#you're my writer friends and the people i talk to for a majority of my days

[raayllum]

im new to the fandom, so I miss a lot of the discourse (helped ofc by the fact you're kinda the only dp blog I follow), so everytime you mention the s4 backlash I'm like....how in the world could people hate that season or rayllum in it? It doesn't compute for me!

The last ship I was particularly engaged with, has a lot of similarities with rayllum. They were best friends, life partners before they were ever /romantic/ life partners. And they went through a /lot/ of trauma, miscommunication, and being on opposite sides of the same fight, etc etc.

the difference to rayllum was that they never rlly gave each other the grace they need. They also never talked on screen, but unlike rayllum it wasn't because it was the best option for them, it's just that the writers didn't want to include it ever - to the point that when they finally did an episode addressing it, it landed...very flat? Because it was about six seasons in, addressing things as far back as the second season, that they'd apparently never spoken to each other about before (they were tragically engaged when this happened).

Rayllum GENERALLY but especially in s4 have a really special place in my heart, because they feel very realistically messy - but it doesn't feel like it's there so there's some drama to keep audiences hooked. It feels authentic, and is one of those rare cases where it strengthens their relationship. I definitely could buy that rayllum would survive anything that hit their relationship by the end of s3, but getting to actually SEE that and see how much they're willing to work through out of love and respect for each other? Fantastic.

(also like it's such good character development....i am with u in the s4 defense squad. is there a squad? If there is I'm in it)

First off welcome to the fandom and I hope you're having a good time!!

The fact that my blog is mostly discourse free cause while I tag accordingly (fandom nonsense and dragons gets salty for potential blacklisting purposes) I always worry I can dip too far into that on occasion (I do my best not to unless being called out by name, and even then mostly do my best to ignore stuff), but there's not too much discourse within TDP in general — at least not in the Rayllum corner, luckily.

I think that's why the S4 backlash really surprised and threw me for a loop, because my partner and I finished the season at like 7AM on release day and while different than expected, we loved it and thought it was great from the start. Then we went online and people in the fandom who I'd largely always agreed with were having a really hard time with the season and it was disheartening at least to not have many people to talk to about why 1) S4 is TDP's thematically strongest season thus far and that's still true, 2) it's Ezran's best season imo, and 3) it does a lot of things really really well in really interesting ways.

I always try to never come down Too Hard on the s4 backlash just because people are of course entitled to their feelings/opinions then as well as now (even if some people's tunes have definitely changed), but a lot of it did feel sometimes short sighted if not immature.

Like soo many people are still mad that Rayla and Callum broke up in an offscreen graphic novel, when S4 would still be S4 regardless of whether TTM existed and like... if Rayla worrying that she failed (again) and went off on her own (again) to protect Callum was a big logical leap, then that person honestly just wasn't paying attention; there's not much else to say there. I also think it's just a strange choice to assume that Nothing Major would change the second you find out about a timeskip; like, almost everything else is status quo, Rayla being gone is the One Major Change and people couldn't handle that being a Surprise?

Like you said, conflict between a couple is not inherently a bad thing; it can be good and interesting, and this was always a relationship hurdle I think a lot of Rayllums (myself included) expected Rayla and Callum to have to tackle. Not liking how extreme or 'dramatic' it was (ie. season long arc > just a few episodes, or Rayla leaving > just trying to leave) is fair enough, but given that it's rooted in so much of Rayla's character, I'd much rather take a long way around approach that's in depth. I'm also just Glad and Grateful that the show is tackling it and treating it like the issue it is rather than sweeping things under the rug.

The fact that Callum's version of anger wasn't the one people wanted is another issue, but again — his anger went the way I'd always thought it might if he just went through enough trauma, and even if he had yelled at her, I don't think the season would've necessarily gone any different than it did other than them crying more early on. Which I've written and wouldn't have minded, but I also don't dislike the alternative route canon took — of course they were never going to get all variations out there, but Callum is cold as hell and being a bit of a jerk while also being valid and tempering himself because he doesn't want to hurt her anymore than she wants to hurt him (and Callum has always been very very bad at being/staying mad with Rayla or Ezran anyway).

I saw a lot of pushback against Rayllum being 'platonic' (which was annoying as an aromantic person lemme tell you, as though platonic is lesser), being "broken up for no reason" (Rayla being hyper-independent was not a secret and always going to be what threatened to rip them apart; they are also still Visibly and Repeatedly In Love with each other how is that broken up), or that they didn't get to have a Big Feelings Time in S4.

With that in mind, there's a lot that also matters in a relationship beyond just Open Communication, tbh. There's going to be times in life where you're not able to or unwilling to talk about certain things (given that S4 is maybe a week, I think that's reasonable; especially when Rayllum still haven't talked to each other about it as of s5 and no one I saw have an issue in S4 about it has complained about it there) and like... how do you treat each other when you're still mad or confused and haven't talked everything out? Do you still take care of each other, are you still doing your best to be considerate of each other (even if you're also not going to be perfect)? That shit matters just as much if not more as people able to sit down and hash things out.

I think the truth is a lot of the things that pissed people off about S4 would've been true even if the opposite things had happened:

N'than is flat and under developed unlike Ellis → N'than is more developed → why is N'than taking away from screentime for other characters?

The Sunfire plotline feels disconnected from the rest of the story (nvm that Viren's arc from 1x06 onwards doesn't affect any main character again until 3x04) → the Sunfire plot line has more connections to the main cast crammed in → more complaints about pacing and things feeling overly stuffed, as scenes already change from one to the next quite clearly

Callum and Rayla have a big talk sometime between 4x03-4x07 → this doesn't give Callum enough time to be angry / makes him seem unreasonable because he's admitted he was mostly worried but is still not fully letting her in despite her spilling her guts to him (and in what world would Rayla give excuses, again, when she knows he's the one hurting and taking priority in her mind)

S4's humor was bad because there were fart jokes (in one episode) → the crowlord's joke is so much worse than the fart jokes imo and is on par with the walnut joke in 1x06. also 1-2 scenes with jokes that didn't work for you out of 9 whole ass episodes is like. you're just a wuss i'm sorry

The Sunfire plot line is boring → will never not feel like "I just can't connect or be interested in politics and religious disagreements when it's mostly about Black people for Some Reason (racism)" to me tbh

There was no way to please everyone especially after a three year hiatus (because people think, For Some Reason, that how much time it takes for a story to come out should change how that story is written and it really, really doesn't) but yeah. The internet showed their asses and I was Not Impressed lmao

TLDR; a lot of the S4 backlash was "I'm mad this isn't happening now and I'm stressed out/worried that it won't be" as opposed to "this is only a problem if it never happens at all, but I have faith that it will," and I will love S4 forever. The Callum-Viren parallels being ramped up, the theme of duality and moving "doing terrible things for love" to the forefront with multiple characters (Rayla, Terry, Viren, Claudia), seeing Ezran step into his role as king, Callum's arc being shown > told, the set up for the possession plot line, Janaya's engagement and relationship development + Amaya and Janai's independent arcs? Chef's kiss. S4 is my best friend and its Rayllum dynamic is on par with S3 for me, and I am very grateful the fandom's attitude towards s4 and s4 Rayllum is a lot warmer / more reasonable now

When Callum says "unconditionally" in 5x01 and all their stuff in S5 we know and believe it because we've seen them fight and work so hard to come back from some pretty terrible brinks in imperfect ways, and I'll always love s4 for that. The most aspec Rayllum season by far

#thanks for asking #anonymous #also feel free to come off anon and message me if you'd like! i promise i don't bite and that i am a loser (affectionate) #long post #s4 is my best friend #s4 #arc 2 #which is saying something bc s2 and s1 rayllum is also SO GOOD #like it never has to be anyone's favourite by any measure. but it is just NOT a bad season or handling of the characters #it's just not

[blughxreader]

platonic yandere batfam thoughts...

how you end up integrating into the family.

I think we often forget how insidious the long-term effects of kidnapping are. Your whole world narrows and you have nothing fulfilling outside of them.

Realistically, how many weeks straight can you do nothing but look at your phone/watch TV? I know we do this every day, but we have school/work/friends/family to provide actual fulfillment and joy. But when you take that away? And have to decide whether you should scroll through monitored social media or talk to your captors?

Especially because the TV doesn't distract from the cold, hard gaze of the surveillance cameras in your room.

Even if you read and craft and cook, it's so difficult to keep your mental health in-tact without having a positive interaction with another human being.

It would start small.

It's morning and Cass smiles at you from across the breakfast table. Not wanting to be rude, you smile tightly back.

Jason wordlessly slides you a book. You take it.

After a few months, you feel slightly more comfortable about taking up space in the manor. Alfred is out of town for the weekend, so you make a sandwich with Tim.

Bruce talks to you about the new scientific breakthrough at Wayne Enterprises and keeps you relatively up-to-date on major world events. You begrudgingly learn more interesting facts than public school has ever taught you.

Soon, you've watched everything good on Netflix. You exhausted your tolerance for social media. You've given yourself headaches reading so much. You've hit an art/writers block like never before because your input has run dry.

With no other source of entertainment, you become more attentive to the Bats.

Of course, you've always watched them out of fear. But as months tick by and you've learned their hearts (and delusions), it's obvious that they would never hurt you. Furthermore, operating within their expectations is easy enough as long as you never challenge them, so the constant danger-sense slowly turns off.

However, because you don't have any outside noise to occupy your mind, drama in the house becomes almost life-and-death to you.

Peace is so fragile, and it's all you have.

Damian and Bruce return from patrol in a rage one night. Damian's furious echoes bouncing upstairs, followed by Bruce's low, indistinguishable scorn.

Fuck, you think. Now your and Bruce's talks are going to be stilted and uncomfortable. Now Damian is going to sulk in your room for hours, unwilling to talk about what happened yet wanting some kind of reassurance.

