#everything i make is the same at its core

[prokopetz]

i love how you break down rpgs and i really wanna try some indie ones, but i really like crunchy mechanics i can sink my teeth into and find that a lot of the popular ones tend to be very rules light (thats not a bad thing! its just not my thing). do you know of some crunchier ones?

It depends on what kind of crunch you're looking for. Indie games tend not to be maximally crunchy in every sphere of activity the rules choose to address in the same way that big names like Dungeons & Dragons or GURPS are because they don't have the ability to throw large teams at the task of designing and writing them, so the rules-heavy ones are typically heavy in one particular area.

For example, Sarah Newton's transhuman space opera game Mindjammer is a Fate Core derivative, so its conflict resolution is fairly light, but it has one of the most baroque character creation systems I have ever seen in a published game – and I'm including shit like HERO 6th Edition when I make that assessment. Everything from a baseline human to a sapient starship to an entire planetary culture can be represented as a character with a character sheet, and you can at least hypothetically play as any of those things.

Conversely, Erika Chappell's flying-ace drama Flying Circus is an Apocalypse Engine game, and outside of aerial combat it plays roughly as you'd expect, with a handful of lightweight player-facing moves and a whole four stats to remember, but then you get into an aerial dogfight and your combat tracker sheet looks like this:

So it's really a question where you need to be very particular about what you mean by "crunchy"!

[ghostwithpants]

Ghost Of A Titan

This is a DPxPJO story idea I’ve been playing around with, I will eventually turn this into an actual fic but until then feel free to continue yourselves!

Anyway. I love me some ghost!dad Clockwork and I thought it would result in some very interesting in dynamics the PJO universe, so go crazy with it! ;)

You can’t just kill Time itself, cut it into tiny bits and cast the remains into Tartarus and not expect that to backfire spectacularly.

So when the Olympian Gods had to do just that, there was two paths for what would happen next:

Option one, with the killing of Time, time itself would stop existing. Which was never anybody’s favourite idea, since that meant that everything else would also become Stopped.

And then there was option two, upon Time’s death and during the fracturing of its soul, Time could refuse to let go. Could refuse so strongly that while the rest of Time lay dead and scattered in the underworld, part of Time’s soul would break away to form a ghost, one of ancient power and with the singleminded goal of keeping the timelines flowing as they should.

Fortunately, Time went with the second option.

The Olympians, forced to yield to this compromise least even they would Stop, allowed Clockwork to exist but enforced harsh restrictions on the new Ghost of Time. Unable to leave his lair in the Infinite Realms, Clockwork was only allowed to watch, to exist, so time may flow as it was meant to and nothing else.

And to guarantee that this was enforced Zeus, in all his infinite wisdom, created the imbecilic Observants to quite literally “keep an eye on him”.

If they weren’t so obnoxious, Clockwork might have found some humour in that. Instead, his new overseers continuous ignorance of what was actually required to keep the timelines flowing made his own job increasingly difficult and frustrating. But for the sake of the timelines, Clockwork made do with what he had, he stayed in his tower, he didn’t interfere with mortals and he only watch to ensure the timelines safety.

But inevitably, timeline threatening events began to happen in the mortal realms and he was still not allowed to interfere, so Clockwork had to get creative about getting other ghosts who stumbled on his lair to fix it for him, without either the gods or their obnoxious little spies noticing.

However you would be surprised how often these sort of events arose and while the Gods were free to meddle how they pleased (and had heroes and demi-gods to meddle on their behalf where they were forbidden) Clockwork was not allowed to even talk to those that didn’t find his lair themselves and choose to enter. Which was making it incredibly difficult to fix these catastrophic incidents.

Clockwork endured this for eons, for time is both different in the Infinite Realms and different for Clockwork himself. He likes to consider himself slow to anger but even he was getting frustrated.

He was also very lonely.

The observants, the wretched things, were constantly looming over his shoulder and, even worse, trying to throw their weight around outside his tower and doing their own meddling in the greater Infinite Realms itself.

