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sweettjrose · 3 months

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What is your opinion about Disney?

Oh boy... This is a complicated question for me.

And the main reason is that I have a lot of Nostalgia for Disney. I grew up watching and loving animated Disney movies and tv shows and is probably the main reason I have such a love for animation and music. And even when I rewatch the movies and the shows they still hold up, some even are better than I remember and show clear mastery and love for art and creativity. The truth is I love these characters and I love these stories and I honestly don't think I could ever truly hate Disney...

But I can still be disappointed. And unfortunately, Disney has and continues to do disappointing things. It would be wrong to ignore all of the bad elements of Disney. Unfortunately, Disney made quite a bit of racist media both in shorts and in movies, and as a mixed person (half-black and half-white) it honestly a truth that is hard for me to truly accept at times. Disney played a major role in really messing up our copyright system making it harder for more media to be in the public domain, despite them liberally using public domain characters to make their stories. Even now with the war in Gaza, it sucks to see Disney officially only side with Israel and not with the Palestinians, with some of them even wearing Disney merchandise. And honestly, I am really worried with the disaster of Wish, Disney+ confusion, and the rise of AI, that Disney will start making some really big anti-creative decisions and somehow even destroy the parts people still like about Disney.

But with that said, I do think there is one element that people tend to forget when talking about the pros and cons of Disney. They are not a monolith. Disney is full of constantly changing and moving people all with completely different politics, opinions, and goals, and contributions. Tbh you could argue that the only time it has been like that is when Walt was in charge and even that is debatable. As a result the people who are doing the stuff I love are rarely the ones doing the stuff I find frustrating. I know artists who work on Disney shows that are supportive of Palestine. Heck you can even feel the internal battle at Disney when it comes to trying to add more LGBTQ+ and diverse content. There are people are trying their best to use their time at Disney to create positive media for future generations, just as much as there those trying to hide or shoot down those media. And even in cases the people causing harm are the same ones making the parts I like, that unfortunately is a constant in life, no matter where you go. Gottfredson made one of my favorite Disney comic characters, but he also did and said quite a bit of racist things. This isn't a justification, but something you can't completely avoid or ignore and have to decide how to handle yourself. To be honest that alone is a completely different essay. But the point is that people change and Disney 100 years ago is different from Disney 30 years ago which is different than Disney today. And even within Disney, not everyone agrees and supports the same things.

And personally, I feel like people tend to overcorrect when it comes to criticism of Disney and act like they have been nothing but a bland corporation with no creativity or positive impact on the world at all. I feel like people tend to group Disney with corporations like McDonalds as if they don't produce any artistic endeavors at all, but just generic content and I can't really believe or support that either. Regardless of how you feel about Disney. They have made such an impact on not just animation, not just on American media and culture, but everything all over the world. Anime is heavily inspired by Disney. Videogame Mascots like Sonic and Mario are inspired by Disney. Even media that takes shots at Disney like Shrek wouldn't have existed without Disney. To be honest it would be harder to find stuff without some element of Disney influence. As I said before a lot of amazing movies have been made with Disney and wouldn't have existed without it. I would consider The Great Mouse Detective and Beauty and the Beast straight-up masterpieces. And it was through Disney that they even got made. Disney can have its frustrating eras (like now), but they're also an effective tool to allow amazing movies and shows to be created. And in a world that doesn't value animation, we still need companies like Disney to still have that faith and support. At least I hope we can.

So to make a long story short, I think it is important to acknowledge the flaws and not ignore or hide them, but to also recognize the artistic achievements as well. Disney had a positive impact on me and nothing will be able to change that. Disney is a constantly changing cultural force that will grow along with us. It will continue to evolve as new people take the reins. Some will try to make up for past mistakes and move forward and some will repeat those mistakes and cause more problems.

All that we can hope is that the good will outweigh the bad.

#disney thoughts #answered

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th-ramblr · 6 months

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Me? Making up an RP server? Why... yes. [Join Link] (18+)

Baldur's Dweebs is a loose campaign-style Baldur's Gate 3 Roleplay Server that seeks to recreate the BG3 experience through written roleplay and with a little more nuance than the game itself allows, welcoming writers of Origins, Canons, Tavs, and OCs alike.

Still actively looking for people to claim Lae'zel, Karlach, Halsin, and Minthara if those characters pique anyone's interest!

Most other non-Origin canons are also up for grabs.

OOC / Server Rules: (more complete rules in the discord)

Be Excellent To Each Other

No discrimination of any kind towards both "privileged" (white, male, cis, straight, able-bodied, neurotypical, etc) and "unprivileged" (poc, female, trans, LGB, disabled, etc) groups. Respect must go both ways or you're not welcome here.

Admins and Mods are people too. Treat us how you'd like to be treated.

If you feel that another user is acting inappropriately, please bring it to the attention of one of our staff. If you are having problems with a staff member, bring it to the admin. Staff are not exempt from rules.

Admins / staff are community advocates and mediators, but not babysitters. We expect you to do your own due diligence about communication.

Keep All Topics To Appropriate Channels.

Avoid political talk.

Vague-posting, passive aggressive commentary, or harassment aimed at other current group members is a kickable offense.

Participating in "callout culture" is a kickable offense, except in the following circumstances and with hard, irrefutable evidence of the accused crimes:

-Malicious stalking & hardblock evasion -Sexual harassment -Grooming (regardless of ages) -OOC Pedophilia / Hebephilia / Ephebophilia -Death threats -Suicide baiting &/or "kill yourself" type behaviors -Targeted hate, harassment, and cyber-bullying -Generally anything that would legally fall under "criminal actions" in a court of law

Roleplay Rules:

The "Canon Claims" channel is for those who would like to be the server's "Main" version of any Baldur's Gate 3 canon character (Astarion, Shadowheart, Gale, etc). The channel works on a first-come first-serve basis.

Duplicates are allowed, but not considered "canon" to server-wide events and can only be played in "Non-Canon threads". (See further down)

All RP channels are required to use appropriate tags for threads. These tags include Public, Private, NSFW, Canon, and AU/Non-Canon.

In order to request a thread be marked "Canon", you must request the tag from admins. This is to avoid accidentally mismarking a thread or mismarking a thread in bad faith.

Private threads should list participants. Those not listed should ask the thread starter for an invitation first if they'd like to join the thread.

Canon Threads will be held to a higher standard of quality and realism than AU/Non-Canon threads, in order to maintain a cohesive narrative.

Questions and Answers:

Q: Are Duplicates allowed? A: Yes and no. For "Canon Threads", there is only 1 version of each canon muse allowed server-wide. However, there is no limit on duplicates in "AU/Non-Canon" threads.

Q: How many characters am I allowed to play? A: Currently, we want to limit Origin and Companion Canon muses to one per person. There is no limit on Tavs/OCs, characters from other franchises translated into BG3 (from anime series, live action shows, video games, etc), or non-Companion canon characters (such as Cazador, Raphael, Scratch, Thorm, Orin, Gortash, Orpheus, etc).

Q: Am I required to play a character infected with an Illithid/Mind Flayer parasite? A: No. In fact, we encourage that some not be.

Claims: (updated 2/15/2024)

Lae'zel - unclaimed

Shadowheart - claimed

Astarion - claimed

Gale - claimed

Wyll - claimed

Karlach - unclaimed

Dark Urge - claimed

Halsin - unclaimed

Minthara - unclaimed

Minsc - unclaimed

Jaheria - unclaimed

The Emperor - unclaimed

Raphael - claimed

#baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 rp #group rp #community rp #rp group

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study-diaries · 5 days

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How to do group projects? (If you're selected as the leader of the group)

I hate group projects, it's not necessarily the project rather, the people are not cooperative enough so here's some tips I use when I was chosen to do a PPT and a damn play with 13 members.

(Pictures aren't mine!)

