#source: idk several people contributed

[demons-incorrect-alw]

Cassandra: Full offense, but some of you would run upstairs when pursued by a murderer.

Bombalurina: It’s where the bedroom’s at.

#source: idk several people contributed #cassandra #Bombalurina #cats the musical #incorrect quotes #suggestive text #implied: #bombacavity

[pieofdeath]

re: the rotd spotify playlist, explain your vision for pathological facade (please and thank you) :]

Hehehehe HIII bubblegum :D Pathological Facade is a multi-faceted answer! So you’ll get ALL the parts :D 

1- Honey I'm Home, also by Ghost and Pals, is one of the main ROTD songs! You can see its influences in ch1 especially. So I already sort of associate them with ROTD, and Pathological Facade came out while I was writing it!

2- holds up the lyrics "a year ago I was told that I would be a miracle" "go on praise me like a god" “who will I become” and then holds up Kevin and Diana. There are a lot of songs on here that boil down to “im mentally ill over the cult” (there are also a lot of songs that boil down to “im mentally ill over the ships” but this isn’t one of them) and while this one doesn’t have… a lot of textual/lyrical evidence to back up why I always think about them when I listen to it, I certainly do always think about them. 

Idk. I think it’s interesting to think about what, exactly, being raised the only child of a cult leader would entail. And, while I haven’t quite gotten to it textually (BUT CERTAINLY PLAN TO), Diana joined the cult when she was 16. Jim was in his mid-30’s, and I’m just saying. That Diana looking up to Jim like a father figure (especially in the absence of her ACTUAL father, another thing I plan to get to) for the first two decades or so until she becomes disillusioned with the cult ISN’T EXACTLY UNREALISTIC. 

Diana and Kevin have more similarities than anyone thinks- including themselves. They just go about their similar issues in entirely different ways, obscuring that they both grew up in a deeply toxic and isolating environment, depending on a man who didn’t have their best interests at heart, where violence was normalized (dropped a hint about this in ch18) and, for several years, sudden upheaval was expected. 

Diana rejected and resented all of it when she got older. Kevin made himself perfect for it. Part of this is because Diana remembers life before- Kevin never had that. But, now that Dan and Seán are in the picture…

3- Also! "seeing things that cannot be retold" Kevin’s journey to death and back and the realization that no one will quite ever get it completely! Dan comes pretty close, having been his companion for most of it, but he doesn’t get all of it because he isn’t privy to Kevin’s head and the environmental factors that contributed to some of the less savory decisions Kevin made. 

And also! The general silence about the whole thing- both to protect Dan/Brian/Diana (and to a lesser extent, Gabriel) from people poking their heads into the death/afterlife business (although it doesn’t stop it, it certainly slows it and most note-worthy sources like newspapers and such think its a hoax/town joke/legend after a lil while, mostly because the trio won’t take any photos where they wouldn’t get all of the copies) and to prevent the murder from getting out to anyone who’d charge them for it (they don’t know if the law allows the trial of a dead man but they’re not keen on finding out)

4- it’s also just. Really fun to listen to. And this is as much a “listen to while writing ROTD” playlist as it is the playlist for ROTD. It has a silly lil sound at the end that I think sounds like the nintendo switch click that they use for ads :D

5- holds up more lyrics. “Let’s rejoin our family in the mirror world.” the “mirror world” can be death :D meaning “our family” can be Gabriel (and Grim if you want!)

6- holds up “Let’s rejoin our family in the mirror world” again. holds up my spinoff oneshot au-of-an-au that’s yet to be written. What. who said that. Huh. 

#ROTD #:D this ended up uh #way longer than I thought it would! #I thought I didn't have many thoughts and then I DID. #this was supposed to have 3 bullet points #2 was supposed to be SHORT also #woe 600+ words of character introspection be upon ye

[arctichotch]

I've seen you several times tell people stuff to the effect of "I don't need to explain xyz because you just want to tear down anyone who doesn’t support your view point!" while doing the exact same yourself.

Over time you've just become more hateful about this, insulting literally everyone who disagrees whether they were rude or tried to be polite, and I know saying this will just make you dig your heels in more like everyone else's asks have made you do, but at this point it feels less like you support amber because you fully believe her, and more like you feel like you can't back down even if you wanted to. You'd be afraid to look into the evidence objectively in case you found you were right the first time in supporting depp, because it'd make you look like a flip-flop after being so vocally mean about your support for amber, and because you know all these amber supporters you've posted about gaining in following would turn on you and be just as hateful to you as they are to anyone else that disagrees with them. That's why you shut everyone down, because you're afraid you might find something that could change your mind again and you can't risk it.

LMAO i don’t even want to think about how much time i’ve spent on this case looking at evidence

there is nothing to look into further that would ever make me believe johnny depp was abused by amber heard. like nothing. BECAUSE THE EVIDENCE DOESNT EXIST??

like you can’t just keep digging so deep into things that all of a sudden evidence manifests out of thin air. the facts are laid out straight. there is absolutely no evidence that he was abused by her none. that’s what originally changed my mind from when i first supported him.

and all the times i’ve said about not explaining something further to someone has been after days trying to explain one simple thing to someone and them obviously being extremely unwilling to see things from a different point of view.

like why would i waste my time talking to a brick wall??? i’m not going to sit there providing information/sources to someone who doesn’t want to hear it? i have better things to be doing

and lmao at being called mean again. you people are supporting a disgusting abuser and rapist. i think you have bigger problems than someone being a bit mean to you online for doing that.

i do support amber because i fully believe her. the reason i haven’t flip flopped back to supporting JD, is because the evidence doesn’t exist to prove he wasn’t an abuser.

also i don’t shut everyone down either. i’ve had many many convos that have gone on over days. but if i can see that someone is dead set on their own pov and unwilling to believe facts then i’m not going to spend my time trying to talk sense into them. because it’s actually so fucking draining.

i’m sorry if this sounds “mean” but this is such a dumbass ask. i haven’t spoken to anyone about this case on here in ages, so idk where this even came from. anyway, you are supporting a rapist and abuser and are contributing to the horrific online abuse of an abused woman. you have more to be thinking about rather than me being a dick for not trying to change unwilling peoples minds.

(also as if me being a bit rude or whatever compares to the constant death/rape threats i received daily from depp supporters. y’all need to realise that you are the ones who started being so fucking gross and hateful)

some facts i base my opinion upon: https://twitter.com/k4mil1aa/status/1541465411933184005?s=21&t=UNLlSi_ck8qR-TXVIWymag

#just… #idk #i stand with amber heard #ask #anon #cw johnny depp #abuse tw #rape tw #yall support a literal rapist and are worried about me not spending my time trying to change your minds?? #insane

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

(Please ignore this if it is too personal) When did you first know you were a man? How would I know whether I am a man or a woman? Is there certain feelings attached or something else? I’d like to hear more about your experience if you’re willing to share. Either way, thanks for your time and have a great day!

Oh boy gender stuff! Good luck anon!

I'll do my best to describe what it was like for me, but everyone's different and I feel like I had kind of a non-standard story anyway, maybe? (feelings were weird bc.... autism? trauma? depression?? all of the above??) But everyone's different, anyways. Some people know as soon as they have a concept of gender as small kids and some people find out super late in life, I figured it out the year after I graduated college.

There isn't really a specific moment I can remember, it was just sort of... steadily going "huh. hm. I think maybe.... huh..." and doing research and thinking about it. A couple days at the very end of August were the tipping point and I was sure by September, which is sort of a personal holiday for me figuring it out. For quite a while but especially for the year previous to this I'd been figuring out that I liked my hair short, and that I liked wearing more masculine clothes (my homophobic mom several times accused me of being queer and I was like WTF NO LEAVE ME ALONE I'M CLEARLY A COMPLETELY CISHET GOOD CHRISTIAN WAMEN WHO IS NOT SLOWLY DEVELOPING A GENDER CRISIS lol.) You can see why the um environment in my family might have contributed to me... not wanting to/feeling allowed to explore this earlier idk.

I was unsure for basically the first year of knowing I was trans, because I have issues with doubting my perceptions easily, but I logiced my way through it and was like. Why would I -want- to alienate my family and complicate my whole life if this wasn't real, like why would I choose extra inconvenience for funsies?? I wouldn't. I've gotten a bit more sure about myself and able to trust my perceptions since then, but also relaxed on knowing the specifics of everything. I'm still figuring out my gender and sexuality on some level (I'm some type of aroace but what fine print and where on the spectrum? idk but I'm something. I'm transmasculine, am I Completely Binary 100% Full Gender Man Dude or more nonbinary/agender? idk, I do know that I want to transition, for now I just tell people I'm a trans man and it's close enough and feels right.)

Emotionally, it's weird. For me, I didn't... at least I didn't notice dysphoria, at first? Because that was the way I'd always been, it felt normal. But here's the thing, "normal" felt dull and dead and just sort of empty. Like I wasn't interested in being my gender I was just sort of going through the motions because it seemed like I was supposed to. The big difference for me was realizing that I wanted masculinity and that it made me feel good about my gender, something I had not felt before. Before it had always just been like "eh, sure, okay, I guess. I mean, there's not another option, right?" (There was.)

