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#how to convince people rep is a love story!!!
Reputation is amazing not just as an album but also because I can open any article about Taylor and if it says something like "Reputation, Swift's darkest and most angsty tragic album yet, contrasted heavily by Lover" I can be like ah ok so you understand nothing
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midnightsslut · 26 days
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So was taylor really cancelled in 2016 or was it more that she wasn't as popular as she was/would like to be?
oh she was absolutely canceled. buckle up because I have a lot of thoughts on this djsjsj.
if you were around in the fandom at all, you knew. things were BAD. that level of hate towards a celebrity is honestly rare these days. i would say the only thing that comes close in recent memory is like… idk, it’s actually hard to think of any because it was a combination of a few factors. it’s not that the general public decided to quietly boycott her and stop consuming her music. it’s that there were viral tweets hating on her pretty much every week. if she did anything in 2016-18, it was met with an absolutely asinine amount of criticism. twitter had a field day with things as innocent as her september cover and her post about having a good year in 2017. a lot of celebrities decided to distance themselves and take kanye’s side. there were numerous articles written about how she was finally going down and should apologize for being problematic. people were famously convinced the tour would flop and absolutely celebrated it. people literally told her she was dead. it’s genuinely difficult to explain the scope of this hate train to people who weren’t around at the time, especially because the news cycle is very different now. people get over news stories a lot quicker than they used to.
now, the main argument people use to prove that she wasn’t canceled is the first-week sales of reputation, which is sort of funny to me because all the coverage in 2017 focused on how its performance was lackluster compared to 1989. of course it still sold well compared to other artists’ albums in the first week, because there was still hype around her comeback, and most importantly, she has a huge fan base. none of the singles had longevity except delicate, which fans genuinely worked their asses off to campaign for. the radio did not play her singles like it used to, though this is due to other factors as well. sure, rep was not actually a flop, but it was nowhere near how TS6, the follow-up to one of the biggest pop eras of the decade, could’ve performed without the cancellation. it also got the worst reviews of her career, most of which generally didn’t focus on the music or the lyricism and were just mad at her as a person. yes, this sounds dramatic, considering the fact that it still got a lot of glowing reviews. the media made sure to focus on a lot of the negative stuff, although they were surprised that critics generally seemed to like it.
what’s funny is that, when she spoke about the kanye controversy in interviews in 2019, no one told her she wasn’t ‘really’ canceled, because a lot of people still hated her. they just told her to get over it. the level of hate was nowhere near pre-rep tour levels anymore, but she was still one of the most criticized celebrities, and it was widely believed that her peak had passed (people love to write revisionist history about the lover album and its performance that does not actually reflect the numbers, but that’s another story). now that more time has passed, and she’s even higher than she was pre-2016, people want to convince her that she’s actually wrong.
it’s almost insane to me to chalk up that level of hate to anything other than a cancellation. seeing articles like ‘was taylor swift REALLY canceled?’ and essays on why that’s just in her head will infuriate ANYONE who was online and didn’t hate her. none of the articles I linked here really convey the scope of that hate. taylor really played the long game and came out the other side of it, but she WAS canceled.
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Middlemen without enshittification
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I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me next in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!
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Enshittification describes how platforms go bad, which is also how the internet goes bad, because the internet is made of platforms, which is weird, because platforms are intermediaries and we were promised that the internet would disintermediate the world:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel
The internet did disintermediate a hell of a lot of intermediaries – that is, "middlemen" – but then it created a bunch more of these middlemen, who coalesced into a handful of gatekeepers, or as the EU calls them "VLOPs" (Very Large Online Platforms, the most EU acronym ever).
Which raises two questions: first, why did so many of us end up flocking to these intermediaries' sites, and how did those sites end up with so much power?
To answer the first question, I want you to consider one of my favorite authors: Crad Kilodney (RIP):
https://archive.org/details/thecradkilodneypapers
When I was growing up, Crad was a fixture on the streets of Toronto. All through the day and late into the evening, winter or summer, Crad would stand on the street with a sign around his neck ("Very famous Canadian author, buy my books, $2" or sometimes just "Margaret Atwood, buy my books, $2"). He wrote these deeply weird, often very funny short stories, which he edited, typeset, printed, bound and sold himself, one at a time, to people who approached him on the street.
I had a lot of conversations with Crad – as an aspiring writer, I was endlessly fascinated by him and his books. He was funny, acerbic – and sneaky. Crad wore a wire: he kept a hidden tape recorder rolling in his coat and he secretly recorded conversations with people like me, and then released a series of home-duplicated tapes of the weirdest and funniest ones:
https://archive.org/details/on-the-street-crad-kilodney-vol-1
I love Crad. He deserves more recognition. There's an on-again/off-again documentary about his life and work that I hope gets made some day:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#putrid-scum
But – and this is the crucial part – there are writers out there I want to hear from who couldn't do what Crad did. Maybe they can write books, but not edit them. Or edit them, but not typeset them. Or typeset, but not print. Or print, but not spend the rest of their lives standing on a street-corner with a "PUTRID SCUM" sign around their neck.
Which is fine. That's why we have intermediaries. I like booksellers (I was one!). I like publishers. I like distributors. I like their salesforce, who go forth and convince the booksellers of the world to stock books like mine. I have ten million things I want to do before I die, and I'm already 52, and being a sales-rep for a publisher isn't on my bucket list. I am so thankful that someone else wants to do this for me.
That's why we have intermediaries, and why disintermediation always leads to some degree of re-intermediation. There's a lot of explicit and implicit knowledge and specialized skill required to connect buyers and sellers, creators and audiences, and other sides of two-sided markets. Some producers can do some of this stuff for themselves, and a very few – like Crad – can do it all, but most of us need some help, somewhere along the way. In the excellent 2022 book Direct, Kathryn Judge lays out a clear case for all the good that middlemen can do:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/direct-the-problem-of-middlemen/
So why were we all so anxious for disintermediation back in the late 1990s? Here's a hint: it wasn't because we hated intermediaries – it was because we hated powerful intermediaries.
The point of an intermediary is to serve as a conduit between producers and consumers, buyers and sellers, audiences and creators. When an intermediary gains power over the audience – say, by locking them inside a walled garden – and then uses that lock-in to screw producers and appropriate an ever larger share of the value going between them, that's when intermediaries become a problem.
The problem isn't that someone will handle ticketing for your gig. The problem is that Ticketmaster has locked down all the ticketing, and the venues, and the promotions, and it uses that power to gouge fans and rip off artists:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/20/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-will-eventually-stop/
The problem isn't that there's a well-made website that lets you shop for goods sold by many small merchants and producers. It's that Amazon has cornered this market, takes $0.51 out of every dollar you spend there, and clones and destroys any small merchant who succeeds on the platform:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos
The problem isn't that there's a website where you can stream most of the music ever recorded. It's that Spotify colludes with the Big Three labels to rip off artists and sneaks crap you don't want to hear into your stream in order to collect payola:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing
The problem isn't that there's a website where you can buy any audiobook you want. It's that Amazon's Audible locks every book to its platform forever and steals hundreds of millions of dollars from creators:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff
The problem, in other words, isn't intermediation – it's power. The thing that distinguishes a useful intermediary from an enshittified bully is power. Intermediaries gain power when our governments stop enforcing competition law. This lets intermediaries buy each other up and corner markets. Once they've formed cozy cartels, they can capture their regulators and commit rampant labor, privacy and consumer violations with impunity. That capture also lets them harness governments to punish smaller players that want to free workers, creators, audiences and customers from walled gardens. It also hands them a whip-hand over their workers, so that any worker who refuses to aid in these nefarious plans can be easily fired:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel
A world with intermediaries is a better world. As much as I love Crad Kilodney's books, I wouldn't want to live in a world where the only books on my shelves came from people prepared to stand on a street-corner wearing a "FOUL PUS FROM DEAD DOGS" sign.
