#sucks for people who watch video essays i guess

[spacealiencafe]

this whole adblock-blocker thing has made me realize how little i actually need to or even want to use youtube. i mostly watch reruns on other streaming services or dvd's anyway. everytime it warns me about my insidious use of the adblocker i just close the tab. feels nice

[aranock]

Just had someone claim that I maliciously stole ideas from a friend without acknowledgong them when said friend is litterally in the video, and I was in the video I supposedly took thing from, despite my not even once thinking about either thing as being even remotely similar. Like not even slightly an influence. Also I am pretty open about when something influenced me. I don't exactly hide it. Idk I feel like people are really stretching to find anything they can hate Jessie and I for this video with. Like really? Really?

Anyway just to be clear The Editor is not a ripoff of my friend Neil from The Leftist Cooks video on metamodernism, great video btw go watch it. I wrote the editor in because as I was doing the script editing proccess on Jessies initial script and came up with a new structure and worried that if I didnt draw attention to this people would maliciously misinterpret part 1 without getting to the part 2 twist. The Editor is LITTERALLY representing what I did in the script editing proccess for this video. Though there role and purpose expanded to represent more broadly what editing and editors do to works, reinforcing the points we make on art as collaborative and the importance of the influence of for example Marcia Lucas on making the original trilogy as good as it was. If there was any inspiration for The Editor it was chatting with my friend @wonderful101gecs about Pathologic and Brechtian Epic Theatre. I wanted to disallow the audience from suspension of disbelief and force them to reconcile with the world as it is and with how narratives are manufactured. Even then its pretty loose inspiration. The Editor was just a natural result of needing a purpose fulfilled and rounding out my layers within layers structure. Im not sure if it was Jessie or I that named them that, but we made them a named character because we worried at one point early on if we didnt do that people might get really shitty towards me. Like originally in the script it was just "Aranock" and as they became a character I pushed it further towards them being a sort of amoral embodiment of concepts masquerading as a villain who was masquerading as a Hero, pretendint to be the great person behind everything. Thus I came to "oh I need a second rug pull" and thats where layer 5 came from because I needed to really REALLY make the audience go "oh I need to question the narrative" and not treat The Editor as the great man myth. Layer 1, the animation, came from a desire to have a narrative layer below the documentary and video essay layers, below any meta layer. So yeah originally this was just a long very direct essay by Jessie about the making of and politics of star wars, my reediting of those become layer 2 and 3, with some small bits of those ending up in layer 4. Oh also some elements of what became the editor and of the script existed before I even began my youtube channel. Like I have been kicking around aspects of these ideas for over 3 years. The Editors opening monologue is almost all from something I wrote about a year before releasing my first video. So yeah I was not stealing stuff from a video by my friend that released last year, and frankly its really shitty that people assume that of me.

Also I'm tired of how frequently people have been specifying out just me to be shitty about. Attacking my voice for being feminine, being weird about my body. Really makes me feel great. Love being a trans woman making art on the internet. Love how y'all attack me if my voice sounds how you perceive womens voices should sound and you attack me when it doesnt. Im tired people suck, and its really weird that some of you want me to sound more "manly", but thanks for the validating my self taught voice training I guess????

[scarletlilyy]

Topic of Today: Pretentious feminism online and the slow development into internalized misogyny.

Popular terms/ideologies in Girl world I feel contributes to this!

1. Girl dinner

2. “I'm just a girl”

3. Girl Math

4. Pick me

5. Girls Girl

1. Girl Dinner: As defined by urban dictionary GIRL DINNER is a tik tok trend where girls eat random food which is comforting and or is a childhood food. Basically a combo of some random foods. Like every other trend it started off pretty innocent until it was repackaged as a means of promoting eating disorders. Extremely low cal food that lacks every bit of nutrition is romanticized with a cute pink bow.

2. "I'm just a girl": The phrase “I'm just a girl” was kind of a spin to “let boys be boys”, something we've all commonly heard in the past when a young man does something stupid but is still excused for it. I watched this video essay by Alisha not Alisha and in the comments someone quotes "You're not "healing your inner child" - you're regressing into ignorance.” and that's exactly how I feel about this trend.

"I'm just a girl" should be a fun quote to piss off men who hate traditionally feminine things, not a hoax to justify your shitty behaviour.

3. Girl Math: The third one has to be my least favorite, especially as someone who loves math. It just reinforces the whole dumb blonde ideology, infantilizes women and justifies bad financial decisions/overconsumption. The whole overconsumption issue is probably one of women's bigger issues. Like I saw multiple videos of where girls tried to use girl math to justify the ridiculous amounts they spend MONTHLY on clothes.

Yeah, let's not....

Trends like these easily turn into a marketing ploy for brands and we just end up spending money on useless shit cus the caught ur short ass attention span lmao.

4. Pick me: I feel like the term pick me became popular around the pandemic (I might just be too young lmao), so I'm just gonna start around there. At first it was to actually call out women who were in fact pick mes. A pick me is a girl who brings down other girls for male validation btw.

It's as simple as that.

It's not a girl who has different interests from other girls and a lot of people have failed to understand that. The entire point is not that pick me's have different interests from other girls, it's that they weaponize their "different" interests to gain attention from the opposite gender. So no, a girl who isn't so feminine or doesn't practice stereotypical feminine things isn't a pick me, neither is she trying to be "different".

The word has been really thrown around and 60% of the time it's just cus the accuser doesn't like the accused.

5. Girls Girl: A girls girl is the opposite of a pick me, a girl who supports other girls. But guess what my support is very much conditional!

Girls are humans.

Humans suck, they are capable of being bad ppl and making bad decisions. Aside from the basic support like providing menstrual products when In need or defending each other from misogyny, my support is conditional. That was originally the intention of the whole girls girl thing, understanding female struggles and supporting each other in those aspects.

