At the beginning of things

They think reality is something happening to them, rather than something they are making every moment with every thought. #pokemon-art-challenge

[ivi-prism]

Everyone has such cute ideas for baby dragon and Grian this season… meanwhile I’m just here like

“Hey maybe Grian’s clay wings given by the watchers can change depending of what he absorbs and seeing as he basically killed a chicken in season 6 for its head just maybe to get chicken wings that time and in season 7 he killed parrots for their heads and he got parrot wings…. Maybe… to get dragon wings killing the ender dragon wasn’t enough and maybe thats why he took the egg”

[oakskull]

hey ivi I know watcher!grian is a really popular headcannon and you use it in your fics, but I don't actually know what a watcher is or why this headcannon is so popular. I know you've been here a while and I wanted to know if you knew any posts about it?

[ivi-prism]

Oh hello! I can certainly explain! :3

To understand watchers you first have to know that it is usual to take Grian’s previous series as canon, particularly Yandere High School and Evo.

YHS is not that relevant to answer you question so lets focus on EVO.

EVO smp was a series started by Grian just before joining Hermitcraft in season 6. It was an smp he shared with friends and it had the premise that they would start the series in the earliest update possible and they would update the server until arriving at the most current update at the moment (update 1.15 the aquatic update if i remember correctly)

So the early epsidoes you had a server that had no chests, no variations of wood, pre 1.8 pvp and so on. It was a very cool premise but the reason is important is that eventually mysterious structures and messages started appearing. Through the series we learn that this creatures are the Watchers and they are the responsible ones for the world updaiting each time as well as for gifts/ punishments players received.

I’m summarizing EVO and watchers here because to be super duper honest I haven’t watched EVO but what you need to know is that they where this mysterious powerful creatures that seemed to pass judgement on characters and that at the end of the series once Grian defeted the ender dragon it appears he was taken by them.

This is the CANON base of what Watchers are but much of what you see in my fics and probably around Hermitblr and heck even mcytblr in general is mostly FANON

Seeing as Grian ended EVO and shortly after started Hermitcraft the “Grian is a watcher now and he has put on Hermitcraft for a reason” content started to pop up, to the point the fan fic “And the Universe shifts” was written. That fic basically set in stone many things about the Watcher mainly that

- Grian was abducted by watchers and turned into one

- Watchers are eeeeeeevil with capital E

- Watchers are kinda like gods that oversee the worlds and the universe

- Grian has crazy powers because he is a Watcher

And based on this the watchers kept evolving on fanon.

Their canon designs give them wings, a mask with the watcher symbol (broken nether portal with the corners separated from the rest of the frame) and a purple cape

So fanon took this and went “godlike creatures with wings and called watchers??? Well this sounds like it needs biblical angels inspiration :3”

This + Grian’s usual tendencies for chaos have left Grian as a horrifying eldritch abomination that is maybe a minor deity?? And what usually stays of that desing is his wings (of course the chicken/parrot wings because ‘pesky birds’ and also him being good with elytra are other reasons but him being a watcher is one of them)

Thats even the reason why Grian and watchers have been painted as a sort of mysterious dangerous thing on Off-World Vacations :3

(There now it is complete! Sorry for that! Got startled and posted before it was ready)

[dialmformara]

So between seasons of Hermitcraft last winter I got bored and watched all of Grian and PearlescentMoon’s Evo videos, and now a lot of things about the Hermitcraft animatics I’ve started watching are falling into place

like how Grian always has wings (I thought it was a furry thing, since the same people draw Rendog with wolf ears, but *shrug*)

and a couple of Turf War animatics in particular give Grian this kind of fallen angel aesthetic, and now I realize I’m not reading too much into things when I say that, I’m just seeing what the fandom has put there

ANYWAY

after Grian left Evo, a second set of mysterious beings called the Listeners start sending the players messages. Where the Watchers seemed determined to make it difficult for the players to advance to new versions of the game, the Listeners offered them a chance to skip ahead. And they took it. I don’t know much about this, since Pearl didn’t get too involved in the story, but what does the fandom do with potential conflict between Watchers and Listeners? Does fanon!Pearl align with one or the other? And in light of that, what do you/we do with Grian and Pearl’s Hermitcraft dynamic?

[prokopetz]

I feel like any hypothetical Hollow Knight inspired tabletop RPG would have to involve at least some element of Dungeons & Dragons style tactical combat simply because you’d be able to lay out your terrain or draw your battle grid in 1:1 scale.

[prokopetz]

Like, that miniature figure of your weird little bug person that you’re pushing around on the tabletop? Actual size.

[prokopetz]

(If I were the one writing it, I’d probably explicitly set it amid the ruins of a now-extinct human civilisation so that you can use random junk you have lying around your living space as a completely literal representation of the terrain. Representing outdoor encounters would most easily be accomplished by actually going outside!)

[prokopetz]

@bimetrodon replied:

Random encounters: the bugs that happen to walk on to the battlegrid

If a squirrel steals your minifig you just write it into the plot!

[micer2012]

Evil Xisuma in s8 is under Jeff the Minion's control, and likely the Midas Curse, and that is why they're a Capitalist right now

hey! hi! welcome to my post. i will share with you what has been unable to leave my mind for the past week

you might have noticed this part in X's ep 1010! It is probably the cutscene with the least amount of lore in it, it's just EX relaxing and watching TV with other animations th3pooka (the person who animates these new EX cutscenes!) has done. The 2nd show shown is from their animation of Dragon Bro's, but the 1st and 3rd are from a 20 minute animation by them called Evil's Fault. When watching the 3rd clip, EX exclaims, "Oh! Jeff the Minion! Haven't seen that guy in some time." implying that EX remembers events that only happened in Evil's Fault, and that Evil's Fault, animated by th3pooka, IS canon to the s8 EX plot going on.

If you think that that's flimsy to say that the animation is canon I understand, but also consider that this is seemingly the only point of this cutscene: just to show that 1. EX is a tad depressed 2. They remember Jeff the Minion (while 2 scenes of Evil's Fault are played.) Episode 1010 was also uploaded on the 2 year anniversary of Evil's Fault. (Jun 19th)

Evil's Fault also includes voice acting (and music!) from other hermits, and X shouted it out when it came out and linked to it in his HC episode at the time. I think it's fair to say that Evil's Fault, and it's 3 prequels (the CarnEVIL trilogy) are canon to X's s8.

