#like it's a representation of me but not necessarily Me? idk how to word it

[cappydoodle]

oc/sona based on some old picrews I made of myself :P his color palette changes depending on the shirt he's wearing

[timeisacephalopod]

I've kinda seen some pushback to the idea of representation in media and I don't necessarily think it's bad to point out actual rights are more important than Disney's thousandth first gay character that's fine, but I've had a LOT of people comment on my works about asexual characters and tell me what I wrote changed their life-and it's always that phrase- because they now have the language to describe what they feel. I've had people who ARENT ace or aro comment that what I wrote finally made a concept they didn't understand make sense, or that the way I explained things was interesting and enlightening and I'm kind of a mediocre writer who hasn't written anything in ages.

Like idk, if reading something from a writer who is fucking around and only somewhat talented can genuinely impact someone because they've not seen anything like them reflected back at them in life or media I don't think pushing for representation in media is as "needless" as some people seem to think and caring about that doesn't mean you don't care about more "important" (although if you think seeing people like you in media ISNT important it's because you already have that representation or are privileged enough to not care if you do, in which case maybe pipe down) stuff. Hell, I even got a Facebook message ages ago from someone who found a comment I left in an ace group about QPR's and what they meant to me and how I perceived them and the person no joke said what I wrote two years before they even found it changed their life forever because they finally knew what kind of relationship they actually wanted.

So like sure, of course there's always bigger fish to fry them diversity in media (you know, like diversity in real life lol) but I don't think it's as frivolous as some people are beginning to act like it is. At least not if you're an aspec person it's not, I STILL don't see ace characters almost ever and I'll bet my whole everything if I asked a writer of a show why they'd tell me that EVERYONE has to be in a sexual relationship and characters that aren't won't sell and are boring- I say this because in film school I had a teacher TELL ME every character needed to basically be sex obsessed and when I pointed out a GREAT MANY CHARACTERS are not revolved around sex (Supernatural stars two brothers, I pointed out) and when she asked if I had love interests I was like ??? That doesn't matter- using my aforementioned supernatural example almost all their love interests die or get mind wiped because at the end of the day that's not what the story was about. So actually I think writers who act like that teacher need like 50 reality checks, and representation in stories isn't unimportant and also support indie writers you'll probably find more funky shit there then Disney anyway lmao.

And also even the asexual characters I DO see in media don't remind me at all of myself even if I appreciate the effort, but they never feel real or genuine and their sexuality doesn't get a lot of exploration so 🤷🏻‍♀️ I actually could use more media focused on characters that I can genuinely see my sexuality reflected in in a meaningful and narratively impactful way because I've got nothing.

[littlehollyleaf]

So are we talking about the Bible quote on the Gabriel!fly matchbox?

It's from Job - a nod to Crowley and Aziraphale's adventures with him no doubt

Specifically Job 41:19 "out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out"

So. Idk if this was once a common verse on matchboxes. I know there was a famous brand called LUCIFERS, as a play on the concept of 'light bringer' - cos matches bring light, yeah? Those had bible verses on I believe, but idk if it was this one. Even if not the same though, this Job verse does a similar thing to the Lucifer match brand - referencing sparks of fire cos that's what matches create (we're gonna circle back to this fyi, but there's other stuff first, hold on).

Now, obviously the box was used to contain the essence/identity of GABRIEL.

But it also acts as something of a visual representation of the very CONCEPT of an angel's essence/identity being something that can be removed and stored elsewhere. AND of the idea that the outside appearance of something (or someone) doesn't necessarily give an accurate/truthful indicator of what is inside - there are no matches in this matchbox, for instance.

The quote on the box also doesn't describe Gabriel. But that doesn't matter because, actually, Gabriel is never in the box is he? He takes the fly out before transferring his essence into it.

So. We have an empty box, representing the idea of angel essence/identity as removable from its... casing/packaging.

And this empty box describes something (someone?) from whom sparks of fire leap from.

If you look up the whole of Job 41, it turns out it's god describing what's referred to as a LEVIATHAN to Job.

Apparently there's speculation this refers to a crocodile. But a quick Google tells me various Bible annotations describe the creature as a GIANT SERPENT.

...a giant serpent

from whom fire leaps

and whose 'eyes are like the eyelids of the morning'

Hmm.

But the box is empty - the essence/identity/truth of this creature/being/person the outside is describing is not where the packaging suggests it should be.

...perhaps because, as with Gabriel, the essence/identity/truth of said creature has also been removed and stored somewhere else?

OR is it less literal than that? More of a metaphorical suggestion that the creature/angel/being Crowley is labelled as has never truly been HIM? The box is empty because who Crowley is does not fit in a box - he has, in fact, spent much of his existence trying to ESCAPE being put in a box, being labelled, ESPECIALLY by god/Heaven.

So, this little box has started to represent quite a lot now I think. The idea of angel essence/identity, but also maybe just identity in general? The idea of someone's identity not always matching their physical appearance. The idea of someone's identity being defined/limited by the descriptions/opinions/words of others. The idea of wanting and trying to escape the confines of an inaccurate and forced identity (give me coffee liberty or give me death).

Then, if that wasn't enough, on top of that we have that little added extra of matchboxes with bible verses infamously being known as Lucifers... (said I'd circle back!). Not as important as the rest I feel. BUT - if anyone wanted a little extra fuel for the 'Crowley as Lucifer' theory, this could fit... in a deeply symbolic, close reading, metafictional way?

In any case, what I'm getting at here is this box as reflecting the forced identities that Heaven/God persistently try to trap angels (and anyone really) into. And how it is possible to remove yourself from said box.

...am I taking this too far? Haven't tried any full on media analysis in such a long time...

This is the whole of Job 41 for reference (think there may be more in it relating to Crowley, and perhaps Aziraphale and their relationship too, plus GO!Heaven, that I'm overlooking):

Job.41

[1] Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

[2] Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?

[3] Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee?

[4] Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?

[5] Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?

[6] Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants?

[7] Canst thou fill his skin with barbed iron? or his head with fish spears?

[8] Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.

[9] Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?

[10] None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?

[11] Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.

[12] I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion.

[13] Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle?

[14] Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.

[15] His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.

[16] One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

[17] They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.

[18] By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

[19] Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.

[20] Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

[21] His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.

[22] In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him.

[23] The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.

[24] His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.

[25] When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

[26] The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.

[27] He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

[28] The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.

[29] Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.

[30] Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire.

[31] He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.

[32] He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary.

[33] Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.

[34] He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.

[13docwriting]

Hello! It's me again, giving my minute by minute review of The Giggle. I have not seen any spoilers or watched any trailers, so I know nothing. Well... I know that Neil Patrick Harris is someone lol. As a summary, I enjoyed Chibnall's era, loved the thirteenth Doctor with all of my heart, and know little about the classic series but am obsessed with nuwho. I am also weary of RTD's writing but I loved the first special and enjoyed the second. LET'S GO!

Again, last time I'll complain, I MISS LIVE REBLOGGING WITH FANS. 1. Oh my horror movie vibes again. Okay.

2. Uh. What's up with the accent for Neil Patrick Harris (NPH to make my life easier). That feels a bit... Not good. Especially with the "messed up" words to accentuate it. It just doesn't sound right. I know it's supposed to be a STUPID amount of fake, but it's boarding on offensive.

3. "I'll need a moving image" right to the jump scare lol. I don't MIND horror movies, but I don't necessarily want it for every single Doctor Who episode. A bit disappointed.

4. NPH dancing with David Tennant for those point two seconds did something to me. Also, LOVE NPH's makeup there.

5. I'm already so tired of UNIT having all this money. I don't know, it doesn't feel right. They were supposed to stay hidden so that people didn't know about them. Are we officially saying that humans know about aliens? That's the only acceptable answer I'll take as to why we got helicopters and military vehicles just out and about.

6. Awesome, AWESOME music. Always. Just, again, a thousand kudos to everyone doing this beautiful arrangement.

7. I LOVE Shirley. I love her. Representation done right, in my opinion. It's ironic that RTD can do something EXACTLY as it's supposed to be and the fumble the ball on something else in the very same episode i.e. the first special with Shirley right to "male presenting" Time Lord (see my first live blogging to hear the speech I did already lol).

8. KATE - KATE - KATE. My h e r o. My LOVE! We JUST saw her with 13 and I loved every single part she was in. Her finally seeing the inside of the TARDIS made me so happy.

9. KATE HUGGING THE DOCTOR. Awww! That is so gosh darn cute. I don't know how long it's been exactly since Kate saw 13 after the whole Master thing in Power of the Doctor, but it's so nice to see her hugging him. I was scared for a moment it was going to be a slap lol.

10. "How do we fight the human race." Uh... That's quite a plot, isn't it? I... The Doctor, thirteen especially, always made a point of saying how good "you humans" can be. Saying that humans are inherently bad just doesn't sit right with me. There's a speech roaring up with me about how RTD sees people in general and how that effects the optimistic and hopeful attitude of Doctor Who in gneral, but that'll have to come later.

11. OH HEY Melanie! I know that companion! Kind of! I've never see any of her episodes but that's awesome. SIDE NOTE... Just like with Power of the Doctor, I feel a little disoriented when I know I'm supposed to know something / really appreciate the moment and I can't. I'm so happy that Chibnall AND RTD are so very willing to let classic who people come back, I'm just always a little lost with things like this. (I wonder if other people my age feel that way? Any else 25?)

12. "Is park rude?" "Borderline". I... What? Why would you even turn to Shirley with a question like that? See what I mean about dropping the ball.

13. "Why should I care?" Prime Minister. "No change there then." Donna. hehe I love those little moments where DW shows current political distain.

14. We're... We're not gonna ask a million questions about what Vlinx is? What they're doing there? How they got there? The Doctor's not doing the usual excited dance and asking how hot their cortex runs, the amount of brain power they have, etc. Idk, seemed like a wasted moment. (Unless I'm missing some classic who stuff again?)

15. Listen, I'm a very simple lesbian... I see an "evil" Kate and I get a little excited, okay? Woman power and all that, am I right? 16. "As for you [Shirley], with that chair - I've seen you walk!" What the actual fuck. Listen, I know, I KNOW people are idiots about wheelchairs. I know some people don't know that some people who use a wheelchair aren't completely paralyzed, but to point it out in this way just feels... It feels like a misstep...? I have no right to comment, I'm not a wheelchair user, but the way RTD handles things like this always makes me nervous.

17. "The old archangel network" ahhh hello there preteen headcannons! Ahhhh the Master, how lovely a reminder of those days! God, what a plotline that was back in the day. I am not surprised at all that RTD fit that line in, let me tell you. The man seems to like to brag about his old stories (inconspicuously points to David Tennant and Catherine Tate.)

