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ambrosiagourmet · 9 months ago

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In chapter 28, Marcille lays out why the journey she's been on has been worth the pain: because they were able to bring Falin back. The injuries, the indignity, and the mess of it all - they are tolerable primarily in context of destination she believes she's reached at this point.

In truth, of course, the story is far from finished. In fact, I would argue that this is actually where hers really starts. This scene holds the seed of the very thing the Winged Lion will exploit to lead Marcille to become the Lord of the Dungeon. After all, with a desire as far reaching and deeply held as Marcille's, if the only acceptable outcome is success, what other choice does she have but to bargain with the infinite?

So let's talk about this idea - where it leads her, how Laios' path intersects with it, and how they both help each other move forward in the face of failure.

First though, I want to step back and talk about something else: the shapeshifter chapters.

With these chapters recently covered by the anime, there has, of course, come plenty of fun discussions about which version of each character belongs which other character's perceptions, and what that means.

One thing I've seen pointed out a few times is the fact that both Laios and Marcille's impressions of each other are based around Falin. Marcille's version of Laios is larger and more masculine, because those are the traits that stuck out to her in contrast to Falin. Laios' version of Marcille was directly inspired by her appearance and demeanor when resurrecting Falin.

So why is this important to a discussion about Marcille being focused on success? Well, it shows us where Laios and Marcille's relationship starts: built primarily around their shared love for Falin. It's from that shared beginning that they begin to learn about each other on their own terms.

And this is true for the whole group, to be clear. They are united by circumstance - love for a lost companion, a sense of responsibility, a desire for freedom - but they all grow and help each other beyond that circumstance. They help Senshi bury the ghosts of his past and eat some Hippogriff stew. They help Izutsumi open up to mutual love and friendship. And they learn so much about each other: about Chilchuck's family and Laios' love of monsters and Marcille's desires to live life alongside others.

In the particular case of Marcille and Laios, understanding each other is what lets them save each other. It is not through Falin that Laios talks Marcille down from the edge the Lion has brought her to, nor is it through her that Marcille comforts Laios after the demon is defeated, when it is still unclear how everything will work out.

In fact, it is very specifically the unknown fate of Falin that Marcille comforts him about.

She is willing to accept the outcome - willing, now, to embrace the journey itself, rather than only accepting it as a means to an end.

This is a lesson she learns from Laios, and it's a lesson we watch Laios learn, too.

Just before making her deal with the Lion, Marcille recalls everything that led her to that moment. She lingers on the pain, recalling the worst of their journey:

She only pushes through by remembering her goals: saving Falin, and equalizing the lifespans of her friends to match her own.

And yet, 10 chapters later, when reflecting on why she actually wants to see her goals through, it is the good parts of that very same journey that shine through.

There's an inherent contradiction here, one which Marcille doesn't know how to face. How can the suffering that she tolerates also be the love that drives her forward? How can the loss that she's worked so hard to reverse also be the very circumstance that created a world she, now, cannot stand to give up?

And Laios confronts her with the truth. Because it just is.

Losing Falin forced him to open up to others in a way he never had. It forced him to choose what he cares about, and in making that choice, it gave him the opportunity to be seen. To connect with others.

He has already had to come to terms with the fact that Falin's death has given him something - he would not have been able to kill her again if he hadn't.

There is something here that is fundamental to Dungeon Meshi's understanding of what life even is. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that part of Laios' speech to Marcille in chapter 85 is actually first seen in the chapter where they fight off ghosts.

In 'Sorbet,' while possessed , Laios thinks that it would have been better if the dragon had eaten him, instead of Falin. The ghosts make people lose their will to live - they are dragged away from life.

When he's pulled back from that brink, Laios realizes that he can't move forward without accepting that she is gone. He even compares the way he was holding on to her to being possessed: it pulled him away from life, from the present moment.

To carry on, he must accept what has been lost, and focus on protecting the life that they still have.

Like Marcille, he has to accept the contradictions of their journey. That life means eating, and eating requires death. That sometimes one must be selfish in order to be kind, and that selflessness can easily be twisted into to cruelty.

That loss will, inevitably, lead you to find happiness that you may not have found otherwise.

This is how he gets through to Marcille. And I think part of the reason he reaches her with these specific ideas is because those contradictions are baked so thoroughly into their relationship.

Marcille only met Falin after she had been left behind by Laios. Laios was able to reconnect with Falin because she left Marcille. They both met each other through Falin, and yet they only really got to know and care for one another after she died.

And of course, that's why Marcille uses the same ideas to comfort Laios, in the final chapter. It is because of Laios that she is able to accept the journey for itself, and not need the happy ending to justify its meaning to her.

Together, they help each other move forward, and accept that they may not be able to bring Falin back.

Which, if I'm being honest... I think this is the reason Falin can come back, narratively speaking, without the resurrection feeling like it takes away from the themes of the story.

After all, she doesn't do it for Marcille or Laios - she does it for her own sake. Her own hunger and her own desire to eat are the things that lead her back to life.

All three of them, together, end the story like this: not clinging to the things they are afraid to lose, but knowing they can choose to move forward together.

And, importantly, this happy ending is no longer the thing that gives the journey meaning. Rather, it is the privilege of the journey itself that is her happy ending: the chance to walk alongside others in the time they have, to get to know each other, and to eat well.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #marcille donato #laios touden #falin touden #dungeon meshi spoilers #dunmeshi analysis #for anyone keeping track I'm on pdt so it IS still the same day that I said I'd post it on #PUT DOWN THE TOMATOES

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mesetacadre · 6 months ago

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So, like, have any of you actually ever had a conversation with a fascist offline about what they believe? I have.

To be clear, this wasn't a sit-down-let's-talk conversation. He (the only one) tried to start shit, and we (me + 2 comrades) confronted him in the act and regrettably got into a 30-minute "conversation".

Fascists, individually, are very mentally feeble. They are cowards who always seek to start conflict while trying to make themselves out to be the victims. This is, of course, until they gain enough popularity and canon fodder to throw 20 unstable fascists at anyone they don't like. But until this exaltation occurs¹ and their organizations enter a relatively stable cycle (in contemporary liberal democracies, they last between 2 and 7 years before disintegrating), there remains a contradiction between their aggressive desire to seek confrontation and their individual and collective insecurities. Fascist ideology is mostly not rooted in reality (more on this later), and it also has an important component of self-hate. They are an inferior specimen, unable to achieve what the fascist martyrs before them achieved (in Spain, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera usually occupies this position), and to add injury to insult, it's those who they perceive as weak and undeserving who rule over them. They ignore this perceived inferiority by joking about being chads, the superior race, or non-degenerates. But behind their rhetoric and "humor" there is usually a tinge of insecurity and hate against anyone who doesn't fit their increasingly narrow standard, including themselves.

This fascist we talked with kept referring to Jewish conspiracies, to the freemasons in every position of power, to old Falangists, to fascist "theorists", to some kind of esoteric spiritualism within the bounds of Christianity, somehow, and hyperborea. He talked about communists, how they were already in the government (referring to the social-democratic PSOE), how we were degenerates, how the day will come, etc. He attempted to scare us by saying that he was an ex-member of this more notorious fascist party and that they were looking for him to beat him up, which isn't something you admit to people you're trying to start conflicts with. After a while of his ramblings, one of my comrades couldn't help but laugh at him. It was all very ridiculous; I don't remember exactly what he said that made my comrade laugh. He got slightly more agitated, and the conversation ended in ~5 minutes.

Individually, fascists are also not the brightest people you'll encounter. For somebody to internalize fascist beliefs, they have to be unconsciously willing to never dig deeper about their beliefs, to contrast them with one another, or to contrast them with other fascists. They'll read a text (they may be stupid, but a lot of them do read more than you'd expect) about, say, the concept of race, and never really address the fact that it contradicts their own beliefs, or a fellow fascist's beliefs about the nation or about Europe.

