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ratislatis · 6 months

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HI. I JUST DREW 2 OLD CHARACTERS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WHILE AND. UM

WELL ANYWAY. THIS IS NIKOLAS AND MASON. I WAS OBSESSED WITH THEM FOR LIKE 4 YEARS

playlist I was listening to while drawing these:

(OLD ART UNDER THE CUT. WARNING: ITS SO FUCJING OLD LIKE YOU DONT UDNERSTAND MY HEAD IS IMN MY HANDS EVANGELION CHAIR SO HELP ME GOD)

USERNAME AND EVERYTHING. HOLY SHIT 😭😭😭

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britneyshakespeare · 5 months

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you know i mentioned last night that i realized only *after* i started rereading david copperfield that since i recently became an aunt, i was gonna see the story from a whole new angle and start relating more to betsey trotwood. i didn't even think about how at salem house i was gonna be poor mr. mell...

#i mean i didnt really think about mr. mell much because he's more of a minor character #he doesnt come back throughout david's life like steerforth or traddles or emily or agnes or #or or or all these other dozen major characters #in fact i only think of salem house as a minor part of the book. the shit we gotta get through to get to aunt betsey again #in a sense i cant wait to be done with it again #but oh my god reading about the rowdy schoolroom and how he's hardly managing to handle his stress #MEEEEE!!!!!! ME AN EDUCATOR #diana rereads david copperfield #literally just let me fucking play my flute badly in peace #you know i really have grown up a lot in the past 5 years bc all the adults used to just be caricatures to me #in the sense that all of dickens' characters are kind of caricatures. theyre exaggerated and silly #whether theyre supposed to be archetypal good or bad people.#because the way dickens uses hyperbole. sometimes it's just too true!#like the assholery of steerforth. how disingenuous but charming and persuasive he can be #that is SO true to how it feels to look up to older people as a young child. david copperfield's yielding to him is so realistic #david copperfield's own childish innocence throughout the early chapters seems comical but is emotionally true to how childhood feels.#these were the parts of the novel that resonated with me very deeply at 19. and they still do #but oh now. now i understand the position of the working adults. especially since i work w kids now how different it all feels.#and have worked w kids for several years too. but only about a year after reading dc. actually almost 2 years #im one of the bumbling incompetent adults. oh dear. oh lord.

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anarchistgumball · 3 months

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I love overly artistic poems about abusive mothers, but it is hard to write when your mom is just a dumbass

#like. i do not have any poetic grief for her bc she kind of just treats me like she met me as an adult #and also is just. really fucking stupid #i dont think everyone on tiktok is stupid but my mother is a perfect caricature of someone who uses tiktok 24/7

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masterhallmark · 2 months

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Rant incoming

I feel like the problem with a lot of Disney's live action remakes (and arguably Wish) is they're trying to appeal to a crowd that no longer exists, namely the people who used to claim that the Disney Princesses were sexist.

All the interviews tend to include, "Well she's not chasing a MAN anymore" which...almost no one sees the princesses like that, anymore. Virtually NO ONE still believes the princesses are man-chasing sexist caricatures of women.

Cinderella is now hailed as an abuse victim who stayed strong long enough to get help to get out of her situation. Anyone who says she should have saved herself is basically regarded as a victim blamer. And it's very clear in the film she wasn't looking to marry the prince, she just wanted a night off. She was the only one who wasn't in line to meet him. She didn't find out she met the prince until he went looking for her!

Snow White is now hailed for her negotiation skills, ability to calm down after extreme stress (she had a moment of panic and had to cry for a bit, but who wouldn't after finding out The Queen hired someone to kill you?), and ability to take charge of a house of adult men. And again, she was an abuse victim, this time trying to escape ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS. While she dreamed of her prince, it was secondary to her main goal of SURVIVAL. There are also entire video essays about how Snow White gave hope to people during The Great Depression.

Everyone acknowledges that Ariel wanted to be human BEFORE meeting Eric. We all know she was a nerd hyperfixating on humans, and also standing up to her prejudiced father.

We understand Sleeping Beauty wasn't the main character, the Three Good Fairies were, AND PHILLIP WOULD NEVER HAVE BEATEN MALEFICENT WITHOUT THEM! He literally depended on them! WOMEN SAVED THE DAY! But even then, is it really such a sin for a girl to fantasize about romance and fall for someone with corny pickup lines?

We all understand Jasmine just wanted someone to treat her LIKE A PERSON. She rejected every Prince before Aladdin because they treated her like a prize. So why did they need her to want to be Sultan? How did that make her more feminist when she already wanted to be treated like an equal and have a say in her future? Is it only empowering if you want a career in politics?

We admire that Belle, despite living in a judgemental village, was kind to everyone (even though she found the village life dull), and her story teaches girls that the guy everyone else loves isn't always a good guy. What's sexist about teaching girls about red flags? And she didn't start being nice to The Beast until he started treating her with respect and kindness.

Do I really NEED to defend Mulan or Tiana? I think they speak for themselves.

Rapunzel was yet another abuse victim who just needed a little help to get out of her bad situation. In this case, she also needed to learn that she was an abuse victim, and that what Mother Gothel did WASN'T normal, much like many victims of gaslighting.

