#and Cultural Resonance

[esperanzapretila]

Writing Across Borders: Greg Fields on Literary Craft, Advocacy, and Cultural Resonance

What if your life took a completely unexpected twist? How would you adapt and thrive? Greg Fields reveals how this question shaped his writing journey and the heart of his new novel.

“All of us are individuals seeking the right place in a pluralistic, complex society, and all of us have the quirks, neuroses, joys, and traumas that make us unique.”– Greg Fields Content Warning: This interview addresses themes of trauma, marginalized children, and generational struggles, which may be distressing for some readers. It also touches on Imposter Syndrome and personal doubt, which…

[samwaverley]

Writing Across Borders: Greg Fields on Literary Craft, Advocacy, and Cultural Resonance

What if your life took a completely unexpected twist? How would you adapt and thrive? Greg Fields reveals how this question shaped his writing journey and the heart of his new novel.

“All of us are individuals seeking the right place in a pluralistic, complex society, and all of us have the quirks, neuroses, joys, and traumas that make us unique.”– Greg Fields Content Warning: This interview addresses themes of trauma, marginalized children, and generational struggles, which may be distressing for some readers. It also touches on Imposter Syndrome and personal doubt, which…

[sallymajors]

Writing Across Borders: Greg Fields on Literary Craft, Advocacy, and Cultural Resonance

What if your life took a completely unexpected twist? How would you adapt and thrive? Greg Fields reveals how this question shaped his writing journey and the heart of his new novel.

“All of us are individuals seeking the right place in a pluralistic, complex society, and all of us have the quirks, neuroses, joys, and traumas that make us unique.”– Greg Fields Content Warning: This interview addresses themes of trauma, marginalized children, and generational struggles, which may be distressing for some readers. It also touches on Imposter Syndrome and personal doubt, which…

[rachellepryce]

Writing Across Borders: Greg Fields on Literary Craft, Advocacy, and Cultural Resonance

What if your life took a completely unexpected twist? How would you adapt and thrive? Greg Fields reveals how this question shaped his writing journey and the heart of his new novel.

“All of us are individuals seeking the right place in a pluralistic, complex society, and all of us have the quirks, neuroses, joys, and traumas that make us unique.”– Greg Fields Content Warning: This interview addresses themes of trauma, marginalized children, and generational struggles, which may be distressing for some readers. It also touches on Imposter Syndrome and personal doubt, which…

[twbmagazine]

Writing Across Borders: Greg Fields on Literary Craft, Advocacy, and Cultural Resonance

What if your life took a completely unexpected twist? How would you adapt and thrive? Greg Fields reveals how this question shaped his writing journey and the heart of his new novel.

“All of us are individuals seeking the right place in a pluralistic, complex society, and all of us have the quirks, neuroses, joys, and traumas that make us unique.”– Greg Fields Content Warning: This interview addresses themes of trauma, marginalized children, and generational struggles, which may be distressing for some readers. It also touches on Imposter Syndrome and personal doubt, which…

[exilley]

I do sort of wish western anime fans would analyze anime and manga from a framework of japanese historical and cultural context. Specifically a lot of works from the 90s being influenced by the general aimlessness and ennui that a lot of people were experiencing due to the burst in the bubble economy and the national trauma caused by the sarin terrorist attack. I think in interacting with media that’s not local to our sociocultural/sociopolitical sphere it’s easy to forget that it’s influenced and shaped by the same kinds of factors that influence media within our own cultural dome and there ends up being this baseline misalignment of perception between the causative elements of a narrative and viewer interpretation of those elements. It’s a form of death of the author that i think, in some measure, hinders our ability to fully understand/come to terms with creator intent and the full scope of a work’s merits

[butchlifeguard]

we need to destroy the idea that girls should wear makeup. normalize bare faces on prom queens and flower girls and cheerleaders. no products at all instead of '7 product simple makeup routine.' no more 10 step skincare and regular facials and dermablading and gua sha just to be comfortable with yr natural face. i want to see eye bags on the funny librarian and acne on the swim coach and wrinkles on all our adult role models. i want to see a 16 year old girl that has never tried putting on eyeshadow. i want to see a 7 year old girl who doesn't have to go out and buy powder for her dance recital. i want to see trans women and girls everywhere to never have to wear makeup, regardless of how well they 'pass.' no more 'contouring to look masc' either. a post-beauty industry world is possible

reblogs are on but if you bring up the stage makeup point that i have addressed three times yr blocked on sight ☹️

