#and we adults tend to be the ones posting a ton about it and watching it and junk

[rasticore]

"madoka ruined the magical girl genre forever" i am begging you to actually go look at things other than what's popular here the genre is doing fine in its home country its just that it's all aimed at kids and thus rarely garnering a big following overseas due to not being dubbed and thus accessible to the target audience

[fyeahnix]

Ok lemme talk about this season of Arcane, the ending, and most importantly, Sevika. If you don't want spoilers, back away now but I'm leaving this open because people have a tendency to not open or read my posts with read more cuts after them 🙃

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First off, I will say that I like Arcane a lot. Like a LOT. I've watched the first season 4 times (rarely do I watch anything more than once) and I think it's a masterclass in adult animation. Fortiche really put everything into this series.

That being said...

While I did like season 2, I don't think it was enough. Animation wise it was phenomenal, writing wise...I think it could have been better. As I've learned through doing research for my Sevika fics, the League of Legends universe, lore, and worldbuilding is fucking MASSIVE and even if I don't give two shits about that community or game, I have to give it props in that department because they really put a ton of work into it to make it feel alive. Maps? Short stories? Timelines? Race and culture? Apex could never...

That ofc is why it's hard for me to say that the writing is amazing. We had far too many characters to keep track of in season 2 with far too many plot threads to finish in two seasons. I think ideally, this series should have been 3 seasons instead of 2. Acts 1 and 2 could have been its own season, and Act 3 could have been its own season. If not that, then at least one more episode per act would have helped a lot. Things just progressed and wrapped up far too quickly for my liking.

Also not a huge fan of how quickly video game related media tends to dip into the whole timeline and multidimensional business. It def works well for some games but here? Idk I guess it was bound to happen given some League character's abilities, but the stakes just elevated far too quickly for me. Not a fan of Viktor becoming one of the main antagonists at all, and DEFINITELY not a fan of the conflict between Piltover and Zaun being sidelined for an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing with the war against the Noxians. It makes sense, I just wish "war with the Noxians" came at a later date so we could focus on the twin cities.

And speaking of the generational conflict between Piltover and Zaun, let's talk about Sevika.

As I said before, Sevika is the most qualified person to become the leader of Zaun and I stand by that even after the ending. But first....what about her found family? Isha sacrificed herself and Sevika gets no on-screen reaction? The last two episodes just progressed SOOOO FAST that we and some of the characters didn't even have time to breathe. Did Sevika even get time to mourn for Isha? What about Jinx, who is now gone? Sevika barely even encountered Vander! I would have loved to see some of the aftermath there because I think season 1 did a better job of allowing characters time to process their emotions and grief, even if the pacing was still kinda fast. It was acceptable!

I am sad af she didn't get more lines, but remember, Sevika has always been a side character in this series. An important side character but a side character no less. The promo shot of her now feels like...what was the point? (more on that in a sec) but considering how many characters and plot points and plot threads they had to account for, I am not surprised she didn't get more screen time. Hell, Vi and Caitlyn didn't even get a chance to have a full conversation on eveything that happened and Caitlyn didn't even apologize on screen. The fuck bro.

Now about Sevika's ending....I am very happy she isn't dead. Like dawg, you have no fucking idea how happy I am about it. SHE FUCKING LIVED. But....

I am seeing some people saying they're not happy or they're confused or that her ending doesn't make sense. And I just disagree with those points. Let me explain why.

I posted something earlier today about it, but again, as people don't open my read mores, I'll repost it here:

We absolutely do not know how much time passed between the war and the final few shots of the season. So Sevika joins the council. I DO NOT THINK she would do this unless there's a good reason for it, and that's why I'm guessing she will be Zaun's ambassador on the council. That war probably significantly changed the relationship between Piltover and Zaun and while old wounds will take more than a fucking war to heal, her being on the council now means she directly has a say in Zaun's future. Remember, the council was literally about to hand Zaun their independence before Jinx blew it up, and Mel was in support of it. As I said before, Sevika is respected down there at a bare minimum with all the factions. She would know better than anyone how to lead Zaun at this point. So yeah I get the hesitation, but it makes sense in my eyes. And it makes it likely that Sevika could show up again in a future League animation, if not become a whole champion.

I like her ending. I am sorry but it just makes fucking sense. Sevika is extremely loyal to her home and her people of Zaun. We've seen that time and time again. She was willing to go to war and die for those people not just against Piltover but also the Noxians, so why on fucking earth would anyone believe she's making a bad choice here?

She is now in the best possible position anyone in Zaun could be to advocate for their independence and support their growth. She knows the chem barons and brought them to peace, she gained the respect of the Firelights with Scar leading them in Ekko's absence, and she even got the Jinxers together with them before the Noxian attack on Zaun. Sevika has experience, she has the ear of the people, she knows what it's like down there, she is made to lead and help advocate for them!!!!

Believe me I get that whole "changing things from the inside" angle doesn't work more often than not, but this doesn't feel like "changing from the inside," it feels like "let me advocate for my people's actual independence so we have a starting point to become self sufficient." Again, Piltover was literally about to let Zaun gain their independence, and while none of the previous council members that agreed to it are there, Mel is/was. Who's to say she didn't help negotiate for Sevika to sit on the council and start (or complete!) the Zaun independence process before she left for Noxus? I can't imagine Sevika would just show up to the table and sit there if she didn't have a damn good reason. Like come on now. This woman has seen first-hand what Piltover is capable of and does not like them nor looks like she wants to be there. But she's seen what Piltover has done to her people first-hand, and after learning from both Vander and Silco, this is how she feels she can best protect her people.

She IS the new leader of Zaun and their ambassador at the council.

And lastly, we've been told that some characters will be returning in future League animations. Mel seems like an absolute given, but what about Sevika? Zaun's story is only just beginning, and yeah they said they'd like to branch out to other regions, that doesn't mean a cameo or maybe another medium can't be used to continue that story (a book, perhaps??).

Anyway yeah those are my thoughts...

[alliluyevas]

Have you ever posted about what about Mormonism first caught your interest and why its stuck as such a major interest?

I've been asked this before, but not for a while, so I'll answer again.

I've always been pretty interested in religion and religious history, I think part of this comes from growing up with a few very different religious perspectives in my extended family. I was raised Episcopalian and so was my dad, but my mom was raised Catholic and my dad's older sister and her husband are born-again evangelical Baptists. I was very much a type of kid who paid attention to and noticed stuff like this, so when I went to Catholic mass with my grandparents I would pick up on both similarities to and differences from what I was used to at the church my immediate family went to, and have questions about that. And my mom talked with me when I was still pretty young (late elementary/preteen) about why she left Catholicism and issues she had with it, and I also remember talking with her about how my aunt and uncle are creationists and what that meant and creationism versus evolution versus intelligent design and how to avoid arguments about this when we visited them. So I definitely grew up navigating having very divergent religious experiences and perspectives in my family and how to engage with people respectfully about that, and I was always curious about how different groups worship and define themselves.

I had a couple different phases as a kid where I was very interested in researching religious topics, like I got very into Ivanhoe in fifth grade and read a lot about the crusades and medieval Catholicism for a few years, and then later in middle school I first became interested in religious extremism and cults and I used to watch 19 Kids And Counting and read a lot of Time magazine special editions about Heaven's Gate and similar topics. 

I didn't really know a ton about Mormonism until I was an adult because I didn't know a lot of LDS people and I don't remember learning anything about Mormonism in my US History classes in school. When my brother and I were in elementary school, one of his best friends was a boy whose family was LDS so I had been over to his house several times and played with his sister and stuff, but I don't remember him or his parents really talking about their religion at all and I don't think I asked any questions either of them or of my parents. (Though I do remember my mom explaining that his parents didn't drink because of their religion, and I also remember reading the titles on their living room bookshelf and seeing a lot of books about Brigham Young and assuming he was my brother's friend's dad's historical blorbo essentially because my dad had multiple biographies of Abraham Lincoln and I thought it was a similar circumstance.)

About three years ago when I was living in Boston I was reading a fair bit about the Nation of Islam because a) Louis Farrakhan grew up in Roxbury where I worked and there's a main street in Roxbury named after Malcolm X, and I remember thinking that it was ironic that Farrakhan was the local but the street was named after Malcolm X and wondering if that pisses him off b) the Nation of Islam is fascinating to me in general. So I watched this Hulu documentary about the Nation of Islam and then Hulu recommended me a documentary about FLDS and I watched that too. I felt like the documentary didn't really go into enough detail about the historical context for modern Mormon fundamentalism, so I checked out the book Under the Banner of Heaven from my local library, and then I wanted to know more about early Mormon history in general, so I checked out a few more books, and then I got hooked and started ordering some of the ones the library didn't have online.

