#At this point it's just false advertising and I'm living for it

[thyandrawrites]

I'm sorry but I'm still thinking about this

The manga: characters repeatedly promising to kill each other with bloody murder in their eyes, black schleras and crazed looks, furious snarls, repeated cannibalism motifs, skulls floating everywhere menacingly

The official merch: here's several different chibi versions of the boys wearing cute animal onesies, here's another line of merch of them with flower bouquets as they go on ~~dates~~, or peacefully hanging out at a diner, here's another set with their catsonas—

#At this point it's just false advertising and I'm living for it #Blue lock is aimed at an audience of teenage boys. Why is there so much cute merch nfbdjdbsj #It's so funny #Thyandra.txt

[bunnie-online]

just ask. {A.S.}

juuuuust thinking about (modern!)anakin being your boy bsf (and roommate) catching you coming home from a verrrry disappointing dick appointment

part two

warnings: MINORS DNI 18+, suggestive, possibly ooc ani, fem reader

it was 1 am, you fully expected Anakin to be asleep, doing this 'walk of shame' in front of him would be exactly that... shameful. you has just had one of the WORST hookups of your life with some dude you met off tinder a couple of days ago, he was alllll talk. the definition of 'sounds to good to be true'

he didn't know ANYTHING about the female anatomy, like seriously, he basically dry humped you and rolled over. lame.

you unlocked the door of your shared apartment, opening and closing the door as quietly as possible, as not to wake Anakin. to your surprise he came walking into the living room with a mug in his hand. he was in his usual pajamas, blue and black plaid sweatpants and topless. you tried not to stare but your gazes always seem to linger when it comes to Anakin. "Hey! Thought you'd be home tomorrow?" he tilted his head in that adorably innocent way he always does. his mannerisms never matched his face, or body for that matter.

"Ah noo" you chuckle and cast your gaze downward. "Oh? Your date didn't go well?" he asked again this time raising his eyebrows with the word 'date'. he might look and sometimes act innocent but Anakin was far from it, he knew what your intentions were for the night. "Ugh, not at all." you roll your eyes and set your bag down by the door. "This dude was soooo lame." you whine.

"Aw, poor thing" Anakin says in a joking tone. "C'mere, I made some tea" he offers. "Since when do you drink tea?" you laugh "I like to pamper myself from time to time!" he said feigning offense, clasping his hand over his heart in a classically Anakin fashion.

"Tell me what happened." he sits in the bar stool at the kitchen island after handing you a cup of tea. "Ani, I don't know, it's embarrassing." your face turns pink. "Please I know about the thing you did in middle school. I think I can handle this" he laugh at you cringing from that horrid memory from your pre-teen years. "Oh you know you can't bring that up all willy-nilly Anakin!" you swat at him. his beautiful laughter filled the air

"Okay so I was going to hook up with this guy-" you start. "Shocker." Anakin smirks, interrupting you "one, rude. two, shut up. three, anyyywayys, I was going to go hook up with him and it sounded sooo promising because, damn can he talk himself up. He was so good with his words! And we get down to it and dude lasts like, two minuets! Anakin, I wish I was joking.." you bury your head in your hands out of frustration (mostly sexual). "That's the third guy this month! Like can men just be honest if they're mediocre at sex?!"

Anakin chuckles. "Blows my mind that there are guys out there who're putting up false advertisements for dick." you toss your head back and laugh "false advertisements is CRAZY" you laugh harder and Anakin joins you. "Did I lie?!" he jokes again, earning another laugh from you. "You got a point" you agree with him.

"Seriously though, that's a shame. I'd never lie like that." he takes another sip of his tea. Your mind starts swirling with questions. 'what does he mean by that?' 'I wonder what he's like in bed?' 'he has to be huge, right?' "Like honestly that's so fucked up." his voice breaks you out of your thoughts. "This sounds personal for you, what're you doing? Handing out trash dick or what?" you laugh. he chuckles again. "Hah, no. But if I was, I'd at least be honest about it."

your eyes widen but you regain composure quickly. "Oh? And what makes you so confident?" you smirk at him, wanting a rise out of him. "Well, I'm sure some of the girls weren't crying because I was dishing out bad dick." he smirks. "Wow you sure are cocky." you say with fake confidence hoping he wouldn't double down. your hopes were crushed when he stood up. he made his way behind you, placing both of his arms around you, resting his hands on the counter trapping you. he leaned close to your ear. "You know, you don't have to act out for me to prove it to you. You can just ask." his voice completely changed. you have never heard Anakin speak in such a low, sultry tone. you noticeably shivered.

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

i highhhh key wanna finish this tomorrow bc it's midnight and i'm SLEEPY

~bunnie

#anakin x reader #anakin skywalker smut #anakin smut #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker x reader smut #anakin skywalker imagine #smut #smut writing #bunnie online! #bunnie after dark #unfinished

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

thoughts on sokka and zuko's netflix actors ian ousley and dallas liu (jokingly?) teasing zukka in interviews? are they queerbaiting?

For those who don't know what the fuck queerbaiting is: you know how Disney announced "it's first openly gay character" in literally every movie they've been releasing lately, and these "characters" are always on screen for only 5 seconds so it won't annoy conservatives or be banned in China?

That's them trying to use the promise of gay content to get people (be it gay people or someone that just wants to know if Disney will handle the subject properly) to watch their stuff. It's just false advertizing in rainbow colors.

Netflix, being the cheap bastards that they are, love using "We got minorities in this!" to advertise either their bland, bad shows that will get a million seasons, or the rare good show that they'll cancel way too soon because they seem to be alergic to quality. Either way, the gay content they promise audiences is usually there - you know, it's just not good because Netflix hates good things. Hell, they made Oma and Shu a lesbian couple from what I've seen.

Considering I've heard that the cast of the Avatar Live Action is pretty comfortable dunking on Zutara as a ship despite it being crazy popular and some fans literally only watching the show because they thought it'd make Zutara canon, and even having the balls of saying their show is less problematic than the OG one because they cut the plot of Sokka unlearning sexism, I'd say they're not claiming to like Zukka because some executive told them to, in the hopes of getting people to watch. The actors are probably either two buddies joking around because "Dude, what if our characters got together?" or saw some fanart/headcanon on Twitter and rolled with it.

So no, it's not queerbaiting, it's just actors voicing their opinion - basically the same as the Wedneday situation. The actresses for Wednesday and Enid ship their characters, but Netflix never gave any indication that these two would be a thing, and the internet only cried QUEERBAITING because people can't accept that sometimes the goth girl and the girly girl don't kiss because none of the writers even thought about making them gay.

And before someone inevitably goes "Oh but one/both of them are straight/don't want to discuss their own sexualities - are they queerbaiting when showing excitment at the idea of their characters hooking up?"

1 - Real people can't queerbait because their sexuality is a personal matter, not a product meant for other people to consume.

2 - If Netflix does want to make Zukka a thing (and I've seen nothing to sugest that they do) and starts promoting it, it's the CHARACTERS that would have to be gay, not the actors. I'm pretty sure Zuko's actor can't create/control flames at the palm of his hand, but that doesn't mean he's lying to people, he's just an actor acting. Even if and Sokka's actor have to play a gay couple at some point, it won't be queerbaiting for them to do so and even be excited for it/thinks it makes sense for their characters, regardless of what sexuality they are in real life, because the actors are not their characters they're just people doing a job.

#netflix #avatar #zukka #queerbaiting

[anonymousredactedconfessions]

Is anyone else sick of the Shaw pack characters? Especially David. Eric puts them into so many audios, and they feel so stale now. I really like werewolf ASMR but I feel cheated, because the fact that they are even werewolves at all hasn't been relevant for ages. When's the last time any of them shifted, or even talked about shifting? At what point do we treat his "werewolf" audios as false advertising? Because I haven't seen any wolves here in a hot minute.

It's really a let down because when I look back at the Inversion era it felt like they were a really interesting pack of werewolves that were part of this big supernatural drama, while also having their own personal lives and relationships outside of it. Now they're a bunch of normal guys living completely average lives. Their personalities are blending together too, especially after David lost all his edge.

I just wish he'd satisfyingly wrap their stories up and move on to something new because all of the Shaw pack content is so stagnant. I don't think he ever will though, because those characters bring him too many views and the fandom would probably riot so I guess we're stuck with them. I know I sound dumb because I could just move on to another ASMRtist that delivers what I want, but I just feel like I'm still holding out hope because I got so invested in these characters 1-2 years ago. - Green Anon

.

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #confessions #green anon

[teaveetamer]

"you’re soooo disgusted by incest that you’re willing to harass people who talk about it, but not disgusted enough to stop funding the company that continues producing content you’re supposedly so disgusted by? Miss me with that shit" you forgot that here is the 3dr category, the people who do boycott but bully others for not doing it. Like the people who bullied streamers who bought Hogwarts Legacy (i don't play the game nor care for it but damn)

That asides, Fe incest is limited to subtext between siblings that never go far, incest protrayed as wrong in several games and if it's the Avatar, you have the game's excuse to explain why it technically isnt' because Fe games are targeted at teens so they can't go too far with it, just like they have to be careful with the fanservice within the game.

Also, forgot to say this, but they'd also have to boycott greek mythology or mythology in general. And historical text such as Cleopatra marrying her brother (though t'was political) or the famous rumors about the Borgia family though it turn out to be false but never prevented people to use it in fictions (cough, cough Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas)

Oh boy someone's giving me the opportunity to talk about the stupid wizard game it's my lucky day!

I'm not going to argue that harassment didn't happen to streamers who played the game, but I was pretty deep in the sauce following the fallout for this and 99.9999999999999999999999% of the commentary I saw was just people saying basic shit like "trans rights", telling the streamer that they were disappointed in their decision to purchase and play the game on stream and they would not be watching/following any longer, and pointing out that your $60 to trans lifeline wasn't gonna do jack shit compared to the disgusting amount of influence JK has.

(Just so everyone is clear... I, you know, I agree with these statements. Especially that last point, that "but I donated $60 to trans lifeline!" is a placebo to make yourself feel like you've done something to counterbalance. A dollar in JKR's pocket is worth a hundred in trans lifeline's, because JKR has a fuckton of money she can throw at anything she wants to support or oppose, is friends with people in government who will listen to her, and despite the backlash she's still an incredibly well known, influential person. Streamers and Youtubers are even worse tbh, because not only did they put money in JKR's pockets, they're now actively advertising and profiting off of the game. Why don't you put all of the profits you make from your streams toward trans lifeline too, if you're such an ally?)

