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emeraldcity1900 · 4 days

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the history of animation in a nutshell

Early 1900s: hey what if comic strips could like move?

Late 1910s early 1920s hey what if we mashed this up with live action people?

late 1920s: hey what if this thing had sound?

Early to mid 1930s: hey what if this had people actually talking and also color?

late 1930s: hey you know that super cool movie that one lady animated with paper cut out silhouettes? What if we did that with painted cells? Would people even pay to see that? Never mind it turns out the answer is yes.

1940s: ah shit most of our animators got drafted and/or hate us now cause we weren’t paying them. IT’S PROPAGANDA TIME BABY. Also haha hitler got hit with a mallet and also the most racist depictions of Japanese people ever.

1950s to 1960s : oh what’s this newfangled thing? Television? What if you could air cartoons on it? Oh fuck no I ain’t paying that much to get the charecters to have different backgrounds and for the charecters to like, move fluidly. Also manga and anime are steadily growing more popular.

1970s: (Ralph Bakshi walks into a comics store and finds a furry comic) X rated animated movie? *cue the screams of mothers and their unsuspecting children now being introduced to the revolutionary idea that cartoons don’t equal kids stuff? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?

1980s to 1990s: we can have full on animated Broadway musicals? Wait, what do you mean animated movies can count for the Oscar’s? What do you mean now they get their own catagory because the academy still thinks their for babies? Anime and manga are taking off in the west. SWEET JESUS WHAT DRUGS ARE THE JAPANESE ON SHOWING THIS SHIT TO KIDS. But also why is it so fucking good. Maybe some of these aren’t even meant for kids? Wait We can sell toys to kids with cartoons? Wait we can actually put effort into these cartoons on television? The fuck to you mean we can animate in 3D now? What do you mean we can have well animated, well written sitcom shows like the simpsons? What do you mean you can make cartoon charecters say fuck? What drugs are creators at Nickelodeon on? Do I even want to know?

2000s: oh my god, there is this one show that I really like cause it’s really well written and genuinely funny but I can’t talk about it because it’s animated and we all know cartoons are for babies right? Oh look it’s the transformers movie, look how far CGI has evolved so we can make the transformers in a movie.

2010s: holy shit I know these shows are for kids but they’re just well written and have so much meaningful things to say about the world. Wait, it’s cool to like cartoons now? They they have fandoms for this? Fuck yeah I’m in. (Enters one of the most notoriously toxic fandoms of all time) THEY HAVE GAY PEOPLE IN THESE SHOWS NOW? AND COMPLEX EMOTIONAL STORYTELLING? AND ADULT ANIMATED SHOWS CAN BE MORE THAN JUST SITCOMS WITH THE SAME JOKES AND STYLE? WHY IS IT THAT EVERY DISNEY CARTOON SINCE GRAVITY FALLS INCLUDE THINGS THAT GET MORE AND MORE FUCKED UP? WHY DO I FUCKING LOVE IT? WHY THE FUCK DID DISNEY DO THE OWL HOUSE DIRTY LIKE THAT?

2020s: I got this show I wanna pitch but it dosen’t fit into any box that the networks want and also I’m afraid that they’ll just randomly cancel it before I can finish the story I want to tell. Wait, I can just post the pilot on my YouTube channel, see if anybody actually likes this thing I made and just make the show independently? FUCK THE NETWORK! I AM THE NETWORK

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racefortheironthrone · 5 months

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What did you think of X-Men Blue Origins?

(I may turn this into a People's History of the Marvel Universe later today, so keep an eye on this space.)

X-Men Blue: Origins and the Power of the Additive Retcon

(WARNING: heavy spoilers under the cut)

Introduction

If you've been a long-time X-Men reader, or you're a listener of Jay & Miles or Cerebrocast or any number of other LGBT+ X-Men podcasts, you probably know the story about how Chris Claremont wrote Mystique and Destiny as a lesbian couple, but had to use obscure verbiage and subtextual coding to get past Jim Shooter's blanket ban on LGBT+ characters in the Marvel Universe.

Likewise, you're probably also familiar with the story that, when Chris Claremont came up with the idea that Raven Darkholme and Kurt Wagner were related (a plot point set up all the way back in Uncanny X-Men #142), he intended that Mystique was Nightcrawler's father, having used her shapeshifting powers to take on a male body and impregnate (her one true love) Irene. This would have moved far beyond subtext - but it proved to be a bridge too far for Marvel editorial, and Claremont was never able to get it past S&P.

This lacuna in the backstories of Kurt and Raven - who was Kurt's father? - would remain one of the enduring mysteries of the X-Men mythos...and if there's one thing that comic writers like, it's filling in these gaps with a retcon.

Enter the Draco

Before I get into the most infamous story in all of X-Men history, I want to talk about retcons a bit. As I've written before:

"As long as there have been comic books, there have been retcons. For all that they have acquired a bad reputation, retcons can be an incredibly useful tool in comics writing and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Done right, retcons can add an enormous amount of depth and breadth to a character, making their worlds far richer than they were before. Instead, I would argue that retcons should be judged on the basis of whether they’re additive (bringing something new to the character by showing us a previously unknown aspect of their lives we never knew existed before) or subtractive (taking away something from the character that had previously been an important part of their identity), and how well those changes suit the character."

For a good example of an additive retcon, I would point to Chris Claremont re-writing Magneto's entire personality by revealing that he was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. As I have argued at some length, this transformed Magneto from a Doctor Doom knockoff into a complex and sympathetic character who could now work as a villain, anti-villain, anti-hero, or hero depending on the needs of the story.

For a good example of a subtractive retcon, I would point to...the Draco. If you're not familiar with this story, the TLDR is that it was revealed that Kurt's father was Azazel - an evil ancient mutant with the same powers and the same appearance (albeit color-shifted) as Kurt, who claims to be the devil and is part of a tribe of demonic-looking mutants who were banished to the Brimstone Dimension, and who fathered Nightcrawler as part of a plot to end this banishment.

I don't want to belabor Chuck Austen, because I think that Connor Goldsmith is right about his run actually being a camp cult classic in retrospect. However, I think we both agree that the Draco was a misfire, because of how the retcon undermined Kurt's entire thematic purpose as established in Giant-Size X-Men that Nightcrawler was actually a noble and arguably saintly man who suffered from unjust prejudice due to the random accident that his mutation made him appear to be a demon, and because of how the retcon undermined the centrality of Mystique and Destiny's relationship.

X-Men Blue Origins

This brings us to the Krakoan era. In HOXPOX and X-Men and Inferno, Jonathan Hickman had made Mystique and Destiny a crucial part of the story in a way that they hadn't been in decades: they were the great nemeses of Moira X, they were the force that threatened to burn Krakoa to the ground by revealing the devil's bargain that Xavier had struck with Sinister (and Moira), they were the lens through which the potential futures of Krakoa were explored, and they ultimately reshaped the Quiet Council and the Five in incredibly consequential ways.

This throughline was furthered after Hickman's departure, with Kieron Gillen exploring the backstories of Mystique and Destiny in Immortal X-Men and Sins of Sinister, and both Gillen and Si Spurrier exploring their relationship with Nightcrawler in AXE Judgement Day, Sins of Sinister, Way of X, Legion of X, Nightcrawlers, and Sons of X. One of the threads that wove through the interconnected fabric of these books was an increasing closeness between Kurt and Irene that needed an explanation. Many long-time readers began to anticipate that a retcon about Kurt's parentage was coming - and then we got X-Men Blue: Origins.

In this one issue, Si Spurrier had the difficult assignment of figuring out a way to "fix" the Draco and restore Claremont's intended backstory in a way that was surgical and elegant, that served the character arcs of Kurt, Raven, and Irene, and that dealt with complicated issues of trans and nonbinary representation, lesbian representation, disability representation, and the protean nature of the mutant metaphor. Thanks to help from Charlie Jane Anders and Steve Foxe, I think Spurrier succeeded tremendously.

I don't want to go through the issue beat-by-beat, because you should all read it, but the major retcon is that Mystique turns out to be a near-Omega level shapeshifter, who can rewrite themselves on a molecular level. Raven transformed into a male body and impregnated Irene, using bits of Azazel and many other men's DNA as her "pigments." In addition to being a deeply felt desire on both their parts to have a family together, this was part of Irene's plan to save them both (and the entire world) from Azazel's schemes, a plan that required them to abandon Kurt as a scapegoat-savior (a la Robert Graves' King Jesus), and to have Xavier wipe both their memories.

Now, I'm not the right person to write about what this story means on a representational level; I'll leave it to my LGBT+ colleagues on the Cerebrocast discord and elsewhere to discuss the personal resonances the story had for them.

What I will say, however, is that I thought this issue threaded the needle of all of these competing imperatives very deftly. It "fixed" the Draco without completely negating it, it really deepened and complicated the characters and relationships of both Raven and Irene (by showing that, in a lot of ways, Destiny is the more ruthless and manipulative of the two), and it honored Kurt's core identity as a man of hope and compassion (even if it did put him in a rather thankless ingénue role for much of the book).

It is the very acme of an additive retcon; nothing was lost, everything was gained.

I still think the baby Nightcrawler is just a bad bit, but then again I don't really vibe with Spurrier's comedic stylings.

#xmen #xmen meta #raven darkholme #kurt wagner #irene adler #xmen blue #nightcrawler #mystique #destiny #chris claremont #si spurrier #krakoa #retcons #xmen spoilers #hoxpox

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avelera · 10 months

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Sandman Meta: Hob has exactly zero way of figuring out who Dream is (before they reunite)

More than once in a fic I've written from Hob's POV I've had readers note their astonishment that Hob has not yet figured out Dream's identity, even if Dream does not reveal it himself.

Even in fics of mine where Dream reveals his name, like in Giving Sanctuary, I have Hob be slow on the uptake when it comes to the extent of Dream's powers, even things like being able to enter and control dreams, and the reason I do this is carefully considered and based in the fact that Hob would have no way of knowing who Dream is or by extension what he can do.

So I kind of want to take a step back and address in detail just how actually impossible it would be, objectively, for Hob to figure out who Dream is in a world that doesn't have The Sandman comic for him to read to figure it out.

