#also the game gets a little meta in a way that i enjoy in games like this

[cat-of-starlight]

Me playing "Library of Runia" and "Limbus Company" like-

Me, a casual player, putting my funny little characters together while the Pro Gamers™ debate about character/mechanic meta

#Like I don't mean this in a bad way- #If you enjoy the meta go ahead- I won't stop you #Its also just really funny to see as someone who consistently is clueless about it #Like- I've beaten LOB and LOR- I'm caught up in Limbus- I'm not BAD at the games #I just- don't notice meta strats tbh #I go into every fight expecting to get my ass kicked a little- and thats ok #I still win- I feel like one of those shonen protags who pulls themselves off the ground after getting their ass kicked constantly #I live by ADHD player strats at all times #And if I die i die #anyway I love these games so much #never change- guys- I learned something new in a funny way tonight #limbus company #library of ruina #project moon

[kalmeria]

Scrolled up to vote for Noel when I saw the post that was had the name together with the picture

What is witch's heart? Something you recommend?

yay, thank you for voting noel!

witch’s heart is an rpgmaker adventure/horror game about five strangers who get trapped in a mansion that is said to be haunted. the game is split into scenarios that focus on the different characters, and as you progress through it you start to find out the truth about the house and the reason these particular people ended up there…

a tagline for the game is “do you have a wish you’d be willing to kill for?” which i think sums up pretty much what you should expect: varying degrees of traumatic backstories, as well as depictions of murder, blood and gore (it’s not like hyperrealistic depictions bc of the art style but still.)

it’s a story focused game with some combat elements but it’s nothing too difficult. you play through the events of each day and uncover more and more of the secrets and mysteries… before reaching the inevitable end of the story, after which you continue with another scenario, with different perspectives and different outcomes. (there’s also a bunch of little side quests where you can explore the mansion and stuff which i found a lot of fun? also minigames with the characters!)

it’s free to download btw, the english translation is made by vgperson, they also have content warnings and some guides on their site.

i know i enjoyed playing it and have been thinking about replaying recently (i just wish one day the creator will finish all the scenarios)

#it’s hard to talk about without getting jnto spoilers so now i somehow ended up not even talking about the characters.. #noel is a very very sad young man #other than the mc clair and the four ppl she gets trapped alongside with there’s also four demons who show up and make the rest of the cast #*claire #also the game gets a little meta in a way that i enjoy in games like this #i hope this makes some kind of sense it’s pretty late rn kfjdsgs #i’m sure other ppl would be a lot better at giving a pitch #witch’s heart #perfectpinkprincess #answered

[dipperdesperado]

Get Organized!

I recently made a post about how to get started in doing radical stuff. Said otherwise, that post was meant to answer the question, “Where do I go, when I know the world is fucked?” This post covers similar ground, but is more interested in the theoretical side of things. Not to say it won’t be practical. It’s just saying that if you’re not the kind of person that can read a little bit and feel confident to act, or you like having a little bit more scaffolding, that you also deserve a resource. I’m hoping to contribute to that today. As the title says, we’re going to be focusing on organizing. This is one of those things that is said a lot, but is actually defined much less often. Tangentially, you should be aware and ready for this for literally everything relating to politics. Any word that you hear used, you should always ask for a definition. Many a movement would have gone differently if folks spent more time trying to find semantic alignment. Anyway.

When I say organizing, I mean catalyzing the energy of folks, acting from a specific theory of change. A theory of change is a thought process or method to create some kind of social impact in a particular context. When the world sucks in some particular way, and you want it to stop sucking, the answer is to organize, in the way defined above. By organizing, we lean on the idea of collective power to create changes that are currently only afforded to those with authoritarian power. It’s a game of evening the odds.

I will also note that this assumes that you are going to be framing your work around broad-based movements, that have (mostly) aboveground (as in “legal”) tactics. This is not necessarily a statement of what is correct; small groups that are in concert with larger movements are also able to be successful, even when doing more confrontational tactics.

So, to organize, I’d say it would be useful to be involved in movements already. You can look at my radicalism 100 post to see how that could look. Either way you have to know what your where your niche(s) lie. In other words, what sits in the middle of the intersection between what you like to do, what you are good (or can become good/have a willingness to become good) at, and what is needed in your context. I tend to center the local level, because that is the area where influence is more tangible, and fits into how I see a resilient world coming to fruition. So, you have to ask yourself, “What can I do, that I would enjoy doing, in my community?” Then, you should find some other people who are in that same vibe. Depending on your approach, this may take no time at all, or a lot of time. I listed some ideas for finding folks in radicalism 100, but to reiterate: look for social medias and IRL presences of people who are into the same topics, and connect with them. See where you can plug in, and see where the contours of organizing in your local contexts are. Ideally you can see places where gaps can be filled.

Once you find an issue that you think has potential, and you have a couple of people to do some organizing with, you have what I think of as a catalyst group. This group is meant to start (or assist) in a certain kind of reaction, but not lead it. Trying to control movements is both futile and antithetical to liberation. So, to ground us, we have two very important ingredients: a topic/issue/area of focus to organize around, and a group of folks to work with. Once this is in place, you can co-create a strategy with your organizing team. I’d recommend employing an encircling strategy as your long-term or meta strategy, where multiple sub-strategies and campaigns happen within this frame. Essentially, this allows you to employ campaigns across a matrix of tactics. Within the encircling frame, you can create a campaign (what I consider a “short-term” strategy). Campaigns are a series of actions over time. Strategies are a series of campaigns over time.

A useful way to think of strategic planning is by separating the process into stages, grouped by movement size.

Small: Organize small actions/protests, figuring out ways to build movement visibility and interest

Medium: Focus on scaling up the participation, through mobilizing efforts. Promote your actions, get people involved, and encourage meaningful action.

Large: Create a movement. The kind of thing people hear about.

To organize on the smallest level, the easiest thing might be to just do plan actions that are well within your team’s capacity, organize those actions, and execute. If you can swing it, I’d really recommend to not lean too much into symbolic actions. There are risks with every action, no matter what legal frameworks your locality has. If you’re going to do something, you have to be very intentional with:

what you hope to accomplish through the action

a high likelihood of success for the action

doomsday planning in case something goes wrong

If you’re able to do this, then you will be leagues ahead of a lot of other folks. This is not to make it a race or a competition, but it is moreso to say you can symbolically represent and catalyze action without becoming a martyr.

As you’re doing actions, you should be refining your idea of who’s impacted by the issues more and more. As that picture gets clearer, you should spend more and more time understanding and listening to those folks. Ideally, you get to a point of co-creation, where you are enabling people to fight for themselves and build their autonomy. That is the kind of thing that prevents movements from dying. Organizers should be trying to put themselves out of business, in a sense. Catalysts should be able to come from anywhere.

To scale up, I’d recommend a focus on meeting folks. Take the ideas of deep canvassing, where you empathetically have conversations with whoever is impacted by the issue you’re responding to, through the lens of giving power to those people. Rather than asking them to feed into some established system of power, encourage them to take action into their own hands, as a collective.

I’d also recommend that as capacity grows, build a “positive” or “constructive” power. This can look like a lot of things. Whether it is a block club, neighborhood pod, community council, or community assembly, dedicate energy into creating spaces where people can start building their democratic and consensus muscles. These can simultaneously act as the training ground and alternative governance structure that allows folks to start making decisions for themselves in a very specific way.

This will ideally allow the movement to really start to be intersectional. It should be intersection minded from the outset, but that can be difficult to meaningfully actualize in the early stages of the movement. since single-issue movements are inherently brittle (if your movement revolves around getting something on a ballot, winning or losing just ends the movement)—there are throughlines that connect all movements, and those lines should be made visible and traveled. Environmentalists should fight for housing rights, LandBack, Reparations, and a host of other things. The more developed our networks, the stronger our movements will be.

#economics #economy #econ #anti capitalists be like #neoliberal capitalism #late stage capitalism #anti capitalism #capitalism #activism #activist #direct action #solarpunks #solarpunk #praxis #socialism #sociology #social revolution #social justice #social relations #social ecology #organizing #complexity #resist #fight back #organizing 101 #radicalization #radicalism #prefigurative politics #politics

[fancifulplaguerat]

I’m so not normal about this

The way that Artemy tries to make Daniil feel better despite not caring solely because Daniil is upset, the “you are also better-crafted than me” like Artemy is telling him not to think of himself as some worthless unloved doll because look at yourself, you’re so much more than that; just that last line the compassion the kindness in it I cannot stand this. I’m not even that into Burakhovsky in canon but this is the most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life (←light hyperbole) 

I’ve gotten too desensitized to the doll ending that I forget what a gut punch it is. That line “Strangely, there is still not a word to be heard from the Powers That Be. Perhaps they became bored of it all... or were called back home for supper” plain devastates me. Just the futility of it all, how pointless all the characters’ suffering was, in particular the healers’. Though I enjoy the theatre-framing in Patho 2, the ‘children’s game’ meta in Patho Classic gets under my skin far more, as there’s some ‘purpose’ in Artemy/Daniil/Clara suffering onstage, playing their roles for an audience. While Patho 2 implies futility with the ‘you aren’t important, you can be recast,’ that idea of ‘you are not important, and everything you did meant nothing’ hits me harder in the game framing because the healers aren’t even worth being replaced. Everything is just some kids’ make-believe that can be tossed aside when they get bored or are called away. 

But I fucking love “The Powers That Be” concept because it’s so perfectly ominous and vague. Could be anything, likely the government, but sike actually it’s two children who orchestrated your entire living nightmare. I love the subtle references to them throughout the game, too, such as a plague victim telling Daniil “I keep hearing children’s voices... the girls are crying, and the boy is laughing... We mustn’t scare them...” or Aspity asking, “Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat... Can you hear the kids running around?” And granted this might not truly be about The Powers That Be, but it certainly feels like it could be. Or the foreshadowing on Day 1 of the Bachelor Route when Daniil asks the kids, “How did it even cross your mind... to play epidemic!” And Clara directly references them when she goes underground with Artemy, warning him to talk as little as possible so “they who are beyond the wall won’t hear you.” 

She elaborates: 

“I can only feel them. They are obscure. They are the ones in charge of everything here. They’re big but narrow-souled, trying to hide their wretchedness from us. It was all their doing. They haven’t revealed themselves yet. [...] Their time hasn't come yet. They are waiting in the wings. They will probably break into the world when it ends. Tomorrow they will show themselves...” 

I highly enjoy Measly and Thrush’s presence being all over the game unbeknownst to the player and characters (excluding Clara). 

And it creates even more futility to me because there’s no catharsis of just anger against some cruel puppet-master, like I can’t be angry with these children who are just playing. Especially how they ask, “Heal the town, please! Just look, it’s so wonderful... It’s alive and it’s our favorite one... We won’t be able to make another one like this. If it can’t be helped, then it will disappear forever. You know how much we love it?” They’re just kids who want you to save something that they love; even if they can be devious they don’t really have malicious intentions. But even their fears about losing their town aren’t real and I’m just going to go outside and start eating handfuls of dirt 

#to say nothing of the mishka's doll quest in artemy's route #pathologic #daniil dankovsky #artemy burakh #the powers that be #patho.txt

[least-carpet]

I am curious: how do you think would work realistically a jc and wwx's reconciliation? Have you any meta on them and their relationship?

I'm sorry this took a minute, anon! Work has been frankly chaotic. But I saw an anti-reconciliation post¹ and I have been roused from my post-work stupor.

Unfortunately, you asked me for something I'm incompetent at, which is plotting. (Otherwise I would have already unleashed my ningcheng fic upon the world.) What I can talk about is what I find compelling about potential reconciliation and potential scenarios.

Why do I love a post-canon reconciliation?

Apart from really liking their relationship and finding it compelling—IMO it's the heart of the narrative of the first life—what I actually enjoy about it is what it offers in terms of development for Wei Wuxian.

I read Wei Wuxian as having displaced and projected a lot of his unresolved trauma onto Jiang Cheng. I've talked a little before about my reading of Jiang Cheng as the "bad feelings" sin eater of the Yunmeng Trio—neither Jiang Yanli nor Wei Wuxian feel like they can express deep unhappiness, but Jiang Cheng is bad at hiding his, so in some way it's his job to embody the collective unhappiness of the children of that family system.

But although this makes Wei Wuxian merry and likeable, it's not actually good for anyone, or even sustainable—when he loses control, he really loses control. And his coping skills are extremely self-destructive, as we can see from the post-war downward spiral of drinking and avoidance. I also think his experiences in his childhood (losing his parents and being homeless) plus his wartime experiences gave him some kind of trauma disorder that contributes to his terrible memory, which he's turned into his primary coping mechanism (apart from alcohol). If I Simply Close My Eyes And Run Away, My Bad Feelings Can't Get Me!

But, like, repressing your feelings doesn't work forever. He's compartmentalized his whole first life to function in the second one, but that means giving up on everything and everyone he loved, including the Jiang siblings and Lotus Pier. That's incredibly tragic to me.

Sometimes I think antis are so happy to demonize Jiang Cheng in order to minimize the depth of the loss Wei Wuxian has suffered. If he never loved Jiang Cheng, if they were never close and devoted to one another, if their childhood was an unending misery, then wouldn't Wei Wuxian be much freer in the present?

But what I think has happened is that the loss is so huge that it's completely terrifying and threatening. So are the feelings around killing Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli's death, and the death of Wen Qing and the Wen remnants. It's too much, so he blocks it out or, in some cases, projects it onto Jiang Cheng.

Of course, Jiang Cheng will never forgive him, because he irreparably ruined Jiang Yanli's life and then she died trying to save him and Jin Ling became an orphan. It's all his fault; it can't be forgiven; he might as well give up on it...

