I Have The Urge To Just Info Dump About AP Human Geography And How San Fransoyko Demonstrates Some Of

I have the urge to just info dump about AP human geography and how San Fransoyko demonstrates some of the concepts from the course, this course is kinda fucking useless but I took it anyway, so now I'm here wanting to infodump about a fictional city showing concepts from a dumb AP course I chose because I thought I'd get college credits but then realized was useless.

Okay, I've posted a lot more today then I have in this entire accounts existence so far, but I'm just very happy.

I don't heavily interact with fandom that much nowadays because I'm busy and people scare me but I've found some cool people in the BH6 fandom so what was shaping up to be a horrible day today (I wasn't feeling great this morning) has actually gone lovely.

And if it wasn't already apparent, I love BH6. But I wanted to share this personal connection I have with the movie specifically; so currently, I am very close in age to Hiro, so when the movie came out I was really young, and before I first watched the movie, I was kinda internally misogynistic (I'm genderfluid but was born female and grew up around a lot of boys and had trouble connecting with girls due to my lack of social cue understanding) so I told myself I couldn't watch big hero 6 because the boys liked it and I was too masc to be a girl and too fem to be a boy. I told myself that BH6 was something not for me.

Buttt that changed when the movie was on cable and I watched it and was so fascinated by the robots and Hiro. Hiro was a character I connected to in a way I didn't quite understand at the time (later in realizing it was gender envy and the grief/depression themes later relating to my tween years). I loved seeing Baymax, the bot fights and the microbots, at the time I was already vaguely interested in science, but I think this move solidified my interest in robots.

I think the coolest thing with this is that next year I'm going to a public, specialized science and math school for highschool aged teens to focus on a career path in STEAM kind of like SFIT (but instead of college it's a highschool) which I think is just so cool how this movie put me on my current path while also helping me tackle internalized biases against myself and later on cope with mental illness.

Sometimes movies can have the largest impact on our lives, now I build robots, am learning to code, read science fiction, and want to make robots like Baymax to help people with medical conditions that prevent people from taking care of themselves (it is my ultimate dream to make a robot like Baymax).

Making robots has been my lifeline during some very hard points, and so has animated films, so BH6 helped me during some dark points and helped inspire my desire to make robots to further medicine and help people.

All that is to say, thank you Big Hero 6 for setting me down a path of science, robotics, determination, and challenging little me's beliefs about what I could watch and what I could be. I wouldn't be here without ya.

Love y'all, thanks for reading my ramble -Professional yapper/chatterbox, Feral/Raine

Work in progress

Okay- so I had this other painting of Hiro I was working on, but I didn't like the pose, or the format (I had originally drawn it on a small piece of paper than transferred it to another so the formatting was shit) so I started working on another, here's some work in progress sketches I made while on the go.

His hands and pants weren't the best and some other stuff so I changed it a bit.

Still rough sketches, trying to figure out how to do that hat and pants, then I'll transfer it to some better paper since this one is beat up from all the erasing and won't take watercolors. I don't know, I'm just really tired at this point and wanted to post some art to try to get my spirits up, plus I haven't posted in a bit, life's been strange, I am not in anyway ready for high school in the fall, but I digress, I do like this drawing, I'm getting better at poses (Sorta).

Analyzing San Fransoyko

okay, credit to @razbotz for encouraging me to do this, I was on the fence about this, but I think I might do a full series of posts just dedicated to analyzing San Fransoyko's world-building from the perspective of a former AP Human Geo student who spent a year studying the course and applying it to world-building. The course has little practical use but it's a course I know a lot about (I can proudly say I kept an A in the class despite it being a college course I took at 13-14 when the class had a low passing rate at my school due to the fact we were WAYYYY too young to be taking the course) so now I'm going to infodump about it.

Sooo, if I continue this, then this is part 1/? of idk how many.

Okay, so cultural diffusion, as a concept, cultural diffusion is when traits or aspects of culture (clothing, language, architecture, textile works, art, religion, music, all these things associated with a culture) diffuse or move from its hearth (a hearth being the origin of a cultural trait, agricultural crop, or other things, basically, the birthplace). San Fransokyo is a really good example of the positive effects of cultural diffusion. As the name of the city implies it's a mix of San Francisco California and Tokyo Japan, we see the Golden Gate Bridge altered to use Japanese Shinto temples/shrine designs (insert image lol)

Now.. compare that with the actual golden gate bridge and you can notice the differences in design.

This is an example of multiple types of diffusion (there are 6 main types, Contagious, Expansion, Hierarchical, Stimulus, Relocation, and Maladaptive).

