#this is more shitpost than serious I'd say | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

otterlyfoolish · 4 months

Text

Toriko Roommate HCs

A bunch of Headcanons of on being roommates with the Toriko characters. Semi-shitpost purely because I'm doing this to get a laugh out of it. Pretty platonic stuff. Not edited, I hate editing!

Word count: 2.5k

(Heavenly Kings & Komatsu)

Toriko

I could see him living with someone else if he wasn't able to live in his candy house anymore. It'll probably because they refused to keep making them.

Eats the fridge out. He also eats the ice in the freezer. Nothing is left.

Gone as soon as you step away from the vicinity of the kitchen area.

Don't worry about it too much, he'll leave enough for one serving. Just one. It's for you so you have something to eat for the next meal.

Your shopping trip for one now has to turn into shopping trip for two. If you have a list of stuff to buy hung up on the fridge somewhere, he'll start writing on it. The list of items in his handwriting is more than double of whatever you buy to eat.

He makes up for it though. Causally slams down a massive stack of cash to cover for the cost of it and then walks out to go get lunch with Komatsu or something.

Invites you out to eat sometimes. Expensive restaurants are just as likely as chance as the local noodle joint.

You have a pet? No. You had a pet.

Your pet would naturally gravitate towards towards him

He would probably take it on a walk even if it was a pet fish or bug.

The worse part is that he doesn't even feed it, they just like him more than you. An natural animal's person.

You'll find them napping together.

He's a shedder. Blue hair everywhere, he has so much hair it blocks up the vacuum cleaner.

His clothes are also spread about the place, but when he notices them, he'll chuck them in the washing machine.

He probably isn't home too much. But you know when he is because you can find a pair of muddy footprints leading up to your front door.

When he is home, he might bring some people over - he's a social guy when he isn't out hunting or eating

Sometimes might bring over Komatsu. You'll find the two of them sitting on the couch watching some cooking show. These are the best days because he usually stays until dinner and makes all three of you food to eat.

His brothers might come over. Coco is a delight to have. Sunny is snippy, but you can tell he cares somewhat. Zebra… You're afraid that he won't stop at emptying your fridge, and will start chomping down on the metal container.

You could probably grow used to being his roommate, there's nothing too bad, just a collection of a lot of little things.

Coco

I don't even know how you convinced him to be roommates with you - I cannot imagine a scenario where he would do this.

But it barely even matters since you won't see him. Like at all. You'll have to live with him for a couple years before he even thinks about starting to warm up to you.

Almost always in his room. He's deathly silent too - you won't hear a single thing from him ever. The absolute most you'll hear is him talking to some sort of bird outside his window(?) You still aren't really sure who he's talking to, but you occasionally hear some bird sounds.

On the rare occasion you see him outside, he's reading a thick book about something you'll need a master's degree to fully understand. He'll simply greet you and return to reading. Don't stare too long or he'll retreat back to his room.

You have no idea how often he's at home, purely because you have no idea if he's even home or not from how much noise he makes. The only way you could really tell is seeing if his shoes are gone or not. It's unsettling, borderline frightening.

Extremely respectful of the shared space - no dishes in sink, the place is well-maintained, there's barely any indication that you live with another person. The only thing that's his is the massive bookcase that takes up a fair chunk of the room.

If he likes you, he'll let you read some of the books on the shelf. Just under no circumstances do you dog-ear the pages. Your privilege will be revoked instantly. The bookshelf will be replaced with one that requires a lock, or even worse, moves to his room and you will truly never see him again.

If you're friendly enough with him, you could possibly invite him to watch something together on the television.

If you ask him what he wants to watch, you'll end up watching a three-hour long documentary on something - pray it's a topic you like or you might not make it out awake.

If you fall asleep during it, he'll just turn it off, and probably won't accept any other offers to watch stuff with you. It's not that he's offended, it's more so he sees it as redundant if you're not even going to be awake.

Don't worry about it too much, if you like playing puzzle games on a console, he might come out and watch you play. He won't say anything though, even if you get stuck. If you want help, you have to ask him.

Never brings guest over. Though, guests will sometimes make their way over.

Toriko and Komatsu are the more common ones. They usually come bringing food. It's a good day when they come to visit because they will share food with you.

Sunny is rarer, if you see him, it's usually urgent and Coco will leave alongside him immediately. You probably won't see him for a week at least.

Once, and only once you met a man covered in blood, half naked with a ripped jaw. You fainted at the sight.

Coco later told you that that man was his 'baby brother'. You still don't know if it was fragment of your imagination.

A stickler that he seems to keep doing is showering in scalding hot water. If you forget and just jump in, your skin will burn.

Apart from that, he's a fairly good roommate? He'll leave you alone, and won't cause any fuss unless you're doing something he really, really doesn't like.

Sunny

Passive aggressive as hell

If you shed a lot of hair, and aren't diligent on vacuuming it up in time, he'll gather all of it up and place it in front of your bedroom door.

If you leave the dishes undone for too long in the sink, he'll do the same thing - leave it at your door to trip up on.

You'll probably have a lot of petty arguments with him. Nothing serious.

He's a good roommate in other ways though.

He's probably not against sharing his skin care products with you if he doesn't hate you too much. He'd probably even give you tips on how to help or maintain it.

But do not ask him to borrow any or his hair products. None.

You will never see a bug in your living quarters ever again - he will eliminate the cause effective immediately.

The same applies to rats, or any pests of any kind. He will not tolerate having any of these things in his home, so you'll also be safe from it.

If you watch TV, he might come in uninvited and give you running commentary on the people's appearances or the show itself.

"Really? That shirt with those pants?"

…Even though he's kind of a fashion disaster himself. The only reason he can pull it off is because he has unrivalled confidence in himself.

"…Gross. He's obviously having an affair with the girl at his workplace. The story isn't even good."

He'll still watch shitty dramas as long as you keep it on the screen.

You think that he secretly enjoys it.

"…Are you seriously watching Toriko eat absurd amounts of food for entertainment?"

Insert scoff here.

He might actually just turn the TV off for this one.

Just remember to turn down the volume if you're watching late at night - he will be very upset if you interrupt his beauty sleep.

Rin has a pair of spare keys to your place. You'll see her in and about even if Sunny isn't home at the moment. The two of you sometimes trash talk him, but she mostly just waves at you and continue doing… whatever she's doing at your place.

Sometimes when she comes over, the place smells 10x better. You're not sure what magic she works, but you swear it could be drugs.

Overall, not a bad roommate, but could certainly be better.

Zebra

…You really wanna do this? Alright.

I'd recommend buying sound-proof headphones and sound-proofing your room.

It doesn't actually help that much, but it's really just for your own peace of mind.

Also team "Empties the fridge", but doesn't stop there.

You're concerned he might actually just eat the fridge. Whole. Unhinge his jaw like a snake and crunch it like nothing.

Jokes about eating your pet if you have one.

He makes half threats about eating you if you don't buy food everyday.

Doesn't even matter if you do buy food every day since he probably won't be there the next day

If Toriko had muddy footprints, he has bloody ones. Do Not Ask. He'll answer you, but you won't like the answer he gives you. Just save yourself the horror.

