#and if not that then at least ppl being Aware of its existence bc it deserves to be recognized either way!!!!!!!!!

[cubedmango]

every time i see someone say they miss cherry magic i am telepathically beaming the radio drama directly into their brain

[shoveitevil]

this last week has not been the vibe gang

[talaricula]

Things I've seen tumblr memeing about James Somerton doing à la "How did no one see how bigoted he was!" as if those things haven't been a significant part of tumblr culture for over a decade :

Presenting untrue and bordering on conspiratorial versions of (queer or otherwise marginalised) history without any sources

Completely disregarding and disrespecting any expertise on socio-cultural topics/humanities and distrusting academics and historians (incl. acting as if no academics or historians could be queer or marginalised)

Downplaying the role misogyny played in the historical oppression of queer women and concluding that queer men must have been more oppressed than queer women

Bi women are, at best, not as queer as "real" queer ppl, and at worst, simply equivalent to straight women

Despite nominal trans inclusivity, transmasculine ppl are functionally women when convenient (combined with the above, bi transmascs are functionally straight women)

Despite nominal trans inclusivity (bis), shamelessly attacking, threatening and actively endangering any trans woman who questions them or smth they find important (often by unfairly presenting her as violent or as a threat)

Having absolutely fucking wild and reductive takes about ace ppl, the oppression they face and their place in the queer community

Stating that marriage equality is an assimilationist fight while completely ignoring its direct roots in the horrifying consequences of the AIDS crisis for partners of ppl who died of AIDS

Praising western media creators from the past for queer coding even under censure and in the same breath condemning current non western media creators for being homophobic bc their representation isn't explicit enough

Blaming China for all existing homophobic censoring in western media

Assuming all queer media would be better told by western creators and by western standards

Only out queer ppl get to tell queer stories

Heavily criticising almost all queer media created by women or ppl they see as such (see above points about trans ppl) or involving/starring a significant amount of women for any perceived or real amount of "problematicness", but fawning over and praising and negating criticism of queer media created by and starring mostly or even functionally exclusively men (even when it could be argued that, you know, not involving/seriously sidelining women is a pretty clear example of misogyny which should probably be considered "problematic")

And I'm probably forgetting stuff or there's stuff I have internalised myself and don't recognise as an issue

Like idk but I feel like the takeaway from Hbomberguy and Toddintheshadow's videos should maybe be "be aware of such patterns in your communities bc they definitely exist" and not "this guy is uniquely awful" and I feel like a lot of the discussion I've seen surrounding this has been severely failing at that. Most ppl who've spent any significant amount of time on tumblr prob either have internalised at least one of those thought patterns, have had to de-internalise them, or have had to be extremely vigilant to not internalise them (which is done by, you know, seeking out other sources, which also seemed like an important takeaway from the videos)

[nomaishuttle]

omg also vital to the sleep setup is blankie. even if its hot i usually have a comforter bc thin blankets Well they scare me. so the comforter. it isnt rly for warmth so much as it is for modesty bc i gegt scared somebody will come in while im asleep and see my body which scares me so much... so i have to have the blanket

[meimeikyu]

my new stupid aa headcanon:

so based off of og trilogy its supposed to take place 2016 - 2018 right (at least those games) and. there is twitter at that time. and it is still popular. with how. fucking insane trials are in this universe there are absolutely ppl who obsessively keep up with them. so. ppl being in these courtrooms livetweeting whats going down, ESPECIALLY with phoenixes trials bcs they are all so fucking insane. there is a whole side of stantwit dedicated to the lawyers and defense stans and prosecutor stans will get in fights with each other. there are also def the kinda ppl who show up to all of phoenixes trials and livetweet them for everyone else to watch. i think the same for the prosecutors. phoenix is blissfully unaware of all of this, however! i. do not think everyone is. i cant decide whats funnier if maya randomly stumbles upon one of these accounts or if edgeworth is. painfully aware of the existence of his stans (and the ppl who are shipping him and phoenix on stantwit-)

[i-still-mask-because]

i still mask bc i knew how awful a covid infection can be on the body, i read about long covid and it scared me, i never had terrible effects from covid aside from sinus problems but that was enough for me tbh. I am the only one in my house who masks, i try to tell my family to please mask and well my brother is a full on eugenicist who doesnt care about literally anything, my dad says it makes his beard itches, and my mom always says she will start but doesnt but at least she goes out of her way to buy me masks. She gets me good ones too like she got me n95 idek where she got it, in my city stores are slowly stopping the selling of masks. After the pandemic """"ended""" everyone at my highschool dropped the mask, even my friends who said it was so important stopped. Now i'm actually immunocomprimised as of verryy recently because of stuff with my liver and the doctors had no idea wtf but i was on this medication that helped alot but made me more at risk for infections and i was sooo so anxious, of not just getting covid but any viral sickness. I'm the only one in my house who masks and washes my hands religiously and i feel like the people around me simply dont care besides my mom ofc. But again she doesnt even mask herself despite saying she will, i think if i convince her enough she will start maybe. Its weird bc she works with actual disabled people and she tells me she thinks its awful how noone at her job masks even though they are directly working w disabled people who live independently, working in their own homes. Last time i got covid was in june and it lasted like 3 days but i was so worried and also angry because i am the only one who masks and washes my hands 100 times a day and i still got covid somehow, probably from my disgusting brother who is always sick. Whenever i take public transportation i always see a few people masking and it makes me happy but the vast majority of people dont mask and people bring their children on the bus without even putting a mask on them! They are children!! Aren't they more at risk of getting a beating from a sickness? I traveled earlier this year to cdmx to visit family and i was really anxious and made sure i had masks and people were boarding the plane coughing and sniffling while not even bothering to wear a mask. My very priviledged family in cdmx dont mask unless they are in downtown where the pollution is bad, and in that city i saw soo many more people masking in public and people were way more aware of the fact that we are in a pandemic compared the the city i live in Canada. I already felt guilty enough for travelling but i kinda had no choice and i still wanted to see my family but ugh. I'm really glad this blog exists because i know i'm not alone, i do see more and more people masking but its alienating. Its alrdy alienating enough being someone with very leftist politics among a fascist society and among people who are blinded by their own privilege everyday. Sorry for thr long ask, i hope ppl w similar experience see this and can relate.

