#that theyre not just talking about the constitution but theyre also talking about all the other shit

[jheselbraum]

Birth of a Nation revitalized the KKK in America and is perhaps the only piece of "irredeemable media" I can think of that's actually like. You know, a story, and I don't know of anything else off the top of my head that had that kind of lasting, palpably harmful impact that isn't like, direct state mandated propaganda like Mein Kampf. In 1915 the KKK was effectively dead, they'd slowly dissolved around the 1870s (particularly after the introduction of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871) and Birth of a Nation led to the most notorious American terrorist group reforming. As far as I'm concerned, DW Griffith has actual blood on his hands, for murders committed at the very least through the 40s (they disbanded temporarily in 1944 after America's most effective violent crime task force, the IRS, got involved, though it could be argued he's only responsible for murders committed by the KKK through the 20s, as membership declined rapidly after that once people saw that being part of a terrorist organization wasn't like how it was in the movie).

And like, look I generally don't think the word "irredeemable" can really be applied to art in any form, but there is something viscerally reprehensible about Birth of a Nation that makes us not want to watch it. Like it (arguably) pioneered a lot of film techniques but that's more of the science side of film than the art side, I'm completely certain that people would have figured out that contrasting long shots with close-ups made movies more interesting if Birth of a Nation was left on the cutting room floor. (In fact, several of the techniques 'pioneered' by Birth of a Nation were actually from earlier films, it's just that DW Griffith was more popular and his films are the ones that were remembered). But like we don't screen this movie publicly, we don't like it, we don't like the what DW Griffith had to say. Birth of a Nation just... repels people away from it. Its in person screenings are relegated to a few film classes and maybe some klan meetings, though I'm certain there are some racists on 4chan who've downloaded a copy. If you ask normal people to pick one movie to stop existing, there's no way out of it you have to pick one, chances are they'll pick Birth of a Nation, assuming they've even heard of it (my first exposure to it was in high school, some people might not get to it until college, or even later, that's just kind of what happens with something like this. It's not like you can learn about something through cultural osmosis when the culture is trying like hell to osmosis that thing out of itself). It's an acceptable loss.

Meanwhile, from what I've read, I'd say the decision to use A Serbian Film alongside Birth of a Nation is actually a reasonable one, not because of the graphic nature of it's content, but rather its themes and message and how flat it can feel because of who's saying it (DISCLAIMER: I haven't watched it, I'm not going to watch it, take this with a grain of salt). It's about a man who's forced to commit horrific crimes to survive (economically, though he may be directly threatened with death I'm not sure, he's doing it as a job basically). If you'll recall, Serbia committed genocide during the Bosnian War in the 90s, the targets being primarily Bosniaks but also including anyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina that wasn't Serbian.

The director of the film, Srđan Spasojević, had this to say when asked if the acts depicted in the film were related in any way to crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars:

A Serbian Film does not touch upon war themes, but in a metaphorical way deals with the consequences of post-war society and a man that is exploited to the extreme in the name of securing the survival of his family.

Additionally, he described the film as "a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government ... It's about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don't want to do. You have to feel the violence to know what it's about."

A Serbian Film is an exploitation film that's apparently considered one of the most disturbing of all time, but the film is not a snuff film as many people have claimed. A snuff film is the filming of actual gruesome crimes like murder, torture, and rape, committed for the purpose of selling the resulting film and making money. It's not "a movie that depicts gruesome crimes like murder, torture, and rape through the use of special or practical effects."

Based on the quick read-through of the Wikipedia article I did, it seems like most of what the film is trying to say is through the lens of the aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars, or at least that's how the audience largely interpreted it. The script writer, Aleksandar Radivojević, said this about the process of securing funding for the film and the state of the Serbian film industry in general.

you had this EU arts council funded production using Serbia for EU's political agitprop agenda of 'promoting tolerance and reconciliation in the post-war Balkans' by boosting sappy local projects of no aesthetic value whose sole reason for receiving EU financing was their respective authors' willingness to amplify the EU-approved message, i.e. to express 'Serb contrition over what happened in the Yugoslav Wars' via essentially making victim porn, showing small miserable Serb people who are struggling mightily while nevertheless simultaneously 'doing their part in search of collective redemption' by being extremely remorseful

Now, I'm a white American who does not experience racism of any kind, let alone the violently dehumanizing prejudice necessary to convince a group of people to commit an ethnic cleansing, but if my people had been the victims of a genocide, and I heard someone from the group of people that committed that genocide complain about media depicting his people's remorse, and saw that that guy also wrote a movie where the plot is a man is forced to commit gruesome rapes, and again, my people were gruesomely raped as a part of that guy's country's plan to wipe my people from existence, I'd be fucking pissed. Like again, I haven't seen A Serbian Film, and Radivojević wasn't the only person in the writer's room, so maybe in practice it reads less as "our government was controlling us we did nothing wrong" and more "our government is controlling us and we're monsters for listening." And we can argue the merits of the latter another time, but at least the latter acknowledges that genocide doesn't happen in a vacuum because some schmucks at the top said so, that the people bear as much responsibility as their government.

