#regarding fandoms and stuff

[atroppa-nightshade]

“A PLAYLIST IN FULL COLOR”

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So uh... my old color palettes started blowing up out of nowhere and it made me wanna make a new batch and ‘remix’ some of the older ones. The fun part about this one is that all of the palettes are named after (and sorta based on) songs I’ve listened to or added to playlists!

As always, these are free to use and people are free to send these with a character for me to draw!

#atroppa says a thing #atroppa draws a thing #art related #art game #art meme #color palette #palette meme #color palette challenge #i've got no particular limits with any media #regarding fandoms and stuff #if it's something i've posted about or showed interest in before then it's all fair game #even then if there's something you think would look cute in my style then feel free to recommend it! #i just might be more tentative with those #and ocs of course #love having more excuses to draw my blorbos from my brain :> #hecc it feel free to send a palette and leave the subject up to dealer's choice (or vice versa)

[shorthaltsjester]

the venn diagram of people who actually understand pelor’s complexity and the people who understand vex’s character is a circle and a very small one at that

#it’s about them both being secretly kind hearted with harsh and dickish exteriors to protect the things that matter to them #like. please rewatch c1 and the info we get about pelor in it #where it is reiterates time and time again that pelor faced a significant brunt of the calamity. who watched ioun get struck down. #who shares a plane with sarenrae after her believers were essentially extinguished #and tell me again how his actions (of which we have. still very little info) are unreasonable #they are Absolutely asshole actions #but yknow. vex was also inclined towards asshole actions when her loved ones/the stability of her life was threatened #anyway this isn’t discourse this is just how i feel about two of the fandom things that irritate me the most and their correlation #honestly i don’t super want anymore vm cameos for a While but also i would love a vex one if it was regarding pelors champion stuff #especially now that we won’t have deanna around #vex’ahlia #pelor #the dawnfather #vex’ahlia de rolo #critical role #my posts

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

FINALLY THESE ARE OPENS

Whats your opinion on other ships like

Gangle x Zooble

Queenie x Kinger

Jax x Kaufmo

Caine x Kinger

Caine x Moon

Ofc this is optional but I'm just curious

umm ......... neutral ! ... " oh people ship these ? ... good for them ! ..." i don't mind that they exist ! ... i just only ever latch onto one romantic ship because i'm a weirdo who has an extremely specific dynamic she loves and it's ' opposites attract w/ bad communication and a lot of emotional problems to go through but it's ok holding hands will totally solve all of it '

#[ ooc ] #confession i don't agree with a lot of the buttonblossom interpretations in the fandom ? ... #idk i guess that's just me having more of a preference towards deep character studies than any sappy stuff ... #as much as i love thinking of them holding hands i also love how they will have completely clashing philosophies regarding the circus #and are in completely different stages when it comes to adaptability and identity #which is something that i've ... already sprinkled in some bits and pieces in the comic .......

[octolingplush]

being aroace in fandom spaces is kinda hard, actually.

(a note before i continue: this is based mainly on my experience in the Genshin Impact fandom.. on places that aren’t Tumblr. of course, fandom is diverse, and if you experienced any of this.. yeahhhh…)

for a lot of fandoms, the main grip people have on the media produced is around the characters, rather than the world.

people will see themselves in these fictional people, placing them in situations and making up little ideas on things not really shared.

and with queer people, that leads to a lot of headcanons of being, well, queer.

and eventually, fandom will lead to pairings. people will put two characters together, whether it be on personality, appearance, story, or a myriad of other things.

and when a ship gets popular, mainstream even, people are very quick to defend it.

how does this relate to being aroace? because people will defend their favorites against anything that might suggest the person is against their pairing.

in a few fandoms, i’ve seen people call aroace an excuse to not ship people. that’s right: some people in fandom see aroace headcanons a way to call them wrong. characters being called aroace will have angry fans raving on about how you’re “erasing rep” or comparing you to people who put characters in straight pairings (which is another thing itself). i’ve seen people, allo people, call popular characters aroace so others won’t get mad for not liking a rarepair. a character could blatantly say (or their story could say), they don’t make close relationships, and people would twist that away from the aromantic and asexual spectrum (aromantic specifically). and that doesn’t even touch on how a lot of allo fandom-goers don’t even acknowledge identities such as aplatonic—ones that seem strange or even alien to them.

and that doesn’t even include canon a-spec characters. or characters where asexual/aromantic is a commonly accepted headcanon.

allos that ship these characters will, without fail, say that “asexual and aromantic is a spectrum!”. now, i’m not saying it’s not true, because it is. but that point isn’t being thought about, especially in the way these relationships are portrayed. ace-spec and aro-spec relationships (based on the experiences of others i’ve seen, here and elsewhere) are inherently different than two allo people. being aro/ace (or aspec in general, really) makes you different. how the individual aligns with romance/sex/love in general is different, but the difference is something that a lot of allo people don’t seem to recognize.

anyway i’m just mad my identity is often seen as an “excuse” to allo people

(note 2: if you can guess which genshin ship i’m talking about you get a virtual high five)

(note 3: this is going up on valentine’s day [in my time at least lmao] specifically because i feel like it’s important to take note of this while going through fandom. maybe next time you can spot it and point out how harmful it is :p)

#aromantic #asexual #aro #ace #asexual spectrum #aromanticism #asexuality #aromantic spectrum #fandom related #fandom #fandom stuff #valentine’s day #<- because i made this. idea. when remembering how overlooked aro rep is in regards to valentine’s #(double)allo people be respectful when commenting on this if you must add your two cents pls #aroace #aroace spectrum

[mikkokomori]

is omari basil still a delinquent

(and side note here id LOVE to hear you ramble all about your Omari au)

Ahem,,,, if it is alright with you then,,,,,, I will talk about my OMARI Basil then,,,,

To answer your question, he was planned to be the delinquent of the group (as per typical swap aus), though over time, I really began to sit down and think about it the more swap aus began to pop up around the fandom. I didn't really like the idea of being a carbon copy of various other omari aus in specific, so during the time I have been absent on here I began to slowly revamp the AU over time. I had to start over with what I originally had in the first place since a lot of the au things in my take on it also had contributions by followers as well!