Jiang Cheng is obviously very angry and upset with him, it's true. But you can see how projecting his guilt and shame over his actions onto Jiang Cheng and then running away from Jiang Cheng is also a way for him to escape his guilt and shame over what happened to Jiang Yanli. (And to escape all the repressed resentment he has for Jiang Cheng because of the core transfer.²)

But there are two tragic elements of this approach. One, that by doing this he yields up any possible relationship with Jiang Cheng, and with the Jiang Sect, because by all means Wei Wuxian must escape him in order to outrun his terrible feelings. Two, that it's another coping mechanism that distorts the reality of the situation, which is that they were all swept up in power games beyond their capacity to manage, and they did their best—the Jiang siblings, the Wen siblings, Jin Zixuan, and Wei Wuxian—and it still went badly for everyone except the Jin Sect.

I don't think he can confront that yet. But I do think that Wei Wuxian feels very safe with Lan Wangji, and sometimes a safe and supportive relationship can provide the resources to do things you didn't think you could do before.

Can you imagine a different conversation, that begins with the bald acknowledgement of failure and wrongdoing³? "I never meant for all of that to happen. I did what I thought was right, but I never thought Jiang Yanli would be harmed, and I didn't intend to kill Jin Zixuan. I am so sorry. I miss her."

GIVE THE CATHARSIS TO ME. GIVE IT HERE.

A Wei Wuxian who has reached a point where he's capable of that accountability and vulnerability is delicious to me. A Wei Wuxian who can get there can return to Lotus Pier and rebuild a relationship with the living sect and his living sect brother.

How could it happen?

The trick is how to get there, 'cause it's like trying to herd cats where one cat is mortally afraid of facing the second and the other one has betrayal trauma and abandonment issues. But the cats love each other! They do!

I don't see Jiang Cheng initiating. I see him as being more open to a reconciliation, now that he knows why Wei Wuxian did what he did, but I see him as being profoundly afraid of trapping people in relationship with him or inflicting himself on people who don't want him around. (Not, like, for politics. In that arena I assume he's unpleasant when necessary to great effect.)

Fortunately, Wei Wuxian can be led if you're cunning enough to do it and you bait the trap with something good (see the plot of MDZS for Nie Huaisang's very successful demonstration of this principle). He also will increase pursuit if you dangle and withdraw the bait.

The question, of course, is what makes good bait for catching Wei Wuxian. Some options:

Option 1: murder mystery. Someone dies in an exciting way that involves Jiang Cheng. (Wei Wuxian will involve himself, dude loves a murder mystery.) It could be in the Jiang Sect or the Jin Sect; if it involves Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng will jump in with a swiftness.

Option 2: Jiang Cheng marriage rumours. Doesn't even have to involve unsavoury rumous about the potential wife; Jiang Cheng getting married without him (like Jiang Yanli) would dredge up some feelings, I think.

Option 3: Jiang Cheng tragic illness or curse rumours. You better be sure it was in a past life, cause it looks like this one might be over soon!

Option 4: Forced together time (due to a night hunt or a kidnapping, etc.). It's time for the getting along shirt!

To borrow from SVSSS, you might need a scenario-pusher for it to happen. But the world of MDZS is rife with these opportunities, and cultivators can live a very long time. So there's hope yet!

Footnotes:

1. This is a perfectly reasonable viewpoint to come to by the end of the novel. It's simply one I don't share.

2. See this passage from the confrontation in the Guanyin Temple:

"It wasn’t something he liked to reminisce about. He didn’t want to be reminded again and again of what it felt like when his core was cut out or what price he had to pay. If this were exposed in the past, he’d most likely laugh and comfort Jiang Cheng … But now, he indeed didn’t have the strength left to put up such a confident, nonchalant pretense.

From the bottom of his heart, he knew he wasn’t so indifferent about it after all.

Was it really that easy to move on from such a thing?

Of course not." (Chapter 103, "Hatred," ExR translation)

3. I saw a different post complaining about Wei Wuxian apologizing to Jiang Cheng in reconciliation scenarios, and I just, like, he kicked off a political firestorm that ended in the death of Jiang Yanli and her husband. This is completely separate from the non-consensual surgery and all the lying he was doing about that. He owes him multiple different apologies! And Jiang Cheng should also apologize to him! That's why they apologize to each other in the Temple, because they know they hurt each other! The point of an apology in an intimate relationship is to connect with the person you are apologizing to in order to repair the relationship, and the Temple was not the time, which is why they need a private do-over! It's not humiliation, it's intimacy, connection, and repair. How do y'all live your lives.

3.5 Also, imagine it to be more in-character than that.

#anon asks #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #yunmeng shuangjie #chengxian #yunmeng shuangjie reconciliation #mdzs + #meta #least-carpet thoughts

[jahiera]

omg your tags on that last rb? i want to know your Exact thoughts on That dialogue in the scene right after astarion and tav get together because it is so interesting to me 👀

***WRITTEN DURING EA

Okay hi yes, I do indeed have some thoughts. Fair disclaimer that this is just my interpretation! I've only been playing the game for a few days technically, so this is all my first impulse in terms of characterization and influenced by my own path, so! Other interpretations will also be super interesting to read about. Also, obviously, we don't have the full cut, whatever comes out in 2 weeks will come out in 2 weeks. Anyways! Overanalyzing this little bastard's dialogue below.

Okay, this affectionate ribbing was referencing this dialogue here where you can comment on Astarion not being totally "present" post-party sex. Sorry this took me a second to respond to, I wanted to grab the screens for this:

(screencaps of subtitles that read:

Astarion: That's what you want, isn't it? To lose yourself in me?

(new scene) Astarion: You sleep light. I thought you'd be exhausted after last night

Tav: Did you enjoy it? It felt like you weren't fully there.

Astarion: I was holding back a little, it's true. I didn't want to lose control.

To preface this, Astarion's arc is clearly dealing with the push/pull of power and control, one's personal agency (and how it can be taken away), and what happens when an individual reclaims power after for a very long time being without that power. He's endured god-knows-what for 200 years, giving glimpses of his former life, the torture under Cazador, the things he had to do for Cazador (which, included at least finding Cazador's meals through likely charm and seduction, without his own say in the matter.) Now he's out, he's free, he's experiencing the world for the first time basically (as he remarks on in ambient dialogue a lot: everything looks different. Click on a globe and he'll say something along the lines of having never seen the world, but there's time now.) Stating all of that is necessary to me because I think whatever's going on in his terrible brain is several factors all kind of thrown into one; some factors good, some bad, some neutral, some questionable; again, just my interpretation of him, but.

OKAY. Now that that's out of the way. The first interpretation of this scene (and the sex scene in general in its limited capacity: since we don't have eyes on the cinematic.) we can have is the obvious one: you two had a great night, Astarion is being upfront, he simply didn't want to lose control, nothing else here to look at. It's fantasy sex and it's simply good fun.

(The rest is under a cut. Sorry, this kind of turned into a meta Astarion and Sex and all of that? Anyways. CW for a bit of discussion about sexuality + trauma + implications of lack of consent.)

But Do I Believe It's That Simple? Not Really.

On one side, I do think Astarion is genuine in his pursuing of Tav, of sex, of good times and pleasure: he's been locked away for 200 years and now he's traipsing around in mud (a novelty), which might not be ideal, but he can still enjoy the thrill of that too, looks for what's in it for him, what feels good, etc. in all of the circumstances he finds himself in. There's a kind of subdued wonder from him about the world at large; remarks on craving the sun while you're in the Underdark, of experiencing the world, and I think he really is rushing around relishing the freedom as much as he can. And since of course he can reject you, he's not doing anything he doesn't want to do. In short: "simple pleasures," have eluded him under Cazador's thumb, and good sex with someone that you're into is likely just one more of those things he hasn't really gotten to do in ... [checks notes] 200 years.

But I don't think that's the only thing going on in this scene. The fact that the dialogue specifically notes a kind of distance from him feels relevant (since, if they wanted us to think it was all seamless good fun, they could've left it as is.) And the thing is, Astarion. is a big fucking liar.

When he wants to brush aside his dream to Tav, he'll simply say he had some naughty dream and brush it off--which we later find out was a lie ("that's what we call a lie, darling.") and his dreams have actually been about Cazador. Again, only relevant because the first thing Astarion reaches for when he wants to obfuscate the truth is lying through charm, or lying through witty barbs, and when pushed, turns into outright snappy aggression. Saying that the only thing on his mind was the hunger is an easy solution to reach for; maybe it's not even quite wrong, that likely was also an aspect of it! But.

His general .. quick sleazy flirting doesn't come out of nowhere. He uses it liberally, and with everyone, in his Evil Twink Fashion. Can flirt with half the camp at one point or another in environmental dialogue (specifically gets shut down by Shadowheart and Gale, humiliatingly.. the secondhand embarrassment there oh boy.) How much of that he learned while under Cazador's thumb, having to manipulate and charm for Cazador, sexualizing situations where he did not actually have full say and consent in the circumstances, is unknown to us, but can be inferred as not negligible. It's his default state. Charm and persuasion and trickery spell safety, as does disguising any kind of weakness. Disguising his weakness poorly, mind, because he obviously has several moments of raw vulnerability you can get even without his romance being initiated.

I think his current mental state here is a combination of that; of lying to disguise whatever raw state is beneath, unearthed by having simply... some good fun with someone, not out of servitude to Cazador, not to flirt or cajole to protect his own skin, but yet one more thing that's been denied to him (and, possibly, albeit we can only guess at this, not claiming it as canon, forced on him unwantedly) over the last 200 years. But he and Tav here aren't close, close yet, and when Tav tries to push (via talking about the scars on his back), Astarion clams up quite quickly, moving on from the discussion as soon as possible. So whatever is under the minor half-truth of "losing control," isn't open to us yet; we've really just met in the grand scheme of things.

We don't know yet what sex means to Astarion; he hasn't really elaborated beyond the obvious. But, I think, given his behavior, his casual flirtiness, his "You want to lose yourself in me," (another line I can squawk about endlessly in terms of character analysis), sexuality (actual sex or simply sexualization) can be as much a means of securing safety, control, coercion, power, and pinpointing weakness. It's also something he can clearly also desire wholeheartedly and with no ulterior motives involved; and I think this moment shows that, and he's grappling with it uncomfortably, what this means for him, one more thing that he can reclaim for himself. He craves something real, I think, and he's only just now beginning to form a real identity outside of what Cazador did to him, and how Cazador haunts him.

Pursuing something like this is one more step in that direction. Unlearning these gut impulses to lie and deceive and charm his way with Tav is probably what we're going toward, given his glimpse of a reaction to a hug. Whatever else Astarion has to work through in regards to intimacy is up in the air, but there's clearly a lot more going on beneath his fairly shallow veneer of charm and flirtatiousness.

(Which. Can we just have the option to hug him as a casual dialogue option? Please?)

#bg3 meta #astarion #asks answered #I really hope you meant you wanted a full blown essay because that.. is what this is HGHFHG #Thank you for asking though! That's really sweet of you and I'm. I hope this garbled rambling makes some kind of sense? #I'm so sorry. I had THINGS to say apparently! #baldurs gate 3 #playing bg3

[seventeendeer]

TF2 analysis - on cultural references, context as characterization, and how to analyze comedy

-taps mic- HELLO, TEAM FORTRESS 2 COMMUNITY !

A while back, I received an ask requesting analysis of one of my favorite video games of all time and special interest of 12+ years, and you know I just had to go and turn that into a several thousand word essay for the reading pleasure of the people.

Because that shit got way too long, I’ve decided to put it into a post of its own. Hopefully a big title and no previous context being necessary will give more people an incentive to read it. I spent a long time on it and I think it’s pretty cool, and I would love some nice attention for my effort. ;w;

The ask I received went a little something like this:

Below the cut, I will be replying to these questions individually. It touches on everything from Cold War propaganda to the media landscape at the game’s launch in 2007 to first-person shooters as a genre - all to gain a better understanding of author intent, expected audience reaction, characterization and themes.

Anon previously requested help writing more accurate fanfiction, and damn it, that is what they are going to get!! and MORE

Introductory disclaimer:

First of all, for clarity's sake: this analysis is going to specifically talk about TF2 as seen through a fandom lens. I'm going to be talking about the game as a piece of media, creator intention, and the fandom's reactions to the game and extended canon - that is, the slice of the TF2 fandom that is interested in the characters, in the world and in doing at least semi-faithful fanworks.

I will not be touching on TF2's wider playerbase or meme culture. I greatly enjoy both, but they are not relevant to the post I made that sparked this anon's questions (I will link this post in the replies, in case anyone is curious).

I also have to disclaim that any references I make to real world history in this post have to be taken with a hard grain of salt. I've done my best to fact-check everything, but I am not infallible! For a better understanding of the historical elements I talk about here, please do your own research, and approach my claims with a healthy amount of scepticism, same as you would any unsourced social media post. (Readers may notice examples I give below primarily feature Soldier, Spy and Scout. This is because I feel I have the most solid grasp on the historical events and media that informs their characters, compared to the other classes. All the classes contain these contexts and meta complexities, but in an effort to not talk out of my ass too much, I have decided to focus on the characters I feel the most confident dissecting.)

>1) What tropes was the game parodying/what cultural contexts would you say are essential to understand, in order to better understand the game?

The characters of TF2 were specifically designed as satiric takes on national stereotypes depicted in American propaganda media during the Cold War. Two easy-to-explain examples to illustrate:

- Soldier embodies the ideal of a "red-blooded American" who is strong, brave, hyper-masculine, hates foreign superpowers, loves the vague ideal of "freedom" and firmly believes America is the greatest nation in the world. He prides himself on having personally murdered nazis in the past, despite actually having accomplished no such thing (comparable to the US taking a disproportionate amount of credit for defeating Nazi Germany in World War 2; at the time, WW2 was a very recent cultural memory that made for good propaganda fodder). He fears, hates and dehumanizes communists (as Soviet Russia was the US's highly-villified opponent during the Cold War). The satiric angle: he is depicted as so brainwashed by propaganda that he has become immune to facts and logic. He is horribly sadistic, brutal, paranoid and xenophobic. The ideal he is based on is portrayed as shockingly and disproportionally violent and illogical to the point of being laughable.