The problem isn't intermediaries – it's powerful intermediaries. That's why the world's surging antitrust movement is so exciting: by reinstating competition law, we can keep intermediaries small and comparatively weak, so that creators and audiences, drivers and riders, sellers and buyers, and other groups seeking to connect will not find themselves made subservient to middlemen.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation
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punkeropercyjackson · 1 month
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Children's media can absolutely and does radicalize kids when written correctly,it's just that shitty bigoted adults in fandoms deliberately misenterpret their messages and trick them into believing they're canon and that's how we got here.Bleach had Ichigo be a goth punk dude who's a fantastic older brother and choose his female love interest because she's his best friend and he finds her weirdgirlness to be enchanting which is good rep for us because being punk is about nonconformity and so is the fact that he never joined the military system his species was largely a part of because he didn't give two shits about them but over half the fandom is convinced the mangaka is a 'sellout' and 'pandering' for not making him essentially a paranormal cop for the sake of pairing him up with the fem mc that he has a familial and queerplatonic relathionship with as confirmed by the aformentioned mangaka
Pjo had Percy hate the gods as much as Luke does and act on it too but directly TO them instead of grooming younger halfbloods to work for him as soldiers and in fact he basically adopted every one of them he came across as his siblings and pseudo-kids and this is explicitly framed as why he's a hero and Luke's evil but you see nonstop erasure of his anti-corruption and anti-authority mentality and direct action despite being his core character traits to make him more palpable as an 'average fantasy protagonist' when the point of him is that he's not normal in any way
The Owl House had 3/5 of it's mcs be poc with the two white ones being an autistic and ocd lesbian and the other a disabled boy with zero conventionally physical traits that're never made out to be ugly and the protag is an inmigrant afrolatina girl while the big villain is a puritan colonizer and every single ship on the show is queer including the m/f one and the token white boy has almost all the important characters to his arc being black and the only one who isn't is a fat asian girl who's also disabled but the HUGE amount of positive rep in the show is deliberately taken out of context for bad faith critisism by a bunch of 20/30/even 40 year olds who've never written actual good stories themselves and this includes them adoring and gushing over the colonizer guy while dismissing the poc and women in the cast as irrelevant
Across the Spiderverse had an EXTREMELY black in every way character literally named SpiderPUNK who makes his beliefs clear in every single one of his lines and isn't all talk for a single second but he's reduced down to 'annoying edgy older brother figure' and made to listen to Taylor Swift and go to Hot Topic and called 'obviously a skater boy' and every other poser punk trope in the books
Atla had Aang and Katara be a gnc boy of a lesser known type of asian race and Katara a brownskin native girl that reclaims femininity for herself with their character drives being to save the world with Zuko's arc hammering it in again and again that while he always had good in him,he WAS evil,he DOES have a lot of bad traits and that made him do a lot of bad things and THAT'S why he needed a redemption arc to be a hero but Aang gets called racist for following the buddhist belief that in-universe he was sole remaining follower of that killing humans is bad,Katara gets adultified and stripped of her actual personality to make her just 'hashtag relatable teen gurl' and Zuko gets infantalized and upholded as the least problematic character in the whole show
And my last and not quite like the rest example is Harry Potter,including the spinoffs and fanon.Everything in it is neoliberal bs and the fandom just made it worse-Oh,the house that's a metaphor for fascism and white supremacy legacies?They're just misunderstood little babies and every minority-coded🥺The lower class family who canonically were Jkr's best attempt at good people that still flopped?Awful homophobic bastards😡All the female characters?Perfect slay 'You can't sit with us' girlboss,precious little baby angel who can't tie her shoes without her reverse harem's help or manipulative self-obsessed hyperfemme pick me,those are the only three categories they can ever fall in.Marauder's Era not only existing but being very,VERY popular is nothing but whiteness-What is there for you to be attached to there exactly?With the canon cast i can least see why you'd have nostalgia but M Era is literally nothing.You just CHOOSE to pick a franchise that's violently bigoted towards basically everyone and who's creator actively influences and helps caused that hurt irl oppressed groups instead of making ocs since you're already building them from scratch anyway
It's not the fault of actual good creators and especially not kids in fandom that grown ass bootlickers couldn't accept that their precious 'escapist comfort media' isn't apolitical at all instead of absorving it's messages like they should have since they have no care for other people despite insisting how kind and unproblematic they are
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livwritesstuff · 4 months
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Absolutely obsessed with your steddie dad’s verse!!! Everything about it is just so good, thanks for sharing!
I love Moe, Robbie and Hazel, and I can’t get this idea out of my head that probably doesn’t fit the vision of this verse at ALL but hear me out. What if one day all the upside down stuff became public knowledge? Somehow documents get leaked, someone talks, idk. And it’s suddenly all over the news. Would be so interesting to see how Steve and Eddie would react to this and how they’d talk to their kids (who just found out about their parents saving the world from the news) about it 👀
So here’s the thing:
Realistically, I don’t think the story would ever get fully leaked, for two reasons (probably more, actually, but two primary reasons).
It makes the U.S. government look terrible, and they do a good enough job of that publically to afford any more hits to their rep so they keep that shit on lock
Nobody would believe it. Maybe there are whispers about the truth of what happened to Hawkins, Indiana in the 80s, but the second the words “monsters” and “superpowers” get thrown in there, nobody buys it. That’s why the cover stories work.
What I absolutely think would happen is ✨conspiracy theories✨
Like, come 2014 there’s a rising interest in true crime and conspiracy theories and some enthusiasts stumble upon the story. A few devoted folks pull a Murray and start building a timeline and they quickly realize that there are some pretty serious holes in the narrative. It kind of takes off from there.
Robbie is Eddie’s daughter through and through, so she’s totally into that kind of stuff. Steve and Eddie have always been relatively upfront about what happened to them in Hawkins (relatively, in that they have the “here’s what you’ll find if you google your dads” conversation with an extensive Q+A, but to avoid dumping trauma on their kids they stay light on the details), so she’s more intrigued than surprised when not only is she suggested a YouTube video about her dads’ hometown, but the video also mentions both of them by name.
Here’s the problem – like most conspiracy theories, it's true that some pretty damning evidence has been uncovered that the government probably didn’t want circulating. However the story is still missing key details in a way that makes the resounding conclusion this close to the truth, but not quite there.
Hence, this conversation Robbie has with her dads after she watches the video:
“So is it true that Uncle Will was abducted by aliens?”
Steve’s eyebrows fly up.
“Are people saying it’s aliens? It wasn’t aliens.”
“Was he though?”
“Uh…kind of. I guess.”
“Is it true the government put a fake body in the lake and pretended it was him and then when Will came back they had to pretend it was another kid?”
“Yep.”
“That’s fucked up. Is it true that Russia used a mall in Hawkins to build a secret lab?” Robbie asks.
“Yes.”
“Is it true they were doing research on the aliens and then one of them escaped and that’s why the mall got destroyed.”
“Not even close.”
“How did the mall get destroyed then?”
“Bunch of people got possessed by a shadow monster and he made them eat chemicals until they exploded and reformed as this giant mass thing that cornered us in the mall. We attacked it with fireworks. I wasn’t there for most of that, though. Just the end.”
“Whatever,” Robbie rolls her eyes, fully convinced that her dad is bullshitting her, “Is it true the Hawkins earthquakes were actually the aliens invading.”
“No – yes…kind of? Not earthquakes. Not aliens.”
“I mean…technically they kind of were aliens ,” Eddie jumps in, “Technically anything from a land foreign to yours is an alien.”
“They weren’t aliens,” Steve insists, “They were monsters. They were big and gray and their faces opened up and they had all these rows of teeth like sharks.”
“Sounds like an alien to me,” Robbie replies.
“Monsters.”
“Is it true Dad was attacked by them and he almost died and you saved him, Pop?”
“Yes, indeed,” Eddie says proudly before Steve can respond, “He’s quite the hero, don’t you think?”
“In space?”
“Nope. In an evil alternate dimension, and he dragged me all the way out through the portal and everything.”
Robbie rolls her eyes again, “Nevermind, you guys are useless. You’d think you weren’t even there.”