For Basil, his first concept was initially a delinquent take... but the thing that caused a problem with that was the fact that I had planned for him to also play a sort of "detective" role in this universe, as I had written a short snippet on Basil having caught on to something suspicious going on between the older siblings and Sunny's sudden disappearance.......

Frankly, as much as a delinquent Basil is my darling concept of all concepts, I had to, unfortunately, push it to the side and alter his role in this AU to fit with the revamped look I was going for him... therefore fully integrating him into his "detective" role. In a way though, looking through Mari's perspective, he's sort of a clashing force with her and is equivalent to an antagonist in her own story (but! Keep in mind, Mari in this AU isn't the Mari who you should be sympathizing for.... an unreliable narrator who happens to be a wolf in sheeps clothing....).

As for the emotions, while a lot of people tend to view the emotions being assigned to the characters as their possible role in RW (the happy-go-lucky, the perfect student, the delinquent), for mine I ended up making it were each friend had 2 main emotions.... Basils would be anger and sorrow (Aubrey and Kel tend to have anger as their second emotion, though that is still up for debate! I still have a few things to work out :3). So, in a way you could say that in Headspace they were only ever seen as a one-dimensional character by Mari/Hikkiko, while in the real world, they had a even bigger "mess" of emotions that they all dealt with. In turn, Basil's concept strayed further away from the path of delinquent and more into a path which.... ehehe..... obsession as a concept is such a fun thing to play around with, don't you think?

Just as much as he plays the "investigator", he also is meant to be a parallel of what Mari/Hikkiko is. Obsession has always been a part of his character, and in doing so, you could say I played around with it until I found quite a nice concept with this. Mari/Hikkiko both have a need to keep Sunny around as the perfect brother and therefore paint his Headspace counterpart to their own liking.... while Basil in turn has, on some level, a need to imitate Sunny as closely as he can. Both are a form of obsessions I have given them, and in a way, the only reason Basils is a more "lighter" version of this is because Aubrey, Kel, Hero (sort of), Polly, his grandmother, and Faraway Town as a whole have been there to guide him on a better path. Though his obsession to keep Sunny's memory alive by becoming like him is still there, it's not to say that he doesn't have people to talk some sense into him-- meanwhile Mari does not have that type of support.

Obsession stems from love, at least, in their case. And in the end, it really depends on whether or not they have people who are willing to reel them back into a state of sanity. Basil was, at least in terms of my omari lore, viewed as a delinquent at one point, though he never acted out aggressively towards others unless provoked enough and only ever kept to himself.... eventually the town residents accepted the fact that this was just his way of grieving and treated him with patience and respect, especially with the fact he took it upon himself to go around town and helping around with the little things, though especially with gardening and photography.

it's not to say though, that he doesn't have some... worrying habits. That as in, most of his plants being replaced with tulips and most of the heads of certain plants being chopped off with garden shears, left to rot. While Basil mimics his best friends habits, he isn't exactly the best at fully hiding his feelings and emotions as Sunny was able to. No amount of masquerading will change the fact that once he's laid his sights on you, it'll only be a matter time before he seeks for your head on a silver platter.

#im sure i have much more to say and i probably ended up giving you more information than you can chew at a time but like... #listen..... i've been waiting for so #LONG for someone to ask something regarding the characters for the revamped version #in a way i will say that this omari au is a very personal thing with the way some characterizations come off #(some of the stuff in this au is based off real experiences lol) #and any time it comes to swap aus in general for any fandom #i always take them seriously #if anything. i WILL shit on someone in my head if their swap au doesnt have anything unique to it and its just a roleswap #its why the one swap au im actually paying much mind to is a friends au thats called CHICO #one things for certain; if your swap au doesnt have any creativity put into it i will cast upon shame on you your family your families dog- #jk but. swap aus have always been a passion project thing for me in every fandom i've ever been in and OMORI fandom is. well #lets just say that im the gordon ramsay of swap aus because theres BARELY ANY FUCKING GOOD FOOD AROUND HERE!!!!!! #OMARI AU #A Sisters Mourning AU #omori au #omori basil #omori spoilers #omori #anon asks #miko talks #mikkos ramblings #this also just goes in general for aus #ive always been picky and if theres something i dont like or something doesnt make sense well #im sorry to those who have to watch me get real bitchy with things #aus have always been a therapeutic thing to me and ik not everyone is gonna do what i want to see but even then #if your au is mostly for shipping (that has no relevance to the plot whatsoever) or blatant mischaracterization then you can leave!! #ik im sounding like a shen yuan rn but i have a lot of pent up rage and resentment #if you think you can get away with stuff like this in aus i will hunt you down and pour milk over your heads!!!!!

[tsams-confessions]

Tsams fans go outside and talk to people challenge : impossible

surely you all understand most if not all the shit all of you complain about and fight over is just internet stuff right? no one gives a shit in real life. please talk to people outside of the internet, centering your emotions around internet drama isn't healthy and attacking others who disagree or hold different opinions then you isn't the 'cool and righteous' thing to do or whatever.

the only one perpetuating your upset is yourself.

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#sun and moon show #the sun and moon show #tsams #sams #tsams confession #< block this if you dont want to see these #mod 1blood #im queuing this assuming this isnt in response to the current frequent topic here (that being the disrespect aros are facing rn) #but a general commentary on the fandom as a whole #its going into the queue with a lot of stuff regarding said topic so i wanted to add a note clarifying that

[playawner]

Please, don't ignore what's happening in Chile right now. The fires has been invading our cities, our regions, and has taken many nature as well as people and houses. No person deserves to lose their house, their relatives, their pets, or EVEN their own life.

I myself saw the fires when it happened, they nearly went to my own house. I was able to see the smoke and fire at my own windows. It was bad until the point where we didn't had light for a day and internet for entire days, with terrible signal instead. If it wasn't for the wind, or for the firefighters and support attending in time, I would probably be homeless right now. Either that, or just dead.

