#it’s because i don’t make a lot of original posts so i usually assume new followers are spam

[flightlessangelwings]

While we’re in Latino Heritage Month, let’s stop assuming your reader doesn’t know/speak Spanish in your reader insert fics. Especially if you’re writing for Pedro’s, Oscar’s or other Latino characters please.

EDIT: After some criticism of how this was originally phrased, let me change it into a question/request instead- Can we as writers please try to be more inclusive with our reader insert fics so poc and others can feel represented and see themselves too? Including taking out a quick throwaway line about reader not understanding Spanish. (Keeping the original phrasing above so anyone who missed the post to begin with can still see how I originally phrased it)

If you have a throwaway line of “he said in Spanish that you didn’t understand” or something similar, just take it out. Have something like “you didn’t hear” instead and let the reader interpret how they want. Or use italics to indicate Spanish. Or have the translation right there without mention of anyone translating for them. Simple. Or if you don’t want to/feel you cannot change it, then please have something in with your warnings so Latinos/poc can skip it if they choose.

And let me tell you why this is so frustrating (even for me as someone who is not a fluent speaker). It’s because Latinos look to these characters and actors for representation. We see ourselves in them. And when you clearly do not have a Latino person in mind when writing, you’re saying we don’t belong here. In a space where we should feel welcomed and celebrated. Representation matters. Inclusivity matters. Please try to be more inclusive with reader fics so we can all enjoy and immerse ourselves in your writing.

ALSO EDITING TO ADD MORE FROM A REBLOG SO EVERYONE CAN SEE MY CLARIFICATION: (under a cut for length)

This is nothing new, poc have been asking for years now to be inclusive in fics and yet it’s still a battle. We’re not asking for a lot, and certainly not asking anyone to change their style or creativity or anything like that. Literally simple edits: take out the word “blush” don’t mention hair, don’t mention not understanding Spanish, not making reader blood related to a white character, etc. Literally tiny things that would not change the story at all but make a world of difference.

Here’s an example too: a few years ago it was not common for writers to label the gender of their reader as it was usually assumed the reader would be a woman. But, people advocated to label readers as f/m/gn/whatever to be more inclusive and asked writers to strive for gender neutral readers when possible so that more readers felt seen and welcome. Now it’s a common thing to do. Why is making the readers race ambiguous any different?

Yes sometimes posts like this come across harsh, but know that they’re not meant to be. Poc aren’t trying to demand anything, we just ask to broaden your langauge when writing reader insert so more can see themselves in your work. It’s incredibly frustrating to ask for inclusivity and be met with hostility and rudeness in return and a refusal to think about poc so yes sometimes the wording gets harsh out of that frustration. But I encourage y’all to focus on the message more and maybe think about why poc in fandom get snippy like this. We do need to have an open conversation, yes. Just look in the comments at the Latinos and poc who are upset by the exclusion and feel hurt by it. How you you white fans feel if roles were reversed and none of the fics included you? Not fun, right?

And to those who say write it yourself: I do. I’ve been a x reader writer for years now and I do strive for inclusivity in my work. But I’m only one person and this is bigger than any one person. This isn’t about what I personally find acceptable or what I personally what. It should be a collective effort among writers as a whole to strive to include as many as possible in their works and not white code your readers. It’s not about demanding writers write it a certain way, it’s about asking writers to consider others who don’t look like them who also want the immersion and the escape that your fic brings.

#inclusivity #pedro pascal #oscar isaac #pedro pascal fandom #oscar isaac fandom #joel miller x reader #miguel o’hara x reader #frankie morales x reader #santiago garcia x reader #javier peña x reader #marc spector x reader #steven grant x reader #jake lockely x reader #javi gutierrez x reader #marcus moreno x reader #marcus pike x reader #pero tovar x reader

[learnyouabiology]

Fun Fact: Hagfish Suffocate their Predators with a Cloud of Slime!

(This week featuring my own art, bc I got a new thing and I wanna USE IT)

Sometimes, I come across an animal that makes me go: “Huh. That seems like a fictional monstrosity, fit only for tabletop roleplaying games and fantasy novels. Except I guess this one is real! Weird!”

 The hagfish is one of those animals.

Hagfish are quite spooky to behold: Rather than looking like a fish, hagfish look more like scaleless, leathery-skinned worms with little tentacle-like things called barbells around what appears to be their mouth.

Except the polite little opening that you can see in the drawing above is not its mouth. That’s its nostril.

This is its mouth:

**SCREAM**

(ok that’s technically a tongue that has teeth on it, but it’s mouth-adjacent so I STAND BY MY STATEMENT). (drawing based on this picture from this paper)

THIS IS THE STUFF THAT NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OF (and I, for one, love it!)

You don’t need to worry too much about the hagfish’s nightmare mouth, though, since hagfish are pretty much only interested in eating things that are already dead (except maybe a few fish, so if you’re a fish, watch out, I guess). 

Plus, they can go more than 6 months without eating and can survive without oxygen for 36 hours, so that’s nice.

(it’s hard to tell, but this is 2 hagfish eating a dead rockfish, plus a third hagfish possibly taking a nap. They’re having a lovely time!) 

 These guys love a good whale carcass.

Hagfish are a type of jawless fish which are categorised into the class Myxini. They are the only known animals with a skull but no vertebral column and possess 4 “hearts”: a systemic heart in the usual place, a portal heart that’s beside the 1st heart, a cardinal heart in the head, and a caudal heart near the tail. Technically, only the first 2 are considered “true hearts”, but Whatever!  x

All of these things are very strange and wonderful, but the weirdest thing about hagfish, in my opinion, is possibly their most distinct feature.

They possess weaponized slime.

Remember that time a bunch of hagfish stole a car were dumped onto a highway in 2017? Everyone (human) was fine, but the slime was REAL (source: x). 

This slimey car crash occurred because hagfish excrete slime when disturbed (they caused the slime part, I mean. The crash itself was something else’s fault). Considering the fact that a single hagfish can excrete a maximum of 24 litres of slime (given ideal circumstances) and that there were roughly *checks notes* 13′000 hagfish in the truck, you could end up with around *does some math*... 312’000 litres of slime!

For reference, that’s equivalent to approximately 1’560 bathtubs full of slime. 

(my rough math can be found at the bottom of the post, if you’re curious).

That said, this crash probably didn’t feature 312′000 litres of actual slime. What the hagfish excretes is a relatively small amount of a substance which is a combination of mucus and long, thin proteins reminiscent of super-fine silk threads.

When this substance is mixed with water, it immediately expands 10′000 times its original volume!

The resulting slime is 99.996% water (source x). So, unless the truck was also carrying 312′000 litres of water to transport the hagfish in (which is doubtful), the slime probably wouldn’t have been able to reach that volume. (assuming they didn’t try to clean the mess up with water, which is... fully possible)

For my favourite demonstration of this, here’s an (admittedly old & grainy) video of someone transforming a beaker of water into a beaker of slime using a itty bit of mucus scraped from a hagfish.

(it’s cooler in the video, tbh)

What is all this slime even for? Well, mostly to protect the hagfish from predators! 

Imagine if you bit into a sandwich and then 24 litres of slime suddenly exploded into your mouth. That would suck. A lot. You probably wouldn’t even finish the sandwich! Probably. I don’t know your life.

Understandably, predatory fish also hate to have a mouthful of slime, except it’s even worse for them, because the slime quickly gets tangled in the fish’s gills, which are important for gas exchange (aka being alive). It is for this reason that hagfish generally don’t get eaten, it seems!

(Ha! That’ll teach you to try to eat in the ocean! i love this paper tbh) 

As far as I have been able to research, there are no recorded instances of hagfish being  successfully eaten in the wild (though we have seen predators make unsuccessful attempts, resulting in them having an extremely bad time!)

(Thriving. Moisturised. In their lane. x)

While the slime sticks to the predator, the hagfish has an easy way to get the slime off its own body: they simply tie themself into a knot, wiping away the slime, and then goes about their day, unphased.

This has been Fun Fact Friday, bringing you nightmare fuel in this, the fine season of Halloween!

I know that it’s September, but if the dollar store can say that it’s already Halloween season THEN SO CAN I DANG NABBIT.

(bonus of that fish getting pwned, just bc I LOVE those pictures:

(Corrected) math under the cut:

3′400kg of hagfish in the truck (source)

each adult hagfish is around 180-260g (source)

3′400 kg/0.260 kg = ~13′000 hagfish

one hagfish can produce “a teaspoon” of slime (~5 mL), which can expand “10′000 times” its original size when it hits water (~50′000 mL -> 50 L) (source)

This^ is wrong! It’s actually 24 L, max (new source x)

one average bathtub can hold ~200 L of water (source)

(24 L x 13′000 hagfish) / 200 L = 1’560 bathtubs

#hagfish #halloween #marine biology #science #biology #fish #fun fact #sciblr #science side of tumblr #adhd in STEM #STEM #fun fact friday

[feathered-serpents]

About an Atreus-lead game…

(Note: I originally wrote this for Reddit but it’s not gaining steam there because my god does Reddit hate this idea. But I spent too much time typing it out for it to get no eyes at all so fuck it. It’s getting posted here too. But it’s been copy pasted verbatim so that’s why the tone sounds different than what I usually post over here)

I’m admittedly a little surprise to see such negativity towards this idea, at least on Reddit. But I’ve realized by reading more posts about it that the people who don’t like the idea are picturing an entirely different game than the one I’m picturing.

So let’s talk about it

The main issue I’m seeing is people against the idea are imagining games lead by the exact same Atreus as the one that appears in Ragnarok. I’m not a game dev, but I am a storyteller, and I can tell you unequivocally that this would not be the case

Firstly, an Atreus-led game would almost certainly star an older Atreus. Probably an Atreus in his early twenties. If nothing else it’s just the most practical option if they plan on keeping Sunny Suljic as his actor. He’s already older than Atreus was in Ragnarok and it’ll probably be another year or two before Santa Monica is ready to record another hypothetical GOW game. Not that they can’t recast Atreus, I’d just be really surprised if they did.

This would give us an Atreus that’s a bit more experienced and fun to play for an entire game. While still being inexperienced enough to have a good arc and make lots of improvements over the course of the game.

Next, I see people saying they didn’t enjoy his gameplay during Ragnarok. I think assuming that his gameplay would be exactly the same in a solo game is a little short sighted. People are forgetting his gameplay is not MEANT to carry an entire game in Ragnarok. His segments are relatively short and more story focused than combat focused, at least when you compare it to the rest of the game. If he were to star in his own game, his gameplay would most likely be MASSIVELY expanded. In fact I think he has a ton of potential for fun mechanics in his own game:

Seeing as this franchise has Kratos fight with three different weapons each with unique gameplay, it’s super likely Atreus would get the same treatment. I could see him getting a more close-ranged weapon, think sword or something akin to it, as well as a medium ranged weapon like Kratos’ blades. If we leave the Norse lands with him (which I think we will) it’s likely these weapons will be from other cultures, and we’ll get to see very different designs and mechanics around them.

Secondly is magic. We know he has an affinity for it, but outside of runes the games don’t really have a in-depth spell casting system. This could change with an Atreus lead game, especially if it takes place when he’s a few years older. I could see him having learned more Giant magic in that time, and this could lead the way into some very cool gameplay. Combine that with leaving Midgard, and Atreus could be learning magic from all over. Imagine an Atreus game that takes him to Egypt, and he gets to learn the magic of that land. I think it would be SUPER fun!

Lastly, the mechanic I think has the most potential is shapeshifting. It’s his “Spartan Rage” ability now, but it’s still very new for him in Ragnarok. Loki in the mythos is a natural shapeshifter, he does it constantly, a more experienced Atreus might have that kind of control over his shapeshifting. I could see him learning new forms over the course of a game. Maybe some are story given and others you have to hunt for yourself. I’d imagine it’d work a bit like finding the keys to the other realms, some are given, but others you have to go out of your way to find. I imagine being able to pick between forms, if it stays his “special move” maybe you could select one like you select between the different types of Spartan Rage for Kratos. Each form with its own strengths and weaknesses in combat. Maybe it’s a mix of both, some forms you can access during normal gameplay and others are reserved for more intense moments. He could learn the forms of the new lands he goes to, turning into lions, elephants, even other mythical creatures of the lands. There is SO MUCH you could do with a shapeshifting system.

My point is, I see Atreus as a character ripe with potential for his own game, and am surprised to find people who don’t look past Ragnarok to see it. Obviously I didn’t mind his segments in the game, but I also play on story mode so that should give you an idea of how important combat is to me. Even so, I never thought what we saw in Ragnarok was all we’d ever get from him. This is a character who has just BARELY scratched the surface of his abilities and that shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly.

