#does this make sense. but anyway twitter is like my house and tumblr is like me going to someone elses american house etc etc

[caimitos]

i already made a tumblr for my art (just as an archive) but i hate the thought of moving here for my art after ~5 years on artph / the local art community on twitter

like i'm not sure how to (re)build an audience on a website that just doesn't have my target audience in it and it makes me want to eat broken glass

[kimbapisnotsushi]

okay gang buckle up here are the highlights from the notes and mini comics in the back of the english version of "beginnings & endings" let's go!!

(also i know translated images of these are probs floating around somewhere but i have literally never seen these before except in the og jp artbook bc i don't go on twitter so like. this one is for the tumblr gang i guess?? anyways have fun!)

there's a small comic where yamaguchi tells tsukki that he hears hinata has been doing meiso (瞑想, or meditation) every day which i guess is a homophone because tsukki goes "he's been doing meiso forever, what?" (迷走, to stray/act randomly) and pictures hinata always going off on his own and doing random shit LMAAAO

also there's a mini comic where bokuto is wearing a lab coat and is like "omg don't i look good in this?" and komi and konoha are like "yooooo the lab coat is so sick it makes anyone look smart it's so amazing etc" and akaashi is in the back whisper-yelling "IF YOU GUYS PRAISE THE LAB COAT TOO MUCH THEN BOKUTO WILL GET JEALOUS OF THEM"

THERE'S ANOTHER MINI COMIC THAT'S ADVERTISING THE SALE OF VOLUME 33 WHICH KAGEYAMA THOUGHT WASN'T REAL BC "hinata's dig is on the cover!?!?! that can't be right!! that has to be fake!!"

and then he promotes it by saying "it's got hinata crappily bumping the ball on it. hope you'll like it"

another mini comic shows hinata sending a pic of himself and oikawa in rio wishing kageyama, yachi, tsukki, and yamaguchi a happy new year except like. oihina are squatting over a sand sculpture they made that's a replica of the kagami-mochi which is making yachi, tsukki, and yamaguchi lose their shit. kageyama (who is separate from them on a jog) does not seem to realize what it is and wonders why they built a pile of poop

KANBAYASHI SHOWS UP IN ONE OF THE MINI COMICS??? I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT JUSTICE FOR MY BOY LET'S GO

literally he just introduces himself and where he is ("i'm currently standing in front of the men's room at fukurodani high") and explains that today is the final day of a MASSIVE joint training camp and takes us to see how things are going AND THEN WE SEE EVERYONE BURSTING THROUGH THE DOORS AND SUGA YELLING "IT'S PARTY TIME!!!!"

dude i fucking LOVE this one bc like. kamomedai is there. it's at fukurodani so obviously they're there. the ppl that come in are karasuno members (the third years plus tsukki, hinata, and kageyama), kuroo, and oikawa (so we know nekoma AND seijoh are there) so i'm just like. who the fuck else is there. this IS a party. it's THE crossover. THE ensemble cast

tbh i'm a really big fan of thinking that this is the intro panel to that huge colored spread furudate did of all the teams gathered around the nekoma v karasuno match bc it's the only thing that makes sense!! that WAS the final day of their massive joint training day session!!!!

THERE'S A SHORT MANGA IN THE BACK DETAILING FURUDATE'S RESEARCH TRIP TO BRAZIL I'M SO FUCKING EXCITED LET'S GO

furudate used hinata, tsukki, and kageyama to represent themselves and two editors who went with them

apparently local sports sites interviewed furudate bc they wre curious to know about the manga and then furudate. turned around and interviewed them right back about beach volleyball LMAAAO

two of the women's beach volleyball players they met (barbara seixas and fernanda berti if anyone knows them!) did the kamehameha pose and furudate drew them in it

the meal that oikawa and hinata ate together was traced directly from a picture furudate took when they got lunch with the athletes LOL

they also visited barbara seixas's house and got to see all her medals and trophies!!

the next day they went to go interview from the men's side and met bruno oscar schmidt and evandro gonçalves. these guys were funny bc furudate asked them "do you ever clash over opinions or get into arguments?" and apparently schmidt (who is 6'1") pointed at oscar (6'11"!!!!) and went "what, you think i'd pick a fight with him?"

then they visited gonçalves' apartment where he also had a lot of trophies LMAO, and his apartment was used as inspiration for the apartments of hinata and pedro / heitor and nice!!!

keep in mind that furudate has been using hinata, tsukki, and kageyama to represent their team this entire time so it looks like those three have just been hanging out with irl volleyball players LMAAAO

then they went to corcovado mountain to see the statue and, in a rare moment of rawdog honesty, tsukki admits that the view from the top is pretty

ALSO THERE ARE PENCIL SKETCHES/ROUGH DRAFTS ON PAGE 369 OF DIFFERENT SCENES BUT ONE OF THEM BEING THE KARASUNO V NEKOMA SPREAD WITH ALL THE TEAMS WATCHNG

okay from this point we're going to be getting into furudate's work process and office space!!!

furudate's got his own desk in the back corner of the room right by a window. in the center there are four staff desks shoved together divided in half horizontally by a giant wall of tissue boxes. the reason for this is because they meant to buy a desk partitioner but kept forgetting to, and now they've decided that they don't need one bc they have the tissue box wall????

btw the tissue box wall suddenly appeared out of nowhere. like it actually says "the staff members must have felt awkward facing each other with nothing in between, because at some point there was suddenly a stack of tissue boxes there"

also they stuck like. alllll kinds of things to the tissue boxes. notes and diagrams and and sketches and literally anything that would make an easy reference

also furudate straight up admits that the most annoying thing to draw was hinata's head LMAAAO

and apparently inarizaki jerseys were supposed to have a line across the shoulders but everyone decided that was way too much work so they stopped

furudate has a stepping machine under their desk (it's two actually, one on top of the other) that they use while working bc they heard that Google employees do the same. they don't have any lower back pain so i guess it works??

furudate also really likes the fudenosuke brand of thin brush marker pens and goes through quite a lot of them. at one point one of the staff members drew the whole tokyo city gymnasium ceiling with only those pens

idk if you guys want me to go into the whole technique and tool thing if any artist wants to know send me an ask and i'll make a separate post for that bc this is getting really long already aaaaaaaaghhhhhh

furudate keeps a small volleyball whiteboard on their desk and uses magnets of the characters to plan how a game might play out which actually might be MY personal favorite fun fact about them like that's SO cool??? there's also a photo of the christ the redeemer statue stuck on it they got during the brazil trip and also notes about oikawa's and futakuchi's hair parts LMAAAO

they don't finalize the art digitally instead furudate calculates the size of the copy and then prints each piece out and pastes it onto the manga pages

i actually have no idea what that means i mostly copied it word for word but it sounded SUPER interesting

because of that tho furudate made a joke that paper cement was the most important supply in the office

they keep two pairs of volleyball shoes on the desk for reference . . . . it's hinata's and kageyama's shoes . . . .

they have fanart on the wall from not only fans and staff but oda eiichiro (one piece), kishimoto masashi (naruto), and horikoshi kohei (my hero academia). there's also a framed jurassic park poster which is apparently furudate's favorite movie (LMAO?? that explains some things i guess) and it was playing in the background as they drew the final chapter rather than music

they also keep video game consoles and video games in the office, and they'd play the radio during the day and switch to TV in the evening. they play pre-recorded shows or movies when they have to pull all-nighters which, like, mood

and furudate REALLY likes horror movies apparently? they like the grudge, the ring, one missed call, the conjuring, rec, zombieland, and the mist

okay the last few pages from here on out are insane it's furudate's comments on different scenes from each volume or the volume covers and spans like fifteen pages???? i might make a separate post for that one too

also at the bottom of each of those pages are the different hq characters walking and such and i'll probs also post separate pics bc THEY'RE SO CUTE AONE HAS A LIL CAT FOLLOWING HIM

anyways thanks for sticking with me guys!! that was a long one jesus christ

[yukidragon]

Hiya Dearie~! Congrats on 900 followers again btw!

Anyways I have this one headcanon of Joseph that I haven't noticeanyone else bring up.

Joseph having physical scars.

Now if this is too serious then you can skip this!

But back to it, Joseph ran away while in high school, he carried a knife and all that, now he's big and strong, there's no way he hasn't gotten into anything physical before. Making me think he has actual scars from said hardships, maybe even some from his home life before he left?

I just this the man would have physical and visible scars, mabe he kinda hides them or something? But ya, that's my personal headcanon...

What are your thoughts my dear?

Awww, thank you so much! You're so sweet! 💖

Don't worry about scars being too serious of a topic. I've dipped my toes into this sort of headcanon before. My MC Alice has one as well, with her Mafia AU counterpart having several.

While we haven't seen any scarring on Jack's naked body even on the teasers posted on the SnaccPop Studios Patreon, that doesn't necessarily mean that Joseph didn't have any scarring. After all, we don't see his tattoos when he's Jack, and he certainly had them as Joseph.

Aside from old sprites shown in the beta version of the demo, the only times we have seen Joseph out of makeup are in this tinted photo, and in teasers where he's dead and probably rotting. While the sprites from the beta show no signs of scarring, the game is still in development and we haven't seen what Joseph's new sprite looks like unclothed.

Obviously we see damage to his body where he's a ghost(?), but we see those same exposed parts in the photo of him out of makeup without any such damage. That isn't to say that there aren't any scars that he's able to hide underneath his clothes.

Now, the fact that Joseph carried a knife around with him does hint that he was prepared to fight, if nothing else. In a picture that Sauce drew and posted publicly on their old twitter, a (presumably) teenage Joseph was shown covered in scrapes and bandages.

While this is technically not canon unless it appears on the Sunny Day Jack twitter, tumblr, or another official game page it would make sense given we have hints that he was a troublemaker.

Credit for the art, as always, goes to the awesome Sauce. Remember, don't share and repost the privately posted content from the Snaccpop Studios Patreon. Let's support the team where we can.

Now... when it comes to Joseph's home life, the only solid hint we have is what the psyche consultant assessed about him. Assuming the consultant was correct, his parents might have said they loved him, but didn't mean it, even early in his life. I suspect that he was neglected, ignored and forgotten, which was why I think he acted up and turned into a punk. Even bad attention is still attention, you know?

That isn't to say that there couldn't have been some abuse going on in his house when he was growing up. It's entirely possible that he learned bad habits from his parents/guardians, which included lashing out at others weaker than them.

Then there was the period of time when Joseph was homeless. The sad truth is that people who have to live life on the streets are constantly in danger. Even if he escaped his hometown unscarred, that doesn't mean he couldn't have been scarred literally and metaphorically while he was struggling to survive on his own.

As for my own personal headcanon on the subject, I can't say that I have any strong inclination either way.

Typically when I add scars to a character, I like to attach a significant moment or change in their life that has affected them permanently. For example, Alice got her scar when Ian cheated on her, and in the Mafia AU her scars were from when she was trafficked.

If I were to give Joseph a scar in any of my writing/headcanons, it would be because I thought of an interesting incident to go with it that I wanted to write and/or mention.

As it is, I'm more inclined not to give Joseph scars, at least none significant enough to make mention of. From a narrative stance, the tattoos serve as scars, which, well, tattoos kind of are already. They are permanent markings made to his skin with a needle. They're scars that say a lot about him, ones he chose to have and regrets now.

Then of course there's the damage his body has taken due to his death, which is reflected in his putrefaction and blood. This state of decay draws far more attention than any scar would, and is a direct reflection of the trauma he faced from his death. So in this case, the zombie-like state would be another type of scarring Joseph suffers from.

These are pretty significant parts of his character. As a writer, I'm concerned that adding more scars might muddle the significance of how the tattoos and the rotting damage/alter his body and affect his mental state.

