#even when its from the perspective of the other

[ilovemosss]

YOU GET IT!!!! my tags were def looking more at like. specifically the much more surface level physical aspects of each character but yes. wade IS body horror from the perspective of his regenerative healing and functional immortality. that rapid healing and ability to regrow from everything absolutely is horrifying when viewed from that perspective. the idea of being able to regrow entire limbs, to come back from being just a head, and if you follow some lines of comic lore, wade wilson can regenerate from a single cell, whatever part of him his soul clings to. and that's the most interesting part, to me. the fact that he can regenerate that way in part because his soul can never untether itself from his body sweetens that horror pot. elevates it to something eldritch and Wrong. he can't ever die because his soul clings on, defying death, defying the laws of life and nature. i imagine that after a while, the average human can practically smell it, the sheer unnaturalness of his existence, and the same with logan. the pair of them together giving off this faint aura of Wrongess that nobody who doesn't know the truth can quite place. even their friends sometimes feel a cold shiver run up their spines if they look for too long. these are two beings that will outlive us all, whose bodies stubbornly refuse to be parted from their souls, and whose souls refuse to be parted from each other. combine that with the unnatural sharpness to logan's canines, and animalistic way he sometimes behaves. the way wade sometimes looks at the people he loves like he's already seen their corpses (and in vanessa's case, he has). that haunted look clings to people's minds, refuses to release them from its grip. wade and logan are terrifying, but not perhaps for the reasons people think. at first glance, perhaps wade's scars are offputting. maybe it's true that when he aims it at you, logan's glare is enough to make a grown man whimper and slink away. you're sure you imagined that predatory growl, except...did you? but the true horror lies marrow deep within them both. crouching in wait for the next time you stare deep into their eyes, and feel- just for a moment- the heavy weight of all their lifetimes settling on top of your lungs, suffocating.

Scars? Not body horror. Limb differences? Not body horror. Facial differences? Not body horror. Feeding tubes, colostomy bags, etc? Not body horror. Movement disorders? Not body horror. Visibly disabled people just existing is not horror.

[archive-z]

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time or, what was on Daniel Molloy’s bookshelf in 1973?

Inspired by @volkswagonblues’ and @islandbetweeenrivers’ reading list of texts providing historical and cultural context for Daniel Molloy as journalist in the 1970s and 80s

This is, pretty much in its entirety (bar one or two references throughout the show and its extant material), assumptions I’ve made about the character. But, also: it’s my blog so I can do what I want. Dating works is somewhat inconsistent, as I opted for the date a piece was published in a collection or translation rather than when it first appeared in print if it seemed more realistic to have been acquired in that format.

I’ve found the archives of Rolling Stone and Playboy have been helpful in piecing together a who’s who of literary life in the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially for a intellectually precocious teen from suburban Modesto, CA transplanted into the centre of countercultural life in Haight-Ashbury.

From what I can gather, being born in ‘53 means Daniel was just a year shy of being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, an experience that would have profoundly effected his peers just a year or two older than him. Throughout his teenage years, he’s got the spectre of the possibility of being drafted hanging over his head. It reminds me of pop-inspirational phrases like “you only live once,” which really puts his risk-taking, thrill-seeking behaviour into the perspective of yeah, this is someone who is trying to live life to the fullest every second of every day because the possibility of being drafted means that he might not make it past twenty. (Unfortunately! Louis & Armand also mean he might not make it past twenty either xoxoxo)

However, crucially, he did narrowly miss the draft, and despite that it would be horrible, I think there’s an acute sense of having missed out on this profoundly altering experience as well. Moving to Haight-Ashbury, he’s six years late to the Summer of Love ‘67, and the rose-tinted image of hippies, peace, and love is replaced by the grittiness of speedfreaks and serial killing (the Zodiac Killer being active throughout 1969, when Daniel would have been sixteen). He’s made it to San Francisco just a few years after its golden era, and i think this makes him even more determined to live, more determined to chase living life in order to make up for that, yknow?

i think the themes that he’s drawn to when reading are:

new journalism, and particularly when the journalist-as-rockstar persona is inserted into said reporting

the provocative, bacchanalian pursuit of pleasure, whether it be sex, drugs, or rock ‘n’ roll — and often sex mixed with violence in a way that is neither straightforward nor legible

travelogues and adventure stories that reflect his restlessness, particularly which let him romanticise far away places with thriving literary scenes like Paris and New York

a general aura of repressed queerness and crises of american masculinity (Capote, Tennessee Williams, Ginsburg, Hemingway)

war narratives as a vehicle for cold war/red scare anxieties

Without further ado, the actual book list:

Periodicals

Playboy magazine. People have long joked about reading Playboy for the articles, but it is the one piece of literature teenage Daniel is in-universe confirmed to have readily accessible, so I’m running with “Danny actually does read it for the articles, though” (and anyways, it’s Diana Ross’ Rolling Stones cover issue from Feb 1 1973 that he jerks off to). In 1973 alone, Playboy featured interviews with playwright Tennessee Williams; Huey Newton (co-founder of the Black Panther Party); news anchor and journalism’s elder statesman Walter Cronkite; science fiction novelist Kurt Vonnegut; and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Vietnam war correspondent David Halberstam. Other Playboy interviews of possible interest: Fidel Castro, Orson Welles, Michael Caine (1967); Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, sexologists William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, Paul Newman (1968); Martin Luther King Jr., Marshall McLuhan, Allen Ginsberg (1969). Also of note: between 1969 and 1971, Playboy was publishing faked letters to the editor that eventually developed into the Illuminati conspiracy theories.

In terms of reporting from major national newspapers in circulation, significant stories that come to mind are the New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers (1971) and Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s Watergate investigations for the Washington Post (1972-73). It’s harder to gauge the circulation of underground newspapers like the Berkeley Barb (CA) and the Village Voice (NY) but its entirely likely that a resourceful and enterprising young reader with a point of view in Modesto, CA could get their hands on a copy.

Prose, Fiction & Nonfiction

The Little Red Book by Mao Zedong. At Berkeley, The Black Panthers would raise money by selling copies bought in bulk at markup to students. Absolutely makes sense that daniel would acquire (and actually read) a copy. Growing up in the wake of McCarthyism/Red Scare nonsense def makes me think he would see flirtations with communism as provocative and cool/edgy, but never back that flirtation up with follow-through.