[commsroom]

as an extension of how hera reads as trans to me, hera/eiffel resonates with me specifically as a relationship between a trans woman and a cis man. loving hera requires eiffel to decenter his own perspective in a way that ties into both his overall character arc and the themes of the show.

pop culture is baked into the dna of wolf 359, into eiffel’s worldview, and in how it builds off of a sci-fi savvy audience’s assumptions: common character types, plot beats, or dynamics, why would a real person behave this way? how would a real person react to that? eiffel is the “everyman” who assumes himself to be the default. hera is the “AI who is more human than a lot of humans,” but it doesn’t feel patronizing because it isn’t a learned or moral quality; she is a fundamentally human person who is routinely dehumanized and internalizes that.

eiffel/hera as a romance is compelling to me because there is a narrative precedent for some guy/AI or robot woman relationships in a way i think mirrors some attitudes about trans women: it’s a male power fantasy about a subclass of women, or it’s a cautionary tale, or it’s a deconstruction of a power fantasy that criticizes the way men treat women as subservient, as property. but what does that pop culture landscape mean in the context of desire? If you are a regular person, attracted to a regular person, who really does care for you and wants to do right by you, but is deeply saturated in these expectations? how do you navigate that?

I think that, in itself, is an aspect of communication worth exploring. sometimes you won’t get it. sometimes you can’t. and that’s not irreconcilable, either. it’s something wolf 359 is keenly aware of, and, crucially, always sides with hera on. eiffel screws up. he says insensitive things without meaning to. often, hera will call him out on it, and he will defer to her. in the one case where he notably doesn’t, the show calls attention to it and makes him reflect. it’s not a coincidence that the opening of shut up and listen has eiffel being particularly dismissive of hera - the microaggression of separating her from “men and women” and the insistence on using his preferred title over hers. there are things eiffel has just never considered before, and caring for hera the way he does means he has to consider them. he's never met someone like hera, but media has given him a lot of preconceptions about what people like her might be like.

there’s a whole other discussion to be had about the gender dynamics of wolf 359, even in the ways the show tries to avoid directly addressing them, and how sexual autonomy in particular can’t fully be disentangled from explorations of AI women. i don’t think eiffel fully recognizes what comments like “wind-up girl” imply, and the show is not prepared to reconcile with it, but it’s interesting to me. in the context of transness (and also considering hera’s disability, two things i think need to be discussed together), i think it’s worth discussing how hera’s self image is at odds with the way people perceive her, her disconnect from physicality, how she can’t be touched by conventional means, and the ways in which eiffel and hera manage to bridge that gap.

even the desire for embodiment, and the autonomy and type of intimacy that comes with it, means something different when it’s something she has to fight for, to acquire, to become accustomed to, rather than a circumstance of her birth. i suppose the reason i don’t care for half measures in discussions re: hera and embodiment is also because, to me, it is in many ways symbolically a discussion about medical transition, and the social fear of what’s “lost” in transition, whether or not those things were even desired in the first place.

hera’s relationship with eiffel is unquestionably the most supportive and equal one she has, but there are still privileges, freedoms, and abilities he has that she doesn’t, and he forgets that sometimes. he will never share her experiences, but he can choose to defer to her, to unlearn his pop culture biases and instead recognize the real person in front of him, and to use his own privilege as a shield to advocate for her. the point, to me - what’s meaningful about it - is that love isn’t about inherent understanding, it’s about willingness to listen, and to communicate. and that’s very much at the heart of the show.

[piqued-curiosity]

It’s really sad seeing women make videos making fun of how their former selves did their makeup (example: “how I looked doing my makeup in 2016”, “we all thought we did something with the 90’s blue eyeshadow”, etc.). Because they act like the problem was them not knowing how to do makeup…instead of recognising that the problem is that trends change constantly, and women are expected to relearn how to paint their faces to keep up.

They don’t seem to realise that the makeup they’re wearing in these videos that they deem to be “better” and “right”, will be subjected to the same mockery the looks they laugh at today are. One day, they’ll all be laughing at “soap brows” and “e-girl blush” while wearing the current trend. And then they’ll mock that trend in a few years.

It’s a never-ending cycle of makeup looks going out of style, and being deemed Bad for it. In the 90’s and 2010’s you thought your makeup looked great, so did everyone else. You laugh at it today, thinking your 2020’s makeup looks good. Do you think you won’t be laughing at it in 2030? Do you not see where this is going?