That isn't to discourage anyone from headcanoning Joseph with scars that he hides under his clothes. Hell, I might come up with an idea later on down the line that enamors me. At the moment though, I would rather keep focus on the mistakes of Joseph's past and his death that have left such a deep scar on him that he chooses to be someone else entirely in the present.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur 

[vagablondviking]

I need friends...

Hoping to cultivate a feeling of community here. Twitter was my online happy place until Napoleon Bonapartheid ran it into the ground. So much rampant hate and misinformation now. I still check Twitter daily, but it doesn't feel like home anymore. Blue Sky has potential, but without a gif library or direct messages, it's rather limited in scope.

Gifs and memes are my love language.

I'm hoping Tumblr is like Twitter in that once you follow enough accounts, you start interacting and it becomes fun. Twitter made no sense at first, like there was no point to it. You had to stick around long enough to crack Twitter.

I've heard of a learning theory called the "circle of fun" which describes a certain return on investment when learning something new, like a musical instrument. You spend forever learning basic technique, but eventually the day comes when you can play a song you enjoy. So you practice that one song a lot. Then, that joy feeds your desire to practice more and suddenly a whole world opens up for you.

Anyway, hi. I need Tumblr friends.

I'm a nursing student and I work part-time in ESL to pay the bills. I'm AuHD (autistic and ADHD). I am happily single without human children. I am owned by two cats (a blue point Siamese named Sven and a tuxedo named Fig).

I'm a classical history nerd and have an undergraduate degree in Greek & Latin. I was in a classical languages grad program for a while, but my life imploded (left an abusive partner, moved twice in the span of a month for my own safety, changed jobs) and I had to drop out. I really hope someday I can go back and finish the program. Just for me, for my own joy. I always enjoyed classics, but never felt I had any real talent that would make an academic career feasible.

I am a voracious reader, although schoolwork does rather infringe on my pleasure reading of late. I've also just found it difficult to concentrate in general lately, what with the world being on fire and whatnot.

Favorite authors:

Robin McKinley Terry Pratchett Jane Austen Neil Gaiman JRR Tolkien

Fandoms I enjoy:

Good Omens Lucifer Jane Austen Tolkien Monty Python Blackadder Muppets Bridgerton Outlander (book series, not so much the show) Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon

[eldritchsurveys]

1163.

[chasingghosts @ bzoink]

Are you the sort of person who can nap or sleep anywhere, anytime?     >> I'm not. the only time that was true was when I was unhoused and perpetually exhausted + used to sleeping in fucked-up places/positions as a result.

Do you feel like you have unfinished business with anyone?     >> there is no such thing as unfinished business to me. if I didn't get closure on a situation, it doesn't matter. the book is closed whether I feel like I'm done with it or not

Have you ever been to the Statue of Liberty?     >> long time ago What are some of your favourite sitcoms?     >> Frasier, Grand Crew, Red Dwarf

Do you talk to your Uber/taxi driver?     >> if they talk to me, sure. I'm not initiating any conversations though, not without a very compelling reason

Have you ever taken an Uber pool? Did you talk to the other passengers?     >> I don't think I've ever done this

How cold does it get in winter where you live?     >> cold

Do you like to layer when you dress up?     >> I don't like wearing layers, it feels like being in multiple straitjackets. I do it because it's the only way to be warm but I don't like it

Will you ever call it X, or will you always call it Twitter?     >> I just call it Twitter. it just makes more sense, "X" is a really awkward and annoying concept for a brand name. like, it just doesn't work right in regular conversation to me

Are you a fast walker?     >> I can be, but I also enjoy strolling

Have you ever skated on a frozen lake? Would you want to?     >> haven't, and I can't skate anyway so the second question is moot

Were you susceptible to peer pressure as a teenager?     >> I mean, I guess, a little. but also I was really very much into what I was into and there was no way to sway me from that. so I guess I could really only be pressured by people who were similar to me or who I wanted to be like Who did you last go to the cinema with?     >> Sparrow

Do you have any cheese in your fridge right now?     >> sure

Do you wear earrings every day?     >> I don't. I used to have a pair I never took off except to swap out for a different pair to accessorise with an outfit or something, but I lost one of them What colour was the last couch you sat on?     >> grey

Do you think your house is too small, too big or just right?     >> it's actually a perfect size, to me Would you rather eat mashed potatoes or hash browns?     >> hash browns

What website do you spend the most time on?     >> tumblr Have you ever had a Tamagotchi?     >> I did. I also had one of the limited-edition gold ones. but since I had no real concept of value this did not faze me at the time. I ended up losing all my Tamagotchis, I'm pretty sure (I lost so much shit as a child)

Who was the last person you avoided?     .

Do you give a wishlist to your friends and family for Christmas and/or birthdays?     >> I have a wishlist that I keep up-to-date just for myself, really, but I also give it to Frances during the holiday season. since she likes buyin people shit so much

What pet names do you use for your friends?     . What decade do you think has been the best for movies?     >> I personally tend to love nineties movies, even the ones I don't like I love the fact that they exist the way they do. I feel somewhat similarly about eighties movies

Think about the last book you read. Was it fiction or non-fiction?      >> fiction

Were you better at maths or English in school?     .

Would you know the coordinates of your city?     >> I would if I looked them up, I guess?

Have you ever sent a postcard while on vacation? Where from?     >> I haven't

Do you look up when helicopters or planes fly overhead?     >> not, like, as a rule. but yeah, I've done so

What do you do when you're bored? >> if I'm bored it's because I do have things to do (I always have things to do) but I don't want to do any of them. so I just do much of nothing until something I do want to do becomes available or the boredom passes

[sylvie-duh]

Feeling sad about a few things

Honestly I just have to admit that despite having a great weekend I'm just not really feeling right today.

Part of it is that the last couple days have got me to realize that despite working hard to put my social life back together after putting it on hold while working on my career and dealing with being displaced from housing I'm come to the realiization that while I might get to the point where I'm doing fun stuff every weekend if I work really hard at my social life together I might never get to the point that I'll be hanging out with people during the week.

And while this might seem kinda minor I just feel like a life where I spend the entire week waiting for the weekend is just not enough to satisfy my desire for community and really doesn't meet the expectations I had for my life when I was younger.

Furthermore, I just feel like even on a day to day basis I just don't.... really want to do anything in particular. Like I've gotten used to doing things out of a sense of urgency/obligation/necessity but now that I have alot of spare time during the day I just have no idea what to do with that time that's in anyway satisfying.

And plus while I'm probably going to get involved in my local left soon honestly the entire environment of it is often so unsatisfying. the DSA chapter's refusal to go hybrid means that theres really nothing rewarding about chapter work since it's just a series of endless zoom meetings about zoom meetings. I remember when I was a student revolutionary getting so much done before, during and after a meeting and more importantly being able to discuss ideas and politics with comrades and building social bonds.

The current left at least in my area just isn't rewarding to participate in. It feels like just sacrificing my time to maintain an organization that just refuses to be effective. That isn't to say I shouldn't participate, of course I should since it's a basic obligation to participate in the socialist movement and to make it better. But I miss the warmth of comradeship that I used to have and honestly if things don't become hybrid or in person I just might have a limited timeline for my participation since at the end of the day it might not be sustainable as a lifetime commitment.

The other sad thing is that I had to vent on a tumblr page with 4 followers, almost none of them will see this. Which is fine no one is entitled to engage my posts. But I feel like around 2017 I withdrew from social media to get my life back together and while I'm glad I never came down with the sort of life ruining levels of stress that came with twitter addiction or the scrolling mania of tik tok it does geniunely sadden me that my ability to make friendships and connections through social media has attroped so much.

Like I really hope I get to meet some awesome queer people and socialist through tumblr. At the same time I worry that I might just end up posting into the void. Which I suppose isn't the worst thing in the world. Everyone needs to journal from time to time. But I miss being able to use facebook as a way to network, meme, talk about life and meet people.

It's so silly but I kinda realize that the ability to use social media to make connections is something that I always wanted in my life without realizing it and that I've willingly let that part of me die. I do want to get back to that point again and if I work more on it maybe I will it's not impossible but from the perspective of where I am right now it feels that way

anyway thats just my life. I appreciate any comments and solidarity but dont expect any

[lunchcase]

Strawberry Creamy Chill

Location: timmies

Price: special $5 cad for 2 !!

Have I reviewed a creamy chill before? And if I had, does it matter? Different day, different experience? And did not some tumblr post I saw on Facebook as a Twitter screenshot once say every 7 years you’re actually a whole new person on the cellular level because cells multiply and old ones die and in 7 years none of your cells will be the same ones you’ve had 7 years ago and so you’re kind of like the doctor except regeneration is a gradual 7 year process and you don’t really change that much visually?

It’s a very strawberry today!! I had a strawberry milk earlier curtesy of my friend Mitchelle (though I wanted a milkshake), which I’m not reviewing because I’m almost positive I’ve done that before and I’m a selective rule follower and also I make the rules (it was strawberry. Artificial. Not up to my milky standards, but forgivable since I don’t have high expectations for carton drinks anyway). This one’s definitely milkier, though still not up to my milky standard. Creamy is an undeserved qualifier. It could be creamier. Sweetness wise, it’s just a tinge too sweet, almost a bit like watery ice cream. Strawberry flavour, evident, but on the wrong side of artificial. Overall, will only get if on sale. Not an experience worthy of repeating in full price. I’m only a strawberry blonde hair away from calling it as it is, which is sickly sweet; kind of like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory but Tim Burton’s version (Tim Hortons, Tim Burton. Ha!), where colours are too saturated and identical weird small people he enslaved is forced to sing songs about a child’s fatal flaws in a corporation with no union laws or follow OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) guidelines and they were originally orange but for some reason in a misguided sense of realism I guess we need race now. To portray. The cartoonish slaves. Yet Wonka is just a sad boi with a hurt inner child because daddy issues :(((((

Okay I mean, I wouldn’t go that far to insult this creamy chill, nor Willy Wonka (Tim Burton’s 2005 version) (or will I). Constructive criticism only in this house (in spirit and not practice since I don’t know enough about gastronomy to make any definite suggestions for improvement): add more cream, less sugar, and the strawberry sauce on top honestly feels excessive and exists more as a reminder that this is strawberry flavoured, or a worsener to really make that artificial taste *pop*.

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Hot takes about Severus Snape are a wierdly decent glimpse into how a person with progressive values analyses things. Literally every time someone talks about Snape, it’s like this tiny window into how one-dimentionally people actually think.

Recently saw a twitter post that was a fantastic example. Here’s how it goes (paraphrasing):

Person A:“Snape is POC and Queer coded, that’s why you guy’s hate him uwu lol.”

Person B: “Actually I hate him because he was mean and abusive to children under his care uwu but go off I guess lol”

Both of these takes are designed to be dramatic and/or reactionary. They each use partial truths to paint very broad strokes. These are get-em-in-one-hit quips. This is virtue signalling, if you’ll excuse that loaded phrase. Nobody had a substantial conversation, but now everyone who sees their statement knows the high ground they took.

At least a hundred other people chimed in to add their own little quippy hot takes into play, none of which add anything significant, but clearly made everyone feel very highly of themselves.

So many layers of nuance and complex analysis is completely lost in this kind of discussion. On tumblr, you get more of this kind of bullshit, but you don’t have a word count limit, so you guys just spew endless mountains of weak overblown evidence backing up your bullshit arguments, none of which was really about engaging in a real conversation anyway.

Here’s the thing about Snape.

He is a childhood domestic abuse victim. His abuser is a muggle.

He becomes a student at a magical school that takes him away from his abuser and immediately instills in him the idea that being a part of this magical world is a badge of self-worth, empowerment, and provides safety and security - provided that he keeps in line.