The Hell’s Angels, a Strange and Terrible Saga (1966) by Hunter S. Thompson. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the Hells Angels had a sizeable presence in San Francisco and Oakland — from what I can find they lived dead centre of Haight-Ashbury up until ‘69 if not later. As a teenager in Modesto, Daniel would have been geographically quite close (if not actually in attendance at) the 1969 Altamont Festival Rolling Stones performance where a teenage concertgoer was stabbed to death by a member of the Hells Angels.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in ‘72 (serialized in Rolling Stone magazine) by Hunter S. Thompson. The quintessential text to understand ‘73 Daniel, imo. Fuck Nixon, Fuck Reagan, fuck the National Guard killing student protestors. Thompson’s other works include “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved“ (with illustrations by Ralph Steadman) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The New Journalism: An Anthology (1973) edited by Tom Wolfe. In addition to excerpts of Hunter S. Thompson’s work already discussed above, the anthology collects In Cold Blood (1965) by Truman Capote, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) by Joan Didion, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) by Tom Wolfe, and Armies of the Night (1968) by Norman Mailer. I won’t do justice to summarizing the New Journalism here, but it’s def important.

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut. The quintessential Daniel Molloy fiction novel, to me. Exploration of post-traumatic stress disorder through an encounter with time travelling science fiction aliens. Takes on a new resonance for Daniel when he’s dealing with his own ptsd post-1973. Vonnegut’s other works include Cat’s Cradle (1963) and Breakfast of Champions (1973). On the subject of Cold War anxieties, there’s Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller. I don’t have much to say about it as I’ve not read it yet, but it feels like the kind of thing teenage Daniel living in Schrödinger's draft call-up would take to. Maybe also John Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) and The Looking Glass War (1965), the latter particularly for the palpable air of repressed homoeroticism and WWII nostalgia/Cold War anxiety.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (published posthumously in 1964). Daniel absolutely spent his teenage years romanticising being an expat America writer in the Paris literary scene. Substance use, war, and crises of masculinity throughout. In addition to Hemingway’s reporting on the Spanish Civil War (1937-1938), other works include novels The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).

George Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), Burmese Days (1934), Homage to Catalonia (1938), Animal Farm (1945), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949); and essays ”Books v. Cigarettes“ (1946), ”Decline of the English Murder” (1946), “Politics and the English Language” (1946), and “Why I Write” (1946). I think Orwell’s nonfiction writing would appeal to Daniel more than his fiction, especially when at the right age to romanticize the poverty-tourism of Down and Out. Also bonus points for Paris.

On the Road (1957), The Dharma Bums (1958), and The Subterraneans (1958) by Jack Kerouac. In particular, The Subterraneans is based on Kerouac’s interracial relationship with an African American woman in the 1960s. He’d also probably read Naked Lunch (1959) by fellow Beat poet William S. Burroughs.

Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov, both for its salacious notoriety and its unreliable narration. Like myself, Daniel feels like the kind of teenager who would read Lolita at sixteen as a provocation in a conservative environment, but come away genuinely enjoying it.

Poetry, Drama, Misc

Howl and Other Poems (1956) by Allen Ginsberg, particularly the edition published locally by San Francisco’s City Lights Books Pocket Poets series.

A series of miscellaneous titles I’d group together as “Daniel Actually Did the Assigned Reading in High School English Class” — The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (“Get off that bench, brother”), Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and “The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats. Most significantly, I imagine high school is where he’d be exposed to the work of American playwrights Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) by Tennessee Williams. In the context of his relationship with Louis, I think it’s fun to imagine he’s familiar with/attracted to the Southern Gothic by way of Tennessee Williams (again with the crises of masculinity, the spectre of war, the repressed sexuality). Williams and Death of a Salesman (1949) by Arthur Miller, present the life Daniel could have had ie. the alcoholic husband, housewife vacuuming on Valium, etc.

If there’s anything else anyone thinks I’ve missed, feel free to hit me with a reply or a dm or an @ or whatnot. stay freaky & support yr local library x

[sneakyboymerlin]

Hi. Can you please explain to me what "what am I doing in this bed" is supposed to imply. I have been wracking my brain and coming up empty. I want to share in the Merwaine joy, please and thank you 🙏

First off, context:

In 3x04, Gwaine wakes up naked in a stranger’s bed. How do we know he’s fully naked, not just waist-up? Because his stab wound was on his thigh, meaning that his pants would have been removed to properly treat the wound. He may be wearing underwear, but in any case, the positioning of the blanket over his hips and legs is a deliberate attempt to cover nudity.

So, Gwaine wakes up naked in a stranger’s bed. He looks around the room, having never seen it before. He took a hit to the head that knocked him out, plus he was drinking the day prior, so we can infer that he has a headache and other symptoms that he would interpret as a hangover. Most importantly: he has absolutely no memory of the night before.

Gwaine wakes up naked in a stranger’s bed, with a hangover based on Gwaine’s limited knowledge, and with no memory of the night before. Merlin walks in carrying breakfast (a gesture common after a one night stand) and pauses in the doorway when he sees that Gwaine is already awake. He stares in silence for Unspoken Reasons while Gwaine stares back, seeming unsure of himself.

At this point, and taking Gwaine’s lifestyle into account, he has every reason to suspect that they may have had a one night stand. It’s not impossible. It’s even, from his perspective, probable. Again, he wakes up naked, sore, and hungover in a stranger’s bed with no memory of the night before. It’s a classic set-up.

From here, Gwaine asks, “What am I doing in this bed?” This is an oddly specific phrasing. He could have asked, “Where am I?” or “What am I doing here?” but instead he is focused on and draws attention to the bed aspect. Simultaneously, the vagueness of the statement is meant to allow for another answer besides the one that is on his mind, in case his assumption is in fact incorrect. This avoids insult, awkwardness, homophobia, etc.

It’s worth remembering that his line here is written with intent, especially in the episode that introduces and establishes his character. When the censors are in action, a gay one night stand joke has to be subtle and layered in plausible deniability. In other words, if this “family friendly” series was allowed to be more explicit in its meaning, Gwaine may have instead simply said, “Did we- you know…”

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! First I want to say how much I appreciate this blog, and how cool it is that so many different people from the disability community have come together to share your perspectives on this blog!

Onto my question!

There are numerous characters existing in books, comics, tv shows and movies that have disabilities. Many of them are well known and beloved characters. But 99.9% of the time their disabilities are used as plot devices, traumatic backstory’s, and forgotten unless their disability is useful to add drama or make a slapstick joke. As a fan fiction writer who sees myself in many of these characters, I want to fix this poor and ableist representation when I write these characters. My question is, how can I do that? I want to maintain what makes these characters who they are, including their disabilities, while still keeping them true their development. I want to add that I have researched all of these disabilities in depth, and the information I’m seeking now is how to include them with proper representation.

For example Steve Rogers’ (Captain America) entire origin story is rooted in the erasure of his disabilities. He goes from being disabled and mocked and bullied because of that, to a super hero, who is strong, fast, has enhanced hearing and sight. He’s ‘magically’ cured. What we love about his character is that his newly acquired super powers don’t change his morals and beliefs. But his disabilities have still been erased.