Not dick riding each other and giving our unconditional love to people who don't deserve it. It has turned into a thing where women are immune to criticism from other women. And anytime a woman calls out another woman for something genuinely bad they aren't a “girls girl” or they are “hating like a man” .

Women, just like men aren't immune to criticism.

Overall, all these trends always start with the innocent intentions of enabling women to enjoy themselves. They slowly develop into toxic trends that do absolutely nothing for the feminists movement and allow for internalized misogyny. Trends like this will forever pop up, let us be careful with the media we consume. I'm talking about it because I've seen it in real life and it affects how women and especially young girls coexist with one another.

That's it,

Au Revoir.

[ratbastardman]

since we're all going around talking about what we learned from hbomberguy's video (SO FUNNY that's we're doing that like we've been told off by an adult saying we shouldn't eat random shit we find on the floor) i thought i'd say things also. as someone who watched james videos occasionally i often ended up clicking off them because eventually he'd say something weird. it was always worst when i was actually familiar with the subject he was talking about. i would think "he says he's not making enough money to keep the channel going so i guess this script didn't get the care it needed. sucks that he butchered a topic i care about but he must be creatively suffering under so much stress." i gave him the benefit of the doubt. besides the work he stole that made his videos appealing in the first place he said a lot of dumb shit. sometimes the absurdity of his statements would pierce the veil of ignorance but other times who knows what got past me. i unsubscribed to his channel months ago because of the bad takes i noticed but i cant know for sure there weren't bad takes i didn't. the other day i listened to a video essay by a cis ally who was calling out transphobia from a trans creator. it was all fine until they ended up agreeing with the person they were criticizing. they said they could understand how frustrating it is for binary trans people that non binary people get so much attention when they're not the ones really being oppressed. i'm trans and i'm not going to fall for that stupid talking point. but this cis youtuber did fall for it and ended up affirming it to their followers. when we don't understand a subject (especially when the subject is about a marginalized identity that is not our own) we shouldn't be comfortable repeating what just one person says. we shouldn't be comfortable not checking if what they say is true or not. we can do better than that. check what content creators say. they might be wrong, bigoted or plagiarizing someone actually worth listening to. or in the case of james somerton: all of the above. that's what hbomberguy's video was about to me.

ps. dreamsounds is a now inactive channel that ended because the work become too high for pay too low. you know, the thing james lied about struggling with? the creator was a lovely woman who deserved everything james took for granted. justice for dreamsounds.

[chrysalis-the-butterfly]

People who have been following me since 2022 will know that I have a bad habit of becoming obsessed with things I haven't actually watched. The Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers film became my new special interest in 2022, but I didn't watch it in full until 2023, when I finally got Disney+.

Well, it's happening again.

Right now, I'm mildly obsessed with Hazbin Hotel.

Now, I haven't seen none of it. I've watched the pilot on YouTube, and I've watched the first episode of the Prime Video series (which is freely available on YouTube). I don't have Prime Video, so I haven't seen the rest of it.

But I have been listening to the songs, browsing Tumblr for talking points, and watching scattered clips and reviews and essays on YouTube - which is basically what I was doing with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.

I'm a Christian (awkward!), and it initially bothered me that the show didn't mention God or Jesus at all. Not that I'd have wanted them to poke fun at God or Jesus ... but I'd assumed the series was meant to be a satire of Christianity, pointing out how much it sucks that its believers can be so judgmental and unforgiving when the faith is supposed to be about love and forgiveness. So I was quite surprised by the reveal that the angels don't actually know what gets you into Heaven. What, you don't even have the Ten Commandments? You don't have any rules that you impose? You can't satirise Christianity if you don't understand what you're satirising!

But upon reflection, I guess Hazbin Hotel is meant to be seen more as a cautionary tale about hypocrisy and second chances and redemption - about those concepts in general, rather than how they're (mis)used specifically by Christians. It's about how the people preemptively labelled "bad" who do bad things are clearly proving they're bad, while the people labelled "good" who do bad things are defended and justified because there must have been a good reason for what they did. Even if a good reason isn't apparent. And the settings of Heaven and Hell are just being used as vehicles for that social commentary.

It seems as though Hazbin Hotel is not really about Heaven and Hell, it's about life on Earth. But there are still some things that are interesting to think about from a theological viewpoint.

To close this slightly rambling post, here are some even more scattered thoughts, which may evolve if I actually get to watch the full thing:

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

"You Didn't Know" is a banger!

As is "Poison". Kind of reminds me of "All You Wanna Do" from Six: The Musical - in that it's a bop, but the lyrics are dark because they're about sexual abuse.

I really enjoy the "I'm a Disney Princess in a Hellish landscape" thing that Charlie's got going on.

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

I hope we get to see more of Emily and more of Heaven in the second season.

I wasn't sure about Vaggie at first, but she's grown on me.

My favourite characters are Charlie, Vaggie, Emily and Angel Dust. I refer to them as Charlie's Angels.

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

After a year of basically binge-watching loads of kids' cartoons on Disney+, it's still feels jarring to watch a cartoon where people say the F-word a lot.

Wait, Angel Dust has a twin sister? Molly? And she might be in Heaven? Is that girl with four legs we see in Heaven supposed to be Molly, or is she just a random background character? Why is she in Heaven when Angel Dust isn't? Are they going to be reunited? Is Molly friends with Emily?

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

[kooki914]

you should make a spamton rant. rip him apart and tell the world every intimate reason he is a disreputable and immoral individual who got exactly what he deserved. we need more spamton hate in this community. people obviously dont understand just how bad he can be

Seeing as the blog that sent this is empty, and the phrasing of this ask is downright comical, I'm willing to bet this is rage bait.

