#me desperately trying to make a weird pet peeve i have with them into a quirky couple thing
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weird ass couple
#star trek#odo#kira nerys#kiraodo#me desperately trying to make a weird pet peeve i have with them into a quirky couple thing#deep space nine#ds9
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My Our flag means death hot takes 🥵🔥
(Except most of them are frankly not very controversial and I’m really not looking to argue lol)
All Izzy Hands discourse would be solved if people online started analyzing him like he was an interesting plot component that serves ofmd’s themes and not a real person who needs to be held accountable for his actions
Additionally, all Izzy Hands discourse is stupid and exhausting
Black Pete is criminally underrated in the fandom despite being a very prominent character in the show. He’s absolutely hilarious, I can name so many moments with him that made me bust out laughing. We need more Pete appreciation.
Its a big pet peeve of mine when ofmd fan content has the characters talk/think about their sexualities and gender identities with modern language and sensibilities. One of the reasons I think everything is so normalized and no big deal on the revenge is because they have no concept of what being “lgbt” is. It’s just, “I only like to fuck guys” and “I don’t like being treated like I’m a guy or a girl”. Trying to put these characters into boxes and label them with labels that they would have never used just feels awkward to me. It’s much more interesting when people explore how Ofmd’s queer characters would rationalize and explore their identities without having any technical words to describe themselves. It’s really comforting to me as someone who often times gets stressed over not being able to properly label myself.
I think Jim is in a different genre just as much (if not more) than Izzy. Every time it cuts to one of their subplots it’s like being transported to a cowboy revenge movie. I totally get the “Izzy is in the wrong genre” meme, I find it absolutely hilarious, but it just seems kinda weird to me that Jim is frankly the much better fit for that type of joke and I’ve literally seen no one recognize that. We need more “Jim is in the wrong genre” content, pretty much
I don’t want Stede’s character development in season two to be him becoming a badass more competent and rugged pirate. I’ve seen a lot of people who really want that to happen and the idea of it actually makes my skin crawl. The only time we’ve ever seen Stede behave the way we’d expect a pirate to behave (the “unhand me or bleed” scene) was because he was feeling trapped, lonely, and unlike himself. I am definitely down to see Stede spiral down a path similar to that, where he becomes more violent and pirate-y out of desperation or something, but I REALLY don’t want this to be presented as necessary and positive character development. The theme of ofmd is that “there’s more than one way to be a man”, and piracy and the expectations around it are often times used to represent manhood. Stede being an unconventional pirate who wears fancy outfits and doesn’t like blood is essential to this theme, and if he were to subdue or grow out of these traits to fit into the more standard mold the literal villains of the series want him to fit in it would be a betrayal of his character.
All of your “OFMD Season 2 sound track predictions” playlists are wrong I’m sorry 😭😭 guys theirs not going to be any mitski, MCR, or Billie Eilish songs in s2 two please take a walk ✋🏼
Additionally, the only ABBA song I want in season two is SOS. It fits the tone and the plot perfectly, gimme gimme gimme or lay all your love on me would just seem out of place.
While we’re on the subject of season two, you guys know that ofmd isn’t just a show about representation, right? Our flag means death obviously has fabulous queer and poc rep, and that’s great! But just because those things are a part of the appeal doesn’t mean thats the entire purpose of the show. People often criticize ofmd by saying things like “there weren’t enough women, there should’ve been more women characters”. Our flag means death is a show about (and I’ll say this again) masculinity, and the many ways someone can be a man. So of course, most of the characters are men. Just because ofmd is a show known for its positive representation doesn’t mean it’s obligated to include every minority that could possibly benefit from that. And I would totally understand if the critic was “Ofmd’s female characters aren’t well written”, but no one’s saying that! The few women characters in ofmd are adored by the fandom and amazingly well written. So I don’t see what the problem is, there are stories about queer women and women of color that focus on the unique experiences and struggles they face, but ofmd isn’t one of those stories, nor did it ever claim to be.
I don’t think Izzy hates Calico Jack like a bunch of the fandom seemed to decide. They obviously have very similar world views and motivations, and at least some history (jack calls Izzy a sentimental bastard, ffs). It’s more likely to me that Izzy sought out Jack’s help trusting that he was putting Ed in good hands then as a begrudging last minute “which one of Ed’s exs is most likely to agree to this” kinda thing.
All of the canon couples in the show got a partially on screen sex scene (even Mary and Doug, c’mon now). When Stede and Ed patch things up and become an actual couple they are 100% going to be at least implied to have had sex, I bet on it
This isn’t a hot take tbh, but it’s pretty funny to mention that my “omg they’re not queerbaiting” moment wasn’t “you wear fine things well” or the ep6 opening monologue or this is happening, no, I was absolutely certain that they weren’t playing around because of the pee scene. You heard me, THE PEE SCENE. The pee scene was my heart stopper
Anyways that’s pretty much all I’ve got at the moment, ik I have more spicy hot smoking takes somewhere in my deteriorating brain but I can’t find them rn, so stay tuned for a part two if I ever decide I want to break tumblr again with my epic never before seen opinions
#our flag means death#ofmd#stede bonnet#izzy hands#black pete#jim jimenez#blackbonnet#gentlebeard#stede bonnet x edward teach#edward teach#calico jack
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Ch 89 Lehan (Personal thoughts, small spoiler)
I can’t place my finger on it, but this panel’s translation really makes me uncomfortable.
The translation’s not wrong, it’s translated literally to the original Korean, but when I translated, it would be something like “If you keep on pushing it, she’ll be troubled/uncomfortable.” —> basically “stop it, she doesn’t like it” if it’s taken contextually instead of literally.
Anyways, when i read the tappy translation, I feel grossed out. It was gross already when he tells the nanny to stop because “she doesn’t like it”, but it’s even worse when he tells the nanny to stop because Lari feels “confused and embarrassed”.
… who is he, to tell others what Lari feels?
Lari is fully capable of speaking her mind and expressing her opinions.
Why does he think that as the younger brother, it’s ok for him to speak on her behalf, the older sister, when he doesn’t know her opinion on this?
That’s because he doesn’t think of her as an older sister.
He never thought of her as one. He’s always thought of her as a woman. (Vol 5)
Even though he always calls her Noona/Big sister (Tappy’s shooting them in the foot by continuing to translate that as “Lariette”, will lead to Vol 5 translation discrepancies because she tells him to stop calling her “big sister”, and he’s forced to comply and call her “Lariette” from now on)
I see it as him trying to act more confident and reliable and protecting her to have her look at him more like a “man” instead of forever “little-brother-zoned”. He’s already seen in the palace during the poisoning arc how desperate Rupert was to save Lari, and how Lari took poison meant for him. He doesn’t know the details, but he knows how precious she is to Rupert. She may deny it right now, but Lehan knows there’s a certain connection between Rupe and Lari that he doesn’t understand, but yet he reports to House Belois about it anyways.
Again, although she grew flustered and denied any romance, Lehan saying that “she feels confused and embarrassed” is just so so so weird to me. Even Lari too, she paused, and started at him as if “why..?” If she had appreciated the help, she would be in some chibi mode saying how she appreciates him growing up and standing up for her - nope, she’s just wide eyed, wondering what went on.
While it’s clear that he says that to the nanny, it’s also hinted that his words are not only “she doesn’t like it”, but “I don’t like it”. I see it as him projecting his own wants/opinion in the form of being caring and protective over her, and again, gross.
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On a side note, Rupert doesn’t do any thing gross like making assumptions about feelings in front of her. As emotionally stunted as he is, he knows to voice his own opinions instead of projecting it on others
(Yes, having other people speak up for me when they dont know how I’m actually feeling is a major pet peeve of mine ^^;)
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Always & Forever: Complaints
As with anything, TO suffers from writers disease. It suffers from a case of too much plot, annoying characters, and the sort of character assassinations that comes from playing tug of war with a character to make them fit a given plot. It is perhaps my biggest pet peeve, and it's certainly not unique to The Originals.
In the interest of keeping things neat, I'm going to try for a bulleted list. (split in two apparently, since tumblr thinks I talk too much)
My chief complaint, and this goes for the whole series, was the moments when the writers changed things for the sake of plot. Nowhere was this more egregious than season 4. We go from Hayley, at the beginning, saying that she has done things she is not proud of to keep her daughter safe and get back the people that she loves, and telling Elijah she wants to build a life with him, to talking about how the Mikaelsons, and Elijah specifically, are not safe for for Hope. She is suddenly shocked by Elijah's past, by his ruthlessness in the face of protecting the people that they love, and it doesn't mesh at all with what we know from the previous 4 seasons. Hayley has always known who and what Elijah is, and has been with him in his darkest moments since he came back to New Orleans. They keep nothing from each other. There should be nothing that surprises her anymore, especially because she is just as willing to do whatever it takes to save the people she loves. She says it, explicitly, several times. Even at the end of season 3, after Davina and Marcel, she is nothing but supportive and loving. Their final talk is almost beautiful, with the desperate way they say I love you, and their final kiss, but the bits leading up to that were both out of character and wholly unnecessary. And frankly, with Elijah and Hayley being arguably the least toxic relationship in the entirety of the TVDU, I'd argue choosing them as a time for the writers to express some sort of weird quasi-feminist morality was--a choice.
