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autism-alley · 3 months

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hi originally posted this at the end of a long thread of back and forth, here’s the og post if you want full context but i feel like this needs to be its own post especially bc i keep seeing this argument being made—the argument that the kids (in this case it was annabeth) SHOULD just know the monsters are monsters and who they are and how to defeat them before ever encountering them, that it’s a problem if they don’t.

the problem is not if 12 year olds should recognize a trap when they see one, even if they’re smart 12 year olds, and if that’s realistic. that is entirely beside the point.

the problem is rick riordan wrote a book series whose formula is bringing myths to the modern age and he’s not sticking true to that in the show—percy jackson and the olympians’ Shtick is taking these classic, ancient threats and giving them a new face. these traps work because these kids are not walking into a cave marked with Get Out and getting ambushed by monsters—the monsters are disguised as harmless mortal human beings, in harmless mortal human being places (for the most part) and i think we—and more importantly, the show—are all forgetting the mist, the magic involved here. it’s not just that medusa is a “creepy lady with her eyes covered” it’s that there is ancient magic at work here, magic that, like the systems of abuse pjo exists to criticize, has been evolving and continuing its malevolence for millennia. it’s formulaic, that’s the point. it’s the same trap you’ve learned about all your childhood, the same trap a thousand children before you learned all their childhoods, and still, it works. you fall into the trap. because that’s how generational abuse works. it’s a trap. it isn’t enough to learn monsters exist, what they look like from a second hand story that originated thousands of years ago. if you want to escape alive, you have to adapt as quickly as they do, recognize their face, and ultimately, beyond any individual trap, the game itself has to change. real, generational change.

so. the problem is rick riordan wrote a series with a formula for action that perfectly captures the overarching, systemic conflicts he was commentating on, and then threw that formula out in the show because it was “unrealistic”. i don’t give a damn about realism when it works to the detriment of the story. this is a story about generational abuse, yes, but it’s told through ‘a tale as old as time’ and that’s why it works so fucking well. and when it comes to basic storytelling, if your characters know the threat before they even walk in and you do practically nothing to then make up for the stakes you have removed, that’s a flaw. now you’ve lost the entertainment value for your audience, on top of also lessening your themes.

something else that is so. honestly soul-crushing as a writer and a creative, is that to me this is reflective of the way we are now afraid to tell earnest stories. stories where we care not for listening to the people who want to pick apart fictional, mythical, fantasy stories for not being “realistic” instead of aligning with our target audience who acknowledges reality is not what makes a story. think of your favorite movie, show, book, comic, what have you—has the reason for your favoritism ever been because it is the most reasonable, the most grounded, the most practical out of any you’ve seen? or is it because of the emotion? the way it speaks to you, to your life and the person you are? the journey it takes you on? is the percy jackson and the olympians book series so good because it’s inherently realistic?

the secret to storytelling is, very simply, focus on your story. everything else is secondary. if it’s written well, it doesn’t matter to me that the characters walk into a trap that, to the audience, is obviously a trap. because i can understand how the characters don’t know it, and how the story falls apart if the narrative just tells the characters it’s a trap from the jump. that’s what dramatic irony is—first used in greek tragedies! this is literally a tale as old as time in every sense except for the end—where it’s happy. and it’s not earned if we don’t first see, over and over, the status quo as a tragic trap.

it’s not about if annabeth (or the other kids) is “smart enough” to not walk into a trap, or about if she’s just too prideful to not walk into what she knows is a trap (or any reason that could apply to the other characters), it’s that annabeth, at the end of the day, is a character. she is a storytelling tool for the messages of the narrative. that doesn’t make her any lesser. in fact ignoring it reduces her, because it reduces what she represents. it’s about how rick riordan, or whoever else at disney, has fumbled the storytelling bag so ridiculously hard that they can’t take the simple, effective formula outlined from start to finish (by good ol 2009 rick himself) and adapt it to the screen without answering the most unimportant, derailing, anti-story questions.

#one of the ppl who reblogged the og post said whatever happened to suspension of disbelief and i could have kissed them on the mouth #yes exactly #this new age of audiences who praise ‘realism’ over good storytelling i hate u #‘content over cinema’ i hate u.#i’m not even a screenwriter but any writer can tell you #we’re talking foundations of the craft here #and the worst part is rick already succeeded in the books #if it ain’t broke don’t fix it #where along this path did he lose sight of everything he set out to say?#anyways this is its own post now go forth and do with it what u will #pjo #percy jackson #pjo show crit #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo tv show #percy jackson tv show #annabeth chase #ris raves

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rhymaes · 4 months

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The Untamed (2019) // Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was An Aztec

