soulstar177

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genuine question — how is donating money going to help Palestinians if no food is going in? What is the money for?

Medicine, water, supplies, food, fuel (much of it black market being upsold at egregious prices) — these all cost money and pretty much all Palestinians in Gaza have no source of income now. It’s drops in the bucket compared to ending the siege and occupation but it’s one way to do at least something small to help. Others are in need of money to evacuate when the border opens again (which hopefully is asap…), tuition and supplies for school to continue studies despite it all. Another fund is focused on trying to rebuild farmlands in Gaza to get food again that way.

I can’t tell anyone what to do with their money but I don’t think this mindset of “well nothings going in so we can’t help” is helpful for people on the ground who are the ones saying that donations can and do help them survive.

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Where would you put a city on this map?

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We have this interesting situation where we basically no longer have privacy nor the expectation of privacy, but we also don't have community or meaningful connection with others, so we're all simultaneously both completely exposed and absolutely alone, and please understand that when I say this situation is "interesting", what I in fact mean is that it's "nightmarish and I wish I could wake up"

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like those senshi self care apparition comics but it's

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Twitter

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original - rhythm tengoku(GBA) rat race

can these three get another episode I beg

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rednote is the only good social media because its the only one that consistently shows me lambs from xinjiang in little hats

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please stop treating the word neurodivergent like it means the overlap between autism and adhd

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Speef is real to me. I'm sorry for that.

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Ploop ploop ploop

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EXPLORING THE GSGW HYPETRAIN

> prev reblog related

(NOT RESEARCHED, just random musings and observations —> unstructured rant )

This does make me think about the explosive popularity of Baek Deoksu’s works being two completely different works (oh but they have their similarities and I’ll add onto that)

Seriously, instantly explosive

I was not there for DOD but I can effectively say I was there Day 1 for GDCG and the article says enough of DOD’s popularity, so I’ll wager my guesses on the Baek Deoksu webnovel dominance™️

Oh but the reason is a pretty obvious phenomenon at least to me: ITS WOMEN!!!! (And other things! But let’s start with women) That’s right, my current observation of the webnovel space is that there is not a lot of non-romance works for specifically Women (actually there’s a bit of a case of this EVERYWHERE but we can talk abt that later if I remember). Baek Deoksu found a niche by incorporating the traditional power narrative elements (regression, time travel knowledge, system) into a non-action, but most importantly into a topic that would primarily be interest to specifically women (and mostly not men)— MALE IDOLS.

Now webnovels about male idols have existed before DOD but again, I am to believe Baek Deoksu revolutionized the sub-genre (Idol novel) by adding these intensely nerdy elements (for example the much rare system settings in a modern non-fantasy setting) and by being far more dramatized. Women yearn for works where they are the main target audience and catered to in tastes (like handsome men) but also dramatic, intense, action-packed stories without full focus on romance! (Oh but of course, DOD is packed with a bromance element)

(Oh I’m not being very clear here, but it’s similar to how people flocked to a game like Infinity Nikki. It was a game catered to and for women in a space that didn’t make doesn’t make a variety of games *specifically* for women. Systems and stats, not a very familiar setting for a female demographic does it?)

NOW GSGW is very far from the expectations of what a female demographic novel would be, in particular it’s a lot more neutral catering to neither side. But it very much had a carryover audience that trusts Baek Deoksu’s writing with their everything. I can honestly admit that GSGW is far from a particularly graphic or seriously scary horror story and much more within a palatable range for a general audience. Actually the initial setup is closer to a ‘using my cheat knowledge from reading the wiki, I can solve all of the ghost stories!’ similar to a power fantasy that we get to watch evolve into something entirely strange and different. Aside from the base audience of DOD fans, it’s something the general nerdy novel community can take to well. Interestingly enough, GSGW is neither too action/fantasy flowed nor too romance flowed, a middle of the line genre choice has made GSGW a gathering ground for all kinds of novel readers alike. A horror that’s not too horror esque with some initial comedic elements and a cheesy (will elaborate) world (and at least the initial cover, chapters, description and title screamed a little bit of dark comedic energy).

It is an addictive and easy flow of story right out the bat that draws interest immediately! (Not to mention that KKP releases usually start off with 50+ chapters anyway). And it’s drawing in a very INVOLVED primarily female audience from DOD with lots of fanartists, fanfic writers and the like who essentially jump started the popularity of GSGW through these fanworks. I think I can say, for the non-Korean audience, seeing all the fanart and being curious about where it’s from was part of the lure.

TDLR FOR THIS SEGMENT: Baek Deoksu wrote a unique work in a unique genre for a largely female audience who transitioned well into being fans of GSGW because GSGW was written in a way that was easy to digest and quick to dopamine especially those involved in fandom spaces. I will further explain what this means.

GSGW/GDCG is very built for fandom, dare I say even more than Debut or Die which is about literal idols. It’s a much more traditional fandom space actually and lends so well to it that I believe it’s a certain factor to its popularity.

