#and in others i address them directly

[redstonedust]

heres a weird niche question, when you comment on a youtube video (if you ever do), do you address the youtuber in second or third person? ie. "i love when you said [x]" vs "i loved when he said [X]"

[cent-scratchnsniff]

it was just going to be a few warmup doodles but then she infected the rest of the page like the ever eternal and spreading spores. hod!!! hod. hod :)

[lollytea]

I need to watch Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure to reach my final conclusion on if she's even attracted to men

[supercantaloupe]

What is the antisemitism in TUC season 1? Does it have to do with Wally the golem?/gen

[ID: an ask from an anonymous tumblr user that reads "would love to hear more about the antisemitism in unsleeping city! was a while ago that i watched it and can't remember what you might be referencing but definitely want to be aware of it.]

no, it's not about willy the golem -- i actually think willy is a great addition to the season (even if i wish we got to see more of him), and an indication to me that brennan/the showrunners were definitely trying to be sincere and inclusive. i want to make it clear that i don't think anything antisemitic in tuc is there intentionally; i think it's there out of simple ignorance, which is also why i think fans don't frequently see/comment on it either. but i don't think that's an excuse, either.

my grief with tuc1 is largely centered around its portrayal of robert moses as the villain. especially by making him a greedy, power-hungry lich working en league with bloodsucking vampires. (also his mini is literally a green skinned skull man in a suit. yikes.) here's the thing; i know robert moses was a real life horrible person, who actually was racist and powerhungry etc etc. and i know that robert moses, the real actual person, was jewish. my grief with tuc1 is not that they chose to use robert moses over literally any other person (real or fictional) to be their season villain (though i'd be really curious to know what tuc1 would have looked like with a different villain), but that they chose to take a real jewish person, turn them into an antisemitic caricature, and then only barely add other portrayals of judaism to balance that out.

like, tuc isn't completely devoid of other jewish representation. as you mention, there's willy the golem -- and again, i really like willy, and i love that it's a portrayal of a golem that's faithful to jewish folklore (ie as a benevolent, guardian construct rather than a mindless destructive monster. i am not a fan of how 'golem' is so frequently misused as a generic enemy creature in other fantasy and ttrpg spaces, including other seasons of d20). but as i said earlier, i wish we see more of him in the season, because he's not around very much, and feels a little more like worldbuilding than a full character to me. also, he's not human. jews are people.

the only other human jewish character in tuc1 is...stephen sondheim. which, again, yeah, that's a real person who really was jewish. but i really wouldn't blame you if you had no idea of that when watching tuc1. maybe from the name you could guess he might be jewish, but i don't think people ought to make a habit of trying to 'clock' someone being jewish by having a 'jewish-sounding' surname. as he's portrayed in tuc1, you'd never know he's jewish, unless you happen to already be pretty knowledgeable about the man in real life. it's far more likely you'll know him as a theater legend than anything else (may his memory be a blessing).

now i'm not saying that brennan or the showrunners should have played up the jewishness of Real Person Stephen Sondheim to counterbalance the depiction of robert moses; that just feels weird to me, especially considering that sondheim was literally alive when tuc1 was filmed and released. it's a tricky thing to portray real people in fiction alongside made up characters, especially when they are contemporaries, and i don't think 'outright caricature' is the way to go about that. nor do i think that moses' jewishness should have been played up at all, because again i don't think that would have been particularly true to the person/character, and also Fucking Yikes. but, c'mon, if you hear the names 'moses' and 'sondheim' next to each other, which one do you associate more with judaism?

and as it stands, these are the only representations of judaism in tuc1. one admittedly nice but very minor nonhuman character; one human character you'd never be able to tell was jewish; and a third human character who, while never explicitly referenced as jewish, plays into some really hurtful antisemitic stereotyping. and it was a choice to not include anything else. maybe not a deliberate one, probably more likely one made out of simple ignorance than anything else, but a choice nonetheless. in a city with one of the largest and most visibly jewish populations in the country, and a culture that is inextricably influenced by that jewish population. a jewish population which has been and continues the target of rising hate crimes for years. i know that nyc means different things to different people, and everyone's nyc is their own -- but my nyc is jewish, and it sucks that that its jewishness is referenced directly in only one very minor way, which is greatly overshadowed by its, in my view, really insidious indirect references.