18. Why would Donna ever, ever guess that those brain waves were music? Where in god's name would ANYONE come up with that without ANY sort of hint? What kind of mary sue writing is that? I'm just supposed to take that? Talk about a convenient plot device. I don't like lazy writing.

19. "The very first image has been hiding in every screen ever since." See, THAT'S cool! I like that kind of story, where another god-like entity has that sort of power. Someone PLANNED that. As always, things like this are why I love when the Master comes back. His convoluted plots creates such great writing and stories.

20. "What, because you're so clever [at Shirley asking why they never found the Stooky Bill laugh before]." Hey 14, your 10 is showing - the parts of 10 that adult me has problems with.

21. "[The human race] is also savage, venal, and relentless." Alright, maybe I'm thinking too much about 12 and 13, mostly 13, but the distain that 14 (cough ten cough) displays for humans has ALWAYS been icky to me. The Doctor TRAVELS with humans, has worked with them, has LOVED them. You can't call an entire species monsters and then claim to love them. People CAN be monsters, but ten - sorry, 14 - has a habit of not taking the time to make that distinction between species vs person. 13, meanwhile, has never insulted a single human. She has encouraged people, genuinely wants them to be better, and only alienates herself not by pointing humans down, but by feeling so different than everyone around her.

22. "Using your intelligence to be stupid... And hating each other. You never needed any help with that". Well, congrats, this may be my least favorite episode of Doctor Who ever. I don't like getting insulted, I don't like the Doctor being mean, I don't like the tone of this episode... Doctor Who is a hopeful, lighthearted show that brings a smile to my face. Yes, it has moments that make me sob, but it's not some police drama. DW is a sci-fi show about traveling a beautiful universe. THIS is not what the show should be.

23. "Can we take out that satellite?" So Kate's waiting for permission... But, question... THE TARDIS IS RIGHT THERE. You're telling me the Doctor can't go up there, sonic the thing off to make it look like it's a technical error, and then eff of? I know writers OFTEN give the good old "the TARDIS is unavailable" to avoid thoughts like this, but RTD left the TARDIS RIGHT THERE. We have a time and space machine!

24. Side note, very side note, but are we ever gonna fix the gravity to "mavity" thing? Is that gonna come back?

25. The Doctor: "you have my permission" [to blow up the satellite]. But... But that's... What can UNIT say to that? "Oh yeah hey, our alien from outer space that we trust that you don't know gave us the go-ahead to blow your satellite up. Please don't fire missiles at us, we got the "OK." What? Just... What?

25. Oh hey, was Melanie at the therapy session for past companions in the Power of the Doctor? That would honest to god fit so well and I would love that. I'll have to look later.

26. Again, I almost have to laugh at the budget. All this money and we're using it to fire off a gun... In Doctor Who... Where the Doctor hates guns. Figures.

27. 120[k] plus five weeks' holiday." OH FUCK YEAH DONNA. Girl boss right there! You deserve that money! Freaking LOVE IT. And I'd love Donna working at UNIT. Maybe Martha and her could be best friends? Oh hey, where the hell is Martha and Mickey, btw?

28. Ha, Crowley, COUGH, I mean the Doctor on SoHo's streets once again. Hehe.

29. "Donna, I'm a billion years old". WOAH, WHAT? He can't be serious, right? No way 13 lived that long after 12's 2,000 ish years, right? Is 14 counting the confession dial? He has to be, right? I almost wish 13 mentioned her age now.

30. "But you are busy every second of every day" uh, yes. That was 13's coping mechanism. If she never stopped, she never had to think. Granted, that was every single Doctor's coping mechanism, but 13 had a lot of crap to get through and the fact that she got sent to prison with all that MUST have destroyed them.

31. Donna trying to give the Doctor mental health advice will forever be a favorite moment between the two of them for me. I'm so glad to see how much Donna cares about him.

32. NPH is just fabulous. He really just takes over the scene, even against actors like David Tennant and Catherine Tate. I was mesmerized by the ball scene. Granted, the accent makes me squint my eyes, but still... Him playing the villain will always be exciting.

33. Oh the Doctor knows him! An old enemy, that can't be good. OH and with the first Doctor as well, talk about a VERY old enemy. It's only been a billion years, eh? Hm, and the Doctor seems terrified of him. I'm getting the Master vibes. Is the Toymaker a Time Lord?

34. I sincerely wish that the Doctor mentioned being the Timeless Child to Donna when the Doctor said "what am I without my toys". I just... Donna can't understand why this speech even exists without knowing that the Doctor's entire history was erased - was taken from him. People may hate the Timeless Child plotline, but it's THERE. If RTD is going to build the emotional trauma off of that, it should be mentioned by name. I'm glad we mentioned the Flux, but the Timeless Child is what drove the Doctor nearly insane. It's what drove the Master even more insane. It should be mentioned properly.

35. Why the fuck, after that emotion speech, would these two idiots even separate AN INCH? Donna just saw how terrified the Doctor was, the Doctor IS terrified, why would they not hold hands? Why would they not stick to each other like glue. Again, lazy writing.

36. I can not explain how much this doesn't feel like Doctor Who. I can not even being to rant about how much this doesn't feel like my goofy little sci-fi show that makes me smile. I feel cheated. RTD, you got your Midnight / stupid scary episode last time and I complimented it. I cannot believe I have to sit through another one of your horror episodes. Again, the spirit of Doctor Who is the relationship and connections to how amazing humans can be. It's about hope, and optimism, and learning. Of course there's scary episodes, of course there's a step to the left in terms of how the usual episodes go, but what the heck is this?

Is it good writing? Perhaps. The dialogue, tone, and plot is convincing, I'll give RTD that. But is this MY show, my Doctor Who? No. I've said before that RTD relies on nostalgia and this episode only ferments that. If it wasn't David Tennant and characters that weren't already introduced literal years ago, how'd we even know this wasn't the same show?

37. Why the FUCK is Donna so violent? We know she's a badass, we know she's sassy, we know she's fearless... But banging that doll into the wall, a furious look on her face? Where the fuck did she learn that one?

38. How fucking dare RTD mention the Flux but bypass the fam, Yaz, and Dan. How fucking dare he. How dare he pick and chose what he liked from Chibnall's era. And you know what, let's have a laugh, shall we? Maybe he can't mention them because all of them had a GOOD ending. All of them left of their own accord. They left feeling stronger, feeling good about themselves, feeling like they've see the universe and want to make their home, earth, better. What has RTD done but killed the Doctor's happiness? And don't come at me with my own words - the Doctor could have mentioned Yaz and the fam as a defense against himself. "But I've learned - I've learned that humans are strong, that my friends are stronger than I ever could be! Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair, Graham O'Brian, Dan Lewis - all them are safe. All of them are loved. They have always been the best parts of me. Now, Toymaker... I challenge you to a game." TADA. I even think I got David Tennant's correct cadence, and I never even wrote him!

If you are a showrunner for DW, you have a responsibility to the past writers to show some respect. The way RTD is handling the Flux is fine, but you can't erase the Timeless Child because it doesn't fit with your own version of Doctor Who. It has been done, get over it. USE it.

39. *Splutters* "I made a jigsaw out of your history". You will NOT be taking responsibility for the Timeless Child like this. You will not have a villain create the Timeless Child just to erase it. AND YOU TOOK THE MASTER FROM ME? MY FAVORITE MASTER? YOU TOOK SPYDOC FROM ME? Holy shit I need a drink. My rage is unfathomable.

40. To be fair, seriously, it's good writing if it WASN'T Doctor Who. I am being fair. It's heart pounding, it's exciting, but it's not the same show or the reason I love the show.

41. ... Okay, NPH... Yeah. That scene. I'm not even going to hint about what scene I'm talking about. Everyone knows. It was a 10/10 performance. It was fantastic. There's no criticism, I'll be watching that ten million times. (Damn shame they didn't let him sing it though).

42. The speech the Doctor is making to the Toymaker sounds AWFULLY familiar, doesn't it? Perhaps, the Master, once again? The Doctor just picks these god-like entities and goes "I will love you" and clings on for dear life. I assure you, somewhere in that tooth the Master is screaming "YOU ASKED ME FIRST".

44. "We can be celestial." Someone tell me if DT played Crowley season 2 before or after this. I could HEAR Crowley on that last word, come on now.

45. what the fuck. what the fuck. what the f u c k. WE'RE FUCKING KEEPING DAVID TENNANT. WHY THE FUCK ARE WE KEEPING HIM. HE'S HAD HIS TIME TWICE OVER. WHY. WHY. WHY. HE WAS A GOOD DOCTOR BUT IT'S NOT FAIR THAT HE'S STILL HERE.

RTD changed regeneration. I'VE HAD TO DEAL WITH THE HATERS TORMENTING ME ABOUT CHANGING THE DOCTOR'S PAST IN A WAY THAT DOESN'T EFFECT DW CANON, AND YET RTD CAN DO THIS?

ALL BECAUSE HE WANTS TO KEEP DT. Someone sedate me, I'm going to be the one being on walls and screaming soon. Fuck me. Let the Doctor go! That's the whole bloody point. I can't with this. If you haters out there accept this one I don't want anyone ever coming at me about the Timeless Child again. I'll just throw pictures of up this regeneration scene with a bunch of arrows. And not to mention, I hate this idea? I hate it. I hate it. Regeneration was about change and rebirth, now it's about adding a little hint of something new. It was about letting go, getting ready for a new future, handing someone else the torch of this beautiful show. Oh my god, I hate it here. I'm STAYING for Nucti. I'm honoring his first performance, but I am pissed. I might not even be able to write more.

46. "Do you come in a range of colors." What. What kind of line is that? What... Why did we even have to mention that? He also comes with a different gender, Donna, I don't think his "color" matters. That was the point of the first special, if you could remember that.

I'm taking an effing walk... Off a bridge at this point.

47. Why didn't we give the 15th Doctor trousers? We didn't give 14 13's clothes now did we? But we can have the 15 Doctor running around half naked... On a family show? Come on now.

48. We... We really... We really wasted the Toymaker with a game of catch. Really. I was just complimenting the writing and then we did that?

49. I'm loving 15's care and love. His openness. Is this the Doctor forgiving himself?

50. Oh hey, what lovely person took the Master from that gold tooth, eh? Maybe... Missy, perhaps?

51. MENTION THE TIMELESS CHILD YOU FUCKING COWARD OH MY GOD. Not you, 15, you're great sweetie. RTD MENTION THE PROPER PAST YOU ASS. You can mention all the past adventures but not the latest one? Seriously?

52. Something, something, so glad 14 got a happy ending, something something, wish 13 had that, something something, too bad Chibnall followed the rules of regeneration just as all the writers did beforehand SOMETHING SOMETHING.

