#b. muse

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

[hinamie]

binding vow

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i think i need a lobotomy

[chatonlaveur]

I've been playing Zelda II recently 👀

[galaxyspark-6e16]

Broppy but make it hadestown.

[beautyxcharms]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

You should be a childrens' book illustrator! Your style would be so perfect for that I think! Really unique :D

While I don’t know any children’s literature writers, I *was* commissioned to do illustrations for a medical journal article!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

always enjoyed the Chess Set In The Foreground perspective framing used here

now also noting like, huh, a chess set in a general store just visited by marigold competitors who killed one of their guys and are now on the way back from their rendezvous point w/suppliers

[speakofcompersion]

TAEMIN - 'Eternal' Track List ♥︎

[thatsrightice]

Rosie’s Riveters was the only aircraft to return from the mission to Münster on October 10, 1943 and it was no easy task getting home.

Blakely’s crew in 42-3393 Just-a-Snappin’ had to go through something similar on their return from the mission to Bremen as they had to drop out of formation and make the trek home by themselves. I think Blakely and the rest of his crew deserve a little bit of recognition too;

Bremen had the worst flak they’d ever seen. "There was so much solid flak, you could almost slice it like cake” said pilot Ev Blakely

Flak destroys the number four engine, left elevator, and stabilizer as well as cracks the nose sending shrapnel into the Bombardier and Navigator

They catch on fire, but their electrics are gone so they can’t use the fire extinguisher. The only way to put it out is to drop out of formation and head straight into a steep dive in hopes it blows it out, which Ev Blakely is miraculously able to do

Have to limp back well over 200 miles to get to base with a max speed of 120 mph (at 100 mph the aircraft would stall and drop out of the sky) and immediately watch the only other Fort near them explode in a ball of flames thanks to enemy fighters

Smashed shortwave radio forced Forky, the radio operator, to send out an SOS by touching two wires together and praying

They were a sitting duck for the enemy fighters as they limped back to base at a mere 120 mph (at 100 mph the aircraft would stall and drop out of the sky)

Compass was stuck so Crosby had to navigate using the position of the sun with near-constant course corrections

They are credited with taking out at least 11 enemy fighters on their way home but not without their own injuries. Three of their crew are seriously wounded, one has a three-inch hole in their stomach, half of one’s face was scalped, and the other had the entire lower half of their body crushed and bleeding

You know engine number four? Yeah, it’s on fire again so time for another dive and it’s a miracle it went out again

But now they’ve got to salvo literally everything out into the channel from the spent cartridges laying on the floor to their woolen flying clothes, including their boots

Their dinghies were shot to pieces by the German fighters (and Crosby accidentally pulled the emergency handle on the hatch in the nose) so landing in the water ain’t an option

Everyone who’s not flying goes to help the wounded, packing their wounds with their open parachutes and warming up the frozen morphine applicators (?) in their mouths

Now they’re coming in for a crash landing at a dummy UK base with literally zero control surfaces so Blakely and Kidd were piloting using pure strength. The rest of the crew go back to the waist and hold onto the injured men, like hold them to their chests, so that they aren’t further injured in the landing

Their brakes go out as they land and they’re sent careening into the only tree in the entire airfield, crushing the nose of the aircraft and sending tree branches and leaves through all of the windows and compartments (click for pics)

They just kind of sat there? Until someone came and was like “hey you need help?”

They want nothing more than something to eat but instead are stuck watching some officer count 1200 holes (no, not 800) before giving up because there’s too many

So now they had a hour long drive back to base, those who didn’t get sent to the hospital that is, only for the mess halls to be closed, all their stuff locked up in storage, and everyone looking at them like they were ghosts. But on the bright side, every man in the o-club tried to hand their drinks to them

Add-on:

In the end, 7 of her crew were injured and one fatally so. Most of the men would never fly another mission.

[starlit-eudemonia]

If Leander and Sen are both a category of undead (Leander-a necromancer or Lich//Sen - a reanimated corpse) then I think it would be like a root, sprouting in two different ways. Sen’s would explore the storyline of dealing with grief, terminal illness themes, the price of immortality (negatively) and the value of medical consent. Whereas Leander will explore the loneliness of immortality, power hunger/greed, and the ideas of heroism and how they can be perverted/skewed to your own ideals and you essentially "lose the plot" of your code

[mb-blue-roses]

AtSV musings.

So, the final scene. With Gwen & her team.

