#people are going to have different tastes when it comes to characters and ships and that is perfectly fine
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I didn't want to have to make this post, I've seen enough shipping drama on Tumblr over the years that I usually steer clear of it, but there’s been so much Nooshy bashing in the tags lately that I feel compelled to weigh in on it.
Why do people like Nooshy? Well, to put it simply, even though she’s never the center of attention in "Sing 2", Nooshy manages to be a girl with layers, and there's a lot to appreciate about her. When we're first introduced to her, she's a street performer so she can make the money that she needs to survive, but she’s also genuinely passionate about her craft - she loves to dance - and she enjoys getting a chance to share that passion with someone else whenever they come along.
While she can be snarky and prickly and slow to trust strangers, she’s also very nice once you get to know her. After a young turtle kid almost screws up her performance, she's still very playful and accommodating towards him. When she’s brought backstage to the Crystal theater, she compliments some dude's hat just to make him feel good about himself. While she initially agrees to help Johnny because he offers to pay her, she starts to stick up for him and genuinely support him, because the way Klaus treats him isn't right. She decides to help the Moon Theater troupe put on their big show, even though she's only known these people for about a week and their plan will surely be very dangerous, because the way Jimmy Crystal treats them isn't right either and she wants to help them stick it to the man. After Johnny tells her that he and his family used to be a gang of notorious criminals, Nooshy never judges them for their shady past, and is actually quite happy to see how close he and his father are now (especially since it's implied that she might not even have parents herself). And during "A Sky Full Of Stars", she encourages Johnny to never give up and follow his heart, because he's her friend and she wants to see him succeed.
Nooshy is snarky and mischievous, but underneath it all, she's actually a very kind girl, and very loyal towards the people who earn her respect. And by the end of "Sing 2", she gets her happy ending when she not only gets a new paying career doing what she loves, but also finds a place where she belongs among the Moon Theater troupe.
The reason why I just went off on that rather long tangent, dissecting her character, is to drive home the point that Nooshy has done nothing in the canon films to warrant the way people talk about her sometimes.
I've seen people insult everything about her and her fans for shipping reasons, because they see her as a threat to their preferred ships (even though she and Johnny are not even canonically a couple by the end of "Sing 2"). And there's a real double standard when it comes to this too, because no other character who's been shipped with Johnny over the years gets this kind of treatment. Meena doesn't, Ash doesn't, Ryan doesn't (even though the claim that Nooshy haters sometimes make - that people only like her as one half of a ship - could just as easily be said about him).
And this is really nothing new. Characters getting trash-talked over shipping wars is a tale as old as time when it comes to fandoms, and people are entitled to their opinions. The reason why I made this post is because lately, the Nooshy bashing is starting to cross a line.
Over the last few months, I've been seeing a growing number of comments complaining about people including Nooshy in their fanart. I've also been seeing a growing number of posts outright insulting people who like Nooshy or like to ship her with Johnny, saying that they're stupid and shallow and should just go away because they’re a blight on the fandom.
How about no.
In a fandom, people are allowed to like whatever character they like, or ship whatever couple they like, so long as they're not hurting anyone. If you hate Nooshy so much that you can't stand seeing any fanart of her or fanfics of her, because you don't want to be reminded that she exists, then I'm sorry but you're either just going to have to deal with that or stop engaging with the parts of the fandom where people want to appreciate her. Because quite frankly, your hatred for this character is no one else’s problem except your own and people are not going to stop liking her just for your benefit.
#sing#sing johnny#sing nooshy#jooshy#johnny x nooshy#sing 2016#sing 2021#sing movie#personal posts#johnny sing#sing 2 johnny#sing 2 nooshy#sing ryan#sing ash#sing meena#sing jooshy#sing 2#people are going to have different tastes when it comes to characters and ships and that is perfectly fine#mind your own business and stop trying to drive fans and shippers you don't like out of the fandom#because that is never going to happen#fandom#shipping wars
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Robin Dick Grayson Characterization
I'm not sure how or where this started but there's been a rampant misunderstanding of Dick Grayson as Robin.
For some reason there have been posts upon posts that dick was some kind of angry robin and I don't know where this is coming from because in every single comic Dick is said to be the happy one. It seems to be a Covid craze because such defamation was not even in existance before 2020. Every one of the comics - Justice League, Batman, Detective Comics, Nightwing Comics, Jason's comics, Tim's comics, all of them! Talk about Dick being the happiest of the robins.
Some people say that he wanted to avenge his parents death by killing Tony Zucco. However Dick could never do that. John and Mary raised their son better than that.
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Issue #100
Where do you see a raging blood-soaked boy fanon makes him out to be?
The biggest supporter of happy Dick comes from Alfred so if you're going around claiming Dick was angry, you're literally spitting on his grave because Alfred ADORED Dick. He thought of Dick as the sole reason for Bruce's happiness which made him love Dick even more.
Alfred is Dick's biggest advocator. When Bruce is hesitant in his initial days of Robin - Alfred says
Detective Comics (2016) Issue #1000
"They will be easier than they ever were for you."
Detective Comics (2016) Issue #1000
"He will see excitement and adventure...and he will help you see it, too."
Detective Comics (2016) Issue #1000
"He's gotten a taste for it, Master Bruce. He has the natural skill and talent. Do you really think you could stop him at this point?"
"He could make you better. He could BE better."
"A hero forged in the LIGHT."
And Dick feels this too.
Detective Comics (2016) Issue #1000
"Then WE help them find the better path. Together."
Detective Comics (2016) Issue #1000
"Let's show them how to do it right."
Calling Dick an angry robin - that's an insult to Dick, Bruce, and Alfred. It's an insult to who they are as characters and it's an insult to the very creation of robin.
Dick wasn't made for vengeance. He was made for the light.
Dick is the embodiment of hope and a brighter future. He's what people look forward to on their darkest days, their shining light. He's the hero of all heroes that came after him. There is no one like him.
There are tons of comics on Dick's journey as Robin but here's a clear one as to his thoughts before he became Robin.
Robin & Batman Issue #3
Dick wasn't angry. He's was sad, lonely, and scared.
But.
This good boy doesn't deserve what you call him. This small loving child. Don't you dare push your evil agenda onto him.
"I don't need to be the next batman. I can be something else. Something better."
"And you know the best part?"
"Now I know I don't need to be alone. And I don't have to be the dark."
"I can be the light."
"I can be Robin."
Batman (1940) Issue #687
Dick was an excitable, brilliant, and over-excelling child. He was a ball of sunshine and happiness who loved laughing, playing games, and being crazy. He was a hypercompetent, crazy child who lived for the love of living and adventure.
It's the loss of the original dynamic duo that Alfred grieves over.
Batman (1940) Issue #687
Just look at this adorable baby!!!
Batman/Superman (2019) Issue #16
"Hey, Batman! You took down one of 'em and I took down three! I told ya I've been practicing!"
"Good work, Robin."
What the heck you cute adorable baby.
"Holy--! Is this a warden's office of a museum of horrors? Look at that old rocket ship!"
"Ew. There's a skeleton inside!"
LOOK AT THAT BABY FACE!! THE PURE ENTHUSIAM IN THE WAY HE TALKS - HE'S JUST A HAPPY BABY BOY!!
Batman/Superman (2019) Issue #17
IT'S A CRIME TO CALL HIM ANGRY.
Love this sweet, adorable child.
Another issue with the “Dick Grayson was an angry Robin” take. It’s not just a different perspective, it’s just blatantly wrong.
How wrong?
In order to fight the Batman who laughs, Bruce creates a machine that will emulate the joy of the happiest person he has ever known-who?
Robin Dick Grayson.
"Happiness is seeing the world though the eyes of children."
The Batman Who Laughs Issue #4
"Dick was the first robin. He had the happiest eyes. Circus eyes. Weightless - leaping, never falling."
Bruce drives himself insane from the joy he feels by looking at the world through Robin Dick's eyes.
Every comic. In every. single. comic. All of them talk about how Dick was a happy child and a happy robin. Dick's talk about it, Jason's talk about it, Tim's talk about it, the Justice League's talk about it, the Batman's especially - all the batman comics - talk about.
I would've actually added about 50 more panels but I ran out of image space because posts only have a 30 image limit.
I'm not kidding when I say it's IMPOSSIBLE. ABSOLUTELY, INCONCEIVABLY IMPOSSIBLE to say that Dick was angry Robin. Dick, Jason, Bruce, Tim, Damian, Alfred, Barbara, the JL, the titans, the Gotham villains - they all talk about Dick was a symbol of hope, joy, and light to Bruce and Gotham.
Not only that but if you read the comics, you would know that Dick was a happy robin because all the following robins had a cascade effect on their personality based solely on the fact that Dick was a happy robin. Jason's personality was the result of Dick being charcterized as happy, and Tim's personality was based off Dick's being happy.
But you know what the biggest piece of evidence against this blasphemy that Dick was angry robin is?
Secret Origins (2014) Issue #8
"...Becoming a much needed FOIL to the batman, whose own grim obsession with revenge could easily have caused him to cross the line..."
Explain something to me. It canonically states the Dick was a foil to Bruce Wayne who used to be revenge obsessed and grim. A foil in literature means a character who contrasts with another character to highlight the differences between them.
So if Bruce was dark, gloomy, angry, and revenge filled and Dick was the foil, then how on earth is it possible Dick to also be dark, gloomy, angry, and revenge filled?
On top of this impossibility of Dick being angry and full of hatred, can we take a step back for a minute and think about Dick's position in all this? Dick is the very first child hero, the one countless heroes after him look up to because he, Robin, was the embodiment of light and goodness. He single-handedly dragged Bruce out of his pit of self-destruction merely by existing because of his charming and playful demeanor. How, then, is it possible for every single character in the entirety of DCU along with every single writer who has ever written a comic - to be wrong?
Let's be clear. Bruce's personality, is written to be the opposite of Dick's personality. And Dick's personality is the opposite of Bruce's. Furthermore, Jason and Tim's personality were written to be a response to Dick's. There's also Alfred waving a massive banner about how Dick is a literal godsend front and center. So. If you still believe, that Dick was not a happy robin, then you have effectively mischaracterized every single person in the entire batfamily aside from Kate.
Congratulations. It's truly an accomplishment to be so wrong.
So no, Dick was not in fact, ever, the angry robin.
Dick was a happy robin and that is the FOUNDATION of understanding the batfamily.
#dick grayson#robin dick grayson#bruce wayne#batman#jason todd#robin jason todd#tim drake#robin tim drake#damian wayne#robin#alfred pennyworth#justice league#batfamily#clark kent#superman#lois lane#nightwing#red robin#red hood#helena bertinelli#huntress#matron#thank you#batfam
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Every now and then I think about how subtitles (or dubs), and thus translation choices, shape our perception of the media we consume. It's so interesting. I'd wager anyone who speaks two (or more) languages knows the feeling of "yeah, that's what it literally translates to, but that's not what it means" or has answered a question like "how do you say _____ in (language)?" with "you don't, it's just … not a thing, we don't say that."
I've had my fair share of "[SHIP] are [married/soulmates/fated/FANCY TERM], it's text!" "[CHARACTER A] calls [CHARACTER B] [ENDEARMENT/NICKNAME], it's text!" and every time. Every time I'm just like. Do they though. Is it though. And a lot of the time, this means seeking out alternative translations, or translation meta from fluent or native speakers, or sometimes from language learners of the language the piece of media is originally in.
Why does it matter? Maybe it doesn't. To lots of people, it doesn't. People have different interests and priorities in fiction and the way they interact with it. It's great. It matters to me because back in the early 2000s, I had dial-up internet. Video or audio media that wasn't available through my local library very much wasn't available, but fanfiction was. So I started to read English language Gundam Wing fanfic before I ever had a chance to watch the show.