And a really interesting thing is that fascism is far from a monolith. It's more akin to an entelechy². The specific contradictions of fascism manifest themselves much more between individual fascists than within a single individual. Like I mentioned before, there are contradictions when it comes to race (racialists like the nazis vs anti-racists like Falange Auténtica), to Europe (the idea of a Great Europe vs every idea of Nationality/Empire, which generally coexist poorly), to the nation (its intersection with race and/or Europe and how it interacts with these), to the reaction against progress (a conception of fascism as progressive, reactionary, or neither³), to science (a realist position based on scientificism such as race science and Kameradschaftrecht (nazi feminism) vs metaphysical conceptions, such as esotericism or the Thule society, reliant on aesthetics and mysticism), or to the economic policy (bourgeois positions, corporatism, vs workerist positions such as Strasser or Bombacci).

These contradictions aren't unique to the contemporary fascist situation of fragmentation and the peculiarities of social media either. Back in the 30s and 40s, there was a lot of disagreement on who counted as fascists. On one end, during the rise of the NSDAP, there was a small cadre of orthodox fascists who narrowed fascism "a la Italiana", and did not consider nazi-fascism to be fascism because of its differences on the scientificist conceptions of race. The Nazi party repressed this small wing. On the other end, it was a prevailing position in the USSR to not consider fascism to start with Italy's fascii di combatimento, but rather in Russia's Black Hundreds, having a broader conception of fascism.

This fascist we talked with considers himself a Carlist⁴, while another member of his groupuscule considers himself a national-socialist, while being Moroccan, and a third is a run-of-the-mill reactionary concerned with the 2030 agenda, globalism, immigrant invasions, the great replacement, that sort of thing. When fascist groups are relatively small and lack any form of inertia and/or formalized structure, their activity is extremely sporadic. There is no discipline to be found, no real planning or broad strategy, they are, rather, a group of similarly-enough-minded friends who sometimes like to do some vandalism or threaten/agitate leftists of any stripe. Their only method of growth is to generate controversies, fights, have a provocative tweet go semi-viral, to generate noise. When it comes to agitation for the fascist, concrete ideology is not relevant. They appeal to both rage and the satisfaction of, for example, seeing x annoying leftist org get their posters ripped off. Discussions of fascist theory rarely, if ever, influence their pragmatic activity, sometimes it's more similar to a circlejerk to see who has the most esoteric, exaggerated and offensive positions.

This is not to say fascist infighting is irrelevant, far from it. Fascists have their own petty disputes between groups, periods of extreme fractionarism, inter-fascist and intra-fascist violence. But when it comes to the philosophy of action, to how they apply all these beliefs, you'll be pressed to find meaningful, material differences. Some might be more or less aggressive, more or less esoteric, more or less contrarian, more or less effective. But they all rely on building that momentum, that controversy -> confrontation -> growth -> controversy cycle. The moment fascist groups lose that momentum, or one too many campaigns fall flat and fail to garner attention, they'll start to turn against themselves, to deteriorate their own structures in the permanent search for conflict that their beliefs demand. There is no way to hold the belief that, for example, race is a scientific category that makes the white/national/aryan/european/whatever race constantly threatened to disappear without exhorting you to seek conflict, whether it's against immigrants or other fascists who don't place as much importance on race.

If you find yourself in the context of a few small fascist groups festering and seeking conflict, it is a strategic error to confront them outright. Unless you're willing to downright kill them or injure them severely enough (with the bigger threat of legal repercussions that entails), fascists will be able to turn your explicit opposition against them into ammunition to attract more reactionaries to their own ranks. The best you, as an organized communist, can do in the period before exaltation, is to quietly collect information about them, study their patterns, and exert as much opposition as is possible without letting them turn it into a visible confrontation. If you're going to cover up their symbols and posters, do it when they can't film you or try to start a fight. If they're threatening someone to provoke them to then cry and hue about the rabid leftists, use the fact that they have low numbers, record them, and intimidate them without physical violence. Even if you can leave them writhing on the floor in a fight, they can use that as ammunition, but they can't use a video of them putting their tails between their legs and running off. You can't debate with fascists, this much is clear. You also can't just use violence to scare them away, because they'll use that violence to gain momentum, and then you can end up with an actually decently-sized and consistent fascist organization.

This is how we have been opposing these small groups of fascists attempting to grow through controversy. We opposed them non-visibly, effectively and professionally. When this group of about 15 fascists total (they never appear with more than 4 at a time because of their inconsistency) encountered this, they were at one point scared enough to stop all activity for about 2 months, and after that have yet to appear again. Meanwhile, other, more infantile orgs, overreacted by opposing them with full force and very publicly, which only encouraged the fascists to keep going and wasted energy in a futile back-and-forth, as well as putting their members in unnecessary risk by engaging in unplanned situations.

¹ Throughout this entire post, all analysis of the behavior of fascists offline assumes this exaltation has not occured

² Entelechy here means an impossible ideal, built entirely in the imagination, or with an unstable and shoddy manifestation.

³ Fascism often positions itself as a revolutionary movement, while other times it places more importance on the opposition against progress.

⁴ Carlism is a Spanish political current originating in the rejection of Isabel II as a legitimate heir to Fernando VII, it became very intertwined with Franco's dictatorship and the Falange during the Civil War

#seriousposting

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charcubed · 2 months ago

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I have soooooo much I want to write about Doctor Odyssey and if I keep waiting for the perfect moment to write something PROPERLY GOOD AND COMPREHENSIVE then I’m simply going to explode. So instead I’m going to write a messy little post on my phone when half asleep and try to keep it to one main topic.

Yeah yeah the throuple had a threesome (and I’m foaming at the mouth over it) but can we talk about the THEMES!!!!

This show is for crazy people (me specifically). Once again, I have a lot to say, but for now let me just focus on the wedding episode itself. That threesome is informed by the context of the rest of the episode in a way I simply CANNOT get over.

Let’s look at our passengers: the bride, groom, and best man. We find out all of them are being unfaithful to each other in various ways, miserable in their silence and unhealthy relationship dynamics. They all went to school together and were once close, but things went wrong somewhere along the way. The best man’s speech implies he has feelings for the groom, the groom is a sex addict who’s had multiple partners (possibly the best man included) because he feels trapped in a lie, and the bride and best man are having sex with each other. And none of them are communicating about it, and the groom who had preexisting mental health struggles commits suicide.

What happens to the three of them is a tragedy and it is absolutely a result of heteronormative monogamous culture. That culture was passed down from the bride’s mother to her too by example and societal influence.

I’m not exaggerating. It’s not subtle!!! At all!!! Everything explodes for those passengers because monogamy and repressing bisexuality wasn’t working for them.

They’re a dark mirror and cautionary tale. (Bonus points for how Avery’s sad backstory is that she was betrayed by her longtime friend / brief husband who cheated on her with a mutual friend as well, which is why she’s definitely hesitant about love now.)

By comparison, Avery and Max and Tristan have been avoiding some similar big pitfalls: they know they’re into each other and it’s not a secret, rivalries keep being squashed with effort, and no one is pressuring anyone to choose (so far).

This is what our beloved main characters have on their minds before what follows. And again, let’s not even get to the sex part yet… THE BUCKET LISTS!!! I’m losing my Goddamn marbles!!! The way all 3 of their lists intersect? Holy shit. Off the top of my head: Max and Tristan want to fall in love and have kids, Avery and Max want to see the world, Tristan and Avery have niche interests outside of medicine that they want to explore more… We were given itemized lists to show how the 3 of them balance and round each other out perfectly.

It’s not about any 2 of them because it won’t work with just any 2. It’s ALL THREE — just like all the framing and blocking of shots is consistently all 3, they walked down the wedding aisle all 3 together, the first sex scene for any of them that WE as the audience see on screen is all 3 of them together, a “bad threesome” is defined as 2 people getting too wrapped up in each other and the 3rd being an accidental outsider, we often see that if one duo gets a couple-y moment then the other duos get similar moments later as well, etc etc. Sorry. Let me not continue the summary list here and now so I don’t get too sidetracked but there’s A LOT.

