#Made a lot of wolf analogies in this one

[silverskye13]

In which there is a spar.

#the barking writer #redstone and skulk #helsknight #tanguish #evil beezuma #hels!martyn #The Hand #Made a lot of wolf analogies in this one #i'm going to blame playing with my dog #there's something about a big sharp-toothed animal grin that screams primal joy #unfortunately that big toothy grin also means my hands are covered in cuts #she is a monster of a german shepherd she hasn't learned she has the bite force of a vice yet #thankfully Tanguish isn't going to be sticking his hand in Helsknight's mouth for enrichment so I don't see him having the same issues #stop looking at me like that if you didn't want me to say weird shit in the tags you wouldn't read them come on now

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

I was reading a story recently where Stiles and the Sheriff were talking about the things that keep happening around them and the Sheriff said something like Stiles talks and acts like veteran soldiers do and after thinking about it that analogy does fit his character so well. It also made me really want to read more stories to do with that idea so I was wondering if you knew any?

Here's some where he has PTSD.

A Little Bit of Encourage-Mint by Mischief_x_Managed

(1/1 I 3,273 I Not Rated I No Pairing)

Stiles goes to a therapist who doesn't try to kill him. Surprisingly it works out well.

Dating and Mating Stiles Stilinski by 1Ginger1Keyboard

(4/? I 4,838 I Teen I Sterek)

Derek isn't used to feeling anything as deeply rooted as the feeling revolving around the hyper teen that goes by the name Stiles Stilinski. It takes Derek a while to wrestle these emotions into a form that allows him to decided he wants to pursue them. Yet, he's normally the one being chased, Derek has never had a problem getting peoples attention, he has a good body and charming looks, so he has to work out how to win the heart of the hyper teen. And to put it gently, Stiles has his very own courting ritual that is unlike any wolf or human ritual. It's just, neither of them knows that. To make it worse, the wolf under Derek's skin is growing impatient.

///What am I?/// by Nel_Lino

(1/? I 6,068 I Explicit I Scallison)

Stiles: Why haven't burnt alive? How could Derek die? Why do I care if he died? *** Scott: I need you to own me, now. Isaac: turn around, little whore. *** Danny: And if you want to try some more of that stuff we did, count on me. *** Young Derek: come here you little superhero! Mietek: I am not a superhero, I am special human!

Dreams Will Be Unified by SilentMagic

(4/? I 16,585 I Mature I Sterek)

When Stiles woke up for his eighteenth birthday, he was expecting a day of celebration and maybe a pack party. He was not expecting to wake up beneath the Nemeton, nor sprouting four furry paws in an alternate reality to learn what it means to be a Guardian. He really should clarify to the universe that he would like a break for at least a whole year before the next supernatural event comes his way.

It Was a Wednesday by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

(2/2 I 80,129 I Mature I Sterek)

“What happened? Where are you? What’s that sound?”

Derek jumped, having momentarily forgotten Scott was on the phone with him because Stiles had started moving. He’d stalked over to the other side of the cave, still eying Derek warily and growling, then settled protectively over a mass of clothes, leaves and animal innards. It was probably where he was sleeping.

Lovely. No wonder he smelled like death.

“Stiles,” Derek said, answering Scott’s question. Or, one of them, at least.

“Stiles? What do you—Stiles is making that noise?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“How fast do you think you can make it to the south lot of the Preserve?”

Daybreak by TheObsidianQuill

(10/10 I 70,382 I Mature I Sterek)

"There . . ." Stiles swallowed and looked down at the bottle in his grasp as he slowly swirled the amber liquid inside. "There's really nothing left. For me. Everyone is . . . gone, and it feels like I haven't thought of tomorrow in years." His words rang in the air like a gunshot, he took another heavy drink. "I would trade every last breath I take to just have another shot—not even a guarantee, just a chance to make things right and bring back even one of them." -----

The pack was gone. He had nothing left. He had no one. With nothing to lose, Stiles puts everything on the line to go back in time to try to prevent the future from becoming his past. Broken, guarded, and haunted by his past, only one overgrown-pup of a wolf seems able to get past his defenses. Changing the future? Easy. Finding a place for himself in the Hale Pack? Impossible.

I'm not real. Am I? by lady emebalia (emebalia)

(64/64 I 127,977 I Explicit I Sterek)

Derek is not real. He's just a pretty form Stiles came up with. At least that's what Stiles keeps telling himself.

You're stronger than you know by Littleredridinghunter

(15/15 I 234,195 I Not Rated I Sterek)

Set at the end of season 2, Stiles survives his encounter with Gerard and his goons, but it isn't easy.

The pack are letting him down again, his dad is not speaking to him, his life is just generally falling apart.

Until he has to get a bronze dagger to kill a siren and his whole world gets flipped on it's head!

Alpha, Mage, Pack by Foxfire2018

(48/? I 480,285 I Explicit I Sterek)

Set at the end of Season 2. Stiles was kidnapped and tortured for hours. Yet no one came for him. Hurt and cast out of the pack by people he thought cared for him, what is he to do? He finds himself accompanied by someone he never expected and someone he is eternally grateful for. Derek feels betrayed and foolish for what he allowed to happen. Out of anger and hurt he forced a valuable member he really started to care for out of his pack. With the pack scattered and people hurt, what will come of them? Will they bond together again in time for the next big bad?

AND

@neverdust suggested this one!

Play It Again by metisket

(3/3 I 53,206 I Teen I Sterek)

In which Stiles goes along with one of Derek’s plans and ends up in an alternate universe as a result. He should’ve known better. He did know better, actually, and that means he has no one to blame but himself.

“Laura wants to lure the kid in with food and kindness and make a pet of him, like a feral cat. Derek wants to have him arrested for stalking. They’re at an impasse. (And the rest of the family is staying emphatically out of it in a way that suggests bets have been placed.)”

#teen wolf #sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #ptsd #hurt/comfort #anon

[tableintheteacherslounge]

Abbott Elementary S03E07 thoughts

Melissa having a spare room baring in mind we’ve seen her house feels fake sorry - How will she have a room mate but noone look at her pictures and keep control of her kitchen. I get its gonna be for plot but i don’t buy it

I’m w ava that’s a woman who just found out she’s not pregnant - that’s a woman who’s been successfully slutting it up (how’s she gonna slut it up with a roommate)

Omg protective barb 🥺 (ALSO BARBS RIGHT BC MEL WOULDNT GIVE OUT HER ADDRESS WILLINGLY)

AS SOON AS SHE SAID NERD I THOUGHT JACOB

“I know its gods will but hes gotten awfully creative” 😭😭😭😭😭

I love it when Mr johnson lore gets unlocked

Manny and the beard whew 😮‍💨 I was literally wondering where he was so I’m glad they’re using him again

Janine ur SO SMART this is such a good idea and not like a janine unnecessarily fixing a problem like an actual good idea- good job babygirl

Not ava spilling the tea to the whole room

Ponytail melissa at home is so personal to me, I love that this continues from s2, this is just who she is, she throws her hair up when she’s at home. I like that she’s wearing the eagles hoodie we’ve seen before too. Love the hair, makeup & costume details on this show

“I only know how to cook for 12” 😭

Finally mel talking about her breakup! Damn maybe it really was “im not bringing this to school” this whole time

Also Gary being a dead ringer for her dad?? I’m not saying my headcanons are more correct than the show but I disagree with this statement. Gary is not schemmenti coded.

