My Favorite Arcane Screenshot Redraw

I rewatched Nimona today

I rewatched Nimona today during work cause it's slow, I have all my homework done and there's still time left during my shift.

Well, yesterday, my mom and I watched a documentary about the LGBTQ+ movement and how it skyrocketed after the death of Matthew Sheppard, a gay man killed for being gay and it warned us about the slurs and the potentially triggering images of his injuries.

When I saw them, I went "I've seen worse in television" except those injuries killed him. I paused at that thought because I live in a world where it is scary to be a female who can't get reproductive care. I live in a world where I am a gay female who can't get reproductive care. I live in a world where I am a gay female who is proud and scared to be proud of myself who can't get reproductive care and it's because of people who have hurt people like Matthew.

I was watching the documentary and hearing his friends recount how much of a good person Matthew is, after he passed away, I almost cried. Looking at his wounds, that he died from, I almost cried today.

What does this have to do with Nimona?

I have watched that movie over ten times, and not once have I almost cried from that story. I didn't cry over the comic story line, I didn't cry during the movie. I almost cried during this run because I got some fucking insight into what we as a society have faced. And it made me realize how sheltered I am. Not was, but am.

My mom doesn't have a straight kid to her name (biological kid mind you, her nephew and my cousin is still figuring things out but I do believe he is straight (which is not wrong)) and she is so lucky because she has proud kids who are proud of being who they are and there is that fear as a parent I would assume that is "will there be someone who is going to hurt my babies?" cause she's a mom. That is her job to worry.

My mom is lucky because she hasn't needed to bury any of her kids for being themselves. My mom is lucky that she hasn't needed to bury any of her daughters due to rape, or any assault. My mom is lucky she hasn't lost any of her daughters because the world is full of shit.

I'm still sheltered, but the Matthew Sheppard story opened my eyes a little bit that he died for being himself and he isn't alone in the slightest. Not for gays, lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals, asexuals, or all of the above. My mom is lucky, my two sisters are lucky, I'm lucky, but we live in a world where if you don't face it, you tend to be sheltered.

At least that's what my experience is, and it's scary.

Sorry for the mindless rant but it's been running amok since yesterday and then soon after rewatching Nimona and it's just... a lot to think about and how we are reverting to being a bigoted society and it's scary to think about.

mysterious lotus casebook 🪷 as text posts pt.1

'Mid' autumn festival? I find it quite based actually.

After passing peer review here is my drama recommendation tool

Maybe I will update it in the future but for now I am happy to have watched enough good dramas to make it.

One of my favourite comics 😭

Improbable Compatibility Store / Patreon

ARSENIC FOR TEA SPOILERS

(also I haven't read AFT for a while so please excuse any errors)

Stephen Bampton is so nuanced to me because YES he's a murderer, attempted murderer and also was very willing to be complicit in another indirect murder (Lord Wells would have likely been hanged if he'd been arrested) but on the other hand he's a poor, homosexual 17 year old who likely doesn't have a great time at school because of this (remember Hetty saying how she's been secretly darning his socks???) and I'm assuming boys at Eton would have picked on nearly anyone who had a hint of being an outsider. Violence or at the very least ostracization has likely been used against him his whole life and so that's his first resort.

I'm not saying he deserves forgiveness or redemption but maybe some more understanding??? Stephen has been proven to time and time again that adults cannot be trusted - Mr Curtis, obviously, and his father for leaving him and his mother for cheating and then Lady Wells for also cheating, and he also probably felt this way about the police who couldn't catch Mr Curtis the first time round. I'm not saying he was right in what he did, but Stephen could have very possibly thought he was doing Bertie and Daisy a favour by getting rid of their parents and letting Lord Wells take the blame as 'adults can't be trusted'. A lot of what he does seems to be a misguided sense of protection for others and self defence. And he does constantly reiterate to Hazel and Daisy that he's going to keep them safe, that nothing's going to happen to them. Stephen might possibly have also seen how Bertie's parents treat him (reading between the lines, it seems Bertie is mostly ignored and/or seen as a burden child) keeping up this thought process that 'adults can't be trusted'.

