For a second I didn’t realize it meant “high” as in a stoner–I thought “High Geologist” was like a rank of geologist or something and he was insulted you would challenge him to naming stones
I don't understand Potterheads. Why do they always freak out so badly over the idea that they can't enjoy Wizard book anymore?
A lot of pop culture commentary after the break. But the short version is that it's not enough for them to just watch their crappy wizard show and have people leave them alone about it, they want it to still be a good thing.
The thing about Harry Potter is that it wasn't just a popular series of books. It wasn't "A Song of Ice and Fire" or "The Hunger Games" popular. It was Pokemania popular.
It's hard to get people who are irony-poisoned to understand this, but back in the 90's and early 2000's, Harry Potter was massively celebrated. It was the only "good" thing you could be really into as a millennial kid without getting sneered at by every adult around you because it was literature. It wasn't a cartoon, anime or video game. It wasn't Pokemon or Sailor Moon, or some other dumb thing your parents didn't understand.
It was reading. It was the series that was teaching kids to love reading.
Just look at how thick Order of the Phoenix is
People were watching their nine year old children pick that up and finish it in a week. People really thought this was going to revive the love of reading that English class was trying to slowly and painfully euthanize.
What this meant is you got Good Girl and Good Boy points for being into Harry Potter. This was the positive fandom to be in if you wanted to make your teachers happy because they thought it would make kids love reading again.
Of course, kids really into Harry Potter generally didn't read anything else. I have a lot of theories as to why, but that's a whole other post.
Also, Harry Potter was often associated with being progressive. Not for any actually progressive merits but because a lot of the right-wing really hated it because it had witchcraft in it. You can kinda see why millennial progressiveness for a long time was "make the right mad" as opposed to actually doing anything progressive.
So Harry Potter was considered this massively positive thing for a very long time. And when products are associated with leftism, people tie their leftism into it and react extremely badly when it gets re-examined and has that Certified Positive sticker taken away.
Now this thing is no longer positive or normal. And that really breaks the brains of a lot of people of every generation. Boomers do this, Gen X does this, Zoomers' entire generational identity is this, there's always something. You have to press 1 for English.
It's not enough for them to be able to live the way they want, they also want to feel normal. They want to walk around and see that most other people have made the choice that they made. And if over time they see their personal preference has become less popular, they interpret that as a criticism of themselves.
This is why diehard Steven Universe fans are such angry, vicious, bitter little cocksuckers. Because instead of being "normal" to like a universally beloved cartoon, they're now "weird" for being obsessed with a show that most people moved on from the instant it ended.
This is why Zoomers are losing their mind over Gen Alpha embracing absurdism, because their entire identity is in being "hip young and cool" and they're realizing how short-lived that position in pop culture is.
This is why some people are obsessed with who is "out of touch" or "off base" or who is a "weirdo." This is the attitude behind anyone who does drama content or goes on Kiwi Farms. Deep social outcasts who desperately need someone they can imagine is worse so they can feel normal.
Being an outcast is very scary to someone who has always been a vicious little jizzrag to outcasts.
Now I need to be clear: This is not a defense of any of this. You can always choose not to be like this. This obsession with being normal and not being "weird" is the same thing as FOMO: This is a personal failing brought on by deep emotional immaturity and there is no cure for it other than to get over yourself.
You can't blame capitalism or propaganda for this, YOU are the one who has refused to grow up and learn to mind your own business and you think everyone else is as emotionally stunted and bitchy as you are.
TL;DR - It's not enough to just enjoy their mediocre crap quietly, they desperately need it to still be a good and normal thing.
I'd add that some of the attachment comes from the fandom space and community itself.
Harry Potter is "baby's first fanfiction". For all the faults of the books and the world, they do provide a good sandbox for writers, whether contained to the world or crossing over with some other fandom. And due to the popularity of the books, a fanfiction was guaranteed to get read, no matter the quality.
Fanfiction.net was released the same year as Chamber of Secrets, so the rise of fanfiction happened alongside the release of the franchise. (And Tumblr was released the same year as Deathly Hallows.)
There are plenty of stories of couples or lifelong friends finding each other through being in the Harry Potter fandom.
Art for my fic, More Mecha than Man:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/76081436/chapters/199081441
In the story, Robert dies as a kid and Robbie uploads his consciousness to a computer so that his son can continue to exist in robot form.