If you still don’t like the idea that’s fine. Kratos is great! But I think Atreus could be a very fun main character in his own game. If you read all this thank you and I’d love to hear what you think!

#god of war #god of war: ragnarok #god of war atreus #atreus #god of war Ragnarok

[coffee-at-annies]

@paintingtheice so I totally meant to post this yesterday and then fell asleep editing/adding on to this. This is not the essay on gendering Sidney Crosby we’ve talked about in dms it’s instead a different fandom essay that I started writing in my head half as a convo and then said fuck it essay time. @podcasts-8-my-heart this is also dedicated to you saying you’re proud of me for writing 2.5k+. I’m proud of you.

So I was thinking on my bus ride into work this morning (yesterday - yes it’s been a day this got long don’t look at me like that) about hrpf and SidGeno and some of the shifts I’ve seen fandom go through in my time following hockey. There are a million and one little reasons why things have changed and many of them can simply be chalked up to the passing of time; new information gets revealed, new events happen, roster turnover, and fandom/writer turnover. One thing that I think about a lot is when fic is set in relation to “canon.” The relationship with canon in hrpf is both deeper and more divorced than other fandom, but stay with me I’m gonna pull a bunch of words out my ass and hope it makes a lick of sense.

The first talking point/part of this thesis is recency bias. People are way more inclined to favor recent events over the past. You see this in the actual fandom with people reacting to losses or saying “we never win against [team]” when we have in fact won against that team as recent as last year. It’s this sort of bias that causes us as readers/writers to read something current and assume it’s always been this way and then experience cognitive dissonance with other depictions of the characters that are older or simply different. “He would not fucking say that.” Well once upon a time maybe he did. Maybe it’s out of character now, but back then it was the defining character study for how fandom understood him and you need to sit down and actually look at what people were saying. Maybe it was never in character but the author committed to being ooc and you can see how our understanding has drifted closer or farther away in the years since.

The second talking point is that when fandom isn’t reacting to current canon it has a tendency to latch on to specific parts of canon and not let go. I’m quantifying that as “events”. Fandom hates filler but it loves a plot point. In hprf in general and sidgeno specifically you see this in a lot of different ways. How many stories have been written about [insert team]’s cup run? The Olympics? I’ve read so many fics about 2015 Worlds despite never reading hrpf before 2016. We love an event. Do we actually care about every game of the season or tournament tho? Not really unless something specific to progress the plot or characterization happens. Geno visiting Sid at when they’re supposed to be enemies is more important than whoever Canada beat in the round robin.

Anyway this is all introductory backtracking because the original thrust of this essay was defining to myself the “when” that people write about. My brainstorming had it separated into the nebulous now, right fucking now when I (the author) wrote this, events events events, the vague future, the past aka when they were Youths™️, the generalized timeline (y’know, canon?) - usually characterized in hrpf by events, milestones, and team personnel, and timeline what timeline.

Are you saying to yourself, gee she just listed a bunch of stuff I hope she defines it. Well good for you, that’s literally the rest of this monster. Buckle up I’m about to say way more words. I do not think I’m 100% accurate perfect no notes. I’m sure parts of it are bullshit. But hey I’m gonna close my eyes and post it anyway.

1. [Nebulous Now] - Hey remember that paragraph on recency bias? Welcome to recency bias the fic setting. In my head, the nebulous now is +/- the last two or three years. It’s set around present day* or going back only as far as the author was engaged in fandom. You’ll probably know when it’s set based on team makeup, season highlights, major events, but it’s basically meant to be set now. It may care about schedules and specific details but reserves the right to throw it out the window if it feels like it. The problem with being set now is when you run across a fic that is 5, 10, 15 years old and is supposed to still be set in whatever the current year is.

*when the fic first started being written

2. [Right Fucking Now] There is nothing nebulous about when this fic was written or what it was written about. These are usually smaller fics** where inspiring event happened anywhere from the day the writer started writing to at most a month or two ago. Usually precipitated by X did Y in Z game against team A and got celebratory gangbanged in the locker room about it. (Y being goals, hat tricks, fights, ect.). You can’t get more specific than this baby. Fics set before/during/after a specific game fit here. All Star Game fics written around the All Star Break are here. Milestone events are here, for example Tanger and Geno’s 1K games. Fics written immediately in reaction to stuff like Contract-gate go here. Most playoff fic that references specific events or was written during the playoffs falls under here. The main clarifying point is it wasn’t written very long after the fact. Anything written now about last years All Star Game, Contract-Gate, Sid slutting it up at worlds and the Olympics, all fall under a different category. Which is a great segue to my next one.

** I said usually smaller but sometimes an author decides to write a big fic about the narrative arc of the season and we love them for it.

3. [Events Events Events] - This is probably the one that is the biggest broadest category and the one I have the hardest time narrowing down despite having more examples than I can shake a stick at. Simply put, this category is for fics that are concerned with a specific event, usually big, but sometimes small. This can be any event that stands out in a reader/author’s head. Generally the fic was written after the event happened from a place of knowing how everything shakes out in canon. These fics can feel different because the we walk in already knowing the start and stop and major events of the fic. From the reader’s perspective the event is over but the characters experiencing the event don’t know it.

SidGeno/Pens Examples include: World Juniors. The Olympics/the golden goal/Sochi. The cup runs are a subcategory unto themselves but the playoffs/finals are a big event. Major injuries like Geno’s knee surgery and Sid’s concussion. Duper’s retirement tends to be a foot note in cup run stories but it’s a small event. Trades def count since there are absolutely stories about the before/after of a trade. Vegas & Seattle Expansion Drafts. The lockouts (05 & 2012). I’m ignoring that the pandemic-stoppage is also under this cause I don’t like reading about it. Contract-gate is a recent example. Basically if you’re asking “hey does this event count as an event” the answer is probably yes because you’ve remembered it. If you can point to something specific on the timeline and zoom in on it then it counts.

***this one I keep tweaking it’s definition and I’m still not 100% happy. I just keep thinking about all the fic I’ve read in other fandoms that feel beholden to canon in ways that I end up bemoaning the lack of creativity. Nobody says it has to happen this exact way every time but authors who claim to hate that installment still faithfully recreate it every time.

So we’ve had now, and we’ve had the events that everyone (or just you) remember, what’s next is literally what’s next.

4. [Vague Future] - Quite literally 1, 5, 10, 20 years in the future. Next season fics. Retirement and post-retirement fics. Their kids getting drafted fic is this. Anything that makes you think further ahead than the end of the current season is probably in this category. It’s vague because who the heck knows if it ends up true or not. There is of course overlap with the Nebulous Now because its nebulous. Since everything is set vaguely now-ish, it’s hard to tell when now starts becoming the future. The season just started and all through the preseason I saw people talking about who they think is going win the cup this year. There’s so much hockey to be played still. The future is vague but it will eventually become now.

Also remember it’s all about perspective. There’s tons of movies set in the far distant future of the late 2010s and they don’t match up to our lived reality. Going back to the comment about cognitive dissonance, sometimes you aren’t writing about an event from a place of knowing; sometimes it’s just your best guess or heartfelt wish. It’s so easy to say “oh that’s an au” when maybe it wasn’t an au when it was written, maybe it was intended to be accurate to the author’s best guess. Sometimes fics from the past were set in the future but that time has been passed by life and going back to read them is weird but cool. It’s interesting to see where people thought the boys were going vs where they are. Who could have guessed the core would have careers this long or decorated but they have.

Speaking of writing from a place of knowing; this next one is sort of a subcategory of events, but was a specific enough setting of fic I wanted to call it out.

5. [Youth™️] - This is anything where they are children. It may be well research but for the most part it’s probably non-accurate outside of the broad stokes. It’s the prologue and chapter 1. Pre-canon and the first 20 minutes. Kid!fic. It’s all about the kids in this one. This is the start of the story and the time before that.

Hrpf examples include anything about juniors, Sid’s time at shattuck, and World Juniors. For SidGeno I’d probably include the 03 to 05 drafts. Can include Sid’s first year in the NHL and Geno’s flight from Russia and his first full year in the NHL (that’s the hard cutoff for me personally). You could potentially argue up to and including the 08 & 09 cup runs as like the climax of them being young NHL stars, and yeah sure I’m not a cop write whatever you want if it makes sense to you then it makes sense. I don’t think Sid getting drafted is a bad place to start a fic, especially if you’re doing an AU. There’s always a good argument to start at the beginning of the canon story.

I’m highlighting this because holy crud the number of fics I’ve seen from other fandoms that don’t even like the early material but start at movie 1 scene 1/book 1 chapter 1 anyway. It’s fanfic we don’t have to start at the beginning. You can, but its not necessary. I personally struggle with fics that don’t change anything in early canon but require you to read their version of it anyway, but I’m just one person. You do you.

This next one doesn’t have a snazzy name because look sometimes there’s a timeline and you wanna write something that encompasses it. If it’s granular I’d say you’re talking about Eventsx3 or Right Fucking Now. Overlaps with Youth™️ because you have to start somewhere and Nebulous Now because now is on the timeline. If there are expected events on the timeline like retirement from professional sports, that’s the vague future.

6. [Timeline] Sometimes authors want to care about the timeline or the fic is set over weeks, months, years. Most canons have a specific set timeline and hrpf is no different. However ours is actual literal years rather than something someone created and is thus easy to navigate. For my examples I’m generalizing over the span of months and years and then grouping by big events rather than calling out any one specific event.

[the early years] Anything from Sid’s first year to the 09 cup. Let’s be real here, most authors either write incredibly detailed fic about the whole timeline, or they’ll only write about Sid or Geno’s first full NHL years or the 08-09 cup runs. Everything else is usually glossed over. The babies era. Youth™️

Events include: Sid and Geno’s drafts. The 05 lockout. Geno fleeing Russia. Losing streaks. Mario’s return and retirement. Flower and Tanger getting called up. Sid living at Mario’s. Geno living with Gonch and learning English. Sid being named Captain. Hard cutoff is after the 07-08 and 08-09 cup runs.****

****You can argue that the 08 & 09 cup runs are their own subcategory but this is already long enough imo.

[post cup - international success and dead years] - the middle years. You’re probably only going to read event fic set during this time unless it was written in the nebulous now of those years.

Events include: the golden goal/2010 olympics. Sid’s concussion. Geno’s knee surgery. The 2012 lockout. Geno playing at home in Russia during the lockout. I think Geno & Ovi had a memorable All Star Game in here. Socchi Olympics. Worlds 2015.***** Tanger’s stroke. Olli’s cancer. Geno getting married. Trades include I wanna say Jordy, Talbo, Lazy. Gonch is in Dallas but I don’t remember if he was traded. This is also the spacetoaster era. Sid spending several years building a house only to move back in with Mario due to post-concussion syndrome.

*****Sid winning at worlds is I think the end of this era cause Worlds kicked off Sid’s “winning everything that he could possibly win” era.

[the sully era] The 15-16 & 16-17 cup wins against San Jose and Nashville. The threepeat attempt in 2018 with its second round loss to the capitals. The vegas draft followed several years later by the seattle draft. Geno had a kid. Once you get past the cup runs this really blends into the nebulous now. Maybe it’s cause I stopped reading fic religiously sometime between 2019 and 2021 but aside from the covid pandemic which I very much do not like reading about, there’s not much here to highlight other than player milestones and trades, but don’t worry Sid and Geno have had a bunch of milestones.

[modern pensblr] - The covid stoppage, pandemic-hockey, and now. Anything from 2020 to the current 2023-24 season. Very much the nebulous now but there’s tons of milestones for our two headed monster/core trio to celebrate.

Okay I know I just spent a while being very “general with specific” but this next category is for the people who just don’t care about anything I’ve talked about.

