#she thinks they are very cute and sweet and fun

[sybaritick]

I completely agree with what you are saying here about how "fluffy" rests on a ton of assumptions about what is normal (and have said similar in other posts), but I also think that it's fine that sometimes people do actually want to write and read fluffy for-fun stories that take many things about the society they live in for granted without examination. People have done this in every society!

Certainly not every story should be like this, and it's not a recipe for producing high art, but I think the desire for stories that are soothing and easy to digest because they reflect our unexamined assumptions about the world is nearly universal (some people just have more of this desire than others). The problem is usually just people not realizing this and assuming their unexamined cute pastoral fantasy is the same as everyone else's-- one woman's genuinely sweet story about watching the Super Bowl in a house in the suburbs with her future husband and their friends is another woman's harrowing psychological horror. I would hate that life. But she would genuinely love it! People often think their "cozy" fantasy is somehow universal when it's particular to their place and time. "Cozy" is about normalcy and normalcy varies.

But I don't really agree that this is an indictment of every work described as cute and fluffy, because I think the desire for those works is very human and saying that they are always politically bad is one, probably true (yes! they are politically bad, in that they don't examine the harms of the society we live in) and two, not all that useful unless you're examining it further than it being bad. You can politically analyze them to find interesting insights about the ideas of the author and their society, but they are meant for comfort, just like you can read mafia boss dubcon erotica and psychoanalyze what this says about the author and get some genuinely interesting insights about sexuality and misogyny, but they are meant for titillation. And because of that, I don't think it reflects negatively on the author unless they're claiming their work is somehow universal.

I think there's just really no escaping the fact that if you decide that you are just writing something "fluffy for fun" and therefore you do not want to examine any of the worldbuilding implications or their impacts on the characters who live in that world, you are just going to end up reproducing the social rules and structures that YOU think are ✨normal✨ in an obviously unexamined way, which is unfortunately one of the least flattering things an author can do. cannot overstate what a bad look this is.

[thelightsgoout]

i told myself i would stay off tumblr until i watched at least one pov of the new life series

but gem is so sick. oh i feel so bad for her. her voice

:((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( (i've decided to add another layer of the frown every time i feel terrible because her voice sounds like it hurts)

she's still so charming though... also ig i'm blogging this cause i've already got tumblr open on my 2nd monitor. spoilers under the read more!

... why is grian tryharding lol. i am so down for this team though

apparently the only thing we needed for a shinyduo teamup was for gem to be sick... oh wow. oh wow. "pearl will always team with me if i ask" i mean, you're right but you didn't need to say it.

food and pearl! where's the third good thing? oh, apparently she's invisible so... i mean. superpowers are a good thing ig? and the spider spawner is good

in the most miserable voice you've ever heard: "i'm not being sad right now. i'm very excited"

btw i hate the lighting in this version of minecraft. why can't i see anything?

this team is effortlessly charming me. they're such good friends and you can tell.

grian is fully on a villain arc, what is this??? "i want the strongest team, i want to take everyone else's stuff, blah blah blah" and gem and pearl are all in...

gem's reasoning goes immediately to her reputation already making her one. life!gem and her weird relationship with her reputation s3 incoming (i say as if that's not a core part of life!gem's character)

"i'm a villain. i'm the scariest villain ever. right now" made me add 4 frowns and activated some instinct i didn't even know i had. tell me why i'm seconds away from walking to the kitchen to make some soup???

this group (as in the chemistry between all lifers) is so good. Team Villain goes "we need someone to wrong us" and two seconds later UnDivorcedDuo (martyn and cleo) show up and. stuff happens.

i don't even know what to say about that tnt kill/grian's fall. i think it's gonna be "wet cat friday" from here on out...

What is "The Villies". Who made that. Why. GRIAN??? I'm not calling them that. They can be the villains, team rocket, wet cats, i don't care. i am NOT calling ANYONE "the villies"

Skizz is being so sweet :D dad instinct was triggered. and skizz also armored the rest of her team? for no reason? what's his plan here lol

this might be the shortest life series ever. we're actively pvp-ing (kinda, with jimmy retaliating over theft) on day 1?