V1 is the body that Robert has during his time as Mecha Man and the events of Dispatch, which is then dismantled beyond repair by Shroud. So, Royd builds V2 for Robert's new body, which gives him a wider range of movement compared to V1.
Hi! I stumbled across your tumblr and wanted to thank you for kickstarting my writing hobby,
About 2 years ago i wanted to write a romance story about two of my female ocs, but i fretted a lot about "Making it perfect" and got a bunch of (Frankly really bad in hindsight) advice from my friends, then i watched your glass of water about golden rules for writing LGBTQ+ rep and what you said at the end really stuck with me, about how it's easy and most people just don't commit. So i just kinda went for it instead of hesitating anymore,
I wrote the entire thing over a month, and was happier than I'd ever been with anything else i wrote before, and fast forward to now, i write almost daily and have writen 4 more soft romances to go along with it!
I'm not good at transitioning to conclusions, so: Thank you, without you i could be hesitating this very day, and i wouldn't have found how much i like writing gooey romances. Hope you're doing well!
I decided that I wanted to give one of the main characters in my fanfiction a girlfriend, but none of the remaining canon female characters would have fit. At first, I thought that I wouldn't have enough time to establish an OC, build up enough of a relationship between the two for them to start dating, and then have a focus on that relationship. But then I remembered your advice about things not being complicated.
It helped me realise that people hook up based on looks and a brief interaction and then work out if they're good for each other all the time. So, I did that. I had the main character and OC meet and then set up a date purely because they found each other attractive and then went from there.
And I had so much fun writing the relationship. I thought it'd be hard because I'd never done it before and I don't like romance, but the words just flowed out of me with those two. And despite one of them being an OC, I got a lot of praise for the relationship (though how much of that praise is because the canon character is a contentious fan-favourite, I don't know).
Funnily enough, one of the comments I got praised my original pairing but critiqued the canon straight pairing I wrote as not having enough of a reason that the female character would want to date the male character.
I can't help but think about how well MirrorMask would fit into the world of Clair Obscure.
The film is more in line with dreams and has one of those "was it real or all a dream" sort of narratives, the theme mattering more than the logic. But taken literally, it's a story about a girl who is pulled into the world of her own drawings, which are a series of sketches pieced together on her bedroom wall.
There's nothing in Clair Obscure that explicitly states that a Painting has to be done on a canvas. So, a Painting existing in a series of sketches that can be continuously added to, moved around or individually destroyed, with the world being more dreamlike and random as a result is interesting.
And if that would work, then could a Painting be created inside a sketch book, not limited to just one page?
I'm convinced this this is canonical to Robert's childhood.
I can even imagine Robert getting drunk and saying, "Dad used to shoot me to get me used to bad guys pointing guns at me."
Everyone: Looking at him in shock and horror.
Robert: "I wore a bullet-proof vest."
I've found some options for you on Ebay that aren't perfect matches but are close enough.
One is from Ebay and called "VTG 50s Stunning Caribbean Blue Demask Fabric Rayon-Ctn *Baroque Victorian Roses".
And the Seller, Textile Plaza, has a couple of options.
In general, look for vintage on Ebay, and check out any vintage shops and second-hand shops, sometimes you'll get fabric or cushion covers matching what you need.
Failing that, you could buy some velvet and use a mini-iron or razor to create the pattern you want in the velvet.
I'm not sure if I can help you, I've never been a picky eater and oftentimes the attitudes of picky eaters bewilders me. I have seen some picky eaters approach strange food like it might actually bite them, and I have no idea what they're so afraid of. I've had exes talk about food having a strange texture and I'm like "What the fuck are you talking about?"
I genuinely have no idea what any of that is supposed to mean. It's like if someone told me the temperature was sour.
It's hard to give someone advice when I can't replicate their results.
Though in my experience, picky eaters almost always end up being people who had food shoved down their throat, rather angrily, and so have a lot of baggage around unfamiliar food. That was the case with my sister. She had a picky streak when she was little, and our parents absolutely laid into her over it. I'm talking three, four, five years old. So what should have ended at six or seven continued on until she was 11.
Conversely, I was often ravenously hungry all the time. Combination of small portions and a dangerously high metabolism that wasn't corrected until I went on HRT. So being picky never registered with me as something to do, because I was too hungry to care what most things tasted like.