Now, is A Serbian Film actually trying to say anything about the Yugoslav Wars at all? I don't know. I haven't seen it. Maybe it isn't about the Bosnian genocide at all. But then what is it saying about Serbia? Serbian actor Dragan Bjelogrlić said this about the film and its director, a year after its release:

I have a problem with A Serbian Film. Its director in particular. I've got a serious problem with this boy whose father got wealthy during the 1990s—nothing against making money, but I know how money was made [in Serbia] during the '90s—and then pays for his son's education abroad and eventually the kid comes back to Serbia to film his view of the country using his dad's money and even calls the whole thing A Serbian Film. To me that's a metaphor for something unacceptable. The second generation comes back to the country and using the money that had been robbed from the people of Serbia, smears the very same people by portraying them as the worst scum of the earth.

OP was right, it's fucking insane that this site only uses words like irredeemable media to talk about cartoons for children. Like, no, Steven Universe or The Owl House or My Hero Academia or whatever TV-Y7 cartoon you're hyper focused on that week isn't irredeemable media. Your bar for even discussing it as a possibility is "did this story's public existence revitalize a terrorist organization and lead to several murders," a qualification which A Serbian Film, despite its content, themes, and possible interpretations, does not meet. It's offensive, and disturbing, it possibly excuses genocide, but as far as I've read, no one has gotten physically hurt because it exists.

A Serbian Film is more violently graphic than Birth of a Nation. Birth of a Nation did more to physically harm real people than A Serbian Film ever could.

It's fucking wild that the above reaction to A Serbian Film mentions next to nothing about what it's trying to say, how well it works, who's saying it and in what context, but focuses purely on the graphic and violent scenes depicted in the film. It's probably why they slapped Salo on at the end even though a cursory glance through Wikipedia (I don't care enough to read thoroughly on the plot and themes you get the point graphic exploitation films aren't inherently evil for depicting murder or rape or whatever I don't want to read about more graphic shit it's not something I personally enjoy doing) reveals that that film is strictly antifascist, though several actors were actually injured during filming. Notably, the director of Salo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, was gruesomely abducted, tortured, and murdered in 1975 shortly before Salo's release at the Paris Film Festival. He was openly gay, and a Marxist, and while his death was initially contributed to one Giuseppe Pelosi (17 at the time of the murder) after he confessed, he later retracted his confession claiming that he made it under the threat of violence to his family (which unfortunately tracks, Americans may recall the more recent case of Amanda Knox, who was arrested in 2007 for the murder of her friend and forced by Italian police to confess to a crime she didn't commit and was later exonerated from). The case was reopened after Giuseppe's retraction in 2005 and other evidence that had come to light, and as of 2023 the Italian authorities are looking at the far right group Banda della Magliana as possible suspects. While I agree that "I hear it's kind of. nasty" is frankly an understatement when attempting to discuss the graphic content of Salo, and really fucking hilarious in the context of trying to argue that Salo shouldn't exist at all, I don't know that that's really a fair criticism to make, considering the other two examples are if not directly far right (using the term because of the changing political landscape between 1915 and 2010, like I can't really call Birth of a Nation fascist because it was made before fascism was a fully congealed political ideology, even if it upholds the ideology of fascism) then at least debatably so. As previously established, the actual content of the film, as in, the acts depicted, don't immediately make a work reprehensible. Remember, A Serbian Film is more graphic and disturbing to watch than Birth of a Nation, but Birth of a Nation is worse than A Serbian Film.

Tldr; op is right, and the person whose tags have been drowned is exactly the kind of person op was talking about

'Irredeemable media' is such a funny concept to me because it's never used for stuff like Birth of a Nation or A Serbian Film. It's always The Owl House or My Hero Academia because these people only watch things for children and can't stand any conflict more complex than Super Mario Brothers.

[gu6chan]

i fucking hate american """left-wingers""" man

[insertdisc5]

this is a stupid question and there’s no reason for my sending it besides trying to understand/overcome my own anxiety/insecurity. your post on game dev software was extremely informative and seems like something you’re really passionate about. for some reason i can’t get past the idea that using premade visual novel/rpg/whatever software will be seen by others as, like, “that doesn’t count as making a real game, you just dragged and dropped stuff into a program someone else made, anyone can do that” or something. I’ve never played any visual novels, but i enjoyed rpgmaker games like The Witch’s House and Ib when i was a kid, and undertale is my favorite game of all time, so I know how good games like that can be. I thought I could learn to make video games at some point by studying computer science in college, but by my 3rd semester i couldn’t focus so i changed my major. That was almost ten years ago, and I feel like an idiot seeing so many people younger than me having so much fun doing stuff that i just gave up on after it became “too challenging” even though I’ve been using computers all my life. I guess what I’m asking is, how do you get over the fear of doing something, saying “hey look what i made/accomplished!” and having someone else say “that’s actually easy to do, you shouldn’t be proud, and here is an example why” and then you’re just left standing there like “damn, maybe i need to reflect on how stupid i am” instead of “man, that guy was a jerk.” sorry if that didn’t make sense.

you have to not think of yourself as yourself, but think of yourself as your friend telling you "someone said mean things to me" and of course when a friend says that to you you say "i will kill them for you you are amazing and the apple of my eye and they dont know what theyre talking about and what you made was great and once again: i will kill them for you". also if anyone says to you "you shouldnt be proud of this thing you made" then you are legally allowed to kill them it's in the world constitution

