#but I get the distinct feeling that for most people that is not what is happening

[whisper-cats]

Hellooooo! I’m working on a clangen blog of my own, so I’m going around asking my favorite clangen blogs some questions. I’m happy to get answers to whichever you feel like answering (or none at all if you don’t feel like it!)

What program and file size do you use?

If you use a font, what font is it?

How far ahead do you recommend playing?

Do you have any advice for layouts?

Do you have any tips for lighting/drawing fur?

Do you have any tips for making cats look more unique?

If you do backgrounds, do you have any advice for creating them?

If you use them, where do you recommend finding reference images?

hi hi! Thank you for the questions 1. Clip Studio Paint, my comic pages' size is 1600x2900 pixels when I'm working on it, but that includes empty space on the sides where my lines can go over the limits when needed

2. "HP Simplified Hans Regular"... I sort of want to hand-write all of my text tbh, but I thought I shouldn't make things too energy-intensive for myself

3. Depends what you want the structure of your story to be like. For me the important part was the setting that was generated for me so the moons going forward & the brisk pace that that gives you have less importance for my story than they would for most Clangen stories, and therefore I didn't go very far in the moons before I started sketching down pages

4. nah, i'm a newbie on that

5. can't think of anything, sorry

6. I think looking for uniqueness itself can be kind of a trap, and i think it's most important your characters are distinct from their surrounding cast of characters than them looking unique when looking at the wider art community. Any kind of design can be recognizable if it makes an impact. I think using patterning especially can be something people might fall back on too easily to make characters distinct. These are the other ways I like to try make a cat character recognizable and interesting (among their cast): - Experiment with different, even subtly different whiskers, ear sizes and shapes, fur texture (sleek, puffy, curly, spiky, flowy etc) and where that fur might be most prominent in each character (one fluffy cat might have a huge puffy chest fur, another long hair cat might have their long coat look more heavy and pulled by gravity, another cat might have the puffiest tail but less in the chest, etc). Also of course the usual, like different eye and nose shapes. - Use color contrast to make the character demand more attention to itself. If a cat has a big white patch on their face when the rest of their body is dark, it immediately brings your attention to their face. I often like to play up and heighten the contrast of a warm-toned body against cool-toned eyes like Whisperingpaw's reddish body against his deep blue eyes, but it works just as well in reverse or with other color contrasts. This can be muddied though if the design is full of highly contrasting small elements in unimportant places of the body which instead can just become confusing to the eye. It's why I don't really like designs from for example Genshin Impact

^ Whisperingpaw, I even made his grey pawpads more cooltoned than usual for some extra contrasting details - Try designing two characters at once instead of one at a time. When you design two at once, especially if they have some connection to each other, you can already start laying out some opposing or just different physical traits to them. If you make a huge cat next to a small cat, both of their sizes are immediately noticeable traits about the cats that you can perceive and build on. If you only drew one huge or one small cat, you might not really even register their size as part of their design because there is nothing to compare it to. Let their relationship & direct comparison be something that contextualizes them and gives them something more than an empty paper to relate to - Continuing on the "let the characters have something to compare to", a character will always look more beautiful if they are surrounded by more bland or even "ugly" characters. A character's intricate patterns will be more noticeable if surrounded by very simple-style characters. Use this to your advantage and let things like beauty or cuteness be character-specific traits instead of something expected of each design. This is just another benefit to having a diverse cast, it doesn't just give representation to less charismatic styles of characters (which already has so much value by itself), it lets the "beautiful" designs be more convincing to the eye.

for 7. and 8. i don't have an answer to!

Hope that helps :3

[a-bottle-of-tyelenol]

Speaking of how Odysseus sees Eurylochus (could be seen as a part two to this post), I often think about this video Jorge made about Eurylochus where he talks about how Eury almost seems lost and like he can’t find his way due to how inconsistent his instrumental is.

I think it also implies something super interesting from Odysseus’ perspective too.

