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cellarspider · 2 months

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7/?? germs.

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We return to a movie that disrespects the archaeological importance of roads, Prometheus.

I am still not over that. I will never be over that.

This time, content warnings for continuing frat boy archaeology, cringeful application of racist terms to lily-white androids, me screeching about site contamination some more, and Apollo’s dodgeball striking this movie with a glancing blow about masking.

So, back in the theater in 2012, I had already lost sympathy for the cast. They were being set up as stock horror movie characters, they were doing their jobs in a way with a certain flair for the incompetent.

And one of them, I suspect, the movie intends to make into a “flawed but you feel for him” kind of guy. Or, I hope they intended to make him “the guy in the slasher movie who you hate and want to see die”. That’s Holloway, one of the two archaeologists. He’s robot racist.

Like, seriously robot racist. The whole crew is, David literally gets referred to as “boy” here, which isn’t so much a dogwhistle as a tornado siren. No wonder David is quietly starting to show his disdain for the human crew.

“They're making you guys pretty close [to human now], huh?”

“Not too close, I hope.”

One of the few themes the movie handles halfway competently is the parallel between the humans stumbling all over themselves as they rush to go meet their makers, while David is already experiencing the disappointment of actually meeting his, and finding out they’re a bunch of clueless assholes. Are we supposed to believe the same of the Engineers? I don’t know. They definitely think of humans as lesser, though. More to come on that later.

Because right now, an expedition is barrelling toward the alien structure–again, driving all over the FCKING ALIEN ROAD–and they’re doing it with only six hours of daylight left, because Holloway literally says “It's Christmas [...] and I want to open my presents.”

I cannot communicate how heinous this character felt. The actor did a perfectly fine job playing him, but if Charlie Holloway was real, his name would be said with the same venom as that of the man pictured below: Heinrich Schliemann, the man who found the real, actual city of Troy, and immediately dynamited a trench through the royal palace, destroying who knows how many artifacts from the period the Iliad was based off of. Yes, I picked out the most assholish-looking photo of him I could find on purpose.

Also, Holloway’s an anti-masker, apparently.

I’m going to step back for just one second and list the one practical, movie budget reason why characters might take their helmets off. The costume designers did an admirable job coming up with something that fits the general requirement of a helmet in major studio releases, prior to The Mandalorian: make the actor’s faces completely visible, because without actors with a strong sense of physical presence and voice acting, you’ll lose connection with the audience.

They did a great job with that. Unfortunately, shiny helmets are a bastard to digitally edit film crew out of.

It’s not impossible to place lights and crew so that the audience won’t notice them. Alien certainly pulled it off. Clear plastic elements in helmets also mean other logistical challenges, though: fogging being the main one. This, and cooking your actors in a fishbowl under studio lights.

Both problems can be simultaneously combated by installing A/C fans within the helmets, but because these helmets are entirely clear, you’re limited to hiding them down near the neck, and anybody who’s done similar for a cosplay or suit will know that it’s potentially noisy and not always effective. You can actually see condensate on the helmets in the movie, though whether that’s from the actor’s breath or a deliberate choice, I don’t know.

All this adds up to increased time resetting actors (i.e. cleaning sweat off of them without disrupting their makeup), more exhaustion from said actors, and the worry that the highest-paid, plot-critical actors may decide they don’t want to do a sequel if the shooting experience is too physically unhealthy.

And then there’s also more time spent carefully arranging crew and lights to hide their reflections, or more time making some poor VFX artist erase a transparent, curved reflection from frame and replace it with something else, or make the actors more comfortable by adding the glass in later with CGI, at the potential loss of some realism. The average modern movie studio would choose one of these VFX-driven options and demand it done in a week, which is why VFX artists need to unionize.

So. I understand at least a few logistical reasons why you don’t tend to make actors wear helmets for too many shooting days. But it has to be balanced with the story. It has to feel believable. It has to fit the story. It has to not make your characters look like mud-witted morons.

As soon as they find liquid water and the oh-so-deadly CO2 levels start to drop, Holloway takes his helmet off.

“Don't be an idiot.”

“Don't be a skeptic.”

Flames on the side of my goddamn face.

Now, this is the moment a lot of people lost sympathy for the human characters, even back in 2012. It was a dumbass idea even then, in the pre-’rona years. Sadly, Millburn the biologist isn’t written smart enough to punch Holloway in the nuts over even thinking of doing this, because we have two problems with what Holloway’s doing here: Biology, and biology.

First, biology.

(https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/13-viruses-virus-3d-model/1071200)

Obviously, they don’t know if anything’s in the air. He could find out that humans are deathly allergic to alien dust mites. He could have just caught himself a case of space covid, which he and the lemmings that follow him can then transmit to the entire crew if he’s not kept in quarantine. They can sterilize the sealed suits, but they can’t sterilize the inside of his lungs. Yet.

Second, biology.

Specifically, Earth biology. Do you know how carefully modern space agencies sterilize anything that’s headed for Mars, or anywhere else that might have a biosphere of its own? A lot! They sterilize everything a lot! Because microbes are hardy little bastards. We’ve never found extraterrestrial life, only precursor molecules that show the capacity for life to develop in other places. How are you going to verify you’ve found alien life, or even those precursors, if you can’t prove that your samples are uncontaminated? What happens if microbes from Earth manage to survive the trip and establish a foothold somewhere? What if they destroy native life?

This movie’s characters treat this with only a fraction of the gravitas that the cinematography does, which is part of why this remains so jarring throughout. The practical sets, the art direction, and the camerawork are all excellent. The editing continues to do its best, though it almost feels like things were cut very tight through this to speed things along and to give more time, unfortunately, to what the characters are doing.

their crimes against my sanity are not done yet

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As a side note, rounding up some discussion from a previous entry: The most excellent artist @noordzee pointed out that the clashing artistic style of the moon and stars slapped onto the carving of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I. In the previous post, I focused on the link between that carving and its use in ancient aliens conspiracy theories. But let's dig a bit into actual Maya iconography around celestial bodies instead.

Now, I am not an expert on Classical Maya stuff. Not in the slightest. And there is a lot of information on their art that is linguistically inaccessible to me, as a non-Spanish speaker. But out of the Maya art and writing that survived the book-burning conquistadors, we have some iconography for the moon and stars, and they don’t look like what’s in the movie.

I wasn’t able to find any specific pieces of art that contained stars, but I did find the glyph for star, ek’.

I was only able to find depictions of a crescent moon in the context of the moon goddess, where she tends to be sitting on the crescent like a chair, or one part of it is shown behind her, almost like a tail (though I can’t be certain whether that’s due to chipped paint).

The moon by itself was somewhat harder to find. I couldn’t find any Maya depictions of it with my limited poking around of the spanish internet, but I did find a (much later) Mixtec depiction of the moon, complete with a lunar rabbit! Much like East Asian cultures, the darker markings on the moon are culturally interpreted as a rabbit shape.

Thanks again to nordzee for pointing out the dissonant art style, because the real mesoamerican art on this subject is phenomenal.

Next time, the movie will hurt me more, so if anybody else has fun facts to share or details to point out. PLEASE. Ease my pain.

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Alt text citations:

None this time. Many ramblings, though.

#prometheus 2012 #prometheus (2012)#I work in a place where quite a lot of people have to put on clean room suits to go to work #their rooms are behind airlock doors #and that's just to make sure outside germs don't get in #to keep things clean #we don't even have the REALLY scary containment rooms that a few biological laboratories have #I'll ramble more about the logistics of that later #when the movie gets around to breaking laboratory safety standards as well

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puppyvenom · 6 months

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crutchie - akb vs matthew duckett !!!!

alternatively titled - cast disabled people jesus christ

listen i am having so many thoughts and feelings about crutchie and at the risk of annoying the fuck out of my partner i am putting them on here instead!

prefacing this by saying:

i do not speak for all cripples

matthew’s duckett was my first real introduction to crutch and yes i am probably biased because of it (because matthew was an absolute sweetie when i met him)

i do not actually hate AKB as much as i dislike his crutchie

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i think the main problem i have with his crutchie (and i understand that it is not entirely his fault at all!!!!) is that it’s so sanitised in so many ways. it is so of its time and not really in a good way, it came about in a period where representation wasn’t a big focus and i very much understand that, but i also hate it.

it’s so easy for disabled characters to fall into this weird ,sanitised, almost infantilising position, where their struggles are shown (abuse from the delanceys that was directly because of his disability, the fact he’s more likely to be put in the refuge because he’s seen as ‘weak’), but they’re bound by this kind of happy-go-lucky persona where they don’t show any real anger or upset. it’s fuelled by the abled need to see disabled characters as some sort of inspiration porn. “he’s crippled but look how happy he is despite that!!!!!! if he can do it i can too!!” he has this air of innocence and can-do-no-wrong that kinda falls a little flat compared to all his friends of the same age, and whilst this wouldn’t be a problem in itself, it fits a repeating pattern of the innocent, docile physically disabled person that is shown so much.

