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#cause i've been in various fandoms growing up
starryalpacasstuff · 2 months
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Last Twilight Episode 12;
Like most people, I did not like the ending of Last Twilight. It took me a while to gather my thoughts and find time to write on the episode, but in the meantime, I've been reading what others have had to say about the show, and I have a few thoughts.
As @waitmyturtles talked about here, discussing whether or not Day should have gotten his vision back presents an ethical dilemma. I've seen a few posts of people who dislike the fandom's outrage against Day getting his vision back, talking about how his getting his vision back does not undo all that he learned and did while he was disabled. Setting aside the fact that Day did not grow through the series, (which @chalkrevelations wrote about here) a big problem for me is feeling like the narrative did a complete 180 post-episode 10. A massive portion of the show was spent with Day learning to accept his blindness and learning to work with it, and although we knew that the surgery was on the table from episode one, it ended up feeling like it came out of nowhere in the final episode. One of the main reasons for this, I think, is because the show barely brought up the surgery in the first 3/4ths of the show (I can think of like 2 instances where it was mentioned) and then it's dropped onto us by Mhon and Night crashing Day and Mhok's date, after which everything became about the surgery. Up till the third quarter of the show, I had enjoyed that the story had such a tight storyline, with such clear intentions. But then the show veered into a very different direction post episode 10, which made the show feel completely different to what it was.
As @waitmyturtles says in her post, it could have been so much better if Day was able to actively choose the surgery, and that we, as an audience, got to see him actually consider the various paths that lay before him. For the surgery to have made sense, narratively speaking, the story would have to be slightly different. You don't just spend 10 episodes of a show working towards a theme and then end the show with the exact opposite of the theme. The final two episodes felt like they were of a completely different show (now, doesn't that sound familiar).
While we're talking about feeling betrayed by the narrative, I want to talk about Mee, and Last Twilight the book. They managed to fuck up Mee's story, and I am aghast. The significance of Mee's story, especially the ending, was completely thrown out by the episode, in particular the montage, which had me fuming. What happened to Day understanding what the author meant to convey by Mee's ending while Mhok didn't, because he felt a sense of kinship with the author's daughter, who Mee was based upon? Mee's story had reliably predicted Day's almost to the end, so what happened? They tried to subvert the ending of the novel, with Day 'reflecting' on Mee's story in the background of the montage. But all that it did was completely go against everything that the show and the novel had stood for.
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Life amidst that dilemma caused me to forget what it was like to live a normal life, or how happy I could be.
Sincerely, what the fuck? A huge part of Last Twilight was Day finding, creating a new normal with Mhok. Day learning that his blindness didn't make him abnormal. But this completely erases that. It's saying that living as a blind person, Day wasn't living a normal life, nor was he truly happy.
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When Mhok finished reading the story to Day, Day understood. He understood why the author chose to end the story that way, because he understood that being blind for the rest of his life wasn't a curse. He understood Mee, understood her joy, understood that she hadn't disappeared, understood that the ending of the book wasn't tragic.
What Day says here, is that he was heartbroken about Mee's fate because he related to her and felt like they shared the same fate, but he realizes that his story doesn't need to be the same as Mee's.
Isn't Day feeling pity for Mee here? Isn't he doing exactly what he broke up with Mhok for, viewing Mee as some tragic figure, when 6 years ago he had understood that Mee was not someone he needed to feel sorry for? I've posted about how important it was that Mee's story's ending was written with Mee rejoicing, rather than being written as a tragedy. It was so important that Day understood the author's intentions, rather than viewing it as a tragic story. So then, what changed? I don't know, this may be a bit of a stretch, but these lines just seem so wrong, and hypocritical coming from Day.
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The intended purpose of this message seems to have been hope for a new, better life. But, if Day's blindness was the worst chapter of his life, what was the point of him learning to accept his blindness, to live with it, and what was the point of showing it to us?
Before the final episode aired, I had said that I hoped that we'd get a nod to Mee's story in the end, to add onto the impact and relevance of Mee's story in Day's. What we got instead, was a preachy reflection that went against everything that the first 10 episodes of the show had stood for, accompanied by a useless montage that completely upended the significance of the stories of both the show and the novel.
In the few minutes this montage lasted, it managed to successfully tear down everything that the first 10 episodes had shown us, everything that Mee's story had told us. Borrowing this one from @lurkingshan's tags in this post, how can a creator misunderstand their own narrative so badly?
I hesitate to use the term ableist to describe the last episode. But what I'm getting from this montage is that Day believes that he was neither normal nor happy while he was blind, and believes that it was the worst chapter of his life. Mee's story, one that is based on a little girl who was going blind, is shown as tragic, in contrast to Day's 'happy and normal' life. And that message seems pretty ableist to me. Which also makes me wonder, how much did Day really 'learn' from his time as a blind person? Because from what I'm getting from this montage, it wasn't a whole lot.
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faffreux · 6 months
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can you tell us about when you fell in love with fawful? :)
Yep. In fact, I'll write a whole mini essay for you so I can add it to the FAQ section of my website coming up shortly LMAO (SINCE I NEED TO FULLY ANSWER THIS QUESTION FOR THERE ANYWAY, RIGHT???) CLICK UNDER THE READ MORE TO SEE IT BECAUSE THIS IS GOING TO BE THE LONGEST THING I'VE EVER POSTED HERE, LMAO.
To preface, I have been a fan of the M&L games going back to the early-mid 2000s when I was a kid. I had no involvement with fandom or anything of the sort back then but I used to hop on my mom's bulky computer and look up fanart and other related content as early as 2004/5 and as a result, ended up captivated by the characters long before I knew who they actually were. (As a result of this, I have the names and art styles of various old M&L fandom creators permanently ingrained in my head and often wonder where they are today since a good deal of them vanished..!) It wasn't until 2006 that I got my first handheld console (DS Lite) and of course, what did I do? Immediately begged my mom to order me a used GBA copy of Superstar Saga. 
When I finally had the game in my hands it was like coming home to a colorful world that I'd been captivated by for so long but never gotten the chance to actually explore until now. The characters felt like old friends and the Beanbean Kingdom as a location felt familiar and comforting to me. (As a side note, Popple quickly became my favorite. Shocker, right?)
I used to sketch various beans in my notebooks as well as on printer paper we had lying around the house. Long story short, I finished Superstar Saga and then a few years later in 2010 I picked up Bowser’s Inside Story and THAT’S WHEN THINGS SHIFTED–
BIS brought Fawful and his personality to life in a way that captivated my imagination like nothing else had prior. He quickly overtook Popple as my favorite character from then on forward… and that’s where it ends! Or.. is it?
Nah, that’s where it gets funky. Life got a little chaotic after that and not only did I stop playing video games altogether for many years, but I also almost completely gave up on art - the one thing I was most passionate about above all and thought I would make a career out of someday. A series of depressing events caused me to lose all hope and motivation for anything I created and the spark I’d kept inside of me for so long all but died out as a result.
We’re going to timeskip again, this time to late 2019. I’d just moved away from home permanently for the first time and had been getting settled in and no matter what I did to make my new apartment a cozy place it always felt like something was missing. My mind would keep wandering to the fact that I never made art anymore despite it having been such a key part of my life when I was younger. I so desperately wanted to change this and over the next few months the frustration only kept growing until on January 1st, 2020, I sat down in the living room with a pencil and paper in my hand and shut my eyes tightly before saying under my breath:
“I do not care what it is, I don’t care how it comes. Just please… PLEASE send me something to bring my art back. Anything… anything at all. I don’t care what I draw, I just want to be drawing again.” And with that, I placed the lead onto the paper and began to sketch…
And from there… a familiar face appeared!
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(Now I could ramble to you about how much I do NOT like this drawing and how off model it is from how Fawful actually looks… but I’ll forgive myself since I hadn’t touched the M&L games in over a decade at this point and had forgotten most of Fawful’s character. And yet?? Here he was.)