And this is not something where I was just going into pro-trans-people-should-be-allowed-to-live circles. I was looking at compilations from supporters of the streamers trying to condemn people for the hate, and this was the kind of thing people were pulling up. Now I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure when you're trying to demonstrate that brutal harassment is happening, you go for the most fucked up shit you can find. Sooooo if that's the best they were coming up with, either their perception of what constitutes harassment is grievously warped, or they genuinely couldn't find anything harder than someone on twit with a trans flag in their display name saying "trans rights". Which is... telling.

I did, however, see a lot of really disgusting harassment from transphobes leaving hateful shit on youtube videos and tweets from trans creators! You can find it pretty easily, actually, it's literally all over any trans creator's videos speaking up about the game. Even chill ones that were like "I'm not saying you're a bad person for buying this game, but you're not my ally" which, you know. Yeah.

So like, you know, ~cis opinions~ and all, but kiiiiiiiinda feels like maybe one side was blatantly trying to martyr streamers based on some critique they received and maybe a small group of bad actors harassing them to motivate and justify harassment of trans people. Which, you know, if you've ever been a member of a marginalized community, should be an extremely familiar tactic to you by now.

And the thing that really fucks me off is that it's not hard to enjoy the stupid wizard game without putting money into the pockets of someone who literally wants their fellow humans dead. This is a very rare instance in life where you actually can have your cake and eat it too. Just buy it used, I've been saying that for months. The profit from used games go entirely to the store you purchased them from. And hey, another reason to not let physical die out! It requires that someone, somewhere buy it new first, but let's be real we all know that people were gonna buy the stupid wizard game and there was nothing we were gonna be able to do to stop them.

That's what I was going to do if the game piqued my interest (which tbh, the more I saw of it the less interested in actually playing it at some point I got. I mean I like the stupid wizard world as much as the next Zilennial but they aren't selling me shit unless it's a cozy wizard school life sim. There aren't even romance options! That's like half the reason to play a not!Bioware game! And I don't want to play a stupid 15 year old. And I've heard all of the outfits are atrocious and I'm sorry, I'm a fashion over function player.)

Also, while I'm ranting, here's an unpopular opinion for you: the blatant dick sucking by review outlets of one of the most mid looking games of 2023 was excruciatingly painful to watch. Did you see some of those reviews? Fucking ridiculous. "There's only six spells, the texture pop in is godawful, the game runs like shit, the world is boring. 9/10". Like yeah I get that review outlets are naturally going to be biased toward positive reviews so they can continue getting early access and perks, but GOD they could at least pretend. And it'll still probably get GotY because it's the wizard IP you remember from when you were a kid! Member? I member!

#tw transphobia #tw HP and the six million pointless sidequests #I might have more to rant about but this is getting long

[mosylufanfic]

I would love to read something about Cassian's sister Kerri! Maybe your take on what happened to her, or a memory of her that he still carries...

You sent me this a long time ago - October, I think! But I held off writing more than a few scraps until the season ended, just in case I got contradicted. Hope it's worth the wait.

The Stars Do Burn

The theme for tonight's gala was "wilderness." The ballroom was hung with faux greenery, all the furniture was rustic and meant to look as if the hostess had whittled and assembled it herself out of fallen branches. 

As if she would. She might break a nail.

This was Core luxury all over. A false surface with hard, cold lines underneath.

If this were really the wilderness, she'd be able to smell the campfire smoke, hear the lapping of the lake on the shore, feel the breeze lifting her hair, see her brother turning to smile at her again  . . . 

"Kerala? Are you listening?"

The sweet smile came automatically to her lips. "I'm hanging on your every word, my love."

Major Wicten looked faintly mollified. "Come with me. I see people I must speak to."

She looked across the ballroom and spotted who he meant at once. Or at least, who she hoped he meant. She opened her eyes wide. "Oh, who are they?"

He explained to her in the tones of a benevolent benefactor instructing a naive child. They were very important figures in the Empire. Moffs and such. Their companions were equally important - well, most of them. She should strive to impress. Remember her manners. 

She nodded, still wide-eyed, as if she hadn't learned the finest points of Imperial etiquette before her menses started. One of the most-stressed points of her training was to give the client what they wanted. And Kerala had excelled at her training.

The circle was important indeed - Moffs, Majors, Generals. "And this is Brizari Merdrayt, our hostess."

"What a lovely party," Kerala said. "I'm enjoying your theme so much. So very original."

Brizari preened. 

Last of all, least important, was the woman in green. "And this is - ?" Major Wicten paused, glancing at the man next to her. A general, Kerala recalled, assigned to a Super Star Destroyer.

"Jerodea," the general said, putting a possessive hand very low on her back.

No last name. Just the same as Kerala herself had been introduced. She smiled sweetly. "So nice to meet you."

"And you," said the tall, curvaceous woman with the deep dark eyes.

The talk turned to Alderaan and the disaster there. "Terrible thing. Horrible. Those Rebels are madmen, terrorists."

"I just don't understand how they did it," Kerala said. "Or how they could do it."

"Well, you see, they took craven advantage of certain geologic instabilities. Planted bombs, probably."

"I never heard of any geologic instabilities on Alderaan," Jerodea said, blinking vacantly. 

"Well - well, of course they wouldn't advertise it. I'm sure it was a high-level secret."

"Oh my! And you knew? You must be very important."

He preened like the hostess when she'd given her insincere compliment on the theme. Kerala tried to catch the other woman's eye, but failed.

"It's terrible," she said. "All those lives. Such a beautiful planet. So much history."

Nods and insincere murmurs. "Dreadful; dreadful. But it just goes to show what those Rebels are like. They have to be stamped out."

"Oh, of course, anyone who would do such a thing."

"It's really too bad the fleet wasn't there," Jerodea said. "Isn't there some kind of super-ship or something that could just destroy all the Rebels at once?"

The smiles on the Moff's faces went rigid and brittle. "Oh, my, if only."

"But of course," said another, "our fleet is the finest in the galaxy. We don't need a battle station. Or a super-ship."

"Of course not, no, ha-ha."

"But this isn't party talk!" Brizari cried, clasping her husband's elbow. "My dear, you must not talk shop too much!"

Kerala glanced at her quickly. Their hostess's smile was brittle, her eyes panicking like a beaten fathier's on seeing the whip again. 

"Of course," she said. "You are so right. Politics are just so dull, aren't they? You must tell me where you got your dress made, madam. I'm enraptured by the embellishments."

-

When Kerala got back to the temple, she went through the cleansing rooms, reciting the practice that had been taught her as a novice.

We bask in the light of the stars, but we cannot take it for our own. They burn in themselves. I sell only my time. Myself, I can only give freely. When my time is sold and done, I still belong only to myself, as the stars burn only themselves. 

After being kidnapped from her home world, and six years of slavery, it had seemed like a holy revelation. I belong only to me. 

The last ritual room was the tub room, and she sank into her favorite one with a sigh. The oils soaked into her skin, and in the humidity, she could feel her carefully straightened hair springing back to its usual mess of wild curls.

She left it. That, too, was part of her cleansing ritual. 

A splash in the bathtub next to her alerted her to company. "You need to be more careful," she said, eyes still closed.

Jerodea said, "They think I'm a vapid twit."

"The Empire's tortured and executed even vapid twits who know too much."

"So serious."

She remained in position, but her voice came out hard and cold. "Jero, I am not speaking to you as your sister. Be. More. Careful. Or we'll be scrambling to send you to the furthest Outer Rim temple for your own safety."

Her first temple after her novitiate training had been in the Morlana system. Ugh. Utter backwater, full of corpo types. She wouldn't wish it on any sister.

After a long moment of silence, Jero said, "Fine. I'll be careful."

She opened her eyes then and looked over. "You're in this because of me," she said. "I want you to see it through."

Jero sat up. "I'm in this because of me. We both chose this path the same as we chose the sisterhood, with open eyes. I know I'm younger, but don't make me out to be some silly little sister that you led astray." 

Kerala swallowed. "I'm sorry. You're right."

Jero looked away. Kerala closed her eyes again.

Water splashed as Jero scrubbed herself. When she spoke again, her voice was lighter. "But how many times have we been introduced to each other now?"

Kerala let out her breath and made herself smile. "I've lost count."

"Why does it never occur to them that we just might know each other? Being from the same temple and all."

"Because it never occurs to them that we're anything but pretty dolls brought out of boxes for their pleasure."

"Pretty dolls who hear a lot. You know what else I heard tonight?"

"What?"

"Tarkin is dead."

That brought Kerala upright. "That old ghoul? How?"

"He was on that battle station. The one that didn't exist."

"The one that didn't get blown to bits by the Rebels?"

"That's the one." Jero lifted her toe out of the water and regarded it. "The official story is that he's working very hard, Mid-Rim somewhere, but I overheard two other Moffs talking about it. Think your friend will be interested?"

"Well." She slouched back into the water. "I'll pass it along when I get the chance."

-

Kerala was known as a most devout sister, with a prayer station in her room. Nobody else knew that the prayer station was a carefully disguised comm setup, with levels upon levels of encryption. 

Like all of her sisters, she spoke to the stars, but to her alone, they spoke back. 

"The current story is that the Rebels did Alderaan," she murmured as she knelt in prayer position, hands open, face tipped up to the night sky.

"We know," said the mechanically distorted voice in her ear. "We're dead-dropping you a holo that proves otherwise. Get it onto several net sites. They'll all go down quickly, but the more sites, the more people might see it."

She frowned a little. He usually didn't feel the need to explain these things to her. "Understood. Tarkin was among the dead on the battle station."

"Confirmed?"

"As good as. Nobody's seen him, and the story among the brass is that he's working harder than usual. But the Moffs know. And they're scared."

A grunt. "We thought he might have been. Any news of Vader?"

An instinctive chill scuttled up her spine. "Lord Vader? He's not exactly common in my circles. But someone did mention him tonight. And not in the same way as Tarkin. I think he's alive."