And don't get me started on the non-princess animals.

Perdita had a healthy relationship with Pongo to the point she was open to express her pregnancy fears to him, and was ready to TEAR APART Cruella's goons for daring to touch her puppies as well as adopting the other puppies. Like, she was so ferocious the goons mistook her for a hyena! She's basically that "I AM THAT GIRL'S MOTHER!" scene from SpyXFamily if Yor were a dog. She and her husband were a TEAM.....but they made a Cruella live action to turn her into a girlboss?! The literal animal abuser!? THAT'S the woman you wanted to put on a pedestal when Perdita was RIGHT THERE!?

Duchess kept her kittens calm after they had been catnapped and was classy as heck. Nice to everyone regardless of social class during a time period where that was uncommon.

Lady stood up to Tramp when she believed he had abandoned her and didn't really care about her. She found out he was a heartbreaker and was like, "Nuh uh. No. You are not doing that to me! You put me through enough."

Miss Bianca from The Rescuers was IN CHARGE the whole movie, and was willing to risk life and limb to save an innocent child. THAT TINY MOUSE TOOK ON ALLIGATORS! And she picked Bernard to accompany her because he was the only one who wasn't ogling her. And then in the sequel SHE DID IT ALL AGAIN! I wish I were as brave as her.

Like, the public haven't accused these ladies of being sexist caricatures since 2014 (Actresses and actors don't count, they're out of touch like the rest of Hollywood) yet Disney is operating under the assumption that the public still thinks that way, hence all the "sHe'S nOt AfTeR a MaN iN ThIs VeRsIOn" talk.

The live action remakes are trying to attract an audience that doesn't really exist much, anymore, and back when it did exist, was comprised mainly of people who didn't actually watch the films. The Disney princesses are no longer seen as sexist, and feminine qualities are no longer seen as weak or undesirable.

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max1461 · 4 months

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Also consider this: when you get used to behaving in a particular way, it is hard to shift gears. I know this about myself. We grow up doing one thing and just keep doing it. This is a reason for extending people, as I've mentioned before, a significant amount of grace for wrongdoing that is culturally normalized. It takes time, effort, and information to live intentionally, to really choose how you will behave, and we all have limited access to time, effort, and information.

But one consequence of this is that someone who is a controlling parent when their kids are kids will often continue to be controlling when their kids are grown. And even if you defend a straightforwardly different standard of abuse when it comes to child-adult relationships than when it comes to adult-adult relationships, by normalizing certain kinds of controlling behaviors on the part of parents you are also, I suspect, increasing the risk of controlling relationships between a parent and their adult or young adult children.

You can caricature the child liberation stuff as like, "they want to abolish bedtime". I don't think it's abusive if a parent like, sets a bedtime for their 3 year old or whatever. You know, young kids need regular sleeping routines and so on. But if you're not thinking intentionally about parenting, and about the moral imperative to respect your children's autonomy, then bedtime for your 3 year old becomes a bedtime for your 10 year old becomes a curfew for your 17 year old, etc. etc. Because as a parent you have all the power, and so you are the one who must decide to stop, you are the one who must actively decide to relinquish control when the proper age is reached. And people hate relinquishing control.

I contend that many of the most normalized forms of child abuse occur when behaviors that are appropriate for a young child, who truly needs a more active and involved caretaker, are thoughtlessly extended (or indeed extended out of anxiety) to older ages when a young person has started need and to express their need for autonomy.

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royboyfanpage · 3 months

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Lian Harper has a better understanding of Snowbirds than much of the modern fanbase

I've been reading the Green Arrow 80th anniversary special and one part in particular stood out to me. One of the stories in the comic is Roy telling Lian (and Ollie) a story over the phone, specifically *Roy's* story, in the style of a Navajo story, and Ollie and Roy are called Green-Man and Autumn-Son.

During this, obviously, one of the major plotpoints is Roy's addiction and a retelling of Snowbirds Don't Fly from Roy's perspective, in which Roy accounts how Ollie was angry at him. Lian actually *corrects* Roy, saying that Ollie was scared

And honestly? I think this is *how* this was meant to be interpreted when it was written. Snowbirds was never meant to show Ollie as in the right, but it was also never meant to make him the villain. Ollie is, in this story, essentially a caricature of a 70s parent's reaction to finding out their child is using drugs. Keep in mind this was written *during* the war on drugs, a time where misinformation was rampant and every parent's worst fear was finding out their child was an addict. I personally firmly believe that Ollie views Roy as his son, and vis versa, but even if you don't Ollie finding out that the kid/young adult he'd been mentoring is addicted to drugs? Terrifying. Especially since Ollie's aim had always been to teach Roy strength, and addiction was seen as the worst possible weakness, meaning Ollie had not only failed as a father but as a mentor in his eyes. Snowbirds is repeatedly used by Oliver Queen haters to demonize him, to show him as a bad father, but Snowbirds is and always has been a product of its time, not in terms of writing but culturally. Yes, Oliver *would* react like that in 1971. And so would most DC heroes. But you know what? He grew. He developed, he changed his mindset and he *listened* to Roy, and snowbirds ends with him being *proud* of Roy.