i loved matthew’s crutchie so much because he was so much more than that. he was happy, he was kind and an big laugh, but he didn’t shy away from being truly angry or scared (in the finale when he is brought back and cuffs snyder) and he was still a bit of a dick, he felt a lot more like he truly belonged. one of my favourite examples is at the start of the show the first time we see katherine, he helps one of the boys (i can’t remember which one) steal something from darcy and keeps it on him through the rest of the show. he’s as playful and annoying as the rest of them, shooting paper balls at them with his slingshot (especially during the finale, i love him so much for that). he has an attitude. he has the energy of a boy who was raised on the streets and knows what the fuck is what.

and thats what i think changes him the most for me. it’s all the same script (?) but it’s all so different when you think about how smart crutch actually is. i think the biggest change is my idea of him specifically when he’s being so nice to weasel at the beginning, when all the boys are being annoying and dicks, crutchie is so sweet. i don’t believe he’s doing that because he’s just such a nice guy who can look past weisel and the delancey’s being assholes to them, i think he realised quickly how to play the game. he’s gonna get sympathy, he knows that, and he knows if he acts all innocent and is overly kind, that they’ll somewhat pity him and he can use that to his advantage.

i hate being pitied by most people, i hate being looked at differently, like i’m almost helpless. but i also know how to use it to help myself, i know when i can play the poor little cripple card to my advantage. and i fully believe crutch does the same.

edited to add because i forgot to add this entire section in sorry!!

when i say sanitised i also mean literally. as in they made him cleaner. specifically in the finale again when he’s brought back from the refuge, broadway crutch looks way too clean. he’s a little bashed up but he’s not dirty. he doesn’t look like he’s been battered and then subjected to awful conditions. it takes away the impact of his time at the refuge. when he got back in the uk production they actively were disgusted by how much he smelled, because he’d just got out of a place where he couldn’t look after himself for a multitude of reasons. he suffered in there, mentally and physically, and in more ways than one. he was not given nice clean clothes and a pat on the back, he was taken out and put right back into the mess without much time to check himself over, without any time to process or heal.

i just think it has a much bigger impact when you can see, from his actual appearance and the other guys’ reactions, how much he actually struggled in there. they were glad to have him back of course, but it really drove home the point of how badly it affected him.

and once again in that scene, you could see the fear on his face and the anger when he faced snyder and when he made a move at him. he was fucking scared of the man that had subjected him to all of that. even when he was being a little goofy and put on the hat to handcuff him, there was still that fear, and there was evidence to why.

(end of edit)

but like i said, i don’t think it is entirely akb’s fault or his intention, he almost definitely wasn’t aware of the way it came off and how it perpetuates stereotypes. but it’s just another reason why giving disabled roles to disabled people is so important. plus we know how to use mobility aids properly

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shoutout to my beloved partner who proof reads my shit and also is the reason i am into newsies . thank u babie @fizzloves-blog <3

#sludge speaks #newsies #disability #newsies broadway #crutchie #crutchie morris #andrew keenan bolger #matthew duckett #livesies #uksies #disabled characters #mike crippleposts

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majorbaby · 1 year

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The minute I cut that rope they made me a soldier. MASH Season 11, Episode 6 — Bombshells

I used to post practically every week about s11e06 Bombshells because it's my favourite BJ episode and the one I find most fascinating, because BJ seems to frequently think that it's BJ against the world, and Bombshells is a rare example where I think this is narratively true. At last, here are my lengthy but decently articulated thoughts about this Very Special Episode (to me!).

BJ has this "lone wolf" view of himself because he either imagines he has nothing in common with the people around him and therefore it's hard for him to relate to them, or he actually has a hard time relating.

Aside from Potter, who is hardly his peer, and Frank who is The Worst and also leaves two seasons into BJ's run, BJ is the only main cast member who has a wife and/or child waiting for him at home. He's in a different stage of his life than anyone else, and he lashes out at Hawkeye and Margaret at different points claiming specifically that they can't possibly understand what he's going through by being in Korea, away from his family. But for a few differences in their personalities, their world views, and I suspect their class backgrounds (though the latter two are open to interpretation), Trapper might be the character whose civilian life and role on the home front most closely resembled BJ's, and they should kiss about that tbh.

Relatability is important to BJ. We see that through the tension created when he feels his friends 'can't relate' to what he's going through to the point that he gets upset if they try to tell him they understand how he feels. We also see this through how he bonds to people from similar walks of life, for example, the patient in Death Takes a Holiday. Some of this is just normal human behaviour. It makes sense that BJ would relate better to people who share the same values as him, and a wife and children are symbols of those values. Of course, that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't connect with people who have different lifestyles with us. BJ obviously does do that, although he doesn't stop wanting relatability and that can make things rocky for everyone involved. What I'm trying to say is, BJ isn't as alone as he seems to feel he is. In fact, it's kind of funny how not-alone he is, sharing a tiny tent with Charles and Hawkeye, which naturally causes tension between the three of them. And the fact that he relies very heavily on Hawkeye's support throughout the show.

But in Bombshells, he's really, properly alone. Early in the episode, he'd been giddy to get away from the camp and everyone in it to spend a day by himself, fishing peacefully. Then the most harrowing thing to ever happen to him onscreen happens, and Hawkeye isn't there, as he so often is, to shoulder it with him. All BJ has is a total stranger who gives him an impossible task that goes against pretty well everything BJ believes in, to a fault. A doctor forced to cause someone's death - imo, I think this moment is equally as traumatizing for BJ as Hawkeye's moment on the bus in Goodbye, Farewell and Amen. BJ, who couldn't get on board with Hawkeye's plan to do a medically unnecessarily surgery in Preventative Medicine — even if it meant they had a chance to prevent the further injury or deaths of dozens of patients — is forced to cut a man's life line. It's a devastating moment and I have a lot of sympathy for him.

I know BJ well enough at this point that I don't expect him to voluntarily reach out to anyone for help, but interestingly, his isolation is even mirrored by the B-plot. We get an unusual Hawkeye-Charles team-up, where they run a scam reminiscent of the ones Hawkeye and Trapper used to pull, duping the whole camp for funsies. It's not just that normally HawkBeej are the unit to Charles' lone-wolf, it's that Charles and BJ's roles are reversed here even in the tone the plots take: CharlesHawk are doing something frivolous together, while BJ pursues a serious plot - now it's possible my memory may be failing me, but I can't think of another episode that replicates this formula. One specific example of these plots playing off one another as the A/B plots regularly do on MASH: BJ makes a phone call to try to figure out if the man whose line he cut might've survived, while Hawkeye and Charles make a phone call to see if they can contact Marilyn Monroe, the star of their scam.

In typical BJ fashion, when Potter tries to ask if everything's okay, BJ pulls away and acts like everything is fine, but this time it's because he has a plan and he wants to see it through on his own, rather than just sit by himself feeling powerless. He even tells Potter he'd like to try another fishing trip — trying to catch the one he'd cut loose the day before. He does all of this on his own checking beds, asks around, flings open the doors of the ambulance trying to see who's inside — but the fact that these scenes are interspersed with the B-plot, this would make an interesting montage, which is the thought that inspired the gifset I made. It matters less to me why he's doing it and more that it's a rare instance of him doing it on his own.

If he thinks that's because no one can help him, the episode doesn't really argue with his assumption. Hawkeye can tell that something is off, but despite his efforts, BJ keeps himself out of reach. I do not like the position the narrative takes at the end, when BJ tells Hawkeye that they, as surgeons think they're "self-righteous" and better for thumbing their noses at the estabilshment - I think that's a pretty dishonest way to characterize everyone at the 4077th including BJ and an straight example of MASH's unfortunately centrist leanings in the later years.

But despite my problems with that messaging, I still like this episode for it being about BJ and his resolve, detached from those around him and detached from the other big part of the BJ character - his family. All the other big BJ episodes - Period of Adjustment, War Correspondent, Death Takes a Holiday - feature his personal relationships in a big way that drives the plot. Bombshells is an episode that promotes BJ to protagonist, demoting other characters who might otherwise play a role in the drama.

This is most striking to me when even Hawkeye is unable to reach BJ and plays no role in the resolution of the A-plot. He sympathizes with BJ and tries to comfort him with "Well you didn't have a lot of options" - that may be compassion from Hawkeye, but I think it probably sounds dismissive to BJ, and that puts them in an odd role-reversal: BJ in crisis, and everything Hawkeye says is cold comfort to him. Finally, Hawkeye resigns himself to the feeling that he can't help BJ with this and so he leaves when Margaret comes to get him.