Steve sighs, “God, I wish that were true.”
In terms of how Steve and Eddie respond to the story gaining some attention from the general public, they do family viewings of the conspiracy videos made about the situation and make fun of the incorrect narratives. Their daughters fully do not grasp that their dads are telling the truth because, again, the truth does not seem real.
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witchern · 11 months
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If we see job postings for writing positions, should we spam them with fake applications? Waste their time? Obviously in addition to supporting the strike. Just looking for a positive outlet for troll energy.
hmm, i understand the impulse to waste their time, but ultimately i don't think that'd be the best path to support the strike – especially since it'll likely be an HR rep or other employee going through all the job applications, and not any of the higher-ups/CEOs themselves, who are the people we REALLY want to reach.
but there are other ways to support the strike! if you live near LA or NYC, there's a regularly-updated picket schedule available where you can show up in person. it's a great way to show your support and (if you're an aspiring writer) meet current guild members and network with them. plus you get to yell a LOT, so it's an A+ use of energy – and all the solidarity makes it fun!
if you're not local or you're not able to go out and picket in person, the WGA has a really handy social media toolkit with graphics, icons, and sample language to use on your social media channels. the hashtags they're using are #WGAStrong and #WGAStrike, so be sure to use those if you post your support.
and if nothing else, you don't have to post anything of your own if that's not your thing. check out those hashtags and retweet/share/reblog other peoples' stories! a perfect example is when abbott elementary writer brittani nichols shared a thread of her experience here. boost these writers' voices and spread their stories.
perhaps most importantly – because this narrative will get stronger as time goes on – don't let anyone convince you that the striking writers are entitled or whining over nothing. they're not asking for the moon here. these shows we love can't exist without writers, and these companies wouldn't be the media giants they are without those shows. how many of us crawled our way through the pandemic with a comfort show or movie? how many of us found solace in someone else's words in a script? we owe that to these very writers. writing is writing is work is work and they deserve to be fairly paid for their labor. don't let anyone try to tell you otherwise.
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na-na-namine · 2 years
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If y’all could indulge with my big-brain for a moment...
Most of y’all probably read Matt’s message about Sashannarcy and how it was essentially de-confirming the ship within the confines of the show’s canon.
Now, many of you have understandably took his message at face value. Heck, some of you probably even praised him for the decision. However, I for one am not entirely convinced that what he said was the entire truth.
To explain why I feel this way, let’s wind back a bit...
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Remember this moment? Let’s put a pin on it, we’ll get back to it shortly.
Anton Chekhov, who is the widely cited “master of the short story,” said: “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”
The quote has been understood as “Chekhov’s Gun,” where an insignificant object later turns out to be important. In many of the best works of fiction, every detail given is important. If isn’t important, it shouldn’t be included in the story.
Let’s unpin the prom flyer. Myself and many others saw this detail as an intentional hint or foreshadowing to how much Marcy truly loves her friends, regardless if it meant romantically or platonically with some catching-feelings.
In light of Matt’s statement about the Sashannarcy ship, it’s reasonable to assume that this detail is irrelevant, that the crew simply placed it in Marcy’s nightmare sequence as a background prop.
However, if that were the case...
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Why was it the only thing placed on those lockers?
Look, a whole lot of us have been in schools with lockers before; there will never be a shortage of flyers, posters, notes, etc. placed everywhere (it’s a constant irritation for custodians, that’s for sure). It would’ve been ideal for the production crew to include different pieces of art and visual gags/references/shout-outs on those lockers, especially since we know they love doing those sorts of things.
Strange is it then that only the one prom poster was used. Stranger then that it is made visibly clear for the audience to see. There was no way anyone couldn’t have noticed it, so it had to be intentional. I want to assume it’s the case because Matt Braly and crew aren’t terrible writers.
Throughout the show, there have been numerous references and call-backs to past events and characters. Even minor details - most notably in my mind Toady’s low self-esteem and confidence in himself making him a bit of a doormat - are brought back in importance despite how irrelevant it might’ve seemed at the time of introduction.
This reason is why I believe the prom poster will be relevant somehow, and is why I don’t buy the idea that Sashannarcy is completely off the table for the show’s finale.
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I’m particularly hung up on Matt’s choice of words here. If there was absolutely no way the main characters would get together romantically he could’ve just said so, similar to the what the creator of The Ghost and Molly McGee did over on Twitter. He also didn’t issue an ambiguous statement over the characters’ friendship being the most important thing, which is a common non-statement against queer rep in media. No, Matt’s words as specifically outline above are to keep the Calamity Trio’s friendship “constructive and open” and that Sashannarcy in fandom “do right by the show and its themes.”
After all, an often overlooked part of romance is that the strongest romantic relationships are founded on the strongest friendships. Heteronormative/allonormative society likes to convince people there’s a clear distinction between friendship and romance; that romance is somehow deeper than friendship or that friendship inevitably becomes romance, etc. etc. But it’s never that simple.
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For there to be a healthy romantic relationship, a healthy friendship is a requirement. So many failed-romances would’ve taken this matter for granted and end badly as a result. Issues of trust, respect, intimacy and boundaries are present in all relationships, and if platonic relationships can struggle through those can come out stronger for it, just as what happened with the Calamity Trio, there is absolutely no reason to assume the three couldn’t carry those lessons and feelings into a romantic relationship much later down the line.
With that, lemme put forth my big-brain prediction for what Anne, Sasha and Marcy’s relationship might look like by the series’ finale.
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I think after the big battle is over, no matter the outcome, there will be a little time skip where the three girls go to prom together.
Not as a polycule, but as friends.
Friends that have went through hell together and back.
Friends that are rebuilding their friendship and learning be better people.
Friends that are each other’s most important person, who love each other unconditionally no matter what, regardless of when - not “if” - they may begin to catch feelings.
Because that’s what friends do.
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Finally, I believe that Marcy should be the one to ask Anne and Sasha to prom. Her character journey began and ended with her desire to have the other girls stay with her forever, so much so that she tricked them into another world to realize it.
Therefore it’s only fitting that Marcy be the one to ask them out, only this time giving them choice to stay with her and having trust in them that they will.
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And the answer will be “Yes.” It will always be “Yes.”
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shera-dnd · 5 months
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I try not to be negative here. Like there's just too much negativity in this webbed site as is and I don't wanna add on to it
BUT god it's so hard not to shit on Mihoyo's character designs
Like I could write a whole fucking essay on why Yae Miko maybe has the ONLY good character design in Inazuma, and how Kokomi's and Raiden's designs are an affront to character design
Not to mention how much I could dunk on how pasty white the entirety of their fantasy India is
...but that would take like an ungodly amount of words and effort and ranting, and like I said I wanna keep negativity to a minimum
so instead I'm gonna do a little "bulk dunk" and go for the entirety of HSR in one go
quick disclaimer that I still play and enjoy these games and Jingliu has me by the balls no matter how painfully boring her character design actually is
ALRIGHT LET'S GO!
I guess it goes without saying that the design of any character in a gacha game is created with only a single thought in mind and that is: MASS MARKET APPEAL!
Which means the characters are meant to be PRETTY and their designs are meant for immediate appeal, not to actually inform the character
This results in some...weirdness
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Like the fact that the Natasha (girl on the left) raised Seele (girl on the right) from childhood and used to run an orphanage, meaning she's much MUCH older than Seele, even tho they look about the same age
Okay Nat does look a little older, but no one is allowed to look old in this game
Something that becomes extra clear with
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Serval! Who you'd be forgiven for thinking is a young adult playing for a rock band, and not a middle aged disgraced scientist who used to be in a rock band.
And yeah she's supposed to be AT LEAST in her 30s, because girl is the same age as Cocolia and that woman is a mother to an adult woman by the time we meet her
Oh and speaking of Nat and Serval, you've now seen 2/3s of all characters with ANY FORM OF BLEMISHES ON THEIR SKIN!
