#that’s mean and clearly they’re very new. and that’s fine. that’s not the issue it’s just they don’t. listen. but I don’t knowww what to doo

[wayfayrr]

So this is very much a self indulgent mini-fic, venting about some stuff that I've been dealing with recently <3 I'm working on requests and some other fics but I got told to post this to get it off of my chest anyway @cloudninetonine @angry-trashcan thanks for the confidence boost to be able to post this

“Hey, you’ve been sitting over here for a while, you feeling alright?”

“Just been thinking… I was part of some drama before I was uh brought here. It’s just, it’s just messed with me a bit I guess. I’ll be fine when we need to start moving again, don’t worry wars.”

After a brief second of fabric shuffling, he sits down and leans on me. It’s an oddly comforting feeling, different too like he’s bothered by something? What could’ve set him off so badly?

“Would you mind if I asked you about it? It’s clearly bothering you so, you should get it off of your chest and well, I’d just like to help you through this.”

“If you really want to know, it’s a little complicated though and while I can make a lot of it make sense to you I’ll have to leave a couple of things out.”

“Sounds like you’re willing to get it off of your chest though, so would you care to explain it to me honeybee?”

He’s being more persistent than usual too, have I really been looking so badly bothered by my thoughts? The worry does feel nice however, it feels more like talking to an old friend than anything which is wonderful seeing as I’ve not been able to reach them recently. I’ve just been stuck rereading old messages in a new context while my phone endlessly buffers to reach impossibly far servers.

“It’s… I’d been having issues with this person for a while… they used me more than anything, kept asking me for advice and making everything about them and brushed anything I or my other friends were trying to say off and sent things they really shouldn’t to people unwarrented… and then everything else.”

“Everything else? You don’t have to cut yourself off, with how you’ve been acting the rest feels like it’ll be worse anyway.”

“They just - someone connected some dots and pointed them out to me and I just… I’ve been going back over what they said and - and - and it made me think. They told me they associated my voice with a character they always got weird over, they kept fawning over my accent and how they’ve only ever heard it in fiction before, they gave me weird compliments when I was talking about things I did as a kid and that’s not even getting me started on how they treated my friends. I just… I feel so disgusted, seeing it in this light. Every bit of my skin just itches with disgust towards myself. Sorry I didn’t mean to share so much at once - I’m just tired. They didn’t even like me, it was like they only wanted me for where I’m from.”

The way he stilled sent a shiver down me, did I say to much? He might have not meant it when he said I could share… I mean theres no way he could’ve known… or does he think I’m simply overreacting? I’m probably just overreacting anyway.

My heart started beating again when he softened and pulled me to rest on him.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that all. They’re the one who is disgusting, not you, never you. I’ll speak to time, you should just rest for the rest of the day. I can lend you my scarf and you can just have a nap or I could ask wild to make your favourite food and you can just rest.”

I didn’t get a say before he’s already draped it over my shoulders; he’s leading me back over to the others and setting me down next to sky as he goes to speak with time. 

“Hmm? Did something happen, are you feeling alright dove?”

“Ah well, wars is going to ask time if we can stop for the day because I’m just dealing with some memories. I hope it won’t bother the others.”

“I doubt it, everyone’s been tense and tired recently. I know I have, I’ve been about dying for a rest. Would you care to join me too?”

Leaning back against him is all the response he needs as my eyes flutter closed, he’s so warm and comfortable. There are few people I’d prefer to rest next to. 

><><><><><><

“So then old man, I think that’s a good enough reason to settle for the day, don’t you?”

I know he’ll agree, asking him like this is simply a formality. After all, how could we continue when a member of the group is in such a state? On the verge of tears just from thinking about someone for a little bit too long. 

“You’ve never asked this for anyone else, but fine.” “Thank you Time, I’ll pay you back for this.”

“And Wars?”

“Hmm?”

“Go take your anger out on something, it’s not a good energy in the camp. Not if they’re so fragile right now. There’s apparently a standard bokoblin camp just a little south.”

He’s seen right through me then, but now I don’t need an alibi for when I come back.

#venting #vent fic #linked universe x reader #yandere linked universe x reader #yandere linked universe #link x reader #moss✦writes

[luxurybrownbarbie]

barbie any advice on how to deal with colleagues who try to steal your work (or don't give credit) and also just management messes at work (there's no set work procedure, things keep changing constantly) when leaving said job is not an option for the time being?

Four words bestie, ✨Passive Aggressive Paper Trail✨.

The only way to stop work thieves and credit hogs is to be unabashed and upfront about your work before they have the chance to take it from you. You need to make yourself visible and get comfortable with it. They’re getting the benefits of your hard work. They steal from you because they know no one will question it. Beat them to the punch. Push back.

Start keeping a paper trail of everything. Make sure your inbox retains emails for at least a year, and if you can, forward any important emails to your personal email address if need be. Or set up a new one specifically to house them.

Get any and all objectives in writing and do not allow yourself to fall victim to scope creep. This also means being very explicit about what is expected of you with each deliverable. Ask as many questions as you need. If management is messy, it’s unfortunately on you to make sure your part is as clear as possible. That way you can say you delivered exactly what was expected of you when the time comes. People can’t pretend to be shocked because it was outlined clearly for all to see.

Get comfortable with pushing back on people. Make sure you reassert control if someone starts elbowing you out of your own work. Make sure to tactfully redirect to the fact that you came up with the idea. And sometimes that means only bringing up the idea once you have a fully formed process and plan, that way people are less likely to be able to take credit for it.

When you leave meetings, send an email as a follow up and put everything agreed upon in writing. It’s even easy use it to say thank you and reinforce your contributions.

And my favorite, and one that will be most impactful, CC your boss. Bosses are notoriously busy, and if they’re good, they won’t know exactly what you’re doing at all times. As things move, make sure your boss is CCd strategically, or hell, even as often as you’d like, so they know. If they have an issue with it, they’ll let you know. But most will be fine with getting a few emails during the week about what’s happening. And the people who are taking credit for your work are not afraid of being visible to higher ups. Let that fear go.

Keep your head up darling! This too shall pass. 💛

#answered #corporate Barbie™ #.

[violentdelightsandviolentends]

Okay okay, in my opinion and this might be controversial, Carlos should get a contract extension if Charles gets one.

For some reason people seem to tjink last season Charles was way better than Carlos, which is just massively biased by Charles last few races being better. Abu Dhabi and Vegas saved his championship standings, as otherwise he would have finished below Carlos.

Why bring it up? Because somehow people think Carlos is lesser than Charles, when realistically if ferrari let them fight, they beat each other. Leclerc is ferraris golden boy, hence the contract, but if ferrari is smart they keep sainz because he can beat charles at times which is great to have in a team

The rumor about carlos having to win 5 races better be bullshit, because if carlos needs to win 5 races (total of races charles won in recent years for them) then Charles, becaus ehe has a contract, should at least win double that? Meaning that car is essentially needing to win more than half the races, meaning red bull needs to have a huge drop in performance and max needs to be beat. Which is ironic, because the only time that happend in 2023 Carlos won and not Charles

I do like charles, just hate his toxic fans, the normal once are very very nice

For Lando, the discourse is stupid. He got an extension with a team he wanted to win with yet people focus on him "not wanting to race max" dezpite him literally saying the opposite. If he did go to red bull they'd be angry because "he thinks he's better than max Hhaha nowins". They just like to hate on Lando. Most of them are toxic charles fans ironically😂

TLDR: carlos deserves a contract, Lando is fine where he is, Charles is.... Charles, and you are amazing, have a nice day!❤️

I just can’t understand why ferrari would let carlos go. he’s a brilliant driver, got them their only win of last season using his own intelligence and tactics, has proven himself time and time again. sure, this season he wasn’t the most consistent, but I do think a part of that was technical issues with the car and tactics/strategy. and they work well as teammates!! they clearly like each other (sure maybe they’re not in love or anything but there’s definitely a camaraderie there)

charles definitely is the golden boy. which isn’t a bad thing!! he lives, breathes and bleeds ferrari, and his commitment to the team is just astonishing. their bias is a tiiiiiny bit obvious - but as long as it doesn’t effect their driving/relationship, it’s not going to make much difference. it’s like this.*

the charles fans are passionate for sure. there’s a group of them on twitter that are a little nasty, they go after other drivers on a personal level for literally no reason. and the way they hate carlos… it’s excessive.

lando catches so much hate and for what reason?? he said he didn’t want to go up against max, not because he was scared, but because it’d wreck his career. max is literally number 1, will continue to be red bulls number 1 until he retires lol (and rightly so). the car, the team, the strategies… red bull has built them around maxie. how would lando ever fit into that??

lando has grown up in mclaren, he’s improved the team so much, it’s his home, his family. obviously he’s not going to give that up to go and be beaten by max every week, on track and in the garage.

the toxic f1 girlies love to go for landos neck for having no wins, but like… there are people on the grid who’ve been racing for upwards of 10/15 years and never won… haven’t got podiums for years (or ever)… I think maybe we need to focus on moving those drivers on, and bringing new talent in? perhaps? and giving mick his fair chance finally but that’s a whole other conversation

thanks for this, my love!! I enjoyed the rant <3

*Charles Leclerc, 2023. A direct quote.

