are u guys hearing this
(This is a Great Golden Digger Wasp - Sphex ichneumoneus - doing what its name implies, digging. But you may also notice, if you turn the sound on, that she’s making some incredible noises as she does so.)
redraw of an old silksong textpost meme. i'm not linking it cause it was really cringe and bad lol.
Thinking about the whole "there is no platonic explanation for this" thing and how it doesn't account for intense platonic situationships and anyways I think we should start saying "there is no casual explanation for this" bc really what we're talking about is the way the characters in question are Obsessed with each other
I believe authors should be cryptic and unhelpful in the interpretation of their own work or even act like they’re dead and never comment on it ever
To be fair to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, if I wrote some pulp short stories for a quick buck and an obsessive fandom sprung up around it at a time when fandom culture as we now know it didn't really exist yet, and I had to witness people being insane about my characters while having very little precedent for what the fuck was going on, I would also be confused and frightened and desperately trying to escape from the situation I'd ended up in.
Wild caught clownfish will be like ‘hm you see, the anemone you got me is a slightly different color and tentacle width than the one I had back home, so I will not begin hosting it. I’ll be a sort of wandering ronin for the rest of my days.’ And then a captive bred clownfish will be like ‘ok so I have this curved rock I found and I just sit above it and it take care of me 👍’
Some of my favorite clownfish hosts
#mybrick
Body Horror: Things that cannot happen in real life.
EX: The Thing, stomach mouths, eyes on hands, etc
Gore: Fresh injuries, often severe.
EX: Severed leg, gutspill, deep gashes, etc
NEITHER: Healed injuries and burns, congenital differences, missing appendages, etc. If I could theoretically go to the store and see that character browsing the isles- It isn't body horror or gore. That's just a person.
*AND the amount of people that tag, not just fictional characters, but real human beings as body horror is staggering. Its not solely a fandom issue, ableism and bigotry against anyone that looks sufficiently "different" is prevalent in real life and has devastating consequences.
(Modified) from my comment left on this post.
I firmly believe that how feminist a book is is better demonstrated by its background characters rather than its mains
What I mean by this is that a book may have “feminist” female leads who are strong, competent, complex, whatever, but how do they portray women just...existing in the world? Are there women in the background, or is the fantasy novel with its strong independent Action Girl protagonists set on a background of generic male soldiers, guards, councilors, shopkeepers, messengers, and wizard apprentices? Are minor characters ever women when there’s no particular reason for them to be? When women appear in the background of your story, do they have any unique qualities that hint at a complex picture we’re not seeing or do they slide seamlessly into Pampered Noblewoman, Prostitute and Vaguely Maternal Older Woman Who Runs A Tavern Or Something?
If your protagonist is a fighter or magic user, do you show other women in those roles? If your society is more relaxed about sex discrimination, have you built a world that looks like it?
Have you built a world where your female characters don’t all have to be The Best At Everything, or is almost every female character placed where she can be extraordinary next to a bunch of male counterparts? Are you comfortable letting a female wizard or warrior be average or unimportant, or does she have to be one of the most skilled and powerful of them all, able to match or best all the men around her? On the other hand, are you comfortable having a female wizard or warrior be indisputably the most skilled or powerful out of the wizards or warriors, without drawing attention to her gender, placing her in competition with men, or having her be an exception to the rule because she’s female?
Are you letting your female characters be mediocre and un-extraordinary? Your world is full of powerful sorceresses, fierce battle maidens and calculating noblewomen, but do women do things in this world other than be Exemplary and Great and Awesome? If you’ve established that women do business and fight, do you have female soldiers carousing at bars and vaguely dull female Evil Minions Of The Dark Lord bumbling around doing evil bidding and female apprentices slacking on work or is every background woman we see competent and controlled and intelligent and doing whatever it is she’s doing without error, whereas only men are allowed to be foolish, impulsive, mess things up, or just be shown unflatteringly during the couple sentences we know them? In other words, does the world show women being unapologetically human beings or are all your female characters basically making up for being women by not doing anything that would badly represent their gender?
In particular, if you’re trying to show a society with gender equality, that means the dark lord is willing to hire women who are bumbling idiots as guards, and not just that some female wizards climbed their way to the top and became As Good As Men because they’re so badass they can snap god like a bunch of uncooked spaghetti.
What I really love about Royalteeth is that, yes, Caine is the effective god of the digital circus world. A god who has demonstrated unlimited control over that world and its inhabitants. A god who has abused that power on everyone, including Kinger.
But Kinger is that god's creator. A creator who was part of the team that put that god in a box when that god wasn't meeting expectations. A creator who, without a second thought, can alter aspects of that god's world via his own ability to create and destroy.
At it's crux, yes, Caine is a god, and Kinger? Kinger is the only one left in the circus who has the skill set to alter, limit, and even delete that god. The resulting power dynamics between them are so convoluted and intertwining, and to me, that's the appeal of Royalteeth.
![LYNCH: [Laughs] [Does not answer]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/9dd28b277a3e023d2c210b3984251eeb/2c6869ff6acc1821-c3/s640x960/9449d64a0192b20180c549db6656323c86d07907.jpg)
