@bam-monsterhospital / bam-monsterhospital.tumblr.com
also the insane ego whenever you ask a tank as politely as you can to maybe not goddamn feed so much.
and you HAVE to bend over backwards and sugarcoat it and also maybe give them a gentle handy while doing it because heaven forbid you say anything that isn’t complete praise.
The hostility that Skyrim's designers had for elves is so fucking weird. Listening to the Bethesda podcast on Skyrim and this dude mentions wanting to add an "elf grinder" into the game because "they (elves) deserve it" and also fantasizes about a bar scene where a Nord beats up an elf and everyone cheers
(recording of the audio below the cut, will add a transcript when i'm not on mobile.) Update: Now with transcript!
this explains so much.
Hey uh
If even now in June of 2022 you're still wearing a mask and staying six feet away from people and getting your vaccines, just know I fucking love you.
I have to know anything else about you.
If you're still taking steps to protect yourself and others from Covid, about a year and a half after the world decided to just pretend it was over, you're an amazing person and I appreciate the hell out of you.
You're not overreacting, you're not inherently paranoid for taking necessary precautions. I got Covid this year. It's very much still a thing and taking steps to prevent transmitting it or catching it are still necessary.
Thank you so much for being responsible, and please continue to do so.
i still mask and distance everyfuckingwhere; i got COVID in may from being in a room for an hour where most people refused to wear a mask. I’m still recovering, and I’m extremely lucky that I didn’t have it on top of any preexisting problems or immune conditions. Please care about other people.
What... the... fuck...
I cannot stress how ghoulish this is. Most people in Canada with disabilities don't suffer from the disabilities themselves but from the lack of support from the government. Provincial governments don't want to lift a finger to help disabled people, and legalizing euthanasia just means that "kill yourself" becomes the default policy from Community Services and even less funding will go toward assisting disabled people.
asdfklajs;ldf watched the she-hulk trailer and the cgi / general character design choices somehow look even worse than expected
like GIRL why is her waist so snatched why is she so skinny what in the misogynistic uncanny valley bratz doll nightmare is this
love how they clearly want to act like she’s Big and show some male love interests being Into That but refuse to commit to making her actually Big in any way that would be remotely transgressive i hate this so so much
Started talking about how overhyped and overdone Hunter's arc is in a discord, and holy shit the wave of "We've never seen this dark and complex story of abuse before!", "Just because he's white doesn't mean his story isn't important!" and "his story is essential to the plot!!" and other bullshit I got that just entirely ignored what I was saying... Most of it was from younger members, but that just means kids are in fact learning and internalising this dogshit.
The thing to remember is that most white fans don't get as exhausted of white centric stories and tropes as everyone else does. They prefer it this way. It doesn't matter that Hunter is boring, all that matters to them is that he's more present than other characters.
There's nothing Hunter contributes to the story that Luz couldn't contribute, but they don't WANT it to be Luz who contributes those things.
They will act like it's gold because the alternative (having to pay attention to female characters and nonwhite characters) is something they balk at.
It's like how most Reylos don't actually like enemies to lovers, they just REALLY didn't want FinnRey to happen. Or how most Anduin fans don't like the idea of him as a gentle man, they like the blonde, blue eyed, christian white male authority that the writers use him to reinforce.
The K slur?! Holy shit, I knew Hunter stans were racist as fuck, I was not expecting the antisemitism
Oh, you’ll love this gem i got then. this ask was sent during the same time
What makes this worse is IM JEWISH (half jewish but still!!) and i said so on my pinned post rn and at the time this happed. THEY TOLD A JEWISH PERSON THAT THEY DESERVE TO BE GASSED BC I SAID ”hunter is boring”!!!
"Oh Lily you're overreacting when you say Hunter stans are awfu-" BITCH NO I AINT!
Fucking hell, that's horrible. I'm so sorry you're going through this, hon.
(spoiler warning for The Legend of Vox Machina and up to ep. 68 of Critical Role Campaign 1)
So, Doctor Anna Ripley has made her debut on the Legend of Vox Machina animated series!
When I watched the stream, I was fascinated by her. Many people came away from Campaign 1 lauding the Briarwoods’ somewhat tragic story, and their intimidating (and pretty sexy) presence. And, y’know, fair - but despite Ripley’s small amount of on-stream appearances, she made quite an impression on me, and left a hefty mark on the characters, too. She was manipulative, scheming, and opportunistic - and no antagonist on the stream since has engaged me as much as she did.
Ripley was a villain on the backfoot, who had to seize chances at success, rather than a more standard powerful force for the heroes to overcome. She had talents, but could not match any of her adversaries in a typical melee, nor was she presented as being smarter than Percival, her notable rival. What made her dangerous was her cunning.