7. [Timeline what timeline] - This is the one where authors simply don’t care about the “when” of their setting. It’s an outgrowth of the nebulous now but it’s less tied to canon. It may reference a season but it doesn’t have to and will often ignore actual team makeup because “this is my fanfic and if I want to ignore that trade I can.” Non-hockey aus (one or both s/g) will often fall under this since you need to answer who is playing center for the Penguins if Sid drives the zamboni. Straight up aus are kinda here but I don’t think fics that are fully an au setting like a college frat or space au really counts for this conversation since the au comes with its own time period that is wholly divorced from canon outside of the cast of characters. This is also where fics that go “I’m going to write my own canon” belong (ie Geno is a flyer, what if Pens drafted Ovi instead of Geno, what if X player got traded to Y team and hooked up with Z player). Timeline can matter for some of those fics, but most of them only care as much as it makes sense to make the fic make sense. The important timeline information is that hockey is happening (or it’s the off season and hockey isn’t happening). These are the fics where the Pens are always conveniently playing Washington when Geno needs advice from Ovi or Vegas when Sid needs similar from Flower. As long as the fic is internally consistent what does it matter if you’ve forgotten this or that timeline detail such as setting a timeline in the first place. Hockey itself is so intertwined with the specific routines of a season that you can divorce that routine from reality and just have hockey. Fall becomes winter becomes spring becomes the playoffs, what more can an author ask for?

Done? Idk I’m out of words. Okay I love you for reading this far. Bye bye. Feel free to chime in in the notes if you’ve got your own ideas. I certainly don’t have a monopoly on thoughts and I’m not convinced I’m right either, just doing a deep think.

#chit chat #this is a lot of semi coherent vaguely organized thoughts about a topic idk if anyone else cares about #rpf mention #as in this whole weird essay thing is about both rpf specifically and fandom generally #I’ve tried to edit out examples from other fandoms but idk if it works #oh I can feel myself starting to doze #time to yeet and deal with what ppl think tomorrow #it’s bedtime

[abigail]

nooooo I’m so scared of my postman actually. like.. ok someone tell me if I’m being insane or if you’d be a bit freaked out too

ok so.. I moved into my new place in late spring time and since living there I’ve had a few different posties but recently this past like.. idk month or two I’ve mainly just had this one guy, I’d say he’s around 40-50 y/o.. at first he was just idk. normal lol ?? like didn’t say much just got on with his job etc. after a few times he’d start just.. commenting on stuff I guess ? like I’d answer the door in my pyjamas and he’d be like ‘oh hehe sorry for waking you up’ and idk.. ur a post man surely you’re greeted at the door of lots of people in pyjamas ??? (especially because it was like 8am on a saturday idk anyway). he then started saying my name a lot which.. he obviously knows from my mail, but he’d say ‘abi’ and I never get post with my nickname delivered so he just decided himself to use my nickname (which I find odd because.. personally I don’t really use a nickname for someone unless they tell me it’s their name or I hear other people using it or obvs if we’re close etc but maybe that’s just me !!)

then the other week I answered the door and he.. paused to hand over my mail.. to tell me he saw me by the charity shop in the main area of the town I live, I just said oh yeah they have good stuff sometimes and he just then asked if I work there ??? I said no … so he asked if I work around there.. I said no I work ‘in the city’ (the town I live in is like wedged in between two cities and I didn’t specify which one) and he just quietly repeated ‘in the city’ back to himself while handing me my mail ???? I told this to my friends and they agreed it was weird behaviour btw

so anyway.. with it being this time of year I’ve ordered more stuff online than usual because I’ve been buying christmas gifts and I’ve had a few friends mail me gifts for me so I’ve had to answer the door to him more frequently and idk each time he has something to say … like recently he said “oh that one looks interesting what’s in that” with a little smirky face and I’m like oh .. uh.. it’s a gift ????? like.. idk it’s just a bit weird considering the previous stuff ??? or is it just me ???

but yeah what caused me to write this is what just happened.. I’m waiting at the bus stop into the city and I see the post van drive past but then slow down.. it takes me a second to think oh shit is it him so I awkwardly turn to look away and then the van reverses back to the stop even slower until the window is in line with where I’m stood so I have no choice but to notice.. he shouts ‘abi’ and then asks what I want to do with this parcel he’s got in the back.. I’m like ??? uh.. my partner is home rn until midday or something ????? because well.. they are. and like he must know I have a partner because he would’ve seen their name on the mail he delivers and he probably has had my partner answer the door to him a few times too so idk why wouldn’t he think that like ???? and for him to recognise me while I’m at the bus stop and stuff ????? idk man it made me feel so yucky !!! anyway he asks then if I’m heading to work … I say yeah (so now he knows which city I work in ough) and he’s like hmm. ok see you soon and then does a full u turn to where I live .. I assume to deliver my mail but like.. surely he’s got a route he’s meant to follow like he was originally going in the opposite direction ???

yeah idk.. I might just be overthinking it like he’s probably harmless he just seems like some guy but considering it all and it’s the fact he obviously knows where I live because he’s my postie just makes me feel so…. idk. it creeps me out tbh like the vibes are off lmao

edit to add - also consider the fact the area I live in isn’t tiny like.. it’s not a city or whatever but there’s lots of houses and sure he’ll only be doing mail for one section of the town (I assume) but stillll he’ll be seeing so many people daily why is he always recognising me like. I’m not even wearing an outfit that makes me stand out today how did he instantly spot me.. ALSO the second I posted this I got an email saying my parcel was delivered so yeah he literally did do a u turn to my house to deliver my mail rather than do his normal route uhuhhhhhhhh…….. like thanks but ??? why am I getting special treatment lol

#long post under the cut lol sorry #also half way through I realised my phone kept autocorrecting parcel to pascal 😭 and I can’t be bothered to go back and edit it so sorry #a

[skyfallscotland]

Hiiii, i'm new to your tumblr and ff! SO i have a question that you've probably already answered: I guess Remi is a "fix-it" situation with Violet? What was your problem with Vi in FW/ IF that made you want to change her?

Hi! Welcome! 👋🏼

I actually don’t know if I have before, maybe everyone just assumes haha but you’re right it was.

I feel like the beginning of F&F gives the impression I don’t like Violet. In some ways because we know Remi it feels like a pile on, on the poor girl, but I actually do like her. I just feel like it’s an accurate representation of how a young girl would have responded to Remi’s implied behaviour for years while she struggled with her mental health.

My main issue with FW in general is an unpopular one, I usually avoid speaking about it because people abuse me, but as someone with multiple chronic illnesses I felt unrepresented through her lens and because social media hyped me up and I went in hoping for the best disability rep ever, I left a little disappointed that I didn’t get that, so I decided to write something for people like me.

We are all different and have different experiences, that’s why fanfic is so great because we can live the original text in different ways.

I could never have done the things Violet does and I think the “push through” and you’ll succeed narrative is quite dangerous. For people with ME at least, it’s proven to make things worse and it also doubles down on a bad stereotype. My experience IRL is people always assuming I’m just not trying and that I could overcome my illnesses so I have personal medical trauma related to that. Media like this can sometimes perpetuate that myth, so that’s something I struggle with personally.

Vi sort of has symptoms that make it convenient for her to push through with something to “overcome” and not others that would stop her in her tracks. That IS some people’s experience of disability and I’m so happy for them that they were represented.

But Violet never crashes, never has a day where her limbs shake and she can’t move, never has a day where she passes out or her body throws up everything she tries to eat and she never feels incredibly down about herself and her condition, which is wild to me.

A lot of people will say like “she has no choice, she’d die otherwise, she just has to get on with it and she does” which is a lovely sentiment but I don’t get to decide whether my heart will pump blood to my brain or not, sometimes it just doesn’t and I’m out 🙃 (side note: there was definitely implied POTS at the start, where did it go? Did she find a treatment because I want it, please! 😂)

I feel like I have to make it really clear (to everyone reading this, not you in particular) that I think RY wrote a fantastic novel and I love it. I usually get attacked for saying anything along these lines so to be super plain, I get that it represented one person’s experience and not everyone’s because that’s impossible to do, and if it represented you I LOVE that for you, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but I needed to write something more on the level with my experience for myself and I just hoped it resonated with some people (and obviously it did). I wasn’t even going to post it at first.

Being chronically ill is hard. FW & IF brought me so much joy and I love that we got some disability rep, I just wish it went a step further, so I did it myself. 🖤

#remi’s version asks

[qllie]

ok i don’t hate Will Stetson or anything but man it feels like. he’s just an english cover farm making videos as fast as possible for money.

like he doesn’t write the lyrics, he only covers popular songs, he only covers jp songs (except for extremely successful english ones like Why Do I), he covers new songs usually about 1-2 days after release, etc

it just feels like he’s doing english covers because that’s the best way to make it super popular not because he gives a shit about them? and his covers aren’t That Good. like the lyrics are generally clunky (this may be a result of them being written the second the song comes out). will isn’t a bad singer or anything but his covers usually aren’t very interesting he kind of doesn’t alter he voice very much? like he doesn’t experiment.

like idk why is this guy so popular when he’s so clearly just doing this cuz “it’s the best way to be popular and make money”? like will used to do osu shit and make covers in japanese, remixes, etc and now he’s just “english cover english cover paid mihoyo fan song english cover english cover” like it feels soulless like the point is just “song popular. if i make first english cover i make more moneys”

like idk it’s just kind of weird how something that feels like it’s lacking any passion or soul is so so popular. i mean good for will it’s probably making him money but like. idk.

like i wish he would sing a song that’s originally in english or just sing in japanese and like. take his time on something? i kinda wanna hear how Will sings without being distracted by the awful lyrics. i mean personally i think will’s lyrics are awful on his fan songs that he actually writes (sorry will)

i mean the coverers i like and even the english coverers i occasionally like post some japanese covers/not super popular songs? Like sure most people cover popular songs a lot (people like them thats why they're popular) but they'll at least occasionally post something more a little more obscure? like will stetson only sings “super popular vocaloid song” or “super popular anime song” or “mihoyo paid me to make this song.” and it feels so obviously just like “hey this is how you make money!!!!!!” i mean idk will stetson’s finances but i assume this is quite the racket considering spotify for every cover, patron, being paid by massive game company to make songs… so like considering how much he’s making why doesn’t he put more time into his work!?!?!? like idk maybe give your lyrics guy more than five seconds to write them? maybe play around with your covers more rather than just “sing song exactly as is but with english lyrics written in five seconds?” maybe cover songs that aren’t just massively popular jp hits? maybe go back to making swing acapella remixes those were kind of good? idk.

maybe i’m just a hater but like. stetson’s covers feel soulless. like WHERE IS YOUR PASSION WILL.

also maybe this is weird but like. people like will’s english covers because of their lyrics, right? so why is will so much more massively popular than the guy who actually writes them? like it’s not will's fault at all but it’s so weird cuz i was like. “oh i wonder how this guy is doing. 400 VIEWS PER VIDEO????” like will has 500K-5 million views per video but the guy who’s making one of the main parts people like has way less??? this isn’t a criticism of will it’s just like. weird how it works i guess????

[asklostcelestia]

TMI Tuesday 2/21/23 Masterpost

Thank you everyone for sending in asks on yesterday’s TMI Tuesday! I compiled all the answers and will delete all the individual posts to tidy up the blog. I also included the original description and transcribed the images!

asktwilighteclipse: To mod how are you doing?

Good! I had an easy day at work so it went by fast. And my boyfriend of 5 years and I are officially getting married this year in April!

flashtheponyofwind: What inspired you to do art?

As a kid I loved drawing, even more than the usual kid! Watching cartoons, playing pretend with my sister, and reading made me want to make my own stories and characters. It wasn’t until I started applying to college that I decided I would do art for a living!

splungecoyote: Do you like your sandwiches cut diagonally or horizontally?

Diagonal all the way!! (Unless I am making a half sandwich of course)

jdeck306: and to the mod: How long have you been drawing? And how did you design Sky and Fleet’s crew?

Originally, Fleet’s team were 3  white stallion pegasii  named after cloud types. Stratus, Cumulous, and Cirrus. Generic henchmen. When it was time to introduce them, though, I ended up going all out! Then I fell in love with them! This is how I imagined them to look.

Sky was going to appear on another, abandoned ask blog of mine. His very first design was so ugly, haha, he’s changed a lot! He was actually always meant to have Fleet Folly as a rival! So mad I lost Fleet’s original concept art.

The abandoned as blog is @ask-pencil-pusher​

foodielovethealicorn: What do you fear?

Sometimes I worry my emotions aren’t real. Like I don’t feel them enough, or I am only telling myself I feel them. How do you even prove you really love or hate or feel sad about something? Also spiders.

Anonymous: HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED SPONGEBOB? IF SO DO YOU HAVE A FAVOriTE EPISODE? AND OR SEASON?

Yes, when I was a kid, but not in a while. I loved the early seasons. Favorite episodes are the one with “The Best Day Ever”, the one about Pearl’s birthday, and the one where Sponge and Pat paint inside Mr.Krabs’ house.

foodielovethealicorn: Favorite G4 MLP episode? Favorite Song?