Police will absolutely come by a couple times a month purely because of your neighbours calling them on him.

Maybe it's the bloody footprints. Maybe it's the fact he broke the 'tiny' doorway on the way in.

When they explain that they thought that he was going to kill you, you laugh but wonder if the police would even stand a chance if he was going to kill you.

It doesn't help that he leaves for weeks at a time and comes stumbling in covered in gore he hasn't really bothered to clean off yet.

You don't even really know what to do in this situation apart from explain that he's a roommate.

No, he's not trying to kill you.

No, he is not holding you hostage.

Yes, you would like for them to stop coming at this point.

The few redeeming qualities are:

Your home is completely safe. You will never worry about a break in - he can hear anything happening for miles and miles. In fact, if anyone were break in, it would be him.

Yes, he's done it before after losing his keys.

Yes you just woke up, walked out to see him covered in blood, waved at him then went back to sleep.

Yes, you are far too desensitised to blood now.

Rats and other creatures are too afraid of living in your home - pests will actively avoid living there. Just be careful about your pet running away from home if they're able to. (They'll get used to him eventually)

He will sometimes bring back an absolutely massive chunk of meat - . You may eat it if he likes you enough.

But if you eat it, you have to help him cook it. No matter how good you are at it, he'll just shake his head.

…He's probably thinking that Komatsu could do better.

Komatsu

In my opinion, the best roommate on this list. Purely because he is the most normal on this list.

Will cook for you. You will cry tears of joy. Weep. You will be grateful simply because of how tasty it is.

He'll be organised with the kitchen, it'll pretty much always be full.

Just… If you move anything, remember where it came from, because he'll get pretty upset if you keep doing this. He likes a system to his madness.

The fridge will be fairly stocked, but he'll keep a list of what he needs on a paper stuck to a magnet. It'd be appreciated if you could buy these items when he can't.

You don't get to spend a lot of time with him. Between being Toriko's partner and running his kitchen at Hotel Gourmet, he doesn't have a lot of free time.

When he comes home, it's late at night. The two of you should be asleep.

In fact, he tells you that you should be asleep at this time. Fucking hypocrite.

When you do get to spend time with him, he's probably in the kitchen tinkering around with something new he bought at the World Kitchen or something Toriko had swung by to give him.

If you really wanna spend time with him, you should just pull up a chair to the counter.

If you're close enough to him, he'll invite you to help make dinner.

Don't worry, he'd give you something really, really simple to do.

There is no room for disappointment.

If he isn't experimenting, he'll probably be watching some sort of cooking show. (A massive part of his personality is just flipping cooking and I love it so fucking much) You're welcome to join him watching the show.

Just be careful since he will be asking you what you think about contestants three's pie crust. He will not be satisfied with a half-assed answer.

He'll have a notepad on his lap, and he'll be taking notes whenever something interests him.

His notes are very neat, so you can read them, but you aren't sure if they make much sense.

Toriko is a common sight in your home. He'll just sit on the couch with a bag of food he took out of the fridge. He'll give you a nice big grin while waving at you with your lunch plans in his mouth.

Komatsu will probably scold him a bit, but you know that nothing will change. You'll probably see him in two weeks doing the same thing again.

Since he isn't home often, and he's a pretty likable, you'll probably start doing his portion of his chores after long enough. He insists you don't have to, but you'll probably end up doing it.

He also gets you to get rid of the spiders. Don't kill them though, after meeting Toriko, he'd avoid doing these things. Just put them outside.

Don't try to scare him even as a joke - he will scream his lungs out and your neighbours will think that a murder had happened.

Also… be careful you don't join his fucking harem.

#toriko #toriko imagine #toriko x reader #this is more shitpost than serious I'd say #OtterlyFoolishYapping #Toriko headcanons #coco #Sunny #Zebra #Komatsu #x reader

33 notes · View notes

genshingorlsrevengeance · 7 months

Note

Lisa, Beidou, and Yae Miko with a reader who worried that they are going to leave them / aren’t interested in them.

(Genshin Impact) Lisa, Beidou, and Yae with an insecure S/O

Man one night we go from pelvis breaking shitposting imagines to really sad topics. What the hell even is this blog's posting?

Lisa looks shocked upon hearing S/O's thoughts.

She stays silent for a moment, her finger silently tapping the side of her teacup, politely waiting for them to finish.

(S/O) "-...I know it's unfair of me to think that of you but I can't help but think of it. Why choose me? I must be boring compared to anyone you could've chosen."

(Lisa) "..."

S/O says nothing else as they stare silently, seemingly ashamed that they vocalized their internal struggle to her.

Lisa gets up from her chair before taking them into a gentle hug.

(Lisa) "There are lots of people in this world, S/O. Sure, some of them may be smarter, better looking, or whatever you can think of. But I don't care about them. The only person I'd want to be with is you."

Feeling S/O lean into her hug after saying that, she begins to smile.

(Lisa) "I chose to be with you, S/O. I don't, and I never will regret being with you."

Beidou and S/O drank inside her cabin to celebrate a successful sailing with the crew of the Crux.

However their conversations had gone from stupid smalltalk to a pretty heartfelt discussion.

Although the beer they had helped loosen their tongues, they could think coherently. Which is why what S/O had told Beidou surprised her.

(S/O) "-...Am I really gonna be able to keep up with you and the others? I feel like I'll only drag you down..."

Beidou slams her drink down before shaking her head.

(Beidou) "Drag me down? Hell no, you can't drag me down. The person who matters the most to me could never."

Calming herself down to not scare S/O, she puts her head onto their lap.

(Beidou) "I don't ever want to hear you say that about yourself again. I'm with you every step of the way, no matter what. If you're doubting yourself, then I want you to believe in me. Because I believe in you."

Yae quietly listens to S/O voice their insecurities to her. Their voice was barely a whisper, but her ears were able to pick up every single word.

(S/O) "Someday, you'll probably grow bored of me, right?"

(Yae) "...S/O, are you aware of how long I've been alive?"

(S/O) "...I-I know it's been a few centuries at least-"

(Yae) "Then you must be aware of all the things I have witnessed throughout that time."

S/O quietly nodded. Yae held up a hand before they could speak of.

(Yae) "I do not think you are. I could have simply chosen to ignore you. There are many people who are far more interesting than the both of us, believe it or not. And there will continue to be such people."

Yae moved close to hold their hand, though her expression told S/O that she was completely serious and not about to tease them.

(Yae) "Why on earth would I spend my time with someone I didn't care about?"

They looked like they were about to cry before Yae turned their face towards her and gave them a kiss on their cheek.

(Yae) "I may be alive long after you're gone, but I would not dare to think of the life that could have been without you."

#genshin impact imagines #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact headcanons #lisa minci x reader #beidou x reader #yae miko x reader #lisa minci #beidou genshin impact #yae miko

283 notes · View notes

under-lore · 7 months

Text

About "Tweets aren't canon"

One misconception that one seems to be nearly guaranteed to see brought up by someone whenever discussing Undertale/Deltarune lore with people who are not particularly invested in it is that "Toby Fox said tweets weren't canon".