Eurylochus, as far as I can tell, only really has his Luck Runs Out motif that we almost exclusively hear paired with the rest of the crew. It’s something that he leads on, yes, but there is a moment where the crew uses it on their own (in Mutiny, when Perimedes stabs Odysseus) and therefore it feels like something much more dedicated to the crew as a whole. This could be something showing how much Eurylochus puts into the crew and how much of his life is dedicated to them, or it could also be something that shows how much more similar he is to the crew than to Odysseus (lumping himself in with them and further leading to the separation between Ody and the crew that I talk about in this post— can you tell I yap a lot about Eurylochus?).

But I think it’s interesting to look at it in a more meta way. EPIC is primarily told from Odysseus’ point of view, only changing after Eurylochus dies. So, every moment we have with him is strictly from Odysseus’ perspective and, therefore, the lack of distinction in Eurylochus’ music could easily be attributed to that.

Most of Eurylochus’ arc is implied— specifically when it comes to how he changes from Circe’s island to Mutiny and that’s led to a lot of interpretations from people that aren’t necessarily wrong due to the fact that nothing about him is very clear. And I don’t just mean people who view him as a selfish hypocrite, I also mean opinions that I hold too.

I, for example, strongly believe that there’s a real possibility Eurylochus wasn’t the only one who opened the windbag. He was definitely there and probably apart of it, but there are real implications in the show that he might not have done it alone and simply took responsibility out of guilt. It doesn’t absolve him of all wrongdoing, but it is something to consider when it comes to the discussions about his self-preserving nature versus how he prioritizes the wellbeing of the crew. That being said, these implications aren’t what’s directly in the text, through lyrics or music, so I could be totally wrong.

And that’s exactly my point; there isn’t a whole lot to Eurylochus to decipher, musically. Jorge likes to use the music to give the audience background information on characters (like how he uses Athena’s ensemble in Warrior of the Mind to tell us that Athena is amused by Odysseus fangirling over her or how we can sometimes hear Circe’s motif in regards to Scylla, both things he’s revealed on TikTok). This is the type of information that Odysseus might not necessarily know but that we get told through the music.

Eurylochus doesn’t seem to have anything like that.

Unlike pretty much every other character that has some level of distinction to them and how they interact with our primary perspective, Odysseus doesn’t have anything to connect with Eurylochus other than the rest of the crew. There’s nothing that is specifically tied to him and this carries on throughout the entire show, where he takes on other melodies and instruments depending on the context. While perhaps not intentional, Eurylochus being musically lost not only leaves a lot of his actions and motivations up to interpretation for the audience, but it also highlights just how out of sync he is with Odysseus.

Their primary conflict revolves around their inability to understand one another and it’s very clear that they both have views on the other that is incorrect. Odysseus believes Eurylochus to be too ruthless and yet too cautious to actually effectively use the philosophy and Eurylochus sees Odysseus as too arrogant, playing foolish games with the gods that will only get the crew killed. They’re both right, to a degree, but their inability to understand or even empathize with the other’s position is really what destroys them— something we see even in the very beginning. There is no musical tie to them and nothing musically surrounding Eurylochus to signal any other meanings to the audience— Eurylochus is just his Luck Runs Out melody, that again is intrinsically tied to the rest of the crew which makes it less distinctive to him as a character than, say, Open Arms for Polites.

And then comes Mutiny— where Eurylochus is the most musically distinct and yet, none of it is truly his. In the beginning, he hijacks Odysseus’ electric guitar (possibly a hint that he understands Odysseus more than Odysseus has, thus far, understood him) and, in the second half, the melody he sings is that of Survive— which was potentially the first time he truly doubted his captain in ten years— to a beat of The Horse and The Infant (that’s what my friend and I hear, anyways)— which is mostly just a tool used for foreshadowing Thunder Bringer. Then, the script flips and Odysseus is in Eurylochus’ position for the Luck Runs Out melody, possibly signaling that he’s finally beginning to understand Eurylochus for the first time since the start of the story. And, instead of going back to the lyrics of Luck Runs Out, Eurylochus turns to the specific use of the word ‘suffering’.