So yeah. While there were definitely aspects of his reaction that were undoubtedly angry, that was all vastly overshadowed by *fear*. Lian Harper was, as always, right.

Edit: I did a big post on Snowbirds here

#Tw drugs #snowbirds don't fly #roy harper #green arrow #oliver queen #Speedy #red arrow #Arsenal #Lian Harper #Dc comics

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teledild0nix · 3 months

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what are thee best drarry fics to read in this day and age? I've not read any for a few years and I don't know what's good 🤔

what an incredibly flattering question! i do not know what your tastes run to, but here are a few of my recentish favorites in no particular order. i think these are all m or e, as that tends to be what i go for. they're also properly adults, well out of hogwarts, and the stories are sort of mid length, over 10K, under 100K. make sure you read the tags!

Necro-romance by @thehoneybeet coming in hot!!!! i feel like this is a very very profoundly drarry story. we are fucked up in some of the same ways so let's do weird sex about it. dark, weird, very tender. incredible atmosphere. loved it!!!

In Every Universe by @skeptiquewrites this is like an AU hopping fic where draco is on the run for Reasons, and harry is chasing him. not with state violence in his heart. please come home. EXQUISITE worldbuilding, one of my favorite things about Tee's fics. This fic is so fun and there are also some really heartwrenching moments that i won't even come close to spoiling. god i love it it's so fucking good

Anatomy of a Wolf Heart this fic is orphaned but i actually do know the author very well (and love him with all my heart). this is an amazing draco. he's dealing with some significant trauma on top of what he went through in canon. all i'm gonna say is werewolf draco cinematic universe my beloved. i love this harry, too. compulsively doing the right thing even as it fucks his whole life up. yum.

Home Truths another @skeptiquewrites fic bc Tee's writing got me WEAK. i rlly love the ensemble here!!! harry and draco are both amazing characters whom i adore, but they are also surrounded by other characters who feel so real and so lived in. wonderful worldbuilding as per usual w this author. and. harry is a pro athlete at the peak of his career so uh. he do be inhabiting his physical form. it's sexy okay. damn. Tee has a talent for capturing Draco's drama and prissiness without making him feel like a caricature. i found this story genuinely inspiring for lots of reasons, and i can't say enough good things about it.

Preserving Lemons by @saintgarbanzo (this one is locked to the archive, so you'll need to be logged in to read it) god i love this story!!! food as a love language? gender magic? fucking YES PLEASE. it's nice to see them get out of the typical Stately Homes backdrop (i enjoy that too, but. well i'm not going to go off on a tangent about it now. variety is the spice of life!). lots of sensuality here and a heaping dollop of straight up fucking. i just love this depiction of them. i love draco's offers of vulnerability and harry's diving in face first. LOVE.

A Gift of True Esteem by ME! i am big enough to acknowledge that i write fucking good fic okay!!! hogwarts professors, chronic illness, historiography, gratuitous use of patronuses, fun world building in general. harry has been self-isolating a little bit. burying himself in his work. he has to let himself feel things again. joy, love, pleasure. draco makes him want to.

Names for a House this is also by me bc it's my fuckn list and i do what i want!!! harry is raising teddy lupin after andromeda gets sick (don't worry i do not kill off any old ladies in this fic). harry is also the wizarding world's first novelist. teddy lupin is a budding werewolf about to go off to hogwarts, and harry is not sure how to do right by him. FORTUNATELY harry's erstwhile nemesis and current cursebreaker is also a werewolf and teddy's cousin, and he's more than willing to help out.

#drarry fic rec #apliddell #my mutuals are very talented #it's so cool to like. spend time around people whose art you enjoy #it's like. inspiring!!!

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piratecaptainscaptainpirates · 1 month

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I think one of the problems with fanon analyses of OFMD is that this show expects the audience to be smart and approach the show with their critical thinking goggles on.

In Fun and Games, for example, Anne and Mary don't outright say what they're a cautionary tale for, because that would be silly and insulting to the audience. They do not think they're sending the message that Ed and Stede need to communicate with each other like adults and address the realities of their situation instead of playing games (even though that is very much the point of the episode), they think they're an example of what every adult relationship is doomed to look like. The show expects the audience to know that wasting an episode on "oh no this is what happens when you quit piracy!" would be stupid and go against the themes of the show, and it expects us to do the basic amount of analysis necessary to figure out what is actually being said.

OFMD is not a subtle show. It frequently uses flashbacks and callbacks to earlier events to keep the audience on the same page. It's extremely character-driven and expects us to understand that the characters and their relationships and emotions are being prioritized over an overarching action-based plot because Ed and Stede's relationship is the point of the show. It's not subtle with hitting emotional beats and it expects the audience to keep up (like, easy example, Ed mentioning cutting off toes as an example of piracy he wants to leave behind and then doing that an episode later along with calling himself the "kraken," which isn't there to sound cool but to tell us that he's forcing himself back into the caricature of himself that he feels is a monster. It's telling us that he's miserable and fucking hates every second of what's happening to him. It's obviously framed so that even though Ed is the one doing the violent thing in that scene, he's the victim, and we're expected to understand this or you miss the point).