#he did so much wrong because none of them were ever taught how to love and that others love differently #wei wuxian was taught love is a sacrifice &—at its kindest—an exchange #Jiang cheng was taught love is companionship—to have someone beside you & take the same path #& yanli was taught love is in action—in doing the work and giving the gifts and being where someone can see. and she spent her life #trying to help them all get along. & it’s just. he did so much wrong & the love was there AND IT DIDNT CHANGE A THING #the untamed #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #wei ying #mdzs #jiang wanyin

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nattikay · 5 months

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friendly reminder that Neteyam is a well-adjusted kid who has a good relationship with his parents, that he tries his darnedest to be a good warrior because he genuinely looks up to his dad and wants to be like him, and that the idea that Jake and Neytiri are "forcing" him to be perfect, that they "stole his childhood" or that he's "not allowed" to be a kid, etc. are all pure fanfiction with little to no evidence in canon thanks bye

#avatar #avatar 2 #neteyam #given how hesitant Jake is to let Neteyam fight I can absolutely GUARANTEE you that there was almost certainly NEVER an interaction...#...in which Neteyam said ''hey Mom and Dad I'm gonna go hang out with Lo'ak and Kiri now''#and Jake and Neytiri reply ''no son you're too old for such childish things you must come do Adult Tasks that you secretly hate instead #so you can be the Perfect Future Olo'eyktan™"#THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN #AND IT'S NOT “IMPLIED” TO HAVE HAPPENED EITHER #Y'ALL MADE THAT UP IN YOUR HEADS #along with the idea that Neteyam secretly hates his lot in life and is internally yearning to be A Normal Kid™#guys Neteyam WANTS to be a warrior he WANTS follow in Jake's footsteps he strives so hard because HE *WANTS* TO OF HIS OWN ACCORD #there is absolutely d i d d l y s q u a t that suggests this path is being “forced” on him #or that he is being secretly ~crushed under the pressure~ and Just Wants to Be Free or w/e #you. made. that. up.#it's not a canon aspect of his character #and. look. if you wanna explore the idea of him being ''crushed under pressure'' in a fanfic #because you find it interesting or it helps you work through your own stuff then hey be my guest #but once you start saying stuff like #''oh i feel so bad for [canon] Neteyam because he died before he could break free of his parents' toxic influence''#Shut Up™#neteyam's parents were not a toxic influence; he was never forced into being something he didn't want to be; his childhood was not “stolen”#he did not have anything to “break free” of. you are injecting extra layers of tragedy that aren't actually there #you are giving yourself extra grief for things that were never canon #stahp #feel free to write whatever you want in fanfiction but please i am begging you #to be aware of which ideas are actually present in the movie vs. which ones are just fanfiction

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vinyldraconia · 9 months

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Malleus the Briar Dragon 🐉👑

#malleus draconia #twisted wonderland #twst #diasomnia #vinyldraconia #twst fanart #digital art #fanart #malleus fanart #malleus twst #botw dragons #totk dragons #seeing him flying in daylight is extremely rare #he flies over along the path of caves and he frequents the depths #he cycles near caves at night #so following him is ideal if ur looking for caves

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irawhiti · 8 months

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kia ora! i would like to suggest the coining of a term that would hopefully help a large demographic of mostly-forgotten-about māori to connect with each other and share our experiences to feel less alone, congregate around a concept regardless of country of origin and upbringing, and organise as activists.

i politely ask as many people to spread this as possible to help indigenous people organise with each other and to get the largest amount of interactions possible.

anyway, with all that being said,

i would like to coin the term "ngāti rangiātea" for māori who do not know their iwi to use.

this is based on the well known whakataukī/proverb, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed which was sown from rangiātea." i chose this whakataukī due to the spiritual significance of rangiātea as a place in māori culture, as well as to emphasise that no matter how it feels, we are not lost, we can find ourselves in each other, we can experience strength and self-realisation, and that we will exist with mana and without whakamā as rightful tangata whenua.

i've put my reasoning, personal experiences shaping my viewpoints on the matter, and various statistics under the cut to make this post reblog-friendly and i would suggest fellow māori read it regardless of whether or not they know their iwi. i also ask for the opinions of other māori, ESPECIALLY AND SPECIFICALLY other māori who do not know their iwi. in fact, i politely ask māori to share this with their whānau and people in general to share this with māori they know, especially any they know who do not know their iwi. a wide reach is what i am going for to get the largest amount of voices, critiques, and opinions on the topic and to avoid this from just becoming a very small thing that stays in an online echo-chamber.

to begin, the 2018 aotearoan census shows that, of the 775,836 people identifying as māori in aotearoa, roughly 17% are unable to identify their iwi in the census. this has gone up by 1% since 2006, showing that we are a considerably stable percentage of people. along with this, there are more than 170,000 māori living in australia and, while there are no solid statistics, there are an estimated 8,000 māori living in the UK, 3,500 in the US, 2,500 in canada, and 8,000 in other countries where there's no option for māori or any polynesians on the census.