Because Eurylochus is so vague in his instrumentals, prioritizing the crew over his own well-being and identity, the times where he does falter into other melodies, particularly ones involving Odysseus, are very loaded with implications that you can interpret— like how Odysseus uses the concept of suffering as a motivator, associating it with Penelope and her ability to make everything worth it. Eurylochus, on the other hand, associates it with his loss of the will to survive, which is why I think it follows that song’s melody too.

But even then, Eurylochus is still followed by the voices of the crew with a melody that has never been his alone because Eurylochus, as a character, is defined by what he does for other people and, since Odysseus simply cannot understand being in that position, Eury’s music reflects that.

I just find it interesting that the character with the second most screen time has little to show for it musically, and I think that’s a good thing for showing Odysseus’ inability to see things outside of his perspective (or outside of a magical perspective; as in, he can’t relate to regular men), especially given that this is a flaw Eurylochus has as well. It could’ve been really easy to give Eurylochus a bass— which is known for being paired with guitars— or maybe a specific drum and call it a day, symbolically, but Jorge chose to keep him as only the voice of the crew with one mention of a bass and snare in Luck Runs Out.

Something about that intrigues me idk

[fictionstudent]

How to read like a writer

If you’ve ever followed any Writergram accounts on Instagram or Twitter, I guess you’d have heard this advice—read like a writer.

People can’t stop glazing about how it’s one of the best pieces of advice any beginning writer could get, how it’s one of the most important skills to study prose and create your own, and all that. But, as you could’ve guessed, there’s a lot of unpacking to be done here.

What does it even mean to read like a writer? How’s it different from reading like a reader, or just for fun? And, how the frick do you even read like a writer?

I had to rant about something, and that’s the topic I’ve chosen today. So, here’s my two-cents on it.

***

#01 - The Basics

So, what does it mean to read like a writer?

I believe that reading like a writer is a form of reading prose where you’re conscious of the artistic decisions the author makes throughout the piece. For example, if there’s a high-stakes action scene, probably a fight scene or something, and you notice that the average length of sentences has suddenly become shorter and punchier.

Firstly, you need to understand that there’s a lot of such artistic decisions that writers take while writing a piece. And, every writer does that. These decisions are primarily related to writing-style, but are also focused on the story-structure, character-development, themes, and more.

For clarity, let’s divide them into two types of decisions—micro-level decisions and macro-level decisions. Micro-level decisions would include the writing-style, scene-descriptions, and all that stuff. Primarily, stuff that you can notice on the very page itself. It’d relate to the sentences instead of the plot. Refer to the example above again—that’s a form of micro-level decision.

Macro-level decision would be an artistic decision where you need to complete the whole, or a big chunk, of the piece to point them out. Such macro-level decisions would relate to the plot instead of individual sentences. For example, the decisions they’ve made regarding the plot, characters, and the underlying themes of the prose.

I tried my best to make the distinction as clear as possible. I hope you guys understand them clearly.

Anyway, each type of artistic decision would need to be checked in a different manner, y’know. To analyze macro-level artistic decisions, you’d need to probably finish the whole novel and do some research and brainstorming related to the themes of the story and the way the author discussed those said themes in their work.

It takes some time to get into the head-space to analyze the story and its themes. And, you might need to recap the story in some form or the other, y’know. At least, I need a little recap. Because generally, it takes me months to complete a novel or TV series. Or manga series. Or anime. Or anything else I need to analyze.

… And that’s because I start a lot of stuff before I finish the previous ones. Not gonna lie, I’m reading around four-five novels at the moment, a couple of which are web-novels on RR, along with three manga series. Please don't ask me why I do that, I hate it myself.

Anyway, now onto the second type: the micro-level artistic decisions. This is where you need to be really conscious while reading the work. In fact, I believe that these forms of decisions are what people generally mean when they talk about reading like a writer.

Micro-level artistic decisions, like I said earlier, include sentence-structures and writing-style of the author. And yeah, it’s really easy to slip out.