When I did get around to watching Gundam Wing, it was the original Japanese dub. Some of the characters were almost unrecognisable to me, and first I doubted my Japanese language ability, then, after checking some bits with friends, I wondered why even my favourite writers, writers I knew to be consistent in other things, had made these characters seem so different … until I had the chance to watch the US-English dub a few years later. Going by that adaptation, the characterisation from all those stories suddenly made a lot more sense. And the thing is, that interpretation is also valid! They just took it a direction that was a larger leap for me to make.
Loose adaptations and very free translations have become less frequent since, or maybe my taste just hasn't led me their way, but the issue at the core is still a thing: Supernatural fandom got different nuances of endings for their show depending on the language they watched it in. CQL and MDZS fandom and the never-ending discussions about 知己 vs soulmate vs Other Options. A subset of VLD fans looking at a specific clip in all the different languages to see what was being said/implied in which dub, and how different translators interpreted the same English original line. The list is pretty much endless.
And that's … idk if it's fine, but it's what happens! A lot of the time, concepts -- expressed in language -- don't translate 1:1. The larger the cultural gap, the larger the gaps between the way concepts are expressed or understood also tend to be. Other times, there is a literal translation that works but isn't very idiomatic because there's a register mismatch or worse.
And that's even before cultural assumptions come in.
It's normal to have those. It's also important to remember that things like "thanks I hate it" as a sentiment of praise/affection, while the words translate literally quite easily, emphatically isn't easy to translate in the sense anglophone internet users the phrase.
Every translation is, at some level, a transformative work. Sometimes expressions or concepts or even single words simply don't have an exact equivalent in the target language and need to be interpreted at the translator's discretion, especially when going from a high-context/listener-responsible source language to a low-context/speaker-responsible target language (where high-context/listener responsible roughly means a large amount of contextual information can be omitted by the speaker because it's the listener's responsibility to infer it and ask for clarification if needed, and low-context/speaker-responsible roughly means a lot of information needs to be codified in speech, i.e. the speaker is responsible for providing sufficiently explicit context and will be blamed if it's lacking).
Is this a mouse or a rat? Guess based on context clues! High-context languages can and frequently do omit entire parts of speech that lower-context/speaker-responsible languages like English regard as essential, such as the grammatical subject of a sentence: the equivalent of "Go?" - "Go." does largely the same amount of heavy lifting as "is he/she/it/are you/they/we going?" - "yes, I am/he/she/it is/we/you/they are" in several listener-responsible languages, but tends to seem clumsy or incomplete in more speaker-responsible ones. This does NOT mean the listener-responsible language is clumsy. It's arguably more efficient! And reversely, saying "Are you going?" - "I am (going)" might seem unnecessarily convoluted and clumsy in a listener-responsible language. All depending on context.
This gets tricky both when the ambiguity of the missing subject of the sentence is clearly important (is speaker A asking "are you going" or "is she going"? wait until next chapter and find out!) AND when it's important that the translator assign an explicit subject in order for the sentence to make sense in the target language. For our example, depending on context, something like "are we all going?" - "yes" or "they going, too?" might work. Context!
As a consequence of this, sometimes, translation adds things – we gain things in translation, so to speak. Sometimes, it's because the target language needs the extra information (like the subject in the examples above), sometimes it's because the target language actually differentiates between mouse and rat even though the source language doesn't. However, because in most cases translators don't have access to the original authors, or even the original authors' agencies to ask for clarification (and in most cases wouldn't get paid for the time to put in this extra work even if they did), this kind of addition is almost always an interpretation. Sometimes made with a lot of certainty, sometimes it's more of a "fuck it, I've got to put something and hope it doesn't get proven wrong next episode/chapter/ten seasons down" (especially fun when you're working on a series that's in progress).
For the vast majority of cases, several translations are valid. Some may be more far-fetched than others, and there'll always be subjectivity to whether something was translated effectively, what "effectively" even means …
ANYWAY. I think my point is … how interesting, how cool is it that engaging with media in multiple languages will always yield multiple, often equally valid but just sliiiiightly different versions of that piece of media? And that I'd love more conversations about how, the second we (as folks who don't speak the material's original language) start picking the subtitle or dub wording apart for meta, we're basically working from a secondary source, and if we're doing due diligence, to which extent do we need to check there's nothing substantial being (literally) lost -- or added! -- in translation?
#translation#linguistics (sorta)#I love language so much#long post#subtitling#dubbing#transformative work#if you read all the way to the end - THANK YOU I am so impressed#localisation#this is not an academic essay but I still feel bad for not citing sources#low vs high context cultures and languages are concepts from intercultural communication studies#but idk how up to date that is or whether folks even still actually use them#I know they oversimplify things#but it helped me say what I was trying to here so shrug#languages#language soup#meta#language meta#fandom meta of sorts#thanks for the help sorting this out kayla <3#my nonsense
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Nah, you know what makes my blood boil?
Seeing characters degraded, vilified, and desecrated in the name of ship wars.
No, Aang did not strip Katara of her agency nor did he only accept the "digestible" parts of her, leave my baby alone.
No, Zuko isn't just a selfish colonizer, bro did not have one of the greatest arcs of all time for you to reduce him to that.
No, Katara wasn't just a mother to everyone, for fuck's sake, did we watch the same show?
I can go on and on and fucking on, but all I'm gonna say is I'm fucking tired of y'all's shipping discourse.
It was never that serious, it will never be that serious.
I think that both Zutara and Kataang are great ships in their own right, with their respective pros and cons. I also think it comes down to personal taste.
Of course, people can have differing opinions on characters, regardless of the inclusion of ships or not. But at the very least, stick to your own.
Ship and let ship. Remember when this was fun?
Don't invade spaces that aren't yours to start trouble, and stay appropriate with the tags. Fandom etiquette, it's pretty neat.
Y'all suck the joy out of everything.
#the way i can apply this to half of the ships amd characters i like#ive seen things#ive seen some crazy shit#heard some wild takes#take a chill pill#and sit your asses down#kataang#aang#zuko#atla#shipping wars#shipping discourse#fandom etiquette#this applies to every ship btw it just so happens that i stumbled upon yet another kataang vs zutara ordeal and im fed up#ruining it for the rest of us#i get it and i do think the passion is beautiful and a show of how many emotions and how much love these characters still make us feel#but hot damn enough is enough
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been thinking about aroace alastor a lot, in the sense that ofc this is simply canon and i wouldnt even BE thinking about it beyond a simple "woohoo this is fun, let's think about how that might have affected him and his relationships both whilst alive and after his death and fic and art and the usual joy of character analysis" if it weren't for the fact that it seems to be a flipping fight to just. Have that canon be acknowledged, which is taking up so much energy that it's honestly hard for me to enjoy him as much as I wish, considering this rep is supposed to be For people like me
and I think that's so much of my frustration around all of this, which IS mitigated by just finding a few chill people to follow and focusing on that -- but even then most of my "suggested for you" for this show is alastor x [insert any random main character] shipping/sexual content -- is that this is an offering for people to learn something new and delve into experiences that they may not have thought much about and the ones who know what aroace means, and in particular within the realms of how this character is being written within this particular very-sex-heavy universe (so, not so different from real life), by and large decided to just go "nah." people aren't interested in aroace experiences, and it's weird from a "so you just don't like a large part of this character's canon traits then, do you like the actual character, or just the OC you've made up in your head that happens to look like them?" perspective, but mostly for me it's that a lot of the way people talk/write about this it's like aroaceness is something that needs to be Fixed Somehow, and thank Goodness there's a neat little loophole that we can utilise in the form of "well sooooome aroace people do want to have sex and be in a relationship"
so many of the things I can't help but see, block, move on from, and in the ao3 alastor tag (which, it's frankly wild to me that aroace alastor has to be a specific tag, because so much of it ISN'T that, and even then we have to sift) is either just the equivalent of going "lalalala if I don't think about the aroaceness it's not real" or the even more disturbing "now how do we fix this so that the ace character can still fuck somehow." it's really creepy, and very much how people talk about aspec people irl. it's just incredibly poor taste and shows that this community is still so invisible
people really ought to think more about why this is such an important hill for them to die on that they want to Fix aroaceness in one of the only genre-fiction characters to be canonically such, ON a show where every other character enthusiastically enjoys sex and most of them are in established relationships or various slowburns -- why is the character that is not interested the one that is shipped with every other character to such an extreme?
I feel like anyone writing an aroace alastor that mysteriously can be compelled into sex and a romantic relationship needs to give me a 3000 page essay on the history and philosophy of aspec identities with a special section on aroace representation in media
but ultimately it's just a "look. please be kinder. if you look in our sandbox we have barely any toys, why are you coming into this sandbox to take more of them and then rubbing our faces in it and THEN being rude to aspec people when we say it makes many of us uncomfortable to be sidelined like this?"
I keep thinking of that one screenshot that was going around tumblr of the person who wrote straight brokeback mountain fic that everyone was going WTF about. why is it alright to "headcanon" away canon aroaceness (and mock people who point out its canonicity), but it's largely agreed to be in poor taste to do so with other canonically established queer identities?
I get fandom's not activism, but it sure sometimes can be a yardstick for how much I'd trust people to respect me irl, when I cannot enjoy aroace escapism without being talked over/mocked/yelled at AND having aspec theories appropriated without any understanding of what they actually mean or how they apply -- this history and community is a part of my life, and it's like people are just traipsing mud through it with the lack of respect for it (as lucifer would say "you come into MY house bitch???")
(apologies this got long. you don't have to post if you don't want to, I get that it could be inflammatory and don't want to put that on you, I've just been needing to vent. I just feel like I'm going a bit crazy with how nigh-impossible it is to avoid this -- why am I the one who's having to make all that extra effort to enjoy a character written with my community in mind? don't y'all have enough toys???)
Don't apologize, I absolutely love reading how others feel about this situation, and I completely agree.
I think it's sad how people don't want to think about a characters aroaceness and how it affects them and instead just throw that part of them out of the window. I think it's even more interesting since Alastor canonically thinks that he's straight, but hasn't found the right one yet.
"Headcanoning" a canonically aroace character a different sexuality is so.. I don't even have a word it. Many people "headcanon" Alastor a different sexuality, but keep it canon when it's Angel Dust or Vaggie. Personally, I think it stems from aphobia. Just like you mentioned, people feel the need to "fix" aroace characters, like their sexuality is a messed up or broken part of them. It reminds me of when I used to hear teachers talk about how everyone will someday find love, and the ones who don't will have a huge gap in their heart and be empty. It's quite terrifying just how similar it is. The fact that he, as the only confirmed aroace character, is shipped the most, too, is quite saddening.
It's disturbing how they search and search for stuff to use as excuses when they ship aroace characters. "Aroace people can still date," "It's just headcanons," "Alastor is not canonically aro," and so on.
Ao3 scares me, especially with characters like Alastor. You don't even wanna know how many times I've seen people say, "I know Alastor is aroace, but we'll just ignore that" in fics. Most of the time, they even change his character completely, and he's so out of character.
It also kinda disgusts me with the stuff people say about Alastor, I can be scrolling on Tumblr and a post comes up saying how Alastor would fuck the living shit out of you and it's so fucking disturbing and graphic, I guess this is just how it is generally when people talk about fan favorite characters, but when it's an aroace character too, like.. no, he wouldn't do any of that.. It's so weird. This is what people care about, sexualizing. They don't even seem to care how much of a complex character he actually is, but only how he would be during sex, and it's quite disturbing that most of the time he is the victim to these type of comments.