I can't entirely explain why my interest in Mormonism has stuck around, because I do tend to be very fixated on special interests and sometimes that kind of feels a little arbitrary, especially when that sort of hyperfixation intersects with and becomes genuine investment in academic scholarship (which it doesn't always for me, but here it did). I am interested in women's history in general and always have been, so I initially really found polygamy fascinating, and wanted to learn more about the dynamics of polygamous households. Specifically, the fact that early Mormons created a very controversial social order that wildly diverged from the norms of their culture, did this essentially from scratch, and were able to maintain it for roughly 3-4 generations of polygamist families despite significant external pressure and initial internal opposition is really interesting to me. I also think Mormonism is a very American religion that has also sometimes been at odds with American mainstream culture despite that and that's a very fascinating dynamic to investigate. I think I've also often been interested in attempts to create a new, utopian community or culture and the ways in which these experiments often fall short, which has been a constant in a lot of my historical interests like the American Revolution, the Soviet Union, and Mormonism as well.

[waitmyturtles]

Your post about your upcoming Bad Buddy meta got me thinking about Bad Buddy (again), and I remembered one particular thing that had an impact. Apologies if this is long and rather incoherent, I wrote this past midnight.

In the final episode, the part where we see Ming and Dissaya turn a blind eye to Pat Pran's shenanigans really struck a chord with me.

[I'm an Indian, born and raised, and queer, but it's well worth mentioning that my experiences are not universal- in fact, they may be the exception rather than the rule; I'm not quite sure.]

What it reminded me of was, that asian parents tend to come around eventually- in particular mothers. We've seen time and time again in series' that deal with difficult/not accepting family members; Bad Buddy, GAP, Wedding Plan, maybe even Double Savage (haven't watched this one but I believe the dad feels bad in the end?), that even if the parental figure(s) doesn't agree with their children's choices, they learn to compromise. Because the difference in opinions isn't worth losing their children over. Obviously, for every parental figure that comes around there's one that the children cut ties with (Wedding Plan remains a good example), but I think it's something worth seeing.

It made me think of how I was never scared of coming out to my mother, because I knew that, despite the difference in views, and her prejudice, she'd accept me, no matter whether she thought it was a phase or not.

Do I know what the point of this ask is? Not really, I was rather nervous sending this ask, especially not on anon, but I'd love to know what you think of this, since I've come to really enjoy reading the thoughts you have on these shows.

Ohhhh, wow. @starryalpacasstuff, come 'ere for a big mom hug! HUGE HUGS!

I'm gonna unwind a little randomly; I hope this is coherent. A ton of what I write about on my blog vis à vis Asian dramas are the unique characteristics of Asian families and an Asian upbringing. Parental conditional love, competitiveness, our unique experiences with intergenerational trauma. I write a lot about how Asians, in our cultural expectations of life, accept pain and suffering as an assumed part of our existences. The reason why I watch Asian dramas exclusively is that, as I'm Asian-American, I just connect far more easily to the Asian cultural experience of growing from a child into an Asian adult, than I do the experience of white Western folks growing into their adulthood. I grew up intimately with Asian cultural practices and expectations; but I also grew up with racism in my external American world, and came to my adulthood in a society that still values white Americans above all other demographics.

But one thing I'm cognizant of, that I don't think I write about enough, is that many of these characteristics of the Asian cultural scopes of life are indeed similar to those that a fully American person (for example) might experience. It's not like intergenerational trauma doesn't exist in the West. It's not like homophobia in families against a child doesn't exist in the West.

However. As an Asian-American, one thing I note about many (not all, of course) Western families and family systems is that very often: Western adults will give up their agency to be loyal to what I might call a "higher power" -- a philosophy, a political preference, a religion. If a queer person wants to come out in a conservative American family, that queer person may very well be risking cutting permanent ties with their family.

That, of course, also happens in our Asian family systems. But I think you're onto something, @starryalpacasstuff. While divorce rates are sky-high in the West -- there is also a paradigm of family systems being and looking different in the West than they do in Asia. Asian family systems still don't accommodate for divorce and blended or chosen families as they do in the West.

The Asian family systems and paradigms that you and I grew up with as Indians absolutely still value a heterosexual two-parent household -- and I'd posit that our past generations, our grandparents and great-grandparents, put HUGE, HUGE pressure on our parents to keep the two-parent family systems together and whole. And to keep the children close. It's a huge value in our Asian cultures to have whole and complete families. The West has become far more accommodating, culturally, on this issue.

And, so. I totally agree with you, @starryalpacasstuff. I think we do see the beginning of a coming-around on the parts of Ming and Dissaya. And that coming-around is certainly something we can relate to. Our parents will likely accept us for our differences. I fucked a lot of shit up with my folks when I decided to live independently of their desires -- and I don't think things really healed (and I still carry tremendous traumatic baggage) until after I had my own kids, and expanded all of our families. Because in the end, the value in our Asian cultures is that keeping the family complete and close still matters more than any one's individual biases or desires.

Ming and Dissaya are remarkably traumatized people. Ming was traumatized by the expectations of his father. He screwed Dissaya over, and literally handed his trauma to Pat on a silver platter, for Pat to embody for most of his life. And Pat flipped that platter over in his father's face and ran away. Ming, at the end of the series, is passive-aggressive with Pat, despite Pat's efforts to try to work with him. And yet -- Ming still sips Pran's scotch.

To your point -- does time heal everything? I'm not so sure in the West, with the Western predilection for Christian/Puritanical/conservative values to supersede reasonable family resolutions. But I think, because of the value that Asian systems put on having complete families, that you are right -- that there may be more room in Asian family systems for eventual acceptance of a child's "differences," despite us living in collectivist societies. This is definitely not an absolute. There are environments in which it's still dangerous to come out. But the value that Asians put on family does indeed give us a tiny bit of comfort that our cultures can move the needle on acceptance in different ways over time.

[solar-jack]

Something something about interests...

Something we've been thinking a lot about lately is how we experience interests. And how... intense they tend to be. So I wanted to write a post on it just to share the experience.

We're (self diagnosed) autism + adhd and I think that affects how we experience interest in things a lot. We hyperfixate, we have special interests. I especially feel like this affects how we interact with those interests as well. We always want to talk about things. I can't just enjoy the media as is I have to talk about it and analyze it and tell everyone everything about it. I can't just read a book and move on I want to get involved with some sort of fandom even if it's literally just a single short story from an author with way more interesting things than that random individual story.

Sometimes it's hard to keep track of my own interests purely out of how intense they can be and how many I have. It's especially hard when our hyperfixations change. For example, I love fnaf but I'm not constantly invested in it and it's sometimes overwhelming to go from making it my entire personality to not really caring about it or the other way around. It comes and goes in my mind as it pleases.

It's also really strange when I want to stay invested in something, but can't for whatever reason. Either outside factors getting in the way (like a show only being on way too late at night to watch consistently) or my own other interests getting in the way (I have tons of games I want to finish but for some reason my brain only ever wants to play borderlands). Is this normal? To struggle to maintain interests, even in the case of them being something I really really love? Like if circumstances allowed it I would probably be watching Star Trek every day but I can't do that so therefore my I suppose active investment in it dwindles despite it being something I will gladly yap about forever....

Another aspect of this is being a system (the reason I have been saying "we" here and there in this post, if that wasn't clear). Our interests as a system are mostly collective. But, we do have a few individual/separate interests. And we also have headmates who hold certain interests, especially very strong ones. It sometimes feels as if we have too many interests that are held too strongly to be contained in a singlet. As if it would be impossible for us to be invested in so many things as a single person so there needs to be more of us. Sometimes it's just little things, normal amount of variance between headmates. Like, I don't care about makeup at all, but one of us does. Other times it's that sort of overwhelming overload of a hyperfixation. Like the one guy we have who's entire existence, interests, and personality are Adult Swim, old video games, and a general 90s-early 2000s aesthetic. It's one of those things we like too strongly for it to be contained, so in a sort of backwards way it ends up being contained within him. If that makes sense.

Obviously I do know that neurotypicals and singlets can and often do in fact have a wide variety of strongly held interests. I just wanted to share how we experience them. Why? I dunno, this is tumblr, a blogging site, right? This is something to blog about? I hope someone out there can relate to this or at least find our experience interesting or perhaps even want to start a discussion on this topic.

Maybe I just need to "touch grass", as they say. Or watch more of those videos youtube keeps recommending us on how to balance having multiple hobbies.

[solitaireships]

✍️🙈💞 + 🤪 for minala plsss :)))

✍️: Overall, how does the fandom trait you? Are you a beloved character, or hated? Are you popular, or a minor side character? Anything in between?

So since Minala’s my Rook, she’s the protagonist. I think especially since people largely like Rook, she would be pretty well likes, but idk if you’ve seen it, but some people have also been insisting Rook is actually the worst ever and the real villain instead of that bald man so. It’d really depend lmao

I do think at the very least if she were made a companion instead of the PC, people would like her for her goth autistic vibes tho! She’d probably be slotted into the “brain empty goofy” thing everyone likes to slot Rooks in general into which is 100% inaccurate for her but it is what it is

🤪: What is your trait that fanon would exaggerate?

I do fear her being autistic, wasian, and anxious may get her slotted into the delicate flower uwu baby thing despite her being a grown ass woman lol

💞: Aside from with your f/o, who else would you commonly be shipped with? Why?

I think Davrin mainly just bcs they’re best friends lol. My joking bonus answer would also be Anders bcs that’s my husband, but outside of that, idk. Maybe Myrna and/or Vorgoth bcs of the Mourn Watch associations?

