#ok done soapboxing

[shesmore-shoebill]

Not to get TOO far up on a soapbox here but I love Shayne's take here and vehemently agree with it. Oftentimes media is trying to do a specific thing and its helpful (and more fun!) to approach analysis while being conscious of the question of "did it do that thing or not"

Sometimes media is intended for deep and in depth analysis. Sometimes its intended to let u look at kickass explosions and go "wow", or watch pretty people kiss. Sometimes its for both!!! but. not always.

[rowandekarios]

happy pride month it’s a great time to remember gale dekarios is a queer man and I have never explicitly stated otherwise nor will i ever 💕

[perenlop]

“the kirby anime is the one perfect wholesome anime and you must be evil if you don’t like it” is the kirby version of “team rocket is ultimate queer rep and you were homophobic if you didnt like them as a kid/dont admit they’re the best characters of all time now” mainstream media takes that come exclusively from people who havent actually seen the show since they were children (if theyve seen it at all)

[transhulklings]

Fucked up how good this movie is

I post all of my art on Instagram @ spider_bytez

[murderballadeer]

ok one last thing before i stop being a jerk but the "wide sargasso sea is jane eyre fanfiction" person writes harry styles x reader erotica

[conartisthaiji]

yeah for the most part im done looking into new ggs

[mimsypoo]

back in 2022 i left the community for reasons exactly like this, i realized how shallow many people were and how quickly they'd turn on me if i did something they didn't like, regardless of how long we'd been mutuals for. it really made me feel like the whole community was an elaborate farce built around giving others attention for the sole purpose of getting it back.

there are kind people in the community, and it would be disingenuous to pretend the community hasn't always had problems, but this disenfranchisement feels particularly depressing because it's so... cyclical. i'm a victim of it myself.

one becomes sad because no one wants to give attention, only to get it, and then you stop giving others attention because you assume they won't give it back to you. it sucks that people will take it for granted, but isn't it just exacerbating the problem to withhold your attention based on who will reciprocate? isn't that the exact problem in the first place???

it's difficult, don't get me wrong. if you've been left behind, your resentment is justified. i did leave because i was uncomfortable with everyone, with the behavior i saw, but holy shit if you're going to be in a community, you have to be in it. you have to be ok with giving attention to people who won't give it back to you. otherwise, why are you even giving it to them in the first place? are you setting yourself up for resentment and bitterness by classifying your kind acts by what you'll get out of them, rather than what you're giving?

if you're friends, that's a whole other story, but what i'm saying is... if you want the community to feel more connected and supportive, put in the work. sorry to be harsh, but complaining about how no one is paying attention to each other anymore and then also not paying attention to anyone other than your pre-existing friends helps NO ONE. not saying anon is doing this, idk them, but i know everyone complaining in the notes is not above this.

and i get it. i've been there, and i think it's a lot harder to feel compelled to participate in the community when no one is interacting with you- but that's why it has to start with you, not other people. you can't control them. we can go on and on about the way online culture has turned art circles into a cesspool of selfishness, but at the end of the day, we can only be responsible for ourselves.

ask yourself, "are you being the person YOU want to SEE in the community?" if not, then don't complain about your own absence.

nobody in the selfship community really acts like a proper community or even tries to interact with one another anymore.

im looking back at all these selfship ask games from 2018-2019 and back then you had tight knit groups of friends hyping up each other, sending each other f/o letters, headcanons or ask games and genuinely interacting with one another.

now in most selfship discord servers, it's mostly people talking to themselves in gushing channels and being ignored or nobody even bothering to participate in ask games on tumblr.

not to sound like a boomer but now the selfship community just feels like a clique. and barely even that because most people only care about their own selfships and never give anything back to others.

.