#murphanswers #murph talks f1 #formula one #formula 1 #f1 #lando norris #carlos sainz 55 #carlos sainz #ln4 #red bull #ferrari #mclaren #charles leclerc

[showtoonzfan]

Something I’m noticing about Vivziepop’s darker elements to Helluva that bother me (ESPECIALLY with the recent episode) is that she just dumps it all onto you and expects you to go along with it, without letting the scene sink in or linger, and like I said before, doesn’t have the proper buildup or development in the first place. It’s really an issue, because as a writer you’re stuffing too much in your audience’s faces, and this circles back to how Viv is just too ambitious and impatient. We meet Moxxie’s father, Crimson (a character who by the way, could have had WAY more buildup and hints since he had a huge negative impact on Moxxie’s life) and in the same episode we meet him, we also see Moxxie’s childhood, and what Crimson did to his mother, again….something REALLY dark that’s just piled onto us. Even on paper this doesn’t sound good, it all feels so rushed.

What I feel like the show should have done was buildup Crimson more in season 1, then in “Ex’s and Oohs”, we finally meet him, but don’t immediately dive into flashback territory. Set up that Moxxie cut ties with him and wants nothing to do with him, that he left the crime business a long time ago (and yes, let’s ignore that this sounds very similar to Angel Dust) much to Crimson’s dismay. What I actually liked about the sort of first half of the new episode was that Crimson was actually kinda subtle. You could watch the beginning of how he interacts with Moxxie, and there’s this uncomfortable eeriness that something is clearly OFF between them, but you can’t tell why. A normal viewer would assume that Crimson was just not that good of a father at a young age, hence why they broke ties and don’t see each other anymore, Moxxie IS the show’s punching bag after all, so I just assumed Crimson thought his son was a weakling and that’s why the awkward uncomfortable banter was there. However, that wasn’t the case, but just because a show subverts your expectations, doesn’t mean it’s automatically good.

If you wanted the idea that Crimson killed his wife and practically made Moxxie do it at a young age, fine, just don’t show that in this episode. Why not cover Moxxie’s mother’s face in the family portrait, hint to the audience that she passed. Meanwhile have Crimson not mention her at all or even acknowledge her, but show that by just looking at her covered face in the portrait, Moxxie is at unease, even terrified. Let us see that he acknowledges her existence through body language, while Crimson doesn’t. Build the suspense more for this episode, keep the awkward uncomfortable banter between the two, instead of flat out revealing that Crimson is an abusive murderer only 11 minutes into the audience meeting him for the FIRST time. I would have also changed the premise of this episode. Get rid of the dumb marriage for money plot, and have it be focused around Crimson trying to convince Moxxie to come back into the family. He himself said that he heard a lot about how successful IMP was, so what if the episode opened with him seeing their jingle commercial, and arranging the call? What if he at first thought Moxxie was a weakling, but after seeing how skilled his son was at his job, he tries to get him back into the family or…mafia business or whatever for his own personal gain? I’d also take out Blitz for this episode because he didn’t need to be here, you could have a flashback scene of them meeting where Moxxie first gets the job, but Blitz doesn’t need to be here in the present. Crimson would only invite Moxxie and Millie, since they’re married, and Chaz. Get rid of Chaz being Moxxie’s ex, and only make him MILLIE’S ex, so there could be an A and B plot for this episode. The A plot focuses on the relationship between Crimson and Moxxie, and the B plot focuses on Millie and Chaz, so Millie can actually get some fucking development and focus for once. I had the idea that Chaz is only there coincidentally, he initially joined the business for money, but once he realized Crimson was in debt, he wanted to leave but couldn’t and is forced to be with them.

Then, after Moxxie obviously rejected the business, end the episode the same way with Crimson throwing the knife at the portrait, only THIS time it’s the first time we see Crimson aggressive with his mask off. The next time we see him, THEN show the flashback, either from Moxxie’s perspective, or Crimson’s perspective, revealing how abusive he was as a father, and how he killed his own wife. OR…another thing you could do is while we’re away from Crimson, we see Moxxie reflect on his mother, maybe see the flashback without Crimson around. I dunno guys, FUCKING ANYTHING to build suspense and conflict for the characters, and make Crimson more terrifying, and to get rid of all the stupid unfunny comedy. It really disappoints me how by the numbers and lame Vivziepop’s abusive characters are, and how none of these writers can’t build suspense or take any of these dark matters seriously without cracking a cringe dick joke or having a character be SA’d. The way Moxxie couldn’t have his victory and properly stand up to his abuser and yet Stolas can for some reason is fucking disgusting. Let Moxxie have his moment. Let him prove to his dad that he’s not some punching bag who can’t do anything for himself. Let him prove to his dad that he’s not going to take his shit anymore. But no….we can’t have nice things with this show at all because the writers are too horny. At this point guys, just write a porno, because we all know that’s what they really care about.

#vivziepop critical #spindlehorse critical #helluva boss critical #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #helluva critical #vivziepop criticism #rewrite #Adam Neylan #vivziepop critique #rant

[dokidokitsuna]

I wanted to make a video about this, but seeing as my first Splatoon vid is already taking ages to make, and I don’t really have a whole lot to say, I’ll just write it out:

If you’re not playing X Battles, it may interest you to know that you’re really not missing much. ^^;

When I first tried grinding up to S+ rank to unlock them, I did it in the hopes of finally getting access to serious, exciting matches that always come down to the wire because all the players are super skilled and intent on winning. I mean, Turf War and Anarchy are fine, but sometimes you want a real challenge, y’know? I think every MMO game needs some form of “no noobs allowed” mode in order to provide a consistently engaging experience for mature players, and that’s what I expected X Battles to be.

Unfortunately, that’s not what I got…my first foray into X Battles was surprisingly average; and at the time it was kind of funny. ^^ I mean, every once in a while I did run into a few crazy people who definitely belonged there, but most of the players were virtually indistinguishable from everyone else in terms of observable skill. Like, the battles just felt…normal.

And now, a few seasons later, they feel a lot worse than normal. :[ If it came out that Nintendo was secretly allowing players to buy access to X Battles without having to earn it, I would 100% believe it at this point. Because I’ve seen some really stupid stuff going on in recent matches…and when I say stupid, I mean STUPID.

The vast majority of the time, the experience is something I call “steamroll or be steamrolled”: either you get a disappointingly easy match where the enemy team doesn’t stand a chance against you, or a useless-to-even-try match where your team doesn’t stand a chance against the enemy. Either way, the outcome is pretty much set in stone about 30 seconds in. :/

And then there’s the absolute worst kind of match, a new phenomenon I’m calling “babysitting”: basically, the enemy team isn’t even that good, to the point where I can hat-trick or wipe them all by myself multiple times…but it amounts to nothing, because my allies are even worse, and can’t hold the line without me. So every time I die, we lose all our progress…and unless I can kick it into max-overdrive and 1v4 my way to victory, we just slowly and painfully lose the match.

Obviously, these aren’t things that should be happening in matches pulling randomly from what should be the most skilled players in the population. 6_6; Like, I refuse to believe that I’ve unknowingly become such a god-tier fighter that the whole playerbase seems like kindergarteners to me (I’m good, but I’m really not that good…).

It HAS to be a matchmaking issue…but even then, it’s concerning that people who’ll spend a whole match hiding from the enemy and “charging specials” (a strategy that only makes sense when you’re woefully inexperienced) are (a) somehow allowed into X Battles, and (b) matched with players like me. In a specialized mode like this, I should not have to worry about playing with people who clearly don't understand the game very well. They don't deserve it, and I don't deserve it. :/ Like, if not here, then where??? What's the use of all these ranks and points and statistics if they don't affect the gameplay experience? Am I expected to grind all the way to S+10 before I'm consistently matched with players of a similar skill level...?

And on that note: something interesting I’ve noticed recently is that, as X Battles have steadily gotten worse, Anarchy Battles have actually gotten better: all of the truly fun, challenging down-to-the-wire matches I’ve had in the last few weeks have been in Anarchy. And to me, this suggests that grinding to X Battle eligibility has become so unrewarding that skilled players who would be going there are instead opting to just stick with Anarchy Battles, making the population of skilled Anarchy players larger than before. I mean, if they’re all having experiences similar to mine, I wouldn’t blame them...