"by being villains we are turning everyone else into villains" grian this is the life series. and the only people you have targeted so far tend to react... extremely.

gem just insta-wins the social game with her voice like that. i don't get pictures in my brain, but every time she opens her mouth i see a kicked puppy. the giggle was pretty evil tho

the little villain lessons were cute. "less empathy" "lying for fun" etc

Bdubs with normal eyes is so weird. He is also in dad mode at Gem's voice

the misadventures of gem and pig... and pig is down and gem doesn't have a saddle. i do think she was the victim there

GEM AND LEADERSHIP??? sick gem is blatant with her character themes. "this is what everybody wants from me, right?" GEMINITAY WHEN I GET YOU

a true villain with her sad sick manipulative voice is working on me :( she's just a little guy :((( guys she's soooo sick :(

oh, she's so good at sounding pathetic. and being sweet and begging for scraps. aww, she's so proud of herself for getting that iron ingot that she didn't even need

guys she's so sad :((( she should get everything ever. yes, she should take the sugar cane for free. oh. etho is just scared cause of the sword. booooo, let her pathetic-sickgirl manipulation work, not her usual "i'm the scariest person here" manipulation

we're fighting to the death??? GEM DEAD??? kill him. kill him. please it would be so funny and so villainous to take the fair fight, lose fair and square, and then just kill him afterwards.

unfortunately, even starting as the villain, gem plays fair

i didn't mean to predict the words "wet cat" in this episode.

i really like this "lighthouse of time" idea

gem's sick laugh, oh no. it's adorable and so, so painful

this rose thing is fun. it certainly isn't showing any cracks in this team's foundation

gem and pearl choose each other's side, and not fully committing to grian's villain bit. gem tries to say she's still committed and the roses have symbolism (and is the first to follow grain to commit villainy, as far as i can tell) but i mean... gem is on tumblr. she knows color theory. grian is very against it, but immediately overruled, though he gets his ultimate goal (more villainy, and with his whole team)

the trap/trick/prank went well, but not as far as i expected. i suppose that's just cause everyone is still comfortably green.

i think gem is very relieved to not have to be the leader. grian tends to naturally take the leader role in his groups, and both pearl and grian are winners, which puts gem firmly away from a leadership role unless she wants it and takes it

that being said, gem is willing to speak up if she has thoughts or disagreements, pearl is (historically, haven't watched her pov yet) willing to go against the wishes of the group, and grian seems willing to listen to both of them. this may end up democratic

that being said, grian said (dejectedly, going along with the vote) "villains don't believe in democracy" earlier. we'll see who ends up committing to this bit the most when it's over

closing thoughts: this was fun, sick gem can do no wrong (though i hope she gets better soon), this team is SO interesting, i am scarily empathetic bc my throat hurts now, and i need to go find that @huggywuggysuppy gem's friends circle post and see why i like this team so much

[rxttenfish]

please understand. if you sit close to aaravi while shes deep in thought, you can hear her Clicky Clacky her mandibles. they might be useless but they ARE stimmy as hell.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

bakingformers where they all work at a bakery together and nothing bad ever happens

[sysig]

Skelekinz (Patreon)

[ahollowgrave]

"Gotcha!" 📷

[crystalpallette]

frye inspires this sort of manic "i can do whatever i want" kinda will in people and god. I sure did do whatever I wanted here

[urfavedumbcunt]

Putting her shirt on and having my brain go fuzzy bc it smells like her >>>>>>>>

[ispridestillasin]

So I decided to watch a bit of Bridgerton with my mother, which I'm not really interested in (I don't really like period pieces unless it's a fanfic for a ship I like) but it's a show she enjoys so I sometimes catch her watching it and join her, and literally the only takeaway from the stuff I've seen with her is that Colin, Lord Debling, and Penelope should have all been poly

[tallymali]

one thing i will say about sabrina is she kinda just..does have boring album covers lmao

[devilishdelights]

officially stealing mammon as an oc (as well as all obey me characters but mainly mammon) and it’s gonna be fun :-]

[smile-files]

i need to play dress-up with luke... i need to put him in a bunch of sweet little outfits like he's getting ready for picture day...

[cloudbends]

Ok more articulate thoughts on heartcatch's midpoint in the tags

[goldenkid]

ok now that wild blue yonder was actually good i can be honest and say i didn't like the star beast

[crownconstellation]

rewatched the action button 6 hour tokimemo video over the course of my shifts yesterday + today and it really, Really made me want to play the game myself. both to see this incredibly intricate game that pretty much set the standard for social sims going forward (gestures at my being a longtime harvestmoonstoryofseasons / rune factory fan, two series that were undoubtedly part of the many influenced by this) but also to see shiori through my own eyes.

not to court her. i am very bad at management sims & don't have the interest in achieving this. i just want to see her because i think she's incredibly fascinating from a metatextual standpoint based on how she's presented in the game and the review both. she's more of a goal than a person. she's certainly very popular amongst fans, but is it because of who she is? or because of what she is? she's the True Route. she's the hardest character to court bar the girl you meet specifically through pursuing her, her best friend, her own greatest foe in the race towards the finish. she's the protagonist's childhood friend. she's the face of the series. she's the stepping stone to bring you towards every other character in the game.