Omg the jacob melissa work momming work sonning ive been dreaming of

“And dont forget theres a 3 booked limit 😒” barb is PISSED and i LOVE IT

“Oh i know what a google doctor is 😤”

Barb really is the best character on tv im sorry noone can do it like sheryl lee ralph like they just cant Shes everything

Janine forgetting the key term (pottery wheel) in her analogy she is so me

“Jacob if u dont like my ziti just say so and i will heave myself out that window” 😭😭

“I went to find mr johnson but he was still crying” NO 😭💔 hes just a sensitive guy 😔

“Mrs howard i blew down the house” 🥺🤏🏻 I love the kids being so central in this ep, I’ve missed that recently, and the kindergarteners are soooo cute

“🐷 I am a pig 🐺 i am a wolf 😄 and im a librarian who thinks she can just change everything around here 👋” IJBOL no please give sheryl another emmy I beg

“This programme is more of a distraction than an improvement” that’s teaaa actually. Thats so often what councils etc do, distract with new flashy things rather than fix the real problems. Even though in this case it’s well meaning it does make u think how big a priority should the library actually be? But actually children reading is super important and what did they say last season? The librarian was an alexa in glasses? 🤣

“You okay? You look like raven having a vision” 😭 you don’t understand how often i say this

I have thoughts on Barbara’s intentions and my instinct is gregory needs to keep her name out his mouth. I do think it’s really important that Janine stood up to Barbara, just maybe gregory made barbara seem worse than she was

“It’s been a rough week I could use the pick me up” i just love mr johnson

My immediate reaction was this one of my favourite episodes of the season - lots of excellent Barb moments, the kids, more mr johnson, story arcs I enjoyed and felt completed.

Janine standing up to Barbara was a really big deal for her considering her hatred of conflict and worship of barbara as a mother figure. It made me really proud to see how far janine has come.

But the longer since watching the less I like it. And it’s two main things:

- the jacob melissa room mate situation feels like jumping the shark for plots sake and not something realistic for those characters. So as much as I enjoy them and their dynamic and their growth it just feels fake.

- I dont care about the librarian. The set up feels like she could stick around and I just don’t care for new characters, I like my main people. (But then the same apprehension was had w the district people and they’ve not seemed to be around much).

I do still really like this ep and it definitely ranks highly in the season, just idk, some eps I enjoy more over time but this has made me feel more confused as to what will happen next I guess.

#abbott elementary #abbott elementary season 3 #abbott elementary s3

[malichev]

I just read an analogy they made about the qBBH situation and the theft of furniture and it seems to make a lot of sense. There is a story called Peter and the Wolf/Pedro e o Lobo, where young Peter lived in a village and he always lied that there was a wolf nearby just to scare the villagers. One day, a wolf really appeared, and when he went to tell the people, they didn't believe him and left him alone with the wolf. The moral of the story is that if you lie a lot, eventually people will stop believing you. If qBBH didn't steal the furniture this time, then he's going to have a very long job to prove his innocence, because the fact that he constantly robbed others and denied it is what resulted in him being arrested today. And even if he manages to prove his innocence in this case, he has a pretty long record of stealing furniture, Cellbit Castle knows. That's why qCellbit doesn't want him there anymore and prepared that offense system. To show that qBBH is no longer welcome. I think it's fair and I think things could get worse given the fact that qBad came back to the castle anyway, because if anything else goes missing he's the one who'll take the blame.

But there is also a chance that qBBH really is to blame, and I'm worried about that because qRoier seems interested in hiring qWillyrex for a little revenge.

#qsmp #qsmp brasil #qsmpbr #qsmp cellbit #qsmp bbh #qsmp badboyhalo

[sweetmariihs2]

Hey guys! Um.. I'm not frequently on this hashtag and just came here to adress that Melanie Martinez songs make a perfect playlist for Sun and Moon. It's been years since the release of Security Breach and still this day I never found anyone talking about that (believe me, I search everywhere from time to time in years (when my hyperfixation starts again lol)) and I'm starting to believe that if I don't say anything, no one will. So umm yeah I don't want to make a big post I just wanna point it out

If you're here in Tumblr and you're interacting with fandoms for a really long time you probably heard at least one of her songs before. Basically for those interested she makes songs with childish aesthetics and serious themes. Her most recent album is more fairycore though, but the first ones aren't.

She has an album called Cry Baby (it's about a disturbed childhood), an album called K-12 (it's about school), and an EP called After School (inspired by school themes but more inspired in the artist's life) and they fit Sun and Moon very well

Also I wanted to add that some of her best gems are unreleased, and like, there are some really good stuff that fit Sun and Moon, you just need to search for it

The songs that fit them most are the first ones of the list, the rest is more like,,, they fit them well but not like the first ones ya know what i mean

That's my mini list of recomendations if anyone is interested;

(if you're going to make a playlist for YouTube be careful with the unreleased ones, Melanie tends to delete them from time to time):

Unreleased- Twins (this one sounds like it was made for them. Want me to put all the lyrics here? Okay then.)

Unreleased- Toy Chest ("clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere" (it's from Barney))

Unreleased- Arts and Crafts (creating the perfect bf on arts and crafts)

Released- Glued (she's sad and talking about how her sadness is glued to her like school glue)

Unreleased- Night Mime (she's sad and silent during the night like a night mime. She's waiting for the sunrise so that she can be happy again)

Released- Tag, You're It (she's being chased by a big bad wolf while making analogy to a tag game. It sounds like a little childhood game but the chaser is very sinister and want to do bad things to her)

Released- Teddy Bear (this one fits the whole franchise. Her "teddy bear" (probably a metaphor for an important person in her life, maybe her boyfriend or best friend) was sweet to her before, now he's trying to kill her. "You were my teddy bear, you were comforting and quiet, how did love become so violent?". This was released in 2015, if you're here in the fnaf fandom for a really long time or in the whole fandom part of the internet by itself you know this one. It brings me a lot of memories. How I miss the 2010's)

Released- Sippy Cup (you can try to hide your problems but they're always there. "Blood still stains if the sheets are washed". Even if you always try to keep the lights on, that animatronic killed kids inside the daycare and it can happen again if the lights go out. Oh-oh :c

Released- Carousel (you proably heard this one before let's be real)

Released- Drama Club (theatre!!! Yay)

Released- Show And Tell (She's tired, as an artist, of always playing a character in front of everyone. It's the ventrilocus noises for me)

Released- The Contortionist (idk it's the vibe)

Unreleased- Schizo ("i don't know who you are 'cause I don't know who i am, how can we learn how to love if you change your mind again? I don't know who to be, who do you want me to be?")

Released- Alphabet Boy (a rude boy is telling her how much smarter he is than her for knowing how to spell and write the ABCs)

Released- Lunchbox Friends (we are best friends forever yipee🫶🫶🤝)

Unreleased- Unhappy meal (inspired by McDonalds. Idk it just makes me think of sun)

Released- Pity Party (it's her birthday party and nobody showed up. Then she tries to play pretend with her toys and teddy bears, but she still know that she's alone and ends up destroying her party and stabbing her toys with knives. She's tired of being alone. :(

Released- Fire Drill (she's in a fire, it's the song that plays after the end of the K-12 album. It sounds like a nursery rhyme. There are children singing with her.)

