#not the baiting part the cultural connections part

[septembersghost]

I want to know if modern audiences foaming at the mouth accusing people like H of "baiting" would say that about Elvis now too. omg! HE WORE MAKEUP. PINK. SPARKLY SHIT. in his case, while being straight. OFFENSIVE! 😱

the elvis erasure tbh.

Those glittering garments with their embroideries and nailhead patterns or paste gem barnacles were precursors to the stage-wear worn by every pop star — Prince, David Bowie, Harry Styles — who ever invited his fans to feast their eyes on him erotically. (x)

people incensed that a man would dare to wear *checks notes* pink and rhinestones and fringe...the horror

i keep thinking about this because it's still some embedded biased ideas projected onto artists, except now THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE?!?! elvis was met with judgement and scrutiny for his style (sartorial and musical), his fashion and presentation were deemed a threat by some, due to stringent concepts and preconceived notions about sexuality/race/gender, and it was later weaponized against him for other unkind reasons. but those with that more biased mindset are still doing that to people, except now it's ALSO being perpetuated by many who ought to understand acceptance and why the blurring and breaking of those rigid boundaries and boxes is important. make it make sense.

bring back manly men, i guess

bonus because of whatever is happening here

[kataraslove]

how do you feel about people saying Katara post the show was just a “house wife” and a “baby maker”? I personally think it’s super stupid and fucked up…while I do understand the criticisms for the comics ESPECIALLY the promise. TLOK criticisms for her character are pretty damn dumb to me…honestly the only thing I can get is the critical for her not being at Jinoras ceremony.

something that the original show does really well is present the dichotomy of katara; she's hot-headed, stubborn, determined, argumentative, protective, a fighter and a warrior. at the same time, however, she's presented as compassionate, kind, caring, nurturing, a healer. atla does an incredible job to avoid caging katara into one facet, unlike other media that tend to restrict their female characters who present feminine personalities into the group's resident healer/mother teresa figure. fighting and healing are core tenets of her identity. she uses both of these aspects of her identity to win the war, to save the lives of her friends and family, and most importantly, connect to and honour her decimated culture.

i don't think tlok makes an attempt to capture the fighter aspect of her identify, hence where the argument that "she was reduced to a healer" comes from. yes, she's incredibly old. yes, she deserves to rest after a lifetime of fighting. however, you could make the argument that toph and zuko are still in active combat mode during their old years. it's an all or nothing scenario; either everyone in the remaining gaang deserves a fight scene or no one gets one. so i can see where that criticism stems from. however, much of the criticism also stems from the fandom's refusal to correlate power with healing; to see how being a healer is an honour in it's own right, especially in the atla world where it's the equivalent to being a doctor (and katara would be the most renowned doctor there is).

katara does not deserve a shoe-horned fight scene where she's going to be tossed down in the snow five seconds later (like zuko) or where she's going to complain about her back problems (like toph). i can go on and on about how toph’s depiction in tlok is another form of sexist writing, but i think this post highlights it perfectly well and captures everything that i wanted to say.

if it were up to me to write tlok katara, i would:

have spent more time exploring her role in the white lotus. how much input did she have on korra’s training during the south, because i doubt caging her up until she’s 17 and delaying her spiritual journey is something that katara necessarily would have agreed with. i imagine that she would have (should have, at least) a lot of sway in the decisions surrounding korra as a world leader and legendary hero [per avatar legends]. if not that, even as korra’s waterbending master, the companion and spouse of the previous avatar, and the mother of the only airbending master in the world, would be enough to earn her decision-making title.

actually have her take part in the council of elders, especially during the civil war in book 2. no bryan konientzko, a tumblr post explaining that you can see her on the council of elders while your show is airing isn’t enough. we should have gotten katara’s perspective on the independence war currently happening with her tribe. particularly, it would have been an excellent opportunity showcasing her leadership abilities that we saw in imprisoned and the painted lady, encouraging her tribe to fight for their justice and independence.

expand upon her relationships with her children and grandchildren. yes, the legend of korra isn’t about katara or any of the former gaang members. but jinora, tenzin, kya, and bumi are all important characters that should be defined by their respective relationships with katara, much like how they’re defined by their relationships with aang. bryan and mike shy away from featuring former members of the gaang to avoid nostalgia bait, but there comes a point when deliberately avoiding the presence that your original characters play on their successors ends up hindering the success of your show. i think katara should be a critical character in the subplot between her and aang’s children, providing her perspectives on her husband’s parenting and relationships with their children.

have her actually leave the southern water tribe. if toph can leave the swamp to stop kuvira, and zuko can leave the fire nation to stop the red lotus, then why was katara constantly portrayed in the southern water tribe? there was an excellent opportunity to have her attend her granddaughter’s air mastering ceremony. i actually disagree with claims that the writers were avoiding having katara and zuko in the same scene specifically because of zutara; i think they didn’t want any of the former gaang in the same place. hence why we don’t ever have zuko and toph meet, or katara and toph (i know toph mentions katara by name, but i truly believe that that was a throwaway line serving as a substitute to appease the audience’s thirst for old gaang interaction. kind of like a, “here you go!! toph mentions her. now shut the fuck up.”)

give her a statue representing her bravery, courage, and determination. this one’s self-explanatory.

she didn’t need to be present at the bloodbending trial if the focus was for the avatar to take away yakone’s bending (and her being a bloodbender, i mean.. there’s NO WAY for anyone else to suspend yakone if she’s there). but i do believe the show should have mentioned something about katara not being able to there last-minute, due to tensions in the south or whatever, and how they cannot delay yakone’s trial even by one week.

i disagree with criticisms that katara became a “baby-making machine” for the air nomads. there’s no substantial support that katara and aang had children solely to repopulate the air nomads. there’s contrary evidence, in fact:

tenzin was the only airbender. if katara’s purpose was to serve simply as a baby maker, aang would have tried to have more children. from a writing standpoint, i think the narrative would have gone out of its way to portray kataang’s family as only having airbenders, or having more airbenders than non-benders or waterbenders.

we would have seen a lot more children in a relatively short time period. bumi, kya, and tenzin have sporadic age gaps, indicating that their conception wasn’t really at an urgent pace, but something that katara and aang took their time with, due to life events and circumstances.

as for whether the show turned katara into a “baby-maker,” by highlighting her family relations over her career prospects, i disagree. i don’t think we’re shown anything about katara in the legend of korra; i think we’re presented with limited information about her on all aspects. from a family perspective, all we know is that she had three children with aang. the narrative goes one step further to even separate her from the family conflict, such that the cloudbabies do not pull her into their grievances with their father and childhoods. kya and bumi’s overall arcs are about embracing their father’s legacy, while tenzin’s arc is about moving away from his shadow. from a career perspective, we know that katara at some point banned bloodbending, became one of the best waterbenders and the greatest healer in the world, then trained korra. in fact, katara’s relationship that is given the most narrative weight is her relationship with korra. i can understand if people’s criticisms are her being reduced to korra’s mentor and a healer, but i will not be able to understand the baby-maker or housewife claims simply because there is no proof.

if we’re examining tlok katara, i think there are many criticisms to be held, many missed opportunities and abandoned threads, but i do not agree with fandom extremes that she was ever presented as a “baby-making housewife turned healer.” i disagree with claims that tlok emphasized katara’s legacy as only having children (particularly her one airbender child). especially because tlok goes out of its way to separate her role in her children’s life, instead emphasizing her role in korra’s life. narratively, we get more exploration of toph’s storyline with her children than we get with katara.

as for the shitty gene yang comics that mischaracterizes just about every member, even momo and appa, i’ve got much to say on that. i think the only comic worth exploring is north and south, and katara’s portrayal in that. rather, there’s a particular criticism of katara’s portrayal in north and south that i want to rebut.

[cheerleaderman]

🏴‍☠️Hop on board and come down to Never-Cove🏴‍☠️

This is based off the hometown event I made for my Oc Fallon

About Never-Cove

Captain Hook is called the Great captain. Never-cove would have a statue of him in the town square. It’s very beach town like with many ports. It’s a melting pot of different cultures and has welcoming atmosphere with many people coming and going.Some of the best ships known to sail came from Never-Cove itself founded and built up by sailors and pirates.Fishing,Shipping,boat construction/repair and cruises are the main industries there.Never-cove has a good relationship with merfolks and rumored to have fairies around.

