#watching osp made me think of this

[susiephone]

fix-it fic to macbeth where upon hearing “macbeth will be king but banquo’s heirs will succeed him,” macbeth DOESN’T go on a killing spree and instead has a daughter after taking the throne, who then goes on to marry banquo’s son and the two of them continue the banquo family line....

...followed up by an UN-fix-it fic to that fic where macbeth’s daughter takes after dear old mom (and dad too let’s face it), decides her husband is unfit to rule, and that she would be way better at it, and gets a little stabby in the process

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

The Importance of Tone

If you want more info on Tone there is this video (Trope Talk. Tone Armor from OSP) that speaks about Tone Armor which is not 1 to 1 applicable to BLs but informs the general idea of what I mean when I say consistent Tone and establishing/breaking it.

What the 4 Minutes finale and Kidnap and Jack And Joker all airing close together taught me, is that there is nothing more important for a show (especially a bl and bl adjecent shows) then nailing it's tone and sticking to it.

@waitmyturtles post about the four minutes finale made me think finalize my thoughts on this.

Establishing a tone at the start is going to tell the audience what to expect. If the show starts light and unserious like Kidnap and Jack and Joker. Then the audience can expect to turn their brain off and enjoy the romance. If the show starts Serious with Big Themes or establishing a show as a Messy Queer show like 4 Minutes and Only Friends then your audience is going to turn their brain on and expect you to follow that tone all the way to end.

It's possible to successfully break the tone, but one you have to do it with intention and two (and this is the most important part) is super fucking difficult to go from serious and dark to light and unserious. A light and unserious show can go more serious and deeper (Pit Babe did that for me, it started with unserious show but it did end up with some nice serious themes and a tinge of bittersweetness at the end). But a show that starts serious and messy queer show is going to have a fucking hell of an impossible time moving into light and unserious romance especially if you only do that at the end.

Not saying that serious shows can't have light moments or a happy ending just that it needs to do more work into going in that direction and that those light moments and happy ending need to feel like they come as a result of the narrative. As an example look at The Full Pornographer series. That one has a happy ending eventually (if you watch it all) and feels earned and like it doesn't break the tone the story establish.

Another thing that clicked for me (thanks to this post by @negrowhat) is that you can't rely on actor chemestry to sell the romance and the tone shift/break into said romance as focus. Because chemestry is super subjective for exemple I personally think Jes and Bible have great phsyical chemestry but not a lot of romantic chemestry. And if the writing is not there to back up the romantic tone then you have a chunk of your audience who is just not going to buy the romance.

A show that has a good solid writing is going to win people over even if they don't see the chemestry. For example for me I didn't see KristSingto chemestry in Sotus. It just wasn't there for. BUT the writing sold me on their love story. Sure it's not my favorite BL but I can say that the writing of their romance is really good and I do have the wish to try again with that (and Be My Favorite) and see if I can get more into it emotionally. Because the writing holds up. I would never do that with Great Tyme because the writing is just not there.

[personnotfound]

that one OSP video keeps ending up in my autoplay so im just pissy about superman now

because they're right

supes is a subversion from the get go. Superman is a subversion of the expectation, nay, trope of the corrupting influence of absolute power, so to subvert Superman is to play the boring thing straight. Edgy Superman is BORING and it's not at all because edge itself is boring it's because it's exactly what you would expect to happen, and it doesn't have the STRUGGLE that facilitates the ANGST that is so vital to edge.

To subvert Superman is to fail on every level. It is to be neither inspiring nor shocking, not charming or complex, it's just a bland soup. A story about a character who isn't motivated enough by saving people and making things better to be a true Hero, but doesn't have any diabolical plans to make them a villain. It's boring. Thinking about it makes me bored and irritated. They made Superman an EdgySue and thought they did something there. Superman is a paragon hero, the ultimate foil to all of the angst surrounding, and THE example for all of the other heroes to aspire to.

I'll admit I didn't think about Superman much before that video because I didn't care, preferred Batman, but now I have been shown why all those DC movies bugged me so much.

Go watch the Detail Diatribe on Superman on the OverlySarcasticProductions channel on YouTube if you want, like, an extremely detailed and passionate boiling down of this whole issue. Then watch the rest of the channel while you're at it, there's so much great stuff on there, plenty of variety but lots and lots of each type of thing. Just watch it it's good.

I say all that like y'all haven't all been subscribed for half a decade.

[hunkybeans]

I want to have this exchange I had on youtube on here as well.

The video is OSP's Trope Talk: Personifying Death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx4ByQpIMBE

Transcribed:

ME:

Reaper Man goes so unbelievably hard. “No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.” Big recommend for discworld to anyone, thank you Red for promoting it.

OTHER PERSON:

I'm sorry for this comment in advance, I've been having a bit of a death related spiral recently and am trying to talk myself out of it, but most people that have ever lived are still finally dead. Everyone who knew them is also dead. They probably haven't made art or music that is remembered to this day. The ripples of most peoples lives will still die away within the next few generations after their death, right?

ME:

Here's how I like to think of it.

Most people who have ever lived are forgotten. The goal of life isn't to be remembered by the world. You need to live for yourself first. What "living for yourself" means is different for each person. Some want to build a legacy and be remembered by the world, but that isn't the default purpose of your life. You get to decide what you want to be about. Almost always, people want to be loved by those around them. To have a positive impact on their friends and family.

The purpose of the Terry Pratchett quote isn't to compel you to try to be remembered by the world at large. It's not telling everyone to try to become the next Shakespeare or the next Casesar. It's condolence for people who are grieving the loss of loved ones. So long as you remember them, the advice they gave, the comfort they provided, the love they had for you, they are still with you. In spirit, they live on with you, because you remember them. You can continue to draw on their love even if they're dead, so long as they are remembered. You will die some day too, but you will be remembered by the people you affected, and in them you will live on. Eventually you will be forgotten, but the goal isn't to evade death by being remembered forever by the world at large. The world needs more mothers and brothers than it needs playwrights and generals.

