#progression in media

[blumoonfiction-blog]

New Beginnings and Timeless Tales: Progression, Reflection, and the Power of Stories

January is the perfect time to embrace new beginnings. As we turn the page on another year, it’s an opportunity to reflect on the past, set goals for the future, and dive into stories that inspire growth, change, and possibility. At Blu Moon Fiction, we’ve kicked off 2025 with a celebration of the theme “New Beginnings and Timeless Tales,” exploring how books, films, TV shows, and folklore help…

[lasnevadaslaborunion]

It frightens and discourages me how pervasive "tribal" stereotypes and imagery are in the fantasy and adventure genres.

It's all over the place in classic literature. Crack open a Jules Verne novel and you're likely to find caricatures of brown people and cultures, even when the characters are sympathetic to the plight of the colonized peoples - incidentally, this is the biggest reason I can't recommend 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to everyone, despite Captain Nemo being one of my favorite fictional characters of all time.

You can't escape it in modern cinema, either. You'll see white heroes venturing bravely into jungles and tombs to steal from natives who don't know how to use their resources "properly." You'll see them strung up in traps, riddled with sleeping darts, forced to flee and fight their way out. Hell, Pirates of the Caribbean, a remarkably inclusive franchise in many other ways, had an extended sequence of the white heroes escaping from a cannibal civilization in the second film.

And when fantasy RPGs want a humanoid enemy, the "bloodthirsty natives" are the first stock trope they jump to. World of Warcraft is one of the most egregious examples, with the trolls - blatant racist caricatures with faux-voodoo beliefs, cannibalistic diets, Jamaican accents, and a history of being killed in droves by (white) elves and humans - being raided and slaughtered in nearly every expansion.

It doesn't matter how vibrant and distinctive the real-world indigenous, Polynesian, Caribbean, and African cultures are. It doesn't matter how much potential these real civilizations offer for complex and sympathetic characterization. Anything that doesn't make sense to the white western mind is shoved under the same "savage" umbrella. They're different. They're strange. They're scary. They have to be escaped, subjugated, eliminated, ogled at from the safety of a museum.

Modern writers, directors, and developers don't even seem to realize how horrifying it is to present the indigenous inhabitants of a place as "obstacles" for non-native protagonists to overcome. "It's not racist," they say, "because these people aren't really people, you see." And if you dare to point out anything that hurts or offends you as a descendant of the bastardized culture, you're accused of being the real racist: "These aren't humans! They're monsters! Are you saying that these real societies are just like those disgusting monsters?"

No, they're not monsters. But you chose to design them as monsters, just as invaders have done for hundreds of years. Why would you do that? Why can you recognize any other caricature as evil and cruel, but not this?

This is how deep colonialism runs.

[politijohn]

Source

[drachenmagier]

spark.

[jagalart]

sketch I and II

These two were for the incredible @Havranil 🖤 Fineliner, ink and a bit of digital.

[komsomolka]

let's be real piracy is essentially not that popular in imperial core because it's collectively richer than the rest of the world. it's not about being ignorant how workers are paid in the industry.

[mcr-themed-brain]

Im on season 2 of mash and ive determined that if this show came out today the same people who watched it religiously in the 70s would call it woke propaganda

[pallanophblargh]

I have a disproportionately loud mess of a head for no discernible reason* so it’s kind of a miracle that I spent the last month and some change willing myself to wield watercolor again. Witness the struggle! A long overdue color sketch for a (super patient) client.

Just watercolor with a boop of gouache.

*they are a mush of small but immense problems??? Executive dysfunction being maximized by meds the main culprit…

[monikahmakes]

Six small square studies in progress.

It makes me happy to see how many different materials and processes I'm using here- that makes it feel like a particularly good form of practice/exploration as I try to find my rhythm. Materials include cardboard, papers, cotton, linen, wool, viscose, acrylic paint, house paint, ink, cloth, wire, tyvek, polymer clay, plastic, glass, pearl, and my kid's old dried-out clay. Processes include crochet, knitting, felting, embroidery, my process of making paper stones and their trimmings, and all kinds of collage/assemblage stuff.

[critter-wizard]

you are all I have, you are the eyes that see, the air that breathes, how can I worship anything else?

[gingerswagfreckles]

I see a post about how JK Rowling's goblins are antisemitic. I click on the person's blog. Their blog is filled with Holocaust inversion, MENA Jewish genocide denial, Hamas support, political "takes" from Twitter bitches with the red triangle in their usernames. I click out and block.

[bookrat]

Thalassodromeus commission from over on Twitter

[politijohn]

Eat the rich

[drachenmagier]

Have some cats. :D My favorite class: The Nekomancer

[ibahibut]

I forgot to share here also… 😅 Alright, see you in 2025