But like, my current point? That wedding episode is a goldmine and the threesome explicitly happening doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Far from it. The themes are themeing in the whole show, of course, which is part of what I want to write about elsewhere at some point too: this show is repeatedly very deliberate about making sure heterosexuality or monogamy aren’t framed as the default or only correct options, and queerness is sprinkled everywhere. But this wedding episode specifically… the themes were nearly the ONLY PLOT. Nothing else — it’s basically only that, and it’s very focused. The failures of monogamy are on full display. And that’s why and how we get an explicit threesome right after it, which will lead us into how things will continue to develop for our trio.

Now, as for why the threesome happens so relatively quickly? My hot take on that is that general audiences can be stupid and so the creators wanted to put the throuple explicitly on screen fairly early to get people to start Noticing. Show them how the characters need to be together… and that sets us up for the possible angst and tension to follow as they have to accept it emotionally for themselves too. Now, as an audience member, you’ll more strongly know what to root for. You’ll know what’s right because you’ve seen it and you’ll want them to get back to that place, come what may. (If you’re not a puritan.)

It’s so fucking good. Insane silly show for insane people. Are we seeing the vision??? I need everyone to lock in.

This ramble is probably a disaster and I apologize for that but ohhhh man I had to put SOME words down so I wouldn’t explode. Suffice it to say I’m having a ball up in this bitch and I cannot believe this show exists. I couldn’t believe my eyes and my brain cells in the pilot, and I REALLY can’t believe them now.

What a time to be alive!!!!!! Polycule “love fest” on a cruise ship, baby!!! The world needs more love, all kinds of love, as the Captain says!!!! Onward to gay week!!!! LET’S SEE THOSE BI MEN KISS

#doctor odyssey #ody3 #I’M GOING FERALLLLLLL #this post is so subpar but. whatever. I’m sleep-deprived bye #me: I will stick to one topic. also me: does not do that.#char writes things

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williamvapespeare · 4 months ago

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"every day i'm fucking smiling;" a rant (cogent, intellectual character study) about Charles

We all know that Charles Rowland is THE character of all time. Obviously. Undisputedly (except by Netflix) blabla. I, a mixed race bisexual idiot with daddy issues, am about to fucking get into it.

I think there are a lot of ways to get into that end of ep 4 scene – I think we can look from trauma, we can look from model minority syndrome, we can look from a place of people pleasing to the extreme, but I think the best way to get into Charles (for me, personally) is to look at him as a character formed of intersections. Of in-betweens. In literally EVERY way possible, he is between things. He’s mixed race, he’s (probably) bisexual, he’s between life and death, he’s between good and bad, he’s probably sitting somewhere between trauma and healing – like, he’s CONstantly engaging in coping mechanisms and that itself is an in between.

Ok this idea of “I must be liked” very obviously will come from living a life where the opposite of not being liked is always violence, and that definitely can’t be understated. But I think this whole scene and this line in particular really speak to this very specific feeling that comes with inhabiting an identity that is ALWAYS seen as “not enough” in some way. Like, if you sit in a place where you don’t speak one side of your family’s language well enough and simultaneously aren’t white enough (or whatever enough) for the other side, you’re just like fundamentally culture-less and fighting to just be ANYTHING.

(Another GREAT example of this I think is the game Life is Strange 2, which is about two Hispanic American brothers, one of them speaks Spanish and the other one is much younger and doesn’t and there’s a bit where the younger brother doesn’t want to leave the US and says “I don’t even speak Spanish” and the other one is like “don’t worry, everyone likes you.” Like YES being “““Likeable””” is maybe the only way in when you are so fundamentally detached from a thing that you are also fundamentally part of, anyway!!)

Similarly, like all of us bisexual people know we’re constantly getting shit from both sides, from straight people and gay people and probably like, corpses decomposing in the ground who are throwing around terms like “gold star lesbian” or whatever the fuck. People just look at whatever relationship you’re in and they’re like ah yep that’s you!!

Like the whole thing is the most reductive narrow-minded stupidity, but it’s also just THE WAY. It’s the way of stuff. And being like ok, I AM NOT ENOUGH OF ANYTHING THAT I AM. How are you going to deal with that, you’re going to try and be likeable?? Because that’s something you can control!!!

And I’m low key so mad that we can’t see a continuation of this story where we get to see a character slowly come to terms with these in-betweennesses and say like, I’m not actually two halves, I’m two wholes. This is intentional in-betweenness. Like yes, blabla let the boy be bi, but it’s SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. And I trust this show and I trust these writers to get that right and we were robbed of that.

So yeah idk tldr “every day I’m fucking smiling” was like the gut punch of the century. Whoever wrote that I’m omw to haunt your local Denny’s with my extroverted mixed race bisexual energy THANK U

#dead boy detectives #save dead boy detectives #charles rowland #bisexual charles rowland #dbda #dbda meta

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centrally-unplanned · 1 year ago

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As I have been reading more studies on intersections between adolescent mental health declines & their reduced lack of freedom for independent activity (which is well-documented), it definitely see a sort of lock-in effect there. Pre-"modernity" kids being independent was just a default state that there wasn't even the resources to mitigate, so relative independent was the norm. That lasted up until, in most places, the 1970's - it has a lot of causes but let looks at for example the generally large increase in the idea that one's kids would be *at risk* by being independent. Generally from criminals, but also things like cars or even bike accidents.

Ofc, in practice kids are safer today than than they were before by most metrics - lower crime, access to things like cell phones for emergencies (in the US car-first residential design made things worse, but not that much worse and this trend is across the developed world, even Japan). But once the social norm shifted it didn't really matter what the numbers are - instead its about whose to blame. If your kid gets 'kidnapped' because you let them walk home from school, that is socially perceived as 100% your fault, how on earth could you do that? Meanwhile doubling of the rates of depression just wash out, that isn't you - fairly so even, its multicausal, your specific example isn't the trend, and so on. Once you 'lock in' the idea that letting kids have freedom is inherently reckless, its very hard to buck that because all the price is put on you, the parent, to do so; while the price of control is put on the children, who don't get a say (parents do lose free time, but that is minor in comparison).

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amyoffline · 4 months ago

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It's done! The outline for—

—is below the cut. The goal of this project is to explore the following phenomena with as much context and nuance as I can manage, tracing our history over the past 15 years:

What about us, and what about Dan and Phil, drew in and continues to draw in a very specific audience. If they are a ranch metaphor, we are a pizza metaphor 🥗🍕🫶🏻

Why we were Like That™, by which I mean so parasocially invested in them that we became, at times, the most annoying people on the internet. Much of that reputation is undeserved, and the videos on the phandom to date have been strongly negative. So, uh, I guess I'm going to put my face on camera and (mostly) defend us.

Reblog, share in your Discord servers, reply, or send me messages/anon asks with feedback or resources if you have any! Especially if your experience being in this fandom community has been dramatically different from mine. There are TIT spoilers near the end of the outline, but I'm not tagging because certain individuals seem to be lurking over there. Thank you!

Chapters:

Full outline:

introduction

cold open

felt personally attacked by jonathan haidt's last press tour

showed up to the phrenaissance 11 months late

had an unexpectedly strong response to their new content, needed to find out why

what the hell are we doing here?

