#And probably less coherent or insightful
Text
Get Back Rewatch 55 Years On: Day 16
Not the Love Actually India footage! https://archiveofourown.org/works/40600110/chapters/101720886 by @inspiteallthedanger is a favorite I should revisit after this painful day.
“Yes, what Were we doing?” Literally, why did you start this conversation, Paul? What did you think John and George were going to do? Just let you have your little casual chat about the footage? Come on, you know them better than that. “In your room?” “Yeah, right. I remember, yeah.” You set yourself up for this, babe.
I would LOVE to know the real context for John’s mic-job. Because yes, that is real. He really did do that while staring like That at Paul. But it wasn’t after he said, “I don’t regret anything. Ever.” What was the real moment where John decided that was his move? And did Paul really just keep talking right over all of that? Beatles tumblr deserves access to all that footage just for all the obsessing we do.
It is noteworthy, certainly, that we know for a fact that a good chunk of John’s India footage is just Paul, but in how much of that footage, I wonder, is Paul also focused on John?
We all know Paul approves, but why did we have to use valuable time to show monkey sex? I did not need to see that.
“I have all the tapes, too.” Those laughs. You guys aren’t as sneaky as you think you are. Also, @ Lennon estate you won't release the tapes. Chickens.
George is just SO sick of their shit. “Because that was the purpose of going there was to try and find who yourself is.” AKA ‘I took your dumb asses on this beautiful spiritual retreat and you had to make it about your stupid psychosexual obsession just like you do with everything else.’ “And if you were really yourself, you wouldn’t be any of who we are now.” AKA ‘if you two would stop fucking hiding, we – me and Ringo too, you’ve dragged us down with you – wouldn’t be in this hellish mess.’ And here’s the thing. He’s pissed off. And rightly so. But he’s still going along with their veils and secrecy. A callback to his strumming over Paul ranting at him. He’ll still protect them even when he fundamentally disagrees. George is such a beautiful person and so underrated by people like me.
Paul’s appreciative little look as John finally ends the difficult conversation.
"Bye, Bye Love” is DEFINITELY *meaningful*
John calling Two of Us “Four of Us” is so sweet. Like saying to George and Ringo, “You are important too. Just because we don’t have weird thoughts about your physical adjacency to Elvis Presley, doesn't mean we don’t love you.”
I think John’s willingness to be taught is also an underrated leadership quality of his. All the old men obsessed with Leader Lennon won’t acknowledge it, but that’s what it is. It’s humility and a recognition of other’s strength and it’s leadership.
Literally everyone else: Just don’t look and it’ll go away. John: what? Don’t look at Paul? I don’t know how to do that.
George and Ringo honestly had the patience of saints to just sit there and play through Two of Us eight million times so John and Paul could do their little accents and silly voices.
And then John can also do the traditional leadership, too. “Start again, ey. Shh, don’t talk when he’s playing there, gang.” And really, he’s the best of the four for that job by far.But it’s far from acerbic or cutting. Get Back John is certainly almost undiluted Lovely John.
Quick reminder to anyone who may have forgotten: those boots George is wearing are literally Paul’s hand-me-downs. Earlier on the nagra reels, George was describing a kind of boots he’d like a pair of and Paul was like “I’ve got some you could have.” Permanent baby brother status.
“That’s a good idea, John.” “Yeah, well I’m full of ideas like that, I’m famous for ‘em. Literary Beatle, you know.” Puhlease. I know fics with more realistic dialogue.
“The things that’ve worked out best for us haven’t really been planned any more than this has, it’s just. You know, you just go into something and it just does it itself.” Yeah, George. Because of Brian.
Paul really wants to do a big Thing at the end, because he loves performing, yeah. But what’s this about John and Yoko’s black bag? Does he think that performing together will remind John that being a Beatle with Paul is what he loves? Or does he just want closure before everything falls apart?
He really does hate to see him upset, doesn’t he. Like, I think he does a lot of things purposely to get a reaction out of Paul. And sometimes he needs to see him hurt to know he even cares. But from the way he’s watching Paul chewing his nails and rocking, you’d think Paul’s worries affected John physically. And then he breaks into “I Lost My Little Girl” almost as a sort of knee-jerk comfort instinct.
These two shots are comedic gold.
My cabaret boys again. Heck, maybe I’ll write it just for myself. Honestly though I love that the two Beatles who loved performing and who would’ve been performers in any life (would’ve been performing circus elephants if they’d been reincarnated as animals) got to continue doing it into their eighties. One of the few happinesses in the end of the Beatles.
Get Back really is such a great character study, though. George hands John a drink. John takes it without looking at George, let alone the drink, and gulps. George hands Paul a drink. Paul smiles at him, then proceeds to sniff it and swirl it and inspect it like it might be poison before he gives it a taste.
John chewing the mic. I hope you didn’t do That to Paul’s dick in India. What if that’s all that happened?
Bitching and gossiping: top requirements in the job description for John Lennon’s Codependent Special Person.
In these last few minutes of the day, I’m relating more and more to George. I’m sick of John and Paul and all their drama and stupidity. John suggests they write another verse of Let it Be together, and Paul looks frankly horrified at the idea.
So John lays his head in Yoko’s lap, reminding me painfully of that “ . . . except you can go to bed with it and it can pet your head without . . .” quote.
And then a few minutes later, Paul’s spiraling again and asks to go home to which John responds with a tease. “I’m just tryna get the group working, you know,” and “You’re gonna have to be strict, Paul.” And it’s just dizzying and frustrating at this point. Where are they possibly going to go at this rate?
#sorry that this one was late#And probably less coherent or insightful#Two jobs and a teething baby and a depressed husband today so it is what it is#paul mccartney#the beatles#john lennon#mclennon#ringo starr#george harrison#get back
83 notes
·
View notes
Text
I’m a fierce believer and defender of Smooth Brain Astarion (affectionate).
I love that, if left to his own devices, he ends up dead in a ditch. I love that this pasty menace of an elf is a walking disaster. I love that his brain produces one coherent thought per day, only to have it backfire on him later on. I love that his first choice in freedom is to unapologetically be the worst version of himself. Because it makes sense.
That’s what abuse and trauma do to your brain—they fuck with it.
And in Astarion’s defence, the man didn’t have to use his brain for nearly 200 years—it’s probably the very thing that kept him as alive as he can be; to survive 200 years of pure shit.
And what use is his brain when his days and nights are dictated by someone else for as long as he can remember? When he has no say in what clothes he wears. When he doesn’t get to choose what or when to eat. When his body and mind aren’t his own, distorted by torture and hunger and self-loathing, forced to obey his vampiric master. Why use his brain when his survival depends exclusively on his abuser’s whims?
Astarion could’ve come up with the most brilliant plan possible to escape Cazador or save a mark from their doom, but he never stood a chance of succeeding—which doesn’t mean that he didn’t get punished for trying (or even thinking about it) anyway.
Existing under Cazador was a game he couldn’t win, so why bother playing?
And it’s only by chance that Astarion’s autonomy is returned to him literally overnight. It’s only natural that he’s overwhelmed by his newfound freedom. How is he expected to make sound decisions when he can’t even recall a time when he could do and say as he pleased?
Of course Astarion is a walking disaster when he finds himself on that beach after the Nautiloid crash—and he’s fully aware of that! That’s why it’s so crucial for him to get on the player’s/other companion’s good side.
He’s self-aware enough to be so insecure about himself that he would rather trust a stranger’s capabilities than his own.
Being a catastrophe of a person is part of Astarion’s character journey. Not only does he have to reclaim his personhood, he has to learn how to depend on his own brain again and I think that's such a painfully beautiful, important message Baldur’s Gate 3 sends.
Because healing isn’t pretty. Nor is it easy.
You’re not alright the moment you’re free of whatever horrors you had to live through—and that’s ok! There’s time and room for you to adjust.
And the moment Astarion feels more or less safe within his new environment, when he’s fed and treated like a person worthy of respect and consideration, his insights, skills and perception are crucial assets to the group.
Astarion knows his art and literature, and although his little remarks are unhinged at times, he's genuinely witty. Even his objections are, considering the circumstances, absolutely legitimate.
Personally, I love seeing Smooth Brain Astarion become more and more secure in his judgement the more Tav/other companions trust and support him.
Astarion is smart, his brain’s just been stewed for nearly 200 years.
#baldur’s gate 3#bg3#baldur’s gate iii#astarion#astarion ancunin#bg3 astarion#astarion headcanons#smooth brain astarion I will defend you until you can do it yourself#trauma can give you literal brain damage#of course he's a little eccentric#tw: trauma#tw: abuse#smooth brain astarion
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
chapter 140 thoughts!
Reminder: because of the content of this arc in genera and this chapter in particular I will unavoidably have to discuss CSA and topics related to it, including grooming, emotional abuse and sexual assault. I do not discuss them in great detail, but if you very understandably just aren't in the headspace for that, no hard feelings - look after yourself and I'll see you next time.
So a lot of stuff goes on in this chapter but weirdly, I feel like I don't have a lot of stuff to say about it compared to the last few. Partially because it speaks so strongly for itself but mostly because, sort of similarly to 137, this is just clarification and reiteration of some themes and information that's been floating around loosely for however many chapters and we are just now actually pinning it all down into something more coherent.
Or at least, 15 Year Lie is pinning this all down into something more coherent. We're definitely playing a bit more with like, presentation and diegesis in these sections of the movie than we were with previous scenes. With the B-Komachi scenes, we very rarely fully entered the in-universe diegesis of the movie and the scenes being filmed quite firmly remain scenes being filmed by actors who are having their own thoughts, feelings and character arcs both about and separate from the material.
By contrast, both this and last chapter lean more into presenting these scenes as full flashbacks, fully immersing us in the material that the movie's diegesis essentially overtakes and becomes the manga's diegesis. It not only creates a sense of immediacy but also one of authenticity - by removing all the reminders that this is something being manufactured, a piece of in-universe dramatized fiction, the reader is invited to accept it uncritically as fact.