Take phone numbers

Even though my teacher discouraged the idea of it, I still took the numbers of all the members and saved it on the same day the project was given even though the deadline was a month later. You should make sure that you have the necessary means of communication to every member.

Plan and outline within 3 days!

Make an outline of what needs to be done, plan out who's going to do what, how they'll do it, when will they complete it etc etc. The reason i do it within 3 days is because you'll get the base of how you'll do it because generally in group projects, by the time everyone completes the work and gives it to you, it would take atleast a week or two, if you start early, you'll complete earlier than everyone else

No group chats!

I personally don't prefer this because one i realised everyone just didn't reply expecting others to reply, especially when your group is big! So... Dms!! Just send the instructions personally, yes, it takes alot of time but it makes up for the energy wasted in group chats that involve unnecessary talks and questions.

Both face to face and text reminders!

When you've assigned work to every member, make sure they actually do it because you'll be the one responsible. Not gonna lie but reminders help especially when the deadlines are closer. Just a message like "Hey, friendly reminder about the XYZ project."

Save your own name!

This is something I'm really careful about. The accusation that you're being biased and assigning easier work to friends and people I'm close with. So, i figured that the best way to avoid it is to write all the work and the names of members in alphabetical order and assign accordingly. If the member can't do it, then I'll discuss and swap. It saves a hell lot of drama and actually results to better outcomes.

Back up

Make sure that there's always a second in command. This was a mistake I did, on the day of the 2nd project (the play), I was in one of the competitions and our teacher had started with our group first... I didn't exactly tell anyone that everything about the characters assigned to members and the narrations were in my bag so they had to scramble alittle but in the end, our group did the best play despite the situation so that's what you're aiming at. Your group needs to manage without you.

Flexibility

Do not, under any circumstances, expect everything to go well! You need to expect hindrances, like gurl, come on. A mistake I made in the PPT project, i made the PPT and told 4-5 people to explain it because that's how it was supposed to be done but in the end, ALL THE 4-5 PEOPLE HAD TO BE IN SPORTS PRACTICE so we ended up changing plans last minute. But nevertheless, we got an A-. Tell everyone to prepare accordingly.

Be a little lenient

Personally, when the teacher asked me to give the list of work everyone had done, i did'nt just write nothing for the members who didn't, i have even the smallest contribution because in the end, even one person's scores matters. It affects the whole damn group so be careful when you take out anger and frustration on the members when giving the list of contributions or even while doing the project. The last thing you need is drama.

Contact!

Make sure your members are comfortable enough to clear any questions or misunderstandings with you. If you don't know what's going in the group, you can't maintain the group. Be very clear that they can reach you any time.

Demo!!!

This is really important! Decide on a day and keep a demonstration of how your project is going to be presented. Do exactly as how you're going to do it infront of the teacher. Exchange some points on how to do better during the demo and discuss! It helps you to correct your mistakes.

Hope this helps! :)

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cardboardheartss · 2 months

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Kpop Twitter Fanwars Mini Reading

⚠️DISCLAIMER! TAROT CARDS ARE NOT 100% ACCURATE! TAKE EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT! IF MY INTERPRETATIONS ARE INCORRECT FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME!⚠️

Why are there so many fan-wars? : 3oC, 9oC, 10oC & AoC rx

I’m sure we all know the answer to this question lol! Many fans are heavily divided and do not like each other at all. People in their own fandoms generally like flaunting their ult groups success as if it’s theirs, and some fans can get quite emotionally detached and say thee most unkind words.

Are K-Pop Entertainment companies aware of fan - wars? : 7oS rx & KoS rx

The cards may be in reversal but these companies are aware but they don’t want to get caught up in the mess of stan twitter. They honestly think these fan-wars are honestly odd and crazy, they find it pretty arrogant and think fans are too impulsive for theeee most littlest issue.

Are K-Pop Idols aware of the fan - wars? : 4oP rx, AoS & The World

Yes, but they avoid their phones for the sake of their mental health. These idols have phones and have all sorts of access to social media… I would not be surprised some idols could genuinely be lurking around here on tumblr and possibly Reddit too..

How do male kpop idols feel about the fan - wars? : Strength rx, 8oS rx & 9oP

It’s makes them doubt their confidence and their groups potential. They definitely do see the comments of stans saying they doing too much, trying to be like so and so, and blah blah blah. Seeing their fans comments encourages them to actually work harder and push, but for some idols this could lead to them feeling trapped and feel some self hatred.

How do female kpop idols feel about the fan - wars? : The Emperor, KoC, 4oC & PoW

Some female idols get hyped up and feel like they have reached a really high level of success if kpop stans start attacking their groups. I think female idols actually sit together and read all the comments together and probably just laugh tbh. Female idols also think kpop stans on twitter are just bored and have nothing else to do with their lives.

All the comments really rile the ladies up and somehow build thier characters.

I’m aware there are some other female idols who go through a lot of mental issues because of these fanwars, but it seems as if the idols who are self confident and genuinely don’t care about these stuff, had their energies overpowering this response

Do K-Pop Companies control fan wars? - The Star, The Empress, AoP

Yes, they pay a lot of money for PR and also probably pay idols to interact with one another to somehow show the stans who fight, that everyone is “family.”

How does the whole K-Industry overall feel about fan - wars? : 7oC rx

They just think it’s a lot tbh… they have no choice but to let it be, because who has the courage to actually humble kpop stan twitter?!👀😭

#black tarot readers #tarot reading #kpop tarot #tarot #celeb tarot #tarotcommunity #kpop #tarot master list #kpop industry #fan wars #twitter kpop #kpopstan #cyberbullying #HYBE #sm #jyp #yg entertainment #cube #kpop gifs

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hiso03 · 2 months

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I wish I could work for DC because I’d make sure that NO character would be misrepresented even if I don’t like the character or don’t know that character, I absolutely hate how comics do that a lot

Too real.

One of the most problems I always have when I read comics where there is a group or many characters involved at the same time is just their problem. The main characters are fine, they usually have good writing and their storytelling is amazing, but the rest of the characters have really poor writing and that many times is there to favor situations or other characters. In many occasions these characters are portrayed in a burlesque or stupid way to favor the situation and make the rest shine, which in my opinion seems silly and regrettable. You don't need to take away the personality of the extras to make the main characters shine, it's silly to do that and many times it makes several comics boring or tedious to read because of that detail.

Which brings me to my other point.

When they do that they only hurt themselves and the readers, because they make the audience unable to empathize with them, see them as mediocre and boring characters JUST because of a bad representation that neither now nor ever represents the real character of the character. And that, instead of attracting the public, drives them away. People stop buying products because of a single poorly represented character and don't even bother to check out the good work they have.

So many times I've heard people talk about how terrible a character is and most of the time, it's not that it was terrible, it's that you had the misfortune of coming across a bad comic book where you get a terrible representation of the character. That's about it.

Bad representation can lead to division, fights and silly hatreds between fans. All this could be avoided if as you comment anon, they hired people who at least made an effort to know the character and give a good representation to all the characters in general and not favor some and minimize others.

(I will clarify that there are also many solo comics of the characters themselves that do a terrible job exploring the character in question and all their environment and history, but I highlighted the team comics because personally it is where I have seen the most persistent misrepresentation of amazing characters.)

#dc comics #misrepresentation #comics #green lantern #the flash #green arrow #aquaman #batman #batfamily #arrowfam #flashfam #aquafam #zatanna #black canary #dinah lance #donna troy #cassie sandsmark #cassandra cain

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sneezemonster15 · 1 month

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https://www.tumblr.com/sunshinecherryblossom/732710854315933696/wtf-it-is-true-oh-my-god-when-is-this

This seems false, what do you think about it?

I find it highly unlikely. Unless someone gives me a legit link to it, I wouldn't consider it. Lots of fake interviews of Kishi are doing rounds in this fandom. And Kishi would never say something like this given how he has treated Sakura's character for 700 chapters and beyond. This part is from his 2010 interview (at Jump Fiesta Tokyo-Japan) :

When the interviewer asked Kishi about Sakura, and called her a detestable girl (most people can see how Sakura's character is written as a detestable character, can't speak for delusional people), Kishi replied in a very convenient manner - "Realistic girls are like that..."