But OFMD, despite having all the subtle storytelling of a brick through your window, doesn't talk down to the audience. It allows characters to contradict each other, get information wrong, misremember. It allows characters to say what they would think instead of what a more basic show would assume the audience needs to hear to keep up. And it expects us to be able to keep up, so if you go into the show without being willing to meet it where it's at as a romcom centered around two leads whose relationship drives the story, you're going to be missing a lot on a very basic level.

#ofmd #our flag means death

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leverage-ot3 · 3 months

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Is leverage redemption worth watching? I love Leverage but idk if i could enjoy the show if hardison isn't in most episodes or if the reboot sells out in some way.

okay so I showed up to this ask like four months late with a smoothie so I'm sorry about that BUT

does redemption have it's flaws? yes, I will be the first to admit that!

however, as someone who deeply loves leverage, the characters and what the show stands for, I still can find myself enjoying redemption.

there's one post that's in my drafts talking about the differences between the og and redemption and the so-called universe physics (how logic works in both shows and how they are the same/differ) and there are definitely some differences. there are some really good posts comparing them in the tags and I'll try to tag them as watch redemption when they come up!

I'm going to be really honest right now and say that (no shade) I feel like redemption s1-2 were lacking because john rogers was not a main writer for them. devlin and the others are great and know their stuff, but redemption was missing some of the grit (balanced with everything else) that the original run had. redemption is more fun and lighthearted (where the og was still fun and had comedic elements but also had a more jaded perspective). I think part of that change is the absence of nate as a character and what he brought to the table, but the other part of that is very much the way the show is written overall

I have seen some criticism about parker being a caricature of what she was in the original run (ex: how she goes to a child's psychologist and uses puppets sometimes, is overtly weird, more loud about stuff, etc) BUT I will say that I think there's some nuance to that

I don't think the child psychiatrist thing is infantalizing- some methods of therapy work for people more than others and that is me speaking as someone who works in mental health. if play therapy and stuff like that work for you as an adult, good for you! whatever works for you is more than enough the overtly and loudly being weird thing I really do think can be taken either way. in the original run part of parker's character progression was that she was learning how to interact with people normally (or at least more efficiently), but her being more out about that now can be taken as she is more comfortable in her skin and acting like she wants because she is surrounded by people who love and support her. maybe she doesn't want to (or have to!) mask all the time and I don't see a problem with that

HOWEVER! there are certain criticisms that are related to her characterizations and overlaps with her autism and I don't want to speak over the autism community about those aspects and how they have manifested in her character in redemption so I'm leaving it there

as for the hardison being absent aspect- I was REALLY afraid of that at first BUT the loss isn't so deeply impactful when you have characters like breanna and harry added to the mix. I went in ambivalent about harry and excited to have breanna (a canon queer) joining the team, but I have come to love and cherish both of them dearly and wouldn't want to replace them or lose them as characters in this found family ensemble. I think the writers handled aldis' packed schedule really well and even though he isn't there in most episodes, his presence is still very much around. parker and eliot talk about him and reference him when he's gone. so do sophie and breanna, even harry. he isn't on the screen but the relationships he's formed with the other characters and the impact he's had on them is very evident.

there are some takes from users about whether or not the ot3 was queerbait, un-canoned, etc in redemption. I have a lot of thoughts about it and a lot of them are incomprehensible but what I can say is that I have renewed hopes for the progression and canon development of their relationship now that john rogers is back as the main writer for s3

#leverage #leverage redemption #eliot spencer #parker #alec hardison #leverage ot3 #parker x hardison x eliot #leverage redemption s3 #breanna casey #harry wilson #character appreciation #watch leverage #watch redemption #jackie talks #mine #asks #answered asks #open-source-anarch3y #i tried to write the best i could but i have a bad cold and I am technically working rn so this was the best i could do :/

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whetstonefires · 1 year

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Do you have any opinions on Scholomance?

I do! I like it a lot. I really enjoyed all three books, blitzed through them easily and was much more excited to see how the plots unfolded than I'm used to these days, as a jaded adult, and I also really appreciated them as works of craft.

Especially the first one, I spent the whole time being all 'wow!' at how simple it was. So easy to read, but no waste. You really need to know what you're doing, to get that kind of pared-down elegance of form to work and still fit so much content in.

Like these are dense, there's a fantastic stylistic minimalism that allows El's character all the space it needs to breathe by making absolutely every other thing and person in the whole novel also do character work for her, which is exactly where the first person voice shines.

Also great use of character perspective to make the pacing feel really natural, so the fact that the first book takes three weeks, the second book takes one year, and the third book is like. Five or so incredibly stressful days spread out over the course of a few weeks? Doesn't feel imbalanced.

I actually got distracted from the story a few times by noticing the strength of Novik's technique. 😂 This is a me problem, in itself it's the opposite of distracting. Very low-profile.