And, with the amount of hate I've gotten from tiktokers in my comment replies saying how either Alastor isn't aro, how he's just fictional and it's not erasing any representation by shipping him, how aroace people can still date, how Viv allowed them to ship him, and even saying that it's okay to ship him because he's a stereotype and bad rep (???) and whatever else they have to say, I quite literally do not care. I'm not gonna be humiliated into silence, I'm not ashamed about the fact I'm trying to keep these crumbs of representation we have left. "Boohoo, you talk too much about Alastor being aroace," and I'll continue, I think that's a lovely and very interesting part about his character, especially from the time period is from, and the fact he's unaware too.
it's kinda sad how a lot of people don't even know that he's aro, I wouldn't either since all the fandom does with him is ship him. There are so many other relationships people could dive into, Husk and Angel Dust, Charlie and Vaggie, Vox and Valentino, and many more, but yet they go for the aroace character.. Also the fact that since the pilot the character he's mostly been shipped with is Angel, a character who makes a lot of sexual remarks towards Alastor which he very obviously feels repulsed and disgusted by, is kinda just.. where's the appeal when he's clearly disgusted? Is that part of it? I'm glad that there is a side of this fandom where people actually love him for his character and not just because he's attractive.
Other than that, I'm very glad the show itself knows how to show he can have meaningful friendships and platonic relationships with people, such as Rosie, and didn't make him an edgelord that hates everyone and doesn't have friends for some random reason.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with me, I enjoyed reading through it, and again, I completely agree. I just hope the fandom could realize he's a lovely character and that him being aroace is just a part of him like it is of us.
#hazbin hotel#hazbin#alastor#hazbin hotel alastor#aroace#aroace alastor#aromantic#aromantism#asexual#asexuality#vivziepop#vivienne medrano#spindlehorse#angel dust#radioapple#radiostatic#radiodust#a lot of words for me#especially at 2am#i love when people tell me their thoughts in my inbox ugh its so amazing#im defo going to sleep now#aromanticism
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It's been a good run
But it's time to bring this to a close!
The saga is over, C, T and I are all together. T and I are in the swing of it, C approves as much as it is possible for him to approve of anything, everyone knows about the blog and is chill.
C is back at his rightful place of walking his sister down the aisle.
I'm getting everything I want, and we're all free to make each other miserable until the day we die.
I'm not going to be updating this blog anymore! Nobody else involved with the situation will be submitting any more AITA posts either, because they are either not on tumblr or agreed it would be annoying.
I will say that there is some stuff on here that I've alluded to that isn't necessarily 100% in the spirit of things, so I've included some stuff below the cut for the folks who have caught onto that. I would not suggest reading it if you like how all of this played out and want to keep it that way. I know that's incredibly vague, but I'm not sure how to phrase it without making it weird?
Thank you all for listening and talking to me over the past few days! That's where I'm leaving it!
...
...
...
...Is everyone who wants to keep believing in the disaster polycule gone? Yes? OK!
So, this was fake. I made up the whole thing. TK and C and T and everyone else are fictional characters. Did I lie? Yes. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Q: All of it? Even the og AITA post? The followup AITA post? The screenshots?
A: All of it.
Q: Wh... Why did you do this...?
A: Well, first this all started as a Red vs Blue fanfic for the ship Chexer (Church/Tex/Tucker)-
It started as a fanfic for Chexer. However, I was already working on a different fanfic for RVB that was totalling about 15k words at this point (+ at least 90k to go), and I knew I would never have the time or energy to write this one. I thought: yknow. this would be really funny as an aita post.
Q: It was a fanfic of a Halo fanfic series.
A: Yep!
So, I submitted Tucker's perspective. I did not expect for it to get more than maybe 100 notes at most. I totally thought someone would call it out right away.
The funny part is, if I'd dedicated all this energy to a fic instead of this blog, I'd probably have about 15-20 thousand words of fic already, but whatever, can't ruin my personal day!
Also, I wanted to see how many people would figure it out/how long it would take for it to become too obvious that this was a fandom thing. I was dropping names and RvB lore since the beginning. A few people did figure it out, and I DMed them in private to let them know.
Q: But why make the blog then?
A: Because I love to lie and be a nuisance to the general populace! <3
It was always my intent to wait until Carolina's perspective got posted (i am honestly still shocked i got away with "Carey/Georgia/West Virginia/Alabama/Miss Louisiana 1988"), let it simmer for about a day, then come clean. Which is what I'm doing now!
The reason I'm coming clean now instead of dragging it out is because I don't want anyone to feel stupid or like they got duped. You're not stupid! You were a part of this story! This was, as one anon said, a creative writing project. It was a collaboration! Thank you so much for helping me!
That said, I'm sorry to anyone that finds this disappointing! I had a blast doing this, but I will not be doing it again. I have gotten my fill. I have had my taste of being an influencer, and now I can go on with my life without ever feeling like I need to start a youtube channel.
Q: How did you keep up with a consistent timeline?
A: I didn't, especially at first. But in my time as a liar who lies about things, I have found that usually people are willing to believe you when you say "yeah, i lied about that".
Q: Wait, what about the thing with your kid?
A: Yeah, I fucked up on this one. In the other fic I was/am writing, Tucker was around 33. So, when I was saying what Junior's age was, I subtracted it from 33 and got 18. It wasn't until I was showing my partner the blog and they said "Wait, he had his kid at 13??????" that I realized I had fucked up. Oops!
Q: Was it really ALL fake?
A: For the most part. I will say that I did actually drop chocolate cake all over my tits that one time and had to shower by myself like a fucking loser. That one was true. I did also get my nails done for the first time ever, which did actually affect my typing. And I am in a band (but so is Tucker, canonically)! There are a few other things as well, but I don't want to list all of them.
Q: DID you ever read homestuck?
A: Nope. And I never will.
Even the title, though I will say that the title I came up with was "Leonard "Alpha Bitch" Church's Decidedly Not Lo-Fi Beats to Get Nasty and Get Clean To: The Movie"
Q: So there was never a combination sex/bathtime playlist?
A: Maybe! But perhaps more accurately: the combination sex/bathtime playlist was inside of you all along. You can make it. There are only three songs on there that are canon to the lore of this blog. Those are No Children by The Mountain Goats, Take It Out On Me by Thousand Foot Krutch, and one unknown song from the album Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV by Coheed and Cambria (Yep, the call was coming from inside the house, I gave Church my music taste). I had intended this to be Wake Up, but it's out of my hands now. The rest is yours to fill in.
Q: What's your main blog, so I can follow you?
A: Hi, this is aitadjcrazytimes. You're not getting that.
Q: Your AO3 handle?
A: Nope, not that either.
You will never find me. And that's the way I want it. You will see me in every blog. Every new follower. Every stranger you meet on the street. You will look into your discord kitten's eyes, and you will absently wonder if he was the one behind aitadjcrazytimes. And you will never know for certain.
Q: But-
A: Let me live on in your memory. The only person who knows both who I am and the fact that I did this is my partner, who is not into RvB or commonly on tumblr. I am not a RvB blog. I am not a writing blog. I am a nobody on the fringes of tumblr society who's been here long enough to know how to remain in the shadows.
And, even if you do manage to find me, against all odds:
No one will ever believe you.
I am closing my askbox. I am also closing my messages. If you have anything to say to Tucker or Me (tumblr user aitadjcrazytimes), you are welcome to do so in the replies or reblogs, but you will not be receiving an answer. I'll keep this blog up for anyone that wants to go through after the fact and do a deep dive or what have you.
Thanks to everyone who made this into the wild ride it was! Live long and get fucked or whatever! Xoxo <3
#final post#if you don't say goodbye then aitadjcrazytimes isnt really gone#they're just not here right now#<-so that was a fucking lie -tk from the future
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Hey I like a lot of the takes you have regarding the pirate show so I wanted to ask for your opinion on smth that's been bothering me for a while:
I have a deep seated dislike for Hamilton. Twinkifying the fucking founding fathers, romanticizing slave abusers and overall villainizing the wrong people while others (Hamilton at the front naturally) gets sung at. Speaking of singing - I really hate it. Shipping (i want to repeat) the founding fathers, the blatant white washing bla bla bla. Anyway those are all known problems and better people have said it smarter before and that isn't really my point
It's the fact that a friend of mine recently brought up that Ofmd pretty much is the same and I shouldn't scream so loud in my glass house. Inaccurate historically speaking, the blatant ignoring of the slave owning that the real Stede and Edward did and so on and so forth. Minus the singing perhaps if we ignore Frenchies and Izzys
So. Does it make me a hypocrite to like ofmd so much but despise the mere mention of Hamilton? It's a thing I'm really stressed about lately and that kind of ruined my joy about finally getting season 2. I would love to hear your opinion. or that of your followers for that matter.
Thank you 😊
oh thank YOU because I do feel that this is an interesting thing to examine and we do not talk about it enough.
I have never seen Hamilton, or listened to the songs (except some snippets). I have never been involved in the fandom. I really, really can't speak to what the musical itself did wrong and right. But I will say this: There was a reason it got as popular and received the critical acclaim that it did. I can't speak to how it addresses the systemic injustice baked into the USA from the very beginning, and I do have a suspicion that it glosses over a lot of uncomfortable truths. But I also feel it is important that we divorce the source material from the fandom it spawns because ultimately, Miranda isn't responsible for Hatsune Miku Binder Jefferson, or the whole hivliving debacle.
Just as David Jenkins isn't responsible for the handwaving of slavery in fanworks, or the great Izzy Hands Debate, or whitewashing in fanart, or shitty, racist headcanons of the characters of colour, or whatever deranged scandal is yet to come to light. This is true for all fandoms; criticizing fandom dynamics is a very different conversation from criticizing the canon.
Let's focus on the canon here, though, because defending the fandom is pointless, and not something I want to do. Curate your experience.
The first thing to say is: If you like ofmd but don't like Hamilton, that's not hypocritical at all, that's first and foremost a matter of taste. Things are good when we like them and bad when we don't. We don't have to find objective reasons for it.
If the fact that the historical Stede Bonnet was a slaveowner, and the historical Blackbeard also participated in the slave trade, are dealbreakers for someone, that's valid. People have every right to be uncomfortable with that. The conversation could end at this point, if we want it to (I don't because I love to hear myself talk).
If we look at the historical figures a little closer the first stark difference is the cultural context in which they exist. The founding fathers seem to be extremely mythologized in the american consciousness but also, are understood to be real historical people. The founding myth is fundamental to the way in which the USA perceives itself (that is, as a beacon of freedom and democracy), and it's pretty hard to reconcile that with the bloodshed and human misery it was founded on. It's uncomfortable; and it's not just an American problem. Every western nation/former colonial power has quite literal corpses in their closets they'd rather not talk about (just so you don't think I'm getting on a high horse about the famed Erinnerungskultur here; go ask a german person about Lothar von Trotha and what he did to the Nama and Herero to receive a blank stare). The difference is, that the founding fathers are too prominent and too important to just not talk about, so instead, they are sanitized to a degree that can be straight up historical revisionism.
That's not Miranda's fault. Nor is it the fault of any one particular piece of historical fiction, biography, documentary, or what have you. But it is the context in which Hamilton exists and, from what I understand, a culture to which it contributes. Especially since it's based on a biography of the real Alexander Hamilton, and (again, to my understanding) claims to tell a more or less accurate story.
