#cosplay culture project

[daisydogox]

happy birthday to the anime boy that changed my brain chemistry

[thegenderfluidgokenin]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN NANBAN DIPSHITS

[camelliatranslations]

In the Name of the Moonー Yofu Runo (25.02.13)

[mascaraandmojitos]

Source: http://lehooes.tumblr.com

[abisslkaffee]

the human mind is very complex and i promise you will be much happier and comfortable in your own mind and body if you allow yourself the space to explore the scary and the taboo and the awkward and the painful in a safe and consensual manner

[jexofficial]

A NEW BEGINNING

Hi,

For people who don't know me personally or haven't seen any of my projects before my name is Jex A.K.A Jess.

I wanted to start this blog to talk about things that are important to me and what I like to do. (You know like how everybody has a talent or hobbies).

Also I wanted to use this as a new way to share my future projects with the world. (THE INTERNET).

As I said for those who don't know me (not yet anyway) I am a singer/songwriter and cosplayer from the amazing land we call Australia. Yes I am in the land that Americans don't believe exist.

I've always had a love for making music and started professionally doing it when I was 14. (Yes I was that young, shout-out to my music teacher, who helped me during that time in my life).

As for Cosplaying I gained the passion for that later in life when I turned 19 and went to my first convention.

So what can you expect from this lovely blog, well think of it as a website full of my current, present & future projects (wherever that be cosplay, music related or even something completely new). I wanna to be able to share the good and the bad, the learning curves and what I'm excited to take on next.

I'll be updating this blog weekly (maybe even more than once, If you are lucky and depending on the project load.) But I want to let you know i'm excited for this new chapter, let's see how far the rabbit hole goes shall we............

In the meantime you can follow my socials here...........

(MUSIC)

Spotify - Jex/Jessica Coutts

Apple Music - Jex/Jessica Coutts

YouTube/Music - JEX (@JEX_OFFICIAL_MUSIC)

Soundcloud - @JEXOFFICIAL

Instagram - JEX (@jex.is.reimagined)

Twitter - JEX (@music_jex)

(COSPLAY)

INSTAGRAM - @jexcosplay_00

FACEBOOK - @JEXCOSPLAY

YOUTUBE - JEX COSPLAY (@JEXCOSPLAY)

TIK TOK - @jexcosplay_00

TWITTER - @jexcosplay

[renthony]

About & Pinned Post

(Updated January 14, 2025)

Hi! I'm Ren Basel. My pronouns are they/them and I'm in my 30s. I I post a lot of things related to art, media studies, animation, and union organizing. I'm married to @natalieironside and @kryptidkhaos, and @dovesndecay is my drift-compatible right-hand queerplatonic lifemate. If you follow one of us, you'll see the other three.

I write essays about media and pop culture, I wrote a short fantasy story called The Queen of Cups, and I'm currently working on both the first chapter of a graphic novel project and a video essay script for a queer analysis of the show BoJack Horseman. The best way to keep up with & support my projects is Patreon--I post free updates as well as subscriber-only.

I have a Discord server for artists of all sorts to chat, share their work, and self-promo. If you're an artsy person, or just like supporting artsy people, come join us! I tend to be a bit of a lurker on Discord, but I'm trying to be a bit more active.

I run a small candle shop with my husband, which you can follow here on tumblr as @candlesandcantrips. I also run the Covid-Safe Cosplay blog, @covidsafecosplay, along with the accompanying Discord Server.

I'm a broke, disabled, small-time queer artist who pays rent via a combination of countless different side hustles. You know how it is. If you like what I post and want to help me keep groceries in the cabinet:

Ko-Fi

PayPal: renniequeer@gmail.com

Venmo: @ renniequeer

CashApp: $renniequeer

I also have a wishlist that I keep updated with things I need for work, household projects, and a few things just for fun. My family has a group wishlist for things we could all use.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

[sillysoliloquyshits]

After Ne Zha 2 blew up the world and mostly blew up in China first, and with me also having rednote/xiaohongshu I've realised these things:

1. I was so scared I would be the only one to sense something between Ne Zha and Ao Bing and by God so many China people ship them and there's tons of fanart there 😭😭 while china is huge and of course there will be lots of gays there too but damn man it didn't sink in until I saw so many fanarts and cosplays