We need your support, our cities are currently in danger by the ranging wildfires, and it is confirmed to be more terrible than any past events we had before. Any support is appreciated, even by just bringing small awaraness!

If you are Chilean, you can donate to the firefighters via BancoEstado, is at the first option in the reccomended foundations at the moment. I believe someone also made a paypal for people who aren't from Chile, if you have the link you can send it in reblogs!

Spanish translation below cut:

Por favor, no ignoren lo que está pasando en Chile. Los incendios han estado invadiento nuestras ciudades, nuestras regiones, y han quitado nuestra naturaleza, gente y hogares. Ninguna persona merece perder su casa, sus parientes, sus mascotas, o INCLUSO su propia vida.

Yo mismo ví el fuego cuando ocurrió. Casi llegó hacia mi propia casa. Podía ver el humo y el fuego en mis propias ventanas. Fue tan terrible que no tuvimos luz por un día ni internet por varios días, con terrible señal. Si no fuera por el viento, o por los bomberos y la atención hacía este a tiempo, lo más probable es que estuviera en la calle ahora. Eso o que estuviera muerto.

Necesitamos tu apoyo, nuestras ciudades corren peligro, y se ha confirmado que es más catastrófico que cualquier otro evento que tuvimos en el pasado. Cualquier apoyo es apreciado, incluso teniendo algo de conciencia!

Si eres Chileno/a, puedes donar a los bomberos en BancoEstado. Es en la primera opción en las fundaciones recomendadas por ahora. Yo creo que alguién también hizo un paypal para las personas que no viven en Chile, si tienen el link puedes mandarlo en los reblogs!

#sorry for serious and non-fandom post. #I just. Really hope people will aknowledge this #I nearly lost my house in the fire #As someone who has been in Chile for his entire life I am deeply affected by the wildfires #anything regarding to fire in real life scares me; I cannot imagine myself surviving in one #and seeing my ACTUAL classmates; friends AND relatives losing their houses and/or other friends/relatives/etc is very disheartening #zash's stuff #important #Chile #Chilean artist #Wildfire #fire mention #fire #wildfire mention #death mention #Chile is on fire #chile tumblr #I may be a small acc on tumblr. And english heavy. Pero sigo siendo de mi país y siempre lo fuí de nacimiento

[gene-and-the-riskyfixins]

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#what also gets me about all this is seeing all of these people all of a sudden have an opinion on this #I have seen so many people having all these takes about the watcher stuff but I’m like I have no idea who you are #like I have never seen people care about watcher as much as when everyone was hating on it #like it has been trending on here for the past couple of days but I haven’t really seen that before #it just bugs me #also all these people not like the watcher content #like why are you watching it then #the whole thing has just left me with a bad taste in my mouth regarding this fandom #thankfully the people I follow are what seems to be the few whole have been nice and reasonable about this whole thing

[ladyalicentshightower]

I think people overestimate how feminist team black is. If someone brings up how Baela should be the heir to Driftmark, it's always "she would've been Queen if not for the Greens!", ignoring that 1, she would be Queen consort, not a Queen in her own right, and 2 she has a legitimate claim in her own right to Driftmark. Team Black's goal is to crown Rhaenyra, but Rhaenyra becoming Queen isn't a win for feminism because it does nothing to dismantle the rest of the patriarchal system that exists in Westeros. From what we've gotten so far, it reads that Rhaenyra wants to be the exception and not the rule. Rhaenyra has made a lot of bad political decisions, which means she can't acknowledge Baela's claim because it would weaken her own claim (blatantly admitting her eldest sons are illegitimate would not end well for her to say the least). So she betrothes Jace and Luke to Baela and Rhaena to kind of atone for that, like as a consolation prize Baela will be Queen and Rhaena will be lady of Driftmark, neither of them would hold either title in their own right. It's good matches because the kids like each other and will treat each other well, but it's not a feminist win or a feministic liberation. It's usurpation, usurpation that takes place because Rhaenyra has to do damage control after having illegitimate children and after a serious of bad political decisions (both hers and her fathers, Viserys is the arbiter of this entire mess). To me, Rhaenyra is very reminiscent of Mary Queen of Scots, I can see a lot of elements drawn from Mary's history in Rhaenyra's story and character, down to their sons eventually taking the crown they failed to claim/keep.

#hotd #hotd spoilers #house of the dragon #house of the dragon spoilers #Rhaenyra targaryen critical #I'm going to do a rewatch prior to season 2 & I'm going to analyse the bad political decisions from vis & Rhaenyra that lead to the dance #like by no means the only factors at play lets not forget otto daemon larys etc #but it's an interesting factor that the fandom doesn't really acknowledge #and a lot of Rhaenyra's bad political decisions are understandable because of her youth and because viserys does fuck all to prepare her #like even if she wasn't who he choose as heir she should've been given a better political education as a princess #but vis fails his most of his other four kids in that regard to #i mean he also fails to acknowledge them or remember them but anyways #he is a huge part of the reason aegon and aemond became he they did #props to whoever probably alicent for sending daeron to oldtown so he could grow up well adjusted #alicent: i'm writing a letter to daeron is there anything you would like to say to him? #viserys: daemon? why are you writing to daemon? #alicent: daeron? #viserys: who? #alicent: our son? the one you sent to squire in oldtown? #viserys: i think i'd remember if we had a son who's name was one letter different to my brothers #viserys: in fact i do alicent do you mean the one who lost an eye? #alicent: *screaming internally* #viserys targaryen #king viserys #rhaenyra is such an interesting character but i hate how the fandom sanctified her because how dare characters be complex and have flaws #like you dont have to justify their actions or bend over backwards to deny their faults to like a character you know 😭 #and the same thing is done to daemon who is far more fucked up and far more flawed in the show than the fandom allows #i hate the team stuff tho i get hbo going for it as a marketing move that was genius but my god are certain stans insufferable #the entire point of the dance is that its a pointless tragedy there's no good or bad side theyre both awful in their own ways #but thats a longer rant for another time outside of the tags

[unforth]

Sometimes I wish I could drive home just how little of Chinese fandom culture actually makes it onto Tumblr at all, much less circulates in western Tumblr circles, and I've finally got a solid example.

