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mha-grievances · 1 year

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Alright, I’m bored, so I’m gonna tell you my opinions of the various MHA villains. This isn’t a dee analysis on any of them. Just my vague thoughts on them. I won’t be tackling any of the Nomu (including Kurogiri), spin-off villains, or movie villains:

AFO: He’s just there for me. For a Big Bad he’s kinda lackluster. He lacks the charisma of the archetype that he’s trying to be a part of when compared to other members of his archetype (giant looming threat) such as Darkseid and Thanos.

Tomura: Meh. I know people didn’t like him initially when he showed up cause he was a man-child, but I didn’t mind that. However he’s not really interesting to me. Sure his backstory’s sad, but his grand plan is to just disintegrate everything… just cause? While this is nothing new, it was kinda lackluster seeing as the narrative was putting Tomura down the path of being the next biggest villain. Like I get it, fuck society, but what does destroying everything accomplish? I dunno, his story feels weak to me.

Dabi: He’s definitely overrated by the fandom, but I like his character. He’s also got a kickass design and quirk. Dabi’s motives are a bit more than “fuck the world, let me destroy it” as his beef is with his abusive father. I can buy into this more-so than Tomura’s motives

Himiko: Definitely one of my top villains in the series, but I feel like she wasn’t explored as well as she should’ve been. Himiko’s definition of love is to literally become someone else, which can serve as a metaphor of people who aren’t able to accept who they are and aim to change everything about themselves. You compare this to Ochako’s experience with love which fuels her to be the best possible version of herself. I also would’ve loved to see more of her relationship with her quirk, how it has dominated every portion of her life. Finally, I do agree with those who say she’s often fetishized.

Spinner: I like him, but he’s been severely underutilized. His arc about mutant quirk discrimination was quickly wrapped up in like one issue and that’s it.

Mr. Compress: One of my favorite MHA villains. I love his quirk, his personality, and design. However, he struggles with a clear lack of motives, his only boiling down to the fact his ancestor was one of the greatest villains to ever exist. Why did Mr. Compress choose to follow his footsteps? Was it for fame? Because he agreed with his ancestor? Or maybe for another reason? At most we can say he hates society like the rest of the villains, but that doesn’t really give us much insight to his character.

Twice: My favorite MHA villain. If there’s anything from MHA that can be considered great, it’s the writing of Twice’s character. Twice is someone anyone can relate to, a person cast aside by the world and is willing to do anything to make friends. His quirk has caused him great anguish and he constantly grapples with his self identity. Out of all the LoV members, he has the biggest heart, but easily the most fragile one, and that’s why he’s a villain. It’s why he refused Hawks’s hand when told he could be a good guy. He saw his friends, the people who accepted him for who he was, and chose to fight besides them even if what they were doing was wrong. Twice is without a doubt the best character to come out of MHA and I will die on this hill.

Dr. Garaki: one of my favorite villains concept wise. A man who is canonically smarter than Nezu (who has an intelligence enhancing quirk) who makes Frankenstein like monsters could’ve been a super cool idea for a main antagonist. He could’ve served as a parallel to Izuku as Dr. Garaki’s quirk provides no offense utility. He’s essentially a quirkless person who lives longer. He is kinda a walking plot device though.

Magne: As many people would agree, she was wasted potential. A trans character who could’ve helped with MHA’s world building. I do wanna know why she chose to be a villain, but unfortunately after the Overhaul Arc she’s never brought up again.

Mustard: I like Mustard a lot but he’s yet another character with wasted potential. A kid as young as 1-A who hates heroes, a lot could’ve been done with that.

Moonfish: Unpopular opinion but I really like Moonfish. Why? Cause of his design. It’s very Lovecraftian like and I’m a sucker for those sorta things. Moonfish isn’t a deep character but he doesn’t need to be. He’s just evil and that’s fine. His creepy factor more than makes up for a lack of character.

Muscular: Serves as a physical obstacle Izuku has to overcome. Does his job well in that regard. Unlike Moonfish his appearance or quirk doesn’t make him stand out to me.

The Eight Bullets: Categorizing them all together. I like them. I can empathize with their struggles and how they wish to be needed despite being social outcasts. Obviously I wish more detail was put into them, but that’s pretty much it. I will say Rappa kinda doesn’t belong in there cause unlike the others, his motive is just that he wants to fight Overhaul, but that’s not to say I dislike him. I just feel he should’ve swapped places with one of the other Yakuza who weren’t the Eight Bullets.

Overhaul: In terms of presentation, design, and quirk, he absolutely is one of my favorite characters. His motives suck though. Man is in possession of one of the strongest quirks in the series and his motive is “ew, quirks are cooties”. Wanting to create quirk erasure bullets to cripple heroes so that the Yakuza can rise again is more than a fine motive for him. The “quirks are a disease” thing comes off as dumb. Maybe if he actually had a quirk that affected this behavior, this motive would’ve made a lot more sense.

Re-Destro: Boring. He could’ve been a neat Magneto type character but he’s immediately thrown to the side despite somehow having a city’s worth of members and spies layered throughout Japan.

The rest of the MLA: Couldn’t care for any of them, except for Geten, but that’s only because he has a cool design and quirk. The girl who can place mines had a cool quirk and design, but she got on my nerves.

Giran: Sometimes I forget he exists 😂. He’s basically a walking plot device.

Edit: I forgot someone 😭

Stain: I felt his message was extremely important to the themes of MHA and I like his design. However I feel that they neutered his message by having him target any heroes who weren’t All Might. There are other heroes, like Tensei, who are great heroes, just not at the caliber as All Might in terms of fame. Doesn’t mean they’re any less of a good hero. Imo he should’ve been more selective with his targets.

Edit 2: Forgot about another person 😭

La Brava: I like her. I think she’s cute and her relationship with Gentle is both genuine and well written. Her being a hacker’s really cool.

Edit 3: Forgot yet another person 😭

Gentle: thought he was cool too. A more human villain compared to the others we’ve gotten, and while not evil, is still someone who fits the bill of a villain.

#bnha critical #mha critical #tomura shiragaki #himiko toga #twice mha #spinner #bnha dabi #league of villains #meta liberation army #eight bullets #overhaul #dr garaki #all for one #stain mha

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acoraxia · 8 months

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I'm still thinking about your fic that had the yaoguai Undercity. Are you ever gonna do anything with that again? Because it was genuinely so cool. :D And I'm still wondering about MK's POV for that first visit, he probably had so many revelations about Wukong in such a short time. xD

Sorry for the messy ramble i just woke up and it’s 4am haha

The Undercity is still a concept I want to utilize in my AUs and writings! I actually thought about writing a “bible” fanfic detailing the structure of the area and how it essentially works in the LMK universe.

I always pictured it to be a mini realm created to house and inhabit yaoguai, yaomo and yaojing of any kind and keep them away from Heaven’s eyes; as in it wasn’t there for a long time until someone (coughs, two pilgrims, cough) came along and designed it. I actually thought it would’ve been interesting if SWK didn’t create it alone and I know I can’t use the Seven Sages/Kings anymore because LMK wrote them out so I can’t have him say “the snob-nosed monkey spirit king helped me make this” so I had to improvise and decided Ao Lie could’ve helped him.

I imagine it’s—well, Xiaotian shows signs of being able to manipulate mechanical transportations and even create mecha from rock, and then SWK is able to do it, too, so I figured Ao Lie could be a savvy with creating things just like Xiaojiao is with her vehicles. But like… buildings.

And I imagine it’s called an Undercity but it’s essentially this big realm to be able to house so many yaoguai… and those who need different environments too! Demon dragons and sea-based creatures would need a big water area to thrive in so they made an underwater structured area for them, etc.

The reason why Yaoguai fear and love SWK is because they know if they mess up SWK will attack them but they also know if they’re wronged SWK will protect them. It’s quite interesting tbh.

I think I’ll try to write it up in my free time—should be around 4k if anything—and title it “Your demon’s guide to creating an underground city with your best friend (no not that one)” for fun. For SWK to have the magic to create realms or realm-like environments—I can definitely see that and I am shocked people don’t play with that concept more often because I am 100% he could do it if he set his mind to it.

But, yeah! Thank you for the question actually it really made me happy someone was interested in the Undercity haha

#woof loupen #lego monkie kid #worldbuilding #undercity #hehe

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confessmau · 4 months

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this is less of a hot take more like a complaint but something I think isn’t nearly as talked abt is the magic system and how it works in MS/MCD. In McD it’s slightly more explored.

Jess just kinda threw a lot of… stuff at us and expected us to just digest it without further explaining what’s in the dish.

it’s the equivalent of a stranger walking up to you, handing you a plate of somewhat appealing food, and telling you to eat it. Like most people want to know what’s in the food.

there’s two different forms of it, kinda not really, magic and magik’s. With no real meaningful difference between the two.

we know there’s a high magic council, that’s off busy doing god knows what during MS’s climax.

We know that aside from magik’s and magic there’s multiple different classifications of magic. By extension we know most of magic is drawn from emotion (it’s still stated extremely vaguely tho), and healing magic is done through equivalent exchange.

we know there’s demons and other mythical humanoid/animal like creatures.

we know there’s a spirit world.

we know there’s like familiars, and some of those spells that come with it.

And we know there’s other gods besides the divine. (They’re technically not gods, but they’re still treated like it in dialogue so)

and we know that there’s magic laws, colleges, maybe even governments and places that are purely inhabited by magic users alla Harry Potter.

my point being, with all these jumping points you would thing at least would be expanded on, but nope, magic in this world is just, accepted as a factor and treated like a relatively unimpressive spectacle.

which is weird because despite there being lots ways to show off how society, both physically and psychologically would change. There’s so many cool world building you could do, but Jess just- opts to shove goofy ass spells in our face.

at least until season 4 where the really bad forbidden spell is made which, isn’t even investigated by this magic council that put the rule that you can’t make it in place. But if Jess did that then she’d have to do several things we know she wouldn’t want to do like; explain why forever potions are band and love potions aren’t, actually focus on characters and the world bigger than our cast of characters mainly aph and Aaron, come up with actual world building and discuss the conflicts that may arise out of having magic being used so freely in schools and just public areas in general.

like there’s so many deeper topics that you could present with it but no; cat potionsssss, love potion misunderstandings/conflicts that we’ve seen a million other times and done so much better in a handful of them, teleportation which does have a bit of a limit granted, more destructive chaotic potions that multiple characters have not accidentally/purposefully caused 100’s of 1,000 dollars with, but also put people in actual physical danger in both schools and public settings, potions that allow you to swap fantasy races for comedy.