In conclusion: X-Battle players are not to be envied, and also I’m kind of concerned about the future of Splatoon 3’s multiplayer viability. ⚆_⚆; There’s a reason that we have a growing population of exclusive ‘Salmon Runners’ and I think this is part of it…hell, if Salmon Run just had more than 1 mode available on the daily, I might make the switch myself (maybe sthg where you don’t have to worry about losing your pay grade and can just kill fishies for fun with your weapon of choice…I’d love an ‘arcade mode’ or ‘infinite run’~). I’m among the people who no longer enjoy Splatfests (I never thought it would happen to me, BUT IT DID ;_;), and yet I always have fun during Big Runs and Eggstra Work. Apparently, the game immediately becomes 50% more enjoyable when 50% of its inscrutable, unreasonable matchmaking system is no longer an issue. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#if any of you out there are also x battle players id love to hear about your experiences #i sincerely hope they’re better than mine #seriously I'd rather be alone and unlucky than find out that the game is treating everyone like this #splatoon #musings

[guiltycorp]

Diluc event thoughts!! SPOILERS! This is far more than I expected tbh, simply because at least there’s some new info. Even if it’s not exactly integrated into gameplay well at all haha. At least it’s proof that mihoyo still cares about those specific characters and their relationship! What other duo in the game receives that much attention! Adelinde dialogue + Kaeya Kind of sad how she turned him away even if her phrasing implied that it was solely for the mission. Didn’t even give him any wine. Contrasted with how Diluc gave the Traveller super expensive grape juice... Ehh. Kinda harsh. 

But on to the good part. Kaeya’s letters (beautiful handwriting lol)

Some timeline info - Diluc didn’t leave the city straight away after the fight and his resignation from the Knights. Varka, Jean and Kaeya started unraveling Eroch’s dealings very soon after Crepus’s death.  

Kaeya is so............. Didn’t even wait for Diluc to leave to start writing to him with relevant news. This is getting sadder. 

I hope that everyone will check on the secret compartment since at least it confirms that Diluc did answer him on occasion. Plus it says something that he recently reread those letters and left them strewn across the room.

However it doesn’t seem like Diluc shared any info about his travels, and instead Kaeya sleuthed everything about him himself, like the information about the secret organization and that Diluc is the Darknight Hero.

Now more than ever I want to see more details of their fight, I kind of assumed that it wasn’t just Kaeya straightforwardly sharing his secrets and that instead he might have also said some meaner stuff about Diluc himself, but then again. According to this event, maybe not. Side-eying Diluc tbh, so far it doesn’t seem like whatever Kaeya told him was bad enough to warrant slashing at him with a claymore.

Oh yeah and we have confirmation that Diluc really went for it, enough to at least injure Kaeya. 

And it’s also still a bit unclear what was happening before the fight. Why didn’t Kaeya come along with Crepus and Diluc to the winery during Diluc’s 18th birthday, did he live and work separately back then too? That would explain at least why him staying in the winery is seen as a bit of an issue by the household.  

This bit... People seem to think that this means Kaeya and Diluc get along just fine and they’re simply too private for other people like Varka to notice. But idk. To me this reads like Kaeya quietly accepting that Diluc isn’t interested in any actual communication (after all, his answering letters are all brief, first one provoked by Kaeya’s ‘eye’ comments), and that he respects Diluc’s boundaries enough not to force the issue. 

Varka’s letter

So.... Varka really was away on an expedition during the incident of Crepus’s death? Since he says that Jean ‘wrote to him’ even though they would assumedly work in the same office. But in Kaeya’s second letter he writes that Varka ‘would have probably sat [Diluc] down for a talk’ if he learned of his plans to leave, so he was in the city after all? Unclear.

Interesting that Varka would go as far as to attribute Ursa’s death to Crepus, claiming that Eroch stole his credit, even though in the manhwa it was stated clearly that Dottore defeated the drake later, thus putting Mondstadt in the Fatui’s debt. 

So, apparently this is confirmation that Eroch was one of Dottore’s clones.

But like, this also means that Varka is a huge liar since he didn’t actually unveil the truth of the incident and Mond seemingly accepted the version of the story where Dottore saved the city lol.

In which case it’s also more understandable that Diluc still holds onto his grudge against the Knights. 

Also, Diluc’s answer... He’s a bit um. Obsequious? Daddy issues showing I guess. Wonder if he would slander Knights of Favonius as freely as he usually does to Varka’s face.

Alice’s letter

Small detail, but I find it funny how she mentions both Diluc’s ‘brother(s)’ AND his friends, while Diluc himself only mentioned ‘friends’ in his Cat Tail’s message. What’s even going on inside his head. 

Letter from the Winery

Just overall weird implications that the Winery’s staff is aware of Diluc’s fight with Kaeya and that their disagreement was severe and loud enough to almost warrant refusing to host him when he visits, but not really. 

Since Kaeya still visits often  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Having such an ambiguous status is not particularly good for Kaeya’s character though. 

Jean’s letter

Nothing of note except that she mentions Abyss Order as a known entity. Chronologically that’s when Diluc had just returned to Mond, so the Abyss Order was already around before the events of the game, although unclear for how long. 

Secret Compartment

I LOVE THAT KAEYA ISN’T 100% ROYALTY AFTER ALL like wow im just so happy about this!! His family might have stepped up as ‘regents’ in the wake of the cataclysm (or earlier, but the cataclysm seems to be the implication) but that is far more noble than being monarchs who failed to save their people!

With that, all the royalty hints still kind of make sense, but relieve him of the responsibility and unsavory implications. I think it’s 100% the correct decision for the writers to make, they wouldn’t be able to properly condemn monarchy lol.

And the fact that his family line is compared to fire, it’s just so poetic. Especially if my theories about owl stuff will get confirmed later and then Ragnvindrs will also be connected to Khaenri’ah’s people in that way.

And Irmin? In real life Irmin or Jǫrmun is theorized to be one of Odin’s avatars or a proto-version of ‘the main god’ in Norse/Germanic mythology, and Irminsul (one of the holy trees) gets its name from him, too. I wonder if in Genshin this is the only one-eyed king or one from the line of many.

I suppose no time travel is involved after all and Alberichs simply survived throughout the last 500 years. And Kaeya never saw Khaenri’ah as it was before Celestia struck it down!

This has cool implications for his motivations, as someone who didn’t have to live through the trauma of genocide and war himself but still inherited the grievances of his ancestors.

It’s also even a closer parallel to immigrant narratives than I previously thought. I wonder if that also means that Kaeya has more living relatives around.

*bangs pots* alive mom from teyvat

By the way, checked the chinese version and he uses 义父 to refer to Crepus, still a rather literary title used for a father figure, not necessarily ‘adopted’. But eng translators have clearly decided to stick to adoption, whatever.

And ah... So his hidden eye has a scar over it after the fight, but it’s still in working condition? Unclear why he was hiding it and continues to do so, magical eye probably still a possibility.

Despite their polite tone, this exchange still reads as a bit petty. Diluc didn’t apologize still, so... Even if Kaeya doesn’t blame him for anything, it’s a bit strange for Diluc to be this alright with maiming his closest friend.

THAT SAID it’s cute that Diluc starts every time with ‘thanks for the letter’. And that he told Kaeya to take better care of himself. 

But still... Kaeya involves himself in all of Diluc’s affairs, he always talks about him, he regularly writes letters to him, he’s lonely and he spends way too much effort on trying to get closer to him again. All of their interactions (except for the first on-screen one) have been started and maintained by Kaeya. What does he get in return? Hmm.

Just give us something mihoyo... Anything. Diluc going out of his way to help Kaeya or at least a phrase from him implying that there’s a reason for his reticence? Some guilt or perhaps a misguided attempt to let Kaeya build another new life without him, I don’t even know.

Also at this point the Traveller must be fully aware that Kaeya’s from Khaenri’ah if they had any doubts before. But considering that they don’t even try to question either Venti or Zhongli about the cataclysm, this is unlikely to be all that important for the main story.