So! What is in Evil's Fault?

oh boy . there is a lot in Evil's Fault. if you are an ex enjoyer and haven't watched it yet, like i had. uh. its probably best to just watch it (tw, it said at the end its dedicated to people struggling with feelings of 'Hate, Addiction, and Doubt', and i think if you are sensitive to seeing violent internal intrusive thoughts, take caution)

So, in Evil's Fault we learn that since at least ep 500, EX has been 'working with' a mythical being named Jeff the Minion. (named "Jeff the Nightmare" in the Evil's Faults credits since he's not Dionyisus's minion anymore since Pungence freed him (listen it's a long story) but I'm gonna refer to him as Jeff the Minion for this post) If you don't know who Jeff the Minion is, like 99% of people on earth, HERE is a post by hermette-historian, and another by arandomshine. In short, they are a Season 1 Pungence and Skyzm lore character that appeared in. One episode. (and other th3pooka animations)

Jeff the Minion is also the evil voice that EX was talking to in ep 666 (that appeared as a wither skull), and likely the supplier of the Withermen in ep 500 (Jeff himself is associated with wither skeleton skulls, and we see in Evil's Fault that he has a lot of smaller minions that do his bidding. These were likely lent to EX as the Withermen)

Some time after episode 500, (while EX is stuck at the bottom of the pit in the s4 world), EX falls asleep and dreams of their life, before Jeff the Minion intercepts the dream. Jeff the Minion places this glowing wither skull into EX's head, saying that he'll always be there inside EX's mind, no matter how hard they try to wake up.

Then in the segment titled "Waking world?" we see EX, still stuck in the pit in the s4 world, trying to stay awake from episode 569-574. There is one scene in particular in this segment that I didn't understand watching the first time, that I think is very important.

On the wall, we see messages that EX scribbled in lava to remind themselves. They turn to obsidian as time passes, and by the end the pit is a Collage of desperate messages from EX to themselves to STAY AWAKE. But what I think is interesting is the message to EX's left here. "$ 1-Emerald Golden Chips <AND> Silver Fish"

It starts as just the chips thing (chips as in Bri'ish way of saying fries) and then they add the Silverfish when they catch one, but what does this message mean? They just caught this food for themselves, what does it being an emerald mean?

This seems to be EX making a shop. Saying that it's 1 Emerald to pay for their food. (the use of Emeralds is interesting too, why not 1 Diamond? Using Unusual Currency huh ex). Why would EX be making a shop, stranded at the bottom of a lava pit??

Now I want to move from Evil's Fault, and take a look at Jeff the Minion's original episode, and King Midas's Curse within it.

In Pungence's S1 Ep 12, he and skyzm are given a book with a message by a creature named Jeff the Minion. They own a shop filled with King Midas's Treasures, (just gold gear) sold at Ludicrious prices, and Jeff says that they need to toss them back into the Pactolus River to get rid of the curse (which has been passed down onto them). This is really a ploy from Jeff, because if the golden items and the 'successor of the gold curse' (Pungence) are under Jeff's control, he can use them to break free of Dionysius (who he is in debt too because he got drunk and ate a whole bag of Ritz Crackers) and return to his former powerful state. (Jeff the Nightmare). The curse was also originally given to King Midas by Dionysus.

Pungence and Skyzm laugh in his face and do not, in fact, do that. Jeff isn't seen again until CarnEVIL 2, Dream No More.

Pungence tries to attack Jeff (in the body of/masquerading as Evil GenerikB? idk), but uses King Midas's sword, releasing Jeff's full power as he has the successor of the gold curse and the King's items. Jeff's full power is shown briefly, before they defeat him and seal him in ice until Pixelated Heart.

A lot happens in Pixelated Heart, but the sum of it is that all the hermits use the power of love (and remembering their loved ones who Aren't there) to fight Jeff the Nightmare. Xisuma, along Pooka and GenerikB are the one's leading the charge, and Xisuma is the one who shoots Jeff's eye. They also say that all of those Little Jeff's (called 'Trapped Hearts' in Evil's Faults credits) are dead/inactive hermits, corrupted, so that's pretty fucked up if true!

Here is my full interpretation of when things happen up until s8!

What we know is that Jeff the Nightmare, who was a voice in EX's head from at least 500-666 (where he's then banished from EX's head by the power of EX and X's bond, put into X's hand by EX, (which is then why EX goes Oh Im Good Now! at the end of ep666. Jeff is gone from their mind)), and is then gone until ep 800.

I personally think that since it was X and EX's bond that drove Jeff away in the first place (the redstone represents Bonds with other people, you see that in Pixelated Heart), as X's trust in EX dwindled, Jeff was able to creep back into their mind and convince EX that they were evil and always were going to be, partially because that's what X was thinking.

Then, EX tries to break free and make a final stand, with Wormman and Xisuma (the only two people who. care about them) coming to help, giving Purposeful parallels to the big power of love fight scene in Pixelated Heart, but if its from Xisuma not actually trusting EX deep down, or just from the fact that there are only 2 of them vs the like 100 that fought in PH, Evil Xisuma loses their last fight, at the end of Evil's Fault. (see the emerald that flies Straight to their face)

So. At the end of Evil's Fault, EX falls under Jeff's control again.

Now onto S8.

First off, EX is a lot.. smarter, and subtler this season. This really doesn't seem their style, but would make sense if someone is trying to keep a low profile here, and manipulate someone else into doing their bidding and building their empire, so they can strike once all of the hermits are under their control. I'm not talking about EX manipulating Xisuma here, I'm talking about Jeff manipulating EX.

The sudden capitalist turn from EX, something they've never cared about before in their life (the only other time they had a shop was in s5, the shop with Wormman, where they literally gave away their knitting patterns and other things for free. it was literally free)... Could be because with Pungence no longer the successor, King Midas's Greed was something that Jeff could pass down to EX, and could be the reason why they are focused on wanting money (if it's not just for general Want of Control, to exploit people, which it could be too)

But now onto the parallel between Jeff's voice in EX's mind in Evil's Fault and the mind control (and i think th3pooka on twitter confirmed it was in fact mind control) that EX did on Xisuma. Both spells involved the persons signature 'thing' (wither skull for Jeff, lightning for EX), colored their color, that then went into the persons head and turned their eyes to that color. It's safe to say that this is likely the same, if not similar spells.