The main problem is that Jess kinda just, pulled out random generic spells as she went along and only put debuffs on it later to nerf it. Again like the teleportation, or forever potion victims just needing to feel a “strong emotion”. It’s not thought out at all, which I’m not surprised by but god, it could’ve been so interesting.

oh i can explain the magic differences sorta ~~

magicks/magics plural is exclusive to mcd. people who use magicks have to be born with an innate connection to the magicks that flows through the world. and your abilities tend to fall into a specific category of spell (ex. kc specializes in animation magicks, zoey has barrier magicks etc.) some magicks users can perform witchcraft in spells related to their field, but witchcraft is for the most part a seperate skill. it is the best explained out of the three.

magic is a mystreet concept and allegedly anyone can use it with a "strong emotion". there are only a couple categories of spell, and specific emotions are required for each one (happy is creation, anger for destruction, sorrow for elemental, and love for healing). only the healing magic is ever used, and its mostly unrelated to witchcraft even through lucinda exposits about it. [imo adding a magic with such a loose requirement and never using it only serves to dampen any emotional scenes after its introduction since (ex. zane couldn't have been THAT sad about aph's death if he didn't become the avatar) but that's a little unrelated lol)

witchcraft is the jack of all trades of magic in both worlds and is characterized by using specific incantations and ingrediants for spells to work. anyone can do it with training or only some people can do it depending on the timeline. it is the most lawless of the three, mostly due to the fact that lucinda is the only important witch and her primary role is plot device. the majority of magic use is witchcraft, including the forever potions.

#aphmau #aphblr #mystreet #minecraft diaries #confessions #aphmau lucinda

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tiptapricot · 1 year

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Ok. Some feelings on The Mandalorian season 3 where it stands for me right now. Yes it’s only been three episodes. Yes, I unfortunately have mainly not positive thoughts so far. So here we go.

TLDR: I feel what we’ve gotten this season is narratively weak, confused, and pointless.

The overarching issue, in all of it, is every conflict that’s been set up has been almost immediately resolved in the next episode or the same episode, no matter how big a space the plot point occupied previously. This has created a landscape of not only no stakes, but no realistic path for interesting character growth and direction for Din and Grogu, who are meant to be our protagonists.

Episode one starts us off with a ton of rehashing from the end of Mando S2 and TBoBF, things viewers keeping up should already know, since they’ve been restated many many times. On first watch this bothered me but I wrote it off as just some bumps as they ease us into the new story, but now it’s just. Fluff. We didn’t need another conversation with the Armorer about Din being forgiven, or to Bo Katan about their differences, etc. I liked the worldbuilding for Nevarro, but even that feels more like set dressing now.

The entire focus of the episode was around Din wanting IG-11 back so he could have someone to trust while going to find the living waters, and the ep ends with him on the beginning of an adventure to find a rare part to make that possible. This set up, while obviously just a writing choice to kick off a plot, still could’ve been a believably in character way to send Din on a long journey to various places and through conflicts in pursuit of something, on the way grappling with how focused he is on one way of things, and on what his faith and culture mean to him.

So like. Cool, interesting. Puts a focus on Din’s needs for trust and specificity, his stubbornness, and his perseverance towards an end goal, one that has been repeatedly shown and stated to be extremely important to him since the removal of his helmet multiple times in season 2 (forgiveness in the waters, which are supposedly destroyed). Also introduces the pirates as possibly being an enemy following him on this hunt for the rare part.

But then y’know.

Episode two starts, and he almost immediately gives up on that goal, gets a new random droid, finds out that Mandalore is liveable and not cursed and he didn’t need the droid anyway, and gets to the living waters within the same episode which is only the second of the season.

It immediately squashes any previously set up tension, goals, and conflict in a way that is jarring and frankly unsatisfying. We get some good Grogu focus, allowing him to come into the story and showing the inklings of conflict, but then the second half seems more focused on Bo Katan, and on Din being a passive thing to save. Not only that, but it resolves a goal that has been a motivator for Din and his character arc for so much of the show.

He bathes in the waters and is forgiven, but even then it is not his moment. He falls and Bo Katan saves him and there’s a beast in there. No lingering on what this moment means to him, on what finding out that Mandalore can be returned to means to him and his people, on what letting go of the weight of the sin he’s been carrying feels like. It’s just another rushed moment used for him to be in physical distress for someone else to act on and to introduce “big monster down there woah 👍” to the universe. We don’t even really get Grogu’s reaction to this, even though the previously set up stakes of Grogu having to save Din were fascinating and could’ve been an amazing beginning to a shift in dynamic or exploration of how Grogu interacts with conflict.

The episode doesn’t explore the full scope of the concepts it sets up for itself, and cuts short the scope of the waters plot like a check mark on a to do list. It also circles back and undoes the goals postured in the first episode, furthering the question of “what was the point of any of that?”

At the end of episode two I was already having some feelings. I was dissatisfied and confused, but still hopeful. I enjoyed some character beats, saw Din’s in-peril moments as kind of goofy and a switch up to how he’s usually portrayed, and it was only episode two.

But. Then episode three came out today and just. Come fucking on.

We start with the living waters plot over, boom. Again not really any talk or lingering on the significance of what just happened. Instead we focus on Bo Katan realizing there is actually something living down there, likely playing into her own plans and thoughts for the world, and they leave.

And get into a fight.

And this fight just. There is no direction. No stakes. They’re fighting because they’re the enemies Bo Katan has made but we know they’re going to be fine. And they are. The castle is destroyed and Bo Katan is mad but they just. Have to leave. Sets up an interesting plot for her grieving another home right? On dealing with that as Din brings her to the covert, right?

Nope! It’s. An entire unrelated episode in parentheses that we know the ending of before it starts because it is shown in the recap clips at the beginning of the episode.

We see some interesting moments of the rehabilitation process, about how large governments don’t actually do a good job of easing the transition and letting ex-empire people help, but the rest, I’ll say, didn’t fucking need to be there! It’s so unbelievably separate from Din, at least with what’s been presented to us this far, and it’s so long and just. Unenjoyable and lazy.

We know what’s going to happen, and it’s a slog as a result because we as the audience are not in Pershing’s shoes, not able to get invested and wonder if trusting Kane is right. We know every move she makes is a lie to get him to help the empire and to betray him, and as a result it just makes everything so painfully obvious and annoying and pointless feeling. It’s a plot that’s been done a thousand times, but usually! With the twist revealed to the audience as well, creating actual shock and emotional investment. I actually wondered if Kane would turn out to be good or to have a crisis of conscience, because it would’ve actually been unexpected as opposed to what was spelled out for us before it even started.

And in the end Pershing doesn’t even get to have that secret of betrayal with him to possibly come back as a plot point, to be someone and do something for this universe. Instead he’s strapped into a mind flayer and then just?? Allowed to be brain fried?? There is no explanation or background to how Kane has become so trusted as to not only not be questioned when leading a man out of town, but to be left alone with him IN THE CONTROL ROOM WITH THE CONTROLS! That also??? Are somehow allowed to be cranked up to dangerous levels with no security even though the device has supposedly been altered to be something else?? It’s. It’s so painfully predictable and set up and just. Pointless! What was any of that!

Like yes. I know this is going to come back later with whatever science tech Kane was able to get to continue Pershing’s experiments, whatever, but it was not relevant to the plot that we’ve so far been given, and absolutely did not have to be a monster sidequest sandwiched between the characters we actually are here to see and are meant to be experiencing this plot through. It could’ve been a longer arc, intercut and swapping with Din/Grogu/Bo Katan over a few episodes, resulting in the betrayal in a way that, while still would’ve been lazy for the content, would’ve been better paced and balanced with the rest of the story.

But that’s not all! When we cut back to Din and Bo Katan, we have yet another really interesting moment of meeting the covert, and of both of them being accepted. However the way that it’s framed seems to set up Bo Katan for having an arc this season, for struggling with her faith and seeing Din’s covert in a new light (or for the plot to try and push the cult idea further by having her feel like she’s being indoctrinated w care in a vulnerable spot which… I will be very pissed if they go for). And this is an interesting idea however! The protagonist/s are still Din and Grogu! And thus far, Din has been made to be almost completely passive and flat in his own show.

Episode one he is just wanting a robot, episode two he is in distress and gets saved, episode three he shoots some guys and gets back to his covert, but except episode one (which again was frankly just fluff and did not do anything for his character), he has not had any real sustained moment of plot focus and growth.

In the context of what we saw in episode two this makes me even more upset. This season set itself up to be and ideally should’ve been Din and Grogu’s reunion season, a time to see how they work and live and develop together, how Grogu’s partial but incomplete force/Jedi training affects his character and his relationships and alllows the plot to explore the potential of darkness or jealousy creeping in, of struggles with powers and steps towards being an accepted mandalorian. But instead things have just been. Flat and unfocused and pointless.

This season reads so far to me like the writers have run out of ideas on what to do with Din, on how to explore him on a plot and character level and how to shape a narrative around him. Like where does he have to go from here? He has Grogu back, he has his Mandalorian status back within his personal beliefs, he’s back with his covert, he’s not being actively chased by anyone who’s really a threat (at the moment) and there’s been no real talk of what him being Mand’alor means for the future of their group and his own need for training with the Dark Saber. That last point is the only thing that still feels unresolved, and yet it hasn’t been hinted at or leaned into so far as a direction they’re planning to go, besides once again showing Din can’t really use the Dark Saber for shit.

I feel like so much of this lack of focus is because they did a similar tying-up-big-possible-plots-and-arcs thing in TBoBF (which even though I know it’s been said a million times did not need to be mando s2.5) by wrapping up the Luke plot and the Grogu being separated plot. That should’ve been a whole season on its own, or hell, even a whole several season arc. I do not say this as someone who likes dinluke, because I do, but I’m actually more pissed at this from a writing and narrative perspective, because they brushed aside what feels to me like the most thematically elegant and emotionally conflicting plot they could’ve gone with like it was nothing.

Grogu has been built up as being both Mandalorian and Jedi. There has been focus on how Mandalorians and Jedi don’t get along. The dark saber was made by a Mandalorian Jedi when they did get along. Din now has the dark saber. There are so many obvious ties to be made about bridging that divide, about finding unity again, about working with the flexible points in culture and tradition as children create unique circumstances that force change.

We could’ve had a whole arc of Din being separated from Grogu and struggling with himself and working towards being forgiven, and Grogu getting trained and getting to have inner conflict and reflection, working towards realizations on both ends, a reunion, etc. It just! It was quite literally the logical and intentional direction at the end of season two, something so fascinating and nuanced to explore. But it was wrapped up like nothing, and it seems that that trend is all season three has decided to be.

I’m disappointed. I am still hopeful, because I love this show, and I want it to be good, and I want to see the characters expanded upon and developing with each other, but right now it feels like the narrative does not know it’s own direction and in fact hates every direction it tries to set itself in enough to immediately course correct into something else we don’t care about. It’s tiring, and it’s sad, because I don’t feel like I’m seeing the writing going downhill, I feel like I’m seeing that it already has, that the care and planning has already been sapped from the plot and world with no intention of improving. In retrospect, with context, it just feels so… flat.

I have hope, because of course I do, and it is still only the first three episodes, but I’ve also lost my trust, and no matter what happens next I want to explode the current writing with my mind.

#enjoy my essay I’m very mad and disappointed #the fruit is talking again #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian s3 #the mandalorian season 3 #din djarin #grogu

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f0xgl0v3 · 4 months

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Fighting the urge to make another post about Bryce Lawerence 😔…

Another post about Bryce Lawerence!

(Guys I gave into the urge)

Okay- but like. No one cares about him, it’s like if I went on an entire post for Larry the legionnaire (that one is still on my list to make- **Update from future Kleos who’s finishing this right now, Larry the Legionnaire post is going to be started directly after this is posted!***). But I really like talking about him because he literally stole a part of my brain and refuses to hand it over.