- Spy is based on how the US viewed France during the Cold War: as a weak, cowardly, “unmanly” nation. At the time, France was depicted this way because they were perceived to have surrendered to Nazi Germany early on in World War 2 out of cowardice. Spy is one of the least macho of the mercs, he is ineffective when fighting enemies head on, and his main method of attack is reliant on trickery and “not fighting fair.” The satiric angle: Spy isn't actually much of a coward - he is more intelligent, more tactical and more resourceful than many of the others, and simply doesn’t feel the need to risk his neck when he could be working smarter, not harder. The other characters are portrayed as a bunch of meatheads for picking on him. The negative stereotype he is based on is portrayed as largely unearned and ridiculous. (Though note that Spy is also depicted as an upperclass prick to contrast with Engineer being working class; in that dynamic, Spy is depicted as a pompous asshole, while Engie is depicted in a more favorable light. The characters are multi-faceted and no class is universally “better” or “worse” than the others, but right now I'm specifically focusing on the "Cold War stereotype" aspect.)

Notice how, while these two characters have different nationalities in-universe, they are both based on stereotypes seen through an American lens. Notice the way the American character is based on a comedically deconstructed ideal, while the character from a nation the US did not view favorably at the time is depicted as falsely judged by an unfair and ridiculous metric.

The entire TF2 cast and universe revolves on this axis! It takes old American ideals and prejudices and uses them for comedy, adding exaggeration and caveats to make those ideals look absurd.

It’s a parody of media produced in the US during the Cold War, which contained massive amounts of propaganda. It satirizes the political ideals that were glorified in said propaganda media.

Very important extra cultural context: this satiric depiction of old war propaganda was specifically designed to be instantly recognizable to TF2's central demographic at the time of release in 2007.

Older Valve games like TF2 were very specifically made to appeal to pop culture-savvy, nerdy young adult gamers. This demographic was expected to see the characters and think "oh hey, it's like a funny version of X character type I've seen in movies!"

Because those kinds of movies were still everywhere at the time. The Cold War ended in 1991. TF2 was released only 16 years later. To put this into perspective: the Legally Blonde movie came out 22 years ago, in 2001. Think about how many Legally Blonde memes are still floating around the web today, how fondly remembered this one movie is and how often it’s still referenced in contemporary media. Now consider that media produced during the Cold War was fresher in the cultural memory at the time of TF2′s release than Legally Blonde is for us today.

TF2 was never meant to be seen in a vacuum. It was always meant to be in conversation with old media that it expected everyone playing to be extremely familiar with.

I'll say that again: the cast of TF2 are based on Cold War stereotypes - comedically exaggerated - so they would clearly read as parodies to people in 2007.

Those are 3 different overlapping lenses to consider when approaching the characters.

The characters are more than just funny cartoon men with guns and an unusual amount of differing accents. They are commentary on older media trends.

Now, someone might ask - why did the developers choose this specific aesthetic and tone for their online shooter video game?

The developers have stated multiple reasons, including wanting the characters to be immediately recognizable both physically (they generally look like the stereotypical depictions they're based on) and audibly (the differing accents and regional dialects make it easy to identify which class is yelling in your ear mid-combat during gameplay).

However, I also have another theory:

It's been confirmed TF2's comedic tone was designed to combat a lot of negative aspects of shooters in the genre at the time of its creation. I have seen developers discuss that they were going for a lighthearted atmosphere to discourage player hostility.

I, personally, also think it is extremely likely the developers opted for satirizing old war propaganda partially in order to combat the tendency of other shooters often being war propaganda. Valve has always been a politically left-leaning company, with a history of depicting military-like forces and unchecked capitalism in a negative light (see the Half-Life and Portal series, respectively).

By depicting the cast of TF2 as generally unhinged, illogical and clownish, they were able to communicate to players: "War is dumb, nationalism is dumb, whatever Call of Duty has been telling you is cool is actually illogical and copying it makes you look like like an idiot. That being said, we all sometimes wish we could beat the shit out of other people in the desert with a shovel, so let's get our aggressions out in a safe, non-serious environment with no consequences. Come play pretend you're a murderous sadist blowing up equally unhinged people with us, it's silly, but it's so fun."

I believe everything from the cartoonishly over-the-top, non-permanent deaths to the deserted, remote environments, to the lack of any truly innocent or defenseless characters was all a carefully crafted foundation made to encourage players to make the informed decision to leave their inhibitions and moral hangups at the door. They wanted players to have fun and go nuts engaging in military-like violence, without encouraging pro-military attitudes in their playerbase.

For an example of a game that royally screwed up doing the same thing, just look at Overwatch - it tried to preach a "wholesome" vibe that was completely mismatched with its gameplay. Overwatch tries to justify extreme violence as Okay When Good Guys Do It To Bad Guys, which ... yeah, again, that is straight up modern military propaganda, on purpose or not (and knowing the US military’s tendency to pour money into video games that glorify war, “on purpose” isn’t as much of a stretch as one might think). Paradoxically, TF2 comes out both looking and feeling better to play, because it handles aligning player emotions VS in-game actions much more elegantly. It accounts for common pitfalls in its genre. OW jumps into those pitfalls with both legs and instead ends up looking shallow and nauseatingly twee.

Of course, all of this is personal speculation. Whether or not this was the reading that Valve intended, I do believe it's a big reason why TF2 has remained so profoundly loveable over the years - it uses its writing and art direction to put the player in the perfect mindspace to Fuck Shit Up.

It's a fantastic example of how to carefully and artfully craft something extremely stupid for maximum intended effect. It uses the strengths of comedy as a genre to its absolute fullest.

Unfortunately, because of cultural shifts since the game's release, newer fans do end up missing out on a lot of what makes this game so expertly done. Many newer fans don't come into the game with the base cultural knowledge it expected of its original audience. To gain a better grasp on the characters and enjoy this piece of media as it was intended, I think it will be extremely helpful to familiarize yourself with the material it is referencing.

For an introduction to media produced and influenced by the Cold War, I would recommend the Wikipedia article Culture during the Cold War as a starting point.

(I have skimmed, but not read, the full article; I encourage readers to be especially source-critical when engaging with pages like this that detail themes of history and propaganda - it's a starting point, not a finish line!)

>2) What themes/layers do you feel the fandom has lost sight of, over time? (or never really managed to acknowledge to begin with?)

Some of this is covered in the previous section, but I'll use this question as an opportunity to talk about another thing I feel is overlooked by fans (and, frankly, the writers of the newer comics too), especially when creating fanworks:

The fact that the characters are extremely dependent on their setup and narrative context to be likeable.

Something I think fandom culture struggles with in general is interpreting and handling fictional characters not as real, independent people who exist in a vacuum, but as the sum total of countless moving parts inside a narrative all working together to create the impression of a real person.

In a comedy, characters are especially dependent on presentation to feel like themselves. It is not enough to loyally recreate an arbitrary list of personality traits in order to create accurate fanworks - recreating the sorts of situations they get into, the kinds of people they interact with, and cherry-picking the information they have access to is neccessary for bringing out what makes the characters so charming!

This is especially important when interpreting and handling a cast made up exclusively of characters who are mean people with bad intentions, bad opinions and a complete lack of adequate self-reflection across the board.

Canon makes them all come off amazingly likeable, but this is because the writers were manipulating tone, relationship dynamics, setting, and much more to show off the characters at their most distinct, least detestable and absolute funniest.

Overlooking this aspect of writing comedy characters often leads to a very common pitfall in many, many fandoms out there - following the logic of a character's canon personality to a place they don't like, and getting rid of those personality traits to combat their own discomfort.

Making characters too kind, too understanding, too progressive, etc., is an endless source of micharacterization in fandoms in general, but especially in fandoms of media where the characters are a bunch of dicks in canon.

To be clear, I fully understand where this is coming from. Fans get attached to characters like these because they're funny (and intended to be loved!) - realizing that a character you really like would logically react in an unlikeable way if you put them into certain situations feels bad. No one wants to turn a character they love into something they find they don't love anymore.

But this is where carefully engineering your setup and narrative comes into play.

Example:

A lot of TF2 fans are queer. Queers flock to TF2 because let’s face it, the campy vibes and silly fun masculinity and weird women are like catnip to us.

But a lot of queer fans go into the fandom aspect of the game and find that ... wait, shit, these characters are not exactly pillars of progressiveness. Reconciling some of the extremist political views of the characters with queer narratives, with queer values, seems a daunting task to some. Because what’s a queer fan to do? Portray a character they love in a way that makes them unloveable? Painstakingly depict shitty, uncomfortable characterization in the name of “realism” that ultimately detracts from their own and other people’s enjoyment of the story? That’s not fun. Fandom is supposed to be fun. So, what, do they just portray the characters as miraculously having perfectly amicable social politics by the standards of the larger queer community in 2023?

Some do, of course, for their own comfort, and it’s understandable, but it’s not good storytelling. It’s an excessively shallow way of interacting with media - the fanfiction equivalent of confidently sitting down to write an in-depth, flowery review of a horror movie you watched with your hands over your eyes during all the scary parts. You cannot create fanworks that are even remotely faithful to the spirit of the canon while deliberately ignoring the core themes and author intention of the canon you’re working with. These things are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive. TF2 characters are meant to be wrong about most things politically. Hopefully my reply to the first question in this post adequately illustrates why that’s so important.

But the good news is that bastardizing canon in order to avoid making characters unlikeable also isn’t necessary.

There’s a reason Soldier, in canon mocks his enemies for everything from failing at masculinity to being disabled, yet doesn’t have a single homophobic line:

The people writing his lines figured it would detract from the character. It would hurt real people’s feelings and make the character less fun to play as, so they didn’t include it. No excuses, no explanation; it is simply omitted for the sake of likeability.

(For contrast, notice that the writers did not extend the same kindness to certain other minorities, like fat people - playing as Heavy fucking sucks when you’re fat, because every other class hurls fatphobic abuse at him. This is a fuck-up on the writers’ side; they failed to identify this type of humor as meaningfully detracting from the experience for a significant amount of players, and so ignorantly decided to include it.)

This is what I mean by “setup and narrative context.” I also like to call this “maneuvering”, because it involves selectively portraying a character in contexts and situations where they shine and instill the intended audience reaction, while steering them away from situations where they would logically act in ways that counteract how the audience is intended to feel about them.

Fanworks can absolutely do the same thing! Fanworks can even take the technique further, because they’re not bound by limited time and focus, the way the original work is!

Sticking with the above example of wondering What The Hell To Do when portraying a character who, due to the ideal he’s satirizing, should by all rights be on the wrong side of history in relation to queer rights, let me make a bold statement:

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic. He's a nationalist, a right-winger, a sexist, a xenophobe - but he's not homophobic.

Why? Because he just so happens to never encounter any gay people in canon. They happen to never cross his mind. He's thinking about other shit. If there's a Pride riot in Teufort, he just so happens to be looking the other way.

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic, because he can't think for himself. He's an idea, a fraction of a bigger narrative that he does not exist outside of.

And if he needs to encounter gay people in a fanfiction, don’t just passively follow the logic of his character to that uncomfortable place none of us enjoy going to - use that maneuvering! Make him misinformed, make him misunderstand, give him incomplete information - the character is not only a face with personality traits attached, his soul is also in the context of the story!

Make him homophobic, but he's pretty sure only Europeans can be gay (just look at them!), and it's already so damn sad that they weren't born in beautiful, paradisical AMERICA, so he pities them instead of hating them. Make him think he's successfully being homophobic, but he has misunderstood what a gay person is and thinks it's a particularly venomous type of snake (men who kiss other men are fine, why would he care about that when there are HORRIBLE HOMOSEXUALS slithering around in the desert that he needs to go blow up right now before they bring this glorious nation to ruin). Make him homophobic, but literally "phobic" - he's shaking and crying hiding inside a cupboard, and his newly-outed gay friends have to lure him out with canned meat and a trail of small American flags, treating him like a feral cat that needs a little time and space to get used to people.

That's funny. It's likeable, it's charming. He isn't portrayed as a good person, or woke in a way that clashes with the themes of his character, but with a little maneuvering, he is faithful to what makes him such a legendary character in canon - being a silly caricature that brings us joy.

If Soldier himself needs to be gay? There are ways to make it happen. Same approach. Get creative. Make it silly. Go for thematically appropriate comedic explanations, not cop-outs or realism*.

That is what I think the TF2 fandom is lacking - understanding of how to manipulate context to make a character feel like their own unique, lovable selves.

Characters are not just visuals and personality traits. They are also what happens to them, what they conveniently find out, what they happen to miss.

This is the same for every story, but it is especially important to understand in a comedy. Doubly so in a whimsical, hyper-violent, morbid comedy like TF2.

It's one of the most important layers to be able to recognize, and an even more important one to be willing to try to recreate.

*Unless you feel like doing a deliberate deconstruction, in which case, go ham, sometimes actively engaging with canon means doing some real weird stuff to it to make a certain point on a meta level. This is obviously different from the issues I described above.

>3) "even the newer official comics don't even seem to really "get" the original game" … I've had a nagging sense for years now that the TF2 comics don't really match the game, tonally -- which has admittedly soured my enjoyment of them -- but I've never been able to put two and two together and fully determine why that is. What would you say they've failed to "get" about the work they're based off of?

While I very much love the newer comics on their own merits, I do think they are wildly removed from the game, and lack a lot of depth by comparison.

