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onewomancitadel · 2 months

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Cannot stop thinking about the idea that women represent sites of cultural anxiety, Whore of Babylon to the 'welfware queen', it's misogyny as a communicative device within society - reassuring in some ways, symbolic othering in others, scapegoating in most. I often think about the utility of misogyny (that is, incentive to be misogynistic) because I don't think its existence is arbitrary, and in this case the idea I'm very specifically interested in is its use as a narrative device. Because in their own ways, these collective archetypes represent projected cultural anxiety, not just because women are responsible for everything, but because the signifier of woman is so significant. It's a related thesis to the role of women's testimony in the Bible (the Mary Magdalene finds Jesus after resurrection) or women's speech in ancient Near Eastern texts (Epic of Gilgamesh) and even the Homeric, in that because of the absence of women's speech within society, it is significant when they speak (and potentially carries magical qualities).

I was thinking about this for a few reasons - the role of women in storytelling generally, an emergent curiosity about feminine archetypes in fiction - and I suppose what I would call a dissatisfaction with the easy position that mostly when you're talking about female characters, you're talking about the presence, or lack thereof, of misogyny. It feels limiting in its own way I suppose, because then I think that leads to the current problems we've got, which is that writing women is a feminist responsibility, and not a work in the human condition, and in which case the didactic responsibility of that depiction - have you or have you not empowered women? - effectively stymies storytelling abilities at all. It's the natural answer to the idea that the work of storytelling for 4,000 years was specifically to disempower women through depiction, and to be entirely frank I think that gives too much power to narrative. This is actually an extremely common issue encountered in the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology, that is, relying on cultural depictions through mythology to draw conclusions about that extant culture, and in which case I would say is also an ongoing source of contention, so you'll not find a definitive answer from me - I think from the get-go, a 1:1 assumption about how women (and indeed goddesses) are depicted is some sort of representation of an 'ought' model in society is probably wrong, though.

The reason I made this post just now is I was thinking about Grimes, because she just released the music video for So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth, and it made me think about how she takes on the cultural otheredness of her erstwhile romantic companion and billionaire, E/lon M/usk, and how female artists (especially trans and/or Black female artists) represent the cultural decay of celebrity, and the complicated cultural responsibility celebrities are endowed with. Just look at the furore over Taylor Swift's ability to potentially sway the vote in the next USA election, or the failure of her to speak on the I/P conflict (because if she did, this speech would be powerful). She's a site of political discourse, and worry about the emerging picture of the American Democrat voter, who happens to be female (both politically irresponsible for not voting for a third party, or not joining the communist revolution, or caring too much about abortion/trans rights/racial justice, or being one of those feminist harpies responsible for the collapse of civilisation), as it's projected that men are swerving more conversative - which women are also responsible for - including the new topic of straight men's loneliness (read: sexual/romantic loneliness) which women are responsible for and which only women can fix. Woman as site of inevitable decay!

But also that Grimes in this case represents the worst of the feminine artist - makes her own music (this is called into question by gossipmongerers), acts strangely, dares to have children mid-career and therefore compromises her artistic identity - to listen to her music is as bad as supporting her. No, I'm working towards a point here - I think there is something specifically anxiety-inducing about people choosing to consume women's art, who represent those sites of cultural anxiety, because it's considered tantamount to having the same opinions as her - that women's speech is actually dangerous because of this potent cultural symbolism. (I worked in the women's testimony thesis). The same sort of anxiety is not applicable for male artists, not generally speaking (people wouldn't ordinarily harrass you for it, or performatively demonstrate their not listening to it - Chris Brown is still charting by the way), because it simply doesn't carry the same cultural symbolism - men's political beliefs, moral actions, injurious behaviour, etc. is considered distinct from their cultural output. I'm not saying one or the other is worse - or necessarily a discrete phenomenon - women in general are expected to be both conscious creators and conscious consumers. Just look at environmentalism - more women are environmentalists, and there's a perception (I am not citing the survey here but I'd say this is generally true) that eco-friendly products are girly. Women as sites of environmental/cultural anxiety. Birth rates dropping? Thesis evolving.

The reason I think it's interesting that women carry this cultural symbolism - that misogyny here is achieving something within society, in some way, that this type of anxiety comes with a function not arbitrary, or at the very least enjoys useful application if not origin - is effectively also to say that women are models within society. That they are models of beauty, moral sensibility, the general fertility of society, the political growth of society, the decay of society, the power of women as guides in every walk of life - is actually pretty significant, and I don't really see this idea discussed when deconstructing and trying to challenge misogyny. Nowhere am I trying to suppose that misogyny is good - what I am trying to say is that if you feel despair as to why it persists, it's a much more complicated issue as to why it does at all.

I also think that there is generally an exhaustion with misogyny - the discussion of feminism's purpose, its aims, what it can achieve (which seem to be always everything and nothing at the same time) - and within the frame of storytelling, I think that the didactic aim, whilst noble (attempting to empower women?), misses the point. To identify why it doesn't work - that is, to recognise what purpose misogyny served in storytelling before - is necessary to understand how to fix it. So what do you do with that cultural symbolism and weight? What do you use it for? I introduced the celebrity element - is that even a responsibility they ought to have at all? Now, if you were to turn the thesis on its head, that is, what do male characters enjoy in storytelling - is that better or worse?

Better or worse in what sense, one supposes - because the storytelling quality of women, women's speech as magical inducement of delusion, or corruption - is in itself pretty potent, here I'm thinking of Odysseus, it seems to me that if the essence of storytelling is its humanistic quality, then you would hope that all characters would be able to enjoy this range in their own way. You're going to laugh, but I can't help thinking of the fandom belief that in RW/BY, Cinder is responsible for I/ronwood's actions in V7/8 - that his actions are depersoned by attribution to a woman's actions. Isn't that dehumanising in its own way? I'm not saying this is tantamount to violence - what I am saying is that I think it's strange how this idea of moral responsibility or lack thereof goes unchallenged.

But that is the convenience and the utility of women's culpability - because it is lazy, and useful. Sometimes, I fear that the simplest answer to misogyny - transmisogyny, misogynoir - or racism, or ableism, or homophobia, is that it's lazy. Not always, of course, but let's say you have a best friend who sexually assaulted another woman at a party (he touched her without permission), a girl you don't know, do you do the hard thing and cut off that friend, get justice for a stranger, or support the person you know? Too many people spend their time considering these situations in thinkpieces and not looking at the reality around them. This isn't just misogyny - this is Jake deciding it's too hard to stand up to his friend. If you knew Jake, you might decide just to tell him to fuck off - that's your interpersonal decision - but what I am also thinking is that Jake is spineless. This is something a lot of us go through. It's very hard being alive and trying to make the right decisions, and to decide whose testimony to trust, and sometimes I think it does us all a disservice when we only read this through the lense of [MISOGYNY 1+ / -1] and not the world in which that misogyny functions.

More specifically, how it is that storytelling interacts with, and reflects human motivations interests me, but also that it is a deep mysterious pit of the human psyche. When it comes to the question of writing a 'good' female character, the position seems to be - well, before, the bad female character conveyed the figure of women to be oppressed, now she is endowed with the opposite power. I think that this is untrue in both senses. I think that this is limiting, and not interesting, and speaks to the belief that storytelling bears social responsibility, not just is a reflection of those attitudes (of everything), which ends up with characters who are dehumanised anyway. If the empowered female character must represent every woman, bearing that cultural weight of responsibility women are already endowed with, I suspect you've not achieved much.

#stirring the pot

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lightcrowe · 2 years

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Beginner's guide 2: An elaboration

Hello everyone, firstly I'd like to say thanks to all the people who liked my earlier post. I've started posting on fresh accounts before and I was fully expecting to get absolutely no attention. Maybe things work differently on Tumblr than other sites, maybe I got lucky. Either way, thanks! This post will be a follow up to my last post and will include some new topics I felt unnecessary to go over in the last one, as well as elaborating on my exact definition on Classes. With this post, there is going to be a lot more speculation and references to canon than there was in Part 1. Actually, there weren't any spoilers in Part 1, even though I said there would be. My bad, I ended up simplifying things a lot in the end and didn't feel the need to justify my definitions. There will, however, be a lot of that in this post. So I will repeat: Do not read this post if you care about being spoiled! This post contains spoilers for all acts of Homestuck! With that out of the way, let's get started.

Part 1: Master Classes

The Master Classes are specifically stated to only belong to uniquely important individuals, presumably not any average Human Sburb player. Thus, I decided not to go over them in Part 1. In my opinion, you shouldn't Classpect yourself as a Lord (Right) or Muse (Left) because they're supposed to be reserved for unique cases. It can also be presumed that they only belong to 2 player sessions, and as we cannot confirm how any given session will begin - given that Sburb does not exist - these Classes cannot, in my opinion, be held by any IRL fan. However, this is just my opinion. I absolutely cannot tell you not to Classpect yourself as such, you are free to do so if you wish. I'm only sharing how I feel about the matter. With that being said, it's worth at least going over what exactly these Classes do and their Active/Passive alignment.