This Pratchett quote comes from Reaper Man (spoiler ahead), a book in which Death is fired from his job. He becomes mortal, and takes a job working as the only other farmhand on an old widow's farm. Over the course of their interactions Death gains a new appreciation for life and the time mortals have to spend, and ends up sacrificing his remaining lifespan to save a young girl's life. The Widow and her farmhand both ultimately die at the end of the book, but they comfort each other and change each other with the time they get to spend together.

[eternal-moss]

Alhaitham Autism Coding

One last post before I go to bed but idk something rubs me the wrong way about a Genshin AU I’ve been seeing lately, specifically a Haikaveh one. I think I’ve seen a couple of artists make it already and I can’t help but feel uncomfortable about it. This isn’t to diss them or anything like that, I was just thinking about it.

It’s the premise where Alhaitham is a robot and Kaveh is a human (usually his creator, but that’s not really relevant). And the root of my discomfort is that Alhaitham is immensely, immensely autistic coded. It really couldn’t be more canon unless Alhaitham had a voice line that said ‘I am autistic’ (except Genshin is a fantasy game so of course that sort of thing isn’t viable).

So why not? I know a lot of autistic people can often relate to feeling ‘inhuman’ but that often comes as a result of life-long isolation and outcasting, and I think to dehumanise Alhaitham in this way discredits his actual humanity, which is not lessened by him being autistic.

The Trope Talk: Robots (a video by Overly Sarcastic Productions) finally made me understand something that I hadn’t when I was younger; I was quite a big fan of Zane from Lego Ninjago (spoiler warning for that) and didn’t understand the sinking feeling in my gut when it was revealed that he was actually a robot, and not a human.

When you make something inhuman represent traits from a real group of humans, the inverse sentiment of comparing that group to being inhuman also exists, even if unintentional. This was explained in that video by OSP, (which is really worth a watch) and made me realise a lot of things about ‘coding’ in media,

When I saw Zane, I saw traits I could recognise in myself- being slightly stilted and awkward, having a monotone voice, not picking up on social cues, being gullible, etc. However, despite these traits and shortcomings, his friends still cared about him a lot, and he wasn’t treated any lesser for it. I had never seen a person in media like that before, who behaved like me, and it made me happy.

I think the revelation that he actually wasn’t a person upset me in a way I couldn’t figure out at the time, but it was the implication that people who behave like that can’t actually be people at all.

Although out of all the autistic archetypes in media, the male ‘savant’ is definitely pretty overplayed, but details like Alhaitham’s headphones portray sensory issues in a realistic and interesting manner, rather than just being hyper-intelligent without any deficits or difficulties.

Because as much as Alhaitham is a bit of a dickhead sometimes, he’s still quite important to me (and I’m sure a lot of other people) in what he represents, and how unlike a lot of other characters who are autistic-coded, he manages to retain these traits without losing his humanity. I do think it would be somewhat of a disservice to his character to strip him of it.

[raayllum]

was watching this trope talk by OSP about timeloop stories, and she mentioned a trope called "What you are in the dark" (which I think I remember learning about, either in a writing class discussion or from other writing videos) but the trope description made me think of 5x08 for sure:

The Hero is alone, except, perhaps, for the villain. No one whose opinion they care about — possibly no one at all — will ever need to know what they do next, and they know it. And there is a useful but corrupt act that they could commit, reaping the benefit without anyone ever knowing. If they do not do it, the consequences can be severe, even deadly. If the villain is there, they are urging the hero to do it, which possibly involves cleaning up any possible witnesses. If the hero is alone but we still need some exposition dialogue to understand what's going on, they may discuss it with their Good Angel, Bad Angel. Very likely, they are at their Darkest Hour, even on the verge of the Despair Event Horizon. [...] What happens next? Well, the audience finds out whether they really are The Hero.

That said I don't know if entirely fits, given there's not really a sub-trope here that fits Callum's specific arc (he is undeniably still the Hero and will ultimately have a heroic arc even within arc 2; he did the 'wrong'/'right' thing and is having a corruption but not a villain arc, after all - so maybe some of it is because of the nuance of dark magic use? yeah) beyond the "dirty business" trope, which absolutely fits his attitude towards dark magic. Half the appeal of canon Snake Boi Callum is that he'll do terrible or risky things for good reasons and feel terrible about it after all.

Sometimes, you do what needs doing, but that doesn't mean you have to like it. The Hero does something wrong, or ambiguous, or involving some sacrifice. They feel tainted by it, even if they had no choice in the matter. This is one way to humanize them and show that they are not just cold and heartless, thus making them more palatable to viewers. Sometimes the display of remorse might even avert a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon. There is no need for them to resolve to act otherwise, or wish that they had acted otherwise, to bring this trope into play; merely wishing that it had not been necessary is enough. They can even think that it is Dirty Business while they decide to do it, feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place. Often due to Conflicting Loyalty, they would feel the same way about either choice. When the hero does wish they had not done it, see My God, What Have I Done? and Tears of Remorse.

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

Heya! did y'all watch Red's(from Overly Sarcastic Production on YouTube) video on Kali or the Mahabharata. It's fun and it made me think y'all might like it. So thought of suggesting.

From what I know, some part of mine and probably S' motivation to keep up this blog was OSP's stuff! Very cool, honestly. Kept losing it at her animation of Krishna's story. My favourite of the Kali animation was the little *blep* she does when stepping on Shiva.

-Mod G

[tamaruaart]

What was zhao's character designing process like?

Hello! Thanks for asking, I'll try to keep this as simple as humanly possible-

-the beginning stages of Zhao's character

(Ignore the bad quality of the pictures, I was lazy-)

I've actually had Zhao for quite a few years now, but I think these drawings I made like 9 months ago are the oldest ones that I could find. As you can probably see, in the begging she was a primarily jttw OC, I remember being super into OSP (which I still am), so when I started watching their jttw series I immediately got to making an OC because I really liked the world and all.

There's not much to say about the design honestly. But I will say why the hair changed, back then, her hair was very tiger-y but why has it changed so much if she's still a tiger? Well it's because back then I actually really liked the hair, but as time went on I thought it was way too much. However I really got attached to the whole "Cursed for disobeying your family so that you can never forget about them when you look at your own face.", so I decided to keep the orange hair just remove the details.

However a lot of the drawings you will see still have the stripes, but you'll see how they became more and more simple over time.

