#class stereotypes and what that means for the real people playing the characters

[blank468]

Describe Bakugo’s development in short words

If you were to ask me how would I describe Bakugo’s development in short words, it would come across as being boring and predictable. Let’s start with the fact that despite being a secondary character, Bakugo has no real purpose/contribution in the main story line. His involvement with Deku and OFA doesn’t amount to anything other than mindless yelling, guilt tripping, and just him treating it as a competition to try and surpass Deku when he unlocks his other quirks. The only reason he’s involved in a lot of what’s going on is because of his popularity. He started gaining popularity when he won the Sports festival and because everyone like the stereotypical angry rival trope. He can be replaced by literally any other character and nothing would change.

It’s basically a pattern whenever Bakugo is involved with something.

- Bakugo will treat others beneath him and continue to call the extras.

- Whatever is going in the story if it’s a fight between the villains or something school related, he’ll treat it as a competition.

- He’ll either verbally attack Deku and everyone around them or get physical to get what he wants.

- Deku won’t see this as an issue and continue to gush over Bakugo about how he’s a good friend and the idea of him being the symbol of victory

-Anyone that calls out his horrible behavior will do a complete 180 and talk about how whatever he said either makes sense or to give some baseless excuse about how he changed

- Aizawa, All Might and or anyone in UA will make some claim about how his some kind of an inspiration for 1A and Bakugo is trying harder than everyone else(completely ignoring all of 1A’s accomplishments and improvements throughout their first year)

- After winning or coming out on top whatever Bakugo will take his win for granted and will act like it doesn’t mean anything while acting aggressive when someone compliments him

- What ever punishment or consequences he gets(not matter how fatal is) will be minor and the story will find to way to have him come out at top without any struggle

- The story will have characters feel bad, guilty for Bakugo for something so minuscule and or try to punish them in a similar manner like Bakugo (A recent example of the story punishing characters because of Bakugo’s actions is in the Card OVA. I didn’t bother watching it because I knew it was just a product plug for training cards but from what I viewed from other people’s discussions, the match between Deku and Bakugo ends with a tie. Apparently Bakugo threw another hissy fit and not only destroyed the card game but blew up the dorm with everyone inside. Instead of punishing Bakugo for destroying public property and potentially injuring his classmates, Aizawa decides to punish all of Class 1A and ban them from playing any other games in the dorm.)

I know everyone has their own interpretation on how they feel about Bakugo and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t have problem if you like him, but Bakugo is written as if everything he did or stood for never mattered. Izuku, Class 1A , UA and by extension Horikoshi, wants the audience to believe that all the positive aspects about his character somehow outweigh the negatives and we’re supposed to accept that Bakugo has fully grown while at the same time instantly forgiving him for being a spiteful and petty bully. No matter what happens to him, he’ll still come out on top as if what he went through wasn’t consequential or lethal. He’s constantly giving wins and random asspulls to favor him despite either doing the bare minimum of his supposed development or not doing anything at all. Bakugo in the eyes of others will always be seen as the true MVP and is the one that always has to win. He’s nothing but a pet under the care of his creator who will go out of his way to make every other character look bad and pathetic than they already are; including the main protagonist.

[fennecfiree]

Why do I see so many people hating on chubby Kyle and saying it doesn’t make any sense? They say, “He's fatphobic! He makes fun of Cartman for being fat! He can't be chubby!” But then they go on and headcanon Stan as being chubby, even though there's more proof of Kyle being chubbier when he's a kid than Stan. (I'm aware post-COVID Stan is chubby, but I'm talking about the kids.)

The same people who tell me my headcanon makes zero sense and that I “made it out of nowhere” (which I didn't—even if I did, why does that matter?) say chubby Stan is so canon, and it makes sense. When your excuse is “Kyle makes fun of Cartman for being fat!”—uhm, Stan does too? What the hell. Can you just let me headcanon something without trying to find something wrong with it? If you don’t like my headcanon, leave me alone. It’s my comfort headcanon. It makes me happy.

“Kyle's probably really buff, though, because he plays basketball.” Stan plays baseball? But you use all this stuff to prove me wrong. Let people have fun. And yes, I do have proof for Kyle being chubby. If you can’t let me have fun with a headcanon, leave me alone and block me. Here’s my PERSONAL proof for MYSELF (you dont have to agree, this is shit that makes it more real to me), so you all can stop saying I made it up from nothing.

And no, i dont headcanon Kyle as taller, then that would mean his height would be why he weighs almost as much as Kyle. I hc him as short.

Btw, this isn't hate for the chubby Stan headcanon. I would feel the same way if someone was being an asshole to people for headcanoning that. I'm just pissed about this. Just let people have fun. wtf. i only hate a hc if it's stereotyping, just weird, or some shit like that.

i just think ppl should stop attacking ppl for harmless headcanons in general.

I am aware that being weak and non-athletic is a stereotype, but I don't portray him like that in my AU. I don't make him weak or unable to defend himself. I understand he's strong, but I just don't make him the strongest in the class. I feel like he's the third strongest. He's not weak at all, and he is athletic. I headcanon him as a jock.

"Well, then how is he chubby?" Chubby people can be strong and athletic. I don't have any negative intentions behind this.

I like adding my personal insecurities onto characters.

There's actual evidence to support this headcanon.

If you don't like it, just leave me alone and block me. It's my comfort hc, and I'm really attached to it. Don't harass me for a headcanon.

Also, why do people think that when I say 'twink Kyle,' I mean the regular Canon Kyle? What the fuck… I'm referring to him being sexualized and people making him into A TWINK. LMAO and making him not able to defend himself.

I swear to God, if you don't like it, leave me alone. Don't harass me over a fucking headcanon. That's really weird. I'm 13, just go away. I'm seriously considering leaving Tumblr because you guys can't handle a fucking headcanon. i don't want to be in fucking drama OVER MY HEADCANON.

[genericpuff]

Hope you don't mind my asking but do you mind elaborating on why you don't like Mongie too much? I know all about why everyone dislikes Let's Play itself. There are various videos and post upon post online tearing it to shreds with criticism but I've not heard much about the creator herself like I do Rachel Smythe. Does she also run into the same issues that Rachel does or is her behavior different but equally questionable/annoying?

It's kinda equally questionable, kinda different. They both have the same issues of like, fetishizing youthfulness and creating unhealthy power dynamics. They also haven't done a great job at depicting POC in their comics, you can tell they're written by white women who don't understand other cultures but are trying to make their series more "progressive" by including stand-ins for representation.

That said, considering Let's Play is set in a real world setting, the POC characters (and the casually racist issues in their writing) are a lot more obvious than in LO (where you have to know the context that the neon-colored nymphs are based on POC to really realize that they're lower class POC people who are getting the shit end of the stick from the rich upper class main protagonists).

And I don't even mean in the usual "there aren't any POC in this comic" or "the POC in this comic are stereotypical/poorly written", I mean in the sort of white-victim-complex "I added in other ethnicities and people got mad at me anyways so what more do you want!" kind of way (paired with the "they're poorly written and stereotypical" aspect).

Dean is a good example of the stereotypical designing and writing, IIRC he's a Hispanic man but he's written like some Spanish soap opera character who flirts with every woman he sees and always has rose petals falling around him.

Even in that sentence he says "part Asian" which is weird because he's looking for Marshall who's supposed to be his best friend and it's been established in the comic that Marshall is half-Japanese, but that brings us to the other instance of mongie being casually (if not directly) racist and even more so than with Dean...

Apparently mongie thought it was a good move to say that it was "more inclusive" to make Vikki only vaguely Asian. Which is just... so not true LOL Asia is an entire continent made up of MANY different cultures and ethnicities and so generalizing all of them to just "Asian" is not a great take from someone who's trying to seem "more inclusive".