I guess when I figured it out there was just sort of a sense of, oh, okay. There's nothing to go back to, because that was all just a lot of -nothing-, and now I've figure out how to actually feel alive, gender-wise. Like I didn't feel there was an option to turn that awareness off.

I don't know, it's confusing trying to explain it. Feelings weird. I want to say "you'll just know" but I did get super anxious and psyche myself out going "but what if I'm just completely deranged and making this all up for some incomprehensible reason?? or what if I'm POSSESSED??" (true story.) so like, it uh, took me a while to Know(TM) myself.

It might be easier to put aside the "am I trans" question for a sec and think about specific things that you do know that you are or want. Like this page! also this, and @transgenderteensurvivalguide in general. They're a good source. and I really like youtuber Jammidodger. There's sometimes a disconnect between finding community online and in the real world though, what I found out is that there were a lot more queer people and a lot more resources in my area than I thought! I was able to get top surgery like right down the street, I had assumed I'd need to travel to another state. So try to figure out if there's a local LGBTQ+ organization of some kind, they might have more information for what's in your area. I'm on a weekly zoom call with other trans people in the community, it's open to gender-nonconforming and questioning people as well as trans allies. I think a lot of trans groups generally are open for you to just come hang out and talk to other people and see other people if you're questioning your gender, you don't have to have all the answers on day one.

I hope some of this helps, it's really only something you can figure out yourself but @transgenderteensurvivalguide is a good compilation of resources to help figure it out. Good luck anon! Take your time, try not to freak out too much, I love you!

#what to tag as #anonymous asks #trans #personal (ok to rb) #long post sorta #anon... anon me so I know you saw this... I don't think it notifies you when an anonymous ask is answered and I didn't answer it quickly bc #work

[armando-j-sanchez-ii]

What Happened To Maria (written pre-2022 Oscars)

The days following Mar. 19, 2022 were eventful for “West Side Story (2021)” star Rachel Zegler as she went from a no-show to a presenter for the 94th Academy Award Ceremony. 

It started on Mar. 19 when a fan on Instagram had asked what her fashion choice would be for The Oscars. “Idk y’all I have tried it all but it doesn’t seem to be happening :’)”, replied Zegler. She followed the reply by saying, “I will root for West Side Story from my couch and be proud of the work we so tirelessly did 3 years ago. I hope some last-minute miracle occurs and I can celebrate our movie in person but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes, I guess. I'm disappointed, too. but that’s okay. so proud of our movie.” 

Many fans of Zegler, “West Side Story (2021)”, and movies were outraged on Twitter when they heard about the situation. Several of them were confused since she was the lead in a movie that was nominated for seven awards. “It is to be noted that the studios behind nominated films are the ones to determine ticket allotments for Best Picture nominees”, an industry source said to Entertainment Weekly.

Zegler took it upon herself to respond to the comments the following day. “Appreciate all the support, I really really do. We live in such unprecedented times, and a lot of work behind the scenes goes into making movie magic happen,” said Zegler on Twitter,”...let’s just respect the process and I’ll get off my phone.”

On March 23, The Academy posted a picture on their Twitter account showing the sixth slate of presenters for this year's Academy Awards ceremony. Zegler’s name was in the picture announcing that she would attend the ceremony as a presenter. 

She eventually presented the award for Best Visual Effects while making a little side joke about the whole affair.

Even though she had the opportunity to present an award, the real question is why did it take this long? Variety awards editor Clayton Davis explained by discussing how COVID-19 precautions reduced the capacity for attendees at this year's awards ceremony. 

But wouldn’t that affect the smaller actors in a movie rather than the lead actor? What if there were other components that contributed to the drama?

One factor could be that Disney prioritized the actors from animated movies rather than their other productions. “West Side Story (2021)” was distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture under the 20th Century Studios label. It was shown during the red carpet that about 14 members of the cast and crew of ”Encanto (2021)” were present at the red carpet.

Another factor could be the lack of actual nomination for Lead Actress. While many critics praised Zegler for her theatrical debut, it was quite shocking to hear that she had not been nominated for Best Actress this year. There have always been people who have been snubbed an Oscar nomination and Zegler’s snub was one of the most controversial ones this year.

One last factor that could contribute to the original decision to exclude her could be the controversy regarding her co-lead, Ansel Elgort. Allegations from a Twitter user arose in July 2020 claiming that she had been sexually assaulted by Elgort in 2014 when he was 20-years-old and the user was 17-years-old at the time. Following came other accusations from other women having encounters with him through Snapchat. 

When “West Side Story  (2021)” was close to release, many of the cast members were asked about the allegations. Actors Ariana Debose and Rita Moreno declined to give their input but Zegler spoke out about it. 

“A lot has changed in the world [since shooting the movie in 2019],” Zegler said. “A lot has changed very publicly, and privately as well,” she went on. “There’s been a lot of awakening. You just hope that the people involved are okay, that they are asked in a respectful manner, and that they are given the opportunity to answer for themselves.”

In late Jan. of this year, Rachel posted a picture on Twitter of her seated next to co-star John Andrés Rivera as they were screened “West Side Story (2021)” for the first time. Someone replied with a picture of Zegler sharing a moment with Director Steven Speilberg with Elgort in the background. Zegler replied to that user with the same picture but having Elgort cropped out.

It was later reported that Elgort was not present at the 94th Academy Award ceremony. 

It could be possible that the Academy excluded her initially because of her spoken and indirect comments on the matter itself. While the only info that we had received was the comment about COVID-19 precautions, we now have some idea if anything else contributed to the situation. All we can do is hope that nothing like this happens again in the future.

Oscars-2022-rachel-zegler-west-side-story-russ-tamblyn

https://www.vulture.com/2022/01/ansel-elgort-sexual-assault-allegations-timeline.html  https://twitter.com/rachelzegler/status/1487019787083468801

[incorrect-jshkxreader]

Yashiro: I'm a proud owner of an I.Q. of five... and a half!

(Y/N): Not for long!

Yashiro, in tears: Please. It's all I have.

#source: idk several people contributed #tbhk #jshk #yashiro #yashiro nene #you #x reader #y/n #incorrect quotes #x reader incorrect quotes #renincorrectquotes

[inklingofadream]

hey ok 3 seconds into tma rewatch and i have Thoughts:

Now, the Institute was founded in 1818, which means that the Archive contains almost 200 years of case files at this point. Combine that with the fact that most of the Institute prefers the ivory tower of pure academia to the complicated work of dealing with statements or recent experiences and you have the recipe for an impeccably organised library and an absolute mess of an archive. (MAG 1)

So this is on a Doylist level part of the justification for why the archives gang do so much practical research on the statements, but the early installment weirdness on not quite knowing how the institute functions yet, but that plus jon a bit before this stating he’s familiar with their “ongoing projects and contracts” and later in the season tim talking about the grad students implies that the institute also does a lot of like. Books and articles about the supernatural. (idk where these are being published bc it sounds like they aren’t necessarily respected enough for most academic presses or journals lol)

But we know Jon was in Research, along with tim and sasha. And later he goes up to help out with the influx of new garbage statements they get around Halloween (MAG 55). So clearly someone  is gong through the new statements,although based on the description they’re mostly p lightly researched- probably calling up ppl mentioned besides the statement giver and saying “hey did this happen?” and when the friend or whoever says “no he said he was gonna go give y’all a statement for a goof” it’s marked closed.

What I would like to posit is that the institute has several functions practically:

the library probably gets a fair bit of funding, so they can get basically any relevant work published and add it to their collection.

This is where you’ll have a lot of the grad students hanging around. probably a handful of other academics from various institutions, too. In addition to the students working on paranormal stuff, I’d guess you also have a fair number from history, folklore, psychology, and a smattering of other disciplines who’re there for rlly rlly niche projects on physics or architecture. Like i’d imagine anyone in the area doing work on spiritualism ends up in the institute library eventually- if they have any primary sources like journals or manuscripts from jonah’s whole gang, for example, i’d assume they’re in the library bc the archives seem to be exclusively statements.

Honestly Im like 50% sure the institute has contracts with whatever like ghost hunting type shows exist in the uk to contribute research and have someone respectable looking come do talking head segments as needed. this goes up to 100% for the usher foundation, bc i KNOW we have hella programs like that in the states. like Finding Bigfoot has a donor plaque in the foyer of the usher foundation

Other contracts and projects are probably with a handful of other, non-entity orgs devoted to the paranormal, plus whatever the Lukases, Fairchilds, et al decide they want.

Research, I would like to propose, is supposedly all one big department, but in practical terms contains 2 factions:

The segment Jon worked with for the most part, following up on statements and artifacts. probably smaller, except when they manage to draft the rest in for like halloween and such. the regulars are probably mostly the ppl jon gets annoyed at for being credulous and thinking every statement’s legit

the rest are ppl under the institute banner who are working in the library, doing research for outside contracts, institute wide contracts, and writing whatever gets published out of the institute. probably mostly more concerned with the supernatural as like. an intellectual exercise than jon would be, instead of finding out what’s legit and what isn’t. otherwise they’re mostly more jon’s type of ppl, with the academic distance etc.

