#I had the idea to want to inverse them because of how both Bad and Philza had wanted either Dapper or Chayanne when

[mangofanarts]

Them

#qsmp #qsmp chayanne #qsmp tallulah #I gave Chayanne solid black eyes because originally I had wanted to make Chayanne and Dapper's designs inverses to each other #Dapper with solid white eyes and Chayanne with solid black eyes in return #I had the idea to want to inverse them because of how both Bad and Philza had wanted either Dapper or Chayanne when #they were gonna pick an egg - It's also why I made Chayanne grayish so that it was a bit similar to Dapper but not completely #though I changed some things through and didn't completely make them inverses of each other #I gave Chayanne purpleish clothes because I remember Missa saying that Chayanne had a similar fashion sense to him - in a vod that was the #first day that Missa got Chayanne or Missa had said something along those lines #but the floatie just didn't fit well with the purple clothes xd so I just placed it onto Chayanne's hoodie instead #I also gave Chayanne black solid eyes because there was a joke that Chayanne made that slime armor had his eye color #and Philza zoomed in on Chayanne since it's obvious that Chayanne doesn't have eyes - he's an egg #but I also wanted to take that as Chayanne not having green eyes #but I did debate on giving him green eyes to match better with my redesign of Tallulah #Tallulah's valentine model has flowers in her hair so I just gave it to her hat instead and I wanted to redesign her #mmangoarts #qsmp fanarts

[drdemonprince]

The Barbie Movie is confused -- and it is confused on purpose, because it can't actually acknowledge the role that capitalism and white supremacy play in the patriarchal system that it wants to give itself credit for acknowledging. And so the film introduces patriarchy as a force with no agent or system behind it.

Ken, an oafish goof is able to find the concept of patriarchy and transmit it to the entirety of his society simply by learning about it and speaking about it to his fellow Kens. There is no use of force, no political organizing (notably, the Kens try to take over the political system after they have already taken hold of the culture), no real persuasion even -- simply by hearing about patriarchy the women in Barbieworld somehow become brainwashed by it.

This means we never have to really see the Kens as genuine antagonists, we can still laugh at their bizarrely crammed-together multiple dance numbers and forgive them when they, like the women, are freed of the patriarchy simply by women speaking about the fact that sexism exists. Both the origins of patriarchy and the solution to it is as simple as an individual person telling their story.

The CEOs that run Mattel in the Real World in the film are similarly cartoonish and devoid of real agency. They're even portrayed as generically interested in the idea of Barbie being inspiring to girls. The movie can't even acknowledge their profit motive, and it can't make any of the men running the company look too powerful or even too morally suspect -- but the film does still want to have Barbie encounter sexism in the real world and grapple with the harm "she" (the consumer product, and not the social forces and human beings that created her) has supposedly done.

In the Barbie Movie, patriarchy is a genie in a bottle, and no one is to blame - except maybe Barbie herself, since the movie spends a significant amount of time discussing how she is responsible for giving women unrealistic beauty standards.

And so Barbie is depicted as both sexism's victim and sexism's fault. She's dropped into a patriarchal world that the film acknowledges has a menacing, condescending quality -- but the film can't even have an underlying working theory of where this danger comes from, and who had the power to create this patriarchy in the first place, because that would require being critical of Mattel and capitalism.

And in the film, ultimately the real world with all its flaws and losses and injustices is still preferable to Barbieworld, because you get to have such depth of feeling and experience and you get a vagina, so how bad could really be? And hey, when you think about it, the Barbieworld is just an inversion of the real world, isn't it? A world with women in power is just reverse sexist, so it was justifiable for the Kens to want to take over, and what does it say that all things being equal Barbie still would prefer to leave behind her matriarchy and join the patriarchal capitalist world? That's the real world. Real world is struggle and sexism and loss and pain and capitalism and death and we must accept all of it but it's worth it..

It's not that I'm surprised the film's a clarion call for personal choice white feminism and consumer capitalism. I just expected the call to be a little more seductive or in any way coherent. I wanted to have frothy fun, and instead I was more horrified by the transparency of its manipulation than I was by even the most unsettling moments in Oppenheimer.

[variousqueerthings]

VERY RAMBLY BUT I think rose and martha are like the inverse of one another in terms of narrative, in that they both meet a doctor who is deeply deeply hurt, but the doctor interacts with them about it so differently, because of where they're at with that hurt, and the doctor is like "hey, I'm suave and vulnerable beneath the surface, which is quite attractive, want to travel in space and time in my whimsical timeship?" and they both go "oh heck yes!" and then it's like splintered glass from that point on, like martha lives in a funhouse mirror of rose's story -- up until she makes it her own of course and she does call the doctor out on it relatively early on, although rose continues to have that haunting effect

so rose has this bubble created around her that is perfect and unchangeable almost, in which nothing bad can ever happen (except for all the times it does but huuush, we'll be together forever forrealsies don't look at that big ol hurricane hurtling our way), which then inevitably bursts, but is always there-as-memory, because rose becomes something of an impossible ideal to some extent

and martha isn't protected at all, and has all the badness spilling out on her because the doctor is unable to contain any of it (and maybe is relieved to finally give up on being strong), and subsequently all of the promise of wonder has an air of sourness to it, and the doctor will always feel incredibly guilty about how it all ended

but crucially there's a lot they have in common, that is quite different to, say, donna (who is woven in in her own, interesting, way) -- they both become attracted to this powerful, interesting, and suuuper traumatised being, they're both taken along on a journey of promised wonders, they're both incredibly reliable to the point that the narrative is retroactively fitted around how much the doctor's belief-systems revolve around belief in their companions, with many others from the past given their dues (starting with sarah-jane), and they both do see wonders beyond their comprehension (and so does donna, but again, there's something a bit different there to poke at in another post...),

except where for rose this wonder helps her break out of the path that was set down for her and become who she always had the potential to be in a way that is mostly framed as a positive (although with some -- I think -- under-analysed caveats...) and she will be forever thankful for the doctor arriving in her life, martha's is more like an awe that the universe is so hostile and so lonely and so heartbreaking, and so she needs to become more resilient and more ready to make choices that are terrible (from travelling the broken world for a year to the osterhagen key....), and so there's another story about someone who becomes strong and tough (just like rose) but it's because the doctor wasn't really able to be there for her, and while I don't think the show (from memory) ever has her totally regretting the doctor dropping into her life, there for sure is some solemnity to how her story ends, a bit of a dampener in comparison (even tbh in comparison to donna, who yeah, gets her memory taken, but is suggested -- now confirmed perhaps? -- to get more of her life in order/feel more self-confident, also partially because of that subliminal influence of her time with the doctor)

and this isn't to say that it's all-bad for martha! her working for UNIT and Torchwood has a lot of very interesting facets to it, and she is fulfilling her potential to be this impressive, capable person, but the ways all of this was built up to is so heartrending

rose coming in and "saving" the doctor, except it was a bit of a lie, because the second she wasn't there they crashed even harder than before, and martha coming in with the idea that she could save the doctor and walking away when realising what it was doing to her life, and both rose and martha irrevocably changed to the point that the person pre-doctor is barely recognisable in them anymore, both take on the doctor's self-sacrificial traits...

and also the idea that rose gets the fantasy, but it's the fantasy a-bit-to-the-left (funhouse again) because there's always something a bit disconcerting about the lengths the doctor goes to to maintain the bubble, to the point of offering up the alternate-him/tentoo so that she can still have it, even though the actual physical doctor that shared it with her isn't actually there! and martha gets the glimpse of the fantasy, and then has to come to terms with the fact that she's not the person it's "for" and reassess her relationship to the idea of a fantasy in the first place (it helps that martha is an incredibly practical, pragmatic person, but it's still so... ouch)

I don't think it was intentional, but this also fascinating from the perspective of rose as a white woman and martha as a black woman -- who is the fantasy for, to the extent that strange and universe-breaking events go into maintaining it, and who has to be practical and pragmatic and self-reliant?

and also, it's got more tragedy in both cases -- rose as a spectre/haunter of the narrative is always a little bit intangible when she's looked back on (even though in the story she's in she's incredibly real and well-rounded, every time I go back to s1 I am struck by how grounded she is in reality), and I think that's something interesting in terms of her mother's warning in s2, how if she travels with the doctor "forever" she'll become something else, something not her

and martha's mother warns her as well, although she's not completely sure of what, and in contrast to rose this warning comes into very painful fruition, harming her entire family (except, maybe her brother? I wonder if there's anything written about that), but where rose is so omnipresent, martha tries several times to take herself out