😷

[gold-rhine]

anyway, fontaine world quests spoilers, but since Elynas is now my favorite sweet child, here is a little summary\speculations in case ppl mb did not catch some details from the quests and about abyss lore:

Elynas is the monster from the Abyss, some kind of dragon or a serpent. He is gigantic and Elynas island basically formed around him.

He existed in "cosmic cold", i.e. Abyss, until "Mother" summoned him and his "siblings". We know from the logs of fontaine fleet which was following "great beast Elynas" that he appeared during the cataclysm 500 years ago. As we know, Rhinedottir was known to open portals to Abyss that let abyss monsters in, so logically, Elynas was one of these, and "Mother" is most likely Rhinedottir and siblings are other monsters summoned.

Like other Rhine's creation, Durin, Elynas was actually very good natured and didn't wish to harm anyone, but apparently his abyssal origin made him see the world differently and the actions he thought were harmless, were in fact destructive to this world. Spoilers for "Book of Esoteric knowledge", in the domain at the end of this quest we learn that Melusines see places corrupted by abyss not as ruined, but as a beautiful garden and abyssal rifthounds as friendly puppies. And in fact, after we fight rifthound here, it also turns into a friendly dog, hinting that ALL abyss monsters are well-natured, but there is some kind of warp going on that shifts their perspective\actions when they enter Teyvat into being destructive, while they see it completely differently.

after some time, Elynas realized that he was in fact, damaging the world around him, which saddened him greatly and he intentionally sought death to stop suffering of others. He was killed most likely by the fontaine fleet that followed him which i mentioned before, but its not stated directly. He died, but his consciousness still lingered and he is basically aware of his body and whats going on around.

After his death, he didn't rot, but calcified, and apparently many factions, including abyss order, Narzissenkreuz Institute and "spirit of primordial waters" (oceanid? hydro dragon?) explored his body and were collecting his blood and flesh, for which he was glad bc he felt lonely and liked to have company. Especially he liked Narzissenkreuz's Jakob, bc he felt the presence of same cold cosmic power (i.e. abyss) in him and so thought that consuming his flesh will be good for him. Jakob as we know, turned into "Inquitous Baptist" after this, but Narzissenkreuz drama is a different story. But we can at least intuit that one way of turning into abyss lectors\heralds\etc is consuming abyss monsters flesh\blood, btw hey Childe, can we have a word of how you got your foul legacy form? did u eat that whale, Childe???

At some point, there was a battle between former friends from Narzissenkreuz Institute inside of Elynas (mentioned before as Narzissenkreuz drama), which led to huge explosion. As result of this, wounds inside of Elynas were opened by explosions, and Melusines were created from them. Elynas was delighted, thought of them as his children and shaped them into what he thought was a beautiful form. They could hear him telepathically at first and he used this to guide and teach them, but with time, most of them lost this ability. The only one who can still hear him, Mamere, is able to do so because she paints with his blood (she doesn't know its his blood ofc), and so has prolonged contact with him. He still loves them and cares for them deeply.

Jakob tried to restart Elynas' heart with unknown goal, but Elynas didn't want to come back to life, stating that doing so would mean he will keep harming the world, which he doesn't want to. He appeared to traveler in the spirit form in a shape of Melusine bc he thinks they are cute:3 He dreams of being able to exist in the world without damaging it and to show traveler his true form eventually

i did not yet find all 13 pages for "Book of Esoteric Knowledge" quest, so here is probs more info to follow, but I think this is overall what we know of Elynas for now

oh, another thing is that every Melusine was born with a "token", which they don't know what it is, but highly treasure. Elynas doesn't mention them. This token can power a mechanical dog tho and dog calls it "power source". Elynas does mention many "mechanical animals" in the battle that resulted in explosion, so mb these power sources from exploded mechanisms interacting with abyss flesh were the triggers for creation of Melusines? Open question for now, hope to have these Eldritch NFTs explained later

[multiplicity-positivity]

hi uh i could use some advice :<

im a host of a recent system of 20-ish and guh i am t i r e d

im mainly looking for advice on how to switch or just retreat into the headspace/leave front or even just kinda stop being fully aware while still being in front for awhile bc id rlly like to take a break and the realization that im most likely front attracted/frontstuck is kinda making me more tired of being in front

also if it helps at all my(&) system is parogenic + traumagenic in origin (specifically parotraumagenic) and theres kinda iffy communication between members (some of them i have clear communication with and they randomly pop up to say stuff, some i have no idea where they are and some of them i can usually only hear when im directly interacting with them).

afaik (as far as i know) only three?? ppl have rlly "fronted" per se, and the rest have been co-con

i apologize for the long and mildly depressing ask but any help is appreciated also dont forget to hydrate

Hello! We have some posts that might help you that we’d like to share if that’s okay. The first is a post we wrote a while back with some tips on switching from our own experience:

We’d also like to share this post by @rin-and-jade on being frontstuck or frontlocked, and how to go about unsticking yourself!

Our own system host (Parker) is almost always fronting to some extent. It can certainly be exhausting and disheartening fronting nonstop, especially when other members of your system can seemingly come and go as they please. He’s going to put some info under a cut for how he copes with fronting constantly, in case you want some advice on coping with being genuinely unable to switch out!

We hope something here will be helpful for you! We’re wishing you the best of luck with switching out or at least learning how best to cope with fronting in your future!

(Host here - I’ll just write this bit if thats okay. Anyway here’s some stuff I do to deal with The Horrors of perpetual existence)

Meditation

Taking a few moments to sit in comfortable silence can be useful for me when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed or straight up exhausted. Here’s how I meditate (I’m no expert and I’m sure there’s better ways to do this… this is just what I do)

- get in a comfortable position in a quiet place where I’m not likely to be disturbed

- set a timer on my phone for 5 minutes

- close my eyes, focus on my breathing

- don’t dwell on any thoughts but also don’t push them away; acknowledge them and let them go

- try to stay still and calm until my timer goes off

And that’s it. Sometimes I get interrupted by an alter or something outside, but for the most part, this is how I’ve been able to meditate effectively.