And there’s so much to him that we don’t know that can be explored! Like- there are so many possibilities with his character and I want to include him more in my Re-imagining because if we’re gonna make him a monster then why not actually display his absolute bat shittery in the book. Or I don’t know.. make him an actually compelling character that gets to be an actual character and not a maniacal stereotype that is put in the plot so we can show Nico’s.. thing? (I don’t know, I’ll be honest don’t like Nico that much- like him in the first arc when he’s a silly little baby and then an emo 10 year old)

Like we know he cannonically committed a bunch of crimes, barely got away by the skin of his teeth because of nepotism and then like??? We don’t know how old he was when he committed said crimes, his most notable one oh I don’t know, MURDER, that feels notable is left as just an afterthought like- there were so many ways this could’ve affected everything just from how long ago the murder was! (I think I did a whole other post on Bryce just talking about that! But it could seriously affect camp and I feel like there was major potential that could’ve improved the story)

Bryce could’ve been a convincing demigod villain that would be an actual threat and the scariest part would be that he wouldn’t have been working for Gaea (at the very most he might’ve done like mercenary work for stuff like triumvirate holdings or whatever it’s called but because I haven’t finished TOA I refuse to make any conclusions) he’d be a separate much more real entity and threat (because how many people were really tensed up and nervous over the Camp Jupiter-Camp Half-blood conflict. Because we don’t see any of it and if the story was tweaked and all of protags weren’t shoved in the same boat away from the b-plot it would be better but that’s for me to yap about-)

And; may I propose a concept (that fits with my hcs-) that Bryce would’ve been in the first cohort, he canonically murdered his Centurion in the war games (It’s not plural in the books to I have to assume that it’s just one of them) but this is my idea that he killed the Centurion that Micheal too over for, and that either Bryce killed them to clear the way for Michael (which opens a whole new avenue for a Michael and Bryce and what their relationship would’ve been that would lead for Bryce to do that-) or that Bryce wanted to take up the role but didn’t get it.

Of course there’s the scenario that Bryce did it for fun. Which is what Rick implied though I don’t like that because it feels… icky? Most people (even people who do heinous crimes like this) don’t just murder for no reason. There is more often than not, a motive. And I think giving Bryce a motive would make him a lot more interesting than just saying, “oh he’s wild guys, he’s just a quirky little guy” and moving on. Again; let’s not make the character with some form of implied psychopathy just a harmful stereotype of an already incredibly stigmatized condition. Alright, cool.

But if we just got a little forethought and Bryce was a bigger part in the plot (which could be my biased perspective because I like the little man) then it could’ve been so much more interesting in camp! It would set up a post Bryce-debocle Camp Jupiter when we first see in in SoN. Where Reyna’s struggling to keep camp together and has to deal with the lingering outside threats of the dude that would probably have a vendetta because she exiled him from the life he’s ever known that could quite possibly still be close to camp (remember Camp Jupiter doesn’t have the magic border-) and developing a following (Make Reyna paranoid, make her fall- make her be a prime example of the perfect soldier, then make her crumble, see as she begins to spiral and fear that she is becoming every closer to her own fathers paranoia, allow her that and put in the message that it gets better and that you can get help. But that’s another post-) a First cohort that is still trying to adjust to the power exchange of a new Centurion, a camp that is on guard and is mourning the loss of a valued and dear member of their legion (I’m not saying we make a Redtail out of the unnamed murdered centurion- but I am saying make a Redtail, and if you get the reference, rad) a camp that is unwelcoming more so than usual all because of this one person. A legacy no less- give us a proper opportunity to dive into Legacies and the culture surrounding them!

Also would like to state that in my legacies post I briefly fluttered by the mention that I think his father was a demigod and that made him a first gen legacy, but on his mothers side I’d like to give the consideration that she’d come from a long line of legacies of Ira (or Furor- or Lyssa as she was in her Green counterpart) but Ira was the spirit (not a goddess, felt that should be known though I’m unsure if that matters or if she can really be interchangeable and still regarded as a minor goddess-) of mad rage, frenzy, and rabies in animals. I say to add this aspect because it feels right in my brain. Sure demigods shouldn’t be stereotyped into personalities based on who they’re related to directly in divinity. But- like, I just wanna have this. I don’t get to talk about Lyssa a lot and I find her interesting and it’s my head-canon (no idea why I’m arguing with myself because literally none of you guys care.)

Okay! I’ve been writing this and recently finished reading zazzanders‘s (please I don’t know if I should be using a direct mention- link thingy? If I should let me know because I’d rather have my posts… somewhat easier to read, like obviously the writing style invokes someone hunched over their phone just typing out random sentences for the fun of it because that’s what it is but I want there to be some form of ease. But you should go check out their page because they make really cool and interesting content) reblog of one of my posts and I too just realized how insanely powerful Bryce is? I don’t know how I would like nerf him but I feel he significantly needs to be chilled out because he has a lot of stuff going on. Like a lot of powers and stuff and whatever and it’s all weird and Rick just yelled whatever when writing him and anything to do with Camp Jupiter so it all ends up weird as hell. Until I figure all that out I’m not touching it and I’m leaving Bryce in this weird zone- and I can’t say screw it and make him blessed by Orcus because with his title alone I think there is no way he would condone or agree with anything Bryce has done,

Which launches me into sudden change! I want to know what Bryce and Orcus’s relationship is. We know Bryce is said to have gone and survived a trip to the underworld because of his edgy 12-year-old comment about the screams from the field of punishment sounding like music to his ears (seriously the more I write the more like I feel like he’d be one of Ramona Flowers’s evil ex boyfriends) so it can be implied that at one point he tried to make contact with Orcus. How did that go out? Not well because I expect Bryce broke a shit ton of oaths about like being a good legionnaire and he probably lied on stand during trial because he’s totally the type of beetle that would do that, so I want to know what that was like- how that affected Bryce, all that stuff. And I know I’ll probably write out how I think that scenario played out in the future.

Anyway I’m pretty sure that I’m just grasping at straws and really if I wanted to I could just keep talking about this character because I don’t know why but I just like- woke up one day and couldn’t get him off my mind sooo..

Larry the legionnaire post next! Then after that I don’t know, maybe something about New Rome or Camp Jupiter. Maybe I’ll finally get around to being confused about the jobs in camp or something,

Maybe goodnight? I don’t really know because the Larry post feels like it’ll be short.

#idk how to tag this #hehe :3 #pjo hoo toa #bryce lawerence #hoo bryce #kind of a rant #hoo headcanon #kind of Camp Jupiter #hoo #i dont know #okay bye

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razzbberyl · 2 years

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okay some Thoughts on aitsf under read more but tldr yeah it’s fine

I’m kinda surprised the plot was so plain? short? for an uchikoshi game like it wasn’t bad per se just kinda “oh maybe it’s this guy oh maybe it’s that guy” bam it’s the guy you’ve never met bc we’re hoping you didn’t play ztd lol

also not sure how I feel abt “he’s only happy when he’s killing ppl” that feels like such a weak trait I’m not even touching the mental health part I’m just talking character wise he was rly flat. like, I’m sorry you got mommy and daddy issues but so does mizuki and she didn’t kill ppl abt it

for the most part the humor was. there. date is pathetic and yeah that’s fun but there’s only so many sex jokes until it just gets annoying. sorry for skipping like all of date and aibas banter it will happen again

okay so speaking of characters I just couldn’t like. I’m sorry I’m an iris hater she’s so annoying. like it was fun with the whole ‘clever internet idol who lies for a following’ thing they tried to build, but eventually it was just funny tiktok girl. I can already hear that awful tts “ice machine prank gone wrong” I just couldn’t get into her thing and the credits scene at the end was stupid and I literally walked away from it.

I’m also a ota hater and not sorry abt this one he’s so dumb I don’t like how his character is “justified” and also I don’t like that he’s 24. Actually why are there so many adults trying to be sexual with kids idc if she’s 18 she’s in school so she’s a kid. Even her scenes w date were weirdly borderline, like they felt so off it made me gross esp the dating shit

ALSO I don’t like the weird setting up date with hitomi like I get it but I don’t like it I think her character could’ve been more than just ‘mom and love interest’ I also think manaka’s whole thing was kinda boring like at first I thought they had preserved her body for stem cells to treat iris but no they just. froze her for??? the hell of it

the voice acting was good Allegra Clark (Boss) did a fabulous job as always and so did Erika Harlatcher (Aiba) (tho I could only hear ann p5). Corina Boettger (mizuki) rly stole the show tho she had such a believable child’s voice she wasn’t just high pitch adult woman her lines GOT me whenever she cried

I played the switch version and it sucked so bad. controls are clunky and imprecise, and so so sooo slow loading like every time the little AI vision would pop up it would take a solid 10 s to load and you’re just sitting there. Considering how many of these scenes there are, it was so obnoxious. It even crashed for me twice trying to load ai vision, both during the driving sequences.

pewter was cool tho be gay do crimes

overall I’m glad I played but I’m glad I got it on sale yk? fun little 15 hr game with some replayability but considering they refused to let you go 5 sec without a flashback there’s not /that/ much. I liked the concept art additions tho

#I’m not tagging this the main fandom bc I would prefer to keep the circus out of my inbox

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will-o-theforce · 2 months

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E. Willow presents

The Pokémon Series: Part 1

Under the cut: Vaporeon, Pikachu, Sylveon, Umbreon, Jolteon, Delcatty, Mismagius, Eevee

*There are signature inconsistencies in early works

Vaporeon

My first attempt at Pokémon art. I know nothing of the games or the anime, so this was an interesting challenge in trying to make those lines and edges as clean as possible.

The background design, done entirely with posca pens, was inspired by those “how to draw water” videos you see on TikTok.

Pikachu

Not my favourite. Pikachu is adorable, but not particularly challenging. This piece also presents a plethora of rookie mistakes that I’m not proud of, but I maintain that they’ve been helpful in developing a more consistent technique

Sylveon

She is my everything and I’ll love her for all eternity. An incredible challenge! Not only did I make so many mistakes that I had to fix, but consistently mixing all those different shades of pink that stood out from one another induced an entirely new level of rage for me.

This was when I really started leaning into the idea of really abstract background designs. My research showed Sylveon is a peaceful type Pokémon, who has attacks, but prefers to stay largely nonviolent, and I wanted this to show. I wanted to call to the movement of her body in the lines, and also really allow her to pop with the bubbles filling up those big empty spaces.

Umbreon

Screaming crying throwing up. So cute! But also a huge pain in my ass! Do you know how hard it is to find a full body pose reference for this little dude? SO HARD! I also think literally all of his attacks are ugly, but I found this one card that had these little stars and some white lightning lines, so I thought that’d be an awesome concept to explore, especially with bringing those background designs to the foreground.

I think he could’ve popped more if the background had been maybe yellow or red to highlight those colour points on his body, but I think he works like this.

Jolteon

YES. He is beauty, he is grace, the very visible mistake corrections are slapping me in the face. The lovely thing about acrylic is that them mistakes are SEEN. I still love him though. I think his line art would’ve been the most difficult with all those sharp points.

Jolteon is when I decided to be very conscious of posing and placement. With the others, you can see some deliberate choices, but not all of the previous paintings were this carefully thought out. I like the idea of having the determined attack pose, or with the peaceful ones, a flowing pose with lots of movement implications. Movement is one of my favourite things to display in my more abstract designs. Here it’s very prominent in the step forward sparking out and back.