Season 5 was wholly unnecessary. It added nothing to story, and served really only to further destroy characters and relationships that had been a core of the show. In all honesty, season 5 should never have existed, and a few of the actors could have made guest appearances on season 1 of Legacies, and that would have been enough. Their fates at the end of season 4 were thematically exactly perfect for each character--there was really no need to go further, and killing Klaus and Elijah and making Rebekah human add nothing to the story.
From season 5, I would keep the following: Kol and Hope being close (it makes sense bc of the witch connection, and Kol is fine with physical distance), Marcel and Hope (are we seeing a connection here--again, Marcel and Hope being close makes sense, and then you have a way of getting info about Rebekah and etc, and having Hayley maintain some sort of tie to the family. After all, Marcel is a Mikaelson too), Klaus watching over Elijah and killing his enemies between bouts of debauchery (I actually really liked that bit--Klaus will sort of fade into the shadows, become the myth, forever keeping his family safe, but never able to see them), Rebekah rejecting Marcel's initial proposal (I would still have her go to see Elijah, just bc she's scared and guilty and wants her big brother and even though he isn't him, she finds some peace). Hayley I would have probably pretty much offscreen, but I would NOT kill her, maybe she is staying at the school and helping, or helping wolves, etc. She is content with her daughter (no love interest, but once a year she goes to France and Elijah gets his memories back and they have one day together (leave me alone okay I get to have this)) and the rest of the time she is just a mom to the one person who matters more than anything.
I also really hated the whole super vampire plot. It was dumb and super extra and having there be a "super vampire who can kill even originals" just felt--weird. and dumb. I liked the outcome (the 5 year time jump and such) but idk. This show kept one-upping itself in the bad guy department, and it got old fast.
The random several episode love interests that went no where. Gia, the redhaired witch whose name I don't recall, the annoying vampire hunter (Sofia or something idk). None of them were interesting or added anything to the story, and frankly could have been left out with no consequence.
Up next, characters!
#the originals#season 5 was trash and wholly uneccessary#they needed to stop randomly hating on elijah#that was some bullshit#but i did love this dumb fucking show#sigh#ill stop talking about this eventually lol
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I don't want to add all of this under the post I took this pic from, because I'm going to get nitpicky and long-winded and it would probably get really annoying for OP... and also because this is the "are you saying we piss on the poor" website, so someone would inevitably think I'm hating on either OP or Mary Reufle. Which I'm not, btw. I think the passage above says something really beautiful and tragic about humanity, and I'm thankful to OP for posting it, otherwise I might have never read it.
But it does remind me of a stupid pet peeve I've been trying to ignore since people on Tumblr started debating whether asexual sailors would be safe from the lure of sirens and other people started replying that, hey! Sirens in Greek mythology, especially the Odyssey, don't lure sailors by offering sex! They lure them by offering them what they desire! Which might be sex for some, but might be just some really great pasta for others!
... again, to avoid another obvious "we piss on the poor" moment: no, I don't actually have anything serious against jokes, thought exercises, and stories in that vein. Ace people belong in fun fantasy and/or mythology-inspired stories and story ideas as much as everyone else. And I'm well-aware you don't need my permission to write about a sailor saving their entire crew by being totally indifferent to sex or almost dooming them because some weird lady on a rock in the middle of the sea was loudly singing about being desperate to share cool frog facts with someone. Hell, I'd probably read both.
But anyway, the pet peeve I was talking about before going on that tangent is that the sirens do sing Odysseus' story to Odysseus, and it just annoys me so much, seeing people ignoring the fact that that's actually a thing that happens. Like, this is from Book XII:
"[...] the Sirens failed not to note the swift ship as it drew near, and they raised their clear-toned song: “‘Come hither, as thou farest, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans; [185] stay thy ship that thou mayest listen to the voice of us two. For never yet has any man rowed past this isle in his black ship until he has heard the sweet voice from our lips. Nay, he has joy of it, and goes his way a wiser man. For we know all the toils that in wide Troy [190] the Argives and Trojans endured through the will of the gods, and we know all things that come to pass upon the fruitful earth.’"
... yes, this translation is taken from Perseus and is, unfortunately, in prose. Give me a break, it's not easy to find good poetic translations of the Odyssey posted for free online when I'm not even a native English speaker and to me "Odyssey translation" means "Rosa Calzecchi Onesti's translation from the '60s." The point is, the sirens try to lure Odysseus (and would definitely succeed, if not for the ropes-and-wax trick) by telling him that they know everything, including all that has happened to Odysseus himself and everyone else who suffered through the war of Troy.
And yeah, you could argue that the main draw for Odysseus (his greatest desire, to tie it all back to mythological shitposting) is knowledge itself, because he is that kind of guy. But the sirens don't give any details on their knowledge of all that is presently happening "upon the fruitful earth." They do, however, give details on their knowledge of the past -- specifically stating they know Odysseus' past. The same man who, if you remember, can't take Demodocus singing about a couple of episodes from the war of Troy without needing to hide his face due to being completely overcome by tears, yet has a piece of meat from his own plate brought to Demodocus as a show of respect and gratitude for his singing. Unlike his own wife, Penelope, who when hearing the aoidos Phemius singing about the same war back in Ithaca, asks him to change the subject to something less painful...
It's just. It's so painful and complex and wonderful and it makes me want to tear my hair out every time I think about it. And nobody ever remembers it when someone brings up the sirens and specifically the ones from the Odyssey! *screams*
Btw, now that I've had my nice little rant, please do me a favor and listen to the song Le Sirene by Vinicio Capossela. Because this Italian singer and composer? He gets it.
Here's a rough translation of the lyrics:
The sirens
Tell you about yourself
What you were
As if it were forever
The sirens
Have no tail nor feathers
They only sing about you
The man of yesterday
The man you were, two steps from the sky
All your life before you
All your life as a whole
They say, stop here
The sirens
Assault you at night
Created by the night
They kept all the faces you loved and now
The sirens have them
They sing them to you in a chorus
And you're not alone anymore
They know everything about you
And the best of you
It's a song of sirens
And you hear it in the regret
Of what you lacked
What you glimpsed and won't have
They give it to you
Only in song
They sing to you of how you came from nothing
And nothing you will be
The sirens are a night of beer
And the dawn won't come anymore
They're street ghosts coming in in gusts
They have the voices of sirens
Fill your ears with wax
To not hear them when it's evening
To stay firm
Tied to your routine
But if you listen to the sirens
You won't come home
Because home is
Where they sing about you
Listen to the sirens
They won't stop their singing
In the endless wake, they sing
All your life
Who you were, who you were, who you were
Who you were, who you were, who you are
Mnemosyne
Why go on until old age
Until you feel ill?
It's all already here
Stop here
You don't have anywhere to go anymore
The sirens
Don't sing the future
They give you what has been
But time isn't kind
And if you stop and listen to them
You'll let yourself die
Because the singing is neverending
And it's full of deceit
And takes your life from you
As it sings it
youtube
... also, if you know Italian or you don't mind running lyrics through an online translator (not Google Translate, pls, they don't deserve to be butchered like that) or you're just looking for new music to listen to, do yourself a favor and go listen to Capossela's other Odyssey-inspired songs from the album Marinai, Profeti e Balene. They are:
La lancia del Pelide (The spear of Pelides, and yeah, this one is actually about the Iliad)
Le Pleiadi (The Pleiades, from the POVs of Odysseus and Penelope, and a much deeper and more fascinating take on their relationship than either "Odysseus is a jerk who doesn't care about her because he has sex with other women" or "he's cool, she's cool, they're a cool power couple" could ever hope to be -- even though I do love the latter a lot, admittedly)
Aedo (Aoidos, set in the aftermath of Odysseus' killing of the suitors)
Calipso (Calypso)
Dimmi Tiresia (Tell me, Tiresias, set in Book XI, when Odysseus summons the spirit of the dead seer and receives a prophecy from him)
Nostos (Actually about the tale of Ulysses' final "mad flight" and death in the Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XXVI -- yes, you need to listen to this one, too)
... okay, yes, this post did turn into Vinicio Capossela shilling. I swear it wasn't the initial intention, it just happened. But you know what? I don't even care because most of the songs that make Tumblr users go "OMG THIS MAKES ME FEEL SOO UNHINGED 😭 TOTALLY FERAL 😭😭 WHY DOES IT GO SO HARD 😭😭😭" don't go even half as unnecessarily hard as the lyrics to Aedo and Nostos. So, yeah. You can thank me after lying on the floor like "head full. way too many thoughts" for an hour or two.
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Weird questions for writers: 7, 8, 15, 21, 25, and 27?
Thank you so much for the questions! :D
7. What is your deepest joy about writing?
I love exploring concepts and morals. I like pitting them against each other and working at issues that way. Usually the issue is a pet peeve I have that society holds to or I see too often in media.
