#especially when it comes to media and stories
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Note
Does that mean you’ll still react to Lily’s bad media takes? Because honestly, between what you, Ant and Crim (whom I understand doesn’t want to part take in the Lily Slop anymore, I respect) have accomplished by calling Lily out and her actively attacking you guys helps shows her true colors, especially when she was falsely striking y’all. It has affected Lily’s channel, her views have been at an all time low and I’m sure that’s hurting her financially too.
You guys also helped a lot of people realize how toxic Lily can be and how she constantly talks nonsense. Not too mention with her crimes, Lilly is a walking red flag with all the high intimacy siblings stuff that it goes into her work, she has a clear pattern of behavior that always links back to the crimes against her. Girl is having coffee at the screen of the crime but weaves so many lies to deny it that she can’t keep her story straight.
My heart goes out to Courtney and wishing her justice, but you guys dissecting Lily’s lack of media literacy has also help spread more awareness of her having no authority over anything as well as damaging her views. So while I understand not wanting to talk over or for victims, you’ve all still contributed awareness of how dangerous Lily can still be.
Well if Lily is dumb enough to do a video on Dragon Age you bet I will. But even my audience is losing interest in her, she didn't even come close in my last poll about what they want my next react stream to be.
I had a stream before Lily, it was just on Twitch, and I'm not going to apologize for seizing the opportunity handed to me when I suddenly found myself with a new audience and a new income stream on YouTube.
I've been very transparent from the start that I'm an entertainer first and foremost and ill-equipped to speak in depth on the crimes I believe Lily is guilty of.
But I also can't ignore them. So I keep on her ass with this sideblog full of receipts. I mention the gross shit she's said and done every stream on her. Ant and I have been trying to get YouTube to take her copyright system abuse seriously which could terminate her channel.
But beyond direct legal action all the rest of us can do is keep calling attention to what a degenerate she is, annoy her, point out what a shit content creator she is in the first place, and chip away at her reputation. Sue me that I want to have fun along the way with the skillset I do have.
And not to toot my own horn but she's dropped over 2,000 subs since I came on the scene.
You will be seeing edits of past Lily streams coming out though. I'm starting to pay editors to help me with that. 😁
85 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hiya Miss Wendy! I’ve been doing a check on the Vaquita’s population every now and then for the last couple of years and I just wanted to go out of my way to thank you for spreading some awareness about them in cs, they’ve been one of my favourite creatures for years, even before I found castle swimmer! Unfortunately however their populations have dropped even lower to just 6-8 individuals, I was just wondering if you could respond to this publicly with literally anything or briefly post about them so that more people, particularly those who may have forgotten about them/their low numbers, can see, and maybe just spread more awareness, no pressure! I would just love to see if there’s any way to get more awareness out on them, I’ve made a poster or two for them before but not many have really seen them, nor have I seen many posters of them myself, your story is pretty much the only place I’ve seen anyone else spread any awareness about them, and I am so grateful that you have, I especially love the symbolism in their mysterious illness and markings it causes, though I truly hope fiction remains fiction in the sense that I hope they don’t all end up dying out :’]
Here’s a poster I’ve made too! I made it in hopes of helping educate people and spreading awareness as memorably as possible, I’ll probably be posting it on a few platforms myself of course, sorry that this is so long, but I hope you enjoy the poster if nothing else, have a lovely day and thank you for at least reading this and for making such an amazing piece of media!!
I love the poster you made! I think it works really well!
And yeah I think I want to do a reminder about the Vaquita on the episodes themselves because they get the most views. I also want to add them to the books but I’m not sure when each book is coming out and it feels farther away.
A few things:
Check out porpoise.org for more info. You can donate there or subscribe to donate 10 bucks a month to help with the conservation efforts (If you have the means to do so) the same goes for seashepherd.org
Also check out flee_bites who is more educated on the Vaquita than I am.
Here is a thread by them: https://x.com/flee_bites/status/1653879957049815057?s=46&t=83zTD1mrR7lomd69vRrJfw
The low numbers of the Vaquita seem really shocking but it IS still possible to save them.
I am not an expert on the Vaquita by any means nor am I an expert on conservation but I do care a lot about these creatures and I think it’s important to spread info about them especially since most people have no idea they exist.
60 notes
·
View notes
Text
Living through the Next American Political Order: Institutions Will Comply, and You Will Be Made Complicit
I woke up this morning to see that Donald Trump had been elected president again. Like roughly half of American voters, this is not the outcome that I had hoped for. Politics, like history, is chaotic and uncertain. Yet the victorious party in American politics last night has campaigned for years on a clear platform and a coherent vision of America’s future. Voters chose that party, and institutional guardrails will not constrain the next government. American life will change accordingly.
I did not predict this outcome. I predicted no outcome, because I did not know, and what I did know made me fearful. But about two weeks ago, liberals like me started to acknowledge—quietly, privately—that we thought Trump would win again. So I am not surprised, exactly. Nor is any woman I know, including my own daughter.