Artefact Storage is prolly a host unto itself. Sometimes research’ll get tagged to get an item’s history but like. only ppl who work there go there

The archives are also their own thing. no one goes there.

Why does this matter? I would like to posit 2 reasons.

The first is that it explains part of why the Institute isn’t v respected academically. Everywhere else would have whatever primary source stuff and unique books they have down in the archives/special collections with the statements. I don’t know a ton about library science, but I don’t think things usually end up split/mixed like they are at the institute. Plus, there is very much an area where the Institute could be a valued collection! If the archives were organized. In theory, the Archives should be a valued and respected resource for folklorists! No one in folklore studies cares if a story is true; as far as they’re concerned, the archives are full of memorates that could be really useful. Like academic texts in folklore will generally have quotes from ppl’s ghost stories (or tall tales or folk songs etc) intercut with analysis of patterns and what they mean. But they’re organized so terribly. If they were devoted to folklore instead of the supernatural, you’d expect a taxonomy of subject- our collection here at my university stuff organized by like “supernatural: religious” “supernatural: non-religious” “customs” etc. But no one would be terribly put out combing through them if they were organized by date or like. at all.

The second is that since the archives and artefact storage are pretty much self contained, most of the daily interaction between institute employees is between people in research and the library. Giving you people like Jon as a put upon minority among “ivory tower” types, from that sub population of researchers and the ppl in the library. Jon’s worked at the Institute for like 5 years, and he’s too himself for a proper rivalry, but it’s very easy to see the people like him and tim who believe that Some Things Are Supernatural and would like proof bumping heads with the rest. Giving him a general dislike for people from the library. AND! an extra reason he takes an extra dislike to martin instead of going “o thank goodness, libraries are way more like archives than research what do we do?” :)

#tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #meta #my meta #folklore #adjacent #srsly the guy with the field hospital book talks abt the released statements being laughed at #but folklorists would b into them! but the archives would feel like a slap in the face to that #mine

[smellycinnamonthundahfudge]

Sgt. Drew Wu of Grimm

(Asians Assemble Challenge PT. 1 \(^o^)/, link for PT.2)

Grimm - it's a really cool dark epic fantasy detective show with awesome lore and an awesome lovable cast. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT OF WHICH (for me at least heh :') is SGT. DREW WU <3.

i love him cause he's the snarky jaded lil shit who's kinda just above it all and just, ykno, the logical smart brain cell one that goes "seriously?" pointing out the ridiculousness of this fantastically dark world hahahah. AND IDK. HE'S JUST SUCH A SNARKY LIL SHT AND I LOVE HIM TOOOOOTTTT.

he also has his own arc, since he's one of the novice/normie human characters to the fantasy world. so there's this whole arc of him finding out the truth after all that he's mindfucked/gaslighted into thinking whether any of it was real.

so, like i said, capable seargeant detective, investigating THE TRUTH on the trail, AND I JUST LOVE HOW SMART AND INTELLIGENT AND CAPABLE HE IS PORTRAYED.

HE HAS AN ENTIRE EPISODE DEDICATED TO HIS CULTURE (AND A MONSTER FROM IT, OF WHICH THERE ARE MANY since it's my culture too, so yeah... i'd know, & now u kno y he's special to me :''')

AND MY FAMILY AND I LITERALLY LOST OUR SHIT WHEN HE SPOKE FILIPINO SO FLUENTLY TOOOOT.

it could have gone rlly wrong, but it didn't. they consulted him, the actor, reggie lee, listened to him. and as a result, they gave his character depth that i loved since the episode was SO CENTERED on what WU cared about.

it's just really heartwarming when instead of what you know could come out really clumsy and offensive and wrong,

you get something that feels close to home and makes you feel seen <3.

wu felt like another guy pining over his totga/childhood friend, except this time, we get to see an asian guy do it

instead of the usual white picket fence girl & boy next door.

it was just really unexpected and heartwarming to know how much mr. lee contributed to the episode, the fact that the showrunners really listened and treated it well & respectfully...

they cared enough to ask, consider the asian actor's perspective, and listen. and as a result, they got to explore a bit of the monsters of the dark of the philippines that aren't like anything else in the cultures/lore they've explored in the show before.

that's what sticks to me.

when you actually pay attention and care about the asians in your predominantly white media, you get to discover and open yourself up to a whole other world and culture that is unlike anything you know.

the asians get to be more than the brown side character, and become actual people that feel like someone you'd know...

this is the importance that comes from just the small act of ASKING the actor, "does this feel right to you?" or "what do YOU think?"

and WHOO HEY CHECK OUT THAT SEGUE MOM HAHAHAH

guess what the asian creatives, THE ASIAN DIRECTOR DID ON SHANG-CHI?

YEP, YA GUESSED IT, HE CONSULTED THE CREW, THE DIFFERENT PEOPLE OF DIFFERING CULTURES ON SET, ALL CONTRIBUTING THEIR OWN PERSPECTIVE.

BECAUSE NOT ALL ASIANS ARE THE SAME, SO THEY WOULD ALL HAVE THEIR OWN INDIVIDUAL UNIQUE TAKE ON THE SAME MEDIA.

Cretton says he wanted to tell a story about Asian identity that felt as lived-in and authentic as possible — part of which involved making sure Shang-Chi had Asian voices both in front of and behind the camera. (source: x)

"Remember, the Asian culture is so diverse," he says. "I grew up in Hawaii, [and] Hawaiian food is like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hawaiian, Filipino, all mixed together. That is kind of what our crew was: It's like this big mix of Asian cultures coming together and responding to the script and [saying things] like, 'Oh, that doesn't feel quite right.' All of that helped contribute to what I think is a really beautiful update to what started in the comics a few decades ago."

so... that's what i love about sgt. drew wu from grimm... :'')

the first time i heard someone speak my language in a tv show i loved :''') <333

and how what happened with his character reminds me of how far we've come with shang-chi :')

now it isn't just white showrunners asking the one asian dude what he thinks

now it's an asian director asking his several different asian creatives what they think...

also, he changed his name cause he kept getting called into casting latino roles, and ahh

i just... i spent a bit trying to track it down but i couldn't.

but there's this great meme that used a family guy scene, how filipinos have english first names and spanish last names, and so there's like a hybrid creature and peter's yelling "what the hell is that?!"

and hahahah aahhh

okokok my point is that being a filipino is a very specific type of asian that has a lot of overlap and that being an asian with an english first name and spanish last is only the tip of it,

but i just... i felt seen with what mr. lee went thru.

how, he had a spanish last name but he wasn't hispanic.

he's asian but he's not the "popular typical asian" that most ppl think when they think of asians.

ALSO, WU HAS A BURGER MADE IN HIS HONOR IN PORTLAND (i think) WHERE THE SERIES IS SET AND SHOT

AND IT IS *MY DREAAAMMM* TO BE ABLE TO EAT THAT BURGER SOMEDAY.

#drew wu #asians assemble #asians #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #shang chi and the ten rings #shang chi #<3 #grimm #asians in tv #reggie lee #<3333 #love #uwu <3 #art #asian culture #filipino #<33333

[monstersinthecosmos]

Another white woman can’t shut up and let us speak for ourselves.

Oh man, Anon. You’re setting me up for failure here! This is a paradoxical message bc if I respond, I’m continuing to not shut up.

(Cut for length, apologies for the wall of text. More apologies & sources to Black opinion pieces beneath!)

I do wanna say I’m super sorry if any of the language in my posts about the casting was alienating or insensitive. I said several times that I wasn’t trying to speak over anyone. And I don’t want “I’m sorry if” to sound like an insincere apology—I do mean it, but I’m also saying that if I got anything wrong it was just me being ignorant and I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. And I want to say that, now that the dust has settled and there’s been such an overwhelming negative response to the news in general, I see why that feels discouraging and hurtful to fans of color, and that fucking sucks. So I also hesitate to bring it up again cause like, I feel like it would be more productive and healing for people to post positive stuff for a while so we can try to build a space that prioritizes inclusivity and lets this bullshit rest for a minute. And I’m really sorry for contributing to that, I really didn’t intend to hurt anybody.

Sometimes I treat Tumblr like an opinion space and I can be kinda lazy about citing sources and I’m super sorry about that, honestly. I should’ve. Some of my opinions are kinda baked in at this point from conversations I have pretty often IRL, and I listen to several podcasts with Black perspectives on media, and I’m sorry for paraphrasing some of that instead of linking. My fault, my bad!!! 🙏 Here’s a few of the sources I consulted that shaped my opinion:

Twitter thread by cheryllynneaton about specific elements of the story that might look bad in a race-swap

Twitter thread by endlessyarning about the importance of diverse crews and also the broader picture of racism in the industry as a whole

Twitter thread by AfronautGriot about how casting Black actors in white stories isn't good representation

Here's some YouTubes I watched:

This one talks about the history of slavery in Louisiana and the Free People of Color, as well as how problematic the brothel angle is.