🙈: Why would your ship be thought of as cute/fluffy? Why would your ship be considered problematic?

For the most part, I think people would like it! Especially with the Minala and Bellara relationship, I think that people would really like it bcs of the degree of connection and similarity they have with each other, that’s then balanced out with some opposites attract kind of stuff (ex Minala being raised by humans and Bellara being Dalish, Minala being quiet while Bellara is more outgoing and energetic)

I also know people just from telling me on here would like Emmrich x Minala bcs goth x goth- they’re lowkey Gomez and Morticia Addams coded when it comes to romance. Them coparenting Manfred would be so sweet, and especially since Emmrich’s been wanting to be in love for so long and hasn’t really found that one true love. I think it’s very sweet

Then Minala and Neve. I know I don’t talk about them a ton, and that’s bcs they get together post canon so it’s hard to talk about without spoilers. If you can guess by the fact that Minala romanced Bellara in the game itself, you can probably figure out a major thing that happens with Neve that then effects the relationship. So there’s a bit of angst there but I think that makes them getting together all the sweeter bcs it means they still have this very strong mutual trust. Minala makes it easier for Neve to see the bright side of things, and I think they bring out other sides of each other

However there is the elephant in the room and why I always get a little scared even on here talking about the polyam part of Gothic Sunshine, which is the age gap between Emmrich, Minala, and Bellara. All of them are fully grown adults- Bellara is 32 and Minala is 34- but Emmrich being 56 (unconfirmed but my specific hc based on the range we got) would be what would make people hesitate around it. And I know most people don’t tend to care about Rook x Emmrich, but I think that Bellara in the relationship specifically would be what would make people say it could be problematic. Especially with Bellara calling Emmrich professor at first (which she does bcs she first started talking to him over letters about academic things and she wants to be respectful), I think people would get weird about that

And that leads me into another related thing bcs again. Bellara is a grown, 32 year old woman. She is an expert in her field. She fixed an eluvian in minutes when people have studied how to do that their whole lifetime. Yet both the fandom and to some degree the game tends to infantilize her. You have no idea how much it annoys me that they just kind of treat her like a fan for Neve and Emmrich when she’s an equal to them, and yes I do think this treatment of her is bcs she’s an Asian woman with ADHD. Her relationship with both of them does shift in the game, and Emmrich calls out the imposter syndrome she has that’s part of why she acts that way, but then the game immediately goes to characterizing her in her dynamic with Neve as being sisterly bcs god forbid an Asian woman be treated like an adult and viable romantic interest. Rant over but yeah I do think that would also make people try to say the ship since it includes all three mages is problematic

[sorblr]

(long overdue) intro post !!

putting everything underneath so that it's not much to scroll past if you just want to see my posts ♡

𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒

𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞/𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 :

sorbet, or sorb, or anything with sorb at the start or bet at the end, i have lots of nicknames i've been called but there are some memorable ones like sorberry, sorboba, sorbbg, and sorbetti spaghetti

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬 :

they/them

i consider myself genderless, except considering i'm ok with feminine terms(?) and i'm a lesbian, i might be more along the lines of demigirl

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 (𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲) :

art: #sorbeat (as in eat not beat 😭) sorbart was taken </3 so we must eat instead

random/text: #yapbet

𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄

𝐝𝐧𝐢

racists, xenophobes, transphobes, homophobes, yk the whole group of prejudiced people just get outtttt, proshippers, zoophiles, pedos, yk the dni criteria

+ people who don't tolerate others just because of their hobbies (i'm looking extra hard at the people who hate furries), like as long as someone is causing no harm to others, idgaf how 'cringe' they may be and if you do you're just a haterrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 🗣🗣🗣

𝐛𝐲𝐟 (𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐝𝐦)

- my dms are always open!! if you want to start a convo about any random thing i'll be here to listen to you yap/yap with you

- i only speak english </3 too stupid + indecisive to learn a new language just yet

- i struggle starting conversations even with people who i think are really cool, like doing so much as commenting makes me so nervous (idk why??), but if you initiate interaction w/ me i'll respond w/ enthusiasm ♡

- typically i mirror the energy of whoever i'm talking to

- although i like evil little wretch characters i draw the line at s/a and like yk. being a nonce, i want to specify it cause a lot of the time when i like a character the other fans tend to have questionable morals/questionable hcs, and i want it to be super clear i am NOT one of those people

- i'm an adult (18 i just joined the club) so if that scares you off feel free to unfollow/block/avoid!! i don't do nsfw art or anything but i'm sure there's minors here who don't want to be near adults

- similar to above, if it's not in your bio or anything and you wanna like dm/befriend me or something PLS let me know whether or not you're a minor - i don't really act too differently depending on whether you are or not, i just want to be mindful ig????

𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬

- i like tons of diff types of music, so i'll probably like whatever you'd recommend/show me, but atm i'm madly in love with dadaroma and machine girl

- I LOVE GAP MOEEE i love pink cute stuff i love horror i love cute girls i love whatever the fuck secco is etc etc i love when scary characters are cute and cute characters are scary etc.

- my posts are 99.999% jjba but i like other stuff too

- i read a lot and i also read fics but likeeeee i'm sort of picky with them so i don't read as often as i want to :,)

- i have a million ocs and 2 jojo oc ideas cooking in my brain, i do a lot of art that isn't fanart i just don't post it on tumblr (or anywhere other than discord if you count the silly doodles)

- i love junji ito

- i like when people make fanart of characters in styles that would suit them and just likeeeee unconventional weird stuff ig?? idrk

𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐦𝐬

- jjba (main one)

- mouthwashing

- jjk but only for mahito so i stopped watching towards the end of the 2nd season 😭

- creepypasta was my childhood

- death note

- lots more that i'm forgetting + will add later i cba rn

𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬

i'm likeee revamping socials atm so like. most don't have posts yet

cara: sorbette

artfol: sorbette

bluesky: sorbette.bsky.social

insta: sorbet_xz

discord: sorbet_xz (just lmk you're from tumblr if you friend me)

[asteria7fics]

How did you come up with the idea to make TSOB?

You know, I’m surprised to say that I don’t think I’ve answered this question on Tumblr before!

The short version that I tend to tell people is this: I was bored at work one night, working the closing shift, and I had an epiphany. I thought to myself, “Isn’t it weird that I take so much comfort in terrible characters? Like Agamemnon, and Cartman-… wait a damn minute!”

Seriously, it occurred to me that Agamemnon and Cartman actually had quite a few similarities, and then I realized that Kyle would make an excellent Achilles, and the rest was kind of history.

The long version? Well, how much time have you got?

I can’t really pinpoint the moment when I got really into Greek Mythology, and Classical/Ancient Greece in general, but it’s been an interest of mine for several years now.

I spent hours just exploring Greece in Assasin’s Creed Odyssey (as well as taking detailed notes in the historical tour mode), watched so many YouTube videos, read a great many books, etc.

Reading was actually where my love for the Trojan War in particular began. Idk man, there’s just something about those characters, and that conflict, that I adore.

I could give you a list of contemporary novels I’ve read and really enjoyed, but you didn’t come here for book recommendations ahaha so I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say it was the only thing I read about for like a year.

Fast forward through a really intense k-pop obsession (it’s still a majority of the music I listen to. I’m listening to Ateez as we speak) and I’m in the throes of a new interest. Fucking South Park.

I really did just, get the idea one day. I was around season 15 of my first time watching the show (though I had a ton of stuff spoiled already, hence why I made Heidi and Cartman exes), and I had just started reading fanfiction. I had no intention of actually writing the damn thing, but the more I spitballed ideas with a few select coworkers, the more I realized the thing needed to be written.

Who else but my crazy ass would write this thing, really?

I suppose I should also add another, small piece of inspiration. Right before getting into South Park I actually decided to be surgically sterilized. I won’t go into detail as to why I made that choice, but the idea crossed my mind while developing the story to have a side plot where the adults are losing their minds over all their condoms going missing (because, yah know, they were needed for warfare!) and the whole town gets caught up in this big debate over if the man or the woman has the responsibility to be sterilized, should a cis & straight couple choose to be done having children.

Obviously this would have been a Randy and Sharon heavy debate, and I’m glad I didn’t include it as a proper plot point. In my mind though it does still occur, the kids are just totally oblivious to it. Likewise, the adults are totally oblivious to how ridiculous their kids play war is getting, until of course there are real consequences to the whole thing.

There’s one bit that alludes to it, when Annie has gone to the little girl’s house to discuss getting her Switch back and the girl’s parents are arguing about something they ‘don’t understand’. A fun remnant of a plot point that didn’t quite make it in!

Anyway, I’ve already broken down the story beats and how they correlate with the original text in this post, though if you were wondering where Cartman and Heidi canonically get their inspiration, I like to imagine they binged this show while they were together. It’s actually a pretty entertaining retelling, I would definitely recommend it to a casual enjoyer of Greek Myths!

Wow, that was a lot! If you actually read all of that, thank you!

And thank you for this ask, friend! (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)♡

[dogstarblues]

20 Questions

got tagged by @artemis-devotee. seemed like fun! ty botan!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

i have 11 works and i can tell you four of those are poetry.