But I am demobilized and discouraged nevertheless. The results confirm some of my worst fears about what Americans will support when given the choice. And now I, like others who share my views towards the next administration, must ponder how to make our way through the coming years. The threats facing Americans are not all the same, and so they will be borne unequally; people with my characteristics will face fewer risks than many others. And yet all of us will need to wake up every day and make our way through our lives, mindful of the new political world we live in, but with the same obligations as ever amidst an uncertain and frightening new future.
When I wrote “Life in Authoritarian States is Mostly Boring and Tolerable” in 2017, I was anticipating a situation much like this one. And so in the early hours of the second Trump administration, here are the implications I see.
Liberalism is Not That Popular. I am a liberal at heart. I believe in individual autonomy, collective self-determination, and political equality. I believe that this implies a certain form of politics, including the rule of law, republicanism, and proceduralism. But my values are not that popular among the voting public, and the consequences are apparent. The liberal strands (dare I say “foundations”) of American politics shall be undermined, and some dismantled. Anyone who thinks that America has never been a liberal republic will find evidence to support their position as well.
Your Institutions Will Comply with the Administration. The next administration will likely destroy some institutions, but more likely, it will work with and reshape existing institutions to suit its purposes. The mechanisms through which this will happen are legal and financial. Concretely, this is how they will direct the corporate sector, constrain universities, and shape the mass media. Electoral authoritarian regimes routinely do this around the world. Our next administration will follow that playbook. There are plenty of past precedents in U.S. history, and comparative examples around the world right now.
That means, there will come a time when the administration tells the press not to publish a story, for reasons that are transparently nonsense. The press will comply. There will come a time when universities are told what they can teach and what students can do. They will comply too. They will comply because the consequences of noncompliance are too severe, even if every single person working within those institutions opposes the actions taken in their name.
You Will Face A Choice. Many people are going to be made vulnerable under the coming administration, especially anyone who lacks a U.S. passport, women, and gender nonconforming people. Most people living in the U.S. will not be so vulnerable, but we will operate within a system in which our friends and neighbors face existential risks. And because we are embedded in institutions, we will become the agents of the administration even if we do not want to be. The institutions will comply, rendering us complicit even through nonaction, without our consent, sometimes without our knowledge.
Last week I spoke to some students who had concerns about how my institution regulates speech and protest. I told them directly: you must not assume that our university can safeguard you. You should not believe any promise that they make, because they do not rule. Our financial and legal status is contingent, and a change in government will threaten that. Make your choices fully aware of this fact.
I’ll close by spelling out the implications of this last point. People like me will face difficult, perhaps even agonizing choices about whether to comply with odious policies and oppressive regulations. Some of us will resist when we can, but others will not. It is best, in the quiet of the morning after, to sit down and think, what will you resist, and what price are you prepared to pay for that resistance.
We must all make these decisions for ourselves. I have my own values. But I also look around the world to see other countries where governments like Trump’s have been elected. And because I believe that we learn from the world around us, I anticipate that most Americans, most of the time, will choose not to resist
Thoughts on this situation, and managing it.
334 notes
·
View notes
Text
the culture impact of glee, for the uninitiated
okay YEAH I'm starting glee discourse in the year of our lord 2024 due to recent events on the gay firefighter show. so for those who don't understand why josh's speech on 911 this week was so important, here's a brief run down of the impact glee had on queer history.
glee, also created by ryan murphy, began airing in 2009 and ran for six seasons before ending in 2015. for all ryan murphy's crimes™, his contribution to queer representation in media has been incredibly influential especially in the early 2000s-2010s. at age nine, kurt hummel from glee and mitch and cam from modern family were the first queer characters I remember encountering. representation of any kind was still so hard to come by on television, let alone stories where queer characters got to have happy endings. in 2009, chris colfer (who played kurt on glee) was one of the youngest openly gay actors in hollywood, being just 19 years old when they started the show. throughout its run, glee introduced several additional queer characters and story lines that dealt with real issues queer people experienced such as being closeted, coming out, homophobia - external and internal.
only 33% of Americans supported same-sex marriage when glee started airing, and "even among millennials — Glee’s target audience — just 51% were in favour at the time."
the support for marriage equality jumped to a record high of 60% as glee was airing it's final episodes. same sex marriage was legalised in the usa in 2015, just months after the final episode of glee aired. a season six episode features a double wedding for a wlw couple and a mlm couple where a lesbian, a bisexual woman and two gay men get to experience a day of joy and celebration surrounded by friends and family, despite having to cross state lines to marry legally. and yes, as stated in the above quote from this article and the speech josh gave on 911 this week, glee had its fair share of problematic moments. plenty of stuff on that show (as is the case with many ryan murphy shows) is not what we'd class as "good representation" today. and it's not perfect yet either. biphobia is still prevalent in bisexual arcs, wlw representation is still far behind mlm representation, and it's hard to convince networks to go for anything that's not cis male queer rep. but it's important to show grace for the media that helped us get to the state of queer representation we do have now. shows like glee have been credited with changing the minds of many of the people who were initially against marriage equality, purely by exposing them to stories about lgbtq+ people and their experiences. and glee was HUGE. one of the biggest shows on television when it was airing - it brought in millions of viewers weekly, hundreds of glee covers climbed the charts, it won awards, the cast sold out national and international tours. we get to have characters like josh and hen and karen and buck and tommy BECAUSE OF shows like glee that came before. so yeah, it wasn't just ryan murphy worship on another ryan murphy show, the pre-glee/post-glee timeline was a "genuine unit of culture measurement" as @autisticjoshrusso put it here.
