when you are not even remotely a stan but the character/ship gets too much undeserved and inherently hypocritical hate you just say fuck it and become a vehement apologist. as a treat

i’ve been thinking a lot about how people treat female characters lately so i’m gonna rant about it kthx xoxo

this is mostly about shameless and their characters, but it’s applicable to other fandoms and i have a larger audience on this blog than i do on my other sideblog for other fandom shit, so hey. i don’t fucking understand why people criticise female characters far more than male characters.

like are you excusing shitty behaviour from male characters because their character arc is more lovable, or simply because they’re men? i see people criticising characters such as debbie and fiona gallagher and tami tamietti from shameless all the time, because what? they’re flawed, real characters? they have qualities that are seemingly irredeemable in the eyes of the fandom, while other characters have the same qualities along with a tendency to be homophobic, biphobic, racist and generally just a whole fucking asshole, yet those actions are excused when the same behaviour from a female character makes her bitchy.

you are allowed to hate characters and you’re allowed to criticise their actions and behaviour but you can’t solely hate on the female characters when the male ones are equally as flawed. it’s just wack to me.

is it about old stereotypes of women? like women were meant to stay in the kitchen at home, taking care of the kids and only speak when spoken to, never making her voice heard, and now when characters have personalities and behaviours that go against it, they’re worth bashing?

like, again, shameless as an example. debbie gallagher practically forces a boy to get her pregnant (bad), fights with fiona who doesn’t want to raise debbie’s kid when she decides that she wants to be a teenager (understandable, doesn’t happen, yet valid), debbie cares for her daughter as best as she can, going as far as to panhandle on the street with a baby strapped to her chest to support her (morally a good thing), later decides to sign up for community college and take welding classes so she eventually can make a living of off it to provide for her family (really good thing). she uses and manipulates people because she wants to do good for herself and her family and it is objectively bad for her to do so, but her intentions are pretty much always good.

mickey is constantly one step short of murder, and he’s racist and, wildly enough, very homophobic despite literally marrying a man; lip became an alcoholic, smashed his professor’s car, peed on a sorority mother, and then grew from that and made something of himself. carl was dealing drugs and got himself thrown in juvie where he started to appropriate the culture of black folks, and now he’s a cop. debbie did fucked up things but still always tried to do better, so why the fuck are we criticising her and her only for her bad actions, but not the other characters.

and, like, again. you are allowed to hate characters, but you have to judge them fairly and acknowledge that they aren’t all picture perfect, morally black and white people. half the shit that is interesting is when people are morally grey yet still redeemable because you grow to sympathise with them. people do bad things. it’s part of being human. don’t just judge the female leads because they’re doing bad things when the male leads are doing bad things too.

hate them as much as you want but no person is thoroughly bad for doing bad things, just like they’re not thoroughly good for doing good things. shit’s a whole monochromatic spectrum of good/bad deeds.

The deepest soul

A Geralt of Rivia X Reader for the dearest @redrosewritingsstuff​

Hope you’ll love the story.

In a empty road, two men were horse-riding to a small town.

The strongest one was known as Geralt de Riv, the notorious Witcher, while his companion was the famous bard Jaskier Dandelion, whose spellbinding voice enchanted many royal courts.

"So, if my memory serves me well, we're heading to the port town of Socalyn, because they need your services?" asked Jaskier.

"Right" answered Geralt.

"But do you know specifically why they need you?"

"No, but as long as I'm paid, I don't care."

"All right, but imagine they weren't paying you. What would you do?"

"I'll deal with it."

The bard let out a long sigh.

"Knowing yourself, you are probably going to do a massacre ... But hey, why think the worst? In the meantime, I would like to know why we asked for your services."

"Without a doubt, the problem is huge!"

"I hope we don't run into a dragon or whatever other jinns that's going to get us into trouble!"

Geralt smirked.

"I thought you had an adventurous spirit!"

"Adventurer, sure, but not crazy!" Dandelion replied, annoyed.

After an hour's drive, they arrived at the gates of the city. 

The Witcher felt the people's gaze on him as if he was one of the monsters he fought every day. Even if he grew used to this situation, he still hated it.

Dandelion felt his comrade's nervousness rise and gently patted him on the shoulder:

"Everything is fine, don't worry."

"Hope you're right. Now let's try to find a place to sleep."

"Say no more, and hold my beer," answered Dandelion, dismounting from his horse and starting to play his lute.

"I warn you, Jaskier Dandelion, if you dare to sing this ridiculous song ..." growled Geralt.

But the bard, pretending to hear nothing, started to sing his famous ballad, Toss A Coin To Your Witcher.

And as if by magic, the talent of the bard made its effect on the crowd who applauded him wildly and offered him several silver coins.

After thanking his generous audience, Dandelion turned to the witcher, with a broad smile:

"See, Geralt, we won't have to worry about finding us a room for tonight."

"If you say so ..." the latter muttered, rolling his eyes.

However, while he would never admit it out loud, he had to recognize that without Dandelion's help, things would be more complicated.

Suddenly, a richly dressed man came to meet them, escorted by several armed men.

"Oh, we have company." the bard panicked.

"I see this ... Stay behind me." scolded the warrior who brandished his sword as Dandelion rushed to hide behind the witcher's towering mass.

The man approached them and said:

"I am Arkon Gerenyon, Lord Mayor of this city. You must be the famous witcher Geralt of Rivia, and his companion, the illustrious bard Jaskier Dandelion."

"Mmmh ... yes?" the bard replied, worried.

"What do you want ?" Geralt asked aggressively.

The Lord answered them with a broad smile:

"In that case, gentlemen, I welcome you to my humble city. I didn't think you would arrive so soon, but the main thing is that you are there."

"I take it you were the one who wanted my services?" the witcher asked, intrigued.

"Exactly, Sir de Riv. But we'll talk about this in due course. Follow me, please."

The two men looked at each other curiously: what did all this mean?

Curious to know the reason for their coming, they followed Sir Gerenyon to his home ...

Once they arrived at Gerenyon's mansion, they were received with great honor and were entitled to their room. And as the Lord of Socalyn did not do things by halves, he invited them to his table, to the delight of Dandelion, who was very hungry.

During the meal, Gerenyon explained to Geralt the reason for his coming:

"Witcher, if I brought you and your traveling companion over, it's because I thought you could help us."

"In what ?" Dandelion asked, devouring a chicken thigh.

"Well, for some time now, we have been sorely lacking in fish. However, for a port city like ours, no longer having fish in the nets of our fishermen is causing us several problems. Moreover, some of our ships sank without any explanation."

"And what am I doing in this story?"

"I'm coming here. After an investigation by my advisor, we discovered that a mermaid had taken up residence near our shores. We are sure that this creature is responsible for our problems."

"A MERMAID? Incredible!" yelped the bard.

"And... you expect me to get rid of her?" inquired Geralt.

"Absolutely. You'll be generously rewarded if you kill this evil being. You had my word!"

Geralt and Jaskier looked at each other, puzzled: neither of them expected to cross paths with one of the most fascinating yet deadly creatures which ever existed.

But the challenge was exciting, so they accepted it.

A few days later.

Night fells on the town of Socalyn, and all its inhabitants were sleeping. Everyone but Geralt and Dandelion, who were sitting on the seabank while they waited for the mermaid to show up.

For three days, they had set traps to try to capture the creature, but the latter had outsmarted them all. 

They realized that they had no choice and that they were going to have to catch it on their own. The bard and the witcher waited for a sign of her presence for three hours, in the dark and the cold, as Dandelion's chattering teeth prove.

"B-but how do you t-to endure such a blizzard?"

"The habit."

"Thank you, I noticed that."

"You should have taken a thicker coat."

The bard didn't answer but admitted that the witcher was right. Trying to distract himself, he took out his lute and began to play a tune.

"Put this away immediately!" growled Geralt.

"But why ?"

"Don't be kidding! If we want to get our hands on this mermaid, we have to be discreet!"

"But I'm bored!"

"Do as I say!"

Letting out a long sigh, Dandelion put down his lute and began to grumble:

"How do you want me to forget I'm cold if you keep me from expressing my creativity?"

"Don't express anything and just focus!"

"Old grumpy indestructible!" hissed the bard, who crossed his arms and waited for more.

The two men were silent for a long time until they heard a whisper in the night.

"What was that? Have you heard it?"

"Yes."

And, to their astonishment, a beautiful voice chanted through the darkness:

Toss a coin to your Witcher!

O' Valley of Plenty

O' Valley of Plenty, oh

Toss a coin to your Witcher!

A friend of humanity.

"Well, sounds like she appreciates my work... unlike you!"

"Quiet! She is not far from us!" snarled Geralt drawing his broad sword from its scabbard.

Panicking, Dandelion tried to pull away from the water's edge, but instead, he slipped and fell backward into the water.

"JASKIER!" yelled the witcher, rushing to help the bard.

Fortunately, the latter rose to the surface, gasping for air.

"Damn, I thought I was going to drown!"

Suddenly, he felt a presence next to him. He turned and was amazed at the beautiful face of a young woman who was looking at him curiously. Her long hair that cascaded over her shoulders, her mesmerizing eyes, her fair skin that glistened in the moonlight, and her ruby lips made her the most beautiful person he had ever met.

For his part, Geralt was relieved to see the bard safe and sound, but he was intrigued by his companion's mysterious savior. There was something enigmatic, seductive, but also innocent in her features. Nothing alarming at first glance, but you shouldn't let your guard down.

Coming to his senses, the bard smiled at the young woman:

"Thank you very much for your help, dear young lady. Without your help, I would probably be at the bottom of the water. Can I ask you your name?"

"(F / N)," the young woman whispered with a soft smile.

"What a beautiful name, for such a lovely savior."

The young woman giggled.

"Thank you."

Geralt rolled his eyes: No matter the situation, Jaskier Dandelion will remain an incorrigible seducer.

"Instead of doing your charm act, come back this way before you catch a cold!"

"Oh, I'm dreaming! The terrible Geralt of Rivia is worried about me?"

"Come back here, before I regret it!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming ..." sighed the bard, who swam towards the shore, accompanied by the young woman.

But as the bard climbed onto dry land, the witcher saw a detail that surprised him: instead of seeing legs, he saw a shimmering fishtail of a thousand colors.

"Dandelion ..."

"What? What's wrong with Geralt?"

"At the risk of surprising you, I think we found our mermaid."

"What do you mean ?"

Dandelion began to understand when he saw the fishtail.

"OH MY GOD!"

To their surprise, they saw immense sadness appear on the young woman's face.

"And there you go, it's always the same: As soon as I help a human, he gets scared and calls me a monster. So it will never end?"

Oddly, the mermaid's words sounded familiar to the witcher. And there was no evidence that she was acting to trick them.

Sheathing his sword, he approached her and asked:

"Why did you save Dandelion?"

"He sounded nice ... and I love listening to his songs."

"Thanks, I appreciate the compliment."

(F / N) smirked before returning his attention to Geralt.

"You are not human. Am I wrong?"

"Indeed."

The mermaid's smile widened.

"So you must be the witcher of the song."

"Unfortunately, yes." he chuckled.

"Oh, shut up! I know that you are flattered to have your own song!" Dandelion retorted.

The bard asked the young woman:

"But then, if you are not the dangerous creature everyone is talking about, why are the inhabitants accused you of all their misfortunes?"

"I don't know why, but I swear to you it wasn't I who ran away from the fish or sunk the fishing boats."

The answer became crystal clear to Geralt.

"They are afraid."

"Sorry?"

"They are afraid of her, so they accuse her of being the root of their problems."

"Something you know all too well," Dandelion told him sympathetically.

"Yes."

The three individuals remained silent before Geralt said:

"Now that we know the truth, what do we do?"

"Aren't you going to hand her over to these bullies?"

"No."

"Phew, at least some good news. In that case ... let's take her with us."

"And how would we do it? Let me point out that she has a fishtail, not legs."

"I think we can fix this problem." replied the young woman, pulling herself up onto dry land.

And under the dumbfounded eyes of the two men, the fish scales gave way to a pair of long, thin legs.

"Oh. Here's a surprise." Dandelion replied, amused.

"I admit that this is not trivial."

"Now, do you want us to take her with us? I beg you, say yes!"

The witcher shrugged.

"We can take him, but how are we going to get the money back?"

Dandelion smirked mischievously.

"I think I have an idea. Here's what we're going to do ..."

The next morning.

Arkon Gerenyon was puzzled at the story Geralt and Dandelion had just told him.

"So, if I understood correctly, after you fought the mermaid, you managed to defeat her, but she sank to the bottom of the water before you could take a trophy, is that it?"

"It is the strict truth, my lord. I saw the whole scene with my own eyes." the bard swore.

The witcher was content to remain silent and observe his traveling companion lying with impunity to an aristocrat. But knowing Dandelion, he knows he will be convincing.

And he was right because, after a few minutes of silent reflection, the Lord of Socalyn declared:

"Indeed, it is a great pity that I cannot hang the head of this creature on my wall. But anyway, I am satisfied with your work, gentlemen. You are free to go, your money is waiting for you near your horses."

After thanking their employer, the two men left the scene and resumed their journey, their pockets filled with gold coins.

"So, didn't I tell you it would work?"

"It especially proves that you are a good talker!"

"Ungrateful! I made you rich!" Dandelion snapped.

In response, he heard a slight laugh coming from Geralt. This reaction made him smile.

"Hallelujah! I made the biggest grumpy of all time laugh!"

"Don't overdo it! Let's not waste time, we have to get back on the road!"

"You're right, but above all ..."

He called.

"(F / N), you can come, we are alone."

Immediately, the young mermaid left her hiding place and climbed on Roach.

"Can we go?"

"Since everyone is here, let's go!"

And our trio set off on new adventures. Time passed, and the more he got to know her, the more Geralt began to like (F / N) ... all under Dandelion's amused and tender gaze.

One evening, when they had stopped near a lake, the young mermaid decided to take a swim because she had missed her natural element. But very quickly, she felt that she was being watched.

She turned and smiled when she saw Geralt sitting on the edge, a slight smile on his face.

"What are you doing here?"

"You look ... happy. And I'm glad you're smiling with us."

"I owe both of you my happiness ... and especially you, Geralt."

She lowered her eyes slightly and asked in a shy voice:

"Do you ... want to join me?"

No answer. Ashamed and disappointed, (F/N) was about to leave when she felt the water stir gently. She raised her head and met the witcher's amber gaze. The latter was only in his pants and moved closer to her, leaving a small distance between their faces.

"I'd rather act than talk. Don't blame me."

"I don't blame you. After all, it's in your nature."

"So what's yours, mermaid?"

"Let me show you."

"I follow you."

And without a word, their lips collided, and their hands were on their bodies.

As they took advantage of this unreal moment, the two lovers had no idea that Dandelion was watching them, a broad smile on his lips.

"That promises a great story ... Oh, I have an idea!"

Grabbing his lute, the bard began to play a few notes and sang his new song:

From the forest to the peak,

His heart, the witcher thought he lost.

He wanted it back at any cost,

As he was scared to be weak.

Little did he know,

His heart lays in the shallow.

But a gentle lady,

Sweet and pretty,

Found it and cherished this treasure.

Moved by her love,

The witcher offered her

His love, his life, and his sword.

O Destiny,

You the Almighty!

Please, protect them,

And tell us all the tale

Of the Witcher and the Mermaid!

And for the bard, it was probably one of the most beautiful stories he ever sang.

Hope you lik the story! Don’t hesitate to request!

HuskerDust - More Toxic Than You Think [LONG]

This is the rough version of a deeper and more complex subject I want to ‘decorate’ with more ‘screencaps’.  DISCLAIMER: This is allegedly controversial and led to me getting literal death threats and an ED triggered. Ive about heard a lot of people’s shit on this so dont try it. I’m speaking from personal experiences too - experiences I really fuckin dont wanna be sharin yet they kinda validate my points. I want people to be aware of the damaging image from someone who can speak from experience without attracting dickheads or people twisting things. Again, I aint particularly comfortable sharing this so yeah- Be courteous- TW AHEAD - ALSO LONG ASS READ. DNI STANS OR ANTIS. May tag a few folks, may not.  HuskerDust is an extremely popular ship in the community however there’s glaringly obvious flaws in this one-sided relationship that both the fans and even the team fail to see. Neglecting the dangerous real world implications this ship [as well as many others] present to it’s audience - especially the more influenced of the audience, most who are children.

Angel flirts with all the male cast however one who catches his eye the most is Husk. Now I want to point out a few things [of many... obviously]; Angel is instantly starry eyed upon seeing Husk, likewise he actually started off with a ‘Hey~’ instead of something sexual. However he quickly ruins this after Husk tells him to go fuck himself [defined by: “ go fuck yourselfphrase of fuckVULGAR SLANGan exclamation expressing anger or contempt for, or rejection of, someone.” ie, he rejected instantly] by responding with an offer to allow Husk to essentially watch him masterbate. Alongside this, he cradles his face. Husk pulls away and seems to pull a face to express rage/disgust or growling imagery alongside COMPLETELY withdrawing his body away from Angel as Angel stares with goo-goo eyes. Firstly, Angel loves animals - perhaps it’s Husk appearing cute that adds to this, however Im not going to address animal imagery just yet. Secondly, Angel isn’t really portrayed to respect other’s boundaries BUT he does respect... Alastor’s. Al declines the blowjob to which Angel shrugs and doesn’t push this matter any further. With Husk, he’s pretty harshly told to piss off yet he makes quite and explicitly sexual remark, alongside invading his personal space and touching a man clearly disinterested and pulling away. From the initial rejection, it then becomes sexual harassment.  I also want to add that Husk comes with [some] perks in his feline form. And if my name didnt make it obvious, I work with and live with cats on a daily. Briefly, I have been educated in how to understand cat’s language in various individual cat as well as how to handle and work with them. Cats are often drawn towards me and Ive been successful with various types of cats. My most recent being a cat I’ve dubbed as Big - Big was abandoned quite young and has lived most his life on the streets [where I live is high in crime and drug rings, so you can imagine how strays are treated] leading to him being extremely fearful and hating people, hissing and fleeing just seeing people. I took time out last summer to finally give befriending him a shot. It’s taken just under a year of hard work and now he visits every day for his mush [wet food] and kisses, responds to his name and runs up to me in delight. Ive even taught him a phrase to signal that I dont want him or the other cat’s to fight [keeps them all safe and aids them becoming acquainted under supervision - something that’s been working surprisingly well]. I apologise in advance as this is not going to be the first instance of this sort of thing but they are relevant. Trying my best to keep it as brief.  For Husk, I will be using a mix of cat and human characteristics to break down his reactions.  In this first interaction, he turns his body away in a way to suggest caution, wariness and disinterest. In fact, much of his general body language is that of a man deeply closed off from connections - for starters, he folds his arms quick a bit which suggests lack of openness, shutting off and defensiveness *usually*. Likewise, when touched, he slightly jumps and tenses before pulling back in aggression with flattered ears - a sign cats give to display extreme hostility in a situation. It’s NEVER a good thing but then again, neither is crossing someone’s boundaries. It’s even stated that Husk hates Angel’s advances and wishes for nothing to do with him - the same dislike of sexual advances that Al dislikes in Angel. The ending as they all walk inside, Angel turns to Husk, winking and blowing a kiss his way despite the clear rejection earlier. In fact, Husk once again grows tense and is even irked by such a gesture. This won’t be the last mention of Angel totally disregarding how Husk feels - something that rubs off onto the fans AND the team themselves. And it’s... *concerning*, to phrase it lightly. Angel so far is the most persistent towards the most resistant, and in my post on RadioDust I have already established [briefly] on how Angel seems to chase unavailable men. The more unavailable, the more tempting. The one that got away, mentality. It’s not healthy. And I’m surprised so few have acknowledged this. Taking a break from what we’ve seen in the Pilot, let’s establish some facts about the pair.  Angel died in 1947 in his 30s [some posts specify 34-35], putting his birth year around 1911-12ish. Husk died in the 70s IN his 70s [again, nothing is truly specified, so for both we’ll go with 75 - the same number in his IG username] that puts birth year roughly 1900′s. Now an age gap between two adults of 11 - 12 years difference is actually reasonable and can work, depending on circumstance and whether theres a balance in power or not. But when we account for their life experiences and death ages, it’s something else entirely. Angel died young. Not only that but his mind seems more stuck in his raunchy teens than of an adult. And even THEN, he wouldnt be one to necessarily settle down [by which I mean in life, not romance]. He’s extremely emotionally stunted and his selfishness and wanting his own way come off very spoilt [when Husk is pissed off about the cat costume, Angel gets moody because he’s used to compliments AND is dressing to impress Husk. When Husk wanted the money he was rightfully owed, Angel threw a fit for ages until starting to earn it back - even though he owed Husk a drink, which I’ll be coming back to, Husk still wanted the money in the end perhaps hinting to only accepting a freebie as it’s on offer as well as Angel being overly persistent. He even dumps his pig onto Husk to look after, while theres no issue in pet sitting, Angel said Husk ‘owed’ him due to missing the show yet when HE owed Husk, he threw a fit.]. Angel’s life style is wildly chaotic in life AND death, and even though we all know he’s most likely going to be redeemed, he still lacks a lot of experiences in life. He lacks maturity.  On the other hand, Husk’s been through his own share of chaos and heartbreak. Difference is, he’s had a life time of experience. He doesn’t act immature in a childish sense. He truly behaves like a downtrodden old man. He’s had his days and would feel more secure settling down in a more peaceful environment with fun yet much needed calm. A better way to handle his need for risk. Age gaps in adults that are large [75 - 35 = 40 years!] are far less likely to work for a multitude of reasons. The main reason is the difference in life stages - that difference in mentality and experiences plays such an impacting role on compatibility. Often their goals and energies are polar opposites and their common grounds minimal. There’s also the looming concern of power dynamics. Whilst it’s usually the older figure that’s holds the power advantage, in this case it’s a little bit more complicated. I’d argue that it’s possibly Angel with the higher power. This rarely works irl but it’s POSSIBLE. Look at Hugh Heffner and his last partner before his death. I believe she was around 22. However there’s many common grounds, immediate attraction, and similar goals. Though incorrect, Heffner does give off a pimp-like vibe (he’s not but you get what I’m implying with mothlike imagery). Husk does not strike me as that type. It would definitely cheapen his character. In terms of interests, the main thing they have in common is that they like to drink. A bad habit, especially when one is an alcoholic. Both are also rather lazy except for certain circumstances [Husk will go out of his way to help HOWEVER he’s obliged to under Al, the only one he’s seen to willingly help and bond with/be seen with is Niffty. Angel is when there’s a fight, chaos, drama or any sex work]. Both are also rather snarky and vulgar. In terms of love, both suffer intimacy issues. On Husk, it’s ‘losing the ability to love a long time ago’ meaning he was likely cheated on or at least had a failed relationship. If he was ever ready for a new start, he’d definitely want something stable yet rewarding. For now, he needs a LOT of work - work he is not yet willing to put in, nor does he have a reason to. Angel doesnt want to commit because he’s extremely selfish as well as in an already abusive ‘relationship’ already. Sex work is sometimes VERY taxing on the mental health due to some of the folk you service. He’s seen the worst in many and just enjoys the pay and fuck. IF Husk was cheated on, then it’d make a lot of sense if a sex worker wouldn’t be his flavour, it would just serve as a reminder. Not only this, but Angel HIMSELF actively participates in cheating. Not with Val... but with *Travis*. BOTH know Travis is married (I’d be feckin worried if Trav didnt-) yet they still choose to cheat anyways, regardless of the pain it could cause. Angel even mocks this by sending greetings to Trav’s wife. Honestly this... Reminds me a LOT of Stolas - a main character who sexually harasses another character clearly not interested/comfortable, participates in cheating and we’re supposed to root for them (and before anyone gets offended, I do have more to say on Angel’s behalf so please be patient). Either way, it’s very toxic and concerning. Even if Husk wasn’t cheated on, I dont think many would feel exactly secure after having such a rough past with love, diving into a relationship with someone who’s openly participated in multiple affairs. And that’s no shitting on sex workers either, it’s just a point that some would feel uncomfortable with the idea of being with ANYONE (regardless of their work) having actively and KNOWINGLY took part in having an affair previously - especially multiple. Husk’s in an emotionally fragile place and needs more security. We’ve already established Husk heavily dislikes Angel’s advances. In fact, his responses to Angel are similar to his responses to... Al! His body language is VERY test and closed off to even Al, who’s most likely knew him for a very long time. If even Al gets this treatment (whilst also disrespecting his boundaries) then it’ll be the same with Angel (both force Husk into their lives and schemes, both disregard his boundaries). And he’s shown to STILL go out his way to help both however this is most likely tied to an unspoken ‘debt’ he owes Alastor. Plus he’s been mentioned behind the scenes to be a secret softie and protective grandpa type. But this animosity is very reflective of how Loona behaves and responds to Blitzo as well as how both Loona AND Husk (One being a ‘lowly servant’, the other being a literal old MAN) as pets - even the fans - just because of their forms. But this isnt the first of the disrespect they receive. Now we delve deeper Both are addicts of some kind (Husk - drinking, gambling. Angel - Drugs, possibly sex). Not a good mix at all romantically. Addicts often and unintentionally feed their addictions to each other as well as can increase likelihood of relapsing which even a recovered addict can slip back into. When times get tough (a natural occurrence) both are likely to suffer with their addictions. Interestingly, they can become addicted and dependent on one another, which is genuinely unhealthy for a mindset anyways, regardless whether addiction existed prior or not. Addiction only increases these chances. Angel likes confidence in a man (confirmed on Patreon). Yet, Husk is even confirmed  in streams to be deeply troubled and insecure. One thing he hates is his demon form, something that we’ll touch on shortly. Angel loves quality food ESPECIALLY of Italian origin whilst Husk is willing to eat the shit they give you in bars (admittedly that was painful to type as someone who grew up around pubs - either way it’s not exactly high quality or gourmet is what I’m saying). Interestingly, in some character references of Angel, it’s stated that he hates rejection. Hates. That’s a VERY strong word. This could explain but not justify why he’s persistent with Husk (similar to NiceGuys believing you’re playing ‘hard to get’ - further illuding to an immature and toxic mindset) though it interestingly doesn’t apply with Alastor. Odd.  There’s a counterpoint to symbolism in art. A very VALID counterarguement... If it suited Viv’s style. During Media Studies, Business, Design and Art, hell fucking Silent Hill! - I’ve been educated on effective symbolism as well as artistic trademarks (the most famous that most should know is Alfred Hitchcock!). Hitchcock often appeared in all his films, usually as a sidefacing silhouette, trading marking his films with his very PRESENCE. Viv’s seems to revolve around hearts. I mention this because an IG account made the point that hearts were to symbolise anyone connected with Angel’s story and love life (Valentino’s business and shades/collar, heart behind Angel’s head, Heart tattoo on Cherri’s right shoulder, hearts for Husk’s paws, eyebrow marks above natural brows, wings, and nose as well as most of the playing cards). Thing is, there’s hearts EVERYWHERE in all of Viv’s works and such symbology of Angel and hearts is weakened if it connects to the villains/abusers as well - taking away the positivity in a love symbol. Viv’s used hearts in her font, backgrounds, in characters ears, in all her series just generalised, Blitzo’s forehead, background characters, again the cards, Travis’s eyes, Millie’s right shoulder in the SAME place as Cherris. Even Vaggie had a heart tattoo on the shoulder in some christmas themed artwork (on her left). Heart’s is just something Viv seems to brand herself with. And that’s fine though I feel she could do with cutting it down slightly. One thing to early note on the cards (again, this’ll creep up later and my name should tell you why), most are heart suits and usually either a face card (J, Q, K), Joker, ace or 2s. Face cards/Jokers for more details close up (look at the signing artwork) and the rest are just easier to animate, though a little bit of a peeve to someone into their cards as well as the massive overuse of red in Hazbin overall. It’s extremely unlikely to be symbolic. If they change it to be so, then it’s... Weakened. As I’ve mentioned earlier, Silent Hill is an example of extremely clever symbolism in more darker media (more so, SH is considered a ‘hell’ of sorts and does feature religious iconography WITHOUT causing offence. A great example of how to portray this type of thing - they even mix humour in if you consider some of the sneaky references, dialogues and odd UFO/dog endings).  Discussing Viv’s art further, she drew a gift for her sister (original creator of Husk when he possessed white fur) of Angel playfully dragging a disinterested and annoyed Husk (I believe this was still around the time SpiderMoth was canon). The newish art tends to have Angel putting a holly crown on him or sitting on his knees, Husk seeming too lazy to really do anything about it. Very nonchalant. I also want to include some interesting stream arts here and later to further highlight their bond.  A fan asked Viv in a stream to draw them “actually getting along” - this wording implying that the fan is aware of Husk not enjoying Angel’s company. So Viv did, with an extra doodle of Husk being one of the ‘canadian people’ from South Park who sing “Im not your friend”. The art alone shows Husk’s absolute discomfort, even the extra thing Viv added w/o request. As they’re her characters and the fan asked for what they’d look like getting along, to show this discomfort goes to show the dynamic once planned. Husk just isnt a fan of Angel, especially when he’s being sexual and touchy. It can be great for small comedic parts, however both the team AND fans have now crossed this over to really creepy and triggering realms in their ships. It’s creepy and doesnt look good on Angel (who they actively root for) nor the gay community (more on that).