Released- Dollhouse ("everyone seems to be perfect, please don't let them look through the curtains, DOLLHOUSE, I see things that nobody else sees" (again y'all probably know that one))

Released- Play Date (being romantically used by someone while doing analogies to games and toys)

Small list of songs that deserve to be mentioned but don't make a lot of sense like the last ones, it's just the vibes: The whole After School EP, the whole Cry Baby album, Gingerbread Man, Lost and Found, Patient, Papercuts, ZZZZ

There are also some fan-made type beats, since Melanie's community also sometimes link her to jesters and clowns and also make songs about her already released albums, so like here are some: Class Clown, Naptime, Fire Alarm, Janitor's Closet (I love this one sm!!), Punishment

All of those type beats have their own artists, some of those artists even sell them, so make sure if they are free to use if you want to make a playlist, but I guess it's okay to listen to them for fun since they were posted on youtube

Tell me what you think about those. I love interacting with people who like the same things as me 🫶🫶

#sundrop #moondrop #sun and moon #sundrop and moondrop #daycare attendant #fnaf security breach #fnaf help wanted 2

[halogenwarrior]

I find it interesting the moral double standards employed by fiction where all animals are depicted as sapient and able to talk to each other, ecological balances i.e “the circle of life” is a major theme i.e the Lion King, and at least some of the main characters are carnivores. The premise is always that the predators can’t be seen as horrifying or evil for eating sapient prey because they live within an ecosystem, and, as in real ecosystems, everything is complicated and connected enough that it can’t be boiled down to “everything would be better if the predators weren’t there”. No death can be seen as definitively a bad thing because of this ecological complexity. But in practice this premise never holds - prey deaths are acceptable and we shouldn’t be quick to call them bad, and yet we are supposed to feel any deaths of the predator protagonists are tragic and those who deliberately kill them are evil, in spite of the fact that by the same logic you should argue that no one can say those deaths are inherently bad, either - one lion or wolf’s death is just part of an overall cycle and who can say it’s bad because that death will mean other animals get to live. So it becomes a double standard - typical morality of death being tragic and murder being wrong for me, cold moral relativism for thee. 

And I get why this is tempting to do since to do otherwise would make a very cynical, depressing, morally nihilistic story that wouldn’t be a good fit for a kids’ movie - nothing you do matters, whether you live or die does not matter, as long as the overall ecosystem is preserved. So they will often try to make the stakes matter by having a villain who is not just threatening the individual lives of the main characters but threatening the “balance of nature” altogether; e.g, using The Lion King as an example again, Scar isn’t just bad because he kills Mufasa and tries to kill Simba, but also because by letting in the hyenas he enables overhunting, unbalancing the ecosystem and causing mass starvation. The problem here is that a lot of portrayals of “disturbing the balance of nature” rely on an overly idealized portrayal of ecology, where as long as the predators just take their fair share the prey’s overpopulation never causes problems for other species and the predators never starve. A basic look at predator-prey population graphs proves this wrong, though - it’s a constantly shifting “equilibrium” where the prey does get overhunted sometimes and drops in population, causing the predators to starve and drop in population themselves until the prey population rises again. So the famine Scar is causing is something that would have inevitably happened anyway. Rather than a constant peace the cynical sacrifices have to be made for it’s a constant strife where at any given time someone is always given the short end of the stick. 

An that’s not even getting into the part of the premise where the sapient prey species are considered so incapable of understanding ecological management on their own that they have to be paternalistically killed by ecologically knowledgable predators to keep them from overpopulating. And what would they do if they did feel they could manage their own affairs? The omnivorous animals are one thing, but what about all the obligate carnivores who have no choice but to kill even if they weren’t making moral justifications for it, would they just have to all be killed? Of course, a story where characters had to make the choice between accepting a constant state of being picked off and murdered for the “greater good” and committing genocide wouldn’t make for a good kids story. 

In the particular case of the Lion King, the setup is particularly disturbing because the “circle of life” stuff is being explicitly analogized to human systems of monarchy, which have a long history of using exactly this kind of double standard of “everyone must stay in their role and make sacrifices to keep the Balance, but somehow the lower-class people are the only one who have to make actual sacrifices while we don’t” to justify their power. And I can’t help but noting that there’s probably a reason along these lines that just about every Lion King fan work focuses completely on the lion (and sometimes hyena) characters, not really acknowledging other animals as characters. It’s just a lot more comfortable to have a more human-relatable story of one sapient species with everyone else being treated as moral non-entities (which raises questions about humans assuming one needs to be sapient to be a moral entity, though that’s an entirely different topic), than either maintaining the oppressive double standard of which lives have value or going for full-on moral nihilism where nothing anyone does in the story really matters. Or maybe it’s just that they like designing lion characters better and I’m reading too much into it, I don’t know.

#animal fiction #the lion king #xenofiction

[fuzzydreamin]

Y'all brought back my post about Strong and the Institute, so I'm going to go ahead and ramble about Super Mutants and their dietary habits under the cut.

Warning: talking about cannibalism.

So, mutants eat people (at least the east coast ones do it very often), and this is often used as part of peoples arguements when complaining about how Bethesda changed mutants for the worse - which, yeah, but I wanna go into why this actually makes sense lore-wise. Because that's more fun for me.

Now, it's literally called a wasteland for a reason. One of the biggest struggles facing anyone out there is procuring food. There are multiple instances of regular humans in the fallout world committing cannibalism, either alone or in whole groups, and it's often left up to the player to make a judgement on whether you'll let it slide or not - the rest of the world tends to turn a blind eye unless it’s rampant and/or affecting them directly. You as the player can eat human meat without taking the cannibalism perk even. “Iguana meat” is human meat. “Strange meat” and “Strange Jerky” are human meat. Longneck Lukowski’s “Canned Meat” has ghoul in it. The PC can choose to become a cannibal and directly eat their fallen enemies (or friends), and while most of the companions find it gross, and some (but not all) will lose affinity, they won't argue or leave the player's side for it like they do with murder. It’s just a reality of the world, you eat what you must. To most it’s deeply unpleasant, but no one is getting ousted from society for having to pick a desperate meal.

So then you get Super Mutants, whose diet mostly consists of meat. Red meat especially, since Strong claims that they don't like eating insects. They will eat mirelurk and fish, but it's not as good and harder to catch. They’re also huge, presumably eat a lot to make up for that and since their hunger is one of the main things on their mind, and live in groups where they share resources. So that means they have to catch big game, and often, if they want to be fed. Sure, some can try to live off just catching things like radstags out in the wild, but they’re fast, on the lookout for trouble, dangerous in a fight, and you aren’t always going to bump into them. Brahmin and other types of livestock are kept by and near humans generally - wild pockets would be rarer to find, and would be wiped out quickly when they are. Erickson on The Island manages to live without hurting people, but it’s important to note that he only has to worry about feeding himself and his dogs, so he can make do with fewer catches - mutants generally live in groups, the larger the better, so they need a lot more. Which means being less picky.

With all that in mind, you know what is in abundance? Humans. Stubborn little humans popping up seemingly everywhere despite whatever the wasteland throws at them. Sure, they’re wary of dangers too, but not so much as the radstag - nor are they as fast, or as strong without a weapon. There’s also the addition that Super Mutants don’t think of themselves as human, even knowing they came from them. The Forced Evolutionary Virus has made them something new, something else. In their mind a super mutant eating a human is little different from a wolf eating a hare. It’s just the natural order to them. That doesn’t absolve the cannibalism part really - it’s not a perfect analogy and just helps explain their mentality. It's still sitting in the cannibalism zone. And they aren't even opposed to eating other super mutants!

With enough perks into cannibalism the player can eat dead ghouls and super mutants, to which Strong is positive towards the latter, stating that it’s an honour to the fallen mutant that they eat his flesh, and will even inherit his strength from doing so.

Give honour to brother by taking his flesh.

Save some for Strong. Fallen brother died well.

Eat well, human. Take strength from dead brother. It is our way.

So, in this way the super mutants have also tied something of a belief system into their diet. Which is quite interesting, and honestly very human. In real life when cannibalism crops up en masse it’s often tied to mystical beliefs and superstitions. 