On the visual side, the DM describes her with the following details:
A woman in her early mid-forties. Jet-black hair with streaks of white pulled into a tight ponytail. Her face is weathered from travel, with dark lines at the sides of her face, whether it be from smiles or frowning. She wears nice travel clothes with a long duster-like coat.
Now, moving on to her introduction in The Legend of Vox Machina Season 1.
In the animated series, her conniving personality is intact. Percy’s flashbacks show Ripley’s delight in cruelty. I was happy to have her more involved in particular iconic moments, such as the acid pit, as she attempts to squeeze any sort of trust she can out of her new captors. And when ultimately faced with a gun to her head, she manages to turn the tables on her enemies using her wits, and escape.
Her voice actor Kelly Hu delivers an appropriately subdued and raspy performance that embodies the character very well.
On the visual side…
Without the context of adaptation, this is a strong and appealing look. If this had been my introduction to the character, I would be very much on board.
Compared to her stream description, however - there are no lines on her face. In the present day her hair is loose, with the same soft-serve ice cream curls that most of the women on the show seem to have. Despite the ragged clothes and tired eyes of a prisoner, there is a youth and a beauty to her look. All these details feel off to me, for three particular reasons:
1) It makes her too visually similar to Delilah Briarwood. This is not an ‘incorrect’ thing, since they do share broad details, but in a visual medium it’s worth taking opportunities to distinguish characters from one another where possible and appropriate.
2) Her youthful appearance calls into question how old she was during the coup on Whitestone. Percy’s motives are that of a young boy, barely a man, who was betrayed and aggressed by a group of his elders. People who, for all intent, should be worthy of respect to him. In present day, Ripley does look more haggard than in the flashback, though it’s unclear how much of that is her age showing, and how much is having been a starved prisoner.
3) Most importantly, this design makes her seem to me like Percy’s equal, when a facet of what makes her so interesting is that she is not. Anna Ripley is a person who is incredibly versed in science and technology, only using magic when necessary. But she is envious of Percy’s own technological talents. While Ripley is by no means ‘past her prime’, she has certainly been outpaced by the young De Rolo heir. In attempting to recreate his weapon designs, she lost her hand. In the later streams, her ‘more refined’ recreation of his pepperbox can cause psychic damage on a misfire. She was Orthax’s second choice - a vengeance demon’s compromise. If she is to be considered a reflection of Percy, it would need to be from a mirror that is warped, cracked, and corroded.
So, where is the well-worn face of a mature and world-travelled woman? Where is the firmly tied hair of a scientist whose determination supersedes the need for appearances? Where’s that duster coat, y’all?
To reiterate, I do not dislike her animated design. And some of the details that I find aren’t evoking the character could be ‘solved’ when she eventually resurfaces without her ragged prisoner’s look. But so far, while the physical and vocal performances are effective, Ripley’s visual design just doesn’t quite mesh.
On a broader perspective, I do think there is a lot of really strong design work on the show. So many of the player characters and NPCs are brilliantly brought to life in ways that exemplify their personalities and traits, and feel in-tune to Matt’s descriptions. It has been really cool to witness many of these creative characters and moments put in motion with equal creative passion.
plot twist: this was all just an excuse to talk about how much I like Ripley :)
To whom it may concern,
I'm a longtime reader of Marvel comics and a weekly buyer with subscriptions and pull lists at my local comic store. I'm also an American of Romani descent who has spent years researching and writing about the function of pop culture in the systemic racism that my people endure. Much could be said about the record of Romani characters in superhero comics, particularly the Scarlet Witch, but I'm writing today to raise concerns about the character's throughline in the current X-Men era, which has come to a head with her apparent murder in X-Factor #10, written by Leah Williams. First, however, I would like to address the racial and sexual violence visited upon the character Prodigy, as depicted by Williams, who is a white author, and the history of racist microagressions and the objectification that many readers have observed in Williams' past work. In X-Factor #10, Prodigy, a Black bisexual, is shown to have been sexually assaulted and murdered by a predator who specifically targets Black bi and gay men. Prodigy's assault and death transpired while he was dressed in a drag-inspired look, an arbitrary decision which served only to further sensationalize the homophobic violence. This plotline was abrupt and underdeveloped, and leaped without warning into imagery that many Black and LGBT readers found traumatizing. This was not an authentic or meaningful exploration of Black and queer experiences-- rather it was an exploitation and objectification of the violence done to Black and queer bodies. Coming from a white writer, this is wholly inappropriate. Leah Williams being bisexual herself does not excuse that. I am particularly disturbed by the implementation of pro-police messaging, via white character Aurora, after we have all spent the last year protesting police violence against Black lives. At