#like really loudly it was wonderful

[nellasbookplanet]

Having finally read the Nimona comic (it’s very good, everyone please go read it) I can’t help but find describing it as being about the power of incredible violence to defeat an authoritarian state, as I've seen done, to be both kind of misleading and ultimately reductive to the story as a whole.

Yes there is incredible violence in the comic and it was in the end what tore down the corrupt system, but it was also Nimona's downfall, destroyed her relationship with her only friend (and led to her (temporary) death by his very hand as he could no longer stand by her and her actions, even as he never judged her, recognized her role as a victim and tried to save her until the end), put countless civilians in danger, and ultimately did little to nothing to address how to actually fix the problems of the system to keep them from returning. In fact, Nimona as a character shows little interest in fixing anything. She suggests killing the king and having Ballister take his place, despite Ballister neither wanting this nor having the experience to pull it off (and would, in fact, only result in replacing one king with another rather than lead to an entirely new system, as is often the case with bloody uprisings). When people start dying from the illness they spread, Ballister wants to immediately stop it; Nimona suggests they let more people die to further rile up hatred and anger against the institution. Nimona isn't a good guy looking to save people; she's an angry, hurt girl looking to hurt those who hurt her and those who have the potential to hurt her in the future (even when Ballister is one of those people). She is the villain the state turned her into.

And that is kind of the point I see the story making. Not 'you need incredible violence to tear down an authoritarian state' as something good and celebratory, but rather 'an authoritarian state will ultimately lead to its own downfall by creating monsters of its own making, and while said downfall is needed the fact that it has to happen at all is deeply tragic because there are no winners here'. Nimona isn't a villain-villain (the true antagonist is obviously still the Institution), but she isn't a hero either. She's a tragic figure with a tragic end that the state brought upon itself by mistreating its people. She doesn't stick around to help rebuild and heal, and she doesn't (to our knowledge) get to see her home become a better place. It's a bittersweet end where the very person who tore down the oppressors is too broken to enjoy the end result. It isn't a story about rebellion, it's a story about the inherent and justified self-destruction of authoritarian systems.

(Writing it out like this, I realize that, thematically, it’s very similar to n.k. jemisin's broken earth trilogy, which you should all also read because it is incredible and not very friendly to authoritarian states.)

[suffarustuffaru]

I don’t speak Japanese so I’d LOVE to hear more about the differences between the English and Japanese Re:Zero fandoms

yeah sure its very interesting to me now that ive noticed it more lately :o !! though ok disclaimer - i dont speak japanese either hah so if anyone is seeing this and does speak japanese + is familiar with the japanese speaking side of this fandom please add info if youd like!! and of course ill be mainly speaking from the english side of things bc im more familiar with that yes (sorry anon again im not a japanese speaker T^TT so sorry if i tread on info you already know!!). but yeah im speaking from my own experiences given the Topic at hand. ive been in this fandom since... 2019?? which is so wild to me aljsdfljsd.

anyway so - i think the big difference is mainly that the english fandom and many english speaking people that engage with rezero are. to put it bluntly, misconception runs Rampant to a very Interesting degree. to the point where it seems like the english speaking side of the fandom is More. Aggressive. than the japanese fandom. not that the japanese speaking side of the fandom is perfect - also bc what fandom is ever perfect 100% of the time, tbh - but that the louder people in the english rezero fandom are. well its a Very low bar. Very low. and from what little ive seen and heard so far, the japanese fandom tends to understand rezero and its characters better than the english fandom. which ig makes sense bc you know, rezero is japanese media, and also im sure cultural differences come into play here as well (im not familiar enough on this to speak about it in depth but the cultural differences feel Pretty Clear even though i cant 100% put my finger on what they specifically are).

but also bc yeah. its not That hard to beat some of the english fandom when it comes to media comprehension. misreading rezero is unfortunately Extremely common, both in and out of the rezero community. its Everywhere - youtube, myanimelist, ao3, ff.net, reddit, twitter, various rezero discords - and from what ive experienced, rezero tumblr basically kind of feels like finding an oasis after crawling through the desert for days on end lajdslfjs. which is probs bc rezero tumblr is Smaller and also a lot of us seem to be lgbtq+ in some way or be allies, so you dodge a lot of the misogyny and homophobia that happens in other rezero english circles. its why you see a lot of openly queer rezero-related posts on here while its a bit more. barren. in other rezero english places yes. bc its more safe to post queer rezero things on rezero tumblr rather than rezero reddit for Sure.

