#research & audience

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Started a new book series, and has been a journey...an Odyssey, if you will.

[inkyami]

Kaeru nyōbō (蛙女房) — "frog wive", a shapeshifting character in Japanese folklore. The frog turns into a woman in order to marry a human man, but retains some of her froggy qualities — Kaeru nyōbō is very fragile, small, and is unable to do heavy work due to her little strength. The life with her can be perfectly ordinary and peaceful, unless the curiosity of a husband & family discovers her true nature, and she hops away.

The stories about frog wives exist all over Japan with some variations of the plot. The motive itself �� of a girl "with a secret" and a family ruined by prying into it — seems to be extremely popular in Japanese folklore in general.

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[unluckedtj]

so. this’ll never be real but i think it’d be silly if kazuma got a small white snake. just to hang out with

[dcdreamer23]

As a casual Watcher fan, it's too little too late.

First off, I want to say that if you're happy with the apology video, that's great! I'm honestly happy for you. I personally don't feel the same, and I wanted to share my two cents.

I think it's a great apology video that addresses all fan concerns... from Friday. The truth is the response took so long to come out that the community dug out a lot of not-so-great things to light. Everything from homophobia, to entitled behaviors, to cost-breakdowns of productions and the company as a whole. Obviously it's impossible to address all of that at once and maintain any kind of focus, and there's plenty of things that frankly could never truly be discussed with the public.

But by waiting so long to respond these questions did arise and are still in the air. If fans are happy to move on for now that's fine but I get the feeling it'll still bite Watcher sooner or later. How will Watcher address the disconnect between their apparent ambitions for large productions and their audience's desires for small, personality-driven content? What new shows do they hope to produce? Will they reconsider their release schedule to create more content? Will fan-provided content appear behind the pay-wall at all for any length of time???

But for me the biggest question is whether they truly originally wanted to remove ALL of their content from YouTube to a new paywalled platform and give viewers one-month notice. To me, judging by the language in their video, their original statement to Variety, and the fact that they did start removing content after the video dropped all points to yes. Yes, they were going to move all their content to an unsecured platform (with no app, captions, international accessibility!) for $6/month. And they never addressed that in the apology video!!!

I personally just can't get past it on top of all the other things that were brought up in the last 72 hours.

[pinkeoni]

streddit is such an interesting place because I’ve never seen a community that was so active in their fandom that so adamantly rejects what is happening on screen. Like it’s not a case of GA who watch the show casually so they may not pick up on certain things— it’s fans who frequently engage with the show, the supplemental books and comics, fan material, but they also so adamently ignore surface level canon material if it doesn’t match the version of the show they built in their head. They are too involved to be GA and let they know less than actual GA

[go-to-the-mirror]

It’s so weird to me when people are like… in fandoms of stuff like Shakespeare, or Dracula, or Moby Dick, or stuff like that, because I feel like I have this notion that old things have to be looked at with… respect, I guess, and critical analysis, and then, people are making ship names for characters and calling Jonathan Harker their poor little meow meow, and writing fanfiction for Hamlet alongside Rusty Quill Gaming, like it’s so weird

[rosemaryreality]

So...

holy shit this conversation, i have. so many thoughts.

i'm like, 80% sonic is gonna face some kind of betrayal from either dread or nine

[not0a0mundane]

I'm sorry but wasn't it rather obvious that it was supposed to be Hondo? That's at least how I saw the scene

[frasier-crane-style]

[jenanigans1207]

All I’m saying is that in the supernatural universe, I firmly believe that the most popular destiel fics are written and posted by one Sam Winchester under a pen name. And he doesn’t even come up with elaborate plots. He just dictates, almost verbatim, interactions he witnesses Cas and Dean having and then just tacks a kiss or a love confession on the end.

And everyone comments about how he just gets their characters, how he builds such convincing sexual and romantic tension, how the characters feel like real people instead of words on a page. Sam is the most popular destiel ao3 author, his fics on every single rec list, and it’s simply because he got tired of watching Dean and Cas pine uselessly for each other so he decided to make it everyone’s problem.

[homosekularnost]

is this anything

[bonefall]

Question: what’s your source on the phytoestrogens? Bc the only times I’ve ever heard that claim, they all source back to this one study on sheep in like the 40s, which… well it’s not very well supported

(Although maybe you don’t care about that, which would be fair. These are fictional cats after all not clinical studies)

You're probably coming from Hbomberguy when he was specifically addressing lunkhead chuds, who pass around the claim that phytoestrogens lower human fertility and sex drive. The "soyboy" claim.

Human studies on the effects of phytoestrogens are pretty lacking overall, but what does exist doesn't back up that claim-- because humans don't graze on red clover in west australia like a sheep. What that means is that it doesn't impact human fertility the way a terrified conservative brain stem thinks it does.

