This mf gave me an anxiety attack last night

Laios's three Boy Best Friends. And yes, they hate him.

It makes me so sad when fanfiction writers come to me for writing advice, and they say something along the lines of "I write fanfic (and I'm trying to get into real writing too)", "I'm a fanfiction writer and I plan to write original fiction someday but now is just not the right time for me", or "I'm not a real writer but I write fanfic"

babes you don't have to justify writing fanfiction to me. you also don't need to tell me your plans to eventually write original fiction to be worthy of asking for writing advice.

Writing original fiction is not inherently better than writing fanfiction. Writing fanfiction is real writing. If you want to write original fiction too, great! If writing fanfiction is all you want to do, that is wonderful as well.

Do what makes you happy and be proud in the knowledge that writing isn't easy, and you're actually doing it!

in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."

like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.

when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.

media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.

which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)

any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?

I have a lot of complicated feelings when it comes to what Neflix has done with the Witcher, but my probably least favourite is the line of argumentation that originated during shitstorms related to the first and second season that I was unlucky to witness.

It boils down to "Netflix's reinterpretation and vision is valid, because the Witcher books are not written to be slavic. The overwhelming Slavic aestetic is CDPR's interpretation, and the setting in the original books is universally European, as there are references to Arthurian mythos and celtic languages" And I'm not sure where this argument originated and whether it's parroting Sapkowski's own words or a common stance of people who haven't considered the underlying themes of the books series. Because while it's true that there are a lot of western european influences in the Witcher, it's still Central/Eastern European to the bone, and at its core, the lack of understanding of this topic is what makes the Netflix series inauthentic in my eyes.

The slavicness of the Witcher goes deeper than the aestetics, mannerisms, vodka and sour cucumbers. Deeper than Zoltan wrapping his sword with leopard pelt, like he was a hussar. Deeper than the Redanian queen Hedvig and her white eagle on the red field.

What Witcher is actually about? It's a story about destiny, sure. It's a sword-and-sorcery style, antiheroic deconstruction of a fairy tale, too, and it's a weird mix of many culture's influences.

But it's also a story about mundane evil and mundane good. If You think about most dark, gritty problems the world of Witcher faces, it's xenophobia and discrimination, insularism and superstition. Deep-seated fear of the unknown, the powerlessness of common people in the face of danger, war, poverty and hunger. It's what makes people spit over their left shoulder when they see a witcher, it's what makes them distrust their neighbor, clinging to anything they deem safe and known. It's their misfortune and pent-up anger that make them seek scapegoats and be mindlessly, mundanely cruel to the ones weaker than themselves.

There are of course evil wizards, complicated conspiracies and crowned heads, yes. But much of the destruction and depravity is rooted in everyday mundane cycle of violence and misery. The worst monsters in the series are not those killed with a silver sword, but with steel. it's hard to explain but it's the same sort of motiveless, mundane evil that still persist in our poorer regions, born out of generations-long poverty and misery. The behaviour of peasants in Witcher, and the distrust towards authority including kings and monarchs didn't come from nowhere.

On the other hand, among those same, desperately poor people, there is always someone who will share their meal with a traveller, who will risk their safety pulling a wounded stranger off the road into safety. Inconditional kindness among inconditional hate. Most of Geralt's friends try to be decent people in the horrible world. This sort of contrasting mentalities in the recently war-ridden world is intimately familiar to Eastern and Cetral Europe.

But it doesn't end here. Nilfgaard is also a uniquely Central/Eastern European threat. It's a combination of the Third Reich in its aestetics and its sense of superiority and the Stalinist USSR with its personality cult, vast territory and huge army, and as such it's instantly recognisable by anybody whose country was unlucky enough to be caught in-between those two forces. Nilfgaard implements total war and looks upon the northerners with contempt, conscripts the conquered people forcibly, denying them the right of their own identity. It may seem familiar and relevant to many opressed people, but it's in its essence the processing of the trauma of the WW2 and subsequent occupation.