I'm not especially fond of the way BJ resolves the plot by giving away his medal and is then shown to be somewhat at peace with that, not because I fault BJ for it, but because I take issue with the broader practice and so does the show on many an occasion. What's important to me is that BJ also does that completely on his own — tie-up the plot.

I could probably go on about how much I disagree with the messaging of this episode, how much I detest the show taking a shot at it's own formerly anti-establishment beat and how that actually does the BJ character a disservice, but I'm not going to here because it's not as important to me as the unique format of this episode.

Bomshells is no s04e19 Hawkeye, but I really appreciate having so much textual stuff to chew on for BJ, rather than having me sit here and try to interpret the inconsistent writing that the writers admitted to for BJ, or Mike Farrell's acting directions. You could say this about a lot of characters, but BJ really deserved to be given the opportunity to stand on his own two feet more often.

#bj hunnicutt #mash #m*a*s*h #re: mash #beej meta #s11e06 bombshells #maybe now i can finally chill tf out about this damn episode #probably not tho <3 #majorbaby.gif #had to get my nod to MY beejtrap leanings in there 8D

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blackautmedia · 5 months

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Have you seen the owl house? If so, do you think it has good representation?

I have seen it, yeah! I enjoyed it too. As for its rep, I think it depends on what kind of rep you're looking for.

From a disability standpoint I think it's fine. I know a some people relate to Eda and later Lilith for how their curse reads more like a chronic disability and there's also the unintentional neuroexpansive portrayal of Luz.

It also manages to avoid a lot of the issues that generally come with treating curses like a form of disability that a lot of other media does. I'm a big fan of the episode where Eda's mother visits has to unlearn her ableism to be a better parent.

I think where it could be improved is in how it utilizes race with its characters. It's not a secret that the main villain is a cream cheese colonizing crusader and the Boiling Isles has several forms of white supremacist violence like:

It being a police state

branding the citizens with law, deception, and force to be killed with the coven sigils, a practice done to several real groups of oppressed people. Obviously not with magic tattoos, but I feel any work that centers heavily around its villain branding oppressed people to denote their status in society should be extremely cautious with how it handles a very real thing.

the control over the education system and information

the breakup of community and enforcing of individualism

declaring the cultural practices of the people native to the land impure and wicked

the colonization, etc.

So while the series focuses a great deal on taking out said cream cheese colonizing crusader, it frames his white supremacy in a way that assumes nearly every single white person complicit in that was "tricked" and immediately understands upon learning properly because Belos was this crafty manipulator who fooled everyone.

ToH imo is at its best when it gets Luz or others to challenge and dismantle the institutions around them and most of its greatest episodes I feel come from its strong cast when it doesn't have to orbit them around white characters. Luz, Camila, Gus, Willow, Eda, Raine, and Darius for example all solo everyone and are great. King is fun.

Luz in particular is really such a great protagonist that I feel strengthens a lot of the show and makes up for the aspects I didn't care for as much.

I don't really like the discourse around or even the term "redemption arc" because I don't feel it drives at the right questions, so it's not an issue of if I feel these characters deserve to be forgiven or not, but moreso how the Owl House provides a white fantasy in how white people can picture themselves as being alleviated of their white guilt and welcomed with largely open arms from non-white people because of it. My question is more "who is the intended audience?"

To give an example using a different show, one of my favorite Moon Girl episodes is the one where Lunella is belittled at school by a white girl because of her textured hair. They don't go on to give the white girl a backstory, they don't show her parental background or even give her a name. The focus is on Lunella dealing with desirability politics, texturism, and getting support from her friends and family to embrace her hair as it is.

It's not to say I hate the white cast or think they have nothing of value to offer. It's not lost on me that Hunter for instance is an abuse victim and a lot of people can identify with that struggle and him having to unlearn that behavior.

But at the same time the show goes back and forth on trying to do that and also having him wield state power. I'm not all that cool with him institutionalizing a bunch of girls and non-white kids, not listening when they say he's hurting them, then only coming around because he felt more sympathy for their animal companions, which ends up happening far more often in real situations than it should.

A lot of the Owl House when looked at that lens may have a lot of non-white characters in it, but they can sometimes feel like trophies for its white cast after they've been taught better. They do a great job of depicting numerous facets of colonial violence portrayed in an easily accessible way to younger viewers.

But it also feels ultimately in service of centering the rehabilitation of its white cast.

So I think "what audience is this intended for" is an important question to ask when evaluating representation in a work.

#owl house #toh spoilers #luz noceda #darius deamonne #toh darius #luz and camila solo everyone #moon girl and devil dinosaur #moongirl lunella #lunella lafayette #tw: racism #normalize calling Belos a cream cheese colonizing crusader

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wordsandrobots · 3 months

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So the problem with my brain's capacity to plan stories is that it doesn't know when to stop.

Because here I am, 6000 words into writing the final part of Wishing on Space Hardware, which is essentially a superfluous coda to make up the numbers and tie off a few loose emotional strands from the main plot, and of course I'm already thinking about the other Iron-Blooded Orphans stories I'd like to write. Indeed, some of them I have already started, because of course I have.

Now, to be fair, most of those ideas are slash. Smutty slash too. Did you know writing sex scenes triggers the same 'choreography goes brr' synapses as writing fight scenes? I didn't until a couple of years ago and now here we are, with at least two collections of explicit short stories in the offing.

First up is Sympathy and Other Mistakes, which I would already call done if not for the inexplicable urge to add more chapters to it. This is the one that I previously mentioned goes well to Great Night by NEEDTOBREATHE and is for the . . . let's call it 'crack-ship taken seriously' that I'm still not sure I want to publish anything for. I'm fairly nonplussed by moral-purity hand-wringing over age gaps and so forth, and firmly of the belief that getting laid is the least problematic thing anyone in Tekkadan has ever done, but it's a pairing that essentially requires the entirety of Wishing on Space Hardware to have happened to work. So, about a decade of character development beyond the show, which probably narrows the audience past the initial 'wait, what' filter. Thing is, it's an interesting pairing that I think actually works incredibly well with established canon. A thoroughly unromantic thing that swerves from dubcon to somewhere that's honestly kind of sweet, rooted in a search for redemption both characters know is ultimately hopeless. So . . . yeah. We'll see.

Second is the one I suspect would be most popular, You, Me and Everyone Else, which is the logical extension of deciding Shino and Yamagi are poly i.e., how much of the rest of the cast can I ship them with?

Technically, I suppose the bit I've written most of already isn't actually that premise at all but rather them unlocking the most blindingly obvious kinks imaginable. Still, it's fun and should be interesting when placed alongside the other ideas I've got planned. To whit:

Yamagi/Shino/Eugene/Sri (OC) -- The poly relationship I've been building throughout WoSH, in a situation I can't discuss yet

Yamagi/Chad/Shino -- Because I'm curious if I can make that work. If you've been following along so far, you'll have noted the emotional heft in the Yamagi/Shino/Eugene relationship is skewed such that Shino/Eugene is more intense than Yamagi/Eugene. I kind of want to play with that in the other direction, by giving Yamagi a partner he's more strongly attracted to than Shino is. Also I want Chad to have nice things.

598/Yamagi/Shino -- Look. My perfect gremlin child managed to squeak out of that game in one piece and so I get to imagine him grown up and happy, OK? And by grown up I mean roughly barrel-shaped and capable of out-wrestling Shino, and by happy I mean slightly drunk and blurting out “You're really pretty" at Yamagi in the middle of swapping 'holy shit, you're not dead' stories. It'll be fine.

(Chapter titles are already themed: Fantasia for Chains, [REDACTED], Variation on a Theme, and Guest Soloist. Because yes.)

Beyond that, I suppose technically that idea of cadet!Cyclase trying to come on to young officer!McGillis is also slash but I don't believe it would actually go anywhere per se. More that McGillis would take one look at Cyclase and go 'not today, thank you', and Cyclase would get to a point in the conversation and come to the realisation that killing McGillis wouldn't achieve much. I don't know. I'm intrigued by the idea of McGillis accidentally prompting Cyclase off the path of vengeance and on to the path of whatever-the-fuck he was trying to achieve in Urdr Hunt, and there is the challenge of actually writing the bastard's POV (I scrupulously avoided writing either McGillis or Orga's perspective in WoSH).

Oh, speaking of POVs, I was considering doing something with the Venus gang as the other side to Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure, but the idea's not really stuck past how the Urdr Hunt plot wound up going. Maybe if the theatrical presentation version gives me more food for thought? (I am crossing everything that they don't pull a diablous ex machina on us and kill anyone else; I already wrote 598 a cameo in the fic I'm posting at the moment, damnit.)