For this character (and other characters who magically go from disabled to abled) would you recommend finding a halfway point? For example, Steve Rogers still gets tall and buff and gains super strength and stamina, but he still some of his disabilities like scoliosis, hard of hearing, or diabetes? Or keeping him how he looks before his transformation, but still having him have his super powers?

Another example (marvel again, because marvel uses disability and subsequent disability erasure as one of its main plot devices) is Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier. He is a forequarter amputee who is given a science fiction prosthetic. This prosthetic required invasive surgery and implants (all of which was non consensual). His prosthetic is very strong, stronger than his right arm (even with super soldier serum that already makes him stronger than other humans). This technology doesn’t exist in real life, and this prosthetic (and prosthetics in other media that has amputee characters) is treated like a fix all: like a new arm but even better so then the character who went through dramatic trauma for the plot doesn’t have to be disabled anymore. Here is my conundrum: the winter soldier has a prosthetic left arm that he can fight with is an important part of his character. To not write him as an amputee erases his disability completely, but to write him without his high tech prosthetic also takes away from other important parts of his character. So my question is, when writing this character (and other amputee characters with similar situations) is it best to find a halfway point? Let this character have his advanced super strong and dexterous prosthetic, but have him actually treat it like a prosthetic (for example, he takes it off, doesn’t sleep with it, and knows how to do tasks without it). Or would it be better to make the prosthetic more realistic? As strong as his other arm, he can’t use it like a battering ram, etc. Or would it be more appropriate to find different ways for characters to do what they do without advanced prosthetics?

I would love to hear specific suggestions for these characters but it would be great too if you had some broad suggestions for repairing disability erasure within any existing work of fiction. Thank you so much for all of the hard work you all put into cripplecharacters!!

Hello,

My time has come.

So Steve Rogers is a product of his time. Back when he was created, living with the disabilities he had was far harder. But nowadays we have medications and treatments his creators would've never thought possible- I mean, this was the time when smoking was the treatment for asthma- so consider incorporating those. For some of them, like what's probably rheumatic heart disease from the scarlet fever, a halfway point would probably be best (more on that in a second.) For other things, modern treatments will do just fine. If Howard Stark can create a flying car, he can create iron supplements and blood sugar monitors. Let's see what he has and how he can be accomodated;

Asthma- the serum can strengthen his lungs and lessen the severity, or you can skip that step and instead look at modern treatments for asthma, which include breathing exercises, slowly increasing exercise to improve the body's tolerance, and a lot of medications. Without knowing the type of asthma he has it's hard to know what his asthma attack plan would be, but considering he has no mentioned allergies, it's probably non-allergic persistent. This can be treated with a combination of long-term control medications, which are taken on a set schedule to help prevent asthma attacks, rescue medications that are used as-needed for asthma attacks, and possibly biologics, which are injected medications for people with severe asthma. These medications are a bit similar to immune suppressants, suppressing the body and immune responses that cause asthma attacks. He can also do breathing exercises to strengthen the lungs and slowly build up exercise tolerance. The bigger lungs due to his bigger body should also help.

Diabetes- there's a massive range of insulin pumps, blood sugar monitors, sugar tablets, and whatever else have you that makes life for diabetics. He'd also benefit from a diet plan, which will take in his level of diabetes, what his pancreas can handle, and potential problem areas to create a diet that works for him and helps him avoid hypoglycaemia and hyperglycaemia.

Astigmatism- contacts, or just some form of glasses or goggles. That's assuming his vision is bad enough to need correction at all, because some people with astigmatism can get by without. He's gotten this far without any form of corrective lense and he's not a long-range fighter, so he might not even need them. Still, they would be useful for him to have in his day-to-day life.

Rheumatic fever- this is one of the biggest problems. Rheumatic fever and scarlet fever mess the body up bad, and I'm willing to bet these are what cause his cardiac arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat.) The serum could strengthen his heart. He can also use a vast range of hypotensives (for the high blood pressure,) any number of heart medications, maybe anticoagulants to reduce risk of blood clots, a pacemaker or other implants, maybe surgery to replace damaged heart valves, and regular check-ups on the health of his heart. If all else fails, a heart transplant might be on the table.

Bone deformity- the treatment is going to depend on which bones, the severity of the deformity, and the cause. They didn't specify, so you can find what you think you'd best be able to work with and go from there. Treatments can include surgery, braces, physical therapy, and some medications that can treat the underlying cause.

Scoliosis- probably can just be left alone, maybe a little physical therapy to help him reduce pain. If you've decided he has a severe case, he can get surgery to straighten his spine. (Personally, I would love to see a character with scoliosis who has rib cage deformity.)

Nervous trouble- probably an anxiety disorder, can be treated through a combination of therapy and medication

These writers didn't live in a time where a soldier could have these disabilities, but now we do. There are treatments available for him that can help him, things the writers never could have imagined back in the thirties. He can still be a super soldier with his disabilities.

As for Bucky, take my opinion with a grain of salt because I am not an amputee. But you're right, him losing his arm and Hydra forcing a replacement on him is a huge part of his story and would be incredibly hard to change. The easiest way about it would probably be to keep it the same, he loses his arm and Hydra gives him a new one, but he gets rid of the arm once he's free.

The arm has failsafes in place to protect his handlers and he has no idea what kind of risks it holds, like if it has a tracking device that could lead them right to him. It's a liability and could put him in danger. He also didn't want the arm in the first place and, based on the scratch-mark scars where the metal meets his shoulder, he has tried to remove it before. Plus, if something goes wrong, he can't fix it. That arm is centuries ahead of modern technology, created by Hydra top scientists, it's a titanium alloy, he has no idea how it works or anything about how it was made, the tools required to fix it are probably hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars (or tools that only exist because one Hydra guy created them, meaning Bucky can't get them and probably can't recreate them-) look, he has a high school education from a century ago. There's no way he's going to be able to fix or even maintain such an advanced piece of technology. Even if he did somehow know how to do it, he doesn't have the funds to do it. Sooner or later, the arm is going to be a problem. So he would probably get rid of it. Tony Stark would jump at the chance to help him remove it, he would love to get to stick it to Hydra.

Getting rid of the arm can also be a freedom thing. It marks him as the Winter Soldier, it's a symbol of Hydra's control of him. By getting rid of it, he's one step closer to being free of their hold on him. He doesn't need the arm. The movies demonstrated that he's perfectly capable of getting by without it, showing him easily running his little goat farm in Wakanda without his bionic arm or even a realistic prosthetic, just using his remaining arm. (Additionally, did you see the look on his face when they gave him a new one? The exhaustion in his voice as he asked where the coming fight was? He did not want that new arm, he wanted to keep happily existing peacefully on his farm and having the arm meant he couldn't do that. He wouldn't want a new bionic.)