This all also explains why you don’t find many, if any, super mutants out in the Glowing Sea - not counting Virgil, of course. Strong states that the Sea is for “ghouls and bugs”, which are two things mutants don’t enjoy eating.

Brother super mutants not come here. Not enough to eat.

Strong not like Glowing Sea. Too much glow.

Ghouls and bugs like Glowing Sea. Not super mutants or humans.

There’s no humans (as far as anyone knows) or large game, so super mutants going out into the sea would starve and end up eating each other and then just dying eventually. There’s also the unrelated but still interesting note that the Sea has so much radiation that it even starts to affect mutants, who are highly resistant to it. Virgil is surviving similarly to Erickson, in that he only has to worry about feeding himself and is friendly enough to trade with the humans nearby.

Anyway, the super mutants diet including human meat is interesting in lore and beyond a “these enemies are just yucky and mean”, especially so in the fact that these kinds of mutants can’t live without humans nearby because they rely on them so much as food. 

“But what about farming livestock? What about Jacobstown?” I hear you say, and yeah, that’s a totally valid thing for mutants to get into - but probably only on the west coast.

There’s still a big difference between the east and west coast mutants, and that’s that the ones over on the west have been around a long time, since The Master made them, and have had time to learn and grow. They’re also noted to generally be stronger and smarter than the eastern mutants because of the influence of The Master’s design -which wasn’t perfect, but is better than the ‘no real aim but to make more of us’ approach Super Mutants usually go for. They’ve been able to carve out their own niche in the wasteland and we know that some mutants live just fine among humans and that friendly super mutant towns do exist out there.

But the east coast is different.

The mutants on the east coast lack The Masters design. They never had it to begin with as far as we know, and just came about due to Vault 87, The Institute, and general human exposure to leftover FEV. The mutants on the east coast are young, and results vary a lot. They haven’t had any time at all to develop themselves, individually or as a society, and are mostly acting on the heightened adrenaline that the FEV fills them with and trying to make more of their kind. They're in survival mode still.

There’s also the issue that the east coast was hit worse by the bombs than the west - there’s a reason the east and west are in different levels of rebuilding - which means there’s less good land to raise crops and animals on, once again leaving us with humans being the common animal populating the wasteland after they've taken all that land for their own needs.

So, yeah. It's just interesting when you compare these different groups and their situations, but overall: Super Mutant's cannibalism makes sense. Maybe one day the eastern mutants will move away from it, maybe it will stay as part of a belief system, but no matter what it's going to take time, and in the meantime there are plenty of groups out there not willing to let them make a snack out of people.

#fallout #super mutant #strong #cannibalism #fuzzy.post

[twistedminutia]

I'm still stuck on this, and I wonder about Found Footage Horror, or Analog Horror (maybe the recent Digital Horror). Like, I know for a fact that Twst is advance enough to have new technology. Like, those Horror are mostly found in the Internet with the rarities in main stream media like the Blair Witch Project.

There is also Liminal Space, like the uncanny feeling like there should be people here but there is no one. I feel Hearstabyul and Octa (this is the only dorm I can't spell with confidence) are the most creepiest. Hearstabyul cuz has the largest amount of people and it being fucking loopy. While, Octa being a rest of sort, and the big ass aquarium windows. Like some content creators, are good at it that it creates suspense and some lore. For example Kain Pixel's Backroom series and the Oldest View.

There are also other sites that are making horror stories with varying quality. Like the SCP wiki (but I have more fun seeing the world building, but there are some good stories in there), r/nosleep (it's a mixed bag), and my personal favorite podcast series The Magnus Archive (my fav is episode one)

There are a lot of similarities between horror in Twisted Wonderland and our own, primarily because we have significant overlap in the things we find scary. However, the existence of magic has made horror fiction both more and less scary. Less because if you’re a mage, there are a lot of things you can do to get yourself out of a situation or fight off the thing harming you. More because, well, imagine a powerful mage being the slasher in your horror movie.

The existence of magic has also created something of a niche of horror fiction: mage horror. Typically, it’s horror directed to mage consumers, often dealing with magic going out of control, overblots, and other general unsettling aspects of being a magic user. Overblotters mages also take a starring role in a lot of horror fiction- an overblotted mage actually is the main villain of a piece of horror media close in style to the Blair Witch Project film. A lot of the common tropes you might get from a witch on Earth are replaced with mages, often overblotted mage, in Twisted Wonderland. Demons roles are similarly filled by evil spirits.

Uncanny feelings in the dorms is an interesting idea. The Heartslabyul dorm at least seems like it would have some interesting shadowy places that would freak you out in the early morning. The dorm’s architecture is much less creepy to people who grew up in the Queendom of Roses, since that kind of architecture is traditional there, but people from elsewhere might be freaked out!

Octavinelle’s kinda creepy, too. To look out those windows and see nothing but the empty darkness beyond… That’d be enough to trigger anyone’s latent thalassophobia! I'd imagine there are some students who just avoid looking out the windows at night. Or maybe during the day, too!

Speaking of Octavinelle, my headcanon is that merfolk have the creepiest scary stories. Like, horrifically scary. They've canonically mentioned that a lot of merfolk go missing, and the sea is a very dangerous place to live (though it was the twins who said this, and I feel like they could be messing with us for fun. Until we have confirmation otherwise, I'll take their word for it). Merfolk horror media often is highly realistic, deals both with personal and cosmic horror in the same breath, and tends to get kind of graphic. A lot of hardcore horror fans on land will pay top dollar for copies of merfolk media. (Yes, Azul leverages this to hell and back.)

Generally, human and beastman media is pretty similar to what we have, with some modifications to existing myths. Vampires exist in horror media pretty much unchanged from our world, but werewolves are a tale from wolf beastmen, for example. Traditionally the same kind of horror. Fae horror is... well, it's either piss-terrifying or it doesn't translate well. Lilia's really good at identifying the piss-terrifying stuff and scaring people with that. Malleus will either tell you something that will make you stay up all night in cold fear completely casually, or he'll try to give some protracted horror story about the slow passage of time and the alteration of the world. It's a little unsettling, but it's not scary exactly.

That's about the sum of it. I don't think there's much more I have to say on horror here... though I'm sure if you ask more, I can come up with more headcanons!

#twisted wonderland #a million and one minutia #asked and answered

[blimbo-buddy]

The Dog's name is Scrap and he's from my FNAF OC phase

I still do love animatronic restaurants and FNAF and the love for robotics this series gave me.

Scrap and his band of misfits are part of a chain of restaurants inspired by Fazbear Entertainment.

Fazbear's Scrapyard I called the story back in the day. A funhouse of basically rejected animatronics.

This cat be one of my redesign earliest FNAF OCs named Sailor Flynn. An animatronic feline inspired by Foxy the Pirate Fox.

Flynn in this picture is upset about Freddy hogging all the spotlight and glory and taking away any chance for Scrapyard's fame.

Because FNAF is a timeline where technology is more advanced than ours, these animatronics of Scrapyard are sentient and not possessed by spirits.

I should bring them back and use them for an Analog Comedy it would be fun haha

Oh man I really like Flynn a lot! I had a fnaf character who was a pirate wolf and another who was a pirate parrot, I guess Foxy just made us inclined to include a pirate into our own characters lol. Flynn's design is super fun I really like their bandana with the fish bone on it

#blimbo rambles #ask #also cool idea for the animatronics being sentient and not possessed! I liked that idea when security breach came out it's a fun idea

[beta-adjacent]

“Woof” by Chai (me!)

