technical limitations and plot discrepancies, imo. i have a lot of thoughts about how stilted snake and meryl's relationship is, too, but i kind of want to give the game a point for that one since they fell apart after the fact anyway. i just don't know if that was intended from the start. if not, they wrote an unsalted cracker of a relationship story for no real reason, and that's sad.

but my thoughts don’t end there, nor do my thoughts on twin snakes and, later, the graphic novel, which was eventually billed as a way for players to get the story of mgs1 without having to play it. i feel like that framing makes things far more egregious than they already were. regardless, if you’re interested, my thoughts on all this will be under the cut. i’d love to hear other fans’ thoughts, too. fair warning, though: a lot of this will be centered on the dynamic between snake and otacon, and their individual characterizations, bc those things interest me most and also made me the angriest when changed.

so let’s get twin snakes out of the way first. twin snakes is a bastardized version of the story that i love, which somehow manages to mangle the narrative while also changing none of the dialogue. i’ve heard the story of david hayter personally paying all the other returning VAs to get them to come back, but you can tell they don’t really have a lot of passion for re-recording things they already said years ago. david himself, while not so disenfranchised, has fully switched to the later snake portrayals here, and while i do think he’s a very talented VA and the only snake i’ll ever agree with, the direction he was nudged in from then onwards makes snake so... over-the-top, and hammy. it’s embarrassing at times, and in twin snakes it’s at its worst.

then there’s the characterization. ignoring the voices, for a moment, you will also run into situations where the characters’ actions and movements paint a picture of them that contradicts the characterization they had originally. snake is... over-the-top, like his voice, and then you have otacon. i am still mad about otacon. i am so mad about otacon. without changing a single goddamn one of christopher randolph’s lines, they butchered his character, turning him into a joke: he’s constantly falling down in silly slapstick ways, even during the wolf death scene. one of the most powerful scenes in the entire first game, if not THE most powerful one, and they turned it into a fucking JOKE. (and had an actual wolf carry her body away at the end??? what????)

...but this has absolutely been talked about by people smarter than me. here’s an article by the english translator for mgs1 about his work and experience with the game, and here's a video by youtuber jackdonsurfer about the differences between mgs1 and twin snakes, and why twin snakes is a bad remake. i highly recommend both of these, they’re very good.

so moving on from twin snakes, we have... the graphic novel for mgs1, the bastard son of the two games combined with a bunch of its own ideas as well, for better or worse. i’ll be referencing the digital version, but anything that isn’t related to the voice acting will still hold true for my thoughts on the actual book.

the graphic novel uses the same voice direction as twin snakes, but toned down, more befitting the tone of mgs2 or 3, which did seem to learn from that particular mistake. the actors also seem to have regained their passion for the project, and for the most part, give it their all. gray fox is voiced here by rob paulsen, as well, and that’s a decision i understand, same as in twin snakes; greg eagles voiced donald anderson along with gray fox, and the similarities between his anderson and gray fox voices were inescapable once you recognized them. i do think greg eagles did things a lot more passionately, and his version of gray fox is very different from rob paulsen’s, but at the same time, the more mechanical read of gray fox’s lines—up until the tail end of the fight in the lab, or the REX fight, where he gets more intense—does lend an interesting interpretation to his character. so, in the end, while i think i overall prefer greg eagles’ version, i don’t think rob paulsen’s is bad.

so everyone is doing their best, and the writing isn’t as godawful as it was in twin snakes... however, several things jeremy blaustein discussed specifically changing in his english translation of mgs1 in the polygon article i linked are instead lifted from the twin snakes version of the script, or based largely on it. so it’s not great. better, but not as good as it could be.

so with that out of the way, and with me having a subzero interest in talking in depth about the art (it’s really stylized, but there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s perfectly serviceable), it’s time to talk about the story.

there are some things the graphic novel does alright, or even really well. i like the added scenes between FOXHOUND members and other main characters; i like otacon’s justification for wanting his own codename; and i love the psycho mantis section. absolutely fucking flawless concept, wish they’d done that in the game instead of making the controller vibrate. ah well.

the rest, though. god.

i mean, a lot of it is fine, i suppose. slightly more dramatic spins on the original narrative, cutting out parts that only made sense in-game, shifting some events around, and otherwise just sort of doing things the same. but i have some very specific grievances about some of the portrayed relationships.