You can't keep them from fighting, but you want to protect your peace.

When you first arrived in this dreadful manor, you never would have imagined you'd offer them kind words and affection. However it's the only thing you can do now.

There's conflict. The house is tense--your world is tense.

Should you call Dick? He has a day job again, so he can't come over until tomorrow night. It's up to you to ease the tension.

So you do, slowly, with homemade food and Bruce's favorite coffee blend and Damian's favorite hot chocolate. You sit with them individually, shoulder to shoulder (much closer than you would normally sit), and pretend everything is alright. They're surprised but very quick to snap back into a good mood.

The house is suddenly back in order and you did it all by yourself.

And with these vigilantes, conflict is ripe. There's always people coming and going, fighting and playing, and you're unwillingly the most in-tune with the well-being of everyone's relationships.

You protect your peace. You protect the house.

this shit makes me gnaw at my enclosure. if you're fem, it's worse because ✨ stereotypical woman archetype ✨ anyway this has been on my mind because i've been taking care of my baby chicks and cooking dinner most nights, so i'm like 💁‍♀️ i could be a captive house wife click here for my yandere batfam masterlist

#yandere batfam #platonic yandere batfam #yandere x reader #platonic yandere #yandere dc #yandere batman #yandere headcanons #yandere batfamily #platonic yandere batman #yandere scenarios

[pasta-in-the-pudding]

Hello there!! It’s 🦐 anon back at it again and I have another request if that’s okay.

I don’t know what character limit is the max, but could I have some headcanons for when Jeff, Toby and ben have a crush obsession on someone (reader) , but they discover they’re already dating someone else? What would they do? (Seperately)

If you can’t do 3, only doing Jeff and ben is fine! Just thought of this idea and you’re one of my favourite writers that’s active in here, so I came to you!! Have fun if you end up writing this. Have a lovely day.

-🦐

It's always ok to ask for stuff! And don't worry about character limit because i think the absolute most id be willing to do is maybe 10 per ask

Also it makes me smile to see that im one of someone's favorite writers 💞💞

Tw: stalking and obsessive behavior

Thank you so much for requesting!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeff

Jeff doesn't really like people all that much

And as we know, he is very self absorbed

So if he actually finds himself enjoying you, let alone loving you, he assumes that you should automatically love him as well

He spends every second he can watching you through your windows, learning your schedule, all of your favorite things, etc, etc

And eventually, he builds up enough courage to sneak into your house while you are away

He smells your clothes, cherishing the heavenly scent

He steals one of your t-shirts and steals your toothbrush (definetly not to brush his own teeth with)

He snags your perfume/cologne as well, so that he can always smell like you

And with all of his treasures in his pockets, he sneaks back out

He continues this cycle for weeks until one day, you bring someone else home with you

"One of their friends" he tells himself, jealousy already boiling in his heart

But when he sees you look up at them with your gorgeous eyes, and sees you kiss them, he snaps

He is seeing red as he breaks through the window, killing your partner in cold blood

He feels betrayed, how could you do something like this to him?

He ends up knocking you out, and bringing you back to his home, where he ties you to his bed and waits for you to wake up

Because you have got some major explaining to do...

Toby

Toby finds himself feeling like a lost puppy around you

He loves you, oh lord he loves you

But he can't have you know that yet

If you were to see him, see the things he's done, that'd scare you off for sure

And so he watches you from afar

He watches you when you go to work, he watches you as you head home, he sits closely by you when you're at a resteraunt

He doesn't ever allow himself to break into your home (unlike SOMEONE on this list 😒)

But if you ever drop something, say, a piece of trash, or maybe something falls out of your pocket, he swarms all over that

He has a special little drawer in his nightstand full of all of the things he's collected from you

But lately, he's been noticing a...shift...in your schedule

Meeting the same person over and over again, until one day, his worst fears are confirmed

As you make your plans with them, you share a sweet kiss and walk away, holding hands as you do so

This breaks him

He can feel his heart aching, as he knows that he's lost you

He blames it on himself "if I had just talked to them sooner"

He can't bring himself to hurt them, though

And, they can't be all that bad if they make you happy

And so, he allows this person to keep dating you, continuing to stalk you from the shadows, waiting for the day that you leave them, and his chance will be presented again

BEN

Ben has a....knack, for finding people

It's almost like scrolling through the front page of social media to him

Scrolling past an endless sea of countless faces, watching videos, playing games, streaming, etc

But one day, he found you

Your gorgeous face entranced him almost immediately

And by the end of the first five minutes of just staring at you, he knew that he needed you

He comes back to you, day after day, saving all that you watch in his own personal playlist

If you like video games, he will know, and he will send you all of the games you could ever want

You don't know where they're coming from, but you aren't complaining

He occassionally peers through your electronics cameras, and just watches you sleep

You look so nice and cozy, he wishes he could be there with you, holding you, keeping you safe

And one day, he notices a new person coming into the picture

A....romantic interest of yours

He can't have that.

And so he hacks them. He leaks their adress, he posts life ruining things on their socials, even going as far as to make them think that you are doing these things, making them hate you and putting more and more strain on your relationship

Eventually, you break up, unknowing that BEN was behind it all

And he's been sending you love messages along the way

Little gifts he knows youd like too

And now he can make himself known to you, as an angel, a savior, rather than the monster that had ruined your relationship with your partner

#creepypasta #creepypasta x y/n #creepypasta x you #slender mansion #creepypasta x female reader #ticci toby #eyeless jack #ticci toby x reader #toby rogers x reader #toby erin rogers #ticcy toby #jeff the killer x you #jeff the killer x male reader #jeff the killer x reader #jeffery woods #jeff the killer #ben drowned x y/n #ben drowned x you #ben drowned creepypasta #ben drowned x reader #ben drowned

[heyitschartic]

I've seen a lot of people complain on tumblr about how Worm fanfic is nothing but altpower Taylors. It's not a complaint without merit, I've been hearing it since 2017. Hell, it's something I complain about a lot too. It's true, the fandom is filled with crappy altpowers that really add nothing. But to an extent, I always feel I should push back a little against it.

Even if I do advocate for just writing your own thing, there's a really good reason so few people do. There are a good amount of Worm fanfics out there that use original characters, niche characters, or do a wild take on the premise. Not a ton, not the majority, but a good amount.

But nobody reads them.

Rank is probably one of the best stories in the fandom. Long, filled with original charscter's, and with an interesting focus on a PRT officer working in San Fransisco. It's got an amazing scope, working from when Leviathan attacked Kyushu all the way to Gold Morning and has so many brilliant setpieces and bits of world building. It's earned its spot as one of the best, if not the best, story in the fandom.

It pulled in a paltry amount of comments and likes over the years it was being posted.

I remember when I first entered the fandom, there were already people warning new writers that, while it would be cooler if you wrote about someone other than Taylor, that you'd be getting a fraction of the views. And it sucks yeah, but it's the truth. I've seen a lot of writers over the years get discouraged because stories they love and put a lot of time into just get ten likes and maybe one comment an update. A good friend of mine will only pre-write her OC stories because the absolute lack of interest is so disheartening its caused her to just give up in the past.

And it's not like people who critique Worm Fanfics for being filled with shitty altpowers even really read this stuff. Say what you will about the Cauldron discord, but it's one of the few places I've seen people push HARD for others to read this niche weird stories, and even then there's pusback or luke warm reception. It's sad to see people talk shit about altpowers, but just not really check anything else out but that in the first place. It's just as bad as if you were only reading them.

Check out stories trying something original! Luz Mala, Rank, Agent of Cauldron, City of Bones and Teeth, Diary of a Professional Knock-off, Fault, Lend Me Your Ears, Mouse Trap, Sunspot, Nightcrawler, Raccoon Knight; and those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head! There are a lot out there waiting for you to find!!!!

And how to fix it? Well, I'm not sure if there is a fix. If anything is going to work though, at least be the change. If you aren't someone whose actively reading and commenting on new fics about OC's or similar, well, what incentive is there for people to write them? Sure, a love of just creating something might push you to post, but if you feels like you're just shouting into a void, it might feel better to just not shout at all.

If you want people to write good stories, give them a reason to actually do it.

#wormblr #worm fanfiction

[swordsmans]

prompted by a baffling conversation with one of my friends + overall trends with events like big bangs. apparently i am deeply underestimating the amount of, like, actual consumption crossover between fanartists and fanwriters. i've been operating under the assumption that the majority of fanartists don't read fanfic and that fanfic is a relatively niche thing mostly shared between fanwriters with a few outlier exceptions. like, that the "communities" or w/e are relatively separate??

this is possibly because i've been out of "fandom" for a few years (or bc im not on twitter/insta where the artists hang out), but i feel like most of my friends are other fanwriters and most of the people who actively engage with fanfic on tumblr/ao3 are also fanwriters (and vice-versa with fanartists gravitating to each other). however. my friend disagrees? neither of us are actually artists tho so i'm putting the question out to the crowd. (more thoughts) ->

side note: i didn't include an option for being BOTH a fanartist/fanwriter because 1) you're like rare and exotic birds to me 2) i'm trying to figure out who falls into which category based on what community you "identify" with the most. if you write the occasional fanfic but you mostly think about/create fanart, you're a fanartist; if you mostly write fanfic but every now and then will think about/make some art, you're a fanwriter. the group you're more likely to engage with. that kinda thing.

side note 2: you will see i have included an option for fanwriters who don't/rarely read fanfic. i know you exist because that is my category. i read fanfic but do so rarely these days. i'm selective because i dont have a lot of time on my hands. this is possibly another reason why i feel like engagement between fanwriters is so high, because if i'm going to engage with a fanfic i'm gonna put my whole ass into it since that's the kind of engagement that makes me happiest from a writer's perspective.

for reference, when i say "engagement" i'm talking about leaving kudos, comments on ao3, asks/comments on tumblr, tags on reblogs... that kinda thing.

with all of this in mind, this could literally just be because fanfic writers are more willing to engage with other writers bc of their own shared hobby and/or because fanfic writers know what kind of engagement theyd prefer on their own fics and act accordingly--and non-writer/artists are just more willing to engage in general because that's the primary way you participate in fan communities. on the flip side, fanartists might just straight up be a really quiet bunch... possibly because your thing (affectionate) is "visual" more than "verbal" (if that makes sense).

basically... this is exactly what i'd like to know LOL.

