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senseandaccountability · 3 years

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Hey, did you get a chance to watch season 6 of Lucifer? What did you think of the finale?

This is going to be salty (sorry) so I put it under a cut for people who prefer joyous things in the feed.

I didn’t like the final season.

To be brief: It felt like a story where the writers knew how they wanted it to end, and therefore the plot ruled over the characters. It wasn't a main plot I enjoyed at all, and it was told in a way that made it difficult for me to appreciate even the small bits I liked. (Ella reveal. Ghost Dan.) I thought it suffered from a jarring tonal shift and when it comes to several overarching themes, I felt it negated/trivialized previous seasons. In many ways it also managed to be both cheesy and cruel, often at the same time. I had the impression it was a compilation of (unfortunately rather boring) fandom wishes and tropes more than authentic storytelling.

To be anything but brief:

I dislike the season in part because it undid a lot of great things about Lucifer as a character.

By the end of 5B Lucifer had come full circle. I think that season finale is great. The Lucifer vs Michael fight was so well done thematically - he fought himself, and unlike the first fight in 5A when he wants to hurt his twin he had now reached a state of personal growth, of compassion. Not even when Michael kills Chloe does he deserve death because everyone deserves a second chance. And then the funny and pitch perfect “Oh, my me”. Ambiguous enough about the details to fuel the fandom, clear enough about the themes and the lore to offer closure. (No, Deckerstar didn’t have a date or much of a snog but I can fill in the blanks there though I am aware that many fans were disappointed by the lack of on-screen love.)

Excellent way to end the show.

Except they didn’t. S6, I feel, tried to tell the same story all over again, only not as well or even coherent.

Over the seasons it’s been pretty clear that while Lucifer can be caring, he mostly cares about the handful of people in his life. S6 even touches upon this, has him trying to care for random people in their hell loops. But S5 already did this, but better, with Michael. The family dinner with God was excellent, it showed broken people all around and had Lucifer, the self-centered drama queen of the family realizing that he’s not the only one that’s been hurt. It showed the best and worst of them all. Sparing Michael, considering Michael worthy of redemption, was peak growth for Lucifer as a character because in that moment he also considers himself worthy of the same thing. That’s when he truly forgives himself. I thought. And then season 6 shows Michael as a prisoner in Hell, just once, never to be mentioned again. Is that a second chance? Is that redemption? Is that really the symbolism they were going for or just a spiteful and stupid little addition because LOL SOME PEOPLE DESERVE HELL. (Do they? Says who? The show doesn’t answer that because the show that focuses on the neutral character the Devil and the totally untarnished place Hell doesn’t much care about such divisive matters, but more about that soon.) I dislike the season, in parts because I wasn't satisfied with the moral/quasi-theological backdrop. The system is wrong, Lucifer concluded by the end of 5B. Season 6 has him return to the system, as an Afterlife Coach of the Damned. Is that really the best they could do?

I mourn all the cool possibilities of what Lucifer, the advocate for free will and defender of desire, could have done with hell as a concept. Blown it apart, closed it, tossed the keys to someone else and rode off in the sunset. At the very least he could have altered it so that it’s no longer solitary confinement but a collective of doomed souls trying together to achieve redemption but hey, never mind me, I’m a bleeding-heart socialist and I don’t believe in revenge and I don’t believe in God but if I did, God would forgive. Otherwise, what the hell is the point?

I parsed through the season with my husband, a real-life minister who doesn't think anyone deserves hell and who gets to suffer my long-ass questions about the theological themes of popular culture a little bit too often. Because we both felt slightly insulted after watching. "Is this bullshit what they offer me?" my husband asked me as the timey wimey time travel plot unfolded. But timey wimey bullshit aside, we concluded that the real reason we were both so annoyed and frustrated with the season is because it highlighted how flat the background lore really is. I mean, I guess they wanted to be yay, neutral and non-divisive themes galore! It’s good to be good, folks! If you’re not, well, I guess you might have your spine broken by the Devil or sent to a never-ending hell loop but let’s not talk about religion! The main issue, for me, with the whole system of heaven and hell and earth on the show is that for every equation, there’s a part missing. The show has borrowed the character from the comics verse but left the entire lore and its internal logic behind. It borrows a bit of moral philosophy, but cuts away the troublesome bits otherwise Lucifer can’t both be on a redemptive path and happily slaughter people in fits of vengeance; it uses Heaven and Hell and vaguely also the concept of sin but never answers any questions about it, apart from the central message of course: it’s up to you. In fact, the show discourages questions about the lore because it has no answers. It doesn’t care. The ending of the show brushes off the much needed systematic changes of heaven and hell like it’s just another joke. (Want to know a show that has compassionate writing about morality while managing to be very funny? The Good Place. And you know what, morality should be serious. I’m a softie and again, a bleeding-heart, but it’s important to be a good person and it’s important to get a chance for redemption. It matters. It’s not just a minor detail.)

Which brings me to the damn therapy theme. I know a lot of people like it and I have also liked it a lot in previous seasons. I have. It’s been quirky. (Also highly unprofessional, but hey.) But as the key to your afterlife/redemption/second chance it’s just not good enough.

It is so very, very individualistic that it makes my skin crawl. It’s the ultimate American solution to systemic injustices and suffering - hey, it’s up to you, man. You decide if you deserve hell. You decide if you deserve Heaven. You make the difference! You can do it! Live the afterlife dream, achieve all your goals, get a hell loop that no longer loops but… stays in one static place where at least you’re moderately happy. Navel-gazing into your soul is certainly one way to get some insights into your mistakes. But it’s not redemption. Redemption is an active choice to be a better person. You don’t have to earn redemption or deserve it. And redemption isn’t the same as forgiveness either. Redemption is the opposite to pointless, everlasting punishment. It’s hopeful and it’s ugly and it’s full of purpose and the chance to be better and add something good to the world. Even Lucifer doesn’t get to do that on the show. He deals only with the already doomed. The here and now on Earth fades into the distance as Deckerstar, too, gets their happily ever after in Hell. You’ll get pie in the sky when you die. Or you get to shag on a throne in Hell. Either way, life on Earth doesn’t matter. (Here the show lean into some really dodgy Christian themes, I’d argue, but hey, it’s not about religion! It’s just a fun romp about a reformed bad boy!)

“Hell is just revenge porn for fundamentalists and other people who believe in eye for an eye. I just want there to be a level of collective forgiveness and hope, you know?” I told my husband whilst chugging down beer. As you do when you watch crap that makes no sense. “A level of hey, I’ve got this, I forgive you, you can do better. Go and do better. And then the actual opportunity to do so, even if it's just reliving your life as a ghost again and again until you figure out what went wrong.” “Honey,” my husband said. “I hate to tell you this since you’re an atheist but that level you’re talking about? That’s Jesus.” Well, screw that.

I really don’t want to need Jesus to make sense of a story. I just want decent bloody storytelling.

#lucifer critical #lucifer season six #lucifer spoilers

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sokkalore · 3 years

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You're probably tired of people whining about this to you but I HAVE to get it off my chest, I've finally found my people. My God, I was starting to feel like I was insane for not liking the manhua (like at all). I genuinely feel bad when I'm in the minority, I feel like there's something wrong with me. I've felt like this for months and I really tried to force myself to change the way I felt towards the art because it's everywhere and I can't even interact with the fandom without it hitting me in the face constantly. There's this other BL manhua "Here U Are" and I remember literally being addicted to the way it was drawn for some reason but the TGCF manhua makes me feel weirdly overwhelmed (by all the colors and the detailed backgrounds, it's perfect for separate art pieces but when it's supposed to be a comic it's like... where do I even look) and extremely uncomfortable (with the faces especially and the ooc stuff) and I know how dramatic this sounds but it's the truth and I feel like it has even affected my perception of the story and Hualian and kinda ruined them in my eyes. It's more about the way the fandom treats their manhua version I guess, it's canon after all but like... How do you not notice the inconsistencies and the ooc stuff? And why do they have to treat the donghua like that "donghua hc is crying rn/could never" "manhua x would wipe the floor with donghua x" and so on. (this bothers me because it's a large majority of people saying this). It's especially frustrating to me because I love the donghua and the way it potrays xl and hc and just the whole story. And I'm sorry but hc's manhua potrayal lowkey disgusts me. Also no I don't hate starember but they're literally the official manhua artist... And look, I don't care if a gay ship consists of a super feminine shy petite guy who only bottoms and tall sexy dominant guy who only tops, as long as these are their canon characters then fine. It's not a bad thing, people like this exist irl. But my god when you change the way characters are/behave canonically to fit this criteria it's just like... Uhh. And I still can't get that post from STARember with the glasses and "the top should be a top and the bottom should be a bottom" (or instead of "should be" it was "look like a" something along these lines, they used the chinese slang for it the numbers 1 and 0). Dude... Is this all these characters are good for? For real? Anyway this is long as fuck, I can say even more things but whatever, I'm just tired

sorry this is from the other day and i just got to it but like yeah seeing how people are reacting to my tweets about the new art, there are a lot of people it seems who don’t like starember and are uncomfortable with their art but don’t say anything because it feels like the majority of fandom will dogpile them which sucks a lot..

however in that vein, me talking about it on twitter led to a lot of people also talking about how they were uncomfortable but didn’t know how to/were scared to say it and even people who praised it earlier and are now like …….. oh wait what the fuck (not excusing the latter i think it’s kind of pathetic to have to be Told something blatantly racist is… in fact racist but the point being here that i guess people are capable of listening if people point it out). idk i’m not gonna shut up about it if it has Any effect at all in making the fandom aware of starembers blatant colorism/racism bc rn… it’s not. not openly at least

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wildcrisis · 4 years

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The Detriment of a Pro-Hero Society

Also known as: Kids are kind of being brainwashed into being heroes, let’s look into that.

Dedicated to @deafmic for getting me back into this bullshit and inspiring me to finish something I had started noting out about two years ago. By now, I’m sure much of this has been said over time by various people, and it makes me happy to know that there are others out there who like to look deep into the background culture and settings of their favorite manga!

I apologize in advance if you notice an idea of yours here; I haven’t been active in the fandom in two-ish-years, so I may be restating some things you guys already have. I consider this rambling analysis to be free to use and abuse by anyone, no credit necessary! I only get a little bit of time on the weekends to really be on my PC, so if you send me an ask or reply to this, it may take me some time to reply back!

Anywho, onto this mess I’ve made. It’s not very tidy and is more a collection of thoughts than a properly detailed analysis, but I ain’t got all day. Again, this is messy but I don’t really have the energy to make it nice and neat.

Looking for something in specific? You might wanna ctrl+f around these titles, because this is very long and rambling.

Part I: The Beginning of Quirks and their Effect on Society Part II: What Makes a Villain Part III: M O N E Y and F A M E Part IV: Brainwashed Part V: Ignoring Those Who Need Help Part VI: Cycle/Conclusion

Part I: The Beginning of Quirks and their Effect on Society

So, we know through the manga that, as quirks first began to evolve and more and more people obtained them, the world was thrown into chaos. People had obtained power, and power is as power does, and it corrupts.

As people began using their quirks for evil deeds that broke the law, law enforcement around the world was essentially powerless. After all, during the birth of the quirk age, quirks were the minority. The powerful minority. Against that, men with tasers, batons, and guns hardly stood a chance.

However, just as the rise of quirks gave birth to people who would use that power for misdeeds, so did it bring life to those who had the inherent desire to protect others. The beginning of the age of vigilantes, which would lead to the age of Pro Heroes.

Obviously, All for One was very relevant during this time, but we’re not here to talk about him. For once. We’re here to talk about society as a whole.

The world order was too chaotic. We are aware of this due to the monologues of certain characters, and I assume we’ll be learning more as more of the former carriers of One for All become present in Deku. In this beginning, it wasn’t so much “heroes” versus “villains”, more than it was law abiding citizens versus law breakers. It’s likely that precedent hadn’t yet been established for “no quirk use”, as there were hardly enough people who could actually enforce such a law.

As more of society began to develop quirks, the Police Force made a decision to not use their quirks to take down law breakers. They moved to a more leadership position, and took a backseat to those who did use their quirks for good. At first, it was a hard decision to allow such things as Pro Heroes to take on law breakers who were too dangerous for someone to take down without a quirk.

But why, after all this time, have the Police and the Pro Heroes remained separate entities? Why have they never combined, and why do they remain so polarized in how they approach situations?

The answer is simple, yet multi-layered. Heroes and Villains ... they’re popular. They attract attention.

Part II: What Makes a Villain

If you assign a person the label “Villain”, you de-humanize them. They are no longer a “person”, per se, but a monster. Evil, in the eyes of most people. It’s easier, then, to accept their fate of being beaten by a Hero, and being carted off to prison.

This is an important distinction to make. If you remove the labels of Hero and Villain. If you remove their Quirks. Do people still react the same way? Do they cheer and adore the hero, as the hero beats the opponent senseless? Of course not. In a battle of man vs man, in the moment, humans don’t react in such a way.

We can understand why an adult who lived a hard life may turn to a life of crime. But, hardly to we look as to why or how they got there.

In this world where quirks have become the norm, but are constantly evolving, we must wonder; how are quirks judged? How are they defined? How are people treated, for the quirk they possess?

We have many examples of outcasts, and they possess a wide variety of quirks from “extremely destructive” to simply “strange, odd, not okay in society”.

Shigaraki and Overhaul are both examples of terrifying, destructive quirks. Is it any wonder that their lives turned out the way they did? The power of death was etched into their very DNA. We know Shigaraki’s backstory and how he became who he is today. It’s implied that Chisaki was abandoned or ran away as well.

Then, you have the more odd quirks that, on the surface don’t seem nefarious, but when explained in context, would make people feel uncomfortable. Toga, who’s quirk is to drink blood and transform into another person. Twice, who can make copies of any person and used his quirk for an evil deed. Nemoto, who can force anyone to tell the truth, and lived a life where he realized everyone was lying to him.

Even Shinsou Hitoshi, desperate to become a hero, was put down for what his quirk DOES. Brainwashing. That’s a “villain’s quirk”. Fellow children said that to him so casually, and behaved as if they were terrified of him!

Eri, with her quirk that made her father disappear from existence itself ... Had she not been rescued from Overhaul, what would have become of her? Forced to believe her entire existence was a curse, told that she does nothing but harm people -- as she grew older and gained control of her power, would anyone honestly think she would have led a life of goodness, considering how she was raised?

How many people labeled Villains are currently in prison, because they were treated like outcasts from the moment they developed a terrifying quirk? Was there anyone there to help them figure their way through this world, considering what they’d been born with? Are there services for people who have trouble controlling their quirks, which are truly destructive? Even with laws in place saying that you can’t use your quirk publicly, just LIVING with that knowledge that you were born ... with a scary quirk ... a villain’s quirk ... How people treat you because of that, how you look, what your quirk can do -- do you ever have any friends? Any real friends, that aren’t just people who are scared of you?

Is it any wonder, that people like this turn out to be “villains”? Society is GROOMING THEM to BE VILLAINS, simply for who and what they are and are born with.

Part III: M O N E Y and F A M E

Throwing oneself into harms way sure is a dangerous move, that most people would never bother doing. How, then, do you entice more people to become heroes and take on the villains that are popping up all around for obvious reasons?

