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theminecraftbee · 1 year

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alright, so, one more thing i've been thinking about during all of this, and apologies, because i normally try to keep my blog fairly discourse-free in the grand scheme of things. but.

there are hermitcraft fans who act irritatingly morally superior about this fandom. i think it's out of some impulse to try to distance yourselves from any other mcyt fandom. it needs to stop.

the worst behavior during the polls was from the hermitcraft fans.

period.

there were so many instances of hermitcraft fans accusing the other side of cheating, of hermitcraft fans making attacks on the character of their guy's opponents, i have heard what i HOPE are isolated reports of racism in the grian/quackity fight (it was genuinely impossible to keep up with the blog's notes that round without both going into a death spiral thanks to the horrible behavior of scar fans during techno/scar and also without losing track instantly of where we were due to the frankly insurmountable volume of notes, so i did not see it, but unfortunately i fully believe it). i have seen people receiving awful asks - saw people being accused of 'betraying' the hermitcraft side due to voting for quackity or techno, for example.

and for a fandom that likes to act like it's better than the other guys, well. the dsmp fans were generally very well behaved in comparison. (shoutout, for example, to quackblr - i saw maybe one or two possible instances of bad behavior, but for as intense as you all were, you all were normally mostly just retaliatory towards whatever energy was thrown at you.) it wasn't supposed "outsiders coming in" that was doing this bad behavior, either.

folks, you can't blame the dsmp when the problem is inside the house. you can't blame twitter users when you're doing it here. you can't blame the reddit when you're the ones throwing the first death threats.

get off your high horses. we're all mcyt fans. we're all having the same fun. get off your high horses. you can hardly claim we're entirely all "unproblematic" when keralis accepted a sponsorship from the wizard game and xisuma periodically gets another round of getting shouted down over something he said on xisumasays. get off your high horses. you can't claim we're the accepting, good behavior fandom, unlike those other guys, when you're the ones causing the problems.

now, as always, i'm sure this is a law of large numbers thing to some extent. as technoblade, wise as he is, said: sometimes when you get a large enough group, you're going to have a few serial killers. but for the amount that hermitblr likes to act better than Those Other Minecraft Fandoms, and those Other Fandom Websites, it wasn't those guys that made me cry.

to be clear, the majority of you have been well-behaved. but there's a persistent tendency in this fandom to act strangely morally superior to other fandoms. and, y'all? you aren't.

you just aren't.

and the sooner you acknowledge that, the less likely this is to happen again, because once you admit that yeah, we can be toxic too? that's when you can start actually looking at yourself and trying not to be.

anyway, sorry again to make this post. i don't want to be a downer, hence why, outside of the official mod statements of "chill the fuck out", i didn't make this until now. (it also helps that i wanted to wait until i was no longer furious, upset, and death spiraling.) i have seen a lot of the best of this fandom over the past two weeks! i've just also, unfortunately, seen some of the worst, and feel the need to make this statement because it's just... been eating at me.

i don't want this to continue to be a trend. i think we can do better. do so.

#discourse #hermitcraft #side note. please don't come into my inbox about this i WILL just delete it (even if you're agreeing with me)#i also don't need a 'sorry this happened' so much as a. idk. i'm making this post so maybe people realize that they're doing this at all #and stop doing it #anyway wanna reiterate: 90% of y'all were nice. the problem is everyone likes to pretend the 10% doesn't exist #and i'm just... tired of that.#so here i am! psa over

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canisalbus · 3 months

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I really appriciate how often Machete is depicted struggling and feeling like a burden, while still being loved and supported by Vasco. It gives the top tier angst of "i'm not good enough, I'm not worth it" but you frame it in such a way where it's clear that's just how he *feels* and is not how things really are, but also it's so nice to see someone who struggles quite often in a loving and unique relationship that suits them. The narrative of not being able to love or be loved unless you're consistently healthy is really tiring lol.