(ESPECIALLY not in a plate of soybeans, which has significantly lower levels of phytoestrogen than red clover.)

But what it DOES do is bind to the estrogen receptors in your body (and acts as a really good antioxidant but that's neither here nor there) which can mean it can act AS estrogen... or as an antagonist.

If you want to know more (especially if you have a background in chemistry, this source talks a lot about the structural similarities between estrogen and phytoestrogen and the mechanism of action) then go dive into PHYTOESTROGENS IN FUNCTIONAL FOOD by Fatih Yildiz, which collects together many of the studies that we do have on the matter and omits controversial ones.

(Plus it's an easy read for such a science-heavy publication imo)

Though I have to stress that my HRT guide is, y'know, fake cats! Nothing in nature replaces modern medicine***, but I wanted to make a good resource for WC fans with trans cats who wanted a little bit of scientific accuracy, wanted to cut herbs that cast Liver Failure 1000 on felines, and could reasonably be found in a temperate environment

***= Except medicinal maggots. Medicinal maggots are literally magical. Nothing debrides necrotic tissue like green bottlefly larvae and as far as I'm concerned they're the closest thing to divinity we have on this earth. And medicinal leeches I love you leeches im so sorry that anyone has ever called you a pest you're cherubic angels and she doesnt deserve this </3

[pinkeoni]

Peter Pan Parallels: Is The Upside Down Neverland?

Lately I've been thinking about Petergate and I came up with what possibly could be another angle to the already complicated Peter situation— what if the name Peter is a reference to Peter Pan?

I don't think this is the only reason that the name Peter becomes prominent, although the show itself does seem to contain other references to Peter Pan, and even creates a correlation between the Upside Down and Neverland.

Peter Pan as a character has origins in early works from author J.M. Barrie, and the Peter Pan story as known today originated in a play written by Barrie before being adapted into a book and subsequently several film adaptations. The story of course being about a young boy named Peter who brings some kids to a magical land where they can never grow old.

It's written very small, but Peter Pan is on the season 4 DNA board!

There are a few instances about never growing old in the show, and they usually come from Will or involve Will.

The first instance is from season 3 during the rain fight, where Mike exclaims that they "aren't kids anymore" and they can't "play games for the rest of their lives." This is then brought up again by Will in season 4, but in a much more hopeful lens.

And then we have the Upside Down, a magical land that appears to be somewhat stuck in time.

I say "somewhat" because I'm honestly unsure if the UD actually frozen in time, or if there is just an impression of Hawkins the night that Will was taken. However, the emphasis this season on clocks as well as Nancy's mention of being in the past does at least allude to the idea of being frozen in time.

Does the UD actually function like Neverland and keep someone from aging? Will was only trapped in there for a week, not enough time to see if there was any anti-aging going on. Henry was in there for a few years, however since he changed so much physically it's hard to tell if he aged at all (and given that he was in his 30s, any aging wouldn't have been very apparent)

ALTHOUGH there could be a point to be made about the fact that Will and Henry were both able to survive in the Upside Down for as long as they did in the first place, maybe it has to do with both of their powers, but perhaps the UD was preventing them from dying?

Starting with Will, we know that he was in the UD for a week without any food or water. The body can survive that long without food, but water is another thing. The show makes a point to have Erica say this in season 3:

—which leads me to believe that they want to draw attention to the fact that Will was miraculously able to survive for so long in a place without any water. Perhaps the UD was able to keep him alive?

Something similar happens with Henry, too. It seems like his body was adapting to the new environment overtime, but still the details of his survival are vague and his ability to stay alive after all that time is still rather anomalous to say the least.

There's an indirect reference to the UD as Neverland in season one, when Troy states that "Will is in fairyland now with all the other little fairies." and while YES he means this in a derogatory way, the dialogue is still a way to point at the fact that Will really is in a magical land, and possibly even a hint at his powers.

Notice as well how Will's light magic bares a resemblance to pixie dust from the Disney movie.

Between Henry and Will, we can see both of them as being Peter Pan-like. Henry as Peter as in the one who lures children into his magical fantasy land, or Will as Peter the boy who doesn't want to/has trouble growing up.

Another aspect of Peter Pan is his shadow, which is detachable and seems to have a mind of its own. Which reminds me a lot of this:

Barrie's intentions behind what the shadow represents is pretty vague, although it has been tied to the idea of wholeness, Peter's attachment to the human world as well as duality, wholeness, and lightness within dark and darkness within light. (more to come later)

[resident-rats]

OKAY SO, I have fallen victim to visions of a very specific metaltango au, so I think after Moonlight is done, I’ll post that and THEN I’ll write the Chreon cowboy fic 🫡