For me, my food aversion seems to come from my body screaming at me that certain textures aren't food, so swallowing becomes hard, which then leads to my gag reflex kicking in. And it's the same for taste, even if the taste is just meh to me, swallowing becomes a struggle.
Things like porridge will feel like they're clogging the back of my throat. So, eating it takes too long.
Or, sometimes, I can be eating something just fine, but then something will happen to make it hard to swallow. Sometimes it can be an abrupt change in texture, like eating a piece of meat and suddenly encountering a bit of gristle. And sometimes I can be fine eating the first half of a banana, but then towards the end it suddenly becomes a struggle for seemingly no reason.
I try to expand my list of safe foods, so that I'm eating healthier and not eating the same meals all the time. But it can be discouraging to cook a meal only to discover I can't eat more than a few bites, not to mention the cost. (Thankfully, I have a friend I can give the rejected food to, so it doesn't go to waste)
As for advice on overcoming it, I don't have much other than trying new things.
But for eating healthier. Smoothies are a good way to get in vitamins that I wouldn't otherwise get as I struggle to eat those fruits on their own. Though it did take a bit to find a smoothie combo that I liked. And also, while I don't like things like spinach or mushrooms on their own, I can eat them if they're shredded and mixed in with another dish, like bolognaise.
After seeing the ending of LN3 and how Alone was a construct created by and sustained by Low in the Nowhere, I came up with this idea.
The basic premise would be that after the events of Clair Obscure, Alicia gets lured into the Nowhere (lets just ignore that she's likely too old to be one of the small children running around). And, like Low, a person is brought into existence for her. But as Alicia's wish is to have her brother back, with no clear thought on which one exactly, she gets both with a timeshare on a single body.
As all survivors in the Nowhere seem to have some form of face covering, even if it's only their hair, I gave Gustave/Verso a mask based on the mimes. Which totally isn't just so I can avoid the topic of their facial hair and allow them to be ambiguously aged.
Alica still has all her burns, which she now covers with a combination of her hair and a scarf that's based on one that my mum made for me.
Gustave doesn't get his prosthetic here since it doesn't fit with the world, so he only has one arm, which sets him apart from Verso. Though, with how the mannequin hands at the hospital could function, it wouldn't be too far for Gustave to be able to construct himself a functional prosthetic out of mannequin scraps.
Verso doesn't have the white in his hair since Alicia wants her actual brother, not the painted version, though the painted version still sneaks his way in with the clothes.
...
Theoretical gameplay wise, Alicia would be small and light, while Gustave/Verso (who I'm going to call Lost for ease of writing) would be bigger and strong.
Alicia can go into tunnels too small for Lost to go through and traverse over surfaces or ropes that Lost would break through with his weight. While Lost can reach things that Alicia can't and activate switches/move items that Alicia doesn't have the weight or strength to move.
Working together, Lost can lift Alicia onto his shoulders to reach even higher objects or give her a boost up over things so that she can then create a path for him.
As you can see, Alicia uses a broken embroidery scissor as a makeshift sword. She can use it to briefly fend off smaller enemies, cut ropes, and stab at the fingers of reaching hands.
I don't now for sure what Lost would have. Maybe the other half of the scissors. maybe a large needle, maybe he's the one who carries the light source of the game, etc.
Wait you complain about Davis, who is the heart of the 02 team and gave Ken a chance after his redemption, compared to Yolei and Cody? Cody, who if he was a spice, he’d be flour?!
Davis, who is the heart of the 02 team
ANYONE put in the protagonist's seat could have been the heart of the 02 Team.
See, Digimon does this really asinine thing where this a stark divide between the characters who are interesting, and the characters who get focused on the most.
Davis as a character has just never been interesting. He's the "heart" of the team only so far as the plot requires him to be, and he's only in this role because of the fact that Digimon was trying to be an anthology series. So new lead character, give him the goggles, and then a ton of authorial fiat to add on top of it.
His defining character moment is when Tai keeps yelling at him to "have courage" to save a better character who is sitting in the path of a death machine and spending 30 seconds decidedly NOT GETTING OUT OF THE WAY.
I can't fully articulate how much every other character has to have their ankles chained in order for Davis to work.