Clockwork was definitely reaching his limit, he was-

… he was witnessing a very interesting anomaly.

The creation of a Half-Ghost, the first of its kind. In any stream or realm.

So Clockwork watches with great interest as Plasmius was forged. Watches as a portal was ripped open with Vladimir Masters on the mortal side and a nameless blob ghost on the otherside, the blob ghost was ripped to shreds immediately and forced to bond with Master’s body and soul, stopping the same thing from happing to Vladimir. The resulting creation was crude, haphazard and deeply unstable at first… But it did work.

It worked and the cogs in Clockwork’s mind and core began turning rapidly.

He could see that with a stronger ghost on the otherside, strong enough to not be obliterated and even able to guide the process of the Forging…. He could see exactly where every misshapen mistake could be turned into a symbiotic artwork, how life and death could be balanced on a knifes edge to create a being that could effortlessly walk both worlds.

How he could have the one thing he thought he’d never have since his own making: something that was a part of him, but free from the restrictions he suffered. Someone to share existence with, a Child!

Clockwork was not what the Titan of Time had been, he had never had the opportunity to create anything that could even be remotely similar to a familiar bond. The Ghost of Time wanted that nearly more then his own Obsession.

And when he saw there would be another, a boy, who would go through the same process but would be obliterated because there was no ghost on the otherside to power the Forging.

He couldn’t resist.

Clockwork didn’t need to be able see into all of time to know he wouldn’t be able to keep this a secret for very long. But if he was oh so careful, there was a small chance that the boy, Daniel, would have enough time to develop and maybe survive the Godly fallout that would follow Clockwork’s actions.

There was an even slimmer chance that Daniel would thrive and be happy. Be grateful that Clockwork saved him.

There were a lot of other, much worse, chances however. Filled with so much pain and suffering and death.

But still the Ghost of Time couldn’t resist that slim chance of happiness. Drawn like a moth to a flame, Clockwork slipped from his tower and slid through time and space to arrive, just in time, to be that oh so necessary ghost on the otherside of his new son’s Forging.

[sideprince]

I've seen the same post a hundred times now. Sometimes it's a few days old, sometimes it's from years ago, but it's always the same. Some anti posts about how they don't understand how anyone can like Snape because he was so awful, and then there's a long reply that goes something like, "imagine this happens to you, and then this, and then this" to describe Snape's experience. Sometimes there's some James Potter hate thrown in.

Look. You can go through describing a character's entire experience but you don't really need to. Here's the thing that antis don't understand:

For all her faults (and they're big, bigoted ones) Rowling understood a really integral part of the human experience and conveyed it through Snape. Everyone needs love and to feel accepted. It's that simple. Snape became a Death Eater to seek acceptance (Rowling has confirmed this, though I can't remember the source - whoever wants to add it please do), because it was the only way he could find any.

Snape's understanding of morality, like everyone's, is subjective. Some readers understand this and some don't. When faced against a morality that says there is good and bad in the world, everyone makes choices based on their personal experience. Context is everything. Someone who experiences pain and suffering will not see the person inflicting it on them as moral. That's it. 'How can this person be good when they caused me so much suffering?' = human psychology. Most of the people who think 'I'm a bad person and deserve this' have been gaslit and abused into thinking so, because it's not a natural reaction - it's one that has to often be socialized into someone at a young age, exactly because it's not natural. Everyone is the hero of their own story; no one sees themselves as a villain, because they see the valid aspects of their own perspective.

You can write essays on how vulnerable people needing acceptance is what cults and fascists exploit to recruit vulnerable people, or on how the standard anti's un-nuanced reading of Snape both ignores canon and displays a disturbing lack of empathy or compassion, but at its core it just boils down to context. From Snape's perspective he experienced cruelty, therefore the people inflicting it must be cruel. Again, it's that simple. He was a person, like any other, except he was fictional so he wasn't even real. On the flip side is James Potter, who, for all his faults, didn't get to live long enough to get a chance to change and grow unlike Snape, and I think the Snapedom also needs to acknowledge that.