I believe the greatest failing of the comics, especially the long-form comic, is that the writers do not seem to be aware of either of the subjects I covered above.

They do not handle the satirical aspect well. The newer comic writers don't even really seem to be aware that there is a satirical aspect - they treat the world as just a silly version of mid-1900′s media, with a narrow focus on silver age comics (which were primarily superhero comics, not an easy genre to match with TF2′s more grounded setting - see the comic’s limp attempt at doing a Superman parody with Sniper) + a dash of the Man’s Life magazines (would have been a good match, if not for the fact that it’s primarily used as aesthetics, with no attention given to themes the way the game does with its own media references). They attempt to write parody only, and even the parody aspect is a hollow effort. Crucially, the writers don't seem to have much of an opinion of the old media properties they're parodying, and without opinions to guide a parody, it becomes shallow and lifeless. "Mid-1900′s media was a bit silly, right?" isn't enough of a hot take to justify its existence. It needs an axis on which to spin to feel complete.

Reiterating the point I made in my answer to question 1: the game's satirical aspect circled the point that was "American media made during the Cold War pushed a narrative that was illogical and ridiculously misaligned with reality."

Its absurd humor is grounded in reality and follows a thematic red thread that the comic does not. As a result, the comic (again, primarily later entries) loses a lot of the sting and edge of the game.

Even though the comic attempts to be more serious and "dark" at certain points, the much more silly and easy-going game (and Meet the Team videos, not to mention) comes out looking more mature, interesting and layered, even though many of the layers remain subtextual. The game is fully married to comedy and has no intention of "getting real", but it is loyal to the spirit of satire. It has opinions. It has bite.

In the game and early supplementary material, there is a dread and horror in the subtext that the comics tried to bring to light later on, but the comic writers didn't know what the scary thing behind the curtain was.

The scary thing was - is - the Cold War.

The scary thing is the dread injected into the genre it's satirizing by people who wanted American readers and movie-goers to be afraid. Scaring people into compliance, into finding a sense of safety and comfort in their national identity, was the entire purpose of many, many pieces of media released at the time.

The comic writers didn't notice the subtext and figured they had to make up their own reasons for why the world of TF2 is so utterly fucked.

They didn't understand the cultural context, and they missed the mark entirely.

This also hindered the comic writers' ability to reproduce the game's humor and characterization. Without understanding where exactly the game's humor was coming from or why the characters were so likeable despite being horrible people, they lacked direction. They made the characters at the same time too impassionate, too stupid, too uncaring, and too nice. All together, the characters became less interesting, less likeable.

Example:

- In the game, Spy was not intended to be Scout's father. Spy having a relationship with Scout's mother emphasized Spy's craftiness and intelligence (undermining the enemy team not only through brute force, but through infiltrating their personal lives), and showed off the strengths of his aforementioned "softness" and sentimentality (he's the only mercenary shown to have consistent luck with women). It also emphasized the flaws in Scout's worldview, and his status as the team underdog, and showed a clear contrast to Scout's non-existent love life. Spy came out of the situation funny and likeable because he 1. was portrayed as cool and capable in a way the other mercs aren't, and 2. his softer side is simultaneously humorously endearing, consistent with the rest of his characterization, and highly informed by the satirical aspect of his character in a way that clicks perfectly thematically. Scout comes out of the situation likeable because his ego is balanced out by his bad luck - you can simultaneously see that he's trying too hard and why he's trying too hard. Spy and Scout's dynamic in-game is also fun and interesting, because you have a tough, hyper-violent, wannabe-macho young man who is desperate to gain the respect of both his team and his enemies getting freaking owned by a guy who is nowhere near the impressive-tough-guy ideal Scout strives to embody. The game's satirical points inform the characters and their actions, which gives the comedy depth and nuance, which in turn makes all characters involved fun to watch and easy to get invested in. It is the establishing of and subsequent pointing-and-laughing-at an ideal that produces engaging, character-driven comedy in this situation.

- By contrast, the comics decided that Spy was Scout's father. Spy's motives for getting involved with Scout's mother is no longer about gaining intel on his enemies. In this version of events, his motives are reduced to merely wanting to reconnect with an old flame. This completely undermines the dynamic described above, for multiple reasons: the situation no longer shows Spy as having a particular skillset that sets him apart from the other mercs, he is no longer portrayed as emotionally "softer" than the others (in fact, having left a poor woman to raise and feed 8 kids on her own while he was off enjoying his upperclass life makes him look incredibly cold in a way that is distinctly unfunny; I don’t think the writers thought this part through), Scout's comedic poor luck is no longer on display, and the "macho character is humiliated by the type of guy he respects the least" satirical aspect no longer works. There is an attempt to replace it with a mutual "ugh, I'm related to this guy?" running gag, but it's a very pale substitute for the layered, strongly characterized, thematically appropriate dynamic present in the original game. Spy comes out of it looking like more of a cowardly, cold-hearted fuck-up than a hilariously brilliant tactician with a heart. Scout comes off way too pitiable, because he is not responsible for his own misery here, and the person horribly bullying him and picking apart his self-esteem on the battlefield is his absent father who abandoned him as a child. He's not an objectively badass character who nonetheless fucks himself over in humorous ways trying to chase an ideal that objectively sucks - he's just a regular shitty guy who ended up in bad circumstances because of things outside of his control.

The comic writers didn't understand what Spy and Scout respectively represented in the game, and because of this, they didn't realize they were taking the characters off the rails and making them much less interesting as a result. They didn't realize they were killing off an endless source of comedy that supported the game's satirical angle in a fun, unique, dynamic way.

It resulted in a flat, flavorless subplot. It had some superficial attempts at "heartwarming" moments ...

... but here's my take: if the writers wanted to include more warmth and sincerity in the comics, wouldn't it have been way more heartwarming if Spy started treating Scout as his son even though he wasn't?

Would it not have been way more endearing to see him look out for his girlfriend's child, not because he has any personal ties to him himself, but because he knew if anything happened to Scout, his mother would be devastated?

Why not build from there? Why not make it an active choice? Why not preserve the existing dynamic and themes, and just follow that narrative thread to its logical conclusion?

Spy has an established sentimental side. Scout is desperate for approval. The reluctant surrogate father/son development practically writes itself. It would have been such a good way to explore TF2's themes more explicitly, too!

But again, the comic writers did not seem to realize the game even had themes.

I do like the newer comics. I do think they're really fun, and I did even enjoy the "Spy is Scout's father" subplot in its own way. But this complete inability to identify the game's themes, and thus the source of all its comedy, and thus the red thread defining characterization - it resulted in supplemental material that was lackluster, directionless and unable to scratch the same itch the game does.

They're good comics, but they're hardly TF2 comics.

>4a) … Sheerly out of curiosity, how do you feel Expiration Date holds up, in comparison?

Similar to the way I dislike Spy being revealed to be Scout’s biological father for coming off as a stilted, superficial attempt at being “heartwarming,” I also immensely dislike later supplementary material trying to promote Ms. Pauling to Scout’s recurring love interest for the exact same reason. Expiration Date pushes this subplot way past its breaking point and shows off extremely well why the “jerk characters are secretly a bunch of softies” treatment is so deeply, deeply out of place in TF2.

Back in the early comics, Scout hitting on Miss Pauling was played as a joke at his expense. He was an idiotic, sexist guy incapable of talking to a pretty woman without trying to fuck - she was a highly skilled and deviously manipulative minor character who mostly existed to show off how dangerously competent the Administrator and her people were. Scout acting like an utter dumbass too entrenched in his own limited worldview to notice what was happening right in front of him was important characterization for him, Miss Pauling’s quiet, calculating efficiency was important characterization for her boss, and their clashing personalities set the tone for the dynamic between the entire team of mercenaries and the conspiracy going on right under their noses.

Expiration Date chose to eliminate these layers and invent a completely new conflict for these two specific characters to go play with in a corner, which had nothing to do with their original characterization or the larger plot. Scout is now portrayed as being genuinely in love with Pauling, even noticing small details about her mannerisms and knowing about some of her interests, even though the entire point of their original interactions were that Scout was so busy trying to live his tough-guy-with-a-pretty-girl-on-his-arm fantasy he did not bother to listen to or learn anything about the women unfortunate enough to cross his path, allowing Pauling to carry out her job without causing suspicion.

Instead, Scout’s sexist approach to interacting with women is played for sympathy (”he’s actually a romantic underdog because the lady he likes accurately clocked him as an idiot!”) and inadvertently validated (”once she gave him a chance, she found out he’s actually a pretty okay guy!”).

In the process, Miss Pauling loses far too much of her usual competence, being visibly freaked out over having to perform a job she’s been shown to handle with grace in the past, and being taken aback by what should by all rights be routine weirdness in this world, all so she can have an eye-roll-worthy forced positive reaction to the entire experience at the end of the short, in a weak attempt to justify why she comes to like Scout more despite all the trouble he’s caused for her and wants to spend more time with him in the future.

The romance subplot is only made possible because the characters are heavily edited compared to their past portrayals, is only able to develop in the direction it does by aligning itself with the values of a character who existed to be a laughable, obviously-mistaken caricature, and is only able to distill a happy ending to the whole mess by stripping the other character of personal standards and agency.

Scout and Pauling are frankly two halves of a whole shitshow in Expiration Date, because the writers either didn’t notice or didn’t care about what older works were gunning for - all they saw was that Boy Liked Girl, Girl Did Not Like Boy, and that just wouldn’t stand! After all, everyone likes romance, right?

Scout, as he is portrayed in the game and in the early supplementary material, is one of my absolute favorites of the mercs. I find him incredibly funny, and the way his hyperactive, fun-loving, jokey traits overlap with his intense bloodlust (literally - he’s the class with the most weapons available that cause bleed damage!) and barely-suppressed rage makes him fun and fascinating. The little man has so much unchecked ADHD and cultural trauma he just has to go and kill people about it, which is just so intensely relatable in the “forbidden mood” way TF2 handles so well.

Unfortunately, I get the impression he has in later years fallen victim to the curse of being a skinny young white guy character, making him a target for writers who think every series needs a relatable everyman protagonist for either themselves or the audience to project onto (and who think skinny young white guys are the most relatable people around, for reasons you can probably imagine I’m not personally very fond of).

TF2 absolutely does not need a character like that, and butchering Scout’s established personality in the name of “relatable” and “wholesome” is first of all Some Bullshit, and second of all a lost cause. The character simply has too much baggage as an over-the-top caricature to be comfortably rewired into an author- or audience-surrogate. He’s always going to come out looking like an asshole - whether this aspect of his character turns out likeable or unlikeable is entirely controlled by whether the story itself acknowledges it.

I did find Scout and Spy's dynamic to be quite well done, though, especially if you ignore the "Spy is Scout's father" reveal from the later comics.

The idea that Spy didn't have to go and do all that, but has grown a soft spot for Scout purely because his girlfriend clearly loves her incredibly annoying boy and her happiness is his happiness, is perfectly in-character. Scout has also long been established to desperately crave approval from his teammates, and on paper, the idea of putting him in a situation where he had to let go of some of his macho man dignity, imitate Spy more closely and ultimately win a tiny bit of that approval he's been looking for is interesting and plays well with the game's existing themes.

It's just a shame Scout's motivations ended up being conjured out of thin air, in direct conflict with past characterization, for the purpose of enabling a schmaltzy, tonally dissonant romantic subplot.

tl;dr, I'm conflicted on the subject of Expiration Date. It's funny, it's cute when it's not trying too hard, and seeing the mercs dick around off the clock getting into stupid shenanigans together is something I've always wanted to see in a longer animated format. It’s largely a good time and a fun watch, despite its questionable gender politics and trope-y execution.

However, like the newer comics, it suffers immensely from writers who are simply unable to identify the themes, characterization and comedy style of older material, and thus, in my opinion, falls way, way short of its potential.

>4b) I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on Emesis Blue, should you end up watching it.

I'll be sure to share my opinions if I ever get around to watching it!! I'm super curious about it. As I mentioned in another post, what little I've heard of it seems much more on-point thematically, and even with the characters being so far removed from their official characterization, I really get the impression this is a deliberate, informed choice, in stark contrast to the newer official supplementary material. I’ll be sure to drop some words on it if I ever get around to watching the full thing!

Anyway, that about wraps up my thoughts! If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking with it, and please do consider reblogging - I’ve spent an insane amount of time writing and re-writing and fact-checking this, and I would love for it to reach just half of all the people who were curious about my initial posts on the subject. :’)

Follow-up questions are very welcome, though to be clear: I’m not really interested in “debating” the subjects I’ve talked about here. I know I posit a lot of hard opinions in this post and not everyone is going to agree with me and that’s fine - if you feel differently, I invite you to simply ignore me and write your own take on your own blog. No hard feelings, I just don’t enjoy those kinds of discussions. (Corrections on any factual mistakes I’ve made are of course encouraged).

#team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 analysis #tf2 meta #tf2 comics #soldier tf2 #spy tf2 #analyzing comedy #analyzing satire #deerchatter

[starflungwaddledee]

Ok so I read awtdy au stuff in order according to a link you made and it gave me so many questions.

Like when exactly did they swap in the new timeline? Because it can’t be from their beginnings as Meta wouldn’t be sealed for the being too powerful like Galacta was so unless you can give another reason for the sealing then Meta shouldn’t be sealed if it was at that time. And other times have other complications due to be not being swapped from the beginning.

I know Gooey’s definitely dead because come on we know how Galacta’s been raising Kirby and while I am mildly displeased at Galacta causing the death of what I consider a very interesting character I know it definitely happens.

