#the only youtubers I watch are doing something specific? like she's not doing video essays or... teaching you cocktails or whatever

[blujayonthewing]

modern idri is 100% a youtuber/ internet celebrity but she doesn't shill diet pills or detox shakes or whatever, mostly because she has a brain and a moral center but also partly because her mom's a pharmacist and would kill her for real

[thornnii]

⎯ ☆ calico critters

genre: fluff wordcount: 1.4k pairing: percy jackson x fem!reader tags: daughter of hypnos!reader (she/her), same au as ‘my girlfriend’, established relationship, technology doesn’t attract monsters, tw for talk of food & eating summary: percy knew she didn't really like the cold but he was hoping that a little gift would help bring a smile to her face. notes: I'm english so it felt weird to write calico critters, but it just felt more appropriate for the story for some reason ?

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a chill wind permeated throughout camp as the various demigods that braved the outdoors found ways to keep themselves warm and moving. however most, those [reader] deemed sensible or sane - as sane as anyone at this camp could be, were tucked away inside. [reader] herself was in her cabin watching different video essays from youtube that piqued her interest. it was growing close to the end of lunch time and clovis was still gone, [reader] however had expressed that she wasn’t hungry and although clovis had attempted to convince her to join him, he knew it would be a waste of time trying to convince his stubborn sister.

[reader] had barely noticed the passing of time, her noise-cancelling headphones allowing her to block out everything around her and immerse herself in the video she was watching. that was why she never noticed the knocking that came from the door of cabin 15. it may have only just begun or it may have been going on for a minute.

percy felt like cursing his innate need to be polite for his girlfriend. it was cold and windy, and he’d forgotten a jacket when he left his own cabin earlier. after a minute or so of intermittently knocking on the door, percy decided he was going to have just open the door himself. he opened the door slowly, calling out [reader]’s name as he entered. it didn’t take him long to see why his knocks had gone unanswered from the headphones, to [reader]’s hunched posture over her laptop.

cautiously, percy stepped round to be in front of [reader], not wanting to startle her from behind. the movement in her peripherals caused [reader] to look away from her laptop, the sudden, to her, presence of her boyfriend causing her to jump slightly, blinking owlishly at something that wasn’t a pixelated screen after hours of being on youtube. “w-what are you doing here?” her voice was hoarse after not really speaking since she’d woken up, stumbling as she threaded the words together.

“you missed lunch,” percy said matter-of-factly. “so I brought you something.” percy pulled out a small tupperware container containing a sandwich and a bunch of grapes. upon seeing the food, [reader] began to feel hunger grabbing at her. she took the container from percy with a quiet mutter of thanks, taking small bites of the sandwich.

“how are you doing?” percy asked, only receiving shrugged shoulders as a response.

“I dunno, alright I guess. been watching video essays.” [reader] gestured to laptop screen which showed a youtube playlist of video essays on a multitude of different topics; the video that had been paused upon percy’s surprise appearance was titled ‘The Internet is Turning its Back on True Crime’ by Shanspeare.

“true crime?” percy raised an eyebrow.

“it’s interesting.” [reader] countered.

percy just shook his head with a sigh. he’d experienced [reader]’s stubbornness the hard way before and knew how fruitless it was to try and further the dispute. instead he reached into the big front pocket of his slightly baggy hoodie. “got something else for you too.” he eased a hand through his curls.

that caught [reader]’s interest. ‘what else could percy have?’

slowly he pulled out a little plastic bag, the ‘Calico Critters’ logo printed at the top and a group of the baby characters gathered at the bottom. the top was already slightly ripped open, and [reader] eyed it suspiciously. percy noticed the look and explained: “yeah, sorry about that. I wanted to get you a specific one so I had to check what was in there. took a couple of tries to get the right one.” (actually percy bought roughly $30 worth of the blind bags and definitely got some looks from the cashier and his mom, but if it ended up making [reader] happy percy was willing to spend his entire allowance.)

[reader] took the bag from percy’s hands, opening the gap at the top slightly wider and tipping the critter out into her awaiting palm. from the bag, a small black cat baby slid out. it fell face first into [reader]’s hand and she was quick to toss the now empty bag onto the bed beside her before gently picking up the tiny baby figure. soft black fur was wrapped up in a pastel yellow smock, the inside of its ears were pink under the black fuzz. at this point [reader] couldn’t hide her smile as she carefully stroked the baby's cheek with the back of her finger.

all percy could do was look on admiringly; at how [reader]’s eyes shone as she inspected the tiny animal, at how sweet her rare smile was, at how she cradled the baby in her hands. percy was getting lost in thoughts as he sat on the floor, lovingly gazing up at his girlfriend. it was [reader] that abruptly broke the silence.

“this means we’re parents now.”

now it was percy’s turn to look confused, until [reader] continued; “this is our baby.” she held the little black cat out to him, and now understanding her words, percy smiled along with his girlfriend.

“yeah. but if this is our baby that means we need to name it, any ideas?” [reader] took a moment to think before announcing decidedly: “star.”

“star?” percy parroted back, testing out the name.

“yeah, she’s got black fur like the void of space, and yellow is associated with the colour of stars.” [reader] explained.

“star it is then.” percy agreed.

standing up, percy stretched his limbs, sighing in satisfaction when he heard several cracks of his joints. choosing to ignore the muttered ‘ew’ that came from his girlfriend at the noises, he planted a quick kiss to her head and moved over to the cabin window just after the end of her bed. pulling back the thin cream curtains, percy craned his neck to look up at the sky above the camp. the dark skies from earlier in the day seemed to have mostly cleared and the winds had slowed down. “do you want to go outside for a walk?” percy asked, turning back to face [reader], stifling a snort of laughter at her disapproving expression. “c’mon.” percy came back over to her, taking the hand that didn’t hold star in his own, pulling her off the bed and leading her to the window. “the weather has cleared a bit and we could use it as an opportunity to show star around camp.”

“okay.” [reader] agreed, still not totally sold on the idea but enjoying the thought of spending more time with percy and their new child. [reader] was still in her pyjama trousers and camp top, so she handed star over to percy and went on the hunt for a jacket. she found an oversized jumper in the pile of clothes at the end of her bed and slung it on. percy held an arm out for [reader] and with a giggle she took hold of his forearm, resting her arm in the crook of his elbow.

stepping out of the cabin into the brisk afternoon air, the pair started off on their slow stroll, pointing out the different landmarks of camp to star as the passed each one. as they continued to walk, the skies continued to clear up, the weather warming up even as the wind continued to nip at their cheeks. the two walked aimlessly around for about an hour before they headed back to cabin 15. percy sat down on the bed first before pulling [reader] to sit with him. [reader] pulled her laptop into her lap like before and disconnected her headphones from it, playing the video so they could finish watching it together. having missed the beginning of the video, percy whispered multiple questions in her ear about what was going on, [reader] whispering answers back as if they were at a cinema and didn’t want to disturb the people around them, even if the only other one with them was star.

in percy’s warm embrace, it didn’t take long until [reader] began to feel tired, slumping in his arms and resting her head on his shoulder. the sight of his girlfriend being able to fall asleep so easily in his embrace made his heart swell and a blush creep onto his cheeks. pressing a gentle kiss to the crown of her head, percy moved carefully to close [reader]’s laptop and move it to the end of the bed, then carefully placing star onto [reader]’s bedside table before shifting to sit more comfortably against the headboard of her bed, making sure that [reader] was still laying comfortably on his chest.

