#bit of venting

[feral-witch-hat]

You know, I often think about the reason why I want to write fiction stories, I want to offer an escape from reality. Yet then I will sometimes get this notion that's a selfish thing to want to do. Why run from reality? We must fight reality!

And then I look at reality, and remember why I wanted to run away in the first place.

[voidaxolotl]

🚨Warning: Rant incoming🚨

Strange take, I'm not the biggest fan of playing Jackbox.

To be clear, this is not really a review of the games themself- Jackbox is fun and I think people should play it. This is more so on my experience and feelings about playing it. It's nothing against the games themselves, they're fun and for the most part they're expertly crafted for late night gaming and every inside joke thats stemmed from those late night gamings are still hilarious, however that doesn't make my lack of enthusiasm about playing jackbox any better.

I'd say I'm a competitive person, but since I'm kind of bad at most things I've had years to figure out how to handle the negative emotions that come with losing (and oddly enough the negative emotions and guilt whenever I do win)

Im no master at it, but I've been able to communicate when a game is making me upset and I'm fortune enough to have friends who understand my reasonings and understand that in multiplayer pvps (mostly Dead by Daylight) I'm all for taunting but it grates on me way more if I'm on a losing streak.

I've connected that my inability isn't to the fault of others so I shouldn't be aggressive towards them when I lose, and that I just need to keep at it and I'll eventually become better at the game, which has come true for the most part. Im able to push aside the hurt I get from losing either because I know I have gotten better (DBD, Among us, etc) or its a team effort so I don't feel isolated in the lose (L4D, Among us, Phasmo, etc).

But Jackbox has a specific way of making lose feel... Worse.

For those who don't know, most Jackbox games have players pitted against each other to make clever or funny responses or prompts, the player with the most liked response or promot wins the game- a simple idea that for some reason makes losing continuously hurt more and more. It makes you feel like the least fun or entertain or even least interesting person in the group when you continuously land in 4th or 5th.

It's to the point that playing Jackbox takes a lot of my energy, each round making me feel more exhausted and overstimulated, making it harder to answer prompts in a funny or clever manner which ends in more lose and more exhaustion- a vicious cycle.

I have not brought this up to my jackbox loving group for many reasons (mainly because I'd feel like the only person at a drinking party who doesn't drink, with the other people of said party forgetting what non-alcoholic exist) as well as the games being enjoyable to watch.

This is something that I need to work through and perhaps one day I will communicate this to my group, but till thenI think I will change to just observing any future gameplay instead of actually playing for my own health.

I don't know of anyone elsefeels similar about playing jackbox orany other game, but either way I know losing sucks and makes its hard to want to get better at something, especially if it feels personal or targeted. What we can do in the face of those defeats is determin if continuing down that route would be detrimental to our health and perhaps take a step back from it, maybe till another time or never again, or keep learning from our lose and get better.

There is no shame in deciding that pursuing something isn't for you, and in this case pursuing Jackbox and trying to win would probably do me more hurt then heal so I know it's better for me to step away. Maybe one day I'll feel comfortable while playing, and maybe one day losing in it won't make me feel the way it currently does, but until then I'm going to keep myself safe and happy and you should too.

Anyways, congrats if you've made it to the end and thank you for reading!

[shoecrabs]

! long-ish post !

I'm not good at talking about this stuff and I'm no expert but here's my piece.

Unfortunately, yes.

As a non-American, picking up on the sheer Americaness of Rick's works was easy, even as a younger kid ngl and that's fine.

However, what saddens me the most about Rick's portrayal of the gods and our culture is the unapologetic whitewashing of them. I understand why he simplified the figures and stories and can therefore pass it off as him simply teaching the mythos for kids to get interested in the real history and culture and such, but the American imperialist undertones stop me from fully embracing his world without a bitter taste in my mouth.

For example, the USA being the centre of a 'western civilization'in tLT didn't sit right with me at all. If understand if it was the gods being ethnocentric but nope it was American pride from distinctly Not American beings. This kind of thing is pervasive in the whole series as language keeps being appropriated to fit foreigb societal moulds. And honestly? some of the community continue this trend in the opposite. I remember years ago someone calling Rick's choice for Medusa to have a head scarf racist despite many traditional (not ancient) Greek outfits having a form of headscarves (especially within our older generations) which is how i interpreted her design so theres more grey area on this one. And even within the LGBT+ community (hello fellow fruits) who insist that Patroclus and Achilles were dating without considering the nuance of cultures, or those who jump onto the 'they're Greeks of course they're all gay' tidal wave that's hit the internet.

from my observations, It's a common thing within the USA and the UK to jump onto anything Greek and/or Roman to build (usually whitewashed) ideas and standards to claim as their own so it gets everywhere haha. They love to claim this as their legacy, normalizing the impacts this does to both us and them. So I believe Rock's exposure lead him to unfortunately chosing to present Greek myths as an American Dream-like Fantasy rather than with something more accurate and respectful. Annoying, but not unexpected.

tldr:

No, We don't have the same interpretations as the USA/West, and we did not hand them over a blueprint for a ""Flame of the West"" for the gods to fly around and land somewhere convenient for the author to write about.