Lord - Active (-)

Things start to get really complicated starting here. Calliope herself says that she doesn't know what her own title, Muse, does. We can only speculate. Lord is Active, and performs their role by Commanding their Aspect or Commanding through their Aspect. Take the 'Lord' title very literally. They're like a ruler, and their Aspect is completely submissive to their will. Lords, as well as Muses, are thought to be the strongest Classes in the game, and this definition leaves no doubts as to why. It's almost the same role as a Witch, pushed to the extreme. Lords and presumably Muses are believed to have an extremely difficult journey to complete. Similar to that of a Page, only even more so. Lord is also stated to be the most Active Class in the game, while Muse is the most Passive.

Muse - Passive (+)

Muse is Passive, and performs their role by Inspiring their Aspect or Inspiring others through their Aspect. At first, this seems far weaker than Lord's role, but hear me out. Muse is stated to be the most Passive Class in the game, while Lord is the most Active. Muses don't have direct control over their Aspect, but their Aspect is still ready to submit. They Inspire their Aspect, indirectly influencing things to happen to their Aspect. They also Inspire other people through their Aspect. "Inspire" is a word that, in my opinion, doesn't really explain the full scope of what a Muse does. However, it's the best we've got. Think of it as them indirectly doing the same thing that Lord does, through other people. They have control over their Aspect on the same level as a Lord, but they execute their role Passively. A Lord pulls out a gun and shoots somebody. A Muse tells their teammate to shoot them. Both got the same result, just through different methods.

Part 2: Gendered Alignments

It is commonly thought that some Classes are aligned by gender, that meaning that certain Classes can only be held by Males, and some by Females. Ignoring the fact that some people don't fall into either category (you can get the fuck off my blog if you have a problem with that statement), this is pretty reductive and, in some ways, sexist. The reason many believe Classes to be aligned by gender is that, well, we're told that they are in canon. Calliope states that some Classes are aligned by gender, and even gives us a few examples. In my opinion, the best reading of this is that Calliope is basing that belief on her own species, with how inherently everything about Cherubs is bound to gender, and it doesn't actually apply to Humans. I can't prove this, nor can anybody else. It's just an interpretation that I think works the best. If you buy into the idea that some Classes are bound by gender, then I'll indulge the idea at the very least. We're told by Calliope that there are an equal number of Male-exclusive and Female-exclusive Classes. She states that Lord, Prince and Bard are all Male-exclusive, and states that Muse is Female-exclusive. With there being an equal number of Male and Female Classes, that means at least 2 more Classes must be Female-exclusive, possibly more. Out of the remaining 10 Classes, Thief, Rogue, Mage, Seer and Knight are confirmed to be gender neutral, either being stated by Calliope, or by both Male and Female players holding them. That leaves 5. Witch, Heir, Maid, Sylph and Page have ambiguous gender alignment. Many believe Maid and Sylph to be the remaining Female-exclusive Classes, given that their role (Create) is the opposite of the other confirmed Male-exclusive roles, Prince and Bard (Destroy). Others say it might be Witch and Maid, given their names' feminine connotations. Either interpretation is valid. If you held a gun to my head and told me to pick which remaining Classes are gendered, I'd tell you that Maid, Sylph and Witch are Female-exclusive, and Heir is Male-exclusive. This leaves the alignments even, and lines up with our canon players. However, make no mistake, I dislike this reading of Classes and I think it's overall reductive. In my opinion, Calliope is assuming that Human roles work the same as Cherub roles whereas they, in reality, do not. Therefore, any player can have any role, regardless of gender. Andrew Hussie has responded to a question asking "Could there be a Female Prince player?" to which he simply responded "Sure". This doesn't prove much, it's a single word responding to a pretty specific question. However, it, at the very least, lends credence to the idea that Classes aren't gendered.

Part 3: Classes, continued

Moving on, I will now be elaborating on my previous post and going more in depth about each Class and what role they perform exactly.

Thief - Active (-)

Thieves are explicitly stated to Steal their Aspect or Steal through their Aspect, and canon examples back this up. Vriska Serket, the Thief of Light, is notable for stealing luck from others, turning the outcome of battles into her favor. She also steals Light, literally, by causing Terezi Pyrope to go blind. She also steals relevance, another notable part of the Light Aspect, by intentionally creating Bec Noir with the intention of being the one to kill him herself. Meenah Peixes, the Thief of Life, took the lives of her and her teammates by timing a detonation to happen right before they initiated the Scratch, so that they could continue to exist as ghosts after it. It's a little tenuous to call this "stealing" Life, she, moreso, ended it. However, it's the best we can do. Her post-scratch self, Her Imperious Condescension, instructed Roxy Lalonde, the Rogue of Void, to steal the Matriorb in order to save her species. She also has an increased lifespan due to her blood caste, and is able to extend this power to others, i.e the Ψiioniic. Through this, however, she essentially steals any life he could have lived by enslaving him as the helmsman of her ship, which eventually leads to his death.

Rogue - Passive (+)

Rogues are explicitly stated to Steal their Aspect or Steal through their Aspect, but in a Passive sense. They more Redistribute it, like a Robin Hood type. You could also see it in a communal sense, like redistributing wealth. Roxy Lalonde, the Rogue of Void, steals Void in several ways. Most notably stealing Void out of things, making them "Not nonexistent", therefore making them real. She was able to create the Matriorb out of thin air, and does so selflessly, saving a species she doesn't belong to. Nepeta Leijon, the Rogue of Heart, doesn't do anything of note in relation to her role as a Rogue. Rufioh Nitram, the Rogue of Breath, also doesn't do anything of note in relation to his role as a Rogue. His post-scratch self, the Summoner, does, however. He inspires and leads a revolution against the Highbloods in the name of freedom for the Lowbloods. Redistribution of Breath.

Prince - Active (-)

Princes are explicitly stated to Destroy their Aspect or Destroy through their Aspect. Dirk Strider, the Prince of Heart, is notably emotionless, being called a "stone cold motherfucker", despite his role as a Heart player. This can be seen as him destroying Heart in himself, not feeling any emotions. After Aranea Serket heals away Jake English's insecurities and causes him to become a fully realized Page, a version of Dirk that originally existed only in Jake's mind manifests as real, due to Jake being a Hope player. He proceeds to attack Aranea, and attempts to rip the soul out of her body, therefore destroying Heart. The only reason he fails is to due to her influence keeping Jake fully realized, causing him to lose his powers and eventually completely stop existing after Jake's death. He also uses this move against Lord Jack during [S] Collide. He was also, personality wise, completely immune to trickster mode. Eridan Ampora, the Prince of Hope, was Hopeless. Not just as a romantic, he had no hope that any of them would survive Bec Noir, deciding to join him instead. Upon him killing Feferi Peixes and severely wounding Sollux Captor, he had a standoff with Kanaya Maryam, but instead of attacking her, he attacked the Matriorb, destroying all hope for the future of their species. The weapon he used he described as a "science wand". Despite it just being a regular stick with no special properties, he was able to use it to shoot beams of energy powerful enough to win again Sollux's eye beams, just by believing hard enough that it would. Therefore, destroying through Hope. Kurloz Makara, The Prince of Rage, does very little in relation to his role as a Prince. He, at one point, had a nightmare so terrifying that it caused him to release a sound so loud that it caused Meulin Leijon, who was sleeping next to him, to go completely deaf. This has very few if any connections to his role, but is worth mentioning.

Bard - Passive (+)

Bards are explicitly defined in a..strange, roundabout way. Bards are explicitly stated to "Allow Destruction of their Aspect or Invite Destruction through their Aspect". Gamzee Makara, the Bard of Rage, spent the early parts of his story stoned on Sopor Slime, which impaired his judgment and generally mellowed him out. His Lusus being absent for large portions of his upbringing lead to him having poor common sense and little common knowledge. This all could be seen as allowing the destruction of Rage in himself. He also follows a religion only he seems to believe in and believes in miracles. Again, seeming to indicate destruction of Rage in himself, believing things on faith and lacking skepticism. He eventually learns the truth about his religion, and stares into the eyes of Lil Cal soon after and learns that he is a descendant of the High Subjugglators. Having run out of Sopor Slime, he is no longer mellowed out and decides that he must kill all his friends, having decided that he's both of the gods from his own religion. This is a weird mishmash of destroying Rage and embracing it. He proceeds to demonstrate powerful physical strength, succeeding in killing multiple foes thought to be physically stronger. This likely indicates that Rage has links to physical brute strength, and Gamzee most definitely uses it to destroy. It is also revealed that Gamzee dealt the most powerful hit to the Black King during the Trolls' session, other than maybe Vriska. Gamzee also implanted a clown plush resembling Jack Noir into John Egbert's dream room, ultimately leading in part to Jack's rise to power. His reason for doing this was to "get even" with Dave Strider, who had mocked his religion. Inviting destruction through Rage. Eventually, Gamzee is calmed down. Later on, it's implied he's "in kahoots with Lord English" and he eventually begins serving Caliborn. Aiding Caliborn can reasonably be seen as inviting destruction, though it seemingly doesn't have any ties to Rage. Sheesh, I had a lot to say about Gamzee, huh? Let's move on. Cronus Ampora, the Bard of Hope, doesn't do anything of note in relation to his role as a Bard, nor does his post-scratch self, Orphaner Dualscar.