i don't know exactly how to go about addressing this. obviously, the show can't be changed by now. even if it could, i think the final product would be very significantly different from what it is now if the villain was something/someone else. i think including more references to jews in new york, more (human) jewish characters, hell, even mentioning hanukkah celebrations and menorahs in windows (it takes place in late december, after all; depending on the year it's not at all out of place for hanukkah to coincide with xmas!) would help. having literally any more positive jewish representation in tuc1 would, i think, help balance the bad stuff that's there. because, yeah, robert moses was real and he was terrible and he was jewish. but he's one jewish guy in a city with over a million jews, the vast majority of whom are just normal people. i don't want him to be the only vision of us that people get, in tuc1 alone or in any media. i'm not saying that jews can't or shouldn't be villains in fiction; but especially if you are a goyische creator, you should be really careful in how you're portraying us, and if there are other contrasting depictions in your work, too, in order to not (even accidentally) demonize jewish people as a whole.

[vixscribs]

despite benrook being a decently popular ship I can't seem to get behind a lot of fan content I see. Those are coworkers. There's no way they're snuggling and shit that's highly unprofessional.

[fiona-fififi]

The way people sometimes refuse to acknowledge that writing choices that clearly go against established canon should mean something is endlessly frustrating to me. We don't have to agree on the interpretation, but these writing choices SHOULD mean something.

Otherwise, it's shitty writing.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Woke up this morning thinking about how interesting it was how Taylor processed her masters being sold and the fallout with her split from Scott Borchetta and BMG on folkore from a storytelling perspective.

On folklore, we've got my tears ricochet, mad woman and hoax dealing with the situation from sort of a "woman scorned" perspective. In my tears ricochet, she's the injured party, metaphorically dead from the knife the guilty party has lodged in her back and haunting them in the wake. In mad woman, she unleashes her anger at being boxed in and the unfairness of being tarred and feathered for feeling hurt.

Hoax is a little different, a little more esoteric, but the general feeling is that it's the fallout from the shock and anger from the previous songs. E.g. when the initial fury has subsided and the lashing out loses steam, what are you left with? Evidently, devastation, if not hopelessness. (There are shades of this too in the lakes, where she feels like she should be over it, but admits that she isn't, and muses that the only relief is to escape the world for a little while.)

The "love triangle" songs get a lot of attention for how their fictional setting creates this through line in the album, but for some reason the emotional weight of the masters/music songs is really grabbing at me today. They're not diaristic in that they're a factual retelling of events, but they certainly are in the emotions they convey. Once again it's amazing how she's taking a hyper specific situation to her extraordinary life (fighting with her former mentor and having her life's work sold to a man who played a role in her public downfall which felt like it may end her life) and inserted them into an allegory about love lost and betrayed.

If you didn't know the inspiration of the songs, they would stand on their own, depicting the breakdown of relationships and the messy (and valid) emotions that come along with that, feeling the character's rage, despair, etc. But knowing that they were about the BMG situation makes them even more powerful, and it's interesting to me that MTR was the first song she wrote for folklore, before folklore was even a glean in her eye. folklore may have given her license to explore fictional world building to tell her stories, but obviously her brain was already heading into that space before the pandemic hit.

I know a lot of the other themes have overtaken the discussion about folkore/evermore, especially recently (and for good reason), but it is striking just how devastating the SB/BMG situation was to her, not just in losing the chance to own her work but in the betrayal she felt from people she felt were family. That pervasive sadness I think also influences the mood of the album, and it's no wonder it bled into evermore too. We know now that there was more going on behind the scenes, and it just had to have been such a painful confluence of events over those stretch of years, but how incredible that she turned it into some of her most haunting work.

If I had to guess, I'd bet TTPD would take a page out of some of these songs and frame her next chapter in these kinds of allegories, but that remains to be seen next month

[screambirdscreaming]

Not a coherent thesis here yet but I've been thinking lately about the dynamic of.... people who loved you unconditionally as a kid (or on the condition of being family, which is another weird dynamic) - but as you got older that became strained because you grew into someone they didn't expect and they realized that they did have conditions, actually.

