#and it has genuinely changed the way i consume and interact with art emotionally

[fzzr]

The Dreaming Boy is a Realist was the most intriguing anime of Summer 2023

Previously

Yumemiru Danshi wa Genjitsushugisha (The Dreaming Boy is a Realist, henceforth "Dreaming Boy") is not a very good anime on the surface. The animation is often awkward or simply missing, the voice cast is just OK, the music is nothing in particular. On top of that, the core conceit of "guy stops harassing girl, girl isn't sure how she feels about this" is a fundamentally bad premise. Despite all that, Dreaming Boy is the anime I thought about and looked forward to most each week.

Getting the main plot of Dreaming Boy out of the way first, it's pretty straightforward. Male protagonist Sajou Wataru has been asking out female protagonist Natsukawa Aika over and over for two years. In episode one he decides it's time to stop. He isn't over her as such, but he decides to spend his time on things other than badgering her. Though she is relieved at first, Aika finds that his sudden retreat leaves a hole in her life that genuinely bothers her. Her friend Kei can see right through them both, and acts as as an especially aggressive Interloper keeping them from drifting completely apart.

This is where the first hint of something unusual comes along. There's a certain type of romcom that suffers from what is sometimes called Shitty Protagonist Syndrome. This is where the lead character is such an asshole that it becomes unbelievable that anyone could ever fall for him. Dreaming Boy somehow has and avoids that problem at the same time. Since we don't see his years of harassment except in retrospect, we're not invested in seeing him be punished, but it's still a thing he did and the premise revolves around him essentially being rewarded for bad behavior. This could have had the effect of pulling me completely out of the show, but....

The thing is, that isn't actually most of the plot. It actually gets treated more like a background feature a lot of the time. Most of what goes on in Dreaming Boy is about broader social interactions and consequences. If you have a poor reputation at school, you will not be taken as seriously when you might be sick. Yeah, it sure is awkward to walk in on a sibling snogging. Getting your first job can be boring or terrifying depending on who you are. Sometimes your initial impression of someone can lead you into making potentially dangerous assumptions.

Most of Dreaming Boy is emotionally intelligent investigations of small alienations. Wataru is sometimes vaguely included in things but has no one in class to really go to bat for him in the moment, nor does he make an effort to join in. It's not just him, either. In each mini-arc, either he or someone he interacts with finds their social position has changed in some small way. What is it like when you move seats in class and your social circle changes? How does it feel to be the rebound? Is it more painful to turn people down or not to be invited at all? How do you respond when everyone asks you if they can hang out with your sibling? Is it worse to be ignored or have a kind of attention you don't appreciate?

We do see Wataru hit some of the usual romcom checkpoints, except instead of dramatic steps toward some fated ending, they're just things that happen. And... that's just how it really is? Not every time you see someone in the hallway will be a conversation that advances your feelings toward them. Getting sick mostly just sucks, even if your crush comes to check if you're OK. No matter how all-consuming your feelings for someone may have felt like in retrospect, chances are it wasn't the defining feature of your life 24 hours a day.

As one example, there's a beach episode that is much more like actually going to the beach than any I've ever seen. You plan it kinda vaguely, because how complicated can going to the beach be? Oops, you miss inviting someone because you waited too long. You see a beach attraction, let's go check it out... nope it's closed. The arts and crafts store is cute and all but making things like that by hand results in something that looks very handmade, or just doesn't come together at all. The whole episode builds up to Aika and Wataru possibly meeting coincidentally at the beach that day and then they just... don't. Was it a beach episode? Yeah, but also it was just... a day at the beach.

The relationships between the characters (other than the leads) are also way more real than you usually see in anime. The most notable one is between Wataru and his sister. They're close enough in age that they get in each other's way socially, but instead of being some dark resentment that someone will have a drama about, it's just yep, that's what having a sibling that close is like. There's no "I'll do anything for you" speech. It's just clear that they're both alert to what is going on in the others life just enough to be able to step in if their help is needed. If one of them asks the other for a favor, even as small as "make me coffee", they will almost always do it with some pro-forma grumbling. It's understated and very clearly based on a real sibling relationships rather than being there to check off a trope from the list.

So what is The Dreaming Boy is a Realist, actually? It's a slice of life show set in the second act of a shitty-protagonist tsundere romcom. Aika and Kei are living in that story, but when it fills Wataru's life with other ladies, it's not a light harem situation. Instead Wataru is navigating and learning from mundane social interactions. It's half of a good show, drowned in half of a bad show. Despite how bad the bad show was, I don't regret watching the good parts.