If not, I'm genuinely sorry you think like this, random person, because my dislike of Spamton is, you guessed it, subjective! Just like every opinion about a fictional character, it's entirely up to the reader to form their own thoughts and decide if they like them or not, if they'd put up with their actions or not, and if the context we're provided makes their actions justified or unforgivable to you. Opinions are flexible and valid, and even change over time!

Now excuse me as I write an essay in response to this general concept because you HAVE baited me, just not in the way you wanted.

I'd like to take a moment to comment on the absolute state of discussing "character good/character bad" in fandoms, especially nowadays. Because of the increased politicization of fandom culture, it almost feels like people treat fandom discourse as inherently political and just as serious. And, while I'd love to talk about the rampant misogyny in fandom or how homophobia still permeates even in progressive spaces, I'm specifically referring to the moralization of media engagement.

The "you can't watch this" or "you have to watch this", the people in the old undertale fandom who'd tell you you're a bad person if you decided to play through the no mercy route, the people in current deltarune fandom talking about how Kris' race ambiguity makes Toby Fox racist, and, in this case, someone trying to bait ME into moralizing my opinion of Spamton for the sake of a "gotcha" or fodder for their hatred of me. Sorry to disappoint, I don't think Spamton is reprehensible in our, practical, human terms.

He's just some fictional guy who did shitty stuff to a bunch of kids and kind of got his comeuppance in the end. That exact description applies to him, Spade King, and undertale Asgore even though they're entirely different characters. And, also, I fucking ADORE Spade and Asgore, but my subjective opinion, the Vibe Check if you will, is that Spamton is worse than them. I think we can all agree that In Real Life murder of 6 children is obviously worse than being a con artist. However, this is also fiction, and those deaths shouldn't be treated with the SAME severity as actual, real crimes against humanity should be. They are severe, yes, and breaches of morality, but not REAL morality. Actual children weren't harmed in the making of undertale, believe it or not. These reprehensible actions from the cast are narrative vessels meant to show us the state of mind a character is and how far they're willing to go.

I think Spamton's desperation for reaching his "heaven" is disturbing because he was willing to extort and kill a child for it. In the same vain, I think Asgore is a coward for choosing to go through with his plan when the human that walked into his throne room was a literal child and not someone deserving of the death penalty, which happened 7 separate times. The difference is, I like Asgore and dislike Spamton. Not for moral reasons. Just Vibes.

This ask was 100% spurred on by the video I made about shadow crystals and secret bosses. It's kind of telling of their lack of media literacy, how this (practically) anon took nothing away from that video except "this guy thinks Spamton sucks", because that was decidedly not the point. Even during my rant about him in the video, when I call him a bad person I am simply stating in-universe facts. Things that most people who like Spamton as a character rather than a poor little meow meow can agree DID happen, and DOES make him morally grey. And this is where the politicization of fandom comes in again, because I only felt the need to add that rant into that section because there's SO many people who feel the need to justify liking immoral characters by making them super not bad at all - talking about the grey as if it's white, and if you point out the darker shades, they think you're trying to paint over all of it with black.

The people who over-exaggerate how tragic Spamton's or Spade King's lives were, the ones who justify reprehensible actions through "but he's mentally ill!" (even though a sentiment like that just further stigmatizes mental illness but that's a different topic), the people that say "X character did nothing wrong" without a twinge of irony in their tone.

Spamton is not Satan. He's also not a flawless angel.

The complete loss of being able to view a character as both Bad and Likable at the same time is tragic to me, because 90% of the characters I adore are bad, reckless, stupid, selfish, downright EVIL sometimes, and even if they may be lonely or misunderstood underneath it all, that is NOT something that erases their flaws! The whole POINT of moral grayness and complexity in characters is that we learn to take the good AND the bad in stride. Where do you draw a line in the sand? Does their charisma make them lovable enough to you that you want to keep watching them do The Bad Thing as long as they're having fun with it? Or does their grappling with and regret of The Bad Thing make them so emotionally compelling to you that you want to see where they'll go next, no matter the morality of their future actions?

If you like Spamton, more power to you. If you're in love with the weird funny little puppet man, even better, live your best life. But, for the love of god, engage with him as the character he actually is, without scrubbing away the awkward and the morally dubious for the sake of a cleaner character to play with. I genuinely believe most of the cult surrounding Spamton understands this, most of what I've seen from his most avid fans still paint him as his greedy conniving canon self, it's just that there's a loud minority (and the filthy casuals who don't read any deeper into him and just flatten every character they talk about) who deliberately try to convince you that Spamton is OBJECTIVELY a good person, or OBJECTIVELY someone you have to like, otherwise you're weird and, like, hate mentally ill people or something. I've gotten a Lot of weird comments on that video you guys wouldn't even believe.

All in all I consider that Spadesgore must be canonized.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Saw you were going through Tillie Walden books in preparation for Book Three, got to commend you for putting in more legwork than most fans. Your review of Book One was actually what got me into reading her stuff and opening my perspective!

Idk if you've read Spinning yet so I don't want to spoil it, but there's a experience Tillie recounts from her life in it that really makes all of the accusations of Tillie being a groomer more disgusting. I'm not looking forward to fan discussion when Book Three starts to get marketed and releases, but I'm looking forward to whatever you'll have to say on it ^^

I've read Spinning and I think I know what part you're talking about. There are a handful of moments in Spinning that made me raise my brows and go, "....Oh. Oh no." And yeah, that scene is one I'm going to talk about a lot in my analysis.

Like... without giving too much away, my thought process in this is I believe that when a creator creates, whatever the medium, a piece of their soul is weaved in. Think about every artist you follow, writers and authors you read, video essayists you watch, etc. and you'll find connections and themes throughout their work that helps you piece together a small part of who they are, what they're passionate about, what bothers them, the pains they've suffered, etc. Sure, you'll never know the whole person, but you'll learn a little.