And honestly? I think this is a very clever trick. While I do think the broad emotional arc and relationship beats we're being presented with here are probably more or less true, there's a big question still hanging over the movie's presentation of things: how much of this is true and why is it being shown to us? This is a movie about Ai's life supposedly, right? So if this is the case, what's with this sudden POV switch to Kamiki… and how exactly did Aqua (and the rest of his 15YL collaborators in general) get this level of insight into 'Boy A'?
But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit…
Like I said up top, I think a lot of this chapter kind of speaks for itself, so all I'm gonna say is that this did a huge amount to really endear me to the HKAI dynamic, at least as 15YL is portraying things. It's just such a nice change to see Ai bouncing off someone her own age, squabbling and getting along and butting heads like a regular kid. It does a lot to really get across just what it was about this relationship that drew the two of them to each other. They have a good rapport and some cute chemistry and I'm finding myself rooting for them even in spite of knowing how it all ends.
The scene of them at the restaurant was honestly just a complete and total delight. It's been so fucking long since we got any content of Ai just being her likable goobery self so getting to see that again (and her and Hikaru's shocked and appalled reactions to the bill) was just so good.
The short exchange that follows is also so, so important, I think. Similarly to an early AQKN moment, we are shown Ai from Hikaru's POV - in which she wears a lovely smile and stands framed as the focal point of not one but two panels of brilliant light. This feels like a sort of answer to something I noted last chapter where HKAI's relationship seemed to be in the process of echoing both the AQAK and AQKN relationships - in Hikaru, Ai sees someone who has the potential to understand her. In Ai, Hikaru sees light. I'm interested to see if this will keep getting reiterated on as we get more scenes of them together.
god the more details we get about Airi's abuse of Hikaru, the more vile she becomes. The money she gives him rings eerily true to the way real life abusers of this nature really do use money and material gifts as a method of control over their victims. And it's also not hard for me to see her as using this to frame things as somehow transactional - to pretend Hikaru has any power in this entirely unbalanced dynamic.
I continue to be impressed with how OnK is portraying Kamiki's abuse. As I mentioned last time, I often find that manga is pretty tasteless and sometimes even downright exploitative and offensive in its portrayals of sexual abuse, framing it in a titillating way for the viewer to gawk at. By contrast, not only is OnK's portrayal a layer removed from the actual events, being in-universe fiction, but it gives us no lurid details to gawk it. We are forced to look only at Hikaru's pain and the emotional reality of the horror and exploitation he's experiencing and the story dares us to flinch and look away. Just like plenty of people do.
I also really appreciate that the story leaves absolutely no room for plausible deniability and just outright calls Airi exactly what she is: a pedophile. I was a little worried with last chapter that there was going to be an element of like 'oh Hikaru is just so cute even an adult woman can't help herself' but once again, the story pulls no punches in calling this abuse what it is and the perpetrator what she is. Harrowing as the material is, I'm glad that it's being handled well thus far and I hope Akasaka doesn't flub it.
that said i have to ask. where in god's name is the intimacy coordinator on this set.
The scene that follows is also very interesting for all the reasons I mentioned above. For Oshi no Ko as a manga, it's clear this material is here to challenge the reader and ask us to see Kamiki as human, to try and empathize with him despite his reprehensible actions. What purpose this monologue serves for the in-universe 15 Year Lie movie is less clear. But in both circumstances, I still have to ask: to what end, exactly?
After all, isn't this a movie overflowing with spite and hate? A script written for Aqua's revenge that will allow him to kill his father? If so, why are we being challenged to empathize with Kamiki? Why did Aqua write a script that portrays his father as a victim? And how, exactly, did he come to such a deep and nuanced understanding of this man he hates so much when it took Ruby three and a half mental breakdowns to start understanding her beloved mother?
This all raises a whole lot of questions about exactly what the final movie is going to turn out like and exactly what purposes it really serves and I'm tentatively excited to get some answers. I'm definitely still more than a little fatigued with the movie arc as a whole and a lot of my biggest issues with it have yet to really be resolved but I'm at least more interested than I have been before about where things are going to go.
Holy crap, no break next week… are we beating the biweekly allegations, gang???
78 notes
·
View notes
Note
Lurker now follower here, hi hi, I love your blog and all your insights and thoughts on Teen Wolf and Sterek!! I just finished a rewatch and then immediately started over from the beginning because I am Unwell 😂😂😂
I’m on episode one and I gotta say it’s pretty hilarious how Stiles immediately recognizes Derek. Like, I can only imagine how obsessed he was with the fire and the Hale family, and now Derek is back!!
I don’t really have more coherent thoughts on this, just my brain going BRRRRR so yea lol 😂😂
hi! welcome!
i know we all joke about how stiles immediately knows it's derek hale that he and scott run into because it is funny. like stiles baby. honey. the signs were there.
i've always gotten the impression the fire is something stiles remembers very, very well.
the hale fire changed beacon hills. the hales had been there since the town's foundation. they were a well off, prominent family. there was reason to suspect arson. multiple children died and the only known survivors were two barely adult children and a severely burned, comatose man.
laura and derek were high schoolers. cora was eleven years old and presumed dead.
we're told the only thing left recognizable of talia hale were her claws.
it's the definition of a tragedy.
not to think of the supernatural repercussions to the vacuum left behind.
stiles would've been about 10 when the fire occurred which is young but old enough to understand the severity of such an event. especially as the child of the sheriff.
he probably saw how it weighed on his father and had a healthy dose of morbid curiosity. he may have even have knew cora hale in that passive way you know other kids in your school even if you don't know them personally. one day there and the next dead. for someone like stiles who gets hyper-focused on things and has a lot of anxiety stemming from the death of his mother i can easily imagine how his mind didn't let it go.
meeting derek in person created a hyperfixation so intense and so unhinged it led to him recognizing teen derek hale at 50 paces or less in a mexican desert several years later.
as he got to know derek he unlocked the layered tragic backstory stiles really became derek's secret keeper.
and it is only stiles that gets these pieces of the puzzle that is derek hale. he's the one who goes through the hale fire files, he's the one who pieced together that kate argent preyed on a young derek and he knows about paige.
i find it interesting choice to have only stiles know these things about derek. scott never learns of these things that could possibly make him more empathetic towards derek. the writers don't use it that way.
especially because stiles learning these things never goes anywhere overt. it's all in the subtext of the relationship between derek and stiles.
like, stiles learns about paige and he does nothing with this information but we do see him with tears in his eyes over it. he doesn't ever learn that paige's death gave power to the nemeton either. jennifer only tells derek that.
he knows all of this about derek and never tells anyone. he only ever alludes to knowing about kate one time and it's in the overlooked when he gets in derek's face. i'm unsure derek's even aware stiles knows about paige. stiles carries all these secrets about derek and he never uses it against him. instead he continues to keep coming back again and again and again for derek.
more importantly he understands derek and what is love but the mortifying ordeal of being known.
that all said stiles is absolutely unhinged about derek and derek does nothing to curb this by the way. if it bothered him he'd stop it but they are freak4freak so derek probably finds it charming even if he puts up a few token protests just to bait stiles.
101 notes
·
View notes
Text
also my thesis is now at 60 pages and i just have the preface and introduction section left to write! going to do that tonight and then spend the next three days doing intense editing and elaborating and expanding some sections. so it will probably end up being around 75-80 pages which i am happy with. finished the three case studies (intersex society of north america/hermaphrodites with attitude, InterACT, and Intersex Justice Project), wrote the theoretical framework section (compulsory dyadism, ideology of cure, intersex and/as/is/with disability) and now i just have to go back and like. edit all of it in a way that is coherent and makes sense and is insightful.
thinking of maybe also adapting my thesis into a less academic version and publishing it online if people want to read it.
also in the next couple weeks going to post some of my favorite sources and intersex history i learned from my thesis when i get a chance.
#personal#am exhausted. between this. adjusting to leaving the house more in my wheelchair. and organizing stuff on my campus#for apartheid week and our die in. its a lot#also organizing against the drug free zones. have i talked about that yet on here. idk#can't remember#anyway. its a lot but it's all really important and urgent and completely worth the effort#hope everyone is doing as well as possible rn <3#actuallyintersex#h slur
19 notes
·
View notes
Note
Saw the tags on the Toshinori post and do you have more to share?? Any insights? If so I’d welcome hearing them 😭 He really is so self-sacrificial and it hurts but it’s truly at the core of who he is
This has been sitting in my inbox for almost a week because I needed to make a futile effort at organizing my thoughts into something coherent--but this is as organized as they're going to get for now! Thank you so so much for the ask though bc I do love to yell about MHA <3
(Obligatory reminder that I'm watching this show in such a confusing order so if what I'm about to rant about has been addressed before and I'm harping on it unnecessarily I Am Sorry.)
(For anyone curious, this is the post btw)
SO. It feels relevant to mention that my sister and I were talking about All Might in the first place because we were talking about MHA Moments That Haunt Us. For me, it's the 'I am not here' sign hanging around the neck of the All Might statue in Kamino Ward after the Paranormal Liberation War. It literally lives in my brain rent-free 24/7 365 days a year, especially with the AM vs AFO fight being relatively fresh in my mind. The reversal of All Might's catchphrase and all it represents hurts, but to display it at the site of his 'last stand' in Kamino? That's brutal.
All Might vs All For One and how that rematch plays out is so so important to the story for so many reasons, but one of them is that the fight itself is a sacrifice. Toshinori gives everything he has, short of his life, to defeat All For One. He gives up his physical strength, his public image as the unbeatable Symbol of Peace, and, effectively his Quirk ("Goodbye, All For One. Goodbye, One For All" haunts my every waking moment, still!)
This battle is also the culmination of years of All Might's life and heroic philosophy (because Toshinori has been both practicing AND preaching self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good since we met him. It's what he thinks a hero does). Kamino is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, if you will. Yes, he does get to walk away from the fight with AFO, but he walks away irrevocably different, almost unrecognizable. He's forced to totally change his focus and his mindset and his life. Everything he has given up is made literally visible in the deterioration of his body.