[Image ID: A screenshot from the end of Across the Spider-verse. From left to right it shows Peni Parker standing on Sp//dr, Hobie Brown, Peter B. Parker holding Mayday, Gwen Stacy, Pavitr Prabhakar, Margo Kess, Peter Porker, and Noir Peter Parker. All are staring forward. End ID]

I have one question about this. So obviously B, Peni, Pavitr, and Margo probably still have their watches, and Gwen has the one Hobie gave her, but what about the others?

I imagine that Hobie has another one for himself, but does he have more bonus watches that Ham and Noir can use? I'm genuinely curious about this lol

[beatrice1979a]

Monsters

The Dark Side

Sentimonsters - Monsters - Monsters (alt ver) - Savior

original:

The Dark Side (alternate reality) by Muse

I hail from the dark side For all my life, I've been besieged You'd be scared living with my despair And if you could feel the things, I am able to feel

Break me out Set me free

Save me from the Dark Side

[breadedspider]

quick and dirty Muse for @ex-textura :) i love him so much

[triaelf9]

you know what, I think I've worked out why I'm cool with some folks hating a character I like, or liking a character I hate, or liking hating a ship I like/hate etc and I think it's HOW they approach it

Is their beef with the character/ship? or have they made it about the people who like/hate the character/ship?

like "I hate Bungles, he's such a CREEP" as apposed to "everyone who likes Bungles is a ding dong and clearly has terrible taste in partners b/c they like BUNGLES like come ON who likes BUNGLES?? MORONS??"

It's the turning it into a moral thing, the "ooh I'm better b/c I hate Bungles" thing I think that ticks me off. Going after real life ppl b/c you hate (or like!) a fictional character so much "Anyone who hates Bungles should DIE" like oof, no thanks. Turning into a purity/clout/moralistic war where you attack features and traits of folks is I think where I draw the line.

Otherwise, I think I've grown into being able to be fine with ppl hating my favs/liking my hates, even if I might not connect on every point. Now THAT'S something we can agree to disagree on XD (and not like "I don't agree you're trans" or other shit things ppl try to use that phrase for lol)

[theweeklydiscourse]

Why is nuance dieing?

The younger generation seems to be so much more obsessed with moral puritanism in fiction and irdk why. Could it be because kids these days don't interact with real people and are just chronically online so they repeat what they see on the internet?

Actually saw someone saying people who like fictional bad boys are the reason why men get away with sa & rape irl and countries are criminalizing abortion...

It's just so depressing to see that. This line of thinking is scary actually.

I don't remember people going this mad over morals when shows and movies like Vampire Diaries and Twilight saga were huge. It's like people have regressed.

The media we consume is becoming more and more didactic as we enter an age where it seems like every piece of popular media is obsessed with delivering their messages and themes like an after school PSAs. Media is becoming increasingly more sanitized and “family friendly” to appeal to the broadest possible audience to create more and more profits for corporations. This obsession with sanitized fiction has become commonplace with many younger people who parrot what they see online and on the media they consume and proceed to deliver underdeveloped takes on subjects they don’t fully understand yet.

It becomes even more interesting when people point to fictional narratives as the cause for societal problems when there are already larger institutions that have historically been responsible for what they claim fiction causes. They displace the blame for societal ills like SA, abuse, patriarchal violence and misogynistic legislation onto fiction, fan fiction and media that explores taboo subject matter. While I don’t deny that fiction has power, 90% of the time these people have no idea of the ways literary works influence our culture and default to a 1:1 “monkey see, monkey do” explanation for why people must consume the “correct media”.

Another factor is the way that people have become accustomed to moralizing their content consumption. They have convinced themselves that they need a concrete and righteous justification for their likes and dislikes and this has ruined the way fandom interacts with literature, film and other art forms. With this in mind, they can no longer dislike or even hate something without creating some moral justifications for why “hating this thing is actually progressive and righteous!” and in the process, conflate consumerism with activism.

The comparison to Puritanism is quite fitting in this case. After all, the principles of that religion were based in purity, obedience and censorious beliefs for self-indulgences and we can draw comparisons with the way people online discuss certain subjects. There’s a phenomenon where people will say something along the lines of: “It’s alright to like (insert problematic character here)! But you need to acknowledge that they are a bad person.” To them, it seems like a gesture at fairness and magnanimity when in reality, it is an attempt at exerting unearned moral authority over the tastes of others. It is a demand that a person proves their moral innocence to them in a performative manner that validates their need to feel superior. But it’s all performative purity because even if a person did explain/justify their fictional tastes, these people wouldn’t care and would continue to demand purity from others.

People can’t even discuss certain characters anymore without running into people accusing them of being terrible people who would approve of real-life violence and abuse. And I can’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t always like this, when did it change?