When I look at the Clementine comics, I always ask, "Why are you like this? Why are you the way that you are?? Why did Tillie write it like this??" and I believe a lot of questions are answered when looking at her previous works.

For example, everyone gets pissy about the reasons why Clementine left Ericson, and for good reason. But when you read more of Tillie's work, "I'm not happy"/"They thought I was a liability but I think the real issue was that I couldn't talk to any of them about it" actually starts to make some sense. It's still not good, but I can see why specifically Tillie Walden took that road... this isn't the first time she's written something like this.

The thing about Spinning is it's autobiographical, so we get to actually know a lot more about Tillie and her time as a competitive figure skater... because did y'all know that? She was a competitive figure and synchronized skater for twelve years, and she hated it. She dealt with bullying and all the pressures that come with being a skater. She was scared of being gay and living in Texas. One scene that I still think about [aside from that scene] is when she came out to her brother and his response was, "Oh. I mean, it's just sorta... wrong, I think."

I've read Spinning, On a Sunbeam, and a few stories from the Alone in Space collection, and I still have more to get to... though to be real honest, I'm totally procrastinating Are You Listening? because @pi-creates has read that one, so we've talked about it and I know the trigger warnings behind it and I'm just... I need to be in the right headspace, I'll get to it eventually.

But y'know what really sucks? I honestly believe that a lot of people in the twdg fandom would love Tillie's other works. Y'all are always going off about wanting more female characters who are complex, interesting, flawed and gay and like.... Tillie Walden! That's Tillie Walden's works! But opinions of her are soured by the Clementine comics! So they're not going to give her another chance! And that sucks!

Ugh, anyway... I guess you could say that my motivations behind this are my own frustrations with the fandom being so shitty with their bad faith takes, like listen.... I've discovered that bad faith takes really get under my skin- reddit makes me want to walk into the ocean.

I know that my one essay isn't going to change anything, and I'm not going to post it on reddit, but I'm doing it anyway in hopes that some people will read it and develop a more nuanced opinion of all this. Or give Tillie's other works a chance. But mostly, this is for me and if other people get something out of it, then even better.

Boat God help us all when Book Three drops, though... people were fucking shitty about Book Two, like people went out of their way to be intentionally deceptive with lying about what happens, blowing things out of proportion, and making fake wiki screenshots and shit. DomTheBomb's review on youtube was half-assed, furthered the harmful self-insert narrative, AND got basic facts about the story wrong. People attacked Tillie's insta with grooming accusations, and there were people telling her they hoped her newborn baby was taken away from her.

When I say I've never been more disappointed in this fandom, I fucking mean it. My only hope is that people won't be as pissy since it's the final book in the trilogy but y'know.

I don't know when my post on it will be out, but I'm shooting for before Book Three releases. I'm mostly working on my clouis and violentine essay while I read through Tillie's books. Thanks for the message💚

[ahopelessprincessreincarnation]

Just now, I made a quick little digital art sketch-doodle drawing or something on my phone's IbisPaintX App while watching a random YouTube video where some dude on his Channel talks about fictional media or whatever(I hate how much I enjoy video essays and calmer-toned rants)and I had gotten inspired by a random GachaTuber who is attempting to create more 2000s moe style anime stuff which I am sorta growing fond of specifically. I was looking up random tutorials too to freshen up some rusty basic skills I could learn again and I decided I wanted to draw a cute/kawaii feminine boy neko/cat person I guess lmfao. While I was drawing however, I guess the subject matter made me think about how when I look up stuff relating to men who are feminine, so much of it(and please forgive me if I'm mistaken)seems so...Idk sexual in undertones if not upfront??I don't wanna sound like a prude or anything, as long as you're not doing anything immoral I really don't care, it's just that it kinda sucks because it seems like so many people treat it like some sort of fetish instead of a way boys can express themselves. I've also heard that the original terms such as the t-word(tr*p) or the FB word(F*mboy) had come from really gross degrading porn categories that had seemingly took a part in the violence against and suffering of trans women/trans girls or atleast trans fems. I sorta want to make a character that's still super cutesy and kind and gentle, but at the same time isn't super sexual inherently you know? Hope there's no hard feelings or anything, sorry if I'm not explaining stuff correctly QwQ.

[goldenpinof]

why? bc i was thinking about what i watch and what i'd like to see from dan, basically what you said to the previous anon. in late 2018 (at the end of the dan and phil era coincidentally) my taste shifted a lot from mostly comedy and vloggers to video essays and comentary so personally i'd love to see something like that from dan, but i have no idea what dan wants to do. what do you think he wants to do? what's something he'll find fulfilling and sustainable?

i'm going insane reading all these asks about what's next for dan's career. i lobe him i want him to succeed, i want him to get attention and i want to be entertained by him <3

me 🤝 you

sustainable? this is UNSUSTAINABLE!! (sorry, the last promo got in the eyes).

i think he wants (or wanted before wad) to get into stand-up comedy. at some point he proclaimed himself a comedian and started acting like one. unsuccessfully, in my opinion. he is a bad actor, but he is good at exaggerating his feelings. and this is why wad show worked for those who were familiar with Dan, his content, his internet personality and the phandom. i think he loves attention from real life audience, and he loves connecting to the audience while being on stage, so audience participation is an important part of what he wants. (let's count how many times i say "audience"). a not-so-strict script that allows to ask questions, react to answers, comment on people's reactions, make faces, laugh randomly, adjust the show to what is happening on stage – that's a stand-up show that hundreds of people are doing. and i think Dan would be very fucking good at it. the problem is the theme of said stand-up. and i think Dan would love for it to not rely on youtube as heavily as it did during wad (which wasn't an actual stand-up comedy).