53. I'm getting the mildest hint of karma because I never understood why people said the couldn't understand Jodie... I'm actually having a bit of a hard time with Nucti lmao. I always use subtitles so it doesn't matter to me, but just thought I'd mention that.

54. Nucti better kiss a man full of the mouth. He is... Quite something. Jack Harkness would faint.

55. I have a question. How is 15 older? Isn't it like 2.2 seconds only, if anything?

56. I really am glad that 14 got a family. It is beautiful.

I usually do like a summary or whatever but I'm just so bitter and pissed. Here, 3/10, two of those points are for 15 and one is for the Toymaker... Even if the Toymaker character was wasted.

[unicornsaures]

talk. about whatever’s on your mind. aaaanything and everything just in case u needed an invitation to yap today 😻😻

taking this as a excuse to have a yap session about my nonhuman aus because there are SO. many things that are included for very specific reasons(mainly elf laurens cause its my main nonhuman au, but the divinity AU isnt exempt from secret meanings either >:3c) but i just never elaborate on any deeper meanings because technically theyre supposed to be up for interpretation but screw that things are included for very. very specific reasons

OKAY STARTING WITH ELF LAURENS !! Im starting off with his design itself because while its not necessarily a secret, his markings are extremely important to the story because obviously its a massive focus with the whole insecurity thing and attempting to scratch them off so!! In his early design it isnt included, but theres two things i added to either foreshadow things or that make more sense because certain things previously didnt have reasoning. For starters, his voice! I make it *very* clear that Laurens absolutely hates his voice - yknow, with that high pitched nonhuman growl? Theres a reason for that! In my AU, elves arent supposed to have markings on their throat; it fucks with their vocal chords. Yknow who does have a marking on their throat? Thats right, John does! So not only does he have 'two' voices, he also has a big reminder of that just straight in the middle of his throat - so rven if he didnt talk people would know why. Then theres the dots on his head. Thats foreshadowing. Cant tell you what its foreshadowing, but take that information how you will.

Also would like to elaborate on his relationship with Kinloch in the fic because no, Kinloch is not evil or bad or abusive. I try and make it clear that their relationship isnt necessarily healthy, but thats also not Kinloch's fault either way. Its Johns own inability to stabilize his emotions surrounding someone he cares about(ex. begging him to run away with him - when rejected, he runs away himself.) This is a massive mischaracterization of Laurens on my part but like I said in the fic itself, its just me projecting for 4k words. Oh, and he gets that scar on his lip when he's 20 in what i call a 'drinking accident.' Dont ask me to elaborate on that either, John is just a reckless drunk.

Obviously theres the whole art thing, but i think its pretty self explanatory on why hes drawing. I think i stated explicitly it was a coping device but if not i think thats obvious but i never elaborated on his medium of choice; graphite :3!! Its messy. Thats it. He uses the powdered graphite, which i think he would find it was a representation of process rather than product. The point of using graphite is the limited choice of color that only leaves an artist with shades. It also just goes with the theme of his art because idk, hes out here drawing the idea and/or image of death itself in a way its gorey but also gorgeous, so take that as you will.

Also I have had many yap sessions on why exactly John draws the gorey and grotesque but ill save you on insane details and simplify it down to; after his mothers death, he was naturally drawn to the beauty found within something so vile and horrifying.

Okay ive talked all too long aboute the elf laurens thing, so now the divinity AU! There isnt much meaning inside of this other than the very very clear toxic relationship between Alex and John; but its toxic for a reason. As dysfunctional as they may be, they are better of together than apart. Like mentioned in the fic itself, Alex was cruel to his devotees and followers before John came along. I wont go into specifics or anything, he was just cruel. John, on the other hand, was also cruel. Thats why hes a fallen angel, obviously. He fell due to others actions but the reason he followed this other person in the first place is because they were holding something he did over his head, threatening to tell higher deity's and whatnot. But instead, John is a fucking idiot and ended up doing what this person wanted which ultimately ended up in him falling and losing everything. Obviously, this leaves someone scarred because ill just say it, in this AU at least, falling from wherever they may be is not a painless experience.

In turn, he hasn't physically fallen anywhere, but there are physical signs and overall, you can tell by how they act. So, upon finding Alexander - a god, basically - the only other purpose he has in life is to peldge devotion to someone. Hes basically shunned from other angels, and so finding a deity to pledge devotion to is the only thing he can do. Their relationship is not at all healthy. Ive described it as a worshiped/worshiper dynamic because thats what it is. No matter if Alex views John as an equal, Laurens will always view alex as a higher being than he is and in short its a massive power imbalance with how willing John is to bend over backwards for him(ex. ripping off his wings ! Never happens, alex wont physically let him, but like i said, John is willing.) The only reason I say that they should stay together is that other deity's wouldnt stop him from doing this kind of thing. 'Offering your wings to prove your devotion? Yeah, hand em over.' is basically what would happen and it would be 10x more of a corrupted relationship than john and alex have. Alex keeps him in line basically, and John worships him like..well, like the god he is i guess.

Again, this AU is me majorly projecting so take it as you will. But Alex is also completely unaware to why John is a fallen angel anyway. Even being a god, he cant just see peoples sins. He only knows when someone has sinned.

"A shame Alexander may not know his transgressions, he’s sure he couldn't have done much wrong with how much of a pleasure he’s been."

Pulling out the quotes for this story because i personally think its just easier to explain things if its been read.

AND THE BIGGEST THING!!

John nods absentmindedly, leaning into the heat of his palms that make his face contort in a painful type of love.

Its mentioned a few times, but being touched by Alex at all brings physical pain. Mostly because he's not supposed to be touched by a higher being while being a fallen angel, but it also has something to do with the fact he 'swore on his ability to love to prove his devotion.' In short, John didnt think he had the ability to love, much less deserve it. So, being touched by one he fell for brings him physical pain because he shouldnt be supposed to! The love he spoke of when he exempted Alex from this was love a devotee has for their god, not love like as romantic love. Obviously, in a way, he broke his own promise. This is also why the pain goes away after alexander admits he loves him because at that point, 'his god' basically just excused the fact he broke his pledge by announcing any feelings he may have are returned. So yeah! Thats fun.

Anyway, that was my yap session. I talked for way too long uhm..oops! Im not normal about nonhumans :(

[douwatahima]

idk i'm feeling kinda riled up today and i want to talk about why the fight for ofmd is so important to me.

so listen. i've been in fandoms for a loooooong time. i remember when the sheer idea of a show (that wasn't something like, say, queer as folk) having any sort of lgbt representation was a major rarity. the idea of a random character suddenly coming out in your favourite sci fi/fantasy/action show? no way in hell. and those of us in fandom kinda came to accept that. we were queering the hell out of everything we came across, don't get me wrong, but it was because the idea of a series suddenly having a character textually be queer was just…not a thing that happened most of the time.

then came the age of queerbaiting. as someone who was in the supernatural fandom from very early on, i remember how those first few seasons of the ~great destiel saga~ felt to watch. they actively hinted at and joked about their relationship! they acknowledged the elephant in the room! surely they wouldn't do that unless it meant something!!! but then of course came the years and years of the cast and crew sneering at the people who had the audacity to…listen to the words that came out of the character's mouths and have thoughts about them. and yeah, eventually (like a decade later) cas told dean he loved him, but even now the people who worked on the show seem reluctant to say that that was a romantic moment. and that's just one example that i'm more intimately familiar with! there are so many others! just straight up gaslighting queer fans so they can keep making money off of us with no intention of actually giving us what we want; all while acting like they were doing us a favour by doing anything at all.

and it sucked! it clearly sucked! but the more time went on the less surprising it became. because at the end of the day it came down to what it always comes down to; money. there's this idea (not just in media) that there are certain people who are the "default". people whose experiences are universal and easy to understand. white people. straight people. cis people. when it comes to media, stories about these people are seen as something anyone can watch and understand. but when you try to tell stories about people who fall outside of these categories? well, now you're making niche content that only people who fall into that niche will be able to identify with.

and look, i know i'm preaching to the choir here. this is tumblr. we all know there's a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia in the world. my point is that the narrative around queerbaiting from an industry standpoint seemed to be "yeah, we want the ad revenue from all of these lgbt people watching our shows, but if we commit to actually making any of our characters queer we're going to isolate our straight audience and lose most of our viewers". and there was never any concrete way to disprove that. so yeah. we would occasionally be blessed by a ~very special show~ that actually depicted queerness (usually about younger people coming out, or about the tragedies that can and have faced people in our community), but the idea of branching out beyond that seemed like a no go.

and then along came our flag means death. a show about pirates that also talked about toxic masculinity and had characters who were casually queer in every different variety and also featured people with different body types who came from different cultures and who were all treated with kindness and grace. a show that didn't necessarily market itself specifically as ~a queer show~ (which, was probably in part due to trying to bury the lead which sucks, but the point still stands) but rather a fun show anyone could watch. that wasn't specifically about coming out or tragedy but was more so about joy, and community, and love. and here's the thing. here's the wild as fuck thing that happened. this show? it didn't lose all of its viewers when those last two episodes of season 1 aired and it confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that ed and stede were in love. the opposite happened. this show fucking soared into the stratosphere.

i remember the first time i saw those parrot analytics charts showing that ofmd was the most in demand new series; out performing marvel even. i was so overcome i legit broke down in tears. because it turns out all of those times i had been told to sit back and accept the scraps i was given because that was all my community was profitable enough to get, those people were wrong. we could've had this the whole time! WE COULD'VE HAD THIS THE WHOLE TIME!!! and as the weeks progressed and ofmd remained at the top of every chart, as the show continued to succeed, i felt such an immense amount of joy! those people were wrong! we can just have this and it'll do well!!!

and yeah, apparently that wasn't enough to convince the powers that be. they spent forever deciding whether to renew it and when they finally did the budget was cut nearly in half and the people at max decided they needed to oversee the show a lot more. all of this sucks. but the thing is they made season 2 and they fucking did it again! the show got even better critics scores than last time! the show was doing numbers better than season 3 of succession! the merch, only released in october, became some of the best selling merch of 2023 on the max shop! by max's own admission season 2 was one of the biggest hits of the year for them!!! like, what more is there? the show is a success!!!

so yeah. i'm not going to accept the fucking stupid excuses max gives as to why they cancelled it. saying that it didn't have the numbers (it did), or that they didn't know how to market violence (they do), or that it didn't have awards buzz (it has literally been nominated for awards and there's still active fyc ads the company itself made) just doesn't cut it. there was no reason to cancel it other than the idea that diverse media "doesn't sell". and max, by airing this show you have shown me that that fucking isn't true. it's never been true. so i'm going to keep fighting for this one until someone picks it up or until i'm old and grey because it isn't just about ofmd. it's about the belief that our stories, the stories of people who aren't "the default" are worth telling. by every metric they are worth telling. and that is something that i know is worth fighting for.