Lol. Once he calls his character realistic, what can one say? Realistic characters are never black and white, they stand in the grey area. So you can get away by saying - "Oh, she is realistic", without expanding on it.

Shounen characters are generally larger than life type characters to create a large impact since they serve a pedagogic purpose for its target group. People who are from the good guys camp, are generally taken as good, people who are from the bad guys camp are generally perceived as bad. So of course it would confuse people when Sakura is from the good guys camp but acts like a total douchebag. And naturally they would ask questions about it. But Kishi totally avoided to take the more controversial position by saying - she is realistic.

We know Sakura's character can be realistic, many women are the way she is. But is she a good role model for women of any place at any time? No. She doesn't really serve the pedagogic purpose other characters do. She is a negative person, selfish and immature. We know that. But Kishi cannot say it explicitly in his interviews because it would lead to all the other kinds of controversial questions, and would potentially open a can of worms for him. First question would be - If she is from the good guys camp and remains till the end, why did you write her as negative, even after she got so popular? You could have used her character's popularity with the girls to say something inspiring, something kind. So why didn't you? Any other writer would have jumped at the chance. Writers are supposed to work off the popularity of characters in a medium such as commercial serialilized manga.

Kishi kept writing her as detestable. If he could, he would have told them - I wrote her that way because I needed plot device for Naruto and Sasuke's romance which I was writing in the disguise of ninja manga. Team seven is about S and N. It's a love story about them and Sakura doesn't figure anywhere in their relationship and I want to make it clear by showing why.

And I have a feeling quite a lot of Sakura's characterisation comes from his personal experience of women. Of course he couldn't say all that. But he can be indirect about it. Although when you are indirect about something so many times, with context it becomes quite direct. Hehehe

Just look how Gege responded when he was asked a difficult question from Kubo. Female characters are not given much weight in shounen given its target audience. Most female characters in shounen aren't even given half the character development male characters get. And look at Japanese society, it's so patriarchal, who's surprised their representation of female characters is so backward? I doubt most of these mangakas get out very much, to actually put some effort in knowing how women act and why.

Look at Kubo's interview with Gege. Gege's female characters are kickass, as strong as men, as smart and well developed. They have agency, self worth and esteem. Their characters don't revolve around male characters. But female characters like these are beyond Kubo's imagination lol. Look at the female characters in Bleach hahaha. So this is what he asked Gege.

Kubo finds Jjk women formidable because he cannot even fathom independent women, women who don't depend on men for everything. Lol. They can walk shoulder to shoulder with men, they aren't less than men, like they are in most shounen. But of course, Gege cannot tell Kubo these things. Hehe. Kubo is his senior, and the Japanese have a whole set of etiquette on how to behave with one's senpai. Gege won't say anything even remotely offensive to Kubo, so the best way to deal with such things is to be vague and use self deprecating humor, so as to not appear confrontational, it's a communication tactic. I also use these kinds of tactics when talking to difficult people or people in high positions I don't agree with. I have interviewed hundreds of people in my work. So I understand that one needs to be subtle even in their disagreements.

In Shippuden, later on, Sakura was written with heroine like qualities. So what this means is that Kishi doesn't have a very good opinion on either women or women in shounen. She does get some footage in the manga, where other characters praise her skills, like one would expect a heroine to get. She confesses to Sasuke and Naruto both. Never mind the rejection from both. But it's clear that Kishi would never have made Naruto end up with Sakura who treated Naruto this badly. Kishi is not a fool. He plainly says that she comes off as detestable because that's how she was written. Lol.

Lots of rumours have been doing rounds about Naruto's remake or live action film etc. but as far as I know, nothing such has actually materialised. So I wouldn't worry about it either.

I think it's high time that SS, NH and NrSk accept the reality and move on. It's been years. Sasuke is gay. Naruto is gay. Was established as closeted gay in both parts one and two. He would not suddenly defy his character traits and become straight just because NrSk can't keep it in their pants. So pathetic tch. Guys, there is nothing for you in Naruto except heartbreak. Grow up and move on.

SNS at least have legit reason to still be hopeful. The het shippers have nada. Zilch. Zero. Hehe. But well, who can fight desperation? Not these peeps.

#ask #sakura #naruto #gege #kishimoto #kubo #haruno sakura

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doodlegraveyard · 5 months

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I also wanted to know how you felt about the pixies and if you were going to use them in your au

@seth-the-whalelord you are two for two on 'asking very simple questions that send me into a brain spiral' lol thank you this is. actually very useful for getting me to figure this stuff out. This is what i've gotten to write thru on my lunch break.

So! Pixies.

Once again I have no idea if I’m about to spout an Unpopular Opinion or not but…..I don’t like…..little, ‘Mascot’ characters. And I tend not to like the Pixies. Theyre trying Too Hard to be Beloved and it CAN be pulled off..........but I’m sorry I can’t stand their shrill little voices………………

I GET that it’s a kids show and you want little critters to appeal to little kids and sell toys of but like… the cast of Winx is HUGE and bloated at a baseline?? Like the Winx and Specialists by themselves are already so much to deal with. I will say upon rewatch, the Pixies are definitely better than like, any of the other little critters they add in later seasons. There are definitely episodes where the pixies Work and aren't completely overwhelming, and they're liked enough to be worth keeping, conceptually.

I like the idea of the pixies being plot relevant to the fairies development, and I actually have been thinking about explicitly tying them to charmix (or, idk if I’m keeping the concept of Charmix entirely intact because its BARELY a form. But i guess it can remain as a concept, and as a stepping stone to leveling up a fairy has to get her pixie/charmix (so its a standard step not just something the Winx girls have)

I really like how Amore and Chatta specifically contrast Stella/Flora’s respective personalities, because it brings to mind to me that charmix is supposed to be about overcoming some personal fear or weakness/character flaw, it makes sense to me to tie them together.

THAT SAID some of the pixie/fairy relationships are stronger than others.

Lockette’s theming as Pixie of Portals/a wayfinder can be styled as helping Bloom who is currently feeling ‘lost’ in an unfamiliar world, help her navigate both herself learning about and her newly discovered backstory/identity. I think that pretty much works: Lockette encourages Bloom to find the truth even if she’s kind of afraid to/ has been avoiding it. Amore’s calm peacekeeper demeanor definitely helps to temper Stella, and I feel like she could help deal with issues of not just romantic love but her relationships with her friends and her parents. I think Stella is full of love and affection, but doesn’t always show it / in the most considerate way.

Chatta forcing Flora to talk to Helia about her feelings is a pretty good example of what she brings to the table there, though I never want it to be just flattened to Flora’s romantic subplot - Flora could do with speaking up more in general! Have her forced to intercede in a friend conflict or assert herself when previously she was just letting the group overrule her!

Piff. I am conflicted about. Because like… she’s just a fuckin’ baby. there's a limited amount of personality there. She's sleepy. She's baby. I guess I think it’s cute that she helps Aisha with her bad dreams. I knee-jerk wondered if it was in bad taste to ‘mom-ify’ Aisha by giving her effectively a baby to care for but it really doesn’t read like that too much because Aisha is arguably one of the best-written and most complex of the girls. Piff could play a dual role - as someone Aisha has to stand up for and be brave for, but also a manifestation of childish wonder, to push Aisha to enjoy things she maybe didn’t have the opportunity to experience as a kid.

Tune is where it starts to lose me. I get it, Musa is tomboyish and brash and Tune is about manners but that really doesn’t feel as…important a problem to deal with? I feel like it may be a thing where Musa has to like… repair difficult relationships she has that are made rockier by how quick she is to argue, or maybe take responsibility for mistakes - like a formal apology and maturely talking about things rather than being avoidant? I’m not sure it’s best styled as ‘Etiquette’ if that’s the case. I’m taking suggestions on this one idk.