What Jeff's spell did was put his 'everlasting voice' into EX's head. He was able to send messages to EX, seemingly look through their eyes, and compel them to do things. It seems likely that EX now has the same 'backdoor' into X's mind, and if you count the streams as canon, you might even say that clips like these confirm that EX can see through X's eyes, and influence him to say things for them.

I think that the EX heads that EX is giving to the other hermits do a similar thing, give EX that same 'backdoor' into their minds if they're wearing them. The episode is called 'influencing the hermits' and EX seems VERY excited and Evil when the hermits put on the heads.

Jeff wants to destroy the Hermitcraft server, and has a motive to go after Xisuma and Evil Xisuma specifically. EX seems to be being used because they can access the psychical world, and Jeff can't, and their bonds with others are weak enough that Jeff can put the doubt and hate into their mind enough to control them (Maybe the reason that Jeff can't influence other hermits Directly yet is because their bonds with eachother are too strong, and wards him away)

Another thing I want to mention is EX, both in the "Waking World?" section of Evil's Fault and in 1010, sitting watching TV and being surrounded by food, and empty potion bottles. (probably the closest thing to wine in Minecraft, i think that these scenes could be hinting at Dionysius/Midas Curse control. the cookies in 1010 also are the closest thing in Minecraft to Ritz Crackers I can think of).

In short (and this post has not been short. dear god i am sorry that this post has not been short but i think i had to explain all this because nobody knows who the hell jeff the minion isJNKBHXC), I think it's pretty much confirmed that EX is working (unwillingly) with Jeff the Nightmare in s8, has a backdoor into Xisuma's mind, and is trying to influence and get into the minds of the other hermits. (And that the capitalism May be linked to King Midas's curse, which now that Pungence is gone, does not have a 'successor'. but honestly maybe this isnt connected to the midas thing i just wanna be clever with why specifically theyre doing shops and money out of nowhere)

But what makes me say that they're definitely working together with such certainty? Look at this shot from 1013.

Yep! Those eyes aren't EX's. Those are Jeff's eyes in the reflection. EX is certainly under Jeff's control in s8, but where the story ends up going from here we'll have to wait and see.

NOTE ALSO I WAS ABOUT TO POST THIS BUT MY BROTHER BROUGHT SOMETHING UP. EX SAYING "Oh Jeff the Minion! Haven't seen that guy in some time." IMPLIES. THAT THEY DONT KNOW THAT JEFF IS CONTROLLING THEM CURRENTLY EVEN THOUGH JEFF IS AT LEAST IDLE IN THE BACK OF EX'S MIND, AS SEEN FROM THE REFLECTION IN 1013. PAIN AGONY EVEN

[deactivated87]

OP JEFF THE MINION APPEARED IN AN XISUMA COMMUNITY POST. APOLLO JAS GIVEN YOU THE GIFT OF PROPHESY

[micer2012]

WELL.WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT. WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT HUH

[dialmformara]

okay, so I was prepared to write this off as idle speculation right up until the screenshots with the square eyes

I didn’t realize Hermitcraft lore ran this deep. And I wonder why X waited this long to bring the story around. Maybe 1000 episodes was just a convenient milestone.

[momowho34]

Christians (specifically Protestants): we have little versions of our sacred text that we carry around in our pockets to pull out if we encounter something and want guidance. The version used during sermons and in church are the same ones that we carry with us

Jews: you can read the torah and Tanakh in a normal book if you want. But if you want a torah you can use as a congregation? *cracks knuckles* you must prepare paper made from the skin of a kosher animal and special ink and a quill made from a turkey feather and you must use no metal in the preparation process because metal is used in the creation of weapons for war and before you even think about actually started to write you must take The Holy Bath to purify yourself and ritually blot out the name of Amalek, the sworn enemy of the Jewish people and every time you write the name of god on the scroll you must say it out loud and recite a special prayer and if you mess up one letter you have to start over and when the scroll is finished you must wrap it in tapestries and pretty cloth and shit and then put little crowns on the end and then put it in a Super Special Box in the synagogue so every time it’s time to read it you can open the Super Special Box and everyone can gawk at the Ultra Big Boy Important Text and the words of god within the scroll. this entire process takes about a year to complete and is done by special sofer’s that devote their lives to making Torah’s specifically and when you read from the torah you must use a little tiny pointer in the shape of a hand so your hands don’t mess up the paper. Oh, you think I kid? You think I jest?

Think again.

(rb encouraged for everyone. Share the sacred baby hands with the goyim. Everyone deserves to know about the sacred baby hands)

[msaprildaniels]

Judaism gets so fucking hardcore about this shit, I love it.

[ninjakittenarmy]

Some further questions:

I need to know more about this Kosher Leather Paper. How does one make paper of animal hide? I understand it’s not quite the same as paper made from plant fibers, but what is it like? Is it like a really thin leather or is there a process in which it becomes more like conventional paper.

When Amalalek’s name is blotted, is it first written down by the one preparing the scroll, or by a separate person?

Since Turkeys are native to North America, I have questions as to the origins of the use of their feathers as quills for this ritual. Was a different bird used previously, or is Turkey referring to a different bird? I have heard that the name for the bird originates from the sale of similar birds from Guinea by Turkish merchants.

The box containing the Torah, is it the Arc? I’ve heard that it’s called that (symbolizing the arc of the covenant), but I want to confirm.

I’d appreciate any information and/or resources on the subject.

[terulakimban]

With the caveat that I am neither a sofer (trained religious scribe) or a rabbi:

It’s parchment (or sometimes vellum but that is a distinction for people who understand this subject way better than me). We call it a klaf for most littler things and a gevil for Torah scrolls (except for those people who use klaf for sifrei Torah which is a thing except when it’s not (sorry. Like I said, really not a scribe)). The skin is tanned, soaked, stretched, dried, ironed, and sanded. Texture-wise... it’s between cardstock and resume paper. It’s really smooth, thicker than normal printer paper, kinda stiff, and sturdier than it looks, but still pretty easy to tear. It’s definitely closer to paper than leather -at least, any leather I’ve encountered. It’s usually flexible enough to roll easily, although really old scrolls or ones that have been through stuff can be stiffer. 