(also something about both of their mothers being their anchor-points)

there's something there that's at the centre of both rose's and martha's arcs:

is the change they're going through because of the doctor... good? good for them? good for their families? good as in they're becoming better people than before? good for the world they inhabit? is it good for the person they used to be? did they become better than that person? can they ever truly deal with or even begin to comprehend how these events made them who they are? can they even connect who they are now to who they were then? was this good?

they both become these larger-than-life people, somewhat without noticing on both parts (but the narrative does notice), one of them a ghost, and the other a soldier -- one of them an increasingly intangible, ever-present idea, and the other someone who has to fight every step of the way

it's just a bunch of things I've had going through my head that I can't quite formulate in coherent essay-like sentences, but for sure it's there

opposite sides of the coin, rose tyler and martha jones

I do wish they'd had space in the story for them to talk

#martha jones #rose tyler #doctor who #dw #i also wish they'd had space in the narrative for them to make out but youknow #i know that rose and tentoo is generally interpreted as a net-positive -- including in a subsequent comic #but it was always very eerie to me #this also to deal with the fact that while i looove martha's arc in s4 #hers was the weakest goodbye scene in the final episode imo #because the pair the spares makes it seem like there wasn't a lot of thought put into it/where she is now #and like sure they're both hanging out with jack at torchwood but it's so out of the blue #and then she finishes up with a gun in her hand -- far cry from where we met her even in poison sky #working for UNIT but! --- but does fit somewhat from where we saw her end s4 when she was ready to destroy the world #but it's still sort of disconnected from the story? why is she there? why is there a sontaran there? why gun and not medicine? questions #questions for which the answer presumably was: because she looks badass but i need More than that! I need Answers! #argh martha i want so badly for them to at least mention you in the specials. where are you 🥺🥺🥺 #gun to your head rtd do it! #doctor who meta

[cdragons]

Persephone!Eternal (Sephia) & Hecate!Eternal (Kaetlyn) Vaguely Sapphic Friendship Headcanons

(AKA: Just All-Powerful Immortal Gals being All-Powerful Immortal Pals/Necessary Rundown of these Besties Powers & Dynamics)

Warning(s): mad bad b*tch energy, gals being gals, neurodivergent reader/OC being neurodivergent, Kaet is her own warning honestly, Druig x Hecate!Eternal & Ikaris x Persephone!Eternal if you squint

So, let’s review these two beautiful, i n c r e d i b l e, powerhouse Eternal goddesses, shall we?

Persephone!Eternal Reader (AKA Sephia) is an INFJ Thinker Eternal who can control crops and plants, as well as make any plant in any environment thrive. However, being the smart cookie she is, she knows that plants need to fit in their surrounding environment in order for an ecosystem to properly thrive and humanity to properly evolve from there. She does this through a very unique ability of actually listening to that specific region’s terrain depending where she is on Earth. Each specific region/different terrain has their own unique personality. Sephia listens and makes the plants/crops and can control from there. And yes, this technically also makes her an earthbender. She also has some neurodivergent tendencies, and has a lot of trouble connecting with her fellow Eternals, and especially humans. Although her mind works differently, she is extremely brilliant and find connections that most of the others in the team could never consider.

Hecate!Eternal Reader (AKA Kaetlyn) is an ENFP Fighter Eternal who has umbrakinesis (the ability to generate and manipulate shadows/darkness). She can control the shadows of her surroundings whether the objects are sentient or non-sentient. She can also use her shadows to create portals as a way to teleport, or she can merge with them and shadow travel. She is also incredibly intuitive and ambitious, always wanting to know more. It was through her perserverance to gain knowledge that she attracted the attentions of Agamotto, Freja, and Dormammu as her three teachers in the mystic arts. By the time she left with Druig, she had amassed such a huge amount of power and knowledge that she was sworn to make her identity unknown unless there was absolutely no other way. She was also the Eternal who founded many medicines and surgical techniques, as well as delivered the earliest human women’s children.

If you are still here, great! Let’s move forward!

Ok first things first, these two practically INVENTED the idea of best friends. They literally love each other so much, there are no words. These two make the term “opposite attract” because they are the perfect inverse of each other.

Also, how these two act around one another is pretty much the number one reason why Druig and Kaetlyn took so damn long to get together in the first place. If you don’t include the fact that the two dumbasses are also just oblivious idiots.

Sephia is very uncomfortable with social interaction, with both her family and humans. But all that goes out the window when she is around Kaetlyn.

Kaetlyn is insanely touchy and affectionate, she will never NOT shower Sephia with praise and love when they are together.

She will also typically be the one to initiate the affectionate acts, but Sephia has moments when she first acts too.

These two at any time of the day will likely be doing any of the following: holding hands; lying on each other’s laps; take naps while lying on said laps; dancing with each other; kissing each other on the nose, cheek, back of hand, hand’s palm, forehead, hair, etc.; arms wrapped around each other’s waist while chin placed in neck crook; finding free time to go on picnics; whispering inside jokes and giggling; giving each other flowers; feeding each other; wiping each other's tears; linking pinkies; linking arms; forehead touches; tender stares; sharing soft smiles; braiding each other’s hair; going shopping with each other; sleeping in the same bed

Honestly, the list could go on forever

Why would these two lovely ladies sleep in the same bed? Well that easy to answer! See Kaet may have dissected too many deviants and preserved them in so many jars to the point her old room had been secretly converted to a mad doctor’s surgical suite. As a result, she'll just sleep over at Sephia’s room.

Sephia had ZERO problem with this arrangement, and the girls tried their very best to keep it a secret. Granted she made sure Kaet thoroughly washed herself of any blood stains and bodily fluids because Sephia refuses to cuddle Kaet smelling like rotting flesh and chemicals.

But Ajak found out when Kaet had to leave for an emergency deviant ambush, and Cerbie wandered into her room because he missed his mama’s scent and he left the door opened a crack.

The reveal wasn’t that bad, but Phastos did in fact scream and faint, and Kaet thought it would be funny for him to wake up on her metal surgical table, only for Phastos to scream even louder and faint again.

Kaet is the definition of a mad lass menace

She did end up getting a new bedroom, but she still liked to sometimes have sleepovers with Sephia.

Kaet was so happy to get her lab approved, but she thought that Sephia deserved a place to conduct her own research too.

So naturally she fills Sephia’s room with her experimental crops to convince Ajak to get Phastos to make her another room so that this old new room can be used for plant research.

This poor man is so tired y’all

He just wants to go to one week without Kaet causing him a migraine but he loves her like a sibling

A very annoying younger sibling who won’t stop attempting to give him a heart attack

Also, because Sephia is so introverted, she will not go to social engagements

And if she’s there, it was done by one of the following: 1) forced by Ajak, 2) dragged by Sersi, 3) attached by Kaet’s side for the entire night

If at any point she loses sight of Kaet, she will freeze and just dart to the nearest empty corner to plan out her escape

But sometimes she will be approached by Ikaris, and she'll stay because he makes her feel comfortable and they will converse interesting topics

Once she escapes the party she is not stopping until she reaches the Domo and under her blankets and surrounded by her animals

Oh right, I should mention that Sephia has a serious love for animals

She and Kaet indulge each other on this so much

It drives everyone insane but they also love it because they love the animal cuddles

Guys these girls love each other so much, I actually can't-

Author's Note: Hey everyone! I hope you liked this post and its content! I am a little frazzled from my internship, but I really wanted to post these headcanons! A lot of these headcanons I came up with my actual psychic soulmate @ethereal-athalia! She's so wonderful and brilliant, and I have a lot more ideas planned out since she helped me! Of course, I want to also thank my brilliant beta @valeskafics who has always been so kind to look at my stuff despite how busy she always is! Please be sure to visit her works, your jaw will drop. I opened an ask box on my page, if you have any questions related to my fics or characters, please drop one in! Just don't be mean as Tumblr should remain a safe space for all users. Please like/comment/reblog if you enjoyed it! Have a wonderful day!

PS: If you want to be tagged for notifs of any of works/posts, please drop an ask at my ask box!