Aaaaaand they didn’t even try with Digit. She’s just a Flanderized version of Tecna. It doesn’t feel like she contrasts or challenges Tecna’s personality in any interesting way...Idk I kind of feel like she has to be changed whole cloth?

I know they replaced Tune and Digit but I’m not as familiar with Cherie or Caramel. I might look into whether their concepts work better for Musa and Tecna character arcs as they are currently swirling around in my head. What's the general consensus on those two?

My design thoughts are. I want to make the pixies much more…. Abstract I guess? What if they’re not their own species as much as concentrated sparks of magic - Fairies generate a lot of excess magic, hence ‘their pixie’ is actually a part of them - a little external manifestation of their magic fissured off my whatever internal conflicts or unaddressed needs they have, and resolving that allows them to re fuse with the Fairy? (Bonus: pixies are only around when relevant and I can poof them away when I don’t want them in a scene lol)

#winx club reboot #winx club #winx #winx pixies #winx club rewrite

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ducks-and-stuff · 3 months

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SKYBLING HATER POST /mean

okay so that last repost I did had the exact opposite intended affect on me and now I want to write about how much I hate Pearl and Grian and skyblings in general and sure I don’t watch a lot of their content nowadays and I never watched Pearl’s side of Evo but guess what? no-one is reading this anyways so here we go:

So first off, do- do Pearl and Grian, like, interact that much on camera? Obviously they’re friends cause Grian invited her to the Life series and Evo and stuff but when they’re recording they tend to do their own thing in different directions. This might just be because Pearl is upside down all the way in Australia time differences but even when playing on the life series neither of them seem to really spend vast amounts of time with the other. Just a quick cool quick little interaction or teaming up because convenience or they respect the others skill. Or maybe I just don’t watch either’s perspective enough, who knows, just haven’t seen them spend quality time with each other a lot on there.

As for Hermitcraft, Boatem was a really good group but, uh, guys? Friends? Fellas? there were 5 members of Boatem, not 2. Why are we not going around headcannoning Mumbo and Impulse as brothers if living together makes Pearl and Grian siblings? I don’t remember them interacting all that much in season 9 either, but both did choose to live relatively close to at least one other Boatem member, Impulse and Pearl sibling au when?

So maybe it’s beacause of Evo then. Maybe it’s that little ol’ Minecraft series that Grian left half a decade ago, cool. Pearl had a sad little montage, good for her. I’ve also heard someone say they were canonically siblings in that series but I’m not bothering to do actual work for this rant so… fun. Point is, all that was a long while ago. Sure their content has gone in wildly different directions since then with being Hermits and Emperors and little copper golems but basing their current relations off of Evo is still relevant, right? And to that I have to say, ABSOLUTELY. I’m a sucker for Evo’s ending and people who love each other finally managing to claw their way back into the other’s arms or literally any other story revolving around the end of Evo ever. I will hold onto my half a decade old Grian and Pearl headcannons till the end of time you hear me???? Authors out there including Evo angst in your work I love you so much, you make me cry. Characters separated by the gods themselves are best characters, and if the only way I’m going to get that content is if they’re blood related then I will swallow my pride and enjoy it to no end! Write more Evo affecting the present stuff and I will uh- give you this random dust bunny in my pocket. Fair trade.

But- ahem- yes, back to complaining. Jimmy and Pearl. Guys. GUYS, I write Pearl and Jimmy interactions all the time, I’m the Pearl and Jimmy guy! And even I don’t think they interact that much??? As for the present, They have good moments together yeah because they’re both hilarious but they have their own little groups they tend to stay within. Pearls being a girlboss with her best buds and Jimmy’s being bullied by his. Have they even ever teamed in a life series? Did they ever really talk on Empires that much? Jimmy invited her to help with his Christmas village building which was a really nice surprise and they hung out on Evo, but, anything the fandom is both glued to and recent?

Honestly, my biggest issue is just that is seems like the age old trope of tying a female to a more popular male character and I hate it. Obviously in the world of male dominated mcyt this is kinda hard to avoid but… this headcannon with most popular kid in school Grian specifically when I don’t even see them interacting that much? I understand Grian and Jimmy because they actually have a lot of close, consistent interactions but every time I see Pearl in the mix I just have to pause and question it. There was a really good post a while ago about how people tend to assign her as oldest because reason that is probably ‘well, girls are more mature’, and yeah, why are we doing that? Why are we all just putting her into a trio she’s rarely seen with nowadays anyways? She’s a public menace, not a menace to these two in particular.

With Grian especially it seems to me like it could be a case of sure, woman in her own is cool but what if it was woman and DUDE EVERYONE ALSO LIKES SO MUCH?!???? HOW AMAZINGLY AMAZING. They’ll fit together like two puzzle pieces from different boxes with the same color scheme! So fun right? To me it seems as though this dynamic was not based around these three close friends who were like siblings, but instead, Grian plus his loving family. One member of which is going to wander off to find Gem and Impulse anyways.

So yeah, I say free them all, but especially Pearl, from this dynamic. Share her chaos! Give her a mace! Set her lose onto the world!

Or, don’t, lol. Ultimately the point of a fandom is for everyone to have fun, and if shoving these little guys together is what makes you happiest then go for it! I just like complaining and I see a hint of underlying sexism in the headcannon being so widely accepted on what seems to me as such little basis, but who’s a random internet user to stop you from doing what you love.

Just because I have a personal problem with something that isn’t really hurting anybody doesn’t mean you should stop, like I said, I love writing stories about Jimmy and Pearl clinging onto each other after Evo regardless of my belief that they don’t really do that at all in their content today. So yeah, write your stories, make your art, and remember to have fun with (any very non-problematic 👍) things regardless of what anybody else says! Best wishes to you MCYTumblr! Everyone’s art and writing and we weaves and whatever over these little guys we’ve all decided to cling to is absolutely beautiful to witness!

#skyblings #pearlescentmoon #Grian #jimmy solidarity #mcytumblr #Hot takes #I like complaining sometimes #Sane Calamity rambles

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mx-ryder · 2 months

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Some thoughts on Hazbin Hotel

I literally just watched HH this week, followed by binging Helluva Boss on YouTube right after. And my Dash is full of HH and HB stuff now. And the other day I saw someone posted their thoughts on the show, including one specific take that it falls right back under the typical "Sinners are bad but hey, we can fix them!" sort of trope. (I really don't know if I'll be able to find the post again, if I do, I'll reblog/link it here or something).

And hey, I'm not gonna argue that it doesn't, per se. I just think there's a bit more to it than that.

c.w for general religious trauma talk, SA mentions, drug use/abuse, alcohol use, addiction, gambling, probably other things I'm not thinking of

(Also please don't feel like you have to read this. It's literally just me rambling because I haven't been able to stop thinking about this topic all fucking day, so I wrote it down to get it out of my head. Obviously if you read it and want to comment/continue the discussion, feel free. Just please. Be respectful.)

Now.

All my thoughts on HH are very much colored by my past experiences with religion, US christianity, specifically. More specifically still, the sort of christianity that makes people believe that "home schooling" their kids, isolating and indoctrinating them away from anyone who might make them question it all, is the best course of action. I grew up bouncing from church to church, from home schooling co-op to co-op, all so my bio-mom could find the exact group to echo her own sentiments back at her.

Among the things I grew up believing were great ideas such as:

Sexuality is inherently disgusting, and something you should always be forcing down/avoiding/punishing yourself about. Masturbation, porn, sex before marriage, dressing "immodestly", and any sexuality outside of heterosexual were inherently evil and worthy of punishment. Sometimes that punishment was being assaulted, because really, she should've covered up, right? Girls, sometimes girls as young as 12-13 (if not younger) were villainized for wearing tank-tops and shorts, because they were causing the boys to stumble and immodesty was a moral failing on their part.