This is the first post of its kind on my blog— my analysis of a song written/produced by me! This initial post will just have the song lyrics, my interpretation of them, my inspirations for the piece, and some “behind the scenes” of my writing process. If I can get my shit together, I’ll hopefully reblog this with an audio file with the actual song, so you can understand the song’s tone more!

Without further ado, I present….

I. The Lyrics

The reflection of the headlights passing by on the backseat window / I am happy pretending it’s the moon (awoo) Don’t ask about the silver on my neck/ you were never meant to know/ That I domesticate myself for you I want to say I’m sorry/ Or get angry/ I can’t even muster up a smile/ I am stoic but my tail will wag all the while Because it means you see me/ Do you see it? Do you finally see me?/ And I’m sorry/yeah I’m sorry I see you clearly Mind to mouth/for mouth to mind/ For all the words / I’ll never find:/ The fool in me/ will bark again/ And pray you’ll hear a labyrinth Mind to mouth/for mouth to mind/ For all the words / I fail to find:/ The fool in me/ will bark again/ And pray you’ll hear/I pray, I fear The reflection of the headlights passing by on the backseat window / and I’m happy pretending it’s the moon

II. Theme(s)

The major theme I try to tackle in this song is the juggle between desiring to express your wants while struggling with internalized shame for wanting. And I found that easiest to explain with this analogy of a werewolf, with the human side trying to forcefully domesticate this inner beast inside them.

III. Line-by-Line Analysis

The reflection of the headlights passing by on the backseat window / I am happy pretending it’s the moon (awoo)

This picture above kind of illustrates the imagery I was hoping to go for with this line! It's what inspired the whole song tbh; I was literally sitting in the back of the car late one night, and I kept seeing headlights reflecting off the window. It made me think of dogs who sit in the back of cars, which made me think of a domesticated wolf seeing headlights as the moon instead of the moon itself.

I think that the theme of being trapped/trained by the human side is shown well through this imagery, because the very key to the wolf's transformation —the full moon— is synthetic.

The little "(awoo)" part is just a silly thing I did in the recording, but I thought it was funny to keep in the lyrics because. because howling at the "moon".

Don’t ask about my silver on my neck/you were never meant to know/that I domesticate myself for you

I struggled a lot intially with this lyric, with some earlier drafts using "the dogbed in my room" and "my grandma-eating teeth" (referring to the little red riding hood tale). But I settled for the silver because it reminds me of dogs that actually wear a silver chain as a collar. It also made me think of a shock collar, since silver is like, a classic werewolf repellent, and that lended itself well to the theme of "training the wolf".

For a while, the lines were "don't ask about the silver on my neck, you were never meant to know /that I am always at your beck and call", which was really just an attempt to rhyme 'neck'. But I changed it because “beck and call” implied a servitude more than a protection, which isn't really on-theme.

I want to say I’m sorry/ Or get angry/ I can’t even muster up a smile/ I am stoic but my tail will wag all the while

I am hoping that everyone who's been on Tumblr understands the trope of a dog character wagging their tail because they're happy on the inside but trying not to show it. Fun fact: I spent so long recording this part specifically because I kept saying "my tag will wail".

Because it means you see me/ Do you see it? Do you finally see me?

And here's where we learn that the very neglected, overly supervised wolf-dog-thing is actually being noticed, probably during some argument that would normally warrant the human side to be apologetic/angry/sardonic/happy/etc. The stoic-ness (meant to imply a tiredness/jadedness) from the human side now makes sense; the thing being domesticated is going against its training by being seen. The toggling between someone seeing "it" versus "me" is also pretty painful to wrestle with, because it's an acknowledgement that, despite hiding away the wolf, it's still a part of the person or even a “glitch” in which narrator is talking (though I don’t think I ever bring up that concept of multiple narrators anywhere else)

There's also a large question as to whether the repetition of asking is done out of joy, desperation, or even a disbelief (like a “really?? Uh huh, yea sure *eye roll*”).

And I’m sorry/yeah I’m sorry that I see you clearly

It's heard way more in the recording, but there's a lot of sass in the last line. There is a suggestion that human has the ability to see the vulnerabilities in others, while struggling to show that vulnerability themself. And that having that ability brings some sorrow or regret, which gets expressed through that sardonic tone.

Mind to mouth/for mouth to mind

HANDS DOWN MY FAVORITE LYRIC IN THIS SONG AND MAYBE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MY SONG WRITING!!!

So yes, obviously, there’s the implication of a disconnect between what you want to say versus what you think/feel, “there’s a disjoint between mind and mouth”, you’ve been reading so much of this post that this is just a restatement of the theme.

So instead, look at tHE SYNTAX!!!!!! LOOK AT HOW MANY WAYS YOU CAN INTERPRET THIS SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Mind (noun) to mouth (noun)” for mouth (noun/verb) to mind (verb): first describing the transcription of words as an effortless/involuntary process, that then needs constant oversight/hindsight to not fuck up

Mind (noun) to mouth (verb) “for mouth (noun) to mind (verb)”: the mind itself is hyper-aware that there needs to be constant oversight on what is being said, could even be read as dismissive of the mind like “whatevs, not my problem~”

Mind (verb) to mouth (noun) “for mouth (noun) to mind (verb)”: reminding the mouth of its purpose to be overly analytical of what’s coming out of it, like a sardonic courtesy

Now, those are just Chai’s top 3 favorite interpretations. But I think that, because it’s 4 words (2 minds, and 2 mouths) that can be interpreted in 2 ways each (verb or noun), there’s 8 possible combinations for this lyric, or maybe even 16 depending on your calculation (4 multiplying versus squaring by 2)!!!!

And granted, this is a stretch, but since it’s a sentence About misconstruing thoughts/words, any other words listeners could hear (ex: ‘mind’ becoming ‘mime’) make a Legitimate alternate interpretation. In fact, the lyric would still make sense if the listener heard absolute gibberish, because the lyric is about Speaking Absolute Fucking Gibberish And Our Brains Will Fix or Rationalize It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And my favorite part is that it ALL depends on the prepositions. “Mind TO mouth TO mouth TO mind” is an Entirely different meaning than “Mind TO mouth FOR mouth TO mind”!!! And hopefully misinterpretations even fuck up the prepositions like “Mind TO mouth OR mouth TO mind”, (which btw is another awesome interpretation; it questions if the mind or body is truly the one in power).

Point is that this lyric is RIPE with potential, and that potential is endless. It is so easy to fuck up this (or any) lyric by hearing/singing/reading the wrong thing, but it still can be analyzed and have a thoughtful meaning regardless. And that process is Exactly what the lyric itself is describing!!! And that daunting feeling, that your words could be taken in any possible way, is such a major loss of control and matches the theme of the rest of the song seamlessly!!!!!!!

Isn’t that just the coolest fucking thing ever????? It’s definitely not The first lyric ever to do this, but it might be My first lyric to ever do this, and it might be nonsensical but goddamn it, I’m Proud to say I can extrapolate all of that from 6 fucking words!!!

The fool in me will bark again/and pray you’ll hear a labyrinth

Second favorite lyric, and it’s much simpler to wrap your head around too methinks!! This entire bridge is mind-melting tbh and I love it

Revealing this hatred of the inner beast (by calling it a fool), and how its attempts to articulate can’t (or rather, shouldn’t) be recognized as something worth listening to, or even something human.