- phenomenology (academics are professionally insufferable) - research question 1: what drew the audience in? - research question 2: why were we Like That™?

what we're NOT doing here

- a strict content analysis or "wow we sucked" video - providing sources for things best left uncirculated, thank you

reflexivity (personal biases)

- american zillennial in public health - in the youtube audience by spring 2010 - lurking in the phandom on tumblr 2013-2015, back* since 2019 - fan behavior i did and did not engage in

(----): truly necessary background information, i swear

(pop) cultural trends, tech, and their intersection

- nerd/geek identity and the first online weirdos - broadcast tv & the music industry vs the internet - defining "emo" - blogging & vlogging - early internet comedy

broader social/economic trends

- so the U.S. economy collapsed in 2007 - a decade that sucked except for rom-coms and square enix games - the flip/slide phone + digital camera + mp3 player loadout

(05-8): early youtube and early phil

youtube: a great video uploader without a clear purpose

the content on the website

- crossposts, corporations, and creative/social outlets - omg guys it's amazing phil - contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: justin bieber

the audience of "early adopters"

contemporary social media sites and forums

(2009): origin story

a wild dan appears… in the comments

the global constant that is teenagers being messy online

daring my old school district to sue me

- "one town's war on gay teens" (literal rolling stone headline!) - epidemiology 101: rates of… ugh… "unaliving" oneself - ways kids cope when it seems no adults will help them

the earliest days of dan & phil

- hello internet + pinof - a chronically overexamined timeline - file deleted ---* so how big WAS the audience at the time? ---* acceptable funny/edgy language was just different

contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: lucas cruikshank

omg it's meeeeeee

- how amy & friends were using youtube - ways i was just destined to end up here - being in social environments with peers 3-6 years older

(2010): is it "twenty-ten" or "two thousand ten?"

youtube is a platform about to explode in popularity

- the algorithm before it was The Algorithm™, lost site features - let's take a trip through the wayback machine :3c - actual dan & phil content in 2010 - the green brothers found vidcon - contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: darren criss

social media: also about to explode in popularity

- facebook was cool at the time, believe it or not - law of equivalent exchange: 2010 amy cringe compilation - the birth of instagram and pinterest - youtube slash livejournal (the first phanfics… sort of) - shockfic and its place in the overton window

the beginning of "the great rewiring" as haidt calls it

- ways social media is about to dramatically change - third spaces become online spaces - confounding variable: changing expectations of teens

(2011): the end of an era, the start of an age

a very long tangent on fandom and pop culture

cultural exchange

counterculture and teenagers as concepts

the first british invasion: the 1960s

- beatlemania and its descendents - moral panic about the virtue of tween/teen girls - tv/film/fashion trends being imported from the uk - in parallel, star trek births the modern fandom

the second british invasion: the 1980s

- synth/new pop that came out of the punk movement (hi, emo?) - confined mainly to music and fashion - cool britannia

it's harry freakin' potter

- absolute titan of pop culture influence - the rise of online fandom: examining the horrors ---* what is "wank" ---* flaming, sockpuppeting, and general cyberbullying ---* censorship: ffnet purges, boldthrough, & strikethrough ---* other fandom shenanigans of the time (yaoi paddles, anyone?)

harry potter's over. now what?

- for those who needed coming-of-age hero's journeys ---* twilight and YA dystopia waiting in the wings ---* some pretty iconic tv shows start or hit their stride ---* the mcu's phase one ---* takeaway: the rise of "geek culture" generally - for those who just wanted to go to hogwarts ---* doctor who & the wider world of bbc programming ---* british vloggers, you say? where? on youtube? brb--

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

dan & phil in the first half of 2011

- a continuation of 2010… for now - the videos - british pancakes as a case study of bad fan behavior

streaming and social media

- the birth of snapchat, twitch, and younow - netflix starts developing original programming - multi-channel networks (mcns) - digitour

dan & phil in the second half of 2011

- and they were roommates (omg they were roommates) - fantastic foursome - youtube glitches out - the super amazing project - the first proper baking video + wait, is that the bbc?

~ baking interlude 1: christmas cookies ~

the family sugar cookie (sorry, delia)

amy's 2011

(2012): why is anyone nostalgic for this

the transition from desktop to mobile

- massive growth in smartphone ownership 2011-2015 - things one might do on mobile one might not do on desktop - non-online ways smartphones changed being a youth™

what is tumblr and why is my child using it

- how the site is meant to work - fandom, memes, aesthetics, and SOME public figures - want to be anxious and depressed in peace? come to tumblr - this site seems a little……… gay ---* tumblr's very queer, very neurodiverse userbase ---* legacy media representation in 2012: bad! ---* actual academic research on tumblr users (yes, it exists) - the tumblr experience for non-native english speakers

amy becomes a vibrating mass of panic and paranoia

- in context of the above - additional rant about the american public school system

the growing dan & phil audience

- investigating the origin of the term "phannie" - more collaborations = more viewers - more video uploads = more /invested/ viewers - younow and interacting with fans - watch time replaces clicks in the algorithm

online etiquette, or lack thereof

- mid-transition from the 2000s to the 2010s - "professional internet celebrity" is still basically brand-new - lack of boundaries - various ways to be an asshole online - unsupervised kids simply do not engage in best practices

the end of 2012

- dan and phil move to london - wikipedia vandalism - tiptoeing around a top contender for the phandom's greatest sin - super amazing project DONE, now it's BBC RADIO TIME

(2013): arguably the most important year

- wait. what's that six-second video platform over there--

[amy's curated vine compilation]

- a new wave of internet comedians (read: future youtubers) - the zillennial lexicon - other platforms start emphasizing short-form video content - magcon

emo is BACK - well, sort of

- fob hiatus ends, mcr breaks up. my god. you had to be there - more open ties to nerd/geek culture than in the 2000s - these things once again intersect at dan and phil

dan and phil in the first half of 2013

- siri, what's a "sex symbol?" why are you booing me i'm right-- - d&p are everywhere - radio shows, interviewing, hosting - youtube uploads on their individual channels

rapidly changing cultural attitudes towards queerness

- gay marriage will be legal in places other than canada soon - a lot of assimilationist rhetoric though tbh - parallels to the pop feminism of the decade

hey kids, let's talk about compulsory heterosexuality!!

- what is it and why do people do it - academic, tumblr-level, and anecdotal research - the dannies, the phillies, and the phannies

amy

- the closet™ - mental health stigma - 2013 dnp posts from my main blog

dan and phil in the second half of 2013

- subscriber milestones, vidcon - joint content before the gaming channel - phandom starts having a major presence outside tumblr

(2014): achievement unlocked!

it's time to talk about rpf

- definitions (a chance to be annoyingly pedantic) - academic perspectives and fan discourse on the ethics - when the subjects clearly aren't fine with it - so… we can acknowledge "shipping phan" was different, right? ---* sometimes the subjects are fine* with it, actually ---* how dan and phil started to handle the shipping ---* obvious differences between phan and other rpf ships ---* sharing my favorite passages as a first-time phanfic reader

dan and phil in 2014

- wikipedia vandalism 2: electric boogaloo - bbc request show → internet takeover - the 7 second challenge - youtube content, subscriber milestones, rewind - cons and award shows

tumblr reaches the peak of its influence

- yahoo's attempts to monetize the userbase - buzzfeed and aggregators steal our jokes and bait our clicks - legacy media dangles carrots and uses us for free marketing - the legend of korra breaks TV precedent, almost out of nowhere - the tumblr user experience ---* on mobile, without xkit ---* on desktop, with xkit ---* 2014 dnp posts from my main blog

gamergate and its long shadow

- trolling, renewed and revamped - algorithms push increasingly extreme content - the broad conservative backlash conglomerate - increased normalization of conspiracism in general

my greatest sin [not clickbait] [very funny]

- so, circling back to comphet… - the actual story

anyway, let's talk about danandphilgames

- a star is born: dil howlter - different types of gaming content on youtube at the time - why did 17yo amy not subscribe? well…

~ baking interlude 2: chocolate cupcakes ~

make your own frosting. it freezes well

roasting myself further

(2015): it's not queerbaiting when it's real people

facebook "pivots to video"

- mark zuckerberg lied. water is wet - causes other platforms to REALLY double down on video - the birth of musical.ly - corporate-branded creators (read: future youtubers)

queerbaiting enters mainstream public consciousness

- academic origins - early fannish and acafan writing - johnlock, destiel, and sterek - statistics 101: type i error, type ii error, and queerbait

dan, phil, and the phandom

- bbc, cons, & the brits - danandphilcrafts - phan conspiracies ---* japhan ---* body language experts ---* timeline truthers ---* floor plan investigators ---* no but seriously imagine it - regular youtube uploads ---* solo content ---* joint content ---* subscriber milestones, rewind - tatinof uk and tabinof ---* on "selling out" ---* revisiting the statistics 101 lesson: now with real people! ---* never meet your heroes (unless they're dan and phil)

amy's (temporary) exit from the phandom

- it's legal adulthood with a steel chair!! - growing discomfort with some fans' behavior - 2015 dnp posts from my main blog - the closer: final fantasy vii

(2016): season finale

vine's imminent demise

- content platforms behaving badly - content creators behaving badly

youtube after "the great rewiring" (as haidt calls it)

- version 1.0 of the modern youtube algorithm ---* deep neural networks for dummies ---* what's holding creators accountable, or not - advertising and sponsorships ---* basically every child and youth™ is watching now ---* the battle for our attention ---* regulators start to crack down on undisclosed ads - the rise of drama/tea content (and later, channels) ---* youtubers are now seen as regular celebrities ---* dan and phil as the butt of other youtubers' jokes ---* baiting the phandom for engagement

tatinof us and aus

- a proven new model for live show tours - show & documentary released to youtube red (now premium) - [sigh] the tour bus

sea change in online fandom

- the newer, sometimes queerer media in korra's wake ---* better and more representation in live-action tv shows ---* voltron (i'm sorry!!!) ---* the mystic messenger craze ---* alice oseman & heartstopper - the new dynamics of #discourse ---* proship is to anti as phannie is to phanti ---* the bad behaviors of the 00s get a new coat of paint ---* new, though: fans harassing creators ---* a personal note on ace discourse

dan and phil presence off-tour

- the internet takeover ends - regular content, subscriber milestones

so. uh. current events.