on a personal level: I watched glee every week as it aired from age 9 to 15. so much of the way that I am today (my sense of humour, my love for performing, my taste in music) is because of this show. I've seen it countless times, but didn't fully realise how much it meant to me as a piece of queer media until I was in my early 20s, so this is a topic I'm very passionate about. I owe ryan murphy my life and I also want to hit him with my car <3 anyway. stream teenage dream (glee cast version)
50 notes
·
View notes
Text
melbell's theory on "is it a swerve":
I have been saying for about two days that I would write out a whole through-line of my theory of what shenanigans might be happening in the writers room for 911.
I should specify first that this theory goes based on the idea that what’s being served to us currently is an entire swerve, and that they’re following the formula they’ve done before (ala Madney, Tarlos, etc.).
My theory ties into 807 as well. It has us not losing Tommy, but him actually being in the episode. Given that we know that it’s been said that recurring cast members will film in batches and not necessarily by week, that opens up the option for Lou to be in (at least) 807, if not more.
I know some of what has come out in social media in the past few days references that there was a certain lineup for the way B/T was viewed through 8a, and how it would culminate in the discussion of moving in together, referencing lore to Tommy’s past, possibly his father, etc.
My thing is that, at the end of the day as a creative, all I’m trying to do is follow the breadcrumbs we’ve been fed for the past 12 episodes of this show. Because of that, the points of note within those breadcrumbs are:
7x09: “Tommy’s good people. He’s good for you.”
7x10: “My dad and I don’t really talk…Having Gerrard was like having the father I already had.”
8x05: “people are what make life worth living”; “my boyfriend”; “It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? having a crew like this behind you, even when things go wrong” "especially when things go wrong"
8x06: “Do you love him” (entire speech)
Now obviously, coming out of season 7, this show knew they wanted Lou back, but they didn’t know what his schedule was going to look like or whether the character would pan out, how the general audience would continue to tune in, etc. However, they did lay down enough crumbs that they could pick up and continue to move forward with. They gave themselves the ability to tell a story with Tommy’s lore around his father, along with what they ultimately chose to do with Abby (which a lot of fans were talking about early on in the summer as it was).
Now, we’ve learned things since I first formulated this theory. We know that there’s a discussion about Buck having a “pendulum” reaction to the breakup and how to deal with it. We know that he’s going to throw himself into other things to cope. We know that there’s mention of “cracks starting to show” in reference to how he deals with the breakup. we also have mention in one of the articles about the possibility of them working a scene (as in accident, fire, etc) and things being awkward.
based on all of that prior information, (along with Josh’s speech in 806), when I saw the preview for 807, I was very quickly one of the people who was like “this is being done for angst. this is not the end of BuckTommy”.
My theory actually ties into (if we loved each other once) could we love each other twice, my latest fic. We don’t have any close-up shots of the person on the crane in the episode. We have the PA (or whoever he is) telling Bobby “there was an incident during filming, he fell and passed out”. Within the confines of me feeling like what’s happening is all a swerve on us, that line might not be entirely complete. I’ve theorized that the 217 is already on scene, and Tommy is the man hanging on the crane.
Why, you ask?
When is the last time we saw someone hanging from a crane? (Buck, lightning strike, if you’re playing the long game, kids). Why bring that back if it’s not intended to be paralleled in some way, the very way they have been doing with this couple from the jump?
We also have the voiceover of who we (aka as me and the two people I’ve actually written this all out for) assume is Oliver/Buck yelling “no no no no no!” in a panicked tone. For me, when I follow that line of logic (through 806 forward), things feel really clear.
Now I hadn’t considered the idea that they might actually kill Tommy off until today, but let’s go with the idea that they’re not. Everything that we’ve been given from 710 on starts fill in a really beautiful plot going into the midseason finale for these two.
Tommy is hurt. If the lightning strike is mirrored as I assume it is, the scene in reference will happen right about the end of 807. 808 will likely be some kind of other story (on purpose). I don’t think at this rate, we’ll actually ever get a Tommy Begins, but the title of Sob Stories really feels compelling to me on how they could do a version of this. Or a version of Tommy seeing what Buck’s life would be like without him, or any other version you want to think up.
You suddenly get all of these breadcrumbs lined up really nicely into these episode.
-Tommy’s dad can be presented to us. This also presents an opportunity to explain why Tommy feels unworthy/scared/etc of moving forward with Buck.
-“people make life worth living”; “especially when things go wrong”. This would be something going very wrong. this would present them with an opportunity to give the payoff that we’ve wanted to see Tommy receive since 710, being accepted into the family he has always felt outside of.