And, when you first hear it, it actually sounds quite convincing, because this tweet is in fact real and does seem to say that.

So... What's actually going on here with tweets and with this one in particular ?

The actual status of tweets

Before mentioning what's really going on with that specific tweet, i'd like to lay some groundwork first.

For instance, regarding the fact that this tweet dates back from November 2016. And that if the tweet were to be taken seriously, it would mean that no tweets especially after that date are to be treated as canon.

Something that is rather explicitely not the case.

There are several examples for this, although the Gaster tweets which introduced us to Deltarune and directly link up to the game's "Goner Maker" introduction sequence are i would say prime offenders.

Here in these tweets, we are not yet connected, then we are given a way to connect.

Then, we pick this back up where we left it in Deltarune, where we are then asked wether the connection was a success.

This has of course been pointed out to Toby (although he never responded to those messages), and yet it did not prevent him from re-doing the exact same thing a few years later for chapter 2.

In short, the situation is that, to this day, Toby Fox still purposely uses tweets in order to provide important canon-accurate information about his games, with the Spamton Q&A as recently as last year.

In light of that, using that one tweet to say that any information coming from tweets is invalid just can't be right... So one might wonder :

But then, why did Toby say that ?

The problem comes from the fact that this quote is usually cropped like this when people try to share it around :

Which is greatly misleading !

Obviously, Toby Fox's popularity comes mainly from Undertale and later Deltarune. Due to this, and due to the majority of the fandom nowadays being teenagers, many in the fandom are not aware that ever since his own teenage years, Toby Fox has been for the lack of a better term, a massive shitposter. A habit that only started to die out after Undertale's release and in the year that followed. (Though he still shows glimpses of it from time to time)

I mean, we are talking about the person who kept on posting memes on twitter for nearly a decade and who made "a goast poot on u" at the end of the Earthbound Halloween Hack, his first semi-serious game project.

Why ?

Because he's just that kind of "funny guy" and felt like it. His words, not mine.

This was, up until not so long ago, the kind of person that Toby was online.

When taking all this into account and looking back at the un-cropped version of that quote, it becomes pretty obvious what's going on here.

Toby Fox found a bootleg nursery rhyme video of Undertale characters, found that hilarious (As the "funny guy" that he is), and decided to make a shitpost about it. Joking about how this weird thing that he found, right here, was the peak of official Undertale material and might just be more canon in his book than the kickstarter or tweets were.

The post that started this whole thing in the first place was just that, a shitpost, a joke, not something that Toby ever actually meant. Which honestly should have been pretty obvious in the first place, i mean, this is still a post about Toby trolling bootleg nursery rhymes, people. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously...

Besides, that tweet's statement would have been self-contradictory anyways. If tweets weren't canon, then this tweet would not be canon either, etc... Leading to one of those silly paradoxical loops rather than to an actual statement about tweet canonicity.

So then, that brings the question : Why ?

Why do so many people still claim that tweets aren't canon ?

The reason is likely the same as the reason why this misconception was created in the first place : It is a rope to cling on to for some people to defend certain headcanons that Toby had debunked via tweets.

Because yes, between late 2015 and late 2016 Toby used to once in a while answer a question about the lore of the game on tweeter. Leaving some people with their headcanons turning out to be wrong.

(A few examples of headcanons that Toby denied on twitter were that Undyne killed the green soul human, or that ghost monsters used to be humans, for example.)

It was some of those people, in the first place, who started cropping this tweet to make it seem like their headcanons were still on the table and started the mess in the first place.

This rumor, at its origins, was not just a mere misconception but rather a deliberate attempt at misinformation from some fans that weren't happy with the way Toby had taken the game, which is unfortunately still being shared around to this day due to how sensible it seems at first sight.

#toby fox #undertale #deltarune #twitter #undertale theory #deltarune theory

286 notes · View notes

richierambles · 1 month

Text

More to the plural cartman batshit theory because I'm still thinking about it

I know it's not normal to have my brain so consumed by something that started as a fucking shitpost but pls bear with me

Disclaimer this is still a batshit theory and not rly that serious even tho I'm lowkey obsessing with it lmao

The Cartman System (i need to give them a name 💀): Alters List

Hitler: LMAO WAYS TO START IG- but listen up. It's one of the most obvious alters ever. Like, if they're a system, I'm 100% sure they have a Hitler factive. Probably he gets front triggered when he's gotta act more commanding and stuff - like in The Passion episode (extremely obvious), or when they "become a ginger". He also hates Kyle more than anyone in their system, for obvious reasons 💀 (I don't support antisemitism in any way!!)

Hosts: yes, I mean hosts, in plural. I feel like in the first few seasons they only had 1 host, but he was also slowly splitting, until in Kenny Dies he finally split in 2 to cope with it. One of the hosts (calling him A) is more emotional, kinda like a normal(ish?) 8-9yo, meanwhile the other one (B) is the manipulative asshole we know Cartman as. Moments in which I think A fronted would be when Kenny was in the hospital, saying he was his best friend and crying on Kyle's shoulder - B most likely had 0 control over it. Also, I'd like to believe A did want to use the fetuses to save Kenny, but seeing he was too late, B switched in to not be seen as emotionally weak. Usually they're both fronting together, but B definitely has much more control than A most of the time.

Jenniffer Lopez: another alter whose existence I'm pretty sure about. One of the first times she fronted was in s7 e5, and it started by her cofronting with both A and B (mainly B). But eventually B left front, leaving A alone with her. A is kinda a wreck so he was sincere when asking their friends for help, but as the end of the episode arrived, B fronted again triggering A and Jenniffer out, and acted like it all was an act and not serious. Jenniffer is also the one who wears drag confidently af- such as in the Make Bullying Kill Itself song.

Little(s): I'm 99% sure cartman's system has at least 1 little, if not more. I feel like one of the times in which we see them front is in Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut, when Cartman's doing a tea party with his stuffed animals. They're also the ones who play most with said stuffies - when most of the others are playing, they're actually communicating with each other in a more socially acceptable way (because cmon it's more normal to talk to your stuffies out loud than to yourself, mainly if you're 8-9yo)

By the way, I'm still by the beginning s10 so this will be improved as I watch more episodes :)

#join my plural cartman agenda >:3 #plural hcs #eric cartman #south park #sp headcanons #south park headcanons #south park hcs #eric cartman headcanons #plurality #actually plural #plural system #plural community #sysblr #system things #plural stuff #system cringe #endo safe #pro endo

20 notes · View notes

frostbite-the-bat · 2 months

Text

no but genuinely. i love shadow filbo dearly. he means a lot to me.

he marks a time for me where i began embracing what i like just... for the sake of it!

he embodies the things that inspired me to draw online in the first place. hell, sparklecat characters with bangs have made me stop cutting my hair. i haven't cut my hair properly since. just because i wanted the same bangs, not knowing how hair works. now i have what is best described as messy fluttershy hair. to many people just how long my hair is, is what defines me when they see me and my hair is in a way special to me.