And then, well. Then there's the actual . . . calling it a sequel to WoSH would be a stretch. It's set another ten years on in the same version of events, but it's very much detached from WoSH's plot and would be my attempt to do a 'what if Akatsuki grew up and starred in a Gundam show' story. The short answer is that he's the most throw-himself-on-the-wire pacifist you could hope to meet and he's gone and got himself caught up in a big mess involving interplanetary medical testing, pirates, and the IBO equivalent of the Gundam Fight because mobile suit battles for sport and the Jupiter equivalent of Las Vegas feels like a fun setting to explore. He'd be a dutagonist alongside a female Gundam pilot who I know lots about but don't have a name for yet. And the story would also feature me performing an act of character necromancy so devilish, you'll probably curse me for it. Because I worked out how I could pull it off and now I think I've got to. Overall this would very much be a one-and-done thing. I'm thinking like Narrative is to Unicorn: a story technically following on and handling some of the same themes but with much punchier pacing and an entirely new cast. No idea when I'd get to it and I don't expect it'll have as much traction as WoSH on account of largely being OC-focused, but I think it could be fun.

OK. There we go. Those are the currently-percolating ideas. I will answer questions on them if you have any but this is mainly just me jotting them down in the hopes that if I just focus on these, I won't spontaneously generate more.

*laughs hysterically*

Yeah, we all know it doesn't work like that. But I tried, damnit!

#gundam iron blooded orphans #gundam ibo #tekketsu no orphans #g tekketsu #fanfic #fic ideas #I cannot promise I will write all this #thought let's face it the odds are very much in favour of it happening #who knows maybe I'll do a poll to see which I write first #but later #when I'm done with WoSH

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inkabelledesigns · 5 months

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Hey so have I ever told you guys about the most ridiculous thing to happen to me online as a teenager? Yeah I got trolled and harassed by the same guy for so many years that I lost count. And it was all because I told him you shouldn't steal people's Sonic fan character sprite sheets. Here's the story.

So as a teenager, I was really into those SSS Sprite Show videos. It was a genre of Sonic content on YouTube that consisted of Sonic and Shadow with Sonic Advance style sprites, and Silver with a Genesis styled sprite, over realistic photo backgrounds, using Speakonia voices to talk. The humor was often pretty terribly written. The three would often live together, Shadow would beat the crap out of Silver, Sonic was obsessed with the Sex and the City Franchise, Amy was constantly written to be a horrible, obsessive antagonist which sucked, and so many people would recolor Sonic Advance sprites to be their fan characters, which would slowly take over the show and lead to more wacky adventures, becoming more about them than the canon cast. Some were pretty basic recolors, others put a lot of effort in. And as I said, this was a genre, as in, multiple people made sprite series with this setup, all using the same voices and formula, and they all lived in the mansion with the SSS. They were baaaaaaad, but y'know, the kids were having fun, and I used to know a lot of people in this community. I even tried my hand at spriting and got actively told to quit by one of my former boyfriends so I couldn't be better at it than him. Yeah he was a peach. This is sarcasm, he was a dick and incredibly sexist towards me. Hell the amount of sexism I faced from guys in this community was kind of ridiculous. The stuff I went through just for being a girl on the internet in the 2010s was something else. If this part of the sprite community somehow still exists, I hope people have gotten better about that.

Anyway, it was incredibly common for fan character sprite sheets to cross over into each other's series, but not everyone consented to people using your sheets. So often, you'd email people your sheet, and only people who had permission would use it. That is, until some assholes leaked them. One of my friends had their sheet leaked and given to someone else who abused the use of it so much, and then there was all this stuff with emailing where some confident lil shit decided to flaunt that he had all these sheets he wasn't supposed to have. We never found definitive evidence as to who leaked them, but I feel confident that I know who it was. But the person flaunting it, I and this other person called him out. He was not only flaunting the sheets under a false name and using them in hisain account videos (often turning my friend's character into a bitch to make them look bad), but he was also making fake accounts to troll himself to generate sympathy and get people's attention off of it. And when we called him on this, he proceeded to harass us for the better part of a decade. Impersonating me on YouTube to say things I would never say in grammar I would never use, hell, he did that to a lot of people that would go on to call him out. He'd make entire videos on his main account telling us we were awful and to stop harassing him when we weren't, he was the one actively harassing us. The drama was real, and this continued to happen for YEARS after all of us stopped interacting with him, on YouTube, DeviantArt, it was bad, and it bugged me. I would be on vacation with my family, completely unplugged, and then come back to hundreds of messages gumming up my DA inbox from him under fake accounts.

But like, at a certain point you learn to block it out. Like as a teenager, I was worried people would think his impersonation was actually me, and some people did! But anyone who like, actually knew me wasn't fooled, and if you're willing to believe that sort of thing on sight without questioning it in the slightest, maybe you're not someone I need in my life or should care about the opinions of. It was a valuable lesson that not everyone is someone you need to hold in high regard. Be respectful, but also know that not everyone respects you, and their opinions don't need to hold as much weight for you emotionally as someone who does.

The last time I logged into my old DeviantArt, I had like ten messages from deactivated accounts telling me to go fuck myself, from this guy, still impersonating someone else, the same way he had for all that time. It'd gotten a little less frequent while I was still active, but my account has been dead for years. I couldn't believe it, I haven't used my DA since I was what, finishing college? And the messages were recent, it was kind of pathetic.

Like, we just wanted him to stop stealing shit, and there he was, having learned nothing. Consent matters, if you have not been given permission to use someone's character in your creative work, you ask first, and if they say no, you respect that no. You don't get someone to send you their materials, abuse those materials, and then harass people for telling you to knock it off. Yeah, I probably could have been nicer in the way I handled things, I regret that, but knowing what I know now? Regardless of how I behaved, this guy had some unacceptable behavior. And I hope wherever he is now, he's grown up a little. Like, if I really lived rent free in your head for that long, all because I told you not to be a butt to my friend, to respect their boundaries, maybe I'm not the villain in this scenario. Trying to control my actions and obsessing over the fact that I thought you were doing something ugly, when I was an absolute nobody that no one took seriously anyway, isn't nearly as productive as working on bettering yourself. Like genuinely, I hope he's doing better. I felt no sympathy in the moment these things happened, but I do feel a little bad for him now. I've been there, in a place where I cared too much about people's views of me, and it left me wrecked and trying to people please far more than was reasonable. I changed all of who I was in an effort to be liked, and it didn't do me any favors, just made me miserable. It took me so long to learn that hey, you're likable and loveable just by being you, you're not a bad person or failing at being human, you just hadn't found the right people yet. And now you've found people who are in fact great people, and you're gonna be okay. (Yes I went through a character arc and changed as a person for the better, I am far from exactly the same person that I was as a teenager, I've grown. But I'd like to think that some of why people want me around and value me as a friend is because of things I've had inside me all along, things that are core parts of my character. As I often say, maybe being Kat isn't such a bad thing to be after all. Self love and self improvement is a process folks.)

Anyway another community's struggles came up on my feed today, and it reminded me of this story, that's why I'm telling it. To anyone out there that's had to deal with a troll, well, I can't say all experiences are equal, and the internet has changed quite a bit since this happened to me. There are some troll experiences that you can't ignore that will turn into something serious and bad, but there are others that you can brush off, because those trolls don't matter. And there are some that are a complex mix of it all. It's often not worth it to interact with someone that attacks you in bad faith. What I can say is that if someone makes it their life mission to take you down, without really knowing you? Think long and hard about how much time you really want to dedicate to that. Not everyone is going to like you, some people are going to hate you with no real basis or reason for it sometimes. Some people are going to believe things about you that aren't true. The best thing you can do is put your best foot forward, be kind, be courteous, be a thoughtful person, and surround yourself with people who are also kind and thoughtful. Of course, have some self reflection. If someone says your behavior is hurtful, really think about it and analyze yourself, work on yourself, we can always improve. But know that you're not gonna please everyone, and that in and of itself is not a moral failing. It's what you choose to do about it that matters.

The bottom line is this: You can't control how anyone feels about you or behaves, all you can do is control your own actions and make smart choices.

#longpost #sonic sss show #harassment #sexism #sonic sprite community

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psychedex · 7 months

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Ah... I missed the post for day 7 of oc tober but that's ok! day 7 is personality! yet again I don't feel like drawing for this day but that's ok. Today I wanted to talk about ingram's personality, specifically his skewed morals

forgive me for not having much finished art oops

so in second chance lore, ingram is a demigod of hell! in this world, some humans are given a second chance at life by the god of heaven aldrich as angels, but sometimes they can corrupt and turn into demons based on their self image. ingram's job is to help these demons get back to being angels, and also to help carry out punishment for bad people.

despite having the reputation for being scary especially since he ate someone alive but whatever Ingram is actually very kind, shy, and has a very poor self image.