Summary:

Never-Cove’s annual event celebrating the Great Captain has come. Come grab your crew to participate in tasks to win the title of best Pirate crew and even the surprise treasure.If not come and enjoy the festivities, explore a real pirate ship, dance and sing along to old songs and more!

For the participants you must form a group of no more than 8 people and appoint someone who be the crew’s captain also their first mate but be warned if you don’t take care of your crew they could overthrow you.It’s important to pick someone who is going to lead you to victory.

Luckily Fallon has invited others at NRC to to come join the crew - Floyd Leech, Azul Ashengrotto, Ruggie Bucchi ,Jamil Viper and of course Grim and Yuu/MC

There are 2 events that are held with a scenario (optional)

Pirate Ship

Your Crew will be staying on a pirate ship for 3 days.The crew will be completing tasks like fishing, maintaining the ship etc earning points on teamwork and proficiency,on the 3 day you’ll be able to sail out into a certain area having to navigate your way to a destination marked on a provided map. Once you get to your destination you’ll have to use clues around to find treasure and bring it back safely

Scenario (optional)

On the 3rd day when everyone was getting ready to sail a rival group decided to do some sabotaging. Once the your ship was ready to sail all of a sudden it jets out the port at full speed. Once everything has settled everyone realizes that your in the middle of the ocean with no connection. Now the crew needs to use their skills to get back to mainland

Treasure hunt 

For the young ones and people who prefer land can join the treasure hunt. You’ll will be finding 3 different treasures over the course of 3 days. You’ll will have to navigate through finding clues,puzzles and obstacles to get to your treasures and will need to protect it since other Crews will try and steal your treasures. There is one main treasure you need to protect so be careful if someone plants bait to trick others. The Crews who still have their 3 main treasure gets to go to the last round where all teams are going a one item . Whoever brings it back wins

Kids don’t steal from each other and would be around town square or the beach

Scenario (optional)

On the final round facing off against a rival team someone used magic and teleported your crew to some unknown place with fairies? Checking in on everyone you realize that you still have the treasure to win but how will you get back? Will you try to get the fairies to help or will the crew do it on their own?

Rules of the event

Anyone can participate! Ocs,sonas to other canon characters-Feel free to draw, write fics, make edits etc.

keep it PG-13

Use the hashtag #NeverCovePirates also make sure to tag me because I’ll love to see it

There’s no deadline

Outfits

The people of Never-Cove dress up in Pirate themed/inspired for this event, participants must look the part

Captains- must have a hat

Crew members - needs to have some kind of fabric visible around their upper body- A bow , head band, bandanna etc

Draft designs

Background:

Canon characters entry:

Floyd Leech - Azul Ashengrotto - Ruggie Bucchi - Jamil Viper -

Ace Trappola - @spade-12

Oc entry

Captains:

Fallon Hook - Me

Crew members

Iris Valor - Me

Constance - @theolivetree123

Carla Coquille - @the-rini-rush

Yuya Florence - Me

Donatello kaur - @readsrandomstuff67

Flori Mohn-Prinz - @bunniehunn

Fan Art

Pirate tsum Jamil - me

Pirate Crew participants - @spade-12

[dnphobe]

i am so deeply fascinated by the specific culture of internet fame and the conflation of the brand and the personal that happens as the result of a form of fame uniquely reliant on (perceived) interpersonal connection rather than a specific professional output. and dan and phil are one of the only not-deeply-depressing examples bc they have semi-successfully escaped their original personas while still retaining boundaries with their audience. the straight man/fool schtick is still a part of their dynamic (bert and ernie fr) but they're able to be so tongue in cheek about it at this stage it's very interesting to me

it's like. such a specific thing. because to equate dan and phil to comediens (the closest comparison i can find to their careers but from traditional media. or even radio personalities (something they actually were for years)....i don't know anything about those people's personal lives, at least not until there's a scandal that breaks everyone's view of them because it doesn't match with their stage personas.

but dan and phil's jobs, and the majority of online public figures, pretty much Require some degree of personalisation. there's possibilities for that Not to happen, like with people who Just post short films, or even the comparatively more recent rise of video essayists (and before that commentary youtubers) where the focus is very much on a Topic. but the very First youtuber boom (compared to youtube Video boom) was very much. person sits in front of camera and tells you about their life. and that's what those youtubers did. except in all the ways they didn't both because they had to be entertaining and many Real things are simply...not entertaining or interesting to people who don't know you. so you exaggerate who you are and stretch the truth of the stories you tell. and second of all because...who Wants strangers to know them personally? i don't. there's things my closest friends don't know about me. because i don't Feel like sharing those things (i will clarify here i am a painfully private person who hates being perceived for no real reason. but i'm sure Everyone goes through this to some degree.

and YES. dan and phil have indeed semi-successfully escaped those personas and i feel like there's a lot of youtubers we can't say that about. like yes their audience isn't as big as it used to be, but i feel like next to none of that is because of people disliking the shedding of persona. i largely put it down to the following things: the passage of time. all 'celebrities' level of fame fluctuates, largely with a rise then fall, but potential for a rise again; tied to the passage of time many people consider dan and phil to be a part of their 'cringy' teenhood and haven't given their newer eras a chance due to their own internalised shame, and; yeah, a Large aspect of the phandom was the Mystery. Are they Gay, are they Together, Why won't they Tell us they are Gay and Together. then they told us they're gay and told us they're Not gonna tell us concretely they're together. I don't LIKE admitting this because those of us here are like. here for more than 'phan' (or out of genuine appreciation for their relationship rather than treating it as something to get to the Bottom of), but this Is proven by the numbers their click bait videos did.

that was a a tangent. now i am going to go on another one and theorize on Why dan and phil have gotten through their rebranding(s) largely unscathed:

so first of all the parasocialisation or whatever you want to call it in the fandom was. Always more intense than even many other similar fanbases. except it wasn't i Feel like i know you from your on screen persona. it was i Feel like i know you Past your persona and i know this persona isn't You. which makes us sound tinhat as hell, like oh we know you Better than the things you show us? except we were right (phannie mantra tbh). like there's a reason people were fighting tooth and nail for phil to say 'fuck' for so long and it's not because we were interested in seeing him be something different than he was, but because we were perfectly aware he was a man around the age of 30 who can and does say swears and we wanted him to be Him with us. in many ways we Always wanted them to shed the personas.

second of all, they timed shedding their personas Very well. they started doing it after tatinof, which, while many of us were still young we were getting Older and changing a lot ourselves. so we were adjusted to change in the way we wouldn't have been before. and they dropped it even more Post coming out, and, i mean, how are you gonna be mad about that? their sexuality is in a way very tangled up in the personas, and as a largely LGBT+ fandom we wanted them to be able to express this part of them they've been holding back freely, and if that comes with dropping Other facades then, well, the closet is a hell of a drug. like. of Course they are going to change after a Big Change. which is another thing. they always Communicated they were about to change. whether that's dan making a whole video on a rebrand and changing his hair, or post-baking universe, or post-coming out.