so, if this post gets out farther than i expect, like some of my other mgs posts have, here’s some background: i’m an otasune shipper. i don’t think that affects my biases too much, as the story and characters are really important to me as-is (in the original, obviously), but i am particularly invested in snake and otacon’s relationship, even in a strictly canon sense. otacon is my favorite mgs character, too. so let’s discuss some of this while also knowing those things about me, for transparency’s sake.

onto the point, i think snake and otacon’s relationship in the original game is massively important to the narrative. the video i linked by jackdonsurfer discusses this, and is one of the reasons i originally started fully considering it, but to be more precise: snake and otacon are very explicitly narrative foils.

snake is a military veteran, a mercenary, a soldier by birth and by trade. he kills people for a living, and he does it well. he’s gruff and aggressive and with rare exceptions, looks out for himself first and foremost. he’s rough around the edges, sharp, pushing away meaningful connections and never letting anyone get too close.

otacon is a scientist, as well as an anime fanboy, two of the first things we learn about him. we also quickly learn that he’s a pacifist—upon accepting that he’s responsible for a nuclear weapon and not a defensive machine, he immediately vows to fix it, refusing to cause any more deaths than he surely already has. he’s soft and kind and passionate, and he wants to help people, whether it be the whole world or just snake. he wears his emotions on his sleeve, and even when snake is holding him at arm’s length, otacon is trying in earnest to connect with him.

they tend to bounce off of each other like polarized magnets, but in moments like the “love blooming on a battlefield” scene or wolf’s death, they come together, finding common enough ground to understand each other while remaining distinctly different. you can feel snake warming up to otacon before the end, even without taking into account the otacon ending (which is noncanon anyway, but its exploration into their relationship in that situation is still very sweet). otacon is willing to sacrifice himself to ensure snake and meryl’s survival in the canon ending, and snake makes especially sure to request otacon’s extraction when the bombs don’t fall.

this all segues nicely into their dynamic come mgs2, but even taken only by itself, it tells a very concise story. even though they both have romantic interests in mgs1, their relationship with each other is important, a key factor in both of their character arcs.

why am i bringing all of this up? well, uh, because the graphic novel tries to downplay it in favor of the romances.

look, i don’t ship either of the “canon” ships in mgs1 (if we can even call otacon/wolf such), but i don’t think they’re done poorly, either. as i said earlier, i felt like snake and meryl’s stilted, almost forced romance lends well to the timeline between mgs1 and 2, because the idea that she’d eventually realize he was exactly who he said he was—thereby seeing the real him, and not this idea of him she had in her head—and subsequently realize she didn’t want that and wind up leaving, is really good. it’s an interesting story, and adds to the overall narrative. as for wolf and otacon, i always got the sense that otacon was in over his head about someone who’d shown him the barest hint of mercy, and wolf was mostly neutral on him in turn. the moment when she reaches out, and snake asks what she wants, and she says her gun? with otacon visibly in frame behind the gun? that’s powerful. he’s inconsequential, meaningless; yet to him, she’s everything, this symbol of “love blooming on the battlefield”. it’s an interesting story.

the graphic novel giving us more scenes between snake and meryl/otacon and wolf isn’t something i mind, especially the latter. i want to see more of that! i want to know why otacon feels the way he does. the first time he runs into wolf in this story, she wants to kill him. (never mind that she “doesn’t kill for sport” in the game, huh.) the second time, she uh. decides she likes him a lot? i’m willing to accept her being at least somewhat fond of him (he does have her handkerchief, after all), but her sudden pivot to openly liking him is... odd. and then the third time, he bursts onto the snowfield to stop snake and wolf from killing each other (this is good, i like this idea), and she can’t bring herself to shoot him to lure snake like she did with meryl (which feels... not like a problem a trained killer like her would have, especially given that she discusses shooting him in non-vital but crippling ways, specifically). her death scene is similarly impacted by this increased focus on her and otacon, stripping away the mood of the original in ways i really wasn’t fond of.

now, snake and meryl i have less to actively say about because we genuinely skipped a lot of it. it was painful to watch. i like meryl—i think her being an inexperienced wannabe soldier who is desperate to prove herself is a great story. she idolizes “heroes” like snake, who were never heroes at all, throwing herself into the war machine to live up to this ideal that will never exist. (mgs4 handled this well too.) i guess i don’t have much to say on how the graphic novel handled her because of the skipping, but i can say that there was ample focus on her and snake, and in a way, i feel like parts of otacon and snake’s story were surgically removed to make more space for it.