Tagging: @valeskafics, @ethereal-athalia, @vikingqueen28, @unfinished-sen, @hold-my-dragons, @themeanestlittlewitch, @beananacake

#marvel eternals #marvel x reader #eternals x reader #druig imagine #druig x reader #ikaris imagine #ikaris x reader #druig x eternal!reader #ikaris x eternal!reader #druig x female reader #druig eternals #ikaris #eternals #ikaris x female reader #ikaris x y/n

[cogentranting]

I went and saw Barbie and overall I liked it and I had a good time. But. I do have a couple pretty significant issues with it.

In short: 1. I think it's line of argumentation had gaps and its point got muddled. 2. Their depiction of the real world lacks nuance. 3. The idea of the Ken's fell short

Elaboration (with lots of spoilers) below

Generally speaking, I think what happened is this movie had a lot it wanted to say and by trying to say all of those things, a lot of the more interesting nuance ideas got lost and the less interesting very basic feminist idea of "women can do anything, and are complex; sexism is bad" took center stage instead. The gaps in the line of argument first stood out to me when America Ferrera's character had her big monologue because I didn't feel like the monologue made sense as a response to the existential crisis Barbie had been having to that point. Barbie's existential crisis didn't seem to be a part of anything that happened with the Kens taking over. And the Barbies plan to take back Barbie Land also didn't provide an answer to the existential crisis.

The movie partakes in a particular brand of feminism that very strongly sends across the idea that things are bad for women non-stop all the time. Sasha (the teenage girl) expressed it as "everything sucks for women. Men hate women, and women hate other women." Her mother makes a comment that's its more complicated than that and Ken even says that the real world wasn't like the idea of patriarchy that he brought to Barbie Land, but the movie doesn't really show a more realistic view of that. Barbie herself never gets a clearer picture of the real world-- all SHE sees of it is a constant stream of sexual harassment, cynical women tearing each other down, the Mattel board made entirely of men, and Gloria's rant/monologue about how hard it is to be a woman all the time. And, as my mother pointed out, a lot of the unreasonable expectations and societal pressures that are talked about, are put on men as well.

The movie explicitly states the idea that Barbie Land is an inverse of the real world (in a hyperbolized, stereotyped, cartoony way of course) with the roles of men and women essentially flipped. The movie is very clearly portraying the way things are in the real world as bad. Which would mean-- if you follow that line of logic through-- that the way the Kens are treated by the Barbies is bad. And, inasmuch as the Barbies have agency, the Barbies are to blame. Making Ken's reaction to the real world (where people notice him, where he gets more respect, where there are things specifically geared at him, where he can... own property and have a job) very understandable. And when the Kens take over Barbie Land, they essentially just do to the Barbie's what was done to them (which is also bad. Clearly.). But the response from the Barbies (including the main Barbie, AND the two humans) doesn't seem to really have any sympathy for the Kens or much self-reflection about their own part in it. And they recovered a little right at the end by having Barbie apologize to Ken and having President Barbie make some moves to even things out, but that felt a little like an afterthought. And more like "see how magnanimous the Barbies are" than literally the bare minimum. But they DO have that end part. THe end conversation between Ken and Barbie helped a LOT. I'm not trying to claim that the movie is anti-men or anything. But I do think how they handle men both in the real world and in Barbie Land is the weakest part of the movie and doesn't totally track with the point that the movie is trying to make.

I almost feel like there are two movies here. One about girlhood and womanhood and femininity that is about Barbie having an existential crisis and going to find herself through meeting Gloria as Gloria works through her own identity and relationship with her daughter. And one about gender dynamics where Barbie finds out that the real world still has problems with sexism and imbalance and then realizes that that imbalance exists within her own world as well and looks at the relationship between the Barbies and the Kens. And I think either one is good, but that by trying to put both into one movie they bit off more than they could chew and some themes, ideas and character arcs ended up being just a bit messy.

And that's how I would define my dissatisfaction on all three of these levels. It's not that they're BAD. It's that they're MESSY. Things are muddled or not fully realized, or are accidental implications.

But again, overall it's funny, it's a good time, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are killing it, and the production design of this movie is GORGEOUS.

#barbie movie #barbie 2023 #barbie spoilers

[despairing-disaster]

Literally nobody is thinking about this rn except for me, but fuck it. Here’s some food for the Arturo enjoyers ig.

Since ep 10, I’ve seen a few people try and speculate on what the exact situation was with his home life and sister, why he left and why this apparently drove her to suicide. Maybe it’s a weird thing to speculate on, but I’ve been thinking about it myself after coming across a few theories shortly after the episode aired and mostly disagreeing with them. Namely, I saw a few people speculate that Arturo’s sister may have been abusive to him and he left because of that abuse, but with his sister being younger than him (not that a younger sibling can’t abuse an older sibling, but it seems less common than the inverse due to age and power structures) and having killed herself as a result of him leaving, it feels unlikely. Not to mention the implication that would leave if it were true: a victim being blamed for his abuser’s suicide. Even if MonoTV were that cruel in the phrasing of it’s motives, it just seems like it’d be a bad call for a fangan creator to imply that in any capacity.

My first thought bouncing off of it though was that both he and his sister may have been abused or neglected by their parents. Arturo, being older, may have been able to get out sooner, but may have done so without any consideration for his sister, not taking her with him, not informing anyone about the situation at home, possibly not even telling her he was leaving. Essentially, he may have abandoned her, and with him out of the house, his parents may have ramped things up with her alone, driving her to suicide. If this were the case, it would make sense why he would blame himself, but I've actually thought about things a bit more and I think there may be another possibly likely scenario.

Arturo, despite his young age, is incredibly medically knowledgeable. He’s prodigious enough to have presumably been working as a surgeon in high school, so he’d have to be even if his specialty is in cosmetics, and he’d have to have learned what he did somewhere. Additionally, he seems to have a strong aversion to being forced to take care of people. Granted, he’s an asshole to almost everybody in the cast, and you could chalk it up to that, but we also know that J’s aversion to femininity seemed to have deeper roots to it after her full name and backstory was revealed so it could be indicative of something more significant. All this to say Arturo may have been in a position where he was forced to spend his childhood and teen years taking care of his sister because she may have had some kind of chronic illness. If his parents didn’t have enough money, expertise, or empathy to take care of her or get her necessary treatment on their own, or shit, even if they were just busy all the time, he may have been stuck looking after her, developing feelings of animosity towards her as a result of being forced into this position all the while she depended upon him. With him leaving, she may have not only felt abandoned but may have been unable to get the treatment she needed to live a more comfortable life, and that could have been what drove her to suicide. And of course he’d feel guilty if that was the case. Even if he didn’t exactly like her (and with what we’ve seen so far, I really think he doesn’t) he’s very acutely aware that leaving a situation like that could only end badly for her. He said in his outburst to Eden “how is it my fault that I wanted to live my own life” and I think this may further bolster the idea that he had some kind of obligation to do something he didn’t want to be doing.

#danganronpa despair time #tw suicide #tw abuse

[an-android-in-a-tutu]

There was a bit of a tiff that went down yesterday among some of my spnblr colleagues, and I'm not gonna really comment on that directly, suffice it to say I blocked the person involved ages ago bc they always act like this and I find it uncomfortable and unpleasant. But I think their behaviour is notable nc it's an example of a phenomena I've been noticing more and more lately, that I'm sure smarter and more attentive people than me have already described but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

It's essentially the belief that if you present yourself as the passive/receptive partner then your aggressive sexual advances are no big deal and just funny jokes. The obvious related thought is the idea that women can't harrass or sexually assault men, but it goes beyond that imo.

I saw a post just recently speculating on how it's funny to talk about how you want to have so muc sex if you're a bottom but if you're a top it's creepy and makes you sound like a predator which is like. Mind boggling to me in terms of the unexamined bullshit at play. And to be fair people on that post were quick to point out that using sexually aggressive language to describe what you want someone to do to you is just as much harrassment as the other way around, and that people are far too permissive of this kind of behaviour. No one made the inverse observation that "wanting to put your penis in someone" as stated in the post is not inherently creepy or sexually predatory.

Like, topping and bottoming are a morally neutral acts. I feel like this sentiment goes around once every few months but we have got to let go of the idea that penetration is inherently violent and dominating. Especially if the inverse belief is allowing people to excuse genuinely out of line behaviour because they think being the receptive partner somehow makes them inherently non-threatening.