[starmonsterrr]

shuffles in-

you’re like. The only otherkin I’m familiar with so uhm! Curious genuine questions time, how do you figure out??? All of that???? Do you know of any resources I could use to familiarize myself???

Thank you for your time/your help, don’t feel pressured to answer this!!

💫

[ * Alright, this is a complex one, but quite fun to answer! ]

[ * For this I will talk about my dragonkin identity since it is the one I am the most familiarized with and also what set off my journey into exploring my alterhumanity! ]

[ * It started one day, I don't know how, but I started investigating about otherkin and therians. I don't remember well how i found the term, pretty sure it was because one of my favourite animators made an animation meme subtly about therianthropy, one thing led to another, I found the therian term, then the otherkin term, and got curious. ]

[ * Across my whole life I've had the sensation of being something not human. I've always had some sort of attachment to non-human animals, more specifically by seeing myself as one of them, rather than a human. This should explain why I was intrigued by this term. ]

[ * So I started looking into my past and how I envision myself, with help of my mom because parents love documenting their children's lives. ]

[ * I realized I display quite a bunch of dragon-like behavior, though the peak of that was when I was a little pup... Hatchling... Protostar... Tiny young creature... You get the point ]

[ * I hoarded items, did dragon noises (sometimes to scare other kids at McDonald's and even did some weird pose for that too), really wanted to fly (I still do), I even had a dragon costume I would wear ENDLESSLY because I wanted to be a dragon that much. (Honestly present me would do that too) ]

[ * There was even one time i tried to make paws out of foam so I could walk on all fours without harming my hands. With the paw pads and all. ]

[ * I don't remember having any shifts, and it may be a good time to clarify that not every alterhuman ('kin or therian) has shifts, but it is quite a common experience in the community. ]

[ * What I do remember however is feeling like I could move my ears and trying to show other kids that I could move them, but they never saw them move. Turns out these are phantom ears I have pretty much all the time, though it is hard for me to make out the shape. ]

[ * Now, these are past experiences, and people change, so it is important to take a look at the present too. Think. How do you feel about being human? Does it suit you? Do you think of yourself as a human just like everyone around you is? Envision yourself. Are you human or something else? ]

[ * The vision I had of my true self was a prime puzzle piece discovering in realizing I am otherkin. Remember it is not just experiences, it is also affected by how you view yourself, and it changes over time too. Same goes for therianthropy. ]

[ * Whenever I used dragon-like (or fox-like) characters to represent myself, these weren't really just "representations". Turns out, it was my vision of what I was supposed to look like. And it changed as I learned about myself and grew. ]

[ * So, once again, think. Think for as long as you need: does being human describe you? Does it feel right, or wrong? Do you feel disconnected from humanity? (This doesn't necessarily have to tie to dysphoria, though that is the case for me.) ]

[ * Took me a bit to really figure it out, but I've always had a hunch I was a dragon. ]

[ * Sorry if this is confusing or badly formatted or idk, it's pretty late for me. A final tip I will give is to ask around on otherkin/therian Tumblr for help figuring out things! Also my go-to source for info on otherkin (well. Technically therianthropy, which is a separate community and I do not mean to use the words therian and otherkin interchangeably) is the channel Therian Territory on YouTube. ]

[ * I think what I would do is: take a look at videos explaining otherkinnity and therianthropy, people talking about their experiences etc. And then ask any questions you come up with on alterhuman tumblr. Tags such as #therian, #otherkin, #alterhuman, etc. #fictionkin if you feel like you may be a fictional character. If you're questioning something specific, let's say unicorn otherkin, tag it as #unicornkin, or kangaroo theriotype, then #kangaroo therian. I hope this seems clear enough. ]

[ * off I go to eep ]

[grottylittlefox]

I really need to take a min to talk about how much I love them

Scorpius Malfoy & Albus Potter

Sometimes you’re such an attached fan to something that you’ll like anything associated with it, and for me that’s Harry Potter. Literally give me a crumb of anything canon or expand the universe even a little bit and I’m invested. The books? Love. The movies. Love. The games. Love. Fantastic beasts? Love. The cursed child? Fucking adore.

I feel the same about Star Wars, I cannot stand being in fan bases that hate the actual content and obviously for the cursed child the hate is pretty high.

But nothing will ever compare to the feeling I had the first time I saw this show. I’d been a fan of HP my entire life and never had a ‘me’ character, and that was fine. I never had attached myself to any particular character at all or necessarily saw myself in any of them, but that was until Scorpius Malfoy walked on stage.

So I have autism (don’t really need to say more lmfao) and I’ll take any damn crumb of representation I’ll get, and idc about what ur opinion on scorps neurodiversity is, but my god… he’s me. And not in an hehe so relatable way like… I’d never connected with a character more in my life

He alone was responsible for me jumping right back into fandom culture, as an adult, even when it felt like a desert with nobody else in sight

And no matter what any grumpy hp fan tries to argue with me, so much love was poured into these characters and it comes through in every scene, every line, every single word.

When I meet another scorbus fan I just know they get it, I can trust them with my life lol, there’s like some weird unspoken connection and I think maybe it’s bc if you attach yourself to them at all and have any relatability at all to either of them like you just get it

They’re the softest sweetest most precious little things to ever grace to halls of hogwarts and I love them for that, my silly goofy delulu babies, I’m so protective over them and I always will be

Idk sometimes it feels hard to be a fan of them bc it feels so lonely? But I just wanna shout from the rooftops how much I love them bc I do and I always will

And if you get it, you get it

[age-of-moonknight]

hi! hope you're doing well. i got a question for you about the what if with marc's funeral, if that's okay, and please let me know if i'm missing the mark or overstepping in any way. as a jewish guy, seeing a non-jewish funeral kinda felt bad to me. like marc was already buried, no one who loved him or knew him participated in the burial, and yes the heroes wore their gear instead of traditional mourning clothing, but putting a star of david on the tombstone felt like an afterthought. marlene's 'may your memory be a blessing' was nice, seeing gena and the kids and crawly was like yes those are his people! but overall idk the setup and eulogy wasn't working for me. tldr my question is, what's your take on marc's funeral?

Hey! Thanks for stopping by! I guess before I say anything I should preface this by mentioning that I’m honestly just some dude on the internet and I really shouldn’t be considered an authority on anything. I’ve just read an unfortunately large number of comics and while I do dedicate a lot of time to learning as much as I can about anything, I definitely shouldn’t be considered an expert on matters as richly complex and integral to people’s very identities as religion or culture. In other words, I definitely appreciate you starting this conversation, but I really can’t offer anything more than a personal opinion that everyone should just take with a grain of salt.

But!!! thank you for sending this message, because, yeah, I realize that sometimes I can get so swept up in any writer even acknowledging that Marc is Jewish that I forget that, “oh yeah, this could be better and we should be well past the age where we had to hope for even the barest crumbs of representation.”

Accordingly, I fully see where you’re coming from and you’re probably right in that there was more the writer could have done. Even as I write that though, I can already hear the long list of excuses that could be made by devil’s advocates about why Marc’s funeral in What If…? Dark: Moon Knight was presented as it was. Most probably could be pretty easily refuted by anyone that wants better from the comic industry, but, hey, that’s comics: they thrive on intense, impassioned reader discussion and can somehow be ahead of their time in terms of cultural sensitivity AND painfully slow in breaking out of some really poor ways of depicting cultures, races, and religions.

[Putting in a read more because this got a little long (sorry all, mea culpa)]

But yeah, some of those excuses I can imagine include, first among them, space limitations. The creators had one page to depict the funeral in the single issue allotted to telling Marlene’s story of becoming Luminary. People could easily say something offhand and questionable like, “oh yeah, Marc’s mom sat shiva, but it all happened off panel,” but that explanation always feels a little cheap to me, as I know for fact that comic artists can get very creative with how they format a page to include critical information, but, eh, there it is.

Some people in these situations sometimes bring up the point that authors that share a background with the characters they depict can approach matters with a good understanding of what’s appropriate/significant. I can see the validity of that approach, but from the (admittedly brief) research I did, I haven’t found any conclusive statements on the writer’s background at least and I personally would rather not make any assumptions/speculations. (Again, that’s strictly a personal thing, because in my line of work, I come across a lot of bad actors who, from their perspective, “““accuse””” people of being certain races or ethnic backgrounds and I am,,,,very tired). Plus, that’s not necessarily a cure all, at least that’s what I’ve gathered from the heated debates on Bemis’ Moon Knight run that I still stumble upon on occasion.

The next thing that comes to mind, well, I don’t want to sound like I’m entirely absolving the creators since, sure, they probably could have done more, but I’m so used to grappling with the bad hands comic books deal me, that sometimes I propose what I guess could be referred to as Watsonian interpretations??? Like, yeah, this was ultimately written like this because creators are flawed, but I cope by trying to puzzle out in-universe explanations. In this case, I see this as potentially being some sort of hazy, not quite well constructed, reflection of Marc’s complex relationship with his background that characterized his adult life. Elias Spector, who frequently represents Marc’s connection to his past and how he wrestles with really complex questions of religion and identity, is dead by this point of time in both of Marc’s established origins, and while I am sure the organizers of Marc’s funeral, like Marlene and Frenchie, fully and deeply loved him, I’m just not sure if Marc ever communicated to them what they should specifically do for his funeral (fully traditional or as small/nondescript as possible if he even thought he deserved/would get a funeral), as enigmatic and….not always forthcoming in discussing such matters Marc circa Marc Spector: Moon Knight was, so they did their best.

But gosh, even as I write that out, that’s such a load of copium. I’ll admit that my fondness for the comic book genre results in me desperately trying to hammer something worthwhile out of sometimes (or frequently????) mediocre material, so thanks again for sharing your thoughts! You are well and away within your rights to not be satisfied with how the matter was handled and I know I thoroughly appreciate your critical eye. Arguably, it is only by such a capacity for critique that the industry will ever shake off some of its worst aspects that still haunt it and evolve into something really consistently worthwhile.