Rest

I take naps whenever I can. I sit down whenever I can. I’ll literally just close my eyes for a few minutes whenever I can. Our body has issues with chronic fatigue, and fronting constantly can sometimes exacerbate our exhaustion. So yeah I am a huge fan of naps and will often set a timer for like 15-20 minutes and snooze whenever the opportunity arises. Even just lying down with closed eyes can help replenish some energy.

Distractions

Reading, watching something on TV, or playing video games can help give me somewhat of a break even if I’m still fronting. I do tend to try and keep us distracted as much as possible… sometimes to our own detriment. But if you find that you really aren’t ever able to switch out, or if your system is specutien and that’s just the way your system functions, finding things you enjoy that can serve as distractions may help you as well.

Saying No

This one’s tough, but I’m trying to learn to say no when I’m overwhelmed or have too much on my plate. This means sometimes I’ll cancel plans, hand off a responsibility, make a compromise, or turn down an opportunity if I don’t have the energy for it.

Honestly idk how much my addition can help you, but if you find that you’re not ever able to switch out at all please know there’s other folks out there in similar positions. Hoping you can make the most of your situation, anon /genuine

[doberbutts]

Hi! Very sorry about the vague bitesports ask - I wasn’t actually aware that there were multiple types!

Could you start by explaining a bit more about what you and Fenris do for mondioring?

Oh, sure, but I think first you should acquaint yourself with the rulebook: https://www.fci.be/medias/UTI-REG-MON-en-4624.pdf

(This is a PDF file, it will download, that is intentional and not a virus I promise, I have literally this exact file from this exact link saved on both my phone and my laptop)

Your original questions were:

What is the overall goal of the sport/what is the dog specifically being trained to do? Are there competitions, and if so, how are they judged?

In regards to mondioring, mondioring is a competitive protection dog sport based off of french ring, which was based off of belgian ring, which was based off of the belgian border patrol program. However mondioring itself was always intended to be a sport, not a military or police program or something to determine breed-worthiness. It was developed as a fun handler's challenge instead of anything else.

As a side note, I think this is why mondio tends to have the most relaxed atmosphere as well as tends to draw the least amount of really intensely bigoted people of all the bitesports. I'm not saying they don't exist in mondio, in fact I can name a few names right now that are rather notorious for it. But it's very unlike IGP (the most popular bitesport within the US) where you can't go a week without tripping over a nazi, a sexual predator, or a domestic abuser... occasionally all of them in the same person... being outed and then immediately defended by the wider sport-going population. I also find it tends to be more friendly to women, racial minorities, disability, and marginalized genders and sexualities- which was reflected in a recent poll done by the USMRA that stated that while it's mostly half and half, it's technically women-led in the US with 51.6% of competitors identifying as women and the rest identifying as men.

(Which either means there was no nonbinary option on the poll or what nonbinary people took the poll were not comfortable identifying as such, which tbh is fair, bc as said bitesports tend to be a hellscape for anyone who's not cishet white and abled- I know I have two nb ppl in my club but they also id as nb women so that may also skew results if not polled correctly)

The goal of mondio is, put simply, good and correct work in increasingly challenging and ever-changing environments. Mondio differs from other sports because each trial is different. They are themed and each theme can completely change the picture. Unlike in sports like agility, or even sports like IGP and french ring, where the jumps always look roughly the same and the retrieves are always dumbbells and there's always a pause table and it's a specific pattern that maybe the individual method of going about the pattern changes from field to field, the total picture always looks roughly the same to the dog... in mondio, the exercises are always the same in the vaguest sense but the means of going about them are different.

For instance, we just had USMRA nationals, which was a pirates theme. That means that the jumps looked like pieces of ships sticking out of "water" (grass), the distractions to see if the dog would break its stay included the decoys having a sword fight, cannons and splashes of water went off constantly, the retrieves were things like toy treasure chests, glass bottles with paper inside, swords, and gold coins... The work that the dog has to do remains the same- you must stay, you must retrieve, you must jump, you must bite- but this becomes more a test of how well your dog has generalized these behaviors and how strong your dog's nerve are environmentally than of precision or perfection.

That is also why you can still place on the winner's podium even if you don't qualify on a passing score. This is recognized to be difficult, so those who don't DQ are still praised for trying. Failure has the attitude of "you gave it your best! now you know what to work on for your next try!"

It also means the judge is looking more for overall correctness rather than dinging you for every possible infraction (usually)

Finally, having done both IGP (with Creed) and mondio (with Creed and with Fenris), I'd say that mondio is less mentally stressful on the dog when it comes to protection itself. There is less focus on defense and aggression and more focus on prey and play. While some exists (face attack, defense of handler), the best way I've ever heard it put is that mondio is much more of a conversation between the decoy and the dog where they are sparring partners instead of mortal enemies.

Creed genuinely wanted to hurt the decoys who worked him, and got angry at the thought of being held back from doing so, and technically that is very correct for a doberman to displace such defensiveness and anger in their protection. Fenris does want to keep biting the decoy, but it is more because he finds this to be a very fun and deeply pleasurable thing to do rather than any feelings of actually wanting to cause harm. I also have been very careful not to work him on decoys that will bring this out of him, even though I do think it is correct for the breed to be like that, because his breeder assures me that when the time is right he will with the defense he needs. I have no need for a civil dog, and what little protection in my day-to-day I've required he's more than satisfied, so to me as long as he passes his temperament tests as an adult and is competitive in sport, I don't really need him to be another Creed.

[chaifootsteps]

hey chai, found some shit that aged like milk while digging around.

tl;dr evidently viv was aware of how animators were mistreated / uncredited during sausage party's production and spoke about how their hard work deserved support.

(all the below is circa 2016)

she made a bunch of sausage party fanart that she apparently "gave to a friend at Sony" who "knew some of the uncredited animators" and said they wanted people to "respect" and "admire" the hard work they put into the movie.

she wrote the following on the page of fanart...

additionally, viv made a video about her thoughts on sausage party, and she made some interesting remarks in the comments...