There is a war is being waged in that world over his right to exist (he is a half blood).

He is a marginalized person within the context of the narrative, forced to constantly be in the same living space as the children of his own oppressors who are being groomed and recruited into a hate group militia (the pureblood slytherins). They are in turn trying to do the same to him.

He is marginalized person bullied by children who are also part of his oppressor group, but who have “more liberal” leanings and aren’t direct about why he’s being targeted (the mauraders are all purebloods, Sirius, who was the worst offender, was raised in a bigoted household, the same one that produced Bellatrix.).

He had a crush on a girl who is a muggleborn, and therefore she is considered even lesser than him and carries a stigma to those who associate with her. That girl was his only real friend. In his entire life.

For both Snape and Lily, allying themselves to a pureblood clique within their own houses would be a great way of shielding themselves from a measure of the bigotry they were probably facing. There would have been obvious pressure from those cliques to disconnect with one and other.

Every other person who associates with Snape in his adulthood carries some sort of sociopolitical or workplace (or hate cult) baggage with their association. Some of them will physically harm and/or kill him if he steps out of line. He hasn’t at any point had the right environment to heal and adjust from these childhood experiences. Even his relationship with Dumbledore is charged with constant baggage, including the purebloods who almost killed him during their bullying getting a slap on the wrist, the werewolf that almost killed him as a child being placed in an authority position over new children, etc. Dumbledore is canonically manipulative no matter his good qualities, and he has literally been manipulating Snape for years in order to cultivate a necessary asset in the war.

He is a person who is not in the stable mental state necessary to be teaching children, whom has been forced to teach children. While also playing the role of double agent against the hate group militia, the one that will literally torture you for mistakes or backtalk or just for fun. The one that will torture and kill him if he makes one wrong move.

Is the math clicking yet? From all of this, it’s not difficult to see how everything shitty about Snape was cultivated for him by his environment. Snape was not given great options. Snape made amazingly awful choices, and also some amazingly difficult, courageous ones. Snape was ultimately a human who had an extremely bad life, in which his options were incredibly grim and limited.

In fact, pretty much every point people make about how shitty Snape is as a person makes 100% logical sense as something that would emerge from how he was treated. Some if it he’s kind of right about, some of it is the inevitable reality of suffering, and some of it is part of the cycle of abuse and harm.

Even Snape’s emotional obsession with Lily makes logical sense when you have the perspective that he literally has no substantial positive experiences with other human beings that we know of, and he has an extreme, soul destroying guilt complex over her death. Calling him an Incel mysoginist nice guy projects a real-world political ideology and behavior that does not really apply to the context of what happened to him and her.

Even Snape’s specific little acts of cruelty to certain students is a reflection of his own life experiences. He identifies with Neville; more specifically, he identifies his own percieved emotional weaknesses in his childhood in Neville. There’s a very sad reason there why he feels the urge to be so harsh.

Snape very clearly hates himself, in a world where everyone else hates him, too. Imagine that, for a second. Imagine total internal and external hatred, an yearning for just a little bit of true connection. For years. Imagine then also trying to save that world, even if it’s motivated by guilt. Even if nobody ever knows you did it and you expect to die a miserable death alone.

There are more elements here to consider, including the way Rowling described his looks (there may be something in there re: ugliness and swarthy stereotyping). These are just the things that stand out the most prominently to me.

J.K. Rowling is clearly also not reliable as an imparter of moral or sociopolitical philosophies. I don’t feel that her grasp of minority experiences is a solid one, considering how she picks and chooses who is acceptable and who is a threat.

All of that said, this is a logically consistent character arc. Within the context of his narrative, Snape is a marginalized person with severe PTSD and emotional instability issues who has absolutely no room available to him for self-improvement or healing, and never really has. And yes, he’s also mean, and caustic, and verbally abusive to the students. He’s also a completey miserable, lonely person.

There are elements in his character arc that mirror real world experiences quite well. If nothing else, Rowling is enough of an emotional adult to recognise these kinds of things and portray something that feels authentic.

In my opinion, it’s not appropriate to whittle all this down by comparing him directly to the real world experiences of marginalized groups - at least if you are not a part of the group you are comparing him to. There have been many individuals who have compared his arc to their own personal experiences of marginalization, and that is valid. But generally speaking, comparing a white straight dude to people who are not that can often be pretty offensive. This is not a valuable way to discuss either subject.

Also, I believe that while it’s perfectly okay to not like Snape as a character, many of the people who act like Person B are carrying Harry’s childhood POV about Snape in their hearts well into their own adulthood. And if nothing else, Rowling was attempting to say something here about how our perspectives (should) grow and change as we emotionally mature.  She doesn’t have to be a good person herself to have expressed something true about the world in this instance, and since this story is a part of our popular culture, people have a right to feel whatever way they do about this story and it’s characters.

The complexity of this particular snapshot of fictionalized marginalization, and what it reveals about the human experience, cannot be reduced down to “he’s an abuser so he’s not worth anyone’s time/you are bad for liking him.”

And to be honest, I think that it reveals a lot about many of us in progressive spaces, particularly those of us who less marginalized but very loud about our values, that we refuse to engage with these complexities in leu of totally condemning him. Particularly because a lot of the elements I listed above are indeed reflected in real world examples of people who have experienced marginalization and thus had to deal with the resulting emotional damage, an mental illness, and behavior troubles, and bad decisions. Our inability to address the full scope of this may be a good reflection of how we are handling the complexity of real world examples.

Real people are not perfect angels in their victimhood. They are just humans who are victims, and we all have the capacity to be cruel and abusive in a world where we have been given cruelty and abuse. This is just a part of existing. If you cannot sympathise with that, or at least grasp it and aknowledge it and respect the people who are emotionally drawn to a character who refects that, then you may be telling on yourself to be honest.

To be honest, this is especially true if you hate Snape but just really, really love the Mauraduers. You have a right to those feelings, but if you are moralizing this and judging others for liking Snape, you’ve confessed to something about how you’ve mentally constructed your personal values in a way I don’t think you’ve fully grasped yet.

I have a hard time imagining a mindset where a story like Snape’s does not move one to empathy and vicarious grief, if I’m honest. I feel like some people really just cannot be bothered to imagine themselves in other people’s shoes, feeling what they feel and living like they live. I struggle to trust the social politics of people who show these kinds of colors, tbh.

But maybe that’s just me.

[googledocsdyke]

Do you have any thoughts/recommended texts for Cas analysis? I genuinely love the dean gender studies and I just wanna know what people might apply to Cas.

yes absolutely!! while dean studies is my first love i also deeply love cas analysis (casnalysis?) and wanna strive to do more of it. here’s some stuff off the top of my head:

1. gender, sexuality, heavenly embodiment

this is much more theological and less psychological than dean’s whole Deal because there’s so much fascinating stuff around how the angels in general experience express and conceptualise gender (@autisticandroids has a good post about angel gender & lily sunder has some regrets) but for cas in particular there’s this fascinating kind of collective fandom agreement (which i DO also agree with) that cas’ own gender kind of is gay man, that he actively chose gay manhood, but also that he’s kind of..... lacking the Insane Genderishness that dean exhibits at all times, even though he actively chose to engage in male gendering and became so comfortable housed Within Jimmy that he, as some post i saw the other day that i can’t find anymore said, “became his own body” when jimmy died. 

like on the one hand there’s an almost-canonical transness to the whole process but it also never feels fully written-into because 1) the supernatural writers for all their insanity are sometimes very boring and *most* of the time only feel interested in narratively expressing angels As Their Vessels anyways and just like leaving convenient spaces around these questions (boldest thing they ever did was hot girl cas which i WISH i had the range to unpack) 2) there’s a vague inevitabilist shrug to the whole thing since they obviously weren’t gonna recast misha collins (though they HAVE tried to get rid of him) and 3) something amorphous about cas’ entire..... personhood? makes him Empty Of Gender as a contrast to dean’s Full Of Gender (i believe it was @deanwinchestergender who said this) and like is it just the juxtaposition to dean/jensen’s whole insane Deal? or something else? 

like he actively chooses the terms of his own embodiment and yet narratively it feels like a shrug. and we’re all like “well obviously even though he’s a celestial being he was always a gay man” and like WHY. i love it idk idk much to think about! and yeah just in general the theological questions of possession and cas genuinely Becoming a man as he iterates himself consciously towards humanity it almost feels like. by doing the most boring things possible with his gender they made it interesting? idk if that makes sense.

2. discipline, free will, metanarratives

cas is like a tool (“i am not a hammer, as you say”) held in constant discipline and surveillance by the system that enmeshes him and it’s really, really fascinating to watch the way the angels hold each other to conformity. especially pre-god they kind of produce each other as foucauldian disciplinary subjects (which i posted about here) in perpetual visibility through angel radio, generating their own and each other’s conformity rather than being directly ruled through like a single centralised source of power. only the spectre of a god. and obviously cas’ whole thing is that he has ALWAYS disobeyed and the narrative affords him this psychological interiority never given to the foucauldian subject, an internal will and desire for freedom in a way that fits more with the liberal subject (super roughly and not with the same pro-capitalist implications but he has this internal drive for self-liberation. 

and that’s also where the metanarrative comes in ofc! i think it was @dykecas who said that cas is a real person written by people who hate him, and there’s this crack in the narrative (mirroring the crack in his chassis) where cas gets in, over and over, despite all the order imposed by the show’s authorfathergod. like we’ve all seen the analysis about how it was Never supposed to be this way they DID try to fire misha collins in 2012 and yet this gay man literally cannot be stopped! i think actually his appearance in scoobynatural is a neat little distillation of this — he drops into this animated world originally with a singular purpose (Save Sam And Dean) the same way he dropped into lazarus rising with a single 3-episode arc (Save Dean). huge hammer behaviour. his “utility” diminishes within the narrative (he finds that he can’t fly in the scooby doo universe) and so he is no longer a tool/means to an end that salvation moves Through. and in the process (and huge creds to @lesbianyuugi for this) he does something ENTIRELY unrelated to his original cas-as-tool aim, and learns, like, the meaning of laughter from shaggy and scooby. WHICH brings me onto the third point

3. love, queer kinship, family-making

HE’S GAY AND HE’S A DAD! i feel like a lot of tumblr throws around the term “found family” in a very flat and tropey way (which is fine it’s cute and fun no matter what!) but like . GOD there’s so much specific stuff going on here. like the way that cas (unintentionally) obliterates the midwestern white christian nuclear family (made incarnate in the novaks) which like could be uniformly portrayed as an act of deep malice and villainy but instead grows to serve as a surrogate (if imperfect/complex, but DEEPLY loving) father figure for the gay daughter who has now escaped that nuclear family/seen it destroyed depending on how you read it? like he remasters the entire concept of fatherhood and it’s a very interesting (if DEEPLY) unintentional subversion of the homewrecking non-nuclear gay trope. cas is so good because his character arc doesn’t say “look, gay people can be normal and have perfect settled families just like you” it says “gay people DON’T have normal settled families actually and they are full of love anyways! or Because of the abnormalcy itself!) 

to cite ziz lesbianyuugi again he DOES queer fatherhood in his parenting of jack particularly because it really is one of the ONLY parent-child relationships in the show that breaks the incessant cycle of abuse and control and cold indifference perpetuated by the authorfathergod (a cycle reified in 15x20 lol). like god’s treatment of cas and his siblings mirrors john’s treatment of sam and dean (particularly dean) mirrors victor’s treatment of krissy and her crew mirrors dean’s later treatment of jack. there is a CONSTANT reiteration of the story of authorfathergod (often a father tightly entwined in biological kinship) treating a child as a mechanism or a tool or a means to an end. and cas looks at ALL that he has suffered and all that he is ever known and chooses constantly to reject it with every piece of love he expresses for his child. and not to sound like the kind of academic people make fun of on twitter but there is an INHERENT queerness to that. gay love will pierce through [the veil of death/the thick silence of abuse/the mechanism of godly control/hegemonic american masculinity] and save the day

anyways here are some very haphazard recs on everything above for further reading:

angels in america (tony kushner)

histrionics of the pulpit: trans tonalities of religious enthusiasm

the public universal friend: religious enthusiasm in revolutionary america

discipline and punish (michel foucault)

friendship as a way of life (michel foucault)

the genesis of blame (recommended by @pietacastiel who has GREAT theology content in general

all about love (bell hooks)

the chapter “when hated characters talk back” in anti-fandom: dislike and hate in the digital age (is actually explicitly about cas)

also cannot recommend enough following the ppl i tagged above!! most of the unlinked stuff is available through http://libgen.li/ and bookshop is a good alternative to amazon if ur american and want physical copies

[largereputation]

Aha! It's an (updated) Q&A!