[maddy-ferguson]

since we're having ship discourse, i have to say that i disliked joyce and hopper's relationship dynamic in s3. they were so annoyingly portrayed and were always fighting, i am not sure why people are saying mlvn having fights/problems are a special thing that only exists in mlvn's relationship issues. and this sort of 'we give couples problems and then resolve them' writing is a thing that exists in duffers' writing. s3 ships are literally an example of that. and i just don't see joyce and hopper as some sort of a subversion of the trope, hopper wanted to be with her in s3 and then expectedly he was given what he wanted. and yeah yeah, it took time for them to be a truly thing in s4, but is it really some sort of a 'subversion of tropes', if anything it seems more tropy and fits the standards of a relationship. jncy like you said is also an expected relationship. like sorry but a girl breaking up with a jock and getting together with the town's outcast freak is not a subversion... it's literally a textbook from 80's relationship and couple thing. the only relationship subversion is really lumx if we're being real. and if we count dustin and suzie to account, then their relationship is pretty much expected anyway, and no, suzie being a mormon doesn't really change that.

and controversial take but i think we are sometimes going way too reach-y when we say the duffers are great at subversion when they fall to many tropes and stereotypes and expected things in their writing. just bc they sometimes subvert doesnt mean ST is a representation of subversion of tropes.

nooo don't use the d word...

i'm season 3 jpper and s3 hopper's biggest hater. in a season that has russians under a mall he's what i hate the most. and yes, i feel like if you're someone who thinks the duffers are all about subverting tropes and are aware of bsy then surely you must know that jncy is the most cliché trope-fitting relationship they could've possibly come up with?

i feel like there's evidence that they like subverting expectations and tropes (robin being a lesbian when they made you think she was gonna be with steve, the straight person getting rejected by the gay person instead of the other way around, eden and argyle's little "love at first sight" moment that makes fun of the concept, a main character who's had a female love interest for four seasons being in a love triangle where one of the option's a boy) but at the same time the reason why harmful tropes or just boring tropes become tropes over time is just that the people writing the stories...aren't aware of what they're doing necessarily? and the example i'm gonna use isn't a trope per se, but you know how in season 1 lucas is suspicious of el and doesn't like her? they had their ONE black character make the little white girl (who had a blonde wig on when he gets real mad lol) whose story we know and who we're made to empathize with sad. people (adults!) were literally racist to caleb over it. very predictable but they're also white people who didn't see it coming. things like that are why even though jncy is the most expected 80s sci-fi couple ever, i'm like...are they doing it on purpose and are gonna end the show with them broken up or are they just the men who wrote jonathan taking pictures of his future girlfriend taking her shirt off and then used it as a plot point and made us feel bad for jonathan when steve broke his camera over it because he's poor and couldn't afford a new one. like idk. i'm giving them the benefit of the doubt (not saying that if jonathan and nancy end up together i'm gonna throw a fit or anything i'll just be genuinely surprised) but i really just don't know. and jncy being too expected isn't the reason why i started thinking they were breaking them up but if you sent this to me i'm assuming you read my other answer on the subject! it's just kind of the icing on the cake. same with mlvn and bsy i don't think that's anyone's main argument but i just feel like expecting them to subvert bsy and then not expecting them to subvert whatever trope jncy is doesn't make sense. because that trope is like THE trope.

and yeah the fighting is definitely not exclusive to mlvn especially not in season 3, but i guess for joyce and hopper you could say they're fighting because they're not together? which is different from fighting because of their relationship? but yeah. it's just that with mlvn there's a million other things.

[bees-nest]

probably controversial opinion about the g.ood o.mens l.eak

[Post-rant edit: To be clear, I am not saying it would be an objectively bad thing. I'm just saying it would make me feel bad.]

I know how it sounds, but man, if they really do get together romantically in season 2, i will be... "Devastated" is too strong a word, but. It'll hurt.

And there is still a part of me that also goes "omfg, that would be AMAZING!! That would be HUGE!!!" And yeah it would be, but i'd still have very conflicting feelings about it because

This is, like, my one (1) (singular) (sole) (solitary) mainstream example of [what is arguably-] a QPR that I can think of. And even though I've never been actively in the fandom, I've always held go.mens close to my heart because of that. I know the fact that n.eil insists it's not canon that they're romantically together can seem homophobic (from what I've seen, it seems to me that he's just respectfully saying "that is not what we put in the book/series, and I don't do 'word-of-god' statements." But there is certainly lots I haven't seen), but it has always felt incredibly validating to me. Like, it's nice to see that he's "on my side" about relationships not needing to be romantic to be deeply significant

I know it's not a logical reaction, but I would feel so cast aside if the characters actually had an on-screen, explicitly romantic relationship. Bc what I had held so dearly for so long as sorely-needed representation for myself was actually just a lead-up to something else entirely, because once again, the romance is seen as a deeper, more important stage of the relationship, for which the platonic part was just a stepping stone. Only significant because it leads to the romance.

And I'm using "representation" lightly here... I know it's highly arguable since it's not stated in canon. But I feel strongly enough to make this post because-

I've seen multiple people now say something to the effect of, "I know there are ace/aro people who care about the characters' platonic relationship because they see themselves in it, but if the average straight person can't tell it's queer, then..."

And I can't get that out of my head tonight... Why is the average [allo]straight person's opinion at all relevant to the value our representation holds? Why is it our problem if the general public doesn't know about us? If the romantic relationship does happen, I doubt there will be a point in the show where someone says "btw this relationship here is Gay, it is a Gay relationship with Gay people in it." And people watching will still understand what they're seeing because they have knowledge of gay relationships in the real world...

And what I'm saying is, I don't think lesser-known identities/orientations should necessarily have to have a moment like that in order to be valid representation. I don't think a show featuring a QPR should necessarily have to have a moment with "btw this relationship is Queer, it is a Queer relationship with Aromantic people in it" because I don't think the average allo person's opinion is necessarily a very important factor in this equation. Like... We, too, should be able to have representation that doesn't necessarily serve an educational purpose for outsiders.

Like if you tell someone go.mens features a queer relationship and their response is to be patronizing (a complaint I also saw), that's not an issue with the show, that's an issue with the asshole you're talking to.

Idk. I think I'm kinda talking in circles. I should probably block the go.mens tag.

[ag-eh-dac]

Dtblr Secret Playlist Exchange

Playlist here

Okay, so, finding a theme was hard, so in the end I decided to share a playlist full of songs that has a lyric or a concept that resonates and/or got permantaly stuck in my brain. It’s sounds cheesy, but I hope that giving you, @tooshisms , this playlist will feel more like a gift this way, rather than just a list of songs I happen to like.

However, obviously, all of the thought process for a theme like this isn’t obvious to a person that isn’t hooked up to my head, so under the cut I have explained my choices, so that hopefully, you understand where my enjoyment for each of these songs come from, and also maybe have them rattle around in your brain!

(Also, I know when the word resonate is brought up, or when talking about lyrics in general, it tends to bring the feeling of “yeah, these lyrics are like, so deep man”, and yeah obviously some on this list have that feeling, the majority of these are a little more fun than that, at least I hope)

[These are in alphabetical order, I personally think this playlist works best shuffled]

1. “Arson” - j-hope [of BTS]: the concept of this song is what put it on the list, which is encompassed in the lines “내 스스로가 과열이 될 수밖에 없던 /  뭣도 모른 무식한 내 야망의 원동력 “ - “What gave me no other option but to overheat inside /  was the motivation fueled by my blind ambition“. I am a sucker for referring to dreams and passion as a something that is wild and untameable like fire, so an entire song about burning yourself and everything around you in your pursuit of achieving your dreams makes my brain purr. there are a couple of other lines I could wax poetic about as well, but the summary for all of it is that, frankly, fire metaphors make me very happy. anyway, this is a link to properly translated lyrics, if you want it.

2. “emails I didn’t send” - Sabrina Carpenter: so something that I really like in a song, is a “story song” i.e. a song that has little to no repetition, but manages to still have a singy-songy quality to it. also, love a song that is someone’s, like a song that belongs to one person, and no one else can really do it justice, which I think this song is a line that encompasses what I like the most about this song is “And if I do then I blame you for every worst that I assume” it’s not necessarily clever in a word play sense or a metaphor sense, but it is a very good example of the specific choices in words to make this song read like an actual story.

3. “The Jester” - Badflower: “The dinner table’s full and there’s no room for me to sit” I love this song for the same “story-song” reasons as number 2, and the idea of a jester in a court being the representation for loneliness is also something I love, given that usually we (obviously) view the jester as just the entertainment, kind of how musicians can be viewed nowadays. anyway, I’m not sure if I would call the entire song “lyrically deep”, but I do love myself a good metaphor, I can’t lie.

4. “Kiss Me” - Sixpence None The Richer: okay, idk if i can accurately explain why this one is on this list, but like, when I was trying to think of more songs I kept coming back to the content feeling that the line “So, kiss me” gives me. and I think it’s entirely because of the word ‘so’ being used, because it makes it seem like an obvious answer, that this relationship is so comfortable that the answer to all problems is a simple kiss, which is almost fairytale-esque. anyway I think that’s a really romantic sentiment so even though the song isn’t necessarily focused on the lyrics, it evokes a strong enough feeling in me to be on this list, even if that emotion is just warm contentment.

5. “Let Me Down Slowly” - Alec Benjamin: “Could you find a way to let me down slowly?” is honestly such a heart-breaking line. like, the feeling of I know you don’t owe me anything, but can you please, please be kind when you kill me. I don’t really know what else to say about it tbh, and I know it’s not a unique concept or anything, but it gives me such a visceral image of the actual numbness most break-ups have, no anger or real sadness, just desperate numbness.

6. “Little Wonder” - Architects, Mike Kerr: there’s a lot of lines I could pick in this one, because it’s full of “one-liners” or like, “flipped-phrases”, but I love, love, love the line “If we miss the deadline, we can always blame the divine”. idk exactly why (which seems to be a re-occurring theme here lmao) but this line rattled around in my head for ages after I first heard it. I think I like that’s a line that should be one filled with despair at not being able to complete your important task, but instead, before we even know the outcome we’re already blaming someone else casually. and you get to decide why, are we blasé because we know the outcome and we are resigned to our fate, or are we so confident that we will succeed that the only way for us to fail is “divine” intervention? I kind of like the second option better tbh.

7. ”Lost” - Dermot Kennedy: ok, so unlike the last one, I actually immediately knew exactly which line I was going to pick from this one before I’d even re-listened to it. “My sense of wonder is just a little tired”. I adore this line so much because it is so reassuring to me as someone who has always been scared that as I grow older I’m losing my sense of wonder and awe for the world around me. so the idea that my feelings of wonder are just a little bit tired and just needs a wee rest is so comforting. like, that one day they’ll be well rested enough for me to be able to look at the world and feel the same way I did when I was 7. the song itself is about having your resilience being powered by the love from the people around you and returning that love, and I think wonder as a concept fits really well in that.

8. “MANTRA” - Bring Me The Horizon: okay, so this song is obviously a bit more overtly political than others on this list, but i fucking adore the line “Before the truth will set you free, it’ll piss you off”. the simplicity in the delivery of one of the hardest facts you have to acknowledge when you get older and start learning how the world actually works is pretty smart. it also harkens back to an old quote (that i have no idea who the source is) of “If you’re not angry then you’re not paying attention” which has unironically become a bit of a mantra for me (ha!). also the use of a robotic voice saying the word “mantra” in the chorus is so fucking smart, both because it sounds cool, but also because this choice in and of itself conveys the point of the song. i really love when a song uses .... outside sources (i guess that’s the word i’m choosing here) to help its message rather than just exposition dumping.