[prettyboykatsuki]

u don’t have to answer but how do u long for someone u loved so much at 14 while also being deeply committed to your partner. no judgement in pbk land i am just a lil drunk and trying to understand

i will try my best to explain this but being very frank (and not at all in a negative way!!) i think we are probably just two fundamentally different people with two vastly different concepts of what constitutes love and longing

the short answer is simply bc they are different people. my love for this person (ill call them j) and my partner are separate things. because they are just separate humans and separate experiences. the things i love about them sometimes overlap but they are both my people in different ways. i would never compare them.

its all very messy but all three of us are close also. like this person is my partners best friend and the whole arrangement is kind of complicated and idk how much i wanna air my business out kfjfshdkj. tldr is that me and j love each other very deeply in a way that is not romantic nor quite platonic and they are someone that will always be in my life. we did try romance sort of but they are aro and i dont think that feeling is what i feel for them anyway. its different to what my partner makes me feel.

so the sense of love and longing is not the exact same though it's probably closer to 'romance' then what we view typically as friendship. like i hold them in my lap and other gay shit lol

im the kind of queer that is very free love about these kinds of things. my partner has a qpr who i dont know and everything too

my partner is my life partner and the person i feel closest to in my life. it is romantic of course but its also more than that. i talk to him about everything and trust in him to communicate and vice versa. if im jealous or lonely or scared - i tell him and we work it out and he does the same for me and we check in on each other all the time. he comes first and he always will.

but my love and affection for someone else does not dim my love for him. love isnt a scarce resource i have to preserve but something i give of my own will. its not a threat because there's nothing to threaten. no love will replace him because it's not like anyone can be him any way.

when your love for someone transcends the role they fill in your life, a lot of doors open about who and how you love i think. i fall in love and experience affection for people as they are if i had to put it to words. not because of what they can do or a desire for connection but because the experience of them, specifically, moves me. i cant really speak for other people but for me its like that.

im not someone who really personally subscribes to monogamy and i never really have. my partner and i have had a more open relationship for all of it pretty much with some years and my trust in him has only deepened over time and through several wounds.

i long and crave and miss people because they are who they are. no person is replaceable ykwim. so the absence of someone cant be filled by someone else and it also cant be changed by another person. my partner is my life partner and the man i want to marry someday.

but j is my j. i love them because they have silly idiosyncrasies. theyre a talented artist and skittish with affection and sensitive. and i love them so deeply it makes me sick. i love how much they try for me.

and i love my partner just as much. we'll spend new years together, all three of us (and j's whole family dsjfjsld) - but im seeing them both separately and im sure they'll see each other separately too

so its like these things are not contradictory to me in anyway. they're not feelings in conflict with one another inside of me at all. its complicated but relationships are always that way

i hope that made a little sense!! its kind of hard to explain without extra context!!

[insanefastone]

it was a lot easier to ask for things for christmas when i was younger. i was five, so if i was shown a toy i probably would say i wanted it. being a five year old, i mostly cared about the receiving part - a stuffed dog, a bucket of tiny horses, a playmobil train, didn’t really matter, it was mine now. a few years later pokemon began airing on tv and anything with pikachu on it was guaranteed to be a hit. im unsure of the occasion but i remember being given literal math practice books at some point and loving doing my additions and multiplications because they were pokemon themed. it was truly so, so easy.

then i got a little older and my desires started to get a little more complex. pikachus were still pretty cool and all but i wasnt happy with just any toy anymore: i cared about my cartoons and the things i saw in commercials, and so i would ask for those things. i knew about super soakers, and nerf guns, and moon shoes, and sock ‘em boppers, but i also knew the difference between, say, a stuffed animal of a brown dog and one of scooby doo. i knew disappointment, too, because i could tell when i was handed something in lieu of the other. at the time i couldnt have possibly understood why the substitutions got made, but i could see when it happened.

then i got a little older and developed hobbies and preferences. i had opinions on things, i had feelings, and i started to learn how to express these ideas. i could articulate why one thing could not be a substitute for another, and how i felt when it was handed to me anyway, and also what i thought about being given a great many things i did not ask for instead of those that i did. i became frustrated with clothes and socks and other such things because i knew that when i needed them we could go get them. they didnt feel special or thoughtful. they seemed like an excuse to have one more box to hand me, one more thing to play coy about, one more thing to ooh and aah at and take photos of when i eventually held it up. and so the ideals of gift-giving began to erode.

of course, i hadnt quite learned of the whys. they were specifically kept from me, and from my sisters, so we could play family (as it were). theyre pretty evident now, knowing what i know as i type this, but at the time things kind of just. crumbled away. there were some nice surprises where the spirit felt alive and real, like the year we received ipod nanos. (3rd gen, i think? they were skinny but still had a touch wheel with the button in the center.) i remember crying incoherently as i held mine, and i also remember my entire family being stunned and confused (they clearly hadnt expected that reaction either). i think i was simply overwhelmed to have been given such a nice thing after coming to expect disappointment.