Nat has a spot on her chin, and Serval has a tattoo on her hip
Last one is Arlan
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My man has the only two scars in this whole ass video game. He's also the only dark skinned character. He follows a pattern set by Xinyan and Dehya in Genshin, by being dark skin rep, carrying a big sword, and sucking absolute ass
But okay these characters are pretty, but there's nothing wrong with keeping characters pretty. Well, there is when their prettiness goes against what their character is supposed to be
So Belobog's story is one of class struggle in a military state that is holding back a never ending catastrophe. The entire population of the world is just one big walled city holding back the cold.
In it the rich and powerful live in the Overworld, where they have museums and theaters and grand statues, and a massive building from which their rulers can pass judgement.
The Underworld is mostly just a giant fucking mine where the lower class people are forced to work 24/7 in order to get food and medicine from the Overworld in the hopes that they'll keep surviving.
Underworld characters are survivors who have been struggling every day of their lives and have NEVER SEEN SUNLIGHT BEFORE
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Yeah guys I can really get hardworking survivor from these two
But I mean that is just ONE planet, it can't be a thing for EVERY world, right? ...right?
So the Xianzhou Luofu is... a lot. Like it would take a long time to explain everything that is up with those guys, but the big themes here are stuff around chronic illness, memories, PTSD, war time trauma, and a whole bunch of stuff about aging
Like here are two characters who are veterans of war. One is constantly overwhelmed by her own traumatic memories, causing her to go into violent dissociative episodes.
The other one lost her copilot/best friend/rival/love of her life (YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME SHE ISN'T GAY, MIHOYO) in battle, and the trauma of that loss has left her terrified of flying again, living the rest of her life in the shadow of this one monumental event
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...yeah I don't see it either
But hey don't worry, this game believes in gender equality, and that means the men are also just very pretty and very boring
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Like the Luofu's messiest polycule, who are all millennia old pretty boys made with the sole purpose of making the straight women in the fanbase call them "daddy"
Well at least Blade has spider lily symbolism, which is like always a plus for me
Okay
That's it
That's all the dunking I have for HSR. I exorcised the angry grumpy critic from my system, and can go back to being positive and loving things again.
And I mean these games make more money than I can ever even conceptualize, so maybe I'm the one who is wrong
Oh also
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Clara is perfect and objectively the best character design in this game, don't fucking @ me!
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waitmyturtles · 9 months
Note
hello! I hope you are having a good day :) I just read your blog piece about tharntype, thank you for writing it! I want to offer a few complicating thoughts, as a queer person myself:
-in the twittersphere, I actually know a lot of other queer people (and, specifically, queer men) who like tharntype in a kink way. as in, the parts that make it "problematic" are the parts that are hot. so this "reading" of TT (lol) sees it as erotic art intended to arouse, rather than offer "representation" or change the public's mind in some way. so from this perspective, the target audience is anyone who finds the erotic story enjoyable, rather than say, random 14 year olds who need to be convinced gay people are human.
-more on the above: gay people aren't unproblematic. like, we do engage in all the things that you said were problematic stereotypes included in tharntype. many gay men are homophobic in the exact way type is, before they admit it to themselves. that's a whole genre of gay porn, because it's such a common part of the gay experience that it enters sexual fantasy frequently! gay people call each other slurs all the time, too (not saying it's right for anyone to be spoken to like type did, I'm just saying, for a lot of us there's a lot of humor and love there when it's spoken kindly). many gay men ARE promiscuous (not all, obviously, but many) and the way in which they are is shaped by their gayness, and while straight world might think that's bad, other gay people might not see it as such. and I very much get how that's very inconvenient when one is trying to argue that gay people aren't sex perverts (so we can have rights) but sometimes what ends up happening is that people who ARE sex perverts (I mean this in a positive way) get told that their lives don't matter, or that even depicting them in fiction "makes you all look bad." it's the usual assimilation problem :/
-I really really really recommend diary of tootsies for a show by gay people for gay and straight people. it's one of my all-time favorite gay dramas, and it might elaborate more on what I'm saying above. it's a gay comedy that's actually executed well.
-it's actually not true that yaoi has only ever been dominated by cishet women! I love this website for more info on how men and nonbinary people have been involved in yaoi historically https://www.fujoshi.info/ . totally true that treating real people like dolls is gross to do in real life, but I don't think women writing yaoi have done that, on the whole, and I certainly don't think the existence of yaoi does that automatically. and I think it's a case of unfair maligning of asian women to say that it does.
-I don't think tharntype is a "good" show. nothing like, say, moonlight chicken (as an example of a show that I think is very good). it's very poorly executed in places. it's trashy. the way it's been marketed, with tharn and type as like, political gay rep, is bizarre. but it's a cheap, trashy snack, a gay bodice ripper type of story, and so I don't think that's a hate crime, or a failing of lgbt people, on the whole.
I know as an ally it is always difficult when there is disagreement in the group you are trying to be an ally to regarding what is acceptable/offensive, but I feel the best thing to do is always to come to a personal opinion oneself that aligns with one's own moral values, after hearing from differing perspectives within that group. So I've provided my own perspective here, which may be totally different than other people you've heard from or your own, and that's okay too! again, hope you have a great day and thanks for your time :)
ANONYMOUS, COME 'ERE FOR A HUG, YOU! THANK YOU for sharing your perspective.
Yes, this show and the related topics are unbelievably difficult for me to write on as an ally. I really appreciate your understanding of the gray areas all around this, and with the help of a number of Tumblr friends, I tried to dive into and balance as much of the gray areas of the topic of TT as much as possible.
I really appreciate the further history on yaoi's origins, and would like to tag some folks to take a look and offer their thoughts -- and, I do not take corrections personally AT ALL, I LOVE LOVE the learning and constructive criticism (that's a major point of the OGMMTVC!), so I WILL be happy to edit any corrections into my posts if need be (cc @nieves-de-sugui, @miscellar, @lurkingshan and anyone else who knows more about yaoi than I do).
I'm getting one or two nasty comments here and there, but by and large, the feedback today on the post has been thought-provoking and eye-opening. I love hearing and reading all of it.
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halfagone · 1 year
Text
WIPS... All the WIPS...
*Please note that this post will be frequently updated as more fics/ideas/concepts are idealized and finished*
Updated As Of 6/28/23
*One Work was removed from "Currently Released/In The Works" to mark it has been completed. For a full discography of halfagone's works, check out this link.*
The marker, (*), indicates that this work is currently a high priority.
Any fic title in red text means it is currently being reconsidered for release.
Multi-chapter
Currently Released/In The Works
lex luthor's ascent from supervillainy to fatherhood (*)
down the rabbit hole (goes the throne)
billy batson and the phantom
weekend wonders
present, future, past
Insomniacs Anonymous
bloodlines
trust no one (trust me)
pay your dues
Off With [the Demon's] Head (*)
bones and all (*)
Just added!
Eldritch Situations
(The long-awaited sequel to Eldritch Toddler)
Summary:
Five times a teenage Danny and a toddler Danny did something supernatural to get out of something inconvenient, and the one time they didn't have to.
6 chapters in total.
To Be Released
path of reckless abandon
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels
Summary: Bruce finds out he had a son with an accidental, drunk one night stand and wants to do his best and be there for the boy after missing so much of his life. Danny, said son, would very much like his world to go back to being normal. And yet, he can't seem to turn down any and all opportunities to get to know his father better, and the life he could have had. Danny has never claimed to have masochistic tendencies. But it certainly looks like he might be starting to.
Ships: Past Brief Maddie Fenton/Bruce Wayne
escape
Genre: Horror/Thriller/Mystery
Summary: An unfamiliar alien species has come to Earth in search of an equally unknown species known as 'halfas'. With most of the planet's governments unwilling to allow the travelers' free access to the Earth and its populace, it's left to the Justice League to investigate the truth and possibly even convince the only living halfa left in existence to come meet and aid these alien visitors.
Meanwhile, Danny faces his own problems. It might be said that Phantom haunts Amity Park, but let it be said that the Ghost Zone haunts Danny right back.