but mostly i think it's this: dan and phil CULTIVATED their audience. they learned not to surprise us with the backlash from tabinof's sudden announcement and then would pepper in hints for any project and any change months-years in advance. and if you didn't like the hints you were getting? you could leave. only here for the mystery? here's the line of what you're gonna get, you can leave. but the people who stayed are people who Stayed. they have a staying power where it wasn't just...trading in one group of kids for another when the first group ages out, or being left to flounder after the first group ages out. and the second they stopped having a young audience, they stopped trying to Appeal to a young audience when they stopped having one, locking those doors. and i think that maturing with us was very important bc look if they Were still in those 2015 personas? i wouldn't be here. i'd be like...thanks but i am too old for this. so, conversely to everything, i think shedding those personas was, in a way, only BENEFICIAL to them

does any of this makes sense lmao

[andhaveapleasanttomorrow]

if you could scientifically engineer a new boy band what do you think theyd be like. what traits would they have

you've successfully baited me into writing over a thousand words on a topic I don't know very much about

as far as scientific engineering goes I don't need much aside from a willingness to let me puppet them around and make them dance. it's better if they're not engineered, I think, for the concept I've been tossing around in my head. I've been thinking about a few different things in tandem, one of them being some recent attempts to create a "western kpop[1] group," which haven't really been crazy successful, and wondering what it would take for something like that to work. for one thing, the only western kpop groups I know of have been girl groups, and at the risk of overgeneralizing I don't think the idea would work as well for a boy group, mainly because there are less male kpop fans and therefore less guys who would be eager to undergo that kind of training/lifestyle or have dreams of becoming that kind of "idol." I've also seen people say that a north american "mindset" isn't conducive to the idol lifestyle as it exists in korea because of cultural differences but I don't know how much I'd agree with that. I do think that rather than trying to get them to be precision-built silicon dolls like modern kpop idols it would make more sense to counter that and have them be more "real" and perhaps a little "rebellious," but like, not in any actually potentially subversive or offensive way. so I guess it would help if they had that feeling.[2] I think that would also make them more appealing to the general public, which is where kpop falls short. the language barrier doesn't help.[3]

another thing I've been thinking about is how important the accessibility (or perceived accessibility) of a star's personal life is now, in american pop. this is a big part of why taylor swift is so huge and I think another snagging point for kpop. people feel that it is very important that stars have "authenticity" and things like this, and like to do things like compare their lyrics to things that happened to the star, and so on. so for my perfect boy band there would have to be a sense that they were heavily involved in the creation of their songs somehow. (to be fair, I don't think this is unheard of in kpop.)[4] a third thing I've been thinking about is this idea of the "fictional real boy band" (the monkees, the jonas brothers, big time rush.[7]) I've been thinking about it because I don't really understand it. the first two at least were genuine stars, and big time rush wasn't like, globally renowned, but, you know, they did okay. where I get stuck is in understanding why people liked them, it doesn't seem like it should work; the contract between the pop star and the audience already has a fiction/reality dissonance that both parties just sort of have to accept, but starring in a television show with fictionalized versions of yourselves seems to be turning that upside down and violating it somehow. but people liked them.[8] the jonas brothers managed to make something of a real comeback, at least for a little bit, although I'm sure that was 90% fueled by nostalgia.[9]

anyway the fact that there's a precedent makes it odd to me that no one has attempted to modernize it with social media. I mean, obviously pop stars use social media, kpop idols do livestreams and tiktoks and things like that, there is a connection to the fans in that way, one direction even had their video diaries when they were teens, I'm more thinking of like an "influencer house" type of situation. this is where I think it becomes a bit unethical. I think as it is there's another little contract, where the audience understands that celebrities make certain kinds of posts online as promotional work and most of what they're saying isn't actually "coming from the heart," and celebrities know the audience knows. there's probably two ways to curveball this; lean way into it and turn it into an "I-know-you-know-I-know" thing, or obfuscate it entirely and pretend it doesn't exist.[10] the latter is really hard to accomplish and I'd really like to see it done successfully. the drive to call people nepo babies or industry plants is really strong these days, but so is the drive to feel like you know a celebrity on a personal level, so there's a bit of a tightrope situation here. basically my idea is to put the monkees on tiktok. but I don't want the audience to know they're watching the monkees, I want them to think it's real. also yaoibaiting is mandatory (also not unusual in kpop). imagine you follow a group of roommates online because they make funny posts about each other, but they're also incredibly famous, and they make music together, the lyrics of which can easily be interpreted to be about each other, like fleetwood mac. I want to create parasocial bonds that could topple empires. not for money I just want to see it happen

there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge because I don't know anything about the music industry and I'm also not entirely sure why kpop (or anything) "works," in a societal sense, or why exactly american pop has been so heavy with soloists for so many years when that wasn't the case before. I also don't even really listen to pop music, I mostly read what other people say about it because I find the social aspect of it more interesting. I like thinking about it so I'm going to continue thinking about it

[1] here used to refer to the specific management/training/production model of the idol industry in korea rather than a catchall for "korean pop" [2] I don't know how exactly that would be executed, I'm bad at predicting what people will clock as "cool" or "phony" because I have my own axis of how I perceive that kind of thing. [3] I do have a theory that part of the reason western kpop hasn't been panning out so well is that kpop fans are largely koreaboos and even if the idols are managed by korean companies they won't go as hard for them if they're not korean because they lose that sheen of the "culture," and because they don't get to call them unnie. if you don't create a group that's mainly geared towards kpop fans (because, I think, the american general public doesn't have an appetite for that kind of group anymore), you don't have that problem [4] I've also been thinking about 5 seconds of summer, and how they were, I think, the last really big actual band boy band, who like played their instruments and shit. don't talk to me about waterparks and twenty one pilots and fall out boy [5] and whatnot because that's not what I'm talking about and besides waterparks is overrated. I've never listened to their music but I can tell they're overrated. my point is my boys wouldn't need to play instruments, and anyway if they did then how could they do their little dance moves?[6] [5] they're all too old to be boy bands. [6] granted… I do think the general public would be more responsive to a real band-type-band than a pop group right now, but I don't have any real reasoning behind this [7] hannah montana's not a boy band but I suppose she also did this, the difference being that the actual star is "miley cyrus," not "hannah montana." [8] obviously there's something to be said that the target audience for most of these were like, 8 year olds, who don't have a very good grasp on the reality/fiction thing anyway, which is probably why I can't understand it [9] nostalgia is, of course, the only thing running the cultural engine these days, which is why I'm even thinking about this in the first place- it's weird to me that with the "y2k" thing being very popular there are no really big mainstream american pop groups like there were then [10] you could also just violate it and not filter the pop star at all, but that's less of a curveball and more of a foundational destruction, and would fall apart very quickly

[relatableblorbopoll]

Round 1 of preliminaries, group 6

The first two places get a place on the bracket

Little reminder: there will be 2 more rounds of preliminaries, the losing blorbos of this poll still have 2 chances of getting in the official bracket

propaganda under the cut

Jesper Fahey (Six of Crows)

No Propaganda

Crowley (Good Omens)

"He's gender. He's been in love with one guy for literally 6000 years and then royally fucks up his entire confession. He yells at his plants. He drapes himself over every fucking surface he sits on. He walks like *that*. He just fuckin makes sounds sometimes. He's me fr."

Dave Strider (Homestuck)

"everything that can be said about Dave's relatability will probably sound redundant, clichéd, or overdone if you are at all familiar with tumblrs sort of blorbo culture. this is exactly why he should be in this tournament.

stop me if you think that you've heard this one before: he hides his genuine emotions behind a persona, deflects sincerity with jokes, but also has a deep desire for validation and connection, so that his persona has many cracks where little bits of his true self slip through. deeply insecure, compares himself to others. a defeatist streak, avoids responsibility. does not wish to be troubled by The Horrors. he just wants to hang out and do his lil creative hobbies (making music and drawing comics). talks a lot to the point of being pretty awkward, rambling, and accidentally saying stuff he shouldnt.

all these things I think tend to resonate deeply with a lot of people, especially on Tumblr - that "person who is insecure and struggles with emotional openness so copes by making jokes" sort of trope, it's just like kin bait (affectionate). he also has a complicated relationship with gender which I know many find relatable (shout out to the "Dave homestuck was my trans awakening" homies) but whether it's about figuring out gender or sexuality or trauma or the apocalypse or anything else, Dave comes at it with an initial, learned, fear and reluctance that I think a lot of people have experienced, because it's very human and very much a part of many readers experiences (we live in a society). but he's always good, and likeable and that makes for a very important sort of relatable character. very comforting. even if he's a mess and he's an idiot you can believe he can get to something better, and you can watch him develop and grow.

also, I think he's extremely relatable because he never really knows what's going on in the comic either. I mean, that's gonna be relatable to most people Vis a vis homestuck. he's confused and he just wants to vibe and make his friends laugh. WHO AMONG US cannot relate?? I do not believe you if you say no.