I’d like to refer to my favorite lit-fic The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, as an example. Reading the work, you’d see that the style feels… barren. The scene-descriptions are a pain to read; the vocabulary is just too hard. But, vocabulary becomes a lot easier during dialogues. That’s because the scenes are a pain to see, while the characters are losing their power to communicate effectively. I talk about it in detail in a previous blog:

But, man, maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. Maybe that’s why McCarthy wrote the descriptions in this way—to symbolize the mental stress that the characters go through as they experience this world, this form of reality that they were not meant to be in.

And maybe the novel is so lacking in narrations because the characters’ minds have gone numb. They’re forgetting language. With almost zero human interaction most of the time, they are forgetting how to think and interact in words. You lose the skills you don’t really use anymore, y’know. And these guys are so obviously depressed, so they don’t think about the world. They are used to the sad reality they live in. No point in complaining how bad the food is if that’s all you’re gonna eat all your life.

So, a scarcity of narrations tell you a lot about the story and its characters. It reflects something, it symbolizes something.

Also, if you read about Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, you’d observe how the author’s writing-style is often bland and indifferent. That says something about the characters and the plot too—it keeps the readers detached from the story, forcing them to adopt a third-person POV where they can constantly judge the plot and the characters.

Understanding the micro-level artistic decisions also include understanding the different nuances in different authors’ style. For example, sometimes you’d see that authors write scene-transitions like this,

We talked it through, and decided that it’d be the best to continue the conversation once we’re in the safe vicinity of this house. School was dangerous for such serious conversations—what if somebody hears us out and report us to the police?

So, we shut up as we boarded the bus, and twenty minutes later, we were pulling through his house’s driveway. We both stepped outside and…

Personally, I’m not a big fan of such transitions. I’d rather use three asterisks instead, like I do with my blogs here.

***

When to read like a writer and when not?

Yeah, that can be a mess. You don't need to have the writer's eye open every single time you’re reading something.

Personally, I use a trick. I only read like a writer when I feel that the piece is really different from the type of prose I generally consume, y’know. For example, I’m reading Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. The blurb says that the novel is narrated by Death, which is something quite interesting. Apparently, Death appears in the story as a character, acting as a third-person narrator.

However, the story is not third-person omniscient POV. Quite the opposite, actually, for we see the narration alternating between the thoughts of the protagonist and the all-knowing omniscient narrator Death, which makes the writing-style of the novel quite interesting.

So I read the book as a writer—all the way, I’m figuring out how the author masterfully blended both third-person limited and third-person omniscient narrative styles and used the best of both worlds to fully utilize both of them and paint such an amazing writing-style. I don't think I could ever pull that off, to be brutally honest. It’s just awesome what Zusak has pulled off in the prose.

Anyway, I derailed too much. The main point I was tryna make is that The Book Thief is different from what I usually consume—third-person limited POV web-novels. So, I do have to read like a writer. I probably won’t be reading like a writer if I was reading yet another RR web-novel or fantasy light-novel, y’know.

Another factor you might want to consider is if you like the prose or not. If you believe that you really love the novel and want to write something like it, you better study it a little. After all, you’d be writing what’s interesting to you.

A third factor: classics. If the prose is a classic, you might learn something from it. I mean, there must be some reason it’s stood the test of time, y’know, and people are still reading it. Yeah, sometimes, the style just seems outdated, and you likely won't be adapting it. But there are some gems in it too. The Great Gatsby is a really good novel to learn first-person POV.

… And that reminds me, I still haven’t finished The Great Gatsby either. Even though I’ve been reading it for more than a year.

***

#03 - Conclusion

All of this might feel a little overwhelming for you guys. I can understand that.

I mean, that’s just too much information to think about, y’know. And you might not be able to catch up on most of them. Heck, you might not be able to understand any nuances between different authors’ styles at all!

But, just don't give up, pal. It’s kinda tough out here, yeah, but that’s alright. Keep reading, keep practicing it out. You’d get there.

Keep reading and keep writing. That’s all it takes to become a great writer. But, doing both your reading and writing mindfully is what matters the most.

Subscribe to the FictionStudent newsletter to get latest blogs like this straight into your inbox. Also check out the website, as well as my Instagram and Twitter—where I might start posting soon. To be honest, I still don't know how to use social media as a writer, but I’d be trying.