#ah thank you! I'm so glad these themes come through the way I intended #this touches on something that I've been thinking a lot so sorry if this gets a bit ranty #but I have massive personal beef with the sentiment “you have to love yourself before you can love someone else/someone else can love you ”#I hate it with a passion #I know it's meant to encourage positive growth and I get that self-love and healthy self-image are something you should strive for #but it also sort of sends the message that people who struggle with these sort of issues don't deserve to be loved #not until they reach some external invisible standard of “okay I'm normal and well adjusted now”#“perhaps now I'm worthy of entering a relationship without the danger of dragging the other person down with me”#people who aren't in perfect health mentally or physically already feel like they're inconveniencing others with their mere existence #depriving them of the possibility or even the idea of loving and being loved won't make them better #it's just a stupid idiom it doesn't matter but to me it just comes across as unspeakably cruel way to think #and it rustles my jimmies #answered #anonymous

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turtledotjpeg · 2 years

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when ur squad is size small-medium-large

#hxh #hunter x hunter #melody hxh #senritsu #kurapika #leorio paladiknight #'squad' in this case is mostly wishful thinking on my part but listen it could be so beautiful #and hey they existed in the same room together at least like... Three times in yorknew?#so that means they're basically bffs by now right ??? lol #anyway #feel free to read this platonically or romantically #but if it's romantic then melody better be in there somewhere :P #(i'm kidding it's not that serious)#(just gotta represent my weird little ot3 here haha)#...okay sorry to once again put a novel's worth of tags but i gotta say #writing alt text for this is so embarrassing lmao don't look at me #feels like a bad fanfiction 😂#i just like it when fictional people hug each other ok

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scintillyyy · 1 month

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the thing about the idea that there's like. 80 years of inconsistent characterization in comics is it's 1) generally kind of untrue and 2) it's especially untrue for the era of post-crisis (the era everyone seems to want to cling to the most) which was a comics era where they (for a very decent amount of time at least) explicitly had and maintained character bibles to ensure good carryover of characteristics and good editorial and tight control over how characters were allowed to be used by writers.

the inconsistent characterization in question isn't near as inconsistent as is oft complained about--what's actually happening is different intepretations of how certain characteristics are supposed to shine through in characters and actually adds a vibrancy to characterizations in the slight incongruincies we get with the various different interpretations. after all, humans are hypocrites, humans can say one thing and do another, and humans can believe something and still do things that might be at odds with what they believe or feel. it adds depth to the characters. and it's frustrating when it's all thrown away for this idea that just because it appears to be inconsistent, it's bad and therefore it doesn't matter and can be thrown away.

#sorry just.#like z and i were saying. a fabnic tim and a lewis tim are different views of tim but they're both still recognizably tim #and like. that's because despite inconsistecies there is a character that actually exists and matters there yanno

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marzipanandminutiae · 7 months

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what do we want?

a canon F/F Gothic romance where both leads are actually, truly, "I enjoy this" feminine-presenting and not just "performing socially expected baseline levels of femininity for her society, but she doesn't REALLY like it and she'd TOTALLY be wearing trousers if she could but she CAN'T so that's why we CAN'T MAKE HER PROPERLY MASC EITHER!!!!"

when do we want it?

fucking yesterday tbh

#like sorry does ANYONE feel represented by that?#at least the masc/masc or masc/fem stories are usually written by sapphists because it's what they're into #I can respect that even while I wish more of My Thing existed #but the whole She IS Fem but She Doesn't LIKE It but She Can't Be Androgynous or Masc Even Though This Is Fiction thing is so played out #not everything is for or about me and that's fine but there was one book I was really enjoying on this level #thinking 'oh hey finally a book where both of the sapphists actually LIKE wearing dresses for a change! cool!'#and then one of them cast an illusion to make herself look like a man and the other one was into it and I was like 'oh. okay.'#(some people like that and that's fine! it just lessened my personal enjoyment of the sex scene in question!)

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fromtheseventhhell · 16 days

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"It's normal for siblings to fight" Okay well it's not normal to be extremely classist and look down on your sister for being non-conforming. Or to go to the woman who ordered the death of your pet to tell her about your father's plans, when he specifically warned you against doing so, because you want to marry the boy you saw attack your sister and her friend (contributing partially to said father's death and your sister being unable to escape on the ship he chartered). Or to think of your sibling as unsatisfactory in comparison to another when you believe her to be dead. I notice that none of the "Sansa and Arya are going to reunite and instantly have no issues" crowd ever acknowledge any of this, which makes it seem like they don't actually believe what they say about their relationship being normal and easily reconciled. People wanting them to have no issues simply because they're siblings is another example of how fandom likes to flatten complex characters and relationships. They get reduced to being bickering siblings when their conflict runs deeper than that. If the author is telling you that they have "deep issues" to work out [X], I don't understand being so adamant about ignoring said issues. I also get the sense it's about ignoring the capacity for a certain character to be flawed, but that isn't going to change the fact that her "slip of the tongue" is very likely to be revealed and a source of further conflict 🤷🏾‍♀️