I wrote too much and got way too weird about it. I'm sorry it's late I'd edit down but I really don't have the brain capacity.. which is very Dave core of me actually"

Junior (Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race)

"i relate to him a lot because his whole character is being embarrassed of his dad who tries too hard to be cool, but still loves him anyways. that is literally me"

Kim Dokja (Omnicient Reader's Viewpoint)

"kim dokja. oh kim dokja. so, without going into spoilers too much, kim dokja is very much a character you are expected to relate to and it makes the novel DEVASTATING. here's just a few things about him: - he is obsessed with a particular piece of media, and finds comfort in it when real life doesn't give him any. he's constantly thinking about it and defending it and trying to recommend it to other people (even though no one else bothers reading it, because it is an objectively bad 3000-chapter webnovel). even beyond that one novel, he's been using fiction as an escape for just about his entire life, something that rings true for a lot of people, especially in the modern world. - he struggles with socializing with other people. the first chapter alone gave me so much second hand embarrassment. it's so real but god it's So bad. he has zero friends and has that sort of loneliness where you're miserable but you can't really bring yourself to feel anything but resigned to it. in general he is just very Resigned to his unfortunate life and can't fully understand or accept it when it finally does get better - he has a complicated relationship with his mother. it's the kind of relationship where the parent genuinely does love their child, but they fail to give them what they need & have to accept that they hurt their kid and that they cannot be the most important person in their life. it's certainly not a universal experience but those sorts of parent-child relationships are woefully common but scarcely acknowledged -the insecurity. god there is so much insecurity in that man. it's hard to even completely tell it's there at first, because it's so ingrained in how he thinks that you don't question it until you know more about his character and suddenly it's all too apparent. he cannot believe that he can be loved (or, if that he can be, that they certainly would not be able to love all of him, only what he chooses to show them), and is selfless but like. the literal meaning of the word, where he will throw away all of his being for the people he loves. in general there is a lot of sacrifice as a love language which like. while i'm not off around throwing myself in front of magic death beams for people or anything i sure would give up everything i could if it meant helping the people i love - ok enough of that. here's some funny things i can relate to. the guy meets his favorite fictional blorbo and instead of worshipping him instead he bullies him constantly and internally complains about how unbearable he is both in the book and in real life. it's like a "i love my blorbo. i would not last 2 seconds in a room with him." You know. he gets so caught up in his fanon characterizations and biases about characters that he completely mischaracterizes them like constantly. he literally kills a guy half because he was his least favorite character. -this is a poll about blorbo relatability. therefore i must mention that kim dokja too related to his blorbo (or at least attempted to) and what is more relatable than that. anyways. kdj made me realize far too much about myself and is by far the most i have ever related to a character (and i Hate it). and tumblr would definitely relate to him too so :thumbs-up:"

"(SPOILERS) He is literally all of us. Reader. Just some guy. And then insane tragic backstory. But he’s also just some guy. He’s special and also just a guy. He’s also god. He can be shipped w anyone. He has versatility and interests and motivations. He also never tells anyone anything ever. He is so me."

"He reads a trashy, long-ass novel as a coping mechanism and doesn't think he's capable of being loved. Bro dissociates when he's emoting too much."

"I'm a homestuck fan, a Dave Strider fan even Never heard of Omnicient Reader's before Voted for the kim fellow because judging by the propaganda it looks like he himself would be a homestuck reader therefore making him more relatable than the homsetuck character himself"

"This guy’s been my companion since I was 11, I’ve grown up with Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint and I think that’s pretty funny since he grew up with Ways of Survival (the 3149 chapter novel) and therefore I’m straight up mirroring him. I, too, scare everyone off by being too enthusiastic whenever the webnovel is brought up! His insecurities are severe but I do see myself in some parts of him (which is worrying but whatever.) He is absolutely The Guy Ever. Utterly pathetic wet cat of a man. I love him. He represents the crazy fandom tumblrina in all of us."

Donutella (Tokidoki)

"she's made of donuts basically like me at this point"

[maybeelse]

Sometimes I think about anglerfish

I don't think I need to explain why. Some concepts just have weight.

But. Sometimes I look at something that someone has written, some inhuman creature that's meant to be oh so appealing, and I think: anglerfish.

I am rarely correct in my assessment. Most writers, it seems, do not care for anglerfish. Certainly it is easy to overdo such bait-and-switches; you really only get the full impact once, and even then only with careful buildup. Once the reader knows it's a possibility, well …

But of course there is an art to it, just as there is an art to the mistakes characters must make. Glossy perfection is unbelievable; texture is full of imperfect little details. Monsters do not always need to be concealed, and truly masterful writing can lay all its cards on the table and still fill you with horrified suspense as its machinery plays out.

So I still let myself think about anglerfish.

Sometimes I think about love-bombing.

It's the same idea, really. Set aside the benthic trappings; leave those fang-like teeth at home. Keep the smile. Everyone likes a good smile. And from there …

It's not hard to make the world scary. Just look at the news. Plenty of horror happening every day, and most people just don't care as long as they've got theirs. But you're a good person, aren't you? You're watching. Witnessing. Not turning away. Raising awareness.

And, hey. Most people can't even bring themselves to do that much. Look at you! Shining so bright, trying to make a difference. You're a good person, you know that? Better than all of them.

Who cares if you're a bit isolated? If you're struggling to connect? That's the modern world's fault, not yours. It's not built for people, not really. It's more profitable to fill it up with algorithmic amigara faults! All those traps for people who don't know any better …

But you know better. You and me, yeah? Looking at the world, seeing the monsters. Seeing the anglerfish.

… what if we did something about that?

The thing that makes anglerfish culturally sticky is the lure. It's the image of stumbling across a light in the depths, a light in a place where there should never be light, and rushing eagerly towards it …

And then the smile. And then those needle-like teeth.

And then it's too late for you.

Poor little thing.

Poor little victim.

But there are all sorts of lures, aren't there? All sorts of doomed attraction. The moth and the flame, the doll and the witch …

All those little tragedies.

Do you think that the bio-luminescent bacteria in an anglerfish's lure know what they're doing? What they're part of? Not that it would matter if they did, of course: they can't survive without it.

But what does the lure feel? Wherefore the judas goat, his hoofs stained with blood …

[different-pridemonthera]

Hello, I'm not a native English speaker, but as a part of the queer community, I'd love to write a lengthy post to express my thoughts on why I find it absurd for people to criticize an actual canon queer ship for a queerbaiting ship, especially during Pride Month.

Originally thought that since the season finale was coming, I wouldn't make sharp comments anymore. Just wait for Season 8. The ship war that has been bubbling with noise previously is actually quite boring, especially those who can't tell what status virtual characters really are, and insist on picking out character issues, hoping that the character will die as soon as possible. The even lower-intelligence ones are those who can't tell the difference between characters and reality, and rush to attack the actors, trying to drive the actors away. It only leaves people speechless, feeling like I am facing a group of stereotypical teenagers across the network.

Then, as soon as Pride Month rolled around again, the 911 twt community's largest fan news account stirred up controversy by including a photo of Buddie among a group of canon queer characters to celebrate Pride Month. Personally, I don't have strong feelings about it. Firstly, Pride Month is all about inclusivity and acceptance. Secondly, it's a fan account and they can post what they want. Thirdly, Buddie, being one of the hottest queerbaiting ships in the 9-1-1 fandom, would undoubtedly be featured during Pride Month. While this might have happened in previous years too, but this year was different due to a major development in season 7, Buck's bisexual awakening, along with a new canon queer ship bucktommy/tevan that's currently in development.

Firstly, I don't think that just because Buck and Tommy became canon, it means you can't still ship Buddie. Ship culture is basically about shipping anything you want.