(note: All of the drawings you will see of her old design are pretty old so my art skills have improved-)

When I just started watching lmk I already knew I wanted to change up her character a bit. So I did a mini re-design. Again not much to say about her design except that I wanted it to look very demon-y (because she actually used to be a tiger demoness)

However I felt she was too "soft", so I changed up her character a bit to be more cold and "mature", because I wanted her to have a bigger contrast in personality with Sun Wukong. I'll get into that later :>

And as you can see I was still experimenting with certain designs but in the end I ended up with the last one for a while.

Then something awoke in me and I was finally like: This hair is mad complicated let's simplify this sucker-

So some (a lot of) experimenting:

(as you can see I've got a very inconsistent style)

And with that I eventually got this kinda design:

As you can see, this is was the start of a ✨new era✨

(you can still see these drawings up on my blog if you scroll down enough-)

And this design stuck for a while until I made a certain drawing for a certain @/camhues 👀

At this time I have started reading Circe and was very inspired by her character :0

She changed from being cold to more motherly. She's still mature but more clever, compassionate and caring. (yet still pathetic in my eyes). One of my friends here on tumblr @/doppel-doodles explained her PERFECTLY- "A fierce tigress in the body of a gentle mother cat" (like who gave them the right-), this explains her character very well because despite being very peaceful she's still a strong sorceress-

Now, Zhao is still kinda quiet and reserved considering her unhealthy past. But that ties a bit more into her connection with Wukong, which I'll get into in a bit.

I wanted Zhao to seem more "out of place", back then she just seemed like a basic bish girlboss OC and like someone who would make a good background character-

I also decided to give her a full name (because my dumb ahh realized Zhao is a Chinese SURNAME-) so I decided on Zhaoyan, also funfact Zhao's father used to call her "Zhaodi" because that name means "requesting a brother" (Because sexism yaaayyyyyy-)

My Zhao design is also heavily inspired by @/gigizetz Circe design, and her hair is very much inspired by Rapunzel from tangled-

And so yeah, then we got to her current design

While I can't really give anymore specific references, I can tell you a bit on how I settled on this design :D

Note: I wanted her to have a more exotic, tropical and ancient vibe if that makes sense. She is a spiritual maiden, sometimes even described as a sorceress, and considering the role I settled on giving her in the story it makes sense she would seem like "something new" or something out of the blue if you will. Even though she's a Peach Maiden, she doesn't exactly look like one, which I honestly think is really exiting to work with-

There's still some lore I haven't spilled yet that would say more about her design, but I hope to reveal that in the future!

Now, all the lore of her current character ties to one specific thing, aka her most important role in lmk- her connection to Monkey. Now as I mentioned, Zhao and Wukong were made to be opposites, or well to seem like opposites (one is chaotic and one is calm). Also the mear fact that the Chinese monkey zodiac and Chinese tiger zodiac are specifically referred to as not being able to get along so well.

But in reality they're quite similar, both get over looked because of their unthreatening personalities despite being really damn powerful. Both kinda stand out in physical appearance too compared to the other characters, and look alike in a way (same ginger hair and golden eyes). And not to mention they both push others away from them because of their pasts despite caring a lot.

A fun part about writing Zhao's character is she also serves as a way to find out more about Sun Wukong and jttw as a whole while still being her own character.

So yeah, that's basically it! Sorry for this being so fricking long I like rambling about my girl- (no I do not have a favorite lmk OC wdym?)

Fell free to ask more questions they're always fun as hell to answer!! :D

[ramblesanddragons]

Hey, it’s Foggy, people I know irl follow my main blog so I’m coming at you on anon. What’s “Earthquakes and Power Shakes” about? Also, I rambled at you about my of story, so, what’s Winter Goddess?

Hello!

Okay Earthquakes and Powershakes is a gift swap story set post movie. It's something I work on when I have blocks on other fics. It's so fun to explore how the gifts would manifest on other members of the family. I do plan on publishing it but there's a lot of gifts and family members in this movie to get through.

A snippet that makes me smile everytime I read over it:

Mirabel watched as her father shrugged and picked up on the dining table like it weighted nothing. He looked as shocked as everyone else that it had worked. It also had the added bonus of triggering a shapeshift on Isabela. She looked like a weird mix of herself and their father. She shook herself violently until she was back to normal.

“That’s so weird!” Isabela exclaimed.

“Yeah, that happens sometimes,” Camilo grumbled.

Pa gently, oh so gently, put the table back down. He stared at it and then at his hands. “I’m going to kill someone.”

“Oooooookay time to figure out who has the healing! Quickly,” Bruno said.

The remaining family members took turns making an arepa. When Mirabel bit into one her Tio Felix made, the lingering ache in her head fell away. To double check Felix poked himself with a knife gently then took a bite of his food. The injury was gone in an instant.

“At least it’s someone who knows how to cook,” Pepa sighed.

Winter Goddess is a placeholder name. This one was inspired by watching the Wild Hunt video OSP put out a few years ago (https://youtu.be/vZIl8RZvv6I?si=gWUFacWbCM8fZ5iz)

This was also the time where there was an uptick of nazi bullshit happening. Feeling hopeless about it I started thinking about how the old gods would handle nazis. Like the pre Norse winter goddess mentioned in the video.

It's evolved into a story of a girl running from invading fascists and falling into an ancient shrine to a lost winter goddess. They become one (looking in the mirror to talk to the alter ego trope) and there's a buddy cop thing going while the girl learns to harness the power to fight nazis and the goddess tries to figure out this new world. They have to work together and gather the Wild Hunt once more to defeat evil.

It needs a lot more work and research before it's even slightly coherent. I wish I could travel to the parts of Europe where all of this would be based but that's not happening anytime soon.

[thequeer07puss]

I recently watched OSP's video on Loki and something in it captured my attention: Red said that Loki's name (idk if it's an actual theory or smth) could mean "entangler" (which makes sense as a trickster god) but then she said that Loki could be a spider, which made me think of one other trickster god that is also a spider: Anansi.

Now welcome to me bullshitting my way through the mythology of both gods in order to make a very weird connection.