Conclusion

Score: I stand by the assertion that The Dreaming Boy is a Realist is not very good in absolute terms. I would give it a 6/10 at best from a purely technical standpoint. However, something that makes me think like this definitely earns some extra credit, so I'm putting it down as a 7/10.

Recommendation: No one needs to watch this. There are actually good shows that dig in to under-addressed corners of human social and emotional ambiguity. But... there aren't a ton of those, either, by definition. Just saying.

Comparisons

I looked at Dreaming Boy as a modified take on the shitty-protagonist romance, so I get to talk about Saekano again! In Saekano, the protagonist starts the series with a tendency to project onto others the traits he expects of them. He trespasses on the feelings and boundaries of others because he's interacting with them based on how he thinks they should respond, rather than who they are. His growth over the series is in very large part about learning to see people as who they actually are. Wataru's story is more about social and emotional transparency, making sure everyone is on the same page about their actions and feelings. Since Dreaming Boy isn't (and probably never will be) complete it's hard to compare them head to head, but conceptually Saekano has the advantage thanks to being more willing to call out the protagonist for his bullshit.

Oregairu involves a kinda glum guy who can fix everyone's problems other than his own. It tends to go much deeper into the problems, and the results vary quite a lot. The big improvement over Dreaming Boy is that it has much more respect for the female leads. When he hurts one of them in his greed, it's a catastrophic event and the show does not hold back in holding him to account. Unfortunately Dreaming Boy will probably not get far enough along for me to see how it would handle such an event, but I can't help but wonder what it would take to push Wataru toward making amends more affirmatively.

Onegai☆Teacher is another show with genuine heart under a trashy premise. In that one, a high school student marries his teacher, who is a hot alien babe, due to a whole situation. It presents itself as extremely horny (and it is) but just when you think it's about to start paying off on all the lewd setup... surprise! This is actually a show with a plot and themes and all those good things. It doesn't have to ignore its setup to do that, either. Sex is a part of life. Instead of holding it back, its willingness to engage with the physical on a deeper level elevates it. I'm not sure Dreaming Boy could have been redeemed in that way, but it's a fact that such a feat is possible.

Horimiya is the best example of a slice of life romance out there. It's arranged inversely from Dreaming Boy, in that it's a romance inside a slice of life rather than a slice of life inside a romance. The romance itself is too different to even contrast. The real point of interesting comparison is in how they handle their characters. Horimiya has an ensemble cast and we see most of them from multiple angles. Dreaming Boy doesn't let as many characters hold the point of view, but it still manages to have its supporting cast show different angles as Wataru learns about their situations and challenges. Obviously Horimiya is still way better, it was just surprising to see Dreaming Boy reaching for that same ring.

Final Thoughts

Oof, bad luck to Dreaming Boy for having to go up against four different 9/10 shows at the end there. That's also a part of the paradox, though. It deserves to be considered among the greats even as it lives with the dreck.

I wish I could say that Dreaming Boy deserved better implementation — better art, better acting, whatever — but it doesn't, really. The technical problems do not change that the gems of insight are trapped underneath a wrongheaded premise. "I wish it had a completely different main plot" is not something that can be fixed with polish. Still, I can't help but think if the author had found a different vehicle for the stories Dreaming Boy actually wants to tell, maybe it would have deserved it all.

#anime #summer 2023 anime #the dreaming boy is a realist #yumemiru danshi wa genjitsushugisha #original post

[aethulean]

add tags to your reblogs of my art RIGHT the fuck now

#vel drawls #literally i dont understand how some people dont even tag fandoms #or post types #how the FUCK do you find anything on your own blogs #anyway. i do actually like feedback on my art believe it or not #obv it wouldnt make sense to comment on whats on my blog now since its all pretty old but like #if i post something new..... #just slap a couple nice tags on a reblog #send in a nice ask #i promise its not that hard and gets easier the more often you do it #bc all artists you reblog from deserve to hear something nice every once in a while #everything is so one and done with the way social medias been evolving #mindlessly reposting or liking shit without really engaging #you dont have to do it with every single post you reblog but #just because thats the way social media is changing doesnt mean you have to be a part of the problem #i feel like this sounds really preachy but. i try to add nice tags on most of the art i reblog #especially if its fandom related stuff #and it has genuinely changed the way i consume and interact with art emotionally #i find that i enjoy it a lot more and like to really savor a piece i like #and as an artist i take a little more time to look at what i like in other peoples art to sort of #gauge where im at in my art journey #where id like to be #and how it is i can start to move in that direction #idk man just practice mindfulness i guess #shits good for your brain

[hws-denmark]

Very off-brand but literally just venting and vitriol under the cut about recent-ish hetalia discourse, if you don't wanna see it then don't read it! Cheers.

