#quality also may be terrible because tumblr tends to do that :(

[honeyaubade]

Small preview of some example content later to come :p

#attention whor3 #natural titts #small tiddies #sexy content #only f4ns #free use slvt #ignore the brick walls and lack of decent decor. college dorming sucks lol #quality also may be terrible because tumblr tends to do that :( #feel free to degrade me in the comments/reblogs or whatever #I'm all sweaty and gross lol

[tangleweave]

❓ — three adjectives that describe you

❤️ — what are some of your best qualities?

💔 — what are some of your worst qualities?

✨ — what would you change about yourself, if anything?

🎮 — favorite video game(s)?

🗒 — what is/are your favorite genre(s)/theme(s) to write?

🤔 — what genre(s)/theme(s) do you struggle to write the most?

😗 — what are some of your favorite things to do when you have some time to yourself?

💯 — share three random facts about yourself that your mutuals may not know about you.

❓ — Literate. Intelligent. Tall.

❤️ — Goddamn it, I need a safeword... Okay, I'll try five things.

1) I'm tenacious; when I say I'm going to do something, I mean it. 2) I prefer neatness to "organized chaos". 3) I genuinely and persistently want to help others who are experiencing difficulty. 4) I have a vast wealth of patience and I'm not easily angered. 5) I'm good at encouraging others.

💔 — This one's easier. Five things here, too.

1) Although I've said I'm going to do something, it'll be longer than you want it to be before I get around to it. 2) I'm not good at finishing projects I start (see: literally anything I write). 3) In my pursuit of helping others, I let my own priorities languish and spread myself too thin. 4) Conversely, I can be terribly oblivious to others' needs when pursuing the dopamine rush and will sometimes vanish or go silent at the most inopportune times. 5) I can be as much of an enabler as I am an encourager, and struggle to enforce boundaries I set, particularly with loved ones, because I have a hard time with people I love being mad at me.

✨ — I could do without the deficit of attention and the chronic anxiety. The rest is serviceable.

🎮 — I guess this needs a "five things" breakdown as well because there's no way I can limit it to just one.

1) Diablo series. 2) Rock Band series. 3) Pokémon series, core games plus Legends Arceus specifically. 4) Marvel's Spider-Man series. 5) Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor/War series.

(NOTE: The next three answers are copy/pasted from previous asks of the same questions. Forgive me!)

🗒 — I love writing action/adventure, suspense, angst, and romance. Usually I prefer writing within backdrops of modern-day realism, near-future sci-fi, and medieval fantasy.

🤔 — Horror. I'm really not good with this genre specifically. I also struggle mightily with the theme of hurt-no-comfort; if left unattended, I will dwell on this until I spiral, and it takes some doing to get me out.

😗 — I watch some niche corners of YouTube (gamers like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, Game Grumps, and GrayStillPlays; quirky and gross stuff like Good Mythical Morning and Dr. Pimple Popper; food pr0n a la Binging With Babish, Worth It, and About To Eat). I listen to a lot of rock music, always on the search for the next progressive metal band I'll fall in love with (can't get enough of Unleash the Archers and Myrath, currently diving further into Battle Beast and Beast in Black). I have a decent collection of video games but I'm a little stuck on Pokémon at the moment (currently playing Sword, will be playing Violet when it comes out). Until earlier this year I was running a D&D campaign with a few folks lurking around various corners here on Tumblr; we're currently on hiatus but we mean to return to it sometime after the holiday season. But really, even though I struggle with it when left to my own devices... I love to write. Even if I don't mean for it to be anything professional, even if it's just a little drabble here or there... putting my thoughts down and assembling them into a story I think is worth telling has always been a love of mine.

💯 — Hmmm, three things...

1) I have a pretty impressive collection of tabletop games, but hardly anybody to play them with (and frequently no tabletop, either, mine tends to be covered in stuff). 2) Surely you've heard the trope of "I have a girlfriend, she lives in Canada!"? That was me. For about two years, I legitimately did have a girlfriend who lived in Canada. That relationship crashed and burned horrifically during the worst year of my life... but I'm grateful that it happened then, instead of after moving in together. 3) I've always had a love of writing, but it was only when I was a teenager that I learned fanfiction was a thing that others enjoyed and not just for one's own entertainment. Feeling that was a "safe" way of exposing my writing to others, I went to a Pokémon website and submitted chapters of a story I'd been working on. The chapters were highly rated and praised by the moderators, and I received fan email, which was a mind-blowing experience all its own. I struck up a few friendships among these fans. While most of those friendships have languished since, some are still strong, and one in particular went the distance. Yes... I married my own fangirl.

#answered meme prompts #ooc #mun's nonsense #voice-of-barsoom

[shayneysides]

She's always known, a little bit. It still hurts though

reblogs over likes, click the images (tumblr REALLY messed them up), tags are welcome, all that

notes about this under the cut, because there's a lot:

Sorry there's so much here, I just have a lot of thoughts at least vaguely connected to this comic

1. This took me genuinely 43 hours (Procreate tracks your time spent on a canvas) and I'm so glad it's finally done. It's a fairly short comic, but there were some parts that were just ridiculously tedious (the moonlight, kitty's hair in page 3) and I couldn't draw for more than like 4 hours at a time because it made me feel ill, but I did really enjoy making this.

2. The core feeling in this is meant to illustrate the feeling of realizing your race affects the way someone close to you treats you more than you thought, in a negative way. Obviously race affects the way people perceive you, but specifically the realization that someone you love thinks less of you because. you aren't white. That's a terrible way to put it, but I can't think of anything else, literally the best way I can describe the feeling is this comic.

3.https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qw4Yrzi1wfvinr24UZ1nH14tm6lyHkxU?usp=sharing If you really want to see, these images are slightly higher quality, although I can't even figure out how to get those to look sharper.

4. I drew the first panel way before I drew the rest, so visually and thematically it doesn't entirely fit. I tend to think of it as a cover page, or a short setup, rather than an actual part of the story.

5. A huge part of my motivation to work on this was @varietysky's kittyposting, so thank you! Also, definitely go check out her account she's so cool :)

6. Kitty's backstory is incredibly tragic, and I really hope this comic did her justice. I think Florence was a friend to her, as her only non-terrible companion, but at the end of the day Florence is a statue whose only personality can be whatever traits Kitty projects onto her. And since Kitty's sister is her only living friend, I imagine Florence may reflect her personality. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's the reason Florence isn't a particularly kind friend in this.

7. I struggle a lot with comics and composition, which is why I didn't really use panels at all, I just don't know how to place them well. I may continue doing comics like this, because I think it looks really cool, and I have plans for a Mary one in the future.

That's it, thank you for reading!

#bbc ghosts #bbc ghosts kitty #kitty bbc ghosts #bbc ghosts fanart #tw eyestrain #eyestrain tw #argh i had tags i wanted to add and i can't remember now #long post

[chainofclovers]

Ted Lasso 2x9 thoughts

It’s no secret that I absolutely adore Coach Beard; he’s one of my favorite characters on the show, and he’s so well-written and well-acted that somehow I tend to be both perfectly satisfied with the details we see and truly curious to understand more about the way he thinks, what’s really happening re: his professional and personal devotion to Ted, where he comes from and where he’s going. I don’t need to know his name beyond the name he wants to be called, but I want to know why we don’t have any other names for him. And I don’t need him to be a bigger focal point of every episode, but I very much needed this episode’s world-exploding reminder that every single character on this show has a rich inner life, full of joys and troubles.

“Beard After Hours” is like a movie, but one that scatters its climaxes and puts off its resolutions...because it’s not a movie. It’s episode nine of a twelve-episode season of TV. When the episode ended, I felt this almost frantic “But he needed to break up with Jane for good before the end of the episode!” feeling. I was so pulled in by the idea of being able to tell an entire story in one night, of going on an odyssey alongside a complicated hero, that watching Beard and Jane find each other in that club felt as intense as the fact that we don’t know if Ted responded to Rebecca’s voicemail and we don’t know what’s going to happen with Rebecca and Sam and we don’t know who isn’t getting married and who is having a funeral in 2x10 (I mean, I have my strong suspicions, but still!) and we don’t know if Richmond will be promoted back to the Premier League. And on and on. I didn’t mind feeling desperate for the story to resolve even though I understood after thinking about it for ten seconds that of course it couldn’t resolve yet. Or ever. Or yet.

I’m a big fan of the TL episode recaps/reviews Linda Holmes writes for NPR, and I have to quote something from this week’s directly because it so perfectly explains my feelings:

The power of the scene where Beard dances in the club isn't that it's a beautiful romantic climax. It's that it's an explanation of why he cannot seem to extricate himself from this bad relationship. What makes the worst relationships so dangerous is that they have elements that feel good that are very hard to get elsewhere. Beard knows that; he tells it to God. What's concerning isn't that Jane makes the world seem more interesting; what's concerning is she's the only thing that does. That doesn't take away from the joy of the dancing; it just tells you that even happiness is complicated.

I love Holmes’ perspective here so much, because it articulates something I was struggling to figure out: how it can feel so legitimate, like such a (temporary but nonetheless powerful) relief, for Beard to find Jane in that club and to have this moment of euphoria as his night nears an end. How it is possible to experience that relief on behalf of a character while fervently wishing it could end differently, because it’s so clear from the abusive text messages and the toxic calls and the manipulative interactions that Jane is terrible to him and they’re terrible for each other. But Beard knows this. He knows it when he hugs Higgins in the parking lot after Higgins is honest with him in a way Ted and Rebecca and Keeley have not learned how to be, and he knows it when part of his prayer includes the clear articulation that Jane isn’t the cure for what “ails me.” He’s inching closer to greater self-knowledge just as Ted is.

And the two big resolutions that really, really needed to happen did. I didn’t know I needed Paul, Baz, and Jeremy to get to wrap up their own night out on the pitch at Nelson Road, but I did. It brought actual tears to my eyes. And the other resolution was Beard showing up with the other coaches’ coffees for their meeting to watch the game film. As interesting as it would have been to see what Ted would have done if Beard hadn’t shown up, I’m so, so glad that he did. He’s got a messed-up face and some truly epic pants on, but otherwise this is just Beard showing up for work, showing up for his friends. It was incredible to realize that Beard and Ted haven’t been exaggerating when they’ve referred to his sex-and-drug proclivities in the past. The night documented in 2x9 might have been particularly scary and violent and euphoric and awful and meaningful, but this type of all-night adventure isn’t a foreign concept for this guy. In all the other episodes of this show, when we see Beard we’re seeing someone who might have been out all night, who might have spent the hours the sun was down desperately pushing himself closer to whatever edges he could find.

I don’t really want to touch upon all the allusions in this episode. They are abundant, they are well-documented, and also I haven’t even seen the movie After Hours. I enjoyed this episode for its allusive qualities and I enjoyed this episode for what it was and I feel like I have to be at peace with the fact that I’m never going to pick up on every single reference on this show and that is okay.

So, yeah, if this entry on my tumblr dot com blog seems remarkably devoid of references and allusions, it’s not because I’m not into it but because I find it too overwhelming to actually write about.

Very into the Misplaced and Discovered box at the Crown and Anchor. (That’s what Mae wrote on the Lost and Found box at the pub, right? Whatever it is, it’s so funny.)

Beard hallucinating Thierry Henry and Gary Lineker was truly upsetting and a great indicator not only of how broken things are between the Richmond coaching staff right now but also how deep Beard’s self-loathing might go. If you’d asked me before Thursday if I thought Beard loathed himself, I would say no. That deepening of knowledge alone makes 2x9 worth it.

James Tartt and his friends in the alley. Such a nightmare. I go back and forth on how much of the night was real, and part of me has decided all of it is, short of the images of Henry and Lineker. (And even that is real to the extent that it was a way of articulating what was in Beard’s head.) But watching Beard in physical danger brought on by the same abuser who had him so upset in the first place. It was a lot.

I’m so excited that Paul and Jeremy and Baz got some spotlight this episode. It was so wonderful to see them out of the pub. I love that they ended up telling the Oxford snots who they really were. They got to see Beard going to bat for them and smoothing over the situation socially, and that actually made it more possible for them to end up being truthful about themselves. Because they have nothing to be ashamed of, and they deserved the magic of that night. (And for it to end on Nelson Road. Every feeling. Oof.)