“Shadow Play” for making me ship TwiBurst. “It Ain’t Easy Being Breezie” for being good. “Keep Calm and Flutter On” because of Discord and also being a great episodes! Favorite songs are “Bats” and “Art of the Dress”.

Can't choose just one! Also assumed the songs referred to songs from the show, hah

sm0lcatfish: to the mod! what inspired you to make ur sona a kirin(?) and whatnot? or was it just vibes alone

At the start of the year I redesigned my sona to be a bat! So I changed Page Turner to look similar. She’s not exactly a kirin, just a bat unicorn pony thing!

My sona (Mayor)'s new design was decided because I like bats/cats and because I like this shade of blue a lot. Her old design was fine, but was a bit too plain for my tastes, plus I had changed so much since I first designed her!

flashtheponyofwind: Congrats on getting engaged! Soon you’ll be joining the “is married club”! We got cool jackets.

Anonyous: holy fuck congratulations on the marries!!!!

<3

an-immortal: How well can you handle spicy food?

I love salsa verde on tacos and spicey chicken curry!

Anonymous: this is completely random but. thought on pizza tower if that’s a thing you know about?

All I know about it is what I get from one of the blogs I follow who thirsts over the chef dude.

ember-rose-and-duskie: Do you have a favorite character design?

Don’t ask Kazz about Courtney, worst mistake of my life.

Anonymous: What are your pronouns?

She/Her! My pony sona is named Page Turner, but you can call me Kazz!

Anonymous: How do you stay motivated?

I’ve been told I have crazy work ethic before, and I love art so much, It’s what I spend most of my free time doing. I love to tell stories and see myself improve. I do it for me. You guys encourage me to continue, but that’s just a bonus.

sm0lcatfish: what was the inspiration behind lost celestia? was she always intended to be a part of the sky warden+fleet folly sorta universe or did that come later?

In 2017 I sketched a drawing that looked kinda like this. I got the idea for a Celestia ask blog called “Tower Princess” where she would have amnesia, break out of a tower, and look wide eyes and emotionless. I didn’t follow through because I didn’t think I could accomplish it. So instead I started Ask Wizard Sunburst c:

Ask King Sombra was also inspiration for me finally starting this blog, as it showed me a story-driven ask blog could both be successful and include OCs in the main cast! As for Sky Warden, I very self indulgently included him so Celestia wouldn't just look around confusedly at everything without any dialogue or exposition. Lastly, Fleet was always a part of Sky's story, but him getting his own blog was an accident driven by me being Way Too Into My Own Characters hahah.

Teashle: Your art is wonderful! It reminds me a lot of moonstuck. And congrats on marriage! Anyways: what are your inspirations?

Thank you! That’s the second time someone has mentioned moonstuck and I’m still not sure what it is! Most of my inspiration is from artists in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon fandom on DA but I also am inspired by stuff like Avatar: TLA, The Underland Chronicles, Game of Thrones, Teen Titans.... It’s a wide variety of things!

From the comments:  It's a wonderful Tumblr comic about Princess Luna's time on the moon! https://at.tumblr.com/woonastuck/new-readers-read-this-first-sorry-if-this/2273esatacvv

flashtheponyofwind: You like pokemon mystery dungeon too?! Which one is your favorite?!

I admit I haven’t played all the PMD games... BUT I have completed Blue Rescue Team dozens of times. I have been way into the comic/RPG groups on DeviantArt, though. I’ve also been working on my own PMD comic too.

PMD Ancient Revival is on ComicFury and DeviantArt

#TMI Tuesday #off topic

[akkrosu]

5 Songs Tag – QL Shows Edition

I was asked by @recentadultburnout to share my favorite five songs from Asian QL shows, and with this, they have (unknowingly, I assume) unleashed a beast, because I not only love music, but listen to a lot of it and love talking about it. The rules are:

🎶 They do not have to be custom-made for the series.

🎶 Non-Western tracks only. Let’s support Asian music and languages!

🎶 Feel free to tag anyone who may be interested in participating.

🎶 Add #5qls tag to your post for others to find the new favorites.

1. See U by Heo Jung – Where Your Eyes Linger

There is so much power in this song, I love it. I even love the instrumental version, which is usually something I don’t listen to just for the sake of it. I’m just generally obsessed with the instrumentation and the harmonics, they add so much feeling to it.

2. รักหน้าตาเหมือนเธอไหม (Love Love Love) by Gemini Norawit – My School President

I forced myself to put only one MSP song here because I could easily make a top 5 MSP list on its own. This one is only here because I’ve been listening to it the most recently, but I love many of the songs the series has to offer. And Gemini is a suprisingly good singer, I enjoy his voice a lot. You can hear how much fun he has singing this.

3. ในวันที่สาย (When You’re Gone) by Alyn Wee – Big Dragon

Every time I rewatch the original trailer of Big Dragon, this song makes me cry. It’s a pretty slow one, but that’s the magic in it. The text also really gets me for some reason, if only because some of the little Thai that I know makes an appearance in the chorus, so I understand at least parts of it without a translation, small as that part is.

4. Twilight Dreams by Chihiro Onitsuka – The Novelist

Even though I didn’t like The Novelist at all and I’m not sure why I even watched it in the first place, this song stuck with me. There’s something so Japanese about it that I can’t quite place, and even though the sliiiightly off-key notes in the last chorus annoy me, I still enjoy this song a whole lot. It was one of my most listened-to songs in 2022.

5. 我们不像我们 (Unlike Us) by Della – HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count & Trapped

I can’t finish this list without including at least one Chinese song in it. This is another one of my most listened-to songs of 2022, and it’s so fucking sad, but that’s sort of what I love about it. And the lyrics aren’t too hard to understand, so I can feel the sadness even with my limited Chinese knowledge.

Since I’m also having a really hard time sticking with just five songs, I’ll include a few more like @telomeke did in their fantastic list (I got so many good recommendations from it).

เพลงรัก (Hook) by Gemini Norawit – My School President.

ฟัง (Listen) – My School President.

เพื่อนเล่น ไม่เล่นเพื่อน (Just Being Friendly) by Tilly Birds & MILLI. This one isn’t from one QL specifically, but was covered and featured in My School President and Cutie Pie (I think it appeared in it, all I remember is there’s a pretty good Nunew cover) and seems to generally be a favorite in the QL community. Oh, how many couple edits I’ve seen on YouTube set to this song. And I get it, it has an immaculate vibe and rhythm. Tilly Birds have so many incredible songs that I love listening to, even though their style of music isn’t usually my thing. So that’s saying a lot.

刻在我心底的名字 (Your Name Engraved Herein) by Crowd Lu – Your Name Engraved Herein. It’s such a soft song. I am such a sucker for a song with almost nothing but a voice and a guitar if it’s done well. And the way the brass instruments come in at the end, there is so much power in that. A great song for the movie.

รักเธอตัวเท่าโลก by Boy Sompob – My Only 12%. I listened to the acoustic version that came out first and never would have thought the fully-produced version would be even half as good, and then they went and gave me two beautiful versions of this song. I wouldn’t be able to decide between both of them, and it’s good that I don’t have to. Such a sweet song that perfectly fits the sweetness of the series.

แล้วแต่ดาว (My Starlight) by Joong Archen – Star in My Mind. I watched this show fairly recently and immediately lost it at this. It’s a fantastic song beautifully detailing Kluen’s feelings for Daonuea, and I’m obsessed with the star and wave imagery and word play used in the lyrics. When you listen to it, you can’t help but feel Kluen’s love, it’s like a lullaby that wants to put you to sleep with the sheer love and adoration he feels. I also think Joong is a surprisingly good singer, at least when compared to some of the other GMMTV actors.

#5qls #Youtube

[threewaysdivided]

awwww 😭😭😭😭

Did you write a review on the legendary teen Titans series? (Aka what young Justice could have become if they weren't overly ambitious)

What's your opinion on Paul Dini as a writer?

(Follow up to these two previous asks)

Sorry nonnie! 😅

It seems that we both tripped down a rabbit hole of doughnuts.

I assume you’re talking about the Teen Titans 2003 Animated TV Series?  In that case, you might be thinking of another user – I haven’t personally written any reviews for it.  I do have a lot of fond feelings towards the show, though; it was my first real introduction to DC Comics alongside the Justice League/ JLU animated series.  My Tumblr has a Teen Titans tag where I share art, meta etc. and I do have some thoughts about specific plots or narrative elements – you might also see me make occasional reference to it as an example on some posts in the writing advice tag.

Just for the sake of expectation management, I should explain that my Tumblr isn’t really a traditional “review blog”.  And yes, I know that probably sounds a bit crazy considering the frankly unhinged amount of YJ analysis I’ve written, especially since I’ve been blogging less about other stories in the last year. Burnout, what can you do? 

Really I’m more of a writing/ story-analysis blog.  Sometimes I might write a semi-review style post where I try to break down and articulate a particular technique/ element/ execution/ implication of a narrative in order to understand what it’s doing well or why something isn’t working.  As I said in the very first Frustrations with YJ essay, I think storytelling is fundamentally about communication and understanding.  I got into fandom as a fan-reader turned fan-writer (AO3 wink wink), and before that I worked as a casual English tutor.  I want to learn from the ways different narratives succeeded or failed at communicating their stories within the restrictions of their medium(s) so that I can better find, discuss and even tell stories myself. 

Because of that, I’m also a big proponent of the Death of the Author approach to media analysis.  Let me copy the definition over from that first essay real quick:

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR This theory posits that, because commercial art is created to be consumed, not just created, the audience’s interpretations of a work should be considered as just valid as the creator’s.  The work must stand on its own and creators cannot micro-manage their audience’s response to it. 1.  A creator’s intentions and biographical facts (political stances, religion, etc) should hold no special weight in determining the validity of an interpretation. 2.  Save for re-releases/reboots or new entries, the creator cannot and should not attempt to retroactively insert information or interpretations that were not present in the original text.

I generally don’t look too deeply into or follow the specific people behind (non-fan) works.  This isn’t always the case – if I like a specific author’s style I might look up their body of work to read more; some stories are clearly rooted in their creators’ specific opinions or experiences, which makes for interesting context; and sometimes I like to learn about the behind-the-scenes methods/techniques/production woes of a bringing a specific story to life – but mostly I put the priority on what I can learn from the final product.

As I’ve said before, commercial storytelling is the result of more than just one person.  Under the right conditions I think a rank amateur or complete hack could produce something amazing and, if faced with enough production headaches, a usually-excellent creator could end up outputting utter drek although I expect that drek would at least be creatively interesting.

The questions that interest me more are: what was this narrative trying to communicate?  what techniques were used/ creative choices were made?  how well did it succeed?  could a different approach have been used? and, what restrictions/limitations/priorities could have led to the final creative decisions?  To me, information on a creator’s circumstances provide context for narrative analysis.  Since I generally don’t know them I try not to postulate their actual intent too much, only the potential intent suggested by the story.

SO WHAT THE HECK WAS I DOING WITH YJ, THEN? What happened with Young Justice is actually an outlier for me in both regards because of how baffling flawed the series ended up being.  Back in the pre-revival days I paid a lot of attention to the textual canon of Season 1 because I had started writing a fanfic based on it and wanted to do the story justice (heh).  The result was I went into the later seasons with a lot more awareness of the canonical details and storytelling techniques – and (like I said in the final Invasion case-study) I ended up being blindsided by how instinctively bored and annoyed I became just a short way into an attempted Season 2 rewatch, despite the fact that I was actively trying to study it. 

The reason I kept coming back with more and more posts is that I never felt like I had successfully grasped or articulated why I had such a strong and unexpected negative reaction.  I think it’s a similar impulse to what Dan Olson cited as making the Nostalgia Critic’s Parody of The Wall so weirdly compelling: there's a confusing contradiction between the level of work required to implement the sheer amount of stuff that Young Justice tries to include, and the absolute thoughtlessness of how sloppily that stuff was actually executed. A multi-season, multimedia story like Young Justice is a long-term project: there are too many layers of production involved for the end result to be made in a brief flash of impulse or accident. It needs some sort of sustained creative motivation to drive it… but I could never find a coherent creative intent that would satisfyingly explain the decisions on display.  Never before or since have I seen such a promising launch be followed by sequels so fatally flawed as to strip away every component of the original’s creative identity.  There’s a reason I subtitled that masterpost A Massive Failure of Narrative.