Hello! My name is Emily, and I come onto Tumblr once every blue moon. I started 1 2 3 let's go bitch, which is a small chant that started during Taylor's reputation tour!

Since 123lgb is taking off again thanks to the likes of TikTok (an app that I just cannot figure out), I thought I'd do an updated lil Q&A, as MUCH has happened since the last one! I'll just be answering questions I receive a lot, both on here and Tumblr.

You can find the old Q&A here! It's pretty much just about how this whole thing started. :)

How WAS the secret session?

For all who don't know - I went to the Lover Secret Sessions in Los Angeles!!! It was a DREAM - everyone was so kind and it felt very authentic. I almost felt like I didn't deserve to be there, for it was TOO beautiful (location wise, people wise, so on).

Did Taylor know your name?

She did! When we met, she screamed "1 2 3 let's go bitch" to me as I walked up and when we met to hug she said "Hi Emily!" and I just stood there like "??? Hi Taylor Swift?" just in culture shock. We talked about some stuff, like some mental health things, Lover and songwriting, how I need her to perform If This Was a Movie live someday, basic stuff. It was insane - very, very insane.

When and how did Taylor find your account?

Taylor (to my knowledge) has never interacted with me on this account. Taylor Nation reached out to me on July 24th, 2019. I had no follows from them, nor likes. Funny enough, when I did my first Q&A, I blantantly lied and said Taylor Nation didn't reach out to me - sorry folks! 🤪

Did anybody around you comment on the chant when you first did it?

Nope. Throughout the night, me and my friends were screaming stuff similar to that just for our own amusement. Since Delicate was in the middle of the show, I think at that point everyone around us just accepted the weird shit we were yelling. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Does anyone in your real life know about it?

Ohhhhh yeah. I mean, if a random girl you went to school with met Taylor Swift at her house, wouldn't you be real fucking confused? I hate telling people because I don't wanna act like I'm top shit or anything, but mostly my friends just try to poke fun about it towards me. Here's a little story actually: last year, pre-sessions, I had a huge schoolgirl crush on a guy in my film class, and the topic of 123lgb came up and I had to explain it to him, and so one of my friends attached a computer to the speakers we had and played my video, at full volume, in front of him. I'll remind you that the original video is horrendous, for my voice was 75% gone and most people that find the video think I'm a dude. And, to make things worse, he found my twitter account that night. It was a horrifying moment.

How do you feel about people making things with the quote on it (like mugs, stickers, so on)?

It used to bother me, for I felt very sad only because I didn't think of it first, but now, I don't give a shit LOL... it's a FANDOM inside joke, so if people wanna plaster it on things, whether it's a lil keychain or a fucking billboard, I don't care! It's all in good fun anyway, I just think it's crazy that ppl still find it that amusing. It warms my heart that my stupidity has lasted this long :,)

Do you think the chant will be on the re-recorded version of Delicate?

No, and I can only pray to God that it does not. I highly, HIGHLY doubt that it will, though, for the whole reason the chant is so popular is because it didn't fit the song: it was a really loud and energetic chant for a song that's pretty mellow and slow (in comparison). It just doesn't make sense for it to be in the re-recording. I'm perfectly fine with it living in the live performances, and only the live performances.

Do you ever get annoyed with the entire thing?

Eh, I don't know if annoyed is the word... I don't like having to defend it, though. People have claimed that it was cringe and stupid and not funny (which, duh), but I didn't create it on purpose you know? It literally just happened, and I hate having to explain it to people who don't find it funny. It wasn't ever meant to be funny, but then people thought it was! Besides that though, I never mind people asking me about it or really only following me because of it - again, it just amazes me that a simple thing like that grew into such a weird (yet great) thing :,)

What's your favorite off of Folklore and Evermore?

*cracks knuckles* well, it's constantly changing... there's no way I can pin it towards just one song, for I think these are Taylor's best albums ever. So I'll give my top 5 even though that's not what was asked <3

Folklore

exile

hoax

illicit affairs

this is me trying

august

Evermore

coney island

tolerate it

champagne problems

right where you left me

closure

And that's all folks!

If anyone wants a secret sessions Q&A, I'll gladly try to make one! Just send me questions and I'll try to answer! (I know I'm a bit late cause, well, Lover came out a year and a half ago, but hey! It's never too late....right?) but anyway, thanks for reading <3

- emily

[pantstomatch]

I love your writing, and (the cliche, it burns) one day I'd like to publish too. But a lot of things have changed since the last time I was confident in trying to do this, and I wondered if you would talk about the process (getting an agent, that sort of thing) if you're comfortable and have the time. It's also cool if you privately respond, if you'd prefer, I'm just trying to figure out how to get started again? And so many tips are "publish on Amazon!"

Thank you!!!! Okay, so here’s the thing. I’m probably not the best person to ask about this, because I’m actually really bad at being published, but I can tell you some stuff that I’ve learned? That might be helpful? I ended up being long-winded, so (if tumblr works right here) everything is under the cut...

1. Querying!

So in general, querying sucks balls. Like… it’s probably the worst thing you’ll ever have to do. You’re gonna want to research what agents are looking for the kind of stuff you want to write or have written. Some are looking for certain genres or what they think is marketable, and you want to send your query to someone who’s open to what you have, or it’s a waste. Most likely the agency website or the agents “I’m looking for…” page or whatever will give you specific instructions on what to include in your query email - how the subject should be written, what they’re looking for, how many pages of your manuscript they want to see, how to attach it to the email and in what form, and if they want a synopsis of your novel. Some agents use Query Manager, which is basically a form you fill out and attach all the things they want, and you can go back in and edit it and it’s a nice way to keep track of your query. Next, they’re gonna (hopefully; some just never respond) either say no thank you very politely, or ask you for the full manuscript. Most of these agents will also give you a general timeline for a response, and if they’re open to a nudge from you or not. After that, they’ll either say no to the full manuscript, or welcome you aboard!  

Most places allow you to send multiple queries out for the same work, meaning they’re not “exclusive,” except within their own agency. If they ask for a full manuscript, but before they get back to you, another agent has snapped you up, they’ll want you to let them know so they don’t waste their time on it. Occasionally, if they want to see your full manuscript, they’ll ask for you to not send the full manuscript to someone else until they’re done, or for you to tell them if someone else is looking at the full manuscript. You can also change your mind!  You can email them and let them know you’ve decided to pull the novel out of consideration, maybe if you think it needs more editing.

I have never successfully queried. I found the whole thing demoralizing, and I did my first contract on my own, without an agent. This is something I don’t recommend because I had to figure out a lot of confusing shit on my own that I still don’t fully understand. And it also made me doubt my writing after the fact, because agents don’t give a shit if you’re already published, they’re focused solely on whatever you’re presenting them with. And then after that, I figured if I got another book out of my current editor, would I want to present that to the people who already didn’t like my writing? I have an agent for another project I’m working on, and the only reason I have her is because someone introduced us and told her I desperately needed help.

1a. So you found the agent(s) you think you like!

Other than the instructions/guidelines written out by the agency/agents that you’re interested in, you’re gonna need the most complete and fully edited version of your novel in hand. If they ask for your full manuscript, you absolutely should not say it’s not done. Make sure it’s finished, and preferably edited, before you send your query in. If they ask for a synopsis, hard pass. Ha ha ha, just kidding. No, really, arguably, this is going to be the hardest thing to write. A synopsis will suck your soul out of your body and make you weep blood. The only thing worse than querying is writing a synopsis for that query. I have never written a synopsis that I didn’t think was utter shit. I hate them.

Querytracker is a cool place to look up agents that you want to query and see how responsive (and nice) they are. It took me a little bit to figure out the abbreviations, though.

2. Pick your genre carefully

Unless you are a best selling author, they are never ever ever going to let you change genres. I mean, maybe if you wrote under a different name. Maybe. But they’ve bought your book based on how they think it will sell, and they’re going to want to sell you, too, and genre jumping is usually a no-go. This is, basically, one of the biggest things I hate, and one of the greatest things I love about fanfiction, that I can write whatever the fuck I feel like writing. So, you know, make sure you really really really want to write about what your first book is going to be about, because you’re going to be writing about that forever.  And I don’t mean just YA vs New Adult vs Adult, although you need to take that into account too. I mean if you’re writing about high school regular kids, you probably can’t write about supernatural high school kids. You can’t write about high school kids in space. You can only write about regular high school kids. So.. think sci -fi vs fantasy vs historical vs contemporary, etc.

3. I hope you don’t hate people!

Do you want to go to a bookstore and talk in front of a crowd? Do you want to go to cons and network with other authors? Do you want to call up publications and volunteer for interviews? Do you want to talk about your books with strangers?  Because I sure don’t.  Publishing houses do the bare minimum of publicity for you for your book. First book, they’ll probably help set up some store signings. Going forward, if you weren’t proactive the first time around, they’re probably not going to do anything. If you’ve got some really good advance reviews, they’ll do ads. They’ll probably do the rote social media posts. But basically, you’re going to have to advocate for your book. You’re going to have to create your own brand. You’re going to have to make swag and send it out, call up bookstores, post constantly about it on twitter, buddy up to other authors, go places where you can network. And I will tell you that all of that is my nightmare. I don’t want to do any of that. I don’t like meeting new people. I had several panic attacks leading up my book signing, and the book signing itself was pretty bad. I’m just… not good with people. And, honestly, at my age, I don’t want to be any better. All it does is give me stress and hives, and to get over that I’d really really have to want to do it.

4. Personal perks?

Editors!  I’ve worked with two awesome editors, and it’s amazing having someone to tell you how to fix things in a way that makes sense. By far, one of the only perks of being published for me. I absolutely don’t know for sure, but I always got the feeling that they expected more push back from me with their suggestions, but nope. I was open to everything, and that’s probably why the books worked so well, because editors absolutely know what they’re doing and only want what’s best for the book.

Holding a solid book of my work!  Always awesome to hold that first book in your hands, with the beautiful cover work and everything. The fact that other people can read it and know it was me who wrote those words only counters that by about a half.  

Money! Advances vary drastically, but, listen, the money kind of made the panic attacks worth it. A little.

