#they could have made a funny show about nerd culture

[lockerandom]

For some reason I've been thinking about the Big Bang Theory and all its lost potential.

I'm thinking of the first episode and how they would have the typical Leonard is interested in his new neighbor Penny because she is beautiful. Sheldon could keep pointing out that it would never work because they have nothing in common. Sheldon also assumes she's vapid and shallow and a mean girl.

Penny will talk to them, flirt, but seems very closed off. Other than that, she's acting like her usual self in the first episode.

Then at the end of the episode, Leonard sees her struggling to carry something in to her apartment. He and Sheldon will go to help and she'll quickly say no but its too late. Leonard sees the inside of her apartment for the first time and its decked out in nerdy stuff. Penny is also a big nerd but she's very insecure about it not even wanting the nerdy boys across the hall to find out. But Penny has a lot of stuff, even very rare stuff that the boys can't get their hands on. She's also an artist and a cosplayer and has a whole sketchbook of fanart and a closet full of costumes she made. Suddenly, to Sheldon, Penny is the coolest person he's ever met and he's start struck as he's finding rare merch everywhere. The episode ends with Penny, Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj all watching a lost episode of a show that Penny managed to get her hands on.

They missed out on so much humor by not having the girls also be nerds. There are so many funny plot lines.

Sheldon being upset about a way a Star Trek plot line went, so Penny draws him a comic of how he wants the plot line to go.

Penny getting cast on a movie or a TV show of her favorite book. But she's angry because the writer/director totally didn't get the point or themes of the book and she goes to vent about it to Leonard and Sheldon. As soon she tells them what was changed Sheldon is like "that is not acceptable!" and they both go to set and try to fix the movie.

Penny having dated other hot nerds in the past some BNFs and Leonard being insecure about this.

That really dumb guy she dated could be a reoccurring character who is also a big nerd. Funny hijinks with this. Like dumb guy looking very cool in his cosplays (that are usually the big tough guy of the group).

Bernadette being a biologist who writes smutty fanfiction in her spare time. She is also "pervy". Howard would still be a perv but not in an abusive way. (maybe kinky is a better word. Howard won't sexually harass anyone in this version). There will be a reoccurring joke on how they play out sex scenes Bernadette writes in her fanfics. I also want to make Bernadette bisexual. She'll show off pictures of girls she's dated in her past, all of who are extremely hot making the boys jealous of her. She and Howard will talk about hot girl characters together. (and Howard will listen to her talk about all the hot boy characters she likes).

Bernadette and Penny getting into a big ship war. Their OTP is the other's NOTP. The girls will stop speaking to each other and the guys will try to help them work it out. Amy will tell them that they are missing out on the important themes and plot lines of the show.

Amy and Sheldon being sex repulsed Asexuals and the other's not understanding it at first. They'll try it once and be like well that wasn't bad but let's never do it again.

Sheldon and Penny being pretty much bffs and they are the ones that make the costumes for everyone. They would also spend hours venting about bad adaptions or stupid decisions a show or movie made while Leonard sits and waits till they are finished because he just wants to go to the bedroom.

Penny also being the one who gets along best with Sheldon. She never finds him annoying and will tell him when he's out of line. Sheldon will listen to her because he thinks Penny is the smartest out of the group after him (and later Amy) because she understands when a story does something stupid and she knows how to get her hands on rare stuff. She also called him up to tell him Leonard Nemoy was at her restaurant. The only reason why the two aren't a couple is because Penny loves sex and Sheldon wants nothing to do with it. The two also enjoy friendship way more.

Amy telling Bernadette that many of her sex scenes in her fanfics are not physically possible.

A disastrous camping episode. Penny knows how to camp and does her best to save the day.

Part of me wants to give Raj a girlfriend (thinking of making her a chemist) and part of me wants both Raj and Howard to find out that they are bi and Howard, Raj, and Bernadette being a throuple. It would all happen spontaneously when the three are watching a movie together. (Howard and Raj would be very insecure about their sexuality until this point and this is where they would also come out. Bernadette would suspect they were but not bring it up) Then there could be a thing where some guy asks Bernadette if she's into threesomes after finding out she's bisexual and then her going "uh yeah, and she puts her arms around both Howard and Raj.

The gang bringing a non nerdy friend to a convention (maybe a guy Penny is dating before she dates Leonard) and him being surprised at how many girls are there. Bernadette swiftly informs him that women were the ones that started nerd conventions.

Yeah so much lost humor by not making the girls nerds.

[hedgehog-moss]

I was talking with a friend the other day about how I was fascinated with American school life when I was a teen because it seemed so different from how things are in my country (I knew about US high schools thanks to Hollywood, an accurate and trustworthy source) and we talked about which aspects of US schools felt foreign or strange to us and one thing I brought up was, how American teens only seemed to have like 15min for lunch (I had 1h30 here in France), as evidenced by the cafeteria scenes (no one seemed to eat a proper four-course meal? I definitely never saw a separate cheese course), and I was like, I envied a lot of stuff about US schools but not this

... and I went looking in my old diaries to see if I ever wrote about this, and you know what? I was wrong. I did envy their school lunches which, like almost everything about US schools, felt intriguing and different and cool. The reason middle school-me thought American school lunches were superior to French ones is because, since American teens in TV shows only seemed to get like 4 chicken nuggets and a milk carton for lunch, their lunch tray was very light and they could hold it with one hand under it, the other hand in their pocket or holding their bag strap on their shoulder all casual-like. Sometimes there was no tray, even!

I envied these American teenagers for their lunchtime nonchalance. I would have liked to handle lunch in this cool-cat way but my French lunch tray being loaded with 4 different heavy and breakable plates, I had to hold it carefully with both hands. In my view this was unfair as the hindrance of governmental nutrition guidelines made French students look like uptight nerds, unable to strut around the cafeteria with one hand in our pocket like we didn’t care. Same for the absence of lockers in our schools, we had to carry all our books on our back all day like studious turtles whilst the beautiful 25 year old American teens on my television casually leant against their lockers chatting with friends then strolled around school with just a couple of books tucked under their arm like they were in Dead Poets Society. Thank god there was an ocean between us, imagine a French kid entering a US school cafeteria carrying 3 binders and 5 textbooks in their big rucksack and holding their tray with two hands like a complete loser

Note that these comparisons are quite worthless since I don't know what US school life / food is like in the real world (I imagine it varies a lot!)—I just find it funny to re-read old diaries and discover what was important to kid-me. Discussing these little cultural differences gleaned from US TV series, adult!me is like "yeah I remember being intrigued & envious about a lot of things! Not their school lunches though, they didn't look balanced and nutritious"—meanwhile middle school-me, focused on what mattered, was like, imagine what we could be... imagine being able to hold your lunch tray with 1 hand instead of 2 thus accessing a realm of coolness unfathomable to us in our backward country

[datura-tea]

okey dokey! i just finished the fallout show! some Thoughts under the read more

tl:dr, the (bethesda) fallout vibes were definitely there. i liked it as a show on its own merits but as a part of the series canon... i'm mad, and that anger is kind of overriding the little i liked about it. overall maybe 2.5/5 stars and im being generous

things i liked:

visually, it's stunning - i could see scenes already being made into gifsets - the color grading is pretty good; even in dark scenes i could see and understand what was happening

the sets are soooo good!! costume design was alright too

title cards were fun and cute

they did some interesting stuff with the cultures of both vault 33 and the brotherhood of steel

they used the sound effects from the games :)

i liked the wastelanders!!! big npc and random encounter energy. i kind of want a whole show of just them. for example i love the marketplace and settlement in filly; it feels very lived in

the background characters weren't just young thin able-bodied conventionally attractive white people :) there's so many elders, which i loved!! ma june and barv were cool. i love gruff old lesbians

lucy!!! she was already kind of weird and a little off-putting even in vault 33 ("what's your sperm count" as an opener to the husband she was just arranged married to is WILD) and i like that. she's sweet and bullheaded and surprisingly competent :)

maximus is kind of an ass, but is also a pathetic nerd and brotherhood dickrider who actually doesn't really know anything. kind of a girlfailure

the ghoul was pretty cool too!! i liked him, though more for his prewar story than the one he has post-apocalypse

lucy's brother norman kinda grew on me. "i lack enthusiasm for every job that i do here" so relateable. also short king <3

THE DENTIST THAT BUYS TEETH. never thought that would be a Thing but now that i think about it, it makes sense

the monsters that we have were cool!! wish there had been more of them

MATT BERRY IS IN THIS!! i just really like him so i got excited :))

maximus and lucy's "wanna have sex?" talk LMAO

vault 4's various mutations!!

those giant unwieldy fuckass duffel bags that brotherhood squires lug around hahahhahahaaha

vault 4 and its genetic experiments because its main conceit is that it was ruled by scientists who hybridized humans. it's exactly the right amount of fucked up i want in a vault

i like that the protagonists regularly get captured and eat shit

FRED ARMISEN IS ALSO HERE

haha hacking minigame :) also chatting via terminals (and im assuming pipboys?) is canon now

they're growing crops in the wasteland + bustling trade + livestock + pets yay

robobrain was cute

things i was just ok with:

dane, the they/them brotherhood of steel aspirant who was fucked over so maximus can get their spot as a squire LMAO what a waste of a potentially cool character

IT'S SO FUNNY that there's yodelling whenever the ghoul comes into the scene ????? WHY

fight scenes.... pretty good but someone definitely had the bloody mess perk (i don't do well with gore so ew yucky). also lots of [VATS NOISE]

pipboy was not used as much as i thought it would be

cousin stuff... i get it, i guess in a vault you'd have a lot of cousins and not a lot of choice, so some incest would probably happen

the ghoul being vault boy's inspiration?? not sure what to feel about that tbh

the casual dismemberments... and equally casual attaching of limbs... not even prosthetic limbs.....

the vaulties eating good healthy well-balanced meals. giving out caviar in the welcome basket. kinda 50/50 on it

the vault 31 - 32 - 33 subplot couldve been more fucked up

have brotherhood knights always been celibate or did i miss the memo

there are regular chickens and... deer? for some reason?

the ghoul's design. it's fine in action but mostly it's meh

the vault 4 cult for moldaver

vault 4 as a refuge for shady sands survivors. im mad about it but like. i get it

that guys "elixir" (some altered jet??) fixing everything about thaddeus' foot instantenously AND GIVING HIM HEALING POWERS???

things i did not like:

lucy's plot premise is very much fallout 3 redux

lucy and maximus as a ship is very meh and kind of forced and not compelling. go give us nothing!!!

wilzig's head as a macguffin that everyone is after... ehh kind of just okay as a plot device

also the ghoul randomly eating that other ghoul???

the squire who bullied maximus calls himself fat but he isn't fat?? not even chubby??? hello????? just got a soft face

water chip being fucked feels very fallout 3 also but they kind of dropped it?

they definitely named cooper howard after todd. as tribute probably, which he doesn't deserve

fiend = cannibal now?????

maximus recognizing vault 4 as a cult but not recognizing the brotherhood as one lol

vault tec evil capitalism vs hollywood communists storyline was kind of basic. and bland. and weak

the enclave could've been established + explored better

no geckos or any other west coast-specific monsters

showing me ncr ranger armor when the ncr is gone

ghouls have healing powers?? WITHOUT RADIATION??

things i hated hated hated:

the ghoul needing drugs to combat the Disease That Turns Ghouls Feral

feral ghouls being basically zombies :/

IN EPISODE FIVE. THEY REVEAL. THAT SHADY SANDS. WAS BOMBED. THE ENTIRE NCR. WAS BOMBED. IN 2277. THE YEAR OF THE FIRST BATTLE OF HOOVER DAM

BASICALLY RETCONNED FNV?? IM PUTTING MY EARS IN MY FINGERS AND GOING LA LA LAAAAA

VAULT-TEC DROPPED THE BOMBS ???? BIG MT + MR HOUSE BEING IN ON IT????