-“do you love him”. I think part of the break-up storywise being important for Buck is that it requires him to really dignify how he feels about Tommy. Another thing that this theory does is put them in a positon to really face the issue of remembering that life is not permanent. They can very much so end up without one another. And yes, shit already sucks being apart because Tommy broke up with him. But this brings to light the idea that, not only could they just be broken up, but that one of them could die and not have had whatever time they have left (especially given their career of choice) with one another. I think if you really lean into the parallel of the coma dream for Buck, it gives Tommy prime opportunity to learn why he’s afraid. Whether this is done in the form of a coma dream like buck, or like TK’s was with his mom (that feels more accurate for me with Tommy, meeting his mom, etc).
—I’ll also include the aside of Gerrard being around could also be an interesting addition to the story.
I can even see this feeding into whatever issue Buck runs into with Eddie in the coming weeks, whether it’s him still being upset with Tommy over the break up and Eddie saying Buck doesn’t have the full story, or Eddie thinking that Buck is giving in too easily after seeing him hurt. (Or that could be none of all of this).
As for the interviews that are concerning, I do have somewhat of an answer to that too.
I feel like on some level, Lou had to know that the fangirlish one was with someone who is fully behind Buddie and knew about the crap he’d been through. That interview didn’t have clear cut answers quite yet, and that one has me with this answer: nothing of what he said would necessarily be a lie.
He’s working on SWAT right now. Actors always have opportunities in front of them. He may have things that could affect how 8b goes, regardless. I have questioned whether he went into that interview with the discussion with the powers that be basically being like “don’t lie. but you can have fun with it, too.”
In terms of the others, I haven’t read every single article out there, but I know we hold a general lack of understanding about the fact that the “exit interviews” just feel weirdly un-exit like. I’ve read millions of them at this point due to Greys Anatomy. And as it’s been said, you never see people asked about coming back; in fact you usually get a lot of "what's next" instead. We don’t get a whole lot of clarity of what’s happening with Buck next, beyond “new hobbies” “family time” “dealing”.
That all said… I don’t know. I know the theory has legs, even though it takes shots from the articles we’ve been given. I started out with a lot of hope weighing into this theory. Now I’m not as certain. But I am someone who holding out hope that some version of a swerve is happening and it was just written really fucking poorly (and at the worst possible time known to queer men and women).
You’re welcome to share with me your thoughts. I’m open to polite discourse.
#mel's musings#bucktommy#my convoluted theory#i know it's got clown makeup all over it#but also#i feel like it tracks?#if this isn't actually what they're doing#they need a new writing team#and i'm available#tevan#kinley#firebeast#firepilot
25 notes
·
View notes
Note
I personally don’t really want Byler to hook up in season 5 purely because it doesn’t feel like something either Mike or Will would jump to doing immediately, especially not Will (though we may see a more confident side of him in season 5 that might want to especially with an “end of the world” vibe weighing on them), I could see Will wanting a more “ease into it” or “sweet romance first” type of relationship, and having both Mike and Will go from deep in the closet to immediately dtf doesn’t feel right.
But I understand why people want it especially since in season 5 they’ll be older than Nancy was in season 1 and the same age as Jonathan and Nancy in season 2, and in season 1 Nancy hooked up with Steve and in season 2 Nancy and Jonathan hooked up, so by having Byler hook up, it does equivocate them with the other older teen straight ships we’ve so far seen be romantically entangled. A lot of media, especially teen media (which ST isn’t, but the majority of the characters are young) feel the need to “purify” queer ships, so Byler not hooking up may come across as trying to do just that.
But again I personally don’t want them to hook up because I don’t feel like it makes sense right away immediately after a confession or kiss for Will and Mike specifically. If there was to be a season 6 then that’s when I’d want them to have their own implied hook up scene because I think both characters wouldn’t be able to go from repressed in the closet to immediately hooking up at the drop of a hat, they already have enough to process and come to terms with regarding their sexuality, sex itself just seems like it would be something to build up to together.
(I’m aroace though so maybe that’s affecting my personal opinion?)
Anyways I do think the Duffers will give us a kiss, I think they’ve set it up where it’ll be this incredible moment of joy and catharsis, and I don’t think the Duffers are cowards, I think they’ll push for this especially since it’s the final season. Fuck Netflix, this is the culmination of a slow burn friends to lovers romance and I think they’ll want to do it justice.
I got indeed a lot of hate for that post, and your message. Thanks for being civil.
I think the opposite, it's not about being pure, it's about it needing to be just a friends to lovers without going overboard with hypersexualization or fan service.
The thing with S1 and the teens is that we as GA at the time, never saw them as teens, because we didn't know them at the time, they were new and getting into show for it.
In S5 when the kids will be that age (20-24 actors, 16 characters) it's "okay" but it's also weird as hell because they entered the story at 11... i don't know about you but I would rather no see this kind of scene with anyone I would have meet at that age.
When I say a lot of you are young for this, I mean it in the sense that you haven't seen the fandom act; the same happened with Harry Potter in 2001 when we didn't even know how to stories would end, everyone was insane for it.
Then the infamous scene in that last part happened and... everyone was weirded out.
Media is a weird format, and a lot of fans are weird, doesn't matter which side we are from.
And people just leave a comment, I don't go well with asks, I don't even know how they work, i am here for the theories.