#arya stark #sansa stark #house stark #asoiaf #also if it's so normal for siblings to fight then why are you guys losing your minds over us theorizing they won't get along??#the amount of condescending /that's just how siblings act/ takes I see 🙄#sorry I guess? that we read the book and don't just delete parts of the story because we find it convenient?#it's not even like takes about them being enemies is widespread the most I see is that they aren't instantly bffs when they reunite 😭#some people theorize they'll never be close but guess what? that's a completely fair and valid assumption based on their relationship!#personally I think they'll have a sweet reunion before the issues they have inevitably surface again because while they've been through #a lot they haven't fundamentally changed as people or the values they hold #and I think that's going to be very interesting to read about!#I can't figure out why people always take the most boring bland route for how things will play out #mostly because people seem to be unable to swallow the concept that Sansa is a flawed character who isn't perfectly sweet all the time #and the fact that their conflict is instigated by Sansa's classism #which is funny cause in the grand scheme of things her being mean to Arya is such a mild thing that opens the door to a ton of growth #never seen anybody but stansas equating her being a bully to her sister to her being evil/a villain #all we do is point out that it exists in the story...people in this fandom have no concept of nuance I stg 😭#anyways they're both complex characters and their conflict is interesting and I hope we get to see how it plays out #cause it's definitely going to be better then that trash d&d came up with 🙏🏾

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artemismoorea03 · 8 months

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DPxDC Prompt: The Child Who Was King

(For anybody who has read my DPxDC fics you might know that I'm a huge fan of the "Unaging Danny" headcanon and this was directly inspired by that)

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The team has already heard about Phantom in one way or another. Yes, the tyrant "Pariah Dark" had his name mentioned in some places but it was called the "Phantom Zone" for a reason. "Phantom Zone", "Land of the Dead", "Underworld", "Limbo" and countless other names are listed and describe the same place.

It also describes a King be it vicious or kind, old or young, a threat or a peace keeper. The stories are so varied that it's impossible for the League to know who to expect when they receive a mysterious sticky note which falls from the sky during the meeting.

Soon.

The entire League is on edge, not knowing what to think until some members (Zatana and Constantine) recognize the symbol on the paperwork from ancient texts. The Symbol of the God of Time. Zatana says that Time works close with the King of Death and is send to bend at his will and often sends warning messages like this to alert those who are required to know. While Constantine just wants to leave before things get to be any more of a headache.

Days turn into weeks.

Weeks into months.

Most of the team thinks it was a mistake but one member of the team stays particularly on edge because the paper fell in front of them specifically. It isn't until they're on patrol in their area that another note appears with an address and a time and when they arrive in the area they make it just in time for a green portal to open and somebody to fall out of it.

They react, years of training tell them to catch the figure and when they do they discover a child no older than 14 under weight, pale with black hair and blue eyes, bruises covering them. They're breathing heavily as the kid leans against the heroes chest fearfully, the cape seeming much larger than them.

The hero doesn't know what to think when one final note appears.

Due to reasons which can not yet be discussed King Phantom is not safe in the Land of the Dead, you are here by entrusted with his protection. If you fail all will be lost.

#dcxdp #ngl I picture the hero being Batman but it could be any here #I just love the batfam #Bruce struggles to explain himself when he gets home #because like what do you say?!#sorry Alfred I would have warned you but this kid litterally dropped into my lap #Danny wakes up in the human realm for the first time in what is *hundreds* of years if not thousands for him #just to find out that it's only 2023 and then he's just like 'this is bullshit'#then when Bruce tells the League what happened and introduces Danny they're shook because “this child is the god of death? Very funny Bruce #Danny is also just trying to remember how to be a person #he also has to relearn that he has to actively use his powers to fly here because it's not the ghost zone where he just *floats* eveywhere #the amount of times he has stepped off of something high or fallen face down on the ground because he forgets gravity exists drives him nut #the siblings start keeping a “days since Danny last face planted” counter.

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danwhobrowses · 6 months

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It shouldn't need to be said but I'm seeing a lot of vitriol towards Ashton about their actions and I have to say I don't agree with them.

At the clock tower Fearne brought up the shard, stated that in her opinion Ashton should take the shard because she didn't want it. Ashton decided then as a result they'd take it, but because it was an extreme risk made very aware to them all they knew the other Hells wouldn't allow them to go through with it. Ashton asked Fearne if she was okay with both of them going together alone with the plan, reiterating that they didn't want to put this on Fearne, that if they died Fearne would not be to blame, and that they have no intention of dying, and Fearne said yes.