But most most importantly, All Might's sacrifice at Kamino was... all for nothing. Even if AM defeated him in that moment, All For One is free less than a year later. The world is in shambles. People are afraid, and their faith in heroes is crumbling. Heroes are afraid, and this time, they have no idealized symbol to rally behind. When Dostoevsky wrote "Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing," he was talking about All Might btw.
Toshinori gave this fight (and his career, and being All Might) everything he had, and it still wasn't enough. He sacrificed so much of himself, and so much of how he perceived himself and his purpose, and he didn't even save the world. He just bought them time--and not much of it. I think that's why he's so desperate to keep fighting, no matter the cost, no matter what condition he's in--even 'quite literally half-dead.' He can't let Kamino be the Symbol of Peace's final stand, because Kamino was ultimately for nothing. Instead of saving the world, it has been reframed through the sign on the statue as All Might abandoning the world. And ever since then, he's been scrambling to prove that he is still here.
(There's also probably something here about Sir Nighteye telling him that he was going to die. Since Nighteye used his Quirk on him, Toshinori has been anticipating sacrificing his life for good. Knowing that his entire hero career is effectively a fight to the death has probably maximized his self-sacrificial tendencies.)
#ask#yagi toshinori#bnha all might#mha all might#love of my LIFE#i had more bullet points to include about all might's philosophy of self-sacrifice as both a hero and a teacher#but then i was writing random notes about all might as a product of hero society as opposed to a pillar of it and i felt like that one vide#of the old man going '90% of the time i have no idea what the hell i'm talking about'#it wasn't strictly relevant to this ask but maybe one day it will be it's own post bc toshinori messes me up when i think about him#for longer than 0.5 seconds#this is so word vomit i'm so sorry#liza blather#AND ANOTHER THING. a lot of the pros are self-sacrificial to an extreme (i made a web weave abt it) but all might is one of the few#who actually makes it his PHILOSOPHY. like he passes on the idea of setting yourself on fire to keep others warm as a Good Plan#which is NOT a criticism of him OR his fault it's what he LEARNED to do just like#i can't really blame the ua faculty for the sports fest as messed up as it was bc like. half of them are probably ua alumni. they#probably had their own sports festival. this is just like. not registering as abnormal to them.#okay now i will stop#one thing about me is if i'm not talking about kamino i'm talking about the sports festival#and on the off chance i'm not talking about either i'm talking about the joint training arc
23 notes
·
View notes
Text
(Sigh) I know I don't normally make posts that express my raw thoughts but I'd really like to start talking more personal. So this is my first attempt.
I'd like to say hello to members of the obsessive love, IRL yandere/lovesick community. I'm like hyper-fixated on you guys as I feel like I can empathize with so many, which was a unique experience for me.
If you've posted in the last couple months chances are I've probably went through your account. That's how I met my girlfriend, I know you're reading, Hiii honey bunny I love you so much.
Sure I have my own defined idea of the concept and what I like about it like everyone else does I'm sure. I'm sometimes selective with what I'll interact with. Which is part of what I wanted to talk to you about today. What I personally see, the good the bad the ugly, just the whole thing.
I'll start with the potential...
In my life, I isolated myself for many years because I couldn't find anyone who wanted to pay attention to me long enough to understand me, let alone care enough to actually love me. Which I more or less assumed was a trend of people identifying as lovesick, no one will know what you need better than yourself after all.
Obsessive love is making a point of love being a major focus in your life. Which is great you would think, until the rest of the world sees you as just another fish in the sea. They wouldn't recognize you for it as anything real, because not many people value upfront love. Everyone excepts liars and cheaters because that's all people seem to do without intention.
The act of being needy isn't attractive, it's why not everyone's giving money to a homeless person you have no connection to. Well I wanted to take a moment and say this is not that for me.
I read you guys everyday, I'm convinced a lot of you are seemingly inherently obsessive about a lot of the things you do, because given the platform you communicate yourself so coherently, so open and in touch with what you know you need. To the point when I first started reading people here. I was confused, feeling like I knew them even though it was parasocial.
Well that's because I relate to your struggle better than my own irl friends in those ways. I just wanted to say you're my favorite fish. I know I could never give you that love you desire as I'm taken, but I really want to extend the offer of friendship to each and every one of you, because I want to create a place for you to be recognized for all the love you've given. It may be platonic but I love you as the light of this world.
Of course nothing is all sunshine and rainbows.
There's people who'd intentionally ignore the warning signs or have such low self awareness, they won't or can't see what they're representing certainly has the potential to be or become toxic. Whether if it's for yourself or others.
Possessing but recognizing violent thoughts as intrusive is one thing, but identifying yourself by having those thoughts. I can't help but to acknowledge how you're building yourself up, creating momentum in a direction I don't think you or anyone truly wants. My question to you is why?
Hopefully you're just being very far removed from your words and the reality of you're saying, hopefully you're too deep into some strange character or persona you've invented and can separate yourself from it. Yet it seems to me that this is not always the case... Some members of the community are really struggling.
I mean I understand, people I knew growing up didn't have any real defined idea about love or stepped with any firm intention. So I understand why something like you see in these yan tropes could be appealing.
I grew up in a city where everyone is really cold to one another. Honestly I've lived here all my life and never felt like I truly know or trust anyone. Which when I was younger lead to a lot of moments I lacked insight I needed, to get my desired out come. I don't think you're barking up the wrong tree entirely however.
Which is why with this post and in future ones. I really want to help you guys with some general advice to set your intention, get your perspective and mindset right for loving in this style. I think I'd be a good person to ask, as I'm currently very sucuessful and happy in my current relationship. If any of you ever need to talk more personally though, my DMs are open for anyone who needs to vent.
#lovesick#actually obsessive#obslove#obsessive love#yandere#irl yandere#i love you#yandere community#yousta thoughts
10 notes
·
View notes
Note
Long ago someone once told me that “Harry Potter is the ‘little black dress’ of [fan fic/crossover fic]”. I never really cared for HP as a story, and more (less?) so now because of the hate hole the author cannot dig herself out of. As someone still writing HP fic in the modern age, would you be able to explain the above adage? What exactly is it about HP mythos that’s so attractive for crossover fic?
Thank you for your insight.
I'm very tired so I apologize for what will likely not be a super coherent response but here we go:
I've never heard it expressed this way, but I think the sentiment is accurate. I can't answer for everyone, obviously, but the appeal of HP for me (despite JK Rowling's awfulness and the inherent problematic aspects of the material itself) is A. nostalgia and B. the HP world's ability to work as a foundation for a plethora of genres/tropes that can easily be adapted by writers while still being recognized by readers.
The A. is pretty self-explanatory. I read the first HP book when I was 12 and a new one was released pretty much every year after that. I grew up with Harry Potter and the HP fandom. I know a lot of queer folks my age have a similar attachment, and JK's terfness has actually encouraged us to write/create more fandom content as a way of reclaiming the material (I said in another post, we don't just believe in Death of the Author in this house, we believe in Murdering the Author and then rifling through her stuff to keep the good things and toss the bad).
The B, which is more what you're referring to, I think, is the foundational aspect. HP is a cultural phenomenon. Most people in the US over the age of 10 at least have a basic knowledge of the world/characters, which means it's a great anchor point for people creating media. It also encompasses, or can support, a really diverse breadth and depth of genres/tropes. The world is large, which means the sandbox for transformative fans to play in is also large. And a lot of the sandbox is gestured to but unexplored in canon. The possibilities are endless. You can write a fantasy, a mystery, a romance, a sports romance, a buddy cop narrative, a kidfic, a coffee shop au, etc. and it's all, more or less, in-universe. Because the universe contains multitudes. The HP fandom is also VERY forgiving/supportive of diversions from canon within "canon" worldbuilding. It's probably the most supportive I've seen. I mean, the majority of fic I've read is proudly tagged as canon non-compliant and/or epilogue? what epilogue? Most fic falls into two camps, I think: "I love this, so I'm writing more" and "This thing has promise but you fucked it up and I'm going fix it." I feel like a good portion of HP fandom, at least today, is doing the latter. The first HP fic I wrote, and the one I'm working on now, play very fast and loose with the magical dynamics Rowling set up, completely throw out her shitty werewolf rhetoric, and are focused on trauma and creature politics--something Rowling didn't really address in any depth (and what little she did I'm ignoring). But I can do all of that while still being anchored in a familiar environment that folks feel comfortable in.
Hopefully, that makes sense. And if anyone wants to add to (or disagree with!) my thoughts, go for it.
93 notes
·
View notes
Note
I'm looking forward to see your exploration of the Dishonored scientific lore! Roseburrow's an intriguing soul, considering he had his best intentions, had difficult time and lived in poverty and then... he's famous innovator with guilt conscience. I see your Esmond on the edge of the discovery - not yet enough resources and support, but he feels he might soon bring great changes in the society.
Any natural philosopher is remarkable, the developers really made the game's lore worth of interest, Sokolov from the first Dishonored is my absolute favorite. Renaissance man with many talents and complex character.
Perhaps, Dr. Galvani is another interesting scientist. He's as well passionate about his work; marks the day he had a conversation with Sokolov as the greatest day in his entire lifetime; once was Granny Rags' doctor; studied the rat plague, kept a bunch of rats in his house for that case (there was an incident which resulted with a severed arm that can be found near the rat pantry); he can be robbed by the protagonist at least thrice after which he becomes understandably paranoid (I also loved his notes, he seems like an ardent man, maybe choleric). I even find some similarities with Piero. I'm curious what people imagine him look like.
Oh, and you can think of the parallels with scientists from the real world! I'm certain there's a lot.
P.s. I have no idea if I made any spelling mistakes, but I hope my rant is somehow coherent. I wish you luck :)
Hello! First and foremost, I thank you kindly for your interest and your support, it's very much appreciated!! :)
Your message is very interesting, and there's a lot to say about all of these scientists.