2. Some people also shipped them since the first movie, with one the artists having drawn a kind of fancomic of both of them based off only the first movie, and yeah lots of fancomics are also drawn in China apparently

3. Cosplaying is a huge thing with some going out on the streets with character makeup and features but wearing casual clothes, and some cosplayers so hardcore they would spend 20 hours getting exquisite long Ao Run claw nails and a few taking actual underwater pictures and videos of Ne Zha and Ao Bing like the dedication is next level-

4. Most mind-blowing is that a lot of people in china love the movie so much I think the average rewatches for them are like 4 or 5 times, with some Malaysian Chinese saying they watched the movie six times in nine days and a few commenters saying they watched the movie a total of 11 or even 18 times like 🔥🔥😳😳 I think mostly because a lot of people try different exclusive cinemas like not just IMAX but also those called cinity iirc in their country, so spending lots of money for more high-end projection and colour is very worth it but how China people are so rich they can afford to watch the movie five times- 😭😭😭😩😩😩

5. They have their own strict rules of shipping and also their own meme stickers in their posts and even if they may voice out to say 'naw man they're both 3 years old I can't', so far I haven't seen anything like a ship war so thank God it's not so violent on rednote's end to the point of death threats, and a few have talked it out on the comments to say it's okay to ship or not ship since it's very open in interpretation so yay quite a healthy fandom so far as far as I've observed

But it's through having rednote and being involved in a mostly-china side of fandom, that I realised I had a few subconscious preconceived notions on how China engages in fandom activities, since it's not until something this big did I realise that of course there are gays and cosplayers in China and they all go big. Not all of them are just muggers in studying and working and all about hard work and submission. Because China people obviously have a life and will have their own ways of expressing their passions, and they're not that different from us anyway in some or most ways. Lots of people, especially young people in China, are all just as passionate and rebellious and artistic as us, which obviously explains why the movie resonates so much to them as it does to us.

But tldr: I'm very happy to get to know the fun and fandom side of China through the monumental success of Ne Zha and realise that fandom is a universal thing for us to learn about the cultures of one another, and it's beautiful. Hope more of these awesome successes and cross-cultural exchanges will become more of a norm in the future so we can all have a fun time together.

[zepherll]

Netflix's Devil May Cry: Cynical, Reactionary, Dismissive

When Netflix's adaptation of Devil May Cry was first announced, I, like many other DMC fans, were quite excited. DMC has a lot of storytelling potential, which historically has been explored widely in novels, comics, manga, and even anime. The games themselves, while inconsistent, have had massive peaks in narrative finesse, with Devil May Cry 3 being regarded as one of the best narratives in gaming. While the games themselves are a bit niche, Dante as a character is massively popular and won Capcom's poll as the company's most popular character. Bury the Light, Vergil's theme, was a smash hit that has wider recognition than the game it came from. The cultural impact & recognizability of the characters and mythos of Devil May Cry can't be denied, so you would think that it would make a solid foundation for an animated adaptation.

Setting Expectations

Before this show was released, the fandom had extensive communication with Adi Shankar, the self-proclaimed "visionary" behind this series. It was assured that he wanted to get this right and he showed that he did an extensive amount of research that even hardcore fans may not know about the series, reading obscure cancelled manga, novels with dubious canon, exploring as much of the extended media as possible and leaving no stone unturned. He even posted himself in a Dante cosplay. It was made clear that he was a fan of DMC, and so it seemed to be in safe hands. Up to the release, however, Adi Shankar started to do some things that were strange.

He tweeted that "Vergil was right" and called him an anti-hero, he revealed that Lady was part of a military group...these are very, very different takes on the characters. As we got more and more details, it became apparent that this show was going to be very different from the original games. Whenever we got projects in the past like this, they were usually canon to the games, so this became a strange thing to wrap our heads around.

For this reason, I'd like to look at this series as it's own property, completely separated and different from the games. Despite everything Adi Shankar may have said, this simply is not a faithful adaptation at all, it's very different and on the grounds of an adaptation, it fails at the job. So in the interest of fairness, I wanted to look at it as it's own story. But even then, I was disappointed.