You make your Heroes popular. You make sure they look stylish. They have cool attitudes. You make them popular among the children. After all, getting fellow adults in on the Pro-Hero train is good and all, but much like a pro-athlete, one can likely only do Hero work for a certain span of time before their body is unable to take the strain. Maybe say, ages 18-40?

Besides, with more and more people being born every day with quirks, the number of people who turn to villainous activity will grow, right? Especially if you’re not actively helping people manage their quirks, because hey, they’re not allowed to use them publicly so what does it matter?

Kids. Kids will watch heroes on TV, and see it just like any other super-hero show or cartoon. They’ll buy the merchandise. People will begin to hemorrhage money over these heroes, because they’re flashy. They’re kind. They save lives.

Now, not to say that Heroes are just there for the paycheck -- not at all. Many people become heroes simply because they do love to help people. Some become heroes because they want to stop bad guys. Sure, there are some who do it to maybe someday live an easier life, or because it pays really well and they have family to support. But, I do believe that most people go into the Pro Hero business with good intentions.

THIS, is part of the reason that Pro Heroes have remained separate from law enforcement. They are now a business. A very wealthy business. It’s not just hero agencies that make money off of the Pro Hero business. It’s toy manufacturers. Comic book stores. Prisons. Hospitals. Roots of Pro Hero society reach into nearly every type of business that there is, whether directly or indirectly.

Nobody wants that money to disappear by folding Heroes back into the police force. No, they want MORE heroes. More heroes, and more people for the heroes to fight.

tldr: heroes = $$$, so keep ‘em coming

Part IV: Brainwashed

There are a lot of factors that go into making society as a whole okay with something. It takes a lot of time, for one. It takes powerful, well spoken people. It takes lots of media attention. Before you know it, everyone is eating up the same exact thing quite willingly ... and it spreads to the next generation. And the next. After that happens, its something that is well integrated into society, like a freckle that’s always been on your arm -- its just “always been that way”.

I’ve mentioned several times that its odd for people to be so okay with one person beating another person senseless. Again, we know that its considered acceptable, because of the labels we’ve put on these individuals based on their actions: Heroes and Villains.

What I wonder is: How long have people been okay with this? Do they not realize that, in a way, this is history repeating itself?

We know why people don’t dig deeper into this. Pro Heroes are popular and people love them. The media has hand fed the Hero lifestyle to children for some time now. There are schools, MORE THAN ONE SCHOOL, that teach your child how to become a pro hero.

Think about that. It’s not just some extra-curricular activity, like sports. These are schools, designed to take in freshly graduated MIDDLE-SCHOOLERS who have not finished their regularly schooling education, who still have growing bodies and minds, and ... crafts them into perfect pro-heroes. AND PARENTS ARE OKAY WITH THIS -- SOMETIMES EVEN MORE THAN OKAY WITH IT.

These schools send young teenagers onto the streets under a pro-heroes wing to witness and be a part of fighting crime. Not organized crime, like a ring of bad guys or something, but ... random crime. Disasters. From a young age, they may encounter situations with actual dead people. Their training is dangerous. Their powers can be dangerous. One wrong move, and a student, someone you worked alongside, had lunch with everyday, is just ... gone.

There exists a police force in society. There are already pro-heroes. Why, then, is society okay with multiple schools that are practically breeding child soldiers? They are teaching kids everything about how to kick ass, how to take down these terrifying people, how to fight, how to save lives ...

Why is no one looking into why villains exist in the first place? Are these kids ever taught de-escalation tactics? To talk their opponents down? Not everyone out there is using their quirk to be evil for the sake of being evil. There’s always a reason, a purpose.

Part V: Ignoring Those Who Need Help

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Hey, Star Wars had some good points!

I’ve discussed before what makes a villain. People who are afraid of what they’re capable of. People who society has turned their back on. People who desperately need help, but there is no one out there willing to give it.

These people will always find each other in the shadows. They begin, at a young age, being terrified of what they are. What they’ve done. What they can do. Maybe they’ve been kicked out of their families. Maybe they’ve killed before, completely on accident.

The average person turns their back on people like this.

These people begin their lives terrified. Constantly being told that their quirks, their past, their family, what ever it is, will make them end up a bad person. Or, maybe they tell them they’re already a bad person. That fears breeds anger and hate. Hate for this society that would rather see them burn, than offer them any help.

A young boy grows up into a man. He had a potentially devastating quirk that he never really got a good hold on, because he was never allowed to practice with it. Everyone is too scared to let him try. Then, one day, something happens -- completely by accident. He causes a scene. A massacre. He hurts people.

Parents are excited to see which of their quirks their baby displays. Instead of being one or the other, or even a fusion of both, the unthinkable occurs. Its a mutation. The toddler hurts a sibling, a parent, a friend. Terrified, the parents abandon the child, for fear of losing their entire family.

A child is told, over and over, that his quirk will never be good for anything other than being evil. This knowledge rests heavy on his shoulders, its repeated to him yearly as he grows. Then, when he acts on what everyone has TOLD HIM FOR YEARS HE WILL DO, they are surprised. As if they hadn’t imprinted the very notion into his mind.

In a way, Overhaul was right about one thing. Hero society is a disease. People look forward to watching Heroes take down Villains and save the day. They don’t think at all about why these people are villains, how they got there, where they came from. They will never admit to potentially being the reason villains exist in the first place.

Part VI: Cycle/Conclusion

Wow, I have rambled a lot. I don’t think I hit every point that I’ve ever thought of for sure. There’s ... a lot of them. And a lot of comparisons I wanted to make to other superhero anime, specifically Tiger and Bunny, which I believe does an excellent job of showing the ups and downs of hero societies.

What I wanted to make clear in all this rambling mess (which, if you read all of it, I am SO SO SORRY), is that the very existence of Pro Heroes and Villains exist solely because of a few factors that exist in a cycle.

Pro Heroes = $$$ -> Schools for more heroes -> ignoring quirk-related-problems -> more villains -> pro heroes beat up villains -> pro heroes =$$$ etc

There is someone, or some organization, that sits above all of this. There has to be. There has to be some more logical explanation as to why this type of Hero v Villain culture has been allowed to exist all of this time, and things have not drifted more back in the direction of police vs lawbreakers. There has to be a reason that its okay for heroes to be so popular. There has to be a reason that children are allowed to be groomed into becoming heroes. There has to be a reason that there isn’t more help out there for people with these types of potentially destructive quirks.

There has to be reasons.

There has to be reasons for how the Hero Commission moves. There has to be reasons for how the police move. There has to be a reason that society is still allowed to go on like this, and that its become culturally acceptable.

If anyone out there can put all my rambling into clearer words and actively wants to, I would love that. Thank you for taking the time to read my mess!

xoxo Wild

#boku no hero academia #bnha analysis #my hero academia #analysis of hero and villains #deafmic #THIS IS A HUGE RAMBLING MESS #READ AT YOUR OWN COST #spoilers #manga spoilers

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duhragonball · 3 years

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damn that ask you rblogged got me thinking that I really am tired trying to figure out db as a whole like I wanna enjoy goku to the max but it gets me so tired trying to enjoy it while knowing that things could be so much better if toriyama wasnt rushed on a regular basis and if he thought some things thru

I'm not sure what ask you're referring to, anon, so I'm not sure what you mean. I'm guessing this is in reference to Tien having minimal backstory.

I can understand wanting more from a particular work. It's probably to Dragon Ball's credit that one of the biggest complaints from the fans is that there isn't enough attention lavished on the supporting and ancillary characters. It amazes me how many fans carry a torch for more Launch or Raditz when they haven't been used in over 30 years, and they weren't even used that much back then. They made an impression, and people want more. I wish I could make a character like Launch with that kind of demand.

On the other hand, stories have to call it done at some point. Akira Toriyama had to tell the story of Goku, and he had to do it on a deadline, and even if he had more time and more resources, he'd still have to make the hard decisions about what to keep in and what to throw out. He was never going to be able to include a subplot about Tien's parents, it would derail the story that he was actually trying to tell.

Star Wars is a good example. They were going to make those sequel trilogy movies, and Episode VII was going to be about Han Solo, and VIII was going to be about Luke Skywalker, and IX would have been about Princess Leia, except Carrie Fisher died before they could actually go through with it. That still bugs me. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to form a coherent opinion on Episode IX, because I'll always be comparing it to a Carrie-Fisher-led movie that ultimately never got made. I'm kind of angry that they waited thirty-plus years to do a project like this, and they ended up waiting too long to get it right. My point is that everything is finite, and everything has a deadline, even when you don't notice it.

At some point, creators have to set their priorities and stick to them, for the sake of the work. Visual artists do this all the time. No one complains when a painting doesn't detail every last strand of hair, or the individual pores on a person's nose.

I've seen plenty of folk complain that there should be more official material devoted to the underutilized characters. The thing I can never seem to get anyone to buy into is that the Launches and Turleseseses and Tien's moms are kind of our job. If we see a minor detail and we want More of That, then we gotta make it ourselves, because no one else is going to.

I mean, I think people get that, but sometimes I'm not so sure. Like, Broly got a new movie and fans are like "Well now they should do one for so-and-so!" Like Broly was some obscure background character, whose appearance in 2018 signals some sort of Obscure Background Character Renaissance. Look, I'd love to see some sort of Launch/Haskey/Colonel Violet action heist story, but Toei's never going to do that, because they're too focused on the big characters with the biggest appeal. Priorities.

I'm not saying this to be mean, Anon, but I get a sense of bitterness in your words, like you can't enjoy Dragon Ball as it is because you're too frustrated with what it might have been. Trust me, you'll waste your life that way. Nothing will ever be perfect, and you'll miss all the good parts while you're holding out for even better ones.

Actually, this reminds me of one of my favorite Far Side comics, where these people in the desert find a water fountain, and one of them wants to push his luck even further before he takes a drink. That's the sort of mentality I'm trying to combat here. That's why I get so mad about fans who gripe about video quality and aspect ratios and minor details. They're so fixated on getting the absolute highest quality trees that they never get to enjoy the forest.

For my part, I enjoy Dragon Ball for all sorts of reasons, including the dumber stuff that goes hand-in-hand with the awesome stuff. If you find yourself unable to do that, then don't sit tight and wish it were better. Go find other things that you like more. Or make the kind of content that you can't find anywhere else. Everybody's always griping about Toyotaro screwing things up like he's the only game in town. I hardly ever think about the guy, because I got into JoJo around the time the DBS manga started doing original stories. And there's plenty of fan works. My dashboard is routinely filled with Yamcha/Tien slash. Some butthole keeps spamming this endless Super Saiyan OC fic. He's not doing it for his health, or for the adulation; he's doing it because no one else will do it for him.

I'll get off of that particular soapbox for a moment, because I have no way of knowing if you're an aspiring content creator or anything like that. A lot of people aren't looking to make their own stuff like that. They just want to enjoy stuff, and that's fine. Dragon Ball's here and it's done and it's plenty big. There's a lot to enjoy. But if you say you're "trying" to enjoy it and it just isn't working for you, then maybe you need to put it down and look for something else, at least for a while.

#ask duhragonball #i don't know if i qualify as a fandom grandpa or if that's even a thing i want to be #but on topics like these i find myself feeling like that's where i'm headed

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little-red-toyota · 3 years

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Final good bye to the fandom

TW//Trauma, triggers, nsfw, sexual themes, rape, domestic abuse e.g.

This is gonna be a long ass post…

It has taken me a while to get emotionally strong enough to do this, as I will have to think back at some traumatic events from my past to address some of these things. That's why I waited until I got home from vacation with my family, as it will seriously affect my mood and mental health, and I want to be near my doctor and therapist, just in case.

And also, I know that the majority of those reading this will invalidate me and tell me I am making things up to clear my name. So, I literally have to torment myself to write a blog post people will just brush off as bogus anyway. But I will do it now that I am in safe surroundings. Then it will be off my chest, and I can finally move on. If people will continue stirring up the past, it will be their problem, not mine.

I think I should write one last blog post where I address everything. I have left the TTTE-fandom, but I will write that one as my final goodbye to the fandom. I just have to find out everything I've been accused of so I can properly address them all in order. I might leave out details of my life that is too hard for me to open up about. I know most of you will just invalidate me anyway.

1. The Stepney fic and glorifying rape.

2. My mafia-AU.

3. The Darin incident.

4. Being a pedophile. (Where do they get this from anyway??)

5. Running the NSFW-blog.

6. Drawing penises/boobs on trains. Drawing age-regression art.

Is there more?

Ah... yes! Faking my own suicide, of course!

7. "Faking" being suicidal.

8. Having the audacity to survive and go on living.

9. "Making up" my past trauma to justify writing fics to cope with it.

10. Being a nazi for being interested in WW2 history and for being Norwegian and having so-called nazi-letters in my last name (actual letters of the Norwegian alphabet).

11. Putting a white-supremacist flag (the actual flag of Norway) on my porch on family birthdays and our national day.

12. Being a danger to my daughter.

Anything else that needs to be addressed? What else am I being accused of? Send me a dm and I will add it to the post.

Okay, I will bump the Stepney fic down a bit as it is the most traumatic thing for me to address, I will save that one for last.

2 and 3. The dark au/mafia au where I gave some TTTE characters some rather dark and unpleasant character traits, and the whole incident with Darin and the pedo-Salty was addressed in this blog post written by my husband last year, so I am not opening that can of worms again: https://little-red-toyota.tumblr.com/post/623743183795470336/in-light-of-recent-events

Even the thing about Toby cheating on Henrietta is addressed there.

As for the au, I never fully explored it as I started losing interest in TTTE around the same time. I found other things to enjoy and TTTE faded into the background and the au was dropped before I even wrote any stories, apart from the one about Toby and Henrietta.

Some people claim, like this lovely individual, that most of the characters were rapists and pedos. No, not most. Only one of each. And I did not write more than one story about rape and suicide. Where does this person even get that from? Someone who told someone who had heard from someone who might have heard….?

Don't spread rumors unless you are sure that they are true.

Anyway, it's all addressed in that blog post in that link. I don't see how this mafia au is any worse than other dark post-apocalyptic or violent aus. It mostly was about the diesel mafia and their illegal businesses, not about sex, even if it did occur now and then. I find the substance abuse in it to be more problematic tbh…

4. Being a pedophile.

I don't even know how to defend myself against this one, as I don't even know why people think I am pedophile. They only throw the accusation out with no backing evidence, so I have no idea where it comes from or what it is that makes people think I am one.

Apart from one claim that I had faved "porn" alongside "strangers'" baby photos on DA. I addressed that earlier though. As DeviantArt doesn't sort what you click "like" on, it all ends up in the same folder unless you actively go through it and sort it into categories, which I don't bother most of the time. It also doesn't say WHEN it was added to your faves. So, I can have faved an artistic nude on Saturday, and then faved my friend's family photo on Thursday. It's not like I actively search for porn, get all steamed up and then look at pictures of children. WTF.

The few children I have faved are not from complete strangers, but long-term friends of mine. Yes, it is possible to have friends on the same website. I have actually met a lot of my RL friends through DeviantArt. I posted photos of my daughter when she was a baby, they would fave it and congratulate me. So, I did the same when they had a baby. As simple as that. Nothing weird or perverted about it. Due to people doxxing me last year however, I deleted the photos of me, my husband and my daughter from DeviantArt, so it's no longer there.

Porn isn't allowed on DeviantArt anyway. The nudes there are so-called artistic nudes, and for the most part I use them as pose-references when I draw as it is easier to draw a pose using a nude base and then dress them up once you got the pose right.

