#only in mentions at best from obscure media

[just-honey-dewd]

If Lola isn’t wearing the pants in the relationship, then you done fucked up.

#my posts #my art #artists on tumblr #testing out new tags #looney tunes #bugs bunny #lola bunny #i took those outfits and roughly based em on their fits from one of the live mascot performances #also lemme just put my two cents in #lola in both space jams tend towards comfy wear that accomodates for movement and agility #i’m mostly convinced that she isn’t one to dress formally or in an overtly feminine way unless it’s for marketing #(in which she’s not a character anymore) #or tlts #her outfits and portrayal in live shows are pretty ooc in general #mostly cuz we never see Lola portrayed in significant lts media as a performer at all #only in mentions at best from obscure media #the other lts get to acknowledge or distinguish themselves between the media where they’re acting and the live shows #where it’s entertaining the audience mainly #but she is a case that apparently six flags #movie world #and most other lts writers can’t crack #so without really tackling or addressing that issue in any meaningful way #i took it upon myself to conclude that Lola’s comfortable in any clothes she’s in #but god forbid she wore a blonde wig atop her already blonde hair #my final notes: #it’s been almost 30 yrs and they still haven’t gotten her mascot design right. for shame!

[multidimensionalguidance]

🌫️🌷Venus Observations #2 🌷🌫️

Venus and Neptune have a really interesting interaction when in aspect to each other, particularly with the conjunction, opposition, and square. It’s not that sextiles and trines are not important, but since they are softer, the energies tend to flow with more ease and therefore, less difficulties.

Venus is exalted in Pisces, so it would bring no surprise that individuals with this planetary aspect would display similar traits to the sign, if not maybe even stronger.

Natives with the strong aspects (preferably less that 6 orbs) are perceived as distinctively beautiful in some way. Not necessarily in a conventional way, but more so in their aura field, which then translates to the physical on some level. When Venus makes a strong aspect to the angles (specially ASC or MC) the native can be seen as classic beauties or it simply just draws a lot of judgment from others when it comes to their appearance or mannerisms. Venus with any other planet in general enhances and beautifies it. Pleasure becomes associated with the traits of the planet that its touching it.

When Venus meets Neptune, the planet that represents inspiration, spirituality, illusions, healing, and loss it causes the same effect but much stronger.

Therefore, these natives can find joy, pleasure or become enamored with the Neptunian topics mentioned above. Since Venus thrives the most in relationships that are inherently spiritual, “rose-colored”, or somewhat obscured from the public it encourages to only feel that inner harmony when love comes from a source that isn’t material or seen at all.

In essence we understand love to be a non-physical experience, even if we’re used to being brainwashed by the notion of pursuing this experience through physical or material experiences. The media tries to lead us to filling a void, that simply cannot ever feel complete without spiritual consciousness.

Venus in Pisces or Venus-Neptune natives despite being seen as those who foolishly and innocently love others almost to a detrimental level, understand this the most. They feel as if love can only be found in the moments that are filled with emotions and spiritual connections. A moment where the love they feel seems to be connected with everything, which it is, since the universe thrives when its in energetic harmony.

Does it mean these placements have an easy time simply because of its exaltation? Yes and no. They are given the blessing of finding beauty in everything, but that is exactly the same reason why they are prone to looking for love and beauty in all the “wrong” places. To them, there’s no such thing as an experience that can’t be filled with love and beauty. They will romanticize and beautify absolutely everything, including those who only wish to use them for their own benefit.

For example, if Neptune squares or opposes Venus, the person might choose the wrong partners in life and will tend to idealize them/not see them for who they really are.

At their most difficult moments they become victims of a lot of traumatic experience in love and struggle with understanding feminine energy (which is not exclusively related to gender), which can only be restored by recognizing that love truly lies within them, and in that which is the most connected to the universe, like nature. Many who have a harsh time with recognizing this can end up trying to transform themselves into a version they’ll love or others will, without noticing that they already embody that beautiful version they so desperately seek. They forget that their beauty truly comes from their own inner world and the amazing gifts that lie in there. They are creative geniuses, in every sense of the word. Similarly to Venus-Ketu/South Node natives.

I’ve personally noticed they tend to succumb to enhancing their bodies wether permanently or temporarily, as they initially may try to pursue their best outward self. They crave for others to see them, as they feel within.

It is advised for these natives to be extra careful when involved in romantic scenarios and with the uses of substances that can make them feel more connected to their inner world or the spiritual realm. You are already tied to the universe’s waves by nature, and without much effort. Instead of pouring the oceans of love you have to others all the time, do it instead consciously towards your passion, creativity, and those who are truly interested in your well being.

Note: Venus in the 12th house can also apply to this post to a certain extend.

#astrology advice #astrology #astrology lessons #astro community #astro observations #astro posts #astro notes #astro placements #astroblr #venus #pisces #venus in pisces #astrology observations #astrology facts #astrology love #astrology for beginners #astrology ask #venus in 12th house

[justakidicarus]

Alastor has something he fears.

With how modern media has been going, well written characters are harder to come by, so I am very pleased to see how Alastor is written in the season 1 finale of Hazbin Hotel. Admittedly I did not watch the episode in full, but two major scenes are what I want to talk about.

Adam vs Alastor, and what I want to call Alastor’s interlude (his verse in the final song).

During Alastor’s fight with Adam, Alastor has clear technical advantage, but Adam’s sheer firepower overpowers him. Everyone has probably seen the “What just happened?? … Fuck.” Moment. Now most writers would write another character coming in for a save, or in the context of Hazbin a regular sinner would keep fighting.

Alastor is not your average sinner.

He accepts his defeat and slinks away before Adam can land the finishing blow. This is actually a massive thing no one really talks about, the fact that instead of staying to fight Alastor acknowledged when he was bested and left to fight another day. He is a fucking smart guy but this moment, when he chooses to lose rather than die, is super important to his character, and becomes clear in Alastor’s interlude.

Alastor is terrified of dying.

And I really do mean terrified.

Throughout the song you can hear the emotion in his voice (holy shit did Amir Talai do a good job). His facial expressions are panicked, especially during the line “died for his friends” and the close up at “The constraints of my deal surely have a back door,” that line in particular really capturing the picture of panic and terror. When he first speaks of dying, he looks more angry, but the rest of the verse he just looks terrified. Even if he may be a sinner and thus, has already experienced death, it remains his greatest fear as evident by his reaction to nearly meeting it.

Which makes sense when you look at the context of his death.

Alastor was shot in the head while occupied with burying a body in a hunting reserve. A gunshot to the brain is a quick and near instant way to die, especially since he likely wasn’t aware of the hunter and gun. To him, he heard a loud bang and was suddenly in hell. He has never experienced death properly because he didn’t even have a moment to process that his time was up until he was in the afterlife. Even in the afterlife, as a sinner he can’t permanently die, the only way possible is being killed by angelic weapons.

Weapons like what Adam wields.

Most people believe that Alastor retreated when his staff broke because he couldn’t fight without it, but I actually believe it’s because he realised that Adam could actually kill him. For the first time in his entire life, and afterlife, Alastor was faced with the possibility that he would die. For good.

And he was terrified of it.

He fled not because he couldn’t continue to fight, but because he was scared of fighting Adam and running the suddenly very real risk of dying, but hiding it as best he could. This is obviously made easier by his constantly smiling mouth (which I don’t think he can stop doing if you look at the stitched from his deal with Charlie) but there are a few signs. He loses control of his power such as his left eye and shadow. His ears tilt back as he’s getting up, a sign of distress in animals, and when he first gets up he looks around alert despite knowing the threat is in front of him, classic prey animal behaviour. Not to mention there’s almost 10 seconds where he doesn’t get up and is just on the ground with his face obscured while Vox gives his declaration. These behaviours could be pain related, he does have internal and external bleeding from Adam’s attack after all, or it could be fear based. Still, his interlude leads me to believe it’s a mix instead of solely the former.

Finally his sudden dedication to finding a loophole in his deal with his unknown contractor (I’m hesitant to say Lilith but idk).

From what I can gather by his actions surrounding the hotel and his strange dedication to Charlie and the hotel’s wellbeing, I’m inclined the believe his deal centers around protecting Charlie and the hotel. A deal he now desperately wants out of. It’s no secret that Alastor hates being on a leash (Husker found that out the hard way) but how the fuck did he even end up on one in the first place if he hates it so much?

Simple, he didn’t see it as a bad idea at the time. That or he could have died without it but we don’t know that yet

If what he got in return was a good deal of power or something else he coveted, why wouldn’t he take the deal to play secret bodyguard and watcher for the princess of hell, one of the most well guarded people in hell, and her lofty idea that ultimately will fail and likely gain no traction at all? It’s practically free power.

And then Charlie starts pissing off all of heaven. And dragging her father and whole host of powerful and dangerous beings into her charade.

Now this is becoming a bad idea he can’t back out from.

And then he almost dies.

Why would the try to escape his deal? Alastor values his life above all else and his greatest fear that I think he now knows about, is the fear of death itself, a suddenly very real risk with the people Charlie, the person he’s forced to protect, is angering. Alastor wants out because of that sheer human thing that is the fear of death.

That’s why it’s such great writing.

Alastor is scared of death and that is what makes him human.

It’s a part of his character he can overcome or fall victim to, something that makes his character relatable and 3D rather than a distant mask. It’s something that makes him human, and that’s especially important in a character that was once just that.

No matter where Alastor’s character goes in the future, if he overcomes this fear and is somehow redeemed (plausible in the way the show is going), or if he is a villain for a future season brewing in the shadows, still driven by this fear that is so central to his actions (again, plausible with how the show is so far, he still had a villain moment after all even if it was a humanising one), Alastor’s character has actually gained so much depth, and all from one little scene sharing one shard of humanity he has left.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin spoilers #Hazbin deep dive #alastor #holy shit have I been analysing Alastor from this one scene #I just love proper character writing and as cool as Alastor has been I’m glad he has a fear

[thewertsearch]

Second part of the giga-ask compilation!

@publicuniversalworstie asked: Why assume the Horrorterrors would know that changing events would create a doomed timeline? That assumes both A) that the horrorterrors know the future and B) that they don't think it can really be changed. Maybe they genuinely thought they could change things, such as by perhaps fulfilling all the requisite loops a different way? Imagine a scenario where a time traveler learns of their death, therefore being destined to die, and instead fake their death to create the conditions under which they learned of the death originally.

It's possible. But if the Horrorterrors do have a way to trick the Alpha Timeline like that, then they've really been holding out on us by not mentioning it to the Players. Such a revelation would completely change the game - we might even be able to fake the Earth's death.

Anonymous asked: i want to learn more about coding to analyze homestuck better - do you have a place i could start? resources? idk love the liveblog hope you're doin well :]

Absolutely! I've got two separate answers for you, depending on what your goal is here.

If your main goal is just to analyse Homestuck, then you’re probably best off picking a language whose syntax is easy to understand, such as Python. You'll pick up on the basic logic pretty quickly, and the ~ATH snippets will start to make a lot more sense.

If you’re actually interested in programming for its own sake, then I recommend you start with my own first language, C. It’s a lot harder for a newbie to get to grips with, but doing so will give you a much more solid theoretical foundation then ostensibly ‘easier’ languages.

W3schools is a decent starting resource for both languages - but if you need more specific guidance, let me know, and I'd be happy to help!

@skelekingfeddy asked: actually grubmom having the same color wires as in that pic of sahlee wasnt intentional! i based it on how sollux’s game grubs have red and blue wires attached to them

Serendipity!

Anonymous asked: Did you run any mysterious ~ath programs on that computer of yours?

Honestly, running ATH on that thing would probably have improved it.

Anonymous asked: One voice headcanon I have for Terezi is the English dub of Power from Chainsaw man

Honestly, she sounds pretty much exactly how I imagine Terezi does. She even has the horns!