I feel like I barely have anything to say about the trouser-mending lady or the many places Beard goes or his key-dropping or the nightmarish feeling of wanting to be home and being unable to be home. It all happened and we all watched it and again, it was a lot. But I do feel incredibly moved and fascinated by the fact that Beard very obviously still hasn’t been home when he brings in the coffee. He’s had to sleep at the club for Jane- and key-related reasons in the past, and this time it’s not that he’s slept there but it still feels like a kind of homecoming he was robbed of for the entire night. Ted and Roy and Nate are there. He’s gotten their coffee orders correct. Ted is growing and evolving (he wants to learn from what’s happened, he’s insisting upon it even when the others resist) but he’s done a really perfect (almost romantic in its loveliness) thing by presumably spending his evening following a breakdown of his own speeding up the game film to 10x speed and adding Benny Hill. Ted is not OK and Beard is not OK and Nate is not OK and Roy is pretty OK but could very easily be not OK because he’s just joined a coaching staff with a whole lot of not OK. But they all showed up.

I am very into the realism of the lights being off in the club other than the coaches’ office (@talldecafcappuccino pointed this out!), and the way we’re seeing their desks from a different angle because this episode is unfocused on Ted. It really added to the mindset of being hungover and exhausted and unable to go home or even to know exactly what home should be; even this warm, familiar place feels off even as it’s a relief to be back there.

I am excited to return to our regularly scheduled programming with the full cast of characters, but I really adored this episode for what it taught us about Beard and what it illuminated about the humor, pain, and complexity of each person who inhabits this universe. Beard may not be loud about his long-standing beliefs or about the things he’s learned, but there’s a lot happening in there and I appreciated getting to spend 43 minutes with him and (in the case of the ticket he scrawls on a piece of paper so the pub guys can get into Nelson Road) the moments he sets in motion.

#ted lasso #ted lasso s2 spoilers #ted lasso 2x9 #meta by me #a lesbian watches ted lasso #coach beard

[oc-rp-ads]

<3

─ hello ! ♡ my name is belladonna. i use she/her pronouns and i am 19. i am studying in college, so replies will be as often as i can make them come out, since they will be long and detailed. i thought i’d make this post since it is much longer and covers more of what i wanted to post! so here it goes! i am looking for a very literature or novella type roleplay partner, who would like to flesh out a very long term roleplay! i would prefer tumblr roleplays, but if you’d prefer a different media to use, please let me know! 

─ i am really looking for an original fandomless roleplay. i double only as i find doubling very fun, and i don’t like one sided roleplays as i lose interest in them very quickly. these are the plots i really enjoy ! ( for my side, i would like either wlw or mlw, i have not decided yet ! ) i do also like integrating dark themes into some roleplays ! like violence/gore/jealousy. we of course do not have to do any of those if you do not wish! it is all up to you and your comfort! 

─ i LOVE talking about ocs with people, and being able to headcanon and talk through the creation process of ocs with people! please be willing to do this with me if you’d like to roleplay with me, the more i get invested in this roleplay the better it will be trust me hehe /hj

─ i will only double up when it comes to roleplaying, i will not budge on this sorry ! i will sometimes be a bit late ( or a lot late ) to replies because i tend to be ill and or busy with school :( in short, i will be playing my oc and your love interest and you will play your oc and my love interest ! 

─ i also love putting my oc ( or mc ) with a villianous love interest so let me know if thats not exactly your style ! 

→ victorian plot ( period drama )

→ historical plots 

→ royal/kingdom plots

→ vampires !!! ( i love this one, will 10000% be always down to roleplay vampire plots )

→ medieval fantasy 

→ steampunk 

and more! these can be mixed and matched, and you can give me ideas and we can always swap ideas as well! 

important! for nsfw!

under no circumstances will minor characters be involved in any and all nsfw roleplays. while i absolutely enjoy spicy scenes in roleplays and i will put my all into keeping them descriptive and fun to read, i will not purely roleplay nsfw. i want to incorporate lots of drama and plot, and the nsfw scenes make sense for the characters and their relationship.

─ what i require in a roleplay partner

being flexible with my reply time, it may take me a few days or a week, if you don’t like waiting please don’t reach out

quality over quantity. i would prefer a really engaging smaller paragraph than something that feels long and drawn out!

i tend to write a lot maybe even 2000-3000 words per reply, i love LOVE writing out long replies, but again don’t feel the need to match my word length if you can not. 

you need to be 18+ to reply any and all adult themes with me, i will not roleplay those themes with minors. 

you will plot and talk with me !! i would love to make friends and chat throughout the plotting process (which im hoping will be very thorough!) 

you like aesthetics ! i love using images, symbols and lowercase aesthetic in my replies. please let me know if you’d like proper grammar. 

─ fandoms that i also roleplay!

elder scrolls v: skryim

soul calibur 

resident evil (all games & media )

star wars (all media, movies, and shows)

devil may cry (just 5 at the moment)

─ contact!

please feel free to message me on tumblr, also let me know of your time zone/age/name/pronouns when we communicate! here is my blog page. i will get back to you as soon as i can, i do find it hard to reply very quickly but i hope you will be patient with me. thank you for reading this..terribly long post, but i hope i piqued your interest. have an amazing day/night/evening!!

with love, belladonna.

#discord rp #oc x oc #oc x cc #oc rp #18+ #spicy #original character roleplay #submission #elder scrolls rp #skyrim rp #soul calibur rp #resident evil rp #star wars rp #devil may cry rp

[freckledbodty]

Stripping Away The Bloat - The Umibe No Etranger Movie Did The Manga Dirty

I finally got around to watching the movie of Umibe no Etranger - a movie I didn’t know existed based on one of my old favourite BL mangas. And oh boy, does this adaptation reflect a painful trend in manga to anime/movie adaptations overall. Allow me a moment to rant, if you will...

TL;DR: READ THE MANGA BY THE LOVE OF GOD IT’S WONDERFUL. Also the movie is super pretty, but here’s a semi-detailed look at why it still really didn’t do the manga justice. You bet I came with receipts.

A few important notes before you start: 

1. Remember this is just my opinion, and I’d love to hear other people’s point of view on the matter, whether you agree or disagree! 

2. I am not fluent enough in Japanese to read the original without a translation, so my thoughts on the manga are coming from fan translations, which 100% might have affected how I view this! The anime I’m a little more sure on as I can generally tell when the subtitles have deviated, but that does mean I may have missed something/something was lost in translation that means something I say here is incorrect. I’m very sorry for this, so remember this is my view based on the media types I’ve consumed. 

3. Also the manga cuttings I use are not the best quality because of tumblr’s sizing, so even more of a reason to go read the books yourself! 

I’m aware I’m very late to this party, but when I saw the other day that this movie had been made, I was horrified that I hadn’t known about it sooner. I read the manga years ago, and adored it - it’s genuinely a sweet and beautifully drawn romance, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone. With that, however, the movie was a huge disappointment to me and I just need to have a moment to gush in a less than positive way. 

The Pros: 

Let’s get this out of the way, I’d still probably recommend this movie to anyone who likes romance anime-style movies. It’s beautifully animated. Seriously, this movie is stunning, with wonderful expressions, bright colours, and a pretty well suited soundtrack too. The animation tries to match the original art style of the manga, and frankly, I think it captures it perfectly. 10/10. Gorgeous. Watch it just for the prettiness. 

I’m also a big fan of any BL/GL adaptations that get a little more into the mainstream. This movie is definitely a huge win in terms of representation, especially when the manga (on the whole) avoided the more negative tropes that the BL/GL genres have historically been known for. (More on that later...) So that’s a win, and I will take it. 

The Bloat Cut: 

To put it simply, this movie fell into the trap of what I call (in my head) ‘cutting out the bloat’. As a long-time anime and manga fan, who has seen countless adaptations over the years, it’s a common theme that tends to make or break an anime. 

‘Cutting out the bloat’ to me means that the adaptors cut out a lot of the ‘smaller’ moments and panels that are seen in a manga. This movie was thankfully very good at following the original plot and took us through the same beats that the manga did (many adaptations don’t bother doing that at all), but they left out a lot of the extra stuff - the aforementioned ‘bloat’. 

The bloat isn’t really bloat in that it is pointless, however: the problem is that these little moments and scenes are seen to be pointless by the adaptors. Again, understandable: they have a limited run time, and it’s hard to include every little tiny moment, especially when they are ones that are easily scanned passed. Some bloat cutting is necessary to make an adaptation viable at all, but sometimes, it can be hugely detrimental to the piece. Umibe no Etranger is a key example of this. 

Setting: 

I watched this movie without rereading the manga, and as such, I was quickly thrown off by how bad the movie was. This was one of my favourite mangas, wasn’t it? Had I really had such terrible taste? (Yes, let’s not go there, but this manga was not one of my high-school bad decisions). 

The characters felt strange. Personalities did complete 180s after the time skip and did some questionable things that I couldn’t recall finding issue with when I read the manga. The two main characters felt so hot and cold that it didn’t feel like the story I remembered. Even the pacing felt off and janky at times. 

After watching, I went back and reread the manga, and this is where I saw all the ‘bloat’, the little intricate moments and minor panels that were easy to overlook but made the story what it was. Here’s a few of the biggest examples I could find. 

Shun:

Oh, Shun. What did they do to you? 

Shun’s character was bizarre. In the first 15 minutes of the movie, he was bubbly, friendly, and even bold enough to flirt with Mio. After the time skip, he was sour, cold, and completely withdrawn from the world. I understood Mio’s confusion because after the time jump he was a completely different character. 

The manga is often focused on Shun and his inner thoughts, and he’s the one who is hurt the most by the bloat cutting. For starters, he wasn’t as over-the-top friendly at the start of the manga as he was in the anime, and we’re able to see his inner thoughts and worries that cause his reservations from the first few pages we meet him. We also get more hints earlier on as to Shun’s past that explain a lot of his behaviour as a whole, as well as getting little hints as to why he’s even more negative and exhausted after the time jump. 

Mio: 

The biggest bloat cut out in terms of Mio is the big plot point of the phone call. For context, before leaving for the time skip, Mio promises to call Shun once he’s gotten to his new home. In the movie, this is never really brought up again, focusing on the relationship in the present, but this was a huge point to leave out. I think it was cut out because it was explained in one short scene in the manga, and therefore easily mistaken for bloat. 

In the manga, it’s explained that Mio does call, but it’s Eri who answers, and there’s a very important conversation that sets up Mio’s whole character development and explains why he returns to the island set on having a relationship with Shun. Eri warns him that calling Shun, despite knowing that Shun has feelings for him, is cruel and unfair, and tells Mio he shouldn’t contact him unless he’s worked out his feelings. It’s a great scene, and a real shame to leave out when it explains firstly why Mio never called back, and secondly why he is so adamant about his feelings and love for Shun when he does finally return: because he saw Eri’s warning to mean ‘don’t come back unless you are serious’.

Relationship:

In the movie, Mio and Shun didn’t really seem to have a relationship until the drama kicked up and then it quickly seem to disappear again. Shun was extremely held back and reserved, and barely ever seemed to return Mio’s feelings (even in the scenes he was instigating) - he even totally avoided anything resembling physical contact at first. 

Compare this to the manga, where there are little hints of their relationship progressing throughout the chapters. For one, Shun is never as cold and blank as he seems in the film, and when he does seem that way, the manga quickly shows a glimpse of his thoughts to explain how he’s exhausted or distracted - without those little bloated thought bubbles, he just seems... a little cruel frankly.

A really good example of this is the beach kiss scene. In the movie, as Mio is about to kiss him, Shun suddenly announces that he’s hungry and avoids the kiss altogether, leaving Mio confused. 

In the manga, they actually do kiss - it’s their first kiss, in fact. Shun seems embarrassed and his ‘I’m hungry’ feels like more of a way to distract them both. He explains he’s exhausted (which is fair enough, this is a big thing for him to process on little sleep that his inner thoughts earlier in the chapter already set up) rather than just outright shunning him. (Ha. Shun. shun. Get it?) 

A more *noted* bloat they cut out is that Shun and Mio get physical in the manga way earlier than the movie, the touches just not quite being everything Mio wanted. Without those more tender moments, where they actually seem like a couple, it seems like Mio is chasing after Shun desperately, whilst Shun couldn’t care less about him. It detracts from the whole relationship. Below are some examples of the two of them actually seeming like a couple that were cut from the movie, including longing looks from Shun, Shun hugging Mio whilst he’s asleep, and Shun asking to kiss and touch Mio. 