But of course, when her community called her out on this and asked her to elaborate, she and her mod team basically dug their heels in and made up excuses that made mongie out to be a victim instead of just acknowledging she made an error that didn't connect well with members of her audience.

And theeen in comes mongie ready to torch the place. Note that up until this point, it's basically been her mod team speaking up on her behalf and giving her benefit of the doubt, so when mongie DID get her chance to speak, she jumped right to:

"FINE, SHE'S HALF CHINESE HALF KOREAN THEN, STFU AND STOP ANALYZING ME WHEN I INCLUDE CHARACTERS FROM RACES THAT DON'T ALIGN WITH MY OWN !!!" (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻ is very much the vibe people got from this, understandably so. It's also odd (and extremely privileged) for her to say that she'd "rather focus on a character's personality and not their race" because it's very "I don't see color" which has been proven to be counterintuitive to understanding and celebrating different races.

And then we get a lot of self-victimizing "well I can't win no matter what so you people are ungrateful and actually it's MY feelings that are hurt" excuses:

Again it's weird because she had NO problem specifying that Marshall was half-Japanese and she didn't make him into any sort of weird stereotype like she did with Vikki. So I don't know why she's having such a hard time grasping that being vaguely Asian for Vikki isn't inclusive.

Although, let's be real here, the only reason Marshall is half-Japanese at all is because he's a self-insert of Markiplier, a half-Korean Youtuber who mongie apparently worked for on payroll as a graphic designer prior to Let's Play. Which is just a whole layer of ick that I think surpasses even Rachel Smythe and Mads Mikkelson. Like the Rachel and Mads thing is definitely creepy and weird because she's literally drawn herself - an adult woman nearing her 40's - being swept off her feet by a smoochy-faced Mads. But at least she didn't work for the guy or ever interact with him directly like mongie did with Markiplier. That's a whole separate level of "ew".

That said, mongie continues:

Which is just such a half-assed non-apology. Not "I'm sorry for misrepresenting a culture" or "I'm sorry I didn't do proper research", but "I'm sorry people think I'm being insensitive or that they need specific representation in my work that I'm claiming to be representation to be good". Completely shifting the blame from herself onto her audience for not being happy with the bare minimum that she gave them.

There's more though. Probably one of the worst parts and it's not even her, but one of her mods:

The fact that this is one of mongie's mods telling mongie's audience that her feelings - as a white woman who's just legitimately patronized her audience - are more valid than the people whose feelings were hurt by mongie being so insensitive... it's a real gross move and I can't believe they even pulled that.

Oh, and of course, as people like this tend to do, she goes on about "cancel culture" and how "terrifying" it is to her and then comes up with some imaginary scenario where a kid pays a hitman to kill her ?? as a defense for herself that really just further victimizes herself over her own misled actions ??

And this is something mongie does a lot, at least in this instance - she comes up with justifications for her decisions based on completely imaginary scenarios that she came up with and assumed, rather than just, idk, doing her research and being open to learning new things about cultures she's clearly not educated on. Shit like "well if I do xyz you'll be mad at me anyways so fuck you!"

When in reality? No one would have been mad at her if she didn't have any non-white characters in her comic. Would readers be disappointed? Probably. But - and I can't speak for everybody out there obviously so this is just my opinion - I know I'd much rather representation from someone who wanted to represent my respective groups and identities and put love and effort into it, than get it from someone who was just doing it because they made up a scenario in their head that they would be cancelled for not doing it. No one really has any tangible ground to stand on if they get mad at you for writing a cast of all-white characters you wanted to write, there are plenty of webtoons like that on the platform. We do need more stories that uplift and represent POC voices, but it shouldn't be from white victim complex people who only do it to virtue signal and ensure they don't get "cancelled". You know what WILL get you cancelled? Attempting to write other ethnicities and racial groups purely based on stereotypes for the sake of "representation" and then getting mad when people ask you to be a little more specific than "Asian".

Oh yeah, and then have your mods censor/delete any mentioning of educational resources regarding Asian cultures, and then essentially dox one of your community members by revealing their Twitter to the entire Discord group to boot!

oh boy mongie, if you think THAT'S drama, wait until you see the shit I do here LMAO

[rum-inspector]

I'm wondering which companions do you dislike the most in each Swtor class story?

Hmm I am trying to think of any that I would dislike

What may be unpopular opinion is that I even find Skadge interesting - not as a character but more as what he reveals from the fans - he is exactly the stereotypical bounty hunter and has the personality of how fanbase imagined Boba Fett to be back before Attack of the Clones came out (I'm old enough to remember the OUTRAGE Boba Fett / bounty hunter saga fans raised! They hated Temuera as Jango and thus, their dear Boba, almost as much they whined about Hayden as Anakin. Then they got fine with young Boba in the Clone Wars as he was portrayed as mean teenager but hold on what OUTRAGE AGAIN when Mandalorian/book of Boba Fett came)

So Skadge is what they wished Boba would be: cruel and uncaring brute - yet Skadge is universally hated.

You can even play your OC hunter as a cruel brute I have seen people play and choose options that make their OC hunter seem very alike Skadge, yet these same people will not like the companion. It's interesting, and revealing.

And I did not answer your question... The more I play the stories, the more nuance I find. But I can tell you which class has companions that to me are equally likable and interesting and it's imperial agent. They're all such an odd bunch - and that's saying a lot considering each class has odd companions - but they all seem like real people with their own goals and aspirations outside of player character whereas many other classes the companions feel more like drones supporting the player, while they have their own little side things going on, in the end they will stick with player. I like how imperial agent companions are always one foot at the door, the player character is not the center of their world.

[txttletale]

this isnt a defence of dnd but I was hoping to ask for clarification on a couple points you made that I dont fully understand and I'm clearly missing something. Namely that you mentioned racial connotations to the barbarian class and colonial connotations to the ranger class. Like I understand the term barbarian has imperial and xenophobic overtones to it but I can't tell where there are specific native stereotypes in it as it appears in dnd

yeah, i mean, a lot of the forms of racism that are at play here are deeply embedded into cultural norms and popular tropes, so if they're not stereotypes that affect you it can be easy to miss them. i'll be going solely by the DNDBeyond official class description: i've highlighted relevant sections

so, first of all, notice the very telling use of the word 'savage'. this is an extremely racialised term that is used against indigenous people to this day. yes, it's used here as an adjective rather than a noun, but in context it's telling, especially alongside 'tribe'--another very racialised word: europeans have 'ethnic groups' or 'nations', indigenous peoples have 'tribes'. 'savage tribe' is how indigenous people have been described for a long time, especially during the height of colonialism. some easy examples i found with a minute's googling:

note also the 'elk herd'. this class description is going to keep hammering home that barbarians are from nomadic backgrounds. a very common defense of the barbarian class is that it's based on norse berserkers--which is true to an extent, especially wrt 'rage', their headline class ability--but while the norse conducted raids and invasions, they lived in settlements. vast swathes of the conceptual makeup of the fantasy barbarian is derived from the colonialist imaginary of the nomadic, 'warlike', 'savage'.

moving on, we're hit with a barrage of direct comparisons to animals. now, i'm obviously not saying that it's racist to ever compare a character to an animal--but the barbarian class very explicitly represents a group of people with a certain lifestyle, and in the real world, comparing groups of people to animals has been a longstanding method of dehumanization that's been applied especially brutally to indigenous and Black victims of colonialism. and while 'animal spirits' is a fun vulfpeck song, here it's clearly invoked as a caricature of 'primitive' spirituality. why are the spirits 'fierce?' why must they be 'animal spirits?' why do other classes in DND invoke gods and demons, but the barbarian invokes 'spirits?'.

now it gets even more blatant. the barbarian is 'primal' -- they have an 'animal nature' -- they're explicitly contrasted to 'civilization' and associated with 'nature' -- this is a textbook example the 'noble savage' stereotype and it's as old as colonialism. and of course, the barbarian comes from 'tundra, jungle, or grasslands'.