THE BIG STUPID FUCKING REVEAL IN EPISODE EIGHT?? THAT THE OVERSEER BOMBED SHADY SANDS BECAUSE HIS WIFE DIDN'T WANT TO GO HOME WITH HIM??? FUCK THAT???

the brotherhood being the main faction of the west coast now. booo!! booo!!!!

the fucking last shot of new vegas being a burnt out husk. probably foreshadowing that hank is going to house's body but. UGH I HATE IT

to summarize: it came out strong! and stumbled hard falling face fucking first at the finish line. i would have liked it a lot more if it did not shit on the west coast as much as it did. because what the FUCK. if it was set literally anywhere else and left the ncr alone i would have liked it more, because on its own, as a self-contained story, divorced from the rest of the fallout series canon, it's not bad!!! it's fun, there's some good bits, it has the ~vibes~ but - and this is a big but - i don't know what it's trying to say. it's all very surface level and the very vague themes i picked up on are not really reiterated in the plot

it's like... the bits that make it fallout are there. vaults. the brotherhood. ghouls. a dog named dogmeat. but there's something lacking. it's like your usual sci-fi post-apocalypse show with a fallout veneer. idk. i like it for what it is but also i hate it for what it's emblematic of. that's all

[ducktracy]

Looney Tunes really fucks up with your sense of time. It makes you contend with facts like "the last Looney Tunes short could have been about a Tasmanian tiger and it wouldn't have to be justified because they weren't extinct yet."

DOESN'T IT??? THAT'S WHY I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!! OHHHHHHHHHH YOU'RE GETTIN' ME STARTED

IRONICALLY i'm usually the opposite frame of reference, a thought i regularly have is "the earth is millions of years old and i get to live in the fraction of a fraction of a blip just a little bit after these guys were around and some of the directors and animators were still alive when i was born, we're really not that far apart, everything is so recent in comparison, i'm so lucky to be alive and get to experience this" LOL.

but yeah, the historical aspect is a huge huge huge huge huge reason why i'm a LT fanatic and why i have no plans of ever slowing down and haven't yet. it's like an anthropology lesson. i love seeing what trends were current with what year. i love seeing radios in the shorts evolve into televisions, i love hearing jokes about then-new things (like Daffy crying in the cut dialogue from Daffy Duck in Egghead about how if he gets shot then he'll never collect on his social security, which was less than 3 years old at the time of the short's release), i love seeing how the fashion evolves, how the music evolves, how the attitudes of the characters evolve depending on the needs and wants and assimilation of the public... it's one huge time capsule, and i think that tends to be viewed disparagingly and there IS a lot to view disparagingly. we all know how much hasn't aged well at all. but i do love that these shorts show their age (when not in the sense of discriminating against a group of people) and it's such a big part of the charm. these characters and stories are timeless in many ways, and many ways they're not! and i think so much of the charm comes from the era in which these shorts are born. explore it! have fun with it! IUNNO! as a history nerd and an anthropology nerd and pop culture history nerd it's just.. AHH. things like these really get me emotional in the best way. it's an animated time capsule we have at our finger tips

it's also kind of reassuring, too, because there's so many jokes or premises or character tics or just. THINGS. that make you go, hey, we aren't that far removed at all. again, earth is millions of years old, we're very close to these guys in the timeline range! and so it's really fun seeing certain jokes or phrases that seem current. like i remember watching Porky's Preview for the first time and genuinely struggling to believe that it was almost (and now is OVER) 80 years old. or, you can argue that Daffy Duck made the first YouTube Poop with Daffy Duck in Hollywood. and it's not some sort of freak accident. humor is universal and transcends time! "this is so funny for being so old" No, it's just funny! i've gone on this soapbox elsewhere about how i get so incensed when people seem to imply that just because something is old doesn't mean it can be funny, or if it is it's in a "freak accident" sort of way. no! it's funny! these guys knew what they were doing! they had a sense of humor, and it's not too different than ours in certain points! it's not some freak accident!

IM GOING ON A BIT OF A SEPARATE RANT HERE HAHA but the timelessness and not timelessness of these shorts is incredibly important to me and so big on why i'm doing what i do. it's really humbling, it's really fascinating, and there's just so much to learn and soak up

[lej222]

Literary Allusions and Pop Culture References in ASLFUA

After School Lessons is a series that has minimal plot, but great underlying themes and references to other famous creations/pop culture moments. I thought it would be fun to collect as many as I can in this post and their possible narrative connection, not necessarily in order. :)

Cheol & Miae

One of the biggest running gags of the series is that the main characters have the same names as the famous Korean musical duo Cheol and Miae. The group was formed in 1992, with Cheol as the rapper and Miae as the singer. Their single, 'Why do you' became a huge hit and was referenced in ASLFUA plenty of times. Obviously, the main joke here is that the singer Miae was taller than rapper Cheol and they were only friends, while Unripe Apples Cheol is taller than Miae.

Nostradamus

The prophecy of Nostradamus said that in the 7th month of 1999 a great king of terror would descend from the sky and bring end to the world. Which makes it even more interesting that the supernatural powers in the story started to be very active around July with the end of the first term and the start of the summer break.

Miae's posters on the wall: E.T (1982) and The X-Files (1993)

Interestingly enough, both feature aliens. E.T The Extra-Terrestrial might be more interesting for us readers, as it features a young boy named Elliott who befriends an alien. In one of the most famous scenes of the movie, E.T. is riding Elliott's bike in his basket, and the bicycle lifts off from the ground and two are shown flying in front of the full moon. In fact, in a poll made by Universal it was voted as the most memorable movie scene in 100 years of cinema.

Needless to say, there are some ovbious similarities with our story - the boy with the bike, the strange friend, the moon symbolism. In fact, Cheol is always looking at the moon so it wouldn't be a surprise if it was inspired by Spielberg's movie, plus one of the most impactful scenes of aslfua is when Cheol allows Miae to ride his bicycle with him in ep 95, the scene that I personally consider the end of the first part of the story.

Backstreet Boys

Miae is singing the 1997 hit song 'As Long As You Love Me'. Miae, like a typical teenager, likes boybands like the Fire Boys who might be the parody of The Backstreet Boys😃

Romeo and Juliet

There are quite a few references to the 1996 Romeo and Juliet movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. On 3 separate cover pages, Miae is portrayed as Juliet, while Cheol and Jisu are dressed like Romeo. There's also a scene where Miae imagines being Juliet who is not allowed to meet her Romeo when she cannot see Cheol. I wonder if Jisu will also have a Romeo-like element in his story that could create a similar situation, it would be an amazing foreshadowing element.

Man in Black

It looks like Soonkki really loves her alien references, because we also have the 1997 movie starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, who play agents tasked with monitoring extraterrestrial life on Earth.

Titanic

Another movie that is mentioned many times in the story, the Titanic (1997) is one that Miae seemingly loves and has watched many times. In fact, it's funny how her favourite part is the car scene because it really shows us readers that Miae is interested in the idea of love, even if she doesn't know what it truly entails to be in a relationship.

Green Day

People born before the 2000s all know that characters listening to the American band's songs were often the slacker/stoner stereotypes. I've also written a post about how Jisu is seemingly the subversion of the 90s slacker/stoner and nerd archetype, while Cheol seems to be the subversion of the jock trope. Jisu is listening to Basket Case (1994) that has become the anthem of many slackers/stoners in the 90s, and weirdly fits his character really well considering Jisu is usually described as a strange person. I've also made several posts about Jisu possibly being on the spectrum, and it's interesting to see how Jisu expresses himself with the songs he listens to, no wonder his hobby is listening to music. If we consider Jisu might be bad at expressing his feelings through his body language, it makes this scene even more precious.

Speed

Cheol invites Miae to watch a movie together and it happens to be the 1994 classic starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Reeves plays a police officer who has to save the passengers of a bus without the speed of the bus dropping below 50 miles per hour, otherwise a bomb would explode the vehicle. It's one of the most creative action films ever made, but if someone wants to watch it, I advice not to watch the sequel because it is awful lol.

Scream

Miae wants Cheol to join the academy kids watching an R-rated movie which leads to a hilarious misunderstanding. To Cheol's relief, the movie turns out to be the horror movie Scream (1996).

Shakespeare and Carl Jung

Like I've mentioned in my supernatural involvement post under ep 116, we get a close-up of 2 interesting posters.

One of them is about the forest in Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare. The 4 central characters in the play all get entangled with the supernatural, and the forest symbolizes a world where the line between reality and fantasy is blurred. Dreams play an important role in the story as they are sometimes real, sometimes simply dreams. In aslfua, we also have dreams, a forest where young Miae and Cheol played, a stone tower fairy that allegedly grants wishes and an unknown supernatural power that talks to Miae.