23 notes
·
View notes
Note
Yeah, I know. I don't think it's a bad thing to have characters as plot devices, that's how shows work. (And also books, and movies, and any other type of story telling media.)
But Tommy I guess seemed like he could be more - or at least we in the fandom thought so, maybe because of Lou's cameos?
Now it's like wow, the bvddies were right, looking back now and just paying attention to the show and not the fanon, it was always so obvious and I feel like such a fool :(
Lou was definitely doing a lot but you’re also not a fool for interpreting the narrative in a certain way or getting invested in a character. Yes he’s a plot device but that didn’t necessarily mean that he was going to be booted so suddenly. Taylor as a plot device lasted way longer and got a ton of screen time. Part of me saying the writing is bad is because the breakup did absolutely come out of left field — literally one episode ago Tommy was being portrayed as a steady presence in Buck’s life, someone who was part of ��our people who make life worthwhile.”
This ask does also give me the chance to say the fandom infighting over all this has been fucking ridiculous. Buck coming out and having his first same sex relationship should’ve been a moment of joy but a large contingent of this fandom turned it into a months-long bitch fight over which two men should kiss. Y’all managed to make this about yourselves and ruin a deeply meaningful story arc (someone coming out later in life is rarely seen on tv, especially in a show with such a large mainstream fan base, and ESPECIALLY when it’s presented as a joyous realization with no angst or internalized homophobia to overcome). You can think that buddie makes narrative sense as I do without wishing death on Lou or bt fans, and you can enjoy bucktommy for what it was as I did without gleefully calling buddie fans worthless idiots or going after Ryan. Grow the fuck up.
#911 abc#this is not @ you anon#just needed to get this off my chest#because Jesus Christ the fandom has been noxious since 7x04#it’s become deeply unpleasant to be a part of#and neither side was *right*#buddie#bucktommy#Evan Buckley#Tommy Kinard#eddie diaz#I’m sure this post is just going to piss people off further but#this is a hornet’s nest that must be kicked#anon ask
25 notes
·
View notes
Text
I do think it's a really valuable exercise for anyone to build a habit where you like... When a dark-skinned character skeeves you out, just take a second to ask yourself where that's coming from. Is it canon character traits or conjecture? Would you react the same way if they were light-skinned?
Maybe, at the end of it, you might be able to pinpoint a real personal reason why you're averse to the character. And that's fair! I just think we all benefit from being honest with ourselves. Sometimes a reflex happens so quietly, you don't notice unless someone points it out. It literally happens to everyone once in a while--lifelong conditioning doesn't go away just because you realized it's wrong to think those things consciously. Don't be so afraid of being wrong that you never examine yourself!
#normalize asking yourself if youre just being an asshole#sometimes you are!! its inevitable!! learning to take it in stride is one of the most important skills in life#especially when it comes to media and stories#literally so much of narrative convention is based on awful biases. there are character archetypes that are just Caricatures.
83 notes
·
View notes
Text
chinese guzhuang fashion
#young actress and actors are cornering the guzhuang market#that's why the industry is becoming more and more competitive#when it comes to guzhuang idol dramas/guouju古偶剧 with fantasy elements(like xianxia dramas)#cnetizens are bored with the same old faces#media has found that young actress and actors (20-27 years old) especially new pretty faces are more appealing to viewers#cnetizens can actually be mean to actress and actors (over 33 years old) cast as lead characters in guzhuang idol dramas#reasons is that lead characters are usually portrayed as teenagers or really young people#and the audience find it very weird to have middle-aged people cast such characters#especially scripts are usually adapted based on fictions#so fans of the novels would be furious about such casting#besides cnetizens want to see normal aging faces#but these shows always use excessive filters and PS#causing the midle-aged faces to be fake and weird#i once saw really mean comments on douyin for xianxia dramas casting middle-aged actress getting over one hundred thousand likes#actress and actors in zhengju正剧 guzhuang dramas or luodi落地 guzhuang dramas are not affected by this#like telling a realistic down-to-earth story or story inspired by real history or related to folks#and there is no fantasy or xianxia elements#china#fashion#chinese fashion#guzhuang#cdramas
314 notes
·
View notes
Text
Some of yall do not know the difference between "media that glorifies Bad Thing" and "media that portrays Bad Thing and the audience has to use critical thinking skills" and its actually concerning
#for a bunch of ''burnt out gifted kids 🥺'' yall don't use those gifts of critical thinking much huh#media that contains uncomfortable topics (especially horror) is not glorifying said topic by default#killing stalking is the first example that comes to my head. it was just a horror series that had gay people.#wasnt glorifying the horrors at all. in fact it actually portrays the horrors as Bad and Not Okay At All#seeing our mc rationalizing the behaviours of his abuser due to stockholm syndrome is upsetting to us as the audience.#and yall were like ''it glorifies abuse and murder 🥺🥺🥺'' no babygirl. it contains abuse and murder as a subject.#you are just incapable of critical thought and you assume the portrayal of any subject is glorification. touch grass.#thats like watching hannibal and being like ''this show glorifies cannibalism 🥺'' it very much is not.#there was also the manga Star Lover that y'all were canceling for ''glorifying pedophilia'' and when you read it it's about A VICTIM OF CSA#like its literally about a character who is sexually abused by her uncle and this is an integral part to the story. its not fanservice.#sometimes media is created with the belief that the audience has the ability to think for themselves#and therefore should not have to a Explicitly State "hey this morally bankrupt concept is bad!''#because you should be able to come to that conclusion on your own <3#media consumption#a.txt#media and information literacy#media analysis
486 notes
·
View notes
Text
You're asking them for logic and consistency when they just try to follow all the trends they can to milk bored players, they don't want players who question things, only the ones who pay.