I also love when I'm writing and it clicks. The scene just springs onto the page almost too fast to catch but it all works and makes sense. Everyone is in character and the plot is perfect without effort. It's a heady feeling seeing everything pull together seamlessly.
8. If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?
It would be a metaphor for loss. Use a lot of desolate imagery.
15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?
I write in the margins of my books in pencil so I can erase spelling mistakes or accidental scribbles I make when I write notes and underline passages. I dog ear pages until I can go back and underline whatever line caught my eye. Dog ears are for coming back to lines. Scraps of paper are bookmarks. I don't take baths so.... That's why I don't read in the bath. I don’t judge people about any of the things above because that would be hypocritical lol. We can definitely be friends still!
21. Could you ever quit writing? Do you ever wish you could? Why or why not?
Well, I unintentionally quit writing for... Eh, two ish years a bit ago. Just got busy with life and relationships and metamorphosing. As one does. Been writing on and off for the past two years tho. More recently with my writing group back in session.
25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?
I realize this may sound egotistical but my main character is based on me. However she's got some of my vices amplified to make her a specific way to force her to become something better. The story is more personal and what I want to read.
Anyway her being based on me makes her easier to write. As a result I know a lot about her that's completely useless to the plot just because she's based off me. So she... dog ears books.
27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?
Hmmm I haven't written any stressful characters per se but I have written difficult characters in how I have to write tensely to make sure they don't slip out of character. It's like trying on a dress that's just a little too big. It almost fits but it slides off your shoulder if you're not careful and adjusting everything every few steps.
Two come to mind. One was a character I wrote who was a space captain. Cold and distant and barked orders but her actions, even tho rough, spoke of how deeply she cared for her crew and family. I found it difficult to write her at times as every time she spoke or interacted she was very reserved and didn't show any affection which is not how I write characters usually. Normally my characters are active and react off each other, like a normal conversation, but it's hard to have characters talk to each other when one gives off absolutely NO vibes. So it's like writing one character talking to a monotone wall. I wanted to write a story around honor and sacrifice, without the characters being dramatic. So she made a deal that kept her from separate her siblings who she loved desperately but they were taken care of in the end if she kept her deal. The point was to try and show that despite how reserved and distant she seemed she cared deeply and sacrificed a lot. It was about what love looks like and how deep it runs etc
The other was a fanfiction. Writing Thor (Thor 2001, Thor: TDW era) was difficult because he spoke slowly and carefully and there were freaking LAYERS I had to work into nearly every conversation because of the plot I had revolved around Loki coming back to earth. And Thor loves his brother so.... It was slow going.
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i know it's kinda boring to imagine the cullens as regular human teenagers in 2021 when they are fucking powerfull vampires but someone once told me that in this alternative universe jasper would be the mysterious my-reputation-precedes-me guy and alice would be like those fairy-aesthetic girls from pinterest and i...i just can't stop thinking about it.....
I don't think it's boring to imagine them as regular human teenagers! the regular human teenagers I know are very interesting people.
also I definitely have an old post like that somewhere (can’t find it, but it exists.)
if I ever write teenage!human!jasper, Patrick Verona is the blueprint. it's definitely the vibe of "I give off the world's most terrifying aura and I only ever speak to one classmate (peter) so everyone thinks I killed a man and ate an entire duck raw (except the beak and the feet) but actually I was in australia helping my elderly grandfather cross the street." of course, in his case I think you can also write the rumors being true—eg, he did kill a man, just not under the circumstances everyone imagines, or something like that (maybe he just likes raw duck ok. mind your business david)
I think jasper and edward are the only cullens who would still be Loners in a human high school au. edward would be more of the Nerd kind of loner though, like he's in the library every lunch period. he might have a few kinda-friends. people don't see him as a threat, just kind of a Weird Guy (as opposed to jasper, who is both a threat and a Weird Guy.)
digression time: I can see what smeyer was going for when she wrote the cullens as ~mYsTeRiOuS aNtiSoCiaL iNcEsT fAmiLy~ in canon—I mean, ok, they're immortal so a) they're going to outlive all these people and don't wanna get attached, b) they're Really 85+ Years Old so none of these teens are actually their peers, and c) they're potentially dangerous and don't wanna get close to these humans lest they end up harming them. also, if they're cryptic and "keep to themselves" it creates a bigger mystery for bella and makes it a bigger deal when they eventually accept bella.
but I agree with a lot of the takes on tumblr that character-wise, it doesn't really make sense for emmett and alice to be mysterious antisocial loners.
rosalie is the one for whom being a vampire makes the most difference—human!rosalie 100% wants to socialize, vampire!rosalie believes it's not even an option.
and as established above, edward and jasper are Weird Guys no matter what species they are (#1 fic pet peeve is when people write edward or jasper as some kind of smooth-talking ladies' man like gurl what books did you read?? I mean follow your bliss I guess but this type of blatant wish fulfillment is Not For Me)
but emmett? and alice? crave social interaction! in MS, alice is desperate for a friend. and emmett is the kind of guy who can't help making friends wherever he goes, without even trying. alice does try, but she's pretty successful.
as for the fairy aesthetic thing...eh. I think she might actually be opposed to anything that plays into her size like that. I know bella describes her as “pixie-like,” and boy howdy has the fandom latched onto that one throwaway adjective, but there’s nothing to indicate that alice sees herself that way. I think it’s the opposite. she’s like I KNOW I’m short but stop infantilizing me ok!! I have an adult mind in here! I can too be Sexy!!
I would write human!alice as being so laser-focused on a future fashion career that she doesn’t commit to any other subcultures. I also think her aesthetic is more sleek and edgy than organic or boho.
but in terms of the Weird Girl attitude...oh yeah. she’s got it in spades.
which is exactly why she’s the type of “no fear no boundaries” person to look at Weird Scary Guy jasper and see a challenge. she’s like “haha what’s that guy’s deal? might fuck around and sit at his lunch table and gradually worm my way into his life until he can’t imagine it without me :D”
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Hi. Might be a weird question, but what are the biggest pitfalls you see from cis people trying to write trans characters?
--
Ahahaha. Oh my god. I mean... I am cis, mostly, so what do I know...
The biggest pitfall people make that produce trans fic I personally hate is acting like there's One Right Way to be trans and putting a bunch of tumblr jargon in the mouths of characters it is massively OOC for. I guess pet peeve #2, which is a subset of #1, is having no imagination and making aliens, robots, etc. experience dysphoria in the exact way a dysphoric contemporary trans person does even when those sci-fi characters can magically change their bodies at will.
I guess... sometimes, I see people so desperate to get something "right" that they listen to the most po-faced and depressing sensitivity readers instead of making a fun, fleshed out, and maybe even aspirational character. They'd probably arrive at a better result if they worried less about what makes trans people different and focused more on making a character they found relatable and cool. Nobody likes being treated as an extremely alien Other.
The more you're writing fantasy erotica or wish fulfillment fluff, the more this applies. The more you're trying to accurately represent a specific real experience, the more cautious you should be and the more trans voices you should seek out.
TBH I rarely like trans fic though. The stuff I encounter tends to be full of lectures and to have a lot of PiV, and I'm not a big fan of PiV in my porn. The stuff I have liked has been a/b/o where someone is trans between those categories and weird worldbuilding is involved.
Ultimately, I think the main way to do it wrong is to do it for stupid reasons like thinking some fanfic 10 people will read matters for ~representation~ or thinking only one kind of character makes good rep. And you can be an idiot about that while being trans. You can also misrepresent other types of trans people while being trans. And you can reduce queerness to tragedy porn and define the experience around oppression and misery regardless of your own background.
If you mean outside of fic... I guess it depends on the context. I'm a firm believer that people should do whatever they want in spaces that don't have gatekeeping and where your story doesn't keep anybody else's story out. Hell, I see plenty of misgendering humiliation porn being produced by ftms, so it's not like you can tell who the author is even when the content is legitimately pretty problematic. Just... if you're writing edgelord erotica, do please label it. (And for you horndogs who I know are going to send me a bunch of anon asks about that comment, you can find your horny brethren on reddit at ftmspunished, which is by and for trans masc individuals.)
If it's a question of whom to hire to write a book about transness for kids to make them more tolerant or something, yeah, give that book contract to a trans person. If you're a cis actor being offered a trans role, think twice. But fanfic? Random indie shit? Whatever.
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butterflies
❥ sugawara koushi x fem! reader
❥ TW// nsfw w/ keishin, stalking, blackmail
» request// “hi!! okay so seeing as you know i now love the coach ukai stuff imagine a really creepy scenario (or thirst i don’t mind!) where y/n and ukai are doing their stuff as they do and y/n thinks she sees suga bc he’s stalking her but she doesn’t want to believe it but it keeps happening, and other weird stuff like she comes home to things in her room moved, underwear missing, creepy feeling of being watched- i love you and your work so much!!!💗” — @sugawara-sweetheart
» A/N ahh neems bby <3!! ily!! i feel like i tell you this all the time, but your mind? out of this world dude. also, thank you for having patience with me on this.
“I think... I think we should try and make more friends this year.”
You bring it up absentmindedly on your way to the store. It’s the hottest it’s been all summer, the heat making you say whatever comes to mind.