Fearne having second thoughts at the Ziggurat was just worry, because she cares deeply for Ashton, Ashton kissing her was not manipulation either; it was letting go of fear, having no regret with the person they also care deeply for and taking the risk. And yeah, it was frightening, 10 rounds of perpetual fiery near-death situations and one actual death situation; Laura is fuming, Ashley cannot look, Liam is playing Mad World on loop in his mind, even Matt is completely on edge, but they survived. Accusations that Ashton manipulated Fearne to selfishly take the shard seem to misinterpret the shard saga as well as Fearne and Ashton's characters, they will get a very intense amount of chastising for sure, but it will be out of love, out of the fear that they were going to lose them, not because they thought Ash was manipulative.

#critical role #bells hells #ashton greymoore #taliesin jaffe #fearne calloway #ashley johnson #laura bailey #matt mercer #Ashton literally is comprised of things that shouldn't exist of course they're gonna not heed warnings when Fearne didn't want it #the group are stressed but I don't believe there's heat #if I recall 4sd is aired after an unaired episode so Tal Travis Matt and Ashley were happily vibing from that despite having already played #Tal and Ashley agreed on this gambit they just underestimated how bad it'd go #and I would wager that Tal knew he could lean on the ring to save Ashton at least once #overall no I don't think Ashton intended to manipulate or hurt anyone and in trying to shoulder it alone they were trying to be selfless #but reminder Ashton is 6 charisma they aren't gonna express their intentions too well #the Hells are rightfully so mad for making them worry but in the end they're just gonna be grateful Ashton's alive #also I have to make a point that Fearne said 'I shouldn't have listened to you' not 'I shouldn't have trusted you' there's a big difference #and Tal hasn't tried to wriggle or bargain out of it he's had Ashton accept all frustration because they know it's from a loving place #critical role spoilers #sorry for multiple edits I keep seeing me unconsciously use he/him and I have to fix it plus I have more to say but nobody to say it to

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thecrowsart · 1 month

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👁️🦎🎯

(crops under cut)

#natsume yuujinchou #matoba seiji #natori shuuichi #horrible exorcists #sorry i couldnt think of a caption i literally sat here for like 2 minutes lol #usually i use a quote from the scene or a lyric from a song but in this scene they're just Looking #anyway FUCK architecture #really though this is csp's perspective ruler's fault. i shoulda just done this by hand #but i made it work. since it wasnt super super complicated lol #ummm i feel like natori looks like a baby ceo but that is what he was wearing at least in the anime version of this scene #and midorikawa's kind of vague about clothes so i made it easy on myself #but why are you rolling up to the exorcist meeting in a navy blazer and tan chinos?#his uniform color is tan so ig the pants could be from that but the blazer......#tryna represent the natori clan in front of the other exorcists ig idk #meanwhile matobas just in his gakuran lol #hes not the clan head yet so he can just be there as a kid #he even gets told off by takuma and called seiji-kun.....could you imagine like.#it's weird for him to not be matoba #anyway. um i completely kind of fudged the architecture because its hard to tell where exactly in the building this scene is and #i had a specific composition in mind #i only realized i messed up how the windows work like 3/4 of the way into lineart soooo #but thats the kind of thing only i would notice probably #btw i was originally drawing a different scene of them but i was faced with the reality of foliage.#and i remembered this romeo and juliet ass scene existed so #i chose architecture LOL #okay last thing. i feel like natoris haircut is too polished and nice but fr wtf is his canon hair #im doing my best LOL.........but boy #OKAY im done

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piningpebbles · 9 months

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the dream smp journey: attempting to make the lore of the dream smp more accessible.

so back when i first wanted to get into the dream smp i had absolutely no idea where to start. i asked some people and they told me pretty much “look up dream smp + [insert youtuber name] and start there” and so i did, but i quickly came to realize how much i was missing from the story by not seeing all the different points of view.

so i decided to make my own playlist.

it was just for myself at first, but as i got more obsessed with the story, i also gave the link to some friends of mine so they could have the full experience, and they loved it. so i kept updating it.

my goal was to try and make a capsule of the entirety of the lore on the dream smp across almost every single POV, because while i do appreciate those who make recap videos, they always miss something and it’s usually with peoples’ POV who aren’t considered to be “main characters” which sucks because one of my favorite things about the dream smp was how everyone was their own main character with their own individual storyline you could get invested in.

i’ve seen every single video in the playlist, and did my absolute best to discern what should be included and what didn’t need to be.