The American Themes

DMC is heavily rooted in punk culture, drawing from it's music, the fashion sensibilities, and certain aesthetics. However, something (mostly) unique to the Netflix series is it's exploration of American culture. The last attempt at exploring this in DMC was in the reboot, DmC. However, I would say this series goes a step further than that game did and really pushes this theme even harder. The instinct to do this is a little understandable— punk culture has always been heavily influenced by American culture, often stemming from there, so this isn't entirely coming from nowhere. Although I disagree with this as a DMC fan, I wanted to be fair so I chose to approach this as if I knew nothing about DMC.

Adi Shankar stated "My DMC Universe is set in a late '90s/early 2000s PS2 era of the world. It's not set in modern times. It's set in my memory of the world, pre- and post-9/11.". This is heavily reflected in the series, with the American government playing a role as a major player in the story. The show depicts an extrajudicial rule of law under the Vice President and his control of a shadowy US Military group, DARKCOM. The Vice President and DARKCOM, in no uncertain means, are portrayed as villainous figures with negative intentions. It's very clear that this show is meant to critique the America of the 90s/00s and the War on Terror as a whole. At one point, there is a drone strike montage on demon refugees wearing head coverings played to American Idiot by Green Day with American soldiers proudly flaunting war crimes in the media in response to a terror event.

Is Devil May Cry Woke?

This may make you think, is Netflix's Devil May Cry meant to be "woke"? The answer may surprise you.

A major plot point of this show is its exploration of the demon realm. In the games, the demon realm is a mysterious, transient place rarely explored and its depiction wildly varies between games. We are given a variety of clues as to its inner workings, but it has never been explained fully. The Netflix show has a wildly different approach to this.

In the show, we are introduced to the demon realm through the lens of White Rabbit, the main antagonist of the show. As a child, he was bullied and dreamed of an escape. One day, he chanced upon a portal to the demon realm and took it. Upon arriving, the air was shown to be highly toxic, and the realm itself was dangerous with powerful demons trying to kill White Rabbit. However, he is saved by another demon and introduced to an underground civilization of weaker demons, called Makaians, named after what they call the demon realm, Makai. Makaians are shown to be a tightly knit, happy community living in prosperity in this underground society. However, the toxic atmosphere of Makai is still an issue, with Makaians dying off to illness. White Rabbit grows up, and comes up with a way to help the Makaians find refuge in the human realm, specifically America. One day, helping refugees cross over into America, he happens upon a DARKCOM squad who opens fire on him and the refugees, a brutal massacre that leaves almost no survivors. White Rabbit, as the lone survivor, takes it upon himself to swear vengeance on DARKCOM.

He continues aiding refugees, and builds a community of refugees in an apartment complex. However, he begins to rule them through fear, performing experiments on the refugees (he is compared to a Nazi at one point), and uses the refugees as a militant force against Americans.

At one point, Dante has a debate with White Rabbit. White Rabbit argues that by sealing away Makai and creating the border between it and the human realm, Sparda trapped the Makaians in a world with a mad ruler, Mundus, violent demons, and a toxic environment that kills them to breathe in. He wants to unite the worlds so the refugees, the Makaians have a safe place to live. Dante retorts that what his father Sparda did was the right thing, and that by letting in the Makaian refugees, the violent demons will also cross over and slaughter humans by the millions. He also remarks that the human world isn't a good place anyway.

Adi Shankar, the "visionary" behind the show, was in attendance at Donald Trump's inauguration and said he respected him. With this in mind, what does this say when combined with the aforementioned discussion of immigration within the show?

Later, the US is shown to invade Makai and establish concentration camps, and Vergil is depicted as being a freedom fighter for the Makaians, freeing them from US prisons as an agent of Mundus. Although White Rabbit says Mundus is oppressive, we haven't been shown any real bad sides of his regime. In fact, by all accounts, Mundus and his operatives look to be quite sympathetic.

With all of the aforementioned details, it seems that Adi Shankar, while critical of US interventionism, goes a step further and suggests that isolationism is the answer, that we should go so far as to not even allow refugees from areas with literally poisonous air, that they should stay in their place and we should stay in ours. This is the conclusion of season 1, and I am not interested in further exploration of this world and themes. The show is cynical, reactionary and pessimistic. There isn't an ounce of positive messaging in regards to any of the conflicts portrayed in this series, and it reads as a self-indulgence so contradictory to humanity that the author has to craft an unbelievably terrible world to affirm their own views.