Delcatty

I wanted to try something with the clean border. I think as a whole, I like the painted edges more because the bright white border tends to highlight those empty spaces rather than letting the empty spaces bring out the figure.

This was my fastest attempt, having been started and completed within about 3 hours including drying time. I think the background should have been a shade darker to allow for those purple motifs in Delcatty to really pop, but there’s also something kind of satisfying about the way parts of the figure blend into the background.

I was so lost on how to display Delcatty’s attack, so I decided to use those movement lines and bubbles extending out from the front to make it seem as though her shout is a power in itself. Almost like you’d see in manga or comic when a character is all caps-ing. I also liked the idea of adding individual movement lines to the tail, because my cat has a tail that flickers and moves a lot when he’s vocal.

Mismagius

Again with the border, but something about it worked here that didn’t with Delcatty, and I think it’s because of how filled up the space is. I saw the eye motif on one of Mismagius’ cards while I was researching and thought it’d be such a cool addition, and the way it brings attention to her actual eyes is an awesome bonus.

Colour theory kicked my ass with this one. You see those black shadows on the hat and one of her limbs? That shit is violet. But because of the background being that super deep plum violet, it comes out almost black. You have to shine a light on it to see the purple.

This one was a 3am crash course in How Badly Do I Wanna Screw My Sleep Schedule. It’s bad yall.

Eevee

This was a commissioned piece and is definitely my favourite of the bunch. The browns just really work together, and I love the honey colour of his eyes. I also love the almost front-facing determined pose with the movement lines and dots going up from the back and following the curve of the tail. I’m also quite happy with how the top left space doesn’t feel like “empty space” even though there’s nothing there. It brings more attention to Eevee himself without overcrowding or leaving it too empty. A good balance.

I also finally figured out my signature with this one, so hooray for me!

#my artwork #painting #art study #traditional art #pokemon #pokémon fanart #eevee #eeveelution #sylveon #umbreon #jolteon #vaporeon #delcatty #mismagius #pikachu #fanart #acrylic #posca pens #colour block

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coles-walloper · 8 months

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Yknow I’m finishing the last 2 episodes of HoT tonight & am prepared to either go straight into the Oni Trilogy afterwards but there’s something about Episode 8 that I wanted to note!

(( Long rambles abound ))

I think I’ve heard a few people describe Kai’s behavior as very much jumping to conclusions when he faces off against Ray with knowledge of his parents’ alleged betrayals — and I do 100% agree Kai tends to be brash. Versus Nya’s behavior, in holding Kai back to get him to listen to their father.

But I think from the perspective of both Kai, it kinda makes sense why!

Like for Nya, since she likely wasn’t old enough at the time to directly know their parents, it’s understandable she’d want to her out her father because this is the first time she’s honestly seen or heard from him.

On the other hand, Kai’s personally grown up with both parents while he’s at an age to be conscious of his need for them & attachment as a young child who misses them. There’s a LOT of trauma in realizing your parents weren’t gone the whole time, that they were out there and just left you behind to do something else — something that wasn’t what happened but very much so was skewed to appear so. So likely the thought going through his mind would be ‘You weren’t there for us when we needed in order to do things for the people actively harming us?’ I thought that might be interesting to note.

We got a super nifty fight scene out of that so I’ll add that to my collection of cool Kai moments lololol.

Other HoT ending notes:

- The fusion dragon was absolutely EPIC! And a boiling sea that works with a master of fire & master of water???! That’s such a neat concept!!! These things make me wished that the season could’ve been implemented better bc HoT had such huge potential (I prob won’t criticize anything tho cause I feel other people wrote a lot over the flaws more eloquently!).

- Ray and Maya were pretty great for the short time they were there, but I have really mixed feelings on bringing them back. It was such a huge part of the beginnings for awhile — the siblings starting off alone in the Pilots, Chen holding the backstories of Kai’s parents over himself, then finally both siblings grieving in DotD with a beautiful scenes & the foreshadowing of their parents’ backstories when Kai wonders if they’ll ever figure out what happened. All of that was just implemented so well!

I heard alternate ideas proposed from those who thought the set up for an arc where Ray & Maya were actually evil would give a lot to explore. That’d definitely be interesting for sure!

But of my own personal preferences, I really liked them being on the good side but the issue stemming from a distortion of perspective obscuring the actual events & intention. And just overall the idea of them being dead but the story being years later, where Kai & Nya get to the bottom of things and unwrap what actually happened. Now that they’re back, and it might be hard for the show to fit them into the plot when they’re established as extremely important.

In a sense, I kind of worry about getting that same feeling for Lord/Sensei Garmadon the next season too. I already know what happens so I’m just bracing myself for it >~<.

Lastly, for the next season:

I can’t wait to finally get to watch the things I’m curious about the most!

In a jumbled list — I really want to see the implementation of Pixal as the new Samurai X, Skylor’s reappearance & role (& just more into how her powers work if she uses them!), the arc with Sensei Wu developing with the ninja, Nya-Lloyd dynamic, Karloff returning (omg - I LOVE them bringing back other elemental masters!!), and the Mr. E rivalry with Zane (the Echo Zane theories I’ve read are so exciting!!!).

I’m a bit scared though because the Kai character assassinations begin along with this marking the point of many people not being able to see Garmadon the same again :(. So I hope the good skill of the writers makes up for that bc I know this show does a lot with all of the elements surrounding it!

Aaaaaaa I have so many thoughts my brain won’t let me sleep 😭

#my rambles #hands of time #kai smith #nya smith #ray smith #maya smith #also a bit of SoG speculation from someone who knows the general gist of what happens #but hasn’t watched it yet & massively needs to 😩#but I won’t tag that cause technically this started as a HoT thought dump lololol

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musclesandhammering · 3 years

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Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)

Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.

OOC Bullshit

• First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specific Loki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.

• “It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.

• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.

Shitty LGBT Rep

• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only female one. What a coincidence.

• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this… it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.

• While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”

• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.

Thematic Issues Galore

• His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.

• He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).

• Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.

• The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.

• It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.

• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.

Missed Opportunities

• If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.

• If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.

• They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.

• Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.

Various S*lki Fails

• If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.

• This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.

• The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.

• I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.

• The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, so if anyone thinks of anything, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add it. Tagging @janetsnakehole02 @raifenlf @natures-marvel and @brightredsunset800 for expressing interest. This is all your faults.

#antisylki #loki meta #kinda #loki series critical #loki series negativity #anti loki x sylvie #anti loki series #anti sylvie #frosty bby #loki deserved better #I don’t even like TVA!Loki tho so I guess it doesn’t matter with him lmao #tva loki #loki laufeyson

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lxngbottom · 3 years

Text

Wow. | N.L.

in which the reader is given a dare, and she definitely won’t turn it down.

warnings: a little bit of nsfw, swearing, underage drinking.

word count: 1,642

idek i project all my crazy personal experiences onto my one shots sorry babes

—

the night was supposed to be fun. you were supposed to go the the gryffindor party, get drunk, dance all over your friends, and go back to your dorm. but that all changed when seamus finnigan got involved,

“longbottom has never seen a pair of boobs before! isn’t that right?” seamus smirked, looking over at his awkward friend.

neville huffed, “why did you have to say that out loud?”

seamus, dean, harry, & ron all laughed at the boy’s embarrassment. but they couldn’t laugh too much, knowing full well that they themselves had never seen a pair of boobs before either.

“you want to see a pair tonight, longbottom?” seamus asked him, that dumb smirk still plastered onto his face. neville absolutely hated when seamus got drunk. he seemed to totally forget to concept of boundaries and a filter,

“i really don’t—“

“i got the perfect candidate, too!” seamus interrupted, his speech slurred from all the affects of the alcohol. “look,” he pointed over towards y/n y/l/n. she giggled at something her friend said, and seamus’s smirk only got wider as he witnessed neville staring at you with nothing but pure adoration.

“do you know how many guys at hogwarts have seen her boobs? last time i checked, she had sex with like... four or five guys!”

this talk was quite common when your name came up in a conversation. you had hooked up with quite a few guys, and you regretted it greatly. you never knew how quick things could get around at hogwarts until a group of hufflepuff girls were yelling terrible and vile names at you two days after you had lost your virginity.

according to the general consensus at hogwarts, you were a slag.

but your true friends would say otherwise, and they were right. it didn’t matter how many guys you had slept with, you were still a person, and you deserved just as much as respect as everyone else did.

neville longbottom didn’t see you as that, though. he had talked to you quite a few times, even developed a small crush on you. but, he knew he never had a chance. out of all the guys that chased you, he knew you would never pick him.

“those are just rumors.” neville quickly retorted, shooting down what seamus had said. “don’t say things like that about her... it’s not true.”

the boys laughed once more, “oh don’t worry, longbottom. i’m not calling your little crush a slag, i’m just simply stating what i’ve heard.” seamus patted neville’s shoulder, “but, enough of all that. i have an idea that is going to benefit you, longbottom.”

neville furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, “what—“

“just watch.”

before neville could even stop him, seamus was making his way over towards you. neville tried his best to protest, but ron held him back.

“merlin, what in the bloody hell is he even doing?” neville asked nervously, running his hand through his hair. his friends didn’t respond, only looked on to the conversation between you and seamus.

after a few minutes, which seemed like hours to neville, seamus begin to walk back, but you followed right behind him.

“hi, guys!” you greeted the boys sweetly, waving your hand a bit. “seamus gave me a dare, and i’m here to follow through with it.”

“what was the dare?” dean asked you, taking a sip of his drink. you grinned a bit, and your eyes found neville’s.

you suddenly held your hand out right in front of neville, ignoring dean’s question. he had a very confused look on his face as you waited for him to take your hand. “come on, longbottom. i don’t have all night.”

“yeah, come on, longbottom! she doesn’t have all night...” seamus whispered into his ear, and he laughed as he pulled away.

neville had no idea what his friend was up to, but he couldn’t ignore the sweet smile on your face, and the way you stood patiently for him. from what he could tell from knowing who you were for so long, seeing you in shared classes, you had always been a patient person. you sat hand in foot for people if they needed time for something, and that was something neville definitely was not used to.

he shakily took your hand, and you started to walk him towards the stairs that led to the boy’s dormitory. you heard whistles and cheers erupting from his friends, but ignored them, as that was just the way boys were.

“show me where your dorm is,” you requested, and he reluctantly nodded.

he was terrified of what seamus might’ve said to you. his intoxicated self could’ve out right told you that neville had the biggest crush on you, and neville promised himself that if that was the case, he wouldn’t speak to seamus ever again.

when you two arrived into his dorm, he awkwardly sat down on his own bed as you stepped a few feet in front of him. no words were spoken as you started the dare by unbuttoning your shirt.

“whoa, whoa, what are you doing?!” neville quickly asked, and you stopped. you raised an eyebrow at him,

“the dare that seamus asked me about. he said you knew about it,” you informed him, and neville scoffed. “you don’t know about it, do you?”

neville shook his head, “what exactly is the dare?”

you stayed silent for a moment, embarrassed and caught up in your next choice of words, “well... he sorta dared me to... show you my boobs. he said you never saw any before, and that you wanted to really bad.”

neville’s jaw was practically on the floor. he couldn’t believe that seamus had lied. but now, he was stuck in the most awkward position he possibly could’ve ever been in.

