My own novel is “diverse” filled with queer people of color, but you should never use “diversity” as a selling-point because then it doesnt feel authentic. It feels like its there just to hook people in and not because its an intrinsic part of the world or storytelling.
Everybody in my first novel is japanese, because its anime-inspired. Many of the chracters are queer or trans [or both] because I just like writing those kinds of characters. but when I have a trailer Im going to focus on the plot, on the lore, on the artwork [IF WE CAN EVER AFFORD IT C’: ], etc.
Because when you use diversity as a selling point it feels insincere.
Give them the plot. Give them the characters. Give them the world. Give them your WORK and let them discover the “diversity” for themselves.
ATLA didnt brag about how diverse the show was– it just gave you a show inspired by all kinds of asian and Inuit culture that featured people of color, disabled characters, and well-written female heroes as a natural part of the story.
I never once went “omg atla is so progressive its got a blind girl uwu”
i went “HOOOOLY SHIT, TOPH IS BADASS.”
And that’s what you want.
If people are only interested in your show because it meets a diversity checklist, then you’ve done a poor job as a writer. : And thats not me trying to trash it, thats just my honest opinion. If you’ve done a good job then you could have every single character be a trans woman of color without needing to go “WE’RE TRANS-INCLUSIVE!!” once; and all people will care about is how much they love their favorite characters.
It still surprises me at how few people have seen Freak of the Week, and I love sharing it with friends because of the inevitable, “How the hell have I never seen this?” look of awe drawn out on their face.
And man, it really is gorgeous.
Directed by Juanjo Guarnido, it took the team about a year of hard work to hammer out this bloody masterpiece (which you can learn about in his video here) using a combination of 3D animation with the power of college interns skill of a team of artists to painstakingly re-draw the 3D elements they wanted in 2D frame-by-frame, not to mention the post processing and… everything else.
Even though it came out in 2014, it doesn’t seem to have ever garnered the attention it truly deserves.
I really wanna drive this point home, so to give you an idea, Ghost by Mystery Skulls, animated by MysteryBen27 has 18,147,263 views. Freak of the Week has only 2,271,121 views at the time I’m writing this. That’s fucking depressing for something so … phenomenal. I want more of this, and hell, maybe you do too. But we’re not going to see anymore simply because the right people haven’t seen it. In fact, it failed to reach a respectable level of Internet Popularity®, Juanjo himself even described it in the comments section as having ruined him because of how little attention it got.
So if you’re reading this and you’ve got some connections with a TV network or something, consider pulling some strings to get this video spoon-fed to the masses, because people ought to see this. I’m sure Juanjo would be all too happy to oblige. And hell, if you wanna buy the art book, you can get the link here for about $50.
Now, maybe you recognize the former Disney animator Juanjo Guarnido for his other work: Blacksad.
Which is a comic set in the late 1950′s about a hardboiled private investigator published originally by Dark Horse Comics that does… y’know, the …
… noir investigator …
… aloof ladies man…
… badass …
… detective story thing.
That I haven’t yet read but I TOTALLY NEED TO.
Look,
I guess I’m bringing up Freak of the Week because I was reading the comment section and, man, it kinda got me down.
Some of the best things things out there just haven’t been seen by the right people, I guess. But I suppose it’s also a depressing statement on the culture of the internet that the video makes.
This is depressing. If you haven’t watched this video yet PLEASE do, I was in awe and fell instantly in love with it when I first saw it and just assumed something is fantastic and detailed would become an Internet hit …
Apparently not.
Well it should be, I hope this gets to the right people and the video gets the attention it rightfully deserves.
That is not how popularity works. The reason why Mystery Skulls Ghost had the massive positive reception was not because it was fantastically animated, though it WAS very good considering it was made by people who were significantly more on the green side.
It was popular because it told a story that people happened to like. Freak of the Week is not even comparable. And the pitting of these two videos together is apples to oranges. Freak of the Week is a music video that is beautifully animated, but in the end, it looks like a music video. You get what you get, and since the band itself isn’t that mainstream, there isn’t much of a hook to it. And this is coming from a person who loves the video.
Mystery Skulls Ghost told a story which people liked, so it got popular, Freak of the Week didn’t. It’s the same reason Lone Digger got a lot of views as well.
^^^ this exactly. I ADORE the Freak of the Week music video, but as phenomenally made as it is, it fell into a pitfall that ails a LOT of art – it forgot its audience.