there was also the year we were given the gamecube, and our game boy advance sps, but they didnt feel as special because we knew it was mostly since an older cousin had given us her super nintendo and our parents wanted us to entertain ourselves. it actually led to a lot of frustration that our parents didnt attempt to understand, because you cannot do ‘similar to’ with a video game unless you actually bother to find out what it is. which really started to highlight what felt weird about the gift-giving all those years: whose thoughts, exactly, have gone into this ‘thoughtful’ gift?

it’s a hard question to answer, and really depends on who you are talking to. this being tumblr, i can assume someone reading is familiar with ‘i see a cool bug/rock/blorbo’ -> ‘i send it to my cool bug/rock/blorbo friend’. it’s kind of ingrained in the culture. but we also (largely) understand that theres variance and specialty within these categories, that not all blorbos are the same, and that most blorbos are very different, actually, to the point where people debate what constitutes an ‘actual’ representation of the ones they care about. but theres also people that dont care that deeply and are mostly only there because their friend is, or because they like the character’s design, or any number of other reasons, and knowing where to meet them on their interest kind of requires knowing more than just ‘oh they like this’.

and so we get disconnects, and misunderstandings, and disappointment, and frustration. and we get not knowing why one thing is ok but another isnt, or why you can interchange two things but this third one is unacceptable, it seems like theres no way of knowing but could you have known? was this there all along? did i skip i question or, more importantly, pass on an answer i was given? and so i think upon such things. and i see where things could have diverged, or evidence thereof. and i consider that to give and receive not only requires two, but also a connection to have been made. ‘oh!’ you might say, ‘that mug has a pikachu and some snowflakes on it! i always send something with a pikachu, this will be that this year!’ and you mail it and it sits on my shelf, unused. collecting dust. i dont even use it to store anything.

and so i began seeing what the thoughts were. i saw that i was given twelve balls of yarn in six different colors because theyre fun and aesthetically pleasing, but the thought did not contain ‘this is not enough of an individual color to make anything larger than hat and scarf’. i saw i was given a shirt that says ‘# serf life’ on it because it was meant as a family joke and i do think it is a funny shirt to wear, but the thought did not contain how i felt about what the joke references at the time it became a ‘joke’. i saw i was given some books i had asked for by title and volume number because i have been trying to get the entire out-of-print series, but the thought did not contain ‘i wonder why candy only ever asks for these specific books’. over several years i saw i was given many books that are similar to but not within the series (or even genre) i was obsessed with because they get sorted together as ‘humorous coffee table nonfiction’ at bookstores, but the thought did not contain what i liked about that series (trivia compilations), why i stopped reading that series (poorly verified), or why i had nothing to say about most of the previously gifted books.

and it goes on. years of this. we even do a grand show of sharing our christmas lists with each other, and fussing about getting under one roof to share them, and making a whole ceremony (complete with photographs) of opening everything, and sharing ‘oh i was at this place and thought of you when i saw it’, and it goes round and round and round and i am always just sitting there wondering if the next thing thats handed to me will actually have me in mind or it will simply be ‘thoughtful’.

i just dont know what to ask for christmas anymore.

[mamawasatesttube]

Hiii! For the character ask, could you do 3 (and maybe 6 too if you feel like talking) about Kon?

I just wanna know what you think is the worst about him since I think he is your favorite character (?) (or at least I believe he is one of your top ones, correct me if I'm wrong)

Please have a nice day! Rest lots and sleep well (if it's nighttime when you read it)💕💕💕

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

oh easily the way some writers (loeb, most notably, but kesel and johns too) write him being what they think is "flirty" but is actually just like insanely creepy behavior. it's a big cognitive dissonance in the writing imo because you can tell they're trying to go for "this character is a flirt" but they (esp loeb and johns imo) clearly do not respect women literally at all whatsoever and therefore what they think constitutes being flirty comes off just... so so so poorly. christ on a bike. imo kesel actually is the most innocuous of the three (not that he gets off easy or anything but at least he's aware that kon's also a dorklord and a loser and his kon flirting is often like. bad lines a teenager might say, as opposed to being a misogynistic fucking creep). the way loeb in particular also reduces kon to being a meathead who can't stop treating women as sex dolls is... mmm. hate that.

(my interpretation is usually "this is a teenage boy who likes to flirt but has no intent to follow through and also his lines are usually bad. theyre bad. hes bad at it hes just doing what guys on tv do in all his movies. hes trying to be captain kirk. hes 15. hes bad at it." but without the blatant misogyny and creepiness. because like the women in these narratives are never written to react like hes being a creep bc the men writing them just don't seem to understand that they're writing someone being shitty and misogynistic. because said men are shitty and misogynistic. but i tend to go with the intent of "haha flirty 16yo with a head full of tv shows".)

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

adhd/gifted kid burnout kon is real and i know him. also mixed kid/second gen immigrant issues kon is REAL and i KNOW HIM. that said i would rather die than project directly onto a character and the way i handle myself is Not the same as how i write kon handling his stuff. but struggles with suicidality, adhd and gifted kid burnout, and mixed race/second gen immigrant stuff? yeah. always gets me.

