#Audience means performance

[luxlightly]

"If you're hurt by finding out that a person you admired did something bad or are worried about the idea they might, it shows you need to not form attachments to people you don't personally know."

I have bad news for you about how literally the entirety of human socialization and the human mind work. You can say "here's a stick from off the ground. his name is Stanley and he has a loving family" and then break the stick and people will feel hurt because they formed a positive connection to Stanley. Humans project attachment onto everything. Asking people not to feel connections to other humans is not feasible. It's not possible and, if it were, it sure as hell wouldn't be healthy.

You didn't do anything wrong if you feel hurt that someone you didn't personally know did something wrong. You're not parasitic or obsessive for wanting people you don't personally know to be good people. Being devastated that someone you liked did something horrible isn't a sign you liked them too much, it's a sign you have the basic human ability to form emotional and social connections. Your responsibility is being aware of those connections and behaving in ways that are healthy, respectful, and keep you and others safe.

Trying to just not admire people or not feel a connection to other humans won't work. Focus instead on being aware of what your relationships to other people are, what actions on your part are acceptable given that level of relationship, what actions are acceptable on their part, and what level of relationship it's realistic or healthy to project. And be ready, as with all things in life, to change your views on something or someone when presented with new information, even if you have very strong emotional connections to the subject. For example: "I'd love to get a cup of coffee with the celebrity I don't know and talk with them about a film they're in. I imagine that would be nice." <- normal human emotion "I will go to this celebrity I don't know and ask them, apropos of nothing, to get a coffee with me/I expect this celebrity I've never met WILL go to coffee with me" <- Unrealistic level of projected relationship. Crosses boundaries of normal human interactions between strangers.

"I'm devastated this actor I liked was an abuser" <- normal human emotion

"I won't believe that this actor was an abuser because I like him and therefore can tell he wouldn't do that" <- Unrealistic and unhealthy level of projected relationship. Unsafe for you and others.

You can't just "not admire" people, yes, even people you don't know personally. Instead, be careful to make sure your admiration of someone doesn't affect your ability to make judgements about them.

[smartzelda]

Sorry guys I gotta speak my truth on this one

I'm not kidding when I say that I think that blaming shit media literacy from fans on shipping/shippers avoids the actual root of the problem to throw people you can easily throw under the bus (simply because it's not unpopular to consider people who post about ships or ship characters in media as having lesser or derivative tastes by default)

And here's why.

I think when you blame people who are "shippers" or "consume media through shipping lenses", the true root of it all is a mindset problem.

In actually, putting on shipping lenses can be helpful when trying to analyze a piece of media. When analyzing media you're supposed to approach it through a number of mindsets and put on different lenses (both to deepen your personal understanding of the media, and to pick it apart and see what you can find there (whether intentional or not on the author's part)), and different ships can be some of those lenses

When it comes to ships between main characters (for those who are genuinely willing to see what the narrative is showing with their relationship and what it's doing), there are times when analyzing it from a shipping lens may be helpful. As someone from KH fandom, I have seen people come to deeper understandings and pick canon apart in the process of analyzing a relationship that is genuinely integral to the story (platonic or not). I've also seen people get into rarepairs of characters who barely interact or who just suffer little screen time, and I've seen them come to better understandings of those side characters and how they potentially fit into the world of the media simply because people are now focusing on these characters and how they fit into the narrative.

Frankly, I resent the idea that the only way to truly objectively analyze a piece of media is by turning off the part of your brain that gets excited over relationships and individual characters. Don't get me wrong, that is a way to approach a piece of media and a valid one at that, but the truth is that we cannot be free of bias.