This one is about how this change is tokenizing.

These final three also address the idea of not wanting "hand-me-downs" and how it's pandering.

(I just checked again and so far these are the only YouTube videos I can find from Black creators who have spoken on it, so far no one supports it. idk. Let me know if I missed somebody! I'm really trying to challenge my confirmation bias and understand the full spectrum of opinions but I'm having a hard time finding anyone in favor of it.)

I looked up some other sources, too, that are memorable to me and that I could think of off the top of my head -

This particular episode is actually about Hamilton and the complications of race swapping a historical story and what that means to the erasure or belittlement of slavery, while also taking on the challenge of creating a meta experience for a white audience who doesn't actually understand it for what it is, along with calling out the idea of using Black culture and POC to entertain the elite theatre audience while making the show prohibitively expensive to regular people.

Afro Horror - The Skeleton Key

This episode of Afro Horror about The Skeleton Key I think is relevant, too, I love this podcast and this one sticks out because I think it has a lot of similar themes to IWTV and the idea of where to draw the line when it becomes gratuitous Black suffering for the sake of the director’s white guilt or the sake of the white audience. (I think their episode about The Craft is relevant to this conversation too and the issue of creating Black characters whose arcs revolve around racism instead of having a fuller personality, which I think has come up in some of the IWTV convos as far as like, would it be good to create a more accurate picture of slavery in the show and acknowledge it fully instead of dancing around it, or would that be contributing to representation only being about trauma?)

Attack of the Queerwolf! - A Pity Party is my Favorite Party

And this episode of Attack of the Queerwolf! reviews IWTV and got into the plotholes of writing Louis as a sympathetic slave owner, which!, while not exactly the topic we’re on right now, I thought really did sum up why this is a problem in the text, and it really influenced my opinion lately as I’ve daydreamed about how they might navigate it on the show.

I also re-listened to a few epsiodes of Fansplaining today to refresh on what lessons we can learn about racism in fandom spaces. I generally suggest this podcast to everyone who fandoms as a hobby because it gets into really incredible conversations about navigating this space in a way that takes it seriously as a hobby, creative outlet, and social forum. And these conversations were a great reminder to be careful how we talk about race, even when we're well meaning. I think going forward as the show comes out and the fandom gets louder these will be really great reminders about how to conduct ourselves and call out shitty behavior when we see it.

https://www.fansplaining.com/episodes/135a-race-and-fandom-revisited-part-1

https://www.fansplaining.com/episodes/135b-race-and-fandom-revisited-part-2

I’ve been following the news about this show pretty closely so my initial unhappiness was not “Oh my gosh I don’t want a Black actor” but more along the lines of “omg these white people are going to make this show so fucking racist.” And I tried to convey that in my posts. I hope that was clear. Anyone who caught my post out in the wild might not have had that context. I know that my intention doesn’t matter if it landed wrong, that it still might have hurt people, but I just want to say that for the sake of clearing the air. And the ironic thing is that I was actually more open to Black Louis a few months ago when the leak came out, until Black fans on Discord told me I was being an obnoxious white person and we started having the conversations about getting meaningful and respectful representation. (As a couple of those videos above called it, original characters instead of “hand-me-downs.”) It really got me thinking about some of the angles that hadn't occurred to me and that I'd taken for granted, and I defer to those conversations. I mentioned in my posts that I know all Black fans are not a monolith and of course there isn't going to be a consensus here, like some people are going to disagree with the sources I shared, I totally understand that, but combining all of this with the overlapping lessons in queer representation and disability representation (which I feel more qualified to speak about and spend a lot of time with in other fandoms) definitely influenced my opinion.

I really didn't intend to speak over anyone, so while I repeated a lot of the ideas I heard from Black fans, I'm sorry for not linking them!

I’m excited to see how Jacob does and I think he’s gonna be handsome af in the period costume and I’m going to watch and I’m cheering for him, but I am also critical of even more racist storytelling in this fucking universe, like I really thought that was something the show could improve upon since it’s already rampant in the books. So I’m curious to see and I hope they get their shit together and do it right lol. I think everyone who likes VC is kinda like, in the fucking trash fire together and we all know that the books are fucked up, and it would be really nice to enjoy the show without making everyone feel even worse about our bad taste. Anyway anyone feel free to share these links independently in their own posts! Feel free to reblog as well bc I'm not afraid to get dunked on by this anon and I'll take the heat LMAO but it would be nice to give them their own space where it's not framed by a white person gabbing about it. =) That's counter-productive.

[carminite-wyrm]

Its an Empires SMP + Wynncraft crossover AU I guess

So, I’ve been playing a lot of Wynncraft recently, and man, the Wynncraft lore sure is wild. Halfway through doing a quest I suddenly remembered that hey, nether corruption sure is a thing over here, and isn’t there Also an invading corruption storyline going on over in Empires?

Anyways so here I am with yet another niche AU idea lmao (though also with the latest videos from Pix and Gem I...kind of already am thinking of a variant on this one lmao)

- Some indeterminable point in time in the future, the Empires gang are having the final fight against Xornoth, ready to take out the demon and cleanse their world of the corruption that had been taking hold of their kingdoms.

- Its down to the final few blows, with the Kings and Queens coming together, despite their grievances with one another, despite all the differences that had once been between them, to finally strike down the demon.

- Naturally, of course, it goes a little sideways.

- The final blow lands, and the hellish arena disappears in a flash of unholy light.

- When the heroes awaken, they find themselves in a spider-infested patch of woodland.

- Upon fighting/running their way out, they quickly realise that yeah, this sure isn’t the Empires SMP anymore.

- There are some shenanigans, probably, upon that realisation, but eventually, the group makes their way to the nearby city of Detlas, severely disconcerted by the clear presence of corruption in the land around them.

- They’re fairly certain that they saved their own land, only to land right in another world also beset by corruption.

- Their various communicators also seem to be displaying a different HUD from what they’re used to, including an actual mana bar along with their health, and more equipment slots and most baffling of all: the option to level up and increase a variety of skills.

- Also, there’s magic, though a different magic than what they’re used to

Added to that, the monsters are far more different to what they’ve encountered in their home world. Zombies, fairly standard, even if the ones in this strange land seem somehow more powerful than theirs. Spiders, easy. And then Joey stumbles across a flaming horse rocketing straight at him at roughly 40kmph, screeching demonically all the while. It narrowly misses pummelling him in the face with its hooves and oh, looks like this isn’t a standard world after all.

Character classes and more thoughts under the cut!

Character classes! (Wynncraft currently has 5 classes people can choose from!)

Warriors (uses polearms/hammers, generally the dps/tank build)

Scott – He has a pink battleaxe, yes of course he’s the heavy-weapon-using class. Also, bc I think it’d be really amusing to see this elf dude w/ an antler crown charging straight at someone with a massive axe/hammer/polearm.

Fwhip – King of the Grimlands, projecting an image of strength even as the corruption ran rampant and clashed with the inherent darkness of his own kingdom.

Lizzie – Ocean Queen w/ a Trident, enough said. Sure, there might not be any axolotls in this world for some reason, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the powers that made her one of the most powerful Empires back home. Probably mains thunder elemental magic, bc sending chain lightning at enemies is very cool.

Mages (Magic staff goes brr. Also they can heal)

Gem! – I imagine she’d be highly adept at hitting enemies with the regular attack spell, and then suddenly casting a meteor and crystalline ice to obliterate her foes as the rest of the party watches on.

Katherine – Teleporting + fast attacks = magic menace. Also bc I think it’d look cool for her, and honestly that’s the majority of my decision-making here w/ the class selections

Pixl – Idk, something about the vigil and the whole candle thing makes me think he’d make a pretty damn good healer. Calm, collected, and the most unshakeable amongst the chaos of the Empires gang. (This AU idea was written like, a week before the latest video lmao so we're just gonna...gloss over the most recent plot developments for a bit until I can figure out how to make it make sense in the AU)

Assassins (Stabby stabby DPS)

Joel – Look I just think the imagery of Joel + Lizzie absolutely wrecking shit together on a battlefield is too good to pass up on.

Sausage – Man literally ran an assassin guild back in their home world, of course he’s an assassin here in this one. Probably has several sets of daggers hidden up his sleeves, and probably ends up with a life steal build.

Pearl – Pearl with knives would be terrifying and amazing to behold. On the other hand, I was considering either Mage or Shaman but we already have like three Mages, and I don't really have any ideas for how Pearl would utilise the Shaman abilities atm.

Archers (Ranged DPS or support)

Jimmy! – Swamp boi deserves to pop off and what better way than to be able to cause arrows to rain from the sky. And also to backflip out of danger. I imagine navigating a swamp has given him an actual dexterity or agility score.

Shaman (Buffs + support)

Shubble – Honestly I think she’d really vibe with the nature-y vibes this class kind of gives me, what with her mushroom kingdom vibes and the magic. Also, one of the most complex classes, but considering Shubble and her whole researching the corruption thing, I think it’d fit.

Joey – I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know much about his POV beyond ‘wants to court the demon’ at the moment, so contributions welcome here.