Ships: None/TBD
danny (fenton) luthor's how-to guide to dying
Genre: Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels
Summary: You know the story Danny keeps telling everyone about his heart failure in lex luthor's ascent from supervillainy to fatherhood? This is the full truth behind it.
In other words: On September 30th, Danny died. Sometimes it's easy to forget the people who had to deal with the aftermath. (It's not easy to forget the consequences.)
abandonment issues
Genre: Action, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship
Summary: Chat Noir hasn't been in Paris for weeks now, and Ladybug has little to no clue why. She can never seem to get him on the phone either, only voice messages traded back and forth that never tells her any details. She only gets a better idea when she sees him on the news taking down a mysterious enemy alongside Gotham City's Red Robin and another, unknown vigilante. Ladybug doesn't know how to fix this.
Chat Noir has his own set of problems to deal with. It doesn't stop him from feeling bad for ghosting Ladybug.
Ships: TBD
learning to love again (love yourself)
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Summary: It starts like this: Adrien meets Danny, Danny meets Adrien. They hit it out of the park. It ends like this: Danny, on the floor, taking a shot meant for Adrien. There are a million things left unsaid in between.
Ships: TBD
treading the waves
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Summary: It shouldn’t be surprising that the GIW has a high turnover rate, what with their poor rep and all the wild situations their agents tend to get involved with in Amity Park. Agents have come and gone before, that’s nothing new. Yet, when the head of operations gets ousted, no one is prepared for their replacement. The GIW might have been widely considered nuisances, but that was more for their penchant for property damage and general incompetence. But this new guy? He’s ready and willing to crack down on Amity Park’s ghost problem with an iron fist. 
And even he can see that there’s something very off about Daniel Fenton.
Ships: None/TBD
brittle (This title is subject to change)
Genre: Action, Hurt/Comfort
Summary: When Duke is discovered to be a metahuman and taken by a shadowy organization, he finds himself struggling at a loss of what to do. He knows he has to help save all these other metahuman children, but how can he do that without revealing his secret identity and training? Thankfully, his cellmate, Danny, seems willing to help.
Ships: TBD (Possible Duke x Danny)
One-Shots
a grieving man's grave
Genre: TBD
Summary: On the anniversary of his parents' deaths, Bruce spots Danny in that same alleyway. It goes about as well as you might expect.
Ships: None
troubles with immortality
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Status: In the Works
Summary: Duke might be immortal. He doesn't know how to feel about that. Luckily, his new friend Tucker knows someone who might be able to help out.
Ships: None
time is an illusion, reality is a joke (and i'm the puncline)
Tags TBA: Angst, Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Batfamily
Summary: Bruce is saved from the brink of death by a mysterious meta. The more obsessed he grows in finding his teenage rescuers, the more his family worries about him. Especially since, by all indications, this teenager literally does. Not. Exist.
That is, until someone else nearly does too.
Unholy
Tags TBA: Graphic Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Heavy Angst
Summary: Amity Park stands at a precipice of its very own annihilation. The tenuous balance that it has maintained for the past few centuries has finally begun to tip sideways, and not in a favorable direction. People are fleeing, although some remain behind, intent to help as many as they can and possibly even restore the balance between realms. 
With great reluctance, Maurice Foley takes his young daughter and flees from Amity Park at the advice of his wife and son, who choose to stay in the crumbling Amity Park. He flees to safety in the form of his brother-in-law, Jefferson Pierce, otherwise known as Black Lightning. When Jeff finds out about the state of his sister and brother-in-law’s home city, he takes the matter to the Justice League in hopes of saving Amity Park from complete ruin. 
They don’t make it in time.
[Next part of the lex luthor's guide series!]
lex luthor's list of filed complaints
Summary: Lex gets owned on a live television event by a teenager. In other news, Lex has a new intern! Somewhere along the way, he becomes a father to said intern, because obviously no one is parenting this child, so Lex will just have to do it himself.
a dream is a wish (your heart makes) - Title Subject to Change
Tim Drake/Danny Fenton Two-shot Rated T Tags include: Fluff, Love at First Sight, Cinderella-inspired
audience with death
Tim Drake/Danny Fenton Multi-chapter Rated T with Additional Warnings per chapter WARNING: This work may include scenes that viewers might find disturbing.
tightrope
Dick Grayson/Danny Fenton Multi-chapter Rated T with Additional Warnings per chapter
spell it out for me, please
Jason Todd/Danny Fenton Multi-chapter Rated T Tags include: Fluff, Slow Burn, Teacher AU, BAMF Jason Todd
time stand still for me
Duke Thomas/Danny Fenton One-shot Rated T
two cents in
Tim Drake & Danny Fenton Multi-chapter Rated T with Additional Warnings per chapter Tags include: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Child Neglect
Witness Protection Program - Title Subject to Change
Relationships TBD Multi-chapter Rated T with Additional Warnings per chapter Tags include: Angst, Whump, Stalking, Obsessive Behavior
hollow victory
Hal Jordan & Danny Fenton, Dick Grayson & Danny Fenton, More TBA Two-shot Rated T WARNING: Temporary Major Character Death
The Fall of the Graysons
Dick Grayson & Danny Fenton Multi-chapter Rated T with Additional Warnings per chapter Tags include: Heavy Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Broken Families, Alternative Universe - Canon Divergence
Magnetism
Summary:
When Danny was little, his favorite comic book character was Magneto. When he gets powers of his own, it shows.
There is a new anti-hero roaming about. It's about time the Justice League did something about that.
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Note
So I see you’ve watched Sk8 the infinity! I’m glad you seem to enjoy it! I know you really love Lange and Reki, but is it alright if I ask you about your thoughts on the other characters? Like Cherry, Joe, Shadow, Miya, Adam, Snake, etc?
I remember watching that show when ep 11 came out and I had a brain rot about that show for MONTHS! So glad Season 2 has been announced!
Season 2's been announced?
Damn I be making great timing lol.
Sure of course it's alright to ask.
Ima just get this out the way, I hate Adam. I hate him. I can sympathise with his back story. And I find his past with Joe and Cherry intresting.
But man everytime he's on he's onscreen I am uncomfortable.
I'm glad he regained his love for skating but dear god stay away from these kids.
Snake, I don't particularly like him. But I find him and his motivations intresting. The insight he has into Adam and who he is, the fact he's his mentor in a way.
His entrance into S was amazing. I like how his conversation with Reki helped Reki realise his passion for skateboarding.... Really wish he hadn't taken him into a love hotel for that conversation though.
Cherry is great. I may have geeked over Carla a wee bit, I think Carla as a concept is so cool.
I love how Cherry tries to exude this image of refinement and prestigue... That gets immediately destroyed when Joe shows up.
I love the bond they have, I'd like to know more about their past. I absolutely get why Cherry wanted to race Adam and holyshit that race.
Joe is great. I love how both of them are mentors to the kids, but especially Joe. Seeing him reach out to Reki when he was at his lowest, because he understands is great.
Because as much as they try to paint Joe as a "simple minded gorilla" he's got a ton of heart and he's very smart. And I like that Cherry knows that, I just love seeing them interact and bicker.
May be starting to ship Joe and Cherry.
I love Miya. Miya is definitely one of my favourite characters. He's such a little nerd. I love seeing him with everyone else because you know he's having fun.
There's something to be said that Adam could've become Miya if he regained or never lost Joe and Cherry.
Miya is everyone's snarky little brother, seeing him open up and have friends is just great. When he convinced those women that Joe was his dad and Cherry was his mum 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼.
Absolutely broke my heart when he told Reki he was breaking his promise to him.
Because it shows how much Reki and the others mean to him, he's afraid of losing them. I don't blame Miya or Shadow for their involvement in that.
Was it mean? Yes, but I think they'd have stopped if they knew how much it was affecting Reki.
Because they've made jokes like this at each other constantly and everyone was okay with it. I think they'd regret it if they knew.
I absolutely love Shadow. Shadow went from the enemy to stressed out single parent and we love to see it.