The Issue: 

Bloat cutting always annoys me, but usually, if it’s not hindering the story, I don’t mind. What bothers me most of all in this movie, is that without these subtle little panels and moments, the relationship between Shun and Mio seems... forced, frankly. In the movie, Shun seems to be the instigator of the flirting, and then after the time skip he acts practically disgusted, avoiding a lot of Mio’s advances, and we don’t get to hear his inner thoughts like we do in the manga to explain why he’s feeling this way. 

In the manga, during these ‘bloat’ pieces, Shun is an actual willing participant in the relationship, and Mio isn’t just forcing his advances onto Shun. It’s natural. It’s not flipping between hot and cold, or suddenly ramping up after a big moment of drama, it’s slow and careful and a real relationship. 

This would be a bad change in any adaptation, but it’s especially so in this one. Anyone who is a fan of BL specifically is probably aware of the genre’s bad rep historically for having some... questionable consent issues. This manga didn’t have them. The movie? I’m not so sure, and that’s why it’s rubbed me the wrong way. I could spend another 1000 words talking about this issue as a whole, but I’ll leave it there, you get the idea.

Expected? Yes. Okay? Meh. 

There’s no real point to this post aside from to complain a little and point out just how much more the source material gives us. Cutting the bloat always happens, and I don’t want it to stop happening per say, that would be impossible, but I’d kill for adaptors to just take a little more time to work out what is unnecessary and cutable bloat, and what is something they should really keep in. 

The movie is still cute and beautifully made, so please go watch and see for yourself! Mostly, I’d highly recommend the manga: it’s got the same gorgeous art style, only about 5 chapters long, and the story and relationship is that little bit more firmly built. 

I’ll stop ranting now, and I hope this actually made sense? Anyway, congrats on making it all this way.

#umibe no etranger #bl manga #bl anime #yaoi manga #anime discussion #please note the important points #this does not mean its a bad movie by any means #just was a disappointment

[totesmgoats01-published-author]

Can I request a picture of your tarot decks instead of a reading? You made me very curious! (I have one deck but I have not been using it in the past year, it's too pretty not to use it T_T) (alternatively: you can do a reading whether or not you should take a picture of said decks XD)

You just said the secret phrase to make me GO OFF so buckle up we're in for a long post.

So first here's my lineup. You may notice the the image quality is terrible. That's tumblr's fault. My phone naturally takes pictures in a resolution too high for most programs to upload without having to compress the images. But alas...

The first deck in my lineup is the Tiny Tarot. I got this deck most recently last christmas as a little treat for me. It's real cute and comes with a chain you can hook onto a keyring for maximum portability. Though when it really comes down to it, this little box is still kinda too big to go on a keyring naturally. Most keychain type things are usually more flat and less obtrusive, but that won't stop me. I just think it's neat. The art on the cards is your very typical Rider-Waite style. If you've been into tarot for a while you'll inevitably know the look. I don't have a problem with it but I really prefer much more unique styles. I feel like there shouldn't ever be on "correct" depiction of tarot art, and Rider-Waite taking that role passively gets on my nerves a little. It feels a little...hegemonized.

Though I have to admit that I haven't used it for many proper readings at all, but the few that I have used it for have been plenty enlightening. Shuffling the deck, however, proves to be a real struggle. The cards are made of a regular paper/cardstock material, but their size makes it impossible to shuffle the regular way (riffle shuffle) and you have to a very inconvenient pushing them around a table (washing-machine style shuffle) which normally I'd say wouldn't be so bad, but they slide around very easily (typically this is a very good thing) and because they're so small it can be easy to lose track of them if you don't keep your eyes peeled. Then you need to bring them all back together into one stack, which takes some time to do since it's a thick deck.

Despite their inconveniences I still love them. Especially the vibrant colors.

Next, Psycards! I LOVE this deck. It's not your typical tarot deck by any means. There's no major/minor arcana, just a set of 30 or so cards with unique imagery and text. These I bought secondhand at a bookstore some time ago, as such they came with no guiding booklet or case of any sort (when I bought them they were bound by a rubber band and that's all, but I've since given them a home in a mesh bag).

Now when it comes to reading with this deck it tends to be very direct, as you might be able to tell by cards with very direct answers, like the "yes" "no" "now" and "never" cards. There's not much pussyfooting around with symbolism and such like I sometimes see in my other decks (not that I don't like the theatrics and flowery language). They're also incredibly cheeky. There have been plenty of "ask stupid questions, get stupid answers" readings with this deck. It can be a real "smack some sense into you" moment, which we all need sometimes.

This next deck I bought at a metaphysical store while visiting family, and I choose it specifically for its size. They're playing card sized as opposed to the typically large and elongated style. They also have the index in the corners much like playing cards, and that's another trait I was hoping for. A lot of people don't know this but Tarot was originally a french card game, and as a playing card collector and somewhat of a card game enthusiast I wanted a deck that I could use to play tarot with. Though I also use this deck for reading, it's the only one I regularly use to play because of the aforementioned traits. They're a nice portable deck and come with a sturdy cardboard case to match, so I can use them for gaming or readings on the go, and the cards don't take up too much space on the table, which makes them nice for readings on my desk (which is always cluttered with whatever project I'm doing next).

The art is once again the Rider-Waite designs, with some variations from my other Waite deck (mostly some small details about the colors and such). The material of the cards is really nice! I think it's a cardstock paper with a plastic coating, which makes it nice and easy to shuffle, and they can slide over and round each other with ease.

Now this next deck was the very first one that I ever got. The Aquarian Tarot deck. I got this deck from my grandma circa 2016 along with its guide pamphlet and carboard case (which has traveled with me so much that it's now being held together by scotch tape).

To me this is the "ol' reliable" deck. I used this as I learned how to read and use tarot cards, discovering their meanings along the way. I have a special place in my heart for the art on these cards. I especially like their use of color in the swords suit and the designs of the major arcana. Actually, speaking of the colors on the swords suit, there's actually one extra special card in this deck which I hadn't realized until so many years of using it!

The three of swords is misprinted!

I never even realized for so long. One or twice someone had mentioned how the card looked "trippy" and I never paid it much mind until recently when I saw that along the top and bottom the borders meant to surround the image are doubled! And if you look closely you can see that they're in slightly different colors, one in a kind of green and the other a purple-blue, which I suppose when overlapped is meant to become the black border. But as a result of this the whole image is slightly doubled and offset from itself (does that make it a nine of sword then?). It makes me wonder about the process of printing these cards. Did anyone notice or did it slip past quality-testing? I don't know how my grandma came to own it, but I'm glad she gave it to me.

Now enough digression onto the next deck: The Golden Thread.

This deck is very much contemporary. Manufactured by a company called Labrynthos, they sell all sorts of metaphysical tools (and they have a companion app to go along with this deck). I was highly drawn in by the very unique art style on these. A sort of minimalist, shining gold-on-black design.

The cards are made entirely of thin plastic, which means they're SO easy to shuffle! You can bend the whole deck in a riffle-shuffle with ease, which is harder with a stiff cardstock. Plus it makes them impossible to crease or tear (I'm VERY protective over my cards and try my absolute best to prevent creases whenever possible). You can spill a glass of water on them and they'll be just fine.

Whellp! That's my tarot cards! Honestly I could go on and on about all the other stuff I've got. Runes, a pendulum, palmistry guides, even playing cards (though I don't use those for divination, that's much more recreational). Thanks for sticking around to the end of the long post and being interested in little ol' me!

#answer #nyarisu #tarot #tarot cards #show and tell #showcase #divination #collection #sorry again about the low image quality #tumblr just hates me I guess #but what else is new #that's just how tumblr always is

[berlinbabylon]

Hi! A few weeks ago, in an answer, you made reference to Volker Bruch's role in Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter. I've never seen it and had been wanting to (although I'm arguably less motivated now that Volker Bruch has been so ... ugh lately), but would you mind expanding upon what you meant? This whole situation is so disappointing and frustrating (but I say this as someone who only discovered BB/VB in December of last year)!

Oh boy, where to begin! The issues with Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter are so layered. I guess I'll break it down into: (1) Issues with the miniseries itself, and (2) issues with the reception of it.

1) So as to the first point, it's been a long time since I saw and I don't want to be too negative about it. It's well-made and some parts of it are better than others. I remember that I didn't think the writing was great (that's true for many German productions where the scripts tend to be the weak link), like it relied too much on coincidental meetings of characters in unlikely scenarios and so on. But okay, whatever. The actual issue with the miniseries arises from the way in which it was titled and marketed ("our mothers, our fathers" – of course Generation War sounds a bit more oblique in English and obfuscates that the people behind the miniseries wanted to do something that was supposedly representative of what "our" immediate ancestors went through during the war). From a historian's POV, the group of young people that they chose to focus on was really not in any way, shape or form representative of most young German people at the time and you can't blame the Polish for being pissed about the representation they got (which painted the Polish partisans as antisemitic and the issue with that wasn't that antisemitism didn't exist among Polish partisans but rather that the way the miniseries emphasizes their antisemitism while being way too revisionist about the German protagonists in that regard is just not a good look). A history professor put everything into words that I was thinking back then, it's in German but you can put it through DeepL and I highly recommend the read, regardless of how you feel about the miniseries: https://taz.de/Unsere-Muetter-unsere-Vaeter/!5070893/ ("Nazis are always the others" – yes there are some evil German Nazis of course, the cliché ones, the commanding officers, the Gestapo guy and so on but we are not invited to identify with them, we are not invited to consider them part of our ancestry and we are also not invited to consider that most Germans at the time were not victims of circumstance but active participants in the system, unless we're talking about resistance groups which were obviously the exception and not what the miniseries posits as the core 'generation' – one who, we might add, would've been exactly the one to have gone through the whole youth indoctrination unlike older people at the time). So yeah there's a lot to unpack there in terms of how German remembrance culture works and I'll leave it at that, it's a huge topic that would need its own essay. The miniseries is 'fine' TV but it has a certain role in cultural memory production that is, at the very least, questionable and should be considered with some critical distance from its qualities as a drama.

2) There's another issue though and that's more what I was referring to. Basically Volker Bruch playing a Wehrmacht soldier in that miniseries gained him quite a following of wehraboos and in some cases straight up Neonazis. For the longest time, whenever you were searching for posts about him here on Tumblr, they came from accounts that... man, how do I say this. Okay first of all wehraboos are Wehrmacht stans and I came across a big number of them in this context (and in the context of Volker Bruch fandom specifically) where their tumblrs were all about the aesthetic~ of German Wehrmacht soldiers and I just... to say that I found these blogs disturbing is putting it mildly. Often these were run by young women from countries like the Netherlands, Italy or wherever else in the world and my only explanation for this phenomenon is that they grew up with a very stereotypical view of Germans during WWII = evil, so when they discovered that some of them were young (sometimes handsome) men who were also just regular guys, they took this to mean that everyone had been terribly mistaken to lump in 'regular' soldiers with the SS and so they ran in the other direction. I mean, obviously there are distinctions to be made. But the Wehrmacht was also heavily involved in war crimes, so. All that teenage fawning over black and white pictures of real people who may have been involved in real atrocities... well. But that was still comparatively mild. When I first made Babylon Berlin gifs (before it was shown in the US on Netflix, before I made this sideblog, before there was a sizeable interest in these gifs aside from Volker Bruch stans), the accounts that reblogged them... I mean, there were actual Neonazi accounts among those. One I will never forget. Back then I still looked at reblogs to see if people had some commentary in the tags and so I opened this one blog and it was dedicated to Reinhard Heydrich, the "Butcher of Prague". On the front page, there were reblogs of Hitler gifs. Hitler greeting some kids, people doing the Nazi salute. The rest I've blocked from my memory. I had accidentally stumbled across a corner of Tumblr that was entirely sinister. I felt so sick. I ended up blocking and reporting it but this hellsite never gave me a reply so who even knows if anything happened.

So long story short: Ever since then I've resented the fact that Volker Bruch being in Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter gained him Neonazi followers (also tells you something about the miniseries, doesn't it) and I also resented that me just wanting to make Babylon Berlin gifs meant I had to see this stuff. So I stopped making any BB gifs (or at least any containing him) for a while and it's also the reason I never made many gifs of Gereon unless requested. I don't want to say that I feel vindicated after finding out that Volker Bruch is a complete idiot because I never paid much attention to him personally but I was also never his biggest fan, I find his acting range limited, he has a certain vibe and look that goes well with certain period dramas (actually only 20th century ones because he looked rough in the Goethe movie... I actually much prefer Alexander Fehling as an actor but that's neither here nor there). Anyway, there you go.