They're fictional characters representing things an author wants to say, not sports teams, not martyrs, and not all good or all bad emblems that define your identity depending on how you feel about them. It's depressing how much time is wasted arguing with bullies and trolls whether from the Marauders fandom or just random antis. I literally can't find more than three blogs to follow without this argument coming across my feed daily. I know the Snapedom is Not OK™ and that's kind why we're all here, and I know that my take is super unpopular but like Snape, I don't care what others think: this fandom has been having the exact same argument for years and nothing has changed. There's fanart and meta and fic and so much content out there appreciating this character, you're not going to change an anti's mind who's deliberately trolling in the tags, so why are you trying? What are you getting out of it? What does it give you? It's exhausting just scrolling past it.

[aotopmha]

I'm around level 82 Endwalker MSQ and I know that some really hate the Garlean section of the story, but I really like it.

Above all I really like the nuance in it all.

Firstly, I think they spell out the intentions of the expedition really well – the goal is to help the regular people who are suffering, but not excuse the system they live under.

Secondly, they spell out the really important detail that a bunch of the characters do not support the Ilsebard contingent.

As an example, not all of your job mentors might show up, as was my case with the RDM mentor because of his history with Garlemald, adding important nuance in terms of varying perspectives regards to helping Garlemald.

Reading some takes you'd think everyone agrees that Garlemald is all okay and cool now, but this is not the nuance/subtext I see in the text itself myself.

This was also not the sole objective of the expedition. The towers needed to go for the world to not end.

So it isn't just randomly barging in there to self-righteously "help" another nation. Everyone needed to be on the same page at least somewhat to survive.

Thirdly, I think they gave Gaius and his group enough nuance back in ARR (and Regula in HW) and we had enough decent and more complex good/less villainous Garlean characters across the game (Cid, Nero, Lucia, Maxima) for me to not feel like asking to see them as people was rushed or too late.

The key to me is that even the Garleans who were villains had defined, substantial perspectives and sometimes had non-villainous aspects to them.

The humanity itself was always there.

Fourthly, I see people say it is a thematic mess, but I don't see any of that, either.

The entire zone is full of nuanced perspectives on how fascism can hurt people and not once are we told to push everything the empire did under the rug – if nothing else the horrors of the system are only emphasised.

I agree with the system itself being the central enemy, which to me has been the entire thematic point of Garlemald from the start.

Licinia and her sister, the ceruleum workers from other provinces, Jullus and Quintus all represent very important aspects of how the empire's principles and its own self-made "faith" affected the people of Garlemald and to see it reduced to "oh some of them are just sad now", I think really misses the point considering the foundation of some of their stories.

Genuinely believing you're right, making nationalism almost a core of your identity and being distrusting of your enemy due to far-reaching propaganda are very real struggles under systems like this.

Finally, I've seen people say we are done with Garlemald now and it's so rushed because of this and I'm just not sure about that because to me that has never been the identity of this game.

It's really rare something is dropped and never brought up again, so I always disagree with almost any claims like this.

This is why I think Sky Pirates and Four Lords will also eventually have larger significance.

(And so will the 6.x series.)

I still feel the framing is very much "there is a long way to go here."

Doma and Ala Mhigo both had restoration arcs in various content and are still in progress, really, as the 6.0 role quests, literal "restoration" content and also patch content itself (4.1-4.3, 5.4-5.5 in particular for Ala Mhigo and Doma) attest.

I think we will still see more of the aftermath of Garlemald's collapse in the yet occupied provinces as I still think we will have to open up the huge cloud in the middle of the map in some form, I even think there still would be room for a Garlemald expansion, it just wouldn't be "as" urgent anymore and mixed with other stuff because the empire is an husk now.

As much as Bozja might seem like it was dropped suddenly because of the field notes, I do not think it is like this story to not address important aspects like this until we are unquestionably, completely done.

I know there are some reveals in the role quests and material in 6.x quests that people are also iffy about, but to me most of that seems pretty okay, too.

Garlemald has to reestablish proper trade connections, they have to fight the remainder of their old guard and they can never be complete victims. They also need an entirely new governmental system.