Pirates, on the other hand, are perceived completely differently. They are mythologized, but not for ideological reasons, not as state-building propaganda. Pirates are more like folk heroes; cultural icons (near) completely divorced from whatever historical figure once lived. They are "real" in the sense that they are based on real people, but engaging with them, from the start, has a layer of removal from reality that engaging with figures like the founding fathers hasn't. Blackbeard is from a saga. George Washington is from history.
ofmd, specifically, makes clear at every turn that what we are told is a fictional story that has very little to do with any real events. It's openly anachronistic, it has absurd internal logic. Life-threatening injuries are walked off. There's actual magic. Dinghies are treated like spawn points in a video game. Everything, from the costumes to the vernacular to the story beats, tells the audience that none of this is real.
You wouldn't accuse, idk, A Knight's Tale, or Mel Brooks's Men In Tights of whitewashing history. I feel like ofmd plays in a similar league; it's a comedy very vaguely based on history, and it makes sure the audience knows we are not about to be told anything true. If you watch ofmd, you know this isn't about the real, historical Stede Bonnet or Edward Teach.
So. Let's examine the actual story, yes? The story that is told here is anticolonialist, antiracist, and challenges oppressive power structures as much as is possible for a production like this. It addresses these things and condemns them, both explicitly and in its underlying message. (I'm not gonna explain all of this, enough ink has been spilled about it by people smarter than me)
I do not know what Hamilton is about at its core. I know Our Flag Means Death is about authenticity in the face of the whole world telling you there's something wrong with you. It's about resisting dehumanization and reclaiming your personhood. It's about love, in a radical, system-destroying way, about breaking the cycle of abuse, about healing, and finding joy.
Yes, the real historical figures it's based on were all horrible people. Again, if that's a dealbreaker, that's fine. I'm not trying to convince anyone who is deeply uncomfortable with that fact; it's perfectly understandable.
However, for me, personally, the story as a whole is so far removed from reality, and so firm in its message, that I feel this is forgivable.
(Oh, and a lat aside, I also feel like likening ofmd to Hamilton seldom seems to come from a place of genuine criticism. Often it seems to be more along the lines of "Hamilton is cringe, and if I say ofmd=Hamilton ppl will be too embarrassed to defend it" which yk. feels kinda disingenuous to me.)
#oh also im a white european so yk limited perspective here#i do encourage people with different perspectives to join in the conversation!#or like link the things youve already written on this because i know people have talked about this before#i just kindly ask you to leave your 'ew cringe' arguments at the door. thanks.#our flag means death#anonymaus#message#thoughts
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"Acceptable Violence" in OFMD Season 2: deconstructing violence within the context of the show's parameters
I've been doing a lot of thinking about violence and the second season of Our Flag Means Death. I've come to some conclusions that I would like to share, but I would like to preface my thoughts with a disclaimer or two:
I did not like the second season, for myriad reasons, some of which I will outline here.
But I am not here to attack you if you liked the season.
I am not here to make commentary on who you are as a person or your personal taste if you liked the season.
My not liking the season does not mean you can't like the season.
In short: my dislike of the season is not about you at all!
Also, this is not an academic paper. Which doesn't mean I might not do that in the future, but for now this is just an assembly of analysis and thoughts.
If you do not care to read analytical criticism of something you deeply enjoyed? I invited you to scroll onward. If you liked the second season but would like to hear some of the reasons why many, including myself, didn't - carry on!
The rest is under the cut.
The first season of Our Flag Means Death dips its toes into the world of piracy by following the unfolding story of Stede Bonnet, the newly minted former aristocrat-turned-pirate who dreams of a new sort of piracy; a gentler, more polite means of pirating.
Things, as they said, did not go according to plan.
The first season does an excellent job of laying the complex groundwork for an in-world set of principles which tell us what sort of violence is "normal" or "acceptable" in the context of the show and what isn't.
(Please assume from here on out that when I say acceptable and normal the "quotes" are implied, as I am not talking about what is acceptable and normal in real life.)
It does this through narrative framing, by softening more intense instances of violence through comedy and by pushing it off-screen, and by establishing who is a good guy and who is Not.
Unacceptable: Stede Bonnet getting beat on, tied up, and bullied by the Badmintons and their ilk as a child. He's soft and likes flowers! He's got a mean dad! No one likes bullies! It's framed as a negative, it's not super funny (the camera cuts to Stede's face both in the past and present looking distressed, and Stede is the hero, so this can be generally accepted as bad.)
This leads us to:
Acceptable: Badminton getting whacked over the head and falling on his own sword. This I would categorize as what people have been referring to as "looney tune violence." He was a bully! He's part of a colonial navy! He was being absolutely horrible to Stede! It's funny that Stede is so inept!
Stede feels guilty about it, it causes him trauma, but that trauma is treated, quite often, comedically (see Badminton's "ghost" taunting him, characters treatment of his breakdown, etc).
The context clues for whether or not this is acceptable violence are baked right into the writing, too. Oluwande says - claiming that Stede killed Badminton on purpose would gain him the respect of his crew. This is violence that in-world is both acceptable, expected, and also respected for the captain of a pirate ship.
(See also: Murdering and/or tying up the remaining British navy crew and putting them through the same thing Stede went through. It's framed as triumphant, Stede having been vindicated, the crew celebrating it as a victory.)
Unacceptable: Stede's concept of "soft piracy" of course comes crashing down when his whimsical attempt to woo the Spanish navy is cut short by his getting gut-stabbed.
Stede and the crew are being framed as the heroes of the story and the Spaniards are framed as the bad guys; this setup is why this violence, while totally within the realms of something our crew would do, is categorized as unacceptable.
It's also important to note, however, that while it could have been quite a bit more graphic and disturbing if shot differently, the swelling symphony, the comedic cuts of the Spaniards triumphantly getting their ass kicked, softens the blow.
Other acceptable instances of violence:
The snail fork - horrifying if you think about it, but the narrative softens the blow. The guy was just really racist, giving us a sense of vindictive pleasure, and the violence is all off-screen (we don't actually have to see someone getting skinned with a snail fork).
The French ship - again, horrifying if you think too much about people trapped on a burning ship in the middle of the ocean. But, they had all just been huge racist shit-heads who had harmed our heroes. In the context of the narrative, it is framed as being justified. We also don't actually see anyone burning to death, and we get a very funny shot of Ed looking at Stede in awe, and Stede looking very please with himself, confirming in-narrative that this was okay.
Other unacceptable instances of violence:
Karl the bird - Jack is framed as an antagonist; he comes between Ed and Stede, obstructing the narrative subplot. Buttons, and by extension Karl, are part of the crew, the heroes. When Karl dies Buttons is devastated, everyone looks uncomfortable, and it's the last straw for Stede to kick Jack off the ship. Plus, there's the an "innocent character" thing similar to Stede as a child getting bullied; Karl was an animal, with no defenses, who did nothing wrong.
Finally, of course, we arrive at the moment that Lucius is pushed from the ship.
Unacceptable: By all accounts, pushing people from ships is probably not outside the realm of things that pirates Definitely Do. But here we have another great instance of framing heroes and bad guys. In this case, we have a hero (Ed), seemingly killing another hero (Lucius), who was not only just trying to help him, but was absolutely not expecting violence. We also have a "death" that happened off-screen. We don't see Lucius "drowning."
Had Lucius actually died, I think this would have been horrifying.
Narratively and thematically, it would not have fit into the spirit of the show, because you could no longer frame Ed as a hero. There would be no real way that I can see to meaningfully redeem him in the context of a comedy, even a "black comedy" (which I do not believe OFMD is).
And genuinely, I don't know anyone who thought Lucius was actually dead, so while what Ed did was horrible and awful and needed to be atoned for, it wasn't Final. It wasn't Irredeemable. He didn't become a capital v Villain.
The rules of the first season made sense to me. Everything that happened fit narratively, was thematically appropriate, and established a certain set of rules and conventions to follow.
It gets dark, and it does push the envelope of what I could bear in a "romantic comedy." Ed cutting off Izzy's toe is tempered (cutting off his littlest toe with a comedically large pair of scissors) but feeding them to him is disturbing.
Izzy was an antagonist, not a villain, so giving him treatment reserved for, say, the British navy characters, and doing so graphically and on-screen, was A Lot. This coming from me, who really, REALLY hated Izzy at this point in time.
But I think there was an underlying sense of hope that things would improve, resolve, and move forward through character growth and narrative. Stede was coming back to make amends; maybe Ed would find his way back to normalcy, and they'd meet in the middle.
It was expected that apologies would be made and Ed could come back from the unacceptable things he did to Lucius, to the Crew, and to Izzy especially. That there would be character and interpersonal growth for them.
Unfortunately, the second season is where the show's parameters around acceptable and unacceptable violence absolutely falls apart. It's never quite clear why something is acceptable vs not, and we never see the character and interpersonal growth "promised" by the narrative which would redeem the dark tonal shift and veer the story back towards comedy.
In order for Ed to be redeemed, the violence being framed as unacceptable during his Kraken era could not be so unacceptable that it crosses the line into irredeemable. Ed could not cross the line in the minds of the audience from "hero" to "villain."
But the first three episodes of the season... were dark.
They crossed the line.
It felt like a character assassination to me.
Ed's abuse of the crew, the continued maiming of Izzy (who at this point is hurdling into a sympathetic character arc of growth and redemption,) the self-harm, the attempted murder-suicide of his crew... most of it was on-screen, not at all tempered by comedy, and brutal. It wasn't heroes vs villains, it was supposed hero causing extensive harm and trauma to other heroes.
The writing in these episodes were narratively cohesive and well-paced. They were not, however, thematically appropriate to a romantic comedy. At this point in the season I still felt like it was building towards a breaking point where Ed would come back to himself, where character growth would be achieved, and amends would be made.
I was willing to hold tight.
But it didn't work in terms of the story that was setup in season one. It would have taken an incredible amount of character growth to even begin to come back from that; but I trusted the narrative to deliver.
However, the real problem is that this season tried to rewrite the in-show parameters of what constitutes acceptable violence in ways that are uncomfortable and contrary to reality in ways that I find harmful.
(I will be clear, in reference to recent discourse, I do feel the head-butt was comedic. It was looney tunes violence, it was well within the context of a romantic comedy, and it worked for me tonally, even though it's obviously not appropriate in real life.)
Ed's chair throwing in the context of a man who had spent three episodes inflicting increasingly terrible domestic violence on people who loved and cared for him, who stuck by him -- in the larger context of him doing all this just because he felt rejected by a romantic partner -- is presented as in-show acceptable violence. It's presented as falling within the parameters.
Proof? We are expected to still like Ed, and root for Ed, and want Ed to get better, and cheer for the romantic pairing "getting back together," and everything else. He is still presented as a hero.
Sure, the show is telling us that what Ed did in his Kraken era is bad; but not so Bad that we shouldn't forgive him for it when he has made no real move to make amends for what he did. Like the crew, and Izzy specifically, we are meant to simply... move forward.
That line about "getting away with it" without consequences I thought was a commentary on how Ed would not get to do that, actually was just... what happened.
The season also wants me to believe that in the in-show parameters that Ed would hurt absolutely anybody but DEFINITELY NOT Stede, because Stede is his ultra super special soul mate and he would never do him any harm.
This is not how things work in real life, and it is not a disbelief I am willing to suspend uncritically. Do I believe Ed, in the context of the show, would hurt Stede? Nope. I think it's more likely Stede would hurt Ed than the other way around.
But I don't like the message that this in-show parameter sends, about how violence, particularly DV, is inflicted. I don't like being told that there is a super special person that this person who has abused others won't hurt. It's a bad message, and bad writing, and bad in-show precedence to set.
I'm not going to say all this without mentioning the stereotypes surrounding men of color, particular Indigenous men, which paints them as abusers. These stereotypes have been mentioned in regards to people talking about Ed's abuse this season. It's important to examine and be critical of oneself as a white person, and look long and hard at these biases. I don't want to fall into the trap of racist biases, and I don't want it to go unmentioned.