so, here we have a very explicit confirmation of what i was talking here earlier re: barbarians very clearly intended to be nomadic peoples. they live in the 'wild places of the world' -- another colonialist trope rears its head here, the idea of an 'untamed wilderness' that can only be mastered by colonial domination, where the people are also 'wild'.

a 'frontier', huh? the idea of the 'rough frontier' is pure unadulterated colonial fantasy, straight outta manifest destiny. the 'frontier' is the area along which settler-colonialism takes place, where the civilized 'us' meets the savage 'them' in the context of the colonial national myth. and of course, the suggestion that your barbarian character might be a 'prisoner of war, brought in chains to ''civilized'' lands' is pretty clearly founded in the very racialised institution of slavery! (interesting to deploy the scare quotes around 'civilized' now when you were just drawing a fully unironic primal/civilized distiction a paragraph ago, wizards of the coast)

these same ideas about the ‘frontier’, about ‘wild lands’ and ‘the edges of civilization’ (and ‘civilization’ as a geographic notion with ‘borderlands’ that need to be ‘protected’) can incidentally also be seen here in the ranger’s flavour text. again, the idea that ‘civilization’ has a defined endpoint, beyond which there’s only ‘wilderness’ and ‘barbarians’ and ‘savage tribes’ has its origins in the roman empire, grandfather of modern imperialism, and the idea’s hold on the contemporary fantasy genre consciousness has its roots in manifest destiny and the american western frontier, where it serves the ideological purpose of obscuring the bloody and brutal wars of conquest that were waged nonstop against the many people who lived on the ‘uncivilized’ side of that imaginary dividing line in order to push the ‘frontier’ forward.

now, this part isn't on dnd beyond so i’m using a shitty little rulebook scan i found online bc i cba to properly pirate 5e again for this post, but by far the most played barbarian subclass is the path of the totem warrior. with the terms ‘spirit animal’ and ‘totem’, dnd 5e very specifically appropriates the real-world religous beliefs of native peoples. the term’s been beaten into the fucking ground over the last few years but this is some of the most cut-and-dry cultural appropriation i can imagine. and what does the path of the totem do? it gives the barbarian the abilities of animals, of course. Wolf Totems and Bear Totems and Eagle Totems, oh my! right back to the noble savage, the ‘wild man’, the dehumanizing animal comparisons we were talking about earlier.

now some of this, in a different context, could be innocuous and inoffensive. it’s not in a different context, though, it’s in this context--and in this context, it’s pretty clear that the ‘barbarian’ class has both feet planted firmly in the colonialist anti-indigenous imaginary. if you want a little more reading on this, this is a great article on the topic--but tldr: the colonial myth of the ‘wild frontier’ is load-bearing to the concepts of the barbarian and the ranger, and the barbarian in particular has anti-indigenous racist tropes marinating its flavor text.

[andreal831]

Is Elijah actually a feminist? Because he said so but his actions..

Elijah Mikaelson is what we would call a "second wave feminist" or a "white feminist." While I don't necessarily subscribe to the ideas of "waves" of feminism, I think it simplifies it enough for this discourse.

Elijah is a feminist in the most basic sense of the term, in the way he believes women can be equal to men and encourages it. However, he does not actively work to dismantle the patriarchy. He is one of those cases where he likely was progressive at one point, however, society has long since progressed past him.

Dealing with the basic understanding of feminism which is basically just believing women can be equal to men, sure Elijah is a feminist. Elijah has always admired strong, independent women, even in societies where that would not be the norm.

I know some people argue that he is not because of his treatment of Katherine, but I would disagree with that. While I do not like that he was willing to sacrifice a young woman for his brother, it wasn't based on her being a woman. You can argue that he should have offered her more protection at that time because of the power dynamic between them, but again, most of the power dynamic came from Katerina being human. It would have played out similarly if the doppelgangers had been men.

I would also add that he seems to be the only one who supports Rebekah's dreams throughout the show and doesn't make sexist comments about her love life. (I'm looking at Kol and Klaus)

By the 21st Century, when the show takes place, thinking women should be able to learn to defend themselves and be equal to men is not enough. He says he is a devout feminist and then follows it up with a decidedly sexist comment. While I do understand this is the joke, it is still a thought he had and then said aloud while acknowledging it is sexist. I believe this is the only blatantly sexist comment he's made, but correct me if I'm wrong.

I wouldn't consider any of the men in this show to be true feminists for modern times. I don't think the writers even understand what that means.

This current wave of feminism focuses on intersectionality and the deconstruction of the hierarchy that has served to oppress women, the patriarchy. The quote from Enola Holmes really sums it up for me.

Elijah, and the rest of the vampires in the show, have the time, money, power, and privilege to affect real change in society, however, none of them do. Instead, they rather throw parties and blow their money, letting life around them happen. Because why change a system that is working for you?

I wouldn't expect any character in the show to understand intersectionality as the writers of the show often express classist and racist ideas/stereotypes. We see Elijah with a woman of color on a plantation that we know people are being enslaved on. Again, all of these vampires lived through times of slavery and none of them lifted a finger to try and end a system of oppression.

So it is not surprising that none of the men in the show lift a finger to help women's rights. We hear Rebekah mention it, but it is quickly followed up by a sexist comment. This is a theme throughout the show with the female characters, they are often judgemental and cruel to each other using terms that are definitely not feminist. But I digress.

Elijah seems to subscribe to the idea of feminism that if a woman can do what a man can do, she should be able to climb to the top of the patriarchy. As we now know, this is not enough. Letting women get involved in the patriarchy doesn't solve anything. It is a system that oppresses all people and needs to be dismantled rather than allowing women to join it.

We see Elijah throughout the show respect many different types of women which shows his ability to grow as a feminist. However, again, his lack of a deeper understanding of how race, class, privilege, etc. play roles in feminism continued to hinder him. We mostly see this in Elijah's more classist view of the world. Elijah is known for being condescending to others, although I do feel like it was mostly reserved for men.

I believe Elijah would be accepting of the LGBTQ+ community but that could just be head-canon.

So while Elijah doesn't do too much that is blatantly sexist, I would not classify him as a feminist by today's standards. I think he would be willing to learn if there was a character in the show that could actually educate anyone on feminism. But first, someone needs to educate the writers. (Which is a plug for my fic because, don't worry, Astra will not let that stand)

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Imho people put too much in the houses. Like they're basically just social cliques, and the sorting hat was definitely taking into account what would or wouldn't destroy their social lives.

I mean, people put as much into houses as the characters seem to put into houses.

For the characters houses are meaningful, they are social cliques and I'm sure the Sorting Hat pays attention to the social situation the student would be in, but there is an element to these traits, to the values a student has when sorted. But more importantly, wizards think about them as so much more. They are a sign of status, legacy, and worth. Like, little 11-year-old Draco says he'd just leave if he was sorted into Hufflepuff because, in his mind, it would mean he isn't worthy of the other "better" houses.

And Draco isn't the only one. Hagrid calls all of Slytherin Evil, practically all the professors play favorites, Ron is worried over not being in Gryffindor because all his family is in Gryffindor, Neville worries about being in Gryffindor because he doesn't think he is worthy of the house reputation because of what his grandmother told him, and students repeatedly fall into the trap of "Wait, why aren't you at X house?" When someone's behavior deviates slightly from the stereotype of their own house. Like, Terry Boot, when told Hermione cast a NEWT Gemino charm, asks her: "How come you aren't in Ravenclaw?" Because they're supposed to be the smart guys.

Basically, the Wizarding World treats houses like a Big Deal. Even adults who graduated decades ago still have pride in their own house. Actually, there are real-world examples of things like that.