“i didn’t—i—oh, merlin...”

your eyebrows furrowed, as neville seemed more stressed than excited about the dare. you had never seen a boy look so miserable to see a pair of boobs in your whole life.

“what’s wrong?” you asked, genuinely concerned for the boy who’s face was now hiding in the palms of his hands. he was a bit taken back to here you ask that, as no one had asked him that question in a very long time. and, when he finally did look up at you, you seemed worried.

he didn’t want you to worry over him, though. so he quickly shook his head and rubbed his eyes, “oh, nothing. it’s—it’s nothing. i’m alright.”

you nodded, but still didn’t take it as the truth.

“well... do you want to still see them, or...?”

in that moment, a desire clicked within neville. he was still angry at seamus, and the predicament he was stuck in with you, but he couldn’t ignore the burning sensation in his gut when you had asked him that.

but, he knew it was wrong. “yes—i mean—no! no, i do not want to see your boobs!”

you chuckled quietly at his words, and the way he was seemingly trying to convince himself more than you that he “didn’t” want to see your boobs.

“well, alright then. that’s cool...”

you then sat right next to him on his bed, letting out a soft breath of air. he looked over at you, clearly still embarrassed from this whole ordeal.

“it’s okay if you wanted to, you know? and also, it’s okay that you’ve never seen them before, either. seeing them or not doesn’t make you more or less of a man, longbottom. i hope you know that.”

your words didn’t come from a place of pity, but from a place of worry. neville was the complete opposite of you, inexperienced, nervous. and that was fine in your eyes, but you could tell he thought the complete opposite.

“seamus is an arse for putting both of us on the spot like this.” you sighed, rolling your eyes.

there was a beat of silence before neville finally responded, “he is. a big one.”

the response made you look over at him, and you both chuckled.

before you knew it, you and neville were having an actual conversation. a huge party going on downstairs, but it truly just felt like the two of you.

you never really knew neville on a deep level, but after tonight, you wished you had known him like that for years. he had so many interests, and he was very knowledgeable about them, too. any bit of his life that he provided you details about intrigued you. the boy was so fascinating, and you couldn’t believe you never took the time out of your life to get to know him before.

at one point, you decided on the fact that your friends were probably worried sick about you. so, you decided that it was time to part ways with the special lad.

as you two passed goodbyes back and forth, you stopped when you opened the door. you smirked to yourself, and turned back around to face him.

“hey, longbottom...”

he looked up at you, showing that he was being attentive.

“i don’t turn down dares.”

before neville longbottom knew it, your once buttoned shirt was now opened, revealing all the uncharted territory that traced your skin.

his breath hitched, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t rip his eyes away from you. the way your curves dipped, the way your nipples began to turn hard from the chilly dorm air meeting them. it was all too much.

“goodnight, longbottom!” you giggled innocently, before leaving him all alone in his dorm.

his mouth was left agape. he couldn’t stop thinking about you, or... them. you were absolutely more perfect than he ever could’ve pictured.

“wow.” he breathed out,

his body fell back onto his bed, and he stared up at the canopy above him.

what a night.

#harry potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter smut #neville longbottom #neville longbottom imagine #neville longbottom smut #neville x reader

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potteresque-ire · 3 years

Text

Commentary ~ Little Red Little Green Episode 18, “Fruits & Found Family”

Link to original post in Chinese, posted 2021/05/23. Link to official English translation.

(Disclaimer / Notes + Commentary under the cut!) (TW: possible eating disorder)

Disclaimer / Notes:

While the posts by Little Red Little Green (LRLG) are among my most favourite candies, I’d like to remind everyone that they are fake rumours, and should be read and enjoyed as such. ie, all CPN below!

The English translation linked above is the only one authorised by the Fake Rumour House; therefore, please treat all content below as a very casual, very *unofficial* convo between fellow turtle friends! ❤️💛💚

With Chinese being a highly region-specific language, my reactions to it is necessarily filtered through my background, which is, admittedly, somewhat removed from Gg’s, Dd’s and LRLG’s. However, it is not uncommon for even c-turtles (and several times, LRLG themselves) to be lost with what they read / heard due to regional differences ~ which reflects the reality of communicating in the Sinosphere. In fact, the regionality of the dialects used by different “characters” in LRLG’s dialogues is among the most critical elements that make these posts so authentic-sounding, and so difficult to replicate. A fun activity of following LRLG is to watch c-turtles patch their regional knowledge together, from local slangs to food choices, to make sense of what’s going on.

Okay, with that all said *phew* ... onto the commentary! “p. X” refers to the panel number in the official English translation (there are 7 total in the Twitter post).

p1. “Fairy”

Likely referring to the similarity between Gg’s current role for 玉骨遥 (The Longest Promise) and LWJ. Dd was praising Gg for being “fairy-like”; Chinese “fairies” (仙) have a certain style especially in visual media, similar to ... LWJ’s ~ otherworldly, white robes that billow in the wind, peaceful to the point of distant, scholarly, delicate. In between the lines, Gg likely said he was simply playing LWJ (hence, the ”act another me” in the translation), which Dd protested... and said Gg was simply playing himself. Whether that means DD IS NOT LWJ!!!!! 😡😡😡 or something else, we’ll know what we get to watch the show!

p1-p2. “Heat”

Yes about the Chang’e 嫦娥 reference!! Despite Houyi 后羿 shooting down 9/10 suns and saving the day, his wife is, indeed, more famous (and therefore the star, the more powerful one), because she’s frequently featured in Mid-Autumn festival art, along with her pet rabbit 玉兔 (”Jade Rabbit”),:

(Chang’e with her bunny, traditional Chinese painting. Source.)

Below is Gg’s rendition of Chang’e / Jade Bunny pair ~ Chang’e being the superman in the drawing while Jade Bunny is crouching on the planet!!

Guess of the missing convo from Gg’s side: Gg had wanted to bring something to Hengdian (where the filming of The Longest Promise was taking place) to cool himself down, and Dd had said it wasn’t necessarily. Hence Dd’s “My bad my bad” and the promise to send that something to Gg.

The loveliest line in this segment for me—and for many c-turtles— is the one about white hair. Turning grey a common, but very old-fashioned way of expressing worry and poor Dd, who hasn’t even turned 24, is claiming he was turning white because he got so worried every time Gg complained about the heat (Aww).

Turning grey with worry isn’t limited to romantic situations — it may happen to doting parents with wayward children, for example, or to ancient patriots over their crumbling kingdom. However, it’s also one of the more (very!) dramatic ways to communicate tragic love in Chinese fiction before Western influence allows “love”, as a term / word / character, to be used explicitly in writing romance.

Here’s a little example, a little diversion that may be of interest. Those who are familiar with the Wuxia classic Return of the Condor Heroes 神雕俠侶 by Jin Yong 金庸, whether it’s the book or its numerous visual adaptations, may remember how the hero, Yang Guo 楊過, went white at his temples overnight after his Shifu and lover, Xiao Long Nv (小龍女), didn’t show up at the cliff at the end of his 16-year wait for her.

Set photo from a TV adaption of Return of the Condor Heroes, 1995. Turtles may find the actress playing the perenially white-wearing, calm-to-the point-of-aloof Xiao Long Nv, Carmen Li 李若彤, familiar ~ she also played Lan Yi in The Untamed.

The 16-year wait, the invitation to Carmen to play Lan Zhan’s ancestor (when the two shared similarities in aesthetics and personality), were two of the three references from Return of the Condor Heroes I picked up from The Untamed (the last one was more specific—WWX mentioned Yang Guo’s master 獨孤求敗). This tribute is unconfirmed, but MXTX did say before that Jin Yong’s works were her inspiration. I also read a (small) discussion on whether LWJ’s hair carried a few pieces of white in the final episode, or if the lighter strands in it were a trick of the sunlight. (Here’s a screenshot of the approximate place to look!!)

While I lean towards the latter (the sunlight), turning white with worry, with love, is a tradition in Chinese storytelling. Here’s a little something I’ve noticed too, on this note ~ both in the actual interviews and in these fake rumours, Dd’s word choices, the way he conveys emotions are sometimes surprisingly traditional. It can be because of his background (which would require a study of how Luo Yang people and Koreans talk); it can be because the traditional way of talking allows for fewer words to be said, fewer things to have to be explicitly explained (example: LWJ), but the effect is that Dd has supplied the most romantic lines in LRLG’s posts because of that ~ romantic because it harks back to the rhythm, the themes of old poetry, of ancient stories that, as were true everywhere in the world, were about love.

Okay, back to the rumour (and hoping Dd won’t look like Bad Wig Yang Guo in a few more summers!) ....

The line after the one about white hair ... the way I understand the original Chinese sentence is “Heat is The Reason”: ie, anything Dd wants Gg to do and Gg disagrees, Gg would use heat as The Reason (R) to not do it. This anything may be eating, for example, which also has a strong possibility as conventional Chinese wisdom says that heat causes people to lose appetite. Dd’s worry would therefore be: Gg refusing to eat because he claims it’s too hot to do so.

“Corny joke” ~ the Chinese for this is, literally, “cold 冷 joke 笑話”, which becomes a pun as the gzry (team members)’s joke was about the (cold) winter and black hair. So... Dd threw a corny joke to combat a corny joke :D .

p3. “Apple”

The first half I also had to rely on c-turtles to help me interpret what it meant! Regional dialects aside, LRLG has captured dls’s very quick wit, the way his ideas freely hop from one concept to the next and this hopping carries traditional + popular cultural references that I know only a fraction of, not being a local after all.

I’ve read an additional interpretation of this segment: “big fruit” 大果兒 (as in dls: “Those are all big fruits, all big fruits”) is a Northern Chinese, traditional slang for women—dls might have connected that with the previous line in the convo about being Guowang, as explained in the translation, and “big and juicy” + “touch to feel” being suggestive phrases. Then, given the rare usage of the big fruit = women slang, dls expressed surprise that Dd understood what he meant, went on to say he expected Gg to know it (implying Gg could’ve taught Dd the meaning) ...

Which led to the entertaining part of this segment. Dd was like “You guys (= Gg + dls) talked?” Dls appeared to have thought of the scenario customarily inviting this question (scenario: someone on the verge of catching their spouse cheating) and began playacting that scenario, started to stammer ... as if he had just been got caught trying to chat up someone’s spouse ~ ”I-I-I....how to say it ...”. Dd caught on dls’s playacting and went along, continued with the “accusation”: “You’re stammering”. Dls then noted that Dd’s accusation was scary and Dd smiled, ending the playact ~ so, ah, readers, never mess with Dd’s spouse!! Dd gets scary!!

(BTW: ”nijia na kouzi” 你家那口子 was explained in the translation for a reason ~ It’s a warm, friendly term for a dear friend’s spouse. 😊)

p4. Lychees

Lychees. Has everyone tried them? It’s important not to over-eat them though...

In which the “Feeding Gg” saga continues! This segment is one of those that are wonderful for fic writers who wish to capture Gg and Dd in words. Gg, like many brought up in traditional families, has trouble saying “no” outright, which is often considered rude. As such, he resorted to delay tactics, something he had also done with the fried noodles in The Makeup Room BTS.