#ask #reply #anonymous #volker bruch's wife miriam stein is also in the miniseries #(and in the goethe movie) #honestly they both always gave me a vibe #now that i think about it #but i just thought they were hipsters #(also welcome to the babylon berlin fandom!) #(it's actually been a much better place since it's not just volker bruch fans anymore lol) #(also: normal volker bruch fans exist and i mean no offense to them at all) #(this is just about a certain kind of following he acquired through unsere mütter unsere väter)

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Season Zero: The Yo-yo Crimes of Jounouchi Pt 2

OK, last we left off, we were in a different Youtube video. This one I grabbed off of 2 different videos (you’ll see their watermark in the corner change) and it makes me appreciate the quality that our other episodes have been, honestly. A little bit of compression going on in these, just to give you even more of that nostalgic feel of watching a bootleg anime from the 90′s your brother got from his weird high school friend’s Napster account.

Because this is done with subtitles on, it takes more caps to cover it. Part of why I rewrite the dialogue in these recaps is to help abridge stuff, and so consider yourself warned...there’s a lot of caps in this one. For most of you, that’s probably not much of a problem. But I’m just letting you know because...I sure wasn’t expecting it to be over 40 caps for half an episode, and I’ll probably just type less to make up for that. (Tumblr keeps Erasing All My Words anyway, so this is for the best, but that’s a tech issue I already went into in another post.)

(read more under the cut)

So, to start off, Yugioh and co. walk up to a bar like a really weird version of a bar joke and are like “do you know where we can find the yo-yo gang?” And, much like a video game npc, the bartender was like “I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about, and I heard every part of their intimate conversation. Let me give you all the details, children.”

Hey, PS, there’s an entire Wikipedia entry about the bar joke. And that is wild. Apparently the first bar joke was from Ancient Sumeria, and Wikipedia was like “Here is the Sumerian joke, but we Do Not Get it. Please don’t try to get it.”

The joke being: "A dog walked into a tavern and said, 'I can't see a thing. I'll open this one'."

Damn. I can’t believe the Sumerians were onto meme humor before we ever invented memes. They were in the Galaxy brain over there in the land before time, holy crap. Depositing their memes knowing that 7,000 years later mankind would look at the world’s first joke and be like “I don’t get it!” while all the millennials and zoomers with our MB of nonsense memes on our phones are like “No. I get it.” Good on you Sumerians, that is freakin the best joke ever made. 7000 years to get to the punch line of confusing the hell out of all us. Bless.

They promptly tell Miho that everything was resolved and that she should go to bed and she was like “Cool!” and exited stage left. Bye, I guess. Anzu also went home, but she didn’t have to be tricked into doing it, she just went the hell to bed.

(PS, I just realized that if I want to write less...I should probably not look up Wikipedia articles about the world’s first ever bar joke. But y’all, habits die so freakin hard, and I just feel like it’s very pertinent to this Yugioh recap, although I know it’s really not.)

Yuugi and Honda decide to visit the warehouse and harass Jounouchi. In the context of the show, they’re going out of their way to pull their best friend out of society’s systemic downward pull of a life of crime and most likely turning into exactly like his Father. But, the way that it’s storyboarded makes it look a lot like these kids just show up out of the corner and this gang was like “Damn it, again? OMG small children, please leave us alone!”

Honda hands over the symbolism sash, to which Jounouchi symbolically says “Nyeh.”

And Honda didn’t take it very well.

After tending to his kidneys for a little while, Honda decided to go back at it again at the Krispy Cream and do some sort of insane parkour over this completely ordinary fence.

Ah, the very first instance of real duel law where you duel over a relationship. In later seasons duel law is invoked for things like Mai’s marriage and the right to date Tea (and then just kind of forgetting you ever won the right to date Tea twice). But to think the very first time was Honda dueling for the right of Jounouchi to be part of nerd gang because Jounouchi had fallen to the dark side yo-yo gang across the street run by some 40 year old man with blue hair.

How many times is Honda gonna fight with a broom? Like are they just magnetized to his location? where are they even coming from?

Freakin janitor powers over here, put him in a Final Fantasy style RPG. I want to see what his limit break would be.

Not like it matters, because Hirotani very quickly explains why these yo-yo’s are at all a threat.

Which honestly shouldn’t be...so lethal? Seems like the weight is all you need, not really the spikes. But it’s at least stronger than Honda’s janitor stuff.

Unfortunate for Honda that he just destroyed an antique.

So with lightning reflexes, Yuugi does what he does most:

The death yo-yo ricochets back and does this little itty bitty scrape to this guy’s face and he’s real bothered by it. Although it’s like...well dude, you’re a 50 year old high schooler, I don’t think people will notice the scrape compared to everything else falling apart in your life.

And so then the Yugioh Season Zero team was like “oh shoot is it time to torture Yuugi???” and they got hella excited.

Like I thought it was just Yuugi’s class that were a bunch of disturbing criminal disasters, but I guess it’s the whole city. Like...was Yuugi’s class the good school?

I mean, it can’t be, there’s no way...

but like...is there a good school in this universe? How does anyone survive till graduation? If you so much as disgrace a yo-yo, you will get the torture treatment that I sure did expect in Yakuza games, but not so much in Yugioh, tbh.

Just a reminder: This is the third time we’ve beat up Yuugi this episode. Within the first meeting of Yuugi and Hirotani, he beat the tar out of Yuugi within eye shot of Jounouchi. So like...Jounouchi was reallllllllllllllllly lax on that deal, right? Like...he took his toot sweet time to realize “yeah this just ain’t ever gonna happen.”

And then the yo-yo wars begin.

Just like Solid Snake crawling through the radiation chamber.

Hirotani throws his Fyper-yoyo, Jounouchi intercepts with his Eireboy, and Hirotani’s completely terrible yo-yo just flies off the string again because Hirotani should have just sticked to using his fists. No wonder they wanted to recruit Jounouchi so badly, their yo-yo game is so off.

We never get a door to darkness in this episode, dipping our enemies into mind horrors. Instead, we get home-alone style traps. But, this makes sense. Not only do the show makers have to make Yuugi avoid solving problems with magic in front of Jounouchi, they also have to make it Jounouchi’s choice to leave Hirotani behind. If Yuugi did it for him in like...some sort of duel law situation...then that sort of leaves out Jounouchi’s choice in the equation.

Not like this ever really comes up in later seasons, since who even follows through with duel law and marries Mai? But like, it does feel like Season Zero calls out the later Seasons a bit in this regard. Honda got beat up because he tried to win Jounouchi back by force (or game, I guess.) That was just another form of coercion on the heels of Hirotani’s. What Jounouchi actually needed was to make his own decision to leave.

...most other anime I’d be like “I’m sure that’s just a translation error” but not this one.

So Yuugi runs to the roof where Jounouchi will never see this.

My audible sigh reading this line about fight club roof.

These stupid gang members went into Yuugi’s native territory, not just a fight club roof, but on a warehouse? They were dead before they arrived.

This was like maybe 3 frames of animation in just rapid succession, it was pretty silly and good.

Reminder that like 4 minutes ago, Yuugi was about to get like executed on a meat hook.

Speaking of getting executed on a meathook:

Hope you like the idea of glass in your eyes, because this anime’s got it.

They chase Yuugi around, in a sequence that was done mostly to conserve frames, so you rarely saw the ground until this shot:

Lots of falling down this episode, but unlike Tea, who fell from a warehouse ceiling once and just kind of rubbed her ass after and was like “ah damn it.” these guys won’t come out of it virtually unscathed.

Also, Honda is here now:

Jumping off of his symbolic sash trapeze, he decides to do in Hirotani for good.

Hey so like...walk the dog is a fairly gentle walk that a yo-yo does slowly on the ground right?

Just pointing out how sensitive Hirotani’s fingies are.

And he...didn’t appear to be dead, so I don’t have to add to the bodycount...but it’s gonna be a real long road for recovery.

And now, with the gang back together Jounouchi is back at school knee deep in make up assignments he’ll probably completely ignore since we know that in a years time, these fools are going to be trapped on Pegasus’ island, and at that point school will be just that place you talk about when you try to remember why you’re friends with Bakura.

---hey aren’t those chairs attached to the desks?

Because...holy crap, Anzu.

Honestly this is what you see before you die, but I guess Jounouchi died off screen after the episode ended, so I don’t have to add him to the deathcount (again). RIP.

Alright! That took like...8 tries to get Tumblr to save this one, but it managed! (well...I guess “managed” isn’t the word you’d use for a typing program that takes 8 tries to save)

Next time, we’ll be back to S5, for an arc I’ve heard is kind of boring. We’ll see. If it truly is, I can condense episodes into fewer posts. Or maybe it’s a secret gem? I guess we shall see.

And if you just got here this is a link to read all the Season Zero recaps from the start:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yuugi-muto/chrono

(there’s also a link to read all the Yugioh posts we wrote from the start in chrono order but straight up, this file won’t freakin save, and I just can’t even will myself to look up that link again. It’s on the home page of this blog on the right.)

#YGO #yugioh #yu gi oh #Yuugi Muto #Jounouchi #Honda #Anzu #Miho #yo yo gang #Hirotani #Yuugi and the gang do serious property damage

[softrozene]

Holiday Dinner Headcanons

@some-piece​ requested: Hello :3 May I request fluffy headcanons (or scenarios, whatever suits you better) for Law and Zoro (seperately) being invited by their fem s/o's parents for a holiday dinner, in modern!AU? It's the first time the boys interact with s/o's family, so they want to make more or less good impression. The problem is s/o comes from a different country and the traditional dishes served on the dinner are well, simply disgusting for poor boys. Thank you! :)

Dfjklafs I have no idea why tumblr won’t let me tag your main ldjfasl

Ahh Bas, this was just a delight to write! I had so much fun thinking about how they would react in this kind of scenario ahhh It may be a tad chaotic from how excited I was, but I hope you still enjoy these Hon! Thank you for requesting it!

Law, Zoro x Female Reader

Warnings: Modern au! Pure fluff, Comedy

Words: 997

Trafalgar Law-

Okay- This is an extremely important day for Law. He is meeting your parents for the first time- The people that brought his beautiful woman into this world and he needs everything to go as smooth as possible

Usually, I would say he would not care as much but since it is the modern au- He would totally care but that will change depending on how your parents treat you- He will not let them be terrible to you

Anyway, the goal for Law, in this case, is to make a decent impression and to be honest, Law would be really nervous, but he does not express it until you both go home

You can probably tell he is stressed out beyond belief before you leave to your parent’s house with his fingers fidgeting occasionally, and his short replies but you find it endearing that he cares about you that much that he is feeling stressed about this

That means he cares and him wanting to meet your parents is his proof that he cares about you so much

He totally brings a gift that he says he just found when in reality he took ages to find a perfect practical gift- Your parents love it and that is all that matters

When he actually meets them, he finds the qualities you share with them immediately and it makes him feel better

Especially if they are really kind and want him to feel at home this holiday

He helps with any preparations necessary and if you have siblings- He takes the effort in getting to know them too

All goes perfectly well- Too well in fact

The second the food is done, and dinner is going to be served- That is when he realizes something

The food does not look appetizing

FDSALK IT WORSENS IF THERE IS BREAD IN ANY OF THE DISHES

But then he remembers that you even warned him- Gave him a huge heads-up

This man will not let you down. He will eat whatever they present to him and however- It does not matter how disgusting he thinks the food is. It was made with love and full of tradition, so he puts this at the top of his list of things he has to do to win them over

I feel like he would definitely get used to the foods as holidays go by and he may even enjoy them (as long as it is not food with bread in it)

But 10/10 would try to please you and your parents even if he is acting like he does not care (and really tries to sell that idea) he really does care and just wants to make the best impression for your parents

Roronoa Zoro-

Zoro is sort of the opposite of Law. He knows how important this day is, what it means to you, and he will try to make a good impression, but he is not the type to grovel at your parent’s feet if that is what they expect

The gift he brings is of course- Alcohol, and he is also the one to open it first aldjfals

He is not that thrilled to meet your parents since he knows he tends to be a bit too blunt, but he is also pretty outgoing and happy that you trust him enough to let him meet your parents

All is well but since Zoro feels out of his element he does tend to stick to your side and not help (unless your parents are on the older side then he will help like crazy)

As it gets closer to dinner- Something nudges him in the back of his brain. He swore you told him something but for the life of him, he can’t remember…

Until the dishes are out on the table and he remembers and feels slightly guilty

You warned him that the food may not be what he is used to and… Frankly, he thinks there is no way he can eat that- Of course, he is going to try but he can’t promise anything

Again, he is pretty blunt and forgets he is here to make a decent impression

So of course, he can’t hide his facial expressions or the tiny noises of dislike when he eats some of the food and it is a dead giveaway, he does not like it, but your parents hold in their amusement

He is after all indulging them for you

Just tell him what is healthy in the dishes and how he can benefit from eating it and he will not complain again and may even help himself to seconds if allowed

If there are no healthy benefits you may need to buy him food to make up for this dinner later

Either way, he does try his best and he would feel bad if his impression turned out to be bad-

Just have him get into a drinking contest with one of your parents or older siblings and he will also forget about the taste since his head will be slightly intoxicated

Overall Zoro tries his best but he is the one to fail in making a good impression most likely from being too blunt with the traditional foods

He will 100% make up for it at a different holiday and make it a personal challenge

 *I feel like I made Law sound a bit too nice lol but do not get me wrong- Both males want to be on the good side of your parent’s opinion but in the end, if they simply aren’t and they gave it their all, they will not care because it is your parent’s loss. They just care about how you feel in the end (and may apologize for not liking the food fjlkadj)

As time goes on with being with you though I feel like they would take the initiative to learn a few basic traditional dishes just for you

#my writing #one piece x reader #one piece #trafalgar law x reader #roronoa zoro x reader #trafalgar law #roronoa zoro #fanfiction #headcanons #holiday headcanons #one piece fanfiction #one piece headcanons #female reader #fluff

[thetirisfaltheatretroupe]

Big Troupe Announcements! Big Troupe Summer!