[tenderlady]

hi love!! out of curiosity, i didn't know about the lindsay ellis video, how bad is it?

hey, friend!

so, the video itself is here:

in the interest of full disclosure, i haven't actually seen it, so i really can't comment on the quality. my beef is not with lindsay ellis or the work that she's doing--as far as youtubers go, i think she's actually one of the better ones. this video might actually be good! but i haven't watched it, so i, frankly, don't know. my beef is much more with the video essay as a form and what it's doing rather than with lindsay ellis, or this video, specifically.

i'm guessing you're asking because of my tags on this post, which articulates a lot of my issues with the video essay industrial complex lmao, which gets at a lot of my discomfort with them. i used to watch video essays (a lot!), and a lot of my friends still do. like a lot of people, when i got out of grad school, i found i wasn't reading as much anymore, but i still wanted to be stimulated intellectually, and video essays were a good way to do that. but eventually i realized that i wasn't actually Learning Anything lol.

as ismatu gwendolyn says in her piece, "short-form video entertains more than it sticks." this was the place i was finding myself getting into when i was watching video essays a lot, and also the place i see my friends getting into. they are video (and arguably this isn't really short-form since it's over an hour long but i digress), but i find that most people i know don't actually Watch Them the way that you would watch a movie or, say, a lecture in a college class. instead they listen to them as you would listen to a podcast or an audiobook, which is to say While Doing Other Things. some of this is definitely because of the way our current economy is structured (a lot of the people listening to video essays are very busy, i.e., in university or working in a professional desk-type job, or have minimal downtime when not doing those things and have to double dip with their free time, so like things they can use to multi-task), and that is something i totally understand. but if we're looking at these as pedagogical objects (teaching tools from people who are trying to impart knowledge in some kind of way) they're actually not very effective. i respect folks like philosophy tube or contrapoints who include reading lists with their videos, but how many people are actually turning to these original sources? another of gwendolyn's points that i absolutely agree with is that you are engaging with a work in a totally different way by reading it. you have to give a written text your full attention, which is why the backbone of education is still Reading. this full attention forces you to have a deeper engagement with a text than you would while listening to it ambiently, or even just watching it. i get that there are people who can't do this for various reasons, but if actually sitting down with the texts a video essayist is talking about is available to you, you will find a totally different experience, even if those texts are just beatlebooks lol. (additionally, primary video texts--like interview footage of the beatles and yoko--are also hugely informative and different from the interpretive work i'm assuming is happening in lindsay's video)

i actually watched a good chunk of contrapoints' most recent video on desire but ended up dipping around the middle because she brought up anne carson and i realized i could just be reading anne carson lmao. i told a friend about this and he looked at me like i had sprouted an extra head and said "i never really thought about doing that. you're probably the only person i know who's ever done that." i get that like, 5 nerds in usamerica are hardly a representative sample, but that is the kind of behavior i see with video essays: people using them to fill a void of silence while they work/study/play video games/fold laundry rather than engaging with the material critically and learning in a concerted way.

the entertainment aspect is also something that bugs me, but i am a joyless hag, so that may just be me. i have a similar issue with john oliver. folks like oliver and the video essayists are definitely making complex issues more accessible to people who may be unfamiliar, but i don't know if they actually do much in the way of using that opened door to get people anywhere. there's also the issue of video essays being monetized. this isn't to say that Theory(TM) Isn't Monetized (they are published in journals and books, which you often have to buy), but that monetization isn't embedded into the work itself the way it is with video essays. nothing kills the vibe for me like talking about the great works of a philosopher and getting jumpscared by an ad for rocketmortgage or nordvpn halfway through.

like i said: i've watched video essays from time to time. i still do! but sometime in the last like.....4 or 5 years i realized that there were other things i could be doing with my One Wild & Precious Life.

to bring it back to the lindsay ellis video: i had a bunch of irl's (including a fucking ex that i don't talk to anymore!!!!!) send it to me, and i'm sure lindsay does a good job, but i kind of doubt she's going to tell me anything i don't already know lmao. one thing i love about the beatles fandom on here is that (for the most part) we aren't afraid to actually do Real Research Ourselves. the girlies are reading primary sources!!!! i just feel like the lindsay ellis beatle video is Not For Me, but feel free to prove me wrong!

[essycogany]

Why I Ship Sonic The Hedgehog and Amy Rose?

Hi! I’ve been a Sonic fan since 2022 and wanted to give insight on a beloved pairing from someone who’s only FRESH in this fandom. So I could give a somewhat recent perspective on something others might’ve grown up with.

Disclaimer: This is just my merriment of cartoon madness. Done for fun. It has my everywhere all at once speculations, and opinions. Spat into one big MESS. No problem if you disagree. I wish you all the best in whatever you create with your preferred take on these characters.

I take 0 credit for anything displayed in visuals.

Now, let’s get started!

Reason 1: What Got Me Into Sonamy

I want to recommend people who not only helped me understand the dynamic better, but did so while giving good insight on Amy’s character. Which is one of the most inconsistent in the ENTIRE franchise. Here they are! In no particular order.

Why Amy is a “Strong Female Character” [Sonic The Hedgehog Video Essay]

Channel: Taro Marshmallow on YouTube.

She helped me understand Amy’s character as a whole. I believe it’s important for people to comprehend Amy’s character in order for them to understand or like Sonamy. No one has to, but it sure was eye-opening for me. So, do of it what you will. I advise people to give it a watch for the AMAZING character analysis alone.

Molinaskies: On Tumblr, this person goes into serious analysis on Sonic’s emotional characterization, and Sonamy too. Words can’t describe how much I appreciate this ship the more I read about their dynamic from someone I can tell has fun doing it.

Sherrydoodlez: This person is the reason I became a Sonic and Sonamy fan at the same time. Once I saw her videos, I was HOOKED. She makes cute, fun, and outstanding Sonamy content on her YouTube channel. It’s mostly Boom!Sonamy animations with voice actors on some occasions. She makes other random Sonic animations as well. It’s a feel good channel you can watch to calm yourself as you head into a romantic cafe of servings you never knew you needed. Give her content a watch. It’s a jolly ride.

IDW (Specifically Issue #2 Page 21): I believe this is the statement which changed Sonic’s view about Amy. At the beginning, the blue blur was still on the run when Amy came around. But after fighting robots together and helping the villagers, Sonic admitted having fun. It could mean he grew more comfortable. Or just loves to fight robots regardless of who’s joining him.

Afterwards, Amy realized their negotiation about Sonic coming back to the resistance was a loss. She happily accepted it and accepted Sonic for who he is. Which made the feelings mutual on Sonic’s part in my opinion. He was even bashful while offering her to join him. Showing he didn’t mind having Amy around a bit longer. I know someone else stated this better, but I hope you get the point.

Sonamy is also the one ship that gets the most hints and jokes. From official writers, voice actors, (ESPECIALLY in Japan. Sonic and Amy’s VAs literally sung a love song IN CHARACTER for crying out loud.) X, Boom, Prime, artist, some of the games, and Sega themselves with their marketing.

Fact check me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure in Japan, Amy’s been called Sonic’s “Girlfriend,” plenty of times and some even theorize they're already together in the Japanese version of Sonic Frontiers.

(Which I’m positive is very intentional)

Can’t forget the creator of the characters Naoto Oshima stated on twitter, “Sonic has the eternal heart of a boy, but were he to one day mature, he’d choose Amy.” I believe if any ship in this franchise at least makes the most since, it’s Sonamy. I’m only scratching the surface, but we’d be here forever if I continued.

Reason 2: The Dynamic

I believe Sonamy works romantically and platonically. Sonic and Amy are best friends so their bond is already close in that regard. I think in times of peace they hang out. Which has been shown in IDW in the retail incentive covers of issue 1, 5th Anniversary.

The reason I think Amy’s the best choice for Sonic is because she can always keep up with him. She understands him and reads him like a book.

(Sonic doesn’t express himself very well, so that’d be a huge benefit.)

She brings an array of emotion out of him, and accepts him for who he is.

Amy wouldn’t slow him down because they’re relationship wouldn’t change at all. She’s always just as down for going out and exploring as he is. Being a hot-head, she’s not adverse for a bit of head busting with her hammer. Amy allows Sonic for a chance at a relationship he couldn’t get inattentive or tired in.

They’d go on their usual adventurers and might only tell a few friends about their relationship.

(Or keep it a secret)

After that, they’d travel together or Amy would leave Sonic to whatever he needed to do. In Sonic’s case, he would appreciate Amy’s understanding and return the favor by giving her flowers. Maybe even show minimal affection.

Like in Sonic X when he gives Amy a rose in episode 52. X also had moments where Sonic constantly protects/holds onto her. Not to mention willingly laid on a pile of hey next to Amy. And kept the bracelet she made him in episode 9.

Sonic X isn’t canon, but IDW has moments of Sonic hanging out or fighting alongside Amy too. Point is, the couple would be an updated version of their friendship. A “POWER COUPLE,” to be specific.

Romance doesn’t always mean you have to be lovey-dovey. You can treat your partner like a best friend as well. Sonic and Amy have a unique relationship because they’re subtle about it.

Reason 3: Why?

I believe it’s important to get this out of the way since these are my weird BIGGIES when it comes to shipping. Why Sonic might have a crush on Amy and why Amy loves Sonic?

Sonic’s (Alleged) Reasons: Amy doesn’t want to change him. She can keep up with him. She’s super compassionate and energetic.

(Sonic stated she was “sweet’ before.)