[alto-tenure]

I want to say it now since I've been seeing a lot of "localization discourse" on my Twitter feed (a mistake, I know) and I've been known to cobble machine translations together for lines to try to understand where the localizations derived aspects of the game from, etc etc -- this is not & never has been meant as a criticism of the localization team for "mistranslation". Putting aside that a lot of the anti-localization discourse is driven by bad-faith actors who refuse to believe that gay people aren't just a Western phenomenon, as an extremely amateur linguist, there is no such thing as an "objectively correct" translation. We only fit together the puzzle pieces as best we are able to. One of the most interesting things about the Professor Layton localizations in specific is finding the differences between the two English localizations, and this is why I find going back to a bare-bones translation of the Japanese can be useful -- it's a lens to understand the decisions made, rather than a criticism of those decisions. One version sticking closer to my understanding of the original text doesn't mean that the other version is "worse" or a bastardization of the text. Translation & cultural lens impacting how we interpret art is one of the most interesting opportunities presented by art being spread globally and experienced by a wide variety of people speaking different languages, all trying to communicate the same story.

[tvdfan23]

I think my family is so upset that I'm not a regular church goer anymore that they'll pick a fight over anything 🙃

[jedi-enthusiast]

I said I would get on my "let villains just be evil" soapbox again in the Jedi Appreciation server, so here we are.

LET VILLAINS JUST BE EVIL, FOR FORCE'S SAKE!!!

For some context: this was brought up on a discussion of how Kallus should've just stayed a villain instead of getting the shitty half-assed "redemption arc" that he did in Rebels and also how I would have done Rebels differently.

Now-

I am just...so utterly sick of people (both fans + some of the people creating new SW media) just not letting villains be villains and/or trying to soften them up or give them a sad backstory or whatever.

-----

I like Anakin/Darth Vader as a villain...fans try to justify his actions and say that he was right + Filoni is now under the delusional impression that Anakin was the "best Jedi."

I like Thrawn as a villain...I've also seen people justify his actions and say that he was "right" to steal important cultural artifacts from the cultures he's taking over/destroying because "they'd be destroyed anyway," like that makes it ok.

(I'm also terrified that Filoni is gonna try to give him some sort of sob story or redemption arc in the Ahsoka show, since that's pretty on par for what he's been doing lately)

I like Maul as a villain...and apparently people also try to justify his actions, especially in Rebels, for some reason. I don't even know how, but apparently they do.

I like Dooku as a villain and Filoni tried to justify his actions and make him seem "reasonable" in TotJ, like Dooku didn't become a fucking fascist dictator.

I haven't seen enough of the Sequels to properly gauge whether or not I'd like Kylo Ren as a villain, but plenty of people did! ...and then the directors gave him a half-assed redemption arc and called it quits.

-----

Like please, for the love of god, can people just let villains be evil and terrible people? Can we all just enjoy their characters as they are instead of trying to turn them into something they're not?

Because, at this point, the only villain that's safe to like is Palpatine--but I'm almost certain that people have tried to justify his actions too.

It's exhausting to have to explain-

"Yes, I like Anakin/Darth Vader because I think he's badass, no I don't think the Jedi were evil or in the wrong or that they caused his Fall."

"Yes, I like Thrawn because I think he's creepy and a formidable opponent to face, no I don't think he was benevolent for stealing cultural artifacts from cultures he destroyed."

"Yes, I like Maul because he's absolutely batshit insane, no I don't think his actions against Obi-Wan were justified or that he was right to try and manipulate/kidnap Ezra to be his apprentice."

"Yes, I like Dooku because he's a snarky asshole and also pretty badass, no I don't think that he was actually right or that the Separatists were right either."

etc. etc.

LET VILLAINS JUST BE EVIL!

[fadingtostardust]

Jegulus Gamer - Microfic p2

Needless to say James didn’t get anything done that night. He wanted to, he tried… but he’s a weak man. Whispering Wanderer’s voice was just so captivating. He wanted to listen to every word that dropped to the mic and blessed his ears.

Needless to say it’s been 3 weeks and James hasn’t been back because it’s midterm and he HAS to do well. He does have SOME self control… but it’s been hard because the idiot subscribed to the channel and Whispering Wanderer goes live 3 times a week; James knows from all the notifications he’s had to fight against. 9 times he’s yearned to hear that voice again. 9 times he fought to stay away for his own betterment. It’s not like the streamer would notice anyways. He’d been there once and there were close to 300 people in his stream.