My favourite case are the nonhumans, because their treatment is in a sense a reminder of our worst traits and the worst sins in our history - the regional antisemitism and/or xenophobia, violence, local pogroms. But at the very same time, the dilemma of Scoia'Tael, their impossible choice between maintaining their identity, a small semblance of freedom and their survival, them hiding in the forests, even the fact that they are generally deemed bandits, it all touches the very traumatic parts of specifically Polish history, such as January Uprising, Warsaw Uprising, Ghetto Uprising, the underground resistance in WW2 and the subsequent complicated problem of the Cursed Soldiers all at once. They are the 'other' to the general population, but their underlying struggle is also intimately known to us.

The slavic monsters are an aestetic choice, yes, but I think they are also a reflection of our local, private sins. These are our own, insular boogeymen, fears made flesh. They reproduce due to horrors of the war or they are an unprovoked misfortune that descends from nowhere and whose appearance amplifies the local injustices.

I'm not talking about many, many tiny references that exist in the books, these are just the most blatant examples that come to mind. Anyway, the thing is, whether Sapkowski has intended it or not, Witcher is slavic and it's Polish because it contains social commentary. Many aspects of its worldbuilding reflect our traumas and our national sins. It's not exclusively Polish in its influences and philosophical motifs of course, but it's obvious it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And it seems to me that the inherently Eastern European aspects of Witcher are what was immediately rewritten in the series. It seems to me that the subtler underlying conflicts were reshaped to be centered around servitude, class and gender disparity, and Nilfgaard is more of a fanatic terrorist state than an imposing, totalitarian empire. A lot of complexity seems to be abandoned in lieu of usual high-fantasy wordbuilding. It's especially weird to me because it was completely unnecessary. The Witcher books didn't need to be adjusted to speak about relevant problems - they already did it! The problem of acceptance and discrimination is a very prevalent theme throughout the story! They are many strong female characters too, and they are well written. Honestly I don't know if I should find it insulting towards their viewers that they thought it won't be understood as it was and has to be somehow reshaped to fit the american perpective, because the current problems are very much discussed in there and Sapkowski is not subtle in showing that genocide and discrimination is evil. Heck, anyone who has read the ending knows how tragic it makes the whole story.

It also seems quite disrespectful, because they've basically taken a well-established piece of our domestic literature and popular culture and decided that the social commentary in it is not relevant. It is as if all it referenced was just not important enough and they decided to use it as an opportunity to talk about the problems they consider important. And don't get me wrong, I'm not forcing anyone to write about Central European problems and traumas, I'm just confused that they've taken the piece of art already containing such a perspective on the popular and relevant problem and they just... disregarded it, because it wasn't their exact perspective on said problem.

And I think this homogenisation, maybe even from a certain point of view you could say it's worldview sanitisation is a problem, because it's really ironic, isn't it? To talk about inclusivity in a story which among other problems is about being different, and in the same time to get rid of motifs, themes and references because they are foreign? Because if something presents a different perspective it suddenly is less desirable?

There was a lot of talking about the showrunners travelling to Poland to understand the Witcher's slavic spirit and how to convey it. I don't think they really meant it beyond the most superficial, paper-thin facade.

Linda Flynn-Fletcher

I think Linda Flynn-Fletcher is potentially one of the most misunderstood characters in the show.

It think comes from a natural enough place. Her role in the show is of course, to act as the potential threat to their summers of fun. While they boys never see her as a threat, narratively she's the big bad. If she sees it, its game over.