He respects and might even values her ways of thinking. In TMOSTH, he said:

In Prime he admits she’s, “Pretty great.”

And, he said in IDW Issue #58:

These can be seen as platonic compliments, but it’s the “Accepting Sonic for who he is” thing that homes in the mutual romantic feelings head-canon.

I’d even argue ever since Unleashed/Black Night he had a little crush on her, but felt unsure of it. That is, until IDW. He might still have no clue what to do next.

Sonic lines in Frontiers : “Amy, I should’ve made up my mind sooner.” and “Wish we were sharing an umbrella, Amy.” are huge examples of that and his reciprocated feelings.

Fun Fact: Sharing an umbrella as a couple in Japan is considered a romantic expression, and teens often draw an umbrella with their name and the name of their crush, the way one would in a heart. A very old tradition.

Sharing an umbrella has been seen as a romantic thing in a few American movies as well.

Here’s another detail I find hilarious. I LOVE in instances like Amy being, “The Lady Of The Lake” in Black Night. The time she ran away from Sonic in Unleashed, and became split versions of herself in Prime. The blue buffoon acts as if he grew more fond and I’d even suggest “attracted” to her. He either flirts with her or gets disappointed. To me, it’s a check on the, “Bringing a wide range of emotion out of him,” point.

In issue #2 of IDW it’s similar. Sonic asked Amy to join him. Then she admits being away from the resistance for too long. I’d say it’s a weirdly consistent thing. The times Sonic acts ready to “open up,” he and Amy end up having to save the world and go off to do their own thing.

(That panel in The Metal Virus with Sonic reaching to Amy while she’s freaking out, still hurts.)

Is this a sign they may need to take their time? Fortunately, we have additional content with them interacting outside those situations. I guess the hedgies are allowing each other to be their own person before committing to anything.

Like a “when they know, they’ll know,” situation.

Last thing. Sonic hugs Amy in both IDW and Frontiers. Never happened in official canon before, so his feelings must’ve changed into something.

Amy’s Reasons: He’s her inspiration and motive for loving adventures. Sonic gives Amy an excuse to show off her skills. And she admires his personality.

By the way, can we just appreciate how Amy loves Sonic for the right reasons? Not looks, popularity, or fortune. He always and forever will be her number one.

Reason 4: Conclusion

This isn’t everything, but I’m sure new content will give me new reasons to love this pair. I just wanted to take MOST of what’s already established and use it for a basic understanding.

As basic as overwhelmingly extra can be.

I don’t know whether or not Sonamy will be canon and that’s fine. To me, it’s semi cannon already and there’s a bunch of talented people who create Sonamy stories.

In actual media, their relationships grows stronger and stronger. Which I’ll dub, “Untouched reciprocation,” which is common in videos game ships.

I see Amy and Sonic as best friends with crushes on each other and find that very fascinating. The hedgehogs can just be.

Though on twitter in February 2023, someone asked about Sonic and Amy’s relationship. Then Mario Kishimoto (The director of Sonic Frontiers ) answered, “Sonic is single. But what about a lover? What about Amy? I’m also looking forward to seeing what kind of love Sonic will have in the future.”

Doesn’t prove much, but it could mean Sonic Team is interested in developing this relationship more. Whatever that indicates, I’m intrigued.

All in all this is why I love Sonamy. Hope you enjoyed my over analyzed essay

Stay Creative! 💙💖

[celestie0]

i’m kind of obsessed with kickoff reader. i wanna know more about her. aside from films, what are her hobbies? does she bake? does she like to cook? what inspired her to pursue film? did she used to make silly little films when she was younger? (and if yes, is it uploaded to an obscure corner of youtube where only Gojo can find one fateful night and never stopped making fun of her for it?)

- maybe i am kickoff Gojo

omg 👁️ kickoff gojo what r u doin here…u r not alowed out of ur cage go back to google docs

thanks for being interested in readerrr :””) oof aside from films n the photog i think she is DEF a HUGE baker n tbh i can see her having a side hustle of being like a food content creator or something where she makes aesthetic baking vids bc she’s got that film background 😭 maybe she has a secret instagram accnt that’s actually very popular 👀…..but she’s too shy to share 🤣

i think she knows how to cook 🤔 she’s not like pro level chef or anything, but she isn’t surviving off instant ramen either haha. most days of the week she just pulls stuff together w whatever her n mina have in the fridge but then every other friday she’ll go all out n make pasta from scratch or sear some lobster or sumn hahah. she is perfectly mediocre at cooking. and although she is known to be a bit more tomboyish w her style, she loves to wear a cute apron every now n then (｡･ω･｡)

omg inspiration for film is a greaaatttt question!!! i kinda want to explore that in main storyline now!!! i think when she was younger, she was a bit more of a quiet kid and was always the english teachers’ fave student bc she was really emotionally intelligent n had great vocabulary and in general a great eye for art n literature, so that academic praise kinda got her into writing stories n watching films, she studied a lot of old hollywood classics n from there she became really interested in film as a whole. i think it became a form of expression for her, since she had kind of a whacky childhood (will uncover more of this in later chaps) i like to think before she applied to college, she wanted to be an english major n become an english teacher but she knew deep down that film was what she really wanted to do and even though her family was reluctant, she went ahead n applied as a film major anyway (btw utokyo is hard to get into for film bc they only have a few spots for their program which is one of the best in the nation so i think she did well for herself :) it’s also why she wants to get into utokyo’s film masters specifically!!)

PLS THE OLD SILLY FILMS IS 100% ACCURATE i mean she has her short films on youtube now n they’ve done decent w views but yea i can see her having older videos that are parodies or i imagine she made a horror film when she was in middle school n looking back on it now it’s so corny n not scary at all 💀🤣 gojo would 100% tease tf outta her for that HAHAHAHA

DAMN I WROTE AN ESSAY IM SORRY i just don’t get many questions ab reader so i indulged a little bit haha tysm bb for the ask!!! (🤨 unless u rly are kickoff gojo, then in that case GET BACK TO CH10 I NEEDTO FINISH EDITING YOU)

[klaasje]

plz share your miku essay 👀

DISCLAIMER. this was written in the throes of 2020 lockdown fever and it shows lol

THE GIRL WHO’LL LIVE FOREVER

until tonight, i didn’t know hatsune miku wasn’t real. my hazy assumption was that someone ‘played’ hatsune miku in the same way that mark ruffalo plays the hulk - i thought there was an actress out there who provided the basis for her body and voice. i was right about one of these things, but only accidentally, and remarkably wrong about the rest of it. i am writing this because a) i have literally nothing else to do and b) because i thought the rabbit hole i just fell down was really cool! cool, strange, fascinating, and also kind of sad. anyway. close your eyes and pretend it’s 2007:

yamaha’s vocaloid software is grounded in the concept of ‘voices’. there’s the VOCALOID program itself, the act of writing music that can be played by a machine, and then there are the voices you can use to synthesise it. in 2007, there were 3 voice banks available: a western voice bank named ‘sweet ann’, CV01, and CV02.

CV01 (character voice 1) was developed by crypton media as the first japanese voice bank. character voice 1, as names go, is not particularly appealing - so to increase interest in VOCALOID software and attract a userbase willing to learn it, the team behind CV01 decided to put a name and a face to the voice they’d created. it went, from what can be discerned via google, the wayback machine, and a scattering of translated interviews, something like this: hatsune miku’s voice was based on vocal samples given by saki fujita, a well-established voice actress and living human being. the voice bank itself was built by designer wataru sasuski. her physical appearance, including her iconic outfit and improbably huge aquamarine pigtails, were created by kei garou, a cartoonist and illustrator. everything else was left intentionally as a blank slate - and in the ensuing years, her cult following of fans have risen to the challenge of filling in the gaps. for better or worse.

one of the few canonical facts about hatsune miku is her age. she is, according to her creators, a sixteen year old girl from a distant future where music was forgotten. her outfit reflects this, styled in a fashion reminiscent of seifuku-style school uniforms: skirt, shirt, stockings, and a tie. i did not know there was a specific word for that until just now. anyway - hatsune miku was sixteen in 2007, and she has been sixteen ever since.

i have watched… more than a few vocaloid AMVs tonight! the oldest ones resembled a cross between second life and final fantasy 8 cutscenes - bizarre, rigid avatars performing bizarre, rigid choreography in a number of inexplicable locales, such as endless fields of wheat, a gothic cathedral, and (most memorably), a busted nuclear reactor - but eventually i reached the live recordings, which is where things graduated from funny-weird to weird-weird. the production value, compared to those early videos, was off the charts. the songs, as far as i could tell, were the same. this is often lauded as one of the most unique, inimitable facets of the ‘miku experience’ - her songs are written (and choreographed) by her fans. world is mine, one of her most popular live performances at 8 million hits, started life as one of those stilted, second life-esque animations.