Maid - Active (-)

The exact role of the Maid is not explicitly stated in canon, so we must theorize. Some theorize that Maid's role is to Upkeep and Maintain their Aspect, which fits well with the title itself, Maid. Others say it's to Protect their Aspect. I disagree with these interpretations, and I'll go over why for each canon example. Jane Crocker, the Maid of Life, was able to bring people back from the dead, though only once per person. She was also able to bring herself back, though again, only once. This doesn't really fit "Maintaining" her Aspect, nor does it seem to fit "Protecting" it. If her role is to protect her Aspect, she failed. I think the most reasonable interpretation of Jane's role is Creator of Life. Aradia Megido, the Maid of Time, is shown to be able to freeze Bec Noir in time after God-tiering. She could have escaped at any time but chose to keep him frozen to buy time for everybody else. She also performs this move against Lord English during [S] Collide, and I have to say. It's one thing to freeze a being with first guardian powers, it's a whole 'nother thing to freeze a LORD OF TIME in place, even if for much less time than she does to Bec Noir. Her role never really indicates "Upkeeping" or "Maintaining" Time. Her ability to freeze foes in Time could suggest a power to Manipulate, similar to Witch. It could also be interpreted as Creating Time, in a very literal sense. Adding Time onto the enemy so much so that they slow to a standstill. She also created Time for her friends by keeping Jack frozen as long as she could. Both valid interpretations. Considering my conclusion with Jane's role, I'm going to go with the Aradia's role being Creator of Time. Porrim Maryam, the Maid of Space, doesn't do anything of note in relation to her role as a Maid, nor does her post-scratch self, the Dolorosa. From all of this, we can, reasonably, determine that the role of a Maid is "One who Creates their Aspect or Creates through their Aspect".

Sylph - Passive (+)

Sylph is not given an exact definition in canon, but Aranea Serket has described her own actions as a Sylph of Light as Healing, so many believe the role of a Sylph to be "One who Heals their Aspect or Heals through their Aspect". We'll see if this definition holds up in analysis. Kanaya Maryam, the Sylph of Space, doesn't do anything of note in relation to her role as a Sylph. Aranea Serket, the Sylph of Light, was able to restore Terezi Pyrope's vision by healing her eyes. She was also able to heal Jake English's personal struggles and essentially bypass his journey to unlock his full potential as a Page instantly. How exactly this works is unknown. It could be she showed him exactly what was his flaws were and how to overcome them, and greatly accelerated his personal internal journey through healing. She also planned to heal a doomed timeline to such relevance that it became the new alpha timeline, therefore reducing Lord English to a footnote. This can be seen as her healing the relevance of the doomed timeline, or even potentially healing through relevance since she'd be saving many people from Lord English's wrath. Now yes, this plan was a failure. In my opinion, it doesn't matter. All that matters is her intentions and the role she intended to perform. Her post-scratch self, Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, does nothing of note in relation to her role as a Sylph. We're in a difficult spot here where we're given very little information from most sources, but a lot of information from one specific source. Given what we know, I'm going to say Aranea most likely represents what the role of a Sylph is, therefore Sylph's role is "One who Heals their Aspect or Heals through their Aspect". In my opinion, this makes perfect sense to pair with Maid, being that Maid is about Creating, and Sylph is about Healing. Similar ideas, no?

Witch - Active (-)

The exact role of the Witch is unknown, therefore we must theorize. Jade Harley, the Witch of Space, was able to manipulate the size and momentum of objects, including entire planets. She was also able to move objects around telekinetically. This could be seen as controlling or Manipulating Space. Feferi Peixes, the Witch of Life, was able to heal WV's injuries, and saved ghosts from being vanquished to oblivion by establishing dream bubbles. These honestly sound much more like the traits of a Sylph, but I personally would interpret it as Feferi simply using her role for good. These actions still fall within the definition of "Manipulation". Damara Megido, the Witch of Time, had vaguely defined Time powers, apparently appearing at key points in the timeline to sabotage her teammates after being driven to snap by Meenah Peixes. She, however, did perform the Scratch with no resistance, gusto even. Possibly because she knew it would cause the end of their universe. Her post-scratch self, the Handmaid, does nothing of note in relation to her role as a Witch. With these analyses, we still can't say with absolute certainty. However, I think the best interpretation is that Witch is "One who Manipulates their Aspect or Manipulates through their Aspect".

Heir - Passive (+)

The role of the Heir is not explicitly stated, therefore we must theorycraft. John Egbert, the Heir of Breath, was able to control the wind itself and create tornadoes. He was also able to turn himself into the wind in order to evade attacks. Neither Grimbark Jade Harley nor Bec Noir were able to catch him in this form. Equius Zahhak, the Heir of Void, was known to be difficult to observe, seemingly due to being surrounded by Void. His blood was also used to block out information in Rose's tome. Mituna Captor, the Heir of Doom, was said to have "prophetic insights" and lost his psychic powers as well as his sanity to protect his friends from an imminent disaster. His post-scratch self, the Ψiioniic, was enlisted as the helmsman of the Condesce's ship, being doomed to a life of being little more than a tool. These all have very few through-lines that could allow me to come up with many ideas. My best interpretation is to treat John Egbert's role with the most significance since we know easily the most about it. In doing such, we can come to the conclusion I drew in my earlier Part 1 post. That being, "One who Embodies their Aspect or is Influenced by their Aspect". Passive in the literal sense, much like the Bard. Now of course Heirs still have control over their Aspect, but it also controls them to an extent. Think of it like this: If you embody your Aspect, and you are in control of yourself, are you not in control of your Aspect?

Mage - Active (-)

The exact definition of Mage's role is unknown, and very little is known about them. Therefore, more theories. When I say little is known about Mages, I mean it. Look at the Wiki page for Mage:

That's literally all we know for 100% certain. That being, nothing. This is where I must express my gratitude to all of the people who analyzed these Classes before me. They walked so I can run, with "run" meaning "have any idea what I'm talking about". The most common definition of Mage is "One who experiences their Aspect and gains deep intuitive knowledge of it". This would make it the Active counterpart to Seer. Let's take a look at canon examples and see what I can string together. Sollux Captor, the Mage of Doom, experiences Doom an impressive number of times, starting with even Pre-Hivebent. Sollux hears the voices of the recently deceased, warning him of the destruction of Alternia. He believes that all Trolls are going to die. Next up is when he wakes up, believing that all of his teammates were in the Medium. Feferi's Lusus soon after unleashed the Vast Glub, a psychic attack that kills all Trolls lower than Fuchsia on the Hemospectrum. Sollux dies in the Glub before he can be brought into the Medium, but is then revived by Feferi, who had not yet entered the Medium. Post-hivebent, Sollux believes that himself and his teammates are all doomed and therefore doesn't bother Trolling the kids. He watches Aradiabot explode as he's having a conversation with her. Believing that she is dead, he goes on to become closer with Feferi and spends a lot of time with her. When Eridan Ampora decides to leave and join Bec Noir, he attempts to get Feferi to join him. She refuses, and Sollux engages with Eridan in a duel. Sollux loses this duel, and is left severely injured. Eridan proceeds to kill Feferi. The duel leaves Sollux unconscious and blinded, but alive. Karkat Vantas drags his body around, intending to keep him safe from the various murderers roaming around at the time. He, however, accidentally drops Sollux's body down the stairs, knocking out his teeth. After waking up, he seems to lose his ability to hear the doomed voices, which brings him great relief. After the creation of the Green Sun via the use of the Tumor, Sollux pilots the meteor away from Bec Noir, and towards the Sun. However, he overexerts himself and dies upon reaching the Sun. All in all, Sollux experiences Doom, and more specifically death, an insane number of times. Meulin Leijon, the Mage of Heart, doesn't do anything of note in relation to her role as a Mage, nor does her post-scratch self, the Disciple. Like I said, we are given incredibly little information and what we can gain comes from just one source, similarly to Sylph. It's difficult to even say that a lot of Sollux's story is even about him being a Mage, having prophetic visions of Doom is something that his dancestor, Mituna Captor, also shares, and he's an Heir of Doom, not a Mage or even a Seer. Mituna also experiences Doom, though this is more expected with him being an Heir. We know so little that I find it difficult to come to a conclusion. However, with the context of most other Classes already being pretty firmly paired, and with what we do know, I think the generally accepted definition is the best interpretation. "One who experiences their Aspect and gains deep intuitive understanding of it".