“What?”
If you were looking at him, you’d be able to see the fear in his eyes. Instead, you took to viewing a stray butterfly fluttering about.
“Yeah, my brother has a lot of friends and it’s cool. What do you say, Koushi?”
“I-I don’t know...” he mutters out.
“Huh?” you turn to look at him, pouting. “Do you not think it’s cool?”
“No! I just— I think we’re fine with just the two of us.”
“Oh... okay. I think so too.”
You’ve known him since you were kids.
He was your only friend for years, way before Karasuno, way before volleyball. You’ve become accustomed to each other, learning each other’s quirks and pet peeves. You know what topics to avoid talking about and he knows the same. You remember when you first met him and when you first cried in front of him… everything.
You’ve been there for each other no matter what. Koushi is your confidant and you’re his.
Two peas in a pod, your mother said.
You would always eat lunch together. He would talk about everything and anything while you would talk about how difficult your studies were, but here’s the thing... that hasn’t happened recently. Eating lunch with him isn’t a thing anymore. He always wanted to know what you were doing on your phone and you couldn’t exactly keep your relationship with Keishin a secret if he found out.
It was days after you stopped seeing him when things started happening.
It’s outside the gym long after hours when you first see it. There’s a sliver of gray that you catch in the corner of your eye as Keishin fucks you against the wall. You don’t think much of it. You were too fucked out and tears were clouding your vision, is what you say to try and convince yourself.
But it’s been gnawing at you. It can’t be him. It has to be anyone but him.
Your panties are going missing and you don’t know what to make of it. They disappear only to be back in their respective places, almost like they were never gone. It can’t be Keishin. All the ones you have at his place are the same ones you left there. None are gone like the ones at home.
Keishin tries to be there for you, but what can he do? He’s not much help when he feels as if someone is watching his every move, so he tries to take some tension off the both of you by inviting you over. Keishin made a decent dinner for a man who barely knows how to cook. You both sit at the table talking about anything that comes to mind, though you can’t help but let your mind wander off.
“Calm down, baby,” his voice brings you back. He can see the visible worry on your face. “Honestly… I think we’re just scaring ourselves at this point.”
“Keishin…”
“I’m serious!” he sighs out and takes your hand from across the table. “I know you’re scared that we’re going to get caught, but I promise you no one knows. No one suspects a thing, pretty girl.”
The nickname makes your face heat up, causing you to look off to the side bashfully. There’s a grin on Keishin’s face that you can see from the corner of your eye. You stand up, snatching your hand from his as you grumble, “Cut it out.”
He scoffs and gets out his chair, arms coming to wrap around you. He’s speaking right into your ear in that voice he knows you like all too well, “I’m just telling the truth, y/n. You’re my pretty baby… my pretty girl.” You can feel his hand drift down to your ass before he gives it a firm squeeze. “You’re mine.”
It doesn’t long for you to make it to his bed, clothes astray and scattered along the hall. You can’t help but feel like someone’s watching. It's a feeling you’ve grown all too familiar with recently, but it fades away as Keishin enters you. His prick is being sucked in by your gummy walls and he wastes no time in setting a pace, furiously thrusting into your little cunny. One hand moves to hold yours while the other stays rooted to your hip.
“No matter what happens— fuck!” he cuts himself off, hitting a deep spot within you that has you mewling. “—we’ll always be together, right?”
Those last words... it felt like deja vu. You’ve heard them before.
“Yes! Yes, Keishin!”
You nod your head adamantly, locking lips with him, spit being swapped and wet smacking making its way through the room. He shoves his face into your neck, sucking deep bruises into the skin as his hand trails down to circle your clit.
You can’t remember when this started to turn into something entirely new. When did it stop being lust for him? When did you start looking over how this all began? You don’t get too much time to dwell on it as the sensations become overwhelming.
“Has it really been this long? Because— shit!” he groans out.
His grip on your hand tightens as your walls clamp down around him. It’s been so long since you two have done this, your bodies desperate for release. It’s almost sad how soon it ends.
The pain mixed in with the pleasure makes you scream out, “Cum in me Keishin, please!”
There’s a string of ‘please’s and ‘I love you’s that leave your mouth as you hold onto him tightly, nails scratching down his back. It feels like you’re bruising with the way he’s slamming into you, making your back arch. He stills not too long after, flooding your insides with his seed. Keishin is panting as he places his forehead on yours.
“No matter who catches us, I’ll always be with you. No one can take us away from each other, y/n.”
Hearing him say those words made the butterflies go crazy in your stomach.
“Obviously... we’re meant to be, Keishin,” you whisper against his lips.
You kiss him once more before falling asleep in each other’s arms. It’s in the early hours of the morning when you wake up, leaving a note for him and then making your way back home. The walk is filled with contemplation. Would you still be in this mess if you never met Keishin? What would have happened if you never agreed to his ultimatum? Would whoever it is that’s doing this still be around?
You enter your room, sighing as you close the door and lean against it. You’re just about to pull off your shirt when you hear something, switching on the lights quickly. You swear you’d rather die. He’s sitting on your bed, a pair of panties that went missing in his hands.
“Sugawara? W-What are you—?” you stammer out only to stop.
It’s him. It’s been him the whole time and you know it. He doesn’t need to say anything. You don’t know if you wish it wasn’t him or if you wish you never caught him. Your head feels like it’s going to explode with how fast it’s running. How long has he been waiting here? Why would he want to do this? What’s the point?
You shake your head in a horrible attempt to stop yourself from crying before speaking out, “Kou—”
“Where have you been?”
The look on his face lets you know he’s far from playing around. Sugawara has always been like this, wanting to know your whereabouts. He was just a worrisome friend is all, but now you think there’s a deeper meaning to it.
“I was— I was just out with a friend.”
“Really?” he laughs out, a sheepish smile on his face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were getting your whore hole pounded by the coaches cock.”
He’s never spoken to you like that and the words sink deep coming from someone you’ve known for so long, coming from someone you trust the most.
Tears are falling as you try and defend yourself, “That’s not true!”
“Coach Ukai and you are in a relationship.” You open your mouth to try and respond but he cuts you off. “Don’t deny it. I’ve seen it, but I’ve been wondering,” he pauses, looking straight into your eyes. A humorless laugh leaves his mouth before he continues, “Do you just fuck anywhere? Is that how easy you are? You just let guys fuck you out in the open?”
He moves off your bed, walking towards you. You know you should move. You know you should leave, run back to Keishin’s house and tell him. Just something, anything... but you can’t.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that, not when... not when you’ve been stalking me! Not when you’ve been breaking in and stealing my clothes, Sugawara!”
He stops right in front of you. You’re shaking, voice sounding so meek and small, “Why? Why would you do this?”
He doesn’t say anything. His hands are on your face, forehead resting against yours as he stares deep into your eyes. He’d do this to calm you down when you were kids, panicking over something that happened. The only difference is this time his fingernails are biting into your skin and he’s the one causing the panic to rise within you.
“If I have to tell everyone about you and the coach just so I can keep you to myself, I will. No one will want you when they find out about how much of a slut you are.”
Your eyes are wide.
This isn’t your Koushi.
“I love you, y/n. No one can take us away from each other. Not now, not ever.”
When Koushi says it, the butterflies in your stomach die.
“We’ll always be together, right?” he speaks out into the summer air.
Both of your legs swing off your backyard porch, not tall enough to reach the bottom yet. You have a blue twin popsicle this time, you fought with him at the store due to you wanting to diverge from your usual red.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean... hm, no one can take us away from each other. No one can come in between us, right y/n?”
You think this has something to do with your talk about making more friends this next school year. The thought disappears as quickly as it came. It made your face heat up, Koushi only wanting to hang out with you.
There’s a big smile on your face.
“Yeah! No one can come between us because we’re meant to be, Koushi!”
The butterfly wings stop fluttering and instead they get caught in intricate spider webs. They’re blind to it. They don’t see it coming, but if they weren’t so careless maybe just maybe they would have survived… if only they paid attention to the signs.