I have thought long and hard about this. I've done a lot of self-examination on the subject of Ed and abuse. It has brought me back to my point of character assassination; I think the show fell into those stereotypes itself.
I think Ed's characterization this season was problematic, and a disservice to the character as laid out in season one, and that's a big part of my disappointment with this season.
(I also have a lot of thoughts on how Stede's character, who has been handed an immense amount of power over Ed and his agency as a character, is also extremely problematic. I will get into that in another post; it needs its own. So I'm not here to say Stede himself is not a Problem because he absolutely is and I will shout it from the rooftops.)
"But somekindofcontraption," you say! "Ed has trauma!"
Yes. That is very true. And it certainly explains some things, but as in real life, it absolutely does not excuse them. Ed's narrative was all about the perpetuation of trauma, particularly generational trauma, with absolutely no criticism or breakage of this cycle in any meaningful or productive way.
It set up the story and did no work to resolve it. Ed was simply fixed because he and Stede said I love you and kissed a few times. The romance's "resolution" was unearned and unsatisfying. Neither Stede nor Ed were held accountable for what they did.
Then there was Izzy, who spent the whole of his arc being redeemed, moving forward as a character. He was the only character, I would say, with any meaningful growth. He's also the only one whose story was explicitly about being queer and queer discovery, rather than queerness merely being and incidental part of it. He's the only one who shows any accountability.
Right up until the point that he died, his story was the best-written out of all of them.
Then he dies.
Izzy's death, and the ways that tonally it does not fit into the narrative, is another post onto itself. For now, I'll leave you with all of these rambling thoughts, condensed down as best I could into this tumblr post.
If you have any further thoughts, I would love to hear them in good faith. For now, I say, that it's okay to be disappointed. This story was so meaningful to so many, and to be so thoroughly let down is hard.
Grief is grief.
Take care out there, and be kind to yourself, and be kind to those that are grieving.
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A Heart-Pounding Interruption to My Life as an Otaku Shut-In!!
Leviathan recognizes these tropes... He's onto you.
Ship: Leviathan x Reader
Word Count: 991
Cross-Posted on AO3
It kind of felt like the main character blew into town when you arrived. I never told that to anyone because I didn’t think they’d get it, but since you’ll probably never see this, I might as well put it all out there.
I mean, just look at the situation we’re talking about: a human was whisked away from their standard human-world life and woke up in the Devildom as an exchange student. And not only that– gasp! They’re living in a house with seven conventionally attractive men with wacky and diverse personalities?! This was an obvious reverse-harem plot! And it looked like I was in the harem!
As the days went on, I only became more and more convinced about the situation. The way you started working through us one by one, identifying our vulnerabilities and getting closer to us as individuals and as a collective… That was classic otome heroine behavior, and I was not going to stand for it. Because I knew that there was at least a 6:7 chance I wasn’t the male lead. Odds were, I’d be passed over by a normie with normie taste for one of my normie brothers. This called for a strategy meeting.
So I convened a war council. Myself, Henry, and… well, just myself and Henry. Asmo was busy and Beel wasn’t going to come if I didn’t provide snacks. But Henry never lets me down.
We worked late into the night, and eventually, I drew up my plan of action:
Give up completely and isolate myself so that whatever feelings I might have inadvertently caught would be smothered underneath my devotion to Ruri-chan and Sucre Frenzy!
It wasn’t especially creative, but I wasn’t looking for creativity. I was looking for results!
Just… Well…
It turned out it didn’t provide results either…
You came knocking on my door the very next day and asked if I was doing alright.
I mean, what was I supposed to say to that? I get that it might not be a big deal to most people to have someone show some level of concern for their basic welfare, but it was for me. It really rattled me! So I would lose my head whenever you showed up. I’d forget all about the war plans and start getting excited. I’d start thinking about what shows and series to recommend to you, and I’d start thinking about whether you’d want to watch any of them with me, and I’d start thinking about whether any of the games I was into recently would interest you…
It was like I wanted to spend my precious time getting closer to you. It was awful! Especially since I knew I was just another guy in the harem.
So there was this game I played a long time ago called My Heart-Pounding Soul Search on Earth. It was a dating sim where the main character was a demon disguised as a human, and they were looking for an ideal soul to pair up with. You know me, right? I’m a completionist. I like to finish every game in as many ways as I possibly can. I don’t really do that sort of thing for dating sims anymore though, mostly because of MHPSSE. See, there was this one character called Alex–one of the routes you could go for, right? And I like Alex, so the first time around, I went for that route. Then I went to play again, and…I got Alex again. So I played a third time, and I was really trying to go for Yuki, but I kept selecting answers that increased my intimacy with Alex again, and eventually I just gave up and dated Alex for the rest of my simulated life. It was like…I had a bunch of options in front of me, but I kept getting drawn to the choices that brought me closer to the same outcome, even when I thought I was trying to do something different.
Does that make sense?
I feel like I’m doing it again now.
So I never ended up isolating myself into oblivion or un-catching any feelings that might have accidentally got themselves attached to me. Instead I did the opposite. Except in this scenario, like I’ve already said, I’m not the main character anymore. I’m Alex! But I’m only your Alex if you like Alex best. I could be Dylan for all I know, and nobody ever went for Dylan. Dylan sucked, lmao.
Do you know what the worst part is? I don’t even think I’d mind being Dylan.
Ehhhh… Scratch that, I don’t want to be Dylan. Mammon can be Dylan.
But I don’t think I need to be your Alex to be happy. Because, well, you still hang out with me and let me talk about nerd stuff and don’t roll your eyes or tell me to beat it or laugh at me behind my back.
I know you don’t laugh at me behind my back.
I’m really good at sussing that kind of thing out.
You laughed to my face sometimes. Sometimes I got too excited or too intense or something, I guess, and you must have thought it was kind of funny. But more often, you seemed like you actually… felt some sort of interest in what I’m talking about. And the really annoying thing is that I don’t even get mad anymore when you do laugh, because it never feels mean-spirited. I hope I’m not just being an idiot and seeing things how I wish they were. I don’t like being played for a fool, you know. That’s Mammon’s job, lol.
So, yeah. I don’t really know what I was trying to say here. I really hope you never see this. I’d die of embarrassment. But, um… maybe, if you wanted to, you could go for my route sometime? I’d definitely be okay with that.
And thanks… for everything.
#obey me#fanfic#obey me leviathan#obey me fanfic#om! leviathan#obey me levi x reader#daytaker fanfic#obey me x reader#obey me levi#levi
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@confusledqueer apologizes for not responding sooner, it’s been a busy couple days and—honestly—I forgot for a bit.
Moving on-
—————
Me equating some of the things that anti-Jedi people say to antisemitism and, sometimes, outright Nazi-esque rhetoric is not “wild” or “a stretch,” as you’re implying.
Justification of their genocide, denial that it actually was a genocide, a belief that the genocided party “caused” their own genocide, and a belief that they genocided party were wrong or “led astray” while one person was sent to make things right- (via either making them change their ways or outright destroying them/their culture) -are all things I’ve seen people say about the Jedi…
…but they’re also things that people have actually said about Jews.
Take the example I put in the post of someone denying that the Jedi Purge was actually a genocide, and how—by changing “Jedi” to “Judaism” and “Force-religions” to “Abrahamic Faiths”—it sounds verbatim to Holocaust denial.
Or, as another example, people claiming that the Jedi “kidnapped kids to brainwash them”…don’t you see how that sounds like Blood Libel?
So me pointing out that a lot of stuff anti-Jedi people say sounds like antisemitic rhetoric isn’t a stretch, not when a lot of it sounds verbatim to what people are saying with the rise of antisemitism and stuff they have said in the past.
—————
Now, I’m not Jewish, but it’s not just me, your neighborhood White Girl™️, who’s pointing this stuff out.
Actual Jewish people have pointed out the alarming similarities between anti-Jedi rhetoric and straight up antisemitism. So, if you wanna argue about- “you shouldn’t compare real world discrimination to fictional stuff” -then you should probably take that into account.
Go ahead and try telling Jewish Star Wars fans to stop calling out antisemitic rhetoric in the fandom, I’m sure that’ll go down real well.
I also find it hilarious that you’re telling me to be careful about the rhetoric I use in a thread about how I shouldn’t point out that some of the rhetoric other people spout is basically antisemitism rebranded.
And my point in that post wasn’t- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion, you can’t criticize it.”
My point was- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion then you need to be careful about how you criticize it, otherwise you might unconsciously be spouting bigoted beliefs and antisemitic rhetoric because you don’t recognize that that’s what it is because you’re saying it about a fictional culture.”
By all means, I get that some people just don’t like the Jedi, that’s their prerogative and we all have our own tastes.
Criticize them, if you feel like it, but don’t go around spouting rebranded antisemitism to do it. I’m sure you can come up with plenty of things to complain about them for without doing so.
—————
Now, I can understand why you might be worried about the slippery slope from this to shit like actual censorship—which, I think we can all agree, is a bad thing. Or how you might think criticizing this could lead to the whole “fandom purity” debate.
My thing is, it all comes down to does it actually harm people?
Perpetuating harmful stereotypes via saying stuff like the Jewish based characters “steal children,” or “lost their way,” or “they caused/deserved their genocide”—that does cause actual harm.
Think about why the “angry black man” stereotype or the “cheating bisexual” stereotype are bad and people- (rightly) -push back against them. It’s the same thing here.
Shipping a problematic ship, calling a fictional serial killer “babygirl,” writing about dark topics*, headcanoning characters as gay or trans…none of that is actively harming people.
(*obviously when writing about dark topics you should tag appropriately so people can avoid triggers, but that’s another topic for another day)
That’s the difference.
And, for the record, I think letting people spout bigotry just because they’re saying it about something fictional is the more dangerous mindset than calling it out.
#star wars#sw prequels#the clone wars#pro jedi#pro jedi order#in defense of the jedi#antisemitism#fandom meta#star wars meta#fandom wank
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AI and the Red Delicious Apple
If you’re reading this you’re pretty much already on the anti-AI bandwagon when it comes to its promise to steal our written works and then regurgitate them in strung-together, passably readable form in order to replace us. You’ve seen the same, very valid, arguments against letting this happen that I have and the same, also very valid, warnings. There is no human reason a computer should be doing something humanity has done with pleasure and without prompting, for enjoyment alone, all the way back to the beginning dusty start of time - unless you want to strip the humans out of the equation and make a profit that way, which is what this is about. I’m preaching to the choir when I say this is far and away beyond the Bad of a Bad Idea. What I haven’t seen mentioned though is how this is going to effect the other side of the equation. Not the creators of art -
the receivers of it.
Once upon a time, not that long ago, in the 1880s, a farmer had a rouge plant pop up in his apple orchard. He uprooted it but the next year it was back. He got rid of it again and, again, it came back. Finally, he did the sensible thing and just let the plant grow. Sure enough, it popped out apples after a time and he entered those apples in a tasting contest - because.... those were a thing back in Ye Olden Times apparently. Anyway, wham bam thank you ma’am! They won the contest and the taste buds of the judges. In short order the Apples, known as Stark Delicious, hit the stores and became an overwhelming favorite across the US. They lived up to their name for sure and soon became known as Red Delicious Apples. Farmers everywhere focused in on one type of apple and one type of apple alone as the demand for them surged. Everyone wanted Red Delicious and so that’s what everyone planted. Here’s the thing though. Uniformity is king in situations like this and, instead of more Red Delicious apple trees leading to more variety, it actually led to more uniformity. The ‘off parts’ of the apples were bred out, unattractive yellow streaks in their color, the thin skin that let them bruise easier during shipping, all the unattractive parts were left by the wayside. Red Delicious apples soon looked as good as they tasted.