and again - he was what inspired me to draw. in class i'd be drawing my own sparklecats at the age of like 8, with bangs and wings and little companions that sit on clouds that rain hearts. (and bolts and skulls when ANGRY!)

i put rainbows on everything. i thought nyan cat was the embodiment of everything good in the world. i listened to nightcore versions of songs only. i say, as i am listening to nightcore, right now.

because of all these old classic animation memes and sparklefurs and silly scene and emo song flash animations i'd find... i'd pick up ms paint and draw. i imagined just how i'd animate, finding even the simplest methods absolutely mesmerising. there is something to be said about me being this young with internet access - because it very much so had it's negative effects. not me watching fetish videos at the age of 8 just because it had pokemon in it. yea that did not have any lasting effects.

but despite all this shit - it raised me! and even just a few years later... like.. 2015 when i began posting online on deviantart for the first time, not being just a lurker... learning how The Computer works better - not only drawing on paper anymore and gaining more and more interest towards digital art... i was already nostalgic towards these earlier days. but still living IN it, y'know?

just having fun, doing my own thing! isn't that what art is all about?

well. then the cringe culture nation attacked. severe bullying at school. and in general, just shame - which i am still fighting in certain aspects. but it's a bit more complicated than just "shame". (more so fear of Things.)

i'd look back at things with either genuine "cringe" or a distaste. how DARE these people have fun? because deep down, i was simply jealous.

if i was going to reference anything old like this, like classic animation memes, it was framed as "JOKE" "NOT SERIOUS" because i feared i would be harassed, made fun of, or people would thing THAT is the best of my artistic abilities. but... it's not like that.

and now, more and more people are embracing this. and it makes me so happy. and shadow filbo helped me fight off these fears a lot and just let me love what i love and be myself.

maybe it's not an ""aesthetic"" that completely defines me, maybe it IS a tik tok trend to do nowadays - but i don't care. without any of this i wouldn't be here. those were my first inspirations. silly colorful cats animated to crunchy mp3s of songs using movie maker and 3 (three!) frames drawn in ms paint. it had so much charm. it had so much genuinity. and i could feel it even back then.

without it i might've not been here as i am now. there are so many things that go into this, of course. but i simply would not be the exact way i am. and i dunno. that's something to think about.

thank you so much, shadow filbo. one "mistake" with you i've had was thinking i should be a good creator of something and respond to every fan and fanart, which only stressed me out. i have... opinions! about being recognized in various places and, as some dub, a "NICHE INTERNET MICROCELEBRITY" (nothing against you fox </3).... yeah! not a fan.

another mistake was dubbing him as a "joke" always. and... he is! he is humorous! i am a jokey person! i like crunchy shitposts! i like being the reason people laugh! i will go to certain levels to even ridicule myself just for the bit, and i don't mind it. i'm hyper(active) and i am just a jokey person, that's that. but... him being called a joke was honestly just a shield from people taking him too seriously.

if people were to mock me for being nostalgic for nightcore, and rainbows, and edgy amvs, sparkledogs, scene culture and clothes, rave songs... all this!

but... no! people loved it! people loved it so much, it moved THEM to create art!

me, referencing things that made ME inspired to draw all those years ago - then inspired OTHERS to draw other things. to embrace themselves. to have fun. to connect.

it means so much to me. it's a bit odd to comprehend, too.

but it means the world to me. sorry if i am ever annoying about shadow filbo, and is often the first thing i bring up when bugsnax is brought up - but he is the highlight of my experience with bugsnax.

thank you so much, shadow filbo. and me and my wretched little claws, of course. for making them. and those that inspired me. those old friends i lost along the way, too. and those, that inspired those that inspired me. and so forth.

thank you.

#shadow filbo #important #<- i just don't want to lose this mess of a ramble.#i could add so #so much #but i'm not going to otherwise i'd have several long tangents. especially mixing like. queerness and growing up trans and a furry and then #nonhuman shit into this #and the bullying thing. and being in a country thats... yea. where theres even less people like you #finding a home in places like this. yeah. (happy kinda yea)

9 notes · View notes

paincaat · 1 month

Text

hello.

welcome to my perfectly normal tacky techy typewriter-esque page. i am your humble host, PainCaat, here to bless your eyes with absolutely wonderous works of art. pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure!

a bit about me, i'm an aroace breadcat who sold their soul to the overlord of cursed content and am now obligated to ruin everyone's eyes. i recently learned about the hellaverse just as hazbin released and made a tumblr blog for the first time shortly after to shitpost and make actual art about the show. somehow, this has devolved into a blog for cursed content. i have no idea what the fuck i'm doing. free me please.

Tags

🍞🐈‍⬛ - personal rambling

cursed nun cat alastor - this monstrosity

there will probably be more cursed ones in the future. stay tuned.

caatdoodles - doodle posts

FAQ

Why did you feel the need to make ___ cursed post?

Can I repost your work?

generally for personal use yes, but please ask first and include credit! the only exception to this is if you intend to use it with NSFW intent (ex. NSFW RP, commentary etc.). Just dont use my work please. it makes me highly uncomfortable to have my work attached to certain content and i will be blocking anyone who doesn't respect that

Can I request art?

feel free to drop them in my asks! i likely won't be able to get to all of them unfortunately so i will prioritize ones that i can make cursed, find funny. or can do quickly (just keep in mind i work over full time hours some weeks so there's a chance i'm not punctual with delivering depending on the nature of the request)

Commissions?

i'm still sorting out the details but i'd love to open them up! for now, if you want to commission me feel free to send me a DM and we could work something out!

Aspec Alastor?

i personally don't enjoy seeing the majority of alastor shipping content and will never make any serious shipping art. for cursed reasons or crackshipping? sometimes. (heck i don't even know how to draw a kiss properly).

that being said i do find onesided radiostatic funny at times and don't mind qpr radiorose. also its the internet, if you enjoy alastor shipping, be my guest. i just ask you to be respectful to my fellow aspecs and respect that this blog is meant to be an aspec-friendly space

Why is your art style so inconsistent?

lmao so i actually switch between using a bunch of drawing tools with varying proficiencies. i tend to do doodles on procreate or clip studio paint, and animate on krita. i would say that i'm probably best at using clip studio and krita since im more used to using a drawing tablet than a tablet screen. also i just like drawing in multiple styles for my personal art

thanks for reading - will update this as necessary :}

#🍞🐈‍⬛#i have no idea why i wrote the first bit alastor style lmfao

15 notes · View notes

annihilatius · 3 months

Text

Welcome to my blog where I document my descent into mental insanity. If you forced me to give this blog a label I'd say it's fandom-centric but I post a lot of other diverse stuff too, such as memes/shitposts, art, photography, so on. I also want to post about my original characters + their story. I am an artist but I don't post it often because of how long it takes and I don't really do sketches, so I post other things in the meantime. I try to stay away from intra-community discourse or general negative topics because it just makes me sad, and this blog is meant to be a form of escapism from my problems not a reminder of them. But of course I don't entirely ignore those things, so watch out for that if you don't wanna see it either. (Lots more under cut)

On stuff I actually like, you can just check my highlighted tags to see what I'm most into at the moment but there are more that I don't post often so I feel like I should address all of them at once. In fictional media, I like Bioshock (current hyperfixation), Pokemon (previous hyperfixation), Resident Evil but I don't really consider myself to be apart of the fandom because I don't play for the story or characters (I do like. Some of them though), Nexomon (previous hyperfixation), Fran Bow, Outlast, Amnesia. On fandom stuff, I'll talk a lot about the thing I'm currently hyperfixated on or have a special interest in, which for the moment is Bioshock (wow what a surprise). I mostly make shitposts, but I sometimes make serious analyses mostly on stuff I don't like because theres a lot more for me to say there, I don't do it to be negative I do it because it's fun to talk about. My brain for some reason is incapable of being hyperfixated on more than one thing at a time (I define hyperfixate by thinking about one thing 24/7 and making it about everything not *just* liking something a lot) and it can flip-flop often, so I apologize if you followed me for one specific fandom and then I got hyperfixated on something else. I never stop being deranged about a piece of media though, it just lays dormant like a sleeper agent waiting to be awakened again.

