#objects deconstructed

[mystxmomo]

;;; thing i noticed

[the-owl-tree]

i think spottedleaf could be an interesting character if wc had any meta or self-awareness. she barely has any dialogue while she's alive (barring her prequel), her first appearance is a male character commenting on her youth and beauty. she's taken an oath of chastity, solidifying her purity and presence as a youthful figure in firestar's life. all significant interactions she has with other characters is through dreams, quite literally being an idealized figure and she's only ever seen from other character's perspective always held up as The Romantic Standard in comparison to fallouts of an actually real and alive woman (sandstorm). idk she gives me rose bride from utena vibes if that makes sense.

I really like this reading of her!! I would actually kill for some sort of meta fic of her, some deconstruction of her role with what you're describing. Definitely feeling the rose bride vibes you're getting at it.

[curtsies-from-princess-ashlyn]

....Andor S1 is kinda a slog to get through. I still have 4 episodes left, and then a whole other season 😭 I'm trying REALLY HARD to finish the show (or at least the first season) before making a judgement, but this is.... not really Star Wars. I would liken this show to Game of Thrones mixed with the Hunger Games, and some added visual/set elements from Bladerunner. Star Wars is like Lord of the Rings, not Game of Thrones. I'll share more complete thoughts when I finish S1.

[kaxtwenty]

Hey guys would it be insane if I only watch Evangelion after watching the rest of UC Gundam, Ultraman, Ultraseven, Space Runaway Ideon, Space Battleship Yamato, Aura Battler Dunbine, Devilman and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water?

[trappedinafantasy37]

Your chest is heavy with breath as the battle rages all around you. You take your mace and bash through every enemy that dares get in your way. They stand to threaten everything that is important to you. You cannot let them succeed, you cannot let them get away with it, you cannot let a single one of them live for they are wrong. They are a stain, a plague that needs to be eradicated.

You push further into their sanctuary, destroying anyone and anything that you can find. You do not hold back and you show no restraint and no mercy. You laugh at their measly and pathetic attempts to fight back. They stand no chance against you and your might. Do they not recognize how much better you are than them? They fail to see what such abhorrent trash they are, and you are here to make a demonstration.

It took a lot of energy and there were a few close calls. But all those who would have stood against you lie cold on the ground. You take a deep breath, appreciating the sweet and metallic smell of blood. You won, they did not. You walk around, inspecting the corpses, looting all you can find for the spoils are now yours to take.

You wander into an isolated corner to a body whose arm leans over a ledge. This corpse piques your curiosity as it is a fish out of water. It doesn't belong up here. How did this one get wrapped up in something so vile? But, then again, maybe that's just her base instincts as murder and carnage are all that drow are known for. And look at her now. Dead, cold and alone, left to be remembered by no one. Her hand reaches down over the ledge to a home she can never return to. You loot her corpse of everything, being sure to leave her naked and bare so you can belittle and humiliate her even in death. Because that's what good and honorable people do! It's what she deserves anyway. Someone as evil, and vile, and horrible as her doesn't deserve respect, not even in death.

Her blood, along with who knows how many goblins, soak through the skin of your hands and drips off your mace. Gore, bone, and brain matter decorate the metal plate of your armor and tangle in your hair. Corpse after corpse is left in your wake. The decorative stone of the temple once held sacred now runs with the river of blood you spilled.

How many lie dead thanks to you and your allies? You have killed far more in this goblin camp than that drow ever would have if she found the grove. Goblins, bugbears, ogres, a drow, a hobgoblin, a few lost humans, and even children, all dead by your order. And they all deserved it a thousand fold because they are all wrong, and evil, and your world has no place for them. It does not matter if they ever actually would have been a threat to the grove. No, their mere existence in proximity to good people is threat enough. And you are a good person and you only do good things. And that is exactly what you did by killing them all.

You return home to celebrate and inform the tieflings of the good news. You talk, you laugh, you dance, you sing, you drink, you fuck. You did a good thing today. A heroic thing. You committed a massacre, a genocide. But that's acceptable because you are a good person and you only do good things. They would have otherwise done it to you. But, they are wrong as they did not have a good reason, at least not one that you could find. You did, and thus this massacre, and only your massacre, is justified.

And you continue on your journey. You learn more about this Absolute and the nature of these 'True Souls'. You think back to the fight at that goblin camp and the three True Souls you killed. They were just brainwashed, forced against their will to commit horrendous atrocities. Atrocities that you might have been forced to do yourself had you not been so lucky. You shake your head, removing all semblance of doubt and sympathy. The reality does not change a thing. They were an active threat and they deserved to die and be denied chance at redemption. As far as you are concerned, drow and goblins are just born evil and should be killed on sight. None of them deserved to live. You had to punish them for what they might do, rather than what they actually do. True Soul or not, that drow would have been a threat to you and anyone who breathes. Even if you knew before hand the full scope of her situation, you would have made the same choice because she is evil, and you are not because you only make the good choices.