"The very naked" centaurs I have faved. Well, I like the mythological creature Centaur. And as far as I know… they do not wear clothes, so how are they NOT nude? Look it up, it's a horse body with a human torso instead of horse head. I don't see them as sexual, but what do I know? Maybe YOU do?

I have no sexual interest in children whatsoever.

5. Running the NSFW-blog on Tumblr and Twitter.

Yes. I was one of six people modding that blog. ONE of six, so I refuse to take the full blame here.

MerciResolution has openly admitted to being the founder, and she recruited me and some others to modify as the confession load became too heavy for one person to handle alone.

The original blog on Tumblr worked as follows: People would anonymously send a confession to our askbox, we would add a picture (sometimes photoshopped) to the text and post it on the blog. Always tagged as NSFW and with proper trigger warnings if necessary! The blog itself was also marked as explicit, so it didn't appear in searches and such.

For us, this blog was nothing but a joke. We did it for shits and giggles. If anyone took it seriously and thought we got off to the stuff that was posted, we apologize for that, but to us it was just for laughs. And we DID laugh a lot, you guys should have seen the weird shit people sent us sometimes!

We had fun and we never thought anyone would take it seriously, so we never thought of writing "joke" in the description or anything. It never occurred to us that it could be anything but a joke.

We also made a Twitter account for it, also locked for minors. But it was quickly hacked, and someone changed the password so we could no longer access it. We made another account and forgot about the old one…

After a while, the original mods started losing interest and the blog (both on Tumblr and Twitter) became less active. That's when a person I had known for years, and wrongfully trusted, came forward and wanted to take over ownership. So, the ownership was handed over to Russalita/Charlie.

That turned out to be huge mistake!

Me and the other mods had more or less forgotten that the blogs existed, when suddenly someone started bashing me and getting up in my arms over it. I got seriously confused as I hadn't been active on it in almost a year. But as it turned out, Russalita had removed the mature filters and made the accounts open for all the see. Even minors.

And as people knew I was one of the mods, they fired their guns at me. I can see why though, so I'm not pointing any fingers here.

I tried contacting her by phone, asking her to lock the accounts again, but she gave me a less than polite response, hung up and then blocked my number…

So, I decided to try to shut the blogs down on my own, trying the old passwords. It worked on the Tumblr-account, and I managed to password protect it, for some reason it couldn't be fully deleted. But the Twitter account had gotten its password changed by Russalita. I was however able to get a new password by logging into the e-mail we had used to create it. I deleted the Twitter blog fully. It can't be re-activated even if we wanted to. It's gone.

But it turns out the old, hacked one is still up and now open for everyone. And this one poses a huge problem as we have no way of getting into it to delete it. Only thing we have been able to do so far is reporting it and hope it will be removed by Twitter. So I only have one thing to say about it: report it.

I am no longer running any NSFW TTTE blog anywhere, nor do I have interest in doing so. So, if you come across one, claiming to be me or any of the other mods, it is false.

6. Drawing penises/boobs on trains. Drawing age-regression art.

People seem to believe I have drawn genitals on trains. I have never done such. Any art on the NSFW-blog with genitalia on the trains were sent in by confessors and was not drawn by me. Most of them seems to have been drawn by someone who goes by the name "The Lance".

I HAVE drawn things for the NSFW blog, but there were no genitalia in those drawings. I drew Frank of Arlesdale looking grossed out by (I don't know what the part is named in English, but it is connected to the brakes of the engine) that stick-like thing on his bufferbeam being wet from whatever the confessor did to him. I drew an over-exaggerated comical pic of a horrified Peter Sam getting his face licked by his driver, who had an enormous tongue. I also did a couple of manips. Mostly maniping engine faces on humans, like the one where Gordon's face is on a less than fit guy flailing his shirt around, and the Arlesdale smallies' faces on a movie poster from Magic Mike. One with Mr.Conductor in a giant bun while Pinchy is applying ketchup on him, for a confession about eating him, I think? I've done some more, but I forgot what it was, I only know I loved making them comical rather than erotic, as I saw the blog as a joke overall.

I HAVE also drawn aheago faces on engines because it looks hilarious. Though I have only drawn them on my OCs and the NRS engines, not TTTE characters.

Point is I have never drawn genitalia on trains. Ever. And I likely never will. It's not THAT much fun drawing NSFW stuff.

I see from this screenshot that a certain MK-Instrumentalist claim that all my personal art is age-regression art and infantilism…

Whose art have you been looking at? Because it's definitely not mine. I have drawn a couple of baby/chibi diesels… But claiming that all of my 700 or so artworks are depicting infantilism and age-regression stuff? I suggest people go have a look for themselves. I haven't drawn that. That MK-guy has been desperately trying to cancel me for ages for reasons only himself know. I don't even know the guy, and he doesn't know me, yet he wants to see me beheaded. Go figure.

I was for a long time bothered by some age-regressor on Tumblr who just wouldn't leave me alone with their weird asks, who tried to force themselves on me and some other artists here. They claim age-regression isn't a fetish, but the shit they sent to my askbox certainly looked like a fetish to me.

I don't want anything to do with that stuff. It weirds me out.

And no. I have never drawn pedophilia or rape art either. This guy can't even make up his mind on which one to accuse me of.

7 and 8. Faking suicide and having the audacity to survive and go on living.

As many know, after the intense shitstorm against me last summer, thanks to Darin, I attempted suicide. I didn't succeed as my husband came home early. I was gone for a few days but returned when a young boy reached out to me for help as he was being groomed and didn't know who else to turn to.

Recently I saw a screenshot where someone claimed me to have faked suicide, and that I just came back after a few days when everything had died down.

Wow.

I am truly sorry I survived.

I don't remember much from those days to be honest, but as the load became too heavy and the bullying too intense, piling up on 30 years of old trauma… I decided to end it. I must warn you guys who might get triggered now; there are detailed descriptions of a suicide attempt. Proceed with caution. People told me I was a bad mother among other things, having had those same thoughts myself (according to my husband, I am a good mom) and people just confirming them, I thought that my daughter would be better off growing up without me. I could have chosen a more effective suicide method, but I was afraid my daughter would be the first to find me, so I wanted it to be clean and look like I was just sleeping. That way it could be explained as natural causes.

So, I decided to overdose on pills. I downed all pills I could find in the house that had a warning triangle on it (strong pain meds etc.) and then went to my computer to delete my online existence, especially the personal data.

As a former paramedic, I should have known better. Because after half an hour, my body started reacting. But not the way I had hoped and wanted. I started retching and almost vomiting. That's when my husband came home from work and found me. He immediately saw the empty packages and knowing my past suicidal tendencies, he reacted instinctively. He put his fingers down my throat and had me puke everything up, then he called an ambulance and had me admitted to the hospital.

I don't remember anything from the days I spent there. But I have been told they emptied my stomach and gave me lots of fluids. I was then assigned a psychiatrist which I am still seeing today.

I was gone for those days because I was in hospital, not because I was pulling some kind of trick and pretending to have ended myself.

So… I am sorry I "faked" my suicide.

I'm sorry my husband saved me. I am sorry the medics and doctors succeeded in saving my life.

I am sorry I survived and proceeded to live on. If I ever make another attempt, I promise to do better.

Why are you guys so persistent in trying to push people to suicide anyway? Do you get a kick out of it? Why do people have to be pushed to that point before you care?

What did we tell our daughter? Simply that I got sick and had to go to the hospital. She took that well.

I've seen a lot of people wonder why I am still around. Why shouldn't I? Does my daughter deserve to lose her mother over some online crap she doesn't even know about? I owe her to live and watch her grow up, to help her with her homework and whatever else a parent needs to do. I also owe my husband to stay by his side, like I promised him the day we got married. Even if I do not wish to live.

I'm sorry I survived, guys. Really, I am.

9. "Making up" my past trauma to justify writing fics to cope with it. And 1. The Stepney fic and glorifying rape.

First… why would anyone make up trauma? It's not like it's a competition to have the worst life, is it?

Sadly, I don't have to make up anything. My life HAS been rocky up until the birth of my daughter. I have been through so much trauma I couldn't even fathom it myself before my therapist listed it all up to me. Until then, I had just been casually talking to her about it, like I would talk about the weather. I didn't cry or get in touch with my emotions even once while telling everything, because I was taught from an early age to never complain, to suck it up and go on. So, no matter what people did to me, I would just smile and go on, even if it killed me inside. I did not want to show any sign of weakness, because then they would attack me. A habit I developed through years of being bullied in school. Never show feelings, just pretend nothing could hurt you, then they would eventually grow tired of it and stop.

Except they never did. They kept going through all my years at school. To such an extent, my boyfriend didn't dare to show himself hanging out with me out of fear of being bullied himself… And as we grew older, he would start cheating on me too. And I kept smiling…

My next boyfriend was a bit older than me, and while that didn't bother me, as we were both well over legal age, it bothered him. We only lasted one year before he bailed out and ditched me out of the blue via an sms.

The next guy… was the one who scarred me for life. Both physically and mentally. A charmer at first of course, until I was trapped. He was unemployed, so he moved in with me, and I paid for everything from food to phone bills. All while he was dating several women behind my back, calling various pay-phone services and in general acted like a manwhore. As I worked as an electrician (also being subject to massive bullying and sexual harassment at work), he would be jealous of all my co-workers and if I ever came home late or worked overtime, he accused me of cheating and was extremely violent about it. He would also isolate me from my friends and family, making me think I couldn't get any other than him. If any of my male friends (almost all my friends are male…) came over, he would give me such hell afterwards, it was easier just to tell them it was a bad time to visit. And after a while, they stopped asking. This guy also demanded sex. Every single day. If I refused, he would punish me, mostly by flogging me with lampcords, belts or whatever else he had at hand. My back is a criss cross map of old, faded scars even now nearly 20 years later. I would have shown you a photo, but I am so self-concious about my body after all the bullying, I hardly even show my face in photos. Maybe one day… but I certainly need more therapy before being able to show naked skin to strangers, even if it's just my back. So I had non-consensual sex with him more often than consensual. It has taken me hours in therapy to even take the word in my mouth and call it by its proper name: rape. I was raped, almost every single day for little over a year, before I found the strength to break out of the relationship and finally throw him out of my house. It all ended when I found some revealing texts on his cellphone, which he was extremely protective of… Texts that revealed that he had engaged in a relationship with a 12 year old girl, and it had been going on for a while. Not only was he cheating on me, but he was a pedophile too. Needless to say, I didn't even let him pack his stuff before I fetched my shotgun and chased him out of the house. I don't know where I got the courage and strength from… but I was furious.

I thought I had gotten rid of him, but no. He started stalking me in public. Hiding behind shelves when I was shopping, his car following mine everywhere I went. I received weird letters in the mail with cut-out letters from newspapers, glued together. On top of all, his creepy, old uncle called me with some rather disgusting suggestions and tried to come on to me really hard. I had to change my phone number, and after coming home to my house and finding out someone had entered my home using a key, only to empty the drawer of my night table, I also had to change the locks of my doors as he had clearly copied the key.

He didn't stop until I got the police involved.

So, when I finally met the guy who would become my husband (or rather, we found out we were made for each other, we had known each other since we were 11 years old), I had major trust issues towards men especially and it took him endless patience and love to break me out of that shell.

But the trauma doesn't stop… or start there.

In the year 2000, on January 4th, I would experience something that made me unable to even look at a train for over 10 years. The Åsta accident (google it). I was a volunteer in the Norwegian Red Cross then, and a paramedic in training. Back then, you were allowed to start training the year you would turn 16. So, I was still 15 when I witnessed the most traumatic event of my life. The day started out calm, we were stocking up the ambulance after delivering a patient to the hospital when we got a call with the code "500", which means "catastrophe". Normally when we get that code it is a rehearsal… so we drove towards the coordinates with the thoughts that this was just an exercise, nothing real… we didn't prepare ourselves mentally… And we ended up in the closest thing to hell I have ever been… The sight of the burning trains, the smells, the sounds, the screaming… I still wake up by nightmares to this day. Though the moment that haunts me the most is when the screaming stopped… because we all knew why… I don't want to go into details, but 19 people died that day. But we also saved 67 people. I try to hold on to that thought. The age limit for starting paramedic training was raised after this, as I wasn't the only one who was too young for an accident of that scale. Today it is 18. A memorial stone has been placed on the site, but I still haven't been able to bring myself to visit it, even if we drive past the site every year on our way to visit family further north in the country. I needed hours of therapy to even be able to ride a train after this. To have gotten to the point where I now volunteer at a heritage railway and is in training to become a driver, is a HUGE step for me. My next goal is to visit the site of the accident.

On to next trauma… A previous employer, a rather large electric company in Norway, whom I worked for 8 years. The first five years were great, we were a close-knit bunch of electricians, and we had a great relationship with the bosses and higher-ups. Our labor union was strong.

It all started changing in 2009 when we got new leaders… and those decided to get rid of everyone who were a member of the union. One by one, they started harassing workers in various ways, trying to get them to quit. In Norway, they need a legal reason to fire you, it's not enough to not like someone. There has to be a good reason to fire someone e.g. theft, neglecting work… Since they didn't have any reasons to fire us, they started making our work lives gradually harder and harder until we would break and find another job. Sadly, one of my co-workers couldn't stand the pressure… He bid us all farewell as normal one Friday and hung himself the following day.. But as I was a girl in a male-dominated profession, I had been taught at an early stage to ignore anything that would hurt me emotionally, just arch my neck and plow through. I kept doing that, despite starting to feel more and more mental and physical pains… even my co-workers pointed out how I was being mistreated before I acknowledged it myself. I tried to tell my boss, but he reacted by treating me worse. So, I went to his boss… and that's when things went to hell. Instead of doing his job and listen, he started harassing me too. He deemed my over-weight a problem, and he started demanding I gave him detailed lists of what I ate and how much I worked out… Completely illegal of course, but by this point I was broken down to the point I thought I was useless and couldn't get another job… so I accepted. He started accusing me of lying about my exercise, so I started training at the gym in the basement at work instead. One day, while I was there, he locked the doors and turned the lights off. There were no windows, no cellphone reception and hardly anyone walking by in that part of the building… I sat there in the pitch dark for 3 hours before I was let back out. I still get badly triggered by narrow, dark rooms and rooms with no windows. To such an extent, I jumped out of a small window on the second floor of a gym when I was in boot camp. I was allowed to train downstairs in the bigger gym with windows on all walls after that incident…

The harassment at work went on for years until I finally snapped, ended up at the hospital and got into therapy for the first time. I don't want to go into depth about what more happened, I just can't… I can't bring myself to write it all. Luckily, I had gotten more education while working, so when I graduated, another company called and gave me an offer I just couldn't refuse. So, I quit my job and never looked back, even if the traumas I suffered there still haunts me to this day.

Sadly, even after switching jobs, now getting a safe job with sane leaders… I started to relax, and that's when all my past trauma came washing over me. And one day, on while driving to work, I had my first serious panic attack. It started as this feeling I used to have at the old company; getting sick to my stomach and having the sense of someone being out to get me… then it developed to breathing problems… and I had to pull the car over. I broke into tears, struggling to breathe, stumbling out of the car to read the logo on its side just to reassure my body and brain that I worked for a different company now and there was no reason for panic. I called my boss and let him know, because he also was a "refugee" from that other company, so he knew what me and several others had gone through. He managed to talk me down enough for me to come to the office to talk to him. That helped.