I mean that was imo a not insignificant part of the recent booktok drama abt a woman essentially sexually harrassing a hockey player. And there was absolutely more going on, not least of which being her getting rewarded for her behaviour initially, but I think a big issue is that we kind of apply the "punching up" model to situations like this, her target was both a man and a celebrity, the balance of power tips heavily in his favour so her actions become permissible. And for some reason there's this continued perception of bottoming and topping carrying a power imbalance. But if booktok lady had been screaming at Hockey players that she wanted to fuck them in the ass, that wouldn't be any worse that yelling at them to fill all her holes. It's the same shit.

So like, if you say, have this habit of using extended graphic sexual metaphors about how, say, people disagreeing with you about a fictional character all want you to suck their huge dick so bad but you don't want to and actually their dick is super small and pathetic anyway. You haven't actually cracked the code of how to avoid being a creep bc it's your mouth and their cock and not vice versa. And when you start actually replying to people with shit like this instead of just keeping it to your own blog? Sorry but just because it's about how "Everyone Else" wants you to suck their fat dick doesn't distract from the fact that you are the one opening conversations with other people with graphic sexual language for no reason.

(You also can't pretend not to be body shaming with your countless small dick comments by saying that it's just a metaphor and you're talking about BEHAVING like you have a small dick plbt plbt plbt that's a fucking cop out answer for idiot cowards. You are talking about people "metaphorically" having a small dick as a stand in for being pathetic. "I'm not bodyshaming I'm just using having a body like this as a stand in for qualities I think are bad!" What a fucking joke. But I digress)

And like I genuinely think this person just thinks they're doing a funny bit, and I don't think they need to be canceled for it or w/e but I do feel we all need to reflect on our assumptions abt sex and accept that the rules don't change bc of gender, or submissiveness, or who's sticking what in who. Unsolicited sexual comments are unsolicited comments, and while I'm not gonna pretend that tumblr is a sacred space where we can't make jokes about screwing and dicks and balls, there's always a line, and you don't actually get a free pass to cross it by being an uwu submissive bottom so spank me daddy.

Also if you're gonna make an extended sexual metaphor about what arguing about the cw's supernatural is like, I guess go nuts show nuts but be aware that you are gonna be broadcasting your particular sexual hangups when you do. Personally I prefer to put them in my fanfiction and get embarrassed when someone points them out. But hey, different strokes.

#discourse #ig #I dont wanna tag this as fandom wank bc I'm not trying to make it abt the fandom wank but #it's kinda #fandom wank #That is also abt everyone's weird hangups about penetrative sex #sex acts are morally neutral they only become bad if they're carried out unsafely or without consent #collection of only mostly related thoughts but gd this has been bugging me

[cjbolan]

 Just finished Chapter 1 of Emily Windsnap and the Tides of Time. My thoughts so far...

I feel you, Emily. I’m sad too that your adventures are probably over.

Liz Kessler throws MAJOR shade at teachers XD. Perhaps she’s writing from personal experience. I literally laughed at some of the descriptions of Emily’s teacher. Particularly this line:

“’Succinctly as always, Aiden,’ Mrs. Porter said, in that special sarcastic way that teachers must learn at college, as they all do it.”

As a former student teacher, I can confirm she’s absolutely right.

This opening is like a clever inverse version of the first book’s opening. Both open with Emily at home in Brightport having a conversation with her mom, before going to school.Except where the first book opened with them having an argument, this last book opens with them being much friendlier with each other. Shows how far their relationship has come. I love that!

There’s also shades of Book 3 that I liked. It again opens with Emily going to school, and Emily afraid of a relationship ending. In Book 3 it was her parents’ marriage, here it’s her renewed friendship with Mandy. I do like the idea that for once, maybe it’s Emily’s own fault that she feels alone, for not being a good listener to her friend. 

I love the emphasis that being yourself is much easier said than done. IRL people say all the time that they don’t care what people think or that they’ll do whatever they want, then quickly give up doing exactly that. This isn’t always a bad thing, and heavily dependent on your situation. It makes perfect sense in Emily’s case where she now has 0 friends in school and possible enemies.  (SIDE NOTE: I do relate hard to Emily in this case. At her age, for a time I had only 1 real friend. We’re still friends now ^_^. )

YAAAAAY MORE RETCONNING *sarcasm*. Seems like Emily is attending only human school. What happened to her splitting her time between human and mermaid school? Wasn’t her school situation a huge looming conflict for about half the series? It was a huge point of conflict for her parents who fought each other about where she should spend more time, to the point it made Emily fear they would split up. If she were still attending Shiprock School, she probably  wouldn’t miss the sea and Shona so much because she could still enjoy those every day. I know Emily's feeling lonely because of Aaron and Mandy, but still...either Emily’s being overdramatic, or she really did quit mermaid school for some reason.

Jake again raises so many questions. We know he eats human food, so can all merpeople eat human food? Or is Jake the only one because he’s lived with humans and got used to it? What do you think his first time tasting human food would’ve been like? That breakfast table is way above water level so... does her ever eat with his family?  It’d be really sad if he couldn’t. Does he have a floating pool table? Does he eat off the floor? Would his family ever eat off the floor with him? Is there any way he could have a wheelchair or kiddie pool for him at the table?  For a mixed human-merperson family who actively brought together the two species, how on earth would they host both species in a place designed by and for humans only? Trap door aside, the merpeople who do visit are just trapped in that tiny bit of water, and the humans make 0 attempt to bring their activities closer to the water for merpeople to join them. And Jake is often described looking upward at people in that boat...he must have the worst neck pain ever. He deserves a nice neck pillow. Or maybe a neck massage XD.

But seriously, this is one reason Jake is one of my favorite characters. He  raises so many fascinating questions about the worldbuilding.

Funny I have a rock that looks just like Emily’s! Minus 2 stripes...

Well, gonna keep on reading!

#so far so good #emily windsnap #emily windsnap and the tides of time #liz kessler #mermaid #middle grade fiction #middle grade series #middle grade books

[the-nysh]

I saw this reddit post a while back about how someone felt bang was more like suiryu then garou https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePunchMan/comments/q4attc/i_feel_young_bang_was_more_like_suiryu_than_garou/

and I saw a interesting talk on reddit

WHOO, i love talking about this lol. i already know this is going to be nauseatingly long, so i apologize in advance.

they both:

are martial arts geniuses whose most formative years were spent being trained by paternal figures who weren’t necessarily attached to heroism as an institution, and therefore didn’t really impart that idealism. bang used his hero status to advertise his dojo. suicho was never a hero (and he only died fairly recently, so it’s not like he didn’t have an opportunity). there was no apparent pressure to use their power to rescue others.

have/had an intense cynicism surrounding heroes that was informed by misguided ideas about what true heroism really is/believing a true hero does not and cannot exist.

despite this, they both end up explicitly pursuing their own brand of heroism. suiryu decides to be a hero after the tournament arc and garou is clearly in denial of his desire to be his own specific type of hero. like he’s literally trying to save the world.

are arrogant and generally wretched little bastards, but not unreachable or genuinely bad people.

they’re fairly close in age–suiryu looks only barely older than suiko in their flashback and she’s 18, so i’d estimate 20-21. so they’re both relatively young, and we already know that a big theme is that young people tend to be hotheaded and think they know more than they do. this is extremely pronounced in both of them.

i think their differences are also very interesting:

suiryu was popular and flighty and generally lazy. garou was an outcast who was intensely driven and stubborn.

suiryu was motivated almost entirely by hedonism and fun–garou is motivated by his ideology, which he clings to with complete desperation.

despite being on theoretically parallel tracks–geniuses who were “drowning in talent” like bang–they take this power and do drastically different things. garou uses his power to hurt people, but he also uses it to protect tareo. suiryu clearly has the capacity to use his power to protect others and has expressed interest in doing so, but he was more than willing to leave snek and lightning max to die to save himself. that’s not a trait garou has ever demonstrated.

suiryu inherently hates to lose. garou doesn’t. garou often sees losses as an opportunity to grow, but suiryu just wants to effortlessly be the strongest. garou is a tenacious hard worker who would never just say “i’ll avoid him” in the face of loss.

there’s also a webcomic specific difference i think is also interesting, but will probably be different in the manga:

although they both seemed to genuinely enjoy combat at one point, garou seems significantly less interested after his hero hunting. suiryu is actively frustrated at garou’s disinterest, which is a direct inverse of their manga roles. suiryu got fixed before garou did in the manga and the inverse is true in the webcomic. it’ll be extremely interesting to see how the manga handles this.