5. Advances and royalties

The things I’ve read about advances is that too little, and you might think they have less confidence in you, and too much and you’re panicking about selling, because if you don’t earn out your advance, there’s a chance they won’t want to invest in you in the future. Generally, the way they work is they offer you a contract with the amount they are willing to “advance” you. This is basically saying, we think this book will give us this amount of money, and this is your share of that amount of money. You earn this out with royalties. When you sign the contract, you will get a certain amount of money, usually half of your offered advance. When you deliver the finished manuscript, after your editor and you have gone over it and it’s been approved, you’ll get the other half. A two book deal would be split into 4 parts, and you’d get the first 2 parts for signing the contract (1/4th for each book), the next part for the first finished manuscript, and then the last part for the second finished manuscript, generally after the first book is already published. After that, you won’t see any money until your royalties reach the amount they already paid you in advance. Unless otherwise negotiated, you’d get a royalty check twice a year.  Your earnings from January to July would be sent to you in October, and your earnings for July to December would be sent to you in April. Since any books sold to bookstores and online stores can be returned to the publisher if unsold, they will usually “hold back” a certain amount at first, to make sure you’re really earning that royalty. Royalty statements themselves are a hot mess and I’ve never been able to read them, which is also a good reason to have an agent. An agent will get your money sent to them, make sure it’s the correct amount, take their cut, and then send you a check from them.

6. Self publishing

Okay, I know nothing about self publishing, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it if you have the right support system (ie editors). If you’re going to have to do a lot of the marketing yourself anyway, I don’t see how this is much different. Biggest thing would be the upfront cost, and making sure you make that cost worth it.  Independent author S Usher Evans has some good advice for self publishing - Sush’s worked very hard at it, and started her own publishing company. Also, @qwanderer might be a good resource, I think they use Lulu, which is a really cool self publishing site.

Uhhhh, so that’s a lot of info and also not a lot of info, so please feel free to ask me anything else, and I really hope I haven’t made this harder for you to get started ha ha ha. I think the best thing to do is to figure out what you want to write and write it and just… go from there. If you really love what you have, someone else is going to love it, too.

And if anyone’s had a different experience or thinks I got something wrong or has more/better advice for @heyninja, let me know!

[lokismusings]

Russell T Davies on straight actors and gay characters.

I decided to put this here because I post a lot of Hilson stuff. As an actor, this article hit a nerve. However, as a defender of free speech, Davies is allowed to have his opinion without me thinking of him as insensitive. Just like I am allowed to have my own opinion and argument, and ask questions without being labeled “homophobic, intolerant” etc. (that would just make me laugh because have you SEEN my blog? Anyway, I’ve seen a few other websites covering this article. I am also very skeptical of everything I read, including the sources, and I try not to blindly believe everything. That being said, I felt like posting this to get other opinions and ask honest question to help my understanding. If this has already been covered on Tumblr, please feel free to send me the conversations! Some background on me: I graduated with a BA in Theatre and have worked both on and off the stage since I was twelve years old. I have directed plays and an audio play. Given my experience and dedication to my craft, I think my opinion is worth something.

Also, for the sake of this argument, I am leaving trans-actors out because that’s a whole different post. Here is the article:

https://news.sky.com/story/russell-t-davies-straight-actors-should-not-play-gay-characters-12185652

Okay, so first things first, let’s talk about this: “Speaking to the Radio Times, Davies compared a straight actor playing a gay character to black face.” Something that irks me is when one person tries to speak for a whole community and doesn’t reference people from said community who might disagree: whether it’s the LGBTQ+ community, a religious community, medical community, etc. The list goes on. Here, Davies is speaking on behalf of, or speaking for, both the LGBTQ+ community and the black community, is he not? I am genuinely asking because I would like to be more educated on this kind of speech. 

Then Davies says, "I'm not being woke about this... but I feel strongly that if I cast someone in a story, I am casting them to act as a lover, or an enemy, or someone on drugs or a criminal or a saint... they are NOT there to 'act gay' because 'acting gay' is a bunch of codes for a performance.” Does that not discredit his whole statement? If any actor does a caricature version of anything and doesn’t take it seriously or really works to get into the role and the mindset of a character, they’re not a good actor. At least, they’re not an actor that I’d want to hire. Second, by the logic that a straight person shouldn’t play a gay character, should someone without a criminal record not be able to play a criminal character? Before you go off and say “it’s about identity and sexuality, and playing a criminal is about the choice to break the law” or other arguments, I hear you. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the experience. How can an actor who has never committed a crime play a criminal character authentically? They do their research: reading, interviewing, etc. I’m not saying that an actor with a few minor marks on his record shouldn’t be considered for the same role. I’m saying that in an audition setting, if both of these actors were auditing for the role and the non-criminal-record actor just happened to do a better job and fit what the director and/or writer wanted, is that a mark against the criminal-record-actor? Maybe personally because we don’t know what the director is thinking. But chances are, it’s not a mark against the other actor. The other one just happened to have a better audition. Or, a major factor when considering casting, said actor was easy to work with--I’ve seen a lot of talented actors lose a lot of roles because of their inability to take criticism or notes. 

Plus, the whole “Breaking Bad” series?? I highly doubt the main actors were meth-making drug-lords. Or, a better example, “The Wire?” In that show, we see the constant battle and deals between drug-lords and cops. 

Another point I’d like to make:  “...is a bunch of codes for a performance.” That’s exactly right. The audience doesn’t want to know an actor is “performing.” We know that going in, with what is called “suspension of disbelief.” We know the whole show is a performance, but we also expect the actors to be truthful (unless it’s a comedy/farce, but again, that’s a different argument). 

Was it bad that, before 2020, some main characters in TV shows were portrayed as straight but the writers ended up “queer-baiting?” I am referring, of course, to House, M.D. (If you follow this blog, you’ll understand.) But I am also referring to the BBC Sherlock Holmes series. Yes, both pairs of characters (House and Wilson; Holmes and Watson) are assumed to be straight. However, some episodes allude that there could also be something more there. Even the actors have said in various interviews that they aren’t sure if it’s a true romance that the characters are afraid to face, or just a strong bond between best friends that blurs the line between platonic and romantic. I’m paraphrasing, but you get the picture. Therefore, should these characters have only been played by straight actors who are questioning their sexuality or feelings for a best friend? Would it have been disrespectful to gay people if these characters ended up becoming romantically involved? (If we ask the Hilson and Johnlock community, I’m guessing that’s a resounding “NO WAY! IT WOULD BE A DREAM COME TRUE!” xD <3) 

“It's about authenticity, the taste of 2020.” *Cinema Sins sigh*

"You wouldn't cast someone able-bodied and put them in a wheelchair...” Again I say, directors and casting directors need to ALWAYS search for someone who is in a wheelchair, or deaf, or HOH, etc. before looking for an able-bodied actor to play a character with that disability (I’m iffy on the whole term “disability because of its negative connotations, but I’m using that word in order to keep this post as long as possible). But I give you the example of Rainman with Dustin Hoffman. Or A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. Or the play and movie Proof, where the father had a mental illness?  Anthony Hopkins was diagnosed late in life with Asperger’s Syndrome, but the father in Proof was written to allude more to schizophrenia. And yet, Anthony Hopkins did a tremendous job in that role. Or Even Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks. Many people today love Tom Hanks and laud him as a “woke” celebrity. But if he were to portray the role of Forrest Gump today, how many people would try to “cancel” him or at least have very strong words for the director not casting an actor with autism, due to the character’s autistic tendencies? A whole lot of people on the internet and Twitter, I’ll bet. As someone who struggles with anxiety and panic disorder, would I be upset if someone without that mental illness got cast in a role of a character struggling with that? Sure I would. But if they did an authentic job and approached the role respectfully, it would be hard to stay irritated. Besides, there are always more roles created practically everyday. 

To continue on with Davies’ quote: “...you wouldn't black someone up.” Yikes. I’m sure he didn’t mean this in a cast-off kind of way, but that’s how it comes across. I can see now why he said he wasn’t “being woke about this,” because a more “woke” way of putting that would be...what, exactly? “You wouldn’t cast a non-black person in a black role.” That sounds better and less harsh. Or even “a white person in a minority role.” Which should be common sense, and I agree with both statements. 

And then “Authenticity is leading us to joyous places." Oh! Look at that! There’s that word that I’ve been using and emphasizing throughout this whole post! Authenticity is one major brick in the foundation of good, credible acting. 

“High-profile examples of straight performers playing LGBTQ+ characters include Rami Malek's Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, and Taron Egerton's Golden Globe-winning turn as Sir Elton John in Rocketman.”

I haven’t seen Rocketman, but I saw Bohemian Rhapsody and it was great! Why am I high-lighting this movie? Because it’s the perfect example of a straight actor playing a gay character and playing it authentically, while also looking a lot like the real person they’re portraying. If a look-a-like had been cast who also happened to be gay, but couldn’t act to save their life or couldn’t bring as much as Rami brought to the role, wouldn’t that kind of put a damper on the film? And yet, Rami Maleck both looked the part and brought an authenticity to the role that many Queen fans loved and appreciated. Even the remaining Queen band members said that he did an incredible job and Freddy would be proud. I wonder if Freddy would care that Rami wasn’t gay? I doubt it, but no one can know for certain. 

Then there’s the whole term “gay face.” I personally don’t think this is the right term to use because it could possibly diminish the whole meaning and importance of “black face.” Even if Corden appeared to be mocking gay people (I never watched The Prom so I have no idea what his performance was like), calling it “gay face” takes away from and inadvertently belittles the whole dark history of “black face.” Black face’s whole history comes out of an even darker history of racist times filled with hatred and ignorance. I’m not saying that gay people haven’t had their own experiences with hate and intolerance, but isn’t kind of “un-woke” and “insensitive” to compare the hundreds of years of blatant, public racism against an entire race of people to the intolerance of homosexuals? (Again, I’m asking this genuinely because I want to learn and get other people’s opinions. I’m not trying to speak for any community, and I recognize that my personal opinion on this matter is just that: my opinion. And I could be better informed.)

Along the lines of the above paragraph, is it wrong to say or think that casting a non-minority actor in a minority role is a lot different from casting a straight actor in a gay role? Sexuality comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors; that is to say, every race has people with different sexualities. But I think it would be pretty cringe if a Caucasian actress was cast in a role meant for an Asian or African-American woman. 

Director Joe Mantello told Sky News the casting was not intentional, but rather a "very fortunate series of events".

He continued: "That being said, I think having an out gay cast really did inform the work and it took on a particular kind of tone because of that, which is not to say that's the only way to approach this material. But for this particular group, it did something that I think is very, very special. There's a chemistry that they have."

And this man summed up my entire argument! He also put into simpler terms what I have been trying to express about the beauty of theatre: there will always be special casts, especially when there’s a great chemistry from a shared experience. A "very fortunate series of events,” indeed. “The casting was not intentional...” leads me to believe that the director didn’t set out to have an all out-gay-cast, but rather, each actor brought great performances to their auditions and were considered by the director to be perfect for the roles. These actors also just happened to be gay.

If you’re still here after all of that, let me take a moment to sincerely thank you for reading the whole thing! I know it’s a lot, but I’m very passionate about acting and giving each and every actor a fair chance. Let me know what you think, and please be respectful!

[tardytothepardy]

Fruits Basket - Vol. 20

I want to try to break the book into three main chunks. The last time I did that, it was easier to write about. So uh, the first chunk has to do with Tohru and her feelings about Kyo, and Kagura's reaction, the second chunk is Akito and Ren's past being revealed (it's totally a mess but it's to be expected), and the third chunk is about things unraveling.