#genshin spoilers #genshin lore #diluc event #diluc #kaeya #text

[leonardepsilonchurch]

i wanna write a fic but i can’t focus for that long so i’m just gonna write a long rambley summary instead. enjoy.

after flowers died tucker and church spent a lot of time just dicking around bc they realized that sarge decided that 4 on 2 wasn’t a fair fight and therefore the reds wouldn’t attack so they just hung around inside with their armor off while they waited for their next recruit and this results in them roughhousing a lot bc they’re both repressed men with the desperate need to be touched by another man and so tucker gets a semi and he’s like you can’t fucking blame me i haven’t touched a woman in ages and church thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world that tuckers turned on from this so he keeps him pinned down and makes fun of him and tuckers like. man it’s really weird that i’m making literally no effort to get church off of me huh. this surely doesn’t mean anything.

and then for like a week afterwards tucker keeps trying to needle church extra hard to tick him off into fighting again but church just keeps getting annoyed and screaming at him until tucker pushes it too hard and they end up ACTUALLY fighting and church gives tucker a bloody nose and tucker wants to be pissed but church is like “oh goddammit” and starts cleaning him up and tuckers like uhhhhhh bc he has a little bit of a concussion and church keeps touching his face and when he leans his head back church yells at him about not leaning back with a bloody nose and holds his head facing downwards and tucker is like UHHHHHHHHH

and if before this church constantly threatened to enter tuckers sexual fantasies now he’s the only thing on tuckers mind. so tucker starts REALLY focusing hard on the one swimsuit mag they have to try and drown church out but all that actually manages to do is make the version of church in his head that’s holding him down and being mean to him a chick. so he starts begging church to get actual porn in the next supply drop because clearly the issue is that he needs some new exciting women to think about and church is like. yeah okay whatever.

then church is able to finagle some of grifs pruno by promising to hide it from sarge and they get wasted and tuckers like haha church you would be so hot if you were a girl… if you were a girl i’d fuck you…. hahaha,,,,,, church i wish you were a girl so i could fuck you and church is like. fucking okay??? and then tucker kisses him and he’s like what the FUCK are you doing dude and tuckers like. dude i can’t stop thinking about chick you fucking me. and church is like. yeah okay i’m gonna get you those porn mags.

so next shipment comes and church is like. here you go. stop being weird now. and tuckers like. okay haha yeah this fixed me (spoilers: it did not. the fantasies have now turned into fem church AND masc church double teaming him. oh also at some point i forgot to mention church and tucker talk about sucking dick and church admits that he’s sucked his ex girlfriends strap and also gotten pegged. so THAT works it’s way in there too.) and church is like awesome.

so church thinks it’s chill to start roughhousing again and one day he gets tucker in a headlock and tucker just. is fully erect about it and church is like. dude. are you serious here. and tuckers like. what do you want from me i’m desperate man. and church is like. if i jerk you off and you imagine it’s a chick will you stop being so fucking weird (bc tucker has been being weird lately). and tuckers like 😶😶😶 uh yeah. yeah. yeah i’ll. yeah. yeah we can. yeah okay. yeah.

so then they like. put on the tv and sit next to each other on the couch and it’s VERY unsexy but it does actually work a little bit like some of the tension is released. but now tuckers like. wait okay we’re uneven. there’s an imbalance. and church doesn’t care he doesn’t need to be jerked off but tuckers got it in his head now. they need to be even. and he has no ulterior motives behind this. so FINALLY church is like. fine if it gets you to shut up about it. and tuckers like. yeah okay this is fine <-defintiely not stoked out of his fucking mind for this.

and church is like. okay well i’m not jerking off on the couch like and getting cum all over my pants like a fucking animal (tucker) we’ll do it in the showers. and it’s definitely not weird that they’re naked in the shower jerking off of course not. and church is actually kind of mad because he just like yanked tuckers dick up and down but tuckers actually like. good at this? and obviously church is also good at this much better than tucker actually but it’s not like he was TRYING before and it’s almost like tucker is trying to show him up?? so once tucker finishes he pushes tucker against the wall like don’t try to upstage me asshole and jerks him real hard and good. and tuckers like. OKAY? THANKS? but also we’re right back to where we started now jackass. and church is like. oh no. what a shame. guess we have to do this again. and tucker is like. oh right. what a shame. guess we have to do this again.

this was supposed to have a conclusion but i ran out of steam. oh well. just imagine them fucking sloppy at the end

#chucker

[qqueenofhades]

I also have a local election, so I was trying to do research on the candidates. Which is fine for the state level. But at the local level they’re all labeled nonpartisan. And of course the local paper’s breakdown is 1) not at all detailed enough and 2) behind a paywall -_-

That’s not even getting into how confusing and deceptive the referendum questions were worded *sigh*

I mean yeah, accessibility is always an issue (often deliberately so). But that doesn't mean there aren't ways to get around it:

For one, candidates for most city offices will have campaign websites. Google their names and see what you find. See what language they're using, who they are endorsed by and if you recognize any of the names, who those organizations are, etc. For example, I searched all the names for city council and voted for the two progressive Democrats who a) had been endorsed by progressive Democratic politicians/organizations and b) had an actual, demonstrable track record of involvement in local government. We had a very crowded mayor's race where almost all the candidates (aside from the one Republican, BLEH) said things about affordable housing and cost of living and climate change, but plenty of them didn't return calls from newspapers or didn't release tax returns or didn't have plans, and clearly just wanted their name in the paper.

So for mayor, I voted for the candidate endorsed by the big city paper (very traditional of me, I know) after reading his bio, seeing that he was a registered Democrat who had run for other state/federal Democratic offices, had solid progressive ideas AND plans to carry them out, and would otherwise be able to do a good job. Because there are so many candidates, we will probably go to a runoff, but yes.

If there is a paywall problem: try getting a browser add-on that disables paywalls, disable JavaScript, or just suck it up and pay a few bucks to look at their coverage. Most papers will have subscription sales, i.e. $1 for six weeks, a month, six months, etc, and it is probably worth it to stump up one dollar to read about local candidates (who have the biggest and most immediate impact on your quality of life.)

Ballot questions ARE deceptive, intentionally so, but most municipalities will issue "blue books" or voter's guides, which you will just have to read carefully. I.e. one of the ballot questions here was whether we should preserve a golf course that nobody uses (in a dry western city and that sucks up water) in the name of having "green space," or if we should use it to build affordable housing, which is a HUGE problem here. At first glance, the people opposing it are marketing it as "save the park/green space/environment!" even though as noted, it's a golf course that isn't even used and is just sitting there. You have to read past that and see what's actually being proposed and who it's going to help, and yes, a new affordable housing development focused on helping underserved populations is more important to me than a frickin empty golf course, green or otherwise. So I voted for it.

Anyway, yes: VOTE IN LOCAL ELECTIONS, Y'ALL. THE END.

#acedragontype #ask #politics for ts

[sopheadraws]

When it comes to Brittany S. Pierce, people’s interpretations are all over the place. It ranges anywhere from <3 innocent babie <3, to severely cognitively impaired, to manipulative liar who pretends to be stupid so others obey their will (which I’ll later accuse her mother of, but that’s neither here nor there). Anyways, I’m adding my opinion into the cacophony because, despite the indecisive fanbase, thorough Brittany meta is lacking in quantity. Also, I tend to think my opinion is best, as is human nature.

This analysis is rooted in autistic!Brittany, and while its unnecessary since I’ll go through many of her autistic characteristics, here’s a post detailing the headcanon and a medical article describing the diagnostic criteria in simple terms if you’re unfamiliar with the disorder. I understand that not everybody considers Britt neurodivergent, and that’s totally fine - I’m always up for a healthy conversation/debate! - but please give me a heads up if you plan to respond critically because a lot of this is based on my own experiences as an autistic teenage girl, so unmentioned critiques can feel personal fast. Now without further ado:

A Deep Dive Into Brittany S. Pierce <3

Auditory Processing Disorder “APD” is a subdivision of Sensory Processing Disorder “SPD” which is a quintessential element of an autism diagnosis. APD is pretty much exactly what it sounds (haha pun) like: despite somebody’s hearing abilities, the brain fails to process auditory input properly. The APD trait I hear discussed most in autism spaces is the inability to filter out background noises, but Britt seems to struggle most with interpreting meaning from words. Sometimes when people talk to me (“dolphins are just gay sharks”), even though they’re speaking clearly and I’m very literate in English, it sounds like jumbled nonsense (“dulfanz-our-goost-gae-shorcks”). This accounts for what I’m calling Brittany’s “so close you can taste it” lines. Think of her claim that Christopher Cross discovered America or that O is the capital of Ohio; a man named Christopher C. is indeed credited with discovering America and O is the only capital letter in Ohio. As a whole, they often misunderstand things told to them directly, and it seems a lot less foolish if she only understood half of what was being said via APD.

I’m calling the category of Brittany lines that can’t usually be rationalized as possible by anybody over seven (e.g. Rory the leprechaun, storks delivering babies, and anything with Lord Tubbington) the “stranger than fanfiction lines.” Now, I could take these at face value and say she’s tapping into a magical dimension, but I have my own set of autism driven realism issues, so, without a pre-existing fantasy world, I’m using my significant brainpower to twist Brittany into plausibility =D I ultimately think the best explanation for the stranger than fanfiction lines is echolalia. Echolalia is the repetition of words or phrases, and it’s usually associated with autism. Autistic people often reuse other people’s words, and since we usually think in pictures and have various social communication problems, it’s easier than formulating new sentences. Or we just like the tongue movements/sound a word makes. Personally, I quote songs a lot - if you say something loosely related to a Taylor Swift, musical, or Glee lyric, chances are I’ll sing it - and dipsomaniacal is a new fave to say randomly. There’s some evidence for Britt doing this in canon, unrelated to the stranger than fanfiction lines. While Brittany is known for calling him Blaine Warbler, it actually originated from Rachel and the infamous spin the bottle kiss. They also repeat ‘uber weird after Blaine in the That’s So Rachel reading, and the last line of that scene is them talking in time with Blaine, a behavior seen in S1 with Santana. However, it interests me most that she calls Artie a robot, as we see her dad call Stephen Hawkin, another wheelchair user, a robot in S6.