By the person writing the scroll. The sofer writes the name once before starting the scroll and then blots it out. 

It’s referring to the bird you think it is. The quill is called a kulmus. Some communities use a reed pen, and there’s historical reference to no longer using metal pens, so that must have been a thing at some point. As for why the turkey -it’s not always a turkey. It’s from a large bird; it can also be a goose or a swan. There’s debate about whether the bird has to be kosher -turkeys are weird there because while most communities generally accept them as kosher, there was a bit of a debate about that centuries ago. 

Yes. There’s always a light in front of them, and the most common inscription overtop is “know before whom you stand.” It often has doors and curtains. 

Useful terms to google have been italicized.  

[correspondingnerd]

Why was there debate about whether turkeys are kosher?

(sorry this is off topic from the original post)

[prismatic-bell]

I see a well-meaning goy has entered the conversation.

Honey, there is Jewish debate about EVERYTHING. I could probably find you a pair of rabbis arguing over whether I’m allowed to tie my shoes on the sabbath, and if they said “tying and untying is forbidden by Torah” and I said “yes, but my house is in two parts with an open tiled hallway between and to leave my bedroom I must walk down the hallway, which has tiles that are dangerously hot due to the sun, so I need to know if I can tie my shoes so as to not get burned” IT BECOMES A TOTALLY DIFFERENT QUESTION. The answer to “why is there debate” 99% of the time is “two people read it differently and now there’s an argument.” And I guarantee you if I threw that hypothetical hot tile floor at a group of rabbis the argument would go on for DAYS, if not weeks.

In this particular case, it has to do with how the laws for kosher birds are written down. There has to be a determination made every time a new bird is discovered, because rather than a helpful set of determinants like we got for fish (must have fins and scales) and land animals (must have split hooves and chew cud), we got a list of birds we could eat. Which includes many, many birds whose names we no longer understand, and also groups whose names we may not classify in the same way as our ancient counterparts because we go on DNA and they went on observation.

But yeah.

It’s because we’re Jews.

[terulakimban]

For the goyim:

That isn’t a joke. Tying stuff is actually forbidden on Shabbat. This is not hypothetical. This is a literal discussion that the rabbis actually had. For the record, it was decided that the tying/untying of shoelaces is fine as long as it’s not done in a professional way because they’re not permanent knots, and that since it is permitted to tie them, it is also permitted to untie them -these are two separate categories of action that needed to be discussed separately. However, if @prismatic-bell​ were a cobbler or a shoemaker, as a professional adder-of-knots-and-straps-to-shoes -or knew the knotwork used in those professions, they would not be allowed to tie their own shoes on Shabbat because then the work becomes crafting instead of tying, which is where the hot floor and foot protection question becomes relevant because the rabbis were pretty big on safety and preventing harm. 

Here is the source (don’t worry, there’s translation), because I am aware that this sounds bizarre. 

[prismatic-bell]

*points up*

I know I have a lot of goyim who follow me and find this stuff interesting, and are also used to me using hyperbole for comedy, so:

I’M NOT JOKING ON THIS ONE AND HERE’S MY PROOF.

[lucario2012]

This is amazing to read, I get the feeling I could sit down with a bag of popcorn and a book of Jewish Arguments About The Torah's Contents and get a few hours of enjoyment at least.

[athingofvikings]

Here's the compiled Talmud, with commentary, and accompanying English translation. While the English translation and commentary expands it out a bit, the core canonized Gemara text is 2,711 pages long. There is a daily regimen of study called Daf Yomi (lit. "Page of the Day") that takes seven years to go through the whole thing from start to finish. :)

And those books are all about Jewish arguments on the Torah's contents. Literally.

And this is just one of our core texts.

One of these pages a day, layers upon layers of commentary; the Mishnah (codified Oral Tradition, written down ~1800 years ago when the Romans were actively hunting Rabbis and trying to break the chain of transmission) is at the center top. Below it is the Gemara, which is the expanded analysis of the Mishnah as explained by rabbis debating on it. Next to it is Rashi, 11th century French rabbi and commentator/analyst. Opposite Rashi is Tosefot, who were other medieval commentators. And then still more comments around the margins.

Two thousand, seven hundred and eleven pages of this :)

And that's even before we get to the modern commentators and English translations.

[copperbadge]

I’ve been reading Daf Yomi -- we’re round about year one and a half, the new cycle started early in January 2020 -- and it’s wild. Currently they are debating whether figs are larger than eggs, because fig-bulk and egg-bulk are two measurements used to determine whether how much food you ate means you violated certain dining laws.  

It’s an amazing mixture of law, philosophy, metacommentary, literature, legend, and the occasional poop joke. (Not kidding.) They discuss architecture, meal preparation, business practice, clothing, how to pray, how to travel, every aspect of life and faith. I’ve literally internalized the length of a cubit and the volume of a se’a because of how frequently they’re used. 

It can be really difficult and tedious at times, because a lot of this was meant to be something you consult if an issue arises rather than something you read like a novel, but it’s also super fascinating and an astounding glimpse into the lives of Jews 1700 years ago. 

[nonasuch]

as you may know, reading tumblr posts about Dean Winchester is an experience surprisingly akin to auditing classes on gender performance and masculinity at a graduate level media studies program. at least if you read enough of them.

which unfortunately I have! and now I have some thoughts.

see, there are character archetypes that crop up over and over again, and particularly often in 90s and 00s genre TV shows. I am vastly oversimplifying, but let’s boil them down to the Three Main Kinds Of Dudes you are most likely to see in these shows.

Let’s start with the Guy Who’s Not Cool, And Knows It. he’s all over the place: he’s Xander on Buffy, and later Wesley. he’s Julian Bashir, Rodney McKay, Seth Cohen and (at least early on) Alec Hardison. he’s usually not the main character, but he’s up there in the main credits.

and he’s textually, overtly anxious about his masculinity. this is something that other characters comment on, and sometimes he admits to it himself. his long-term character arc is — at least in part — about resolving that anxiety, confronting it and growing past it over time.