Meet you in the next blog. Till then, bye-byeee!

[pinknoze]

I don’t rlly know how I fit into the wider otherkin/therian/alterhuman community and tbh my first thought is that mayb I don’t fit in? (Help??)

I remember when I first started hearing abt otherkin on tumblr wayyyy back in like 2015 or so, and I was one of the people who thought it was like.. offensive to the trans community?? Which is obviously bs! I’ve grown to be very pro do whatever you want as long as you’re not hurting anyone, and after reading a lot of therian posts I’m starting to get a better understanding of how and why someone would identify as an animal or other nonhuman entity.

But I don’t think I do. I very very very strongly identify with puppies, but I wouldn’t say I am one, I’d say I like pretending to be one! And I always have! For over 20 years now actually! But there’s a distinction between that and what a lot of other people describe.

In my mind I can still be part of the broader alterhuman community. I relate to the ways alterhumans act n feel even tho I am not exactly the same, and I like being in this space because of that!! It’s like, getting on all fours and playing with a bunch of bio dogs!!

I think people like me should have a place in this community, but idk how actual alterhumans would feel about that, especially in an online space where people tend to become more polarized n strict about what they believe is the objective true correct thing rather than allowing for variation in the human (and nonhuman :3) experience.

But also maybe this is invalidating for true alterhumans! Maybe they do want a space for just beings who are explicitly other than human, and as a queer person and someone who identified as a woman for most of my life, I get that.

If I were to fit myself into the community, I think I would use the label otherkin? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the word kin means related, so in this context I think it does work for me. Dog-kin = dog-related.

Oh also!! To me this is all inherently related to autism (assessment results pending but after the THREE HOUR INTERVIEW that was the assessment and finally getting to read Unmasking Autism by Devon Price I am feeling pretty confident) in a way that I could speak on but I won’t in this post because it’s too long already!!

Anyways… I guess I want to hear from other folks in the community. Does what I’m saying make any sense?

[rollinouttahere-writes]

I appreciate how you mentioned that lucky would give up on going back to their home world when they get their memories back because that would literally be me. (Also I feel that its unrealistic for people to want to go back to a boring world, but hey I practice escapism through stories so maybe I don't get it.)

Memories gone: I probably have a family and people who care about so I should go back. :(

Memories back: so... am I a permanent member because I would like to stay please.

Strawhats: :0 :D yay no more escape attempts!

I can't remember but did you say anything about how this sudden change may effect the mood of characters.

I'm glad you like that decision!

The general idea behind her not wanting to go back was to go against what pretty much every other isekai fic does, because like you said, it isn't particularly reflective of the people reading it. I mean really, what maniac is choosing taxes and a shitty desk job over fucking around in a magical anime world? Not me, and not most of the people that go out of their way to read reader insert fics lmao

Lucky's memories trickle back in pretty quick, so by the time they all get to the Grand Line, she remembers enough to know that she doesn't want to go back. Abruptly, she goes from trying to figure out where she came from and who she was, to never talking about it or bringing it up. If any of the Straw Hats do question her about her memories, she becomes shifty and shrugs off the inquiry by saying that she hasn't remembered anything new. Most of the crew interprets this as her quietly implying that she wants to stay with them, and they're content to leave it at that.

She doesn't outright state that she wants to stay until after her and Luffy have a heart-to-heart about the actual state of her memory and where she came from after the Enel fight. Luffy lowkey forgot that she was ever even trying to find a way home, so the new information doesn't really phase him that much. He already assumed she was here to stay. The other world stuff catches his attention a little bit, but he gets over it pretty quickly because it doesn't sound very fun if he's being honest. It's no wonder Lucky doesn't want to go back to that.

The only member who does have a distinct sense of relief over Lucky openly stating that she has no interest in going back is Nami. She was the only one that was really agonizing over the possibility of Lucky trying to leave. It's a weight off her shoulders, and it prompts her to make a "joke" that it's a good thing that Lucky wants to stay, otherwise Nami would have had to force her to pay off her tab first.