remember the “love blooming on a battlefield” scene? of course you do. it’s one of the most iconic scenes in the entire game—maybe the whole series. how does the graphic novel handle it? it, uh. doesn’t. it’s gone.

and at that point, i can’t help but wonder if part of the entire point of this was to make the story seem less gay. maybe that’s just a tinfoil hat thing. but why would you remove one of the most powerful, character-driven conversations in the game? it doesn’t sit right with me. were they worried snake and otacon would eclipse the oh-so-important romances if they were allowed to be proper foils?

some of the stuff towards the ending is pretty good. i like some of gray fox’s changes, and i like snake being forced to fire the stinger because fox begs him to, though the original version where snake can’t bring himself to is still good. i like that snake cuts off liquid’s arm, setting up ocelot’s arc later on. i like that the patriots are mentioned; of course they weren’t originally, bc they hadn’t been conceived of yet, but it’s a good addition now that they’re part of the series.

i don’t like how otacon is stripped of the chance to demonstrate his conviction and loyalty, because he’s already safely out and hacked the security doors in advance. i don’t like how he mocks snake’s real name instead of making a 2001: a space odyssey joke. i don’t like how him escaping with snake and meryl has made for some very confusing fanfics where writers think he was at the cabin at the same time as meryl because that’s the only version of the story they know.

and that, right there, is the worst part of it all, isn’t it?

this version of events, with all its changes, has been presented multiple times as a stand-in for the actual game. it’s not the only one in this series, but it is the only one i’ve seen, and it veers so wildly from established canon that it actively changes several dynamics and story beats—and people without access to mgs1, or who don’t like the look of it, or can’t quite get into it, or aren’t able to play video games in the first place, are given this story as a way to bypass having to play it at all. it has been presented as being just as good as playing the game to see its story. it’s officially sanctioned konami content.

i genuinely hate it.

i liked a lot of things, like i said. some changes were good. psycho mantis was great. several of the VAs did a stellar job (though there was one part when otacon meets wolf and her dogs where the voice christopher randolph uses for him is exactly huey’s, so much so that it makes a genuine statement sound manipulative with that context, but this was recorded before peacewalker/mgs5 so it absolutely wasn’t intentional). a lot of it was a really interesting take on a familiar story, but some of the parts they changed just... were really bad. i was kind of fine with it when we finished it, but the more i thought about it, the angrier i got.

i don’t know what the point of this is. i mostly just wanted to get out my thoughts, i suppose. it drives me insane that this is billed the way it is, like a canon thing and not some fanciful retelling by a fan. i wish it was better, but i’m at least comfortable with the fact that a lot of people in this fandom don’t seem to have any open feelings about it, if they’ve seen it at all. mgs1 hasn’t been lost to history even a little bit, and i love that.

if we hadn’t skipped a lot of it, i’d probably have more to say, but also, i never want to see it again, so this is what you get. thanks for reading; i’m gonna write otasune fic now probably.

#metal gear solid #mgs #sorry for thinking so hard about otacon all of the time #tox.txt

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troonwolf · 1 year

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Do you have any legit reason for calling it a cult? Or do you just dislike them

Here I've basically answered this before but I do have a lot more to say so buckle in because you literally asked for it.

First, excerpts from private essays alters in here have written -

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"Many cults and fringe spiritual communities have sprouted from Western religious fundamentalism, based on the idea that symptoms of mental illness aren’t really mental illness, that medicine and psychology can’t be trusted, and that what mentally ill people need is to somehow ascend passed their illness.

We see this in Scientology for instance, which when you look at it, actually holds similar ideas to endogenic spirituality: symptoms of mental illness are attributed to alien ghosts plaguing the body, psychiatry is completely rejected, and the only way to treat mental illness is to ascend to higher consciousness.

Obviously, Scientology isn’t the only cult that believes such things, just the most recognisable. If you look through the history of Western cults and fundamentalism, you’ll find an on-going theme of rejecting psychiatry, rejecting medicine, and telling people their mental illness is either a gift from god or a curse they have to overcome.

Endogenics hold the exact same position: symptoms of a mental health issue (dissociation, identity disturbance, internal voices) aren’t symptoms of a mental health issue. They’re a natural part of you- in fact they make you a better person than if you were singlet. They treat “pluralty” as if it’s a higher state of being, and many of them come from faith backgrounds which most now reject, but have replaced by spiritualising mental health."