@martinkhall asked: I'm surprised none of the suggested instruments for a time player were an ocarina.

Some fruit is just too low-hanging.

@delicate-ruins asked: what's an animal you like that you think doesn't show up very much in media, be it fiction or news or just generally? example: i like secretary birds. but except for videos about them, i have never heard them references.

They're not obscure, per se, but there will never be enough sloths in media. The only fictional sloth of note is Sid from Ice Age – and he does not do them justice.

Capybaras are also underrated as hell – so much so that LibreOffice, which I'm using to edit this compilation, doesn’t even recognize the word as real!

Anonymous asked: “I’m trying to figure out if it’s fully a Breath outfit, or if there’s some Heir stuff too.” the general rule for god tier outfits is that the colors and symbol represent the aspect, the clothes represent the class. so, for example, if two princes of different aspects ascended, their clothing style would be the same but they would a have different color scheme. @skaiandestiny asked: If you haven't already figured it out, class informs the godtier outfit and aspect informs the colors and icon!

In that case, there is something about John’s outfit that says ‘heir’ – but nothing really stands out to me.

@driventopoison asked: Hey, I don't know if it's just me but it seems like you've skipped ahead. I have been following your liveblog daily, but I haven't seen you come across the windy thing yet. Is this because you were using the app or something? Also just want to let you know that I love your liveblog. Keep up the good work!

Thank you! Anyway, John’s Windy Thing is indeed documented on the liveblog, and it’s visible to me. I was using the app for some of that segment, though – are app-made posts particularly buggy?

@classpecting-guide-official asked: story about a modded game of sburb where the characters notice that something isn't right and slowly realize that their world is a lie

Back in Act 1, this is pretty much what I thought was happening. It was a simpler time.

@ignis-cain asked: Note the colors the capslock flashes for WV.

When WV locks his capsule, the button’s light flashes red and green – but I’m not sure what the significance of these colors is, in this situation.

Anonymous asked: i know i'm SUPER late to answer this, but i think the instantiation thing is the same as any video game, newly made with a prebaked history. when you name your character, that has been their name for their whole life, even though you thought it up a few seconds ago. when you enter the medium, the planet has a history and the denizens have memories, even though they just showed up when you entered.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is indeed what’s going on. The implications are just a lot more wild when the game is physically real, rather than virtual!

@kintatsu asked: So, I know I'm a little late to the party, but I have to point out: Alternian sunlight doesn't need to be THAT much stronger than Earth's to blind Terezi as quickly as it did. Trolls are nocturnal, which means they almost definitely have a tapetum lucidum (eyeshine membrane), which means that however much light entered Terezi's eyeballs? Her retinas were blasted by every photon twice.

Damn, Vriska. For a second, I thought this ask was explaining why Terezi wasn't in as much pain as I'd thought - but this alternate explanation might actually be worse than what I was picturing!

@delicate-ruins asked: It's delightful to see somebody read Homestuck and be as charmed by it as I and a lot of my friends were way back when we first read it, and the calm, digesting pace at which you're enjoying it is honestly so nice. I rushed way too much to catch up since my friends recommended it in about 2016, which means I went from knowing nothing about the comic to being caught up on it in like a week. I never sat down with the ideas and thought "hey, does this mean XYZ?" because quite often I got the answer five seconds later as I rushed to catch up. But seeing you asking those questions is so so fun. Yeah, DOES it mean that?? Guess we'll find out! In the meantime, we get to guess, which means we basically get to have fun twice. It's reigniting my enjoyment of homestuck quite significantly, I think!

Thank you! It’s really nice to be able to engage in a dialogue about the comic through these asks, which is something that wouldn't be possible if I was speeding through it. As I always say, I'm here for a good time and a long time.

@manorinthewoods asked: Alright, here's another transtimeline fun fact. Each of the kids was supposed to have a Quest related to their associated material - John had a land covered in oil, Rose's ocean was polluted with chalk, the gears of LOHAC were gummed by amber, and LOFAF was in a nuclear winter. Ultimately, while the ocean of LOLAR is still chalky, nothing but John's oil made the cut. ~LOSS (16/5/23)

I think it was a good change, then. Not everything has to be a pattern, and Dave's two weird maybe-quests are a lot more unique and interesting than a generic 'materials quest'.

@captorations asked: oh hey, this walkaround! so funny story, i used to run a blog where i posted one of terezi’s canon appearances each day, in order. yes, i completed my task, and more besides. however! when i was wandering through this as terezi, a glitch rendered me trapped. i decided that this counted as a noteworthy appearance, and took a screenshot. then, by sheer coincidence, it ended up being posted on… halloween. it was pretty great (also don’t forget to check out ctrl + t)

You accessed the double-secret version of Past Karkat: Wake Up, which plays the Earthbound Halloween Hack version of Megalovania rather than the Homestuck one.

Anonymous asked: Personally, I think John gaining so many levels so quickly is tied to his role as the heir - he gains so many levels without really trying, not because he's better than the trolls or his friends, but because he just kind of falls into it. The game rewards him for taking the path of least resistance.

That certainly makes sense if we just look at John - but I have trouble reconciling this interpretation with our other Heir. Equius certainly has some advantages, but they aren't exactly unique to him, as you'd expect them to be if his Heir class was responsible for them.

Yes, he's a highblood, but he's outranked by three non-Heirs - and his strength doesn't seem to be unique either, as Feferi seems capable of similar feats. Perhaps Equius will trip and fall into more unique privilege, but it hasn't happened yet.

Anonymous asked: my personal headcanons for midnight crew claspects: Slick - Prince of Blood, Droog - Mage of Space, Boxcars - Knight of Heart, Deuce - Bard of Doom. knowing you youre probably gonna attempt to analyse these LOL

Slick has had ties to Blood since he first met Karkat, so that tracks - and Boxcars is a shipper, so Nepeta's aspect is probably the best fit for now. I'm not sure about the other two, but I'll revisit them later!

#asks #full liveblog #act 5.2

[kyuuppi]

A/N: I hope this week has been much better for you. 💛 I'm really happy you enjoyed my writing. :,)

Ft: Kazuha; Tighnari; Xiao

Contents: modern AU; depression mention/symptoms; hurt/comfort; fluff; established relationship

You always tried your best but the expectations only stacked higher and higher until they towered over you, leaving you feeling small and inadequate. More nights have been spent restlessly, with your eyes glued to textbooks and fingers cramping from holding a pencil for far too long, than you can count. 

And yet it never seemed to be enough.

With each hurdle you had just barely managed to pass, another seemed to appear right after it. With each small accomplishment, another daunting task seemed to fall into your lap. You worked so hard but had nothing to show for it. 

While you slaved over calculations, your friends spammed your social media with momentos of nights spent out partying and making memories you would never be a part of. You couldn’t help but wonder what was the point of it all. You worked so hard only for lackluster results and you were miserable. Would you not be miserable after graduation too? You’re killing yourself for a 9-to-5 job that will be just as stressful—if not moreso. Were these truly the “best years of your life?”

Gradually, you lost motivation. Even in the midst of exam season, you find yourself just going through the motions. Textbooks and notes are opened and sifted through daily but none of the material actually sticks in your brain. 

You feel like a shell of your former self—another former gifted kid who had crashed and burned.

↳ Kazuha

Unbeknownst to you, he had silently watched it all. 

Kazuha was known to be something of a loner. He clearly valued self-preservation, preferring to keep to himself while classmates excitedly chattered in class. He sat at the top rows of the auditorium, silently observing from above. However, he was far from antisocial. Kazuha was known to be polite and knowledgeable—he would always reply when spoken to and often offered contributions during lectures that left even the professors impressed. He was good at communicating but only when he needed to. He never concerned himself with others more than strictly necessary. 

At least not until he met you. 

The scars of his last close relationship were still fresh, even if the physical scars marring the flesh of his hands and wrists had healed long ago. Not a day goes by that he is not haunted by the memory of his dearest friend—the one even he couldn’t save from himself. From that point forward, he had promised never to get too close to anyone else. He didn’t think his heart could handle another loss like that. 

But you had appeared in his life as abruptly as lightning and he was in too deep before he could even notice that he was falling in the first place. Your brightness had soothed the aches in his soul he hadn’t even known were there. In short, you had saved him from a life of solitude. To Kazuha, you were the most important person in his life and thus your happiness was his own…

…which also meant your despair was his own.

He noticed the way you had begun distancing yourself from the people you cared about—himself included. Routine late nights watching the stars together were discarded in favor of reviewing class notes and being holed up alone in your bedroom. He didn’t mind you prioritizing studying—he knew how important academics were to you and he promised to never come between that. You had a bright future ahead of you, afterall.

But the occasional all-nighters had spiraled until you hadn’t spoken to him in weeks. The only chances he had to catch a glimpse of your beautiful face that he cherished so much were more often than not obscured by a heavy textbook or the blue tinted glare of a computer screen. The bags under your eyes darkened each time he saw you.

He respected your freedom and independence just as much as he values his own—but your health came first. 

It was on a day you were feeling particularly lifeless—having read the same paragraph for the past ten minutes but still not processing any of it—that he appeared. He had come to your dorm without warning, carrying with him a bundle of soft-looking baby blue blankets and a tin of high-quality chamomile tea. 

“If you don’t mind, I would like to watch the stars together tonight.” 

How could you ever say no to that? 

Stargazing was something the two of you did frequently throughout your relationship. Sometimes the cool nights were filled with light-hearted chatter between the two of you as you reminisced over something funny that had happened that day and other times there was only comfortable silence as you basked in each others’ presence.

Tonight was the latter. 

For the first time in weeks, the tension in your shoulders slackened as you gazed up at the twinkling stars. They blurred slightly above your tired gaze and the warmth of the sweetened tea in your belly was quickly sending your body into a nearly meditative state. 

Beside you, Kazuha hummed softly, a tune he had likely been learning on the shakuhachi recently. 

“Kazu?” you called softly, voice slurred with sleepiness. 

Your lover’s vermillion gaze shifted from the sky over to your own, the warmth in them sparkling in a way that rivaled the stars above. He hummed in acknowledgement, patiently waiting for you to continue speaking. 

Whatever words you were originally going to say seemed to have died on your tongue under his loving gaze and instead you settle on something simple, far too simple to fully convey everything you feel for the man at your side, but enough to make the corner of his eyes crinkle with happiness when you whisper out a small “thank you.” 

He raises a hand to brush over the top of your head, making you subconsciously nuzzle into his touch before he instead pulls you into him, your shoulder melding his chest until you can feel his steady heartbeat against your side.

“It is I who should be thanking you, love. The world is a much brighter place when you're around.”

For as long as anyone can remember, Tighnari has been a high achiever. 

↳ Tighnari

He always won the science fair competitions in grade school, was top of his class in high school, and even now works as a teaching assistant for one of the most renowned botany experts in the Akademiya while simultaneously doing his own research and nature conservation volunteer work on the side. Tighnari seems to effortlessly excel in anything he’s interested in.

Therefore, of course, the last person you feel you can share your inabilities with is your lover, one of the most talented students in Sumeru academic history. 

So you keep it inside. 

You try to push through and handle everything on your own until it inevitably spills over and creates such a big mess that you don’t think it’s possible to even fix it. You’re ready to give up—not everyone is cut out for academics and evidently you aren’t either. Your mind is a mess, your body just going through the motions day-by-day as your grades sink lower and lower. 

Some of your closest friends begin to question if you’re okay—you’ve been forgetting even simple things and you never seem to be as excited as you used to be about your favorite bands or fandoms. They ask if you’re depressed, if you want to talk about anything, but you always decline. You lie and say you just haven't been getting much sleep lately. On the contrary, you’ve been doing nothing but sleeping. Coming home from classes and seeing the pile of incomplete assignments waiting stresses you out so you decide to go to bed early most days. 