It's the old guard that holds them back, but also crumbles when threatened.

So I think where we are now narratively, we still need more time with Garlemald and I think we are not quite done with them yet and if there is something I personally would dislike from here on out, it *would* be getting no follow-up at all.

I think we need to actually visit Dalmasca, Corvos and Nagxia in some form and put a final end to all of those regimes.

Now, do I think more could've been done here?

Absolutely. As I said, we have whole occupied provinces we have still not seen and a whole massive cloud right in the middle of the map still uncovered.

(And I think revisiting Ala Mhigo's and Doma's struggles against specifically Garlemald in some form also needs to happen.)

So as much as I really liked the zone, it is still clear to me there might have been more done there (in fact it was confirmed because we know about a potential Garlemald expansion).

So I actually do share a criticism I see around, I just think what we got still turned out to be really good and really important nuance to go into regarding Garlemald.

Something about asking to somewhat empathise with an enemy faction just destroys any nuanced discussion on the internet, be it the heroes doing something bad (for good or bad reasons) or villains doing something good (despite having really awful views otherwise).

You see an enemy faction just even dip toes into nuance and the story automatically must be excusing them.

You see the heroes not be completely, unconditionally respectful and thoughtful and the story must be disrespectful itself.

It's such a boring way to discuss art (which is also made by people, who are flawed like anyone else) in my eyes.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Here's the thing with Jane Austen-Elizabeth Gaskell comparisons:

I don't think the intuition that relates them in readers is wrong. Gaskell has read Austen and it shows. I'd even go as far as to say that Gaskell is writing within the same ethic-political framework as Austen -one that is concerned with human flourishing as stemming from an ideal of fulfilled humanity based on an assortment of intellectual and moral excellences, that is, a form of virtue ethics- and I am in fact attempting to write a dissertation on this! *clown shoes noises*.

The problem is when influence and fundamental agreement is treated or understood as imitation, or worse, pastiche. "North and South is Pride and Prejudice + [insert Victorian element here]" is a fun joke, because comedy so often relies on exaggeration, but as an actual description it isn't quite right. North and South pays its homage to P&P with some elements, but it is not an AU retelling. The themes, character arcs and motivations are very different. There is a referentiality, but it is the referentiality of conversation.

Gaskell says "I see Darcy, and I see the ideal Darcy represents in the context of his community of practice (rural, pre-industrial England), as The Gentleman. He has power and he has authority. But how do we make sense of a similar figure of power and authority, but dissimilar in everything else in the context of his own community of practice (urban, industrial England)? What constitutes the ideal of The Man?" It isn't Thornton's points of coincidence with Darcy but their points of drastic contrast that motivate the socio-psycho-moral study of the character. And so on and so forth for other elements of the narrative.

Something similar happens with Wives and Daughters and Mansfield Park. Gaskell says "I understand the point about how a bad early education can fix a character in such a way as to make moral growth or reform impossible through example or exhortation. But what do we do when that person remains intimately connected to us?" Cynthia resembles Mary Crawford, but the angle of approach is different because the question is different (and the environment of transplant is different as well).

There are of course other works of Gaskell where the conversation is tenuous or completely absent. There's no romance plot in Cranford, but we do kind of see in the Cranford amazons the gossips of Highbury. There's no Emma here, no Mr Knightley, no magnanimous rich neighbor to help. The question is how do they manage to live the same virtues of generosity, patience, forgiveness, etc, between themselves.

Austen's novels are mostly occupied with the directly moral: it is about the concrete individuals and their close connections in society, and how virtues and vices in this or that person affect themselves and those around them. The communities of practice, and therefore the ideals of fulfilled humanity remain more or less the same (with some variations, of course). In Gaskell the scope is political, if anything because of Gaskell's unfamiliarity with Austen's socioeconomic environment, and familiarity with completely different ones. So she's taking Austen's general framework, and investigating in which ways the differences in the communities make for different ideals of human flourishing that still relate to the same core virtues.