2. What’s your total AO3 words count?

17,831

3. What fandoms do you write for?

on ao3? used to write for the ch**tiverse, still write for Victoria Goddard's Nine Worlds. well, okay im on hiatus from participating in fan stuff bc i got too much going on and i have complicated feelings abt fandom. but. on ffnet? naruto, inuyasha, bleach, fairy tail, danny phantom. i think.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

we have time (love this one - much needed natural hair content in that fandom, much needed)

you can't even see how much you're mine (i'm really proud of this one)

before we have time

just for now

gazing at the sun

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i respond to everyone's comments if i can remember LOL

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

you can't even see how much you're mine. really exorcised my polyamory baggage with that one LMAO

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

mmmmm none of them end poorly but they end heavily, if that makes sense? but also they don't. like most of my fanfiction as an adult in my 30s is discussion of wants and needs in a relationship and hashing out things that need to be talked abt

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i have on ffnet when i was a teen and giving every naruto character in my biopunk fanfic like 4 codenames SDKVDFLVMS

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

yuh. "just for now" is smut (old man yaoi). and there's another i think. i wanted to really confront my sex repulsion and explore my own boundaries around what i write.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

naur i never understood crossovers v well. i love an AU tho

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

probably not. on ffnet it was SO goth edgelord and now it's extremely poetic prose. (and when i say POETIC prose i mean it tend to be concise and abstract, not that its purple) who wants that LOL

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

naur

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

yes! my first fanfiction was with my childhood friend Sunshine and we posted a double-self-insert absolute MANIC fanfic set in the world of Inuyasha posted to ffnet. one of my fondest memories. i dictated, she wrote.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

i don't have one these days but i shant say what it used to be only that it made me insane from the time i was 14 to the age of 25.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

i had an old man yaoi urban fantasy au wherein a character who used to be the chosen one had been imprisoned and was surviving the trauma of that as a music teacher and i read a ton of prison literature for it and watched documentaries and watched interviews and spent WEEKS researching trauma from incarceration and what it means to be incarcerated (part of this was because my birth father was about to be incarcerated and i was trying to write through my understanding of what he'd be going through) and researching what town councils do. and then a (now former) friend had torn apart the fic paragraph by paragraph during beta and wrote how boring parts were and no one wanted to hear abt me talking abt poetry in the fanfic and it was my FIRST fanfic since i was in my early twenties and i basically deleted the whole thing out of embarrassment and hurt. iykyk who it was. idk if i can ever go back to that. i just don't. i want to but. even strangers in workshops aren't that cruel LOL

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'm a pretty/poetic writer good at relationship shit i think. i'm good at grounding the reader in a sense of place and my writing is very tactile. it's embodied.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i am a pretty/poetic writer

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i know some spanish and a little french and even less russian (i'm like learning that one through osmosis) but it's not v applicable. hmmmm i wouldn't try unless i was fluent.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

inuyasha

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

either the naruto biopunk fanfiction on ffnet (i turned that one into a fanfic from a biopunk short story i had written in high school it's v close to my heart even if edgy) or "you can't even see how much you're mine" bc i put a lot into that or "we have time" because your partner doing your natural hair IS a love language.

if yall wanna hop in i'm tagging @toopunkrockforshul @cadencekismet @markeyverse

[mercerislandbooks]

50 Years of Island Books: The Staff

This 50 Years of Island Books series is about to reach the grand finale, because November is only a few weeks away and it's almost time to pop the champagne. Since April, I've talked to booksellers and owners from years past, sales reps, and many beloved local authors to paint a picture of what Island Books has meant to the community and how it evolved into the place it is today.

Now, I'm turning my attention to the people who show up hour to hour, in the here and now, to make the store the living, breathing wonderland that it is and will be in 2023 and beyond. On a rainy Monday when the store was closed for cleaning, I pulled them aside for some heart-to-hearts.

So many times we come in and say a quick hi to these friendly booksellers, the face of a familiar place we know and love, but it's rare we think about who they are as people and what they think about as they work. I've known many of them for years and have watched the staff evolve. From my little perch, I can honestly say that they put so much love into what they do, and that our island community wouldn't be the same without them.

Side note: since I already cornered the longest tenured Island Books employee for a separate blog, Cindy only makes a tiny (and fun) appearance via Caitlin in this post. If you want to learn more about Cindy, click here.

To our Island Books booksellers—we love and appreciate all of you. Truly. Now let's get into it.

Miriam: I'm so happy to have a chance to talk to each of you. Let's start with, which book category excites you the most, and why?

Brad: Any day I can turn someone onto the Russians, like Checkhov, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky, or someone less read, like Pushkin, is a great day. Jorge Luis Borges is a favorite for customers looking for a literary blend of fantasy and science fiction literary. He's Argentinian, and his voice differs from many other classic authors. There are so many large and small presses putting out reprints.

Becca: I'm largely a sci-fi, fantasy, and romance person. I’m not averse to other categories, but the books that I drop everything to read tend to be one of those genres (or fairy-tale retellings). I also love curling up with a good Middle Grade or Young Adult fiction.

Lori Robinson: The genre I get the most energy around right now is romance. I read widely, but I have my favorite places I like to land, although every once in a while something different catches my eye.

Caitlin: I love to sell the books I like to read: short story collections, literary fiction, translated fiction, poetry, some memoirs, and art and ballet history. When I first started at Island Books, a lot of people said, “Oh, short stories don’t sell here.” But I'm happy to say that isn't the case anymore.

Nancy: I like to read literary fiction and good narrative nonfiction, generally science and history.

Lillian: I think people would assume that I read a ton of kids books, but I’m around them so much and read them for work—at least 600 picture books a year (!), so for my own pleasure, I read mostly mystery, romance, and fantasy. 

Miriam: As a group, you have a wide variety of tastes, which is great for customers. Now, tell me about your proudest accomplishments at Island Books.

Brad: I love to draw signs. I’m a part-time illustrator with a cartoony style, maybe because I’m a big graphic novel fan.

Becca: It’s fun to have become a person that customers ask for book recommendations. -- I still feel fairly new (2 years under my belt now), but to have become an integral part of something I love so much is awesome.

Lori Robinson: Mine would be the year we sold over 200 copies of Amy Snow by Tracey Rees in six months because I kept hand selling it. It was the first time I realized the impact a bookseller could have on the success of a book that wasn’t getting all the media attention.

Caitlin: Mine would be proving that our customers do like short stories.

Nancy: I'm proud of the many stories over the years that I could bring home to my family, and tell them how we found the perfect book for a customer’s dying mother or a kid having an issue, things like that. And the funny ones—we used to have a customer who loved to give a certain book to his lady friends. Whenever we saw that title on order, everyone knew he had a successful date! I think he single-handedly kept that book in print. I sure didn’t have those kind of stories when I worked as a web designer.

Miriam: There's no job quite like bookselling, is there? Those are great answers. Can you give an example of when you felt a deep connection with a customer or the community?

Becca: When a kid comes in and says they like fairy tales and you realize that kid is exactly who you were as a small child. Then you give them a pile of books and they buy all of them and you’re like, yes, I’ve found mini-me! Or having someone call back or come in the next time and say, "What you gave me for my grandkid was exactly what I needed and they loved it".

Lori Robinson: I have a certain customer who I remember coming to our door during the pandemic and saying, “Just pick two books out for me, I’ll read anything you want." That trust is challenging. When I don’t know someone, I really want to take care of it and give people good choices. Anytime someone buys a book that I write a blog about, that warms my little heart. And I love when someone comes in and I think, I would never guess you’d read this book, and then they say, “I love this book!” I just love that we all get to like what we like.

Caitlin: One of our customers who loves short stories—having that customer come to me for recommendations is really nice, and an honor because she’s also a big reader, a school librarian, and a mother. I love sharing a common love of certain books with individual customers.

Nancy: Here's my quirky fact - This will be the second 50th anniversary of a bookstore I’ve attended this year. The other one I went to recently was for Red and Black Books, where I used to work with former Island Books bookseller Kay Wilson. I saw her there. Talk about long-time connections.

Lillian: I actually have a really clear one. Earlier this year, a mom came in and said that her queer child felt welcomed and happy to be at the store, and she was so thankful that her child had thought to mention how welcome they felt. I almost started to cry on the spot and it makes me tear up thinking about it. 

Miriam: That's amazing. It's nice to know that your experiences in the store are just as meaningful to you as they are to the customers. I love hearing this good stuff, and I’m also interested in hearing about a challenge you overcame.

Brad: At first I would have said, wrapping, and it’s something I didn’t expect. I had no idea! People on Mercer Island really know how to give gifts. Drawing quickly is also a challenge.

Caitlin: I wish more people would give books I like a try. People will come in and want to read whatever is the bestselling book. What I say is, “What are you in the mood to read?” and then go from there, because not everyone needs to read bestsellers or classics. They’re not in school. Read what you want.

Nancy: There are a lot of books! We like a lot of books, but more and more books come out and we don’t have the space to shelve everything. We can order it, but we can’t stock everything. So every quarter, it’s a huge challenge to say, these are the books we’re going to commit to. 