Drugs, alcohol, substances in general, are bad and wrong and using them, or heaven forbid becoming addicted, is a moral failing on your part. You are a bad person for consuming a drug, and therefore deserve to fall into addiction, houselessness, starvation, and/or abuse.

Poor people deserve it. Accepting help of any kind is leeching off good, hard-working people. Your worth as a person is directly tied to your ability to be a "productive member of society."

Any mental health issues are your fault, and are either because you don't believe in jesus hard enough, or because you're inherently broken and sinful and therefore unsaveable. There is no room for sympathy or empathy for anyone struggling.

There's a reason these are the same stereotypical archetypes you see in this sort of show. The queer sex-addict. The gambler. The "weirdo" who isn't like other people and enjoys "weird" things, or enjoys things "too much". Even just the party-girl character. Because these aren't just stereotypes. These are actual entire groups of people who are ostracized and vilified just for being who they were born to be, for making choices christians don't like, or for being sick.

And that brings me to Angel Dust. Who, by the way, I wish I could've been given a content warning about, because holy shit Ep 4 and Addict hit me really fucking hard. My friend recommended the show to me without having watched it, so I went in not expecting that sort of storyline to punch me in the gut out of nowhere.

Anyway! Angel Dust! Literally named after a drug. A gay porn star who flirts shamelessly with anyone and everyone, who proudly shows off his best films to his friends, who secretly hates his job, not because of the sex, as we come to find out, but because he's under the thumb of a fucking psycho who treats him like shit and actively physically, sexually, and mentally/emotionally abuses him. He's basically been trafficked, and hates that he doesn't have any say in what happens to him in front of the camera. It's a horrifying position to be in, and one that left me a little shaken up, tbf.

The take I'm mostly writing this based on is that Hazbin Hotel falls into the trite tropes of "rich white girl attempts to fix people who are below her" and specifically mentioned disappointment in how Charlie didn't try to argue that Angel Dust didn't deserve hell based only on his addiction or sexual past, but that she instead claimed that she could "fix him."

And I just . . . think that's a little bit of a black/white take.

For the first part, what would people rather she do? Put all her time, effort, influence, and power into trying her damnedest to help her people, who are being slaughtered by the thousands every year just because Adam is bored? Or sit at home and use all that time, effort, influence, and power to make rubber duckies like her father? She could just ignore everything going on, call it hopeless, give up, and ignore the suffering of her people. Would that be better? Would that satisfy this weird little "she's just a rich white girl with privilege" gripe?

Charlie is a rich girl. A princess. Someone with huge amounts of privilege, power, influence, etc. But you know what? She's also stuck in hell. She was born there, through no fault or choice of her own, and because of who her parents are, she is trapped in literal hell, with no hope of ever, ever ascending to heaven. She does not get a chance at redemption, because she was born to the wrong people. She is a young woman who was born into horrifying circumstances, living in a world that she frequently expresses disgust for (her frequent discomfort with sexuality, her disgust toward the cannibals, her dislike of violence, even necessary self-defense).

And she still loves her people and wants to see the best in them.

She would be completely justified in hating everything about hell, her life, the people around her, her parents, heaven, everything, really. She has every right to hate her entire existence, but she puts all that hatred for the system into her efforts to fucking do something about it. Why is that a bad thing, just because she was born into a position of power and authority??

And now on to Angel Dust.

Charlie never once makes a judgement call about Angel or his habits, his work, or his personality. She expresses discomfort with the sexual nature of his work (tbh wouldn't be surprised if she's a sex-repulsed ace), but she does not think he's a bad person because of his work. Nor does she think that he needs to stop doing his work in order to become a better/good person. When she tries to get him some time off, she's explicitly doing it because she wants him to have time to decompress and participate in activities at the hotel, not because she wants him doing less of his specific kind of work.

She never condemns his partying, either. She has a bar in her hotel! She defends him partying, right to heaven's face, because she knows everyone present has partied, everyone has enjoyed a drink with friends. There is no condemnation of his partying activities, and I don't think she ever makes it seem as though Angel needs fixing.

What I got out of that episode, watching Charlie passionately defending her friend in front of the worst fucking person in the universe, was that people do not need to be fixed, but some love and support can help them make better choices for themselves. Angel still has a good time. He still has his job (contract, y'know, but would probably be in the industry regardless). The only thing different about that particular night of partying is that he's out with people who care about him, and who he cares about.

Even Cherri, though she expresses some joking disappointment that he's spending so much time worrying about Nifty, doesn't actually seem that put out by it. She teases him a little, but leaves him to do his thing. And his thing is making sure his friend, who is less experienced at partying (and who is significantly smaller/more vulnerable than most other people), is safe and okay. His thing is defending his friends from an extremely dangerous person, at massive risk to his own personal safety.

And he didn't do any of this because he'd been "fixed" or because he'd "changed." He did it because, for possibly the first time ever, he has people around him who love and care for him, and who want the best for him. And who he loves and wants the best for in return. He said himself that he stays out of his mind on substances, allows himself to be drugged and assaulted, puts on this persona of care-free-crack-whore-who-only-thinks-about-sex, because he is trying everything in his power to dull the pain he's in. Because he doesn't believe he deserves any better.

And this, this is what Charlie is trying to show Heaven. She is trying to show them that there is nothing morally damning about alcohol consumption, or even drug use, sex work, or anything that makes Angel who he is. She's trying to show them that, with some love, care, and support, with a safe place to call home, with their base physical and emotional needs being met, people don't need to resort to the sort of destructive behavior heaven/Adam is condemning! People can choose to engage in these behaviors safely, consciously, and with people around them who want them to be safe and have a good time.

Then we get on to the idea that this entire episode ends on. Heaven doesn't know how people get there. They don't know what it takes to be "good enough" for heaven. Sera herself admits that Adam was just "the first soul in heaven," all but admitting that he's just there because he defaulted into it. (Though that does make me wonder, what about Abel? He would have died long before Adam, and considering how long Adam lived, and that there were plenty of other people around by the time he would have died, where were all those souls going??).

And Adam is the fucking worst! He is literally the worst, most selfish, violent, vulgar soul in the entire show, but he is allowed in heaven, for reasons no one even understands.

You know what the difference is between Adam and Angel?

Adam can't be fixed.

His behaviors are all destructive, not to himself, but to others. He insults, abuses, hurts, and kills with abandon. He made this weird, shitty deal with Hell and Lucifer because he wanted to murder innocent souls, because he was bored, and the rest of heaven doesn't even know about it. He has free reign to be an absolute piece of shit to everyone around him, damaging people left and right, and he will never face any sort of justice for it, because hey, he's already in heaven!

But Angel? Angel's behavior is all self-destructive. Again. He gets fucked up to dull his immense pain. He allows himself to be drugged and assaulted because he believes he deserves it. Because he's been told, for who knows how many thousands of years, that he's a whore anyway, so why shouldn't he be free to use for anyone who wants to take him? He has been beaten down, physically, emotionally, sexually, until he's a shell of a person who is struggling to find any reason to continue his shitty existence.

And he hurts only himself.

I mean, okay, he does piss off Husk sometimes, crosses boundaries/etc. But he and Husk pretty clearly fix that between themselves. There's no lasting damage there, and idk if anyone else noticed, but he stops that behavior pretty much entirely after that ep.

Angel is hurting. He is hollow, and hopeless, and trapped. And he does not need to be fixed, nor does Charlie ever attempt to do so.

All she does is reach out a hand, and say, "Hey, I see that you're struggling. This place is fucked up, isn't it? Maybe I can help."

Charlie is a flawed person. She takes her privilege for granted. She feels the immense weight of her choices, and the pressure of having taken responsibility for a people who may never want her help. She messes up, because somehow, she's endlessly cheerful and optimistic, despite her upbringing and the world she grew up in.

Charlie is flawed. But she's trying her fucking best. She isn't trying to fix. She's trying to help.