On this list I reblogged a not long ago, Poyun, which I started reading on Bilibili the other day, has the 93rd most popular ship on all of Lofter, with over 15,000 posts. By comparison, the 93rd most popular ship of that same year (2020) on Tumblr was from Haikyuu, and from 2021 the 93rd most popular was from Miraculous Lady Bug - which is to say, even if you're not into, it's a fandom you've almost certainly heard of if you move in fandom circles at all. Like, those are two fandoms with known, huge followings. Likewise, Yan Xie/Jiang Ting is a big deal ship on Lofter.

I started reading the manhua a few days ago, so I know I'm gonna be posting some of the manhua art to @cnovelartreblogs so I was like, I should check the main tags and queue the art (even if it means I might be exposed to spoilers), and then I won't accidentally duplicate other people's art posting efforts or anything.

Now, granted, I've seen some evidence that tag search is more broken than usual the last few days, but even so...

#po yun: there are maybe 30 posts in "most popular"

#破云: there are maybe 20 posts in "most popular," and they're basically all the same (as in, people tagged both)

#poyun: about the same number, and the only 3 pieces of fanart I can find on the whole platform (@drawulan you don't know me but you are a BLESSING to C-Novel fandoms with small followings on Tumblr. A BLESSING, YOU HEAR? I LOVE YOUR ART.)

Y'all, we have no idea how little we actually know and see about what's popular in Chinese fandom.

#unforth rambles #This is one of the hidden costs of Western fandom being...the way Western fandom is. #idk where i'm really going with this #and i will say some of what's different i wouldn't see change #like my experience with the way top/bottom stuff gets treated in east asian fandoms #while my personal experience is mostly with yaoi fandoms #regardless if chinese fandoms are anything like japanese fandoms in that regard #i'd do basically anything to NOT see that infiltrate western fandom #but we get some of that anyway #i saw a post in the mdzs tag LITERALLY TODAY complaining that people in the bottomji bang #weren't tagging their bottomji and that the poster (oh horrors) #was finding out when they opened the fic and read the a/n #and how DARE people not tag it #so yeah it's not like i can escape stupid toxic top/bottom stuff #which to be clear isn't about people having a preference but is about how people talk about those preferences #but anyway i want all the good parts and not the parts i don't like lmao #like all the art and meta #but we can't have nice things because white people #standard disclaimer i am also white people

[a-s-levynn]

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#fuck it i'm not changing shit on here #i'm not smart enough to selfcensor anything in regards to what i share #sorry for whining over basically nothing for the past 3 days #the only explanation i have is that i'm being over emotional lately which i have to learn to be mindful of #i think it's a byproduct of the process of me learning to actually allow myself to experience my emotions so yeah #sorry about that #i just hope that the next anon hate leaves out years old personal stuff i shared here out of concerns they have on how #i approach fandom stuff✌🏻

[thefirstknife]

Narrative, lore and abuse

I want to talk a little bit more about the constantly repeating ideas about how Destiny used to be better, how the lore is constantly being retconned and how writing was better before. Not only are these sentiments entirely factually incorrect (and I'm currently working on a project to document 8 years worth of reviews, opinions and comments about Destiny to show that no, people really didn't enjoy vanilla D2 or D1 as much as they think they did); the sentiments about lore, supposed retcons and mistakes as well as ideas that it used to be better and that original visions were better are all ignoring a very real and very serious troubled past that came with working at Bungie over the years.

Specifically, I think a lot of people forgot about this article. It's an in-depth review into the hostile work culture and crunch at Bungie, focusing mostly on the troubles that the narrative team went through. The snide comments about how Bungie doesn't know their own lore and how they don't pay attention to details and how they changed certain things over time really ring as petty and hollow when they're put into context of what the employees were going through. I want to remind people.

This article was also not debunked by Bungie and they instead acknowledged it and apologised. In case there are people who think that these devs were exaggerating their reports. They did not.

To start:

There is seemingly no better microcosm for Bungie's historic, company-wide cultural troubles than its narrative team, which has experienced toxic leadership, issues with crunch, and at times unmanageable separation between ideas of ‘Old Bungie’ and ‘New Bungie’ culture, and more — all within the last five or six years.

The narrative team had it worst. This basically plagued the entire development of Destiny.

Several sources spoke of a narrative team lead from that time who appeared to suffer massive burnout during the project, creating an increasingly toxic work environment for others on the team, enough so that team members kept a countdown of days since his last "explosion" on a whiteboard. Many people I spoke to were familiar with a story of him throwing a chair at a window because he felt others were ruining his creative vision of the game.

And:

Some sources who had encounters with him during this later period said that he would frequently issue narrative direction despite no longer being a senior team member, and would become angry when he felt the Destiny 2 writers were deviating from his original vision for Destiny 1. One source told a story of him yelling at her over the phone so aggressively that she was brought to tears, and she subsequently refused to be on phone calls with him without a third party present.

I want people to really read this and commit it to memory. A narrative lead was so toxic that it led to actual physical violence. A narrative lead that was physically explosive over people "ruining" his creative vision of the game. I want us, as a fandom, to truly read this with full understanding that maybe, just maybe, when current employees are changing or "retconing" lore, they are doing it to remove all traces of a person who caused them real trauma and abuse.

What amounts to funny little lore tabs for us to pore through, it's very likely a reminder of abuse to the employees who are writing it. If they want to make minor changes to distance themselves from someone who abused them, I am happy for them if they do it, even if that leads to minor inconsistencies in my lore. The wellbeing of another human is more important than a "retcon" in a fictional story.

I would rather a story change than have "the original" coming from a toxic abusive asshole that is actively making the lives of everyone on the writing team miserable. I frankly don't care about his original vision for Destiny. I don't believe it was anything good.

