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mazm-imagines · 11 months ago

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Thy Creature Modern/Zombie AU Part 1

This started as a joke but after talking with @fleurrice on the server... this is for real and its loooooong so like strap in. Spoilers for Thy Creature btw even tho this is an AU. BTW I WENT PAST THE WORD COUNT OOOOPS... I'll add a part two later...

Tw for corpses, mention of organs, blood and essentially anything from the og Thy Creature and Frankenstein

Ingolstadt Uni ofc... but honestly it can just be any vague German university for the sake of plot

Please this all came out because I wanted to see Victor as a nervous college student

"he a mortuary science student who took the wrong major" as per fleurrice's words.

Noah in the same major but fleurrice added on "he's the professor" and that's canon to me now.

He's beefing with some 19 yo (unofficial) TA 😒 (Justine). He's also beefing with Victor which I will explain later on. His students like him well enough though even if he's kind of strict. The type of asshole to jump a pop quiz because someone annoyed him a little. He has a good sense of humor and tries to be understanding because he's also been through some stuff.

Justine I think would major in hospitality. Instead of being Victor's maid I think she would just be a childhood friend who's mother was employed by his family.

Hanna would be an art professor of sorts. She has crazy social anxiety but when teaching she's passionate and encourages her students. A lot of students look up to her.

Ben would probably teach something with agriculture. He's a man of few words though... ever since his wife took the kids. Old shame.

Chris would be the alcoholic building manager. He's pretty grumpy. something abt the war .

Alex would be a social worker that had prior experience in hunting. She's very grandmacore and her attitude relaxes a lot of people. She's a good leader to them.

OKAY SO this is a really hyperspecific American thing but like how military recruiters bait highschoolers into joining on promise for free college tuition. Leon would be the sucker that believes in it. But they're German so I guess an alternative would be he's in college for now as a backup plan but plans on entering the military later on. He's kind of a jock but he's nice and popular. This is so oddly specific but I feel like he'd major in either buisness or engineering. Maybe even medicine bc I feel like he'd wanna help people.

This would start off similar to the plot of Thy Creature where Victor starts his research because his mother dies and he wants to know the meaning of life. What better way than to actually use her dead body!

Yeah starting off insane here. He uses his mother's corpse to make Siren. Don't ask why she has tentacles there's octopus DNA in there now...

Because she's the first specimen she's also the most unstable/crazy one. That's also why she's so powerful.

Anyways Victor is freaked out and locks her in his basement. But apparently not freaked out enough because he keeps experimenting.

Originally I was going to have Atlas/Loss and Raven/Not-Guilty at the very end but I think they'd be better here. Atlas is mixed with some horned creature's DNA and Raven is of course mixed with a raven's DNA. Raven is temperamental and thrashes in her bonds while Atlas is docile and doesn't really do much. Victor doesn't care he hates them both, basement time. Raven gives him a little scratch on the way out though...

Now Victor experiments on twins, Nameless and Creature. A byproduct of the experiment is that a zombies hair will bleach white. But sometimes it will stay the original color. Nameless is incredibly unstable, constantly attempting to turn into his more monstrous form. Creature however besides the white hair is perfectly stable. You almost wouldn't be able to tell something is wrong with it.

It runs away though lolllll... lolllll. Victor locks up nameless in his basement with the others. Now that he knows he can make a stable reanimated corpse he just keeps on chugging.

Creature kind of becomes a campus myth like the trash muncher. Mostly non-malevolent though.

Now Noah has caught on to Victor by now. He catches him trying to take something from the morgue but his higherups aren't too hard pressed about it because Noah doesn't have sufficient proof + Victor cleans up really well. Also Noah unironically beefs with a 19 yo for fun so not the most credible. But Noah knows.

Victor half contemplates just hitting Noah with a shovel and doing what he has to but that's hardddddd.

Fortunately for Victor! William Frankenstein found dead in a ditch.

Yeah so while the Creature was out n about it accidentally infected William bc it didn't know it can do that.

Victor immediately takes William's body to mess around. Noah hears about his loss and also about how his mom died and he's like oh no wonder he's weird around corpses. And kind of drops the matter because maybe he's just grieving.

Oh he's grieving alright. G-making r-his i-next eving-specimen.

He uses William's body to make Erysichthon/EL. This specimen is mostly stable, able to switch between monstrous and human at will. However... he likes biting people on purpose and noms Victor on the arm.

Basement time. Basements all over the place.

Now I didn't know if I wanted her to be before or after EL, but maybe after. Victor wanted to experiment on a young child, see how manageable it'd be. Thus he uses a young girl to make 701/Loneliness. She is mostly stable, but she's really hyperactive, so like average kid shit. Unfortunately Victor is kind of unfamiliar with children so he throws her in the basement as well.