Of course, this is an incomplete saga. There will likely be a Season 2 and it may go against how I interpreted the intent of the author here, but Season 1 is what we have been given and what I am judging. Even when viewed by its own merits, separate from the original material, this story simply falls flat. With the current state of the world in 2025, we did not need a story like this.

[humblefryingpan]

I like drv3 talent swaps but I rlly wish ppl wouldn't just stick their 'ultimate leader' in dice. Like make up a new organization or just make them a leader of smth else, that's Kokichi's thing! They were important enough to Kokichi to be in his motive video, it's not like they're just random henchmen

Nearly everyone in drv3 had something else they could've led, none of them are connected to dice bc it wasn't designed for them. Like it doesn't even need to be a crime organization, that was tailored to Kokichi.

And you don't need to take away their entire personality because they're better at a different thing? Like gonta would still like bugs, it's like 90% of his personality. Let them lead something that has meaning to them instead of just y/n-ing them into dice. I'm gonna stick ideas under the cut bc like be creative?

Rantaro - idk him very well, didn't he raise his (many) sisters? Being a leader doesn't always mean they're in an organization/club

Kaede - stick her in a band? Or like a choir group. Leading a criminal organization would change her character a lot

Ryoma - tennis team? Idk much about sports. Or like a prison gang bc didn't he say he went to prison

Kirumi - ngl you wouldn't have to change a single thing there, she's the president already

Angie - student council? Or like a priest

Tenko - idk her that well but like lead some kinda akido group? Like a martial arts club. Dice has dudes so she definitely wouldn't be their leader

Korekiyo - yeah I know nothing about him or anthropology. Study group (studying culture) ?

Miu - Engineering club

Gonta - could he be the leader of bugs? Yk like how ppl can train bugs into behaving differently. If not then a bug study group (ik I already said that but it's a different type of study group okay?)

Kaito - training group? Like with Maki and Shuichi or like a group of astronauts-in-training with Kaito as their group leader

Kiibo - robotics/engineering club. He'd be so different without his talent though ngl

Tsumugi - cosplay group

Shuichi - lead detective on a case

Maki - she was in an assassin group right? Make her the leader of that

Himiko - magician club (lol my old teacher tried to make one of those but no one wanted to go)

Like they literally could've just led a group project rlly well, it doesn't need to be dice. I once read a fic where the new leader was literally just Kokichi with a name change. Sometimes it rlly seems like people want a roleswap instead of a talent swap and like there are so many options!

[monscrow]

intro post, i guess!!!

askbox open only on weekends (when i remember lol); got too overwhelmed by spam, my apologies.

last updated 10/feb/2025

⚠️flash warning for blinkies at the bottom⚠️

free gaza, free palestine, stop genocide. you don't agree? block me.

i go by mons, crow and vic/víctor!!

my pronouns are they/them, he/him and any neos/xenos that you think would fit either comedically or off of vibes.

lvl 16, so, a minor !! beware

aroacespec, something like that; qprs are sick asf and all hail relationship anarchy.

art sideblog is @monscrowdraws

audhdcd (asd + adhd + ocd 😻😋) and hEDS. i use tonetags, feel free to ask for clarification!!!

bday is oct 7. 🎉🎉🎉

i'm mexican 🇲🇽!! i speak both spanish and english.

timezone is cst/utc-6.

i say slurs i can reclaim (mainly the f and t queer ones) and swear a lot, though if that makes you uncomfortable please either block me or lmk so i can try to tone it down when around you.

i love interacting!! feel free to tag me in stuff, send some asks (be it on anon or not), or message me! moots can ask for my discord even if we've never actually talked before. though i suck at keeping consistent; nothing personal i promise</3 /gen

i tend to spam-reblog so do with that information what you will.

some tags you might see me use here and there:

#mons rambles ← just my thoughts, ideas, opinions, and whatever i feel like throwing into the tumblr void.

#ask a crow / #anon asks ← askbox replies.

