caveman #2 ... very similar to mambo #5

So, I told him, "they're not unconnected- we were talking about going to the carnival, and the carnival is on the same fairgrounds they used to use for the rodeo, and one time at the rodeo my brother spilled sprite on himself and a bee went up his shirt and stung him, and bees die when they sting, but wasps don't, and I was wondering why, so I asked you."

Here is the OFFICIAL list of 2021 Dashcon panels and activities (so far):

Love Wins: Destiel is Canon

Can You Knot? An Introduction to A/B/O

Activism and Kpop: How Fancams Fight Fascism

TWO BALL PITS IN THE SUPER HELL ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a 72-hour Hamilton sing-a-long all weekend!!!

Destiel’s Legacy: Johnlock, Stucky, and Hannigram Next?

Acting lessons with special guest Jensen Ackles (free)

British Men and Their Cheekbones

Why Kylo is Exactly Like Zuko

Big Time Socialists: Why BTS Supporting Black Lives Matter Was the Wokest Moment of 2020

Quarantine and Chill? How the Pandemic Has Affected Fanfiction

Parody Accounts: Tumblr, Trolling, and You

Trump is Just Like Umbridge: Activism For the Woke HP Generation

and a six hour John Green book signing (he said he would also sign printed out copies of the cock monologue for an extra $5)

Additionally, we have unfortunately decided to cancel the Tumblr Prom due to unforeseen circumstances (explanation here). We hope you’ll all still have fun anyway ❤️

Have ideas for more panels? Let us know!

Buy your 2021 Dashcon Badge HERE!!!!!!!!!!

Dashcon 2021 Announcement: 

The panel mentioned above called “Parody Accounts: Tumblr, Trolling, and You” has been renamed “Parody Accounts: How Much More Obvious Do I Need to Get? Why Aren’t Any of These People Reading My Bio or Tags or Clicking Any Of My Links? How Many Ways Do I Need To Say It’s A Parody Before People Catch On? I Thought I Was Being Obvious This Time” until further notice.

That is Zac Efron but with carbs. That is some premium beefcake. That is Zac Efron without having to dehydrate for 2 days, eat protein every 4 hours and work out 3 times a day. That is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of or shamed in any way.

STOP👏BODY👏SHAMING👏MEN👏YOU👏FUCKING👏ARSEHOLES👏

Tumblr, you’ve been nice today, so please enjoy the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

-His wife ditched him and asked for 900k a year,

-He was sexually assaulted which he said kicked him into a deep depression

-He stated that the stunts from the 3rd Mummy movie completely destroyed his body and he was in and out of the hospital for 7 years even having to get surgery to repair his vocal cords.

-He apparently blamed himself for all this which only worsened his depression.

Compare with this image from the GQ article last February:

Proper lighting, professional setting, good angles etc.

Plus

2019 Brendan is still slaying, so btfu

So you build your protagonist. She has no personality traits beyond being decently strong-willed, so that her quirks and interesting traits absolutely can’t get in the way of the audience’s projection onto her. She is dainty, birdlike, beautiful despite her protestations that she is ugly–yet she can still hold her own against significantly taller and stronger combatants. She is the perfect mask for the bashful, insecure tweens you are marketing to to wear while they read.

You think, as you draft your novel, that you need to add something that appeals to the basest nature of teenagers, something this government does that will be perversely appealing to them. The Hunger Games’ titular games were the main draw of the books, despite the hatred its characters hold for the event. So the government forces everyone into Harry Potter houses. 

So the government makes everyone choose their faction, their single personality trait. Teenagers and tweens are basic–they likely identify by one distinct personality trait or career aspiration, and they’ll thus be enchanted by this system. For years, Tumblr and Twitter bios will include Erudite or Dauntless alongside Aquarius and Ravenclaw and INTJ. Congratulations, you just made having more than one personality trait anathema to your worldbuilding. 

Your readers and thus your protagonist are naturally drawn to the faction that you have made RIDICULOUSLY cooler and better than the others: Dauntless. The faction where they play dangerous games of Capture the Flag and don’t work and act remarkably like teenagers with a budget. You add an attractive, tall man to help and hinder the protagonist. He is brooding and handsome; he doesn’t need to be anything else. 

The villains appear soon afterward. They are your tried and true dystopian government: polished, sleek, intelligent, headed by a woman for some reason. They fight the protagonists, they carry out their evil, Machiavellian, stupid plan. You finish the novel with duct tape and fanservice, action sequences and skin and just enough glue and spit to seal the terrible, hollow world you have made shut just long enough to put it on the shelf. 

And you have just destroyed YA dystopian literature. Because you have boiled it down to its bare essentials. A sleek, futuristic government borrowing its aesthetic from modern minimalism and wealth forces the population to participate in a perversely cool-to-read-about system like the Hunger Games or the factions, and one brave, slender, pretty, hollow main character is the only one brave–no, special enough to stand against it. 

but divergent was clumsy make-believe the whole way through. it aped the forms and functions of dystopian lit but the writer didn’t actually have any real, passionate, sincere anger to put on the page. she didn’t know what it was talking about, so she didn’t have anything worth listening to.

You contrast that with how the marketing for the Hunger Games films directly contradicts the messaging of the text, and how Divergent seems ready-made for the big screen, and it becomes really apparent why the genre folded in on itself. Capitalism tried to recuperate dystopian fiction criticizing capitalism, and in doing so, butchered the genre.

Art by Alena Aenami on Artstation.