#and i think i've succeeded :]

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

uhhhh i think they were kinda fucked

[not-terezi-pyrope]

There's a recurring issue that keeps happening in fantasy discourse that keeps happening to creators where including monsters in your worldbuilding gets distorted into a sort of fascist intent as people get gradually lore desensitised to said monsters and they become more and more a "mundane" or "natural" part of the fictional world in people's minds.

Here's how it works, from my observation.

The monster, as a concept, is an ancient mainstay of all fiction as it is a mainstay of the human psyche, representing primal fears and the abstract (unrealistic!) horror of the other. It has carved out an important role in media as an element that is broadly understood to be a thrilling antagonistic force that is removed from anything in the real world.

An author wants to write a story about heroes who regularly encounter and fight multiple monsters, because this is mechanically important for the type of media or narrative (maybe a video game world needs many creatures to fight, the high fantasy protagonist needs a "monster force" to threaten the world, the ghost hunter type hero needs various ghosts and ghouls to fight off each week.

The story gets released into the world and people become used to the monsters existing, to the extent that they begin to lose the narrative lens of the monster in their minds. They begin to treat the otherworldly monster as an element of the world, and then the idea of the monster as a purely antagonistic or evil force begins to sound absurd, as it is for any type of being in the real world, especially if the monster is intelligent. People get interested in subverting these elements of the monster, and derivative works including the type of monster begin to explore stories in which the monsters are actually neutral/good, but misunderstood, actors, due to their monstrous appearance or similar.

This interpretation of the monster as another kind of person, or benign animal, becomes widespread, with the monster solidified as a concrete part of the world in a way that is divorced from their conception as an unrealistic, otherworldly threat.

People look back at the original source work, and go, "hey! Why was the author so intent on displaying this group of creature as inherently gruesome and evil? This sounds like fascism!" And it makes sense why they think that, except that they have forgotten that said author was writing about a type of monster instead of an analogy for a human group or race. As such, with enough time and reinterpretation, people can find grounds to accuse authors of fascism for the crime of merely writing about monsters, which kind of sucks as a thing to do, in my opinion.

I think the Tolkien/D&D style Orc is the prototypical example of this, although there are many others, really it happens to some extent with any sort of "monster species" where there is more than one horror creature in your world. This is not to say that you can't interrogate issues with how certain monsters are portrayed - why evil orcs are portrayed with darker skin colours sometimes, for example, or... Pretty much everything going on with a lot of goblin-esque creatures, but I think it's important to remember that this is a different sort of criticism from, for instance, "Tolkien and the D&D people believe that certain types of being are inherent evil and need to be wiped out".

Because we can't forget that they were not writing a real type of person or creature, but a type of monster, and monsters are understood to be an unrealistic, otherworldly narrative contrivance. You have problems making them fit into the real world with a just mindset because they do not exist in the real world, they exist as monsters, and were written with this understanding that there is a common understanding of what that means and how it should be understood.

I feel like people need to keep that in mind in their analysis, else pretty much any creative can be smeared retrospectively for writing about monsters whatsoever. I think monsters are pretty cool in fiction and important to the human psyche, and think that they have a crucial place, as long as we remember the lens through which they should be considered in their conception, which is inherently outside of material reality.

That's also not to say we shouldn't subvert and interrogate and adapt monster tropes either, but doing so doesn't mean throwing out the original ideas as having gone rotten.

[maniacace]

"your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man" being a phrase loki canonically said days before being abducted by the TVA is insane like the change from that to s2ep5 is huge

[kinetic-chaos]

ce que j'ai fair ce soir-là

ce qu'elle a dit ce soir-là

réalisant mon espoir

je me lance vers la gloire

Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

[hils79]

Never in all my 14 years on Tumblr have I thought about setting up a sideblog for a specific fandom but last night I was considering it for kpop and I probably need to think about why that is.

My blog is very much a scrapbook of whatever I happen to be into at any given time. I wouldn’t say I’m embarrassed about my slow descent into kpop fandom but I’m also aware that as a white woman in my mid 40s I am not the target demographic. A lot of these idols are young enough to be my son, but a lot of actors I like are also young enough to be my son and I don’t feel weird about that. Why is this different?

I should have the confidence to say that looking at Kim Hongjoong makes me happy and that it brightens my day just knowing he's out there doing his thing. God knows we could all use a little happiness in our lives regardless of where it comes from.

[finngualart]

[aceofwands]

idk man I just think of all the franchises you could try to make the Next Big Thing by creating a bunch of new shows and movies, maybe don't pick the one with the notoriously nitpicky obsessed with canon fandom ?? if you don't plan on applying any sort of consistency to the world, characters, alien cultures, entire ethical and moral framework of the universe, etc etc ????