Lillian: The honest challenge is to stay interested after reading so many books over so many years. What I realize after I go through another season is that the books are different, that’s the great thing about books. Sometimes customers want the same thing over and over, and those things become classics and that’s fine, but for the majority of customers and definitely for me, I have to see what’s different, otherwise, it can get repetitive.

Miriam: Great answers that speak to so many years on the job. Here's another question. How would your colleagues describe you?

Brad: Friendly and kind, I would hope. A good listener.

Becca: Enthusiastic and willing. Laurie says I’m sassy. I'm also the youngest and got sucked into the social media part of things pretty quick, so I get a lot of the, hey, younger generation, technology, things.

Lori Robinson: I know that I’m pretty calm and unflappable when it comes to dealing with whatever you’ve got to deal with.

Caitlin: Oh, ha, here’s a note from Cindy about this question. She said I’m literary and quirky, and a name-dropper. And I was like, “Yeah…I think that’s pretty accurate.”

Nancy: Brilliant, friendly, kind to everyone, no-nonsense. You know. All the good stuff.

Lillian: I’m definitely the squeaky wheel. I guess what they’d say is that I get things done. That’s the thing. I get things done.

Miriam: These answers cracked me up (including the ones that aren't making it to print!). OK, let's do a fantasy question now. What would you do with it if someone gave you one million dollars to improve the book business and/or promote literacy?

Brad: Open more dream bookstores and do them the way I always wanted.

Becca: The industry is already diversifying the characters and cultures in books, and I’d find ways to support that. Everyone deserves to see themselves in what they read.

Lori Robinson: I’d love to do something to fight book bans. Working at the bookstore has opened my eyes to what banning books does, and I appreciate that it’s changed my view on experiencing things rather than being afraid of them.

Caitlin: I’d start with free nationwide healthcare for people earning under a certain amount of money. I grew up in a household filled with books, and I think it’s important for kids to grow up with their own books, and that takes parents earning a living wage. 

Nancy: This is because I’m such a nuts-and-bolts person, but I’d get rid of dust jackets and have everything be paper on board so that we have less damages to deal with. Saves money and they’re annoying.

Lillian: I’d reverse this trend of prices going up because that would make independent bookstores more accessible to people who shop online because it’s cheaper. There are people who can’t afford to shop in independent bookstores, and if you remove that barrier, it would just open up that handpicked-for-you element that can be so special for kids, and adults too.

Miriam: Ah, if only booksellers ran the world. How about this. If I were to work with you in the store for a month, what would I learn about bookstore life that I can’t possibly gather from a brief interview?

Becca: A lot of people don’t know that we get new releases every single Tuesday, or that we get books sent to us a week before they come out so we have them on the actual release day. So many books, all the time.

Caitlin: Customers are pretty savvy. Obviously, there’s that old idea that booksellers and librarians are just sitting around reading all day, but it’s not true, there’s a lot of work. It’s physical work, you’re constantly bending and putting things away.

Nancy: Well I’m sure everyone says, we do not have time to read while we’re working. They also might not know just how much we really know our customers. Sometimes when we’re going through a catalog, we’ll say, “Oh, I know who will like that book.” And we get that book for that particular person in our community. The two big trends in the past years are the normalization of queerness in fiction and nonfiction, so we really have a tiny LGBTQ section, because, there aren’t really any queer novels anymore—they’re mainstream. I love that. The other thing is Tiktok. It’s been crazy for us getting younger women and girls in the store. And we wish Tiktok could work that way for boys too. We now see these backlist authors getting a second wind because of Tiktok and that’s so interesting as a trend. The third thing that everyone is talking about is AI. One of the things that we have on our radar and it’s been coming up in the book world is fake books. We’re seeing them more and more in the travel and cookbook categories. Our job as curators is more important than ever. We’re working with reputable publishers, we’re looking at every book that comes in the store, we’re recommending books. I think with AI, people are becoming even more important. 

Lillian: How much time we spend just putting books away and tidying up and keeping things alphabetized. I can’t tell you how much we hum the alphabet to keep bookshelves in order. And working with me in particular, I’d say that I come across much more serious than I really am. 

Miriam: You all have to be so organized. Let's move on to my final question. What does being part of a small business within a community mean, and how do you play a role in it?

Brad: One of the best things about working at Island Books is how the community supports the store. And it’s not just about books. We’re a hub. About six months after I started, a woman came in and said her car wouldn’t start. Does anyone know how to jump a car? And I said, I can help. She didn’t know me, but she knew I worked at Island Books, so she knew we'd pitch in.

Becca: People are so committed to the small-town vibe here, everyone knowing each other. It’s so cool to see my colleagues interact with all these customers and they know their names and who they are. I also admire the way we work with other small businesses in the community. Everyone is invested in each other.

Lori Robinson: It’s funny for me, because I went to middle school and high school here, and I worked on the south end for longer than I care to admit, but all of that built a lot of relationships for me, the kind where you see people every day. It’s strange to have people to come in who have kids who were four when I met them and are now graduating from college and starting their careers. When I think about being part of a bookstore, I hope that there are some kids and regular customers who have felt like we’ve offered them a safe place and that I’ve personally been a safe person to talk to who they know won’t judge them or what they like to read. It means a lot to people when we remember them. I hope we offer a warm moment and a good experience.

Caitlin: With the exception of Laurie (and Becca, who is moving off-island), none of the staff lives on the island. So I guess we feel we’re representatives of the store and the community and it’s our responsibility to make people feel welcome.

Nancy: I feel like I have really grown with Mercer Island. I don’t live here, but I feel like I’ve really gotten to know this community. I worked for Roger for six years and I’ve worked for Laurie for almost seven, and we see kids grow up, we see people age, we have a lot of customers who have died over the years, and you’re kind of going through life cycles with people. We’ve seen the build up of Mercer Island, the businesses who are all working together now—it didn’t used to be like that. The community feels more like they appreciate their community too. I think our customers really stepped up during Covid and realized, we love this place, and we need it. They’ve been great.

Lillian: As the kids’ specialist, it’s different, because I spend a lot of time chatting with the community kids. I get to watch them grow up. There are people that come in who are going to high school that eight years ago I was recommending chapter books to. So, to have a hand in helping kids become life-long readers, and enhancing how important it is, is great. I always say I’m lucky to not be the teacher or parent because I don’t have to worry about the academics. I worry about, how can I make this kid love books so much that they will be a reader for the rest of their life?

Miriam: Right? That makes so much sense. Thanks, everyone. What a cool crowd. I adore all of you and am so glad you're in my life, and everyone else's!

Next week, for my final installment of 50 Years of Island Books, I'll be talking with the owner, Laurie Raisys, and it'll be a good one. See you soon.

—Miriam

[subjectivecuriosities]

Gremlins 1984

★★★★★

04 Jan 2025

TrashVHS’s review published on Letterboxd:

This review may contain spoilers.

As a kid I was not that aware of most specific directors and in the same way I thought Tim Burton directed The Nightmare Before Christmas I thought Steven Spielberg directed Gremlins. While it is obvious as an adult had I known it was actually Joe Dante who also directed my beloved Small Soldiers (1998) it would have blown my 7 year old mind. Sensibility wise I am more of a Gremlins 2 kinda person but this original film is such a stone cold classic. I have no idea what cultural significance this film has if any for post-milennial generations but this was pretty much the largest entry point into children’s horror, horror comedy, and Christmas horror when I was growing up. I watched Gremlins often as a kid and I can not believe how long it has been since I revisited this masterpiece. 

Similarly to the way Dante directed Piranha in the wake of Jaws, Gremlins managed to inspire an entire subgenre of films that managed to pump out a ton of mischievous miniature monster movies over the next decade and kept alive to this day by Charles Band and dabbled in recently by Steven Kostanski with his love letter to little monster films Frankie Freako.

Unfortunately this film also promoted other imitators of the mystical Asian shopkeeper trope in genre films. My intuition tells me it is likely this trope (including other non-Western cultural stereotypes beyond Asians where a strange foreigner bestows an item or information onto a Westerner) predates the medium of film itself. I actually love both the character of the Grandfather shopkeeper (particularly since he comes back to bookend the film and chastise Norman Rockwell idealized white capitalism) and the performance of that character by Keye Luke but it is fucked up that this stands out as a larger Asian role for Hollywood at the time and would be imitated after along with many other stereotyped fill in the blank roles where you suddenly hear gongs in the background of the scene (which I would guess also predates Gremlins). But hey at least Dick Miller's (We celebrate every Dick Miller appearance in this house and Joe Dante is responsible for a lot of them) xenophobic character gets his (though maybe not enough since he returns for the sequel) along with the police, military, the bank, and other authoritarians who make life in this John Hughs/Chris Columbus/Amblin/Its a Wonderful Life town possible. Even wannabe animal murderer Ruby Deagle gets cartoonishly flung out a second story window via stairlift in a very satisfying scene.