Spiders are associated with cleverness, weaving and skill (like how Athena is a wisdom goddess associated with weaving, but i can't bullshit 2 thoeries at the same time, we'll get lost). Anansi, thanks to that association is a very clever god who evicts a lot of bad situations through intelligence and help from others. Loki also has those elements of "clever bullshitting" which gets him into trouble because their mischief is way too much for others to handle. Right now you're thinking: "you're reading way much into this, they're trickster gods, that's what they do".

But spiders are also associated with entrapment, and entanglement, which is something that happens a lot to Loki (they get their mouth sewed shut by Ivaldi's sons, they get tied up on multiple occasions, they get trapped in a fishing net, and ultimately gets tied to a rock due to the killing of Baldr), where Anansi traps and gets trapped. Additionally, spiderwebs in some Scandinavian languages are referred to as Lokkenet (or Loki's net, according to Red), which reinforces this association to spiders.

Lastly, Anansi is a trickster god from the Ashanti ppl of Ghana. He is most commonly presented or associated with spiders. Loki is a Norse god whose og worshippers were pretty far from Africa, and couldn't possibly have access to this cool spider trickster. Unless...

The first members of the Homo Sapiens species originated in Africa, and the Proto-Indo-European people (from whom we get most of culture outside of Africa, East Asia and the Americas) originally migrated from Africa into the areas where they were culturally powerful, including the areas where the Norse people lived.

So according to this very wild stretch, there is a possibility that there was some kind of trickster spider deity that was worshipped very early on in human history and whose worship spread to the PIE people, who adopted them as one of their own, and that they brought over as they traveled, leaving behind other deities with similar characteristics (in another stretch of my imagination, this includes Neith and Athena, who are both associated with weaving, and in Athena's case, cleverness as wisdom) as their culture spread.

And as they settled into their definitive homes, they adapted and developed cultures of their own, but that are still ties to that "original" PIE culture, which brings us to Loki and Anansi, who are similar in this aspect of trickery, cunning and entrapment which could have happened when the PIE people and another ethnic group that would become the Ashanti were still close to each other and could sill share culture and gods.

Or...

This theory is just a very wild stretch fueled by lots of UPG and finding loose threads to tie together to hone my mind's ability to make logical connections and syncretise gods with similar-ish traits and that trickster gods and spiders are associated just because spiders are smart and Loki and Anansi have no connection whatsoever.

We'll never know.

[un-pearable]

he’s nowhere near ranking on my actual faves list but i DO want to study vegeta with a microscope

thinks about gohan. thinks about goku jr.

[ben-talks-art]

Kindness, Strength, and Morals

This is probably going to be a very messy post since my thoughts and feelings towards the topic are kinda all over the place and I don't think I have the necessary amount of maturity and insight towards the subject to provide a satisfying conclusion... But I still wanna try talking about it anyway cause I feel this could be interesting to discuss.

So, basically, I've been thinking about how certain pieces of different media try to showcase depictions of bullying, abusers, victims, misuse of power, the consequences of one's actions on others, and so on, and all the different ways they each try to offer a, quote on quote, solution to the problem, and which of these solutions I, an outsider who really hasn't suffered THAT much abuse through life, like more or like less and why.

Naturally, my perspective is probably not gonna be as helpful as that of an actual victim or someone who closely studies these things as part of their job, but I still would like to take a moment to go "This is what the media I'm consuming is making me think about" and wonder if they're doing an actual good job and talking about these things.

So the first thing that kinda sparked my desire to discuss this was the movie Encanto.

For those who never saw it, Encanto is a movie about this one teen, Mirabel, who's the only member of her super-powered family who doesn't have powers, and due to that, her and certain members of her family tend to make her feel like she has less value than them.

Through some shenanigans, personal journey, and magic events revolving around helping their magic house that got sick, she ends up accepting that she has as much value as everyone even if she can't do all the stuff they can do, and by the end, she becomes closer than ever with her family.

Now, this is a nice message and all, to teach people who feel like they're less that they are just as much as anyone else, and that even if you feel powerless you are still strong enough to do what matters most for those that need you, be it your loved ones, or even just yourself.

The things is... This story brings up a small problem that I often see a lot for these types of plots, that being, the victim of the situation is usually the one that needs to save themselves.

Mirabel fighting to prove her worth is great, but it kinda bothers me that she has to fight basically alone. There isn't a lot of focus on her family members realizing how destroyed she is inside and how much they're indirectly hurting her. She literally has a whole song around the theme of "I'm not fine."

Red from OSP went into great detail about this in a Twitter thread and addressed how the victims of the situation basically had to do all the work of healing herself while the family basically just stood there watching and going "glad you finally feel good about yourself!" *thumbs up*

Now, the message still works because at the end of the day, you are the only person in your life that you can fully control, so it makes sense that stories will try to show that most of the work to begin self-healing lies in yourself, but not everyone has that inner strength to want to help themselves.

Many people are dealing with a lot of pressure and expectations of real life that are engraved into our minds from an early age, constantly being told "this is how good you need to be if you want to be happy!" and constantly comparing ourselves with others.

It's great that Mirabel decided to go on her journey to save her magic house and that resulted in her happy discoveries, but what if she hadn't? What if the house hadn't gotten sick? Would Mirabel just be miserable forever? Because nobody else was really doing anything to help her.

This made me think that, while I like these stories for addressing the pain of the victims to make us understand and sympathize with them, I would like to also see more stories that show how others could help them in case they can't help themselves.

Two stories that come to my mind on that are the manga "Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied?" and the webtoon "Get Schooled."

The manga tells a story about a former bullying victim that became a teacher in order to help out other victims, and through some twists of fate, ends up becoming the teacher of the daughter of his former bully, and now needs to decide if he will help her or not.

meanwhile, the webtoon tells a story about a government system that tries to directly fight against bullies at school and protect victims of abuse by openly infiltrating problematic schools, finding out who the oppressors are, and basically bodyguarding the victims from the abusers with brute force and lecturing them, and us, the readers, on why their actions can cause so much harm.

I like both series a lot. They both address the struggle of the victims, and what outsiders could to to help them, while also bringing up the fact that sometimes the priority should be in taking away the oppressor's ability to oppress.