Noah when his student makes 7 atrocities against man in his basement:

Victor's health has been declining drastically as well from his lacerations. He'd been growing more delirious.

While Victor's sleeping on his fucking futon on the floor, he forgets to lock the door... and well ... the monster mash comes out.

Instesd of having Nepe Victor/Regret as a final boss, Victor himself is the final boss. But instead he's infected and a shell of his former shelf. The nepes don't attack him because he has a "vaccine" against them in the form of being infected.

Yeah this whole time he's been using parasitic bacteria for reanimation. It made the nerves jolt and he's like I can work with this.

Worked a bitttt too well. The only way to kill these zombies would be to burn them.

Ofc they start infecting everyone on campus. All entrances are blocked by Nepes zombies. More specifically it's this unidentifiable biomass coagulating around the doors.

🤣🤣🤣 Noah's boutta kill this motherfucker with his bare hands. As soon as the first zombie enters the room he doesn't hesitate to hit it with a chair. Bro is PISSED.

You just know his ass is saying "I KNEW IT" the entire time. He distributes sterile gloves/masks to the rest of the team later on to prevent any sort of pathogens from going inside their bloodstream. But eventually they're going to need something better to filter that shit out.

As soon as Hanna sees what's going on outside she locks the doors to her classroom aaaaaand goes catatonic . Her students have to look after her till the others come.

Hanna unfortunately has to see her students die because plot. Hanna always saw her students like family even if they cycled out fast. They'd be nice to her because they know she's trying her best and vice versa. So it just. Especially sucks for her with the knowledge that these students will never grow up to be accomplished adults like she knew they could be.

Noah meets Justine again and asks her if she can help with talking to Victor to see if there's a way to bring the zombie nepes back to normal.

In reality he just wants to know where Victor lives on campus so he can go beat the shit out of him really hard. Justine doesn't have to know that tho.

They find EL in a corner passed out. He looks like a normal enough boy and he could just be one of the professors children. Hanna and Justine especially want to help him.

Noah is a bit reluctant but he is just a kid.

However as we established EL is kind of a freak. He breathes down their necks and he doesn't start anything just yet. He wants to see how many people are still remaining so he holds off on biting.

Creature comes in purely on accident. It manages to bite through the biomass in the front door and go inside.

Once the gang determine it won't really bite them + it's useful for plowing through the other nepes, they take it in as well.

The university seems to be split between 6 nepes (like the tower and it's 7 floors). Each Nepe has it's own mark. Like you can tell someone got mutated by Siren via the tentacles coming out of them. However Atlas doesn't really do much so his neck of the woods is a peaceful place.

Unfortunately EL realizes they're the only ones left and attacks before he gets attacked. He bites Ben and tries attacking Hanna before Alex shoots him.

They think Creature infected him... which technically it didddd but on accident and it did that to William not Erysichthon. But they still need it for killing the Nepe bosses.

701 bites people to make friends 😭. Her zombies are a bit like. Preserved. Like dolls. They can't move much because their joints are stiff and they've become colorless. Noah's a bit reluctant to hit a child but considering he's seen enough corpses already he's emotionally bracing himself. Chris however has no hesitation. Molotov her ass ❤

Yeah Chris has been making molotovs and shit with his booze. If it works it works.

Ben has started to go a bit insane from the infection. They muzzle and tie his hands up so he can't wound anyone. He can still speak albeit in broken words. They don't want to kill him because of the chance of a cure + he's not hurting anyone so if it's not needed they won't kill him.

Leon, Noah, Alex, Chris, and Creature have been the ones primarily fighting. Leon and Noah are incredibly jacked and let's just say... Noah is motivated by pure spite. Alex and Chris have survival experience so they know what to do in certain situations. And Creature is creature. It takes over later on for fighting while the others try to live the best they can. Hanna and Justine help with injuries.

Hanna also knows Victor had been up to something, on a particularly bad day she said she saw him in the halls carrying corpses and asked what the hell was going on. He admitted his plan to her and while it sounded insane, she thought perhaps... he could get her baby back. He promised to do so if she kept quiet and she did. She later pushed this memory to the back of her mind so she only remembered recently. That's why she went catatonic.

Justine is really concerned for Victor because she knows he hasn't been well. He hasn't et her take care of him either. Wouldn't even let Clerval or Elizabeth visit. So the fact this happened? Oh he's deaddddd.