9. “The Only Exception” - Paramore: genuinely, i think the concept of “You are the only exception” is one of the single most romantic things you can say or feel about someone (and i will not be taking criticism on this opinion). the idea that one person can make you feel so happy/content that you are a soft person around them is so sweet. the song just make me feel warm, ya know?

10. “Raging on a Sunday” - Bohnes: i remember looping this song for hours when i first heard it, and it was entirely because of the phrase “I should be at church but I’m raging on a Sunday”. bro, i don’t even really know what this means, i’m only like half sure what this song is about, but i catch myself mumbling the chorus to myself every couple of weeks and if that isn’t the definition of stuck in my head than i don’t know what is tbh. i literally have no other notes, the like is just fun.

11. “Respect” - BTS: the whole concept of this song is so cool, and kind of encompasses why i love hearing other people talk about languages. this song is entirely based around the fact that the word respect doesn’t make sense to the two rappers (RM and SUGA), because the direct translation into Korean means something different. the rest of the song is about people using the word respect “wrong” in their opinion (if you’ve seen parasite this will make more sense), that people don’t give enough respect to the word respect. as for my favourite line, it has to be “ Re-spect 말 그대로 보고 자꾸 보는 거 /  자꾸 보다보면은 단점이 보여 /  But 그럼에도 자꾸 보고 싶단 건 /  필요하지 그 누구를 향한 완벽한 신념 “ “ Re-spect, like the word itself, it’s to look and look again /  When you keep looking at someone, you’re bound to see their flaws /  But, the fact that you nonetheless want to keep looking / requires absolute faith in that someone”. it’s such a cool interpretation of the word itself, and even though it’s kind of “stoner logic” it’s still awesome to think about. anyway, this is a link to the properly translated lyrics if you want it.

12. “Science & Faith” - The Script: this is another one that i  like because of the romanticism of the lyrics, even though this song is about trying and failing to explain love with science. “You won’t find faith or hope down a telescope / You won’t find heart and soul in the stars / You can break everything down to chemicals / But you can’t explain a love like ours” is such a banger concept. i remember hearing this song in the car on the radio when i was a child and being fascinated, because i was very much the kid who constantly asked “But, why?” to everything, and like this was kind of the first time when it came to talking about feelings that i didn’t feel the need to question it, because it was kind of a nice feeling the thought that there’s no reason for love, you just do it because you want to.

13. “Still Life” - RM [of BTS] ft. Anderson .Paak: okay this is the song that inspired this theme, because i watched a “making of the album” video about the album this song is on, and again (like “Respect”), the concept for this song shows how fucking cool learning other languages is. “Still Life” is the phrase we use for art that is of objects, like flowers or fruit. because RM is not a native English speaker, when he first read this phrase, his first thought was “oh art that keeps an object still alive, still full of life after death”, which is such a good way to think about art, that even though the flowers in this picture are long dead and so is the artist, the flowers are still alive in the canvas because of the care the artist put into it, and so the artist themself is alive too. it’s kind of similar to the concept of “Coco” or the ancient Egyptian belief that once you were forgotten you ceased to exist in the afterlife. i could go on and on about how i felt when i first heard the idea behind this song, but this is already a very long post, so ill just leave with the lines “ 멈추지 않는 정물 /  또 피워 나의 꽃을” “  A still object that keeps on moving /  I keep on blooming my flower “. this is a link to the properly translated lyrics if you want it.

14. “This Hell” - Rina Sawayama: this is such a fun song in general, and “Got my invitation to eternal damnation” is so fucking funny. yeah, i dont really know how to properly express my love for this song, but it’s such a cool expression of community in strife, that it doesn’t matter that we’re apparently going to hell for being ourselves, because we’re going to hell together, and i think that’s really sweet.

15. “Unconditional” - Picture This: okay, last one finally, because this is genuinely longer than some essays ive written, sorry. right, this is again another romantic idea, but it’s the concept that unconditional isn’t just the adjective you use in front of love, but it’s also an emotion in its own right that gets me fucked up. i also love referring to the love between them as “This magic”, not a magic thing, just straight up a magic. so fucking cool. finally i love the line “Baby I wish we could take this feeling / And put it away somewhere safe till we need it” just so sweet. you can tell i’m at the end of this because my praises have become very repetitive, but they are still praises nonetheless, the song is sweet.

okay, that’s the end, I hope you enjoyed the playlist, and also that this didn’t bore the shit out of you! <33 

[math-is-magic]

I posted 16,764 times in 2022

That's 2,283 more posts than 2021!

52 posts created (0%)

16,712 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@damnsmartblueboxes

@runeofluna

@theroseunblown

@nyxelestia

@gingersnapwolves

I tagged 5,357 of my posts in 2022

#acofaf - 586 posts

#toh - 412 posts

#tumblr - 293 posts

#exu calamity - 277 posts

#xd - 222 posts

#cat - 171 posts

#bmc - 162 posts

#mdzs - 152 posts

#d20 - 143 posts

#london bridge - 119 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#it took me 3 months to get my first pcp after college because the hospitals and insurance agents couldn't agree who was on their plan and fi

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The Ring of Brass

The Rings of Gold and Silver may be more traditionally prestigious, enough that they see the name Brass to be an insult, but I think they are perfectly representative names. Gold and Silver are singular metals, valuable, shiny, good for showing off and a few niche scientific experiments, but not really practical, in the scheme of things.

But brass. Brass is an alloy, a mixture of metals that is stronger than its components, and moreover, it’s a working metal. It’s used in all sorts of practical and even structural applications. 

What better symbol is there for the six dear friends who are the only ones who actually get things done in the city?

79 notes - Posted July 6, 2022

#4

Really disappointed in The Owl House fandom to realize that they’re calling Willow/Hunter “Huntlow” when “Winter” is RIGHT THERE.

110 notes - Posted May 12, 2022

#3

It’s really interesting to me, going back from watching EXU Calamity and C3, to watching The Legend of Vox Machina show, and seeing how much more heteronormativity was built in as the default even just a few years ago. Not that Vox Machina is BAD in terms of queer representation, relatively speaking, just that there is SO much more of a het vibe throughout the show. M/F interactions get a lot of blushing as their only development, all serious romantic and sexual gestures are between M/F pairings, and every hint of queer flirting or gender fuckery is played humorously (NOT necessarily in a homophobic ‘butt of the joke’ way, but definitely in a way that it’s not played as a serious character development).

Compare that to the other two campaign I’ve watched, where there are male PCs with husbands, and nonbinary characters who are properly gendered and queer ship teases played for drama and it’s just kinda cool to see how quickly the cast and stories became comfortable treating queerness as normal.

121 notes - Posted August 30, 2022

#2

Okay, but was anyone else DYING for them to show character art of Wuvvy’s third form? I want to see it SO BAD. I’ve been loving the fanart interpretations of it tho.

126 notes - Posted August 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Is it just me, or are the Caption on Starstruck Odyssey a SIGNIFICANT improvement on past seasons? Everything that’s captioned seems correct, is spelled correctly, and is timed correctly. They’re even captioning some of the non-word sounds. Like. These are actually functional captions! idk, just wanted to point that out so that Dropout knows that them paying attention to their accessibility features is noted and appreciated. Hears hoping they go back and fix old captions soon too!

194 notes - Posted March 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[chamerionwrites]

Years ago I read some article about the value of shame in forming functioning societies. Obviously is not exactly the same as bullying, but I do believe inappropriate behaviors should be labeled as such? Today there's more of a 'it doesn't hurt anyone' vibe, which leads to people declaring themselves 'transage' or parading in full kink gear in their local park. A bit of shaming wouldn't go amiss there, imho.

I’ll be real, Anon: I have a hard time taking this ask seriously and I considered whether it might be best not to even engage with it. But I’m going to try my best to respond in good faith, on principle, because I do actually feel very strongly about this and the fact that this showed up in my inbox within minutes kinda validates the frustration I was expressing in the original post.

[CW for discussion of all sorts of triggery topics below]

Point #1: In the first place let me just say that it’s very revealing, as a general rule, when somebody makes what should by all rights be a pretty innocuous and easy-to-agree-with statement and people leap in to raise objections based on the most extreme outlier examples they can think of. It doesn’t necessarily tell you a lot about the topic at hand. It does tell you something about the respondents, and the motivations and fears (fear is definitely the operative word here) driving their responses. It almost always means there’s some kind of a slippery slope fallacy at work.

I’m pretty widely-traveled and I gotta say I’ve never seen anyone in a park wearing kink gear, unless by that you mean “some goth kids in eye makeup and leather collars.” I have likewise never in my entire life encountered the term “transage” in the wild, and when I google it the first result is an Urban Dictionary entry that says it was invented by right-wingers to mock and/or fearmonger about trans people, so. I feel like that illustrates how relevant your examples are to everyday life. 

There’s this widespread sentiment on Tumblr that just because certain non-normative behaviors - hyperfocusing on special interests, frank discussion of sexuality or mental health, writing kinky fanfic as a birthday present for a friend - are slightly more accepted here (emphasis on “slightly” because again, just look how common the should’ve-been-bullied-more backlash jokes are), those behaviors have become normal and accepted in society at large. This is comically untrue. Even something as tame as writing (totally non-kinky!) fanfic, or getting passionate about your interests to a degree that the average neurotypical person clocks as “weird,” is going to get you mocked - let alone something like, oh idk, admitting that you’re into furry porn. Being open about mental health or sexuality can and does get people fired or hurt or killed with distressing frequency.

So I gotta ask - do you really think that the Weirdos are in any danger of forgetting that they’re weirdos? And why is it so incredibly threatening to you that they might? Even in the rare cases when we’re talking about genuinely harmful as opposed to just “weird” or “annoying” or “cringey” behavior, why is labeling behavior as inappropriate so closely linked with bullying in your mind? Why did my post make you feel such a pressing need to defend the social value of shame? Can you actually cite your sources here, and do they actually say what you recall them saying? Was there more nuance to it? Was there bias? Did you feel the need to check before sending this ask? How do you define “full kink gear,” and how many times have you actually encountered people wearing it in your local park - or is that a hypothetical image that lives rent-free in your imagination, as a symbolic representation of some underlying anxiety? If people genuinely aren’t hurting anyone else, why is it so important for them to feel ashamed of themselves? What are you afraid of? And why does it feel like such an urgent threat that you couldn’t let my very straightforward “bullying is bad and jokes about it aren’t funny” post pass without well-actually-ing it?