For Bucky, I would recommend letting him ditch the bionic as part of his quest for freedom.

In general, my main recommendation would be accessibility and medicine rather than magic cures. If you have any other specific examples because Marvel very, very rarely did disability representation right, feel free to ask if you need help improving them. It's my passion. You have no idea how excited I was seeing this in the ask box.

Mod Aaron

Hi!

Going from deaf or hard of hearing to having super hearing is a bit tricky. I'd recommend this way of doing both:

The ranges that are affected by his specific hearing loss stay hard to hear (with only very mild improvement if any).

The ranges that aren't affected get amplified, possibly even to a debilitating degree.

For many deaf/hoh people, hearing things, especially if the sound is louder than we expect, is very overwhelming. The solution above somewhat mimics the experience of wearing hearing aids, but since they are his powers they can't be removed the same way. (It would be very interesting to explore that through the lens of paralleling forced oralism...)

Mod Rock

[anyroads]

Totally fair point of confusion! I wrote this post thinking three people would see it and it was more of a frustrated rant than a well considered thought-piece. Looking at the number of notes on it now is both touching and a very real "the horror of being seen" experience.

What I meant was that Reform Judaism has a considered approach to its perspective on halacha that is equally as methodical and valid as that of other denominations. The implication wasn't meant to be that its approach is the same with different outcomes (I don't think Abraham Geiger and Maimonides would agree on a lot of things but I also don't think they would throw hands the way some charedi rabbis would today. Also I'd pay good money to see Geiger and Maimonides debate halacha). The point was that the Reform approach is just as valid, because at the outset of the Reform movement rabbis (like Geiger) also put in the work, read and interpreted halachic texts, and even if that work reached the conclusion of, "it's up to the individual," their work was just as valid and considered as that of any other denomination, even if how they did it was different. To me that's halachic interpretation, because it's an informed approach to Jewish law that reaches a conclusion which determines pathways to halachic practice - even that practice is, "these laws are not binding, therefore it is up to the individual to decide what to take on." Basically, in the same vein as the idea that ultimately, the Torah is vague about a lot of aspects of halacha in terms of practical applications or observances, so that "observe the shabbat" can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, so too can the idea of how to interpret anything be diverse, but that doesn't make it any less valid.

Nevertheless, Reform Judaism has a set, considered approach to interpreting halacha that sets it apart from other denominations, and also a system of leadership that is involved in determining or upholding practice, despite the emphasis on individualism. This is why the URJ exists in the U.S. and Canada, the MRJ and Liberal Judaism in the UK, etc. I felt it important to point this out because there's a lot of bias among Jews with stricter practices (especially orthodoxim and charedim), who think that Reform Jews are just lapsed Jews who don't engage with Jewish practice, are basically assimilated, and don't do much in the way of observance beyond getting a Chanukah bush. It felt wrong to go off on my little rant without addressing this, especially because when I wrote it there was a conversation echoing in my head that I had with a friend years ago, which was a different one - with a different ortho friend - than what I referred to in the post. This friend was making fun of how Reform Jews don't have any kind of Jewish practice and have to ask their rabbi for advice if they want to do anything. So I asked him, "isn't that what you also do?" And he got very quiet. Struggled to come up with a reply. And then changed the subject. So it felt important to me to acknowledge that more modern branches of Judaism (and I didn't even address Reconstructionist or Renewal or Masorti) have just as valid an approach to how they view and interpret halacha, and to be honest even though it's not the same as Conservative and Orthodox, there's a lot more commonality there than people realize. It's what the practical application of the outcome of these approaches looks like that's so different.

And while Reform Judaism does have a much more individualistic approach to observance, there are certain halachot that are relevant to Jewish practice that Reform rabbis have influentially interpreted - such as the idea that electricity flows like water, and is thus a current that can be turned on and off. However individualistic a branch of Judaism might be, it's nevertheless a community based religion, so there will be overarching ideas that connect people through shared practice. Reform Judaism doesn't consider halacha binding, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have an organized system of religious leadership and thought leadership that forms perspective on halacha to determine communal practices. There's just more openness in certain Jewish denominations/communities about whether or not people uphold that practice. Ie. most people in a Reform shul won't really care whether or not you share their practice, whereas it creates much more tension if you deviate in an Orthodox or even Modern Orthodox shul - but even then it's often more an issue of "it's not polite to bring this up" as opposed to, say, deviating in practice in a charedi shul, in which case you've committed an egregious offence that will incur people's judgment and potentially cost you in real-life consequences. Conversely, when I've gone into Reform communities, whether a shul or just a Seder table, it's made people uncomfortable when it came up that my practice is stricter and more along Conservadox lines, though that's likely because of the associations people have with those communities and the politics of many participants, or how they're perceived. (Shoutout to that one guy at a house party after college who assumed that because I didn't use my phone on Shabbat I was homophobic which... was a leap, shall we say.)

And on that note, clearly my own practice is not Reform Judaism. I took a Florence Melton Adult School class on Jewish traditions and practice through an inter-denominational lens. We studied various halachic texts and Jewish holidays through commentaries from rabbis and leaders of significance to the main branches of American Judaism - Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform, which meant texts ranging from the Babylonian Exile to 20th century scholars. In the process we learned about the approach, history, and structure of each denomination, so that's where my information comes from. If it's incorrect in any way I'm more than open to continuing to learn!

I know I'm writing this right as shabbat is coming in and tbh I'm fine with that. I'm so tired of Jews saying that if they don't keep shabbat or practice Judaism in an orthodox way they're "bad jews" or "not observant." Um, no, that's not true. That's now how it works.

Reform Jews who use electricity on Shabbat are just as observant. Because Reform rabbis did the same work of Torah law interpretation, and came up with a different answer than orthodox Jews, but using the same process and approach to reading the text. They didn't go, "this is inconvenient so we're just not gonna do it." They said, "where orthodoxy sees electricity as something that may create a spark and therefore violates the melachot around making fire, we see it as a current, like water flowing, and just as it is permitted to use a faucet on Shabbat, so is flipping an electric switch."

If you choose to not be observant because it's not for you, that's fine. But orthodoxy is not the only way to be observant of Jewish practice. There's no line of what makes you observant and what doesn't, and that doesn't just go for Shabbat but it's the easiest example to illustrate my point. The Torah just says, "observe the Shabbat." That's it. If you look around on Friday night and go, "oh hey it's Shabbat, huh?" then tell me how that isn't observing the Shabbat? If you light candles and make kiddush and then go out to a movie, haven't you observed it? The Rabbis in the Babylonian era interpreted what Jewish practice looks like in a diaspora without the cultural/religious structure around a central temple, but that has been re-interpreted in every generation since and continues to be.