I got back into therapy. A better therapist this time. But sadly, it got apparent that I could no longer work as an electrician as there was too many triggers. I was diagnosed with PTSD, severe depression, and social anxiety. I'm still working on these and get better slowly.

I have been in therapy for a long time now, and it was my therapist that suggested I wrote fics to cope and "write it out". I tried to make up my own characters for this, but never felt any connection. I was by this time in the TTTE fandom and had met people with similar trauma and pasts like myself, and I started roleplaying with some of them. Me and a girl from UK then agreed to try to rp/co-write a fic to cope with our trauma. We both found it easier to write about pre-established characters we had a connection to, even if it was an au that made it barely recognizable from the original source material. Only the names and some minor things were similar.

That fic was Stepney's Virginity Gets Lost.

Do we regret writing it? No. It helped us write out our traumas and helped us overcome some mental obstacles in out therapy process. Our therapists cheering us on, because we finally managed to break through the hard shell surrounding us. We both cried for the first time in years while writing it, some of it through roleplay, because some parts were extremely graphic and brutal and very mentally exhausting. We had to take long breaks between each writing session, so the fic wasn't written in just a weekend. But we got a lot of darkness out of our minds by writing all this. And we were definitely NOT aroused by it, like this pervert here claims.

It's when you dare to touch and feel the difficult and dark emotions, you can finally move along in the grieving process.

Should it have been posted online?

In retrospect, no. But at the time, we thought it might help other trauma victims, as we also found reading about other people's experiences and fictions touching painful subjects helpful to ourselves. So, we posted it, never expecting it to cause such a controversy 3 years later. In fact, we had more or less forgotten about it until it came back to bit us in the ass. Or rather, bite ME in the ass, as I am getting the full blame alone.

Also, despite what people claim, it was not posted openly for children to read. It was tagged properly and hidden behind mature content walls. If a minor chooses to break that wall, that's not the author's fault. It's the same as watching a movie with an age restriction way above your age, not the filmmaker's fault.

I think MerciResolution puts it nicely here:

"If your problem lies with you KNOWINGLY entering adult spaces when you’re a minor, ignoring all mature warnings that are literally SCREAMING at you “hey, this is what you’re getting into. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

That’s ENTIRELY on you. YOU are the fucking problem.

We’re marking mature things as best as we properly can. If you decide to ignore them, that’s your own damn fault. We’re not your fucking babysitters."

Also, I never posted the story on Wattpad, so if anyone has done that, it's not me. I posted the story on Fanfiction.net, DeviantArt and AO3, that's all. If it's posted anywhere else, it's not done by me.

I had honestly moved on from it when people pulled me back into it.

Other people who have done questionable shit in that fandom are easily forgiven because "they have moved on" or "changed". Yet, nobody believes I can move on or change…?

I had moved on; my interests had changed. But people won't let me, so here I am… Having to defend some crap I did years ago. A fic I no longer have any interest in.

I'm not even interested in TTTE anymore. I have moved on with my own book project now and I would like to focus on that.

So, deleting my TTTE content, whether it was the SFW or NSFW stuff, didn't cost me a penny. It actually felt like a relief. The only downside with it is that people now can't read it and make up their own opinion about it, but will solely believe in what others say, and those things are often seriously bent out of shape and blown out of proportions to such an extent it's barely recognizable.

If people claim that Arry and Bert rape Stepney in the fic, they have never seen it or read it. That's not what happens. That's just an assumption made by looking at the title and knowing there is a rape/torture scene in it. But I'm not gonna tell who the victim is or who performed it, because this is the only way I am able to tell who has actually read the fic or not, who is just trying to spread bullshit and who is actually telling the truth. The person in that screenshot, has no idea what he's talking about.

Does SVGL romanticize rape and abuse?

No, not in the least. It's described as the horrible, heinous acts it is and is in no way meant to be cute or romantic and definitely NOT something anyone should get off to. If anyone finds it sexy, that's their problem, not the authors'. If anything, SVGL might romanticize suicide, because one of the characters isn't able to cope with his trauma and chooses to end their life. Which is something I considered doing myself when I was in the darkest pit of depression. So, I apologize for maybe romanticizing suicide. The following chapters describe how friends and family handle the loss and grief.

It also describes a toxic relationship, where one of the parts struggles to get out of it. They eventually manage to break free, but it is not easy. This can easily be translated to my previously mentioned relationship, as it was my way of writing out my experience about how hard it is to break out of a relation when your partner has broken you down to the point where you no longer believe in yourself and your self-worth.

The last chapters start to gradually become brighter, as both our lives started getting better too. But we never really wrote the end because we both lost interest in writing TTTE content by that time and just left it hanging.

I'm not the only one who has written NSFW TTTE fanfics out there. But it seems like violence and murder is more acceptable than sexual things? I do wonder how brutally mutilating children's show characters are more tolerable than sexually abusing them. Neither should be okay.

Some content creators hide behind "it was a joke". I have been told that such topics that SVGL touches upon shouldn't be joked about… so I didn't do that, and yet it was wrong? So how should such topics be treated? Be hidden like it's a shame, like in the old days when rape victims were told to suck things up and keep it to themselves? When those subject to abuse didn't dare to speak up because people would judge them?

I think it is important to talk about these subjects and why they are so problematic. Victims shouldn't have to hide their trauma; they should be allowed to talk openly about it without fearing judgement.

Some of you claim that writing isn't a good way to cope… You're trying to dictate how trauma victims deal with their trauma, and that's a dangerous path to walk down. Nobody handles trauma the same way. You might have your thoughts on how you would react, but you'll never know until trauma hits you… and you might not react the way you had expected or planned. Trauma messes with your head and you won't be able to think clearly. It makes you do thinks you normally wouldn't have done and can make you act out of character. So, do not judge people without having been in the same situation yourself. Ever.

Someone wrote that I have "more problems that just a rape".

Read that again.

Just a rape.

This person does not know how damaging a rape can be. And if you made it this far in this post, you know I didn't only go through one, but several. Not just by my ex, but also being ambushed while I was walking home from a party, and later; a co-worker forcing himself onto me at a building site. I can't go into depth about them all, I just can't.

Just a rape…

"Just" the feeling of not being in control of your own body and your own decisions. "Just" being robbed off your dignity and self-worth. "Just" having someone intrude into your private zone, tear your clothes off and claim your body against your will. "Just" feeling how your life force leave you as you realize that fighting against it won't help you, and you silently give up and just lay down waiting for it all to be over. "Just" spending hours in the shower, scrubbing your skin until you bleed because you can't wash the filth away and you keep feeling dirty no matter how much you clean yourself. "Just" waking up at night, after having relived the scene again in a nightmare. "Just" looking over your shoulder wherever you walk because you heard something or thought you saw something or simply because someone is walking behind you. "Just" the fact that you'll never feel comfortable walking alone at night again or have someone walk behind you. "Just" never being able to relax because your body constantly think you're in grave danger. "Just" a rape…

That's such a neck-beard thing to say. Someone who clearly think of other people's bodies as property or things. Not taking into consideration that we are living, breathing individuals with feelings. And that having another person violate us isn't something we like or that we'll easily get over. We want to choose who we give ourselves to, nobody should be forced. We didn't ask to be raped. We didn't want it. We didn't like it.

Rape is trauma.

Yes, we should have chosen other characters for the story, but we did what we did, and it cannot be undone now. So, if the only thing I will be remembered for in the fandom is that ONE fic, instead of all my other content, that's what it will be. That's what people chose to. I'm moving on.

10. Being a nazi for being interested in WW2 history and for being Norwegian and having so-called nazi-letters in my last name (actual letters of the Norwegian alphabet).

*sigh*

This is something that could only happen in America, isn't it?

Some people don't bother educating themselves. The "nazi-letters" you guys are talking about is actually part of the Norwegian alphabet and has nothing to do with Nazism or white-supremacy to do at all. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters, the three extra is æ,ø,å or in capital letters: Æ,Ø,Å.

We can't help it if some morons over in the US abuse these letters as symbol of their twisted mindset.

Yes, my name contains one of those letters. It is my name… and I didn't choose it. It is a common Norwegian name.

As for me being a Nazi?

Those who knows me knows that I am as far from a Nazi as one can get. I despise Nazism with all my heart.

But the reason some people choose to believe so… was that some guy who has no hobbies or life went through every single fave I've made on DeviantArt since I joined the site in 2006, which is well over 20000 faves. And he found a few Nazi-characters from a web series I was following about ten years ago. I am very interested in history and especially WW2-history, so I found that particular web-series interesting and faved some artwork related to it. What this guy failed to notice is that I also faved the Allied characters… That's ALL there is to that story.

I has also faved a pic someone made of Joseph Goebbels (I think it was?) as a Pixar Car. That's not because I have any nazi-sympathies, but I simply found the concept of turning historical persons, both good and bad, into Cars as an interesting project. I would have faved any other historical Carsified person as well.

As for me being a Norwegian and have a natural pale complexion, that's not something I can help. That's nothing I choose. And it doesn't make me racist or Nazi. Period.

11. Putting a white-supremacist flag (the actual flag of Norway) on my porch on family birthdays and our national day.

Again. Get educated.

This flag… is the actual flag of my country. The Kingdom of Norway.

There is nothing Nazi about it. It is not a symbol of white-supremacy. IT IS THE FLAG OF NORWAY.

During WW2 it was even illegal, so people would paint it everywhere in a protest against the Nazi-occpation and the SS. We even decorated our Christmas trees with it, and that is a tradition that has followed us into the modern day.

Again, if some idiots in the US choose to use it as a symbol for their disgusting logic, it is not Norway or the Norwegians' fault.

12. Being a danger to my daughter.

I need people to elaborate here.

What exactly do you think I do to my daughter? What is the cause of your concern here?

The fact that I have made NSFW content? How is that harmful to her as long as I keep it away from her? You DO realize that even authors, pornstars and moviemakers have children and that they can be good parents, right?

Do you think I read pornographic content for her as bedtime stories? Or show her porn instead of kids TV? How sick are you guys, really…?

Some people even wanted CPS to take my child away from me… Have a look at these screenshots…

You want a happy, healthy, innocent child to be taken away from a stable, safe home with loving parents just because you don't like the content the mother made? You want her to be placed in foster care, where there is no guarantee that she will have a happy upbringing rather than have her stay with her parents who love her and care for her, for reasons she'll never understand and wasn't even aware of?

"Think of the children!" a lot of you say when it comes to my content. May I ask why this doesn't apply to my daughter?

Why do some of you go as far as to wishing her dead or wanting her to be removed from the home she feels safe and loved in? How is that thinking of the children?

As for the douchebag in that screenshot. You claim that if your mother did something like that you would want nothing to do with her… I have a question: Do you know EVERYTHING your mother do? Does she include you in each aspect of her life? Even her sexual life? No?

How do you know she doesn't do thing you don't approve of when you're not around? She could be a rabid pornmag reader for all you know. But stuff like that is something adults hide from their kids. So, you wouldn't know, unless you go snooping around in her business.

Everyone is entitled to privacy. What I and my husband do when our kid is not around is our business, not hers, and certainly not yours.

Porn and parenting are to be kept separate from each other. Period.

And we do.

There is absolutely no reason to be worried about my daughter. She is a happy, healthy child in a safe, stable home with family that loves her and cares for her. Not just me and my husband, but also grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

If you want to remove her from that over a stupid fanfic behind a mature content wall, you're the deranged person, not me.

This is all I have to say about all this and my time in the TTTE fandom. I have left by my own, free will. Yes, I am aware that many people don't want me there. That's fine. I don't want to be there.

I am a bit disappointed in those people who just blindly unfollowed me and unfriended me without any questions asked, just followed the leader. Big users tend to dictate who and what is worth following in that fandom. They will even protect real predators, but I'm not going to open that can of worms now. I'm done with the fandom.

Some of those people, I have been talking to regularly, even supported when they faced hardships in the fandom themselves. But when I got in trouble, they ditched me without a word…

If anything, this whole ordeal showed me who to trust and not, and who were true to their word when it came to how deep our friendship was. True friends at least give you the chance to explain before they drop you. I hold no ill feelings to those who did, at least they asked me before judging.

And those who still stayed with me, are the ones who truly know me and who I really am.

Some of the worst libels posted about me might be reported to the police, but I haven't made up my mind yet. I am not mentally strong at the moment, so I don't know if I have the strength to legally follow it all up. I will ask the cops at work for advice on the matter.

All I ask for now is some peace.

You don't have to like me. You don't have to follow me. You don't have to like my content. Feel free to invalidate me, I know a lot of you will.

But please, stop bullying me and my family.

Please stop sending me horrid messages and death threats.

Please stop doxxing me and calling me.

Please leave my family alone. If you don't care about me, at least care about them.

Please just ignore me. I have already left the fandom, there is no reason to keep hunting me.

I just want to move on and go on with my life and the content I am currently working on. After years in therapy, my life has gotten better, and I want to move on.

Please let me.

#good bye to ttte #tw//suicide #tw//rape #tw// bullying #tw//depression #tw//ptsd #tw//ttte #tw//sex #tw//abuse #tw//domestic abuse #I'm done

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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Charles Schulz vs Andrew Dobson: What a Blockhead!

There are certain things about Dobson’s behavior and particularly his approach at being a nerd and presenting himself as someone who enjoys the art of storytelling that I have issues with. Issues I want to tackle on in more detail within later entries quite a bit.

One such tendency is, that he mocks directly or indirectly the work and accomplishments of others.

See, if Dobson doesn’t like you as a content creator because he does not like something you work on, he will try to show it. He will make stupid assumptions of you (like how he accused Kojima of being a sexist creep because of Quiet and how he deals with “male gaze” in MGS compared to Death Stranding), half heartedly mock you (look at anything he makes about Ethan Van Sciver) or he will call a piece of work boring and dull based on a minor element instead of overarching problems (calling Batman the character a white supremacist based on the dumb work of only one author).

By doing that he also tries indirectly to insinuate that he is better in some manner, though most of the time it really just shows his own ego and that his pet peeves are rather petty compared to the overall quality of the work he criticizes as well as its flaws.

One such sight of ego boosting while mocking the work of his better is in my opinion to be found in this comic he uploaded sometimes around 2016/17 randomly online.

This comic in my opinion is both laughable and insulting. Why? I will explain soon.

First however I want to clarify that I get that this comic is supposed to be a joke mostly. The old “What others expect, what I expect” thing, where the punchline is supposed to be the discrepancy between the two fractions and what they expect, mostly by making one of the expectations come off as worse than the other. However, I find the punchline to be Charlie Brown (and as such what Dobson seems to see as something he does not want to be favorable compared too) quite insulting. Why, as I said, will be elaborated on sooner.

First, let me just get on the part I find laughable: The fact that Dobson in his own head seems to believe he can be even remotely compared to people like Paul Dinni, Bruce Timm, Greg Weismann, Justin Roiland, Miyazaki, Shigeru Miyamoto and all the other character creators and animators whose creations we see in the first panel.