I mean, school houses are a British commonwealth thing that exists in public boarding schools. In these irl houses, students take pride in their house, wear their house colors, and are incredibly competitive with other houses. There are schools that apparently have family houses, an in, if a student's sibling/child arrives at the school, they'd go to the same house as their family member.

(I got this from reading online, as I never encountered a school like this irl, but the internet tells me they exist)

But if we talk about something I'm more familiar with, I taught in a sorta summer course thing for teenagers, and we divided the students there into classes since there were over a hundred of them. There wasn't really a difference between the classes, but each class had its name, symbol, and colors (and different staff members), and the students' tribal instincts kicked in. They got super competitive with the other classes and had their closest friends basically exclusively within their own class. We often caught them making fun of other students for being in another class (something that meant literally nothing). So the staff put a lot of effort into creating activities for the entire group without class separation to try and fight that.

Humans are tribal creatures, we have a built-in mechanism that tells us to come together in groups and think our group is the best. A house system just happens to kick that instinct into gear, but it's always there.

So, it's not that weird that that's how Hogwarts houses are treated in universe, and the fandom gives them the same importance characters in universe seem to give them. Because to them they are that important.

(Of course, not all characters have the exact same opinion about the house system. There are adults in the Wizarding World that don't actually care, but then there are many who do)

Now, houses aren't necessarily a bad thing, humans have this tribal instinct for a reason. We need to feel like we're part of a community, a sense of belonging is something most people seek be it subconsciously or consciously. And there is joy in being part of something that has a long history and that you can be proud of. The problem is when these groups start to define people more than their own person as an individual does. And, shockingly, I don't think the Wizarding World has that problem on a cultural level.

Like Scabior says:

“So you aren’t wanted, then, Vernon? Or are you on that list under a different name? What house were you in at Hogwarts?” “Slytherin,” said Harry automatically. “Funny ’ow they all think we want to ’ear that.” leered Scabior out of the shadows.

(DH, 386)

Houses aren't everything. Even a Slytherin who knows where the common room is but has a suspicious name and says Voldemort's name is cause for suspicion. Being a proven Slytherin doesn't necessarily save you because they don't expect all Slytherins to back them. Because there are those who don't and they seem very aware of it. We also don't really see jobs that are reserved for certain houses.

I think some wizards do generalize more based on houses, but I think the majority of their adult population is aware that people are individuals outside of their houses.

Basically, I think the wizarding world's treatment of houses could definitely be way way better, it isn't as bad as it could be (which isn't a high bar since I expect the worst from the Wizarding World).

[dailycharacteroption]

Roleplaying Races 16: Finale

So… that’s it. No more officially published ancestries for First Edition Pathfinder for me to examine. It’s kinda weird seeing it come to an end, we’ve been doing this so long that the title of the special even uses the older term that was replaced by “Ancestry” when Second Edition rolled around. I figured I shouldn’t change it for recognizability sake, but tried to use the modern terminology as much as possible in the body of these entries and others (or species in the Starfinder equivalent).

The term “ancestry” feels a little… inadequate to describe what they entail, but I understand that it’s a loaded word that not everyone is cool with, so it was a good change.

Moving past that little tangent though, the idea of playing various non-human ancestries goes all the way back to the First Edition of the World’s Oldest Roleplaying game, which isn’t surprising. D&D was, after all, heavily influenced by the works of Tolkien and other fantasy authors, so having non-human beings be a major part of the plot and bringing their differences in both biology and culture to the adventure only made sense.

However, D&D 1E also brought with it a lot of Gygax’s other inspirations and beliefs into it, particularly his bioessentialism, with such things as limiting certain classes to certain ancestries, as well many “enemy” ancestries like orcs and goblins being “inherently evil”.

Now, obviously things loosened up over the years and changing of editions, with classes opening up to any with the aptitude, but the damage had been done with the culture those early years had created. Newer players have no idea of the backlash that allowing half-orcs to be playable characters had in certain areas of the hobby, and even with classes open to everyone, the ancestral ability bonuses and many of the traits of each species continued to feed into the mindset that certain ancestries were only good for certain jobs, and that those that defied that expectation either straight up didn’t exist or were strange deviants. A real planet of the hats situation where almost every half-orc was a barbarian, elves were either wizards or rangers, dwarves were either fighters of clerics, and so on.

But… Times change, franchises change hands and new people whose voices were overshadowed before get creative control. D&D wasn’t just a game for white male nerds who wielded memorized Star Wars trivia the way stereotypical jocks do their win/loss record. No, It was a game for all sorts of people who wanted a form of escapism. Women, PoC, Queer folks too, even if they had to put up with some real shit from the rest of the fandom sometimes. And slowly as society and the game changed, they brought their perspectives. It’s been slow-going, but progress has been good, not just in D&D, but other RPGs and Pathfinder as well.

So we don’t call them races anymore, and both editions of Pathfinder, but especially 2E do their best to make ancestral traits and feats a celebration of their physiology and culture rather than a way to pigeonhole them into certain roles. Orcs and goblins have gone from being inherently evil monsters to cultures very different from the human… well I hesitate to say standard… which sometimes brings them into conflict with other cultures, with specific individuals and gods being the cause of evil antagonistic groups first and foremost.

Culture is constantly evolving, and with it, the fiction and games that hold a mirror to it, and despite many oppositional forces, right not it’s on track to keep changing for the better. We’ve come a long way from a thousand and one Frodo, Gimli, and Legolas clones, and while terms may change, I’m still so very delighted to be able to play a game where playing a non-human entity is a possibility and a chance to explore what that means rather than stick to a stereotype. But then maybe that’s just the therian in me.

In any case, I’ve paraphrased a lot of TTRPG history and how it relates to ancestries and similar playable options across systems and the people who play the games, and I hope it made even a little sense. More than that, I hope you’ll continue to join me in the stories that we craft together with these characters.

[screechingkingdomhottub]

DEFENDING NPMD

Time to defend nerdy prudes must die to some of you for not appreciating the utter masterpiece it is as my current hyperfixation.

"These teens aren't realistic they're caricatures" - Sure that could easily be true, and say it is true then it's a high school piece based on cliques/stereotypes that people don't necessarily fit into in reality? That doesn't make it bad, heathers and mean girls are classics at this point. But also I was 3 of these people in secondary. I had an anime phase and I was friends with weebs, they act exactly like richie, like...I told so many people "Believe It!" with a thumbs up. I even played a naruto song to classmates and talked about how he was my idol as a 13 year old...I cringe about that to this day but it's a REAL PHASE. Then we have Ruth who is so horny and desperate for love...literally my teenage life are you kidding? Especially with the theatre reenactments thinking I could do things if I didn't get anxious like...poor girl. I'd like to think I was Peter at one point, I have low blood sugar and like pokemon cards and got decent grades and had a bit of a need to prove myself? But I was probably closer to Grace like ya boi has religious suppressions but I'm catholic so clearly not a person of faith in Grace's eyes haha.