It’s on a Saturday morning, close to noon, that there’s a loud knock on your door. Despite the high sun, you still lie in bed, unshowered and phasing in and out of restless unconsciousness. 

The first time you try to ignore it, assuming it’s a delivery and that they’ll just leave if they think no one is home. But the knocking is persistent, getting louder and louder until you’re sure your neighbors are going to give you a noise complaint if you don’t hurry and answer it.

Reluctantly, you crawl out of bed, taming your hair into something semi-presentable before shuffling to the door, blanket still wrapped around your shoulders.

It’s to your mild horror that you come face-to-face with your boyfriend, various plastic shopping bags in hand and grinning at you as if you don’t look like absolute death right now.

“Good morning, dear! Are you ready for today’s itinerary?” 

He doesn’t even wait for you to reply before he’s pushing his way through your door, setting the bags down on your kitchen counter and quickly rifling through them as he hums cheerily to himself. 

“We didn’t,” he confirms casually, “but it’s Saturday and someone has been neglecting their health lately,” he shoots you a stern look that makes you flinch before he returns his attention to the bags. 

You’re frozen in shock for a moment before you slowly make your way over, vaguely wondering if you’re actually still asleep and just having another bizarre dream.

“Um, I don’t remember us making plans today,” you start cautiously, watching as he pulls a seasonal fruit platter from one of the bags. 

“So I did some research on the best methods to treat burnout—all peer-reviewed and tested!” 

He looks a bit too proud of himself for you to even think of protesting and so you obediently allow yourself to be led to the sofa before Tighnari fusses around, lighting a few lavender and rosemary scented candles—all picked and dried from his personal garden, he excitedly tells you—before he places the tray of fruits in your lap and connects his laptop to your TV. 

He puts on a show he knows you love—something you haven’t kept up with in the past few weeks, and flops down beside you before pulling you into his arms.

It’s not until you’re both halfway through the second episode that you gain enough courage to swallow down a slice of fruit and ask your boyfriend why he went through the hassle to do all of this.

“Because you needed it. You were clearly stressed and burned out—and as intelligent as you are, no one can perform their best when they aren’t properly rested.”

He presses a chaste peck to the top of your head that sends your stomach into a flurry. 

You aren’t sure if there are enough words in the universe to properly convey how thankful you are to have Tighnari in your life at the moment so you don’t even try. 

Instead, you duck down and nuzzle your head into his warm chest as the soft fragrance of lavender and low tones of your favorite TV show relax your mind for the first time in nearly a month. 

↳ Xiao

If there is anyone who understands being hard on yourself and feeling like nothing you do is ever good enough, it's this man. 

Xiao had seemed to dedicate his entire life to his mentor, the man who he claims saved him from destruction in his abusive household. Since being offered an internship at Zhongli’s tattoo shop, Xiao had worked relentlessly on perfecting his designs and needlework. Regardless of how many times Zhongli told Xiao he was already well on his way to surpassing even Zhongli himself, Xiao always only found faults in his work and continued to overwork himself in his own attempt to repay Zhongli for his kindness. It was you who saved him from his own self-destruction when you taught him to take care of himself and convinced him that he was worthy of happiness. 

So when he realized that you—the one who kept him sane when his miasma of dark thoughts seemed too strong to bare—were destroying yourself, he was understandably a bit pissed off.

Honestly, he didn’t even notice at first. You had always been dedicated to your studies, which he admired, so he didn’t think much of it when you would occasionally turn down his invitations to hang out when he was free from work. It was only when you started missing your weekly date nights that he grew concerned—and even then, rather than thinking anything was wrong with you, he assumed it was because of him. The darkness in his mind told him you were finally sick of him. You had finally realized how worthless he truly was, how he would bring you nothing but pain if you continue associating with him, and were starting to protect yourself from him. He told himself it was for the best—it was selfish of him to ever try to keep something as good and pure as you in his life in the first place….

But he wasn't that strong. The thought of going back to a life without you proved too painful to bear. He found himself at your door one late afternoon after you’d rejected his offer to hang out for the umpteenth time. His heart was hammering in his chest as he anxiously imagined what exactly you would say to him but he knocked on your door anyway, patiently waiting for you to open it.

He was in the midst of imagining your face morphed into an expression of disgust and telling him to “fuck off” for the third time when you finally opened the door and effectively halted all of his dark thoughts. Far from disgust, he only saw misery in your expression as you tiredly looked up at him, droopy eyes slightly widened in obvious surprise to see him. 

“Xiao? What are you doing here,” you croak out, voice slightly raspy as if you hadn’ spoken to anyone all day. 

‘You probably hadn’t,’ he realizes with a growing sense of panic.

“I’m sorry but I really can’t hang out tonight. I have a report due Thursday and…”

Your brows are knit in genuine apology as you explain yourself. He watches in realtime as your expression grows more and more hopeless as you continue to list out all of the reasons you can’t spend time with him. It begins to feel like you’re talking to yourself rather than him as you drone on about all the deadlines, all the responsibilities,  all the expectations—

That’s when Xiao’s brain seems to finally start working again and, as always, the first emotion he is truly able to recognize is anger. Your words are cut short when Xiao bullies you into your small apartment, absently closing the door behind himself before he’s firmly ushering you into your bedroom. Protests fall from your lips the whole way but Xiao is having none of it and, before you know it, you find yourself cuddled up against your many pillows and plushies in bed with a thick, warm blanket swaddled around your body. Your study materials are abandoned on your desk nearby. 

Xiao himself quickly ducks out of the room followed by the familiar metallic clanking of dishes in the kitchen. In less than ten minutes—just enough time for your frazzled brain to quiet down just a bit—he’s back, carrying a bowl of something that steams and fills your senses with a familiar scent that makes your mouth water. 

He sets the dish on your bedside table somewhat sheepishly before announcing he tried his best to make your favorite with his limited cooking skills. You consider telling him he could have literally given you a slice of stale bread and you’d be happy just cause it was from him but you refrain, instead taking an eager mouthful—”hey, be careful. It’s still hot…”—and being pleasantly surprised by how he managed to make the cheap, packaged ingredients from the back of your freezer so palatable. 

While you tuck into your first real meal of the day, Xiao hesitantly settles in beside you, sitting stiffly on the bed just close enough for you to feel his body heat but not enough to be touching. 

Despite his silence, you can feel the obvious tension radiating from him but before you can ask him what’s wrong he beats you to it. 

“You need to take better care of yourself,” he starts, voice sharp. 

You can already feel the scolding coming and you mentally prepare yourself for another ten minutes of criticism. It seems the only time Xiao has a lot to say it’s when he’s reprimanding someone—usually you for being a bit too audacious for your own good at times. 

To your surprise though, his tone shifts into something much softer as he pointedly avoids your gaze, staring down at one of your pillows in his lap with an almost shy expression. 

“I know school is important to you but…your health is important to me so please don’t overwork yourself.”

Something in your chest squeezes but you decide to spare him of the squeals and pinching of his steadily reddening cheeks that you’re tempted to inflict upon him—not that it matters much when you’re grinning so hard your cheeks ache. 

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #kazuha x reader #xiao x reader #tighnari x reader #genshin imagine #genshin fic #kazuha imagine #tighnari imagine #xiao imagine #requested #anon #genshin impact imagine #genshin impact x reader #genshin scenario #xiao scenario #kazuha scenario #tighnari scenario

[dialogueless-duel]

Are you a fan of obscure background characters? or perhaps characters so dead they're only ever mentioned?

do you think your favorite blorbo turned basically oc deserves to win the crown?

even when no one knows what their voice sounds like?

then you are in luck! welcome to

THE DIALOGUELESS DUEL!

Characters from all across your favorite media who have never said a word will come together to battle it out in paired matchups, but you know how this all works already. lets get into the rules.

this is not necessarily for silent protagonists, they can be submitted but this tournament is mainly about the underdogs, the characters you are obsessed with despite having little immediate presence in the story.

we do not know every media ever and as a result cannot check to see if every character is truly dialogueless, we will be taking your word for it

we don't have a set bracket size yet, we'll see how many submissions we get!

submissions also do not have a set end date.

us pollrunners will be very biased, many of our own blorbos have been automatically added into the tournament, our house our rules

please be kind! no /srs death threats or major dunking on other contestants (be nice to us to we have feelings)

as always, submit as many characters as you would like but don't submit the same one multiple times

propaganda is allowed and encouraged! askbox will be open during the duration of the tournament and we will try our best to reblog any propaganda you make on the polls themselves, if making propaganda on your own post make sure to tag us so we see it!

no harry potter or south park please

lastly, we still do not know every media ever so if we end up including a problematic piece of media do be civil about it as we most likely did not know about it

lastly have fun, this is a threat, this is for fun, don't get too serious about it

SUBMIT BELOW

Other polls tagged for reach under the cut!

@makethosenarratorsfight @sharp-teeth-swag @overworkedblorbobattle @fictional-musician-competition @doomed-bythe-narrative @let-me-date-them-bracket @retirement-home-rumble @protagonistpolling @obscure-skirmish @maskedmaniatournament

#tournament poll

[oscconfessions]

TRANSFEM TISSUES PROPAGANDA ATTACK!!!

why do another nonbinary arc when you can do the transfems justice? sure, we already have lightbulb, but lightbulb happened in between seasons and it was never even canonized! wouldn’t it be great to finally make the transfems happy and give the world an actual transfem arc?

tissues is easily one of the contestants i have the most problems with. firstly— the way their sickness is made fun of when it’s genuinely a disability. let’s add more to this walking ableist stereotype and build on that! make them have niche interests— since they’d probably be bedridden a lot, maybe make them a super geeky person! make them like fandoms and spending their time drawing fanart for their favorite shows— make them have super geek freakouts when they learn someone else has heard of their favorite obscure anime!! make them an enjoyer of horror media, or make them an otaku!! make them indulge in media so that they can imagine themselves in a world where no one makes fun of them for their condition!

my next point is to make them have an arc where people realize that there’s more to them! have one of the new contestants reach out despite their illness! make them learn all about who tissues is, make them learn about tissues’ rich inner worlds that they’ve built up to escape the reality of their sickness. make them become really close with tissues and make them share their interests with them as well. make them open up to eachother— i could see this happening with cabby or clover, maybe even tea kettle! …and then have one of the older contestants refer to tissues as “the sick one”, or some other dismissive term that references only their condition. make tissues’ friend angry at that contestant for only seeing tissues for their disability, make them yell at that contestant and let them fucking rant. and make tissues be in the background, hearing all this and realizing that they… really don’t deserve to be treated like that, do they? make them realize that all this time they’ve been trying to escape when in reality, they can stand up and fight. just like their favorite heroes do. just like their friend did for them.

(btw its very important that their friend is a girl i should mention this)

let them get more confident over time, starting with them glaring at people who joke about their condition. then have it escalate into them taking a stand against anyone who says mean shit against them— have them tell people off for being ableist fucks (not words used in the show most likely) and make their friend be proud of it. make them grow closer with their friend over the course of the show, and have a scene where the two are alone. tissues would ask “…what’s it like to be a girl?” their friend would be a bit confused, but would explain it to the best of their ability. “…huh.” their friend asks why they asked “…i know… that some people don’t feel like the gender they were born with… and i always kind of identified with that.” “i was wondering because… because i felt strange about being a man. and i… i feel exactly like what you said.” Have their friend realize that. oh this guy is a girl actually. Have them offer the best advice they can, whether it be analytical or motherly or even a little awkward. and i want tissues to feel inspired to change. i want tissues’ title to change from The Sickness to The Adapter. someone who can change and grow no matter the situation— if only they try.

please consider this

-🥜🪶

.

#confession #/ii #/ii/tissues

[yukipri]

I saw somewhere someone says it wasn't the Jedi fault what happened at Galidraan, they were there to arrest and investigate, not to kill, and it was the mando who attack first. Is that true ? I didn't read it

Ahh fandom misunderstandings about Galidraan continue.