Freak of the Week is,unapologetically, exactly what it is. It’s a hardcore animated music video using aesthetics of heavy metal and, arguably, WWE-style imagery. That’s excellent! But it’s not very popular. There is certainly a niche audience for that kind of thing, but that’s just it – it’s a niche. The visuals are beautifully done… but not attractive. It’s beautifully animated but it’s not pretty. As shallow as that may sound, you have to remember that the general audience of this kind of thing isn’t going to be your super-high-level animation connosieur crowd. It’s gonna be your average Joe, who honestly doesn’t have much of an appreciation for the art of animation because he doesn’t understand how much goes into it. Your average Joe doesn’t even bat an eye at Roger Rabbit – he takes it for granted.
You can pooh-pooh that all you want, but that’s the REALITY of it. Mix unattractive, kinda-deliberately-ugly visuals with an aggressive heavy metal aesthetic that otherwise looks like your average hardcore music video and tells no story… and you have something that gets swept under the rug with everything else that falls into the “generic music video category.”
Again, allow me to reiterate – there’s nothing truly “generic” about Freak of the Week. It’s BREATHTAKING… if you know what you’re looking at.
If you don’t? It’s a bunch of metalheads rocking out with the exact kind of aesthetics you expect from metalheads.
For contrast, Mystery Skulls Animated: Ghost is a music video that prioritizes storytelling. Again – beautiful animation. Not nearly as detailed, but it doesn’t need to be in order to be effective. It uses a bright, appealing color palette, simple and easy-to-remember designs, a charmingly-spooky aesthetic reminiscent of Scooby Doo, and a bold visual style that overall calls to mind the likes of Sanrio properties. To put it bluntly, it looks really cute. More importantly, it looks really cute to your average Joe.
Not to mention, the story – people love a good story. People love a good heartbreaking story. People love a good heartbreaking story with a bittersweet ending, dashes of comedy throughout, and a dark underlying secret to the story that encourages them to dig deeper. Freak of the Week may be beautiful, but it’s not deep. Ghost is deep, and encourages a rewatch or several so that the viewer can get the most out of it that they can.
Freak of the Week focuses on amplifying the effect of the music. Ghost takes the music as a springboard and builds an entire world off of it – prompting the building of a fanbase of people eager to see where the story goes next. In other words: Freak of the Week forgot that longevity requires encouraging people to come back to it. Freak of the Week forgot its audience. Ghost did not.
There is a massive difference. Just like Eli said above me – it’s comparing apples to oranges. It’s a HUGE shame that Freak of the Week doesn’t get the attention you’d HOPE it would get, based on how much work was put into it. But putting work into something doesn’t automatically make it valuable – what makes something valuable is how much the audience wants it.
I can tell you now for a fact that all the members respect jin even though it doesn’t seem like it because they joke around with him, they all respect him a lot & even though they don’t constantly compliment him, it doesn’t make their respect or love for him any less. I wanted to take my time with this post because I wanted to highlight how much respect each & every single one of them have for him.
Let’s start with Jungkook. Jungkook respects & loves Jin to a very large extent. Why? Because Jin isn’t just a member he met, Jin is someone who stayed with him & helped him when he came to Seoul at the age of fifteen. Jin is the person who stayed with him & showed him around Seoul & played a very important role as his big brother at the time & still does till this very day. When they were trainees, they were always together. Eating together ( “speaking of the trainee days, we went out to eat a lot. I remember when we had singing lessons outside of the company, we used to eat together after the lessons everyday and then we went back to the dormitory together. Always asked for different menus. It was fun.”), going places, watching movies, they were literally hand & hand with each other & all of that amounts to the great respect Jungkook has for Jin till this day. Jungkook used to be timid around Jin, he cared about a lot of things(”at first, shall I call it walls, I cared about many things. But then we became comfortable with each other, we went out to play, ate, played games and worked out together. To be honest, there are times where I feel that you’re younger than me”) because of their age gap but Jin made it easier for him. It didn’t take him long to feel comfortable around Jin & that’s because Jin has such an easy-going, comfortable personality that anyone can get along with. He really is the member in Bangtan that makes everyone feel comfortable. Jungkook loves Jin. No one should ever doubt that respect he has for him because Jin was support for him, comfort for him, & as he noted before, Jin is one of the people he feels comfortable with. Their bickering is really just a sign of their closeness towards each other & the insults, well, Jin is his older brother, he can’t always let him live because as he’s grown, Jungkook likes bothering him for fun & Jin understands that. Yeah sure, he makes fun of his age, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect him, in fact, the fact that Jungkook is even able to make fun of him, given their age gap, is evidence enough