Point #2: Let’s say for the sake of argument that we genuinely are discussing objectively harmful behavior here. (Though let’s be clear: usually people get bullied for being harmlessly weird, which is to say not conforming to social norms, which is frequently just another way to say queer or gnc or disabled or neurodivergent or fat or poor or non-white or absolutely anything else that’s vulnerable or marginalized.) There’s a difference between shame and shaming, which may seem like hairsplitting but is in fact a very important distinction imho. 

I’ve never been able to unsee that one post that defined shame as “a kind of moral dysphoria” - a recognition that the person you want to be and the reality of your present actions are out of alignment. I think it’s a good definition and it can certainly be a very painful experience. That doesn’t automatically make it bad. I’ve said many times that I think learning is often at least a little bit uncomfortable, and that trying to completely eliminate discomfort from our lives is a good way to stunt our moral and intellectual growth. In that sense, I agree with you that a little bit of shame can be a personal and societal good. But feeling bad because you’ve behaved badly and feeling bad because someone else deliberately set out to cause you pain are two very different experiences.

Radical opinion apparently but I don’t believe in hurting people to teach them a lesson. I don’t believe it’s moral and what’s more, I don’t believe it works. (And there’s a pile of research - on prisons, on child development, on animal behavior ffs - that backs me up on this.) The only lessons people learn from intentionally inflicted pain are about force and fear and power. About who has the power to hurt them with impunity, and how to hurt people with even less power than they have.

You’re making a HUGE leap from “labeling inappropriate behavior” to “shaming.” (“Inappropriate” is also doing a whole lot of rhetorical work here, but again, I’m trying to respond in good faith.) And regardless of how careful you were to draw a distinction between shaming and bullying...like I said, it’s extremely revealing that my post about the latter made you feel so defensive of the former.

Might labeling someone’s behavior as harmful cause them to feel shame? Sure, and I don’t think this is a bad thing. But shaming is something else entirely. The end goal of shaming isn’t to label a behavior as harmful, or explain why it’s harmful, or teach healthier ways to behave. The end goal of shaming is to create feelings of shame, on the logic that shame and fear are the best tools society has for enforcing good behavior. It’s a demonstration of communal power and - let’s just admit it - communal pleasure in exercising that power, by making examples of people who step out of line. And by its very nature, it almost only ever “works” (if you can call it that) against people who are already vulnerable. You can’t shame someone with sufficient power and connections into good behavior, because they have enough social clout to insulate them from the negative effects. (Frankly I think it’s pretty clear by now that many powerful and unscrupulous people don’t have any shame, or at least don’t feel shame about the same things that we think they should, and public disgust may have some value as a demonstration of solidarity with their victims but it sure as hell isn’t gonna convince them to quit harming others.) You can’t shame someone into good behavior at all if their bad behavior is widely accepted by society. And on the very rare occasion that you can change someone’s behavior via public shaming, you haven’t taught them to be a better person; you’ve taught them to be afraid of you. 

Like...I think your opinion is harmful! I disagree very strongly, and depending on how well I make my point and how susceptible you are to feeling badly about yourself because an internet stranger disapproves of your worldview, you might feel a twinge of shame. But I’m not trying to shame you; I’m trying to explain why I think you’re wrong and why I think it matters so much. And if you weren’t on anon and a bunch of other Tumblr users showed up in your inbox to harass and shame you for those opinions I HIGHLY doubt it would do anything to change your mind, and I definitely don’t think it would make Tumblr a better place, and I think that would be really shitty behavior on their part.

Shaming is a pretty effective tool for enforcing societal norms and power dynamics, including extremely unethical ones. It’s not a very effective tool for building healthier communities. 

Point #3: Be deeply wary of any argument that asks you to carve out specific exceptions for particular classes of people.

Here’s the thing: we’ve all heard this argument before. There’s always some group that’s unraveling the very fabric of society by not conforming to it. We hear all about the social value of shame whenever queer people have the temerity to not only exist, but to ~threaten family values~ by being joyful and unashamed of themselves in public. We hear all about the social value of shame anytime women fail to toe the patriarchal line. 

You’re telling me that shaming is a social tool to mark the limits of acceptable behavior and I’m going to assume you mean well. But I think you have to recognize that in practice, what that frequently means is that it’s a way of marking out the borders of societal protection - which is to say, a way of designating acceptable targets. 

Think of slut-shaming. How dare she wear those clothes, how dare she dance that way, how dare she get drunk, how dare she drink at all, how dare she want and enjoy sex, how dare she act in a way that even suggests she might - and if she did any of those things she deserved what she got, and probably wanted it anyway. Think of those awful infamous rape cases like Steubenville, where the sexual assault itself is followed up by relentless community-wide cyberbullying of the victim. It’s not just violence. It’s shame-as-violence, and violence-as-shame.

Shaming enforces the social status quo. Like I said above, it’s always most effective when it’s used by the powerful against the vulnerable. And that makes it extremely prone to being weaponized not to enforce good behavior, but to enable bad behavior by blaming and dehumanizing the victim. Almost nobody goes around claiming to support bullying or rape or any other kind of abuse. They find a reason to justify it to themselves just this once.

Bullying is wrong, but THOSE nerds are so anti-socially weird that it’s for their own good. Rape is wrong, but THAT slut was asking for it. (Or: rape is wrong, except when it happens to rapists in prison.) Calling people animals is wrong, but it’s okay if you’re talking about murderers. Slavery is wrong, except as punishment for a crime. Rounding people up and putting them in camps is wrong, unless it’s wartime and you’re afraid they might give information or supplies or moral support to the other side. Surely these people don’t really count, surely these people aren’t really human, surely we can make a special exception for them.

And yeah, occasionally - not often, but occasionally - the people everybody wants to make a human rights exception for genuinely have done harm. Because I grew up during The Bush Years and spent a truly unfortunate and formative percentage of my teenage life arguing with people I had previously respected about how torture is a moral atrocity, I know that the standard response here is that I must love terrorists/pedophiles/nazis/rapists/gang members/hypothetical kinksters exposing themselves in public parks/whoever the Bad Guys Du Jour are, and support their crimes, and wish them to continue! Because I don’t want them to face Consequences For Their Actions!

This is overwrought nonsense and it should be self-evident to any thinking person that it’s overwrought nonsense, but in case it isn’t: in the first place, “consequences for one’s actions” doesn’t only mean “punitive cruelty,” and it’s either disingenuous or very unimaginative to suggest that it does. In the second, it has literally nothing to do with what anyone deserves and everything to do with the principle of the thing. Namely, that human dignity is a thing no matter how bad the human in question is; that cruelty brutalizes everyone involved; and that the moment you start carving out those exceptions you’re pulling blocks out of the fragile jenga tower that protects you from similar cruelty, because all anyone needs to do to put your head on the chopping block is make a halfway convincing case (or even just an emotionally compelling one; not sure how anyone can exist in the year 2020 and believe you actually need a rational argument to sway loads of people) that you’re one of the Bad Guys.

Spoiler alert: it’s almost always the most vulnerable people who are first on that chopping block, and almost never the hypothetical Bad Guys that folks rage against when they’re arguing for making exceptions.

Maybe it seems like I’m coming on a little intense here. Obviously bullying is not waterboarding, and I’m not suggesting that it is. But the argument follows the same underlying pattern: it’s wrong to bully people for being weird unless they’re Too Weird, in which case we’re doing them and society a favor by piling on the hurt and humiliation because that will ~definitely~ fix the problem rather than perpetuate cycles of harm, and also we just feel in our hearts that they deserve it and get a bit of a sadistic thrill from the idea of giving them what they deserve. And I do not trust an argument in that mold. I will never trust an argument in that mold.

It’s the same faulty moral logic, every time, and the sooner you learn to recognize it - in yourself and others - the sooner you can tell it to fuck off whenever and wherever it appears, and the clearer your perspective on a whole lot of things will be.

And finally, once more for the people in the back: the fact that we’re even talking about bad behavior here is a little beside the point, because bullying and shaming usually have nothing to do with enforcing standards of good behavior and everything to do with reinforcing hierarchies of social power.

[spicymotte]

I'm glad that you are sticking to your opinion on Karl, he isn't my fav of the game but I'm an older fan and by history, most of people would recognize that this probably was less of Capcom secretly wanting you to stand a Nazi and more of them being edgelords (It wouldn't be japanese entertainment media's first time being into tactless aesthetic and we all know it) i feel there would have been less problems if his first name at least was other than the second name his namesake but anyways, i just dislike how now everyone is rising lady dimitrescu in a moral high horse and that they always had a weird vibe of him from the start because of the experimentation when pretty much all lord's diaries reads a variation of "dear diary, today i killed/tortured/experimented on a villager, like i do EVERYDAY", and again, the huge plot hole of the story when the only exact thing we know from Karl past is that he was kidnapped as a child and experimented on for a time and that Miranda had control of the location so unless Miranda herself took part, i doubt she let him take a few years break to join, is most likely just machinery and trash collected from the time (and a teenager like phase of "war is cool") But yeah, I'm just hoping Capcom clear things up about this soon to calm people finally

Hi there! The RE fandom seems to be very nervous about the whole “Heisenberg is a nazi” thing so let me go into further detail about this and from the perspective of a German person who also took 3 years of extra classes about national socialism and the rise and the fall of the nazi empire. In Germany, we are being taught about WW2 and national socialism in school for at least 1-2 years so we understand what exactly happened and learn the cold, hard truth - which is absolutely necessary to fully realize how much people have suffered because of the national socialists! 

With that in mind, please note that this is my personal opinion. My opinion as a person who punched nazis in the face, who works as a character & game artist and who thinks that the word nazi is used way to much on fictional characters and thus has been weakened in real life. I fully understand why people think Heisenberg could be a nazi, I don’t want to say that your opinion is not valid or nonsense - but I expect an open mind from you in return. 

Okay, let’s go. (my take is under the cut and sorry for any mistakes, English isn't my first language!)

I take this topic actually quite seriously because as I said in my latest reply to this matter, I get called nazi a lot just because I’m German and that’s kinda hurtful to me, idk? I fought these people since I was 14 and it feels weird to be called a nazi because I have a very german name. Kinda funky if you ask me, but I try to ignore it. Although people tend to throw this word at anyone who seems to have a “bad vibe” and that only weakens the actual term and the weight of the actions of Germany in WW2. Please don’t throw this word around so easily, nazis have hurt millions of people and killed millions of innocents, please respect this tragedy and the immense loss these people, especially the jewish community, has suffered. 

Okay, but now let’s talk RE8 for real:

Let’s start with his name: Karl Heisenberg is a pretty common name for someone who lived around 1920-1940, which I think may be the time he was born or a kid (right before he was kidnapped by Miranda). Also the scientist that worked on the nuclear weapons with the nazis was named WERNER Heisenberg. A name doesn’t necessarily means he’s an evil nazi. But I understand that people think it’s kind of “weird” that this is Karl’s last name. Personally, I would’ve not gone with that name if it had been up to me. 