The real question is, are you making informed choices about your practice or are you just doing what works for you? Which is also fine, by the way. The thing that bothers me is when people think that only orthodox Jewish practices are "real" or legitimate. An orthodox friend of mine once started shit talking Reform Jews to me (why???) and how they aren't observant like she is. So I asked her if she tears her toilet paper on Shabbat and she said yes, of course. I pointed out that there are a lot of charedi Jews who would consider that a blatant violation of Shabbat and that, in their eyes, she wouldn't be considered shomer Shabbat. It's all a spectrum, there's no ONE right way.

My favorite Midrash is that the Temple had 13 entrances - one for each of the 12 tribes, and one for those who weren't sure which one they belonged to/didn't belong to any of them. Judaism is such an inherently pluralistic ethnoreligion, please stop buying into the brainrot bullshit that only charedim can do it correctly.

[mmikmmik]

One underrated aspect of Mouthwashing is that it's really good as a video game.

I thought the player feedback was super strong. There's so many little gimmicky nightmare worlds and "minigames" and the game really helps you understand them very quickly and keep up the momentum. There were only a couple times I got stuck for long enough that I felt like it was breaking me out of the narrative, and I was able to resolve them pretty quickly. And one of them was my own fault - I was trying to use an item somewhere the devs had already indicated it was impossible, because I forgot about the little framing that pops up to indicate you can go into "interaction mode". That's a great little UI mechanism for making it super obvious what is and isn't interactive while still being unobtrusive and letting you feel immersed in the ship environment. Oh, and using the birthday cake scene to introduce the sawing mechanic? So when the player saws at Curly's leg, it's an incredibly powerful callback and the player already knows what they're supposed to do, defending the emotional punch from a "wait... which buttons am I supposed to press for this...?" moment? Brilliant.

Mouthwashing also has beautiful interplay between its gameplay elements and its storytelling. I think of Mouthwashing as "movie-like", because I feel like the pacing + tone + themes remind me very much of horror movies, but this story is meant to be a game. Think of the scene where Jimmy is basically telling Curly that he intends to destroy the ship. It starts with the player controlling Curly in first person POV. But right as Jimmy is talking about how Curly doesn't have agency in his own life ("You're standing at the top. Feet in cement. I get it now.") the camera escapes Curly's perspective and moves into a third person perspective, giving us our first look at pre-crash Captain Curly.

That was the last moment Curly had to avert the tragedy. He knew Jimmy had attacked Anya. Anya told Curly that Jimmy must be physically prevented from accessing the means to hurt the rest of the crew. Jimmy said it would be best if they all just died and then walked away saying "I'll take care of it" and Curly stood there watching him and did nothing. In chronological order, the next scene is the first time the player controls Jimmy. The agency and control, the status of "player character", has left Curly. He let himself become a character in Jimmy's story. And by the time he gets control again, it's already too late.

(Not that I think the game is actually presenting "player character" status as something that's true or real. Look how much Anya's internal life and deliberate choices shape the story, before and after the crash, even as Jimmy casts her as an annoying quest-giver NPC.)

I also really like how much playing through the little nightmare vignettes have the player recreate Curly and Jimmy's decisions. Like when Jimmy is forced to stare directly at the post-it note that's telling him to take responsibility (or whatever the exact words are), but he simply backs away from it. It's all about the way he finds mental and emotional loopholes to get away from what he's done, no matter how directly he's forced to confront it. What other medium could so intimately guide you through that metaphor, to express its internal logic so clearly without words? God, I love video games.

[dr-pipis]

chapter 57 thoughts

i’ve been having so many thoughts all day but assuming that all of the information hiruhiko gave was true, the fact that samura genuinely believes that all of the swordbearers including himself deserve to die- presumably for the amount of blood on their hands and their actions during the seitei war- is scaryyy.

it’s one thing when the main antagonists contest chihiro’s understanding of the war, as their perspective is harder to take as reliable- but with samura? he fought on the side that chihiro understood to be “good”, and its clear that the guilt he feels over whatever he and the others did was terrible enough that he thinks they all need to die.

this development is agonizing ofc but it’s soooo interesting from a storytelling perspective. i was never sure if kagurabachi would fully commit to portraying the seitei war as a deeply complex and nuanced conflict rather than just “good guys vs bad guys”, bc its just not very typical of shonen- but i’m so excited.

this opens so much more development for the cast, as well. how will samura react to the fact that chihiro is a swordbearer now? how is hakuri going to deal with the fact that he inadvertently caused this, even though he had no way of knowing? what will shiba think? what about the rest of the kamunabi?

OR i could be entirely wrong and this is a bait and switch😭we’ll see, i literally cannot wait until next sunday

[saltysatellite804]

I figured out what's bothering me so much about the anime adaption (and spoilers it's not the apathy as I previously believed, though it plays a part). But first let me showcase my thoughts. Actually the apathy route could've been done well I think. But this wasn't it.

Let me do a super basic side-by-side for a second.

He is smirking in manga but the expression doesn't come across in anime. He looks dead eyed and his mouth is pretty even. He should be thrilled at an excuse to take a shot at the Soul Palace! He hates them so so much! It's what he's wanted to do for so long! I remember reading this and thinking "wow this is the first joy hes had in two years".

But nah let's make him bored or something. But don't forget that "something". I'll get into it soon.

Not an exact side-by-side this time, but thinking how the anime really made this panel weird?? The vibe in the manga is more fun to watch and kinda scary, even the way he peeks back around the chair creates tension. In anime, he looks like a dog waiting for crumbs at the table.

I just

Who is this guy?? This screenshot particularly looks so weird???

Starting to notice what's going on? The running theme in these expressions? It's not even apathy as I previously thought!

Also why did they choose the most boring angles possible when manga is right there with great ones? Like why the flat side profile here? It looks weird. They did it in Muken and I was bored of it by then too after one use. From a directive perspective, its ugly. This could be forgiven if the rest was fine.

And remember when he is so thrilled to crush Mayuri's toy?

But nah. Let's deliver that line with what borders on a pout of all goddamn things.

Another side-by-side to show how ugly the anime made the scene

So what have I been trying to say? It's how immature and weak Aizen's personality felt in anime. If I had rewatched sooner I would've realized it. It's the way he is fucking pouting the whole time!

Why. Why why why. Why do you have to defang him, it's so annoying. Why is he coming across like a petulant child! I hate this! I contest the people who say he is acting better!

Watching this episode again partially made me so sad. His character feels so empty. The scene is so pathetic. Maybe that's what they wanted but it really sacrificed everything watchable about this scene to achieve it.

Also also was it just me or did they get rid of the line where Aizen's spirit energy was blowing away the energy of all the captains and other soul reapers? What a badass line to cut.

[gay-furry-poseidon-lover]

"dont pick and choose" where is this enthusiasm for any other crimes that are blantly stated as happening in the musical?