- Gem and Shubble’s initial investigations (because they absolutely hit the first library or archive they could find) whilst the others explored/adventured around the area eventually lead them to determining that in order to return to their own world, they’ll have to make their way to the most dangerous region of the Wynn region: The Silent Expanse.

Defeating whatever entity is chilling deep in that eldritch hellzone that’s pinging off Gem and Shubble’s (w/ machinery assistance from Pixl) cobbled-together ‘machine for detecting their world’s own magic’ should be enough to trigger the same event that sent them to this world. They think. Its enough for them all to hope, at any rate.

- Its an odd feeling, being at the height of their powers only to be thrust into a world where a tap from an armoured skeleton can take them down to a third of their health in one hit, at their current ability level.

- The party starts off at roughly level 5-7 btw, because I’ve had to do the tutorial quest and Enzan’s Brother quest like six times and I want to skip that here thanks.

- Eventually, the group does have to split into smaller parties for efficiency, though they’re understandably hesitant to be separate from everyone else in an unfamiliar world.

- Obviously, the parties do shuffle around a bit depending on what quests they end up undertaking, to play for each of their strengths and to cover for their weaknesses.

- Because they’re the Kings and Queens of the Empires SMP, they climb up the levels fairly rapidly, racing through quests in Ragni, Detlas, Nemract, Almuj, before finally venturing across the ocean to the province of Gavel.

- They’re well aware that something rather bad is going on in this world, something that looks and feels so similar to the corruption back home, but yet not.

- Their first encounter with the Parasites in the Dark Forest has those more in tune with the currents of magic, or the natural world, recoiling from the feeling of ‘wrong wrong that should not be in this world-‘

After that harrowing encounter, they are very, very glad, that in their world, the source of the corruption was clearly from a pesky demon, and not the result of warring planar powers.

One would think that, as the resident swamp dweller of their motley group, Jimmy would have been a tad more relaxed in the Olux Swamp. And yet, the magic from his Empire has him on edge throughout their travels in that area, the lingering sense of foreign magic, of what the locals refer to as the Decay, worrying away at the familiar scent of the swamp.

#empires smp #empires smp au #wynncraft + empires crossover au #carminite writes #im actually still working on the sunless skies hc au btw #the ficlet that's kind of becoming a fic at this point is just getting a bit long lmao so here's another au idea

[spnshameblog]

I wish Jensen was as horrified by people shipping Dean with his brother as he seems to be over Destiel.

i'm not gonna lie, i have bad feelings, too. i think that jensen has done a lot of things that have led to lgbt/queer kids feeling invalidated and he has given a lot of people ammunition to bully us over fictional ships. i also think that was entirely unintentional, but that doesnt make it better.

i gotta be honest, i take a lot of the info out there with several grains of salt, especially unverified stuff and fan stories. people like to lie on the internet. (i remember a few years ago someone made up chris evans having a panic attack at a convention and cevans himself had to clear that up bc concerned fans kept messaging him) i know he doesnt like talking about destiel at cons and the few times he did pre-despair werent that positive.

i think bc his first real exposure to shipping was w*ncest he mentally equated shipping to fetishisation and hes not the only one. you can tell from a lot of comments that other actors (sometimes even misha) think fanfic is all about smut and that its mostly written by horny straight women aged 16 to 45. which is incorrect and hurtful, but ok.

the way he talks about the confession scene is jarringly different and enthusiastic. there has been this meet and greet where he got asked a few questions about it and while i, again, like to be sceptical about these types of sources, it does match up with his general behaviour wrg to the confession. i think he genuinely had a change of perspective some time in the later seasons and i dont think he was ever actually horrified by the existence of destiel, but annoyed about his own misinterpretation of what destiel actually meant to the fans. not gonna defend him for that tho, he did contribute to the mistreatment and gaslighting of queer spn fans, even if that was never his intention.

now w*ncest is another thing. it drives me up the wall whenever w*ncest and destiel are in any way put into relation to each other and as much as i love robbie, im fucking mad about them having both of the "ships" in fan fiction in the first place. however: sam and dean CONSISTENTLY react to w*ncest with disgust, confusion and horror, like duh. w*ncest is, iirc, mentioned more times in-universe than destiel as a ship. fan fiction has the only mention of destiel as a fictional ship, whereas w*ncest has been mentioned multiple times before, aka in every episode becky is in. its always portrayed as ridiculous, mostly played for laughs and never taken seriously. to the cast and crew of spn w*ncest is a non-thing bc it disqualifies itself by its own nature. nobody in their right mind (which excludes most w*ncest shippers sadly) would expect them to actually put i//ncest on screen. its easier to joke about this, simply because its so ridiculous.

i think jensen and co dont see w*ncest itself as a 'danger', thats why they never talk about how disgusted they are by it, its a foregone conclusion. it cannot be treated seriously bc its simply too bogus.

destiel however. unless youre a raging homophobe or devout biblical christian there is nothing morally wrong with destiel, which makes it harder to discredit it as a joke, which is why you cant joke about it so easily. not that you should lmao, but i dont claim to know what goes on in these mens heads.

this got way too long so im gonna try to wrap it up:

i think its not that jensen is less horrified by w*ncest than destiel. there would be something really wrong with him if he was. i think he can put w*ncest and all its crazy fans into a box and label it "too ridiculous to care about except when they send my wife rusty nails". i dont claim to know what exactly his problem with destiel was/is, but if i had to make a guess its that he spent a long time misinterpreting what destiel actually was and just treated it as another outlet for horny teens, which i wont defend him for. i think he really mellowed out on that front, but kept his grumpy persona for a while (hes clearly not uncomfortable with ppl thinking thoughts about him and misha in situations or else he wouldnt act like THAT at cons tho, so idk). His positive and enthusiastic comments surrounding the confession and his open-ness about dean reciprocating (which is still a cop out, ngl. idc if he said he didnt want it to be one) ESPECIALLY compared to his glacial silence surrounding the finale show me that he is not at all disgusted or horrified by destiel.

tl;dr this man is an enigma to me and there are a couple of things i hold against him, but i truly dont think he is horrified by destiel.

#ask #anon #im so fucking sorry for this dissertation nobody asked for #incest mention #m

[demons-incorrect-alw]

Victoria: People that love to shit on Coldplay... why? Have you heard The Scientist? Would break three fingers to be able to write that song.

Mr. Mistoffelees: Why three specifically?

Victoria: Still need to point and give a nice thumbs up.

#source: idk several people contributed #victoria #Mr Mistoffelees #cats the musical #incorrect quotes

[three--rings]

hello, i wanted to get your opinion about the racism and writing thing. i saw your post and i was v v piqued. so what happens is that i constantly see a lot of typos in mdzs fics, esp in names, like the characters themselves are typed wrongly, or like people don't grasp the concept of courtesy/birth names and titles and use it whimsically. so i notice these quite a bit and i usually screenshot them for my friend and over time they've really piled up. just recently, i commented on a fic about

naming and got a reply along the lines of "you didn't leave a kudos, i'm not going to take your suggestion." but tbh as a native speaker the naming is really jarring. anyway, i digress about the kudos and having fun when contributing free work, but my friend thinks that it's racist of authors to be so disrespectful, in general, esp wrt names. and honestly, i came from the hp fandom and honestly you don't really get authors spelling McGonagall wrongly on high frequency. what do you think about

this? idk if it's the lack of betas/fandom maturity, or is this actually a form of microagression, where you're in a fandom and you like the tropes and everything but you just can't remember the names?

Yeah I think this is a really common complaint in the fandom.  Personally I think the reason for it is multi-fold.  I tend to blame (perhaps occasionally unfairly) a lot of it on people who are fans of CQL who haven’t really engaged with the source text.  I have to assume that’s where things like only using given names in fic (which drives me right up the wall) comes from.  Occasionally I run across someone talking about “Yuan” or something and my soul momentarily leaves my body because WHO?   This is undoubtedly because the Netflix subtitles do this, only using given courtesy names almost all of the time, instead of the correct names and titles. 

So people who only have exposure to that version of canon make that mistake.  The problem is that not only do we have the problem of a fandom with a source story that has been retold in several different mediums, we have several different translations into English OF each version.  So EN fandom is perhaps justifiably confused. 

Of course, I think that when trying to find the correct version, you should look at the source, which is the novel.  And the main EN translation thereof, where place names are translated in a certain way, is a fairly good standard.  Before CQL the fandom didn’t have these issues because everyone had read the novel and were on the same page. 

So some of it is innocent ignorance, IMO, from people who watched the drama on Netflix and are just copying what they saw.  There’s really no way someone could watch that version and get an idea of how the names in the universe actually work.  Not with the subtitles as is and not without doing some internet research.

It seems only natural, to me, if you love a series enough to be in the fandom, you would want to read the book that it was based on.  But unfortunately, there’s a segment of EN fandom that is quite vocally ANTI the source text.  For reasons that are, IMO, dumb.  And pretty racist and misogynistic as well.  So there are a good number of people out there engaging with the fandom without, well, ENGAGING with the source. 