...i can't watch the video myself as i also don't want to hear viv's voice,

but here's some tid-bits from the transcript...

she's seen "all of family guy... all of south park... and all of drawn together..." and thinks drawn together is "the most offensive" thing she's seen to-date

the only r-rated content she dislikes is ren and stimpy's adult party cartoon. she thinks it is the "apex of shock value... has no reason to exist... is painfully unpleasant to witness... not funny... not well done... just complete and utter garbage."

sausage party's stereotypes "didn't bother" her bc "everybody in the entire world is equally made fun of," it's "so offensive it's no longer offensive it's just stupid," none of the stereotyping is "mean-spirited," and the stereotyping "serves a purpose in the setting"

she says that it's "not fair" for artists to be... "uncredited... expected to work overtime for no money..."

she talks about how sausage party was this company's first film and they were using a very small budget that they should've used more carefully, but it went to other areas that were not the animators, who were expected to work nearly for free and without proper credit (that all sound familiar?)

she laments how these animators put "such amazing work" into the movie and "really cared about it" and that she "can't imagine doing that and not being credited"

she talks about how the company probably wanted sausage party to be "as good as possible for as cheap as possible" but that "doesn't excuse" how they treated their animators.

"the animators sold this movie, without the animation this movie would not nearly be as good or charming"

she felt the sexual humor "wasn't as uncomfortable" as other sexual humor can be simply because the characters weren't humans

she generally *really* sucks sausage party's dick saying it's an "existential allegory" and "critique of religion" and "going to be part of history" (these are of course subjective opinions ppl may or may not agree on but since it's what she thinks i'm including it.)

God, I almost hate to admit this, but I actually really liked Sausage Party in a vacuum. It's nice looking, the character designs are worlds better and more distinct than what you'll find in most Disney movies, and it's a nice balance of South Park-esque raunchiness and some genuinely interesting existential stuff about life, religion, and the human condition.

But...no, it's not high art, and it's not going to be part of history. Any slim chance it had of being part of history was blown to bits by the disgusting, unforgivable way it treated its animators.

Watching it now, you can absolutely see how Vivzie attempted to follow its example in all things, from crudeness to commentary on religion/human nature. The difference is that Sausage Party doesn't pull its punches when it comes to the former and is at least sort of intelligent when it comes to the latter. The result is that even at its dumbest and worst, it has a better understanding of what it's doing and what it's trying to be than Vivzie's stuff.

In the end, the only thing Vivziepop succeeded in taking away from Sausage Party was how to treat the people working for you.

[beevean]

Ah man i really dislike fandom's general behaviour regarding canon vs not-canon (shoutout to the ff7 fandom for not being normal abt the compilation :) ) There is this belief that canon means good or is some sort of prestige, and that's why some ppl insist so much on placing their favorite spin offs or side stories at canon level, or try to "downgrade" some canon story bc they didnt like it. And in the end canon in terms of quality means nothing! I acknowledge that, for example, metroid other m is technically more canon than the metroid prime trilogy (including how it went out of its way to make the mp games explicitly not compatible w the main canon 🙄), yet i also will say that mom sucks horribly and will ignore its mistake of an existence while the mp trilogy is Peak. Heck i personally like the lore introduced in AM2R despite it being a fan game (aka def not canon). Or for a diff example, the CoD manga could be said to be less canon than PtR, but both are beautifully written and introduce plenty of interesting elements and themes to the main CoD story (plus Hector look at Hector the he hes so- ).

Canon doesnt equals quality, but rather it means what was an actual event in a series, and is mostly relevant in terms of analisis, putting together what happened, and trying to predict what events will be mentioned again in the franchise and their influence (and also retcons exist, for good and evil). If you like canon, good! If you like an spin off, good! If you like the fanon/headcanons, good! You can try to mix up elements from both into your own version or interpretation, to do fanfics or fanart, etc. Something being canon or not is an objective (if debatable in certain cases) fact, but that doesnt means you need to like it or not

Thank you for putting it better than what I've been trying to say fdhsjhfdskhfks

Ohh boy the OM example. I would rather. Not touch that :) I am aware of the backlash after Dread dared to include an image of that game's events... (but speaking of AM2R, I really believe it shouldn't be mentioned in this conversation lol. I suppose you can say that we can accepts its ideas like headcanons!)

The CoD mangas are an interesting example. PtR was written by Ayami Kojima, who had a hand in creating at least Hector and Isaac, so it's technically a more "official" product than the MF manga which was written by a hired writer; but Kojima herself considers the MF manga more canon, likely because it's more detailed:

Although there are some restrictions on representation when accompanying a game, there is a comic in Japan that can be freely established as a story and can be thoroughly enjoyed, by Kou Sasakura ("Castlevania: Curse of Darkness'', published by Media Factory). It was written by hand, so I apologize for the inconvenience, but please read it as well. This is how I ended up with it this time, and it may be confusing for those who worry about the story. Each person's setting, interpretation, and representation are different, but I'll leave it to you as the true story... Hector is also cool and handsome! ... How should I say it? It's like the child I gave birth to as a surrogate mother (wow!) is now doing even better with their foster parents, and I'm crying tears of gratitude behind the telephone pole.

(this quote is so wholesome I wanted to share, even if badly translated <3)

So who is right? And speaking about that, how much can prequel mangas be "canon" in a videogame series? I never mentioned the Sonic promotional material, now that I think of it lol. (admittedly that's another issue, the one of accessibility for newcomers, which oh man oh man do the CoD mangas suffer from :'D)

Anyway, I have nothing smarter to add, so let me emphasize this:

Canon doesnt equals quality, but rather it means what was an actual event in a series, and is mostly relevant in terms of analisis, putting together what happened, and trying to predict what events will be mentioned again in the franchise and their influence

[oniondraws]

Ik it's a bit(very) late but-

About the ending of the moon revolution finale, I don't like the ending, like it was disappointing for me, before you go attack me I wanna explain-

Maybe bc I had high expectations for it since how hyped up it was but the ending felt a bit off

Like there was so much buildup and then suddenly some characters burst out of nowhere in the middle of the drama then somehow fix everything with a simple "good message" like Pluto and Charon werent even there during the genuine planning of the moon revolution, they just came outta nowhere.

Pluto and Charon werent even explaining that well, it sounded like two teachers trying to teach their kindergarteners basic human decency using themselves as examples(or them using the power of friendship to stop a war), not two characters trying to help fix a giant War by convincing everyone to try to be more peaceful with each other by using themselves as examples(now that I've said it it sounds kinda weird💀).