[keeps-ache]

the kinda gal to stick around

[newsfromthetimeloop]

as you are - samia

[gideonisms]

self love through loving pathetic women ❤️

[maybe-arts]

STAR*DREAM OS, Twin Star's second opponent on their way to Dream Tower!

Gender: Female

Age: 25

Position: Charter of Access Point District

Genre: Virtualwave

Instrument of Choice: IA-RBB "Halo" headset

Place of Concert: Haltmann VR Stageset

N’s Notes: To confront her, you'll have to enter on her turf - into virtual reality. Being virtual, and with her being the master of it, means anything can happen. But the same reality can be dismantled from the inside - with her being its main core. And yes, Kirby, your bandmate is completely correct - the STAR*DREAM you see isn't real. But that doesn't mean there's no one behind her.

[frobby]

oikawa is so real for acting like he's the main character AND THEN SUCCEEDING???

[enbyjane]

why i see cho being aro as pretty much canon

Before I show some of the strongest scenes which read to me as Cho being aromantic (i.e. not experiencing romantic attraction), I want to say that there are many small scenes even from the beginning. In season 1, when he talks to the waitress, and she talks about doing crazy things for love, he seriously recommends her therapy, which she takes as a joke (and he goes along with it). I think he's genuinely confused as to why anybody would do crazy things for people they're romantically attracted to, I don't think he can relate to the concept.

He doesn't relate to people wanting to be in a relationship.

The following scenes further prove my point:

(under read more so i don't get a kilometric post on your dashes)

evidence no. 1 - S5E22

evidence no. 2 - S6E3

These scenes show to me that for him, the only reason you would be with someone is for the sex, and the only reason Wayne would want to marry Grace is because he knocked her up. I haven't included it here, but he presumes from the start that Rigsby doesn't want to get married, when he's mostly confused about his own feelings.

But I think the final example might show it the best:

evidence no. 3 - S6E5

I left the last screenshots of the scenes bigger so that we all could appreciate Cho's facial expressions. The man is in literal pain just hearing about his best friend's relationship. (the best face of I literally could not care less, please stop talking about it). And this is not a general sentiment per se. In the previous episode (S6E4), Rigsby is concerned about his sexual life because he and Grace didn't get to have sex since the marriage. While Cho may not be 100% comfortable, he is still more comfortable with that conversation than this one. He's engaging and he offers whatever information he knows ("What about your wedding night? I bought you a carriage?" and "I read on the internet that women lose their interest in sex after marriage"). Whereas in this conversation he doesn't engage at all, he doesn't care at all, he wants OUT of it. He's glad for Rigsby but he doesn't want to hear details about his relationship.

Therefore, while I don't think they consciously made Cho and aro that fucks, from my point of view, they made Cho and aro that fucks and doesn't care about relationships one iota.

Then what about Summer?

Summer is one of his most serious relationships from the show, apart from the relationships he has with his own teammates. Unfortunately, we don't have enough insight into his brain (or a lot of things from his perspective) in order to say how that relationship was with 100% accuracy.

But the way I see it, he genuinely cared for her a lot, and was sexually attracted to her, but he wasn't romantically attracted to her and I don't think he would've cared for that. I think their relationship could've worked if they'd been friends with benefits (and that would've been interesting to see!), but not if Summer would've wanted to marry him or something.

Even in the scene when they meet up later and she's getting ready to marry, I read him as being mostly nostalgic and still fond of her, not really jealous or wanting to have been the one marrying her. His final smile even seems to translate into something like "I don't get it, but you seem happy, so I'm happy for you."

In conclusion: Cho is an aro king babey!!!

Final Important Note: You can disagree with me, of course, to say that you don't think I'm right about Cho, but any arophobia, any bs that it doesn't exist or whatever someone might think to say that demeans aromantic people will be blocked without discussion. Aro people, y'all are valid and I love you (platonically). Happy Pride!!!

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

charming and good: dr prism and solaris, both being ex-zoraxis operatives who don't feel safe enough to turn to the agency, working together post the events of 3 to pursue their crafts without death or capture looming above their necks

charming and evil: solaris- through prism- learns that anna is alive, and immediately drops everything she is doing to find her and tear her limb from limb for being the catalyst to the destruction of her death engine

[meymeyzart]

Abandoned to the depths

[phantomsaboteur]

staring so intensely at diasomnia tonight. trying to figure out how to write them when we're following rollo's perspective and not my own. fuck