This is, of course, because, from a Doylist angle, Neil's "Dream of the Endless" is not based in any single mythology. Indeed, Dream as we know him is cobbled together from at least three or more different mythological figures, none of which combine to actually form the "Dream of the Endless" we see in the show or read in the comics. The Endless are completely made up for the comic and the Sandman, Morpheus, and Oneiros are all from wildly different mythologies and none of them actually overlap to form the complete picture of who Dream is as an entity in the Sandman show or comic.

So even if someone straight-up told Hob that the person he meets is the Sandman, Morpheus, or Oneiros (btw, there is no singular figure of "Oneiros" in Greek mythology) he would still not be able to put together the full picture of who Dream is. Even if he's given the name "Dream of the Endless" to work with, those words combined don't mean anything on their own if you don't have what an Endless is filled in, because it was made up entirely for the comic. (Of course, a fanfic author absolutely could make up such a book for their fic but it would be a creation for that fic, serving a purpose within that story like to tip Hob off, though I think it's entirely reasonable to make up a book in the Sandman world that goes into detail on who the Endless are. The Magdalene Grimoire, btw, is not that book. It only talks about Death. Death is a figure in many mythologies including the Christian one, but Dream is not. Even Burgess needs the Corinthian to tell him who Dream is in the show, and he's an occultist.)

Couple all of this with Hob's personal experience with Dream, encountering him as part of a wager with Dream's sister Death to see if Hob could bear a life of immortality, you get far more clues that would send him hurtling off into a totally incorrect direction before you'd get anything close to the truth, if we assume only the books available in our world are available to him.

So the reason this is a bit of an irritation for me that there's this idea that Hob has "all the clues" to figure out who Dream is because it smacks of a logical fallacy.

Basically, it's easy to see that the answer to a complicated math problem is "obvious" if someone just hands the answer to you. But challenging people to actually solve it themselves could be quite a bit more complicated. And in this complex formula solving for "Who the fuck is Hob's mysterious stranger?" there's actually so many blank X's of unanswered questions that I genuinely think there's no way for Hob to solve this equation without someone giving him the answer.

Let's go through this systematically, using just what Hob knows as observed on screen in the show.

1389 - a pale man in all black with a ruby at his throat approaches Hob's table and challenges Hob to meet him there in 100 years. He then smiles enigmatically and leaves.

That's it. That's all Hob has to go off of. He never sees Death, he has no idea about the wager. As far as he knows, Dream gave him immortality. It would be the most logical conclusion given that the day before Hob didn't have immortality and the day after, presumably, he does.

1489 - The only confirmation he has is actually seeing Dream there in 1489 and the first thing he asks is, "How did you know that I'd be here?"

Dream does not answer him. Hob takes a few stabs at guessing his identity which reveals his Christian European context: are you a wizard, or a saint -- to be clear, these are two types of human magic users that make sense to Hob for his context. The only other figure he can think of is The Devil. He doesn't ask if Dream is a pagan god or a faerie, he assumes a man with arcane or divine magic, or the Devil.

Dream says that he's not the Devil, much good that would do if he was a Devil who could just presumably lie to Hob, and says he's interested in Hob's experience and implies that he will grant him another 100 years of life. He is sarcastic and unimpressed about Hob's wonder at the world. He doesn't even actually show much interest in Hob being in the printing business. He only shows a spark of interest in Hob's continued desire to live, and then immediately takes off.

1589 - The only new information Hob gets this year is 1) Dream is supremely uninterested in food or the wealth Hob has earned, or his family, and 2) puny little Will Shaxberd, a crap playwright with no shot at becoming anything more, suddenly becomes a famous playwright. He would eventually become a renowned playwright in his day but keep in mind, Shakespeare didn't actually become mega famous centuries after his death. In his day, many people thought other playwrights like Marlowe were better.

My point is, from this Hob doesn't necessarily get even the pieces to determine that Dream likes art. It might seem obvious to us because Dream is Prince of Stories, but that's not the offer Dream gives Shaxberd. He just asks if it is Will's will to create dreams to spur the minds of men. Yes, we know that Dream wants Will to make dreams for him, but in Hob's context, Dream is just asking what Will would sell his soul for, just like he overheard Hob saying he had no intention of dying. From this perspective the only strong conclusion Hob can draw is that Dream grants wishes.

From this, Hob could conclude that Dream is a djinn/genie, or perhaps a faerie, but there is absolutely nothing to indicate he's associated with dreams or literature directly besides a mention of creating dreams nested in the context of asking Shaxberd what he wants, giving him a supernatural gift much like the one Hob believes Dream gave him.

At this point, the domains of Dream's power are very muddled for Hob because he doesn't know Death gave him immortality. So as far as he knows, Dream can give immortality AND make an amateur playwright into the greatest writer who ever lived. Putting these two things together does not bring you naturally to the domain of dreams by any stretch.

(I will note here, that in Giving Sanctuary, I had Hob learn that "Death" is Dream's sister before he learns Dream's name. There, his initial conclusion is that Dream must therefore be Famine, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the one known for wearing black (and not eating seems like a clue with Dream too) my point being that having another, small piece of the whole puzzle still would probably send him flying off in the wrong direction given his cultural context.)

1789: The next time Hob gets any hint that Dream has powers is with Lady Johanna. He uses his sand to show her her, "old ghosts". Note, she does not fall asleep but rather begins to hallucinate.

The Sandman myth has its origins of Scandinavia and it is first written down in in "Der Sandmann" a context that Hob might have access to, if he's very well read, in the early 1800s. By the way, the description of the Sandman in that book bears a striking resemblance to the Corinthian, because he eats the eyes of naughty children, and very little to Dream beyond the use of sand in his magic.

There is absolutely nothing to link the Sandman to Morpheus the Roman God of Dreams, who was made up entirely by Ovid in the Metamorphoses and never mentioned anywhere before that. That's because Neil Gaiman was the first to link those two mythological figures.

And on that note, there is no Oneiros attested to in Hesiod. The mention of Oneiros is actually to the "Oneiroi" an entire tribe of dreams and nightmares who are the children of Night (Nix). There's Hypnos (Sleep) who is the brother of Thanatos (Death) but that is about as close as we get to the Endless in any other mythological source besides the comics. And again, Dream does not put Johanna to sleep, he makes her hallucinate.

1889- Again, there is precious little to go off of. Dream is tight-lipped as ever. The only thing he gives away is that Lady Johanna later helped him with a task, a fact Hob is visibly annoyed and I daresay jealous about, and when he lashes out he refers to himself as, "One such as I."

But "One such as I," only reveals something Hob already knew: that Dream thinks highly of himself. That doesn't actually reveal that Dream is even magical, he could just be nobility or a powerful immortal magic user and refer to himself that way. Hob already knows that Dream is magical, and immortal, and probably some sort of high born or aristocrat. He's probably known that since 1389 given how Dream was dressed and given that giant fuck-off ruby (which actually might make Hob, in that day, wonder if Dream was a relation to the Black Prince)

That's it. That is the grand total of everything Hob has seen of Dream.

Hob in the comic will eventually admit, in The Wake, that he figured out who Dream was on his own. But this is after Seasons of Mist when Dream toasts him in Hob's dream and Hob wakes up with the impossible bottle of wine on his bedside. He has another encounter too with Dream where Dream eventually accedes to Hob's request to make the men who killed Audrey, his dead girlfriend, know who she was. Presumably, Dream makes them dream of her.

So Hob in the comics by the time we get to The Wake has more to go off of to make the link to the Lord of Dreams. Hob as we see him in the show, has had much less to go off of.

Even if you give Hob one piece of the puzzle, like one of the names like Morpheus, or The Sandman, or Oneiros, that still doesn't help give him the whole picture. The word "Endless" would be meaningless. He would have to have read at least three pretty obscure books that span a period of 2,000 years (between Hesiod and Der Sandmann) to get the three books that Neil primarily drew from to combine these figures into the Dream of the comic.

Look, my point is, unless someone gives the answer to Hob, and explains the full extent of what the Endless are, he's got little to go off of. Arguably, not enough at all to solve for "X" as to who Dream is, even if he's given more pieces. This would be a tough problem to solve.

#the sandman #sandman meta #hob gadling #dreamling #1689 fic #Giving Sanctuary

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maxwellatoms · 6 months

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Would you trust ANY Korean studio for hand-drawn animation today? I ask because, when The Powerpuff Girls came back in 2016, I noticed how slow and stiff the Korean animation was. Since then, most Burbank cartoons animated in Korea, namely Cartoon Network shows, have been like that — mostly on 2s & with less inbetweening. Look at any Digital eMation episode of Victor and Valentino or Samurai Jack Season 5; do they animate as loosely and smoothly as Digital eMation episodes of Billy & Mandy do?

Sure I would. It would all depend on the studio and the circumstances. There are good studios and bad studios, and either of those will treat your show differently based on their perception of how valuable it is to their client. In the early 2000s Rough Draft was a top-notch studio. One of the reasons I switched over to eMation from Rough Draft was that I felt like Rough Draft was putting all of its resources into making Samurai Jack look beautiful, and we were still calling retakes on three year old issues. I knew we weren't a priority to Rough Draft, and I knew that stemmed from Cartoon Network's negotiations with them, so my griping was only going to get us so far. It seemed to me that I needed a studio that was smaller and scrappier like we were. We were putting in a lot of work on our end to make cool stuff and it wasn't ending up on the screen, so we needed people who were just as hungry on the back-end, and eMation stepped up.

There's also the fact, though, that animation itself has changed a lot in the last fifteen years. Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack's animation always seemed to have an air of "motion comics" to it. And frankly, that's part of what I love about it. It was all a throwback to the old UPA cartoons, which were built on strong, clear poses and made for the cost equivalent of a turkey dinner. Likewise, CN storyboard artists usually had around four weeks to write and draw their boards on paper, so there just wasn't time to take the effort to do anything too complex. It was all about snapping between those 300-ish storyboard drawings and momentarily savoring them for their humor and design mastery. Now we have tons of digital tools that make the basics of animation a lot more accessible to everyone, and have changed the entire studio pipeline. Things just won't look like they used to because nobody makes them that way anymore.

When I've had to choose an overseas animation studio, the network's production arm usually gives me one or three choices and tells me that's all there is. Deals have already been made. (Sometimes they make you pick two to save on costs, which (IMO) usually results in two studios that are less functional than any one of them would have been.) The studios usually have reels, so that gives you a basic idea of what they can do. You can (hopefully) find some other show creators who have worked with the studios and get an honest review. It's an important enough decision that it's worth whatever research you can put into it. Even over good bones, an ill-fitting skin can ruin the mood.