Seer - Passive (+)

Seer is defined as having extensive knowledge about their Aspect, or using their Aspect to gain knowledge. Thank the heavens, I get to take a break with this one. Rose Lalonde, the Seer of Light, spends extensive time trying to learn about Sburb. Upon learning that their session was impossible to win, she begins breaking the rules, attempting to find any way to save herself and her friends. Through her speaking with the Trolls, deciphering various information from her planet and a collection of artifacts, including a strange crystal ball, she becomes remarkably knowledgeable about Sburb and intends to use this knowledge to break the game. During this time, she is in contact with Doc Scratch, a first guardian that claims to be omniscient. She asks him for information and he claims not to ever lie, but still lies by omission, ultimately fooling Rose into believing that the Tumor would destroy the Green Sun, when in reality, it created it. Terezi Pyrope, the Seer of Mind, was able to see multiple possible outcomes of any given action, and used this knowledge to be decisive and gain a tactical advantage. When Vriska Serket intended to attempt to fight Bec Noir, Terezi is able to see the outcome of letting her go and observes that it would result in all of their deaths. Thus, she chooses to kill Vriska, saving the rest of them. Kankri Vantas, the Seer of Blood, doesn't directly do anything of note in relation to his role as a Seer. His post-scratch self, the Signless Sufferer, was able to see visions of Beforus before the Scratch occured and began preaching about how troll society was on Beforus.

Knight - Active (-)

The role of a Knight is not explicitly defined, but is described by Aradia Megido as a warrior who exploits their Aspect as a weapon. Let's analyze. Dave Strider, the Knight of Time, was able to use time travel to effectively clone himself in order to have more manpower in a fight. He also used time travel to manipulate the stock market on his planet in order to make Boondollars. Karkat Vantas, the Knight of Blood, was naturally skilled at leadership. He used his personal bond with Gamzee Makara to calm him down after he had gone around murdering several people. Latula Pyrope, the Knight of Mind, doesn't do anything of note in relation to her role as a Knight, nor does her Post-scratch self, Neophyte Redglare. From what we are told and the examples we are given, the most reasonable interpretation of Knight's role seems to be what Aradia says, "One who Exploits their Aspect or Exploits through their Aspect".

Page - Passive (+)

The role of a Page is not explicitly defined, nor is it even vaguely defined. We must, once again, interpret based on the journey of known Page players. Something worth noting is that Pages are known to start their journey incredibly weak. They're thought to have a deficit in their Aspect, but if they meet their full potential, they're most definitely the strongest Class of them all, not including the Master Classes. Jake English, the Page of Hope, was almost completely powerless for most of the story. He was able to create a "Brain ghost" version of Dirk Strider in his head that only he (and Terezi Pyrope, interestingly, likely due to her role as a Seer of Mind) could see. Brain ghost Dirk tells Jake that he is "only as real as Jake's ability to believe in him". This lends credence to the idea that Pages create their Aspect in some capacity. When Aranea Serket set her plan to eliminate the Condesce and heal a doomed timeline to relevance into motion, she used her Sylph of Light powers to heal Jake's flaws and accelerate his journey and reach his maximum potential instantly. Upon reaching maximum potential, he created a "Hope field", in addition to several Angels. This Hope field was strong enough to overpower Grimbark Jade Harley empowered by the Green sun. After the creation of the Hope field, Brain ghost Dirk manifested into reality via Jake believing in him. He proceeded to attack Aranea via ripping the soul out of her body. Jake's power was bound to Aranea's existence, however, and his Hope field dissipated. This gave a mind-controlled Jane Crocker an opportunity to attack, killing Jake. Due to this, Brain ghost Dirk stops existing. Jake's death is ultimately deemed not Heroic or Just, therefore he is revived. Tavros Nitram, the Page of Breath, was known as being the weakest of all the Trolls, and never reached his full potential. He could be seen as having a deficit in Breath, due to being wheelchair-bound during hivebent. Horuss Zahhak, the Page of Void, was a self-taught master of his many proficiencies. His skills are stated to be built "from the blank slate his Aspect would imply" and were built "at the slow rate his Class would imply". It's said that his Aspect ruled his life, in the sense that he was never truly recognized for his accomplishments. This would all take place before Sburb, and his role in the Alpha Trolls' session is not mentioned. His Post-scratch self, Executor Darkleer, was apparently able to create "dark pockets", similarly to other Void players. A common definition of Page is "One who provides others with their Aspect". Based on the canon examples, this makes a lot of sense and is probably the closest we can get. I personally phrased this as "One who equips others with their Aspect to fight" in my Part 1 post, just as a way of connecting it more to Knight. I would say Page has the least connection to Knight as a pairing, but with my analyses, there really isn't any other way to pair them up. With other interpretations of certain Classes, sure, it could be matched with a different one. However, for the purposes of this post, it's the Passive counterpart to Knight and is defined as "One who provides others with their Aspect".

Part 4: Conclusion

That brings us to the end of this post! This took a lot longer than I expected, I would've likely had it done on the 15th if a certain TV drama I watch wasn't airing that night (S'all good, man). This won't be my last post, I have plenty of other ideas to talk about, but it'll be a while. Writing long posts like this can be very draining! See y'all later! -Crowe

#homestuck #classpect #classpect analysis #classpect guide #homestuck classpect #homestuck class analysis

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spikeisawesome456 · 1 year

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I don’t tend to post personal things here, but I honestly don’t know where else to post this, since I don’t want to bother my friends with this all, nor do I want to bother my family, so please bare with me as I get everything off my chest. Feel free to ignore this if you want, it’s just a personal ramble about everything happening in my life, but if anyone has any advice or words of comfort, they would be appreciated.

Just a warning, this is long and rambling, so... be warned. I tried to add context, but it's a lot, oof.

So, as I stated here a few days ago, I just turned 25. And since then, everything seems to have taken a downhill tail spin to hell. Literally the night of my birthday, my dad’s appendix burst and we had to wait almost sixteen hours before it was finally dealt with. We didn’t even know what was wrong for about seven of those hours, since the hospital was hellishly crowded. I was absolutely terrified that I was going to lose my dad, who I am very close with and who does a lot for me with my various problems with anxiety and whatnot. Without him, I’d be literally lost.

Anyway, he made it through the surgery fine, but now he’s having problems with his throat and he has a cold, which is terrifying after he just went through surgery and we don’t know if it’s a major problem or something common. His doctors don’t seem super concerned now, but they’ve said if it gets worse that it could be a problem, and now I’m terrified that it will get worse.

On top of all of that, my daily life is still going on. I’m currently in grad school to get my master’s in educational counseling to hopefully become a school counselor, and I have an internship at a middle school that I have to get up early for, something I’ve not done since I middle school myself (since I had such bad anxiety in 8th grade that I developed migraines and was unable to wake up early without pain). I’ve gotten better over the years and have been waking up these past few weeks without any complications, but it’s exhausting me, especially since I’m still working part time after the internship as an after school teacher. I’m waking up at 6:35 am and am going straight through to 6:00 pm with only a half hour car ride as a break (which luckily I am a passenger for, since I don’t have a driver’s license and my dad drives me. Another thing he does for me that I’d be lost without him for).

And then, to put more complications on top of this all, my coworker is upset with me for something I can’t really change, since I’m just trying to do my job. She’s upset with me since I am fairly confident with the kids and with my role at the job, so I tend to answer the kids when they ask questions and am confident with how the program is run, since I’ve worked for the company for almost five years and have worked at this site specifically for almost two. She’s upset with me since she thinks the kids don’t respect her since I counter what she says, even though I don’t try to? I literally am just answering the kids’ questions and am doing what I’ve been told to do by our supervisor, but I guess she told the kids something that isn’t how our supervisor does things, and is upset about it? I don’t know, I’m not explaining it all right since I’m so upset by everything. I think she wants the kids to respect her more and I go against the things she says, but a lot of the things she says are wrong and even the kids sometimes know she’s wrong! She doesn’t even know the name of our set of rules, even though they’re the same at all the sites, we say them literally EVERY SINGLE DAY, and she’s been working for the company a little longer than I have! She worked with my brother back when he worked for my company, even! And she’s much older than me, at least in her mid 30’s! I just…

I don’t know. I’m so stressed about everything and I’m trying to keep it together, but I’m so stressed out and scared. I’m 25 now but I still feel like I’m a child. My internship is at a middle school and half the time I still feel like I’m one of them, struggling just to survive day to day. I literally had a kid come in today with a similar problem that I’m dealing with with my coworker, and I’m just like… what can I even do? I told my supervisor about everything, but now I’m terrified that she’s going to be upset with me over bothering her over text at 9:00 at night when she’s pregnant and sick, even though when she replied she didn’t say anything to indicate that she’s upset with me.