Basically, I blame the Pierces for how terribly adjusted their child is <3 (Mostly Whitney. Assuming Pierce actually has an IQ of 40, he’s disabled too and deserves some slack in terms of spreading misinformation.) In her admittedly limited screen time, Whitney manages to do two positive things: be an LGBTQ+ ally and let her younger daughter do soccer, I guess. Otherwise, she kept the truth about Stephen Hawking from Brittany for 20 years, cheated on her husband on their honeymoon for claiming infertility, crapped in random barns, insulted her husband’s intelligence, publicly insulted her husband’s appearance, and arguably restricted her daughter’s intellectual growth. To be honest, I realize Whitney isn’t that deep and I don’t actually hate her, but if people can hate Brittany for being a comedic character from the 2010s, I’ll do the same thing to their mother in defense of Brittany. Fight stop the violence with violence, baby! Anyways, I don’t think echolalia alone can explain the stranger than fanfiction lines. At least, not without a source. And that’s usually where upbringing comes in.

I’m ruling out nature automatically because there aren’t chromosomes telling people to believe in unicorns. Well, some people - including autistic people (hehe see what I’m doing here?) - are more inclined to believe falsehoods, but falsehoods have to be fed by someone else. With autism, the reckless believing tendencies come from literal thinking in part. Also, since SPD makes processing the outside world difficult, we often can’t recognize “obvious” truths in the first place. My extended family hated watching movies with me because I used to ask questions every five seconds lol. Setting Pierce aside because he seems to follow Whitney blindly; Brittany’s unnamed sister, Sue, and Whitney are the remaining suspects.

I assume Brittany’s sister is significantly younger than Britt because she played soccer with a seven-year-old in S1 (technically she could’ve been the coach, but that throws off my theory that the Klaine/Brittana wedding was child free), and children aren’t clever or mean enough to throw off anybody’s world view so badly :) Sue does seem the obvious answer, but she didn’t meet Brittany until they started high school, and she’s consistently baffled by Britt’s behavior despite encouraging her own eccentricities in the other Cheerios. And that leaves Whitney as the perpetrator, blaming her Scientology and gambling addiction on a cat.

Finally, I do think there’s a few times when Brittany intended for her jokes to be jokes. I don’t think it happens as much as you might expect, but there’s a scene in S3 when JBI is interviewing Brittany about her class president candidacy, and she tells him she’s voting for Rick “The Stick” Nelson before turning to Santana and laughing that clued me in. I think the mentality behind these lines (the “pun intended” category) is best explained with an anecdote from my own childhood.

When I was little - maybe six or seven - I really wanted to be funny. Well, I wanted to be liked, and since I didn’t understand social cues, my solution was humor because I knew my dad told jokes which made me laugh, which made him likable! Unfortunately, as a literal thinking child, I had no idea how to do this, which meant I parroted the only joke I knew (“What time is it when an elephant sits on the table?” “Time to get a new table!”) in hopes of chuckles. This went about as badly as you would expect. After a while, my parents got rightfully fed up with this joke and got me a joke book. I had no sense which of these jokes were funny, which wasn’t helped by most of the book being about taxes, bad marriages, and other stuff aimed at adults.

It wasn’t until a routine walk to the convenient store that my comedy dreams were fulfilled. My dad, little sister, and I used to walk to the “snack store” to buy a drink each and share a candy bar. While we had some routine favorites, we also tried out new candies together. However, there were a few bars my dad refused to buy because he’d disliked them prior to our snack store outings. Most infamous of these forbidden fruits was the Zero Bar. We tended to reference the Zero Bar when picking our next treat, and on this fateful day I said, “It’s called the Zero Bar because zero people like it.”

And my dad laughed. He laughed because of something I’d said. I was elated!

The only catch up was I hadn’t actually intended it as a joke. After all my attempts to be funny, the only thing that apparently worked was speaking my mind. This singular incident didn’t rewire my understanding of humor - I attempted the parroting tactic with the Zero Bar joke after all - but it’s the most pivotal moment in my mind. To this day, I play up my neurodivergent thought process to make others laugh. I reference Glee at seemly unrelated times with mock enthusiasm to callback times I’ve mentioned Glee with real enthusiasm or talk about my other interests in forced monotones.

There isn’t any actual evidence that Brittany has the same weird complex about humor, but some of their interactions regarding stupidity parallel it. In general, when they’re away from Santana, Brittany appears fairly insecure about her neurodivergence. I might even go as far as to say that she doesn’t joke without Santana around. Now, I don’t think Britt knows what her atypicalities are until they’re presumably diagnosed at M.I.T., but every neurodivergent person I know knew something was wrong before being diagnosed. (I want to talk about how Blaine’s diagnosed autism is a foil for Brittany’s undiagnosed autism at some point, but you didn’t sign up for autistic!Blaine, so now isn’t the time.)

Anddd, that’d pretty much it for now :) I intend to write more in depth Brittany meta in the future, but this is a decent overview for the time being. I hope this made you think, and I’d love to hear your thoughts if it did!

#just going ahead and reposting this because I'm sure the original is long gone #brittany s. pierce #brittany s pierce #brittany pierce #autistic brittany #glee #glee meta #meta #my writing #actually autistic #asd #autism #textpost #philosophie of mind #sophea 1.0

[medicallymercury]

Driving Force Trailer (18/07/23)

Look at me, having to use my episode review format for a trailer. I figured that they were starting on this new sort of writing thing where they split the series into smaller chapters (seemingly of about 12ish episodes) after the Welcome to the Warzone trailer came out. At least that means we’ll probably get trailers more consistently.

So the Casualty trailer was interesting in the sense that it gave me nothing. Faith continues, looks like Donna is gonna get a lot of story time, same with Max which is fine with me but there was a real lack of the paramedics beyond Jan. Ranting below the cut.

Still a lot of Faith, I’ve made it clear how I feel about her right now so let’s not go into it.

Look, I like Donna and I like her a lot more than I like Faith, so I’m happy for her to take a lot of storyline time up, great! Kinda tired of these storylines about characters hiding stuff from everyone else though, but I think they’re just a key trope now so I’ll take it.

Max and Donna together, where has that come from? To quote Max: what are you doing? I mean, Donna and Dylan I would’ve seen coming (implications of Max and Dylan… I might’ve seen coming) but Max and Donna is very left field and I’m not really on board with it yet.

Max, I find interesting and I wanna know more about him but largely in the context of Jodie so I just hope she’s also around in all of this.

On that note, the baby nurses are my second favourite set of characters right now and they were like nowhere in this, but I’m fine as long as they’re around doing dumb stuff. We got Rida and Jodie (my loves) but absolutely no Cam and Ryan.

And that brings me to the key issue. Where are the paramedics? Jan’s here and I’ve really like actually found myself caring about her in this storyline with Gethin so I’m good with that. Beyond that, the others didn’t really come up much in any understandable way, there’s clearly going to be something going on and I have my ideas based on what might go down based on what we’ve seen but I feel like those scenes are going to end up being in a Burning Bridges-esque episode later into the chapter (or at least that they will be split between an episode like Keep Breathing and an episode like Burning Bridges).

And I’m amazed that they managed to completely not mention at all a certain storyline I care a lot about. How was there literally not even a suggestion of Sah, Teddy and Paige in this? That’s kind of impressive. I’m impressed. Where are they? They surely can’t drop this storyline any time soon and it’s the main thing I wanna see. I do think that maybe some of those more dramatic paramedic scenes, we got like one shot of Teddy looking stressed, could end up being related to it in one of the many potential ways this storyline could go after this week’s episode but I’m not saying until we’ve seen this weeks episode. Did I miss something in there or is there genuinely nothing?

#casualty spoilers #bbc casualty #casualty #shoelace fandom #faith cadogan #donna jackson #max cristie #dylan keogh #jodie whyte #cam mickelthwaite #ryan firth #rida amaan #jan jenning #gethin west #sah brockner #teddy gowan #paige allcott

[awaytobeunshaken]

Angstpril 2023 - Day 19: Breaking Down

“What’s with you?” Fresh Cut Grass has seemed a bit more on edge than usual since Bells Hells reunited. It wasn’t too surprising at first; the whole moon situation had upped stress levels for all of them. But after, when they should all be enjoying a well-deserved reprieve from existential concerns, at the very least, the automaton seems about ready to snap. Ashton doesn’t want to let it become a problem.

F.C.G. lets out a pretty good approximation of a sigh, for someone who doesn’t breathe, but doesn’t answer.

“Hey, I mean it.” Ashton sits down to face them. “You sound like you’ve been taking a beating, and I know you haven’t. Do we need to get you checked out? Tighten up the chassis or whatever? Or just something on your mind?” F.C.G. doesn’t tend to talk much about their own issues, but there were times, like the encounter with Dancer a while back, where it was clear their emotions were starting to get the better of them.

F.C.G. pulls the little wheel free from his pack, and spins the dial to point to a face with a flat, expressionless mouth.