The gang are focused on finding a safe way out but also to exterminate all the zombies so they won't escape either for the greater good. Noah himself is also trying to research the disease to reverse it because as luck would so happen, he has a hefty amount of medical knowledge. He's been serving as their medic as well.

Raven is terrifying to fight because she and those she infected, have wings and talons (which have grown over time). They fly down to try to slash at the group. Creature uses itself as a meatshield to protect them before finally beating the shit out of Raven and charring her. Bird down.

ELs back-! As Erysichthon. There's green mucus from the corners of his mouth. The zombies on his floor are the more traditional type, except their flesh is slowly breaking down into slime because of his saliva. (He bit them harder than he did Ben and Victor). Again Creature has to fight him and burn him down.

Atlas doesn't do much, he doesn't resist getting killed. His area is not a zone, more so a corner he's been pushed to. They keep him in that area as a way to ward off the other Nepe zombies because his presence seems to work on them like a relaxant. Which in turn makes it easier to kill them. They only kill him when his presence starts agitating Ben and making them all feel a bit sleepy.

Siren is terrifying to fight. Her zombies have grown tentacles. And once she latches on ohhhhhhhh. She is also the most powerful. Her flesh covers the exit. She releases a vapor that acts as a hallucinogen, making everyone see happy visions and want to never leave. Of course that won't do. Fry her ass 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Nameless' area rumbles with his growling. He can't control himself from mutating like every other day but he's trying to hold on to what little humanity he has. But he's also the most brutal. His mutant form literally eating out people's organs and leaving them half behind.

As soon as he sees Creature though, he feels more at peace. More in control of himself, as if it was his other half. But he still wants it to kill him.

He's almost able to control himself for good, but he gets triggered into his mutant form again, and because he can't stabilize himself and is a threat to everyone else, he gets killed. Sadge.

Now that all the major Nepe contaminants are gone, they can finally go to Victor and ask him what the fuck is wrong with him.

Victor's eyes have gone completely black and yellow (another sign of the infected). He's crazed with power but breaking down at the same time. He's begging them to save him but he's beyond saving. The skin that ELbit has gone gelatinous and raven's scratch marks have overgrown with feathers. Tentacle marks on his legs all that jazz.

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trans-elrond · 2 years ago

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okay i finally get people hating on tumblr trends now because I hate the “hyperspecific” poll trend with a burning passion. not because of the trend itself but because no one knows what hyperspecific MEANS.

things I’ve seen on “hyperspecific” polls that are in fact common on tumblr dot com:

is aroace (on this fucking website??)

has taken iron supplements (very common. touch grass.)

has been to a foreign country’s airport but not the country itself (literally most people who have traveled.)

has multiple middle names or no middle name (okay white american somehow completely unfamiliar with other linguistic naming trends. fuck you.)

the trend isn’t the problem; people showing their whole asses is

#it is literally block on site for anyone who makes one of those polls with poll options i think are dumb. it’s either that #or tell op to go fuck themselves

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itmightbeneb · 2 years ago

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just-another-frender-blog · 2 years ago

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Do you think that Futurama is marketed more toward men, or is it pretty neutral? I never thought about it before. I think people tend to see it as a "guy" show because of Bender's public perception (which is often inaccurate.)

I can't speak much about how Futurama was marketed because I wasn't born when season 1 came out. I was three when it ended its initial run on Fox, and I don't have many personal memories of the earliest years of the 2000s. I'm not the best person to speak on the marketing of this show, though I find a lot of the promotional art to be experimental and very creative. The promotional material for this show is quite fascinating to me because I don't think you see anything marketed the way Futurama was (same for other shows/movies that came out at the time).

I have read about the toll it took on Matt Groening to get this show made. I believe he called getting Futurama greenlit "the worst experience of his adult life." Fox wanted him to make The Simpsons 2.0, and he wanted the creative freedom to make a cool sci-fi cartoon. As a result, Fox treated this show like absolute shit; they let it tank on purpose, getting it canceled due to low ratings as a result. That being said, Futurama paved the way for niche television and riskier projects, just as The Simpsons changed the landscape of American sitcoms forever.

My point is that screenwriters, for television and movies, are heavily restricted by executives. This medium of writing is often one of the most restrictive in terms of creative freedom. This can be a good thing, as limitation breeds creativity, but it can also lead to writing problems. I suspect that Futurama stuck so heavily to certain aspects of the status quo because of executive pressure, even though they were able to develop the characters and maintain continuity within said status quo (which is impressive to me).

American media is heavily constrained by capitalism, which means that shows have to be marketed toward a demographic. There are exceptions to this rule, such as the show Infinity Train. Creator Owen Dennis stated that Infinity Train was never meant to be for any one demographic, but was more of a show all ages could enjoy. But shows that don't fit into hyperspecific boxes are kicked to the curb for daring to be risky, which is exactly what happened to Infinity Train, as well as Futurama.