"There's too many rhymes - class of twenty twenty worn"

I think this was intentional? Well not really but also like it makes sense, Jeff said the reason for the snapping being wrong in bully the bully is because they're nerds and that's uncool in jazz which kinda leads me to believe this theory. Also the original lyric was "There's no way to fix the class of 2026" but had to change cause year. One of the songs that doesn't rhyme obsessively is "The Summoning" which is sang primarily by the lords in black as opposed to the high school kids. Now, I don't want to offend anyone but high schoolers are idiots. Everyone is an idiot but high schoolers tend to be egotistical idiots. My theory is the rhyming is sort of a meta commentary of the ages of these characters, believing that things should be rhyming because that's what they've been taught. It keeps the norm of the school also, it shows it fits the standard representation of schools in media and then symbolises this through the representation of a standard song. Whereas the lords in black have some off lyrics, off rhymes, especially here: "Nibbly wants a sacrifice And Wiggly wants his wrath We dancе around the pentagram And take all our kingdoms back" It doesn't fit the other rhymes that happen earlier on sang by the high schoolers. This could represent the lords in black are interfering with the norm, they're older and wiser and follow their own rules. "But screech what about hatchet town" they don't have the same power as the lords in black, the chaos and paranoia is getting to them but there is still more off rhymes than in others. "What are off rhymes what are you doing" A rhyme is like fart and smart. An off-rhyme is like fart "monster" and "Gone sir" it doesn't entirely rhyme but it has that feeling. There's probably a lot more fascinating things that you can get into with this "BUUUT Heathers did it without them sounding so cheesy and unaware" my answer to that is, heathers is fILLED WITH EMOS. Have you spoken to an emo? They'll go like "Even the roaring waves of the sea cannot mimic the immense drowning I feel by my emotions" like dude chill. NPMD doesn't have emos in it really...Everyone is really happy considering the situation.

"Who says cool beans anymore?" - This is the funniest criticism to me like, do you think Grace Chasity is supposed to represent a modern day view? She's the one who says it first! "Shoot and shinola", "tickle on my mommy spot" all that is fine by you but cool beans is outdated??? "But why do the others join herrr" ok well the obvious reason there is they're INSIDE A HAUNTED HOUSE WITH SOMEONE WHO IS VERY SUS AND THEIR WORST BULLY IS COMING AND ALSO GRACE IS THE ONLY ONE WITH THE KEY LIKE I WOULD JUST GO WITH THAT. But if not, nerds quote outdated memes all the time. "Excellent" reminded me of naruto the abridged series, like that's from 2008 but im still there. Or like the phandom are still simping for glabellas and onomatopoeic microwaves. The starkid fandom would never reference an old musical, the medallion said that was dumb so we're not doing that...wait Most valid stuff I've seen is about steph's characterisation which I can do a whole post about like mariah is phenomenal as always but there's a lot of telling not showing.

Also I'm back into starkid

[jemmo]

today on everything i love and that is perfect about utsukushii kare (bc i just binged rewatched both seasons), i find it so fantastic and perfect how they, not even advertently, show how hira and kiyoi grow out of their high school personas, bc that is so a thing that happens and is something i find hardly any media really navigates as well as i see it here. high school is very much a rigid place, and in it you play your part; the popular kid, the class clown, the nerd and so on, but outside of high school, after high school, when you grow up and enter the wider role, there aren’t those roles to fulfil. you have to be you, and to do that, you have to figure out who that ‘you’ is, whether thats something you’ve always known or had inside and just kept buried or hidden, or thats something you’ve yet to discover and have to find, and then go on to actually be that, and shed all of that behaviour you learned or picked up or hid behind in high school. 

idk if this is a universal thing, but it is something that especially speaks to me, being more of the hira, the loner, unpopular, shy kid. that role offers a lot of safety in high school, which is weird to say bc its not a place you aspire to be nor is it particularly enjoyable, but in a way it spares you of further ridicule. if you just fill that role and don’t do anything that acts outside of it, you can get by just fine, then high school is done and you move on. thats what utsukushii kare shows so well. the way hira is treated in high school is never really that outright bullying you stereotypically think of, which i love bc thats not really what high school is actually like. really, it is more of what you see in the show. this lower level stuff that you kind of just go along with even if it is objectively mean. the name calling is not loud insults, its those pet nicknames that follow you and remind you of the things you dont like about yourself, the things you’re embarrassed about. its the established hierarchy that you are at the bottom of that signals to you everyday that you are less important than everyone else. and hira goes along with it partly bc of kiyoi but also bc its safe and, dare i say, comfortable, bc hira has not just not known different, but doesnt wish to either, which is how he settles into his dynamic with kiyoi. 

on the other hand, kiyoi’s place as the popular kid is something he is more visibly uncomfortable with, at least to me, and you see it even before you learn about what his real dreams and interests are. the way he acts with the people that surround him, he is never exactly like that. his treatment of hira especially is kinder while still hiding behind that film of treating him as the group’s lacky, but when people treat hira unkindly, he steps in, and i like to think this is from a place of him just being a good person and not just a defensiveness of hira bc of however he feels. its weird bc he does want to be admired so his place shouldn’t feel so wrong, but i think its from a place of wanting to be admired for his merit, for who he is, not out of any control or fear. he wants to be level with people when it comes to reality, and praised for the things he can do well, his abilities, not just some abject superiority others think he possesses. and i cant tell you how much i love this character for this whole ‘cool guy who’s expected to be so cool and not care about anything but actually really wants to do well at stuff and has a passion for acting and dancing and performance and just wants to be loved’. like that is one of my favourite character tropes ever and utsukushii kare does it with kiyoi to absolute damn perfection, which is only added to when you think about the queerness underlying it, kiyoi acting as this stereotypical straight popular high school boy who’s too cool for everyone but really not only is he not straight and have these complicated feelings for a boy, but he also loves performance and theatre and i love that those two things aren’t separate and it makes so much sense. there is just this young queer boy who wants to be liked hiding behind this veneer of coolness and popularity and its fabulous. 

so when they do get out of high school, we get to see kiyoi embrace that side of him that he always kept hidden, not just doing what he loves, but actively pursuing it, trying hard, putting in the effort and dedication and i adore that. it lends itself so well to the mantra of ‘trying your best is the coolest thing you can do’ which i wholeheartedly believe. not caring isn’t cool. caring is cool. trying your best is cool. and not only does it make kiyoi more admirable as a character, but it feels like kiyoi is a lot more comfortable and welcoming of the admiration he gets, bc now it feels deserved, and its funny that that manifests through him being humble and playing himself down bc thats the very human thing to do when you’re praised, but it also parallels the way hira downplays and degrades himself which is actually, in a twisted way, him thinking highly of himself, which we see discussed in the last ep of season 2. 

bc when hira leaves high school, he still clings to that role, even though there’s no one around him maintaining it. for him to be lowly, there has to be someone around him thats above him, but there isn’t now, which is why he clings to the dynamic he has with kiyoi above him bc it carries over and maintains his safe space. and what we see in season 2 is kiyoi removing that, asking hira to not raise him up just so he can put himself down, he wants to be level. and with kiyoi trying to take away that safety, that leaves hira having to figure out what his place actually is in the world, a world he’s always removed himself from. that’s why his discussion with noguchi is so important, bc kiyoi has struggled to be direct and put it into words with hira, either bc he struggles to say those things or doesn’t want to be so harsh with hira, but noguchi has no issue with holding back, nor feels any need to be gentle. he tells hira flat out you are selfish and ignorant to a fault and think so highly of yourself that you think you are the only person in this world. and thats what hira needs, a real challenge, someone who sees his mindset and twists it to show all the negatives of it. its never what hira intended, but its the message he sends to others; by belittling yourself, you give other people’s words and thoughts no weight or importance, thinking you know better. by removing people from your photos, by hiding behind the camera, you are not escaping the world, you are saying the world is only for you. there is only one plane to exist on, and by trying to be there alone, you deny everyone else of their existence. the option is not to not participate, its to participate alone. and what i’d hope continues in the story (idk what the movie is about at all) is a journey for hira to find how he can be involved at the same level as everyone else, to step out of the safety of self inflicted isolation and join in, feel comfortable finally taking up space and find who he is outside of high school. 

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Happy WBW! What's the plot of your average, run of the mill, Alium movie? What are some common tropes?

Hey! This has been here for a while, sorry bout that.

I say it usually depends on genre what the plot is, so let's be general.

Common romance tropes would be a Class One Alii, most commonly a speedster or fader, paired with a Class Three (most commonly telepathy), while Class Two (not as cool) or Four (too scary) powers are usually reserved for side characters.