How else can I explain it except that in that moment it felt like the pencil in my hand had suddenly become one of these:
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A joy that I hadn’t felt in SO long suddenly filled my entire being and without wasting another second, I immediately went online and ordered both Superstar Saga and Bowser’s Inside Story to replay again. In the time waiting for the games to arrive I had started drawing daily again - sketching out various old characters of mine with dozens of doodles of the bean man stacked in between them all.
There he was… always smiling, always happy to see me, and oftentimes with his arms outstretched as if to give an encouraging hug. When the games arrived I worked through them quicker than I ever had prior - finishing up Superstar Saga in less than a week and subsequently moving onto Bowser’s Inside Story with a LOT of excitement built up for it. 
It was my first day playing and I was having the time of my life! The way Fawful looked in his little grey cloak with that enormous, charming grin of his as he bamboozled Bowser into eating the Vaccuum Shroom had me giggling with joy while words repeated in my brain over and over of: “I need to draw this later, I NEED to draw this later!!!” I WAS EXCITED ABOUT ART AGAIN… AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. I was practically hopping in my seat from the happiness I felt in my heart and chest every time Fawful appeared at this point!
This was how it felt until the moment I arrived at the Fawful Theatre and watched as he began dancing on the stage floor. THIS time.. something different came over me. If you’ve felt it before, then you’ll know what I mean when I say that it was like my entire body turned warm all at once, like some sort of flame had been lit inside. I’d never felt it for anything or anyone prior to then, and that's partly why it hit me as hard as it did. I was practically sweating.
Heck, I was so absorbed in my feelings that I had forgotten there was anyone else in the room with me! That is.. Until my roommate at the time spoke up: 
Her: Are you alright? Me: Uhhh… yeah, why? Her: You’re red as a beet. Are you sure you’re okay?
By this time I had realized what was really going on so I reassured her I was fine, grabbed my 3DS, and ran to my room to finish the playthrough on my own so I wouldn’t embarrass myself any further, hahaha.
In the days, weeks, and months following that moment I became dedicated to drawing the best art of Fawful I could possibly create! What started as a challenge to myself to ‘give back’ to the person who’d given me back the ability to create again turned into someone I genuinely could not stop drawing for how much fun I was having doing it. The desire to make better and better art in order to honor him drove me to improve at a speed I never had prior, and soon thereafter I created Jolligig as a way for me to be in this colorful world with him and to express the deepening affection I was feeling for him with every day that passed by.
By some miracle, my prayer had been answered and here it was in the form of a grinning lima bean.
[End of Part 1. Interested in the rest? Yes… there’s more, I’m sorry. Please let me know in the comments. This took a while to write so I thought splitting it up would be best if folks are interested, LOL.]
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theerurishipper · 5 months
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This is going to be long so I can understood if you ignored it just see it as me venting my frustrations with her character. I'm just about done with her which sucks since I use to love her a lot. Sorry for sounding negative in this ask I sent you hope it wasn't a bother.
You've successfully swayed me into becoming a staunch supporter of Chat Noir; how audacious of you! Just kidding, of course. I now grasp your perspective regarding the complexities of Marinette's situation. In the past, I never delved into their dynamic and, admittedly, held some reservations about Chat Noir for frequently causing problems and adding stress to Ladybug's plate, a sentiment that seemed prevalent in the fandom and one I once shared.
Honestly, Season 5 was my breaking point. That episode where she powered down and tried to talk some sense into Gabriel? It made me see her in a whole new light. If it were any other parents, she'd be all action, no chat. But because it's Gabriel, Adrien's dad, there's this glaring bias, and it's been a massive letdown for me. She made her bed, and now she has to lie in it. It's not just Ladybug who's drawing my frustration but also her dedicated supporters. Some, who use Marinette who's age I assume to be around 14 often use her age as a shield. It's strange to witness this phenomenon in the Miraculous fan community, where her character's age is consistently invoked as an excuse. They seem to forget that she's a fictional character, brought to life through pixels and scripted character arcs. I've been a fan in various mediums, but the Miraculous fandom takes the cake for clinging to this age excuse. It's like they think 14 and the stress of her trauma are the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free cards. But hey, what else is new in the world of fandom, right?
Back when I was a ripe old age of 14, I did some growing up, and now at the age of 21, I can confidently say Marinette's actions don't resonate with me at all. I'm all about that honesty, and I can't see myself pulling off any of her shenanigans. I mean, why keep secrets in the first place, especially when you've been partnered up for ages? If we're in the same boat, risking our lives and all, it just seems unfair to leave the other person in the dark when we stumble upon something fishy. That's just basic BFF code, isn't it?
I had some optimism when Season 5 rolled around, but man, it just felt all kinds of wrong. There was something off about it, and Adrien... oh boy, he's like a completely different person from Season 1. I mean, he actually had some color in his skin – talk about a glow-up! He used to look so much happier as Chat Noir. Now, it's like he's tiptoeing around, walking on metaphorical eggshells.
And don't even get me started on the LadyNoir dynamic. It's like a trainwreck in slow motion, and it stinks. I mean, I've watched Totally Spies, and those characters, they had their own stuff going on, but they had each other's backs. It's crystal clear that Miraculous Ladybug is missing that camaraderie.
Her portrayal as a romantic interest, whether in or out of her superhero costume, has been notably lacking. In neither capacity does she appear to be a suitable match for Adrien, and her dynamic with Chat Noir has been fractured to an irreparable extent, leaving much to be desired.
This indeed raises a pertinent question – how can they be considered soulmates or destined for each other when the connection is this lackluster? Adrien seemed to have a more promising dynamic with Kagami than with our primary female protagonist. In Season 5, it appears as though they simply forced them together without genuine chemistry or compatibility. It's all about what he caters to her Marinette the star!
Her performance as a superheroine leaves much to be desired. I find myself questioning her role as the protagonist, particularly given the abundance of problematic situations within the show, many of which are left unaddressed. There's a conspicuous absence of meaningful connections with the victims, with only fleeting interactions following the vanquishing of the villain. The absence of emotional depth is striking. I can't help but wonder why she's the star of the show. There's a disturbing amount of abuse happening, and the lack of follow-up with victims is baffling. It's like they defeat the bad guys and call it a day, no emotional depth, nada.
Upon witnessing her actions in the finale, I reached my breaking point. She ranks as one of the most disappointing female magical heroines when compared to Bloom, Luz, and Iris from Lolirock. Her treatment of her partner left me deeply disheartened, and I remain uncertain about what her fans could possibly rescue to redeem her character.
Thank you for reading~
Feel free to vent, anon, it's never a bother!
I'm glad my points resonated with you! I'm not posting all this to try to change anyone's mind, but it is nice to see that people are considering what I have to say.
And I agree with a lot of what you have to say! I will say, though, that I don't really think Marinette is to blame all that much for Gabriel winning. It's not her fault that he stabbed her in the back. She gave him a chance and he ruined it, and that's all on him. And one more thing I sort of disagree with is that Ladybug doesn't form meaningful connections with the victims. I think it's rather unfair to expect her to form deep emotional connections with every single person she saves. Both Ladybug and Chat Noir do spend some time comforting the victims after the fights, but I think they can't be expected to stick around and solve every problem. I hope this doesn't seem rude, it's just my take.
But I agree largely with everything else! I especially like this point:
It's not just Ladybug who's drawing my frustration but also her dedicated supporters. Some, who use Marinette who's age I assume to be around 14 often use her age as a shield. It's strange to witness this phenomenon in the Miraculous fan community, where her character's age is consistently invoked as an excuse. They seem to forget that she's a fictional character, brought to life through pixels and scripted character arcs. I've been a fan in various mediums, but the Miraculous fandom takes the cake for clinging to this age excuse. It's like they think 14 and the stress of her trauma are the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free cards.
This is so right. Like, Marinette is a 14-year-old, but that isn't really an excuse? It's an explanation and a valid one, certainly, but it's not an excuse. At any rate, it's not the fact that she's making mistakes that's the problem, it's the fact that she never seems to learn from them. I admit this is a writing issue and Marinette is, at the end of the day, the mouthpiece for the writers, but it does not help me connect with her like I used to. Using her age as a constant excuse does not fly after a certain point of time.