I have no clue what exactly went into the making of Futurama, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's likely Fox wouldn't greenlight the show unless it was geared toward adult men specifically. And that's likely how Matt Groening had to pitch the show in order to get it made. That being said, I know that Fox also came down on the show for being too adult (?) which is downright unfair. Another factor to consider was that the writing room was almost entirely male, and only one episode in the entire 140-episode run was credited to a woman.

There's also the fanservice aspect being exclusively for the "male gaze." There are sex jokes and episode concepts that are very outdated, but overall, I would consider the show to be progressive for the time it came out. It's definitely progressive for a show that was airing on Fox (like The Simpsons). As I said in another analysis post, I was very impressed by how well-written Leela was for the main female lead. Especially how she's allowed to outshine her male counterparts because she's far more talented and capable than them.

Then again, I'm stunned if a show has one or two female characters that aren't poorly written, so my standards are very low. I do get the impression that the writers had a lot of respect for Leela as a female character, especially how David X Cohen stated he initially didn't want her to be a love interest for Fry at first. This is a good thing; female characters shouldn't be created for the sole purpose of being a love interest. They gave her a very well-written and compelling character arc, which is also very rare for a female character (once again, the bar is on the ground, we need to do better).

I'm going to get personal toward the end of this post. I would say that the capitalistic obsession with marketing toward gendered demographics really hurt me when I was growing up, and I imagine it hurt many others. I started forming very intense hyperfixations before I could retain memories, and I don't have a lot of control over what my brain decides is a new obsession. I would fall in love with "things for boys" and "things for girls" without much discrimination. I really just wanted to connect to a story that resonated with me and I didn't care if I was meant to be a part of that audience or demographic.

People gave me a hard time for liking things like Nintendo games or Ninja Turtles instead of liking fashion, makeup, or whatever else was perceived to be normal for girls to like. And I did love many feminine things, but they were still considered weird I guess? This type of attitude harmed my perception of feminity and masculinity, as well as my relationship with my gender identity and sexuality. I have a healthier relationship with my gender/sexuality now, but I don't think I've completely recovered from the societal pressure to act a certain way based on my gender.

For Futurama, I have a hard time seeing it as a show for straight men, even if I logically know that's the case. I'm used to finding comfort in media that was not made for me, and I've been able to make peace with that (though I still get bitter from time to time). And I realize that most creators would rather not limit their work to a specific demographic. They're trying their best to game the system of capitalism, which is all you can do if you want your art to get seen by the public. It's a huge accomplishment when they're able to make wonderful art in such a stifling environment.

#futurama #asks #sorry for getting personal at the end #this one is based more on personal experiences #than actual marketing analysis #long post #somewhat of an analysis

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anulithots · 6 months ago

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The way I thought that this was 'oh heres things to remember as an author and take care of yourself to avoid these pains' for a good few moments (I'm way too tired asjdkf)

I can agree and maybe add some things as someone who's eating habits are a tossup for pain + used to choke on things all the time at random + has a thing for not telling others I'm pain + gets extreme stomach pain from pizza, which we used to eat all the time and I tend to write things off and not process that I should do something about it.... so I used to just keep eating the pizza when we got it and dealing with the results.

Er, I eventually want to give the 'hyperspecific' things to my character's but until then 'ta da'!

Will hum random songs to distract from pain. (These songs may or may not be the American national anthem or ode to joy or jingle bells).

Will make the most random noises and speak in gibberish

thoughts shall be consumed by pain pain pain. But perhaps in silly ways if they are used to it/process things weird. Might think about how it consumes their existence now but it will be so nice when it goes away

Might gag and choke, sing a bit or think about a show they like, gag some more. Pain. But eh, it will pass soon. Nothing to worry about. Definetly no something to worry others about. Be as quiet as possible. They'll try to fix it when it doesn't need that much attention when it isn't actually that bad. (I say as I just choked on TOFU. TOFU IS SOFT HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN.)

'Drink some water!' they say. Hmmm no. Actually it's better (lies) to let it hurt reallly bad for a couple of seconds as it sorts itself out

even though such events happen every other day at this point, sometimes the scared-ness of 'how do I fix this, what if it's bad' comes in

OH and if around other people, then it's always a pain to be a burden or a nuicense (at least for me). I used to have these ways of masking that I was choking on something. I would silently excuse myself and figured out a way to silently gag (wowowowo... also it's via condensing your tongue to the back of your throat and holding your breath and 'shoving it upwards?'. I tried not to cough really loud because my family would always find out if I coughed really loud.)