Understandable, given it's from a relatively obscure base media but the event comes up a lot in fan works. I'll do my best to break it down.

All you need to know about the Massacre on Galidraan

The following info is all from the Legends comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons, specifically focussing on the 3rd installment, Winter. Here's a photo of my physical copy I have open as I type this, so you know I'm not pulling this info out of my ass.

First, some crucial facts:

1: Galidraan was not a Mandos vs Jedi conflict.

It may appear that way at first glance, and likely seemed that way to many outsiders across the Galaxy who only read about the massacre in a heavily censored news article. But while the battle was the True Mandalorians fighting against the Jedi and ultimately all dying except for Jango, that is not what the conflict was about.

2: There were 4 factions involved in Galidraan.

People oftentimes boil it down to Mandos vs Jedi, but that isn't accurate, because there were 4 parties involved:

The True Mandalorians (Haat Mando'ade; Jango's people)

The Jedi

Death Watch (led by Tor Vizsla, who killed Jaster, Jango's mentor)

The Governor of Galidraan

I have no idea why some fandom takes on Galidraan forget to mention the last two, when they are why the massacre took place at all.

3: The party responsible for the conflict on Galidraan was DEATH WATCH, with the Governor of Galidraan as their accomplice.

&

The Jedi were used, and the True Mandalorians were victims.

You can endlessly debate whether or not the Jedi or the True Mandalorians could have taken different actions to have possibly prevented the massacre. And it's true, it might have been possible! There were certainly other actions that both sides could have taken.

HOWEVER. That discussion can ONLY take place after understanding that both sides were very intentionally, and very MALICIOUSLY manipulated by a third party.

This was not a normal Jedi vs Mandos clash. Neither the Jedi nor the True Mandalorians would have fought (would have even been on the planet in the first place!) without these manipulations, so to ask which of the two was to blame without first understanding that Death Watch set them up is failing to get Galidraan at all.

Here's what happened at the Massacre of Galidraan:

Jango and the True Mandalorians took a job from the Governor of Galidraan to kill his political opponents. The True Mandalorians are mercenaries, and this was just a job for them. It's also implied that Jango knew in advance that the Governor of Galidraan had been harboring Tor Vizsla and funding Death Watch*, and he intentionally took the job in order to get the Governor to owe him and pay him with information on them.

Jango and the True Mandalorians killed the Governor's political opponents, just as they were hired to do, and upheld their agreement. When Jango goes to collect payment, it was a trap—Tor Vizsla and Death Watch were waiting for him, and attempted to kill him.

Jango escapes, but his jetpack is damaged, as are his comms (or perhaps more likely, his comms were intentionally blocked). This is important because Jango now knows explicitly that they were set up: that the Governor of Galidraan was always working with Death Watch, and that he and his people being called to this planet was a trap in order to kill them. He tries to warn the True Mandalorians (Myles, his second, to be exact) to evacuate, but is unable to reach them because of his comms connection.

Back with Death Watch and the Governor, after Vizsla fails to kill Jango, they watch as the Jedi land on planet. The Governor states: "Yes, as you [Tor Vizsla] instructed, I begged for [the Jedi/the Republic's] help. Informed them that the Mandalorians were slaughtering political activists, which is basically true."

So, let's get this straight: the Governor of Galidraan, who personally HIRED the True Mandalorians to get rid of his political opponents, is now calling the Jedi to say "Oh no the Mandalorians are killing political activists!" And he did so under the explicit orders of Tor Vizsla. He explicitly backstabbed the True Mandalorians.

Should note that the True Mandalorians do follow a code, and only killed the specific people considered a threat (aka combatants). The True Mandalorians did not touch civilians, but as you can see from frames above, Death Watch goes ahead and kills them to make false evidence against the True Mandalorians and therefore justify their slaughter.

Again: Death Watch/Tor Vizsla and the Governor of Galidraan EXPLICITLY set up the True Mandalorians/Jango.

Next: Jango gets back to the True Mandalorians' camp as soon as he can, and arrives just as a large group of Jedi arrive, led by Dooku. Their lightsabers are already drawn.

Dooku says to them: "You stand accused of murder. Surrender now and we will ensure that you are fairly treated."

The girl next to Dooku, presumably young Komari Vosa, adds, "But fight us, and we will bring swift justice!"

Jango's response: "Mandalorians, open fire! And shoot the loudmouth first!"

And so the battle begins.

Without any of the previous context, sure, it might be easy to say "Jango's responsible, he fired first." But take a moment to think about what led up to this moment.

Jango knows, explicitly, that Death Watch and the Governor are working together.

He knows that Death Watch just wants him dead, and in fact very literally just escaped being killed.

He knows that he and his people are caught in a trap, and that Death Watch and the Governor want them all dead.

He probably isn't sure how they're going to be killed—until he arrives back at camp, and sees a shitton of Jedi with their lightsabers drawn, who are accusing them of a crime they did not commit. And he must have thought, ah, that would do it.

This isn't a normal encounter with the Jedi. It's true that Mandalorians have reasons to dislike Jedi as a whole, but Jango didn't shoot first because of that.

Jango shot first because he recognized that the Jedi were the weapon that Death Watch and the Governor chose for the execution of himself and his people. And he wasn't wrong.

Could Jango have maybe stopped to have a gentlemanly chat with Dooku and say "Good sir, we did not commit any murder, you were told false information and are being manipulated and we the True Mandalorians have been set up. Please put away your lightsabers so we can talk"? I mean. He could have. But.

With all of the context above, his decision to raise arms also makes sense.

After the battle, all fo the True Mandalorians present have been killed except Jango, as well as roughly half of the Jedi. Many of those Jedi were killed by Jango himself, with nothing but his bare hands—this is how he gains his infamous reputation as a "Jedi Killer." But to him, he was acting in self-defense.

The Jedi—or rather, at least Dooku—realize that they have been used only after the fact, and that they've done something horribly wrong and have killed innocents. Surrounded by the bodies of Jedi and True Mandalorians, and having just watched Jango strangle one last Jedi, Dooku says:

"What have we done...?"

In the "present" of the comic (pre-clone deal), Dooku also tells Sidious about Galidraan, "It was a misguided mission from the start. And not the first of the Council's many...poor decisions."

So what happened afterwards?

Jango alone was captured alive, and for some darn reason the Jedi turned him over to the Governor of Galidraan*. The Governor sold Jango to slavers and he was forced to work on a spice transport, until an opportunity arose to escape.

After escaping, did Jango seek out the Jedi?

No.

He beelined straight back to Galidraan, where the Governor, who had sold him and worked with Death Watch, had taken his armor (Jaster's armor) as some sort of twisted war trophy. He recovered his armor, and threatened the governor to get info on Tor Vizsla's location.

After that, did he go on a revenge campaign against the Jedi?

No.

He went straight for Tor Vizsla, who was PERSONALLY responsible for the deaths of the True Mandalorians at Galidraan. And he fought him. And killed him.

(or more specifically, injured him then let dire-cats eat him alive. Looks like Fetts have always had good luck with animals)

So that's the facts about Galidraan.

After Thoughts:

I hope this breakdown of the events makes it explicitly clear that Death Watch and the Governor were at fault for Galidraan, and that it was never a Mandos vs Jedi conflict. The same thing would have happened had Death Watch chosen a different executioner—though to be fair, not much can kill a trained group of Mandalorian mercenaries like the True Mandalorians.

Could both the True Mandalorians and Jedi have taken different actions that could have averted tragedy? Possibly. But just as likely, had Jango tried to talk, word would have reached the Jedi's ears that oh no, more Mandalorians are slaughtering the Galidraan women and children! (what Death Watch was doing while the True Mandos and Jedi were fighting) and then one of the more hot headed Jedi like Vosa probably would have been like "These negotiations are a distraction! Even now you're killing innocents—we fight!" And the True Mandos would have been killed anyway.

Again, they were set up. The True Mandalorians to be killed, the Jedi to be used as their ignorant executioner. They were not the only parties involved, and any attempt to peacefully negotiate their way out of it would have been hindered by the true aggressors, who already had contingency plans at the ready. And also, both parties were already expecting certain things of the other: Jango knew the Jedi had been sent to kill them (though not why the Jedi believed they should), and the Jedi thought they were a bunch of murderers, not a professional group simply hired for a job.

This is just my personal take, but while I don't think either Jango nor Dooku acted unreasonably at the time of the battle, there were two points where I think they could have made better decisions (marked with * above):

1) When Jango decided to take a job on Galidraan in the first place, knowing in advance that the Governor was friendly with Tor Vizsla and Death Watch. Admittedly, the comic doesn't provide much context for this, and perhaps the intel Jango had suggested a more distant connection, or something else to imply the Governor would be willing to rat out Death Watch. It seems almost cute that Jango goes ok, well I don't want to just randomly bust this guy's door down to threaten him for info on my arch nemesis, so I'm going to do a job for him and get him to owe me, and then we'll talk.

If there is one not so intelligent move Jango made, it seems like this one, though again there's not much context so perhaps it does make more sense.

2) When the Jedi give Jango to the Governor of Galidraan. I don't know about the rest of the Jedi, but Dooku at least seemed to sense that something had gone horribly wrong with the mission immediately after the battle, before they took Jango into custody. But despite KNOWING this, they didn't take the time to thoroughly investigate (better late than never) before handing Jango to his enemies on a silver platter. I would say that the Jedi ARE pretty responsible for this part, especially since they had reason to know better.

This action of the Jedi handing Jango over also implies that even if Jango had complied and he and all of the True Mandalorians had surrendered to the Jedi in hopes of talks, the Jedi would have handed them all over to the Governor (and Death Watch) to either be turned into slaves or executed. So no, I don't think that would have worked out well at all.

(I'm going to give at least Dooku the benefit of doubt, since the comic shows that at least he (and possibly he alone of the Jedi present) recognized that something was wrong. I'd hope that as the leader and presumably most senior member of the group of Jedi, he'd have some sort of authority, but then again, this is the Senate. He might have tried to at least delay Jango being handed over to the Governor until an investigation was conducted, but was perhaps held back by too much legal tape, and had to watch as someone he was sure was a victim was handed over to a suspicious party. Maybe he personally did an investigation afterwards and found that his bad feelings were correct, but when he tried to bring it up with the Council/Senate, he was told to forget about it. That would certainly shatter what remaining faith he had in the Republic and the Jedi, and possibly also lead him to search out Jango specifically as a candidate for the clone project—but again, this is purely speculation. Either way, Galidraan forms a potentially very fascinating connection between Dooku and Jango that predates Sidious.)

On the Jedi:

While the Galidraan conflict isn't about the Jedi, and they were simply used, I think internally, it does reveal some deep flaws in the Jedi Order as a whole, and that Dooku's criticisms of how they acted are fair. Dooku tells Jango, "[Galidraan] was the last of my foolish errands for the Senate. And the Jedi."

The Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers, are supposed to understand and help people across the Galaxy, which their connection to the Force is supposed to help with. But by becoming an entity controlled by a political power that responds to mission requests through that chain, the Jedi are at risk of being used for various political agendas, sometimes to terrible consequences—like at Galidraan.

The quote above shows that the orders for the Jedi came from the Senate, who got them from the Governor of Galidraan. The fact is that the Jedi are a completely external force with zero familiarity with Galidraan or its current happenings, who were summoned by a government to do their bidding. If there was any investigation done, it clearly wasn't enough, and the Jedi were essentially turned into super deadly government attack dogs.

Galidraan laid bare the great danger that the Jedi can be, when their power is given to the wrong hands. Again, the Jedi were used—but that they could be used, that they likely have been used in the past and will be used in the future so long as they are beholden to a Republic whose orders they must follow—that's something to think about.