#this is mostly abt one piece because i DEFINITELY feel like there was WAY more crossover between artist/writers reading fanfic in homestuck #but that was also literally a decade ago & i feel like theres been a HUGE shift in how people see/are willing to engage w fanfic these days #THIS ISN'T SHADE OR ANYTHING I'M GENUINELY SO CURIOUS #i found out some people i assumed didnt read fanfic at all actually DO and i was BAFFLED #the librarian urge to do research create categories and make lists #spiders loopey is an outlier and should not be counted lfasjlhlhsdfsdhfkjs (kidding ily) #gyro.txt

[vvh0adie]

watching my friends leave tumblr is really sad

you literally can't win

at this point the writer's strike should just be a cultural movement

like ppl are writing for FREE and you're complaining about turn out rate and shit

we have lives and some of us (HELL ALL OF US) have some form of mental illness, so we can't be fucking cogs all day and churn out fics.

writing is suppose to be therapeutic and writers want to share that with you to ease the tension of this hellscape we live in

but some of these readers and even fellow writers are taking it too far with the bullying

like its mean and nasty. you don't know what someone is going thru.

instead of asking for updates how about check and see if your writer is mentally stable to do so. that right there is a booster, to have someone say "are you okay?"

and then the whole accusations of favoring a certain member/character. if that person is my muse or safe space then of course imma write for them. most solo writers i see don't even talk bad about other people. its a SOLO account. think of it as a shrine blog of writing if that helps. they're not there to trash, just share their writing for other's who might also share the same muse.

then you have readers who can't separate fiction from reality. just because someone writes a character with irl people faceclaimed onto them doesnt mean they actually think that person would be or do those things irl. i'll be the first to say that i only gave my characters bts faces cuz thats who im attracted to and they're who i imagine would be casted to play my characters.

then IN THE YEAR OF 2023 we still have ppl making fun of their peers writing and also THE FACT THAT ENGLISH MIGHT NOT BE THEIR FIRST LANGUAGE? that's nasty asf. majority of us dont even speak 'proper' english as our first language no way. you only shooting yourself in the foot. don't act like you dont have beta readers... like what are yall on?

and anybody who gets on THAT BLOG behind anon is an opp. not just to the writing community but in how you interact with the world all together. yall don't know how to talk to people anymore? it may have started as a place for critique and accountability but no one is bringing receipts or critical thinking anymore. its mainly for drama and not rehabilitation. yall serious scare me in how we'd see the reality of social change applied to the real world. like i'd be more scared to let yall around the prisoners with minor offenses cuz yall act like its the end of the world and that change cant happen. yall give nobody room to change ignorant stances but ignore the real egregious shit because you honestly dont have the bandwidth to take on actual fascist views.

also the plagiarism has got to stop too. if you need writing resources just ask. but practice makes perfect. so you're gonna have to write yourself. you may not like your writers voice but you will feel shitty in the long run when you don't feel like its you putting those words on the paper. it literally just prolongs your inferiority. make something you're proud of and don't hurt your fellow writers. we went thru the process just like you. we earned it. and most of us aren't gatekeepers, we will help you.

like its really tuff being on here sometimes. cuz if you not being hounded by readers its your own community praying on your down fall.

we have to do better.

#preacha plym #lil rant

[insteading]

So, I'm newish to fandom, right? Though I'm not new to being obsessed about particular shows, my last rounds of obsession came when the blogosphere was still a thing, and that's where my blathering about it in the tags energy went.

I get that "Positive feedback only on art and fic" is a way of extending support to artists and writers who make things for free! (I also have ascertained that we don't have the same norms for meta / nonfiction, which I find fascinating AF. Is it that meta's commitments are more explicitly intellectual, and that we therefore expect and accept a level of critique we wouldn't where fic and art are concerned?)

The caveat I've been seeing "Except where racism is concerned-- we call out racism ..."

We don't. Not universally, not consistently. And I'm going to bet calling out racism when that calling out actually happens is a comparatively new fandom norm, and there are some people who dismiss it as a form of moralism. My point here is:

Fandom norms aren't eternal, and (this is my blogosphere training talking)

Re: "ship and let ship," you like what you like, but what you like is culturally influenced. Subtracting the wrinkles from someone you're drawing comes from somewhere (and it's not always "I'm drawing an AU in which these guys met in high school"). Drawing someone as skinnier than they are comes from somewhere. (I'm thin. The number of times IRL someone has attempted to force-team me into bonding over snarking on someone for their fatness is substantial and not cute.)

The norm of "If you don't like it, use the back button" means if I nope out of your fic in chapter 7 because I just read a sentence in which Stede's eyes are blue, and that has been a pretty reliable proxy for racism, you will never know why I stopped engaging. You won't know that I stopped reading because your Ed can't read-- a detail that you think is canonical but that has been disproven multiple times in the show. You might think life intervened. No. I have three hours of commuting and a ridiculous amount of reading time. If I didn't finish a fic there is a reason why. Maybe you're happier not knowing it. Meanwhile I'm thinking: if we were actually friends, I would be working up the courage to talk to you about it, because Blogosphere Years Ago I promised that I would not let pointing out racism, fatphobia, ableism be the sole responsibility of POC, fat people, and people with disabilities.

I get that it's stressful to be called out. Hell, it's stressful to say "I have a problem with this" too! But I've also seen people do absolute master classes in responding to a gentle callout without defensiveness, and with changed behavior, and it made me better at in-person conflict to witness. One of my blogosphere lessons is: Preferring harmony over growth isn't neutral. It's culturally white, and it has costs (mostly to the people who don't share the cultural positioning of the majority).

So yeah: part of what makes me sad about the back button norm is that I think it reinforces a producer / consumer relationship between writers and readers. If I can't tell you when I've got a problem with something, and you can't tell me when you've got a problem with something, that's a hard limit on the extent to which we can know each other. (Also: because I write meta rather than fic, it is absolutely within tumblr norms for you to tell me my take is bad, even if it's not within fandom norms for me to say "I love this fic except for X.") And as someone who made enduring IRL friendships from my blogosphere days, I find that a bit saddening.

#i'm ace enough not to have a huge gap between my politics and what i find tasty in fic #and i absolutely get that's not the case for everyone #but i have not experienced lasting damage from being asked to interrogate my preferences #the way friends of color have been harmed by other people's uninterrogated preferences coming out to play on dating sites #fandom #god i miss the blogosphere sometimes

[crazyfor-toby]

hi!! First of all happy belated birthday no idea when you’ll see this but 🥳 I just wanted to see if you could just do some general kinda fluff for Toby and any other of your choosing during like the crush stage

also you are an amazing writer and incredibly creative whoever the douchebag who stood you up is doesn’t deserve you so get yourself a better man bc if anyone deserves it it’s you<3

so yeah that’s the end of my little rant and feel free to just ignore this ask, put yourself first!

-A ❤️

Summary :: Toby during the crush stage

Notes :: thank you so much!🤭 You are too sweet! btw I didn't know which Toby you wanted so I js did High school Toby but I can always change it if you want and make another one for him💟 I'm prob going to add Jeff later but I js wanted to get this out as soon as possible

Warnings :: none that I can think of except for the usual cursing

Readers gender :: None assigned, gender neutral

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

This guy is so fucking mean for no reason but hates whenever anyone else is mean to you

He bullies you because he doesn't know how to respond to his own emotions and he has absolutely 0 experience. Plus, he thinks you're only talking to him to mess with him at first

I can see him falling for someone because they were nice to him or because he found them physically attractive as bad as it may sound to some people. But, he does know when someone is only being nice because they feel bad or they are just trying to mess with his feelings he just wants to be treated like a normal human being not get made fun of or have people be overly nice to him because of his disorders but we can get more into those emotions another time.

Even though he can most of the time tell the difference between genuine kindness and people feeling bad, sometimes he may think that people are messing with him when they actually are being genuinely nice because he overthinks everything and lets his bad thoughts take over a lot of the time.

Would definitely zone out while staring at you as he bites his nails and hands... Gets so many side eyes and weird stares because of it too

thinks about you 24/7 to the point it affects his daily life and his mother and sister get worried

He would probably mistake his romantic feelings for platonic at first but when he realizes the only thing that changes is how mean he is to you and I don't mean he gets nicer 😃 your #1 hater and #1 supporter

He's honestly confusing, one minute he'll be thinking you hate him and he doesn't have a chance to thinking he does have a chance and that you have the same feelings for him as he does for you.