I know Necrodeus’s ambush on Kirby in the original time line definitely is a surprise for Galacta when it happens in the altered one as there is absolutely no reason for him to know it happens because why would he. He wasn’t summoned during the events of the game and who would know it that ambush happens? Marx definitely doesn’t know because come on why would he. Bandana dee probably know about from what Kirby told him during the original but as during the ambush no one was with Kirby; Bandana dee wouldn’t know what exactly happened like the exact when or where.

Does Stardream and other Ancient made stuff know of the timeline altering? Because I personally find it kinda weird if they don’t remember and that Galacta doesn’t use this chance to get another wish for something.

I hope that Galacta since he is more ruthless doesn’t kill Kracko after Kirby fights him. Because the Kracko has a kid named Kracko Jr. I am kinda finding some humor in that Galacta, the guy with a attack that has heart shape on it, is so heartless. Anyways I have liked the story.

okay, this is a pretty long ask with a lot of questions; i'll answer what i can! to start with, here's a basic timeline breakdown which will hopefully help:

the rest will be mostly text answers with one little drawing at the end!

when did they swap? how did meta knight get sealed?

during the events of the haltmann invasion. there is a little bit of wifflewaffle 'what's canon' here, but we adjusted the canon ending of robobot a tiny bit to allow galacta knight to appear (as he does in Meta Knightmare Returns) and for him to defeat meta knight and make a wish on star dream. galacta knight wished for them to trade places; for meta knight to go into the crystal and for himself to be sent to popstar to enjoy meta knight's life. he did this to ensure his own escape and also to make meta knight suffer. strength, power, or being 'the greatest warrior in the galaxy' didn't factor into this in any way; the crystal is a magical prison and doesn't care who it's holding.

is ____ character dead?

probably. sorry. this is not a lighthearted AU and galacta knight purposefully seeks out and eliminates kirby's allies in order to isolate him. there is a happy "everybody lives" ending, but if the (mostly temporary) existence of all this character death or the absence of your specific faves for any reason upsets you, then you do not need to read this au! gooey in particular was actually already asked after in the comments section of this post! <- (cw: lying and psychological manipulation)

what about (events in non-mainline games)?

this au is dreamland four centric (+ magolor) and tends to follow the mainline games more than others. none the less, in response to Mass Attack in particular: this occurs right before galacta knight's entry point. so there's a chance that it would have been over before he even got there

would galacta knight know about (event)?

i really like the attention to detail you thought about on whether he is or isn't summoned or present in certain in-game timelines! however for the sake of this au, there is a headcanon in place that galacta knight exists atemporally and outside of time, and has done for longer than many people can fathom. he can see and interact with events from timelines and dimensions to his liking; he was inhibited on doing this by being trapped in the crystal this is implied a little in the ending of the another dimension fight comic, where he tells meta knight "to watch". from within the crystal, meta knight can see all of this new timeline unfolding, because the crystal is turning him into an atemporal being as well. there is also a specific connection between him and galacta knight at play, but rest assured; galacta knight is simply obsessed with meta knight's timeline and if he had arrived before necrodeus's ambush he would most certainly have been expecting it and would probably have just not let kirby take a nap that day.

what about what other characters know?

bandee knows what he's experienced first hand, and what kirby's told him. so sure, he'd know about necrodeus- and other adventures before his time- second hand from kirby. marx (who is not present in base awtdy au) is also caught up by the "here's the new rules of the universe! this guy was always here!" that occurs when galacta knight assumes meta knight's place. however, he is capable of noticing that meta knight is missing because meta knight is part of galactic nova's timeline, and so he can put two and two together. if the wish had removed anyone else, marx would not have been able to tell. he is however very smart and extremely attentive, and does have ways to notice other shit happening; which is how he clues in during the clockwork heart variant of this au.

galacta knight heart motifs vs heartlessness

not really a question but yeah, it's delicious isn't it? this is why i love him as an eldritch, unfathomably relentless and unstoppable villain lmao. i actually find the version of him we have created in our heads so compelling and interesting; we have bucketloads of characterisation for him if anyone's ever interested!

wouldn't galacta knight try to get another wish?

have never said he is not trying to do this

does stardream or any other ancient made stuff know about the timeline altering?

the answers to this are important actually and tie into our headcanons for the wishing stars and how they work. stardream knows because it powered the wish. galactic nova does not know because the wish was not made by her; also she just doesn't care. several other ancient artifacts don't know, but have the means to figure it out. some definitely remember better times, though:

#asks #awtdy au #that's right! i can even make the *sentient objects* sad!!! #no being nor thing is safe. anyway mwahaha etc.

[paris-geller-was-straightwashed]

M*A*S*H 4077 & DND

guess who started their m*a*s*h rewatch around the same time they've gotten into d&d and now cannot stop thinking about the utter chaos and hyjinks of The Gang trying to play a campaign. it starts with none of them really super into fantasy roleplay, but they're all So Fucking Bored they might as well play to have something to do.

it started off imaging just what role they'd each play, but now I couldn't stop myself from imaging each person's race, class, AND, just for fun, the dice they'd use!

hawkeye: isn't that bothered about races, probably either an elf or just a human. class is paladin, relating the paladin's 'call for good' something like the oath doctors take to always help and heal patients, no matter what (and, let's be honest, probably feeds into his egotistical nature at being a naturally skilled surgeon, as if he was 'called'). cannot be Asked to care about ability scores (only to deeply regret it when he's nearly off'd the first battle) except for pouring most of his points into charisma. mostly likely of the party to Fuck his way out of a confrontation (no matter the other's gender #bihawkrights). spends most of the campaign messing around and forgetting what his spells are, but when the party hits a serious battle, is the first to throw himself in and use any spells to help his friends before himself. originally wasn't that interested in the game, but overtime becomes one of the ones who gets really into it, screaming across the board at ppl's bad roles and cheering & trying to pick ppl up in glee when they win. dice of choice:

(just the most wack-ass coloured dice I could find, metaphor for the inside of his brain (also this way he can tell if anyone tries to conceal any as theirs)).

radar: while interested in the fantasy stuff (being a comic reader), was a little intimidated with all the math & rules involved until hawkeye and bj convince him. part of me thinks he could be a halfling or dwarf, but then I think he might enjoy being a humanoid creature like a minotaur (farm boy) or a satyr bc of his love of animals. class is bard, where he carries/plays the drum. enjoys and gets really into the story, but is always flummoxed when it comes to the battles, asking what everyone else thinks his character should do (only for everyone to yell back several different answers). always needs a couple of seconds of mental math to add his modifier to dice rolls (me too radar) but when the party comes across a riddle or puzzle, is usually the first to figure it out. keeps trying to pick up small creatures to put them in his sack. is not allowed to talk while people make their roles bc of too many times where he's predicted the number before they can read the dice (the moment of hawkeye's saving role during a Big Bad battle was kind of ruined when radar elatedly jumped up at the nat20 before the dice even left hawk's hand). dice of choice:

(cute little puppers!)

margaret: at first is staunchly against it, calling it childs' play, but eventually is worn down by hawk & bj and is also so bored, she gives in. thought she might be an elf, but in the end chooses genasi, picking fire power. chooses the fighter class, leaving hawkeye to make a remark that gets a dice thrown at his head. doesn't really get super into the meta of the game or the story (often tells the dm to get on with it and cut to the action) but does love to play, where it overtime becomes a good outlet for anger ('the demon tries to approach you, margaret what do you-' 'I SLICE OFF HIS KNEECAPS WITH MY BATTLEAXE!'). is a good player until the roles don't go her way ('you only rolled a 10, so your attack doesn't hit-' 'SCREW YOU! KLINGER GIVE ME YOUR 18 ROLE!'). is pretending like she isn't having fun but everyone can see through her. dice of choice:

(these seemed the most like margaret, elegant but not too girly).

henry: is also peer-pressured into joining. picks barbarian class so he doesn't have to think about spells. tries to pick human bc all the other races were 'too complicated' but got told due to his class, he has to pick a more built character like an orc, so an orc he ends up being. but he's bad at it, often either trying to escape a battle or by being a peacemaker, trying to persuade the monster out of battle but with such a low charisma score, it usually ends up with him getting clonked over the head and margaret jumping in before he's killed. keeps trying to give his gold to poor peasants they meet along the way. doesn't understand any of the mechanics. rolls so many nat1's that nobody will switch dice with him anymore, thinking his are cursed. the game is often more stressful for him then not, but he enjoys the time with his friends. dice of choice:

(I dunno, for some reason when I think of henry I think of a dark orange/amber).

potter: prolongs joining, thinking he's too old for it, but is also peer-pressured and eventually caves, thinking it'll be good for morale. chooses dwarf and for his class to be an old wizard. doesn't understand half the rules, spends most of the time muttering under his breath as he goes over the manual, radar (un)helpfully leaning in beside him to explain. but once he gets the hang of it is a good team member; is the only other person besides margaret to take the hints and puzzles seriously and without him (+her) the party would probably be making circles lost in some boundless woods somewhere. cheers his teammates on when they make a high roll or powerful move and only occasionally has outbursts ('well colonial sir, you need a 16 or higher to cast-' 'MULE FRITTERS! I said cast magic missile and that's an order!!!"). dice of choice:

(same thing - when I think of potter, I think a dark blue).

charles: the last of the group to get into it. completely refused and repeated that 'he was far too smart for that kids' stuff' and everyone was wasting their time. but when someone had to dip out of the campaign last minute to deal with a medical thing, charles was brought in as filler with the promise of a day's R&R. at first I thought high elf, but switched to dragonborne, of the noble variety of course. chooses sorcerer (blessed with some innate magic, as his ego prefers). constantly complains about the needless complexity of the rules and why bother having ability scores when it's the modifier that counts???? is always arguing with the dm on his rolls. uses up half of his turns to use mage hand to steal hawkeye's things or cast ray of sickness on him when he's being annoying - but, when it comes down to it, is one of the more strategic players and has gotten them out of many sticky situations. like margaret, is pretending he isn't having fun, but isn't immune to jumping up with the others over a saving nat20 role, at one time even excitedly picking up a confused radar. in the end, swallows his pride to shyly ask if he can join the party finally ('you know, it'll, uh..it will give me something to do during those boring intervals, and clearly this group needs all the brains it can get..' '..charles, you wanna come play with us?' 'well, if I must..'). dice of choice:

(the snootiest of dice, a pure gold colour).

mulcahy: also initially intimidated by the mechanics, but is happy to play a game with his friends. a possible half-elf or maybe a wise owlin. cleric, obviously. gets invested in the storyline, often applauding the dm's story or asking 'what happens next???" only to be told to wait till the next meet. one of the few who has actual healing spells and probably the only reason everyone didn't die in their first battle. a nerd who enjoys solving the puzzles. actually gets into the lore and one time had a deep, 2 hr conversation with radar & hawkeye about the disenfranchisement of some of the races and the hierarchy of the class/rule structure within the fantasy realm, and how it relates to theirs. the next day, radar came to his tent to show him a little sketch he did of his character in cleric robes, shrugging it off, but mulcahy loved it so much he pinned it up on his tent walls. dice of choice:

(inspired by one of my favourite mulcahy lines, when he's talking about missing holding services in real churches - 'I am rather fond of stained glass', which I always think of whenever I see stained windows. tried to pick the ones that emulated the colours best (also would've liked maybe a light, forest green colour; it just feels mulcahy-esque to me).

klinger: one of the first to join bc what else what he gunna do but sit in his tent, sewing up pantyhose? rogue class, of course, relating to the 'urchin' background. changeling race, so that way with his class he can hide at any moment, and also, as he says, 'can perfectly match his outfit no matter what he looks like!' tries to follow the storyline but doesn't have the attention span for it, half the time guessing the wrong answer to any clue or puzzle (will come and poke the dm awake in the middle of the night with his patrol gun, claiming to have figured it out). second after hawkeye to try and Fuck his way out of a situation. cannot do math to save his life, making margaret often rip his dice away from him to add it herself. will gang up with hawkeye to use his pickpocket skill on charles. resourceful enough to have tricked the villains multiple times and gotten away with it but will also roll to try and kick the villain in the nuts to see what happens. dice of choice:

(these just screamed klinger to me; I like the dark, 'masculine' colour contrasted with with the colourful flowers).

bj: thought I missed him? well, I saved the best for last bc bj...is the dm! ha ha! no one really in particular stood out, but after thinking on it, he seems like the best fit. first, I was thinking of the episode 'the kids' where he gets really into the story he's telling, full of voices and sound affects and all. and secondly, our kindly mustacheo'd doctor loves Mind Games and pranks - what better way then stringing his friends along into one big, zigzag puzzle? bj loves nothing more then having his friends on the edge of their seats, only to pull out a bad guy the group thought they got rid of months ago, glee in his eyes watching them combust into screaming and table flipping. getting a thrill during off hours, hearing hawkeye & charles hastily whisper across bunks to each other on the campaign thinking he can't hear them, or getting shaken awake by margaret in the middle of the night, demanding answers. he spends hours planning out the campaigns in the tent (and finding new places to hide his papers from hawkeye), sometimes writing peg about it and occasionally - if the timing of the mail is right - using her suggestions she writes back. but mostly, bj just loves watching his friends have a good time - cheering each other on and hollering with each battle won, feeling proud of them for everything accomplished (when he doesn't have to babysit hawkeye & charles from casting spells on each other, trying to answer radar's 49th question on how rolls work, or keep margaret from solo fighting the demon fifteen levels above her). dice of choice:

(idk, these just feel 'bj hunnicutt' to me).

other camp members: - frank: was only let in Once after margaret begged hawk & bj, saying it was only fair. initially picked human bc 'they're clearly the purest and most civilized race!!' (causing eyerolls), quit thirty minutes in after being told he couldn't be a fighter 'cause they already had margaret and that he couldn't just 'set all his abilities to 20', calling them all nerds and angrily throwing a d20, only for it to bounce back on the tent beam and hit him in the eye. - some of the nurses have occasionally filled in, but otherwise don't play outside of margaret (most of their time was filled up with hawkeye using his character to flirt with theirs). one time nurse kellye filled in; she played a cute little halfling druid, and her and radar teamed up to help rescue all the forest animals, much to the groups chagrin. - zale & igor: permanently banned. both tried to eat the dice on a dare.

campaigns are held twice a month in the swamp, with drinks and stale pretzels to go around. use to sometimes go all night but after one too many nights of clambering arguments over each other's rolls, the whole camp banded together to force a curfew. while the game only exists within the swamp's quarters, they'll once and a while jokingly call each other by their character's names (and if you're margaret, one time accidentally using it to call hawkeye to surgery, which he now never lets you live down). during the last campaign of the story, radar pulls out another drawing he did - this time of everyone's characters, standing valiantly over the dragon they slayed. it now has a place of honour hung in the swamp.