In the manga, the main character devises a plan to record the actions of the bullies through multiple hidden cameras in order to expose them in the media and allow everyone to be aware of their actions so that people learn that if they become bullies everyone will know. On the webtoon, the main leads are given authority to punish the bullies as much as they see fit under the notion that they're doing it to protect someone, so if anyone hurts someone, they need to be ready to be hurt too.

The reason I like these is because, quite often in stories the focus is "forgive and forget, being happy is the best revenge, they don't know any better, they're just kids being kids" and so on.

They underplay the harm and lasting damage of being abused, while in these series, the idea is "being abused can scar someone for life, so let's do all we can to make sure the abusers won't want to abuse anyone."

It works under the premise that some people should be given more power and freedom so they can protect the weak and that bullies should have bigger consequences to fear.

That sounds very effective at first, but once you stop to think about it, you notice that a lot of these ideas heavily rely on the goodwill of those in a position of power for it to work.

Even the characters inside each comic point out at some point "Cool idea bro, but that's not exactly a practical solution."

Yeah, I would feel safer if I knew a good person was watching over me all the time and ready to freely beat up some bullies if I was in danger, but what would happen if all this power was given to some prick who's just waiting to use it to take advantage of others? Or what if they make a mistake and think I'm the abuser for some reason?

The liberty to beat up students or the implementation of cameras to invade people's privacy at school... This is just begging to be exploited.

The risk in putting too much power and freedom in the hands of someone to be responsible for our safety is that we might think we have a Superman when in reality we have a Homelander.

Superman works because he's a man with all the strength and all the kindness to safely protect victims from harm. He's a symbol of the best of the best because he can help and he wants to help.

It's not just about the power to help, it's about the sense of ethics and kindness to use that power well. But, again, that's still not a perfect solution to deal with situations of abuse because... How the heck do you make sure that you have a good person behind the wheel making these decisions for us? How do we guarantee our own Superman?

Each one of these stories does a good job of addressing parts of the problem and parts of the solution, but still not the full picture.

Encanto addresses the struggle and pain of the victim and the lasting impact that bad actions, even unintentional bad actions, can have on them;

The two comics address the need of those who are in a position capable of helping to actually help and the need to incapacitate the abusers' ability to abuse;

And Superman addresses the need for kindness behind your actions so you can use all that power responsibly and that maybe too much power isn't always a good thing if it goes to the wrong hands;

While trying to think of what would be a good way to mesh all these things together, I started to think about one of the comments I saw once regarding and Episode of Invincible focused on Atom Eve.

Basically, the comment was talking about a scene where Eve's friend ends up becoming afraid of her after finding out she had powers and starts distancing himself from her, and what they said was pretty much "Wouldn't it be cool if we had some sort of way of teaching civilians that they don't need to fear super-powered people at schools?"

I saw that comment and thought, "Wouldn't it be good to have this anyway, even without the superpower aspect to teach kids how to be morally good people, shouldn't we?"

This brings me to the last two series that kinda encapsulate a good compromise between all these points, "School Back" and "We Now Begin Ethics."

School Back is about a lady janitor who often notices that some of the kids in her school are dealing with a lot of stuff that they can't tell either their parents or teachers, so she talks to them herself... And that's it.

It shows the struggle of the kids, it puts just enough power of action in the hands of someone older and wiser, and it helps nurture the importance of kindness, all by having a story where children have someone to talk to about their problems who can help them, and she talks about these things in very clever ways that makes the kids themselves reach their own conclusions.

We Now Begin Ethics is very similar in that it is about a wise adult in a moderate position of power who simply gives classes about ethics and morals. And again, that's all it needs, just showing that these people in need have someone who can help them.

He gives out lessons for them to think about (all while posing sexily to the camera every now and then because the artist of the manga really wants to drive home how attractive this man is), tells stories and describes situations so at the end he can ask them what to they think, inspires them to communicate with one another and to try to be open to new ideas without forcing his own ideas on them.

Basically going "This is what I think. Do you agree?"

And again, that's all there is to it. Just an adult talking with kids and helping them become better people by teaching them how to think about what really matters and not about what society wants us to think matters.

Now you might ask, "What about preventing the abusers from abusing?"

The idea in these cases is more about preventing these kids from ever becoming abusers to begin with. We get rid of bullies by teaching what's right and wrong from an early age and making so they never consider the idea of hurting others to begin with.

Teaching how to sympathize, how to listen, how to be patient, how to be humble, how to not put your needs above others, how to use your words and think about your actions, how to properly value yourself and how to be honest with your feelings.

It's not a perfect solution, especially for those who are already too far gone, but just being there for someone who needs to talk honestly does wonders to help one another.

A lot of bullies are just people with many negative thoughts who never had someone to help them properly deal with these thoughts, mostly because a lot of adults really struggle to understand kids and teens, and in both these series, the protagonists are great examples of adults who know exactly how to use their words to reach the point they need to reach for those that need to listen to it.

There are a lot of stories about people wanting to help out others, but they kinda make it look easier than it actually is, which is not bad as it motivates you to be more open to the idea of being selfless and more being there for others... But you need to know what you're doing so you won't cause more harm than good.

If I was in Encanto and were to try and talk with Mirabel to convince her she's as special as anyone in her family, what would I say?

If I was one of the teachers fighting bullies in Get Schooled, how would I know when to hold back and stop fighting? How would I know which resources are going too far?

If I was Superman, how would I make people know they can trust me so they can come to me for help?

It's not just about understanding the victim's struggle like in Encanto, it's not just about being strong enough to protect the victim like in Get Schooled, It's not about having enough kindness in your heart to want to help, it is about being mature enough to know what the situation needs, being kind enough to want to offer it, and being good enough to able to offer it.

I'm sure there are a lot more to learn when it comes to abuse and being abused, about offenders and victims, about having power and being powerless, being mature or immature, about helping those in need, and so on... These were just my quick thoughts based on a couple of pieces of media that made me think about each respective case and how much I like the way they tackled it.

Encanto taught about the struggle of the victim

Get Schooled and Is it my Fault taught about the need of empowering those that can help and depowering those that can harm

My Adventures with Superman teaches about the significance of real good intentions when wanting to help

And School Back and We Begin Ethics taught how even something as simple as just knowing how to talk to others can have a great positive effect on others

This is all very surface-level discussion around each topic, of course, but it's still interesting to see how writers try to talk about it at all.