(he’s also, often, a self-insert for the guys in the writer’s room. but we don’t have time to unpack all of that.)

our second category is a bit more of a grab bag, because in some ways it covers all the guys who don’t fit into categories 1 or 3. but, broadly, we can call him the Guy Who Doesn’t Need To Make A Big Deal Out Of It. he’s the guy who comes across as quietly secure in his masculinity, who has nothing to prove on that front and whose story doesn’t need to be about proving it. Sometimes he functions as a foil for the Anxious Guy, sometimes he’s just quietly ticking along in the parts of the story that aren’t about Proving anybody’s Manliness. He’s Giles and Oz and Gunn, Eliot Spencer, Ronon Dex, Benjamin Sisko.

and then there’s the Cool Guy.

the Cool Guy is a main character, or he has top billing in an ensemble cast. the Cool Guy is a walking, talking grab-bag of heroic mannerisms. He’s tough and strong and he doesn’t talk about his feelings. he’s a ladykiller. he’s a flirt. he has the popular imagination version of Captain Kirk’s personality, and the popular imagination version of Han Solo’s sex appeal. he kills bad guys and drops a witty one-liner afterwards. he can fly a plane, or a spaceship, or drive a cool car or ride a motorcycle. he walks away from explosions without flinching. he’s not doing this ironically. he’s not performing. he’s just Cool.

as written, he has the depth of a cardboard standee.

but he’s played by an actor who’s, you know, a real human person, and wants his character to have some kind of interiority. so this weird alchemy happens, over and over again.

here’s the thing about that grab-bag of Cool Guy traits and mannerisms: there are real men, in real life, who do most of those things. and most of them probably aren’t overcompensating for anything! but also? none of them have the whole grab-bag. They have, like, two at most.

no one does all of them unless they’re doing them on purpose — unless they’re putting on a performance. but the Cool Guy as written isn’t performing. and the actor playing him has to embody that impossible character while giving him some kind of depth.

So what happens? Dean Winchester. John Sheppard. All the Cool Guys who are meant, textually, to be Effortlessly Performing Masculinity… and subtextually read as desperately overcompensating for their queerness.

whoops!

and somehow tv writer’s rooms keep doing this! they think that if they just pile on more Cool Guy traits, they’ll make the performance convincing, when they’re actually just undermining him more and more.

(sometimes the Cool Guy isn’t even meant to be heroic! the writers of Smallville tried, as far as I can tell, to make Lex Luthor come across as a suave, worldly, sophisticated ladykiller. what they got was a man who makes way-too-intense eye contact with a buff farm boy while suggestively drinking fancy bottled water.)

(also I didn’t watch Teen Wolf but I am given to understand that Derek falls in this category? and Stiles is for sure an archetypical Anxious Guy.)

the thing about the Anxious Guy is that because his anxious masculinity is textual, it can be addressed and resolved in the text. Because the Cool Guy is not textually performing, not textually anxious, he just has to keep on being that guy without the text ever acknowledging that there’s anything weird about it. and all the while the subtext is screaming that this! man! is! trying! too! hard!

and we as viewers with eyes in our heads can see that tension, between what’s said and what’s shown, and tbh most of the time the simplest and most obvious way to resolve it is to say “ah. okay. that man is Not Straight.”

so that’s why Dean Winchesters keep happening. thank u for coming to my ted talk.

[cipheramnesia]

This makes me want to see how this kind of templating works out when atypical characters are dropped into roles like this, especially the Cool Guy roles. Like, if your cool guy is queer, is not a guy, isn’t like standard western culture sort of character. Especially when the writer’s room and much of the production may be either majority like your usual white cis straight etc etc guys who have all developed the Cool Guy, or people who at least grew up on it.

I mean, someone who started watching Supernatural from the start, at age 15 is now 30. And they’ve potentially grown up with the Dean Cool Guy who is also sub-textually Anxious About Queer perhaps firmly in their mind, and bringing this new mashup archetype into writers rooms of the future along with, we hope, some greatly shifted cultural norms and that is interesting as heck to me.

[nonasuch]

yeah!!!

the thing about the Cool Guy is that he is in some ways the product of a really specific time and place — he mostly only exists, can exist, in the context of a 90s/00s network TV genre show that’s kind of garbage at women characters.

the Anxious Guy has a slightly larger habitable zone — Xander is my archetypical Anxious Guy but there’s no room for a Cool Guy on Buffy. the only guys who could possibly fill the niche are Angel and Spike, but I feel like they don’t fit, because the Cool Guy is a) the protagonist or nearly so, b) the product of a late 20th century white cis dude upbringing, and c) completely un-self-aware.

someone in the notes pointed out that John Crichton has a lot of the Cool Guy hallmarks, which made me go !!!!! because yes, technically! but he’s a potential Cool Guy thrown into an environment where he’s always, always wrong-footed, where he’s never at home and never in command of the situation, where no one around him shares the socialization he grew up with, and where he’s almost never the most capable person in the room. Also he drinks his respect women juice, which the Cool Guy doesn’t. he’s not a traditional hero. he says it himself — he’s not kirk. he’s dorothy gale.

also like. i said earlier that the Anxious Guy is a writer’s room self-insert. which he super is. and in a lot of ways the Cool Guy is a writer’s room power fantasy. but the Cool Guy only ends up Like That when he’s the product of a writer’s room that is dominated by writers who have that power fantasy. so any writer’s room that’s more diverse than the ones that have historically produced Cool Guys are just… not going to fall into that trap, because theyll have different self-insert characters and power fantasy characters.

[nonasuch]

just had a galaxy brain realization: if Dean Winchester was not trapped in the toxic masculinity hellscape universe of a CW genre show, he would be Jake Peralta

yes I will elaborate but I’m about to leave for work so it’ll have to be later

[nonasuch]

okay okay so. Jake Peralta 🤝 Dean Winchester:

absent/neglectful dads

concept of masculinity formed by TV and movies

identity built around saving/protecting people

in early seasons considers himself a flirt/ladykiller

but also most of his closest friends are women

doesn’t know he’s bisexual

however! Jake is not a Cool Guy. In early B99 Jake is trying to be a Cool Guy, but the narrative knows this about him. If it’s textually a performance, it can be addressed and resolved in the narrative — which it is! that’s like his whole character arc!

because Jake lives in universe where his performative masculinity is allowed to be acknowledged and interrogated, he gets to grow up and out of it. he gets to have a healthy, non-performative identity! and we the audience don’t have to keep asking ourselves what the fuck this man is trying to compensate for.

and also, because Jake is the product of a creative team that’s like. capable of being normal about queerness? they could absolutely just say “oh and also Jake is bi. that’s a facet of his identity! just fyi.” and we as viewers could take that information as the absolutely non-earth-shattering trait that it would be. It would explain some stuff about him, but not everything, because he was allowed to build an identity outside of Cool Guy performance.

whereas Dean’s writers were faced with the choice between ‘let him be bi so the show makes sense’ and ‘burn it all down.’ and, uh. well. they made a choice.