Everyone else was in the same train of thought as Luffy where they were already working under the assumption that Lucky had no intent on ever leaving. This revelation, however, was the first time that Chopper was introduced to any of this information, so he is wildly confused but simultaneously vindicated that he was right about Lucky smelling weird. He didn't think that it was because she was from another world, but at least he doesn't feel like he's imagining things anymore.

Also the Straw Hats literally never have to worry about escape attempts from Lucky. If she's missing, she was either kidnapped or fell victim to the usual Straw Hat hijinks lol

[not-wholly-unheroic]

While I will adamantly maintain that Hook is NOT a pedophile (though Isaacs’ Hook does clearly use his charm to get what he wants from Wendy…but I don’t think there is actually any interest on his part), I do think that the train of thought expressed here explains why so many of us are Hook/Wendy shippers. I’m willing to bet that a good many of us were also around Wendy’s age when we first saw the film and had those same feelings where we thought, “Peter is cool and all…but Hook is a lot more interesting.” And it’s fine for little girls to crush on an older fictional character. Heck, a lot of little girls will crush on older men who are real, especially celebrities but also sometimes teachers and such. That’s a normal part of puberty. What’s NOT fine is when the actual real life human adult men in the girls’ lives take advantage of that and groom them. This is why we make a distinction between fiction and reality. In fiction, the little girl is the one in control because the person she’s crushing on isn’t real and has no authority or advantage over her. And most of us who ship Hook/Wendy still only do so with an adult Wendy because we recognize that a child has no ability to consent to anything. And we can have Hook stay the same physical age because magic is a thing IN FICTION. It’s the same with people who ship with vampires or other immortal characters who essentially remain the same age even as time passes. These are situations that could never happen in real life and I don’t think we can fairly make a comparison. In a real life situation, the adult is the one holding all the cards and even if a child ages up, the adult will age too and it’s kinda icky. Fiction does not equal reality. It just allows us a safe way to play around with things we couldn’t do in real life. Play in children mimics the adult world and prepares them for it but is by definition safer. Kids playing at “war” don’t actually hurt one another. Kids playing at being a mom are not actually responsible for other children’s well-being. These are huge themes of Peter Pan in particular. It’s no surprise the audiences of Peter Pan—especially those who are children themselves when they first encounter the material—play around with adult concepts in fiction.

Why was Jason Isaacs' Captain Hook so attractive?

(...I mean aside from "because J.M. Barrie wrote Hook as being a very handsome man"- honestly, this is what makes me roll my eyes with the whole "pfft that stupid Hot Hook trend" thing. What trend?? It's what's written in the book!)

Well, short answer (edit: yeah that wasn't short lol) is - this whole film is about Wendy going through puberty. She's starting to develop feelings of attraction. She's got her attraction to Peter who isn't exactly the ideal boy to have a crush on because he's too immature. So, she's also developing an attraction to someone who is more mature and he also treats her like the adult she very clearly is not.

Why yes, that subplot was very disturbing (still can't believe they got away with that, tbh- I mean it's not overly explicit but, it's definitely there) and that was the point. It's an expansion on what Barrie was saying in the novel - let kids be kids. Stop forcing young girls in particular to grow up so quickly! In the film, they make a point of saying that "Wendy is not yet 13" when Aunt Millicent starts talking about marriage!

So, Hook's attractiveness did serve a purpose, aside from causing many a sexual awakening in the audience. He represents the darker side of growing up. He is both, as Jason put it, "alluring and repulsive at the same time".

[caitas-cooing]

Yes, not all aces and aros and not all aros are ace. Yes, there are ace people who still have sex and there are aros that still date. Yes, some aspec people will enter QPRs. All these things are true, but if I tell you that canonically a character is aspec and you say these things a lot of the time it doesn't feel like you actually want to explore the complexities of aspec identities and the relationships they form with other people, you just want to be able to write shipping and smut fics or fanart without getting accused of erasing a characters Identity. And it's hollow justification because again you don't really care about learning about our identities. And like I'm not gonna harass people for writing or drawing things regardless because frankly I have better things to do, but I do wish some people would be more honest about their intentions with certain things. Idk if any of this makes sense, I'm just writing down my almost 3am thoughts about things

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

Okay, this, as always, a lot, so I'm going to try my best to reply to the core conversation because if I try to reply to all of this my ADHD is gonna tie me up in knots. I'm also putting this under a cut to help with the overall post length.