Ok cool let's do it. (The picture was at the end of one of the chapters, I just liked it a lot idk) (also tumblr needs to increase the character limit for the alt text, it's only 200 characters, which goes by quick. twitter has like,, 420, which is more manageable)

Tohru came to Kazuma's house to visit Izusu, and Kagura came to confront Tohru about something. What possibly could it be (as if I didn't say so in the beginning)? Kagura was talking about it a bit with Kazuma, and he said he just hopes that Tohru's feelings don't come from a place of pity (which is a mild "oof" point for Kagura, because that's mostly why she loved Kyo), because Kyo has had to deal with people either flat out hating him, or being nice to him out of a sense of pity. Even Kazuma admitted (earlier in the series. I don't remember when but I remember reading it) that part of the reason he took in Kyo as a child was because he was making it up for how he treated his grandfather, the previous Cat. Over time, those feelings fell away, in favor of genuinely caring for Kyo's wellbeing, but Kazuma doesn't seem to be the one who would forget about stuff like that. (Also it turns out that the previous Cat's partner basically stayed with him out of a sense of pity, as well)

It turns out that Izusu and Tohru were talking about the same thing, and Tohru worried if her feelings for Kyo were selfish, because she wanted nothing to take Kyo away from her, not the curse, not the Sohma family, nothing. Kagura then bust into the room, smacked Tohru across the fucking room it seems, and said, "Then fucking tell him that!!" (direct quote, 100%) Izusu yelled at Kagura for hitting Tohru, asking what right she had for doing that, but given Kagura's nature, it doesn't seem completely out of nowhere. She just got pretty emotional in that moment.

For Tohru, it seemed to knock the right screw loose for her, and she thought back to when she was talking about her father to Kyo, and if he said really anything against what she was talking about, she apparently would've just zipped her lips and pretended she hadn't said anything, and moved on, but he didn't. Which is pretty nice of him to do, honestly. Anyway, when she came to again (because she got knocked out from Kagura's emotion-packed slap), Kyo was sitting there, because Kazuma had called him, ("Hey dude so there was a smackdown here and Tohru got knocked out lmao" is how I'm imagining the call. kjdhkfgjh can you imagine Kazuma saying "lmao" I can't) but Kyo didn't ask about the fight (which was a Wise Lesson from Shishou™), another nice thing for him to do, though in my opinion it would be a pretty easy thing to explain.

Ok, so now onto the second chunk, which kinda has some of the stuff in the third chunk later on but whatever. Story flow, it's pristine today.

It starts with some of the,, maids? or something that are in the Sohma house (they never get names so far as I can tell, and I don't really know what to call them, but at one point someone referred to one of them as a maid, I think? Idk.) talking about Ren, and wondering why Akito still let Ren wander around freely like she does. Another said that Akito can only do so much, because apparently there is a crowd of people in the house that are "Ren-followers", and if she had Ren be completely contained within an area, there's a chance that those followers might start some shit, which would be a headache to deal with. One of the maids said that Akito has been sick (or holed up in her room) for too long, and the rest of the Juunishi are doing nothing to help, which does not help with Ren, who spouts out stuff about how the Juunishi doesn't really care about Akito at all. The maids seem to have a particular thing against Ren, because they view her as an unsuitable woman who somehow managed to become partners with Akira, the previous God, I think, but also the father of Akito.

Speaking of Akito, she has a box. That same box that Ren tried to use Izusu to get back. Something about that box has to do with Akira, and it seems important to both Akito and Ren, though honestly at this point Akito is probably just holding onto it out of spite for Ren, I wouldn't be surprised (I, too, am a petty bitch. I understand the mindset). She asked Kureno if he has any idea what is in it, and when he says he doesn't, she simply says, "Father."

Now we jump over to Ren and Shigure, who are also talking about about that elusive box. Apparently Shigure was tasked to get the box, but obviously he didn't succeed. He said (thought? He didn't say it aloud, it was one of those thoughts thing--- anyway) that he didn't really care, he didn't even want to touch that box, much less even look at it, it was no loss to him. Out loud, he says that it would be inappropriate for him to hold it, and Ren agrees, saying that only she can have it, just like how only she could have Akira, when he was alive. Are you already sensing where this is heading? Well, I'll say it anyway.

Flash back to Kureno, he's thinking about Akira, from when he was younger and Akira was still alive. He remembers Akira as very beautiful, in a fleeting way. Akira was sickly, all the time, and sad. Everyone knew that he wouldn't live for very long. But since he was the head of the house, of the family, it was imperative that he find a partner and produce an heir. That person was Ren, who was one of his care-takers. The rest of the staff (or something??) didn't like that she was going to be with Akira, it seemed unsuitable, but she was the only candidate. She was the only person who recognized how lonely he was, is what Akira said as a defense when people objected. And so, they were married. The older members of the family despised it, the younger thought it was the beginning of a new change, a new era. Ren said (because this section is flipping between Kureno and Ren) that it was only them two (haha grammar): Akira and Ren, they were all who mattered. She was everything to Akira. So when she had Akito, well, that muddled things. Because now there was another person that Akira loved: his own fuckin child. That's right. Ren got jealous of her own child because Akira loved his very own daughter. That's,, that's something. Shortly after that, Ren decided that Akito would be raised as a boy. Or maybe it was while she was still pregnant. At any rate, she said it was because it would be unsuitable for the head of the family to be a woman, but we all know the real reason: it's so that Akira wouldn't be loving another girl, even though that other girl was his daughter. Jfc Ren is a handful. From Kureno's memory, it seems like even as a kid, Shigure recognized that.

Back to Shigure and Ren, Shigure says that he feels sorry for Ren, probably thanks to all that upset she has. She says the same, that the Juunishi have had to deal with the abuse that Akito has dealt to them simply because of that "bond", and that there's no way that anyone could honestly love Akito. Shigure also comments that sometimes he thinks that if Akito had been raised as a woman, she'd look exactly like Ren, which instantly pisses Ren off. She just starts screaming about "Who do you have to thank for Akito being born! I'm the reason that (insert angry comment about how she's the only reason why x happened)". I'm kinda glad she isn't in the series much, this is exhausting. I know she's in the book later, and maybe a bit more in the next few, but jeez. It's a lot.

Anyway, let's end the chapter with Momiji having his curse be broken. The end is near (for the Juunishi, not this post lmao).

The second that the curse breaks, Akito knows it (that's probably the bond. I doubt it's some kinda "we'll be friends forever uwu" kinda thing, it's just kinda an awareness of each other, or maybe just God's awareness of everyone) and races towards Momiji, begging him to not leave. Now that the curse is broken, Momiji is confused as to how those thoughts he had prior for Akito were even there, now that he sees Akito clinging onto him, whimpering and panicked. Momiji waves her away, saying that he'll keep it a secret, and that Akito should go rest, wasn't she feeling sick earlier?

We pan over to the school, where Haru is asking Yuki if he's noticed anything off about Momiji. Haru can't place it, but something seems off, maybe not. Kyo ends up running into Momiji walking down a hallway, and asks him about it (he overheard the others talking about it), and Momiji just out and says it: his curse broke. He said he imagines that Tohru would be happier about it if it were Kyo's curse that broke, and that he (Momiji) lost. (I guess he lost in some unspoken one-sided competition of "getting" Tohru, because y'know she's not her own person who is capable of deciding these things for herself or anything)

Later, Momiji goes back to the main Sohma estate, to apologize to Akito for how he acted yesterday, but also to say that he won't be staying there any longer. Akito takes it like a champ, slapping Momiji across the face and insulting him, saying that he's a traitor, he has nowhere else to go, his family either doesn't remember him or hates him, he'll never be happy! and Momiji's just like, "Yeah lol I already feel lonely", that he can't be with the person he loves, and he no longer has that One Thing that previously connected him to most of the other people he's close with, and that there's no going back. He does say though, that it's not Akito's decision or place to say whether Momiji will ever be happy or not, because he might not be happy now, that does not mean that he won't ever be happy in the future. He then asks Akito how long she will stay at the house, thinking that eventually, everyone will come back to her, that no one will be happy without her. What if it's actually her that is most afraid-- Akito isn't down for an analysis, she just tells Momiji to leave.

Let's now go down memory lane, down a nice and happy time, especially for Akito and Ren: Akira's death and it's after effects. Happy times. (apparently i was wrong, the thing i said was the third chunk that wove in nicely with the second was just the second chunk, i think this is the actual third chunk)

Akito is thinking back (on a rainy morning, extra points for setting the mood) on her relationship with her parents. With Akira, it was nice, he always was kind and caring, telling Akito that she is what everyone has been waiting for, and that she thought she was the one Akira loved the most. With Ren, however, she was always cruel, from the start. She always glared at Akito, she was always mean. Akito hates her. We're brought back to the day Akira died, where Ren bursts into the room, asking why she wasn't notified sooner, why Akira had to die alone. One of the attendants said his condition worsened too quickly to call Ren close by, but also that Akira hadn't died alone; he died with Akito by his side. The attendant said that Akira's will had been passed onto Akito, she was now the head of the family. Ren was angered at that, there's no reason for Akito to still be around now! She only tolerated her child being around because Akira liked her, but now that Akira is gone, there is no one to love or care about Akito. Akito said that wasn't true, that all of the Juunishi will love her, because of their bond. (Which is basically what Akira said. He put most of that stuff into her head, and she doubled down on it whenever Ren said anything against it, which might as well be every single time they were around each other)

Back to the present, Kureno comes in the room to talk about something, but Akito interrupts him, saying that she was happy when Yuki was born, as the Rat. It was mostly just something she used to prove Ren wrong, and she used it as long as she could (much to the deterioration of Yuki's mental health). She thought back, over the years, to all the bad things that had happened, how she tried so hard to keep everyone close, and how all of them had, one by one, come to "betray" (cough cough, try to live their own lives, cough cough) her. After Shigure and Yuki left to their present residence, Ren said that they had given up on Akito. When Akito again mentioned their bond (which, really, now that I think about it, has basically been the singular thing straining to keep everything under control. Akito's sole sense of identity was being God, she's never had anything else.), Ren waved it away, then challenged that if any of the Juunishi can go out into the world, experience it in all it's freaky magical ways, and not be taken in by it, and instead return to Akito, then she will have been proved wrong, Akito's claims this whole time will have been correct. If they failed to, however, Ren said that Akito would have to give up the Sohma name. But Akito believed it, she truly believed she was right, that nothing big enough would come between her and the rest of the Juunishi (Tohru has entered the chat). She had to believe it, she just had to. But now, it's evident, between how Haru reacted upon learning about Izusu, Momiji's demeanor after the curse broke, the general way that the rest of the Juunishi float away from Akito, that it isn't true, and with that, she has nothing to hope for.

Upon this realization, Ren bursts into the room, knee-length hair floating around her, eyes crazed, knife in hand, demanding for Akira. Demanding for that box, and whatever contents were inside. In response, Akito fuggin yeeted it at Ren, she didn't give a shit. It flashed back to right before Akira died, and he soothed Akito by saying that, despite dying, he will always be with her. He wanted for Ren to be happy. He wasn't upset that he was dying so soon, he knew that he was just a man who was going to die, but he was happy that he was able to have a child, and to have had that child with Ren, and since that child was special, it was proof that their relationship was a special one. Back to the present, Ren scrambles to the box, tears it open hungrily to find,,, nothing. The box was empty. It'd always been empty, said to have held Akira's soul, but it was mostly just something to help Akito with Akira's passing. Suddenly, Akito grabbed the knife that fell from Ren's hand, poised to stab Ren but then--

Hiro's curse broke. Ren can thank that bond she always scoffed at for saving her life. But hey, now Hiro can hold his baby sister, which is nice. Yay for family moments.