for instance, while i personally enjoyed streams where they’d just goof off, this is a lore-centric playist so i didn’t include all of them unless one of the jokes or such gets mentioned/becomes important later on. or if there is a lore event happening but two people have almost identical streams to one another then i decided between the two of them which one to keep. or if the cc themself made an edited version of their experience, i would decide whether to go with that or keep the original vod

it’s far from perfect. i tried to keep up with it as long as i could I STILL HAVE VIDEOS IN MY WATCH LATER THAT I PLANNED TO ADD but simply put while the dream smp storyline got longer and longer it became harder to keep up with. i watched pretty much all the streams when they happened but failed to update the playlist accordingly so right now it has almost everything up until ”Hitting on 16.”

i always wanted to finish it before i posted it, but i’ve been seeing people talk about how they miss the experience of watching the dream smp and while i obviously can’t provide the full interactive experience that the dream smp offered as it came out, i knew i couldn’t just keep this in my back pocket and thought i could at least offer a good chunk of the experience for you guys to still be able to keep!

here’s the playlist, spanning over 300 videos.

there’s also a semi-canon playlist (not nearly as thorough) for events that get mentioned by the cc’s a lot or are just cool to have and i wanted to include them somewhere so here it is also!!

to go along with it i also made a masterpost (can you tell i love making lists) which is what every single video on the playlist is supposed to be (and was last i checked, but videos get taken down every so often so there might be a couple missing here and there).

i hope to update this one day and have it fully finished, but with my schedule (full-time college student babyyyy) and simply the hundreds of hours of content i’d need to sift through it just seems impossible (and frankly just really intimidating) to challenge alone right now. so i also wanted to give this to the community to maybe be able to do what i couldn’t!

my hope with this is that if someone in a year or two (or whenever really) is interested in the dream smp they won’t have to sit through recap videos and instead can watch the real thing in a single playlist connected to the doc. my dream is for the masterpost and the playlist to go hand-in-hand, being like a guide people can follow that would also link to other moments and lore that is saved but just not avaliable on youtube, so we don’t have all these moments just lost to time.

i want to make this collaborative, i’m hoping this will maybe spark others to share what videos/moments they have saved and stored with each other for the dream smp and maybe together we could complete this thing somehow!! make the playlist and masterpost i dreamed of (the one right now is scuffed, but at least it’s something). the dream smp is one of my absolute favorite pieces of media out there and i want to share this with people but (as you can probably tell) i have no idea what i’m doing!! any step to help make the story more readily accessible is a good one, though!

i know i’ve missed things but i’ve done my best. and while not the perfectly polished thing i hoped it would be when i sent it out to the world maybe it could be a good building block for the community to use. so please share this!! reblog it!! all that jazz!! i want this to be for everyone!!

anyways, this is a long post. but the whole reason i got into the dream smp in the first place was because of the awesome fan content i saw and this crazy and creative community and i want to be able to give back, if i can.

#dream smp #the dream smp journey #dream smp lore #mcyt #tommyinnit #jack manifold #c!tommy #c!jack #(sorry jack and tommy gotta use you to cross-tag)#(is it even crosstagging if they're IN the playlist?.... lot to think about)#i really wanted to add more to this #my goal was to catch up on all the videos and then go back and transcribe each one (or link pre-existing transcriptions)#and then add content warnings if need be #i had this idea too where say you just finished up the nov.16th lore after that it would be cool to link you to sad-ist's animation!!#just things like that! i had a lot of things i was thinking about #anyways thanks for reading my c!jack analysis posts throughout all this time now you may have my massive lore bank i've been holding onto #cheers!!!#rambling rocks #like.. holy shit #will this even turn into anything? i don't know. i hope so #i want to come back to this and give it the TLC it deserves #but until i find the time + motivation for that i didn't want to keep it just to myself #i just hope this is a good step towards making the dream smp story more accessible to people #pebble post

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blinkpen · 3 months

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waking up in a cabin deep in a remote pine forest as the sun is going down. or coming up? you can't tell yet. suppose that's less important when you remember this world has no pine forests, or a sun to rise and set.

instead, this world has no sky at all. instead, this world has stale air and monsters. instead, this world has a man you've only heard rumors of. suppose the rumors are true, and that man has a cabin. and that cabin doesn't smell quite right.

but when has anything ever smelled right down here

#mog art #artists on tumblr #surreal horror #ferrumites redux #blood cw #in universe this dude's psychic powers are so OP just -glancing- him can cause existential breakdowns in people #not bc he did anything but bc his ability to totally rewrite your perception of reality both retroactively and permanently is Infamous #few other espers are powerful enough to break/overwrite this' dude's Effects If They Can Event Detect They're Present #to even learn he exists and is not a boogeyman legend is enough to make some people go nuts wondering if they've always had 5 fingers #so just a reminder he is Out There and Could do that to you (or maybe already has and you wouldn't know) rattles Most Individuals #unreality cw #given the descriptions i just rambled in sorry