I think the Scholomance is a great example of how far you can go in specfic when you aren't cringing from the label 'derivative,' because the Scholomance books feel very fresh ad clean specifically because nothing in them is concerned with standing out as 'original,' whatever that's supposed to mean, only with being well-executed and suitable to its task.

Hm, maybe that's where Liesel was born, the intersection of the efficient narrative style and the vast proportion of the story that concerns the maximization of utility and the instrumentalization of persons by themselves and others, and the forces that incentivize these behaviors. Or maybe she's just the narrative counterweight to Orion 'Head Empty' Lake lmao. How's that for a principle of balance, Galadriel?

I really did enjoy how beautifully it was laid out, over and over, in dozens of shades of humanity, how no matter where you go in an exploitative system almost everyone is being driven by the same survival instincts.

Because I don't think I've ever seen made so cleanly clear why you just can't expect any person or small group of people, no matter their level of goodwill or status, to unmake one of these systems from the inside; how it's not a matter of people being bad but of every single person being very...small.

And then not retreating into the idea of a person who is Big coming and breaking the cruel system from the outside as some kind of panacea, because 1) that is terrible, even if it's necessary and done in the best way possible and 2) that's not a sustainable answer to anything. Getting a balance between the protagonist being able to effect change and not subscribing to the great man theory of history can be really tricky!

Also did I mention, I love El, and I love most of the cast, even the dreadful ones. How am I going around with this many feelings about Li Shanfeng who doesn't appear until the actual climax?

The romance murdered me a bit, but it took up no more space than it absolutely needed to do its job, and I respect that. Also I appreciated Orion as a love interest; Novik has a slight record at this point of a version of that style of male love interest who's like a caricature of Mr. Darcy but old, which was shaping up to be my least favorite thing about her body of work.

...Orion is kind of like if you took the human king from Spinning Silver and gave him an alignment flip come to think of it, so he's not coming out of nowhere. Lmao.

Which reminds me (re: romance character typing) I've heard Novik didn't want it to be known she was astolat, which this series has renewed my sympathies if so. Because if I were a published novelist I wouldn't want people going 'you know, that resolution was really emotionally satisfying! reminds me of that fic she wrote where optimus prime and megatron get stuck in a hole underground and hatefuck about it.'

I don't even like Transformers. That fic almost made me cry. Actually I suspect it reads better if you don't like Transformers because I'm sure it does not give a shit about canon.

Anyway, whoever pointed out that one of the things El has going on is she's Enoby (and we're going to sit down and explore what the true reason to put your middle finger up at preps is, and what are some constructive ways to channel that socioeconomic wrath, and what it means that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism) was right and I'm not entirely over that either.

Fucking love El's mom as a character. Spectacular level of parent relevance and usefulness. A+.

Aadhya and Liu are also characters who fucking delivered.

Re: minimalism though, I laughed at the start of The Golden Enclaves when I realized that none of the enclaver characters who'd gotten development in the the first two books were from London, the enclave El was theoretically shooting for when we met her.

#ask #hoc est meum #Anonymous #scholomance #my sister's biphobia made an appearance when i was reading the second book and tried to tell her about this thing i was enjoying #still mad at her about it #anyway though #good!#wish i could ask novik what she was thinking by making a single-cell abortion work as human sacrifice #like is it just because magic works on intent so if you think the newly fertilized egg #that you couldn't know about without magic #is 'your baby which you are killing'#then it is?#for purposes of hole in reality making?#or does this story have a spot where its politics sharply reverse and human life begins at conception #spoilers #scholomance spoilers #especially in the reblog #lakjfaldkfs seanan mcguire has granted this rambled Circulation oh dear

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strangestcase · 1 year

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For the people that are going to do Dracula Daily this year:

One of the subplots that Dracula covers, and arguably the most important subplot, is one centered around a psychiatric patient confined to an asylum- it touches upon the way he sees the world, his relationship with his doctor, and how he relates to and perceives the villain VS the heroes, since for most of the plot he believes the villain to be good and strives to serve him.

Both the patient and the doctor characters (who are part of the main cast and very important to moving the plot foward in their own ways!) are portrayed as sympathetic victims to the main villain and mostly on the side of good, but in different ways, and, of course, the way they are written is informed by the beliefs of the time.

I won't spoil anything too important about it, just warn you that this subplot depicts Victorian Era ableism, which is... pretty extreme, and forms of medical abuse (specifically, psychiatric abuse) that still exist today!

This plotline involves:

-depictions of hallucinations, delusions, and irrational thinking

-medical malpractice: delusions being encouraged, patients being dehumanized, prolonged use of dangerous restraints

-unsanitary behavior (eating live animals)

-ableist attitudes from most of the hero characters

(other Dracula fans pls tell me if I've missed something)

What do I make of this? you ask. Well...

Do not excuse medical abuse, even if it's fictional. The doctor character is, for all his medical malpractice, depicted as a complex person that has some likeable traits and he undergoes a pretty sad arc relating to loss and trauma, like most of the heroes of this novel. This doesn't make him any less of an abuser, nor makes his patient any less of a victim!

