#public consciousness

[maeamian]

Not sure I'm the exact right person for this oral history, but since the birdsite is imploding and advertisers might fucking try some shit over here it's a good time for all of us to remember everyone's favorite meme: "John C Miller, CEO and President of the Denny's Corporation, is a Capitalist Running Dog and his wealth must be seized and redistributed to the people”

Back in '16 or so, Denny's had a reasonably large presence on this site, from a non-artistic standpoint it's fair to say that whoever was running that blog did a pretty good job of keeping up to date on the current memes and staying relevant. Many of us, myself included, kinda just got used to them being here and let it happen, gave it little thought, maybe gave it a chuckle from time to time. At some point someone was like 'actually it sucks that a major corporation is trying to hang out with us and be our friend, they were, of course, absolutely right, and their genius response was to create a meme that they couldn't fucking coopt, hence "John C Miller, CEO and President of the Denny's Corporation, is a Capitalist Running Dog and his wealth must be seized and redistributed to the people" became the fun new thing.

"Coopt this you old so and so" was the idea and it worked pretty well, they did try it, but in a way that clearly was dancing around the central premise everyone knew they wouldn't be able to engage with. They stuck around for a little while longer, but it was clearly a major turning point in their ability to use this site to hang out with us, a good thing.

The point, as advertisers try to find new, less feral places to spend their advertising budgets, is that we don't have to just ignore them, that's a good start, but we can bite their fucking hands if they try it. We do not have to play nice with advertisers trying to be our friends, we can be feral.

Anyhow, I definitely am not positive I've gotten every detail right, so if there's any major corrections anyone needs to add, feel free, memedoccumentation had a post about it that helped me refresh my memory although my analysis of aspects differ from this point in history, as it were, but if you want to read up a bit more this is a solid starting point that has some fun examples

#Mostly they're right Denny's trying to respond killed the meme #But it also killed the Denny's account #So it was IMO a pyrrhic victory for them #in a way that the contemporary documentation of the time probably couldn't've known #We should probably ignore the celebrities cause they're just people #and while I don't care for them I also think that as people we shouldn't be assholes to them without cause #but advertisers inherently give you cause to bite them by being advertisers IMO #Mostly just haven't seen anyone else circulating anything about this #And given the overall discussion on the site about how to handle contingencies from what's happening over there #This seemed at least worth putting back into the public consciousness

[proton-selfships]

So I just read this great post by @kittyandco and it struck a really, really deep chord with me as someone who was also in the selfship community in ye olden days (as in, pre-pandemic olden days).

Now, don't get me wrong, those days weren't perfect either. I still experienced hostility for little reason, and it still hurts me to think about and affects my ability to trust people to this day. And I sure as hell wasn't the only one, or the one who had it the worst. But that lack of good faith that used to be the exception really does feel like the norm now, and it makes interacting way more stressful than it ever was back then. You're expected to read novella-length DNIs and can't interact with or follow anyone without fearing that you missed one of your fandoms on their DNI list and will get shit for it.

(And those pages are often confusing to navigate and use hard-to-read colors, to boot. Seriously, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines should be mandatory reading for anyone making a Carrd or Rentry account)

And that's not even to mention the fear of what you say to someone in a private conversation getting twisted and shared and vagueposted about without your permission. That's something I've witnessed happen to multiple friends of mine. Again, isolated incidents back then, way more common than it should be now.

Meanwhile, *old woman voice* back in my day... What I always think back to was the really popular ask game that would go around, where you could ask whoever reblogged it to come up with headcanons for your F/Os. And people were sending each other asks left and right! People were excited to look up F/Os they'd never heard of to come up with a little pick-me-up for the person in their ask box! And I remember them being a blast to read and write!

Nowadays? If your F/Os are from sources that's not in the media zeitgeist or another limited set of perennial sources people will generally know enough to engage with... Good luck getting anyone to talk to you. (And that definitely goes double for anyone who ships with characters who aren't white men or isn't white themselves, that's a whole other issue that I've definitely experienced as a lesbian.)