#yandere haikyuu#yandere haikyuu x reader#yandere sugawara koushi#yandere sugawara x reader#yandere x reader#sugawara koushi x reader#sugawara x reader#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu#request
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trollhunters: rott and overall toa thoughts
decided to write down what i think of the movie and the series as a whole after watching rott
toby domzalski
first of all, i am so unspeakably sad that toby remained a comedy relief character until it was time for him to die. i really hoped he would get his time to shine but not like this. the death scene was definitely amazingly done and im glad that at the very least rott had a scene that showed the audience just how important tody’s friendship was to jim.
on that note tho, im sad that no one seemed to realize that toby was gone??? it was only after jim realized what happened that he was the first to desperately search for him. i get that toby has the strongest ties to jim but??? claire??? AAARRRGGHH??? they were also close with toby but even after seeing him take the car they didnt immediately shift their focus to him after finding jim???
i really wished we got more serious moments with him through all the toa series. i feel like after trollhunters (although he was also a comic relief there, but id say there was more to him back then), he became the designated comic relief and it makes him such a 2-dimensional character.
jim lake jr
jim is one of my favorite protagonists ever in any show, so seeing him struggle through all the series was always an emotional rollercoaster. i appreciate what rott was going for, the “he doesnt need the armor/amulet, hes always been a hero” sentiment but... the movie gives him the amulet back in the same scene in which he says it. i was severely disappointed when it happened, im not gonna lie. the scene would have been way more impactful if jim defeated bellroc by himself when they were stripped out of magic, instead of suddenly getting a power-up and besting her in combat. if jim didnt get the amulet right then the message of “i always was a hero, with the amulet or without” would have actually hit way harder. we see jim struggle about being just human and lacking the power to hold his own ground in a fight through the whole movie and him suddenly besting bellroc with the amulet is just. underwhelming. i think he should have gotten the amulet after the fight, so we still could have the whole time travel shenanigans thing happen, but def not when he got it.
and on the topic of the time travel, what the fuck did they do to jim. like????? hello????? this. in Not. the same jim lake jr who went into the darklands all by himself so his friends wouldnt get killed/hurt. this is Not the same jim who refused to burden his mother with what he had to deal with as a trollhunter. the fact that he makes a concious choice to have toby pick up the trollhunter amulet????? is so out of character for him???? especially since he experienced all the struggles, the hurt, the trauma himself. i Refuse to believe he would ever have his best friend relive the hell he has been through all those years. especially since only He has the knowledge of the past??? how does he think this is going to play out??
not to mention that, by having the amulet choose toby, it means that the whole fate/destiny aspect of jim being chosen is out of the window. i didnt like how much the series leaned into it already, because im not a fan of stories which support the concept of “destiny/fate” but that ending really just confirm that jim was never the chosen one, he was just lucky to get the amulet first, because it could have been literally anyone. and im not trying to say that toby would not be a great trollhunter himself, i just mean that if toby can also be chosen instead of jim, the whole speech about destiny is kind of a lie.
claire nuñez
this isn’t really a criticism about her character, but more of how she has been treated by the narrative. im glad that claire gets to do more in this movie and that she keeps an active role (despite being spent in critical points to prevent her from solving problems). i really wish claire was more than Just jims love interest once they got together tho. i wish she was first and foremost his friend instead of his girlfriend, although that might be just my personal pet peeve of narratives putting romantic relationships above platonic ones. i felt it was really a shame that her wish for jim was to “find her and try until she falls in love with him again”. like i get that it was a sweet scene and sentiment overall but all i could think of was shouldnt she be freaking out that her friends and family are possibly dead because of the destruction of the whole town??? she could have been helping people evacuate and then join the fight.
the steve palchuk problem
ive seen a lot of people talk about this, but yeah the mpreg plot was really unnecessary. its really weird and it made me very uncomfortable considering both aja and steve are like. supposedly 18? in rott. this whole plot point not only feels like it takes up time that could have been better spent, but it also kinda portrays aja as a really bad partner to steve. like. you’re telling me she never really told him how this works??? like, ignoring how stupid and arbitrary the 7th kiss thing is, considering that she knows how kissing works for humans, she Should have told him about the possible consequences of it. i get that she was on akiridion-5 but is there really no way for her to communicate with him, considering that krel stayed on earth??? i dont remember if there was any communication mentioned, but if it was, that makes aja even worse in this context, honestly. they did my girl so dirty.
(on a quick note tho, i do like how aja was reluctant to follow jim. she’s a queen now and her priority will always be the safety of people surrounding her so her sentiment of “you can do the risky thing But my ships are still showing up either way” was really nice and i actually liked that she kinda went against jim and questioned him.)
with the mpreg steve plotline also comes the fact that eli is barely in this movie. we literally only get to see him to see that he has a growth spurt and then to have him deliver the babies. i really wish we could have gotten more about eli himself, maybe see how his relationship with aja developed into a friendship??? or the good old eli-steve friendship after a long time of being apart.
anticlimactic deaths/losses
nomura’s death scene was so fast and we didn’t even really linger on its impact, which honestly was. really disappointing. strickler was also done really dirty by being killed off nearly immediately after the reveal of his engagement with barbara. at the very least we got a scene of the lakes mourning him.
nari’s death served a purpose. they sacrificed herself to kill skrael. i did like how much it impacted douxie, but after the deaths, the characters are not really mentioned again until the very end when jim decides to time travel.
archie being left behind felt kind of forced and i wish he stayed in the story if only so douxie didnt have to lose two people close to him on the same day. we also never mention him again which... okay.
this is the finale... where is everyone, what is happening
is barbara just stranded in the castle now??? where is nana?? the changeling babies??? notenrique and claire’s family??? the trolls from the troll market??? this whole movie just felt rushed, honestly. we never were told how barbara and strickler got to the castle and we never even got to witness them see jim in the human form for the first time too. i honestly think this movie should have just been a series. it has enough action to stretch it out and we could have had more scenes that were about finishing arcs for characters and lingering on the consequences of certain deaths. its not a bad movie in itself, but it does not feel like a proper finale to the toa series, especially with the last 5 minutes of rott. im kind of disappointed, but at the same time we p much got an open ending so everyone can go wild with their interpretations/speculations.
#tales of arcadia#trollhunters rise of the titans#trollhunters#trollhunters rott#rise of the titans#rott#toa#i could also go on a rant abt how i would prefer if the narrative in the series over all stayed focused on tobys and jim friendship#or how i think it was out of character to have toby stay in arcadia when claire chose to go with jim when he had to leave#or in general how claires and jims relationship is kind of too perfect#but i am tired and the movie is what it is#im gonna pretend the ending didnt happen or happened differently
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What are your biggest pet peeves/red flags when it comes to people?
I have so many.
Personal Pet Peeves:
(Generally more personal ones. Not inherently character flaws, but I don't like these people and will do my best to avoid them.)
• Overly boisterous/talkative people - I just don't like being around them. Being loud doesn't make you fun or likable, it just makes you loud.
• Childishness - This captures all my answers but I mean overly childish mannerisms/voices etc,.
• People who don’t want to improve themselves but constantly complain about themselves. If you don’t like something then fix it. It’s one thing if you’re actively trying to be better and are complaining because you're struggling, that’s perfectly understandable! I would actually respect you for making that effort. But if you aren’t making any effort then it just sounds pathetic and I hate that.
• The bunny ears + demonia shoes + leg warmers + sanrio set aesthetic - Can’t stand those mfs. They’re always annoying. Zero exceptions.
• People who get their whole personality from TikTok. That app fills me with so much rage and you can always tell when someone spends too much time on it. Especially in regards to their stances on certain topics.
• People who make one thing their entire identity - stoners/self proclaimed online introverts/misanthropes are the worst offenders of this but the sentiment applies to other things.
• Perpetually online syndrome - I say this as someone who is online a lot but a lot of you desperately need to interact with people who aren’t in your niche echo chamber of a community.
• Pretentiousness - I have a weird relationship with this one but if you constantly feel the need to prove that you're smart in situations that don't call for it then you're just annoying. If you actually are smart, you won't need to bring it up all the time. (Obviously if something "pretentious" comes up in conversation then yeah go for it but talking about... idk the death of print media in an other light conversation???) Also related: people who are constantly trying to one up you or who compete with you over who suffered more.
• People who don't understand that other experiences exist. Yes, other countries exist. Yes, other languages exist. Yes, other religions exist. Your experiences are not universal, stop acting like they are and stop expecting everyone to cater to your experiences.
• People who joke too much. Especially when they say something hurtful as a joke and get mad when the subject of that "joke" is upset. Also not everything needs to be a joke.
Red Flags:
• Victim Complexes - A lack of responsibility/accountability for everything negative in their lives. (They’re never at fault! It’s just because of an external factor/other people! They’re the real victim here! Pity them! Side with them!)
• Failure to respect boundaries - They continue bothering you about something you’ve expressed discomfort in/they continue doing something you’re clearly uncomfortable with. It’s why certain asks irritate me so much; if I don’t answer it/don’t want to answer it properly it isn’t for you to push on why I’m not and it isn't for you to insist that I change my answer/give an answer at all.
• Selfishness in relationships - People who expect constant unconditional support from you but don’t care about you when it’s inconvenient for them.
• Insistence that their morality/opinions are the only correct ones and lash out at people who think differently. Extends to both more conservative and supposedly “woke” sides of morality/thinking.
• Lack of self awareness - These people inevitably just end up hurting everyone around them and fail to see that they’re to blame. Often ends up having a victim complex.
• Can’t keep their word - they say they’ll stop doing something that bothers you but they keep on doing it, they say they’ll be better about something that bothers you but they don’t, they say they’re fine then go on to hurt you because they actually are upset at you. Linked to a lack of respect for boundaries but slightly different.
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I've always loved Prometheus -- I saw it alone at the nearest IMAX theater, since no one I know likes the Alien franchise -- but felt slightly embattled about it. Even among Aliens fans, Prometheus is reviled! Why do you think that is? It's a gorgeous movie with great actors, and it's really entertaining. People seem to be really bothered by the recklessness of the characters, but I've never felt like that was a misstep. People ARE reckless. Even scientists. (Maybe especially scientists!) Anyway, I'm always happy to find someone who wholeheartedly appreciates the movie, since I always feel like I have to apologize for my affection.