Boo for Akito, because it's just really grinding in that the curse is quickly falling apart, and there's absolutely nothing that she can do about it. Ren taunts Akito, asking if she was trying to kill her. The attendants blow up, one yelling at Ren for making such a scene, taking a knife with her, and another scolds the first for giving Akito that box in the first place, it's stupid! The first attendant said that Akito knew from the start that it was empty, common sense would say that much! (idk man it could've held one last letter from Akira to Akito, a letter wouldn't affect the weight of the box significantly, it's not common sense)

Akito leaves the room, and Kureno follows. Akito says that it was both common sense but also not, that there wasn't anything in the box. She wanted to believe there was a chance that something was in that box, some kind of invisible energy that would help her. But even after opening it, seeing that it was empty, she still held onto it, knowing there wasn't anything. And that was her common sense, that's what she thought. She'd never been given any other way of thinking, of living, so why and how should anyone expect differently? Kureno says that she can start learning now, that that was what he wanted to talk about earlier, that she can't stay here, she'll never be able to move on, to which Akito cuts him off with "Fuggin now, bitch?? You're saying that now?? That doesn't help me! It would have helped in the beginning! But not fucking now!" (which btw is true. i doubt akito was even allowed to go to a public school, that she was schooled within the estate. i really believe that she's never really been outside of the the properties that the Sohma family owns) Then she stabs Kureno, with that knife she's been holding all this time. She reasons with it saying that Kureno's "halfway kindness" has been killing her this whole time, that it can't be fixed by Kureno saying that maybe Akito should go touch some grass. As Akito is running from the scene (more like haggardly stumbling), she continues thinking that it's Kureno's fault, it's not on her, until she remembers what Yuki was saying at the New Year's gathering about blame. It doesn't really fix anything, it just momentarily makes you think that you're not in the wrong. *record scratch* What if it's Akito's fault, then? All of this? What if it's her fault? What if it's the fault of the person who made everyone change? What if it's Tohru's fault?? (dun dun dunnnn)

Meanwhile, back at the other Sohma house (Shigure's house?) Tohru has some confessing to do. Before that though, Kyo has some confessing to do, though not about the same thing. He tells Tohru that he knew her mom before she died, and that he was the reason she died. He tells her that they met when he was really young, and how they had kinda become friends (in that way that people become friends by talking often, but Kyo never told Kyoko his name, because he had some weird thing about having a name so similar). That all fell apart the day that Tohru went missing. He promised that he would find her and rescue her, but after finding that Yuki had done it (the evidence was The Hat), he lashed out, and never talked to Kyoko again. Years later, when he was at the crosswalk, who was beside him but Kyoko, who he recognized instantly. He wasn't sure what to do, whether to say something to her or hold back. He was totally able to grab her arm, get her out of harm's way, but he didn't, he was too scared. (plus yaknow the whole cat thing) He beats himself up about, still to this day. He does the same with his own mom's death. It was his fault that his mom killed herself, she couldn't stand having such a monster as a child. It was too much for her, and she couldn't take any longer. (It wasn't. I won't say that his mom wasn't put under strain for having Kyo, for knowing that he wasn't human, that he turned into a weird monster if his bracelet was taken off, but from what we've seen of his dad, it was probably at least 85-90% his dad's fault. He was too caught up in the politics of the Sohma family, ashamed of the fact that Kyo was the Cat, the worst out of them, that he couldn't even salvage having one of the good freaks to have as a child of his, and he took it all out on his wife and later his son.)

And the book ends on that cheery note. (Why do I say stuff like that why I am I like this)

[duhragonball]

Disinterpretation

I finally finished the Sarah Z video about “pro vs. anti”.   It’s pretty long, and I ended up watching it in chunks over several days, but I think it’s worth watching, especially if you’re sort of partially connected to online fandom, but not enough to be aware of all the lingo. 

As I expected, the whole thing was vague and confusing because the people involved in the conflict made it vague and confusing.   In theory, the full terms would be “pro-shipping” and “anti-shipping”, but it seems like it’s more about particular kinds of ships that could be considered controversial.  But that’s a slippery slope, and apparently the whole conflict mutated into both sides deciding that every hypothetical relationship between fictional characters is either equally valid or equally dangerous.  

Long story short, it’s just purity culture, which was what everyone on Tumblr was calling it around 2012.  But now, if you’re a sane person who genuinely asks: “Who gives a fuck about Voltron?”, these people will jump your ass and accuse you of being on the side of their enemies.  “Children have died over the importance of Lotor/Hagger!   Your callous indifference proves that you yourself must have murdered children!” 

I think what Sarah Z really hit upon in this video was that media consumption has become so ingrained in our culture that people feel like it has to go hand-in-hand with our morality.   That is, it’s not enough for me to watch Star Trek, I have to justify Star Trek as evidence that I’m a good person.  Maybe this is where the expression “guilty pleasure” comes from.   Conversely, it’s not enough for me to not watch Dr. Who, I have to somehow convince everyone that Dr. Who was invented by the devil.

I’m pretty sure the Reylo ship has a lot to do with this, since it’s kind of understood to be a dark, problematic concept, and fans either embrace its flaws or recoil in horror because of them.   Star Wars itself is a dumb story about space wizards, so people try to give the debate more weight by linking it to freedom of self expression and/or enabling real world harm.   Suddenly it’s not enough to just think two actors would look cute making out instead of fighting.   Now it’s this battlefield for the soul of civilization or something.

I grew up in the 80′s, when “concerned parents” and grifters would accuse the Smurfs and metal bands of promoting satanism and witchcraft.   I used to hear stories of teens going out into the woods in the middle of the night to do occult stuff, and all I could ever think about was: “Why would anyone bother wandering out in the woods in the middle of the night?”  Which is why “concerned parents” turned their attention to things that were closer to home, like Saturday morning cartoons.   It had nothing to do with the content; it was just about finding a safe, accessible target for their hysteria.   Some people want to go on a crusade without leaving the house, so they pick a fight with Papa Smurf instead of confronting the real evils in the world.  Even as a kid, I knew this was a con, because I’d watched the show for myself and knew it was too saccharine to be threat to anyone.

The pro/anti folks have tried to disguise this with a lot of terminology.   I wondered why they seemed to reluctant to use the full terms “pro-shipper” and “anti-shipper”, and it’s probably a couple of things.   First, the word “shipper” is basically an admission that this is pointless bullshit that doesn’t matter, and they’d like to avoid that connotation.   Second, they seem to have decided that this goes beyond shipping itself, into practically anything else they want it to involve.  It’s all part of the con, which is to make you believe that it’s “us vs. them”, and you can be part of “us” by curating specific attitudes about Steven Universe.

Seriously, “about Steven Universe” is such an incredible punchline.  You can make anything funnier by adding those three words to the end of a sentence.   “Do not interact if you blog about Steven Universe.”   “Hey, what’s up, YouTube, this is SSJ3RyokoLover69, and this is going to be kind of a serious video about Steven Universe.”   “Mrs. Johnson, the results of your biopsy are in, and I have some bad news about Steven Universe.”   It’s a fucking kids show.   “Oh no, all the characters look like the characters in all the other kids shows!”   Yeah, that’s because it’s a kids show.   Marvin looks like Garfield, this isn’t new.

The common denominator here seems to be that both sides try to wrap themselves in the flag of vulnerable groups: impressionable minors, trauma survivors, harassment victims, etc.   The “pros” want to protect those people so that they can feel free to explore weird subject matter on their own terms, and the “antis” want to protect the same people from being exposed to weird subject matter that they might not want to see.   It’s all about establishing a moral high ground.   Back in the day, it was called “sanctimony”. 

But people get roped into this, because at their core, people want approval, and this stupid conflict offers them a sense of community.  As long as you support the cause, whatever it may be, you’ll have this online friend network that appears to support anything you do.   But if you deviate from their norm, you’ll be cast out.    Does this sound familiar?

To use a more familiar example, I still sometimes find people clamoring about Gochi vs. Vegebul.   I’ve never understood this, because both ships were canon, and I never saw much direct evidence of a war between them, but people would still talk about how crazy the Vegebul shippers were, and how crazy the Gochi shippers were, and it was like some huge thing going on just over the hills.   It’s the same idea, since the idea that you could like both or neither never seems to occur to anyone involved.   I never gave a shit, because I used to see the same dumb agendas in the Harry Potter fandom.

Okay, so let me take you back.  It’s 2005 through 2011, and I’m hateblogging all seven Harry Potter novels, because fuck you, that’s why.  The funny thing I encountered was that occasionally fans seemed to want to pretend like my bashing of certain characters was proving them right somehow.    They were like “See?  He hates Ron Weasley too!  That proves that Seamus Finnegan is the coolest guy ever.”   The Slytherin stans would do this all the time, because I would constantly take the piss out of the Gryffindor characters for being self-important dopes.   I think they just liked hearing it from an outside perspective.   But I had to keep reminding them all that I hated all of them.   Every character from Harry Potter sucks ass. Voldemort was my favorite, but only because he was the one guy who wanted to kill all of the others.   But he sucks too because he failed. 

And the shippers were the same way.   I’d say something shitty about Ron, because Ron sucks, and some smartass Joss Whedon fan would be like “Yes!  Boost the signal!  That is why Harry/Hermione is the best ship!”  And I’d be like “No, Harry and Hermione suck at least as bad as Ron does.  They’re all terrible and I hate them.”   I really do think there was some sort of Stockholm Syndrome going on with Harry Potter books, where everyone secretly knows they suck, but the fans sort of latch on to one or two characters and go like “Well, he’s not as shitty as the rest.”   Like finding spaghetti in the trash and picking out the meatball with the least amount of lint on it.   Then you’d go and start a flamewar with some other starving person over whether your meatball is shittier than theirs.  This is what people mean when they say to read another book. 

Anyway, the big thing I picked up from Sarah Z’s video is “disinterpretation”, a term coined by MSNBC columnis Zeeshan Aleem.   The Twitter thread is worth a read, but the short version is that he once remarked that a Julia Louis-Dreyfus routine wasn’t very good, and someone got mad at him for insinuating that women are incapable of being funny.    They just took his dissatisfaction with one performance by one comedian as being a universal condemnation of women comedians in general.  And this sort of thing is all over the internet.   Everyone sees what they want to see and then they take it as permission to overreact.  

I ran into this myself a while back, because someone saw who I interacted with on Twitter and decided that they’re all bad guys and if I have any interaction with them, then that makes me a bad guy too.   At the time I tried to play it cool, but the more I think about it, the more it ticks me off.   And over the course of that conversation, it was said that I don’t talk about myself much, and that’s kind of funny, because all I ever do on social media is write long-ass blog posts like this one.  I don’t expect anyone to memorize them, or even read them all the way through, but when I write all this stuff and someone goes out of their way to say they don’t know anything about me, the message is that they just didn’t pay attention to what I was saying, and they didn’t bother to try.

So I’m a little jaded from that, because I got called out for a bunch of stuff I didn’t even do or say, and apparently that’s just a thing that happens.   People will reject you for completely arbitrary reasons, not because of anything you actually said or did, and you’re left thinking you made some terrible mistake.   Except, no, I’ve seen it happen to other people, people a lore more conscientious than I am, and if they can’t satisfy the bullshit purity standards, then I never stood a chance.   If the game is rigged so I can’t win, then I’m not going to play.  

And it’s that same condition that probably draws people into these online holy wars, because if you declare yourself for the pro or anti side, at least then you’ll have a posse backing you up.   Only they don’t support you, they support your willingness to support them.    Once your commitment to their agenda wavers, even in the slightest, they will turn against you.   

Sarah Z suggests that both sides of the war drop the pro and anti terms, since they lost all meaning long ago.   But that just invites a new set of useless terms to perpetuate the same cycle.   Her more useful advice is for fandom people to broaden their horizons.   She got a lot of flak for tweeting “Go outside” once, but the ironic thing is that it’s sound advice.   I had lunch with my mom yesterday and it was just nice getting away from things for a while.   People need to do that more often, and unfortunately it feels like it’s harder to do than ever before.