- brexit - sorry the united states is a font of chaos - ripple effects

closing out the year

- amy finally gets an anxiety diagnosis and treatment! hurray! - dapgo, rewind - bbc radio awards & the boncas - gamingmas

(2017): time for a rebrand

tangent - sit down!!! buckle up!!! today's lecture is on PSIs & PSRs!!!

"parasocial" as defined by the current zeitgeist

- summing up youtubers' and laypeople's opinions (not dan's) - an unfairly negative stance overall, imo

older academic literature

- the 1956 paper (yes, 1956) - with traditional celebrities - with fictional characters

current academic literature

- with youtubers and other content creators - positive effects on the audience - negative effects on the audience - broader societal implications

fandom spaces as a parasocial experience

- parasocial and truly social interactions with each other - phandom as a supportive, welcoming space for oddballs - what research i can find about neurospicy folks, + anecdotes - me and everyone else on planet earth move to discord

inherent transactionality

- the nature of celebrity - positive effects on creators - negative effects on creators

reexamining early phandom through a parasocial lens

- the good, the bad, and the ugly - the role audience demographics played in all of this - entering, exiting, and remaining in the phandom

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

vine is well and truly dead

- some had prepared to become primarily youtubers (smart) - some move to musical.ly, insta, facebook, or snap (less so)

the sun sets on danisnotonfire

- i am very normal about dan's hobbit hair, i swear. - the last dnp content before the rebrand - new apartment, new floor plan investigations

adpocalypse now

- youtube has become the village elder of platforms ---* increased scrutiny, increased responsibility ---* some youtubers had been getting away with !#$!#@% - the scandals ---* pewdiepie + logan paul ---* elsagate and being "family- friendly" (read: ad-friendly) - censorship and monetization ---* adsense revenue goes down as advertisers pull out ---* the glory days of posting whatever and making bank are over

amazingphil and ~daniel howell~

- youtube & younow content - that week in march - vacations and conventions - conjoined baking and the concept of a "soft launch" - daniel & depression → dan as a mental health advocate - truth bombs, ii announcement, rewind

(2018): the phandom vs the hiatus they told us not to worry about

interactive introverts

- "giving the people what they want" - in hindsight… - let's talk about dnp fans from the global south

youtuber burnout

- it wasn't just dan: (more examples than header fits) - the old model was simply not sustainable - newer contributing factors - research on burnout, plus personal anecdotal experience

other dan and phil videos

- phil's solo videos - gay and not proud - hometown showdown - other joint videos - phil's #shorts (sounds normal in american english)

panini updates

- vaccines soon, uwu??? + entrenched misinformation - pros and cons of remote work - pros and cons of remote school - pros and cons of remote socializing

you will get through this night

- younger me really could have used this book too, dan - thoughts as a professional in a related field - reflecting on some of my more unique circumstances

daring my old school district to sue me (again!!)

- updates: racism and transphobia - updates: right-wing freaks take over the school board again - residents vote against improving mental health resources

(2022): dan returns (still not on fire)

hey so politics are um getting worse

- americans lose the right to reproductive freedom ---* the quickest of histories on where these freaks came from ---* this shit kills people. - trans kids become the punching bag of culture war discourse ---* fuck off! (gently) ---* fuck off! (i have a knife) ---* checking in on terf island

we're all doooooooooooooooomed

- dystopia daily my beloved - the style, the substance, the metatextual analysis-- - not everyone loved it, though. why? - the promo - dan on tour + sister daniel

amy's 2022

- i got covid - then i got long covid: brain fog, pots-like symptoms

some more news (i will work on my warmbo impression)

- dan joins tiktok + danisnotinteresting uploads - phil: uploading less, busy doing remote crisis management - twitter is acquired by an idiot jackass - heartstopper on netflix! ---* the show and what it means to people ---* drama (revisiting "real people can't queerbait") ---* why this has anything to do with the phandom

~ baking interlude 4: cinnamon rolls ~

- lovingly, recipe changes and corrections :) - if i have an opinion about anything, it's sweet yeasted breads

(2023): the phrenaissance

phil

- joins tiktok! - youtube uploads through september - what even is phannie tiktok. i've never used this app. help.

dystopia daily b-sides

- dan memes of 2022 - the 2023 dystopia daily episodes

amy: the doctoral candidacy process

- purgatory, privilege, poverty, and free pizza - checking in on what this is like outside the united states

pretending the panini is over

- complaining about post-adpocalypse censorship standards - honest take about "giving up" on covid - who gets the short end of the stick

the youtube algorithm is BAD and UNINTELLIGENT, actually,

- unhinged rant about not hearing about the gaming rephrival - because i was offline from other platforms. like, @amyoffline.

pov: you are a phannie (not me) on october 15th

- what i was doing on october 15th - saying goodbye forever, spooky week, and november - gamingmas - phil uploads through december

(2024): fifteen years of terrible, terrible influence

hey what the fuck is going on

- dan and phil ---* joint and phil videos ---* jokes they never would've made ten years ago ---* a collection of emotional posts about how far they've come ---* people want fun and silly content again. we'll get to why ---* nostalgia, hope, and other warm and fuzzy feelings - the phandom ---* ancient parasocial attachments, reactivated instantly ---* people are way more normal now. let's discuss why ---* tumblr vs twitter vs tiktok phandom

we're all doomed, youtube version

- my thoughts - thoughts on "dan should/shouldn't" do video essays - i can't objectively evaluate anything he makes bc [gunshots]

terrible influence tour

- legally phlonde - the concept: healing one's inner child / taking it back - we gotta talk about phannies in the global south again - no but seriously imagine it? ---*ogres are like onions, they have LAYERS ---* [placeholder for whatever does(n't) happen]

anglosphere current events once again

- the likely us tiktok ban - the tories get fired - [placeholder for whichever hell americans manifest] - witnessing genocide and feeling powerless

ffx full-circle moment to the intro of this video essay

- the night i found out they came back - why i am doing this, now with context - reflections on a nearly 15-year (parasocial) relationship

whatever youtube uploads we get during fall/december

AMY SEES TIT (nov 14)

- the vibes at the phamily reunion - buying merch to apologize for eternal ublock origin use - how much should i document?? (not during the show) - phanspiracies confirmed - atlanta confessions - favorite bits - the alternate universe where i went to tatinof and/or ii