so miku’s songs are written by her fans. hatsune miku, the character, the experience, the mythos - is collectively created by her fans. which begs the question: who are her fans? who created the youtube videos? who has the time, resources, and sheer dedication necessary to create AMVs for an ever-young, ever-pleasant, angel-voiced teenager, with a sylphlike body and a skin tight school uniform?

i didn’t make the connection, at first. maybe this was naive of me. while absorbing the first few miku live videos, hearing her babytalk, watching her perform - my initial assumption was that miku audiences would primarily be teenagers (and their grim-faced parents), people who could relate to miku as an aspirational ‘peer’. her dance moves, especially, led me down this route - is fortnite still big with the youth? i’m 22, i have accepted that my days as someone who knows What’s Big With The Youth are behind me, but i still hear vague echoes from time to time. fortnite dances. tiktok. hatsune miku. etc. what was i saying. oh yeah. miku dances with a camera in mind, the way a tiktok influencer dances: effervescent, front-facing, with hand gestures that beg to be imitated. the more i watched her the more i recognised the unnerving, uncanny quality emanating from the stage. i realised where i’d seen it before. we live in a remarkable age of animation: where AAA studios are creating death scenes so realistic they can provoke a trauma response in the people animating them, where a horse’s bollocks will infamously shrink when exposed to pixel snow, and where hatsune miku dances with unerring, flawless fluidity, while the gleaming stage lights fall perfectly on her virtual body. 

she looks so at home in 3-dimensional space, especially in the newest videos, it's easy to forget she isn't there. she looks real. like you could touch her. she will never, of course, be real. you will never, of course, touch her. but you can touch her in other ways. you can write songs with her voice and make her dance to them; you can manipulate the movements of her body, every minute bob of her pigtails, puppet her, propel her. is that the appeal? is that why her audiences look the way they do? i am thinking about tabula rasa and whether the miku slate was ever truly blank. it makes me sad. there’s something poignant about the intersection of humanity and technology that vocaloids represent. they were the first crossing of a border that will continue to be crossed for the rest of the 21st century. in a virtual age, with virtual bodies, what constitutes as ‘real’? where, and how, do we draw a line?

to my surprise, there is a miku song i genuinely like: ‘miku’ ft. hatsune miku, by anamanaguchi. the music video strips the avatar away and leaves the voice bare, nothing but the blood and guts of a vocaloid, synthesizers and computers in an empty recording studio - and this nakedness simultaneously dispels and intensifies my discomfort. it reminds me that the miku vocaloid is more than the sum of its parts. despite the controversy surrounding the fanbase who propeled hatsune miku to fame, there is still something undeniably compelling about this. about her. maybe it’s that animal hindbrain piping up, pricking up the hairs on the back of my neck: this is not a human voice. this is something other, something new. the lyrics do not shy from this. miku, miku, what’s it like to be you? followed by, play me, break me, make me feel like superman, you can do anything you want - and, most poignantly, you found me here inside a dream, walk through fire straight to me. fire walk with me. miku’s existence is a lynchian fever dream; and what’s more, in this song, she knows it. i’m not saying hatsune miku and laura palmer need to be compared and contrasted. but i’m also not NOT saying that. i am saying that this song, like every other miku song, is the catchiest song in the world. like it was developed in a lab to be an ear worm. i suppose, in some ways, that’s the point.

[gregrulzok]

Modern!AU Zeke Jager brainworms, courtesy of the really long and complex AU I made with my friends fucking, what, two years ago?

We're only talking about Zeke but suffice it to say there's a lot of other backstory I'm leaving out

• Full name is Ezekiel Jager. He will absolutely never use this name and fully pretends it doesn't exist

• Was abandoned by Grisha when he was 7 after Dina died. Grisha left him with his grandparents and disappeared 'to grieve', returning 3 years later with a new wife and son to take him back

• Zeke really resented both him and Eren for a while, but after realising what a shitty father Grisha was to both of them, he took over taking care of Eren as much as possible - doubly so after Carla died too

• While Grisha was absent, Zeke developed a close paternal bond with his teacher/baseball coach Mr. Ksaver. Ksaver passed away when Zeke was 16, and Zeke was too grief-stricken and ended up abandoning baseball, comitting instead to becoming a doctor like Grisha

• When the Jagers started fostering Mikasa, Zeke was the first to try and learn some Japanese to make sure she didn't forget the language

• This led to him studying medicine in Japan after he got his bachelor's degree. He has a very ... Interesting encounter with Levi Ackerman while staying there *cough cough* at a specific sort of club *cough cough*

• (They met at a gay club and hooked up multiple times over the years, forming a very strained and awkward sort of relationship. They definitely annoyed each-other more than they liked each-other, but they formed a sort of kinship largely through their complicated family lives)

• Eventually he returned to do his residency in his father's hospital. In truth he absolutely hates the stress and fuss of being a doctor and thinks he isn't cut out for it - but he can't bring himself to quit.

• Staunchly anti-natalist - doesn't ever want to have kids and thinks he'd make a terrible father. On top of that, doesn't want to get married - he considers it an outdated institution

• Dated Pieck briefly. They had a stable relationship, but a fairly explosive break-up - Pieck brought up moving in together, and Zeke interpreted it as a marriage proposal and shot the idea down very harshly, leading to a huge argument and eventual break-up

• Most of his joy in life comes from embarrassing and poking fun at Eren. He loves him more than anything and can't bring himself not to annoy him at every possible opportunity

• Has numerous houseplants and can't keep any of them alive for shit

• Owns and takes great pride in using a full-on beard care kit, complete with an ornately carved mahogany box to keep it in. Generally takes really good care of his appearance ... Whenever he goes out. If he doesn't go out for two days in a row he immediately transformed into an over-caffeinated anxiety-riddled sasquatch

• Despite appearances, his house is an absolute mess - every surface has coffee stains, papers are scattered everywhere, ashtrays overflowing, dishes that haven't felt the touch of a single drop of water in many a night ... He absolutely hates cleaning and will put it off by any means necessary

• Has a novelty breath-mint tin

• Too nervous and forgetful to own a pet - he's toyed around with the idea of getting some fish, but after researching the amount of care they actually need he gave up on it entirely

• Listens to a lot of podcasts about the most random topics. Additionally his entire YouTube recommended feed is full of 3+ hour video essays

• Has a lot of trouble sleeping. The temperature, light and sound levels need to be very specific. On top of that he needs to be holding something to his chest.

• Fantasy nerd. Has read lord of the rings, played DND in college (doesn't have time for that these days), still watches real play streams - WILL try to mansplain the complex topics in any given high fantasy work of fiction

• Owns a collection of weird shirts with random images and sentences on them. It started off as a gag gift from Eren that read "Women fear me, Fish want me" - now he has easily over 20+ weird shirts, which he wears around the house at any given opportunity

• Loves Monty Python

[thorraborinn]

sonneve

How might you describe or define animism, or alternatively, do you have any recommendations for reading about it?

Graham Harvey defines it as understanding "that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship to others." This is definitely a better definition than "the belief that everything has a soul" but you might also notice that it's vague to the point of including practically everything that doesn't include Aristotle's rational soul as a distinctive feature of humans. Harvey is aware of this (he even includes things like yelling at your computer as an animistic behavior). As soon as you start to narrow the definition more than that, it starts to exclude peoples and customs that it's trying to include.

Nordic Animism has a good short video that does like a drive-by description of animism and history of its study that comes from the same sorts of books that I'm going to mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_j9oPCE-Ns

Harvey edited a book called The Handbook of Contemporary Animism. If you were going to pick a single book to start with, you could do much worse than this. Very many of the authors are ones that you'd see recur frequently if you were to go deeper into studying recent anthropology related to animism. If chapters stand out, it would be a good idea to find that author's other works.

My personal favorite single book on the subject is How Forests Think by Eduardo Kohn. He has a lecture on YouTube that introduces some of the ideas in the book: https://youtu.be/mSdrdY6vmDo?t=102.

Kohn draws heavily on the works of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Viveiros de Castro is one of the most important recent anthropologists in terms of him being the guy that everyone writing after him has to have an opinion about, whether positive or negative. It's a good idea to read him because he's going to come up in others' works. I personally find his stuff on Amazonian "perspectivism" very good. There's a collection of his essays called The Relative Native.