#m*a*s*h #mash 4077 #mash tv show #hawkeye pierce #bj hunnicutt #radar o'reilly #maxwell klinger #margaret houlihan #charles emerson winchester iii #sherman potter #henry blake #father mulcahy #does that cover everyone? #no reason adding frank don't think anyone is searching his tag #and yes I know I forgot trapper #sorry to all the trapper girlies out there but he was never my favourite and I didn't really know what to say about him #but if anyone has any you're welcome to add on! #even for characters I've already mentioned I'd love to hear about more Shenanigans (tm) #dnd headcanon #please know that I have a bare-surface understanding of dnd so if anything sounds wrong..that's why

[shortpplfedup]

Only Friends Character Rankings Episode 10

We're in the final act now, as Jojo n'em focus on 'Redemption'. Last week y'all tapped Nick as the most honest in reckoning with himself, and now it's everybody else's turn for a reckoning.

🔺1. Boeing (2)

You're totally his type. Like an upgraded version of me.

Walk in, fuck shit up, that's the Boeing way, and I am GAGGING for it. I don't have a clue who the target is or what his game is or exactly but he is playing it EXPERTLY. Is he trying to get Top back? Is he trying to get back at Top? Where does next week's Sand diversion fit in? DID HE AND MEW REVENGE FUCK I NEED TO KNOW?! (I ALSO NEED TO SEE!).

🔻2. Nick (1)

Don't we deserve each other?

Nikolai my stalker baby, why did my heart swell three sizes when you got your man? Honesty remains the best policy, and owning your own shit is a fast track to understanding and accepting others. Nick tried, he genuinely gave Daddy Dan an honest and fair chance, and it COULD have been something, but the heart wants what it wants and Nick's heart wants Boston. The look on his face when he saw his photo as Boston's lockscreen, the way he BAWLED when Boston admitted he missed him...peak romance I tell you.

🔺3. Boston (4)

I don't usually take good care of what I own.

I'm not really meta-ing about this show, but the PRECISION with which Jojo n'em sliced and diced the audience's slut-shaming ways via this character got me. I am INCANDESCENT on Boston's behalf that his so-called friends were so willing to believe Atom's nasty little lies. Because Boston might be a slut, and he might have gone a little Top crazy, and he might stir up some drama when he's feeling some typa way, but he's not a sexual predator, and HE DOESN'T LIE. And despite it all people who call themselves friends to him SHOULD know that. He shouldn't have fucked Atom yes, but Atom straight up asked to get fucked. Boston DOES have lessons to learn about controlling his impulses and filtering the things that come out of his mouth, but these hypocrites ain't the ones to teach him. I'm glad that Nick got over himself last week just in time to be there when Boston truly needed him, and I hope that if they decide to try a relationship that Nick keeps the letting-Boston-be-Boston energy he's discovered.

⭐4. Ray's Dad

Ray's Dad in his one prior appearance seemed like a man at the end of his rope, and I'm glad my thinking was borne out. This story keeps telling us that nobody is a monster, nobody is a villain, everybody is just a person, and Ray's dad is a person like all the rest of them: he cared about his wife, he's watched helplessly and increasingly angrily as his son went down the same path, but he didn't know how to get through to him because he's limited, as we all are, so he did a lot of the wrong thing. I don't think paying Sand to get Ray into rehab was the wrong thing though, that was the act of a desperate man. Him giving Ray the straight dope about how to treat people was a long overdue fatherly lesson. Has he been neglectful? Indubitably. But I'm rooting for him.

🔻5. Sand (3)

Do you think I’m a man with no dignity?

Sand is the beneficiary of me being salty about Mew and Ray joining the 'I saw Goodie Proctor with the devil' mini-mob, but I could have TOLD him that a man who continuously and repeatedly calls you a whore is going to believe the absolute worst about you when the chips are down. I'm lowkey mad he gave back the money, because Ray is gonna call him a whore whether or not he's getting paid. I know Sand lives for the drama sparkle Ray brings to his otherwise dull life, but come ON dude.

🔺6. Mew (7)

If you blow it again this time, I'll blame myself for being dumb enough to trust you.

Mew joining in the fun with Boeing is probably gonna bite him somehow but right now I am LIVINGGGGG. Mew keeping Top up at night staring at the ceiling on a regular basis is the only way I'm gonna truly enjoy them being together, because game recognising game is my favourite brand of toxic relationship. If these two spend the next 50 years trying to get one over on each other I will be so satisfied.

🔻7. Ray (5)

I'm not addicted to alcohol. I can stop whenever I want.

Ray spending the entire episode in various stages of denial, his irritation with the idea of rehab and refusal to take it seriously, that explosion that was ALWAYS coming at Sand, and his final, quiet realisation that he has a fucking problem and he needs to fix it to stop hurting the people around him was phenomenal television, anchored by a bravura performance by Khaotung. Ray is gonna have a lot of amends to make once he starts drying out, including saying everything he said to his therapist directly to Sand. Can he truly change? Let's see.

🔻8. Top (6)

I'm sure if he stops being mad at me, we can make it long-term.

I finally figured out why no matter what I'll NEVER like Top and he doesn't pass the vibe check: his instincts and reactions are to lie, hide and cheat when he doesn't feel on top of things. He and Boeing may not be fuckin', but whatever is going on there smells like deceit and mendacity, and he is DESPERATE to hide it from Mew. The look on his face when Boeing is around is exactly how he looked around Boston after that car. Give me an honest slut over whatever this is any day of the week and twice on Sundays. I keep saying that Mew is part of Top's self-actualization, and the way he talks about him with Boeing in this ep just adds fuel to my fire. Is that enough to sustain a long-lasting and successful relationship, absolutely, so many couples are JUST like this.

🔺9. Cheum (12)

Find your own way to graduate. And we will forget we were once friends with you.

OOH this girl pisses me off. Having finally decided to mind the business that pays her, mostly because she's annoyed Atom seems to prefer talking to Boston than talking to her, she's all too willing to believe Atom's lies about Boston and run up pointing her j'accuse finger. I genuinely can't get over how UGLY that scene at Boston's was, how Cheum pulled out some of the same shit that gets levelled at queer men, promiscuous or not, and threw it all at Boston. When she said she didn't believe that Atom was the aggressor because he likes girls, that hit me in the fucking chest. Boston must have done something to Atom. He must have coerced him, blackmailed him, forced him, right? It's so grotesque.

🔻10. Atom (9)

Getting my heart broken by a girl won't kill me.

Speaking of grotesque, what a nasty bit of business this was. Hurt people hurt people, that's kind of the whole ethos of this show, and the lies Atom told were designed to ruin Boston's life like he feels Boston ruined his by GIVING HIM EXACTLY WHAT HE ASKED FOR. I very much doubt Atom is gonna stop at Cheum too, he's out to destroy, and spreading around this kind of shit about somebody who's already judged for being 1) queer and 2) promiscuous is absolutely destructive. This shit was the vilest thing anybody has done on this show by a country mile.

#only friends the series #bless this mess #only friends weekly character rankings #i support gay wrongs #only friends #only friends series #bl meta series

[utilitycaster]

Eh, I doubt this will stop them but I'll cover the alleged hypocrisy since they appear to be harassing other people as well before going to bed.

[description: reblog from harassing-little-hypocrite. The real question is why was the little hypocrite so upset about Imodna in the first place? There is only one answer to that question, and the little hypocrite refuses to give any reasonable alternative. Sure, it made sense to criticize Imodna before, it really left a lot to be desired. But now, there is a new ship that, at best, has all the problems Imodna had. Why is the little hypocrite a fan of one ship but has never stopped shitting on the other? What is different about them, really?]

I assume "little hypocrite" is referring to me, because it was a reblog of my post, but given the URL it might be the poster talking about themselves in the third person like Elmo does. Who can say, really.

Anyway, I agree, Imodna does leave a lot to be desired. I'm not upset; I think it's boring but it also only comes up for like two minutes every other episode.

What's different about Fearne and Ashton: To be clear, I don't consider this an OTP, I don't have strong investment in it being endgame, I absolutely don't expect it to be monogamous, and honestly if it jumped straight into Undying Devotion To Each Other next episode instead of making out and having more interesting conversations I'd be immediately turned off. But right now? They've had a conversation of substance, they discussed their goals in concrete ways, they've had a silly flirty thing going on with the stealing game throughout the campaign (even when I thought the fanon of the ship sucked - which I still do - I felt a hookup would be fun but anything deeper would be contrived), and, perhaps most crucially, they can express frustrations with each other. My issue with Imodna has always been that they have the same boring-ass conversation in slightly different configurations over and over, the two potentially interesting conflicts they had fizzled out like a cheap whoopie cushion, and god, I'm so bored. Fearne and Ashton have conflict. That's the main thing I've wanted from Imodna - I've said that repeatedly - and they've failed to deliver. That's the difference.

Anyone can look through my blog and find plenty of other F/F ships I've enjoyed greatly; I happen to dislike this particular one. There's plenty of straight ships I think suck as well. It's deeply irresponsible to co-opt the language of social justice over stupid fandom wank; you sure aren't helping lesbians in any material way through this, that's for certain, if this is what I considered fun I'd develop literally any other hobby, and it does not really worry me what you think of me given that you don't know me in real life and as such have no basis to pass such judgments with authority.

It's interesting that for a ship where so many shippers seem desperate for more approval from the fandom, multiple Imodna shippers like you are simultaneously out here asking the question "what if I made myself as unpleasant as possible?" (I know you say you find it leaves a lot to be desired, but given that you're specifically mad that I like a different ship more than Imodna...yeah, sure.) Not sure if you're the old fandom bottom-feeder or a new one, but man, people who were neutral on Imodna have begun to sour on it because it's getting a reputation for being the ship of choice for clowns like you, and it's only going to keep getting worse, and people who prefer other things are going to just keep blocking you and write meta and fic for their ships and you'll get less and less.

#cr spoilers #anyway if this person bothers you...sorry about that pls block and report etc etc i'm going to sleep

[profoundlyfaded]

[Meta] Why I adore Gale

I know I’m not the only one but it’s been a long time since I’ve felt such a massive connection to a fictional character and I wanted to share some insight to this -

His opening line as an Origin play through is ‘where in the blazes am I?’ And it’s so painfully British, it beautiful. We’re masters of understatement and self deprecation, and this is just a moment of classic understatement. Personally, I’m more of a ‘WTF is this shit?’ kinda lass but I’m pretty sweary.

Which leads onto his non-Origin introduction - firstly the ‘that flaming wreckage behind you….’ line and the snark about knitting the tadpole a cap (don’t have anyone else in your party to get this line) are just pure saltiness. Nothing rude but the snark is divine.

His intelligence and the mass of knowledge he has tucked into that brain of his. I wasn’t a particularly gifted child, but as an adult I’ve been able to nurture my level of intelligence and engage with continuous learning. I really do appreciate a character who is like this, he enjoys learning, wants to continue learning and to me that is a god tier trait for anyone.

The complexity of his storyline and character arc. It’s a deeply moving story and he’s a character of immense depth. It’s very easy to pass him off as a know it all Wizard, but the rewards come as you start to build his trust and the story comes out. I prefer delaying this a little which is very difficult when I go in to play Ayressa because she’s very much aligned to him (not on purpose cos I didn’t know anything about Gale when I created her in my first play through). The whole trust building across all the characters is good as a whole.

The gentleness of character, and his ability to be openly loving - the way he talks about Tara is something that is often uncommon in male characters. His devotion to his mother is very sweet as well, but it’s not cringy. I love that she’s alive and well. Also the way he treats children across the game - if you speak to Withers as him about Arabella, he offers to be her guide to help her with The Weave.

He wants to teach. Okay, he says his former apprentices are pains but overall, he wants to teach.

Books. One of my fave interactions is at the end of Act Two when you have the interaction that is ‘you nearly died, and you want to go shopping?’ ‘Book shopping, but yes.’ I so relate to this - very sadly, I nearly died in 2015, not from a desire to self denote in the name of my goddess but the first thing I wanted was new books. For me it’s my save haven, books, book shops.

Not knowing his worth because I don’t always know my worth and it resonates with me. I get a lot of compliments at work, and I’m considered very good at what I do - but even being told that, it doesn’t stick and Gale is the same. He knows, but he doesn’t know deep down. So much of him is a mask.

His love of the night. He’s an all-nighter type of guy. I love his appreciation of the night and its quietness, the ability to read all night. It’s my quiet time, when the hecticness of the day washes away and noise of the rest of the world has gone to sleep.

Gosh… I’m not sure it even completes the list.

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #meta musings #baldur's gate 3 #bg3

[cyber-corp]

2023: The year of all time

This felt like the first year post-COVID where things really kicked into high gear for me personally. My new year's resolution was that I would go out and have fun for once.

And had fun I did.

I did some voicework reading for a story podcast, I went to a bunch of amazing concerts (nothing beats seeing Weird Al for my birthday!), and I sorted out a bunch of RL stuff and put a neat little bow on it. Thank goodness.