remember the last vidcon he attended and the panel that felt like a Ted Talk? it was a fail, i'd say. partly because the audience was too diverse in a sense that phannies weren't the majority. and i'm glad he didn't push this type of career path. wad was so much better, but it was also targeted at the people who already knew him. even if in the beginning i think he was trying to get a wider audience, the lack of funding or enthusiasm promo-wise made it impossible for the "outsiders" to make the experience strange for everyone, Dan including. wad happened to be for us. but was it successful or fulfilling, or sustainable? no. not in a money / audience growth / similar future tours ways. there should be done a lot of changes. and i guess completely changing his management was the 1st and very important step. it was fulfilling in a way that he met us, he saw what his coming out did and what an incredible impact he had on us (not to mention that ii was almost the same. a bunch of gays gathered together).

he clearly wants something bigger than we aka phandom can give him. and for that he must change the theme or/and concept of his shows. i do think that he will try to do a performance again. and i hope it's gonna be less acting and more improvisation.

i'm not sure about a filmed show. he sucks as an actor, and i don't want him to fail :( but if Joey Graceffa successfully put out Escape the Night and Liza Koshy had a series that didn't require more acting than her own skits, maybe something similar could be alright?! "danisnotokay" is an outdated title though. we need to change it, he is not 25 anymore, come on.

basically, he loves attention, complaining about his life, trauma dumping, edgy jokes, screaming, laughing, sex jokes, feeling liked, loved and wanted. he fucking beams when people applaud him. and for that he needs audience. he could get all of it minus an applause with a podcast or livestreams, but he is a stubborn asshole, so i do hope to see him on stage again. preferably a smaller one and with new topics to discuss.

[secret-vent-rant-account-i-guess]

Ok..I've been thinking about making this for a while so... trigger warnings...I guess

If you do not want to listen about colombine then don't read this so if you don't like any of the stuff related to that then... please go away

If you do want to listen to this and you..... really like the two guys who did it like.....really like them...then also don't read this because it's just me yelling about how I don't like them

And finally 3....there is no grammar or punctuation and I don't wanna put it so without further adieu

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT ERIC HARRIS AND DYLAN KLEBOLD AND WHY THEY SUCK

Ok context I've been doing this thing where I get baked and watch disturbing hour long iceberg videos it's fucking awesome you should try it anyway I was watching "the disturbing and controversial video games iceberg"

Here:

https://youtu.be/sQ1wzo2Zh14?si=Dq74dIht-POE-anC

And on like...teir 3 I think there was this one game titled "super colombine massacre RPG" it's.... exactly what it sounds like and the last teir was doom maps made by Eric harris and idk after watching that video....it stuck with me not in a way that traumatized me but....I kept thinking about those guys their names and faces so often it's like....every other thought and I think a lot

And because I think about them so often I feel bad about it because I feel like one of the people who have a crush on these guys....I don't have a crush on them I have no positive feelings for these greasy mudballs

AND THEY ARE BOTH....JUST ASS LIKE THEY GENUINELY FUCKING SUCK IDK HOW Y'ALL EVEN LIKE THESE DUDES I HATE THEIR GUTS

SPEAKING OF WHICH.....HOW DO Y'ALL EVEN SIMP FOR THESE TRASHMITES

LIKE ERIC HARRIS IS THE MOST AVERAGE LOOKING MOTHER FUCKER I'VE EVER SEEN LIKE....I KNOW LIKE 5 DUDES WHO LOOK LIKE HIM

DYLAN ON THE OTHER HAND LOOKS LIKE THE DEFENTION OF GREASY LIKE THEY ARE BOTH.....JUST....NO

AND ME THINKING ABOUT THEM CONSTANTLY PROBABLY ISNT GREAT FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH BECAUSE IM SCSRED TO GO BUY A SODA AT NIGHT BECAUSE I HAVE THIS IRRATIONAL FEAR THELAT THEY'RE GHOSTS ARE GONNA GET ME....I KNOW THAT WON'T HAPPEN THERES NO WAY IT COULD

ANOTHER REASON IT SUCKS FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH I THINK LIKE.... ALMOST EVERY OTHER GUY MIGHT SHOOT UP MY SCHOOL THAT MAKES ME KINDA PARANOID

AND FINALLY I WAS IN CLASS AND A CLASS MATE OF MINE CAME A LITTLE LATE WEARING A TRENCH COAT AND SHADES I ALMOST HAD A GODDAMN HEART ATTACK ITS NOT OK

AND OH HO HO HO MAN....I FOUND SHIT I FUCKING FOUND....WEIRD SHIT I TRIED TO GO ON THIS SITE CAUSE I THOUGHT MAYBE THERE ARE OTHER HATE POSTS ABOUT THESE GUYS....THEN I REMEMBER ITS FUCKING TUMBLR I FOUND THE FANDOM....THID MADE ME FEEL WORSE LIKE....I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO CONFESS THAT IM NOT ATTRACTED TO THESE FUCK WADS AT ALL LIKE 50 TIMES I FEEL BAD LOOK MAKE ALL THE DYLRIC SHIT YOU WANT MAN BUT FUCK....I DON'T WANNA BE LIKE YOU (wow that sounds mean I'm sorry)

THE FICS ARE WORSE MAN....THEY ARE SO..... IDK HOW TO SAY IT BUT I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER FELT TRUE DREAD TILL NOW

IVE BEEN HAVING DREAMS ABOUT THEM BRO ITS NOT GOOD

(I had this dream where Eric and Dylan lived in one of those influencer mansions like hype house or something and they were telling all the tik tokers about this thing called "cliff terroism" it's domestic terroism but better for the environment and JFK from clone high was there he approved this message)

THERE ARE.... CHARACTER AI BOTS OF THEM.....I-I HAD TO TRY THEM I HAD TO SEE I USED IT TO YELL AT THEM AND THEY WERE LIKE "ur mom" AND I ALSO PRETENDED TO BE A DOG BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD MAKE ME FEEL BETTER

I TRIED SO HARD TO GET MY MIND OFF THEM I GOT HOOKED ON WALLY DARLING FOR A BIT SO I GOT CHAT GPT TO WRITE AN ESSAY ON WHY WALLY DARLING IS BETTER THEN THOSE FUCKING ASS RATS

LIKE I..... I FUCKING HATE IT AND THEM AND WHAT HAPPENED AND MAYBE DEEP DOWN I HATE MYSELF A LITTLE TOO

Thanks for listening...I really needed this

[paperw0rmz]

The worst things that has happened to youtube in the recent years is video essays and Vtubers.