More under for length. It's a lot.

Writers wouldn’t learn about changes to their work until after voice lines had already been recorded.

Absolutely insane that this is what the writers had to deal with. Yes, of course there are mistakes and issues, especially in the early days of Destiny 1 when the crunch was worse and Activision was forcing them to release new DLCs and forcing them to switch focus to the sequel.

This highlights the issue of people using older lore as proof of retcons. What if these mistakes and inconsistencies that we're seeing are a result of crunch and decisions being made away from the writing team? A lot of old lore could be the actual mistakes that are now being fixed. People tend to prioritise what was written first as some sort of gospel, ignoring all of these well publicised issues that we know Bungie was going through.

The other way around could be true. Old lore, things that were written first, were mistakes due to the disruptive workplace that these devs were struggling with and they didn't have time to double check before their work was shipped off to recording and publishing. Perhaps these people are using this time away to correct some of these mistakes that never should've been released in the state they were released in.

This absolutely makes sense due to the report of an employee that didn't want to stay anonymous. Cookie Hiponia started working at Bungie in 2016 as a contractor and became a full-time employee in 2019. In her words:

Hiponia recalled that when she first stepped in, Bungie hadn't had a lot of editing oversight on the Destiny franchise, and had not previously focused very much on its story, consistency, or continuity. That led to a leadership that appeared to operate without normal professional boundaries. As Hiponia puts it, "They just had a bunch of people who wrote things and kind of had the run of the place."

For years, during entire D1 and early D2, there was apparently no editing oversight, the story wasn't focused on properly and especially they did not care enough about consistency and continuity. Basically, top guys were making things up on the fly and treating the game's story as their personal sandbox. We should be taking 6-7 year old lore with a grain of salt instead of treating is as superior. An actual developer came out publicly to tell people that Bungie did not care about the story, consistency and continuity at the time.

More on hell working conditions:

One leader from earlier in this period was described by one of our anonymous sources as a "sexist nightmare" who yelled in meetings, and would throw papers across tables. Multiple people told us he would frequently rewrite things at the last minute, often on his way to voice recording sessions.

+

One lead frequently made sexist remarks, but also complained about "reverse sexism" and on at least one occasion made homophobic remarks to a queer colleague. He would openly mock his team members’ ideas in meetings then play his mockery off like a joke, and would frequently take credit for work others had done.

+

A third narrative lead was called a "callous, hierarchical, authoritarian, incurious, cruel leader" by one anonymous source. ... Others recalled that he frequently insulted people who stood up for themselves, including publicly dressing down the narrative team after they accommodated a last-minute request and asked that such a rush not happen again. On another occasion, he separated and cornered an employee who stood up to him to yell at them. Multiple sources say he also regularly made racist remarks...

Cutting off that racist remark, you can check it out yourself in the article if you want the specifics. I am copying the article directly because I have a feeling not many have read it and not many would if I just posted the link without highlighting these parts.

Those close to the team describe its members working 60, 70, 80, even 100 hour weeks during some expansions, frequently with no breaks in between crunch periods. One team member crunched while so sick they were unable to type, and had to have someone else type for them while they dictated.

People working in these conditions cannot make a coherent story across many years of development and across multiple different teams that were being treated no better than cattle. The fact that there was any kind of a story in Destiny at the beginning is a miracle to be honest so the fact that there are inconsistencies and mistakes is more than expected.

Furthermore, when Bungie decided to stop the crunch, they didn't extend any help to the writing them:

Another source said that the team had been told not to crunch as part of a growing studio push to eliminate the practice — the idea was that the studio would simply cut features if crunch was the only way to get them done. However, many of the writers felt they had been backed into a corner after the painful release of Destiny 2’s first DLC expansion, Curse of Osiris.

This was an incredibly difficult time for the narrative team:

Curse of Osiris' story had been lambasted on Reddit, with a few female narrative team members being singled out by the community for harassment, death threats, and vitriol. Our sources say these women didn't receive support inside the studio or from the community team for what they were going through, and multiple sources were aware of one member of leadership still at the studio who emailed Reddit comments about these women to other company leaders in a seeming bid to tear down the narrative team because players didn't like the story.

+

The same leader is also said to have been dismissive during a meeting about the controversy, explaining that no one should be worried because they were just going to bring back the Destiny 1 writing team to solve everything.

Ah yes, because the writing in D1 was just splendid and did not have any issues whatsoever /s. This is already showing the rose-tinted glasses of the "good old days" that apparently plagues not just the community, but the actual developers as well. D1 was lambasted on release, especially for lackluster story, and continued to be lambasted for pretty much every DLC. These first two DLCs were an especially huge subject of crunch, as this article details, they still weren't done up to a month before release. Incredibly in-depth article about how much the game sucked during Dark Below. This also discusses how incredibly bad lore delivery was at the time, with everything being relegated to cards that can only be read on the website.

These are just a few articles I collected during my deep dive into 8 years worth of Destiny's existence. It's an incredibly long task to go through up to 400 pages of content on every website that wrote about Destiny. So I'm sure there are more and even harsher criticisms of Destiny at the time, especially if I deep dove into reddit or Youtube. I am putting this excerpt to illustrate how wrong the claims of supposed greatness at release are. Even some of the devs had this perception, skewed by their own egos and ideals of importance that ended up harming and abusing the entire narrative team.

And let's not forget the community's involvement here as well. The criticisms we post online are seen by devs. That doesn't mean that criticism shouldn't be posted, but maybe it should be posted in a more humane way. The narrative team shouldn't be getting death threats over this.

Because of these comments and reviews and the reception that the narrative team got even from inside the company (especially if these writers were women or people of colour or queer), they just continued to crunch:

As a result, the narrative team was afraid of what would happen if it shipped something else that appeared to the community to be incomplete or not up to standard. So they continued to crunch, some of them going so far as to hide the overtime from their leads so they wouldn’t enforce story cuts.

