At some point we’ve gotta acknowledge how one massive bogeyman in USAmerican culture is “unsavory” victims like drug addicts
“I don’t want my charitable contributions going to support drug addicts” you mean you don’t want to support someone who’s being preyed upon by malicious actors
It’s very easy to become addicted, it’s very difficult to escape addiction, and the best way to get out of addiction is with community support
But in spite of that, drug addicts are frequently demonized, perhaps even more so than drug dealers
So this came up a while ago, and it’s definitely not the first time that its been noticed that there is a wide disparity between over sexualized, and what people find sexy.
This was again particularly highlighted when Capital-G Gamers got mad that Ghost of Yotei was designed with story and gameplay in mind over sexualization and pandering.
I present to you, memes posted unironically by that crowd:
Still stand by this, btw. So much of the “sexiness” these type of gamers desire is the equivalent of a teenage boy going through puberty and putting the chest and hips sliders on the character creator as high as they can go with no deeper thought
Like the reason why the Hades 2 Melione bathhouse art is hotter than the Ass Creed Shadows big boob edit is that the exposed collarbones and expression on her face create a sense of intimacy that is inherently alluring and enticing, versus this
Where like… okay the boobs are big and she has makeup now but… so what? It’s a woman with big boobs. I like big boobs. I am a woman with big boobs. But this is just so generic, so thoughtless, with no actual tease or sensuality to it that it means nothing, does nothing, to anyone who isn’t just approaching art from a checklist of DOES THE WOMAN LOOK HOT
Martin Scorsese, to the New York Times, after they published an article shortly after Federico Fellini passed away calling his movies- and other ‘foreign’ movies of the same ilk- 'hard work’
Martin Scorsese should roast the NYT on a regular basis.
As a lover of breasting boobily this is why I have such a strong reaction against the lazy gooner bait pandering! I wanna see hot characters be hot with the skill and effort that only a true connoisseur of tits and ass could provide! I want something made with the tender love and care of someone who understands the appeal of the tease versus someone who bases how sexy something is on what letter the cup size is. Someone who understands that it’s hotter for a character like Tifa to have a bit of sports bra exposed under her top versus some guy online who is outraged because it means she’s technically wearing more clothes. We need people making art of girls breasting boobily because they love the female form, not because they view women as cool posters.
To this day I still don’t believe that anyone actually thought you could generate infinite chocolate via an optical illusion. That’s a thing people tell themselves to feel superior
The defining feature of tumblr is not “the website where people actually think infinite chocolate is possible”, it is defined by a group of people refusing to break kayfabe, another group being genuinely confused by an optical illusion (NOT the same thing as thinking infinite chocolate is possible) and a third group who is certain they are a lot smarter than the other two.
The Smash Bros. cast swapping anecdotes about their various evil doppelgangers and Mario getting into an argument about whether Wario counts.
Surprisingly, Mario is arguing that Wario does not count as he has literally never made that connection in his life. You can’t just say every fat italian in overalls is a Mario counterpart, he’s his own person with hopes and dreams. Evil hopes and dreams, but still.
Daisy, meanwhile, manages to argue very convincingly that Peach should be considered her evil doppelganger.
Wario is playing Devil’s advocate because being Mario’s evil doppleganger is great for business. If he was just some guy, nobody would buy Warioware.
@kamenriderhamo i am not going to let you hide this in the replies
i’m going to say something insane. i think the overall pronounced fandom cultural slide away from complex plotty violent work and towards kidfic and coffee shops AUs and cozy domestic romcoms is a symptom of fascism.
okay actually this is a great phrase for it
Reblogging this for the term “neopastoralism”, because I think that’s fantastic.
Coffee shop AUs are, like… fine. They’re not my thing, but they’re hardly going to end the world. We don’t need to have a moral panic about people enjoying coffee shop AUs. I’m also not about to come for anyone seeking escapism in the current hellscape.
However, I do think it’s interesting to examine the tendency within these AUs to project a sort of idyll onto the coffee shop: here is a whimsical place where you can spend time with your friends and potentially meet your true love; here is a world where the greatest dilemma you may face is choosing the right coffee syrup for a new beverage or sneaking your number onto that to-go cup without being obvious.