The film has such a fun escalation as we go from a lighthearted Christmas picture, to a cute amblin creature, then straight to not just 1 creature transforming as most films would do but straight to Gremlin'S' plural where we have an entire invasion of the body snatcher takeover. We get to have our cake and eat it too. Not only with having the cute and the scary side simultaneously (Would have worked with the original idea of turning Gizmo into Stripe but I think Spielberg had a great call with keeping Gizmo the whole film through) but also the way the film embraces restraint by slowly revealing the hatched gremlins while embracing excess because once they are revealed it is nonstop chaos and the number of Gremlins just keeps growing and growing. I tend more toward the excess side of preferences in film but it is fun to have both in one movie and no doubt part of the secret sauce that made this film so popular across the board. Like Beetlejuice this is one of those rare weirdo pop culture things that for whatever reason the normies embraced and I can talk to just about anyone over a certain age about knowing they have probably seen it or are at least familiar with it. 

Joe Dante is someone who beyond being a filmmaker is a lover of film and is unapologetic about the films and tropes they have a warm affection for and often holds no punches toward the films they do not and that aspect of his personality shines through in the way this film balances the sentimental and zany with the more cynical and uncompromising elements both of which are held together by anarchistic joy and humor. Dante never seems to care if something is conventional, corny, cool, popular, or motivated solely by profit only concerned with if it brings him joy and his films are better for it. Truly one of the great American filmmakers and I do not hear that expressed often enough. 

Another great thing about Dante’s films, including Gremlins, is casting. Not gonna go through everyone in the film (Not a bad performance in the film) but a few interesting highlights. Phoebe Cates (and the honorable Judge Reinhold!) back from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, gives a super sweet performance. The way she delivers the dead Santa dad is simultaneously so sad and so fucking funny. Glad the horror genre comes through once again and gives Cates’ character Kate a chance to be a badass fighting gremlins. Same goes for Frances Lee McCain as Lynn Peltzer (Billy’s Mom) a housewife who I think gets more on screen kills in this film than any other individual character. You do not have to check your calendar you know it is the 1980s because Corey Feldman is here (and in every other film). I did not even recognize Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul) in this as a shithead cop. There are some wild cameos in this as well; there is Steven Spielberg zooming by, composer Jerry Goldsmith (Love the Gremlins theme also idk who recorded it but I loved hearing slowed down sinister Silent Night), Chuck Jones (fucking seriously THE Chuck Jones?!) as well as a bunch of other voice actors with heavy hitter character credits who lend their voices to the film, Michael Winslow the sound effects king, Frank Welker who did the voice of every great animal and a million other things, and if that is not enough Robbie The Robot from Forbidden Planet is making collect calls. Also until recent years I had no idea Howie Mandel was the voice of Gizmo. Don’t sleep on Howie Mandel by the way he is not just the bald OCD germaphobe (The triggering incident is absolutely terrifying btw) guy on deal or no deal his stand up specials are great and he played Maurice in Little Monsters. 

But anyone who frequents my reviews know why I would be drawn to a film like this and what I actually care about and that is watching funny little monsters run around and commit crimes and hang out. At some point this film becomes a live action cartoon and I mean that in the best way possible. I would have been fine if the film was just 106 minutes of the Gremlins terrorizing the town in mass but as the film stands we get one hell of a satisfying third act crescendo with plenty of Gizmo cuteness to carry us through the first half of the film. Not to mention all the goofy inventions from Billy’s Dad.

There is an abundance of entertaining practical creature visuals (Nearly all of which still look perfect) including:

Gizmo singing, getting hung up on a dart board, saving the day in a Pink Convertible toy, and just being all around adorable. It is wild how blatantly Furby ripped off Gremlins which is why I am a fan of both. 

Mogwai puking, playing trumpet, playing Donkey Kong handheld, stringing poor Barney (played by Mushroom the dog) up with Christmas lights in the freezing cold, and a grotesque scene that felt like I was watching Tim & Eric where the Mogwai feast on leftover chicken presented in beautiful misophonia triggering surround sound audio cringe. 

The real fun begins after the gremlins hatch from their pods. These gremlins play a record, pull the fire alarm, camouflage themselves with then jump out of the Christmas tree, eat glass, steal a tractor and drive it through a house, attack a mail drop off from inside the blue box, sabotage stop lights to cause car wrecks, go Christmas caroling, attack Santa, flip over a cop car, attempt to kill the DJ live on air. Then it is over to the old dive bar to smoke, drink, play poker, more arcade game playing, a trenchcoat flasher, wielding pistols, playing jazz, hand puppets, bonk on the head with a mallet, Flash Dance parody, sticking finger in the a broken lightbulb socket, ski mask, then it is back into the streets to riot some more. At some point in a deleted scene they kill Billy’s boss at the bank. Then we move it on over to the movie theater (same one from Back To The Future) for a showing of Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. Most new films released in our current era feel to me like they are doing the bare minimum but this theater feels like they went above and beyond (even if some of the puppets dont move lol) because they fill this theater to capacity with gremlins. They are eating popcorn in their theater seats and bouncing around the projection booth having the time of their lives watching the movie within the movie until there is a malfunction and they see Billy & Kates shadows behind the screen and shred it to pieces. But they get out and their DIY gas bomb goes off killing all the gremlins inside. 

Then they realize Stripes (It really is amazing how perfectly this film both parodies capitalism and is built for it tell me that is not an action figure name/design) the leader who previously jumped in a pool at the YMCA spawning all of these possessed offspring escaped the theater fireball because they were across the street looting the department store for candy. If the theater was not enough we get one more dose of mayhem as Stripes skateboards, puts himself on TV, hides behind an ET plushie, and squares off with Billy using a crossbow, handgun, and even a chainsaw! Stripes is exposed to sunlight and their flesh rots off, then they turn into a skeleton, then their skeleton melts into a sludge and disappears.

I know they say Stripes is the leader potentially implying that if you kill them all the others die but on the radio the DJ says the military is gonna turn the hoses on them so if that kill the leader thing is not true and there were any gremlins away from the theater to spray then the war against this invasive species only just begun. 

Green blood (a staple of PG13 films which Gremlins is a grandfather of) does not work for every film but it works great in this film. Most of the Gremlins die in the theater explosion or off screen but there are a few fun Gremlin kills including; a couple of stabbings, Gremlin in a microwave, food processor (where we get to see the green blood), flung into a fireplace via sword, and head trauma via car hood. 

Have I mentioned this film fucking rules? I love that when the water spills on Gizmo the first time the camera angle goes from normal immediately to a dutch angle. I love the complete lack of an attempt to address the logic behind all the gremlins having themed outfits and tiny weapons. Love how each act is basically set by another film playing on a TV screen; It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956), and To Please a Lady (1960). Love that a character does shifty eyes and in another scene there is the cartoon head trauma dizzy sound effect. Love all the playful references to Spielberg including the gremlins saying ‘milk duds’ in what has to be a reeses pieces ET joke right? Featuring a Gremlin model car and the joke with the Time Machine at the inventors convention is just next level insanity. Cool matte painting near the end of the film. 

Next time I wont wait so long before a rewatch. 

Five stars out of five.

[bluedogxl]

@alexcaninnit making a new post to not clog the art one but magical girl anime recs!!!

ok so first off i'm going to recommend Pretty Cure. basically The magical girl anime of today's era. it's 21 seasons at the moment but don't let that scare you; they're (mostly) all separate continuities. basically you can start with pretty much any season that catches your eye but my personal favorites are Kira Kira Precure A La Mode, Futari wa Precure/Futari wa Precure Max Heart (the first two seasons), and Mahotsukai Precure (AKA Maho Girls Precure or Witchy Precure) but they're all mostly good.

basically the appeal of precure is that the monster battles tend to be a lot more punchy-kicky deals than something like sailor moon (we'll get to that.) and there's a ton of really awesome fight scenes in pretty much every season. (the current season Wonderful Precure is an exception but it's in line with the themes of that show and it still has plenty of action so it's chill.) i will warn that not every single episode is Peak Fiction, this is a weekly show made for children to watch every sunday morning alongside sentai and kamen rider so some episodes will just not have the budget for cool fight scenes or be inextricably Made For Children. BUT it's still really enjoyable for anyone, i just want to warn you up front. the exception to all this is Otona Precure '23 (or Power of Hope Precure Full Bloom), which is an adult far-future sequel spinoff to the first five seasons (mostly the latter three of those). i'll be honest i don't really recommend it unless it's for completion's sake, it's got some cool ideas but is just... not great.

the version of this rant i have locked and loaded in my head says that you can find like a fourth of the seasons on crunchyroll but it's actually getting better! it's up to like. a little over half of them now??? including every season i've mentioned by name earlier. which is kinda wild to me.

i was writing the sailor moon part and i forgot to talk about glitter force. basically it's a dub of smile precure and doki doki precure. which would be cool and good if they didn't 4kids the hell out of it. like come on it ended in fucking 2017 why are we 4kidsing it. don't watch it unless you watch smile or doki doki and go 'man i wonder what they did here.' also it's leaving netflix in november so you'll just have to pirate it after that but you have to pirate smile and doki doki anyways so just watch the originals instead. (it might be listed under the name glitter force if your site uses the english names for everything, context be damned, but yeah.)