(2025): the horrors persist, but so do we

whatever 2025 content is out while i'm still working on this

our parasocial social club

- let me be philosophytube for a second ---* every interaction has a parasocial element ---* what are we obligated to do as a phandom, actually? ---* as people who parasocially care about these two dorks? ---* what else should we be doing socially to be at our happiest? - "they're my gay uncles" vs "i'm a little in love, even now" ---* riffing about the boundary/overlap between these camps ---* sibling reads me for filth in a single text (sister daniel...) ---* at least we're all in this together

what's going to continue to draw people in

- grown adults drawing our cat whiskers back on - updates on queer/nd kids - updates on anxiety/depression rates - updates on tech and the broader environment of content - world still feels doomed

tangent - the "hard launch" and why people want it

what are people referring to, exactly

- general definition and other examples - when it comes to dan and phil - maybe they hard launched already and we just missed the memo

the ludonarrative of phandom

- if you got here early on - if you got here in the mid-2010s - if you got here after they came out - if you got here post-hiatus - final fantasy comparison: ffvii's chokehold over first-timers

a rom-com for the ages

- the tropes in play - brief tangent on the evolution of the genre - queer romantic comedies - final fantasy comparison: ffviii's plot and squall/rinoa

phriends… or…

- wholesome influence, slice-of-life - projection - final fantasy comparison: ffxv's gameplay loop, the chocobros

humans don't like ambiguity

- from a media perspective (narrative tension) - research from the hard sciences - final fantasy comparison: fanille ---* the first gay final fantasy characters, actually ---* ffxiii's character development process ---* fang and vanille in the text. brb, clawing at the walls ---* so, if anyone is looking for a phyuri au prompt…

tl;dr: reality is not fiction. make peace with not "knowing"

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

the phuture

- phil's big solo project when??? - dapg is just the joint channel now - youtube has changed since when dan last "regularly" uploaded - nothing lasts forever, and that's okay

~ baking interlude 5: ranch + pizza ~

- ranch propaganda and ranch metaphors - showing off my dough and sauce skills

conclusions

- a lot has happened in 15 years - [placeholders: don't write your conclusions before you do your research]

Proof this project can only be done in consultation with Tumblr: no other platform we're on could accommodate a post of this length and formatting detail lol

#dan and phil #phan #dnp #daniel howell #amazingphil #this took so long to format oh my god please read it and talk to me #except it's 1am in my time zone so i'm going honk mimimimi soon enough #amy writes

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alexanderwales · 1 month ago

Text

Person 1: You know when you think about it, Batman could stop a lot more crime by donating to charity. Person 2: Gee, I don't know, maybe it's a comic book? Get some media literacy.

I have seen this argument a few times now, specifically with this claim that this is "poor media literacy", and I find it really frustrating, because that's not what media literacy is. Reading a work in the way it is meant to be read is like ... basement level foundational stuff, but it's not the only way to read a work. I think it's good and worthwhile to understand what we're meant be getting from the work. That's just where we start from though.

Reading a work in a different way from the intended one is also a super important part of media literacy. What assumptions is the work making about the world? What fantasy is it appealing to? How does this fantasy intersect with the real world? What are the contradictions inherent to the work? What complex issues are we poking at the edges of?

Here's how I'd like the conversation to go:

Person 1: You know when you think about it, Batman could stop a lot more crime by donating to charity. Person 2: I don't think that would fulfill the fantasy that Batman provides. Person 1: Maybe, at its core, the fantasy is a bad one. Person 2: In some incarnations Batman is very restrained, and never gives anyone any injuries, never kills, puts the bad guys away but in a prison that offers rehabilitation. Person 1: I think even that variant is also a fantasy, and Arkham Asylum being a revolving door points to a particular view of rehabilitation, one that's negative. Person 2: Not universally. There have been a few stand-out episodes that are about these super criminals coming out and having to grapple with a lack of support structure, which is one of the things that leads them right back into a life of crime. How do you stay on the straight-and-narrow when no one will hire you, when all your old friends are criminals, when all your skills are crime-related? Person 1: And that's a support structure that you think Batman should provide? Person 2: Well, in those episodes the point is interrogating the real-world social problem of reoffenders and recidivism, so it would undercut the story if Batman came in and fixed the problem before it became a problem. Unless it's a fantasy of using money to help people. Person 1: There's also the question of corruption, which is a running theme through the franchise. Gotham City is depicted as deeply broken, with corrupt cops, paid-off politicians, and institutional decay. Person 2: Which brings us back to fixing those things, and why fixing them is usually not a part of the story. The stories are generally simple, rather than complex. We like simple things, and a comic book isn't the best place to try to tear apart the how and why of corruption. The fantasy is that if we had power, we could simply use our power to stop bad things. Person 1: Which is true, in a sense, isn't it? I mean there are times and places when everyone knows who the worst people in a community are, when there's this constant thorn in your side, and there's just no way to do anything about it. Person 2: Someone peddling drugs on the corner, gangsters going around strapped, the asshole who keeps stirring things up. Sure. Person 1: So there's this gap in society, sometimes, a problem that doesn't necessarily have a solution, and the comics are, in part, a way to fulfill that need. Person 2: And also a bunch of stuff about the nature of fear, the strangeness of identity, legacy and family, order and chaos ... Person 1: It's complex. Hey, sorry about earlier when I said you should get some media literacy. Person 2: Yeah, it's fine, I was just struck by the thought, this way that there's this tension there. Person 1: I mean, to be fair, in some continuities Batman does give to charities and supports criminals after they get out of jail and does all this other stuff that people say he should do. Person 2: But it never changes anything. I mean, the two examples I'm thinking of are Harley Quinn, who becomes an anti-hero more than a hero, and the guy that controls Scarface. Maybe that second one is a good example. But it's not a central example of how the franchise handles its villains, it's definitely an oddity. Person 1: A lot of it is just how comics are, and I don't mean as a deliberate fantasy, I mean ... the narrative just keeps going, and there's always pressure to bring back fan favorites, so the status quo has to keep going, and this runs against any kind of reform or rehabilitation narrative, both for the villains and the city itself. Person 2: Which I guess you wouldn't argue is intentional. Person 1: No, it's a bug, not a feature. But it's a very different way in which the question of why Batman doesn't give to charity has an answer.

#batman #dialogues

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jesncin · 3 months ago

Text

A Queer and Asian review of Xanthe Zhou + Spirit World

I haven't exactly been thorough about how I specifically feel about Xanthe Zhou as "representation" for people like me and a part of me didn't want to be too harsh since they're a fan favorite and I'm sure the writer did their best and what not- but there is this sense of "I'm not even whelmed I'm underwhelmed" by Xanthe as a character. I don't dislike them, but I can't say I'm a fan if I don't find them particularly interesting.

I'm sure for a lot of people the idea of a Chinese non-binary anime sword wielding, bomber jacket wearing, shaved cut having, envoy between the living and spirit world character is a novel concept. But when you've lived the reality this character attempts to represent (ghosts and spirits are a tuesday where I'm from) and have sought out that representation from within your own communities, Xanthe pales in comparison like a really corporate product. So I want to talk about intersectional storytelling and what a holistic queer Asian superhero could look like.

Again I'm aware Spirit World was written by a queer Chinese author (+ an all Chinese team) and as a fellow author who has to navigate mainstream publishing and deal with attempts at sandpapering authenticity for capitalism I want to stress that I Get The Struggle. But I'm allowed to be critical of how the final product turned out. Some of this is subjective musing even.

Here's the premise of Xanthe Zhou's character: When Xanthe was a very tiny kid, they were run over by a car when they were walking alone at night in the rain. They're resurrected by a powerful spirit called Po Po to be the half-dead, half-living Envoy of the Spirit World.

Everything about Xanthe is exhaustively corporate for me. Like industry planted representation designed to be as safe as possible and attempts at being intersectional are limited. Spirit World features Cassandra Cain Batgirl and John Constantine Hellblazer because that's how we get Asian and queer DC fans to hop onto out new queer Asian character! Xanthe doesn't get to stand out in their own world, or have an established cast system the way Kong Kenan gets to. Spirit World suffers from being a follow up to an Event comic, with all these characters crossing over- but it didn't rise to the challenge of including Batgirl and Johnstantine in meaningful ways. The story would've been better if they were replaced by characters unique to Xanthe's cast system.

I've become pretty cynical about scenes like this one. It's a scene where Xanthe is forcefully invited to have dinner with their family they haven't seen in years. The transphobic dinner pages made rounds on social media because "ooh look at John Constantine gendering a non-binary person correctly even when Xanthe's family keeps misgendering them", and "whoa even the magic system respects a trans person's name". It's free marketing, you can see comments on these posts asking what comic this is from to read more. People will start discourse over "Constantine going woke" and the defenders will pull up receipts that "John has always been a lefitst" and so on and so forth. I saw the promos for Spirit World, but these panels were what piqued my interest early on.