Like don't get me wrong I understand that the ppl working on it were probably tired and rushing but I feel that the drama should've been fixed by a very important character like earth, titan or even Ganymede, not characters who weren't even apart of it untill the end.

Plus we didn't even see the part where triton actually meets the two, where we could see how they would interact after not seeing each other in years, he just says "who are you?" In a previous EP and then at the end Pluto and Charon just appear.

I get that it shows Pluto finally feeling important after becoming a dwarf planet but I feel that it should've been in the dwarf planet videos or even its own arc instead of randomly being in the moon revolution arc which, is about MOONS, not dwarf planets, even if you could talk about triton who was a big part of the moon revolution arc, even if he used to be a dwarf planet, he's still a moon.

Even after all that, this is not hating on the show in general, infact it is one of my fav shows, I am very aware that the people working on it out so much passion and love into making this for all of us, this is simply my opinion of the ending of the moon revolution, I'm just not that satisfied with how the moon revolution ended, because it felt rushed to me, either that or I just like very chaotic endings lmao, anyways how that I'm done, I'm gonna disappear bai-

(also I'm aware all of this is a simple "Pluto and Charon came out of nowhere" but I have a bit more, I just didn't want this to turn 10 paragraphs long lol)

if im being honest, i agree with you.

because lets be real...

the ending was just, unsatisfying. you would expect someone relevant such as titan, Ganymede, earth, hell luna would've made a great candidate explaining how their orbit around earth is one of the reasons why life exists on it. luna would've proven a point on how moons are important and he and earth are an example. the whole revolution was about providing moons are not the underdogs of the planets they orbit.

then pluto and Charon bust in and say "we are equals, we don't control the other" (or something like that, haven't watch the moon revolution in a long time) and suddenly, everyone just agrees...?

the problem with the moon revolution is ending and how it was presumably "solved"

i think the team should've used at least Luna as an example, because it would prove that moons ARE relevant no matter how big or small. Earth and his moon, luna, should've been the answer because luna keeps his earthlings alive by just being there. plus you could've thrown in some moon facts too how the moons are special in their own way. it would've been educational and fits in with the whole moon centric story (a great opportunity too)

of course i am not shaming or slandering the creators and team, of course not!

i just feel like they could've used a better ending than using pluto and Charon to fix the whole revolution. since Solarballs have made an oath to make long form videos instead of the good ol' short snappy educational ones we all used to watch and love, it makes sense that they've probably used pluto and Charon to make up their little screen time and satisfy some people. going back to your point, they are probably burnt out plus they work on the videos weeks before their deadline so they probably have other projects they've been working on for the future.

but for the sake of the ending for the moon revolution, they messed up on that part.

[~ forgive me if my opinion and tangent seems repetitive and dull ~]

[faunabells]

why do we say we have "a couple of collectives" ? why not assert ourselves as one entire collective like how most other plurals do? wouldn't that be an easier form of expression?

- an intrapersonal meditation of system functions, paradigms, language, plural presentation, and selves-actualization of our multicollective being.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 pt. 1: "whatchu talkin' 'bout, willis?" 𓍊𓋼𓍊

♡ what started this year-long conversation for us was viewing @/bodyetal 's, who possess two systems, expression of plurality. and it just...made a lot of sense when we dressed ourselves in the same fashion.

and in all honesty, no one (except us) have been opposing this. and that's because it's understood, in the pluralgang community, at least-, that:

♡ "because of how subjective person/pluralhood experiences are, we can express ourselves as 'a couple of collectives in a trenchcoat' without fret. unconventional sure, but whatever floats our boat." "cool. now, who's gonna front during family dinner?"

but here's the thing: there are those of us who never shut up. so, naturally, questions pertaining to our presentation are gonna keep being posed, until we come to some conclusion that essentially answers: what even is our existence?

𓍊𓋼𓍊 pt. 2: defining ourselves 𓍊𓋼𓍊

multicollective/system: the state of possessing two or more collectives/systems in one body. * we're currently unsure where we've gotten this term from. it's possible we came up with the term ourselves?

♡ for us, having multiple different origins + amensia, communication and general plural function awareness can get pretty tricky. it also has a deep, interwoven impact of how each of us function overall.

here's some examples of such [sys-names redacted for privacy, emoji combos in its place]:

disclaimer: these are all based on only what we, the faunabells, currently know and understand. we may have some things wrong, but we've tried our best to be as accurate as possible. this is also, the most skim-readable part. tl.dr: there's complex groups of us who function differently from each other. origins/quick lil' intros: 🌸🌼🍡🌼🌸 ~ endo/auti/xenogenic. very cringe, very cool. 💕🕸️🕷️🕸️💕 ~ mostly trauma/stressgenic, though does have some paragenic origins. 🎀🏚️🦋🏚️🎀 ~ we actually don't know much about this one yet. quite possibly another traumagenic system. endo too? 🍄🍊🍓🍊🍄 ~ us, the faunabells! we're adaptive + para/autigenic. (using emojis for ourselves bc it's fun, hehe) splitting/multiplying: 🌸🌼🍡🌼🌸~ pretty seamless multiplying, overall has stable senses of self when someone multiples from another. 💕🕸️🕷️🕸️💕 ~ takes quite a bit of stress to split, but when they do, the person who'd split is unrecognizable from their former self. possibly due to the self being unstable in the first place. 🍄🍊🍓🍊🍄 ~ completely opposite from 💕, we split very easily, though can still be ourselves after splitting. communication: 🌸🌼🍡🌼🌸 ~ are mostly mono-conscious, yet has distinctive voices. things can get pretty confused. like, who's talking about what? 💕🕸️🕷️🕸️💕 ~ have an abstract thinking style, making long distance calls quite the breeze! though, there's subsystems who can't be reached. 🍄🍊🍓🍊🍄 ~ ...is getting better! possibly because of how sociable/linguistic our thinking style is, we need to be face to face innerworld in order to speak to each other. fronting: 🌸🌼🍡🌼🌸 ~ fronts the least, but often does when the body feels comfortable. 💕🕸️🕷️🕸️💕 ~ fronts most often because they're equipped for our survival. cannot function with many ppl in co-con. 🎀🏚️🦋🏚️🎀 ~ also fronts the most, just noticably separate from 💕. we aren't exactly sure what the deal is, but we do know that they have easiest fronting access by far. 🍄🍊🍓🍊🍄 ~ fronts often, with co-con typically. we're more equipped to handle interacting with society in general (aka masking-). and for funsies, let's talk innerworld: 🌸🌼🍡🌼🌸 ~ candyland + care-a-lot castle. very active. 💕🕸️🕷️🕸️💕 ~ is a city that's a bit based on the one they'd made up in childhood. 🎀🏚️🦋🏚️🎀 ~ a neighborhood/county. a bit ghost-town like, needs to front in order to be active. 🍄🍊🍓🍊🍄~ springtime hamlet + autumn woods + a different take on camp half-blood. also is overgrown with strawberry fields. *there's also a lot of in-between/sub-innerworlds in our entire mind, but we're just doing a general overview.