The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram is a good book about animism and phenomenology, kind of using ideas from Western philosophers like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty to derive something compatible with non-western animistic ideas. He has another book called Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology that I wasn't into but might be a good intro for some people.

There's like this whole scene of books about "entanglements" and use words like "response-ability"; it's not a bad idea to read one of them but I don't think it's necessary to read all of them; my favorite was The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. Donna Haraway has some books in this category that I know some people love but didn't do as much for me, admittedly possibly because of stuff I'd already read that was influenced by them. Here is also a good critique of these authors that I think preserves the positive while pointing out limitations: https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10180270.

Though only tangentially related to animism, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson is not only good on its own but I think is important to read if you're also reading stuff that focuses on distinction or non-distinction of human from non-human.

Pantheologies by Mary-Jane Rubenstein isn't specifically about animism but intersects with and includes it. I think just reading through the first chapter is worthwhile (the rest might be better for others but it drew heavily on stuff I'd already read). She also has a bunch of stuff on Youtube.

I dunno if she uses the word, but some of Gloria Anzaldúa's work intersects with it, e.g. Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro.

I am a big fan of Katherine Swancutt, she has written a lot of articles and done a lot of book editing; her book Fortune and the Cursed: The Sliding Scale of Time in Mongolian Divination is not really about animism per se but is a very good read.

Also not about animism, but a good thing to read for anyone interested in it, is The Invention of World Religions or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism by Tomoko Masuzawa.

This is probably getting overwhelming so I'm cutting myself off even though there's other stuff that I would list otherwise. This stuff is currently very popular and well-funded in academia which means they are actually fairly widely available, including as audiobooks, for those who prefer those.

[vidreview]

VIDEO ESSAY ROUNDUP #2 [PART 1]

[originally posted november 14 2023. NOTE: while migrating the archive from cohost i've discovered that tumblr has a 10 link-block limit, which means i have to split some of these roundups up in order to maintain the embeds. we love websites don't we folks]

hello from the pits of november! between random youtube recommendations and time spent trawling through cohost's video essay tag, i've discovered a lot of bangers this month. so let's just jump in!

"Why Does Attack of the Clones Look Like a Video Game?" by Empire Wreckers.

this is a fresh take on one of the internet's oldest, most time-honored traditions: complaining about the stars wars prequels. fresh in the sense that creator Edan has worked in hollywood VFX, and so brings an eye for hyper-specific details that you'll be amazed you never noticed before. clean, no-nonsense presentation full of surprising insights. immediately after finishing this video i then watched "How Bad Movies Are Made feat. The Rise of Skywalker" whose thesis that "bad movies aren't made on purpose" yields to a refreshingly nuanced perspective on exactly why the third star wars sequel was such a mess without resorting to droll hyperbole about JJ Abrams being a hack or whatever. these are great examples of materialist media criticism, in that they are as much a criticism of the production pipeline as they are the finished product. after watching these videos, i actually think that any other perspective on these later Star Wars is… kind of missing the forest for the trees? impressive stuff all around.

"women who wish they were 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐛𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬: an analysis" by Costanza Polastri.

a quick and honest overview of how straight women often misunderstand the nature of lesbian relationships, thinking them somehow free of the conflict they experience in heterosexual ones. the insight that "you don't want a girlfriend, you just want men to be better" reminded me of when i admitted to having a crush on a cisfem friend shortly after coming out as trans, only for her to get mad at me and end our friendship because "i told you i'm not a lesbian and it's frustrating that everyone mistakes me for one!" this was before i'd even decided on Sarah as my preferred name. she was more invested in my newfound femininity than i was! anyway, Costanza Polastri has an enjoyable screen presence and brings a really interesting perspective to the table-- and in pretty short videos, to boot! not an easy feat by any stretch.

"A real history of video games | Pay to Win" by Jimmy McGee.

an essential deep dive into how the history of the modern video game industry is inextricable from the history of legal gambling. if you think you know how bad it is, trust me, it's so much weirder and more frustrating than you thought. Jimmy McGee is doing some really great stuff on his channel, providing an honest materialist perspective on media analysis that i've found sorely lacking. "The AI Revolution is Rotten to the Core" digs past the obvious criticisms of AI and LLM mania into the much more pressing question of what we, as a society, value in our art. for something shorter, i also recommend "The Dream of the Internet", about the war on the internet archive and why it's such an essential pillar of the open web.

"I Played EVERY Star Fox Game… Here's What I Learned" by wizawhat.

starfox 64 has been my favorite video game since i was a child, so naturally one of my favorite genres of youtube video is "Let's All Gawk At All The Ways Nintendo Has Catastrophically Mishandled The Franchise." wizawhat does a good job giving each game its due, mostly avoiding hyperbole while still acknowledging that picking favorites in a history this checkered is an inherently emotional, subjective process. the highest praise i can give to entries into this genre is that i was nodding along violently the whole time AND actually learned a lot of stuff i didn't know before, which i genuinely didn't think was possible! his other video "I Miss the Old Nintendo" is the closest i've seen anyone else come to really hammering home why i've soured so hard against nintendo over the last few years, despite having been a nintendo defender most of my life. my only complaint is that he uses some hack corporate language at times ("content" instead of "media," "consumers" instead of "audiences," etc), but i'm gonna dig deeper into that in a dedicated vidrev another time.

"Why We Can't Stop Mapping Elden Ring" by Ren or Raven.

a great little exploration of what maps in games do, and what they mean in an era of video games dominated by post-release patches and balance tuning. i'll be brief here because i've got a full length vidrev queued up for this one too, but it's worth stating that creator Renata Price is a games writer who has turned to video essays after being laid off by Vice earlier this year. as the first entry in a presumed corpus by an experienced critic from a very different critical tradition, i find this video exciting because it's an opportunity to study how the medium affects one's message. right now it feels like Renata Price doesn't quite know how to take full advantage of the video part of the video essay just yet, and that's a great place to start from. i just find it to be such a privilege when you get to watch someone grow their craft in real time!

"Death and Thriving - Discussing 920 London" by Wolf Witch.

just a solid textual analysis of the graphic novel 920 London, Remy Boydell's followup to their devastating prior book The Pervert. digs into serious questions about the death drive, and whether or not people can change or recover from trauma. not much else to say except that Wolf Witch is on Cohost doing speedruns of Snake Farm. Snake Farm rules! support your local Snarmers today!

"That one speedrun where you change your gender" by Minoan.

an astonishing little coming-out video in the form of a Dark Souls 2 speedrun tech overview. i don't have much to say about this one except that it put a huge smile on my face and gave me some serious vicarious gender joy. i love the sound of trans women's voices!!!

[misstwisted]

My dramatic scene essay analysis of Black Christmas 2006

(CW/TW: Pretty much the entirety of Billy’s tragic backstory is talked about, which has the topics of i*cest/CSA in it. Please read at your own risk, you are very cared about and I don’t want you to ever feel upset. 💗)

Back of somewhere in the end of June, I got back into the slashers fandom. I reunited with my love for Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Ghostface, etc.

I rewatched old scenes, fell back into slasher tumblr, and felt extreme disappointment watching dead meat’s review of Halloween kills for the first time and reading the wiki for Halloween ends now then knowing my favorite franchise was ruined yet again. Somehow worse than curse and resurrection.

But soon, I got tired and wanted to scout out horror movies I haven’t heard/seen of yet. That’s how I was introduced to Black Christmas, which I’m pretty sure is the original slasher.

I watched dead meats video on the 2006 one because at the time I didn’t have any access to watching the movie, and I watched the scenes in there entirety on YouTube.

I really enjoyed the original one when I watched it on fully YouTube. It was interesting and even made me laugh a bunch.

But when I was watching all the scenes of the remake, one of the scenes stuck out to me. The scene that made me have a attachment to the remake.

The entire scene of Billy taking revenge on his mother and step father.

It spoke to me in a way only few horror scenes did. It stuck out to me over every other scene of black Christmas 1974. That’s not to bash the original, but, it’s the truth.

I wanted to make an essay analysis of the scene because I believe it’s one of the most cathartic and justice inducing scenes in horror. This scene deserves more recognition, and I just hope you all will hear me out about it.

Also, just me giving props to Robert Mann’s performance because I honestly think he did amazing at making me feel emotional.

I apologize if you all find this cringe/dramatic/ overthinking, but it’s just how I feel.

also if I somehow make you feel even more sympathy for 2006 billy that’s all I could truly ask for.