I think it's both the growing atmosphere of hostility and social media in general's growing focus on "making content" and "branding" that keeps people from reaching out to each other unless they ship the same kinds of things they do. It's not really a community anymore. And that sucks, because that's a problem that's infected selfship spaces from the social media landscape as a whole

But I think we could still make the choice to see each other as people. Because, at the end of the day, selfshippers don't really have anywhere else to go. We're all just a bunch of people who carry love for characters in our hearts. Shouldn't we be willing to extend that love to each other, too?

(Obviously, this comes with caveats. I don't know if this is just me and my friends, but it also feels like we're all just too tired nowadays to reach out or meaningfully engage with other shippers' work. I'm definitely guilty of going MIA for long periods for that reason, so I'm not going to act like the lack of interaction with my blog specifically isn't my fault there. But in my experience I've seen a lot of that exhaustion come from this, from the walking on eggshells and the lack of reciprocity of the energy you put in, so it all still applies)

#these aren't my comprehensive thoughts and are pretty stream-of-consciousness #but I've been sitting on these thoughts for too long and just needed to get it all out of my system #selfship #selfshipping #selfship community #peyton says stuff #about selfship #public service announcement

[brissot]

speaking of underrated historical figures you know who never gets featured in frev stuff ever?? augustin robespierre. i swear you could watch all the most popular frev movies and not even know maximilien robespierre HAD a brother. much less that that brother was at least somewhat important. didnt even merit an ALLUSION in the new napoleon movie even though it showed that bizarre version of thermidor. in lrf he is just physically not present when he should be. he might not have been the most notable politician but... that even the incredible courage and loyalty of his decision to share his brother's fate is so forgotten even in accounts that center his brother... it's a little heartbreaking to me

#charlotte is too but thats a little more understandable. she doesnt want you to know anything about her either #frev #augustin robespierre #im mostly talking about historical fiction/the public consciousness here but i wish there was more scholarship on him as well #i swear i would have forgiven the napoleon movie everything if bonbon had been in it. just 1 little glimpse. but life isnt always kind

[ikiprian]

wip wednesday: damian inherits bruce’s adoption issues au! (wip: one-shot) (1k/3k)

“Damian,” Bruce starts, gently. “How many cats do you have?”

Damian sniffs. Captain Alfred shifts unhappily in his arms, so he readjusts his one-armed hold. “Don’t be foolish, Father. Alfred is known to be the only cat here.”

Behind his back, he used his free hand to signal Return to Base to Silly Alfred. Unfortunately, direct scrutiny limits Damian’s movement and confuses the hand sign. Double unfortunately, Silly Alfred is a master of charisma, not obedience. He continues to bat at the coiled door stopper as if he’s not about to compromise his entire squad.

“That’s a sentence with one too many clauses,” Jason pokes.

“This concerns you, how, Todd?” Damian snaps. “You don’t even live here!”

“Ooh, and there’s a sentence with a few too many claws-es!” Jason’s smirk stretches wide, almost into a proper smile. Clearly, he is enjoying the idea of Damian getting caught. Does he not understand what is at stake?

“Bruce?” comes a tired voice. Tim, the fool, stumbles into the room, apparently done with his weekend-long casework bender. “The computer’s running some numbers— can you make sure nobody touches the program ‘til I wake up?”

In his arms is Friendly Alfred. Hungry Alfred trots after his heels.

Bruce, for all his mastery of deceit and the fine-tuned control of expression that entails, freezes.

#damian wayne #bruce wayne #batman #batfamily #batfam #alfred the cat #damian inherits bruce’s adoption issues au #kipsnip #kipwrite #army of alfreds au #in this damian collects a number of domestic short hair tuxedo cats :) #whats the number? he wont say :)) #its technically thursday but im drunk and just got back from karaoke nobody can blame me for my tardiness #if you do ill just cry and then where will we be #what are the optics on that. #ypull be a bully and ill be a hero. this is the story that will permeate the public consciousness #nobody will remember you. bobody will care for your motives #time will weather away your once clearly defined edges. round your certain shapes into obscurity. #eat shit #indont mean that thank you for reading #yay and yippee!!