I know I said I don't like posting discourse but people apparently care about this stuff. I really, really hate DNIs because they're entirely redundant for a multitude of reasons, so instead of saying "if you are this thing then kys I hate you" like all DNIs do, because I cannot stop you from interacting I'm just going to list off things I do not support so if you do support said things I am going to block you because there are definitely things I have strong opinions on. All kinds of bigotry I shouldn't have to say. Exclusion/hatred of any queer group that's "acceptable" to shit on because reasons x y z (multisexuals, nonbinary people, aspecs, polyamorous people, queerhets, transmascs/trans men). I don't care for either side of "shipcourse" but if you are an antishipper or a proshipper and you harass ANYONE or justify harassment, please get a hobby and don't bother me. Don't come to me with ship, flag, or slur discourse in general.

Tag navigation! #v.txt < orginal text posts #v.jpg < finished art #v.png < wip art #asks?!?! < asks #pinned post < current or previous pinned posts #ocs < my ocs, if you're curious about them then I'd reccomend looking at my ToyHouse (specific ocs get their own tag) #scuffed game reviews tag < serious game reviews #❤ < my favourite posts (reblogs)

Last updated: 15/4/24 (DD/MM/YY)

#v.txt #pinned post

7 notes · View notes

kafka-ohdear · 3 months

Text

MISC. TAG GAME!

thank you, @dontirrigateme @theflyingfin @executethyself35, @ronald-speirs and whoever tagged me in this game, it means a lot to me 🥹🫶💖

favorite place in the world you’ve visited?

- i'd say hanoi (not because of hoa lo prison trust me). half of the photos i have in my gallery is about hanoi. i just can't help but adore its beauty and culture 🥹

something you’re proud of yourself for?

- being alive lmao. other than that i think it might be the sChOLaRsHiP (i don't know what to call since it does get me a disconut for the tuition fees but not for studying abroad 💀) and prizes i've achieved. not really proud of them but at least i don't have to worry when my relatives ask about my education.

favorite books?

- i'm terrible at choosing so here are some of them: all quiet on the western front; carmen; thương nhớ mười hai; da vinci code; từ gác khuê văn đến quán trung tân; beyond band of brothers; munich: the edge of war and probably odyssey, but i haven't finish the book yet so we'll see.

have you read any of easy company’s books? if so, which ones were your favorite?

- i've read ambrose's and winters' book, but the misinformation was laying everywhere in the book, so i totally prefer winters' "beyond band of brothers" over ambrose'.

when did you join the hbo war fandom? what was the first show you watched?

- i think i first heard about band of brothers at 9, and started watching the show at 10. band of brothers is obviously the first show i watched, and from this show i discovwred about the pacific and generation kill.

something that makes your heart happy when thinking about it?

- skinny sisk. if a bit more serious then it's probably this whole fandom (ily all so much 🥹🫶💖).

favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?

- i can't decide on my favorite actor/actress so far, but i'm mostly interested in anthony boyle's role as harry crosby in masters of the air now, so i'll go with that.

do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?

- SHITPOSTS 😭😭

favorite hbo war character and your favorite moment with them?

- obviously it's skinny sisk and i love every scene he is in 😋 lmao i remember there was a time when i got shipped with a boy in my class and my non-hbo war fan bestfriend literally yelled i got a boyfriend and he's skinny sisk 😭😭😭

random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?

- i can play the piano, not too much tho 💀

favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?

- my favorite one so far was "are you from the 1940s or what?". said by my friend to me one random day.

if you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?

- i'm too ashamed to publish my works anywhere but yes, if you don't mind reading cringy ass fanfics.

any nicknames you like?

- duck, because my viet name rhymes with it and my classmates & online friends call me duck more frequent than my real name so yeah.

list some people you love to see around on tumblr!

- literally every mutuals i have and people i follow, especially @mylastresortiswriting @lamialamia @murphyism @fkmylif3 @blvestxr @onehelluvamarine and @executethyself35.

what would you do during a zombie apocalypse?

- die, most certainly. maybe i can make myself some tea before doing so.

favourite movie?

- war requiem by derek jarman. i love every movies he has ever made.

do you like horror movies?

- probably yeah. depends on whose movie is that.

tags: anyone who would like to participate!

#tag games eheh #this is cool tbh #like #REALLY cool #thanks for the tag 😭#help

5 notes · View notes

autisticempathydaemon · 1 year

Note

Hello there! I'd love to have a match based on your opinion. I love your content!

-> Song I'm fixated on | Repeat Until Death - Novo Amor – "I can't seem to let myself leave you / But I can't breathe anymore / I can't seem to not need to need you / And I can't breathe anymore" (Anchor too, but this one has been more on repeat).

-> Enneagram type | Type three. Eight and six were the next ones though!

-> Imaginary friend | I don't really remember much about it, but when I was a teenager, I remember having a lot of OCs as imaginary friends. They were all interesting, and my favorite one was one named Ciel. He was tall, lanky, and really serious. His hair was white with a red strand, and his eyes were purple. He had pale skin and a vitiligo stain on his right eye. He always wore dark clothes. Mostly a dark, emo style. I miss him.

-> Go way to sleep | I start with audios (mostly Guy or David's playlists) but I end up listening to my sleep playlist. It has calm songs or just songs I feel like listening to.

-> Name change | yes! I don't really know why I chose my current name, and if I had a reason at all. If I did, I forgot. I used to have an oc who I called that name, though, and I believe I liked it so I took it from him once I decided to change my name. It was the last time I changed my name, as I went through a lot of them before.

-> Favorite audio | Currently, I'd say Guy's stolen hoodie audio. Either that one, or the friendsgiving audio with the damn boys.

-> Least favorite rboy | I'd say Vega or Blake. I'm sure their storylines are cool, but I'm not personally interested in them. (I haven't listened to Vega's storyline because of this). No hate to them, because they're really cool characters, they just bore me.

-> Favorite Show/Movie | not a book guy, but I can easily tell you all the plots of each episode from The Mentalist. Is not a super popular show, but God do I love it. As for movies, I'd say 'Mary Poppins Returns' and 'The Pacifier' are two movies I can say by heart. I've seen them countless times and I never get bored of them.