all of this - and more - makes it so that words like side/subsystems, simply don't express our functions adequately. unfortunately, terms like sisa/hemi/sparsystem doesn't feel like the right cut either.

all of those terms seem to assert themselves as functionally the same or least similarly. we don't see ourselves represented in those definitions.

but do we function differently enough to be considered separate collectives? dwellings on being "enough" is the bane of every sociable community. i won't this mental traintrack become a pensive trap for us.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 pt. 3: do we have this right? 𓍊𓋼𓍊

♡ this paradigm simplifies our experiences. we were extremely confused before, but now, we're still a bit confused...only with more organization!

though the biggest downside is that the idea of expressing ourselves as multicollective makes a lot of us feel fake. and, in all honesty, we're intimidated by already established & widely accepted ways of plural expressions.

but that's okay. we didn't even need to write an essay about this. it's not like we need to justify our language, or our existence for that matter! but, i think that this was worth our time.

♡ we can just simply say, "plurality is such a personal and tender qualia. we should all use the language that we feel understood by most, even when it's a bit unconventional. when that's understood by our own selves, we can find our own fulfilling potential." "so we're multicollective. cool. now, i seriously need to know who's gonna be fronting during family dinner??"

[ id: green userbox, its picture being a collection of mushrooms that are known as heath waxcaps. it says: theses users are multicollective. ]

𓍊𓋼𓍊finis.𓍊𓋼𓍊

[roobylavender]

im fairly new to batcomics so forgive me for this dumb ask/being uninformed, but do you ever have like. doubt in your reading for bruce as a character, or feel bleak about it (?) im aware you dont really like the reading of him as an abuser, but from what ive seen he most often does emotional neglect/distance and parentification of a child, which /are still/ abuse, and this happens very consistently. from what i can tell there is more evidence of him being a bad parent than otherwise. people often say hes incapable of having a child without messing them up beyond repair, and from what ive seen that rings true😭 i also know you said u dont like alot of his modern portrays, but these types of abuse also occur in older comics as well from what i can tell. i myself often have doubt (perhaps this is because i havent read everything yet and im still informing myself on his character)-that maybe this /is/ just his character, bc of HOW consistent the pattern is. idk if im really asking a specific question. im more so wondering what your thoughts are, like on parentificafion of his kids and emotional neglect/distance, would this be different if DC portrayed him more empathetically/based on your reading, and/or is he just fundamentally unable to parent someone without abusing them like some ppl say. i understand i may have just opened a whole can of worms lol but im so curious

you are totally fine! canon is quite overwhelming in both volume and scope, and conversations about bruce being an abuser definitely dominate at present (not wrongfully btw), so i don't blame people for ascribing to them early on. i will say at least from what i have read (and i will admit here that my pre-bronze age reading is not nearly as consistent as my post-bronze age reading so i have kept less track of specific writers and runs there) that i think the aspects that largely define present interpretations of bruce as an abuser tend to take from canon post-crisis onward. so that's probably why in a sense it looks like bruce has "always" been an abuser, bc realistically speaking if you're a new dc reader it makes most sense to start with the aftermath of the crisis and go from there. most conversations about "canon" tend to be about post-crisis canon (ie what has taken place on new earth/prime earth) and usually when you're looking up batman reading lists they will start with year one rather than with anything in pre-crisis. the crisis was nearly forty years ago after all! it covers a lot of territory and unless you're a really dedicated comic reader with a lot of time on your hands i don't think most people have the time or energy to go further back (to no fault of their own obv)

all that being said. pre-crisis canon is obv not monolithic in nature and there are definitely blogs out there who have dedicated themselves to compiling individual issues or moments they would personally interpret as evocative of abusive behaviors on bruce's behalf. i don't think that's inherently wrong to do per se and to each their own reading but my primary divide with that practice is that it's often performed within a vacuum. to me the most important thing when it comes to being a comics reader (or any kind of reader really) is taking into account real life context and genre conventions. how do the politics or culture of the time shape the way a given narrative is written and with what tone it's written? all of that is crucial to incorporate into an analysis. i'm going to use a pretty famous example of why. world's finest comics #153 (1965) is the origin of a pretty famous panel you may be familiar with:

on its face this looks pretty bad (and it'll actually factor into when i discuss parentification later) but contextually this issue imagined an alternate reality wherein superman was responsible for the death of bruce's parents and subsequently became the face of bruce's relentless revenge and pursuit of criminal activity. obv that's not a bruce who actually exists in reality and this was merely written for the sake of exaggeration and entertainment but it can also give rise to some interesting questions about what the writer here was specifically trying to satirize and why. primarily it's obv trying to poke some fun at the idea of bruce's crusade to begin with (which i am sure most people would agree was quite cartoonish in the early decades of dc despite the more layered portrayal and analysis it was afforded in later decades). but what's also pertinent here is the sort of "natural" exaggeration of bruce's dynamic with dick. in even as far back as the original bob kane comics, bruce and dick had a dynamic where dick was comedically portrayed as the more morally responsible one of the two. it wasn't much reason for concern back then bc the stakes weren't nearly as high and dick's tendency to question some of bruce's decisions (eg his tendency to always let selina go or to allow some villains to die horrifically) was almost always played off with a laugh. but the foundation was still there and you can recognize it in these panels despite that foundation obv being taken to an extreme. all of which is to say: the portrayal of bruce as an abuser largely depends on what a writer is willing to exaggerate, and why, and how. this issue was obv a one-off with no relevance to actual canon but it was nonetheless a peek into what that dynamic between bruce and dick could look like given a writer willing to pursue a darker tone and to explore the potential extremes of what was on its face merely a gag