[stinkythehutt]

looking at how george lucas writes anakin in the prequels, it’s actually quite interesting what an understanding he seems to have of complex trauma & particularly of attachment trauma and how that manifests in a person’s adult life - not just in the big moment in ROTS but also broadly running through anakin’s characterisation throughout AOTC and beyond - especially as this kind of detailed understanding really didn’t enter the public lexicon until the last decade or so. he kind of ate that up

#teddy talks #like it’s one thing to have a vague notion of this stuff #it’s another to communicate it so thoroughly that psych professionals at the time were able to be like ‘this character has bpd’ #thoughts on personality disorder diagnoses aside - this wasn’t something that had permeated public consciousness yet #so really interesting that he had such a keen grasp #i wonder if he knew someone who’d had similar experiences. or had them himself? idk

[vimbry]

while I'm thinking about analysing the moomin stories today, the subject of teety-woo's identity in "the spring tune" is one of my favourite themes in the novels.

it's definitely not a stretch to suggest the outline of that story was inspired by tove jansson's struggles as a creative and a public figure. teety-woo serves as a stand-in for the countless fans who looked to her for inspiration, maybe validation, and her reasonable discomfort with being lauded as some sort of all-knowing idol because of it.

snufkin, as her sort of mouthpiece, sets a boundary that he's just another person in the world who happens to create art and shouldn't be looked to as a role-model. he's flawed, irritable, and a little-self-centred (arguably, through this interaction, sympathetically so). he doesn't have all the answers nor the stamina to help people who are practical strangers, and reminds teety-woo that "you'll never be free if you admire someone too much". a sentiment snukfin understands, not just because of his guilt over moomintroll's admiration of him as well, but also his Own admiration of moomintroll. (earlier, when trying to craft his tune, he imagines going back to moominvalley and playing it for him, and how he'd say that "it's a good one"). it's a message that's especially resonant in a world with an increasing problem with parasocial interaction.

but although that's an important lesson to take from the novel, snufkin Does in fact leave an impact on teety-woo. he's the one to give teety-woo his name, which finally gives him a solid identity - and once teety-woo understands his identity, he almost immediately becomes independent and stops needing snufkin's attention and approval. the message I get from this story is that, while we shouldn't treat other people - regardless of fame - as infallible figures to project ourselves and rely on to solve our problems, it's human nature to "scaffold" from others you admire.

snufkin's role in teety-woo's life was a positive one, but teety-woo needed to learn how to be his own person separate from the idealised version of him. it's impossible to exist without being an influence or source of inspiration to someone. it may not always be easy or what we want but, that's how it is.

#moomin #this one should be up there in public consciousness with ''the ugly duckling'' I'm not even exaggerating #also highly recommend jarvis cocker's reading of ''the spring tune'' his voice is SO soothing #any time I've seen someone interpret snufkin as uncaring towards moomintroll I'm like #(furiously tapping the passage where he's fantasising about playing him his new tune) #he cares so much. he wants his approval so bad it makes him look stupid

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Have had thoughts about the 2023 Grammys and the 2024 Grammys with regards to Circumstances and. Yeah.

#don’t think I need to spill that parasocial stream of consciousness in public but #thinking thoughts

[hpowellsmith]

kind of happy that this game isn't focused on royalty for a change, given how ridiculous and weird the royal family are being right now, with plotlines that might be considered unbelievable in fiction

#joke's on me: they're always like that #additional joke on me: a news story happened just after I started honor bound that...well. #made the overarching plot of HB feel ripped from the headlines #but it faded in public consciousness very quickly so I don't need to worry too much

[elytrafemme]

and obviously this is by far the least important part of ANY of this, but i'm going to pretty strongly dissociate myself from anything relating to that smp-- mostly for my own mental health (again, not to center myself here). as for CS, i would like to continue it, though obviously the disclaimers again will be heavy. it is a story i wrote to cope with abuse, and if fanworks like that are called to be stopped then i will obviously rethink things. but i will give it a lot of time to figure out how to meaningfully create something from a piece of media created by unfathomably shitty people, and i'd like to be able to continue writing for the message that CS was set to convey.

again, this is not the focus of the conversation, but i just wanted to say that since i am online for once and i figure i may get an ask or two about it.