ok so shows that aren't precure. admittedly i'm not as well-versed as i'd like to be (because i was busy watching all 21 seasons of precure) but i do have some thoughts. these other shows tend to be for a more mature audience (not to say they're like 18+ only or whatever just that they're not made for literal toddlers like precure is)

let's talk about sailor moon. obviously everyone knows sailor moon. you literally used her pose for your art. sailor moon is like The magical girl series. i know i called precure that but come on it's fucking sailor moon. hell I started with sailor moon as my first magical girl anime. but enough about that.

i watched the remake (sailor moon crystal) and it's okay. definitely gets way better from the third season on though. i don't think those first couple seasons are really optional though, and there's still good bits, but it just gets better s3 on. i don't really have too much to say about it otherwise because i mean. it's sure there. you can watch it and it's sailor moon. it's not like they're making spinoffs with like sailor wolftopia (that one exoplanet from that one post) or whatever. i guess there's the difference between the 90's anime and crystal but that's a personal preference thing. crystal cuts the filler of the 90's anime because it's literally based on the manga in its entirety and didn't have to wait for the manga to catch up before advancing the plot like the 90's anime did. but if you're a fan of that kinda thing you can probably find it somewhere idk. crystal's super accessible though since it's just on netflix. not even a horrible mangled dub version like glitter force it's just Sailor Moon. you can even just watch it with subs instead of the dub if you want and netflix will just let you do that. what a wonderful world we live in.

tokyo mew mew time. so like sailor moon i just watched the remake tokyo mew mew new but honestly it's peak. it's incredible you should definitely watch this at some point. i'm assuming the og anime is in the same position with this as 90's sailor moon but honestly i don't know jack shit about it. i'd just watch TMMN if i were you it's probably fine. tmm is cool because instead of getting their powers from fairy mascots falling from the heavens or whatever they get them with the power of SCIENCE and shit and it rocks. also tmmn really leans into the environmental messages and honestly it's really well done. otonapre should have taken notes. but again i don't really have as much to say about it as i do precure because it's just. you watch it and it's tokyo mew mew. i guess that's one of the reasons why toei makes precure seasons every year huh

ok brief shout out to acro trip here. it's still airing (i need to go watch episode 4 come to think of it...) and so far it's pretty good. i dunno if i'd recommend it as a first mg anime but it's probably not indecipherable. it's a comedy where a girl sees a magical girl fight and falls in love with the magical girl, but after sticking around town realizes that the villain she's fighting kind of sucks ass at being a villain which kinda sucks for her because she can't see good magical girl fights if the villain is so pathetic right? and through some wacky hijinks she tells that to the villain and he's like 'you should help me with my plans then' and hilarity ensues from there. everyone has like 1 brain cell total throughout the whole cast it's great. it's not a typical magical girl formula though which idk i think that's kinda the appeal of Getting Into Magical Girl Anime yknow? but i mean acro trip's good so you should totally watch it at some point, and if that point happens to be 'immediately' i will not be complaining

so uh yeah. magical girls :thumbsup:

[mariad2929]

Blog Post #1

This week in class, we delved deeper into Black Horror and watched some interesting films, such as 'Son of Ingagi,' 'Wake,' and my personal favorite, 'Get Out' by Jordan Peele. When I first entered this course, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I just knew that it was based on the movie 'Get Out,' which I recently saw for the first time last year after my boyfriend at the time was raving about it (he is a huge fan of Jordan Peele). After our first lecture, I knew that this class was going to be very engaging, and it is going to teach me a ton about Black horror films and their significance. During our first week of class, I remember Professor Due mentioning that black horror films can be healing for people who have experienced trauma. This made me see the category of “horror” in a whole new light. I remember sharing this insight with my friend, and she was also intrigued by the reasoning behind it. Personally, I tend to avoid films that remind me of traumatic experiences in my life because the thought of being reminded by it can be really triggering for me. However, when Professor Due talked about how her mother found such films healing and how they were able to validate her emotions without recreating the original trigger, it helped me understand the therapeutic potential of films. I recently re-watched “Get Out”, and I was glued to the screen; it felt like I was watching it for the first time all over again. While I had heard of Jordan Peele through his show “Key and Peele,” I had never seen any of his work until I watched “Get Out”. As someone who easily gets bored, it's usually hard for me to sit down and pay attention to a film for a long period of time. However, this film did the complete opposite for me; it was phenomenal. “Get Out” shed light on how white supremacy plays out, specifically through the appropriation of black people. As a person of color, I have had my fair share of racist encounters, especially with white people. In my younger years, it was more upfront, with people calling me a “terrorist” or a “hairy monkey”. Now as a young adult, I notice it more through microaggressions. The film portrays numerous microaggressions against the character Chris, and it couldn't help but remind me of my own experiences. One significant instance I remember is when I was working as a cashier at Target, and an older white lady told me that I speak really good English. As someone who was born and raised in Southern California and is fluent in English, I found that “compliment” extremely odd. I honestly did not know how to respond to her and just thanked her. While there are plenty of other moments I could name, this one really left me questioning myself for a moment. To end this post on a positive note, I'm excited to watch another Jordan Peele movie called “Us,” which I have never seen before. I can not wait to learn more about the topic of Black Horror, and how it helps process trauma for others.

[notenderlaith]

Now I know I spent the last post with a heavy emphasis on race, and I did that because its frankly the easiest way to get some people to care. I'm not going to touch on it anymore and if anyone of color from the south would like to chime in, feel free.

Lets talk queerphobia and religion. The south is a shit ton more religious. Yeah. That's not something I will deny because my goal here is to get a clear picture for anyone insane enough to actually read this gigantic wall of text. Now I will mention: Drag is southern. A lot of gay shit is southern, backwoods, hillbilly, country bumpkin and the whole shebang. Just because it was integrated into pop culture doesn't mean it didn't start in TX and TN. That goes for all the LGBTQ. In practice, the people there are pretty chill and the adults tend to be fairly supportive or at least indifferent. There's just the loud assholes, but once again, that's not uniquely southern.

Now lets bring up the accents. So there's a lot of forms of a Texan, southern, or western accent but they have a lot in common: people think they sound stupid. There's always the exception or two but for the most part southern accents are associated with being and idiot. And that is, you guess it! Racist and ableist! (wow, twitter would tear me to shreds over this). How? Well the reason the southern accent sounds like that is the mixing of accents that came from first generation slaves, and the fact that due to a lack of access to basic necessities, we tend to not have teeth. This is less true in current times but in the past that was a different story. Also, many southern accents have aspects of AAVE. And I won't get into that but I'll just let that sit with you.

Now lets get into the spicy topic of representation in media. So generally the only time southerners are brought up in pop media is as a gag, an idiot, the villain, or some butt of the joke. Not to mention there's almost never any representation of any kind of southerner other than the white cis able-bodied straight person. Which is just not all that common in the actual south. Country music is seemly hated by everyone but played in stores all over the country. And the only positive media we get is the occasional western yaoi which I'm in full support of but it feels shallow to have your people labeled as bigots and then watch those same people who continue to misunderstand your existence, watch a lovey dovey movie about people who are meant to represent you. On another note, representing southerners is yet another thing that ATLA got right. Moving on.

Liberation and Rights. So one thing that really ticks me off about the north is how terrified they get when a law is proposed for a blue state, but they give a sideways glance to laws being passed in red states. Like, sure the people of those states should do more to liberate themselves but... oh... oh yeah, that's kinda how oppression works. And plenty of people are out fighting the good fight and the stigma around being and looking southern isn't helping. I know that the country is big, and so much can be done, but if the right can vote across state lines, so can the left. Just because residents of blue states are comfortable having their rights, they simply disregard the 1/3rd of queer adults living in the south. Not to mention the children. They don't care that drag is a sex crime. Or that its illegal for teachers to call you your chosen name and pronouns. Trans lives don't matter in the south. No one cares about them. That's why trans folks are fleeing to obscenely expensive cities in blue states to be piss poor and homeless. Because sleeping on the bitter cold concrete is better than the persecution in their home state. And the fact that all the blue state leftists are fine with that is fucking vile.

This rule of oppression applies to all marginalized groups.

As fellow citizens, support, recognition, and solidarity is so important. The south lost their rights a long time ago, and all the panic is setting in now that its effecting blue states. Maybe we wouldn't have gotten to this point if the south was treated like the diverse and loving place it actually is, rather than looking at the rich dickheads and government.

Gonna be real brave and rock some uppity urban folks high horse here

[yourlmanburg]

here with you // karlnaptiy x gn!reader

word count: 933

summary: lazy morning in with your boys

request?: thank u anon!! 

hi!! if the anon who requested this does actually see it, i’m just taking this as an opportunity to apologize for how long this took to write despite how short it is. i’ve already explained it all in previous posts but i have had a shit ton to deal with and other things to do and things to prioritize, and i do genuinely feel guilty as fuck for leaving it until now - but here it is!!

---

Saturdays were always your favourite. You had an especially long stream every Saturday afternoon with Alex, Karl and Sapnap, so you tended to take it easy throughout the morning - much like today. You were never the first to wake up, so you weren’t surprised when you found yourself awoken by Sapnap sleepily tracing his hands up and down your back, holding you close and keeping you safe.

“Mornin’.” you murmured as you snuggled into his chest.