The calculated murder almost (ALMOST) makes me want to sympathise with him, as yes Stephen clearly wants to hurt Mr Curtis but then he doesn't want to hurt anyone else? He thinks that when Mr Curtis is out of everyone's lives, not only his but Bertie's too, then things would go back to normal, or at least he wouldn't have to relive the hurt of what Mr Curtis did to his family. However, I do say that it ALMOST makes me want to sympathise with him because in the second half of the book, Stephen gets panicky and resorts to unplanned murder attempts (ie. pushing Lady Wells down the stairs who he thought was Lucy) which screams to me that maybe, not a violent streak as such but definitely an 'angry when fearful' streak was always within Stephen.

In essence, I don't think Stephen murders because he's a cruel person, even though he nears this when pushing someone down the stairs, but murders because he wants to protect Bertie. Ok and yes quite possibly vengeance. As with all the murders, it always goes too far and too deep.

Not enjoying A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality :(

For the record, I'm somewhere around 25 episodes into the donghua. I don't know anything about the webnovel; this post is about the donghua.

First off, the writing is weird. The beginning was ok, Han Li gets put in classic main character situations and does main character stuff. It was predictable but enough to get me a little hooked. It however continues being predictable later on and the story is simply linear and uninteresting - often boring. This isn't even the biggest problem - which is the straight up weird and problematic stuff like after Han Li saves her from being raped Chen sexually assaults him??? Hello??? Worst of all, why isn't this painted as a horrible thing to do??? (Fine, I'm exaggerating my own surprise, but that's only because I'm desensitised to Chinese shows doing this by now.) Also when him and that woman (forget her name) are trapped with the monster which they manage to defeat together which magically coerces them - both shown to be unwilling and only into it because of the magic - into having sex??? YES I'VE SEEN THIS STUFF BEFORE TOO BUT IT DOESN'T GET ANY LESS MESSED UP EACH TIME IT HAPPENS! These might be the worst cases but there's also lowkey ableist subtext, hugs without asking consent... the list goes on, and I'm not even far through this donghua.

Not only is the story boring - the characters are too. Characters other than Han Li don't get much of personalities or development, and the few character traits they are shown to have are vague and shallow. They rarely get scenes just by themselves, and when they do, it's not because it's necessary or expected for the plot, or it's used very simply to show their very vague and shallow (and often singular) character trait. There's lots of characters but each only gets their little bit of screentime when Han Li is around - partially due to the linear structure of the story. In particular, the female characters feel poorly written - there aren't that many of them but in addition to my previous complaints about characters in general, they either have no personality or an unrealistic one, they don't have agency and constantly require saving by Han Li (not to mention I think it's clear enought that this is turning out to be a harem donghua, which I just dislike).

Han Li himself is also boring. He has strengths - such as his gardening skills, quick wits and generic carefulness. He's shown to be humble, and also shown to be uninterested in anything romantic or sexual - this is often shown as a positive trait in Chinese media, particularly the latter (which is weird in its own right but I'm not getting into that now... headcanon they're all aspec though). Han Li isn't shown to have any weaknesses, and while he isn't amazing at everything, he's shown to have a large variety of strengths and ultimately he feels very much like a Mary Sue. He doesn't have a personality and everything revolves around him trying to get stronger. He does a lot of helping of other people along the way, making him a moral and agreeable character without any other outstanding traits. He doesn't have particularly strong emotional attachments to anyone, which is fair because it's the natural result of his characterisation, but with the blandness of everything else he's a very boring character. He's a nice guy who's very clever and wants to get more powerful - and that's it.

The animation is alright, mouth movement and occasionally generic movement feels off though. Plus a lot of faces look really similar and facial expressions aren't great - not even with Han Li. The rest of it is fine but nothing mindblowing. The aesthetics and visual designs don't stand out in any way from any other cultivation setting.

The worldbuilding is simple, a very generic cultivation genre world and magic system, but it means with all the above there's really nothing exciting going on with this show.

The two cardinal sins of this show is that it's boring and problematic, and unfortunately both of those are unforgiveable. Maybe watching an animated show simultaneously with your third watch of Arcane isn't the best idea.

reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something

Quick Little cartoons I did of the Charge players who are former Sceptres! I'm gonna have stickers of these in my pockets at game one of the Finals