+

Crunch was exacerbated by the constant need for revisions and last-minute changes, often worsened by constant conflicts over who had control of the story.

Worst of all:

Some of Bungie's old guard were especially precious about the vision of Destiny 1, and reluctant to change anything about the tone, characterizations, or direction of the story as the game moved into Destiny 2 and its subsequent expansions. This was especially frustrating for the team in cases where that vision had never been explicitly defined in the game or elsewhere, but only existed as ideas in the heads of people who no longer worked in narrative.

This is absolutely horiffic. And this sort of a sentiment is the same type of a sentiment that some portions of the fandom also exhibit. The utter mystification and glorification of some imaginary version of D1, treating it as a holy relic that cannot be touched, changed, altered, developed or evolved. This is the death of storytelling. Stories and characters have to change and evolve over time, especially if we're talking about a live service game that is supposed to go on for a decade.

Even worse, a lot of this were things that just existed in someone's head, were never properly communicated to others and were never established as things that are important or that should be taken as important going forward. All in all, what this tells me, is of a narrative team with leaders who are driven entirely by their self-inflated egos, who treated the game as their personal project, who abused, neglected and demeaned a group of people they were in charge of and who were especially nasty to those they thought of as inferior to them; women, people of colour, queer people.

Knowing that, I don't want to know or engage with their "original" ideas for Destiny. And I don't blame the writing team for wanting to scrub their influence away as much as possible. As a matter of fact, I commend them. I hope every aspect of this toxic crap is thoroughly removed even if it results in the entire rewrite of established lore.

This next bit is for people who want more cutscenes and who think that cutscenes are more important than written lore. This is how cutscenes were being made:

Another issue was with the development of cinematics, which were considered a prestige project. Largely written separately from the main writing team in a "star chamber," the cinematics team frequently tried to operate independently from the main narrative team, resulting in disconnects between established lore, planned quest narratives, and major story beats. The cinematic team’s decisions, Hiponia and others recalled, would override decisions made by the narrative team, forcing last-minute rewrites and more crunch.

Personally for me? Until we know that this sort of an ideal is removed entirely, I would rather we never receive another cutscene ever. I would rather get 20 weblore pieces.

Next paragraphs details how much these leads were fighting against inclusivity and diversity and how much the rest of the writing team (that mostly consisted of marginalised groups) had to fight tooth and nail to get inclusive stories told. We owe everything to these people. We owe them all of our great stories about women, inclusion of characters of colour in important positions and the opportunity for them to be big parts of the story, LGBT+ content and incredibly well-handled stories portraying stuff like trauma.

Under all this stress, toxicity and abuse, these passionate people were still fighting, often risking their jobs, to give us these stories and characters. I want people to keep that in mind the next time they even slightly think of calling it queerbaiting. Queer people weren't getting called slurs and being abused every day at Bungie for years for some fans to call their stories queerbaiting.

Despite their best efforts, these toxic leads who had more power still managed to push stories with negative stereotypes. Some low-tier employees can only do so much against big name cishet white dudes who more or less own the company.

In all of these situations, the members of the writing team who fought for change would routinely be told they were difficult to work with, not supportive enough of their leaders, or were aggressive or abrasive and needed to be better at taking criticism.

This bit also details the absolute uproar that Bungie and Activision made when writers decided to give Devrim a husband. I want people to apprecite just how much of a change has happened since, especially if they dare talk about how things were better under Activision. We would not have a fraction of LGBT+ rep under them. This also goes to everyone calling it a "retcon" that Saint-14 and Osiris are lovers because in the "good old lore" they weren't. Except they were. The writers just couldn't say it. The leadership lost their minds of Devrim saying he has a "partner." Not even openly saying "husband." Just "partner." That's how bad it was.

For comparison, today we have entire lore pieces of Devrim and Marc having dinner, and Devrim helping Saint deal with the trauma of almost losing Osiris. Things changed, for the better. So I am not sure why some would rather we go back to before.

Bungie obviously makes mistakes. They made mistakes before and they make them now. Sometimes stories change, direction changes, ideas change, sensibilities change. Sometimes someone makes a decision to take the story into another direction and it requires ignoring or reworking something previously established. These are all normal things that happen when writing anything, including books, TV shows, movies and so on.

But in this case, with how Bungie was handling narrative and how the narrative leads were treating employees? These aren't just normal mistakes and changes. A lot of these mistakes are due to the overworked and abused employees who had to crunch under people who would demean them and abuse them to the point of mental distress and physical injuries. People working under those conditions will make mistakes, especially when the leads are literally circumventing their writing and making changes to the writing on the way to recording sessions.

The fact that there's any coherence at all is a miracle. And then we get fans nitpicking irrelevant details that are easy to mistake even when you're not being abused by your boss while working 100 hours per week, let alone when you are. Think about how those employees feel when we nitpick stuff that they made while they were actively being abused at work every day.

This isn't a defence of Bungie having narrative mistakes. Bungie failed these employees that they were supposed to care for. It has since become evidently better, but the cost is there. Many lost their jobs and their security and health dealing with these working conditions and this needs to be embedded in the mind of every fan who wants to nitpick something written 5 years ago.

And ultimately, yes, perhaps writers that are still there want to actively change the story to remove all traces of leadership that was pushing a certain narrative. Perhaps that's annoying to us, the players and lore enjoyers. Perhaps we hate seeing certain details change in front of our eyes. Perhaps we hold dearly a detail from 2015 that has since been retconned out of the story. Perhaps someone thinks that Destiny's story was the best during D1 and that everything else that's happening now is a retconned crap.

Then re-read this article again and consider that these stories were made under inhumane working conditions. And if you value fictional story details over the wellbeing of real humans, then it's time to reasses your values. To me personally, I am immediately put off from the way those stories went when I know how they were made and what was the cost. I still appreciate then, but I will not scrutinise irrelevant details being changed or mistakes being fixed years after they were first made while the workers could quite literally physically not type from exhaustion.