At the end of the day, whatever Marinette does is portrayed as the right thing to do, and it makes it more obvious than ever that she's not a real approximation of a 14-year-old. She's a character in a children's cartoon who serves as the writers' mouthpiece, and whatever is coming from the writers' is some weird ass shit.
And I also very much agree with your assessment of the Ladynoir dynamic. It really sucks how low it's fallen. It was a major draw of the show for me, and now it's been reduced to nothing, all to prop up the least interesting side of the square. It's too bad.
Thank you for your ask!
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scoobydoodean · 2 months
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pronoun amon here, i didnt phrase my first all well. i moreso wanted to just ask your general thoughts on dean, gender and identity.
i love your analysis posts so i was just wondering if you have any thoughts around dean and his relationship to masculinity and manhood.
(For context). Well, I bring a sort of "Wtf does femininity or masculinity or manhood even mean" vibe to the conversation that a lot of conservative christians where I live don't really like. So while I don't at all think that's where you’re coming from, to me gender identity and expression is something that is personal to each individual and so answering about how someone else who's rarely spoken about it perceives their own gender identity just turns my brain to confused static. Some fans with different experiences or expressions of their own gender will feel differently about what can be inferred, or may treat Dean's relationship to gender as an opportunity to explore themselves, and all of that is fine—Dean is fictional. For me, it's as simple as saying that Dean describes himself using he/him pronouns so that is also how I describe him. Whether he does or doesn't engage with some traditionally/socially "masculine" or "feminine" traits or activities is neither here nor there to me.
My only bit of related commentary is that I don't actually think Dean thinks about things in terms of "being a man" as much as some portions of fandom want to think so. The "gendered insults" schtick in portions of Supernatural is something that is often misattributed to be the sole work of Dean, but it's happening all of the time and actually happens to Dean more than it comes from him. It also happens completely in his absence. For example, in 4.22, Ruby tells Sam to "man up" when he starts to question the morality of kidnapping the nurse and drinking from her.
I know that you're having a tough time here, Sam, but we're in the final lap here. Now is not the time to grow a persqueeter.
Examples recently in mind for me are Alastair calling Dean "Daddy's little girl" (4.16) and Bobby addressing his discomfort with Dean sitting down with him and telling him how much he cares about him (even though Bobby appreciates it) by saying "Thanks. Now, we done feeling our feelings? 'Cause I'd like to get out of this room before we both start growing lady parts" (5.07). This isn't something I've been tracking, but @soft-pine (I hope it's okay to link again!) a while back linked at the end of this thread some google sheets counts they're doing of various subjects. If you go to the bottom and look at the tabs and scroll, you'll find one tab called "gender police ?" Showing how often gendered insults are used with the brothers and who's using them and on the receiving end of them most often.
You might also find this big long post about misogyny of some interest.
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bitimdrake · 1 year
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how would you describe arrowfamily in canon? Cause i have seen conflicting things ranging from "Oliver Queen is a terrible horrible person" to "canon arrowfamily is what people think batfam should be like/if you want fanon batfam you want canon arrowfam" and it is confusing
Disclaimer first. A full, proper, arrowfam read-through is next on my list once I finally catch up with the bats, but I haven't gotten there yet. I have still read a whole bunch of comics, and by virtue of how the DC universe works, I've seen a fair bit of the arrows scattered throughout. (In particular, I've read a lot of Roy via Titans and Outsiders.)
So I can give a broad strokes answer here, but I'm not going to try to claim a deep meta analysis of the arrows yet.
I think the quickest way to explain the contradictory information is this:
batfam fans take up most of the space in DC fandom
for whatever reason, it has become highly popular bat fanon to use Oliver Queen as a scapegoat Designated Terrible Dad to show how much better and cooler and nicer Bruce is.
This is not a fair or accurate depiction of Ollie.
(Nor, for that matter, an accurate depiction of Bruce, but that fanon diversion is intentional and less like throwing shrapnel at a guy who isn't even part of this.)
People who actually read comics and like Ollie therefore try to push back on this extreme and ooc demonization of him, and also vaunt the arrows in general.
Said pushback is sometimes an exaggerated overcompensation.
Basically, no, Oliver Queen is not a terrible horrible person, nor even a terrible horrible father.
And I would say the canon arrows are a lot closer to what fans are desperately trying to find (or just make up) in the bats. There are various things that are true of the canon arrows/Ollie and of the fanon bats/Bruce that are not true of the canon bats/Bruce. [All post-crisis disclaimer.] Examples:
Ollie is outspokenly liberal and this is a well accepted piece of his canon characterization. (Meanwhile DC writers try very very hard to make Bruce Totally Apolitical and therefore acceptable to all readers. Not that anything is ever actually apolitical.)
Ollie also hates cops! And rich people! For a significant chunk of comics, he lost his fortune and was better off for it, realizing he could never be truly good if he were still a billionaire.
The common fan argument about how Bruce totally isn't abusive; he's a good dad who's just been written that way once or twice by bad writers is...actually not that far off from describing Ollie? He hit Roy once in a comic about How Not To Respond To Addiction; in another comic he was revealed to have secretly known about and abandoned Conner, despite this not lining up with previous comics showing how he really wanted to be a dad. Both of these things are canon and bad, no doubt! But he is also usually a lot better, and has shown an ability to grow and change. (Meanwhile canon Bruce just has a consistent pattern of abuse.)
Subjective, but Ollie seems to really think of himself as a father and delight in it in a way that Bruce just kinda...doesn't.
All the arrows, from what I can tell, actually like each other.
They don't try to murder each other either.
But, as you surely notice, being closer to batfanon desires doesn't mean the arrows literally are the fanon batfam. Like the bats, they are not a perfect model nuclear family (nor should they be!). They too have had conflict and dysfunction (Roy and Oliver stopped talking for a significant period of time!). And they do indeed exist in a comic book world driven by crime and superheroics and conflict, not a fluffy fanfiction world driven by comfort and interpersonal reassurances. (This is not a dunk on fanfic, which I love, just a reminder).
so tl;dr, the arrows aren't a perfectly fluffy fanon family either...but if you see a batfam fan throwing Ollie/other arrows under the bus to make their fave look better, that is definitely bullshit.
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perfectpaperbluebirds · 7 months
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Sicktember #12
Prompt: Old Wives Tale
Fandom/OCs: Science Lovers OCs (Peter and Violet)
Words: 1360
Sicknario inspo: Catching cold after doing something foolhardy from this post and caretaker being sneezed on from this post (both posts by @sickromancer !)
Author’s comments/background: So many characters that I only write for Sicktember, but it’s such a treat to revisit them. I loved Peter and Violet’s first story so much (read it here), and watching them grow up is delightful to me. So here’s another domestic drabble set in the Victorian era. 
~~~***~~~
Peter and Violet were sitting by the pond behind their tiny home, enjoying the late autumn sunset. They were dressed for warmth, since the wind had more than a hint of winter on it, but it was a beautiful, sunny day and they knew they wouldn't have many more of those. The married couple spoke little, enjoying the silence and each other's company. Peter had been staring at the surface of the water contemplatively, when suddenly his eyes lit up. He was on his feet in a moment, crouching at the edge of the pond with rapt stillness, carefully sliding out of his jacket.
"Peter? What is it?" Violet asked, feeling the need to whisper. 
He gestured for her to be silent, his attention fixed on something at the center of the pond. They sat frozen in silence, Violet waiting for some sign as to what was happening, when out of nowhere, Peter dove into the water. The motion was so unexpected that Violet stood with a gasp, rushing to the pond's edge, hands over her mouth, but Peter appeared a moment later, grinning triumphantly with something clenched in his fist. He waded to the bank crowing with pride:
"I found one! The final specimen needed to complete our frog study! We've been looking all summer but none of the lads have even seen this breed and we'd all but given up. It's past the season for them, really. I've no idea what she's doing here now, but she's a winner, big and fat! She'll look tremendous at the exhibition."