Meaning that there's like a 30% he will make a first move on you because you have to catch him in the right mood, at the right time, on the right day which is pretty hard because you'll never know what mood he'll be in and he

He literally just acts like he hates you and if you asked him out or made a move he'd turn it down but then out of no where months later he will ask you out

he's honestly such an attention whore and he only craves your attention now so good luck

the only time he can really talk to you in person outside of school is if you happen to be friends with his sister or you guys meet up somewhere like a park or a cafe which isn't that often because of his parents so he makes up for it by texting you all day

Reminder though that he isn't some soft and shy bundle of joy who is just hurt, he is crazy and is slowly going under the control of Slenderman. He can have major mood swings and will most likely make you end up not liking him for the way he treats you at first, he doesn't mean it tho he's just a lil delulu 😊

Overall, your experience is gonna be a rough 5/10 unless you don't mind his harsh words then it'd be like a 6.5 - 7.5

#creepypasta #ticci toby #ticci toby x reader #toby rogers creepypasta #ticci toby creepypasta #highschool Toby Rogers #ticcy toby #creepypasta toby #toby x reader #toby rogers x reader #ticci toby headcanons #toby rogers #ticci toby x you #toby rogers x you #tobias erin rogers #toby erin rogers #tobias rogers

[trainsinanime]

Your favorite fanfic writer doesn't know (but would like to)

Let's talk about comments on fanfics. This is not meant as a guide or call to action, just a bit of observations. Personally, I always saw it as impolite to ask for reviews or kudos or comments or likes or reblogs or whatever. That's not a rational point of view, it just reflects how I am. And people actually telling others that they have to leave any of this feedback? I've blocked folks over that. In my mind that's not okay. I'm not announcing a change of that, this is not a policy, just some deep-seated mental issues, but I want to write down some more things that have been going through my mind, from the perspective of someone who occasionally writes fanfics. My previous suggestion in this regard was mostly to write some fanfic yourself and see what happens and what you'd like to happen, because it's genuinely fun and I think you probably have more to say than you realise.

But there's also another point here, and that is that your favourite fanfic writer has no idea that they are. If you're anything like me, then it will seem like the great writers in your fandom are obvious. Also, the last time you bought Blåhajs, it ended with you having to flee a smoke-filled subway tunnel. The great stories and great writers in your universe are facts of nature. You read a story and you think, "this is the greatest thing I've ever seen." A story rewires your brain chemistry forever. You keep coming back and reading that one fic whenever the mood hits you. It feels obvious that this story is great. How could it not be?

It feels trite to say that the author of that fic doesn't know that unless you tell them, but it's hard to really understand the feeling unless you've been there yourself. You write a story, but is it any good? Maybe you get a lot of kudos, or maybe very little, but what does either of that mean? Kudos can mean literally anything from "loved this" to "didn't close the tab in disgust". Maybe you just got unlucky. Maybe you just got lucky. What do these numbers mean? What is a good number of kudos? 1? 10? 100? 1000? Should I calculate ratios? How do I know whether people like this?

In light of this, a comment where someone just said, "I loved this", has an almost incalculable worth. A comment where someone says they read this over and over again, or quotes lines they loved, or something? You can't imagine how valuable that is. A while ago someone told me "a couple of us are talking about this on Discord, we love it and we keep repeating our favorite lines". I thanked them, but I was too polite to say, "really? What are they saying? Which are your favorite lines? How many people are there who love it? What are their names? Which lines are the favorite ones, please, tell me!". Part of me still regrets that, because I so desperately want to know! I don't think it was a public Discord and I never heard from the others on it, but just the idea that they're out there and they like my story was so powerful. (By the way, it's not on any account that's linked from here, please don't try to find that comment.)

Now, I firmly believe that you, as a reader, don't have to care about any of that. I know there are people who disagree with me on this point, very strongly in fact, but I don't think it's necessarily your job to care. It's great if you do, and I think a lot of you do in fact care, that's why I'm writing this. But if you haven't thought about that or don't feel comfortable leaving comments or whatever, that's fine, that's normal, and you are in fact part of the majority. Any well-adjusted fic author has found ways to deal with this. They have learned to love writing for its own sake, or they love re-reading their own fics, or they have a couple of trusted friends who like their work, or ideally all three. Personally I was scared of Discord for the longest time, but it really helps with that. One person who you sort of know going "hey that's neat" can outweigh just about anything else. (Still, there will be days when you post something and you won't get a response and that just plain sucks, no two ways about it.)

But if you do care, if you think it's important that a fanfic writer knows what they mean to you, not because of any concern about the wider unpaid fan creator economy but just because of the way their work affected you, then this is important. Your favorite fanfic writer probably doesn't know and/or believe that they're anyone's favorite, and even if they do, a reminder or learning that someone knew found them will make them incredibly happy. And obviously, all of that applies at least just as much to all the beginners with potential that are out there. So if you're wondering whether it's worth it leaving a comment that says how much you enjoyed something: It probably is. And if you shared this with others and they loved it, or if this is your favourite fic, or if you enjoy how original it is, or how well it does your favourite tropes, or anything like that, the writer is going to be so happy to hear that.

A final aside: This obviously applies even more when it's about fandoms, pairings, subject matter and in particular ratings that are considered a bit embarrassing. Writers who write stuff that, say, happens to be E-rated for whatever reason, doesn't matter, will probably get fewer kudos and comments just because people are embarrassed to have their names show up in the Kudos and Comment sections. If that's you, just a note that it is perfectly okay to comment anonymously, or to create a second separate account for leaving kudos on, commenting on and maybe even posting the somewhat more risqué stuff. Now I'm not saying I have one of these second accounts, at least I'm not saying that in public, but it is an option worth considering.

#fanfic #comments

[notmorbid]

the verifiers.

dialogue prompts from the verifiers by jane pek.

you look like someone who makes lists for everything.

i'd like to hear your opinion before i tell you mine.

you're too nice for our family.

you act like you don't know me at all.

how strange that i used to worship ____.

we're not friends. we just pretend.

it's not a proper family gathering until everyone is upset.

killed anyone lately?

that's what i aim for: to be just a little less shitty than people expect me to be.

i feel sort of sleazy.

you're right. i haven't been fully honest with you.

i'm still figuring things out. what they might mean.

between deceiving and being deceived, i prefer the second option.

it always surprises me how surprising death is, when it's the one thing that's inevitable.

you don't know shit. don't try to pretend you do.

not all mistakes can be fixed.

neither admit nor deny. that's a very lawyerly approach.

take it, please. i'll feel better.

believing something for its convenience is at best negligence, and at worst culpability.

i don't trust anyone, except you.

how do you know what i like to read?

do you want me to help you take a picture?

it looks like your party's a success.

you're even sneakier than i thought.

i hate being told what to do.

guilt is the currency that our family traffics in.

i feel like i could ask you about anything, and you'd have something interesting to say.

walk it off. nothing hurt, right?

you've never known any of us.

well? aren't you going to say anything?

you never do anything for me.

don't tell me what i can and can't be like.

you don't deserve it. the way ____ loves you.

writers always talk about their characters like they're real.

let's pretend we're tourists.

i've been all fizzy with happiness, ever since we met.

you call it like it is.

i never meant to hurt you.

you can't always pick your weapons in your duels.

it's too late to change anything.

what if we take turns? we can answer each other's questions.

i know the truth is right there, but i can't see it.

here i am, crazy as ever.

all those little lies just make the truth feel worse.

i didn't mean anything by it. i just wanted it all to go away.

i love you, you little brat.

if you ever went away, there would be a hole in my world.

you millennials are unbelievable. all laziness and instant gratification.

i see you couldn't wait to get into more unnecessary danger.

is that a threat or a warning?

if i tell you, i'll have to get rid of you.

this is bigger than you know.

if you go any deeper, forget about getting out.

is there anywhere to eat in this wasteland of a neighborhood?

why do i feel like i've missed something?

did the english major make you such an annoying pedant, or were you always that way?

what's the point of knowing, if you don't do anything about it?

i always knew you were a romantic.

try to grow some balls.

you love me. i'm sure you do.

you become something, if you act that way for long enough.

is a digression into backstory really necessary?

can we get to the action?

you can be very persuasive.

we told each other everything.

you only ask to hang out when you want something from me.

i want someone like you. who isn't you.

are you having a quarter life crisis?

no matter what, you'll be okay. i'll make sure of it.

i'm having a bodysnatcher moment.

this would make a fantastic setting for a murder mystery.

people are constantly mistaking me for someone else.

i wish more people could think like you.

still trying to save the world?

i want the best for you. i always have.

damn, you're ruthless.

maybe i still don't know you at all.

you have to tell me the rest of it.

people tend to hear what they want to hear.

who do you think i want you to be?

#rp meme #sentence starters #ask memes #rp memes #rp prompts #inbox memes #ask meme

[ktempestbradford]

There is so much to talk about with this article. So much. In this post I want to focus on a specific part of it: the reactions of Lindelof and Cuse to what the writers and actors experienced. Here are several quotes [emphasis mine].

“What can I say? Other than it breaks my heart that that was Harold [Perrineau's] experience,” replied Lindelof, who said he did not recall “ever” saying that. “And I’ll just cede that the events that you’re describing happened 17 years ago, and I don’t know why anybody would make that up about me.”

Lindelof told me he didn’t remember any negative incident with an editor, adding that he seeks out input from collaborators and that he’s “never threatened anyone’s career.” Lindelof also said he had no recollection of anything Hsu Taylor said about events connected to “Ab Aeterno.” He said she was a “great writer who executed at a high level” and he’s “stricken” that she was made to feel the way she felt at that time.

Regarding the other allegations leveled at him and the show, Lindelof said he had no memory of the incidents and comments I related. He told me he was “shocked and appalled and surprised” by the incidents I described to him, and said more than once that he did not think anyone was making anything up. “I just can’t imagine that Carlton would’ve said something like that, or some of those attributions, some of those comments that you [shared]—I’m telling you, I swear, I have no recollection of those specific things. And that’s not me saying that they didn’t happen. I’m just saying that it’s literally baffling my brain—that they did happen and that I bore witness to them or that I said them. To think that they came out of my mouth or the mouths of people that I still consider friends is just not computing.”

I'm not going to quote Cuse's responses here because they all boil down to: "I don't remember doing/saying that" or "Nuh uh, that didn't happen!" which is... certainly a choice.