[c-is-for-circinate]

a hypothetical d&d party

The bard is mute.

It’s not the first thing people notice about her, usually.  The first thing is generally that she’s young, and female, and lovely–the first thing people notice about their entire party is that they’re all young, and female, and lovely, and that’s gotten more than one would-be thief or mugger in far over their head when they haven’t noticed the the paladin’s hammer or the ranger’s axe.  It comes up rather quickly though, often enough.  Whoever heard of a bard who can’t sing?

She plays a lute, mostly, or a lap-harp made of shell and sinew, string instruments she can pluck while she smiles in secret and watches everyone around her.  She dances quick, except when she’s tired, when she’s scared, when she forgets to remember the feet at the ends of her legs.

She doesn’t tell her story to strangers, but enough of the other girls have learned to sign by now, and it’s easy enough to sketch out the outlines of the old bargain: the voice, the prince, the witch, the thousand shards of glass she walked upon on her way up the beach, the look in her sea-green eyes when they travel too near water.  The thousand shards of glass she walked upon when she left the palace, and turned back towards the sea to throw herself upon the rocks, and then made her way up the road inland, and kept walking.

.

The warlock is beautiful and mild and self-effacing and shy, is tidy and generous and charming.  She’s small with herself in exactly the right way to shout abuse to the half of her party who knows how to recognize that same look in the mirror in the morning.  The bird on her shoulder is too small, too bright, too sweet for a real warlock’s familiar.  The knife at her belt is sharp enough for anything that needs doing, though, cooking or otherwise.

Her fae patron visits sometimes, in the quiet hours between dusk and midnight, a sweetly old godmother made of moonlight and shadow.  She’s kind to the whole lot of them in her own chaotic way, free-handed with transmutations and illusions that break halfway through the evening, for better or worse.  She once spent three hours around their campfire drinking brandy and gossipping outrageously about the Feywild and teasing the wizard into fits of laughter.

She’s never told the story of how she met the warlock’s mother, or what debt was owed there, and the warlock doesn’t know herself.  It was never meant to be a debt paid in power and violence and the deft will-sapping enchantments the warlock weaves now, but, well.  The prince wasn’t meant to be cruel, the warlock says.  The palace was meant to be warmer than the fireplace cinders in her stepmother’s house.  The faerie was meant to be saving her from her lot, not throwing her into something worse.  The power’s an apology of sorts.

.

The wizard is awkward and joyful and nervous.  She has no fear of heights or small places, which just stands to be expected, she says, after all those years in that little tower, and she’s got no skill at lying or even edging around the truth at all, which is why she isn’t in the tower any more in the first place.  She says too much or too little or the wrong thing entirely, always, but the most well-socialized member of the whole party is the ranger who walks around with a dire wolf at her hip, or maybe their mute bard, so who are any of them to judge.

There was nothing to do in that tower but read, and brush her hair, and sort through the witch’s endless stockpile of dried herbs and potions ingredients, and watch out the window as woodcutters and hunters and princes rode by, and dream.  The reading was more interesting than the dreaming, most of the time, and the witch didn’t mind it as much when she talked about it.  She never bothered to actually use any of the magic in the witch’s books until the thing with the prince and the haircut and the desert, which she’s told them all about in all the detail they could ever ask for, but most of the girls get uncomfortable when she starts talking about princes.  It’s a little easier if she just starts rambling about conjuration and abjuration and illusion theory, about the 400-year-old history of a city that doesn’t exist any more, about the proper grammatical structure of Celestial, until maybe one of the quiet ones finally answers back.

Her hair is too short.  She keeps an illusion up over it whenever she can, while it grows back slowly, tickling the side of her face and the back of her neck and leaving her head too light and unbalanced.  

.

The ranger doesn’t care about princes, which makes one of them at least.  Then again, the ranger doesn’t trust anyone, really, prince or no, not wolves or monsters or the men who kill them.  She more or less trusts the rest of them by now, mostly, when the wind blows in the right direction.

She wears bright red in the middle of the woods and it shouldn’t help her slip into the shadows half as easily as it does, but most beasts can’t see color and red’s just another shade of gray if the light’s low enough.  She never uses her axe against trees.  She doesn’t need to.  She can find a path through any brush without it.  She picks flowers when she finds them, and tucks them into the other girls’ hair.

Her wolf’s mother killed the man who taught her to use the axe, and the man who taught her to use the axe killed that wolf’s mate before that, and the mate had an old woman’s blood on his teeth when it happened.  The ranger’s blade found the wolf’s mother’s throat.  The ranger’s mother sent her out into the woods in the first place.  It’s not as though anywhere is really safe, cottage or forest, axe or teeth.  One of these days maybe her wolf will turn and go for her in return, and maybe one of these days her axe will be faster and maybe it won’t.  In the mean time, there’s flowers and berries and pastries and enough game to keep everyone sated, for a little while.

.

The paladin’s hair is raven black and her skin is chalky as a corpse.  She’s not undead, mostly.  The undead are her job.  She knows that much.

She was sweet, once (they were all sweet, once) but apples are bitter now and so is she, and there’s judgment to lay out in the world.  Her grip on her warhammer’s all wrong–she holds it like a mining hammer, but it hits as hard as it needs to.  Her armor’s all dwarven make, and her shield’s black and red and white like snow.

She was sweet once, and frightened, and when she says it quietly around the campfire in the night when none of them can quite make out the glimmer of understanding on each others’ faces, everyone still nods.  She took a bite of poison and somebody left her a full year in a glass coffin of Gentle Repose, dangling on the edge of the Raven Queen’s domain while all the other newly-arrived dead passed by and faded away.  She woke up to somebody’s lips and hands and skin on her lips and her hands and her skin.  She doesn’t like princes.  She doesn’t like necromancers.