#nightmare.personal #nightmare.cough-syrup #as an update for folks since i do typically discuss my own personal life on this blog #i'm currently in the stages of questioning whether or not i have CPTSD #and after a few conversations occurring the last couple of months i've been keenly in touch with the various- #-abusive relationships/situations i've had in my life that i did not ever recognize consciously. #people seem to be handling this situation far better than past occurrences in this general sphere. #but i cannot emphasize enough how fucking difficult it is to speak out about these things. #those in my life were very selective about what abuse they let be shown publicly versus what i could never speak about #and i again am so in awe of shubble's strength in acknowledging something like this given how public of a figure her abuser is. #i hope he rots and i hope she heals. that's about where i'm at as i hope everyone is. #(and also if i post a bit about my mental health in coming days note that that is not an attempt to detract from- #-another victim's story. i want to make it very clear that while there are parallels in stories of abuse- #every abuse victim's story is theirs and is not to be trivialized or collapsed in any broader way.)

[rioblitzle]

i guess im not too involved in the zelda fandom cause seeing a post about rabid totk defenders is wild to me. from my perspective people were singing that game's praises for 2 months total before it fell to the "popular game bad actually" criticism wave and i don't think i've seen anyone say positive things about totk since then lmfao

#maybe it's just twitter's algorithm showing me discourse and criticism to try and spark engagement or whatever #ive experienced the same thing with mario odyssey which sucks cause i DID get into that game well after release but whatever #i think the game has plenty of flaws but is still like. one of the best games on the switch and that's not an insult to the switch #and most of my writing issues are 'well this sucks but also makes reasonable sense within the constraints of the game design' #like the lack of sheikah tech or the repetition with the backstory cutscenes with the sages #ive also never been super interested in trying to piece together the timeline or linked universe fan stuff but that might just be me #i feel like botw/totk is way better when you view it as a retelling of the zelda universe and give up on trying to reason with the timeline #for making a direct botw sequel on the same map w the same formula and still trying to make it fresh they knocked it out of the park imo #at least in regards to gameplay? #i acknowledge that there is a MASSIVE flaw in the non linear gameplay clashing w the linear story cutscenes this time #(... but that one didn't personally affect me since i saw the memories in mostly the right order and the story hit me weirdly hard) #but anyways yeah where are all the mean totk defenders i keep hearing about i thought that game fell out of the public consciousness #all i still see about it is NintendoMarioJimmy47536 on twitter calling it 'mid af' or whatever #and occasional gorgeous paintings of the light dragon on my dash

[uncanny-tranny]

Death to the idea that people who face a traumatic situation must become empty husks of a person between the event that traumatized them and when they are ~magically~ healed. It's genuinely fucked up.

Often, people who are traumatized will interact with the world just like a "normal" person would. They might even joke about their trauma, laugh about it, even "make light" of it.

When I was a very young child, I'd been traumatized, and I was put into play therapy. From what I remember, though, I'd be a very normal child until something seemingly small triggered me, and it was like my world fell apart. And I'd cope with that in ungodly ways that to a normal person would be insane - unthinkable, perhaps. And then... I'd go back to playing, because the world continues on.

That is what many people (though not all, trauma responses are not a monolith) who face trauma will do. We're still "normal people." The world goes on even after ours stops in orbit, slows, or has a metor crash into it. The reason why it's so harmful to say that traumatized people have to "act the part" is because many of us don't, and simply, most of us can't (even if we need to).