Alright idk what the fuck happened to fandom spaces over the past 5 years but this shit is super toxic now. It's like the internet has over-corrected from "it's the wild west baybeeeee, ship wars and death threats and downright awful behavior galore" to "have you consumed anything problematic or made a mistake anytime in the past 30 years??? Literally go fucking die you deserve to kys!!". Both are shit. But in my experience, one is a fuckton easier to avoid. Hetalia is a problematic show. This is a fact. There's an anti-semetic joke in the dub. There's whitewashing in the earlier anime seasons. Hima's characterisation of South Korea is horrific. France's earliest characterisations are done real dirty with the amount of sexual assault present. You could write essays about this shit, but honestly it's all been said in better ways before so I don't particularly care to. But quite frankly the amount of harassment from sad trolls and bullies online is nuts over this shit. Five fucking months and it's unavoidable- "Your a nazi! Facist, japanese imperialist anti-semite!!" NEWS FLASH- YOUR KEYBOARD WARRIOR CRAP ISN'T DOING JACK SHIT! YOU AREN'T PREVENTING A-NY-THING, YOU AREN'T HELPING A-NY-ONE! GET OFF YOUR ASS AND CALL OUT THE HATE I GUARANTEE WILL BE HAPPENING IN REAL DANG LIFE IN YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY IF YOU ACTUALLY WANNA EDUCATE AND MAKE A POSITIVE CHANGE. There's a world of difference between calling out shitty fandom behavior and whatever the fuck this is. It's madness that I have to point out how saying that people talking about cartoon characters from a five minute OVA even holds a single CANDLE to the worldwide rise in nationalist sentiment and anti-semetic conspiracy theory, bourne from a mass refusal to acknowledge history, is so severely minimising. I take it that's okay though because you can wank yourself off on your nice little high horse without actually doing anything to combat hate or improve the world in any way though? The show has so many faults and for multitudes of good reasons you might never want to see it ever again. So block it. Don't interact with it. Blacklist the tag. But it is downright RUDE to be coming INTO the tag and talking shit. That doesn't tell me you're earnestly trying to avoid the series- it tells me you're really really trying to start fights. Bc I have been using the block button pretty liberally recently, and for every normal user venting I see, there's always an equal amount of people who, ironically, seem to dedicate their blog to bigotry against others and cyber-harassment. I've seen anti-hetalia blogs that have been sexist, racist, panphobic and, maybe most hypocritically, one that was bizarrely insensitive to the connotations of a past political regime. And yet minors look to these same people and parrot what they say for clout. In my experience, in a whole lot of anti-hetalia circles, there's a severe case of "mocking because I think it's cringe, but disguising it as concern for others to not look like a straight-up dickhead and have the moral high ground". Is it seeping from twitter? Bc I see that shit there all the time even in non-fandom spaces, the black/white, we're angels/they're devils thinking that real life and sane adults just do not fucking operate on. What I do know is, in the midst of a difficult pandemic, the one announcement in months that was happy and exciting for me left me feeling like dogshit by the end of the day. The weekly episodes that I should be excited for are just making me dread what I'm gonna see online. The nordic five are kinda like comfort characters for me, since I grew up in an emotionally abusive household and so I treated them like the family I never had. And yet, when I wanna go online and look at headcanons and read cool au fanfics, I always seem to stumble upon the implication that doing this is somehow severely hurting someone and that I'm a terrible monster. Logically, I know this is a load of shit. And yet I've noticed I've been putting myself down and looking at more and more self-harm content again recently bc

guilt-tripping with that much weight seeps into your brain like a nasty case of sepsis. Even the more casual "haha hetalia not another pandemic/more brainrot/will punch you on sight" lark starts to fucking drag when it's just SO widespread. Might just queue nice art, drop the occasional fanfic and otherwise stop interacting with the fandom tbqh. This bullshit is not healthy and some of the people on this hellsite are genuine psychos.