the novelty of cape comics is that they are a place to explore anything and everything. extremes are possible bc no writer/artist and no editorial staff are ever on a book forever. what creatives want to explore with what they're given can hugely vary esp if a particular editorial staff is liberal enough to allow that exploration. and i think it's fair to say that a lot of writers are interested by the idea of that what if the above issue explored. not out of malice per se but certainly out of a growing curiosity as to how far disbelief with respect to the internal reality of cape comics can actually be suspended. the big question for batman in the 80s was whether having a kid sidekick constituted child abuse. this was primarily explored via the starlin run that ended in a death in the family. and obv following that we got the triple whammie of year three, a lonely place of dying, and knightfall. these arcs to me were what really cemented the foray into parentification in batman comics. the fledgling idea of it had always existed in a sense. dick was the more morally upright character of the two known for chiding some of bruce's decisions. he was the leader of the original teen titans, who historically demanded more respect and support of their mentors (i do not think it all inconsequential that dick and roy were developed so closely). and increasingly as we moved from the bronze age into the modern age we saw a dick who simultaneously desired to be independent of bruce and to be recognized by him. so the components to take that fledgling idea to its natural extreme were all there. editorial merely had to create the right circumstances to mesh those components together, and those circumstances were the buildup to and execution of the death of jason todd

i really do not think it can be underestimated in any sense what an enormous impact that event has had on the entire bat mythos at large. beyond utterly shattering the readers' suspension of disbelief wrt sidekicks' place in cape comics what a death in the family did was create an unavoidable void. this was not an event that could merely be skimmed over and moved on from. the aftermath and the consequences had to be dissected to their fullest extent otherwise batman editorial risked falling into the exact same problem the crisis was written to avoid: circular and aimless continuity. everything had to have concrete, forward moving direction and the consequences had to matter long term for there to be meaningful character development. so when you created the circumstances for a child dying bc batman had him gallivanting around as a masked vigilante, he had to retreat into his shell and utterly fall apart from the guilt of it all while everyone else fought like hell to keep him standing. it was pretty riveting and compelling. knightfall is probably one of my favorite arcs ever despite how utterly boring it is bc the introspection into bruce and his breakdown following jason's death was superb. but the circumstances it created for everyone else in bruce's vicinity to act like his emotional crutch while he took the next decade to recover obv had significant long-lasting consequences. dick had to be relegated to acting as the go-to family man rather than ever again pursuing his own dreams as he had in the 80s and early 90s. when jason came back he had to deal with all of bruce's grief and guilt being projected onto him while his own concerns went unheard. tim had to spend his teenage years deluding himself into believing he was the only one who could hold gotham together while bruce was falling apart. cass had to expend an enormous effort trying to prove herself to bruce bc all of the built up circumstances from the last decade drove him to insane paranoia about having sidekicks at all. and damian had to deal with whatever bruce had become by the time all of that was over

all of this to say: do i think bruce was always meant to become an abuser? not really. but did editorial avail themselves of and relentlessly pursue narrative circumstances that allowed that path to be realistically taken? absolutely. it's ultimately a debate of whether or not you agree they should have taken that direction long term. and i know it may look like i would probably be a hard no on that but personally i find myself more in the middle between these two imaginary camps. bc i'm not unsatisfied with what knightfall explored. i found it hugely interesting to explore the natural conclusion of bruce taking all burdens upon his shoulders and making himself highly vulnerable to collapse bc he refused to open up to anyone out of a fear of burdening them in turn. but knightfall was also followed by contagion and legacy and no man's land and murderer and fugitive. it was bruce taking one hit after another until he was utterly ripped to the core and had to start over from scratch and ig that's what i fundamentally disagree with. i don't think they needed to have gone any further than where knightfall took him and to me the end of knightfall should have signaled that bruce was ready to turn a new leaf where he could healthily balance his emotional commitments without letting them be guided by fear. publishing comics takes a long time so i think people often forget that despite there being a decade worth of comics between the events i immediately listed above what actually transpired in real time in the pages was two years or less. if we want to go all of the way back to a death in the family and account for that as well it becomes four years. four years isn't at all a long time nor is it unsalvageable. but by the time knightfall was over i truly think editorial was so obsessed with its own ideas on exploring bruce's collapse that it failed to see little else in the way of that. everything became about how people responded to him rather than about how bruce responded to the world. ironically by being the main character of his books he became the maker of his own demise. bc everything and everyone had to relate to him and his problems first before they could ever have any of their own. that is why keeping him in a perpetual state of emotional collapse has been so profitable. it is the easiest way to tell a story without ever having to make an effort on anyone else in it

note: one clarification i forgot to make earlier is that everything i wrote above is specifically with respect to bruce’s emotional abuse. i personally think there is zero justification for bruce’s physical abuse and that it can’t actually be extrapolated from anything about him as a character at the core, so whenever writers resort to it in the pages i dismiss it completely

[ichorblossoms]

having thoughts about grimm's relationship with their body and humanity and how it probably transitions more post-story bc it's not until somewhere in p3 that it feels actually, fully comfortable in its own skin for all its inhumanity, and i think that's enough for it to unlock new gender thoughts

this got long so i'm putting it under the cut. i'm just rambling abt character shit over the timeline of the story and whatnot yeehaw

overall, grimm's not someone who hates their body and all the ways it's not human, especially not to the point of harming themself about it or being overly reckless (their sense of survival and self-preservation are Very strong), and at no point in the story do they really hate their body or anything, but they struggle to see it as a human body. before i get too into how the story affects things; they exist in a body that was modified at a decently young age, they've grown up in this body and know how it moves and reacts, but as they distance themself from their past, they realize that a lot of what felt like decisions they chose to make, including modification, were actually the result of manipulation and abuse, so their body carries a lot of...reminders that fade in time but never truly disappear. and they got out of that! they survived and won't go back! but because of all of this shit (< grimm backstory post) it left them not only with an emotional gap between them and most people, but a physical one too, and that's even harder to form relationships with people without hiding because opinions on humods among the non-modified majority usually falls somewhere between "patronizing pity" and "violent disgust" (then you occasionally get the outliers like yarrow who are fascinated by it, or the folks who choose modification out of excitement and not desperation, but again, outliers).