#save / #art save / #fav / #hellsite faves ← these are more for myself, but yeah they're pretty self-descriptive. just in case you get curious or anything.

hyperfixations/interests/things i'm passionate about !!! i guess, kinda

→ mcr (+ most of the members' solo projects)

→ killjoys (california + national anthem, but mainly calif and fanon)

→ demolition lovers lore (i have literally written like at least three different essays about it for school help me i'm so serious)

→ emo/alt/diy culture

→ will wood

→ bandom in general

→ sonic the hedgehog (franchise)

→ graphic design, arts and crafts, illustration, animation (that's right y'all graphic design IS my passion 😔)

→ fnaf (bonnie fnaf they could never make me hate you)

→ cosplay/costume-making

→ d&d

→ crows (no way, crow, really???)

→ australian shepherds

→ the umbrella academy (s4 isn't canon in my heart + currently reading the comics !!! )

→ gravity falls

→ neurodivergencies/psychology/disabilities (this one's pretty meta ngl)

→ lgbtqia+ identities (emphasis on the aroace-spec ones + relationship anarchy)

→ politics/activism

→ linguistics + conlangs

→ fantasy in general (high fantasy, magic, vampires, tieflings, you name it)

→ boardgames

→ the count of monte cristo (book + 2024 movie)

→ webfishing :3

→ uhhhh there's more but i don't remember rn, i'll keep adding as i see fit (probably... maybe..... perhaps....... quizás........ puede ser..........)

dni

trump supporters, terfs, transphobes, anti lgbtqia+/queerphobics, exclusionists, ableists, racists, prolifers/antichoicers, proshippers/anti-antis, irl gore, pro-israel/zionists, pro-ai generated "content", pro-nft, non-critical media consumers, classists, ed blogs, sh blogs.

also, i'm aware that dnis tend to not be effective and i probably will still get shitty ppl in my inbox so i can and will block. though i'm p chill as long as you're chill. this blog is run by a very neurodivergent, mentally ill, mexican, transmasc, aroace faggot, and any kind of bigoted hatred will not be tolerated.

blinkies made with blinkies cafe !!!

pssst btw, before you go, if you read my intro post i'd heavily encourage you to like it, so i can know!!! :] (/nf though!)

[qcellbit]

meta talk. i don't quite know how to word this properly, but adding french creators to the qsmp is the riskiest thing quackity studios could've done and it doesn't surprise me that the success to which it was executed was minimal.

adding portuguese speaking creators exclusively from brazil as the first batch outside of the initial english and spanish speakers was the perfect "soft expansion" for the server when you consider the reason for the project's conception - because quackity had experienced poor treatment from white americans as a bilingual latino creator and sought to unite his two communities in an empowering way, further expanding this very noble and personal idea to encapsulate all communities and all languages spanning across the entire world. inviting more latino creators who have likely had the same experiences and would be able to appreciate what the project is trying to achieve is a no-brainer.

it's an uncomfortable thing to touch on (which is why i've never, ever, seen it spoken about on this website), but minecraft projects and communities have always had massive problems with all forms of bigotry, but especially racism. white americans and white europeans have probably not felt the euphoria of seeing their culture celebrated in mainstream global entertainment projects as they already absolutely dominate the entertainment industry on a global scale. as someone who is visibly brown and living in europe, i've always got a lot of grief from classmates and co-workers in the form of ignorant jokes and flat out exclusion - it's an unfortunate cultural norm that bleeds into streaming due to the medium's casual and open nature, unnoticed or unchallenged by white viewers who don't want to have to confront a content creator's bigotry in fears of having to stop watching them. something that cannot be ignored by the people it's actually affecting. there is a reason dsmp and hermitcraft cosplay meet ups are dominated by pale skin.

i love the qsmp because its inclusion of latin american creators and quackity's selectiveness based on personal experience have largely (and i do mean largely, not entirely, but that's a discussion for another day) eliminated that problem.

the most prominent and succinct example i can think of is the photo of quackity's bedroom that was mocked countless times by his english speaking community and his bigoted english speaking friends when he streamed on the dsmp - when that photo was brought to the qsmp, forever, a fellow latino creator, was the first person to gently offer solidarity because he had come from the same impoverished latin american background. to me, and to a lot of minorities, that is what the qsmp is about. yeah, sharing languages in a minecraft server is novel, it's a fun way for americans who did poorly in high school to get back into learning spanish, but it stands for so much more when you're a racial minority. when your pleading in the dsmp fandom was drowned out and ignored for the entire duration of its run. when you're completely unrepresented in minecraft tournaments, and when known bigots are encouraged to participate in said tournaments to boost viewership because numbers are paramount. when you are finally seeing your culture appreciated rather than mocked on streams with tens of thousands of viewers all over the world as part of a massive project with a brilliant, engaging story.