#milkymumbles #was originally gonna say don't rb but on the rare chance you wanna go ahead I suppose #probs gonna lose followers and maybe get some hate mail but straight up idc at this point!!! #and for those aforementioned that are blacklisting #hetalia

[lindyhunt]

How to Tell a Compelling Brand Story [Guide + Examples]

Last year, a buzzword ripped through the content marketing space that most marketers were surprisingly thrilled about and eager to implement. Shockingly, it didn’t start with “virtual” or end with “intelligence”. Instead, it was what attracted most marketers to the industry in the first place -- "storytelling".

Content marketing’s steady adoption of storytelling is an exciting new opportunity for content creators. The human brain is wired to respond to well-crafted narrative -- neuroscience proves that storytelling is the best way to capture people’s attention, bake information into their memories, and forge close, personal bonds. Your audience is programmed to crave and seek out great stories -- that’ll never change.

However, since we’ve spent the majority of our careers optimizing content for algorithms, it can be challenging to flex a creative muscle that’s slowly withered away from inactivity and, in turn, move people emotionally and sear your brand into their memories.

So, to help you strengthen that creative muscle and write compelling stories again, we’ve created a guide about the fundamentals of brand story structure and provided examples of three small-to-medium sized businesses who have leveraged their brand story to resonate with huge audiences, despite their comparatively small size.

What is a brand story?

A brand story recounts the series of events that sparked your company’s inception and expresses how that narrative still drives your mission today. Just like your favorite books and movies’ characters, if you can craft a compelling brand story, your audience will remember who you are, develop empathy for you, and, ultimately, care about you.

When HubSpot first started, we noticed traditional, interruptive marketing didn’t appeal to consumers anymore. Due to the digital age, people were in complete control of the information they consumed -- and they were sick and tired of receiving direct mail, email blasts, and cold calls. People wanted to be helped, so we started creating educational content that aided people in solving their marketing problems.

Today, we’ve built a passionate community of inbound marketers, expanded our inbound marketing approach to the sales and customer service industries, and strengthened the inbound movement more than ever before.

This our brand story -- a simple, digestible narrative that explains why HubSpot began, and how this reason still serves as our purpose today.

How to Write a Brand Story

1. Highlight Your Story’s Conflict.

Check out the following story. Does it resonate with you?

A girl wearing a red-hooded cloak is strolling through the woods to give her sick grandma some much-needed food and TLC. She passes by a wolf on the way. They exchange a slightly awkward soft smile-nod combination that random colleagues usually greet each other with as they pass in the hallway. She makes it to her grandma’s house without a scratch. They eat lunch and play a game of Clue together. Grandma wins by deducing that Colonel Mustard killed Mr. Boddy in the Billiard Room with the candlestick -- what a shocker! The End.

So ... what’d you think? Did this story keep you on the edge of your seat? Or does it feel … off? For some reason, it doesn’t work, right? That’s because there’s no conflict. Despite the intense game of Clue at the end, there’s nothing at stake. There’s no tension. The wolf didn’t try to eat the girl. He didn’t even go to Grandma’s house. He barely acknowledged Little Red Riding Hood.

At their core, stories are about overcoming adversity. So if there’s no conflict presented, there’s no drama or emotional journey that people can relate to. And if your story has no drama or emotional journey, it won’t hold anyone’s attention -- let alone resonate with and inspire them.

Unfortunately, in the business world, brands are horrified to reveal any adversity or conflict they’ve faced. They believe that spinning a rosy, blemish-free story about how their company only experiences hockey stick growth will convince people that they’re the industry’s best-in-class solution. Any adversity or conflict during their company’s history will expose their imperfections, deterring potential customers from buying their product.

But, in reality, this is a huge misconception. Nothing’s perfect. Everything, including companies (especially companies), has flaws. Plus, people don’t relate to perfection. They relate to the emotional journey of experiencing adversity, struggling through it, and, ultimately, overcoming it. Because, in a nutshell, that’s the story of life.

Conflict is key to telling compelling stories. So be transparent about the adversity your company has faced, and own it. The more honest you are about your shortcomings, the more people will respect you and relate to your brand.

2. Don’t Forget About Your Story’s Status Quo and Resolution

Conflict isn’t the only thing you should focus on when crafting your brand story. A compelling story has two other fundamental elements -- the status quo and resolution.

The status quo is the way things are or the initial nature of your situation. The conflict disrupts this situation and puts something at stake, forcing the protagonist (your brand) to actively find a solution to this problem. The resolution describes how the protagonist solves the problem, giving your audience an emotional payoff.

In sum, your brand’s story structure should look like this -- status quo, conflict, and resolution. It’s as simple as that.