Feels bad when fussed over, jokes about it, laughs it off, wants other people to laugh it off too because it's honestly not a huge deal. Kinda funny now. Adds some 'spice to life' as they say.

OH and trying to subtly deal with it yourself for things like stomach pain. 'How does one ask for medicine without rousing suspicion?' sort of thing. Sitting on the floor and trying to massage the pain away. Breathing in little pained gasps as to not make too much noise.

And if I do mention things like 'there's acid in my throat because of these crackers that I keep eating IDK', then again, in passing and not accepting help and wanting to make it a joke

... if you know what triggers things they can be used as a form of self-harm. Not fun.

Low level/continuous pain tips for writing

Want to avoid the action movie effect and make your character's injuries have realistic lasting impacts? Have a sick character you're using as hurt/comfort fodder? Everyone has tips for how to write Dramatic Intense Agony, but the smaller human details of lasting or low-level discomfort are rarely written in. Here are a few pain mannerisms I like to use as reference:

General

Continuously gritted teeth (may cause headaches or additional jaw pain over time)

Irritability, increased sensitivity to lights, sounds, etc

Repetitive movements (fidgeting, unable to sit still, slight rocking or other habitual movement to self-soothe)

Soft groaning or whimpering, when pain increases or when others aren't around

Heavier breathing, panting, may be deeper or shallower than normal

Moving less quickly, resistant to unnecessary movement

Itching in the case of healing wounds

Subconsciously hunching around the pain (eg. slumped shoulders or bad posture for gut pain)

Using a hand to steady themself when walking past walls, counters, etc (also applies to illness)

Narration-wise: may not notice the pain was there until it's gone because they got so used to it, or may not realize how bad it was until it gets better

May stop mentioning it outright to other people unless they specifically ask or the pain increases

Limb pain

Subtly leaning on surfaces whenever possible to take weight off foot/leg pain

Rubbing sore spots while thinking or resting

Wincing and switching to using other limb frequently (new/forgettable pain) or developed habit of using non dominant limb for tasks (constant/long term pain)

Propping leg up when sitting to reduce inflammation

Holding arm closer to body/moving it less

Moving differently to avoid bending joints (eg. bending at the waist instead of the knees to pick something up)

Nausea/fever/non-pain discomfort

Many of the same things as above (groaning, leaning, differences in movement)

May avoid sudden movements or turning head for nausea

Urge to press up against cold surfaces for fever

Glazed eyes, fixed stare, may take longer to process words or get their attention

Shivering, shaking, loss of fine motor control

If you have any more details that you personally use to bring characters to life in these situations, I'd love to hear them! I'm always looking for ways to make my guys suffer more write people with more realism :)

#writeblr #writing refernce #I guess?#I just saw these and was like 'oh that's accurate' before realizing they were about writing #listen if my digestion is going to be a mess I might as well use it for writing fodder #noorie infodumps. be very afraid

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anicekidlikeme · 7 months ago

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My life is a fucking squiggly line.

Today I woke up feeling some unusal optimism about my life. I had a very busy day: studying for my exam, going to therapy, taking the exam, going to class and then office hours. It was all laid out, and for reasons that I won't dare question, I was really excited about today. I put on a rushed outfit. One with jeans. I was wearing jeans. I hadn't for weeks, and I was proud of myself. I go into therapy 10 minutes early, and situate myself in the waiting room, next to my former-campus-crush, who also happens to need therapy every Thursday at 10am. It was all going well.

You'll have to forgive me for any typos I make while writing this, I am devastated, teary eyed, and not a very elegant writer. Eventually, I walk into my therapist's office and start telling her about this sudden happiness. I had my truth conversation with Drew. I'm so proud of myself! The RA knocked on my door again yesterday to see if I was "mentally okay". It was so frustrating!

It took me a very long time to give therapy a chance, and even when I did, I wasn't convinced any of that shit was real. How could I? Growing up, all I heard were pretentious quotes about how mental health needs to be a bigger focus in Indian culture, and all I saw was people doing the exact opposite. It feels so weak to even say the words mental health (it may be the only thing worse than saying I'm depressed out loud). Because of the finite-ness of every emotion of mine, I always logically concluded that everything must pass. And once it has, I just thought you become some sort of happy-prototype (how american-dreamy of me).

But the awful thing about everything is that it never passes. The places I will never go back to are still unchanged, and they just stay there while the grass grows. All these feelings I have too never really go away. They just stay hiding in the back of my brain waiting to jump out when I am not looking. So, I went to therapy. I learned how to get comfortable talking about my feelings, I learned how to resolve them, and I learned how to trust someone with a degree to help make me better.