Refrain from using ableist language or rethoric. The patient character, being written for a very old horror book, is often depicted as "unsettling" and his strange behavior is sometimes played for horror. This 1) doesn't make his situation any less deplorable 2) doesn't make him any less sympethetic and most importantly 3) doesnt give you a free pass to treat him as a scary horror monster. He's a victim of both the real monster of this story and the system he lives in.

Listen to psychotic fans. Research the history of Victorian asylums. Understand the historical context. Look at this subplot from a holistic perspective instead of treating it as a horror story within a horror story (although, it is a horror story, but not for the reasons some think it is!). Just don't be a dick to disabled people.

If any part of this subplot triggers or squicks you, you are not obligated to read it, just be aware that it exists and that it is important to avoid perpetuating ableist stereotypes, be they present in the original text or not. (Hell, you are not obligated to read any part of the book if you don't want to do so. Dracula Daily is supposed to be fun. Analyzing literature is supposed to be fun. Enjoying literature is supposed to be fun!)

For the love of God, don't get angry if some fans dislike the doctor character for what he's done and take the patients' side. This was an issue during the last Dracula Daily run. He's literally the victim in this relationship. I'm not saying you can't like or dislike either character but I have to reiterate: do not erase either character's contribution to the plot, do not demonize the patient character for being mentally ill in an "ugly" way and beliveing the villain is good, and don't woobiefy the doctor character because he said a funny thing once. Both are complex adult human beings so don't expect them to be caricatures.

Do not be afraid to call out ableist behavior from other fans, but also be careful to not overstep or talk over disabled fans, especially psychotic fans.

During the Dracula Daily run, some blogs will warn about the entries in which this subplot takes place, and what triggers apply for each one of them. If you need those warnings, don't be afraid to reach out for them!

Happy reading!

#dracula daily #dracula #dracula daily 2023

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zadr-day · 5 months

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Why ZaDr?

Think of every worthwhile rival ship that has ever existed; dip it in a poison coating of cynical worldbuilding, sprinkle it with a topping of shunned existence, and let the devil kiss it with a waxy pair of slimy, scifi alien lips. Only then, will you have yourself a sample of what ZaDr has to offer. These characters are compelling in themselves; one being a bizarre and paranormal obsessed clone of Earth's greatest scientific mind, the other a malfunctioning spaztic robot ant from beyond the stars. Each of them ostracized, for one reason or another, largely by virtue of their own passionate past mistakes.Those mistakes, failed efforts to be seen as worthwhile, to be praised, to be loved. But then you set them against each other, as enemies. As mirrored foils. Neither of them in the right, gray morality reigns supreme as they are purely obsessed with their own selfish reasons for self aggrandizement. Anything “good” that might happen as a result of their actions is always cast in the light of unintended circumstance. The true fight is with reality itself, while the sharp end of that crushing conflict is pointed towards the only one who could possibly understand what they’re going through. In the world of Invader Zim, every mentor, leader, parental figure, teacher, adult, child and Invader, feels more real by virtue of misanthropic absurdity. Their inability to provide the support and guidance for the main characters to function in a healthy way, is so very like the absence of nurturing many people feel in their youth. To anyone who has experienced life at its worst growing up, these caricatures of the real world provide a powerful sense of being seen. There is something radical about a story that isn’t written with any other moral than “ this living in society shit sucks”. That speaks to people, and continues to speak to me. ZaDr has always smacked of tragedy, in that you know things will end badly for everyone involved, but it’s still impossible to look away as everything is set ablaze. Two headstrong protagonists, locked in a battle of opposing wills and addictive delusion. It makes the sweetness sweeter, it makes the pains of grand fantasy ache deeper, knowing that these two characters are ultimately fighting losing battles for pitiful reasons.The denial of personal failure, the stubbornness to find purpose. In all of reality, all they truly have is each other. To see that dynamic and ship them is to say that love is possible even in the most dire of circumstances. Time and time again I find myself returning to ZaDr. I think something about the dynamic speaks to the part of us that knows things are wrong and that the fight against it is worthwhile. And that struggle, while futile, can still hold a tremendous amount of personal importance. It speaks to failing, and having the strength to get back up to try again. No matter the odds. For a pairing hated by its own creator, the fixation that Zim and Dib have on each other is an undeniable magnetism seen by the fandom since the launch of the cartoon, all the way back in 2001. This ship has staying power, and after over two decades has failed to fall into total obscurity. Those touched by its effects have gone on to create resonant, deeply meaningful works. This blog, and the posts that I make on the topic, are my way of giving back to the ZaDr community. By displaying the stories of triumph and tragedy put forward by the IZ community, I hope to welcome new fans and give back to long standing fans by providing a living archive and blog space. I look forward to sharing the wonderful talents of so many artists with you all. Happy first ZaDr day of many

#zadr #invader zim #zim #dib #iz #zadr-day official

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amarriageoftrueminds · 1 year