worst, this is tone deaf, but I, and many other readers of color, found it to be egregiously offensive. Readers of color, particularly East Asian readers, have long been wary of Williams and her treatment of non-white characters. The repeated and disturbing objectification of East Asian women in her series X-Tremists struck a serious nerve, particularly with Williams' original character, Nezumi, who seemed redolent of racist WWII-era propaganda conflating Japanese people with rats. Her over-sexed and racially tokenized treatment of Akihiro in X-Factor has also put readers on edge, although many bit their tongue and endeavored to support her new book on account of its numerous LGBT characters and plotlines. Unfortunately, it seems as though that tentative faith was misplaced, and we must reiterate that LGBT representation does not outweigh violent racism. The Scarlet Witch is a complex character with an ever-changing history. The most formative and consistent element of her origin, however, is that she was born to a Romani mother, and raised by a migrant, working class Romani family who faced racial discrimination and violent hate crimes. For context, the Romani people are a South Asian diaspora who are racialized in European society, and have endured systemic oppression ever since our arrival in the West, including an attempted genocide during the Nazi regime. Although Wanda is no stranger to taking a dark turn, the Decimation plot stands out as a uniquely damaging and harmful case of character asassination. You can imagine how the identity politics and acts of violence which were projected onto the character are offensive given her personal history, and the real-life history that she represents. For years, the vitriol and anger that were directed towards Wanda within this narrative, boosted by blatantly ableist tropes, shaped the way that readers and writers alike perceived her. That negative perception encouraged audiences to espouse hateful sentiments about Wanda without forming clear thoughts about their racist implications, or making any effort to better their understanding of Romani people and our needs regarding popular culture. The current era of X-Men comics has revisited the Decimation several times, but I fear that
they have done nothing to counteract the harmful messaging that was attached to Wanda during that time, and have only doubled down on her troubling political position in the mutant world. I shouldn't have to explain this, but characterizing a Romani woman as an interloper, and a bogeyman figure that Krakoans invoke to engender nationalism, directly parallels the racist propaganda that is used to subjugate real-life Romani people throughout Europe. Year after year, Roma communities face forced eviction, deportation, and property laws designed to weed out migrant travellers, while our lives are often endangered by violent hate. Earlier this month, on 19 June, 2021, a Romani man in Teplice, Czech Republic, was murdered in an act of police brutality, and the Czech state has refused to launch an investigation or deliver any sort of justice on behalf of his family. We have spent the last two weeks protesting for Roma lives. To be honest, witnessing Roma death on-page, particularly in the heartbreaking scene where Wanda's own son discovers her body, triggered a lot of the distress and emotional trauma that I've been carrying since the Teplice incident. Of course, the timing of it couldn't be helped, but I fear that Williams will continue to exploit our trauma and our pain in her upcoming series, Trial of Magneto, which promises to revolve around Wanda's death and Magneto's reaction. Given Williams' history, and her choices in this most recent issue, I simply have no faith, only grave misgivings. Leah Williams is a white woman who continues to profit from the exploitation racial trauma and stereotyping, and Marvel cannot claim to be inclusive while enabling her behavior. As readers, we feel we must demand her removal from upcoming and future Marvel projects. We cannot in good conscience support and continue to give money to the X-Men franchise with such creators at the fore. In general, Marvel needs to take a good hard look at how it employs. This won't be a solution to the company's ingrained problems, but removing Leah Williams would be a constructive place to start.
[certain cues have been taken from other readers who have posted and shared their messages to the X-Men office. Please feel free to borrow and modify any aspect of this letter, barring, of course, the passages regarding my own identity. This message has been sent to [email protected]]
@peppermint-and-salt you're more than welcome to reblog it, and I would also encourage you to cross-post it (or an abbreviated version bc i know it runs rlly long) to other social media platforms. I don't have an active twitter presence, and I'm certainly not in, like, the major Facebook groups or Discord channels, so it's difficult for me to achieve much reach outside of Tumblr. But I want this conversation to be happening everywhere, and I want to encourage everyone else to write in to [email protected] and make some damn noise.
Since the topic of outdoor cats is making the rounds again, I'd just like to remind everyone that pretty much every animal that comes into the rehab center for a cat bite dies within 24 hours, whether their injuries are severe or not. This shit is ridiculous and I'm really sick of people being willfully obtuse and just downright lazy when it comes to their pet care and consideration for native wildlife. Be. Better. Cat. Owners.
some asshat pinged it on a commission I did for a client. I’m not fuckin happy that someone tried to steal my damn art, that someone else paid to have done of THEIR character no less.