Here's the thing though. She's a not a bad mom. Her children LOVE her. Similarly to how Phineas and Ferb absolutely adore Candace and would do nearly anything she asked, Phineas, Ferb and Candace all love and respect their mother and don't disobey her. Now a bit of this is clearly Linda being a more permissive parent, but any rules that Linda has Phineas and Ferb never do anything to disobey their mother. While I wouldn't be surprised if there were one or two instances where Candace disobeyed her mother willfully, the closest I can think off off hand is Candace not doing a bunch of chores that she was supposed to do. Really, the fact that all her kids love her, shows how much all her kids feel loved in their household. And I think that's super important. Candace wrote a song about how much she feels loved by her mom, even if her mom is dismissive of Candace. But she still goes with Candace to see what the boys are up to even if she doesn't believe it. She sets boundaries on how often Candace can bust the boys sure. But she hasn't forbidden Candace from doing it altogether. Nor does she punish Candace for presumably lying?

At MOST Linda will say something like: "let's get you out of the sun" after a failed bust. The worst of it I think is probably the time Linda made her promise not to try or suffer the Pharaohs curse. Which, was just some guy in a Pharaoh costume telling Candace curse you. Linda goes out of her way to read books to try and deal with her daughter. She and Candace still clearly hold a lot of affection for each other and do spend a decent amount of mother daughter time together. Linda gives books to her daughter, tries to direct her to other activities, and finds her sleep busting cute, and sometimes goes out of her way to do activities her daughter wants to do with her. All things considered Linda is REALLY patient about Candace's busting. Could she be doing more to get to the bottom of why Candace is presumably acting out? Sure. But Doofensmirtz could also be doing a better job of listening to his daughter and not insulting her (or do we not remember why Vanessa wears earbuds around the house) but we all call him a really good dad.

A LOT of shows have kids hiding a secret from a parent for one reason of another. But while the crux of the show rests on Linda not knowing what her sons are doing, its not because its a secret. The boys aren't hiding it from her. The boys genuinely believe she knows. Lawrence genuinely believes she knows. Candace is the only one in the family who really grasps the situation.

Linda's ignorance, her disbelief of the wild shenanigans that her children get into is easily mistakable for normality. For representing the oppressive day to day. The same thematic antagonist as school. A mom who wants whats best for her kids, and thinks that whats best for them is them being normal, without realizing what's really best for them. After all why else we saw what would happen if she found out in Quantum Boogaloo. But the fact of the matter is aside from that one future (which also featured an effectively evil leader in Doofensmirtz, and therefore implies more factors at play than just Doofensmirtz and Linda's characters), we don't really know how it would play out in the long term. Future Linda even just kinda moves on after discovering the truth.

Linda is exactly like her kids. She just does the same things on a less physics breaking scale. The woman has like 37 different hobbies. She takes a cooking class, donated an art sculpture, is part of a jazz group. She has a background in astrophysics. She was a pop star. She won a meatloaf contest. She takes french lessons. The fact that Linda has several hobbies is part of the reason the formula works at all. Linda is constantly trying new things which gets her out of the house, while her sons are trying their own new things. Her absence is what prompts Candace to have to go looking for her. Also, What Do It Do when the moment Linda gets put in Candace's position she acts the exact same way.

Also it's why she and Lawrence are so compatible. They have a lot of weird hobbies they spend together. She likes Lawrence's history references. They watch car racing together. They went spelunking together. They go bowling regularly enough to have equipment. She has played the bagpipes while Lawrence danced (which sidenote: do you think she taught Candace how to play the bagpipes?).

Not to mention her extended family. Think about it. Her mom was a competitive roller derby skater who once bit a skate and shook it like a dog with a chew toy and pulls elaborate pranks with her identical twin. Really she's a lot like Candace with her aggressive passion. Her dad apparently won a balloon race, but tells the story in the most straightforward way possible, sometimes very oblivious, but is overall a lot like Phineas. Her sister is an adrenaline junky. And back to Quantum Boogaloo for a minute: Her granddaughter is just like Candace, Grown up Candace is a lot like Linda. Do you not see the implications!!?!?!? LIKE???? DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT LINDA WAS PROBABLY A LOT LIKE CANDACE AND PHINEAS WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER?!!?! YOU THINK IT SKIPPED A GENERATION OR SOMETHING???