(Edit, these were all feelings I had before learning about the recent events regarding Get Schooled 😓 I'm deeply sorry for having promoted a series that carried so much ill will inside of it. This post literally aged like milk in a matter of days...)

[kindred-spirit-93]

Sup, it's me Anon

I actually did have an idea for a webcomic way back. Imagine Hera leaving Zeus with just a suitcase and her loyal attendant Iris, navigating modern Greece and self-reflecting on her life, while Zeus plots to win her back.

This concept draws inspiration from Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece, where Hera crashes the wedding of Zeus to a wooden cult statue of. I envision Hera as a blunt Dorothy-like figure (Golden Girls vibe, with Wendie Malick's voice).

As a young ambitious goddess, Hera declared herself goddess of the starts and the galaxy, experimenting with primal forces—mashing matter under its own weight or flinging it into the heavens.

Despite her formidability, she won Zeus' heart (they had a secret affair, hidden from Rhea while he was still married to Leto) Hera was thrilled to become Queen of the gods but grew disillusioned when Zeus deemed her interest in primordial laws "unfit for a queen." He reassigned her domain to domestic bonds, making her the Goddess of Marriage.

Hera tried to conform but struggled with Zeus' infidelity, which brought her deep embarrassment. Feeling unable to embody her assigned role and domain, Hera dealt with her issues with Zeus' mortal lovers and demigod children by revisiting her old passions, by making constellations (if you know how most constellations are made in mythology you'll get it).

In recent years, Hera has seemingly calmed down, growing apathetic towards the mortals (with whom she always had a complicated reputation). She now believes the rest of the gods should follow suit.

I imagine her reflecting on a lot of thinks, Her foster mother Thetys and her relationship with her actual mother Rhea and her relationship with her husband and sons. (Hera being the favourite child of Chronos will also be very important) She has a salad with Apollo, Aphrodite is her loud daughter in law. She lives with her sister Demeter for a bit (I imagine her to be quite free and open with her sexuality)

I imagine that some gods choose not to have a human form, Zeus gave up and just floats around as a sentient cloud. Mainly because I find the concept of a human looking woman being married to a small cloud funny.

Athena is worried because a bunch of weird creatures and snakes starting to rise from the ground, Hera seems to be too relaxed with that situation.

The underworld basically acts as an office comedy, so imagine the whole underworld to be set up like the Office.

And to make things interesting I imagine Hestia to be an antagonistic (not villainous) figure - dead set on keeping the family unit together

Basically it's a whole shit pot of ideas, and it just felt a bit too ambitious at the time. But those were my ideas

ANON U GIVE ME LIFE!!

i have no idea what i did to deserve this goldmine of asks but im incredibly grateful and super jazzed to see where it goes!

definately need to do more reading (if u have any suggestions or places to start ill be eternally thankful, as of now i read stuff from theoi on study breaks) but i cant promise anything bc i go off of vibes mostly lol

anyway golden girls esque the office sitcom slice of life it is!

im familiar with the crashing the wedding myth (shout out to osp's red for introducing me to greek mythology!) and suggest it be the straw that breaks the camels back;

like shes only *just* reconciled with zeus and maybe theyve even renewed their vows and hes off wooing someone else and she just packs her shit and leaves (i like this better than a grand gesture to win her back at the very end so well start with what was supposed to be a happy ending and watch it go from there)

adore the idea of hera tapping into primordial stuff (anon ur mind is so cool like what) spending time perhaps with the primordials kinda in parallel with how zeus was raised by gaia iirc, maybe she chills with nyx and tartarus and the primordial eros idk regardless

--

perhaps this experimentation and determination to carve a space for herself in the fabric of the world they inherited is what captured zeus' heart (in the mythos he was married to metis first and then themis and then after raping hera they marry in part due to heras shame but i need to go double check on that one. afaik he was ever married to leto.) anyway hera sees it as a power up that could be exactly what shes looking for and agrees to an affair bc she doesnt want to be held down

they is in loooove and its interesting to see their dynamic (as much as i love to dunk on zeus he was the god of fate law and justice etc afterall so id love to see how theyd work with eachother and grow into their domains alongside one another). this leads to their marriage and things slowly start to go down hill when heras experimentation makes him paranoid of her own infideilty (how ironic and hypocritical lol) he seeks to contain her and decrees her domains will be that of a 'traditional' wife and queen and the thrill wearing off.

her escapism is connected to the cosmos and the void she once strived to be a part of. she wishes to be set free of all that chains her down, but in her mind duty is above her own needs (its been drilled into her) and she knows opposing zeus is a losing fight (maybe this is after her attempted coup too so now shes just burnt out and tired of trying. or maybe shes just biding her time whos to say…)

super cool i think to have the goddess of maternity and marriage be conflicted about her own mother(s) and marriage i think its a great way to explore the complexities of both and makes for some commentary and possibly a side of comedy. identity crises hera halleujah amen

--

maybe iris says something in passing one day and shes just like you know waht fuck him and fuck this i too am a daughter of cronos and i inherited this earth as well, i shall do what i please everything and one else be damned. slay i guess lol

hera chooses a human form and stubbornly refuses to go back to her divine one and zeus likes chilling as a cloud except mortals cant see him in that form.. so basically visual comedy of goddess as a human living her best life and zeus in both fondness and exasperation tries to win her back but hes a poofy wisp of air. idk that dynamic has a lot of potential too lol

hera even as a human is still careless of sorts towards mortals (my girl is fighting her own demons aint nobody got time for their drama and shenanigans) but her maternal side comes out every so often when she sees a kid with dreams and less than encouraging environment and guides them behind the scenes in little ways. idk i want to see hera as more than a jealous and petty figure and more complexity in general.