The coincidences poster is likely a reference to Carl Jung's synchronicity, a concept that states that seemingly meaningful coincidences have a deeper meaning. One has to realize the connection between their psyche and the material world to experience synchronicity, so basically you have to notice the coincidences that keep happening and put meaning to them. Because these coincidences have no rational explanation, they can be proof for a deeper order in the universe, almost like destiny, no wonder Jung used this concept to argue for the existence of the paranormal. A simple example: you really cannot decide what to study in the future, but have seen many posters on your way about one school. You go home and it pops up on the Internet. You start to wonder if it's a coincidence, and decide that it's a sign from above and eventually choose it. You've experienced synchronicity.

-> this happens when seemingly unrelated events become meaningful to you. Miae wonders how she keeps bumping into Cheol. She says he must have come to her neighborhood because of her wish. Miae experiences synchronicity when it comes to Cheol. Or we could say Miae acknowledges a deeper order in the universe that, through coincidences, let her meet Cheol again. Jisu also notices that he keeps meeting Miae through coincidences, he acknowledges the deeper order, he even remarks it's fun, but he goes beyond and says he feels like there's a higher power involved. Miae has no idea about her coincidences with Jisu so she her psyche doesn't make the connection with the material world. So we have synchronicity experienced by: Miae->Cheol and Jisu->Miae.

Jisu, the grateful magpie

Jisu's backstory gives us a reference to a famous Korean folktale about a man who saved a group of baby magpies from a snake and in return the magpies sacrificed themselves to protect him. Here, the illustration clearly shows Miae as the person who uses her bow and arrow to kill the snake, while we know she called Jisu a magpie when they were kids. Throughout the story, we see Jisu trying to protect Miae and repay the favor without much luck, which pretty much foreshadows one big possible role for Jisu in the storyline, no wonder he's the one who's aware of Shim bullying Miae. It's no coincidence either how in the present she thinks Jisu resembles more of a bald eagle, a predatory animal.

Stone tower

Although it's not an allusion, I wanted to include this one because it's a very famous superstition in Korea. People used to pray to the mountain Gods by building stone pagodas so their wishes would be answered. This tradition is still alive, though nowadays most people tell their wishes or pray for good luck. You usually put your stones on an existing stone tower because it also shows how people are interconnected and how you should respect others so your wish can come true through the wishes of others. That's why you should never destroy a pagoda that somebody else made, and it's also very disrespectful. Miae also makes wishes to the tower so Cheol can become her friend and he would one day come to her neighborhood. When Cheol wants to give her a book, he accidentally falls on the pagoda and injures himself.

The Matrix

The Matrix (1999), one of the most famous movies of all time, is about how reality is actually an illusion, and people can be blinded about the truth about their own existence. The main character Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, is someone who awakens within the Matrix, similarly to what we see in The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey.

In one of the most iconic moments of the movie, the oracle tells Neo not to worry about the vase, while Neo doesn't know what she's talking about until he accidentally drops a vase. This scene poses many different questions about predetermination and free will. Was Neo's act predestined by prior experince, free will, or maybe both?

If you look at my aslfua screenshot, you can notice the code from Matrix in green. And what happens in the scene? Miae and Jisu injure a plant in a pot. An accident, right?? Well, depending on how you interpret it based on the movie. And what does Jisu do? He intentionally throws the pot and destroys the plant. Can Jisu's act be considered a sign of free will? Because that is what he tells Miae- that he is not a bully, so he took the blame by flipping over the plant. Jisu might just be a glitch in the system if you know what I mean :D

The Bible

Last but not least, we have this super symbolic illustration at the end of ep2 after Miae meets Cheol. The biblical allusion is obvious, Miae is holding out a green apple to Cheol, a half-eaten apple. In the first part Miae is the one providing her knowledge to Cheol in order to help him mature. :)

There are probably way more references, but I'm kind of tired so I might add others in the future. :) If anyone read this whole thing, thank you so much! :D

[kairiscorner]

Can we get more filo reader with any of the 2 miles ehehe

We could do like showing him the different family owned filipino restaurants in nyc, and him totakly loving the food

Feeling ko na magugustuhan niya yun ube pandesal LMAO and as a chubby girl I would totally love showing him all the good food spots <3 i luv ur writing so much oml

OMG YASZ, I LOVE THIS SO MUCH !! ykw, imma do them both, wai nat dibuh <33

(reblogs are greatly appreciated, it helps get my content out there! if you guys like what you see, please reblog it too <:D)

☆⋆｡°‧★ food trip !! — miles morales (1610 and 42) x filipino reader (headcanons and blurbs!)

⋆｡° ✮ miles morales (1610)

he's always up for trying new food, especially food that you enjoy and grew up with! he likes going around with you to experience new things and enjoy new kinds of food together, especially if it meant he'd get to learn more about you and your culture.

the first place you took him to was at a quaint mom and pop shop ran by a filipino family. miles was amazed by how delicious it smelled inside, the myriad of aromas and sounds from the bustling kitchen and lively conversations filled his senses and made him excited to try the food you wanted to show him and have him try.

you ordered all kinds of treats for him, but a staple of your childhood that you desperately wanted him to try was the pan de regla.

"ooh, it's red, real pretty." he pointed out with a grin as you tore off a piece for him to try. you chuckled. "the 'regla' part of the name references why it's red." you explained as you took a bite out of your share, with miles swiping some of the filling on his finger and tasting it. he widened his eyes in pleasant surprise and nodded as he savored the taste of the filling. "that tastes great, what does the 'regla' mean, uh, red?" he asked you as he ate his share and you shook your head. "y'really wanna know?" you asked him with a giggle as miles nodded and looked at you with a confused face.

"what's so funny, babe?" he asked you with a light chuckle at your chuckling. "it's that, um... 'regla' means 'menstruation'. it's because the bread looks like it's, you know, having that; the filling's perfectly good, though, i personally don't mind. sorry, um, too much...?" you asked him with a shy voice as miles' eyes widened and he whispered an 'oh' under his breath as he took another bite and shrugged. "hey, it's what the people in culture call it, i don't find it funny, it's pretty creative, not gonna lie. besides, this is so sweet and good! do you... do you know how to make it, by any chance?" he asked you with a bashful grin as he finished his share.

you smiled and handed him your share, seeing how he eagerly wanted some more of the bread. miles refused and insisted you can have it. "what? babe, no, you should have it—you bought it, it's yours." he said with a smile as you gently pushed miles' hand back to him. "oh, no! no, no, if you want more of it, i can always buy you some, it's no problem, mahal." you told him with a gentle voice as miles' face got all flustered and happy, like the sweet little nerd you fell in love with. "fine, but... i'll learn how to make this for you." "we'll learn how to make it together for each other." you corrected him as miles smiled and ate away at the piece you handed him, feeding you the final bit with a joyous grin.

⋆｡° ✮ miles morales (42)

miles was always willing to learn about you and your heritage, especially trying the food you grew up with and love. there were times when you'd have him over for dinner at your place and he'd be introduced to filipino cuisines, but you wanted to show him the treats filipinos loved.

a new shop opened up nearby in your neighborhood and you wanted miles to try a pastry you've been meaning to try as well. it was a humble mom and pop shop run by a filipino family, and miles was enthralled by how homely and welcoming the whole place seemed; it felt like visiting an old friend's home or a family member you missed a whole lot.

you bought all kinds of treats and pastries for him, but a pastry you've been seeing often on your social media feed and wanted him to try so badly was the ube pandesal.

"purple, hmm?" miles pointed out with a hint of awe in his voice as he looked at the purple-hue bread before him. you nodded and gleefully handed him a piece that you broke from the bread. "it's been trending ever since the pandemic happened, my parents have said it was good, but they keep forgetting to bring some home for me. well, i wanna know how you'll like it, mahal." you told him with a grin as you dug in to your ube pandesal. you let out a small exclamation of joy as you chewed. "this is a total upgrade from pandesal, it's so good! give it a try, mahal, please!" you urged him as miles chuckled and went for it.

he chewed on the piece of purple bread and his eyes widened. "this... wow, it really is good, cielo." he said with a small smile as he reached for some more. you leaned over to him and, with a wide smile, wordlessly asked him to feed you. he sighed, still smiling, and let you take a bite of the ube pandesal, and he bit the rest of it. "you could've asked me to hand you one, we've got a lot more here." "yeah, but isn't it more romantic when you feed me?" you said with a cheeky grin as miles chuckled.

"you know, my parents have this saying: 'walang matigas na tinapay sa mainit na kape'." you told him, which he raised an eyebrow at. "what does that mean, cielo?" "it means... 'there's no hard bread for a warm coffee', i'm your warm coffee, and you're my hard bread; tough on the outside, but soft when you're paired with me." you teased him as he got all flustered and stuffed his mouth with a piece of ube pandesal to distract himself from his fluster. "eres demasiado romántica, cariño." miles muttered with a bashful grin as you sneaked an ube pandesal from him and chuckled. "alam ko, mahal." you muttered back to him as you kissed his cheek, still full of the chewed up ube pandesal he was eating.

[frownyalfred]

If this too much or too personal please ignore!

But I was just wondering if you had any advice for grieving? (I lost a close family member very recently)

I'm so sorry for your loss, anon. I don't know your exact situation, but I hope your loved one's memory is a blessing to you and your family. I'll leave my thoughts below the break, since I'll discuss death and dying a little.

I am, as many people on here likely know, still grieving the loss of my father. It was sudden and unexpected. It was bloody and somewhat traumatic for our family. Thinking about it still leaves me dazed and unfocused.

Grieving is such a strange process. I've been talking about it with my therapist weekly, and her main takeaway has been that there is no right way to do it -- and that it is far from linear. There are positive moments and regressions. There are funny memories and difficult truths to grapple with. There is anger, confusion, sadness. Despair. So many unanswered questions and moments that hover on the edge of veneration simply because they are the only ones you have left.

How did I grieve? I cried a lot, at first. I took off work and sat shiva with my family. I answered a thousand well-meaning messages and played one singular song on repeat on my phone. I barely slept. I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed. I woke up crying without remembering exactly what I had been dreaming about.

Then, as if in reprieve, my brain let up. I slept somewhat normally again. My body was no longer on the edge of tears at any given moment, nor was I entirely numb. Slowly, I began to think of normal things again; new television shows, updating a chapter, irritation at the banal things like traffic and work.

And anon, I thought to myself, this must be it. I'm no longer "grieving," or at least not in the traditional sense of the word. I was eating, sleeping, going to the gym and work, updating my works and hitting the club again on the weekends.