When I start feeling familiarity, I often do so in the context of surrounding objects. In my therapists office, I had started to feel safe with the trashcan near my chair, with the footrest that was right across from me, and the two paintings right above her brown leather chair. It really is a very comforting space, there's plants everywhere, and it just works. Back to the paintings, the first is of a tall leaf-less tree in the middle of nowhere, but with a strange two-toned gradient of a blue sky. The other is of a flowering cactus of sorts. I am usually very focused on them, and I like them. They help bring me back to my body on days where I am only 11% Vaibhavi. So, here I was, feeling familiar, feeling comfortable, and talking about my feelings.

I signed a confidentiality release last session so that she can reach out to somebody from my college staff to help me with details of my academic and financial life that would only bore you. This session, she brought it up. I know that my therapist too is a person, and I know that she herself has feelings about this confined relationship of ours, but the way in which she approached this hyperspecific fucking situation made me feel like the room had just shattered like glass. I felt confused, alone, accused, and very very unsafe. I wanted to shout at her. I notice as I am writing this that actually I want to shout at a lot of people, but never do. I wonder how it would go if I did, or even if I said I wanted to. Anyway, I wish I would have said to her, what the fuck? I have spent weeks coming in here, learning to trust you, telling you the smallest details about my life in the most truthful way, and here you are, feeling lied to? Just trust me! I really need you to. I did not say that, and instead I cried. A lot. I think a part of why therapy works so well for me is because there are many things in my life that are still waiting to be categorized. Vaibhavi, what happened here was wrong, and I feel for you. Vaibhavi, your body is having a completely normal and healthy response to stress. Vaibhavi, it is okay. I had never heard those sentences until a few weeks ago, and it felt like these labels were making things feel more resolved, more closed-book-ish. Validation is very healthy when you've never had a fucking clue about anything your whole life.

However, as we were talking, I felt a click. A click with which I could feel myself withdrawing. A click with which I could feel like maybe I gave too much of my trust to somebody who is just doing a job they are obligated to do. I don't think therapy is going to work anymore. I don't think it will feel good anymore. I felt for some reason, really really betrayed. I wish I could explain more in detail how everything went down, but if I am being honest, it was too confusing to remember anything besides these leftover feelings I am now writing about.

Maybe therapy is not a sustainable option for me, because I cant shake off the feeling that the more people get to know me, the more definite becomes the timeline of when they will have had enough of me. My social wealth, I have realized, goes through a very specific graphical pattern. Consistently upward at first: this is the stage of discovering new people, loving them, and thinking I will spend the rest of my life being their friend, lover, or I guess client. Then, consistently downward: this is less autonomous. This is when people start getting frustrated (maybe at my antics, maybe at my mindlessness, maybe because I am just too fucking sad all the time), and put distance in our involvements. After this little withdrawal stage, they leave. Walk right out, like I have just been fired from my long term job without warning or compensation. If you were to use these as data points for my life, you would graph a fucking squiggly line.

My life is a fucking squiggly line, and it sucks on days when I am painfully aware of that. What a confusing feeling, to think that your therapist believes that you are a bad person.

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heejinsoulyves · 1 year ago

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Shortcomings is so good. It viscerally examines certain things about race and gender, and certain hyperspecific Asian American thoughts and experiences, that most stories don't. It's rentable on Amazon now! https://www.amazon.com/Shortcomings-Ally-Maki/dp/B0B7578CZX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2I2S3QMZWFTH2

#Shortcomings #movies #Asian American

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manysad · 3 years ago

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i suppose the best way to write a story where the point is 'the main character's dreams are bad and wrong and they'd be better off getting a different dream' is to have them succeed fully and completely

if you have a story where the main character has a dream, and fails, and is unhappy about it for a while before moving on and being happy in a different way, no matter how you hammer in why it was a bad goal to begin with at least some portion of the audience is going to want to see them happy and successful in the most direct obvious way possible and that means dream fulfillment.

But if you take their journey to its natural logical conclusion then the audience has to be made to understand why the problem was the life goal and not any extenuating circumstances and any 'what if they were happy' has to nix the life goal, not extenuating circumstances that don't exist. since, after all, the character got what they wanted and were happy until inevitable consequences set in.