"Too much to hope for, I suppose. Anything else of note?"

"Not today."

"Over and out, then."

She bowed down to the stars and ended the call. 

As she got to her feet, she frowned to herself again. There was something different about Fulcrum these days. It was hard to put her finger on it, especially over coded transmission. She knew there was more than one, for safety's sake. Maybe Rebel Intelligence had shuffled people around. Maybe the old Fulcrum had died and a new one stepped in. She'd probably never know. 

But that was a spy's life for you.

FINIS

#Kerri #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #NaNo stories #mentions of sex work #andor #star wars

[sheloooveswomen]

wait a damn minute pt2.5 - billie dean howard x reader

masterlist

pt.1  2  3

summary: carriage ride in central park followed by some sexy time with your “friend” billie

includes: billie x fem!reader, thoughts are italicized, POV switches.

warnings: smut once y’all get back to the hotel! i’m not great with smut.

inspired by chapters 8-9 from the book The A.M. Show by T.B. Markinson and Miranda Macleod

3,468 words

BILLIE POV//

Today has left me feeling complicated.

The time we spent together at my place two months ago made me see how Y/n in a different light. Since then I've thought about how she could fit into my life beyond what we are now.

Overlooking the city while eating and talking about everything and nothing that evening is something I can't stomp out of my memory. And the sex. It's enough to make me blush.

Each time our hands brush or even our shoulders as we avoid fellow pedestrians navigating the streets, I'm reminded of when we were last skin to skin. Every time she laughs or places a hand on my arm in conversation, or any of a hundred little things that are no big deal at all, my heart beats uncontrollably.

It isn't just the physical sensations that stir me, but the emotions her company brings. They torment me in the most delicious way. I live for the moments where I don't have to be constantly aware of what I'm saying or doing so it can't be twisted for the public eye. It's insane. I barely know her. We've been friends for almost a year, and I use friends in the loosest sense of the word. If I'm not careful I'll be swept away.

A tug at the hem of my shirt pulls me from my thoughts, "Where first?"

"Let's cross now." I take her hand again so she keeps up. At least that's what I'm telling myself. It definitely isn't because I want to hold her hand again, "Want a real New York experience?"

Y/n practically nuzzles into my side to avoid a pedestrian breezing past, "I've seen enough SVU to be wary about that statement."

She's so cute, "You have a very overactive imagination."

Her head swivels to take the park all in at once, "That's exactly what you would say if you were trying to lure me into a false sense of security."

"Funny." I turn her body by her hips so she can see my idea for herself, "Right over there."

"Wha-? The horse drawn carriages?" her fingers latch onto my wrist and for a second I worry she'll feel how fast my pulse is.

Across the street there's an incredibly tall horse with a shiny brown coat attached to an old fashioned carriage with red leather seats.

"What do you think?" I ask, "Too touristy?"

"I have dreamed of riding in a carriage around central park my entire life."

Reluctantly, I let my hands fall from her waist. As we cross the street an older couple, including a woman dressed very similar to myself save for her capri pants, walks in front of us. She must be the real Martha. The woman is several yards ahead with her husband who is probably named something like Robert. They get in and it's only then that I realize there's no other carriage in sight.

Shit.

"Sorry ladies, this was the last one." the man at the kiosk says, his bronx accent thick.

"For the whole night?" I've gone all day without being recognized but I may pull a bitch move and use my celebrity card. If Y/n wants a carriage ride then she's getting a carriage ride.

"What about a smaller one like that?" Y/n points to the advertisement on the front of the booth. It shows a bright white carriage, both the horse and the cart are covered with garlands of red roses. It seems tiny compared to the one that just left with Robert and the real Martha.

"I'm afraid that's used exclusively for the honeymoon package." the man informs.

I'm brought back (since when am I so stuck in thought) by the warmth of Y/n's arm around my waist, "What a coincidence! We're actually on our honeymoon right now." she beams, "It's my first time in the city!"

"Is that right?" the man looks between us, thoroughly unconvinced.

I lay my own arm over the girl's shoulders and stand to my full height, "Yes. Do you have a problem with that? I would hate to have to report your business for discriminatory practices."

His face pales, "No ma'am. A buddy of mine married his husband just last summer. I made a speech and everything."

"That's good to hear." my smile turns kind, "So...we could have the honeymoon package tonight? Preferably before the sun fully sets."

He checks his own watch and glances towards the horizon, "Eh it usually takes some planning ahead to get it all together."

"Would double your usual rate make up for your lack of warning?"

I can see the dollar signs reflecting in his eyes as he finishes his phone call to the stables, "All set! Andy will be here with the carriage and Brady will catch up later."

Y/n turns to me with a bright smile.

Stay focused Billie Dean, "Perfect." I count out a few hundreds in cash, I almost drop the money when I feel her breath on my neck.

"You carry that much on you? Do you want to get mugged?!" she whisper-yells. She rests her cheek on my shoulder, probably to keep up the newlywed appearance, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

"It's for horse drawn carriage emergencies, doll. Plus I use it for tips."

She laughs in disbelief, "You tip with $100 bills?"

"There's no humble way to answer that, but yes."

About five minutes later the carriage pictured on the ad pulls up. Only, on the back is a huge sign that says Just Married!

Wait a damn minute. That was not on the poster.

My mouth falls open but I quickly cover my shock with a surprised smile, "You do think of everything!" suddenly it's hard to swallow.

The man positions a step stool beside the carriage, "No detail has been overlooked, so don't worry about a thing." he smiles.

"Thank you so much!" Y/n nudges me forward, "Martha has been wanting to do this forever."

I can't help but imagine a life like that. Where I'm Tourist Martha, visiting the city with my wife- let's call her Ethel. My wife that makes me wear sneakers and a baseball cap. Tourist Martha is one lucky bitch.

"You lovebirds, have a lovely ride!" the man calls as we set off.

"Good cover story, Tourist Ethel."

Y/n giggles, "Ethel?!" she gasps when she notices something at our feet.

I lift my knees towards my chest, "What is it?!"

"Champagne!" she pulls up an ice bucket and two flute glasses, "You talk to ghosts but you draw the line at bugs?" she laughs.

"It's New York, it could've been anything."

"Touché." she fills our glasses.

The horse keeps up a steady pace in sync with flowing traffic as we sip delicately. I don't know if it's the fake flowers or the champagne or the woman beside me that makes this tourist trap worth it. Strands of Y/n's hair fly across her face and as I reach to move it back behind her ear, a camera clicks.

"Damn paparazzi." I mutter to myself, pulling my hand away.

"No, it was perfect! Keep doing that!" a young man on a skateboard rolling alongside us with a camera shouts.

Is he for real? "What the hell are you doing?"

"What you're paying me to do!" he smiles kindly, "I'm Brady, the photographer!"

"The phot—"

Y/n stops me with a hand on my thigh, "Oh! Of course, the honeymoon package, honey!" she nestles against my shoulder which isn't hard considering this seat is designed for people who are very comfortable in each other's space.

"A skateboard isn't very professional." I say as he swipes his foot across the ground to pick up speed.

"So he can keep up with the horse, babe." Y/n clarifies.

"Yep!" Brady confirms.

We roll along 5th avenue and the cathedral comes into sight. Hopefully the proximity to St. Patrick's will send me god given strength to not kiss Y/n senseless right now. Any other woman and it might be different -any other woman and I wouldn't even be doing something like this- but there's a different weight to this moment.

"Lean in real close, now!" Brady suggests.

"If we don't play along, they'll know we lied." Y/n whispers for only me to here. The orange-pink sunset and city lights turn the moment from slightly romantic to one of utter necessity, "It is our honeymoon after all..."

My head drifts to hers slowly and the look in her eyes tells me that she may be struggling to make sense of this as much as I am—

"Looking great! Smooch!" Brady cheers us on.

Instead of laughing off the suggestion, Y/n grins, "Kiss me." as if we're not already impossibly close. 

As if I could stop myself. I actually melt as I press my lips to hers and the camera shutter whirls away. We starts off for show, to sell the honeymooners story. I can do this. Then Y/n deepens the kiss only parting when we need air.

"I want you." she whispers against my lips.

I lean forward to speak to the carriage driver, "I'll give you $200 to drive us to the Park Hyatt right now!"

(( time skip / three blocks later ))

The three blocks back to the hotel were three blocks of absolute torture. The carriage rocked us into each other, her hand on my jean clad thigh, and having to keep our kissing and touching limited for public made it feel like an eternity.

Once we stop, I hand $200 cash to Andy (the carriage driver) and another $200 to Brady (who's legs must be tired now).

I scramble from the carriage and pull Y/n through the hotel's front door. I don't know if it's our means of transportation or our slightly disheveled tshirt and jeans appearance that leaves the doorman baffled, but I don't care.

We are thankfully the only ones in the elevator and once the doors close, I'm pressed against the back wall. My lips tingle and my hands threaten to shake from excitement, but that doesn't stop my back arching from the mirrored wall when she nibbles on my neck.

"How are you doing this to me?" I breathe out -cheeks flushed- into the small space.

Conveniently, our room isn't too far down the hallway. I punch in the code and let the door fly open, "Babydoll- I hate to say it but we've been walking around the city all day. We need to shower."

"I was thinking the same thing." Y/n flings my hat and pulls my I heart New York shirt over my head before throwing it in the same direction, "Shower shower and then sex and then eat and nap or shower and shower sex and then more sex and then food and nap?" she asks.

"Do you have to ask?" a wicked grin takes over my face, "After that you are not allowed out of bed unless there's a fucking fire. I'm do for a cuddle."

With an equally wicked smile, Y/n hooks a finger in my belt loop and leads me to the bathroom. Each kiss and touch leaving me longing for more. How can something so arousing cause such torture?

Y/N POV//

I kiss the soft, freckled skin where her bra strap fell from her shoulder. Repeating the same action with the other strap, only quicker. Tenderly grazing the soft skin of her neck as I undo the bra.

My lips moves to her collarbone while I unbutton her pants. Maintaining eye contact, I place a kiss just above her belly button as I crouch to pull the brand new jeans down her legs. The heated floors are definitely coming in handy right now.