You're going to see a bunch of people siding with and empathizing with Lindelof and praising him for saying that what happened was wrong, etc., and I will push back every time I see it because of all those instances of him saying he doesn't recall and doesn't remember. I don't think he's lying. I do think it's indicative of an ongoing problem with him as a writer and showrunner and it needs to be called out.

I'm going to tell you a story that explains my point. Also putting it and my conclusions under a cut as this is long. Please do read.

Many years ago I became friends with a white woman writer in the SFF community who lived in NYC during some of the time I did. She knew many of the writers and editors in our community who also lived in NYC or nearby. At the time, the majority of these editors were white and most were men. She became particularly friendly with some of them.

A couple of years into our relationship we were at ReaderCon together. One day at the hotel bar I was sitting with this woman (we'll call her Karen for the purposes of this story) and two other BIPOC male authors who had both published multiple books at this point and were people that Karen felt were impressive and important. During the conversation someone (probably me?) brought up the online conversations/debates/fights currently happening about representation in the SFF genre and the way certain editors were part of the problem. I want to say this was even before RaceFail happened.

Karen revealed that she'd been talking to important people like Gordon van Gelder about the things I'd been saying online and how, well... the things I was saying were just crazy. Crazy things! I was acting so crazy.

I don't remember the exact phrasing, but I remember the repeated categorizing of me/my words as Crazy.

I also don't remember exactly what I said in response. I do remember how I felt in my body at that moment. I was suddenly flooded with, I think, adrenaline or something and I wanted to run away because otherwise I was going to start throwing things. I couldn't believe this person, who claimed to be my friend, was saying this to me.

I also remember that I felt trapped because I was in a booth and the two other writers were on either side of me so I couldn't just get up and leave. It turned out I didn't need to do that. Because immediately both of them were like: Hold up. Hold the EFF up.

They both pointed out to Karen that the things I brought up in those online discussions were real issues that did need addressing and that I wasn't crazy and the only reason she thought so was because I was a Black woman and when white people or even people perceived as being white said the same thigs I did, people in the community listened, so what the heck was even wrong with her.

I just sat there, pretty quiet, still trying to calm myself down while this all happened and also felt so very grateful for how these two guys (also friends) stood up for me without hesitating, without equivocating, without giving Karen an inch to continue to talk about me in such a way. I don't even know how that conversation ended or if I even talked to Karen again at the con. I did decide right then that I was going to pull back from our friendship because of it.

A year or so later I ended up having to have a conversation with Karen because of some nonsense she pulled at WisCon. In that conversation I mentioned the discussion we had at ReaderCon and how that truly affected my view of her, a person who was supposedly my friend and who constantly tried to say she was an ally to BIPOC. And that's when she said: What discussion?

At first I wasn't sure if she was feigning ignorance or not. The more we talked, the more I realized she wasn't. She didn't remember the incident. And in that talk I realized why: It didn't have that big of an impact on her.

Even with her being essentially told off by the other two, for her, having conversations where she casually parroted some white, male editor's racist and misogynistic view of me was of little note because she and the other people she spent a majority of time with were doing it all the time. It was just a Tuesday for her. And so after ReaderCon when she continually asked if I wanted to hang out or go on writing dates, she did so as if she had not said some absolutely egregious stuff to me weeks before. Again, to her: a Tuesday.

Having had more experience in life with certain kinds of racists, sexists, ableists, and bigots in general, I can say that this phenomenon was not specific to Karen. It is endemic with a certain kind of person who is devoted to the status quo/dominant paradigm.

So when Lindelof says that he doesn't remember doing and saying these things, he's probably not lying. Because for him, it was business as usual, a Tuesday. Normalized on a number of levels. He was a fish in water and the water was composed of racist, sexist a-holes doing whatever they wanted because no one above them put a stop to it. And that is a problem even 20ish years later.

That Lindelof had to be told he did these things and that he, in all this time, has not reflected on them, not realized on his own that what he did was terrible, apologized, and worked his butt off to not only ensure the shows he runs do not have this atmosphere but to also throw every bit of work that he can to those writers (not necessarily on his shows, but others) is proof that it continues to be a problem. And that he has a lot of work to do to atone for all these things he can't remember--starting by doing a real deep dive into why he can't.

Cuse can't be saved. I suggest we introduce him to a nice oubliette.

#I'll note that the author of the piece called him out on his passive language and I very much appreciate that #Her whole book looks to be amazing and a wake up call and I hope everyone reads it #LOST #Damon Lindelof #Carlton Cuse #Carlton Cuse For Oubliette President #I feel justified in all of my critiques of LOST

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: A Honorable Mention For War of Y, and Another Look at How Thai BL Talks About BL (With a Bonus Watch of BL: Broken Fantasy)

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I take a look at the more recent attempts by the Thai BL industry to critique itself with War of Y and the mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.]

2022's War of Y. Let me start this piece off by saying that this show is not good. My friend and BL elder educator, @bengiyo, once said about the OGMMTVC project, that some people (LIKE ME :'( ) just have to look into the abyss to satiate their curiosity about how this genre has developed, and that's definitely a point of the OGMMTVC. Not all past Thai BL shows are good, not by a long shot, and I don't recommend War of Y if you're watching dramas for pleasurable experiences only. (If you want to watch a GREAT drama that critiques the Thai BL industry, start with 2021's Lovely Writer, and I'll get more into this later.)

War of Y, directed by the chaotic Cheewin Thanamin and the I-am-assuming-to-be-misanthropic-and-indulgently-self-righteous-and-preening Den Panuwat, gave us 20 episodes of what I believe they thought to be groundbreaking critical art about the currently Thai BL industry. Let me set up an outline so that I don't spend too long on the bad stuff, and explain why War of Y does at least get an important mention (but not an official inclusion) on the OGMMTVC list.

1) What was War of Y about, how it was structured, and some quick high points, 2) Comparing War of Y to other pieces of Thai BL fiction that did a better job of critiquing Thai BL culture, and 3) A close-out reflection of Aam Anusorn's 2020 mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.

War of Y, as presented by Cheewin and Den, is designed to be a meta-drama of four chapters, all examining a specific aspect of the Thai BL industry. The first chapter, led by Billy Patchanon and Seng Wichai, focuses on two ship partnerships competing with each other, to the mental detriment of one of the older ship's celebrities; the second chapter focuses on two HORRIBLE warring managers; the third chapter showcases, in excruciating detail, god help us, a Y idol reality show, replete with singing; and the final chapter depicts the creation of a BL series and the rise of another super celebrity, whose career potentially gets derailed by his relationship with a female acting colleague.

Before I get into the few high points, I just want to say that this bloated structure (four chapters of five episodes each) did not do this drama well. It could have been edited down GREATLY for more succinct messaging. The other major issue I had is that the Thai BL genre -- as a romance genre itself, that demands romantic and coupled endings -- is just not the right genre to meta-critique the industry from which the piece of art comes from, not unless you're the screenwriter of Lovely Writer, who deftly managed some very complicated storylines into true art. There was no deft to War of Y. Couples got together in pandering and condescending ways, because that's how a Thai BL should end, right (?!); HORRENDOUS warring enemies suddenly made up with barely any context except to make money, and so on. I kept saying to friends during my watch that in a Den Panuwat show -- the worse you are as a character, the more likely you are to be redeemed for seemingly no good reason.

[Exhibits B and C in Den Panuwat's screenwriting record of questionable human characteristics? Fucking Only Friends and Playboyy. THE WORSE THOSE CHARACTERS WERE, THE BETTER THEIR OUTCOMES. Yeah, we really wanted those assholes to end well. ANYWAY. (I am committing to never watching a Den Panuwat show again. ANYWAY.)]

But there were a few high points. Actually seeing a Y idol reality show, something that international fans may not be able to appreciate with a lack of subtitles, was at least eye-opening for the inter-related nature of these kinds of shows, with some performers subsequently getting series gigs. (I understand that Santa Pongsapak, of My Own 12%, is an example of this kind of performer, who started out first as a music idol trainee.)

And the acting. Some of the acting was EASILY the best part of War of Y, as it very often happens in questionable Thai dramas: Billy (BILLYYYYYYYY), First Piyangkul, Dome Waruwat (who we most recently saw in Cooking Crush, and who absolutely SLAYED as one of the SLIMIEST, GROSSEST characters EVER, ohmygod), and

SENG MOTHERFUCKING WICHAI

(who will win one of the crowns as one of THE BEST FUCKING ACTORS IN THAI BL at the conclusion of the OGMMTVC project)

were easily the best reasons to watch War of Y. The range of Seng Wichai. It's ironic that he left Idol Factory last year, ending the BillySeng ship, and was then disgracefully treated like utter crap by the media and BL fans for the reveal of his relationship with Freen Sarocha. That, in itself, could make for a heartbreaking drama about the BL industry, but alas. We have War of Y instead. Seng is a motherfucking hero, and is also the KING of cringe, playing a horribly behaved actor who learns to overcome his insecurities to stand up against the advantages taken unto him by greedy managers.

We also had MANY wild and crazy cameos from real BL professionals in the show. @twig-tea and I agree that director New Siwaj's cameo was BAFFLING. He played a BL director (which he actually is) who maybe hated making BLs? (Maybe he actually hates it?) But still does it? And was mostly checked out of making the BL-show-within-the-BL-show, until he was called out about it, and then behaved like a good boy. Like. That cameo, along with a literally-evil NetJames and an even more inexplicable and weird literally-evil MaxNat cameo (wtf, that wasn't filled out AT ALL), were the really weird ones. The sad ones were ones like sweet NuNew Chawarin telling young BL guys that they have to sing (NO THEY DON'T). There was actual!Tee Bundit telling off Seng Wichai's character, that was rad. Director Lit Phadung of SOTUS and Dangerous Romance (😬) was there. Even the original novelist for Thailand's first television BL, Love Sick, was there, playing herself as Kwang Latika, who complained to a producer within War of Y that the show-within-the-show (yeah, I know) was taking her novel out of context. That shit sounds familiar! I could have used more accurate commentary on that.