"Oh Peter, but your clothes! You're covered in filthy, stinking pond water now. And it's freezing! You're going to catch your death behaving so."
He came fully out of the water, all of him now sopping wet and colored various shades of green and brown. "They're just clothes," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "They'll wash, and so will my skin. Besides, Britain's scientific community will benefit much from our exhibition. I'd say the contribution we're making is worth a few ruined shirts," he said, almost pleadingly, as if begging her to agree with him. 
Violet glared at him, hands on her hips, not so easily swayed. "Just you wait, sir," she said, shaking her head. "You'll sing a different tune when you've caught a beastly cold from acting like a child, and I'll not feel one whit sorry for you. Diving into dirty ponds in October indeed. Why must women be vexed with men?"
Peter was already shivering in the cold air, but he cradled the frog tenderly, being careful not to injure it. “Vi, dearest, you needn't be cross. I want to be excited, and I don’t want to spoil the day by quarreling with you. I'll see to my clothes so it's not a worry on you. And you of all people, with all your training in medicine, should know that I mightn’t get sick just from getting wet. The new research from John Snow and others says that microscopic organisms are the cause of illness, not air and weather. I read you that journal just last week, don't you remember? You see, I'm sure I’ll be just fine. And right now my only wish is that you'd be happy along with me!"
Violet sighed, but a smile twitched the corners of her mouth against her will. He was so sweet and earnest as he spoke, just as he’d been when they first met. “Oh go on, then. I’m pleased you found your precious frog. But come, now, you must get cleaned up. They may be saying that weather doesn’t cause illness, but I’d rather we not tempt fate.”
Peter willingly followed her to the house, but wouldn’t see to himself until he had secured his prize to ensure she would stay well until he was ready to dress her for display. Meanwhile, Violet wouldn’t let him in the door until he had stripped down naked and been doused with a few buckets of water to remove the worst of the slime. As she was helping him disentangle himself from his sodden shirt, he froze. Just as she was about to ask him if he was well, he sneezed harshly, trying to turn away from her, mostly unsuccessfully. His nose was immediately running from the sneeze, but he had nothing to wipe it with other than his filthy shirt. She hastily handed him her own handkerchief, unable to keep a smug look from her face. 
“You’ll say that sneeze was a coincidence, I’m sure, but I’ll not wonder the cold water is already having its way with you, foolish man.”
Peter made an annoyed sound. “It's only the water and slime in my nose. I’m not taking ill. Illness from the cold is an old wive’s tale now. Just you wait and see.”
~~~
Wait she did, and her reward was to see him come down with a beauty of a head cold in two days’ time. He continued to insist the foreign stuff from the pond in his nose made him sick, though, not the cold air and water. Violet kept her opinion to herself, and tried not to be too smug. Anyway, it was hard to be angry when Peter was so happy. His frog and the completion of his collection thrilled him, and he earned the unabashed admiration of his friends for his boldness and quick action. (His clothes and shoes were a loss in the end, but he paid for new from his own pocket with good grace.) The amphibian was a fine specimen to be sure, and everyone was certain she would be the crowning jewel of the exhibition. 
Amidst all the excitement, though, Peter was a sniffling, sneezing, shivering mess and within a week he was unable to leave the house due to how poorly he was feeling. Putting aside her own feelings, Violet gave his cold the best care she could, for Peter's colds turned feverish at the slightest provocation. One night during the worst of it he could hardly draw breath for the clogging congestion in his chest and sinuses (worse than usual even for him, and this she could easily attribute to the pond water), so she drew him a hot bath for his feet and kept him wrapped in quilts as he soaked in the steam to keep the sickly shivers at bay, with a clean stack of handkerchiefs near at hand. He sniffled and sneezed and generally carried on, though she knew he was doing his best not to, so that her heart melted for him, even when he managed to sneeze or nearly sneeze on her almost every time she was near. 
"Thangk you, dearest," he managed as she placed a bowl of stew near at hand. "I'mb sorry to incodvedience you, and I appreciade your care as always." 
His earnest, watering eyes above a pink, runny nose were so endearing that she could only kiss his temple fondly. " 'Tis no trouble, for you're an easier patient than most. I'll not even waste my breath telling you never to do anything so foolhardy in the name of science again, because I know you would do it over a hundred times, given the same circumstance. So I must content myself with helping you take care in the aftermath." 
He gave her a sheepish smile, scrubbing a wrist across his upper lip absently. "You do such an excellent job of idt. I'mb mbost fortunade. 
She had to laugh. "I can hardly listen to you when your voice is so. You're completely pitiful when you've caught cold, my dear. I simply can't bear it." She pressed another kiss to his hair as his lips formed a pout.
"You ndeedn't treadt mbe like a child," he muttered. Yet he let his weight fall against her as she continued to stroke his hair. 
"Perhaps if you didn't go jumping into ponds in your shoes and trousers like a child, I'd be less inclined to do so."
He pulled away from her to glare, but she continued to work her fingers through his hair, smiling to show she was only teasing. He leaned against her once more, mollified. She continued her ministrations to his scalp for a long while until, sick as he was, he fell fast asleep against her.
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sugar-coated-slut · 15 days
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Heeey, I'm sorry you're becoming disenfranchised with fandom at the moment, it happens to the best of us. Just know what ever you choose to do, stay or go, we love and support you 😙😙😙
Hi sweetness and thank you! I really don't want to loose my love for the show simple because of the fandom. But everytime I go through the tags or my feed I come across something so incredible toxic and it makes me wanna log off n do something else
I enjoy the characters of the show so much. So maybe I just need to stay within my own little bubble, enjoy the show for what it is, talk to a few people about the show and stay out of major part of the fandom (aka ignore the fuck outta my dash and any tags)
Part of me has been thinking about writing for other fandoms and leaving jjk behind for a while. At the same time I still have several ideas for the characters. But I enjoy other fandoms way way more
It could be cause jjk is the biggest fandom there is which comes with it’s natural set if discourse. And so I'm not used to so much fandom discourse going on 24/7
Plus the whole can black writers not write because xyz and then seeing people agree makes me feel very very unwelcomed. And Im not the type of person to stay where I'm not wanted
im a black person who is hypersexual. I don't spit on those or look down at people are aren't hypersexual. Why should I? Different walks of life fit different type of people. It doesn't make anyone any better simply because they don't like smut fics as much as the rest
I don't understand the reason of complaining about other people not creating what they want to see. And expecting other people to feel shame over being overly sexual with their fics simple because you want hand holding and kissing
I do agree that smut fics get a lot more attention than fluff. But if they want fluff please create it. It seems there is a growing amount of people very upset cause they want to see more fluff fics but most of them don't want to create it themselves
I do some writers on a high horse looking down at smut writers. Which I don't understand at all? No genre of fanfiction is superior to the other, we can all have our preferences to what we prefer but that doesn't make them the best option.
There is also the whole big issue of black women have been fighting stereotypes for so long. So many people of color have as well. We can all understand how they are harmful to type a whole group as something.
Not all black woman are hyper sexual clearly by the amount of non hyper sexual black women who want fluff. And so what if a black woman is hyper sexual? Would they have less of a problem with it if it was a women of a different ethnicity being hyper sexual?
Or is it the hyper sexual that they look down on as a whole? Simply because they aren’t that sexual they get to look down on those who are?
I guess their problem with hypersexually could steam from the fear of the stereotype. Since hypersexuality is apart of that and they don't want hyper sexual black woman to represent them and it to go around still that all black woman are hypersexual.
To this to I say that a group of hyper sexual black woman should not be viewed as the representation of the whole. By this year of 2024 we should be coming to the point of realizing that there are gonna be various types of people with various interest, morals, sex drive and sexuality are all the same skin tone. And they do not speak for each other
Also what does someone skin tone have to do with someone sex drive? Can a girly pop be horny in peace without seeing it’s wrong cause I'm black and upholding a dangerous stereotype?