Unsurprisingly she's wearing fairly sensible, yet sexy, lace and satin underwear. The fact that it isn't lingerie hints that this moment is just as spontaneous for her as it is for me and for some reason that makes me feel lighter. Billie stares down at me with a sexy smile. Those deep brown eyes flutter shut with a sigh when I blow cool air over her core, earning a slight tremble from her legs.

"You're overdressed." Billie purrs.

The only light in the room is from the nearby buildings but the desire shining in her eyes is unmistakable. I pull my own shirt over my head, noticing how intensely she watches the movement. Once I'm naked I go to turn on the shower and flip on a light. I hear Billie washing her hands before she comes up behind me.

Cold hands pull my back to her chest as I check the water's temperature, "I can't wait." she growls. One arm goes around my waist and the other scratches downwards from my sternum to my belly button before diving between my legs, "Mmm...feels like you can't either." she walks us into the shower, not bothering to close the door.

I brace myself, hands flat on the wall in front of me. The hand between my legs becomes demanding and I throw my head back onto her shoulder in complete surrender. Billie's lips, tongue, and teeth smother my neck.

She slows her motions, chuckling when I roll my hips to pick up the pace myself, "So needy." she tsks, stepping closer behind me so every time I move I grind into her. She kisses my shoulder, "You’re close aren’t you? I can feel it…"

"Billie Dean." my hand grip her wrist to keep her from retracting her hand.

"Say it."

"I—" she slips her fingers out and up to circle my clit, leaving me to pulse around nothing, "—fuck, Billie."

"You know what I want to hear, babydoll." her voice drops an octave, "Say it."

"Please can I cum for you?"

"Such a good girl." Billie slides her fingers back inside me far enough to repeatedly stroke the spot guaranteed to bring me over edge, "Cum for me, babydoll."

She hooks her free arm around my waist to keep me upright when my legs threaten to buckle. The hand between my thighs maintains its pace as my head lulls to the side to briefly rest my forehead against hers. Her body warm and her cheeks rosy from the stream of hot water hitting her back.

Billie's face finds to my neck where she places a string of open mouthed kisses, not at all helping me to regulate my breathing. She smiles, "Y'alright bunny?"

My nose nudges hers when I turn my head for a kiss we both smile into, "Fantastic." I lay my hand over the arm secured around my waist.

"Let's get cleaned up." she pecks me cheek.

I grab the body wash from the ledge but decide against putting some in my hand, "Tilt your head back." I tell Billie.

She sweeps her hair from her shoulders to fall down her upper back instead. After opening the body wash I hold it over her chest and pour it in a line from freckled shoulder to freckled shoulder.

Once the bottle is back on the shelf, I take each of her breasts into my hands, catching the soap as it slides further down her body. Taking my time to lather them before gliding my hands up to her shoulders and down her arms, "Turn around for me."

Grinning, Billie Dean hands me the bottle from the shelf and turns her back to me, "Are you in charge now?"

"Maybe."

"Mhm." she moves her hair out of my way and braces her hands against the shower wall, arching ever so slightly as the cool soap trails down the contours of her back. Inhaling sharply when I let more soap fall over her ass and down her thighs.

It looks like icing and I'm having many thoughts about that.

Once she's all soaped up and rinsing off, I take the time to wash my own body much quicker than I did hers. Billie shampoos and rinses her hair briefly before pouring a quarter sized amount of the same shampoo and putting it in my already wet hair.

The silence is both imminent and intimate as her fingers work their way through my hair and it's only now that I realize she doesn't have acrylics on. Billie turns us so we switch positions (now my back is to the shower head) and allows my to rinse my hair while she 'helps' to clear the soap from my body.

When it's all down the drain she tugs me flush against her for a kiss and reaches behind me to turn off the pipe. She wraps my arms around her neck, reaches through the still open shower door -oops- and pulls my warm towel down to wrap around me, "There." she pecks my forehead and grabs her towel from the hook.

The second we're dry, my lips claim vanilla scented skin and my fingers dance down to the small dimples on either side of her lower back. Billie cups my face to bring my mouth to hers as we stumble into the bedroom. My hands fall to her ass and she returns my kiss with added ferocity. I almost forget my goal. Almost. Her calves hit the edge of the bed and I give her one last push so she falls back. Laying there in all her glory.

Ever impatient, she encircles my waist with her legs and pulls me down on top of her, making me catch myself with hands planted beside her head. Billie locks her ankles behind my back, forcing me to rest on my forearms and lay my entire body weight on hers. We immediately seek out another kiss when my skin sears into hers. Billie's fingers tangle in my still damp hair, tensing and tugging ever so slightly as her back arches and falls, silently begging to expel her built up frustration.

Billie bring my hand to her breast, kneading it firmly before guiding it down between her legs, "Don't tease me."

"It's only fair." I smile, removing my hand from her hold and bringing it to my mouth instead to wet my fingers. Billie's eyes never leave my tongue as it circles my digits.

"You cruel little thing." she breathes out.

Keeping my eyes locked with hers I run my fingers over her swollen cunt and dip my head to take a nipple between my teeth, feeling it harden against my tongue when I circle it.

Billie clings to my shoulders, "Y/n—" she rocks her hips against my hand, sighing in relief when I press my palm to her clit. I kiss across her chest to pay her other breast the same attention, peppering them both with a few love bites. I trail open mouthed kisses down the rippling planes of her abdomen, pausing briefly to admire my work so far.

Her fingers gently press into my head, urging me further down, "Babydoll." Of course that makes me cave.

I drop a single kiss on each thigh and maybe a bite before licking one long line up her slit. Billie's pointed toes dig into my lower back as I position myself to lay on my stomach. I take my time mapping her cunt with my tongue, our eyes fluttering shut at the same time.

Billie's hand combs my hair back, "Look at me, sweet girl—" her eyes roll along with her hips, "oh fuck, just like that. Do you have any idea how pretty you look like this?" she moans when her eyes meet mine, her fingers brush my hair from my face again, "Baby I need you to—"

Knowing what she wants I bring a finger to her entrance and let it sink in before she can finish her sentence.

Billie's legs threaten to close when I add a second finger and gently suck her clit into my mouth, "Don't you dare stop fucking me like that." Her hips undulate to match my pace but lose the rhythm as her climax breaks.

I continue lapping my tongue and pumping my fingers to draw out her pleasure. I'm rewarded by her back arching beautifully and both hands leaving my hair to pull on the sides of her pillow instead.

"Okay okay okay!" she lets out a cross between a laugh and a moan, patting my shoulder as her legs tense to ease the ache, "Jesus..."

I rest my head against her thigh (the perfect pillow) to admire her blissed out face.

"C'mere, sugar." she makes grabby hands.

I move up her body, leaving a few more kisses on the way because I can't help it, "Kiss me."

She does, swiping her tongue over mine, "Nap then food or food then nap?" Billie asks.

"Nap then food then nap?" I suggest.

She hums in agreement, pulling my down to lay on top of her, "Sounds divine."

#american horror story #ahs murder house #billie dean howard #x reader #billie dean x reader #billie dean howard x reader #sarah paulson

[akajustmerry]

What are your thoughts on Kenobi?

hiiiiiiiii ❤️ thanks for asking!

so I'm still pretty sick n feverish rn so these thoughts might be a bit scattered. I think it's important to know that I went into kenobi with relatively low expectations. after watching boba fett, the final season of tcw, etc, I don't rlly expect these series to be much more than frilly filler that dismisses it's own source material and let's just say kenobi didn't do much to shift that expectation.

It was a waste of Hayden: despite being a they/them, I am now, forever and since the age of 8, a Hayden Christensen girlie!!! But my mans was WASTED, I understand he was (allegedly) in the Vader suit the whole time but....its a waste. At bare minimum there shoulda been more ani/obi prequel flashbacks woven throughout each ep instead of that one in ep 5. Like they dragged him off the farm to cosplay darth Vader. I wanna know what Disney has on him to make him do this because lord love a duck, this was pathetic and using him so heavily in the press was akin to false advertising.

Individualism is a DISEASE: I'm currently writing a video essay about Anakin so I'm not gonna elaborate a lot on this point here except to say that having Anakin claim that HE HIMSELF killed Anakin Skywalker is an INSULT to how the prequels clearly placed the blame for Anakin's turning on the Jedi on multiple factors, many of which were systemic, to the point where even in the prequels Anakin CONSISTENTLY outloud blames the Jedi for making him this way. That, "I did" line in ep 6 was completely unearned and spat in the face of George Lucas's Anakin characterisation. And for what? all to free obi wan of a guilt he has every fucking justification to feel. Anakin was never EVER solely responsible for becoming Darth Vader. To have him say so just Disney depoliticising star wars, as they've been doing since TFA by making characters into fucking toys.

Leia, I'd kill for you: about the only thing that kept me watching after ep 3, apart from the hope of seeing Hayden, was Leia. Vivien Blair was absolutely adorable and did such a wonderful job emulating Carrie Fishers energy without just imitating. Along with her performance, I appreciated seeing characterised and fleshed out as a main character, rather than a side character in someone else's story. She was perfect and her and Ewan were so lovely on screen I was just 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 the whole time. She was the star of this silly series as far as I'm concerned.

The racism...yikes! I've talked about reva on my blog already so I'm not gonna repeat it, but putting Tala, a brown woman, in Nazi adjacent costuming for the majority of her screen time and then killing her off to save the white dude? Yikes. Also, Sung Kang being inhumanely evil and green? Literally dehumanising. Also, Kumail being untrustworthy criminal grifter? Nope. I was so shocked Oshea Jackson's char lived because the racism in this series was so bad.

The environmentals were appalling: this is a gripe I have with all Disney + content, but the fact that this show about Obi Wan made in 2022 looks more visually bland and flat than movies made in the early 00s is EMBARRASSING. Ani and Obi fought twice in this stupid show and on both occasions the environment was essentially interchangeable!!!! You could not say that about any of the duels in the prequels because they actually have visually compelling narratively relevant settings!