Starting with Roseburrow, I think that's an unjustly forgotten character. Probably because we barely hear of him at all in the games, and not everyone has seen the beautiful Tales of Dunwall shorts. But without his breakthrough, who knows what the Empire would have looked like at the time of Corvo and Emily's story? He's a truly pivotal figure and I think it right to pay him tribute somehow. So yes, I wanted to depict him as he was in his younger years; idealistic, full of good intentions and gifted with a true belief in science despite the hardships thrown his way.
Sokolov, too, is a man of many faces! By 1837 and the Rat Plague outbreak, he has completely eclipsed Roseburrow (whose death is still recent!) with his deadly contributions to natural philosophy. On the other hand, he is the Royal Physician and an accomplished artist. Although his methods aren't always the most commendable, he's also a fascinating character.
As for Galvani! That's a good idea. I don't envision him as a genius, and not really as a pivotal scientist in the grand scheme of things, but I agree that his works and his character in general are very interesting too. He's a bit of a shape-shifter as far as I'm concerned: almost menacing in Dishonored, because his apartment anx experiments are honestly very creepy; less so in Dishonored 2, where robbing him is played more as comic relief and there isn't a mission that features him extensively like in the previous game. Representing him would be an interesting challenge, so thank you for the idea!
Researching real scientists and their artistic representations is also a great inspiration, of course! It's pretty clear that Sokolov is heavily inspired by Da Vinci, whereas Jindosh is something of an "evil" rendition of Nikola Tesla. Hypatia, too, is named after a very real Greek philosopher! I'm not sure about the others, but perhaps someone else can provide insight on them.
Forgive me for rambling! I'm very happy to share my thoughts on Dishonored lore and your contribution is very thought-provoking.
Thank you again for your message and have a great day! :)
#ask answered#dishonored#dishonored lore#science illustration#natural philosophy#thank you for your message!#esmond roseburrow#anton sokolov#luigi galvani#alexandria hypatia#kirin jindosh#piero joplin
21 notes
·
View notes
Text
I keep seeing tiktok influencers talking shit about Fairy Tail 100yq but for the wrong —and worst reasons like at this point the biggest problem isn’t coherence but the weird kinks included for fanservice. I couldn’t care less about living dragons in a universe where they’re all meant to be dead I could live with that, I don’t care about new dragon slayers appearing out of nowhere I can accept that too, but GRAY literally EATS Juvia ? this should be your main concern, not the fact that Igneel has a whole ass son or that FT became Dragon tail we dgaf.
Story wise (minus the FS) it isn’t great but it’s not as bad as some other canon spin offs imo.
Like I can’t count how many times I sighed reading FT 100yq chapters but at the same time I believe we were given some good things like the Erza x Laxus fight or a bigger insight on Jellal’s past which was nice too. We also got some funny moments like Gajeel and Juvia (my fav dynamic btw) investigating the new FT member and Gray calling out a misogynist (this was definitely not on my FT bingo list). All of that to say I don’t get why people continue reading if they dislike it that much (and i’m not talking about FS bc most of the ppl complaining are men who don’t care about the fanservice and dislike it for other reasons.)
While I believe everyone is entitled to share their opinion on media, I think there’s only so much you can do by complaining about a piece that can only carry on thanks to the initial material. Like…if it brings you more despair than joy you should probably stop reading and move on.
10 notes
·
View notes
Note
I love reading your insightful thoughts on topics regarding mha and especially touya you alone bring my hype up
I just wanted to ask, after having read your rei meta (which I agree with wholeheartedly) I can't help but feel kind of a distaste towards some actions towards some members BECAUSE of the narrative framing
Rei calling her son "dabi" in the hospital scene was so distasteful considering she was ready to forgive her husband after everything but it almost narratively seems she holds no such regard towards the son whose demise she took part in regardless of intention
Also in the mental hospital scene where fuyumi was telling that "natsuo is the only one who isn't letting begones be begone" like hello? we are talking about you dead brother who mer his end due to your father's actions?
I don't know I am pretty sure it's because of horikoshi and I shouldn't think like this blaming the characters because he is the writer after all but the way he writes rei and fuyumi sometimes is so distasteful to me that I almost wish touya never returns to that home where he was labeled a black sheep simply for being self aware because of how they used him as a scrapegoat especially in the hospital chapter
Ps i am well aware touya will probably reunite with his family and all will be well but it's the narrative choices that kind of make me dislike them even endeavor who is pathetic is at leadt enjoyable to read in a sense that he stays true to character to an extent. Shouto is on the way of reaching an epiphany about how to reach his brother as family instead of a hero so i still have hope for him and natsuo is still true to character kind of in the hospital chapters but fuyumi and rei got me fighting against everything in me to not dislike them. Even toga and freaking afo calls him touya but his family is stuck with dabi like bffr
Hey! First of all, thank you for reading my stuff! I'm glad it can bring you some positivity in these otherwise trying times as a Touya stan.
Now, to answer you... I debated how best to approach this reply, because there's a number of ways I could go about this. But you specifically mentioned the framing, so I'm gonna build my argument on that.
So. How is Horikoshi framing Touya in the eyes of the Todofam? As you said yourself, they’re treating him like the black sheep to Shouto's golden child, and uniting to stop him.
From what I understand, though, you seem dissatisfied with the execution because you think that while every other fam member acts coherent about either blaming or wanting to rescue Touya, the Todoroki women are outliers because they have instances where they go back on that resolve to save him to blame Touya instead.
Am I getting this correctly?
If so, I think there is a problem with that conclusion. It's not just the women who go back and forth, and in fact, I think Rei and Fuyumi are the mildest ones of the bunch. But for reasons that I'm going to dissect later, I also think the fandom… latches on to them as exceptions, and in the process doesn't understand that it's meant to be a family narrative in which all of them are imperfect.
(putting this under a cut for length)
I think it’s important to remember that all the Todorokis agreed that Touya needs stopping. Not just Rei and Enji, or not even just the two heroes, Shouto and Enji. All of them gathered in that hospital room to discuss family matters, and they reached that conclusion as a collective decision.
Now, I’m stressing this because the language they used is peculiar. We all noticed that they said that Touya needs stopping, not saving. But when it comes to the Todofam, that word carries a certain weight, and I don’t think it was used randomly here.
As this person pointed out in this post, Touya was always asked to “stop” whenever his self-awareness or his attempts to be acknowledged disrupted the family dynamics. This is less apparent if you haven’t checked out the revised flashbacks in chapter 302. But the fact that Horikoshi went back to alter the storyboard and narration for the tankobon release means he wanted to draw more attention to something, to make it clearer for the audience. And indeed, the why becomes clear when we see Shouto confront Dabi and echo the same words: “please, stop.”
[source]
The Todorokis haven’t yet reached a place where they can fully sympathize with Touya. In Shouto’s case, it’s because he doesn’t know his brother; he can empathize with Touya’s circumstances, but not with Touya’s reasons. After all, Shouto is a successful creation. He never faced the brunt of the entire family’s blame and disappointment. As a result, he doesn’t understand that this approach is doomed to fail, because it echoes the scoldings Dabi’s used to.
Whenever someone tried to reason with Touya, it was always framed as if the root of Touya’s unhappiness (and the family’s by extension) was his refusal to quit his ambitions. Basically, they told him that it was his fault, and not his father’s for putting those ambitions in him. Even if it’s Enji who’s guilty of rewriting Touya’s sense of self around an impossible goal, the one who’s held accountable for it is the victim.
Not only do they all ask Touya to stop over and over (and not his father), but Touya’s also blamed for the fallout of Enji’s abuse. First, he was framed as the reason for Enji to keep making replacements, then for why Enji isolated Shouto from his siblings. It’s always because of him. Because Touya couldn’t quit.
Even now that the family supposedly knows better, they’re still struggling to move on from that pattern. Just like how back then Touya was always singled out as the disruption, as the element of unrest, Dabi is still pushed into this role. Except now he’s singled out as the disruptive element that exacerbates not only the inner dynamics of the family, but of society as a whole. Once again, his refusal to stop is making things worse for everyone willing to just lay down and take it in silence. Because of it, he’s not regarded with sympathy. Instead, all the flaws he addresses are his responsibility to bear. It doesn’t matter if those issues existed before him. He becomes the suitable scapegoat.
Now, all of these are things you seem well aware of. But you still singled out Fuyumi and Rei as subjects of your ire, and I don’t think that’s entirely fair. If this was something we could blame just on one character, or just on Rei and Enji as parents, we wouldn’t have heard the same words repeated by multiple family members. We would’ve at least seen someone push back against them.
Instead, even Shouto is still torn between seeing Touya as a villain and as his older brother. Linkspooky wrote an excellent post on this recently that I encourage you to check out.
This makes sense for him because Dabi was just a villain to him until a while ago. He has no solid memories of Touya because as a kid he wasn’t allowed to exist in the same room as his siblings. Yet, he has several memories of his brother as an enemy. He fought against him. Dabi kidnapped his classmate. So that mental divide is at least somewhat justified. It’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that your presumed dead brother, who you only saw as a normal kid in your sparse memories, committed atrocities and tried to kill you and your dad (and himself).
However, I also think this divide works on a societal scale as well. During the present arc, we’ve seen the hero kids struggle to reconcile the idea of the League as victims with the crimes they’ve committed. Those two sides should coexist; one doesn’t exclude the other. Hurting people doesn’t mean someone can’t have hurt you first. The kids seem aware of this, unlike the rest of society. They see the League’s victimhood. The problem is, they still think in terms of which side weighs in more, which one deserves more of their heroic efforts. And because the people they’ve hurt are multiple, while their victimhood only involves a single person, the good of the many always ends up being more important than showing sympathy.
This is what happens with Uraraka, for example. She remembers Toga’s tears, and wants to help her smile, but because Toga is part of the League and wreaked havoc in several cities with the PLF, killing many innocents… that sympathy becomes conditional. So Uraraka looks at the destroyed landscape to remind herself that there’s also another side of Toga. One less worthy of her concern. One that deserves it, because this suffering she’s experiencing is Toga’s own fault. If Toga wants to live her version of a happy life, she tells her, she also must be ready to live with the consequences.