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Spider-Man India, but... where from India?

A SUPER long post featuring talks of: cultural identity, characterisation, the caste system, and what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man.

I’m prefacing this by saying that I am a second-generation immigrant. I was born in Australia, but my cultural background is from South India. My experiences with what it means to be “Indian” is going to be very different from the experiences of those who are born and brought up in India.

If you, reader, want to add anything, please reblog and add your thoughts. This is meant to be a post open for discussion — the more interaction we get, the better we become aware of these nuances.

So I made this poll asking folks to pick a region of India where I would draw Pavitr Prabhakar in their cultural wear. This idea had been on my mind for a long while now, as I had been inspired by Annie Hazarika’s Northeastern Spidey artwork in the wake of ATSV’s release, but never got the time to actually do it until now. I wanted to get a little interactive and made the poll so I could have people choose which of the different regions — North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South — to do first.

The outcome was not what I expected. As you can see, out of 83 votes:

THE RESULTS

South India takes up almost half of all votes (44.6%), followed by Northeast and Central (both 14.5%) and then East (13.3%). In all my life growing up, support towards or even just the awareness of South India was pretty low. Despite this being a very contained poll, why would nearly half of all voters pick South India in favour of other popular choices like Central or North India?

Then I thought about the layout of the poll: Title, Options, Context.

Title: "Tell us who you want to see…"

Options: North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South

Context: I want to make art of the boy again

At first I thought: ah geez. this is my fault. I didn't make the poll clear enough. do they think I want them to figure out where Pavitr came from? That's not what I wanted, maybe I should have added the context before the options.

Then I thought: ah geez. is it my fault for people not reading the entire damn thing before clicking a button? That's pretty stupid.

But regardless, the thought did prompt a line of thinking I know many of us desi folk have been considering since Spider-Man India was first conceived — or, at least, since the announcement that he was going to appear in ATSV. Hell, even I thought of it:

Where did Spider-Man India come from?

FROM A CULTURALLY DIVERSE INDIA

As we know, India is so culturally diverse, and no doubt ATSV creators had to take that into account. Because the ORIGINAL Spider-Man India came from Mumbai — most likely because Mumbai and Manhattan both started with the same letter.

But going beyond that, it’s also because Mumbai is one of the most recognisable cities in India - it’s also known as Bombay. It’s where Bollywood films are shot. It’s where superstar Hindi actors and actresses show up. Mumbai is synonymous with India in that regard, because the easiest way Western countries can interact with Indian culture is through BOLLYWOOD, through HINDI FILMS, through MUMBAI. Suddenly, India is Mumbai, India is a Hindi-only country, India is just this isolated thing we see through an infinitely narrow lens.

We’ve gotten a little better in recent years, but boy I will tell you how uncomfortable I’ve gotten when people (yes, even desi people) come up to me and tell me, Oh, you’re Indian right? Can you speak Hindi? Why don’t you speak Hindi? You’re not Indian if you don’t speak Hindi, that’s India’s national language!

I have been — still am — so afraid of telling people that I don’t speak Hindi, that I’m Tamil, that I don’t care that Hindi is India’s “national” language (it’s an administrative language, Kavin, get your fucking facts right). It’s weird, it’s isolating, and it has made me feel like I wasn’t “Indian” enough to be accepted into the group of “Indian” people.

So I am thankful that ATSV went out of their way to integrate as much variety of Indian culture into the Mumbattan sequence. Maybe that way, the younger generation of desi folk won’t feel so isolated, and that younger Western people will be more open to learning about all these cultural differences within such a vast country.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SPIDER-MAN INDIA?

Everything, actually. There’s a thing called supremacy. You might have heard of it. We all engaged with it at some point, and if you are Indian, no matter where you live, it is inescapable.

It happens the moment you are born — who your family is, where you are born, the language you speak, the colour of your skin; these will be bound to you for life, and it is nigh impossible to break down the stereotypes associated with them.