She likes sunlight, and summer, and colors that aren’t black and white and red.  She likes the way the bard grins when she whirls into a dance, and the look in the warlock’s eye when she sets her feet to say no, and the wizard’s laughter on high with a Fly spell, and the ranger’s gentle fingers braiding flowers into everything she can touch.  

[sophieakatz]

#writersofinstagram #poetry #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #writing #amwriting #poems #poemsofinstagram #poemsofinsta #snakeskin #snake #fear #safe #anxiety #ᴠᴀᴄᴄɪɴᴇssᴀᴠᴇʟɪᴠᴇs #vaccine #covidvacccine #poemsofig #poetryofinstagram #poetryofig #metaphor #freeversepoetry #freeverse #poetryisnotdead #poetrywriting #poetrywriter #poetrymonth https://www.instagram.com/p/CNquFHmMJ1F/?igshid=1p8zrronxm5cg

[dialmformara]

well, fuck

[prettygayrose]

Something that bears mentioning: I get why we need to shame straight girls who fetishize mlm ships but. To any straight girls who consistently relate to or resonate with mlm dynamics on a deep level or see themselves in queer male characters. if by any chance this post from a tiny tiny blog crosses your dash. Please take this moment to very privately consider the possibility that you might not be straight. Or a girl.

[fix-ur-heart]

this is just a callout post for my younger self

[prokopetz]

I got my fandom terminology and my Dungeons & Dragons terminology mixed up for a moment when I saw the word “johnlock” on my dashboard for the first time in whatever, and ended up thinking: “Well, obviously that must be a warlock whose patron is some guy named John. I wonder what spells John grants?”

[dialmformara]

wind-based ones, of course

[stability]

[poetical-irony]

my naem is skwid

i am not fish.

i mite be sick

so im in dish.

the doctor touch

it give me shock.

i do not trust

so now im rock

[wallecalendarproject]

Hi! The year's almost over and I'm really going to miss my daily dose of WALL-E screenshots! Your project has brought me so much joy! Do you have any plans for what you're going to do next? Also, would you be able to recommend any other WALL-E blogs that I could follow? the fandom is so small, any blog that still posts about it nowadays makes me happy:)

Hi again!

Well, I have to give a shoutout to @walleandeve who has reblogged every single one of these calendar posts all year. Props to them.

I don’t have any calendar or screenshot-based plans at the moment... This whole thing came from a whim I had long before I knew how difficult this year was going to be, and I queued everything up well in advance, so seeing it pop up on my dashboad has been a source of joy for ME as well. That’s really how it should be for any project, though, you know? It should bring you joy for making it. And then if it brings someone else joy, too, well, that’s all the better. It makes me think of WALL-E, now that I type it out. Everything he did, he did because it gave him joy. Not because he had any idea that it would impact other people at all. But it did. It really did.

If you want to keep tabs on me, my personal blog for random fandom stuff is @ohthewhomanity and my writing blog is @sophieakatz . I’ll probably do something WALL-E related again on one of those blogs in the future. It’s been my favorite movie since I first saw it in 2008. I talk about Disney movies quite a bit on my writing blog.

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

hey quick question why did no one ever tell me how fucking insane M*A*S*H is?? their commanding officer is a horse girl. the secretary has psychic powers. this guy walks around a 1950s military outpost in drag and everyone’s just like hey nice dress. the protagonist who is supposed to be the best surgeon in the entire korean war spends every episode strutting around drunk in a hawaiian shirt making homoerotic wisecracks and asking the nurses to step on him like some sort of unhinged bisexual jimmy buffet. guys what the hell is going on in this army doctor show

[what-even-is-thiss]

The horrors of war and a rip roaring good time

[dagnobutrly]

…. An unhinged bisexual jimmy buffett you say?

[cluegrrl]

*makes popcorn and settles in to watch a new generation get their minds blown by just how hard M*A*S*H* goes while still being fucking hilarious *

[canageek]

Wait, isn’t all this stuff from season 1? if they think seasons 1 is crazy, wait till they hit all the stuff from the rest of the series!

Also, Alan Alda insisted there be a woman in the writer’s room once he got enough influence in the show, and another member of the staff took her under his wing and made sure her ideas were listened to until the rest of the staff respected her enough to do it on their own. I’m trying to remember which podcast I listen to had a really good interview with her about what making the show was like, and it’s just straight up escaping me. BBC Witness?

[dialmformara]

i would swear the show was just someone’s ptsd nightmares if i hadn’t read the book

[canageek]

The final episode is in my opinion the single best piece of television I have ever seen, it wraps up perfectly for every single character in the entire cast, it is a masterpiece of bittersweet writing.

And it’s not just a wrap-up, like it has a through plot that was introduced at the start of that episode and is one of the darkest things in the entire series.

There was so much going on in that episode that they had to assign a separate team of writers to each plot line, with Alden Alda splitting his attention between all of the teams.

[dialmformara]

wow. That’s a lot more organized than I tend to expect from TV writing.

[blackgirlmagicx]

It would have to be 19 for me .

[socialistexan]

16

I'm old.

[canageek]

Of the ones on the list, 20, but technically I had a game Boy classic before we found one of those at a garage sale

[dialmformara]

21. It’s a computer keyboard.

[dialmformara]

What exactly is a wug?

It’s an imaginary creature from a test designed to figure out how children learn grammar, and it’s sort of become the mascot for linguistics.

Example questions from the first version of the test:“This is a wug. Now there are two of them. There are two _____.”“This is a man who knows how to spow. He is spowing.He did the same thing yesterday. What did he do yesterday?Yesterday he ____. ”Children were presented with a series of these, using both real and imaginary words, and the scientists got a great picture of what ages children learn different grammatical forms at.

Here is the original paper by Jean Berko Gleason about the Wug Test. It includes a couple of pictures of wugs.

[dialmformara]

Saw this got some notes recently and wanted to add a thing.

I’ve since learned that Jean Berko Gleason is notoriously litigious about wugs, which are in the public domain but somehow she’s gotten it into her head she can send lawyers after anyone who puts them on merch.

I learned wugs are in the public domain when @lingthusiasm started selling wug merch and got the stinkeye from Gleason’s lawyer, and I learned it from the lawyer Gretchen and Lauren worked with, who also lawyers for AO3.