Me and Mikaila have said for a while that Kari should have gotten the goggles. Not just because she's one of our favourite characters, but because her entire character arc is being overly dependent on her brother to pull her out of trouble. Having Tai pass HER the 'mantle' of leadership and then watch her try and deal with it would have been *chef's kiss*. It would have been perfect for an arc of increasing independence that otherwise has to pass by understated for three seasons.
But Digimon's writers don't like women. I mean this same season they introduced Yolei, who is as much of a tech whiz as Izzy, and then in the epilogue she's a housewife.
So they have to contort and twist themselves in knots in order to make Davis' role in the story work despite more interesting candidates being there.
Being in the Digimon fandom decades ago, nobody liked Davis. He was a loudmouth who had an annoying obsession with Kari and a stupid one-sided rivalry with TK because of it. And, most importantly, he wasn't Tai. There was some "backlash to the backlash" where some fans started writing about him being underappreciated, but then they'd write him out of character to be competent.
The other Goggleheads had something putting them apart from Tai. Takato was a fanboy who was more open with his emotions and not a natural leader, Takuya was...not directly after Tai (I like him, but he is admittedly just Tai with Matt's voice), Marcus dared to not wear goggles and fought the Digimon himself (though they gave him an Agumon), Mikey wasn't a hot head and was actually the voice of reason to his Digimon partner, Tagiru was Davis 02, and I didn't watch the rest. But with Davis, they really pushed how much of a successor he was to Tai and Matt, trying to get the square peg to fit the round hole, which just highlighted how he wasn't them.
From my vague memories of 02, I can't remember whether Davis showed that he liked his team, other than Kari, or them liking him. For a character who was meant to be the successor of Friendship, the only time he showed it was to Ken and Veemon. The other Digi-destined seemed more like coworkers than friends.
I love Tamers, but something that annoyed me when I was younger is that they used Davis for the narrator.
Humans could, legitimately, be anything, pulling aspects from literally any source we know of, honor bound warriors over there, industrious thinkers originate from that mountainous region over there. Raiders and thieves come from frigid places where it's hard to grow food, great builders come from a large flat land where sturdy and beautiful stone is abundant.
They don't have to be clones of the British Empire circa 1400.
Here's a much better way to do dragons:
Back in ancient times, dragons were often seen flying overhead before disasters (as they are often flying away from them) which often alerted early humans to the dangers. As the centuries dragged on, these stories became folklore about dragon protectors, often mistaking the descendants of a dragon as the same dragon from their stories.
Humans now worship dragons as gods, and tales of their loving and gentle nature have formed the cornerstone of human culture.
In reality Dragons are simple beasts that went extinct a very long time ago.
This lets you do cool things like having Humans overwhelmingly favour Scale Armor over other kinds, they have big bonfires in the centre of their villages, they consider large lizards or crocodiles to be sacred and must never be harmed, and exclamations like "SUNSCALES!"
I actually had an idea for dragons inspired by whale falls in the ocean.
Basically, every time a dragon dies, sprawling eco-systems spring up around the corpse. Plants growing taller and stronger than usual, plants that can only grow around dead dragons, and creatures that feed off these plants or the dragon itself. And because they're magical, the eco-system can last for centuries after the dragon's death. The bigger and older the dragon, the bigger the eco-system.
And then there'd be several semi-nomadic tribes that will set up around these dragon falls. Some tribes having trackers with the roll of finding and following dying dragons so that they can send word to the rest of their tribe to come as soon as the dragon goes down. Some tribes hopping from dragon corpse to dragon corpse as soon as one pops up, others sticking around the one they claim for generations.
These tribes would also have different views on how to treat the dragon and its corpse. There'd be those who actively hunt and kill dragons, those who wait until the dragon can no longer fly and then kill them, those who believe in the whole "warrior's death" thing and fight the dying dragon so it can "die well", those who offer trinkets and food to sooth the dragon's passing, those who only take from the flora and fauna that springs up around the dragon, those who harvest pieces of the dragon, those who take pieces of the dragon far away from the rest of its corpse, etc.
And, of course, these tribes would have different relationships and varying levels of conflict with each other depending on their views. Some can share the dragon fall, especially if the dragon was big enough, some can't with certain tribes, and some tribes will try to claim the entire dragon fall for themselves.
When looking at Hornet's floating ability, I was abruptly reminded of this style of ceramic bells, where they're made to look like people with the legs serving as the clappers.
And now I want to see someone make a ceramic Hornet bell.