However, I also understand why some people might have issues with celebrating Pride Month with Buddie after the Buck and Tommy canon. The reality is many people forget that Buddie is a classic example of queerbaiting (it even made it to Wikipedia's queerbaiting page as a typical case). Or, more accurately, many people don't realize that queerbaiting, as a marketing strategy, is actually harmful to the real LGBTQ+ community. From a queer perspective, queerbaiting is simply a way to attract viewers by consuming the LGBTQ+ community, and the characters involved are essentially detached from reality. In a sense, any interactions they have that seem chemically charged are meaningless. A more specific example would be in Season 7 when Buck comes out, and Oliver, the actor, immediately receives private messages from closeted firefighters thanking him. This kind of thanks would not have happened during any scene between Buck and Eddie in seasons 2-6, especially when both characters had girlfriends. There is almost no real LGBTQ+ person could truly relate to such scenes. However, the possibility implied by queerbaiting exactly hits their desire for resonance. This is why I believe canon is important, only through canon can characters connect most closely with the real LGBTQ+ community. How much can a queerbaiting ship (where Eddie doesn't even have a canon LGBTQ+ character identity) contribute to the real LGBTQ+ community? Especially when fans of this queerbaiting ship hope that a canon queer ship with a clear positive impact will bone? Now it's even starting to reject TV shows that show two men flirting with daddy issue jokes. I ship buddie for Almost 5 years, My personal reason for wanting Buddie to become canon besides the chemistry was largely because I didn't want them to continue queerbaiting: they should officially get together or clearly not be together. Now that Buck has become bi, Buddie has slowly shifted into a ship baiting nature, but it cannot be denied that Buddie was queerbaiting before.

And I've been thinking that Eddie is gay for a long time, even though some so-called "insiders" have recently revealed that the ana breakup line is a precursor to his being gay, I still don't understand the so-called queer code, can you call it a queer code when every heterosexual relationship doesn't end well? Then it seems that every scumbag is a queer code, not to mention the fact that Ryan himself explicitly mentioned the word heterosexual in his interview describing buck's coming out scene to Eddie. Do the people who think Eddie is gay really know what sexual orientation means? The point is to be sexually attracted to men and only men. Eddie has been shown enjoying heterosexual sex on more than one occasion so far, and even Michael (Athena's ex-husband) came out at the beginning of the show and then made it clear that he would never have sex with Athena again. is it okay for a gay man to have heterosexual sex? Maybe it is. But do gay people enjoy heterosexual sex? You've got to be kidding me! Eddie being a bisexual or pansexual makes a lot more sense to me than being gay. Secondly the speculation about Eddie being Demisexual, Honestly, I didn't understand the concept of Demisexual very well, but I really don't think he's very Demisexual, he and shannon got back together only by having sex when they had relationship problems, and now he and marisol are already having sex frequently without having progressed to the point where they can cohabitate, does that really fit the definition of Demisexual? I just not so sure.

And even if Eddie is gay/Demisexual doesn't mean buddie canon, another point I really want to say is that almost most buddie fans feel that the character's sexuality can only be a PLOT DEVICE in the service of buddie, which is why the atmosphere in the fanbase was still harmonious during the period after s7ep4 and before ep5, because in the interview tim mentioned that the next episode of bucktommy's date didn't go well, and everyone didn't take Tommy's character seriously, thinking that Tommy was a tool, and that he would leave soon, and then buck would go and develop buddie obediently, which is actually a very good indication that they didn't take buck's bisexuality seriously too, and then they found out that bucktommy's coffee date was thriving again in the ep5 finale, which immediately starts attacking the character tommy and the actor lou because they are in buddie canon's way. Oliver mentions that there was a bi buck plot in s4, and in the absence of any information mentioning eddie they immediately think it's buddie canon again, and that all of buck's and eddie's sexuality The correlation can only be to run to buddie, there is no possibility of the two of them each finding someone else. At the end of the day they see buck as eddiesexual and Eddie as bucksexual (in fact shannonsexual would seem to make more sense), come on it's not even a sexual orientation. It's funny how tim coming back and making buck bi but not developing buddie gets called out as well, and how some people think that everyone calling out KR before was actually wrong about KR, and how some people think that buddie is the right character and actor meeting the wrong author and writer, it's really humorous and interesting thought.

All in all, can you heterosexuals who love queerbaiting ship move aside during pride month and stop pretending to be ally while attacking a real canon queer ships? and can the queer who love queerbaiting realize the dangers of queerbaiting? ...... but at the end of the day they are all virtual characters and it's up to the writers to write them, I'd love to see them make Buddie canon, but it's not even close to that day, Let's really canon queer ship bucktommy have a good time with their first pride month please.

thank you for reading, happy pride month!🏳️‍🌈

[mukuharakazui]

i feel like ive just gotten baited into sending one of those "WAIT, KIRBY HAS DEEP LORE!?" asks but please tell me about the magolor christian themes

HELLO. ok it is 2am so i will do the best i can. if this answer is utterly incoherent, blame that.

magolor's whole christian thing has been around since his concept art, which ensured that his design had notable yellow highlights as a nod to the color used to represent judas in classical christian art. (his ears were also originally going to be horns, so there could be some devil stuff there if you squint.)

this doesn't mean much if you only look at return to dreamland 2011. it's simply a clever, blink-and-you'll-miss-it piece of his character design that ties with the fact that he betrays kirby. some fans also found this funny regarding his symbolic link to apples, which he uses as bombs or. uh. microtransaction materials. lol.

however, once return to dreamland deluxe came out in 2023, the game dropped a MASSIVE bomb of their own by providing us with a new, post-game epilogue for magolor. spoilers ahead, obviously. via the epilogue, magolor's link to apples is explored in-depth by putting him through trials where he must collect 5 fruit (apple) fragments, which a game screen implies parallel the fact that magolor tricked kirby into collecting the 5 parts of the lor starcutter. that's essentially his "penance" process.

when magolor finished rebuilding the apple, which is known as the "ethereal alter" in english and the very unsubtle "room of eden" in japanese. the master crown that magolor had betrayed kirby for and stolen from its place on halcandra became a massive gem apple tree final boss. however, the tree itself is not listed as the boss--instead he is fighting the master crown itself.

he ultimately destroys the master crown, which had taken the form of the "forbidden fruit" that had tempted magolor into hurting people, including those he had come to genuinely deem friends, for the sake of obtaining personal power. the gem apple being constructed in the "room of eden" is enough on its own to build a base for a christian theme, but magolor's arc of redeption through either 1. trial and repentance (main gamemode with magolor epilogue; self-imposed; successful) 2. outside aid (extra mode + true arena; extended by kirby; failed) is what allows the christian imagery to shine.

however, his christian imagery chronologically extends past the return to dreamland deluxe epilogue, as that same epilogue confirmed that "microtransagolor" (the green magolor from kirby clash deluxe) is the same magolor from return to dreamland. he nurtures the gem apple seed which he obtained after defeating the master crown in that game. clash deluxe also introduces us to a weekly "magolor day," which, you guessed it, is on sunday, with the first of them occuring on an easter.

the major reason why i connect magolor to christianity in particular rather than all abrahamic religions is the judas connection, the easter sunday thing, and the process through which he repents or "must atone for his misdeeds." while genesis isn't exclusive to christianity, the specific actions which magolor takes along his path of betrayal and redeption mirror make more sense to me as a christian moral tale rather than judaic or islamic for some reason. not sure why, i'd have to unpack that elsewhere.

this isn't to say that kirby is indoctrinating children into christianity or whatever ofc. considering the whole hyness and mage sisters deal in star allies, the connection between kirby and religion as a whole isn't always a positive one. nintendo also tends to avoid real life religions and references to them as a whole in their games likely to avoid controversy and to make their games accessible and understandable to a worldwide audience with a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. that last point is WHY i find it super crazy that magolor has an obviously and intentionally christian narrative.

(also, for the books, i'm not catholic. but 4 years of catholic school and one very catholic grandmother gives me just enough background on the topic to relate it to kirby)

[jeannereames]

Hello again, Dr. Reames. This post about the hero's journey across world cultures but especially in Ancient Greece has been going viral on tumblr. As both a writer of fiction set in the ancient world and an academic, do you think the hero's journey holds any merit? Especially in regards to the Illiad?

So first, thank you for that link and sorry for the delayed reply. I enjoyed reading the post, and agree with her for the most part, but there is a very useful comment (I’m not sure I’d quite call it a rebutting) from Ian Robinson in the notes. His reply offers several useful points about, et al., masterplots and correctives to her take on Campbell, which is a bit narrow, although the Frazier/Campbell/Jung approach to myth has long been recognized as problematic, beginning with Levi-Strauss. So I’d suggest that those who read her post also read his comment, as he gives some good additional bibliography. There are some other good comments, but I’d specifically point to that one. Unless I really misremember Campbell, I don’t think he’s suggesting the Hero’s Journey is the only sort of myth out there. That would be oversimplifying him and creating a stick-man argument, which is where I might ding her analysis.