And here is where we get into the question of colonialism and orientalism and such, IMO, because not putting in the effort and the time into getting cultural details right while gleefully taking the parts of a work that you like, IS in fact, pretty damn disrespectful.  And yes, some people of Chinese descent have said that these feel like microaggressions.  Is it racist?  I mean, if it’s consistent enough within a writer’s work that they can’t be bothered to check their spellings or whatever, then maybe?  But I really think disrespectful is a better way to phrase it, because it gets to the heart of the reason it’s a problem. 

As for your experience pointing out mistakes.  Yeah, first of all, wow, that author sounds...interesting.  There is and has been a culture for a long time in fanfiction that DISCOURAGES negative feedback in comments.  The reason is because if comment sections become places where people criticize and pick apart a work’s flaws, they can quickly devolve into flame wars and grudges and people picking sides and this has ALL happened in fandom in the past. 

Which is why I have such a dilemma on this issue.  Because in general, I really feel like leaving critical feedback, even with the best intentions, often only leads to badness.  It hurts feelings and discourages authors who may be young and inexperienced and sensitive.  And it just creates toxic environments of cruelty, dissuading people from venturing into the comments at all.

I struggle with this, too.  I’ve recently read fics in this fandom with mistakes and things that...I really want to correct and every time I’ve just managed to hold back from pointing them out.  Because yes, as a whole, fic authors are NOT OPEN to criticism.  Including myself! 

But I do feel your issue is real and important.  I just don’t know the answer.  If it were me, and I, say, encountered a fic with consistent naming problems, like misusing courtesy/birth names, I might leave a comment in the form of a question.  First of all, leaving positive feedback on what I like in the fic (because if there’s nothing you liked, then why would you even be reading it) and then asking “I’m wondering why you decided to use the names in this form instead of...etc”  Which may serve as a hint to someone who is truly clueless that they have erred, but without being too accusatory.  Or maybe they do have some kind of justification for it.  In which case, well you can’t account for taste. 

People tend not to react well to statements like “you should do _____.”  Especially artists.  We’re stubborn and defensive about our work.   And things like “I find _____ racist and offensive” are even more likely to bring out Big Defensive Embarrassing White Person Dance.   (Which only ever makes things worse, omg.)

As for occasional misspellings, well we’re all human.  I know for a while I was mistyping Lan Wangji as Lan Wanji  and at one point Lhan Zhan. Those were both early in my MDZS writing career, before my hands got muscle memory for the names.  And since my spellchecker just finds them all mistakes I didn’t always catch it. (Pro tip writers, add everyone’s names to your spell check dictionary and it’ll catch when you slip!) It’s easier for someone to make that kind of mistake when typing names/words that aren’t familiar to them.  (Though my constantly mispelled words are all English.  Including the damn word misspelled.  Double letters can go die.)

#mdzs #fandom meta #fandom discourse #mdzs discourse #racism #racism and fandom

[baconpal]

talkin bout fuckig manga

hey it’s me, haven’t had internet for over a week and i’ve been sick and uni and blah blah blah time for a rant about manga

this time its about  "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru", tl;dr, good manga read it idk

lots of bullshit below the cut

Before anything I say gets too confusing or I go off on an insane tangent, just know my recommendation is that you read "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru". It's not very easy to find online since it has an official English release (which my recommendation extends far enough to suggest I might pick up in the future, just to have it, but I am very stingy), but there's an alright torrent of all the volumes on your local anime torrenting website, and is at the very least worth the trouble of reading as such. There is also an anime that gets better as it goes, but the manga is my primary recommendation. Beyond this point I'm not gonna give much regard to what I write, so get ready for anything, read the manga and see if you agree with me, or don't and see if I care:

BOUT THE ANIME: The SoreMachi anime is one of those rare comedy anime you find where the animation and overall production is just really extra the entire time. Hopefully you know what I mean because I won't really be able to explain it any other way, it's simply one of those shows where the jokes are decent and it's a fun time for the most part. Unfortunately, the anime makes a couple of critical missteps that kept me from getting far into it when I first tried watching it about a year ago, and in retrospect seem even less reasonable.

Starting with the good, as an adaptation it does a good job with most chapters it covers, it properly sources where each chapter comes from incase you intend to read the manga and skip around to catch up, and the anime adapts some sections to have additional jokes that fit very naturally in to the story. It also covers up some of those problems only manga can have like having a concert segment without any actual music involved, until they invent mp3-paper it's just something we'll have to live with. Translation work was pretty good (I watched the [WhyNot] release for those who care), which is extra important for something as difficult to translate as jokes from another language. The set of episodes they chose to end on was very good, and was expanded to be a lot more impactful in the anime. If it wasn't for the last episode being as strong as it was I may have given up on finding the manga when I saw it wasn't super easy to read online.

As for what the anime fails in, some episodes feature some really blatant over-acting that doesn't really help make characters believable, and there's this obnoxious gag that continues the whole where through where most scenes have a few seconds long line from what is essentially a forced mascot character, which usually mean nothing and only serve to harm the pacing of many episodes (there isn't even any sort of equivalent bit in the manga so I really don't know why they did it, most of the anime original jokes are pretty good so I just really don't get it). The biggest issue the anime faces is that the source material is about 140 chapters, while the anime is only able to cover 24 chapters. This comes with a LOT of problems, the first being what I'd call the "required reading". SoreMachi is not a 1-note simple comedy where you can skip to any chapter and be completely okay; There are many small but meaningful subplots lying beneath, and characters have a fair bit of development throughout. What this means for the anime is that the first 3-4 episodes are just the first few chapters of the manga, which are a bit rough and not as good as the majority of the work, which is true of a lot of comics (god fuck I promise there will be more than a first chapter of my comic I promise it'll get better fuck). In terms of the anime by itself, I'd say episode 1 is decent, 2 is middling, and by 3/4 their still taking a while to introduce members of the cast, and I didn't immediately want to finish it. I put the show down for a long time until my internet started dying and I wanted to watch something fun. Slapping it back on at episode 5 I immediately had a great time and watched the rest of the show pretty soon after. While I understand the reasoning behind doing this, the anime does not pay off this structure, as beyond the first few episodes, the chapters start being presented out of release order and out of chronological order, kind of destroying any consistent throughline. This decision in and of itself isn't the worst, since the comic isn't always chronological, and the volume ordering is a bit different from the release ordering, but the inconsistency makes the first few episodes feel lessened without reason. The other large failure that comes with only animating about 1/7th of the entire work is that many themes and concepts that are core to the manga are not represented in the anime well at all. One of the biggest is the rare but unnerving supernatural chapters, of which only one is animated, and not a particularly good one. In order to talk about these themes I'll have to transition into talking about the manga itself, since they aren't part of the anime.

DA MANGA: So one last recommendation that you read the manga, the whole damn thing. Cus we're gettin into themes and character moments that take a long time to pay off, and obviously is all part of my interpretations, so if that stuff means anything to you don't let me ruin it for ya.

The title of the manga is, in essence, the entire manga's "punchline" in that every chapter could meaningfully end with simply the text "And yet the town still turns..." (My translation of the title, fuck "And yet, the town revolves" or "But the town moves"); by this I mean most chapters end in an anti-climax where a mystery is left unsolved, or a mystery is solved and undercut by the realization that life simply keeps on going without much change. This is used to essentially force your eyes open to all possibilities when reading, as the main character spends her time acting like a detective, and these mysteries end up as either misunderstandings, secrets, riddles, and sometimes something out of the ordinary happens that makes you unable to pin anything down firmly. Similarly, these endings aren't always read-and-forget scenarios. Several chapters come back in the form of a continued joke, a continued mystery, or contribute to some greater purpose later. Readers are properly rewarded for keeping everything they can in mind, while also tormenting such people with loose ends.

I enjoy Hotori as a protagonist due to her character being defined not in flaws and strengths, but in mindedness. Hotori seems like a simple "haha she's dumb" character to start, but consistently throughout she proves that her strengths are in memory, observation, and deduction, while lacking in some more common sense and abilities. Her brain works in strange ways that some people may or may not understand, such as her need to think through even the most trivial fictional scenarios, which I relate to deeply.

The art and paneling throughout are wonderful. Ishiguro Masakazu is one of those artists who draws very simple characters, but knows how to use details and depth to breath so much life into the artwork. He also clearly uses the occasional supernatural happenings as an excuse to draw what he loved, as all sorts of artistic depictions of the supernatural come out that simply look satisfying. These parts obviously meant a lot to him since he's been working on a primarily mystery-action manga that has a lot more of that stuff in it. (Also, as hindsight is 20/20, if you've read any of his new work you'll notice that the main character of it is eerily similar to a character who shows up very late in SoreMachi that the author obviously fell in love with, cus she just keeps coming back and even ends up with a really unsettling end to her character arc despite only being introduced as a component in a harmless mystery. Feel free to call me out for the same shit 30 years from now when I'll probably do the same shit)

I'd like to get into some of the major themes of this work, as a lot of them hit very close to my mind (which I guess is true of any theme you recognize for yourself, you wouldn't really "get it" if it didn't mean something to you...).