If you need an example to crystalize brand story structure in your mind, let’s go over the actual Little Red Riding Hood story, as well as some brands who are nailing their brand stories right now.

Little Red Riding Hood

Status Quo: Little Red Riding Hood walks through the woods, on her way to deliver food to her sick grandma.

Conflict: A Big Bad Wolf approaches her, and asks where she’s going. She naively tells him where her grandmother’s house is, so he suggests she picks some flowers as a present for her. While she’s distracted, he breaks into Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother's house, eats her, and puts on her clothes to impersonate her.

When Little Red Riding Hood gets to her grandmother’s house, she notices some subtle changes in her grandmother appearance but ultimately ignores them and hops into bed with her. The wolf swallows her whole. He falls asleep from a massive food coma.

Resolution: A hunter hears Little Red Riding Hood’s screams, bursts through grandma’s door, and cuts open the wolf’s stomach, setting Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother free. They then fill the wolf’s body with heavy stones, and when he wakes up and tries to run away, he topples over and dies.

Now -- wouldn’t you say that was a little more compelling and entertaining than finding out Colonel Mustard can wield a candlestick as a murder weapon? I would, too.

The thing is, some small brands are leveraging this same exact story structure to generate massive amounts of brand awareness and affinity. Read on to find out exactly how they do it.

Brand Story Examples

Unthinkable Media

Grado Labs

Drift

1. Unthinkable Media

Unthinkable Media is a creative agency that produces original, narrative-driven podcasts for B2B brands. Their mission is to create refreshing, entertaining shows for clients that can actually retain people’s attention, not just acquire it.

Here’s a rundown of their brand story, which is also fleshed out in one of the founder’s blog posts:

Status Quo: As makers and marketers, we want our audience’s attention, and so for years, we focused our efforts on acquiring it.

Conflict: But today, thanks to multiple screens, ubiquitous and instantly accessible content, and endless choice in nearly every competitive niche, the buyer now has total control. They only choose experiences they genuinely enjoy. It is no longer enough for us to simply acquire our audience's attention.

Resolution: We need to hold it. That is our new mandate as makers and marketers. We need to shift our focus from impressions and traffic to subscribers and community. Everything we are trying to achieve becomes possible and gets easier when our audience spends minutes or even hours with us, not seconds. Don't just acquire attention. Hold it.

2. Grado Labs

Grado Labs is a third-generation, family-owned headphone and cartridge company. They don’t believe in advertising, have operated in the same building for over a century, and even make their headphones by hand. So why do they choose to operate like this when huge brands like Beats by Dre, Sony, and Bose have celebrity endorsers and mass-produce their headphones? Check out our interpretation of their brand story to find out.

Status Quo: Music is an essential part of the human experience. Without it, life just isn’t as colorful and exciting. And we believe quality headphones amplify the pleasant, emotional experience of listening to music.

Conflict: In a market where every headphone brand has an enormous advertising budget, state-of-the-art facilities, and high-tech machines that can churn out as much product as they want, all of which we don’t have, why do we choose to not conform?

Resolution: Sound comes first. We’re craft-driven creators, meaning we prioritize producing the best product over generating the most hype. And by creating a better pair of headphones at the expense of publicity and growth, we can serve our customers better and foster a fervent passion for our product.

3. Drift

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that helps businesses connect with prospects through genuine, empathetic conversations and interactions. In 2016, they shocked the content marketing world by scrapping arguably the most reliable lead generator from their website -- forms.

Even though they were initially anxious about getting rid of a lead generation machine, they knew ungating every piece of content on their website would allow them to align with their mission, put their customers first, and offer as much value as possible, which would produce better long-term results. Here’s our interpretation of their brand story.

Status Quo: The crux of content marketing is treating people like humans. So, we’ve done what most other companies have done: created content that aims to help and educate our customers. And in exchange for adding value to their lives, customers are likely to return the favor with their attention, trust, and action.

Conflict: But as much as we preach about putting the customer first, we don’t practice it. Instead of offering the most value we possibly can, we make people give us their contact information in exchange for the very thing we promise is free. Then, with their contact information, we email and call them until they either unsubscribe or eventually buy. No one actually enjoys filling out forms, becoming a lead, and getting nurtured. Our ulterior motive is crystal clear. So are we actually being customer-centric?

Resolution: Let’s get rid of all our forms. If we really want to practice what we preach -- putting our customers first and providing a more human and empathetic marketing experience -- we should offer all of our content for free, with no strings attached.