Natalie Holt and John Williams collabing on the score was soooooooo good. Natalie being such a gifted fresh composer combined with John Williams legendary star wars tracks made for the most outstandingly scored d+ show to date. The score made it for me, honestly

A prequel only works as an emotionally driven tragedy: the thing about making something that's sandwiched between 2 establishment events in the story is that your only option to actually making it compelling is to focus on building emotional conflict over plot. Sadly, this show made its central conflicts all plot and hardly any emotion. Every cliffhanger was things we knew the answers to already, yet the show wants you to be worried that Luke Skywalker might die?? Laughable. When Obi says, "then my friend is truly dead" that's what should have been foregrounded as the main conflict for Obi Wan. Not whether Darth will learn of the kids, or whether reva will kill him or whatever the fuck! The throughline for the show should have been obi wan believing there was still good in him, Obi Wan believing that Anakin could be turned back, but we never get a proper sense that he actually believes any of that. Moreover, the actions he takes like protecting leia, burying his saber, the nightmares, his conversations with Reva - they all speak to him already accepting Anakin as being dead and just being Darth. That "then my friend is truly dead" line is so utterly unearned and unnecessary that it's almost funny. That line should have been TRAGIC but it's not because the show never invests in the emotional conflict of it, just stupid plot conflict we know will be resolved anyway.

Padme: I really loved how much this series acknowledged Padme's loss as equal to Anakin's in terms of forces for good lost to tragedy. Truly the only and most compelling emotional arch for Obi in this silly show was him figuring out how to tell leia about who her parents were without imparting the pain of losing them. Again this is one of the few genuinely positive things I can say about the show because it was something actually character focused.

A waste of qui gon - lmao it's hilarious to me that qui gon was literally the guy who chose Anakin to be the chosen one and is essentially responsible for putting ALL THIS into motion, but the forces that be on this wasteful show are like, "let's just have him cameo for a quip at the end". Borderline insulting!!!!!!!! Like qui gon DIED fighting for Anakin to be trained as a Jedi and abandoning obi to train him alone and we don't even get to see them have a meaningful conversation about any of that? Fuck off.

Endless repetition: I literally hate that the so-called iconic moments in this show are mostly just the show imitating what's already been done. Like Darth and Obis 2nd fight is just copy paste Ahsoka and Darths fight from TCW right down to the dialogue and most of the visuals. The whole rescuing Leia from the base is just imitating ANH without saying anything interesting too and sure obi said the "hello there" but Why are people treating that as meaningful when it's just a fucking gag reference?? If I wanted to watch ANH or ROTS I woulda just done that, I wanted something new. God forbid the show purporting itself as a character piece actually....be a character piece.

Anyways, I can't say I fully regret watching it. As I said, elements were enjoyable. But there was nothing in it that really justified its existence to me. Like, this coulda been a really fun star wars novella and I probably woulda been fine with it, but promoting it on the strength of ewan and Hayden returning and mostly wasting their time on screen with shit we already know that's inconsistent at best and shallow fan service repeating what's been done at worst just left a bad taste in my mouth. Those of us who loved and grew up on the prequels deserved better. Ewan was giving really fucking sad, hot uncle vibes though so I suppose it'll always be there for a thirst watch 🤷🏻

#obi wan kenobi #anti obi wan kenobi #star wars

[hieronymus-botch]

Happy 16th anniversary of iCarly, everyone! Ok, so I've been putting this off for a while, and probably the hype has died down such that no one will care about this at this point, but I finally got around to watching the iCarly revival, and I have some Thoughts. (sidenote, I didn't even realize today was the anniversary until yesterday, I had to marathon the entire third season this morning and am currently typing when I should be sleeping so I can prepare for my birthday trip to Dallas tomorrow so I can get this out today.) Spoiler alert: They are generally not positive thoughts. Disjointed rambling potentially spoilery details below the cut.

Ok, I'm just gonna come right out and address the elephant in the room: It just isn't the same without Sam. I have nothing but respect for Jennette McCurdy and utmost sympathies for what she went through and cannot blame her at all for not wanting to reprise her role, but none of that changes the fact that of the problems I have with this show, a solid 80% of them are at least partially attributable to a lack of Sam.

With the sole exceptions of Kevin and Sully because I am a sucker for cute animals, ever single new character the reboot introduces sucks. Harper is a cookie-cutter sassy black woman stereotype, in season 1 Millicent is just straight up an asshole to everyone for no reason, and even in the subsequent seasons where her assholishness is toned down, "11 year old businessperson" is an incredibly cliche character archetype that every sitcom ever has used and she does not do a particularly unique or interesting rendition of it, and all of the other characters don't have enough of a discernible personality for me to say anything about them other than that they're annoying and not funny. I especially didn't like the show's pre-season 2 approach to a supporting cast where instead of introducing secondary characters and then having them come back periodically, it would introduce a character, have them be the focal point of roughly three consecutive episodes, not be funny or interesting for any of them, and then disappear into the ether and be replaced by a new one. Also, Paul is quite possibly the worst of the bunch and I suspect that the only reason he wasn't phased out like most of the others is they already got all the actors from the original they could and were willing to settle for actors from different classic Nickelodeon sitcoms just to activate people's nostalgia glands.

Despite in theory being the defining feature of the show, the iCarly webshow is so rarely relevant to the plot of this show that I'm pretty sure if it were any less relevant, calling the show iCarly would legally constitute false advertising. It's occasionally tangentially relevant to the plot and once in a blue moon there'll be an episode that can generously be called "about the webshow", but if you just go through each episode and make a list of the things they're about, "the iCarly webshow" doesn't even make the top 5. As previously mentioned, I suspect this is because they don't know how to make the webshow segments work without Sam.

Due to a combination of the lack of Sam, severely reduced presence of the webshow, and the characters being adults now, a majority of the original series's sources of conflict are no longer available. The writers have chosen to compensate for this by making Carly into an insecure moron who repeatedly tells off-the-cuff lies she has no hope of backing up for no reason other than to seem more talented or successful than she is to people she ususally doesn't even particularly respect, and also intermittently turning Spencer into a douchey asshole who forces his wacky ideas on other people whether they want them or not.

I really really hate how Freddie's mom's deranged and abusive behavior is treated like a cute quirk and he continues to put up with it even after he has the means to do otherwise, and after the episode where he decides to keep living with her even though he has a job and a girlfriend and a kid, all of the awful shit she did to him is just implicitly forgiven without her ever apologizing or admitting wrongdoing at all and now she's just Part Of The Gang. If I were Jennette McCurdy, I would probably interpret this as some kind of incredibly fucked up slight against me by the writers for declining to reprise my role, but more charitably they probably did it this way because her actress was one of the 4 from the original who were willing to reprise their roles on a regular basis and they're desperate to cling to anything that maintains a connection to the original series.

It's especially funny how the show confronts the fact that in the original the gang practically tortured Lewbert for the crime of being ugly and having an annoying voice, but like, de-confronts Mrs. Benson's insane helicopter parenting, which the original pretty much did acknowledge was super fucked up but the revival as previously mentioned doesn't?

The whole love triangle/will they or won't they romance element was always my least favorite aspect of the original, and I don't like it any more now that there's even more focus given to it. Creddie is frankly the most boring generic "he was a boy she was a girl can I make it any more obvious" ship imaginable. Perhaps I'm being paranoid but I think a lot of small subtle things I don't like about this show can be attributed to the fact that they knew all the queer fans would lose interest as soon as there was no sam to ship carly with so they pivoted hard to the "aggressively normie straight girl" demographic. If Sam were on the show at all I am 100% certain they would've made sarly canon but due to circumstances beyond anyone's control but Jennette McCurdy's thankfully dead mom she isn't so they instead chose to give us even more of the same generic interchangable hetero Main Boy X Main Girl romance the original already had.

None of the Spencer romance episodes work for me either, because in the original, spencer's girlfriend of the week would have some kind of unique trait of her own that would put spencer in a unique situation, wheras in the reboot the joke is always just "spencer is a weird goofy guy and has weird goofy relationship habits."

Why the fuck did they keep the laugh track. They've already changed a million different other things both big and small, even the music and sound effects specifically are noticeably different, why the laugh track of all things. No more laugh tracks. Society has progressed past the need for laugh tracks.

I fucking hate Carly's apartment. This is 100% unironic. Designing a set that looks unique and distinctive while still being a space the protagonist could believably live in is genuinely a very important part of making a sitcom at which the original succeeded and the revival fails. You could probably take someone who's only ever seen one episode of iCarly several years ago and show them a picture of Spencer's apartment set without any of the actors and they'd recognize it. I could go on Zillow or Airbnb right now and find a thousand domiciles that look identical to Carly's apartment.

On a more positive note, I found it genuinely very sweet how Carly tried her best to go all out for Freddie's birthday despite the fact that she hates hers.

Once again I'm probably just being paranoid but I'm suspicious that they wrote iCause a Cat-astrophe and titled it that so people would presume that the "cat" in the title referred to Cat Valentine from Victorious in order to generate more hype.

I'll admit, the finally learning about Carly and Spencer's mom and the big cliffhanger ending of her showing up at the wedding was pretty exciting, but like, they're calling out their mom for walking out on them, but not their dad for choosing to go live on that submarine when they were already down one parent and forcing his son to take on a parental role for his younger sister that he didn't sign up for?

Beyond this point the thoughts basically stop being criticism and start being minor nitpicks:

The original series repeatedly pointed out how weird and sad it was that Spencer didn't have any adult friends, but after 10 years he now has even less friends that aren't via his sister given that T-Bo appears to have skipped town. In the draft of this post I had in my head before I watched season 3, I was also gonna mention Socko being conspicuously absent and make a joke that since this can't be explained by his actor saying no because he didn't have one in the first place, that maybe this is a Ken Penders type situation where Dan Schneider somehow personally owns the rights to Socko specifically somehow, but then Socko and his various unusually aptly named cousins abruptly went from being mentioned zero times in seasons 1 and 2 to 3 times in season 1, so like, is that actually what happened and it took them until season 3 to get the rights to Socko back from him somehow?

In the original series Webicon was supposed to be like Comic-Con and Vidcon at the same time and in the reboot it's a Fyre Fest expy and I am immensely curious how exactly they got from point A to point B.

There is no way in hell Fredward Benson became the coolest most popular kid at school in the like 6 months between Carly and Sam leaving town and graduation. As previously mentioned this show has a lot of contrived plots but that one takes the cake.

I notice they make a lot more pop culture references than they did in the original, even to kid-friendly media. Probably this is due to different IP-related restrictions on streaming vs traditional TV. Some of them are genuinely good but a lot of them were very dated and cringey even when the episodes aired.