The simplest theme, again, comes from the title. The main character, Hotori, expresses a desire that the town she lives in continues going on, unchanged forever. This is obviously a fear of change, which ya know, same, but also an exploration of what it means to fear change. Hotori actively tries to keep businesses from closing down, keep friends from leaving, and keep relationships from changing, while simultaneously making all sorts of new relationships and solving mysteries. Hotori even comes to realize that simply learning the truth about something changes the world through your own perspective, and that such changes can't be undone. In spite of this, Hotori mostly gets her wish, any time she fears that a large change will impact the town, its resolved about the same as any other issue. Whether its a message that even time can't keep you from your loved ones and that change isn't worth fearing, or a concession that large changes to the setting would be a bad idea in terms of humor, I can't really decide. This theme reaches it's conclusion in what is one in a series of "ending" kinda chapters at the end of the series. Hotori is faced with a supernatural ethical situation, save her town from destruction at the cost of her existence, or live through the disaster, knowing her town and the people in it will forever be changed. While the actual result is that nobody disappears and nothing is lost, and the event may have simply been a strange dream, Hotori confidently decides that sparing the people in her town from a life altering event is worth giving up her memories with them. A kind of bold spit-in-the-face to the idea that change is okay, where we find that Hotori didn't fear change for herself, but rather for the people around her.

There's another major idea in this manga, which takes a very long time to pay off, and completes its arc at the very very very actual end of the series, the idea of "leading someone to be something". A character that rides that line between main and side character, Shizuka, is a writer of detective novels, who feels the best person to judge her works would be a version of herself without the bias of being the author. She tries to achieve this by leading Hotori to be interested in detective works (including her own) and generally be just like her, starting from a young age. The end result is a young girl dead set on being a detective herself (or at least another novelist), while Shizuka keeps her identity as an author secret. She then uses Hotori as a scapegoat for herself, attempting to see how she would solve various mysteries and use that as inspiration, and this is depicted as though Shizuka were some sort of villain, which she may feel like she is. The end result of it all, though, is that Hotori was likely already a detective-minded person, and that even if Shizuka pushed her down that path, it was Hotori's decision to continue down it, and the very end of the manga is a scene revealing that Hotori figured out Shizuka's secret at some point, and even still respected Shizuka and aspired to reach her, and the two accept each other for who they are. I enjoy this ending a lot, since as an artist I've worried that some of my love or aspirations for and from other artists came with an ulterior motive of wanting a better community for art to exist in, but people are people and will make their own decisions, and some day everyone may be able to become equals in a truly meaningful sense, where everyone is inspired by and guiding each other together.

So that probably didn't mean shit to nobody and I didn't even really talk about anything in the comic like most of the main characters or any of the shit goin on but ya know fuck you go read it, and thanks for reading this.

#long ass post #also gonna have finals on my birthday this week so awesome #im having a good time this year h-haha

[deathbars]

So they reblogged this from me then immediately blocked me so I couldn't respond which is hilarious, why block me? Are you scared of what I have to say? Scary things like saying veganinsm is ableist is inherently ableist because it erases the voices and success' of disabled and marginalized vegans. Perhaps the fact that I am low income myself and seem to be surviving without supporting the meat and animal ag industry just fine (do you know how expensive meat is??? My grocery hauls cost half as much as they used to). Not to even mention the fact that meat producing/packaging companies are known for notoriously ignoring safety guidelines and hiring migrant/marginalized workers then denying them any liability for workplace injury whatsoever. See Tyson foods and almost any other meat processing company. [X][X][X]and the fact that ranch land for cattle has been one of the MAIN FACTORS contributing to indigenous land theft, as in TWO FUCKING FIFTHS OF THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES IS RANCH-LAND [X]

Its not my fault peta does this shit its the people who idk, donate to peta and give them the funds to put shitty ads and billboards up???

So anyway if it wasnt made clear enough fuck peta, report their ads and DONT SUPPORT THEM! They've literally been documented bribing asian fur farmers to skin racoons alive for their shock value videos. [X] (sorry its not exactly a credible source considering it has a massive bias but it's the only source there is) and plenty of other bullshit.

However, just because peta is shit, doesn't mean you should just continue supporting the obscenely disgusting and horrific shit the meat industry does without a second thought. Not just to animals, but to innocent people. Slaughterhouses are almost run entirely by prisoners (most of which in the US are completely innocent as far as I know) because it's one of the most stressful and traumatizing jobs there is out there with one of the highest resulting suicide rates. Even if you live in a food desert, or don't have the funds to buy "fancy vegan meat replacements" or whatever else you people think we subsist on. You can still lower your meat consumption and maybe invest in buying ingredients like beans and rice that can be stored for several months instead of stuff that easily goes bad and puts a fat uneaten beef shaped dent in your wallet.

Oh and just a little tidbit, feedlots and slaughterhouses are strategically placed near marginalized settlements specifically to prey off the fact that many of those people don't have access to proper transportation thus forcing them to seek work there. See Environmental racism [X]

I know most agriculture utilizes some form of slavery (like quinoa and agave and basically anything else, you know they have whole websites for buying workers out-of-country to work under minimum wage its fucking disgusting, not going to provide a source on this for their safety) so its often unavoidable but meat production is a whole nother breed of inhumane and vile to people. They poison local water, and contaminate the air to the point it causes cancer and chemical pneumonia in the innocent people surrounding it who were there first. [X]

PLEASE CLICK EVERY [X] AND READ/WATCH THROUGH IT THROUGHLY BEFORE YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT RESPONDING THANK YOU :)

#veganism #vegan propaganda #I used to be a coward too #but don't go spouting lies about things you know nothing about. #cw #animal abuse #slavery #prisons #slaughterhouses #pollution #migrant workers #abuse #human abuse #vegan #just eat and grow some damn vegetables

[thinking-in-symbols]

Quinquennial Life Assessment

So, it’s been a few years.  When I was 19 I posted a sort of “roadmap” for the evolution of my life on this blog.  Today I thought I’d revisit that.  I want to take a look back and see what progress I’ve made, and then in a separate post I want to turn to the future, think about how my vision for it has changed, and consider how I can reincorporate these goals into that vision.

This is the list of things I wanted to get done in varying time frames.  I’ve crossed off the things I’ve done to get a sense of my progress:

1 year:

At 19, my hopes were to accomplish the following things by age 20:

- Joined, and consistently participated in, at least 2 campus organizations that suit my interests, at least 1 of which should be competitive in nature - well, I joined the ISO and KVRX, my college radio station!  Neither of those were competitive, but in retrospect I don’t really care about that :-)

- Made concrete plans to study abroad - Nope, unfortunately I never did this.  I’m not quite sure I regret that, all things considered - I traded that experience for other things.  I did make plans to spend a few months abroad of my own accord, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling global pandemic.  But as it stands I haven’t done this.

- Learned C++ and python to proficiency - Hm.  “Proficient” is a relative term.  But I think I have a tendency to downplay my skills, so in the interest of counteracting that I’m going to count myself as “proficient” in these languages.  I think that’s fair.

- Gone on at least a several day road trip with at least 1 friend - I’ve gone on several trips with @meeshbug​, my very lovely girlfriend and best friend in the world :-)

- Decided on a concentration beyond the extremely vague umbrella of “computer science” - Unfortunately as far as my education is concerned I never really did this.  If anything my interests have *broadened* rather than becoming more focused.  More on this later...

- Made meaningful, ongoing contributions to an open-source project - You know what?  I’ve published the source of everything I’ve ever made, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make stuff that’s not trivial.  So I’m giving myself credit for this one.

- Learned to cook enough meals to eat in most days and not get sick of my own food - I wish.  I’ve learned to cook a fair amount of stuff but I still get way too depressed and lethargic to apply that consistently.  Whether I consider myself to have achieved this honestly depends on the month.

- Learned to keep my living area clean - I’m much better at this than I was at 19, but at 19 I could barely clear a path to walk across my room.  So there’s more work to do.  More on these last two later.

- Gotten a pet - Meesh and I have a dog named Courage (after the dog of cowardly fame) and a cat named Jax!

2 years:

- Independently written a piece of software to completion and deployed it publicly - I’ve always pretty bad at actually seeing projects through to completion, but I do have a few full, independent projects under my belt at this point.  I’ve built a simple game engine, a pathtracer, plugins for games I like, and some other stuff.

- purchased and begun regularly using some basic amateur radio equipment - Ah man.  I got my license but I still haven’t gotten any equipment.  I guess I have to get on that...

- purchased and begun experimenting with some basic music recording equipment - This one I’ve done, but I haven’t done as much experimenting as I’d like.

- hosted a party - I did this for my 21st birthday and it’s one of my favorite memories!  Honestly this was probably the last time I had all my really close friends in one place.  I’m actually getting kind of emotional about that.

- done some kind of hallucinogen - I have now done this.  I definitely did get something out of it, albeit not what I expected.  This is something I actually only did pretty recently and it’s still having a pretty profound effect.  Maybe I’ll write a separate post about this.