#mental health #mental health advocacy #trauma #trauma tw #abuse #abuse mention tw #this shit genuinely infuriates me #and i feel my point is more... salient or whatever if i include 'proof' which is my own experience. but i don't really wanna #but i saw this person publicize their suspicions that their *friend* didn't face a horrific event because they were ~jovial~ about it #because they joked too much and their attitude was too ~happy-go-lucky~. who would fucking do that to a friend. #but that's how so many people interact with people who made it through trauma #and it's genuinely harmful. it's going to lead to so much misery in people who are already dealing with the aftermath of trauma whatever... #...it may be - big or small it doesn't matter #sorry for the erratic nature of my posts... stream of consciousness and all

[ribbittrobbit]

has anyone read three body problem + seen the new netflix series pls tell me if im going to be disappointed or if i should watch it

#three body problem #cixin liu #like im terrified of whenever my favorite books get adapted bec like they enter the public consciousness and other people's takes are bad #netflix not having a great track record lately imho #(im looking at u atla remake)

[seeminglyseph]

My main problem with Sword Art Online is that now everyone forgot that .hack exists and did most of that shit first and better and was a video game series that was definitely like. Kinda cringe at times but like. Was also fun.

And also had people get trapped in the game and go into comas and shit and corrupt businesses and OP edgelord gamers in MMORPGs and also the AI souls of the dead possessing some glitched out monsters.

It’s a real fucking shame the anime adaptations never matched the quality of the games but they did have the highest quality soundtracks because .hack//SIGN has an OST by fucking Yuki Kajiura and it’s one of the best soundtracks of all time and if you love music go listen to the .hack//SIGN soundtrack right fucking now. The anime was mediocre, the soundtrack was fucking amazing.

.hack deserves better, so much stuff that SAO seems to get credit for originating was in .hack but more enjoyable. I wish they would rerelease the original 4 because they came out for the PS2 and are like. Expensive as fuck now. .hack//GU got a PS4 remaster I think and they are genuinely fun games I fully recommend I think it’s on steam too so you can play on PC?

They were fun and played with the idea of being trapped in a game and a greater conspiracy of computer corporations behind the scenes that was very early 2000s sci fi anime that was really fun.

If you follow the full .hack lore it all ties together in a really neat way like the main character of GU is Sora the edgelord goofy assassin character who turned out to be a child roleplaying as an assassin online in SIGN, who is still being kinda an edgelord like a decade later.

#.hack//gu #.hack #I know this is a false equivalency #but still fuck sao for replacing .hack in the public consciousness as the mmo anime #.hack was clearly was the superior anime #this is my boomer take on the subject #reject sao return to .hack #I’m fucking stoned don’t even expect reasonable thoughts from my head

[grendelsmilf]

the most unserious thing about malcolm in the middle (besides the obvious ludicrousness of being supposed to simply accept that harvard is a remotely aspirational institution to attend) is that it falls into the trap of using physics (especially astro and cosmology) as shorthand to signify intelligence by having the characters say something really “complex” and conceptual. well you sound like an intro lecture. you sound like a textbook. i promise u that none of this is going over my head rn. and part of me laughs, of course, but the other part of me is unfortunately thinking to myself “this is great. im gonna get a good grade in being smarter than malcolm from malcolm in the middle, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve.” and then i realize what kind of insane thought process my brain is going down as i compare myself to a fictional character. and then i understand why malcolm hates himself so much -_-

#o.tv #astro to signify intelligence is one of my least favorite tropes in the public consciousness #i say this as an astro nerd. can we glorify literally anything else please

[killaura]

a fever you can’t sweat out was an INSANE thing for a bunch of high school students to create and release… like genuinely baffling in its existence. I’ve never been to las vegas but I have to assume that has something to do with a bunch of teenage boys even knowing what the fuck cabaret is to this extent??? when I was in highschool (only about a 5 year difference) dudes were too busy making fart jokes and underage drinking in the woods to create a fucking baroque pop inspired electronic emo dance album set to become a cornerstone of the genre, like that’s FUCKING CRAZY they should have been playing tony hawk and slamming monster energies at the mall

#say what you will about brendon. and I have a LOT to say (fuck that guy) #but this album is incredible for what it is #sorry but afycso is the reason panic had the lasting power in the public consciousness they did despite brendon’s constant ego based sabotag #panic! at the disco #a fever you can't sweat out

[stringcage]

trying to fight off my gatekeeper tendencies after hearing "to all of you" by syd matters in an Instagram reel that had nothing to do with life is strange

#you cant do this.... hstv already brought bros by wolf alice into the public consciousness you cant take her from me too #life is strange #syd matters #lyrics