Certain ethnic groups will be more favourable than others (Centrals, and thus their cultures, will always be favoured over than Souths, as an example) and the same can be said for social groups (Brahmins are more likely to secure influential roles in politics or other areas like priesthood, while the lowers castes, especially Dalits, aren’t even given the decency of respect). Don’t even get me started on colourism, where obviously those of fairer skin will win the lottery while those of darker skin aren’t given the time of day. It’s even worse when morality ties into it — “lighter skinned Indians, like Brahmins, embody good qualities like justice and wisdom”, “dark skinned Indians are cunning and poor, they are untrustworthy”. It’s fucking nuts.

This means, of course, you have a billion people trying to make themselves heard in a system that tries to crush everyone who is not privileged. It only makes sense that people want to elevate themselves and break free from a society that refuses to acknowledge them. These frustrations manifest outwardly, like in protests, but other times — most times — it goes unheard, quietly shaping your way of life, your way of thinking. It becomes a fundamental part of you, and it can go unacknowledged for generations.

So when you have a character like Pavitr Prabhakar enter the scene, people immediately latch onto him and start asking questions many Western audiences don’t even consider. Who is he? What food does he eat? What does he do on Fridays? What’s his family like, his community? All these questions pop up, because, amidst all this turmoil going on in the background, you want a mainstream popular character to be like you, who knows your way of life so intimately, that he may as well be a part of your community.

BUT THAT'S THE THING — HE'S FICTIONAL

I am guilty of this. In fact, I’ve flaunted in numerous posts how I think he’s the perfect Tamil boy, how he dances bharatanatyam, how he does all these Tamil things that no one will understand except myself. All these niche things that only I, and maybe a few others, will understand.

I’ve seen other people do it, too. I’ve seen people geek out over his dark brown skin, his kalari dhoti, how he fights so effortlessly in the kalaripayattu martial arts style. I’ve seen people write him as Malayali, as Hindi, as every kind of Indian person imaginable.

I’ve also seen him be written where he’s subjected to typical Indian and broader Asian stereotypes. You know the ones I’m so fond of calling out. The thing is, I’ve seen so much of Pavitr being presented in so many different ways, and I worry how the rest of the desi folk will take it. 

You finally have a character who could be you, but now he’s someone else’s plaything. Your entire life is shaped by what you can and can’t do simply because you were born to an Indian family, and here’s the one person who could represent you now at the mercy of someone else’s whims. He’s off living a life that is so distant from yours, you can hardly recognise him.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, yeah? But, again, you’re looking at it from that infinitely narrow lens Westerners use to look at India from Bollywood.

AND PAVITR PRABHAKAR DOESN'T LIVE IN INDIA

He lives in Mumbattan. He lives in a made-up, fictional world that doesn’t follow the way of life of our world. He lives in a city where Mumbai and Manhattan got fucking squashed together. There are so many memes about colonialism right there. Mumbattan isn’t real! Spider-Man India isn’t real!! He’s just a dude!! The logic of our world doesn’t apply to him!!!

“But his surname originates from ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he’s wearing a kalari dhoti so surely he’s ______” okay but does that matter?

“But his skin colour is darker so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he lives in Mumbai so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

I sound insensitive and brash and annoying and it looks like I’m yapping just for the sake of riling you up, so direct that little burst of anger you got there at me, and keep reading.

Listen. I’m going to ask you a question that I’ve asked myself a million times over. I want you to answer honestly. I want you to ask this question to yourself and answer honestly:

Are you trying to convince me on who Pavitr Prabhakar should be?

... but why shouldn't i?

I’ll tell you this again — I did the same thing. You’re not at fault for this, but I want you to just...have a little think over. Just a little moment of self-reflection, to think about why you are so intent on boxing this guy.

It took me a while to reorganise my thinking and how to best approach a character like Pavitr, so I will give you all the time you need as well as a little springboard to focus your thoughts on.

SPIDER-MAN (INDIA) IS JUST A MASK

“What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that’s a good thing.”

Stan Lee said that. Remember how he was so intent on making sure that everybody got the idea that Spider-Man as an entity is fundamentally broken without Peter Parker there to put on the suit and save the day? That ultimately it was the person beneath the mask, no matter who they were, that mattered most?

