#happy mediums

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Louise Huebner - Never Strike a Happy Medium - Nash Publishing - 1970

[ajsartstation]

Panic Attack: Heartbreak.

General concept art for how the Panic Attack fights and the dreamscapes would look in Happy Mediums (previously called "Compromised Heroes"). Inspired by Madoka Magica's witch fights, or Smile For Me to include some mixed media in it.

Fun fact: The origami here I did myself. The text written on it is of the poem "Annabel Lee."

[pagerunner-j]

Unpopular fandom opinion time, prompted by a mud-slinging fest I saw on another site this morning:

Spoiler oversensitivity is one of the worst plagues upon the Internet.

Of course I'm fully in support of common courtesy on the matter. Don't go blabbing major plot points about new content, acknowledge that not everyone can get to a thing immediately, and if you want to have an extended, detailed discussion, cut tags and spoiler warnings make perfect sense.

On the other extreme, though, you've got people who explode if they see ANYTHING, anything at all, about a story, and those people need to acknowledge something, too:

Expecting the entire rest of the Internet to shield you from things you want to remain ignorant about is not how information transfer works. 

What I wish I could tell some of these people without getting lynched for it, and will at least say here, to get it out of my system:

1: Take some responsibility for your own choices and reading habits. Protecting your sensitivities isn't entirely up to everyone else around you. Learn to skim.

(Again, please note that I mentioned common courtesy. Spoiler / trigger / etc. warnings are still appreciated for multiple reasons and aren't hard to integrate into a post, so yes, everyone, PLEASE USE THEM. But I'm talking about people who go off the handle at the slightest suggestion of a spoiler and jump down the poster's throat about it, and we all know that they exist.)

2: Stop freaking out as if knowing ANYTHING about a story beforehand is going to ruin your experience. There are other values to a story besides surprise, and if you can't trust the story to still be worthwhile even if you know that Minor Character B is going to bite it in Act 2, either the story has already failed, or you have, by shutting yourself down to anything else it might have to offer you besides shock value. There are PLENTY of things it might have to offer you besides shock value. Try to be receptive to that, too.

My favorite example of this is probably Apollo 13. It's a true story; the historical record is immense; we ALL KNOW that they survive and get home. It didn't stop my entire movie theater crowd from bursting into applause near the end when the capsule's parachutes opened. I've seen the movie piles of times and I still get chills. A well-told story survives knowing the details beforehand. It's only a bad one that doesn't.

3: Statute of limitations. I'll admit I've complained to people about untagged spoilers before -- like people on the East Coast of the U.S. who seem to forget that there's a whooooole lot of country out here in other time zones, and end up spoiling TV episodes before they've even aired for a bunch of us. (Grr.) But this doesn't last forever. After a reasonable amount of time has passed, I'll be blunt: you need to either get on the train with the rest of the crowd or deal with it. If the movie/book/game/whatever has been out for months or more, you can't possibly expect people not to be talking openly about it. (That was the problem this morning. It was people complaining about spoilers in a two-year-old game.) And if you're complaining about getting spoiled about a plot point in a Shakespeare play that was written over four hundred years ago -- which I actually saw happen re: Much Ado About Nothing -- then please, stand still right over here while I smack you upside the head with the perspective stick and then stomp off again, shaking my head.

Because really, it comes down to this:

Common courtesy goes both ways. Some of that includes not going ballistic at people who aren't treating you like the center of the universe, which is what these cases of spoiler oversensitivity amount to in the end.

So yes, folks. Chill. Relax. Join the spoilery discussion, or don't, it's up to you. Either way, though, I'll say it again:

Per. spec. tive.

And yes, the Titanic fucking sinks. Get over it.

[eldritchrachael]

man my life is a constant battle between "I want to do everything I possibly can to help everyone ever" and "leave me the fuck alone all you ungrateful assholes."

[alchemist-rising]

i went with vienna fingers and milk, in case the world was wondering~