I don’t know what to do, but I can’t take time off to cope because there is so much I have to do. I need to get 300 hours minimum at my internship, and then I need to find another internship and get another 300 hours, and I have to finish my degree by June 2024, otherwise my degree is useless since my university “terminated” my program (DON’T even ask, that’s another problem that’s too complicated to explain), and while that seems like a long time, that’s only two more school semesters after this one. And I got lucky with this internship since one of my adjunct professors needed an intern and his school was close enough to where I live, so I’ve never had to do the whole “find your own internship” thing, which apparently my college makes us do, since my college sucks. I’m also needed at work, since my other coworker has been sick this week, and my supervisor is going on maternity leave in a couple months, and the kids need me. They miss me when I’m gone and ask where I’ve been and I don’t want to disappoint them. I don’t want to disappoint anyone.

I feel like I’m falling apart at the seams and I don’t know what to do and it’s freaking me out. I’m trying so hard to keep it together for my family, and my coworkers/supervisors, and the kids, but I still feel like I’m fifteen and lying in bed with a migraine, so terrified that I’m going to fail that I developed an excuse to make my failure not my fault. I try so hard to be confident in my work, but then my coworker comes and undermines what I’m doing, saying different rules and getting upset when I say the correct ones.

My coworker sent me this text today (pictured below) and it triggered everything in me to go off all at once, and I don’t know what to do. I know that tomorrow I’ll get up and keep going like I always do, but for tonight I’m terrified I’m going to lose my dad, and that I’m going to fail my internship, and I’m going to get in trouble at work. I’m scared I’m not doing enough and that I’ll never be enough. That what I’m doing is not enough. That I should be doing more. When my dad’s appendix burst, I couldn’t drive him to the hospital since I’m too afraid to get my driver’s license. What if that led to his death? What if my fears lead to someone’s death?

(The red spot is where my supervisor's name was, by the by. And reflection time is like a time out. I also didn't interrupt her, and I separated them because they are supposed to be separated during that time, not sitting right next to each other on a bench. Which she would know, if she FREAKING PAID ATTENTION.)

Oh! And I completely forgot about this with everything going on today, but I hurt my shoulder on Monday getting my mom's wheelchair out of the car (she has quadriplegic cerebral palsy, so she's always been in a chair. My dad usually gets it in and out of the car, but with his surgery he's unable to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds for a couple weeks, so my brother and I have to pick up the slack. I even took the day off on Monday to help out, which is another stressor for me). My shoulder has been aching for the past two days, though luckily it isn't hurting now, which is why I forgot it with everything going on, but it's still yet another thing on top of the mountain. And this isn't even all of it. But if I keep talking, I'll be here forever, and I don't want that. I will say though that sometimes I wonder if I still have anxiety, since usually I have some pretty good coping skills for my anxiety that I independently developed over the years, and it's moments like this that remind me that, yep. Still do. .-.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening to my rambling. I’ve not written something like this in years (which isn’t helping me feel any older, honestly), but it does help to get it out. Please, please be kind if you respond. I would be okay with advice, but just… be gentle if you can. So much has happened in five days and I’m struggling to handle it all. I am handling it all, but it’s a heavy load. So just… be gentle, please.

Thank you.

#Don't be too worried about me though #I can handle this and honestly just writing this has helped so much #But it's a lot and I wanted to let at least someone know how much I'm carrying #Even if it's just anonymous strangers on the internet #I'm trying so hard and I'm handling it with as much grace as I can #I swear though if things don't get better with my coworker I'm taking a leave of absence #Kids and income be damned #I hate it since I love these kids so much but I need to take care of myself and I don't need problems with my coworker #Especially since this isn't the first coworker I've had problems with #I've literally had problems with coworkers every year I've worked at my company #At what point do I acknowledge that it may be me that's the problem? Or is it not me?#I tend to have problems with people who don't follow rules since I'm very orderly and structured. So if they don't follow the rules I can't #function well #Ugh I don't know #But yeah if this doesn't get resolved I'm taking a gosh darn break from this nonsense #I'm doing well with the internship so I can just focus on that for a little while god

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gutsfics · 8 months

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pls google top and bottom and bdsm. many queers are into bdsm too (like me). things like you said tonight hurt and diminish us. i want to educate you so you know there are more than one meaning and i hope it isn't your wish to hurt us. i like your blog and i hope you would post this to educate. i don't want to unfollow but this is not the first time you did this and i am start to feel like you are not safe.

okay i have googled it (just so we're on the same page i haven't used google in about a year as i haven't found it trustworthy since people started being able to pay for their sites to show up in search results first. i use duckduckgo)

here's one article i found

and another

and here's two more that specifically mention BDSM

what this search has done for me has confirmed that the terms "top" and "bottom" originated in gay communities specifically in reference to whether one is penetrating or being penetrated during sex (and just to get it out of the way, yes i am aware that penetration doesn't always happen in sex), and adopted by other communities to mean other things

and like. yeah man. that happens with language. language is fluid, words change their meaning with time and location.

my problem, which i am fully aware i have never properly articulated and that is on me 100%, is the way these words have evolved to mean what they mean in different communities.

in both gay and straight communities, the act of penetration is seen as masculine and the act of being penetrated is seen as feminine. how often is it expected that the big burly bear masc tops the tiny flowy femme twink? and in straight communities, a man being pegged by a woman is seen as emasculating and shameful as being penetrated is seen as a woman's role. yes, times are changing and these views are being challenged, but these views have to exist first to be challenged. if they didn't exist, this would be a nonissue. topping and bottoming has essentially just become the gender binary 2 in vanilla communities.

so surely you can understand why i am made uncomfortable when a word that is used to mean penetration is also used to mean dominant and in control, and when a word used to mean being penetrated is used to mean submissive. you can penetrate while being submissive and you can be penetrated while being dominant.

besides, it's not like there aren't any other words to refer to who's in control and who isn't in BDSM spaces. that's what "dom" and "sub" refer to.

i am also aware that not all sex has dominant and submissive roles in it.

granted, while i myself am interested in BDSM, i haven't interacted with any BDSM community, irl or online, and i can understand how my own- rather limited- knowledge and experiences can lead me to saying something hurtful to someone. i am truly sorry for hurting you, anon. not every thought i post to this blog is given the same amount of consideration and thought as this post.

that being said, i would like to reiterate what i said last night about your final line, anon. do not hold yourself hostage in my inbox again. i will not respond to any further attempts to guilt trip me like this, from you or anyone else. if you want to unfollow me, you can unfollow me and i will not hold that against you. you have to curate your own experience to truly feel safe on the internet, i know this first hand.

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celestial-alignment · 9 months

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Hi! I hope it’s okay to hop into your ask box to talk about tagging. I feel like we’ve been on tumble for a similar amount of time, and I just wanted your thoughts or opinions on what I feel like is incorrect tagging. The 2 main sides I’ve seen have been on people that are tagging their content but they are tagging it as “s*x” or “p*wp*w” or something with a cutesy name that makes it more g rated. But they do not tag it as sex or gun violence as well. Which in turn mean that people are not able to filter this content or make an informed choice on weather they want to engage with that content. And then the second is where people are tagging with specific tags, such as character a x character b with the goal of getting as many people to read or engage with their content, but it has nothing to do with this character. I’ve been comparing it to false advertising. And I understand that tagging on Tumblr has never been great (it’s not AO3), but I really feel like with the fall of other sites Reddit and Twitter being the main that come to mind and this resurgence of Tumblr that the issue has become more pronounced. I feel like the 1st is a safety concern and the second is just rude/inconvenience especially when creators are called out multiple time by different blogs and refuse to except that the way they are tagging is not the way that tagging works on Tumblr or otherwise. I guess I was just wonder if others were seeing the issues or if I was just becoming the grouchy old man screaming at the neighbor kids to get off the lawn. And if it’s not just me, if you or your followers have come up with a way to filter these out. I’ve just resorted to blocking accounts that refuse to tag in a safe or appropriate manner.

Hiya!

It’s always okay to hop in my ask box!

I’ve definitely seen other discussions about the problems of tagging, or lack thereof.

If I’m totally honest, I need to preface my response with saying that I’m perhaps one of the lucky ones in that it is very rare for words or content to trigger me in some debilitating way (I might be too numb to the world, which is concerning in its own right but a topic for another day), but I have loved ones who have had genuine traumas and have been subjected to unexpected triggers. Having not experienced the extreme of it first hand (for me I usually feel strong annoyance at the worst), I have seen how damaging it can be to other people and that makes me very aware of it online, especially Tumblr.