But fuck all that sappy shit: Here's a small collection of things I really enjoyed this year!

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: An excellent sequel to a seemingly unfollow-uppable first film. Takes everything from ITSV, and amps it up to twenty with a stunning visual style, a sonically fitting soundtrack, and a meta-commentary on the nature of Spider-Man's character and whether they really deserve all the tragedy thrown at them.

Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe: The guys who made Pud did another show, this time with funding from the Australian Government! While stripped back in its setting, they continue to provide the same stupid bullshit that put me into laughing fits as they did with their Netflix show. Haven't they done well.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: I think when people heard about "An animated Scott Pilgrim show with the live-action cast and Edgar Wright producing", they did not expect "A proper dissection of Ramona Flowers' character and her motivations, as well as her own journey of forgiving the Evil Exes. Also lots of yaoi." Scott Pilgrim continues to dominate as the premier "guy learns not to be a shithead" franchise.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live in Accor Stadium: The Peppers prove their pertained power as performers by playing the purest psalms in their prospectus from the past 35 years (eugh, what a mouthful). Flea came out, did a 30-second handstand, waved and said hello to the moon and then got up some people littering in the crowd. Their life is more than just a read-through.

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You: I had absolutely no clue who Caroline was before I listened to this album. I now realise that she might just be the person that pop needs right now. A soaring collection of songs destined to become classics down the line, like a greatest hits compilation that doesn't exist. We're all on Caroline's island, and we ain't leaving.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk: I kept my eye on this game as it was developing, and it was absolutely worth it to see it come through in the end. Satisfying gameplay that requires you to learn how to combo to progress, an addicting artstyle inspired by Y2K, and the soundtrack. Holy fuck the soundtrack. I just can't get enuf.

Weird Al Yankovic - TUROTRSIIIVT: Man, what a title. Emu Phillips come out swinging with jokes I did not expect, and then Weird Al comes out aggressively swinging, with all the songs you don't know him for. He then did a polka melody of his parodies, did a ritual halfway through, and then ended the concert on a high note. Only the best from Strange Alfred.

Doctor Who 2023 Specials: That bastard David Tennant returning led me down the rabbit hole known as watching Doctor Who, and did it ever pay off more than these specials. A trans woman saves the day and the Doctor realises he's bi, black, and needs therapy. A magnificent close on a chapter of one of the greatest sci-fis ever, and a bright step into the future.

The Hyperfixation of the Year award goes to none other than

Homestuck, everyone's favourite webcomic! Everyone's.

And I think that's partly because I joined this website to begin with. I probably say this all the time, but leaving Reddit was probably the best decision I could have made at that time. As much as I reminisce, the communities I was in began to get a little stale. Same jokes, same shitposts, a different day. Tumblr in some strange way, is not that. It feels less like a big communal website and more like a collection of small towns spread across a large spot of land. Calm and village-like, you know?

So to all my mutuals, my followers, to the people that liked and reboggled my stinky posts, to all that offered mealworms and crickets in my askbox, thank you. "Gecko Boy" might just be a silly lil joke in the grand scheme of things, but it's a fun joke to play into.

Whatever comes next year, I know I've got the energy to keep going. Have a good 2024 everybody. <3

#WHOOF this is long #across the spiderverse #aunty donna #scott pilgrim takes off #red hot chili peppers #caroline polachek #weird al yankovic #bomb rush cyberfunk #doctor who #homestuck #year in review #2023 #i AM a lil gecko boy. and nothing can change that fact #reddit #tumblr #gecko boy #long post

[ladycibia]

LadyCibia I absolutely adore all your chibi art, especially your chibi Witcher series! Your recent art with the book versions of the characters made me so happy because the Witcher books have less of a fandom online than the Netflix show and the games so I love when people make art/meta/fic, etc. about them. What were your favorite scenes/parts of the books?

What a lovely message, thank you very much!! ; v ; 💛💛💛 I'm so happy you're enjoying them! Let me offer you a silly doodle inspired by my favourite short story and then I'll answer your question under the cut X3

The first thing that came to my mind after reading your question was Dandelion charming his way into Brokilon Forest to find Geralt, so of course there's that. Then, if we're talking about the main plot (so from Blood of Elves to Lady of the Lake), my favourite scenes are basically all the ones featuring Geralt's hansa, ahah! But if I had to pick one, the fish soup chapter is probably my favourite. I'd also like to mention Dandelion and Yennefer's short exchange at the beginning of Blood of Elves (if I remember correctly?) and Ciri's training in Kaer Morhen, which, unfortunately, it's one of the reasons The Witcher Season 2 was a disappointment to me ;;

Main plot aside, I really appreciate short stories and "Monster of the Week" episodes, so I had a great time reading the first two books (especially because I love fairy tales and their twisted versions...despite the fact that some of them are already quite twisted on their own) and I really enjoyed Season of Storms! As you can see, my favourite short story is A Little Sacrifice, its ending always gets me (but I could read and re-read them all again and again without getting tired). I've recently bought the comic book adaptation of A Grain of Truth and I really hope more short stories will get adapted in the future!

#I didn't want to bore people so I remained quite vague but thank you so much for your question!! ;v; <3 #jaskier #jaskier dandelion #essi daven #geralt of rivia #dandelion #a little sacrifice #the witcher #the witcher books #the witcher fanart #do you recognize their outfits :))))) #chibi witchers saga #cibiart #mine:witcher

[mikkaeus]

house md fic recs — short fics (<10k). hilson + rarepairs

Other house rec lists: long fics | episode tags | postcanon | infidelity trope (all of these are mutually exclusive apart from the infidelity one)

highly recommend not skipping out on the non-hilson fics!! scroll to the end for a list of some really great ones. No huddy though because I'm not the biggest fan.

house/wilson and gen fic

I decided to just lump the gen fic together with the slash because really most of them can be read as slash with a G rating. Before we get into the fics, here are some notable authors that have written several house fics. Not all their fics are going to be listed individually, but if I have the author there I've read all or a lot of their stuff and enjoyed it, so I recommend going through their backlog.

otter: Some really excellent prose and great atmosphere. A little soft, a little pensive. And they nail the characterisation and dialogue.

ignaz: im sure everyone has read ignaz's longfic (a modest proposal and its sequel — the one where house and wilson get married so wilson cant testify against house in the tritter arc) but absolutely check out all their other stuff — it's all quality.

bironic: I really enjoy the bit of edge in bironic's fics. It makes them so yummy.

bethfrish: What stands out about their fics is how they peer into all the pointy edges of Wilson and Julie's relationship, thus making them excellent and unique Wilson character studies. Great prose and dialogue that rivals the show's.

Transformatron: fics that are transcendent and porny, all featuring a d/s undertone or theme (wilson as the dom)

astolat: if u dont know astolat idk what to say to u. just go read their fics.

blackmare (livejournal / ao3 pseud 1 / ao3 pseud 2 / lj pseud third_owl for slash fics i think) Does really great short fics (mostly gen) that slot into episodes. Like meta but in fic form. All of them are worth a read. Some of their fics are on ao3 but a lot aren't (like nearly all the episodic ones).

Namaste (livejournal / ff.net): Some short fics, some much longer ones. Mostly gen focussing on H&W friendship, with some fics on canon pairings. Interesting character studies and exceptionally discerning prose that is a pleasure to read.

In order of length. *faves, ***underrated faves

***Touch by zulu (<1k) (2007) The number of ways House could embarrass him with touches, Wilson thinks, is practically endless.

Silent Sigh by thedeadparrot (<1k) (2009) Wilson, autumn, melancholy, and House. Second person.

Heartbeats by thedeadparrot (<1k) (2009) Three moments in which House and Wilson are almost kind of functional.

No Pain by bironic (<1k) (2008) House finds a permanent solution to his pain problem and convinces Wilson to give him what he needs. Vampire fic! Frottage! hell yeah.

Also check out the sequel: No Mercy by daasgrrl (3k)

***The Game of Wilson: Six Cards in a Five Card Game by paradisecity (1k) (2006) If you're going to play a game like moving in together, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. Fun and snappy. Great dialogue.

*we're getting good at this by ad astra dean (1k) Wilson had a migraine. Established relationship. Soft and sweet and realistic esp after 8.19. fuck. Premium hurt/comfort.

**********three more stories by besselfcn (1k) The first time it happens is (New Orleans, 1991 | Albany, 2009 | Augusta, 2012) and they are (drunk | sober | out of time). This fic emotionally obliterated me. I’m obsessed with the format like it’s prose halfway to poetry, so creative and unique and well-executed??? I cried so much. I am UNWELL and immeasurably fucked up about them put me in my grave. (Yeah I said these lists were mutually exclusive but this fic is the exception bc idc)

The Awakening of Wils-Ankh-Amun, Royal Concubine by blackmare, Nightdog_barks, pwcorgigirl (1k) It was a rather unusual 'morning after.' This is hilarious. Reads like a classic prank episode. They're so dumb together I love them.

The One Where House Has Always Been a Woman by thedeadparrot (1k) (2009) Despite the hospital gossip, House is not, in fact, a man-hating lesbian. Genderswapped House but not Wilson.

Gray Morning by starlingthefool (1k) All he remembers is that the transition between a stupid joke and the meeting of mouths was almost seamless. Christmas fic that takes place one year after "Merry Little Christmas" (3.10).

Loser Day Blues by blackmare, Nightdog_Barks (1k) February fourteenth is just another day, and another evening in which Wilson winds up at House’s, although — this time — not for the usual reasons.

*indefinable by PaintedVanilla (1k) House can hear Wilson getting ready for bed; he can hear him brushing his teeth, undressing, being unusually quiet. Normally there’s a humming; a breathless energy that House won’t admit to loving about him. He doesn’t hear it tonight. It’s dead silent.

criteria by PaintedVanilla (2k) “I don’t think they know that we’re married.”

***We Live Together in a Photograph of Time by ignaz (2k) Wilson's hair curls when they're fucking. God I'm devastated. The ✨atmosphere✨. This is so in character. And can we talk about the banger title and summary??? I was gnawing my arm before I even opened the fic. Set in s4.

***Things To Do Before You Die by thedeadparrot (2k) In which Wilson turns thirty-eight and a half, thinks about kittens, and doesn't have a midlife crisis. But not necessarily in that order. Prank war with a twist. I’m so fond. Hits all the right cadences with the writing.

So Let Us Melt, and Make No Noise by ignaz (2k) (2007) "You kill patients all the time," House said. "You never stay at work until--" He peered at the clock. "--Four in the morning to make sure they're really dead."

***Curiosity by Namaste (2k) (2006) From Cameron's perspective. Fun character study of her and by extension House and the other two musketeers. Not shippy.

Welcomed Change by JammiesDodger (2k) A cute G-rated getting together fic.

Alone, Together by daasgrrl (2k) Finding new ways to be intimate.

*Keep Your Eyes Wide by deepimpact (2k) There is no specific amount of time passed, no big event, no one thing that Wilson can pin as the catalyst. Obsessed with this. Great atmosphere, excellent prose, and and everything feels authentic and in character. Set pre-season/s1.

***Carrion Eaters by ignaz House, in some indeterminate future or an alternate universe, from the perspective of a new hire. I really loved this story. It's sharp and sad, with great build up.

***Projection by bironic (2k) Remember Ali, that really pretty 17/18 year old clinic patient that was obsessed with House? This fic is Wilson's elaborate fantasy about fucking her, which is of course as much about House as it is her. Post 3.04.

***No Exchange of Payment by otter (2k) The gifts that House gives to Wilson. I adore this. It's about the little things. Otter has exceptional prose and always nails the characterisation, which makes their writing a real pleasure to read.

***All the Effects of Intoxication (3k) by otter This only happens when they're drunk. Just as yummy as that one-line description suggests. I love this a lot — the characterisation and dialogue are excellent and I think this scenario is very realistic for them.

Leave This Harbor for the Sea by otter (3k) House was never the kind of friend who'd help you move, even when he'd had two good legs, not to mention two good arms perfectly capable of lifting boxes. He'd always been the sort of friend who'd stop by while you were packing, make cutting remarks about the failures of your romantic relationships, and use all the half-filled boxes as an excuse to root through your things.

***the growing up, the falling down by riceonrye (3k for the series) Wilson is trying to buy a nice make-up present for his girlfriend, but there’s a guy in the shop with him brazenly shoplifting. Wilson, meet House. This is so good!!! I grinned like an idiot all the way through. It captures the throw-bottles-at-windows side of Wilson so well. A very cute AU of a different first meeting whilst still remaining true to the characters. Don't forget to read the sequel as well.

***never rains (but it pours) by Transformatron (3k) So... remember that episode where House can't pee? I present you some excellently written pisskink pwp. Nails the hilson dynamic, so even if piss isn't your thing, give it a go?

***Blind Spot by blackmare, Nightdog_Barks (3k) Wilson becomes blind after a head injury. genfic.

***Four Blocks South of Eden by bethfrish (3k) If you wanted paradise, you're a little off. I loved the tentative, slightly off-kilter feeling of this. Bang on characterisation, dialogue, and use of 2nd person POV (House). Set in s1 — Wilson's marriage is falling apart, and it leads to a night that could be the start of something new.

***Lie To Me by zulu (4k) It's terribly simple. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after. Exuberant ketamine summer House!!! Equal parts sexy and heartbreaking. Check out the sequel as well (1k).

Stumbling Towards Something Real by ignaz (4k) House and Wilson on holiday in Mexico. (A flagrant excuse for smut, basically.) I'm soft. In character and well-written.

Goes the Neighbourhood by Dee_Laundry (4k) One month into their permanent positions, the new fellows catch a case on the weekend and have to track House down.