Again, it's not about Jedi vs Mandos. Sure, the fact that the Jedi have bad history with Mandos may have affected the lack of depth in their investigation. But it could have just as easily been "Group of X people are murdering innocents!" and the very same thing could have happened. This conflict revealed far less, "wow the Jedi really hate Mandos!" and more, "the Jedi and the Republic have a flawed relationship, and obeying government orders does not necessarily a peacekeeper make."

Given that the Jedi decided to give Jango to the Governor, I think it's very likely that no deep investigation was ever done into Galidraan, and if it was, it was covered up. After all, it's against the Republic's interests to show that they passed manipulated info to the Jedi, because they can't have the Jedi wanting to question future orders or worse, refuse to obey! And in a way, it's against the Order's interests to show that they not only fucked up by going to the mission at all, but further fucked up by handing the last surviving victim to the enemy after the fact. Add to that the fact that Death Watch was on site actively manipulating evidence and muddling the truth, and Jango no longer has anyone left alive to vouch for him so it's only his word, it's very likely that the truth really never got out of the small circle of those personally involved.

Perhaps the Jedi taught about Galidraan internally as a cautionary tale about being careful about the orders they're given. But given the above, I think that's incredibly generous and frankly unlikely.

On Jango Fett

This leads me to a final point: I disagree that Jango passionately hates and wants revenge on the Jedi.

At least, based on this story, as well as his depiction in the Bounty Hunters video game (which is supposed to be a sequel to this comic, even though its depiction of the start of the cloning contract isn't mutually compatible with the version in this comic) Jango doesn't actually really appear to care all that much about the Jedi at all.

You can say what you will about his actions, but he always has a very clear target for who his enemy is, and he goes straight for them. Immediately post Galidraan, it was the Governor of Galidraan and then Tor Vizsla specifically—not even the rest of Death Watch!

And while there isn't all that much official info on what Jango did after he killed Vizsla until he was pulled into the cloning project, I see zero evidence that he was consumed by revenge, or that he attempted to hunt down the rest of Death Watch or kill any Jedi despite the harm they have done to him in the past.

In fact, from his depiction at the start of the Bounty Hunters game, which I think is the best source of this period of his life that I can think of, it looks like Jango just kind of threw himself into bounty hunting work. After all, one does not have the reputation as "best bounty hunter in the galaxy" overriding "former Mand'alor, leader of the True Mandalorians" unless he did, well, a lot of bounty hunting.

He was a loner who didn't have any friends, which implies he didn't go looking for any surviving True Mandalorians—and there must have been, not everyone could have been in that battle. I suspect it's out of guilt, but that's a separate discussion. He didn't go hunting Jedi specifically, because presumably not many Jedi (who still identify as Jedi) have bounties on them, and "Jedi Killer" would certainly be a reputation louder than bounty hunter if that was his main focus.

But no. He was just a sad, lost dude who's really good at killing people so continues the Honorable Mercenary traditions of his people who are now gone, all by himself. Even the contest that lead to him being chosen as the Prime clone was originally just another job, and he just happened to meet Montross in the process, but he didn't really go out of his way to hunt him down either, despite how he was personally responsible for Jaster's death.

However—if you don't know that about Jango, and again don't have a full understanding of what happened at Galidraan (which again, I doubt many people do), I think it would be very easy to go oh! The Jedi killed all his people! So of course he hates Jedi!

(Which then provides a reason for why the Sith would think he would want to work with them to hurt Jedi—but does NOT explain why the Jedi would not think it suspicious that he's the Prime clone for an army supposedly made to help them. But that too is a separate exploration.)

All of this makes Jango a very fascinating character for me, and I could go on to explore his motivations and actions so much more—and in fact I do!!! All of those explorations of Jango and his motives and past are included as a large part of my fic, The Prime Override! So I won't go into it more here, this post is long enough, but you can check out my thoughts there! (LMAO sudden self-promo)

But anyway!!! I hope this whole thing was interesting for you, and that it helped you understand what happened at Galidraan better!

Again, the comic is Jango Fett: Open Seasons, written by Hayden Blackman, art by Ramon Bachs, Raul Fernandez, and Brad Anderson, published by Dark Horse Comics in 2002.

While I believe the standalone comic is out of print (I had to hunt down my copy on ebay), it's all included in Marvel Unlimited's digital comic library. It's also in the Star Wars Omnibus: Emissaries & Assassins collection, which might be cheaper because it's more recent.

As tragic as Jango's past is, it's one of my favorite Legends stories and I recommend reading the story for yourself if you can!

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

#YukiPri rambles #YukiPri replies #Galidraan #Jango Fett #Star Wars #Star Wars Legends #Count Dooku #SW Lore #Open Seasons #comics #longpost #long post #OP comment: All of this is also why it absolutely BAFFLES me that new canon seems so obsessed with Death Watch #and has made lots of other Mando factions but hasn't really done much about the True Mandalorians??? #like that is what I was expecting the Book of Boba Fett to be about #especially given the timing of being after Mando S2 and Din getting the Darksaber but before Mando S3 #Should note: this comic predates the Darksaber's existence by 8 years #so people who say 'oh Jango and Jaster were never the true leaders of Mandalore bc they never had the Darksaber' #my dude the Darksaber did not appear as a concept until 8 years after these stories were published #Anyway if you are like me and think gosh most of the new canon Mando factions are real assholes in some way or another #why is there no Hero Group #here they are: the True Mandalorians and Boba Fett's heritage #Anyway really REALLY hoping they bring this story back into new canon #Jaster was an easter egg and now technically canon thanks to Boba's armor chain code which means True Mandos are also presumably canon #so here's to hoping... #Anyway yeah I wrote this essay in place of updating fic oops

[doyouknowthisdisabledcharacter]

hi, curious about your vetting process for submissions? you've mentioned checking characters before posting their polls and I was wondering what kind of research went into that?

partly sheer curiosity, partly because I submitted a few characters quite some time back who are reasonably obscure and I wondered if you were having trouble finding info about them and that was why we hadn't seen them yet. :) if there's any way I can help let me know

This is gonna be a longer response in a few sections.

1.) So, our vetting process isn’t that complicated or in-depth. We basically just check does the character exist, are they disabled, and are they disabled in the way the submitter said (you’d be surprised about how often they are disabled but in a slightly different way than the submitter said, or just count for a totally different thing too). (Person who submitted Alphonse Elric with Edward Elric’s disability you will forever be in my heart). Also, only one of us actually does the research about the characters, and I generally research them by using the fandom pages (they are the literal worst most of the time but they get the job done), also for the most part there usually is a fandom page (there’s been a few times where I’ve had to read through articles or scroll Goodreads for way too long to figure out if a character even exists but that’s usually books). We also tend to rephrase qualifications in a more accurate/succinct way.

2.) It is very unlikely that we would be unable to find information for more obscure characters being disabled. If we were unable to find information we would put out a post about it.

Now onto the next part:

1.) In relation to our vetting process, we do not have the time to check that every piece of media a character is from isn’t problematic, I do try my best to at least see if the characters are problematic, but I do not have the time or energy to figure out controversial media, especially because a lot of the media is somewhat hard to find information on (we haven’t gotten to a lot of the obscure characters but I assure you they are there). In this case Harry Potter being excluded is the exception to the rule, not establishing a rule.

2.) Right now, for specific characters, the only thing that would automatically disqualify them is if they are a rapist or something along those lines, although we may try to avoid ableist representations of characters, its often hard to figure out if the depictions are ableist from just reading the wiki for them (I don’t have the time to vet the characters in significantly more depth, and often even if I looked up if the portrayal was flawed there isn’t much out there sometimes). Additionally, I’ve seen that a lot of people have a lot of different opinions on if a character is bad representation or not, so it feels wrong to exclude characters just due to reasons that can be extremely subjective.

3.) Honestly, when it comes down to it, the reason why our exclusions are the way they are is because we are submission based, and we’d like to honor that as much as possible.

#asks #submission asks #other asks #dyktdc #also if anyone would like to weigh in on problematic portrayals of disability feel free

[fauxfickle]

We now return with your regularly scheduled and all too familiar feeling of malaise and the search for "The Great All American Pizza Show!"

So it's been a little under a month since my last post and I've been skimming through commercial compilations from the LA area. I've found some cool YT channels that archive old ads from that area but I obviously don't have anything to show for it. The ads are either too early or too late to be part of this campaign which is a bit frustrating. Something I neglected to mention last time was that I was also looking through Colossal Pictures demo reels to see if they had a snippet of the animated commercial but of course, there's nothing. There seems to be a cutoff point in the early 80s as most demos only show things from that far back. I was able to find some obscure, silent, avant garde, sci-fi film possibly connected to Colossal but I don't think that'll help me much.

Colossal had some sort of "meet the crew" type video where all the employees said they're names but only their first name so I can't really track them down or anything. I'll keep looking, I didn't look all too hard as I was kinda at my wits end at that time looking through ad comps for hours.

I took a bit of a break for a while before reading through the old Pizza Times newsletters from Dec 79 - May 80. The May 1980 newsletter had some cool info about commercials and news features filmed at the various stores. Some of these aren't technically part of TGAAPS campaign but ehhhhhh I don't really care. They're part of early PTT history and I wanna see them damnit!

Let's go through these starting with Citrus Heights. The Citrus Heights section is loaded with info regarding lost media, 3 in fact! Sacramento's Channel 40 (KTXL), which has since been bought out by FOX in the mid 80s, did a Newsplus at 10 feature on the cyberamic systems at the new store during it's opening week. If we consult the ever so useful Chuck-E-Pedia, we can find that this feature would have been shot and most likely aired on Christmas week of 1979. A perfect pin point set of dates to look through! Next, Chuck was seen in the lead up to the United Cerebral Palsy Telethon which also gives us some idea of where to look. Finally, a TV commercial was filmed, possibly with TGAAPS slogan. Bob Wilkins' ad agency produced it but I couldn't find ANYTHING regarding this company. It's mentioned on his wikipedia but not named, and a even his own website doesn't mention anything about it. It's surprising that someone who seems like a local celeb in there area could have an ad agency that goes almost entirely undocumented.

Next, we move to Sparks, Nevada. Channel 2 (KTVN) filmed a feature on the store for the PM Magazine. The store was visited by reporter Keith Hirshland. Now I'm actually pretty sure I've found this dude! I found a local online article talking about him and the timeline works perfectly. Assuming this was filmed in early 1980, Keith would of been still fresh out of college with a degree in journalism and around 23. He also says he grew up running down the halls of the KTVN office. As a little aside, I'd just like to say don't bother this man or anyone/company mentioned in any of my posts. The last thing we need is to scare off these people.

This last little piece of lost media probably has the best chances of being found out of all the rest. Ben Wattenberg's 1980, from what I can find, is a dry, uninteresting TV news segment hosted by an equally dry and uninteresting host, the neo-conservative Ben Wattenberg. Ben Wattenberg's 1980 itself seems to be almost entirely lost media as only a few stills, episode descriptions, and TV listings exist online. However, this show was on PBS which no doubt has it somewhere in it's archive. What's better is that that there not only an exact date of when the episode will air, but also the name of the episode itself! One user on taptalk was able to find a TV listing which unfortunately doesn't lead anywhere and isn't archive on the WayBack machine. Luckily people actually said the name of the supposed episode which would of been "Silicon Valley: The New Entrepreneurs". We can also find evidence of it in a newspaper from that June 15th.

I sent e-mails to KTXL-40 and PBS on 2/24, so far no responses. I'll wait a little longer and in the mean time look for more leads and contacts. As I said before, don't bother these people/companies. I don't want them to be swamped with calls and e-mails and clam up on us. Bye for now!