#of course there's always going to be the people who immediately go doylist #and say 'why does the author think this goal is bad :/'#and say that any consequences chosen are NOT the realistic outcome #but i think that's generally not most readers #this is a repeated pattern i've noticed #on the lesser end it's value-neutral or even positive stuff where it being bad is hyper context specific #after all there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a doctor and failing to be a doctor hurts #but sometimes you specifically just shouldn't be a doctor for your own or others sakes #and at the other end it's stuff that you'd think would be obviously bad but apparently are not #mostly hyperspecific evil stuff #middle end is realistic things that are extremely unlikely to be achieved and have well-publicized downsides but cultural praise #like being an american football player or a kpop star or an actor in literally any country

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official-darkforest · 3 years ago

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How would you change the warrior cat naming system? I'm trying to change my oc story into something much more original but I'm kinda in love with those names but you know with all that drama. So how would you change it?

i wouldnt call it drama, more like critical consumption of media and being culturally sensitive towards indigenous americans. no one person can speak for everybody in their same demographic, but i still encourage you listen to both sides of the conversation and do your best to be an ally. i know there are quite a few indigenous american ppl who have an issue w the naming system and some who really dont mind it that much, so just be careful and respectful regardless of what you do.

that said, heres a few suggestions!

emoving naming ceremonies altogether, they just have one name their whole lives (but are allowed to change it). another is using some more Wacky prefixes and suffixes, like getting hyperspecific with names (amaranth- for example)

another option is first-names and last-names like whats going on in the cathedral story thing by breadcat/loafpaw or what i did with my own ocs.

(gonna use this as an excuse to infodump lol) personally i reuse their warrior names as a second name if i think it fits well enough like it does for sable flutewhisker and mink driftwood, but some of my characters have titles that are related to rheir jobs like flockmaster ermine (a pigeon farmer), agere goldenrod ('agere' from to do or to act in latin; shes an entertainer), stoat hawker (hunts with a bird-of-prey companion), rover ferret ('rover' referring to 'loners', but sometimes informally adopted by divorcees or widows searching for another mate) and bastion eucalyptus (bastion meaning fortress - his job is/was to be a warrior). the way i order their title/job names and surnames depends on how well they flow off the tongue.

flockmaster ermine and rover ferret can work both ways (ermine flockmaster and ferret rover), but sable flutewhisker sounds better the way it is. same with stoat hawker and bastion eucalyptus.)

i find most of these names by looking up synonyms for things and choosing the most unique one - another thing i did was some families have themed names and adoptees or spouses are given a new name similar to ppl irl whose spouses and adoptees take on their parent or partner's surname - ermine, stoat, and ferret are all related, sable and mink were married into the family and given the new names "sable" and "mink".

if you wanna pull inspiration from this, go ahead. im sure it can be a good place to start so you can figure the rest our on your own and find what worls best for you ^^

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freakin-edikan · 3 years ago

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Actually I have something to say about the proliferation of hyperspecific pride flags, labels, and identities specifically in online black communities: Stop taking random West African goddesses you think are cool and slapping -ian at the end to make the 17,693rd version of sapphic! Stop it!!!! At the risk of starting a diaspora war, kindly, cut it out.

For one, linguistically I’m sure none of these words actually make sense. -ian/an/ean, -ic/ique, and other suffixes like this are Latin. And they’re being applied to languages that are very not Latin. If the point was to avoid Greek/Latin you messed up right there on square one: trying to fuse words from a different language family into English. Because these are never languages the coiners speak or cultures they practice, this happens all. The time.

For two, idk about Y’ALL but for ME personalmente, I am averse to using labels and flags based on the practices of ethnic groups I’m not a part of. I’m not Yoruba, I’m not Akan, so I’m not gonna use labels based on Yoruba or Akan traditions.

Whether or not there is a label for black LGBT ppl that is based on a mythos I recognize, though, is beside the point. Just West Africa is a large place consisting of thousands of ethnic groups with their own histories, cultures, languages, and communities. How are you gonna take one (1) deity from one (1) religion and extrapolate it to all black people? You can’t, you shouldn’t, and idk why people on Twitter keep trying. Way to flatten an entire region of a continent before even getting to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.

To be clear, I have no issue with Black Americans taking from different aspects of different African cultures and languages, but the recent phenomenon I’ve noticed of an Internet user making a black-only version of [x] LGBT identity with a label from an African god/spirit and its own flag is not allowing these identities to form organically, based on the time period and space the people coining it occupy. It’s just an African twist on a preexisting white-dominated framework: label + horizontal-striped flag with hamfisted color meanings.