“Meh?” F.C.G. nods. “How come?”

They shake their head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s stupid.”

“So? I talk to you about stupid shit all the time.”

Letters looks at the ground. “I miss FRIDA.”

“Oh.”

“See, I told you it was stupid.”

“It’s not.” Honestly, Ashton has been struggling to make sense of F.C.G.’s new relationship. They’re sure how something like that would work between two machines, even as person-like as they knew one of them to be. Then again, he wasn’t entirely sure how it worked between people, either. What was clear, though, was that F.C.G. was clearly distressed by FRIDA’s absence.

“And it’s like, I missed Dancer when I thought she died, and sometimes now, even, but it’s not like that. And I missed you all when we were separated, was worried for you even, but it didn’t feel like this either. And it doesn’t make sense; this shouldn’t feel as bad. FRIDA’s alive, and I know where they are, and I can talk to them, and they still like me. Is this what being in love feels like?”

Ashton shrugs. “Wouldn’t know.”

ao3

“Yeah, you said that. Orym would. Maybe I should talk to him.”

Alarm bells start going off in Ashton’s head. “Don’t talk to Orym.” They put a hand on F.C.G.’s shoulder. “I don’t know what it’s like to be in love, but I do know that he’s been through a lot worse than what you’re dealing with. It might seem… I dunno, insensitive.”

“Oh. Yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe I just need to try not to think about it, keep my mind off of them.”

“Yeah, that might help.”

It didn’t. Two days later, and F.C.G. is… not looking like he’s about to snap anymore, thankfully, but in a noticeably low mood.

“Have you talked to Letters recently?” Orym asks. “They seem a little… off.”

“Yeah. It’s stupid. Fucking lovesick robot.”

“Oh. This is about FRIDA?”

“Yeah.” Ashton tries to put as much disdain into the word as possible; he doesn’t want Orym to think he’s taking this whole thing seriously.

“You sound like you’re not taking it seriously.”

“I mean, it just feels like kind of an overreaction.”

“It’s how he feels. That’s totally valid.” Damn it, now they’re the one looking like an asshole. “Besides, things hit different when you’re in love. Spending time apart, seeing someone get hurt… losing them. Even the grief isn’t quite the same.”

“But how do we even know that they’re really in love? I mean—”

“Look at him.” Orym points at F.C.G. sitting separate from the rest of the group, head down. “He’s positively moping. Maybe I should talk to them.”

Ashton can only follow as Orym wanders over to sit beside F.C.G. “Hey, you seem kinda down lately. Feeling lonely?”

“N-No?” F.C.G. stutters, glancing at Ashton. “I-I’m fine.”

“It’s all right.” Ashton explains. “I told him.” They turn to Orym. “He… I didn’t want him to bother you.”

“Oh. Then, yeah, I guess I am kinda lonely. I mean, we agreed that y’all need me here, and that FRIDA didn’t want to leave Deanna alone, but I still miss them a lot.”

“Yeah.” Orym smiles. “That’s normal when you care about someone. What kind of things do you tell FRIDA, when you message them?”

“Just, y’know, anything new that’s happened, sometimes what y’all have been up to, or any plans we’re making for later. That kind of stuff.”

“Do you tell them that you miss them?”

“I mean, I’m sure they already know, and I only have so many words…”

“You should try it. Actually connect a little, not just make a diary entry. You know, I tell Will all the time that I miss him. He can’t answer, of course, and I don’t know if he even hears me, but it helps.”

F.C.G. tilts their head to the side, and their eyes seem to brighten a little. “Thanks, Orym. Maybe I’ll try that.” And they pull themself upright and roll away.

“Did you mean that?” Ashton asks Orym once they’re alone again. “About talking to Will?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Orym replies, seemingly surprised that Ashton would question it. “Every day.”

#angstpril2023 #critical��role #fanfic #day 19 #breaking down #cr3 #ashton greymoore #fresh cut grass #orym of the air ashari #fcg x frida #love letters #cr fic #my fic

[junrandot]

no, because i need to talk about it or else i will scream my lungs out at work. but how utterly disheartening it is to see someone who could be through the very top men’s skaters currently competing going through the wringer like this.

i really don’t understand what that coaching team’s issue is, but it’s as if they’re selectively amnesiac about romsky’s very clearly disappointed and defeated expressions after his programs implode like this (e.g. the look on his face after the free at teacup gp).

and it’s not a new thing either. we’ve seen this happen for years and it is a glaring enough issue that strangers on the internet, who do not know romsky personally, are begging these coaches to get him a (better, if there’s one already) sports psychologist -- i would even go as far as begging romsky himself to just switch training environments. no matter how nice a coaching team looks from the outside, i don’t see how it isn’t toxic to watch the skater you’ve been training for years go through this time and again and seemingly do nothing about it.

i guess all i’m meaning to say with this rant is: what a loss for men’s figure skating, to have this sublime of an assembly of skating skills and lines and spins and jumps (the tech is more than fine when he manages to land them around his mental block or in practice) be buried 12 feet under by the chosen indifference of a coaching team and a whole fed’s lack of care for their skaters.

#user junrandot cries about figure skating #again #of course this is all speculation but this is what it LOOKS like and that's an issue in and of itself

[thattotalloserrain]

Terms in this post

Adoptive - The person that was adopted into the family

Adopted - The person who adopted a person into the family

As I notice new fans continue to enter the TMNT fandom, (or people are starting to talk about it more) I’m going to talk about 2012 especially because a lot of people are missing the points of writing flaws, and people are arguing for the wrong points and defending very problematic relationship issues.

I’ve came across this post, and it was really… concerning. I’m not gonna name them, or point them out, (And I can’t find the post, so I don’t know if it was deleted or not) but if you know what I’m referring to then just be respectful, I don’t mean any disrespect either because at the end of the day… It’s a cartoon, and we can still enjoy things while there’s still questioning things about it. The only harm that may come to conversations like these is because it can be very serious in real life. Yet, I find it strange how people are defending the wrong things for the same problem: the writing.

Let’s paint the picture.

The turtles are just now starting to go out to the surface, and with Leo’s situation, he ends up fighting a girl from the Foot. Romance is in the air, and he definitely falls in love with her. He never met her in his life, but he knew that he was the daughter of his fathers enemy- his adopted brother. (Let’s keep the adopted part in mind for later) So they already knew she was related in some way, blood or not.

Okay this is fine, it’s normal, and it’s trop that writers like to do- good guy falls in love with bad guy- it’s great. Until…

Now, Splinter has to tell Leo something after he also discovered it. His new born daughter that he thought perished that same night he lost his wife , and that so happened to be the girl Leo was fighting with. (And falling for) Is alive.

My 11 year old self at the time when he told that, made me widen my eyes.

I want to point out that TMNT 2012 is my favorite, and always will be. But that doesn’t mean I won’t point its serious flaws that the writers have done. For example,

Writing Donnie to be a stalker, (He is. There’s no argument about it. Following a girl, and getting caught after being told NOT to, is stalking behavior! Even when there’s good thought behind it! Poor Donnie doesn’t deserve to be written like that, though.) But as soon as we see that character development be “Yeah, I shouldn’t do that. I will stop.” The same girl she falls for is like “NAH, it’s okay because you’re my mutant~! Doesn’t help anything either.

Having Donnie, April, and Casey in this weirdest love triangle ever. (She tells both of them that she needs space at some point, but whenever they DO, she does something that makes that behavior more acceptable at that time. She goes back and forth between them clearly. And again it’s not April’s fault when she has bad writers)

We have Mikey that’s just doing his thing but ends up having something between Renet (whom isn’t born yet, but what the shell, at this point it fits the writing themes beautifully.) and Shinigami (Who wouldn’t, she is literally so hot.)

Now, I KNOW people are going to smite me for this but it’s only fair I still point things out in one of the best ships of the show so I can try to remain as unbiased as possible- Raph meets an alien in space. No questions between if they’re even equivalent to the same age or near, and already starts making out with her only within an episode (perhaps a few days) Kind of just like how Donnie also did with falling for April.

And we don’t see much with Yoshi having a relationship with Tang Shen until season 4, because she’s literally dead, and we haven’t seen any other interaction with her besides Splinter standing ground to his loyalty of his clan.

Do we see the similarities of why these writing flaws is happening? Do you see what they are common with?

They’re all relationships. The entire shows writing flaws, nearly every single one has to do something with relationships.

Every. Single. One.

The writers wanted to put romance into it, and failed miserably.

If you’re still reading this, congrats. I’m not done yet.

I feel as if I need to put some of my life experience into this to hope you all see the point I’m trying to make, and I know people that may have experienced similarly, that they still could have very different opinions to my own.

I’m adopted. And I only found that out when I became a teenager. Just as Karai has. I was lied to over and over and OVER again until I was finally told.