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quickhacked · 1 month

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"The outer reaches of space remain unexplored by humankind to this day, but its greed is relentless. We grasp and yearn and hunger for knowledge— answers to questions we cry out into the endless void expecting to understand, expecting the stars to respond. The stars will not, but one day something else will— and we will not like what it has to say." — Rome Solomon, Beyond the Exosphere (1965)

taglist (opt in/out): @shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart, @vvanessaives, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman, @celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister, @killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

#obscura #edit:rome #nuclearocs #nuclearedits #ok so. ok hi. red and i made a new universe hi. sorry. morris quincy victor and eleanor belong to them the rest belong to meee :3 #the pictures i used are basically the patron saints of their occupation / line of work! so that's not what they look like #anyway it's a mix of paranormal stuff + lovecraftian horror + sort of zombies :^)#they're like. the domains of lucifer (demons) behemoth (zombies) and leviathan (the eldritch horrors that happen in space and oceans)#who are like. the three evils that torment the mortal realm #it's all in a historical setting kind of parallel to our world? so a bunch of historic events are the same but it's like #a little bit more advanced with technology but at the same time it's not. it's Just A Little Different y'know #rome's sister went to space for a mission and just straight up went missing which prompts him to become an astronomer #and he's the first one to start speculating the existence of leviathan as eldritch god #morris is a technician at the academy who has an angel stuck in his computer #eve is a nun and herbalist who witnesses the influence of behemoth firsthand through some sick travelers #that she and the other nuns of her convent take care of #anatoly and quincy are both from different space missions who end up as the only survivors who are not basically a plant #the other two survivors have secretly been replaced with some sort of parasites. annihilation style if you've seen that movie #eleanor is a demonologist and works together with her brother victor who's her cameraman #clarence is a blind psychic who lost her sight because of an angel trying to warn her and in return got her psychic abilities #and lazarus is one of the two most famous demonologists in the world but his wife (the other one) passed away #so now he's alone and since he's not from an upper class family like his wife was he's not all that loved as she was #there's a lot going on but it's SO fucking fun to work on so far. feel free to send any asks i would love to explain more :^)#if you've made it this far also hi i love you. kiss for you

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amethystina · 11 days

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I'm waiting so excitedly for your updates, old and new, I can't begin to tell you! You are the fandom treasure! And as I'm waiting and biting my nails I wanted to ask something, what do you think about the final scenes of episode 8 where Gaon has dinner with his professor and tells him he chooses Yohan's side. How come Yohan knew where to find them and the precise moment to come in and pick Gaon up, was he following them or did he and Gaon had a deal?

And what's with leaving his car to stand next to Gain and look at professor? I love this scene so much but I don't know if I understand its message right. Was it posturing, laying a claim on Gaon or what? I tend to feel that Yohan was possessive of Gaon when it came to professor and his police friend and I think I feel some of it in this scene but I'm not sure, I just don't have a clear grasp on it. Would love to know your thoughts!

Aww, thank you so much, sweetheart! This is definitely the first time I've been called not just a fandom treasure, but the fandom treasure. Thank you 💜

Ah yes, the "Ga On runs off with his new sugar daddy" scene. Or, as I sometimes like to call it, the "You just don't understand, dad professor — I love him" scene.

I'm joking, obviously.

(... or am I?)

I would say that Ga On and Yo Han made an agreement beforehand, yes. They probably talked about Ga On's choice to switch sides and while Yo Han would no doubt have loved for Ga On to continue on as a double agent (feeding Professor Min intentionally faulty information) Ga On is way too honest for that. So he probably insisted that, no, he'll call Professor Min, meet up with him, and just flat out tell him that Ga On's spying mission is over. He's now going to elope work with Yo Han instead.

And I find it hilarious to think that, most likely, Yo Han was just sitting in his car, perhaps scrolling through his phone, waiting for his newly acquired sugar baby to finish telling his semi-father figure that he's going dark side. Because Ga On gets up and starts walking before Yo Han drives up, meaning that it's not like Ga On saw the car coming and went "oh, better wrap this up now." It was probably the other way around, where Ga On leaving the table was the signal for Yo Han to come pick him up.

So yes, they definitely had an agreement, especially since Ga On seems to know in exactly which direction to walk, even before the car shows up, and doesn't look the least bit surprised by Yo Han's arrival.

They planned that shit.

Brutal.