That being said, I wholly agree with you that censoring words in the tags defeats the whole purpose of tagging. You can censor all you like in the post itself or text images, whatever, but the tag blockers simply won’t work if the word in its proper spelling isn’t there. So when people are using asterisks in place of vowels (like s*x) with the intention of being careful and protecting someone? It’s doing the exact opposite.

I agree with the second thing too, about characters and their ships being tacked on to a buttload of other tags for the sake of exposure, even though it isn’t relevant. It’s definitely false advertising! It’s basically click bait. I’m sure there are cases where it was not intentional, perhaps the characters and their ship have a small role in a longer fic, so the author or op thought it was important to include them, but if they aren’t the focus, and if they aren’t important enough to the rest of the story if it’s a fic, I think it’s probably best to leave it out of the tags. Worst case scenario for not tagging it is the people who like it will be pleasantly surprised. The people who don’t like it can keep scrolling or for fics will just have to tolerate it for the small part that it’s included in the story.

Tagging on Tumblr is very much a unique animal. I never see it translate well onto other platforms, so a lot of newbies on this site probably go the Tik Tok or Instagram route where the more tags the better, even if they’re just barely relevant. I once put my own comments in hashtags on Instagram, and someone called me out on it not understanding why I was writing long tags that don’t even exist in the algorithm. LMAO oops

Block tags when you can, block accounts when you have to. I’ve done it here and there, because in a place like Tumblr, the more comfortable you can make it for yourself the better. It’s not always worth the fight or the argument in this wild west site.

Also, I know I am not always the best at tagging things. Usually I get lazy when it comes to tagging specific fandoms, but I do try because I know some of the things I like may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay!

I am also always open to anyone who needs to kick me in the ass to tag better or something. Scrolling Tumblr half awake most of the time does not make for a conscientious reblogger…

Thank you for the ask! I don’t always voice my opinions on things here, but I don’t want you to be the only old man screaming at those kids on your lawn. I’m right there next to you shaking a fist at them. You’re not alone in this, Anon, I agree all the way around and I know there are others who agree as well.

I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on this too!

#ask #tagging #tumblr tags #tag properly

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rollercoasterwords · 1 year

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thoughts on andrea and michonne?? the most fucking queer coded relationship everrr they WERE dating idc

ok it has been literal years since i've watched the earlier seasons of the walking dead but NO UR SO RIGHT michonne was literally in love with andrea like. ok no u know what u have actually unlocked a rant lmao this is ur own fault for coming into my inbox to talk about twd

(spoiler warning)

ok so i actually HATE what they did to michonne's character over the course of the walking dead, and i think like. looking at what's going on with her character is essentially a case study in what i dislike about the show.

and like, when i say dislike--here's the thing. twd is like. undeniably one of THE most influential pieces of zombie media to ever exist. like it's the quintessential zombie tv show, it helped pioneer the genre, etc etc. and the show has really, really good moments, and there are things i really enjoy about it. so when i say i dislike it, i'm not trying to say that it's like...a bad show, if that makes sense? BUT the thing i hate about the walking dead and i think genuinely one of the biggest flaws underlying so much of it is that like. the setup of the show is the setup of pretty much any zombie apocalypse, right, where you get Normal Society completely turned on its head and destroyed. and for a queer viewer (me, for example) this is so much fun because it's such a site of potential. like--BAM! old world order is meaningless. it's been destroyed. what new shit are you gonna create? what matters to you now?

but the walking dead does the thing that so much zombie media does (unsurprisingly, because most media in generally does this in some way shape or form), which is invest itself in reproductive futurism; essentially, focus on recreating the past in the future (specifically through the figure of the Child--hi Carl! and then bye Carl, and hi Judith, and...well, yeah.) so, we see these groups of survivors coming together and struggling against the way things are so that they can go back to the way things were, with very little change to any of the social structures that caused problems in that old world order in the first place.

and this is super interesting for the way it plays out with queerness, because so much of gender is inherently queered in the apocalypse. like, suddenly the rules have changed, and people cannot perform gender in the ways they used to. but rather than explore that, by and large the walking dead just finds ways to reinforce Old Gender Roles and emphasizes this return to the past as evidence that we haven't Lost Society or Our Humanity (i have written an entire paper about this topic i truly. could go on and on. this is the Sparknotes i promise lol)

OKAY SO. michonne. there's this article i like, Queering and Cripping the End of the World: Disability, Sexuality, and Race in The Walking Dead, by Cathy Hannabach, (you can find it in this book) which talks about the inherent queerness of michonne's character. she writes:

From her introduction to the series all the way through her every scene, Michonne remains the most resistant and “othered” body on the show. Simultaneously marked as African American, queer, butch, and disabled, Michonne represents all that the show seems to be working against. Yet because of this she provides one of the clearest examples of the tenuousness of compulsory heterosexuality, compulsory able-bodiness, and compulsory whiteness in post-apocalyptic Atlanta.

and she later goes on to say about michonne + andrea's relationship:

By employing camera angles, framing, costumes, blocking, and eye line matches that we have been trained to read as signifying sexual coupledom, indeed the same ones used in the show to represent heterosexual couples such as Lori/Rick and Maggie/Glenn, The Walking Dead can plausibly render Andrea and Michonne a lesbian couple and make their relationship central to the narrative without ever having to explicitly declare it....In this way, Michonne can be queered through her removal from normative constructions of gender (femininity) and race (whiteness), thus offering a momentary critique of those ideologies, even while the show as a whole can maintain its overarching ideological investment...

so, in summary: michonne is a queer character. and, in fact, throughout the show she's often used as a sort of counterpoint to the normative/dominant structures at play--for example, hannabach goes on in this article to discuss michonne's distrust of the Governor and how it separates her from the other survivors. (edit - i've received two messages about my labeling of michonne as a queer character here, so i want to be clear. while hannabach labels michonne as butch, that is not an argument that i am invested in, and the perceived masculinity of michonne's character is not what i'm talking about here. to me, michonne's introduction to the show is queer because of her relationship with andrea and the way the two characters act, as well as her structural position outside dominant power structures. as in, her wariness and suspicion regarding the other characters' project of trying to re-create society as it once was.)

BUT. this article was written sometime in...2014? or at least, that's when the book it appears in was published. AFTER this article was written, in season 6 of the show (which didn't air until 2015), michonne and rick become a couple, and remain a couple all the way through season 11. in fact, they're now getting their very own spinoff show! (edit - again, since someone sent me a message abt this: i don't want to downplay the importance of michonne's relationship with rick in that it provides representation of a black woman as a prominent love interest, a role that black woman have historically been excluded from in american media. however, i don't think reading her as a queer character is at odds with this representation, as she could just as easily have been a prominent love interest for andrea. and while michonne's relationship with rick is progressive in terms of representation, it ultimately contributes to a character who was once suspicious of this project to re-create society becoming deeply invested in it. that is what i am saying disappoints me here.)

so what we end up with is this very queer character who is ultimately folded back into the project of heteronormativity + reproductive futurity, who herself becomes a Mother and the protector of the Figural Child (RJ, and also Judith), and ultimately, despite her very queer introduction into the show, ends up being one more proponent for the Return To How Things Were. boooooooo!

#don't even get me STARTED on twd finale #like....was i surprised?#no #but was i still disappointed?#yes.#like. they could have at least done what they were trying to do WELL #if ur gonna commit to the bit then COMMIT yknow #anyway #yes michonne and andrea were in love #or at least michonne was in love w andrea i could see it going either way in terms of whether andrea reciprocated #but yeah. if u ask me anything abt zombies u are probably getting an essay back #this is perhaps the topic that i am The Least Normal About

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sofoulandfairaday · 9 months

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Forgive me if you've already said this, but where can I read your fics? Your opinions are always very interesting and I am intrigued to see them developed into a story.

Ya can’t lmao

No, see, I mostly write for myself because I enjoy it and therefore it’s shameless self-indulgent content. I cry when writing sad scenes, I giggle at the crack-y ones, I get flustered with the smut, I spend hours researching the little details like book titles and whether jasmine grows in Venice or not and what the magical hierarchy of cities is and how dark magic can also heal and not just destroy and how not to make the characters overpowered because that is such a pet peeve of mine. It’s very VERY specific to my taste and I overthink every single word I write (yes, the curtains are yellow for a reason). I do have a very long 50+ chapter WIP which will maybe be published when finished. Since every fucking chapter is about 8K words long it will never be finished and no one will ever bother reading it ihihihihi.