But now… midterms were over and James was free. Coincidentally it was Tuesday too. Huzzah. James had taken his last midterm this morning, stopped by the coffee shop for a good cuppa and started walking back to his apartment. It was autumn and the leaves were changing colors in Edinburgh.

James was studying History of Art at the University of Edinburgh in hope to go into Meusum management or curation later on. He hadn’t quite decided which direction but James knew he loved to observe beautiful things. Not only beautiful things… but WHY something was beautiful to someone or some culture. It was mesmerizing.

James’ mother Effie often teased him about how he couldn’t sit still EXCEPT when he was listing to someone soapbox about a passion or interest. It was just… intoxicating and James was there to soak it in. The small little things that no one else cared to notice or remember.

James had a feeling that this Wandering Whisperer was made of small little things. A collage of things that may seem insignificant to others but were so important when combined into one whole. It was like the hours a curator would put into mapping an exhibit. Carefully placing art and pondering on which pieces should be together either for similarities or contrast.

James’ keys tinkled as he unlocked the door to his apartment, sliding off his shoes, and throwing his coat over the back of the kitchenette chair that was close by. It was a small apartment, but cozy, and James was lucky to have the place to himself. He could come and go as he pleased, host friends, and in most weeks… let it get a little messier than entirely necessary.

James walked over to his PC and booted it up as he changed into his favorite jumper and pair of sweats. The stream had already started but that was ok. He didn’t have to be “on time” and streams usually lasted 3-6 hours just depending. When James opened Twitch the BRB screen was on but everyone was chatting.

Prongs: Hey everyone!

Padfoot: Hey Prongsi boy! Welcome back.

ChaoticChaos: Die. Nah, I’m joking… mostly.

WistfulWhistles: Hey Prongs! I was just thinking about you! Wondered where you ended up but I had a feeling you’ve been busy. It’s midterms season right?

James was surprised at the welcome. He didn’t think anyone would remember him. As he was typing his reply the screen changed and there was Tiny Glade and the star.

Whispering Wanderer: I see you all blowing up chat. What’s going on?

<they all wait as he catches up>

Whispering Wanderer: Oh, hi prongs. Welcome back. It’s been what three weeks? How’ve you been?

James freezes, stunned that he had drawn enough attention to be remembered AND…. he knew how long it’s been.

Padfoot: No one’s been keeping track or anything ^\\\^

ChaoticChaos: @@

Whispering Wanderer: It was a simple guess guys. Calm down.

James kept swinging from the elated feeling of being noticed to the deflate of Wanderer’s previous statement. Of course he could have just threw out a random length of time. It was silly to think it was anything more…

Prongs: Yeah… midterms. Had to study. You know. But I’m back. Ready to watch and have fun on tiny glade.\{^-^}/

Whispering Wanderer: *chuckles* well we’re glad you’re here. We’re still hooked on Tiny Glade. I’m trying to decide porch or no porch.

James thought for a minute and then typed quickly.

Prongs: Porch. You have to have a place to sit and look at the stars.

There was silence for a minute and it made James antsy. Did he say something wrong? This is when he wished there was a face instead of an avatar… input on feelings and processing was SO limited.

Whispering Wanderer: True.

[itsnotthaaatserious]

i'm a casual reader of lore olympus. i enjoy it passively for what it is and check tumblr after updates just to ruminate on it a bit or catch the thoughts of other fans. i have no intention of talking about lore olympus at length or even really using this blog because, honestly? lore olympus is not that serious. it's a soap opera inspired by greek myths with a pseudo modern aesthetic. it's campy, cookie cutter, and sure as fuck not the place i would go to to get a fresh or faithful take on the persephone/hades myth. i mean it's a webtoon for fuck's sake. a cursory look at the art style and marketing will tell you all you need to know about how deep this story's going to be.