But I wasn't done. And I'm not sure I ever will be. I wanted to be done, in so many ways. I was mad at my father for dying, for making me grieve, for keeping me in this state where I couldn't be confident in anything I was feeling, any progress I was making. Where I could remain silent and resolute at his burial, but sob like a baby in my apartment when the concert t-shirt he gave me was stained by some soup.

But that's a lot to put on the dead. And sometimes I have to keep reminding myself that -- that he is dead, that there is a gap in my life I keep trying to skip over, like avoiding tonguing at the aching tooth in the back of my mouth. And when I forget, the world is more than glad to remind me, whether through well-meaning neighbors, colleagues, etc etc.

I suppose that's a long way of saying, I think I'm still grieving anon. I'm not sure I'm doing the best at it, active or involuntary as this process seems to be. I have an amazing support network, but so much of this work seems to be solitary, even when someone is sitting right next to you, crying with you.

The Jewish saying "May their memory be a blessing" has been a good focal point for me, I think. It dovetails nicely with the Mandalorian saying "Not gone, merely marching far away." I've thought about both a lot in the last few months, because I'm a huge nerd and also because I don't think the cultures are too dissimilar.

Let your loved one's memory be a blessing in your life, anon. Remember the happy moments, and speak them out loud if you're able. Don't let their name remain sacred. Don't sanctify them, for we are all humans and humans are complicated, but don't leave their life behind you.

Those memories of them, those funny moments and sad days, fun trips and strange conflicts, those are all yours now. No one else has them. And when you and your family are gone, those memories are gone too.

Other small things that have made this whole process easier: Starbucks and DoorDash giftcards (seriously, some days are too hard), letting myself take time off hobbies (gym/writing) without penalizing myself, naming my grief and allowing myself to sit in it (I'm sad today about x, and I want to lie down for a few hours. I'm lying down because I'm feeling sad about x, and I'm allowed to feel that way). Going to the gym and running until the natural endorphins help. Talking with my families about good and complicated moments with my dad. Writing, when I'm able. Reminding myself it's okay to not be very functional, that it's okay to not be perfect and you would never expect someone who is grieving to be so. Talking to a therapist and getting treatment for what I experienced. Accepting the kind words of others, even if they hurt or are unintentionally difficult.

I'm sorry you're going through this anon. I know how you feel, or at least some of what you feel. I hope you have support and loved ones around you who can help shoulder some of this process.

<3 Jay

[blue-thief]

oh the wonders of realizing due dates are actually farther than i expected

@marcsnuffy this is all basically just based off how this guy is made up of twelve billion contradictions esp when we're considering gender expression.

i've gone over this before, but he's the type of guy who would read dazai, dostoevsky, kafka, etc in a male manipulator kind of way. this type of guy also goes in hand with the type of guy who watches fight club, american psycho, etc with zero self awareness (i'm not much of a film nerd so i can't really speak about his taste in films specifically).

his dad probably had a collection of old films he worked on, and kaiser watched them all on some old cd or cassette player in hopes of finding some with his mom. even though his mom showed up in more dramatic films rather than tougher serious ones, these ones hold a special place in his heart. he's not in denial about this, but he never brings it up to anyone. around the time he was a tween, he snuck into a movie theatre to watch one of his mom's films.

i believe it was mentioned that his parents started off in theater, and once kaiser became rich enough, he took time to see live productions at least once a month. his goal is to catch up on shakespeare since he never got a chance to learn about him at school (i had to check r/askeurope to see if shakespeare is taught there 😭😭).

as much as it's funny to imagine hamilton fan kaiser, i don't think he'd be drawn to musicals that much. he doesn't mind them, but they aren't usually on his radar. he's considered going to the opera though. for the sake of affirming to himself that he's now financially stable.

he canonically reads psychology textbooks, and i think he has read jordan peterson's books. (SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP BECAUSE I HAVE PROBABLY WALKED ON THE SAME FLOOR AS JORDAN PETERSON ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS GET ME OUT OF HEERREEEEEE) i don't think he'd care or agree with jordan peterson but he definitely has read him, maybe even bought some of his works shudders he also read the dictator's handbook + the art of war and has used this in ways that are disastrous for everyone involved

beyond the dazai, dostoevsky, kafka, etc vibe, i don't think there's much fiction he'd be drawn to. at some point, he decided to check out f. scott key fitzgerald, saw jay gatsby, and went "he's just like me fr" (again, zero self awareness)

as for music, i think he would listen to three days grace in particular (i have listened to exactly ONE three days grace song and that is "i am machine" and all i could think was "he would listen to this /neg" then added it to my own liked songs playlist). he might have stumbled across panic! at the disco and he probably vibed pretty well with a fever you can't sweat out. he would not care for any other panic! at the disco album. he also wouldn't care for ryden so he wouldn't read throam. but i need this guy to somehow read throam because throam!ryan ross is literally him.

he probably heard primadonna girl by marina but didn't care at first. it wasn't until he accidentally stumbled across oh no that he was like "i need to listen to the rest of this". he only ended up caring for the family jewels and electra heart, and electra heart is more feminine than most things he would allow himself to listen to, but this is just his way of going "whoa look i'm a feminist i like women i'm listening to a woman and sings about woman stuff". relates to the persona of electra heart once again because AGAIN. THIS GUY HAS ZERO SELF AWARENESS 😭😭 HE NEVER REALIZES THE ART HE CONNECTS TO IS TELLING HIM THAT HE SHOULD NOT BE THE WAY THAT HE IS 😭😭😭

but yeah. electra heart is his limit to willingly admitting to feminine art but this guy is subconsciously drawn to taylor swift but more like in the sense that he's fascinated with her presence in the cultural zeitgeist. which is a strange form of being a swiftie, but his relationship with famous women is strange considering his relationship with his mother. if his mother got big enough that she worked with americans on american projects, there's a chance that she would talk about/be publicly acquainted with a lot of young famous women for the sake of white feminism yk. he consumes their art just through cultural osmosis but his understanding of their personal drama and stuff is weirdly detailed

also these are all totally definitely absolutely not examples of me projecting 😁😁 because i AM self aware and i am better than michael kaiser in every way possible 😁😁😁

[yusuke-of-valla]

Insane thoughts about non-SEES characters

You've brought up Mamoru before but I just think the fact that he ultimately drops out of high school to go work in a factory would raise a lot of question in Minato's head about what he should do in order to take care of the siblings.

The kids Yuko coaches in her Social Link are about Yusuke's age.

Hamuko misses Minato's summer track/kendo/swim meet because she's in Inaba with the volleyball/tennis team.

Maiko is everyone's friend. She can be pen pals with the younger kids after moving away.

You have the really funny opportunity to have Naoto cross paths with Rise while she's in town for the show that ultimately gets canceled due to the Hermit Shadow.

The Temperance Link is shared but the fact that Hamuko can actually make items during it and Minato can't leads me to believe that he just sucks at sewing. Hamuko makes little dolls and purses for the kids.

Bunkichi and Mitsuko give them even more snacks for the rotating cast of children that they keep bringing to the bookstore.

One of the Culture Club options - and the only option in Reload - is Art Club. Keisuke, Minato, and Fuuka can all be in Art Club. (Keisuke does show up as president of the Photography Club in Junpei's link but can be easily replaced.)

Maiko and Bunkichi are both among the people who get lost in Tartarus.

I knew about Maiko and Bunkichi! I remember thinking that's a really cool way to tie your social links into the main plot

Maiko also ends up friends with Ken I think during the Kyoto trip and while the teens are in summer school they have their own little weird adventure.

Wait hold on we can combine these Maiko getting kidnapped happens during the Kyoto trip and the kids+Koromaru stage a potentially ill-advised rescue trip (they're fine)

I love the implication that Minato just sucks at making things. There's probably a gendered analysis to be made about how Hamuko can cook and sew in her social links but Minato can't but in my heart it's just because Minato's cringe (speaking of, Sumire deserves to be the unofficial third memeber of Fuuka's cooking club)

Speaking of unofficial club members I think Yusuke hears that Minato and Fuuka are in the art club and is just fucking vibrating but doesn't say anything because he doesn't want to impose and then Minato invites him along and he is soooo excited to be able to make art with Minato and half the time no one understands what he's saying because he's been devouring art theory textbooks since he could read but he still takes the first thing Minato drew and gave him and keeps it under his pillow for good luck (idk how much of an Art Nerd Keisuke is but I feel like even without Madarame's influence Yusuke talks like an art history grad student at age 8 so he may or may not be able to follow.)

Club trip to the art museum you have never seen a child more excited outside of a candy store

Kasumi and Sumire train with Yuko even though her kids are a little older because they can keep up and Kasumi really wanted to

Naoto and Rise meeting early on would be so funny I think Naoto should do something incredibly embarassing and after Naoto is a complete badass In Persona 4 because he already has a Persona Rise is like "wait didn't you fall into the fountain at Pawlonia Mall two years ago"

I do think Minato and Hamuko being worried about not doing enough to support their siblings is a part of their arc because. You know basically being in charge at age 8 and having a really unstable home life but I have not narrowed down a vibe I like for both of them. I think Minato seeing Mamoru and thinking maybe he's been too happy to be distant and let the others do their own thing would def be interesting though

[missielynne]

It actually makes me sad that so many people hate having Patience on the show---she adds humor, sly commentary on Puritan culture AND creepiness! And her dancing in front of the TV was one of the hardest I've laughed at this show! You and I will be the only two who miss her :) That's IF she's gone for good, which she might not be, right?

Other random comments, all of which are just my opinion:

In real life Jay and Sam would obviously be the kindest, best people and Jay and I could happily nerd out together, but as TV characters I think they're just not that interesting as individuals or a couple. I want to love them more and I obviously don't dislike them, but they're just the least interesting and funny part of every scene for me. And do we really need yet another sitcom couple where the female is depicted as basically always right and the male ends up having to apologize at the end of nearly episode even when he did nothing wrong? And I say that even as a feminist. Like if anything Sam should be apologizing every few episodes for shamelessly taking Jay for granted and just assuming he'll always immediately give in to all of her demands with no questions asked.

2. Wow, so this season they're not even pretending that Isaac misses Nigel at all, and his only regret about dumping Nigel at the altar is that it's further evidence of Isaac not being a good person/ghost, not because he really cares about Nigel on any level. I saw you had another message about how the writers have an uphill climb convincing us at this point that Isaac ever truly loved Nigel at all, especially when Nigel was so depressed over losing Isaac and Isaac has been so indifferent, and add me to the list of people who just couldn't see myself ever buying them as a balanced, loving couple at this point. Unpopular opinion, but I hope Nisaac is over for good.