(Note: as not everyone may be familiar with these terms, here's some basic definitions: -Contagious diffusion is well, contagious, think of it like a virus or disease that spreads from person to person through contact, cultural traits can move within a community through word of mouth and with the advent of the internet, through social media posts and other way things can go viral, if something goes viral and spreads a trait, it's likely Contagious diffusion. -Expansion is when a trait stays prominent in its birthplace, like rice, which has had multiple birth places but has spread elsewhere while still remaining prevalent in the parts of Asia where it originated from. -Hierarchical diffusion is when a cultural trait moves up or down a social hierarchy, for example, a lot of fashion pieces move from these high-level designers in France, which is prestigious and known for fashion, and move down the social ladder to everyday people. This can also happen with rich people and monarchs throughout history, or the opposite can happen when lower class/normal people do something, the rich find out and start doing it too and it spreads. -Stimulus diffusion occurs when a trait moves from one place to another but changes, likely due to limitations of the place it moves to. This is especially common in agriculture and cuisine, immigrants move to new places where they may not be able to access the same ingredients from where they immigrated too so their dishes get reinvented or changed. This can also happen with outside influences such as the Texas German dialect which is a German dialect native to Texas among German immigrants where as certain words didn't exist at the time so they borrowed English words while Germans in Germany created new words for these in German that didn't cross over, the prolonged exposure and changes to the culture due to outside forces created a different dialect. -Relocation diffusion is pretty straightforward, it's when people from one culture move to an area with people of a different culture, bringing their culture with them, this is common amongst immigrant populations who bring their culture with them and establish groups of other people with similar cultures, like how China towns exist with people of similar cultures and ethnicities and how they serve to protect and create a space for these people. Due to assimilation throughout history many cases of relocation diffusion result in not much spread of the trait because people assimilate into the culture of the area they're in to fit in. -Our last major definition here, which is maladaptive diffusion. This is not very relevant to the conversation but I thought I'd throw it in. Maladaptive diffusion is when a trait diffuses to an area, but doesn't catch on that much or seem that relevant while not changing that much. A common example is when people are playing soccer/football in snowy climates, the game doesn't make sense for the area but people still do it, it isn't that relevant but it remains unchanged.

The bridge is likely relocation because from what I understand of the wiki, the reason San Fransokyo is named that is due to Japanese immigrants, which if we can use basic reasoning skills (plus the background knowledge that people bring their culture with them when they move) we can likely reason that as Japanese immigrants moved from Japan to at the time San Francisco they brought their culture with them as they relocated.

Shintoism is what we call an 'ethnic religion' in AP human geo (which I have slight discomfort with as the terminology used in the course is often very Eurocentric, but ethnic religions are essentially religions that are primarily practiced by one ethnicity or culture, they don't try to convert people into it on large scales and mostly mind their own business, compared that with Christianity which is a universalizing religion that tries to appeal to a large number of people to gain or convert new members in different groups, ethnic religions like Shintoism are often indigenous religions that have much smaller populations) so Shintoism doesn't spread quickly, but we see it's influenced in the architecture of San Fransokyo meaning it grasped at the city and managed to take hold, moving and relocation with Japanese immigrants.

That's one form of cultural diffusion present, now here's another, expansion diffusion. Going back to Shintoism, this religion, though not super big, is still prevalent and one of, if not the oldest still standing religion in Japan, and due to the architectural influences scene with it in San Fransokyo, armed with the knowledge I previously supplied that expansion diffusion is when a trait defuses but is still prevalent in its place of origin, Shintoism likely expanded from Japan with Japanese immigrants to San Fransokyo and stayed prevalent in both places.

Contagious diffusion is another easy one to show examples for since it connects with the previous themes already. Immigrants move to an area, the traits expand outwardly, moving from person to person in the past now more rapidly with technology, and a larger amount of people pick up the trait.

For the last major one I can say without it being a stretch is likely Stimulus diffusion (I could make an argument from a bottom-to-top hierarchical diffusion since we've seen it happen with immigrant populations who are low on the social hierarchy influencing the top, but I'm honestly too tired as I type this to find examples). This is shown when we see the mixture of Japanese imagery and architecture mixed with more American and Spanish influences (as San Fransokyo is based on the real San Francisco but if there was an influx of Japanese immigrants, and due to the real San Francisco having large Spanish influences in its culture there's likely a mix of Japanese, Spanish, and American influences on the culture of the fictional San Fransokyo.) Stimulus diffusion is when traits are changed due to limitations or interactions with other cultures when a cultural trait is carried to new places, as we can see throughout the movie in the background, the traits are not completely left unchanged, there's American influences in the buildings, in the people, in the languages in the culture, plus the Japanese aspects which both change each other due to prolonged exposure to each other, changing both culture's traits and creating new ones.