And yet. the tags on this godforsaken website are absolutely overrun with anti lo / lo critical hot takes expressing the oh-so-novel idea that lo isn't very good, to which i say... no shit? the art's inconsistent/disproportionate. writing is often mid. characterization is... ok, i'll show my hand here. I think a lot of people's problems with the characters themselves is just a fundamental disagreement on interpretation, because the greek gods are by and large colossal assholes and can be twisted to be as saintly or sinister as you want them to be. that particular point is just a subjective "noooo my greek god/goddess blorbo was done so dirty" without taking anything else (such as creative decisions) into consideration. but i digress.

my ultimate point here is the pseudo intellectuals getting worked up over a webtoon soap opera are fucking annoying. greek mythology has been adapted TO DEATH because it is the most well known mythology in human history. if you don't enjoy lo there is nothing wrong with that. after all, as i already said, it's not that good - it's the equivalent of trash tv. so why the everloving fuck are so many people so pressed and dedicated to criticizing lo? literally just go find a different adaptation. lo is hardly a cultural juggernaut forever tainting the high-brow sophistication of greek mythology (lmao) and your constant need to fill the tags with criticism is more indicative of how emotionally invested you are in this comic than the actual quality of the comic itself. i swear to god almost all these posts i see average under a 100 notes. lo barely has a fandom presence on tumblr. the fuck are you all doing.

anyway *steps off my soapbox*

[steampunkforever]

Were you to pitch me on a film about a dystopian government taking a bunch of youthful political rebels to the desert and hunting them in organized challenges as they try to earn their freedom, I would say that I'm too old for YA novels. Except Punishment Park is decidedly not this, instead presenting us with a documentary-style political commentary on America and the encroaching Fascism of the 1970s.

If you've been reading these filmposts, you know my dislike of the soapbox and the use of art as a pulpit, political and otherwise. That said, sometimes when you make movies about politics you have to actually talk about politics. This can also be well done, just like in the 1971 political commentary film Punishment Park.

Punishment Park is all in all a properly bleak film. Shot in documentary style, it tackles the hippy fears of Nixon-era internment camps for counterculture figures. This same cultural anxiety can be found in Thomas Pynchon's book Vineland, except this time it's Reagan-era internment camps, and the traces of this anxiety have trickled down all the way into the FEMA Camp conspiracies of the 90s and onward. For as outlandish as those conspiracies may seem, just a couple decades prior to the release of this film we'd seen the US Government legislate, build, and forcibly round up and imprison Japanese Americans regardless of their guilt or association.

Which is to say that as the hippies saw the iron-fisted crackdown against the excesses (civil rights protests) of the flower children at the same time as the ongoing military draft was dumping the country's young men directly into a meatgrinder shaped like a failing imperial war, the prospect of getting tossed into a desert prison for "thinking different" was less of a YA Novel premise than it sounds today coming from your weird aunt who stays on facebook groups too much. A lot of stuff was happening back then, and all at once. Punishment Park reflects this political turmoil, and makes no attempt to hide the politics of what is an explicitly political film.

SO, what about this film makes overt political commentary OK while leaving Adam McKay's attempts in baby jail for "being too self-righteous with it?" My answer to this lies in the combination of the documentary storytelling of the film and the movie's use of the Socratic Method.

See, one of the main gripes about soapboxing in films focuses on the strawmen this sort of script-as-pulpit storytelling generates. For the otherwise perfect film that is First Reformed, the youth group scene's handling of the opposing viewpoint is jarring when compared to the nuance the rest of the film exhibits. Punishment Park skirts the bad-faith readings of the opposing ideology, and harnesses the documentary style to do it.

The movie is set in two parts, exchanging points of view as it hops between them. The first part is the action of the film, showcasing hippies in the desert running for freedom as the cops hunt them down, all of the captured by a team of foreign documentary filmmakers. The second part showcases prisoners in a kangaroo court of sorts as they are questioned by a board of Union reps, draft board members, and other community administrators in something half trial half Hayes Commission pt. 2. Enter the Socratic Method.