I’m not going to label Leorai something to extreme, but the ways people are defending it, is almost making it look like they know it is at some way, and are trying so hard to make it look like it’s completely fine, and you know what I’m talking about if you’re still reading this post, or you’re catching on to what I’m saying, I’ll make it very short and simple. And it’s really gross and scary how people think it’s okay.

Leo, and the rest of the turtles is related to Karai. Being a sister, or not. If they truly can’t be siblings, they are at least cousins, if we’re going to argue about how they weren’t raised together at all which… doesn’t make someone not related to someone.

And it was established that they both have romantic feelings for each other.

An argument that I saw was that the turtles aren’t technically adopted, or shares any DNA with Karai. (And honestly perhaps not, but we literally can’t rule anything out because we don’t have anything like mutagen in OUR world, so we can’t even argue anything about science because guys, come on… They’re four giant human turtles, and then there’s a literal trash mutant, so I don’t think we can say we’re experts on how mutagen works in this world or not.) So therefor, Leorai doesn’t count as (insert extreme label) And Splinter is also a harsh teacher, so Therefor- they aren’t his sons in any way because he can’t legally make them his sons. What?

Splinter is a mutated rat, and he may have just bot four baby turtles as a human, having no idea what is about to happen. Where is he going to go to the city, and find someone who would let him adopt four mutant turtles, to be his legally, official sons that he loves so much? Are we kidding? We’re going degrade the way that Splinter died and Mikey literally cried out “Papa.” And the thousands of times he calls them his sons and they their father and teacher? Fathers and mothers ARE our life teachers. And splinter KNOWS, that if NONE of them can defend, or fight for themselves, they would be killed easily from the harsh world. Of course his teachings will see VERY harsh. But he is literally preparing them for the worst, because he knows it can happen because he experienced it when he lost his wife to his adopted brother. And comparing to his brother, his brother literally kidnapped his daughter after murdering her mother and attempted murder of his adoptive brother! Why are we saying it’s okay for this heartless man to have the right to have Karai when Splinter can’t even do anything legally because he’ll get killed just from being a mutant?

Why is this even a point to make it seem like Leorai is okay or not? It literally makes no sense to use this as a reason why it is or shouldn’t, it has nothing to relate to it whatsoever. And at the end of the day, this entires shows romantic relationships isn’t okay. It’s just degrading a good father, and praising a horrible one for doing the ‘legal’ and ‘better’ thing??

Okay, another point that I saw was that none of the turtles weren’t raised or even knew Karai to begin with. That is true. They didn’t know she existed; and when they met her, they all didn’t know how she was related to them either way. Until they knew that Karai was Shredder’s daughter, then they definitely knew that the could be in some way. But like… if I find a sibling out there, adoptive, blood or not, I would back the heck out. It’s not the 1800’s where it’s fine to marry your cousin or aunt/uncle. And apart if the argument is that they can’t help their feelings or change them in anyway. (Pardon my language, but what the f*ck.)

Do you know who in the show was raised to be brothers, and ended up hating their guts, like literally? Splinter and Shredder. They changed they way they felt. And yes, it is more extreme comparing it to Leorai, but it’s also stupid not to point it out because it’s obvious.)

People are trying so hard to make it look like Leorai is fine in anyway, and it isn’t. It just plain isn’t. But again, the way people are defending (insert extreme label) They are still related. They. Are. Still. Related. Blood or not, they are. It is not okay to okay this behavior and or/writing that it is.

And people are defending this SO much they really believe and can say that it’s not (insert extreme label) because it only has to have two people be related by blood to make it (insert extreme label). Which isn’t the case, if someone is related to someone in anyway, then it is (inset extreme label.) and if you’re this person, your painting yourself as a person that is okay with in*st in anyway. I said what I said. If people can defend things like this, I can say my thoughts as well.

Get your head out of those sewer apples and GROW up. It’s fine to admit your wrongs and realize that things about your favorite show just isn’t okay. The writers wrote very problematic things, it’s the writers fault, and it’s okay to still like this specific show as a whole. Don’t let nostalgia make you look like you can also defend other problematic things.

Congrats; you made it to the end. Have a pizza 🍕

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #tmnt 2012 #leonardo #karai #leorai #what is happening

[mymarifae]

sighs... i adore the finale of mlp: friendship is magic so much. there was clearly a lot of love put into those last three episodes, and you can just feel the writers and the artists fondly bidding these characters one last farewell, y’know? it’s the (bitter)sweet ending this special show deserved.

but also, while the writers bring twilight and her friends’ story to a very clear end, they (pretty masterfully, if i do say so myself) leave room for equestria’s story to continue. everything was set up for generation 5 to showcase how equestria and the lands beyond have evolved and how twilight’s legacy lives on!

so i’m just kind of flummoxed by how it’s... not.

like. generation 5 wants to be its own thing, and that’s fine. but it also desperately wants to be this seamless continuation of generation 4 and it’s like. um. you can’t be both, man. in its attempt to juggle both of these ideas, it just completely fuckin’ retcons 9 seasons of worldbuilding and development.

where are the winter spirits (not using their canon name because Naur)? you know, the ones that feed off of animosity and fighting? where are the dragons? the hippogriffs/sea ponies? the changelings? the griffins? the yaks? where is the crystal empire? how have 0 records of twilight’s literal School Of Friendship survived? how are there not even simple legends about nightmare moon and her defeat, or tirek and his defeat(s), or chrysalis, or anything?? how has all that world-defining history just been lost?

where is star swirl and the other pillars? ... ok granted they’re probably not immortal but again: not even a whisper of their legacy has remained?? what about celestia and luna? or starlight glimmer’s!?!? out of all the most powerful ponies equestria has ever seen, you mean to tell me only the image of twilight and her friends has stuck around . and that like Two ponies (sunny and her dad) are familiar with them.

where the fuck is discord*

(* comics i have not read are not being acknowledged atm. because really - a character with literally unlimited magic who is deeply tied to the mane 6 and would have been dedicated to maintaining their legacy and protecting equestria for eons to come should have come up in the movie/show by now)

why am i supposed to care about opaline when season 9 of fim ends with two of the most spiteful, interesting antagonists the show has ever introduced (i love cozy glow and i think she’s a fascinating character and i wish the show had more time to dive into why she’s like that, but i’m reluctant to put her on tirek and chrysalsis’ level. she’s like 11) are encased in stone, and since we know that sort of magic-stone-imprisonment is not permanent...? like ??? get this random (and frankly, Ugly) alicorn out of my face i want to know what happened with THAT before you go trying to establish any new Big Baddies

i wouldn’t have as many issues with a new generation/make your mark if it wasn’t determined to cling to fim as its foundation. but since it is.......... what the fuck is going on. why are you paying homage to one of the best iterations of my little pony when you can’t even keep the worldbuilding straight for 2 minutes

#welcome to your bimonthly Millie Talks About Rainbow Horses For 10 Minutes For No Reason session #LIKE. LISTEN. mlp will always be special to me and i am trying to find it in me to love generation 5 and i CAN'T BECAUSE ??!?!?!!? #i may be extremely biased to fim. but on an objective level generation 5's writing is a fucking mess #i watched make your mark like last month and OHH MY GOD. THE PACING IS A NIGHTMARE. #the basic plot lines and ideas for character development are sound! and i enjoy the ideas for exploring magic and cutie marks #i'm admittedly intrigued by misty and her lack of a cutie mark and her relationship with opaline would be a good commentary #but the execution of everything is FUCKED #like even if i set aside all my grievances with the major retconning. they are breaking like every basic rule of writing ever #i don't understand what direction they're trying to take this thing in and i don't think they know either 😭 #anyway. see y'all again in march

[trollprincess]

Watched the Teen Wolf movie.

… well, that happened.

I read a spoiler-free review a couple of days ago that was like, “You have to have seen the show before to know what’s going on,” but I’ve seen every episode, like, ten times at this point and I was still asking myself what the fuck was going on multiple times.

This feels like something Jeff Davis wrote on a napkin when he got bored and then didn’t edit. Like, it’s one thing to be like “Lydia left Stiles and he’s off ‘fighting his own fires’, whatever the hell that means.” You can’t get Dylan back, you can’t get him back. Whatever. But why the hell is Derek saying so many very, very dim things? That “your eyes!” line is funny, but it makes him sound like they put a Stiles line in his mouth. Melissa and Argent are in multiple scenes together and I literally had to stop myself and try to remember if they even *spoke* to one another. Are they together? Who the fuck knows? “Did you tell your mom?” doesn’t tell me shit. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. There’s just so, SO much of this.

Addendum: I mean … Adrian? Really? Seriously?! What, did he get picked out of a hat?

Addendum, part two: Does Eli have a personality? He has no mom so he only has Derek who talks to him like he just met Eli yesterday, he’s on the lacrosse team but in Beacon Hills which guys aren’t, he has no friends that we see, all he does is steal Stiles’s jeep. Oh, and he’s got past trauma from seeing Derek wolf out, but JD can’t write people dealing with past trauma to save his life. That ending is hilarious because “teen” and “wolf” are literally the only two things I know about Eli. At all. I mean, he seems very nice, but it’s not enough to make me want to watch a new show about him. At least Scott had Stiles and lacrosse within that first episode.