Women’s faces are a trend. Men look back at pictures of their younger selves and may cringe at their hair or their clothes, but their face is the same and never the subject of mockery. But women? Women’s faces change because makeup changes. Women don’t just cringe at the clothes and hair of their younger selves—they cringe at their faces. It’s sad.

The only way to stop this is to stop wearing makeup. That tik-tok trend makeup you think looks good? I promise you, it will be a joke in ten years. Maybe even five. And the reason this keeps happening isn’t because you were bad at makeup back then. It’s because all the looks you worked so hard to get good at looked ridiculous all along—you were just blinded by trends. Today they’re “soap brows”. Tomorrow when the novelty wears off, they’ll be what everyone else sees—ridiculously brushed up eyebrows. Today it’s “e-girl blush. Tomorrow when the trend dies away, it’ll be what everyone else sees—sickly looking.

What I want to get at here, is that it breaks my heart to see women fall into the never-ending cycle of learning to paint their face a certain way because it’s the trend, then having to learn a new thing in a couple years when that trend becomes a laughingstock. And saying “wow I was so stupid back then, but I know better now” every five years.

Faces are supposed to be timeless. Let’s keep it that way.

[isa-ghost]

Random thought but when are we gonna talk about how the internet has a god awful habit of specifically using the word "minor" to excuse a More Or Less fully socially aware teenager who fully knows right from wrong from the shitty things they do or say.

When are we gonna talk about how they always say "minor" and never any other word for a teenager bc "minor" makes them sound younger than they actually are and it simultaneously makes the teen sound more innocent (when defending the teen) but also infantalizes them. When are we gonna stop this weird paradoxical advocating for them but also undermining them in the same breath phenomena.

When are we gonna do better to stop that rhetoric bc while it's okay and important for teenagers to make mistakes and to a certain extent it's natural to be a dick at that age and all that, they're also not a fucking baby and have the capacity to understand right from wrong and what is or isn't shitty of them to do in the first place.

[melonisopod]

Whole chapter showing war being pointless and exploitative and how the government that funded said war was all too happy to throw away the soldiers they used as literal living weapons: Apolitical.

Whole chapter about a woman urging her friends to do something about their starving neighbors and how she ended up killing a pawnbroker to enact justice but the system ensured the most helpless were still punished: Apolitical.

Whole chapter where literal Crusaders murder people for modifying their bodies and how it relates to bodily autonomy and identity; main characters visit a border crossing and witness a child being separated forcefully from their family: Apolitical.

Whole chapter about corporations appropriating and exploiting well-meaning genius inventions to benefit themselves and quite literally profit off the suffering of others: Apolitical.

Female character doesn't have her tits out: Evil Feminist Agenda, Forced Politics

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Broke (2016): BBC Sherlock is a phenomenal piece of media and anything that seems like a flaw just hasn't been fully explored yet

Woke (2020): BBC Sherlock is an incredibly flawed series run by an egotistical writer, it never deserved the hype and is actively bad on so many fronts (especially representation)

Bespoke (2024): BBC Sherlock is flawed and bogged down by increasingly poor writing, which many fans refused to see while it was airing, leading to hugely misplaced expectations (particularly for the final series), AND it has the seeds of some compelling characterizations and portrayals, some genuinely solid performances, and touches--albeit imperfectly--on complexities that are still being discussed today (particularly as it relates to the relationship between Sherlock and John). The huge cultural impact of the show has created a massive pendulum effect in its public perception, leading to most people today remembering a caricature of the show (whether positive or negative) rather than appreciating its nuanced merits and failings...that being said Season 4 sucked

[radiofreesanjak]

I have recently found myself speaking again to once-nobles and remembering interesting differences between us and our Karrakin neighbors, so in the interest of cultural exchange let me tell you this: On Sanjak we tell the story of Passacaglia differently. 

To those who grew up on the story as told by the ones who would make a great hero of the man, you'll recognize most of it, but I'd ask you to pay attention to the details of the story, and consider what we Sanjak see in it.

Once there was a man who lived in the shadow of a ruler. Like us, he was born ignoble, and like we once were, he was pledged to labor in that ruler's fields. He and his family would toil, day in and out, and produce great quantities of food that would be tithed to the man that owned his land and his pledge. One day he would unify the people and rule under the name Passacaglia, but before he was just a man who turned soil to wheat in the shadow of the great city Reis. 

But Reis was troubled: there were raiders at the borders, both the desperate and the spiteful, those left hungry by the tyrants in power and those sent by those same tyrants to bite at the heels of the one Passacaglia was pledged to. 