- Gone camping with friends - Despite my best efforts, this hasn’t happened yet.  Pretty fucked up.

3 years:

- learned to play another instrument besides the piano (guitar?) - I don’t feel comfortable crossing this one off quite yet, but I went ahead and bought myself some guitar equipment and have been messing around with it lately :-) I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pay for lessons if I’m serious about this, which I am.

- Written and recorded a song - Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 5 years and I haven’t even done this.

- Met a group of people I can play music with - nope

- Owned a leather jacket.  I can’t believe I’ve still never even owned a leather jacket - I’ve done this and wore it frankly too much.  Kinda cringe.

- Worked as a professional software developer - Yep!  Worked as a software developer for a retail company for a couple years.  I’m actually not working as a software developer right now, though; I’m working in a sort of adjacent position.  More on this later.

- Participated in research related to my field - That’s pretty ambitious.  Not sure I’ll ever do this, unfortunately.  But we’ll see.

- Been to a film festival - Oh shit, I totally forgot about having written this.  That’s a cool idea.  I should do this, it’s not like it’s hard (well, at least in principle.  I guess covid kind of changes the situation).

- Gotten a dog - Courage is one of those, I think, although he might also be part rat.

- collected 50 records - Lol, my dumb ass really thought I was going to buy $1,000 worth of records on college money.  No, I haven’t done this, but I’m on my way there.

- Purchased a desktop computer - Well, my dad gave me his old desktop.  That’s not really a purchase but I think it counts.

5 years:

- Begun accepting freelance development gigs - haven’t gotten here yet and I’m not totally sure this is a direction I want to go in my career.  Freelancing has its own stressors as I’ve come to learn from others.  No career path is sunshine and roses and I’m trying to internalize this fact.

- Participated in a student film - Nope.  I don’t even know why I wrote this down to be honest.

- Gotten laid by solving a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube in front of a girl because surely that’s gonna have to work on someone eventually, otherwise I wasted a lot of time - These are getting weird.  Surely I didn’t really expect this to happen, right?  Well, either way I now have a long-term girlfriend, so I don’t - wait, Meesh has seen me solve a Rubik’s cube and she saw it before we started dating.  So actually I’m going to give myself credit for it.  I’m the one who makes the rules here.

- Fleshed out my political opinions - Yes, I now know everything about politics and can answer 100% of questions on political issues.  Just kidding.  But I know where I stand.

- Participated in a protest or some other kind of political event - Done!  Went to a few protests as part of the ISO, participated in lots of their events, and attended some protests with friends as well.

- Studied abroad - Nope :-/

- Learned a language other than Spanish - I took a semester of French!  But I don’t quite want to give myself credit for this one because I really would like to learn a different language to something resembling fluency.

- Run a marathon - Lmao.  I am in much worse shape now than I was when I wrote this post, and even at that time I could probably do like 7 miles if I really pushed myself.  How sad.

- Gone hiking outside of texas - This is weird because I’d literally already done this when I wrote this post.  But I’ve done it more since then, so hey!

- Been out of the country with a friend - This I had also already done.  I guess the point is to have done it without “adult supervision” or whatever.  I haven’t done this since writing this list so I guess I have to leave it uncrossed.

10 years:

- Lived with a girl for an extended period of time - Meesh 🥰

- Spent at least 6 months living on the road in an RV, preferably with a dog and a girl - God, I am so close to being able to do this.  I don’t want it to be an RV anymore - those things are expensive.  But a van?  Still pricey, but doable, especially if I’m willing to sacrifice some comfort.  This has actually been front-of-mind for a while.  I’ll let you know when I get the balls to pull the trigger.

- Started making Real Money - Well, yep, I have gotten to that point.  I do have other thoughts on this, though.  Money is weird, man.

- Lived in a long-term living space outside of Texas (i.e. not including RV time) - How long is long-term?  Three months?  If so, I’ve done this by living in Boston with Meesh for a few months after she went there for law school.  However, I anticipate staying there much longer in the near future, so I’ll wait on this crossing this one off.

- Written a book about something, idk - Not yet.  I’m halfway to the deadline on this one and I have some ideas, but ideas aren’t worth all that much, especially to me, who rarely sees them through.  We’ll see where this goes.  It’s not exactly a priority and historically I struggle to get even my priorities done.  It might make more sense to replace this with recording a concept or narrative album, for which I also have ideas that I happen to take more seriously.

- Learned to solve a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Gotten laid by solving a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Lived in an apartment where I pay all the rent - Yes!  :-))) We love independence

- Earned an advanced degree (this one’s iffy) - This hasn’t happened, and whether it will ever happen is something I’ve been thinking a lot about.  I sort of decided half-way through college that I would be totally burned out on school by the time I graduated.  But in retrospect it takes way less time to burn out on work than it does to burn out on school, and grad degrees are a different kind of thing.  So it’s worth revisiting.’

- Given a best man speech (Sam, this means you have to get married within the next 10 years.  Good luck out there.) - Holy shit, Sam, you maniac, you actually did it!  Sam got married back in 2019 and I gave his best man speech! It’s another one of my favorite memories :-) 

- Gone on a cruise with someone I’m dating - Hmm, not yet.  I’ve gone on cool trips, but none on a boat.  Maybe that’s something to aim for after the pandemic passes :-)

Retrospective:

1yr: Completed: 5/9

More than half isn’t bad!  I’m not gonna worry too much about whether I got these things done within their assigned “time-frame”.  I’m a procrastinator in my heart and I don’t see any reason to put that kind of pressure on myself.  The point is, they got done.  That’s enough for me.

The things I did best in in this category were academic things, and things to do with relationships.  I’m proud of the academic achievements, I really feel like doing them has increased my belief in myself and my sense that I’m good at the thing I’ve spent the last four years studying.  And of course, I am so happy to be in a loving, fulfilling relationship that brings so many good things into my life.  I almost feel like the things I accomplished sort of fell into my lap - of course I’m gonna do programming stuff as a programming student, and getting pets / going on road trips are things I did as a result of my relationship with Meesh.  I don’t say that to downplay the accomplishments, but I do think it’s worth noting.

The things I haven’t done are more to do with personal development, which is disappointing.  I would like to be able to say, 5 years down the road, that I’ve done the personal development I expected to do in just a single year, but maybe that’s a lot to expect.  These are problems I’ve dealt with my whole life.  I think what this means is that I can’t expect everything to fall into my lap.  Those things are going to take real concerted effort to change.  I’m not quite sure how to go about that, though.

2yrs: Completed: 4/6

Two-thirds!  Even better!

Lots of these are one-time accomplishments, not so much long-term commitments to personal development.  The good news is, I did them, and I think those resulted in some development in their own right :-)

Again, though, the things I didn’t do so well are the things that require long-term, concerted effort.  For instance, while I crossed off the one about experimenting with music, it’s really only the initial investment that I’ve really done at this point.  It remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to follow through on the commitment to actually experiment and learn.

3yrs: Completed: 4/10

This category also follows the same pattern I’ve noticed with the last two.  The other thing I’m noticing is that so, so much of my effort over the past few years has been going towards developing a very particular skill: programming / computer science.  Music and art are so important to me, but I’ve done very little real development in those areas.  I mean, I’ve done some.  But not as much as I would have hoped for half a decade.

5yrs: Completed: 4/10

This is getting a little more fun because less of my goals have to do explicitly with my degree.  I’m starting to think beyond college, which is good, because the stage of life I’m in right now requires me to start thinking about the kind of life I want to build now that I’m done with school.  Also, I’m at the deadline for this one right now!  So this is a particularly interesting category because it really shows where I thought I’d be by this time.

The goals I accomplished in this timeframe are, again, mostly things I’ve done through my relationship, but politics also feature pretty prominently on this part of the list.  I spent a lot of time reading and researching political issues during college and really did look for ways to participate.  I honestly made politics a pretty big part of my identity over the last 5 years, and I think it will stay that way forever, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to devote less of my mental energy to knowing more.  I know what I need to know.  It’s time to think about other things.

10yrs: Completed: 4/11 (and counting!)

There’s some career stuff in this section that I’ve been able to do, which is good news.  I’ve always been scared about entering the working world.  All things told, it’s gone more smoothly than it could have.  But I also have lots of lingering doubts about what I want to do in the long term.  So one of the most pressing goals I should aim for is to resolve those doubts.

Ultimately, I have a lot of time left, and I’m not even done with this time frame, so I’m not gonna spend much time dissecting the things I haven’t done.  What I’ll do instead is say that while I didn’t do everything on this list, I feel proud of the things I have accomplished.  I said when I first wrote this list that it’s sometimes hard for me to feel that my life is moving in any particular direction, and I’m still feeling like that five years later, to be honest.  But looking back on these things has helped me see that I actually am making progress in my life.  Not in all the ways I want to, but that’s OK.  There’s still time.

In the next couple days I want to come back to this and reorganize this list into an updated set of goals, for the same time frames.  Maybe that will help me think through exactly what it is I want out of the next five-ten years, with the benefit of having analyzed the things that I did and didn’t do well over the previous five.