Dobson, don’t make me laugh. Putting aside the fact that those people are animators more than cartoonists, what makes you even believe in your wildest dreams you are on the same level as them? The fact you too are an animator, seeing how you graduated from an art school with a degree in that field? I have seen your contributions to the field and honestly, I would expect a bit more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0tdWNCrIxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps6PfiUCxHQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PyonOqClf8

I give you credit, you can animate. Which is more than I can say for myself when it comes to the arts. But when you look what other freelance animators can do online, some of them younger than you and NOT with a degree in animation…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=64&v=FmkAcGz1BJk&feature=emb_title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97IfPfjSaDg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEUoxQ4qSfs

Viviepop’s demo reels alone are just gorgeous to look at and more fluid than what I have seen of you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFlha-KOKCc

And it is not just the technical quality, Dobson. It is also just the overall “originality” of your work. Cause this is the thing with those animators hinted on in the first pic and even many, many freelancers/fanartists as well as webcomic creators online: They have a spark of originality in presentation and storytelling that you lack. I will one day go more into detail for that, but here is the most brutal thing I can say at the moment: I know shitty porn fanfictions, that have more plot development and character growth than all of Alex ze Pirate.

Your characters and stories tend to be derivative and you barely take any risks in telling a story. Neither in your fanbased work (like the Miraculous comics) nor your original content (mostly because you take comfort in four panel strips anyway) and when you have an idea for something on which the basis idea actually sounds good, you screw it up by a lackluster execution. One example I want to give for that, would be this fanart of yours in regard to Steven Universe.

(I apologize for not getting one in better quality) This pic was something Dobson created around 2015 for Steven Universe. The picture is supposed to show Lapis, trapped under the ocean following the events of the season 1 finale of the show. A very emotional situation if you are aware of why Lapis sacrificed herself and was “banned” to the ocean floor. Short explanation: Fused with Jasper and then took primarily control of the fused being they became (Malachite) by using her water powers to bond it with heavy water chains on the ocean floor, so that Jasper would not hurt Steven anymore.

How much of that was even an emotional strain on her and her psyche was in one episode of season 2 even a theme, as seen here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK3l8mGNhMg

I am not even a fan of the show and I get the emotional weight and impact of Lapis actions.

So… why is that not conveyed in the artwork? If you are so talented Dobson, why is none of the strain and despair on the character? The idea of a pic showing Lapis under water, longingly looking up, even in despair is a good basis for a fanart. But the execution lacks any emotional detail. You want to know how I would execute the thing if I had the artistic talent? Make the picture a huge horizontal pic, where we slowly decent from water surface down the ocean. The light getting dimmer. Blue turning into dark. The silhouette of a hand and an arm similar to Malachite’s in the background, trying to travel up, the fingertips barely touching the surface. Heavy chains around the flesh. Symbolic of the fusion trying to break free and cause havoc. And down on the dark bottom, beaten and exhausted Lapis with tears in her eyes and chains all over her body like she is Jacob Marley, desperately trying to keep Malachite at bay for the sake of the only being on earth who ever showed just a little bit of kindness towards her.

Why can’t we have something like this here, Dobson? If you were even remotely as original as the creators you want to be compared with, I think you could come up with something like that and perhaps even draw it.

But you know, his delusions of being as good as them is one thing. It is even funny.

Pissing over the Peanuts is another. Dobson, what are you trying to hint at?

That people comparing you to Charles Schulz and his creation is in your eyes automatically a sort of insult? That it is something that should at best only be a mockable punchline in a comparison?

Just to clarify a few things: I am NOT much of a fan of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts as a property. As a child, I was just not very entertained by them. Yes, I saw animated movies, episodes and specials of them here and there and my grandparents gave me volumes of them to read, but as a whole I never thought them quite as entertaining than other comics or cartoons I watched. Some parts of Peanuts animation felt to me often times like just dead air (especially parts of Snooby dancing with Woodstuck, as they had no function to move the plots forward) and I really could not stand how some characters treat Charles on a regular basis. I mean, we all agree that Lucy is one of the worst female characters in fiction and that even while we hate Family Guy, this clip likely gave some of us some sort of satisfaction, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZkJAx8FycI

But before the Peanuts fan out there go and want my head on a silver platter, let me make one thing clear: I may not like the Peanuts franchise… but I respect it and the man behind it.

Charles Schulz drew the comic strip from October 1950 till late 1999 (the final strip being finished months before it would be published on February 13 of 2000, one day after he died of colon cancer) , creating a total amount of 17,897 Peanuts’ strips. His work marks a major impact in the nature of newspaper comic strips and inspired many people out there, including Bill Watterson, to create comics or be in the field of animation. His achievements include among other things, that he created what many people consider the first animated Christmas special ever. The names of his creations became nicknames for the Apollo 10 command module and its’ lunar modul. Four of the five Peanuts movies in existence (animated made for tv specials not withstanding now) were written by him. And the fifth was only not by him, because that one came out in 2015, a decade and a half after he died.

And speaking of things Schulz wrote for the Peanuts, let me mention two things. Two things that though I am not a fan of the Peanuts, I have mad respect for existing in the realm of animation. Two animated specials that stuck with me ever since I was eight.

“What have we learnt, Charlie Brown?” from 1983 and “Why, Charlie Brown, Why?” from 1990.

In the first special, which functions as a semi sequel to the fourth Peanuts’ movie “Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown”, the characters actually travel across France and after ending up on Omaha Beach and Ypres the special turns into a tribute to the soldiers who fought in World War 1 and 2, elaborating on the sacrifices made during the war by showing actual footage of fights, recordings of Eisenhower and reciting the poem “In Flanders Fields” among other things. Do you know how impactful it is to learn about the world wars as a small kid, by being reminded of the actual sacrifices others made in order for your own grandparents to survive?

And speaking of grandparents, I lost my grandmother as a child by cancer. So when I saw the second special I mentioned, you can bet it stuck with me. After all, of all the things in the world, the Peanuts addressing the seriousness of cancer by having a story where a friend of Linus is diagnosed with leukemia and we follow the emotional impact it has on Linus and the girl? Again, I may not like the franchise, but I am not ashamed to admit I think the special treats the subject with a lot of respect and dignity while telling a good story. You bet your ass I get a bit teary eyed when the little girl survives her leukemia treatment and finally gets on that swing again. Those two specials alone are more mature than ¾ of the shit Dobson likes to gosh about, including his oh so precious gay space rocks. And just for those things existing I have respect for Schulz, his creation and the impact it had on so many people. As such, Dobson “belittling” the Peanuts, at least for me, is a freaking insult. The only way Dobson could have been even more insulting is if he called Schulz something derogative. Dobson should be glad if his life’s work in total could even amount to 10% of what Schulz has done and achieved.

Cause Dobson, you are NOT a Charles Schulz. Schulz served during the second world war on the front, fighting actual Nazis instead of calling idiots on the internet fascists for not liking Star Wars. He had integrity and work ethics that drove him to draw and write over 17.000 strips, while you can not even finish one FREAKING story. He knew how to tackle a mature subject, while you make shitty shipping jokes involving Ladybug and Cat Noir and claim Steven Universe knows how to be about psychological trauma, when it just romanticizes abuse. He may have drawn simplistically, but at least he could tell a joke instead of constantly berating others for not sharing his opinion. He did all of that and more without having graduated from college.

And what have you done, Andrew Dobson?

If Dobson reads this, there is one thing in my opinion he should take away from more than anything else: That if people compare him to Charles Schulz’s work, that it means a) he should not be ashamed of it and b) they overestimate him.

#adobsonartworks #andrew dobson #so you are a cartoonist #syac #sjw #peanuts #charles chulz #charlie brown #snoopy #fuck you #animation #steven universe #disney #cartoons #cartoonist #adobsonartwork

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cherrymagik · 4 years

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How tua tv show ruined hotel oblivion

Before I say anything: THIS IS IN NO WAY AN ATTACK TOWARDS ANYONE YOU ARE 100% FREE TO ENJOY WHATEVER CONTENT YOU WANT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION AND YOU ARE FREE TO DISAGREE (just don’t be an asshole abt and we’re good) also SPOILERS!!! for both tv show and comics

(a while back I saw a post by @fivehargreeves and i have since then been putting off this post bc i want to elaborate on it but i am too lazy and i know i never really post stuff here but this is something i feel really strongly abt especially after that s2 finale)

When I first read the umbrella academy comics one of the things I loved the most about was the world building. It was so crazy and weird (in a good way) and while I still loved the story and characters, for me the most fascinating part of them was the world. It was a world so much like ours, yet completely different and the little details in the background or those offhand mentions of aliens or other "weird" stuff made the tua world feel more alive and interesting. So obviously when n*tflix announced they were adapting the comics into a show i was thrilled. But when I watched it I was... disappointed to say the least :/

Ex. 1 The Umbrella Academy's debut- In the comics, the first time the world met the umbrella academy was when "the day Eiffel Tower went berserk" (literally)

It turns out the Eiffel Tower had been a spaceship all along establishing the first villain in the comics: Zombie Robot Gustave Eiffel. But the innthe tv show we get.... a bank robbery 😐 (not as impressive as the Eiffel Tower imo) THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SUPERHEROES FOR GODS SAKE! Why are they fighting petty crime? Let them fight the Eiffel Tower you cowards!!!

Ex. 2 The Orchestra Verdammten- (@/fivehargreeves post talks specifically abt this issue and summarizes most of my thoughts so i will say very little on this point) In the comics the main antagonist for vol.1 was an orchestra made up of musicians who had gone crazy (for one reason or another) and gone missing after joining the Orchestra Verdammten. But once again the villain is replaced with something very common and might I say mediocre. This as we will see is a running thing in the show: make most of the elements that made the comics stand out and replace them with more common/normal elements.

Ex. 3 Watering down/changing most characters' powers- Would you believe me if I told you it was Klaus that stopped the moon from colliding with earth? No you wouldn’t because in the tv show his powers are so... useless. And he was not the only one who’s powers got watered down (even though he is one of the most notable examples)

Luther/Spaceboy: his powers remain the same (as far as we have seen) however I am detaching points bc i don’t like how his character arc was handled in the show

Diego/The Kraken: first of all WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HES CALLED THE KRAKEN -A MARINE MONSTER- YOU IDIOTS???!!! but seriously, why did they ever think it was a good idea to ever change his powers? It takes away so much from his character! Diego’s power is breathing underwater not whatever object manipulation bullshit they gave him in the show. His powers have NOTHING to do with knife throwing yet he is still as good at it in the comics as in the show; he got that good just from practice. He obsessive with his goals and we don’t get to see that in the show bc they completely changed his powers!!! They just took part of The Séance's and gave them to him! (@/fivehargreeves also has another post on this so go check it out bc it’s better worded than mine)

Allison/The Rumor: Oh my god I could talk about her all day and how dirty they did her in the tv show!!! In the comics Allison has the power to alter REALITY ITSELF

see: (click images to view)

she manifested a whole ass statue to life! And in vol.2 (the Kennedy assassination one) she was the one that killed Kennedy! She made his head explode just by rumoring him. But noooooo they had to sideline her in s2 so they could pursue a side plot for 'wokeness points' (i am happy that they dealt with the racism she would most likely have faced in the 1960's BUT they took away ALL her protagonism in the comics and had her be a minor character) if it hadn’t been for Allison the world would have ended -> murdering Kennedy was the only way to save the world

Klaus/The Séance: ugh where do i start? Klaus is extremely powerful in the comics, like I said he was able to stop the moon from colliding with earth. Not only did they have his powers watered down, they also took away all his telekinetic abilities in the show. Also, the only way his powers can be blocked is when he’s wearing shoes not drugs (i also want to point out that the way his addiction is treated in the show is weird and sometimes even uncomfortable to me but that is another topic for another time). His ability to summon the dead are almost nothing like in the show as compared to the comics he is called The Séance you know but whatever where he not only does he speak TO the dead he can also MANIFEST them through him which was probably the most important factor in stopping Vanya/The White Violin in Apocalypse Suite + not giving him his EXTREMELY WELL DESERVED FAME!!! 😤 THE AUDACITY!!! (I have talked abt Klaus before on another post)

Number Five: I don’t have much to say about him except that he is a lot darker in the comics and not as loving about his family as they make him in the show *cough* shooting vanya in the head *cough* but for the most part.... he’s fine ig (my main problem is they make him idk? too playful(?) in s1 when he actually he is all dry humor and dark jokes)

Ben/The Horror: doesn’t really appear in the comics so nothing to say here

Vanya/The White Violin: not including her transformation in the show was cowardly and having her be manipulated by a man was uh kinda problematic if I may say so. We only ever see her use her powers in vol.1 since she was crippled by getting shot in the head at the end of it and hasn’t been able to do much since then. Her story has been completely changed in the show and i am still not completely sure i like it. Her dealing with trauma and coming to terms with her childhood are quickly brushed away and not really delved into as opposed to the comics where she is still trying to process it

Ex. 4 Technology- The World in the comics is a lot more sci-fi than in the show where it almost an exact copy of ours. For one: the chimpanzees. In the comics Pogo isn’t the only one, we can see a lot of others in the background

Also stuff like the televator or the hotel oblivion are never mentioned or alluded to in the show

Now to get to the main point of this post: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE AT THIS POINT THAT THE TV SHOW WILL BE ABLE TO FOLLOW HOTEL OBLIVION'S PLOT BECAUSE IT DEPENDS ON THERE BEING VILLAINS!!!

This are superhero comics! Maybe we don’t see them fighting all the villains that appear in hotel oblivion, but the fact is that they are there! They are part of the world and part of what makes it breathe and come alive on the pages. To paraphrase (albeit a VERY simplified paraphrase) Watchmen (don’t tell me it didn’t influence tua bc IT DID and i can prove it) 'if there are superheroes then there are villains' especially in a world where superpowers exist and technology is a lot more advanced than in watchmen where they were all normal people (with the exception of dr. manhattan). But by dumbing down the world in the show we are left with a flavorless setting that has no effect whatsoever on the plot (compared to the comics). Maybe some aspects like the Sparrow Academy will be included (I am kinda scared to think where they will go with it) but it won’t be Hotel Oblivion. In s1 I could point out where the comics had influenced the show, hell even in s2 you could see the comic's influence but... Hotel Oblivion? I don’t see any possibility of it getting to tv and that’s the truth

#the umbrella academy #hotel oblivion #ua comic #this sucks bc hotel oblivion was probably my favourite volume

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nullset2 · 4 years

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Mother 3 - An In-depth Critique and Review

Ah, Mother 3, how I love you so!

The game which with which I forwent all possible aspirations to healthily integate into normal High School society: imagine walking into a party, people are drinking and being cool, and you ask them if they have ever played a very underground, very deep RPG only released in Japan called "Mother".

Yeah! I know! It's like you're asking to be bullied, and I realized it too late.

But anyway!

Mother 3 is one of the most important games you could ever play --alas, if only it wasn't near impossible to obtain it.

Yet, perhaps this adds to its allure and to the power of its narrative --a narrative which, by the way, I'm convinced is the very actual reason why it will never release formally in the United States.

As time has passed, I've actually become more and more impressed about how relevant the game is to the socioeconomic reality that we are in nowadays. I'm impressed that Shigesato Itoi had all of this in his mind's eye as early as 1996, and that the story was already written down in 1999!

Right now it's been 14 years since it's release on the GBA, but I think that the game is a timeless classic and warrants a playthrough now more than ever. Wanna know why?

Wanna find out?