Epic the Musical isnt meant to be perfectly accurate to the original poems. In Epic, we get "seven years shes kept you trapped out of your control, time can take a heavy toll." And then Calypsos songs from her perspective. They are emotional songs, thats like... what musicals are supposed to do, make you feel stuff. Lots of people dont interpret Epic Calypso as a rapist, because its not explicitly written to send that message.

Are we gonna talk about The Odyssey or are we gonna talk about Epic the musical. They are different. "people like Circe," In the Odyssey, Odysseus did not have a choice to sleep with her. He had to. Its not that people just suddenly dont care that she assaulted him, its that Epic is showing us a different version. And Epic's Calypso is shown differently as well.

"I spent my whole life here, was cast away when i was young, alone for a hundred years, i had no friends but the sky and sun," This is what we get about Epic's Calypso's back story. That is different from versions of the myth where Calypso just goes and lives on an island.

However you feel about her is fine, youre allowed to not like her, to hate her even. But this is a fictional character based on a fictional character in a poem from a very long time ago. These arent real people. Odysseus is not on the internet, hes not reading posts about people analizing Calypsos character in a musical and feeling victim blamed or retraumatized. And if you relate a lot to Odysseus and that makes you hate Calypso thats fine. Not everyone sees her in your same context though, and thats not an attack on you. If this is something that is so distressing to you, block people who post about her, hit not interested, stop engaging with it. Take care of yourself. But you don't get to just decide that nobody can like this character ever, and that if they do they're a bad person who thinks rape is okay.

Works of fiction aren't real. Obviously I think that killing a baby is horrible, whether the gods told you too or not. But I still love Ody. That doesnt mean I dont care if people kill babies. I enjoy Zeus's character and songs even though he forces Odysseus to choose between the life of his crew or his own, which is like definitely immensely traumatizing. Enjoying his part in the musical doesnt mean i think thats good?

A lot of characters from greek myth have raped people. But we have the understand that obviously that is bad and wrong, and we would never be fans or sympathize with abusers in real life. At least I do. I havent seen a bit of discourse about Zeus (one of the most famous aggressors) or about any other gods. People enjoy them freely, and thats generally fine.

Why is Calypso treated so differently. Like i don't think anyone is literally arguing that rape is good and its okay that Homer's Calypso did that, nor are they saying that to any victims in their life. And if they are, obviously thats bad. But people just enjoying this character isn't.

May I just point out that calypso is apologising (no matter how backwards it comes off ) only when Odysseus was finally freed by someone else from her.

And that until then she was still actively pushing Odysseus’ Boundaries??

Lighter mot or no she kept this man against his will for seven years. And she didn’t GROW UP on that island. She had a life before that— that led her to be trapped by the gods.

Like she IS a sympathetic and tragic character but let’s not act like she’s innocent.

“for seven years she kept you against your will”

THIS DAMN LINE. LISTEN. BLOODY LISTEN TO IT ALL. DONT PICK WHAT YOU CHOOSE.

There’s a REASON people don’t have an issue with Circe. Are happy to see her as a FRIEND to Odysseus. CALYPSO IS NOT THE SAME CASE.

[viiioca]

[ roevember day 4 - ship ]

From the journal of Estelle de Laussienne, 24th of the 4th Umbral Moon, 5 7A.E.

Is it not funny what tricks our eyes can get up to? Medical literature on the visual system has been coming out of Sharlayan at an efficient clip, but it's hardly the brand new frontier of study the Studium's psychology department is touting. We have known about its oddities since the first spearfisher discovered that water lies about a fish's location. Such progress in that time! Humanity has embraced this imperfection of ours with great relish. Traditional Ul'dahn religious art, for example, relies heavily on ambiguous images, with both Nald and Thal coexisting within the same figure at the same time, the dominant shape shifting with the viewer's perception; Thavnairian folk art, too, often employs similar tricks to depict the harmonization of Manusya and Mrga, blending man and animal two ways in a single piece when observed right-to-left or left-to-right. Even the cities we build delight in the simple joy of fooling the eye. The limited space of Ishgard combined with the nobility's hunger for grandeur has made forced perspective a popular architectural flourish; it is not uncommon to enter some immense gallery with a distant statue of Halone on the far wall, only for the illusion to break some four or five yalms into the room with the realization that the statue is all of two fulms high. Ala Mhigan muqarnas create phantom scales of depth, emerging or receding by the angle of the light and the inclination of the viewer. Sharlayan itself has tucked optical refinements inside its colonnades and entablature: the impression of sharp geometric perfection -- straight lines and right angles -- is a fiction told by its many hidden curves.

What a marvelous little engine we have in our heads. I've been thinking about this in the weeks since Raha has returned to us.

Physically, nothing has changed. He is a twenty-four year old man in fine health. The stasis was absolute: no growth to speak of in the nails and hair, no atrophy of the muscles, no softening of calluses or fading of scars that might indicate cycles of skin regeneration. It's as if he has simply slipped between calendar years like a city native knows an alley shortcut. And yet he is different. Like blinking away an afterimage, there is the lingering negative of something that no longer exists.

When the Coerthan cold gusts northerly into Mor Dhona, Raha will disappear into his thoughts, hunched over his mug of coffee, ambling about the Rising Stones' common room as if afflicted by a ghostly rheumatism, and I will think, There is the Exarch. How strange, then, to see him without the burden of his crystal; without the grey in his hair where all that lively red has bled out. There is a compartment of my mind that struggles terribly with this. Could it not be a glamour? A bit of Allagan showmanship? Then, hours later, I will watch him jaunt up the battlements of the Toll, flirting gamely with gravity as if it were a pretty classmate, where he will settle into a crenel to watch the Gloom roll in from Silvertear, and I will think, There is the G'raha Tia I knew. Unmoored from the moment, I will think -- Has Rammbroes banished him from camp again? Has he come to find me for that archery lesson? And then he will spot me from his perch, and I find myself startled back to the present by the royal red of his left eye. Is that the same boy? Surely not. That eye ought to be as blue as the waters off of Corvos. The future can't have happened yet.

Binocular rivalry. Two distinct images in competition. It's hardly fair to the man he's become, but I wonder, too, if this is how he saw me that day in Lakeland -- if his own mind fought to reconcile my reality with the composite of me in his mind's eye, patched together through secondary sources, blurred by decades and distance. Perhaps we never truly see each other. Perhaps it is time to find the same joy in it as our artists and architects do.

There is only one thing for it. I must correct my vergence. No sooner than it is announced that we make for Azys Lla, Raha leaps for the prow of Tataru's airship, and I do not see that young man of years past ready to bolt for the horizon; and he reaches back for me, to ensure that we are not separated, and I do not see the reserved elder who carefully accounts for each soul around him, made cautious by loss. With my eyes shifted just-so, with no expectations for the image I am meant to see, the man in front of me -- bright-eyed, wide-grinned, laughter clear and steady -- resolves into something new.