Except - they didn’t really taste that good anymore.
It turns out that in breeding them for uniformity and looks dropped the factors that gave them their flavor as well. In time, every apple was a carbon copy of the apple before it and the end result was mushy flavorless thick skinned, albeit pretty, looking apples. These days, consumers hardly touch them and farmers have started uprooting their Red Delicious in favor of Gala and the like. Nobody liked Red Delicious anymore because there’s nothing left of what once made them delicious.
AI regurgitates what its been fed. When its fed variety it regurgitates, to some extent, variety. It’s intended to put the human oddities out of business, so to speak and take its place. To turn out polished, pretty things to appeal to people’s tastes. And, after a while, when humanity is out of the picture, it will only have other AIs to feed off of. In time, the variety in its cannibalization will continue to narrow down as the stories become more and more alike as nothing new gets put in, as it simply tells the same ten stories, then the same five stories, than the same three over and over again. Until its just the same words, strung together differently, with the same theme, the same character, the same half-nonsense story. Until the inside of that story, that piece of art, that movie are all the same mealy, uninteresting mush that every other one is. The yellow streaks and the thin skin of humanity phased out along with any hint of flavor. The profitability will dry up as even the most spoon-fed, computer worshipers demand better. Humanity will pick up where it left off, figuring out how to tell its own stories, paint its own art, sing its own songs and entertain its neighbors again. Art is intrinsic to humans. We always find our way back to it.
But the damage to the creative world in the meantime will be like a nuclear winter. And who knows how long it will take generations raised on ‘Red Delicious’ apples to realize there are better flavors out there.
PS - nobody pushing for AI art right now cares that its not long term sustainable or that it won’t always be profitable. It will make them money now. The future they ruin will be someone else’s problem. They know that.
They’ve always known that.
#AI#ai art#ai writing#writing#apples to AI#my stuff#okay to reblog#just got to thinking about this#and figured I'd add it to the already impressive list of why#ai bad#small term small minded immediate gratification at the cost of the future is bad
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What your favourite MCD Aphmau ship says about you:
Aarmau: You're afraid to differentiate from canon, even if it might not be the most interesting option. Either that or you REALLY have a thing for tall myterious dudes with tragic backstories who are kind of a dick to you. "I can fix him" energy. It's not going to work.
Garmau: You're into the classics. And hey, we've already spent about three quarters of the series dealing with this man's Daddy Issues, we might as well get something out of it.
Laurmau: You get mad when people miss the 'u' in the name. You notice the details of the story, and you're a sucker for beauty-and-the-beast type narritives. Not everyone's cup of tea, but it's yours. And you're way less annoying about it than a lot of the others. Possibly a multishipper?
Zanmau: What the fuck is wrong with you. You either have a rape fetish, or you think he'd somehow come around to being a good guy in this story, which was never set up to happen. Big possiblity that you liked Game of Thrones for all the wrong reasons.
Gartemau: I have only seen one person say they shipped this, and for the sake of my sanity I choose to believe they were kidding.
Tablmau: You're sick of the shipping wars.
Zoeymau: You're a really sweet person with a thing for cottagecore lesbians. You probably make really good fanart.
(Couldn't think of what the ship name for this one is but Cadenza and Aphmau): You care a lot about the storyline value of each character, and think that no matter what a couple should support eachother. You also overlap a surprising amount with Aphlyn shippers.
Aphlyn: You have a thing for hot warrior ladies, and honestly good for you. You like the stoic, tortured soul vibes Garroth gives, but don't like how the fandom treats him as an incorruptable knight in shining armour, even if that's inaccurate. Or you just wanted it to be gay.
Aphcinda: You have good taste.
Travmau: You used to be in the Laurmau camp, but feel his fuckboyness should be more exadurated.
Shadmau: You're one for historical accuracy, but not for healthy relationships.
Vyladmau: You like very rare ships simply for the sake of being different. I don't fully understand you, but it's far from the worst choice you could have made.
Dantemau: You have a thing for eternal loyalty, but a very weird way of expressing it. You might be a little too into harem animes.
Genemau: Why
If there are more I missed feel free to inform me lol
Also this is just my opinion, and is very obviously lacking in ships that don't involve Aphmau(Garrance for the win), I just thought it was fun-
#dumbassery#shitpost#aphmau mcd#Aphmau shipping#minecraft diaries#aarmau#garmau#laurmau#Zanmau#Tablmau#zoeymau#Aphlyn#Aphcinda#Travmau#Shadmau#Vyladmau#Dantemau#Genemau#Mcd shitpost
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One too many (Captain Rex x reader)
summary: set right after the bad batch s2 finale, reader feels like they’ve lost too much
relationship: Rex x GN reader
warnings: tbb season 2 spoilers, mention of character deaths, so much angst, reader dissociating, verbal argument, saying things to each other that you don’t actually mean, making up after a fight
word count: 2.8k
A/N: the tbb season 2 finale left a very bitter taste in my mouth so i had to do something about it. i made myself cry with this one and you shall too. bon appetit :)
big thanks to @snippy-tano for helping me out with this one!<3
(english is not my first language. constructive criticism and grammar corrections are very appreciated!)
— — —
“We’re going to get her back,” Hunter says firmly. “And we don’t stop searching until we do.”
Even though the rest of the crew is silent, he knows everyone feels the same.
“We need to regroup and resupply to make a plan,” Echo suggests after a moment. “I know a place.”
“Where?”
Echo turns to the navigation panel and enters the coordinates. The system beeps as it calculates the next possible hyperspace route.
“That’s Rex’s hideout,” the clone explains.
Once the jump is possible, Hunter pushes the lever, and the endless sky of stars before you blurs as you make the jump.
Everyone on the ship is silent as you process what happened, and think about how to proceed from here on out. Wrecker is hugging Lula to his chest with silent sniffles, Hunter sits in the captain's chair with his arms crossed and eyes closed, trying to collect his thoughts.
The only thing you can hear is the steady hum of the ship travelling through hyperspace surrounding you. Echo and you are sitting behind Hunter, your chairs facing each other. The moving lights outside reflect on his pale face, creating a swirl of whites and blues. But you don't see it, as your gaze is fixed on the floor before you. You can feel Echo’s eyes on you though, yet you're unable to meet them. Your brain seems to simultaneously be going at a thousand miles an hour and have stopped entirely. You're not even sure if you're breathing anymore.
Echo places a gentle hand on your knee, but you don't react at all. In fact you don't even feel it. The ship, its sounds, everyone on board; you see them moving further and further away from you, shrinking into the distance, until you're left in the void. Everything is black and cold, inviting you to sink deeper into nothingness, and you can't tell if you're there as well or if you're long gone.
After a while, or maybe immediately (you don't seem to have a grasp on time right now), you hear your name being called very faintly, from really far away. You block it out, not ready to leave this hidden corner of your brain just yet where you don't have to come to terms with, well, anything.
But your consciousness is rattled awake by a hand shaking your shoulder. You can feel yourself coming back the whole distance you had gone back before, at an ungodly speed, and within a split second you're back on the Marauder.
A wave of nausea crashes over you like a bucket of cold water. You lean forwards, suppressing a gag, your arms clutching over your stomach. You look up, eyes still unfocused and detached, and are met with Echo’s worried gaze.
“You okay?” he asks, concern very clear in his voice. “Not sure where you went there.”
His hands come to hold yours on your lap; you're trembling. Unable to form a response, you merely nod your head at him. Echo studies your face for a moment, and just as he’s about to say something else, Hunter speaks first.
“We’re here,” he announces.
The Marauder comes out of hyperspace, and you hear a voice through the ship’s comms asking for identification. A voice you've heard a thousand times in several dozen different people. A voice you've come to love, and lately despise, all at the same time. A voice that for you, held memories as well as burdens. A voice you sometimes wished you could forget.
The ship wobbles when the tractor beam starts pulling you in, and Hunter leaves his post to gather some equipment.
“Get ready,” he orders, taking Echo to the back of the ship to discuss something. You also get up and walk straight to the door. The Marauder barely even landed before you open the hatch and jump out, taking a deep breath of the filtered air.
You turn around to see Hunter, Echo and Wrecker stepping out of the ship. The realisation hits you that they are the only ones now left of the Batch, and the thought makes you sick to your stomach again. You feel like gravity just grew tenfold, and lean with one hand onto your knee, trying to keep your balance, while your other hand comes up to wipe over your face in frustration. Taking deep breaths, you somewhat regain what little composure you have left, and straighten back up.
This base is well hidden, small enough to not get any unwanted attention, but big enough to accommodate the ever growing group of clones that decide to stay after being rescued by Rex and his network from whatever imperial prison they were about to be forgotten in otherwise.
A group of clones, a greeting party, approaches the Marauder, and you immediately spot Rex among them. You know you should be happy to see him. You are happy to see him. Yet you can’t help the despair still seething within you, given recent events. A despair that is slowly turning into rage and something else.
The former captain of the 501st approaches you with hasty steps, reaching out to embrace you in a loving hug, but you take a step back, lifting your hands defensively as if you’re about to shove him away if he gets closer.
“Wha–” is all he manages to say, disappointment and concern clear in his face. Your gaze falls to the ground, your face contorting into a grimace, as you’re feeling too much all at once right now. Rex throws a look over your shoulder to Echo, who is now standing a couple of steps behind you, but the pale clone can’t do much to comfort his brother. He merely shrugs with an apologetic, maybe even sad look, making Rex understand that whatever you’re going through, you need some time to process it. Rex doesn’t need to make a head count either to have an idea of what might have you so upset.
Seeing the hurt in Rex’s eyes at your rejection makes you feel even worse. But you know that if you talk now, you will say something you’ll regret, or burst into tears, or throw up. Maybe all of those, not necessarily in that order. So you hug yourself and push past Rex, quickly making your way inside. You navigate the labyrinth of corridors without a problem; you’ve been calling this place ‘home’ for a couple of months now after all.
You had been the civilian attachment for the 501st for several years. Even back then, you knew there was something between you and Rex. It was only after the Republic fell and you ran that you regretted never telling him how you felt. But luckily the clone went looking for you, as he felt the same way, and you’ve been with him and his group ever since. Every now and then you’d go on missions with the Bad Batch to lend a hand, as had been the case with this last one. Except that now everything has changed. We were so good, you think bitterly, How could everything go so wrong?
With another shaky breath you finally arrive at your and Rex’s shared room. You punch in the code for the door, but it beeps and the light blinks red. You groan, ignoring the looks of two clones passing by, and press the buttons again, more forcefully this time. Again, red light. Now you can feel your whole body trembling, and the tears are stinging behind your eyes. You tilt your head backwards in an attempt to blink them away. A figure appears next to you, and you catch Rex’s blonde hair in the corner of your eye. He reaches out to the panel and punches in the numbers. As far as you can tell it’s the same code you just used, but the light blinks green this time and, with a hydraulic hiss, the door slides open. You give a very dry chuckle, directed at the keypad, and step inside.
With what you feel to be the last remnants of your strength, you make your way to the couch, discarding your jacket, holster and weapons on the way, letting everything fall to the floor without regard. Rex closes the door, and the moment your body makes contact with the cushions, a violent sob runs through your body, making you tremble.
Rex comes to sit next to you, hesitantly placing an arm over your shoulders.
“You wanna talk about it?” he asks gently.
Now your sobs, tears and cries come freely, and your arms clutch tighter around yourself. You look up at Rex, and the room starts spinning. You see his face, and naturally, you’re seeing all their faces.