(Just publish the first chapters!, you say. I wish I could write linearly, I reply)

Also, there is another HUGE problem. Most of my stuff is written in Italian. The very few excerpts on here are translated. Do you know how hard it is to try and convey the precise feelings you had when writing something, the word plays and the very specific descriptions in another language? It’s a whole job, and a boring one most of the time, which means that my Anna Karenina length fucking fan fiction (not even close to finished) has to be translated by me in my nonexistent down time. Also, I used to be one of those people who bitched about GRRM, but MAN my story has maybe spiralled into 100 different directions and I have no idea which version of the characters I want to stick to, what order I want to give certain events, and if they are IC or not anymore. Can you tell that I’m a perfectionist and I make even fun things unfunny?

Which is also why I’m so behind with the fics I want to read and review both in eng and ita. I DO see the new stuff published and I have NO time to look at it let alone tell the author what I think.

(Also I erase half of what I write because cringe and I have a self-insert OC - double cringe - that was meant to be a fun minor wink wink character in two (2) chs that has become important so now it CAN’T be a self-insert and i have to make psychologically complex except now she’s too bitchy and then she’s not bitchy enough to the point she is nothing like me now which kind of invalidates the point entirely. Also, I hate everybody else’s OCs so why should my writing have one when I could concentrate on other characters?? Except I can’t give her role to anyone else unless I rewrite half of the whole thing so I am stuck and-)

When Olivia Rodrigo said and I hate every song I write and I’m not cool and I’m not smart (and I can’t even parallel park) that’s me :))))

I am so sorry anon by the way this wasn’t meant to be a rant you’ve just opened Pandora’s box and now I’m afraid I come off as a little unhinged. I am honestly flattered that you would send this, bless you. You’re my favourite ❤️

WITH THAT BEING SAID, there is something of mine on the internet (most of it SUCKS). Unless you know Italian you won’t be able to read it though. My account on a very popular Italian fanfic site still has my old little Bellamort song fics from when I was 13 (I can’t even bring myself to cancel them because cancelling them would mean opening them and opening them means I combust from the cringe). My views of the characters have also changed and I stand by NOTHING lmao. There is also some new stuff which is all smut (some I’m proud of and some I’ll delete as soon as I get over myself and just open the damn site) and maybe one (1) one-shot that I’m actually proud of.

And in English? The only thing that has ever been translated in English as of now is 8K+ words of filthy (and I mean filthy) PW very little P smut which I will not link on an account that actual people from my actual offline life might find (it’s hard enough to explain what’s on here) . However if you know me it’s not impossible to track down (or you can just dm me). There is no deeper meaning or philosophical themes or anything like that tho; if you’re attracted to my thoughtful metas where I quote and dissect the book passages or my quirky headcanons where I tease the characters, this is not that. This is just them fucking.

Sorry ❤️

#I think I exposed myself with this one #it’s literally THE most flattering thing in the world to receive an ask like this #idk why you would want to #but it still makes my day

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thebiballerina · 1 year

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Community-Building (and a warning about choosing Discord for online communities)

Here are some notes I have on community-building. I am coming at this from the perspective of someone who has started online communities, moderated additional communities, and lead both new and established in-person community organizations. I hope someone finds this helpful!

This post has also been cross-posted to Dreamwidth.

Clarifying The Term "Community"

When I refer to "a community" in this sense, I am referring to a specific space that attracts people around a common interest. The interest doesn't have to be what we may traditionally think of as an interest. For example, "living in the same neighborhood and wanting it not to be terrible," can be an interest. I'll probably lean slightly more towards talking about online communities here, because that is where we are currently talking, but most of this applies or can be altered to fit offline community dynamics.

Don't "Reinvent the Wheel"

One thing I think is really important in community-building is to not put too much effort into figuring out things which other communities have most certainly figured out before you. I think that is a huge mistake many new community leaders make. Use your resources!

For example, if your community is a Discord server, Discord itself has an entire section of their website devoted to helping you learn how to moderate better, and that's outside of their resources on the technical aspects. If your community is an activist community, check your local library resources, talk to people at research institutions who study these types of movements, and talk to activists in related areas on how they maintain their organizations. If you are starting or taking over leadership of a school extracurricular club, your school may have resources on how to make it better. My university has an entire department that will help with that, including with specific scenarios such as leadership transfers, declining membership, etc.

If you plan to start a local organization, look into whether you may be better served starting a branch of a regional, national, or international organization. Or perhaps you could work with a coalition of similar organizations. If that possibility exists, you already have framework and resources to start the organization, and there are likely people whose job role specifically includes helping people like you succeed.

The point is: Whatever you want to do, people have done this before. People naturally assemble in communities; they have done it for thousands of years, and for at least the past few centuries, they have often kept records while they have done so. Take advantage of that!

Also, don't just stick to frameworks and tools you know. Look into your options. For example, I see a lot of Discord servers that pop up these days for communities that I'm not sure are best served by Discord servers. I will elaborate on these cases under the cut.

Potential Problems with Discord for Online Communities

Note that I do not mean this as a criticism of any communities, creators, moderators, or users. I mean this as an observation and warning regarding potential community dynamics, and nothing more.

To be clear, I love using Discord, and I love that it is becoming more popular. I moderate multiple Discord servers, so I am not saying this because I have something against Discord. But I have seen a few Discord servers, especially very large ones, that I think would have been better off as forums, Dreamwidth communities, subreddits, or using some other service/site. Or, perhaps, they would have been better off using Discord for only some community functions, and also having other "homes" online. Allow me to elaborate, in general terms, on why many large or fast-growing communities are not best served by Discord, at least not in their entirety.

Why communities, especially large ones, may encounter issues as Discord servers:

It is really difficult to moderate a server with many people, especially one that grows quickly and requires many channels to stay organized. If the creator has a predetermined moderator team on hand, this can lead to a moderator team without diverse perspectives and opinions, as well as troubling dynamics when the original mod team is a group of friends or a segment of a different community. If the creator does not have a predetermined moderator team on hand, it takes time for community members to become involved and trusted enough to be responsibly chosen as moderators, and it takes time for responsible community members to develop enough trust and attachment in the community that they want to moderate in the first place. Therefore, a server which grows extremely quickly will have trouble finding a sufficient number of moderators in a timely manner.

While a synchronous conversation style (i.e. channels with one long continuous chain of messages) can work well for smaller communities, it's not great for many larger communities which often segment into sub-communities. Some of this is mitigated by Discord's newer features, which include replies, threads, and the forum feature (which is only available in community servers at the moment). But it is still Discord's main method of communication, as opposed to other services which may operate on a more asynchronous style of communication.

If the community is big, it is often based on a somewhat well-known topic (I use "well-known" in a relative sense), and invite links may be posted publicly. The server might also be listed on Discord's community pages if it wishes to make use of the functions of community servers (which include the forum feature at this point in time). Therefore, this creates a community which essentially anyone can join (at least for some period of time), but the conversations themselves are not public. This leads to valuable information and discussions on a popular topic being kept in a closed space, when they could be helpful if they were publicly posted. Also, this means new members may have difficulty understanding what they are getting into when they join. Finally, this contributes to issues regarding accountability and safety.

The Accountability and Safety Issue

A large Discord community might:

be too large and too busy to moderate properly,

be still growing, faster than they could possibly responsibly onboard moderators,

contain many sub-interests, so people may frequently take conversations to direct messages or their own servers, then moving the conversations out of the original moderators' purview entirely,

not be viewable to the outside world,

not have a built in method to keep users updated on the results of harassment and abuse decisions,

not have a built-in record-keeping system for messages deleted/edited by original senders or deleted by moderators, and many third-party bots which perform these functions only do so for moderators, not users who submit harassment reports.

Well, you may start to see how that is dangerous, and vulnerable to abuse. So, keep these issues in mind when you consider what service will be the best home for a community you wish to start or grow.

I hope you found this information interesting or helpful! If there is interest, I can work on assembling a list of resources for community-building. Let me know in the comments!

#community #community building #discord server #fandom #fandom community #advice #how to #discord mod

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hedorah · 1 year

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What's wrong with orientalism in TMNT? || It's actually more probable that the creative team of most media don't go through fans' content, to avoid fans claiming plagiarism if the content does something a fan has also done. I'm not saying all creative teams stay away from their fans' content, just it's more likely they avoid it. Unless you have significant proof? || Your blog's cursor animation is cool.

