#danger of a single story

[keatschild]

I have heard people claim that profound and beautiful writing come from pain and sadness, that trauma and depression are the mark of a good writer.

But we often forget that sadness is only a part of the human experience, and stories are all about the human experience in its entirety, not just a tragic brain child of an unhappy existence.

Unless a story can bring out all the flavours of life that the writer has felt, unless the story makes us feel all the joy, anger, fear, and sadness, what's it worth? The danger of the single story lies therein.

Do we have to rethink what we define as successful writing? Don't we have to question what we define as the only valid human experience?

[egophiliac]

Tl;Dr - I stopped playing the game but I like the characters and I wanna draw them but idk if the wiki I use is up to date for cards

Do u know any wikis that have up to date cards for all the twst characters-

Asking specifically bc of Malleus cause I can't tell anymore if he has any more new cards bc HE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A 100 DISNEY ANIVERSARY CARD IN THE WIKI I USE 😭

Like compared to everyone else in Disanomia, he has 12 cards (in the wiki I use) and then Lilia has 17 cards 💀

Cause I think Malleus has a Bean's Day card as well, but that could just be a fanmade one, I don't have JP twst nor ENG twst anymore so I can't confirm it myself urhghrhevw 🫠

Malleus doesn't have a Beans Day card, so that would've been fanmade! and the 100 anniversary cards are actually the new round of birthday cards, so most of the characters don't have 'em yet -- Malleus should be getting his in a couple of days, when his birthday event starts! oh god my keeeeeys

I think the wiki.gg stays pretty up to date? it looks to me like they have everything that's currently up through JP, at least. :O I did go through and do a quick count just because I couldn't believe Malleus only had 12 cards, but. he really does have the least...defeated only by Silver with 13...astonishing. we need his gargoyle club wear immediately.

[monkayy]

[shirozora-draws]

mustard on the beat, ho- MUSTAAAAAAAAAAAAARD Someone make it stop, make it fucking stop. I spent all week hyping myself up to gather up all my work sketches like a scrapbook and clean it all up to post here, and then Kendrick had to surprise drop on a Friday morning and ruin my work day and my headspace all weekend long.

Anyway, here's a dangerous dreams sketch dump.

It's been a long quiet, but RL had taken such a fucking toll that I had a real hard time finding the fucks to get creative. Who knows how much this past US presidential election will fuck up the entire rest of my life, but I'll take solace in finding community and in the little things and in Andor Season 2 and in the telling of The Stars.

Now that I got this out of the way, guess it's time to go fucking write some fucking words.

[beanghostprincess]

I have seen a wild amount of people complaining about the context of Wind Breaker and how "unrealistic" it is for the characters to go to school but without any teachers or adults being shown or protecting them and... First of all, realism is not what you're going to find reading a Shonen and if you want a full-on high school experience, read another manga. It is very common to skip those details as a writer because they are not interesting in the slightest and they have confirmed multiple times that all of their grades are awful, so you won't get a silly little arc about them studying, because they directly don't. To say it is "unrealistic" is to ask for boring, pointless, plotless occurrences in a Shonen manga about fighting. Are people even hearing themselves when they complain?

But it's not only from a writer's perspective skipping what's unimportant that justifies the lack of teachers and responsible adults, but the plot itself. At first, it is confusing, but I think you only have to look a bit deeper into the cultural context of the story to understand why there aren't teachers/adults shown.

I'm around chapter 100, so I am not sure this gets explained further in the manga, but my theory as to why they behave this way is pretty simple, honestly: They are poor and in ruins, and adults with the power to change things do not care about them. Easy as that.

Whether it is real or just an exaggeration of what's actually going on, it has been shown countless times (especially in Umemiya's backstory, explaining directly how authorities don't care about the kids or anybody, really) that the whole city is made for outcasts and left to rot by the government. It is not some apocalyptic bullshit, it is stuff that happens every goddamn day in real life. They go to school but they aren't shown studying and the place itself is a mess. We only see Umemiya running the school but it is confirmed that there's staff and somebody grading them somehow, despite never being shown studying or doing anything other than patrolling. But they have shown us that the city used to be extremely problematic and chaotic and only recently have things started to change for the better. Most villains and even main characters are orphans and live on their own. There's a whole arc about a group of kids being left to rot in poverty without any means to study or live a normal life. Even our main character lives on his own in a horrendous apartment. Like--

I believe you have to be blind to not see that, if this isn't just literally some people turning their backs against poor kids in a place in ruins, it is at least an exaggeration of these things happening in real life. Because they could have classes and teachers and everything you want in the manga to make it more realistic, but this is, after all, from the perspective of teenagers who can't rely on anybody but themselves. There's only so much a teacher can do, and we know most of them do nothing for these kids. So if it is "unrealistic" perhaps you aren't aware of what damn hyperboles and metaphors are, but this is from the students' points of view, and when you live in a place like this, it doesn't matter how many teachers there are or police, because they won't help. So they are directly erased from the story to be replaced with Sakura's point of view of Umemiya running the whole place.