Spider-Man India is no less different. You can argue with me that Peter Parker!Spidey is supposed to represent working class struggles in the face of leering corporate entities who endanger the regular folk like us, and so Pavitr Prabhakar should also function the same way. Pavitr should also be a working class guy of this specific social standing fighting people of this other social standing.

But that takes away the authenticity of Spider-Man India. Looking at him through the Peter Parker lens forces you to look at him through the Western lens, and it significantly lessens what you can do with the character — suddenly, it’s a fight to be heard, to be seen, to be recognised. It’s yelling over each other that Pavitr Prabhakar is this ethnicity, is that caste, this or that, this or that, this or that.

There’s a reason why he’s called Spider-Man India, infuriatingly vague as it is. And that’s the point — the vagueness of his identity fulfils Lee’s purpose for a character that could theoretically be embodied by anyone. If he had been called “Spider-Man Mumbai”, you cut out a majority of the population (and in capitalist terms, you cut out a good chunk of the market).

And in the case of Spider-Man India? Whew — you’ve got about a billion people imagining a billion different versions of him.

Whoever you are, whatever you see in Pavitr, that is what is personal to you, and there is nothing wrong with that, and I will not fault you for it. I will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from Central due to the origins of his last name. I also will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from South due to him practising kalaripayattu. I also will not fault you for saying he is not Hindu. I also will not fault you for saying he is a particular ethnicity without any proof.

What I will fault you for is trying to convince me and the others around you that Pavitr Prabhakar should be this particular ethnicity/have this cultural background because of some specific reason. I literally don’t care and it is fundamentally going against his character, going against the “anyone can wear the mask” sentiment of Spider-Man. By doing this, you are strengthening the walls that first divided us. You’re feeding the stratification and segmentation of our cultures — something that is actually not present in the fictional world of Mumbattan.

Like I said before: Mumbattan isn’t real, so the divides between ethnicities and cultural backgrounds are practically nonexistent. The best thing is that it is visually there for all to see. My favourite piece of evidence is this:

It’s a marquee for a cinema in the Mumbattan sequence, in the “Quick tour: this is where the traffic is” section. It has four titles; the first three are written in Hindi. The fourth title is written in Tamil. You go to Mumbai and you won’t see a single shred of Tamil there, much less any other South Indian language. Seeing this for the first time, you know what went through my head?

Wow, the numerous cultures of India are so intermingled here in Mumbattan! Everyone and everything is welcome!

I was happy, not just because of Tamil representation, but because of the fact that the plethora of Indian cultures are showcased coexisting in such a short sequence. This is India embracing all the little parts that make up its grander identity. This scene literally opened my eyes seeing such beauty in all the diverse cultures thriving together. In a place where language and cultural backgrounds blend so easily, each one complementing one another.

It is so easy to believe that, from this colourful palette of a setting, Pavitr Prabhakar truly is Spider-Man India, no matter where he comes from.

It’s easy to believe that Pavitr can come from any part of India, and I won’t call you out if the origin you have for him is different from the origin I have. You don’t need to stake out territory and stand your ground — you’re entitled to that opinion, and I respect it. In fact, I encourage it!!!

Because there’s only so much you can show in a ten minute segment of a film about a country that has such a vast history and even greater number of cultures. I want to see all of it — I want him to be a Malayali boy, a Hindi boy, a Bengali boy, a Telugu boy, an Urdu boy, whatever!! I want you to write him or draw him immersed in your culture, so that I can see the beauty of your background, the wonderful little things that make your culture unique and different from mine!

And, as many friends have said, it’s so common for Indian folks to be migrating around within our own country. A person with a Maharashtrian surname might end up living in Punjab, and no one really minds that. I’m actually from Karnataka, my family speaks Kannada, but somewhere down the line my ancestors moved to Tamil Nadu and settled down and lived very fulfilling lives. So I don’t actually have the “pure Tamil” upbringing, contrary to popular belief; I’ve gotten a mix of both Kannada and Tamil lifestyles, and it’s made my life that much richer. 