(art credit: beetleguts on instagram)

^ look at him. he's puppy.

he also loves goofing off and being a funnyman and bringing joy to other people's day :) but he's so occupied with the fear of rejection and being disliked that he has tricked himself into thinking he's a monster and he avoids everyone to the point where he exiled himself.

despite being very sweet and charming aside from his shy and awkward demeanor, he also holds zero empathy for people. not a bad thing, as one of the main themes of the story is that no empathy doesn't mean your bad. he has a lot of sympathy. but he will never understand people. which makes him feel alienated. (there's many reasons he doesn't understand people with autism being the number one but you know.)

his lack of empathy helps with his job because when it comes to most things, he tends to look at things objectively. he has an easy time punishing people like abusers or tyrants etc. he legit ate someone's dad cause he abused them. and some people think he's cruel for it. he thinks murder is ok. he believes that if it's justified, it should happen. a little cuckoo but it's ok I love my men silly

Some other facts about him are that he's super paranoid like deep in psychosis paranoid but he's not afraid of things like storms or monsters just people. a little quirky. yeah.

I'm a little too sick to go more indepth into his whole personality (thanks to whatever form of the cold I have), but he means a lot to me. I projected a lot of my internal feelings onto the second chance cast, and he matches up with most of my insecurities. I care him and I want to use him as a pillow.

#oc #original character #artists on tumblr #bweirdoctober #second chance #ingram #I wish I could write more but again my brain is fried cause I'm sick F #hope you enjoy tho #post will come for day 8 later today

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rughydrangea · 4 months

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After 81 glorious episodes, I have finished Jumong. I started it in July, pretty soon after it appeared on Viki (now please add more old long sageuks pretty please Viki!), and have been watching fairly steadily since then, mostly with my mum when we're in the same place (my dad at a certain point started watching with her but only managed to stay awake through episodes starting in the 60s, meaning he had no idea who half the characters were...). And I have some thoughts!

--I loved it! It didn't get me in the gut like a QSD or a SFD or even The Legend, but it really kept up my interest across 81 episodes, with a great mixture of action, intrigue, melodrama, and silliness (there was the intentional silliness like my man Mo Pal Mo, but also stuff like the oracle being struck by lightning when she tried to curse Jumong, which made me howl with laughter). I really wish we still got sagueks like this--long, deliberate, with no interest in being cool or youthful, give or take a backflip (though the fact that I now get to start Goryeo-Khitan War really does make me happy and excited).

--I started watching kdramas seriously in 2014. At that time, I was familiar with Song Il Gook--but only because I couldn't avoid endless gifs of him and his patriotically-named triplets. I vaguely understood that he had been a big-deal actor, but his main dramas were older and less accessible (and when he did Jang Yeong Shil in 2016 it wasn't available to stream legally anywhere), so I had never seen him in anything until this. And now... I would very much like for him to come back to dramas! He is honestly incredible here: so charismatic, so compelling to watch, SO handsome, and most importantly he really nails the incredibly long journey Jumong goes on, from callow loser to impetuous guy figuring it out to determined general to gravitas-laden king. Every step of the way I was with him, and though the show boasts a huge cast, he really was the reason for the season; the show isn't called Jumong for nothing. There are two episodes he isn't in when everyone thinks Jumong is dead, and it's like a punch to the viewer's gut as well, you just can't imagine this world without him in it! And did I mention that he's handsome?

--Speaking of handsome, shoutout to the 3-year time-jump around episode 50 when all of a sudden it seemed like all the men of the show had spent the weeks leading up to that growing out their hair and all their manes of glory were flowing in the breeze. Your efforts did not go unappreciated, gentlemen! (Also 2006 lace-front wigs are rough to watch in HD!)

--Speaking of compelling journeys, even though this was the Jumong show (literally!) Soseono also really went through it, and Han Hye Jin made every stage of her transformation from bold, overconfident young woman to burdened mother and queen believable and interesting. And these parallel journeys of the leads really do provide the emotional heart of the show: as they grow up and make difficult decisions and go down paths they never anticipated (particularly their marriages to different people), on the one hand they are fulfilling their dreams and destinies, but on the other they are basically guaranteeing that the beautiful time of their youth, when they were in love and saw a whole life together unfolding before them, could never be recaptured. Even when Soseono and Jumong finally marry, it is out of duty and obligation--not that there isn't a part of them that still loves the other, but that part has been entirely subordinated to the other projects that they dedicated their lives to. Soseono leaving does make sense (though Biryu's rebellion was so dumb that it made it impossible for me to have sympathy for him), but it was genuinely sad to see both her and Jumong realize that the thing they lost all those years ago could never be returned, not even by 15 years of marriage.

--And speaking of marriage... I feel really bad for Yesoya, a character who basically exists to abnegate herself and also give Jumong a baby. But I found their relationship weirdly fascinating (and though sageuks like Jumong have a reputation for being stodgy, I do want to highlight that both leads in this drama marry people they explicitly don't romantically love and almost immediately get pregnant. Sexuality exists in stodgy sageuks! (also Jumong got very frisky with those tavern girls after Haemosoo died)). By the end, when Yesoya comes back, Jumong looks at her with such warmth, it's as though feeling really really guilty ended up making him actually fall in love with her.

--Shout out to the casting director, Yuri really did look like he was Jumong's son.

--Imagine my surprise and delight that there is an honest-to-God gay couple in this 81-long episode sageuk from 2006 that is obvious, unambiguous, and deeply deeply sweet. Though my inability to makes heads or tails of Bae Soo Bin as an actor continues. I have seen him be very good (as he is here)! I have seen him be VERY bad. Where is the truth?????

I guess that's it for now. Come back to us, Song Il Gook!

#jumong #kdrama #my commentary #my year in review list is going to be late again because i spent all of my break watching jumong lol

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lyman-garfiel · 2 months

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Prohibited wish haters unite

i don't know who you are............but you're so right, hold on i have things to say on this i want to say my personal discomfort stems from my..bordering unhealthy attatchment to scarab as my f/o [as i type this the body pillow is LOOKING at me] hence why i don't and never really liked..interacting with the ship, but to each their own yaknow? if you like the pair i won't come at you. [and this still goes, pwish shipping mutuals i don't hate yall] ive just had people take my scarab yearning posts before tag it as "haha prismo coded" and its upset me before It was only when the the whole reveal in episode 10 with scarab to me shown stuck in the time room now that the ship got very saturated which i get, But the more attention drawn to the ship the more it drew in........a really bad crowd. a lot and i mean a LOT of proshippers. I want to say its died down now as i don't see much gross scarab content nowadays [then again i stick to tumblr.] but it really bothered me how scarab was treated. i enjoy prismo very much as a charecter i think he's a silly guy but he has not burrowed a nest into my skull like scarab has so i want to say i'm only qualified to talk about scarab in this regard. The community [i want to state casual shippers this is not you. this is very specific people] had a habit of ......putting scarab in compromising positions teetering on s/a [most of the time this was done using nightmo as prismo's "evil mode?"] and in a lot of comics and fics they water scarab down to this "NOT LIKE I LIKE YOU OR ANYTHING GRR" type of charecter..ignoring....evreything interesting about him. [i want to say good pwish fics likley exist..i just don't read them as for personal reasons the ship makes me uncomfortale.] also.....orbo got caught in the crossfire and he god DEMONIZED over a headcanon. [i like the headcanon but holy scales guys..chill on the ball dude a bit?] I think the ships main problem is it caught on so fast that it attracted some really bad crowds and since scarab is a very new charecter to the adventure time universe, any solo enjoyment of him was swept away in favor of shipping him with prismo.,,,,,,,speaking of prismo...so many artists in this community will WHITEWASH his ass also this....community has a problem with exposing nsfw content to minors. granted this is an issue ive only seen on twitter but in the begining of pwish getting popular i'd check the scarab tag like evrey few hours [yeah i....i love this man.] and withought FAIL i'd get what i dub "scarab pussy jumpscared" because artists would not know how to tag their porn. Eventually the pwish commuity came up with a seperate tag for their nsfw BUT THEY'D STILL TAG THE CHARECTER'S NAMES EXPOSING ANYONE LOOKING FOR JUST PRISMO OR JUST SCARAB CONTENT TO BUG VAGINA. its a lot more laxed here on tumblr ive noticed but hough was it BAAD on twitter. It just makes me sad scarab really lacks the attention he deserves, instead being cast aside to be ship fodder....... anyways before i end this LONG rant i would like to enter into the PERSONAL INTERPRETATION ZONE!!!

[disclaimer this is all my personal viewing of prismo ad scarab as charecters, if somebody reading this views them in a different way that is fine by me !!] Ok...so personally i don't...... see pwish working even if it did happen, i like the idea of them being exes and even qpps in the future [in...in lymanlore they become close friends i just don't like mentioning it in fear of my thoughts being taken as me shipping them when i DON'T scarab is married to lyman in this universe get out of my HEAD.] i just see these two ending up very bad for eachother with prismo being very depressed after jake's death i don't...think dating a man with no idea how to show sympathy as a rebound is healthy. scarab is his own bundle of issues and despite me being his husband i don't think kiss kiss will fix it </3 ALSO WHOEVER YOU ARE..WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU ARE ANON FEEL FREE TO DM ME ABOUT THIS I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MY DISDAIN FOR PWISH.

