#get to know my muse

[tofixtheshadows]

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

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

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

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

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

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

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

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

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

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

[madamemiz]

sad: falling out of a hyperfixation

tragic: watching your beloved friends and mutuals fall out of the hyperfixation while you're still in it

[paxcallow]

desire to draw raz's hair unhatted and uncombed spiraled into imagining an extended gag about some emergency situation forcing all of the psychonauts out of the motherlobe into the quarry in their jammies at like 2 am and judging each other's clothing choices instead of getting actual work done.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i think i need a lobotomy

[dduane]

OMG

..I just had the most horrific idea for a SF/horror novel.

(sits here blanching for about ten seconds)

...and then RUNS OFF TO MAKE NOTES

ETA @mathamaniac: Yeah. And this is the flip side. 😅

[fantasykiri5]

A pair of birds of prey for days 15 and 16 of @hermitadaymay !!! Definitely not a day and a half (?) late

[littlecrow4]

Two versions cause I couldn’t decide a skin tone

This took 5 fucking hours

And it’s bills fault lmao that suit took forever

Captions

Bill: Ha-Ha Don’t get to excited Sixer!!

Ford wraps his tail around his leg for comfort

[mccoyquialisms]

oh. oh no. are the rat grinders acting so cagey about lucy because they have lied to themselves about what actually happened to her with the devil’s honey? is that why ivy and the others have been so goddamn weird about it? why they didn’t look for her?

oh god…does it ever wear off? what happens when it does?

[spaltedrat]

what the polygun!!!

[louismygf]

some louis tomlinsons i never posted ^_^

[the-heros-sidekick]

❝ went looking for a creation myth, ended up with a pair of cracked lips. ❞

He feels it first at the back of his neck. A buzzing, like the crackling of electricity underneath his skin, reverberating against the hollow of his skull. Something is knocking, making its presence known: A particular kind of evil that had snuck into Stiles’ mind once already, stealing away control over his body. Condemning him to sit back, trapped in his own mind, rendering him powerless. Doomed to watch in horror as his  blood-stained hands wielded sharpened blades against those he loved. They’d gotten him out, though nearly at the cost of his own life—a sacrifice Stiles had been more than willing to make, so long as no one else would get hurt because of him. And yet something must have stayed behind, lodged into the membrane of his skull like a shard of glass. For the longest time he’d managed to keep the horrors contained to only haunt him in the dead of night, leaving him sleep deprived and wrung out, every nerve ending scraped thin. But now, even the light of day no longer offers refuge for Stiles to feel safe. Long gone is the once obnoxiously loud, carefree kid—left in its stead is a man carrying himself with caution, treading quietly across the space between other people’s reality and what lies beyond. He knows there are demons out there listening, waiting for an opportunity to exploit any sign of weakness—a door left slightly ajar, perhaps, much like the door to Stiles’ mind they’d never managed to close. The feeling of impending doom crescendos and Stiles, feeling sick to his stomach with fear, clings desperately to the words he repeats to himself like a mantra. "Nothing gets in unless you let it.” But the words turn to ash in his mouth, memories of past experiences proving him a liar. 

an exploration of Teen Wolf's 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐊𝐈 who, after leaving Beacon Hills behind, settled down in New York where he's now considered the FBIs golden boy ― crafted for @fakevz. following canon events of the show with additional headcanons. low activity & very crossover friendly. minors dni. this blog operates in english only. est. 2014 ♗ ©

𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐘 𝐈𝐍: loss of innocence ⊹ comedic sidekick ⊹ overcoming demonic possession ⊹ a morally gray world ⊹ undying loyalty ⊹ survivor's guilt ⊹ agent of chaos ⊹ deflecting with humor

✧  𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 ✧ 𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓 ✧ 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒

I think I've loved you since I met you. I just mistook it for curiosity.

Ever since I first laid eyes on you, I felt this unquenchable need to know you.I blamed it on ulterior motives, justified it because I needed something from you, because you held the answers I was looking for, because no one else was able to help but you. Looking back on it now though, I'm starting to think that maybe some part of me knew right from the start, that first night I stumbled upon you in the woods, what took me years to see: Maybe my heart recognized that it was going to love you right away, and I spent the years to come catching up with what it knew right from the start. That it was always going to be you. How could it ever have been anyone else? Through mayhem and bloodshed, through fear and loss, through grief and sleepless nights, you were the one constant that remained. When I lost sight of everything--first myself, then reality, then hope--you were the one guiding my way like a beacon, or a north star. If I've ever known peace, it's in all the moments that your hand has touched mine and that your arms have held me tirelessly, putting your body like a shield between me and every inkling of danger. Of all the late-night wonderings of trying to make sense of the last decade (and failing), what remains is this singular thought: At least it was you. At least it was me. At least it was us, together. I'd bear it all a million times over if it meant I got to hold your hand at the end of it all. You are the moment of quiet at the end of a long day, you are breathless laughter, you're the patch of sunlight filtering in through the window that I stand in to warm myself. You are everything good in this world and living proof that there is hope despite it all, and I love you beyond measure.