#chuck e cheese #pizza time theatre #the great all american pizza search #the great all american pizza show #pizza time theater #lost footage #lost commercial #lost media #bob wilkins #ben wattenberg #oh god why is there a ben wattenberg tag on tumblr

[linskywords]

It's super nice of you to lock your fics to make readers less anxious. It's also really nice of you to keep updating works unlocked for readers without accounts. I know that I got an ao3 account because one of the wolfverse fics were archive locked and another fic I was reading was suddenly locked while it was still being updated. I also think that locking fics won't stop them from breaching containment. Hockey RPF has already had a user copy locked fics and then swapping them to another fandom as unlocked fics. It really is as easy as that. Lots of people have ao3 accounts and people outside of the fandom can still come into ours and blast our fics all over social media if they wanted to. In fact someone did copy down the top ships on ao3 for Hockey RPF and posted it in the nhl subreddit. Coleydoesthings made a youtube video on top fandoms which included Hockey RPF and SidGeno was one of the top ships and contains one of the most kudos'ed Sports RPF fics. It's already out there on youtube. It's really easy to get an ao3 account. I'm not saying to revert back to unlocking your fics (you can do whatever you want); if I ever publish any fics they'll probably be archive locked. I just think that maintaining the fourth wall is an impossible task and nothing on the internet is private. This isn't meant to scare anyone, but I think we need to realize that we don't have the control over fandom that we think/wish we did, and that we'll be okay. We may have to adapt, and I have no idea what that would be, but archive locking isn't going to be our saving grace. (If only it were that easy)

Second ask:

Adding to previous ask about archive locking because I just remembered something my cousin told me. She has TikTok, and while she is not in hrpf (yet...she wants to read some now that I've talked a bunch about hockey players), she gets tiktoks of people shipping Willy and Mitch using clips of them from games where one is bent over and the other bumps into the other's butt. So while it's not fanfiction the real person shipping is also already on tiktok. And I mean, hockey players do this stuff all the time, so it will likely blow over without brining fanfiction into it. But it's still on tiktok, and that probably is completely separate from hrpf, but it could definitely get tied to it (or attract tiktokers to fanfic and it's really up in the air if they bring fanfics onto tiktok and whether their internet/rpf ethics are anything like hrpf writers). Like, I don't know the future of fanfic privacy. The best we can do is keep it on ao3/tumblr and hope that people don't try to show it to the players (or try to make it go viral on reddit/tiktok).

Hm, there's a lot going on here. I agree with you that online fandom is inherently not private and also that that's okay! There does seem to be a nervousness about the future here that I don't share, though. You mention that HRPF might go viral, or players might find it, and I can see how those things feel unsettling. But the first seems vanishingly unlikely in any meaningful or harmful way, and as for the second, I'm sure most players already know it exists and want nothing to do with it. I think there are two main possibilities for the future of HRPF:

It will stay relatively obscure and the small numbers of people who it appeals to will continue to find it.

It will become slightly more popular and slightly larger numbers of people will start to find it.

There just...isn't a lot of danger here. Either of those outcomes seems fine. The phantom third outcome, where it goes viral in a way that brings a ton of new readers, doesn't seem super likely. It's still only going to appeal to the people it appeals to, and anyone else isn't going to pay attention for very long. But even if we did get a ton of new readers, what's the downside?

I think maybe the underlying fear is that we're doing something forbidden and if we're noticed we'll have to stop. But that's not the case. AO3 exists specifically to remove the danger that content will suddenly be removed when it's found objectionable. So if people find it and get mad, that's about all they can do: get mad. (And leave us some nasty comments, maybe. But now AO3 has a block function!)

It might feel unnerving that people outside of the fandom are talking about it or echoing shipping sentiments, but "the fandom" has never been a self-contained, well-defined space. It's always been open to whoever wanted to find it. To bastardize a Taylor Swift lyric: we're not on our own, kids, and we never have been. So if we get some more fans, great! If we keep about the same amount of fans, also great! If we get smaller for some reason, that's fine, too! Those of us who want to can keep on creating and enjoying the content that speaks to us, and there isn't a lot that can get in the way of that.

#fandom #hockey rpf #ao3

[antifainternational]

There is this argument that I keep hearing from a United States religious leader. He says that deplatforming is an example of how antifascists only make things worse, referring specifically to Milo Yiannopoulos. He says that deplatforming doesn't work because antifascists made him more famous, whereas Yiannopoulos deplatformed himself when he defended pedophilia. This is an annoying argument and it is going virtually unchallenged to a guy that has 70,000 people worth of influence. To avoid reinventing the wheel, is there a strong defense of deplatforming that already exists? Is this worth reintroducing to the discourse, or should I pick a different fight?

We have a looong response to this question, Anon, so here is Part One; Part Two is here.

Antifascists use a strategy of deplatforming to deny fascists access to public space, venues, and resources from which they would otherwise freely broadcast their vile hate and genocidal plans from. Whether it be a public square, a university lecture hall, a social media account, or access to the mass media - antifascists believe that denying fascists the means to disseminate their repugnant views and recruitment messages from is a key component of antifascist work. 

Many have argued that deplatforming = denial of free speech rights, but they miss some key distinctions between the two. One is that no one - NO ONE - is obligated to provide fascists with a platform to begin with. Mass media aren't obligated to provide them with interviews and op-eds. Colleges and libraries aren't obligated to provide them with lecture halls and meeting spaces. Social media networks are not obligated to provide them with accounts or access. In all of these cases, there are gatekeepers that everyday make decisions about who can/cannot use the platform in question. XKCD explains the difference:

Some, like the religious leader you mention, say that deplatforming makes things worse because it gives more attention to fascists than they'd have otherwise. This is another example of the "ignore the nazis and they'll just go away" argument that liberals love to make about how to properly respond to fascists. Unfortunately, ignoring fascists = enabling fascists, as they grow their base and increase their terror campaign against people they don’t like (ethnic/racial/religious minorities, women, LGBTQ+, disabled people, etc.) unopposed. There is no instance in history where a fascist movement was stopped because non-fascists put their heads in the sand and did their best to ignore the fascists, but there are many instances in history where people were forcibly removed, injured, and killed because people chose to ignore the fascists attacking them. There was a time when fascists would fly the free speech flag to decry antifascist effort to deplatform them; we’d be lying if we said that didn’t result in a momentary amplification of their voice through things like mass media, but that moment has largely passed as media outlets found it increasingly difficult to justify their positions. At the same time, we’d argue that the movement that gained the most through media amplification of antifa deplatforming efforts was the antifa movement itself.  Our collective has been around for eight years and we’ve seen antifascist go from being a relatively obscure movement to one that the (former) president of the United States frequently spoke out about/against in international media, almost entirely due to the strategy of deplatforming fascists.  So from our perspective, deplatforming had an unintended but welcome effect of making millions aware of the antifascist movement, and drawing thousands upon thousands of people to it.  In Part Two of our response to your query, we look at Milo Yianopoulus - the example cited by the religious leader you reference as evidence that deplatforming backfires + another equally-major fascist figure + get into the argument a bit more.

#antifa #deplatform #deplatforming #milo yiannopoulos #fuck milo #antifascist #antifascism #free speech

[springbloggy]

Noah Knows Best: The Forgotten Nickcom

The timing of this is completely coincidental, as Quinton Reviews just uploaded (at the time of me writing this), part 2 of his Sam and Cat review (watch it btw its really, really good). This is something I've been thinking about writing for a while now, because I find the topic fascinating.

I first found out about Noah Knows Best from Pop Entertainment's history video on Nickelodeon Studios (another must watch, especially if you love Nickelodeon and theme park content). There, the show was given a brief mention, being called one the greatest bombs in Nickelodeon history. There was also a commenter below the video who pointed out how, when they tried to find more info on the show, Wikipedia had no summaries, only a quote from the creator on why the show failed. This came as a shock to me, as Nickelodeon is known for being the nostalgia network, where even the most obscure movies and shows from Nickelodeon have their own small fanbases. Yet Noah has no (easy to find anyways) fanbase, no one sharing their memories of seeing the show, its nowhere in nostalgia compilations, and the lost media search for it is incredibly small compared to other Nickelodeon search efforts. Official recognition from Nickelodeon itself in the years since has only been in a compilation of Nickelodeon Studios bumpers. Which judging by the lack of mention or acknowledgement otherwise, I personally believe was an accidental inclusion after digging through showtapes and including whatever they had.*

Now below, I will go through what the show was about, one of the found episodes, the different factors that caused the show's downfall, and whether or not I think Noah deserved better. Buckle up, because I have a feeling that this will be a long one.

What was Noah Knows Best about?

Since Wikipedia lacks a summary, I will provide my own based on what I could find before watching one of the episodes and what I could gather after watching it.

Noah Knows Best was about a boy named Noah Beznick and his sibling rivalry with his sister Megan alongside with his friendship with DJ Martin. The three would be entangled in different plots due to this "triangle" arc. For example, Megan wants a computer, DJ promises to give a computer to Megan to earn a date, while Noah secretly plans to take the computer as payback for Megan getting him in trouble. At some points, Noah will "talk" to the audience to explain his feelings. The different cross-factors will then combine in a grand finale, which will end with a positive message from Noah.

Source of image: 2010snickforever

Episode 2: The Computer

The episode begins with Noah explaining that Megan's school "Yardly Prep", which he describes as being more like a country club with a chalkboard, is two miles away from his school. This, he feels still isn't far enough distance. The show then quickly pans into Yardly, which does have a more unique layout compared to most classrooms. Having an almost college vibe.

And this is where I could start to see why this show failed with the kid audience almost immediately. I am thrust in and to me these characters seem too old to logically have a sibling rivalry. It might make sense if the pair were elementary/middle schoolers or even high school freshmen trying to find their way, but this girl seems to be in a college-like setting. Even if the two are the same age, why does she go to a different, more expensive school than her brother? It makes it seem like their parents prefer Megan over Noah, which has a kinda uncomfortable vibe.

Anyways, Megan is upset that she does not have a computer despite it being the 90s (which she was very quickly corrected to being the 2000s). Noah and her apparently both got a computer by their parents, but Noah got a job and bought out her share for 200 dollars. A strict teacher or principal walks by and all the students stop in their tracks, tidy up their outfits, and sits back down upon his presence. The whole setup, despite laugh track, is rather odd and unfunny.

After this, Noah says something that doesn't match the sequence just shown at all.

Uh, ok Noah.

The theme song well...

It sure is something! It feels like the last breaths of a dying trend in a way I can't describe.

If this next sequence was shown at the beginning instead of what I had just described, I would have preferred it. Megan walks into a pizza shop with her friend, discussing about how she dislikes kids from a rival school called Hudson*2. Meanwhile DJ meets up with his older brother who schools him on what not to do while he's gone (no borrowing my stuff without my permission, no touching my stuff without permission, no looking at my stuff without permission). Megan and Noah meet at him at the table, where they go over DJ's many failed attempts to ask her to a date. This intro is a lot more natural than the odd previous sequence and sets up each of the main characters and their relationships with each other really well. When Megan leaves, her friend Camille suggests to DJ to get the computer Megan needs to get her attention.

Sadly the rest of the episode does not keep up with this upbeat feel, as the next two sequences have an odd negative tone. The first has Noah attempting to help with his sister Megan with a lie she set up about her saving him from a mugging, only for his Mom to catch the lie and ground the two.

At least, that's what I think is what happened, as the scene comes and goes so fast with little explanation I was left confused.

The next scene has more setup, as the character previously appeared in the pizzeria scene. Noah tries to escape a bully named Zeke, who used to be his friend until Noah stood up to Zeke and got him into detention, which caused Zeke's dad sent him to military school. Zeke blames Noah for the whole thing and has a grudge against him. Noah tries to make things up with the advice of his friend, but Zeke doesn't take it.

Both of these scenes are dour, they have some jokes, but none of them hit and just make the scenes worse.

Of course, things don't get better from there, as Noah and DJ convince Megan to go out with DJ for three days for a computer. Little does she know, that Noah is actually planning to borrow the computer from DJ's brother, then take it away from her as payback for her lie from earlier that episode.