I mean. There are people who had conditions all along, but just didn't mention them until you didn't meet them. And there's people who spent the whole time actively trying to mold you into someone who would meet their conditions.

But there's also people who truly didn't realize that you could grow up into someone that surprised them, that pushed their concepts of normal reasonable people. I think often because they themselves were constrained in their childhoods and mentally closed off whole worlds of options of ways people could be, without realizing it. So they thought kids just sort of naturally grew out of those sorts of quirks and eccentricities. Without realizing how much that dynamic was driven by active suppression, and how weird people could get if you just let them.

There's one such person in my life who has truly tried to grow and learn as this has come up, over and over again. And I really love and respect her for it, even if sometimes its a little exhausting to have to keep pushing at it. Keep explaining, and expanding, and not being hurt by her baseline of confusion that I'm still just.... not someone she knows how to expect. Even after all this time. But she does love me unconditionally. And for her that's the baseline, and she's willing to put in the work to expand her understanding of the world to know what it means to love me for who I am, even if it doesn't always come easily to her.

And then there's other people who run into this same tension and don't know what to do with it. They don't realize that loving you for who you are means putting in work to expand their concept of ways people can be. They don't try to overtly push you into not being like that but they keep holding out the expectation that you will, because how are they supposed to love you being like that? And of course as a kid, a teen, a young adult, you don't really have words for it either. You can feel the tension, the dissonance between the way they openly offer love to you that doesn't seem to fit, and the way they react to with confusion or distaste to parts of you that you can't change, or don't want to. Sometimes to things in yourself you can't even identify. So sometimes you make an effort to hide those things and act like they want. And sometimes you buckle down on being yourself. But neither approach really seems to fill the gap. You can't recieve affection and have it fit at the same time.

And eventually it just feels like you've sort of failed each other. By the time you have the words and self awareness to know what went wrong and where, it's too late to draw the chasm closed.

It's not too late to bridge it. But if we make this effort as adults, with the conditionality of adult relationships, you'll have to see me as I am and accept that - or be a stranger.

It's weird, to be like strangers with people who've known you your whole life.

[collieii]

idk if this is controversial but i don't think vash is ashamed of his scars. i think vash is mainly concerned abt the picture he presents to the world and other peoples well-being/feelings. so the reason he doesn't like others seeing his scars is because he think it will make them uncomfortable, and it also sort of undermines the image he wants to project of someone who's very sillygoofy/carefree etc. similarly, i don't think vash is ashamed or insecure about being a plant/having those inhuman features, more he's concerned with how other people react to them. (the plant stuff esp makes sense to hide given how people literally stoned him lmao)

but yeah i don't think he's filled with self loathing over the scars and being nonhuman. i feel like vash's self image is fine, he just prioritizes how others feel and reacts based on that. his whole philosophy of covering up how he feels inside (that smile is fake!) is based on this principle, it doesn't matter if he's depressed as hell as long as he can pretend it's ok, because external presentation and how you affect the world is what really matters to him.

[clingylilhoneybee]

Don’t look at me rn

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

yknow what minor transient detail abt s4 is fun to me? prior to john's reveal, noel apparently assumes the KIY to be a totally unfamiliar character to them both. he pauses his story to give background info on him ("he rules the dreamlands, he's a master manipulator, etc") in a way he doesn't with other stuff. he points out yellow like "that's the bitch btw. if you were curious." which is. like he knows they were in the dreamlands. i think he knows or at least assumes they were in the pits for a while given they ran into lorick. what does he think they were doing there. just. passing through??