If I knew, man, I wouldn’t be here now would I?
More seriously, some thoughts I have on the movie as well as some commentary on the shit people give it.
As for why Alien fans explicitly don’t like it, I think it was too different from every movie in the rest of the franchise.
First, I’ve noticed that when anything involves religion, in general, even tangentially people wig out. The internet at large thinks anyone even remotely religious is whipping themselves in the backroom out of hatred and devotion to God.
Elizabeth Shaw is an extremely religious character, someone in a STEM field no less, whose religion is portrayed in a positive light. The movie is about an expedition’s search for God, or rather, the creators of mankind. That will immediately rub people completely raw and put people up in arms.
A movie searching for God?! How stupid! I would never search for God in space!
It’s also a very philosophical movie in general and very different from Alien and especially Aliens.
Remember that for a lot of people, Alien is not people’s favorites, they actually like Aliens a lot more. Ridley Scott (dir of Prometheus) only directed Alien, Aliens was James Cameron. Both are excellent movies but extremely different, and while I haven’t read any interviews and am speaking out of my hat, I think Aliens is not where Scott would have gone had he decided to do a sequel.
Many people when they see “Alien” think of Aliens, then they walk in, and get a movie that’s mostly the philosophical ponderings about artificial intelligence, faith, and creation in general.
They only get the Xenomorphs at the very end, and even then, not a Xenomorph at all but just a giant face hugger. WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT.
And then you have the “stupidity” of the characters in the film. Now, personally, I see why they are the way they are. Not only, as you note, are they humans who can make mistakes but their mission has a very weird source. Most of them are directly on Weyland’s payroll, a man who is so desperate for immortality that he funded this mission to another planet to find aliens and convince them to give it to him. This informs much of the actions throughout the series.
More, while yes perhaps they should have sent David into the pyramid alone at first, it wouldn’t have helped. David was under very strict orders by Weyland to get results, that immediately damns at least one crew member, and crew members have no idea to not trust androids because androids typically don’t do this. Even David only is able to take these actions because of Weyland’s orders (who Elizabeth/Charlie have no idea is alive or is anything other than a generous benefactor).
Milton and Fifield get lost, which to me is a very reasonable thing to happen, now their trying to play friends with the hostile alien snakes is strange but people do dumb shit all the time.
More Vickers is very reasonable in refusing to allow them entry into the ship, quarantining Elizabeth (who had no idea having sex with Charlie was such a bad idea), then refusing to allow Charlie entry into the ship. At this point, as the death count rises, it’s more due to things spiralling out of control.
But I’d say most of the mistakes made in the film are fueled by either naivite and mistaken faith in people like Weyland or else by greed.
But people love to hate on horror films. They love it. And so they smugly watch the film and say, “Well I would never be stupid enough to let David poison my tea!” It’s the same thing they do with, well, the original Alien movie “I would never be stupid enough to go back for the cat!”
(As you can tell, this is a pet peeve of mine)
But yes, people hate this movie, and I constantly have to justify liking it which really gets on my nerves. It also makes me sad because it means the sequel we got was “Covenant” because the studio didn’t want Prometheus 2.0. The movie is enjoyable, but just so damn lulzy.
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Okay but I do actually want to know both the things you love and the things you could rant about from DCTL?
OH BOY UHHHHHH okay lets see, I'm gonna see if I can do the "add a readmore after you post it" thing and see if that'll keep it stable.......
But also, much like Sammy, I am incapable of shutting up unless you strike me in the head with a blunt object, so uh, forgive my wordiness:
THINGS I ENJOY:
- DCTL gave us Sammy's ink addiction and like, if you had asked me before all this "what would you most like to see in a franchise?" I would not have answered "one of the characters drinks ink accidentally and then discovers that he can't stop" but boy that sure is my favourite concept that I LOVE to see handled literally any other way than how the book handled it!!!
- I like what it added to Tom and Allison and Norman!! Like, it's not big twists on their characters or anything -- we already knew Tom felt he was doing the wrong thing, so getting to see his CRUSHING GUILT over creating the machine isn't New Information, but it's nice to see and understand more of him; for all of them I feel a lot more attached to them after getting to see more of them as people.
- Like 90% of the "I LOVE IT" category for me is how the book handled Joey, and Buddy's relationship with Joey. The way Joey isn't a Sinister Mastermind Who’s Just Screwing With Everyone but just manipulative in a more mundane way -- someone who thinks of himself as just the guy with the vision to call the shots; he wants what he wants and this is how he's learned to get it; he exploits people not through devious schemes, but just by offering them something that they want or need and asking too much in return, expecting their loyalty for his favours. And the way he interacts with Buddy, making Buddy complicit with him and keeping Buddy off-balance and insecure while making him a favourite and treating him as Special is just PERFECT -- gives a lot of content to kind of extrapolate off of when pondering what must've drawn the others in and convinced them to ignore the red flags. I was initially frustrated with the idea of Buddy not being an artist and jUST DECIDING TO LEARN TO ANIMATE ON THE SPOT ("I've never done this before but I'm sure I can just do an artist's job" is a weirdly common throwaway thing in media and as an artist iTS A PET PEEVE) but actually the way they use his plagiarism to make him trapped in a lie in ways Joey doesn't even realise ends up being a neat echo of other employees (coughTOMcough), who were involved in much graver sins but suddenly felt they couldn't object or they'd lose their one chance, just like Buddy. There's a lot here that I think is really great.
OKAY THATS THE GOOD STUFF, LET'S COMPLAIN ABOUT SAMMY:
- Uncomfortable Bigotry Vagueness that we all knew was gonna be in this list -- I dunno man, a guy committing a microaggression and getting startled and defensive when he's called out for it doesn't necessarily completely ruin his character I GUESS, but the way this was handled is just SO WEIRD AND VAGUE that it's uncomfortable and it doesn't seem to serve any real purpose. "Is Tom black?" is a question I actually have to ask because the text sort of implies he is while also dancing around it and apparently Word of God said he's not??? which makes Buddy's comment nonsensical???? And I mean, you could go that route, since Buddy wonders to himself if Sammy talks to everyone like this -- HE ACTUALLY DOES!! Even within the text of the novel, he uses "Joey" instead of Mr. Drew, which is consistent with his audiologs in the game -- but that makes the writing suggest "this character THINKS this guy might be racist but actually they're reading too much into it and it wasn't racially motivated at all, he's just a jerk!!" wHICH IS SOMEHOW EVEN MORE ICKY??? Anyway like yeah I guess it's not inconsistent with his character that while Sammy Lawrence may not have any specific grudge against minorities he has probably not checked his privilege or done the work to challenge his own internal biases, but “Your Fav Probably Contributes To Systemic Racism In Ways He Hasn’t Considered, As Do We All When Our Assumptions Go Unchecked” is still a wild thing to wade through in a fun story about demonic cartoons
- but yknow so is T H E H O L O C A U S T
- Sammy's voice is wrong. I'm actually okay with him being a weird awkward asshole, I already kind of assumed he was and that's part of why I like him!! but there's so many places he doesn't quite... talk like himself? And not just in terms of word choice, like -- so in his monologue at the end, he's described as talking so quickly that his words are "tumbling out faster than he can speak them," which initially seems fine; like yeah, that's a Standard Scene we're familiar with, the person who's been Driven Mad With Insight becoming more and more manic as they try to convey it -- until I tried to imagine it and realised that Sammy doesn't talk like this. That's a really consistent quality I always notice about his voice; whether he's almost giddily excited in prophet mode, or he’s his irritated and overworked human self, or he's violently angry and his voice has that echo effect -- he always speaks very deliberately. He enunciates carefully. There's some circumstances where I'd buy this as showing that he's Not Himself, but I feel like those would kind of need to be in the middle of his transformation, not at the end of it.
- In fact a lot of the scenes with Sammy kind of have this feeling -- that it's not necessarily an exploration of Sammy as a character, but that he is filling a trope or archetype role here. Once he's fully transformed he excitedly describes the process as more of a mental compulsion, which is in contrast to his weird yeerk-infected behaviour when trying to get ink from Miss Lambert. Both of those scenes don't seem wrong on their own because they fit tropes we know -- but they feel weird when you try to fit them together.
- I also just in general am not a fan of the ink acting like a weird yeerk. It can be a parasite I guess but when it starts overwriting and puppeting people and crawling around to enter their body that's just a completely DIFFERENT kind of supernatural story and it’s not what im here for!!!
- THE FREAKIN!!! HE WILL SET US FREE!!!! WHY????????? SAMUEL LAWRENCE WHAT IS HE SETTING YOU FREE FROM??????? Sammy has No Motive for any of what he's doing, other than just Ink Made Me Do It. The whole thing that was INTERESTING about Sammy as a character is the contrast between this frustrated, ornery musician with no specific love for the cartoons he works on, and the manically devoted cultist he becomes. What happened in the middle there? What made him desperate enough to shift his mindset so much? "Something supernatural made him do things that don't benefit him in any way" is a very boring answer to this question!!! Susie was a victim who implies that her transformation has forced her to do things she didn't want to do, but we can still see her motive -- she wanted to be Alice, so she took a sketchy offer to try to get what she wanted. Even now, her violence echoes that goal -- to be a more perfect Alice. What did Sammy want? WHO KNOWS. Even in his ink-addled state at the end, we don't understand what he hopes the Ink Demon will even do for him, and in fact he seems to be responsible for creating the very scenario he's begging Bendy to reverse in the game.