Part 1. "A Japanese Copywriter's Americana"

The year is 1989 and a Japanese Copywriter --somebody who writes "Catch Copies", which are a sort of a long-form slogan that is very common in Japanese pop culture to advertise)-- by the name of Shigesato Itoi became a fan of the Dragon Quest series of RPGs, which are massively popular in Japan, even to this day. He also loved video games: he's asthmatic, so he recalls only being able to sleep sitting up as a child, and having to occupy his lonely time through asthma attacks playing video games, since he had to sit up and had nothing else to do at night.

His love of RPGs would linger in his mind until 1989 when he had an opportunity to meet with Hiroshi Yamauchi and Shigeru Miyamoto and was offered the opportunity to develop a video game with Nintendo. Harkening back to the endless hours he poured into Dragon Quest, his concept eventually took form by deriving from it. He called the story "MOTHER", as a reference to John Lennon's "Mother", since he is a very hardcore fan of The Beatles. The games have tons of obvious influence by old American films and comics, like ET and Peanuts, which he also loved very much.

For MOTHER, he wanted to explicitly go against the grain, by designing an RPG without "Swords and Magic", which stereotypically most RPGs follow, even from things as minor as to design a protagonist who was weak and vulnerable, asthmatic and without a Father Figure, yet, still heroic through much toil --which reflects Ninten from the original MOTHER for the famicom.

Miyamoto, in his usual taskmaster persona, arranged a team to work with Itoi for the creation of the RPG, by bringing in people from HAL laboratory and APE Inc, and thus MOTHER was born to great Japanese Acclaim. A game which took many risks in its genre, such as eschewing the idea of a separate overworld from navigation in the towns, the subject matter, the movement system and many other things which made it quite Unique. It was so popular that soon after the first project was released, MOTHER 2 started development, involving people from what's currently known as Game Freak and HAL Labs.

MOTHER 2 is a very unique game because it was the very first time that the series attempted to make an incursion in the Americas. Releasing in a big flamboyant flashy box, with a strategy guide and a bunch of goodies included, MOTHER 2 released as Earthbound in the states, a bigger and better version of the vision of the first game. Better graphics, Beatles references, sampled audio, pop culture cornucopia, it's all here and then some!

Famous for its role in technically driving the game, Satoru Iwata, ex-CEO and software developer for Nintendo,7 of Wii acclaim, helped the game meet its 1996 release date. It is known that the original version of the game ran into deep technical issues which the original dev team was not able to overcome. Once Satoru Iwata got involved, the game was reworked to a viable version and released to much critical acclaim. In his own words, he proposed to rewrite the tech that powered the main game. It was a matter of either continuing with the current code and be done in two years, or redoing everything and being done in six months under his vision, he said.

No matter its strong promotion from Nintendo, the marketing got botched, and the game paled compared to the flashy and bombastic magical RPGs of its era, like Final Fantasy VI, Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger of all things. So, Earthbound faced a very bad destiny in the states, by releasing to low acclaim, bad review scores and terrible sales numbers --even though it eventually reached Cult Classic status, due to its pure hearted nature, its hallucinogenic themes and characters, and its fantastic spirit over all.

And this game is worthy of discussion by itself a whole bunch because of the ripple effects it had in video game culture in the Western world. Enter starmen dot net. To this date, the epicenter of discussion for everything related to the MOTHER series. There you had me as early as 2002, browsing a half-rendered version of starmen dot net in a dingy computer in some dingy internet cafe in some shitty neighborhood in Mexico, trying to be a part of the discussion and the hype.

To this date, I consider starmen dot net as the non-plus-ultra case for how passionate Internet fan cultures can become.

Flat out, no other fandom has ever came close to the level of dedication, attention to detail and passion to tribute the original creation around which its fans congregate. A massive amount of fan paraphernalia has come out of starmen dot net --yes, even Undertale, 2015 indie darling RPG thing, originally got started on the Starmen dot net forums. People married and even started large, commercially viable enterprises, such as Fangamer.net, the firm which publishes Undertale, from starmen dot net.

...and then... silence...

After Earthbound's 1995 release, we enter a ten year hiatus for the series.

Even though both MOTHER games were incredibly popular in Japan, HAL Laboratory and APE Inc. weren't able to successfully make a jump onto the third dimension for the series come the Nintendo 64 era. They had a demo come the infamous Spaceworld 96, where a bunch of pre-release games for the then called "Ultra 64", which was the codename for the Nintendo 64, were showcased. And lo and behold, we have a sequel to Mother coming out, called Mother 3, the ROM for which has never been found by the way.

I'd love to get a look at the materials in that ROM.

The scarce footage we have available from it exhibits some of the elements we ended up seeing in the final released version of the game, like some of the original music like the Mozart ghost theme, and the DCMC section, albeit in a more primitive low poly way. It is known that both studios weren't very proficient at 3d Game development yet, which was still nascent. This together with other factors, such as the fact that at some point development was moved onto the unreleased-in-America, unpopular 64DD addon, undisclosed factors dropped the game into development hell, which ultimately led to its cancellation in the year 2000.

Plenty of mystery surrounded the now defunct project, to the dismay of a bunch of passionate fans in Starmen.net and elsewhere online. However, it turned out that the valiant effort of the fans, who made a huge amount of effort to campaign for the revival of the series, even mailing fanmail, fanart and other materials to the Itoi Shinbun offices in Japan (a titanical task in the world of the early 2000s).

Fast forward to 2003, and the Game Boy Advance, the little portable console that could, was in its Apex. Due to Satoru Iwata's campaining, it was announced that development on MOTHER 3 would be restarted, this time in 2D, for the gameboy advance. Much anticipation in Starmen.net followed this announcement, since it finally validated its efforts...

Come 2006, once the console was well into its end-of-life, with small nudges to play the game on a Gameboy player if possible, perhaps to try to follow suit with its predecessors, the sequel finally released to much acclaim. But what did Shigesato Itoi have in store for everyone all along? What kind of beast had just been unleashed onto the World?

Part 2. "Of Monkeys and Men"

Mother 3 follows the story of a young boy, Lucas, in a multi-chapter structure, which is novel for the series but not unheard of in the RPG genre. Besides this, the RPG plays very similar to your usual JRPG fare, and basically uses the Ultimately polished version of the MOTHER series' mechanics, groovy backgrounds and all.

The first three chapters of the game follow the perspective of different characters residing in Tazmilly Village as the plot of the game unfolds. The plot is centered around the residents of a peaceful town in an Island in an unspecified location, Nowhere Islands, which in my opinion is an allegory both of Japan and America, moreover with the fact that the game of the logo very clearly has a rising sun covered in metal, in a logo that's an amalgam of two different things which don't match, a subtle reference to the game's undertones to come.

From these residents we come to know the daily lives of a particular family: Flint, a farmer; Hinawa, his wife (a name in reference to Sunflowers, Himawari, her favorite flower), and their twin children, Lucas and Claus.

The game begins in the midst of their idyllic life in the mountains visiting Lucas' grandfather Alec, and playing around with meek dinosaurs which inhabit Nowhere Islands. See, in the world of Mother 3, no violence truly exists, and people have come to live peacefully with each other and nature. There's no such thing as the concept of money, Instead relying on an economy that's mostly based around bartering and hospitality.

However, everyone's lives veer into turmoil once strange alien beings invade, the Pigmask army, an army of big, fat and slovenly creatures dressed in pig-like attire, who seem to have a vast amount of technology and resources at their disposal yet aim for Nowhere Islands for colonization.

The Pigmasks have an as-of-yet unnamed leader, who is demanding them to make everything in the World "bigger, cooler, stronger and faster", and thus they seize Nowhere Islands by force of bombings and a forest fire to use its flora and fauna. And thus, while escaping from the forest fires returning from Alec's home, Hinawa tragically gets killed by a Drago which has been modified to be aggressive against its nature through robotics implanted in it by the Pigmask army.

There's an unused cutscene in the game's ROM data where Hinawa, instead, dies by bomb explosion...

...yeah, I'm just... gonna let you process that one by yourself ;)

The Drago left a fang in the middle of her heart, which is recovered by one of the Tazmillians and provided back to Flint along with a fragment of her crimson dress. Besmirched and angry, Claus, the festier one of the twin children, sets out to try to hunt the drago and achieve revenge, but he goes missing... Flint embarks in search of Claus and to kill the drago, and thus the first chapter of the game concludes, with the implication that Claus has gone missing...

With Lucas' family torn to shreds and The Pigmasks invading Tazmilly, it seems that we're in a situation ripe for disaster.

Chapter 2 follows Duster's adventure, which runs in parallel (as every other chapter will) to other chapters' stories. Duster is the last heir in a bloodline of Cat Burglars whose abilities are not in use anymore given that Tazmilly has no more commerce or crime. However it turns out that the Pigmask invasion puts his skills back in demand to infiltrate Oshoe Castle and retrieve an artifact which the Pigmasks are after and which Duster's family is the guardian of. The nature of the artifact in Oshoe Castle is as of yet unknown, however it is implied that it is important to the fabric of Tazmilly village.

At Castle Oshoe, Duster meets a mysterious princess, Kuma-tora (which translates literally to "beartiger", in allusion to the dichotomy of her existence, since she is very... masculine in attitude and refers to herself with, yes, male pronouns, perhaps anticipating identity politics by 14 years at least), who is also after the artifact in the Castle, the Hummingbird egg. The chapter ends with the Hummingbird Egg going missing, and a mysterious peddler of goods arriving into town, while Kumatora and Duster's father realize he has gone missing...

Chapter 3 follows the adventure of a little Monkey, Salsa, which gets flown into Nowhere Islands to perform a job. This is a novelty in a town where the concept of a job doesn't exist as of yet, however, the peddler of goods is going to need a lot of hands if he wants to fullfill his vision. The peddler, Fassad (which is a tongue in cheek way to say "facade", right?) promises to all residents in Nowhere Island eternal happiness if they buy his newest product, the "Happy Box", a television-like contraption which glows with a warm light and which people are attracted to and engrossed by. For this, he introduces the concept of money and swindles people his way, convincing them that this is the way to go and promising them excitement and benefit if they listen to him.

Salsa delivers Happy boxes throughout the whole chapter, and gets shocked, even in the middle of the night, if something goes wrong with his job or tries to escape due to a shock collar implanted by Fassad. However, he runs into Kumatora and Wess, Duster's father, and they ploy together to free up Salsa and mess up Fassad's forceful takeover of Oshoe Castle, when Lucas shows up with several dragos in tow and fights against the Tank invasion of Oshoe Castle.

(A foreign animal being introduced into a new society with the express intent of exploiting it to propel forward a commercial enterprise by toil... geez, I dunno, where have I heard that one?)

From Chapter 4 Onwards the game adopts a more conventional JRPG scheme, through a timeskip which happens literally two years in the future. In this future version of Tazmilly, money (Dragon Points) and ATMs are now existent, similar to other Mother games. The game follows Lucas' adventure through a now-modernized and industrialized technologically advanced Tazmilly, trying to retrieve the "seven needles" from the island, which are soon enough shown to be a source of great power that the pigmask army is also after and to which Lucas must try to get to first due to a calling by mysterious beings which inhabit Nowhere Islands, the Magypsies. With a lot of emotional moments, such as Lucas having visions of his Mother in the middle of a field of Sunflowers, we follow the adventures of the party as they infiltrate the pigmask ranks and gather information about its nature and intentions.

It is then discovered that the pigmasks are commanded by a Masked leader, who dominates the power of thunder through a tower which was built in the middle of the town and which strikes anybody down with thunder if they overstep the Law and Order that the pigmasks have implemented. The party fights this masked leader in bouts while exploring the world and reuniting with a now missing Kumatora and Duster, who are found to have settled as employees in a Nightclub called "Club Titiboo".

Eventually, through his travels, Lucas gains an artifact from Mr. Saturn, the inhabitants of a special region in Nowhere called Saturn Valley and which has been passed down through all three Mother games, called the "Franklin Badge". When equipped, this item allows the bearer to become immune to lighting attacks and reflecting them back.

The party soon discovers that the world is inhabited by an special elder race, existant from before the creation of Tazmilly village and who know more about everything going on with the invasion, called the "Magypsies", a race of transexual, magical creatures who help Lucas discover the fact that he has Psychic abilities, also known as "PSI" within the MOTHER canon. He uses these to proceed further in his adventure to pull the seven Golden Needles, the first of which Fassad was attempting to get to, in the Courtyard of Oshoe Castle.

Lucas moves into a city called "New Pork City" in the conclusion of the game, which is a town built by the pigmasks completely in the honor of Porky, full of all sorts of Pigmask paraphernalia and amusement. It is found that the seventh and final needle is inside humongous tower in the middle of the city, the Porky tower.

Moreover, it is also revealed that the Pigmask army is led by Porky, known as "Pokey" in the American localization of Mother 2, Earthbound. Pokey is shown to have developed into a tyrant as an adult, with unlimited lust for blood and power, who used Doctor Andonuts' Phase Distorter after the events of Earthbound to mess around with the unlimited realities and dimensions it gave him access too, as a petulant child does with a video game. Once he got kicked out of every other possible reality due to the chaos he created, he found the Nowhere islands and decided to mess with it.

The climax of the game comes around Chapter 7, when the now fully-developed party runs into Leder, one of the original Tazmillian villagers, a lanky and really tall person who never spoke, not a single word, in the game until now. Leder is revealed to be the only person who knows what is the true nature of it all: tazmilly village is the remanider of civilization once the world of Mother 2 collapsed by cataclysm. A flood wiped away everything and the very last remainder of people who survived fled to nowhere islands in a big white ship and settled there, willingly forfeiting all technological advances and knowledge of the world into the Hummingbird egg, the artifact that Duster's family protected in Oshoe, a device which wiped everyone's memories, with the intent of undoing civilization and living back in a peaceful village-like state again.

It is revealed that when all seven needles are pulled, a supernatural power on which the island is built will be awakened. This supernatural power is revealed to be a Dragon by Leder, who had to be subdued by the ancestors of the Magypsies so people could live in Nowhere islands as their last resort. Whoever pulls out the needles which keep it in slumber will pass the intentions and nature of their heart onto the dragon. Thus, Lucas must be the one who pulls out the last needle instead of Porky or the masked man, in hopes that a second cataclysm like the first doesn't happen again.

After making their way through all the pigmask defenses, Lucas and Co. face off with Porky, who is now a bedridden, pathetic man. Doctor Andonuts from Mother 2, appears here, and is revealed to have developed a solution to contain Porky, the Absolutely Safe Capsule, which is a capsule which once it's sealed, it can never be opened again, trapping whoever is inside forever in a parallel universe where only them exist. The party is successful in locking Porky in the absolutely safe capsule, so, porky is not hurt by the end of mother 3, instead, he just has been locked away forever in a place far away from everyone else --perhaps, providing the ultimate form of comfort that a personality like his would seek after.

At the end of the game, Lucas and Co. face against the masked man, who is revealed to have been Claus all along, who, brainwashed with Pigmask ideologies, is hellbent on drawing out the final needle to awaken the dragon. Lucas and Claus face off in an emotive fight, where they suddenly remember each other and how friendly they used to be with each other... and moreover, their Mother. Claus strikes Lucas with thunder in a final murderous attempt before snapping out of the Pigmask brainwashing. But since he had the Franklin badge on, the attack is reflected and mortally strikes Claus, who, in his final moments, finally remembers Lucas...

The ending of the game is open ended, without showing much of what happened once the seventh dragon needle was released, so the ending of the game is subject to interpretation. However, it is heavily implied that, since Lucas was the one who released the needle, the dragon, once awakened, did not destroy Nowhere islands and instead led to a regeneration of existence.