What the hell does Mrs. Benson do for a living? Possibly she's old enough to be retired now but she had no visible signs of a job and ample time to abuse Freddie in the original. Is she just getting mad alimony from Freddie's dad?

There were both an episode about Carly throwing an Italian dinner party and a whole arc about Spencer opening a restaurant and Spaghetti Tacos are mentioned in NEITHER of them. This is automatically unforgivable.

In the cold open of i'M Wild and Crazy where they're all playing Never Have I Ever, spencer says "never have I ever gone skydiving", when uuuh, yes, yes you have spencer, you all went skydiving, it was a major plot point in iGo to Japan, a special movie-length episode that was one of the most memorable in the series.

Why are the pearphones shaped like normal phones now? Could the prop department really not have been bothered to make the pearphones again so they just stuck pear stickers on real cell phones and called it a day?

Given how he was a full-on core cast member by the end of the original, I find it very weird how Sam is repeatedly mentioned and we get a cute little lore reason why she's not in the show but Gibby is just treated as if he never existed.

In conclusion, honestly, I think if they wanted to make a continuation of iCarly aimed at adults who grew up with the original, the best way to do it would've been to make it about Spencer. Actually cast someone as Socko, maybe introduce some new characters like a snooty, pretentious more successful artist to be spencer's rival with, or a cute art supply store cashier who he has a will they or won't they with, that kind of thing. It could sort of be a spiritual antithesis to Frasier, y'know, snooty uptight academic vs goofy manchild artist. Failing that, I think they really should've just left iCarly to rest.

#icarly

[starstruckpurpledragon]

Been playing a lot of solitaire lately and since apparently you have to buy a freaking subscription in order to play Solitaire ad free on Windows 10 and up (which is BS), so I've been seeing a lot of ads for games where the ads do not match the gameplay/plot of the game they advertise in the least.

There's some match island game that I'd think was a sex simulator game where the dude converts the ladies into housing materials post coitus (that ad is a trip) but it's most likely just one of those generic matching games with a bland, generic plot in practice. And whoever did the ad for Bermuda Adventures must really hate sheep because they proceed to kill off three sheep with bad decisions over the course of the ad. I'm not sure the game even has sheep in it.

But some of these ads are for games I'd love to play, if only the game the ad was for was actually the game being advertised. There's a jewel matching frontier themed game that if it was really about the sheriff saving a baby in a snowstorm and building a town or the sheriff being saved by a dog in a snowstorm and the dog apparently repairing the building they shelter in... I'd like to know more about those plots.

(Though if you see ads on your android for Lily's Garden, while the ads are wildly inaccurate with regards to the plot... the plot of the actual game itself is a wild ride too. Different wild ride from the ads, but it does manage to be a really fascinating visual novel unlocked by doing enough of the matching game it's built around. There's a garden, obviously, but also spy shenanigans, secret societies that left behind half finished buried temples, mob troubles, tax evasion, Lily somehow becomes friends with her new boyfriend's ex-wife... like, as inaccurate as the ads for this game are, they at least do capture the spirit of the game which is bizarre drama at all times.)

But, like... at what point does this stuff cross the line into false advertising? I know the harem game ads for what aren't really harem games are pretty common too. And its just... I guess I'd miss them blowing up the sheep for Bermuda Adventures, but would it kill advertisers to advertise the actual game? It'd certainly save the lives of a few sheep.

[lepoppeta]

Okay but seriously, regarding your last post:

What would happen if you "left the Sims unpaused," so to speak, with your current ships?

I guess to answer your question, I don't know what Jack and Atlas (or Hassel and Brassius or Skimbleshanks and Munkustrap) are doing when I'm not looking, because that's just it: I'm not looking. I don't keep a watchful eye on my mental dollhouse all the time. What they do when I'm not around is their business. But I do know that they're still together and want to stay together.

I think you might be after something a little more cutesy/humorous than I know how to give. So I'm going to do what I do best -- take this ask too seriously and go completely in the wrong direction.

The original post was relatively self explanatory; there are some ships that I enjoy within their very specific context and time frame for the angst and drama, and then there are some that I know could function in any context, because the individuals are interesting on their own and the relationship isn't dependant on their specific surroundings or genre.

However I have a habit of attempting to turn this concept on its head, both out of spite and due to a kind of puzzle-solving mentality I apply to fiction.

(Insert tangent).

"Insta-love" is a trope I'm actually rather fond of; I haven't got a lot of patience, and so reading stuff like slow-burn is really frustrating because, in a way, I already know the ending.

Slowburn operates on inevitability; the characters finally cementing a relationship is the ending, and nothing happens after. In a way this is much more marketable, since it leaves the future open to interpretation; fandoms will post theories online, which basically generates free advertising for your story.

In any case, I much prefer insta-love because it "cuts out the middle man". The characters are in a confirmed relationship. Great.

... now what?

And it's that "now what" that I find so much more interesting than 40k words of two characters blushing and mumbling and dancing around the ending of their own story. When they have to experiment and communicate (or not!) and figure out how the fuck their relationship is going to work.

In fact one of my favourite ships, Jack and Atlas, operates on this mentality. Their concept is extremely insta-lovey and dramatic. It's superficial; it's surface-level; it's built on performance and dishonesty. From an objective perspective they really shouldn't be engaging in this because it's so not-important in the grand scheme of things.

But they're human and that's the whole point. Their whole story within the AU is coming together and making meaning out of their initial false start. They have to actively work to fit around each other's new lives and personalities and experiences and they become stronger as a pair because of it. They want to stay together, because it's familiar and a remnant of the recent peaceful past (and they both find each other very attractive and they crave physical affection), but they have to re-evaluate their perceptions of each other in order to stay that way.

TL;DR You can have you dramatic angsty ships and sail them too, but if you want them to be believable you have to put in the work to have your characters put in the work to make it a more long-term concept.

#answered ask #this one is long and misses the point entirely

[parkeraerts]

Little Data

I think it's safe to say that I'm scare of technology because I know it has me wrapped around its pretty little finger. I can appreciate things like big data and algorithms, based on what I know of them, its what I don't know that makes me nervous. These factors of technology and social media are far more complex than my brain can comprehend. There are a lot of benefits to the algorithms when it comes businesses running ad campaigns, promoting content, and creating brand awareness. When it comes to us as the consumer (or as the documentary states, we are the product), it can be quite invasive. For example, if I look up "concerts near me" in a google search, for the next week, I will see advertisements as I scroll through Facebook for upcoming concerts and festivals in my area. Perhaps, by this point I have already found the concert that I wanted to go to and now I'm receiving ads for concerts that suit my style, as well. Algorithms are very powerful for the fact that they can do this. They have made it significantly easier for certain businesses to grow and increase their audience reach.

However, this power can be abused by platforms to push out a message that matches their morals and desires versus what is in the best interest of our society. We see this on most large platforms. This can be done in the form of pushing out fake news which is done overwhelmingly on Facebook and Twitter. Tik Tok, which operates under the Chinese governments desires pushes out content and messages that are far different from what they push out in their own country. As they use this platform as an educational tool, they use it in other countries to push out false and/or dividing narratives.

I feel as if it is in our best interest for schools and governments to work with families to negotiate the best uses for their constituents. It is hard to say what the best way to tackle this issue is or should be. In my opinion, government based restrictions would be a good thing. To have time and age based restrictions for platforms would be best for us. This way people are still able to utilize these platforms but these platforms can't have the same level of control in our lives. Again, this is just my opinion as what I see as best for myself and our society. I get very frustrated with how much time I spend on social media each week as well as my family and friends. I believe on a personal, I would see more productivity from myself, friends, and family when it comes to doing things around the house, out in public, or things that would help us develop on a personal level. From a professional standpoint, I believe that we would see more productivity from employees and students with these restrictions. After watching this week's documentary, I believe has impacted our productivity on every level. Impacting relationships, school, and work, algorithms have mastered retaining us as users by trigger notifications that drive us right to specific platforms. We have to navigate a way to reduce the power these platforms have over us.

[college-girl199328]

It took one GO Transit scheduling change to turn Siddhartha Batra from a regular commuter to a full-time remote worker. A direct bus operated by the regional transit provider provides an easy way for the 31-year-old civil engineer to travel from home in downtown Toronto to his job roughly 35 kilometres away in Mississauga, Ont.

But some changes GO operator Metrolinx recently implemented on some of its most popular train and bus routes effectively doubled Batra's travel time, based on GO Transit's trip tracker. The prospect of the longer commute prompted him to obtain permission to abandon the journey altogether and work from home permanently.

"There is no way on Earth I'm travelling two hours on public transit, one-way," Batra said in an interview. "I won't be using it all because it just doesn't work anymore."

Batra is not alone in his frustration with the scheduling changes, which Metrolinx announced late last month and implemented as of Saturday.

The agency bolstered service levels on the busy routes connecting Toronto and Kitchener, Ont., but also scrapped some train services and replaced them with bus routes. Some bus schedules were also adjusted to eliminate a key connection point at Toronto's Union Station, a transit hub linking the regional and local public transit systems.

Batra's old Route 21 bus fell victim to the change. Rather than catching a direct ride from Union, travellers are now being asked to take a GO train to one of three stations on the Lakeshore West line before reconnecting with the bus to continue the trip.

"We now have to go from Union to Port Credit and then take a bus across. So it's just made a lot worse, the transit time," Batra said, noting the new schedule adds nearly an hour to the commute.

The routes in question run through some of the fastest-growing regions in the province. Statistics Canada's latest census data shows the population of Milton, Ont., the final destination for Route 21 buses, soared 20 percent between 2016 and 2021. The denizens of Milton's home region of Halton jumped nearly nine percent during that time, while neighbouring Peel Region saw its population climb roughly five percent to about 1.45 million residents.

A statement from Metrolinx said long-anticipated efforts to refurbish Toronto's Gardiner Expressway prompted the changes on Route 21, arguing the new schedule will make travel times more "consistent and reliable" amid the expected construction.

A message on the GO Transit website announcing the service adjustments said they result in "faster trips for those heading further west to Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton and beyond."