I'm far from the only person who's noticed this and commented on it, or the issues within the company (such as no longer having a writing team) that have gotten SSE/SSO to this point. As for logic and consistency, that is something I like to have in a story-driven MMORPG, yeah. (I'm also neurodivergent, so. There's that.)
I don't play SSO like it's a horse collecting sim, personally (though there are players that do); for me, I treat it like a single-player game and I'm here for the main story + side quests & taking care of the few horses my character does own in-game (plus hanging out at various locations as a rp thing). There are issues I have with SSO, but they're more on a company and character design level + what issues I have with the fandom are more of a "stop acting like every little change is doomsday" and "I am well within my right to dislike certain characters and post about it on my blog; leave me alone and stop acting like I'm insulting/attacking y'all personally just bc I don't like y'all's fave hot edgy butch woman". (Who is one of the main villains, incidentally.)
So yeah, there are issues with SSO and SSE as a company, no argument there. Especially now that the main story is ground to a halt while behind-the-scenes stuff goes on until SSE comes up with a way to write the Soul Riders vs. the Dark Riders and Garnok battle (if you're caught up on all the main story quests up to the point of training daily with the Soul Riders, that is).
But to bring this back to Sabine (which the original post was about):
Her Starshine Legacy model and characterization was the pretty standard "rich, snobbish stable brat" trope in horse girl media (like, that's a feature of the genre), with the added bonus of her being a dark magical girl via her Dark Rider status (who also commits petty crimes and animal cruelty, but, y'know, who cares about that, right? /s), because SSL and SSO are essentially a mishmash of the Magical Girl and horse adventure genres.
This character model for Sabine (which was held until early 2022) did not earn nearly as much fan engagement, nor comment from SSE.
Her character remodel in 2022 drastically changed her look to the point she was not recognizable as the same character & SSE allowed the fanbase that exploded around her as a result to influence how she was written in-game so that subsection of the fanbase could more easily ship their OCs with her. It's been noted that SSE's inspiration for her redesign came from matadors and the Star Stable novels.
SSE also heavily pushed how hot Sabine's new character model was in official advertising and on social media, when Star Stable Online is, in its home country of Sweden, a game marketed toward young children and preteens. The company, noticeably, does not do this for any other main or recurring characters in the game, not even Ydris (who also has an adult/older teen fanbase that sexualizes him).
Goddess forbid people criticize Sabine's redesign and point out how it encourages negative stereotypes of WOC along with how she's oversexualized by both her fandom and SSE (and again, how that plays into overall perception IRL of women of color), because her stans will take those criticisms as a personal attack.
Like I said, the fangirls thirsting over Sabine post-update in fandom spaces is one thing (and I've curated my online experience to avoid it accordingly), but it's another thing entirely for SSE itself to push it so hard to the exclusion of even the other Dark Riders or the Soul Riders. Altogether, it's obnoxious, and I'm exhausted as someone who is not a Sabine / Dark Rider fan to begin with yet still has to see it on SSE's official social media pages.
The fact that it's an ongoing trend with SSE to ignore the story and characterizations in favor of chasing / cashing in on the hot shiny new pop culture thing on social media and in-game does not help.
But that's all the point. Old SSO was full of interesting references, little mysteries to discover, the story was nice compared to a lot of horses games, the characters and their designs were on the same page because it was actually something not only made for money. SSO now is a horse collecting game with a very subtle simp side and a tiny bit of story because they can't decently exploit only the rest. It was predictable when they started to change the game, they wanted something able to attract a large and more ready to pay for everything fandom. You're asking them for logic and consistency when they just try to follow all the trends they can to milk bored players, they don't want players who question things, only the ones who pay. There's nothing more behind, nothing to expect anymore with them.
18 notes
·
View notes
Text
Another thing (among many) that Warrior Nun gets absolutely right is its cast full of women and how they're treated throughout.
By gifting us with a diverse selection of female characters, each with their own backgrounds, looks, desires, virtues, flaws, we are treated to a wonderful mosaic of what women can be and effectively are. Proud, scared, selfish, hurt, strong, vulnerable, cunning, selfless, determined, evil, good... Each one of them can be individually and duly explored without making it look like a comment on some ideal sort of "Woman", without slipping into stereotype and the usual dullness that many other narratives reserve for their female characters.
By having (many) more than only a single interesting, well-rounded woman, by allowing each of them to be complex and human rather than just a prop for some man or eye candy for a male audience, the world of WN seems to us a lot more like something we can recognise, something truthful, unlike many other stories we've seen before — and that is one hell of a breath of fresh air.