this number adds up to 967,816 total māori and while there's no census in these countries asking for your iwi, i would go as far as to assume that there's a larger number of diaspora māori who are no longer able to identify their iwi than there are in aotearoa. of course, this is just speculation based on my lived experiences and conversations with other diaspora māori, however even assuming that it's the exact same amount globally, 17%, this is roughly 164,532 māori worldwide who do not know their iwi. nearly one in five māori do not know their iwi.

regardless of the specific statistics, the hard fact here is that there is a large percentage of māori who are unsure of their iwi for whatever reason. it's extremely easy to feel unsure of yourself, lost, disconnected, and uncomfortable speaking on issues regarding te ao māori when you're unsure of your iwi (or your hapū, whānau, waka, or anything else, but there is heavy emphasis on the iwi) and it's very easy for whakamā to take hold, especially when many māori who can recite their whakapapa aren't very polite or understanding about your situation to say the least.

and there are a lot of those people.

unfortunately, i've spoken to many māori who are of the opinion that not knowing your iwi due to colonialism, assimilation, forced disconnection, etc. means that you should not, cannot, call yourself māori. this is a disgusting viewpoint to have and in my opinion it spits on the fundamental concepts of māori culture and worldviews. thankfully this is a small yet vocal group of people, but even so, they add to the collective experience that makes it extremely difficult to navigate a world while full of whakamā and internalised racism. it can feel like there's no space for you, no term you can use, nobody you can relate to, no mana you can claim, nothing. when you cannot recite your whakapapa, it can feel like there's a part of you that's fundamentally missing.

as well as this, even when people mean well, when you are in this situation, you're usually told to just do some genealogy work, do some research, ask your family what they know. sometimes, these steps are simply not possible. other times, we've already done everything suggested over and over and over again. we're generally told "oh, that sucks, but one day you'll find out, keep looking!" in response to our lack of iwi. sure, they mean well, but i have never once been told anything along the lines of "that's okay, some things are lost to time through no fault of your own. don't beat yourself up over something your whānau had to hide to survive, what you do now to uphold your family's mana, what you do know about your whānau, and who you ultimately become is more important than what you no longer know."

and why? why is it seen as shameful to say matter-of-factly that i don't know my iwi? i'm not looking for comfort, i'm not looking to be told that, aww, there there, i'll find it eventually. i'm stating a fact. i do not need pity, i need my mana and voice to be respected.

this concept is what i want to emphasise by coining ngāti rangiātea. some things are lost to time, but we aren't. our loss of knowledge does not mean that we are unworthy of being māori, that we are unworthy of basic human respect. it does not mean that we have lost everything that our whānau knows. it is a scar, a reminder of what colonisation took from us, yes, but we cannot allow it to continue to be an open bleeding wound. we will not be lost to time and we should not bow our heads and act like we do not exist, that we're inconvenient, that we damage the "image" that māori have. in fact, we are an important aspect of māori culture and ignoring our existence does harm to everybody.

and of course we can't speak on some topics regarding te ao māori. this seems to be a topic that comes up frequently as a strawman. yes, there are some topics that would be irresponsible to speak on when we have no experience with them. this doesn't mean we can't speak on anything. having a collective identity, an "iwi" to congregate around even just politically, would help us speak on topics that we are more qualified to speak on than māori with knowledge of their iwi (yes, those topics exist, shockingly.)

we will never be lost, for we are a seed sown in rangiātea.

by identifying as ngāti rangiātea, i wish to emphasise that it's important to accept that sometimes, someone just won't be able to find every piece of information. loss of family knowledge is literally one of the primary goals of forced assimilation! we all went through it as colonised peoples, why must we continue to attach shame to those of us who were forced to obfuscate our history to keep our children alive? it's not a personal flaw, it's not a dirty secret, it's a fact of life that must not continue to be kept quiet out of shame, and the sooner we can focus on healing this subsection of our community, the stronger māori as a whole will become.

so, this is why i'd like to coin a term for māori who are unsure of their iwi. this is what i intend to achieve by giving us a name, our own "iwi" to congregate around, to identify ourselves as. instead of hanging my head and saying "i'm not sure what my iwi is, i'm sorry", instead of feeling inclined to beg like a dog to be treated with respect, i would like to look people in the eye and tell them that i am ngāti rangiātea. i would like this label to be synonymous with strength and not shame, that i refuse to let my whakamā swallow me, that i am just as worthy of calling myself māori as anyone else, that there are many others in my iwi (or lack thereof). i would like other people to have that as well and i would like those like me to feel less lost when all they've been told is "well, you'll learn your iwi eventually!" as if that's going to help someone feel better if they can't find their iwi.