The last high point that I can muster is that the show began to toe the line of the issue of actors needing to explore their sexualities for art's sake. As fans, we truly do not have much insight into this process, and I think it's for good reason, so as to protect actors (wherever they land on the sexuality spectrum) from very real, emotional, and sensitive processes and workshops that prepare them for taking on queer material. We know that actors like Nanon Korapat from Bad Buddy use Method techniques in their performances, and that can be mentally draining. Do I believe that some actor pairings experiment with dating, and may actually be in relationships? Yes, I must believe it, considering the psychological work these young men have to do to build attraction to each other for art's sake. The CEO of Korea's Strongberry studio confirmed as much earlier this year.

Unfortunately, I think War of Y leveraged these very sensitive realities to blatantly and flippantly indicate that ships can be ASSUMED to either explore sex with each other, and/or to even assume that they SHOULD be in relationships, à la the television BL romance formula that I mentioned above. I think this show could have transcended the romance genre formula, frankly, and I think the show came kinda close to doing that in the last chapter with First Piyangkul -- but not before setting up First's character, Achi, as a cheating monster-machine who was willing to go to great lengths to protect his fame, including outing his trans-female ex-girlfriend and co-star (YEAH, THAT HAPPENED), as well as separating himself from his ship and sexual same-sex partner while still indicating that they were dating. The whole storyline was just -- BLEH.

As I chatted with another fabulous BL elder, @twig-tea, about after I finished War of Y, clearly, Cheewin and Den thought they were intellectual geniuses upon the creation of this show, thinking that a BL itself would be a sufficient mechanism to offer meta commentary about problematic aspects of the BL industry (IT'S NOT). Twig wisely said to me that a writer or directly simply CHOOSING a topic to explore vis à vis a BL -- like a criticism of the industry itself -- is not, in of itself, worthy of laudation. And Cheewin and Den were CLEARLY expecting flowers by the end of this drama. If you've ever lived in smelling distance of southern California, you'll know that entertainment industries love nothing more than to talk about the entertainment industry, and that they think that fictional drama art is the best way to obsess over the vagaries of these industries (IT'S NOT). Instead, Cheewin and Den basically outed themselves as economic shippers and idiot faux-savants who are clearly in the game for fame, and maybe the dudes themselves, which -- BLEH REDUX.

On the OGMMTVC list, Lovely Writer does such a better job at covering the latent homophobia and judgments against actors within and external to the industries that take on BL. War of Y actually teed up a LOT of interesting topics, such as the BL-to-het-drama-and-studio pipeline that I talked about in my past OGMMTVC KinnPorsche pieces -- but these topics in War of Y just instead drowned in misanthropic meditations about fame, sex, and money that seemed far more suited to reaaaaalllly-bad Cinemax than, say, a proto-documentary.

The OGMMTVC syllabus also has YYY, from 2020, as a first entrée to BL-commentary-within-BL (and funnily enough, YYY also stars Lay Talay, who was the main anchor of War of Y, and was actually fantastic in both shows). YYY is a lot more succinct, CONCISE, zany, weird as HELL, incomplete, INSANE, not the greatest show, but HILARIOUS, simply in part because of its different and wonderful writers in Fluke Teerapat (a former BL actor himself) and Tanachot Prapasri. If you're looking for commentary about BL within wild-ass fiction (and if you're willing to watch it with shrooms or a fifth of vodka), watch YYY. (And remember that you're really watching YYY to watch Poppy Ratchapong eat his role of Porpla totally alive. Utter brilliance.)

Otherwise, as a means of complementing this review, I also watched 2020's non-fiction mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy, by Aam Anusorn, another Series Y director who made the documentary, perhaps in part, to atone for past BL shows that he made, like 2Moons2 and Call It What You Want.

BL: Broken Fantasy featured interviews from directors, actors, and actual fans, about the nature of shipping, what the industry demands of actors, what fans themselves demand, and offered even a little bit of insight from two HUGE actors, Bright Vachiwarit and Win Metawin of 2gether and Still 2gether, about the process itself of young men acting in a queer coupleship.

The documentary is perhaps too short for its own good. And it sets up Aam as an unwilling participant within the BL industry, seemingly not knowing about what he was getting into when he first started making BLs (2gether's director, Champ Weerachit, also presents this way, which I found a touch disingenuous, as they were literally filming 2gether in the documentary).

But BL: Broken Fantasy hammered on a couple of important and real points. The economic benefits of shipping are HUGE. The sponsorship deals, the fame, the money -- they literally make young actors very rich and very well attended to. The fans EXPECT shipping performances, so that they themselves can situate themselves as caretakers or "mommies" to their young flock of boba-eyed actors that they worship. And for directors who want to earn money by making filmed art: the budding industry offers them that opportunity in growing spades. ( @lurkingshan will be happy to know that of all people, Aof Noppharnach, confirms to the documentary's audience that BL is a romance genre of love stories. As if there was any doubt, playa!)

At this point in time, in 2024, if I want a meta-critical understanding of the BL industry, and its many impacts on queer populations, fan bases, and Asian and global society, I'll go to Dr. Thomas Baudinette's Boys Love Media in Thailand and choose the academic route. We are SO LUCKY now to actually have tremendous academic discourse on the genre and its impact on media, fandoms, queer society, and global and regional acceptances of queer equity.

As opposed to the roads that academics are paving, War of Y allowed itself to bloat and gloat, on behalf of its creators, about their desires for shipping, for lavishing attention on beautiful young men, without offering us objective insight into the mindsets of these gentlemen who are important artists and creators in many of the shows we love. There needs to be a space for fair and objective criticism about an industry that may, at many times, take advantage of these young men. While there were many industry cameos in the show, the most frequent cameo was Den Panuwat himself. That enough should tell us what this show was ultimately really about.

[Well, as you can tell, I am fucking DONE with War of Y, laughing my azz off, and -- I'm off to greener pastures. I'm taking a cute and quick break from the OGMMTVC to devour Japan's anime version of Cherry Magic for an upcoming comparative (and totally self-indulgent) Big Meta on Thailand's and Japan's versions of that franchise. (And I have also been watching Fully Booked, AMA.) But I've got a long-awaited rewatch of The Eclipse coming up, to explore how GMMTV handled homophobia as a centered topic head-on, and from there, I go back to Idol Factory to watch Thailand's first GL, featuring the lovely FreenBecky, in GAP.

AND THEN: HOLY SHIT! FINALLY! My School President. I can't wait.

Here's the latest of the OGMMTVC list. If you've got any questions or comments about the syllabus, just mosey on over to this link and drop a comment my way!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here)

21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)

31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 37) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) 38) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 39) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows (watching) 40) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL)

41) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 42) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 43) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 44 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 45) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 46) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 47) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 48) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 49) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 50) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake)

51) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 52) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here)]

#war of y #war of y the series #billyseng #billy patchanon #seng wichai #cheewin thanamin #den panuwat #first piyangkul #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #turtles catches up with thai BLs #war of y meta

[sanriokamabodo]

college!bf douma

A/N: im struggling w writers block + had a heavy day so i decided to write smth i conjured up instead of a request!i will be back in business soon my sweets!heehee<3 if y'all want a part two feel free to ask djdjd

CW's: hes kinda sleazy in the beginning, reader sucks at math. suggestive themes>:) douma is goth in my college au bc i said so. the day i proofread is the day i die!

A psychology major with a minor in religious studies. Doesn't practice any religion himself but finds the subject interesting nevertheless.

Barely studies but somehow manages to pass with flying colours.

That one hookup you regret with all your might, let me elaborate;

Douma tutors math and it's no coincidence he slept with majority of the people he tutored.

No, you're not an exception. Cute try though!

Something about Douma's piercings, his choppy hair that he probably cut himself and his 'don't give a fuck' attitude managed to dissolve your IQ and last bit of self respect around him.

He knows how to give you just enough attention to keep you interested, but little enough for you to purposely screw up your math tests for an excuse to see him.

Yes, he mocked your intelligence by asking if rats ate your brain or whether you were just born this stupid, but the way he ruffled your hair as he fake-pouted at you made something bubble in your stomach.

It's no surprise you ended up with Douma in the men's restroom, a hand smacked tightly over your mouth that day.

You weren't allowed to ride the high of having hooked up with the hottest guy on campus for long.

Throughout the night you were bombarded with messages from your friends, all of them being about Douma. Why didn't you tell them? Was he good? ... Was he big?

You thought your heart was going to thump out of your chest. Sweaty hands refreshing the messages five, ten, twenty times.

This had to be a sick joke, right? Was this Douma's true nature?

About to throw your phone away in defeat, it vibrated once more. You didn't want to look but curiousity got the better of you.

[Douma, 11:06]: I think we need to talk.

Your chest thundered with anger at the message.

[Y/n, 11:07]: You think!?

[Douma, 11.07]: I know you don't owe me anything, but can we please meet somewhere?

[Y/n, 11.08]: I don't feel like showing my face today, thanks:)

We're you being dramatic? Maybe a little. But you were an introverted person. Being known by everyone on campus wasn't on your to-do list, and the reason why just made it that much worse.

[Douma, 11.08]: Text me your adress, I'm coming over.

[Y/n, 11.09]: No.

[Douma, 11.10]: Please, give me a chance to set things straight. I'll fix it, I promise.

You pondered for a moment. Fuck it, what's the worst that could happen? You texted him the address of your dorm and within an hour you heard a knock on your door.

Opening the door Douma stood on your doorstep, looking rather apologetic. You waved him inside, a thankful smile grazed his lips.