[Yes Ive already pointed out the comedic side of this ^ but it doesnt bode well considering the other points and issues that arise] There’s also a request for drag angel flirting with drunk husk. Personally thats a lil creepy to specify one of the two being intoxicated and thus not able to truly consent. If Angel is willing to flirt with someone in that state, it doesnt mean he would fuck them, but it does feel the fan was thinking that’s the case. In all truth, I think Angel WOULD flirt with those incapable of consent purely to swindle or pickpocket. I’d like to think [and HOPE considering his own abuse by Val] that he’d never take it further. And I hope Viv, the team and the fans see how incredibly creepy that thought is. I’ll give benefit of the doubt though it is still a concern. Either way, Angel appears... Annoyed? Husk is completely turned away and seems incredibly grouchy and confused. This shows yet more rejection on his behalf as well as Angel’s response to being rejected, which highlights his immaturity towards it. Remember, he’s USED TO and EXPECTS everyone to want him (even saying this in the Pilot). Hell, there’s even a Rich Vaggie request where Viv again randomly includes Husk. This time, he’s faced towards her and relaxed, though seems unimpressed and overall disinterested in this type of behaviour. Behaviour and interests of Angel [Celeb status and rich appearance due to Val, despite getting very little of the cut and the vanity, as well as Husk just not giving a shit about this sort of peacock display]. (Also wanted to note in Viv’s #3 stream 1:50:50, Faust makes out that Husk is a ‘dirty, creepy old man’ as well as him constantly threatening violence towards Angel. I dont see him as *creepy* in this context - as it implies perversion that he blatantly lacks fortunately - though it’s very telling of how Husk feels and again shows this toxic relationship).

/Angel’s Type: First off, daddy issues. He has them. Now let’s look at ‘daddy’. Henroin is shorter than Angel, dark fur, grumpy, old, wears only a hat and tie, big brows... Sounds familiar? Ok, look at his brother Arackniss. Similar to Henroin, dark, short, grouchy, bullied by and bullies Angel, is adverse to Angel and overall possess a bad relationship. Ok.... His main client, Travis! Short, dark fur, moody, Only wears hat and tie, drinker (shown in stream as request so take drinking with a pinch), similar face to- Is no one else seeing this trait? Angel seems to go for these shorter than him grouchier men who either want him for sex or hate his presence. Men who are like his dad and brother. All of these guys are far too similar, and we’ve got enough men in suits, bowties and sharp teeth in this show to boot as it is- The psychology of this type of attachment is rooted in a bad familial relationship alongside the subconscious desire to repair or compensate for it. Unknowningly the person will keep seeking out this sort of guy who isnt good for them to fix this internal issue. The resolution is to NOT go for these types. It’s also connected to intimacy fears, by going for those you know arent good for you/right for you/interested in you is often the manifestation of these issues. Pair them with daddy issues and it’s a disaster! There is science to back this up. Valentino is interestingly the opposite yet still toxic issues arise. Why? Because he’s going from one extreme to the other but with the same mindset. Neither of these men or types for MANY reasons are right for him. And visa versa. Seeing a pattern? ~~~~