For instance, I was watching House MD with my parents circa last year. At some point I started heavily tuning into what was going on with House and Wilson's relationship. My parents, on the other hand, were largely watching casually. They're not thinking of character relationships or getting heavily invested in most characters, they're watching because they like watching. One of them in particular did try to analyze things that were happening in the show as they happened. However, when it came to the scene late in the series where House threw out Dominika's letter approving her American citizenship, my parents could understand that he was doing that because he didn't want her to leave, but not much beyond that. I ended up explaining to them that House's fake marriage for Dominika was an explicit parallel to when Wilson was living with House in the early seasons. Both situations started with House being none too happy about it but ultimately letting them stay, spending a considerable amount of effort getting them to leave/getting this situation to be finally over so he didn't have to deal with it anymore, and then by the time a piece of news comes through that would mean the person in question actually leaves, House hides this news as long as he can. Because he doesn't actually want them to leave and has grown attached. And by doing this he became a self fulfilling prophecy. By reacting to the truth of Wilson and Dominika leaving him the way he does, he seals his fate and they ultimately leave anyways. Maybe I ship Hilson, but becoming open to how their relationship was handled allowed me to transition to doing character studies and recognizing patterns/parallels that I wouldn't have noticed if I didn't particularly care about the characters or their relationship.

Likewise, I've seen mutuals complain about how people who don't like or don't care about certain characters often overlook these characters (what they're actually like and their place in the narrative), while the mutuals in question (by default) are able to come to deeper understanding of what the writers/story is trying to do because they care about this funky guy

You can't eradicate bias when you're engaging in media analysis, but you can consciously put on a range of lenses and observe the media through different povs with the goal of understanding the media better or bolstering your reading of it. And those lenses/povs can include focusing on specific relationships or the perpective of certain characters

And this is why I say it's actually a mindset problem. Shippers and people who have this one blorbo they like a lot aren't inherently terrible "fandom brained individuals" who are the root of media analysis problems. The problem only arises when people's readings/analysis of a piece of media are inherently restrictive/narrow and self centered. Your problem is with people who view a piece of media through a ship they like but don't keep an open mind about it, and whose "media analysis"/views on canon cannot be split from fanon and their comfortability levels. These are the people whose "media analysis" starts and ends with justifying their fanon as canon, whose views on media revolve around sorting characters and relationships into categories they personally enjoy rather than trying to understand what's going on.

Here's another example.

Here we have a fictional ship we'll call uhhhh...Blanebin. this fictional ship I made up on the spot for characters that don't exist named Blane and Corbin

Person A is super into Blanebin. They're part of the main cast of characters and canonically childhood best friends, so person A (as much as they enjoy fanart and fic) is also enjoying analyzing how narratively important to each other they are. Recently, Corbin started dating another character in canon, but Person A is enjoying watching how Blane is reacting to this. "Is this potentially a tell that Blane is jealous or is having complicated feelings about this? What if he was, how would that contextualize his behavior this season? Here's what I think based on how Blane dealt with explicit jealousy last season in a different situation". It's not impossible that person A is still missing further understanding due to their obsession with Blanebin, but at the end of the day this obsession has allowed them to start picking through the characters both in and outside this relationship. It has allowed them to see potential subtext and theorize on what might happen next with these characters' relationship. Not to mention that with addition of Corbin dating someone else, instead of trying to erase this fact or state that Corbin canonically isn't into that person, Person A is trying to factor in how Corbin's current dating life affects his relationship with Blane (irregardless on personal views on the nature of Corbin's relationship with the person he's dating).

Person B is also super into Blanebin. They really enjoy fanart and fic of the characters, love obsessing over their moments together, and just feel like there's really something between the characters. To person B, every moment between them is just further proof that the writers are ship teasing them. But Corbin getting together with someone else this season? Oh that pissed person B off. They cannot believe that even though Corbin and Blane are CLEARLY gay for each other the writers had Corbin get with someone else this season. Perhaps, they think, it was even a decision specifically made to spite fans. How evil of the writers to tease a perfectly good ship and then have them not get together first? They must have been just doing those teases to get views from Blanebin shippers those scoundrels. To Person B, since Corbin started dating someone when he obviously has some chemistry with Blane (even though the series is far from over) means that Blanebin can never get together now and Corbin x person he's dating is ruining Blanebin by existing. In fact, they think, this is terrible writing for Corbin to be dating someone else because they don't like that relationship and don't see the point. Obviously if the writers were good then Corbin would have started dating Blane instead because this was supposed to be the Blanebin show.