You slaughter and kill your way to Baldur's Gate, leaving behind bloody footprints with every step you take. You have paved a path of corpses in the name of this crusade. You have killed, lied, stolen, manipulated, cheated, and exploited all to claim your victory and force your principles onto the world because you are good and the only one who is correct and knows what's best, and thus your actions are good. You intend well. You want to save the world and help people. You want to snuff out all evil. And sometimes being good means killing.

But, in the end, you always end up doing all the same things that the bad guys would do, making all the same actions that lead to the same outcome. And that outcome often is death and carnage. The only thing that separates you from them is your intentions and your perception of those intentions. And all those who disagree will die by your hand because your morality will not be questioned, as those who question you must be evil because you are good.

You stand atop a mountain of corpses, happy and proud of your deeds because you did the right thing. The smell of rot and decay spirals around you as you stand amongst the dead, erecting yourself as a pillar of honor and integrity. There is a growing list of names that have been permanently removed from the world by your hand, amongst them is a genocidal lunatic, a lunatic who never would have killed as many people as you have.

You are a good person. A hero. And yet, your hands are just as bloody as all those you killed, those you claim to be evil.

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

Where would you advise someone to start with object shows? I know nothing but the shapes intrigue me

I’d definitely recommend starting with bfdi/battle for dream island by jacknjellify! season 1 is rougher but still REALLY funny; if you’re not vibing with it, start with season 4 (like I did) and then just go back to season 1 whenever you start wondering what they’re talking about when they vaguely mention the past.

The story has spiderwebbed out like crazy by now and i can't even keep track of it (there are only 5 seasons, and one is only one episode long! but two are running concurrently: 2 and 5, and the episodes keep getting longer). but it was the first object show, and my favorite one! most other object shows reference it, and all of them are loosely inspired by it by virtue of it having come first

some other good places to start if that's just not for you are:

It’s Time For The (which is a little off kilter and goofier but it’s so funny. it’s so funny. it's still a gameshow, it's just got a different thing going on and it's surprisingly good at writing characters despite everything)

Modern Objects, Epic Jungle Show, or Nightly Manor (none of which follow the gameshow format but all of which are very sweet, character driven stories. Modern Objects is sweet slice of life and very short, Epic Jungle Show is sort of meandering vignettes about two buddies in a jungle, and Nightly Manor is an emotional ongoing murder mystery that has yet to be solved)!

The non-gameshow ones are probably best for just jumping in without any prior knowledge, because any gameshow one (of which there are dozens on youtube. dozens and dozens) will lean on some BFDI beats and generally won't bother to sit and explain how it works (BFDI is VERY good at always explaining what it's doing and why things work, at least in the first several seasons, but shows that start as copycats generally just go "now we are doing the thing we all know about" and will sometimes even lampshade the fact that any characters or viewers who are confused will just have to deal with it.) so: if you're looking for a starting point, start with BFDI or, if it really doesn't sit with you, try one of the non-gameshow ones here! They just have cutey characters <33

gameshows are kinda the bones of object shows, a lot of times copying bfdi in very specific ways (what is an object show if it does not have nickel, pencil, and snowball in it. and a Recovery Center and Armless People! and powerful beings that show up and make you do contests for prizes! you'll see. once you watch like two shows you'll see it.) but as you can see, a lot of people made off with their own characters and did very different things with them!

There are tons of really good ones I haven't seen, and ones I like but didn't mention! Once you watch a few YouTube won't stop recommending you cutesy thumbnails, and you'll be able to get a sense of whether you want to watch it or not pretty quick into an episode once you know how they tend to go. Again -- BFDI is still like, the cream of the crop, the sourdough starter to me, it's worth at least trying it first to get an idea of what object shows started from, but if it's not your cup of tea or if you just want something different, there are a bunch of others you can dive into once you get an idea of what an object show is all about! the youtube community is pretty tightknit which makes it really good for clicking on one and then trawling through recommendations until you find something else interesting :]

[lichtecht]

i do think aromantics get to hate love actually. i do think we get to have anger and spite and i do think we are justified to express it!!