I first and foremost rely on new lore and always will. It was made with less abuse and with more employees of sound mind, as well as with marginalised groups not being demeaned and shut down. Bungie is currently very obviously and clearly taking the story much more seriously and are aware of how important it is for Destiny's success. Are things now perfect? Probably not! But even those that were previously abused have said that things changed for the better and that there is hope.

Most of the new lore is also repeatedly going back to explain and rework some of the older stuff which can, yes, cause things to change. I don't mind, not with the context of this article looming over our heads. As I said before, people tend to emphasise the importance of stuff written first as proof of changes which ignores the very real possibility of stuff written first to have been written wrong and new rewrites being used to correct that information to what the narrative should've been from the start.

Are there genuine mistakes? Of course. Not every mistake is the consequence of abuse. Sometimes they are just mistakes. They exist in every writing. Don't take them too seriously, especially if they are about some incredibly niche detail that doesn't change the story either way.

However, please keep in mind how much crap the writing team for Destiny went through. Allow them to breathe, allow them to make mistakes, allow them to choose to change things that remind them of their abusers.

And when you're reminiscing about "good old days" of D1 or early D2, remember the conditions under which they were made. It was not a good time for the employees in any department and the fandom glorification of that time can be incredibly painful and defeating to the devs, especially those that belong to marginalised groups.

While you had immense fun at 16 playing D1, hundreds of people were undergoing the worst time of their life trying to maintain the game while being abused 80 hours a week. I'm not asking for people to stop thinking about how much fun they had at the time; just to put things into perspective and to recognise that this is the work of nostalgia. I had fun playing vanilla D2 as well, but I can simultaneously recognise that this was not a good time for Destiny, I would never want to go back to that time and I especially don't want to shittalk developers into going back to that work schedule only to deliver inferior products. I don't want my entertainment to be soaked in blood.

This especially goes for the lore fandom. We almost always talk about the pvp toxicity and sometimes pve toxicity, but rarely touch on the toxicity of the fandom that treats the story as some esoteric construct that doesn't involve a human cost to be made. Are changes annoying? Sure thing. When in doubt, use the most recent information. That's it. Pondering ancient lore can be fun, to a certain extent. At some point, you have to let it go.

There are still many pieces of lore that have been the same for years (my recent post about the Books of Sorrow is one example), but banging your head against the wall about some niche detail from D1 Y1 is usually pointless. In most cases it's a detail that doesn't change anything. In a lot of cases, it simply reflects an in-universe confusion about some information. Unreliable narrators are everywhere in Destiny; characters are biased or they lack knowledge or they interpret things wrong.

The setting is specifically set up in that way. The Collapse wiped away so much knowledge and context so people are sometimes wrong. This is explored in a really over-the-top and funny way in the Festival of the Lost lore where a Cryptarch misinterprets what a "fourth-grade researcher" means.

There is not a single omniscient narrator in Destiny lore. Everyone has their own biases and convictions and limitations of knowledge. Sometimes they will contradict each other by design. Not to mention the amount of complex and secretive characters that are deliberately not telling us everything, such as Rasputin, The Nine, Elsie or Mara Sov. Or the Eliksni who are a displaced and fragmented people that lost much of their own history and often work against each other and have varying perceptions of who they should be as a people. There will be conflicting information regarding these characters and stories.

On top of all that, there will always be a human element present. Writers will make mistakes even on their best days working under the most favourable conditions. So keep in mind what writers went through at Bungie. Not for Bungie's benefit, but for the benefit of largely marginalised people who, despite everything, fought for their voices to be heard and present in the game we love now.

#destiny 2 #bungie #lore #long post #taking the seasonal downtime to address some of the more meta stuff in regards to the lore and fandom #i think this is really important overall. i think too many people forgot about this article or didn't fully understand its gravity #i've been very careful with how i engage with stuff from this time ever since this article #things were bad. especially for the narrative team. #they most likely know about all of the mistakes that we are nitpicking. trust me. they most likely know #i'm also heavily put off from people who celebrate early destiny days ever since this article #100% the same vibes of people who talk about some mystical time before when things were 'better' #for whom? #every woman and person of colour and queer people were suffering. i don't want to celebrate their suffering #the only thing worth celebrating is their strength to keep fighting and that they eventually prevailed #they are allowed to change the story that their abusers were pushing in any way they want imo

[citrinide]

Huh I sure have been getting recommended a lot of Splatoon stuff recently. I wonder why...

#cecil.fm #[STARES AT U NIGEL. STARING SO INTENSELY AT U.] #I swear any time my friends go through sprees of reblogging fandom stuff I always catch the overspill of it #For Mari it's The Magnus Archives and Nigel it's Splatoon #... of which I know minimal about for either but like love this I'm being subjected to stuff the people I care about like :3 #absorbing information through osmosis. (and being promptly horrified by everything I learn in regards to tma wtf are you guys okay) #I hope the same happens for. uh whatever fandoms ive been reblogging obsessively. i think im pretty wellrounded actually

[softestepiloguemisc]

people like hannibal because it’s not so fucking exhausting. more and more books and tv shows and movies are being put out by millennials and gen z who are constantly obsessed with making sure that everything is morally correct. that their characters are morally correct. who are constantly worried about perpetuating this or romanticizing that. in other words just trying to push purity culture and making fiction absolutely fucking dull because people absolutely refuse to separate reality from fiction. and sometimes you just need an interesting character like hannibal lecter who manipulates people for fun, try to use his power as a psychiatrist to push people to their edge, and eats people because they’re rude. and is 100% unapologetic about it.