You can see and hear them so clearly in your mind’s eye, standing behind Rex, laughing and joking without a care in the world. Then, one by one, their faces get crossed out with an aggressive red, and their bodies fall limp, dissolving into dust carried away in the wind.
“I can’t do this anymore,” you finally choke out as another sob rattles through your body.
“What do you mean?” Rex asks earnestly. He sees how badly your hands are shaking and removes his arm from behind you to take your hands in his; they’re icy cold. You hold on for dear life.
“Every time you sent me with the guys to some random planet, I went. We would be out there, risking our neck for whatever pay we could get. And I never complained,” you start retelling and sniffle. “When this whole… thing started, the conspiracy, the guys leaving Cid, I could feel something was gonna go awry but I- I didn’t say or do anything, and now they–”
Another sob, accompanied by a sound somewhere between a pained cry and a furious scream. One of your hands leaves Rex’s warm one to clutch the fabric of your shirt over your chest in a vain attempt to ease the pain in your heart.
“I refuse,” you croak, looking Rex in the eyes with uncharacteristic anger. “I’m not going anywhere anymore Rex. I just can’t. It’s always been one too many losses, but this is the last straw. I’m about to lose it.”
“Take a breath and start at the beginning,” he tries calming you down to have you retell what exactly went down, but you groan in frustration. Tears continue to roll down your cheeks incessantly.
“I can’t lose anyone else, Rex,” you cry, and start counting on your fingers. “Echo. Hardcase. Fives. I mourned them all. Then Echo came back a shell of the man he once was, everything goes to hell, and there’s a carnage between clones and the Jedi. The 501st, Cody, Wolffe, they’re all gone and- and then Crosshair stabs us in the back, and now Tech, he–”
Hunter ordered Wrecker to get Tech up into the car, which was barely hanging on, but with every step he took, the car creaked and hung just a little lower, threatening to break off the cable entirely, sending you all into the abyss below.
You stood next to Omega, holding her so she didn’t fall when Wrecker dared one more step forward. You heard Tech through your comms, urging you to sever the connection hinge. But that would mean the other car, where Tech was attached, would fall off. You shook your head, your brain going at a thousand miles an hour trying to come up with a way to get him back up. The car shook once more as imperial troopers were trying to shoot you all down.
“There is no time, Wrecker,” Tech said with a calmness in his voice that had your thoughts stop abruptly and focus on him; you didn’t like his tone at all.
“Plan 99.”
The blood froze in your veins.
“Don’t do it, Tech!” Wrecker pleaded with his brother.
“When have we ever followed orders,” Tech asked rhetorically as he took his gun into his hand, then pulled off an incredibly precise shot which successfully broke the hinge.
Somewhere in the back of your mind you registered Wrecker and Omega’s yells, but all you could see was Tech falling to his death in slow-motion.
After that, everything was a blur: the car you were in launching forward on the cable, breaking through the building. Picking up an unconscious Omega to get to the ship. Flying back to Ord Mantell. Cid having sold them out. Omega being abducted.
“Tech sacrificed himself so we could escape, but the Empire took Omega,” you finish after remembering all that happened, and you shudder. “I can’t do this anymore. Please, let’s just… stop.”
You look up at Rex with tired, pleading eyes. You don’t think you have tears left to cry. Rex’s expression changes, and is now unreadable.
“What do you mean ‘stop’?” he asks.
“Everything,” you scoff; you thought he would understand. “This little clone saviour game you’re playing. Fighting against the Empire. Let’s just go somewhere really really far away and forget all of this.”
“Clone saviour game?!” Rex is clearly taken aback by your words and leans back slightly in his seat. “Are you listening to yourself? I will not stop and hide.”
Your hand reaches out to his, but he stands up, now standing in front of you.
“We keep fighting for those who got taken away from us on the way, and for everyone that will come after we’re long gone.” He shakes his head at you in disbelief, and grabs your shoulder, perhaps a little too harshly, giving it a squeeze to underline his words. “Everything we’ve done. Everyone we’ve lost. It can’t be for nothing. I won’t let it be for nothing. So please, don’t ask me to give up.”
Your nose scrunches up in rage, and you shake yourself free of his hold, standing up as well.
“Well I’m not genetically programmed like you to be okay with all of this!” you yell at him as you poke him in the chest.
“I’m not ‘okay’ with it!” he retorts firmly, smacking away your hand. “They were my brothers, not yours! At least you were born into a real family; they were the closest thing to a family I’ve ever had.” Rex’s brows are furrowed deeply, he brings down his tone but still speaks with venom lacing his voice. “So you lost a couple of friends throughout the years. I almost lost my whole battalion on Umbara in a single mission, or did you forget about that?”
“Of course not,” you reply, about to add something but he’s quicker. You can see the tears starting to gather in his eyes too.
“Fives died in my arms,” he says and his voice cracks slightly. “As many others did. Do you think my ‘programming’ stops me from feeling all of that pain? Do you think it gets easier for us the more brothers we lose?”
The world comes to a halt around you, the air leaves your lungs and you feel yourself shrinking as he towers over you. Everything you said was true but you chose the truly worst possible words to express what you’re feeling, and you’re already regretting it immensely.
“Do you?!” Rex angrily asks, louder this time, as you didn’t answer.
“No, of course not!” Your hands shoot up to cover your face, and you collapse back on the couch, now wailing.
Rex stays where he stands for a moment, looking at your trembling form. He then groans, frustrated with himself more than with you, and sighs deeply. Taking a seat next to you, his arms find themselves around you and he hugs you tightly. This time you accept the gesture and bury your face into his chest, with no regard of the tears and probably snot you’ll stain his shirt with. Your arms go around his torso, fisting the fabric on his back, pulling him as close as you can.
“You know I mourned them too,” Rex softly says after a while, his head on top of yours. Your sobs start subsiding. “Fives, Hardcase, Jesse, the guys. We mourned them together.”
“I remember,” you say with a sniffle. “I don’t know why I said it like that, I- I’m sorry what I said about the programming thing, Rex.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he apologises and gives the top of your head a kiss. “And I’m sorry about today.”
Pulling back enough to look him in the eyes, you wipe over your face with the back of your sleeve.
“I’m serious, though, about not going on missions anymore,” you repeat, searching his face for any signs of refusal, but you only find understanding. “From now on I’m sticking to your side. Let’s stay put for a while. Please.”
Rex leans in to place a gentle kiss to your cheek and pulls you back to him.
“Okay,” he says. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
— — —
A/N: i actually looked up dialogue punctuation rules for this one because google docs kept telling me i did it wrong lol let me know if the flow is different/better :’)
#goose feathers#sw clone wars#the clone wars#clone trooper x reader#star wars clone wars#rex x reader#captain rex x reader#clone trooper rex x reader#sw rex x reader#star wars x reader
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Have you seen the posts going around saying shit like "If a mutual likes Hazbin Hotel I will block them"?? It's genuinely upsetting me tbh, not just the idea that people don't like the show, but that they despise it so much they can't even stand the thought of someone they know liking the show. It reminds me of the Steven Universe hate train only worse. They also say shit like "the show is just someone saying swear words and expecting you to laugh", and if for a second we put aside the fact that that is blatantly not true, what's wrong with that? I'm allowed to like something that's a bit trash, right? I've already seen two different people I follow reblog posts to that effect (and worse, someone saying all a character boils down to is "i love being sexually abused <3" and i don't know how they ever came to that conclusion) and it's driving me mad. And somehow I just know that they don't actually give a shit about any "controversies" surrounding vivziepop, that's just a convenient excuse for most of them. I don't even care if Vivzie is a bad person, that's none of my business. just live and let live, you know?
Sorry for ranting, you're literally the only blog i follow who posts Hazbin fan content
Rant away, friend! Luckily for me I haven't come across any of those posts yet. Plenty of discourse surrounding whether fans are allowed to make romantic and/or sexual content for Alastor, the expected shipping wars, and - as you say - vague references to Vivzie controversies (which I'm too new a fan to even be aware of yet)... but nothing that's a complete rejection of the show itself. That's probably because I've only engaged with blogs posting a lot of Hazbin content though.
I'm a big fan of old school Internet rules which includes an emphasis on cultivating your own online space. You know, the thing tumblr is explicitly designed for. So in theory I applaud anyone blocking users/tags for a show they're not a fan of. Performatively posting about it more as a way to guilt others for liking Hazbin at all... not so much. If you want to block something just block it. If you're mutuals with someone you both presumably like each others' content. Not all of it necessarily, but enough to have followed in the first place, and often being mutuals for long enough leads to friendship because you're both getting interacting with one another a lot. All of which isn't to say that people don't unfollow mutuals, or that you can't drop a mutual because they've started posting something you dislike. Obviously both situations do happen, but it feels like an extreme enough response that these posters probably aren't actually doing this very often. Most people will wait the mutual out until their interest gets hooked on something new, or block the Hazbin tag and keep the friend, or just block without making a big announcement about it. So posts like that feel more like a way to show off how much you dislike the show and guilt others for their enjoyment which yeah, can be upsetting to see. Especially when, as you say, it costs nothing to just let people like things.
Which might sound hypocritical on my part given my RWBY interests, but I think there's a big difference between critically examining a show while supporting others who genuinely love it, and simplistically blasting it. I COMPLETELY get why Hazbin wouldn't be to everyone's tastes and, like with the SU example, anything that gets popular enough is going to develop its haters (especially cartoons trying to tackle non-childish subjects. That's always going to be a fandom landmine). But if you're going to make claims about a show, at least watch it to ensure you can back up your stance? And if your takeaway is still, "This is the worst fucking thing I've ever watched"... cool. Go forth and write about that on your own, personal blog. But no one should be surprised when they're also blocked for bragging about how many Hazbin fans they've blocked.
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Crash Course on Lancer, the best TTRPG
I've been obsessed with Lancer lately, so I thought I'd put together a quick and dirty crash course on the key aspects of the system so people could see if it interests them.
Basics:
Lancer is a ttrpg system "centered on shared narratives, customizable mechs, and the pilots who crew them"
It is co-created by the author of the webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons, who also provides some of the official illustrations
The mech design is primarily inpired by Titanfall, but there is a wide variety and plenty of options available to suit your taste.
Mechanically, it's most similar to D&D 5e, but with major improvements (imho).
The game and community are super inclusive of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people.
Lore:
Lancer takes place in our universe, but several thousand years in the future
in the near future, human society collapses due to all the shit going on. ten generation ships are sent out to colonize space, but contact with them is soon lost as everything on Earth goes tits up and humanity enters a dark age for almost 5000 years
Eventually, humanity on Earth comes back, creates Union, and returns to space and tries to contact those generation ships, a few of which have founded new civilizations in deep space. Relations with these civilizations doesn't go great.
Union also finds a weird super-robot-mind-thing old humanity built on Mars, which lets them predict the future. After about a thousand years, it ends up producing a sort of super-AI called RA (I will get into this later).
The above event also lets Union develop FTL tech (using something called Blinkspace).
In the process of expansion, humanity runs into its first (and so far only) sentient alien race. Things go bad very quickly. The people in charge do very bad things and for this end up being overthrown. This is also when mechs first start getting used for combat.
A new committee in charge of Union takes over and has a strong anti-colonial, humanitarian ethic. This however is harder to reinforce the further you are from Earth (now called Cradle by some)
Some of the still independent civilizations and mega-corporations get in some fights. Union tries to keep the peace. This is where we are now.
AI
So there are two different types of AIs in Lancer.
The first kind are regular AIs which can act human but don't really have free will. They can be found all over the place.