Tell Your Brand’s Real Story, Not It’s Highlight Reel

Whether you’re publishing your brand story on your website or using it to inform your overall mission, make sure it’s fact, not fiction. Spitting out a highlight reel, like almost every other brand does, won’t actually resonate with people. Instead, it's crucial you tell the honest truth about the adversity your company has faced, and how you’re working to overcome it. Because what people relate to and get inspired by isn’t endless success -- it’s the rocky journey of pursuing a goal, getting knocked down, and, ultimately, finding a path toward success.

[getoutoftheweeds-blog]

Soul Food - What is a Meal and How is it Different Than Just Eating?

It’s a fact: you must eat to live.  Your body requires nutrients to run properly.  Your body also needs fuel to keep all of the intricate biological subsystems operating.  Food fills these needs for us.  In fact, food is quantifiable.  We can define it mathematically (calories) and calculate how much of it we need to operate our bodies optimally.  We can further break this down into different nutrient varieties (fat, protein & carbohydrates) to further analyze bodily need and postulate certain outcomes, like building muscle or losing body fat.  It is scientific, it is determinate, and it is simple. 

Food defined.  Good food does all these things.  Plus, it has the added benefit of tastiness. 

In my mind, however, there is a very distinct difference between eating food with someone at the same time and having a meal together.

Let’s start with a basic question: What is a meal? 

Here is a definition from an online dictionary (it was the first thing that popped up on Google, not sure whom to credit):

Meal: noun

Any of the regular occasions in a day when a reasonably large amount of food is eaten, such as breakfast, lunch or dinner.

The food eaten on regular occasions.

Great.  Meal defined, in a nutshell.  What makes a meal so special?

The answer to this is something I have been trying to explain to my wife for a few years now.  To me, a meal is an expression of relationship and value.  I grew up in a large family and all of our get-togethers involved some sort of meal.  It didn’t matter if we were celebrating or mourning, a meal was part of it.  Also, I was a volunteer and co-op firefighter for a handful of years.  Firefighters are known for cooking and good food.  The departments I was on were no different.  Everyone, both in the family and on the FD, brought something to the table in terms of specialties, technique and presentation of food.  This is part of the reason why I love a good meal more than just good food.  Meals carry a substance to them that has far more complexity and intangibility than simple nutrition.  Nutrition feeds the body.  Meals feed the body and soul.

It’s traditionally been hard for me to explain just what it is that makes a meal so special, but after jotting down some notes, I found myself circling back around to five points.  While I have no formal training on human relationships, I do interact with humans every day and have had many meals that fed me more than just food.  Maybe I’m not qualified to talk about parts of this, but I’m going to anyway.  Consider yourself warned.

The five areas I see a meal filling more than just your belly are: Caring, Expression, Achievement, Bonding and Memories.  Take a look at my notes below where I try to explain my intuition.

Caring – meeting a need.  Making a meal for someone has long been looked at as a form of caring.  Anytime you meet a person’s need, you are displaying a level of care.  Right after my wife gave birth, we had people bringing us food over.  When my grandfather died, people brought food over.  When I get sick, my wife goes and gets food for me.  There is something simple, yet profound, in this act.  In one act, someone can bring you something that meets your current and future needs.  When someone provides a meal, they are essentially allowing you to conserve your time and energy to address and stay focused on your issue without worrying about what you have to prepare next.  They use their hard earned time and resources to ease someone else’s burden.  I’m not suggesting food should be eaten to soothe pain. But, not having to worry about the next meal does lift a mental, and sometimes emotional, burden. 

I have had this blow up in my face before, too.  Word to the wise, be careful when you start a diet or change the way you eat.  People may get offended.  Some folks will simply just not know your specific diet.  They will not understand if you wholesale reject their love offering because you are now a disciple of some trendy fad diet.  After all, for them, mentally and emotionally, they spent their time and money to provide you with something that was supposed to meet a deep need.  It is hard on folks to find out their help is unwanted and a hindrance.  So tread lightly.   In my world, I am thankful for the gesture and accept these gifts for what they are, signs of love, compassion and caring.  I’ll even consume a small amount of it.  This helps me to keep a clean conscience when (or if) they ask about it.  That way I can honestly appreciate their offering and give them feedback about it.  No one says you have to eat the whole tray of lasagna to get a taste for the time and effort that went into it. 