it was obviously necessary to branch out of the americas at some point with what the project is attempting to achieve, but such a task is daunting when the next group you're inviting and their community probably do not have the capacity through personal experience to appreciate what the project stands for at its core in the same way the first batches do. can non americans all relate in discussions of the internet and entertainment industry being america and by extension english speaking centric? yeah, of course. but can white europeans relate when the only representation you have in said media revolves around harmful bigoted stereotypes? can there be a quiet solidarity between a white frenchman and a brown brazilian based on experiences with government, racial profiling, and online mockery? no. and in the landscape of livestreaming stupid jokes for entertainment alongside fast paced gameplay, these nuances are probably not going to be acknowledged.

in complete contrast to the solidarity exhibited between quackity and forever when discussing their poverty growing up in latin america, i have not forgotten and never will forget aypierre excusing his constant racist jokes aimed at the brazilians on his uniquely "french dark humour" that the brazilians, hurt by his comments, could "not understand." this is not an excusable cultural difference, but a symptom of white european privilege, and total ignorance towards what the project is meant to stand for. a smooth integration of all the world's cultures necessitates white european and white american introspection in a way that i haven't seen a lot of streamers capable of. admitting fault to such a degree and the ego of a large online personality do not often mesh well.

i'm always very irritated when people (especially english speakers) complain about them not "adding the germans" sooner despite us seeing applications for german speaking admins many months ago - because it would not be a task of simply throwing out server invites to content creators and cobbling together an animation of a submarine crashing into the island. you cannot downplay the ambition of this project and the mammoth task its trying to accomplish. people take for granted and forget that this is an unprecedented melding of cultures that would never otherwise interact and clash on the rare occasions they do. the french qsmp community being small and the french creators largely being outliers when it comes to the qsmp is not something born out of malice or purposeful exclusion, but simply a symptom of an unspoken lack of solidarity and inability to meaningfully relate based on everything from wildly varying privilege to global placement.

and don't get me wrong - i'm not excusing things like the times at which events are broadcast (i literally live in europe and have to stay up until sunrise to see most events, i think the admins do have to bite the bullet and begin structuring events around a new timezone that isn't the globally inconvenient unsustainable PST), or the exclusion of clips from french content creators at the presidential dinner, but i think attributing those admin choices to the brazilian community being unfairly favoured is downplaying what the qsmp as a project means for minorities, especially when the brazilian community receive the most scorn for infamously being the first to call out bigoted behaviour from qsmp content creators. yeah, it sucks that the french haven't slotted into the qsmp as well as the brazilians and aren't anywhere as numerous, but with all these unspoken contributing factors being taken into account, i can't be surprised.

i wish quackity and his team the best in smoothly integrating more languages and cultures in this amazing project in the future, but for the love of god please understand that the implications of this project and its impact are far larger than any streamer "drama" you might've witnessed in the past. and stop underplaying what this project is trying to achieve in an online landscape saturated in bigotry.

[forgingtheblade]

HELLO!

I’m Floral, aka @theenderwalker aka @floralmonarchh, and I’m currently in university studying fiber arts and costuming! I’m in a BFA program that ends with a thesis exhibition—a gallery show that is the culmination of the exploration, research, and art I’ve made over the two years of the program.

I’ve always been interested in the intersection of costume and art, and have also become passionate about exploring the lines we draw between literature and pop culture, as well as modern “myth-making” and storytelling traditions.

I have also been hopelessly obsessed with the DSMP for over four years now.

As a means of synthesizing all of these interests and skills, my thesis project (which will be going into the gallery in April or May of 2025) is a complete rebuild from head to toe of my Technoblade cosplay!

The project is already underway, but considering how much of my continued interest in the DSMP is rooted in this online community, I really wanted to begin documenting the build here.

So follow along for updates on the wild variety of things I’m doing and learning to bring this version of Technoblade to life.

Technoblade never dies!