-> Platonic rboy | I absolutely adore Asher, but with him, I don't really see myself with. He's amazing, and I'd love to have him as a friend because from what we've seen, he's loyal and utterly amazing, but not really my type.

-> Comfort topic | Probably redacted, or talking about what I did that day. When I talk with my boyfriend before bed, we always end up just talking about how our day was and what are we planning for tomorrow, and I often start telling him stuff about whatever audio comes to my mind. I also like doing random silly games, such as asking questions, or opinions on something.

-> Comfort drink | I don't have a car, and I don't really buy drinks outside. But I do love chamomile tea and Sprite. I'd say Sprite is my go-to, and chamomile is a good alternative if I don't have a sprite. I also adore apple juice, but not all brands, just a specific one and that one only.

-> Favorite playlist | Don't really know if it counts, but I can't stop listening to PORTALS lately. I'm obsessed with the album and I can't leave it for a second. I do have a playlist though, it has a few songs I'm obsessed with (ex. What are we gonna do now - Indigo De Souza, Sex on Fire - Kings of Lion, Grocery Store - Cavetown, and so on!) And I absolutely adore that one too.

-> Guilty pleasure | Probably redacted, honestly. Or shitpost videos that literally don't make any sense and shouldn't be as funny as they are, but I die with them. I also love watching ts4 builders making different building challenges/houses.

-> Facts about myself | I'm a really stubborn guy, and sometimes I try to do every possible thing to fix a problem either than asking for help from someone who I know can easily help me fix it. I don't like bothering people with things I think I'm capable of solving, or even with things I know I can't. I like baggy clothes, and when I go shopping, you'll see me buying clothes based on the fabric rather than the pattern/color/style. The first thing I check about any clothing item is if I like the fabric of it. And if I don't, I won't buy it at all, no matter how much I like it. I like dogs, the color red, watching kid shows, and eating ice cream in excess. I'm scared of darkness, any kind of horror games/movies, bugs, and loud noises.

I hope that's enough! I really can't wait to see what you do with me. And I'm excited to reveal who I am once you do! It was super, super, super fun to write this down, so I'm already having tons of fun. Tysm!!

Type Threes (and Eights and Sixes actually) can be characterized by their stubborn, can-do, do-it-yourself attitude. They either, respectively, feel the need to prove themselves capable, feel it is their duty, or feel doing it themselves is the only way to get it done properly. This gives you major Smartass vibes that would be balanced well by having Aaron as a partner.

Aaron, as an oldest child and a high-achieving professional, is wonderfully capable and dependable. That doesn’t mean he needs to be or is capable of keeping that up all the time, but it does mean you can rely on each other when the other isn’t feeling up to task. Your independent natures can balance one another, give you a safe place to land and lean should you need it.

Also, he strikes me as the type of dude who adores a good, weekly crime procedural. Aaron is so cozy and domestic in his own special way; I could see y’all being very much at home, on the couch, in your jammies, watching a particularly favored episode of The Mentalist together.

Song:

If there is a load you have to bear/ That you can't carry/ I'm right up the road/ I'll share your load/ If you just call me

Again, depending on each other is a throughline I think works very well for the both of you. Also, we know Aaron’s a fan of classic country, so him liking some classic soul is not a big stretch of the imagination. (Oddly enough, this works really well for Aaron and Elliott’s relationship too, and ain’t that a kicker.)

Runner-Ups:

Huxley would be a good contender given he’s dependable and reliable like Aaron. I also have this adorable image of him growing the chamomile for your tea which I can’t get out of my head. David is the above traits plus dog. There’s nothing quite so simply silly as pairing a dog person with a werewolf lol

Note: I'm sorry, you were supposed to get this, like, two days ago, but the tumblr app kept deleting this despite all the times I hit save. Thank you for being patient!

Want a match-up of your own? Read this post, and tell me about yourself! 💌

#redactedasmr #redactedverse #redacted asmr #redactedaudio #redacted audio #redacted #busybee matches

9 notes · View notes

etirabys · 1 year

Text

(the second paragraph is serious, but the analogy between the first and second paragraph is a shitpost)

Years ago I read an article (true or not I cannot say) about people whose meditation practice lets them function on less sleep. The catch is that you have to meditate as many hours as you take away. Huh, I thought at the time. If this is true, then people who meditate are able to do a function (memory consolidation? background processing of stuff?) while conscious that the body usually can't do unless it's unconscious.

I notice I was really really tired an hour ago (and mostly stopped writing/talking, which I'd been doing for much of the day) and am really really tired now, but spent that whole hour doing... er... it's hard to say. It involves being on my computer. It involves writing up and musing over the most interesting things that happened to me today. It involves rereading the words I wrote for my fiction project and sort of... getting used to their existence. I empirically wanted to do this more than sleep, which I wanted very much. I was barely on social media (I posted some of these thoughts and immediately switched my attention to reading/typing more thoughts) so I don't think it's an addiction thing. And after an hour of this I have a distinct relaxed / garbage-out feeling, like I've mentally caught up with my own day.

#rambl #my day was #in order: writing; frantically getting a coffee; writing in the car; talking about writing to my writer boyfriend;#hiking while explaining Evangelion; trying to operationalize NGE Instrumentality so we could even have an argument about its desirability;#writing on patio in remote Airbnb; eating dinner in a too-loud restaurant typing fic research questions at GPT4;#talking about writer's block; talking about baby names for boyfriend's future kids; collapsing in room and somehow writing a little more;#at some point crashing and going 'now i have to type... about EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED'

18 notes · View notes

kozykricket · 6 months

Text

Pinned Post (Updated)

Hiya! I'm Jake (or Julia, because why not have 2 names? gender is a suggestion anyways) pronouns: they/he (though, she/her is also acceptable. bigender vibes) I mostly use this blog to reblog shitposts, reblog art, and talk about games i love. I try to avoid reblogging any sort of serious matters.

(I may rewrite this interests section, but I'll just edit the post. Spent time on the tags section.)

I really like posting minecraft ideas or concepts here, because I'm a big nerd for the game, and ... well, is it fitting to say I'm an aspiring game designer? Game design fascinates me.

I'm also a big nerd about writing and stories in general, particularly in games. I'm that one person who'll probably interact with every npc before moving on. I enjoy theories... lore... all that stuff. Games are art!

In terms of fandoms / fixations, ha... well, my interests fluctuate a lot. In terms of here, I'm sure minecraft will stay consistent. even my interest in deltarune fluctuates. But I'm really into lots of games, especially indie games.

My favs include minecraft, terraria, undertale/deltarune, pokemon, stardew valley, risk of rain 2, hollow knight, celeste, oneshot, ori, and much more! Besides games? I love uh... music. Not that I'll talk much about it here I imagine. I love... seeing cool art! I love... writing! I love... cats and dogs!

I try to tag my different types of posts, and I'll especially try to use the following tags more consistently following today.