#i am.....SO SORRY FOR THIS RANT HOLY SHIT ITYPED A WHILE.#rant #TY FOR THE ASK IT MADE MY DAY!!

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appsa · 1 year

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um you don't have to answer, but what about Mindy Kaling do you not like?? I'm Indian myself and i watched a little of her show and something about her just felt Not Good but i couldn't figure it out? if you could put that to words that'd be cool if not, have a good day!

Well uh. I just wanna preface this saying i dont know anything abt mindy kaling. I never watched the office or whatever sitcom she came in first and like i only found out she existed like a yr or two ago when i watched some show she produced. Just going off vibes here alone but yeah i agree the vibes in her shows are just Bad. Theyre all about like... a brown girl being surrounded by hot white men who all want her, and all the other female characters around her come off as shallow and unimportant in comparison to her so they will never be competition for her in that regard. Which sounds like yeah whatever its just trashy television.

But like i feel the grossness of that attitude in her shows rly comes thru when she depicts other indians, especially other indian women. She immediately sets them up as a rival or whatever and its honestly a little embarrassing to watch. Her internalized racism comes thru so aggressively and lol idk if its because ive been around w a Certain Kind of diaspora indians and dealt w their bullshit before but i have zero sympathy anymore for the heartbreaking dilemma of indian americans who have so much internalized racism that they hate their relatives who visit from india and give them second hand embarrassment by being "too indian" and "too perfect" with family stuff in comparison to them. I simply do not care for the self hate that poor indian americans feel around us.

More on how she depicts indians, her right wing sympathies especially visible in never have i ever, but it gets brushed off because ppl outside india will miss it because its not as obvious if ur not in tune w indian politics. Theres so many little things like the main character being completely ignorant of knowing that most of indias population eating nonveg food (showing that shes only picturing uppercaste indians when she thinks of india), the immigrant sister being told that she'd be treated as an outcast in the community if she married someone who her parents didn't pick for her (basically she'd be miserable and never find community again if she doesnt marry a guy of the same caste same religion etc), and then her actually abandoning the guy she liked for the guy her parents chose for her, and the literal shout out to modi the main chatacter's mom does like. U get it. It paints a picture. And the show still gets praised for being progressive because it has a "diverse cast".

Honestly its not even surprising to me that it came out that her brother racefaked to get into college (or whatever he did. I never looked up the details and im not interested to either). Right wingers in india have been attacking affirmative action in india (reservation for depressed classes in institutions) for literal decades because they are losing seats they feel theyre entitled to, but they have no problem going abroad and using 'diversity' to their advantage. Idk if i put it in words right but thats the vibe.

Pls do not rb btw i dont want to start shit

#ask #idk dude! vibes are rancid!#theres a special subset of nri thats just. like that. i simply have no patience for them #im not getting into her racism towards black ppl in the shows btw cause i dont remember exact examples #but i remember it was there #mindy kaling needs to stop w these self insert shows where she complains with her stupid voice abt #how everyone is pressuring her to be politically correct #when she is cracking shameless jokes to make her white boy of the day laugh

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redgoldsparks · 2 years

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September Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Full reviews below the cut.

The Breakaways by Cathy G Johnson

Faith is a quiet fifth grader, prone to daydreaming and doodling. She is not very sporty, but she is talked into joining the middle-school girl's soccer team and falls into a web of friendships, grudges, crushes, and aspiring punk musicians. The book weaves together scenes of most of the team member's various struggles and experiments as they all try to get through life in the tumultuous junior high years. I wished the story had focused on a slightly smaller cast, as I felt like I only only got a little slip of story about each player, but what I did get I liked.

A Lady for Duke by Alexis Hall read by Kay Eluvian

Viola Caroll fought as a soldier in Waterloo; when she was left for dead on a battlefield, but nursed back to health by farmers, she decided to renounce her old life as a viscount and live as her true self, a woman. At the start of the story, only her younger bother and sister-in-law know the story of Viola's past. But a cry for help brings her back in contact with the Duke of Gracewood, her childhood best friend, bosom companion, and fellow Waterloo survivor. Viola had decided the best thing she could do was cut off her old friend and never reveal to him that she lived. But she finds him haunted by fears, addictions, and PTSD; left with a permanent limp and a terrible grief, he is barely surviving. She commits to caring for him temporarily, but when he begins to fall in love with her, Viola feels trapped between her own feelings and her fear of telling him the truth of their past. This historical romance is almost completely free of homophobia and transphobia; what ends up separating the characters for much of the story is not their genders or sexualities but their social class. The cast of the book is rounded out with a delightful set of quirky family members, from Gracewood's dreamy oddball of a teen sister to Viola's Mrs Bennett-like sister-in-law. I read so little romance, I don't even have a virtual shelf for it. I liked this one, but also thought it was at least 50 pages too long, and wished the pace had moved more quickly through some sections. The tone switched from humor to melancholy very abruptly sometimes mid-scene, and the final confrontation with the main villain was a bit ridiculous, but ultimately I did enjoy the book.

Crier's War by Nina Varela

Crier is an Automae, an AI being made by human creators at the order of her father, the Automae king of most of Zulla. She is beautiful, smart, stronger than a human, and close to invulnerable, but she is also very naïve and has seen little of the world. Ayla is a human girl who's whole family was killed by Automae; she is in touch with many rebels in the oppressed human population, but she is more interested in revenge than rebellion. She wants to kill Crier and make her father suffer as Ayla has suffered. But Ayla isn't prepared for the warm sympathy and understanding Crier will offer her- or the spark of attraction between them. This is a very fast read, and if you are looking for a quick, easy queer YA to kick you out of a reading slump this might hit the spot. Don't, however, spend too much time thinking about the plot or the worldbuilding because both are extremely sloppy and full of holes. There are a lot of first-book weaknesses here from flat character introductions to an overuse of flashbacks. But I do still want to know how the story ends and will probably read the second book of the duology to satisfy my curiosity!

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

I think this is my favorite Nghi Vo novel yet, which is saying a lot, because I loved all of the others as well! Set in pre-Code Hollywood, the Chinese-American protagonist falls in love with movies after a single black and white picture at a nickel theater in Hungarian Hill, Los Angeles, where she lives over her family's laundry. She stumbles into a movie set and ends up getting a single-line uncredited role by being in the right place at the right time. This only feeds her desire for stardom- which is literal in this story, where most Hollywood studios feed on magic, deals with devils, equinox sacrifices of innocents, and actors can ascent to the sky if they glow bright enough on the screen. This world is woven thorough with miracles and dangers, some which hunt Hollywood hopefuls with teeth and others with predatory contracts. Our main character looses her name but gains entry to the movie world, were she falls into an affair with another actress in the shadows of greats. I loved how deeply queer and Asian-American this story was; our lead finds solidarity and friendship with the few other closeted queer and POC actors on the studio lots who often have to hid their differences but still manage to find each other and hold each other up.

A Mirror Mended by Alix E Harrow read by Amy Landon

I accidentally read this book before its prequel because I didn't notice in the Libby app that it was part of a series! Oh well, it stood alone well enough. In the first book, the main character, Zinnia, discovered an ability to slip out of our real world (where she has a genetic condition which will probably kill her by her mid-twenties) into the alternate universes of fairytales. She has made a business of rescuing princesses from their own stories and helping them find truer happy endings. But when she is pulled through a mirror not by the needs of a protagonist but under the power of a wicked queen, Zinnia has to face some harsh realities. The evil queen claims she wants to leave her tale and live- which is exactly what Zinnia is doing, and it seems to be weakening the walls between universes. Also, Zinnia has been avoiding calling home for months, unwilling to face a conversation with her best friend and family about her health. Then she lands in the darkest and bloodiest story she's experienced yet- only to find she has allies in unexpected places. Very queer, very meta. I often avoid fairytale retellings but this one brought some nice originality to the genre.

The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson read by Angela Lin

I have never read any Sanderson, but this novella was recommended to me as a good stand-alone. It opens with magical forger, Shai, in prison in the bowels of the imperial palace. She was captured in the act of stealing and replacing several very valuable palace objects with magical replicas. Shai expects to face execution for her acts, but instead is offered a secret, dangerous, challenging task: to magically replicate the soul of the emperor who barely survived an assassination attempt. I liked the clever way magic worked in this world, but wasn't wowed by the prose or the larger political world of this story, so I am unlikely to pick up a full length Sanderson, especially given that they are SO LONG. But if anyone else wants to dip their toes into his world, I think this story is worth a try.