she is so, so many things, and i think it's very interesting to think about her from that perspective. especially if the protagonist goes for someone else -- he starts off liking her, and despite their estrangement she clearly holds affection for him. she even says in her ending that she’s probably always liked him but was afraid to admit it, & that he’s the reason she’s never dated. yet despite this affection, in the back of her mind, her doubt (and, hand-in-hand with it, her reputation) matters more to her than he does -- her reason for turning him down when he asks to walk with her is that her friends would gossip, and she mentions in the christmas event date that it was her who first broke their tradition of celebrating together to spend the day with her friends instead. she’s consistently holding him at arm’s length and prioritising other things and people, and he has to fight for her to look at him in a way she’s never let herself look despite knowing him for so, so long.

she, on a meta, game requirements sort of level, wants a guy with high stats and so little stress it proves he's balancing everything well. she wants a guy who'll get into the best university possible. she wants a guy who can manage a wide social circle. she wants the protagonist, at her core, but the requirements mean she wants a version of the protagonist he has to spend all of high school becoming to meet her expectations to convince her that her interest in him is genuine, and in every timeline but one, she is not getting that protagonist because he either cannot or will not become that man for her. whether he ends up alone or with someone else, he is as much her lost lenore as she is his. it makes tokimemo a very interesting narrative about growing up and growing past your childhood and first love and whatnot and having to realise things are not the same and will never be the same. etc etc

interesting to think about to me! i love overdissecting this kind of stuff. my favourite rune factory character is actually my favourite specifically because of this, me overthinking the meta associated with her being The Canon Bachelorette to the point where it punted her up my favourites list, so this kind of stuff is very much up my alley characterwise.

[acepalindrome]

Alternatives to Squishmallow

So as many of you have probably already heard, Jazwares, the company that produces Squishmallows, is donating to charities that support Israeli soldiers and the IDF. They’re also supporting Canary Mission, which has been doxxing people who speak out against Israel. BDS hasn’t called for a boycott against them, but I can’t in good faith spend my money on their products, and I would strongly encourage everyone who enjoys plushies to really think long and hard about if you want to give your money to a company that’s helping support genocide!

But the holidays are coming up, and lots of us enjoy plushies and were fans of Squishmallow, and were planning to give Squishmallows to friends and family this year.

Fortunately, there are a number of great plushie companies out there, and I want to promote some of my favorites in the hopes that folks will get their plushie fix from a source that doesn’t side with Israel. So without further ado:

Fluffnest

Fluffnest got their start on Kickstarter a few years ago, and I adore the round shapes of their PuffPal plushies! My favorite is Pete the Possum, which is probably the best possum plush I’ve ever seen. I’ve also got a beautiful moth from their Kickstarter and I’ve been wanting their bats for ages. They also recently had a Kickstarter for an Animal Crossing-esque video game featuring their plushie characters and it looks fantastic.

Squishables

I can’t get over the plague doctor plushies. They’re so perfect and cute, and they’ve released other variations of them called Alter Egos, like a ghostly version, an alien, or a really sweet cottagecore one! They’ve got a ton of variety, but what I like the most are the fantasy plushies. There’s a lich! There are dragons and demons! Cryptids! Biblically accurate angels! A lot of really fun stuff!

Also they do a lot of great charity work! Right now they’re doing an auction for the Food Bank of New York City.

AfternoonFika

AfternoonFika is a very small business of only three people, but their plushies are extremely cute. They tend to sell out fast, so I recommend following them on social media to stay on top of any restocks! They recently released a line of dinosaurs that are precious, and of course I love their iconic cactus cat and cinnamon bun bunny.

Jellycat

Jellycat has been around since 1999, so they’re the oldest of these companies. They’ve got great designs, a ton of variety, and a lot of their plushies are made to be cuddled on and not just displayed. All three of my tiny nephews sleep with a different stuffed dog from Jellycat. My mom has a sun and several succulents that she uses as decorations. There’s a little something for everyone who enjoys plushies!

If you have any other favorite companies I haven’t mentioned, feel free to add on! I’ve enjoyed Squishmallows for a while now and I’m sad to see their leadership coming out on the side that’s committing war crimes on a daily basis, but this is a good time to discover new favorite plushie companies! And remember, money speaks loudly. Even if BDS hasn’t called for a boycott of Jazwares, it sends a message when sales start dropping for companies that support genocide. It’s a small thing, but the little things we do can add up!