Hello, everyone! Lord Atos Sunhart here! For those of you who aren’t aware, Fehl had stepped down last year from Troupe related duties due to her own life becoming much more demanding, and so I returned to the director’s seat once again. I’ve been back for about a year, but we’ve kind of laid a little low since my return due to a lot of restructuring and our desire to try a few new ideas out that are coming along slowly but surely!

We have some awesome projects in the works, some of which won’t be ready for some time, and some that we’re excited to bring you much sooner! But we can’t QUITE open the curtains for a peek just yet. Before anything, I’d like to make a series of announcements about some of our projects this Summer, starting with the most important one of all:

The Troupe Is Casting! 

Looking at some of the last posts made on this ye olde tumblr I guess it’s not a surprise that the troupe is indeed casting once more. In the past, it was due to not really having enough active people to pull off a large show with, but now, times have changed a bit, and we’re looking for people to make our shows even better and more frequent than ever!

What we’re looking for;

* Any race/gender/faction! Yes, we hire Alliance as well! In the era of Discord and cross faction RP, there’s no reason we have not to. Though, we are overloaded on elves at the moment and would kinda love a tauren or any Alliance character

* Obviously the character should be a good fit for the group! We’re not really looking for a serial murderer warlock who tries to sacrifice our members to the great Murloc Gods at the first chance they get. We’re not too picky here, but there are some characters that just don’t work terribly well with our concept.

* Available to take part in events during most of our performing days, which tend to be weekends, starting around 6:00 PM server. We base all our event times on server time.

* Someone who, behind the character, is friendly, patient, and above all else, mature. The clear rule of “don’t be an asshole” applies in this guild (and I’ll explain what that means below), and we have a zero drama tolerance policy. We are all adults who pay a monthly subscription to a greedy corporation to play with their toys, I think the last thing we want is to relive middle school in our 20s and 30s.

* Someone with a desire to help make memorable, exciting events for others to enjoy. While we play the part of celebrities, and being in the spotlight is a lot of fun, ultimately we want someone who, behind the character at least, does it for the enjoyment of others and not for personal gain or clout. We’re not clout chasers. We are proud of how long we’ve been performing and how hard we work, but ultimately we do this for our audience’s enjoyment.

* Communication is important! We aren’t a hardcore raiding guild, and thus we won’t be upset if you tell us you have to miss a rehearsal night or have a family emergency.. But if you know ahead of time, we really want someone who will let us know they can’t make it to an event so we can plan around it.

Furthermore, it should be said that while we normally do not require a person leave their guild to join us, this time around we’re looking for more to wear the guild tag above their heads, at least for this recruitment effort. Above all of these, the most important key point is the ‘don’t be an asshole’ policy. In the past I didn’t think it needed to be explained, but things we’ve been through in recent months compels me to explain what I mean by this; no homophobic behavior, racist behavior, transphobic behavior, harassment, pedophilia and other such illegal and morally vile behavior will be tolerated in our guild, period. But I’m sure you’re asking, what’s in it for me? Well, the benefits of working with the Tirisfal Theatre Troupe are, but not limited to;

* Being part of a near decade-old (8 years this October) guild that through thick and thin has stood the test of time!

* Working alongside some extremely talented, fun, humorous, and creative minds!

* Getting to make people smile and be a positive part of the community! 

* Taco Tuesdays. This is a lie, don’t believe me.

* Helping an already fun concept become even better as we grow and adapt to the ever changing nature of this game and its community!

* Adding “Actor/Actress” to your long series of titles in your TRP Profile. Maybe somewhere between “Lord of the Dance” and “Wrecker of your Shit”! Don’t be bashful, we know you have it in there somewhere.

So if you’re interested in being a part of the stage and bringing the uniqueness that is YOU into our ranks, please send an in-game mail to Atos on Wyrmrest Accord server (Hordeside), or show up for the open auditions at the dates, times, and location listed below;

Thursday, June 3rd 6:00 - 8:30 PM Portrait Room - Legion Dalaran

Friday, June 4th 6:00 - 8:30 PM Portrait Room - Legion Dalaran

Saturday, June 5th 6:00 - 8:30 PM Portrait Room - Legion Dalaran

We hope to see you there! And remember, because we’ve had this happen a few times; if you think you aren’t good enough, you’re probably actually amazing and far more talented than you think! 

Anniversary Bash 2021 Officially Planned! With a Twist

Those of you who have followed us for some time are likely aware of our annual celebration we hold on the anniversary of our first major public performance! This has traditionally been held on the third Friday of every October, so that it lines up perfectly with Hallow’s End starting. While we have had on-off years, and even said in the past we would never do it again (Insert I was crazy that time meme here), it’s pretty clear that at least every other year we seem to take to it again with new ideas. Honestly, we LOVE these yearly parties, despite how much stress they put us under, and we’re going to announce it earlier this year just so people know; yes, yes there WILL be a bash this year!

Things are going to be a little different this year, though. This October will actually have 5 Fridays in it due to...well...the calendar! It conspires against us, dammit! Because the third Friday falls in place before the Hallow’s End events are set to start, we will instead be bumping it up one week to the 22nd. So, there you have it! Our Big Bash will be on the 22nd of October! We’ll be making a full announcement about it later this Summer, and honestly, I think folks are going to really like the fun we have planned for it. So if this is something you’re looking forward to early, or you just like making sure your calendar events are always filled out, please make a mark for

October 22nd, 2021! 

Hellsqueal Squeals Again, Plus Winter’s Veil In July?

This Summer we’ll be getting back to our roots and bringing Hellsqueal back for another round. The Trilogy will rise again, and you won’t want to miss it! This time we’ll be performing it for our audiences on both sides of the factional fence and making some revisions to the script, but long time fans needn’t worry! Hellscream is still the same boisterous buffoon he’s always been.

Also, we’re bringing you an interesting new concept no one has EVER thought of before! ...well, okay, that’s a lie, but Greatfather Winter needn’t send me a lump of coal in my in-game mailbox for that one! The TTT will be hosting a Winter’s Veil themed party IN JULY! Don your gaudy sweaters, get ready to meet Greatfather Winter, take part in a sled race, and get ready to watch a completely out of season showing of It’s A Wonderful Unlife! Some lucky attendees may even receive a gift! The date for this and for Hellsqueal’s trilogy are yet to be announced, but they will be unveiled very soon!

Even though we never left, it feels good to be back at full strength again and pushing hard to give everyone the quality entertainment we pride ourselves on! Keep an eye out for our announcements this Summer - we’ll be hitting not only Tumblr when an event is ready to go, but the Blizzard forums and various Discord community servers! So please, have a fantastic day, week, month, even a year! 

#tttevents #Wyrmrest Accord #WRA RP #Wow Rp #Hordeside events #alliance rp

[rpbetter]

Hi Vespertine. Sorry to add to the pile, I promise I will send in some writing related things to compensate later. I also misgendered that user in a comment by accident with she/her. I blocked them, but they still looked at my blog, and they made a post that said by using the wrong pronouns, which they thought was intentional and meant to hurt them, I purposefully called them a hysterical woman stereotype. Obviously that wasn't true. I was just going off a comment someone else made on my blog where they used she/her, and I thought I had to correct myself. It was a case where good intentions, even if I was not happy with the user's behavior or expected to talk to them again, I was still going to use the right pronouns, but my intentions were warped by someone with an agenda. I'm sorry to hear you're getting the same heat. I didn't use my rp blog to interact with the user or talk about them because I was sure something like this would happen, either by them or other people like that callout blog, and I think other people had the same idea. I dodged a bullet there, but I'm still paranoid. I'm paranoid I'll hear a notif and see my rp blog in a callout for this, because someone hunted it down, or a callout for trying to talk to the person who started all the drama. Nobody should be scared to talk about someone on their own blog. Nobody should be scared to talk openly, in general. Nobody should be called out for trying to talk with someone either. This culture of fear is so disturbing to me.

Hey there, Anon!

Oh, I would love that, but you totally don't have to, of course. Don't feel bad for adding on, I'm here for anything at all, and honestly, with the job I'm doing IRL right now, it's really hard for me to concentrate well enough on finishing any of the advice posts (at least, to be the quality y'all deserve). It's a hot topic, it's included so, so, terribly many people in the RPC. It's also one that's generating some great, needed conversations. So, it isn't like you're adding to anything bad, annoying or distracting me, or contributing to the inflammatory side of this.

Hell, it's got to be really nice for some of the people in messages I've received to see proof that they weren't alone in this experience. I can keep publishing the hate anons for exactly that reason, and I can promise people they aren't the only ones (in this or in any such horrible behavior), but it's different to see it coming from a third party! So, thank you for that.

Though, I am deeply sorry that you were treated to more than a ringside seat in this debacle.

It's not very encouraging to be thoughtful and respectful of other people when literally nothing you can say or do will result in anything other than more twisting of your words, and that's a big problem I have with this shit. Things like actual transphobia, intentional misgendering, actual infantalization and shit treatment of ND people, actual harassment, etc. etc. etc. matter. It's just more trivializing of real problems for the sake of blowing nonexistent bullshit up, and that is immensely disgusting to me. The fact that you damn well know someone out there has had the reaction to this behavior of, well, fuck you then, fuck trans people is really upsetting.

Like, yeah, let's be real, if you require social rewards to do the right thing, you have some problems lol but at the same time, you know who does require social rewards to develop themselves? Young people. And the RPC is largely comprised of people in their early twenties who, for a variety of possible reasons, are still at that point

Furthermore, no, it's not anyone's job to be good representation at all times, especially when that performance comes at a cost to themselves, but maybe don't go out of your way to be the person that is the necessary push in the wrong direction of someone's formative experience with people of your community. If it's costing you nothing to not clown on serious issues, but is costing the entire world another bigot for you to clown on serious issues, the choice should be a bit obvious here. Whenever you're in a safe place - physically, emotionally - and capable of that kind of logic, exercise it, damn.

It's definitely a better course of action than playing out skewed activism by vilifying innocent people, more worthy of one's effort than losing their collective shit over a very easy mistake. One that I'd say was even less avoidable in your case. AGAIN, how, exactly is anyone supposed to know this shit when they're blocked? When they aren't subverting the blocks they, themselves, put in place? I know for a fact none of them are looking at the information of the people they choose to try to drive out of the RPC, but everyone else is supposed to make zero reasonable assumptions, check and recheck blogs they have made an effort not to visit for good reason. Sounds absolutely reasonable and sane!

So, you know what? I'm going to be even more offensive here and talk for a moment about why these mistakes are reasonable.