My twin and I were taking turns reading Spirit World- Jes asked Cin (who finished reading first) "so what about that transphobic dinner scene? Was it there? Are there other scenes that talk about it?" and Cin said "nope that's it. The rest is magic fight scenes and spirit world stuff." And honestly that feels calculated. It's like that Jenny Nicholson Star Wars Hotel thing: "whoa if they have this droid and this animatronic alien performer, imagine what else they have!" but nope. That's it. Just enough to fit in a tik tok promo. Just enough to fit in a tweet and make rounds. It's not like Alan Scott's Green Lantern solo, where his queer identity isn't limited to one scene designed to go viral. The whole narrative holistically discussed what it was like to be a gay man in that era. Spirit World on the other hand felt like it had a representation quota to fulfill before moving on to the generic Superhero Stuff- an entirely separate plot.

Then there's Xanthe and John. As a Hellblazer purist I already knew this was going to be a hard read for me since I'm not a fan of DC!Constantine but I've talked before about how Spirit World still has that appeal for me because sometimes og Hellblazer is a pain to read as a person of color. Maybe I can enjoy the fantasy of Constantine being an ally to an Asian person instead of fetishizing them like he did in those old Vertigo comics (people love to leave that out when they're defending Constantine as an ally but whatever). And people kept talking about how this is an elder and younger queer friendship dynamic and I love those.

So where was that? Sure, John genders Xanthe correctly over transphobic dinner and comforts them afterwards. But nothing he says or does is specific to a queer elder. Any ally or character can say these things or do these gestures. He doesn't speak from personal experience about how "it gets better" or "I know what it's like" it's just. "yeah throwing up in Gotham is great I do it all the time". Excuse me if I don't think that's substantial.

Ooh but the ghost of Johnstantine's ex boyfriend Oliver showed up! And then there was a bi joke about how John hooks up with a clone of himself a "dozen times" because he's such a slut amirite, gays. Diversity win. I expected bi jokes from DC!Constantine but marketing this as a queer narrative or generational friendship is a stretch.

Spirit World would've been a more holistic queer narrative if Wan Yujing, the villainous corrupted spirit that wanted to be remembered properly (or reincarnated, depends on the writer's mood)-was revealed to be a queer person. This would've been a fantastic opportunity to recontextualize Xanthe's personal transphobic encounter with their family into a larger systemic theme of queer historical erasure. The original meaning of a "dead name" is the idea that when a trans person dies, their family will put the wrong name on their grave. It's literally their "dead" name, erasing their legacy in writing. So why not include that in your conflict?

Wan Yujing is revealed to be a famous poet, slowly forgotten because "time erodes everything" (vague and bad writing btw). Why not pitch something more motivated and specific? Make it so that she wrote queer literature that was destroyed. Make it so that her lover was rewritten in history books as her "friend". Then when Xanthe makes the promise to remember Wan Yujing as she truly was, it'd be a holistic act of queer recognition and solidarity. But instead the resolution is just Xanthe Zhou promising "hey I'll remember you" and Wan Yujing just takes their word for it.

Can we talk about the huge missed opportunity of what this dialogue implies? Xanthe proclaims that they are both living and dead, granted the living's power to remember and the dead's immortality. Why was this not thematically paired with their experience as a non-binary person struggling in a cis-heteronormative world. Heck, why not pair this with how they're a queer Asian American, a perpetual foreigner wherever they go? Not Asian enough for traditional spaces, but not white enough for a majority of queer American spaces. Are we worried we'll scare off the white audience if this got too intersectional?

Xanthe gets more fleshed out under a different writer (Jeremy Holt) for one of the DC Pride stories (2023). Here, Xanthe talks about how being in the land of the living feels like going about a routinic obligation; "Reminding me that home isn't necessarily where the heart is". This is so much like the disassociated way trans people go about life before figuring themselves out. It's also like how a perpetual foreigner doesn't fit in anywhere. But it's not paralleled to that experience. The fantasy aspects of Xanthe Zhou the Envoy, are completely separate from the very few personal civilian parts of them. Like they're a Superhero first and a person second. The later half of this story gets overtaken by a team up with Batwoman, because once you have a new character set in Gotham you are at the whims of being absorbed into the greater Batfam conglomerate.

There's interesting concepts at the center of Xanthe's character. But it's hard to give credit to writing that doesn't follow any of that through. Xanthe's a hero motivated by making sure the dead are remembered and respected. That's a decent motivation in general, and a pretty resonant one for a queer hero-but everything surrounding the execution of that idea feels so half-assed to me. Xanthe's origin story has so many plot holes, it feels like it was thought up in 5 minutes.

Why was their death just some random car accident and not something more motivated? Why did the all powerful Po Po decide to resurrect them specifically? Where's the tension in any of the many excessive fight scenes in Spirit World, if Xanthe's apparently immortal? Also they age? What are the stakes for a character like this? This isn't even covering the shoddy writing for their transphobic family drama (Why did they just stalk their family after being resurrected? Why did their mom recognize them even though they've been gone and have aged for 15 years? so many questions ugh).

(why was this toddler walking around alone in the rain with their own umbrella. In Gotham. What is this-)

I casually propose that instead have Xanthe's origin be that they died as a runaway trans teen who went missing and was murdered. Maybe because the way police and society in general don't look into the disappearances of trans poc, Xanthe's death went completely unnoticed. Maybe as Xanthe's dying, Po Po sees their determination to fight for the forgotten and chooses to resurrect this kid specifically. Then we'd have a really motivated origin story that ties their identity to their heroism. Instead we get these over the top fantasy concepts + transphobic dinner with my talisman wielding mom.

Spirit World is a fun enough action fantasy with troubled pacing and generic MCU-quippy dialogue. It's so overwhelmed by it's own spectacle that we don't get a chance to get to know our new hero. What is Xanthe's character development? What flaw do they grow out of or overcome? If I'm honest outside of the attempt at quippy banter, what even is their personality? The ending is rushed; not only is the conflict resolved with Xanthe just promising to remember a dead poet, but they also make a deal to work with the Spirit World authorities. Because it's always so fun to watch queer people assimilate to the powers that oppress.

In one of these action sequences, I guess the writer decided there needed to be a semblance of themes to make it feel like the readers' time isn't being wasted. So while Cassandra Cain Batgirl from Detective Comics and John Constantine from Vertigo Hellblazer are holding the giant anime sword, Xanthe goes on an internal monologue about how change is natural and people's fears make them resistant towards it. Xanthe says that to embrace magic, "you need to look at everything you think you know about the way the world should be...and imagine something new."

It's a nice sentiment that isn't reinforced by anything else in the story, but it does make me think. What is "new" about Xanthe Zhou to someone like me who seeks out representation like this? I've seen queer characters with the shaved hairstyle, I've seen queer coded Asian girlies with the bomber jacket, heck I've even seen the giant anime sword. I kinda cringe at seeing "giant spiritual sword" at this point even. But you know what I don't see as often? In real life I've seen the bravest Asian queer people reclaim cultural hairstyles, clothing, practices and beliefs (that originally excluded them). I've seen them join communities and create entire subcultures and lingo in a way that would be unrecognizable to the typical queer readers who enjoy Hellblazer-but I certainly don't see it reflected in fiction a lot.

(Is it really new if I've seen it in a Disney movie)

The premise of a Chinese American non-binary half-dead-half-living Envoy for the dead is something so metaphysical in its intersectionality, world building, stakes and themes that it would require Sandman-levels of out-the-box creativity to pull off. Which is why getting a generic action adventure (+ one scene about transphobic dinner with the family) feels so disappointing. I wish Spirit World took its own words to heart; I wish it took everything we're used to, everything we've known about how the world is and dare to imagine something actually new.