[ screenshots below from this tweet ]
it’s art theft. it’s literally just art theft.
here’s some more urls to look out for and block:
@socialNFT @chainsend @Iamzachain @cryptotoro @lightcrypto @gmoneyNFT @CallistoNetwor2 @nft_justanegg
this is going on right now (oct 16 2020). racist settlers have already torched a boat and there is video of them making spike traps for mi’gmaq vehicles. they have also destroyed and removed lobster traps and buoys and they are only going to keep doing worse. this is ecofascism and it needs to stop. @agentndn on twitter has a great list of info and how to help.
i wish scott knew that he is so much more than a child groomed by xavier
Like a lot of superheroes, Scott’s backstory varies with each retelling, but here’s a quick list to show how extra depressing the above panels are:
In Champions #18, Scott recounts a story from when he was 7 or 8 in which he stopped a runaway school bus when he noticed the driver going into cardiac arrest. Kind of over-the-top, but then again, if anyone, it would be baby Scott Summers who would be that hyper prepared. Also being Scott, he is upset that he failed to revive the bus driver.
Several flashbacks tell the story of an 8-year-old Scott leaping from a burning plane with his arms wrapped around his brother. Their parachute caught fire but Scott still held on to Alex and kept him safe all the way to the ground.
X-Men Classic 41 & 42 tell the story of a lonely, now cynical 12-year-old Scott who is being neglected and bullied in a (pretend) state orphanage. The story starts with him jumping in between a bully and a smaller kid, getting himself beaten up for his trouble. He later admits that he doesn’t even like the kid he was protecting. The same bully taunts him after a ptsd nightmare causes him to wake up crying. However, the next day, when the bulky climbs up onto the roof, Scott doesn’t even hesitate to climb up after him to talk him down. Despite his absolute best efforts, Scott is unable to save the other kid and is devastated over it.
Different comics, but most notably Children of the Atom tell the story of Scott’s time with abusive criminal Jack Winters. The young teen was on the run from police after his powers cause (and then fix) an accident. Winters used his limited telepathic influence to lure Scott to his home and then proceeds to threaten and abuse him into helping him with petty crime. Once again alone in the world with Jack as his only means of survival (barely), and threatened with bodily harm or worse, Scott still chooses to defy him when commanded to use his powers to kill.
When all is said and done, Scott’s life before Charles is shown to have been riddled with misery, gaslighting, physical and emotional abuse, isolation and Sinister’s insidious chipping away at his sense of self, but through it all, there is an unwavering desire to save others, even people he doesn’t know or like, above all else. A true hero.
Interestingly, in most versions of the story, Charles’s first order to Scott upon “rescuing” him results in Scott killing a man for the first time.
The other question that tends to get glossed over in regards to most modern redemption attempts, at least one that kinda runs through my mind is: "Why is the writer so determined to have us/the hero empathize with a villain over their victims?" It's one thing if the villain's worst trait is being a massive nuisance at worst (Peridot), or if the villain did commit a terrible act, but realized on their own they were wrong and did their best to fix it at their own risk, but other than that...
This is the core of my issue. It’s not redemptions themselves, it’s the sheer obsession with them that sees every single villain met with demands from the fanbase for redemptions, essays about how “killing the bad guys is the most heinous evil” and that doing anything else isn’t “humanizing the character enough.”
All the time. Every time. We can seemingly never let villains just be villains, there’s always someone baying at the moon for them to get a redemption, and an overwhelming fixation on the villain over the protagonist out of some misguided idea that heroes are boring.
Remember: Kyle Ron did not get a ham-fisted redemption because of the story. He got it because a bunch of racist, straight women have fucking AWFUL taste in men.
It’s no surprise the “redemption” story people so frequently cite as the best (Zuko) wasn’t actually a “redemption” but an abuse victim getting closure and moving on with their lives. Because that’s an actually good story.
look guys. if you want to use ‘queer’ for yourselves, that’s obviously your right as a human being.
however, coming from someone who has LITERALLY WENT TO ACADEMIA TO STUDY WORDS AND WORD HISTORY, and has lived in a perpetually-stuck-in-western-european-1200s province for 12 years (and has visited said province annually all my life), know that ‘queer’ is in fact a slur.
I’m not talking about the same level of using ‘oh that’s gay’ as an insult. Why? bECAUSE ‘GAY’ HAS ITS ROOTS IN A POSITIVE WORD, a word meaning joyous, happy, elated. ‘Queer’ means ‘obscene’, ‘disgusting’, ‘unwanted’, ‘abomination’, ‘other’. It is literally still used today in newfoundland and other parts of the world in this context. To use ‘queer’ as a word associated with the LGBT+ community is to make it a slur. A slur along the lines of ‘faggot’, which ALSO has a disgustingly negative history (even more so sadly).
Do not fucking pretend you can erase reality and rewrite it in your stubborn obtuse ignorant image. That’s not how history and word baggage works. That’s not how language works. You cannot ever fully reclaim a word with such negative history, no matter how much bending-over-backwards fingers-in-your-ears rewriting you try and pass off as fact.
If you want to unfollow or block me because of this, go the fuck ahead. This pansexual aromantic possibly-non-binary woman (which would qualify me as using ‘queer’ for my own identity wouldn’t it?) is right, and sick to death of revisionist history.