TAGS I USE AHEAD:

#reblog - reblogs, whether they're art, shitposts, whatever (#fav reblog if I really love the post)

#jake ramblings - general ramblings of mine, if you care to hear about them. May mostly be me appreciating my friends and cats.

#[game name] ramblings / idea (i.e minecraft idea, cassette beasts ramblings, pokemon idea) - because I love thinking up ideas for games like minecraft... or just talking about how much i appreciate game design or just. may be having fun. I'll always tag the game itself, too.

#[game name] spoilers - for if a post contains spoilers or leaks for a game, although any spoilers will also be behind a "keep reading" line.

#toxicity / toxicity mention - if a post mentions people who are generally shitheads on the internet, I'll tag that it mentions toxicity. If I'm responding directly to someone being toxic, it'll include the toxicity tag. Mostly goes for me ranting about minecraft haters.

#vent - a vent post, which I will always include a "keep reading" line in. Don't feel the need to read these, I just like getting them out there sometimes.

#mild vent - similar to the above, but more casual frustrations than serious topics. Same rules apply

#post im proud of - I'll retroactively be editing some of my posts to include this tag, it'll act as a sort of... best of my posts, I'd say. The posts that I would like people to see the most, anyways.

and finally, #jake meta post, for posts like these, anything pertaining to the blog itself

#jake meta post #pinned post

3 notes · View notes

joemuggs · 1 year

Text

ESCAPE THE CRINGE

I first wrote this piece for an art mag at the start of the year but they dicked me about over rewrites so much - and I mean really dicking about, like radio silence for three weeks then suddenly demanding changes for the next day - that for the first time in my life I actually pulled a piece. A couple of other outlets were up for it, but needed further alteration to fit house style... With so much going on I let it slide and let it slide, and now it's been so long I just feel like shoving it out there. It still feels relevant (maybe more so now that we're seeing an increasing public collapse of some of the most high profile demagogue scammers, albeit with new hydra heads quickly replacing them), and I'd rather have people see it and maybe feed back, rather than wrangle over it any further. So without further preamble, here's some thoughts about one of the defining reactions of our time and how to get away from it.

👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

We live in a time when groupthink and echo chambers are everywhere, where ingroup radicalisation, cult-like behaviours and submission to scammers and demagogues seem to be defining patterns of the era. Blame for these things is often laid at the feet of algorithms, of politicians, of capital - in many cases rightly so - but we all individually play the game too. We build the walls of our own cultural gated communities, with tweets and artworks and individual choices about where to go and what to say, and the more we do so the more those spaces that we force ourselves – and others – into become more or less gilded prisons. We all think we’re hip to something, and end up orbiting that something endlessly.

The first rule of hip club is you don’t talk about hip club. That is: if you’re serious about your aesthetic nowadays, you do your very best to not acknowledge that it even is an aesthetic – let alone identify its rules and delineations. Now, of course this doesn’t go for everyone: there are still anime cosplayers, emo kids and others who still gauchely adhere to the overt “style tribe” late 20th century ways of belonging. But these are exceptions that prove the rule. Far more often the things that make us “us”, that hold us together, are still based on taste - but these tastes that provide us with a sense of belonging are signalled covertly. They’re signalled not by discussing, or even necessarily knowing, what preferences make you belong among Your People, but rigidly enforcing the ingroup-outgroup divide with reactions against The Others’ tastes: through a set of real or figurative winces, grimaces and cringes.

Oh yes, the cringe. That most visceral response, often deployed simply as a single word sentence by the Terminally Online, the argument ender to end all argument enders: just “cringe”. It’s noun, verb and adjective all rolled together into a gut level rejection, and it’s a dead giveaway that so, so many parts of The Discourse - as people solipsistically have it - is based way more on aesthetics than it is on any kind of coherent set of positions. That is, it’s less about showing revulsion at ideas, than about the fact that they’re expressed gauchely or clumsily or simply with the wrong slang. It’s a social cue, a nod to one’s fellows, to acknowledge shared good taste in memes, phrases and cadences, which one’s interlocutor has unforgivably failed to engage properly with.

This kind of of us-and-them cringe-signalling operates in various ways across society, but perhaps the most fundamental dichotomy is basic vs hip, or normie vs hip. This in itself is framed in a variety of ways, but a super simplified version might run like this: influencer culture, sincere slogans, Will Ferrell and The Office memes, Goop wellness, "Fiat 500 Twitter" on one side - and shitposting, pursuit of the latest zero-caps punctuational microvariant, everything intellectualised but ironised, the moods formerly known as “based” and "dank" on the other. The former sees the latter as smug, pretentious, nonsensical, messy while in the other direction the hip cast the basics as conservative, simplistic, unimaginative, conformist. Each cringes at the other, each considers the other fundamentally in bad taste.

And these dichotomies are held in place firmly by the material interests of vested powers. So to keep with our sample duality, on the basic side, there are the affirmatory or aspirational solution-havers, the Matt Haigs and Johann Haris, Rupi Kaurs and Molly Maes, while on the hip side there’s the Somethingawful-to-Vice-to-Broadsheet ironymonger pipeline and the Politics Podcast Industrial Complex embodied in people called things like “PissPigGrandad”. Each relies on hate and fear of the other to provide a steady stream of attention and income to those who shore up their own self-image, who normalise an way of being, who provide just enough answers to make people feel like they’re on the right track, but not so many that they won’t keep coming back for more. Yet each is, of course, built on a lie.

The basic think they are commonsensical and unpretentious, but actually adhere to byzantine aesthetic and political codes of belonging. The hip think they are switched on, fast moving and progressive but in fact their gatekeeping is deeply conservative: the solipsism of believing an echo chamber is “The Discourse”, no matter how ironically you try to couch that, is all about normalising enormously limited race, age, nationality and class boundaries around what is acceptable. Both are co-dependent false divisions of ideas and people made to shore up power structures and the interests of the privileged, and both are built on aesthetics above all else. Each is, in its own way, an insistence of good taste.

Once you see this, you see it everywhere. There are so many versions of this mutually exclusionary duality. Sometimes they’ll manifest as ostensible generational, regional or professional divides, sometimes as scene or faction schisms (and note well, political factions have more in common with musical, fashion or social scenes than anyone within them would ever care to admit). Each time, if you look, you’ll find that they are defined more by aesthetics than ethics: by those assemblages of catchphrases, by certain quirks of timing and emphasis. Whether it’s Dawkins and Harris quoting facts-and-reason guys defining themselves against what they think of as a feminised, emotion-driven mushiness in the barbaric masses, or underground music fans against the flash and spectacle of EDM, or vintage specs wearing postgrad ketamine-leftist cliques against “shitlib centrists”, or crypto-bros against anyone who doesn’t have a wallet, all too often the sense of self is generated by what one is NOT.

And each time if you dig into what is happening in these oppositions, you’ll find someone benefitting in real, material terms: spokespeople, figureheads, demagogues, people whose theories or slogans are rallying points for believers and who rely on those believers for speaking engagements, podcast and newsletter subscriptions, NFT sales, academic tenure, political appointments, newspaper columns. There is a whole egosystem of commentariat and metacommentariat whose job appears to make bogeymen of one another, yet who one all too often finds in the upper echelons are on perfectly friendly terms when they run into one another in green rooms of media recordings, backstage at literary festivals or in the offices of the agents that they share. This last location not picked idly, n.b.: one of the UK’s loudest hip-left commentators of the past decade shares a literary agent with a leading hip-right provocateur and an old-school hard-right rabble rouser: they are very literally all in it together.