As for the fact that Yo Han gets out of the car? Well, buckle up, my darlings, because I think we should take a detour to discuss intent.

Now, intent isn't necessarily important when you want to interpret a scene, but I like the extra nuance it can offer. And by intent, I mean what the scriptwriter/director might have intended with a scene. Why is this scene here? What was the plan behind it? How is it supposed to impact the overall story? How does it tie into the rest of the plot?

Which is never something you can say for sure, of course, unless there are interviews expressly stating it, but, a lot of the time, we can guess.

The intent behind this scene, in its simplest, purest form, is to show that Ga On is switching sides. And, with that in mind, it makes sense that he crosses that road to Yo Han's car (if you know me and my metas, you know how much I love lines, characters crossing said lines, and the symbolism of that) and stops to stand next to Yo Han. It's a very simple yet effective way to show Ga On's choice and where it will take him.

Into Yo Han's arms.

NOW. Intent is very useful because, depending on how skilled the person writing is, you can hide a lot of subtext and leave room for a lot of interpretation with a cleverly formulated intent. That's how censored shows get away with so much, because they can point to the perfectly reasonable, heteronormative intent behind a scene and pretend that there aren't also a lot of subtler nuances to the reading.

And, if they're extra bold, they also add hints in the presentation and execution.

The scene where Yo Han invites Sun Ah to the house is a perfect example of this, where the intent is to make her feel lonely, like an outsider, as she's invited to observe this warm, comfortable family. Not a bad tactic as far as manipulation goes, I have to say. So, in other words, very reasonable intent — makes sense with what they're trying to achieve.

The fact that it ends up looking more like Yo Han is proudly showing off his doting, doe-eyed househusband who's passively-aggressively and not-so-discreetly staking his claim is... well, that's just an accidental side effect, isn't it? Not intent at all.

And that's true. It's not intent that makes it look gay.

It's the presentation of the intent.

(Sidenote: To be a fly on the wall when Yo Han and Ga On came up with this strategy. Because, clearly, they were both in on it and, I mean, how did that conversation go? Inquiring minds need to know.

Like, how did they go from: "We need to throw her off balance. We'll invite her to the house, show what she's missing out on, but also give her hints that she could have it all, if she's willing to surrender" to Ga On going: "I'll cook a fancy dinner. That'll make her jealous."

I mean, he's not wrong but, like, Mr. Sugar Baby. What? x'D

Also, imagine Yo Han's face. Transcendent.)

Anyway. Intent can also ruin a story. I think most of us have read a fanfic and gone: "... that character wouldn't do that. This makes no sense." That could be a sign that the author's intent is clashing with the characters or the story they're trying to tell. Or, put more bluntly, that the author is so focused on forcing an idea that they don't realise that they're going against the logic of the story or characters' personalities. Things happen because they want them to, not because it makes sense, meaning that the intent isn't tied to the story or characters, but what the writer wants. This is badly planned intent.

And, most of the time, readers can tell when the intent is off, even if you might not be able to put your finger on it while you're reading. But if you're feeling a niggling doubt at the back of your mind, wondering why this scene is here, what this scene even means, or why this character suddenly seems to act so strangely, it could be that the writer didn't plan it well enough.

That's not to say that a reader must always know the intent behind a scene. Ideally, the story should be good enough that they don't have to stop and think about things like that. If the intent and internal logic are sound enough, it should just flow naturally.

Because, when it comes down to it, pretty much all scenes in a story have an intent and that intent should be in harmony with the characters' personalities and how they would choose to behave. And I don't mean that there can never be conflict or that characters can't disagree — I mean that all scenes should have a reason for being there. It doesn't have to be a deep or complex reason, but there should be a reason that ties into the overarching plotline. And characters shouldn't be forced into a scene they have no business being in. Intent is very important from a crafting standpoint.

And intent is one of the things that makes The Devil Judge such an absolute joy. Because while there is always a perfectly reasonable — and very heterosexual, we promise — intent behind most scenes, they often choose to present the scenes in a way that leaves room for a much queerer reading. Now, that can happen with almost any story, but what sets The Devil Judge apart is that it seems to be entirely intentional.

The presentation is by no means subtle or accidental.

Like, they didn't have to make Ga On shuffle up in a soft, comfortable sweater and greet Sun Ah like a caring househusband, but they did. That was a conscious choice.

And this scene you mention, with Yo Han getting out of his car when he's picking Ga On up, falls into a similar category in my mind. The surface-level intent is clear — show that Ga On is switching sides — but he could simply have said so. He could have borrowed a car and driven himself. Yo Han didn't have to come pick him up. And he certainly didn't have to get out of the car.