So much of a two-and-a-half hour movie had me going, “Okay, that could have been written better.”

I said, “Well, that was A Choice,” out loud twice during the movie, which is two times too many.

Okay, I want to preface this by saying it is NOT a criticism. Crystal Reed is 38. She has had a little work done, which there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with. *However*, these actors are all notably older than they were during the show, which makes sense given they AND THEIR CHARACTERS have aged. So are we just handwaving Allison’s aging? I mean, she’s clearly physically *not* a teenager, but is Allison supposed to have come back as one? Okay, fine, we dangled some keys over the Nemeton and now Allison’s back? I just …

The fact that there are at least two characters who are like, “I haven’t used my powers at all in the last fifteen years!” is annoying as balls. I just have a hard time believing that overachiever Lydia is really going to let her banshee abilities slide. I feel like the Lydia I know, over the course of fifteen years, would have been able to send a dart into the bullseye through an open bar door from a block away from absurd amounts of practice. She might not have been fighting monsters the same way she had in high school, but STILL.

Jackson could have not been there and the flimsy plot would have still worked, and yet Colton was enjoying himself immensely in a way everyone but maybe Ian was not. Also, Jackson and Ethan are still together! Awww. Wish we could have gotten two and a half hours of that.

NGL, I laughed when Derek died. It was mostly because I could see the strings. Which I probably shouldn’t be able to, but I could see “well, he’s Superman now and we can’t bring him back for more movies and episodes” tugging that little plot point into position. To be fair, you can’t really have the character walk that plot point into existence when you’re writing him from minute one as if he banged his head off something.

Scott and Allison … just … can we stop for a second and go back to that question of where she’s at when she comes back? Because I feel like we’re going back to the issues with Malia when she returned from being in coyote form for years, except in that instant she lived those years. And it was still problematic for her to be having sex with Stiles and going to regular high school classes. Allison hasn’t been *alive* for fifteen years. She hasn’t even been a CORPSE. She’s been ash in an urn. And now she’s back after dying when she was a teenager, and it’s just back with Scott and everything’s normal? Come on. Come ON.

Meanwhile, Malia and Parrish. I’m fine with that. Provide that man as many fitted uniforms and fireproof underwear as he needs to rip and/or burn off.

I’m mad about Hikari, because I’m sure she’s great, but also it feels like they wrote Kira in and then when Arden wouldn’t do it they erased Kira and drew Hikari in but without giving her much to do as a person instead of a kitsune. (And if she and Liam were together together, then let them be? I don’t fucking know at this point.)

I know this sounds like I didn’t like the movie, and that’s because I didn’t, but also I appreciate it being so badly written because watching badly written things makes me throw things and shout “I can write better than that!”, and in this case I have a first draft inspired by Teen Wolf crossed with Yellowjackets which I can direct my annoyance at.

#teen wolf #teen wolf the movie #omg that was terrible #jeff davis is not a gift

[saaraofthesand]

My Thoughts on The Sun and The Star.

I’ve organized my thoughts into some lists. Enjoy.

I polled my followers and they said they wanted this so you can’t get mad at me.

I must first emphasize that at 20 years old, I’m hardly this book’s target audience. I am fully aware of that.

Second, this book is fine. It’s not bad, it’s not insulting to queer people, but it’s also not the most interesting work of fiction I’ve ever read.

Third, I never finished the Trials of Apollo. I don’t think it hugely affected my reading experience with this one as I’d read all 10 of the other books and could use context clues for anything I didn’t know about. But I thought I should mention it.

Fourth, a lot of my problems with this book have also been present in all of Rick Riordan’s books post-pjo. So, these aren’t new.

Fifth, I went into this book with basically zero expectations. I’m not active in the pjo fandom (this is an anime blog), so I wasn’t seeing the book hyped up or anything. Before this, I’d basically only talked about it with my family and friends. I also don’t really read pjo fanfics. I have because I’ve gotten curious before, but I haven’t read enough to know about general fanon interpretations of characters.

Okay,

Nico has been my favorite PJO character since I was a kid (yes I grew up gay with abandonment issues shut up), so I was excited for this book.

The queerness is well done. There isn’t any “othering” of Nico, Will, or their relationship due to their queerness.

We got Italian! Nico moments, which I’ve been wanting more of since forever, so I’m happy about that. They did an okay job rounding out Will’s character. And Nico and Will’s relationship got a lot of good exposition (even if I felt that they were unrealistically mature about it). Nico’s experiences with homophobia felt very real.

Okay, now on to my critics:

Without a doubt my biggest criticism of this book is that it is very clearly fanservice. It doesn’t exist because it has a story to tell. It exists because fans wanted more Nico and Will content.

I didn’t like that the book was written from third person. I had this same critic of the Heroes of Olympus books. Rick Riordan’s strength has always been first person POVs, starting with the original PJO series. I feel like the funny chapter names, the breaking of the fourth wall, the sidebars, etc. are the reason that Rick’s prose stands out. A first person perspective is the reason the books are as funny as they are. And this book lacked that spark.

The choice to write from third person is part of what contributes to the fanfiction-esque writing style of this book. As someone who both reads and writes fanfiction, I can tell you that almost all fanfics are written from third person. This is because, for the most part, the characters you’re writing are not your own. First person is way too intimate a POV for that type of writing, and it’s why most fanfic authors don’t use it. That’s what I feel like is happening here. Oshiro is writing characters that aren’t theirs, and that means they can’t bring the intimacy of a first person POV or even a more intimate third person POV.

The book is also very on the nose with its themes and ideas. Generally, this is fine in this type of literature. This is a piece of middle-grade fiction. The target audience is middle schoolers. But also, middle schoolers can pick up on subtext. They’re young, not illiterate. There was far too much telling when they were already showing.

A good example is the title of the book. It’s very clear that “The Sun” is Will and “The Star” is Nico. I assumed that before I even opened the book. That imagery is incredibly obvious, so the authors don’t need to state it in the text. But… they do. Bob refers to Will and Nico as “My sun and star.” It was one of the moments in the book that really made me cringe.

The book has major pacing issues and is too long. I felt like it was going on forever. There were full scenes and segments that I think could’ve been cut without affecting the plot.

This book really put on display that even though Will and Nico work as boyfriends, they don’t work as partners. This contrasts Percy and Annabeth, who do work really well together since they were partners first. But Nico and Will are so bad at working together that their quest dynamic isn’t fun.

Generally, I don’t love the characterization in this book.

Nico and Will are supposed to be on this dark, dangerous quest. One so horrible no one would ever want to undertake it. It’s the House of Hades (Nyx’s Version). Except it really isn’t. It felt like they wanted to make it more psychological than the previous books, but they also weren’t totally willing to commit to everything that would entail.

Despite all the fluff in the book, it takes itself just a little too seriously. Nico and Will are 15-16. I feel like they could have had more fun with it while still tackling darker themes. Again, I know Riordan is capable of this because *gestures at the original PJO books*

Nico and Will have this weirdly mature outlook on their relationship that doesn’t fit their ages.

We don’t get PJO-esque jokes until 80% of the way through the book (yes, I kept track). There’s the “Travel Brochure” joke and the “Saturday Sundae” joke during the Nyx confrontation. Both of which invoked the feeling of reading the original Percy Jackson books. I got really excited.

Immediately after those jokes this became one of the cringiest books I’ve ever read. And I do not care to elaborate on that because I’m just happy that the book is over at this point.

Lastly, I wasn’t sure where to put this, but I read it, so now, you have to too. “‘Will, he said it has to be both of us,’ said Nico. Will hesitated at first, but an epiphany dawned in him, and his eyes went wide. ‘Together,’ he said.” After reading this, I immediately recoiled in disgust and went “UGH!” And there are multiple lines like this in the book. Absolutely horrible -7563/10. Rick, never allow another sentence like that into one of your books again. This isn’t YA. You can’t be throwing lines like that at me out of nowhere.

In conclusion:

I’ve seen people saying the criticisms of this book are the result of homophobia and… y’all no they aren’t. Most of the people I’ve seen criticizing the book are queer, including me! I’m tired of this idea that queer people just have to appreciate whatever representation they’re given without having any criticisms about it because at least it’s something. No! If Nico and Will were a straight couple, I’d still have the exact same critics of this book. I’m gay and it’s my godgiven right to dislike books that focus on gay people if the stories aren’t good.

Something that I do think is sad here is that Oshiro’s name is now on this substandard book forever. They’re a new author, and they don’t deserve that. Rick Riordan will be fine if this book isn’t received well, but Oshiro is less likely to be. That upsets me deeply as a queer writer myself. That sucks. I hate that. Go check out their books instead of this one tbh.

#okay you can yell at me now #the sun and the star #pjo #criticism #sarah reads