#warrior nun#(i say this when i as an rpg gamemaster only ever come up with female npcs for my players to interact with)#(but then that's just the point. we take our interesting female characters from our own imagination most of the time)#(it's hard to find them in mainstream media especially in *handfuls* like in WN where everybody has their own story to tell)#and i know everyone knows this but i felt like saying it all the same#analysis and similar#exercises in observation
227 notes
·
View notes
Text
I just have to remind myself sometimes that no matter what anyone else says, the way a piece of media makes me feel and the positive impact it has had on my queer identity is valid, and that tearing myself apart thinking I have to defend it or questioning my own place within queer communities is not at all important when compared to the almost tangible sense of 'rightness' that piece of media helped me to feel about myself.
#just something i've been pondering the last few days#kind of like no matter how much people debate or i suppose theoretically deconstruct media featuring queer stories#the most important thing is how it makes a queer person feel#and I do think it is of course a good thing to ensure queer stories are executed with respect and authenticity#but there's this grey area in fandom spaces in which people may have found rep from a 'unreliable' source i suppose#or something which is queerbaiting- sherlock springs to mind for example yet if people have been able to explore and nurture their own#queerness through that media does that therefore mean their experience is invalid? i don't think so#and my worry is the more we focus on theory the less we focus on emotion and therefore the actual queer experience itself#and sure theory can inform the queer experience and ensure the media is a 'healthy' site of queer identity formation and identity aid#but at the same time scorning or being rude to those who have found certain media an aid is not the right approach to be taking#especially as queer experiences are so wide ranging that one person's idea of 'good' representation is someone's else's of 'bad'#and that unless a piece of media is clearly offensive in its portrayal of queer experience there has to be some benefit of doubt#I think we're still in a period of progression in media espc tv where queer creators are coming to the fore of their own stories#and we've got to 'live and let live' a little about where people are finding sights of queer validation and joy#and perhaps this a naive and simplistic way of thinking but i think queer people can either recognise when something isn't the best rep#but was helpful for them anyway and therefore in a way confer 'ownership' of the media to themselves in how they engage#or there is variety in queer experiences represented in media so that perhaps not everyone finds a 'site' of rep but that does not#therefore invalidate it or make it 'bad' representation#this is just my opinion and it'd be hypocritical for me to not now mention this is only formed from my own queer experience lol#so i'm not trying to tell anyone how to feel or anything just something i'm pondering
18 notes
·
View notes
Text
so uh. that 2.2 Special Program, huh
#hsr#honkai star rail#hsr 2.2#hsr spoilers#hsr leaks#the body of this post reads as far less enthusiastic than i really am#i just don’t know how to casually return from my latest 2 week hiatus only to gush abt a game i’ve hardly blogged abt before#but i’m not making a whole ass sideblog for it like i did for Genshin. nah y’all r gonna bear witness to my fixation with this one#so anyways don’t mind me. vibrating into another dimension with anticipation for the next 11 days#it’s insane man. a year ago i Never ever woulda thought i’d be so invested in this game. and it took Months for the game to really grab me#but i’m v glad i kept coming back even when i was struggling to really get into it. like i just had this feeling that if i stuck around and#gave the game a chance to really like. come into its stride. i just always felt like there was Something there and i just hadn’t found it#and holy shit i finally found it in Penacony. the devs really truly outdid themselves with this region and these characters and this story#not to discount everything that’s happened prior. like i was genuinely Liking it all before now but i wasn’t Loving it y’know#but that may be more a ‘me having to fight tooth n’ nail to force myself to consume new media’ thing than it is a matter of the actual game#anyways i came here to talk abt the program! bc since i’m not filming my HSR stuff i’m gonna be insufferable abt it on Tumblr instead ! :)#and i’m probably not filming any more Genshin stuff. or anything else at all for that matter but let’s not talk abt that dead dream#pun not intended lmao. Anyways let’s return to the subject at hand while there’s still room left in these tags shall we#i’m so fucking glad they had Aventurine on this program man. especially since he’s leaked to only have 18 lines in 2.2… it was nice to see-#-him here at least 🥹 i’ll take what i can get. his unenthusiastic little bird noises at the beginning.. him being reluctant to come out..#the way one of the first things to come out of his mouth was ‘y’know DR RATIO once told me…’ like boy we get it ur in love with him 🙄 (/J!)#i love how they can’t go on these programs w/o talking abt each other it’s adorable. AND THE WAY HE WAS THE ONE TO EXPLAIN BOOTHILL’S KIT!?#they can’t just fuel my crackship like this… god and his whole ‘muddle-fudger.. son-of-a-nice-lady?’ thing had me wheezing#Aven mocking Boothill’s inability to curse was not on my special program bingo card but fuck i’m here for it#and Robin being all curious abt him was so cute.. ‘who /is/ he? … does he order milk at the bar?’ i’m crying she’s so sweet#also the trailer was fucking insane. which feels redundant as hell bc all of HoYo’s version trailers go hard but like. still. wow.#that millisecond long shot of Boothill surveying the skyline is so fucking good. also what the fuck is Jing Yuan doing here!!#not complaining at all tho. we’ve got JY & DH(IL?). Argenti(?). Boothill. Sunday. Aven. all my men r here and i am eating so fucking good#Seven.txt#viddy game stuff
12 notes
·
View notes
Note
FYI, I'm crowdfunding a retirement plan for Tim and a place for you on the 911 writers team. I'm sure you can help them sort out the rest of the plots too!