Anyway after this long rant cause it looks like I've had a lot building up. Thank you sweetness
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storkmuffin · 1 month
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Saw you say recently that you felt a bit like a bull in a china shop in the bs fandom and I just wanted to reassure you that you're absolutely fine. We've seen a lot of discourse, John Silver is a hotly debated and incredibly divisive character especially through the lens of the finale, and I'm fairly sure when the finale first aired that wars broke out. (I am always grateful I wasn't around for that period.) And even your comments on how Madi's agency was handled, the racist and sexist undertones of the end, are brought up by loving fans. We have a dead dove channel in our discord server exactly for those types of discussions.
This is very much a fandom that went "oh this show is complex, huh" and then proceeded to put on their literary analysis glasses and hold a Thomas Hamilton-style salon over any and all aspects of it. (...Once we get over our emotional breakdowns of course.) Anyway, I'm glad you're bringing some of these topics back through your live watch thoughts. Your afterthoughts are even more fascinating - at least to me, once you were completely done I thought "oh, that's it then" and mourned a little for how your love for the show seemed to be killed. But now I'm seeing further afterthoughts and really, I should've known there would be more thoughts, bc this show refuses to let go of a person once it's solidly dug in its claws.
Anyway. What was my point? Oh yeah. Thank you for sharing all your thoughts, emotions and reactions. The positive, negative, critical, all of it. Fandoms can always use a critical eye, and I feel like this fandom in particular has plenty of people (not necessarily all, but definitely a lot) who are welcoming of it! It's good for the fandom ecosystem
Oh what a really kind message!! Thank you for putting things in context - that the discourse has been here since from six years ago (when the last episode must've aired).
I still love the show, loved the show even when I was like I am DONE IT"S OVER I refuse to watch the last twennny minnitts nooooo (have still refused). It's because Flint is freshly dead. Flint died on Lunar New Year 2024 and I can't have his killers (John Silver and Jack Rackham, in different ways) talk in my face right now. Maybe when I'm done grieving I can put my big girl panties back on (uhh in this metaphor I am weeping with my bare ass out I guess) and watch the rest of it.
I saw the various gifsets of Thomas and James embracing and art based on that moment throughout my liveblog, and what I had thought was that it was James' hallucination as he lay dying or something, where he imagines the afterlife as a place where you try to fruitlessly farm your legacy in a place nothing will grow, but at least Thomas will be there. He wouldn't think Miranda wants to see him in the afterlife because he caused her death directly, but Thomas was killed by his father and so he wouldn't necessarily be angry with Flint.
But then to have SILVER narrate it the way he does using phrases like he unmade Flint and he returned him to his original state and so on was an exceptionally cruel blow.
I really dislike having feelings, so it takes me a really long time to actually have them, and work through them. And Black Sails is, in a very rare way for television that I've experienced, a work of art, so I expect to be resonating about it for a really long time.
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myaoiboy · 2 months
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Hi I saw that you answered an ask* the other day and I wanted to know if you continued with your analysis or if you could continue. I was really interested and curious to know more about it. I really wanted to know what you had to say, seriously, I could read a bible of Death Stranding reviews!
*https://www.tumblr.com/myaoiboy/739740134244794368/death-stranding-gender-talk-you-say-count-me-in?source=share
Hi! I totally can keep talking about Death Stranding forever (I know it's a very divisive game but imo on the whole the writing is like a well-oiled machine in ways that MGS just barely started to scrape askdjfh)
For the most part I haven't talked a *ton* about it at length because the series is just getting started and I feel weird making assertions that are likely to be fully subverted within a year or two. MGS has like. well, now, 25 years of shit going on. Sequels, prequels, fanon, etc., that Death Stranding...hasn't really had time to grow into yet.
I also tend to intentionally only post for dead series because the fandoms tend to be chiller lmao
Plus the fact that I got into DS right around the time that DS2 was announced, so I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs knowing that there's about to be more content and context that I just don't have access to yet. I already feel like there's a lot more to be learned about the first game, just from the latest trailer drop.
Honestly I think the thing that really gets me with DS is that despite the borderline insanity of the setting, to me, there's a lot of dramatic irony and meta knowledge that makes DS pretty easy to follow compared to, like, any single MGS game. Maybe I'm just the exact target audience that the writing was intended for, but most of the big reveals felt less like a sucker punch and more of a dramatic swell.
Some reasons for this (please be gentle i am taking cutscene SCs from youtube videos, they're gonna look like shit):
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First of all, this is basically frame 1 of being formally introduced to Amelie, we see...this lens flare. Look familiar?
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...how about now?
We are introduced to her instantly with a sign of danger. A pretty one, but a sign of danger nonetheless. The fact that it's an inverted rainbow is important! It shows up around timefall because of chiral air disturbance. We don't know that yet in-game, but if you know about how light works you know that there's something Wrong(tm) about this.
A regular lens flare shouldn't be causing an inverted rainbow if it's causing one at all. I think in this cutscene Amelie's presence is causing that inverted rainbow. Throughout the game, people come up with various theories of their own to excuse her connection to the beach. Little do they know at the time how right they are...
She's also heavily backlit, which hides her features in an unsettling manner. In fact, I really can't think of anyone else that this happens to throughout the game (if anyone knows of another example PLEASE let me know!!!)
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She gets pretty damn close before that rainbow disappears, but this is where I very quickly lost my initial trust in her (as the player).
I jokingly called called this her "Fox News reporter look," but it's very much constructed in a way that made me suspicious.
Let's talk about that red dress.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Kojima fucking LOVES using color language, especially red, blue, and gold. It's been super obvious and explicit since like 2012.
The fact that we meet her wearing a red dress is not a coincidence!!! It's a great big flashing warning sign! It says "hey, this person is going to betray you! Do Not Fucking Trust!!!"
Compare Amelie's name card to Paz's from Peace Walker:
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The art styles are different, but there are a couple of main throughlines. Namely, both have an emphasis on the color red, both are young (looking) women who are lying about their identities in order to ask the main character a favor. Characters vouch for them, from trusted advisors, to the main character himself in DS. And then they try to bring about armageddon.
Basically what I'm saying is that they're both the embodiment of white woman tears a wolf in sheep's clothing, if the sheep's clothing was still dripping in blood. We (characters, and maybe the players) believe that she's on our side because we want to believe she's on our side, and because other people that we ostensibly trust tell us she's on our side, while the extremely dissonant narrative and imagery of the scene are SHAKING US BY THE SHOULDERS TELLING US TO SNAP OUT OF IT.
Add to that the fact that we kind of vaguely, through that intro cutscene post-central knot explosion, know that the beach is connected to dying somehow, and that amelie seems to be on it, doing very stereotypical little girl in horror things there, like singing nursery rhymes slowly while walking into the ocean.
So we've basically been told that Amelie is Not Good, but we have to spend the game piecing together what kind of Not Good she is. The first hint is (surprise!) also in this cutscene!
I don't recall off the top of my head if I knew at the time how heavily egyptian mythology plays into DS, but I do remember this cutscene giving me a bad gut feeling about the concept of the West.
Very few Big Concepts in these games (the West, strand(s/ing), patriotism/nationalism, etc) are only symbolic of one thing. That's also true across the board in basically all art, but I feel the need to point that out in public posts because I don't want someone to eg, think that I say something means one thing, and then back that up, and then people think that means it can't mean something else! It can (and often does) mean both! and sometimes that additional meaning is super important!
Anyways, Die Hardman refers to Amelie going West. We don't really use that phrasing much, so it stuck out to me as euphemistic. Especially since we saw her after we died, and there's so much euphemism going on from the bridges team anyways. I mean, cufflinks "symbolize our connection?" Girl, you locked me to my bed with them. You drain my blood with them to turn into weapons. Call 'em what they are.
You'll even notice in the same cutscene that Amelie says "we made it to Edge Knot City" and Sam replies with "all the way to the Pacific?" Not "all the way to the west coast," or even a single question about why she was on the/his beach.