This is also why I went after lead-showrunner Greg Weisman a bit, despite not usually doing that.  The choice to exclude (or consciously excise) over 70% of the critical narrative substance and sequester it away in non-textual social-media /ask-blog retcons means that you cannot escape engaging with Weisman when trying to engage with the later seasons at any level of depth.  As a Death of the Author proponent this ticked me off just on-its-face, but it also meant that he and those seasons are inseparably intertwined.  Regardless of whether it was a conscious choice arising from his sense of creative entitlement, or simply a case of narrative incompetence self-selecting for a primary audience with a high tolerance for media-illiteracy Nigerian Prince Email Scam-style, the end-result is the same: Weisman gouged holes his narrative and left it to suffocate while he sucked up all the oxygen in the room.   Then, later, as I encountered people from other fandoms whose narratives had been similarly decimated by Weisman, it became impossible to ignore how inseparable his personal flaws are from those narrative failures.  As I alluded to in the last ask, you can separate the original seven Harry Potter texts from their author: Joanne Rowling and her politics could evaporate tomorrow and it wouldn’t change people’s ability to enjoy the story as a standalone work (in fact, the absence of her modern politics might make some of the more unpalatable flaws easier to accept as honest oversights rather than ominous foreshadowing).  Meanwhile, Young Justice is such a disaster because the later seasons stop being about the original story and increasingly become about Greg: his failures at basic storytelling, his disinterested misunderstanding of his own characters, his weird fixations, his patterns of reactionary prejudice, casual double-standards, deeply disturbing attitudes about consent and power, and a self-righteous entitlement that resents being held accountable.  Unlike Harry Potter, you can’t put Young Justice S2+ in a bubble. The problem at the root of every other problem with Young Justice is that it doesn’t have an actual narrative... and in the absence of a coherent central narrative, the text itself has become the story of Greg Weisman's terrible creative choices. His self-indulgent proclivities pervade every step of the later seasons' broken theming, bad pacing, warped characterisation, contradictory lore, intra-textual hypocrisies, over-stuffed cast and weird fanservice: baked-in at a level that cannot be ignored or rationalised away.

It makes me empathise a lot with how Hbomberguy said he felt on discovering the recent James Somerton stuff: it’s not fun to stumble down a rabbit hole of learning that a prominent figure in one of your communities is sucking up air via association with work from their less-credited colleagues, then using that air to present themselves as an ally, dominate the narrative and delegitimise valid criticism, all while spreading their own prejudiced agendas, refusing to change their behaviour and continuing to profit.  That’s why I felt the need to explicitly point out some of the clearer patterns of reactionary bigotry and hypocritical non-apologies in Weisman’s work – I wanted to make sure the evidence was at least available somewhere outside of Weisman’s carefully-filtered reputation-protecting PR statements.  People put pieces of their lives into communicating something that will hopefully be worth the pieces of life their audiences invest in return -  I find the idea of someone exploiting that trust for gain to be deeply disgusting.

Now, with that exceptionally-overlong context provided: Paul Dini. 

The disappointing but predictable answer is that I don’t really have an opinion on him as a writer.  Having looked up his credits, I recognise a lot of works that I personally enjoyed (including the cancelled-after-one-season Tower Prep).

I really like Batman: The Animated Series, both for the human element it brought to heroism and the tone it set for the following DCAU (colloquially Timm-verse) generation of animated series.  Justice League was one of my first introductions to the main DC roster, so that set a lot of my core understanding of their characters.  I find Harley Quinn, especially her early B:TAS/ DCAU story-iterations, to be compelling in a way that’s equal parts fun and tragic.  There are some parts of the DCAU that I find a bit silly (a couple of background ‘ships that make me go whaa?) but I think I was really lucky to grow up during a time when the DCAU and second-order series inspired by its tone and storytelling ethos (e.g. Teen Titans 2003) was the childhood DC experience for kids my age.

That said, I don’t know enough about the story behind the works in Dini’s credits to feel confident in speaking about him as a writer.  Just looking at his resume, he certainly seems like a passionate and prolific creator who did a lot of very influential work.  At the same time, however, I don’t know how much of that was Dini himself, how much was his frequent co-creator, Bruce Timm, and how much his works may have been adulterated by the influence of other, less-visible members of the production and editorial teams who worked alongside him.  It can be convenient to elevate one or two prominent members to Great Man status as an easy shorthand for discussing works they’ve been involved with, but that can come with the risk of crediting or platforming the wrong people through mis-attribution or just plain projection. 

I’ve learned my lesson on blind-lionisation after being thoroughly let down by all the Weisman nonsense, the same way others have learned from being let down by creators they previously idolised (Supergeekmike did a really good video covering this which also includes discussions of Death of the Author and Authorial Intent).  Without doing proper research into and comparisons of Dini’s work, I wouldn’t feel confident making an assertion about his personal skills as a creator.  I greatly enjoy many of the stories he’s been credited on, and can recognise the influence those stories had in shaping a generation of DC fans (and writers)… but while I’m happy to talk about the writing of those stories, it feels a little irresponsible of me to talk to the character or intent of a real person without knowing more about them.  I’m not making that mistake again.

In the meantime though, I do want to talk more about actual writing.  I’ve been taking it easier this year lockdown and job burnouts finally caught up to me and it suuucks, man but I'm hoping to pick back up in 2024.  I want to finally get back to working on my main fanfic so I can share the companion meta without spoiling people.  I have thoughts about some possible meta-textual metaphors in Across the Spider-verse.  I might do a case-study piece exploring why the years-long timeskip in Arcane Season 1 worked really well while others haven’t.  And there’s an ask about a canon-divergent-post-Season-1 Young Justice episode premise that’s been burning a hole in my inbox for at least 5 months now.

So yeah.  More writing breakdowns to come.  In the meantime, I previously wrote a Frustrations With analysis of how My Hero Academia’s story struggled following the Hideout Raid Arc if you’d like to check that one out.  There’s also this big compilation of links to my Young Justice and Danny Phantom meta (plus recommendations for fanfics and other stories), and you can check out the writing advice tag for general storytelling discussions.

Hopefully that makes up for the drought of Teen Titans content!

#I feel like I might've served you another doughnut a bit here nonnie :( #I hope the universe gives you an actual free doughnut to make up for it #on reviewing #on writing analysis #on lionising creators #Paul Dini #DC Comics #Greg Weisman #Young Justice #Young Justice Animated #My YJ critiques are a decent representation of my analytical approach #but actually not a very good representation of the priorities of my blog #(pssst please read the Invasion one it's super-long but I worked really hard on it) #TFW a series you used to like goes so bad that it derails your entire blog for 3 years straight... *sigh* #anonymous #3WD answers

[vixeria]

Are u using AI art generators for ur work fam? ur art style now is a bit sus. seems like a weird flex to use AI from others stolen work as ur own and claim it took u weeks but ok u do u

Not sure who you are, Anon, but if you’ve ever followed my work on (unnecessarily many) social media, you’d see that sometimes I post my process, other times I don’t. And, if I’m assuming correctly, you might not actually know that I took a MASSIVE break from my social media, which included my main source: Discord. Now, as I have much more time on my hands, I’m just looking everything over that I built up in my time away, fixing things up, cleaning my edges, making some color tone adjustments, amending my shapes, and so on and so forth, and because of that it has given me the chance to post a bunch of my work back to back like I have. I managed to get all of my nearly done pieces out, so that was nice, but there were others I had that still needed some major fixes- this one was no exception. To top things off, I have done live streams on Discord while working on some of my pieces, just to have some company while I work.

But for the record, I followed a tutorial during while making this one (Mostly for fur) that came directly from Sakimichan.

And, just to point out a very obvious fact, I really don’t owe you or any other person an explanation. As an added bonus, here’s how my image ACTUALLY began:

…scary isn’t it? I have a LOT of pics that start off looking like something that came from an elementary student. X’D A shame I didn’t record or take snapshots through my progress. I hope I can start doing tutorials myself someday. I’ve had about some 15 odd years to build up skills, which I think have come quite a ways. I even had originally planned for the image to have a tail and all of Sess’s wispy cloud thingies everywhere, but ended up converting that into more mist-like stuffs. I was also hoping to accomplish some realism in this piece. There was only one other image I tried with realistic painting- and I somewhat gave up on that one. As another note, my more realistic pieces are incredibly few and far between, and that’s just because I don’t like spending ALL my time on just one piece when I have several other projects going and new ideas forming in my brain that I need to kill.

But to answer your question Anon, no. No, I did not use AI art. AI is pretty cool and neat, and I’ve even played with them a little bit, but that’s as far as it ever went. Pure fun and never shared. It does intrigue me sometimes, the AI art, but usually when I’m just flipping through other peeps creations.

I agree with you, however, that it’s definitely a weird flex (such an odd term- I literally only learned the term in like the past year lol) when it comes to ai works. I have a lot of hard time making art in general, which is the reason for my inconsistency. (In case anybody noticed, lol X’D ) I’m always looking at new tutorials, seeing what method works for me, which methods don’t. What new style I’d like to test my skills on, and challenging myself as best I can. In the past, I think, four months, I’ve been REALLY trying my hardest at animal anatomy, and you can tell even in THIS image that I kinda ignored my original tail design…and the paws… and the legs…. Kinda omitted his neck…. And I’m even dissatisfied with his markings still! I redid them so much, even AFTER I was like “Okay, the image is done!” I had forgotten to add his markings (which I do a LOT, funny enough) and tried to make it WORK. And to me, they still look like pasted on stickers. X’D Finally decided to just give and share.

#ai art #explained #defending myself? do I really need to? #eh whatever #if you don’t believe me it’s all good #whatever floats your boat #man I hate tags

[jabbers-wild-world]

Hunter :: Verses

- Main Verse -

This one is pretty straightforward, it’s his usual canon verse, though I have deviated from canon just slightly, in the sense that Flapjack is not dead and was instead severely wounded by Belos to the point of near death, but managed to survive, as did Hunter.

Also, this verse does not include the time skip post-finale. Hunter is still 16/17 in this verse.

- Post-Finale Verse -

Again, pretty straightforward. Goes along with canon, except for the same minor details from the main verse, but also it must be noted that in this verse, Darius is also not Hunter’s legal guardian. Instead, I maintain that Hunter was legally adopted by Camila, and so is officially Luz’s brother.

Now, in this verse, Hunter is now 20 years old and has been learning to carve palismen. He of course still has Flapjack, but he also carved Waffle. Originally Waffle was intended to be a palisman for someone else, but after unfortunately being mistreated, the blue jay palisman has returned to Hunter and refuses to leave. So she’s ultimately become Flapjack’s little sister.

Hunter now also works very closely with the Bat Queen to help every single mistreated or abandoned palisman find the right home for them. He has tried multiple times to find a new home for Waffle, but as previously stated, she refuses to leave and has not bonded with anyone but Hunter.

Hunter does still have the cardinal tattoo, but instead of being in memory of Flapjack, it’s a reminder of their hardships and a mark of the deep bond they have now. Waffle has been a bit jealous and bratty about it, and has a tendency to bite and peck at it, while also insisting Hunter should get one for her too.

- The Littlest Scout Verse -

This is a pre-canon, child Hunter verse. In this verse, he is between ages 4-9. He is still in training as a scout and nowhere near becoming the Golden Guard yet. He’s stubborn and tries his best to be tough and confident, but he’s actually very shy and awkward. The younger he is in this verse, the more likely it is he has never been allowed outside the palace grounds, possibly not even allowed outside the palace itself. So he is very sheltered and very dependent on Belos in this verse.

If he is seen outside the palace grounds in this verse, please assume he is lost, especially if he is by himself. Between ages 7-9, he is allowed outside the palace grounds but he must always be accompanied by scouts. If he’s encountered outside the palace grounds around age 4 or 5, he is definitely lost and should not even be outside the palace itself. Ages 6-7, he shouldn’t be outside the palace grounds.

The younger he is, the more likely he is to run away and/or hide from your muse. Especially if your muse is an adult.

- The Wildest Witch Verse -

This is a verse in which Hunter has instead been raised by Eda since age 5. He is a rebellious punk teenager who lives at the Owl House, and spends a lot of his time around Bonesborough acting as a masked vigilante sabotaging the guards and scouts, generally throwing a monkey wrench in all of Belos’s plans.

As a vigilante behind a mask, he is known as the Gilded Owl, and he is pretty popular among Hexside students who love gossiping and making up stories or spreading rumors about his escapades. His identity behind the mask is absolutely not common knowledge, so if he’s seen with Eda while unmasked, most don’t really put two and two together that he’s the Gilded Owl.

Other than that, almost everything in this verse is the same as canon, with the exception of any conflicts with ‘the Golden Guard’ instead being occupied by other antagonistic characters, and Hunter is present for most occurrences around the Owl House itself, and occasionally inserting himself like an annoying big brother in Luz’s day to day interactions with her friends.