This sentiment is the same that Shouto later directs at his brother. You can’t blame dad for the lives you took, he tells Touya, because you did those things, not Endvr. They are your own fault.
The problem with this approach is that it asks victims to put their shit together on their own, for everyone else’s convenience, without anyone else involved in fixing a broken system. And most importantly, it also asks victims to face the consequences of their actions, while also turning around and not holding abusers accountable for their own.
The fact that this idea is explored through Toga and Shigaraki as well makes me think it goes beyond the Todofam’s dysfunctionality. But to bring this back to them…
Do I think it’s distasteful that the framing treats Touya this way? Yes. It hurts to watch on a near constant basis, even when I know there’s likely a reason for it. But at the same time, I dislike on principle when people hold Rei and Fuyumi to a higher standard than the men in the house for displaying character flaws.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not accusing you of purposeful malice or anything like that. You're clearly struggling against your instinctive dislike, and you came here to discuss it, so I presume you're looking for reasons to either reinforce it, or to let go of it. I hope that by the end of this, you will find some more reasons to be kind to them regardless of the quality of the writing.
What I’ve noticed during my time in this fandom is a certain... expectation, almost...? for women to always perform the role of "perfect victims", with the penance of getting the brunt of the fandom's anger when they don't.
What does that even mean?
In short, women in fiction aren't given the same leniency as their male counterparts when it comes to displaying said flaws. While for men having any is typically regarded as a good thing because it gives the character depth, when women do something “wrong,” they get crucified.
I believe this happens in the bnha fandom as well, particularly amongst Todofam stans. While Shouto, Natsuo and Touya are all allowed to be imperfect, and their rough edges get widely recognized as faucets of trauma, Fuyumi and Rei aren't given the same sympathy.
As I mentioned above, Shouto gets to be undecided and to direct unkind words to his brother without the same backlash from fans. Natsuo is allowed to put faith in Enji because he shows reluctance to trust his old man. But the women are hated because they take a less belligerent approach to Enji’s atonement.
I believe that the reason why so many fans struggle to like Fuyumi and Rei is because they misread them. Their lack of outright hostility is widely interpreted as forgiveness, when in fact, it’s not quite written that way. I find that equating their willingness to let Enji try to be a better person with forgiveness is a flattening of their depth as abuse survivors.
I think much of the blame Rei faces isn’t actually rooted in anything particularly bad she did in canon. Most of the things we can blame her for are also things that Enji did alongside her, and Enji did them with far more cruelty and selfishness. But! I also think that some people have an instinctual dislike of her because she’s written with a lot of stereotypes of submissive femininity in mind, and that understandably makes a lot of folks uncomfortable.
What I’ve seen is that because Enji is a pos, people have turned to Rei in hopes she could be a better parent, or someone okay-ish enough to make up for the bad, you know? And that’s totally fair. I’ve done the same. But I also think that in the process, people sort of created this idealized version of her that then didn’t live up to her canon characterization. They—perhaps subconsciously—wanted her to be a good victim and a good mom, when she’s meant to be neither. I think she’s more nuanced than that, and that perfect victims don’t really exist anyway.
But because they expected her to balance out Enji’s bad, they don’t really know what to make of a character who’s now written to parallel him in many ways. While she did not hit her kids, she still hurt them in other ways. While she tried her best to oppose her husband’s will, she still didn’t oppose it in a way that mattered when it came to Touya’s mental well-being in particular. Just like Enji, she was shown to be neglectful and avoidant of her eldest.
This makes her a nuanced character. Just like Touya, she can have done horrible things and still be a victim because the two things can coexist. But expecting her to be just one over the other, ironically, results in the same scapegoating Touya’s being subjected to by the narrative.
The fact that she’s a victim and that she ended up hurting others as a result of unaddressed and spiraling mental health problems aren’t factors that are battling for dominance. You’re not supposed to look at her and think “the bad she’s done outweighs the good, hence she doesn’t deserve any sympathy.” If you’re not doing that for Touya, why are you doing it for her?
To address the one complaint you mentioned about her, the fact that she calls her son “Dabi.”
She does that once.
In fact, if you look at it closely you’ll notice something interesting. She calls him “Dabi” when she’s thinking of him as a villain. When the topic of fighting comes up, and with it, the emotional baggage that “stopping” Touya already has as an ongoing theme. But Rei also calls him “our son” when she’s apologizing to Hawks for the burns, and she calls him “Touya” when she’s confronting Enji. To me, this confirms the idea I talked about above, the mental divide that makes it harder to reconcile the villain with the crying boy they remember. Rei, like Shouto, loves Touya, but her reaction isn’t perfect because she’s an imperfect victim living in a flawed world.
In the grand scheme of things, the issue with the framing of Touya as a bad sheep does exist, but I don’t blame it on Rei specifically. I think there’s a fundamental difference between her calling her son “Dabi” that one time versus Enji privately thinking of Touya as a mass murderer.
Putting this out there for those who can’t read japanese. The word (in kanji) Enji uses here reads tairyousatsujinsha. Which means indeed “mass murderer.” We only know that he’s even referring to Touya because the furigana (which typically shows the actual reading of the word in kanji) reads a different word, musuko, “son.”
So, sure, might be more internally coherent as an asshole who can’t face his actions, but getting angry at Rei for calling Touya “Dabi” seems rather… mean-spirited imho, when it’s not even on the same magnitude of alienation Enji shows for the blood of his blood here. He doesn’t even call him the more generic word for villain. Not his chosen villain moniker, either. He goes straight for the moral upper ground of calling attention to Dabi’s crimes, when he can’t even properly own up to his own.
Anyway. Moving on, there’s also the topic of Fuyumi. You mentioned that her line “letting bygones stay bygones” was in the hospital chapters, but I couldn’t find it there. Were you by chance referencing this?
because if so, I believe the above panel on the left comes from a fan scanlation. If you compare it to the official Viz translation, her words don't carry quite the same edge. Now, the wording is similar enough that it might be an instance of Viz correcting the release at a later date (it has happened before. Japanese is a tricky language).
But since you quoted this line, let’s discuss the nuance.
In the picture on the left, Fuyumi appears less sympathetic towards Natsu. It reads like she's blaming him for being too stubborn to let the past go, while also minimizing the extent of his trauma as something that can be just… brushed off. As something that should stay in the past.
As opposed to that, the version on the right puts more emphasis on the process of grieving, on Natsuo's mental well-being. "Can't seem to let go" still carries the same implication that closure on Touya’s death is desirable, but her phrasing is soft enough that it comes across like she's sad about Natsuo’s sadness. Like she wishes he'd let himself find some peace, after all this time.
I'm bringing up both these versions because I wanted to compare and contrast them to the original. See, the jp text says this:
Which translates to: "Only Natsuo can't lower his raised fist."
Being fair to the eng translation, all these versions more or less say the same thing. She's still singling out Natsuo for reacting differently from the rest of them. Which does indeed seem like she’s blaming him for it.
However, the original wording has a completely different nuance imho. By bringing attention to his raised fist, Fuyumi is commenting on Natsuo using anger as a coping mechanism to deal with his grief. The emphasis then is not so much on whether or not she thinks he should "let go" or "let bygones be bygones," but on the fact that Natsuo is stuck in that defense position. His fists are permanently raised, and he cannot let them lower. He's constantly poised for a fight, and as a result, he always slams headfirst into one.
I think this confirms my reading of Fuyumi as a mediator, as someone trying her best to de-escalate all the fighting in the house.
In this post I explained why I think she's stuck into a part herself. As the big sister who stepped into the role of caretaker at a young age, Fuyumi displays all the traits of someone who learned early on to fear explosive tempers, and resorted to acting like the patient one to protect her siblings. She sorta acts like a… fire-retardant blanket, so to say. She attempts to put out fires before they can get bigger by sucking out the air that keeps them alight. She’s shown doing this with Natsuo during dinner, and she’s shown often playing mediator to avoid explosive tempers from bursting.
I think a lot of people read her as someone pursuing her idea of a perfect family because she remembers a time where things were better and wants that again. The problem with that, imho, is when people call her selfish for it. When they say she’s pressuring her brothers into forgiving Enji like she did. I find that—at least the latter part—a malicious misreading rooted in badly hidden misogyny. Why is she not allowed to want things that are at odds with her brother’s wishes, but her siblings are allowed to want things that are at odds with hers? Why is she perceived as selfish for it, but her brothers are not? And why is the reading of her as forceful in this pursuit so widespread, when she made no attempts to steer Natsuo back in both times he stormed out the room?
It seems to me like the same issue with Rei. Fuyumi needs to be a good victim and a good sister, or be crucified if she dares have flaws and imperfections. But again, just like Rei, she’s a victim as well, and she has trauma too. I think people shouldn’t presume that her feelings for her abuser are clearcut and black and white.
I know it’s easy to dislike her because she seemingly “forgave” Enji, but so far she’s never stated that. It’s the audience’s inference that she has. The fact that she wants a shot at having a more normal family doesn’t mean she thinks Enji did a 180°. It just means she’s willing to give him a chance to be a better person, which is something that Shouto’s also shown doing. But because Shouto remains hostile while Fuyumi makes an effort to treat Enji like a person, it’s widely assumed she must have no complex feelings for her father, or that she’s okay with moving on.
I find that an oversimplification. Don’t get me wrong, I know the Todoroki women are much less fleshed out than the men. Rei doesn’t even have a character profile yet. But because of this, I wish the fandom didn’t jump for their throat based on those few sparse lines we do have. Just because Horikoshi hates women doesn’t mean we should all follow in his example
Let’s all allow ourselves to think these characters can have depth. To experiment and play with ideas when something’s yet unconfirmed, to headcanon and theorize and fill the gaps of missing info like we do for other (male) characters. I promise it’s much more fun than getting angry or upset at all the failings from canon
If that's not your cup of tea... that's fine, but I hope I was at least able to make you consider something you hadn't thought of before
#bnha meta#meta:rei#meta:fuyumi#my post#bnha#bnha spoilers#todoroki rei#todoroki fuyumi#todoroki shouto
64 notes
·
View notes
Text
I saw my first AI "fic" today.