If you know anything about egyptian mythology, you might know that west is considered the direction of death and the underworld. ancient egyptians buried dead people on the west side of the nile river. Osiris, god of death and mummification, and king of the underworld, is referred to as "foremost of the westerners" among his epithets.
So the vibe that I got instantly was "Amelie is already dead, she led her team to die, and they are basically sending Sam on a suicide mission" though I didn't realize exactly how I was right at the time.
The other big thing I recall setting off my alarm bells as the game went on was the fact that nobody you meet has ever met Amelie in person. It's a very slow reveal, especially since most people seem to see online meeting and in person meeting to be mostly the same, and we're told that she set out with bridges one. That she went west. Turns out that...also wasn't literal.
I don't remember exactly when I started wondering if *sam* had ever even met her outside of the beach, but I do remember thinking that there was something off. For a little bit my guess was that she was entirely fictional, some sort of AI (pretty influenced by all the "dead person brought back by AI/hypno bullshit ngl), or maybe that Higgs could somehow disguise himself in the Beach in ways i didn't understand yet.
But I didn't feel *worse* for being able to figure things out ahead of time, I felt clever that I could piece together all the little hints and have a good idea of what was going on. It made death stranding feel more like a coherent sci fi narrative rather than a cheesy action story that's expected to follow certain strict genre conventions.
Not that I'm saying mgs or action in general are bad, but rather that imo Death Stranding feels...more mature and confident in some ways (and also isn't bogged down by 20 years of previous work. which. i don't even like my own shit from a year ago half the time, i cannot imagine having to write within the constraints you created TWO DECADES prior kjhksjfh). Maybe it's that it feels like less of a genre subversion and has more genre utilization? dunno. Now I'm thinking too much like an english major lkajshdf
But yeah anybody who wants to talk about anything totally feel free. Or if you want to give me prompts to write about. I will always be willing to talk about things for way too long on the internet. I just don't always reply quickly because I start rambling....Like This.
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nevermindirah · 4 months
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dirah what are your thoughts on booker and buffy meeting. would they be friends? would they have fun death related stuff to discuss?? inquiring minds want to know!
Booker and Buffy!!!!
Ok first of all an essential fact to know about Buffy is that her formative trauma, before she became the slayer and got a whole boatload of new traumas, was that her dad left. Booker would meet her and immediately go Dad Mode Activate.
I'm picturing two different versions of the same scene, one when Buffy's 15, pre-show, when she's only just recently become the slayer, another when she's all grown up after the show is over. Booker finds himself in Southern California for some reason, one thing leads to another, here he is in an alleyway getting his ass handed to him. A tiny blonde person appears and ends the fight by causing Booker's opponent to disappear into a cloud of dust.
Booker's thinking oh huh I've heard about vampires, guess Andy wasn't making that up, maybe this is the slayer?
Buffy meanwhile is warily eyeing how the enormous gash down the side of this guy's neck seems to be healing itself up like nothing she's ever seen before. "What kind of demon are you?" is the obvious question, to Buffy at least.
Booker explains that he's just a regular human except for the immortality, she's like "weird", he's like "yeah", he asks if she's the slayer, they have a whole exposition dump banter thing to establish their respective universes' rules to each other's fandoms, it's fun and charming and made all the better by the fact that it's not written by Joss Whedon, entertaining all around! Buffy's a little put out that she's got nowhere near the world record on coming back from the dead. She died twice! That's a lot of times to come back from! Booker assures her that this is indeed an impressive number for a mortal and she's not missing out on anything fun by not having died more.
In the version with teen Buffy, Booker says, "I heard slayers were young but merde, you're way too young to be out here doing this. I feel like I should buy you an ice cream to thank you for saving me from possible double immortality."
Buffy makes some kind of joke I can't think of right now but she agrees she'd rather not have a destiny and yeah actually ice cream sounds great.
So they go get ice cream and they have a nice chat about what bullshit it is to be stuck with a supernatural gift-curse thing that turns your whole life to shit. Booker listens to her complain about how being the slayer is ruining all of her clothes and the old guy they assigned to mentor her doesn't get how much that matters to her. Her watcher doesn't get it and maybe Booker doesn't quite get it either but he cares that it matters to her so he listens and he says supportive things and when they part he gives her a nice big dadly hug and it's wonderful 😭
In the version where Buffy's a grownup, Booker offers to buy her a drink and they spend hours at whatever nearby bar commiserating about the various indignities of their respective bullshit destinies.
Buffy asks how old he is, then when her reaction to his answer is "huh you're the same age as my high school boyfriend" Booker gets to have a moment of WHAT, bc age gap discourse is silly in supernatural contexts but also she was sixteen and Booker is feeling very dad feelings about this kid who had to grow up way too fast.
He tells her about his kids and she tells him about her baby sister who's sort of her child bc some monks magic'ed her up out of Buffy's dna. As far as Buffy knows there's only ever been one slayer who gave birth and that didn't turn out super well, but now being the slayer isn't a one at a time thing, maybe being a mom is something she could do? If she wanted that? It feels like a lot to risk, and Booker tells her that parenting is so much scarier and harder than fighting bad guys but also it's the best damn thing.
They maybe play a drinking game about who's seen a weirder villain or had a more embarrassing (near-) death. Buffy's seen an impressive variety of weird demons but Booker's seen an incomparable variety of weird human nonsense and they have to stop doing the drinking game part before they both fall down.
Buffy asks Booker about historical things she always wondered if Angel and Spike were making up. Booker's first thought on Spike: "you willingly had sex with a Victorian?" Then she explains the aesthetic and the trauma bonding and he's like "yeah that tracks". Buffy teases Booker about the possibility that he might someday meet his immortal soulmate, a mystery person who might not even be born yet as they're having this conversation. "You might want to start thinking now about whether you'd be cool with that person affectionately calling you 'old man'." >:)
For those following along, this ask is a response to my tags on this post about coming back wrong except you're just fine it's everyone around you who's wrong now. Buffy didn't come back just fine exactly — Willow magic'ed her out of heaven and she was understandably depressed as shit about it — but Willow 100% "broke [herself] into shards and bloody bargains to get [Buffy] back". And this has gotten me thinking about Booker's mortal family, and especially Jean Pierre. Remember that sweet little kid who wanted his papa to take his favorite doll with him to war to keep him company? What might that little kid have done hoping it would bring his father back?
Immortality had Booker on its shitty destiny list no matter what his family did or didn't do in the hopes it would bring him back alive, but they didn't know that, and the kind of stubborn hope that borders on magic is especially strong in children. I'm imagining Jean Pierre fashioning a golem to go off to Russia and bring back his papa. Someone returns, but is it his papa, with his traumatized mind and mysteriously changed body, or is it some twisted version of his golem wearing his papa's face? And either way why can this seemingly indestructible protector do nothing to stop the cancer? Papa, why?
Well this sure took a turn. Booker and Buffy: friends! With a lot of terrible stuff in common 😭 but charming friend chats too!
