big npc energy

So fandom is often a very strange space to be in.

People trying so desperately to prove that a character is good and justified and “the victim” and another character is bad and wrong and “the perpetrator.” Rather than asking what the character’s role is in the story, what lies they may be telling themselves and others, what are their flaws, what might their arc be?

Instead, they’re focused on other people’s perception of the character. And you can feel their sincere dismay that people don’t see things their way through the text of their posts, this visceral sense that other people’s disagreement and dislike is hurting them.

I can’t imagine that engaging with fandom that way is anything but miserable.

Eventually, you’re going to need to expand your taste, and realize that characters who murder or are bigoted or cruel can be great characters regardless of their goodness, and enjoy them for who they are.

You’re going to have to allow other people to disagree with your opinions and dislike your favorite things without being hurt by it.

There is a character named Robert Thomson.

At work, he's known as Robert by his coworkers and Thomson by his boss. At home, the people in his neighborhood call him Rob. His parents, spouse, and closest friends call him Robbie. His best friend from childhood calls him Robbie and also sometimes calls him Roberto. The children in his neighborhood call him Mr. Rob but when he does volunteer work at the library the kids there call him Mr. Thomson. Children in the wild who don't know him personally call him sir. When he goes to anywhere with reception, he's typically addressed as Thomson.

like every culture/social space has that. Even tumblr!

op/poster

tumblr user [url]

[url]

[shorter url]

[actual irl name]

[nick name for irl name or url]

like:

poster

tumblr user rabbitindisguise

rabbitindisguise

rabbit

lavender

lav

For example: Beowulf does not follow the hero's journey. I have a pet theory that Beowulf is three or four stories that kind of got mashed together since it's a collection of a couple vignettes about this warrior's life and the dragon episode is rather disconnected from Grendel (unless you're John Gardner, who ties it all together in his novel Grendel). Beowulf emerges as a full-blown hero when he enters the narrative, does not have a mentor, does not refuse the call (and rather wholeheartedly embraces it in fact - "Not only am I gonna slay your monster, I'm gonna slay your monster with my ass hanging out to show off"), does not live in the normal world at any point. One could argue he returns with the elixir to his home, given that the later story has him as a king, but the story's not interested in explaining much about how that happened and keeps going after the hero's journey would claim it should end, instead jumping to Beowulf's noble sacrificial death. You really have to squeeze to fit Beowulf into that framework, and by the point where it does, you've lost all semblance of a common structure the monomyth claims to represent. Arguably, the Iliad doesn't it either, given the scope of the story is a lot smaller than some people seem to believe.

Like I get the point that the original post was making about the western canon being so heavy with authors from the US and western Europe and not caring much about works from cultures beyond that, but I feel it's worth noting that even if you grade Campbell's ideas on the most generous possible curve, they don't hold up.

And even if we pretend they did, he never intended them as a writing guide. They were only popularized as one when George Lucas took that structure and adapted it to Star Wars.

friend whos always available: i can do whenever

friend whos constantly busy: im sorry i have work and then school and then the labyrinth and then more work :( i can do tuesday at 3:00 am for five minutes tho

friend with the randomly generated sleep schedule: (no response)

friend who went missing in the woods behind their house 12 years ago and hasn't been heard from since: (no response)