When we see a post and reblog it, it's not unreasonable to assume that the OP had knowledge we didn't. Since we blocked the offending party, but they're discussing them. OP uses the incorrect pronouns, we end using the incorrect pronouns as well. This is not malicious intent. It isn't intentional at all, it's just having a discussion. A discussion that wouldn't have even transpired if they hadn't taken it upon themselves to (what a coincidence) take personal issue with a RPer they repeatedly took out of context and decided to shame for it, before proceeding to get an even bigger stick and pot.

When we decide to block a blog, it's our responsibility to stay off of it. Not go looking at it for any reason. That is now off-limits. When someone blocks us, it's also our responsibility to respect that decision, no matter how outrageous it was, no matter what we might need to verify. That's the issue with blocking when we don't exploit how easy it is to get around blocking on tumblr; we've cut ourselves off from any further meaningful communication, including passive communication like rules and posts. Kind of like how you cannot expect an apology to mean a damn thing when you've blocked everyone you harassed, then made that apology in a post on your blocked blog. Don't put up walls you expect people to see through, then get upset when they can't see through them.

As a community, the RPC is primarily afab. That's never a problem to bring up when someone wants to be angry about their female muse not getting equal attention and so on, but it's a problem to discuss any other time, about any other problem. Dealing with the things that we're socially raised to ascribe to as afab people is that problem. It's reflected in our behaviors, interests, and speech. We may not want to live in a gendered world, we may eschew that, but we were raised in a gendered world and it shows. One which has a lot of complications for being that, like almost everyone feeling safer around afab people by default of the All Men Are Bad, All Women Are Harmless bullshit.

We not only know that the RPC is primarily afab, we tend to assume comfort, especially in hostile situations, by assuming those pronouns in others.

And it so does not matter how much any of us like it, some people have more masculine or feminine tones. Even in text. That means neither that someone's gender identity should be disregarded nor that this text-based presentation is correct, but like every other unfair thing that exists, it's a thing. Like you, Anon, you genuinely come across in tone as primarily neutral, slight lean toward masculine. Even if I wasn't inclined to do so, not knowing you and all, I'd use they/them for you instinctively because that's what your speech is giving me. That isn't any more unreasonable than ascribing another set of pronouns based on the same information.

Oh yeah, I know, lurkers, the difference is that they/them is the appropriate choice when one does not know. I know that logically, but people aren't always operating like robots, weirdly enough. We default to a lot of instinctive behaviors, and we aren't always operating at the top rung of cognition either. Being human works like that, it's really that simple and not malicious if you're not reading that into it.

As we're all aware, it is being read into, and your experience is exactly why; you now feel worried every time you get a notif, you've been outed as a supposed transphobe, and while it is incredibly fortunate you stopped this from transpiring on your RP blog, it still transpired somewhere and has had a negative effect. If they find they correct thing or set of things, they can get so many more people to dogpile you over it. Get enough people to do that, make someone miserable enough, especially people who are already going through a hard enough time already, they'll leave.

It is a terroristic act, and it has the effect of all terroristic acts; people are afraid to exist outside of shifting bounds (that shifting is a part of the terrorism). They can't have an opinion, write any muse/topic they wish, be honest on their own blogs, support the "wrong" topics, muns, or blogs. Attacking people for a mistake, not allowing them to address it either, just furthers all of that. It's showing the community what happens when you aren't on the "right" side, even if that isn't even the case. They certainly turn on their own quickly enough.

So, of course, it's a culture of fear and it is disturbing as hell. No one has any right to make someone feel unsafe over fiction or a hobby or a difference of opinion. Everyone has the right to say whatever they want on their own blogs, to talk openly, and yes, to try to talk to others without feeling at risk.

Even if what someone says is genuinely unpleasant. This isn't the way one handles it. By all means, have a problem with something, have a problem with someone, but grow up and talk to them openly, without bringing everyone you can dredge up to join in. I have no issue with people arguing, I have an issue with bullying. If it's your whole goal to harass people without consequences to the end result of deactivation and lockstep behavior from everyone else, that's what you're doing, folks. Bullying.

If you can't win an argument, especially one your own ass began, in any other way than this, you're not engaging in an argument.

#vespertine #answered #anonymous #callout culture #rp harassment

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

Practicalities of Censorship

Every so often I see a thread cross my dashboard arguing about censorship with relation to AO3 - in particular people claiming that AO3 is bad because it allows basically any story regardless of content, that people are bad for supporting it, or that AO3 should implement some method by which problematic fics get taken down. These complaints are usually met with explanations around the history or AO3, why it was implemented the way it was, and why thinking that AO3 is fine the way it is does not equal being a pedophile. I want to tackle this from another angle - practicality.

Let's assume for the sake of this post that the people making these arguments are correct and that there are some things which shouldn't be allowed on AO3 (or an an alternative fic platform set up to be a better version of AO3 without all the bad stuff - I'll mostly be taking about "fixing" AO3 in this post but the same problems would apply to setting up a new and "safer" fic site). There are a lot of arguments against censorship to do with quality of works produced and whether this results is less good art when people are scared to produce things that might get banned, or whether there is artistic merit to works that display despicable actions. Let's just imagine for the moment that the whole argument is settled and the "let's purify AO3 for the sake of the children" crowd are correct. What would need to happen next? This isn't something I've seen addressed in these posts.

There are a lot of problems with censorship. Skipping over the ethical discussion of whether censorship is good or bad and in what circumstances it should be accepted, let's focus on two practical aspects: deciding what should and shouldn't be banned, and how you would implement such a ban. Let's start with problem one: where do you draw the line?

Let's assume we have some scale of rating from absolutely sickeningly awful deserving of destruction to perfectly clean and innocent with not the slightest thing wrong with it. Somewhere between these two endpoints is a line and everything to one side of it is bad and should be banned/blocked/deleted from AO3, etc. Everything on the other side of the line is fine and should be left available for people to read. Some things may seem easy to define. Fic A is incest porn, where a child is graphically raped in a way that's cleanly meant to titillate rather than horrify and the abuse is glorified and justified in text, and it's full of poor writing, spelling and grammar mistakes, and has no artistic merit as a work (how you judge artistic merit would need a few thousand words to explore as a subject on its own right). Let's stick that on the bad side of the line since that's the sort of thing that people on Tumblr are crying out to be banned. Fic B is a fluff fic where a character makes another character soup because they're feeling ill and they watch movies together. Nothing remotely sexual, just two adult characters being sweet to each other. So we'll put that on the good side of the line, right?

But the problem comes in deciding where that dividing line should be and what should be done about the things that sit close to the line. You could come up with some simple rules. Let's say, "Everything involving underage incest is on the bad side of the line." Seems straight-forward. But what if you have a story dealing with someone's recovery from incest and CSA? The story has a character who was abused in the past and the narrative deals with them getting therapy and overcoming their trauma. None of the abuse is shown in the text of the story, it all happens off-screen as it were, and the story sends a message that incest and CSA are bad but offers hope to former victims. Surely that story would belong on the good side of the line? So maybe we amend the rule to, "Everything involving graphic incest is on the bad side of the line." That would let us keep the story about overcoming the trauma on the good side but block anything that uses incest as porn. But is consenting incest between grown adults treated the same as abusive incest?

And what if you get a story that's more about the trauma but that has a handful of flashbacks about the rape that would count as graphic. These flashbacks are meant to be horrifying not sexually exciting. Would that be okay? Is it the intent of the scene that matters? But in that case, what happens if the author writes a scene that's intended to be horrifying but a reader interprets it as arousing? Would it be okay if the author includes a disclaimer in the notes saying that this is a terrible thing and shouldn't be done in real life? Is it the intensity of the scenes shown directly in the story? In which case, where do you draw the line between something described explicitly and something merely eluded to? Is it the precise terms used? Which terms? Or how many times those terms are use? Is a subtle allusion to an event okay? In which case, what happens with a slightly less subtle allusion?

The stories that are far away from the line are easy to place, but the ones close to it become a challenge. Any attempt to define straight-forward rules starts to fall apart quickly and you get to the point where you have to argue on a case-by-case basis for each story, which would involve a massive amount of time invested to check each of these stories and decide whether or not they're allowed. Once again the practicalities of "how would you enforce something like this?" rear their ugly head but that's a question we'll address later.

We also have the problem that where I might draw the line between the bad and the good might be different from where you would draw the line, and would be different from where someone else would draw the line. Let's go back to Fic B as described above, our perfectly innocent fluff story. I might think that's perfectly acceptable, but if those two characters are both the same gender, there will be some homophobic people who will say that it's wrong and corrupting innocents because it sends the message that homosexual relationships are good. Or even if the characters are different genders, some highly religious people might think it sends a bad message if those characters are unmarried and living together in a relationship, even if nothing explicit happens within the story. Or what if the characters are married but it's an interracial marriage? A KKK member might say that sends a bad message. Different people have a different idea of what counts as bad content.

In the real world, there have been cases of books that address racism being banned because they use the n word. Harry Potter has been banned by religious groups. According to the website www.banned-books.org.uk a sweet children's book about two penguins hatching an egg was banned by a lot of schools and libraries in the US because the two penguins are both male - even though this story was actually based on a true story. The book Black Beauty, about the experiences of a horse, was banned during the Apartheid in South Africa simply for including the word "black" in the title. If you look at that site, a lot of books have been banned for a lot of different reasons and a lot of good literature has ended up caught up in the censorship usually because religious groups objected to in on moral grounds.

You could say "don't let the bigots and racists be in charge of the censorship," but historically, when censorship has come into play in the past, the people who tend to end up the worst for it are minorities. LGBTQ+ groups and people of colour tend to get censored more than straight, white men. Stories about their experiences often deal with problematic issues and therefore they get banned. The groups that generally end up making decisions about what is and isn't okay tend to be the groups that have the most power to begin with, and the end result is silencing of minority voices. This is one reason I'm very wary of anything to do with censorship, because the people who usually end up the worse for it are those who most need their voices heard.

But let's imagine all of these problems are magically overcome and we come up with a perfectly clear set of rules about what counts as good and bad fic and the dividing line is agreed by good, rational people who aren't remotely bigoted and who are able to define the criteria for what should be banned in a way that will only ever block the harmful stuff.

We still have to deal with the practicalities of enforcement we set aside earlier. We've built our perfect set of rules to define good and bad fics and now we want to put them into practice to ban any of the awful stuff. How would you go about doing it?

We could try and get machine filters to do censorship by looking for keywords and particular tags or using more complex algorithms to judge what a piece of content is about, but this ends up with chaos like Tumblr auto-flagging a lot of perfectly clean content, or YouTube blocking videos that just happened to be by/about LGBTQ+ people. Any software based implementation would struggle because someone talking about a thing as a problem contains the same words as someone glorifying that thing, and machines tend not to be great at picking up tone. You would get a massive amount of errors with things being falsely flagged as bad and things being falsely let through despite breaking the rules.

And people would be sneaky. Someone wanting to include their graphic story wouldn't tag it as for over 18s because tagging something as for over 18s would get it banned, so they would tag it as something else. The terms "lemon" and "lime" used to describe fics by older members of fandoms started from exactly this sort of thing. Websites decided to not allow adult content so people continued to post adult content but they used the citrus scale for tagging it so people would still be able to find it. Which works when people know the terms to look for or avoid, but which doesn't work for people not in the know. Is a "lemon" or a "lime" fic more explicit? Do you know what a fic being tagged as "grapefruit" would mean? By their nature, these tags are coded, which is not great for clarity.

Any sort of system that just blanket bans key words or tags would result in people just not using those keywords and tags but posting the stuff anyway. It would actually make the situation worse because there would still be incest porn and the like, only now it wouldn't be tagged. As it stands on AO3, people use the tagging system very well and people who don't want to see the incest porn can do things like exclude that tag from searches, or just not open fics they see that have the tag. If there were rules in place to not allow anything with that tag, then people would stop using the tag, which would actually mean more people would see incest porn they didn't want to because it would no longer be tagged properly, or it would be tagged using code words which only mean something to the inside group. It would be much harder to avoid the things you don't like.

So let's say we don't let a computer decide what's breaking the rules. Let's say there is a system by which readers can flag a fic as being inappropriate to get it banned. Human beings get to decide, but what's the threshold? Does a thing get banned as soon as someone reports it? Or does it need to be flagged by multiple people to be banned? In which case fics written in tiny fandoms might slip through the cracks because not enough people are reading it to them flag it. This is also open for exploitation. Someone who takes a dislike to a particular person might encourage others to flag their fics as inappropriate, regardless of whether or not they are. Someone might create fake accounts or log in anonymously over proxies to spam a fic with flags.