Moonlight Conjuring? Hunter is there for that. Tibbles’ carnival? He’s there for that too.

Flyer Derby happens because he infiltrated Hexside with the intention of checking up on Luz, and got dragged into sports instead. Hollow Mind happens almost exactly the same, and is still upsetting because he never knew his origins as a Grimwalker. And he goes into hiding because now Belos knows his identity and where he’s been all this time, and he refuses to put his family in danger, not to mention he doesn’t know how Eda will react to the Grimwalker thing. So Labyrinth Runners still happens the same.

All in all, he’s involved in a lot more of the Hexsquad’s shenanigans in this verse.

- Cursed Verse -

Everything is the same as canon (with the usual notable differences) except that Hunter is under a curse like Eda’s, that turns him into a skull-faced peryton-like beast. He is Belos’s attack dog ultimately, and because of his curse, there is a curfew across the Boiling Isles. Everyone knows about Belos’s beast, and follow the curfew because they don’t want to encounter the cursed Golden Guard after curfew.

In this verse, Hunter does not take the same elixirs that Eda does. It’s an added layer of manipulation from Belos, that Hunter is lied to and told his elixirs are just as potent as the standard ones and will help with his curse, while truthfully he’s being given severely watered down elixirs that really aren’t as effective, so that Belos can take advantage of his curse and use him to scare the citizens of the Isles into remaining loyal and following curfew.

Hunter’s curse is exploited, and he is used as an example of what happens when dealing with wild magic. As well, he’s used to garner sympathy from the public, because ‘it must be so hard caring for someone who’s cursed like that. we must give the Emperor all our support. he’s so kind to still look after his poor nephew despite such a horrible curse.’

And of course, Belos uses the elixirs as an added means to keep Hunter loyal to him, with statements like ‘if you disobey me again, I may have to start withholding your daily elixirs, and you know I would hate to have to do that to you. you know how much it hurts me to see you suffering from this wretched curse. but when you misbehave like that, you aren’t leaving me much choice. you’re only hurting yourself that way.’

- Human Verse -

Hunter is a human teenager in foster care, who never knew his real family and actually spent much of his childhood with a rather militant family, and after being shuffled from foster home to foster home following that, was even sent to boot camps to sort out his ‘attitude’. His current foster family is awful, and he prefers not to go home if he doesn’t have to.

That being said, he goes to the same school as Luz Noceda, though a couple grades above her. With his own misbehavior and troublesome actions, he got the same ‘sentence’ as Luz. The summer camp that would likely crush the individuality out of them. He was avoiding the bus with all the military training that boot camp drilled into him, when he spotted Luz running off chasing.. something into the woods, and figuring whatever was happening there had to be more interesting than the dreaded camp, so he followed her.

Now, he and Luz are both living in the Boiling Isles, and they have no choice but to stick together as the only two humans in the whole place. Of course, Luz is very interested in getting to know the older boy she’d only seen glimpses of at school, but he definitely prefers to keep things to himself. Most of his responses about his home life are along the lines of ‘foster care sucks. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.’ and ‘you ever been to military boot camp? no? yeah, I don’t recommend it.’

- Mythic Verse -

(Based on/inspired by @turquoisespace35’s myth AU, but with an added twist)

Hunter is the half-gorgon son of Evelyn (a gorgon) and Caleb (a human), and as such he is capable of turning anyone to stone just by looking them in the eyes. With his father ‘accidentally’ turned to stone by his mother in a setup, and his mother subsequently killed for the death of the king’s brother, Hunter would have been killed as an infant if not for a kind man who stole him away from the arena and raised him as his own for a few years on the island where the temple once inhabited by Evelyn was, until he himself lost his life.

Now Hunter is sixteen years old, and he is fighting for his life every day after the king learned of his existence nine years ago, and has sent various soldiers and warriors after Hunter ever since. Many come to the island on their own as well, but most are sent by the king, under the claims that whoever returns to the mainland with the monster’s head will be made champion of the arena and given their choice of armor and weapons as a reward.

So Hunter’s island has become a proving ground for those eager to be champions. As well, anyone who dares question the king are sent to the island as sacrifices to keep the monster at bay, so that he doesn’t ever cross the sea to the mainland himself. If the king could have his way, Hunter would be thrown in the arena himself to be killed by gladiators if he were to ever come to the mainland, and he knows it. The last thing he wants is to be thrown in a cage only to be slaughtered for the entertainment of the masses, so he won’t dare go to the mainland.

But now, a nearly-blind girl named Willow has been sent to his island, and with her vision impairment, he can’t turn her to stone. So now, finally someone sees the truth of the monster on the island, and that he really isn’t a monster at all. Only time will tell what will come of this.

- Merfolk Verse A -

Everyone is merpeople, except Luz and technically Belos, though Belos has turned himself into one with magic in order to live among them and infiltrate their society, after he lost his brother to them (or so he claims). Following his brother’s death, Belos has tried time and time again to recreate Caleb, creating copy after copy. Hunter is the latest of these recreations, and the prince of the merfolk kingdom since Belos is the king.

- Merfolk Verse B -

The Little Mermaid, except Hunter is the mermaid and Willow is human. Her dads own a fishing boat, which she helps out on. One day, while out on the boat, the Parks haul in a catch they didn’t expect. The prince of the merfolk.

- Dragon Verse -

Everyone is dragons except Luz, and technically Belos, but like the first merfolk verse, he used magic to turn himself into one and infiltrate their society (but he’s actually a dragon hunter). After losing his brother, Belos has been experimenting with forbidden magic, using Caleb’s remains and an abandoned golden dragon egg he found, to create a dracolich that looks just like his deceased brother when he takes a human-like form.

Hunter has been raised by Belos now, and he was raised as a warrior and Belos’s personal guard/right hand man. He is unaware of what he really is, and being that his dragon form is still that of any other golden dragon, how would he ever know?

- Werewolf Verse -

Welcome to Gravesfield. Or.. is it Bonesborough? Well, honestly, it depends who you talk to, and which side of the veil you’re on. The layout of the two towns is exactly the same, and they’re layered on top of each other, just.. separated by a thin veil that divides the realms.

And on the day of a total solar eclipse, that veil becomes so easily passed through, that Luz Noceda doesn’t even realize she’s done it until she’s already in Bonesborough instead of Gravesfield. She was just running late to school, and somehow ended up on the grounds of Hexside instead of her actual school. And now that the eclipse has ended, she’s stuck on the Bonesborough side of the veil where all the monsters and various cryptids and creatures all live. It’s not all bad though. There she will eventually meet Eda the owl harpy, Willow the plant creature, Gus the kitsune, Amity the vampire, and Hunter the werewolf.

In this verse, Hunter is the nephew of Bonesborough’s local mayor. His mother Evelyn was a werewolf and his father Caleb was human, but Hunter is unaware of this fact, and currently believes his uncle Belos is some kind of changeling or even a wendigo, which Belos allows him to believe of course, because at this point he might as well be one or the other.

- Fae Verse -

(Details coming soon)

- Naga Verse -

(details coming soon)

- Centaur Verse -

(details coming soon)

- Encanto Verse -

(details coming soon)

- Beloved Misfit Verse -

When Hunter was very young, he managed to get very lost. Scared by an unfamiliar monster with glowing blue eyes all over its body, he ran away from the castle and completely by accident, he fell through the portal to the human realm. Upon doing so however, he hit his head hard enough that he doesn’t remember anything about his life before he was in the human realm. Nothing, except his name.. being chased by the many-eyed monster with a face like a skeleton.

So, very lost and confused and not to mention scared of everything that moved, the little boy wandered the woods around the old shack, avoiding everything and everyone like a skittish rabbit afraid of its own shadow, until he was actually found by Manny Noceda. Manny spent days, when he could manage the time, earning the frightened child’s trust and offering comfort, until finally he was able to bring Hunter inside and get him clean and fed.

Originally, the plan was to simply give the little boy food and shelter until they could find out where he came from and get him back to his family, but as it turned out, there was no family to be found and it always remained a mystery where he’d come from. Not to mention that with his unique eyes and pointed ears, he clearly wasn’t like the humans in this world, so the Nocedas ended up adopting Hunter as their own, raising him alongside their daughter Luz.

Now the two are inseparable, to the point that Hunter won’t even sleep if he’s not at least in the same room as his little sister. Mostly that’s because if she’s not nearby, he still suffers from nightmares about the many-eyed monster chasing him, but it’s also because he’s very protective of her and gets easily agitated and stressed if he doesn’t have eyes on her before he goes to bed.

Now… as for Belos, well.. let’s just say he discovered shortly after Hunter’s disappearance that he can’t create another Grimwalker while there is one still living. He can try all he likes, but not a single one survives past the initial creation because the life force needed is still currently being used. Quite the monkey wrench in his plans, and so the position of the Golden Guard has stood empty for a number of years now, even though Belos has periodically been attempting to make a replacement, only to fail every time.

— More verses coming soon!

#;; the golden boy (hunter) #;; boot camp and mischief (human verse) #;; the beast beneath his command (cursed verse) #;; the wildest witch (wild witch verse) #;; the littlest scout (child verse) #;; a dream finally reached (post-canon verse) #;; truth stranger than fiction (beloved misfit verse)

[medi-melancholy]

end of year thoughts, mostly about art stuff

so much of what i drew this past year was just like, oc designs or sketches, nothing i could categorize as my usual “finished art”, but now i’m wondering if i should maybe start posting all that kind of stuff because like. well. any art is art

i guess i just still get self-conscious about the majority of my art being concept sketches + designs, mostly for original stuff, because that isn’t what grabs attention or makes money, even if it’s what i’m most passionate about and what i personally feel i’m best at :’)

i’ve grown more comfortable almost always only sharing that art personally among friends because at least then i know i’ll hear a response or feedback, especially, again, with original stuff. i post the same art here or on twitter and it’s like 15 likes total combined so. lmao. a bit demoralizing if there’s no actual interest there

with how my physical health has destabilized in some ways, getting back into posting what i draw is going to take a lot of motivation, because i put effort in to even just sit at my desk for a few hours, to use my hands, to keep my eyes on a screen, and getting very little acknowledgment when i do post what i’ve worked on is ehhhhh

on the one hand, it feels nice to not have to stress about not posting much, because i don’t have a good idea of how many people actually care or enjoy my art, i guess. i have no clue what my follower count does besides Exist because i can easily name the same few people who engage with my art without fail, and i’m eternally grateful for them. i can only assume most of the hundreds just left tumblr over the years. that’s fair, i’ve been here for nearly 10 years now lol

on the other, it’s tough to feel seen or successful without a proper or widespread platform. if i did more fanart, specifically fanart for popular stuff, that gets attention, but no one would stick around if i didn’t keep drawing for the same things. and that doesn’t feel true to who i am at all, and an unhappy existence isn’t a sustainable one

i know one solution to more engagement is simply to post more often, which leads me back to the question of, do i just want to post everything that i do draw, regardless of if i think it’s good or bad, regardless of how ‘finished’ or ‘clean’ it is? posting more = drawing more, though, and that isn’t always possible for me. disability’s a bitch! bad luck and unpredictability are bigger bitches

i’m excited to get back to drawing, because i am at my core an artist, and if i stop creating things one way or another, i wouldn’t really be myself, i at the very least wouldn’t be happy. having to take months and months away from drawing because of the fucking conga line of illness and health complications and being busy has been tough, and it’s made me think a lot

i guess i’m working on figuring myself and what i want to do out in some new ways, and that’s ok. i’m just happy to be alive, you know? it wasn’t a bad year for me, or a particularly challenging one. i think it flew by, actually, which i think is great. it was a good time. i hurt a lot, and cried a lot, i was sick a lot a lot a lot, and bad things did happen, but that’s ok. i’m still here. thank you for being here, too, friend. ❤

#like if you read if that's ok. not in like the 'need to see the range of attention caught' kinda way but like #just checking that it's been seen i guess? if that makes sense #and if you have any thoughts or feedback that is cool too! #had some healthy cries and talks today and i'm just lettin my mind air out and befriend the thoughts or let them pass if needed

[bugeyedfreaks]

Previous anon about ppgxrrb post (the first one lol)

I agree with a lot of what you say about the shipping of ppgxrrb and how the fans just depict them as ultra hot bad boys. Its a breath of fresh air to see others’ perspectives on this, cause as I said before I admit I am a fan sometimes but even seeing a lot of ooc works puts me off. I understand if older fans/people only like it because of nostalgia (I’m one of those) but I’m more baffled with seeing new/younger that also likes to ship them, I can see them just liking the Boys cause they think gender bent/evil/alternate versions of the main protagonist are just fun in general, but I don’t understand why a lot of new fans that also ships them, maybe its because of fanart/fanfic.