The most important thing to remember, I think, is that it's your job and your crew's job to make animating the show as easy as possible. Really, it's everyone's job to make the next person in line's job as simple as they can. Ideally, there shouldn't be a lot of questions because the materials you sent down the chain are clear.

So... yeah. I'd still trust Korean studios as much as I'd trust any overseas or domestic animation studio. You get out of them what you put into them by feeding them money and your own labor. It's quite possible that the shows you mentioned didn't do enough of either.

I imagine the overseas studios are hurting right now, so who knows what that landscape is even going to look like in a few years.

As with every step of the process making a TV show, you just sort of have to weigh your options and find the path.

Hmm. That got long.

#animation industry #animation studios #hot mess

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tarjapearce · 9 months

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A thought on Miguel

Ya know? Every time I see Miguel I think.

Man, this man needs a hug even if he says that's he's fine cause we know he's just bulshitting himself big time. Like, he's broken, his life was shit and the little thing that actually made him happy disappeared in his hands before his eyes.

Sometimes I think that Gabriela was that inflection point where he just realizes "Maybe just maybe I can try happiness." (Cause c'mon. In the comics dude is abused emotionally by his own mother. Always comparing him and belittling him. And we know what happened to Gabriel. and his step dad is shit. )

Sometimes I like to think that Gabriela was his redemption to all those terrible bad years prior the incident. She was his purpose. And when he saw the chance, he didn't even hesitated into dive head first into it. His biggest mistake. Although pretty much understandable. None would overlook the chance of being better or happy or do things differently, right?

Sometimes I think He just wanted to be the father he never had. He just wanted to be the role model he never had, be that safe place for someone else that he never got. And that's why I think most of us empathize with him. Mostly for not saying all of us, (Kudos if you don't ♥️) have had situations that resembled Comic Miguel and Movie Miguel's life.

And when he loses Gabi, that's a turning point for the bad to him. His main motivation to be better, happier is gone.

Instead, he kinda twists that purpose Gabi gave him to protect the Multiverse he knows. Not that he doesn't care for the Spider Society members. He knows that all of them are there because they are more capable of handling themselves. They don't need protection, but they do need a role model, someone that guides them into not fucking up like he did.

That's why he is all grumpy, tired, emotionally drained and mentally exhausted. Cause he learned the consequences the hard way, but the rest is just cool about it. (Not cool in the 'I don't care way' but more like Just 'tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it, but my way' sort of thing.)

He didn't have the proper time to actually reflect on his mistakes, not that the multiverse is giving him any break though, He is Spiderman. He just knows that his mistake CANNOT be repeated. That's why he turns even more irritable, angry, fearful, all stemmed from self loathing for failing.

The man is depressed af. And we know, he overworks himself, he berates his own mind by watching over and over the screening videos of him and Gabi, he perpetuates guilt, but he cannot waver, cause he is a role model (A self imposed one) for the rest. He's not yet he is a martyr. He's not because he shares the common goal to keep Multiverse safe, but he is since said need to keep multiverse safe rooted from his big fuck up.

But dude has a savior complex. (I think this one suits better than martyr, dunno.)

And when Miles show up and does his thing, he sees all his convictions, motivations, his purpose, everything that drives him, threatened. And that's why lashed out the way he did on Miles.

That's his breaking point. I do not agree in the things he said to Miles though, we all know that he was just self projecting big time a good chunk of that dialogue. But he just wants to contain Miles at first, but the more Miles fights, the more everything he has worked for crumbles. An act of despair and fear disguised as anger, I like to think.

He is stunned cause damn, the menace to everything he has known and built so far just escaped from his hands before his eyes and again he was unable to stop it. (Another failure for him.)

He's a walking contradiction. Mistakes for him are not an option, but he can't help but make them along the way. Like most of us. And I think that's what makes him the most human among other Spiderman. And hopefully we can see more of him and how does he deals with all of that in the last movie.

But yeah, that's just my take on him.. Might be wrong, might be 🤡 or obvious but yeah. Needed to get that out.

#miguel o'hara #talking with t✨#random though of the day #miguel atsv #atsv miguel #spiderman 2099 #t writes✨

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factual-fantasy · 2 months

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26 ASKS! :DD THANK YOU! :}} 🥓

I mean, knowing me I'll come back around to it someday. I love Octonauts and tend to loop back around to that show every so often.. Its just that I've had a lot of uncomfortable experiences in the Octonauts fandom. Especially recently..

I don't really wanna go into detail, but I will say that I've encountered more upsetting situations in the Octonauts fandom, than I have in nearly every other fandom combined. Which is rather surprising considering its a kids show. And also unfortunate, since I don't really feel free to have fun in the Octonauts fandom the way I want to..

I'm hoping that at some point I can get my confidence back and find my way around that fandom and have the fun I want. But for now I'm just kind'a keeping my distance and thinking about it. I don't need any extra stress rn-

@unpopularartist14

I use FireAlpaca! :D As for how to draw injuries and bruises.. hmm.. well.. injuries are different from drawing to drawing and hard to explain.. but bruises? aaa how do I explain it--

Well, for character with pale skin. Like Wario and Waluigi.. I find I just airbrush some deep purples and reds in one spot on their face and put some dark purple/red scratches on top.. and how much purple or red you use depends on the freshness/severity of the bruise. If that makes sense..??

Like- Using this post with the Wario "bros" as an example, the bruise on Waluigi's chin/cheek is a muddy purple and has dark purple scratches on it. I feel like using purple makes the bruise look little older and likes its healed some.

Meanwhile on Wario's chin the bruise is pink/red-ish. Making it look "bloody" and fresh. I think so at least--

AGHHG- sorry, I'm not the best at explaining things. I hope you can look to that post as a reference and draw some bruises. I used the airbrush and pencil tool to draw them if that helps! <:D

@untitled-7613 (Comic in question)

Hmm.. my favorite Disney character.. I know that Disney bought Pixar and now owns all the characters. So I'm trying to think of characters that Disney made, not bought.. and I'm having some trouble remembering the older movies..

I think I liked Tarzan! Though I wouldn't say he's my favorite.. hmm.. I like Mufasa from the Lion King and I like the Genie from Aladdin! I also liked John Silver from treasure planet! (That was Disney right?) But idk if I'd say they're my favorite Disney characters.. hmm..

Now, if you're asking what my favorite Disney/Pixar character is? Well that's easy 👇

@tallchest13-blog

XDD Thank you so much! :DD I'm glad you like it! :}}}}

:x I have not seen the welcome home update-- all my info comes from MatPat/his channels. I'm way too lazy to actually go look into any welcome home stuff myself <XDD

ALTHOUGH!- I have heard that Julie has monster paws! :DD No doubt she has them for different reasons than my Julie, but still! it felt like an Apollos dodgeball moment for me! XDD

I'm not sure why you're telling me all this.. but I suppose I'll put in my 2 cents while you're here-

While some of this is true, this sounds like a rather 1 sided view of Alphys' character. I know most of the Undertale characters are beautifully complex and thought out, Alphys included. And I don't think this view is accurate to who she really is.

For example, as far as I remember she wasn't watching anime to "slack off". I'm sure she was severely depressed and extremely overwhelmed with everything going on in her life atm.

I think it would be a good idea for you to watch some character analysis videos on Alphys. Since I don't remember her very clearly, I cannot defend her very well. But I recall seeing a lot of posts/videos in defense of Alphys and explaining why she did the things she did.

Basically, I think its worth your while to actually look into Alphys and give her a chance! Who knows, after gaining some more understanding of her, you might just like her! :}

WAAAHAAG THANK YOU SO MUCH!! THAT MEANS A LOT TO MEEE!!😭💖💖😭💖

And hey, I get where you're coming from about the whole art theft thing. :( That is my biggest struggle being here on Tumblr. The constant art theft is so disheartening. In fact there were several times in the past where I almost threw in the towel and quit Tumblr all together over it.

But what's kept me around is people like you! :D There's some folks out there that really care about what I make. And are excited to see what I make next! The nice comments they leave me and the engagement with my work has really stuck with me. And it's what keeps me coming back! Maybe someday if you decide to take that first step and post some artwork, you'll find a lotta nice folks that make the art theft seem not so bad :}

Also giant watermarks. Giaaant watermarks that are just annoying to look at. That might discourage art theft <XDD

As for Jevil and Grillby.. In my AU, Jevil has this power to create mirrors and jump from timeline to timeline through them.

At some point when it was just him and Seam traveling together, they wound up in this Snowdin at night. Grillby was about to close his bar but he saw these too tired and hungry people so he let them in.

At some point while they were sitting at the counter and talking to Grillby.. Jevil could feel in his soul that this timeline they were in was about to collapse. Killing everyone in it. Jevil reacted on instinct and grabbed Seam and Grillby's arm and pulled the three of them through a mirror. The timeline was destroyed as soon as they disaapered.

What this meant is Jevil had saved Grillby's life!.. But his AU/timeline no longer existed. All of Grillby's friends and family were gone.. his home was gone.. He was now a homeless wandering traveler just like Seam and Jevil.

Deep down, Grillby doesn't really hate Jevil. He just took the grief of it all really hard and blamed it all on Jevil in response. He wished that Jevil hadn't saved him so he could have just died with the rest of his family.. and not have to experience this grief today..

Overtime he gets better.. and he understands that Jevil didn't want for any of this to happen. Eventually they talk about it a little and they end up on better terms. Maybe even becoming true friends someday. :}

@astaherussy (Recent development post on the Wario "bros") (Old Wario "bros" post) (Old King Boo/Boos post)

Thank you so much! I'm glad you like what I've made! :DD As for Wario and Waluigi.. the main changes I'm working on are visual/design changes. In their outfits especially. And I'm thinking of taking away their hats. They looked obviously very similar to Mario and Luigi's..