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uhbasicallyjustmilex · 4 months
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personal rant (tw chronic pain, chronic illness)
i don't normally post stuff like this on here at all because i love keeping this space here just for fun fandom stuff, but today has just been so unbelievably shit and i feel like i just need to scream into the void about it for a moment to try and process.
basically, me and my sister had vip tickets to meet and see this band today who's incredibly special to us. they were a total lifeline for us when we were growing up, but we never got the chance to see them live. in august when we finally got these tickets over ten years after we both started listening to them, we were both over the MOON. it was such a special moment for us, but also felt like such a milestone because both of us have been through so much since we were those kids sitting in my room finding so much solace in this band's music together. it felt like such a significant thing to be going to see them all these years later, having overcome so much and both of us being in places now that we never thought we could get to.
anyway, fast track to today and i woke up in excruciating pain. some of you might know that i have some issues with various chronic illnesses/pain already, and one of the conditions i have is endometriosis. for anyone who doesn't know, it's an incurable condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside the womb and causes chronic pelvic pain, fatigue, and a whole bunch of other fun symptoms. but it's biggest symptom, for me anyway, is the WORST period pain you can imagine. like, no medications can touch it, passed out on the floor for hours, screaming in agony kind of pain. i've lived with it for over half my life now and yes, obviously it affects me - but also i've got pretty good at learning how to manage it, and i have it down to like. a day or two per month where i'm incapacitated by pain rather than half the days. some months i don't get days like that at all now. i wouldn't say i feel good - a lot of the time i'm in pain and on painkillers/carrying around a hot water bottle with me when i'm at home etc - but i'm like. mostly functional. it hurts, but when it does, usually these days i can push through it when i really need to (even if that makes it worse later).
but today? today of all days, i woke up with the most excruciating pain i've had probably all year. i couldn't see or move enough to reach out to my bedside table and take my painkillers, let alone think of getting on a train and going to a gig. it's been over twelve hours and i'm only now able to sit up enough to watch stuff on my laptop for comfort and type this out (and i'm still in a lot of pain). of course my sister had to go to the gig without me, because there was just no way i could physically move to get there. and i'm just feeling so shit because although of course she was lovely about it, she was so nervous about going by herself and also really sad we couldn't go together, and i feel so much like i've let her down and that my body hasn't just ruined this incredibly special thing for me but also for her.
i generally try not to dwell on the stuff i can't do because i've learnt that it's NOT helpful, and it doesn't change anything anyway. i'm used to missing things i want to go to and not being able to see friends sometimes, working and having no energy left to do anything but sleep at the weekends. and most of the time it's okay, i've kind of made my peace with it. but on days like today i just feel so sad about it, all the things i don't get to do - especially things like this which are such special, once in a lifetime kind of opportunities. i know i shouldn't really complain because on the whole i've been really lucky with the things i've got to do despite my condition - i think this is the first time in a good five years or so that it's caused me to miss going to something really big like this, and i've got to go and see so many wonderful bands over that time. but this one... they're just such a special one to me and to my sister, and it feels like such a loss. and it just brings home how much this condition really does affect me - i've got pretty good at downplaying it over the years, but it's days like today where i'm like, no actually. this is awful and there's nothing i can do about it. which is a really scary kind of position to be in.
i don't even really know what the purpose of this post was other than to just let some of that out. normally i'd speak to my sister about it because she understands it the most, but i didn't want to let her see how upset i was about not being able to go because i still wanted her to have the best time possible and not be worrying about me. anway yeah, sorry to anyone who's read all the way through this, i know it's long and rambly and super negative. usually i'm able to take this kind of thing in my stride, but today it just really got me and i just feel so sad and defeated. i know in a few days it won't loom so big, and there are other wonderful things on the horizon that i'll get to do - but yeah. for today, i think i just need to let myself feel sad.
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turquoiseorchid · 4 months
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what is roswell about? i've never seen anyone else post about it but you've got me intrigued
Ooh, join us! Roswell New Mexico has 4 seasons (2019-2022) with 13ish eps each; it was on the CW and is available on Netflix. (It’s a remake of a 90s or early 00s show just called Roswell. That one’s on Hulu and I’ve only seen a few episodes.) Overall, it’s about aliens living in Roswell and their human friends/love interests, plus a few alien-related mysteries. Most of my summary will be about season one and I’ll leave the rest for you to see for yourself.
Liz (human) comes back to Roswell ten years after high school, discovers her high school crush is an alien, and then finds out her sister had been killed by aliens. This and other developments lead to their whole social circle getting in on the secret and there’s a bunch of love triangles.
If I knew who you were, dear anon, I’d tailor this to what fandoms we’ve already got in common but to cover some of the likely options and their high level comparisons: If you like Leverage, this has found family and the love triangles can easily be shipped as throuples/polycules. If you like The Magicians then same as leverage plus canon queer characters and magic(technically science) powers. If you like Supernatural, there can be a lot of overlap between malex and destiel (for better and worse). If you’re still here from my Torchwood days, again queer characters with messy relationships and a lot of snark.
Let’s introduce some of the characters!
In the Pod Squad (the three main aliens), we’ve got Isobel, Max, and Michael (left to right in gif). Max and Isobel were adopted together and grew up as the Evans twins while Michael was a foster kid but all three are inseparable. Isobel starts off the series as someone whose identity is mainly focused on wife/sister/volunteer but breaks down her walls and grows into a total badass. Often portrayed in fanon as “the woman with the brain cell” for better or worse. Max is a writer-turned-cop and total romantic who has been pining for his high school crush (Liz) for over a decade and risks his family secret in order to save her and struggles with choosing between her safety and his family’s. Michael is an angsty bisexual mechanic with a troubled past and became many people’s blorbo on sight. He too has a high school sweetheart (Alex) who he’s never gotten over but grows enough to find healthy relationships and let people in. They all have various powers including telekinesis, healing, and mind control/influencing.
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And now for Team Human! Liz is a scientist who left town after graduation because her sister died from (apparently) drunk driving and gets shot an hour after she returns. The lack of being dead causes her to investigate/confront her crush (Max) and learns about aliens, leading to the realization that her sister was killed by an alien and the crash was a coverup. The first person who she brings in is her ex-boyfriend, Kyle, a jock-turned-surgeon with a strong moral compass who tries to rein in the mad scientist tendencies of his ex-girlfriend (who he still has feelings for).
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Next in on the whole alien thing is Alex, a gay emo who had a secret thing with Michael in high school before leaving to join the Air Force. He’s back in town (minus a leg) and has his plate full with finding out that his abusive homophobic dad runs a secret military team hunting aliens and oh hey, his high school boyfriend turns out to be an alien! He’s best friends with Maria, a psychic who runs the local bar. Besides bartending, she splits her time between fortune telling as a side hustle, encouraging Alex about his old flame (secretly Michael), and nursing a crush on the local barfly/mechanic (also Michael).
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(Fun fact: I have no idea how to use tumblr’s gif search so both of the human gifs were found through their respective throuple ship tags.)
There are plenty of ships around depending on your preference but the most prevalent is malex (Michael/Alex), it’s nearly inescapable. Echo is Max/Liz and generally well liked. Isobel starts off with a husband (Noah) but also gets other love interests. The two main throuples are malexa (malex plus Maria) and kaliz (echo plus Kyle).
Anyone else please feel free to add why Anon should watch RNM!
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tilda1954 · 7 months
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What Kind of Community is Built around Consumerism? I can think of one: Fandom.
As LOVE: A Visual History of the grantLOVE Project falls to $6.91 we turn from a love poem and a love comic to the first formal Collector profile.
I've been "treating" you to a slow crawl and close analysis of the first twenty-some pages of LOVE. The welcome letter which starts the introductory section actually appears on page 13, and the section concludes on pages 20-25 with the first of several "Collector" profiles and testimonials.
Why?
Grant's narrative is that she was asked to donate art from her fine art studio work to good causes, and she decided instead to create "editions" using her trademarked LOVE symbol that would be sold or donated to support various organizations. She does this through a d/b/a subsidiary of her art LLC. And while these were at first usually limited-edition prints, more recently they are branded clothing, housewares, or in one instance packaging for chocolate.
Where do "collectors" come into this narrative? It feels contradictory. Yes, there could be (although I am not sure there are) collectors who are attracted to Grant's fine art practice and have bought pieces from various shows over time. Bonds do grow between certain artists and certain collectors or collections (museums, corporation, foundations). But Grant's "art philanthropy project" has for the most part, tied various editions to one-off donations to specific auctions, or offered for sale through her "grantLOVE" website, and more recently is offered for sale in a pop-up with sales to benefit grantLOVE as an entity.
Why would anyone routinely purchase LOVE items, no matter where the profits or proceeds are supposed to be going? Even if it's just grantLOVE (Grant) itself/herself for giving at a date to be determined and a cause/organization to be determined?
And, even if such people exist, why would Grant give a series of them include this visual history of the grantLOVE Project?