Walter Burkert (and his students, et al.) have noted that similarity in myths may owe more than a bit to some basic similarities in human experience due to human biology. So, we get a goodly number of coming-of-age stories/myths and accompanying rites of passage. Similarly, marriage is another commonality. There’s only one culture that doesn’t have marriage (if my anthro class memories serves); but what “marriage” entails, and who may marry whom, varies quite a lot over cultures. Death and funerals/mourning are another commonality strongly hedged by culture-specific details, along with birth and fertility rites. We can include also anniversary and commemorative rites, feasting and fasting, even water rituals. These all cross the globe in myth and religion. Thus, our very humanness produces similarities of experience, although details are shaped by culture.

Additionally, throughout history, human beings have tended to look for points of commonality when facing difference—a purchase to grab onto, if you like. We’ve been doing this for millennia, right down to: “Your god seems like my god, just with a different name.” Difference is occluded to focus on the similarity.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It promotes connection…and empathy. It’s only problematic when difference is not just ignored but erased and replaced. That happens too. The Greeks (and later Romans) were notorious for ignoring other people’s names and categories in favor of their own… but so were the Egyptians, and the Chinese. This is not simply a white Western/European fault. It’s a Center-Periphery phenomenon. And it may be the height of white Western/European privilege to assume they’re the only ones guilty of doing it!

All that said, we do find some common … themes? ... across myths. Trickster figures, for instance—perhaps because they make us laugh. But a culture that doesn’t have one isn’t “lacking,” nor do all tricksters look/act the same. Humor can be a very cultural thing. That’s just one example of a “semi-universal” mythical motif.

So, in short, I don’t see a problem with utilizing the Hero’s Journey as a useful frame in storytelling. But I would say that we may need to learn new stories too, as writers.

My current WIP (work-in-progress) is a 6-volume epic fantasy that turns the conquest narrative on its head. One (of the two) main characters transforms from “Master of Battles” to “Mother of Peace.”

Writing it has presented me with some narrative-arc struggles, most notably writing “battles that aren’t.” E.g., an expected battle that doesn’t come to pass/is short-circuited in some way. I mean to challenge the notion that “glorious conflict/combat” is a necessary conclusion for a story arc. Yet that runs the risk of annoying readers who complain of bait-and-switch. Nonetheless, the point IS that a peaceful solution may be the true victory. How to do that involves maintaining enough narrative TENSION even if battle isn’t the resolution of that tension.

That’s a different sort of story, and entails bucking millennia of narrative expectations. Of course there are other forms of story (metaplots) that don’t even involve a (big) battle at all, but I’m specifically trying to subvert that one. That means I must rethink dramatic tension. (Hopefully successfully.)

In any case, I offer it as an example of the struggle any storyteller faces when swimming against the current of reader/listener/viewer expectations. Especially when those expectations are formed by the freight of human storytelling tradition. We are “programmed,” if you will, to expect certain things out of any given plot arc. One ignores that—or in my case, deliberately flaunts it—to one’s peril.

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm on your Tumblr because we used to be mutuals, but I'm more of a lurker these days and I've remade several times under different handles and understand exasperation/hesitation at refollowing. I'm sincerely not trying to bait anything here, it's just that I've been depressed for the majority of 2024, and I think a really bad habit I've fallen into is not expressing gratitude to those who have a genuine impact on me. I'm sorry if this is uncanny and too parasocial. I have always admired how incredibly self-possessed and well-spoken/read/watched/cultured you are. I get an older sibling vibe from you that I never had growing up. You are one of the smarter people in the room for me. Sorry I'm sending this on anon, you don't have to publish it, in fact I hope you don't! I think you're one of the best blogs on this site and many things you have posted/blogged about have caused me to dig deeper within myself. In recent times, I appreciate that you force a situationally depressed individual (me) to challenge themselves for the better, if that makes sense. I'm sorry if this is disturbing!

[posted with permission] Man I have not been able to wake up all day for some reason and I owe some writing tomorrow, so this is actually a really helpful warmup exercise to try to get myself moving/thinking. I really appreciate this. I think your idea about expressing gratitude is really important and it's something I've been trying to do also, though maybe in a broader sense, like if I see a really inspiring movie (or whatever) I try to follow the impulse to write to the filmmaker and tell them. In my mind there's this invisible wall between creators and "fans" and that's usually fake; it's very likely that the people who made some of your favorite media are not rich, their futures are not secure, and they don't even necessarily know how their work has affected people. Worst case scenario they don't write you back, but only a snob would be actually bothered, and sometimes you even make a friend. I think the same principle can be applied to, you know, bloggers or whoever. Certainly I run this blog for myself first and foremost and I don't think I would or could stop even if absolutely no one was paying attention--it's a real compulsion and I think it's reasonably healthy to find ways to be in conversation with yourself--but it's valuable to know when you've been understood by anyone at all.

Not to make it weird but in Hebrews I think there's that verse, "If today you hear the voice of God, harden not your heart." That's really powerful outside the bounds of religion. To me it means, when you get that shred of energy or inspiration that says "I could do the dishes right now," do them immediately before you can talk yourself out of it! When you get that little spark that is so easily snuffed out by overthinking and taking that dangerous minute to round up excuses, that spark that you might be able to do the laundry, send the letter, watch the tough movie you're "never in the mood" for, pick up the book instead of watching TV, take a fucking walk, whatever it is: if you practice surrendering to these impulses immediately, almost without deciding, your life can really start to expand. Actually I believe it literally keeps your brain alive, to keep making it process new information, even if it seems trivial or you don't fully feel like it. But anyway a lot of us don't follow the impulse to say to someone "Hey, I think you're doing a good job" because it's so easy to imagine lots of different reasons they won't like it. But honestly that's unlikely (as long as you're not demanding something in return), and if someone responds poorly to that then chances are they're kind of an asshole.

(I mean sometimes I fail to respond to a message or an obvious social cue but it's usually because I just get overwhelmed by other parts of life and/or I'm not extremely skilled in forming and maintaining connections in any normal way. But it's rare that somebody has tried to reach out to me and I was like secretly hating them for it.)

Depression is really hard to talk about--I mean it's easy to VENT about, but it can be hard to converse about. There's that (American?) thing where you feel like no one should say anything that isn't *CEO voice* solution-oriented, and that's when people either avoid the topic entirely or react with all kinds of unwelcome and/or irrational advice. I have the illusion of being all full of wisdom on this because I've been severely depressed since I was really little and obviously there's something wrong with my whole operating system, but one of my best friends--who is not naturally depressive--is in such a bad way and it's not her fault and possibly there is no way out for real, and of course I have the urge to pump her up and keep her afloat, but if I'm too positive it will be totally dishonest. I have to split the difference between cheering her up and like, not lying to her. I'd be a total hypocrite if I denied her the understanding and acknowledgement of darkness that I myself always want and rarely get. It's hard, but on the individual basis it's useful to try to map the nature of your own depression and notice how it operates; just observe and take notes even if you can't see a way to control it right now. It sounds like you're doing some of that, there is a lot of dignity in that activity.

These are my thoughts off the cuff, with any luck they provoke something useful. Now I feel like I'm finally ready to shower and have ill-advised beverages and do my stupid homework assignment. Thank you for your thoughts, and the helpful prompt, and I hope you have a good day and/or night, for real.