Also, please keep in mind that the Japanese media industry tends to use well known names and aesthetics for their German representation and sometimes it’s just a miss. Western media does that too, called stereotypes, and you see so much of it, especially for asian countries. It’s a delicate topic for sure but not the main topic here. In this special case and with his overall aesthetic it really looks like he’s all about that national socialism, but let's take a closer look, shall we?

FYI: I’m an artist for concept and game art so I know a thing or two about character design. Hey, I’m not an expert, but not a total idiot either :) And as I mentioned earlier, this is my personal opinion. Of course i am biased, Heis is a comfort character of mine and although I do not defend his actions in any way, I just think he’s neat and an interesting character. 

Okay, so - let’s start with the setup of his whole aesthetic and basic personality traits. Heisenberg is a loudmouth, knows everything better and always has to have the last word. Give him dirt/metal as an aesthetic and you’ve created a stereotype evil scientist villain, good job. His theme is far from innovative and new, it is actually almost boring! 

He controls metal in an environment that is metal only and canon Karl doesn’t leave his factory unless he absolutely has to. He stays in his comfort zone nonstop and is supposed to be a super hard enemy/boss because of that. (Super boring boss fight is you ask me)

Heisenberg is permanently in his element in this game and that is on purpose. So, let’s think about what design choice would be the best choice, time wise and for the RE universe:

What kinds of metal and scrap and junk would be easy to access in the time span of 1940 until, idk, maybe 1980?

The countries in Eastern Europe have tons and tons of junk from WW2 and even WW1 and use it for all kinds of stuff, from using it, using the spare parts and building houses/barns/garages from it! Good, high quality metal is very expensive and not every region and village can afford this kind of luxury, especially back then in the 19xx!! 

So could that mean that Heisenberg is only using the kinds of junk he has available in his factory? Maybe! Probably! Nobody really knows except for Capcom. 

Or maybe he really just lives that edge the game studio wanted to give him. He is based on Frankenstein himself and that means 1) building machines/hybrids from all kinds of parts and 2) very questionable morals. Check and check. 

He is not a good person, absolutely not, but you know what? Most fans know that. (At least I hope so) Just as Lady Dimitrescu isn’t very nice either, or Moreau or Donna. They’re all antagonists, of course they do bad stuff. Alcina tortures women and turns their blood into wine. Moreau is the one who experimented on people until they turned into the werewolf mutants. Donna is highly manipulative and lets people live through their worst nightmares. Miranda is just fucked up evil, she has gone mad with grief (and mold mutation). 

Of course you can argue what and who is the worst - creating human/machine hybrids, mutating people into werewolves or let young women bleed out and drink their blood, you know what I’m saying here. It’s all bad, they’re all evil. Just because you want an antagonist character be super unlikeable, thus calling him a nazi, doesn’t mean your fave will be liked and praised. I see people going “oh Lady Big Mommy Milkers is so adorable and pretty and so good with her daughter uwu” and sorry buddy but she’s evil too. They all are, because that’s why they’re antagonists. Yes, even Mommy Big Milkers. 

Okay so let’s switch this around then, let’s see how it works when we switch the visual aesthetics with the writing of two characters.

If we switch Alcina and Karl; Alcina is the boss of a factory that creates hybrids, she dresses not that elegant, more dirty and she’s not that articulated either. Huge, kinda hobo, lady with metal bending powers who tells you to SIT… Would you call her a nazi when she wears a dog tag and has tank junk lie around on her property? I’m actually not so sure about that, tending more to a ‘no’. 

Karl is now owner of the huge castle, decorated top to bottom with gold and expensive collectibles. He dresses real fine and drinks the blood of young women, talks like a real gentleman and stuff. No tanks, no dog marks, just a well-mannered evil man in a castle who drinks blood. That pretty much Dracula though lol 

All I say is that his visual aesthetics and character are an unlucky combination of character design. I really can’t blame anyone thinking “ok this is a bit weird, like, I’m getting nazi vibes here” but to be honest, I think his whole deal only screams nazi when you’re not that educated on this topic. Dog tags are still a common accessory in Germany and not every single soul here is a nazi. 

If you know what real nazis look like, you wouldn’t say that he’s a nazi but just a melodramatic trash cowboy. It may look like national socialism for a layman, but not for people who get educated on this topic for years on end. 

If Capcom does decide to say “he’s a nazi lol” I would honestly just ignore canon. Because in the end, I consume this media and I gotta choose what to think of these characters. It is my own responsibility to think for myself and not let other people tell me what to make of this character. Be brave enough to think of your own canon, especially when we’re talking about Capcom. 

Sorry for the long rant, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to overuse a specific word related to something that serious and tragic. If Heisenberg is just a ‘war-fanboy’ then that’s what it is. What if he’s really just an edgy, socially underdeveloped man who knows nothing but collecting junk and building things from it? I totally agree when you say that he’s a bad person, he has done terrible things, but that’s the reason why he’s an antagonist. 

this has become quite a rant, sorry about that! 

[mytragedyperson]

So I've explained some of the things I disliked about the gossip girl reboot. Now I'm going to give the reasons I still watch. Note there will be less because its harder to think of good things but I will continue to watch.

The first thing that came to mind was actually some of the friendships. The first one I thought of was actually max and luna. They don't have many scenes together but the ones they do have show a really cute friendship. They're willing to help each other with few questions asked, they know each others secrets and worries, and they tell each other their problems not even necessarily for advice just to tell someone and get it out in the open and if that isn't true friendship idk what is.

Another friendship I loved is luna and monets. I dont think I really have to explain this. I hope they take over the school together bc honestly JC kind of annoys me bc she flip flops between being the nice to being queen bee from episode to episode.

Finally I really liked JC and Audrey's friendship. I like that audrey is the one person who isn't trying to get JC to change in some way. She just wants her to do what makes her happy and care less about and image that, it could be argued, makes her miserable. They go to each other for advice or with problems and honestly audrey seems like one of the only people that likes JC for who she is and only really wants her to be happy. They may have their arguments but they quickly sort these arguments out and make up.

Also, while I don't really care for Zoya and JC as friends or enemies, and the drama between them annoys me, i liked the last episode of the first season when Zoya pointed out they didn't necessarily have to be friends to be sisters, they don't have to hang out with the same group. At the end of the day they're 2 very different people who aren't friends. They aren't serena and Blair and I hope we get to see more of Zoyas new friend bc 2 episodes wasn't enough to form an opinion.

OK now characters I like. The only characters I truly dislike are the teachers, who should all face some sort of legal trouble, and obie who I just find boring, bland and kind of annoying. However that does mean I like the other characters. I'm not going to repeat reasons and I may not mention all other characters because I may not dislike them but their storyline may annoy me.

Note: I won't comment on the sexual assault storyline until we see the end result as I feel its still ongoing and could go either way.

OK so first, max, audrey and akeno. Why do I like these characters. A: the friendships they have with others, b: their storylines in general, bit the main reason is the polyamory storyline. I'm not going to talk about representation because I'm straight and don't know much about polyamarous relationships so I don't know how accurate this teen drama show is and I'm sure some aspects may be problematic without me realising. In other words, it would be wrong of me to discuss these things so I won't. What I will say is I'm hlad we got an answer at the end and, considering I wanted this from episode 1 I was very happy with the end result. Now I know that the chances of them breaking up is high, but even if they do break up, I hope they'll ultimately be endgame. Like, they can date other people and explore other ships, I wouldn't hate that but I want the show to end with the three of them dating. Also I like that max, despite liking both of them, still stuck by his boundaries and didn't just accept any type of poly relationship with them, that he wanted to feel like an equal instead of an extra, so overall, interesting storyline, explored multiple actions, satisfying ending that could be changed at any second, it's great. If they screw these 3 up I'll be so sad. Even if they're not dating I at least want them to be friends, honestly this is my favourite thing about thos reboot and if they screw it up and I don't mean a little, I mean making them toxic, like chuck and Blair levels toxic or even just unhealthy, that would truly break my heart. Honestly I just want them to be happy and at least friends by the end. I understand max will be learning about romantic relationships and there will be ups and downs, I'm fine with that as long as its happy. It's rare for me to find ships and romantic storyline I'm actually invested in. Most of the time it's less of a case of shipping it and more of a case of not being against it but not caring either way but I've been emotionally invested in this since day one.

Now let's discuss monet. Honestly I love her. This is probably the closest we get to a character that would be in the original gossip girl and honestly, I hope she does become queen bee and also finds out the teachers are gossip girl and gets them all fired and arrested, especially of she finds out the reason they started it. Honestly I just love how honest she is about who she is. She doesn't hide that she's manipulative and mean. Honestly queen bee monet. On a similar note, I love luna too. I wasn't too sure early on but she grew on me and I loved the last episode, the fact that she has someone to love even if it's long distance and how happy but conflicted she was. Plus we got some scenes with luna and max. Also luna is more loyal than monet bc monet sees JC more as a job whereas for luna she gets to help put her friend. I want these 2 to have a happy ending.

Zoya and JC I have a love hate relationship with and whether or not I like them chnges depending on the episode.

Also this isn't something I like but it is something I thought was entertaining, I loved that Rafa called them out about gossip girl. It was funny because he was sleeping with a student (Yes, yes, max pursued him but he's still the grown adult. However, I will ignore this if Max is 18 and legal age simply bc the show clearly doesn't care so neither will I.) It's not often someone can sleep with a student and lecture someone else on morals but Rafa surely gave it a good go and I found that entertaining. Also he said it to Kate, someone I hate, so it also made me happy. I'm honestly just glad anyone called her out on it.

Also, conflicting opinion, I both ship Kate and zoyas dad and don't ship them. If you're wondering how that works allow me to explain. In any other show I would definitely ship these two characters because they have some cute scenes and moments. Also I like Zoya's dad and want him to be happy. However I also find Kate annoying and she's gossip girl so, while I want him to be happy, I also want Kate to be unhappy. Here's what I propose, let Kate and zoyas dad date for a couple of episodes to satisfy the miniscule part of me that ships them, then have Zoyas dad find out Kate and Jordan are gossip girl and, since he's a lawyer, get them locked up or in as much legal trouble as he can, especially with the whole taking a photo of zoya changing and posting it online thing.

I can't think of anything else right now but I'll probably add to this as time goes on. Overall it has potential. I hope they'll give obie more personality and that the teachers won't be gossip girl much longer. If monet or JC or one of the students take over gossip girl that would be great, but just don't tell us which one straight away. That would be great. In other words I'll probably watch the planned season 2 and then review where we stand. One thing it's great at is being a guilty pleasure show. Because it's kind of terrible but I somehow love it as I'm watching it but end up getting annoyed with it after it's over. I'd never admit to watching this show.