[sketchyartthings]

While I was drawing/looking at reference images, I realized that the king doesn’t look like he was killed by anything void related at all. His eyes don’t drip with void like every other character killed by overexposure to void in game, so what happened? What if he sealed himself away not to save himself, but to preserve the kingsoul? I mean, if I wanted to preserve an important object within me, I would think the dream realm would be a very suitable place to go. Evidently, the king hasn’t survived this, but it doesn’t look like there was a struggle. There was no evidence of the formation of a void creature in the room to have killed him the old fashion way, and no injury on the body itself. Nothing but a force of nature like the knight was ever going to get in or out of that room past all of those saw blades, and based on that, I don’t think the king planned on leaving that room. It looks to me that the king simply let himself wither away on his throne, and that he did it on purpose. The king was by no means a fool. He did not assume that locking himself in a room forever would be safe, and even if he did, he would’ve done more to solve his problems. The king had no workshop for him to toil in, no library to research from, and there was no effort made to stop the infection after he resigned himself to that room. The king was not there to save his kingdom in safety, and he was most certainly not there because he wanted to outlast the infection. The king wanted to die somewhere that was near impossible to reach. Somewhere in a near impregnable dream behind a nigh unwalkable path. But I don’t think that’s because he didn’t want to be found. After all, the king has tried tasking his children with a near impossible task in the hopes one will rise to meet the challenge before, and it worked. If we trust The White Lady’s perspective, The Hollow Knight was the perfect vessel before it was “tainted by an idea instilled,” so the idea that the king trusted the strength of his children enough to predict, or at the very least hope that one of them would reach the king would despite these measures, is not out of the question. In fact, the increased security of a task like this would make sense as a more intense test of the purity of a vessel. If the parkour skills needed to define THK as hollow were as simple as escaping the abyss, then the saw blades could certainly be explained as either a revised test of a vessel’s purity, or its will. Maybe the king predicted the creation of the void heart? If the vessel’s will is being tested, it would support the idea that the king knew about the possibility of the void heart, as it unites the void behind the bearer’s will. If this is true, then it may explain why The White Lady gives you the white fragment with the following quote. “I have a gift, held long for one of your kind. When united, great power is granted, and on the path ahead, great power it shall need.” This is most definitely referring to the unification of the king soul, but what if it were also a thematic parallel to the great power granted with the unification of the void? If this is the case, I don’t believe that the white lady was informed about all of the details, but likely just that a vessel was needed to end the infection, and that she must give the white fragment to a vessel she deems worthy. To ask the last question about this theory I could think of, why is the corpse of the king in a room dark with what is likely void if void is not what killed him? It could be deduced that the king’s regrets’ darkening of the room was meant to be a more subtle nod to his disposition at the time of his death than a hint as to what killed him, as the void tears found on those killed by void serve that purpose well and wouldn’t have impeded his design, but a darker room alone would be an interesting thematic note as evidence of a nagging question in the king’s head: “Have we payed a cost this great for nothing?” Anyways. Call me a deranged lunatic in the notes.

[yoonyia]

you ever look at your own pysche and then look at everyone else and look at the media you like and things you relate to and try and draw a version of yourself from all the things that are you and then walk back and see your creation and then just get hit by a wave of "this is me, but I'm not this"

and like it's really confusing because everything that makes you you is there

and it is you, if you were to make it alive it would be an identical copy

but I would feel that it wasent me

it's me but it's not apart of what I am

I see what I'm meant to be and I know it is myself but I can't find that part of me I found within myself

It says what I say it breathes what I breathe it writes consumes and suffers all the same but where is that suffering, that guilt, that sadness that hatred that exhaustion in me? I can't find it

it is me, I am, no intention to offend but, I am a miserable tired person filled with self loathing, hatred for what i am, someone who loves and creates. But I cant find that love, I can't find that hate either, I can't find emptiness or the lack of those things either

what am I?

I'm merely me

and I will never know what that is.

[shacklesburst]

there is redistribution within a country

Often this is implemented very crudely as well! Maybe one of the reasons for structural differences between parts of a country as well.

diversification sounds reasonable but you would think in a balanced trading environment that you wouldn't have the entire world predominantly investing in just a few countries, that doesn't sound very diverse!

I mean, that mirrors classic ETF index fund investing to a T, too. You always want to be super diversified and yet every product on the market will put like half your money into FAANG + Nvidia nowadays. Like, some synthetic China small caps tracker is still gonna have Apple as its largest position because some model says it correlated so well with the index yadda yadda.

Really, companies are kind of a good comparison here, too. They also redistribute internally and they "import" products and services from other companies into themselves to value-add something and "export" them again in a new form to consumers (of whom we usually think that it's "better" if they buy the produced stuff from their savings instead of taking out a loan for it -- well, societal expectations have definitely changed a lot, too, and for some things (cars, houses) nowadays you're essentially expected to be leveraged anyways).

So the basic problem as I understand it is this: Country A is importing $10 worth of steel and spending about $80 internally to make this into a machine and export this machine again for $100, making a $10 profit and a trade surplus of $90 (or even $100? WP says sometimes raw material imports are not subtracted from trade surpluses for some reason?). There's pressure on country A's producers to depress internal costs as much as possible to be competitive in the world market. If they pay their laborers only $70, they would be able to offer their product for only $90. But that would also actually lead to a smaller trade surplus as well? Basically the more value they add, the higher their surplus becomes?

If they instead imported 2 doodads for $40 each and stuck them together (let's say this is very cheap in labor and other costs) and exported them for $81 with a $.1 profit, A's trade surplus would be very small, but it also wouldn't make much sense from a profit margin perspective.

So a balanced trading environment would require all countries to have balanced comparative advantages, too. As soon as any one of them was particularly good at value adding by producing complex products from cheap raw materials, if would amass a large trade surplus quickly.

In a roughly efficient market with companies, we really like these companies! They buy cheap stuff and re-sell it as expensive stuff. The less labor and other overhead they need for that transformation the better!

But when we're looking at nation states and the sum of their companies doing this, we don't like it anymore. Why? Maybe in a vacuum this sounds good, but when we realize that instead of importing and exporting, all of this could be done domestically, the closest analogue to a single company would be vertical integration? That's often said to be more efficient after all and to produce an even nicer end result.

That's also where the analogue fails, because inside a company you don't usually have a "domestic market" to sell stuff internally.

But as long as there's any kind of difference in goods a single country is particularly good or bad at producing (because they have all the necessary facilities, and trained workers, etc), I just don't see a world market that's automatically totally balanced.