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"+ Link to a whole article denying DID systems personhood. They’re telling mentally ill people that to be considered worthy of personhood, they have to assimilate into this belief system. I also know many systems who have had this done to them when they were in “mixed origin” spaces, and have experienced this for myself. It’s even worse in private spaces, where they can’t be held accountable for their actions."

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Also to break this down / add to it:

They have a niche belief system that rejects our known understanding of the world while placing all their faith on an ideology with no proof behind it and no support from respected institutions, either spiritual or scientific.

They actively target mentally ill and vulnerable people to assimilate into their belief system and instil a fear in them towards seeking treatment or of being seen as mentally ill, as well as an overall distrust in the field of psychiatry as a whole. (Not just criticism towards the institution for its many disgraces during its development, but an outright rejection of it as an idea.)

They go as far as to spread guides on how you can force dissociation or hallucinations- this is literally cult programming.

They further other forms of cult programming, such as system hopping which is inherently a tactic of abuse and control.

Anyone who denounces the cult is othered using language that would be incomprehensible to someone not in the cult - traumascum, sysmed, etc.

They treat their ideology and "plurality" as a higher state of being and use that as a method of recruiting others, telling singlets it's just better to be plural, and constantly challenging DID systems that they may be endogenic.

Their ideology causes the same harm towards mentally ill and vulnerable people that other similar cults do. People deny themselves treatment and worsen their symptoms, either purposely or through that denial.

We used to be pro endo. We were surrounded by endogenic systems. The things we saw them say in private spaces are even worse than what they get away with in public. Alters with loose grasps on reality were told they can't be a real person because they're just a symptom, and that if they felt like they were a "real person", then they HAD to be a "endogenic headmate" or a "soulbond".

Anyway as you can probably guess, this led to a denial of trauma, a denial there was anything wrong with them, an increase in dissociation and I remember one of them insisted he was "actually tethered to the body, not inside it". Bizarrely enough it even led to a complete denial of the system in some instances. (???? boy was smoking that snoop dogg shit ig)

Obviously the consequences of all this to the system as a whole were not good even if I'm able to joke about it now.

It's almost as if I dislike endos because I've seen the ramifications of their belief system first hand or something. Weird.

And before someone goes "WELL YOU SHOULDN'T BE COMPARING IT TO A CULT ANYWAY BECAUSE YOU'RE INVALIDATING CULT SURVIVORS BY-" I'm a cult survivor. I was raised in a cult. The whole reason some alters were susceptible towards the endogenic thing was because they were already pre-programmed to be influenced by those things. Over the years all these experiences have led to us being good at recognising cult programming. Also shut up.

Actually actually- on a side note-note. I think a problem some people have with this is they can't comprehend that a cult can exist on the internet, but you just have to look around you. Q-Anon started on the internet. Anti-vaxx and Alex Jones were popularised by the internet. There's other lesser known cults that started on Facebook or internet forums. This isn't new.

And additionslly, another reason endos aren't seen as a cult is because they align themselves with the left and the LGBT+ community. Since we're misunderstood communities who are used to being invalidated, we don't like the idea of invalidating others. It's easy to convince a queer person that their MAGA-hat wearing drunken Q-Anon uncle is a member of a cult and obviously shouldn't be validated. It's a lot harder to convince them that their fellow queer or disabled person who is overall well-meaning towards people, could also fall victim to a cult and also shouldn't be validated.

But again if you look at how cults actually operate, this isn't new. They often latch onto already misunderstood communities because they're less scrutinised there. It's not even a conscious plan on their part, it's just "well these people also have beliefs and ideas that aren't accepted by normie society, so I'll hang out with them."

And finally for more examples of endos being culty you can look at my tag: endo cult, because I call things what they are.

#genuinely I don't usually like painting targets on ourselves like this #but it's very important to me you all begin to understand this is a cult #which is also one of the reasons I keep obliging questions like these #anti endo #syscourse #endo cult #also pls take note of the fact I gain literally nothing from talking about this #and the only thing I have ever got out of talking about this #is negative attention #or confused singlets asking questions because they have no idea wtf an endo even is #so don't try to present me as being in bad faith or ''just disliking someone''#like please think realistically wtf would I be getting out of that #esp when most people disagree with me even if they are anti endo #but I've Experienced Things and Made Observations and this is my conclusion #pinning this now because it made a lot of people whine at me and invalidate my trauma <3 #ty for proving you did not read anything I actually said

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nagia-pronounced-neijia · 14 days

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First Lines

Tagged by @laiqualaurelote and for once I have the energy. Thanks for the tag!