Sci-fi tropes usually involve hypothetical powers like sonokinesis or something. It's not uncommon to see Alii with multiple powers, and there's a popular ATLA-esque series where someone has all the powers through mimicry/absorption of other powers.

Horror movies will usually have something to do with a) a power gone wrong, b) a hypothetical power, or c) something that steals powers. Some will have feared beasts or legends or scary objects or places.

Isekai would be a popular genre, especially as the multiverse is being tracked through dimensiokinesis.

There's a lot of coming of age regarding powers leveling up. A lot of child acting too due to when Alii get their powers, but animated movies are still common since speedster animators could draw quickly.

Extra stuff: each power will come with their own stereotypes, often with two extremes. Ultimates, for example, will either be mean and intimidating or shy and meek. It's not uncommon for speedsters to be overrepresented because they run a lot of the entertainment industry because they can get things done faster. Inutilia, when they are there, are usually not played by real Inutilia, and Class Four powers are usually portrayed by people of more common classes.

That's what I got, hope it's a decent answer. Thanks for the ask!

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet

[fourseasonscomeandgo]

The Jealousy Playlist: That One Twice Song About Jelly.

Pairing: BLACKPINK Jennie x gn!reader.

Word Count: 1.2k

Genre: Fluff.

When you first started dating Jennie you felt a little out of place. She's so elegant, surrounded by her life full of luxury and her high-class friends, dressed in the best brands, going to events where she rubs arms with rich people.

But as time goes by, you start to get to know your partner more in depth, and so you realized that, in the end, she's just a normal girl, who would rather stay at home with her dogs, order food and watch Friends with you than go to a Chanel party. She's much simpler than you imagined.

Naturally, you feel more comfortable after years of dating her. But you do admit that you're different types of people.

You know what I mean, right?

Like nerds and populars, like elite people and middle-class people, those kinds of distinctions. Well, Jennie is refined, delicate, a typical popular girl, but chill and nice. While you're a gamer.

An addicted, smelly gamer, who disappears for days because you're playing Valorant, whose room is a mess, and who wouldn't react if their very famous, very hot girlfriend showed up naked in their room because you don't want to get killed in the middle of your perfect streak.

You're a gamer who fulfills every stereotype.

Is there a cliché of the cool girl who dates a freaky?

That's why when you met the other members of Blackpink, the click with Jisoo was instant. You two are just pixel junkies who prefer their favorite character in Genshin Impact over real humans.

Since you met, you passed your phone numbers to each other and started contacting from time to time to start a game of anything. Eventually you became very close, as you're always playing together on call.

On friday you went to visit Jisoo, brought your computer and both of you started playing League of Legends. Of course, before you went you let your girlfriend know that you were going to visit her member.

But when sunday came and Jennie went to get a pair of shoes from her friend's apartment, and it was you who opened the door, she couldn't help but get a little upset due to the fact that she didn't know you were there.

"What are you doing here?" She questioned entering the place and taking off her sneakers to exchange them for slippers.

"We're playing LoL, I had already told you." You commented simply.

"Yes," she stated, turning to look at you "on friday you told me you were coming to play LoL." She clarified.

"Yes." You nodded your head.

"You've been here since friday!?" She exclaimed, somewhat frustrated.

"Yes." You repeated.

Let's see, you weren't planning on staying at the older's house for three days, okay, but you didn't think your girlfriend was going to mind either. I mean, you and Jisoo got together to play League of Legends. It doesn't get any less sexy.

The worst part is that now Jennie was mad at both of you and was telling you a lot of things, but you and the blackhaired girl were too sleep deprived to be able to pay attention to her.

Is that a red flag?

You can see Varus in her face.

You ended up gathering your things and going back to her apartment. The moment you walked in you went straight to throw yourself on the bed and fell sound asleep.

You woke up the next morning, barely understanding anything, but you put the pieces of the previous day together one by one.

You were playing League of Legends with Jisoo, you were having an amazing winning streak, you are an amazing Varus, but Jisoo as Rengar is out of this world, she should be playing in the world championship. You had just finished another victorious game and there was a knock at the door, to which your gaming partner, vaguely, already very blinded by sleep and the amount of hours of playing, remembered that your girlfriend would go to get a pair of shoes for some reason. You opened the door and after seeing you, she got mad, and then you ended up here.

Oh, and you haven't had a bath in about four days.

You got out of bed and rummaged through your partner's closet to find some of your clothes left there from other times you've stayed. Finally gathering enough, and a towel too, you headed for the bathroom.

As you left the room, you saw your girlfriend sitting eating breakfast at the kitchen counter, she glanced sideways at you for a moment, but then diverted her eyes to her food.

"I'll take a shower." You notify, but no one responded.

Now clean, you went out and sat down next to her, who was now on the couch. You stared at her, but she was too determined not to pay you any attention at all.

"Jennie."

There was no response.

"Jen."

...

"Love?"

Nothing.

"Did I do something wrong?" You asked in an innocent tone, almost scared or disappointed in yourself.

Jennie turned her head towards you, with a concerned and tender expression on her face.

"No, my love..." she hastened to say, but cut off her own sentence "yes, yes you did do something wrong." She sentenced, as if she had remembered something just then.

"But," you began "I can't apologize to you if I don't know what I did wrong."

"Y/n!" She exclaimed, incredulous "You really don't know?"

"I really don't know." You assumed.

"You stayed three days in a row at Jisoo's house and didn't even tell me." She explained.

"Yes I did tell you!" You protested.

"The first day! You forgot the part where you stayed 48 more hours." She attacked back.

"We were playing, I didn't realize." You explained, softly "Sorry." You added.

"It's not enough."

"Why?"

"Because..." she sighed, stressed "What if you fall in love with Jisoo because she likes the same things you like?" She expressed nervously "My sexy partner spent three days in a row at my sexy friend's house, alone! Anything could have happened." She added.

"Jennie, no one thinks I'm sexy." You said expressionless.

"What are you talking about?"

"All I talk about all the time is games and gamer gear, I never leave my house, I dress in the first thing I find, which sometimes doesn't match, and if I walk too fast I get very agitated and sweat a lot." You explained, to which she made a face of dislike "The day I met you, I told you about the complexity of the Zelda universe and confessed that I've gone as long as eleven days without a bath because I wanted to complete a game."

She brought her hand to her face, covering her mouth, pretending to get emotional, then wiping away a fake tear.

"Baby, that's so hot" She replied sarcastically.

"I know you love me, God! I'm so damn lucky you love me, I'm thankful everyday because someone like you cares for me so much, I would never dare to lose you." You confessed "And less for someone like Jisoo, babe, I've seen that girl pick up takis with her toes to her mouth just to not let go of the joystick." You made a disgusted expression.

"You're right." Assumed your girlfriend, as if falling into reality again now that she was no longer blinded by jealousy.

She moved over to you and hugged you, kissing your cheek, then snuggling up to you.

"But let's be honest," She spoke again "you're an attractive gamer, okay?" You smiled at her observation "You have the most beautiful face and the brightest smile. Honestly, you could be nastier." You both laughed.

—O—O—

okay, i may have exagerated it a little bit, but this was so fun to write. the idea of jennie dating a weird dirty reader for some reason was so cute to me, this is a representation to the smelly part of the gamer community, okay?

sorry if you don't identify as a bathless, antisocial gamer, i still hope everyone likes it<3

—ica.

[pendragon-writes]

Mw2 Guys and DND HC's

AN: I’ve never played dnd I’ve only done a bit of pathfinder so if I get anything wrong lmk

Gaz

I’ll start off with their classes

For Gaz he gives me Paladin or Fighter

Basic Ik but with his time being a soldier he tends to like to stick close to home with his characters

I also feel like they’d either be a Human or a Half-Elf, I can’t explain why but the vibes are right.

He also probably hasn’t played dnd before so he’d try to stay safe with his character and try not to get killed.