Part 3. "A Musical-Adventure"

One of the pre-release materials for the game called it a "Musical" adventure, and I think this is completely warranted: the musical beautifulness of Hip Tanaka, famed Nintendo composer and long-time MOTHER music autheur, is joined by the expertise of Shogo Sakai, who gave the soundtrack a more mature, sample-based vibe, compared to the early two more "chiptuney" soundtracks in the series. The songs are all-time favorites of mine, and I still the soundtrack every so often given all of its mystique, its eclectiness and curiosness.

But the musical aspect to the game doesn't stop here: as an addition to the mother series, the battle system has now been changed to become rhythm-game based instead of simply turn based. If the player attacks an enemy during a battle, it is possible to strike additional damage as long as the player continues to press the attack button in rhythm to the background music in upwards of 16 hits. A full combo is incredibly effective and plays a nice fanfare if executed correctly.

As an enthusiast of rhythm games, this premise captivated me from the get-go and it works wonders, functioning as a breath of fresh air to the way overplayed mechanic of turn-based combat, which has existed since the 80s. It also provides a certain nice feeling to combat, given how every character has their personal musical instrument, with lucas being a guitar, Kumatora being an electric guitar, Duster being a bass, and Boney, Lucas' pet, being... barks.

Besides this the mechanics from Mother 2 are translated almost completely: every character has a rolling HP and PP counter, which rolls down over time as an airport display instead of immediately as in other RPGs. This may seem minor, but it adds an amazing element of strategy to the game, since it is possible to recover an ally from mortal damage if a healing PSI is executed against the clock before the counter hits 0.

Besides this you got almost completely conventional standard JRPG fare, with the character being able to move in eight directions in the overworld, with the addition of a run button, preemptive attacks and overpowered kills. Once you start facing enemies in the overworld, the first one to attack can be decided depending on the angle that the enemy was approached with: sneak up on an enemy from behind and a green swirl will display, which means that you get to attack first; if an enemy sneaks behind you, you'll see a red swirl and they will attack first instead. Otherwise, a gray swirl will display, which follows conventional order according to your stats.

Part 4. "WE WANT MOTHER 3, REGGIE!"

...Mother 3 will never be released in America.

This may be too dramatic of an opinion to have but I see no other alternative. For the most of fourteen years, Nintendo of America's head honcho Reggie Fils-Aime was requested to release and distribute the game in the americas, and for twenty years the request fell on deaf ears, citing commercial inviability, potential copyright infringment and many other reasons.

But I think the main reason that the game will never be localized is because Mother 3 was a passion project, pushed for by people with personal involvement in the series and very special sensitivities about it. Shigesato Itoi and Iwata were personal friends. The game appeals to japanese tastes and touches on issues and subjects that the American population is very politically sensitive to.

For example, in chapter 6 Lucas and the party experience a bad trip because they eat hallucinogenic mushrooms in a swamp. This leads to Lucas having visions of his family in a very bad light, with implications of violence and abuse, to try to get at the players' deepest sensitivities. Even the name of the real player is used here.

I think that it's impossible that nintendo will release a game which openly involves Hallucinogenics no matter its innocent exterior. This is the kind of subject in media that Japanese audiences usually handle better than American audiences.

Besides this, the game has very clear allusions to accelerated capitalism, anti-capitalism, colonization, slavery, transexuality and the changes and chaos they have brought onto the world, which is a tough subject to tackle in the Americas, which is still part of an ongoing, vicious culture war.

Particularly, I adore how the game even tries to convey its points through the Sound Test, of all places. Mother 3 has a collection of music pieces, which are available on demand within the game itself. Of those, there's a music piece which is a remix of Pollyanna, the Mother 1 theme, which is present throughout the series, in an nod to the previous games in the series. The hallway where this plays is full with mother references and it expects the player to sit down and watch passively all the references in order.

But this is meta, amazingly enough. The hallway is located in the final section of the game, before facing Porky, who is presented as the effigy of vicious capitalism in the game. As if he left them in his palace just as collectibles, things to be purchased or acquired.

The name of the song which plays during this sequence? "His Majesty's Memories". Subtle.

Nintendo is a company which tries to keep its image clean and sterile, so it can be used broadly for a variety of projects, usually with family friendly intent behind --and even more so in the US.

However, Nintendo has a history of risky bets with Mature content, which has become even more glaring lately: you got Eternal Darkness, Astral Chain, Bayonetta, No More Heroes, the disappointing Metroid Other M... this together with the fact that most of their target audience is of age now, could, at least remotely, mean that, perhaps, Mother 3 releasing in some manner in the future, localized in English, could happen: however, this is not happening at least the way I see it.

Once the game was released, there were several different campaigns online to try to gather Nintendo's attention: a 10k signature strong petition was completed among several other things, and if this hasn't lead to results... I don't know what will.

Part 5. "No Crying Until the End"

Mother 3 is a beautiful, engrossing and captivating game which is hidden away under a cutesy exterior. Its complex themes and characters are evoking of deep human truths which call out to us and ask us to reflect on things and the way we're living. Of strong pedigree in its series and with a superb musical production behind it and a mastermind of writing, MOTHER 3 excels at what it sets out to do.

When the game released, the game had a "Catch Copy" written for it by itoi himself, which called the game "Strange, Funny and Heartrending", and I think this is a beautiful way to bring everything full circle. Itoi wrote on the Advertisement that if you wanted to cry because of Mother 3, you should save it until the end. And those three words are a fantastic way to close off this review: if you want a game that will provide you with bizarre and laugh out loud moments one second and tear-jerkers the next, Mother 3 is the game for you.

And the game is just so poignant... to this date not only do I think it's one of the most expressive and well done pixel-art based game, I still find myself impresse at how much I can connect with the characters through small, cutesy sprites and pastel color pallettes, lack of Unreal engine and RTX graphics card be damned. Themes of grief, missing a loved one who's gone, the feeling of loss of identity due to accelerating social and economical change, how tyrannical political figures establish themselves and change communities, sexual and identity politics and how the modern world was to have shaky and voraginous sexual identities become commonplace... it's all there, and masterfully, tastefully expressed, without that icky feeling of "agenda"ism that you can get sometimes from Hollywood productions when they try to hamfist tropes and "messages" down people's throats. You know that feeling? I hate it when it happens in movies or shows I'm watching just to have a good time, and then I get some succint propaganda.

But MOTHER 3 is a kind beast, trying to reach to your heart and directly speak to the mind of the player. It tries to show us what it thinks of modernity and to make us seriously ponder what the frick is up with all of this shit, and thinking it has kept me for the last 14 years, and I anticipate another 20 ahead of me. And you can join me in reflecting about this...

Or maybe you can just go back to your happy box. Whichever way you choose.

#works #review #mother 3 #gba #game review #shigesato itoi

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plush-anon · 3 years

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Would you ever write... a Scooby Doo and Phantom of the Opera crossover?

Ooooo, that would be a tough one to do. I would LOVE to say yes... but I honestly don’t know what I would really write, if that makes sense.

(now allow me to vibrate intensely in place and hyperfixate over two of my earliest and most influential fandoms for about a thousand words please and thank you)

As much as I love these two fandoms (and I REALLY do. POTO 2004 helped pull me out of a REALLY ugly spiral in middle school - I dare say my worst - and Scooby Doo was THE fandom I first wrote/posted fanfiction for), meshing them would be... difficult.

Some Scooby properties have already played with Phantom some - Stage Fright actually did okay on their Phantom monster figure, esp in that he was a spirit focused on ego and NOT obsessing over Daphne (like they’ve done in other films - thanks Music of the Vampire TT_TT) - though considering every OTHER misstep made in that movie, it’s a damn miracle they even got THAT right. And Be Cool Scooby Doo had an episode with a Ghostly Prima Donna that hits a lot of the same points - amazing opera singer who wreaked havoc on a theatre when scorned by the owners.

(And if you wanna get into the actor side of it, Lego Scooby Doo: Haunted Hollywood’s plot focused on the ghost of a Boris Karloff/Lon Chaney Sr mashup haunting the studio with his horror characters, with the unmasking being the Mashup Actor JUNIOR wanting to carry on his dad’s legacy, a la Lon Chaney Jr. Again, not a great movie, but the mystery/monster element was handled alright)

The meshing of the two doesn’t really inspire much plot to it that hasn’t already been done to pieces. If it’s just a traditional Scooby mystery at a music competition the Phantom is trying to control/ruin, well - just see the above examples. Regardless of the rest of the movie/episode’s flaws, WB actually did okay with the Phantom-esque elements. If it’s a modern POTO retelling with Mystery Inc trying to stop the Phantom, then, well. It’s basically rehashing Sherlock Holmes and the Phantom of the Opera adaptations all over again (of which there’s at least five and a comic miniseries - no joke, those actually exist), but with wacky hijinks and a talking dog. Not much new or interesting there, IMHO.

It would be VERY tired, low hanging fruit to have Daphne get kidnapped as the Christine replacement, and Velma’s family history is firmly established in Germany from Frankencreepy (and while that movie has... many problems, Velma’s family backstory is actually pretty damn good on its own, barring some minor quibbles over details mentioned).

I guess you could do Fred as like... the descendant of Raoul and Christine? Christine was OG Swedish in Leroux, and Fred’s family is primarily blonde and blue-eyed by WNSD standards (I refuse SDMI on principle). There could be something about Fred being targeted by Erik for conflicting reasons, his spirit sent into extreme emotional flux with what was Raoul and Christine’s great-great something grandson, while another mystery goes on framing Erik for something else... There could be something there, but I wouldn’t be the one to do it; main reason being, I am NOT great at writing Fred.

For me, Fred is a difficult character to write, period; I have a better time of it with the live action Scooby movies Fred because I can play around with the flaws (read: bashing in the first movie) more. Fred in general is a tough character to write bc he’s played as the straight man, the generic leader (tho I forever mourn my lost draft of my post-SCOOB AU mashup with Orpheus in Eurydice - I actually had him there! *cries*).

More recent stuff plays around with him being an engineer - BCSD played him up as a neurodivergent mechanic, and I love that one to pieces - or a charming enough if frustrating at times himbo (WNSD), or in some cases an obnoxiously jealous dumbass who doesn’t know how to use buttons or listen to basic fcuking instructions (Moon Monster Madness, Music of the Vampire, also WNSD) or occasionally the dude SO obsessed with the Mystery Machine he may actually want to fcuk it (Frankencreepy, Happy Halloween SD!).

On the whole though, he’s not one ever really associated with music except when forced unrealistically (see again, Stage Fright for the sake of Fraphne baiting that they NEVER fcuking act on in these movies, to the point it’s legitimately frustrating and cheap to pull - Stage Fright esp so, bc Fred and Daphne spend the ENTIRE goddamn movie talking about having feelings for each other, KISS ON STAGE, and WHAT do they do?!? WHAT DO THEY DO?!??!?! THEY QUESTION THE KISS AND REVERT BACK TO STATUS QUO GODDAMNIT IT I’M JUST WHY) or when the gang is suddenly a band (WNSD, Legend of the Vampire, a background shot with him playing guitar in Witch’s Ghost, BCSD Screama Donna) or both (honestly all of the above, though BCSD played it for laughs best with Fred on the drums).

The closest we EVER got to Fred being interested in singing/music was an old ‘Behind the Characters’ short Hanna Barbera made for Cartoon Network, where Fred admitted he used to be in theatre and loved singing tunes from Showboat.

So him being the tie to Erik feels like a dead end to me. Not impossible, but still just... yeah, not a clean fit in my mind.

As for Shaggy and Scooby... they have enough problems to deal with without adding Erik on top of everything else. ‘Nuff said.

So yeah, unfortunately I have to say no on this one. There’s nothing I feel like I could do in them that wasn’t already tired (as opposed to the ROTG/POTO mashups I thought up forever ago), but hey, that could just be me.

#scooby doo #poto #ask box meme #crossovers #mashups #ksclaw

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stry-someone-to-remember-you · 3 years

Text

Plan(ed) to Have Something Ready, By The Ball Drop &/or Tomorrow!!! If Everything Works out...

Hey Everyone,

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE!!!

Wow, this is the second message without any art added or anything... LOL... Seems odd really to do this without having something up by now... By the way, yes the current avatar pic is related to the comic as you’ll come see soon. It’s and early sketch so some kinks aren’t worked out in the current image. But it was the one I was ready to have when I made this blog so there was at least something...

So as you probably can see by this title, I do plan on having something posted... I just don’t know to what extent. Due to some family drama, and continually piling on work I wasn’t able to get my Christmas Pic out to you guys, which was just a static scene with a few of the characters to get us started here. But... well family got in the way, continually decorating till Christmas day... a lot of things going on, bickering (though we all love each other) it’s just... you know life. I fully expected this as well, which is why I promised something before New Years, but didn’t specify as to what.

I postponed that idea to be released today or tomorrow, after seeing how I was completely unable to get to the work by Christmas Eve. But, by the looks of the progress I made on it and my families continually need of me till we get some things done in this house (that always has something to be done in it... LOL, at least things are coming fairly together). So lets just say, I may not have anything out by tomorrow. But with hopes I want to have something out. So We’ll see. I could release early the character sketches. But I want to keep this blog clean as possible, so I feel releasing the character profiles, cards and blogs together prior to the Prologue, would fit better and keep this page having a cleaner look to it at the start.

Maybe even by midnight tomorrow PST I could have something... But that again depends. I need to clean stuff for the internet/cable guy and I’m seriously allergic to dust... So the next few days I may be in an almost sickly comatose state regardless of the precautions I take. If dust gets kicked into the air at all and isn’t properly vacuumed up, than I’m often sick for days... I feel like all I’ve been doing the whole month is cleaning or working story wise on this comic... Mostly cleaning if you ask me, but at least after Saturday things should be more relaxed and I can have a better work schedule planned out. So yeah, that’s my life...

But DIDNT’ WAN TO LEAVE YOU HANGING with this Negative Nancy Talk ;D ;P ;D lol....

I want to tell you what I have so far:

I have the Christmas Image at least with the basic building blocks to complete it. Like I’ve drawn where I want things, but not detailed anything... So that’s why it may be a day or so... Technically its a Happy Holidays and New Years piece, but with the Christmas Tree in it I have the habit of calling it such...

I may have plans to detail it a bit more then I plan on having the comic, but that also depends on things. I may just leave it in the same style and not fully decked out to make it easier to finish...

~Several Characters for the beginning have their final forms created. These are major characters that will be scene in the prologue. I’m just having to figure out out little things with background characters in some instances.

~The prologue is almost completely written out. I had a change of heart a week ago on some things and had to change it around, which is why the written format for the prologue isn’t complete as it initially was. I just felt some things didn’t fit, so I added and took away some things so it flows better and also works both fanfiction wise for the story, but easily mixes for the Ask AU... I also have at least the beginning portion of the Intro script written, the parts unaffected by the changes. However, parts of the intro will be written out, depending on the questions you ask the characters in this prologue so these portions I’m leaving open on purpose. It’s the plot driven portions I’m mentioning that I’ve changed slightly. ;) I have fun plans for the prologue. Remember this story has a clear direction I’m taking it with plot. But the Ask portion will be a part of it, I have such a fun way of Ask’s being tied into the plot driven story, and it will change depending on the context, person and setting which makes this really fun to plan out.