[dailypokemoncrochet]

A little baby Omanyte!!! 🐚

The way crocheting in the round works is SO perfect for shells because it already makes the spiral!

[saintsideways]

Prompt I will never do anything with: instead of being given to the Dursleys, Harry Potter is put up for adoption and is adopted by the Addams Family

[fieldbears]

Gomez, being forcibly removed from the stands of a Hogwarts quidditch match for the third time: MY BOY! MY BOY’S UP THERE! HE’S SEEKER!

McGonagall, sweating: Mr. Addams, how do you keep sneaking onto grounds

[saintsideways]

As I said to @door :

Wednesday is woefully jealous of how dramatic Harry's origin is and fiercely protective of him, only SHE is allowed to torture him

[door]

[tygermama]

Harry's hair would be more slicked back and shinier than Draco could ever hope to achieve Harry still gets sorted into Gryffindor Morticia says he gets that from Gomez' side of the family

[crinosg]

Meanwhile Wednesday gets into Hogwarts as well,

*During House assigning*

Professor McGonnagal: Wednesday Addams.

Wednesday *begins to get up*

Sorting hat: Yeah no, no, sit back down kid. You’re Slytheren. I have never been more sure of anything in my existence.

*Later at Slytheren dorm*

Draco: Well look, if it isn’t Potter’s little Mudblood sister, listen up you little...

Wednesday: *Shoots Malfoy a glare which instantly silences him.* You will listen to me and listen carefully. I do not like repeating myself. Harry is off limits. In fact, everyone in Gryffondor is off limits, that goes for the rest of you. If you cause ANY trouble for my adopted brother, you will answer directly to me. Is this understood?

Draco:...Yes mum.

*Later in potions class*

Snape: Potter, you were two seconds late, twenty points from Gryffondor.

Wednesday: *Picks up beaker and smashes it on the floor.* Professor Snape. I have wilfully destroyed school property. I believe that is a twenty point deduction from Slytheren house.

Snape: Did you? Well I didn’t see it so.

Wednesday: *Gets up, walks to the front of the class, looking Snape in the eye the entire time, smashes another beaker on the ground right in front of him.* Twenty. Points. From Slytheren.

Snape:..... Alright then twenty points from Slytheren.

Wednesday: *Returns to seat, still glaring at Snape*

Snape: Now before we get on with classes I have the results of last weeks pop quiz, fairly expected stuff, Mr. Weasley you did adequate, but your penmanship was atrocious which is...

Wednesday *Grabs another beaker and holds it up with a look on her face that says ‘I can keep this up as long as you can old man’*

Snape:....Something you should work on in the future.

*Later*

Draco: Can’t you just expel her professor?

Snape: Well I could in theory, but considering her muggle father keeps somehow sneaking in here I think whether she has permission to be here or not is rather Academic. Besides, I’m not crossing her after what she did to Umbridge.

Draco: *Shudders* Don’t remind me.

[randomslasher]

This is one of those posts I'm going to watch for hopefully in future to see what awesome new additions it gets. Go on Tumblr, be brilliant!

[teethkeeper]

please keep me informed as well

[injuries-in-dust]

I just imagined the third book when they learn Sirius Black is trying to kill Harry, and is his godfather.

Gomez: well that makes him family, we must invite him over.

Harry: but father, everyone says he's trying to kill me.

Gomez: oh, of course, how thoughtless of me. Lurch, put away the swords for guests and sharpen up the good swords we use for special occasions! A relative visiting is one thing, but a murderous relative needs to be celebrated.

Harry: thank you, father.

[im-forever-a-fangirl]

XD and as soon as they find sirius is innocent hed be welcomed into the family with open arms.

Can you imagine the Addams during the fight at the ministry of magic or at hogwarts?

[injuries-in-dust]

Gomez with a sword

Mortitia with man eating plants

Pugsley with explosives

Wednesday just keeps pulling bigger and bigger weapons out of those tiny pockets on her dress. She has a wand but never uses it!

A death eater turns a corner and she's inexplicably there with a cannon!

[koffinrott]

Okay but the Addams Family going off on Dumbledore for all the BS he put Harry through without warning him like he could have. (Because fuck that shit. Destiny/fate my ass.)

[saidebanks]

Just...just all of this... Mortisha: So how was your first year of schooling children? Wensday: *pouting* Harry got to see a 3 headed dog and play with it. Harry: Only a little! Gomez: Oh how fun! Maybe we should look into getting one or 2!

[dianamoonposts-deactivated20240]

All the yes

[duhultimatenerd97-deactivated20]

How am I only just finding this, this is brilliant

[injuries-in-dust]

When they find out Lupin was fired for being a werewolf they offer him a place to stay. Granmama brews his wolfbane potion every month, better than Snape!

And they start calling him "cousin Remus" before the end of the second week.

[lyrslair]

Hagrid, of course, is always welcome in their house along with any creatures he’s adopted and needs to hide from the authorities.

[unidentified-flying-sparrow]

Yes please and thank you this is wonderful

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: The Unfridged Woman

So there’s this awful story trope I’ve blogged about before, called fridging. Fridging is when a character – usually a female character – is killed off for the sake of a usually-male hero’s angst. The fridged character isn’t really a character in her own right. She is another character’s motivation.

Today, I’d like to point out a new trope I’ve noticed: unfridging. Unfridging is when a female character who originally had the sole purpose of dying to provide sadness and motivation for a male character, and lacked any story or motivations of her own, is brought back in a sequel as a complex character, vital to the plot and with her own motivations.

I can give you three examples off the top of my head, two of which I’ve already written about in Thursday Thoughts posts.

Here there be spoilers for the following film franchises: How To Train Your Dragon, Ant-Man, and Toy Story.

Keep reading

[dialmformara]

Fast and Furious 6 has Letty, Vin Diesel’s character’s girlfriend. She was killed off at the start of the fourth movie to give the men motivation, and 5 ends with them learning she’s alive and part of a different heist crew. In 6 she’s a powerful henchvillain with no memory of her past, but interactions with Our Heroes lead her to start reconsidering her working relationship with the Big Bad.

I don’t know how that arc ends. I stopped watching about 2/3 of the way in because it just got too damn dark. I don’t recommend 4 or 6; 5 is good but you have to watch 1 and 4 to understand it. Anyway. These movies are fairly traumatic, but at least they fixed this mistake.