and even if a person finds their iwi eventually, it's absolutely disgraceful that people are treated that they're not allowed to access many basic parts of te ao māori until they discover something they are not even 100% destined to find. i think that this view contributes to a lot of people who eventually find their iwi becoming unnecessarily arrogant towards those who truly cannot find this information, that they're just not putting enough effort in. if a person finds their iwi after identifying as ngāti rangiātea, they are fully welcome to continue to identify as this political label along with the iwi they now know they belong to as i wish for it to be a term that describes your experiences, your upbringing, and your community. you don't suddenly lose your whānau or your lived experience when you discover your whakapapa.

finally, this hopefully goes without saying, but ngāti rangiātea is not meant to function as a real existing iwi does. the term will hopefully be used as a way to identify yourself and other people and organise but i don't expect nor do i want this to be treated like a coordinated iwi. i expect and hope for this to be a decentralised way of identifying and experiencing community to make it easier to organise as a people. think of this the way the terms ngāti kangaru, ngāti rānara, ngāti tūmatauenga etc. are used.

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so, the tl;dr is that i feel like coining a name for a phenomenon that nearly one in five of all māori experience in quiet shame, to make it easier for us to congregate and find each other, speak on our experiences, organise as activists, feel less lost, and ultimately give us the ability to regain our mana as a community with shared goals and experiences. i have spoken to many māori who feel this way and my suggestion for this term is ngāti rangiātea, to show homage to the well known whakataukī, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed sown from rangiātea", to give us a community to work with, and to give us an "iwi" to list when asked instead of fumbling for words and feeling whakamā.

i would like to take the emphasis off of constantly looking to the future for what you may or may not even find with this identity. we are not broken, we are not lost, for we are seeds sown in ngāti rangiātea.

tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa, and if you got this far, thank you for reading.

#maori #māori #pasifika #indigenous #indigenous issues #polynesia #aotearoa #aotearoa new zealand #new zealand #tangata whenua #new zealand politics #politics #i was considering calling it smth along the lines of ngāti whāngai to represent that we would be whānau from different paths and family #but ngāti rangiātea felt more succinct and meaningful. particularly with how it's very easy to feel lost when you're unsure of your iwi #please boost this even if you're not māori as i'd like as many people to see as possible <3 #anyway i'm quite nervous and i hope this doesn't come across like i'm trying to be any kind of authority haha #i just feel like this is an extremely important topic that affects many people but is rarely spoken about for various reasons #ngāti rangiātea

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geopsych · 1 year

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Some sights from the lake path early this morning.

#pennsylvania #landscape #sunrise #along the lake path #lake path #first light #april #springtime

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prof-peach · 2 months

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thoughts on hisui

I just need to verbalise

---------- I can't unsee a moment in the comic where Peach is running for her life, like, literally pegging it as fast and as far as she can go, barely dodging, even being clipped by attacks being fired off by something VERY persistent.

Her mind tracks back in the chaos of the moment to Plum, they would go running, it was always such a chore for Peach but she joined in to humour her, even though she wasnt built for that, and she'd hear Plum nag her that sometimes running away is your only option, fighting everything will get her hurt, or worse killed. Greys there saying his gears good, really good! But it can't block it all, and that Plum is right.

Peach should have listened to them, should have run more, built up her endurance to long distance sprinting, Plum always outran her on flat terrain, and here she was, once again nearly being outrun by something, no gear, no protection.

When she finally gets away, whatever luck falls upon her to escape in sort of one piece, she starts running every morning. plum was right. Grey was right. sometimes running is the only option. She could stand to learn that a little better.

This gives a glimpse into the things shes missing the most, confronted with her loved ones not being there, them being right and her accepting that now, the fear of dying in the past and not seeing them again. She can't let that happen.

Readers will get a rare peak at behind the veil, why fighting so hard has a purpose for her.

Eventually Rei joins in with her running every morning with her pokemon, he's like Plum, has a nack for it, long legs, and it takes him little time to gain the stamina, overtakes peach in a flat race after 4 months. She looks at him ahead of her on the trail they run, he'd looking back laughing, joyous, and she sees Plum and Grey in him.

Rei's warm and jolly like Grey, and cocky and speedy like Plum. It's a weird realisation that Peach's pulled someone so similar into her orbit.

It's that moment that she realises exactly why she'd kill for the kid.

#im rambling #but im slowly thinking #about how to make this story emotional and exciting #along with informative and beautiful #its a fine line to walk #and rei will always be the one to bring our professor back to the right path #prof.peach #PLE #pokemon legends electus

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