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Me, today: I will not get angry about people slandering Jesus. I will not lose my temper seeing yet another post throwing His character in the garbage as some politically woke or politically conservative people pleaser. I will not stab my hand with a fork when I see people poking fun at his friendships as homoerotic - *sees a post like that and slowly steps out of the internet*

No seriously. I am shaking the screen and BEGGING people to remember that even though Western Christian traditionalism has deep, *deep* wrongs, There Are Literal People Dying And Being Tortured Because Of Their Faith In Christ In The Modern World. And the way I see people making light of faith and outright mocking it or "dumbing it down" to appeal to their own moral worldview is sometimes kind of painful

[doomdoomofdoom]

What are your genders and can I have some

I have all the genders and also none of them.

Take as many as you'd like!

[davidlikebowie-noturaccountant]

margo. roth. speigleman.

i actually feel really strongly about this, i feel so strongly about this and i FEEL strongly so much and i'm gonna fucking talk about it because it's one am and i'm watching the paper towns movie because this is the kind of shit i do at one am and i am reminded of when i managed to quote john green in every single one of my ap lit papers and i was actually kind of impressed with myself and then one of my classmates got annoyed with me because (in her words) he "made the manic pixie dream girl trope" and then got mad at me when i tried to explain that in reality that is not at all what john green did, functionally. is margo roth speigleman a manic pixie dream girl? sure, if you only read half the novel. the whole point of margo roth speigleman and her relationship with q is to deconstruct the manic pixie dream girl trope. is there or is there not a whole arc in the book dedicated to q realising he was viewing margo as a concept and not a person. is there or is there not a whole page where he understands that he isn't understanding her or seeing her as a whole person. is there or is there not a moment in which he realises that that's bad and what is actually functionally keeping him from getting her and ultimately finding her. she is a teenager who has a lot of hurt in her, and for all his perceived faults john green is REALLY GOOD AT WRITING HURT.

and herein lies the problem, doesn't it? who is going to take the time to read the novel in the context of understanding margo past what they believe her to be? these same people who look at their real friends and see their hurt as surface level entertainment are the people who think that margo roth speigleman is meant to be the hailing crown jewel of the manic pixie dream girl trope, because they think that that is the function of trauma. the read of margo and her stroy, of the novel in general, as something that glorifies the manic pixie dream girl is a read that comes from a person who already glorifies the manic pixie dream girl.

maybe i'm projecting a little. maybe i had a friend who continuously compared me to margo in ways that made me realise he didn't understand the book. maybe when he said don't pull a margo on me as a fun little joke he didn't realise that there was some part of me that wished i was that bold. maybe that's the point. margo represents something, undoubtedly. but she isn't meant to represent the manic pixie dream girl in a way that markets it, rather, she's meant to show how the manic pixie dream girl is underneath the perception of the trope. what it means to be the person who others look to for their lifechanging experiences and use the ways that your hurt informs you to grow without helping or understanding you. using your broken pieces to build themselves up and then letting them break all over again after they get used up.

maybe i'm not making sense, maybe it's just one am.

but at the same time, maybe margo roth speigleman is so completely nuanced that people just want her to be shallow because it means they can get away without examining themselves.

anyway, i should stop consuming john green media in the middle of the night. it always makes me sad and pensive.

[danielnelsen]

hrm the frustrations im having with the bg3 toolkit i think all stem from the fact that i was expecting. idk. something like the dao toolset where you can make adventures, rather than just editing like.. visual stuff mostly. like there's a lot here and it's great but i cant find a way to add new levels or even visualise (let alone edit/create) dialogue

[azurecanary]

Trying to get someone to justify their beliefs on the Internet is like pulling teeth istg

[designernishiki]

today on tumblr user designernishiki’s autistic-with-a-special-interest-in-psychology deep dives: dissecting the hell out of kiryu/nishiki’s childhoods and kazama’s parenting (or lack thereof) and how it all relates to their emotional development (or lack thereof). they will never be safe from my psychoanalyses

[neonstatic]

i looked up "waking up from sleep delusional" without considering that google might interpret this the wrong way but no it understood me. anyway i'm suffering from confusional arousals and hypnopompic hallucinations a whole damn lot and well, it's quite disorienting

[annavkouts]

Caution & Hazard | traffic cone, chair, foam, fabric, glue, tarp, moss, and chair stuffing | 2/13/25

[patrickbrianmooney]

"This fatality (no photograph without something or someone) involves Photography in the vast disorder of objects—of all the objects in the world: why choose (why photograph) this object, this moment, rather than some other? Photography is unclassifiable because there is no reason to mark this or that of its occurrences; it aspires, perhaps, to become as crude, as certain, as noble as a sign, which would afford it access to the dignity of a language; but for there to be a sign there must be a mark; deprived of a principle of marking, photographs are signs which don't take, which turn, as milk does. Whatever it grants to vision and whatever its manner, a photograph is always invisible: it is not it that we see."

— Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, sec. 2 (tr. Richard Howard)