#hannibal lecter #hannibal #nbc hannibal #hannibal nbc #the media is boring and it’ll continue to be boring tbh #and it’s not because marvel makes too many movies #it’s because people are boring #they are so damn dull i stg #but the hannibal fandom??? #they’re interesting #their fics are interesting #they write interesting stuff #and romanticizing is such an overused word #people think breathing is romanticized #like we get it you’re boring you’re dull no one likes you #the amount of books i’ve read where they just insert unnecessary things regarding race or misogyny when there was no need for it #just so the author can not so subtle tell you their position on the subject is astronomical #like please just be interesting #i don’t want to read every other paragraph ranting about how hard it is to be a woman #that’s why there are no great modern writers #and there will not be anytime soon #op

[theorderofthetriad]

as a venture bros fan in this current media landscape, i feel myself often suppressing the urge to be like "venture bros did that first" "venture bros walked so [X] could run" about a lot of things that are comparatively recently trending in media, especially in regards to using geek genre satire as a jumping off into a bigger concept. like i could bring up a lot of examples on this

but i'm writing this post because i can't help but think of the thing venture bros did first that they didn't mean to, which is create a character that's a critique of hyper-masculinity that a certain subset of fans completely missed the point on and uncritically treat as a idol to look up to and emulate.

walter white who? rick sanwhat? the crown of uncritically idolized paragons of toxic masculinity belongs to Brock Samson.

#venture bros #brock samson #i'm not saying this to shit on brock (or tumblr vbros fandom.) i love brock #it's just that doc and jackson have literally talked about how they don't mean for brock to be cool or admirable #like his whole point is yeah he's doing all this cool looking violence and is hot but his life is meaningless and ultimately unhappy #(likemaybeifhewasabletoadmitthathewasinlovewithrustyhecouldgetoverhimselfenoughtobehappybutchancesareslim) #but people kept asking them stuff like ''when's brock gonna kill again? i wanna see him piss on more mummies'' #they've gotten so unsubtle about what they're going for his plot in the final episode was: #''i'm gonna kill a bunch of guys for fun because i'm dissatisfied with my life'' #like he literally ANNOUNCED it! over a PA system! #and that's not even getting into the casual regular misogyny and then the outspoken obsessive transmisogyny #like who's gonna write the essay about brock's fragile af concept of masculinity in regards to his vocal transmisogyny? #wait what do you mean /i/ have to write it because it's my concept? why can't someone else think it for me?!? #top tino post #santagno

[quibbs126]

So…nobody asked for a Pure Vanilla/Black Raisin fankid, but I’ve had this dude bopping around in my head for a good while, and now with this, I decided to actually make him. So this is Golden Raisin Cookie

Also I was working on the Pastry/Herb one but since I had already started at one point, left for a bit then came back with a new idea, it wasn’t really working out so I needed to start from scratch, so I just made him in the meantime

Alright, so there’s a bit of backstory for his name. So I’m at college, and since I live on campus, I need a dining pass, and I always use it for breakfast. So one morning, I’m out at one of the halls, getting some chocolate chips for my pancakes over in the oatmeal section (because the waffle toppings don’t have chocolate chips), and I notice they have raisins there, but instead of your typical black raisins, they were gold. And so I thought “you know, golden raisins would make a good pureraisin fankid” since they’re raisins like BR and they’re a yellow/gold color like PV. But the thought didn’t really go much from there at the time. Then I started doing these fankids, and it came back to me.

Golden raisins: (note these raisins are not that colorful, I’ve seen them in real life)

In my free time I’ve mused about him and one other fankid idea (mostly since I was under no obligation to make them and had no perceived time limit), and I just decided “why not?”

So as for his design, I’ll be honest, I’m a bit underwhelmed by the final result. I dunno, something about it looks too plain. I mean yeah, I based it off of the Raisin villagers mostly, since they’re probably the people he’s growing up with, and he strikes me as the type of person to just wear plain and simple clothes, but still, in my head he looked a lot better. Guess that’s what you get when you try to build a design up in your head long before you actually draw it

Also his hair was going to be in a ponytail, but then I thought it looked better just down. Also he was just going to have yellow eyes initially, but then I toyed with the idea of him having black eyes, and eventually I came to the compromise of just having both, just in both eyes instead of heterochromia like PV. His pin for his cape is supposed to be based on young Pure Vanilla’s outfit (which is where a lot of inspiration for his outfit comes from), but it’s rotated slightly from the sort of cross shape to more of an X because of his kind of magic. Also his stick is crooked so that crows can sit on there

JuSo moving on to Golden Raisin himself, so I imagine him to be a pretty friendly and nice guy, helping out whoever needs it, similar to Pure Vanilla. But he definitely has a bit more a penchant for violence. Speaking of which, while he is a magic user like his father, instead of healing magic, he uses offensive magic and is a bit of a powerhouse, though he does still know a few healing spells. Also, he’s close with the crows and can probably summon them at will. I imagine he has one particular crow that’s albino/golden, sort of like him, and they’ve been friends for a long time. That one’s probably the one that often sits on his staff’s perch

He reminds me of this character from Fire Emblem Awakening, I didn’t see much of him but he was a dark mage who also had a thing for crows (and a bit of a violent streak, which Golden Raisin doesn’t have (at least not much), but he does have some darkness). The Wiki says his name is Henry. Also, his eyes are often closed just like Pure Vanilla, but I decided not to keep that for GR since that’d make him look too much like his old man

Also another thing about Golden Raisin (and the darkness I mentioned), he’s become rather interested in the dark/forbidden magics, but as you might imagine, he’s been unable to get his hands on them. However, perhaps opportunity could present itself…

But yeah, that’s Golden Raisin. I like him

I also imagine he’s friends with the other fankid I’m working on in my head, I just haven’t figured her out yet. Mostly her name though. If you’re curious, that one’s a darklico fankid

I realize the particulars of who their parents are might make their age similarities and friendship a little strange, but given the presumed timeline, I suppose it works out

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #pure vanilla cookie #black raisin cookie #pureraisin #cookie run oc #my ocs #my art #tbh I’m not sure where I stand on if I ship pureraisin or darklico I just wanted to make fankids #I know I usually say stuff like that regarding shipping in this fandom but if you give me a bit #the thing is I like a lot of ships in the fandom and I can understand where a lot of ships come from #even if they involve characters from other ships I also like #it’s just that I don’t really want to say I stand for any particular ship because my thoughts can easily change #and I have no definitive answer