Angel w Husk? I mentioned before that Husk hates his demon form. If you’re an old man, a gambler, some Vegas bloke and have this grouchier disposition, why the fuck would you want to look like an oversized pet? Exactly. Angel however adores his own aside from the feet. Now I find it strange how the guy we’re rooting for just so happens to like his own form which was intended for punishment. But that’s not todays post. I said earlier that Angel is heavily fixated on Husk’s appearance. Especially the feline aspects (calling him Husky and Kitty - petnames he hates that also treat him again more like a pet than a man -, dressing as a ‘sexy cat’ to appeal to him which can come off as more mockery. This is even backed up by fans who seem to think an old guy’s gonna act like some school girl anime trope?). All of this completely disregards and disrespects Husk’s feelings and perspectives. Something the fans and team take part in actively. Angel - whether you want to hear this or not - is SELFISH. When Husk ‘owed’ him for missing the show (babysitting Fat Nuggets), Husk begrudgingly fulfils this. The second Angel owed Husk for stealing drinks, Angel threw a hissy fit. The silent treatment, going to other bars and posting about it whilst complaining (again focusing on Husk being ‘cute’). Trying to cop out of it by buying Husk a smoothie (though it looked like a date, lets be real, do you REALLY have to bribe someone to date and be around you? No) and even then he still had to owe the money which was more of Husk’s concern. Yes he did in the end and more money than needed, hence the returning of the extra cash, but that is no excuse for the childish behaviour prior. He’s much too accustomed to being adored and pampered and getting his own way that he cant grasp when people arent a fan or willing to pamper him. If they make them a ship, all it does it make Angel completely into a shitty Gary-Stu that everyone loves and pities for his suffering, rather than teach him to grow, earn his redemption and confronting his own toxicity. Let me make this extremely clear: ANGEL DOES NOT DESERVE ABUSE OR RAPE. But when he starts behaving as shitty, he’s hard to root for. Remember, he’s sexually harassing all these guys, with Husk getting the brunt of it. But it’s treated as a joke for them and only taken seriously for Angel. Val abuses all of his employees. He abuses VOX and even THAT was mocked by fans and staff. It’s... It’s frankly gross.  In every interaction Husk has with Angel, his body language is closed off, tense, uncomfortable, turned away and hostile - look at the IG. He wont even allow Angel to touch him. Compare this to Niffty, who he’s fine with taking pictures with and letting her hang around and touch him. Body language is relaxed (relaxed shoulders, open body language) and he doesnt look hostile at all. What does Angel do? Always tries to get close to Husk (such as sitting as close as possible during Poker) and forces both his OWN hobbies onto Husk (ones that Husk shows a strong disinterest in) and Husk’s hobbies (Poker). It’s very FORCED and not natural. Going back to immaturity, he blames Husk and his cards for being shit at the game. They’re always bickering, insulting, fighting in the comments but fans only see this as a ‘cute couple fight’ or Husk being ‘tsundere’.Tsundere. An anime trope often used in young characters. Irl tsundere is NOT this dramatised. The tsundere you see in anime, apply that irl and you get the recipe for the most toxic, petty and immature relationship going. You get constant fights, unease, not feeling loved/appreciated, little trust - the list goes on. Plus an old bloke really isnt going to indulge in tsundere traits. It’s childish. After his history with love, I doubt he’d be up for games and messing about. For something meaningful, he’d just want open honesty. Their ‘relationship’ feels like it’s written by horny kids attempting a fanfic after being inspired by 50 shades and twilight (both show toxic relationshiiiiiips~). The worst is that these are adult writers trying to portray some realistic yet sensitive topics. This is just ill fuckin taste. Even the warnings in Helluva’s ‘Horny Demons’ leaves a bad taste when the fans are thinking Stolas is the best dad despite both parents ruining Octavia’s mental health. Despite the next day after that episode aired Stolas starts flirting with Blitzo again on IG. Despite Blitzo being clearly uncomfortable and sexually harassed and even co-herced into sex (VERY UNHEALTHY MESSAGES HERE). Viv herself has been in bad relationships so how the fuck she’s blind to this and even borderline fetishizing this sort of behaviour that everyone seems to play off as ‘Awwww cute tsundere <3 BOYFRIENDS BOYFRIENDS BOYFRIENDS’ is abhorrent. I’ll go into this more later on how this really just... It treats male sexual harassment and assault as a fucking joke- Angel’s constant unwarranted flirting is no different from the freaks on IG that send dick pics to underage kids and random women in their dms and fathom that they’re ‘nice’ and have a ‘chance’. Wanna know the creepiest? The candid photo of Husk on Angel’s wall. Something Husk seems horrified about. It’s fangirlish and teenager like at BEST, and obsessive stalker at worst. He’s NOT respecting Husk’s boundaries or feelings. That’s still up despite Husk’s reaction. He still wore the costume despite Husk’s feelings. Angel’s thinking with his dick and it’s such a fucked up message that everyone seems to support just because ‘its FICTION. Theyre in HELL.Theyre BAD people.’ Yeah? Well look at how that’s effecting and warping reality and perspective. It’s glamourising it. Fetishsizing stalking and making it cute. Yer have celebrity or boyband or whatever youre a fan of pics on your wall. NOT your crush. NOT someone who clearly isnt interested or happy with this. If someone who kept commenting on your pictures “sexy” suddenly had a picture of you on their wall, what would YOU think? How would YOU FEEL? Because myself and my own sisters have been in VERY fucking similar situations and it’s traumatic. His paw is even attempting the lens - Angel is crossing his boundaries and not getting the message that Husk doesnt want this. He’s forcing himself onto Husk. Yknow... VAL forced himself on Angel and it ended up in numerous rapes. Angel hasnt raped Husk, but if he wont take no. If he wont respect boundaries. If he only wants Husk to do what he wants but throws a fit when he owes husk - he’s picking up on Val’s bad habits more and more. How are so few - even the very team creating this - not seeing how disgusting this is? Are we only supposed to give a shit if Angels hurt? If so, the message isnt so much of how despicable Val is but how awful it is to upset Angel. Fans constantly blame Husk for being grumpy, annoyed at or rejecting Angel. Look at this real world implication. Not only that but Angel being gay just reinforces one of the worlds most disgusting and inaccurate stereotype of gay men being sexual predators and forcing men to have sex whether theyre comfortable or not. MOST gay men arent like this, and those who are its just because THEYRE shitty people (Jeffree fucking Starr, but look how people ‘stan’ his fuckin behaviour). Val is rubbing off on Angel as much as fiction has a MASSIVE impact on reality - whether we’re willing to admit it or not. Like Val, hes pushing past boundaries, he’s selfish, hes more into visuals than anything else. It’s one sided, superficial and theres no click. No connection. Be in this situation yourself and seeing this sorta shit becomes second nature to stay alive. Angel even says that most of hells residents are ‘ugly freaks’ yet finds Husk cute. It’s all LOOKS. Who else likes appearances alone? Val. I know this will trigger and upset fans, Ive been told to fucking die and have my ED triggered when I mentioned it before. But accept that all of them have flaws. Everyone irl have flaws. But there’s flaws and then theres a fuckin crime. If Husk was a woman, more people would see the flaw, but even then... Look at many romance movies - not all but many go for opposites attract (science proves this inaccurate irl), stalking, or even sexual harassments and assualts but she falls for him and they end up together. That aint love thats Stockholm with extra steps. Think you’re triggered and upset? Go through this shit - have a history with it happening - and then see some show you love and a comfort character get treated the exact same and everyone JUSTIFIES it, including the team themselves. It’s NOT cute.  Part 2 to the previous point: Both do share common interests, but it’s very unhealthy such as excessive drinking, both being addicts and being rather lazy, etc. Otherwise the common ground just isnt good. They’re opposites that really dont compliment each other. (Not a valid point here but I find it interesting how Angel loves aquariums and Husk can fly too). Viv’s writing is mediocre at best (but with glowing potential - a diamond in the rough - hence why it’s so frustrating) but Husk’s writing is the laziest. According to Viv he’s (paraphrased) “easiest to write... doesnt care about anything, almost always grumpy leading to similar reactions to everything”. His voice and alcoholism even has a lot of inspiration from Rick Sanchez. As I said with Angel in the RadioDust post, it’s almost like the addictions are seen as a joke. A running gag is fine if you can play it off well and it’s not about something so serious EVEN MORE SO when the series is about how damaging the addictions are and redemption. Why is this end goal being ignored unless it’s about Angel himself? That’s not just favouritism or bias, that’s also heavily self indulgent and a backwards ass message. Right now, Hazbin and Helluva have this ugly fixation on sex and ships. VIV has a fixation on ‘horny demons’. Her main characters are incredibly sexual bar Al (dont even say Husk, Niffty, Charlie or Vaggie or even loona and Moxxie are even on par with the focus and treatment Val, Angel, Blitz and Stolas are given). It’s very fixated and concerning. Its starting to feel like it’s about to divulge into hentai than a legit series with even a hint of the plot or a message. It reminds me of Family Guy trying to be BoJack. It’s starting to remind me of fucking Sausage Party and the final orgy. Sex and swears makes it inappropriate for kids but that doesnt make it adult or mature, and this is coming from someone who swears more than a fucking sailor whos stubbed his bare pinky toe on a fucking crate corner. Constant swears arent funny or artful in the slightest when it’s over done. It’s just... childish adult humour. We cant be expected to want to root for any of them at this rate- All A24 and other companies are seeing is big cash and easily manipulated child audiences (for easy money). They KNOW it can be better but theyd rather be lazy as they’ll profit big either way. This is going to end up like YanSim and YanDev. Amazing potential, shit writing with a leader too stubborn to accept and act on criticism, seeing it as hate. At this point, Husk isnt a deeply troubled man with vices and interests. He’s just fuck candy and romantic end goal for Angel. To compliment and complete him. Just another accessory to the Angel Show. Vivs sister who made Husk even loves Angel so it’ll only serve to further this already toxic narrative.  The ship doesnt look or feel right. There’s too much established now to see the dynamics and favouritism in the creators. Self indulgence. You cant play favourites when you do this sort of thing professionally. The audience can see it and it turns people away. Ask any nonHaz/Helluva fan what they think and it’s... Well, average.  Another thing is everyone went full hype on Frozen focusing on something other than romance as a form of love. But then go back to “Ok now everyone reenact the final scenes of Sausage Party” afterwards. Not everything is sex and romance, and it really is starting to feel Viv and the fans are focused on that like Incels focusing on ‘chad’. It’s creepy. Helping with food, telling someone self conscious on their weight that they’re not fat, not taking more money than someone owes, even helping out with a pet - that’s something that a good friend would do. In fact, Husk even laughs at the goofy Angel cutout and it being destroyed. It doesnt instantly equate to wanting to fuck. The fact that the fans and even some of the team seem borderline horny is... Completely destroying this show, it’s message and everything about it. Viv said ships were hardly the focus in her stream but look at it now. Look at what Viv focuses on now. It’s just fanservice shit. Nothing more. Self indulgence shit, look at the team making rape into a fetish or shipping themselves publicly with the characters on the public IGs. It’s like watching children run a business and it’s painful because the entire series is suffering when it could be amazing.  Friendship should be more normalised as a valuable type of relationship just as much as love or family are. I’ll also add that Husk adding after the show “Oh fuck... Is this what I missed? Shit.” is ooc like the ‘date’ (that was compensation for stolen drinks, like a tamer version of Blitzo fucking Stolas for the grimoire). It contradicts that he slept it off rather than an attempt at staying awake, as well as calling it a “god damn peepshow” implying a repulsion to the peverse tendencies. The constantly commenting, following and posting Angel related pics makes little sense either from someone who’s blatantly been sexually harassed as well as the clear repulsion of the candid pic on the wall. He outright rejected Angel. What would be realistic are the IGs focusing on learning about the characters, their lives and interests - ALL updating at realistic paces. Old men arent tech savvy usually nor care for social media that much. He’d post drinks, gambling, casinos, life with Niffty and Alastor. Heck maybe a picture of Angel captioned “When will this guy leave me the FUCK alone?”. He even only seems to tag angel, even in the pic that had Charlie and Vaggie [their shared account] or Niffty. Theres a CLEAR bias in the staff room and it’s messy. Look how most the female cast is ignored (Vaggie/Charlie, Velvet who posted a birthday gift to one of the new artists on the merch WHY? Gasu btw, Niffty, Millie only posting twice - heck even Vox and Loona sometimes get neglected. CLEAR. BIAS.) The ships focused on are 1) NOT established canon yet publicly favoured by Viv and the team (Stoliz, HuskerDust, VoxVal - that last pair havent actually got a VA either-), 2) Are TOXIC and theme around abuse or sexual harassment but it’s ‘cute because gae’ - NO. This makes gay people look really bad when they’re not. 3) HD and SL focus on one sided, stalkerish, cop out ‘tsundere’ excused ships to sugar coat the creepiness which only further fuels bigotry, 4) SL has MERCH on it now, so thats also profiting on sexual harassment imagery (again, dont give a shit they arent real - the EFFECTS are. The people who can relate ARE. The people being horridly stereotyped ARE). Thing is, the IGs originally were there to promote ADDICT which started as a fan song anyways despite everyone saying how Viv is stubborn in her ways an uninfluenced by her fans (proof says otherwise) yet shes allowed a fan song to be canon. Theres a focus on forced love for fanservice. The IGs have long outstayed their welcome. The Val account allows glamourisation of the sick shit Val does AND entinses fans to bully as they forget a REAL PERSON runs the fucking account, Val isnt even a scary villain either - hes just a big teen like everyone else - stuck in a teen drama with all this. Pimps are smart. Theyre scary. Theyre masters of manipulati- HOW DO THEY NOT DO THE RESEARCH?! Viv wanted this sense of realism and dealing with sensitive topics in one of the worst executed ways Ive ever seen- It’s toxic. It’s dangerous. These are shit messages and your fans display that when they think all criticism is ‘hAtE’ and actively bully real people w REAL EXPERIENCES. Telling them to ‘stop pls’ does fuck all because you still promote shit messages straight after. Like with Stolas to Blitz in a IG story a day after Ep 2. Classy.  Fanservice seems desperate to keep these fans (rather than market correctly... Just like YanDev) and it leads to fans feeling like they have the audacity to steer the series. Poor business with WEAK boundaries. Viv, you lost your series a long time ago. Want it back? LISTEN TO LEGIT CRITICISM. Stop surrounding yourself with yes men. Even my best fucking friend calls me out when Im out of line because a real friend will fucking take the chance of hurting your feelings if it means helping you in the long run and grow.  Mick joked about the inside of Husk’s ears matching Angels coat, that the ears are cat’s most sensitive and vulnerable parts. 1) Cats vulnerable part is their tummy - hence why you need their trust first (alternatively yer get the odd cat that has full confidence they cat hurt you a lot faster than you can tickle them - I own one), 2) Its weird that Viv doesnt know this considering how many cats she has - its important to learn the language of those you love to give them your full understanding and a great bond 3) This romanticises sexual harassment more than it already is in the media (remember, theres women out there still murdered for saying no!) as well as reinforces the stereotypes of gay men forcing non-interested men into sex (again, a very toxic and unrealistic trope - a dangerous one thats led to gays being murdered!). And the ears design is unnecessarily overly complex considering those fuckin wings he supports. If the design adds nothing to the character but aesthetic, then it can go on the chopping block. Rules for simple animation. Besides from Angel sharing the same tooth as Val (who knows if that was added after he started working for Val as branding?) you could use this argument to say Pent or Al are soulmates for Angel because of having striped suits, or sharp teeth - no, it was intended as a joke that Viv fueled to irresponsibly because it’s not the first time she’s dodged publicly addressing something (something youll NEED to get used to in a big company), and she’s publicly dodged shit after this too so Im not putting faith in her until she can act professionally as the job requires. Likewise, professionals should consider what and how they joke as they’re presenting an image of a company/business. And people WILL eat that shit up face value regardless. In her stream #2, a fan requests for art of flustered angel and smug husk to fuel their ship. at 2:10:21, she does so. She’s also done this for Baxter x Niffty and Cherri x Tom. As a professional, you really should be avoiding this sort of thing in the name of fanservice. I get it, fanservice = financial gain. But it also results in empty meaning. It’s a shell of what the passion project once was, hence why you make the ENTIRE skeleton before involving others. The team help construct the muscles, tendons and organs. The public - moreso critics and the more experienced in those fields help sew the skin. Then you bring it to life, the fans become like blood. They aid to keep it alive. Even Ash and Mick mention Husk being ‘tsundere’. Im had most my piece about it earlier, however I’ll repeat and add some extras. Tsundere is an exaggerated personality, often used in younger characters. In terms of a relationship, it’s very immature, leads to poor communication and results in a toxic love. Science can back this up as well as the lack of realism. It’s more immature minds/hearts that go to what they interpret as tsundere in hopes of the love life the media portrays. A farce. Y’know what Angel needs? Someone open, honest, open to love and comforting. He doesnt need someone rebuffing and him chasing. It’s nothing more than an immature thrill. Once the love begins, it’s burns out QUICK. It’s far from sustainable or healthy. It’s not what either really need and further show Angel’s fixation on men who subconsciously remind him of his father. It’s not healthy. Another thing is a tsundere actually IS interested but shows it in the most immature and childish means possible. Would a really old bloke actually give a shit to play those sorts of games? No. Not one coming from a place like husk has. It’s painful how lacking in research and experience these people are. Science backs up that opposites solemnly attract also. In fact, they often either repel or only get as far as friendship.  Fan and Team Mentality in Brief: Im coming out with my ultimate pet peeve: if you’re going to have one of the MAIN characters be a gambler, do your research. The only background shit is a casino, LOADS of sex references (in Pride? Really?) and drugs. It’s like someone listing what they think is adult and tabboo and naughty. It’s yikes. Cards are almost always aces, 2s or blank. MOST are heart suits (like we need MORE red - we get it, it’s hell. But it’s an immature larvae stage hell). I get 2s and aces being easier to animate, however you have Husks wings, the entire of alastor, angels arms - if youre busting the budget for the menial then bust it to the cards. Theres like ONE spade. The full house isnt a full house (here’s a display of the fans lack of education on the matter as well which serves as a sure sign that they know just as little on any of this as SpindleHorse, they think it’s a sign on him being a card cheat. A card cheat. I aint saying hes not but what I AM saying is poker professionals are some of the most observant people in the world. Especially when money’s involved they’ll ensure youve got your facts right. That wouldnt fly at ALL. But theres more~ fans think Husk spent loaaaads of time staring at angel’s face in the IG poker out of <3 Newsflash. When you play poker you read EVERYONE like a book. Every little twist and twitch of the features. Its not about love. It’s about winning. Its about money. Play enough poker and it’s instinct if you want to actually play decently. Call bluffs. Life aint a fuckin romance.) And playing Poker at a BlackJack table? In a casino? These are all common knowledge and basics if you just research. And this is coming from someone with a history of this.  The fans even believed Tipsy Bartender’s ‘Peach Princess Cocktail’ was something Spindlehorse made as a beverage form of Niffty, Angel and even Charlie because of the name. Now, Im not expecting everyone to be a fuckin boozy either, but to not even consider it’s a very real drink does show that many fans are far too young for that 18+ label.  Fanart of HD often has Husk being OOC OR being held hostage (often via webs - one even being reblogged by Viv, aint that cute!). Some even have Husk completely intoxicated, which would be rape. Im not sugarcoating it. Because too many are getting the sweet treatment and copying Viv’s ‘dont address and it disappears!’ tactic - A LOT of internet celebs do it. The ship is drawn a lot by the team in the public eye, Viv reblogs it publicly (SL, HD, alongside canon only ships, how curious-). Husk is pan yet doesnt behave as the stereotype. And Id FULLY support this with my fucking SOUL (fun fact: you cant sell a soul. Thats myth to scare people-) if it was done correctly. But the way bisexuals, lesbians, gays and aces are portrayed so stereotypically (even Pan in terms of Val’s sexomania), it’s really REALLY uncomfortly coming across as Husk being pansexual JUST to make him an ‘option’ for Angel. Hell even the hets are given a shite representation. Some art btw has husk tricked into a kiss. Cute, we’re really starting to like blurring consent aint we? Remember, Angel has celeb power in his world. In the real world, he has a following. HE has the power in the ship massively. Hell, fans JUSTIFY Angels behaviour and absolutely rip Husk a new shithole if he fuckin even so as to DARE OPPOSE ANGELS MUCH DESERVED LOVE! - sarcasm because I have to make that shit clear now. Fans dont care about Husks feelings, he wasnt even popular until this ship started to explode. Y’know what would be cool and break stereotypes? An old straight white guy actually accepting his friends sexualities. The pan thing feels really fucking gimicky and exploitive and gross based on the history of all this shit. It feels disingenuine. Representation doesnt come from it just being there. What next? Katie whips on blackface to further show shes a bigoted knobhead whos white and straight? Dont get me wrong, Katie’s an arsehole but theres other means to show this rather than ALL HETS HATE THE BIG GAE. They dont. They really dont. But hey, we’ll show a gay man sexually harass every guy and root for him! NO. Thats fucked up. It makes gays look like the predators theyre not. It’s like the fucking 50s with modern tech - is that the real identity of Vox? Fuckin maybe. WHAT THEY NEED - FUCKING FINALLY, ITS THE END IVE BEEN ON THIS SHIT FOR DAYS WHILST SICK LUCKY ME EH? CAN YER FEEEEEEEL MY TIREDNESS OF FANDOMS AND CREATORS EXCUSING SHITTY THINGS FOR CLOUT, MONEY, FAME AND OTHER DUMB SHIT? IF YOU CANT, THEN WHAT THE FUCK, AND OTHER NEWS: Right. Lets get our main shit. Compatibility between the pair is really low - lower than even the team seems to see. And yer old fart of a Hag here’s gotta use my personal suffering as an example because thats what the cool kids do, right? Their friendship compatibility is high. VERY high. But low for love. HEALTHY love. In terms of convo flow, it only has a river when insults are flying, otherwise Husk actively cuts Angel short or outright annoys him. In reality, someone like Husk would gross out Angel, but the cute cat look can turn that the fuck around - JUST the look. Fans and the team oddly think it’s cute though. Yes, I remember being negged at the bar and thinking “BOY arent my pants flooded like the fuckin planet when the ice caps are melting”. There’s no click. Theres infatuation and lust one sided based on looks. Husk isnt even remotely interested and no means delayed yes apparently. Angel as a rape VICTIM should know better than to blur consent like this. Angel isnt a rapist [for the skim reading raging stans ANGELS NOT A RAPIST, YAAAAAY!] but he sure has a shit grip on when he’s looking like Val when Val forced Angel into a kiss by not accepting rejection. It’s. CREEPY. Its fuckin weird. Husk is literally named after being a shell of his former self, I doubt random sex and forced interest is gonna make him spring to life like bastard Zeberdy from the Magic Pissin Roundabout. Honestly, sexual harassment and addictions are treated the same in this - a joke. A punchline. A gag. Sure makes me fuckin gag. Nah, the more healthier Chaggie relationship (needs work on Charlies damn part - dont let freaky taxidermy men sexually assault your life partner like that) is booooring, lets focus on sexual harassment leading to true love like all the other shitty romcoms shall we? Or sugar coat it with ‘getting to know them better <3′ like Beauty and the Beast. A story, by yours truly: My mom’s mates with this woman. Lets call her M because her name starts with an M. M is just like Angel except slightly older, overweight and disabled - so not everyones cup of tea visually (shes neither here nor there to me imo, not like I hold interest in shaggin her). Like Angel, she fuckin flirts with any ANY man around her. She’ll even touch without consent, rub allllll up and down their backs and bodies, and not leave them alone. She even did this with a few gay men. Shes not a horrible person BUT mom and I are constantly trying to stop her and get through her head how DISGUSTING this treatment is. But nothing gets the message across. Shes ALWAYS talking men and sex and has an on/off fling with this one bloke (dont worry, hes the male M, cheats and does the same as her). Everyone, even women, are uncomfortable with this. Irl it’s desperate and a HUGE repellent. Men are visibly SO uncomfortable. She does it to my father too who is - in case youd forgotten - MARRIED TO HER BEST. FUCKING. FRIEND. My father is not a man of fear (and interestingly, hes one of the real life Huskers I know!) but this woman? *insert Heavy bc why tf not* She scares him. My dad does everything in his damn power to pull away, reject, resist, avoid and cut her off. The only reason hes even nice to her at all is because mom likes her (when M isnt a gross hornbag, shes genuinely a good friend to my mother - much like angel and Cherri). My dad’s strictly banned from insulting her or telling her to fuck off from my mother BECAUSE of her nature with him. Even at her non horny times, he’s even said shes not his flavour.  I’ve had numerous accounts like this myself (ask any woman-) but the worst was the guy thinking - THINKING - that Id eventually be his whilst he played up a lot of our similarities up, seemed nice and I actually thought I had a good guy friend (put it this way, Im genuinely scared of men because of guys like this). At this time, there was a character I discovered who looks and behaves SO much like me, and shes married. My simping arse for this fictional BEAUT [Im sorry but Iris is fucking awesome] compared her romantic traits towards Olgerd as something Id do - and this was a STATUS. It wasnt even too him, tagging him, nothing. I was just spamming Iris like the Iris whore I am, and... Yep. Ill be honest and say that God only knows what else I did that made him think I was ready to rip off my clothes and shag him. My post history back then showed Im like this when I find a character I relate to. I also send hearts a lot publicly and to friends to express joy - I get NERVOUS how that’ll be taken now. He tried to pit my ex friend and I against each other for him and even cyberstalked us pretending to be a girl named Raven. My GUT told me this aint no bastard ‘Raven’. The vibes he gave me, and the fact when I kept saying no he took it as a delayed yes (He even said “Ill wait for when youre ready” not “I understand and am happy to still be friends”) gave me literal nightmares of this guy tracking me down and raping me. He’s currently dating that ex friend (I was still willing to be their friend and support them but they said it was hard to keep us separate in her lifes and she didnt want conflict, so I cut it off amicably with her and I fuckin hope he treats her right. I even sensed in my gut she’d like him and he’d like her - even that theyd be good together! But then I found she was 17 and he was 10 years older, that he was cyberstalking and pitting us against each other, that he was secretly an arrogant fuck and that he gives off red flags like her ex’s - but shes passed 18 now and I want to trust her as an adult that she can deal with this. Shes got a good family.) As a kid, Ive been fuckin groped at school in my shitty neighbourhood. One kid even harassed me wanting to know if Id started my periods yet. Hed constantly fondle girls and ‘keg’ them aka yank down their skirts or trousers in public, and 2 years later held a fucking KNIFE to my throat in a classroom with the shittiest substitute teacher, all because I stood up to him (I was not known for my bravery at school so). He was harassing my female friend who suffers from it since as well as her upbringing, bullying her and stealing her stuff. Shes TINY. She was bullied just as bad as I - who was somehow both the school ghost AND pariah somehow- - and I stepped in and told him to cut that shit out before snatching her things back. I told her to ignore the desperate prick. Thats when he took a boxcutter and held it to my throat, threatening me to keep my head down. Now my neighbourhood fucking qualifies as the British ‘hood’ but Id been lucky to avoid this. Ironically, I wondered what this situation would be like a year prior. Im convinced I can fucking foresee bad shit now and with anxiety that aint good. I froze mentally and I just said “Wooow, Im fucking scared- *friends name*, ignore him” and continued my work. I fucking mentally kicked myself for speaking but I genuinely didnt know what to do. Obviously not fucking that. He sat the full TWO HOURS at our table with this knife, jolting forward mockingly and switching who he pointed it at. The knife btw was from that very room as it was graphics and art. Teacher didnt even notice though honestly Ive had an entire class throw shit at me and call me a whore and the teacher in that class looked at me and TURNED AWAY. End of the day, I reported it to my actual graphics teacher when he returned and he told me he’d take this higher up and to get my parents. My home was only 5 minutes away but I had to walk alone when most the students were gone AND through a fucking alleyway. I always walked with my head low but that day I kept it high and tried to look brave because I genuinely thought he was waiting for me. That he was going to rape and kill me because he’s a pervert and Id just discovered a fucking violent one at that. I broke down at my door. Do you know how fuckin hard it is to look your parents who are dealing with two cancer patients and other issues in the eyes and tell them their ‘little girl’ had a knife to her through for standing up for herself? We went back, I described everything and even remember the yellow-orange handle just to get this kid punished? I even wrote an official police statement (well, the written witness account they add to their statement and evidence) and had to speak on mine and my friend’s behalf because she was that shook up. I never even used to speak for myself! He got expelled, but yknow what us jolly folk dealt with? Hearing kids and his mates mumbling about the ‘rat’ and how much of a cunt they were. Teachers and kids praise him for his art skills and even pin them on display EVERYWHERE (one - ONE - was a fucking self portrait and none of the staff seemed to find issue in that) and even an occassion where he came back into the school when he legally wasnt (trespassing). Do you know how hard it is to fucking avoid someone without raising suspicions from everyone around you in a narrow corridor? Im TALL too. I got NO support from this and felt on edge because he could easily sneak into school. I couldnt say shit because his stupid ‘spies’ were about. Just typing this is upsetting enough- I also know a rl Angel who’s like him minus the sexual harassment. She’s... I never used to like her and visa versa but we actually get along really well now, even though she can be creepy and perverse- But she wouldnt be my type either nor I with her. Often we really fuck each other off but we can also bond great. Another incident reminds me of Husk’s candid photo. Ive had people keep my photo despite me saying not to however I had someone SOMEHOW at that school one the fuck up that. There was a cut out from a magazine of a lady who looked like my DOUBLE except she was asian. Now I thought this was cool and it made me feel sorta pretty. This one girl showed everyone and the teacher, pretty much everyone was like “Oh shit that really is you, C!” and it was harmless fun at first. Until I wanted the picture. Again, this woman looked EXACTLY like me. Yet this girl refused and said she wanted to keep it and even carried it around in her pencil case. Yes it wasnt me but due to the similarities, this photo was called me (tbf the fuckin pic got more respect than I did-). This isnt the only creepy instant between me and this girl but the photo reminds me of it. And this tops people keeping photos OF me which happened in primary school. This was me but legal at that time. And asain. It was super fucking neckbeardy the way she treated this photo and stared, often stroking it and looking at me. I just hope she was only trying to scare me. Theres one final instance of a sexual assault but Im just not yet ready to be public about it. 2 here already know. Those are some of my rl experiences and more to come (unfortunately) that show these behaviours in real life. It seems - it comes across - that sexual harassment, MORE SO TOWARDS MEN, is seen as some punchline and not something legitimately horrifying or dangerous. It’s not cute. It’s fucking FAR from it.  Ive already mentioned how putting two addicts together can lead to relapsing, dependence on each other in an unhealthy way. And Ive even mentioned what Angel needs in a relationship in the RD post. Luckily for you, I’ll copy and paste it here: “ We need to think about where both are mentally. What benefits would a relationship give both? How would they be good and bad for each other? For Al, aside from his outdated views and being a fucking murderer and narcissist, he actually seems in a good mindspace for a relationship IF he opted to be in one. Angel however has a very immature mindset, likewise is in a phase of life where hes bed hopping. IF he were to be in a relationship, I’d say he needs a male equivalent of Cherri - someone with a similar mindset yet some differences, willing to have fun and in touch with their younger side, down to cuddle, open to share and receive love as well as not afraid to publicly be affectionate with him, someone who sees him as more than just for sex, someone fun, someone who’ll let him embrace his cutesy side publicly without shame - Cherri is younger so maybe someone who’s his age or slightly younger perhaps? I think Angel’s not retirement home ready to settle and needs someone on his level that can cuddle and chill as well as feels free and youthful enough to go wild with him. In one sense, he’s got a teen girl sorta mindset (dont put him with a teen though, it’s fuckin weird-). He needs someone positive and raw, someone to let him be himself as well as someone comfortable to be themselves around him. He has a habit of latching onto unobtainable men (in psychology, this is self sabotaging subconsciously): Travis the client, Val a pimp, Husk (emotionally unavailable and needs HEAVY self work - interestingly far more than Angel - plus he’s still onto his last relationship and an addict to gambling and alcohol), Pent who’s the enemy he was currently fighting (inappropriate timing), Alastor who’s not interested in another but his own needs [selfish, VERY bad for a relationship]. Subconsciously he’s self sabotaging on purpose. There’s many psychology books as well as sources online for this, if you’re interested. Either way, Angel is drawn to men either like his father [who dislike him, shun him, or are otherwise cold, abusive or just blatantly dislike or otherwise dont care about him] or anyone with money to fuel his drug addiction/’debt’ to Val. Going with any of these men isn’t a good idea. Preferably, Angel needs someone who he doesnt immediately crush and obsess over. Someone who he doesnt sexually harass or assault. Someone he can build a connection with quickly that can bud into romance (think how Chaggie started as a friendship which clicked immediately). Maybe even someone he doesn’t expect to fall for but does so anyways. It would be more realistic as Viv wants as well as more healthy. That for once he isnt sex or money craved instantly, thus doesnt sexually harass/assault and is given a proper chance to develop and grow a friendship and love. Someone who isnt an addict. Someone with an on-par mindset where they click. Someone open to love. For any chance of a good relationship, Angel needs to be with anyone BUT who we’ve already seen. There’s too much toxicity that’ll be swept under the rug and justified otherwise. Too much shit to fuel homophobes in terms of gay stereotypes. Even though Ive focused a fair bit on Angel, it’s NOT just about Angel. That’s something fans forget. Some he depends on or someone who depends on him in the long term wont last and will be very dangerous to both. Just because you suffer, you dont then deserve to be rewarded with ‘something nice’. You dont get to have everything youve ever wanted. Giving him any of these blokes [minus Val] gives him a pass. Gives him what he wants. I get Viv loves him but life doesnt work that way. True lasting growth comes from learning that. Acceptance and growth. You dont get everything you want and sometimes thats a GOOD thing. He’s not a spoilt kid who gets everything he asks for, he’s YOUR creation. If you really wanted what your creations deserve then you need to research and be realistic with it. Because hes starting to feel like a shitty Gary-Stu at this rate.” Sorry for that copypaste clusterfuck. Copy paste is not my forte lol Now Husk. Remember Big? Probably not after the info overload, but if you do GREAT. Big needed love, patience, understanding, someone who could help him, someone who understood and respected his boundaries. I spent so much damn time and now he cuddles up and exposes his tummy because I make him feel understood, loved and safe. He NEVER purred or meowed (why would he need to meow when he didnt speak to humans?) but now he does. He lives on the streets of a neighbourhood with rough folk. He used to draw blood and go rabid on my arms. But I was patient and showed him that I understood his reasons but that he was safe with me and had no need to strike out. I never pushed his boundaries let alone doing it multiple times (the rl angel I know is fucking skilled at pushing cat’s boundaries and wonders why they all huddle up to me and avoid her lol). Husk is an unavailable man. Romantic/Sexual love does NOT heal his wounds. But thats the only thought fans and the team have given on his side. He needs love to ‘fix’ him. The WORST reason to get with someone. Theyre not a project and you arent a fucking miracle worker. Treat them as an equal. He needs a good friend. JUST a friend. Like Big, he needs patience, trust, understanding, and extensive help (arguably more intense than Angel’s). He needs to love himself a bit more FIRST. Someone who respects his boundaries INSTANTLY. Someone relatable and similar, open to love not just sex and not as troubled (if they are, they need to handle it way better, healthily and overall be in a good mindspace). Viv can ship whatever the fuck tickles her fancy, but once your passion project becomes public and funded, you have set responsibilities on how to address and handle sensitive issues as well as having to accept criticism. If Husk goes sober in the name of love (ESPECIALLY with the guy not respecting his boundaries and sexually harassing him), then it’s a fucking INSULT to alcoholics.  I know a few rl Husks but there’s one that anyone who knows me enough knows the man I hold closest to my heart was an alcoholic and spitting of Husk. That’s why Husk’s character means so much to me. But there’s only 2 here who know a bit more of this man. This is something Id hoped to not share so soon, nor as messy. And Im already getting waterworks because this is FAR from easy. I guess Husk became the very thing *I* needed in order to face this. This man was my grandfather. WAS. I cant even fucking accept that. I was a fucking child. I feel stupid being so open about this over some stupid cartoon but it just shows the real life effects this has on REAL fucking people. This man was old and lonely. Always at the pubs. He taught me card games, card tricks and card magic as well as one of his own sons dealing with a gambling addiction. I feel so fucking stupid crying about this- I dont want to open up but its the only way I feel I can get people to understand my side in all of this. This man was a fucking MESS. A closed off, lonely, grumpy old bastard. He lost his love because of his alcohol addiction and never found love again. Never got over that woman. (Shes still kicking and we’re close - im keeping some things under wraps between them as its not my place). Gave up on life and love. Worked hard at his fixation on cards and puzzles, as well as crass jokes and knowledge. But he was very lazy otherwise. Bitter and angry. And you know what? He was my world. I love this man with every fiber of my being because he was the first person to love and accept me for me. He treated me as an equal and helped me grow as a person. In fact... He was only ever happy around us kids. He had hope again. Protected me. He used to hate gays and blacks and you know what? He taught HIMSELF as to why that was shitty thinking. He taught ME about differences in people and to accept it. He taught me that you dont always have to understand to accept. He taught me poker and... swears admittedly. He was a beautiful soul that was broken inside. He needed to love himself. But you know what actually fucking happened? You know what I watched as a kid? I watched as he smoked until every morning he woke throwing up phlegm just to BREATHE. I watched as sometimes the light in his eyes died and through smoke breaks and early drinking how he’d sometimes slip and show me his pain. And we’d have deep talks about it and the world and everything. How alcohol ruined his life yet he craved it. His scent. I remember arguments I wasnt supposed to overhear and growing up seeing him fucking DIE slowly in a hospital bed. The man he was ended up as a fucking husk. His skin was bloated and purple, he was half machine on how much shit he was hooked up to. How he was barely a man at all. He was dying of cancer and he fucking knew and never told us. His cancer meds gave him horrid hallucinations. And I practically spent most of my time in that hospital because TWO people had cancer. Two stunning people had fucking stupid bastard cancer. He was a fuck up. He was flawed to shit. But seeing glimpses of the real him was a fucking ethereal experience. He made me feel like a PERSON. And all we could do in the end was watch him just die. He WANTED to die and you could see it but hed only eat around us to fake fight out of his own hubris and not wanting to let us down. That year, I watched 2 of the only people who ever gave a shit about me die the most dishonourable deaths God could have gave them. Years prior I watched his son gamble EVERYTHING away - his lover, his house, his everything. Hes a moderate gambler now with a partner who never had a history of any addiction. She helps keep him in line as he helps her. But most nights I fucking dream of this shit. I cant even think about my hero because I fucking weep. I still have nightmares. Im still up thinking how I could have saved him from himself when it’s him who was the only one able to. I have to live my life with those memories and I was just a kid. Im a full woman and Im still haunted by it. Even that year is blasphemy and I fucking hate it. I want to take him in my arms, hold him and tell him he’s enough. That its ok and he can get through this. Anything that reminds me of him, I love because I know the other side. The real side. The side not tethered to vices. When I see people like that, I pray they see themselves like that too and I want to help them see it. Tell them that they can live again. It’s better than fucking decaying in a hospital bed. That when people make this sorta shit into a cute quirk it’s not. And it’s dickheads like me who have actually seen it play in the real world to REAL people they love. They arent a fucking accessory to fix for your own narrative. They arent a fuckin performing monkey. At least with Rick and Morty it’s kinda humorous and never played for some shitty toxic ship to appeal to everyone who’s never had to face that shit themselves. And Im like my old man but with more hope and no addiction. I drink and I gamble but I’ll never let myself get that low. Because I honour him but Im not as fucking saft. I wont allow it even though it’s a fucking battle. Those addictions are in the blood. My family history. Its always been so fucking normal. I’ll never knock someone for an addiction or try to preach them out of it because theres often pain fueling it, but I’d never encourage it or toxic faux cures and stupid romance promises as some bullshit MLM remedy either. I KNOW it’s fiction but I want people to see the real side. I want VIV to see the real side. Id willingly for FREE fucking sing that shit if it meant spreading a good message. Because this is fucking hell. FIXING IT: The ship’s basis is too set in stone now - too familiar to change. Best is to never let it be canon. Because you know what else it teaches? That rOmAnCe cures all. Not therapy. Not rehab. Not any REAL work. Just fuck and date it all away as if it’s that easy. It’s a mockery! I tried to be professional about this but when the media bombards this shit constantly, the has the AUDACITY to play like it’s giving a good message is salt to the wounds. A kiss with a fist. An old man dont care for the petty teen drama that Angel and Cherri (even fuckin Al) thrive on. Want this to send a good message still? Angel hates rejection and thinks everyone wants him. Have Husk reject him. Especially because no one should go out with someone whos sexually harassed them there. Been there, done that got the fuckin tshirt. Have Husk reject Angel the way Gravity Falls has Wendy reject Dipper. It helped Dipper move on and mature, and this is what Angel needs for growth and to be more humble.  Husk would be a fucking excellent mentor to Angel, a friend and protector, someone who shows him the ropes like Grunkle Stan like a grandfather figure. To not fall for his mistakes. Husk would be a better expert than any of them plus it balances the power dynamtic. It’s healthy and realistic. Touches the topic with the sensitivity it needs. Not everything needs a ship or romance. Wounds healed that way dont stay healed long. Angel seems more fitting as a son like figure, and he can play that dad like role for him. And if any of the team EVER saw this, fucking take this idea. Its YOURS. FREE. FOREVER. If we wanna play this NDA but still reblog some of the story telling arts and have some of our team indulge in it. I wont sue. Fucking TAKE IT if it means doing this shit right because Spindlehorse have beautifully triggered so many different people and their different traumas to please teenagers sexual fantasies, their own kinks and for a jolly good joke.  This is a bastard long read and Ive had to face the traumas again but if good can come from it then I’ll GLADLY dance this duet again. Stans, Antis, dont even TEMPT interaction. You arent brave sending suicide threats behind a screen, youre a coward and a waste of oxygen. I WANT Hazbin and Helluva to succeed. I want Viv and her crew to do well. Trust me, I wouldnt waste my time if I didnt give a shit. Viv is fucking gifted and its being wasted if it’s not at her full potential for the approval of a rabid army of kids and immature adults who dont know any better (stans and antis). I know she would like a good and decent fanbase. Stans and antis arent it. Tagging you folks because it’s long but yall actually helped me have the courage to open my trap to this. Screenshots are coming later though all of what Ive said is easily sourced. But this has been days, Im sick, im tired, ive been upset facing my own traumas. If any tags wanna help then by all means but otherwise. @honesthazbinarchives, @siaesnow​ (also added age still bc despite the lack of physical aging, theres also the mental aspect and experiences as well as power dynamics side to it, in case youre wondering), @noirellearts, @enchantedchocolatebars​, @galemalio​ (thank you for letting me weep like a bitch), @angel-blitz​, @critical-hazbin​, @what-the-hazbin​, @hazboobhotel​, @pineapple-critiques-stuff​, @devils-advocutie​, SORRY AGAIN FOR BEING A LIL BITCH FOLKS, I feel awkward like my teen years but yeah- fuck it Im old and imma rot soon anyways. If this experience can help then Ill be glad.

so i watched ‘the broken hearts gallery’...