Let’s get started:

The scene starts out in 1991.

Billy was 21 years old at this time. A fully fledged adult who hasn’t been outside in the world for 16 whole years. Most likely never even getting an education.

The 21 year old finds a Christmas present in his room, a telescope given to him by his mother and step father.

He reads the note that’s attached to it, and in it reads the passive aggressive writing of his mother:

“Be good for goodness sake!”

This man has been through hell in back thanks to this woman. She took everything from him.

She took away his childhood. She took away his father, the only person that could’ve protected him from her. She took away his freedom, then took away his innocence. He had nothing but himself alone in the attic for 16 years thanks to her.

Never being able to experience anything. Not love, not friendship, not anything.

Getting that letter was the salt in the wound.

After everything she’s done to him, she still finds any way to kick him like a dying dog.

He slams his hands on the telescope just to take out his boiling anger on something, anything. His anger against the world, his mother, his stepfather. And also most likely has his own anger towards Christmas itself. Probably frustrated and confused on why this all happened to him. What did he do to deserve this?

He watches the next door neighbors quietly at his small window with the telescope. He watches happy families living peacefully together. Gifting things to each other, embracing one another, actions towards one another that aren’t inflicting abuse. A daughter hugging her father right in front of his eyes.

It’s a wonder if his mom did this on purpose. Giving him that specific present just to remind him he could never leave and that he’ll never have a happy moment again like that family was having. He’ll be forced to watch on the sidelines as a happy family celebrate Christmas together in the cold attic with the mean spirited gift his mom gave him. In general, He’ll never have a happy family. The present had to be some stupid inside joke for his mother and step father.

The way Robert Mann’s opens his eyes in this scene and the camera moving closer speaks volumes to me. Billy realizing he can’t live like this anymore. Billy realizing what he needs to do.

His mother meanwhile is downstairs gifting a baby doll to his sister-daughter. Treating her better than she ever did billy.

Then, when he tricks her into leaving, he goes to attack poor Agnes. I can see him having multiple reasons of attacking her. Wanting to take something from his mom the way she took everything from him, wanting to get revenge on Agnes even though she didn’t ask for this either but jealously and pain blinding him, and probably wanting to rid the person that is a reminder of the disgusting thing his mother did to him as a child.

As his mom and stepfather run late to stop him, he rubs salt in THEIR wound by disgustingly eating Agnes’s eye in front of them. Then when his step father attempts to attack him, Billy stabs straight through his eye, getting the revenge he’s saved for years to get on him after he also took away his dad.

And as his mom cries at the consequences of her own actions, Billy lunges at her and chokes her with the Christmas lights. He slowly kills her, giving her all the pain she instilled in him for so many years back.

But it doesn’t stop there. She doesn’t deserve for it to stop there. She doesn’t deserve to at least have a preserved body after everything she has done to him. Did his father get his body preserved by her and his step father? Nope. Why should she?

So, what comes next really wraps the neat little bow on this scene for me.

In the next sequence, Billy drags her limp ass to the kitchen with the Christmas lights like it’s a leash for a dog, quickly grabs a rolling pin, and starts beating the ever loving shit out of his mom’s body.

The way he does it is like he’s been waiting to do this his whole life. And he probably has.

He takes his sweet time too. He clocks her with each hit getting more and more aggressive. The hits hold so much emotion in them. The way billy seemed to be unleashing his trauma with every swing is done so perfectly I seriously have to give Robert Mann a round of applause of it. And the way his facial expression is like focusness mixed with unadulterated rage is perfect to me.

It’s like his boiling anger has flooded over. The way he portrayed billy in this whole scene I almost have no words. It just hits me deep every single time.

Billy then finishes out this, in my opinion, amazing scene by turning his mothers flesh into fucking cookies. What an ending.

Then he eats them alone in silence as the police arrive.

When we find out he got put into a sanitarium, it kinda broke my heart.

I mean, he obviously needs to get help, I understand that, but it made me so sad that this kid who has been locked in an attic for 16 long years had escaped and killed his abusers, only to be thrown back into isolation after.

Broke my heart. And poor Agnes too. That girl never asked for any of this and suffered for her mother’s actions.

So yeah, that scene is great to me. And it deserves more recognition.

As a person who has suffers from abuse, that anger he portrayed makes me tear up a bit. I related hard to wanting to get revenge on the people who have hurt me. Obviously not to that degree but you get my point. I can see how desperately Billy wanted to.

I feel like 2006 billy has more depth than people think.

Personally I think the flashbacks are the best part of the movie. If it was up to me I would’ve wanted them to make a backstory movie about billy instead of remaking it but that’s another story.

Side note about something, why the FUCK did Melissa ask: “Did they ever find out from him why he killed his family?”

Girl did you LISTEN to any of the stories these characters were telling you about him? The part where he was locked up for years, the part where his mom and step dad killed his father, the part where he out of his control had a inbred child?! Or are none of those good enough reasons to kill his “family”? 💀

Anyways, Thank you all for reading!

Also Robert Mann please act in more movies!

Oh and for the people who wanted to be tagged :)

@kiki-dohedo

@downtowncannibal

thank you all for the support on the Black Christmas post!!!

[liquidstar]

Hello! I'm the anon with the protector goddess OC from a while ago, I just realised I never actually responded to your response. Thank you for telling me that! I am cis myself, as you could probably tell haha, but there are a lot of trans women (writers or video essayists mostly) who I really look up to, and whose content helped me through a lot of dark times in my own mind.

To continue about my OC - she is pretty specifically only a protector of women, especially girls, not from general sexism but mostly violent misogyny, something that is very important to me because of some bad experiences. It is actually a plot point that she saved a girl, a possible future priestess, from death and assault by an invading force, but did not save the lives of her brother or father, something that drives the girl away from her religion - she would rather, in that moment, have died along with them. So, I do think that I unfortunately lack any of the nuance to write a trans man in the sect.

Anyway, there is a transfemale priestess! Her name is Luna, she is a poet and a pacifist, the daughter of a famous and wealthy liquor maker. Very mysterious, high-class woman.

Hey anon it's good to hear from you again!!! I remember your ask and your cool concept hehe

Getting more context of the nature of the goddesses inner circle makes that choice make sense though! If it's really a girl's only club I think I'd make the same call (that's just me tho). I'm sure it's something you've thought about a lot and I know you're coming about it from a really thoughtful angle either way. So I think it's a safe one. And I also completely get how writing stuff like this is a very deeply personal thing so I encourage you on that front and wish you a lot of luck!

But Luna sounds really cool! Mysterious high class woman.... She seems objectively awesome, and a really cool character to have on board, just in general, but also to make it clear this goddess is pro trans lol

You said you watch YouTube essays on this stuff right? Have you seen Lily Simpson's stuff? She does in depth reviews of different trans episodes in tv, usually sitcoms and such, and I think they're really interesting to watch from the perspective of seeing which stereotypes get reinforced through popular media and how they both reflect and encourage transphobic attitudes at the time. And that still pervade today. Recommended 👍

Anyway for real good luck with your ocs feel free to send me an ask about them anytime! Not just for stuff like this but just to generally ramble if you ever feel like it :) they seem very cool, and ik how it is to hold this stuff so personally so I'm really in your corner here! Good luck again anon!! 💖💖💖

[rat-rosemary]

To be frank with you, I don’t think that Dream went about announcing or creating the USMP in a good way.

For starters, Dream could have shown basic respect for Quackity and waited before announcing his SMP. He couldn’t even congratulate Quackity for the QSMP without making it about himself. Dream didn’t even wait a month before announcing the USMP, which you must admit is very similar to Quackity’s idea, which has been in the making for way longer than Dream’s has, based on how Dream doesn’t even have all 60 members of his server nor, you know, an actual quality translator (at least based upon his most recent video).

Plus, what connection does Dream have to other languages? I, for one, distinctly mentioning something about how the only language he speaks is winning, and yet now he’s all for overcoming cultural bounds and uniting people from all across the world? I acknowledge that a person’s opinions can change, but then again, there’s the matter of timing that I mentioned earlier.

Overall, I don’t believe that Dream would have been condemned this way if he had announced the USMP later. However, I do believe that he is being heavily inconsiderate of Quackity and that there is a very high possibility that he is trying to ride off of Quackity’s coattails for whatever reason. That reason could be relevancy, as with the obviously faked letter that he supposedly got from Google (obviously faked because of the multiple spelling and grammar issues), or it could be that he is trying to replicate the DSMP and its popularity again.