But he did.

And that might be what you're picking up on when you're saying that you're not sure if you're understanding the message correctly. Because in a drama this clever, that puts so much effort into details and, again, intent, it feels almost a bit odd to leave this gaping hole, doesn't it? Yo Han stepping out of that car should mean something, right?

And, once you've gotten this far, you've got a couple of options to choose from to fill in the blanks. Either you can assume that it was just something the creators chose to do because it looked/seemed cool and therefore might not mean much at all. And considering that this drama does that a couple of times, this could honestly be the case. Maybe they just thought it would be more effective to have Yo Han to step out of the car? To really hammer it home to Professor Min what's happening?

Your other option is to bring in the harmonisation between intent and characters. Because, if the writer is good and their characters consistent, you should be able to pick up on secondary layers of intent, running parallel with the main one. Because while each scene has an intent, each character IN that scene also has one (though perhaps it would be more comfortable to call it purpose at this point?).

In other words: If "it looked cool" isn't the answer, could we find it in the character's behaviour instead? What is their intent, based on their personalities and previous actions? Does that give a more satisfying answer?

What reason would Mr. Kang "Abyss" Yo Han have for stepping out of that car?

I, personally, think that the answer is pretty simple.

He is absofuckinglutely staking a claim.

He's stepping out of that car because he's a Possessive, Dramatic Bitch and wants to rub it in Professor Min's face. He wants to show that he's won, that he's turned the spy Professor Min sent, and that he's, quite literally, taking Ga On away.

Yo Han is basically going: "Thanks for the sugar baby — I'll make sure to ravish savour treasure him."

So while the main goal of that scene is to establish that Ga On is switching sides, the intent Yo Han adds with his actions leaves room for a very gay reading. In fact, I'd argue that doing so only makes the scene more believable, since Yo Han's actions are otherwise kind of... unnecessary? He has no reason to step out of the car and make himself known, unless it's for the dramah.

Again, the presentation of the intent is where the magic happens.

So, why this long, godawful rant about intent, you ask? When I could just have answered the question right away?

Because while I know that I'm preaching to the choir in terms of this drama being gay as hell, I just want to highlight the importance of intent and how it can change the reading of a scene. I think intent — or specifically the harmony between characters and intent, and the various layers of intent — is absolutely fascinating, especially in this drama.

Especially if you want to argue that it's gay.

Because there is, in fact, some scenes where I just... I can't. The intent and characterisation don't match at all — unless you add a queer element. Like, this drama is so clever. Not perfect, mind you, but so clever. And so careful with especially Yo Han and Ga On's characterisation. Very little is left to chance.

And so, if you keep everything I've said about intent and characters in mind, and I ask you to explain the intent behind this one, singular shot, can you do so without making it gay?

I'm not joking when I say that this scene, right here, was the one that definitively made me go "oh fuck, this is gay gay."

Because in most others — if not all — I can find that safe surface-level intent which means that the people behind this drama can claim plausible deniability. Of course it's not gay! Look at this perfectly reasonable, heterosexual intent!

Except this one.

There's no explanation for this. Ga On has no reason to look this jealous unless his jealousy is the main intent behind this shot. There just isn't. And it's only made worse by his huff and the way he clenches his jaw a couple of seconds later. Not even the argument that Sun Ah is their enemy so letting her fix Yo Han's tie might be dangerous can justify this, since that's not a look of concern or alarm — that's jealousy.

The intent is jealousy. Plain and simple.

And that's why intent is important. Because, if push came to shove, the intent behind this one, singular screenshot could, theoretically, be the only evidence you need if you wanted to defend a queer reading of this drama.

Because there is, quite frankly — in my humble opinion as the fandom treasure — no other way to explain the look on his face in a drama this meticulous and obsessed with details.

In this scene, unlike all the others, the queerness isn't just in the presentation anymore — it's in both the intent and presentation.

So, if you want the scene that says "this shit's gay, fam"?

This is the one.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#Amethystina Replies #Anonymous #Dear LORD I went off on a tangent here #Sorry about that #But I also stand by it #That screenshot of Ga On keeps me up at night #Because THE INTENT #TELL ME WHAT THE INTENT IS #By the way #I feel a need to point out that I don't actually NEED Yo Han and Ga On to be canon #But it drives me ABSOLUTELY INSANE that some of these scenes exist #Because now they're just messing with me and my hyper-analytical mind #... filed under things going on inside my head I guess #It's never quiet or boring #That's for sure

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