[mascaraandmojitos]

Source: http://creativefashioniom.tumblr.com

[horizon-verizon]

The fact that so many people think the Starks are honorable anticolonial fighters and the pinnacle of morality is absolutely insane, they literally built a massive wall to isolated a bunch of people they considered as “savages”, they hunted and slaughtered the Free Folk, the Children of the Forest, giants, exterminated whole houses and clans and took their daughters as “prizes” while conquering the North, etc. The Blackwoods were originally from the North and ruled most of the wolfswood, before being driven out by the Starks and forced to flee south. The Starks are the OG COLONIZERS in ASOIAF.

Even this did not give Winterfell dominion over all the North. Many other petty kings remained, ruling over realms great and small, and it would require thousands of years and many more wars before the last of them was conquered. Yet one by one, the Starks subdued them all, and during these struggles, many proud houses and ancient lines were extinguished forever. — The World of Ice and Fire – The North: The Kings of Winter.

I recently finished a Tiktok series that will probably just be as lost to the internet if we lose TikTok but I had to get out in response to a particular creator who bashes Rhaenyra while also proclaiming themselves as black stans. I think they are really more black stans because they hate Alicent personally and feels the thrill of the side-taking, but that's neither here nor there. 😏

To quote one of my mutuals here [rhaenin]:

It just rings so familiar to the way so many people view the other in real life. Because the Targaryens are overtly, and intentionally written as the other. It's the reason so many people identify with them, and it's the very same reason that other people vilify them. They're not just the in-universe other to the 'default' culture established in the text, but they're also given characteristics that we, the reader and audience, can recognize as other and even sometimes anathema to Western Christian culture. To paraphrase the annoying people that love to cite Ramsay when they feel like it: If you look at a morally complex family surrounded by other morally complex families in a morally complex world in a story that's famed for seeking to challenge your underlying assumptions, and think that their association with fire and brimstone is meant to signify their singular satanic evilness, rather than say... challenge that very Eurocentric assumption, you haven't been paying attention. This vilification mindset where the Targaryens are the singular evil of Westeros is so common to people who seem to want to consume ASoIaF without engaging with the criticisms of the Eurocentric worldview of history at the heart of it. And they end up using the convenient “others” to project all the wrongs of that world onto so they don't need to examine it any deeper. ........... It comes from the same place with how someone pointed out that the baffling bastardphobia that would have medieval peasants giving the side eye is so often people jumping at the chance to “cosplay” as bigots who base their arguments in misogyny and bio-essentialism. Because it's an acceptable channel to indulge in that mindset in a way that they'd often otherwise question, or at least hold back from expressing out of caution.

[nickeverdeen]

Nerd!Ellie Williams hcs

Nerd Ellie would have an impressive collection of old video games, especially ones like The Turning, Jak and Daxter, and Uncharted

She’d obsess over in-game lore and strategy, getting super competitive in multiplayer modes

She’d be a huge fan of comic books, constantly geeking out over superheroes

She’d have a stash of rare issues and could spend hours debating the best storylines or character arcs

Ellie would have a fascination with science, but especially space and galaxy

She’d be deep into sci-fi and anime, binge-watching shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, or Attack on Titan

Her room would be filled with posters, figurines, and even fan art she draws herself

Ellie would be all about board games like Dungeons & Dragons or strategy games like Risk or Settlers of Catan

She’d take on the role of dungeon master for her friends and get way too excited about crafting epic storylines for the campaigns

She’d be the type to take apart radios, consoles, or old gadgets and try to fix or mod them

She’d probably have a corner of her room dedicated to half-finished projects, complete with soldering tools and spare parts

Ellie would get super flustered when talking to her crush, stumbling over her words and pushing up her sleeves nervously

She’d try to impress them with random trivia or lend them one of her favorite comics to bond over

She’d be deep into meme culture and constantly reference them in casual conversation

She’d also be active in online fandom communities, participating in debates or creating fan art and fanfics for her favorite shows and games

Ellie would have a love for retro tech and pop culture from the '80s and '90s

She’d have old VHS tapes, cassette players, and a love for classic films like The Goonies or Back to the Future

She’d love the idea of building a retro arcade machine one day

Ellie would get super into cosplay, hand-making her own costumes for conventions or just for fun

She’d meticulously recreate outfits from her favorite games or shows, spending hours on the details, and getting her friends to join in on group cosplays