***Easy by GoldStarGrl (4k) James Wilson is the easiest person in his dorm. At McGill. In all of eastern Canada, maybe. A fleshed-out version of their first meeting, as well as an insightful character study of Wilson. Slots nicely into canon, whether you believe in the "wilson has cheated on every wife with house" version or the "they fucked when they first met and never talked about it again" version. I really enjoyed this — they’re beautifully in character, and it's excellent writing.

***A Momentary Lapse of Reason by otter (5k) Wilson and Julie through House’s eyes, from the beginning to the end. Skips back and forth between the past and now. The quiet yearning!!! Also *standing on the table with a megaphone* have i mentioned how GORGEOUS otter's prose is??

*Blow the Candles Out by bethfrish (5k) Another year older, another year wiser, another divorce lurking just around the corner. So good!!! Wilson celebrates his birthday amongst the detritus of his marriage. The prose is really exceptional here. House's dialogue is also especially well done. It's a fun read that holds up well on a re-read.

***midnight rain by GoldStarGrl (5k) Wilson can't possibly know the pain. But he wants to. I am vibrating!!! Set precanon, in the aftermath of the infarction. Infidelity, spanking, hello??? Hot, vivid, excellent characterisation, excellent writing etc etc. A+ no notes.

***Through The Looking Glass (The Male Gaze Mashup) by zulu (5k) "If Wilson didn't know, great. What he didn't know couldn’t hurt him. If Wilson did know, it didn't matter, because if he hadn't berated House for it yet, then it was permission to continue." Interesting character study of Wilson and the way House slots into his life. Imaginative and fun descriptions. I did feel slightly lost at some points but it was still a great read. Excerpt: House tears open every envelope, even those addressed to Occupant, then brings back the well-read contents like a cat offering half-dead moles to its hunting-deficient human.

Empathy, Inc. by sassyjumper (5k) Cuddy hires a company that provides 'empathy training' to doctors. House reacts. Set in an earlier season.

***All's Fair In Love (and war) by Transformatron (6k) House and Wilson are enjoying the last day of their holiday when an urgent call comes through from Princeton-Plainsboro - a medical mystery that only House can solve. And he does intend to solve it, despite Wilson's best efforts to distract him. (Established relationship.) Wilson making House do a case whilst fucking him?? I'm an absolute sucker for this trope and I was delighted to find a fic with it.

A Towered Citadel by Namaste (7k) A differential diagnosis for Wilson’s serial cheating.

***And the Borders of Old Cities Get Redrawn by blackmare (7k) Continuation/canon divergence from 8.02 "Transplant". Ch1 is the most perfect episode tag I am vibrating . The way they fall back into their old rhythm!! House seeking out his touch like a cat and Wilson accepting it, even liking it!! The hints of pre-relationship are so delicious. (This is a rare slash fic from blackmare.) Ch2&3 are also absolutely brilliant!! Great characterisation, pacing, and tension-building.

A Voice in Ramah (Welcome to Holland) by ignaz (8k) Cuddy POV on her pregnancy journey. Diverges from the show. Really well done. ignaz did this topic and Cuddy's character justice. I also particularly liked House in this one.

Singapore by thedeadparrot (8k) (2009) In which the boys go to a medical conference in Singapore, House has a few surprises up his sleeve, and Wilson figures some things out.

*A Helping Hand by bironic (9k) Wilson has an unusually rough day and House decides (somewhat despite himself) to help. Things go further than he planned. A believable foray into non-platonic territory, set in between 2.22 (Forever) and 2.24 (No Reason). What better way to take your mind off your patients than a good-ol handjob between friends? Chuck in an absolutely delicious fucked-up overtone characteristic of them and we're golden.

Rarepairs

Chase/House

***pretty doctor by spqr (5k) AU where Chase is a hooker. House becomes obsessed with him after he off-handedly gives the correct differential diagnosis. spqr is an excellent writer that I've followed across multiple fandoms, and this fic did not disappoint. Well-written, great chemistry, hilarious. I could read 100k of this.

***atonement in the locker room after hours by missaa (2k) robert chase makes two mistakes in one day Tags: Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, degradation, God Complex, Catholic Guilt This is just as yummy as those tags make it sound. Someone needed to capitalise on the whole *waves hand vaguely* thing that Chase has going on and by god did this person rise to the occasion. Love the characterisation and the elegant prose, and the structure that flashes back and forth between two scenes. I'm insane!

Chase/Foreman Shoutout to ignaz who sold me on this pairing.

*Pretty Harsh (Confirmatory Testing Remix) by everybodylies (2k) Foreman might have flirted with Chase six months ago for like thirty seconds. Chase can't stop thinking about it.

***Two For The Road by ignaz (3k) For the first ever Foreman Fest, prompt 107 -- "after a break and enter gone wrong, Foreman and Chase are both sentenced to 300 hours of community service, which it looks like they're gonna spend picking up trash on the side of the road." Really solid writing (I mean it’s ignaz), believable characterisation and relationship building. I love them 💓💓💓 just overall a real pleasure to read. Also it's hilarious.

***Eric Foreman Doesn't Take It Up The Ass (But If He Did, It Might Happen Something Like This) by ignaz (6k)

Self-Defense, or The One Where Foreman Teaches Chase How to Throw a Punch by ignaz (1k)

Cameron/Foreman/Chase

Third Wheel Rolling by ignaz He's not jealous, but he's been the third wheel for so long that it's hard to tell the difference. Sexy + great characterisations.

Cuddy/Stacy

***Your Reflection and Mine by Starlingthefool (3k) Sweet, hot, well written.

Amber/Thirteen

***Hate (to the power of 13) by ijemanja (2k) (lj) Porny, with snappy writing and believable characterisations.

Hen Night by zulu (<1k) This is how breakups go. Amber's seen movies.

Release by zulu (1k) Wilson dies on the bus instead of Amber.

Chase/Wilson

Erase by bethfrish (<1k) Featuring a bar and crossdressing. Precanon. Second person, Wilson POV.

Patrick Bateman/Wilson

Just Like You, Only Worse by bethfrish (1k) Ok before you raise your eyebrows at the pairing, give it a chance. Bethfrish is an excellent writer. This fic is really a Wilson character study, and it's an interesting read. Second person POV Wilson, set in s1.

#house md #hilson #house x wilson #house fic rec #house md fic #house md fic rec #my rec list #please let me know fi there are any formatting issues or random chunks of text that shouldnt be there or whatever because tubmrl sucks #i spent way too much fucking time on these rec lists

[mintakablue]

cool details i noticed + things i loved in across the spiderverse

spoilers ahead!

i think the stylization of the different spiders was even more distinct in this movie than the last one! i like that when the camera is focused on certain characters, you get their aesthetic “bleed” into the world (e.g. gwen’s painterly strokes in her silhouette bleeding outwards, miles and his family having chromatic aberrations in theirs, manny’s chunkier outline, etc.)

i LOVE that the spot is miles’ nemesis for a couple different reasons. he aesthetically opposes how colorful miles’ world is, he is a “villain of the week” that peter parker originally faces off against rather than miles, the major inversion he gets (becoming black with white spots) kind of feeds into the underlying theme of asking who the good guys are--especially when we learn that miles would have been prowler in earth-42! obviously also the fact that he and miles are both anomalies is great. i also think it’s good meta humor to have made the bagel guy become the spot.

there’s also a bagel billboard above the spot’s apartment. in some ways very fortuitous that everything everywhere all at once related bagels to the multiverse.

the stylization of three side characters really stuck out to me--pavitr, ben reilly, and of course, hobie! i love pavitr and mumbattan, i think it was a good choice for the trailer and stylistically a really strong and complementary style to bridge miles’ transition into this aspect of the spiderverse. ben reilly’s stylization i love because it evokes the mobile spiderverse game that introduced a lot of people to some of the more obscure spiders. and DUH i love hobie’s style, you can really tell that they incorporated tons of actual britpunk influences in there. also let me not forget margo kess! she’s so cute in this i genuinely like that she’s a VR spider. i hope to god they make jokes about her being on the web. please.

on that note i do like that the prop design also retains obvious notes of which things belong to which spiders! hobie’s is obvious, but you also see it with gwen’s items. also i like that each spider has a different way of swinging through the air that’s more obvious in this one! gwen and pavitr both have an dancerlike quality to them, hobie’s is a little more erratic (anarchist), and miles of course is still figuring out how to nail some of those more tight swings, but he’s way cooler with being in freefall than any of the other spiders. also miguel using his claws instead of swinging and jess using her motorcycle were very cool! lots of aerial play in this one that i’m excited to watch again and follow the eyetrace for.

good moments with miles and his family! i almost always hate the moody teenager plot because it’s like. you don’t see why they even Should care about their family or the family is so overbearing you start just siding with the teenager, but this movie struck a really good balance there for me. also i just really really like that there are scenes where miles and his mom just speak spanish with each other :’) the rooftop party was so real to me. i am not Latine or live in ny, but i am Filipino and i have been at one million parties like that with my family. and those pink cake boxes from a small bakery that your parents like is iconic.

i genuinely enjoyed the commentary on faking the struggle to get into school LMFAO i think that’s very real for a subset of poc, but especially more affluent Black and Latine people.

OH YEAH miles cracks a joke about ATM machines and then pavitr (my king) cracks the same kind of joke about chai tea and naan bread. a bit of an old joke but hey the movie has been in production for 2.5 years and i do think it serves to highlight the way that spidermen crack the same joke. especially when after in the spiderverse HQ a ton of other spidermen crack the same kinds of jokes about spotting The Spot. across the spiderverse, spidermen are the same

pointing spiderman meme is terribly funny i will stand by that forever

more funny meta commentary about donald glover being people’s pick for miles’ voice and not becoming spiderman, so he’s the prowler--in the same way that miles, had he not become spiderman, would have been the prowler. more obvious is his appearance in mcu spiderman, but i still think it’s fun foreshadowing!

on foreshadowing, i think this movie does a great job of laying out a lot of those bits of information. starting off with highlighting earth-42 and making sure you know that sticks in your mind (and it’s also impossible to choose the number 42 and not evoke the cultural memory of hitchhiker’s guide lol), having the spot talk about how the spider came from a different earth, getting another glimpse at it, seeing miles’ earth number right in the splash screen, saying that the big spider device sends you back to your universe via DNA analysis + margo seeing the big EARTH-42 instead of earth-1610 on the screen. and then even in earth-42, the color palette is really different from 1610! 1610′s opposing color for miles is like a deep blue color (opposing his red suit accent), so 42 having a primarily green palette opposes the prowler’s purple accent!

not to mention that when miles pulls into his bedroom, you can see that he doesn’t have a drawing desk up (or his sashimi/supreme poster). i think it’s a sad little detail that the movie seems to imply that his mom didn’t notice a major change in his appearance (having a short afro instead of braids) is because she works so much she doesn’t see him that often :(

fun sound design in this movie! in the scene where miles-42 gets revealed as the prowler, you actually hear that growling sound effect first when miles-1610 gets tackled and then again twice: once we see miles-42 in shadow as the prowler, then when he says his name!

in fact there’s actually tons of fun sound design details! miguel gets a futuristic sting, gwen has like a full on leitmotif, miles has a short leitmotif which i believe is part of “what’s up danger” (i would need to go back and watch the movie a second time to really pick up on it), pavitr and hobie have their own musical instruments associated with them... and even the spider from earth-42 has its own sting! i might have misheard, but i actually also think hobie and pavitr’s “thwip” sounds are a little different than the standard ones!

i love when those little notes show up in the lower corner. very comic book! a lot of those details make me smile, i really feel like they cared a lot about evoking some of the writing styles of different spiderverse writers there

aesthetically and tangentially related, i like the sketchiness of some of the characters! it’s most obvious in the spot and the alternate universe vulture, but it’s such a neat visual trick. it also serves to give the spot an almost “unfinished” look while also giving him better volume. very excited to see the behind the scenes from the riggers/animators/3d artists

the idea of canon events is such a good one for spiderverse--i think it’s great! one of them that i’m almost certain they’ll bring up in the next one is that. um. gwen usually dies when spiderman is trying to save her. straight up i actually thought they were going to pull that one instead of officer singh dying after gayatri is falling! after all spider-gwen almost got shot, plus miles straight up almost drops her after he glitches out in mumbattan. sony please don’t break spider-gwen’s neck...

genuinely loved all the calls to different spidermen too! there’s like one really prominent shot of paperbag spiderman that made me and my sibling giggle. here’s how the fantastic four can still win

in that vein, i have at least Some prediction of what the spiderverse resolution will be? i can imagine that because miles is an anomaly, his canon event breaking might actually be permissible to some degree... perhaps only if he returns to his own earth? truly truly i cannot IMAGINE that they would make us watch his dad straight up die onscreen because like MAN we already watched his uncle die. that would be way too devastating... but obviously miles-42 and miles-1610 have a lot to say to each other about watching an older man in your life that you love die. i’m a little back and forth about the idea that miles was “destined” in some way to become the prowler in an alternate universe but i’m gonna put my faith in the team to not make it weird ykwim. seeing as they already slipped in commentary about the fact that like Yeah it’s partially because miles’ family has money in 1610 that he is even able to “stay out of trouble” i think there will be an interesting conversation to be had about class dynamics between miles-42 and miles-1610! i am like wildly excited for the next one, i have a lot of hope that it will be even more gorgeous than this movie was and will have the same depth of writing/foreshadowing!

lastly and i know i’m just saying this because to ME spiderman is a very trans character. but peter parker from spider-gwen’s universe was just taking his testosterone okay. and spider-gwen having that painterly pink blue and white as she was saying essentially “i want to live my life fully in my identity” was so... happy pride!!!

#spiderverse #across the spiderverse #spider man: across the spider verse #LOOONG post i have even more thoughts but i tried to condense them here if you can believe it