CHARACTER ASK GAME!!! 💫

[rimzieiei]

I HEARD FATUI KAVEH AU AND PLS TELL ME EVERYTHING I KNOW NOTHING. GIMME ALL THE DETAILS PLS

HI OKAY I DIDNT EXPECT TO ACTUALLY GET ASKS BUT ILL DO MY BEST TO EXPLAIN MY AWFUL BRAINROT :3

(im so sorry any die hard kaveh fans because this au fucks him up beyond comprehension this is NOT your babygirl anymore)

(also, ive made up a LOT of characters and lore for this au so bear with me while i explain it all)

brighella, the beast (4th of the 11 fatui harbingers)

he is in charge of the realms investigation division, aka fucking around with the abyss/the elements/celestial stuff and finding out

kaveh was recruited to the fatui right after his mom moved away to fontaine. the fatui had an interest in studying his unique constitution. during this time, he worked closely under the innamorati (the previous 4th harbingers). going so far as to become a right hand man.

after a tragic incident where one half of the innamorati attacked and killed their partner (before being taken out by kaveh), he was promoted and took over his old boss's position.

kaveh stays in sumeru (instead of working from snezhnaya) because its the easiest place to access irminsul, and (before the sumeru archon quest) it was a hot spot for abyssal activity.

also, with how awful the fatuis reputation is, id make a bet that most nations try to keep as many of them out as possible. but they cant really get rid of someone that was born there and has citizenship. dottore probably got his citizenship axed after his crimes against humanity or revoked it himself because he could just live in snezhnaya. tldr kavehs the only harbinger that can waltz in and out of sumeru without any problems which gives him an intensive to stay and manage the fatuus stationed there.

id say kaveh has a generally good relationship with the rest of the harbingers. he gets along well with sandrone. he often exchanges information with signora and dottore (plus they both attended the akademiya) so theyre friendly. with pulcinella and tartaglia, they just exists together. generally positive i guess!

the closest harbinger to a friend is definitely columbina! (columbinas role in the fatui is a historical archivist because i believe the theory that shes a seele so shes old as hell) most of the motivation for kaveh ending up as a harbinger had to do with understanding the fuckfest that is his family history so columbina would have been a big help to him! which would then lead to them becoming friends not friends (also i think them talking shit about the other harbingers together is such a fun concept) (you CANNOT tell me columbina isnt a mean girl LOOK at her)

and because capitano and columbina are basically mother and son (this originated from a theory video about natlan lore all in all i think theyd be pretty close due to their lore intertwining) kaveh and capitano are friendly.

anyways! onto the harbingers hes not on good terms with...

pantalone would dislike kavehs because the abyss is dangerous and verrry expensive to deal with safely (paying out the families of fallen agents...). he didnt have this problem with the innamorati. kaveh would despise pantalone for making it incredibly difficult to get funds.

scaramouche hated everyone.

and ohhhh boy arlecchino... these two have the craziest beef with each other. if they werent both harbingers, the other would be dead. ill probably make a separate post at some point that describes their eternal feud. but in simple terms: theyre like each others twisted mirror version.

i dont really know what else to add to this??? but i will definitely be posting more about it :3

[actualbird]

hi, i lurk in this blog a lot, but this is my first time actually sending an ask, but i wanted to contribute to the ask game qwq

the first scene that came to mind was in the hot men car wash charity fic, where the boys are all arguing and blasting abut who was the most physically fit. like, what do you mean their interactions didn't come straight out of an event?? it feels so right and so canon i adore

honoroable mention to the Luke & Artem fix, but i can't just name one scene because the entire fic is just too good i think it altered my brain chemistry i also adore (though if i had to choose a scene, maybe Luke lugging Artem around **really** hoping no one thinks he's a kidnapper, it was hilarious to me :D)

for this ask meme: tell me the FIRST scene from my fanfics that come to mind as the most memorable to you

ohhhh a longtime lurker, first time asker!!! thank you for coming in with the ask, it always makes me happy to talk to yall and i hope you enjoy my blog ;w;

also WAHHHHH thank you so much for reading "ogling wet men constitutes as revolutionary praxis" because kJBLDS thats the silliest nxx team fic ive ever written and im still happy about it. im especially happy that you found that scene of them arguing abt whose strongest to be something that felt like canon. theyre so funny when theyre trying to one-up each other, it never gets old to me. classic nxx boys

and as for your honorable mention, omg this whole ask meme has essentially made it known to me that people REALLY liked "in vino veritas, or something like that...", which is something i wasnt expecting!!! im glad that that fic and its scenes could stick in your brain :DDD

thank you for telling me, anon <3

[luonae]

played symptoms of deceit a couple days ago and the concept of every character having an associated sea creature was really cool so ofc i had to make my own oc/mc! a sea bunny! i dont have a name for them bc i suck at names but yknow what i have? Lore. ok yapping (and the ship dynamic thing) under the cut because i really talk a Lot.

first of all like i said theyre a sea bunny because i love bunnies so the choice was very clear. their color scheme is entirely inspired by sea bunnies (black white yellow green orange are all sea bunny colors) and a lot of their design aspects like their freckles, fluffy hair, their eyes being dotted, blue blush just like thaumo etc. oh yeah also theyre nonbinary and use he/she/they pronouns all interchangeably. theyre pretty strongly connected to their associated animal but not that strongly.