"I like what you did with the place."

"Shut up."

"Fair enough." He nodded.

"So..?"

"I did tell my friends we hooked up." He said, making you scoff. He threw his hands up defensively, before you could say anything.

"But! But! I didn't want them to tell everybody else..! They know I like you... a lot."

A small blush across up your cheeks at the sudden confession.

"You like me?"

Now you've done it, Douma started rambling.

"I get really fucking dumb about crushes. I wanted to text you all the time but I didn't want to come across as creepy. I thought we could just... hook up and I would forget about my stupid little crush and of course it just made me like you even more, because c'mon you're hot as fuck." He sighs pinching the bridge of his nose dramatically. "So what I'm trying to say here is that I would really like to make it up to you because I'm really fucking sorry and I would also really, really like to take you on a date and have a fresh start, please?" A shy smile painted his features.

You laughed. You were stupid if you were to deny him like this, especially considering you really liked him too.

"I'd love to go on a date with you."

#wow i .. actually ... kinda like how this turned out? #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #anime #kny #demon slayer fluff #douma #douma headcanons #douma x reader #douma imagine

[epicspheal]

Where's My Sister's Purrloin!? A Hugh Analysis

"Yeah… OK! Let's go get your Pokémon! There's something I have to do! And to do that, I need someone I can trust besides my partner Pokémon. A person I can trust! That's right! I'm talking about you! You seem like you've got good instincts!" <- Meeting Hugh outside of Aspertia City

Oh Hugh! Definitely one of the most misunderstood rivals. Also one of my favorites (also that seems to be a trend with the characters I like but that's a topic for another day). Hugh is our sole rival in BW2 and he's a rival with one of the most unique motivations for a rival character in the franchise.

Let's start by looking at Hugh's name which is rather straightforward. In all of the translations it's a homophone for the word Hue which is a major property of colors in color theory. He follows the naming conventions of Cheren and Bianca in that there all color themed which harks back to gens 1 and 2 where the main characters have color names (which makes sense as gen 5 was a bit of a soft reboot to the franchise in some respects). Of note his German, Spanish and French names of refer to the famous painter Henri Matisse who was known for his Fauvism style which opted for strong colors, again reinforcing the color symbolism. Interesting to note that Hugh as a given name that has mix of Irish and Germanic origin meaning "mind, intellect and spirit" with it actually being an anglicized version of Gaelic "Aodh" which means "fire". Hugh is certainly very intellectual, spirited and fiery especially when it comes to getting his revenge on Team Plasma and getting his sister's Purrloin back.

Next to look at his team. Like many rivals, he gets a traditional starter, but it's one that he raised from an egg. One that's actually stronger than your starter on the type chart. But honestly I think his signature Pokemon (based on what we see in Pokemas) is his Bouffalant. Bouffalant is described in a few Pokedex entries as be wild and reckless charging at everything. Which is quite reminiscent of Hugh during much of the game when it comes to Team Plasma. Indeed when you take a look at the rest of his team members you'll see that often times Hugh opts for high-risk, high reward moves such as Wild Charge on his Eelektross and Bouffalant (which gives recoil), Giga Impact on his Unfezant (forces the user to not use any move after atacking, leaving it vulnerable), Fire Blast/Hydro Pump/Leaf Storm on his starter (high powered but not 100% accuracy).

Which when you look at his character overall, makes a lot of sense. He's very passionate but the passion veers into recklessness in many respects.

Hugh gets a lot of flak from the community for going on and on about his sister's Purrloin. But people do that forget this is his driving motivation. And also most Pokemon characters tend to repeat themselves (which is less a symptom of them being bad characters, but of the writers not knowing how to vary dialogue that gets the point across without being repetitive).

But yes Hugh's very unlike most rivals in that he really isn't concerned about the rivalry. It's not that Hugh is a jerk. He's very kind to the player and generally respectful of others outside of Team Plasma (to whom he does not show a lot of mercy to in the beginning). It's just his primary goal isn't besting the protagonist. Rosa/Nate just so happen to be friends that he challenges to see if they can keep up with him while he takes down Team Plasma. In many ways he expands on the role carved out by Silver, who also was more concerned strength for the sake of defying his father than dealing with the protagonist but just didn't mind antagonizing them when they crossed paths. And Gladion and Marnie also fall in this trend as being more concerned about a goal that's not just "I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was".

"You're a little worried? Are you KIDDING me?! Your Pokémon might be lost forever! Whatever! I'll look! ! Help out!" <- On Flocessy Ranch

This a line that sticks out to me as it occurs when the owners of the Floccessy Ranch lost their Herdier and Hugh is extremely upset…more upset than Herdier's actual owners. At this point in the story he hasn't revealed the whole bit about his sister's Purrloin but this line is good foreshadowing to the eventual reveal. He's seen the trauma first hand of a stolen Pokemon can do and it causes an immediate reaction

"Shut it! You guys are the worst! You talk about saving Pokémon, but you're just Pokémon thieves! Don't think I'll ever forgive you!" <- Meeting Team Plasma in Virbank

Now I know Pokemon isn't known for writing but I honestly feel like they were doing a good job in slowly revealing more about Hugh and his motivations as we continued to encounter him during the journey. Once again we're adding more to Hugh, that not only has he probably seen a Pokemon get stolen, but that Pokemon was stolen by Team Plasma. But more importantly you can see a major flaw of his. That he is struggling with forgiveness as we see that he constantly references not forgiving Team Plasma throughout the game

"Five years ago… Team Plasma stole my little sister's Purrloin. It had been given to her as a present. I was only a little kid… I couldn't do anything… So… So that's why I have to get stronger!" <- Nimbasa City

And here's the big reveal. Now what sticks out to me is how powerless he felt. Of course this is a common trope with young characters who have been in serious situations to feel powerless and become hellbent on getting stronger to the point it kind of blinds them in a way (cough Paulo cough). But it's nice to see this in Pokemon with Hugh. It fits into the underlying theme of BW2 that deals with progression and how the region of Unova as a whole progresses from the events two years prior.

Given that Hugh states that Purrloin was taken 5 years ago that means that Team Plasma had been starting their public operations 3 years prior to the events of the original Black and White Games (we know of course N had been groomed by Ghetsis to be king as a young child but this gives us confirmation of them starting more public operations earlier in the timeline). Hugh, his sister, and countless others in Unova had been suffering the loss of their Pokemon for half a decade and that's heartbreaking.

Hugh: "Wait! I just remembered. Clay… Why? What's the reason? Why have you forgiven Team Plasma?" Clay: "There's always room for folks to grow and change, ain't there? And, if ya only go after what ya think is right, ya might end up rejectin' all thoughts and opinions other than yer own. That's mighty dangerous." Hugh: "Hmph… Is that one of those compromises adults are supposed to make? Whatever! I'm gonna fight Team Plasma! Oh yeah, what were you wanting to show us?" <- Clay and Hugh after the player wins the Quake Badge from Clay

This exchange is really important as while Hugh at the moment isn't truly ready for forgiveness from Team Plasma…it's shows he's not so closeminded to the idea as if he were, he wouldn't have even asked Clay why he had forgiven them. He's still resistant to the idea of forgiving Team Plasma as we see in later moments he's vary wary of working with ex-Team Plasma members to fight off Neo Team Plasma, but all hope is not lost. This is an important first step in his overall growth.

"That's the ONLY Purrloin in the world that my late grandpa caught for my little sister!" <- On the Plasma Frigate for the second time

This is a huge line for me. I've seen one too many people joke over the years "It's just a Purrloin, LUL. Why can't he just go get another one for his sister" and it lowkey irks me. Like his late grandfather went out of his way to catch that Purrloin for his sister. That's special. And even if their grandpa was still alive, or if someone else had of caught it, it doesn't change the fact that Hugh's sister bonded with that Purrloin. That's not a bond you can simply replace. Who knows if another Purrloin and his sister would've bonded the same way. It shows a great deal of maturity on Hugh's part to understand what that Purrloin meant to his sister compared to those (both in-universe and out) who say it's just as easy as replacing the Pokemon with another one.

"Wh-what? Don't mess with me… That's someone else's Pokémon!" "Sorry… This situation is messing with my head… I just don't know what to do… I finally found my sister's Pokémon, but now it's glaring at me… Why?!" "… … Hey… … If we let Team Plasma do whatever we want… There'll be more sad Pokémon like Purrloin and Kyurem…" <- On the Plasma Frigate for the third time upon finding his sister's Purrloin

This is such a poignant moment in BW2 for me because Hugh finally finds his sister's Pokemon…only for it to glare at him because it's now used to being under the Shadow Triad's control. You can feel his hurt through his words because this was his goal. This moment. And now he's not even sure he can bring this Purrloin back to his sister. Give Hugh a hug because he deserves it.

"Thanks to you, I accomplished what I set out to do during my journey! I wish I could've shown you my little sister's huge smile! This is my thanks!" <- Victory Road

We get a chance to meet Hugh in Victory Road and we get to hear some good news. His sister and Purrloin have been reunited! It's really touching to see such a good ending for him and his family. Hugh's dialogue is also much more relaxed in Victory Road now that his mission is over. It's good to see him more at ease after him being so wound up the majority of the playthrough

"What? I heard that Team Plasma left many Pokémon behind when they fled. And I'm helping find their real Trainers… That aside… Since you're here, you should have a battle with me before you go!" <- In Driftveil for postgame rematches

And even better? Hugh's begun to forgive Team Plasma (well at least the part that was genuinely following N). This is a huge step forward for someone who was pushing Team Plasma grunts out the way earlier and being hellbent on vengeance. Hugh honestly has one of the most satisfying conclusions for a rival in my opinion. He gets his goal, he learns a valuable lesson in accepting that (some) people can change, and he doesn't have to feel inferior to the player who is constantly beating him.