The first Collector's Portrait is of the Seavey-Sermchief family. Sumana Sermchief owns a company called, I kid you not, Imaginary Friends Inc. She's lived in Omaha, Nebraska for the past seventeen years, but apparently lived in South Pasadena, Grant's old stomping grounds, at one time. Did they meet there, or while Grant was a fellow at the Bemis Center during her "Taking Lena Home" period?
My best guess (or hypothesis if you want to get fancy) is that Grant wants to demonstrate that she has a fandom - people who demonstrate their affection and support for her through the purchase of products associated with her.
Grant devotes five glossy pages to this family and their collection of LOVE items, at the very beginning of her book. While they do mention that the purchases supported "communities," I find this quote from one of their children particularly telling: "I wear my LOVE sweatshirt all the time. It's cool and special since I know that Alexandra designed it."
I've come across a substack that has some interesting things to say about fandom stanning, the evolution of industry efforts to exploit fans, etc. A representative sample is available at the link (I hope):
If you can see it, this interview with a fellow substacker gives an overview of some of her recent analyses of fandon:
I know that a number of those fans (or anti-fans) who have researched Grant and her various enterprises believe that she is primarily focused on exploiting her association with Keanu Reeves, and driven by the expectation that his fans will buy her output and make her wealthy and famous in her own right.
I am not disputing that assessment, it has merit. But I think it's worth keeping in mind that Grant had additional earlier experience leveraging her association with charismatic objects, causes or individuals to promote her work.
First with Watts House Project, then with her linkage with Helen Cixous, and then with her self-promotion while filming and eventually producing "Taking Lena Home," Grant was working incrementally on an income-generating, and attention-generating sideline -- grantLOVE.
These steps largely overlap with and move in parallel with her introduction to Reeves, her creation of the first copy of "Ode To Happiness," ad its publication in 2011 -- an event which had to forcefully impress her with fan willingness to pay top dollar for a small and esoteric book that was associated with a celebrity of his stature.
It appears to the objective observer that Grant has had limited success, at best, monetarizing her connection to Reeves, despite two books and a co-created publishing house. Is this "visual history's" string of "collectors" designed to counter that critique by presenting us with Grant as focus of devoted fans?
We'll discuss this again in a later post.
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neverwritewhatyouknow · 10 months
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I do want to preface this with the fact this isn't really a question. I just wanted to say I'm really appreciative of how informative and outspoken you are. I'm someone who grew up without any religious influence, which I've recently realized has also caused me to not really understand antisemitism and islamophobia. Because of that I've been trying more actively learn about how it affects people and what it looks like so I have the ability to spot where it happens in different forms of media representation. The way you have been presenting what the casting for Nora means and why it probably happened has been very eye opening. I'm very disappointed to see the response you have gotten from all the creators involved, especially when you are creating a space for a dialogue to happen.
I’m having a really rough night (personal reasons) and this made me feel a little better. Thank you for this!
This is exactly why I’m doing what I’m doing. I’m blessed to be able to have the background and foundation that I have in fighting against antisemitism, I’ve been raised this way, my family has been fighting and educating for literally generations, but I know others don’t have the same knowledge base and history that I do. Getting to share and help inform people, getting to see people’s ideals change and grow, has been super meaningful to me. I know that sometimes I can get a little combative on here (I’m still human), but being able to have open conversations is so important and genuinely something I have enjoyed a lot.
And, yeah, I agree. I have reached out to various people on the movie (cast and crew) and offered to have conversations with them both privately and publicly, as well as just asking for their comments on the situations (the fandom antisemitism and the moving casting). No response from anyone except for the blockings. I really hope that changes, but so far… it’s all silent.
Thank you again for this, if you ever have any more questions always feel free to ask me.
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Text
Hi hello I am here
Welcome to my blog, AKA Sunny's Fucktacular Cirque du Dismay. Hopefully you find something fun while you're here.
I'm a nonbinary trans man, he or they pronouns are okay. As for my age, let's just say by Tumblr standards I'm a fossil (read: mid/late 20s)
Hope ya like Naruto cause I've been obsessed with that nonsense since I was like 11 years old. Expect random musings and gushing over my various ships (Sannin OT3 n KisaIta ftw).
You can also expect various nerdery including Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, X-Men, Death Note, and like a hundred other fandoms that strike my fancy at random intervals. Occasionally I am also known to have a thought.
I am the writer of the world's okay-est fanfic over here:
(Don't ask about my original works I am way too insecure)
Most of my work can be considered "dead dove" content so please heed any content warnings I apply.
If you follow me and need something trigger tagged please feel free to ask. However I'm autistic and an airhead so forgive me if I miss something.
Terfs, fash, and pro-life weirdos will be blocked on sight I do not care. Same goes for bigots of any stripe. Be fucking nice.
As I am a writer and artist, I feel like I should also make something clear:
I am not in the business of morality policing fiction. I do not care what people ship, nor do I care what others think about what I ship. I'm also not into pearl-clutching over le grimdark tropes in stories so please miss me with that nonsense. Basically, if nobody in real life is being harmed, I really do not give a solitary fuck. Not really into this pro-vs-anti shit I'm just here to have fun, mm'kay?
Though I don't have a DNI I do block liberally and with no remorse. Be a clown and I will screenshot your nonsense to laugh at with my friends and then block you and promptly forget about you once the laughter is done.
Basically, if you're chill I'll be chill. If you're an ass, you get the boot.
My tags:
Sunny said a thing: I said a thing
Sunny writes words/ Sunny is committing wordcrimes: I have written a fanfic
Sunny is an exmo: Various rants and thoughts about growing up and leaving the Mormon cult.
Sunny is angy/Sunny rants: exactly what it says on the tin
Vegan Talk: Also what it says on the tin. I am not one of Those Vegans and I do not care if you are a vegan or not. I am not here to preach, this tag is solely to mark posts that address the subject. I tag out of courtesy so you can filter that out if you like.
Aminals: animal posts
Anyway I hope we can have some fun and be friends!
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nix-writes-mcyt · 2 years
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hi! ive wanted to write fanfiction for a while now, do you have any writing tips and how to grow?
Of course :) I've been doing the whole fanfiction thing over various fandoms for the better part of almost a decade now and I've learned a few things. So I can give some general advice
First I would say: Write what you want to write When you write, especially when you start posting, there is often this pressure to change your writing, your style or pacing. Even just to write things you don't want to, or to write when you don't want to Putting that pressure on yourself can cause burnout and writer's block. Write for yourself, what you enjoy, when you want to. If others like it too that's a bonus, but don't change things for others.
Second: Growth will come with time Numbers are just that, numbers. If you enjoy what you're doing people will come. Growth is often slow, you might not notice it for quite some time. It can be disheartening at times and that's okay. It will come if you keep writing.
But saying that brings me to three: tags. Tags, tags, tags. No matter what you're writing, who for, what genre, tags are important. They get your fics out there. They allow you to build and establish an audience Your tags should always be relevant to your fic. If it's not many that's okay, they should include warnings if needed and some basic info about the fic and what it's about Going back to the first point, don't let anyone demand you put this or that tag on. They can ask, but if you don't feel it fits that's okay.
Four: Length The length of a fic can be daunting, but I'm here to tell you don't fear. Fretting about length is one of the things that caused me to struggle with burnout for a long long time. My advice about length would be give yourself a number and if it's above that it's a oneshot, if it's below it's a drabble, but don't give yourself a minimum number for your fics. It could be 200 words or 6000 words, if it's done it's done, don't push yourself to make it longer if you can't.
At the end of the day if you enjoy your fics others will too. I once read that what you feel when you write will be picked up on by those who read it. And I stand by that as the best thing I have learned.
If you want more in depth tips about writing certain things like fluff or angst and stuff, even if you want to ask about a certain fic and how I wrote it and tied in this or that, you're welcome to send me an ask or a dm and I'll be happy to go into those as well
I', sorry about the length of this and I do hope these are helpful as more generalised tips for anyone, and I wish you the best of luck with your writing!
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