The user who posted the AI creation added "goes to show we still need writers" I took that to mean they were uploading it to show how bad the AI creation was. Due to that, I felt more okay opening it for investigatory purposes (I made a post a while ago saying that AI would produce a facimile of creativity and I was curious how correct that would prove to be).
In a word, I was extremely correct. The fic had no-to minimal scene intros or transitions, banal dialogue, characters flat enough to feel ooc, silly to non existent conflicts, and it "tells" everything (no showing, no extended metaphors or insightful similes).
Scarily though, each snippet was coherent. Like sure, the characters were flat and the conflicts (when they exist) one dimensional and the turns of phrase often felt cliche (which is exactly what one would expect to get from an AI, which formulates sentences based off of how often words go next to eachother). But the scenes themselves make sense. If AI wasnt in the title I wouldnt have been able to tell the difference between this and a 15 yo's first fic.
The danger of course is that this is how AI starts out. The more people use them, and input content into them they will get better at producing this facimile of a creative work. AI could probably learn to produce some or all of the common components of storytelling that I've noticed this and other AI products lack.The scarier danger for me is when it becomes good enough to justify publishing houses and studios attempting to replace expensive human writers. (And to a degree clogging up AO3... although I hope enough people in fandom are here for the human connections that that wouldnt be a concern...).
Look, AI will never be keeping human writers out of fandom. Theres no finite number of spots on AO3. But AI could keep human writers out of screenwriting and book writing (which do have finite spots/finite funds for written works) and then... we lose something beautiful and precious.
The beauty of human writers is that they constantly have new things to say because every lived experience is so unique and precious. no two people will write a character's emotions the same way or capture the tension of a plot with the same words. I have read and will keep reading thousands of fanfics about the same canon characters because each person captures their pain and love and failures and triumphs in new and exciting ways. Humans always bring something new to the table. Humans always keep learning. Experimenting. Changing the conversation. An AI will never be able to say anything new. They are actively doing the opposite of human thinking and creating. Theyre not doing research or looking up new words or playing with new turns of phrase. Instead theyre cycling through a fixed set of applicable word choices and chosing the one with the highest percent match for what should come after the previous word.
So three bad things happen if you all start using AI as a fic production shortcut:
The AI improves its deepfakes of creativity. your requests, inputted content, and feedback all help it update the word selection math it is doing in the background. This makes it more likely that canon content stops being created by real people and instead starts being replwced by AI products.
You learn and feel nothing. I mean it. Writing is a joy because every creation is a new research rabbit hole. a new word looked up in the thesaurus. a new way to make your readers sob from the feels. AI robs you of that process. So you think less. You explore characters less. You are deprived the joy of marinating in your blorbos angst and pain and love and joy while you decide exactly how to put that into words. Youre deprived the satisfaction of your own work. (And by being deprived of the process above you also dont learn how to write. because the AI is not writing.)
Your readers lose out. Sure the AI has produced something perfectly spelled and grammared... but nothing new has been said. The grand conversation we are constantly having by writing and reading fic and exclaiming about characters stagnates and then festers. No new stories get told. AI is only producing things that look like what came before. your readers dont get any joy from new thoughts. new ideas. changed minds. changed perspectives... none of that happens. (Again I want to go back to point one. Im not worried about AO3 drowning in AI fics as much as I am worried that canon content will become overrun with it).
17 notes
·
View notes
Text
I saw a post awhile back that was up in arms at the idea that fandom meta could be considered literary criticism in any sense, without giving much in the way of arguments for why that's wrong beyond "how dare!!! your silly shipping manifesto isn't literary blahblahblah."
It's obviously deeply akin to the gasp! horror! at comparisons of prestigious literature that re-purposes specific characters and events from other sources to fanfic. And the way in which the responses are mostly akin, IMO, is that in nearly all cases, they use vague scorn in the place of substantive argument. The argument is usually phrased along the lines of "how dare!!! your silly A/B/O slash fic isn't literature blahblahblah."
Both arguments (basically the same argument) rely on a) using very specific subtypes of meta/fic that the speaker obviously holds in contempt to stand in for the entirety of the broader genre (e.g., just going with AO3, ~146,000 of its over 10 million works are tagged with A/B/O, while less than half are m/m slash). The point isn't that the genres used are actually representative; rather, they're used to provoke disdain or disgust in place of some kind of coherent criteria for literary criticism/literature that could consistently distinguish fanworks from prestigious works or genres.
I actually agree that some commonly-cited works are not really fanfic (especially religious texts written by adherents of the religion in question), and if you've followed me for awhile, you probably know I have a lot of issues with a ton of popular fandom meta and fanon takes. At the same time, the idea of a hard line between (say) meta and literary criticism in terms of approach or quality just seems kind of absurd to me.
Let's be real, if you're in literary criticism, you know that some of it is really bad, and if you're in fandom, you've probably encountered very insightful meta at some points. There's a lack of quality control as with fanfic, sure, but that doesn't mean that meta is intrinsically inferior or fundamentally different from all forms of literary criticism, just that a higher proportion is likely to have problems that would often (though not always) be caught through peer review. At the same time, it allows people (including literary critics) to reach others without the problems of the journal system (inaccessibility/paywalls, glacial turn-around, etc).
So there are differences on the gatekeeping front, sure. And there are different conventions and certain theoretical approaches that tend to be treated as gospel more often in fandom than in some areas of lit-crit (fandom meta tends strongly towards anti-intentionalism, for instance). I'm not saying that formal literary criticism and fandom meta are customarily identical in style or perspective, but that they are fundamentally related. At the end of the day, they are sustained interpretations of stories, whether they're particularly good ones or not, and the distinction is more of a spectrum than a line anyway. I don't think fanwriters are wrong or mistakenly defensive in seeing a connection there when there so obviously is one.
Additionally, the argument-by-cultural-disdain (in addition to being just generally poor argumentation) is often extremely presentist. It's grounded in contemporary assumptions about the nature of literature, interpretation, and originality, for both meta and fanfic, that are wildly ahistorical when applied to things like early modern English drama. And people who use that argument tend to also be completely uncritical about the modernity of their assumptions, so there's that, too.
Usually, the argument seems to be "and don't mention Shakespeare, that's different" without any evidence or argument for why, beyond sometimes, again, falling back on vague contempt ("so you're saying fanfic is equivalent to Shakespeare now?"). Like, why should originality be a defining quality of literature for some things but not others? Deflecting onto the question of quality doesn't answer that.
(It especially doesn't when you consider that early modern "quality control" for works in English typically involved patronage from aristocrats or being one yourself, and the ability to navigate heavy state censorship—which I assume the "fanfic is not literature, somehow all early modern storytelling of any quality is tho" people are not advocating for.)
Now, I don't personally think Shakespeare et al. wrote fanfic, but for me, it's not a matter of quality but of the fandom context. Fanfic, in my view, intrinsically rises out of fandom, and though it can overlap (sometimes very heavily) with other kinds of derivative works in terms of tropes etc, it has to be part of a fandom's activity (not necessarily Western media fandom, but something recognizable as a fandom) to really "count" as fanfic. It also has to be intended as fiction, even if inspired by real life. Many of the usual examples don't satisfy those criteria for me, so I don't consider them fanfic.
These don't mean that fanfic can't ever qualify as literature, can't be analyzed in literary terms, whatever, but that a lot of other things don't qualify as fanfic. It's a stricter category. And that's my own definition—other people's may differ, though I think mine is pretty common (if often unspoke
#anghraine babbles#general fanwank#fanfiction#anghraine's meta#though this is more#anghraine rants#i actually wrote like four more paragraphs but decided that was probably enough. just maybe.#long post#ivory tower blogging
44 notes
·
View notes
Text
SAINT OF THE DAY (June 28)
Celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church on June 28, and by Eastern Catholics of the Byzantine tradition on August 23, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons was a second-century bishop and writer in present-day France.
He is best known for defending Christian orthodoxy, especially the reality of Christ’s human incarnation against the set of heresies known as Gnosticism.
Pope Benedict XVI spoke admiringly of St. Irenaeus in a 2007 general audience, recalling how this early Church Father “refuted the Gnostic dualism and pessimism, which debased corporeal realities.
He decisively claimed the original holiness of matter, of the body, of the flesh no less than of the spirit.
But his work went far beyond the confutation of heresy: in fact, one can say that he emerges as the first great Church theologian who created systematic theology; he himself speaks of the system of theology, that is, of the internal coherence of all faith.”
While some of St. Irenaeus’ most important writings have survived, the details of his life are not as well-preserved.
He was born in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, likely in the Aegean coastal city of Smyrna, probably around the year 140.
As a young man, he heard the preaching of the early bishop (and eventual martyr) Saint Polycarp, who had been personally instructed by the Apostle John.
Irenaeus eventually became a priest and served in the Church of Lyons (in the region of Gaul) during a difficult period in the late 170s.
During this time of state persecution and doctrinal controversy, Irenaeus was sent to Rome to provide Pope St. Eleutherius with a letter about the heretical movement known as Montanism.
After returning to Lyons, Irenaeus became the city’s second bishop, following the martyrdom of his predecessor Saint Pothinus.
In the course of his work as a pastor and evangelist, the second Bishop of Lyon came up against various heretical doctrines and movements, many of which sounded a common note in their insistence that the material world was evil and not part of God’s original plan.
The proponents of these ideas often claimed to be more deeply “enlightened” or “spiritual” than ordinary Christians, on account of their supposed secret knowledge (or “gnosis”).
Irenaeus recognized this movement, in all its forms, as a direct attack on the Catholic faith.
The Gnostics’ disdain for the physical world was irreconcilable with the Biblical doctrine of creation, which stated that God had made all things according to his good purpose.
Gnostics, by contrast, saw the material world as the work of an evil power, crediting God only with the creation of a higher and purely spiritual realm.