The desert section of the film stands well on its own. A minimal dialogue documentary style depiction of police brutality in a bitter commentary on jackboots serving The Man in what's basically Cop City: California. The interspersed trial footage brings to bear the overt commentary of the film. Punishment Park Vs America, facilitated through the board's interrogations of various counterculture prisoners.

The inquests held before sentencing provide us with the push and pull of ideas (intercut between desert scenes showcasing the output of said ideas) much like Magneto and Prof. X debate over a game of chess, but with significantly more oppressive power dynamics. This allows the film to present both sides of the argument bare faced, free of subtext. Pure clash of ideas, presented in a way too interesting to be preachy. It's organic, and nobody feels like a strawman.

Punishment Park pulls it off. The tirades against American Imperialism and police brutality in the film feel natural, unforced. The bad guys are presented as intelligent, rational people who are in fact supporting a fascist regime, and that makes things much more powerful. The Union Rep. and the Draft Board member are ordinary people, and the questions they pose to the prisoners awaiting the judgement of a sham trial are very much in tune with the culture of the time, as are the responses of the counterculture prisoners. It's a human film, and the humanity reaches out to even the inhumane cops killing hippies in the desert.

The best thing the film does is present us with the exchange of ideas. There is no fear of the other guys being right. Because they aren't, and any good ideological position should hold up against them. And they do, it just doesn't matter, because the system is rigged against them from the start, and no matter how much they rail against it the panel of concerned citizens sitting in judgement, the court will never judge in their favor.

It was never intended to.

[murderballadeer]

everyone say go to bed lucie it's 1:30am

[thebroccolination]

Love your post about Krist's scandals! wondering where are you from. it's ok if you need privacy.

Aw, thank you! I really appreciate that. I’m from the U.S. originally, but I’ve been living abroad for a long time.

Aaand little soapbox moment:

The hate against Krist is so disproportionate to the sum total of every single misstep he’s ever done. It really emphasizes to me that interfans are just abusing him for fun.

Some of them celebrated his car crash.

That’s when I decided to make my thread, because I’ve been a fan of Krist since 2020 when the hate really ramped up, and I’ve never seen him be anything but kind to everyone around him and committed to improving himself every day. That’s the kind of person you want to see succeed, and he has. He’s loved and respected by the people who work with him, he has a loyal fanbase, and he’s been regularly working since he made his series debut with SOTUS.

In the end, interfans might have hurt him and traumatized him, but he survived it through therapy and the love he’s earned from everyone around him. And I’m proud of him for being relentlessly kind in the face of such tremendous and malicious cruelty.

[styleandcheek]

How is your mental health?

I've had the hardest year of my life so far and in so many ways. I've lost a lot of things and I feel like I'm barely hanging on but I'm so grateful for my amazing friends and family (and music and food and art and nature). I've gotten really good at detachment whereas I've clung to things in the past that were out of my control or hurt me. I'm also seeing things so clearly when it comes to what isn't good for me and letting things go. The two phrases "change is the only constant" and "let go, or be dragged" are fueling me. I know I'm insanely resistant which is like YAY I can do it! But I'm scarily detached right now and I wonder if I'll ever get my same joyful spirit back. All I can do is keep going. Today I found out my sessions with my therapist will be ending soon because of location, which is heartbreaking. She's been SO wonderful and crucial to my growth these last few years. I'll need to process this loss... P.S. therapy is the best thing I've ever done, do it even if you don't have "serious" problems because I've learned so much about myself, relationships, the world, humans. It's incredible what an outside perspective (plus someone with a lot of empathy) can do for you. This is really just my soapbox time shouting out to people, "Go to therapy! Go deeply internal and figure yourself out! Fix those childhood wounds. Touch grass. Work through your trauma even if that trauma is something small like a 5th grade teacher calling you pathetic because you had performance anxiety before giving a speech because you didn't study your flash cards because you have ADHD so why would you...ok tangent. That teacher was cruel and it's not on me." Anyway, therapy is cool! 😊🫶

Now who wants a big hug? Because I do. 🙂‍↕️