[sapphicsparkles]

r u a pro shipper

deep sigh I know this is bait, with all the effort of not even typing out full words. But hey, here's my chance to rant about how stupid anti/purity culture is. As far as I understand it "proship" has two major slang definitions: 1) supporting romantically/sexually shipping fictional characters together in general 2) supporting romantically/sexually shipping "problematic" fictional characters together I take it this ask is about the 2nd definition. There is ofc the wave of "PROSHIP DNI" on social profiles, especially young queer folks on social media, which I find highly disappointing because here is the thing: what do you consider "problematic?" In what context? And why the hell are we applying these broadly to the exploration and experimentation of fictional space as a qualifier for someone's moral standing? Why are you so adherent to what is considered institutionally approved as safe, good, and squeaky clean. Especially as a queer person who exist outside and in contradiction to cishet heteropatriarchal standards. Oh and now we've come to it: the fear of queerness being associated with things like incest and age gaps and what have you--things people generally deem problematic in shipping. The desire for queerness to be clean and wholesome and fucking acceptable. Model minority thinking if you will. Let queerness in fiction and media be soft and wholesome and healing, let it be deplorable and unforgivable, let it be wretched, let it be mean, let it struggle and grow and evolve. Let it have the breadth and humanity that cishet characters and stories are readily given. Please stop shooting yourself in the foot with this "good representation" thing. No level of internet drama and ship warring will make them want to kill any of us any less. The line for what institutionally acceptable queerness is will always move, it will always constrain and choke and kill and put us back into little boxes fit for consumption by the power structure. On the one hand, if you have things that ick you and you don't want to see, curating your online space is a good thing. That's what muting and blocking and tagging is for. But to me the "prosoship dni"/anti that I've witnessed for the most part is either model minority thinking, a false association with fictional enjoyment as irl condoning and morality, moral grandstanding, or some sort of wack performative tribalism. (Don't even get me started on the purity culture social panopticon we're living in.) Or some combination of the above. This rise of anti sentiment and the fall of media literacy is a correlation that I fear cannot be a coincidence. You can enjoy things in media that you wouldn't actually condone or even enjoy in reality, you can consume and enjoy media while also actively being aware and critiquing it for its flaws, issues, and the context it was created in. Build your critical thinking skills folks. Sometimes it's even good to encounter things you don't like to understand the world and yourself better--to understand why you don't like it and what it is connected to. Build your self awareness folks. In summary: please chill the fuck out y'all and hold grace for others.

[cartoonrival]

can u explain (at least ur interpretation of it) the meaning behind the catgirl art cause i feel stupid for not getting it at all 😭

the way i interpret it is that its about how people refuse to see meaning in things outside of themselves. if something isn't about them they're going to make it about them, and they'll ignore it's uncomfortable elements so that they can SAY its about them. being online makes everything and everyone hyper visible, but there remains an expectation of relatability that just. is not always there. sometimes it isn't about you. but people especially online like to scrub the meaning and the sharp edges off of things so they can make it relatable to them, or so they can make it into a funny joke. loose examples off the dome are people going into the comments of a video about bean soup and being like what if i dont like beans? or when people make animatics of their fave loving mlm ships set to songs about abuse or the struggles of being a woman of color.

using catgirls as the subject 1) connects it to a type of art that is frequently used for relatable jokes for the sake of irony and baiting the audience into WANTING to try to make it about them and 2) ties it closely with internet culture in general because that is what the piece is commenting on. overwriting the original text, which clarifies part of the art's intent, with "me and who", and rewriting the thought bubbles from the girls thinking about how they're in pain to how theyre in love takes the original piece and does the exact sort of sandpapering that its commenting on and warding against through the original text. "i am in severe love" isn't even correct grammar, which highlights how in a lot of cases the original intent of a work doesn't even HAVE to be heavily shrouded in poetry or flowery difficult language for people to willfully misunderstand it.

halfway alternative is that rather than commenting on OTHER PEOPLE'S willful misunderstanding, its about how artists feel the need to make their own struggles more palatable in order to appeal to a wider audience, fear of being open and known and being afraid that people won't understand the unique struggles you're trying to articulate if you don't sand them down into something recognizable (like the "me and who" meme).

this is obviously just what i read from it i cant say what op intended. maybe im being an asshole and the ppl in the notes saying "^im a catgirl in chronic pain #mecore" arent getting it wrong at all

[kradogsrats]

Katolis has a monarchy but no other class structure in place? Heck but that’d be crazy? How would the council get chosen? They’d let some child king just pick his best buds? Run elections where Bait stands as a joke candidate and accidentally gets elected? C’mon that’s no way to govern a feudal society now is it.. is it?

Listen: orphan girls imprisoning godlike puppetmaster elves is no basis for a system of government.

So I know this is moderately jokey but I want to discuss it anyway, because I think it’s interesting. Part of the setting is taking the trappings of faux-medieval fantasy and layering them over what is, to modern sensibilities, a fairly idealized liberal social structure. I’m not going to debate the merits of storytelling that handles representation via an idealized setting like TDP vs. storytelling that does so by acknowledging and incorporating the lived experience of people struggling under societal inequities, because that’s a whole thing and not really relevant—suffice it to say that a setting with racial and gender equity where everyone is assumed to be bisexual and there’s no organized religion is, at a very basic level, completely incompatible with the classic medieval fantasy social structure.

But let’s look at Katolis:

First of all, I would like to point out that none of these characters have surnames. None. Zero. I’m actually very pleased with that because 90% of the time I’ve seen settings use surnames as a loose class marker, they eventually fuck it up and yes I am looking at you, Dragon Age. So points there for consistency. But what this indicates, in keeping every single title being paired with the given name, is that there’s relatively little social emphasis on bloodline or family connections with regard to class status. It also means collecting taxes is probably a pain in the ass, but whatever. There’s the royal bloodline, and then everybody else.

We also have the structure of Katolis’s military—specifically, it’s a volunteer (there’s no evidence of compulsory military service, which is something I’d definitely expect to be discussed as the main characters age into late teens if it were in place), apparently standing, army of what appear to be career soldiers. There’s a hierarchy of officers—lieutenant, commander, captain, general, etc.—but not a concept of knighthood as linked to a hierarchy of nobility and land ownership. It’s a notable omission from a faux-medieval setting. Now, the wiki (ugh) describes the Crownguard as “knights” and I don’t know why, but regarding them specifically: they’re certainly an elite force, and it’s implied that Soren can take command of the situation with Pyrrah because of his status as a Crownguard. However, it could also just be his Captain rank, that’s a little unclear. However, it’s also clearly an open-recruitment, merit-based force (though we could start a side discussion here about exactly how much that applies to Soren) because Soren is able to recruit Corvus, despite Corvus being implied to have a low-status background.

Now, going back to the royal line, there’s a lot we don’t know here about bloodline succession and such—Ezran is crown prince over Callum, so the preference is clearly for an heir from the bloodline. It’s kind of unclear whether Callum is in line for the throne at all, though presumably if Ezran died he’d be eligible as an orphan. In a hypothetical situation where Sarai and Callum survive both Harrow and Ezran, who knows?

We also have a complication to dynastic succession that the show neatly avoids, which is branching family trees. “Noble” bloodlines are frequently offshoots of a royal house, descended from non-inheriting lines. The best way I can explain around a 300-year-old unbroken dynastic bloodline apparently having no extended relations is to assume that it does, but the cultural tradition is that anyone not part of the immediate royal nuclear family is basically the same being unrelated. This would mostly apply to non-inheriting siblings, with the expectation that they disperse to live their own lives at some normal life transition point, such as reaching independent adulthood and pursuing a career, or getting married. The monarch could certainly place their siblings on the Council, but since those positions don’t seem to be hereditary there’s no dynastic effect. (At least not automatically.)

Another thing frequently tied to social class that we have absolutely no idea how the setting handles is land ownership. I’m not going to dwell on this much because it’s deeply intertwined with a lot of other societal factors that are more complex than I want to think about right now, like childhood education or industrialization of agriculture. Given the socially egalitarian emphasis of the setting, I seriously doubt that the creators intended a feudal or even feudal-like system, though.

So with that out of the way, what does confer social status in Katolis? We know one answer is money, because there’s a limit to how idealized a setting can get. My bet would be that both the big money and the civilian prestige in Katolis is in industries or professions that support the military. Respected professions would probably be things like crafting armor and weapons (smithing and leatherworking), engineering (particularly related to weaponry), medicine (human and animal), and… idk, animal husbandry and training (all those crows gotta come from somewhere). The industries making people rich would then be the suppliers for those—mining, military food production, and of course, trade. When you have a large standing military, just the supply logistics are practically an industry of their own.

(I do personally imagine a loose guild system for a lot of the trained crafting professions just because I enjoy that shit and also it’s an easy education pipeline. Probably also for medicine, I don’t see there being a lot of medical schools floating around so again, apprenticeship-based training.)