We all need some help, every now and then, don't we?

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blackautmedia · 5 months

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Have you seen the owl house? If so, do you think it has good representation?

I have seen it, yeah! I enjoyed it too. As for its rep, I think it depends on what kind of rep you're looking for.

From a disability standpoint I think it's fine. I know a some people relate to Eda and later Lilith for how their curse reads more like a chronic disability and there's also the unintentional neuroexpansive portrayal of Luz.

It also manages to avoid a lot of the issues that generally come with treating curses like a form of disability that a lot of other media does. I'm a big fan of the episode where Eda's mother visits has to unlearn her ableism to be a better parent.

I think where it could be improved is in how it utilizes race with its characters. It's not a secret that the main villain is a cream cheese colonizing crusader and the Boiling Isles has several forms of white supremacist violence like:

It being a police state

branding the citizens with law, deception, and force to be killed with the coven sigils, a practice done to several real groups of oppressed people. Obviously not with magic tattoos, but I feel any work that centers heavily around its villain branding oppressed people to denote their status in society should be extremely cautious with how it handles a very real thing.

the control over the education system and information

the breakup of community and enforcing of individualism

declaring the cultural practices of the people native to the land impure and wicked

the colonization, etc.

So while the series focuses a great deal on taking out said cream cheese colonizing crusader, it frames his white supremacy in a way that assumes nearly every single white person complicit in that was "tricked" and immediately understands upon learning properly because Belos was this crafty manipulator who fooled everyone.

ToH imo is at its best when it gets Luz or others to challenge and dismantle the institutions around them and most of its greatest episodes I feel come from its strong cast when it doesn't have to orbit them around white characters. Luz, Camila, Gus, Willow, Eda, Raine, and Darius for example all solo everyone and are great. King is fun.

Luz in particular is really such a great protagonist that I feel strengthens a lot of the show and makes up for the aspects I didn't care for as much.

I don't really like the discourse around or even the term "redemption arc" because I don't feel it drives at the right questions, so it's not an issue of if I feel these characters deserve to be forgiven or not, but moreso how the Owl House provides a white fantasy in how white people can picture themselves as being alleviated of their white guilt and welcomed with largely open arms from non-white people because of it. My question is more "who is the intended audience?"

To give an example using a different show, one of my favorite Moon Girl episodes is the one where Lunella is belittled at school by a white girl because of her textured hair. They don't go on to give the white girl a backstory, they don't show her parental background or even give her a name. The focus is on Lunella dealing with desirability politics, texturism, and getting support from her friends and family to embrace her hair as it is.

It's not to say I hate the white cast or think they have nothing of value to offer. It's not lost on me that Hunter for instance is an abuse victim and a lot of people can identify with that struggle and him having to unlearn that behavior.

But at the same time the show goes back and forth on trying to do that and also having him wield state power. I'm not all that cool with him institutionalizing a bunch of girls and non-white kids, not listening when they say he's hurting them, then only coming around because he felt more sympathy for their animal companions, which ends up happening far more often in real situations than it should.

A lot of the Owl House when looked at that lens may have a lot of non-white characters in it, but they can sometimes feel like trophies for its white cast after they've been taught better. They do a great job of depicting numerous facets of colonial violence portrayed in an easily accessible way to younger viewers.

But it also feels ultimately in service of centering the rehabilitation of its white cast.

So I think "what audience is this intended for" is an important question to ask when evaluating representation in a work.

#owl house #toh spoilers #luz noceda #darius deamonne #toh darius #luz and camila solo everyone #moon girl and devil dinosaur #moongirl lunella #lunella lafayette #tw: racism #normalize calling Belos a cream cheese colonizing crusader

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ffviirarepairweek · 2 months

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Hello! What is the definition of rarepair?

I feel this group is overtaken by the same old popular pairs we see everywhere all the time

Hi there, so there’s two parts to your question.

I’m going to address the second part first – that it’s just the same popular pairs being shown. Before your ask arrived in the inbox, I had reblogged the following pairings for this year's event (in no particular order):

Reno/Aerith

Sephiroth/Elfe

Reno/Veld

Ifalna/Lucrecia

Biggs/Wedge

Scarlet/Lucrecia

Reno/Tseng

Aerith/Kunsel

Reno/Rufus

Seph/Zack

Vincent/Veld

Cloud/Wedge

I’m also writing requests for Seph/Elfe, Seph/Lazard, Reeve/Vincent, and Biggs/Wedge which will be posted later in the week.

I wouldn’t call that list just all the same popular pairings. If you mean there’s a lot of repeats from previous years of this event, well, yeah. We have a number of repeat participants who, unsurprisingly, still like the same pairings they did last year.

In order for me to share a pairing, someone needs to make content for the event for them (and of course Tumblr has to cooperate in showing it to me, or they can mention to me that it exists – a quick reminder to please do let me know if I’ve been missing your posts, we’ve already found one person who the tag is ignoring > . <) so that I can share it. (Or, someone can request a pairing and I will write something for it to the best of my ability.)

The second part – what is a rare pair.

On the prompt post ( https://ffviirarepairweek.tumblr.com/post/740152122290618368/ffvii-rare-pair-week-2024 ) I have the opening as:

Urban Dictionary defines rarepair as “A ship or pairing that not many people ship or is very rare to find fanfiction and fanart of. Typically happens within small fandoms or with minor characters.”

Of course, people often ask for more specific clarifications because some events are very specific about this. I’ve answered this previously, and this year in this post: https://ffviirarepairweek.tumblr.com/post/740261946911260672/is-there-a-number-of-fics-on-ao3-that-you-are

I’ll copy that reply here as well however:

Obviously there are the big huge pairings that you can’t avoid, and no one is going to mistake them for being rare, and there are some pairings people feel are rare on AO3 but may have had a bigger home on other sites in the past. There’s always debate on what counts as rare. If a pairing has their own currently running active annual event week, then I’d encourage folx to seek those out for those pairings first, as someone is trying to create a space for that pairing already and I’m not trying to take that away (but not everyone knows those are happening either!). My general policy is I’m not going to police a rare pair. At the end of the day, I want folx to have fun and encourage people to create above all.

To further elaborate on that, my goal, as always, in running any event (week or otherwise) is to encourage people to have fun and create for the things they love. To help people find others that share their interests. Maybe introduce others to a pairing they may not have thought about yet, when it comes to rare pair week in particular. I would much rather people feel welcome to create, than sit here looking at every fan site calculating how many entries there is for each pairing and tell someone, sorry, your pairing has x number more things than another, so you’re not welcome in the playground. My table has enough room for us all to sit at for show and tell.

I'll try to be better with tagging the pairings so you can ignore the pairings you don't like for the rest of the week - I was working off mobile the last couple days to post things more frequently. That's on me. If there's something particular you need tagged, you can always send in an ask or message me directly.

#ffviirarepairweek #ask

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writingquestionsanswered · 1 year

Text

Language Issues with Isolated Village

(Question edited for length and answer...)

Anonymous asked: My main character lives in a village that’s been isolated for centuries. They believe they're the only ones left in the world. Therefore, they’re likely to speak a unique language that has been lost to everyone else in the world.

Language tends to be cultural and regional rather than unique to a single village, so it's a little unbelievable that no other villages spoke the same language prior to isolation. Even accounting for the language's evolution over the centuries outside the isolated village, it's unlikely it would change so much that it would be unrecognizable. English has changed dramatically over the centuries, but if you're fluent in English and went back to 1500s England, you wouldn't be completely lost. There would be some unfamiliar words, phrases, and slang--and the accent would be tricky--but you could get by.

MC leaves and discovers there are other cities and people etc. Am I asking my readers to suspend too much disbelief by assuming everyone speaks a common tongue, including this guy who’s been isolated all this time?