[delta-orionis]

I love seeing other people’s astronomy iterators. I like to think that they’re all in a research group together and pass notes around. Three Stars Above Clouds reads their papers and shares data with them all. Fwiends

[elftwink]

people are being annoying in the tags of one of my posts but if I respond I run the risk of instigating a different and potentially even more annoying avenue of discourse so I simply have to sit and suffer. but every time I see the exact same tag it feels like I'm being poked in the eye

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A green-toned drawing of two characters from an original universe, shown from the shoulders up. It's framed as though they're taking a selfie. On the left is Heathrow, a human with dark skin, long hair, a good number of facial scars, and two painted lines below each eye. He wears something akin to a green hoodie, with fluffy plant matter sewn into the back of the hood. On the right is Crassie, a half elf, which in this universe entails long pointed ears, a pair of short pale horns, a slightly rabbit-like nose and markings under her eyes. Her skin is olive-toned, sporting a couple distinct scars on her face and hand, and she's wearing what is essentially a bush and spiked glovelets. Both of them are smiling, Crassie a little bit wide-eyed and Heathrow with a fond expression. The background's a saturated green with the text "1 YEAR!". End ID]

A redraw-in-spirit of the post from last year's Feb 16 that introduced these two to my blog. It's their birthday :]

[villainanders]

my other favorite da romance (zevwarden) also has a potentially deeply fucked up power dynamic that i have to mentally write my characters into addressing so that's. idk but it sure is something

[thesilverlock]

Everything Mist and Astral Said to One Another (English Dub Version)

Episode 20:

[ Technically, they don’t speak to each other in Mist’s debut episode. Unless you count the very last inner monologue of “Number 96, are there more memories like you?” from Astral.]

Episode 38 & 39:

Mist: Leaving so soon, Astral? Astral: You again. Number 96. How is it you are here, did you break your seal again? Mist: Correct. We all decided it was time to act. Astral: You all..? (…) Astral: Does this mean the other Numbers are giving you your power? Mist: Naturally! We all agree that our time has come, it is time to act and to destroy! Astral: Destroy-? Are you saying that we exist in order to bring destruction to the world!? Mist: What other purpose could you and I have? (…) Mist: Your destiny lies with us, remember your mission.  Astral: (glare) Mist: The time has come at last! Come and join us, Astral! (…) Mist: Give up! We will absorb you! (…) Mist: Utopia got away but you will pay the price. Lacking Utopia’s protection you will be helpless to resist us, your concern for humans must have weakened your mind. Astral: (grits teeth at) Mist: Now! Numbers! Join with me! Absorb Astral so that we can complete our mission of destruction! Astral: What are you doing?! Mist: All these Numbers are under my control now but I need more power. You will be assimilated next! (…) Mist: There is no escape, Astral. You are going to fulfill your mission whether you like it or not. There is much we have to destroy. Astral: (looks back at him defiantly) (…) Mist: Gotcha. Astral: (cries out and struggles) Mist: There is no escaping your fate, Astral. You will join with me and become me. Astral: (glares) (…)  Mist: He failed badly, just as you failed, Astral. (…) Mist: Ghh! It feels like I am losing my hold on you! Astral: That is due to the bond between Yuma and me. We out power you. Mist: Impossible! (yells in pain as he disintegrates) 

Episode 89:

Mist: Astral~ Astral: You! Number 96. Mist: You are not powerful enough to defeat the Barians. Astral: I thought I had finally seen the last of you. Mist: Well luckily for you, you were wrong. You need my aid, Astral, and you know it. Release me from the confines of this key and in return I will lend you my help. Astral: You know I will not accept your offer. Mist: Do not dismiss me so quickly. I know that you are stumbling around hopelessly in the dark, you do not have the strength to continue on alone. You need me. Face the facts, Astral. You may be light but I am darkness, light can only shine in the dark, without me you will never be complete. (…) Mist: You will not win until you accept the one thing you lack. You need my help. (…) You have me all wrong, I am here to help. This opponent is testing Astral in order to see if he is worthy of keeping the Numbers. Astral: Worthy? Mist: Astral. You know I’m right. You also know that you need my power to defeat him. (…) Take my advice and think it over carefully before you turn me down, Astral. Just remember; this is not the human world, I wonder what will happen to your friend Yuma if you lose. (…) Astral: All right, Number 96, I will free you! (…) Number 96, make sure you fulfill your end of our bargain! Mist: (evil laughter) I promised that I would help you win this duel and I will. You must summon Dark Mist, quickly! (…) Mist: And now we can finish him off! Convinced yet? Surely you must see now that you do need my power, the power of darkness. Astral: (narrow-eyed stare) (…) Mist: Astral you kept your word and set me free. Thank you. And I promise you there will come a day when you need my dark powers once more. We will meet again.  Astral: (glares as the other disappears)