- [sighs loudly into my hands]
- Overall I'm left wondering if the author just..... didn't like Sammy Lawrence? And I don't mean that in the sense of him being a rude jerk -- like, Joey is not a good person, but the author seems to be interested in him and in what makes him tick. There doesn't seem to be that same interest in Sammy. Sammy's role in the story is that of a monster, transformed into something murderous, unable to prevent or choose it. He's not a victim of anyone but the ink, no one had to manipulate him or figure out how his brain worked or what he wanted or what he feared or give him any reason to do the things he does -- ink got in his mouth and overwrote his personality. And we don't even get to see that change, not really. He starts out angry and defensive and continues being angry and defensive up until his very last scene, denying his ink-stealing but not really much else. We see all his prophetic sketches but we never see hints of this in him, we never see him start to act more excited and hopeful, we never see him seek out the demon he desires to please. Why do we never see Sammy struggling between his dismissive angry front and a building religious fervour he can't quite suppress? We don't get to see any of the in-between. There's no interest at all in why or even what it looked like as Sammy became what he became, when, to be honest, I suspect interest in precisely that is one reason he's such a big fav.
- It's funny, in a "cries into my hands" kind of way, when Sammy is just knocked in the head while monologuing and immediately removed from the story without further mention, like...... that sure is the pattern with him, isn't it, he just tries very very hard and never actually gets to matter, but it also fits right in here, too, in this book that doesn't want to think about his motives -- he rambles nonsensically, explaining nothing, gets one trademark phrase, and then is hastily removed so the story doesn't have to think about him anymore.
...................I think that's most of it.
...
Y'all............ I'm not ready for Sent From Above.......... I'm just not.... I'm not emotionally ready...... like..... Sammy has to be in that right..... he’s Susie’s boss and she has that big crush on him..................................... I’m not ready
#i know you have questions you always do#we all write on the walls#hopefully I have not gotten completely confused on any of these points but LMAO ITS POSSIBLE
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3. “It’s on my to-do list.” (for anyone ☺️)
Thanks for the request! It took me forever to come up with an idea but once I got it I got a bit carried away💀
3. It’s on my to-do list (Priya x Mc)
Kioni was like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Clothing that was slowly bursting at the seams. If someone glanced at her at this moment, they wouldn't be able to discern how nervous she was unless they were looking for it. Looking for the way her stance shifted slightly from one pose to the next. The way her thumbs peaked out of her pockets and grazed the leather clinging to her legs.
She stood at the open entrance of a building and observed the partygoers inside it. They were bathed in light pink lights, drinking and eating whatever was provided.
Chelsea had decided to invite her to an islander-only function including people from season one to season three. And she accepted. God, she accepted it so embarrassingly fast that her fellow former islanders returned to their ever dying group chat and collectively laughed at her.
They all knew exactly why she accepted. Once upon a time in a drunken stupor, she spammed them, venting about how unfair it was that there were people walking this planet that looked so damn fine all the time. And now she was going to come face to face with the person that triggered that rant. Her eyes fell on a tall red haired girl before darting away.
There was a huff beside her before someone asked in a gravelly voice, "Are you going inside or what?"
Kioni's eyes darted to the source of the voice and was met with the bouncer's deadpan stare. His grip on the door tightened and he bounced one leg impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah I will," she smiled sheepishly, "But you don't look so good. I take it parties aren't your thing?"
"People that waste my time aren't my thing."
"...Is that a pet peeve of yours?"
"Yes. And so is holding doors open for extended periods of time."
"Ah. I guess I should put you out of your misery then."
His brows knitted together as he frowned.
"Alright, I'm going."
Kioni stepped into the building and flinched when the door slammed behind her. If it wasn't for the music blaring from the speakers near her and the incessant chatter, she definitely would've caught people's attention. She swallowed before straightening her back and exhaling. She just needs to relax. To find her zen.
Nicky caught her eye from across the room and grinned. He walked towards her and they linked arms. "I see someone finally decided on an outfit. You look great."
"Thank you," Kioni smiled as he led her to a group near a table full of desserts, "I hope you savoured that moment Nicky, because that's the first and last time I ask anyone for their opinion on my clothes."
"Believe me, I did. All this because of," he clutched his chest, "the goddess that graces us peasants with her presence."
Kioni groaned and facepalmed. She will always be amazed at what comes out of her mouth when she gets drunk. That's something that rarely happens, but when it does?
Wow.
"I don't know why I'm like this. One glance at her and I could barely get myself through the door."
He chuckled and shook his head, "Is that why you were trying to make small talk with the bouncer?"
"I was trying to bide my time," she whined and glanced at the redhead again.
She was in the middle of a conversation with Rohan, Mason and Lottie with a cocktail in her hand. She threw her head back slightly and laughed at something one of them said. She couldn't tell you who it was, her eyes were fixated on her red lips curled upwards into a smile. What did they say to make her smile like that? Was she into dark humour? Puns? Whatever it was, Kioni wanted to know. She probably has adorable little crinkles at the corners of her eyes too…
"Relax, Nini. Priya's really chill and funny. She's definitely not as intimidating once you start talking to her."
Kioni gasped and released his arm to cross hers. "You talked to Priya without me didn't you?"
"We came in at the same time. There was no way I could get away with not talking to her."
She pouted as they stopped at the table. Elladine, Jake and Talia paused their conversation and smiled at her.
Kioni rolled her shoulders and wiped her palms against her pants. She wasn't sure how this was supposed to go. Everyone already knew each other. Right? Would it be weird to just greet them? Should she shake their hands? Hug them?
Elladine squealed and pulled her into a cuddle, "Kioni, hey! It's so good to see you!"
"You too. It's been a while." She grinned and wrapped her arms around her before turning to the two brunettes in front of her.
Talia stepped forward, tossing her long, curly hair behind her shoulder. "Hi, I'm Talia and this is Jake."
"Kioni," she replied and rubbed the back of her neck, "So, introductions are still something we have to do huh?"
As the conversation continued, her nerves eased. They were easy to talk to, especially over a batch of delicious cupcakes. As the music journalist that she was, Talia had attended one of her band's concerts and had nothing but good things to say. The red velvet cupcake in their hands was from none other than Bobby's bakery. 'The Cake Man' had Jake's seal of approval.
Kioni slowly made her way to the back of the room. Going from table to table, inching towards her. She was right there, just a few paces away from her. Bobby had joined the group she was in and they were going back and forth about something. Priya raised a brow and responded to him with a smirk.
How does someone even smirk like that? So pretty and sultry without even trying. Or maybe she was trying and was just amazing at making it look effortless. Either way, she couldn't tear her eyes away from her.
"Kioni!"
She turned her attention back to the group she was in. Seb crossed his arms and tutted playfully, "You're awfully distracted. I'd say that isn't like you but I know you all too well."
"What? No," She tilted her head and pursed her lips. "I was listening."
Genevieve laughed, "Really? What were we talking about?"
"Uh, the Doom and Gloom podcast?"
"That conversation ended a while ago, hun."
Kioni huffs and takes a slow sip out of the cool cocktail in her hand. Was she staring for that long? No, not staring, looking. Was she looking for that long? Her eyes travelled to her again before latching onto her drink. She looked up and caught Noah's gaze.
He raised a brow and offered her a small smile, "I don't think any of us would mind if you went and talked to her now."
She sighed and circled the edge of her glass with her index finger, "I don't know…"
"Staring at her isn't going to make her come over."
"I'm not staring."
"Right."
Kioni crossed her arms and shifted her stance again. "I'm just planning my route. Seeing where I'm going to go next."
Genevieve put her hands on her hips, "So you're really just going to avoid her all night?"
"No, I'm not crazy."
They blinked.
"I'm not! Talking to Priya," her eyes drifted back to her, "It'll happen. It's on my to-do list."
Kioni couldn't understand what was happening to her. Priya was gorgeous, but so were the other people in this room.
After being on Love Island she had become accustomed to being around unnaturally gorgeous people, she had to. There's no way she could survive if she was a nervous wreck every time someone looked her in the eye. Something about Priya was different and she couldn't stand not knowing what it was. Maybe that's why she was so enamoured by her…
She gasped when Priya's eyes met hers. Goosebumps raised on her skin. Kioni snapped her head towards Noah, grasping her drink more firmly.
"Oh shit, she caught me staring."
Noah crossed his arms, silently amused.
"So you admit you were staring," Seb countered with a smirk.
"Come off it Seb, I'm freaking out!"
She glanced towards them again and found not only Priya, but Lottie and Bobby watching her.
The ground needs to collapse beneath her and drag her into the fiery pits of hell. That would be better than the surge of nerves raging inside her.