3. I miss Hetty/Trevor. Even their small interactions last night made me happy. They're like the opposite of how I feel about Jay/Sam because in real life I wouldn't like Hetty/Trevor individually or together, but as a couple I find them so entertaining and weirdly poignant. They're similar in ways that enable them to understand each other but also more than different enough to keep things interesting. And the fact that we have an age difference ship where the female is the older one makes them even more unique. Based on interviews I've read, I kind of doubt the show will make them a romantic/sexual thing again, but I'd love it if they did.

4. Okay but why was Sas not there last night?! Was he with The Others, secretly plotting or something? Sas is fascinating to me because he has genuinely sweet moments and is clearly a huge romantic sap underneath his 'ironic detachment guy' exterior, BUT he can also in his own way be way more of a manipulator, instigator and seemingly callous jerk than Isaac, Hetty and Trevor.

5. I have reasons relating to my personal background for being very anti-drugs so I'm sure I'm just biased, but Flower still bugs me and I wish they'd find a way to sober her up and explore other aspects of her because stuff like naming every blade of grass and constantly bragging about "getting high" her entire pre-Ghosts life is just so old for me.

6. I know a lot of the above sound like complaints but I am actually loving this season so far, much more than season 3!

7. You don't have to respond to any of these but I so appreciate you letting us vent to you!

Oh, I am SO answering just because thoughts! ;)

Agree about Jay and Sam. Although they're worked into the show better than the BBC Ghosts couple, IMO, they still have what I see as a typical problem that plagues humans in ghost shows, especially if they are meant to be front and center like Sam and Jay are: they really aren't AS interesting. In a show called Ghosts, we want to know more about the ghosts, so I totally get where you're coming from with that, and I hope that the rumors of marital strife between Sam and Jay this season are because he's finally speaking up to her.

2. I wouldn't mind if Nisaac was over for good because like I've said and you say, the narrative that we're being shown is more about like, idealism and all that rather than something that is a loving and mutually beneficial relationship for both! And that's what I want to see. I mean, if I'm rooting for Chris the Dino stripper to die right before Isaac and Nigel's wedding because they made him perfect for Isaac at least on paper...yeah, that doesn't say a lot about them in the long run.

3. What I like about Hetty and Trevor is that I think they're a good fit for each other but like...friends with benefits was okay, you know? Not only are they incredibly entertaining as two individual characters together interacting but their partner in crime vibes were like way off the charts, and I loved them so much for that. I loved that they tried the formal couple thing and saw that it didn't work out, but kept what did. I hope we get SOMETHING with them as the show goes on, even if it's not a permanent coupling.

4. I love Sas. Honestly, he's probably my favorite male character and like I said in my initial thoughts about the episode last night, I would have loved for him to be there and tag team with Isaac to manipulate Patience back into the dirt. That would have been so fun and I hope they come up with another situation where that happens. I love that he can be the sensible one too, like he was with Hetty and her ankle picture and bringing her back to earth about that. He just entertains me so much. Hopefully he'll be back next episode.

5. Well, I mean I don't think Flower's ever gonna change because she was that way when she died and the things say you can't change from that, but I do think a bit more subtlety wouldn't have hurt because she kind of almost seems like a caricature sometimes rather than a person. Like Trevor was probably some degree of wacky cause of what he took before he died but we don't see that in him. I guess they went that hard with Flower because, you know, people think "Hippie," they think a certain thing and the writers didn't want people to be let down. But honestly, she's the one I could let go of the easiest. When we thought she was sucked off I was like "Okay great...moving on!" So I get you.

6. Don't worry. I love Ghosts to pieces and I have my nitpicks too. We critique because we love. And I agree that season four is off to very solid start and I can't wait to see where it goes.

[stuairi675]

Entry 5: 23/10/24 - Why Bela Lugosi is the Scariest Vampire of Film

No this isn’t meant to come across as pretentious. I know the film is old as balls and as such is about as thrilling as a sock puppet opera operated by your nan (which doubles playfully as a description of the effects on display, especially if you’re watching the American one and not the Spanish).

I’m not trying to be snooty about the Draculas that followed, look down at them and proclaim myself as the most cultured dude at the Monster Mash, but Dracula 1931 I think possesses a quality that all following iterations quite lack. 

And this lacking isn’t necessarily a bad thing, they’re just different, and different is good, particularly when it comes to a character as prevalent as our Vlad. It’s why Doctor Who has survived so long. Characters like Dracula, or James Bond or the Joker that seem to transcend the original actors that portrayed them need variety or they’ll straight up wither and  die with the rest of their zeitgeist. Just look at the ragged remains of Indianna Jones: every time they stick Harrison Ford’s haggard jowls onto the poster of another modern foray into that franchise a bit of me just wants to get on my knees and beg for them to put him out of his misery (Indianna Jones, not Harrison, although there is an argument for that if his appearances on recent talk shows are anything to go by).

Moving on…

I goddamn love vampires. Always have. Every aspect, every version - even the stupid shit. From the horror shlock of the Hammer Sequels to the bedazzled luminescence of the tween vampire romance craze. 

It’s funny this, because in terms of media presence I’ve begun to consider them, if not the opposite, then as some sort of bizarro reflection of elves (I mean I defy you to watch Blade or Underworld and tell me those aren’t just alt elves). And whilst my opinion of elves has already been well logged, I find myself regarding vampires with more favour, perhaps because they make no bones about how much they’d be dicks to humanity if they actually existed. Elves would be superior around you, but pretend not to know the reason why; vamps would straight up call you an inferior worm and have you on your knees, and I find something about that oddly… appealing… 

Ahem. Moving on.

And of course, if you like vampires it stands to reason that you’d bloody love Dracula, and if that’s the case, you're spoiled for choice when it comes to varieties. I should know, me and my brother for the past couple of months having been going through as many Universal Monster movies as we could get our mitts on, and naturally that results in quite a helluva lot of Draculas, but the one that has consistently stayed with me throughout is, arguably, the first (sorry Nosferatu, you’re cool but you go out a bit like a nerd).

And the specific thing that stays with me about Dracula 1931’s performance is his inhumanity, or rather the inhumanity subtly hiding behind his delivered humanity. This may seem like an odd thing to comment upon as, given the constraints of film making at the time, he, arguably, is the Dracula version that spends most time as a human, and it seems like all future iterations want to do is emphasise how much a monstrous beast he truly is/has become (Dracula 1958, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Dracula Untold etc,) ergo 1931 has to be the most human seeming Dracula, surely? He’s just a guy, afterall.

I disagree. I think the opposite is true.

And this is a pretty typical result when a creative work is met with constraint - innovation. They couldn’t have him transform into an enormous man-bat thing and clatter a werewolf across a laboratory (Van Helsing), and they couldn’t have him fly about the place, hissing and tearing out throats (Hammer Dracula and Bram Stoker’s Dracula respectively), so what did they do? 

They made his human presence the scariest fucking thing in the world.

And no it’s not the scariest thing in terms of like shock horror, but cerebrally, it chills me to the bone. The Dracula in Dracula 1931 is an inhuman monster, put on this earth to do little more than feed on the blood of humans. He has no ulterior motive, no reincarnated love, no tragic backstory, just all the powers of the night, a preference for O negative and a one track mindset - feed.

I’m reminded of two things when I see him: Rob Zombie’s Halloween and John Carpenter’s The Thing (crazy, I know). The former comes from the little speech Dr Loomis gives when talking about Micheal Miers (the er, killer, not Shrek, unless some serious revelations come to light about the Shrek one, in which case, both) in where he says: “These eyes do not see what you and I can see. Behind these eyes, one finds only blackness, the absence of light. These are the eyes of a psychopath.”

That is the most fitting description I can come up with when it comes to Bela Lugosi’s performance. There is nothing behind those eyes. They’re not even bestial, they’re just empty. All that dialogue, all those interactions, all those little touches - fake. 

And this comes in quite beautifully with my comparison with the Thing, because the Thing is a creature of near perfect mimicry, down to the cell, down to the personality, and I just find the concept of a creature as soulless and hollow as either the Thing or Dracula being able to so effectively mimic human behaviour without possessing even a glimmer of humanity themselves so god damn unnerving. 

It’s a lure, an angler fish’s lamp, aggressive mimicry directed specifically at humans. And it makes you wonder. If whatever Dracula presents himself as is fake, what is he really like? We’re given no other possibilities, so we’re left having to just assume there’s nothing. 

I just find something so inherently terrifying about this concept, the harsh simplicity to Dracula 1931's existence. All the other Draculas have some aspect of them that's recognisable as being human, be it wrath, pride, lust, happiness and so forth. A descent into beasthood still comes from a human place, and even when they morph into some ungodly puppet or cg beast, there's still something in that we, as humans - living, breathing, thinking, sentient creatures - can understand. Contemplating the higher brain functions of Dracula 1931 is like trying to contemplate the structure of the void.

To bring in a third movie comparison: insect politics. The associated vampiric creature with our Vlad shouldn’t ever have been a bat, or a wolf - it should have been a spider.

There is no love, no compassion, no mercy, no soul, no person. Behind those eyes, there are no thoughts, save for the instincts of an ambush predator.

That is all there is: the prey, the predator, the latter’s dark, endless hunger and whatever means through which it might be able to sate it. 

Ruairi

P.S: I know Bela Lugosi wasn’t the first on screen Dracula either, but like… he’s first anyone cares about so like shut up.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

The hypocrisy of the theoretical bear

Dobson was a bully.

I kinda wanted to make that statement only later in regard of another comic I am already writing about, but when you really boil it down, that is what Dobson genuinely was towards other nerds. Under all the pretense of just trying to talk about feminism and hoping that nerd culture can do better and become more progressive, he was just trying to shame people for enjoying different stuff than him, not sharing his opinions, or being overzealous in ways that were different to him.

Among other things, he would e.g. post this picture in regard of a certain fantheory when it reared its ugly head in season 3 of Miraculous Ladybug…

mocking a specific person for misinterpreting an animation smear for a genuine clue and instead of trying to politely explain it to them, instead shame then on twitter…

And eventually make THIS shitty SYAC strip, shaming the person even more, by making them specifically the butt of a non existing “joke”.