Do you think Linda used to complain about Tiana??? Do you think Linda thought her family was weird and was embarrassed by them??? Do you think Linda ever called herself the only mature/normal member of her family?? LIKE CANDACE DOES????

Anyway, Linda is just like her family. Sure, she is RELATIVELY more normal, but that's relative, and probably simply because the universe bends itself around to keep her from knowing. Linda literally cannot find out about the real nature of her universe. Linda is just a grown up version of her children, seeking to make the most of each day, but within the bounds the universe has set upon her, both as an adult woman and mother, but also in the laws of physics expected of her. But she still makes the most of her life. You don't have to build a roller coaster to make the most of each day and all that.

I think if Linda is representing anything its that even parents can have rich fulfilling lives. Where they make the most out of each day. Having fun with your life doesn't stop with adulthood. Even if you have more responsibilities doesn't mean you can't have fun? Sure childhood is something you can't get back but growing up isn't inherently bad either?

this has been on my mind recently...

I'm about to lose my fucking mind

not shipping something subtextual? alright whatever

not shipping it because a wildly popular INACCURATE fan theory says the characters are related? annoying.

not shipping it because you believe (falsely) that they're related + claiming there's no subtext when the crux of the series is the relationship? DIE.

Tried and failed to make a coherent post about this but the Granny Weatherwax moment that lives with me forever that I never see quoted is the “what has he ever done to me, that I should hurt him so”

to that anon I got about my last posts: if you're hurt that I'm talking about antisemitism on tumblr rather than the Israel/Palestine conflict itself then you're going to have to make your peace with a star wars blog not being an effective platform for activism.

This is the point I've been trying to hammer home perfectly illustrated. I deviated ever so slightly from what's allowed on the subject to say that I can't participate in this website's idea of 'raising awareness' (distributing real facts and misinfo alike without a care and being a bunch of fanatic Jew haters in the process) and that I don't think I'm able to critically and accurately examine every piece of news that gets passed around here, and you're taking this to assume I don't care. So no, I'm not going to spend my time trying to prove that I do care to that particular crowd.

You're upset with me for not treating this like I did fandom and assuming I value fictional characters more than real people because of it, but it's precisely because this is infinitely more important that I'm not going to be doing real people the disrespect of giving my two cents on their suffering and deaths on the same platform I did STAR WARS.

Don't Starve is the only game I know that somehow senses my HUBRIS.

I was 2 MINUTES AWAY FROM THE FINAL PORTAL IN THE FINAL LEVEL OF ADVENTURE MODE WITHOUT CHEATING OR ANYTHING. I had spent DAYS working to win the game, 2 MINUTES away from the end! I had Chester! I had a billion pierogies! I had two activated touchstones! I had it all, baby!!!!

I even bragged to my wife that the game was almost easy now!

Big mistake. The Hubris Sensing Technology (TM) of the World's Most Unforgiving Game sensed my complacency and the next thing I knew I was barraged by more Clockwork Bishops than I have ever seen in a single place in my hundreds and hundreds of hours playing this evil evil game!!!

I got through more killer bees than I'd ever seen, and a huge dense forest of 1,000 spiders! All that I could handle!!

But I have NO IDEA what I was supposed to do about a bottleneck that involved 60 ranged attacks hitting me within 5 seconds and stun-locking me to death. I have never been so Humbled by a game, and I've been playing this game for so long!

I have made this art piece to commemorate the occasion.

DISCLAIMER/CREDIT:

To make this, I cut out sprites from the game and from other official art by Klei Games, and then I added all the lighting effects and arranged it all together.

The only other thing I actually drew for this is Wigfrid's hand holding the torch.