Regardless, even without getting into the moral qualities of Dream’s character and whether the accusations about him are true, it’s obvious that he is being rude to a certain degree (the degree of which is debatable, but the rudeness definitely not) towards Quackity and what he is trying to achieve with the QSMP.

Sorry for typing out this long essay, but I feel strongly about this topic, and whenever I feel strongly about something, my brain goes into writing mode (it’s the autism—just kidding, of course). I hope I didn’t come off too mean, I just wanted to share with you my views on why the Dream might not have the best intentions for creating the USMP.

Okay so i also talk a lot but my thoughts come a lot more fractured so you might see a ton of edits to this post

So first of all, i actually do agree that the announced of the usmp was not very good. Personally i think he should maybe have waited a bit more, or idk, but i do agree that it didn't come out the best way

The thing about connection to other languages I think that Dream is doing it both because of some of his friends (Korean in specific, Tina really want to learn korean again after she lost most of what she knew, and there are a few more youtubers Dream is friends with and/or knows that know or are korean) and because he genuinely enjoyed connecting with people from other places and languages! Idk if you saw him during the squid games and more even on spreen's heaven event but he was clearly having lots of fun and really really loving talking to people

And a thing about the Dt that most people who dont watch them dont really know, is that they're all kind of shy around new people. Dream is exited but kind of scared, Sapnap is really really shy and will stick to people he knows (you can see on his first irl stream with Karl, he looked like a spooked cat) and George will be weird with people he doesn't know but he doesn't really make a connections quickly like how Quackity for example does

You can really see how these events left a really strong impact on Dream (and his community!)

(Also, some other languages might also been chosen because of his friends, Foolish, Tubbo, Tina and [Oh fuck another person but i forgot her name] were/are working really really hard on learning Spanish, but didn't really get a chance to use it. Other ones, like Japanese, might just be a "oh! I bet there are tons of cool people there" but really i dont know the streamers, so i cant say for sure)

I can talk a bit about why portuguese tho! Most big brasilian youtubers started out as minecraft youtubers, and they're actually really big! I cant really vouch for them (they're not bad, just... like annoying bad, except that one guy, but we dont talk about Monarca) some of our youtubers were on the top of all creators on the site a few years ago (i havent really looked since then)

So it's a big untapped community that does actually love interacting with people from other countries (there's a reason that "come to Brasil" is a meme, other then the fact that no band ever comes to brasil)

I cannot comment on the google thing because i genuinely dont really know what you're talking about

But about congratulating Quackity, I think multiple cc's were congratulating Quackity and saying his project was really cool (including Dream) even before it was announced, and im pretty sure he congratulated Q after the qsmp trailers came out

But yeah, again I think it was kind of weird how the announcement of the usmp came, but i dont think it was because Dream genuinely wanted to hurt Quackity or try to overshadow him

About the quality of the translation, i actually think its kinda funny? It definitely shows that Dream (and Callahan! Who is absolutely incredible) were actually trying to create this themselves and not just copying from something else.

I also think its not meant to really be perfect? I for sure think it will be better when we see it live, but I think the usmp and the version of the translator we see in it are not meant to be the best version it can be, but more an example so people can take it and alter it and transform it. Thats why i think its free to access and edit, because it was meant to be taken and changed by the community

But hey! One of my favorite tropes is language barriers, so i might he a bit biased on the "It's okay that the translator is glitchy thing"

(I also think that language is so complex that the translator will never truly be perfect, with complicated words and frases and *regional dialects and words that dont truly have translations, like "saudade" or "cafune", i think that there will always be little misunderstanding and confusion and bugs, but we can just pause and try to explain it differently, like it always is in conversations)

[*side note, im kind of doxxing myself a little, but my dialect literally replaces the word "thing" for the word "train" and we only do that in my state. You can also always tell when someone writes something in portuguese making sure that people could translate it because we talk/text completely different, you can translate você but not ce so some things get caught up]

This is actually really nice! Its nice to share views without being aggressive and going for each other's throat. I hope is discussed everything? It's 2:31 am and im sick so i might have missed something and im glad to talk more about it if you want to

But yeah, long story short, i do agree that the delivery of the usmp was weird and kind of disjointed, but i think it came from a place of genuine love and excitement with Dream, he just hyperfoxused on it and forgot to think of some stuff. And i think it will be fun to have multiple multilingual smps and that in the ends usmp and qsmp will be different in some core ways

I hope i wasnt rude as well! If i did i genuinely didn't want to come off as agressive

[lesleymoonwriter]

9 people I'd like to know better tag

Tag from @ettawritesnstudies! Thanks a bunch!

Current book: I'm currently reading a book from the library called Literary Wonderlands. It's a compotation of different writeups on various fantasy and sci-fi works that heavily employ fictional settings and worldbuilding. I was also reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and I need to get back into it. It's really good.

Current fic: Something else I took a reading hiatus on, but I want to get back into a Twisted Wonderland fic called Ink and Ivory by honey_neemonie on AO3. It's an AU fic I can not fully explain without rambling about the plot of Twisted Wonderland for 20 minutes, but it's one of those magical fics that seems like it wouldn't work on paper, but works beautifully in practice, in large part due to the author's full commitment to the premise and excellent character writing. If you like gothic horror vibes and the Disney villain anime boys (especially the mermaids), give it a read! (TW for discussions of mental health and an offscreen non-detailed suicide in one scene).

Currently watching: YouTube. No but seriously, I was starting a watch Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! with a friend, but she's currently busy with finals, so I'm waiting until her life's a bit less chaotic before picking it back up again.

Next on my watchlist: At the moment? Probably The Owl House. I've been meaning to watch that show for forever.

Current hyperfixation: The same thing I'm hyperfixating about every night, Pinky-- Twisted Wonderland. Specifically at this moment, the Shroud brothers.

Favorite color: I LOVE blues. Particularly sky and teal blues! Sea green is also a favorite.

Sweet, spicy, or savory: Sweet or savory, or better yet, a combo! I have a super low spice tolerance, so I can only handle it in small doses.

Relationship status: Single, not looking, not interested in looking. (Is ace/aro-spec)

Last song: Ameri by NILFRUITS! It's one of the primary inspo songs for my other current draft project, Unmagicked!

Last thing I googled: jellyneo negg festival (yes, I am on neopets).

Skill I’d like to learn: I'd LOVE to learn animation, but also video editing! I think doing my own video essays and/or animatics with my ocs would be fun.

Best advice: Keeping faith and continuing to try, even if you're likely to fail, is better than becoming hopeless and giving up. Hopelessness leads to resentment and self-importance, which are both things that can lead to you getting taken advantage of and trapped in a cycle of hatred and stagnation. You can only move forward if you break through the cycle and keep going towards your dreams, even if they never come true, because as long as you keep your outlook bright, you're free. I learned this wisdom from an anime fox man, and now I pass it on to you. Take care. <3

No-pressure tagging @loopyhoopywrites, @theeccentricraven, @veneritia, @maddstermind, and anyone else who wants to participate!

[rosieuv]

Edgy Yandere Simulator AU thing?

The 1980s mode is a proper yandere simulator. I don't see why the 202X version is going down a similar route considering that Ayano is just a mentally disturbed kuudere and not a yandere. A key thing about the 202X version is info-chan. She's more of a plot device in the actual game and I think she deserves more of a purpose. So, here's my idea on how to make Yandere Simulator a cool horror game.

So obviously it won't be called "Yandere Simulator" if you're not simulating being a Yandere. I think a title like "The murders of Akedemi High" would be more sutible. 1980s more is a prequel right? So why should the 202X version be almost the same but 30 years in the future? Ayano doesn't feel emotions and only feels them when she's with Taro. In this universe: Ayano is an assassin like in mission mode, and works for info-chan just like in the real game. Ayano instead feels that dopamine rush when torturing and murdering people. Unlike mission mode, Taro is still alive and is now a yandere. That's how the 202X and the 1080's mode are different, as you want to murder a specific target, but someone's already done the job for you. To get past the week, you have to get to the victim first, before he does. I also thought that setting it so it's each month a new victim appears would make more sense, and each level is 1 week in that month. If you get to after school on Friday, then taro kills your target and you get a game over. I think it'll be a cool idea if she slowly loses sanity as the week progresses as she gets more desperate to escape the prison that is feeling empty and emotionless. I got the idea of Taro being a yandere from a concept video on YouTube by Akira Shimitsu where the rivals swapped genders as the roles changed. I would leave the rivals as girls as it's less about love and more about a lust for blood. Maybe Ayano can be like a succubus to lure them in to their death? Idk. It would make sense why Taro would want to kill them as he wouldn't know Ayano is going to kill them off anyway. I also think it'll be interesting if Taro goes completely insane in week 9 where his sister, Hanako, falls in love with Ayano. To make sure they don't become a couple, he kills her (which he doesn't do in the concept video I mentioned earlier btw) but absolutely loses it after. That's when he realised there's something very wrong with him, but at that point he'll do anything to be with Ayano.