In those times, as now, it was common for those in power to look upon those below them and see them as things to be used. So too did Pasha Reis, the ruler of Reis, who looked upon Passacaglia's family and saw naught but serfs who could be traded for continued safety from the raiders who plagued his borders. A deal was struck: Passacaglia's family may be made fallow so that the peace can remain. 

The peace brought the deaths of twelve of his brothers over twelve years of fighting, as the tithe Passacaglia's family paid the nearby Pasha was repaid in silence. Bearing the grief of his brothers and the rage of his mothers, Passacaglia begged Pasha Reis for aid. He was refused. Another brother died. Passacaglia begged again, on both knees. He was refused. Another brother died. A third time, he groveled and cried for aid. He was refused. Another brother died.

Left then with nothing else to do, Passacaglia and his last remaining brother, Anaxandron, looked to the people of their commune and the great city they bordered, and then back to the lord who had left them for dead, and came up with a plan: Passacaglia would deny the tithe and take to the city to seek their aid, and Anaxandron would spread word of the dereliction of the Pasha from his duty. And so Passacaglia left for ancient Karrakis. 

He returned with a great many soldiers and a great many weapons to find the people of Reis turn coat to join under his banner. Anaxandron, who spoke of the cruelty and betrayal of the Pasha, had swayed the people of Reis, who had come to find that the true enemy is not the one outside their gates but the one above them. 

Stood by the throne of Reis, Passacaglia looked out. He saw the nature of the world around him as the Pasha once did. Reis is but a fragment of the whole world, its injustices a mirror to the injustices made manifest in Laurent, and Cosimo, and Dellamar. Across the surface of Karrakis, other families were made fallow, other brothers killed. His anger, once abated after the death of Pasha Reis, was ignited by the firebrand once again, and he pointed the people of Reis at the thrones of Laurent and Reis and Cosimo. Ahead of them, the words of Anaxandron, that those in power stayed in that place only for betrayal and violence, spread. The other great city-states of the melee fell as Reis did.

At the end of it all, Passacaglia stood in the ancient city Karrakis and looked upon the known world. He saw the people liberated, and saw the banner that they waved. He had been the tip of that spear, and he knew himself to be just, felt the Firebrand at one hand and the Titan at the other. Passacaglia looked up once again, to a higher throne even than Pasha Reis ever held, empty. The old rulers failed, he thought, but they did so because they had to compromise to the powers around them. Reis was threatened by Cosimo and so had to cede lives to maintain the peace. But Passacaglia thought that would have to bow to no one: he thought could bring justice and prosperity by his hand alone.  So the wheel turned: a tyrant replaced with a kinder tyrant. A revolution betrayed by the allure of power. One kind of oppression replaced by another.

We tell this story to our children as a lesson on the nature of change. It is not enough to rid the world of a tyrant only to replace them with a better one. The reign of Passacaglia and his progeny produced the reign of Tyrannus, which produced the system we fought so hard to overthrow. Only when the revolution seeks liberation for the people and not the elevation of a better tyrant can it end the cycle of violence that we live within. 

My mentor Ozia used to call him the Fool's revolutionary, but I think that pays too much disrespect to the Fool. Of all the Passions, the Fool teaches us humility, that we may look upon ourselves and see ourselves as fallible and capable of erring. Passacaglia learned no such lesson. In this way, he lives in the hearts of the nobility now: they do not see the error of putting power in the hands of a virtuous few. 

Consider this lesson carefully. When he stepped on the road to war, Passacaglia was told that the empire he would build would make monuments to his mothers and brothers from the ashes of other mothers and other brothers, and he would trade the families of others for the comfortable peace of empire. He chose to ascend to the throne regardless. Here I warn you now: this is the nature of all empire, and all revolutions like Passacaglia's. 

-Mistral

[lanotteviene]

anyway it's funny in an interesting way how the internet turned Kafka into the sad boy with an existentialist + romantic flavour instead of the author of seminal works about alienation & the confusing, painful contrast between what society deems normal and what Isn't. how the rules that establish that divide aren't made clear, how to the marginalized they seem ever-changing, impossible to grasp, surreal to the point of despair.

if you've ever felt overwhelmed by the absurdity of a system that seems legitimately against you instead of for you, if you've had days or months or years where language or cultural barriers have made you feel wrong to your core, if you've dealt with so much stress or mental illness or abuse that you've struggled to recognize yourself in the mirror his work talks about your struggles and would probably speak to you

[j-nor]

For your consideration. Sourced from the comments section of a now deleted Pinterest post.