Everything about this sitcom is miserable so far. When compared to the Nickcoms and Disney Channel sitcoms I grew up with, there's nothing really likable, or funny, or engaging about anything. And I don't see things improving as things go on.

Noah and DJ go into the shared bedroom of DJ and his brother in a "comedic" (heavy quotes there) scene of them trying to hide the fact they stole his laptop.

After this scene, Noah admits to the audience that while the plan sounded good in his head earlier, he was now having second thoughts.

It's a rare moment of earnestness in this show, a moment where I could feel a little bit of something, even if for a brief amount of time.

DJ gives Megan the laptop, but the next day she finds it missing from her desk. She complains to Noah about this, but has to hide the laptop's existence to her parents, who are unaware about the bet and only want to give her a computer when her grades rise up.

Once again, this showcases the overly negative tone of the sitcom. The mom is upset about the siblings fighting, the dad is upset about his failing play, the siblings are upset about the laptop, it's said that the date had Megan three rows behind DJ, and the whole scene just adds to an already miserable watch for what is supposed to be a somewhat-comedic sitcom.

Or at least that's how one network advertised it!

I get life is messy, unpredictable, and can be dour. But I personally don't think that's what most people look for in a nickelodeon sitcom. I can imagine kids getting bored or upset by the show and changing the channel.

Everything about the laptop then comes to a head later in the pizzeria. Noah and DJ find out that the laptop that was in Noah's locker was stolen by Zeke, who gives the laptop to Megan at the pizzeria. As a cover to DJ's brother, Noah tells the brother that Zeke bought the computer and wiped the hard drive, which prompts DJ's brother to chase Zeke who then gets chased by Megan.

At home, Noah apologizes to Megan and Megan gets payback by getting Zeke to scare him. Noah allows her to borrow his computer, but for an hour a day.

Meanwhile DJ's brother confronts him about the computer and scares DJ so much he runs out of the building.

The episode ends with a recap by Noah...and then this happens

What caused the downfall of Noah Knows Best

Noah Knows Best seems to be a show that was doomed from the start, as Nickelodeon always seemed to butt heads on the direction of the show.

Noah was something I really wanted to try and even though it was a different idea for Nick, and they didn’t warm to it immediately, I appreciated when they green lit for pilot. Unfortunately, their view of what the show should be and my vision of the show were not the same and they never really matched up, which was ultimately a reason for its lack of success. And the big thing was, I wanted to shoot it the same way I had shot Alex, with many of the same directors, writers and crew members, but they wanted it for Nick Studios, which, as I mentioned above, was built for a different kind of show. I tried to thread the line between sitcom and single-camera show and it was never one or the other. I’m still proud of the show, but what I wanted it to be was not what Nick wanted and it was a battle all the way.

-Ken Lipmann, creator of "Noah Knows Best" and "The Mysterious World of Alex Mack"

One of the largest factors to the show's failure was Nickelodeon's insistence to film the show in Nickelodeon Studios Florida, which by the year 2000 was dying. Noah was one of many shows that were put in the studio as a last minute attempt to revive the studios before the contract ran out. The majority of these plans failed, with the one large success being Slime Time Live which was replaced by the easier to film UPick Live. However, out of all the last minute lifelines, Noah was the most apparent failure of the bunch, as it lasted only two months after premier, with 5 of its 13 episodes being unaired in English. Interestingly, those 5 episodes were aired in Russia. Your guess is as good as mine.

This lies in conspiracy territory, but I wouldn't be surprised if Noah Knows Best caused not only the death of Nickelodeon Studios, but also the rise of the Dan Schnider-verse. Especially given that Noah Knows Best was paired with the much more popular Amanda Show during the last months of Snick. For better or worse, without Noah Knows Best we might have never gotten Drake and Josh, iCarly, or Victorious. However in a hypothetical world where Noah Knows Best and the other shows it was paired with succeeded, the network could have gotten a more varied schedule with more kidcoms and game shows by different long-time Nickelodeon creators or even newer creators. A world where the hyperactive humor of shows like Drake and Josh may have never gotten popular in favor of the more subdued humor seen in Noah Knows Best.

However, even with executive meddling, I still think that Noah was destined to not be popular with kids. The episode I watched anyways, was dour, it didn't have the fun or whimsy of shows that would become popular in the 2000s. The characters don't have the likability factor for kids to feel sympathy towards even if it was advertised as a drama rather than a comedy. The jokes often don't land and the whole thing just ended up making me feel more bored than entertained, and I can imagine it being similar for a lot of kids who tuned in. This is ultimately why I think Noah Knows Best had such low ratings, even though it was paired up with heavy hitters such as The Amanda Show and Spongebob during SNICK.

Did Noah Know's Best deserve better?

Here's the thing. I think the show's basic concept was done better by another show. Drake and Josh takes every concept of Noah Knows Best and does them better. The sibling rivalry is done between with Drake and Josh, however its more loving and the pair share a school and a room, which brings them closer together as characters. Opposed to Noah and Megan who are split apart for everything for 10 years. The aspect of pulling mean tricks is done by Megan who plots against the brothers, rather than the main two siblings going against each other for their own gain. Various side characters fill in the friend roles in a fulfilling way that the side characters of Noah Knows Best couldn't do.

For a non-Schnider option, there's Ned's Declassified, which has a similar "lesson" format in a much more fun and engaging way. The various friends bonds are tight despite their differences, and there's even a cheesy bully character done in a better way than the bully shown in Noah Knows Best.

So in that regard, I don't think Noah deserved better...because it technically already was done better. However, I do think Noah Knows Best needs more recognition from the network and the fans and does not deserve to be lost media. I think this show, its troubled history, and its ties to Nickelodeon Studios Florida's ultimate demise, are interesting and important to preserve, despite the final results. The fact that Nickelodeon is storing high quality tapes of Noah Knows Best, but haven't released them to Paramount+, Pluto TV, or even a dedicated Youtube channel as many other smaller shows do, is a shame. Noah Knows Best is another sign of the ultimate failure of companies to properly showcase and preserve their media in the streaming age. And possibly how companies always failed to showcase their shows prior to then.

I hope you enjoyed this strange mini review and retrospective. It's a topic I find fascinating.

*Note also the video was uploaded on the Nicktoons youtube channel and not the dedicated NickRewind or Nickelodeon youtube channels. Since Nicktoons Network is infamous for being Nick's "burial ground", perhaps them putting their one acknowledgement of Noah Knows Best onto the Nicktoons Youtube is a modern extension of this practice? *2 later on watching this, I realized Hudson is the name of Noah's school...or at least I think so. The show never really seems to explain these elements too well.

#nickelodeon #nick #lost media #196 #196 campfire #quinton reviews #90s #2000s #nostalgia #streaming #long post #springy thoughts #noah knows best

[popcultureoverdosed]

The Curse of Saki Sanobashi

I'm writing this journal entry to document my experience with a certain film. I'm probably already dead if anyone is reading this, but please read on. I hate Saki Sanobashi and what it has done to my life. Most importantly, I hate the depraved bastards who made it.

Until recently, I've been an average college girl with only one notable quality: I love searching for lost media. Most people get a thrill from watching a good horror movie and I'm no different with lost media. There's just something about the elusive nature of it that makes the hunt so fascinating. There's a countless amount of entertainment that vanishes from the public eye for whatever reason and many remain completely forgotten. That never sat well with me. Maybe it's the history buff in me, but I believe every form of content should be preserved. It's scary to think that something that brings you joy could one day be forever lost to time.

Saki Sanobashi is a name that's been plaguing me for the last few years now. Every lost media enthusiast worth their salt has at least heard of it if they haven't already joined the hunt. I'm one of the several archivists who plunged headfirst into this monstrosity of a goose chase. I, like many others, got hooked on its tragic premise of a bunch of schoolgirls trapped in a bathroom where death is the only way out. The morbid curiosity in all of us compelled us to search high and low for this elusive anime.

That was years ago.

Now? Saki remains a distant memory in the minds of once optimistic researchers. Dead end after dead end had led to the entire thing being labeled as some elaborate hoax. Even I began losing faith in the search despite all the time I invested in it. It was disheartening knowing that one of the most fascinating lost media searches of all time could be fake. I would've quit entirely had it not been for that one fateful afternoon.

It was a typically brutal winter in Toronto which meant that a snowstorm would be picking up before the day was over. I thought it best to go to my favorite comic and stock up on my favorite books before the storm trapped me at home with my girlfriend. Marque Noir was different from other comic shops in that there exists a secret section of the store only a select few know about. Because I've been a loyal customer for a few years, the owner trusted in showing me the back room. I was hesitant at first to enter a secluded room alone with a man due to being a woman, but I figured he wouldn't try anything with customers still in the store.

What I saw in that room was the stuff of wonder. Several shelves were stocked with underground comics so obscure even the most hardcore archivists probably didn't know about them. The type of comics you can't even find on the internet. It was heaven on earth for a lost media obsessed girl like me. The original post mentioned Saki being an anime, but I was desperate for any type of media out there. What's fascinating is that there were also movies stocked with the comics. The cover art on each DVD case was incredibly low quality, to the point that I assumed the store owner hand-made them himself. There were no ISBNs or distributor info anywhere to be found so my theory seemed fairly likely all things considered.

I filled my bag with as many items as I could afford( which isn't a lot for a broke college student)  and excitedly swiped my card at the counter. The store owner gave me the weirdest of grins as I made my purchase. He seemed amused but almost in a mocking sort of way. He hardly ever emotes in the first place so that smile really caught me off guard.

I left the store and boarded the closest train to drop me off at the dorms. Though Halloween comes in the autumn, I feel like winter is the most ideal season to indulge in horror. The cold weather is like a reflection of the spine chilling fear I get whenever I read a good comic. I stepped inside my dorm room and immediately began browsing through my latest collection. They all looked so good I didn't know where to begin. As I rummaged through the pile of DVDs, I noticed something that threw me for a loop.

One DVD case was completely blank. The cover was pitch black and so was the back. There wasn't even anything on the spine. I couldn't imagine myself buying something like this so how it ended up with me was a mystery. Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't the least bit intrigued by it. There could've been literally anything on that disc and the only way to find out was to start the movie.

I waited for my girlfriend to return from campus before starting the movie. Emily's a cute brunette, but she has zero tolerance for horror. She always shrieks her head off whenever I play my movies in the living room. All that blood and gore drives her crazy. She greeted me with a kiss on the lips and then paused when she saw the devious smirk on my face. She already knew what I had in store for her. Emily, of course, protested but I pleaded with her to watch the movie with me. Seeing her scream like a child over on screen murder was sometimes more enjoyable than the movie itself. She remained firm in her stance against it but eventually broke down after enough of my begging. It feels good having things my way.

I quickly inserted the DVD into an old game station and stared at the screen with anticipation for what was about to start.  After several seconds of a blank screen, some Japanese text appeared with an English subtitle that read " Requiem of the lost girls." The title naturally left me curious so I watched on with excitement.

The scene then faded back to black and what I saw after that made my blood freeze solid.

Three schoolgirls in a bathroom.

All of them had miserable looks of utter despair.

The scene was unmistakable. It was a scenario I ran over in my head countless times. It was Saki Sanobashi, the anime searched years for! Having the legendary film before me after all this time was almost too good to be true. And to think it came from my favorite comic shop. I've been shopping for years now and never even had a hint something like Saki would be there.

Emily was confused as to why I was so excited so I told her we just discovered the holy grail of lost media. The gravity of the situation was unsurprisingly lost on her but she smiled anyway for my sake. We watched the movie unfold just like the legend went. The girls remained trapped in the bathroom and lamented their misfortune all the while. As the film progressed, the agony in their expressions became increasingly visceral. Their eyes looked so hollow, their skin was so pale. Emily clutched into my hand with a hint of anxiety in her eyes.