If you think that Dean's terrible decision to wipe Lisa and Ben's memories of him, was misogynistic then we are coming at this from really different definitions. Because Dean has a habit of making sweeping, life-altering decisions for other people without taking them or their wishes into account, he overrides or just doesn't consider them <- and this notably includes his brother. This is not based on Lisa being female, Dean just prioritizes his own emotions over other people's everything. If I read this correctly, you said that you were sympathetic to Dean's decision to force Sam to let Gadreel possess him, even though you knew it wasn't going to work out well. But Dean removing himself entirely from Lisa and Ben's lives, wiping all of their memories of him, something that he, right or wrong, felt was the only way to save them from himself and the epic levels of disaster that follow him, was a bridge too far and, somehow, misogynistic? However you're making this distinction does not make sense to me.

Misogyny literally means hatred of women, from the Greek root words misein “to hate” and gyne “woman”. And yeah, I know that root words don't entirely determine current definitions or common usage, but, there is that particular layer to the definition of misogyny that sets it apart from the definition of sexism.

Yes, we are all swimming in an ocean of patriarchy and it really isn't a matter of "all men" for anything, because humans are nuanced and complicated. We also learn and grow, but also, too often, get damaged and hurt along the way. Or decide to "play along" rather than stand up against the shitty things other people say, for a whole host of possible reasons. Anyone is capable of doing something, or thinking something, or saying something that is misogynistic. Just occasionally falling into that doesn't equal "being a misogynist" either. For that label to stick, one would have to have a persistent track record of saying and doing (and thus thinking) misogynistic things, proving that they actually do harbor a hatred or negative view of women in general. There are different levels to all of this nuance that are easier to discuss and to avoid miscommunication, to discuss more effectively, when we utilize words with nuanced differences to their meanings.

Some of what you talked about would definitely fall into the misogyny bucket, yes. But some of it wouldn't, some of it is better defined as sexism, while some of it I'm not even sure has anything to do with gender really at all.

I feel like I need to convey my sympathy for the personal experiences that you shared, I don't want to gloss over or ignore it. While I have never been in exactly that sort of situation, I have had friends say some out of fucking line shit to me. Sometimes we were in a situation where I was able to call them out on it, and so I did. Other times, I let stuff slide because I did not feel safe standing up for myself, or standing up against something awful being lobbed at me. So I do get that. It sucks. What your partner said was, truly, horrifying, at least from where I'm standing, and I can only imagine the effect that would have had and likely still has, to some degree, on you.

I am not saying that all the things that happened in the show and on the set for the show were never inappropriate or never wrong/bad, because people are complex and there are a lot of layers to most everything. And, as I mentioned in my original post, sexism was definitely at play. I still think that the majority of what people call misogyny is actually better defined by the word sexism, and that the overuse of misogyny muddies up the meanings of these words and makes it so that when I say, "That's not misogyny, it's sexism," what people seem to hear is, somehow, that I'm brushing off everything as not problematic.

So, to be clear, something doesn't need to be labeled misogyny to be problematic. Sexism is still very problematic.

And, yes, definitions of words change over time. Hopefully this happens as our understanding of situations evolve. But, what I am seeing in the prevalence of the preferred, nearly exclusive, use of "misogyny," with nary a use of the word "sexism" to be seen, is that we are actually losing important nuance. You and everyone else, are free to use whatever word you think best fits, of course. But I'm probably going to be sitting over here thinking that this whole conversation would be clearer and much more effective if we kept both words in play.

Cool, since the OP made the post non-reblogable, I'm just going to put this here...

Again, not saying it's not sexist. I actually literally said it was (as can be seen in this handy dandy highlighted screenshot of my post they were responding to. It's just not misogynistic. OP seems to have completely missed that distinction. Oh no, wait, they didn't miss it they commented on it in their tags...