since sea bunnies have short lifespans i made them chronically ill (theyd have met thaumo at the hospital). they were actually going to die young but thankfully survived, however they still have a really weak constitution and struggle a lot with anything that requires physical effort even simple things. their parents basically began neglecting them as soon as they had another child, leaving them at the hospital to keep them out of sight since they were "a burden." as a result, hes really insecure about burdening others especially because of his illness and weakness. he knows he needs to depend on others for help and hates it. this makes her really reserved and withdrawn, especially since she never had many friends and was even picked on by other kids her age when she was young. if anything, thaumo and the other kid were really her only actual friends as a child.

if i had to say their type, itd be someone they can trust (looks at thaumo and nalis... yeah good luck with that); someone who makes them feel safe and stable because theyre generally really insecure and have huge abandonment issues. she likes people who take care of her without making her feel like a burden but will simultaneously refuse to be vulnerable and ask for help unless she really trusts someone because shes scared of driving them away otherwise; so itd have to be someone who knows her well enough and is perceptive enough to offer help proactively. shes prone to fainting out of nowhere so i like to think that nalis constantly drops snacks at her desk to make sure she has something to eat out of concern for that. i think he would really really love nalis (whether platonically or not doesnt matter) because nalis feels reliable and has this familiar "big brother" vibe about him that makes him feel safe and comfortable. of course, hes also extremely fond of thaumo (thaumo shenanigans aside) because he was his first ever friend and he really cherishes him. so basically: i cant tell you who his favorite is. (i can tell you mine though. its thaumo.)

theyre kinda dense because they have like, no social skills, and so theyd kinda end up enabling the two manlosers love interests without realizing it. hed definitely be horrified when he catches thaumo killing people but he would try to rein thaumo in like a puppy, except he doesnt realize thaumo relishes the attention and hes probably not doing much to help the situation. she also would trust nalis almost blindly, and almost even make up his excuses for him, which just... makes the whole manipulation shit easier for him lol. shes just so socially inept and fond of the two that she doesnt know how to correctly handle the situations they put her in.

oh, by the way, the bunny plushie theyre holding is their most prized possession. it was a gift from their mom when they first got sent to the hospital to keep them company. they were scared of dying alone, so theyd always hold onto the bunny wherever they went, hoping the bunny would be there in their final moments. ofc even after they managed to survive they still held onto the bunny for years because its a comfort item for them. i think thaumo would be jealous of the damn plushie but he wouldnt dare ruin it because he witnessed firsthand just how important it is to them and he wouldnt wanna break their heart. oh and just like sea bunnies they can release toxins when threatened but they almost never do, especially not around thaumo or nalis because theyre scared to hurt them even more than theyre scared of them. they have a degree of poison resistance since they can absorb it for later use.

and heres the shipping thing

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

3, 16 and 20 for loving fandom asks! 😊

3. a character that fandom has helped u appreciate

wen kexing from the novels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also zzs from the novels and zzs from the show and wkx from the show but this isnt!!! about them!!!

16. a tiny detail in canon that u want more people to appreciate

we talked about this before but i really like how rise of phoenixes handles the crossdressing trope. quippe quest mentions this in their videos at some point i think; feng zhiwei is allowed to actually look like a man when she dresses up as a man, and the additional layer her crossdressing shenanigans add to the exploration of her arc that ends in her being completely stripped from all she has at the beginning (agency, autonomy, freedom, value) is all the more gutpunching. i look at her being all unrestrained (as a person) when she dresses up, moving around freely and doing what she wants (as per her nature), and then i look at who she is forced to become once the emperor finds out about it and it gets public. its honestly horrible, like a horror movie (feng zhiwei fmv horror edit?). so the maturity and nuance with which they approach and utilize it is smth i wish would be talked about more, if only because its so dear to me personally and i think everyone should talk about it all the time

,,,, ,,, actually this probably doesnt really count as a tiny detail //w// , ,, i thought of it because theyre so casual with it in canon!!! though feng zhiwei‘s ~real gender~TM is a plot point, the show doesnt really make a fuss around the crossdressing in itself (compared to how other stories usually handle it). so i thought of it as tiny and a detail even though its not really tiny, and its more the attention to detail that i would like for everyone to appreciate forever.

HERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE ANSWER: zhiwei‘s long ass hair that she takes down at the end of the forst day at the academy when sits in the window just before going to bed . everyone is talking about ning yi‘s hair but!!!! what about hers!!!!! its literally right there!!!! its such a beautiful scene, she looks so good. and i think its the only time she ever takes down her hair where we see it right? right? it doesnt happen at all at any other point :) surely :). so beautiful when u can take down your hair of your own volution in a world where taking your hair down signifies vulnerability and can unmask you as a woman! :) :):):) great scene where zhiwei is in full control of her fate and pursues her happiness and taking her hair down in the privacy of her room, with only gu nanyi to see, is such a big show of trust (in him) and faith (in her future) :) im fine why do u ask

20. your very first fandom

oh this is a mean pick!!!!!! me having like a hole in my head etc!!!!! but one of my earliest beloveds media that i could count as me entering a fandom of any kind is the donald duck franchise. dont really have a better name for it. i could call it the Mickey Mouse Franchise but that would be A Lie. mickey mouse has nothing to do with it at all! i had fan magazines and would dress up as phantomias and would spent time reading comics with my friends and brother and i would annoy literal strangers into lending me their comics if i so much as sniffed out that they had a collection at home. i also drew and wrote fanart and fanfic, though i never finished anything, my aspirations were too high for my fragile constitution also known as patience and stamina TvT. smth thats STILL a problem tbh. i cant write short stuff yet keeping it up for so long is Hard. anywhomst. i remember looking at the pictures before i learned to read and making up the story in my head so this being my first fandom might not be that far off!!!!!!