-With that said, here’s an early heads up, that for Ask Questions, I will allow any sort of asks, but if it has potential to spoil a part of the story, then I won’t answer it. Alongside this, I’ll allow Anon magic to a small degree. I won’t include Asks that like spoil something for a character, or tell the character where someone is, give away what someone else is doing to another character, etc... Unless it may fit the context, but generally I won’t use these types of asks. I will allow Anons to appear occasionally rather then just be unseen voices, as I have fun ways of incorporating Anons into the story that also works with different points in the plot. I will accept things like... say a dog or cat to appear for ex. amount of asks. I already know who they’ll be and have been planning out their designs, but I may draw the line at other animals (e.g. horses, fish, racoons, squirrels, lizards, etc.) Although, I do really love rabbits, I chose to make it concise to just two animals that if asked could appear. It’s not because I can’t draw them but I don’t want things getting out of hand. Types of anon magic I’m not going to use if put in the Ask portion, are things like giving people certain powers or items that may completely effect the tone or plot of the story, accept maybe if I did a non-canon AU to this au for fun one day. I will go more in depth in the general rules later. In no way is this to discourage anyone from asking such things. I may set reminders at times if I get to much of something. But, in general I’ll do what I can to make this a fun Ask blog all the same.

~The Larger Summary, I promised like a trailer would be in the comic form I have rendered the Script for, and have two slides so far drawn out, just not completed. (for the time I didn’t have around the Holidays compared to normally I actually surprised myself with this)

~The story itself is really coming together, I already have a starting and stopping point (which I had prior to this blog) as it will have several Acts and Arcs, some which have greatly changed and take on new depth since the point I started this blog. The themes and story in general are drawn out pretty well. I don’t have all the chapters I’d want fully written. As I have my plan, but I also want to get the prologue in first, just to see if there’s anything I should change with my concept. It’s just a precaution, something I’ve learned well when taking on something new. So I don’t have things that are written in stone and hard to change if the form I’m hoping to take doesn’t work out and needs to be retooled or something. But these are minor and shouldn’t change the overall scope and plot I’m taking this story on either.

~I’ve created several of the character bios, many in fact are already written in true Henry Stickmin fashion. But as I took inspiration to make this into a AU as well, I will possibly make both the bio cards and show a static shot of the characters alongside it or something... It’s an idea, but I want this to also be the easier comic. But, considering that I’ll always have a static shot I use as reference for any character I make, this is what makes this more realistic to occur as well. ~I’ve nearly drawn out all the characters for the intro portion. And already know how I’ll handle Anon’s in the story. In the Prologue itself, I’ll actually have you Anon’s being referenced as audience members in a conference of sorts. Think of it like those conferences when a new Apple or Microsoft product is first advertised as something new to the news conference, those big rotunda’s where someone's being interviewed and presenting the hot new item. Think of the opening to the prologue being something like this scenario. So the questions directed at the character in there, who... *cough* I will introduce later after I fully render both their character profile and have their character bio(s) fully done. Which considering how fun and easy it’s been to do this so far shouldn’t be to long now... Although to keep from getting questions to soon on them, I may hold off on posting the Characters and Bio’s till I have that Intro/Trailer completed... I’m still considering which to do first actually. But top on my list out of all of these is having my cover art for the top completed. That’s something I admit though I have the layout I have hardly started on and should focus on first.

~I’m also taking close looks at how to properly make the rules for this group. When I posts either the Character Bios, Holiday Pic, OR the Trailer Comic... Maye even just the cover art... Then I will try to have out an official Rules list. The one I have on the group posts is just general stuff... But I’m reconsidering some rules I already wrote... Basically keep things family friendly, be kind an courteous, nothing vulgar or disturbing.

I may change this from a PG-13 comic to maybe PG-15. I’ve realized recently, there are some points that some characters do swear... sometimes more then once. I’m not someone who talks with vulgarity myself, but I sure can write characters with it.... Let’s just say I’m going to see if in those scenes I might just bleep out words and see if the dialogue still comes through. But, I dunno... LUCKILY, we don’t have to worry about many of those scenes till way further into this comic. So lucky for either of us, this isn’t a major concern at the moment. And on the plus side it’s not the crudest words I could have chosen so... it may still work as a PG-13 work... I’ll make this decision soon as possible.

Another reason for the sudden change, came as I realized as the story goes, and even in early chapters there will be scenes where blood is shown and physical mortal danger and peril is experienced by the characters. I do have heavy theming sometimes, later on it may seem constantly about. As this story is heavily Drama/Mystery and some suspense based. As the story progresses it will become less Drama/Mystery and more based around the drama/suspense itself. This will obviously be some more intense scenes that showing less blood would allow me to make PG-13, however I also don’t want to undercut the certain tones using representations of a mortal wound would bring. I also want to look at things like these future scenes realistically. Which is why I’m mostly considering changing this story to a PG-15 or at least more certain I am. I just don’t want people shocked that I’m doing this. I don’t feel this story will be R, there was a time where I heavily considered it. But for once I decided no, I didn’t want that. I just didn’t want to open the door for scenes I didn’t intend to have in this story. There will be heavy themes that my have TW for some people. But I didn’t want some TW’s that having a R rated story could potentially have. I mean certain themes people are free to write fanfictions for, and depending on the content can make art for. But again this will be family friendly group... As You can see I’m considering more then a little here when it comes to the official rules. These details will be followed up on the official rules post.

~~~~~~

Now I apologize for the length.

The structure of this and the previous Authors Notes will probably fall under their own category for length. I’ll work to make sure posts in the future won’t be so long and hard to read. It is early morning for me when I woke to write this, and I found once much of the day passed that I still wanted to include the stuff I did into this update.

I have more to tell you, but I think this post has spurned the energy in me out. Anything that I missed in this post, I’ll try to remember to update in the next post (hopefully after I get some art on here). What I can’t do at the moment is promise dates right now till I’m more certain of schedule to work on this or can promise that my general allergies won’t cause me to delay this at all. But I can confirm that I should have several things coming out this next month, including the comic Prologue I hope. Depending on the traction the comic and fanfic gets, I may try to work on it quickly, or take my time with it. I may do a mix of both as my perfectionist self won’t let me just shoot something out without giving it my all first. I’m shushing that side slightly so this comic will be easier on me then the more detailed one I have planned. All the same, I’m planning to work on this one more at the moment till I can get an idea of my work flow. Sometimes the easiest route of work is better for planning, rather then diving head first into the deep end right away. You don’t learn to swim by jumping head first into the ocean. Piece of advice that it took years for me to learn myself ;). Anyways, I figured since I did promise something hopefully by today or tomorrow, I’d give you a formal update... Also... Well I can’t promise that updates won’t be like this in the future. I’ll try to keep them concise. But as people who know me, well have learned when it comes to personally talking I tend to write or talk out epistle. So... When I give updates, I may have lengthy ones... I’ll try my best to keep this side of me out of updates, if I can help it. Anyways Happy New Years Everyone!!! I hope everyone's Christmas and Holidays were extra special, despite the state of the world!!!

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE AND DAY!!! Sincerely, <3 (Mod) Sweet Heart Blaze

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xxx-cat-xxx · 4 years

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absolute top favourite tony h/c fic recs?

Thank you for the ask and sorry for taking so long to answer! I have a recommendation section here on my blog, but I extended it a bit and posted it below:

Cat’s Tony hurt/comfort fic recs

Long works

If you’re up for a dark, violent, and incredibly touching and well written novel in which Tony and Peter are broken and put back together countless times, go for How to repair a broken heart by InfluentialPineapple. In my opinion, it’s one of the best pieces of literature ever written anywhere, even outside of the fanfic-realm. It describes a journey on which Tony and Peter slowly grow together, and although it´s terribly sad and extremely whumpy, you can see the love the author has for their characters in every single line. Injury, illness, violence, torture, anxiety, PTSD, this one´s got everything, so please heed the TWs.

Dark Memories by @trammelsb: This story is centered around child (sexual) abuse. But it is so much more than Tony suffering through flashbacks and panic attacks (although there is a great deal of that) and being comforted by his team members, especially Bruce, his partner. It is about Tony going through a great deal of character development, learning that he is not to blame for what has happened. The author doesn´t shy away from all the heavy topics, but she also never ceases to treat the characters with respect, In the end, it seems to be a story about not giving up, and despite all the pain it causes when you read it, the feeling that stays is that it´s worth to keep fighting.

Arc Tremors by @rose-on-the-mountain: 44 epic chapters of Whump and the kind of fluff that is not fluffy at all, rather makes your heart overflow with emotions. It´s Avenger-family centric, including Pepper and Rhodey and wonderful robot characters, themed around an illness that forces Tony to go through a difficult heart procedure. Everyone’s shadows and traumas get their due, and it balances darkness and light admirably well.

One Hell of a Show by MillyVeil: Clint and Tony get kidnapped and tortured. Heavily. This is one of the physically most brutal whump-fics I know - Milly is like the Tarantino of fan-fiction - but god, it´s well done. TWs for detailed descriptions of rape and violence.

Resistance by thegraytigress: Tony and Steve are captured by the Kree and held in a concentration camp-like environment for months. This is a slow-built, well thought-through love story with a lot of pain and a deep exploration of Tony´s and Steve´s characters as well as their emerging relationship. It has one of the best and most realistic aftermaths to traumatic experiences that I´ve ever read. It’s basically a book worth of heavy, heavy, heavy physical and emotional whump. Please mind the TWs.

She’s my Ride Home by OfMonstersAndMe: The most beautiful recount of how Nebula’s and Tony’s friendship develops in the 23 days they spent in space. Lots of great hurt/comfort scenes and spot-on characterisation.

450 Feet Under by Veldeia: Tony is trapped in a cave with no way out. The Avengers are on the way to get him, but when he gets seriously injured, the rescue mission becomes a race against time. 15 chapters of absolutely satisfying whump, snark, and feels. Background Stony. Simply brilliant!

Short(er) Works

Basically all Tony fics by @builder051. I especially like this Pepperony Christmas fic and this Nat & Tony cave anxiety fic.

Strong Enough by Ranni: Steve, Tony, and Clint are held prisoner, but the real danger begins when their captors abandon the prison to let them die in their cells. Injuries, torture, pneunomia, great dialogues. Platonic relationships between the three men, really touching, but not cheesy. Ranni is one of my favourite writers, and all her other stories are equally intruiging. Monsters and Beloved Companion also have a lot of Tony Whump.

Five Times Bruce is Not That Kind of Doctor™ + One Time He’s Perfect For the Job by @whumphoarder and @awesomesockes. The most amazing mix of humour and whump you’ll ever find. I love all their fics, so some more of my Tony Whump faves are The After Party and Desperate Times.

@taylortut writes beautiful and touching fics in which Tony gets whumped around other Avengers. Mostly h/c with illness or injury (and some adorable daily-life drabbles).The stories are generally light-hearted, but not at all superficial. I still can´t decide which one is my favorite because I love all of them, so I´m putting up the general link to Taylor´s Blog. Find her here on A03.

The Minor Fall, the Major Lift by sahiya: This one is about Bruce coming back to the compound after Civil War, trying to pick up Tony´s broken pieces. It has the best characterization of Tony, Bruce and Rhodes I´ve seen in a while now. Everything about this fic seems fragile, the characters, the conversations, the shaky comfort they manage to build. It´s slow-paced, and it´s not a fix-it-all, and this is what makes it so good. Sahiya is one of the best writers out there and her series “Me through Him to You” is printworthy.

Bruce and Goose´s Truce by @twentyghosts: After Infinity War, Tony is saved from space. Bruce medically examines him while being heavily flirted at, then they bathe together, and Tony cries, and Bruce holds him tight. Everyone is more than a little broken, but it´s okay, because they have each other back. More Tony Whump in Cold, Comfort and Unmasked.

nimentia by TinyFuryCloud: Tony and Steve have been married for more than 20 years when Tony is diagnosed with Alzheimer´s disease. This story is so terribly well done. The whole process of Tony slowly disintegrating, slowly getting lost, but somehow, somewhere, still being Tony, is recounted in precise detail with just the right mixture of matter-of-fact descriptions and emotions. Also, A+ characterisation of everyone who is and was part of Tony´s life, including Peter and Jarvis.

Hubris by @writingromanoff: Tony gets kidnapped and tortured by Justin Hammer. Tortured, as in forced to walk for days and days in the desert without a drop of water, and that´s just the beginning. When Steve finally shows up, Tony doesn´t even know whether he´s real anymore. I still can´t decide whether the whump or the whump´s aftermath is better in this one, both are very well described. Heed the TWs (torture and humiliation, obviously, as well as ED behaviour and others). By the same author: somno, the best concussion fic in the universe, and Blue Lips, Blue Veins, which is on some other level of genius alltogether.

Just a rather very intelligent system by @darkestsight: Seven instances of Jarvis taking control over the suit and saving Tony´s ass without anyone noticing. Not all of them are sickfics. Chapter 3 is my personal favorite and contains a physically and emotionally beaten-down and extremely tired Tony; chapter 5 has him dealing with PTSD and chapters 6 and 7 involve him getting injured. I liked the idea of it and enjoyed the interactions between Tony and Jarvis.

Pressure Point by ratherastory: Another migraine fic, with a very precise description of the pain Tony´s in and a nice amount of Starkasm. Steve as caretaker. Can be read as Stony, but doesn’ t have to. Pain and vomiting.

Home by @saber-wing: All Tony wanted was a cup of coffee. But then Thor’s Asgardian monster pet decides to try and eat Tony’s leg for breakfast. Excellent whump, Avengers family feels and a lot of humour. The author has many more amazing whump fics!

I Can´t Exactly Hold Your Hair Back by SirSapling: This is based on the comics and not the movies. It features Tony with cancer and Steve taking care of him on one of his bad days. I like this one for its slow whump build-up. Stony. Tags for migraine, vomiting, mentions of cancer.

Bust a gut, Tones by @whimsicalethnographies: Tony has appendicitis and Peter is the only one who realises it. Perfectly balances between humour and seriousness.

Fool’s Luck by @msermesth: Steve arrives on his doorstep exactly three hours and twenty-seven minutes after Tony finishes the last word of his eulogy. LOTS of pain. TW alcohol abuse, angst and suicidal thoughts. This is short, but extremely well done.

don’t let the blue skies fade by @blancheludis: This starts as a mission-gone-wrong fic with a perfect whump setting (of course Tony has to hide his injuries from everyone) and character depth that focuses on team dynamics and the evolving relationship between Tony and Steve.

Side Effects by discipulapauper: Steve and Tony are stuck in the desert, and Tony discovers that the serum causes unexpected complications when Steve doesn´t get food and water for a long time…Nice whump scenes, good characterization and mostly non-cheesy, non-stony dialogue. Featuring heat stroke symptoms and hallucinations.

Presenteeism by Veldeia: Tony thinks it is a good idea to send an empty suit along with the team on a mission while riding out his hangover alone somewhere in the middle of Russian nowhere. Too bad his hangover turns out to be something worse…

Mohini´s prompt fill for Nov(emeto)ber 5 by @mohini-musing: Tony is sick and Bucky doesn´t really know how to handle it. A short but greatly written fic with emeto and fever, no WinterIron.

My own fics : 40+ stories of physically and/or emotionally hurt or sick Tony

#fic rec #fic recs #hurt tony stark #sick tony stark #tony whump #tony stark whump

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