So I think that instead of looking for realistic interpretations of their high school experience, perhaps you should empathize a little with the actual real high school experiences of people like them.

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[overtake]

If i see one more person spread “news” sourced to outlets like f1-insider… please actually pay attention to sources and use critical thought about where it came from. these accounts want their engagement numbers and will share information derived from a fucking reddit comment if they think it’ll earn them a few extra dollars. there’s always an off chance these bullshit tabloids are right, but they almost never are, and a legitimate source will come along if there’s any whisper of truth to it. i just beg of people to simply wait for sources with the slightest bit of credibility to their name before they start sharing information.

[chemicalarospec]

it makes me sad how many aspec posts (and videos and other individual-generated content) are just being upset about this depiction or that one. we NEED more (semi-mainstream) aspec rep so bad, so that nobody has to feel hurt when 1 kind of aspec that they are not is represented and the only 1 they see :(

[anime-academia]

The Danger of a Single Story permanently altered the way I think (pos, overwhelmingly pos), so shoutout to my AP teacher for that. 10/10 recommend.

[s4pphic-sh3nan1gans]

love that my mum just gave me a lecture (more like an unnecessary reason to argue with me though tbh) about internet safety as if I'm doing something really terrible and I'm a vulnerable, naïve child when I'm literally almost 20 years old :)

[autumnlassitude]

Hello, I’ve made a playlist for my darling bhaalspawn Felix, please clap.

[cluescorner]

My friends: Just so you know, Star Wars kinda has a lot of characters with plot armor! I hope you're ok with that...

Me: I am a comics fan, you have no idea the amount of plot armor I will happily tolerate.

[adorablegorilla]

You say Mandragora is still alive as Copium. *I* say it because I believe it would be genuinely unsatisfying and bad writing for her role in the story to end in such an anti-climax. We are not the same.

[featheredcritter]

you know i try to give the benefit of the doubt with people and animals, but at some point i just have to assume you are dumb or you just don’t care. I know it can be hard to recognize bad husbandry and stress if you don’t know much about animals or about that specific species, but my dear friend, some situations are stupidly, obiviously bad and i think people should kinda start using their brain over what they see online.

[neros-very-first-fiddle]

danger days’ song order will never not be funny to me because after the traffic report where two characters DIE, you would expect there to be a tonal shift i.e. Destroya playing because it would take the focus off the Fab Four. but no. instead poison hears that his brother is DEAD and just goes, “I think now’s a good time to talk about me.”

[whumpitisthen]

5 and 7 for the dark oc asks?

For this ask game :)

I will do these for Auden and Grim as they have been my main bois for the most part! (and are the most developed because of that)

Read more because this came out way longer than it had any business being (i get so excited when someone sends me an ask i just have to deliver!! you know!! I didn't even expect someone to send me anything from that i just thought the questions were cool 👉👈)

5. What is their moral code?

Moral code in Hell is... An interesting concept. Generally speaking most people who live in Hell have grayer morality than those that do not, as Hell allows for depravity that will ruin you unless you grow used to it. Bearing that in mind:

Auden is an angel, fresh out of Heaven. A righteous one too, as he is a Guardian, meant to be a protector of the innocent. Even if he wasn't being abused and picked on by everyone, he'd still have awful trouble coming to terms with how life is down here for everyone. He finds the hurting of anything living unbearable, even for those that may deserve it — which separates him from other angels, because no matter how hard he tries to put on this face of rage and disgust whenever faced with a hellspawn, seeing someone like Mori being not only hurt, but tortured so casually and undeservedly put him in more distress than what Heaven deems rational. He is meant to feel nothing but hatred for demons. He is meant to be pure, above them all. He should know and understand that not a single one of them deserve mercy. But he can't. He tries, he parrots every awful expression angels use to spew their vitriol at demonkind, but he is such a bleeding heart, he can't help it. If possible, he is even more morally soft than Heaven wants him to be, and that is unfortunately not a good thing to be according to the rules of neither Hell, nor Heaven.