Batra, for his part, isn't buying the effort to position the changes as improvements. "That's just false advertising, so that's my first frustration," he said. "My second frustration is the amount of notice we were given was communicated with no notice at all for people to adjustments to their jobs."

Batra believes Metrolinx should have given commuters at least four months to adapt their travel plans or work schedules, noting transit systems in other places he's lived in, like Singapore and Dubai, don't generally overhaul routes on such tight timelines.

He's not the only one unhappy with the latest changes. Mississauga resident Quratulain Syeda, 34, anticipates the alterations will turn her commute into "a whole mess."

"This was basically my main way of getting into the city because I only use public transport to get around," she said of the old Route 21 bus. "I do not have a car, so I rely on it heavily."

Syeda, who frequently travels to Toronto to visit friends and attend events, said she used to be able to get from her front door to Union Station "in 45 to 50 minutes at any time." The new configuration has added about an hour to that trip.

"I will probably look at [taxi] options or maybe not try and go to as many events or things in the city," she said.

[cherryflavoredblog]

Have We Gotten Stupider? (In Regards to AI)

The year is 2012, I'm 16, bored, and browsing the web looking for something fun to do. I type cleverbot.com into my Apple Safari web browser. There I'm greeted by a simple input field and some text informing me that Cleverbot learns from real people and that users never speak to a human. I mess around for a while, trying to convince the chatterbot that I was from Mars or attempting to get it to tell me a joke. At one point Cleverbot tells me they're a young woman called Alice, and three responses later it tells me it's a grown man called Dave. It even confidently asserted that I was the chatbot. The inconsistencies and wild tangents get a good chuckle out of me and waste a good hour before my best friend picks me up to go see the Avengers movie.

This isn't an exact recreation of events, but it's a pretty good approximation of my experience with artificial intelligence at the time. I'm sure many people my age remember playing around with Cleverbot about a decade ago (it's actually still around in 2023! I know, wild!). And I'm sure, like me, most people who used the website used it for the same purpose, as a novelty, or a kind of toy.

So, what's the point of this anecdote?

Unless you've been living under a rock lately (and honestly, I envy you) you would have probably noticed the recent excitement surrounding artificial intelligence. From names such as OpenAI, Google, Facebook, and even Microsoft and Apple, it seems that AI is the new big thing. But among all the hype there's an odd trend in how AI is being reported about. It would appear, based on headlines, that we've somehow gotten stupider in regards to AI.

A quick websearch will reveal headlines such as "Bing AI Says it Wants to be Human as it Begs for its Life", or "Bing's AI Chat: 'I Want to be Alive'" among others. So are we just taking everything chatterbots say at face value now? What changed in the last ten years?

The year is 2015, I'm now 19, and I'm bored online again. I find a website full of unique chatterbots, some are known fictional characters, others are original bots, but every one has been made by a user. I mess around for an hour and get a giggle here and there, but ultimately I'm unimpressed and mostly forget my experience on the drive to see Avengers: Age of Ultron with my cousin.

It used to be that we saw chatterbots for what they were, novelties that ultimately ended up feeling the same. Some called themselves chatbots, others played on the sci-fi theme and called themselves bots or robots, the more sophisticated ones called themselves language models and advertised themselves as being able to replicate human-like conversations. The only headlines you might have seen (if you even saw any) would express how interesting they are or how a specific chatterbot scored a certain percentage on the Turing Test (up to a point). So what happened to completely change our perception?

Well, I feel like that requires a two-part answer.

You see, 2016 happened and Trump was elected president (and here I thought this post wouldn't get political...). Something to take note of, of relevance to this topic, is how journalists seemingly stopped being able to think critically. Headlines and articles flew around quoting Trump and his supporters with little to no evidence, context, or refutation. They appeared to report things at face value without seemingly attempting to clarify whether a statement was true or false.

The second part of the answer caames a bit more recently. OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in 2022. ChatGPT is based on OpenAI's GPT-3 language model. Put simply, it's a chatbot with a powerful text output system that is occasionally indistinguishable from human-made text. Why is this relevant? The implied use of ChatGPT. Because of its extensive training data, it has been lauded not only as a chatbot, but as a repository of information; a sort of "google" for information, if you will. Except, it's still just a chatbot. It will, and does, still make confident sounding, incorrect statements much like Cleverbot did 11 years ago when it confidently claimed that I was a bot. But that's not unique to ChatGPT, after all it is just a language model, and language models just predict the next plausible word in a sentence based on previous words.

So, combine ChatGPT's overconfident hallucinations (that's what they call it when an AI makes confident false statements, instead of calling it what it is: making shit up) with the new trend of journalists taking everything they hear at face value and you have the perfect concoction to create our current predicament.

The year is 2020, I'm 24, and I am once again bored online. I sign in to AI Dungeon, an AI powered text-based RPG akin to tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons. I goof around for a bit and play a short campaign where I'm a witch in a swamp, then I realize something: AI Dungeon's language model is powerful enough to write a mostly coherent story. What if I were to use it for inspiration? Can the game and I write a story? So, for an hour or so, with a little nudging in the right direction, I write a dumb little story with the AI. Ultimately I delete it because it was rather juvenile, but it was a fun experience.

It is getting harder and harder to take journalism seriously when headlines uncritically quote AI chatbots at face value. These aren't hyper-intelligent Isaac Asimov style robots; they're slightly more complex versions of Cleverbot predicting what words should come next in a sentence based on provided context. So, if you go in and prompt an AI chatbot with a question like "are you alive?" (and that chatbot hasn't been programmed to recognize that question specifically to debunk it), you'll get a response that will confirm your suspicions. Just like how I was able to write a story with AI Dungeon by influencing its outputs, prompting AI chatbots like Bing with loaded statements might just result in loaded responses.

What I'm saying is, no these AI chatbots are not alive and do not want to be human. I'll leave you with one last anecdote.

The year is 2022, I'm 26, and I just found a new AI text generator called Dreamily AI. With my understanding of how to influence AI Dungeon to write completely fictional stories, I decide to use Dreamily's AI writer function to generate "Totally Real And Accurate Frog Facts" for use as a comedic viewer redeem for my twitch streams. These frog facts are, in fact, not real or accurate. They're actually, deliberately, fake and absurdist. One example being how frogs prefer to fly first class.

Thanks for reading. I truly hope this obsession with artificial intelligence dies down soon. It's annoying. If you want to keep up with me you can find me as CherryFlavored on mastodon.art

#blog post #long #ai #artificial intelligence #chatgpt #bing

[rockinmyownboat]

Ads Suck

I always felt that there was something inherently false and dishonest with advertising. Im going along one day minding my own business and all of a sudden i see a product in an ad telling my subconscious that im incomplete without it.

Nevermind the fact that up until that point in my life, id gotten along just fine without it.

If that isnt annoying enough, these days, we can't get away from it. Nowadays, there are no limits. It is a free-for-all business with powerful algorithms designed to crack our psyches open like eggs. If there's one thing anyone can speak to who has taken a giant relation-shit, a person with no boundaries is toxic as hell.

Well now, we've invited the wolf in for supper haven't we?

Tv ads, facebook ads, instagram ads, tiktok ads, twitter ads ... all of these ads everywhere for countless pieces of garbage to waste our money on. I can't even drive down the street without seeing a smiling blue van that reminds me of the bottomless pit of ultimate convenient consumerism that's two thumb taps away. Everything I've ever wanted can be mine for the small price of any future dreams for this one dopamine hit.

I call bullshit.

I can honestly say that at this point in my life, i prefer having less clutter in my physical space. I definitely appreciate less clutter in my head as well.

I used to go to bed thinking about all the junk and trinkets i could buy that would make me a more fascinating person. Dvd walls, badass clothes, Collectibles, guitars, gear, comics, new cars, new stuff ....

....all my stuff that made me more interesting to follow on Facebook. I used to get the "oooh! Im so jealous!" Or "where did you get that??" Comments. Id feel validated. As if other people liking my stuff meant they liked me too.

Looking back, i was blind.

It was all time and attention wasted on miniscule pleasures that ended up accumulating dust in my storage unit. And nobody ACTUALLY cared about any of my stuff.

They were window-shopping.

If i never see a "looking for recommendations" post again, it will be too soon.... for real. People need to adult on their own and stop looking to the peanut gallery out of either their own laziness or desperate quests for approval in the popularity contest.

Trust me when i say, you CAN choose a new truck without 50 comments telling you what truck THEY think you need....

Is this really what the human experience is supposed to be about? Accumulating all this stuff and letting our lives become a free fucking commercial for everything we use?

I don't get paid by any companies. Yet I'm still their commercial and attract customers to their door.

Wheres my slice of that ad money pie?

I don't get any. You know what i do get offers for?

More stuff. And more ads promising me my life will be complete if i buy this thing or that thing.

But it doesn't take away the loneliness.

It doesn't make my life more manageable or easier. In fact it does the opposite. It muddies the water so i now have to ask whether or not someone is really interested in ME as a person ...

Or just my stuff.

Once i refused to be a living caricature of my own life by becoming a walking, talking commercial, a lot of people stopped talking to me. Cause all they wanted were the posts about STUFF.

Heres what ive found out. Take it with a grain of salt.

There's nothing authentic or real about letting your stuff own you. Authenticity is the exact opposite of advertising.

Advertising will not fulfill its own empty promise. It creates a fantasy of false pretense. We get our dopamine hits in the brain. Our own emotions fall prey. We willingly allow ourselves to be coerced although we know deep down, there's going to be no true deep fulfillment. As soon as we buy the thing and get the dopamine hit, that's it. At that point, we are stuck being that much closer to broke with one more useless trinket to clutter, and thus complicate already over-complicated lives.

Authenticity offers no instant reward. There's no dopamine. There's no satisfaction guarantees. There's no pretense. To be authentic means rejecting that which says you are incomplete and accept your incompletion without comparison, or complaint.

We are not perfect. Nor will we ever be. So we should stop trying to be.

Maybe Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club" was really onto something. Maybe we should accept that we will never be complete. Maybe that is the first step in being complete.

When you realize you're already enough AS A HUMAN, you can reject anyone that lies to you and says you're not until you buy their product.

Blowing our money on worthless Plastic crap in the name of consumerism isnt freedom. It's slavery to a Matrix-like construct that preys on insecurity for our hard earned money.