In the BTS, his delay tactics had been to argue that Dd hadn’t eaten his box of noodles and therefore, he couldn’t start (~2:35 mark)—as proper manners indeed dictated. In this dialogue, his delay tactics was to say he’d eat the lychees later, that the lychees would make him too full for the proper meal (rice).

A cute thing about this convo is that rather than pouting and grumbling his only being LWJ’s replacement (as he had hilariously done in the BTS), Dd had, apparently over the last three years, become an expert on countering such delay tactics. He peeled the lychees, which not only removed a major obstacle for eating, but also set a timer as peeled lychees get dry quickly (and Gg, despite being a picky eater, didn’t seem to like to waste food). He said the fruit could make appetiser. He got the help of their team members, who assured Gg that two lychees would be all right.

Gg’s response to the assurance... takes a little time to explain.

The original Chinese line for “Great, great, you’re so awesome” was 絕了絕了你們絕了。 “絕了”, a popular phrase used by Chinese netizens, was repeated three times.

絕, literally, means the extreme, the absolute, the end. 絕了 means pretty much the same ~ a thing that is 絕了 is standing en pointe at the edge of the cliff that is The Absolute End of a spectrum. It is the Ultimate. It can't be surpassed. It’s unbeatable.

絕了 is usually used in a positive sense, as in the English translation, with the positive being implied. If I say the LWJ photo above is 絕了, for example, I don’t need to specify that the extreme in 絕 stands on the good end. It’s understood given the audience of this post are mostly turtles (HELLO *waves*). We’re all heart-eyes here. We agree, without saying, that this photo is The Top, The Pinnacle; it can’t be better. 絕了 is higher praise than Excellent; it’s so good that there are no adjectives for it. Its own presence defines How Good It Is.

But 絕了 doesn’t have to be positive. If my audience is Su She ... he’s likely to take the same “This LWJ photo is 絕了” to mean the Mariana Trench kind of Absolute—the bottom of the bottom, the Unbeatable, Adjective-Defying Worst.

絕了 allows for that understanding too.

In this scenario, I interpret Gg’s 絕了 as taking the meaning of both extremes (which make it a fantastic phrase choice!): that Gg thought Dd and the team members were being both the Absolute Best (for thinking of Gg, caring for him) AND the Absolute Worst (for going against his wish to not eat!) Gg’s 絕了 also signals defeat; if Dd and his team members were The Absolute ... Whatever, then poor Gg had no choice but to yield to their wishes. I can already imagine his “I can’t believe I lose this way” Look (see: every rock-paper-scissors he lost, which was ... pretty much all of them), mixed with, perhaps, a healthy amount of bunny tooth warning (how dare Dd et al banded up against him)...

Those bunny teeth had to be taken care of, right? And so Dd went on to say lychees being good omen that ensure things would go smoothly for the eater... targeting Gg’s being a, as c-turtles call it, 小迷信 (literally, “Little Superstitious”, a young + adorable + superstitious person). Dd said that to help Gg justify the choice to eat, to make Gg feel better about his defeat.

(Of note: I had actually never heard of lychees being associated with good luck before, and a quick search online also didn’t yield any result. This could be a relatively rare association Google failed to catch ... or something Dd made up on the fly to make Gg happy.)

(Lychees have, however, been associated with romance. If Emperor’s Smile 天子笑 was The Love Drink in The Untamed, then what is Concubine’s Smile 妃子笑? Answer: it’s the RL name of a type of lychees, lychees being the fruit very much adored by Yang Yuhuan 楊玉環, the consort of the Emperor Xuanzong (685-762 BCE) of the Tang Dynasty and one of the four most beautiful woman in Chinese history. Since lychees had only been grown in southern China, the emperor had had the fruit couriered, in express mode involving many horses, to the palace up north to please his favourite wife. Lychees had become a symbol of love from that historical tale.)

Did Gg get Dd’s message then, the love and care packaged in those peeled, sweet fruit awaiting his bite? Yes, but not without a little more fight! “Eat eat eat, (I’ll eat) until you go bankrupt” is a literal translation of his final line. Tonally, I can see the following as being an alternative translation:

“Fine fine fine. I’ll eat, it’s not like I can bankrupt you by eating anyway!”

If it sounded a little sulky, that’s because it did ... a little sulky AND fiery. As expected from our favourite Chongqing Big Pepper 😂😂😂 (Poor Gg).

Dd smiled at that, needless to say. He won!!! He got Gg to eat!! The world shall rejoice!!

p5. “Showtime”

There’s a show coming up for Dd (the YH concert maybe?), and Gg offered suggestions.

The sweet point of this segment is about half-way down the conversation, in the piece of paper 📄 Gg gave to Dd (after “This is for you.”). Dd took the paper, noted the many words on it, and started saying 我把我整個靈魂, translated as “I bring my entire soul”.

c-Turtles have, based on these words, hypothesised that Dd was about to read out a quote that Gg had written on the paper, with the list of items Gg thought Dd should take, before Gg stopped him with a call of his name (“WYB”). The quote was included on the translation (”I give you my entire soul...only, a little good, love you.”) I have also talked about the same quote, in more detail, here.

I’m equally stumped on the final line of this segment. (Sorry!!)

p6. “Found Family”

It’s a heartwarming segment. While LRLG had previously noted that the TTXS bros had communicated with Gg, this segment made clear that they care for him like they do for Dd ~ as family.

* dls mailed Gg a lot of fruit for sharing with the film crew. “Family member needs to be impressive” is a rough translation, but this line does defy simple translation because 排面 a highly cultural concept that has much to do with the equally complex, Chinese concept of face (which this article explains... somewhat adequately). The message to take home is that dls cared enough about Gg that he wanted to make sure Gg wouldn’t lose face in front of the film crew; that, by having enough gifts (fruits) for everyone, Gg wouldn’t be viewed as cheap or inadequate or stingy, or whatever adjective that wouldn’t befit his top idol status. Because dls saw Gg as a member of his family.

* The prescription from hg had been mentioned in a previous LRLG rumour. 方子 is a Chinese medicine prescription, which, unlike Western formulations, is individualised both to the discomfort / ailment and to the “body constitution” of the person who'll take it, the latter deciding the kind of ailments the person is susceptible to, and which ingredients are expected to be more effective. Chinese medicine also places a strong emphasises on long-term conditioning, whether it’s for recovery from a certain condition or for general good health. A good 方子 is therefore a far more complex and personal thing than, say, a scribble of “paracetamol” / “acetaminophen” on a piece of paper. :D

* fg’s gift for Gg (xx) is something for the waist. A brace support, maybe? For example?

My favourite line in this segment is when hg asked what will Gg and Dd do when they reach hg’s age. Given that the last two items (the prescription and xx) were health-related, I interpreted it as hg worrying about Gg and Dd’s health when they grow old... with all the health problems they already have. It’s the kind of thing a worried parent say to their children ~ my mom has said the same thing to me as well. 😢

p6. “The Cat Paw”

Not quite sure what’s happening here ... not sure what the cat paw is. (Sorry!!) But that é in the translation is Dd’s signature laugh (collection here), which is written as 鵝 (”Goose”) in Chinese 😂.

p7. “The Cat Toy”

Dd appeared to be shopping for a cat’s toy (something that can “hook the cat” in the translation, such that the cat can entertain itself and not rely on human companionship as much). Gg had already bought the toy though and sounded quite proud of it, told Dd to return the toy. The implied cat was, of course, Nut (堅果 Jianguo)... which had been repeatedly referred to in LRLG’s posts as Gg’s daughter.

p7. “Cool vs Cute”

Gg is often viewed as cute, and Dd as cool. Did Dd dislike Gg taking cute pictures for public consumption? Were they scheming an exchange of image? :D

And that’s it for this issue! Ooh, this took unexpectedly long ... I apologise for the ridiculous delay between the original post and this commentary!

(I wrote half of it, then RL struck and I forgot about it.) (I’m hopeless.) (I need a 方子 for poor memory!!)

#pie eats candies #pie metas #yizhan #bjyx #LRLG

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lovee-infected · 3 years

Note

So Merlin the goddamn great, smh but no ROOK LORE I AM FURIOUS! I STILL WANT TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS

Warning: Spoiler alert!

Oooooofff the final episodes of chapter 5 did seriously explode the fandom I see, from the overblot Grim to our twst Merlin, everything literally everything about the end of this chapter was a big surprise but... This chapter has also brought up a considerably huge wave of drama along with it, which is basically because of Rook voting for RSA instead of NRC. I, personally, considered it to be just a reason to laugh and make a meme or two about this chapter and all. But looking at the fandom, I can clearly see that it's been causing some serious consequences, some fans/creators are leaving the fandom, there has been a couple of offensively worded Rook hate posts (small memes and jokes aren't counted) and there's ever a #RookIsOverParty on Twitter now.

Okay but, it was all cool and chill until it was just a joke. Can't you see? This happens in many fandoms! And is often a good chance to laugh! But...This is getting serious. A huge majority of this fandom (even Rook/Vil shippers and Rook stans themselves) are hating on Rook/Rook stans and fans are leaving, therefore I believe the situation needs to be clarified before it leads to more dramas.

Many of you had also requested a Rook analysis before sooooo- here we go!

First off, this episode did eventually give us a considerable amount of Rook lore although it wasn't as perfect as we wanted it to be. Most of us wanted to get to know him more, but I'd say focusing on all we've got already would do for now. But before that, let's talk about what exactly happened in chapter 5 and why are fand hating on Rook rn:

after the performances are voted on, it’s revealed that nrc lost to rsa by just a single vote. that vote turned out to be rook, who voted for rsa in favor of their own team as he was moved by their spirit. the whole nrc team is shellshocked (of course) and vil faints

it’s also later revealed that rook is one of neige’s biggest fans, possessing albums full of his bromides, going to each meet and greet, and even writing him anonymous fan letters.

Okay okay I know this was quite unexpected and resulted in NRC's loss, but before you say how much of a shitty character Rook is consider this:

1) He was totally honest with his opinion and thoughts.

One of the interesting facts regarding Rook's character design and presence in chapter 5, is how he played the role of both the huntsman and the mirror.

He was honest with his beliefs and decision, although it was against his friends. Just as how the mirror introduced Snow White as the fairest one of all although Evil Queen didn't want to hear of her.

This is also what Rook did, he judged based on his idealistics towards beauty. NOT because he's a screaming Neige fanboy and NOT because he disliked Vil.

Honestly, if there's one person whose judgement would be strong and on point, that'll be Rook and only him; in parts (2) & (4) we'll explain why.

2) His decision has nothing to do with his personal relationship with Vil!

Yes, he voted for RSA, but to assume that this means he secretly preferred Neige over Vil all this time and call him a betrayer now, that's wrong.

Look, if there one person who could judge NRC's process through the training sessions fairly, that'll be Rook. He's been there all this time, watching each and every second of Vil's coaching and team's progressing, note that he also helped Vil the most, this performance would've been impossible without his help!

But, he was also there when Vil lost it, when Vil's fear of not being the winner took over him and made him even try to poison Neige. At some point Vil was nothing like the perfect coach he was at the very beginning, and if Rook hadn't told Neige to escape who knows how terrible the whole think might've gone.

His decision, on the other hand, was HIS decision. He was asked to choose one performance, and he chose what he liked; that's all, no big deal. Note that the silly thing with the whole issue isn't mainly how Rook voted for RSA, it's also about how half of the audience as well voted for RSA which makes it sound almost stupid, this point will be explained in part (5)!