I don’t know if this is genuine or sarcastic, so I’m just going to say this:
I don’t claim to know anything about media literacy. What I do understand is intricate plot and telling a compelling story. I also understand that from the end of 806, I said almost immediately “I feel manipulated”. This has deep personal connotations for me, but the point remains, and because of those personal relations, I get an actual “ick” about feeling manipulated. Now again, I have zero clarity one way or the other as to whether the manipulation is based out of them actually fucking this storyline up or if it’s because of the way they’re trying to pitch it to us as an “exit” and “ending”. Either way, that hasn’t left me.
All I know at the end of the day is that if these people don’t understand how to recover from this decision, they don’t belong in writing television. There’s also the point that I’ve made this week, that this is not the first time TM & Co have done something like this. They’ve done it with Madney. They’ve done it with Tarlos. We’ve even seen it to some degree with Bathena. What set us all off was the interviews, which we’ve all stated from day one were …odd. The thing that stays with me though, is the fact that not once has any one of these interviews stated “Tommy Kinard is gone for good”. I’ve read dozens of exit interviews (said this too earlier this week), and the only people CALLING it an exit interview, are the interviewers. Lou said the arc was over. By the very definition of what needs to be shared and said between BuckTommy for the reconciliation, he’s right. They’ve spanned the first arc of their relationship. Further, another thing that sticks out in my mind is his statement towards how he wouldn’t turn down playing Tommy again because, to his knowledge, there’s nothing else similar to their relationship happening on television. Which is SO important for representation. I also keep thinking about his tweet “keep the hope alive”. Obviously that can be read as he just wants more work… or it can be read as, there’s more coming, don’t give up on them yet.
Above all else, it’s the crowd reaction. We know the “other team” thinks this is all to tee them up into their pairing, and here’s my response to that:
One, it’s not. Because we know that’s now what TPTB want. But two, if it is, I hope they’re prepared for the mass exodus that takes place when all the people who DON’T want that pairing stop watching. And of course, those who do but don’t get the version of it that they want because RG and OS don’t want to play it the way the fandom thinks it should.
I’m not above saying that if they made them canon, I don’t think I’d stick around. It doesn’t serve the story, it spits in the face of what RG has been trying to communicate for years about himself and Hispanic men in general, and especially on the heels of this, it would feel dirty.
Anyway, I rambled on on this far longer than I meant to. Oops!
21 notes
·
View notes
Text
Thinking abt Sif Odile duo looping au again and I wanna be able to plot everything out more coherently but act 5 eternally looms overhead and boy I do not wanna look up
#rat rambles#stars posting#like I have a vague idea of some of the like themes I imagine being present late game but it doesnt change the fact that act 5 isnt very#duo looper au friendly especially in this case with most of the ideas I have#I rly want it to be both a breaking point for them as individuals and a breaking point for their relationship but idk how to go about that#fully taking the rest of the party into account especially since Im not even sure if I wanna give odile her own friendquests#like I Could but I also think it'd be fun for many reasons to not#and even if I Did itd be hard to justify having both be able to happen and go wrong in one loop#and theres not rly a good solution to that I think so my best bet is probably to just leave odile friendquestless#but Id rly like to still have odile quarrel with the rest of the party in a significant way#idk maybe it can be the scene where sif comes back to the lighthouse or smth?#like he comes back and odile just completely lashes out at him or smth and the others get rly upset with her#but then theres also the whole walk through the house that I have to figure out and Im also not set on how that should go#maybe it can be like reality almost splitting as they both try to use timecraft at the same time?#not sure how Id go about portraying that in story though since the rest of the party cant rly experience that I think#Im sure theres some way you could pull that off tho Im just too tired to have any good ideas atm#and then the biggest bastard comes in. mal moments.#like I cant just put them both there! that's not how that works!#and I dont wanna just leave them mostly vanilla thats boringgggg#but Id probably have to. alas.#afterwards is also a bit fuzzy but I have rhe general idea down#me and the bestie when we both made the same wish but dont know that and have both been falling into a spiral over it#(we dont even realize that the part of the wish that was the exact same was the core of the wish)#(we both just thought that we accidentally trapped the other with us in this hell)#(we also have been actively getting worse at communicating for months now so by the time the wishcraft stuff came up we were both deep in#the no feelings talky talk zone)#(we probably should have known smth was up when everyone started consistently thinking that we had a fight every loop)#(maybe we did but we just didnt want to admit they were right)#god I wish I was more confident with writing odile dialogue I wanna draw scenes from this au so bad#it doesnt help that I got too comfortable being into a media that had like 3 fans and now ppl might actually look at what I create
4 notes
·
View notes