And do you guys ever listen to an animal speak, or even a baby cry, and you’re just…. confused? Like, “I can’t tell what it wants and am glad it’s not my responsibility to figure that out”? That’s what the “labyrinth” is supposed to mean. The speaker hopes nothing of true value is heard in the barking. Instead, they pray that a warning label is produced, a placard with the face of a minotaur and the words “string store 300 miles left!”. Through careful training, the barking should threaten people to get lost inside of something larger than life (aka the meta-analysis of speaking/behaving, as described in the “mind to mouth” segment), so that they never actually venture in. Which hopefully also makes listeners question…

"why pray for it if the speaker can control it?", to which the simple answer is "it can't because fool is inside of the speaker, not the speaker itself; it’s a separate, uncontrollable entity, like how the mind and mouth are separate” or even cooler “it can’t because the general process of ‘mind to mouth’ takes the speaker and the listener, and since the listener is out of the speaker’s control, the whole process is out of control”, or even “the fool and the man are the same entity, but have been so alienated from each other by their own actions that reconnection of the self feels impossible!!!”

Either way, it’s a hopeless lyric, a pitiful cry for help over something already expressed to be uncontrollable. It’s a short way to explain how interaction is a two-way street, and almost always leads to a conversational car crash, which is so routine now it’s become desired

And in a way, this is the wolf. This overwhelming complexity —a black hole of thought and emotion that is near-impossible to describe due to its sheer vastness, which controls every layer of thought and perception, something that can’t even truly be understood or acknowledged by others because of how you interact with it— is the wolf.

Hopefully now all of the desperate measures from before make sense. The contradicting feelings when someone glimpses into the wolf’s personage. The internal strategies to keep the wolf contained. The futile scrambling for a simple reality. If you were plagued with a wolf, and how much letting to roam free could hinder you and others, wouldn’t you want to train it too?

Mind to mouth/for mouth to mind/ For all the words / I fail to find:/ The fool in me/ will bark again/ And pray you’ll hear/I pray, I fear

Can you believe I loved my lyrics so much that I just had to repeat them? It’s a popular motif in music so I’m not bothered, and it’s important to me at least to emphasize that 1) This Is Where The Analysis “Meat” Is At and 2) You Don’t Need an Analytical Brain to Enjoy This.

Which, speaking of, is a good time to bring up rhythm!! Because I don’t remember the poetry lingo, but this is the Most on-beat part of the song and it’s very stable (which is ironic). Let me rewrite it so you can see where phonetic emphasis is intended:

Mind to mouth/for mouth to mind/ For all the words / I fail to find:/ The fool in me/ will bark again/ And pray you’ll hear/I pray, I fear

Also here people get to sit on the amount of alliterations (mind, mouth, mind/ fail, find, fool) and repetitions (mind to mouth, and the pray/hear/pray/fear), and are able to enjoy a new rhyme scheme (the again/labyrinth versus the shortened hear/fear)

Speaking of, that shortened rhyme is a lead up to the final lyric:

The reflection of the headlights passing by on the backseat window / and I’m happy pretending it’s the moon

Which I fear is a segue easier seen on paper than heard because we’re mirroring the rhythm/notes of the first line, so the jump is a bit harsh. It’s meant to read like “I fear the following: 1) the reflection of the headlights passing by on the backseat window and 2) I’m happy pretending that’s the moon”

But analytically, the last thing we’re left with is a fear of being content with all of the training and trapping of the beast. This feeling of unrest, of wanting life to be simple but refusing to commit to simplicity or complexity, makes it a constant back and forth between man and beast. Really, this is meant to be when we can step back, and let the meta-analysis of the inner battle wash over us as the final chord is played, leaving us in a similar state of being stuck in our own heads, idly watching life pass us by…..

And yea, that’s the whole song! :> Congrats for reading/scrolling this far!!!

IV. Inspiration

My music has been heavily influenced by Midwest emo bands, especially ones like The Front Bottoms and McCafferty (Mom Jean and Pet Symmetry get honorable mentions). And I emphasize The Front Bottoms and McCaffetty because of the “mind to mouth” verse. The rhythm and the lyrics of this segment sound exactly like something these bands would write!!!

If you recognize these bands, I encourage you to read this verse again (pasted below), imagining the lead singer belting it:

Mind to mouth/for mouth to mind/ For all the words / I’ll never find:/ The fool in me/ will bark again/ And pray you’ll hear a labyrinth

If I find a decent Nick Hartop AI, it’s over for y’all!!

IV. Outtakes/“the Process”

Making this post: I had the terrible, terrible idea at one point to work on this post in the presence of humans, and at one point they saw my search history. Seeing “shock collar dog”, “silver chain dog”, and “bad guys tail wag gif” all in a row made them….Really concerned for me.

I wanted to share the song itself in this but I wussed out. Mostly because I’m terrified the FBI (or worse, my friends) will stumble across that file by accident (it’s the wolf, I suppose LMAO). I did convert it into an AI cover using Sonic the Hedgehog (which gave it a lovely Blink 182 quality) and even tried out Garage Band and using the piano feature! But I’m also a lil afraid bc it is Midwest emo inspired, and I don’t know much more than power chords (ooh, “not much more than power chords” is a good lyric, no one steal that unless you show me your demo first). So the backing is…kind of missing A Lot (like a consistent beat). If people want to hear it, I’d probably drop the half-baked piano version I made, which doesn’t do the song justice but would at least help people get the music’s vibe

V. Conclusion

Hopefully, I have been able to convince you that my song, “Woof” may be simple at first glance, but a lot of thought was put into its creation!! Making songs like these is one of my all-time favorite ways to understand my perception of the world. It’s really a process I treasure.

As perhaps expected now, the Meta-analysis Wolf in my mind is worried that everything I wrote is disjointed or that it’s not telling the cohesive story I want it to. So, if you have questions about anything mentioned in this post, or wanted to share critique, feel free to do so! My only request is that you be kind; I am a nothing more (and nothing less) than a student of thinking and creating

And I feel like I need an upbeat takeaway for this post sooooooooo…….. if you find something in you, urging you to be creative, listen to yourself!! Follow that instinct to be a fellow student in thought & creation!!!!!!!!!!

#keep reading at your own risk: this shit is lengthy and a lil existential? #you at least get to see into my anxieties; that’s what you sign up for when reading an analysis of a song used usually as a coping mechanism #song analysis #chai rl #lyric analysis #original song

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

NITA STRAUSS + ALISSA WHITE-GLUZ: Behind-The-Scenes Footage From Making Of 'The Wolf You Feed' Video

Former Alice Cooper and current Demi Lovato guitarist Nita Strauss has released behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the official music video for her latest single, "The Wolf You Feed". The epic, headbanger of a track features huge, chunky, metallic riffs and the insane vocal talent of Alissa White-Gluz of ARCH ENEMY.

Nita comments: "If you look back at old interviews from the last ten years, any time I was asked about collaborating with a vocalist in the future, Alissa White-Gluz was always the first name out of my mouth. She is truly one of my favorite vocalists and performers in the industry and creating this track together was everything I hoped it would be.

"I'm very proud to release this track, especially now with everything else that's going on. This time in history, whether in politics, music, social media, or our personal lives, has been an eye-opening look into the two wolves of a lot of people out there, and maybe this song will be a reminder that we all have the ability to choose how we respond to things."

The lyrics of this song were inspired by "The Story Of The Two Wolves", a legend widely attributed to Native American storytellers. An old grandfather was teaching his grandson about life: "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil — he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued: "The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf will win?" The grandfather simply replied: "The one you feed."

Alissa adds: "Nita and I finally got to collaborate — something we have both wanted to do for years! 'The Wolf You Feed' is a kickass, catchy metal track with a really cool vibe. I kept the 'two wolves' analogy as a foundation throughout the song while playing up the dichotomy of the two sides of the tug of war we all have inside us. I recorded my parts in my home studio and it was an absolute pleasure to build this song with Nita. I am honored to be a part of it! Can't wait to do this again!"