In keeping with its false view of creation, Gnosticism also distorted the concept of redemption.
The Church knew Christ as the savior of the world: redeeming believers’ bodies and souls, and investing creation with a sacramental holiness.
Gnostics, meanwhile, saw Jesus merely as saving souls from the physical world in which they were trapped.
Gnostic “redemption” was not liberation from sin but a supposed promise of release from the material world.
Irenaeus refuted the Gnostic errors in his lengthy book “Against Heresies,” which is still studied today for its historical value and theological insights.
A shorter work, the “Proof of the Apostolic Preaching,” contains Irenaeus’ presentation of the Gospel message, with a focus on Jesus Christ’s fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.
Several of his other works are now lost, though a collection of fragments from them has been compiled and translated.
St. Irenaeus’ earthly life ended around 202 – possibly through martyrdom, though this is not definitively known.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Comments: thoughts, types, how-tos, and etiquette (part 3 of 4)
This is better read sequentially, but you can skip to any section. They are as numbered:
1) The basics
2) Thoughts on comment culture
3) Types of comments
4) Writing cohesive and coherent comments
5) Etiquette
6) Technical questions
7) Short-answer questions
8) Long-answer questions
Part 1: Sections 1 and 2.
Part 2: Sections 3 and 4.
Part 3: Sections 5 and 6 (you are here).
Part 4: Sections 7 and 8.
♥ 5: Etiquette ♥
Guidelines on polite, healthy interaction for readers and writers. Contains takes from personal experience, and examples based on reality, but not real comments from actual fics.
5.1 General dos and don’ts of commenting
DO:
Show your appreciation: go wild on this one.
Share your analysis, thoughts, and theories: writing is a lonely activity. Most authors want someone to discuss their ideas and are more than happy when readers do it. Also, if you find subtext they deliberately put there, it’s the best feeling ever.
Engage in fruitful discussions with other readers: reader-reader interaction, if positive and respectful, might grant you friends, insights, or entertain you for a moment.
Give concrit when asked/proper: if an author welcomes and encourages it, they’ll be delighted someone took their time for a deep analysis of their work.
Ask questions when invited/proper: some authors post Q&As, or will share extra info/behind the scenes about their fic. If you don’t get into personal territory, you’re fine.
DON’T:
Ask personal and/or creepy questions: creepy is never fine, and revealing very personal info online is never safe.
Expose the author’s identity: not only some people don’t mix fandom and real life, others live in countries where writing LGBTQ+ works is illegal. It’s also a dick move that got people fired in the 2000s. There are lots of reasons not to do it.
Pick fights with other readers: even if someone commented a horrible take, or is causing trouble in the comment section, the author likely has the power to make them stop or delete/block them altogether. Don’t feed the troll.
Demand updates: you don’t know what they’re going through. Be patient.
Promote your fics: there are better and more respectful ways to self-promo.
Post spam or malicious links: just don’t.
Post hate: JUST DON’T.
Post unsolicited requests/prompts: it’s not as offensive as hate, but ask first.
5.2 General dos and don’ts of replying to comments on your fic
DO:
Thank readers for comments: to keep the ball rolling.
Reply to their questions/statements when proper: if you feel like replying, and it doesn’t bother you, then, go ahead.
Participate if there is a healthy reader-reader discussion: whatever they’re talking about, it’s a public conversation. You can join if you want, it’s your fic.
DON’T:
Be rude without a second thought and/or warning: if someone was initially polite, reciprocate it. Give up on civility if it doesn’t solve the problem.
Feed the troll: learn to spot when someone just wants to cause chaos for the hell of it. They want attention and to stress you out. Ignore, delete, block, report.
Leave malicious links, spam, and personal information up in the comment section: it could be dangerous. Delete it as soon as possible.
5.3 How to read the room to leave concrit
Contrary to current fandom culture, there was a time when concrit, even unsolicited, wasn’t so frowned upon. People who were in fandom in the 1990s and 2000s probably remember. Not only did the authors not think much of concrit, they argued back, and it was just another Tuesday. It’s not better or worse, it was another time with another mindset.
As said in subsection 2.1, social media, algorithms, and internet sanitization for ads happened. As people are less exposed to upsetting and/or disturbing content, or just things they don’t like, they relaxed a lot and aren’t ready to deal with it when it appears. It’s similar to excessive antibiotic usage, creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The average internet user today has content curated and sanitized for them, creating online bubbles and echo chambers. When something they don’t like shows up, they might outrage. Algorithms don’t care about healthy interactions; they want lots of interaction, and nothing generates more uproar than being mad at something or someone.
While I think algorithmic curation and internet sanitization are inherently bad, the internet back in the day was a bit of a wasteland. It had bright sides, like not getting blasted with ads everywhere, people were more tech-savvy because computers were harder to use than smartphones, and others. However, if you were a victim of online harassment and stalking, not even the police were too prepared, because some cases had no legal precedents.
Concerning fandom culture, odds are, if you give unsolicited concrit in 2022, the author won’t be too happy about it. It’s not how we do it nowadays. Is concrit dead? Should you refrain from concrit at all just due to the author possibly being upset? I don’t think so. It just has to be done differently.
There’s no easy solution to this, but here’s how:
How’s the site culture when it comes to concrit? It depends heavily on where you post. Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity are forum-style websites where criticism is expected and encouraged. FFN is a mixed bag: since moderation isn’t present, troll behavior runs rampant, and criticism/concrit pop up more often. Also, FFN calls comments “reviews”, which might be positive or negative. AO3 isn’t big on concrit, and unsolicited concrit is usually met with an angry response. From the little time I kept up with Wattpad, it’s the same as on AO3.
Can you spot anything on the author’s notes/profile that says it’s okay or not okay? If the author is especially welcoming or upset by concrit, they might have a statement about it. If you are a ficwriter, I highly recommend you put up a statement like that.
Is there any concrit already in the comments? If so, how did the author react to it? You can draw conclusions from there, and decide how to proceed.
How close are you to the author? Are you new to their work? Or do you comment regularly? Do you have friendly exchanges with them? How do they feel about concrit? It determines if you’d be treated as an entitled newcomer, or a well-meaning, helpful reader.
5.4 Dealing with receiving concrit (solicited or not)
Concrit is usually well-meaning. A reader wouldn’t spend time and effort to give concrit to a fic they don’t care about. Also, they are probably trying to help by giving you possible solutions. Unsolicited concrit might be insensitive, though. Fanfiction is a hobby (people do it to relax and don’t try too hard to write well) and good concrit isn’t just praise (it mentions parts that could use more work, which could hit a nerve).
Before you reply to concrit, consider:
How polite was the commenter? Concrit might be “impolite” in some contexts, but the reader might be unaware of them. They also might’ve phrased it all with consideration.
How’s the site culture when it comes to concrit? Some sites like Sufficient Velocity and Spacebattles have a “criticism culture”. Others, like AO3, are on the “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” side. You should also be aware of the context.
Do you have a statement on concrit on your notes/profile? If they searched for one, didn’t find it, and still gave concrit, that’s on them. However, it’s the internet, you cannot expect everyone to behave. A statement covers you in “don’t make me tap the sign” cases.
Have you ever seen this commenter before? Perhaps they feel like a recurring reader, more familiar than a new one, so they could feel more at ease to speak their mind.
Are you going to accept the concrit and apply it to the fic? If you reflect upon it and conclude “they’re right, I’ll improve on X aspect”, there’s no reason to be on guard.
And here are a few options, with examples:
Replying thankfully: here, you thank the reader for their opinion, say you agree, and you’re going to do as they suggest. In case you’re not going to follow their advice, you can try to explain why, and what you’re doing instead. If you like their feedback style, you could try to get their contact info for further beta reading or just to bounce ideas back and forth.
“Hi! Thanks for the input. I agree with [all/most of] what you think, and will consider focusing on those aspects [to edit the fic/in the following chapters/in fics yet to come]. [If you won’t follow a specific piece of advice, explain your reasoning if you want.] [If you like how they approach fiction writing, ask if you can stay in touch.]”
Replying to decline and request they don’t do it anymore: in this situation, you probably didn’t want or expect that comment. Be polite, but firm. You have your limits (you can and should), and readers should respect them or face consequences, i.e., being blocked.
“Hi! Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, I’m not accepting concrit as of now. [If you want to explain why, like your fic being just stress relief, you can.] While I understand you want to help, that’s not my preferred style of feedback to receive. You’re still welcome as a reader, though.”
Ignoring: you don’t have to engage with readers, well-meaning or not.
Deleting: always valid, whether you reply or not, if you don’t want it on your fic.
Blocking: always valid, whether you reply or not. Useful when a reader doesn’t take the hint, or if you find their tone ambiguous between trying to help/wanting the fic their way.
5.5 Dealing with receiving pure criticism
It can be tricky. Some might think it’s for the author’s improvement (aka think it’s concrit, it’s not), or some weird mentality of “developing a thick skin”. Some want to exercise their right to free speech, some want to develop critical thinking skills. Every writer deals with criticism differently. I’m no one to say you should/shouldn’t be offended. That’s up to you.
However, consider:
How polite was the commenter? Posting pure criticism might be “impolite” by default in some contexts, but the reader might be unaware of them. They could’ve phrased their opinion, even a negative one, with consideration and care.
How’s the site culture when it comes to pure criticism? Some sites like Sufficient Velocity and Spacebattles have a “criticism culture”. Others, like AO3, are on the “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” side. You should also be aware of the context.
Have you ever seen this commenter before? Perhaps they feel like a recurring reader, more familiar than a new one, so they could feel more at ease to speak their mind.
Are you going to accept the criticism and apply it to the fic? If you reflect upon it and conclude “they’re right, I’ll improve on X aspect”, there’s no reason to be on guard.
And here are a few options, with examples:
Replying thankfully: thank the reader for their opinion, say you agree and are going to do as they suggest. If you disagree with their take, you can try to explain your reasoning.