But “go outside” isn’t just a literal thing.   It can mean going beyond your usual haunts, reading the same books, watching the same shows, rehashing the same conversations.   I think the reason this stuff always revolves around “shipping” is because there seems to be this deep-seated compulsion to pair fictional characters off like this, and for a lot of folks it’s the only way they can consume a story, so they do.   And they do it lot, and there’s a lot of them, and they do it the same way every time, and lo and behold the same old conflicts start up.   So maybe “go outside” should mean “go outside of that cycle once in a while.”   Just a thought. 

[hermeticimp]

Why Social Media Should Actually Be Represented By the 12th House

Hello beautiful people! So, an enlightening conversation with my lovely mentor Ada led me to realize that social media, so often attributed to the 11th house, can be argued to actually be under the lure of the 12th. Shocking, I know, but let me give my reasoning first.

Ada wrote a brilliant article on redefining the 11th house, so please check that out to get a better understanding of what that house represents. I will explain a little about the 12th however. The 12th house represents hidden influences, secrets, escapism, fantasy, dissolution of the ego, and the collective unconscious. It is the yawning ocean that seeks to devour us all… Okay, so maybe not quite that last one, but close enough.

Either way, it is a place where our conscious mind becomes subsumed by our unconscious one. Not it the same sudden flashes of insight and resonance with the 11th house, but like a giant wave crashing over you and pushing you under, opening up a whole new world you never knew existed. Or at least, one you rarely acknowledge does. With that explanation out of the way, let’s turn our attention to social media.

Social media - the innovative method of communication that has entirely changed the way we communicate and express ourselves with one another. It’s where we go to be honest, right? To share our opinions with the world and find people who totally understand where we’re coming from? It’s technology and becoming social with known loved ones and strangers alike! How on earth could it fall under the mysterious, dissociated influence of the 12th?

Well, friends, let’s gaze into the abyss together.

I’ve been a part of the spiritual community for bordering on 4 years now. Tumblr, Twitter, and Discord have been my biggest spaces for finding people I have an affinity with, though Facebook is quickly becoming another niche for me. I’ve watched people come and go with the tides. It’s been bothering me quite a bit lately.

Two common reasons I see are losing the self and burnout. For all the personalization that social media provides us, it’s actually rather depersonalizing. Psychology has told us that social media can be helpful, but it often causes disconnection. From families sitting at tables using their phones instead of talking to each other to people checking their social media as soon as they wake up rather than taking the time to sit with themselves to prepare for the day, social media turns us away from the real world to become absorbed in the virtual one.

That virtual world leads to the creation of a “persona” or character - an avatar to represent us in the subspace. It then interacts with other avatars in this e-world. It makes me think of this scene from one of my favorite anime, Psycho-Pass. It’s this futuristic, cyberpunk world where everyone’s mental health is easily scanned and coded with a hue referred to as the titular “psycho-pass”. The clearer your hue, the better you are. The darker it is, the more likely you are to be taken into custody or even killed for the safety of society. I highly recommend it because it has a lot of amazing themes like justice, civil disobedience, the dangers of technology, and so on.

Anyways, there’s an episode where the lead character, Akane, participates in this online VR space where she and other people are projected into the e-world, dressed up as their respective personas, and interact with each other. There’s a sense of camaraderie...up until a murder occurs. As Akane investigates, she finds that people she thought were friends in this space quickly turn against one another.

While the example is a little extreme, my point is that social media is just like the online VR space - a place where we interact with a small part of a person and not their true selves. That’s not to say that online friends aren’t true or important - I’ve found plenty of great people online - but there is an element of role-playing here that suits the 12th house over the 11th.

The 12th house is ruled by Neptune, the planet of illusions, the arts, and spirituality. It’s a hazy planet that casts a mist over what it touches. Fantasy falls under the domain of this planet as does wish fulfillment. And what is social media if not a way of creating a fantasy where we can escape the outside world? Remember that escapism falls under this house. We go on social media to connect with others, sure, but we also use it as an escape from the reality of our offline lives.

However, Jupiter classically (and modernly co-rules) the 12th house as well. Jupiter is the planet of optimism, faith, expansion, and luck. Each of those is great in moderation, but Jupiter doesn’t know the meaning of that. Thus, overindulgence, grandiosity, greed, and blind faith can all become issues.

Finally returning to how that impacts people leaving social media, the planetary influences of the 12th better reflect what social media is like. People can lose themselves in their persona, being consumed by this side of themselves that becomes larger-than-life.

In the spiritual community, this can happen through people coming to think of you as a divination machine, constantly channeling the Universe to the point where it’s hard to see where the “diviner” ends and the self starts. That’s 12th house energy. Spirituality can consume us on this side of the internet until it’s our entire world.

(Of course, this applies to any community you join in. I’m just using the one I’m most active in.)

Ada, in her article, mentions “ego death” being something social media causes and I find that to be true. I’ve seen people lose themselves so much that they have to walk away to retain any sense of self and/or sanity. It becomes too much (Jupiter) and they have to retreat into themselves (4th house of privacy and getting back to one’s roots) to regain a sense of who they are. They lose themselves in the persona and not always for the better.

With burnout, the above applies, but a recent revelation provided by the lovely Brook Waldorf in her BTS Yoongi reading helped me understand that the issue here is fear and worship. People fight to maintain the perfection and expected output of their persona to the point that they are deathly afraid of disappointing others and losing their spot as the current desired person.

They fight against themselves, pushing themselves to the limit to avoid a fall from grace and to keep from letting down the people who look up to them. While it may work for a while, the lack of self-care can drive them to retreat (4th house) and leave that persona behind to live the life they truly desire. That last statement is where they move into themes of the 11th - the House of Resonance.

While that went darker than intended, I think that presents a good case for social being considered under the 12th’s domain rather than the 11th’s. Feel free to leave your takes below!

[knitting-with-norbert]

Normalising Anxiety Stuff

So this is basically the short cut of my full blog post about this, but anxiety is shit in general but what’s even more shit is some things that come alongside it that people just don’t talk about? Because I know that there were some parts of my anxiety that I didn’t realise were normal for people going through the same things as me - and so I wanted to try to write about some of the stuff that went on with me that I’ve since learnt are normal, in case there are other people who are going through what I went through

(Also I put a load of photos of my dog because she’s cute and makes dealing with this shit a whole lot easier)

1. Sensory Overload

So this is a big one and I genuinely think that I could talk about it forever, but I’ll try to keep it short. I hadn’t actually realised until very recently that sensory overload was a real thing.

All those times I was sent spiralling into a panic attack because everything was too loud around me? Or when I would have to literally cover my ears and start humming to try to calm myself down because I was finding some background noise too loud? Or how, year after year at my dad’s birthday party I would end the night sobbing on the ground because the fireworks were just too fucking loud?

Yep, sensory overload.

And there I was thinking that there was no real cause, that I was just being dramatic or perhaps I was just a little jumpier than most people. But no, it’s a very real thing that doesn’t get talked about enough, and I wish that I had known that it had a name and that other people were going through the same thing because I think that then I would have known how to better deal with it when all my senses were too overwhelming

You’re not strange for getting overwhelmed in situations that are too loud or by textures that you don’t like or anything like that – it’s not just you that it happens to. And so please reach out to someone who you know does understand it and don’t be afraid of asking them if they can help you figure out healthy ways of managing those times where you are feeling that overwhelmed

And if you don’t know who to ask, then I’m here. Be it on my instagram, twitter or Tumblr (where I do have anonymous asks open) if you feel like you want to talk to me about it please don’t hesitate to. I will repeat again that I’m not at all a medical professional, but I do have a solid past 19 or so years coping with my own sensory overload bullshit so I can try to help you to figure out what works for you

It sucks to feel alone going through any mental health shit, but in particular this always makes me feel so, so lonely and if I can help anyone going through it to feel even just a smidge less isolated then that’s a win in my books

2. Adrenaline Crashing After Social Situations

This is such a big one for me, but I think that a lot of my friends who I’ve spoken about it with all already knew that this was a thing and I was just being dumb about it. But I wanted to put it down anyway in case there are people who don’t realise that this is pretty normal

When you go out into a social situation or even just somewhere out of your comfort zone like leaving your house and going to a public space or I know I get it when I go into a shop, even if I use self service I still get a huge adrenaline rush just from being outside basically. 

Because to your anxious brain’s mind you have just returned to somewhere safe (your home or school or friend’s house for example) from an environment that it deemed as being ‘unsafe’, hence why it activated your fight or flight. So naturally upon returning to a place that you feel comfortable in and it starts to regulate your hormone levels again it’s going to leave you drained and sometimes the comedown from that can send you spiralling into a panic attack

Again: it sucks. But it’s a normal thing, please don’t think that you’re overreacting or exaggerating or whatever because of it. A lot of people with anxiety have this happen to them

3. Post-Event Rumination

It’s essentially just being completely and utterly self critical over everything that you did, even if you weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary

For example, if I ran into my neighbour and had a quick conversation with her, literally just exchanging no more than just “hi, how are you?”‘s, that run-in would be playing on repeat in my head for at least the next day and I’d be sure that I must have said something wrong or she knows something that I don’t or anything like that.

For me, if the adrenaline crash wasn’t enough to send me spiralling into a panic attack, post event rumination pretty much always is. But I found a weird amount of comfort in being told that, actually, it’s a thing that a lot of people deal with! A lot of people do it and I’m not strange for being one of them. So that was nice for me to hear at the time, especially to find out that it’s real enough that it had a name, and so I thought that there was someone else out there who might need to hear it too

4. Crashing/Spacing Out

This one is so, so common for me, but no matter how often it happens I always just feel so fucking rude, like, it can literally be the most interesting conversation in the entire world and I just…. won’t be able to concentrate? For the life of me?

As it turns out, though, that’s apparently completely normal for people with anxiety, especially in regards to the social side of it. It’s something that I actually did research in myself rather than trying to talk to one of my friends about it. And that’s because I didn’t know how to admit to being constantly spacing out in conversations with them (as in, more than they would notice) without it straight up just sounding really rude.

But it only took me a pretty quick Google search to tell me that it was actually not at all uncommon. A lot of the time, it just comes from being completely drained by conversations or sometimes (going back to the sensory overload thing) the environment just making it too hard for me to fully concentrate because of fucking birds or something

So yeah, next time that you catch yourself spacing out in a conversation please don’t feel bad about yourself because of it. Of course, it’s incredibly inconvienient and will probably always make you feel a little rude, but it’s got a cause and it is normal and usually it’s totally out of your control, too. Most people will understand it if it does happen so please, please don’t beat yourselves up about it

5. Romanticisation of Mental Health

I guess that this isn’t really, like, normalising something any more than it’s just me having a bit of a rant about how mental health is seen a lot of the time from the outside thanks to it being completely misrepresented in the media

I just know that the very first time that I saw a panic attack on a TV show was during one of the earliest episodes of Teen Wold (which I still haven’t finished by the way – anyone who’s reading this and has seen it, should I watch the rest?) and I remember Stiles getting kissed by Lydia as a way to bring him back from a panic attack.

I genuinely cannot stress enough how averse to that I am now, knowing what I do about how I and my friends deal with my/their panic attacks and anxiety – that is my worst nightmare!

My aim in making this post was to try to bring some people going through these things some comfort by being able to understand that what they are going through is completely valid and that there are ways to cope with it no matter how lost and alone you feel trying to navigate it

So please add on your own things that you wished you knew about anxiety earlier, what you wish you had known was normal or even things that you think not enough people are aware about – comment it or DM me or whatever, I just want to be able to raise awareness of these kinds of stuff

Anyway, figured I’d fill the post with photos of my dog looking sweet as fuck because she is the loveliest dog in the world (send me dog photos boys)

Thank you for reading, I hope that you’re well and if you wanna check out the full post I wrote it’s on my blog - there’s a link in my bio to it!

I hope that you’re well,

Freddie 🐸