Normally, I illustrate every element of a piece I do; but for this, I just wanted to quickly communicate the High-Pitched Silly Screaming Horror of running into this monstrosity in the "all-darkness" level of Adventure Mode!!

i know I've mentioned my interpretation of mizu's gender a million times on here but i don't think i ever fully elaborated on it.

so on that note i just wanna ramble about that for a bit. basically, it's my reading of the show that mizu is nonbinary, so let me dig into that.

putting the rest under the cut because it ended being pretty long lol. also here have a cute mizu pic of her being happy and most at ease with herself, symbolised by her letting her hair down. <3 ok let's proceed.

okay note that nonbinary is an umbrella term, and applies to a vast range of gender identities, but it's my personal preference to use it as is, simply because i'm not a fan of microlabels. more power to you if you are though, but anyway.

essentially when i refer to mizu as nonbinary it means that i interpret mizu as a woman, but not ONLY a woman. not strictly a woman. she is also a man. she is also neither of these things, she is something in between, while at the same time she is none of these at all. i've said as much many times, but i just don't want people to think that by nonbinary it inherently means a "third androgynous gender" that essentially turns the gender binary into a gender trinary. not only is that going against what the term nonbinary was crafted for (to go against rigid boxes and categorisation of gender identities), but also, not all nonbinary people fall under that category or definition, and that's definitely not the way i interpret mizu.

also, before anyone fights me on this, let me clarify further that gender means something different to everyone. it's not your biological sex or physical characteristics. but at the same time, gender is not mere presentation. you can be a trans woman and still present masculine—either because you're closeted and forced to, or because you just want to—and either way, that doesn't take away from your identity as a woman. same goes for trans men. if you're a trans man but you wear skirts and don't bind or don't get top surgery, that doesn't make you any less of a man. because gender non-conformity exists, and does not only apply to cis people! some lesbians are nonbinary and prefer using he/him pronouns while dressing masculinely, but that doesn't mean they're a man, or that they're any less of a lesbian. neither does this mean that they're a cis woman.

the thing about queer identities in general is that, like i said, they mean something different to everyone, because how you identify—regardless of your biological attributes and fashion or pronouns—is an extremely personal experience. so a nonbinary person and a gnc cis woman's experiences might have plenty of overlap, but what distinguishes between the two is up to the individual. there's no set requirements to distinguish you as one or the other, but it's up to you to decide what you identify as, based on what you feel. either way, by simply identifying yourself as anything under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, you are already communicating to the world that you are not what a conservative, cisheteronormative society wants you to be.

which is why i find all this queer infighting on labels to be so ridiculous. because we're all fighting the same fight; the common enemy is a societal structure that divides us into set roles and expectations purely based on our biological parts. that's why biological essentialism in the queer community is a fucking disease. because by arguing that women are inherently weak and fragile and soft and gentle and must be protected from evil ugly men, while men are inherently strong and angry and violent and exploitative of women, these people are advocating for the same fucked up system that marginalises and abuses women as well as effeminate and/or gay men.

anyway. i'm going on a tangent. this was meant to be a blue eye samurai post. so yeah back to that— the point i'm trying to make is that there's no one way to identify as anything, and everyone views gender in a specific way.

so with that being said, yes you can definitely interpret mizu as a gnc cis woman and that's a totally valid reading. however, interpreting her as nonbinary or transmasc also doesn't take away from her experiences with misogyny and female oppression, because nonbinary and transmasc folks also experience these things.

me, personally, i view her as nonbinary but not necessarily or always transmasc because i still believe femininity and womanhood is an inherent part of who mizu is. for example, from what we've seen, she does not like binding. it does not give her gender euphoria, but is instead very uncomfortable for her both physically and mentally, and represents her suppressing her true self. which is why when she "invites the whole" of herself, she stands completely bare in front of the fire, breasts unbound and hair untied. when she is on the ship heading to a new land in the ending scene, she is no longer hiding her neck and the lack of an adam's apple. we can thus infer that mizu does not have body dysmorphia. she is, in fact, comfortable in her body, and relies on it extremely, because her body is a weapon. instead, what mizu hates about herself is her face—her blue eyes. she hates herself for her hybridised identity, hates herself for being a racial Other. hates that she has no home in her homeland. these are not queer or feminist themes, but postcolonial ones.*