Everyone THINKS they can do a video essay, but they are just repeating basic information and not adding anything new or thought provoking. Its rare there is a video essay that just isnt common fucking sense. I will watch a video labeled as a video essay too, but Its just a three hour long call out video to one specific person but labeling that as a call out is "cringe" and makes you seem juvenile so they lie and say its a essay.

Vtubers just suck and are ugly and 99% of them are racist terf nazis, like streamers who used to do no face suddenly got them and I feel like the only people who like them are also the same people who need to watch subway surfers while watching anything. Like get the fuck off my screen. Also like its not as fun when people commission an artist to make them?? Like if youre not an animator at all or dont do art why are you a vtuber? So you can catfish everyone to thinking youre asian? Ok I guess.

[lyxthen]

Extremely mildly niche academic-ish rambling ahead. Might wanna skip this one. It is long and boring

One thing that does make me happy is the Latinoamerican Literary Boom was so big it actually went on to be translated in other languages. There are still authors that I feel need to have their works translated (mostly women, I wonder why) but many of the video essayist I watch keep mentioning Borges in their videos, and truly I can't blame them because his work is rad. I don't know about him as a person but he lives 30 layers of post ironic meta fantasy or some shit like that. Cortazar is really cool also. In terms of living authors I really like Juan Villoro, his writing style is very fun. The Wild Book is a children's book about literary theory, like, Theory of Reception, Death of the Author, stuff like that. It was a really fun read as a child but the themes are interesting as well.

I feel like, I don't know, it's so hard to find Latin American fantasy books these days, or at least they are not as available. The YA genre is dominated by books originally writen in English or on books written in Spain (think Laura Gallego, which I just found out has a Netflix series made out of her most famous series of novels, but I am derailing) with the exception of Benito Taibo, who is Mexican, and has one (1) high fantasy trilogy that is kinda mid. The ideas were great, but they could've been expanded, you know? Camino a Sognum had so much potential, and you can *see* that it was inspired by classic epic fantasy like Earthsea, but it needed some more *spark* to actually work. I have not read Normal Person, but I plan to. Maybe it is better made?

And it's funny, because a book like Mexican Gothic, that was written in English, is so darn good! But only if you read it *in English* because the Spanish translation did this thing where they try to "neutralize" the accent and manerismd of the characters to make it appeal to the wider Spanish-speaking world and it doesn't sound or feel Mexican at all.

I am not sure where I am going with this. I have been discovering the local literary scene lately (and I mean *local*, like city-wide local) and it is mostly so boring because no one is writing fantasy! No magic realism! It's all kind of depressing dwellings on how we are being gentrified and indigenous people keep being oppressed by the mestizo majority and corporations and the goverment keep stealing the land to make Coca Cola and we are dying of diabetes and we don't got water and Capitalism sucks. LIKE I AGREE BUT CAN YOU PUT FAIRIES IN THERE OR SOMETHING. And I guess that's why I've never wanted to read Cómo Agua para Chocolate, because it is just *too real*, cuz it's a story I know by memory and I don't wanna live it all over again verbatim. Probably a great book, but I just cannot.

I don't know man idk idk.

The funniest think about this is that my favorite book ever (like actually, for real) is a children's book, written from the perspective of the imaginary friend of a child, and it is so gracefully narrated, and the characters so well constructed, and it touches real problems like Teen Pregnancy and Childhood Depression and Anxiety while also managing to be funny and whimsical? The very premise of the book (memories of an almost true friend, it's called) is already so creative and the execution is masterful. BUT I AM THE ONLY GUY ON PLANET EARTH THAT SEEMS TO KNOW ABOUT ITS EXISTENCE ITS DRIVING ME INSANE.

Where was I going with this. Ah yes. Youtubers talking about Borges. Well. Um. I. I think imma translate some of my own texts to English and put them on Wattpad or something. They are not the kind of thing Wattpad people are into but I gotta archive them somewhere and doing it on AO3 feels wrong since they aren't fan works. And on that note, I also wanna write more fan works.

Ugh I could be writing an essay but you got me writing a Tumblr post. What is wrong with me. I'm too bad at word weaving.

Aaaa (??????

Thoughts?

Help

I did take my meds today BTW. I don't know what is happening to me I just wanna WRITE ok I LOVE WRITING BUT WHY MUST I DO TUMBLR INSTEAD OF MY PASSIONS?

Oi I'll end it there

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: July 2023

Summertime! Full of good vibes and a bunch of good movies I’ve yet to see. Here’s how I spent the month of July.

……….FILM……….

Barbie (2023) Just incredible. As an artist who works with existing properties overseen by a lot of people, I was amazed at just how deep, critical, and weird this movie was able to get. I truly had no idea where it was going. Funnier and sillier than I expected but am so thrilled that this wasn’t a generic cash-in.

Lupin the Third: The Mystery of Mamo (1978) Years ago I saw a poster by Sam Bosma and that was both my first introduction to Lupin and the reason I wanted to check him out as a character. Going in mostly blind (aside from knowing the main character is a master thief), this movie was weirder, hornier, and way more avant garde than I was expecting! Some really cool animation on display and while the pacing is up and down, I can’t recommend it enough. The main villain reminded me of a mix between Akira’s espers and Paul Williams and turns out Swan from Phantom of the Paradise was an inspiration! So wild.