Oh boy. Oh boy.

I want to be generous, I really do- for my baby Geraldine and my baby daddy Dacre, if no one else. I watched Blockers a while back, and anyone who’s been in my general vicinity for the last two months knows I have a hot, pulsating mega-boner for Stranger Things.

Two people I like as the leads of a movie? It’s bound to be great, right?

… Right?

I’m gonna be honest; I’m probably not the best audience for a rom-com. Grand gestures make me uncomfortable, and cheesy love confessions make me want to hurl. Myself. Into the fucking sun.

But I’m willing to overlook all that if the film is enjoyable (the first To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before movie is bottled sunshine and rainbows and unicorn farts). Which The Broken Hearts Gallery was… sort of. Moderately.

Maybe it’s the whole premise that didn’t work all that swimmingly for me. The first time I had my heart broken was on March 25th, 2015, when Zayn left One Direction; and I’ve hoarded plenty of trash memorabilia, from the first bus ticket I bought for myself to chocolate wrappers I got from my friends in the ninth grade. But I can’t imagine anyone else would be interested in my junk- and I’d definitely not give half a shit about anyone else’s.

Maybe this is why I’m a STEM major. I don’t get art people.

Secondhand embarrassment is an exquisite form of torture. Forget waterboarding; if someone replayed that part where Lucy storms into the bistro and makes a scene and Nick has to physically carry her out, I’d just keel over and die.

Geraldine did justice to what she’d been given. Lucy might not make it to my list of favorite leads, but she’s got a charm that kind of grows on you. Like a dandelion, sort of. Technically a weed, but nice enough.

Dacre’s acting came across quite stiff- even the way he walked as Nick seemed like he had a nail-studded baseball bat up his arse. If I’d first encountered Dacre in this movie, I’d’ve thought him in the league of Noah Centineo and whoever the fuck played Hardin in After. Thankfully, I know what he’s capable of (with great difficulty, I hold myself back from choking this with gifs from Stranger Things)- so this, my guy, is a prime example of Bad Writing- or, what I like to call, Who the Fuck Thought Normal People Talk and Act This Way.

Not all, but a decent amount of conversations felt stilted and awkward, and fairly cartoonish. Not to mention that ending, where everyone at the gallery becomes a fucking hivemind and chants… that’s just cult behavior.

[picture me flailing my arms wildly at this part] It’s just. No.

Also, not to be that asshole, but why on god’s green earth does Lucy take Nick to meet her mum? Why are there are so many retirement home scenes in YA?? This is YA, right???

And Nick just… casually plays the piano. Unprompted. Just… sits down and starts playing. Because people do that.

Circling back to my antipathy for grand gestures: how awkward would it have been if that sign Nick drags halfway across New York just flickers out and dies when he confesses? “I love you,” he says, and the thing just goes out. Poof. Just like that.

And this movie made me realize how fucking. much. I hate music montages.

That being said, The Broken Hearts Gallery was not devoid of merits.

I adored the characters, for one. Magpie Lucy was a bit too quirky at times, but Geraldine’s performance put her more to the cute side than the annoying one on the quirkiness scale. Marcos and his wife (… does she get a name? I called her ‘Obama lady’ in my head) and Jeff belong in my pocket.

The female friendships were wonderful. Gosh, I loved Nadine and Amanda (even though I called them ‘Lesbian Friend’ and ‘Psycho Friend’ for a solid 95% of the movie because I forgot their names haha oops), and I loved how they had more personality than other best friends in typical YA. Their dynamic was super sweet and lovable, and I adored them. Me. A heartless bastard. Maybe there is hope for me besides eternal damnation.

The actors had really good chemistry- despite Dacre’s less-than-stellar performance (please don’t attack me; I want the man to father my children- I’m only being this harsh on him because I know what he’s capable of and this was far from his full potential), him and Geraldine worked really well together, and made one of the few cishet couples in media that don’t make me want to put my head in a microwave.

I really liked the little callbacks to the beginning of the movie; Nick’s in the front seat and Lucy’s in the back seat when they first meet, but when they’re coming home from visiting Cheryl, they’re sitting next to each other.

And Jeff finally talking after being on his phone for nearly the entire runtime? That’s literally the cutest fucking thing ever. I love how enthusiastic he is over meerkats- tell me more about their itty-bitty little legs, you cinnamon roll, you.

And this scene. Just, this.

And I don’t want to go on for too long about Dacre’s voice, even though I probably am, but GOOD LORD the man could read a grocery list and I’d be on my knees. His gravelly voice is everything. Even though I had trouble understanding parts of what he’d said because of aforementioned gravel.

Was art gallery lady in Ugly Betty? I think art gallery lady was in Ugly Betty. It was nice to see an old white lady giving a young brown padawan advice, for a change.

Okay, I don’t know how to end this, so here are gifs of Dacre Montgomery from Stranger Things:

I just found a chengxian blog and checked out a fanfic - just to see how they worked around wangxian - I’m always curious and sometimes this kind of thing gives me insight I didn’t realise was present - but jfc, the delusion is real.

Now I know, it’s bad form to go look for this stuff and shit on a ship, and I’m not shitting on the very concept of chengxian. Hell, before the fall of LP, I could even see something? Something unhealthy and all sorts of unbalanced but okay sure. And AUs of course. Either way, to each their own.

But these post-resurrection or even worse, post canon fics are hilarious.

Because suddenly we’re all forgetting just how gone WWX is for LWJ because they have similar interests (music and literature), morals (you know, being good) and have always been equals (in talent) - and instead we have WWX being a miserable drunk and hating CR because LWJ gives in too easily, he doesn’t have enough pushback to stimulate him (are we forgetting how this relationship started?) and it just baffles me.

Why it baffles me is the lack of awareness. Do they actually believe this? I mean, I’ve read some XiYao fics and some of those shippers are very well aware of the effed up dynamics at play. Sure, they mess around with it, give Yao some benefit of the doubt, make a lot of canon divergences, but these guys just see everything through opaque rose coloured glasses and somehow try to justify it and I don’t really know how they function...

Btw I’m a CQL only but with a healthy respect for the other forms but CQL really did mess with minds when you see JC clapping for WWX during the archery thing (albeit with a constipated smile and he didn’t even participate) while the donghua which is closer to the novel clearly shows us that he was upset at not winning himself - this is apparently a very clear sign of his adoration and of course justifies how he basically led to WWX throwing himself off a cliff because the irrational grape would have led to both wangxian falling.

Just🤦🏼‍♀️

I'm dealing with a migraine so hopefully what I put here isn't too mean in regards to this ship.

I don't in anyway care what others ship given that I myself lowkey ship ridiculous things that have no romantic basis in the material (and given I respect the author I see exactly what she means that none other than the purely romantic pairs shown in MDZS are meant to be seriously interpreted as romantic in canon). But hey, I like shallow, I like the effed up dynamic in NieYao and XueXiao and like the shallowness of X!cheng for fun what if's. But you (general you but for the stans specifically) have got to admit when something is just for shallow fun without demeaning the real work itself and hate the main core of it and changing the dynamics to be so wildly OOC because you are personally salty (You look like a major Karen doing this shit and are fucking adults sounding like those middle school shit heads).

I also have a whole fanon conspiracy that Jiang Cheng works as a false love interest and as an unrequited fucked up crush/obsession since I personally feel it adds more to Jiang Cheng's depths in terms of exploration for FAN works.

"Do they actually believe this?"

Yes, they honestly do believe, in all their tiny galaxy brained power that this ship is somehow superior and has romantic chemisty along with needing to have been the focused CP. I will point out it is really not even what I would consider a popular pair given it has just under 2k on AO3 alone for the Western base along with the Untamed/MDZS having the largest audience for Danmei works there. Lofter itself has it's own top 100 ships with Jiang Cheng's most popular being X!cheng by a large margin similar to it's Western stats.

If we breakdown it's rankings for both

AO3: Rank 2 of overall ship works 2020: Wangx!an

Rank 55: X!cheng

with ChengX!an being too low in numbers to rank in.

Lofter overall ship works 2020: Rank 1: Wangx!an (with X!anwang ranking again at 66)

Rank 13: X!cheng

Rank 48: Xiancheng (and yes this is a very important distinction as it denotes the "dominate" one in the pair)

If we were to mesh these together with tumblr stats in a similar way the overall would still be Wangxian ranking high as Rank 1 in the Untamed/MDZS tag, overall ships Rank 13 and the only MXTX pair to be featured.

After that digression, regardless of the interpretations, even with Wang ZhouCheng he himself only played up the sibling aspect of the relationship as was in script, it does not have the supposed chemistry they speak of when they slap the Wangx!an one on it. God damn if I have to see this Cuckji shit from these shippers one more time my eyes will roll on the floor and melt from the stupid, which is ironic since Jiang Cheng himself was the canon Cuck who's bro got swept off his feet by the canon Chad. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jiang Cheng through several passages in the book shows that his downfall was his jealousy of Wei Wuxian as his own person that did not listen to him specifically but it was never in terms of romance at the base of what MXTX was showing simple as that. This was shown with Wei Wuxian's interest in Lan Wangji, him saving Lan Wangji and to a point MianMian, as well as the Wen Remnants because it simply left Jiang Cheng what he considered more work and trouble. He cared about Wei Wuxian in so much as Wei Wuxian didn't make a splash for the reputation of Yunmeng Jiang while hypocritically having made use of Wei Wuxian during the war and turning around to be jealous of the devotion Wei Wuxian had during that time due to the attention Wei Wuxian garnered. Jiang Cheng simply did not think he had to extend some sort of actual good will to Wei Wuxian since he felt he had given enough of that just by the sake of Jiang Fengmian taking him in as a disciple and raising him. HOW you get Wei Wuxian having romantic inclination out of this, I can't say as I am not enlightened enough for the wonders of ChengX!an and apparently want to fuck MXTX who I have never met or know, or, want to fuck the very gay leads (who do not exist) despite being a lesbian.

Michael Jackson's They Don't Care About Us: The relevancy of the unmatched protest-masterpiece still actual today.

They Don't Care About Us, was perhaps the most monumental and relevant form of audiovisual protest, which force was specifically to draw the attention to social and political issues such as hate, racism, prejudice, police brutality. The form of art is cultivating an ideological allegiance with the greater social plight for minorities. With his art, Michael became the voice of the voiceless, of the oppressed, of the neglected, of the abused. Yes, Michael Jackson was THE voice.

Hi music lovers, today's topic is Michael Jackson's They Don't Care About Us the song and the music video.

It was from September 1994 to March 1995 that Michael recorded and released HIStory, his 5th studio album. The work was one of the artist's most personal artistic outputs, where music turned into a mirror reflecting Michael's deepest sorrows, fears, anger, and frustrations. It was then when Michael let his music speak louder, providing a perfect clap back to all those who questioned and speculated. The album was a double-disc of greatest hits, HIStory Begins, and new material HIStory Continues.

Speaking of They Don't Care About Us, it is the second track on HIStory Continues, following Scream and precedent to Stranger In Moscow. The song is a straightforward response to the ruthless and ubiquitous injustices perpetrated upon him and more in general upon black people by the racist forces of the white cultural hegemony. Extremely compelling is the aura of pure rage and frustration articulated in They Don't Care About Us, both in the record and in the two poignant and groundbreaking music videos (The Prison version and the clip shot in Brazil), released to accompany the track as a single.

Personally, when I began to approach Michael's music, I did not quite understand the real deep meaning and message the song was delivering. However, as I grew up, I developed interest and curiosity regarding the significance of this timeless masterpiece. Particularly the visual interpretation caught my attention. Hence, this article will entail the information I found through my research. The two videoclips released, were, and still are, wildly exhaustive pieces of art, expressly crafted to challenge our very seldom corrupt societies, people's beliefs and mindsets.

Moreover, in these short movies, the artist did not miss the chance to channel his frustrations and rage through his distinct blueprint that turned everything he did into pure gold. There is a broad range of aspects that compose the audiovisual endeavors that are worth discussing. These elements comprehend the lyrics, the human rights violation, racism, and social injustices; all these perspectives are the fulcrum of the whole work. The acute and fierce language contributed to making the artistic output more impactful.

It is now interesting to also analyze They Don't Care About Us from a Post-Colonialism theoretical standpoint. Firstly, for those not familiar with the Post-Colonialism theories, it is a study of all the effects colonialism had on cultures and societies, concerning both European countries, that brutally conquered other nations, and how the lands and populations won responded and most importantly resisted those invasions and trespasses. Furthermore, the study of Post-Colonialism as a body of theory has and is still going through three major stages. The initial one entails the first phase of awareness of the social, psychological, and cultural unjust condition of inequality and exploitation, enforced by being in a colonized state. Secondly, a struggle for ethnic, cultural, political, and economic autonomy begins. As a consequence, there will be a growing awareness of cultural overlap. Eventually, I would say that some of the post-Colonial elements are quite evident in the two music videos.

The song and the two music videos are eloquent protests against racism. Michael speaking in the first person gives a platform to all the voiceless minorities, offering an accurate and poignant depiction of their conditions of merciless oppression, that stripped minorities of their humanity, pride, and most importantly their rights. Related to the concept of racism, with a simple yet efficacious line, Michael addresses the still hugely relevant and actual issue of police abuse and brutality, which is the central theme of the Prison Version short movie. The artistic output was magistrally filmed by the genius Spike Lee, in a real prison in Queens, New York. The opening sequence shows black schoolchildren standing behind a wire fence in the snow, chanting the chorus of the song, providing a visual accompaniment to the introduction we hear on the record. As the beat kicks in, the scene displayed is quite impressive and provocative, because it employs a poignant and immaculate montage of explicit documentary footage.

The clips complementing the short film are retrieved from the footage of the Rodney King beating and subsequent LA riots and the brutal police beatings of African American people. We then witness the swell of an atomic mushroom cloud, followed swiftly by footage of a Japanese child sitting alone and crying amid a devastated Hiroshima. Alongside, we see a close-up image of an African boy face swarming with flies, then the assassination attempt on George Wallace. Subsequently, come on the screen, some pictures of the student rebellion on Tiananmen Square in China, and finally some footage from the Vietnam War. All these footages contribute to making the video so harsh to the point of getting the audience uncomfortable. In the scenes taken in the cell, Michael appears to be haunted by the ghosts of beaten people.

his film stands out for its immediacy and accuracy, yet these clips do not incite destruction nor hatred, but rather the opposite. Indeed, those footages are stressing compassion, a peaceful reaction to a hurtful and horrible situation, and political reunification. Thus, this is another reason why there is not even a trace of violence or sign incitement to hatred or aggressive reactions. Those were not merely television images, but real-life pictures of a horrid reality of human humiliation, abuse, and suffering that sadly surround us everywhere, that break into our everyday lives through television, social media and computer screens. In the video, the tension is palpable yet, the revolt is peaceful and not suppressed by the guards. However, Michael openly expresses his anger with demonstrative insolence. For instance, he sweeps tableware off, hits a guard's baton right in front of his face. Interestingly, the artist is the only prisoner who moves freely and around the dining room, demonstrating against the disregard for human rights and laws by authorities. During the whole short film, Michael tries to convince people to fight for their rights, raising the spirit of protest against oppression and humiliation.

However, in reality, prison riots never end with prisoners slamming fists against the tables or dancing on top of them and, Michael was very well aware of it. The last scene of the video shows the artist free and running up the stairs, glancing back, running away from the penitentiary in a Brazilian favela (might this be the red thread that connects the first short movie with the second video?) while his scream still lingers in the air … Leaving eventually an open question which is asked through ASL American Sign Language: "I don't know what lies ahead… Where will this spirit of struggle lead me, where will it further manifest?" This part honestly gave me chills!

The second version of They Don't Care About Us was shot in Brazil in February 1997, precisely some parts were filmed in the central district of Salvador de Bahia. The footage where Michael is wearing the iconic Olodum t-shirt and dances with Brazilian people was taken in a favela in Rio. However, for the artist, it was quite a struggle to manage to shoot the short movie in Brazil because the local authorities intended to prohibit the filming, expressing their dislike for the project, given that it would have shown the country in an unfavorable light. Yet other authorities approved the project because it would have been an influential means to draw the world's attention to the condition of poverty. Thus, the region might have benefitted from having such a big platform offered by one of the most prominent artists on earth. However, after the Brazilian government allowed to film the video for 20 days, it changed its mind abruptly and reduced, vastly, the filming period to 5 days only. The Brazilian version opens with a girl speaking in Portuguese saying: “Michael, eles nao ligam pra gente.” which means “they don’t care about us.”, then showing the whole favela with an aerial shot. Eventually, Michael gets out of a door and starts performing.

Although this version is still impactful and manages to deliver the message impeccably, I would say that it presents some fundamental differences from the so-called prison version. Indeed, even though some policemen who look stern and indifferent are part of the short movie, in the Brazilian clip, the atmosphere is quite different from the previous one. As a matter of fact, the festive whirlwind of colors, rhythms, and dances are what reminds the audience of the social meaning of the song.

Furthermore, the vivacious and colorful performance is backed by members of the local cultural and musical group: Olodum. The organization was and still is of particular importance as one of its primary purposes was to combat racism and help cultivate a sense of self-pride and affirmed identity among the Afro-Brazilian community in the region. The organization as well provides a springboard for the promotion of civil rights on behalf of all marginalized groups. Hence, it was not a mystery the reason why Michael was aligned with Olodum, to the point that he supported the organization by wearing their merchandise in his short movie. The display of solidarity was reciprocated, through the act of the collective performance of the group’s musicians who contributed with an additional layer of live percussions and vocals, over Michael’s original studio recording.

Moreover, the language as well plays a fundamental role in this creative output. Indeed, the lyrics and the whole message delivered with this piece were not exuding revenge or aggressiveness, which were typically used to fuel accusations and rage. Au contraire, the song is the manifestation of the indignation and the energy of resistance, empowering self-control and fortitude against repressions. Hence, I would say that the song does not contain a single trace of aggressiveness, and its content and energy stay perfectly within boundaries. The language and expressions employed to address the issues are particularly relevant to explain the horrid effects colonialism and post-colonialism have had on the populations affected and thus to protest against the neglect of fundamental human rights.

Furthermore, it is interesting to point out that the element of the language expresses the manifestation of spiritual endurance and disobedience against the oppressors and lying accusers immaculately and, therefore, the dualism between the artist singing in the first person and the "Us" contained in the title and refrain of the song. Although TDCAU is addressing some social and political injustices, it may as well be true that Michael has attempted to convey his frustrations and anger in this piece, turning them into a timeless audiovisual work of art. Arguably, this could as well be the reason why the artist decided to release two variants of the short movie, the prison video featuring a crude and powerful documentary and the flamboyant, colorful Brazilian clip.

Furthermore, another element related to the Post-Colonialism discourse is how the artist and more in general black people and minorities are very seldom victims of unjust and appalling stereotypes that are addressed in the line “Don’t You Black Or White Me". This brief but straightforward segment of the song could be subjected to double interpretation. On the one hand, there is Michael Jackson, a man, a human being, a son, a brother, a father, a friend, who from the day he was born was put under the magnifying lenses of the whole world, his audience and tabloids. Most of the times he was judged, wrongly, bullied I would say, to the point that he could not even enjoy his life anymore without the anxiety of being abused, ridiculed and humiliated by people who did not take a second of their lives to do their research on his works, life, and what he stood for. Therefore, this line, specifically, is how the artist expressed his frustration towards those utterly racist reactions towards him. On the other hand, Michael decided to extend this statement to a broader scale, becoming the brave advocate who gave voice to all the voiceless people who were victims of racism, prejudice, ignorance in all their nuances and degrees.

Moreover, as Michael responded to the critiques received for the straightforward and sharp lyrics during a press release for the New York Times in 1996 " The song, in fact, is about the pain of prejudice and hate and is a way to draw attention to social and political problems. I am the voice of the accused and the attacked. I am the voice of everyone. I am the skinhead, I am the Jew, I am the black man, I am the white man. I am not the one who was attacking. It is about the injustices to young people and how the system can wrongfully accuse them. I am angry and outraged that I could be so misinterpreted." He was the voice of the angry and outraged voiceless.

To conclude, They Don’t Care About Us with its first-person narration, the refrain, and the two iconic music videos, the socially and politically challenging lyrics and message, relates to the problems minorities face every day. They don’t really care about us means they, the society, privileged white people, the governments, do not care about the minorities, about the voiceless who have been abused, oppressed, robbed of their rights. They don’t really care about the people. The challenging lyrics and footages in the prison version offer us a chance to reflect on the importance of these topics. Not to mention the actuality of the song, which is remarkably accurate and relatable to the modern world and times we are living in. This artistic output is the greatest, most compelling and influential statement against every injustice perpetrated against all human mankind, and will forever be part of Michael's and the world's legacy. Therefore, the questions my reflection generated are: is this the world we want to live in? Are these the world and the society we want our children to grow up into? Is this the world without prejudice, ignorance, abuse, oppression, no equality, and equity we want for ourselves? And for the white folks like me: are we using our privilege wisely, to uplift, amplify the voices, the needs and wants of our brothers and sisters who are part of minorities and are facing some serious major struggles and discomforts? As Michael asked at the end of the short movie: “ I don’t know what lies ahead… Where will this spirit of struggle further manifest?”