When it comes to their story, that is also being developed. I think I wanna keep the aspect of the Mario bros getting in some trouble and the Wario "bros" rescue them. Though with recent developments.. I don't know if the whole thing in Shy Guy woods is gonna work out-

In other news, actually no! :0 I wasn't aware that Spidercrab is so liked, but I am very glad to hear that he is! :DD

And a lot of those vibes was what I was going for! Tired, traumatized, has anxiety but is better at hiding it. Though the father figure is unexpected XD but I guess it fits! He's rather introverted and prefers quiet and space. But he is also the crews medic, and boy does he worry and care too much for his own good. He cares too much about them to spend all his time alone. He not only cares about their physical health, but he cares about them as people.

He wants to be there for his crew. He want's to be the first to notice when something is wrong or one of his crew is unwell. So he tries to participate in all their gatherings. Despite how much he'd rather just go read a book in his hammock <XDD

Though, he is still antisocial/awkward.. so there could have been many times he noticed one of the crew seemed off. But he didn't have the guts to talk to them. So he would go and tip off one of the other crew members to check up on them. Stuff like that I imagine is his way of showing he cares. :}

WAHG! I rambled a bit there didn't I? <XD Well I hope it was a fun read at least- as a thanks for taking interest in Spidercrab! It means a lot to me :}}}

Thank you so much!! And indeed he is! I'm so honored that you remembered him! :DD Though he's looking at some major re-designing and a biiiiit of lore re-structuring too <XDD 💔💔

<XD Unfortunately for many reasons I cannot/will not drink any of the things on that list. But! I can drink water! :D

@badlyblurry

<XDD I suppose so, at the very least I'm dipping my toes in and having some fun!

Hmm.. out of all the Mario games I can remember.. I think red shells from Mario kart got on my nerves the most <XDD

That, or this one very specific Zinger from Donkey Kong country. But I get that a DK game might not count XDD

📢📢SHOUT OUT TO YOU SETH!! :DD 📢📢

Thank you!! :DD

@neo-metalscottic

Ahh, I see, thank you for the info! And I'm glad you like my interpretation of them anyways! :DD

And oh yeah, his children's safety is his #1 priority. He's probably getting Kamek to create more Goomba's and rearranging his troops. Setting up a big chunk of them to just be on watch duty around his land. In case the hero's decide to come back..

He's also probably tightening the defenses around his hidden palace. (Where the Koopalings, Kamek, Kammy and the Blue paratroops all live.) Most likely by stationing more troops there and hiding out there himself. He wasn't able to beat the bros but he will still be an obstacle for them if they ever make it to the palace and try to hurt his kids. (Mario and Luigi wouldn't do that most likely but Bowser doesn't really know anything about them at this point- other than the fact they are very powerful and very scary)

I didn't think much about K rool when I made my version of DK. But that guy and his species are intended to exist and be causing problems on DK's island. Though all the details I'm unsure of.. perhaps its what you said, maybe they want the special beets and fruits that the kongs eat? Or maybe they came from another island that didn't have much to eat and now they're here to take over.?? :00

Sorry, I don't take requests! And my ability to draw rn is rather limited anyways... 😅

BUT! May I direct you to this post and point out a detail in the background? Cici only ate the frosting off her cake slice. So Bibi offered his slice so she could scrape off his cake frosting and eat that too XDD What a sweet brother he is :}

@2006-stupid-thatsme

I am not familiar with those sites.. <:0

<XD Mike was kind of a jerk though. Now don't get me wrong, his voice was killer! But I don't think he really changed as a person by the end of the movie.

If they had put him in the second movie he was gonna need a major personality change in order for me to like him <XD

@candyglumboy

I think its alright. :0 And if I have drawn one of the characters? I cant remember doing it <XD

(In relation to this post)

Aw, I'm sorry that you have to deal with all this. It doesn't sound fun that's for sure. :( But thank you for the info! :DD

@littlelightfish

XDD IM GLAD YOU LIKE HIM!! And these are all good questions! Unfortunately I haven't thought much about these things- so let me make some of it up on the fly- <XDD

I imagined he likes to mess with the crew sometimes and pull little pranks. Its all in good fun! Just a bit of goofin off. And he mostly does it to Coco XDD

Now his favorite crew member.. hmm.. I feel like that might be Ellie. Despite her cold exterior, she had a big heart and really does love her crew. Even the butthead that is Tuna <XDD I can see her getting the other crew members to lay off and give Tuna some space. She is known for cooking food to everyone's specific preference, no matter how much longer it takes to make. And she would do the same for Tuna. Cooking what ever he wants, how ever he wants it cooked.

That really means a lot to Tuna.. if he can count on anything, he can count on Ellie to cook a perfect meal just for him.

Now the crew member that understands him the most would be who ever has had similar experiences to him, right..? In that case it might be Pinwheel. Orrr Coco.. maybe Spidercrab..? Ah, I'm gonna need to do some more thinking on that one <XD

The crew member he doesn't feel so comfortable around could be Cuttlefish. She is very mysterious and some would even say untrustworthy. He is probably spooked by her and doesn't fully trust her. Though I'm also experimenting with Tuna having trouble with authority figures. So mayyybe he's less comfortable around Seafoam and Octo..?? :00

Also thank you for your enthusiasm and interest in Tuna! Its the biggest compliment to me/my OCS 🥰🥰

@raccoons-in-a-dumpster

XD Yup! Its me! And thank you! :DD

@beryl-shade

XDD Do they say that? Are there popsicles in the oceans from that game??

I'm not sure.. I'd assume so..? Keep in mind that these character were made from a game that I know next to nothing about-

Maybe? :00

@yeetmysoulintothevoid (Post in question)

No its not a sexual dimorphism thing, its all about stress, exhaustion, health,, etc.

Peach and Daisy have very thin blue markings (like their species is SUPPOSED to have) because they are well fed, well rested, and pampered as princesses.

Wario and Waluigi's blue markings are very large and puffy becuase they eat garbage, get very little to no sleep, and are fighting for their lives on the daily pretty much- if they had a saver living environment and a secure source of food, their eye bag would be much less noticeable-

Now Rosalina's blue marks are noticeable and puffy mostly due to her grief and depression. And partly because she isn't exactly.. aliiive..? Anymore..?? <:D

And yes! Everyone's ears are emotive! :}} Maybe subtly though. They can perk their ears up or droop them down, much more than a human typically can. But they cant do really fine and quick movements to improve their hearing/listen in a certain direction. Like Dogs, cats and rabbits can for example. Its all slow and mostly intentional movements.

Nope, I don't have plans to finish that comic. The writing was horrible and everyone acted super out of character all in the name of angst. 👎👎👎

If anyone wanted to know the ending, Kwazii was gonna patch Barnacle's face and the rest of the crew was gonna show up in the gups. They get him in a gup, take him to the octopod and he gets situated in the sick bay.

Then Kwazii and Peso have this stupid emotional talk about how Peso feels bad for not being there for the captain and blah blah blah. VERY out of character for Peso. The entire point of Peso's character is that he "helps any creature who is hurt or sick, no matter what." There is literally nothing on earth that could have stopped him from helping his own Captain, no, his friend in his time of need. That writing is juuuust so dumb.

Plus Kwazii was a total idiot in that comic- realistically Kwazii would have taken that situation very seriously and would have listened to anything that Peso told him to do. And even if for some reason he was being stupid and continued to approach the Captain, Peso would have stopped him.

And this is even beyond the fact that this whole comic starts with Captain Barnacles doing a series of very stupid and irresponsible things that he would not do. And then a perfect storm of "whoopsies!" happen ever so perfectly to have him wind on that island.

Over all its a veeeeery bad comic. Not my best! 0/10 would NOT draw it again! XD I don't even want to re-write it to make it good. Becuase that whole situation just wouldn't happen from the start.

Although, I am keeping the idea that Barnacles has a very sensitive nose/face. (Due to him being a polar bear with many muscles and nerves in his face) And if he ever got hit in the nose/face? It would be incredibly painful and he would be very disoriented for a time. But the rest of that comic can go down the drain XD

#my response #octonauts #undertale #deltarune #cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cookie run ocs #my ocs #super mario bros #factual fam

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uptoolateart · 11 months

Text

Hey, hey, hey - time for a Gabriel analysis!

So. After we learned that Gabriel Agreste wasn't his original name, my mind jumped to Andre Bourgeois, who also once had a different name. In keeping with the themes of the show, we are seeing that secret identities don't always come with masks and comic book names.

We had a hint of Gabriel's secret past in Psycomedian, when Harry visited and alluded to his Gabi days. How, oh how could the Gabriel Agreste we all know have ever been friends with someone like Harry Clown? This is only possible if he was once a different sort of person.

We had further clues in Gabriel's vision of the past, in the time burrow in Evolution - and in Emilie's video messages left for Nathalie, and the photographs of Gabriel, Emilie and Nathalie on some expedition, seen in Passion - and in Amelie's accusation that Gabriel has changed, in Emotion.

Adrien is also aware his father has changed with time, demonstrated when he tells Gabriel that Emilie once said they came from different backgrounds.

The photos shown in Revelation finally gave concrete evidence that Gabriel used to have an adventurous spirit and he used to smile. He was fun...but something changed...and I don't think it was just Emilie's death that caused the personality shift. Based on casual comments Adrien has made throughout the series, his father has been strange for years.

Gabriel tells Adrien that he and Kagami are 'of the same design' - and we know he means this literally. But taking it as a metaphor...for two seasons I've wondered what Emilie's parents were like. We can infer that she comes from a wealthy, 'important' family. Maybe Gabriel struggled to fit in and win the approval of his in-laws. Maybe he never felt good enough. When he tells Adrien things like, 'You're clinging to Marinette because her mediocrity lets you shine more,' perhaps someone once talked like that about him. With that kind of background, it would be unsurprising that he decided to try to forge a new identity.

And let's remember that Gabriel is a designer. His whole empire is founded on inventing personae. Even beyond the sentimonster aspect, he tells Marinette that he designed the image the world holds of his son. Everything is his invention. That speech in Pretension proved just how deep his God complex runs - he fully believes he has made the world in his image. Even the episode title - Pretension - smacks of the image he is presenting to the world in lieu of truth.

At this point, what we're seeing is a 'new money' stereotype - a self-made man who now spurns those who remind him of where he came from. It's one of the most shameful things about him. No matter how much fame and money you get...you can't forget your roots, people. Maybe that's easy for me to say because I'm not rich or famous. But I just can't imagine turning my back on my own origin story. It's what makes you who you are. Gabriel clearly didn't want to be that person anymore...and that's sad.