He didn't adopt these kids, they signed the papers and showed up at his house.
He's a great rep for alt people, looks scary but is soft on the inside. His crush on his co-worker is adorable, I love that his day job is as a florist it's sweet.
I love that for all he says he truly cares about them.
And not on the list but Manager Oka, love him. I love how he's always keeping an eye on Reki and Langa. His talk with Reki after the fight, I like him he's good.
Apologises this was quite long 😅.
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x-authorship-x · 2 months
Text
10 Fandoms, 10 Characters, 10 Tags
Thanks for the tag @tsarinatorment 🥰
Im not going to try to really put them in any order but...
Uchiha Shisui (Naruto)
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We all been knew 🥴 to me, Shisui is just the perfect kind of character to play protagonist with, with enough badassery and charm to come out on top but with the sweetness and the last scraps of his idealism to soften his edges. Kishi, however, threw him down the toilet at the nearest opportunity (which was just so 🤌bullshit🤌 I'm almost - almost- impressed) because he realised he Gone Fucked Up making this amazingly powerful character with no hint of him in prior work so 🤡 canon is dead, Shisui lives forever
Finn (Star Wars movies)
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Anyone who's had the misfortune to follow me or has browsed my AO3 bookmarks knows I'm a wreck for Commander Cody and for Obi-Wan but I'm not choosing either of them? How??? Because Finn... FINN, he was literally raised to be canon fodder but he had this deep rooted fear that what they were doing was wrong and he didn't shoot and he took that fear and he knew he had to run. So often we wanna be brave in those moments but in actual fact we just panic, which is what Finn did... And yet he was so brave too? He saved Poe, he fought viciously for Ray, he joined the Rebellion, he met these people for minutes at a time but had already impressed them on his soul, on who he was going to be (and he'd only had a name as of that day???). Finn should've been the protagonist of that trilogy, the sequels were just...well, and I'll die on this hill that Finn's force sensitivity reaalllly should've meant something 😩 I love so many SWs characters but Finn is really the one that got me to actually attempt my own Fics too!
Obi (Akagami no Shirayukihime/Snow White with the Red Hair)
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Do I Have a type? .... Next question.
Obi is just ✨🤌 ✨ badass with a mysterious background? ✅ Loyal but sassy? ✅ Pining for the 'lady' he is sworn to protect?✅ Is also her partner in life and crime? ✅ Low self worth but flirtatious? ✅ Gorgeous but dangerous? ✅ .... ✨💕
Yor (Spy x Family)
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She is literally the best mother oh my God just kiss your husband though (and maybe get some space from your brother-)
Fíli (The Hobbit)
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I JUST-
🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 little golden lion prince, heir to his uncle, to a kingdom only told in stories of grandeur he's never seen and with all the hope and grief of his displaced and hurting people.... Mischievous but sensitive, funny (the hidden knives hehe), determined to do his family and people proud (cut down far too quickly, deserved better... Oh god I have a type-)
Boromir (The Lord of the Rings)
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Why do I keep listing dead guys 😭 do I need to spell it out? Honor, desperation, valour, love of his people, he is high-key aroace rep, his resentment-to-love bromance with Aragorn that was ROBBED from us, I cannot tell if Merry and Pippin wanted to queerplatonic marry him or if they wanted him as their "getaway horse" for the rest of their lives but dammit 😭✨🤌
Evelyn Carnahan (The Mummy)
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Do I need to even give reasons????? She's miles ahead of all those other scholar bitches, she's out there winning desert camel races, she's a reincarnated princess with daggers, she has the most gorgeous hair and eyeliner I swear to God, she is THE moment… For all time. She's a LIBRARIAN
Din Djarin (The Mandalorian)
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*flips desk through solid concrete wall* HE'S THE PERFECT MAND'ALOR
PERFECT FATHER
COOLEST INTROVERT IN THE GALAXY
He is SOFT and SOFT-SPOKEN
He is STERN (except in face of baby's wet eyes) and LOYAL and he has an HONOR CODE DAMMIT STOP TAKING ADVANTAGE HIM
This doesn't count as a star wars pick, which I gave to Finn, because we are, as usual, swerving completely off canon (and this is a TV series, not the movies ha!) because you cannot convince me that Din, the wandering bamf who just wants to get credits for all the kids in his covert and provide for his home but cannot participate in the maiming of an 'alien' child so gets landed in so much shit, wouldn't be exactly what the Mandalorians need for a fucking Renaissance dammit 😤😤😤😤
Hawks (Boku no Hero Academia/ My Hero Academia)
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*covers my face in shame* ffs it's so transparent lol
FINAL PICK - WILDCARD: Éowyn(The Lord of the Rings)
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Ohhhhhhh and it's the Shieldmaiden of Rohan with the steel chair! The Witch King goes down, and he's not getting back up-! 3! 2! 1! And the crowd goes BALLISTIC!!!
I want to write a fic about her 😐 I want her to have a whole alter ego as one of the Rohirrim's best warriors 😳 I want her, seventeen and coltish, to down her first orc, standing in defense of another, and to know with absolute certainty that she wanted to protect everyone she could… 👁️👁️ yes I know I already did lotr but you're what??? Gonna stop HER???
Tagging @katlou303 @theraynealchemist @looks-like-starlight @zebrabaker @iamnotakitty @kazumirina @eruditeempress @ellorypurebloodculture @welpjesuisla @hidingfromthefeels and whoever else wants to have a go! 💕
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greycappedjester · 1 month
Note
I didn't realise that I had never encountered real aro rep until I came across your Science and Mentalism series. As an aroace person, your series means the world to me.
I mean sure, I've seen fictional characters being labelled as aromantic, but that aspect of those characters were never really explored, and never like this. I don't know how to describe what I felt when I saw that side of myself typed out on a screen, staring back at me, but it was somewhere between heartache born from understanding and warm fuzzies. I may or may not have teared up while reading it.
Thank you for writing this and sharing it with the world. They are now some of my favourite pieces of writing.
If you see a spike in kudos/bookmarks, they're probably from all the friends I'll be sharing this series with within the next few weeks. Acutally, scratch that. I don't think I'll ever be able to stop recommending your series to people.
You have even managed convinced me to start watching Haikyuu, just so that I'm able to read more of your writing. I'm sure my friend will appreciate having someone to share her love for Haikyuu with.
(PS. I don't read a lot of romance, but your description of SenGen's third kiss is hands down the best description of a kiss I've ever encountered. The Desperation. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go reread Science and Metalism again, and this time take notes on how to improve my own writing.)
Thank you so, so much. Honestly, I cannot express how much I love hearting that story has resonated with people. It meant a lot to me writing it and continues to mean a lot to me now. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
Also, yay, I'm so glad I convinced you to start watching Haikyuu. It's a great series about a bunch of dorks that I love dearly!
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lady-harrowhark · 1 year
Text
Locked Tomb Characters as Taylor Swift Songs
hey there tlt demons, it’s me... your local taylor swift girl. credentials include over 15 years of swiftie experience and a well documented primal urge to infodump about both the locked tomb AND taylor swift. more under the cut because this thing is a beast. let’s get into it.
(update: Spotify link added in the comments)
Gideon: The Story of Us. Listen. Gideon is a Speak Now girlie. I will die on this hill. Everything is so cinematic - the fireworks, the kissing in the rain, it’s just like her comic books! She will absolutely be singing this album in the shower. And if you have anything to say about it? Sucks to have shitty taste, my dude, sounds like you hate fun. 
Now I'm standing alone in a crowded room And we're not speaking and I'm dying to know Is it killing you like it's killing me yeah I don't know what to say since the twist of fate When it all broke down and the story of us Looks a lot like a tragedy now... next chapter
Harrow: Hoax. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “How dare you assign her a song not from Reputation?” And aesthetically, I hear you. She probably wants you to think that, actually. But while Harrow can identify with Reputation’s themes of the juxtaposition of public persona and private identity, she viscerally rejects the sweetness and vulnerability of Rep era tracks like Call It What You Want and New Year’s Day. But Folklore... Folklore is for abject despair. Hoax is Harrow crying into the mattress, remembering what she’s done. Hoax is “I still love you.”