that he’s comfortable with him. Although Jungkook doesn’t remind us all the time that he loves Jin, he has his own way of showing his love for him. When they were together on Let’s Eat Dinner Together, Hodong said “you guys must be good friends” & Jungkook, before Jin could even speak, responded with “we are”. When Jungkook was asked to write a message to Jin, he responded with“Jin hyung, my everything”(& I think the response ‘my everything’ is already clear enough about how much Jin means to him) but of course, when Jin responded with the same he had to change it because he probably realized he was being too soft lmao to “Jin hyung is my sometimes annoying brother”. Even though he doesn’t full on compliment him at times, calling him his “big brother’ says a lot of what kind of figure Jin has been for him ever since he came to Seoul & I personally believe that says a lot. And Jungkook doesn’t always insult him either. When Jin felt down about losing in Run & blamed himself for it, Jungkook immediately said that if you’re on Jin hyung’s team, you’ll always win. When Jin lacked confidence during Let’s Eat Dinner Together to ring the doorbell, Jungkook encouraged him & told him “you’re worldwide handsome, don’t worry”. Even during one of the Wings video, when Jungkook & Jimin were choosing their favourite solo performances, Jungkook talked about Jin & his improved vocals. During their anniversary, Jin wrote his closeness with Jungkook to be very close but Jungkook didn’t check until someone read it out loud & immediately looked to check what Jin wrote. When he saw the ‘very close’, he looked up & did a thumbs up to Jin & nodded his head in approval. Jungkook, in Jin’s words, is his companion puppy because literally, in spite of everything, Jungkook is always following this boy around. He even helps him cook! They’re even starting to merge into each other nowadays. When asked who he wanted to be with forever, Jungkook responded with Jin. The bickering & insults is what shows that Jin & Jungkook are close. Don’t let the insults get to your heart love, because I can ensure you Jungkook is ready to follow Jin to the ends of the earth if he has too. Jungkook literally cannot last a second without touching this boy’s neck multiple times or fighting with him or not even letting him live for a second. It’s a “special relationship” as Jin calls it. This is why I love their relationship so much & you will always see me talking about it because they have such a beautiful sibling relationship that even Jungkook’s older brother is whipped. And Jin? Jin will never be tired of Jungkook. I think that’s physically, mentally, & emotionally impossible because he knows what he’s worth to Jungkook & the fact that they have such a strong bond in spite of the age gap says a lot. Jin literally clings onto him just as much as Jungkook clings onto him. & let’s not forget that Jungkook originally wanted to write a letter to Jin during Bon Voyage 2 but that didn’t end up happening & let’s not forget that Jin wrote a letter to Jungkook that he didn’t make serious because he’s Jin lmao but Jungkook thought it was going to be serious lmao which it wasn’t. Please watch this every time you feel in doubt. It’s short in length but it’s a moment of their brotherly love.
like it literally isnt even funny anymore people on this site go out of their fucking way to sexualise jimin and completely ignore anything else he says or does like he did a whole 40 min vlive where he talked about his health, how much he loves armys, how hes been feeling lately, his dynamics w some of the other members etc but no you freaks just tune all of that out and focus exclusively on him leaning his head back and licking his tongue because you guys dont know how to treat jimin like a fucking human being and respect his words and actions instead of sexualising and infantilising him like a little baby doll or toy constantly and it really fucking shows like he could fucking breathe and there’d be 473974 posts (mostly by white stans but not all) immediately saying “omg hes such a tease” “what the fuck did he just do” “he has no respect” like you guys are always going on about how people disrespect and mistreat x member but when it comes to jimin it’s like it’s the fucking norm to just decontextualise and objectify every single action of his and honestly it’s so fucking disgusting and gross and awful you guys don’t fucking deserve park jimin
you know it’d be real nice if you guys could like actually reblog this instead of just liking it and pretending as if you care because that really just goes to prove my point that none of you freaks actually give a shit about park jimin as a person and or calling out anything about how hes treated.
I’m going to speak primarily as a fanfic writer for this fandom, but one of the most important things that has happened to me in this fandom is a certain review I received on Butterfly Kisses and Narcissus, where a Jimin stan told me they loved my portrayal of him. Mind you, BK&N was my first-ever attempt at a long, serious BTS fic – so at the time, I was very nervous and still quite uncertain about how I was writing the boys’ personalities. Jimin, as it was, ended up being very sassy and a tad sardonic, even if a caring and sweet person at heart, because up until then that was the vibe I’d gotten from him IRL. And the Jimin stan loved it!! They explained to me that Jimin tends to get either hypersexualized or hyperinfantilized, both in fic portrayals and in person, and that just…stuck with me. Especially once I really started delving into the fandom and saw how just true that is.