Reflect deeply.

Thank you for your attention💜 Peace. G✨

There's a good and a bad way to subvert expectations. Unfortunately what's been happening a lot lately is that many works go for twists for the sake of being twists, the Star Wars Sequels being a prime example of this. Or the later sessions of Game of Thrones. There is a fine balance between being able to surprise your audience and not being extremely predictable.

//I’ve absorbed more complaints and feelings from both those series through pop-culture osmosis than I have from watching them. I’m more of a casual observer, but I do have some feelings on both these points (which I will put under here if you’re interested.)

//tl;dr version: I think we should unbiasedly judge media on its own merits and look over what works internally within the story and what doesn’t, be willing to make our own judgements rather than jump on bandwagons and tell people what they should or shouldn’t like, and not treat opinions as straight facts.

//And also that I’m honestly tired of hearing about the sequels and GoT ^^;

//I disagree with a lot of people on the Star Wars sequels (aside from 9, fuck 9), but I’d rather not start a debate about it nor their quality overall. Only that I think people really overreacted to them  and many others jumped on the hate bandwagon when emotions were running high.

//Frankly, many of the criticisms I saw about the films felt either wildly inconsistent about what they’re upset about or what they wanted it to be (7 was criticized for being too much like old Star Wars, 8 for not being enough like old Star Wars) and others felt like they came from bad faith and I can’t take them seriously.

//And yes, the last season of Game of Thrones is trash and wrecked everyone’s storylines for the sake of being shocking, but let’s also be real: GoT was never going to have a happy ending if it wanted to stick to its “realism.” Whoever got on the Iron Throne was inevitably going to have to purge all opposition to consolidate power. That’s just how real revolutions and coups work.

//To be clear, Daenerys’ turn to evil murderousness was stupidly executed, but it wasn’t necessarily unprecedented. What I frankly dislike about fantasy in general is its tendency toward the Divine Right of Kings. That only certain bloodlines have the right to rule and you just need to put the “rightful heir” on the throne. In other words, giving absolute power to a magically omnibenevolent person will fix everything. I may be an optimistic humanist, but I know that simply doesn’t happen.

//The entire point of GoT is that DRoK is stupid and royalty in general really kinda sucks. If you go back, you see most of the lords we follow, including “good king” Eddard Stark, are either totally indifferent to the masses or are completely sadistic and torture them for funsies since the legal system doesn’t protect peasants.

//The Starks are no better than the Lannisters simply by virtue of being overall “nicer” than them. Both sides start wars that get thousands of people killed. Also, everybody loved John Snow, but he also fucking hanged a kid and I’ve never heard anyone bring that up since.

//Most importantly, Daenerys was a likable character with a sympathetic backstory, but even before the last season, she was fully embracing being a Targaryen by blood and was openly murdering people who got in her way while she was conquering territory after territory.

//Yes, a lot of the people she killed were slaveholders, but let’s be real for a moment: not everyone who participates in an evil system is evil themselves. It’s easy for us as the audience to judge them for participating in a slavocracy, but living in one comes with being told slavery is okay. That doesn’t make them evil by nature, just subject to the biases of their culture.

//Also, slavery is evil but conquering people is fine? And burning people to death for opposing you is acceptable since you’re going to be better and free everyone, or because you had a sympathetic backstory? These are the kinds of things that get villains criticized for, but is treated as a necessary evil at worst for the protagonists.

//This is protagonist-centered morality. The show is framing it in a way where you’re being drawn in to see it that way, but also telling you not to see blatant hypocrisies for what they really are. Daenerys was even called as mad as her father by Tyrion. It wasn’t well-executed, but it was going to happen regardless of how much anyone liked her.

//Violence for a good cause is still violence. If you’re going to burn people for disagreeing with you, then say that other people shouldn’t and should listen to others, that’s full-on hypocrisy. That goes for most of the characters in the show, frankly, and the message is executed well for most of it.

//That being said, don’t think this means I think the last season of GoT is good, that the Star Wars sequels are perfect, or that I hate all fantasy books ever. That’s not what I’m saying. I try to enjoy what’s good about them and point out their flaws regardless.

//What I’m saying is it’s important to, when you want to be critical of media, put your feelings and biases aside and judge the media you’re criticizing on its own merits. In my opinion, the claims that the sequels only did things to subvert expectations is unfounded. They were going their own direction, which was admittedly controversial and not what many people wanted, but just because you don’t want it to happen doesn’t mean it’s a bad twist

//Just like how a character isn’t a Mary Sue just because they’re too OP or you don’t like them. That’s not what that term means and hearing people use it like that irritates me. While I do have my complaints about characters, people use that term as if it’s a form of literary criticism that has more use than is necessary.

//If a character is OP, they’re OP. If a character is flat, they’re flat. If a character is poorly written, they’re poorly written. If a character is at the center of the universe and literally everything else exists just to amplify them and their role in things, then they’re likely a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. It’s not a label to slap on  a character you don’t like or to give a critique (or complaint) more weight.

//This is why I say DR3 Chiaki isn’t a Mary Sue, she’s just not a very well written character. All Mary Sues are poorly written characters, but not all poorly written characters are Mary Sues. She’s not terrible, but she’s not explored much and her only big roles are being the person who brings Class 77-B together and her death turns them to despair.

//While her death was tragic and brutal, we didn’t really get a good look at who she was as a person beyond just being nice and opening up to her friends. If they’d expanded on that a little more, maybe it would’ve been more effective, but the way she died felt...manipulative and shock baity in a lot of ways since it banked mostly on our familiarity with her despite it being a totally different person.

//DR3 honestly had a whole host of shocky and just plain gross scenes that I really don’t think needed to be there.

//But likewise, if a story has a plot twist that you don’t like, that doesn’t automatically make it purely shock bait or subverting expectations just for the sake of doing so. There’s a difference between “this character was evil all along and there were a lot of clues and we just didn’t want to believe it” and “this character was evil all along for reasons we’re dumping on you now.”

//Just so I don’t seem like a hypocrite, while I personally don’t like what happened with Mikan in chapter 3 of SDR2, it was an effective way of foreshadowing the truth of them being the remnants of despair. It was set up that every had lost their memories and this was a sign that getting them back wasn’t necessarily going to have a good outcome.

//And I’ll be real: I can’t take a lot of the complaints about the Sequels or GoT seriously because much of it carries overtones of racism, sexism and antisemitism. For those more into Star wars, I think you know what I mean already and that’s all I’ll say. As for GoT, I’ve seen reddit posts viscerally attacking the writers directly and even saying that we should’ve expected the ending to suck since it was “written by Jews.”

//Yeah, go figure I can’t read any of that. I know not all people who hated the show’s ending or the films are like that, but it’s impossible to deny that those attitudes are very real.

//In the end, if you want to be critical of media, the worst way to do that is to just watch a video of someone complaining about it for half an hour. Yes, those video essays can be fun, but the only way to be truly critical of media you enjoy is to examine it yourself and look closely at what’s in it and how it’s presented. That goes doubly for shows you like.

//I know not everyone will do that and all opinions are ultimately subjective, but don’t let someone else tell you that you should hate something or that something is bad just because they didn’t like how it ended. Watch or read it yourself and draw your own conclusions. Don’t just follow the crowd and also be respectful of people who don’t agree with you. You can learn a lot when you talk to someone with a different opinion.

Choosing Destiny; Part 3

Here we go!

Raven followed Vil down the halls of the dorms, trying to ignore the stares of those around her. There were dozens of boys lining the halls, peaking out of various rooms, staring at her and whispering to each other. There must have been at least a hundred of them, all staring at her like she was…interesting. This was so weird. Less than four hours ago, she had been the most hated person at school, now she was the interesting new girl.

“Raven, dear, are you okay? You look rather stunned.” Vil asked, setting a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m fine! Just a little overwhelmed.” She answered, rubbing the back of her neck. “I’m only ever the center of attention when it’s bad.”

“That’s nonsense, mademoiselle. Here, you’ll be treated far better than that.” Rook smiled, ruffling her hair a little, making her giggle.

“Rook! Her hair was perfect!” Vil snapped, hands flying to fix Raven’s hair. Raven suddenly froze, grabbing a random lock of hair and pulling it in front of her face, before groaning.

“My magic wore off!” She huffed, letting the hair fall.

“What do you mean?” Epel asked.

“I usually use magic to keep a small glamour over my hair, adding in purple streaks. It makes me look more like my mom. Without it, I get confused for a Royal.”

“But…you are royalty.” Epel pointed out.

“Not Royalty, a Royal. Ever After was divided by civil war for a few years when I was young. The first faction was the Royals, typically Princesses and Prince Charmings, or those who got happy endings. They were led by Snow White and her husband, James Charming. Then, there were the Rebels, monsters, beasts, witches, and other villainous beings. They, well, they were led by my Mom. As is, I don’t look much like previous Evil Queens, I look more like a Royal, even a Princess Charming if you push. Hence the heels, and the glamour and makeup.” Vil hummed to confirm he was listening around a mouthful of bobby pins as he quickly braided her hair back.

“So, wait, your mom led a civil war?” Rook asked. “What was she fighting for?”

“Huh? I…I don’t know. After the Rebels lost, my Mom was locked away for good, and everyone was forbidden from even mentioning the war. We don’t even learn about it in school much. It’s seriously taboo to talk about it. My visits with Mom were all heavily monitored so that I wouldn’t accidentally let her out of the mirror dimension, so I never got to ask about it. She just said that she hoped I would follow in her footsteps.” Fiddling with the end of her braid once Vil was done, Raven frowned a bit. It had always bothered her, never knowing why her mother was serving a life sentence.

“Well, now is not the time for such heavy matters. We have an audience waiting on you, and Headmaster Crowley has called a meeting for all Dorm Leaders tomorrow morning, and has requested your attendance.”

“Okay. Um, before we begin, how many people are going to be asking me questions?” She asked, biting her lip.

“Oh, only about one hundred eighty!” Vil cheered, steering her by the shoulder into the main room from earlier. Raven gulped. This was so not what she had planned for today!

X0X0X

Raven had been seated in a plush plum-colored armchair in the center of the room, opposite the fireplace. Everyone was gathered around her, making her feel painfully claustrophobic.

“So, where are you from, Princess?” One voice asked from the back of the crowd.

“Well, my Dad rules the Good Kingdom, so I grew up in the palace. It’s technically split in half between Mom and Dad. I was raised mainly by servants, since Dad wasn’t too happy with his destiny, and Mom was locked away. I learned a lot of valuable skills though. I can cook, clean up after myself, I can balance a budget, and my Nanny taught me to play guitar and a few other instruments.”

“Could you play for us, Princess?” One of the boys near the front asked.

“An excellent idea!” Rook cheered.

“I…I guess? I should be able to summon my guitar if you’ll all give me a minute.” Raven stammered, cheeks and ears stained red with blush.

“Only if you don’t mind, mademoiselle,” Rook assured her, setting a hand on her shoulder.

“Not at all, I don’t get to play much, so this will be nice!” Raven patted his hand, before closing her eyes. What Raven did not see, however, was the vivid purple aura surrounding her as she murmured in the ancient tongue her mother had taught her. The purple aura around her began to condense into a tight mist, before taking the shape of a guitar. With a loud popping of displaced air, a plain purple guitar appeared in her lap. There was a floral pattern painted around the hole, which looked to be done in shades of silver and grey.

“It worked!” Raven cheered, running her hands down the strings. “What do you guys want to hear?” She asked, looking at the crowd. Sadly, she got no answer, as the entire crowd was captivated by the way her lavender eyes sparkled with happiness in the light.

“Why not play your favorite song, Princess?” One of the boys who helped her earlier asked.

“Okay!” Raven chirped and began to tune the instrument. “This is one my Mom used to sing to me each night, before she was sent away. Sorry if I’m not very good.”

“I’m sure you sound lovely, Raven,” Vil assured. Raven shrugged, before beginning to play.

“Where the Northwind…meets the sea~.” Raven’s voice was…enchanting, high and sweet and pure. “There’s a river, full of memory. Sleep my darling, safe and sound. For in this river, all is found. When all is lost, all is found~.” The whole dorm was silent, staring at the tiny angel whose voice seemed to come from heaven itself. As her song wound down, she seemed to come out of a trance. “Where the north wind meets the sea, there’s a mother, full of memory. Come, my darling, homeward bound. Where all is lost, then all is found. All is found, all is found…” Raven, who had kept her eyes closed as she sang, slowly opened her eyes.

“Raven, that was most wondrous!” Rook cheered, clapping wildly.

“Rook is quite right, dear. I simply must record you playing for my MagiCam sometime.”

“I will not lie to you; I have no idea what that is.” Raven giggled. “So, Vil said you guys had questions for me?” She set the guitar aside, folding her hands in her lap and smiling at the crowd.

“How did you get here?” A redhead asked.

“Ah, I was practicing my magic and got scared…something went wrong, and I wound up in the woods here. I was wandering for hours when I found the school, and Rook helped me to the nurse. After that, headmaster Crowley said…something about enrolling me? He had me sorted, and then called Epel here to escort me to the dorms. Honestly, it’s been an intense few hours!”

X0X0X

As Raven fielded questions, Epel kept a close eye on her. She was being nothing less than the epitome of polite, answering all the questions she was asked, but her shoulders were starting to slump.

“So, Princess, do you have a boyfriend?” One of the boys further back called. Raven suddenly went a deep red.

“Or a girlfriend?” One closer to the front added.

“No! The one guy I kinda like is…not interested in me. He would never be.” Raven smiled in a melancholy way.

“What? Dear, you’re royalty!” Vil gasped, clutching his throat like a lady of old England.

“I’m also the daughter of the Rebel leader, Vil, and he’s expected to be the next Prince Charming, as in the guy who marries Snow White. Not exactly an ideal relationship.” Raven sighed a bit. “Anyway, anyone else have questions?” Several hands shot into the air, making Raven giggle.

“Vil, hey!” Epel whispered, tugging on the taller boy’s sleeve a little. Vil raised an eyebrow at him, keeping his attention on their resident royal. “Raven looks pretty tired, and she’s had a long day. We need to make sure she gets her beauty sleep, right?” Vil tensed at the magic words.

“Alright, that’s plenty of questions for now! You can all get to know Raven later; she needs her sleep.” There was a collection of disappointed groans, but everyone slowly bid Raven goodnight, trickling out of the common room in clumps and batches.

“Thanks, Vil. I was starting to get pretty tired.”

“Of course, dear. You will, of course, be joining me for my evening skincare routine. I create my cosmetics and skincare products, so they’re top of the line. Epel, Rook, go make sure that Raven’s room is completely ready.” Both boys nodded and walked off, leaving Vil to lead Raven to his bathroom.

X0X0X

Vil eyed Raven as he gently scrubbed off his makeup. She was eyeing his array of skincare products with great interest, and yet there was a wary air about her. Going through the steps, he explained the ingredients of each product, along with their general purpose.

“-and this one contains apple extract; its purpose is to serve as a sunblock of kinds.”

“I…can’t use that one,” Raven muttered, burying her face behind a curtain of her hair.

“But Raven, you’re so pale! It cannot be safe for your skin to be out in the sun, exposed to the light.” Vil tutted, crossing his arms.

“It…it’s stupid, but I’m allergic to apples. Just the skin makes me go into anaphylactic shock, I can’t be anywhere near them. Like I said, stupid. Who’s ever heard of the evil queen not being able to handle apples?” Raven chuckled a bit, but Vil could see in her eyes that this deeply bothered her.

“Well, in the traditional tale, the one I was taught, the queen tried a myriad of ways to dispose of Snow White, like a cursed comb or an enchanted corset. Besides, you said you didn’t sign the book, so there’s no point in fretting.” Vil shrugged, handing Raven a face cloth. “If you can’t use that one,” Vil made a mental note to dispose of the bottle later. He was responsible for this sweet girl, accidentally sending her into shock would be terrible. “then try this. Cucumbers and pomegranate juice. Works wonders.” Yes, Vil was determined to protect this girl.

Once they had both cleaned their faces and applied a variety of things that Raven was very confused by (Vil had looked like a ghost when she said she usually just used soap and water to wash her face) Vil had asked her to wait in the hall while he checked his room for something. He stepped back out a moment later, holding a bundle of shimmery cloth in both hands. “I want you to have this, dear. It’s my back-up robe. We typically eat breakfast as a dorm in our pajamas, but it isn’t appropriate for a young lady, especially a princess, to be seen in her pajamas. Speaking of, do you have appropriate sleep clothes?”

“I can just change this into something, don’t worry!” Vil paused, before sighing.

“If you insist. Good night, Raven dear.”

“Good night, Vil!” Raven chirped, making an about-face and walking to her room, closing the door and leaning back against it with a sigh. Summoning her guitar had taken a lot out of her. It was a complicated spell normally, but with the odd barrier between here and Ever After, it had nearly knocked the wind out of her. Not to mention the endless questions, she honestly didn’t understand! She wasn’t special, she was a villain! Even Dad had been wary of her most of her life! Summoning the dregs of her magic with a sigh, Raven switched her transfigured dress into a comfortable set of sleep pants and a tank top in a shade of teal that made her desperately miss Maddie. Throwing the robe Vil had given her (it was lovely, a rich purple with gold patterning and a large gold sash) over the back of a chair, she slumped over to the bed and collapsed onto it, groaning at how soft it was. This had certainly been one hell of a day.

X0X0X

The knock at the door came far too early. Groaning, Raven dragged a pillow over her head and rolled over, effectively tangling herself in the comforter.

“Mademoiselle Raven, breakfast is ready!” Rook (he was the only one with a habit of speaking French, oddly enough) called through the door. “Vil also needs to escort you to the dorm leader meeting today, so you won’t have much time for breakfast.”

“Just two minutes and I’ll be out!” She called back, sitting up with a silent huff.

“Alright! Vil had me bring you a basket of shower things, I’ll leave it out here for you.”

“Thanks a million, Rook.” Raven slowly swung her legs over the edge of the bed, shivering when the cool floor came in contact with her feet. Thinking fast, she transfigured a random dust bunny she spotted from the corner of her eye into a pair of slippers that matched her pajamas. Grabbing the robe from the chair at the last second, Raven swung it over her shoulders, tying the sash as she made her way to the door. Upon opening the door, the first thing to catch her attention was the basket of bottles set on the floor. There were three bottles and a few washcloths, along with two large fluffy looking towels, a toothbrush in a sealed bag, and a container of toothpaste. On closer inspection, the bottles, which contained a pearlescent powder blue substance, were shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. Heaving a sigh of relief, Raven set the basket on the vanity and stepped into the hall, absent-mindedly wrangling her voluminous hair into a set of pigtails. Looking around the halls, she cautiously followed the source of the noises she could hear, voices and the clinking of dishware. After a few minutes of wandering, she found a large dining room filled with several circular tables, each filled with boys in pajamas. Along the furthest wall was a long table, loaded with foods of all kinds. Raven had barely set foot into the room when she heard Vil call for her.

“There you are, dear! Come sit down, we need to eat.” He was seated at a larger table in the middle of the room, with Epel on one side and an empty chair on the other. Raven slowly made her way over, conscious of all the eyes on her.

“Good morning, Raven.”

“Good morning, Epel!” Raven responded with a smile. Without Epel, she probably wouldn’t have gotten to go to bed till much later last night.

“I already got you a plate, so dig in,” Vil commanded. Raven complied, beaming at the selection in front of her. There was a strip of bacon, an omelet, and a small bowl of what was likely yogurt, topped with nuts. Honestly, it looked like a breakfast she would have at home, with Cook. Picking up her fork, Raven took a moment to observe those around her. Vil’s manners were impeccable, while Rook’s were decent, and Epel’s made her want to cringe a little. Despite being the next Evil Queen, she was still a princess, and had been given almost four years of etiquette lessons as a kid. From what she could see of other tables, it was a mixed bag.

“I can’t lie, I’m pretty happy to see a healthy breakfast. At Ever After High, it’s all sweet foods and pastries every morning. Most of us Rebel kids can’t stomach it, but the Royals love it, so we don’t ever get anything good.” Raven commented, cutting up her omelet into small pieces.

“Really? How odd, here every dorm takes a weekly poll on what to have for breakfast each week. Headmaster Crowley would never exclude an entire group of students like that.” Epel scoffed, wrinkling his nose.

“Indeed.” Vil sniffed. “I can’t imagine that’s very good for their skin, either. Ah well, you’re here now, Raven, and that’s all that matters.” Raven smiled a little. Yeah, this wasn’t so bad, not at all.

X0X0X

As soon as Raven finished eating, Vil shooed her off to get ready for the day, making Raven giggle. He may act vain, but the boy was rather maternal. Once she was back in her room, Raven quickly hopped in the shower, pleased to find that the shampoo and conditioner Vil gave her were not heavily scented, but instead smelled faintly of jasmine. After she had rinsed the last of the conditioner, Raven hopped out and spelled one of the towels to dry her hair as she brushed her teeth. For some reason, her magic was working far better here than it ever had back home. Not once had something gone wrong. It was odd, being able to rely on her magic. Shrugging it off as a problem for later, Raven spelled her clothes clean and transfigured them into the same clothes as yesterday, this time pulling her hair into a four-strand braid. Sliding her feet into her heels, Raven made her way back into her room proper right as someone knocked on the door.

“Just a second!” She called, trying not to glance at the mirror on the vanity out of the corner of her eye. She’d need to get something to cover that with. Raven opened the door to see Vil, wearing an odd layered outfit, waiting on her.

“You look lovely dear. Now, we barely have time to do your makeup, but I’m nothing if not capable under pressure.” Vil grabbed her shoulders and spun her about, guiding her over to the vanity. Raven sucked in a deep breath at seeing herself in the reflection. She neverlooked in mirrors if she could help it, especially for long periods. With the glamour out of her hair and no lipstick, she almost looked like her half-sister….

“Now, I’m thinking a natural look, we’ll leave your lips bare, but a touch of highlighter and blush will look lovely. Hold still, this won’t take five minutes.” Vil’s words snapped her from her thoughts, making her shake her head a little. With expert precision, Vil swiped a brush across the top of her cheekbones and along the bridge of her nose. After a few more swipes, he clicked the compact in his hand closed, smiling.

“I am too good. Alright, take a look and then let’s be off, it would be rude to be late.” Vil was so busy packing his things back into his purse that he didn’t notice the slight panic in Raven’s eyes when she realized that she needed to look in the mirror. Taking as quick a glance as possible, Raven stood and pushed the chair in.

“Ready when you are!” She chirped, folding her hands in front of herself.

“Alright then, let’s be off! I can say with certainty that the other dorm leaders will adore you.” Vil said, smoothing a few flyaway hairs out of Raven’s face.

I hope so… Raven thought. 

@keiwahikari

@sayuricorner

𝐏𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐌𝐀 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐋 + google search results !

about 16,500,000 results ( 0.45 seconds ) 

PALOMA VIDAL IS GROWING UP — THE NEW YORK TIMES search result for: paloma vidal + parents

     paloma vidal , recently cast by streaming giant netflix , is far from being a complete NOBODY. her father is cristian vidal , hollywood’s comedy king , whose name prominently features in the credits of wildly successful comedies like “ bridesmaids , ” and generation-defining series like “ freaks and geeks. ” 

     and her mother is alina vidal , the award-winning actress-turned director , who starred in several of her husband’s films , before taking her own seat behind a camera. she has since gone on to direct her own box office FAVORITE , “ booksmart , ” a coming-of-age story brought to life by beanie feldstein and kaitlyn dever.

( source : nytimes.com )

‘ THE VILLAGE ’ : NETFLIX CASTS FRESH NEW FACES AND ... — VARIETY search result for: paloma vidal + the village netflix

     currently shooting in new york , the series is directed by ben pemberton , whose credits include several other projects for netflix. pemberton cites his own experiences around new york university as his inspiration for the show. the cast , which was revealed earlier today , features a STAR-STUDDED emsemble , including harvey strathmore , kaia burke , francesca archer , william lawton , naomi ahn , gabriel alexander , payton james , honor clarke-montgomery , jude madsen-wells , and yang jaebin.

     actors paloma vidal and atlas greene make their silver screen DEBUT along this cast , all of whom star as freshmen at new york university. the series is set to premiere in new york in early may , with episodes releasing immediately on netflix.