beloveds fandom asks game

[spiderman616]

i think its harder to find characters who fall under "kind but not nice" if youre considering "not nice" to mean actively RUDE, because in that case they ARE no longer kind even if theyre still like fighting with the good guys or what have you. @/eggthew's shrek example is prob the best i could come up with under that criteria, but generally when i personally talk about "kind but not nice" i mean characters who are unfriendly, meaning not personable or easy to get along with, but not actively antagonistic. and they also care about people. like shadow or julie su (esp before she started dating knuckles). they have rude moments but i wouldnt really consider it a defining trait where people come away from a conversation with them like "what an asshole. well at least they would save a kitten from a tree if it was stuck"

and as for nice but not kind i cant think of a specific example but like anyone who seems friendly enough when you first talk to them but its really just a front and they actually dont care about you at all. umm really surface level example but the evil guy from frozen. hans i think. is this all even tangentially related to what youre asking

Yeah yeah I get what you mean... I mean like the direct inverse of you second example for actively rude but still kind. Like disregardant of social cues and stuff that normally constitutes someone as polite or nice but still a good person at heart if that makes sense. Thank you for the examples though they help

[rillette]

oh yeah baby were back were soooo fucking back. session 0 happened aka all the characters were made. the first proper session is saturday <3

ok so i am your lovely lovely dm this time around soo i dont get to talk about my characters quite yet BUT i can talk about other peoples <3

rowan sandrin is the 31 y/o male high elf druid played by jeremy/dice/my bf. he has a ponytail and pronouns. we dont know what color the ponytail is yet but i told him it couldnt be blonde because uhm. well. you know. other blonde ponytailed men. he has really fucking high charisma but really low everything else <3

anne bonney is the 30 y/o male human barbarian played by jacob "bad bitch fumbler" [last name] (yes i genuinely call him this. quite frequently actually) he is an ex soldier and hates the government <3 he also "would hit women but not because theyre women he just hits everyone" according to jacob. he has really fucking high intelligence and wisdom though

aaaand last but not least we have atlas casterel the 28 y/o male wood elf cleric played by max. he has 9 hit points. he has a -3 constitution modifier. he has a shield though? so maybe his 9 hit points wont get nuked immediately. i believe in u atlas

wooooo we're so back!!!!! i think rowan should get to have blonde hair as a treat they can be #twining!

[delulu-with-wandanat]

When I see people from all sorts of backgrounds: incels, feminists,... yell from the top of their lungs about how Natasha Romanoff is sexualized & an eye candy. I assume that must be a very prominent part of her characterisation but then when I revisit her whole screentime, I can only think of : the suit not it's tightness all superhero suits are tight but the below average lower zip, don't come at me but didn't Wanda's suits in EG, IW,CW & lowkey AOU kinda accentuate her chest not to mention every Spiderman's suit accentuating his dick, I didn't see anyone reducing their characterisation to how they were physically represented. There are also 2 ass shots in IR2 &CA:TWS done for "surprise" effet which shares with her Steve in A1 & EG where there's a running joke about his ass and everyone got over those minutes where his ass was focused. There's that photo (in lingerie) that appeared on Tony's ipad? for like 0.1second but isn't that reasonable considering she is an undercover spy on a honeypot mission? I might also add that backseat car scene in IR2 is kinda understandable I mean it's just her changing her clothes and we can only get glimpse of Scarlett's bra and leg for fucks sake why are people acting like we got full minutes of Scarlett's naked body for no fucking reason? We are talking about a character with very loose (not in that slut shaming way but in morally gray/complex way)views on everything including where/how to change, what to do in her missions,... Her undercover time in IR2 is literally the embodiment of that statement "Natasha is comfortable with everything" that is said by Nick to Steve. This honestly an aspect of hers people overlook &is remembered only to describe her as the team's slut, a pass around who has no values. There's also that 1 scene in AOU where Bruce falls from what I don't remember" on her boobs I get it it was unnecessary but if people just for a second ignored their hatred for brucenat this scene can be overlooked if it was done in a way that makes it spontaneous and reasons why exactly Bruce would fall on nat instead of elsewhere, plus it's just 1 scene. It's sad that even her fans start by "even though she's so sexualized, I like her". I just want to know where is this grand sexualization to a point it's constitute part of the character. I know she was sexualized in a way, that fucking lower zip always drove me insane like ZIP IT UP WOMAN but she got a total of 3:45 min screentime, it's stupid or maybe very telling of the people's part if her unzipped suit is the most memorable of those nearly 4 hours. I honestly think it's because Scarlett is a hot woman with ample chest & those misogynist dudebro nerds only cared for her body & treated as an eye candy and refused to acknowledge her effectiveness then others just believed in the loud notices, it's like circular victim blaming.

I get ur point, but i think its good that ppl point this out so studios will stop with the unnecessary shots on female characters. And maybe actually put more efforts on building their story and their arc.