“Morning, love.” he mumbled just as quietly as you had, aware of the two sleeping figures tangled up in each other’s arms beside you. Sapnap lightly kissed the top of your head which caused you to smile up at him, your eyes filled with nothing but love.

You stayed cuddling Sapnap for a while longer until you heard Alex stirring to your left, watching him sit up and rub his eyes.

“What time is it?” was the first thing he asked, and Sapnap was the one to reply.

“9:26.”

“What? Fine. Night.” He stated bluntly, lying back down and closing his eyes again. You chuckled at your boyfriend’s antics, as did Sapnap; no matter how many mornings in a row you woke up to their constant affection and love, you would never get bored of it. These three men meant nothing but the world to you, the privilege of simply basking in their mere presence was enough to satisfy.

Karl was, as usual, the final one awake, looking you in the eye and giving you nothing more than a lazy smile. You leaned back in Sapnap’s arms, feeling him softly stroke his fingers through your hair, carefully untangling the knots you’d obtained overnight.

Shutting your eyes for a couple more minutes, Sapnap continued to detangle your hair while Karl got out of bed to make breakfast. Alex finally woke up again and once again asked for the time, to which Sapnap once again answered.

“It’s almost eleven, babe. Don’t go back to sleep.”

“Why not?” he teased with a smirk, sitting up and leaning against the bed frame.

“Because Karl’s making breakfast and I highly doubt you’d want to miss out on that.” Nick replied, a smirk forming on his own face as Alex’s face lit up.

It was no secret at all that Karl was the only one out of you four who was competent enough to be allowed in the kitchen at all, let alone cook. The meals he made were incredible, and you were truly glad you had him there to prevent something going terribly wrong. The scent of the meal Karl was cooking made its way around your home, your stomach rumbling as you hopped out of bed and padded into the kitchen.

“Hey, love.” you greeted your boyfriend, hugging him from behind.

“Morning, baby. How are you?” he asked softly, turning around to engulf you in a cuddle.

“Tired.” you mumbled, burying your head in the crook of Karl’s neck as he chuckled. He pecked the top of your head and cradled you for a minute or two, eventually having to turn back around to tend to the food on the hob. “Do you want me to go and wake up Sapnap and Alex?”

“No, no. I was thinking about breakfast in bed?” Karl suggested with a smile which you returned, thanking him for this and offering any help you could give, which he denied. 

And so you found yourself back in the arms of Nick, Alex barely awake and scrolling through Twitter beside you. You watched him reply to George’s latest tweet with amusement; your boyfriend was hands down the funniest person you knew. Eventually, Karl walked in holding two plates and passed one to you and one to Alex, Sapnap faking an expression of anger and betrayal for the lack of breakfast he received. He thanked Karl when he came back in with two more plates, handing one to him before slipping back into bed beside Alex with a meal of his own.

The four of you dug in, making sure Karl was aware of how grateful you all were for this breakfast. It may not be a huge deal in the long run, but he’d saved you three a job and he’d also given you a reason to spend time with each other away from the glaring eye of a camera.

The breakfast was delicious to say the least, the plates and cutlery now stacked in a pile on the bedside table as a result of four lazy adults. You’d now abandoned Sapnap who was stuck with Alex in his arms, finding yourself against Karl’s chest (definitely not complaining, however). There was a comfortable silence lingering in the air and you were the one to break it, projecting your absentminded thoughts.

“Can we get a puppy?” Your boyfriends simultaneously burst out in fits of laughter, and you even found yourself giggling along with them. You were unable to explain your sudden desire for a fuzzy ball of fluff and energy, but Karl’s response definitely caught you off guard.

“I mean, we could look into it if you’d like. Having a dog may be quite fun and it may actually get us out of bed for something other than streaming.” he thought aloud, and you agreed along with Alex and Sapnap. Perhaps you’d look into it another day.

You spent the rest of the day cuddling and snuggling with your boyfriends until you had to get up and start your streams, which lasted a good few hours, the four of you aching to be back in each other’s arms.

[palmett-hoes]

wrote this at first to be a reply to this post by @annawrites but it got super long so i figured it would be better just to make it a standalone post

---

it’s a great post about how neil probably has a perfectly functional knowledge of popular culture and how continuously representing him as totally ignorant of it isn’t a fair read of his character or circumstances. neil has incredible street smarts and that involves knowing how to blend in and disappear in a crowd. his knowledge of popular culture is probably eclectic and not very american, so he may not know all the pop culture touchstones that his teammates know, but he definitely knows stuff

meanwhile there are several foxes it would actually make much more sense to have extremely limited or just similarly patchy knowledge of mainstream pop culture

(i’m using “mainstream pop culture” here to refer to a combination of movies, tv shows, celebrities, video games, entertainment and communication technology, music, fashion, pastimes, books, etc. each one has it’s own specific considerations but all together if it was new and popular and timely, it’s pop culture)

---

kevin, for one, i think definitely knows like, next to nothing, and i honestly think it’s weird that people decided neil was the “knows nothing about pop culture guy” rather than kevin. i mean, kevin was raised since childhood in an extremely insular and one-track-minded underground cult. he was literally raised under a rock! you think the ravens were taking the time to watch saturday morning cartoons and disney movies? absolutely not. like i truly do not believe that kevin has ever consumed media in his life. he does not know songs, movies, celebrities, video games, tv shows, nothing. and he also has absolutely no idea that he doesn’t know about these things. neil has a working knowledge of most things even if it has plenty of holes but he knows what the holes are. kevin genuinely does not know that the movie Titanic exists

(also i’m ragging a bit here but this is a genuine analysis and a fascinating way to view kevin’s character and i wish people took more time to think through and flesh out his influences and the effect they had on him)

---

nicky. son of a conservative christian pastor? his access to media was likely heavily censored to remove “sinful” and “ungodly” influences. the media he consumed probably had a heavy christian focus and there were probably tons of mainstream popular things he wasn’t allowed to even look at, like especially things that were maybe a little risqué or sexual, which a lot of 90s and 2000s pop culture was considered to be. i also wouldn’t be surprised if he went to a private christian school that would still keep his chances to access other influences limited even away from his parents’ immediate view. nicky grew up on christian rock and veggie tales. he was forbidden from going trick-or-treating because it was “satanic.” that vein. watch the movie Saved! (2004) to get a sense of what i’m picturing. obviously once he got away to germany he got the chance to branch out and experience a lot of things, but doing things as an adult is very different growing up with them as a child. i also think this feeds into like,, nicky’s enthusiasm and why he tries so hard to get everyone involved in things and get neil to hang out with him so much and it’s not because he pities neil for not knowing these things but rather that he himself is still enthralled by their novelty

---

dan. but also renee, seth, andrew, and possibly aaron to varying lesser extents. these foxes all grew up poor, and access to pop culture is heavily tied to having money, especially in the technology boom of the 90s and 2000s that the foxes came of age in. it’s common for kids from low-income families to be “behind” on popular culture because engaging with it costs money

dan and seth we know grew up in poverty. yes people need entertainment but money considerations have to take priority so what they had access to was probably very touch and go. it’s hard to pin down anything for sure because it just comes down to what their guardians prioritized, but i can say that i doubt they had cable (and it’s possible they didn’t have tv) so their tv influences would be public broadcast rather than like,, disney channel and nickelodeon. dan especially, as someone from the rural poor in north dakota is the one most likely to be out of the loop of mainstream pop culture imo

.

renee’s mother is implied to have also been involved with renee’s gang which makes it really hard to pin things down. gangs and other forms of organized crime tend to have a profit motive but because it’s mostly off the books it’s just,,, different. they may had some money but it’s,,, complicated, and she was still living in an impoverished neighborhood. i really can’t make any guesses about it because i just don’t have any context for it, but i think it’s fair to say her media influences wouldn’t have been entirely mainstream pop culture. then of course she spends a year in juvy and two years in the foster care system, which definitely has very limited access to pop culture

.

andrew being in the foster care system means that his influences were constantly changing. he could have been in houses from a wide range of economic means, but regardless he probably wasn’t treated well or given gifts or access to new toys or anything that requires an additional fee or tool to access. stories from kids who lived in foster care often reveal that even very wealthy houses enforce extreme limitations on their foster kids. the idea that andrew had a foster sibling with a gameboy, an xbox and a tv in their room while andrew himself didn’t even have a bed,,, isn’t outside the realm of possibility. so, probably no video games or internet. limited choice in what movies or tv shows he could watch. social services are wildly underfunded so what he had access to in group homes and “at-risk youth groups” was probably pretty dated

.

we don’t know much about tilda, especially things like her job, but we know aaron grew up in san jose which is one of the most expensive cities/housing markets in the world. this means that they were probably either rich or very poor. personally, i think they were probably poor, which means aaron would have been subject to the same sorts of things as dan or seth in terms of spotty or inconsistent access to a lot of things in popular culture

---

so yea, ig just remember that each fox comes from different and complicated circumstances, that upper-middle-class pop culture experiences are not universal, and it’s weird to think that neil has absolutely no concept of pop culture at all while every other fox is apparently highly in tune with it and all have the same up-to-date experiences