( source : variety.com )

PALOMA VIDAL IS THE BREAKOUT STAR OF THE SPRING — ELLE search result for: paloma vidal + valentina romero

     she was in the midst of her advanced acting class when she received the script for “ the village , ” as an attachment in an email from her agent. “ i kind of brushed it off at first , because i was in class and i was really trying to be present and pay attention , ” vidal says , “ but then , i read it and immediately wrote back in all caps that i absolutely needed to play VALENTINA. ”

     after weeks of traveling between the east and west coasts for auditions and classes , vidal finally landed her dream role : nyu’s smart blonde. “ i loved that she was described as this beautiful girl , but then had all these incredible LAYERS. she could easily just be pretty , but instead she’s consistently giving zoey a run for her money gpa-wise. and without even really trying too ! ” she says.

( source : elle.com )

PALOMA VIDAL — IMDB search result for: paloma vidal + imdb

paloma vidal was born on september 15 , 1999 in los angeles , california , usa as PALOMA ISABELLA VIDAL. she is an actress , known for the village ( 2020 ).

see full bio »

born : september 15 , 1999 in los angeles , california , usa

more at imdbpro » contact info : view agent , publicist , legal on imdbpro

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THE VILLAGE OUT OF CONTEXT’S TWEET — “HUGH JACKMAN’S ... search result for: paloma vidal + hugh jackman

     @thevillageupdates hugh jackman’s paloma’s godfather she’s said it in multiple interviews and on social media before !!

( source : twitter.com )

PALOMA VIDAL , FROM THE VILLAGE , IS ONE TO WATCH — REFINERY29 search result for: paloma vidal + scad

     senior year , vidal was accepted to the savannah college of art and design ( scad ) , following a LONG stretch of career uncertainty. it was her starring role in her high school’s production of little shop of horrors which pushed her to follow in her parents’ footsteps.

     vidal notes that , prior to scad , she’d remained relatively far away from the spotlight which shone on her parents , unsure that a career in the arts or a life of fame were really for her. “ compared to several of my cast mates , i feel like i grew up as a sheltered loner ! ” she jokes. but , she doesn’t strike me as aloof or untouchable at all. she is as much of an OPEN BOOK as one can be in an interview with a journalist. she never second-guesses or backtracks her answers. she never minimizes her success in the humble-brag way most of us have come to hate.

( source : refinery29.com )

MEET THE 2017 ROOKIE CLASS — SURFER search result for: paloma vidal + surfer

     a few years ago , a young paloma vidal told her local newspaper , “ i feel like i’ve got what it takes to be a world champion , and i just want to get to that level already. ” after taking that positive affirmation to the next level , vidal has officially cemented her name in the class of WORLD-TOUR surfers , and she’s technically one step closer to achieving that goal of hers. we got to see a lot of her this year , as she competed for the majority of the season , and made the finals at the roxy pro event in oahu , proving she’s more than comfortable competing on the big stage.

( source : surfer.com )

PALOMA VIDAL STARTED PHOTOGRAPHY AFTER AN INJURY — NEW YORK TIMES search result for: paloma vidal + photography

     but she also has an instagram on the side where she posts her photography , which has grown an audience of its own. for a while , vidal even considered a career in photojournalism. “ i picked up photography during a random summer in high school. it’s a funny story , actually , ” vidal says. “ i fell pretty badly while surfing , and was out of commission for a couple of weeks , but KEPT going back to the beach to watch my friends. and then i thought i should probably document everything i was seeing. the rest of the story’s pretty obvious. ” 

( source : nytimes.com )

PALOMA VIDAL ( @PALOMA ) • INSTAGRAM PHOTOS AND VIDEOS search result for: paloma vidal + instagram

     PALOMA VIDAL ( @paloma ) • instagram photos and videos

( source : instagram.com )

PALOMA VIDAL : BIO , HEIGHT , AGE , MEASUREMENTS ... — CELEBFACTS search result for: paloma vidal + eye color

     paloma vidal is an AMERICAN ACTRESS. she is best known for playing the character of valentina romero in netflix’s original series the village. born on september 15 , 1999 in los angeles , california , she became interested in acting after performing in her high school’s rendition of little shop of horrors. she was in a relationship with ty sheridan. their relationship lasted until october 2019.

paloma vidal personal details :

date of birth : september 15 , 1999 birth place : los angeles , california birth name : paloma vidal zodiac sign : virgo occupation : actress nationality : american race / ethnicity : white religion : unknown hair color : blonde eye color : hazel

( source : celebfacts.com )

Mismatched Destinies [Chapter 3]

Fantasy!AU, Royal!AU, Arranged Marriage!AU

Pairing: Chen x Reader

Warnings: Language, violence, maybe future smut

Summary: Your kingdom has been invaded. While trying to run from your pursuers, you accidentally fall down into the “Monster’s Realm.” But they might just be your only hope to fight back.

Prologue│Chapter 1│Chapter 2│Chapter 3│Chapter 4│Chapter 5

When you enter the lobby the next day, you see Jongdae leaning against the wall, humming pleasantly to himself. He has quite the pretty voice, you note.

“Good morning.” You greet.

He looks at you, his smile growing. “Morning. You ready to head out?”

You nod, though really you don’t have much to prepare for. You have no personal belongings, just yourself.

Jongdae continues humming as he begins heading for the door, only for it to slam open, revealing a seething, man. He has small antlers growing out of both temples, a deer-like tail swishing behind him vigorously and the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. He too, wears a guard uniform (more formal than Jongdae’s with actual armor). “Kim fucking Jongdae, where the fuck are you?”

“Hi, hello.” Jongdae greets, giving the man a friendly wave. “What a pleasant surprise to see you here this lovely morning—”

“You.” The man cuts him off, jutting a finger into his chest, eyes narrowed angrily. “I leave you for one day, and when I come to check up on you, you’re fucking gone from your post and—”

“Hey, hey.” Jongdae raises his hands in mock surrender, trying to calm the man down. “I’m working, Junmyeon.”

“Working?” Junmyeon raises his brows and voice in disbelief. His anger seems to increase. “Working? I don’t see you fucking working—”

“Calm down.” Jongdae says pleasantly, gesturing towards you. “I’m escorting the human princess to meet the king.”

Your heart stops.

What?

You stare at him in both shock and horror, wondering how the actual fuck he knew who you were. He doesn’t look at you though, just smiling like a gentleman. 

“I—You—” Junmyeon struggles for words before he chokes out, “Human princess?”

“Yes, that’s right.” Jongdae says, voice smooth like silk. “Princess Ruby.” He adds an emphasis to your ‘name,’ making you believe he knows you lied about that too.

“I, um,” Junmyeon’s anger dissipates immediately, his face paling. “I-I’m so sorry for my rudeness, Your Highness. Please forgive me.”

You struggle to think of what to do. You hear murmurs behind you from the residents of the inn. Bon’s voice breaks your thoughts, “You’re a princess?”

“Yeah.” Jongdae answers for you casually. “Did I not mention it?”

“No you fucking did not.” Bon exclaims, only to cover her mouth immediately. “Am I not allowed to swear in front of a human princess?”

You feel frustration grow within you as you glare at Jongdae with all your might. Way to go! Blurting it out for everyone to hear. Might as well parade around town with a sign around my neck saying ‘I’M A FUCKING HUMAN PRINCESS!’

You didn’t want the attention, which is why you lied. You didn’t want the monsters thinking differently about you just because you’re a human royal. You didn’t want them discriminating or hating you because you’re sure as hell the humans would have discriminated against monster royals. The humans would probably cheat or steal some money out of them, probably sneer at them and call them names. People would give them mock respect and admiration only to slit their throats when they aren’t looking.

It’s the kind of threat you don’t want. And even saying you were a noblewoman was risky, but your dress couldn’t lie.

You sigh. “Please, don’t apologize...er, Junmyeon. And Bon, you can swear. I don’t fucking care.”

Bon gasps as the profanity leaves your lips, as if a princess isn’t capable of such a thing. Her face lights up into a grin immediately afterwards though.

“So, uh, what are you doing down here, Princess Ruby?” Junmyeon asks politely. “And, er, how did you get down here?”

“I—” As you begin to answer, Jongdae quickly jabs you in the ribs with his elbow, effectively shutting you up.

His smile is still dazzling and calm. “She wanted to request an audience with our king. Something about an alliance, I think.”

“Oh,” Junmyeon nods, surprise on his face. “I suppose...an alliance with the humans can be beneficial...” He sounds uncertain though. Even scared.

You frown at Jongdae, wondering why he won’t let you say a word in this.

“Yes,” Jongdae says, pulling you along as he inches towards the door. “And you know how far the castle is from here. I want to get her there as soon as possible, so please excuse us.”

“Alright.” Junmyeon huffs. “I’ll take your post while your away.”

“Thanks, Myeon. You’re the best.” He beams, already shoving you out the door before you can even get a breath in.

Once out, he grabs your wrist, pulling you along, hissing under his breath, “Come with me.”

“What are you doing?” You finally manage, scowling at him. “How do you know who I am?”

Pulling you into an alleyway, hopefully out of earshot, Jongdae sighs. “Listen, there are a lot of things I can’t answer right now—I don’t even have answers, honestly.”

You frown, crossing your arms. “What does that mean. You just...knew? Intuition? Sixth sense?”

He narrows his eyes, his smile sharp like daggers. “You sure ask a lot of questions, princess. So how about I ask you a few?” He leans in, eyes glowing so brightly you can hardly look at him. “How did you get here?”

“I—What?” You stutter, your throat closing with fear.

“How did you get here?” He breathes out, a low growl hidden in his words. “How did you get past the barrier?”

“I-I don’t know.” You answer honestly, a mere whisper under his threatening aura. “I just...fell.”

He hovers over you for a moment, and you wonder if he might hurt you. The way he’s looking at you...light pouring out of his eyes, his smile wide and malicious.

Then he pulls back, expression softening into his usual carefree attitude. He shrugs. “If you say so, princess.”

You try to take a breath, your heart pounding wildly against your ribcage. What the hell was that?

“Listen,” he starts again, rocking on his heels, hands in his pockets. His red cloak is pulled back slightly from his movements. “I’m going to bring you to the king. I’m going to protect you. That’s my job. But hey,” his tone drops, “if you try anything funny, you won’t like what happens next.”

You nod silently, no longer finding words. He smiles. “Good. Let’s go then.”

He moves, his cloak sweeping behind him as he turns. You glance around, wondering what you should do. Sighing, you follow him. It’s not like you have much choice down here, in a foreign place filled with monsters that could probably rip you apart if they wanted to.

The path out of town is quiet. Uncomfortably so, with Jongdae. He hasn’t said a word yet, and you don’t like that. If you’re going to be with him for your journey, the least you could do is get on better terms with him...even if he seems very hostile towards you.

You find that strange. You’ve never done anything to make him feel that way about you, and his attitude has been friendly at first before making a complete 180° turn.

You clear your throat after a while, deciding to start a conversation. “So...you’re a monster, right?”

“What about it?” He glances at you curiously—or perhaps suspiciously.

“What monster are you?” You hope you aren’t rude by phrasing it so bluntly.

He scoffs, though he doesn’t seem offended. “I’m a dog monster.”

A dog monster? You frown, scrutinizing him. “How come you look so human?”

“Excuse me?” He sounds more amused than offended or angry. That’s good. He seems to have gone back to his previous ‘friendly’ persona.

“Well,” you start, “other monsters had ears or tails or other appearances but you look so...human. Shouldn’t you have dog ears or a tail or something?”

“Whoa, not all monsters are like that. Aren’t you being too generic?” 

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” You mutter. “I was just curious, is all.”

“I get it.” He says casually. “Not every day you fall into a different Realm and find out monsters exist, right?”

You manage a small smile. “Right.”

“Well, I’m pawsitive you’ll get used to it soon.”

You feel your jaw drop. “Did—Did you just say a pun?”

He smirks, a chuckle escaping him. The air feels lighter now, the quiet that follows is gentler and much more comfortable.

Slowly, as you go farther, you begin to grow colder. It feels like the temperature is steadily dropping, to the point you can see your breath fog up. You shiver, hugging yourself as snow drifts down. You look up, barely able to see the high cave ceiling past the tall evergreen trees.

“Cold?” Jongdae asks, noticing. You nod. He takes off his cloak, draping it over your shoulders and helping you clip it in place. “Heh, guess I should’ve thought of getting you a jacket too. It’s pretty cold around this area.”

“How is it snowing here?” You ask, scrunching up your nose at the cold. It feels numb, and you bet it’s tomato red. “We’re underground.”

“Huge underground caves can have its own weather.” He answers, shrugging. “Science.”

“What about you?” You touch the red cloak and eyeing his thin-looking dress shirt. “Aren’t you cold.”

“Nah, I’m ok. I don’t really get cold.” He says, waving you off.

The cloak is warm from his body heat, but it’s not enough. The icy wind is still blowing through it, freezing you down to your bones. How is it possible for it to be this cold? The snow is also heavier the farther you walk, piling more and more until it’s extremely difficult to walk.

Though you’re grateful for your walking shoes, it’s obviously not made for snow and the wet snow is seeping into your shoes and clothes.

You sneeze and sniffle, feeling a headache coming.

“Hey, you okay?” Jongdae asks after a while, seeing how red your cheeks have become and how heavily you’re breathing.

You feel anything but fine. You’re freezing, the cloak already soaked through from the snow, through your dress as well, heavy on your body like a second skin. You also feel alarmingly numb in your limbs, your head spinning. “I—”

Your vision flashes black, Jongdae calling for you in alarm. He catches you as you fall, and your vision returns, though it’s too blurry to see properly.

“You’re freezing.” He mutters, gathering you into his arms to carry you out of the snow. You shiver, feeling the biting wind blow through your very core. “You should have said something sooner if you can’t handle it.”

You try to say something, but your words come out as a gurgle. He shushes you, trudging through the snow twice as quickly as his previous pace. He wraps you protectively against him to shield you somewhat from the roaring wind and snow.

He’s warm, you think, but you’re too numb to really feel it.

You don’t know how long he trudged on, (you might’ve blacked out a few times), before he arrives at a small, cozy-looking cottage. The snow here is much lighter than it was before, only a few snowflakes floating down.

Jongdae sighs softly before shifting you in his arms so he can free one to knock.

You vaguely hear footsteps from behind the door get closer before the door swings open.

The man who greets the two of you has tongues of fire flickering off of his otherwise human-looking body. Even his hair that hangs over his forehead seems to be made of fire. He’s also tall, towering over Jongdae, his skin a warm color.

The man narrows his eyes on Jongdae, a scowl on his face. “You ain’t welcome.”

“Aw, Chanyeol.” Jongdae’s tone is filled with mock surrender, a friendly tone. “I need help this time. Please.”

The man named Chanyeol finally seems to notice the red cloth that Jongdae is carrying contains a person. A very sick-looking person. Alarmed, Chanyeol immediately steps aside to let Jongdae into his house. “She okay?”

“I think she’ll be okay.” Jongdae answers, and you shiver again at the sudden wave of warmth the house offers. “Just need to rest up.”

You hear shuffling, your vision darkening alarmingly. 

Chanyeol’s deep voice says, “Take her to the guest room. I’ll get a fire going.”

You feel Jongdae carry you into a room, setting you gently down on the bed in a sitting position. “Yeol! You got any clothes?”

“Yeah!” He calls back. “Gimme a moment!”

A second later and Chanyeol bounds in carrying thick blankets and clothes. “Do you, uh, need help?”

“I got it.” Jongdae answers and Chanyeol leaves, closing the door shut. Jongdae’s tone is urgent but soft as he speaks to you. “Miss Ruby, can you hear me? Do you think you can change yourself?”

You shake your head slowly, and even that is already a huge toll on you. You feel so, so tired. So sleepy. You’ve been dressed by your maids back in the castle, so this shouldn’t be too terrible.

Jongdae nods, whispering a quiet apology before beginning to peel off your wet, cold clothes. He is careful, fingers deft. You are stripped down to your undergarments, and you feel slightly better without your dripping clothes. He helps you into the clothes Chanyeol offered, a large t-shirt is more than enough to cover your body. He makes you lie down, wrapping you tightly in a blanket.

Once he’s sure you’re all set, you hear him open the door. 

“You come here after ages and the first thing you do is bring a sick human girl to me. Care to explain?” Chanyeol’s voice is sharp, but quiet as to not disturb you.

“Sorry, Yeol. I meant to visit earlier, but you know I gotta do my job back at Flurin.”

Chanyeol scoffs. “Job? Please, you don’t give a shit about your job.”

“Not true.” Jongdae pipes. “Anyways, I’m taking her to see the king.”

“How’d she even get down here?”

“No clue.”

“You still owe me 30 Reds. You ain’t welcome here until you pay up.”

“I’ll pay you next time.” Jongdae sounds way too relaxed and casual.

“If it wasn’t because you have a sick person with you, I would’ve kicked you right out.”

“You love me too much for that.”

Their voices are drowned out as you fall into a deep sleep you’re scared you might never wake up from.

Previous Chapter│Next Chapter

Mismatched Destinies Mini Masterlist

A/N: Next chap will show a little more about Jongdae! I hope you enjoyed the chap 😊

Tags: @skjdln @meryljill-111192 @bloopbloopkai @solarsa @alwayslietohidethetruth @typicalpeople @weirdsofagirls @pastel-kpop @bluepsycopanda @noonaofjungkook

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A HANDY DANDY GUIDE TO WRASSLIN

For the lovely, the wonderful, the incomparable @gideongrace​ , may I present: Daggs’ Guide to the Wild Ass World of Professional Wrestling! (and it’s goin’ behind a cut because It Got LONG!)

So, here is the things. Wrestling is STUPID. And great? And fun as hell! And the most carny sport to ever exist. But, also SUPER inside baseball a lot of the time just because it’s got such a long goddamn history that it can seem daunting to get into. Like I’ve only been back into it the last four or so years, so there’s a lot of history that I’ve missed! There’s also a whole lot of gate keeping, just like comics or video games. There’s also the bitter truth that a lot of people in the industry are absolute shitheels that should have been fired long ago (and I’ll only be vague about a lot of that). So, yeah. A WHOLE LOT.

First things first: HISTORY. There’s just so much. But, conveniently? You don’t need it. It can be fun if you end up really like wrestling, but contrary to what a bunch of middle-aged, racist, misogynist and WILDLY homophobic, White American Men will tell you, you don’t actually need it to enjoy yourself. If you DO want history, might I suggest the How2Wrestling podcast! It is a cheerful, lovely show hosted by two goddamn delightful humans, Kefin and Jo (who are also just wonderful people to interact with in general)! There is also the Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling by Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno, which is a great read! Wrestlesplania is another good show for history of the sport and the wrestlers! They’re definitely, uh, hornier, but v fun!

Secondly: On the subject of inside baseball, wrestling jargon is a whole thing. The ONLY part of wrestling history that is 100% important: it is a carny sport. Like, some side-show, vaudeville ass shit, yo. And it has never evolved from that, so there are a whole lot of terms used that are very specific to like... early 1900′s carnival culture. Here is a wikipedia article, but there’s also a wonderful How2Wrestling episode about it all! I’ll try not to use much!

Thirdly: We can’t talk about wrestling podcasts without mentioning Colt Cabana’s The Art of Wrestling. A lot of the archives are behind a paywall now, but the show is great. If you DO get into wrestling and start to find wrestlers you enjoy, I highly highly suggest checking to see if they’ve done an episode. Colt is a goddamn delight of a human, deserving of support and a great interviewer on top of it. Even if you just bookmark eps you’d wanna listen to and then start a free trial to marathon them all. (See also: the Colt Cabana & CM Punk lawsuit(s), in which Colt got royally fucked over.)

Fourthly: Nobodies Watching Wrestling. Drag Queens watching wrestling. That’s all you need to know. Even out of context, they’re goddamn delightful humans. Might I recommend this episode with EFFY, because I sometimes just watch it when I’m having a bad day.

Fifthly: Tights & Fights is a great weekly wrestling pod, and is how I keep up on a lot of things that I might not be watching. PLUS, diverse group of (wonderful) hosts: Hal Lublin, Daniel Radford, Lindsey Kelk, Open Mike Eagle, and producer Julien Burrell. They’re just great. And horny, at times, but in a charming and respectful way.

Now... The boring part. I’m just gonna get some of the popular company introductions out of the way, and then the fun part of So Many Match Suggestions at the bottom. But, business first! (The Big difference between Larger Companies and Independent Companies is that the big guys have a contracted roster of people who sometimes can work with other companies [unless they’re the WWE, who have exclusive contracts and still call their employees Independent Contractors so they don’t have to offer health insurance or a union], and indie guys contract people usually show-by-show. ALSO, there is intergender wrestling [men vs women, which does bother a lot of people. I do side with support of it, but I do totally get how it can be hard to watch] in indie shows, whereas there is NOT in 90% of the big companies.)

(And, honestly, if you wanna skip this part, you can, but if I don’t do it first, I’ll forget..)

AN OVERVIEW OF THE BIG PLAYERS

WWE - Here’s the thing. The WWE kinda... is a terrible capitalist bastard of a company, run by a morally bankrupt, egomaniacal, shitstain, roid-rage cryptkeeper of a man. And, if you want my personal opinion, RAW and Smackdown are both (currently) TERRIBLE shows, despite having some truly phenomenal talent. BUT, but. NXT (and NXT UK) is probably the best, like, weekly wrestling show (on TV, at least, but we’ll get there). The talent is INCREDIBLE, the storylines are less bad bananas, and they’ve adopted a LOT of the best indie talent lately (because they want to directly compete with AEW, but that’s a whole other thing). WWE programming is also the easiest to get a hold of because they are the longest running and basically Disney, so there are some full matches on YouTube, and Raw and NXT are available on Hulu. They are also releasing a lot of free stuff on the WWE Network that you can watch without signing up for a paid account, but there is a lot of stuff behind a pay wall.

Cons: Real Talk, run by a bunch of terrible people. Responsible for covering up a lot of truly reprehensible crimes for which no one was held accountable, despite being well documented. A blatant disregard for the (physical and mental) safety and/or financial security of a lot of their roster--specifically the people you don’t see on TV. (If you want some history, you can look through the past tweets of the New York 64 Tournament, but a lot of it turned my stomach, so I would not suggest, but it’s there if you have the same morbid curiosity that I did)

Pros: The company might be run by terrible people, but their roster is good. A lot of my top wrestlers do work for the WWE, sure, but they do hire a lot of decent humans that I sometimes feel bad about not supporting. Also, it is the dream of a lot of people to join WWE simply because of the prestige, the massive audience, and job security. I might hate Vince but I can’t begrudge any wrestler currently working for them.

NXT Pros: On the subject of rosters, NXT is LIT. But they have also stolen some of the best indie wrestlers recently: Mercedes Martinez and Jake Atlas, two of my All Time Favs. Both of whom deserve the world, because being openly gay in the wrestling industry is the pits.

All Elite Wrestling - AEW is a very new company, and they are my favourite of the big promotions. They are a company run by wrestlers, rather than a millionaire with a writing staff. I like the wrestling style(s) better, I was a huge fan of a lot of their roster before they hit TV last October, and I like not giving the McMahons money. The storylines are better, if only because they don’t have a writer’s room dictating scripts and such, and the characters are more fun (for me at least).

Easiest ways to watch for free: Their YouTube channel! There you can find a lot of highlights, behind the scenes, AEW Dark (the “dark” matches, or the non-televised matches from TV tapings), PPV pre-shows and a lot of stupid stuff.

Cons: A bit of an issue offering equal match time to the women’s roster the way they SAID they would at the start. A bit more violent of a style as a lot of the wrestlers came up death match style wrestling, or are from Japan/wrestled in Japan and typically wrestle “strong style” (wrestling style with less theatrics and known for Real Real Strikes that Hurt A Lot), which some people can find off-putting. Also, they hired Jake Hager, who is a real piece of shit.