Oh and for alignment chaotic neutral, it’s still safe but he wants to cause some trouble yk

Soap

He gives me “my character is 10x more chaotic than me”

So for that I’m giving him either the Bard or the Sorcerer and I’ll explain why in a moment

Bards are known very well for being charismatic, and he’d use that to get into some trouble.

And well Sorcerers can use magic, do you know how much chaos you can create with magic alone?

And for race he’d pick Dragonborn if he chose the Sorcerer

Half-Orc for Bard

Oh and his experience? Just as bad as Captain Price’s

Captain Price

First off you’d have to try to even get him to join

He’d call it childish but eventually give in to playing

Definitely had to ask Gaz to help him design his character

Also he’s pretty basic and would pick the Human to play as

His class? Probably the Barbarian cause it sounded cool to him

Just as I mentioned with Soap he barely has no experience

König

For König I’d have to say he’s definitely dabbled in dnd

He’s definitely watched YouTubers and their campaigns and when he heard about you trying to get players he was immediately down to join

For his class, he gives me Wizard or Cleric

While he can also be chaotic if he wants to he could also just be super relied on and not be seen as scary in the world of dnd which he has faced in the real world

Okay hear me out for race he would pick Dwarf or Halfling

Man’s has been tall his whole life, so who would blame him for wanting to be on the shorter side one in a while

Oh and experience? He’s got a good amount

Alejandro

Probably overheard Rudy mention it and it caught his interest

Just like the captain he also doesn’t have much experience but he wants to have fun with it and with making his character

For his class, either the Bard (Like Soap Ik) or the Ranger

It lets him be as versatile as he wants and can also charm people up if Yk what I mean.

If you’re the Dm he will ‘flirt’ with the npc’s and as a result force you to act out these scenes

Ghost

Okay now ghost here acts like he has no clue what dnd is but let’s be honest he totally knows what it is

Very stereotypical but for class I feel like he’d pick the rogue, plus it’s fitting

For his characters race? Tiefling or a Human, since they both fit him as a character

Him and Soap banter about their plans and he pulls rank every time.

[joons]

rewriting barbie (2023) from scratch, here we go.

the movie cribs mostly from toy story 4 (toys experience midlife crises when kids aren't playing with them), but i would have built it around toy story 2's themes of legacy and mint-in-box status. the barbies in barbieland are all confined to the roles given to them by mattel. she is dr. barbie because she has the doctor outfit. she is stereotypical barbie because she doesn't do anything beyond look pretty and cute. ken is beach ken because he's got sun-bleached hair. this is how adults look at barbies. this is how a toy collector looks at barbies.

maybe this barbieland is the visual representation of america ferrera's barbie collection, a very regimented, very beautiful, very adult way of recapturing her childhood. the barbies never leave their box. the ones that don't have boxes are placed very precisely on shelves, held up by stands with spotlights on them.

sasha does not relate to this at all. she has the same critiques of barbie as a status symbol and impossible standard for women that she has in the film.

but there's another, younger character, maybe a girl that sasha - like skipper! - is babysitting. she plays with barbies the way weird barbie is played with. when she gets into gloria's barbie stash, she starts seeing them as their own people who are not defined by the outfits they wear. this barbie is a machiavellian criminal who is trying to recruit other barbies to break into a bank. this barbie is more comfortable hanging out with the kens because she is bullied by the other barbies. this barbie is a shapeshifter who turns into a barbie horse or a barbie dog as the girl replaces her with another figurine.

things immediately start going wrong for the barbies in barbieland. this isn't correct! this is weird! weird barbie laughs and tells them how they can find out what's going wrong by entering the real world.

as barbie and ken find their way into the real world, sasha discovers what the girl is doing to her mom's collection. at first, she's afraid of gloria punishing her because she knows how much this means to her mom. but as she watches, she sees a funny way of reclaiming barbie for herself and poking the whole concept of barbie in the eye, and maybe her mom is lame for not seeing this. she starts to play with the girl too. now the barbies are fomenting class consciousness and talking about how the kens are repressing them. the barbies are talking about how degrading it is that they can't be weird or ugly or mean. the barbies start understanding the patriarchy.

"the patriarchy?" the girl says. "is that like how men are always riding horses? or how men are on all the money?"

sasha blinks. "yeah, sure."

"well, i like horses," the girl says. "that sounds fun. my kens are going to go to war with the barbies now."

"no!" sasha says. "the patriarchy isn't that simple ... it's ... the kens don't KNOW they're doing it, exactly. it's because they don't consider the barbies as real people. they don't think of them as people who can BE mean or ugly or weird."

"my barbies are already mean and ugly and weird. that's how i like them. i want the kens to be mean and ugly and weird too!"

"oh, it's on," says sasha. they play-act feminist theory and counterarguments through the lens of a generational gap, where the girl's innocent imagination sometimes sees how sasha's anger can also limit the way she sees barbie. barbie and ken can truly be anything. maybe we have to hold onto that part of ourselves even as we learn more about how women are limited in the real world, because how else are we going to make those stories real?

barbie and ken find gloria, and she talks about how much she loves barbie, but how much she'd like to see herself in them again, someone who is struggling to understand her daughter. the barbies in her collection are just something she dreams of being. they are not who she is. she is old and doesn't feel very pretty or accomplished. she is just trying to get by.

barbie sees her as beautiful, despite the fact that this barbie is connected to gloria's emotions and is starting to feel less than too.

ken is becoming connected to the girl playing with gloria's ken at home. he is beginning to see that he can be more too. the world seems designed for kens in a way he's never experienced before. he has to go tell the other kens about horses and money and the godfather! ("who showed this 6-year-old girl the godfather?" sasha wonders.)

probably ken and barbie don't make it back to barbieland, but the audience sees everything that's happening there, the way it starts to become an allegory for the gender wars, a fight for meaning and nuance in a world that makes kens and barbies exactly what they're made for and nothing else. but what WERE they made for? is this really what mattel or ruth handler wanted?

as barbie, ken, gloria, sasha, and the 6-year-old girl talk it out, they realize that they are all right, in a way. we do need aspirational figures to inspire us, but sometimes we need to see ourselves too. we don't need to accept how barbies are meant to be played with as the only option. we do have to accept help from other women who have longer histories with barbie and can see how she both frustrates and inspires our conception of ourselves. we do have to see ourselves through the eyes of our inner child who's a little bit weird and doesn't accept any limitations on themselves at all. we have to learn confidence in ourselves from young women, teenage women, angry women, sad women, mom women, older women, women who want to be more or less than what they've been told they have to be.

because the movie is so discursive without grounding it in the experience of human women, women with very different approaches to femininity and barbie as a tool, it comes off as didactic and uncritical of its own point-of-view, which is actually quite limiting in how it imagines barbies liberating themselves; by being told how impossible it is to be a woman, they accept that limitation and operate through stereotypes to fight the patriarchy, pretending to be stupid and playing with kens' egos and dating around in order to pit the kens against each other. in the context of the film, there is no sense that this ... isn't what women are really like, or that we really ought to be able to imagine more for ourselves than that, regardless of how "powerful" we think the patriarchy is. but if that aspect of the film had been grounded in a child's understanding of the anger she was hearing from older women, then we could easily see the flaws in that kind of response, while understanding why some women might really do that.

develop the human characters as people with widely diverse understandings of who they are in relation to society and in relation to dolls, give them each a way of seeing themselves and their struggles in the dolls, and understand why each of them would buy a doll or at least use the dolls to understand each other better, and the whole movie is much smarter, warmer, and more human. a barbie movie that's truly for everyone.

[apictureofelizabethdarcy]

Y'all. I might be a little emotional tonight due to the overlap of post-period blues and being very very sick, but like... I am so excited for this new wave of PJO love. Because those books meant and continue to mean so damn much to me.