Info-chan gives you stuff in return for "info points" (which you get by putting microphones and cameras everywhere) and panty shots. I'm taking this a step further by info-chan helping Ayano in exchange for nudes of various girls that Ayano kidnapped and tortures in her basement. Oh and I guess panty shots too, but what kind of school has short skirts as the uniforms? Info-chan will say this is for "selling on" as she mentions she does that with the panty shots in the original game, but she actually keeps a lot of them to herself for her own porn collection. Taro will eventually realise Ayano is connected to info-chan, so he'll try to kill her at the end of the game.

I have no idea how I would make this into a fan game. It's very big and in depth and I don't know how to code in 3D. I think it'll be interesting if the 1080s mode was it's own separate game as a prequel, then this can be the dark horrific one but still with the pink aesthetic in comparison to 1080s mode vapour-wave aesthetic. The idea could do with some polishing, but what do you think?

Also the characters will look like the redesigns from "some bread" that they did a while back because they just looke better imo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WMHoJPlMic&list=WL&index=14&pp=gAQBiAQB

Essay over.

[trashworldblog]

HEY YOU! YEAH, YOU! do you have something to talk about that youre super excited for? NOWS YOUR CHANCE!!

aka i want to listen to something and youtube isnt giving me any video essays so i would like to hear about friendsdays :D

ur free to save this ask for another day OR answer it with whatevers on your mind! :D

hellll yeahhhh

i love talking about the thoughts bumpin around my noggin

i just had my first week of classes so im mostly thinkin of those and the 2 im excited about are my rethinking meuseums class and a film class on chinese culture and history.

so i took this museum class cus 1) i had to fulfill credits, and 2) i LOVE meuseums. ive traveled a lot, and ive visited a ton of meusums, from the acropolis meuseum in athens, greece, to the jolly green giant museum next to the jolly green giant statue in minnesota. i love reading little plauqes and learning about stuff, especially if its hands on or art.

but this class is super cool because 1) we get field trips!!! i thought my field trip days were over, but now i get to go to museums for free durring class!! 2) we get to talk about colonialism and how that influences how our museums currently operate. from their layout, lighting, showcases, accessibility, intractivity, and other ways the art, artififacts, knowledge, and creators are presented (or not presented).

ive always been intrested in history and shown how events have caused domino effects and colonialism has a huge effect on the world we live in, and meuseums is a specific instance of that that ive been exposed to, and i really want to learn how to unlearn the ideas that has imposed on me, and show me the choices they are making that influence my opinions without me even knowing. (for example my home art meuseum, the art institute, has all the european classic art and modern art on the top floor, while the asian, african, and photography (which has a large collection showcasing black, queer, and womans issues) are on the first floor and basement. and how the work on the top floor is very well light, while the other floors have dimmer lighting.) didn't even think about that, and I've been in the art institute over half a dozen times the past 2 years!

also a ton of other people in my class are also passionate about this stuff so its nice to know im not gonna be the only one who cares about this class :D

also!!! ive met someone who likes the ghoul boys! i was reading my unsolved book during break and they struck up a conversation about them with me! so thats super fun :)

my exploring chinese culture via film class is gonna be amazing too becuase i know thats a huge blindspot i have in knowing about the world and i really want to change that. so i get to explore and learn about that while also watching films. im hoping this class isnt too hard work wise (watching documentaries takes up alot of time i dont exactly have) but the professor seems to be understanding that we have our major classes to worry about. (also! she gave us snacks for chinese new year :D)

the class is discussion based (the class time, luckily i dont really have to do discussions online). and the people in my class have really good thoughts and ideas! we have some film majors so they give insight on how some stuff is shot, and some literature majors are really good at unpacking what was said and have a ton of interesting angles about the inner complexities between the family in the documentary.

i honestly was nervous i was gonna dominate the conversation becuase i had alot of ideas and thoughts to share, but a ton of other people spoke up so it was nice to have all of us sharing opinions and takeaways.

so that was my two classes im taking for my liberal arts education. they arent for my major or minor but i appreciate them so much becuase i love learning about a ton of different topics, and i probably wont be able to be in an environment like this again so im making the most of it!! im hoping to get into learning about queer history soon, but because this is an arts school, that class fills up super quickly. picking my history class after that is gonna be stressful because theres so many good options 😰 womans history? the development of cities?? us history?? if i didn't have my ux minor, id think about minoring in history. There's so much to learn, lmao

[hersterical]

People seriously overestimate how familiar with feminism and gender issues in general people are. I watched a YouTube video essay that claimed that pretty much all young people were experts on these topics but in my experience that is so far from the truth. More so than previous generations? Generally speaking yes, but that’s really not saying much if we’re being honest here. Especially for those of us who grew up in the post-feminist era.

I have this friend (we’re both in our mid-twenties) who was vocally anti-feminist which lead to to quite a few disagreements between the two of us (we are sadly unable to watch Legally Blonde together after a heated debate over whether or not it is a feminist movie) except any time I discussed feminist issues with her and replaced the word “feminism” with “girl power” she would agree with everything I said. When we were discussing the Barbie movie after watching it together she said something along the lines of how glad she was that it was hardly feminist at all (she specifically said that there was only one feminist scene and I was honestly too baffled by her statement to ask her which scene she meant. probably Gloria’s monologue but I’m really not sure). It took everything I had not to grab her by the shoulders, shake her with all my strength, and scream in her face that the whole entire movie was a feminism 101 class. I also had to explain to a different group of friends who were reluctant to watch it that no, the movie isn’t anti-men but actually shows how the patriarchy, that we do still live under, is harmful for everyone. I basically had to give them a crash course in the middle of the fast food place we were eating at. Again, these are all well educated, intelligent, and independent women who have been brainwashed their entire lives into thinking feminists were unreasonable man haters who like to make a big deal out of nothing just because things are better for women now than they were in the 80’s so what do women have to complain about? And beyond my personal experiences, I heard so many stories about women who realized how unfairly they were being treated by the men in their life (usually their boyfriends) and then took steps to change that after watching the Barbie movie.

And even if all younger people really were super well educated on gender studies, it’s still a good idea to try to educate older generations on these matters. They’re not a lost cause and they’re not beyond learning new things. My middle-aged dad took a huge step towards letting go of his homophobia after watching Bohemian Rhapsody (he’s never been hateful, just lacking in perspective. He’s already come so far and I’m really proud of his growth). Luckily my dad and brothers were all pretty much already on board with the messages the Barbie movie conveyed but it had never been presented to them so bluntly and simply to them before from anyone except for me, my sister-in-law, and my mom. I do think seeing these themes portrayed the way they were in the movie made it more real for them than just hearing us talk about it (not that they didn’t believe us, just that sometimes it’s helpful to actually be shown).

The Barbie movie is flawed, over-simplified, and largely lacking in nuance. All of this is true. But nobody ever said that this movie was going to actually fix the systemic issues it criticizes. There are plenty of people in the world who are in need of learning the basics and I think that this movie for a lot of people can work as a good gateway into learning even more about gender studies. Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I remember no one ever claimed the movie was even trying to accomplish that much. My understanding is that the primary purpose of the movie was to be fun and entertaining and it more than accomplished that goal for me. I can’t think of a single other blockbuster, mainstream movie that so bluntly, simply, and honestly discusses gender politics the way Barbie does and I personally love it, flaws, oversimplification and lacking in nuance and all.

“The Barbie movie is like basic gender studies 101. It’s like the bare minimum for feminism”

YEAH SOME PEOPLE HAVENT TAKEN GENDER STUDIES 101 AND WOULDNT YOU AGREE WE ARE CURRENTLY AT LESS THAN THE BARE MINIMUM FOR FEMINISM?

things do not need to be perfect to be good. You cannot teach someone intersectionality if that person has not heard of bare minimum feminism. You might be on step 100 but just because you started earlier does not mean that everyone can jump to your level. They have to climb the stairs too. And the people at the top yelling down to the people at the bottom that being at the bottom is bad, they need to be at the top, IT DOES NOT ENCOURAGE THEM TO CLIMB UP.