The tone of the video was much more somber than I expected. Seeing the girls take turns telling the others about their hopes and dreams, trying desperately to alleviate their situation, felt oddly melancholic. I was growing attached to these characters to the point I hoped they'd find a way despite that going against the lore. We eventually reached the part where the girls realized there truly was no way out of their situation...except for death.

Their deaths were just as horrid as I expected them to be. One girl goaded one of the others into drowning her in the sink and another clawed at her own neck with visceral detail. The most painful part of it all was the bloodcurdling scream the last girl emitted as she bashed her head against the wall. It was far more realistic than it had any right to be.

Despite all the fear, my heart raced with excitement. I had to write a blog post to let everyone know about my discovery! The internet would go wild once I told them the good news. I quickly went to my Tumblr to start writing, but the site wouldn't load. I tried other social media sites but nothing was working.

I tried stepping outside in the hall to get better reception but the door wouldn't budge. The knob didn't move at all no matter how hard I pulled. My girlfriend and I were both freaking out at this point. We tried opening windows, calling 911, and banging on doors, all of which were in vain. We were somehow completely severed from the outside world. I wondered how the hell was any of this possible when the image of the movie flashed into my mind.

We were trapped just like the girls in Saki Sanobashi. Was the film cursed? That seemed to be the only explanation. I should've trusted my gut instincts and never let that guy lead me to the backroom. I knew there was something off about him and now I fell into his trap. So far we've spent two weeks in this hellhole of an apartment. Food has long since run out and any sense of hope is dead. It pains me to see Emily's body as pale as winter, her eyes devoid of life. Neither of us can last much longer. I'm writing this document as a warning to anyone searching for Saki Sanobashi.

Stay the hell away from it. It is a cursed film that dooms its viewers the suffer the same fate as the girls in the bathroom. I imagine the curse will be lifted once we die and our belongings will be collected by our loved ones. Hopefully, they will see this document and spread the news. Or maybe they'll brush this off as the crazed rantings of a lunatic.

I honestly don't know anymore. All I can say is to stay safe and never attempt to watch this damned movie.

#saki sanobashi #horror #short story #Fiction #Lost media #Anime #Lesbian protagonist #missing episodes #creative writing #web fiction #literature

[timdrakesbussy]

Goblin Destroyer: How the Internet Revived an Obscure Local Band

This is something that suddenly appear in my mind when I was waiting for a public transport near my campus but like ... Stardew Valley's aesthetic looks like they're in the 90s in rural Northern America/Western Europe (though still cmiiw since I don't live in neither of those regions).

So then I thought about Sam's band and the real life band called "Panchiko" where the internet basically rebirth this band. (If you want to know about the band, here's a video)

And I randomly think about some kids somewhere in the SDV-verse came across Sam's band's LP (I'm gonna go with Goblin Destroyer) and asked online forums about it but none got anything so far. Doesn't help the fact that the LP was credited only with their first names which are very very common names. The names in the back of the LP only says Abigail, Sam, and Sebastian with their roles which are drummer, guitarist/vocalist, and keyboardist/synth in that order.

OP then gave more information, like how the label seemed to be from either the late 90s or early 00s and it was obvious that they were from the Republic of Ferngill. Small problem though, Ferngill Republic is not a small place. Sure, it's not a big country, but it's still going to be hard to find the people who contributed to this record, especially since it was decades long. Regardless, this was a step forward. 

I personally think they would not take too long (like Panchiko irl) because of my personal headcanon of Sebastian being chronically online even to his fourties.

The forum was very popular with many tried to remaster their songs or figure out just who they were. So then Sebastian rolled around and was like, "Holy fuck, I can't believe you found a copy of this. Thought they threw them all away in Zuzu City back in '98."

AND PEOPLE WERE SHOCKED AND ASKED IF THIS USER HAS A CLEANER COPY BUT THEN HE WAS LIKE, "lmao I'm the Sebastian credited in the back of the LP. Sadly, no. I do not have the cleaner copy, but I think my husband do keep some in his previous house when we still lived in the Valley."

Obviously, people were skeptical because the internet lies a lot. But they still gave him the benefit of the doubt because this was more information than they previously tried to dig. It was true that Goblin Destroyers were from Ferngill, specifically Zuzu City, and it was correct that they were from the late 90s.

Few months went by without a follow-up so most people just brush him off as hoax because that's what they usually did to lost media, claimed to know and kept it somewhere but unattainable for some reason.

That is, until another user joined the forum and introduced himself as Sebastian's husband who has the cleaner copy back in his old home. The husband was apparently, a very important piece in the band because he was none other than Sam -- another name crossed off the list.

Sam apologized and claimed that it took him longer to find than he expected and to compensate, he and Sebastian did a digital remaster for the LP and will put it to streaming services alongside their previously unreleased tracks.

With the band finally found, some questions arrived. Most of the questions were about Abigail, the drummer of the band, and also about them in general. The only things they knew so far were that Goblin Destroyer was a prog metal band from the late 90s, Ferngill, and that two out of the three members are married to each other.

The two claimed that they had no idea where Abigail was; the last time they saw her was when they still lived in their hometown. Sebastian then mentioned that she joined something called "The Adventurer's Guild", and one of the last things they did together was go to the forest and watch Abigail's improved swordsmanship. That was almost twenty years ago. They just hope that wherever she is, she's alive and well because she was their best friend.

They then ended the forum with pictures of them when they were young and some band photoshoots, needless to say that social media will be filled with their pics for a few months or so because of how attractive they were. The couple also added a recent pic and well, they're still handsome as hell.

It took them a while to finally return as a band; they were not the young adults in a small town who were bored and annoyed with how their parents coddled them anymore. They are middle-aged with a family and jobs, so yeah, it took a while for them to perform again. Eventually, though, they were back as a band. At least a duo for a few months, releasing a new single after twenty years.

Goblin Destroyer did not tour or participate in any music festivals until they were hit by a surprise, Abigail finally returned to the band. She revealed that she's been busy with the guild for over twenty years and is a mentor, so she was so out of touch with the news. She also revealed that she figured out that they went viral through her mentee, who told her about it.

Finally, the band was back in business. This was the dream that Sam had thrown away, and to actually have it tenfold decades later was exhilarating, to say the least.

#stardew valley #sdv #sdv sebastian #sdv sam #sdv abigail #goblin destroyer #sambastian #stardew valley headcanons #sdv headcanons

[sentientgopro]

I've been thinking about representation again and the forms it can take and classifying them, and kinda just want to organise my thoughts here. Don't mind if I ramble for a bit, using a few examples.

From what I've seen so far, representation tends to take 3 main forms, and ALL OF THEM HAVE A PURPOSE.

Understated and insignificant, a slight mention

Meaningful and a fairly important part of the character

the character is an exaggeration of the thing they represent

So, first off, the "shallow" rep. Y'know, the kind people call "shoehorning" or whatever. This one can be a bit of a hot topic, and I feel like most people act like it's more of a problem than it actually is. However, in some cases it actually becomes very beneficial to the message the representation is trying to add.

For this one, I'm going to use Rainbow Six Siege as an example. Bear with me. For those who don't know about Rainbow Six, as in the original concept, not necessarily just the game, the idea is to have a global unit of the world's best soldiers, from as many different countries and backgrounds as possible, so that you always have a local expert on any situation and someone to provide a different view. The whole point of team Rainbow IS diversity, and always has been, but it more means diverse nationality.

However, Siege does add little tidbits of Sexual and gender diversity; a few gay characters, bi, trans, and Enby. However, this information is only mentioned briefly in the bios of the characters, regarded as a very insignificant detail. While this could come across as shallow representation, I think it really serves the game's message well. It does not matter who these people are or what their background is, they can do all the same cool operator shit as everyone else. There are trans people in the military, bis, enbies, and so on, and alot of people are against that, but Rainbow presents the message that it does not matter and they belong there.

Moving onto rep where it's a meaningful part of the character, or the media uses one to one metaphors to represent the identity (what I mean by one to one will make more sense later). This is where most "good rep" falls, and the example I'm using here, because it's one of the characters I know best, is Gwen Poole, AKA Gwenpool. Gwen's Aroace identity is still a fairly recent addition, with her having a several comic arc dedicated to learning about it. It would take far too long to delve into the deep details of Gwen's story and why she acts the way she does, but in short, she often tries to "put on a show", do things because she thinks shes supposed to in order to be interesting and relevant to avoid her comics being cancelled and fading into obscurity. In this comic arc, her appearances in Marvel's Love Unlimited series, she attempts to start an interesting romance to be interesting and stay relevant. She goes through attempt after attempt, trying different things, stopping on being gay/bi for a bit and seeing if that works, before things fall apart and she realises her identity. What I mean by a "one-to-one metaphor" here is how she forces things to happen to be an interesting character and because she feels like she's supposed to, which parallels how alot of Aspec people force themselves into relationships because they feel like it's normal and what they're meant to do.

And the third category, the exaggeration. This part is when "one to one" is going to make more sense. The exaggeration normally exists in a fantasy setting, where you can more clearly and outwardly display the complex inner workings of a person's mind. This is different to one-to-one where a character experiences those feelings as normal and just talks about them, as opposed to the media exaggerating and clearly displaying those feelings.

The example I'm gonna use for this is Jordan from Gen V, a spinoff of The Boys. (For those who don't know much about the boys and thinks its just that show edgy teens watch, its not. Theyre both very leftist shows, both in being supportive of marginalised groups and a larger criticism of capitalism and the right wing, especially with anti-immigration politics.)

Anyway, Jordan's power is to switch between being a man and woman in an instant, and having different powers depending on which they are. (For the purposes of this character, I am going to talk about gender as a binary, because that is how their power works.)

The show's target audience aren't exactly the kind of people who are going to pick up on nuanced ideas of gender identity, dysphoria, and such, so it isn't exactly subtle with that it's trying to say. Masc Jordan's power is being indestructable and immovable, and fem Jordan's power is some form of shockwave power, so their fight dynamic is attack as a girl and switch when they need to take a hit. I'm not gonna talk about the obvious implications of being a man to take hits and feel strong, it'd be a waste of time.

So that covers why they switch in fights, but which identity do they use out of fights?

The show makes 3 things clear: Jordan grew up as a boy before discovering their powers, and prefers being a girl and feels more confortable that way. So why do they ever present masc?

It's when they want to impress people, appear respectable/ traditional, appear strong and intimidating, or generally do not feel safe/comfortable, especially around their unsupportive parents. It's almost all based around internalized misogony.

So while the obvious interpretation to take about this character's identity is gender fluidity, I don't think that's the case, and this is where the exaggeration idea comes in. Jordan's power acts as an exaggeration of how they feel like they should present, as opposed to their actual identity. Having an instant and clear switch makes it easier for the audience to understand their feelings and comprehend what's going on identity wise. I believe Jordan's story much more closely resembles that of a trans woman, and the fluidity is just a way of showing their feelings.

I don't feel like I'm explaining this the best, but the exaggerated form of representation can make it clearer for the audience to understand emotions that are usually very subconscious and deep down. I recently cracked when I realised that most of the time, I was subconsciously viewing myself as more feminine and as a girl. I started questioning being NB or Fluid when I noticed sometimes I felt it was right to be more masc, but Jordan was there to exaggerate and clearly display those feelings to make them easier to interpret, and I realised I was in a similar situation and felt the same way.

So, in summary:

Subtle rep is designed to show that we're really all the same, and should be treated as equal.

One-to-one rep is designed to be directly relatable.

Exaggerated rep is designed to make it easier to interpret compex ideas and subconscious feelings to get a better understanding.

I hope this all makes sense, thanks if you read all the way to the end, I'd love to hear any thoughts you have.

#196 #lgbt representation #representation #queer representation #asexuality #aromantic #aroace #transfem #transgender #gwenpool #gen v #the boys #rainbow six siege