What's also fascinating is that, if we zoom in on those pictures Nathalie took in Revelation, we see that once upon a time, Gabriel - Gabi Grassette - was a punk. Let's take a moment to appreciate the spiked hair, makeup, leather jacket, ripped jeans, and dog collar - not to mention that smirk. And far from being ashamed of his work with Harry Clown as a human frites (who, by the way, reminds me so much of Mr Banana), he was smiling about it. Man, he loved it. Contrast that with Gabriel in Party Crasher - 'JOY.... What's going on in my HOUSE!?'

If it were at all possible for the old Gabi to meet Cat Noir, I can imagine him loving Cat's costume. On that note, I can't help but compare that dog collar with Cat's bell. I've said before that I see the bell as a symbol of Cat being domesticated and under control. Gabi probably saw his dog collar more as a rebellion, but maybe it too is a symbol of how he once felt controlled by someone.

The thing is...the punk movement was all about anti-establishment anti-authoritarianism. Today, Gabriel is the establishment he once rebelled against. It makes me think of John Lydon of the Sex Pistols turning Conservative and advertising butter. Musicians like Donovan - not a punk, but in a similar category, as a 1960s hippie - are rare for maintaining that same spirit all through their lives.

Gabriel is a 'sell-out'. He gave up that spirit and became someone unrecognisable. Those photos demonstrate that Emilie isn't the only body buried in a 'basement' in the Agreste mansion. There is a different person buried under the cold veneer that is Gabriel - a person Nathalie probably misses. I expect that's why she's stuck with him all this time, despite her better instincts. Something tells me Gabi would've made a better father.

The irony is that Adrien's moments of rebellion are probably one of the few things he has in common with his father, if we look far enough back in Gabriel's past. That, and their temper - and randomly breaking into eccentric dance and song. Gabi might have appreciated Adrien more for standing true to his principles. Maybe Adrien sometimes reminds Gabriel of himself and he can't stand it - can't stand thinking of what he's lost along the way.

I believe Gabriel exists in a perpetual state of regret. Part of him probably misses Gabi, too. After all, Gabi got Emilie. What has Gabriel got? Wealth, sure, but Emilie's dead, Adrien all but hates him, Nathalie's wasting away, and Gabriel himself has only weeks to live.

If you think about it, Gabriel's whole quest has been about getting a do-over. He wants a second chance with Emilie - a second chance for Nathalie - a second chance at his own life. He then tells Adrien that his greatest wish is to try to reconnect with him...because he knows he doesn't have much time left with his son. Even then, though, his selfishness prevails. (Psst, Gabi...you can't make up for years of terrible parenting with banana pancakes.)

Thinking of the snake miraculous, the second chance lets you know what's going to happen, enabling you to make better decisions the next time around. In other words: it's about learning from your mistakes. Gabriel never learns, and it is his refusal to accept destiny and his own human fallibility that is causing his disintegration.

The more Gabriel necrotises, the more we can see this as his 'sins' catching up with him. He doesn't seem to grasp that all the blackness devouring him is, in a way, the blackness of his own heart. Even if he erases the whole world, he can't erase his deeds. If he managed to get his Wish and bring Emilie back, she would be horrified. She'd wonder where her Gabi went.

Gabriel is proof that 'evolution' isn't always positive. He reinvented himself once, and now, because it didn't go the way he wanted, he's trying to reinvent things again. Tomoe also hints at a belief that the solution to her problems is to make the world anew - to get a second chance. Felix tries this, too, when he creates the red moon to wipe out all people except his select group.

But Felix does learn - Ladybug helps him see that even if you erase all the people causing you so much grief...you still have to deal with that pain. What Gabriel fails to see is that - like Cat Blanc on the roof, all alone without his lady - destroying your witnesses won't remove the witness in your own heart.

Even if Gabriel wiped everyone else's memory of his crimes, he would still know what he'd done. And when you cross those kinds of lines, you can never go back to who you once were.

Please no post-Revelation spoilers in the comments :)

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midnightcrw · 8 months

Text

Running away

Chapter 3

Anagapesis

Pairing: Simon Ghost Riley x fem!reader

Summary: Life really had it in for you. Just moving to a new apartment seemed to unleash a brand new hell

Warnings: Panic Attack

"I hate this," Grace huffed with a pout on her face, making her face appear rounder. This time her blonde wavy hair had been put up in a high bun with multiple vibrant coloured clips to push the stray strands out of her face.

Her usual skirt was nowhere to be seen as she wore blue washed-out jeans with a red knit sweater on, that engulfed her entire body. Her bracelets never seemed to leave her arms either since the first day.

Grace seemed to never have a bad looking day. She always put a lot of effort into what she wore and made even the most simplest clothes look outstanding.

"It's not that bad," you tried to sound encouraging, knowing that she was exhausted and probably wanted to quit. She had even once accidentally spoken too loudly around your employer, which ended up getting her into trouble.

"You're lucky that you still have this job, Grace!" The stern voice of your employer, Josephine, was heard as you bit your lip, not knowing how to react. It was still early, so only you, your co-workers and employer were present.

The lecture went on for minutes, which seemed more like hours at this point, and once Josephine thought that Grace heard enough of her rant, she left you all to yourselves.

"Old hag," the twenty-year-old girl had muttered under her breath, with both of her arms crossed. She had rolled her eyes and furrowed her eyebrows, making her green eyes look kind of intimidating, completely different from the way they would usually shone in their own unique way.

You just snickered quietly at her when she muttered quietly, or at least that's what Grace thought when the loud, agitating voice yelled, "I heard that!".

Grace turned her head towards you so quickly that you were almost afraid that she might have broken her neck at the process of it. "Well, you didn't have to clean every single shelve until she was pleased with the result," you followed her exaggerated hand gestures with your eyes, trying to hold back the smile that was slowly making its way to your face.

"I'm sure she made her way outside to collect dirt and put it into one of those yellow buckets she has lying around. She probably even scraped the streets clean just to throw the dirt onto these shelves, I just know it!" She pushed her round, black-framed glasses up her button nose in anger, making her look like a little chipmunk.

Not being able to hold back the grin on your face, you interrupted her before she could rant any further. "Maybe the shelves have always been this dirty. I never looked at them too closely. "

Grace narrowed her eyes at you in annoyance, "Nope, I always look at the shelves and they were clean yesterday. Like, nobody goes to the encyclopedia section, so why would the shelves there be dirty!?" Her arms moved around almost comically, even hitting the desk lightly in process.

It had been ten days since you'd moved, and you liked it here. Working at the library wasn't so boring with Grace around, having her daily shenanigans. It made your days by far more enjoyable since she never ran out of energy.

The only thing that was still questionable was the whole apartment complex thing with Amanda and Simon. Nothing too suspicious happened, but it still made you wonder what happened to make Amanda dislike him. Even some other people in your apartment complex didn't like him when you asked them for their opinion.

But Simon... Simon wasn't bad. He didn't seem to be a bad guy. Sure, he was questionable when it came to hiding himself from other people's eyes, but that shouldn't be a reason to hate him.

After your first conversation with Edith, you really tried to keep an open mind and not let others control your thoughts about him. And indeed, things did change.

You noticed little things about him whenever you two came across each other. His walk was something you hadn't noticed before, he walks silently, not a single footstep being heard. But the more you observed him, the more you realized that he didn't do it forcibly, it must have been a habit, but it looked strange to you. To see such a big man almost as quiet as a mouse, if not quieter than a mouse.

Simon's posture was just like Amanda's, absolutely perfect. Standing straight in a way you could only hope for. His head was always held high as well, never tilting down unless he saw you.

His body language told you nothing. It was a mystery, he was a mystery. It was as if he was hiding something. If he had also covered his hands up, you would have thought he wasn't even human.

His big hands would often times be inside his hoodie or pant pockets, only letting them be visible when he pulled his keys out to open the door to his apartment. Whenever you saw even the slightest glimpse of his hands, they would make you shiver slightly, not even knowing why. His hands looked pretty, even though they were obviously rough and calloused.

The pale, healed scars on them didn't make you any less curious. There were just too many scars for them to be accidents, unless he had a clumsy side to himself which made the corners of your lips curl up a little. Imagining him stumbling over his own feet was both hilarious and endearing.

You even looked forward to his little nods in greeting. You still hadn't heard a single sound from him, not even a hum or a sigh. Only his nods were the only indication you had to be sure that he had seen and heard you.

Daydreaming, as usual, didn't seem to be the best thing to do around Grace because she suddenly flicked your forehead. The flick stung a little, probably leaving a light red hue on your forehead.

Rubbing the spot, you glared at her "Why did you do that?". The young woman's face looked at you as if you were the dumbest person she had ever met. She even crossed her arms over her chest and had removed her glasses, which were now lying on the desk between the two of you.

"First, you ignored me when I talked about our 'lovely' boss," she continued, empathizing the word 'lovely' with her voice, "and second, you started grinning like an idiot, so I thought about either taking a picture or flicking your forehead to make you stop".

Happy with the fact that she had chosen the latter, she burst your bubble "And I did both of those things".

You just rolled your eyes at her.

This day had been stressful, probably more so for Grace, but also for you, because there were a lot of students here today. Probably studying for their finals, which didn't bother you at all, the problem was that they wanted to start an argument with you about the fact that there were no more seats available, which you had tried to resolve until you realized that nothing you would do would make these students happy, so you just sent them over to Henry, who also worked here.

"Since you ignored me, how about you tell me the reason for your smile?" Grace asked you while giving you a playful wink, already internally groaning at her.

In those couple of days, you had told her about Amanda and Simon. Not going too deep with the details, but just enough for her to not get worried, and you were already starting to regret it.

She would ask you about Simon every day, and the answer would be the same. "How's Simon doing?" She sounded all hearty, not caring at all about your lack of expression, already having guessed that it was about your next door neighbour.

Groaning, you put your face in your hands, slightly muffling your words "I don't know, kid." You really couldn't answer that question. There had never been a real conversation between the two of you.

And before Grace could open her mouth, you interrupted her, "How's Jake doing?" With this question, the young woman's face lit up. Her smile was almost dazzling. It was probably the biggest you had ever seen on her face.

Her eyes got a slight bit wider at the mention of his name, almost twinkling a little. Her pupils dilated, showing far less of her green eyes now.