"The Wolf You Feed" is the second song Nita has released featuring a star guest vocalist, the first being the enormously successful "Dead Inside" which featured guest vocals from DISTURBED's David Draiman and saw Nita become the first ever solo female to have a No. 1 hit at Active Rock radio. She also returned to her instrumental roots earlier this year with the release of single "Summer Storm", a fast-paced, emotive shred-fest. Combined, the two singles have had 3.5 million YouTube views and over 10 million streams on Spotify alone.

Nita made her live debut with Demi on July 14 with a performance of Lovato's single "Substance" on ABC's Emmy Award-winning late-night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!".

Strauss had been playing with Cooper since 2014 when she replaced Australian musician and former Michael Jackson player Orianthi. She joined Alice in time for a mammoth MÖTLEY CRÜE tour. She was recommended to Cooper by the legendary rocker's former bass player and WINGER frontman Kip Winger.

Back in February, Nita told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" about her upcoming LP: "It's gonna be half and half — six tracks with vocalists and six tracks of instrumental [music]. We've been doing ['Dead Inside'] live on the solo tour and it's been getting a super-good reaction from our crowds."

In early December, Nita told "The Mistress Carrie Podcast" about her decision to make the upcoming LP half vocal songs and half instrumental: "I did feel, and the label and everybody agreed, it's still important for me to keep my identity as a guitar player and not just branch off too much and go, 'Okay, well, now it's just guests.' Let me still have a little of what makes me me, which is the instrumental shred stuff. And the instrumental pieces that I've written on this record are, I think, better than anything I did on the first one — definitely more… I don't know if it could be more emotional but they're very emotional pieces of music and I think a little better crafted this time around. So I think all the songs in general are more well thought out, better put together this time around. And I do have some of my absolute favorite [singers guesting on it]. I have three amazing powerhouse female vocalists on this album so far."

Nita released "Controlled Chaos" to mass acclaim from fans and media alike, with Metal Injection calling it "a great debut that — as its creator intended — leaves no doubt", and Guitar World stating "'Controlled Chaos' is a panoramic view of Nita Strauss's many strengths".

As well as performing with Cooper, Nita has also played with R&B star Jermaine Jackson, early MTV darlings FEMME FATALE, video game supergroup CRITICAL HIT and popular tribute band THE IRON MAIDENS.

In April 2020, Nita launched "Rock Guitar Fundamentals" — a three-module online guitar teaching program suitable for learners of all levels. The course is available at www.iwanttoplayguitar.com.

#Nita Strauss #Alissa White-Gluz #DoD collaborations #the wolf you feed

[f1]

Toto Wolff insists he is 'doing EVERYTHING' he can to convince Lewis Hamilton to stay at Mercedes... with F1 star yet to get the five-year contract worth 250m that he wants

Toto Wolff insists he is 'doing EVERYTHING' he can to convince Lewis Hamilton to stay at Mercedes... with F1 star yet to get the five-year contract worth £250m that he wants Toto Wolff revealed he's doing everything to keep Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes Hamilton is yet to sign a new deal and current contract will expire later this year The 38-year-old is demanding a 5-year contract if he is to remain with the team By Adrian Bishop For Mailonline Updated: 11:36 EDT, 4 August 2023 Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has insisted he is pulling out all the stops to convince Lewis Hamilton to stay with the team. Hamilton has enjoyed one of the most successful spells in the history of motorsport since replacing his boyhood hero Michael Schumacher at Mercedes in 2013. However, the 38-year-old's current contract with the team is set to expire this year, and talks between the two parties have been ongoing for months. Speaking on Desert Island Discs for the BBC, the former 24 Hours Nurburgring winner indicated that he is confident the seven-time world champion will play his part in the 'resurrection of the team'. 'Well I very much hope so,' Wolf explained when asked if Hamilton would continue at Mercedes after this season.  Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff(right) has insisted he will do everything he can to convince Lewis Hamilton(left) to sign a new deal Hamilton demanded a five-year contract that would see him race until he is 43 if he is to remain with Mercedes  'I'm doing everything I can to make him stay. I think there is no need to persuade him.  'He knows about all the goodness and although we struggled with the car this year, and last year, he will be part of the resurrection of the team.' Wolff also detailed the close personal relationship he and Hamilton have developed in their more than ten years working together, likening his relationship with the driver to that of a couple. 'The kind of analogy I gave to him is that also I have arguments with [my wife] Susie.  'Even if we shout at each other, which didn’t happen a lot, but even if we have this argument, there's never a thought of divorcing, and that's why I said to him, "I don't want to divorce you and neither do you. Because I want the best racing driver in our cars and you want to have the best car." 'So we came to the conclusion that we can have conflict, we can create an atmosphere where we're able to be brutally honest with each other, and sometimes we agree to disagree, but we move on.' Mail Sport reported earlier this summer that Hamilton has demanded a five-year deal worth £250m to remain at Mercedes, a contract that would see him continue racing until his 43rd birthday. A source close to the negotiations told Mail Sport in June: 'Lewis wants five years, and if it were just a one-year extension I don't think he'd accept it. Hamilton has won six drivers titles since replacing Michael Schumacher at Mercedes in 2013 'They may need to reach a compromise because, while George [Russell] has probably made peace with the idea of Lewis being around for a couple of years, he might not accept being in the shadow of his team-mate for the long-term. 'There is always a lure about Ferrari, but Lewis will probably think that his only hope of winning his eighth title is by staying where he is.' After a run of dominance at the tail end of the 2010s, Hamilton has found himself unable to keep up with Red Bull star Max Verstappen in recent years. The Dutch driver has emerged victorious in the last eight grand prixs, and holds a commanding 125 point lead at the top of the driver's standings with teammate Sergio Perez the only other driver to have won a race this season. Share or comment on this article: Toto Wolff insists he is 'doing EVERYTHING' he can to convince Lewis Hamilton to stay at Mercedes... with F1 star yet to get the five-year contract worth £250m that he wants via Formula One | Mail Online https://www.dailymail.co.uk?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

#F1 #Toto Wolff insists he is 'doing EVERYTHING' he can to convince Lewis Hamilton to stay at Mercedes... with F1 star yet to get the five-year #Formula 1

[shkspr]

Ooohhh, please explain?

assuming youre asking about this i would LOVE to explain but this isnt a fully formed theory yet so heres some bullet points in the absence of an essay:

first i gotta say there are definitely a lot of ways in which jon is scully and martin is mulder. ofc it isnt all gonna be one way or the other but i do think martin is more scully and jon is more mulder on the whole

jon is more prone to paranoia, mania, impulsivity, self-sacrifice, and the sort of lone wolf mentality that comes of thinking that you can get to the bottom of a big conspiracy and anyone you trust enough to help you is someone you actually want to keep far away from it whenever you can so they dont get hurt. but thats not your choice is it sir.

he has this intense dedication to his job, and then to his cause when it becomes clear that his cause goes beyond and sometimes directly contradicts his actual job.