Expression of personality – You know what, some folks are just good at stuff.  For instance, my brother is amazing at smoking ribs.  I don’t even try to duplicate it.  Old Man up the holler has moonshine that is better than anyone else’s.  (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)  This even applies to foods that don’t make sense to me.  I have an aunt who makes this crazy tomato, cheese, bread pudding stuff every year at our holiday celebrations.  I don’t know anything about it, other than it tastes good and she makes it.  It is not the signature part of the meal, but without it, it’s like she isn’t there. (Even though she would presumably still be there. We’re at her house, for crying out loud.  She probably just made a different dish.  But it’s not the one she is known for.  So I have to look for her instead of assume she is here somewhere.  Sheesh.)

Also, this is why everyone’s Momma or Grandma makes the greatest (fill in the blank).  It is a unique thing that expresses culture and history.  It is an expression of our culture, region and family sensitivities.  It can tie us to our relatives, many generations back.  It doesn’t matter if it is Bolognese, traditional German potato salad or mac & cheese with ketchup swirled on top, if it is unique to our family or traditions, we are proud of it.  It is part of who we are and where we came from.

Achievement – This could be mastery of something (cooking skill, style or developing your own recipe).  I think this is the reason most church ladies want you to try their casserole at the potluck dinner.  They have a unique spin that sets them apart from the other wanna-be great casserole makers.  I feel bad for the poor Preacher who has to gush about the nuances of three different styles of creamed corn while trying not to show any favoritism.  Compare this to the competitive bar-b-que circuit.  Those folks travel the country, spending a lot of money and time to be crowned Brisket Royalty.  I appreciate that.  It’s like art, in a way.  These folks have mastered a medium, adding their own twists of personality and lay their wares out for all who come by to try out.  Perhaps you have been to a chili cook-off.  Generally speaking, I love these things.  They are simple enough that anyone can enter, yet still provide a canvas for some wild creativity to be displayed.  At a family chili cook-off I once sampled Bourbon Chili, Chili Pizza, Pumpkin Chili and Avocado Chili, just to name a few.  A winner was crowned.  The ceremony was a ton of fun. 

Another aspect of achievement is celebration.  How often do we have a meal as part of a festivity?  Did your t-ball team win it all?  There will be a banquet, small trophies and fizzy punch with tri-colored sherbet.  Did that relative of yours finally graduate?  Your Grandma is genuinely proud, and “you will be at that celebration meal.”  Did you just manage the feat of turning one year older?  Good on ya! There will definitely be food and everyone will sing.  Did your kid just get circumcised? Neat-o! Please, don’t serve calamari at the reception.  Did your cousin just get hitched?  Yay! You get to dress up and have your choice of chicken, beef or vegetarian option.  You did RSVP, right? 

You get the drift.

These next two points are off-shoots of the first three.  I alluded to these earlier, but I think they deserve to be called out on their own.

Bonding – The whole reason we get together in the first place is to either grow our bonds with each other, or to make new ones.  The very first thing a mother does is to nurse (feed) her newborn child.  It is built into our experience.  There are some divine properties to a meal that bring us together.  It has been studied and the evidence is clear; a meal together brings you close together.  So turn your dang phone off and bond with your family tonight.

Hope – By this I mean, meals are where we publicly deal with past memories and future anticipation.  In most religions, feasts are prescribed for certain times of the year.  These are usually done in remembrance if certain important events.  Christmas and Easter come to mind.  We celebrate birthdays to honor someone’s expectation of what the next year holds.  We get together at New Years in anticipation and resolution that the coming year will be better.  We have a tendency to wrap both our past and future into a celebration in the present.  These gatherings turn into rituals, which, when done correctly, encapsulate letting go of the past and hope of a better future.

Those are the reasons I think a meal is different than just consuming food together.  Caring, Expressions, Achievement, Bonding, and Hope. 

In conclusion, I have a question… Is there a difference between eating food at a prescribed time and a meal?  I’m interested in what you have to say.  We look forward to hearing from you.

#Food #family #contemplation #Meals

[spynotebook]

The first issue of Image Comics’ Moonstruck comes out today, and the fantastical story from writer Grace Ellis (Lumberjanes) and artist Shae Beagle is a genuine treat full of adorable magical creatures and a moving story about our barista protagonist, a werewolf named Julie who longs for normalcy and love—a sentiment I’m sure many of us are familiar with.

“Fantasy creatures are living typical, unremarkable lives alongside humans, and barista Julie strives to be the most unremarkable of all. Normal job, normal almost-girlfriend, normal … werewolf transformations that happen when she gets upset?” goes the description, “But all bets are off when she and her centaur best friend Chet find themselves in the middle of a magical conspiracy. Will Julie and Chet be able to save their friends? Is Julie’s dogged determination to be normal a lost cause? Who’s going to watch the coffee shop while our heroes are out saving the world?”