And even if no one acts maliciously to abuse the system, not everyone will be careful about checking the precise and perfect rules defined to mark the difference between acceptable and unacceptable work. People will flag things incorrectly, based on their own viewpoints of what should or shouldn't be allowed, which we've already said is a problem because everyone will draw the line in different places based on their own beliefs.

So what's the alternative to a community-driven method for managing content? You could have specific people whose job it is to go through content and decide whether it adheres to the rules. Maybe a computer system or community flagging could funnel fics into a review channel where human beings check every one carefully. These people would understand the rules and be certain to always judge fics accurately according to the magically perfect rules defined earlier, which are guaranteed to only ever block bad fics but never block a good fic.

So problem solved, right? We have our perfect rules perfectly implemented.

Except where humans are employed to check whether content is acceptable or not, it involves a large number of people checking through basically the worst content out there. Some social networking sites do this sort of thing now and it can be hugely traumatising for people who do that work. It's not good for them mentally to have to be exposed over and over to the worst content being put up online. There tends to be a high turnover in those jobs because they burn out fast, and that's where people are being paid for this stuff.

A site like AO3 relies on volunteers so it would require a large number of people to volunteer to look at the darkest most gruesome content and decide if it breaks the rules or not. Either you have people who hate those sort of fics doing this out of a sense of duty to maintain the purity of the content, in which case they will probably struggle with having to read a load of stuff they really, really don't enjoy. Or you will have people volunteer because they really like those fics and this is the way for them to read them. And that probably defeats the point of doing this, because it means that the people who would be seeking out those stories anyway would be the ones reading them to see if they break the rules.

There are a lot of problems with censorship, both ethically and practically. Even if you are fully on the side of censorship from a moral standpoint, you have to address the practical concerns if you want to propose an implementation.

As it stands, I think the current system works. There is stuff on AO3 that I would not in a million years want to read, but I don't have to. AO3 is brilliant for its tagging system and I can look at the tags and nope past fics that are full of my personal squicks or that I think endorse something terrible. Readers can exclude tags they want nothing to do with or just not click on ones that include elements you dislike. You can curate your own experience, which actually works with the whole idea of everyone drawing a line in a different place. You and I will have different stories we want to avoid, and we can both choose to avoid them based on author's tagging for them, rather than some other person decreeing what is acceptable for either of us to see.

If you still think that AO3 should be blocking or banning certain content, have a think about how this would work in reality. Because when ideas like that are implemented in the real world, all manner of problems happen.

I think the fact that this post is still a couple of thousand words long with me skipping over several parts of the debate is a sign that this is not a simple problem that can be easily fixed.

#censorship #long post

[gothamdetected-a]

an idiot’s guide to the wayne family.

now complete with new diagrams! i wish i wash kidding, ive really made a diagram to help illustrate this.

[ follow the link here for actual visible quality. thanks tumblr.]

some points to make quickly -

• this is not complete. there were probably more siblings and wives and children, but i just focused on the main lineage i could piece together from DC knowledge

• apologies for the lack of knowledge on the women in the family past the last century. this is unfortunately common in real life too, as women were not landowners etc, and without a marriage certificate they basically don’t show up on records. dc happily talk about the male line but not about the wives and daughters so :/

• the dates are fairly made up, and especially at the bottom are just me twisting things to fit my own personal canon

• and finally, i just wanted to say that while this is pieced together from what DC have told us, there are a lot of holes that i have filled with headcanons. not all of this is canon. sometimes i just want to give a person a cool life that dc are too cowardly to do.

so, although this varies by “earth”, i have tried to combine the various histories given for pre- and post-52 waynes into a full comprehensible timeline. i’ve probably failed, but this is what i’m sticking with.   

to start with we’re supposed to believe that there was a norse guy calling himself the Bat-Man, running around in the 10th century killing frost giants. is it plausible? yes. is it exaggerated? most definitely. am i wiping it from existence because it was one issue in a faintly terrible run that has technically been retconned anyway? absolutely. ignoring that makes the earliest recorded ancestor of the wayne family a man called gawayne de weyne, a french crusader in the 14th century. on some earths he’s called lancelot wayne (too on the nose) or harold wayne (thanks i hate it), so im personally going to retcon that and just say gawayne is it. also because i love the etymological aspect of the name beginning as de weyne in old high french and it slowly changing through out the centuries. gawayne, also sometimes written as gevain, was one of the knights sent to retrieve the holy grail, but, as knights tended to do, he died. sorry gawayne. the weirdest part about all of this is that he asked for his heart to be embalmed, and there’s a plot line revolving around this (batman: scottish connection). now i’m not saying that madness runs in the family, but the waynes absolutely do not get a good head start in history. 

gawayne must have had at least one surviving heir who goes on to have babies etc etc, and eventually we get to the 16th century, and the next instance of the waynes. specifically, contarf wayne. which, i have to say, super dumb name. if i ever have a kid, im calling it contarf. so it’s now the 1500s and the waynes have somehow become scottish, probably from getting given land after crusading and that. apparently gawayne was aknight of the scottish court, despite being french, which actually happened a lot back then. literally the only notable thing contarf does with his life is build castle wayne, and i swear these people are all born with both madness and a flair for the dramatic. yes at some point bruce does go to this gloomy scottish castle where it’s always rainy and stormy and fits right on in, so that’s terrifying.

around a hundred years later nathaniel wayne tries to emigrate across to the “new world”. nathaniel likes witchhunting, and has come over to what will one day be the US following a witch fleeing from england - annie. annie who he may have dated. annie who may be pregnant with his child. good on you nathaniel, that’s a healthy relationship you’ve got right there. after the baby is delivered, he finds her and. you know, people were not kind of witches back then, so she dies. and with her dying breath, curses nathaniel and all his descendants. which includes her OWN BABY (super punk move), and one day bruce wayne. this curse manifests in very few of the extant waynes surviving beyond 40, often going mad, and absolutely tuning on each other. nathaniel’s particular grisly end comes when his is the fateful colony that ends up in what-will-one-day-be-gotham (see my idiots guide to gotham for more juicy details), releasing the deacon blackfire from his little cave and ending up missing, presumed dead. (definitely dead). this is the start of the “waynes probably should avoid gotham” saga. spoiler alert - they don’t. 

somewhere in the interluding 100 years, a branch of the waynes do actually successfully make it over into the americas. 2 brothers, caleb and thomas simon wayne, reach the east coast from britain, and go their separate ways. caleb joins a convoy heading out west, leading a wagon train, and, as so many pioneers do, he also dies, while trying to make this trip. but caleb really isnt the interesting brother here (sorry man), because what thomas gets up to is far more exciting. he settles in, lo and behold, the newly formed town of gotham, and for some strange reason (probably because all the waynes are fairly nuts, as we’ve established at this point) decides to give devil-worshipping a go. maybe its fucking curse. maybe its something in the water. maybe its maybelline. but whatever it is, thomas wayne tries to summon and ensnare the demon barbatos by killing some innocents, in a wild, but understandable, attempt to gain immortality. he doesn’t succeed. or does he. it half works - instead of summoning the bat-demon (yes the same bat-demon that the founding fathers later summon and also trap beneath gotham) he gets one of darkseid’s hyper-dimensional bounty hunters, and some how, through some space age magic, the energy of this event corrupts him into agelessness/slowed ageing, we’re not totally sure. later dear old tom pops back up as the villainous dr simon hurt, and literally fights his own descendant. DC give no fucks. 

after the whole corrupting not-magic thing, but before he disappears, thomas/simon impregnates one of his cult’s disciples. a lot. (is this why the waynes can look 30 at 50? more on this at 10) and between 1747 and 1771 (because immortal people also have immortal sperm apparently), she bears him 3 sons. probably some daughters too but again, who cares about that. not DC, that’s for damn sure. these sons are all absolutely fucking insane, just like daddy dearest. the eldest, who is LITERALLY known as “mad” anthony wayne, is said to be the spitting image of bruce, which is confirmed through some time travelling bs that we’re not going to think about. anthony and horatio wayne, the middle brother, both sign up to fight in the revolutionary war. unfortunately THE CURSE STRIKES AGAIN and horatio perishes while burning british ships. anthony goes on to becomes a brigadier general, serving directly under george washington and pulls some crazy good strategies that help to kick the british out of new jersey, earning his nickname of “mad” anthony, because only someone fucking nuts could come up with these plans, and pull them off. the youngest brother darius wayne is only 4 when the war breaks out, and is therefore too Babey to fight, but does later become notable for being the man to start construction on wayne manor. in 1795, using the money inherited from his brother horatio on his death, he hires an architect nathan van derm, to begin planning and building. sadly darius will never see it completed, with funds dwindling and his older brother’s death, eventually darius takes his own life. 

not to worry, he leaves behind 2 sons - herkimer and charles wayne. literally herkimer’s only notable feature is that he fights in the war of 1812. sorry my guy, DC hate you. charles, on the other hand, is a businessman, who manages the failing company his father had left behind and starts to grow the wayne fortune. charles buys more land surrounding the manor, as well as a lot of general gotham real estate, and is the man accrediting for starting wayne enterprises as a series of several small business, ranging from merchant trading to land ownership to mining, in 1845. however charlie contracts tuberculosis at the ripe old age of 62 and shuffles off the mortal coil. 

the oldest of his sons, charles lincoln wayne, also known as charles junior, does 2 things - begins construction on the wayne manor again in 1855 after purchasing it back from jerome k. van derm, the destitute son of the original architect, who had been living in the bones of the construcion, and uses a considerable portion of his inheritance to build the gotham botanical gardens in 1870. the next son, winslow wayne, is another enigma - the only thing mentioned about him in the comics is that he fought alongside teddy roosevelt, which i’m guessing is in the spanish-american war. but the youngest two brothers, joshua thomas and solomon zebadiah wayne are the real spicy pair. not only do they tackle the bat infestation on the manor grounds, but the pair work to change the federal system of america - joshua, when he’s not managing the wayne companies, is an abolitionist who engages in secret missions to free slaves by getting them across the border into canada, and solomon, the vaguely more sensible of the two, becomes a judge, attempting to be as fair and incorruptible as possible. sadly joshua is killed due to his slave smuggling antics (THE CURRSSEE), and this sends solomon slightly nuts, and causes him to contract the architect cyrus pinkney, who is even more nuts, to basically. build gotham. these two men are the reason 97% of buildings have gargoyles on them. 

solomon has only 1 child before he dies, who fortunately, grows up to be a very shrewd businessman capable of growing wayne ent even through with the advent of shipping and rail sectors. this man, alan wayne, constructs the original wayne tower in 1888, and it completely swamps the gotham skyline. he also marries catherine van derm, the great granddaughter of the original architect of wayne manor, and finally manage to complete and move in to the building in 1895, exactly 100 years after the project was started. for a while they are very happy, and catherine falls pregnant. but this darn curse just won’t leave these wayne boys alone, and in 1897, catherine dies giving birth to their son, kenneth wayne. a year later, lost and traumatised and going insane thinking about his wife’s death alan wayne mysteriously disappears (read as: fell down a well and was maybe or maybe not tortured and killed by the court of owls). 

kenneth wayne, raised as virtually an orphan, turns out to have his papa’s business management skills, and, foreseeing america's impending industrialisation in the 20s and 30s, makes some risky moves that pay off, including the advent of wayne chemicals, and wayne ent expands yet again. kenneth, like the recurring pattern that you can see here, dies fairly early due to WW2 however, leaving his wife laura to care for their 4 sons AND the company, which she does like a boss ass bitch. seriously, women barely had the vote and she was already a titan of industry and raising 4 teenage boys like. massive props to you babe. these boys are

ishmael wayne, a whaler who is an incredible parody of captain ahab and also dies trying to catch a white whale, elwood wayne, who goes and reclaims what is now called waynemoor castle in scotland, living there until his death, silas wayne, who may or may not be a thief posing as a wayne because the real silas died, AND at long last, patrick wayne - bruce’s granpappy, who founded the wayne tech arm of the company at 20 years old, aiding the war effort, and where this stupidly long post ends, because there is 0 point in me recounting the lives of thomas, bruce, or any of his children. everyone knows them. could i write more about thomas’ siblings and the kanes and how they tie in? yes. but this post is like 2100 words long and i want to sleep at some point today so this will have to do askjdbjsdhgf

#im #this is virtually incomprehensible #\system\directory\hidden.txt ›› META #long post /

[moved99999999999]

U guys wanna know what I think about that hell hotel show

I feel like twitter’s very tired of seeing ppl talk about Hazbin Hotel, so I putting my opinions on tumblr where they belong. I’m not a “professional critic” by any means, but I’ll try my best given what I know. And don’t worry, I’ll be incredibly nit-picky to suit the internet’s needs.