Person C despises Blanebin. Don't get them wrong, they've always enjoyed the character's childhood friendship, but they actually have always thought Blane would have been better off with Victoria. They have a lot of moments too! But they're tired of seeing people ship Blanebin. Corbin just got together with someone else, so obviously that's not gonna work out. Plus Corbin and Blane totally has always given person C bro vibes. In fact, person C thinks, sure Corbin and Blane have a close friendship, but people shouldn't be shipping them. Person C likes Blanetoria and Blanetoria can't be canon if Corbin is in the way of it. So Person C likes to read Blanebin as siblings anyways. Sure they're canonically friends, but obviously their friendship turned into brotherhood. This means that nothing can be in the way of Blanetoria and Corbin can keep dating the person he's already canonically dating. Actually, now Blanebin just straight up makes Person C uncomfortable. Don't the pesky shippers understand that Blanebin are sibling coded because they're childhood best friends and that they're important to each other because they're brothers? It's obvious to anyone with eyes.

Sure, ships are involved here, but is the root of this problem shipping? Character A isn't as knowledgeable of other characters in the plot due to this lens they're using, but at the end of the day they're dedicated to analysis. Their love of the characters is pushing them beyond what they like or dislike to try to understand what might be happening through their lens. Not perfect, but they are slowly broadening their horizons. But Person B and C's problems here are their restrictiveness. What is or should be canon to them is tantamount to what they personally like or find comfortable. Is person C actually analyzing the this fake show when they decide to "read" Blanebin as basically canonically siblings (and this all of their moments are totally a bro thing) just because they don't like Blanebin and the idea of them getting together over Blanetoria makes them uncomfortable? Is person B actually analyzing this fake show when their "analysis" of Blanebin goes only as far as asserting it's being ship teased and deciding anything short of canonizing Blanebin is a targeted attack or "bad writing" because it's not what they wanted personally to happen?

This is what I'm talking about. This is the mindset. Shipping isn't the problem. The problem is when people marry fanon and canon to the point where they have a vested interest in superimposing their fanon over canon as "a reading" and trying to make "collective decisions" on what is canon (or what canon is trying to say) based on what does or doesn't make them uncomfortable. The problem is people being restrictive and centering their own likes and dislikes in the conversation, so they can only interact with canon "analysis" wise by deciding what is canon or should be canon "as obviously agreed on by everyone". You can't simply claim you like media analysis. To be able to analyze media and bolster your views on any given canon, you must be open to looking at it through multiple povs, to studying characters without trying to pretend things you don't like don't exist or do like do exist. There is a balance that must be kept between trying to keep objectivity and putting on specific focus/bias based upon the lenses you're putting on. You have to be willing to try to figure out what a media is doing or saying, not saying you're trying to figure out what it's saying while in actuality trying to define the narrative around what people believe it's saying in ways that suit you.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[pronouncingitwang]

adam scott says in the "inside the episode" of 2.07 that it allows the audience to "see the magic of gemma and why she immediately took over [mark's] life and his heart" and dichen lachman describes the ep in the severance podcast as "the audience getting to know [gemma] and everyone seeing what mark had that he lost." well, what about gemma? how much do we really get to know her? what did she lose? why did mark take over her heart?

they had 50 minutes for a Gemma Episode and they spent half of it on dead wife tropes and her smiling at mark with come-hither eyes while not giving us a single new fact* about her or a relationship outside of mark and mark's family. a subversion of the dead wife trope is not just scenes later showing they had an imperfect marriage bc mark (or nobody) is the problem in all of those scenes; you need to disrupt the idea that she was the perfect wife, and i don't think we get that. so much of it is explicitly presented through mark's pov. she doesn't hurt him at any point. she's just there being lovely or victimized as he loves or neglects her. everything we learned about her past gives more depth to his current grief but contributes little to our understanding of her current suffering or motivations. that could change with time, but for a first try, i think it's an abysmally bad showing

* that wasn't in mark's 1.07 monologue, his conversations with devon and alexa, or the the you you are pdf, all of which i think did a better job than this episode

[finelythreadedsky]

hm. more characters should get their heads cut off in greek tragedy.

[holyshit]

.

[bongwater-supreme]

Big fan of the Riddler being very very autistic but also the most charismatic man alive. Thank you DC for giving us showman autistics the rep we so sorely lack

[safifonhasstrel]

People's taste was fucking weird and voting was a mess. Anyway, I think that Iceland, Luxembourg, Armenia, Germany, Poland, and Ireland all deserved better. They all had really fun songs.