Pros: Have a wonderfully diverse roster. Orange Cassidy. Sonny Kiss. Good storytelling. Jake The Snake Roberts doing Hella Promos. The Dark Order, who we affectionately refer to as the Spooky Perverts. Chris Jericho yelling at a Drone, and Matt Hardy being a wizard. A bunch of wrestlers who are married to other wrestlers who work for WWE, and good jokes are made.

BUT THE BIGGEST PRO-AEW THING I CAN PROVIDE: NYLA FUCKING ROSE. They didn’t make her the first women’s champion like they should have, but they put her in the first championship match on the FIRST episode of the weekly show, Dynamite, and she is now the CURRENT women’s champion. I don’t wanna make a big deal, only it is a BIG DEAL, because Nyla Fucking Rose is the first openly transgender wrestler signed to a major promotion, and if you think I didn’t fucking CRY LIKE A CHILD when she won, you’re wrong. So, yeah, a NATIONALLY TELEVISED WRESTLING PROGRAM’S CURRENT WOMEN’S CHAMPION IS A TRANSGENDER, FIRST NATIONS WOMAN. NYLA. FUCKING. ROSE.

As of right now, AEW seems to be done filming, which is both Very Smart and also heartbreaking, but you can find all the ways to watch over here on their site if it looks like fun!

WOW Women of Wrestling - Have you seen GLOW? This is a show created by the IRL creator of GLOW (the promotion the show is based on, not the show)! And it is? Incredible? The characters are fun and portrayed as superheroes, the stories are CAMP af, and the wrestling is GOOD. They’re a non-traditional show, which is fun. Their roster is made up of wrestlers playing different wrestlers. Wrestling is a bunch of super talented people playing characters while doing acrobatics. WOW gives us people playing characters, playing other characters, while also doing acrobatics.

Cons: All male announce team? On an all women’s show? Excuse? And also: Tessa Blanchard who is, it turns out, a great big racist. Also a little harder to get full episodes it seems.

Pros: Literally everything else.

Ring of Honor - For awhile ROH was handily competing with WWE. And then they weren’t. And then they got better. And then they got worse. And now, currently, they are a company that I hate supporting.

Cons: Run by assholes who don’t care about worker safety, and don’t put anything into the women’s division.

Pros: Sometimes they partner with New Japan Pro Wrestling. They’ve recently released a lot of goooood old matches including some Kevin Steen (currently WWE’s Kevin Owens) vs El Generico (definitely, 100% not at all, no way, no how, of course NOT WWE’s Sami Zayn [he is, this is another inside baseball joke that I’m just obligated to make every time I mention El Generico]) matches which are BRUTAL. Oh, and Dalton Castle:

Impact! - It’s back! I don’t watch it, but they DO have Rich Swann, so they can’t be bad. There is an entire history to Impact that is BANANAS. Like AEW, a bit more rough and tumble, scrappy death match folks, and I like a lot of the roster, like Taya Valkyrie, Jessika Havok and Sami Callihan. Not a bad show, but the full show weekly doesn’t hold my attention.

Cons: Tessa Blanchard, mostly. She is an incredible wrestler, her matches are good, but.

Pros: Pretty easy to watch, actually? I believe they’re still on Twitch, and they have an entire channel on Pluto TV.

New Japan Pro Wrestling - NJPW is GREAT. Definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. The shows are long, and strong style just... hurts. Like, a lot of wincing on my end. But the wrestling. Oh, lordy, the wrestling is incredible. But it is brutal. Strong Style wrestling is much different than the typical American style that you see in WWE, and a lot more grounded than high flying lucha styles. (Though a lot of wrestlers do travel to Mexico and train in lucha style wrestling (which I am the least familiar with), so currently there is a lot of the very high flying flippty dos and the absolutely brutal strikes that you see in strong style wrestling.)

Cons: Show/match length is typically long and there is A Lot to See. The only way I know to watch full shows is through their streaming service.

Pros: Just the whole thing, really. They release a free match on YouTube every Monday. Also, Toru Yano, the best wrestler in the world.

Indie Promotions that I know less about because I can afford only so many streaming services

Firstly, here is a Wiki list of wrestling streaming services. I’m gonna name a couple below, but the wiki page has a handy list of costs of the bigger ones because capitalism knows how to get you. (Personally, I only use IWTV at the moment. They’re a good company run by good people, and a lot of indie promotions would have died out without partnering with/support from them)

Beyond Wrestling - Beyond is My Favourite Promotion To Watch, Bar None. Their weekly show (when in season), Uncharted Territory, is fantastic. Diverse talent, diverse styles. They do have a lot of death matches, which can suck to watch if you aren’t into that sort of thing. I am, it turns out, into that sort of thing. But listening to interviews with a lot of death match wrestlers, specifically Jimmy Havoc, can help understand the w h y of it all! Available on IWTV.

Chikara - Chikara is So Fun! They are a (mostly) family friendly promotion and training school. Their shows are filled with young/newbie wrestlers as they learn the tricks. Run by Mike Quackenbush, who is a delightful person, BRILLIANT wrestler/trainer, and someone who is willing to take the safety of his people into account. He’s good people, who trains good people, and supports good people, and gives them a safe, open place to learn. It’s also very fun! A lot of comedy matches. Watch on: CHIKARAtopia or some of their archive is on IWTV.

EVE - An all-women promotion, providing a safe working and training environment for women and girls. They have put their foot in it on occasion, but they seem to still be good people. (I would recommend the Tights & Fights episode with founders Emily and Dann Read for a little backstory on the company, but not needed.) Ways to watch.

RIPTIDE - YO, RIPTIDE IS DOING THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SHIT. Cinematic wrestling, and it is great. The matches are good, the promos are good, the people are good. But the way they film it oh my god holy shit. When everything is a little less hectic, they are people I am definitely gonna support as much as I can. Watch here.

A Matter of Pride - Here’s the thing. They have put on some very good, inclusive shows. However, some serious allegations have come out about Rick Cataldo, who is involved with the company, and I think it’s important to mention. They have done a lot of good in the world of prowrestling and they put on good shows and they have given a platform to people who might otherwise have been pushed aside, however bad things have still happened there. Watchable on YouTube.

OTHER NOTABLE INDIE COMPANIES

GCW (IWTV, Fite TV & Smartmark) * Black Label Pro (IWTV) * Prime Time Pro Wrestling (IWTV) * Uncanny Attractions * RISE (IWTV) * Bar Wrestling * PWG * Stardom * Bizarro Lucha (IWTV) * OTT

There is also NWA Power that is a good show on YouTube, however, they immediately hired (and now fired for being racist) Jim Cornette who is... just an absolute jackass. But I do feel I should mention them.

Is that over? Yes? Well..

NOW THE FUN PART. THIS IS MY MOMENT. THIS IS THE ONLY PART THAT REALLY MATTERS.

So. The thing is. Wrestling is A Lot. SO, I’m gonna give you as wide a variety as I can! I’ll point out some fun people, some fun gimmicks and HOPEFULLY won’t completely turn you off! If you enjoy any of these, then the dumb stuff up above is useful!

First! The most important wrestling match of All Time. Invisible Man vs Invisible Stan. This is everything you need to know about the beats of good wrestling, but also why wrestling is fun. There are two people in this match: Referee Bryce Remsburg and the audience. And that’s it. This is literally just a referee (but it’s Bryce, so the referee) miming a wrestling match, and an audience buying into the kayfabe wholeheartedly. (Inside baseball: Bad Boy Vision - “Bad Boy” Joey Janela’s [another wrestler] sunglasses)

One of my favourite matches in recent memory, AND one of the best matches sort of just in general! David Starr vs Jordan Devlin at OTT. Quintessential wrestling, fantastic storytelling, and one of the best promo packages I’ve ever seen. BONUS: David Starr is a GREAT human fighting day and night to unionize the wrestling industry. He’s the Bernie Sanders of professional wrestling.

I thought about putting an actual death match on the list, but the closest I will get is this Nick Gage vs Josh Briggs fans bring the weapons match. I chose this match because my very best friend does not like this style of wrestling at all, but he did enjoy this match. It’s a lot, obviously. But it’s not as bad as it could be, but there’s also no shame if it isn’t your thing. Hell, I don’t even know why it’s my thing! I don’t even like bloody horror movies! I will say that Nick Fuckin’ Gage is one of the most prolific death match guys still working today, and also one of the nicest, kindest, most beloved guys there is and I would die to protect him. MDK!

Okay, this is the single most beautiful match to exist. Cara Noir vs PAC (fka WWE’s Neville). This isn’t wrestling, this is art. Great story, no commentary, gorgeous camerawork. Bonus: Cara Noir has the most fantastic and well rounded gimmick (character) in the business. Have you seen Black Swan? That’s it. That’s his character. And it’s great. Nailed. It.

Oh, did you know David Arquette is a wrestler? HE IS! Here’s he and RJ City.

On the subject of WWE and NXT, this Halftime Heat match of Aleister Black, Ricochet & Velveteen Dream vs Johnny Gargano, Adam Cole & Tommaso Ciampa. These are six of the best wrestlers work, and definitely TOPS in the WWE system. SEE ALSO: Black & Dream put on a HELL of a program together at NXT, but it’s been boiled down to this highlight vid that gives me feelings. Gargano vs Andrade Cien Almas is one of THE BEST matches of all time and here is a shitty highlight reel, but it’s still good. Adam Cole is 1) incredible and 2) the prettiest possum in the Denny’s dumpster, have a Cole vs Finn Balor highlight reel. God, I wish it were easier to find WWE stuff on YouTube.. All these matches should be on Hulu, tho.

NEXT! Kris Statlander vs Davienne for Beyond. Kris Statlander is A Legend, despite being real new to the business. Currently wrestling for AEW, former stuntwoman and, most importantly, she’s an alien.

FREE FOR ALL TIME. Solo Darling vs Penelope Ford vs Veda Scott vs Ashley Vox. They didn’t have to go that hard, but they did.

SPEAKING OF. Kylie Rae, Penelope Ford, Kimber Lee & Skylar vs. Shotzi Blackheart, Harlow &Twisted Sisterz. I just? I love? All of them?

And not to mention Kris Statlander vs Priscilla Kelly. I mean, I mean. I cannot sing the praises of both of these women enough.

Okay, so I am really only passingly familiar with a lot of Japanese wrestling. Mostly got into it last summer, actually. I get it, I love it, but I’m not as well versed in the people involved. Two badasses I do know? Meiko Satomura vs Kana (WWE’s Asuka). Fucking legends, both of them. Hard hitters, too, jesus.

If you do get into NXT at all, Keith Lee and Donovan Dijak put on one fuck of a program together, but the story started long before they ever entered the WWE! Please enjoy this absolute hoss fight from a couple years back.

NOW, some intergender matches! If you think they aren’t your thing, feel free to skip!

A fun match of (current IRL romantic partners) Keith Lee vs Mia Yim from before either of them debuted at NXT. I believe they weren’t dating at this point, so the next part will really hit, cuz it’s romantic as shit... This was not the booked ending. Keith Lee didn’t kick out on purpose. (Which, I mean, is literally all wrestling endings, but.) Mia was booked to lose (at least they told her that), and he purposefully took the L and went out on his back, to surprise her and give her a MASSIVE push.

Leyla Hirsch vs David Starr. I just. I goddamn love Leyla Hirsch. A very young wrestler, very new to the industry and I just love her so much?

Two great, intense matches of Joey Janela, the patron saint of bad decisions. Versus Kris Statlander (I can’t get enough of her) and versus Jordynne Grace.

Orange Cassidy and Penelope Ford vs Shockwave and Veda Scott. Shockwave is a robot and Orange Cassidy is Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer. I can give no other explanation.

COMEDY TIME, YO. Comedy wrestling is The Best. There’s a name, Orange Cassidy. Yeah, he’s very funny, and also the most divisive person in wrestling rn. He’s Paul Rudd. He knows he’s a wrestler. He’s lazy. And there’s one match that we need to get out of the way first...

Orange Cassidy vs David Starr. The thing is. Orange Cassidy can fucking wrestle. His gimmick might be that he doesn’t want to, but he can. And It. Is. Great.

Now we can get on with the funnies.

Orange Cassidy vs Colt Cabana. Not story needed. Just two dudes at a food festival. Oh, yeah, there’s also a Swamp Monster. We love Swampy.

Colt Cabana vs Toru Yano. It’s just. So. FUN.

You might know the name Joey Ryan as The Dick Flip Wrestler, or The King of Dong Style. His dick has magical powers, it’s a thing. Here’s he and Orange Cassidy.

Johnny Cockstrong is the opposite of Joey Ryan. Literally. Here’s him also vs Orange Cassidy.

Did you want to see a Dick Test of Strength between them? Well, it happened.

Back to RIPTIDE for (another intergender, kinda) Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate & Trent Seven vs Joey Ryan, Candice LeRae (the World’s Cutest Tag Team) & Colt Cabana.

Kinda almost but not really comedy but very funny and also full of good wrasslin’, here is EFFY vs Orange Cassidy. Pirated, technically, and in real low quality, but I Love It. EFFY is Daddy.

Now, you’ll notice not a lot of women in the comedy section. Real talk, women still tend to get treated as a joke by the wrestling industry at large, so they don’t get the luxury of being as funny as they want. But one woman out there doing the lord’s work is Session Moth Martina. Legend. Love her. Admittedly, another intergender match, but it makes me happy. Martina & Orange Cassidy vs Joey Janela & Penelope Ford (Janelope).

One of my All Time Favourite Matches to date, EFFY and Danhausen (Gaytanic Panic) vs Chris Dickinson and Pinkie Sanchez (Team Pazuzu). Yes, this is a Halloween show. Yes, the Ref IS dressed as Chris Dickinson. There are teeth, Jesus resurrects someone, Danhausen is in fishnets and Effy is in face paint. It’s great. Love that Danhausen.

And there we have it! A whole lot of information and a bunch of matches and some stuff. It’s real dumb, and sometimes the industry is dark, but there’s a lot of hella good people doing dumb things. I hope this was helpful?? And Fun! (But my feeling won’t be hurt if it wasn’t fun, I promise!)

I leave you with this, RJ City making coffee in his underwear with Danhausen. Completely out of context. Because I love it.

so im just copying and pasting some stuff here from raine’s natal chart, like this is me rn

sun in aries: “Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and Aries natives are the first to start--and the first to finish--whatever they set out to do. Aries is an active, energetic sign. People with Sun in Aries are direct, straightforward, and uncomplicated. ... What is happening right now is most important to Aries. Impatience is a definite vice, and innovation is a huge strength. Aries loves to start anything new, and they have trouble sitting still. They are pioneers in whatever they do, and there is a very basic quality of bravery in these people that is unmistakable! Aries generally knows what they want, and they know the quickest route to getting it. ... She has a strong personality and an entrepreneurial spirit. She is ambitious and self-willed, stubborn, obstinate and tenacious.”

aries with scorpio rising: “A strong personality that is on the secretive or private side. However, this may only be the image projected to others. In fact, this Aries is straightforward and more forthcoming than they first appear. Sometimes a prominent scar or a slightly severe look comes with this combination.“

scorpio moon: “While others may find security and comfort in material things, Moon in Scorpio people seek out emotional intensity. No matter what, there is something very intense about Lunar Scorpios. They are diggers when it comes to the world of emotion--they can see beyond facades and cut right to the core of a person. This ability to "see" what isn't obvious to the rest of the world can be intimidating to others or wildly attractive, depending on the audience. ...

Their deep-seated need for transformation and rebirth can manifest itself in the lives of Lunar Scorpios in different ways. Most have powerful, emotionally intense lives. Some feel like it is beyond their control -- these natives seem to attract emotional upheaval, and their lives appear to consist of plenty of dramatic ups and downs. However, when accepted as an emotional need, rebirth and change doesn't need to be so dramatic and overwhelming.

Moon in Scorpio people often have a strong fear of betrayal. They seek out commitment, and feel the need for a partner to give up something for them. Some will put the people they love through a series of tests, and these are not always conscious. Their apparent suspicion can be trying for the people who love them. However, once committed, Moon in Scorpio people can be the most loyal and protective partners around.

Moon in Scorpio people radiate strength. Even in the absence of experience, they seem to "just know" things. It would be difficult to shock or scare away Lunar Scorpios in the face of emotional honesty and power. Some people instinctively want to lean on them, and other less brave folk run a little scared. Lunar Scorpios have exceptional "radar" that allows them to size up a situation--and a person--quickly and expertly. This ability to understand human motivation and nature can be too close for comfort for some, and enormously comforting for others. Many Lunar Scorpios are intelligent and astute.“

scorpio rising: “Scorpio Ascendant people have a lot of presence. There is something about them that tells the world that they are not to be pushed around. Their manner commands respect, and in some cases, fear. Scorpio rising people can be quiet or loud, but they always seem powerful and determined. You either love or hate Scorpio rising people-- they are rarely people who go through life unnoticed. ...

Scorpio rising people value their privacy so much, it can border on paranoia. They have a strong need to control their environment and are experts at strategy.“

bits and bobs from the overall chart:

“Privacy is important to you. You are naturally protective of your family, including your heritage, and of your personal life.“

“Your opinions are usually strong and you are an independent thinker. You tend to be proud of your opinions and thoughts, and might easily get a bruised ego if you are not "heard", if your opinions are pushed aside or ignored, or if your opinions are criticized. You are expressive and possibly a very animated speaker. You are also very witty and others enjoy your playful and sometimes mischievous sense of humor.“

“You are an extremely imaginative person who dreams up all sorts of unusual ideas and plans. Your thinking is quite subjective, and in some cases narrow or biased. Some of you might enjoy working at home or keeping a lively, intellectual atmosphere in your home. You tend to retain a lot of information, and are usually quite interested in history, psychology, or politics.”

“She is energetic and determined. She has strength and resistance, ability and patience. She is tough, and sometimes insensitive, putting much of her energy and talents into overcoming all the obstacles to her success. She is obstinate, calculating, aiming not to take on anything without having thought of all the possible consequences. She can take all the time in the world, rarely losing patience to achieve her objectives.“

“Problematic” Fanworks, i.e. Re: Last Reblog

A particularly prolific and highly talented artist-writer duo in the Banana Fish fandom has been getting aggressive messages that toe and occasionally cross the line to harassment, on top of actual hate messages.  The common grievances are that their fanworks often feature “controversial” pairings, e.g. Max/Ash and Foxx/Ash, and are sexually explicit in nature.

@silverquillsideas wrote a lengthy response to an anon ask regarding the matter, which I would highly recommend people to read.  I am mostly interested in the responses to @silverquillsideas post, which I find to echo similar sentiments (or “arguments”) found on Twitter and Tumblr.

[Fiction affects reality.  These fanworks contribute to the normalisation and/or romanticisation of rape, abuse, and pedophilia.  Hence, they are not allowed to exist.]

To “normalise” these things, I argue that the works have to present them in a normalised manner.  However, this is simply not the case.  The fanworks are conscientiously put behind age and NSFW filters (in this case, Privateer) and well-tagged with trigger warnings.  At one point, the artist even made a separate, viewable upon approval account for the more NSFW pieces, so that people who are interested only in the SFW or “sanctioned to be non-problematic” artworks need not be notified of the existence of the “non-sanctioned” artworks.  The experience is highly opt-in, and is by no means normalising.  The multiple filters and warnings highlight the paraphilic, outside-the-norm nature of the artworks.

Personally, I think this normalisation argument is patronising: it underestimates the ability of adults (especially -- let’s be honest here -- female adults) to distinguish between reality and fiction, and between safe, consensual sex and fantasy materials.

[Think about the children!]

This argument is often attached to the normalisation argument.  It is heavily undermined by the presence of the age filters.  Age filters are put up precisely because, in general, younger consumers lack the critical thinking to properly compartmentalise fiction/fantasy from reality.  When you click through an age filter, you are, in effect, declaring that you have the critical thinking and maturity to properly digest whatever awaits beyond.

[Fandom is a safe space!]

And still it remains, as long as we keep up the standards of proper age filters, NSFW filters, and trigger warnings.

[Why would you have these unhealthy fantasies when healthier fantasies exist? What is wrong with you?]

Sometimes, people ship things because they think it looks good.  It appeals to an aesthetic side of them.  Sexual arousal by visual cues is, unsurprisingly, greatly rooted in the aesthetics.  It does not need to go deeper than that.  An anecdote: I am, technically speaking, a Shingeki no Kyojin Eren/Levi shipper. Since I neither read nor watch SnK, for a long, long time, I did not realise Eren’s age and the age gap between the two.  Even after finding out, I could not stop aesthetically liking the ship.  When I ship them, I am not consciously and actively shipping a teenager with a middle-aged man.  I ship them because they appeal to me aesthetically: I like their visuals and the fandom’s depictions of their interactions in doujinshi.  I fancy that, for a lot of people, this compartmentalisation of aesthetics and age of the characters involved happens often.  Some people, however, seem incapable of internalising the idea that other people are capable of this mental separation -- a failure of the imagination.

(A tangent: I mean no harsh judgment on those who fail to separate character age from fantasies, but I think one does have to accept the personal limitations of one’s own tastes.  Personally, I find it hard to separate biology from shipping; hence, A/B/O fanworks are simply Not My Thing.  The common trope of feminising male omega characters tends to make my eye twitch.  But I am not leaving comments of how disturbed I am on A/B/O fanworks for their dissemination of wildly inaccurate biological facts and/or their tendency to reinforce a masculinity-femininity binary in MLM relationships.)

Regarding depictions of rape, assault, abusive relationships, etc., ravishment fantasies are very common; this is a fact.  Sexual arousal, fear, pain, and pleasure are incontrovertibly linked: they all belong to the response pathways of the “primitive brain”, having existed long before our ancestors began developing the cortex of higher thinking.  The arbitrary categorisation of “healthy” and “unhealthy” fantasies means nothing to something as basal as sexual responses.

[Still, these fantasies are disturbing.]

Some of them do disturb me.  However, again, the content creators have done their utmost to make sure the experience is opt-in by nature, with big warning signs attached.  If you think the content will disturb you, please do not engage with it.  Think of it as not buying pickle-flavoured ice cream when you know it won’t be to your taste and/or you are allergic to pickles.  The presence of pickle-flavoured ice cream might weird you out, but you have no obligation to consume it.  In the same way, it is unreasonable for you to demand the ice cream company to withdraw their product because the thought of pickle ice cream disturbs you, or to complain to the convenience store for allowing the pickle ice cream to be stocked on their shelves.  They released the flavour because they believe there is an audience for it out there, and that the release would bring some people delight and/or money.

[I have the right to announce how disturbed I am by these fanworks.]

I agree.  You do not, however, have the right to harass people over them, especially when -- I reiterate -- the creators have made the entire experience highly opt-in.

Also, I implore you to think of the practical consequences of your actions before you decide to send strongly worded messages to content creators:

No real person is harmed in the creation of fanworks.

On the other hand, your strong words may dampen the mood of a real live person who has decided to share their talents with the world.

In consequentialist terms, when you send messages like, “You disgust me,” to a content creator, the net result of your actions is....negative.  In other words, I am asking you, “Aren’t there better things to do with your time?”

[To depict Ash, a sexual abuse survivor, in sexual situations is highly damaging/insensitive/triggerring to CSA survivors.]

I have a very personal, by-no-means objective reaction to this particular extremist view.  Please just skip this entire section if rationality is what you seek.  I will even give you a TL;DR; it reads, “Fuck off.”

I had an entire essay planned on this for my own benefit -- think of it as bloodletting -- but I might as well say it now.  Banana Fish and Ash made me realise that I was the victim of a systematic pedophile, almost twenty years after the fact.  Ash and I had our fateful encounters at roughly the same age, in startlingly similar scenarios.

The realisation came more as a shock than I could ever have expected.  I struggle (note the present tense) with the endowment of the mantle of a victim.  I don’t know why Ash became the final piece to the jigsaw puzzle -- I mean, I had read Lolita cover to cover multiple times -- but I hypothesise that it is because his trauma does not consume most of his identity.  So many stories of abuse survivors are heavily focussed on how their experiences, well, fucked them up, but I -- I was so young that I got out without any visible mental and physical scars; all that is left are grimy fingerprints on a pane of glass, visible only when you breathe on it.  Specific parts of my body are weirdly off-limits in sexual situations, but I managed to ascribe those to “just how my body is” instead of “the parts he touched”.  Stories about trauma are certainly needed, but what my memory needed was representation in the manner of Ash’s.