I’m gonna mainly focus on HH itself instead of Vivzie’s accusations because that's a WHOLE other can of worms to open.

During the time of me writing this, I haven’t watched any YT reviews, but I’ve read a few threads criticising the show, so take that as my social influence bias.

My ted talk is allllll below the cut. Enjoy~

Context: 

My first exposure of Vivzie’s work was her “Die Young” animation that I came across around 2016. Instantly I fell in love with how “smooth” and lively her animation was, and especially the fact that it was hand drawn. Animation like that was extremely rare to come by (and still is) and seeing her execute it so well with such complexed characters was amazing to my fetus self. 

A few years later and I see the first trailer for HH. I instantly went OH I RECOGNISE THAT STYLE AND THOSE CHARACTER TYPE DESIGNS and was looking forward to what it had to offer. 

On “opening day” I watched the pilot ASAP to avoid my opinions from getting warped by all of the key-mash memes and post call-out bitching (literally the extremes of the HH opinion spectrum), and overall.....

I thought it was good. 

Not ground breakingly amazing, not horrifically terrible, but charmingly good.

(Ok now it’s actual review time)

Animation Quality:

As a hand drawn animation that has the freedom to get creative with its shots, a lot of effort was clearly put into how everything moves (it definitely didn’t take any lazy flash puppet shortcuts for the main sections of the show) and I can appreciate that. However it tends to be... rather inconsistent, most likely due to the varying skill level of the animators on the project. It’ll be nice and smooth one minute, and then awkward and choppy the next which can make the viewing pretty confusing at times. I’ll be honest I found myself overlooking these inconsistencies due to the characters and backgrounds themselves being very visually engaging, especially considering how over designed some of them can be (which I applaud the team for handling cuz wow that must have been painful). However, the needle thin and exaggerated art style makes some things incredibly hard to look at. While it helps with adding fancy details, it hurts in catching peoples eyes in the right place.

It’s also chalk full of little details, visual gags, and references that are hilarious to look at if you have the luxury of pausing every two seconds (the news segment and Sir Pentious turf war w/ Angel and Cherri are good places to look). But I feel like these lil details were put in at the cost of some some continuity errors (Charlie not wearing her coat in one shot, and having it back on in the next, papers being blank, etc.) and lip-syncing issues which really shouldn’t be happening considering all of the detail they were able to put in. There are also some shots that have just SO MUCH detail put into them, only to be shown for less than a second. I get that’s the cost of animation sometimes, but save the detail for the shots that need it, because at that point you’re just causing the animators to waste their efforts.

However, I was surprised at how professional the soundtrack and editing was. Not one but THREE songs in this single episode was really surprising, and the variation and quality of each was great (as cringy as Charlie’s song is)

But overall, the production quality is surprisingly good for a project like this, the editing, sound effects, and sound track act like a cherry on top. Of course there are some noticeable drops in quality, but given time and a budget, it has enough chops to look like an actual show.

Writing: 

As far as overarching plot goes, it seems like it’s going to be one of those procedural shows that tries to be serialised, but it’s a creative twist on hell and has an interesting premise to begin with. You can get really creative with seeing how you’d dive into getting redemption out of all of these seemingly lost causes, and I’m sure there are many people willing to know the backstories our main cast. As a pilot, it did it’s job of launching the plot very well, setting up the premise of the hotel and introducing characters in a very engaging way. I was legit really interested in each segment with who in introduced, and it didn’t feel like I was being overloaded with names to remember (which can be a problem for many medias and introductions). The cohesion between each scene is VERY smooth, and I genuinely enjoyed some of the cliché cuts/gags. 

Unfortunately I can’t extend this interest to our main character. Charlie is one of the most generic tropes we’ve ever seen. She’s a boring Disney princess who has a “cute happy positive goal to change her world” and the only thing that would make her more generic is if she wore a dress and cried “I’m tired of being so privileged”. 

(Although it’s impossible to tell, I honestly think Viv is just projecting through her, especially considering how horrifically accurate the hotel’s opening mirrors the internet’s reaction to the pilot itself)

I would be more forgiving if she was a supporting character or someone less important, but she’s the freaking protagonist, arguably the character that has to be the most interesting. Angel’s personality seems to be “flirty porn star”, and while that’s just as bad as being a boring Disney princess, at least he gets a few jokes and has a profession more interesting than Charlie’s. Around the end of the pilot he just seems like he’s getting involved because Viv likes giving him attention. If he’s supposed to be leeching off of the hotel, wouldn’t not care if it survives or not?

(There’s that whole stereotype issue that everyone keeps bringing up, but I genuinely think that’s BS because people are blatantly ignoring the fact that Angel is a porn star, Vaggie is portrayed as helpful, and that the show takes place in H E double hokey sticks.)

The transitions may be smooth, but the dialogue pacing can get really awkward at times. This paired with the animation sometimes having awkward quality drops makes some movements incredibly jagged, and has some detailed shots show for incredibly unbalanced screen time as mentioned before. 

I don’t have enough to give voice acting it’s own section so I’m just popping it down here:

The voice acting is legitimately better than several big name projects I know. It’s consistent, great at expressing the character’s mood properly, and each voice fits each character perfectly. My only gripes are that Alastor and Sir Pentious tend to grain on you after awhile due to them keeping a single tone for too long. 

Character Design: AKA the only thing I have legitimate experience with.

First thing’s first. The characters are WAY too over designed. There are so many markings and accessories that are incredibly unnecessary. I think the mindset for these characters was “the more complicated and attractive the better”, which makes them look like they’re designed by an edgy tumblr artist (heck I fall for this too some times).

Especially if a character is going to be animated, you have to keep in mind the value of simplicity. You absolutely don’t have to fill in your character with markings and trinkets to make them look unique, I mean just look at the gen 1 pokemon starters. Thanks to the limitations of the game, the sprites were forced to be simple, and it was that simplicity that made them such unique and varied creatures. You can tell Blastoise is a bulky water blasting turtle just with a quick glance. 

Many of the characters suffer from over complication, but I’ll look at Husk for example. He has these stripes all over him that do not contribute to who he’s supposed to be at all, and only look like they’re added to make him more unique. The markings that DO help are the little card suite marks on his wings, because those at least infer he’s linked to a casino/gambling type of theme. I would say his outfit helps as well, but formal wear and bowties are worn way to often by the main characters, which brings me to another problem.

They may look different, but they feel way too similar. From the same skinny body type, to generic head shapes, to outfits, the focus characters just don’t stand out amongst each other. Even the ones with interesting features still suffer from feeling generic. I’d say Sir Pentious is a good example of this. He has a serpentine/naga body and clever hair style that make his concept really creative, but his skinny body type, complicated eyes all over his tail, and generic “young but supposed to be at least middle aged” face just push him back into obscurity. He’s even wearing the SAME outfit as Alastor (who's an even worse offender of that generic face problem), and unless Viv has some plan to link the two, I’d say the characters need to stop using a dress code.

A successful character design can to tell you who the character is just by looking at them. You should be able to tell if a character’s personality, function, age, the universe they belong in, and if they’re important or not, and that’s a big problem when it comes to the background characters. If you pause on one of the extras for a minute you can see all of the effort put into designing them, and that takes away so much attention from the main cast. Not only that, but they have actual variations in their body types and outfits, which makes them more intriguing than who we’re supposed to be interested in.

Regardless, this pilot has potential, and if they can get someone to comb out the flaws, you can end up with something good. No one can deny a legitimate animation was made here, and the team successfully executed the start of a story, and that’s something anyone can look up to.

TLDR: The pilot is good. It has some major flaws, but it has potential to be a good show.

If you actually read this far epstein didn’t kill himself.

#I'm only doing this cuz i wanna draw angel dust and i feel like I have to justify myself before ppl start calling me mean things #Fan art is coming ;) #hazbin hotel #HH is good yall just have a mob mentality #critique

[bakagamieru]

Odd things that being a 1D fan on tumblr has taught (or at least has contributed in teaching) me:

All fandoms have their factions, their fights, their discrimination, their bullying, etc.  Generally one fandom isn’t much worse or much better than the next.

Each fandom has its positive aspects- joy, sharing of ideas, production of content whether it be analysis or art or charity or something else, people speaking up against bullying, people supporting near strangers through rough patches, etc.

Each fandom has its negative aspects- homophobia, racism, policing of what a “true fan” is, bullying, personal grudges and fights, etc.

Internet communities really are just microcosms of the rest of life.  Any organization you can think of has its equivalents of the elements and personalities and conflicts that go on in online communities like tumblr.

School classes

School faculty

Businesses

Governments

Clubs

Teams

Sports

Gaming culture

Groups of friends

Families

Fraternities and sororities

Theater crews

etc.

Human beings are incredibly suggestible, starting to believe things simply because they’re suggested or repeated to them enough.

Unintentional false witness testimony

Implanted memories

Folk remedies that don’t actually work

The idea that McDonald’s in the US has an acceptable quality of food and is even “good food”

Health, nutrition, and exercise advice based on no real evidence that is almost always overturned within 10-20 years

Celebrity images

Propaganda is EVERYWHERE.  And it’s not always straightforward or easy to understand the sources and purposes behind it.

It’s in commercials and advertising obviously, but also 

in the news, 

in TV shows and movies,

in research studies and how they’re reported, 

in government and in the laws that get passed or don’t.

History may as well be a nice piece of fiction.  

There are so many errors or misrepresentations in how both the far and immediate past are described or explained by someone else that you have to do your own fact check on every single fact to tell whether someone is representing an event accurately or not.  

Since this is impractical, we tend to go based on what sounds reasonable, but just because something sounds reasonable doesn’t mean it’s what actually happened or that extra context that changes the meaning entirely hasn’t been left out.  

And so picking and choosing what to fact check is impossible because you’re likely to skip right over the biggest inaccuracies without even realizing it.  So we often base our opinions and beliefs off of things other people say that might be entirely wrong.

Conspiracies are real.  They’re not particularly special because conspiracies are a fact of life in entertainment, in business, and in the government.  

They can be small and relatively harmless like the Santa Clause conspiracy that many parents participate in, or 

they can be large and extremely harmful like cigarette companies trying to get people to believe their cigarettes were actually healthy while knowing they weren’t.

You can’t pass judgment on something until you understand it, at least in part.  Passing judgment on something you have no information about and no experience with often ends up meaning you find out you were wrong, often embarrassingly, later on down the line.  

Scoffing at a boyband you’ve only ever heard one song from is judging something without knowing it.  

Scoffing at the idea that two boyband members could be in a relationship with each other without investigating the evidence first is judging something without knowing it.  

Scoffing at the idea that there could be two couples in a boyband without investigating the evidence first is judging something without knowing it.  

Nothing is as organized and flawless as you want it to be.

Even top law firms make typos in official documents and have lawyers that use terrible writing grammar and send bills to the wrong clients.

Even governments run on antiquated systems that haven’t been updated to be at all effective in current society, lose documentation, and are generally so bureaucratic that it’s a miracle anything ever gets done.

Even people running conspiracies are sloppy about keeping up an appropriate facade because they only care that the conspiracy holds up under surface-level scrutiny.

Even medical professionals don’t keep up on the newest developments and give outdated advice, misdiagnose people, miss or ignore important symptoms and tell patients they’re “fine”.

Even science doesn’t know nearly as much for sure as we think it does, which is why materials are newly discovered to be toxic every year, we only recently figured out that gut bacteria might be hugely important, and it was only a few years ago that someone finally discovered that yes, there is a physical link between the brain and the immune system.

I hope these don’t come across as overly negative.  I tend to have a critical mindset and I try to pull it back and balance out the negative things with the positive that ARE there.  

These aren’t bad things per se; they just ARE.  It’s the way things are and it’s important to be aware of these things so that we at least know what’s going on around us and what things might be influencing us.

#one direction #bakagamieru #and people are dismissive or amused or contemptuous when they find out I'm a boyband fan #but you get out of anything what thought you put into #and being a fan of 1D has coincided with a pretty big change in how much I understand about the world and how it works #and being part of the fandom is part of what taught me those things