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something i love is how Steve Rogers canonically takes after his mother. both appearance wise and in terms of his ideals

too bad the mcu's powers that be didn't care to explore steve or bucky's backstories beyond catws, or else we could've gotten an actual appearance from Sarah, but that's ok future projects can fix this /copium

but anyways Steve is canonical Momma's Boy, I wish marvel would remember lol

now if only marvel could also remember that Bucky Barnes is a protector and steve's guardian angel with a shotgun (or i guess sniper rifle, during the war)

cuz if marvel did then they could be genius and retroactively give us flashbacks/scenes in the past that put Bucky back there with little Steve and show interactions between Bucky and Sarah and have Steve's mom thank him for looking out for her fighter of a son, and also retroactively include scenes of Bucky's family reacting to their kid choosing to pick up the disabled little bullied Irish kid and decide he must protect hehe

there's too much good shit there that sets up the true nature of Bucky and Steve's friendship, which i feel like marvel writers kinda forgot over the years and replaced it with caricature-ish flat understanding of both Bucky and Steve, so such scenes would be good to remind writers and the audience of why they've been caring about each other and give insight into their parents

Am I the only one who gets the vibe that, quite apart from wanting to unravel any plot-threads which undermine the specialness to Steve of the Token Female they bothered to put in the Cap movies... they don't want Steve to be a Mammy's Boy, cuz they see that as less acceptably manly and cool?

Like: Tony is allowed to obsess over what his dad thought of him, across multiple movies (and ditto what the Odinson boys thought of Odin's opinion of them) but mothers only matter if, and only while, they're being fridged?

Ditto with Bucky's mother too, now I think about it (at least his dad also gets zero mention or exposure). And it would be so sweet and easy to have flashbacks of kid Steve and Bucky -- it would even save them the hassle of having to pay for the adult stars, to film!

Also can you imagine kid-Bucky, already a worrier, asking Sarah what Steve's dad died of and finding out he died from having bad lungs and this just unlocking a whole new level of nightmares for him about Steve and his 'fuck you imma fight everyone in this dirty dank alleyway with bad air' attitude. 😩

I absolutely 100% headcanon Bucky and Sarah as having a whole unspoken language between them, as the only two people on earth who get Steve. I always imagined there would be a whole series of private memories -- moments of non-verbal communication between him and her -- which even Steve himself wasn't privy to.

#historically accurate stucky tag #toAyourQ #dat's me #hey nonny #stucky meta #kid steve and bucky #WE SHOULD'VE SEEN THEM #sarah especially we should've seen it's actually criminal we had screentime wasted on others over her #they really just blatantly did not give a shit about doing comics-Steve justice #he's not the guy they want they want Soldier Boy #remember folks: REBLOG 🔁 / DON'T JUST LIKE 🤍

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red-elric · 5 months

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i hear yall on 'girls can wear pants just bc jane does doesnt mean shes a trans guy' but homestuck is a deeply symbolic webcomic. its different! the skirt in homestuck is used as a signifier that a character is a girl more than it is as a genuine fashion choice in the early days of the comic; with the sprite as the only representation we have to go on, rose in particular with her shorter hair becomes more obviously feminine with the skirt, eyelashes, and lipstick at a glance. the need for the skirt as a visual distinction decreases as the readers become more familiar with the comic and the art style advances, but the original motive still remains! and is turned on its head when we are introduced to the trolls; while aradia, kanaya, and feferi wear skirts, nepeta, kanaya, and vriska decidedly DONT. this choice is intentional; we are told explicitly that in troll society the differences between men and women are arbitrary, with fewer rigid rules and distinctions than in human society. the extent to which that is actually TRUE is a little bit up for debate, but it definitely has some truth to it, and nepeta, terezi, and vriska all have a level of gender fuckery about them that aradia, kanaya, and feferi dont quite have in the same way. (kanaya of course has a DIFFERENT kind of gender fuckery about her, but its a different vibe and not really relevant here.)

then we meet the alpha kids. the skirt as a signifier is irrelevant at this point; we already know which characters are boys vs girls because we have the background of their adult counterparts. you can argue that jane is introduced wearing a skirt to make it clear that it is her and not jake in her first teaser panel, since she also has short hair! and thats about it. janes narrative is all about her own agency and her lack of control in her own life. she is brainwashed, she is locked in her own home for her own protection, she is kept in the dark from her friends' true feelings and secrets because they dont know how shell react. every choice she makes for herself prior to entering the medium is framed as a mistake that ruins things for everyone; her dad, roxy, dirk. and yet, when she does enter the medium, she is alone and free from other influences for the first time. her dad is missing, condy cant (or, more accurately, currently isnt interested in) access her, and she is outside the realm of societal pressure from earth, with her three friends who have never met another person in real life before. and with her newfound freedom, she chooses to wear pants; the first human female character in homestuck to do so. she has a hands free computer headset that gives her a faux moustache. and i think thats relevant!

of course, when she becomes god tier and immediately crockertiered, all her agency and control is lost in a way that doesnt ever return to her, even in post canon content. from that moment on, she is the maid or the heiress only, and cannot express her own desires in the narrative; she has been reduced to a caricature of what condy and aranea believed of her, and in this narrative she is grossly feminized in the worst possible way. just. food for thought.

#it me #homestuck #jane crocker #jcrocker #transmasc jane crocker #using she/her in this post for clarity but. thats a dude yall!!