The second kind are called NHPs (Non-Human Persons). These (mostly) came from that super-AI called RA I mentioned above. Their basic consciousness is "paracausal" (i.e. magic), so they have to be "shackled" to be able to even think like a regular human. They can often do really powerful things. They are hard to get and heavily regulated because they become really dangerous if they get unshackled.
Player Characters
Character creation in Lancer is incredibly fun. There's two main aspects of a character: the pilot and the mech
Pilots
The pilot is who you control during narrative scenes. While they can do combat, they generally are not suited for it, especially against mechs.
You can choose a background for your character, but this is purely flavor.
You get some "triggers", which are different skills you get bonuses in to use in narrative scenes. Default triggers include things like "lead or inspire", "read a situation", "apply fists to faces", "hack or fix" and many others. You can also create custom triggers (with your GM's permission). These are what you use for narrative scenes. You start with +2 to 4 different triggers and get another +2 at each level
You also get to choose things like armor, pilot weapons, and three pieces of equipment.
One expansion also adds a mechanic called "Bonds" which are like character archetype powers. These encourage you to roleplay more.
Mechs
You also have a certain number of "Talents" which help in mech combat. Each talent has 3 tiers and focus on things like using certain weapons or fighthing certain ways (e.g. grappling, spotting, hacking, etc.). You start with three tier-1 talents and get another tier each level.
Levels are referred to as "License Levels". You start at LL0, but this doesn't mean you can't do anything. You have access to the starter mech frame, which is a very good all-rounder. You may also have access to two more if you have certain expansions.
Mechs have two main sets of health: actual HP and "Heat". You get heat mostly by being hacked or using heat-generating weapons. Each player mech also has 4 points each of Structure and Stress, which correspond to these two sets of health. When your HP hits zero or your Heat goes above its max, you lose a point of Structure or Stress, respectively. You will also suffer other consequences like status effects or losing parts of your mech. If either hits zero, your mech gets destroyed (though this doesn't necessarily kill your pilot, and you can rebuild your mech). Also having 50% or more of your max heat means you're in the Danger Zone, which may let you do certain things.
Mechs will have a certain number of SP (system points), which you use to add different systems, equipment that gives you abilities and bonuses.
You also get to put points into 4 different "Mech Skills": Hull, which affects HP and physical stability, Agility, which affects speed and evasion (the thing enemies roll against to hit (most of the time)), Systems, which affects hacking ability and SP, and Engineering, which affects Heat management and ammo. You get another point each level.
There's other stats as well like Armor, Sensors, E-Defense, and Save Target, but I won't get into them now.
Mech's also have a certain number of weapon mounts, which determine what kind of weapons you can attach to it. The four weapon sizes are Auxiliary, Main, Heavy, and Superheavy. Most of the mount types match a specific weapon size. The only exception is Flex, which lets you mount one Main or two Aux. Also for a Superheavy, you need a heavy mount plus one other mount.
Player mechs come in 4 sizes: 1/2 (basically a suit of power armor), 1 (just big enough where a person could sit in the chest cockpit), 2 (much bigger than a person, about the size of heavier Titanfall mechs), and 3 (fucking huge, though maybe not quite as big as the mechs in Pacific Rim). NPCs can be even bigger. :)
This set of memes is a great way to get the idea behind several mechs.
While most mechs have a default appearance, they're highly customizable, and there are a couple of exceptions. Most Horus mechs have no default appearance, and the starting mech, the Everest, has no canon appearance, meaning it can look however you want.
EDIT: forgot to mention, every mech has a Core Power that you can use once per mission (usually). It typically gives you access to a really cool weapon or ability or otherwise powers up the mech for the rest of the scene.
Levels/Classes
Ever notice how in 5e, multiclassing kinda sucks unless you have a very specific thing in mind? That's not at all true in Lancer!
In addition to the stuff mentioned above, each LL you get to gain one level in the license for a certain mech! You can think of these as similar to classes.
Each level gets you two specific pieces of equipment from that license, generally either weapons or systems. Additionally, at the second level for a license, you get access to the mech frame.
Each license only has 3 levels to get, so you are very much encouraged to mix and match. Additionally, you gain levels at a more even rate than in 5e. Basically it's a milestone system I will explain later.
There are 4 manufacturers to choose from, each with a default of 7 licenses to choose from (more with expansions). ISP-N mechs are sturdy, reliable, and mundane. Smith-Shimano mechs are sleek, agile, and precise. Harrison Armory mechs are powerful and good at dealing with/using Heat. Horus mechs are extra weird and fucked-up.
Each session will generally consist of a few different "scenes", often including one combat scene. There may also be one "downtime" scene (usually at the beginning or end), which is sorta like a short rest. You can make limited repairs and change out equipment, as well as pursuing personal goals. A few sessions together constitute a "mission". After a mission, you get a level and can do a full repair, which is like a long rest. Get all your resources back and can completely rebuild a destroyed mech (or make a new one).
Action Economy
Each turn the player can take the following actions:
One Protocol (generally granted by a system, only at the beginning of the turn)
A standard movement, which can be taken in part or all at once.
Two Quick Actions or one Full Action
Quick Actions are things like Boost (take another full movement), Skirmish (attack with one weapon mount), Hack, Hide, Grapple, Ram, and Lock On.
Full actions are things like Stabilize (clear all heat or heal HP), Disengage, and Barrage (attack with two mounts or one Superheavy mount).
One Reaction, which can be taken on other characters turns when activated. The two default reactions are Overwatch (skirmish against an enemy that starts a movement in your threat range, which is 1 by default but more with some melee weapons or CQB weapons) and Brace (reduce damage from an incoming attack and be harder to hit, at the cost of losing actions on your next turn).
One Overcharge, where you take increasing amounts of heat to get another quick action.
There may also be certain systems or talents that grant certain Free Actions under certain circumstance
Combat
Combat in general is very fun, though a full round of turns may take half an hour or more. In my experience, most combat scenes are over within 8 rounds.
Using your systems and abilities in cooperation with your teammates is very important to surviving.
Of note is that getting advantage on a roll is much rarer than in 5e.
Much more common is Accuracy or Difficulty. Each point of Accuracy is an extra d6 you roll to add as the accuracy bonus. You pick the highest of your accuracy rolls to add as the bonus. Difficulty is the same except you are subtracting the number from the roll instead of adding it. For example, Lock-On lets you add an accuracy to a roll, but soft and hard cover add 1 and 2 difficulty respectively. Also points of accuracy and difficulty cancel each other out, which reduces the amount of rolling you have to do. So if your weapon has +1 accuracy but your target is behind hard cover, you roll the attack with 1 difficulty.
Resources:
you can get the core rulebook (minus npc info and detailed lore) for free here
here's the official fan-run discord server. it is very helpful for finding games that are looking for players and talking about the game.
You can use the official app called COMP/CON to build and manage characters. I fucking love making character in this. It makes things super easy and fun. You can also download .lcp files for various expansions to play around with the stuff they add as well. These are available for free for the official expansion, meaning players can play with extra stuff from expansions without needing to buy them.
In conclusion, Lancer is a great system that you should give a shot to if any of the above sounds appealing.
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How To Use AO3 Tags
Want to find a fic but have no idea how to get started? Are you writing a fic and don't know how to tag it? Don't worry, you aren't alone. Tagging is hard and people don't always follow the same rules. But hopefully this will give you a place to start!
Relationships
Character/MC: romantic or sexual pairing with the fic's main character, may be named or referred to by pronouns or MC
Character/OC or Character/Original Character: romantic or sexual pairing with a named individual created by the author
Character/Character/OC: romantic or sexual relationship containing three individuals all involved with each other (note: this is not the correct tag for a love triangle, in that case, both relationships should be tagged separately)
Character/Reader: romantic or sexual pairing with an unnamed main character (you or Y/N), meant to feel as though the person reading the fic is in the story
Character & MC: platonic or familial relationships with the fic's main character, may be named or unnamed and referred to using pronouns or MC
Character & OC: platonic or familial relationships with a named character created by the author
Character & Reader: platonic or familial pairing with an unnamed main character (you or Y/N), meant to feel as though the person reading the fic is in the story
General: there are either no relationships of note in the fic or the fic does not focus on any relationships
Multi: often used for one-shot series or multiple POVs, should be used when there are 3+ pairings essential to the fic
The big question is always 'how many relationships should I tag in my fic?' Especially in villa fics, there are multiple pairings and the relationship tag can get convoluted. There is no set answer to the question, but the general rule of thumb is that if it's not a key plot point of the fic, don't add it as a relationship tag. In a villa fic, there are going to be multiple relationships, but other than the main pairing, tagging those relationships doesn't add anything. There's nothing more disappointing than looking for a fic for a specific ship only to learn that it's a background pairing you rarely see. This includes one-off sexual relationships and villa couplings that aren't romantic (and if you want to include those, additional tags are your best friend!).
Rating
General: very rare in LITG, but basically, any fic you'd be okay with a child reading
Teen and Up: fluffy, romantic fics with NO smut
Mature: implies the presence of sex or violence without going into detail
Explicit: detailed description of sex or violence
Not Rated: author did not select a rating, could be any of the above ratings
A lot of people get tripped up on the difference between M and E. When it doubt, think about the envelop analogy: a mature fic tells you that the character sent a letter in an envelope. An explicit fic goes into detail about how the character did it including describing putting the letter into the envelope, the taste of it as they licked the seal, etc. These lines can blur when it comes to chaptered fics; some authors may chose to rate a fic as mature but include explicit scenes, so be sure to check the additional tags.
Archive Warnings
Graphic Descriptions of Violence: gory and descriptive violence, it is up to the author as to what exactly falls under this category
Major Character Death: one of the main characters dies, does not have to happen 'on screen' (note: just because this tag isn't there, doesn't mean that there isn't death, just that the author doesn't consider that character to be a major character in the fic)
Rape/Non-con: pretty self-explanatory, does NOT include consensual rape play (although that SHOULD be included in additional tags)
Underage: any sexual activity in which one or both characters are under the age of 18, does not include kissing
Author Chose Not To Use: one of the above warnings might apply, either the author isn't sure if their content qualifies or wants to avoid spoilers, PROCEED WITH CAUTION
No Archive Warnings Apply: none of the archive triggers are included in the fic, does not mean that there are no triggers, but does not have any of the ones listed above
Characters
This is a section for you to include any characters included in the fic. The parties to your pairing should be included here, as well as other characters they interact with. General rule of thumb: if they're just mentioned in passing, you don't have to tag them, but if they have a conversation, it's worth a tag. The big exception to this is villa fics: obviously in a S2 villa fic, every S2 character is going to be mentioned, so you might not need to tag every S2 character unless they contribute to the plot in some way (and there is a tag for 'other love island characters' that exists to capture this). This is entirely up to the author's digression, but as a reader, please remember that just because they're mentioned in the character tags does not mean they are necessarily in a lot of the fic.
Additional Tags
Any tags that don't fit under the other categories. This is where an author can truly tell you what is going to be included in their fic, including any additional triggers that don't fall under the AO3 archive warnings. The nice thing about AO3 tag searches is that it is not exclusive, if you want to filter your search for an alternate universe, AO3 will include all variations of the tag in your search (i.e. AU, alternate universe, and alternate universe-sports AU will all come up on a simple AU search). This is the space to include tropes, triggers, setting, smut/kinks, etc.
Fandom
For the most part, the LITG fandom contains exclusively Love Island The Game-Video game tagged fics. But you will run into the occasional crossover or fusion fic. Crossover fics should be tagged with both fandoms as they contain characters from both. Fusion fics should be tagged with only the LITG tag as they contain exclusively LITG characters in the world of another fandom.
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