im not sure how the japanese fandom is with that exactly but theres some interesting differences between whats popular in the english fandom vs the japanese fandom. i mean as an otto fan ive been noticing how hes more popular with the japanese fandom—and on top of that, ottosuba is Way More popular in the japanese fandom too. reinsuba and julisuba seem to usually be the most popular mlm subaru ships in both fandoms but ottosuba is like A Little Up There in the japanese fandom. not sure if its on the same level as a ship like reinsuba but ottosubas Definitely loved as a ship. from what little ive seen it also seems like ships like vichisha are more acknowledged by the japanese fandom? im not entirely sure on like—Complete differences regarding what the japanese fandom finds interesting that may differ from english fandom, so ill really have to look more into the japanese fandoms fanart and fanfic when i can bc im pretty curious too. in general though, it seems like the japanese fandom has a bit more variety…. you can find fanart on So Many characters in rezero (which already has a very Massive cast full of very fleshed out characters) there. not that you cant in the english fandom bc theres a Bit of variety too, but id more so contribute that a little more to the Big Cast and less to having actual variety in fancontent. and of course im not saying that the japanese fandom may be a bit barren in some areas of fancontent—bc inevitably when u have a big cast of characters, side character content is gonna be more sparse compared to the main characters, but to me it does feel like the english fandom lacks variety in comparison. (and also yeah. seems like the japanese fandom acknowledges gay ships more in general tbh.)

whats focused in fancontent makes it easy to tell what may be popular in a fandom in terms of how fans perceive the source material and what fandoms want to do with the source material, if that makes sense. and its very easy to tell that with the english fandom if you just hop on rezero ao3–or even better, rezero reddit given theres a fanfic ideas thread thats usually pinned right at the top of the site. again i havent looked at japanese fanfic for rezero yet (bc i dont know where to look oops ajdndn) but when it comes to the english fandom you can tell that theyre generally more focused on the female cast both in fanart and in fanfic bc. theyre women and many fans on say, reddit or various rezero discords, are cis straight men, so inevitably… well lets just say you can tell when a man makes content for this fandom o.o theres also the. very weird reaction fic trends and trends following popular fics in the fandom, the two biggest being the watching him die again and again react fic and re:forgotten, the former of which includes a harem plot with subaru and the main girls of rezero while the latter is one of those subaru gets tortured by his ooc friends and then he gets revenge on them fics. which i suppose says something about the english fandom too.

of course on ao3 its dominated mainly by english fics (of course not all fics on there for rezero are in english— big shoutout to all the non english fics on rezero ao3 ur doing great <3 — but the majority are in english). and while yeah ur occasionally gonna find stuff like queer content or side character content or rarepair content, its definitely not that big in amount and also comes with the risk of. Hate. if anyones reading this and remembers the lone star stuff. (if u dont know—lone star was a julius x emilia fic where they NTR subaru or some shit and then it got bombed with hate bc of the ship? yeah.) so yeah english fandom is very cis straight oriented, ironically with the nastiest people being the very people that rezero criticizes. though this is also my personal experience, i do know several people personally whove been in this fandom for a while or were here for a while and yeah english fandom isnt very welcoming at times???? and it seems like at the very least the japanese fandom is A Little Less Aggressive than the english fandom is.

otherwise. yeah im very very curious about more of the differences in popular content between the japanese vs english fandom. i mean the english fandom’s main focus on the female cast for. Interesting Reasons other than their actual character depth is… interesting. and the astreas being popular in general vs otto + ottosubas popularity fluctuating is also very interesting to me (but i have several guesses as to Why that is), among other things. yeah id love to know what else the japanese fandom likes about rezero and see more of their content. i also have to wonder if characters like emilia and subaru are hated less by the japanese fandom…. T^T well that and the english fandom and many english speaking people engaging in rezero have this interesting pattern of either hating subaru No Matter What, wanting subaru to Not Be Subaru (ie using him as a self insert almost or attempting to change him into virtually another character), or putting subaru on a pedestal and ignoring his flaws and mistakes and that he Can do wrong. like theres Really not a lot of nuance there. so i wonder if the japanese fandom is. A Little more chill when it comes to character opinions like this too.

[rui-drawsbox]

Happy new year! I hope everyone has a good time, I can't say the same about myself, a tornado literally passed through the city on the 29th and we won't have electricity in my house for at least 4 days jdjdk

At the moment no one died so somehow everything will be fixed loln't

[sysig]

Roleswap(?) (Patreon)

[thedandelionthief]

long post under the cut of me rambling about my current show

i have my last performance for RoA in a few hours, which honestly breaks my heart. it’s not as though i’m particularly attached to the musical itself, but the cast and the meaning behind our production has made this one of the best opportunities of my life.

i don’t want to say the name of this program because i’m afraid it might dox me, but the purpose behind it is to allow young people with developmental disabilities to perform, and it’s been such a delight seeing even the most reserved cast members come out of their shells on-stage. there have been some rough days this summer, trying to tie everything together (and by that, i mean really rough), but these past few days i’ve felt so at peace with my life. theater is my biggest passion, and getting to share it with such amazing people is. i’m going to start crying if i write any more lol

i’m just so lucky to have been in both this show and oliver in just one summer. both of them have no doubt been formative experiences in my life, but rock of ages in particular has transformed the way i interact with people, boosted my self confidence, and really made me fall in love with performing for the sake of it, instead of trying to prove myself all the time. i still struggle with feeling like i need to get these huge roles to be worth anything as a person, let alone an actor, but i’m beginning to realize that theater is such a powerful force, and no matter what i’m doing for the show, just being a part of it is enough.