Listen. Jimin is one of the most interesting people I can ever base a character off of. He’s so multifaceted; he’s fiercely passionate yet so very thoughtful, kind and caring yet pretty freaking temperamental. (Don’t believe me on that? The other members have rated Jimin no. 1 as “Most Terrifying When Angry.” That speaks for itself.) And there are sooo many fics/AUs/people out there who present him as just this thing to protect, to coo over or to screw. It’s insulting, it’s dehumanizing, and worse, it turns the real-life Jimin – a breathing, thinking person who, you know, has autonomy to his own actions and body – into a literal object so that stuff like what OP describes is outright normalized within our fandom. If you fantasize about him like that, sure. Whatever. But you know, Jimin is a wonderful human being, a fascinating personality to put on paper, and I’m tired of people turning into just some sort of doll to baby over. At some point, I think you have to realize that sending him lewd comments or squealing about how cute he is when this guy’s trying to connect with us about his health, feelings, and dreams is a little bit much.
EDIT: And just to put this out there, because this also needs to be said: you can say he’s sexy/cute/etc. Jimin knows he’s a sexy dude and the effect he has on ARMY. That’s a given, like of course. But there IS a point where you should actually consider about reining it back, especially when certain fans start taking this flanderization of Jimin being nothing more than a Sexual Being seriously. Fantasizing about him is one thing. Objectifying him until he becomes your mental sex toy, where all you see when you look at Jimin is a doll, is…quite another matter entirely.
As much as I love BTS and being an ARMY, it frustrates me sometimes (read: all the time) how so many new kpop fans get into BTS and then refuse to be open to criticism or expanding their horizons in terms of new groups. It’s aggravating that so many new ARMYs just decide they want to be stubborn and outright rude to other fans/groups because they can’t get off their high horse.
Lapis has some intense PTSD. She was basically a prisoner of war for thousands of years, and no one knew she was there. She finally gets released and treated like a person, and it gets ruined all over again when she’s dragged back to her hellhole of imprisonment (earth). Then to put another layer of trauma on her, she’s trapped in a horribly (mutually) abusive relationship and she can’t let go or the only person who’s ever cared about her (Steven) will probably die. Then when she’s finally free of that, finally healing (slowly), finally trusting Peridot, she’s triggered (y’all have ruined this word) by talk of the diamonds and the only thing she has room for in her messed-up psyche is fear. So she tries to get away, but it hurts to leave her once-home and once-family (peridot, possibly the gems). But she is operating on a broken system. A system broken over and over. Mental illness doesn’t make sensible decisions. It takes and it takes and she’s trying but it’s too much. She’s hurting people because she’s so hurt herself, she can only think of running away to maybe find some peace. Eventually she’ll realize alone isn’t what saves her, it’s friends. But she’s not there yet. Trauma isn’t healed in a day or even a year. It takes a lifetime.
“Maybe I’ll find myself smiling on that distant shore
Op is a lesbian lmfao how can she fetishise herself??
By stripping herself down to that only detail and focusing and projecting that detail onto other people, removing all humanity and nuance from people to only be that one detail whether or not they are.
Which is gross, rude, weird, and frankly creepy as hell.
Yup yup yuuuuuuup.
Y’all go “how can X-identity person fetishize themself!?”
This is exactly how. I’ve called out at least one trans person on this site who was taking canon cis characters and making them trans and obnoxiously telling other fans that this character being trans now is the truth. Then they said this exact thing when called out “I’m trans, how can I fetishize trans people?”.
By reducing the character to nothing other than being trans. It is fetishizing, sorry not sorry, I don’t make the rules.
Kill the idea that naivety is an unforgivable flaw but cynicism is just wisdom, murder it, chop it up and serve it for dinner, I don’t care, just end this bullshit idea that it’s better to hate than to love and better to rot in miserable bitter resignation than to hope for the best.
What she means: why is Treasure Planet so underrated. Does nobody appreciate the concept of pirates in space. All the steampunk is beautiful and the animation is amazing and the storyline is wonderful and it has a relatable loveable rogue character and doesn’t rely on romance to be a good movie why isn’t anyone talking about this movie.
XI's Archived Tumblr Blog 