Rules: list the first line(s) of your last 10 (or however many you have) posted fics and see if there’s a pattern

1. Laus Veneris

The scents coming in off the East River are a particular kind of awful this morning, all rotting fish, old sewage, and frying algae. Even if the sun hasn't quite risen yet — it's still peeking over the horizon, casting long shadows over the city — the early summer heat means that Bigby smells everything.

2. The Distance Caught Me By Surprise Again

If Trevor were ever going to be completely honest about the fuckshow shit-circus that this most recent assault on Dracula's castle has been, he would probably admit that he'd always expected it to go poorly.

3. Unto All Men A Chosen Land

So, apparently, Trevor has somehow missed the end of the goddamn world. Weird. He'd thought for sure there were supposed to be trumpets, and something about armies of angels, or maybe the faithful?

4. This Rising Tide

Himura's blow may be what sent him crashing to the floor, but though Aoshi will never forget the searing pain of that impact — the burn of metal into his skin, a thousand times worse than any gunshot — it's not the pain that keeps him there. That takes the realization of what he's done.

5. Just Play Your Part

It's a surprisingly quaint little farm, the kind of thing some traveller from the far-away west might paint into his little journal and tell all the Belgians and Austrians and French about.

6. When There Is No Star In Sight

Those first few days of pale, pink-cheeked spring are gloriously, luxuriously perfect.

7. This Doesn't Hurt

They trudge into Camp Dragonhead under the cover of night. Pale snowflakes blur with paler stars in the blue satin sky; Alphinaud tastes the cold with his first breath, sharp on his tongue and crisp between his teeth.

8. there where the good man is not good

The thing about being a Belmont is, the job means you die.

9. When The Chaos Calls Me Out

So, the thing is, it wasn't supposed to go like this. He gets about four seconds of, "oh shit" when he puts his foot down inside what was apparently a circle of something.

10. If You Won't Go Under

Yuffie learned to climb and fall and roll so early that she had stopped having those weird dreams where you feel yourself fall, and then have to jerk to to wake up, by the time she was twelve.

(First line is actually narrator death, so here's the non-awful first.)

Most of the first lines are pretty punchy, but some of that may just be narrative voice. Speaking of, most of these openings have very distinctive character voices, with the (deliberate) exception of "When There Is No Star in Sight." This doesn't really surprise me and tbh probably isn't all that noteworthy for me, considering that I write extremely close third, with narration as a window into the narrator's thoughts. It's not just conversational prose, it's a conversation the narrator could conceivably be having in their head.

My openings also tend to get to who the narrator is pretty quickly. This is a writing habit I formed waaaaaay back when FF.Net published writing advice columns/articles on the front page. One of them tore into an author for playing coy about who the narrator was and delaying using names, and apparently I internalized that, along with basically all of Limyaael's rants.

I don't typically tag people, so if you see this and want to join in, please do!! Also: feel free to include your original projects or unposted wips. I'm not the police.

#memesheepage #on writing #artforms large and small

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shoppncarticles · 8 months

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Reviewing Minecraft's Original Creatures!

Frankly speaking, I’d be surprised if there was anyone reading this article that was totally unaware of what Minecraft is. You AT LEAST know it’s that block game where you do two things that may or may not be mining and crafting. I’ll spare you the introductory summary of what the game is. So let’s just get right into the creature discussion part.

Despite being a game limited to a voxel-based, low texture resolution artstyle, Minecraft still has some iconic monsters and ambient critters on display – referred to as mobs, if it slipped your mind. A large number of the early days’ mobs were more basic things like cows and chicken, with monsters being limited to skeletons and giant spiders for the most part, but even in Minecraft’s earlier days some more original ideas have been sprinkled in. Original fantasy beasts are Minecraft’s bread and butter nowadays, for better or for worse, but some still stand out as being noteworthy enough for me to want to discuss. As such, here’s an article where I talk about some of Minecraft’s original mobs, and what I like about their designs!

Creeper

One of Minecraft’s first mobs, and easily its most iconic. It’s likely common knowledge now that Creepers are the result of a coding error that resulted in a pig having its body rotated upright rather than flat, and the game’s creator finding the shape amusing enough to reuse as its own creature. It’s amusing that in some cases you really can’t plan for success, it’ll just happen upon you spontaneously. Like a sudden Creeper attack!