"He's great - Well, I-I mean, he's doing great -" Before she could embarrass herself any further, you chuckled at her. It was obvious that she had fallen in love with this guy she had met three days ago.

From what she had told you, or rather swooned over, he was exactly her type. Light brown curly hair, tanned skin, tall, a little intimidating at first glance, but apparently, he was very sweet to her.

You were happy for her, but still a bit wary since it had only been three days, and you didn't want her to get her heart broken into a million pieces.

And while she continued her long talk about him, you heard a small notification sound coming from your phone. Ignoring it for the moment, you just listened to what Grace told you.

Her crush liked basketball, went to university, and so on. It seemed endless as she listed you all of Jake's qualities. In some of these listed things you teasingly jabbed at her, as she could only respond in a sheepish tone, far too engrossed with Jake to care about your little remarks about the "most perfect man who existed just for her".

What got to you, though, were the notifications. You still didn't look at them, ignoring them, wanting to give Grace some attention. At first it was just a single notification, but then it continued a few more times, leaving you a little confused, since you didn't really have much contact with others, except for a few of your family members.

Not bothering for now, you decided to look through them when your shift was over. You rubbed the back of your neck, which was a little stiff from not sleeping well last night.

Your shift had ended half an hour ago, and you finally made it to your apartment complex. The weather outside hadn't been too bad, just a little cold, but nothing to complain about.

The rest of your work day had just been filled with several students trying to find a place to study and listening to Grace's stories. Even though you never really thought that working in the library would be exhausting, it was indeed exhausting because today it was just you and Grace.

Your other co-workers had left earlier and your employer didn't care, as usual, and let you and Grace take care of everything else.

Eyes fixed on the stairs, you walked up while holding the railing. You thought back to your work day and remembered that you still had to go through your messages.

It wasn't long before you were on your floor, walking towards your apartment door as you opened the messages that had been sent, and that's exactly what you shouldn't have done.

You stopped dead in your tracks, as if someone had just pulled out a gun and pointed it at you. With no control over your body, your hand dropped the phone to the ground.

Normally, you would have picked it up to make sure the phone's display wasn't broken, but this time was different. You couldn't care less. You felt numb all over, unable to move an inch of your body the way you wanted to.

Your breathing accelerated, almost sounding like a panting. It was frantic, none of it seemed calm, you weren't calm. You couldn't be calm, not after this.

Please stop...

I won't do it again, I promise

I'll be better

Several sounds filled your head, all at once. This time you were able to decipher them and you wished you weren't able to. You wished for it to stop.

Your mind was filled with your cries and pleas. Tears rolling down your face, which you only noticed after your vision blurred.

Unable to stand upright, your legs already shaking along with your entire body, you fell to your knees. The pain of the fall didn't matter to you at all, you couldn't even feel it. You were sure you wouldn't even feel it if someone had punched you in the face.

Blinking rapidly, you looked at your hands. They were shaking just as badly, and as much as you wanted to hold on to your legs, to ground yourself to something, your hands wouldn't. They were shaking, but they never had the strength to hold anything, even when you desperately needed it.

Your mind was filled with so many noises and sounds that you didn't even notice a person looking down at you. You could only look at your hands in shock as you suddenly felt the ground vibrate beneath you.

The vibration continued until you could avert your teary eyes and look ahead of you.

It was Simon, on his knees on the ground. Had it not been for your current state, you might have been surprised. He probably had stomped on the ground to get your attention.

But what caught your attention were his brown eyes. It was the first time you had seen his eyes, even a glimpse of humanity other than his scarred, veiny hands. His hood had been pulled up a little, just enough for you to see them.

They were mesmerizing, his eyes hypnotic. They drew you to them, almost in want, in need. His eyes were trained on yours, never leaving yours, not even for a second.

And soon the sounds began to fade, the sounds of pure sadness and despair were gone. You began to become more aware of your surroundings, of Simon.

Still looking at his face, you noticed his dark blonde eyebrows, a pale scar running along the edge. There was no hair growing there, leaving him with a slit in his right eyebrow.

"I got you," Simon's deep voice rasped out. It was the first time you heard his voice and it was like a drug. Addictive in a way that no other voice had been for you.

His voice brought you back, made your trembling subside slightly, now you could actually move your body as you wiggled your fingers to get rid of the numb feeling.

Your heart stopped its relentless pounding against your ribcage and became a calmer beat. Even your panting had stopped, slowly breathing in and out over and over again.

"There you are," it sounded almost like a praise, you wanted to hear more but were too afraid to ask.

You were calm now, still a little shaken, but calmer nonetheless, and you even took in the tiny earthy and smoky scent of him. Usually you didn't like the smell of smoke, it gave you a headache, but this one was soothing.

Then realisation dawned on you. He calmed you down, he didn't even touch you, keeping his distance to you as he had made you feel at ease. It hadn't been overwhelming until you actually thought about it.

And with that, you stood up abruptly on wobbly legs and slammed the door as soon as you had opened it, leaving Simon all alone.

Would he think of you as pathetic now? Or pity you?

Taglist:

@ghostlythots

@kittyoonsstuff

#cod x reader #ghost x reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #simon riley x y/n #simon riley x you #simon ghost x you #ghost x y/n

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mdhwrites · 6 months

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Why TOH really doesn't want a theme of discrimination.

Every demon in the show is depicted as evil, dumb or as good... because they don't want to be a part of demon culture.

That's the thesis and it's not an over exaggeration. In the main cast, the only demon of the DEMON REALM is Hooty who is treated as slow, less intelligent than the other members of the cast, and as a joke by the writers as he never elevates himself above being simply comic relief. Association with him seems to be the earliest sign that Lilith is meant to be seen as a joke and her relationship with Hooty ostracizes her from the rest of the cast. Makes her appear weird because she's the only one who can like the bird tube.

Otherwise, they're all antagonists. Most of them are just one note villains for that matter. In S1, every demon with a real speaking role is a villain. The monster hunters, Warden Wrath, Tibbles, the basilisk, the publisher for King and even Boscha if her third eye denotes demonic heritage. Anyone who we see at least as neutral are pretty much just background characters. The ones from the prison in the first episode are really the only ones who get a moment of heroism.

Now you might say: What about Bat Queen? She's the richest person on the Isles and she... Isn't a demon. She's a palisman. Made by, or at least for, a god with the insinuation they give. Bare minimum: Not for any demon known to the Isles. So she doesn't count.

There ARE witch antagonists in S1 thankfully. They're Matt, who goes on to obviously be a good person at heart, Amity who... Duh and Lilith who is also redeemed. None of this happens to any of the demons though even if ostensibly this is their world since the entire dimension is named after demons.

Which, as a note, also is part of why saying TOH is anti-colonial means ignoring an entire race.

Even KING, who should have been the demon representative in the main cast, was then retconned not to be one. Worse yet, only once that retcon began did the show start treating him with any real respect. As a demon... He was just a dumb comic relief character as far as the show is concerned.

So when we FINALLY get a reoccurring demon... It's Kikimora. That should be all I need to say there.

Now the final argument: Vee. Vee is a good person, right? She's not a villain or antagonist, just a good person. And you would be right. The framing on Vee is the problem. As the ONE genuinely just good demon, we have to evaluate how she is different. She is different... Because she rejected the Demon Realm. Her parallels with Luz are even supposed to make it clear that she is better at being a human THAN LUZ. Which has the awful implication, if we want to say TOH has anti-discrimination theme, that the only good demon, is a domesticated demon. One who wants to be a human.

That's. Fucking. Awful.

And just to cover my bases: Yes, discrimination is more than a race thing but the concept of discrimination on race is actually pretty much the only one ever brought up. The fact that no one gives a shit about ethnicity or sexuality or gender actually hurts the theme because you have to project those things onto the show instead. And any allegory to discrimination is explicitly done through races. Fantasy races but that still frames it as a racial issue so its theme on anti-discrimination is going to struggle to branch out beyond racial lines because it effectively ignores that any other form of discrimination might even EXIST.

And for the finale!... I don't think any of this is on purpose by the writers. Yes, they bring discrimination into the show but just like how real life conflicts will often ignore the complexities of all the groups present, such as us referring to all Native Americans as one whole group rather than their separate tribes and histories, the show effectively forgets about the demons. They're just there for flavor because if literally all of the characters of the demon realm were elves, it wouldn't feel like it fits the name at all. It adds spice to a scene and adventure if you have demons of all sorts and sizes.

But the witches are the conventionally attractive characters who are easy to latch onto and so they are the main cast. Everything that looks other becomes a target for villainy because of that juxtaposition. Unfortunately, none of this helps any sort theme of inclusivity. That we are supposed to look past the outer shell and see the person within, regardless, race, gender, sexuality, etc. like that.

Instead, TOH tells a very basic fantasy story and in doing so, falls into the fact that a lot of classic fantasy was written by racist white dudes and the fact that the term demon is charged due to LOTS of religions that paint them out as wholly evil. Without actually interrogating these concepts, it can be easy to fall into them.

So yeah, I think this is a theme people need to stop trying to apply to TOH.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical

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princesssarisa · 6 months

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Disney's unconventional "Cinderella" (1950) (long)

Having watched most of the many adaptations of Cinderella, I've come to realize what a unique adaptation Disney's 1950 animated classic really is. Unlike Snow White, which only had a few stage and screen adaptations before Disney produced its groundbreaking film, Cinderella had already been adapted many times before Disney's turn came, and Disney's version makes a surprising number of departures from the standard Cinderella "formula." It was definitely a fresh, creative Cinderella when it made its debut, and it arguably still is. Yet because it's become so familiar in pop culture, and today so often serves as our childhood introduction to the tale, it's easy to overlook its inventive storytelling choices. The 2015 live action remake uses several classic Cinderella adaptation tropes that the original 1950 film actually subverts!

Here's a list of the often-overlooked ways in which Disney's Cinderella stands out from earlier adaptations, and from many later ones too.