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renthony · 1 year

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Some recs for adult animation I enjoy:

People always seem to think I only watch kids' shows, so here's a list of animated television shows I adore, that were all made with adults in mind:

King of the Hill - Genuinely didn't think I'd like it, but I actually really love it? I expected something that was basically just The Simpsons or Family Guy, but got a surprising amount of emotional depth from the main cast. Bobby Hill is my son boy.

Futurama - I am legally obligated to list Futurama. I have watched the entire series so many fucking times. I'm going to watch the reboot and we all know it.

Disenchantment - It's more than just "Futurama medieval fantasy" but tonally, they are pretty similar. I enjoy it immensely. Bean is a #bicon, and that's fucking canon <3

Samurai Jack - The original show aired as a kids' show, but the revival apparently put it into the adult category. I haven't gotten that far yet, but holy shit, it's so good so far. Even the "kids' show" part is pretty mature, imho.

Bob's Burgers - I fucking love Bob's Burgers. I need to catch up on the more recent seasons. A sitcom that DOESN'T have parents who clearly hate each other? Whaaaat?

Harley Quinn - I'm not caught up, and there are aspects I have critiques of, but overall, it's been fun as fuck. I LOVE this interpretation of Ivy so fucking much.

Metalocalypse - My dad's a metal musician, so this was on in my house all the time when I was a teenager. I haven't watched it in *years* but I still reference the early seasons in conversation constantly. The Duncan Hills will wake you, motherfuckers.

Big Mouth/Human Resources - They are better than you think they are, and the "ugly style" reminds me of classic Klasky-Csupo. Compare it to Rugrats and tell me it doesn't have similar caricature styles. Story-wise, it nails the exact blend of panicked awkwardness I felt as a disaster tween, it has SO MANY queer characters. They dramatically improved on their more problematic aspects after getting called on it in seasons 1 and 2. And Human Resources made me sob like a little baby in the episode with Kieth from Grief.

BoJack Horseman - Starts off as a goofy gross-out humor sitcom but very quickly becomes a serious drama. Incredibly heavy and dark, but holy shit the catharsis. Delves into a lot of musings about morality, celebrity culture and Hollywood, generational trauma, and the perpetuation of cycles.

Tuca & Bertie - Goofy slice-of-life about characters navigating their 30s. Lots of musings about family, trauma, sexual abuse, queer dating in your 30s, friendship, and trying to survive it all. I relate so fucking much to the main cast.

Magical Girl Friendship Squad - It's a magical girl cartoon about milennials. Their magical girl weapons are birth control pills and a bong. It's fucking amazing. I'm really sad nobody else seems to have heard of it. :(

Little Demon - Sitcom about the Devil's daughter. Unsure if it's going to get a season 2, since it's about to get taken completely off of Hulu. Still worth watching if you can, because it's so fucking good. Centers on a teenage girl navigating Being A Teenage Girl while also dealing with her dad being the Devil and her mom being a traumatized mess who's figuring her own shit out.

Q-Force - The advertising did this show so fucking dirty. It was genuinely fucking funny, and it was clearly made with love. This isn't straight people making fun of us, this is queer people making queer comedy. Watch it.

Arcane - Arcane's politics are all over the place and I am in my "Silco Was Right" corner, which is right next to the "Magneto Was Right" clubhouse. But goddamn, the animation is gorgeous and the story is intense.

The Legend of Vox Machina - I haven't watched Critical Role, so I can say with confidence that this show is fucking amazing even if you have zero interest in the original gameplay streams. Fantasy animation for grownups, where they can show blood and titties, my beloved. <3

#original post

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lurkingshan · 2 months

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How does one even talk about Doctor Slump, which started spectacularly as one thing before devolving into a completely different thing? I guess I’ll treat is as two distinct dramas, because that’s how it felt to me.

The first half of Doctor Slump was a touching story of two people in mental health crisis learning to take care of themselves while supporting each other through the worst moments of their respective lives. I found Ha Neul and Jeong Woo easy to empathize with and even easier to love, and the mature way they communicated with each other so honestly about their feelings felt like a revelation. I was invested in the work they were each doing on themselves, the unfairness they sought to address in how they’d been treated, the hard conversations they had with friends and family, and the effort they put into understanding each other and finding equilibrium as a pair. I loved this show very much.

The second half of Doctor Slump was an incoherent mishmash of random kdrama tropes with only a passing relation to the first show. The characters ceased being mature adults and started interacting mostly via exaggerated aegyo. They felt increasingly less grounded and more like caricatures of themselves as the show abandoned the mental health storyline in favor of silly plot contrivances, trucks of doom, manufactured health scares, and more filler content than I could cope with. This show skipped any meaningful relationship development and ignored their mental health until the very end when it suddenly brought the doctor back to tell us no more therapy or meds are needed now because they’re happy, you see. I hated this show very much.

If you’re seeking a great drama with flawed and lovable characters that takes mental health crisis seriously, I highly recommend It’s Okay, That’s Love. You won’t find what you’re looking for here.

#ay yi yi #what a turn this one took #if they had kept it to 12 eps and finished the original arc properly we coulda had something #doctor slump #kdrama #shan shouts into the void

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