Reading about Ash exploring his sexuality, especially in a healing manner that I will never experience due to my odd lack of apparent trauma, helped me a lot with coming to terms with the realisation.  I was devastated when an author abandoned an R18 fic of Ash reclaiming his sexuality with the help of Eiji, due to people messaging her with the argument above and claiming to speak for all CSA survivors.  Thankfully, the author returned to finish the fic, but the experience overall had been marred, and the author was clearly uncomfortable with having posted the fic at all.  It feels terrible to know that something that has helped me tremendously is regarded as disturbing by its own creator.

In other words, if you have used the above argument to harass content creators, please stop.

CLOSING REMARKS

I have none.  It is currently 02.30 a.m. in Japan.  Please feel free to comment with your own opinions and experiences; I will try to reply after I get some sleep.  I may edit this piece tomorrow, should my morning self violently disagree with my 02.30 a.m. self. 

I LOVE RAVENOUS MORE THAN YOU DO

RAVENOUS is one of my favorite movies of all time. It may not be the prettiest, or the deepest, or the most refined movie or all time, but it is a true original, and one that insinuated itself into my mental DNA from the moment I saw it. It arrived on home video around the time that I was about to leave for college, so it makes a certain amount of sense that it would have such a lasting impact on the rest of my adult life. I was initially attracted to the its excessive violence, its salt-in-the-wound humor, and its style of rustic perversion to which I was well-disposed since THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE first ruined my life as a teenager. But, there is more to RAVENOUS than these broad strokes descriptors, and looking back, it is easy to see how this unusual film catalyzed my ability to read films, and at the risk of being dramatic, my ability to understand myself.

(why does this movie only have awful posters?)

RAVENOUS is the only horror movie I can think of that takes place during the Mexican-American war, an unconventional setting that is the first sign of how truly odd this movie will be. Guy Pearce plays John Boyd, a soldier who is being celebrated for turning the tide of a major battle. The reality is that he survived the fray by hiding under a pile of his countrymen's corpses, bathing in their blood and viscera, until an unexplainable burst of rage drove him to capture the Mexican commanders, garnering him the undeserved mantle of hero. General Slauson (John Spencer) has Boyd's number, though, and ships the coward off to the impossibly remote mountain outpost of Fort Spencer, a sort of depot for undesirables like himself. No sooner has Boyd resigned himself to his fate, than the group's stasis is destroyed by the arrival of a wandering frontiersman (the incomparable Robert Carlyle) who claims to have escaped from a Donner Party-like tragedy. Naturally, their ingratiating guest turns out to be the villain at the heart of his own story, and worse yet, a carrier of the supernatural wendigo virus that rewards cannibalism with virtual immortality. The whole situation quickly devolves into a Darwian competition to sort out the predators from the provisions, seasoned liberally with analogies to Manifest Destiny and American consumerism.

Writer Ted Griffin's prismatic metaphors could be pretty clunky on their own, with cheeky comparisons between cannibalism and communion, and handy food-related quotations from founding father Benjamin Franklin. Happily, Antonia Bird's distinctive directorial style prevents RAVENOUS from degenerating into a broad-side-of-the-barn satire of American history. Griffin's overly familiar arguments act as stabilizing road signs, as the viewer navigates the otherwise hostile and alien territory explored by Bird. In the broadest sense, RAVENOUS is a movie about bodies out of control: cravings and terrors that annihilate one's self-control, that erode one's dignity, that blend repulsion and eroticism into a noxious but irresistible brew. The body wages war on the personality, the morals, the institutional rank and decoration; it wages war on other bodies, and ultimately on itself. Griffin the cultural critic has his place here, but it is Antonia Bird's unique understanding of frailty and hysteria that makes this movie so affecting.

RAVENOUS begins with a gloriously shocking opener that joins pornographic closeups of the celebratory steak served at Boyd's promotional dinner, with Boyd vomiting violently outside of the dining hall. The body is turned inside out right away in this movie, and this stunt is immediately followed by a similarly disorienting trick turned by the film's main theme. The experimental score, a collaboration between the great Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn from Blur, establishes its power with a composition that is written in 6/7 time, creating a rhythm that is very difficult to follow for the average ear. Thus the viewer is first nauseated by the imagery, then disoriented by the sound, and it is in this unsettled state that one remains for the rest of the film.

There are a number of such bizarre formal techniques to discuss, and they are well matched by Bird's management of her cast. Even for a horror film, RAVENOUS is an extremely physical movie. The terminally guilty Boyd seems to be on the verge of literal implosion; the squirrelly and barely verbal religious fanatic Toffler (Jeremy Davies) scrambles around breathlessly at a pace that puts him in danger of killing himself (which he finally nearly does); the only "real" soldier in the bunch, the nightmarishly aryan Private Reich (Neal McDonough), is first seen screaming half-submerged in a frigid mountain stream, suggesting that even the the conventional trappings of heroism are purely pathological here. Other characters are chronically drunk or high, struggling just to stay awake or walk a straight line. The radical loss of identity in which the organism transforms from a sentient being, into stew in a cauldron, almost seems like a natural eventuality of the abjection and loss of control suffered by everyone at Fort Spencer.

This moral and physical degeneracy, that is the status quo with Boyd and his cohorts, eventually contaminates the mind as well. When I first saw RAVENOUS, I was entirely ignorant of real artistry in film, and whether I knew it or not, my malnourished brain was in dire need of deviance from Hollywood norms of beauty and power. At that time, I was mainly accustomed to two approaches to human behavior in films: First, the James Bond model, in which characters only behave as if they have perfect foresight and complete control of their emotions and deliberation even in the face of catastrophe. I use "James Bond" as the most recognizable face of this hyperrationalism, but this approach pervades most mainstream films involving any kind of peril. How many times have you, the reader, had to sit through a screening in which some know-it-all picks apart the decisions and reactions of every character, as if it were reasonable to expect any person on either side of the screen to behave with robotic pragmatism regardless of their circumstances? But people do expect this from fictional protagonists on the whole. The second approach that I want to identify is mainly relegated to slasher movies; According to this model, characters are permitted to make the stupidest possible choices at every juncture, because the audience has a preexisting assumption that these victims will be sacrificed on the altar of our prudish morals, or simply for the vicarious enjoyment of the power wielded by a Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. What we rarely see in the mainstream, outside of the comedy genre, is shock, mania, hysteria, the loss of one's faculties that comes when one experiences a violent divorce from accepted reality.

Other than the aforementioned TEXAS CHAIN SAW, RAVENOUS was the first movie I had ever seen that addressed the neurological reality of trauma. Boyd's uncontrollable vomiting at the very beginning of the film is just a taste of Antonia Bird's mastery of this subject. She has ample opportunity to address this with her cast when the interloping cannibal "survivor" Colqhoun, first leads the unsuspecting Fort Spencer crew to the cave where he says the "real" cannibal is hiding out. Upon their arrival, Colqhoun throws himself into an alarming fugue state, apparently reliving the trauma of the nightmare from which he fled. He pants and gasps, smirks and grimaces, claws at the air and at the earth, as if to bury himself, effectively scaring the shit out of everybody. After he reveals his true intentions and massacres most of the crew before chasing Boyd and Reich off the edge of a cliff, another interesting neurological event transpires. At the bottom of the hole into which they have plummeted, with Reich's last spasm of life, he clamps his fingers around Boyd's throat  until his maniacal laughter turns into a death rattle. An even finer example comes after Boyd has returned to camp, having shamefully mended his wounds by dining on Reich's corpse as per the wendigo myth. Still recuperating, Boyd greets the arriving officers who are escorting the Fort's replacement commander--who turns out to be Colqhoun, now dressed neatly as the "Colonel Ives" on whom he blamed the cannibalistic murders of his fellow frontiersman. At the sight of this shocking enemy, Boyd pivots wildly and slams face first into the nearest wall, crumbling like a swatted insect on the floor and shaking uncontrollably.

These are some of the principle moments that won RAVENOUS my heart, and that really let me know what I was searching for in films. In fact, this movie was so formative for me that it led to a sort of impromptu ritual of breaking with my childhood. As with all cultists, my desperation to rope in everybody I knew intensified along with my obsession. I couldn't imagine that anybody would reject this beautiful and fabulously unusual work of art. I pulled a lot of wins, but I was in for a rude awakening where it should have counted. I refer to my "best friend" and "high school sweetheart" of about ten years, a guy who dominated my cultural life for almost as long as we were pals, since he was slightly smarter and had slightly better taste than our high school peers, but very little interest in having his mind expanded, as I eventually realized. When I showed him my new favorite movie of all time, I was brutally disappointed by his scoffing at every scene that I considered to be the movie's crowning accomplishments. He scrunched up his face and rejected Reich's murderous dying breath as "stupid" and "fucked up" and "making no sense". Today I'm not sure how hard I tried to explain that, look, we're talking about a character who is on the brink of death, whose final moments were in especially ugly combat, and who is really extremely brain damaged; more to the point, he really hates Boyd, the coward, and may have tried to kill him at some point even if he were fully possessed of his faculties. I mean, we're finally seeing something psychiatrically real here...aren't we? I got the same snotty dismissal from my viewing companion when Boyd went into shock at the sight of Ives--shock, a real acknowledged medical condition--and really during any scene that he considered too awkward and bizarre to be "cool" and heroic. It was at that very moment that I knew we wouldn't be friends for much longer, and we actually fell out of touch a few years later.

With that personal digression out of the way, though, I'd like to return to the cave (don't I always?) to discuss how Antonia Bird, her DP Anthony B. Richmond, and her editorial team work together to keep the audience in more or less the same state of discomfort and disorientation as the characters. RAVENOUS was also the first movie that taught me how to interpret the visual grammar of film, since I watched it so often that, eventually, I couldn't miss what was going on. Bird and co. have a way of distorting and compressing space that prevents the viewer from ever really knowing where you are. When the crew arrives at the low, carbon black mouth of the cave, there is a sense that it couldn't possibly be as deep as Colqhoun's story suggests (and in practical reality, it isn't). When Boyd and Reich creep inside, the tunnel plunges promptly into a weird homey sublevel where Colqhoun had been subsisting on his fellow travelers. This is sort of weird, but not as weird as what happens outside. When Colqhoun plunges into his fugue state, we see in it a sweaty, spittle-flecked closeup. His behavior spooks Toffler, who in his own closeup cowers against his commanding officer Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones, playing essentially the same character as in Deadwood). Colqhoun appears to stalk closer and closer to the camera, but how close is he to Toffler and Hart? We have no idea, until he circles back to the pit he just dug and then lunges through the air to plant a knife in Hart's abdomen, gutting him. Then, when Boyd and Reich give chase, there is a moment where Reich stares into the camera, giving Boyd an order. Boyd looks shyly into the camera before glancing off, suggesting that he flinches away from Reich's hateful gaze--but in the next shot, we see that Boyd is actually behind Reich, looking in a completely different direction. Part of me suspects that Bird and her crew were making the most of the small and somewhat sparse-looking patch of woods that they had for this scene, but it gets more interesting later on. As Colquhoun-now-Ives surreptitiously prepares a human stew back at camp, the permanently drunk Major Knox (Stephen Spinella, who seems determined to turn RAVENOUS into a balls-out comedy) shouts down the hysterical Boyd--all in closeup, so where are they? As it turns out, Ives is in one building, Knox stands in a passageway outside the door, and Boyd sits shackled in a separate building in the distant background. Finally, in Boyd's epic showdown with Ives, there is a fascinating moment in which Boyd saunters into the room, gazing staunchly ahead, ready to kill. Cut to Ives standing in front of a roaring fire, spinning neatly to face his adversary--but when we cut back to Boyd, we see that he is completely alone in the space. Shortly, Ives plunges through the ceiling behind him; they were never even on the same floor. RAVENOUS consistently leaves the viewer as disoriented and untethered as its characters are emotionally.

This battle itself harkens back to the movie's crucial focus on the often degrading and humiliating experience of piloting a human body. In both the James Bond and slasher movie models of movie behavior that I previously discussed, a climactic showdown should be fast-paced, furious, with impressive feats of athleticism by the combatants. Not so in RAVENOUS. The final scene is accompanied by an eight-and-a-half minute minimalist trudge through hell by Nyman and Albarn that never threatens to raise your blood pressure with stings or arias. The music perfectly matches this sluggish fight between two men whose bodies have been repeatedly destroyed and recreated. Their weapons are a letter opener, a meat cleaver, a pretty substantial log, and finally, a massive bear trap. The conflict is no clash of the titans, no beautiful realization of the full potential of male aggression. It is gruesome, tragic, and in some way, romantic.

I would be remiss if I failed to dig in to the eroticism of this movie. Like all vampire movies, there is a virgin and a seducer, a victim who calls their lack of worldliness dignity, and a predator who sees chastity as a shameful waste of life. RAVENOUS is one of at least three movies that Antonia Bird made about the unique relationships between men in traditionally male situations. Her heist movie FACE has been compared to HEAT, though I am really thinking of the incendiary drama PRIEST. In this, her impressive directorial debut, a young man of the cloth struggles with the disturbing intrusion of sex into his chaste life, be it in the lives of deviant clergyman, or abused child parishioners, or in his own struggle with homosexuality. Robert Carlyle plays the unhappy lover left out in the cold, drifting down the street on a skateboard like a hovering ghost, trying to convince the eponymous character that love is greater than its stingy biblical proscription. While there are no literal love scenes in RAVENOUS, it takes place in a similar world, made up almost only of men--men who are brothers in arms, who look after each other's souls and bodies, and who even consume each other's bodies, who gain strength from one another by breaking the ultimate taboo. The closing image, of Boyd and Ives pinned chest to chest by the bear trap, bleeding to death in each other's arms, remains for me one of the tenderest images in all of horror cinema.

I would like to close by asserting that Bird's deft exploration of male sensitivity is nowhere more powerful than in her direction of David Arquette, the unlikely shining star of RAVENOUS. The often intolerably wacky comedic actor plays Private Cleaves, an absolute reject from society who (barely) functions as the help around Fort Spencer. He and George (Joseph Runningfox), one of two Native American appendages to the crew, are consistently high out of their minds, which may make them look like fools, but it also designates them as being the most wisely in touch with the genuinely hopelessness of their situation. When George is slaughtered by Colqhoun, Cleaves is left all alone tending the Fort, and he has a few scenes of powerful vulnerability before his inevitable demise. In between two key plot beats, we find Cleaves and George's sister Martha (the quietly wonderful Sheila Tousey) standing together in the snowy yard, observing the new commanding officer's arrival. What should be a forgettably dry piece of exposition concludes with Cleaves instinctively turning to Martha and stroking her hair, which causes both of them to dissolve in tears. In an adjacent scene, Boyd watches through the window as the agonizingly bereaved Cleaves chops wood in the yard, alone. Cleaves, certainly intoxicated, weaves and sweats, giggling in an unnervingly forced manner to try to resurrect the perpetual good time that he once enjoyed with his murdered best friend. The scene dissolves into a fantasy in which Boyd gives in to his mounting cannibalistic urges and eviscerates Cleaves--throughout which Cleaves laughs and laughs with escalating insanity. It is difficult to convey the raw force of the sequence in words, so I will just say this: Early this year, I dared to point out that among the many strange virtues of STARSHIP TROOPERS is the fact that terminal screwball Jake Busey is so warm, so funny, and so emotionally available in that movie that it almost throws off the deliberately boneheaded artificiality of the entire rest of the cast. So, I would just like to conclude that, if your movie involves somebody from EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS or Shasta McNasty, and you get that person to provide you with one of the most sensitive performances in the whole show, you're probably doing something right.

Podcasting Research

When we live in a world of side hustles, accountability seems to be further and further from reach than ever. Who should be held responsible for gender discrimination in the podast business? Should it be the platforms that the programs are on, the individuals who run the podcast, or is it even possible to seek justice? Podcasts featuring women are not being showcased as much as men’s, and we must encourage women to follow their podcasting dreams through female leadership.

In most industries, it is rare to have an almost even split audience between genders. According to the Nielson and Edison studies, the percentage of podcast listeners between female and male are 48 percent and 52 percent respectively (Whitner). Sadly, this does not reflect the percentage of podcasts that feature women. Robin Kinnie, a prominent female podcast producer, conducted a study earlier this year and found that women only host 22 percent of podcasts (Kinnie). Statistics are pretty easy to come across, but the reasons behind them required more digging. Since podcasting is still a brand new entity to the world, there has only been a handful of sources documenting the issue regarding women in podcasts. With that being said, I had to discover these issues myself, and the sexist acts towards women in podcasts are happening right in front of our faces.

On the front page of Spotify’s, “Spotify Podcasting”, it’s stated that “Spotify was designed to help artists get discovered [...]” (Spotify), this is the sentence that inspired me to start fact-checking. Do they help the minority get discovered, or do they just promote the programs that generate the most revenue for them? I feel like you know where this is going.  

Now that I had a deeper understanding of some numbers, I went “undercover” in order to figure out why they were so low. To minimize suggested podcasts catered to my own Spotify account, I made a completely random email and signed up for Spotify. I then looked towards three podcast categories that related to the industries that women seemed to face some of the biggest adversity: business, music and comedy. Entering the business section of podcast seemed hopeful from the beginning, as the banner picture showcased a woman working on a computer, sleek and eye catching. 

Sadly, out of the top twenty business podcasts on the front page, zero of them featured a sole female host. Only three of the top twenty podcasts had a recurring female host alongside their male co-host (Spotify). On top of this, none of the podcasts featuring women showed a female as their picture, while twelve of the male-run programs featured both their picture and their name. Did Spotify actively choose to set their banner to a female to try and “balance” their decision to promote mostly men? 

Both the music and comedy sections were just as disappointing, each having only three of the top 20 suggested podcasts even featuring a female co-host, let alone a solely female-driven podcast. These findings left me disappointed and dumbfounded, and lead me to wonder about the cause. Since podcasting is a relatively new, the buzz about gender inequality within it is very minimal. I decided to look towards listeners’ reviews of podcasts to see if there was a difference between how they rated and talked about female hosted podcasts versus male. 

I was able to find (after a lot of searching in the library), an article in a magazine that has given dedicated space to talk about culture, race, sexuality, and other pressing topics in today’s society. This article was written by Nicholas Quah, and titled “10 Essential Conversational Podcasts That Shaped The Genre”. Out of the ten podcasts, Quah focuses on programs run by both men and women equally. With nothing but praise, he describes some of the male featured podcasts (both featuring white males might I add) as “[...] probing and revealing, collaborative and investigative, comprehensive and singular”, and another as “[...] one of the more interesting and innovative podcast creators in the business” (Quah). 

When describing female-driven podcasts, he describes a program run by two African American females as a “[...] rich space for sharp, compelling, and revelatory feats of cultural criticism”, and an “[...] exploration of all the things in our lives that we usually feel uncomfortable discussing” (Quah). The reviews of both the male and female podcasts were uplifting, inviting, and offered fair thoughts without bringing gender into the conversation. 

So, when the podcasts are out, they seem to get an overall same sort of treatment when it comes to reviews. Although fair in the research I’ve found, there is no doubt that there are people in the world that are very quick to switch a podcast simply because it features females. I then began to think about the responsibility of the mediums where podcasts live, and the roles they must take on when having hundreds of millions of listeners. Should companies such as Spotify and Apple Music be held liable for emotional and monetary damage based off of gender inequality in podcasting?

In a section of an Equal Rights Advocates pamphlet, gender inequality could include “[...] anguish, stress, anxiety, pain and suffering, loss of sleep, damage to your reputation, and loss of enjoyment of life resulting from discrimination” (Equal Rights Advocates). I’m certain countless women experience some, if not all of these, even simply due to the lack of representation as mentioned above, or from negative reviews based off of their gender. I don’t think that Spotify or Apple Music should be held fully liable for these damages, but they absolutely should take more measures to fairly represent women in podcasting. But even after looking out for those who do make that journey into podcasting, I was still hung up on why there are a lack of women. I went to Amazon to look into some books that people would read when starting a podcast, and right off the bat, it gave off some issues. 

With the authors of almost all of the top podcasting books on Amazon being male, it seemed a little intimidating and could be worrisome for some women to continue or follow their podcasting ventures. Mike Migas, the producer of a very popular podcast called “Casefile: True Crime”, is the author of one of the top podcasting books on Amazon. He began talking about why certain men, become famous radio hosts/podcasters, because of their “powerful and charismatic” voices (Migas 22), not even a mention about female podcasters. He then goes off on long tangents about the minute details of the frequencies the human ear can pick up, and putting across this falsely given pompous attitude.

In a lot of sections throughout this book, he comes across as pretty stern and “This is how it works, there’s no other way because we’re successful”. He also goes into a lot of meaningless details, in my opinion, to fill a book with pages that could be written in a quick Buzzfeed article. Another book, “Podcasting For Dummies: 3rd Edition” was the top selling book on podcasting on Amazon. In the author’s Tomasi and Morris’ “Getting The Right Gadgets” chapter, they begin to explain the specifics of the electrical equipment needed to get a podcast rolling. With their use of technical terms such as “Omnidirectional”,  “shock mounted microphone”, and “condenser microphone” (Morris, Tomasi 33), seems like it could scare people away from podcasting. 

I believe that the lack of female voices (quite literally) in the podcasting world is due to the fact that a lot of women feel intimidated and don’t feel as if their voices are respected. This could also stem from women being treated throughout history as having low intelligence and being incapable of doing things on their own (a statement that is disgusting and I hate that has happened in our world). We put so much pressure on the women who do actually end up making podcasts, and since it seems to be very few of them, if they’re not wildly successful, people are quick to blame gender. As a society, we need to encourage women to bring their ideas to life, and not only in the podcast world.

But only so much can be done by individuals who support women in podcasts, the companies that act as a home for podcasts must step up and address the issue as well. We cannot wait for Women’s History Month to get the world to care about these issues. In the same token, we have to find a way as a society to stop labeling and dividing accomplishments and projects to “female fronted” or “male leader”. Doing so forces people into deciding on whether on not to support them based off of gender alone. 

As there are over 73 million women listening to at least one podcast every week in the United States alone (Whitner), there are obviously a large amount of women wanting to learn and to be inspired. Liam Neiyemer, nicknamed ‘The Podfather’, addresses the issue perfectly in his article about sexism in podcasting, “The future and growth of podcasting depends on more female producers, hosts and storytellers in the industry”. We must lean on strong females that are going against criticism and following through with what they want to accomplish, and hope that females all over the world are inspired by their actions. 

Citations

Edison Research. “Women Podcast Listeners: Closing the Listening Gender Gap.” Edison Research, Edison Research, 22 Jan. 2019, www.edisonresearch.com/women-podcast-listeners-closing-the-listening-gender-gap/.

“Gender Discrimination at Work.” Equal Rights Advocates.

Kinnie, Robin. “The Growth of Women in Podcasting.” Podcast Business Journal, 26 Feb. 2019, podcastbusinessjournal.com/the-growth-of-women-in-podcasting/.

Migas, Mike. How to Start a Podcast: Practical Tips from the Producer of Casefile: True Crime Podcast. Independent, 2018.

Morris, Tee, and Chuck Tomasi. Podcasting For Dummies, 3rd Edition. For Dummies; 3 Edition, 2017.

Niemeyer, Liam. “Podfather Reviews: Sexism in Podcasting and What Needs to Change.” The Post, 16 Apr. 2018, www.thepostathens.com/article/2018/04/sexism-podcasting-stereotyping.

Quah, Nicholas. “10 Essential Conversation Podcasts That Shaped the Genre.” Vulture, 4 Oct. 2019.

“Spotify for Podcasters.” Spotify for Podcasters, podcasters.spotify.com/#targetText=Spotify%20has%20over%20200%20million,since%20the%20start%20of%202019.

Whitner, Gavin. “Podcast Statistics (2019) – Newest Available Data + Infographic.” Music Oomph, 5 Sept. 2019, musicoomph.com/podcast-statistics/.