Cinderella herself. Disney's Cinderella isn't a traditional Cinderella in personality. The "traditional" portrayal of Cinderella, seen in virtually every adaptation before Disney's and several afterwards too, is the portrayal I call "The Waif": a very young, fragile, melancholy girl, dressed in pathetic rags and smudged with ashes, who makes the audience want to rescue her and who wins the Prince's heart with her wide-eyed innocence and artless charm. But whether chiefly to set her apart from earlier screen Cinderellas or from Disney's earlier delicate ingenue Snow White, Disney's Cinderella is none of those things. She comes across as older, or at least more sophisticated. Nor is she waif-like, but instead combines down-to-earth warmth with ladylike dignity, even at her lowliest. She doesn't sit in the ashes ("Cinderella" is her real name in this version), and her servants' dress is humble yet clean and only slightly tattered. She's gentle and kind, yes, but also intelligent, practical, playful, sometimes sarcastic, philosophical, optimistic, genuinely cheerful when she's with her animal friends, and yet angrier and stronger-willed than virtually all earlier Cinderellas. She doesn't beg to go to the ball, but asserts her right to go, and then sets to work fixing up an old dress of her mother's for herself. Only her stepfamily's sabotage, first by keeping her too busy to finish the dress, and then by destroying it after the mice and birds finish it for her, prevents her from taking herself to the ball without a Fairy Godmother. To this day, she stands out as a complex, unique Cinderella, which pop culture too often forgets.

Lady Tremaine. Some critics today complain that Disney makes Cinderella's stepmother a total monster instead of giving her "nuance" and call her portrayal "sexist." But can't we agree that her sheer cruelty enhances the film's dramatic power? And compared to earlier portrayals of Cinderella's Stepmother, it definitely makes her stand out. In most pre-Disney Cinderellas and many after, the Stepmother is a pompous, vain comic antagonist. Once again, Disney was innovative by portraying Lady Tremaine as a dignified, manipulative, and truly sinister villain, who takes quietly sadistic pleasure in abusing Cinderella and will stop at nothing to prevent her from going to the ball or marrying the Prince. As far as I know, she's also the first Stepmother to realize before the slipper-fitting that Cinderella was the lady at the ball and to take action to prevent her from being found. That's a commonplace plot device in more recent adaptations, but in 1950 it was a creative twist!

The mice and other animals. Viewers debate whether Cinderella's mouse friends, Jaq, Gus, et al, and their misadventures evading Lucifer the Cat are a welcome addition or take away too much screen time from Cinderella herself. But there's no denying that the presence of the mice and birds is an inventive storytelling choice, which makes Disney's Cinderella stand out! And I can provide a long list of reasons why they're more than just "filler." (1) They add liveliness, humor, and appeal for younger children. (2) They gave the animators an outlet for the type of character animation they did best, rather than binding them to the harder work of animating realistic humans. (3) They give Cinderella someone to talk to besides her stepfamily. (4) They give her a way to demonstrate her kindness. (5) The struggles of the mice with Lucifer parallel Cinderella's abuse by her stepfamily, and Cinderella's undying optimism not only keeps her from despair, but inspires them too. (6) They arguably provide a further reason why Cinderella stays with her stepfamily – not only does she have nowhere to go, but an entire community of small sentient creatures relies on her for food and protection. (7) They reward Cinderella for her kindness. From the start, her friendship with the mice and birds makes her life easier to bear, both by easing her loneliness and because they do helpful deeds for her, like mending and cleaning her clothes. They fix up her mother's dress for her to wear to the ball – only the stepfamily's last-minute cruelty requires the Fairy Godmother to step in. And in the end, they're directly responsible for Cinderella's happy ending by freeing her from her locked room. They do all these things because Cinderella has protected them, fed them, made them clothes, and been their friend. Therefore, Cinderella's good fortune never feels "just handed" to her: her kindness directly earns it.

The Fairy Godmother. It's always varied between illustrators whether Cinderella's Fairy Godmother is portrayed as a grandmotherly old woman or as youthful, regal, and beautiful, but screen and stage adaptations before the Disney version virtually always took the "youthful, regal, beautiful" approach. That is, when they didn't change her into a wise, fatherly male magician-advisor, as in several opera adaptations! At any rate, seriousness and dignity were the norm for this character in most adaptations from the 19th century through the 1940s. Making her a sweet, comforting, grandmotherly figure, with a comically and adorably absent mind, was another of Disney's fresh choices.

Cinderella's entrance at the ball. We all know the classic image of Cinderella's entrance from other adaptations. Cinderella appears at the top of the grand staircase that leads down to the ballroom, and a hush falls over the assembly, as not only the Prince, but all the guests and members of the court are amazed by the unknown lady's beauty and magnificent dress. Even in versions without a staircase, Cinderella captivates the room the moment she enters. Adaptations both before and after Disney's, including Disney's own 2015 live action remake, play her entrance this way. But the 1950 animated classic subverts it! The grand staircase leads up to the ballroom, not down to it, and Cinderella's entrance isn't a triumph at first, but a vulnerable moment as she makes her way up the stairs alone, dwarfed by the splendor around her. Then, when she reaches the ballroom, no one notices her at first, because the other ladies are being presented to the Prince and all eyes are on him. But then the Prince notices her in the shadowy background as she quietly marvels at her surroundings, and leaves his post to approach her and invite her to dance. Only then does the rest of the assembly notice her, because she's the one the Prince has singled out. It's more understated and it feels more realistic than the traditional entrance, as well as more clearly symbolic of Cinderella's venturing above her station, then both literally and figuratively being led out of the shadows by the Prince's unexpected attention.

The slipper-fitting plan. Over the years, it's been fairly popular to mock the idea of using the glass slipper to find the Prince's love, as if there were no chance it would fit anyone else. Disney's version is creative by having the slipper-fitting search be the comical, hot-blooded King's idea, not the Prince's, and making it clear that it's not, nor is it meant to be, a foolproof plan to find Cinderella. The Duke points out that the slipper could fit any number of girls, but the King doesn't care if they find the right girl or not: he just wants to hold his son to his pledge to marry "the girl who fits this slipper" and force him to marry the first one who fits it. This also means that Disney doesn't do what most adaptations do and have the Prince conduct the search himself, but follows the original Perrault tale by having a gentleman, in this case the Grand Duke, do it instead. This prevents audiences from mocking the Prince for relying on the slipper instead of knowing his beloved's face.

Cinderella breaking free and asking to try on the slipper. Even though in Perrault's original tale, Cinderella asks to try on the slipper, she almost never does in adaptations. In most versions other than Disney's, including Disney's own 2015 remake, Cinderella's presence in the house (and/or the fact that she has the other slipper) is either discovered by accident or revealed by Cinderella's allies, not by Cinderella's own initiative. In some versions, she even tries to hide from the Prince and/or the search party, either out of fear of her stepfamily or because she feels unworthy of the Prince in her rags. But not Disney's animated Cinderella! First of all, she has an assertive emotional breakthrough when she calls on her dog Bruno to chase Lucifer away and free Gus to slip her the key to her locked room. Earlier on, she urges Bruno to try to get along with Lucifer, lest the stepfamily not allow him to sleep in the house – it's clear that Bruno represents her own rebellious side, and in that scene she's really talking about herself, revealing that she tolerates her stepfamily's abuse so she won't lose her own "nice warm bed" and be homeless. But in the climactic scene, when she finally sees a way out, she gives up playing nice and seizes her chance. First she unleashes Bruno on Lucifer, and then she runs downstairs and directly asks to try on the slipper, not caring how her stepfamily will react, or what the Grand Duke will think of her shabby dress, or whether the audience will accuse her of gold-digging or not. This isn't a common breakthrough in other Cinderella adaptations, but it fits perfectly (like a glass slipper, you might say) with the Disney Cinderella's stronger-willed and more self-assured characterization.

"I have the other slipper." We can probably all safely assume that when audiences first saw Disney's Cinderella in 1950, they all expected Cinderella to try on the glass slipper she lost, with her identity revealed by its perfect fit. They never would have expected Lady Tremaine to trip the footman and break the glass slipper... only for Cinderella to calmly reveal that she has the other one. It's yet another clever and unexpected twist, not seen in any other version. Not even Disney's own 2015 remake.

Disney's Cinderella deserves far more credit than it gets for being unique among the myriad versions of the tale, especially compared to the versions that came before it.

#cinderella #fairy tale #disney #1950 #animated film #adaptation #meta

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evilwickedme · 1 year

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So I did just block the anon who told me to get help bc of my magneto was right title which, more than anything else, tells me they're not familiar with the comics

But also. Trying to tell me, a Jewish comics fan who specifically specializes in the Jewish history of comic books, that Magneto is antisemitic, actually, because he was made into a Jew by a "gentle" in 1975 (which isn't even true), is so wildly a misrepresentation of what his character means in fucking 2023 that it baffled me. Like I considered answering the ask because it was like, ok this is a teachable moment. But like also fuck that guy so.

But here's the thing about magneto is that obviously he's wrong, in that killing people is wrong and in some cases he's basically represented as a terrorist. But he's also obviously right, in that it's literally been proven in the house of x storyline that mutants will never be accepted, will always be hunted and hated, and mutants can and should defend themselves against that. I'll remind you that, although genosha was far from a success, the basic idea of mutants having their own island country is essentially the exact fucking same as krakoa, which is the current wildly successful x men storyline!!!!

And that's ignoring the fact that the magneto was right slogan was born when magneto was dead, and wasn't meant to support any particular action he made, but rather general ideas as I presented them above, and then beyond that, the fact that many Jews in particular identify with the slogan because we've been persecuted and hated for being different for three thousand fucking years, and that in 2023 in particular, after seven years of an increasing rise of antisemitism, having that as the title of my blog is just pointing out the fucking obvious

(this also leaves out the context of when I, in particular, started using the title, and the content of my blog at the time, and the fact that I've had this particular pfp for about as long, and the way all three of those tie in together, but I have no doubt that the person who sent me this ask is not a long time follower of this blog. About two thirds of my followers either already followed me or followed me because of that phase in my life though, and the rest have most likely seen me refer to it multiple times, so that context is not lost on most of them)

Basically. Magneto is a character who, at first, was not very complex. But no character can stick around for sixty years without becoming complex and taking on meaning that was not necessarily intended by the original creator. At this point magneto has been a Jewish Holocaust survivor for nearly five decades, as this anon themself pointed out. He's been handled by Jewish and goyische authors alike. And pretending he's purely an antisemitic character rather than one that many Jews actively cherish and identify with and show in so many ways that you, yourself, are not Jewish, and don't have any idea what you're talking about just so you can send anonymous hate my way...