A Spindle Shattered by Alix E Harrow read by Amy Landon

After accidentally listening to the second book in this series, I went back for the first one. The story opens with Zinnia's 21st birthday, which she expects might be her last. She has a very rare chronic condition which has proven fatal to everyone who has it by their early 2os. Zinnia has grown up knowing her life will be shorter than most, and partly because of that fell hard for the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty- a story of a woman who fell into a death-life sleep but woke up to a second chance. When Zinnia's best friend throws her a Sleeping Beauty themed birthday party, Zinnia jokingly pricks her finger on the spindle... only to be sucked directly into a fairytale, in time to stop another young woman from pricking her finger on a spindle as well. Zinnia has no idea what's going on, but luckily she has a degree in folklore and also her cell phone still has service, so she's able to text her best friend at home. This premise could have come off as so hokey and silly, but Harrow gives it an unexpected emotional weight, and a queer happily every after at the end. I can see why it was Hugo nominated! I liked it a lot, and plan to read more from this author.

Thieves by Lucie Bryon

I love Lucie Bryon's art and I've been anticipating this book for years. Set in France, Ella is a high school senior with a snarky no-nonsense best friend and a crush on a somewhat mysterious fellow senior, Madeline. Ella only gets a chance to really talk to her crush at a party, but then she drinks to much and wakes up some how at home surrounded by a pile of stolen possessions. When Madeline shows up to check on Ella, and comments offhand that some of her stuff was stolen last night from her room, Ella realizes that she has accidentally drunkenly burgled the girl she most wants to kiss. What follows is a hilarious kind of re-verse heist in Ella (and also Madeline) attempt to return items to their former owners. Along the way they also have to figure out their feelings for each other, and how to communicate, and forgive each other's inevitable fuckups. A queer coming of age story after my own heart.

Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith

I had the pleasure of buying this book from one of the authors at SPX! A sweet story of the intertwined lives of four Black women, best friends, each navigating life, love, careers, hard conversations with family, and supporting each other through it all. Each chapter is focused around one character on wash day, and the theme of hair weaves through the whole book beautifully.

SpyxFamily vol 1 by Taksuya Endo

I've been hearing a lot about this manga, so I decided to give the series a try! In a fictional Europe, a spy named Twilight is tasked with infiltrating a very high end private elementary school. But to do so, he must acquire a fake wife and child to pose as a family man. The child he ends up adopting from an orphanage is physic, and the woman who ends up agreeing to his fake marriage ruse for her own reasons is an assassin. None of them tell each other their big secrets, but they are all so weird they don't really notice how weird the other two are. The set up is SO SILLY, but I am curious enough to try a few more volumes to see how it plays out. The art is fun!

Witch Hat Atelier vol 9 by Kamome Shirahama

Art-wise, this is one of my favorite manga series of all time. I also adore the main cast of little witch students and their teachers. However, the series has introduced so many side characters at this point that I'm having a hard time remembering who they all are and having any emotional investment in them from volume to volume. I wish the would stick a bit more closely to Coco and her education, because all of the fantasy politics might lose me.

Threshold by Anke Gladnic

This comic, loosely exploring identity, gender, and transition, moves from dreamy meditation to nightmare and back again. Beautifully drawn in soft greys and smoky blacks, it's more of a stream of consciousness than a story per say, but it leaves powerful lingering feelings of self-acceptance despite doubts and struggles.

Faster by Jesse Lonergan

Beautifully drawn, creatively laid out, and impeccably paced. This short comic follows a set of racers in an intense high-speed car race on a dangerous track. There are rivalries and friendships among the racers, some of whom are confident, some of whom just want to make it out of the race alive.

Die Horny by Rebecca Mock

Rebecca Mock described this comic as a love letter to horny 90s anime, and that influence very clearly shows! In a post-monster-based-apocalypse world, one human man, Iggy, and his gigantic monster queen wife, Wortizabella, just want to have a romantic honeymoon in the wastelands. But their trip is interrupted by a call for help from a boy who escaped a mining camp run by another monster. Iggy and Wortizabella investigate to find a human girl with superpowers being held captive for her ability to sense quartz crystals, which monsters consume for energy. To infiltrate the operation, Wortizabella pulls on her history as the more dangerous and violent monster warrior who has ever lived, and Iggy dons a leather bondage hood and begs to be stepped on. The line art is loose and full of lively energy, and the character designs are powerful and silly by turns. It's a delight to see such a talented cartoonist leaning fully into self-indulgence.

Nona The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Oh my gosh, what even to say about this book!! No spoilers, but if you enjoyed Gideon, then struggled with Harrow, I think it's very worth it to read Nona. It's told chronologically (like Gideon, unlike Harrow) and instead of being clouded with the unbearable grief and denial Harrow feels for her own actions and situation, this book is colored by a pure, child's joy at discovering the world for the first time. It's still a terrible world, a dangerous one, war-torn, full of refugees, paranoia, and death, but Nona finds so many small things to delight over. Petting dogs, making friends, being a teacher's assistant, swimming in the ocean, and the friends who look after her and taught her everything she knows in the six months she has been alive. This book didn't confuse me as much as Harrow, though I was left with many big questions about where the series is going at the end, I felt like the reveals were more evenly distributed throughout the story instead of all being stacked into the last 25%. This series is so weird, so convoluted, and mysterious, and I am having such a good time buddy-reading it along with a bunch of friends. I expressed this elsewhere, but I have not been so excited for the release of the middle volume of a series like this since the HP books were coming out. I preordered this book, a hardback, picked it up on release day, and read almost a 1/3 of it the same day it came out! I can't wait to see what's coming in the fourth book. I am so curious how Muir will land this skeleton-encrusted plane.

#books #reading #reading reviews #book reviews #comic reviews

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newtscamanderimagines · 1 year

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~STRESS BREAKDOWN~

This is an Eddie Redmayne X reader.

Summary: you are around 15 and got cast in fantastic beats as one of the main roles. You begin to get stressed and get doubtful feelings. Everything gets worse when you lose your bag. But there was just the person to comfort you <333

Please remember my requests are open to anything tyy!

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You didn’t know what suddenly hit you but you began to feel really bad about yourself for a while now but never actually got the time to feel properly because of how much stress you have been going over filming FB. You finally got 2 days off because they didn’t need you. You felt relieved that you could have some time to yourself. You went to look for your bag but you realize you have left it on set.

“I don’t want to gooo!”you say to yourself.

As much as you didn’t want to go, you went because who knows, someone might take it. You got an Uber to set and thanked the driver before stepping out and walking onto set. You tried, REALLY tried not to get noticed by the cast but Eddie saw you go to your temporary room. He didn’t want to follow you as this was meant to be your day off and the crew were thinking of bringing you in but he followed you.

It was a while since you have been in there. Meanwhile on the other side of the door, you were feeling useless. Nothing was going the way you wanted them to be you looked at yourself in the mirror now sweating and tears forming in your eyes. You were only a teenager what were you thinking of acting with well known people?! All of the negative feelings came crashing down at once. You just couldn’t handle it anymore. On the other side Eddie waited and waited. He began to get curious of what you could possibly be doing in there for that long. He knocked on the door swallowing a lump in his throat.

“Y/n?…it’s me, Eddie” he said through the door.

“Shit!” You say to yourself. You didn’t know that someone had followed you to your room.

“I know you in there. I’m giving your 5 seconds to get decent or finish whatever you’re doing because I’m coming in.”

“5……4…….3……2…..1….” The door creaked open and as it opened Eddie came in to see you in your most unpleasant form, crying.

“Hey, are you okay?” He asked gently closing the door behind him. He didn’t want to get too close because he didn’t know if you liked being comforted.

You sniffle hiding behind your hair trying to hide your red tear stained face from his gaze.

“It’s really stupid…” you say in a whisper. Wiping the tears away with your hands.

He came over to you and sat beside you with his hand on your knee to bring that feeling of ground. “Try me” he says with a chuckle as he looks down at you to find your eyes unsuccessfully.

“It’s just feelings that doubt me of everything that I do, acting, drawing, riding, the whole lot!” You sobbed again but this time leaned into Eddie’s shoulder who was giving you an open side hug.

“Hey, it’s okay….” He comforted and he held you tightly to newts blue coat.

“No- it’s not!” You cried. He felt horrible for you to have feelings like this. All he wanted was for all of this to be over and back to normal. He had kids of his own and you were the youngest there so he hated seeing you like this.

“Look at me now y/n.” He said softly but with a stern voice. You weren’t so used to hearing Eddie so bold but he couldn’t see your eyes, not now. You wiped your tears with the sleeve of the hoodie that you had on before gently tilting your head upwards to meet his eyes. He looked at you with a slight smile and sympathy before talking again.