In an interview with the Moonstruck team, Beagle explains that the story began as a five-page short story at the Columbus College of Art and Design, and when the two teamed up, they ended up turning it into something more with editor Laurenn McCubbin. Many elements of Moonstruck stuck out to me, from the dynamic and expressive style that immediately draws you into this magical world, to the way it captures a wide range of characters that can sometimes be lacking in mainstream fantasy stories.

An unfortunate tendency within the fantasy and sci-fi genre is to tell stories that are invested in otherness but fail to include those voices in their narrative. We’ve seen so many films and books talk about race, sexuality, or disability in metaphoric ways, but completely push these characters aside when it comes to representation. Moonstruck is a story that incorporates magic and magical creatures without falling into this trap, and it does so with a wide array of representation among its characters.

“When I was thinking about how magic was going to work in the world of Moonstruck, I started thinking about how other kinds of otherness work in the real world, like race and sexuality and ability, how things like that function,” says Ellis, “And those aren’t just window-dressing sorts of things. There’s nobody who’s says, ‘You are black and that doesn’t affect how you interact with the world as all.’ So that’s not how it is for magic in this story. Otherness colors how the world sees and interacts with you so it colors how you see and interact with the world.”

Ellis talks about Julie’s friend Chet as one such example. “Chet is a centaur so that impacts how they see the world. They take up a lot of space physically, so they take up a lot of space emotionally, they’re not afraid to be out there. They’re not afraid to put themselves out there because the way this particular magic affects them physically. Meanwhile there’s Julie who can kind of hide her magic away and she’s able to be ashamed of it in a way that Chet just isn’t.”

McCubbin adds, “There’s people who want to read all kinds of stories and people who want to read stories that feature queer people and women and people of color and have it not be about their queer-ness, woman-ness, and people of color-ness. Julie is Puerto Rican, but the focus isn’t that she’s from Puerto Rico. Julie is gay, but the story isn’t about her coming out—it’s that we want these stories to be like, ‘Hey, it’s people like you having adventures.'”

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The topic of representation is also one we see play out in the book as well, with a book series titled the Pleasant Mountain Sisters, a favorite of Julie’s and her love interest’s. It’s a very cool and interesting story-telling device that adds to the ways that Moonstruck is playing with form. Ellis points out “it’s not just a straightforward action-adventure story or a straightforward slice-of-life story … there’s some weird storytelling stuff we did.” In the first arc, pages of the Pleasant Mountain Sisters are drawn by Kate Leth (Hellcats) and will pass on to a different artist for the next arc. She explains:

“The stuff that’s happening in the Pleasant Mountain Sisters pages is reflective of the main story. It’s kind of Julie’s internal monologue. So Julie has been obsessed with these books since she was a kid, her number one goal is to be the writer on Pleasant Mountain Sisters and I’m a big believer in the idea that the media we consume shapes who we are as people. So I was thinking about the kind of media that Julie would have read a lot of as a kid and how that made her who she is—an anxious werewolf who doesn’t want to be a werewolf even though everyone else is fine with it.

Pleasant Mountains Sisters are these uber normal, uber white, and uber, uber human with no magical creatures in them at all and she kind of takes that and really internalized it. I think they play a very important role in Julie’s characterization.”

Don’t we all have a Pleasant Mountain Sisters in our life? Julie’s desire for normalcy, Beagle tells me, “has a lot to do with what is coming up for her, it’s something that she’s going to have to confront in a very direct way.” In the way that we see media’s influence on our Moonstruck characters, the Moonstruck team also hopes that their comic will foster change in our media. Ellis says:

“I hope that it can expand out our idea of who’s allowed to be a protagonist, because a lot of time gay people are in the background or they’re just white gay people. There’s so many different types of people out there but the kinds of people who are allowed to be protagonists in comics is so narrow and that just seems ridiculous.”

This is a book that will definitely bring you lots of joy. Newcomer Beagle’s art is absolutely spell-binding (see what I did there?) matched with Ellis’ equally expressive writing. Additionally, accompanying the story is some delightful back matter that includes a supernatural advice column (ever been curious about the super-specific advice a mermaid would give you?) along with interviews and art from artists like Nilah Magruder, the first African American woman to write for Marvel comics. You can check it out on Image’s site here.

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