I kinda want to talk about these two instances now, why I think the comics are not funny as well hypocritical and rather dumb in hindsight. But first, the obligatory digression

I unfortunately agree with Dobson partly, that fan theorizing can at times go WAY too far. I myself have no issues with theorizing a little or playing with ideas of how a certain story could play out in the end. But I think there is a difference between looking at some little things, trends and recurring themes in a story and making a throwaway assumption like “oh yeah, that could happen down the line” and making a 40+ minute rant video on perhaps one little background thing blown out of proportion.

I also genuinely despise “review” channels such as The Roundtable or Film Theory for making clickbait videos based on dumb fan theories that they try to exploit for views, while actually not contributing anything of substance or of their own to the debate or elaborate on the craft of animation and storytelling. Being more of trend chasers than anything else.

That said, I think fans theorizing about stuff is an integral part of fan culture and can be fun. It can e.g. inspire people to create their own stories/fanwork based on such theories. Such as this actually pretty decent piece of Miraculous Ladybug fanart, that Thomas Astruc even liked and shared on twitter and blows everything Dobson did for the show out of the water.

Plus, even as Dobson kinda admits, some shows and stories are deliberately made to “reward” fans for their theories.

However, already in the way Dobson formulates that, he is making a mistake.

See, these shows aren’t “rewarding” people per se for their theories. They simply confirm that the fans may have successfully cracked completely (or at least partly) an aspect of the story’s integral mystery/plot, at times left intentionally by the show creators themselves.

Just to give an example: Hunter’s nature as a Grimwalker in the Owl House.

Hunter aka “The golden Guard” was first introduced in the last episode of the first season of the Owl House, face still completely covered. Then later episodes not only revealed his face, but also his name and that he was supposedly Belos nephew. Something that already raised a few eyebrows for people, cause Belos was not only confirmed in the show to be at least over 50 years old, but some couldn’t image that a character falling into the classical evil overlord archetype, could really have a “nephew” as young as Hunter. And then in the episode Eclipse Lake, which starts off in Belos secret lab with a shot of some items on the ground, people saw this:

A page of a book, indicating to be an instruction on how to create an artificial human, with mentioning of a creature introduced and seen earlier in the season (in the proper debut episode of the Golden Guard nonetheless) and with the human creatures eyes in the book implied to have the same color as Hunters.

As such, the theory of Hunter being an artificial human was born and later on, got properly confirmed through dialogue and other visual revelations in the story.

Sometimes, storytellers (particularly once who want to craft a decent mystery or overarching narrative) will just leave little clues in their creation, for people to theorize about and to assure they are getting further invested in the story. The reason for that ranging from the author trying to tell a decent mystery without having to pull the revelations completely out of their ass (unlike Dobson in the story with Sam and his dead sister!) or revealing too much all at once, to just having fun with fans and sometimes also simply because they want to add something to the story, even if by that point in time they may not have yet entirely in mind what that something is going to be.

Such as Rebecca Sugar actually throwing the term “Cluster” around in Steven Universe, before even having an idea what it was supposed to mean in context of the story.

So in that regard, fan theories are just attempts to explain stuff the show runners may already have in mind to be important anyway and therefore different from lets say someone obsessing over background colours being symbolic of gay relationships for example

But now back to the two comics. The first one, showing us a weird expy of Bill Cipher with a card exclaiming “Adrien is a Sentimonster”, may be kinda confusing, so here is a bit of context: Dobson tries to poke fun at the “Adrien is a Sentimonster” theory of the Ladybug fandom, by having the “subject” of another, extremely niche fan theory claim it is baseless and wild. That “subject” is Tad Strange. Now if you are only familiar with the show Gravity Falls, you would know that Tad Strange is that guy…

the most average, boring person in all of Gravity Falls, part of an almost Family Guy level cutaway gag in one episode of Gravity Falls. But supposedly (I at least never saw it), when the name was first mentioned somewhere by Hirsch long before the episode introducing Tad properly aired, people came up with the theory that “Tad Strange” may be a secondary villain akin to Bill Cipher, if not even a relative to him. And that is what Dobson tries to mock here. I say “try” cause honestly, who would even get the idea of what sort of joke Dobson tries to tell, if they aren’t familiar with the theory. A theory that was so niche, Dobson would have to explain the intention of the comic somewhere down the line even.

And to quote the Joker…

Furthermore, while the theory of “Adrien is a sentimonster” was kinda wild after only introducing the fact that even humanoid, sentient creatures could be created by the power of the Peacock Miraculous (in the episode simply called “Ladybug”) recently to that comic being made, it wasn’t really that wild when people thought about it.

After all, Ladybug at its core was still a magical girl show. And them doing twists like that (such as Chibiusa being Sailor Moon’s daughter from the future, Galaxia being the original first Sailor Senshi, Witches being corrupted Magical Girls etc) was not necessarily unheard off.

Though Dobson, when told it could still be a possibility, not only would act rather condescending, but furthermore went on to also piss against Ladybug’s leg, by stating “the show’s writing is not good enough to pull that off”. Which okay, he is right, the show is one of the dumbest written magical girl shows I have ever seen, the man behind it is essentially Dobson with a career.

But, two seasons and a few years later….

YOU ARE A SENTIMONSTER

YOU ARE SENTIMONSTERS

WE ALL ARE SENTIMONSTERS!!!!!

At least Adrien is not alone?

Yeah, Dobson can eat a dick in that regard. I mean, I think the reveal and how they played out the mystery wasn’t all that good (in my opinion, Astruc and his team winged it in) but not only was his dismissive behavior insulting to begin with, it also shows that he has very little understanding of how to utilize common tropes in fiction and cartoons in particular, despite consuming them en masse. Plus you know, kinda insulting to Thomas Astruc, who by that token proved to still be at least more succesful than Dobby-dumb-dumb bear

Also, as much as I like Gravity Falls, neither it or Steven Universe had in my opinion quite from the get go an idea where to head with their mysteries. Alex Hirsch having confirmed, that Bill Cipher becoming a character and not just a symbol, was something he came up with only halfway working through the concept phase of season 1. And the Rose is Pink reveal? My memories regarding that show are a bit rusty, but when was that actually hinted on in the show? There were massive hints that Pink Diamond didn’t get killed by the rebellion or that things were more complicated. Not that Pink pulled essentially a Darth Sidious on everyone just to live on earth and have sex with humans. Especially in season 1 to 3.

But really, the picture is just something that to me has just aged poorly.

The comic on the other hand I genuinely want to smack Dobson over the head for.

Again, I myself think that yes, people can go too far at times with looking for clues or making up their theories. But personally, I think there is a difference between making a general statement about it and giving a specific example, like Dobson does here. Sure, he may not show the username of the person who made the video or the comment, but it is still pretty condescending and a dick move, made by a guy who may be 10+ years older than whoever made the video referenced here.

Dobson essentially punches down, instead of punching up. A at the time at least 35/36 year old man acting like a mean school girl online to mock some random person, who just made a dumb theory and then moved on with its life.

Though it isn’t just that one user specifically he is essentially punching down. Here is the text by the author coming with the comic

“You guys should all take a chill pill for getting angry and upset at the creator”

No. No they kinda don’t. I mean, yeah some people can take it way too far with how invested they are in the stuff, but people have every right to also call certain plot twists hack writing, if it is so. Like how the reveal of Rose having been Pink had essentially ruined Rose Quartz and as such also put in question any of the “morals” she supposedly lived by. And considering she was something of the “moral center” for the show and many characters as well as fans, that just immediately made fans feel betrayed about having believed in her in the first place. Don’t get me even started how it essentially confirmed that Pearl is the worst gem of them all, for having always been in love with a version of Space Hitler. Furthermore, Dobson is not really someone to talk about that sort of shit like he has a higher ground, considering how he at times demands of other creators to fall in line with his ideas

If anything, it just feels similar to other comcis he made in his last years about cartoons: Him trying to defend the shitty writing and work put into stuff he likes, because a) how dare people insult something he likes and b) he thinks he and Rebecca Sugar, Thomas Astruc and Alex Hirsch are kinda brothers in arms. Meaning if you insult them, you insult him and the great art he has created and is an expression of his “talents”.

But most importantly about the comic, it is just not funny.

It is simply Dobson “lecturing” in the green void and with emerging shit in the background for which he could be copyright striked into oblivion, how he thinks “x is bad”. And you know, personally I prefer being entertained over being lectured. Or try to do both, which you know, certain people can, cause they have one thing Dobson does not: Talent.

The sad thing about it being, Dobson could have actually managed to make the subject of “overanalyzing via fan theory” funny quite easily. All he had to do was just tell a small “story” about “fan theories” as a plot element, rather than a subject for a lecture.

Here is my idea for a small comic, and if you have input to give or want to adapt it, I would be glad:

Dobson watches some show only to pause when he sees something in the background.

Next thing we know, we have Pam visit Dobson one week later to see if he is doing okay, only to find him unhinged and covering over a bill board with strings regarding his fan theory why these characters are a couple. Insert him either going completely or partly into a “Pepe Silvia” like rant

And yeha, I know the “Charlie’s string board” thing is an overused meme by now in itself, but hot dang is it still funny…

Only for Pam to say “Andy, the next episode dropped yesterday and they are not a couple” Ending the comic with her showing him the episode and Dobson be like “oh… well, at least the resolution was decent”

A comic of that kind would also have the advantage of Dobson actually doing one thing, he certainly haven’t done in years by that point: Make fun of himself too.

See, that is likely another problem with Dobson: He was so preoccupied in using SYAC as a soap box for his opinion, he was completely blind to the fact that he could avoid being conceived as one of the internets biggest douchebags, if he poked genuine fun at himself via his work once in a while. Make the Dobbear the one living by example about what Dobson talks, instead of just ranting about it, you know?

But hey, I am not Dobson.

A guy who tells people to not overanalyze everything via fantheories…

But has absolutely no problem to fawn over some dumb Zelda theory -as long as it is by him- or whine about people not liking HIS theories on Steven Universe, without actually bothering to even explain what his theory is about.

Then again, I take Dobson making dumb theories about shitty cartoons and calart lesbians over him genuinely falling for real world related conspiracy theories, like how 9/11 was staged.

Yeah, that was a thing.