All of this, it really bears repeating, is built on lies, and further, is built on consciously or unconsciously deliberate obscuring of the truth, in order to support these power structures. If ever you see an argument that’s built around one of these abstracted dualities - pop vs underground, modernist vs traditional, respectable vs transgressive, health vs pleasure, decadence vs morality, rationalism vs “the blob”, take your pick - you can be sure that not only is there someone making cultural or actual capital out of it, but that they are muddying waters to make it more difficult to make out the connections, genealogies and human realities underlying what is being discussed. An appeal to take a side in one of these, ultimately aesthetic, judgements – an appeal to show good taste – is an appeal to feel the cringe instead of analysing what one is cringing at. It’s an appeal against scholarship.

Which is why we must, with extreme prejudice, abolish the concept of good taste. “In principle,” said the DJ and dance music producer Chrissy in 2020, “I think the idea of good taste is classist and racist! Usually whatever's considered good taste is what the most powerful or most educated or wealthiest people feel comfortable yelling about, and the ones out of them that can yell loudest and most eloquently about it, as a society we call that good taste.” And he is entirely right. No matter how you define “good taste”, you are defining it as a power relation, an exclusionary tool, a way to deride.

Which is not to say that taste and discernment don’t and shouldn’t exist – but they exist in the sense that scholarship exists. Not ivory tower, status-accrued-by-citations scholarship, but scholarship as in demonstration of knowledge accumulated and the practice of accumulating it. The kind of scholarship that’s as likely – or perhaps more likely – to be exhibited by autodidacts as celebrity professors. You can’t judge scholarship according to winces, grimaces and cringes, you have to take it on according to what it is actually saying about its subjects and objects: and so with taste. Someone’s taste should impress precisely to the degree that they demonstrate that they know and care about the objects of their affection, not for its adherence to a social code imposed by vested interests.

Maybe there are reasons to hope. The early years of this century were formed by information glut, by seemingly all of cultural history being available all at once. Many thought this would lead to cultural paralysis, a dissipation into undifferentiated “conent”, and a death of innovation – and certainly it can be seen to have driven a retreat into reactive and reactionary positions. When bold statement of preference and belonging is made difficult by the baffling array of choice, covertly coded taste bubbles are an inevitable outcome. But two things abode.

Firstly, those genuine old-school style tribes, from cosplayers to grime lovers, who grew up together over years, put in the time together, and truly and positively identified with what they do, and the real spatio-temporal existence of what they do, in defiance of the grimaces of others. Second, the rise in value of curation. It’s a word often derided because of its ubiquity in marketing speech, and mocked because “everyone’s a curator” (or “everyone’s a DJ”) nowadays. But curation at its best is precisely the kind of pride in scholarship and individual ability to map connections across the information ocean, that can short circuit the demands of good taste.

It’s available to all, it can be expressed easily – as punks did with paper fanzines and grime lovers with phone-shot video – and it is by its nature collaborative, sharing, and dependent on positive choices. There ARE glimmers of hope that Generation Z are more able to think in a curatorial way than their predecessors, to cut and paste the always-on data glut of past culture into something more actively expressed than reactively defined – something that can engender a sense of belonging without the need for those gut level micro-rejections of The Other to define itself. And if that is the case, then maybe, just maybe, they can demonstrate new ways to escape the cringe.

#cringe #culture #curation #ingroup #clique #politics #clan #family #echo chamber #aesthetics #good taste #hegemony

7 notes · View notes

grandhotelabyss · 11 months

Text

youtube

One more video from the same channel, on the "Who follows Cormac McCarthy?" question.

(Sometimes formulated as the "Who follows Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison?" question—an uneasy literary truce in the culture war, where conservative white men and radical women of color each get a representative great novelist, thus missing the radicalism of McCarthy and the conservatism of Morrison. Philip Roth seems to have been forgotten entirely. But I digress.)

Of our YouTuber's candidates, I fully endorse DeLillo and Ishiguro, two of my all-time favorites, never mind "living."

(With a gun to my head, I might even choose DeLillo over McCarthy and Morrison, despite the potential Italian-American identity politics involved. Or at least, in those three oeuvres, of which DeLillo's is admittedly the most uneven, the single book I'd choose for the proverbial desert island is probably Underworld.)

I agree that Erdrich and Silko are in the running, especially for those interested in McCarthy's own subject matter and regional commitments, even if I have quarreled with Silko's politics and sometimes found Erdrich a bit, well, middlebrow. Except for the visionary Housekeeping, written before her puritan turn, I dislike the preachy Marilynne Robinson.

I've never read a word of James Ellroy; please let me know if I must. For other "genre" candidates—I dabble in science fiction and comics, not crime fiction—one might propose Samuel R. Delany or Alan Moore. I read one book of Murakami's, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, sometimes acclaimed his masterpiece; I liked it, didn't love it, and it did not and would not occur to me to rate him above DeLillo.

Our YouTuber flippantly dismisses Joyce Carol Oates. I've advanced only inches into her vast oeuvre—a handful of short stories and essays, one book on writing, two short novels, one long novel—but it was enough to convince me that she's serious, her admittedly discrediting late turn to the genre of the Twitter shitpost notwithstanding. His dismissal of Stephen King may go without saying; I hate George Saunders; I agree that Franzen, along with David Mitchell, Neil Gaiman, and even to some extent Louise Erdrich, failed to follow through on their early promise.

I insist on the inclusion of Cynthia Ozick, not least because she does something like Marilynne Robinson's project right, with a much fuller, more anguished, and more properly abrasive acknowledgement of what happens in the soul of the believer-artist when an iconoclastic faith confronts the artistic imagination. Now 95, she released her most recent novel at age 93; I thought it was excellent. I concede, though, that it's probably her body of work as a whole—encompassing essays, stories, and novels, and possibly giving essays and stories pride of place—that is great rather than any one novel, great as some of her novels (The Cannibal Galaxy, Foreign Bodies) are.

(For at least one essay of my own, and often multiple essays, on every writer named above save Ellroy, please see the REVIEW INDEX on my main site.)

All of these writers are elderly or near enough—the youngest are in their 60s—and greatness is perhaps not stirring as obviously as we'd like in the under-60 set. It's harder to identify, though, due to the diminution of mainstream publishing, the proliferation of self-published work, and everything's having moved online. The novel isn't dead, but it is elsewhere. Some of us are doing what we can, and I concede I am probably too immersed in my own vision to judge adequately my more exact contemporaries.

#Youtube #american literature #english literature #japanese literature #literary criticism #cormac mccarthy #toni morrison #don delillo #kazuo ishiguro #louise erdrich #leslie marmon silko #marilynne robinson #haruki murakami #cynthia ozick #joyce carol oates

6 notes · View notes