3) Have you all really forgotten what Rook is like?

I mean, come on this is what he is in general! This is Rook Hunt we're speaking of, one of the rarely known characters of the game and mister of surprises and unpredictable decisions!

Him being a Neige fan is no big deal, and I assure you, he probably stans a lot of other people else than Neige too. Don't forget that this is the same monseiur Rook who gave 100 points! to anyone who participated in NRC's VDC test, so there shouldn't really be a panic taking all over the fandom just because we know he stans Neige, Rook is one to greatly appreciate the concept of beauty in general, and Neige is one of the most famous and beautiful people in the whole twisted wonderland, so other than this being much of a snow white reference, it was totally expected to see him stanning Neige as well. Keep this in mind that just because he's a fan of Neige, it doesn't mean that he hates or he has betrayed Vil.

In Rook's point of view, there is no such thing as rivals in beauty, he just appreciates both Vil and Neige's beauty regardless of what's going on between them.

4) This chapter proved that Rook is indeed a perfect friend for Vil.

While there hasn't ever been a mention of a canon relationship between Vil and Rook, shipper may be happy to know that this episode didn't sink the ship at all. And if you judge and see through what happened in the right eye, you'll see it even shows how strong their friendship is.

Note that this wasn't the first time Rook criticizes Vil either, back in Vil's SR lab coat story he openly criticized Vil and said he's gonna get fat if he continued to eat like this. See? Rook never the once lied to Vil, he openly judges him, and his judgements are logical and on point.

Vil on the other hand is always working his hardest to improve, to become better and completer by each and every day that passes. He needs such a friend by his side to judge him nonetheless, a friend to judge him just like the mirror judged the Queen. But there's a difference, Vil accepts and appreciates criticism BECAUSE, he wants to improve.

A friend like Rook is seriously what he needs, Rook supported and helped him all the way as RSA was getting prepared for VDC, he could've just made them lose and by ruining their training sessions if he wanted to! Can't you see? He helped Vil more than anyone else, but didn't lie to him when it was the time to judge. Vil still has a long way to go, and Rook is aware. He wants Vil to see that he isn't yet complete so that he can become better than he already is.

That's it, that's what a real friend would do.

5) Twst needs to be more considerative toward story line and sudden reveals.

On the one hand, it's mainly fans who are exaggerating the whole issue and starting drama over a simple voting and all, but twst itself as well is partly guilty. This is such a huge and active fandom, each and every detail about the story can be super effective (ex: Sebek being half human, Malleus being an orphan, etc). After making RSA's Yahoo performance look super silly they worst thing they could do was to make NRC lose like this, meaningless, silly and helpless. Why?

Twst seriously needs to take details more seriously as they could've AT LEAST made this comparison sound reasonable by choosing a better and stronger song than a twisted version of Heigh-Ho.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Rook voting for Neige, but seriously? Rook voting for Neige had to be a symbol of honesty and Rook's loyalty toward the concept of beauty itself and not Vil, not an stupid decision to make Rook prefer a childish song over NRC's wonderful performance and look like a helpless Neige fan boy.

-Sigh- Well, I guess that's all I had for now, hope I didn't miss anything. But anyway, the Rook drama is slowly getting overwhelming. There's nothing wrong with memes and jokes AS LONG AS THEY'RE JUST A JOKE- offending characters with clear intention and causing drama because of it is not okay. I know that was unexpected please remember not to exaggerate the story too much either!

#answered #starshiningsirius #twst #twisted wonderland #rook hunt #Vil Schoenheit #Pomefiore #neige leblanche #character analysis #spoilers #epel felmier

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lucy90712 · 3 years

Text

Karl jacobs- mr beast

wc- 2117

Warnings: none

~ Two weeks ago I randomly got a call from a man who invited me to a shoot for a video, believe me I was sceptical at first which the man seemed to understand but he provided me with all the information I could ever need and answered all of my questions so I believed him and agreed to go and now is the day of the shoot. To my knowledge there will be a few others there as well as a whole crew so if this is a bad situation at least I won't be alone.

My parents think I'm insane for going to this and they have made me promise to keep my phone on me at all times and to text them that I'm safe when I get there, it's nice that their worried but I honestly think I'll be fine. The friend that I've told seem to be thinking the exact opposite in fact they are convinced that I'm going to a mr beast shoot but I'm not too sure. They seem to think that because we live in North Carolina that this is the only possible explanation but I think that they would say that it was for mr beast so that the whole situation seemed less sketchy.

For the day of the shoot which happens to be today we were instructed to wear what we normally would but not to wear too much makeup because it doesn't look good on camera. I took this on board and wore my mom jeans with a black crop top just because it was plain and not too over the top, I don't want to stand out too much. I also barely put on any makeup I just covered the dark circles under my eyes and the few spots I had and I put on mascara so that I didn't look like I had no eyelashes.

The location I had to go to was only about 35 minutes drive from my house which was nice because I wasn't feeling a long drive today. I woke up early enough to have time to make myself breakfast and get coffee on the journey. At the local Starbucks drive through I got my usual order and talked to the girl at the window for a moment because she happens to be one of my friends sisters so we know one another.

"Isn't today the day if that mysterious video shoot your going to" she asked

"Yeah I have to be there in like 50 minutes" I said

"Well have fun meeting mr beast" she said handing me my drink

I rolled my eyes as I pulled away and started my drive. I listened to my Spotify playlist on the way just vibing to each song that played normally it plays at least one song that I'm not that into but today all of them were some of my favourite songs so I think today will turn out to be a good day.

As I arrived to the location I noticed that it was in this really random place with a bunch of big warehouses which I'm not gonna lie was a little sketchy but there seemed to be quite a few people about with cameras and other equipment so I calmed down again. I got out my car and went to the place that I was told to in the email which was relatively easy to find once I knew where the people were going and a guy led me into the middle of this warehouse with a few other people who were obviously taking part too.

Me and this one guy got talking while we waited and he seemed to know a little more than I did about what was happening so we talked about the video and this whole sort of experience. He was really cute too he had kind of long fluffy brown hair and lovely blue eyes that were and interesting shape but they really suited his face, I also noticed that he had his nails painted which made him seem even cooler much to cool for me to be talking to him. He was super nice to me and we had a good conversation until we had to start filming.

A few more people walked in with cameras following them as they talked but when they got closer I recognised the face and I couldn't believe it. My friends were right it was mr beast and his friends or at least a few of them. As they came in the guy I was talking to went over and joined them as they explained the video concept to the rest of us.

"Right for todays video we are going to get all these people to hide in pairs around these warehouses and whoever is found last wins $100,000 to share" mr beast explained

They sorted people into pairs but there was an odd number so I was left on my own.

"Slightly awkward but one person didn't turn up so Karl is going to step in and be y/n's partner for this" Chris explained

This Karl guy came over and he was the guy I talked to earlier, I got a bit embarrassed realising that I had absentmindedly been talking to this guy who's so well known as if it was nothing. The poor guy was probably so confused that I had no idea who he wasn't while at a mr best shoot hopefully I can redeem myself with this challenge.

We each took cameras to film as we found our hiding places which we had 10 minutes to go because the area we had was so big. Most people ran off to the furthest warehouses but me and Karl decided to stay a bit closer hoping that all the others would be found quickly. We went into this relatively small but tall looking warehouse which had a small upstairs bit to it where we looked for a good hiding place, there wasn't a whole load of options apart from this old wardrobe which looked like it could fit the both of us. We decided to keep looking seeing as we could always come back if we found no where else.

After checking another 2 warehouses that were almost empty we realised that our best option would be that wardrobe so we went back and squeezed ourselves in leaving one door open for now at least until we heard movement near by so that it wouldn't be quite as cramped. The both of us did fit in this wardrobe but on the inside it was smaller than it looked so we were pressed right against each other which would be awkward if you hadn't already embarrassed yourself in front of the person so I felt 10 times more awkward in this position.

We had to film ourselves which was quite hard with the darkness and the cramped space but Karl knew what he was doing so he took the camera off me and filmed the both of us explaining where we were showing just outside the wardrobe so that the viewers would know when the others were close to finding us.

Soon enough the timer went off indicating that our hiding time was up and now we really had to be careful not to make too much noise as we could've found any second I had kind of forgot about the fact that this was for a whole lot of money up until now because I was just so annoyed at myself for being such an idiot but now it felt really real and I was starting to feel quite competitive.

We waited what felt like an age before we heard any movement but when I heard the door open I almost jumped out my skin because it was so quiet up until that point. I gave Karl a look and the both of us forced ourselves further into the wardrobe and shut the door as quietly as we could making it completely pitch black.

It was a lot more squished in the wardrobe now as there was no space to move, there was no good way to stand because we had to had some part of our bodies touching or else we wouldn't fit. Karl whispered telling me to turn my phone touch on so that he could film for a second because he said that it wouldn't be seen from outside.

"We just heard the door open and there is movement downstairs so the door in now closed and its super dark without the light" Karl explained to the camera

"It's also super claustrophobic in here with the door shut" I added putting my head over his shoulder so that the camera could see me

He put the camera down and I turned off my touch and we just kind of listened and we heard the door close again or so we thought but it wasn't worth the risk so we left it a little longer before we felt safe to be a little louder but we didn't want to risk opening the door again so we stayed how we were.

It was actually a good time talking a little bit like we were before the filming started, Karl is a very sweet guy he really just wants to get to know me as a real person and not just someone helping him do his job. He seemed to really care about what I did with my life and who I am seeing as I know a bit about him and he knew that he was interested in learning about me.

Our nice conversation was soon interrupted when the door opened again and we heard voices getting closer to us. The sound of the metal stairs that lead to where we are could be heard which meant that they were close. There was a panicked feeling between the two of us and Karl pulled me closer to him just incase they opened one door they might not be able to see us.

"They could be in the wardrobe there" I heard a muffled voice say

Mine and Karl's breathing slowed down so that they couldn't hear any noise at all and if they did well they have great hearing. It was at this point that I realised Karl had his arm around my waist holding my back to his chest which was making me blush but it was dark so no one could see. The door opened on the other side and a camera was pointed in.

"There no one in this side do you really think they would both fit on the other side?" Someone asked

"I don't think so honestly but we really should check" another said

I knew it was over from that point and I was right the second door opened and cameras went straight into my face, Karl also let go of my waist at this point not wanting that to be on camera. Karl got out the wardrobe and offered his hand to help me out.

"Congratulations you guys have won" mr beast said

"It took us forever to find you so well done" Chris said

"Oh my this is amazing thank you" I said feeling quite overwhelmed

Obviously the prize for winning was $50,000 each which was absolutely amazing and just so life changing like there is so many things I could do with that amount of money but I have no idea what that will be yet.

"You have won $50,000 congra" mr beast started

"Wait I want y/n to have my share I don't need it" Karl interrupted

"Karl there is no need for you to do that I'm more than ok with $50,000" I said

"You are taking the money please it would make me happy" he said

I accepted the fact that Karl was never going to give in so now I'm $100,000 richer which is insane no one is going to believe me until this video comes out. My parents are going to think I've committed a crime of some form which isn't good but they will have to believe me eventually so it's fine.