But Hugh's not done there! When he arrives in Pokemas we get to see him featured in two prominent stories. The first one is Revel In Rivalry where he gets into beef with Bede. It shows that while he has grown he still is a bit quick tempered seeing how easily provoked by Bede he was. But he learns to calm down and come to a truce much faster than he did with Team Plasma (granted there were more dire circumstances there) showing how he had grown from his journey.

Then of course there's the Unova Villain arc where this time it's Hugh that has his partner Bouffalant stolen. And to make matters worse he's been captured alongside N. What I loved about the Unova Villain arc is the focus on Hugh's growth. Yes, he's still very hotheaded. But he's learned to trust and forgive seeing as how he figured out N's identity well before Ghetsis told him in an attempt to break the partnership the two had formed while in captivity. Pre-character development Hugh would've flipped his shit on N. But hearing him talk about the people who spoke so highly of N (referencing the fact that Hugh works with the good part of Team Plasma to get the stolen Pokemon back to their trainers) and him saying he trusts N shows how much he's grown. It's really heartwarming to see him and N team up against Ghetsis' sorry ass.

So yeah, Hugh's a great character that I feel like needs more love in the fandom.

#rival hugh #hugh pokemon #pokemon bw2 #pokemas #character analysis

[redsparrow2117]

"The End of the World is a Product".

I don't normally make....any posts, but the Fallout show, and some of the response to it has me wanting to actually put some words down here. There will be spoilers for the Fallout show if you want to avoid that.

Several people whose opinion I respect a lot have their own thoughts on the show, Amazon making it, and general disappointment with where Fallout as an IP has gone in the several decades it has existed. I agree with a lot of these statements and think that Fallout peaked with New Vegas, and Bethesda's ownership and usage of the IP has been uninspired at best.

That said, I did watch the show. And generally, I liked it. I have some complaints (like, wtf if the Brotherhood even doing? Who is really in charge? The writers *blew up* the NCR, just like that? For....some reason?) The main thing I have an issue with, is the dissonance between the message of the show, and the company that made it.

I think the parts that really made the show were Coop's flashbacks to before the war. I love his character, so much. And from Coop, The Ghoul, I get my dissonance.

We see him interacting with general Hollywood. It's basically the same as ours. Despite what Some People(tm) will say, Hollywood is a tool of the United States Machine. An extension of the country's will. Coop is making a cowboy movie, one of many he has made. He expresses being uncomfortable with his new movie's seeming obsession with killing, not wanting his character to kill the villain when he is begging for his life. The director tells him "people want to see a good man pushed too far." We see later, after the war, Coop made the movie the way the director wanted.

Coop's wife works in marketing, or something like it, for Vault-Tec. Coop likes the idea of the Vaults at first. Save people from the end of the world. Good stuff, thinks Coop. He was in the Marines, fought at Anchorage. He believes in protecting people and his country. So when his wife asks him to do an ad for Vault-Tec, he says yes.

Very quickly, he leaves making movies, and basically now works for Vault-Tec. Has a big party, invites a bunch of his friends, and only one of his acting friends shows up. Says everyone else declined on moral grounds, because they don't like Vault-Tec, and all the other mega corporations working with them or around the world. Coop's friend mentions he sold his voice/a character he created to the company that makes Mr. Handy's, and how everyone and everything is a product now, and embracing that is the only way to make money anymore. "You're a product, I'm a product, the end of the world is a product."

Coop later meets one of his acting friends, Charles Whiteknife, to talk about the party and why he didn't go. Charles brings up Vault-Tec, the mega corporations, and "Fiduciary Responsibility". I never, ever, in my mind would think a Fallout show, executive produced by "Thanks" Todd Howard, would bring that up.

Charles lays it out for Coop: Vault-Tec makes money selling Vaults. If they want to make money, then everyone's fear of the end of the world is really what is for sale. The end of the world is the product.

So no peace talks to calm down the war between the US and China. No safe feeling. They need fear. They want to make money, so you cannot feel safe. We see a prelude at Coop's earlier party: two Vault-Tec executives are talking about heading off those exact peace talks before anything definite is done so quarterly profits go up. Even the president is mentioned as missing, but that could be a kidnapping or a reference to the Enclave.

Coop doesn't want to believe that. Why would his wife work there if that was the case?

We see, as the flashbacks go on, how much she knows, but won't give away. She needs her job so her family can get into "one of the good Vaults". Coop ends up spying on a meeting between his wife, a Vault-Tec exec, and a bunch of major corporations and private entities. A nice cameo set up for big fans. We see West-Tek, Big MT, ROBCO, all of them. Vault-Tec wants them to buy into the Vaults, so they can make money.

So they can control the end of the world.

They think a total monopoly in the post-apocalypse will save the world from war.

Then the real reveal: Vault-Tec, in order to make guarantees on their experimental Vaults, and to make guarantees to the investors, is going to drop the bomb. Maybe not all of them, but definitely start the Great War.

Because it will make them money now, and when the world is over, they can rule over the ashes with a gaggle of experimented-on, traumatized survivors, brainwashed to do what they want, and led by the preserved executives that helped end the world.

"Well, thanks for the spoilers, RedSparrow, but what is the point?"

Well, when people write about the future, like George Orwell did in 1984, or Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, or even Suzanne Collins in Hunger Games, they weren't really writing about the future. They were writing about the problems they dealt with in their present, exaggerated to make them stand out.

"What happens when the cattle ranchers own half the town?" Charlie Whiteknife asks Coop when they meet at the bar.

"The town burns down."

"Exactly. The ranchers are in charge now."

This isn't really new stuff for Fallout, if you have played any of the games beyond 3,4, or 76. (Hell, 76 tries to act like Vault-Tec are the good guys for some stupid ass reason.)

We now live in that moment. Maybe we didn't when Fallout 1 came out, or maybe it was easier to hide then. At this point, it's nearly impossible to really ignore, and anyone saying that is incorrect or a good thing is just burying their head in the sand to avoid the truth.

Maybe we don't have Vaults, or Vault-Tec, but we have Amazon, selling us everything and grinding employees to dust on vague promises of earning a living.

We have our own ROBCO, and the CEO of our version of ROBCO bought Twitter because his ex left him for a trans woman and is currently trying to sell losers online his idea of a sex bot and shitty cars that rust and explode.

We have social media monopolies that live off of hate-engagement and spreading fear. Hell, the US government is banning social media platforms they can't control, and privatizing things like internet access through Starlink. Elongated Muskrat tried to cut off Ukraine's access to it after one of their generals told him to shut up and stop sucking up to Russia.

None of this is new. I'm probably sounding like your weird boomer uncle online right now.

But your weird boomer uncle doesn't think they will end the world.

But they will.

So here's the dissonance I struggle with: why is Amazon, one of the many companies enshitti-fying everything right now, making a show that tells you the plan?

It's easier to imagine the end of the world, than it is to imagine the end of capitalism, so the saying goes.

But the end of the world is the plan of capitalism. That's the end goal.

And it's wild to me that the Fallout show, made by Amazon, is the one telling us this.

#fallout #fallout spoilers #the ghoul

[imagineredwood]

I’m not sure if you’ve done this before but if you haven’t could you do a HC about creeper being jealous or possessive over his SO? Thank you! I’m so happy you’re back, I’ve missed you! 🌺

I missed you too my love!💕

Possessive

With him being possessive I can see if being in more subtle ways

Hand on the lower back or hip

Maybe around your waist so his fingers rest on your tummy

He'll reach up and hold the side of your face when talking to you

Use his thumb to wipe away a drop from your mouth if you're drinking something

Little things that aren't anything major in and of themselves

But touches that everyone around would know don't come from someone who's just a friend

He would touch you in ways that show intimacy so that everyone knows you're his

Especially if it's around someone who he thinks may be looking at you a little too closely

He'll make it a point of saying "My girl" or "My Queen" or "My baby" and refer to you

Uses "my" all the time

So that there's no mistake

Anyone that is paying attention will notice and be able to see that he's yours and you're his

Jealous

Now when someone doesn't take those hints or ignores it, that's when the jealousy will come out

He may still try to keep it a bit more subtle in the beginning depending on the circumstance

A hand on your waist that slides down your hip

Or up your side

His thumb gently stroking up to barely touch the underside of your breast

An obvious kiss somewhere like your neck or lips

More so in places that are outside of the clubhouse with people who aren't members

So maybe a regular party, a club, a house get together

Things like that

But if it's at the clubhouse with his brothers from other charters?

He doesn't even deal with you much at all

He sees the way that one of the eyes you

Looking you up and down

And he's walking up to them, hands together behind his back

Voice low and calm, teetering on the edge

"Saw you looking at my girl. Plenty of other beautiful ladies in here. Single, beautiful ladies. I'd recommend you put your eyes on them. Not on mine."

Mayans MC taglist 

@dazzledamazon  @abunnykisses @briana-mishell24 @angelreyesgirl @wrcn9fvlcver @peaches009 @capt-canadian @thesandbeneathmytoes @krysiewithak @darklingveracruz @appropriate-writers-name  @blessedboo  @kkim120 @megapeacelovemusic-blog @emoengelfurleben @blowmymbackout @abby-splace @kola95 @black-repunzel99 @redpoodlern @xonickibaby @myakai13 @cruzwalters  @po3ticb3auty  @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @kaykaysuh @angel-121 @fanfic-n-tabulous  @lovelytricia @carma-fanficaddict

Creeper taglist 

@omg-mymelaninisbeautiful @redpoodlern @cruzwalters @myakai13 @angel-121 @kikijackson-blog

#🌺 anon #creeper vargas #creeper vargas x reader #mayans mc #headcannons #headcanons #wouldinclude