--

i guess her first pit stop would be to hades, her brother hasnt seen her since the end of the titan age so hes shook and skeptical (what did zeus fuck up this time?) and shes like can i crash? *blank stare*

stoic persephone watches them whisper shout about 'order and responsibilities' and shes like u know what im taking u to nyx you two should have some tea and shit talk zeus and u will feel better. heras like bet.

iris and hermes take over the narrative maybe bc i need to see more of them together honestly, hermes gives intel from the heavens and zeus' goose chase and iris is so done with everyones shit but is also very close to hera and tries her best. shes a good friend to hera i like her ^-^

hestia being the family therapist hell yes! then maybe she snaps and tells everone off, hair bursting into flames and things melting around her and everyone agrees to a truce of sorts. idk im working on it

--

also this is what mortal hera looks to me:

(credits to SelahSketches on x) zeus fucked up so hard lol look at my girl!

[jumpscaregoose]

ok I'm finally doing it I'm finally drafting up this post. if you've spoken to me about shaman king literally ever or even followed this blog for more than two days you know this one

goose's Renmei Thoughts™ aka:

(thanks @gelatinous-jellyfish for making me this wonderful image a while back)

(quick explanation for everyone unaware, renmei is the canon relationship between iron maiden jeanne and tao ren from the sk sequels. I never explain this in the post but if you want to read it and don't know that's what this is. also I mention this takei guy a lot he's the mangaka)

so pov you're me circa feburary 2022, currently unaware of the kzb manga ending or sequels because you got into sk 6 months ago and the 2021 anime isn't over yet. you're innocently googling your girl jeanne for idk drawing references or whatever and BOOM autocomplete drops the most confusing spoiler of all time on you

that's how I remember finding out renmei exists, and at the time I'm pretty sure I was like "oh this must just be a popular het pairing from the Olden Days or something it'd be ridiculous if that was-" it was it was canon. cue a terrible amount of suffering april 21st 2022 when episode 52 of the new anime aired and it was what it is

of course I was upset but in an attempt to not be That One Annoying Fandom Person I sat down and thought about it and gave the concept the benefit of the doubt for a bit and now I have a pretty solid idea of how I feel about it. my renmei thesis is basically:

well that could have been a good idea but wow did takei completely fumble it

part a why it's not conceptually terrible: this one's really simple it's just that they're both similar characters. I'm anticipating you the reader have actually read/watched shaman king so I'm just gonna present you with the chart I made a few months back

murderous child -> oh shit -> what now it's quite similar

btw this file was named "the.png". that is such an unhelpful file name I had to DIG to find it. wtf past me

basically if it was actually written properly I think we could have gotten some cool things out of a romantic relationship between these two characters. however

part b: we didn't

my favourite way to describe renmei is that it just wasn't written. because it wasn't. across over 300 chapters of mainline and spinoff manga they have maybe four interactions, three of which were after they were already a couple (and the fourth one is that time she raised him from the dead and they didn't speak. does that really even count?). and those three actual interactions were flashbacks and not... actually important. I think one of them was just about cheese. as a reader your experience is

2 characters who never interacted -> literally what the fuck when did that happen -> she's DEAD???

when my friend was reading the manga I had to tell her to reread a scene because the panel where they explain it is such a blink-and-you-miss-it moment

literally the same pacing and payoff as CANON DESTIEL.

their entire actual relationship happens during the downtime between the main manga ending and the sequels beginning. and I'm going to bring osp into this because I think this graphic is helpful

(side note as I was scrolling through this trope talk I noticed a problem red brings up that does apply to the sk sequels but that's for another post...)

this is from the osp trope talk on sequels, and it shows the difference in Stuff Happening levels between plot time (red) and down time (grey). the issue with renmei is that it is an IMPORTANT PLOT EVENT (two characters with little interaction having an entire love story) that happens during DOWN TIME, when the audience only sees things through flashbacks in snippets. and it doesn't help that we never get any flashbacks to before the event happened, before they got together. it's jarring because the ENTIRE THING happens during down time. plot time 1 (the main manga) ends with no interactions between them, and ONE scene that's supposed to set ren up for getting Straight Married that in my opinion didn't work. because it is stupid. plot time 2 (every sequel manga) starts after jeanne's death. it's literally the inciting incident for red crimson. their entire 7+ year relationship is encapsulated in foggy down time, and we're expected to care.

and this especially doesn't work because we aren't set up to care. again, 1 interaction in the main manga, where they don't talk (but I will go to bat for the inherent intimacy of raising someone from the dead like we could have done something there). it's pretty clear to me from rereading the manga that takei didn't know these two would get together when he was writing it. that one scene I mentioned where he tries to set up ren getting Straight Married? if you've read it you know it's incredibly vague and with how takei wrote literally everything else it sure doesn't work as intended. or I'm too aromantic and yaoipilled to understand his literary genius idk. it's clear from some other missed opportunities that the jeanne part of the equation wasn't exactly planned from the beginning. which is even more insulting tbh

part c jeanne character assassination: out of the both of them jeanne really got the short end of the stick in terms of characterization in the sequels. I say this because I actually really like ren in the sequels I like the way takei took his character, so holy shit does sequels jeanne look even worse in comparison. the whole housewife thing is eeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh, not really a fan of that but I'm also not mad enough to comment. her death I do have some thoughts about. conceptually the beheading herself with shamash thing is BADASS AS HELL and I do like it conceptually, I also know like, the themes. yeah remember that time "atoning for your crimes with your death isn't the right thing to do" was an important part of the plot. TWICE. FUCK THAT I GUESS. there is some equivalent exchange bullshit happening with these two and the continuation of main manga themes and I want it to stop please

part d tao men: one thing I've thought about a lot is Why. why fumble this so badly. why do this at all. what do we get out of this. and the answer is an inciting incident and tao men. and the fumble bag continues because tao men deserved better this is a tao men appreciation account. we could have done some cool shit with his revenge thing but nope fuck that I guess. poor guy

part e contrast: so the sequel manga where renmei is most relevant is red crimson. I absolutely love red crimson I recommend it to everyone. and that's because of jun and pairon (and chapter 9 full transparency). jun and pairon in red crimson have one of the most beautiful relationships I've ever seen. they have an established dynamic and baggage to work through and that's what the manga focuses on. and it works it works really well. however this is also the Renmei Manga, and having most of that stuff right next to jun and pairon just makes it look worse

those are all my renmei thoughts I remembered while writing this post, I think that covers most of it but I may reblog this later with stuff I forgot

[manorinthewoods]

had a silly thought

so i was watching OSP, talked about the 'adventurer explores Big Dumb Object' narrative, mentioned how it *doesn't* apply to minecraft

someone in the comments said that minecraft is the story about being the builder of the BDO

and it made me think

what if one played a succession game of minecraft, with the following characteristics:

none of the players know each other or communicate. when you pick up the game, you don't know who came before you, who'll come after, and what's been done.

the spawn radius is massively increased, so everyone will probably have very different spawn locations. this means it's unlikely for someone to spawn close to someone else's stuff, requiring exploration.

each round is very long. (say, a month.) this gives the player a lot of time to explore and to build their own Big Thing, or interface with another Big Thing.

if you wanted to achieve maximal aesthetic, you might install minor mods - say, to cause minor natural deterioration over time to make things feel more 'ruined'. you might also give each player some minor things like 'don't explain what you've made'.