how i think this could be explored and fleshed out:

i think garou would dislike suiryu as a person because of their differences–he hates the popular and suiryu is an avatar of popularity and unfairness. suiryu didn’t break his back working to be strong the way garou did, but he’s still surrounded by adoring fans and praise. it’s not fair that suiryu is as strong as he is–he hasn’t earned it. garou may be an asshole, but he worked for his strength. i think showing this contrast would be interesting in fleshing them both out, especially since suiryu is apparently going to change his ways.

i think, depending on how suicho is characterized, their parallel trajectories could be directly tied to their subsequent beliefs. they’re both brats who needed discipline and guidance because they didn’t know how to wield their power in a productive way. we already know bang feels directly responsible. did suicho? did he also struggle to manage his power? did he see himself in suiryu the way bang does in garou? bang and suicho were actively friends. how would their successors interact?

there’s a fundamental loss in their relationships with their mentors. suiryu lost his grandfather permanently. although garou hasn’t truly lost bang, the rift between them is intense. do they feel guilty? how does that guilt manifest? does it motivate them? how does it change them? can they find common ground in that guilt? can suiryu find some level of paternalistic guidance from bang? i mean, suiryu did want to be saitama’s disciple, so why not bang’s?

i think one of the easiest ways to explore these two would be to compare the dojos and their martial arts techniques. garou’s is centered on defense; bang specifically created it for the weak. suiryu’s void fist is intended to maximize damage. could bang’s technique teach suiryu something? we already know that you can have a distinct “voice” in combat based on how garou repeatedly reads intentions, so perhaps there’s something to be communicated by their respective martial arts styles that saitama was…well…not really able to read. hell, maybe they can combine these techniques to create a more well rounded martial arts style–after all, we’ve seen garou do it.

okay, i’ll stop myself here lmao. i also think it’d be interesting to contrast bat and garou since they also have a lot of similarities and key differences. and tbh i think the manga is planning to do that since it’s inserted so much more of bat and a lot of his screentime has been centered around garou. well, wanting to beat garou’s ass. but hey, teens will be teens.

bang’s attitude is almost verbatim what suiryu says in the tournament arc. wanting to live an easy life is definitely a Suiryu Trait ®

This! A HUGEEE part of Garou’s character is his blind and twisted form of justice. He actually has a higher purpose for his violence, albeit a foolish one. And his end goal is ultimately noble in an edgy teenager sort of way.

Bang is exactly like Suiryu in that he just wan to live an easy life, fight strong guys and get stronger. He has no purpose for his violence except doing whatever the heck he wants and getting whatever he wants. He even made fun of Bomb for continuing to do intense training. Intense training is 100% Garou’s thing.

Ah yes I remember, much of those are recognizably @hiruseki's words, and I've made similar posts on the topic here and here, including from another anon who copy/pasted some of those exact lines before.

By now though, there's probably much more potential for manga Garou & Suiryu to meet under very different circumstances. Much different than how their first meeting/confrontation/fight went in the wc. So if anything, I'm looking forward to how that might go this time around, and the changes ONE might do (most likely he will) to flesh out and expand those future interactions in the manga.

#opm #suiryu #bang #garou #megashadowdragon #replies #long text post #yes i remember - cause i've answered about it before #there's not much newly to be said however #except to just look forward to how their manga meeting might go very differently this time around

[waitingforwinterwinds]

Game of Thrones - 67 SANSA VI (pages 716-725)

Sansa struggles emotionally and mentally in the aftermath of her father's death. Joffrey stops pretending he's any kind of decent human being.

-

Perhaps I will die too, she told herself, and the thought did not seem so terrible to her. If she flung herself from the window, she could put an end to her suffering, and in the years to come the singers would write songs of her grief. Her body would lie on the stones below, broken and innocent, shaming all those who had betrayed her. Sansa went so far as to cross the bedchamber and throw open the shutters... but then courage left her, and she ran back to her bed, sobbing.

Ummm, holy fuck?

Well there's something the show cut out, but I suppose D&D aren't the kind to let us sit with the grief of a young girl unless it's immediately turning her into some kind of badass.

Poor Sansa. I remember having those kinds of thoughts 'dying would be easy' and 'this will punish them' and 'they'll feel bad about it when I'm gone' but it's bullshit. The kind of people, who hurt others to that point, do not give a fuck what they do to others, don't give a fuck what their actions make others do to themselves. The only people who get hurt or punished by those choices, are the ones who love you. Joffrey and Cersei? Definitely won't feel shamed, just aggravated they've lost a valuable playing piece.

The best revenge, is living (well). It's the living who can make people pay for their crimes.

Once Grand Maester Pycelle came with a box of flasks and bottles, to ask if she was ill. He felt her brow, made her undress, and touched her all over while her bedmaid held her down.

Fuck off and die, both of you. Bad Touch!

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could have ever thought he was handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. "I hate you," she whispered.

Yeah, it's a little hard to see the world through rose tinted glasses when someone splattered them with blood. I'm so sorry you had to have your world view shattered like this. In a fair world, people would have been kind and just and righteous like you always believed. But this isn't a fair world, because GRRM is a sick and twisted man. (joking)

When the time came to dress, she chose the green silk gown that she had worn to the tourney. She recalled how gallant Joff had been to her that night at the feast. Perhaps it would make him remember as well, and treat her more gently.

Yes, good, use what you know, use what you've got. Ihatethisihatethisihatethisihatethisihatethis Association, good, now if only he had ever actually been what you thought he was, this would have a good chance of success. Though, the success would still be mild.

This is a good use of defensive manipulation, subtle, using something associated with a better mood, to subconsciously promote a better mood. ... but iirc, that feast ended with Cersei in a row with Bobby B, so... *sigh*

Kinda odd that she refers to him as Joff here though, it may just be a way to separate the idea of him from the reality of him. Like the inverse of what we saw Dany do a few chapters ago, when she tried to psych herself up for cruelty and her narrative voice referred to her as Daenerys, instead of Dany.

"Did he instruct you to hit me if I refuse to come?" "Are you refusing to come, my lady?" The look he gave her was without expression. He did not so much as glance at the bruise her had left her. He did not hate her, Sansa realized; neither did he love her. He felt nothing for her at all. She was only a... a thing to him. "No," she said, rising. She wanted to rage, to hurt him as he'd hurt her, to warn him that when she was queen she would have him exiled if he ever dared strike her again... but she remembered what the Hound had told her, so all she said was, "I shall do whatever His Grace commands."

That has to be so terrifying, to be faced with someone who has such apathy, to know you aren't even seen as human. Her threats wouldn't have held water even if she'd said them, she'd be queen (if the dissolving of the engagement hadn't happened in the future) but queen by marriage, all her power would come from her husband, she'd have no say in anything if he disagreed. Maybe if she had a loyal following within the court, had her own power, but right now her only power comes from the fact Cersei can still use her for political plays, from being a hostage.

But a voice inside her whispered, There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. "Life is not a song, sweeting," he'd told her. "You may learn that one day to your sorrow." In life, the monsters win, she told herself, and now it was the Hound's voice she heard, a cold rasp, metal on stone. "Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants."

Oh, sweetheart.

I hate that she has to experience such an enormous mental reset, but if she doesn't get this sorted away, she's not going to have the wherewithal to get through this.

"You truly are a stupid girl, aren't you? My mother says so." ... "I'll get you with child as soon as you're able," Joffrey said as he escorted her across the practice yard. "If the first one is stupid, I'll chop off your head and marry a smarter wife. -"

Says the boy-king who can't even form his own opinions without his mother spoon feeding them to him, unless it's in the name of unnecessary levels of violence on his behalf.

"Do it, girl," Sandor Clegane told her, pushing her back toward the king. His mouth twitched on the burned side of his face and Sansa could almost hear the rest of it. He'll have you up there no matter what, so give him what he wants.

mmm, and there's the rub. There's where people look and say 'Sansa's a completely passive hostage, she never fought back' like they were paying zero attention.

She's facing an opponent with such a different level of power to her own, she has no way out, no resources, effectively no allies, she has to pick her battles knowing she is always going to lose. Any strike she makes has to be done with delicate precision and any defiance done knowing she will get away with it, because she isn't going to get away with anything. She knows what Joffrey is now, she's beginning to truly understand the kind of situation she's in.

The bamboo bends, so it does not break. (but even bamboo has a breaking point.)

The heads were mounted between the crenels, along the top of the wall, impaled on iron spikes so they faced out over the city. Sansa had noted them the moment she'd stepped out onto the wallwalk, but the river and the bustling streets and the setting sun were ever so much prettier. He can make me look at the heads, she told herself, but he can't make me see them.