So it’s common for people to “not” look like their surname, if that’s what you’re really afraid about. In fact, it just adds to that layer of nuance, that even despite these rigid identities between ethnicities we as Indian people still intermingle with one another, bringing slivers of our cultures to share with others. Pavitr could just as well have been born in one state and moved around the country, and he happens to live in Mumbattan now. It’s entirely possible and there’s nothing to disprove that.

We don’t need to clamber over one another declaring that only one ethnicity is the “right” ethnicity, because, again, you will be looking at Pavitr and the rest of India in that narrow Western lens — a country with such rich cultural variety reduced to a homogenous restrictive way of life.

THE POLL: REINTERPRETED

This whole thing started because I was wondering why my little poll was so skewed — I thought people assumed I was asking them where he came from, then paired his physical appearance with the most logical options available. I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow influenced this outcome without knowing.

Truth is, I will never really know. But I will be thankful for it, because it gave me the opportunity to finally broach this topic, something that many of us desi folk are hesitant to talk about. I hope you have learned something from this, whether you are desi or a casual Spider-Man fan or someone who just so happened to stumble upon this. 

So just…be a little more open. Recognise that India, like many many countries and nations, is made up of a plethora of smaller cultures. And remember, if you’re trying to convince Pavitr that he’s a particular ethnicity, he’s going to wave his hand at you and say, “Ha, me? No, I’m one of the people that live here in the best Indian city! I’m Spider-Man India, dost!”

(Regardless, he still considers you a friend, because to him, the people matter more to him than you trying to box him into something he’s not.)

[romantichopelessly]

literally the catch 22 of making urself less to keep people around you directly leading to people leaving u bc you’re not opening up to them 🧍‍♀️

[clitfisto]

ok i guess im posting my dnd opinions today. alignment as a system is so fickle and debated because the average ttrpg player is not somebody who is interested in philosophical theory, let alone an in-depth discussion of morality, so defining both the good/evil and chaotic/lawful spectrums is fucking difficult because NOBODY here is equipped to answer questions like "what is evil?" let alone "what makes a person Inherently Evil or Inherently Good", and the fact that the average dnd group would need to satisfactorily ANSWER those questions in order to rules-lawyer certain spells/items/abilities is absolutely fucking ridiculous

[llycaons]

but that's why it's such a compelling story, right? that why I still love reading about what happens after. such a brilliant and spirited and funny and life-loving character was driven to literal suicide at a very young age by the events that happened in his life, and we get to see him come back to a new life, older and changed but still himself, and still capable of appreciating life and experiencing joy. and against all odds, he does! I and many others have speculated on the fact that wwx really should be more traumatized in canon that he appears, that it'll take years or decades of healing with support and security before he can be considered 'recovered', if ever

but the thing is...he gets that. he has a home with someone he loves, who deeply cherishes him and who knows him. he has decades of life to live - longer if you go by novel canon and have him develop mxy's core. he has a little family of people who respect and value him, with ties to his lost siblings and friends. he has the security of extremely powerful cultivators and a massive sect. he's no longer wanted by the cultivation world, and he makes his peace with loved ones both living and dead. and canonically he takes those opportunities and he thrives. the narrative - in the novel, donghua, and drama - wants you to know that he has a happy ending. that's canon! that despite everything he's gone through and lost, he ends the story happy

[jonathanssweatercollection]

sick how jancy-coded this is

[newspecies]

ROSE TYLER *SHAKING YOU*

[sugared-violets]

who needs surgeons when you can just reread the book that defined your adolescence and get your heart ripped out for free

[ittybittybeastiebuddy]

Obligatory winter cleaning has turned into sorting my closet out so I can achieve Gender

[sheerioswifties]

.

[mmmmuffins]

how can i make this essay write itself

[kelprot-old]

once or twice a day i’ll think abt how much i despise tiktok and everything it tries to do and i have 2 put my head in my fuckign hands its like a psychic attack or some shit its so visceral