It gets irritating dealing with them taking our stories and reading them through rose tinted glasses but what's been done is done

I really do hold a special place for these books in my heart and really enjoy the mesh of modern and ancient in Rick's reinterpretation. I just wished more people remembered the difference between the Funny Mythology Fanfic vs the Actual Myths and how to make it more authentic to the actual stories. Hopefully what Rick has done was unintentional bias that's going to be sorted in the show.

So I was recently searching through academic essays and I found a really interesting one about the Americanization of greek mythology in Percy Jackson. I had to post a part of it here because more people need to read this:

"Slowly by looking at the structure of the stories, the narration technique and the perspective that Riordan has used to narrate the whole story of Percy Jackson and his friends, is actually Americanization of the Greek ways, culture, traditions and thus its mythology as well.

Mythologies of different cultures are like collections of many stories that have been

created by keeping in mind the roots, traditions of the culture in which they take shape. Though these stories evolve, they always possess the essence of the culture that they belong to. When a person from another culture looks at it, tries to analyse it and then rework it, he/she knowingly or unknowingly ends up putting his/her own perspective into the interpretation of these stories. The main reason behind this is, that the person belongs to a particular culture and thus his/her perspective, beliefs, faith, tradition etc. play a major role in the way he/she looks at the myths of the other culture. Such a person is also called an Ethnographer.

The bigger problem arises when an ethnographer not only reworks the mythology

but tries to super imposing his/her own culture over it. It is a possibility that his/her culture overpowers the culture of the mythology on which he/she is working. Here the whole perspective of the gazer and object of gaze plays a very important role. The ethnographer becomes the gazer and ends up colouring the object of his/her gaze by his/her own culture. This tendency to work in the field of Ethnology and try to become an expert of other culture is mostly western(...)

We see a similar relationship between Rick Riordan and the Greek mythology which

he reworks in the Percy Jackson series. There is no doubt that Riordan has taken the Greek mythology as the base of this series, but simultaneously, we can see that slowly and tactfully he Americanizes the whole Greek culture and he clearly brings forth the American culture as the culture that is more powerful, responsible, strong, moral, ethical and thus better than any other culture of the world. We can see that Riordan emerges as an ethnographer who seems to have studied Greek culture and its mythology. He incorporates it in his series and reworks it and shapes it into an American mould. This series eventually ends up reinforcing the fact that American culture is trying to colour other cultures, ways of living and even their mythologies. Thus American culture clearly emerges as the dominant culture in and trough this series(...) "

Source: https://www.academia.edu/resource/work/41896665

[southpauz]

DO YOU BLEED?

[tinyspectre]

He’s just a little guy!!

random DP drawings, proof that keeping a consistent style is uh… hard.

[idontwantrobyntodie]

“ugh I hate kids” “i hate when people take too long to order” “i hate that show/ship/character” “i hate—” what do you Love? what brings you Joy? what is your Favourite Color??

[swagvo1d]

i think i was born to sting but i really don't mean to

[golden--goofball]

i love dnis like this because tell me why these people think they're normal when their list of people they are literally instructing to stay away from them go like:

-nazis!! (*≧∪≦)

-hitler reincarnates!!! (≧∇≦)b

-PEOPLE WHO HAVE OPINIONS ON FICTION THAT I DON'T LIKE OR AGREE WITH FUCK OFF AND DIE I HOPE YOU ALL GET FUCKED BY CHAINSAWS AND YOUR BODIES ARE FED TO THE DEVIL HIMSELF ON A SILVER FUCKING PLATTER /SRS /NEG /KYS /DIE

-terrorists!!!! (≧ω≦)/

[lilblueorchid]

Are you ok?

Of course I'm fine...

[darkmuffinstudios]

Whenever I’m struggling (physically, emotionally, or psychologically), I would always put a pen to my screen and just let myself draw.

Messy lines for messy feelings

I hope I captured it well. Killer and Nightmare were always a perfect muse for these kinds of moments.

[theredqueenandthebloodwyrm]

Bout to start gnawing and biting motherfuckers on here, istg. Fuck you third party voters, fuck you "I didn't vote because that would taint me", fuck you holier-than-thou moral purity fuckers. Fuck anyone who voted for Trump.

[hanafubukki]

If he had one wish.

It would be this.

For you to smile happily every Halloween.

For you to cheer and scream and be merry with joy.

You might not remember him.

And he remembers too late.

But he wishes these feelings never leaves you every Halloween.

And he hopes you remember him fondly.

Somewhere deep inside.

For as long as you smile on Halloween, he’ll always be alive.

[nicoleknives]

i dont know about you guys but I really love making art, but sometimes it just HURTS a lot, its been a while since i'm not feeling confortable drawing anything at all, maybe its the current circunstances of my life that makes things a little bit more complicated than it should be, or maybe i'm being to harsh on myself when doing anything at all...

anyway right now the only things i can do is work, and when im not working i don't feel like drawing, so i just do anything else ☠️

so sorry for this absence! have this little shane i made a few months ago and never posted 💞

[xulips]

the you i fell in love with

[southpauz]

We the People

[clovelie]

i don't know who i am as a person. i rely on everyone around me to give me a personality instead of forming one on my own.