Creepers are infamous for their silent nature, only making themselves known as they begin to detonate and explode right next to you. This pattern, as well as the idea that Creepers are apparently similar in texture to crunchy, dried leaves, has lead people to believe that Creepers are actually botanical monsters that explode in order to spread their seeds or spores on random passerby as a means of carrying them to new locations. Sounds like a solid enough biological explanation to these upright boomsticks to me, and it’s really not that unheard of in the real natural world.

Ghast

Another one of Minecraft’s earlier creations is the Ghast, a huge, flying entity that calls the hellish Nether dimension its home. It’s immune to fire and lava and shoots explosive bombs from its mouth, and wears what appears to be a forlorn, tearful expression and makes pathetic whimpering and groaning sounds when idle. Fits its brimstone home well, if you ask me. I always found its design interesting, even if its nature as a flying projectile-shooting enemy made it really annoying to come across in-game. The Nether often being filled with fog and open air, as well as Ghast’s impressive detection range means you may often hear one’s moaning or be barraged by its bombs without even seeing it, which it quite the effective surprise attack.

Airborne jellyfish with crying faces wouldn’t be my first thought when thinking of enemies to populate a Hell World with, but I’m glad the Ghast is what we ended up with.

Silverfish

It’s funny that some people first heard of Silverfish from Minecraft and believed them to be a wholly original creation of the game, and while Minecraft’s mobs are creative visually, they take their name from real arthropods that can often be found alongside other harmless household bugs. Minecraft’s Silverfish though are irritating little buggers that disguise themselves as, or hide within, random blocks in cave and old ruin walls, popping out if a player tries to mine them. Silverfish also seem to have some kind of alarm system, since waking up one will cause several from the surrounding area to pop out and attack you too. The game marks Silverfish-infested blocks as Monster Eggs strangely enough, meaning they may use rocks to incubate in, somehow.

Silverfish always struck me as having a coarse, hairy texture of some kind, given their numerous pixelated frills. It’s all the more to their irritating nature, really. Do you think anyone’s favorite mob is the Silverfish? Has anyone tried figuring out a deep explanation as to the Silverfish’s biology and reproductive habits, and why they always gather around Stronghold ruins?

Endermen

Is Slenderman still like, known in the public consciousness? Do kids who have started playing Minecraft in the past 8 years or so know that the Endermen are a reference to an old SomethingAwful creepypasta guy since past his prime?

Regardless, the Endermen are another of Minecraft’s more iconic monsters, infamous for their weird, inquisitive nature, and neutral behavior, lest you stare them in the eyes. Endermen seem to be the resident Aliens of the Minecraft world, hailing from the space-like End dimension, and curiously picking up and placing blocks around the world much like a new player would. They’ll unhinge their jaws in rage when spotted though, and get aggressive as a growing roar emanates all around the player. That’s what heightens the whole alien angle, that they really don’t want to be seen.

Amusingly, Endermen also take damage from water, and will instantly teleport away if they touch it. This has the side effect of Endermen rapidly teleporting all over the map during rainfall, helplessly trying to find something to protect from the falling water. They can also be found in the Nether, and likely enjoy it better there as no water can exist.

Mooshroom

A fully passive mob this time, but the Mooshroom are a peculiar creature exclusive to the incredibly rare Mushroom Island biome. These islands are so overrun with fungi that all the vegetation has been replaced with mycelium, the root network between vast growths of fungus, and giant mushrooms. This extends to even the wildlife, since all the local cows have apparently entered a mutualistic relationship with mushrooms as well. It’s neat way to sort of imply some natural backstory to your world, that an island in the middle of the ocean was overtaken by some freak fungus and got the local wildlife to acclimate to its introduction.

Mooshroom are able to live peacefully on the island, and can even breed to make baby Mooshroom already covered in fungus, so they seem to be connected on a deep level. Despite that though, one quick use of some shears will return the cows to normal and give you some edible ‘shrooms as a reward. They’re a pretty odd inclusion, though enjoyable for the absurdity.

Even stranger, you can milk Mooshrooms as well, but what you’ll get is not lactic fluid, and is instead mushroom soup. However that works, it’s just a further signifier of these things’ weird, altered anatomy.