When I was 10 years old, I my dad bought the boxed set of the first four for me from a Scholastic book order. The last Olympian hadn't come out yet - it came out a month later. My dad chose it for me because it had Greek mythology, and I was going through a mythology phase at the time. I didn't know what he ordered, because he filled out the forms and sealed the envelope after my brother and I went to bed, and I took them to school the next day like a dutiful kid. When they came in, I had no idea what to expect, but I ended up devouring them. Because they made me feel seen in a way I never had before.

TW: adults not being assholes about neurodiversity, brief mentions of sexual harrassment and bullying, brief vague mention of self-harm, death of a loved one

You need to understand that at this time, I was your stereotypical "gifted" kid - undiagnosed dyslexic autistic with OCD and ADHD comorbidities. We lived in a super tiny rural town (like 16 people in my graduating class tiny) with very limited internet access (I had dial-up until I was 13) and virtually no support for my needs even if I had been diagnosed. The first time I had a meltdown from sensory overload, I couldn't stop crying and went catatonic - rather than being comforting, my teacher grabbed me by the shoulders and condescendingly asked if I'd "gone off my meds or something" and told me to pull it together. I also hit puberty super early, and was being sexually harrassed daily because of it, and nobody did anything about it. Not my teachers, not the principal, no one. When I told my parents, I was accused of being "melodramatic" and "overreacting." I learned pretty early that adults couldn't be trusted.

And then came Percy Jackson. And for the first time, I had a character like me - a nerd who played trading card games, who loved being in the water, who had ADHD and dyslexia. Who talked back and defended himself against the adults who talked down to him. And the whole story was about not being like your parents, about fighting for a better and more just world. A character who was powerful and funny and tough and whose disabilities were a part of his super power, not something to be overcome. And I fell in love with the series as a whole.

Like head over heels in love. It was embarrassing, actually. When I would lie awake at night, I would pretend that my parents weren't my real parents and that I was actually a child of Hermes who hadn't been claimed. I became obsessed with Ethan Nakamura - or at least, the self-indulgent, angst-and-lore fuelled fic version of him I created in my head. I started writing my diary entries pretending that I was Nico di Angelo. One of my first eer fanfics was just Clarisse and Percy talking and bonding over having shitty families, and her apologizing. It was VERY important to me that Clarisse be forgiveable back then. I sought out PerNico fanart when I was at the local library after school, and tried to create my own myth-o-magic cards but gave up when I couldn't figure out how to draw a manticore.

And then House of Hades came out two months before I turned 14. I borrowed my friend Axel's copy because I couldn't afford it, and oh boy did that hit me. I was going through a religious phase at the time but I was also coming into my bisexuality, and that caused a major personal crisis. So the scene with Cupid hit me really, really hard in a not good way. I remember sitting in my living room with my parents and brother while they watched Big Bang Theory, and I had to close the book and go to my room. I couldn't read for three days after that. But it also solidified my obsession with these books. 😅 A lot of other bad shit happened that year, to the point I started self-harming, and the PJO fandom provided comfort and community and distraction.

I spent the summer between eighth and ninth grade writing cringey Solangelo fic in which Will was a chronically barefoot Texas boy who got his first kiss playing truth or dare with Charlie Beckendorf. He liked Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, and they had their first dance to "Thinking Out Loud" while Lee played guitar by the fire. I set the wallpaper of my first ever cell phone to Nico fanart that I had to photograph because I didn't have internet access to download it. I played Paola Bennet's "Soldatino" on loop when I was having a bad day and pulled multiple all-nighters on my worst nights drawing PJO fanart.

Sword of Summer released my freshman year of high school. I borrowed a copy from an older boy I was hanging out with - I think his name was Michael? our friendship didn't last, but I'm grateful anway, because that book did. I had only been identifying as gender fluid for 9 months when that book came out, and my coming out was far from ideal. Meeting Alex was the coolest thing that could have happened to me. AND (s)he helped me to bond with my niece, who was 12 years old and already so much more aware than I had been at her age. I called her Magnus and she called me Alex - until we got the point in the book where they started dating.

And the summer after high school was super traumatic. I spent my summer helping my grandfather take care of my grandmother while on home hospice. It was emotionally draining, because this woman had as big a hand in raising me as my mother, but as the end got closer, she got mean and then violent. I was watching her die in slow motion, and it fucked me up big time. But during our moments of quiet, when she would be asleep and my grandfather was out in the garden, I would read Trials of Apollo, and even though those books hurt so deeply, it helped break me out of my numbness, and provided some great laughs along the way.

And when I got to college, the Riordanverse was one of the first things that helped me bond with the people who would become some of my best friends! I'll never forget sitting at the Rachel Carson dining room debating the phylogeny of sandwiches and discussing Red Pyramid with Sage and Kailtyn. I even tried (unsuccessfully) to make us Camp Halfblood T-shirts for candlenights one year. 😅

I know there are parts of the books that are problematic. But I also love this fandom so, so much, and I am so glad that it was able to touch so many of us. I still lay awake dreaming of Camp Halfblood. Of capture the flag and the rock wall of death, of blue coca cola and jelly beans. I buy blue Takis whenever I see them because they remind me of Percy. I can't drive past our local dam without snickering over the "dam snackbar." I know how much this series meant to my little queer neurodivergent heart, and I am really excited for the younger generation who may be discovering this world for the first time.

[dogtoling]

💚💀✂️🥊 for Graffiti please? they're one of my favorite guys from your splatoon cast i'd love to hear more about them! :]c

GRAAAFFF i will post his picture 1st thing! i'm glad you like him

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

Okay this is HARD straight off the bat actually. As far as he's concerned he's a guy. Not so sure about the sexuality part, not something he's really thought about. He tends to be very preoccupied with art and not super interested in things like dating (i don't think he's ever done that yet). So I guess the answer is don't worry about it, he's not worrying about it either, doesn't matter. He assumes he's straight but he doesn't even know.

💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?

...Not really! He is pretty fearless all things considered. Graf is an extremely chill guy and he does what he wants pretty much. He doesn't even have some of the relatively common inkfish phobias, like large bodies of water, birds, or teeth/fangs. you could argue he actually enjoys a lot of stuff that is typically considered unsettling just for the novelty of it. He's basically obsessed with shark imagery, and most inkfish think sharks are scary as hell. He just thinks they're metal.

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

He's pretty happy-go-lucky, and honestly he doesn't retain a lot of awful memories. Getting the news that his teammate wound up in the hospital is definitely up there. Other than that, he was an outcast at school, so most of his bad memories are definitely grade school related, which isn't really an uncommon thing... his teen years have been really good overall! So it has to come down to classic things like failing miserably at presentations and getting pushed down the stairs.

Like, outside of people outright being mean to him and harming him, not a lot of stuff gets to him. Even events that would be traumatic to most people tend to be like "damn, whoa", for him. Even exhilirating, in the context of a redacted event I can't talk about because I want to make it into a comic, which I've been procrastinating on starting for (checks pocket watch) half a year. moving on...

🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

honestly. Graf is kind of a stereotypical inkfish. He loves turf wars. He loves street art. He LOVES making graffiti (hence his name). He loves hanging out with his friends, he loves playing stupid games, he loves rollerskating, he loves lying down on the floor with a friend and talking about random stuff for hours. He HATES going to school and literally no one has any idea how he's passing his classes or how he got into Krakensoul HS in the first place with the absolutely pathetic attendance he's holding up. He's the kind of person who cannot be bothered to do things that have to be done, but that are boring. His place would be a man cave if Nori didn't also live there and clean up after him. He's very freedom-oriented and as soon as there's strict rules or limitations or the concept that you HAVE to do some boring stupid thing, he's stopped listening and left the room.

thanks for the ask! Here is his fishsona (both the "real-life" fish head and an artistic rendition of the character it's supposed to represent).