In regard of that fic (assuming we’re talking about the same thing) I think the reason why it was praised so much and put on high pedestal was because the standard of the ppgxrrb fics were pretty low (at the time anyway) and for me personally it does felt I’m watching the original when I read it, (aside from the shipping thing, but I only read it for the character writing mostly) imo probably the closest thing I can get to what an older/teenage ppg would sound/read like, it just had shipping… lol but also yea I agree with you about the other villains not getting enough fanfics for themselves, its unfortunate cause ppg has so many great villains and the fandom just chose the least interesting ones (rrb)

Also I love how you described Boomer, he’d definitely be a whiteknight type then probably go “bubblevicious” when he doesn’t get what he wants, in fics he’s usually the first, quickest and easiest to be redeemed which is just very boring and probably the reason why Blues (BubblesxBoomer) is the least favorite of the 3 ships.

Yeah, I think on the most basic, superficial level, taking NOTHING about the personality or history of the characters into account, if you were to show someone who never saw the show a lineup of the Powerpuff GIrls characters and ask them, "Who are the girls' boyfriends?" they would choose the Rowdyruff Boys. Just because of their character designs they're the easiest characters to pair them off with. And I don't use "superficial" or "easy" as an insult, like... it just is what it is by the very nature of it. On a little less of a basic level, they're probably the only boys in the show (including the boys that are in the girls' class like Mitch and Elmer and Harry, etc.) that would be considered "attractive" enough to match up with them. Which, y'know, I could go into a whole rant about the superficiality (negative this time, haha) of that and how that way of thinking feels very creatively limiting... but, yeah, when you're a new fan and you see all this fic/fanart, not to mention how the ship is ultra visible and popular, it's the simplest entry point.

We're totally talking about the same fic. 😂 Again, I've really tried to read it and have an open mind about it, and I guess the mere fact that (from what I remember) the girls occasionally do have fights in it is enough to make it different from a standard PPG/RRB fic where the girls' superpowers are completely forgotten about (a la the City of Clipsville girls)... but the villains and the crimefighting STILL just feel like an afterthought (and maybe it's just my pretentiously high standards for them talking, but I remember really disliking how the dialogue of some of the few villains that are even included in the story was written). For the most part it just seems like it's all just fancy set dressing to disguise your average high school teen fanfic. I remember trying to read it again a while ago and I got to an early point where like some characters were suddenly like making out and I was just like... ew, no, not for me. 😩 That doesn't make me feel like I'm watching the show, that just makes me sick to my stomach! Stuff like that just pulled me way out, I couldn't enjoy it.

And I guess that's also a thing I dislike about some of the fanfics, like... if the RRB are going to have any similarities to the girls it's going to be their negative attributes, but that doesn't seem like an issue that ever gets explored. It seems like, despite whether or not people write them as still having problematic misogynist qualities, Brick always just turns out to be the hot intelligent one, Butch is the tough dude bro, and Boomer is the sweet, sensitive boi. How boring IS that?! 🤣 It doesn't seem like anyone's really challenged themselves to see things from any different, meaningful perspectives, and I have always felt that way. It is a bummer though that, when I have found the rare fanfic that has great writing and feels like the show characters and tells a story that's interesting and new (or even has a ship for the girls that's completely off the wall but... somehow actually works!)... it's because I had to dig through all the PPG/RRB content to find it. And I've seen many people who've written cool stuff get frustrated enough about that difficulty of visibility that that they take down their fics, or they get discouraged from writing anything else, or they even get harassed for daring to write anything against the norm. It bums me out.

[thebreakfastgenie]

⭐

I am going to take this opportunity (highly appreciated!) to talk about one of my personal favorite things I've written, Campfire.

I started writing this fic in the woods. I was literally in the woods (in Maine of course) and I had left my phone in the car because there was no reception anyway. And this fic just started coming to me in waves. Entire sentences. I was terrified I would forget it before I could write it down. When we went to the car for lunch, I grabbed my phone and quickly put some stuff in the notes app so I wouldn't forget.

And then we got home and my mom wanted to watch that Amazon Prime Cinderella movie and I just wanted to write. Aaaaaaa. So this is all leading into one of the things I'm not totally happy with, and probably why I think technically it's not quite on par with The Emergency Room, which is that I was so eager to get it posted the second half could have been better. It's not bad, but I'm not sure it's up to the first half.

The other thing I'm not entirely happy with is the title. It's fine, but I just went with it because I couldn't think of anything else, which is usually the case with my one-word titles.

The response to this fic was really gratifying, because I wasn't sure to what extent fans of a politics show would put up with what I affectionately thought of as summer camp bullshit. I'd had the image of Josh as a kid talking about his dead sister after being encouraged by a counselor, and everyone reacting uncomfortably, in mind for a long time.

My original vision for the summer camp section, when started writing it in the woods, was much darker. Josh remained a social outcast for the entire summer, and the focus was really on Irving. Irving was originally going to ruffle his hair during the breakfast scene, but I was worried that was too creepy, so I changed it to just a nod. I'm not sure that was the right call.

Before I left the woods, Issac, Barry, and Becca had demanded their existence, and Josh had friends. I looked up several alternative names for Becca, but ended up going back to my first choice. Two boys and a girl felt natural, but of course it mirrors Toby, Sam, and CJ.

I think my favorite part of this fic is the parallelism of "though they leave that part unspoken"/"though he leaves that part unspoken." I had quite a time trying to find books for Josh to read and I never really found one that was the exact level of recognizable I was going for. The little moment of guilt over tossing the bag is the sort of thing I would feel.

I named a kid with some minor significance Aaron, and people probably assumed it was a reference to Aaron Sorkin, but I honestly forgot that was his name. I was just looking for nice Jewish boy names to fill out the camp and it was hard because I didn't want to use names like David and Daniel that already belonged to somebody in the show. Alan from Hoboken is funny in hindsight because shortly afterward I would become obsessed with Alan Alda, famous for living in New Jersey.

"he knows that Cadillacs crash just as often as Chevrolets" I thought about googling the actual safety stats but I didn't. The choice of these two cars as a class signifier is entirely taken from Movin' Out by Billy Joel.

Something I think about a lot with Josh (especially but not exclusively in relation to Toby) is that he comes from a very privileged background, but he still has this major trauma. It's really very Jewish. That's why I wrote the part about "sheltered suburban kids." Then there's this:

What he learns is: they don’t talk about it.

I love this sentence to death in my head. I can hear the pause. I could not figure out how to make it look right. I tried a comma, a semicolon, and a colon, as well as no punctuation and just italicizing the second clause. I finally went with the one I hated least.

The genesis of the second half is that I've long believed CJ was the first of the main characters (aside from Leo, who as a friend of the family likely already knew) that Josh told about Joanie. I'm really invested in their sibling dynamic, and CJ is the one he talks to in The Crackpots and These Women. I had done this one-shot-two-narratives thing before with The Apple, and I really like it!

I'm really happy with this piece of dialogue in this scene:

“I’m sorry," she says, after a moment. “I mean, not I’m sorry. I'm just— I’m sorry seems so trite, but I can’t think of what else to say.” She takes a breath, composes herself. “I’m sorry I don’t know what to say.” Josh forces a sideways smile, wanting to reassure her. “No one does. It’s okay.” “It’s not,” she says. He shrugs, just one shoulder. “Maybe not.”

I wrote this story in September, a month that always gets a little weird and angsty for me as the anniversary of my best friend's death when I was ten approaches, and that definitely found its way into the fic. The details are all fictional, but Camp Greenfern is based on Camp Winnebago, where my grandfather's ashes were scattered.

I'd really like to write more about Josh and CJ, eventually.

#thank you!!

[cagedchoice]

alright, i decided that what I'm gonna do is instead of liveblogging and making like a hundred posts that are at risk of getting reblogged totally out of context by other people, i'm gonna make two main posts that cover my thoughts on westworld season 4. one that covers the first 4 episodes, and one sometime after the season finale airs for the remaining 4. bearing in mind that these were written on reaction after seeing each episode for the first time unless otherwise noted, so likely not everything is going to be completely accurate

THE AUGURIES

I’m gonna guess the William we’re seeing with these guys at Hoover Dam is Host William whom we last saw at the end of Season 3 slitting human William’s throat, but even though that was the case I don’t think the real William is dead yet. I know I did the first time I ever saw the s3 finale but I changed my mind later. I really don’t believe Charlotte would let him die that easily. She would want him to suffer.

Upon seeing Christina my immediate thoughts are: WHO ARE YOU BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY WOMAN??? She’s not Dolores but she’s not not Dolores if you know what I’m saying. The parallels are too numerous for her to not be some version of Dolores.

My first thought from the trailers was maybe she was an original human who existed before the park was created, one whom Dolores’s likeness was based on, but I quickly discarded that idea. After seeing the New York City setting, a lot of the things in her world look far more technologically advanced than a lot of the things and designs we saw in season 3 so I’m pretty sure this takes place quite some time in the future.

My best guess is Christina is either reborn from Prime!Dolores’s erased pearl or from one of her other copies last season.

I’m… gonna assume that there is Something up with Maya because the fact that she is currently serving as little more than “perpetually tired roommate whose main purpose in life is to find someone to get Christina laid” just feels…off. Like yeah I know sometimes Westworld’s minor characters DO kinda wind up being no more than props rather than believable characters but that usually has a kind of vibe around it where you can intuit that the writer doesn’t consciously know they’re writing the character that way. Maya feels more like she was intentionally written like this and I’d bet there’s an explanation waiting to be revealed. If not then I’m gonna be giving the Westworld writers some very disapproving looks.

Most of the phones and tablets and display screens looking like nothing more than small glass rectangles makes me irrationally angry. It would be so hard to read anything off that.

I have always felt Maeve wants nothing more than to live a simple, peaceful life where she gets to be truly free, but the thing is, I imagined that as an endgame thing where she has her daughter with her (and maybe Hector but...probably not) and there would be no one threatening to take that away from her ever again. Surprised to learn she’s apparently spent quite a while living alone in her memories.

From the looks of things, she and Caleb destroyed another Rehoboam (An older version? Or just another node of the same one Caleb erased?) but it didn’t end well. Incidentally this is giving me major flashbacks to last season with Caleb’s memory of Francis dying. buuut i’m sure he’s fine.

OOH OKAY I DON’T COMPLETELY TRUST THIS TRANSITION BETWEEN CHARACTERS THEN?? IF YOU JUST GO MMKAY SO CALEB WAS BLEEDING OUT IN MAEVE’S MEMORIES... BUT HE’S FINE NOW LOOK HERE HE IS SEE?? THAT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE SOMETHING IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS TO BE. I’M NOT FALLING FOR THAT AGAIN.

He is…still a construction worker? It seems like Caleb is right back where he started last season… and the world doesn’t look like the post-apocalyptic nightmare everybody thought it would become. It has apparently been 7 years since the fall of Rehoboam.

His coworker Jo thinks they’re actually worse off for having a revolution in the first place. Humans, being humans, means that many probably didn’t see the bigger picture, so they flat out banned robots and artificial intelligence. I feel like that wasn’t Caleb’s idea so he might’ve lost his leadership role or something?? He seems a bit annoyed by this hot take on the war and honestly I don’t blame him.

CALEB HAS A FAMILY NOW OH MY GOD I LOVE AND WOULD GLADLY LAY DOWN MY LIFE TO PROTECT THE NICHOLS FAMILY FORGET WHATEVER I SAID ABOUT NOTHING CHANGING

The only problem is...this doesn’t quite feel…real...

UWADE: “She’s seven, Caleb. Thanks to you, her hobbies are sugar and violence.” Shoutout to my dad’s quality reaction here: “Okay so what you’re saying is, she *has* hobbies.”

Uwade doesn’t really seem to care why Caleb is so stuck in the past which is a little disappointing. Well, I think she cares as in, she clearly wants him to be happy and at peace and it hurts to see that he’s not, but she really gets on him about the war being over and saying he needs to move on and act like a real father and it just feels like she is a touch hasty to brush off Caleb’s PTSD as little more than an annoying habit.

Obviously it’s NOT good that his fears are rubbing off on Frankie’s world of innocence but... he already knows he needs to move on. I think what he doesn’t know is *how* to move on. Because half Caleb’s entire life has been trauma on top of trauma and people telling him “you need to move on” and then never actually helping him move on because he wasn’t meant to be able to.