My only one, my smoking gun, my eclipsed sun This has broken me down My twisted knife, my sleepless night, my win-less fight This has frozen my ground Stood on the cliffside, screaming, "Give me a reason" Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in
Ianthe: Better Than Revenge. We’re not supposed to like this one. In theory, the description of “Diss track about ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, written by an 18 year old” doesn’t really hold any appeal for me. But when you listen to it, you can’t help but love it in all its nasty glory. Sometimes women are mean, and I need a song to scream to about it. (Ianthe thinks she’s doing Dress with Harrow. She’s not.)
I never saw it coming, wouldn’t have suspected it I underestimated just who I was dealing with She had to know the pain was beating on me like a drum She underestimated just who she was stealing from
Coronabeth: Mirrorball. Corona is an expert at reflecting back what people want to see. She studies military history for Judith, learns all about shuttles for a boy who wouldn’t look twice at her, she pulls off the long con of convincing the empire she’s a necromancer. She’s a mirrorball.
I'm still a believer but I don't know why I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try I'm still on that trapeze, I'm still trying everything To keep you looking at me Because I'm a mirrorball, I’m a mirrorball I'll show you every version of yourself tonight
Palamedes: Champagne Problems. Oof. You must have known this one was coming, right? Unlike most of the songs on this list, Palamedes is the subject of this song rather than the narrator. You know who the narrator is.
Your mom's ring in your pocket, my picture in your wallet Your heart was glass, I dropped it: champagne problems ... One for the money, two for the show I never was ready, so I watch you go Sometimes you just don't know the answer 'Til someone's on their knees and asks you
Camilla: I’m Only Me When I’m With You. A personal favorite of mine that doesn’t get nearly the love it deserves. If this isn’t her and Palamedes, I don’t know what to tell you. And after the events of NtN... um...
And I know everything about you, I don't wanna live without you I'm only up when you're not down Don't wanna fly if you're still on the ground It's like no matter what I do Well, you drive me crazy half the time The other half I'm only trying To let you know that what I feel is true And I'm only me when I'm with you
Nona: A Place in This World. Nona Palona. Kiddie. Junior. No-No. Cutie Pie. Lil Bits. Was there ever any other choice for her? This song is the perfect blend of slice-of-life and the inherent isolation of Figuring Out What Your Deal Is. Some people’s deal is being the soul of a murdered planet in someone else’s body, you know? It happens.
Got the radio on, my old blue jeans And I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve Feeling lucky today, got the sunshine Could you tell me what more do I need? And tomorrow's just a mystery, oh yeah, but that's okay ... Oh, I’m just a girl, trying to find a place in this world
Pyrrha: Right Where You Left Me. Look, I’m sorry about this one. But if you really expected me to pick anything else for the woman who’s spent the past ten thousand years watching every person she’s ever loved leave her behind in one way or another? That’s on you.
Friends break up, friends get married Strangers get born, strangers get buried Trends change, rumors fly through new skies But I'm right where you left me Matches burn after the other Pages turn and stick to each other Wages earned and lessons learned But I'm right where you left me ... You left me no choice but to stay here forever
Alecto: My Tears Ricochet. This song never fails to give me the chills when I listen to it in the car. Taylor’s ghost story metaphor for being taken advantage of by her record label until she was forced to leave maps on eerily well to John’s betrayal. I’ve been trying to be succinct in my lyrical excerpts, but fuck it, Alecto can have two stanzas, as a treat.
We gather stones, never knowing what they'll mean Some to throw, some to make a diamond ring You know I didn't want to have to haunt you But what a ghostly scene You wear the same jewels that I gave you As you bury me
I didn't have it in myself to go with grace And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same Cursing my name, wishing I stayed You turned into your worst fears
John: Dear John. Honestly, any number of characters could be the narrator here, but I’m primarily thinking of Alecto. Mercy was right about putting an age limit on the Lyctor trials: “don’t you think nineteen’s too young?” John is also getting two stanzas to better exemplify the extent of my rage here. Fingers crossed for Alecto shining like fireworks over his sad empty town in AtN!
Well maybe it's me and my blind optimism to blame Maybe it's you and your sick need to give love then take it away And you'll add my name to your long list of traitors who don't understand And I'll look back and regret how I ignored when they said "Run as fast as you can"
You are an expert at sorry, and keeping the lines blurry Never impressed by me acing your tests All the girls that you've run dry have tired, lifeless eyes 'Cause you burned them out But I took your matches before fire could catch me, so don't look now I'm shining like fireworks over your sad, empty town
Kiriona: Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve. Right up front, I will acknowledge that this is a much different context than Taylor wrote this song about. However, the imagery is so spot on for Kiriona’s rage. Taylor was right to save this one for the 3 AM version of Midnights, not because it doesn’t deserve to be on the standard album, but because it would have completely overshadowed every other track with the rawness of her anger and regret. I feel physically ill every time I hear the line “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.” And Kiriona’s no stranger to giving someone your whole life and realizing they didn’t even want it. 
God rest my soul, I miss who I used to be The tomb won't close, stained glass windows in my mind I regret you all the time I can't let this go, I fight with you in my sleep The wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign I regret you all the time
Mercymorn: Anti-Hero. I feel this one so strongly that I have actually already made a separate post comparing the lyrics to specific Mercy quotes (and I kind of want to do the same for Kiriona… hmmm). Unlovable Mercymorn, critical Mercymorn... it must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me At tea time, everybody agrees I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
Augustine: The Archer. You know, I almost gave him Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince just for the drama and scheming, but I think The Archer captures the genteel façade overlaying his true feelings. It brings to mind the conversation during Dios Apate (minor) where he says he wants to believe that he could’ve stopped Alfred if he’d had just a bit more time. Ouch. 
All the king's horses, all the king's men Couldn't put me together again 'Cause all of my enemies started out friends Help me hold onto you
G1deon: I Knew You Were Trouble. We know it, we love it, we laughed ‘til we cried over the version with goat noises edited in. He knew he was playing with fire, and look how things ended up.
I knew you were trouble when you walked in So shame on me now Flew me to places I'd never been Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground
Wake: Cowboy Like Me. A country ballad? For Wake? It’s more likely than you think. Cowboy Like Me is the story of two swindlers who didn’t mean to actually catch feelings... sound familiar?
Now you hang from my lips Like the Gardens of Babylon With your boots beneath my bed Forever is the sweetest con I've had some tricks up my sleeve Takes one to know one You're a cowboy like me And I’m never gonna love again
Pash: philosophical exemption
Judith: Enchanted. I knowwww, it seems a little frilly and glittery for Judith, but hear me out. How starstruck she was over Marta, how working with her for the first time did absolutely nothing to change that. Thinking of no one else until she’s able to suggest her for her cavalier, secretly reading, ahem, “materials” and dreaming about making things different between them... Yeah, Judith was definitely enchanted to meet her.
This is me praying that This was the very first page Not where the story line ends My thoughts will echo your name, until I see you again These are the words I held back, as I was leaving too soon I was enchanted to meet you
Cytherea: Look What You Made Me Do. The old Cytherea can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Cause she’s dead! I love this for Cyth, not just for surface level content, which certainly fits, but for the context of the song. When LWYMMD was first released, the public consensus was that it was a response to the whole Kim/Kanye situation. In the years since, though, it’s become public that behind the scenes, Taylor was struggling to regain control of her work from her record label. With that context, much of the lyrics and music video reflect that conflict, rather than the one everyone assumed. In the same way, Cytherea’s motivation and actions look much different through the lens of what we learn throughout the next two books.
But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time I got a list of names, and yours is in red, underlined I check it once, then I check it twice, oh!
Dulcie: Bigger Than The Whole Sky. This one hurts. In a series full of tragedy, the fact that this delightful menace never got to meet Palamedes and Camilla in person is enough to break my heart. Our sweet little malign fairy, who has never done anything wrong in her life. 