1. not to say that tmnt is "irredeemable" or anything like that, but orientalism and anti-asian stereotyping has been a bit of a recurring problem throughout the franchise history ('87 especially... some of the lotus blossom episodes were hard to watch). for the last ronin lost years issues in particular, now that mike is going through parts of asia (japan, korea, china, mongolia so far), it really kind of becomes evident when taking into consideration how each country is depicted. more under cut cuz this got looooong

the second and third issues that partially took place in korea especially bothered me, since i'm ethnically korean with a family history on both sides of the border. unified korea is either portrayed like one of those neon, oversaturated, exoticizing pictures of east asian cities (see issue 2's cover) or dirty and full of violence, corruption, and criminal activity, depending on which side of the border mikey's on at the moment. the orientalism here is in this portrayal of koreans as a dirty, violent other for the turtles to judge and beat up. hell, donnie even calls them uncivilized:

what the hell man, i thought you were cool. also, the writers saw fit to... turn all of what was china into a nuclear wasteland after a 9.6 earthquake in beijing? despite china being massive??? this is a confusing decision and i can only wonder why it was made

the parts of the comic that take place in japan and mongolia feature characters that seemingly exist only to help mikey on his journey and train him. i fucked up here and accidentally deleted a huge chunk of this paragraph, and i'm neither japanese nor mongolian, so i can't and will not get into the specifics because i really don't want to put my foot in my mouth talking about the specifics of cultures and ethnic groups that i'm not a part of

either way, asians in the last ronin: lost years are portrayed as an "other", a contrast to our american (mike explicitly refers to himself as "american" in issue 2) protagonists. they're either violent goons for action scenes or wise, hospitable mentors for mikey to learn from, but so far we haven't seen many asian characters outside of these two roles

unfortunately i think orientalism is something thats kind of hard to avoid in a franchise like this, where its primarily non-asian, american creatives writing stories that feature asian (japanese) characters and cultures for almost 40 years running (i checked, and i think there's only one asian american working on tlr:ly as an associate editor). ideally creatives would avoid orientalism and instead treat asian characters like actual people instead of "the other", but...well. yknow. to clarify, it's perfectly fine to like tmnt, hell i'm a MASSIVE fan with a decent collection of comics on my shelf. but i think its something that we as fans should be mindful of when engaging with the source material and fan works. sorry if my explanation is a little scattered, i need to go get dinner rn haha ^^"

2. at the very least, one of the artists scrolls through the lost ronin hashtag, he liked and rted my picture of lost years issue #1 and my ronin figures' boxes. i didn't really mean like fanfic or anything like that, just casual social media stuff, and so i didn't really want to bother the actual creators because lord knows how the twitter algorithm works. shit's dark magic to me and if i got pqrted id cry and wail because twt confuses me [exaggeration]

3. ty! i'm surprised it still works after all these years haha, i think i got it from this site

#the calzone #still not as extremely terrible as transformers idw and its asian politics arc LMAOOOOO #long post

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dramarising-replacement · 2 years

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While I do enjoy that the writers for the lore decided to take a more familial approach to the deities as having them as siblings - I find a lot of issues in how certain aspects of the lore are set up. As a note before I start my spiel — this is not in defense of any incest shipping or irl incest or whatever, I for one am not personally invested in the lore to care enough about what people do with these characters off-site, it’s just not my problem at that point; but, I will say I don’t personally care for the incest shipping or shipping the deities because I’m not as invested in their individual characters to seek enjoyment of that and the implication of incest is yes - a deterrent to me. This “rant” isn’t against any group of people it’s just me observing the personal issues I have with the lore using my skills in narrative, mythological, and metaphorical literacy (which isn’t a college degree level or anything it’s just my basic understanding of literature). That being said; I agree with this needing to stay offsite for the reason alone that things will get extremely hostile fast with this sort of stuff, and as creators of the site, if they feel uncomfortable with certain things on their site are allowed to keep it off site - if you like this you can still create and view content of them OFF site. While maybe not the best solution it’s better than the amount of vitriol this would spew from both sides of the argument. That being said, nerd time.

So from the beginning we can infer a very sibling esc relationship with the first four - not only is it heavily implied through the very beginning of their stories, but (though I wouldn’t blame or belittle anyone for not seeing it or interpreting it this way) when the Deities bicker about what should be done with their new planet, reminiscent of sibling rivalry. To quickly draw our attention back to the very start, you could infer their relation to eachother from their overall creation; all four Gods are borne of magic imbibed within Sorneith, the magic within the planet or celestial body itself being the Parent in this case to the four. In many mythologies this metaphorical “birth” of primordial beings in its most basic attributes is common; from chaos or nothingness comes forth the first major Gods, deities, spirits, etc. and often in these cases, if multiple are born at this point they are counted as each others siblings because they share the same creator. Now that we’ve got that settled, this is generally where the problem begins.

After the Deities begin to scuffle between eachother, two other Draconic beings are directly formed from each pairs elements combining, the Icewarden and Stormcatcher are born from the pairs of siblings — but they are simply referred to as their siblings too. Now, this doesn’t make sense to me, and while I can generally argue that the other gods after this point are a lot more vague as to their creation and thus their relationship with the four, Icewarden and Stormcatcher aren’t; they have, in some form, parents due to how the story has them come to be as more of a direct outcome of two individuals interactions with each other.

Generally, in mythology, and in modern media as well, when an individual or more creates something they are assigned a paternal role, while their creation is their offspring. We modernly do this with inanimate objects, concepts, etc. and in ancient times this was no different, for example, in Egyptian mythology Ra created Sekhmet from his severed eye and she is thus referred to as one of his children. While their creation is not typical, a similar relationship of parent and child is given to them, even when said “child” isn’t humanoid or even alive. So when I read this even if they are canonically siblings — it just doesn’t read that way. It reads like Tidelord and Windsinger are fathering the Stormcatcher into existence due to how the story places them specifically as responsible for the birth of this new Deity, the same going for the Earthshaker and Flamecaller with the creation of the Icewarden. This isn’t necessarily a bad or even uncommon thing though - specifically from a purely mythological standpoint, may I emphasize, because commonly, we can see this throughout many different myths - especially the creation myth.

To use Greek mythology this time, within the Hesiod version of the myth, Chaos is the first being to exist and they do so in complete obscurity until they form Nyx, the goddess of darkness from the shadows all around them. Afterwards, Chaos and Nyx, parent and daughter, create Erebus, and Nyx and Erebus, mother and son, take each other as husband and wife and bring forth Aether and Hemera. Technically, we can argue that Nyx is not genetically related to Chaos, they did not literally birth her, her creation is spoken of as a more literal action of them forming her like a sculpture, but that does not remove them as her parent and this is done afterwards in many other myths with the resulting Gods still being seen as their creator’s child. So, to me, no matter how you choose to view it, or the story attempts to direct you towards another outcome, the story overall implies that Wind and Tide fathered Storm (goes for earth flame and ice too I just got lazy) since these concepts do not exist within a vacuum, and it might be more so due to the focus on Wind and Tide than the elements at hand. How the story is told puts too much emphasis on them being Storms ultimate creators when it is implied slightly at the beginning that technically; this magic was always out there in existence, it’s just that it needed a push to be awakened. An easy solution to this is simply adding an easier “parent” or source to all of the deities which seems to be Sorneiths essence(?) as it is, I feel like if they downplayed or didn’t emphasize the first four’s hands in the creation of storm and ice, people would be less likely to make the connection of that being their parents - because even though the incest may be uncomfortable, to me what is more bothersome (as someone who has no life) is how the story and writers insist sibling-hood when that’s not discernible outside of the insistence.

I also have an overall issue with how the deities interact with one another seeming generally either reductive of siblinghood or ignorant of it, while when deities do interact like siblings occasionally it is very engaging. I love the Earthshaker in personality when it comes to all the deities, but I honestly perceive his role as paternal more so than sibling esc, and honestly it might solve the overall issue? But even then I feel like that’s more headcanon-y than it is an actual solution. I feel like the deities need either more interaction as siblings or their relationships with eachother should be further explained - tell us what siblinghood means to them on some level, because while the Plaguebringer and Gladekeeper are more obviously siblings out of all the eleven, it’s mainly cause we get to seem the interact in a way that is familiar. If how they behave is alien to us, the viewers, it should be at least somewhat explained what sibling relationships or titles mean to them — lore wise it would even translate as to how dragons might view eachother day to day. Like, the deities could’ve been made from the same source, but due to them being inhuman and not thinking on our terms, they thought absolutely nothing of it and didn’t care what it might imply - that’s a possible way to view this, but the source material does directly tell us they are related at the very least via the same “creator”. I just think that if they want to better solidify this sibling bond they should alter how ice and storm are born because it conflicts with what they’re telling us, and I do like the sibling angle a lot because of how funny it is that the deities are all just having a really shitty family get together — only a few of them stay in contact with eachother and at least four of them actually wanna kill eachother. Earthshaker just wants his family to get along for long enough to actually set up the silverware for the love of god - as a concept it’s great, but it has problems in its execution that can be easily repaired and I hope these specific issues are if they ever edit or revamp the lore. It just sticks out to me in a way that breaks some of the immersion is all. With that said, my stupidly long rant about digital dragons is over and I’m sorry to anyone who had to read this before actually sending it out there — this has been sitting in the back of my head for two weeks through sickness and health and I just needed to scream into the void.

#Petty #Drama #Rant #Lore #Confessions #Cursing #Long post #Flight Rising #Praise #Forums

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