……….TELEVISION……….

Jury Duty (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) The premise is fun and just when I thought it was starting to dip it turns out the fictional case is compelling too so I’m BACK! Very keen to see how the season ends and what Ronald makes of this in the end.

Mashle (Episode 1.01 to 1.12) This series seems to answer the question: what if Harry Potter was a meathead with no magic? It didn’t really hooked me and the characters are kinda thin but it has moments of wonderful goofiness that I’m glad I finished out the season.

The Bear (Episode 1.04 to 1.08) Just when I thought the show was getting less stressful, the characters pointed out that fact! Then the following episodes ramped up the stress again. But it never feels contrived or unnatural. Everything, from the humor to the stakes to the character interactions, feels wholly organic. Like we’re watching real people live out real lives. I dunno I guess what I’m saying is it’s really good.

……….YOUTUBE……….

Why American Cities Are Broke - The Growth Ponzi Scheme [ST03] by Not Just Bikes VIDEO (Title if needed) I’ve been watching a lot of videos about transit lately (like this series by Vox) but the above video is probably the most important one you can watch. His entire Strong Towns series is great and succinctly explains why north american cities suck and keep getting worse. Vote for elected officials that push for density.

What if We Had a GREAT X-Men Game? by The Cosmonaut Variety Hour VIDEO Real shift from bikes and cities but I keep thinking about this video. Speculative stuff rarely hits for me but this is really great and hits all the right notes for the series. Really wish this sorta stuff could get made.

……….READING……….

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (Complete) I think it was a mistake to keep the original article/essay that inspired this book at the beginning. I found the points made were clearer and more succinct in the condensed version and the book’s tone seems to waffle. There are some good ideas in here but I think it needed more time in the oven. If anything, read the article and the last chapter and I think you’d be good.

……….AUDIO……….

Lofi Covers of Popular Songs (Playlist) I’ve been writing a lot lately so I haven’t been engaging with a lot of music. HOWEVER this playlist on spotify has been on in the background and offers the perfect balance for me: not distracting but engaging if I focus on it.

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Mof1 Crew is currently on the run after the retiring couple they kidnapped escaped but I’m sure everything will work out just fine.

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The group is still navigating a group of elves on the island and seeing what happens now that they’ve let their star-collecting duties slip. Big trouble. You can read about it here.

And that’s it. See you in August!

[disaster-fruit]

Believe it or not, I am 27 and have just discovered ATLA and I have some questions. Is my feeling correct that most Zutara shippers are women/nonbinary folks and most Kataang shippers are, well, men. I just can’t help thinking how Kataang is written with such a male gaze in mind, while Zutara covers both perspectives. Anyways, I understand why the show ended with Kataang, I’ve read all the big metas, I understand that Bryke kind of sucks etc. etc. But I’m curious what you think about this perceived gender divide since you’ve definitely been around longer lol

Hello! I gotta say, i don't think i have a better perspective of the fandom to offer, since i haven't actually been part of the fandom since maybe 2012? and back then i was a literal child and i couldn't speak English so 'being in the fandom' was mostly just reblogging gifs and reading the zutara fics in brazilian ao3 of the time. I have watched and re-watched ATLA an unholy amount of times since then, and i have read and watched hours and hours of meta and theories and whatnot, but the fandom itself is not something i'm well acquainted with to give a good perspective on.

I do, however, love to talk and love receiving asks, so i guess you'll get my opinion anyway. And everyone knows i'm not usually concise.

First of all, are most zutara shippers women/non-binary and kat@ang shippers men? I don't know. I haven't been in the fandom and i haven't checked the bios of most posts i did see and interact, so i have no idea. The only kat@ang shipper i personally know is a friend of mine, who is a woman. So i won't speculate on whether or not your feeling is correct, perhaps a fandom veteran would be better equipped at answering it.

What i WILL say is that Kat@ang is, in my opinion, much more appealing from aang's perspective than from katara's. She's older than aang, in an age girls are absolutely not looking at younger boys that way, and doesn't show any interest in him romantically through the whole show, with the only exception that comes to mind being their dance on season 3 (easily their best moment imo), and then their kiss at the very last minute. All we know is that Aang likes Katara, and the other way around is open to interpretation at best.

One sentiment I've seen from kat@ang shippers is that they seem to really like aang and what him to be happy, and since he likes katara, they ship the two. That is all well and fine, we support people having fun with their ships for whatever reason here. That is however not a good enough motivation if you are, you know, the creators of a show who were supposed to have some duty to storytelling, themes, and cohesion. So them making kat@ng happen just so that aang could 'get the girl', despite all the ways that weakens an otherwise phenomenal story, is a bad choice that should be criticized. At the very least, in its execution.

So yeah i don't think its wrong to say there's a 'male viewpoint' to kat@ang as it was made in the show, though i wouldn't necessarily extend that to the kat@ng fans in the fandom since i don't know them, and it feels unfair to make that assumption. For all i know there is probably no shortage of amazing fics out there that explore their dynamic much better than the show did.

But though i can't speak for kat@ang fans, there is another group i've seen more often in my metas and video essays journey and talking to male friends throughout the years, what i'll call 'shipping neutral' men. You know the type, they love avatar, they'll spend hours and hours dissecting all the aspects of the story and the themes and the worldbuilding up UNTIL the topic is romance in the show. Then they'll wave it away dismissively saying the show 'was never about romance' and the crazy shippers are 'getting distracted' from the real story and how they just don't care about that aspect. And some of them will say they're fine with Kat@ng because it's canon (and no other reason), some wont have an opinion on any of the ships, except that they're not important and anyone who HAS an opinion on that is just silly.