Grim, on the other hand, is the polar opposite. He is so far above the question of this made up concept. He is a god, for crying out loud, if anything, he should be able to decide with finality what is and isn't morally correct. He spends most of his time in the ethically questionable Hell, but he doesn't truly belong on anywhere but Earth — the moral dilemmas of Heaven and Hell are meaningless to him. What is important is his fun. If faced with a seemingly obvious question of mortality, like 'would you help the helpless?', he would not think of morals and ethics, he would think of what answer would be funnier. Or more beneficial to him. Morals will not even come to mind. His answer will be highly dependent on his current mood. He understands the concept, well enough to use it to taunt and mock, but he does not take part in philosophies like this. Rights and wrongs are a part of life, and why would any of it matter if every person has their own minds made up about what counts as what? It only serves to feed judgement, and judgement is not part his field of work. And in any case, did you ever know Death to be fair? I doubt it!

7. How far are they willing to go to get what they want?

(ive actually been doing a little character study and one of the questions was what is it that they want, or if they have it already, how do they hold onto it? And im thinking of posting that at some point too :3 let me know if youd like to see it im just fleshing them out — i think this is the first time I've ever written out that expression, and it sounds so metal and torturous??? "Fleshing Them Out" it sounds like gore i love it)

Auden wants a lot of things, probably the main one being acceptance. He has tried so hard all his life to get such a simple thing, but he has unfortunately been looking in the wrong places, asking for it from the wrong people, and never managed to grasp it for long. If there was some kind of miracle worker who could just magically make all the other angels accept him as he is, he would do just about anything. If Grim, for example, being the powerful deity he is, could make something like this happen, Auden would give up everything he has for it. Every bit of dignity, all morals, even body parts maybe. He is so desperate for it, however, that he would do all that for less. His thirst for belonging started in Heaven, but by the time he arrives in Hell, all he truly wants is for someone to see him and appreciate him for himself, to tell him he is perfect as he is. Grim has shown he understands this part of Auden in little ways already, seeing how unconfident he is and how entranced he became with him at the slightest sign of respect and love, even if clearly fake. A couple kind, understanding words; an 'I know you can't help it, it's okay' can melt Auden, even bring him to tears on bad days. Now he is more desperate than ever before, all alone in the worst place imaginable, so it's not surprising how he clings to those words like his life depends on it, even if the one cooing them at him is someone who only does so to hurt him.

Grim is a tenacious bastard. What he wants is power to do whatever he wants to and to keep everyone in a chokehold with nothing but his intimidating presence. He wants that fear he causes, and he already has it. Yet, he holds onto it carelessly. He is not worried about it ever fizzling out, because even if some are truly unafraid of Death, the vast majority will always shiver at his cold presence. While he likes showing off his powers every once in a while, he does not need to do that for that fearful respect to remain. He has a reputation, and to break that reputation he has built up over millenia is no easy feat. If his status is ever threatened, however, he will become enraged, murderous, threatening, dangerous, desperate, unstoppable, and near inconsolable. While he is awfully difficult to get to this point, what with his mastery of keeping all eyes on him and proficiency at leading social situations, it is not impossible. He will lose all the theatrics and replace them with a chilling lack of emotion, brutal efficiency and uncontrollable thirst for blood. He would not stop the slaughter until he is not only respected, but Worshipped by every mortal and immortal at his feet, begging for forgiveness in terror. He will burn the world to the ground. He will kill without reason or care, until someone stops him. The one trusted to do that is his Lord, usually. These "hissy fits", as his Lord calls them, could be world ending. Luckily, they don't happen often, as you'd need someone just as tenacious as Grim to be able to tilt him that bad, and as powerful as his Lord to strip him of his effortless control. If we're talking about something way lower scale, like a single person like Auden, who is also something he wanted, things aren't that much different. If he wants something, he takes it. If there's resistance, he overpowers them, at first through words, then through violence. If he cannot, he will keep being a pest until they give up, having fun toying with them, as he still remains the true one in control. He is not used to not getting what he wants. But if nothing works, sooner or later he will be pissed off enough to start throwing one of his infamous, catastrophic hissy fits, and start levelling buildings.

Taglist: @whumpsday @whump-me-all-night-long @whumpifi