Well. Point is. Magneto was right.

#magneto was right #I'm not an x men expert fyi so don't come at me if any of this is not exactly 100% accurate but afaik it's all correct #x men #magneto #marvel comics #marvel #jew tag #antisemitism #jumblr #gail speaks #jewish superheroes

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anneapocalypse · 1 year

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On the actual significance of the "Grand Game"

In the three Dragon Age games thus far we have seen Orlesians from three perspectives. In Origins we get the Fereldan view, Orlesians Are Evil, this from a nation occupied and oppressed by the empire and not yet over it. In DA2 we get the Marcher view, or you could call it specifically the Tethras view, Orlesians Are Stupid, a view no doubt cultivated by the fact that the only Orlesians you meet in Kirkwall are rich expats wealthy enough to have a second home in the Free Marches but not important enough to actually need to be in Orlais. And in Inquisition we get I think the closest thing to the Orlesian view of Orlais, which is: we're very powerful and you should want to have us on your side; please ignore all the chaos and civil war and how expendable we consider the lower classes.

Throughout all of this I think it is worth noting that the only people who think Orlesians are so subtle and clever are Orlesians, and mostly it's just the nobles and their hangers-on who think that about themselves. We're introduced to the concept of the Grand Game through Leliana, who romanticizes the whole thing due to her life as a bard. Varric by contrast has very little in the way of romantic notions about Orlesian nobles and mostly portrays them as comical buffoons, from Emile de Launcet to Duke Prosper de Montfort; not one of Varric's Orlesian characters is ever meant to be taken seriously by the audience. In Inquisition, a lot of hay is made about the Game and the need for favor and so forth but it pretty much all boils down to "Nobles have money and troops. We need those. Make them like you."

To me, the interesting thing about the Game is not that it's actually deeply complex or intricate, but how central it is to Orlesian identity. Of course there are intricacies to court politics, but most of it comes down to knowing whose interests and connections lie where, and how those interests may be successfully manipulated. That's not "Orlesian politics," that's just politics, and it's not meaningfully different from politics elsewhere. What sets the Orlesian aristocracy apart from Ferelden, when you look past the cultural trappings and the aesthetics, is mainly that Orlais has much stronger barriers to upward mobility in place (freeholds, or land owned by commoners, are practically unheard of in Orlais, whereas the freehold is the backbone of Fereldan culture).

But where I think the cultural significance of the Game truly matters to Orlesians is in the way it's meant to set them apart as the Good Empire. The empire that is cultured, sophisticated, civilized--you know, not like that other, bad empire up north, the one with the blood magic and the legal slavery. Please pay no attention to the blood-soaked floors of the servants' quarters (or the illegal slave trade that flourished in occupied Ferelden and behind closed doors of remote estates). We negotiate power with subtle words and gestures, and definitely don't sustain it with the blood of the powerless just like the magisters do, but without the magic. It's the magic part that makes blood magic bad, not the murder part. (This is a big part of why I love The Masked Empire, so much, as it really has so much to say about the nature of power and empire and who truly suffers for the games the nobles play, but it's also why what we see in the servants' quarters in "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts" is so important.)

And this all ties into Orlais as the seat of the southern Chantry as well, sitting in opposition to Tevinter politically, culturally, religiously, all of which are inexorably intertwined.

#orlais #tevinter #dragon age meta #the grand game #dragon age #blunders of thedas #ferelden

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bogkeep · 1 year

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HAIZ EXPLAINS AMATONORMATIVITY: REDUX

it's 2014. a teenager rummages through the newspaper at breakfast. they're looking for comic strips, but instead see the headline of the sports pages, proclaiming some famous sports guy is "NOT INTERESTED IN RELATIONSHIPS RIGHT NOW."

"really?" thinks the young haiz, "that's meant to be news? the sports news??"

it's not like they'd ever read the sports pages before, but the scandal in that headline would not leave their brain zeitgeist of the day. it was a metaphorical pebble thrown at them — not the first, but the one that made them go "HEY. STOP THAT???" so they took to the keyboard to yell into the void to hey, stop that.

then the void responded.

what i wrote that day was probably one of the first posts about amatonormativity to make rounds on tumblr. i did not expect it to get thousands of notes, and it's no longer on my blog. even though the majority of the response to it was positive, i wouldn't want to bring it back, because

- it was written in a very 2014 way

- with very 2014 thoughts

- some people were really cruel to me for writing it

- i still can't read it without wincing

but:

i can write a new one.

this is not an argument about who is or isn't oppressed. that is not an argument i'm interested in entertaining, and it's not what this post is about. human life on earth is incredibly diverse and complex and i'm just here to-

OH MY GOD WHAT IS AMATONORMATIVITY ALREADY

okay so amatonormativity is like. the idea that A Lasting, Monogamous & Exclusive Romantic Relationship is the most important type of relationship in the entire world and the thing we should all strive for in our lives. (insert obligatory "the term was coined by professor elizabeth brake in the book minimizing marriage" here.)

it's not exclusively an "omg it's so hard to be aro :(" thing, because it's like, an all-encompassing Narrative foisted upon us that shapes the way we view and talk about relationships, and it does everyone a disservice (as is the case with all Normativities! we want to break 'em ALL down!! for everyone!!!!!!). nor is it intended to make people feel bad for wanting long-lasting monogamous romantic relationships! that's your personal business and i wish you well!

(it IS kind of hard to be aro in a world that constantly argues that you're lacking The Most Important Experience That Makes You Human And Life Worth Living though. not gonna lie.)

- an easy example is how the word Love is, in a Lot of instances, for a Lot of people, basically synonymous with Red Hearts Kissy Kissy Smooch Smooch. like we ALL KNOW love is more than that, we love friends and family and strangers who were nice to us that one time and our pets and our favourite foods and our favourite shows. you kind of have to clarify when you mean Love in any other way than Romantic Love. which is wild, considering how Love is such a vast emotion that covers a lot of ground, and it keeps zeroing in on this specific kind.

- related to that, i have a whole internalised powerpoint presentation about how, if you put all of your relationships with other people in a pie chart, the Romantic Partner slice is likely to be very small compared to the Family slice and Friend slice and Acquaintance slice and all these other connections you have - yet it has, comparatively, a LOT of publicity and framework that some of the other categories find themself lacking. yes, a romantic partner/s is/are someone you're likely to share a lot of time and life with, so it makes some sense for sure - but not everyone has romantic partners, or the same priorities as far as commitment goes.

- the stigmatisation of being single/unpartnered. i get the impression that a lot of people have stayed in unsatisfactory relationships because it sounds better than the Dreadful, Terrible Alternative of Not Being In A Relationship. i think there has been a lot of pushback against this particular mindset in recent years, always flaring up around valentine's day for some reason - but it still feels like it's expected to be a Temporary State, not something you'd choose or prefer.

- romance as a Humanising Component in storytelling. say you've got some sort of non-human character, such as a Robot or a Beast. what is the easiest way for them to gain Personhood in the eyes of the audience? probably by falling in love, because falling in love is the Most Human Thing There Is. i think this also extends to queer stories in a similar way - a queer romance may win over a non-queer audience in a way other queer narratives may not, an "oh they're just like us" moment, if you will. these aren't bad stories to have, and queer romances are important stories to tell! it's just... tinged with a taste of "very well.... if it's TRUE LOVE... i can find it in me to extend some compassion......."

(and! on the flipside! an easy way to dehumanise an antagonist is to be like "AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN FEEL LOVE THEY JUST HAD NO HEART THEY WERE SO INHUMAN ")

(speaking of stories you know when a series ends and they partner up all the remaining single characters in a hurry or in the epilogue because god forbid they dON'T GET PARTNERS)

- you know how the reason for legalizing same-sex marriage wasn't because marriage is THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION TRUE LOVE, but because it comes with a lot of legal rights such as tax benefits and hospital visitation rights? and uhhhhh isn't it kind of weird that marriage is the One thing that gives u a lot of those rights and it's 1) still presented as The Ultimate Expression Of True Love And The End Goal Of Life rather than a legal contract, and 2) not available to everyone? I THINK IT'S KIND OF WEIRD.

- polyamorous relationships are also stigmatised & there's a lot of work to do when it comes to marriage & parental rights for polyamorous couples. i'm sure one could write an entire list on this topic from a polyam/relationship anarchy angle.

- the stigma against sex In General is rooted in so many things, and i believe that a huge part of breaking down amatonormativity is to destigmatize casual sex, sexual relationships that aren't romantic, sex work + sex worker rights & everything in this category. thinking about sex as a thing you can/should only do with the love of your life after you're married hasn't served us very well, i think.

- the idea that our entire life is building up to The One Important Relationship is garbage. we have a lot of relationships in our lives, many of them temporary, and all of them matter to us in some way. you are not a half looking for another half to complete you - even the most compatible person on the earth is still going to be a human person who is flawed and ever changing.

- ok so there's a thing that happens when people want to prove a gay couple is Actually Dating and not Just Gal Pals and it's like "WOULD FRIENDS EVER DO THIS???" referring to some kind of intimate moment - and it's like, i get what you're trying to prove, but... some friends Would Do That, Actually. there is no act on earth wholly exclusive to romantic relationships. i subscribe to the idea that everyone gets to decide how they define their relationships, and what boundaries they have for each kind. maybe they WILL kiss their homies on the lips. with tongue.

- queerplatonic relationships: not only did we have to create a term for a Kind of committed relationship that isn't a romantic one, but we have to fight the deluge of "but that's just dating!!!!!" and "that's just having a best friend!!!!" - the thing is, it CAN be those things if you choose to, or it can be A Secret Third Thing. the way i see it, a queerplatonic relationship is just a Framework you can apply to a relationship that's like, There, but doesn't seem to fully fit into existing categories. because the human experience is vast and weird! i think it's unfair and kinda normative to reduce it to "dating, but for aros" - an Oddly Intimate Connection That Is Hard To Categorize can befall anyone, and as i presented in my pie chart theory, we don't have a lot of framework to discuss them.

that's all i've got for today. i hope this was enlightening or affirming for some <3

#amatonormativity #aroace tag #too long for twitter #ive tried editing but i'm too sleepy to finecomb this so im just going to release it into the wilds #happy aro awareness week #long post

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