This whole section you can sort of feel the vibe of her starting to almost intentionally disassociate. ihatethisihatethisihatethisihatethis

A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, "Maybe my brother will give me your head." ... The outer parapet came up to her chin, but along the inner edge of the walk was nothing, nothing but a long plunge to the bailey seventy or eighty feet below. All it would take was a shove, she told herself. He was standing right there, right there, smirking at her with those fat wormlips. You could do it, she told herself. You could. Do it right now. It wouldn't even matter if she went over with him. It wouldn't matter at all. ... The moment was gone. Sansa lowered her eyes. "Thank you," she said when he was done. She was a good girl, and always remembered her courtesies.

Ooph, she snapped a bit. I hate that she was struck bloody and it's a situation where "thank goodness that didn't end worse" is an applicable statement. I know "maybe he'll give me yours" is treated like her big bad girlboss moment, but looking at this as 'a victim and her abuser,' fuck that was dangerous, especially with someone whose ego is that inflated, and their power that unquestioned. That wasn't even something she meant to say. Think it, sure, but out loud?

Kinda icky circle with this chapter, ends where it began, with Sansa being suicidal, and shrugging on her courtesies to protect herself even though she really doesn't want to.

(I have mentioned in a previous chapter review, the 5 F's, those are Fight, Flight, Freeze, Flop and Fawn, they're the inherent trauma and fear responses of humans, Fawn is also called Friend, and it's the trauma response Sansa is exhibiting, also being forced to exhibit. This trauma response is less physical in its characteristics, and plays to the emotional side of the threat. (Think of scared side kicks of villains like LeFou to Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, or Shang Qinghua to Mobei Jun if you're into SVSSS) the idea of Fawn is "I'm not a threat, I'm your friend, I'm not prey, I'm helpful.")

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #game of thrones #sansa stark #suicide #suicide mentions #thoughts of suicide #a chapter a day reading #got #long post

[starlitangels]

I wanted to finally start listening to redacted but I have NO idea where to start 😭 do you have suggestions?

*sucks in deep breath* There’s a couple ways to answer this.

My first instinct is to literally just say “go to the playlist titled ‘Everything’ and start at the beginning and work your way up” because Redacted’s lore can be confusing if you haven’t heard it in the order it came out in. I listened to Geordi’s first video the day after it dropped as my first video and had no idea what was going on. Then went to Elliott’s playlist and was even more confused because that playlist is major story heavy unlike some of the others

But I understand that the Everything playlist (while most useful for lore digesting and didn’t exist yet when I found the channel and wasn’t an option for me) can most definitely be overwhelming. It’s long, I won’t deny it. But it also gives you the space to get to know each of the characters a little bit at a time

If you don’t want to go that direction though, I have two decent options:

Start with Freelancer, Season 1. You get a fairly good rundown of most of the rules of the magic system, and the difference between daemons/demons, and humans. Redacted’s d(a)emons use the word in the old, more Fae connotation than a Biblical interpretation. They’re more akin to simply supernatural magical entities rather than creatures of evil and damnation or whatever.

So Freelancer S1 isn’t a bad place to start before moving on to whichever characters strike your fancy

But the other of my aforementioned two options is Avior’s story (the playlist is now titled “Sovereign State”).

Now, anyone who’s reading this and has known me for a while is probably chuckling like “of course Star is recommending her favorite character that she never shuts up about loving” but hear me out: Avior’s story has a lot of heavy, heavy worldbuilding lore all dumped into one place for quick access, but is almost entirely separate from the rest of the world Redacted has built, so it’s less complicated than jumping right in with, say, trying to keep track of the three werewolves and how they all connect to each other but also the vampires. Avior’s story is self-contained for the moment and season 1 of it is wrapping up right now so there are going to be some resolutions to a few things hopefully

Heed my warning though: Erik (Redacted) isn’t afraid of tackling some darker topics and heavy situations. If that’s not something you’re comfortable with, pay attention to the Content Warnings he puts in all of his video descriptions with applicable warnings. If you’re not into Yandere characters be mindful that he has three-ish. One of the three has mostly had his story finished but will occasionally pop up for a random reappearance. One of the three hasn’t seemed super Yandere to me yet but I’m sure it’ll get worse. The third is definitely one to be mindful of too because it’s much more magic-based.

Also Inversion and both seasons of The Imperium AU are dark and heavy so if you’re gonna listen to them you might wanna be cautious

So, TL;DR, either do the Everything playlist, Freelancer Season 1, or Sovereign State (technically season 1). From there you should have mostly enough information on the worldbuilding and such to pick and choose whatever catches your fancy from there. Though I’d recommend maybe the werewolves first after those three because they’re less story heavy and just kinda slice of life and also Milo is sexy moving on

If you have any questions about the lore or the plots please feel free to come back. I get questions all the time looking for explanations (usually from another video that the asker just couldn’t quite remember). There’s no shame in it. I’m the resident Lore Gremlin anyway and love helping people understand the world as best I know it

Erik also has a timeline (it’s in his Linktree in the video description of all his videos) but I don’t recommend reading it outright just yet. Because you will be confused and overwhelmed. Let the videos guide you first and then go to the timeline for clarifications

#answered #redacted asmr #redacted audio

[xtosca]

Okay, so, possibly unpopular ATLA take, buuuut... I like Azula, really, and I also like Zuko. Both of them are very damaged children who were raised by an egomaniacal dictator who was also abusive as fuck to his family, so yeah, they're both a little fucked up. Buuut... Can we please quit trying to woobify Azula? Y'know, the whole "Draco in leather pants" thing? And then the inverse for Zuko, making him out to be somehow worse than Azula, a horrible brother, there's a "double standard" when comparing the two, etc etc like... Like, listen. I am ALL FOR an Azula redemption arc, but we can't sit there and pretend that what happened in the show DIDN'T HAPPEN. We can't just completely gloss over Azula's entire personality. Of course, a good bit of how she behaves in the show can be attributed to her father's influence, the fact she was his "golden child" and was basically groomed to be his heir after he had an excuse to get rid of Zuko, being a firebending prodigy, etc... HOWEVER- That does not, in the least, change the fact that, throughout the show, Azula is shown to be: - Incredibly manipulative - Cunning - Antagonistic - Low Empathy - Violent - Cruel Erasing those traits completely, and pretending they don't exist, is basically just taking Azula's appearance and slapping it on an OC. From the first time she is introduced, Azula is shown to have a far stronger "mean streak" than Zuko does. Zuko is an asshole in the beginning, he's aggressive(towards the Gaang), and really has the whole "moody teenager" behavior down pat, but he's not nearly on the same level as Azula. Azula is cruel, she threatens her own crew, she abuses animals(as noted in one of Zuko's flashbacks, where he says Azula is the one who taught him to throw the bread at the turtleducks), she laughs at the idea of Ozai being ordered to kill Zuko by Azulon and revels in tormenting Zuko about it... She is manipulative, as we see when she tries to trick Zuko into coming home as her prisoner by claiming his father wants him back because 'family is important to him'. She managed to infiltrate Ba Sing Se AND gain control of the Dai Li through manipulation and disguise, She seems to have almost no sense of empathy for others, not caring at all who she hurts, except in one singular case when she upset Ty Lee at that party and apologized afterward. None of this means she is all evil, of course, as much of this is a result of her upbringing and as we're shown, she has a lot of psychological damage and trauma that, near the end of the show, drives her essentially to the brink of insanity. She has insecurities, she has reasons for behaving the way she does... but that doesn't change the fact that she HAS those personality traits, and it doesn't erase the things she's done in the show. You can pretend Azula lied to Ozai about Zuko killing Aang out of the goodness of her heart all you want, but the fact is, that just is not the case, and it's made blatantly evident within the show. She outright says so herself- she suspects Aang is not actually dead, so if he turns out to be alive, Zuko will be the "failure" and not her. Contrast all of this with Zuko, who, while he was an asshole, he went out of his way to stand up for and rescue a little Earth Kingdom kid from asshole soldiers, risked getting caught as a Firebender in Ba Sing Se just to make some random girl he wasn't even actually interested in happy, and actually turned his shit around and redeemed himself. Even when Zuko was grumpy and angry all the time, there were still obvious hints that he wasn't all bad, that he cared for other people.