[vechter]

SOLILOQUY ON THE NEW MOON, Sarah Lao (x)

dick grayson btw

[holdoncallfailed]

[demon-of-the-ancient-world]

Thinking once again about the very weird emotional reaction I had (am still having) re: Timothee Chalamet's performance in Dune Part 2. Because I came out of that theatre legit a little scared of that guy, which is not something I ever thought I'd be able to say -- he's very much not an intimidating person in most people's minds and if you'd told me what Part 2 was like before I knew anything about Dune I wouldn't have been able to believe it. But he's so good, and I think part of the reason he works so well in this new phase of Paul's character especially is because of that audience perception of him as an actor, because you go into it thinking "this shouldn't work" and then it does work, and that weird dissonance makes it work even more in a meta way. Paul as a character also isn't supposed to seem like he could be this crazy warrior cult leader, and then he is and people within the narrative believe it and it feels within the narrative like it isn't supposed to work, yet somehow does. The fact that it Feels Wrong is perfect because it's supposed to.

[potahun]

LINE UP FOR OSAKA-JO 2025 dropped and KAZAMI is in it (albeit only for one chibi illustration in the Sengoku period line-up) and he's playing the BIWA!!!!! And even has a scroll before him, so could it be that he's practicing as a biwa-houshi (a kind of travelling performer, who narrate tales while playing)?

Furuya is also there with a... falcon? Falconry? Tried to look up his hat and it seems like it's called a "hikitate eboshi". (edited) apparently similar to the nae-eboshi for commoners, but more common for warriors. At the same time, it seems falconry is a sport for nobles.

So.............

WHAT IF. he's the guy who raises falcons for some noble family (while himself having no title) and takes care of the falcons when they're not used for sport + protects the family, and what if kazami is the lute player who catches the eye of someone in that family and is brought in from town. what if they cross path like that, what IF

[rosenfey]

I need to have the phrase "just because a piece of writing is published and has a large audience doesn't mean it's good" tattooed on my inner eyelids so I stare at it whenever I start doubting myself

[shredsandpatches]

Yesterday I learned that the 1663 quarto of Doctor Faustus is revised enough that scholars sometimes refer to it as the C-text.

I bring that up because one of the new passages is this:

Just thought I'd drop that on my blog.

[lilidawnonthemoon]

[tae-shimura-is-my-wife]

They aren't shoujo but...

Originally I wouldn't post it because I didn't wanna to cause controversies and thought it was silly, but this has been annoying me for a while so here we go...

The idea that shoujo is any mang/anime containing romance is annoying and tiring when it's a diverse demographic, and is even worse because a lot of people use the "romance" aspect as a way to dumb down the demo, so I really understand shoujo fans frustrations with it but there's certain mangas that folks get PISSED OF when most think they're shoujos even insinuating it's a completely crazy statement which in my opinion isn't fair.

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Apothecary Diaries

Let's start with this one, that actually is the one which makes me more annoyed (and novel fans too)

Apothecary Diaries is a light novel that was published digitally, since LNs don't have demographics like mangas, they're categorized as joseimuke (for women/girls) or danseimuke (for men/boys), and guess what? It was written by a female author aimed at a female audience oh wow! "But the manga adaptation is a seinen!" yes, but this isn't a strong argument when code geass manga is a shoujo and we know very DAMN WELL women aren't the target audience for it 💀. Also an interesting thing to note is the (printed)novel beloging to square enix and they don't have a josei demographic, so it didn't have much chances of getting labeled as their og target audience.

Also it's kinda funny that people got kinda pissed at the notion of elements that could intend it being for women like Maomao herself or Jinshi (there's plenty of Jinshis in joseimuke medias so why they got mad) and it's especially funny because jp otaku men hated it when the anime aired, calling Maomao ugly and annoying, saying that Jinshi is too unrealistic and it's a female power fantasy why this is a bad thing help .

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Horimiya

Recently I discovered a lot of people hate that anime/manga and hate the fl, welcome back Toradora! Now to our shounen or... not exaclty? It was published in Monthly G Fantasy a manga magazine known for their bishounen characters and fanservice for fujoshis; some of their titles are Black Butler, Jibaku Shounen and they also do the manga adaptation of Twisted Wonderland a joseimuke game,

Despite being a shounen jp sites sell them in the joseimuke category and some of their titles can be found in the female aisle alongside with shoujo and josei and most of the information of the magazine is focused on it young female readers, which is ironic since other magazines don't keep ofuscating their male readers y'know, but looking at what is published there is kinda obvious the actual male demographic is almost inexistent.

