Topaz Light

Why do so many Japanese urban legends seem to involve a dialogue tree that you need to follow very carefully?

It's just the interactive element that seems characteristic. Like I hear a claim that, at some point, "everyone dreams of a village littered with blue corpses, and if they trip and fall then they will die in their sleep and become one of them" and ai just immediately know before I even check that, yes, this urban legend originated in Japan.

does anyone want to see a really good picture of my kitty cat

not a cat, first off

snale

you can't say "hey has anyone noticed that M/M fic outnumbers F/F like 100:1” or “it feels racist that only 3/202 characters on the ao3 top 100 ships list are Black and two of them are Alastor HazbinHotel” bc some ppl will start going like “oh so you think we should FORCE people to write about things they DON’T CARE ABOUT for WOKE????” and you’ll be like “no, i’m pointing out that the conditions that created this disparity are informed by racism & misogyny” and ppl will say “it’s not BIGOTED to only care about WHITE MEN” and then the gargoyle king appears

i hateeee the framing of any type of media engagement that relies on juxtaposing fun, enjoyable, 'low' art (usually [m/m] fanfiction, romance novels, genre fiction, &c.) with difficult, fufilling 'high' art (usually classics, arthouse films, &c) as like. 'fast food vs. vegetables', 'entertainment' vs 'personal (moral?) development' not the least because these aren't remotely discrete categories but also because its annoyingggg

people used to love to do this in fandom with femslash specifically and i hated it then also. do you have any idea how demeaning it is to have to hear people framing the act of reading stories about people like you as eating vegetables. as atonement for the sin of wanting to read about men fucking. come on now

The backlash was a major lawsuit from 9 tribes alongside other lawsuits from advocacy groups like NDN Collective. You can support NDN Collective by donating to them here.

Not to be a bitch but sometimes people engage with fiction in the most boring way possible, and nowhere is this clearer than in videogames. Like what you mean you hate a character just because they were kind of abrasive when speaking to the player character? "They were mean to me" and it didn't occur to you to wonder why? Like, what might their attitude toward you reveal about the world? About the social dynamics within it? About their own perspectives and backgrounds and personalities? Does it even occur you to ask? Would you only have liked them if they bowed to your presence and talked about how great you are? Like I'm sorry but you're so boring. How boring fiction would be if it cathered to you

Honestly, the content of that “the clap of my ass cheeks keeps alerting the guards” meme is totally plausible in the context of a Metal Gear game – the only problem with it is that it wouldn’t be Snake saying it. It’d be a voice on the radio explaining Snake’s own ass to him, at length, and at the end of the explanation he’d just be like “hrrrmmrmrmrm, my ass”.