The shoot wrapped up and I was heading to my car to go back home when Karl came running over and gave me his phone number saying he wanted to hang out sometime. What has my life become? I started the day thinking that I could be in danger and have ended it with $100,000 and the phone number of one of the people that works for a huge YouTube channel, it's almost like a dream.

#karl jacobs x reader #karl jacobs #mr beast #dsmp #mcyt #karl

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lov3nerdstuff · 3 years

Note

Hi Kay!

I just wanted to take a moment and say how deeply moving (and overall comforting) I find your writing to be! I've gone through almost the entirety of your masterlist twice in the past month alone and have found myself returning more often to the pieces of literature/poems your reference sometimes. (Especially that one poem by Benedict Smith! I've read a few more by him because of you and they're just wonderfully lovely 💛 so I'm eternally thankful to you for including it.)

I may be wrong in assuming, but I believe you may have studied/are currently studying a degree involving literature. I hope this isn't too foreward of me but I was wandering if you have any other works of literature that you'd recommend? (I'd love to read anything you recommend from poems to plays 💛) I'm slightly embaressed to say but the works I've read are quite limited to a highschool level and since I'm currently studying Pharmacy, there are very few people who can recommend me such moving works. :)

I also feel like I should apologise for writing such a large ask, so please accept this apology as well hehe 💕🥺

Sincerely,

Bek 🌻

Hey there Bek 💚💕✨

First of all... I'm incredibly sorry for how long it took me to reply to this ask, I know you sent it weeks ago and I'm honestly just ashamed of myself for only replying now! I've been taking a bit of a Tumblr break again, or rather a break from literally everything, and I guess not having written anything in a while made me feel guilty whenever I opened Tumblr, so... All I can say for myself really is that I'm sorry you had to wait so long! Again, I never ever ignore anyone, I promise! It just sometimes takes a while for me to reply 😅🙈

Now, I'm so happy to hear that you've been enjoying my writing! 🥺🥰 Hearing that it's comforting and inspiring to you is honestly such a relief and indeed does make me happy more than I can say 💚 It's so cool that you're checking up on all the references I make aaahhh 🥺🥺🥺 I love it 😁 You're always more than welcome, love! I don't think I could stop including references to literature, culture, history and the science around it even if I tried 😅☺️

And yeah, I did study classics and newer literature as a minor for my undergrad degree 😄 But tbh I still work with literally a lot even now (I'm in grad school for media and cultural studies) even though it's technically not something I've been properly taught ☺️ I'm just a nerd who likes to learn on her own, and with media and culture you can pretty much delve into almost anything you want 😂😅🤷🏻‍♀️

Now, it's not forward at all to ask me for literature recommendations! 😁😃 I truly love recommending stuff!!! I have a few up my sleeve, even though you've probably heard of a few already, for obvious reasons: A lot of what I truly enjoyed reading was something Tom Hiddleston has worked on in one way or another! It's truly a magnificent guideline for picking new literature... Just look up the literary origins of his films/shows/plays and you will be in for quality literature most of the time! I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here, but me reading High-Rise (JG Ballard) because I heard Tom would be partaking in the film adaptation was actually what sparked my love and passion for literature!!! Yep, it's that good. Now on to the recommendations though 😁(This... got rather long):

Plays

Anything by Harold Pinter really, but for obvious reasons you'll find a lot of additionally fun stuff for Betrayal, which is lovely and truly funny if you're in on the kind of humour btw

Medea by Euripides (a classic, but I love it nonetheless... You can find translations in almost every language) ((and pls stay away from Seneca's Medea, because ugh... Euripides is far better AND the og story, as much as anyone can say that for Greek mythology)

La Bohème by Puccini (I know, this is technically an opera, but if you read the libretto it's honestly just like a play... And if you're up for it, the og story is in prose and written by Henri Murger... It's better than the opera, but oftentimes more difficult to find) ((this one is hilarious and basically explains an entire cultural subgroup in the 19th century)

Faust by Goethe (many people hate it, but I LOVE this one!!! It's also been translated into any and every language, and it's so interesting philosophically!!! It's also referenced SO freaking often literally everywhere, and the operas and ballets based on it are always my fave) ((there's technically Faust I and Faust II, but you're good to go just reading the first one)

Anything by Shakespeare, obviously... Though I do love me my Hamlet like every other literature enthusiast (Yes, I can do that one famous soliloquy in act 3 scene 1 by heart as well...)

Poetry

Again, anything Shakespeare for the win, but I LOVE the sonnets and keep a copy of them with me most of the time (Yes, I own multiple copies of the sonnets...) ((My faves are 116 and 91, but there's always so much truth to be found in there!!!))

A lot of the stuff William Blake wrote is amazing, though you have to pick carefully with him if certain religious motives aren't your thing... I love The Tyger, which is an individual poem, and the collection of works called Tyger, Tyger which does have many good ones and a few ones that are a little more on the mediocre side

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas (I know this one by heart as well... It's beautiful, and there's a version of Hiddleston reading it on YouTube, which gives you even more goosebumps than the poem does anyway)

Invictus by William Ernest Henley (same for this one, also read by the one and only) ((I love to read this when I'm feeling down or powerless))

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot (This is another wow piece with many quotable lines and truths... I love it a lot and keep coming back to it! It's also a great example of how literary modernism tried to condense the complexity and passing of time and history into a single frame that had to be intrinsically poetical in nature... As in, this poem could've been a short story in any other period, but modernists loved to make everything a poem so here you go)

Der Zauberlehrling by Goethe (This one sucks in all English translations I’ve found, poetically speaking, but in German it’s such a fun piece! If you’ve ever seen the Disney ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ with Mickey Mouse or listened to the orchestral piece by Paul Dukas, then this poem proves very useful in truly understanding either! But again, the English translation should only be taken for informational value... The German one is also worded hilariously)

Prose

Short edited by Alan Ziegler (This is a collection of short prose forms that honestly is a must for me... I love this book to pieces and have had it for years now! It’s an international anthology, so you’ll find more and less famous authors from all around the world represented with short stories, prose poems, short essays and just curious and interesting snippets of writing! I draw a lot of inspiration from this book)

High-Rise by JG Ballard (As mentioned above, I owe this book part of my personality... I don’t think I would be the same person without having read it. It’s not necessarily full of wisdom, but if you’re interested in a different kind of portrayal of the human condition, then this is the read you need to take a look at)

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers (This is another piece that changed my perception of literature, even though this is a more ordinary and ‘fun’-value read... It’s one of my favourite books and it’s endlessly entertaining! So if the classics are a bit heavy for you, this one is perfect for casual readers as well! Its value really does lie more in the realisation of how fun literature can be, and the freedom you have as an author... So really, I could recommend everything by Moers, his style is amazing both in the German original and in the English translation. Yes, I’ve read both.)

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (This is comedic gold, stylistic gold and generally a bloody perfect book. Also a ‘fun’-value read, but it also does a magnificent job at showing you what you can do with literature, and how well-developed characters are supposed to be written)

The Penguin Book of the Undead (Penguin Classics) edited by Scott G. Bruce (This book is basically an education on fifteen hundred years of supernatural encounters and how culture wrote, used and perceived them. You get introductory texts for different periods and social groups, explaining how and why ghost stories were written and used, followed by passages of the prime source texts (eg. ancient necromancy shown on The Odyssey). Really, this book is just for cultural history nerds)

The Earthquake in Chile by Kleist (This isn’t necessarily one of my faves, but it has helped me understand what studying literature and culture can do for you. In case anyone remembers my insistence in Wicked Game that you gotta know what a pomegranate symbolises... this novella is such an instance where this knowledge would prove useful. Generally, it gives many opportunities to think about privilege and circumstance)

The Symposium by Plato (You’ll probably not want to read the entire collection of speeches tbh... But the concepts introduced mainly here and in some of Plato’s other work are well worth looking into! For example, the ‘double being’ introduces a concept that in modern fiction is called soulmates... Just sayin’)

#literature #lit rec #recommendation #literature recommendation

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visenlya · 2 years

Note

As to our conversation, I can get behind that ACOTAR Feyre and Tamlin's dynamic seems to be better than say ACOSF Feysand by miles. I'm a pretty big shipper of Neris and Nesquin myself (anyone but Cassian please).

But yeah, I have a big grudge against SJM's depiction of Soul Mate bonds. They feel.. very forced and just wrong. Both canon Feysand and Nessian have a bad dynamic, and the mate craze is very.. ew. I'm leaning on the asexual side heavily so it's a nightmare for me affdghjfgcvhh I just want meaningful characters interactions! at least some character development. The wrong book series I suppose, because we sure aren't getting that from S//JM as author.

But honestly, two characters getting to know each other, slowly befriending each other and building a strong friendship and then falling in love along the way as the cherry on top will always be better in my opinion than having two characters get "mated" (ugh) and having this shadow hanging over their relationship to one another. That well, the stars have aligned and fate has decided that they're now essentially in a arranged marriage neither of the two parties can ever get out of really. And that the other partner might otherwise not even given a single care about their partner if they didn't happen to be bound to each other. The mating bond has so many fucked up implications as well (like that they're paired with whom they make the strongest offspring and bla bla) and as much as I love both Lucien and Elain as inviduals, it turns me away from shipping them in a romantic manner. He would be a far better love interest than Rice and and Cassian combined, but unfortunately.. mhm no. A au concept: Where Elain and Lucien aren't mates, even after getting turned fae. Where bonds are as rare as S//JM once claimed they are and neither Elain nor Nesta are mated to anyone. And where they don't have the pressure on them to get together with Lucien or Cassian. Maybe Elain could leave the NC and join the BoE and go on Journeys with them (maybe falling in love along the way with Lucien, that would be more wholesome). And Nesta could do whatever she wanted. I can dream ahaha :')

I agree with everything you’ve said. honestly rhysand made me sick in the first book, and then i was kinda into him for the rest of the trilogy and that was only bc of sarah’s manipulative and inconsistent writing, she made tamlin into a complete monster in order to make rhysand seems like the best option at the moment. when i reread the trilogy once i get a bit older, i realised that both of them are just as bad as each other, rhysand is even worse in my humble opinion bc he’s much more subtle and insidious. anyway i will forever pity feyre bc now this girl is completely locked in an even more abusive and toxic codependent relationship with no way out bc she doesn’t even realise she needs to get out, she completely bought into the rhysand’s cult of personality. regarding the mating bond, yeh it’s horrid i hate it. the entirety of feysand’s relationship is carried by “sexual attraction” and sex craze caused by the bond and it just doesn’t work for me compared to what she had going on in the first book, i was not sold by feyre and rhysand’s relationship. and yup i also wish nesta, elain and lucien hook up with the band of exiles, they sound so cool, and it would’ve been so nice if elain and lucien could’ve fallen in love without the mate bond. i think nesta should just marry into Fae royalty but on another continent, away from the inner circle, and then years later the inner circle has to go to her country on a diplomatic mission and they’d all have to bow to her to show respect! I have a headcanon about the mate bond actually: that the mating bond is actually pretty common and the magic helps bond fae together to help with conception. fae that copulate outside of the bond has less chance of conceiving, while mates find it easier to conceive, that’s why high faes hold the mate bonds sacred bc it helps get around the rare fae pregnancy thing. like with the way sarah is going, everyone and their mothers are getting mates. she should just change the mating bond into something that actually makes sense lore wise.

#anti sjm

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