"The common tongue" in its fictional context is what's known in the real world as a "lingua franca" or a bridge language/trade language. These develop as a means of communication and administrative convenience between two or more groups who do not share a native language, allowing for the conduct of trade, diplomacy, scholarship, and religion. If there's a common tongue in your story's world, you need to consider why people in the village would have continued to learn and pass down this language once it was no longer necessary for communication's sake. (Edited to add: I see you address this in a later question, so we'll follow up there...)

1. In Game of Thrones there are several languages but many converse in the “common tongue”. Am I ‘allowed’ to assume everyone in my story speaks a universal language?

You can certainly include a common tongue in your story, but you would need to establish it in the story rather than rely on the reader to assume its existence. And you'd need to explain why your isolated villagers continued to learn the common tongue, which we'll get to in a bit.

2. What are some alternative ways my MC can communicate effectively with people in the world?

If they can't find anyone who can translate for them, they can use rudimentary communication such as gestures, pointing, and drawing pictures.

3. I thought about having books written in the common tongue in my MC’s village, which means some people are literate in it… would this be acceptable?

The mere existence of books written in another language isn't impetus enough for a people to pass it through the generations. It would be easier to just translate the books into the village's native tongue. The only way it might make sense is if there was a massive volume of books and documents written in the common tongue--too many to translate--containing a wealth of valuable knowledge that each generation would want to preserve. Even then, you'd have to explain why the protagonist happens to be one of these lucky few who are taught the common tongue. If you can make it make sense, though, it could work.

Other Things to Consider:

I think you can avoid the whole conundrum by acknowledging that other villages spoke the language when the village was cut off. That way, worst case scenario your character is a little behind the times as far as new words, phrases, slang, and maybe even pronunciation, but they'd still be able to communicate.

You could also make it so your character's native language IS the common tongue. That way they can communicate with anyone they encounter who speaks it. Again, the language might have evolved a little, but it won't be a total breakdown of comprehensibility.

I hope that helps! ♥

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venomroses · 7 months

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Hi this is an ask inquiring about the fucked up details of the zones nothing is off the table I wanna know what u mean!!

hi!!

i guess what i want to see is how the bad parts of the zones affect killjoy culture/desert culture in general. like fucked up things on a larger scale i guess. i see a lot of easily-resolvable bad things (ex. someone gets hurt but then someone else patches them up, minor character death) or what's basically just violence for the sake of violence (everyones evil and kills and hurts other people in cold blood with no good reason, what i made the original post about). neither of these are inherently bad (though the latter usually isnt my cup of tea) and technically do acknowledge bad things in the zones but its on such a small scale. i wanna see worldbuilding!! bc theres so little canon content for danger days it makes it the perfect story to build up your own little world and i feel like people definitely build up the characters but don't build up the actual world as much. or maybe they do and i'm just not seeing it?

like one idea that i've been kinda toying with lately (that i hope is a good example) is the idea of medics usually being loners/in groups of other medics instead of each group having a medic or two because without proper medical care, something that might have an easy fix irl can be deadly or at least way worse in the desert, and because of that people fear getting sick. because medics are constantly around people who have potentially contagious diseases, people fear being around medics and try to avoid them if necessary to avoid getting sick. this is part of why being non-op if youre trans is so common- most people won't risk an operation if it isn't necessary to stop them immediately dying. this avoidance of medics is also part of why so many people in the zones are misinformed or just aren't informed at all about many illnesses- how are they going to learn if they won't get near the experts?

basically just worldbuilding my beloved <3

here's a bunch of ideas for potentially fucked up things beyond just killing murder violence and questions to prompt worldbuilding, if anyone's interested. under the cut bc this is long:

like i was talking about above, sickness. how do people generally act toward those who are sick? how much of a difference does the type of illness make in how the sick person is treated? does the way they're treated vary between different kinds of people (killjoys, neutrals, etc)? how do different groups go about curing sickness? how readily available is medical help or medicine? how good are the average desert dweller's first aid skills, and does it vary between groups?

hunger/thirst. what do different groups usually eat? where do they get their food and water from? do they get a balanced diet, or is it just whatever they can get their hands on? do they eat breakfast/lunch/dinner like we do or not? if not, how often do they eat? do they tend to have big meals or small meals? when there's not enough food for everyone, who gets to eat first? how do different groups feel about stealing from others to get what they need? are there certain groups that try to provide food and water for those in need, or is it everyone for themselves?

prejudice/discrimination. i know a lot of people hc the zones as being very accepting, but surely no place is perfect. are certain groups discriminated against in the city too, or is it specific to the zones? are they treated better in certain parts of the zones, or by certain groups? do they have their own spaces? are there any specific parts of desert culture that contribute to prejudice against certain groups?

capitalism. since most people agree the city is a capitalist hellscape and the zones seem to work somewhat similarly (people still having to buy things, a lot of people have written stories about killjoys trying to get enough money to buy things they need, etc) how do you earn money in the zones? if people have jobs, are workers paid well? what happens if you dont have enough money to get something you need? is trade/barter acceptable, or is it money only?

shelter. it gets pretty hot during the day and pretty cold at night, how many people have adequate shelter? will others take you in if you don't have shelter? do people stay in their shelter of choosing for extended periods of time, or do they move around a lot? how do people decorate their shelters, or make them more comfortable? what types of furniture or supplies are found in the average shelter?

violence. how often do people face violence in the zones? what reasons to people have to be violent to one another? does violence usually come from other zone dwellers, or does it happen between zone dwellers and better living industries? are violent incidents usually fatal or not?

childhood. how are children usually treated in the zones? how protected are they from the above problems? what lengths will people go to to help a child in need? what age is considered adulthood? do children lose the help and protections they once had (assuming they had any) once they're considered adults? is anyone willing to help those who've just reached adulthood?

obviously there's more things than that, but i think that's more than enough to get you started. lmk if you actually use any of these to do some worldbuilding, id love to see it!!

#asks #zomb1edude #the zones

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comicaurora · 2 years

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What would you say is the most important part of each character's "voice"?

Oh, that's a great question!

Kendal communicates his thoughts simply and honestly. He doesn't lie, but he will avoid stating certain things around certain people if he has reason to believe it'll produce an undesirable outcome. This straightforwardness is vital to his tone. He won't even indulge in metaphor or non-questions like "don't you understand?" because those don't serve the purpose of communicating his thoughts as clearly as possible. He already has enough trouble connecting with people - he won't exacerbate that by adding unnecessary complications to his words.

Alinua is one of my only characters who stutters! I think it's very important to her tone that she'll pause, "uh-" and repeat herself sometimes. She gets caught up in her thoughts and sometimes outruns her mouth.

Erin is suave and cool and finds communication very easy. Even when it's coming from a genuine case, it has the practiced fluidity of a memorized script. He also typically finds ways to frame everything that are either self-aggrandizing or self-deprecating - he'll seek new information because he made a fool of himself with his ignorance, or he'll have experience with something because of his extensive repertoire of skills and allies. Erin will say what needs to be said to shape a situation the way he wants it to go, and is the only one of the main cast readily willing to lie - which is good, considering the kind of secrets he's lugging around.

Falst is defensive and lashes out easily. Anything he perceives as a vulnerability in himself is strictly off-limits and will never be willingly volunteered. He also doesn't generally lie, but he'll respond to probing questions or desperate circumstances with rage rather than silence. He's the only character I have to keep track of the breaking point for - there are some scenes I've played out with him where I have to stop scripting because I realize he's hit the point where he just starts swinging, or if he doesn't consider the person strictly an enemy, starts threatening. It's like he's playing a game of keepaway with his own emotional vulnerabilities.

Tess is very focused on whatever she's doing at any given time, but that focus can jump easily, and she doesn't tend to consider the context of her situation very much. Trespassing on a prison mountain in the dead of night is a great time to be making new friends! She's not dumb by any metric, and she has a very unique plethora of life experiences to draw from that makes her very easy to get along with and gives her a lot of ways to relate to the people she meets, but that social and emotional intelligence doesn't directly translate into really… being on anyone else's wavelength. She's a creature of sensation, and typically couches her actions in terms of how they make her feel - she won't fight city guards because they're "squishier than her" and that makes her feel bad, but she'll gleefully fight Tynan regardless of his dramatics or evil scheming because it looks like a blast. Erin is probably the only person in the group who really understands how she works, and that's fine by her - she touches a lot of lives, but she doesn't tie herself to any of them too strongly.