Now to the actual manga, let's be for real Miyamura ALONE is a reason to why most wouldn't think this is for men yeah bishounens exist in male demographics but not in romances, it's literally a recurring joke on how shounen romance girls look stunning meanwhile the men are average as hell, but in Horimiya is the opposite, look Hori is super pretty but compared to Miya she gets overshadowed to the point HE is the main selling point of the series.

Since i talked about Miyamura being the main point, this is also a reason why much wouldn't think this is for men, generally the idea of shounen romances is getting a perfect waifu, she's the main point, a girl that a guy would dream have, but when Horimiya launched actually the girls were fantasazing about Miya and they still do! Miyamura has more merch than Hori and look it's basically IMPOSSIBLE to have anything of a male character in a male targeted romance, since the idea is to you collect and appreciate your 2d gf, just search for popular shounen and seinen merch of that genre and see what I'm talking about.

To finish Horimiya most jp sites tag it as "for girls" manga and it's not even because of being a romance as many would think, since Blue Box and Kaoru Hana are sold as shounen in the same stores, so yeah maybe people weren't that crazy about calling it shoujo 😆.

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Skip and Loafer

And last but not least Skip to Loafer you probably would be thinking "this chick gonna say this shit is secretely a seinen shoujo?" but no! It magazine is pure seinen, so if this isn't from a proto-shoujo magazine, neither having the a adaptation being joseimuke why is it here? Simple the content, Skip to Loafer is a coming of age story about a high school girl that focus on growing up, female friendships, characters emotions and has realistic deciptions of girlhood, hmm where did these things are more common? Which demographic would have something like that? It's obvious guys c'mon! The only thing that makes it not be a shoujo is the label, to the point where a lot of shoujo fans thought it was one and it's constatly compared to kimitodo, also the author already wrote bl and josei before so it's not like people are completly crazy thinking this could be for girls, and let's be honest, do you really think this is a series which the target audience are adult men? SERIOUSLY?

And yeah there's some men that said this is better than shoujo and stuff, but if it was shoujo they would say the same shit, saying "it's not like the other shoujos" how they did with Yona, Fruits Basket, Rayearth and even Sailor Moon recently and please stop letting dumb dudebros that don't even know what shounen or seinen is affect you that much, most of the fans are women both in jp and west, and most of them already watched shoujo before.

Just to conclude that part and also adding some things seinen and shoujo line sometimes can be very blurred, a lot of shoujo authors are or were seinen writers, also Kageki Shoujo were a seinen before moving to Melody and Orange moved to a seinen mag.

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And to finish I understand the frustration of people recommending this series instead of actual shoujo ones (except Apothecary Diaries bc it is for women), especially because the manga community tend to snob shoujo series and see them as lesser just for being targeted at girls, demographics do matter! But I don't think is fair to get pissed off at people interpreting these works as targeting girls, considering they do have a female appeal and were purposely created that way by its women mangaka. I still think the real enemies are the ones calling Nisekoi, My Dress Up Darling, Rent a Girlfriend a shoujo💀.

[arsnof]

I think the thing that's holding me back is I don't know how to craft a story. Like, I can give you a chronological series of events. There'll be a lot of detail in setup and setting and I can tell you where everything ends up, but I don't know how to fill in the blanks to get there.

That and I freeze up. I've got everything in my head, but as soon as I try to write it out I forget how English works. I can't even write a dirty first draft because I have to get the words just right before I can type them. And I'll get hung up on having changed tense or something at some point in my notes to myself that only I will ever see so I have to go back and change it to make it right, WHICH I JUST DID WITH THIS SENTENCE.

I have never had anyone actually tell me something I made sucked. I've had valid criticism and bewildered reactions, but my bullies mostly stuck to personal insults and while still thinking my art was cool. And yet I feel watched and judged on everything I write and draw, as if it's being broadcast live and it has to be the perfect line or else I have to redo it. So I never get anywhere.

So that sucks.