[tokkiyuna-rabbit]

That probably explains things a bit, because with everyone else it was wild accusations that I didn't bother to read because it was straight up trash talking everyone, but with you it was just multiple pages of demands to 'block cuervolyx block cuervolyx don't bother to look you have to block cuervolyx nownownow,' sometime near the middle/end of February 2024. Except I had never heard of you (and they couldn't seem to figure out what to call you. They just kept switching between different names beginning with the letter L, and muttering about 'whatever you called yourself'), because they would go ballistic if they even thought I was looking at someone else's blog, so I didn't bother looking around, so I had to have a look this time.

Honestly I think your pinned post saved my own ass, since it pretty much described what was happening to me, so I have always wanted to thank you for that! The behavior definitely did escalate near the beginning of February 2024 and into March. It did give me the courage to ask for help from a mutual that I do actually trust. and then we figured stuff out together. I know it has helped out at least one other person.

I still get freaked out by new people though, but I have a bit of a support system now (I mean I almost did give them my blog just to make them stop screaming at me until one mutual I hadn't talked to in a while started asking questions at one point which stopped me) to check them out first. I think my own sister might make things worse and start dropping screenshots of what the ex friend said to me if they ever tried something with them though, which is counterproductive.

I figure it is normal to wait a while, so I think it's fine to every now and then pop onto the blog of someone who occasionally posts something in a fandom I like to see what else they are interested in. Half the people in the sah fandom are also in other fandoms, so they may take a while to update in one when they are focused on another, so I figured out sah was one of the fandoms where you should be patient and wait, and that's fine. We are a very small fandom, haha.

We didn't really have tv as a kid, so I have seen bits and pieces of House of Anubis at friends' houses and elsewhere. I always did wonder why it had a boarding school uniform look to it though! Honestly I think a House of Anubis and Wild Kratts AU crossover could work very well if the main characters are focusing on Egyptian animals and the villains accidentally hit a hidden messenger during a scheme and it becomes a cursed amulet/helmet or one of the items in the show. Alternatively, the boys turn into animals and learn about the plot from local Egyptian animals, which could go many different ways. But idk much about either show other than surface information.

At the very least, it would be fun to hear about how the Egyptians viewed different animals and the myths involved. But I think I can just watch OSP on that. Or just drop the animal transformation part and have them go to a regular school for once and have to do some research on Egyptology themselves to figure out the puzzles.

Haha, yeah, one of the other fixes was in fact to update your iphone, although I may have assumed yours was already up to date since mine updates automatically.

I really like the way you draw characters, the lines are really smooth and the proportions are just right with the limbs. Honestly I kind of wanted to draw fanart but I was worried it would not look as good as yours. I still have a collection of my own I'll be posting when I get around to it.

I am shocked that my pinned post ended up helping someone. I never expected that post I made while going through an anxiety attack would help someone. It was just a post I made out of fear because that was when someone else started to try to push me into a corner. I could go on about it, but meh. I don't care about it though it does bug me a bit now thinking about it. About the name thing, yeah I just kept switching my names up online. So they just didn't know what to call me. Never expected someone to just tell others to block me though? Never gonna understand that. Also it’s been a while since anyone referred to me as “Cuervolyx” so I’m surprised you brining it up.

And I want to say, you don't need to thank me. It was all you. You made the decision to read what I wrote and to contact someone you trusted. You did that all on your own. Even if my post was the final push you needed, you still made that decision all on your own. You are stronger than you think. I am proud that you got help and are building a support system for yourself. I hope that you are doing better now and healing. So again, don't thank me. Thank yourself for mustering up the strength and courage to ask for help. I hope one day you can be able to be ok with new people, but that takes time. It doesn't matter how long it takes as long as you are doing it on your pace.

I am aware that people in the SaH fandoms are in a lot of other fandoms. That is probably why I don't follow a lot of other members since they post about things I am not interested in. Hopefully that doesn't sound rude. Scratch that it does sound rude, but idk how to rephrase it to not make it sound rude.

I would definitely not make an AU with HoA and WK. It is way too complicated and I have little interest in both series. Both series have so much details that I don't wanna ruin it. Though when I was a kid, the setting was focused on the house for the most part and puzzle solving. I think at the time was just too obsessed on Egyptian mythology. Nowadays, I keep looking into British and Irish history. I am particularly interested in Irish history. Just finished watching a movie about Michael Collins and I keep listening to Irish rebel songs (like "Foggy Dew", "Easter Lily", and "Get Out Ye Black and Tans").

I hate updating my phone. iPhone updates are always weird and rn, I hate what they did to the Photo app. I want my albums on top again and I don't want to see a collage of photos. It's too strange. I am simply a hater of iPhone updates lmao. Once I waited so long to update that my phone just stopped working and I was forced to update.

And aww, thanks for the compliment. I am always self-conscious on how I draw, but this makes me feel happy. I worked too hard to study on line art in the past so that paid off! And I keep thinking my art style is bad. I would also say something about your art, but I have no idea who you are. Though, I have nicknamed you "Honest Anon" because you kept beginning your asks with "Honestly". I almost did not realize this ask was from you since it did not have that word first.

Also, I don't care how your art would look if you drew fan art. I apperciate the thought behind it more than the piece itself. Though, idk which characters you would draw. So, that will be a surprise in the far future or so.

Here:

It says: "My art style when I was 11 yrs old (lmao it looks bad)". I wrote in cursive for some reason and I am not the best at it.