Episode 101 & 102:

[ Gonna be skipping the duel jargon and lesser taunts and whatnot, cause I don’t really count it ]

Mist: Nice to see you again, Astral. Especially in such a perfect setting for an all-out duel. Here’s the Number, shall we start? Astral: So you being here, does this mean that you’ve teamed with that Barian?! Mist: He sought me out and begged me to help him, I felt bad for the boy and I agreed. Now I will duel you and defeat you! Astral: That will not happen! (…) Mist: Things are different now Astral. I’m much more powerful, and there’s no way you can beat me! Both: Let’s Duel! (…)  Mist: That was impressive, but you don’t think I’m stupid enough to take damage for nothing, do you? Astral: Meaning? (…) Mist: Say whatever you like but I bring much more than cards to this duel. This Labyrinth of Screams is a trap that makes every one of your moves extremely dangerous, and so, if you win - Yuma doesn’t! (…) Mist: Well, Astral, even someone as clueless as you can plainly see that I am in total control of this duel.  (…) Mist: It’s over, Astral. Astral: As long as I have a turn nothing is over, 96. My move. Mist: What’s the point in continuing? Your defeat is inevitable. Astral We shall see. Mist: We shall. (…) Mist: Why fight? Give up. Astral: I will not. Victory and defeat are never known until a duel ends. Mist: You only have 100 LPs left, yet you still have hope. Hope is your enemy. You put your hope in the hands of a human who swore he was your friend to the end, but the second he thought it would do him some good he lied to you, betrayed you. That friendship, it’s a burden, a weight you’re forced to carry. But you put your hope in the wrong place, Astral. You put your hope in Yuma Tsukumo, a traitor. Fact is, the only real hope you have is me. Astral: And how is that? Mist: You mean you haven’t figured why you can’t absorb Chaos Numbers? It’s so obvious! Astral: (exchanges a look with him) Mist: You don’t have my power! You can never gather all the Numbers without my help, Astral. You allow your emotions to get the best of you and as a result you still try to protect your friend the liar.  (…) Mist: Well Astral, I think it’s time you and Yuma said your goodbyes, don’t you? Astral: This duel is not over yet. Mist: Hah! You only have 100 LPs left, why don’t you give up? Astral: (intense glare) Mist: (backs up and scowls) All right, I end my turn! (…) Mist: You may be clever, but I still have the advantage! Astral: I think not. Mist: What? Astral: In fact my victory is now inevitable.  (…) Mist: You knew exactly what you were going to do before the duel even began, didn’t you!? Astral: Of course I did. Mist: (snarls) But how? Astral: Quite simply, you overestimated your strategy and underestimated Yuma and me. Mist: You..! How dare you make a fool of me! (…) Astral: I did not win but I did not lose. Mist: How frustrating. (…) Mist: Well, Astral, we’ll settle this another time. Astral: I have no doubt we will…

Episode 110 & 111:

[ still skipping most of the duel stuff ]

Mist: Well, look who it is! Yuma and Astral. (…)  Astral: My deductions were correct, you are the one causing havoc in both our worlds.  Mist: Yes. I am. And I’m not just destroying your worlds, my unrelenting power is devastating Barian World as well.  Astral: You are trying to destroy all our worlds? Mist: That’s right. When I’m through, there will be nothing left. (…) Mist: Shall we get started? I’ve been looking forward to our rematch! Now say goodbye to your friends!  Astral: The danger of this duel has increased exponentially.  Mist: That’s correct, aren’t you a clever one?  (…) Mist: You don’t know when to give up, tell the boy he can’t win. Astral: You are wrong, we cannot lose! Mist: Oh, really? (…) Astral: Number 96, you have caused enough harm here today. It is time for your reign to come to an end. Prepare for your defeat, because I am feeling the flow. (…) Now, Number 96, let us duel! Mist: Fine by me, the little kid wasn’t much of a challenge anyway. Hopefully you won’t disappoint me~ (…) Mist: ASTRAL! You can’t get rid of me that easily. You may have won the duel but I still have enough power to finish you once and for all!