She looked at Genevieve with a desperate plea on her face. If anyone could save her from embarrassing herself it was her.
"Don't look now, but she's coming this way." Said Genevieve.
"Relax Kioni," Noah placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently, "Breathe."
"Yeah, you've got this." Seb added reassuringly.
She inhaled and exhaled slowly, focusing on her breathing rather than the sweat gathering in her palms. Or what she was going to say to her. Or how she should put her hands in her pockets to resist shooting finger guns at her. She'll collapse into a puddle of goo if she shoots finger guns at her. She'll -
"Hey Kioni."
She turned and there she was. Right in front of her. Her name sounded like it was coated in honey when she said it. Her perfume wafted around them, sweet and floral. Priya smiled her gorgeous smile and put her hands on her hips, "I couldn't help but notice you looking in my direction."
"Oh," Kioni smiles sheepishly and rubs her thumbs against her pants, "I'm sorry, I might be prone to staring at pretty people to pass the time. I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable."
Kioni paused. What...what was that?
Priya's eyes widened slightly before she giggled, "I knew you were a cheeky one. Do you wanna go have a little chat...in private?"
Kioni's heart fluttered in excitement while her stomach dropped. To be alone with Priya? This is either going to go big right or big wrong. She took a deep breath and nodded wordlessly, her smile widening despite herself.
Priya leads her away from the group, who were not at all subtle about how happy they were for her. They sent her thumbs ups and winks when she looked back at them. They walk past Lottie and Bobby, who do nothing to hide the curiosity on their faces.
Kioni mutters a silent prayer; she'll surely collapse into a puddle of goo if she shoots finger guns at her.
#i'm not super proud of this but hey#i just wanted to write about kioni fawning over priya and annoying a bouncer#writing s1 or s2 characters intimidates meee#litg#litg s2#litg s1#litg s3#litg priya#priya x mc#litg nicky#litg seb#litg noah#litg genevieve#litg elladine#my writing
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Lapsarians
my fetish comic about gross lizard people and the inherent social struggles that come with the integrations of different cultures which examine the nature of what is socially acceptable and what it even means to be human is, uh, done and you can go read it right here! (here is a back up) now its time for anotherone of my fable dissections of my work.
so, how did this come about? it all started here
i was bored and decided to aimlessly draw whatever and i guess i was in a particularly horny mood that day and this is what came out.
now, one belief i always had is that fetishes can be a great source of inspiration, you are exploring out there ideas that are not often seen in media due to their impropriety, which makes it feel fresh and new, and it is their shock factor which provides a lot of emotional impact for the reader.
the trick here is to not make it self in dulgent, to not make it merely exploitative, you have to give it some emotional core so that is not just cheap taboo thrills but so that we actually care about the characters and about the story and it doesnt all just hinge on the money shot.
more than once i would try to come up with a sexual fantasy for my own pleasure and then i would get carried away adding world building and more and more plot and by the end of the night the purose of masturbating had been forgotten and i had an entire story in my head and no idea what to do with it. i used to be reticent to share these stories with the world because they would ultimatly be dismissed as fetish fuel and, gosh, what kind of weirdo tries to pass their fap folder as legitimate art, what kind of insecure pretentious douchebag tries to legitimize their fetishes by unironically sharing them with the world as if they were earnest stories that one is supposed to read with a straight face?
i guess i stopped caring about that, is not like im a famous artist with a reputation to uphold, if people want to read this then so be it, if they think its stupid then so be it as well. i liked it and i think there are enough people who think similarly enough to me that they might like it as well.
one pet peeve i have with vore is when it has a bad end, i have seen plenty of vore comics that love to render flesh melting away from bone by being submerged in gastric juices. there is one specific comic im thinking off, which despite all my best efforts i could not find again, which comes to mind. its about a lizard lady with blonde hair and a pony tail eating a poor kid at a basketball field, it has a sequel about that very same lady convincing a guy not to jump off a bridge and inviting him to her apartment where they had a lovely conversation and she tries her best efforts not to eat him, this also doesnt end well. the point of both comics was to revel on the tragedy of a life being ended to satiate the impulses of another person, on the desperate struggle against someone bigger and stronger than you. i can understand the appeal of that, and i was certainly moved by those stories, but i wanted to take that idea in an entirely different direction.
i think the main impetus behind this comic is that i enjoy it when weird things than in most contexts would be considered disturbing are normalized. as someone who believes in progress and in transhumanism, as someone who believes in the concept of the best of all possible worlds as presented in that video i just linked, i like the removal of undesirable consequences, i like it when things that would otherwise harm us can be done safely. also i like to explore the limits of human adaptability, and not just material adaptabiity but also mental. what things, regardless of how strange or weird or offputting we find them now, can we eventually be not only ok with but actively enjoy? these are the main themes i was interested in exploring.
but as with always, there are hundreds of other readings that people can get from this, i would like to take the chance to engage with a specific i can see coming off the top of my head.
some people might read this comic as a metaphor for immigration and take it both as if it was in favor (since after all it ends with a lapsarian and a human getting along) or against it (it shows a lot of downsides to the coexistence of lapsarians and humans). personally im not sure if the lapsarians work as a great metaphor for immigrants since the reason they find themselves in our planet are not at all analogous to that of human diasporas in our history, they came here just because a pathway happened to open and they were just curious as to what was on the other side, not motivated by socioeconomic factors at all. likewise i feel lapsarians are too alien and the challenges that come with trying to integrate them into our society are too unique to really stand properly for any other human cuture.
but ultimatly what i say is irrelevant really, you can read this comic however you damn well want, im just sharing this if you are curious about what i think of this interpretation
anyway, that was my latest comic, also my last project of 2020, boy howdy i actually got a lot of things done that year. and what a way to start this one, all i can say is stay tuned and you may see what else i come up with next.
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i need to talk to my group member about stuff but i refuse to be the first one to message and try to coordinate bc i ALWAYS am and im sick and tired of it. so im going to write a post talking abt my qualms with m*nimegs and put it under a cut for being i guess “ship critical” and rambly
first i need to state that i’m not necessarily opposed to the like Base Concept of the ship. i think it has potential as an interesting character dynamic which, like, displays different facets of both characters? definitely some fun homotheatric potential, the drama of being attracted to someone’s who’s basically on death row and also Your Mortal Enemy.
however i am EXTREMELY opposed to the general fanon interpretation of it as like, Gay Married Old Men and also rodimus is their son i guess (ben affleck smoking.jpg). i don’t find it interesting, megan doesn’t have the range, i don’t think it’s realistic, and the whole infantilizing rodimus thing is ANOTHER one of my huge fanon pet peeves but we’re not talking about that today.
also in the interests of “transparency” in my stupid post, mims is one of my big comfort characters and megan is like The discomfort character so seeing them paired up isnt something i relish
like, i definitely think mims would be attached/attracted to megan as an authority figure who pays attention to and validates him but like... very much within that framework. and i think as a person he is like, really desperate for that kind of approval but actually receiving it from megs isn’t like, great for him? in terms of development? if that makes sense. supplanting lack of self-esteem with approval from authority figures instead of actually working out your insecurities ykwim
and on megan’s part he is canonically abusive, and a lot of his behavior patterns and the way he interacts with people make me uncomfortable wrt being reminiscent of an abuser. idk if that makes sense. and i can also definitely see him getting attached/attracted to mims but not... in a very healthy way either. this is not a man who has done genuine self reflection and attempted to work on who he is at the core. he still believes he’s right over other people, he is still honestly very selfish, he pretty regularly discounts the emotions of people around him. he is not the kind of person who uses power given to him in a responsible way. he just like, doesn’t do murders now, or whatever. good for you i guess
not necessarily to say that i think the ship would be inherently abusive, which would honestly be a whole other post, but that i don’t think it would move either of their characters in good directions. like i think they would both enable the other’s worst tendencies.
the common fanon take, in order to make the relationship work, involves flattening out both characters but especially megan because his abrasive shitty self just doesn’t neatly slot into fan-favorite cookie cutter ship dynamics. and when it comes to mims i feel like it really discounts his character arc, even moreso than everyone on the lost light had their character dev shoved aside to make room for megs. and while mims has the range megan as presented by m*nimegs is literally so boring.
(ofc meg*p isn’t “canon” and the canon idw meg*p relationship is honestly pretty lackluster despite jro’s efforts but i cant help but think it would have a, not very positive influence on a mims/megan relationship)
If I Were to try and pair megan up with anyone in what i think would be a healthy dynamic it would *have* to be someone with the self-confidence to stand up to his shit and call him out and i do NOT think that is mims in the slightest. imo a ‘realistic’ take would be like, a) weird tension but not getting together in the first place because *waves my hands vaguely in their direction* Where Do I Even Start, b) really really messy and awkward breakup resulting in anti-character development. character regression, even. megan’s latest, first post-war divorce.
#babbling#referring to characters by nicknames to avoid this showing up in search hopefully ??#2 b clear i have no qualms with people who like the ship i just like. have it blacklisted LOL#and get annoyed when people automatically associate mims with the ship#get a job leave him alone
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