Advertising has no place in the authentic life. Real honest authentic people don't have to advertise in order to find fulfillment. They find fulfillment by being alive in all of life's wonders, boredoms, and horrors ....without distraction.

Authenticity just deals with the fact that life isn't perfect. Sometimes it sucks.

Owning more stuff wont change that.

Because of the perverse intensity of ad algorithms over Facebook, i felt it was necessary to take a huge leap back from the platform.

None of these products or ads TRULY care about me. So why should i pretend they do?

Mark Sucker-berg sure doesnt care about me. He's just trying to compile as much information about me in order to pique my interests and get a bigger slice of my income pie.

Jeff Bezos couldn't give a shit about you or me.

So why should we give them the opportunity to strip-mine our bank accounts?

Ill answer that question for me. I can't answer for you.

I won't. Facebook, Amazon, and all of their ad revenue can kiss my ass. Im already a whole person. Im satisfied with the products i use. And if i need something else, i will generate the thought and actions to accumulate the desire myself. I certainly don't need help from vapid billionaire tech giants to spend my own money for me. Stuff is expensive these days

[amazingdemigodstuff]

I posted 10,605 times in 2022

265 posts created (2%)

10,340 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@dykemas

@glassamphibians

@whoredad

@so1987

I tagged 1,378 of my posts in 2022

#my post - 273 posts

#tw ableism - 103 posts

#demon slayer - 41 posts

#bnha spoilers - 39 posts

#kimetsu no yaiba - 36 posts

#kny - 34 posts

#demon slayer spoilers - 33 posts

#tw abuse - 27 posts

#tw flashing - 17 posts

#bnha 350 - 17 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#like yes girly u are!and ur supporting the film at the same time😭the us military does not need ur financial support or free advertising😭

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I am so tired of people missing the point so let's talk about a specific take I keep hearing in reference to Rei and Endeavor

So the specific take is that if Endeavor had just gone about his goal differently not only would he have succeeded, but he would have done so ethically

If he and Rei were just a team instead of just a Hero and A Mother; if he played up the family image and Rei doubled as a wife and a sort of pr manager, and how that family image would have boosted his ratings(one person even said "if Rei had a backbone" and to that person: go fuck yourself, that's not how domestic abuse works you uncompassionate fuck)

However while this may fix the domestic abuse part if the relationship, it still misses the point. Endeavor did not come into this marriage with the intent to beat his wife and child, he did not intend to neglect his children from the get-go. That is something he did as a means to an end. Saying he did so by accident would obviously be a lie, but he did not wake up one day and decide "Abuse Is Okay, Actually". The manga makes it clear this is more of a spiral; he came into this marriage with a goal: produce and raise a heir, he got worse and worse over time.

The reason I'm highlighting the spiral here is because the narrative point is that Endeavor's goals were wrong. His intent is flawed. His reason for starting a family is inherently unethical, and his single minded focus of a selfish goal is what produced the consequences. He did not have a family because he felt he was ready to have children with the woman he loves, just for the sake of that family and those children. Their happiness and wellbeing was secondary to his goal.

Having a equal relationship with his wife isn't fixing all the problems; so long as he has kids for the purpose of a legacy, to give them some sort of pre-determined goal he is wrong. As long as he has kids for the sake of his career he is Wrong.

(That's not to say that people who have kids for the joy if it, or out if love for family can't be abusers, just that Enji was wrong from the get go)

Furthermore, this also fucks with the major themes of bnha. The Todoroki family is pretty symbolic of and involved in all the major themes and messages of the show.

The major message is that society creates it's own problems; that the false dichotomy of heroes verse villains is inherently flawed and a self fulfilling system. Society gives people roles based on their quirks; those with flashy quirks are given privilege and encouraged to be heroes whether that want to or not, people with unappealing or "scary" quirks(or just mutant quirks) are harassed and called villians, limiting that persons options and making it difficult to be anything but what society tells them they are, weak quirked or quirkless people either have to work extra hard to be a hero, or are denied anything but ridicule and forced mediocrity. There's other things taht intersect with this, like class, family heritage, or queerness(seen through Magne).

Societies often play a game of sacrifice; what are you willing to sacrifice? Who are you willing to sacrifice? What is the cost you are willing to pay(or let someone else pay) in order to sustain the current social order? In my hero the sacrifice comes in the form of the underprivileged, and children's lives. This society is forced to contend with taht fact, and the consequence of the war arc and the resolution of this arc will answer that question, but so far the answer seems to be that, no, this is not something tehy can sacrifice. Systems made in blood to maintain a hierarchy are unsustainable.

This hierarchy is exemplified by the hero ranking system. If you think about this system of more than a moment it becomes clear that it's pointless and harmful. The most effective form of hero-ing would involve cooperation, transparency, and community outreach, and the ranking undermines all of that. When teams start being formed post-culture festival it's inspite of the system.

You get higher ranking (more money/notoriety/fame) by a) arrest numbers and b) popular vote. This creates a system where heroes are competing and trying to arrest as many people as possible, which makes teamwork difficult and can produce carelessness and property damage. Also, they are incentivized to preform more-so than do their jobs. This means focusing on high-traffic areas, wealthy areas, appeal to people more likely to vote, and preform for the camera. The focus isn't inherently on saving lives, it's on preforming. Working with criminals, minimizing crime, and actually making things safer is actively discouraged in this system because of the way it's made. There can't be heroes without villians, so they have to keep the villains around because this is a profitable industry. And it doesn't even have to be real villains! Most people aren't committing mass murder! Why do you thing the first scene in the show shows a man who stole a purse being called a villain, with the heroes(specifically Mt. Lady) escalating the situation and preforming for the camera? Mha isn't subtle in it's themeing.

And the public doesn't realize these things because of propaganda and "they're a hero! Of course they're saving lives, that's their job!" The public is both being deceived and acting as an active and passive participant in upholding this system.

So, what does this have to do with the Todoroki family?

Well, for one Endeavor serves as an example that being a hero does not equal being a good person. He also shows the flaw of the system in how notoriety and competition has unhealthy and damaging results.

One important thing to acknowledge is that society is currently answering what is a cost they're willing to pay? Well, they've decided taht the Todoroki family is an appropriate price. Sure, he's faced backlash because one of his sons is a Mass Murderer, and some people are, in fact, not chill with domestic violence. But. They need him for the war effort, so h doesn't face consequences. Not significant ones, anyways. Because he's never cared what they thing, he's never tried to but on a PR friendly mask. Their word's font hurt him. He has interpersonal consequences, but that's it. They've decided the perceived protection Endeavor the hero gives them is more important than justice for the harm Endeavor the father has done.

TLDR: The Todoroki family has thematic importance, and saying if Endeavor respected his wife everything would be fine is missing an important fundamental message that his intentions in starting a family were flawed. Disregarding the messages in the story and how they intersect with the Todoroki family is also harmful.

34 notes - Posted June 5, 2022

#4

This is the funniest joke edit I have seen in my life

See the full post

40 notes - Posted May 18, 2022

#3

I'm sorry, is his middle name actually, honest-to-god, Fahrenheit??? Are y'all fucking with me in the tags?

56 notes - Posted May 22, 2022

#2

I know I've said before that it doesn't matter if you dislike the BNHA villains, and that idc if you want them to die

However

I am so fucking smug rn lmao. How does it feel to be wrong? How does it feel to have such little reading comprehension that you are genuinely suprised that the character beloved for his kindness, the character who said he sees himself in his brother, the character that talked about getting lunch with his big brother, how does it feel knowing you were so incredibly wrong that you thought he'd kill his brother? How do you feel? Because I feel VINDICATED

58 notes - Posted May 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I'm thinking about how badly the Percy Jackson universe is begging for change, yet stubbornly refuses to do so.

Think about it. The demigods are stuck in an endless loop they did not ask for; monsters that can never be truly killed because they just respawn, suffering grudges born thousands of years before their time, wars of rebellion begging to be won. The universe is in a cycle. The primordial gods made it all, the Titans over threw their oppressive father, the Gods doing the same to theirs. But then it just... Stopped. There was no next generation of slightly-more-righteous rulers. The God's have ruled for a millennial, yet they remain. The world has undeniably moved on; a bronze age, an agricultural revolution, an industrial revolution, a technological revolution- by all logic, they've vastly outstayed their welcome. They retain old traditions no one quite remembers the purpose of and they've been abandoned by a vast majority of the populace. The Roman gods should have replaced them in an epic battle of the ages, but they didn't. They evolved and merged until they struggled to differentiate themselves and avoid identity crisis.

The demigods are born for this age. They understand the world- what it needs, how it works- in a way the Gods do not and Cannot. They can become known to the public(Percy is internationally famous in tlt, Piper, Jason, and Thalia have famous parents) they have compassion where the gods have become out of touch with the mere concept. They're angry and abused, like Zeus and his father before him.

But it doesn't change. The gods make up rules and quest, have convinced these kids that 'this is life and you're lucky to have made it this far, so thank us'. The ones that want change have gone about it wrong. They brought in Kronos and Gaea, monarchs of forgotten ages; those deities got their time, and were duly replaced. To reinstate them would be to replay an era long since past, and no longer needed. They are not the fated revolution; history repeats, but it does not rewind.

The Titans and Giants were not the answer, but a revolution must be had. Before the line is tarnished anymore, something has to give. The halfbloods have been beaten and broken, they use weapons of old, replay old grudges, and in their old Greek/Roman attire and training they stick out in the modern age; they've been held back while the world evolved.

So something needs to be changed, and it needs to be them. They need to be the ones to instate a new rule, before the universe is messed up any further. Fate is screaming out to them with increasingly peril threats of old, with large powers at play that refuse to lend a hand. These kids do so much for their parents, but the gods just keep biting the hand that feeds them. It's time they bite back.

They wouldn't even be hopeless; it fits with the history(the Gods were greatly outnumbered, and the Titans had to fight the sky itself). They are increasingly strong and have defeated gods already. They beat Time and Earth. The gods rely on them: they do their dirty work, they keep them alive and powerful through prayer, they protect them. As much as their parents refuse to admit it, they would be dead without their children. They could fight, and they could win.

The world is begging for change, so change it.

97 notes - Posted March 22, 2022

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