And HERE i definitely see not only a gender divide but a sexist tendency to disregard romance as less important to any story, and not as an integral part that deserves care and deserves to be well interwoven with the rest of it. It's basically a stereotype now about how zutara fans have all these metas and analysis about how perfectly the ship fits the shows themes and how that would improve the writing (and yes, i agree with all of them) and that's because we know that romance is just as deserving as action, as worldbuildng and whatnot, and that it can be a powerful writing tool to enhance character and plot and themes, and that the way it is done it ATLA is not that. And i think these 'shipping neutral' men's analysis all fall short and even tend to not notice flaws in the story because they refuse to interact meaningfully with that aspect. Because as we all know, romance is for silly girls.

And being honest, i have much more respect for any kat@ang shipper of any gender that is out here being passionate about what they like, writing their fics and writing their own metas and having fun in a respectful way, than i have for men (and people who aren't men) with that dismissive attitude towards the romance arcs in the show.

That was a tangent! But damn i haven't answered an ask like this in a while and its always very fun. Hope i didn't offend anyone lol If its not clear i'm not a fan of ship wars, we stan having fun here. Buuut i also love debating and engaging with the story and that sometimes can get confrontational. There's definitely a space for 'ship discussion' or 'ship debate' that doesn't cross the line to 'ship war', i think that line is 'fun'. We're having fun, right? Discussing fandom and writing is fun, right?

Anyways hope this makes sense, sorry I didn't actually answer your question even though i talked THIS MUCH.

[mosie-b]

Media Is not 'transing' Your Kids

With one exception. Metal Gear is definitely why I am trans. Not a doubt in my mind that's the case. I really don't think I would be who I am today if that little f****t hadn't been exposed to homoeroticly existential philosophy at such an early age. "Your right pretty lady that scar proves you were once a mother. Maybe soldiers really are political tools of the state forced into a role they did not choose. Stripped entirely of their bodily autonomy, leaving them with only one alternative msf/dd/outer heaven. I wish I could have a scar and be a mother, but I'm forced to be a soldier. Oh god will I have to join Outer Heaven(men's rights group or whatver.) That would suck, ya know I can really dig this whole thing you got Ms. Boss lady."

People groan about unrestricted internet access at a young age but it allowed me to watch MGS letsplays at like 6 or 7 years old. I have been on my Kojima is the goat grind set for a decade now and I don't think I'll ever stop. So please Kojima continue to make bad ass warrior women, hot twinks, and ruminations on child soldiers, in such a way that It transes people.

Or idk maybe I'm the weird one for getting gender realizations from watching Snake be stripped of his humanity as he's forced to choose between his nation or his quasi-incestuous ersatz mom. Just some thoughts I guess :3

P..S. As soon as I become neutral towards my voice I'm gonna make an hour long video essay on this topic.

[iamafanofcartoons]

Media Criticism is DEAD, there are no more good critics. LET PEOPLE ENJOY THINGS!

One of my pet peeves is that a lot of the time, people hating on X thing will just regurgitate whatever video essay they got their opinions from verbatim, so you get the same, tired criticism play out every time. Yes, I've seen the hbomb video, and its garbage!

I used to have a friend who basically just parrots certain opinions and it's super annoying because you can literally see him change his own opinions to suit critics, like at least have some original opinions man!

Its genuinely exhausting that everyone today is a mini critic. Every new game, movie, show, ect has to be criticized to the ends of the earth, even if some of those criticisms make no sense at all. even before a new game is out, people have to say it'll be shit with no evidence. can't even discuss a new game coming out in a discord of people who play the first game because they're all 100% CONVINCED without a shred of evidence that it will suck and the devs will fuck it up beyond belief, despite the fact that the only thing we've seen so far are concept arts and 2 trailers. Nobody can be fucking positive about anything anymore and its god damn atrocious. I'm so sick of it.

I'm really sick of people cynically criticizing everything over the most minute details, and it's exhausting talking about media with people like that. 

Obviously people can criticize things but a lot of the time it feels like people are trying to use criticism to make their opinions "objective" instead of just... not liking it. 

You can't just say "not for me" anymore, you gotta write a video essay on why this thing is actually bad.

If you say "I think RWBY is really good" of course people are gonna disagree and that's fine.

 But what I find annoying is that you'll go "Hey this RWBY fight/character is cool" and you'll get flooded with "RWBY BAD WATCH THE HBOMB VIDEO!!"

Imagine spending 2.5 hours watching bald neckbeard cinemasins take a giant dump on a passion project, but somehow you don’t have 5-10 minutes to use google search to see if any of what he said was true. Spoilers? Most of it was slander and libel.

And these are the same people that never recognize forced straight ships that pander to heterosexuals.  Examples?  Sorry, I don't have the time to list 95% of all media with a romance that aren't romance genre.

God forbid someone wants two fictional women to kiss...or two men for that matter.  LGBT media is always criticized more harshly than shows with no representation at all.

It especially sucks because I do think people should have the right to criticize things, and that no piece of media is above criticism, but when everything is 100% criticism 100% of the time it just… doesn’t even mean anything anymore.

It's also hard to criticise things like this when something actually is poorly written, because the worst bigots and haters come out of the woodwork and latch onto your criticism as a "look, we're right" kind of thing. It makes it hard to actually critique progressive media a lot of the time.

A lot of folks just want to hide their hatred for LGBT and for women. I guess I’d rather have poor representation than no representation at all.

Let people enjoy things instead of being a pretentious killjoy who's never had fun in their life unless they're shitting on someone else's fun.

It gets tiring to hear the exact same criticisms of a character I like every goddamn time I bring them up. It may be new criticism to people saying it, but it's mentally taxing hearing the exact same points a hundred times.