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye You were bigger than the whole sky You were more than just a short time And I've got a lot to pine about I've got a lot to live without I'm never gonna meet What could've been, would've been What should've been you
Abigail: September. Not a Taylor Swift original, but her folksy cover of the classic is so soft and cozy. Comforting, in that Abigail way. If she and Magnus danced to this one, I can’t blame him for keeping a scrap of her dance card.
Our hearts were ringin' In the key that our souls were singin' As we danced in the night, remember How the stars stole the night away
Magnus: Starlight. More songs for saving dance cards! I can imagine him both sweetly dancing with Abigail AND being a huge dork and embarrassing Isaac and Jeannemary to this one. (Noooooo Magnus, don’t dance to Taylor Swift!)
And I said, "Oh my, what a marvelous tune" It was the best night, never would forget how we moved The whole place was dressed to the nines And we were dancing, dancing Like we're made of starlight, starlight
Isaac and Jeannemary: Long Live. Because that’s what they should’ve been able to do, ugh. I sort of meant this as a joke but when I went to copy the lyrics over I started getting all teary-eyed, so, you know. It’s fine.
Will you take a moment? Promise me this That you'll stand by me forever But if, God forbid, fate should step in And force us into a goodbye If you have children some day When they point to the pictures Please tell 'em my name Tell 'em how the crowds went wild Tell 'em how I hope they shine Long live the walls we crashed through I had the time of my life with you
Cassiopeia: Vigilante Shit. I love the image of Cassy as a contract lawyer vigilante, but I also love the implications in this song that she was working behind his back with his wife Alecto. Gotta make sure she gets the Benz in the divorce, and if the FBI get involved? Well, that’s out of her hands at that point [sips coffee].
She needed cold hard proof so I gave her some She had the envelope, where you think she got it from? Now she gets the house, gets the kids, gets the pride Picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife
Anastasia: Haunted. The church bells! The drama! So very Ninth. With Haunted, we get both her devastation at “misapprehending” the ascension process and her growing horror at the ways she’s begun to realize they’ve all been manipulated.
Come on, come on, don't leave me like this I thought I had you figured out Something's gone terribly wrong You're all I wanted Come on, come on, don't leave me like this I thought I had you figured out Can't breathe whenever you're gone Can't turn back now, I'm haunted
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rainbowdaisy13 · 8 months
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I've seen a lot of posts (especially on reddit) coming from gaylors that still claim that kaylor is over, like "she sang about another muse on her bday" and that kind of thing. I believe T is queer but what if we're wrong about Karlie and despite it definitely being a thing a few years back, it's done and dusted? What if T has another woman on her mind, still more present in her life? (No, not DA) I'm so confused, I don't know what to believe anymore.
It’s understandable to be confused or frustrated—know that that is intentional. She is the Mastermind and she is purposely making this coming out/love Story confusing and layered to always have plausible deniability until they don’t need it anymore.
I am not here to convince you she’s still with Karlie, that’s something you have to decide for yourself. All I can tell you is that these two women have continued to covertly and *loudly* reference each others work, wear similar or identical clothing and jewelry, post within minutes of each other on socials, use wording or song choices that directly hints at unreleased music by Taylor *prior* to it being dropped, build an entire fucking world tour centered around specific Kaylor moments that there is photographic and video evidence for. This is why I believe.
Prior to Midnights I was a little on the fence. She was still Bearded up, we hadn’t had any new music that was loud loud like Lover and Rep without the plausible deniability of “folklore”, Karlie is in a Lavender marriage with a kid. And then Midnights drops—which we find out after the fact that Karlie hinted at track names for weeks ahead of time on her stories, we saw that that whole W Mag spread which was so random was also a hint, and the biggest of all, the MUSIC on midnights is so Kaylor heavy it’s just unreal. How the fuck do you explain Taylor releasing SOTB and Question in the year 2023?? Anti-Hero and Mastermind—literally telling us “none of it was accidental” Nothing is a coincidence it’s all planned down to the fucking checkerboard floor pattern during Style on Tour.
If they aren’t still together, both of them need to be committed because they are still so obsessed with each other to the point it’s unhealthy…….or maybe they have continued to live their secret love story in the way they know how, in a way that protects the people they love, until it’s Time. I have zero guesses on the When, but since Midnights Taylor has been telling us she’s ready to burn it all down and WE ARE READY FOR IT BITCH 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
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mrsfrecklesmarauders · 8 months
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Responding to this post:
No, love. Not every single character has to have a romantic partner to be interesting. It is okay for characters to end up alone. Or not have romantic experiences at all. No matter their sexuality. Aromantic and Asexual characters can exist and be a good representation of the queer community. Not only gay couples represent queer struggle.
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Preach!
Also, I'd also like to give another facet of this idea: NOT EVERY ALLOROMANTIC/ALLOSEXUAL NEEDS TO BE IN A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP. People can be attracted to others but simply choose not to enter relationships because of a variety of reasons: 1) maybe they don't think they'd make a healthy partner and need to focus on their other non-romantic relationships first, 2) being in a romantic relationship isn't in their priorities/values (as opposed to career, family, etc), 3) literally any reason at all.
I hate how one of the only ways to convince a fandom not to ship a character with another is to make the character not attracted to the other's gender--- regardless of whether it's a hetero or homosexual relationship. (im not talking about casual shipping, that's fine with me. im talking about those who get irrationally angry when someone does not agree with their ship, even going as far as harassing the content creators because the ship won't happen).
Because it's possible to have a character whose personality/aspirations do not align with a future romantic relationship. And disregarding this is like disregarding their whole character??
I've seen some creators make their characters/OCs aroace purely to avoid them being shipped with another. (I HATE how that just sounded. Let me be clear that this is NOT criticism towards anyone under the aro and/or ace umbrella. Aromanticism/Asexuality is REAL and valid. This is criticism towards those who have made romantic relationships seem like "THE goal" one should aim for.)
Even making characters siblings or relatives to avoid shipping, even if being an only child/having a small family shaped who they were as a person.
this isn't me screaming at you btw this is me screaming in general. no aggression was intended with the all caps.
i hope this didn't come off as offensive. please let me know if it did.
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Hey! You are totally right with all your points. This is exactly what I am talking about.
Characters are given romantic arcs or stories just to make them interesting without the neccesity of them needing a partner in that particular story. No matter their sexuality. Like you said, people would choose not to be in a relationship for a various of reasons. And that is fine. What I've seen in stories or fanfics is that the character who ends up alone in the end, has a sad ending or is tragic thing to have ended alone. (The phrase: They would find their one eventually. But for now they are happy...)
Which shouldn't be true!
Also, just because a character or some characters don't have romances doesn't mean they fall under the aro / ace / aroace umbrella.
Again, characters that are headcanoned as Aromantic / Asexual or both are most of the time not interesting enough. They are not attractive enough. They are portraited as childish or cold, almost not human. These characters should be interesting enough.
If we are improving the type of queer rep was that the only arc of the gay character was that they were gay, we should improve that for aro/ace/aroace characters as well.
Another important thing you mention. It is annoying that characters are instantly shipped when they have a good relationship or chemistry, without the premise of there being anything romantic between them. I mean, people are allowed to ship whatever they want to ship (regardless if is Canon or not) but we have to practice to see friendships or platonic relationships as well. I don't want to make characters siblings, or for example make them one attracted to another gender, or clarify that they are not romantically involved for them to not be shipped. People tend to just ship whatever they can. Pair characters with characters just because.
I don't know, this is mainly amanormativity's fault. It ruins the way we prioritize relationships. (Thinking the romantic one is more important than others). Just like heteronormativity ruined homosexuality before.
Let's give friendships and queer platonic relationships the importance they deserve as well. Characters should be interesting despite their sexuality, if they get into a relationship or not, or they end up with someone or not.
And if two characters get along, they should not be instantly shipped or pretended to end together. They could have another type of relationship as well.
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