A character can be sexy and loose in a non sexualized way. They can be sexy spy without having to appeal to men or to anyone. I don’t think ppl meant to reduce her character to how she was represented visually, rather theyre pointing it out.

Because if we don’t, she’ll just stay a side character that they use to uplift other characters. I mean look where we are now? All the og avengers had their back stories all fleshed out, they showed it on screen and we get an even deeper understanding of their character.

Albeit Natasha is not a side character, but how much do we actually know about her? How long did it take til she had her own solo movie? No disrespect to Captain Marvel, but she was the first female avengers to be introduced in the mcu. Why did it took her death to get her a movie? how much did we get to enjoy her story on screen? They kept talking about the infamous Budapest story, yeah Nat told us the story, but are u really fucking staisfied with that??

You see where I’m getting at?

Natasha is such an amazing character with an amazing story and complex personality, yet we barely get to see it. Instead of exploring her character they often use her to push another character’s arc. It’s stupid, it’s lazy, and honestly waste of potential.

I love ur take on that car scene where she changed her clothes. But in my opinion that scene could’ve been done in a different way, yet still showed her loose personality. You can tell the studio meant for that scene to appeal to men. Compare that scene, with her changing clothes in BW movie. See the difference? Same type of scene, shot in a different way, with a different mindset.

As much as i would love to brush off those scenes as part of her character, if we keep letting these studios go like that. They’re just gonna keep using great female characters as a tool to push the arc of male characters while disregarding her own story.

[lilyfreshwater]

Martyn is so cringe and kinda weird NGL. When he "came out" I just said "oh so he's basically downlow". Not to mention using Japanese as part of his branding. A Hermit/Life series/Empires centric critblr that talks about all of this would be great lol, since I don't think much of critblr ever discusses/follows that circle (except triquery sometimes). Though there isn't much material to really crit anyways I guess. But yeah Martyn is weird I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels it

it also made me super uncomfortable when he came out cause it just felt like a straight man appropriating the queer label. like idk if he has internalized homophobia or is confused as to what exactly constitutes being queer, but it felt like he could have used a couple months to think on it a bit more. idk i've been thinking about this stuff recently and i feel like when you come out as anything related to the lgbtq community you have to be prepared to take on a responsibility to support and advocate for both your identity and others in the community. and so when people come out and it feels disingenuous then it feels like theyre coopting the oppression for their own benefit without adding any extra support. that's how i felt when martyn came out

[dongrangsex]

once again oversharing but im feeling super angry and evil due to outside influence (my school is so fucking awful but its too late for me to transfer and i only have 2 years left anyway so)

like they REFUSED TO LET ME INTO THE SCHOOL on monday cause they thought my hair color was too bright. it was like a dark reddish copper. they said it was the act of me dyeing my hair in general that constituted me getting kicked the fuck out on first day of school but their own regulations say only super bright colors are prohibited. i had to dye my hair dark brown and had a fucking breakdown over it bc i felt like i just wasted my parents money and was no longer pretty (i liked that color a lot it looked awesome on me) and when i came back my curator still complained about it being too red. bitch do you know how fucking hair dyes work.

not only that, on the same day they didnt let a girl go in because she had a hijab on. mind you, we live in a predominately muslim country. luckily her parents called the cops and from what ive heard theyre still there (its tuesday when im writing this) but the whole situation is so mind boggling. also they let this girl wear her hijab during summer school (since august 20th) so why tf is this an issue now??

its so annoying and frustrating bc its supposed to be the best school in town, the safe haven from the chaos and unruliness of public schools but it ends up being even worse. they treat us like we're subhuman, every student is a spoiled little brat unless the staff are friends with their parents or they ripped theyre fucking asses in half doing all sorts of extracurriculars to deserve the grace of the almighty principal and his horde of bootlickers and delirious old people. at least some other teachers are nice.

edit: forgot to mention but my mom doesnt want to file a complaint because shes afraid my curator might start talking shit about me and turning the teachers against me. but im pretty sure none of them would believe her since most of them have known me for like 4 years now and to them im a smart well behaved slightly moody kid. idk

[lazorsandparadox]

Because they know most of their base doesnt actually know/remember jack shit about the constitution beyond the bill of rights, so they just talk about/misrepresent the parts that they can exploit for their goals while ignoring the parts that dont, and they know that none of their voters will care because, as far as theyre concerned, the constitution is a slip of paper that says "the good guys can do whatever they want without consequence" and their whole world view revolves around the assumption that they will always be the good guys (which is also why so many conservatives are rabidly christian, a faith that, in some denomenations, says youre good no matter what as long as you do a set of arbitrary rituals that have little to do with actually being a good person)

Its like how christians will act like the clobber passages are the end all be all of Being Christian while ignoring the majority of what christ actually said, because "you have a moral obligation to do everything you can for the sick and the poor" is not as useful to capitalist politics or people greedy for power as "gay people are bad and if you vote for me i will make sure they never forget that" and "women should be seen and not heard"

Just so you know, I think DeSantis has already said Florida won’t cooperate with any extradition requests. So y’know, that’s the hill he’s chosen.

Good thing extradition between states is very clear in American law. Article IV, Section 2, of the United States Constitution says, “A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.”

Funny how they care so much about the Constitution sometimes, right?