[mysterymachinefiends]

I have read reviews and now we are one day from the drop of the new series and aside from the Pilot, I won’t watch it. Velma 2023 as a concept of- Prequel, No Scooby-Doo, and changing Race of a Character- is all fine and dandy. We, Scooby Doo Fans, do that in our art all the time. I love seeing everyone’s ideas on differences in the gang like Velma being Black or Daphne being East Asian or any combo I’ve ever seen. There is really true creative talent in this fandom for respecting cultures but applying them to Scooby Doo Characters which is a GIANT thing Velma is going to miss. Even the vaguest reviews make it out to sound like a churn-and-burn CW affair where it’s horny teens and spooky monsters. That method has worked in the past, but as viewing audiences sit with Riverdale and Euphoria, I think it has been played out. The series also misses key fundamental character specifics like Fred isn’t Rich, Shaggy got Scooby young, Velma is a giant nerd but not overly concerned by appearances (depending on versions, I’m citing the originals), Daphne is rich but not an idiot just generally clumsy, and the other host of characters being their parents change. The last thing about their parents changing is fine, there is fluidity with that.

Velma also seems to miss a thing that most shows nowadays are as well: Decent Character Dialogue. I’m not sure what has happened to writing rooms, but even the better movies have stilted and wilted character interactions. I find it hard to see past the “Woke Show” complaint because even though I’m for more open ideas, it comes across as a parody of Woke Shows a MAGA person would make. Example:

“Have you ever noticed how pilot episodes of TV shows always have more gratuitous sex and nudity than the rest of the series?” -Daphne, Velma HBO-Max (2023) she is then reported to have a naked shower scene fighting another girl.

“Man, if I even think about getting into 420, 420 culture or especially 420-related humor, kill me.” -Shaggy, Velma HBO-Max (2023)

These are not good examples of Meta-Humor or self-awareness. They seem like something out of a high school creative writing course at the beginning of the year. Which is a harsh take, but if you are going to make a character self aware, at least make it funny. It’s like the head writer, a former SNL writing room writer, looked at 3 TikToks made by teens and decided that’s how they all sound. Then tried to be an EdgeLord about it. Which, for a show trying to introduce different races to beloved characters and be smart about it, IS AN AWFUL WAY TO CHANGE MINDS. It is more likely to have awful reviews claiming race when actually it’s poor poor writing.

Velma 2023 was supposed to be a smart way to bring Scooby Doo to adults. Which could be done correctly and there have been successful and witty adult cartoons without the typical plagues of Over-Sexualizing, Too Much Gore, and Cringey Self-Awareness. Take for example, Bob’s Burgers. It’s beloved by all and while the humor sometimes gears towards adults, it’s not overly raunchy. Velma feels like it belongs more in 2005/2006 Comedy Central attempts than on a paid TV Channel. I hope that in the future, creators might be actual true fans or at least have a writing room that adores the basics. The Mystery Gang can be for adults, it just hasn’t had the love yet to transition.

[cookiekitkat8484]

dipper hcs

This is super long, like 2000 words super long because i have a huge hyperfixation and cringe culture is dead. he reminds me of me and my friends/family so i have a million ideas. split into topics for reading convenience

low 20s, autistic, bi + demi with a preference for women, ftm. I totally understand people disliking ftm dipper because of stan and mabel making fun of his masculinity and it would be shitty in canon but this is my post so i make the rules bitch and am pretending that never happened. None of this is ship stuff. I imagine him to basically look like the lovley art in this post.  

shares an apartment with mabel in portland, completely full of nerd memorabilia, stacks of boardgames, mabels diys, a conspiracy corkboard, and arts & crafts materials 

works in a bar/arcade where wendy bartends, calls soos and fidds when he needs help fixing machines

pet ferret called pippin

started his own journal 

pacificas plus one to her prissy rich person events, sit in the corner and shit talk

carries around fidget toys, was too embarrassed till mabel convinced him (partially because his pens kept exploding everywhere)

has protective runes tattooed 

mabel talks about astrology to be annoying, is baited into getting mad and rambling about how modern astrology is fake and a scam every single time

nervous driver, doesnt have a car but is sometimes driven by mabel in her heavily adorned funmobile; worries about her "enthusiastic" driving

helps mabel dye her hair after a three am hair emergency, got really good and started bleaching pacificas till she decided to chop it and grow it out natural (refused money from her parents after moving out), which used to be the ultimate gossip sessions

joint problems and pain, god awful posture

one sided beef with all of mabels partners till they “prove themselves”

doesnt believe in cooking like he (mainly) used to not believe in laundry

punched someone for making fun of mabel, got beat up so mabel kicked their asses (thank you stan and wendy for her "training")

only social media is reddit, an instagram account made and run by pacifica, youtube, and a tumblr on nerd/mystery stuff 

only has tumblr bc candy convinced him in like 2014 then he succumbed to the brain rott, they're mutuals and make weird references no one else gets, personalises blog extensively via html/css, had a brief superwholock phase in 2015 (fight me)

coded mabels laptop into a custom 2000s esc blinged out hellscape she made in graphic design class, got her rgb stuff bc she likes rainbows and he thinks its funny

occasionally clashes with mabel bc shes sensory seeking and he gets sensory overload

pacifica takes him clothes shopping bc otherwise he will literally never buy new clothes, sometimes go thrifting with mabel the thrift god

mildly dyslexic and in denial

needs glasses but usually wears contacts because he finds them annoying then forgets to take them out

wears glasses when he misses the grunkles

Sugar addict like mabel and their pantry shows it 

Best nerd shirt collection, like, that's all he wears

Gets into online arguments way too much for no reason 

Mabel makes like ten different protective friendship bracelets with unicorn hair so he could have options, just wears all of them at once

uni

journalism major with a minor in computer science 

takes history, pure maths, and film units as electives 

member/helps run the clubs for DnD [DD&MD], MTG, Warhammer, and scifi & fantasy appreciation

founder and president of the uni cryptozoology, supernatural, aliens, and occult society (CSACS)

gets ford to proof read his writing/math and fidds his code

attends lectures for units hes not even enrolled in for fun

has gotten into multiple arguments with professors, including ones that dont even teach him 

has read theory (all people who’ve read theory are annoying including myself)

hobbies

goes to cons with mabel, she helps with (/mainly makes for him) matching cosplays to fill the trick or treating void

once met spock and kirks actors and got so excited he passed out so mabel took pics of him on the floor next to them and she thinks its the funniest thing to ever exist

DMs multiple online DnD [DD&MD] and ttrpgs groups, 3.5e truther

competes in MTG tournaments 

does karaoke night with mabel and the gals atleast once a month, sometimes brings pacifica 

goes to the renaissance fair with the squad where him, mabel, ford, and soos all dress up and get super into character with melony; wendy and stan take shrooms and go to watch the sword fighting 

listens to DnD podcasts 

ex band kid and still plays Sousaphone, often to mabels dismay 

obsessed with boardgames and hosts boardgame nights, always makes everyone play super overcomplicated ones then has to play monopoly when its stan and mabels choice

almost always wins boardgames and knows how every mechanic works, has only occasionally lost to ford (who is a sore loser lol)

has had risk games last multiple days after its only him and ford left

bonds with mabel and soos painting figures (warhammer, dnd, the usual) and embraces her covering hers in glitter and gems

goes ghost hunting, has a shit tone of real gear from ford and fidds and sometimes vlogs, quotes buzzfeed unsolved

secret AO3 account, caught grunkle stan writing dutches approves fics but both have sworn an oath of secrecy 

wendy taught him skateboarding, doesnt do tricks (uncoordinated as shit) but uses it as transport

broke bc he cant resist collectables 

made his own pc from scratch using parts he bought and custom ones made by fidds

goes to local band concerts with wendy and her gang including watching wendy play drums

Did debate in highschool, usually gets nervous doing public speaking but gets so invested he forgets; is second speaker

tech guy for productions mabel is in

games 

loves all strategy and puzzle games

fav games include fallout 1&2, nethack, xcom, civ, FTL, and dwarf fortress

ford and fidds play games they used to play before the portal accident with him eg. zork, MUD1, rouge, star trek, colossal cave adventure, and mystery house

plays portal 2 with ford and sometimes mabel

plays baldurs gate with mabel and she spent five hours doing character customisation, he plays wizard and she plays bard and both are total stereotypes

played lethal company and phasmophobia with mabel, soos, wendy, grenda, and candy (goes as expected) (lots of screaming)

BDG unravelled fan and grew up on matpat but cant play fnaf or ddlc bc giffany 

had a breakdown playing dark souls and started crying at 2am so mabel banned it permanently

spectacularly bad at rhythm games but will play with mabel anyway and she completely sweeps, esp in arcades and just dance

plays bishi bashi with the gang and have broken the machine multiple times

really good at retro arcade games, shares strats with soos and remembers all the combos for everything; helps kids beat levels at work

gets ford to help optimise game stats/teams/strats with the POWER OF MATHS !!!, has on occasion coded algorithms to assist 

forced everyone to play among us constantly for like three months straight

member of mabel, candy, and grendas chaotic nightmare of a minecraft server, usually offline and generally regrets it when he joins; more of a terraria guy

undertale kid

ports/emulates games himself, esp retro console stuff like old fire emblem, Zelda, earthbound

in the ace attorney fandom  

runs a server for online friends he plays games with

shows/movies

does annual lotr (extended edition) marathons with ford, mabel drifts in and out of watching because snacks and that legolas and arwin are both a “total smash” (elf apreciator)

loves all scifi, including classics like star trek, star wars, ext.

watches doctor who with mabel (shes a david tennant enjoyer) including the super old stuff, replies with one of the classic who doctors when people ask his fav and confuse them 

goes to old scifi/horror/fantasy rerun marathons, wendy joins depending on the films

watches scifi and mecha anime with soos and fidds, sometimes ford joins

loves evangelion, knows cruel angels thesis in japanese, lowkey a shinji kinnie and is bullied ruthlessly 

watches candys exquisite curation of 90s shoujo with her, mabel, and grenda; wont admit he gets super into it but has been caught doing sailor moon magical girl transformation poses 

watched madoka magica with the gals and was kuybey hater #1 from the start

never shuts the fuck up about theories and guesses the end of movies unless mabel smothers him with a pillow

hate watches conspiracy theory/ghost hunting shows with wendy bc theyre either laughably wrong or so close and totally missing the obvious, except this one random guy who was somehow spot on (like doug forcett in the good place) 