[maebird-melody]

I am making my friend watch the new Superman show with me and we just watched the most recent episode with Doctor Ivo. At the end, Jimmy is sad because his two best friends walk off all romantically into the sunset. I think nothing describes difference between the aroace and allo experience better than our very different responses to that scene.

My response was that Jimmy’s needs as a friend were clearly being disregarded in favor of the “more important” romantic feelings developing between Clark and Lois. And despite him shipping the two of them, it doesn’t change that it always hurts when you get third wheeled or left out by your closest friends. But I was confident that once the romantic tension settled and the three of them had a chance to talk, Lois and Clark would start making space for their friend again.

Meanwhile, my allosexual friend’s response was that “they need to give Jimmy somebody.” That the way to cure his sadness was to give him a romantic partner. Which was a response that shocked me, considering that my friend is very on board with my desire to maintain our close friendship after their marriage while not pursuing a romantic relationship myself.

And I cannot stress enough that finding a romantic partner cannot be the only solution to feeling sad when your best friends get together. What kind of message does that send to asexual or aromantic people? That you will lose all your friends to romance and you won’t have any fulfilling relationships yourself unless you also get with the program?

I am curious to see which direction the show takes this, but Jimmy seems like a prime candidate for either ace or aro representation. I hope that this can be a moment to help people untrain the knee-jerk response that romance isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to relationship ills.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Does

Does Barnaby

Does Barnaby tell the others to get off his lawn when he's angry

psh, who do you think he is, an old man? he'd Bark, like any lively young dog

[garlculean]

Toadette's gotta lil crush it'd seem...wah ha ha.

[whiskeyswifty]

Sometimes I can’t tell what is genius and what is accident with Taylor, genuinely like I’m not diminishing what she does. For instance, the recent album phenomenon where almost right away, every single person, critics included, made their own “TTPD Edit” if you will. A trimmed down selection of the 31 songs that either they think made a tighter album, fit into a narrative they liked, created a new narrative, or whatever compelled them. Obviously I don’t think Taylor wants anyone to cut any of her songs off an album she herself made, of course. So here is where I err on the side of accident. But then… I think about how the number one thing all artists, even Taylor sized ones, are tasked with is creating engagement around a product. Taylor for this album tried to start the “fortnight challenge” which went absolutely nowhere. However, the fact that everyone, haters and lovers of ttpd alike, have made their own edits, which is an incredibly active form of engagement and stream booster, is an astoundingly brilliant stroke of….. luck? Genius? I can’t tell. I can’t fucking tell!!! Maybe it wasn’t accidental and she was intentionally clever to drop an obscene amount of songs that resemble more of a sketchbook than a solid story or even sonic cohesion (again not a knock just a pretty objective observation compared to previously more cohesive works of hers and others). An album almost… stay with me here, almost too messy that it begs you to finish it up, clean it up. Engagement that was so compulsive and universally experienced by everyone that its unreal to me how that’s unintentional. And she’s especially intuitive in this arena, finger on the pulse, mirrorball woman that she is. The data dump release format feels almost like a strategy in that way. But I can’t quite believe she would ask of us to pluck our own apples from her abundant but still carefully cultivated tree and make our own pies. She encourages us to incorporate the songs into our lives yes but don’t tell her how to do her job, surely not! So I guess even if it was accidental, I suppose that’s still somehow a form of genius to me, that even her impulses are in tune with how to best engage a modern audience. Having been in this business, and on this end of it, for so long that she can just sense when to drip feed us and when to stuff us like foie gras geese. Does she fundamentally understand that audiences hate being told what to do, as she feels the same way herself, and knows how to guide engagement without forcing it? Is that also insane? Giving her TOO much credit? Idk I can’t decide but it’s a stone I turn over and over in my brain. She figured out that the house always wins and so she became the house. Astounding.

[tinystepsforward]

just to clarify, the article said the data was not confirmed to have been sent anywhere (eg to ai companies). do you have a source (even if you cant name them directly)?

i do not have a source who is directly involved with this deal, as you can imagine.

an indirect/observer source passed on, well before that article was published, the impression that this data had already been sent. i think the staff member's quoted use of "unfortunately" leans toward that implication.

that said, i'd love to think that my sources and i are all misinterpreting badly worded internal info! and i don't think the staff member in question should have been named, given it's clear that this was not their choice and given what tumblr can be like. (andrew spittle, on the other hand.)

this was kept intentionally quite out of view for most automatticians including most tumblr staff, i think. the company's usually relatively open internally (or used to be) about most of its business operations, though lately there's been more and more evidence that things are being drafted out of sight then edited for company view.