I would argue however that we have very little experience in the world of free trade because in that world, countries have balanced trade accounts as they export products in which they have comparative advantage in order to import products in which they don't.

The system in which we live today, however, is almost a classic beggar-thy-neighbor trading system in which countries compete by preventing the income of workers and households from rising in line with productivity. It is a formula for rising inequality.

Pettis

[muchmossymess]

uh oh guys, hot take alert:

i think revali may have invented hand held aerial archery HEAR ME OUT- (this is a long one boys)

okay. evidence one: why the fuck would a rito shoot like that. like, it makes nearly zero sense, it would be such a hindrance to their flight and their main stake is that they can be higher than you can shoot whilst still pinging you... which revali has overcome with his gale

evidence two: tulin and the concept arts. obviously rito style archery would be held in their talons. before totk came out idk if anyone had really thought about it too much, but the developers had, as you can see in concept art (from the creating a champion book). and like, its logical, powerful, and allows for peak maneuverability. also, when in flight revali (and teba) holds his bow in his talons before switching to his wings. surely its easier to keep it in your wing (obvi ignoring the effects to flight but hes doing that anyway firing the damn thing) rather than switch back and forth- unless you were taught that way, because why would you hold it elsewhere, you need it in your talons to shoot.

evidence three: we dont see any other rito do it (...kind of). throughout botw and totk, we never see another rito flying with a bow in their hands. in totk, its mostly tulin, who holds it in his talons, but in botw the big one is teba. during the medoh quest, he actually gives *link* his bow, and therefore does no shooting in the sky. teba and harth had both tried to take on medoh before, but we never see this, and while they holds their bows in their hands *on the ground,* we dont see it.

...except for aoc (uh, spoilers?). there are two times we see a rito other than revali hold their bow in their hand for aerial archery. but it is not with any rito soldiers, either during cutscenes (the bows are only on their backs) or gameplay (they swoop down, and then hand hold bows on ground. they arent seen flying at all but thats prolly for the same reasons as botw: its very hard to code that (and so they write the lore around that fact)). the first time we actually see another rito do this, we dont see it. Its teba, as he comes thru the portal, but all we see is the arrow shot, and then him freeze frame with the bow in one wing. we dont see the bow in his hand for the rest of the fight. the second time we actually see him fighting like this, it *is* in the air, but its noticeably different to revali.

hes a lot slower, it clearly takes a LOT more effort to shoot the bow, and he only pulls off one arrow at a time. its canon that revalis bow is heavier/harder to draw, and he manages to effortlessly stream arrows whilst fucking floating midair. i think teba, forever a revali fanboy, heard of how the champion mastered his own style of archery and sought to teach himself, but lacked one key thing: revalis mastery of wind.

evidence three point five: revali could easily use his powers to hold him in the air longer/slow his descent long enough for him to fire his shots. it makes sense, really. if he can use his gale to propel him, he can sit on the updraft for a hot sec, or even curve the path to carry him along while he lines up the shot. this would mean he wouldnt need to flap as much as other rito, who would obviously need to keep flying

evidence four: revalis fighting style and his needs. revali works with non rito, obviously. he needs to be able to communicate with them on the battlefield, and they wont understand the muffled chirps if he holds his string in his beak, so he needs his mouth free to speak hylian. also, revalis main tactic is fly up with gale, shoot, fall, either shoot more or use velocity and weight to knock around opponents, and then fly back up. he often needs both feet planted firmly on the ground to get a good hold of his gale, something that is harder to do if you have a bow in the way.

also, take for example the kick he delivers link in their fight (aoc). that would possibly damage the bow, or give the opponent a chance to grab his weapon, if he held it in his talons. and to switch from feet to back is a risky maneuver during freefall, and could lose precious seconds, and then when you get back in the air you need to get it off your back again. its much easier to keep the bow loosely in your wing the whole time, meaning your free to attack melee, land and rise all while not wasting a single moment getting your next shot lined up.

so yeah, i think the rito used the talon grip for aerial archery, and would often use the hand held method on the ground for a variety of reasons (more powerful shots?, easier in some situations like hunting), but revali was perhaps the first to use hand held aerial, another reason he was one of the greatest archers ever.

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine if you were a gay or bi man who tried a certain firefighter show because of all the attention it was getting for one of its mains having a later in life bi awakening.....and between seasons you ventured into its fandom in search of material to tide you over til the next one. And you're greeted by a deluge of posts and fics that are just cheerfully homophobic towards one half of the newly out bi character's canon relationship on the basis of 'well he's not the RIGHT gay guy' and pushing the idea that actually its fine to cheat on him because Reasons and he's sexually predacious based on......behind the scenes implications people have divined like they're reading fucking tea leaves.

But don't get it twisted....this fandom, like all fandoms, really cares about representation!

Sorry not sorry, but we really need to kill this idea that fandoms are welcoming and inviting and inherently progressive when they're frequently insular and reductive as fuck. Every single fandom I've been in has had major trends of people doubling down on their own headcanons and fanon interpretations of the characters and willfully enacting trends aimed at running off people who like the 'wrong' characters (usually characters marginalized along one or multiple axes), like the characters in the 'wrong ways' or other bullshit.

Scott is a Bad Friend fics overtaking Teen Wolf fandom was not incidental, it was a FEATURE of the fandom, because the vast majority of that fandom did not want to share its space with anyone who had the nerve to like its main character. Survivors complaining about or criticizing the prevalance of rape fics in a certain fandom has in my experience always led to a reactionary UPTICK in those fics, with gems like 'this character can, will, must be raped' in the tags making it crystal clear that some of these fics exist because how fucking DARE anyone try and push forth a narrative not agreed upon by Fandom Main.

I could cite examples for so many other fandoms, with the commonalities always being that vast majorities in these fandoms are explicitly reacting defensively to being asked to be more mindful of fandom trends revolving around or exacerbating racism, homophobia, transphobia, rape or abuse apologia, ableism, etc....

With the most prolific fucking rallying cry across countless fandoms being "No the fuck we will NOT be doing that," because lolololol.....

Fandom is an inherently progressive space, didn't you hear?

[lorillee]

in honor of kakashis birthday i thought i might as well finally release my half finished mini concept of "inverse lost tower where baby kakashi comes to hang out with shippuden era team 7. Badly" because obviously baby kakashi seeing his older self have relationships and happiness that baby kks doesnt think he can or deserves to have pisses him off on such a fundamental level hes so filled with rage he barely knows what to do with himself. not to mention that adult kakashis general outward lackadaisical demeanor also makes him angry because how can they have gone through all the same things and yet he still doesnt take anything seriously etc etc u already know all this. regardless the issue more than anything else was that im not much of a writer so i could never get the words to feel right so it'll probably stay unfinished forever, but take these anyways