Now… back to the ‘cheesy’ world. Oh seriously, I’m really invested in this world but I can admit there are so many blatantly fan service esque elements. People love masks and the mardi gras aesthetic. My memory of the initial fanart was ALL animal masks! Seriously, every character was drawn with their masks and basically not their face (but also due to Soleum not describing how they looked at all). Animal symbolism is direct fish bait for the theorizing fandom space all while being a fun and cute thing to draw and associate with a character. Oh my gosh and they’re all in factions, and sectored off in groups within the factions with different uniforms. Ghost stories can be whatever you’d like them to be, oh my goodness show business! It has rules but it’s so easily to express freedom. But the important factor is that the ghost stories we have seen thus far have taken many, many familiar elements from horror media, books, shows and urban legends we all know about. Familiar symbols and stories are timeless; People love them over and over again.

(These elements are familiar to a well-read webnovel/webtoon reader as well. The idea of canon and non-canon characters? Changing the trajectory of the original story? It’s real geeky yeah!)

I think there’s even the meta element of taking fan designs in stride and making the characters look so similar to the fan designs, imagined by all the fans who hardly have a real description of the character itself in the text. It’s become like a collaborative effort to make the characters look how they are… oh isn’t this similar to a collective wiki building the characters piece by piece? How meta.

And most of all, Kim Soleum is so familiarly Park Moondae-like in many ways. Specifically that they are written very… neutrally. Not particularly masculine, a personality that isn’t very loud and they’re there to get the job done (but not in the cold and callous way). There’s enough wiggle room to explore their emotions but damn they are repressed. Anyway. They’re the kind of characters that fandoms eat up. So much angst to explore, so agonized and yet in their actions, so much to be admired for and exclaim at. Impressive but tragic characters. Wow.

I can not speak too far into the Korean fandom scene. In the end, I lounge around in the western circles of this fandom. But I think GSGW (and possible coming webtoon adaption) will propel it to Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint tier popularity and especially a strong niche fandom like something to ORV’s community’s degree. I bring up ORV here because I genuinely can not think of a larger, more strong, special niche KR novel fandom than ORV.

The basis of ORV’s popularity is in a novel that presents itself at its base with fun and electric dopamine moments and later dives into a deeper narrative detached from its original ‘power fantasy’ appearance. Which I think is a similar structure to GSGW.

Anyway, only time will tell what will happen. If I had stocks in GDCG, maybe I would hit it big idk. A very absurd and loose study on why I think GDCG is as popular as it is currently and will expand while maintaining a cult following of sorts (haha cult)

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I think assuming ignorance over malice is a good principle to follow when you’re dealing with individuals. For companies, it’s profit motive yea.

Sometimes the cruelty is just a happy accident of the rent-seeking behavior

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Why isn't "too scary" a good enough reason to never drive a car

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If I had time rn I’d go screenshot a bunch of parvel’s expressions from the manhwa stigmata. Love a guy when he does the following expressions: smile (inscrutable), cutesy smile (facetious), murderous glare, and deep emotional pain.

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How can you get rid of the wolf, when it's one of the only things you have left of the lamb?

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hey everyone. so i've been playing the horse gacha game umamusume pretty derby. two things about umamusume are that at the end of every race the horses who won the race perform an idol concert, and that every horse girl has a ridiculous unaerodynamic vtuber outfit. and initially to me these were both things that are obviously silly but which you have to suspend your disbelief for because you can acknowledge the doylean reasons for having them. but actually they make perfect sense in universe.

umamusume textually have strength and speed that vastly exceeds that of any normal human. historically it would obviously have been massively impractical to apply the same gender role constraints to them that were applied to normal human women in many cultures. you need your horse women to both be allowed to go to war and want to go to war, and while obviously you do also want them to reproduce you don't want them to then spend years raising the kids, something normal humans can do, when they could be using their time on things normal humans can't do.

so i feel like in a lot of cultures there would be similar kinds of social developments to machismo but for horse women (horschismo) to incentivise their participation in physically dangerous activities, they would overall be subject to different social pressures and expectations from normal human women, and probably to varying extents they would often be considered a separate gender from human women.

however, like horses in real life, since the industrial revolution umamusume in industrialised countries have become an entertainment commodity when previously they would have been vital to labour and warfare. and being cute girls makes them more consumable as entertainment.

so obviously the idol shit is a deliberate 20th century invention to emphasise the girlness of horse girls, which both makes them more marketable and folds horse woman gender roles into the broader concept of "women" for everyone's social comfort. probably there is a lot of in universe scholarship on this and different umamusume have and have had a lot of different opinions about it. like i expect in the early 20th century there would have been plenty of umamusume who were totally hype to be able to be "normal girls"

now i'm being tongue in cheek here obviously. but also this IS the logical implication of the information presented in the franchise. if cygames didn't want me to come to these conclusions then they shouldn't keep showing us ancient egyptian depictions of bronze age horse girls and shit like that. hope you're having a wonderful day 🏇