also just the fact that theyre down there in the basement trying to stop evil shit while their superiors upstairs are, at best, so bogged down in bureaucracy as to be incompetent, and at worst, actively perpetrating the evilest shit of all and lying about it while the wacky basement guy nearly gets himself killed on a weekly basis in his search for the #Truth

on the subject of their superiors: elias fills the roles of both skinner and csm in various ways and within those analogies jon is mulder

jon represses his emotions (fear, love, survivors guilt, confusion, anger at loss of agency, self-loathing, etc.) until he bursts (frequent snark and snappishness, occasionally explosive) bc he doesnt trust anyone enough to open up and he doesnt know how to deal with feelings (and he greatly overestimates his own skill at hiding them)

martin represses his emotions (fear, love, parental guilt, jealousy, anger at injustice, self-consciousness, etc.) until he bursts (frequent passive aggression and petulance, occasionally boils over) bc hes been rewarded for doing so in the past and he doesnt want to burden anyone (and he excels in making himself smaller for the benefit of others)

a guest for mr spider is jons praying mantis epiphany

martin is just generally more levelheaded and practical than jon tbh. scully would think of a corkscrew is all im saying

martin is constantly underestimated and underappreciated and relegated to jons second fiddle. but hes also smart and hardworking and loyal and always surprising people who dont take him seriously.

jon and mulder have loud and enigmatic genders while martin and scully have genders that are subtler and more secure. iykyk

they both have something to prove in a big way but its like. different. jon and mulder have significant childhood traumas that are connected to the Big Mystery they have to solve so they think by solving the Big Mystery theyll solve their own lives. whereas scully and martin have a very specific need to be effective and practical to prove that they deserve their place and deserve to be counted at the table

i think that basically. like you know how mulder needed to look down from the stars and scully needed to look up from the microscope and they made each other better and made each other see what they were taking for granted. and jon and martin kinda both needed the same thing, which was mostly to be loved and accepted, but its like. in different ways. i think jon needed to be loved in a grounding way and martin needed to be loved in a freeing way. sorta. if i figure out what i mean by this i will let you know.

thanks for coming to my ted talk i guess?

#txf #magpod #jm #msr #sorry my primary form of media enjoyment is comparing it to other media :// #its bc im smart and sexy

[chewingmyboots]

Hello there! You can call me Viscera, and I made an otherkin blog :D Honestly I've been stalking a lot of otherkin/alterhuman/therian blogs for a while now, so I decided I may as well make one My pronouns are he/they/de. I am a psychological otherkin, and my theriotypes are a demon/imp, wolf, doll, and haunted glitch (analog horror style, y'know what I mean) I don't really see the point of having a BYF or DNI, since I don't think any of the real assholes you want to leave you alone will respect them. But just to cover my bases here, I'm a queer leftist who hates cop apologists, TERFs, SWERFs, and all other form of bootlickers. Get blocked lmao Horror, especially horror movies, is one of my special interests, so if you're sensitive to disturbing stuff probably don't follow. Because I'm a demon, I'll probably be posting a bunch of religion/Christianity related stuff too, mostly in a blasphemous sense (No hate to irl Christians! As long as you're not a dick, I've got no beef with you) I'll be separating stuff that reminds me of my kins with these tags: #demonmode #wolfmode #dollmode #glitchmode My own posts will be tagged: #visceratalks And non-otherkin related calls to action/emergency info will be tagged: #important I also tend to tag triggers as either "trigger cw" or "trigger tw." If you need something tagged, just send me a message! That's all I've got for now! Thanks for reading :D

#intro post #intro #otherkin #nonhuman #alterhuman #demonkin #therian #otherkin community #visceratalks #long post

[fozmeadows]

race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.  

#race #racism #c-drama #fandom #fan wank #fandom wank #microaggresions #culture #the untamed #bronies #whiteness #ficwriting #fanwriting #cultural bias #discourse

[goddamnitlopori]

Wolf (2021), disaster or masterpiece?

Short answer: neither. 

I recently saw Wolf, an indie film about people with species dysphoria undergoing conversion therapy at the hands of a sadistic doctor. Though not without its flaws, it was enjoyable, especially when watched with friends. I wanted to write a review from the perspective of someone who on the whole, liked it. (film spoilers ahead!)

I’ll try to summarise as best I can, what the film got right and where it failed (imo). Plus neutral observations. 

The positives: The acting, the actors really carried the story, ran with it. The protagonists are all likeable, they had the vibe of their animals which is a fun touch. Rufus, the German Shepard, has a doglike energy and gregariousness. Jacob, the wolf, is more serious and brooding like stereotypical wolf people lol. Judith, the parrot, likes to copy people, somewhat reminiscent of autistic echolalia. Whether that was on purpose I don’t know. I think it’s likely an accident, as Judith mimics more deliberately. When the residents moved around like their particular animal when “shifted” so to speak, they did a very convincing job. They were trained by Terry Notary, who is a movement coach for mocap actors etc, he knows his shit. You can tell when Terry has worked on a project.

This might surprise some, but I genuinely find it a sympathetic portrayal. Though very exaggerated and goofy at times, when characters sat down and spoke of their experiences it was accurate. There’s a scene where Annalisa (panda) reads Jacob’s poetry about his dysphoria, it could’ve been ripped straight from a therian forum thread. Annalisa herself also talks a lot like us. There were some really poignant lines for me personally, too. The film makes it abundantly clear that none of these people should be locked up. Everyone is varying levels of animal-person, ranging from a kid who really likes ducks to people with a more extreme, behaviourally outward condition. All of them mistreated the same way, and none of it justified. They want us to root for these characters, they want us to want their freedom to be themselves. There is no mistaking what the message is.  And that leads me to the negatives, it is almost too obvious who the good/bad guys are. The antagonist, Dr. Mann, is a pantomime villain in his mannerisms. It kills suspension of disbelief. While I'm sure there are sadistic quacks in medicine irl, he lacks personality and complexity. There was one scene that hinted at Dr. Mann maybe being a closeted animal-person himself, but that was never further explored. This is a common flaw in the film, the pacing is all over the place, scenes escalate instantly, ramping up the drama or horror in a second. A character or plot point gets introduced only to never be mentioned again. I reckon there might have been a lot of footage that never made it to the final cut. The plot could really use some fleshing out, an extra 15 minutes on the run time would have done it wonders. Though their intentions are clearly good, I think the film leans too heavily on trauma being the single explanation for species dysphoria. In reality it’s multi-faceted. I’m not mad though. 

Other observations: It so kinky!? The dynamics between Dr. Mann and his patients, the props, the costumes, may as well be BDSM. Hard to tell if it’s intentional or just being artsy? Interestingly, rather than the doctors reminding patients that they are human, they defaulted to “boy” or “girl”. Leaving the facility a boy or girl is the end goal. Which could be interpreted as an allegory for repressing transgenderism. The film wasn’t really meant to be analogous to gender etc, but there are bound to be many comparisons with real life phenomena, hard to avoid. Institutionalisation is touched upon too, through Wildcat’s character. The “therapy” the patients undergo involves constant mixed messages, and it’s a bit heartbreaking. I especially feel for Jeremy (squirrel), poor lad never catches a break. As rewards for good behaviour they get to dress up as their animal, but once they act out, they’re severely punished. I think to shame them for wanting the animalistic rewards? A lot of it was of course, cartoonishly over the top. But the underlying ideas are near identical to actual antikin insults, “if you’re an animal, then why don’t you act like one? Oh you can’t, ahahaha checkmate”. Crap argument, a human body/brain and human socialisation are not insignificant factors, it’s a subjective identity. Couldn’t run a successful medical establishment built on such half assed rhetoric. Good thing it is so unrealistic, eh? In summary, I would give this film 3/5 stars. Not bad, not great, but entertaining. And at times rather touching. I just wish the film was better paced and didn’t spoon feed the message too much. 

#wolf (2021) #review #species dysphoria #movie #wolf #therianthropy #alterhuman #otherkin #transspecies #wolf film #wolf movie #indie #indie film