Blaze

Fellow residents of the Nether alongside the Ghast, Blaze are weird fire elementals that occupy ruined Nether Fortresses scattered around the dimension. What exactly they are is anyone’s guess, but they seem to be made of a physical material rather than living fire, since they drop an item called Blaze Rods, likely being the objects that orbit them. They make metallic wheezing sounds too, as if wearing some kind of mask or filter. This is one of those times the limited artstyle really holds back a design, because I’d like to know what the hell Blazes were intended to be, if anything. Maybe some day we’ll know, those designers love doing lore reveals these days.

Wither

The Wither is one of Minecraft’s two boss monsters, and easily the more interesting of the two. Not only do you have to summon it yourself, by building a golem-esque shape for it, but seems to have more purpose in its behavior than fellow boss Ender Dragon does. Once summoned, the Wither will actively hunt down any living mobs in its radius and kill them, and will destroy almost any blocks blocking its path in doing it, rather than just flying around aimlessly like the dragon does. Its design isn’t spectacularly detailed or complex, but the enjoy the idea of a charred, three-headed spinal column and ribcage embodying some big bad demon of death or the like. It’s simple and effective.

Guardian

The Guardian’s a weirder one, and definitely closer to the top of my potential list of favorite mob designs. This current list is ordered chronologically. As the name implies, Guardians are protections of rare underwater ruins you can find peppered in Minecraft’s oceans. Guardians resemble weird, cycloptic pufferfish, which is already a good start to a design. However, their body color and cracked texture greatly resembles the blocks their ruins are built with. Alongside their ability to shoot long-range lasers from their eyes and inability to be found anywhere besides the ruins, many players believe Guardians may be artificial in nature, created to protect whatever’s inside their Ocean Monument homes. Which is usually just gold treasure.

Guardians also make low, ominous drones when in the water, likely as a method of intimidation. If you get one out of water and on land though, it’ll comically squeak as it flops around pathetically, looking for more water to hop in.

There’s also Elder Guardians you can find in deeper chambers of the monuments, twice the size of the normal guys. They have a freaky ability to inflict various debuffs that will prevent players from just mining through the monument’s walls to get treasure, forcing them to actually spelunk through it, which is a smart touch. I like that it does so by swirling a ghostly image of itself around your vision. The paler colors and eye looking as though it has a cataract are nice ways to make it seem ‘elder’ as well.

Shulker

Shulkers are inhabitants of the End dimension like the Endermen are, though only occupy strange End Cities and End Ships which dot the landscape of the weird space of tiny floating landmasses. They seem to be a living protection system like the Guardians and even Silverfish to an extent, since they disguise themselves as regular blocks only to shoot at intruders with projectiles that inflict a levitation status of all things.

What do you think the Shulkers are analogous to? I always thought they were some clam-type mollusk monster, personally. They fit the archetype, only taking significant damage once opening their shell and exposing their core.

Phantom

Phantoms are really cool mobs conceptually and from a design perspective, and it irritates me how annoying they are in-game since it really cuts into their appeal factor. Phantoms are sky-faring stingray-like monsters with bony patterns on its back (or even better, exposed bones, since they’re classified as undead) and tattered wings with a nice blue color and glowing green eyes. They only show up if the player hasn’t slept in three days, steadily growing in number and even size for every night that hasn’t been slept through. They scatter once daylight comes, since undead mobs burn in the daylight, but return soon after. Their circling flight patterns and affinity for sleep-deprived players, as well as a distinctive chomp sound playing when they attack, makes them feel like vultures and over scavengers, looking for an easy exhausted target to pick off and feast on.

Phantoms are just really irritating since in Minecraft, there’s hardly a reason to sleep other than setting your respawn point or fastforwarding to daytime to avoid hostile mob spawning. If you’ve spent a long time exploring or spelunking and just haven’t had to the need to sleep yet, be prepared to get pestered by a bunch of Phantoms on your way back home. They’re near impossible to hit in the air, so you just have to wait for them to swoop down to counterattack, and you can only do so once or twice to boot.

HONORABLE MENTION: Barnacle

I would’ve killed for more aquatic beasts to be put in the game, and the Barnacle here would’ve fit that niche had it won the popularity vote for its inclusion to the game. Phantoms won the vote instead, and while I can at least take solace in their resemblance to ocean creatures like stingray, I’ll forever be scorned that the Barnacle was forgotten. Why NOT include it anyways, just at a later date. It was COOL. It’s a weird sea monster with a blooming flower mouth and grappling tongue. It’s the perfect off-key deep sea ship-sinker, and looks to fit pretty well to the artstyle too. I hope it was planned to act like a mimic to the existing Squid mobs, with its jaws closed and trailing appendages resembling tentacles, only to snare unsuspecting players who swam or rowed their boats too close. Would’ve been EPIC.