#ramblings #jesncin dc meta #xanthe zhou #I'm not at all a hater btw- there's good and “eh” things about xanthe and I hope more writers can do them justice #i just need more heart. more specificity. something that resonates beyond the surface level.#this was originally supposed to be a short post but I kept going lol

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star-trek-fandom-confessions · 3 months ago

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#1145

Eugenics and genetic modification are not the same thing. The terms are not interchangeable. Eugenics is the practice of erasing perceived ‘undesirable’ traits in the gene pool. It is motivated by racism and ableism and is horrific. Genetic modification is one possible tool that eugenicist could use to achieve that end. Another tool which has actually been used by eugenicists to advance their awful goal is compulsory sterilization. This is also horrific and recognized as such - compulsory sterilization is a Crime Against Humanity in the Rome Statute. However, sterilization procedures such as tube tying and vasectomies are not practices that people generally call for to be banned, because people may want to prevent themselves from getting pregnant or from getting another person pregnant for all sorts of reasons and we recognized that people should have autonomy over their own bodies and be free to make their own reproductive choices. Consensual vasectomies and tube tying being legal in a country does not mean that country is endorsing eugenics. A country in which there is a government program of coercing or using incentives to get members groups perceived as undesirable to have their tubes tied or have vasectomies is practicing eugenics. The legality and use of tool in general does not necessarily mean that the tool is being used for eugenics. Now, let’s take that one step further with a hypothetical on genetic engineering. Imagine that we determine that if one gene was removed from the human genome, those without that gene would no longer get dementia and there were zero other impacts. Would a country that made that genetic modification procedure available for free to everyone who wanted it and the doctors performing that procedure be practicing eugenics? Now imagine that procedure didn’t work in adults or even children. It had to be administered during fetal development to be effective. Would a parent choosing to have that gene removed from their unborn child so they would never get dementia be practicing eugenics? I'm not going to weigh in on those my point is that it’s a complex issue, there are very flew easy answers available and you really have to consider motive. Eugenicists are motivated by the view that certain people are superior and other people are inferior and they want to get rid of the latter.

Applying it to Strange New Worlds, Una has specifically stated that the Illyrian motivation for genetic modification is so that they fit in with their environment, rather than terraform (this intersects another really interesting scientific ethical discussion happening around climate engineering and the potential consequences). There is no evidence in canon that Illyrians are motivated by the need to be superior or are getting rid of undesired traits. They took up modification to live on planets that would otherwise be unhospitable to them (beta canon is that their home world is no longer inhabitable even with modification due to environmental collapse outside of their control, they’re essentially environmental refugees). While Illyrians modify themselves genetically, there is no evidence that Illyrians are practicing eugenics. In the context of DS9, Bashir’s parents believed it was undesirable to have a son with intellectual disabilities. They modified him to get rid the trait they perceived as undesirable. They were practicing eugenics. In Star Trek canon, billions of people died during the Eugenics Wars. When it comes to the law, it is incredibly difficult determining motive and therefore it is understandable that they banned genetic engineering as a way of stopping eugenicists and preventing a repeat. But in doing so, they accidentally created a legal regime in which entire families could be arrested. The point Star Trek has been making lately with the Illyrian storyline is sometimes shit is complicated, and that a law that is meant to protect, can also sometimes harm and we need to be able to listen, think and consider complex situations. And I also hate myself a bit for writing this. I should just be able to ignore all the terrible takes and ‘I haven’t watched but…’ people.

#confession 1145 #two parts confession #star-trek-fandom-confessions #star trek #strange new worlds #critical confession #episode tag: Ad Astra Per Aspera #Illyrians #augments #eugenics #episode tag: Doctor Bashir I Presume #deep space nine

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kiefbowl · 5 months ago

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so I just made a couple posts about this post, and rereading it I am going to try to be charitable as possible to everyone involved, but the vibe of this post really bothers me. but op deleted the post so I'm blocking out all the names out of respect for that, but I want to talk about this post

I think this is a very normal ask. It's literally just "hey, what are your opinions" and I don't see why that shouldn't be welcomed in a supposed feminist space. questions drive conversation, and not everyone is of the same opinion, life experiences, or knowledge, you know?

To be charitable to the green poster, they're just answering. I do think the "is literally the most anti-punk and anti-feminist thing you can do without genuinely hurting other people" is a bit much, and I also think she's misreading the op. I read Op as asking "if you're a feminist, what are some of your general opinions on subversive make up, and here's a list of examples: goth punk emo" and green is saying "conforming to patriarchy is never punk, and make up is patriarchal."

So I think the next response from Op shows that she took it a little personal as if being called out for doing the most "anti-feminist thing you can do without genuinely hurting people," which to be fair I'd probably be a little miffed too on a first read. And I think she's trying to pull out her question a little bit more, trying to re-contextualize it so that green gets what she actually meant. But this is a casual social media site so she's being casual and social. She's saying "okay, sure, but I'm asking about make up trends that are outside of what's commercialized" but I guess the big no-no is that she said "not male fantasy." Because yes, I ultimately agree, just because it's a more subversive culture, doesn't mean it's specifically feminist, or that the trends with-in aren't dictated to some degree by male fantasy. And then of course she asks: "If a woman wants to, isn't it regressive to say she can't?" So, to be fair to Op, she never specifically asked if make-up was specifically feminist or punk. But to be fair to green, green never specifically said a woman can't wear make-up.

But this is when it goes a little sideways, because frankly neither of them were being rude-rude. But green's next response is pretty rude imo. I think the subtext is "you're a big dummy." Op is not, and Op's first ask is what actually could be a very interesting jumping off point to discuss a variety of intersecting interests for feminists. Because I'm going to be real with you, there is no "The Answer" to make-up. Just because make-up and consumerism is never specifically feminist, doesn't mean it's always specifically anti-feminist. Sub cultures like Goth can be multiple things at once - subversive, and conforming. They also don't exist solely in one way. Copse make-up isn't feminist not because it's make-up, but because it's just make-up. But, like, yeah there's an element of subversiveness within western culture. There's also an element of acceptance, as long as it stays in the agreed on designated zones. A tee-shirt can't be feminist, either. Even if the tee-shirt says something feminist-y and subversive, like idk "I hate men and I love to abort their children" or w/e. Like okay, it's just a tee-shirt. And if you didn't make it yourself, it was probably made with slave labor, anyway. So you can wear it to the feminist poetry open mic at the local coffee shop, and you can wear it to a conservative's house, and the reactions in either place don't prove much about it's effectiveness. But it is a form of self expression, it's a form of participating in our culture(s) one way or another, and women are people they do participate. They can't not. So participating with some level of intention is better than her letting life passively happen around her. It's just not one thing, which makes it interesting.

So with all that being said, I think op's response is a sassy response to feeling like they're being spoken to rudely, which I think is fair enough.

This is not fair enough, and I find it bizarre. Maybe I missed something in another comment or post, but Op didn't 1. talk down to anyone and 2. didn't insult anyone who disagreed with them. But, to be charitable to pink - I understand why some women are on edge with the proliferation of troll accounts. But my ultimate advice to any women, young or old, trying to participate in a feminist space is to know that feminism is not a "solved" thing. Women have a variety of ways to think and approach a problem, and just because two ideas are conflicting doesn't mean they can't both have some merit. And since I think Op is a genuine person, this comes across as ostracizing a woman for asking a good natured, good willed question towards feminists to incite some discussion. A thing that should be welcomed if anything.

And then this response tries to be fair to Op, but also seems completely tone deaf to what she ever said. When in any of this exchange did Op ask for validation on anything? She admitted she is in a sub culture that both men and women use make up in, didn't specify what the subculture was, and then asked "hey, what are your opinions on this situation a little outside the norm of how we normally criticism make up." Then reacted to what one person's responses were, which the first response was simply direct but the second one was dismissive and rude.

So my point is, in order to be a successful feminist, I think you need to be able to navigate conversations with women that involve thinking outside the bun without devolving into sassiness when they aren't in complete lock step with you and have a predictable amount of curiosity. Feminism is a living discipline, and this could have been a moment of a meeting of the minds and a moment of cooperation to consider multiple sides of a question. That should be the ultimate goal.

And, to circle back to complete fairness of green's first response: when women are being direct with you, and maybe even misreading you a bit, it's worth taking a beat and thinking "can I read this in a kind tone at all? and if yes I'm going to assume that was the intention" because it can help get these conversations moving in the direction of cooperation rather than fighting.

And ultimately, have fun out there :)

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