i used to roll my eyes when directors would say “there’s no small parts, only small actors”, and i still would today, just because the phrase is so cliche at this point. but the sentiment behind it is one i agree with. i mean, there definitely are small parts, but making the most of your limited stage time, or your few lines of solo music is important. and being a good castmate, and in this case, mentor, is even more so.

not to mention the youth edition (who even decided a youth edition of rock of ages was a good idea) is comedy gold i don’t even care. there are so many funny lines, and because the audience is a lot of older people who were actually teens/adults in the ‘80s, their reactions are always on point. also, the boy who plays franz uses a wheelchair which allowed us to add in the best visual gag of him trying to defiantly storm away from his mom only to keep rolling over the traffic cones blocking off the road. it’s beautiful. the drew and sherrie romance is also the most adorable thing i have ever witnessed. drew is just this awkwardly earnest guy and paired with sherrie’s enthusiasm it’s so cute. i love the part where they meet in sister christian and it’s like “my names wolfgang von colt!” “sorry???” “…or drew :(“.

also i learned how to be a sighted guide so that’s pretty awesome

[chain-chomp]

One day maybe this website will move on from “lol virgins think they’re allowed to speak 🤣 go get laid loser” but not today I guess

[dent-de-leon]

Genuinely think it would be very funny if Molly/King ever ran into the Platinum Dragon--

[askblueandviolet]

Damnit, I love asking questions but I'm still so far behind in the story. I'm still on The Quest for the Skeleton Key if you can believe it or not. So, no, this is not an ask for Violet/Macaque. I just wanted to say I love your art style and your writing is perfect! (I also believe I gave Blue/Mayor comfort- I do not take it back- and I did not read the fine print about a fanfiction being attached! I, personally, am thrilled by this revelation, thank you very much!)

OUGHALSKDJFZMXN-

DF here. Thank you so much! On one hand, I must point and laugh at you because how dare you not read the fine print of a fanfic being attached (/j).

Thank you for the compliments buddy :DDD! Mayor appreciates your efforts for comfort, even if those efforts aren't exactly canon to the actual storyline XDDD. Have fun reading the fanfic series, be mindful of the tags and enjoy the slow burn!

[flowerpresser]

Btw if you're mean to other people all the time, you shouldn't be surprised when you're sad all the time.

[daydadahlias]

x

[fatpinkbitch]

Usually I don't believe in "Cringe", like as a concept, but if you still have Harry Potter shit in your bio in the year 2023 then you are, in fact, cringe. In the worst possible way.

[devil-changmin]

Body image ment

[squareanon]

.

[s17s17]

So back in church camp we had these night games right, straight up "hey we're up on top of a mountain in a forest, let's turn the kids loose in the dark in known bear territory" American Fun, and I loved that shit more than any other part of the camp. But I had two 'stelf' moments that were both insane in that I didn't get caught, but also that means I don't know if they were straight fucking with me.

Basic premise of the game was counselors and a few select campers would have flashlights, all other participants were literally running blind in the dark, trying to escape capture. Captees were encouraged to protest loudly, and the kid I saw caught was *very* good. I was out here in straight up grey sweats and a sweat top because I didn't know this was happening, so like not particularly great camo, yeah? I find myself cornered in some bush up against a tree, so I ball down and face out just a bit so I'd have hair showing instead of all grey, I was WAY into it for some reason. Night forest just made things like that make sense. The kid with the light has two followers who were sure they saw movement, but after shining the light over me a few times he just says "it's a tree with some blue spot on it, nothing there" and walks off. I was wearing a blue shirt under my sweatshirt, so I KNOW he saw that, but like. Did he fucking see ME and just let me off for holding perfectly still even though I was dead busted? No clue, I never saw who it was to ask. A little later I was busted my cabin counselor moving across a clearing stupidly, but he says "I only caught you because we're straight up having a meeting here in a few seconds, just drop in this tall grass and don't move". Six more hunters show up, they have their meeting right next to where I'm laying prone in some grass, and then they just leave. Did he point me out and they were just laughing about it? Did they all legitimately not look down and see me in the dark? I never found out.

[hopethisdoesntawakenanythingnme]

i really wonder what Julius Caesar would think of a bunch of neurodivergent rats huddled in a circle chanting ides of march ides of march ides of march and then cheering loudly on the 2067th anniversary of his assassination?

like would he cry?

[be-good-to-bugs]

:/ god my apartment manager sucks