Yeah, the terms have been being muddied up for a long while, but if no one ever pushes back on that, then we will lose the distinction and any hope of having an educated or nuanced conversation might as well be flung out the window. Ffs. Yes, word usage changes, and evolves, but not all changes or evolutions are good things.

Sam and Dean have sexist baggage. Dean more than Sam. And that is because Kripke and the writers and producers and directors and just a lot of people in general, have sexist baggage. So call it sexist. I mean, why the insistence on specifically using the word with the worse layers of meaning, when those worse layers don't actually seem to apply???

Obviously, this isn't just this one person, so many people do this. And I'm not picking on this one person, which is why I'm not tagging them and really don't care if they see this or not. I'm griping simply from my own frustration at how willfully reductive people in general are.

[repurposedmeatlocker]

On one hand, I agree that there should be a more diverse field of subject matter utilized in "adult animation". Not all "adult animation" should be used as an excuse to revolve around shock content and gratuitous potty humor. At this point in time, stuff like this being seen on prime-time television is no longer out of the ordinary. And, from my observation, is done well even less frequently. There should be more films that treat themselves seriously and explore an array of topics rather than just comedy with a middle-school idea of mature subject matter.

ON THE OTHER HAND. I don't think there is ANYTHING wrong with animated movies and shows with lots of drugs and boobies and sex and gross jokes. I think cartoon characters having freaky sex is funny af. Both have the right to exist together. Art should not be pigeon-holed through a lens of "respectability" in order to be taken seriously. Demanding adult animation be "palatable" for an "adult" audience ultimately strips it completely of what makes it a unique medium for expression in the first place.

[lemurballing]

tangle is so fun because she is a juxtaposition of something collected and contained with something loose and free and in motion

she’s a rough brawler but she has a stance and a style. she’s impulsive and thrillseeking, but she wraps her arms in sports tape to protect them, a precaution. she longs for adventure and action but she will always need to come to rest at home with friends. she’s bouncy and restless, but she’s an intent listener and considerate. she’s got months of off-and-on experience fighting badniks, but is still so new to real Adventure.

and while there’s plenty of traits sonic and tangle share, you can’t reduce her to ‘girl sonic’ without neglecting something of her own characterization. she fundamentally wants something different out of life than sonic does, because she doesn’t need to be anchorless; she isn’t a backpacker, sleeping somewhere new every night. she’s more like a goose, or a frigate bird; flying free for ages and ages, knowing she wants to go somewhere, until time comes to call her back to her origin.

[asklesbianonceler]

I have not posted any of my analysis to reddit yet and I think I might just post it and ghost it. I've already spent too much time looking at other people's threads on there to feel any way good about interacting with folks.

I already went in an added the "I know you're going to bring this up let me save you the time" section which is exclusively touching on the frequent topics of:

"well what about the fingerprint nostrum and finger mimics? He is clearly just a crackpot"

And

"it's definitely some weird elaborate sacrifice to Metyr thing"

[skrunksthatwunk]

just finished the original devilman manga. wuh!!

[age-of-moonknight]

“Soldier,” Vengeance of the Moon Knight (Vol. 2/2024), #3.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Alessandro Cappuccio; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[blujayonthewing]

more dnd and adjacent media should be run and written by people who think dwarves and elves are boring but care very sincerely about halflings and gnomes

[polyamoryprincess]

I truly do understand the fear people have regarding people doing “fanfiction commissions” and making money off fanfics after the Anne Rice debacle, but we don’t have to act like it’s an inherent moral failing and like you’re a Fake Fan tainting fan spaces if you want to be paid for your work the same way fan artists do.

Anne Rice is a dick head for what she did and should be treated as such, treating the fear she’s wrought as some holy thing is fucking weird.

[todayisafridaynight]

Is there a character that’s like a Vegeta to you as in there’s so many interesting characters, but fans love this douche so we got to make him the center focus now!

there's like. legally only one answer to this question but i feel ???? saying it