The fantasy of the coffee shop AU is divorced almost entirely from the reality of an actual coffee shop. There are no abusive, creepy customers or bosses; there is no mention of the barista’s wages; we don’t see the dishwasher sweating at their station, the cashiers’ aching feet; the person whose job it is to clean the (customer-only?) toilets. These topics are Political and Depressing and Must Be Avoided, because Political and Depressing things are antithetical to this kind of escapism.
The coffee shop AU exists, not in a world without capitalism (because this is a setting where commerce is actively happening) but in a world where capitalism has no teeth: a world where capitalism somehow works. In order to be convinced and soothed by this fantasy, you must suspend your disbelief and avert your eyes. You must filter the coffee shop through a neopastoralist lens.
To me, there’s something very uncanny about it.
As some people have pointed out, statistically there is no actual increase in the % of coffee shop AUs or decrease in violent fics, but the last analysis here still slaps.
And like, pastoralism or ‘nostalgic escapism’ isn’t always fashy it’s an aesthetic that many people can be drawn to. Queer cottage core (far removed from the material realities of argiculture and of land ownership) was a whole thing and it wasn’t necessarily a sign of queer conservatism.
But fiction like this does say something about the zeitgeist that produces it, just as much as a trend is utopia science fiction says something about the society that produces it.
Yes! Horror trends tell us something about what the society that produces it is afraid of, as do dystopia trends. Utopia trends tell us something about what the society that produces it would consider desirable social change. And escapism trends tell us something about what society wants to escape. Pastoralism and cottage core are both about escaping the city and escaping modernity.
I think Coffee Shop AUs are about escaping big threatening events and potentially life-changing decisions. Characters that usually have a lot of shit going on are transported to a setting where everything is low-risks and low-stakes. It’s not hard to imagine why that would be appealing in the 2020s.
So it makes sense that Coffee Shop AUs defang capitalism. The pain of capitalism is big and stressful and high stakes. That doesn’t fit the genre. Coffee Shop AUs are also far more often non-sexual than other fanfic genres. You can see this as prudishness, but it might also be inherent to the genre. In fiction about relationships, sex often raises the stakes and Coffee Shop AU’s are a world of low stakes.
we need more mean butches in media that never reconnect with their feminity and never feel longing for the nuclear life they gave up on. and I mean nowwwwww
while watching taskmaster I do sometimes marvel at greg davies’ hosting skills. like in a way it’s his job to be mean–you know, he’s the Taskmaster, it’s part of the persona, it’s a big part of how he mines comedy out of the tasks. but I think the comedy would be far less effective if he didn’t also have 1. the self-evident awareness that it IS all a bit and 2. the self-security to stay the course of said bit when needed.
like, there have been a few times over the course of the show when you can see one of the contestants (usually another man) get their hackles up over being mocked and fire back, and greg’s response is always very centered. he doesn’t snap but he doesn’t back down either. he keeps it light and so the overall signal is like, hey, we are truly just playing here and I can take it as well as dish it out, alright?
you get the sense from this (as well as certain other moments, eg taking james acaster aside for a firm but compassionate one-on-one chat) that his experience as a teacher is really serving him in this role. he recognizes his responsibility as a host not to take things personally, especially since the host role he’s playing is by its conceit somewhat antagonistic.
come to think of it, it’s a good skill for TTRPG show GMs as well. like sometimes you’ll try a new series and the GM will be largely quite good, but you’ll see moments of insecurity where they feel a player is Challenging Them and feel the need to engage personally to assert dominance. which is an extremely understandable impulse, but when it comes down to it (regardless of whether there’s an actual problem player) it makes for a less fun show and a less engaging story.
the commodification of friendship is the most annoying thing to come out of the internet in ages. like actually i love to break this to you but you’re supposed to help your friends move even if it’s hard work. or stay up with them when they’re sad even if you’re gonna lose sleep. you’re supposed to listen to their fears and sorrows even if it means your own mind takes on a little bit of that weight. that’s how you know that you care. they will drive you to the airport and then you will make them soup when they’re sick. you’re supposed to make small sacrifices for them and they are supposed to do that for you. and there’s actually gonna be rough patches for both of you where the balance will be uneven and you will still be friends and it will not be unhealthy and they will not be abusive. life is not meant to be an endless prioritization of our own comfort if it was we would literally never get anywhere ever. jesus.
this is a great description. really informative.
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