#azula #zuko #atla

[smol-fan-creations]

Angel Time!! 😉

I'm not posting these in order of favorites, it's just who's design gets finished first Lol

Angel and David's dynamic has me rolling every time I listen to his audios! David is an exception when it comes to Tsunderes for me because he truly makes sure to let Angel know how much he loves them! Most just seem to be written to be big jerks with little to no comfort for their love interest, but David has whole audios that are him comforting Angel. With that, my version of Angel has the name Archer and is the playful flirt we all know. Remember, this will have a bit of spice, talks of nightmares, breakdowns, and some spoilers!

How tall is David? The others have talked about how big he is, so I'm stretching ideas by imagining David as a whopping 6'6". I am aware of that size difference but hey, it leaves some room for hilarity.

Archer is an absolute punk, and while she enjoys poking fun at David, she would stop at a moments notice if she noticed he was upset.

Her junk food addiction consists of things like a lot of sugar, frozen pizzas, and pizza rolls. She even has a stash of it in her home office that she hides from David, "Ahhhhh, Davey!!! Hey babe, watcha need?!"

He actually knows about it but decides to keep quiet and watch how much she eats.

I imagine Archer mainly works from home but goes into the office for big meetings and group projects. She also goes on trips when there are things like conventions and conferences.

The first time David shifted, Archer was just giving him a bit of a hard time but felt bad for pressuring him. Afterward, though, she made a mental note to try to give him ear scratches later on.

I do want to address the video where David confronted the Listener thinking they were cheating.

Archer thought David wouldn't care about the cat situation, and she felt a mixture of guilt and anger at his response. Not gonna lie, she had to stop herself from crying because of how angry David was with her. She knew he had a right to be, but it didn't warrant the level of his outburst.

Afterwards, she probably would play Minecraft for a bit before sitting him down to talk the whole thing over again in a more calm state of mind. She is not going to just let it go without talking it out when they're both calmed down.

Archer during Inversion? The moment she arrived and heard about the situation, she asked all kinds of questions as to what was happening. When she figured out the department was waiting, anger boiled in her like a geyser.

Seeing David caused a dam to burst as she tackled him sobbing and kissing him. The aftershocks made her quiet and really careful about handling David's mental state.

The only time she slipped was when she saw the Department's video where they name-dropped David. A part of her wanted to uh... "speak with the commissioner directly." "I swear to Christ, I might commit a crime if they dare to mention your name again."

I can imagine David had some nightmares and tried to hide them from Archer, but she wouldn't have any of it. She also had similar issues, but of course not as severe as David’s.

When she is stressed, it can cause her to shut down emotionally and mentally. She becomes quiet and will drown herself in something she likes as a way to distract herself. At first, she tries her best to hide it from David, but once he figures it out, she begrudgingly allows him to comfort her.

I had an idea where David once gave Archer a stuffed Avocado as a present, and it is one of the most precious things she has now. She keeps it in her office to cuddle anytime she misses him.

I also imagine there has been a time when Archer has teased David so much at a pack meeting where he has just told her, "Run." She tried to hide with Asher, Milo, and their mates but failed.

SPICY TIIIIIIIME!!!

There are times where David will randomly pick Archer up, and she will become a flustered mess while also really being riled up.

This can be used against her though, as sometimes he will come just close enough to touch her but will walk away just as quick with a smug grin on his face.

That kind of teasing will get the whiniest reactions out of her, and she will try to latch onto him like a parasite. If he does ask her to stop, she'll do it in a heartbeat, but will give him looks and make noises that make her mood apparent.

Archer has made some jokes about David letting her uh... Be on top... And at some point, I can imagine him going, "I don't think you could handle that responsibility..." (I am fully aware David would never actually do this Lol)

Little Personal Thing: Archer really isn't into the whole... predator thing. So, in her storyline, that situation never happens.

#redacted asmr #redacted listener #redacted david #redacted davey/angel #redacted angel #tsundere boy #fight me #big boi

[supagogoman]

My thoughts on Sonic Frontiers!

I beat Sonic Frontiers. Here is my review of the game:

tl;dr It's very good

But let's talk about the flaws first, because there are a lot of flaws with it. For starters there's a couple of minor issues I could talk about, such as the draw distance which is very distracting in an open world game. I also want to murder whoever thought it would be a good idea to have you level up your Speed and Ring Capacity ONE LEVEL AT A TIME so you have to continuously read some stupid FUCKS dialogue and select from a dialogue option EVERY TIME you want to level up ONCE.

A more glaring issue for me is that I'm still not fully convinced this game needed to be open world. Frontiers was interesting in that it had a kind of inverse of the "Sonic Cycle", which refers to the phenomenon that occurs prior to the release of many Sonic games where fans hype up a new game as "It's actually GOOD this time!" and then it comes out to middling reception and everyone laments how bad it is until the next game where the hype begins anew. This time, Frontiers was met with skepticism and confusion on it's announcement and reveal; no one really understood the concept of an 'open world' Sonic game. Having played the game now myself I think I do understand the concept, but it still feels a bit off to me. It's not that it's executed poorly, but I think the concept from the beginning is flawed.

All the islands in Sonic Frontiers are vast, sweeping, beautiful vistas to explore. The geography is interesting to both play in and theres plenty to do in these islands, but mainly it's about collecting memory tokens around the island, portal gears from bosses and keys to get chaos emeralds. Much of these collectables are found in the various platforming sections in the island which are usually platforms, rails and springs dotted around the world. These are actually pretty enjoyable, but my issue is they really feel like what happens if you took a traditional Sonic level and blew it up with a bomb, then took all the pieces that scattered and arranged them on a field. Maybe thats a bad analogy because this explosion didn't ruin the Sonic level, and the parts are still functional, but you can almost see what the levels used to be, and what we could have had instead. These mini platforming sections also often clash with the feel of the openness of the world. This is most aggregious on the third island, where many of these platforming sections are in 2D; once you enter one of these sections you're locked in a plane and forced to complete a section before you can get out of it.

Meanwhile the closest thing to a proper Sonic level we get are the Cyberspace missions, which are also pretty enjoyable and well designed but feel a little underwelming with the reuse of level themes from Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sactuary and some city. It's especially dissapointing if you've played Sonic Generations and know they just took all the assets from that game. Again, these Cyberspace missions are generally well designed and fun, but gone are the spectacles and variety of a more traditional Sonic level. Levels designs take inspiration from some classic games like Sonic Adventure 2, but it always left me missing the themes of those levels instead.

Another issue I have is the combat, more specifically, Sonic's moveset. I don't know exactly how I can describe it because I want to say it's both too simple and over complicated. Fighting enemies is generally pretty good, if a little simple; much of the time you're mashing the homing attack. Once you unlock more moves you can mix it up with the stomp combo, flying kick, homing shot etc, the use of the cyloop to break enemy guard is fun and if you're feeling flashy you can counter and dodge moves. All that is fine and easy to understand, but my issue is Sonic learns too many moves to the point there aren't even enough buttons on the controller to accomodate them. Some of these moves overlap too; early in the game you unlock Sonic Boom where Sonic flies in the air and fires lots of projectiles at the enemy. Later in the game you unlock Cross Slash, a move where Sonic again flies in the air and fires projectiles at the enemy. I still don't understand why two beam projectile moves are needed, but worse still is the fact Cross Slash is Boost + Jump during combat, making this a move thats quite easy to input accidently. Similarly, homing shot and flying kick are both good moves, but for me it's not clear why I would use one over the other.

So after all that, you might be thinking I don't like the game but truthfully I liked it a lot, and I think it holds a lot of potential for future Sonic games. Ultimately I think where the game succeeds is how Sonic handles. In my opinion this is the best he's ever controlled ever; he's fast and responsive, easy to maneuver and even very lenient with jumps, allowing you to correct missed jumps a lot of the time in mid air. I honestly believe this is fundamentally the largest pillar holding the game up as high as it is, because it's what makes running around the open world doing all the disjointed platforming sections scattered about so much damn fun. Often the game would tell me to go to a waypoint on the map to continue the story, so I'd try to go there, only to be distracted by a spring or a rail along the way that I'd gleefully leap onto that takes me on it's little platforming or rail grinding section whilst it dopes me up on virtual crack and releases the happy brain chemicals, and each time this happens I'm usually rewarded with rings and a memory token. Then when I finish that section it ends with a launch pad that conveniently lands me near another spring or rail that takes me on ANOTHER ride around the mountain and before I know it an hour has passed and I've made no progress in the plot.