* and as a tiny aside on this subject, i really do wish more of the fandom discussion would talk about this more. it's just such an essential part to reading her character. like someone who's read homi k bhabha's location of culture and has watched this show, PLEASE talk to me so we can ramble all about how the show is all about home and alienation from community. please. okay anyway—

nevertheless, queer and feminist themes (which are not mutually exclusive by the way!) are still prevalent in her story, though they are not the main issue that she is struggling with. but she does struggle with it to some extent, and we see this especially during her marriage with mikio, where we see her struggle in women's domestic spaces.

on the other hand, though, she finds no trouble or discomfort in being a man or being around other men—even naked ones—and does not seem stifled by living as one, does not seem all that bothered or uncomfortable navigating through men's spaces. contrast this to something like disney's mulan (1998), where we do see mulan struggle in navigating through men's spaces, as she feels uncomfortable being around so many men, always feeling like she doesn't belong and that she's inherently different from them. mizu has no such experiences like this, as her very personality and approach to life is what can be categorised as typically "masculine". she is straightforward and blunt. her first meeting with mikio, she tells him straight to his face that he's old while frowning and raising a brow at him. she approaches problems with her muscles and fists (or swords), rather than with her words or mind. compare this with mulan, who, while well-trained by the end of the movie, still uses her sharp wits rather than brute strength. this is a typically "feminine" approach. it's also the approach akemi relies on throughout the show—through her intelligence and persuasive tongue, she navigates the brothel with ease. mizu, in contrast to someone like mulan and akemi, struggles with womanhood and femininity, and feels detached from it.

thus, in my opinion, mizu is not simply a man, nor is she simply a woman. she is both. man and woman. masculine and feminine. she has to accept both, rather than suppress one or the other. her name means water. fluid.

as a side note, while i do believe mizu is nonbinary, i also primarily use she/her pronouns but this is a personal preference. i find it's easier, plus it's what the creators use, and because, in general, being nonbinary simply doesn't necessitate the use of they/them pronouns. nonbinary is not just a third gender. it's about breaking the binary, in any which way, and that's exactly what mizu does.

also, i'd also like to mention that one of show's head of story even referred to her with the term "nonbinary", rather than simply "androgynous" (see pic below). and it's possible this could be a slip up on his part, in which he believes the terms are interchangeable (they're not btw), but regardless i find it a very interesting word choice, and one that supports my stance.

so anyway yeah that's my incredibly long rambling post.

TL;DR nonbinary mizu rights 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 congrats if you reached the end of this btw. also ily. unless you're a TERF in which case fuck off. ok i'm done.

i can't believe there's still people out there who genuinely think Ochako would "kill Toga on sight" at this point

like, okay, there's the anime-only people who aren't aware of manga developments or are actively avoiding spoilers, and of course there's all the people who clearly stopped giving a shit ages ago (yet somehow still feel completely secure making blanket declarations about a franchise they no longer keep up with???)

but even then, and even if you're not a shipper or just don't like the characters-- how can anyone have ever believed that makes any sense ever? like we're not even talking self-defense apparently? just "on sight"? who do you think Ochako is, the Punisher in pink?

like i don't think i'm especially media literate myself, but-- how is it possible for people to be this bad at reading where a narrative is going?

because of course that's exactly what the Togachako plotline was leading up to, clearly the ultimate endpoint of developing Toga Himiko as a sympathetic villain important to Ochako's heroic actualization was a teenager unquestioningly enacting the extrajudicial murder of another teenager

that's exactly what MHA is all about, right? that's the sort of person Ochako is, the kind of hero that she wants to be? that's definitely good storytelling and not at all inane or grotesque? ugh

i love franklydear as much as the next guy, but i have to admit i’m always a little thrown off by how much fanwork portrays them as married from the get-go, because part of the appeal of franklydear for me is the prospect of someone having their gay awakening while also experiencing the muppets’ adaptation of silent hill.