Made to watch all of twilight at a girls night because mabel (mostly) watched lotr, cant stop overthinking the insane lore implications which somehow get worse with every book fact mabel tells him (because what the fuck ???? the world building is batshit), him and candy keep periodically saying effervescent and bursting into hysterics to the others confusion

still quotes star wars bad lip readings with mabel

books

favs include hitchikers guide to the galaxy, discworld, lotr, do androids dream of electric sheep, earthsea, dune, and HP lovecraft esp cuthullu 

him and ford have both read the salmirilion and make it everyones problem

likes classic scifi and early cyberpunk, esp spec fic thats wacky or raises ethical questions to ponder with ford

loves sherlock homes and agatha christie, big who dunnit story fan

read good omens bc mabel likes the show (again, david tennant enjoyer) and its terry pratchet + neil gaiman, tries to get her to read the book for ages and eventually she listens to the audiobook

music

owns spirit phone on vinyl, made ford listen once and accidentally gave him flashbacks

likes lemon demon, TWERP, starbomb, NSP, tally hall, will wood, and other nerd bands 

they might be giants and potusa enjoyer

can and will recite the entirety of the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny at the drop of a hat

went through a midwest emo phase, still listens to csh

listens to vocaloid with candy; went to a concert with the gals and everyone learnt the dances, mabel decorated their light sticks 

always ends up belting [B]ABBA when drunk

Fav [B]ABBA songs are disco girl and under attack 

weezer defender, bullied by mabel and wendy

listens to math rock with ford while stan complains the time signatures and polyrhythms (though he’d never bother to learn the terms) give him a headache 

listens to game OSTs and chiptune stuff

mabel got him into musicals, knows the words to hamilton, bmc, and dear evan hansen, sing duets together

trans 

once forgot to take off a too small binder for like two days and fainted, mabel made him a custom one

short king, used to have hight dysphoria

mabel alters his pants bc mens trousers are evil for the transmasc gang

didnt shave ever when he first got his wiskers till pacifica staged an intervention 

forgot to tell stan he was trans till he got body hair and stan joked it was his genetics to thank, dipper responded he was lucky the T was actually effective

drinking/drugs

cant smoke weed or he gets suuuuper paranoid, only smoked once w wendy and tried to smoke more to calm down but just ended up greening hard

drinks alcoholic ginger beer and indie APIs wendy recommends, though shes more of a whisky and scotch

super low alcohol tolerance, doesnt drink often

drinks mabels own recipe cocktail monstrosities when she convinces him they wont get shitfaced, always ends up shitfaced because theyre 100% alcohol + sugar and mabels tolerance is like double his; always eventually ends with him trying to explain lotr poorly

once drank so much caffeine he started hallucinating 

tripsits mabel (LSD legend) and sometimes wendy (totally does shrooms), again is neurotic and should under no circumstances take hallucinogens 

sometimes smokes cigs when stressed, tries to hide it but is laughably bad, will ocasionally bum a cig off wendy

[friendofhayley]

Friendofhayley's Top Books of 2022 Pt. 2 LGBTQIA+ Magic

This Book Rec is on LGBTQIA+ with a magical element in them. This list contains 7 different books. Let's go!!

Kushiel's Avatar (Kushiel's Dart #3) by Jacqueline Carey | queer society

This concluded the Kushiel's Dart series through the eyes of Phèdre, a now powerful Duchess. In this installment (that has jumped years into the future) she tries any aims and leads she can to free her best friend from the island he was cursed to. It was very bittersweet to finish this book, Phèdre is such a brilliant and unique character. I loved getting to see fantasy Africa and Central Asia in this installment and see the twists made on Egyptian and Jewish culture in this world.

"We speak of stories ending, when in truth it is we who end. The stories go on and on."

An Accident of Stars by Fox Meadows | queer/feminist world (kinda)

This story follows an Australian girl who falls into a portal into another world and lands in a political mess -- and she'll never be the same again. I loved how this new world was literally COMPLETELY unlike our own. Plants and animals weren't a mix of ours, they were completely their own. I loved every character and how nonchalantly free and queer/trans all the women were.

“Life is hard. Some days we get our asses kicked, but apathy breeds more evils than defeat. So, you know. Keep fighting."

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin | poly & queer characters

The Stillness is a land of constant shakes and phenomena since Father Earth started hating his children. This story follows characters who can (basically) Earth bend and it's super poly and queer. This book made me realize what epic fantasy should be, which is nonchalantly queer and POC-filled with no heteronormativity anywhere. A semi-depressing read though.

“After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being. I am me, and you.”

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu | lesbian vampires

This book was extremely gay. I was cautious because I felt like maybe the show really emphasized it, but no. Carmilla is head over heels in love with Laura, and Laura is confused but into it. I loved that it involved an unreliable narrator as well. Dracula who?

“Yes, very—a cruel love—strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.

Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno | queer romcom

There is an island known for a rare (magical) bird. Georgina hates the time of the year when the bird researchers flock to her hometown, and it's even worse while she's waiting for her family magic to kick in. But another magic (love) also arrives. This book was amazing. It has a small-town feel to it, it made me laugh out loud, and the characters all feel real. I stayed up until 4 AM to finish it, and it was so worth it. I wish I could read it again.

"And she was funny, and interesting, and her smile was like a small revelation. Like she had invented smiling."

Widdershins by Jordan L Hawk | gay men

Two men get shoved into an occult mystery that might turn into a horror story. Also enemies to lovers and badass/nerd. This book was outstanding. It was so refreshing for a story to have a non-romantic plot with a well-written subplot in which there is no drama about the being gay part. It felt like any other brilliant story set in the Victorian(?) age but with gay main characters.

“Why did he have to be kind? If only he’d mocked me, or sneered at me, or merely tolerated me, then I would have known how to deal with him. But he insisted on being kind, on pretending I had some worth. How was I to defend myself against that?”

Peter Darling by Austin Chant | trans man MC + gay relationship

This story follows Peter Darling who has come back to Neverland after being away for so long. For some reason, he's drawn to Captain Hook and keeps forgetting something very big. There was so much hype about this book and it was worth it. At times the story was trippy in the best way and the romance was sweet and made sense.

“You know, I find that enemies are often the most satisfying people to share your secrets with. If you must tell someone, tell someone who's sensitive to all your vulnerabilities, on account of trying to exploit them.”

[kwiyoshi]

彡✎ Unpacking Politics, One Meme at a Time

(Do memes (as it is popular in Malaysian politics) provide a useful way of understanding politics?)

Politics: the only arena where you'll find more plot twists, backstabbing, and unexpected surprises than a season finale of your favorite TV show.

We get it – politics can sometimes feel like a maze of jargon and complex issues. However, with the rise of meme culture and its integration into politics, could memes be used to further understand politics and its complexity? (probably).

Behind the Laughs

Before answering the main question, let me hit y'all with some nerd facts about how memes came about. A meme is a cultural informational unit that spreads by imitation. The term, which comes from the Greek word mimema (meaning "imitated"), was coined by a British biologist named Richard Dawkins in 1976 from his work titled "The Selfish Gene" (Rogers 2023). Memes come in a variety of format that ranges from videos to still images.

From LOL to Legislation

In today's day and age of the Internet, memes can be found on all sorts of social media platforms that we use on a daily basis. Whether it be viral videos or yet another funny cat or dog picture like the doge meme. Nowadays, there seems to be an ongoing trend of memes being used in politics. I'm not particularly sure how it is being used, but most of the memes I see about politics are just to poke fun at a specific person or political party.

Now for the million-dollar (or in this case ringgit) question, how did memes suddenly become a thing in the political world? The earliest instance of memes and politics I could find is from the year 2000 during a presidential debate in the United States about then-candidate George W. Bush where he mispronounced the word "internet" as "internets." Four years later, he made the same mistake during a debate with John Kerry when he said, "I hear here’s rumors on the, uh, internets that we’re going to have a draft". After the whole conundrum, the response from netizens was eventful. Thus, making Bush one of the first few political internet memes (Klein 2019).

It seems that after George W. Bush became a trending meme in politics in the United States, I guess you could say he sort of paved the way for birthing memes in politics as we know it today. As far as I know, there are a lot of memes about our politics here in Malaysia that I've come across and it gets pretty entertaining considering how our politics here are.

Meme-laysia

As someone that currently lives in Malaysia, I would say that there are a handful of memes that circulates throughout social media when it is nearing elections or when someone that is part of a political party (or one of our ministers) screws up yet again. The political scene here is quite eventful, to say the least, but that does not mean we cannot laugh about it.

One of the most popular political memes in Malaysia is during 2021 when our then Prime Minister of Malaysia, Muhyiddin Yassin suddenly resigned from his position after only being the Prime Minister for one-and-a-half years. As good of a plot twist as this is, Malaysians took to social media to express their confusion and reaction to this news (Lee 2021).

Here is one of the example:

Upon resigning as Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin will assume the role of interim Prime Minister until a new leader, who commands the majority, is identified (Lee 2021).

Humor and Power

Phew. We're finally getting to the most anticipated part. Do memes provide a useful way of understanding politics? My answer to that is, definitely. Based on research conducted by Kasirye (2019), it is found that political memes do have an effect on providing information about politics.

The study also reveals that political parties employ memes to promote, oppose, and criticize various political issues among the populace. Since the majority of messages are created by political parties and actors to further their objectives, memes are spread through social media to reach the targeted political groups.

Due to memes having a visual nature and their ability to grab people's attention, memes are a good foundation to start understanding politics. Thus, memes are a great method for political engagement that appeals to people's cognitive and extrasensory faculties in order to interact with them and shape their opinions. Humor and sarcasm, on the other hand, are used as persuasive strategies in this awareness-raising technique (Kasirye 2019, p. 51).

Final Thoughts and Prayers

Overall, I do think that memes play a part in politics in terms of understanding what is going on or providing useful information. Memes are funny and people like memes due to the fact that they can be on different social media platforms, whether it be in video or picture format.

References

Kasirye, F 2019, 'THE EFFECTIVENESS OF POLITICAL MEMES AS A FORM OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AMONGST MILLENNIALS IN UGANDA', Journal of Education and Social Sciences, vol. 13, issue 1, pp. 50 - 51, viewed 8 October 2023, <https://www.jesoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/KC13_032.pdf>.

Klein, O 2019, The evolution of political internet memes, Kennedy School Review, viewed 8 October 2023, <https://ksr.hkspublications.org/2019/03/11/the-evolution-of-political-internet-memes/>.

Lee, J 2021, Confused Malaysians make sense of country's political crisis through memes, Mashable, viewed 8 October 2023, <https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17175/confused-malaysians-make-sense-of-countrys-political-crisis-through-memes>.

Rogers, K n.d., meme, Britannica, viewed 7 October 2023, <https://www.britannica.com/topic/meme>.