“ don’t ever feel like your useless or a waste of space just because things don’t go the way you want them to go. There is always a reason for that and maybe this is the reason you forgot your bag. To have this talk.” He said one hand rising up to your shoulder as he rubbed it soothingly. Tears formed in your eyes as he looked at you in hope of a reply.

“Thank you Eddie. Honestly, thank you” you sniffled making the slightest smile with the remaining energy you had left. Relief flooded him as he saw you smiled even just a little. He knows he helped giving the feeling of pride.

“Okay now come here for a proper hug” he said as he held his arms wide open for you to hug him. You adored the scent that he was giving out. He smelt like cinnamon, vanilla and nature. The package. You could feel his styled curls tickling your nose as you attempted you scrunch it but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

“I must say, your hair, is very soft” you giggled pulling away from the hug and made eye contact with him.

“I find it so annoying! It’s always in my eyes!” He exclaimed and you laughed fixing his locks because you sure attacked them.

“Better?” You asked him now seeing his whole face.

“Very. I can see again!” he replied with his signature smile.

“ but y/n please, all jokes aside, don’t feel like this alone. I have a family of my own. 2 kids in fact. You remind me a lot of my daughter and I wouldn’t want her to be feeling like this”

You nodded with a smile. “I promise” you replied. He took his hands and placed them in your cheeks wiping the tear trails on your face. Before leaving to film.

Hope you enjoyed! I would love any feedback from you to make these better and more interesting to read! Requests are open!!!!!✨

#newt scamander #cuteness #fantastic beasts #comfort #harry potter #please notice me #crying #forypupage #love you for infinity #support small

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mrmallard · 6 months

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FF13 has six main characters in the party, and in my heart I think my favourite is Sazh. And a part of it is that Sazh seems to be the guy who gets left behind by the narrative the most.

I like all the cast - I'm defensive about Lightning and Hope because of the hate they got, and I thought that both of them had perfectly fine character arcs which got them to where they needed to go. Vanille is okay, probably damaged the most by the vocal director asking her English VA to emulate the Japanese VA's vocal intonation exactly, and while I don't remember Fang a whole lot, I remember the parts of the game where she's hanging out with Lightning and I honestly ship it pretty hard. Snow is a cool guy and he doesn't afraid of anything etc. - jokes aside, replaying the game, I really like Snow and I like how it's setting up his whole "hero" bluster to fail so he can develop and grow into the hero he naively shouts about being at the start of the game.

Sazh is cool because he's probably the oldest guy in the group, and his motivation is tied to his son and wanting to save him - the web of motivations across the board tends to get a bit tangled, but his whole deal is about his son. They make him a bit overly wacky, but I thought that he had some pretty cool interactions with Lightning and Vanille, and I like that compared to characters like Lightning and Snow - a talented but jaded military grunt and an overly optimistic hotheaded rebel leader, respectively - he's just a regular, down to earth, blue collar dude with a straightforward, personal goal that gets him tied up in the ensuing mess.

And like - while Lightning is a soldier and Snow is this like peacekeeper guy, Sazh is a pilot. He's a guy who loves his son and flies planes. I like down-to-earth characters like that. So yeah, while the more anime-adjacent characters get all strong and important and stuff, Sazh just kinda hangs out. He's definitely around, but in 13-2 he's basically just in a DLC and I read that he's doing his own thing in Lightning Returns.

The thing about Sazh - being a bit more sidelined than the rest of the crowd - is that he fits a mold that I tend to fall into pretty hard. Like when series 11 of Doctor Who aired, I found myself really rooting for Yasmin Khan; the other two companions were having their own played-out personal character arc, and she got the short end of the stick regarding characterisation. But also, because the other two companions were having their character arc with each other, Yaz was the primary companion who went off with The Doctor, and that kind of blossomed into its own thing.

And then when Ryan got shafted for series 12, I felt bad because his step-grandad was written as missing his nan more than he was, one of the episodes where he gets to shine and just be himself was arguably my least favourite episode of the revival series (not because of him, he was a bright spot - because the episode was predictable and bland exactly like how a low-effort Syfy original movie is) and his individual character arc - overcoming his dyspraxia - is ignored for most of the run, then suddenly reintroduced at the end of his run so it could culminate with him throwing something like a basketball. I have a lot of sympathy for Tosin Cole, who I thought was underutilized as an actor, and for the character of Ryan Sinclair for being an underutilized character. I love an underdog; Yaz got to rise above and Ryan got shafted.

And while I haven't played LR yet, Sazh gives me the same vibe. I'm pretty sure he only appears once in the main portion of 13-2 and then in a casino DLC, and I could be wrong but I think he's fairly well removed from the main conflict of Lightning Returns, at least compared to the main players in Lightning and Snow and stuff.

So yeah, as much as I already like him, I kinda have no choice but to stan considering the circumstances. Sazh Katzroy is great.

#final fantasy 13 #sazh katzroy #he loves his son and flies planes. absolute chad behavior

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princesseevee06 · 7 months

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would love to know more about ytr ranmaru!

absolutely! ranmaru is my fave sopping wet dog /j

i talked about him a liiiittle bit in that one kurumada post i did, so i’m just gonna briefly go over those points so everything is conveniently in one post

basically ranmaru’s parents are both detectives, and so ranmaru knows a lot about the business (as well as feeling pressured to take it up himself :,) ). kurumada becomes sort of like a mentor figure to him, but in their first trial together ranmaru ultimately snaps under the pressure and ends up getting kurumada killed so that he can survive

ironically, this guilt ends up primarily being what motivates his survival instinct (which is both a good and a bad thing 😭), because he feels like if he has to carry the weight of kurumada’s death bc he wanted to survive, he has to get out so that the whole thing wasn’t meaningless

in the beginning of the death game, he tries to take charge a lot because he has ~experience~ with crime, and ends up mostly working with ryoko and sara because they’re kind, reliable figures. he actually…doesn’t end up liking most of the other cast 😭 whether that be he finds them suspicious or just Straight Up doesn’t like them (i think the funniest example of this is him having one-sided beef with mishima for literally zero reason other than he just does not like the man)

actually, now that i think about it, he does get along with hinako. they have an annoying sibling dynamic where even if they don’t really talk to each other much if you put them in the same room they get each other’s vibes immediately. psychic connection

but of course the main relationship i focus on for him is with ryoko, as ranmaru is one of the major supporting chrs! :) ranmaru’s pretty quick to get back on his feet after the first main game (not that he isn’t affected by it, just trying to keep everyone going steady) and so he helps ryoko a lot in trying to recover. some of his most major moments are A. in the chap 2 subgame and B. in the second main game

in the subgame, ranmaru is trapped on the platform (i literally forgot what it’s called) with ryoko and maple. he’s actually the first person to jump on the idea that maple could be a doll (she’s the one who gets switched out in the room of lies. i thought it’d make sense both since maple takes reko’s role and cause it’s a little ode to her obstructor form in actual yttd x3), and tries to logically lead the conversation along while everyone else is freaking out (i SO need to make a post about the chap 2 subgame, it’s a complete mess 😭😭😭)

one of the most interesting bits of characterization i’ve come up with for him imo is on the route where the ai maple gets pushed into the spikes. like nao, ranmaru is the one who pushes her, but unlike nao’s reasoning behind it which was that she didn’t want sara to carry any more burdens, ranmaru remarks that he didn’t want ryoko to have any blood on her hands (even though, it’s technically not blood since she’s a doll…but you get the idea)

^ to add onto that, ranmaru does really care for ryoko as a friend but he feels like he can’t really fully open up to her bc he deems himself a murderer + is paranoid that if he gets found out everyone will try to vote him out. his constant secrecy ends up coming to bite him in the ass when kugie happens to buy kurumada’s victim video, though 😭 it gets brought up in the second main game and of course he has to come clean. he does garner some sympathy (mostly from ryoko and maple/hinako), but it also makes some ppl more suspicious of him as well (like kugie and shin).

SPEAKING OF the second main game hooooo boy is ranmaru a central figure of it. he gets completely screwed over and sent the sacrifice card due to gashu’s tampering, and this man FREAKS the hell out. he doesn’t wanna die, he’s only 16 and he hasn’t even done anything he can consider worthwhile yet (that and, if it’s true that every terrible thing he did was for nothing, maybe his guilt will finally catch up with him 😞)

sooooooo yeah massacre ending is with ryoko and ranmaru. it’s Bad. ranmaru convinces himself that he has to do this and that he has to Win and escape with ryoko, but even if they go thru with it it’s clear neither of them really wanted this outcome anyways. i think this note i made for myself sums it up pretty well:

ahhh, i hope this satisfies your curiosity about the maru!!!! i kind of turned him into a miserable figure in this au sorry ;-; i promise i love him, i just have to put my blorbos through the Horrors sometimes

#princesseevee answers #yttd #your turn ryoko #ranmaru kageyama #eevee let a character be happy for once challenge (FAILED)

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