This extends to the Cyberspace missions too (though as a caveat Sonic runs slower in these sections). Whilst Cyberspace lifts level designs from games like Generations it also takes stages from Sonic Adventure 2 and the fact that Sonic handles both the boost heavy stages and more 3D platform focused stages with ease shows how much more versatile this iteration of Sonic is. It made replaying the stages for speed runs a lot of fun.

This is basically why dispite my claim that the open world concept is flawed, Sonic Frontiers is still fun to just sit down and blast through. But maybe next time we could have the best of both worlds? Since this iteration of Sonic handles Cyberspace so well I don't see why they couldn't make the next Sonic game more focused around those kinds of levels. Bring it back to the traditional style of multiple zones with varying themes to keep the game feeling fresh throughout. We don't even have to lose the open world, either, as games like Sonic Adventure 1 have had it's traditional stages linked together in a hub world like Station Square or Mystic Ruins. Why not have a more intricate, maybe slightly downscaled world that links these traditional stages together, that also contain more content and fun things to run around on and collect that fill the space between the normal stages?

I should also mention briefly the other positives. The writing is definitely a step up, the banter between characters feels good and there's genuine emotion in the story without it feeling too overdramatic. The throwbacks to older Sonic was fun, and a welcome change after every other Sonic game felt like it's own continuity, and it didn't feel forced either. The music is fantastic as usual, and the Super Sonic boss fights were absolutely the highlight of the game for me, I had the biggest damn smile in that first boss fight. Genuinely the best Super Sonic has ever been.

Anyway I dunno what they'll do for the next Sonic game, but I guess after this game it feels like the futures bright for Sonic, and I'm looking forward to what comes next! (Although Generations had me feeling hopeful for the future of Sonic too and look what happened after that).

Now if you'll excuse me I need to find out how to order the soundtrack for Sonic Frontiers

#Sonic Frontiers #my dumb opinion of video game #blorg post

[eviltothecore13]

Dracula Spoilers Ahead

I am glad people are reading Dracula because maybe finally people will realise how badly the adaptations treat the women in this story. Not that the book is amazing on that front, it is Victorian, but...

Book!Lucy: in love with three men who are all good friends with each other, sincerely wants them all to be happy and doesn’t like the idea of choosing between them, would be much happier if she knew being poly was a thing, is not really portrayed as a bad person for this at all pre-becoming-a-vampire. In fact she’s generally depicted as sweet, kind and innocent. Is not in love with/attracted to Dracula (she was attacked while sleepwalking, not “seduced”--in fact, no woman in this book is attracted to Dracula, everything Dracula does to women is nonconsensual...normally I love hot vampires and hero/villain relationships can be a lot of fun but I really dislike that many adaptations portray one or both of the women as in love with Dracula when he’s portrayed as much more predatory in the book, nothing Dracula does to Lucy or Mina is any kind of romance). Yes, she acts more seductive than she usually would when she becomes a vampire and this is treated as a sign that she’s evil now, which isn’t great (though she mostly just acts seductive towards her fiance when she’s trying to bite him and turn him into a vampire, she’s not nearly AS sexual as some adaptations make her even as a vampire), but the “the men only killed her because they were scared of a woman acting seductive, she never did anything actually evil” interpretation...doesn’t really hold water when she was drinking children’s blood.

Lucy in many adaptations: evil slut! slutty evil horrible woman! she deserved to die because she was stupid enough to fall for Dracula!

Book!Mina: practical, intelligent, competent. Not an amazing feminist icon by modern standards and not a physical fighter but far from weak in terms of personality and generally a pretty decent female character for the era the book was from. Also not in love with/seduced by Dracula, she always wants him killed both before and after he bites her (the biting is depicted as a traumatic assault, and the men reassure her that it doesn’t make her evil/bad/corrupted). In a genuinely healthy loving relationship with Jonathan. Arguably a partial inversion of “only the sweet innocent virgin girl survives” since Lucy’s innocence and sweetness is emphasised more heavily and she dies, while Mina...OK, again, she’s a Victorian character, clearly by modern standards the book’s attitude to sex is not progressive, but...she is married so it’s far more likely that she’s had sex than that Lucy has, even though it’s not really mentioned. The men’s initial attempts to protect her by not telling her anything have terrible consequences and once she does get involved she’s one of the more intelligent and capable people on the team. (Also she could be interpreted as bi, though this wasn’t necessarily intentional: she's very close with Lucy and there’s something along the lines of her first noticing Dracula because they were both admiring the same woman.)

Mina in many adaptations: constantly panicked screaming damsel in distress who doesn’t ever really take any action that advances the plot and isn’t competent at anything.

#dracula #dracula daily #dracula spoilers

[nimblermortal]

The Old Guard and Languages

Disclaimer: I am deliberately working with only what we see in the films, so the featurette has no bearing; and also, my languages are English/German/Russian/BR-Portuguese, so, rather a lot of European bias there.

Andy: Does not know all the languages, but looks like she does because she knows a) so many of them and b) so many root languages. You know how once you know a Romance language the second one is easier and the third is just weird slang (I say, as if I had experience with this)? She’s not working with a Romance language, she’s working with Proto-Indo-European. Also, just generally having enough grammar background and learning-languages experience that she can cobble together something that sounds almost right (”Are you from Poland? You speak Quechua like you’re Polish”) in very little time. Mainly struggles with figuring out which language someone is speaking in the first place. Extremely utilitarian about her language enthusiasm, she Keeps Up To Date.

Quynh: Not really very far behind Andy. The main thing she struggles with, at this point, is the degree to which languages have changed since she was put in the box. Her English is stilted - it’s Modern English - and she laughs in weird places (like every time someone asks what she’s doing she says “Nothing!” and pokes Andy in the ribs). She’s like that in everything. Adores pictographic alphabets, they keep her entertained for longer, and is going to have a field day working out scientific terms in written, modern Chinese. No dictionaries, that’s cheating.

Yusuf: Not at the wizard level of the first two, but a bit above the sort of person who’s just like, “Oh, I’ve never heard that language... but I know Serbian and Arabic, so... he’s talking about the garbage truck schedule, and he’s wrong, let me just let him know.” (I’m told these people exist. See point abut Andy.) He enjoys language the most of them, in terms of what it can do poetically, and geeks out about metaphors, idioms, and translations in a way only Booker is prepared to follow him on.

Nicoló: Please not another language. Oh, please, no. He picks up lingua francas as they come, but language is just not his thing. On the other hand, the pidgin he has with Yusuf is ornately weird. Like when I was in Germany and studying quantum mechanics with another expat and we’d just remember the word in one language half way through a sentence and change languages to follow it up, but then with German verb kickers every so often the sentence would end *pause* ...können. Add to that the fact that Nicoló loves slang the most. They have an agreement, as a group, that slang doesn’t count until it’s survived for fifty years; Nicoló uses, and abuses, slang way before then, and he’ll translate it half way through too. His language is a mess.

Booker: Closest to Nicoló in terms of learning the currently-relevant languages and going from there. So he’s got French/English/Spanish/Portuguese, plus Occitan and Ligurian for personal reasons, and then he added Romansh and Romanian because he’d collected one from every other category of Romance languages and I guess - and then Latin, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese... but if you asked he’d tell you Spanish, Arabic, French, English. SAFE. He wants them purely for reading purposes, but he’s also the go-to guy for sign languages.

Nile: English, high school French and Spanish, the beginnings of Pashto. She’s not bad with languages, she’ll probably wind up around Yusuf’s level. She’s motivated by communicating with people (I cannot relate), but given the American school system her French and Spanish are both pretty rudimentary and also decaying. Booker’s bringing her up to speed, which means her French is going to also be a bit weird, because he’s very Académie française about his French and passionately disagrees with the académie on several fronts. (Yusuf has an almost inverse relationship with Arabic, I can’t remember the terms I’d need to explain that idea.) Nile is the one who delights the most in linguistic puns, and bilingual or worse puns. She does not consider herself capable in a language until she has punned in it.

Nicoló is trying to decide whether to bake Nile Happy New Language cakes, or if he really does not want to encourage this behavior. He’s not sure he has a leg to stand on given the slang thing, but what she’s doing is abominable. Booker approves, because he’s French, and is considering suggesting Japanese as her next language, which has Quynh’s support because she doesn’t know he’s only in it for the puns.

#The Old Guard #drafts folder