“Hi! Thanks for the input. I agree with [all/most of] what you think, and will consider focusing on those aspects [to edit the fic/in the following chapters/in fics yet to come]. [If you disagree with something, explain your reasoning if you want.]”
Replying to decline and request they don’t do it anymore: you probably didn’t want or expect that comment. Be polite, but firm. You have your limits (you can and should), and readers should respect them or face consequences, like being blocked.
“Hi! Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, I’m not accepting criticism as of now. [If you want to explain why, like your fic being just stress relief, you can.] You’re allowed to have your opinion, and still welcome as a reader, but my fic is personal space and creation. Please, respect that from now on.”
Ignoring: don’t engage, they have no power over you.
Deleting: always valid, whether you reply or not. Recommended for rude comments. They have no power over you.
Blocking: always valid, whether you reply or not. Recommended for rude comments and persistent/creepy ones. They have no power over you.
5.6 Dealing with hate/harassment, demanding updates, and others
These are not worthy of your time, patience, or politeness. Stand up for yourself.
Replying jokingly: banter with them, stop engaging, they have no power over you.
“Poor thing doesn’t have anything better to do, lol. Get a life.”
Replying seriously: if the person sounds especially unhinged, ill-intentioned, and/or toxic, give them a warning or suggest unironically that they seek professional help.
“I will not tolerate any further harassment. [Genuinely, you sound like you’re in a bad place in life, or having a horrible day. Please, take care. That doesn’t mean you can speak to me, or people online, any way you want.] Stop before I get serious about it.”
Ignoring: they have no power over you, leave it as a symbol of “I don’t care”.
Deleting: always valid, whether you reply or not, if you don’t want to see it.
Blocking: always valid, whether you reply or not, especially persistent haters.
5.7 Dealing with receiving requests/prompts (solicited or not)
Some requesters feel entitled, and some don’t know fandom etiquette. In other cases, like when you’re open to prompts and/or in a Kink Meme, you might get desired requests. In a third situation, you usually don’t take requests, but got an excellent one you want to write.
Here are ways to deal with it all:
Accepting the request: you can ask further questions to get the prompt right, state you’re going to fill it, or just send a link for the fic/paste the fic in a reply. If you have a deadline in mind, you can tell them, and try to follow through.
Ignoring the request: always a valid solution with unsolicited requests.
Declining the request, no explanations: “sorry, I do not take requests”, or “I will not write this prompt, thanks for the suggestion” will suffice.
Declining, stating why you declined: “I’ll be busy for a while, can’t write this, sorry”, or “I’m not confident with [trope], maybe ask another writer? Thanks, tho” will suffice.
Deleting: always valid, with unsolicited requests.
Blocking: always valid with unsolicited requests, especially persistent/creepy ones.
♥ 6: Technical questions ♥
AKA “can you do X on that website?”. The information is accurate as by the posting date, but it isn’t a comprehensive guide for all websites ever, or all comment functions ever.
6.1 Can you delete comments that are already on your fic?
AO3: YES. At any time, from any user or any guest.
FFN: DEPENDS. You can delete guest comments, but not comments from accounts.
Wattpad: YES. At any time.
6.2 Can you block someone from commenting?
AO3: YES. You can block a registered user from commenting on all your fics. You can also turn off guest comments; each fic has its individual settings, though.
FFN: NO.
Wattpad: YES, with the mute function. They won’t be able to comment on your fics anymore, and all comments from them (left pre-mute or not) on all fics site-wide will disappear for you, among other things.
6.3 Can you moderate to accept/decline comments?
AO3: YES. Each fic has its individual settings, though.
FFN and Wattpad: NO.
6.4 Can you turn off comments entirely?
AO3: YES. Each fic has its individual settings, though.
FFN: NO.
Wattpad: DEPENDS. You can disable inline comments, but not regular ones.
6.5 How do I get notified of a new comment or reply?
You get emails about comments/replies on all three sites. You can also turn on/off email notifications in all three; however, on Wattpad, you can only do that via the web version.
AO3: the comments will be in your inbox.
FFN: the comments will be in the fic review section. The mobile app doesn’t notify you.
Wattpad: the comments will be in the Notifications Feed. The mobile app notifies you.
6.6 How do I format the text of a comment with bold, italics, etc.?
This function is AO3-exclusive. You cannot do it on FFN and Wattpad.
Below, there is a table for text-formatting HTML. AO3 uses limited HTML, meaning: if you know HTML, not all things work everywhere on the website.
If you don’t, here’s a quick explanation. Tags like will open new formatting, and tags like (with the slash) will close it. Anything between and will be formatted. Read more on A Complete Guide to Limited HTML.
Bold: bold or bold
Italics: italics or italics
Underlined: underlined or underlined
Strike-through: strike-through or strike-through or strike-through
Subscript text:subscriptSuperscript text:superscript
Bigger text: big
Smaller text: small
6.7 I’m writing a somewhat long and intricate comment, and I don’t want to lose it before I send it. What could I do?
Just so you know, the text boxes to leave comments do not autosave your text. If the browser crashes/PC freezes/page refreshes, you’ll most likely lose what you wrote.
These are also backup tips. AO3 always reminds you, but so will I: keep a copy of your stuff. Even more than one copy. It can never be said enough. Some options are:
Write each paragraph in a text message to a group with just yourself, or a friend’s inbox on FB Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.;
Write the comment in a text app, like Google Keep, JotterPad, Notes, etc.;
Write it on Google Docs or Word (if you have Office 365), it autosaves;
Write it in an email to yourself. Some email services autosave the draft, like Gmail;
Write it by hand, type it when you get the chance.
Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 4 are waiting for you.
#archive of our own#ao3#fanfiction.net#ffn#wattpad#fanfiction#fanfiction tips#fandom etiquette#feedback#comments#comment culture#psyluna.txt
28 notes
·
View notes
Text
semi-coherent 7.2 thoughts roundup/screenshot dump/’fuck this was fun, look at my boy!!!!!’ (short of the dailies because I had to dart off to work, so that’s a later in the week event for me) below the cut (and in a wacky order because ????? lmao what’s chronology fuck it we ball (in what order can i find my screenshots)
(I love reading everyone’s reviews, it feels like comparing notes xD)
honest to goodness think there’s some real competition for most satisfying kill option here. i deadass almost thought they weren’t going to give me the utter pleasure and i was going to be SO pissed, tyr was NOT takin’ more shit. my friend could confirm i was ready to jump this option the second it popped up, lmao.
genuinely some of my favorite cutscene action in a hot minute. not just because i got to watch my favorite bestest boy kick ass, take names, and maybe get his ass kicked a bit in return along the way (yeah, I’m predictable, sue me), but because it was genuinely some fuckin cinematics. showdown on ruhnuk for sure! genuinely impressed with the amount of action condensed into this patch’s cutscenes.
the atmosphere of the arena. hundreds, maybe thousands of mandalorians preparing to watch shae and heta duke it out. watching shae with bated breath. someone mentioned prequels-level epicness in their post and i wholeheartedly agree. this felt like watching an epic star wars showdown unfold, complete with heroic star wars action music, lol.
felt incredibly indulgently good to go scouting with shae. assess, infiltrate, eliminate, damn it’s almost like we’re back in intelligence for a change (tyr relishes it almost as much as shae relishes the hunt).
i’m also incredibly interested in their borderline opposition over objectives.
just when he’s maybe getting somewhere in de-escalating the situation, shae gets impatient and they both lose whatever they were hoping to gain. shae gets snappy, tyr understandably doesn’t quite appreciate it, but they move on. he respects her authority on dealing with heta, but he isn’t excited about losing leads on the bigger picture issue - especially on one that’s probably cost him a few good nights of sleep like malgus, lmao.
sir ur eyes are very pretty nd i love u anyway
i was incredibly interested in the amount of path decisions to be made along the way. heta mentions a round-up of your methods which i was all for.
dot.exe has encountered an error. tyr, thankfully, doesn’t share my “issue” for powerful women xD. he’s happily married, thank you.
overall? i honestly feel SO FED. very seen, lmao. this was a LOT of fun to play through. glad to see everything sort of tying together by sa’har and ri’kan being here, makes its introduction feel a bit less jarring. i’m here for the ~vibes of something bigger playing out for these characters, pushing them together, putting them in opposition. no new big reveals about the whys or the hows, perhaps, but i feel like the insights into these other characters was worth it. and, again, the absolute cinematics of it all was REALLY damn good. ruhnuk looks beautiful, there was a lot more to it than i had been expecting, i am so far a big fan of the ui changes and map update that was VERY nice.
runs back to the front of the line my other characters, i’ll be looking forward to going through this ride all over again, lol.
and also maybe i just missed my boy a lot. i will always be happy to have a reason to see my boy. xD
this was also fucking golden i fucking love this as a running thing i fucking LOVE that rass was SO DAMN EXCITED and also that the shuttle crashes are a running gag and tyr and shae were both equally (un)amused i literally just. i loved this. this was great for me, lol.
glad to not have another patch of endless alliance meetings summarizing information, basically, too. i can’t entirely blame shae for wanting away from all the mandalore clan running, can i? xD
also shoutout to the very real fear i felt for a good five minutes that they’d given us torian and akavvi back only for me to IMMEDIATELY fuck that up with comm silence don’t FUCK WITH ME LIKE THAT that’s my BOY (it was, in fact, fine in the end, but HOOOO). i don’t trust them to not let me pull something like that, okay, that seemed completely possible at the time. but they didn’t. so it’s okay.
#dot talk#swtor spoilers#swtor 7.2#swtor showdown on ruhnuk#ch: tyr#literally always down to watch tyr be a trainwreck tbh i love him#also rass was golden i love him i'm so glad#i love bonus missions that are literally just 'talk to ur gov (bioware) assigned friends for this mission :)'#i think i can chew on this patch for tyr thoughts for a good while *nod nod*
11 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
afrontporchkindoflove
Im Talkin’ You&Me W/Same Street/Last Name
msladyme1
MsLadyMessentials
journeyofsam
Galérer autour du monde
elksun
take it easy
lunlumo
whatever i'm into these days