If we want to make space for ourselves in a movement dominated by whiteness, I don’t think it’s useful for us to use an individualistic framework sold to us by white capitalism. Political and organizing symbols are supposed to be uniting, easily recognizable, and easy to reproduce. They form based on community ideals and are iterative. The rainbow flag, for example, despite “technically” being a “poorly designed flag” (too many colors, they say) works because the rainbow is easily and near-universally recognizable by people, and it was iterated upon not only by Gilbert Baker, but by other LGBT community leaders, members, and organizers. Notice how there are different variants on the Rainbow flag, how it can be combined with other symbols to represent new things, how it can merge with other communities to symbolize solidarity, and how there is room for the diversity of the LGBT experience within it. That’s not something a flag *only* for black lesbians or black gay men or black bisexuals or black trans people can accomplish.

There is room to criticize the whiteness of the LGBT movement, but to section ourselves off is counterproductive, I think, because when we continually remove ourselves from these spaces, we in turn fail to challenge the white people on their racism and their antiblackness. In order for us to enact change we ought to be visible. Otherwise, they won’t even register if we left. Yes, we can mobilize the black people marginalized within the LGBT movement. No, I don’t think claiming any West African god as the patron of all black LGBT people is going to help us do that more easily.

Although, it is empowering to take African gods and affiliate them with black LGBT people under homophobic post-colonial African society. But that’s a different conversation and most of the time the people coining these terms are not living in Africa.

Nonblacks do not interact with this post.

#black lgbt #nonblacks dni

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rawliverandcigarettes · 3 years ago

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I've been reading your Mass Effect posts as I've been replaying the games and really appreciating them! You have a deft hand at writing and worldbuilding that manages to go into the more scientific areas that Bioware overlooked without coming off as "What does Tali's sweat smell like?" I really appreciate your writing on Salarian reproduction as well.

As a question, how often do you use Doylist viewpoints in your writings as opposed to Watsonian? Cuz I feel like a lot of the issues with Mass Effect (in particular the treatment of the Batarians and Vorcha) make sense from a game design perspective, and a lot of the series issues do come up as the writers failing to align "serious science fiction" with "shooty bang bang action game."

Hey, thank you so much for the ask and the kind words, I'm really happy you enjoy my little words on the internet!!!

As for your question... I don't know if I really completely use that mindset at all? There are issues that are indeed inherent to videogame production and that I am completely willing to accept as the easiest solution to implement in a context that I can only imagine to be impossibly chaotic and difficult to manage. I don't even want to think about the amount of crunch involved with getting the Mass Effect trilogy on the shelves. And while we're at it, I am still trying to figure out how to express my opinions in a way that is at once fair for the devs and truthful to my perspective.

(sidenote: there is a trend among gamedevs -in AAA principally- that, because we are intimately aware of what it takes to get anything out, we shouldn't criticize anything and just move past what bothered us as "not for us" and only celebrate; it's a perspective I understand but don't share, but I also don't want to be vitriolic towards the devs that, most often than not, have almost nothing meaningul to do with the end result and still busted their ass off trying to execute the mangled vision of 5 different people better paid than them all infighting about what that vision should be at all. To clarify my words in general: if I have a harsh word about something present in-game, this is about the actual result and never a judgement about the capacities/moral character of the gamedev behind it. All the love in the world to that gamedev in particular actually! But we also all make an oopsie from time to time, or a decision I find poor -which is not a sin!! it's actually very normal, I have hyperspecific understandings of things and it's not a fair standard to anyone who isn't me-, or sometimes we have to push stuff in the game and we disagree with it and that sucks and that's not on you, or make a compromise that's a way better version than what almost was and nobody will ever know that and criticize you still and that super sucks, and, and... you get the gist)

I guess that, as a narrative designer, I not only believe in the possibility of aligning the two perspectives (Watsonian/Doylist), but getting at close to this, hm, synthesis as possible is actually my whole job! So it's hard not to think of media that way.

While I understand why some decisions were taken due to constaints, I will still critique the way they were implemented; this is exactly in these moments some biases get to the surface and should be examined the most (for example with the batarians, their implementation reveal, in my opinion, a lot of undigested american exceptionalist mindset and white myths about PoC cultures. The premice in itself isn't "bad" and could be a neat jumping point for future subversion, but the fact that 3 games later this premice isn't recontextualized at all and is consistently used as a way to vindicate the player in various ways becomes an actual flaw to the games in my opinion, as it over-simplifies and caricatures an otherwise rich world that presumes to be the opposite of that).

I guess I am driven towards thematic reasonance and vision over lore consistency, for example, but I don't think convenience of function in game design should ignore the message it's still crafting (and I know from personal experience that game designers tend to get away a whole damn lot with not thinking about their game mechanics and what they imply about the game as a larger object, and it's very annoying and makes my job harder!!).

I'm sorry, it's a mess! I don't know if that's helpful at all! If it's not, feel free to send another ask and I'll try to do a better job ;_;

#'asks #gamedev #batarians

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