I'm sure Caleb would’ve absolutely chosen to go with Maeve no matter what the real reason was, but I’d like to think that in addition to this being the only way he feels he can protect Uwade and Frankie, he also wants to protect Maeve. While he knows injury and death aren’t as big a threat to the hosts as they are to him, he knows that they aren’t completely invulnerable or immortal. And Maeve is a friend. Caleb historically hasn't had a lot of friends, but the ones he has made are people he values very highly.

I relate to Christina on a personal level because I too am a writer who spends most of my time writing background characters in genres where very few people really put a lot of stock in them.

Ramin Djwadi’s arrangement of Video Games is one of the prettiest, most mesmerizing and heartbreaking pieces of music I’ve heard. Everything about the cinematography and editing in this scene just cinches it too. Christina’s pitch, Frankie practicing her aim and remembering her dad isn’t there to see her hit the target, Teddy stepping out in the dark and looking up at Christina and the camera panning around him as the music swells. “I want a story with a happy ending.” ;-; ;-;

WELL ENOUGH ALONE

Clementine was really just out there living her best life in a sunny yellow dress at a quaint lil marketplace in mexico and I loved that for her. She looked so happy! So free! I’m sorry Host William had to go and ruin that for her :(

Caleb and Maeve are giving off such a buddy comedy vibe during this car scene. I love that as of this we have no real idea how they became such good friends since we didn’t really get to see any of the war but we just get to roll with it. They’re besties

I love the aesthetic of this horse barn but all I really remember is seeing the behind the scenes footage where the creative team said it was an interesting conversation because they were like “okay, we’re gonna have some dead horses here” to the rangers and I can only imagine that if you say something like this on the set of Westworld it will be perceived not as a threat, but a promise.

I love the way Clementine turns away the justice department guy when she gets brought back as Hale and William’s minion. He might be one of the more powerful guys in the country, but he still can’t get through Delos security to speak to their CEO without an appointment.

I need this vice president guy to cool it with all the idioms. Humanity has evolved past the need for idioms.

“I don’t think that language would play very well with your base. I’m what you’d call ‘neurodivergent’.” I…well…I guess that’s one way you could put it.

I swear to god, this scene in the speakeasy sounded like Caleb was implying he and Maeve had sex at the lighthouse.

But the thing is, shortly after watching this episode, I stumbled on a couple of reviews that claim there is no romantic or sexual aspect to this partnership in the slightest. They say Maeve and Caleb work well together because they share similar traits and their dedication to their respective daughters is the same and they respect each other as equals.

So unfortunately those same reviews also claim that in s3 Dolores’s only interest in Caleb was to manipulate him into joining her cause and pretending to be someone she wasn’t around him. And that is a popular take I strongly disagree with so like. I don’t really want to believe it because that’s not how I saw that at all.

It is weird though because I am generally someone who doesn't pick up subtle romantic or sexual hints as in, I will not see it at all unless I'm told, very obviously, that it exists. Like. not to get all personal but one time, a guy I knew in high school randomly started messaging me out of the blue. I think any normal person would've gone "he wants something" whereas I was like "oh, a friend!" and I only figured it out like 2 weeks later he was trying to sext and then manipulate me into becoming his girlfriend.

Anyway, moving on. My other theory is that after Caleb got shot, Maeve felt partly responsible for his near-death experience and sent herself into exile because she thought it would be safer that way. Caleb maybe felt like Maeve had abandoned him solely because the war was over and he wasn’t useful anymore and maybe that’s why he looks so hurt when she kind of shrugs off his question as “we got on with our lives.” 

It actually feels pretty on-brand for Caleb that talking about almost dying and trying to put the past behind him but never really being able to do so might actually be a much more awkward conversation to have than a conversation about having sex would be. Or so one would think.

I wish I had more to say about Christina honestly but I simply do not have a clue what is going on in her world. Everyone seems awfully nonchalant and dismissive about the fact that she witnessed a suicide. Almost like it was expected, in a way?

Remember what I said previously, about believing Hale wouldn't just let William die so easily? I feel pretty satisfied because that's exactly how that worked out. She put him in cryosleep and it looks like she just wakes him up periodically to gloat.

ANNÉES FOLLES

For the Sublime being presented as a kind of host heaven I have to say Bernard’s journey into the worlds of his choosing didn't look like a particularly pleasant experience if he got stuck looping through his memories. Poor Bernard.

Then again, maybe it never would be pleasant for any sort of human consciousness and since Bernard is partially a red pearl maybe that’s why his interpretations are weird. Maybe host consciousness is fundamentally different because their minds don’t feel bound to death of the physical body as a permanent end the way human minds do.

What I really want to know is exactly how Stubbs managed to fix himself up. Last time we saw him he was bleeding out in a bathtub full of ice and didn’t look like he was in any sort of condition to move. I know he wasn’t gonna stay there for like 30 years or however long it has been since we last saw the boys but still. It would be nice to know what happened.

I am living for all of the Caleb & Maeve in The Golden Age parallels to William & Logan in Westworld. All of the subversions as well.

Caleb: about to pick up the can Maeve, who was thoroughly done with this park’s shit before they even got off the train: “Do *not* pick that up.”

GSKALJLHD okay yeah I felt like it was unlikely we would see ERW playing Dolores in this 1920s world considering it is all an elaborate trap. But knockoff Dolores and Teddy look fun.

The way Maeve refers to the guests and human Delos employees as “They” while talking to Caleb... (“Oh, they spare no expense on their prisons.” / “They’ve made a few changes, but the story’s the same.”) … I thought it was suggesting that he might not be human after all. But in this context it seems to be because Maeve respects Caleb and she wants to give him the dignity of not being associated with these rich folks.

I am absolutely dying at this woman who talks about finding a deeper level of the game. I think her name is Deborah?? I love Deborah

Also dying at Bernard knowing everything that has to happen in a very specific sequence of events and Stubbs just being like What. the fuck. are you talking about buddy. Triple dying at Stubbs casually enjoying a tuna melt and listening to Blondie while Bernard is kicking ass outside bc that’s a mood.

I’m betting Frankie’s HAM radio setup belongs to Caleb and what I find interesting is that none of it looks very modern in the context of Westworld’s universe. I may once again be reading too much into nothing but this could be a result of Caleb’s “paranoia” in that he did not want to be subject to police-state level surveillance again and maybe using older radios would have been the only way to make sure there were no wiretaps built in while still providing a reliable way of staying in contact during an emergency?? Or something like that

We saw Maeve attempting to use her powers to tune a radio to what appeared to be a specific frequency in 4.01 right before she accidentally caused a region-wide power outage. Going off the context that she was remembering an unseen mission with Caleb at a lighthouse, I wonder if she was trying to make contact with him.

Aurora Perrineau’s character also appears to have a HAM radio mounted on the dashboard of her vehicle. This may be a serious reach on my behalf but, might she be a grown-up version of Frankie? The way her scenes are sandwiched between Maeve & Caleb’s adventure and Frankie’s struggle seems like it could be suggesting she’s Frankie in the future and the condemned lands her organizations hides out in could be where the 20s park used to be.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard more distinct “something bad is about to happen to this guy” words than when Carver told Frankie he was gonna teach Bear Bear some self defense and then walked off alone toward the house. Admittedly I completely missed it on my first watch because I had to turn my back to the TV for like 15 seconds to grab something from the kitchen. When I got back, my dad, who was only half paying attention because he also got distracted by something, told me “there’s something wrong with Bear Bear, the guy got him dirty or something and the kid was looking at him like something’s not right.” He didn’t tell me the dirt looked like blood, so I was like “oh...maybe they put a tracking device or nanny cam in Bear Bear in case Frankie tries to run away?” It would’ve been much easier to figure out if I had actually heard Carver say his dead man words and then seen the obvious BLOOD smeared on the bear 2 minutes later

LMAO THE WAY THEY TURNED THE FIRST UNDERGROUND LEVEL INTO PART OF THE GAME. I would love to know why Hale signed off on this

CALEB: Dolores? MAEVE: I believe she was going by “Wyatt” in this phase. I saw somebody ask how Caleb would know this at all. I have no idea but I’m choosing to believe that he simply has not forgotten what Dolores’s murder strut looks like.

Actually wait, it doesn’t surprise me that Hale would include a level where the massacre is part of the game. This park itself is a trap, so why not lure the humans further into it by letting them think the hosts are rebelling against them? Even though in reality it’s all part of the plan and they’re not actually saving anyone.

Wait, wait wait wait but…if Frankie and Uwade didn’t get captured by Hale, how was she able to make a host that looks like Frankie? Where did she get that data from?

Okay so, I have always believed that Caleb is human, even in the face of certain other fans belittling me and telling me season 3 “obviously” takes place in Futureworld or in the Sublime or it’s all on a different simulation in Rehoboam’s mind or whatever other unreality could be conjured up. And…idk like. They’re allowed to believe what they want to believe, and I’m allowed to believe what I want to believe. I just personally never really liked the idea that Caleb was secretly a host for all of last season when it felt like the whole purpose of Incite controlling everything was trying to show that our world had been subjected to a lot of the same practices as Delos’s hosts were. Anyway, I know they can’t see me here but who’s laughing now bitch?

Actually, it’s not me, I’m very distraught… but… at least now we know he’s human.

GENERATION LOSS

Like I said about episode 2, when Maeve said she wanted to show Caleb what freedom looks like while he was bleeding out on the beach with a gunshot wound to the torso… I thought that was going in a totally different direction than the one it took.

Speaking of the direction it took, though, Maeve’s freedom is being with her daughter and living a simple, peaceful existence together and I think that is just beautiful.

This isn’t a Westworld-specific gripe, more so a TV/movie magic trend in general but. If you are in a situation where a ton of glass shatters into a million pieces and then you can see hundreds of little crystallized chunks of tempered glass on the ground and you have not been impaled by any of it, you are probably not going to find a long, clear shard of razor sharp plate glass in the mix. I know, blah blah blah, I’m watching a dark science-fiction TV show about androids and I don’t expect it to be 100% realistic. I’m just saying.

I have complicated feelings about Teddy and let me just say that they are not being helped by me still having almost zero clue what is going on in Christina's world. Is this the Sublime? Is this a world of Teddy's choosing?? We just don't know.

I’m not sure I understand what Maeve was saying about facing human mortality. Hasn’t she already seen how delicate human lives are? Or is this different because Caleb was in a coma and Maeve has specifically never seen that before?

I find myself a little confused as to how the lethality of wounds works for hosts who are no longer bound to the parks or have built up a certain tolerance level. Maeve was shot multiple times in the season 3 finale and shrugged it off like it was nothing. But she got shot once in the shoulder last episode and it temporarily took her down although she recovered pretty quickly. Fighting the Host in Black, she gets thrown to the ground and it clearly hurts her considerably, as she limps away afterward to try and rescue Caleb. In this episode, she takes a shotgun blast to the heart and it almost completely incapacitates her. Right after that she gets stabbed with a knife which HiB seems pretty confident is something that will kill her. So now… I have questions.

Ah, so C is Frankie all grown up! I got at least 2 predictions right for this episode. I'm calling that a hot streak!

Alright, remember how I said last episode I was relieved to find out Caleb was still a human? I’m actually perfectly okay with him dying and being brought back as a host at this point, if that is indeed what is happening. My first idea was that he’s still alive and Hale is just fucking with his mind by making him believe he died and she turned him into a host, but…After Caleb realizes where he really is and what Hale is doing, he develops a slight stutter in some of his dialogue and movement tics that are really similar to what we saw in the James Delos fidelity trials, albeit less severe. And I feel like he wouldn’t have that if he was still a human.

So for now I think I’m gonna work off the assumption that Hale isn’t lying. Might be a mistake to do so, I guess we’ll find out!

If this really IS the case, I still wonder what exactly she wants with Caleb? She started out her plan by trying to kill him. Then she appeared to switch to trying to capture him alive instead, turning him into her pet. But then she ordered other infected guests to attack and he got stabbed by one of them, and then later on her men gunned him down without a second thought. And then after all that she brought him back so… What does she want with him? Does she still need him for something? Is she just tormenting him for sport?

#* i'm an underachiever / ooc. #\W/ spoilers #westworld spoilers #long post #i guess meta tag too?? #* big data compiles information on everybody / meta. #okay to reblog #why you would want to is beyond me but. this post? is fair game #even if i forgot to put the okay tag on it oops