Just to spin things out even further, in the absence of organized religion—a BIG absence—is there what could be considered the equivalent of an “educated” class? Well, education is another thing we know literally nothing about, so… scholarship likely remains the province of the wealthy or people who can charm a wealthy patron. In the public sphere, if you look at Opeli as kind of a combination attorney general and master of ceremonies, she likely has an office of nerds living their best lives doing her bidding, and that’s as close as you’ll get to a “priestly” class. (Or to a lawyer, since the most we’ve seen of the justice system is “Opeli puts people in prison and the monarch sentences them.”)

Okay so now that even I have forgotten what I’m talking about… that’s my social picture of Katolis, I guess. Communitarian, but susceptible to the issues that come with having a strong military-industrial complex influencing your socioeconomic balance.

[notsogreatpotoo]

you should totally use this ask as an excuse to tell us anything you want about any of your ocs. specific physical details, unrevealed background lore, how they'd interact with my sonas/other people, etc. anything really. go hog wild

eeeeeeee!!!!

okay so

I just finished Written In The Sand and put up chapter one of Recall (the sequel) (links in masterpost connected to pinned, spoilers ahead) so I’m going to talk about Alder :]

Alder has a complicated relationship with violence and death because not only is he the winner of the hunger games, but he also is pretty used to making sacrifices for others. He scars his face on purpose (partially to give his tributes a chance, partially because he doesn’t associate it with harm (based on cultural scarification, it’s difficult to say it’s more harmful than say, a tattoo or something and it helps him feel like he has more autonomy so in the end I doubt I would say it’s violent or in the realm of self-harm)), he kills to protect other people, he ends up doing mercy kills. Basically he believes that it would be better for him to take on the guilt than to burden someone else with the same consequences of needing to hurt someone, so while he really hates death and violence, he will sometimes actively pursue it. This happens when he works out a deal with Snow so he can protect his sister and his Mentor/Victor friends. It ends up at the point where the certainties of violence and death (aka, him knowing how to hurt and kill and what will happen if he does) are preferable to uncertainties; for example, when he baits a target so he can get them alone, he hates the flirting and finds satisfaction in killing them not only for what they did before but what he was forced to do to get them alone. He’s also aroace (sex repulsed, doesn’t think romance is repulsive but does not want romance in his life, figures this out later in the story) and so while navigating professional conversations in the Capitol is perhaps the same level of uncertainty as navigating conversations based around sexual / romantic / intimate matters, he will choose professionalism any time he believes it would still be effective. He also gets angry a lot, and due to shit parenting, doesn’t really know how to express his anger productively, so he bottles it up until he has an opportunity to turn it into despair or sadness, or to get it out, which further complicates his relationship with violence. He doesn’t really believe that he could ever be nonviolent because of how he’s been manipulated, but something he would hope for if he thought that hope wouldn’t lead him to more disappointment would be that someday he could protect people without resorting to violence.

Alder is not even a legal adult until part of the way through Recall, so how he interacts with people is largely in flux because he’s still figuring shit out. However, I think he’d immediately panic if we set him in another universe because while we’d be taking him away from the source of his pain, he would not be there to bear the brunt of it in order to shield his people. (His sister, Finnick, his tributes, Johanna, Haymitch, the other Victors, etc)

Despite wanting to go back asap, I think he’d probably get along well with anyone competent, or at least be polite with them. He would immediately set people off if they hated liars / could spot liars, because not only does he suppress his emotions, he manipulates the heck out of everyone he doesn’t know well. He’s pretty serious, but he does enjoy when people are natural goofballs because while he doesn’t exactly know how to interact with that kind of person, it’s a marked difference from fake Capitol elites and badly coping people from the Districts. Alder- despite his tendency to think fast- probably could not keep up with people like Wade Wilson, though he’d wouldn’t end up upset, just confused. He’d be fine with powers if he knows about them before they are used, and while he might get along with Quinn and Logan, he’d be just as likely to put up an emotional wall to hide the panic that comes from being massively out of his depth. Probably wouldn’t be able to hide it completely.

Alder has a ton of me in him, so like me, it’s hard to say if he’s going to be able to adjust / adapt quickly or get massively thrown off by changes. It depends on where he’s at. Unlike me, he forms very deep attachments to people around him, even if he doesn’t particularly like them. (Example: Eero, an older District 7 Victor, is absolutely an asshole, but if Eero ever needed anything, Alder would take care of it immediately.) So if he’s required to work on a team, he’s going to need people on that team to like him or find him useful in some way. He is used to receiving rejection in subtle ways though, so he will distance himself if he thinks it’s necessary or that he’s bothering someone.

Willow is Alder’s friend, and while she later is taken from District 7 for trying to stop people from taking Ash (Alder’s sister), she kind of jumpstarts Alder’s realization about his identity. She confesses that she wants a romantic relationship with him before he leaves to be a Mentor for the first time, and while he tries not to think about it, he ultimately comes to the conclusion that he loves her in a way that is completely platonic. He has to work through guilt about that after she is taken, but he realizes that if he loved her romantically, that doesn’t mean he would have loved her better or been in a better position to save her, which helps. Alder also has more realizations about himself through observing the Victors; many of them use romance or sex as a way to reclaim their autonomy, and even those around him who have sworn off it did it because of past or present trauma. While Alder is happy that some of his friends have ways they’ve dealt with trauma that don’t seem as harmful as his, Haymitch’s, and Chaff’s drinking problems, he is quick to observe that he is alone in this (at least in his circle).

Delu comes in pretty late in Recall, but has a bigger role in The Other Side Of The Coin (the third / final work in the series, currently in the planning stage). Delu replaces Trace as the new escort for District 7. Alder becomes really close with her, and she’s one of the first people in Alder’s life to realize without being told that he doesn’t want sex or romance in his life, and that it’s nothing personal and it’s not a statement of defiance. While Delu is not aro or ace, she ultimately decides that she’d rather spend her life as Alder’s close friend and teammate than find a spouse to settle down with. They both teach each other a lot; Alder teaches Delu about the Districts and Delu teaches Alder about how ugly the Capitol can be to their own, not only to the Districts.

If you can’t tell, I love my imaginary son a lot. I’m gonna stop now, but here’s a line from Recall that I haven’t posted yet lol (it references the fact that Alder doesn’t get to see Ash as she grows up):

Ash grows older. 7’s tributes don’t.

[stackthedeck]

Generally speaking, people view shipping as an intellectually lazy way of engaging with media. And I’ve never found a compelling argument for that idea because they rarely give a full definition of what shipping is. Often people will wrongly assume that shipping is the equivalent of the affirmative behavior of fan theories, a reasoned argument of what should be canon. Now, this has been a form of shipping but shipping is highly specific to culture and time. I could give you a whole history lesson on the premise of star trek or the relationshippers of x-files or the difference between western fandom and eastern fandom, but that's neither here nor there. But the idea of a ship needing to be canon or "endgame" comes from a period of time when queerbait was common but it was not recognized as bait but rather foreshadowing. This created a small but vocal group of people who brought an affirmative mindset to fan theorizing in what used to be a transformative space. Thankfully nature has healing and shipping is no longer stuck in “should” but instead in the “coulds” and the “what ifs.” Shipping at its core is a creative means of dissecting relationships both romantic, platonic, and even antagonistic. It highlights or even transforms canon into character-driven storytelling which is something I find valuable in an age of action blockbusters franchises.

And this is why I find people viewing shipping as “lazy” is detrimental to how we engage in literature. I have yet to find affirmative fan spaces that have an equivalent of shipping, a behavior that highlights human connection. Affirmative fans don’t talk about what characters bring to each other but what they bring to the plot or maybe how they make the main character look good, even then it’s not a two-way street. And I find it beyond frustrating because it has seeped into the mainstream. The resistance towards character and emotion has made everything flat and hollow. The biggest complaint against the Avengers is that they are co-workers, not family. The Star Wars sequels don't feel cohesive because relationships aren't preserved between movies despite the chemistry of the original trio carried the original trilogy. Y’all hate Dan Slott because he sees the women around Peter Parker as set dressing rather than equal parts of a relationship. When you value spectacle and reason over connection and emotion you have lost the humanity of storytelling