Dainix is gentle and emotionally open, but he's not superhuman. In trying circumstances he'll lock up, and while he's not quick to lash out, he will shut people down, and he'll sometimes use his insights into their emotional state to do it. Of the group, Dainix has the most experience relating to people on a personal level, which means he's pretty good at reading relationships and navigating emotionally complex people, but isn't a total doormat about it - he's got boundaries he'll enforce for his own well-being, and as we've seen, he has a breaking point where all his compassion and careful navigation burns away. Dainix is prone to anger, and carefully manages himself to keep his temperature as low as possible to avoid problems and breakdowns. Basically, voice-wise, Dainix is generally polite and empathic and will try to get a feel for whoever he's dealing with to avoid unnecessary conflicts with them, but he will stand his ground if something hurts him - and his one blind spot is that sometimes he'll realize something about the person he's dealing with and drop an insightful nugget of wisdom about them that they'll get very angry about. Not everyone likes being casually psychoanalyzed.

#aurora #asks #writing stuff

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ultimatepokemontournament · 1 year

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I’m sorry to bother you with a question like this, but may I ask how you went about putting this bracket together? I’m trying to figure out my own addition to this showdown bandwagon and am also working with a large roster of characters. Jumping in blind would be a disaster, so I thought it best to seek guidance from someone who’s got a solid approach going.

I can definitely summarize what I did! Though without knowing what you're working with, I'm not sure how much this will map onto anything else!

1) Organizing Matches by the Numbers

So I split up the 1000+ Pokemon into more manageable groups by doing them by Generation, which technically means that I'm just running 9 100+ competitor brackets.

Then, for each generation, I targeted ~high 20s, low 30s for my number of matches with 3-5 Pokemon in each match. I wouldn't exceed 5 in a match, and lower is ideal, when you're trying to figure out how this works for your numbers.

Now, I targeted that number of matches because I wanted to use the next round to force-fit it into better tournament numbers— A nice proper 1v1 tournament has power of 2 competitors, so 2, 4, 8, 16, etc... It simplifies the math and makes it easier, and that's something that I chose for my tournament to avoid Pokemon "skipping" rounds, but you don't have to follow that.

So I will be targeting 8 Pokemon going to round 3 out of round 2, so if we take the number of round 1 winners from Gen 1 for example, there are 31 of them. 31/8=3.875 which means 7 4-Pokemoj matches and 1 3-Pokemon match. Perfect. Run those matches, get your 8 winners, pit your 8 winners against each other in the typical 1v1 tournament style (4 matches), get your 4 winners, etc.

2) Organizing Competitors into Matches

This part is super messy and the actual proper way to do seeding is probably via pre-tournament polling and also by having 1v1 matches, so what I did was the nearest reasonable approximation, given time and effort requirements.

The process: Put all your competitors in a spreadsheet column. Go through the list and bold all the fan favorites, all of the ones you expect to win, etc. Shuffle the column. If the top n(*) competitors look okay for a matchup (ideally, only one bolded name), mark it as (probably) acceptable (I changed the cell colors), and move to the next match. If not, shuffle again. (You'll probably have to do this a lot. However, if just a few of of them are messing up the match, you can move them to the bottom of the match stack and just shuffle them into the remaining competitors.) By the time you get to the bottom, you will very likely have to move things around or break up previously acceptable matches to get the last ones fitting.

(*) n is the target number of competitors in a match.

Note I chose this method specifically because I wanted my own biases to impact the match sorting as little as possible. It's worked out most of the time, sometimes there were fan favorites I completely didn't anticipate. Again, not a perfect system, but it prevents stuff like having Bulbasaur and Eevee in the same round 1 match.

(And sometimes you can't avoid having more than one fan favorite in the same match. In those cases, you want to try your best to pair most-fan-favorites with considerably less fan favorites, but this is also where smaller match sizes do come in handy. 1 5-competitor match allows for 1 fan favorite in 5 competitors, while 2 3-competitor matches allow for 2 fan favorites in 6 competitors... But again it's messy and you can't anticipate everything and sometimes there are a lot of fan favorites.)

(One more thing, Google Sheets does let you randomize a selected range if you right click on it, which can save you time running back and forth between random.org.)

3) Rematches

Personally I think if you want good data in a 3+ competitor winner-take-all kind of situation, you have to run rematches. Say 40% of people like competitor A, 30% of people like competitor B, and the remaining 30% are spread out among competitors C, D, and E. competitor A would win without rematches, but it could very much be the case that of the latter 30% of voters, if their picks were eliminated, only 5% would vote for competitor A, and the remaining 25% would vote for competitor B. That would leave us with 45/55 in B's favor.

Anyway, you can do whatever suits you because running rematches is a little tricky and it requires keeping track of all these extra scattered little polls, but the rules I have for rematches are as follows:

If the winner wins by 50% or more, no rematch.

If the winner is in the lead by 20%, no rematch.

If there are two leading competitor, single rematch.

If there's one leading competitor and two close runner ups, double rematch.

If it looks like it could be a double rematch, but the 2nd place competitor is closer to the first place competitor, it should be a single rematch (and vice versa).

If it looks like it could be a double rematch, the 3rd + 4th + etc place competitors results must be greater than or equal to the 1st place competitor for a double rematch to be held.

4) Scheduling

This one is rather unique to my situation, so I can't really offer too much advice here. Really depending on your voter-base and your access to them, you need to determine if you want to do this long term (slowly releasing the polls) or short term (release them more or less all at once) and if you want to do 1 week polls (requires some extra coordination, especially so that you don't have 1 week gaps between poll drops as you wait for previous round's data to come in) or 1 day polls (easier, but requires your voter base to be more readily available to you).

My very long term approach is based mostly on the fact that the Pokemon community here is very very large and scattered and, starting off, I effectively had 0 way to spread news about the tournament to anyone other than via Blaze. I think if you search scheduling on this blog, you can find the posts that were made when I decided to change the poll schedule, and I did so fairly publicly, so it should be pretty easy to see the structure of this tournament from that.

5) Tournament Summaries/Brackets

Wasn't sure what to call this one but it's basically a, oh no this thing is huge and constantly shifting but people want to kind of get an idea of where we've been and what's coming next, but because it's not a typical 1v1 tournament and also there are hundreds of these guys, I have no idea how to do that.

Which doesn't fit so well in a title lol.

Anyway there are probably a lot better ways of doing this than I did, but I basically just set up a free Neocities site to help keep track of anything. It took me a very long evening to do it, especially since my web dev is super rusty, but it's working out great because it also helps me keep track of everything, because the way I had it set up in my spreadsheet was not super intuitive or easy to see. I doubt anyone wants it, but I am totally willing to share the code behind the site if you all don't know how to get it from just inspecting the page and all. It's pretty clunky though so I'm not advertising it lol.

If I was really smart I'd have all the data in a JSON file and have a JS script just make all the cards that I have in there for me instead of using a separate C++ script (yes, sorry, I use C++ for things like this but that's because I know it better than like Python which would actually probably be the better choice) to generate the cards in HTML which I then paste into the HTML file, but also that would take a lot of time to figure out how to do, and time is not on my side. So.

Anyway. That's most of what I've got organization-wise. I typed this all up on my phone away from my computer so hopefully it's not too messy. I'm not sure if I've provided the info you're looking for or if I've included too much of the information you're not looking for, but I've rarely been accused of not being thorough at least 😭

If you have more questions, feel free to drop me an ask off anon and I'll send you a DM from my main! Otherwise, best of luck!!

#inquiries

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