Zoglin

Ever since the Nether’s introduction to the game, its fiery wastes were populated by Zombie Pigmen; humanoid pigs that were also zombies, but were actually completely neutral to players and wouldn’t attack unless provoked. That’s since changed, with Piglins now inhabiting most of the Nether and building their own structures, analogous to the overworld’s peaceful humanoid villagers.

What’s interesting though is that the Nether also saw the inclusion of most beastly Hoglin monsters, giant warthogs that live in forests made of overgrown mushrooms and are hunted by Piglins. When Hoglins are taken out of the Nether and into the Overworld, likely by coaxing them through a portal, something in the dimensional change morphs them into half-rotten zombies outright. The same thing happens to normal Piglins too, which is more concerning considering how sentient they are by comparison.

Anyways, I wanted to draw attention to Zoglins specifically because I really liked how they’re designed while remaining fitting with Minecraft’s style, in my opinion anyways. The half-exposed skull and ribcage are pretty morbid, and whether or not its got green blood or has just been rotting extensively, the green edges to its flesh are sickening, though neat details. The comb of dark hair on its back falling flat, where the normal Hoglin’s stood straight up, is also a clever detail to communicate how dead they are. Zombie warthogs aren’t most games’ first choice when it comes to undead monsters, but these are neat.

Strider

The same update that included the Zoglin also included the Striders, the Nether’s first totally harmless mob! These weird walking heads are able to cross vast pools of lava without a care in the world, actually seeming to live comfortably in the heat above all else, since they’ll shiver and turn blue when outside molten rock. They’ll even die outright if they touch water!

I really appreciate how weird they are for a peaceful critter, with their wide mouths, big foreheard, and scraggly hair strands. The bottoms of their legs being charred and hardened from being dipped in lava all the time is a good touch too.

Warden (and Skulk)

Minecraft’s always had more unnerving elements to it, especially with Creepers always being prided on their sudden appearances and caves being unnerving for hiding who-knows-what in the darkness. Things came to a head in 2022 though with the introduction of Skulk and the Warden. Skulk is weird, moss-like growth that covers other blocks and builds vast deposits of itself in extremely deep caves, and making most light sources ineffective thanks to its dark color. What’s especially noteworthy, and what I find most appealing about it, is its apparent attachment and diet of experience points, of all things. Mobs in Minecraft drop EXP points when killed of course, and if close to a special Skulk block, will be consumed and turned into more Skulky moss to spread in the surrounding area. The Skulk Catalyst block responsible even has a bony texture to it, playing up its morbid qualities. Skulk, when broken, will just yield raw EXP with no material anyways, as if that’s all it’s truly made of.

If you’re careless enough around vast Skulk deposits, you may alert a Skulk Shrieker, causing a howl to emit and alert the Warden to your presence. Do this enough times and it’ll claw out of the ground like a zombie and search for you. It’s blind, so can only listen for your movements, but that’s a classic trope that makes it so you can never be perfectly certain of its movements and whether or not it’s caught notice of you or not. Its unusual, wobbly animation also adds to its uncanny factor and how out of place it is for unsuspecting players. If given the opportunity I’ll criticize other mobs included in recent updates for their more high quality and flexible animations, but on the Warden, who is supposed to feel out of place and unnatural, it makes enough sense. It’s uber-strong too, with enough health that developers admitted they didn’t think players should even try to fight it and just escape. They specifically likened it to a natural disaster rather than a boss, which I think is quite the effective way to communicate the destructive power of your monster.

As a design, the Warden is super strong too. It seems to be made of the same material as the Skulk is, with its body being primarily dark, bluish ooze and slime, with its arms and torso having bony bits to them too. The gaping frown its got is sick too. The open ribbed hole in its chest, exposing a flashing pit like a heartbeat is a great touch for a horror monster as well, and the fact the hole is filled with little screaming spirits is a cherry on top. I could totally understand if someone felt the Warden was over-the-top and maybe trying too hard with its creep factor, but I totally dig it.

Ha! Dig! Like mined craft! Gottem!

#creature feature #design critique #monster design #creature design #minecraft

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