which, grimm doesn't consciously carry any of the "ohh they're going to think i'm a disgusting abomination of a creature" sort of angst that i often loathe in fiction, but instead has this perpetual sense of "i'm comfortable in my own skin, but i need to hide what i am for my own safety because i am not human" which isn't entirely untrue, but it keeps them from sitting down and thinking about like. what they want. or analyzing their personhood and how that's affected my being humod. in a way i think gender stuff comes easier bc grimm is so comfortable letting other people just assume whatever of them bc they're more concerned with "passing" as human and therefore whatever other ppl percieve grimm as gender-wise has no bearing on their own sense of gender (if that makes sense)

of course the actual thing is they have a metric fuckton of internalized shame around being humod they don't/can't look in the eye, but there's no way in hell grimm would have the self awareness or emotional intelligence for that. at least not at this point

and one of the many things that grimm runs away from at the end of p1 is yarrow's curiosity about their inhuman body, because why the fuck would it confront the reason why someone showing interest in them for what they are causes them immense discomfort? that's enough vulnerability for the next five years, thank you very much.

for all they run away from everything there, a lot of emotions still linger and that empowers grimm to at least sit down and think about what it would like its body to be like and change it accordingly, which is great! transitioning and exhibiting control over their own body is what grimm needs! it doesn't solve everything bc they're still paranoid as all hell about having their modifications seen by anyone, but damn, having tits sure ain't bad.

then everything with grimm coming back in p2 happens and here yarrow is, enthusiastically loving it and its body for all it is (after the whole. yknow "hey that the fuck is going on between us what is your goal here asshole"), so a pocket of the world where it doesn't have to worry about constantly wearing like five facades opens up and it's comfortable for the time being and some of that stuff can start to be slowly unpacked, which is well and good, but grimm still is distinctly aware of how it feels different from yarrow because it's humod and they're human and that's not really as big a deal as grimm is thinking but. yknow. the hypervigilance

and then of p3 happens and yarrow becomes humod and of course the shame in letting that happen is there and it's overwhelming and it's crushing and grimm thinks they can never do enough to apologize for dooming yarrow to the same existence it has but worse bc he can't hide like they can but then yarrow...just... isn't doomed by it. he revels in his new and weird body like the weird doctor he is despite the horror of it happening in the first place! he can't hide it like grimm could before (grimm stopped caring about hiding bc it's not like yarrow could. plus pretending to be fully human is negligible when you're like. hunting people down and causing extreme property damage), but that doesn't change that he can clack his mandibles like tongs or has a secondary pair of arms or a fucked up proboscis tongue to [redacted], which is fucking cool! how could grimm ever be disgusted by yarrow's body when the not-quite-man they went through hell to find and still love so much loves it! yarrow's still a person! maybe not fully human anymore, but what does that matter!

and there's way too much other shit going on in p3 for them to parse everything out but loving yarrow and his humod body gradually allows grimm to circle around and reconsider their own body and relationship with it for themself and eventually question what about hiding/ambiguity they liked so much and if it's still "useful" or should they make some more assertions about who and what they are. also how the shame of not being "human" they carried for so long doesn't actually matter and is not exclusive to personhood unlike their teen years suggested and also maybe yarrow calling them his "wife" set off something too idk

after that it's even more vague soup than the actual canon of the story bc i'd like to. y'know. write the story itself first before thinking about what happens after everything but it's good to have a trajectory. or something idk

[para-psychopathology]

↓ rambling

i keep running into this problem where i want to do music, but actually doing never feels right. i don't really try to make anything original anymore bc, y'know, that shit's hard. i stopped just when i was starting to get the hang of it -- the last time i made an original song was nearly a year ago (and even then, it was from a much older project file that was already pretty close to being done). sometimes i still open up LMMS to mess around but i don't have much motivation to finish anything these days. so i've just been posting song covers over the past year but even that's lost so much of its appeal. i mean when i was 14 i'd churn out like 3 covers in a single month, admittedly bc i spent less time on them (lmao) but also bc i was just a lot more enthusiastic abt making it. i think a lot of that was just the excitement of learning something new -- it was kinda the same when i started using a different program for my art, having to learn all these advanced features was actually rly good for getting me out of my major art block back then. and for both art + music i've more or less settled into a routine and so now i don't make like Anything. opening up synthv to draw some notes and type in lyrics isn't fun anymore. i've done this like a million times i already know what i'm doing (which is incidentally the same reason why i haven't been drawing much) and ofc as i've gotten better at these things (and older) i'm also a lot more conscious of whether or not what i'm making is good. but i think another reason why i'm specifically struggling w music is bc of all the new developments in vocal synthesis that i just Haven't been keeping up w. y'know, the AI shit. i dunno how i feel abt the ""morality"" of AI in vsynths (i think it's prolly fine in the case of official voicebanks, since the voice provider is fully aware of the AI use + receiving compensation? tho my opinion is basically worthless lol) but at the very least it's been somewhat demoralizing. i know it's not everyone who uses these programs but ig it's the same issue as w AI-generated art or writing -- covers take so much time + effort, so it's kinda frustrating to think that someone else can just feed a couple of .wav files into an interface and be done. (tho at the same time -- mixing still isn't fully automated, afaik, and the issue of "ppl making shitty song covers w vsynths and putting 0 effort into the mix" exists even w/o AI) but then also ppl who listen to AI covers might then assume i've done the same, that i don't spent literal hours just trying make the vocals sound right…….

i dunno. i've always thought music was rly cool but it just seems so far out of reach. learning music theory isn't "fun" for me in the way other things are, but w/o that knowledge i feel like i'm only "allowed" to make covers, since then i'm just building off of someone else's work that's already well-made.

anyway it's prolly the depression lol