I am about to hit character limit, but that's part 1 of my rambles on San Fransokyo and AP Human Geo concepts, I'll post the next instances I see when I'm not sleep-deprived at 2am, love ya'll, thanks to @razbotz for encouraging me to make this.

-Feral/Raine

Can I get your guy's input?

Okay, so I've been rewatching bits and pieces of big hero 6 the series after litteral years of not watching it and I wanted to ask; what's ya'lls opinion of Karmi? I think on paper or in concept she'd be interesting and someone I might relate to, someone interested in bio-tech/virology and is a smart female character who gets obsessive with her interests (from what I can pick up on and read from the wiki's) and struggles with social interactions. I think in story her role is meant to be a rivals/enemies to lovers (I know it'd likely be more rivals but I bring up enemies for a specific point later) type arc with Hiro, and a female character in a similar situation to Hiro in which challenges/apposes Hiro but ultimately grow to get along, but I'm not very fond of her in practice. I related to her yet was annoyed by her as a child, but looking back on her she makes me a bit uncomfortable. This isn't to hate on people who like Hiro x Karmi or the character herself, but I think she just irks me slightly. I was reading some people thoughts on her and the whole fanfiction aspect, while it could've been cute, jsut feels creepy to me, I understand that people like to write self insert stuff irl, and I used to have self insert stuff on this blog and I like reading self insert stuff, BUT WITH FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. And in universe, Karmi is writing about Hiro's alter ego/superhero form, who in her universe is a real person, though they're both fictional to us, they're real to each other because it's a story. (Though that's a tangent). My point with this is that from what I can tell it makes Hiro uncomfortable but his discomfort is played off/disregarded) There's also the added bit that Karmi repeated harasses/bullies Hiro in his civilian form and it irks me a bit. There can be good bullies to lovers type stories but to me, this reads off as it's meant to be endearing when it really isn't in my opinion. I've had similar situations happen to me in terms of bullying and it just is kind of upsetting to me. Going beyond that, I've foudn other posters (Which I'll link below) that talk about how Karmi acts with Hiro's alter ego, and how it comes off as kind of stalker-ish, which is another nail in the coffin for me, Karmi is repeatedly harassing and bullying Hiro in school then fawns over and sort of stalks is Hiro form while writing self insert fanfic that makes Hiro uncomfortable, while also insinuating Hiro has a crush on her in school when he doesn't and he seems uncomfortable. This feels less like academic rivals to or even enemies to lovers, because enemies generally mutually hate each other/have some form of equal footing, but this just seems like Hiro's a victim of bullying, harassment, and some stalker-ish tendencies from Karmi. I'm not super far into my re-watch of the series because I don't have much time due to end-of-the-school-year stuff and the fact Karmi just makes me not want to watch the show that much, but I kind of wanted to get feedback from other fans of BH6 as to Karmi's character and the Hiro x Karmi ship, I'm not trying to attack anyone, but I jsut find Karmi uncomfortable. While I think media can explore uncomfortable/dark/toxic ships and themes, I think with how the show treats Karmi as endearing and how the characters around her justify this behavior (from what I've noticed, like I said I haven't finished re-watching the show and I'm mostly going off of other fan's opinions I've noticed) I just think Karmi as a character is someone who in concept could've bene interesting, but in practice is somewhat damaging since I believe she makes Hiro a victim of harassment yet is played to be endearing/cute. Hiro honestly needs some friends his age and a god damn better romantic life in my opinion. (I know the show has ended already and this may be old news but I don't interact with fandom that much so far and I just wanna know if I'm insane on this take or not).

BH6 is repeatedly praised for it's deep messages with grief and I think that a series that had a target demographic of children and teens should be careful with this type of messaging, I really don't think Hiro and Karmi's ship/'romance' would survive if they were genderbent or if the people behind the show cared to realize Karmi's behavior isn't healthy. Here's some other people's takes I found on this that I think support this line of thinking. https://www.tumblr.com/rintotherinrin/752020470653648896/my-personal-beliefs-on-why-hiro-is-a-victim?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/insanely-creative-things/624822928012443648/everything-wrong-with-karmi-and-why-its-a-problem?source=share

Random Fred headcanon

Okay, so like, it's well established Fred isn't very much into science like the others, he's a nerd for comic books and a general weirdo but he's not some like genius or scientist. Buttttt what I would think would be really funny and kinda cool was if he was a historical armor nerd. Like, hear me out. He's established to be a sci-fi and I'm not fully sure on if he likes fantasy (I haven't finished re-watching BH6 the series) but I'd imagine he probably does. And I think he'd probably get really into a DnD style game, look at the armor, get mildly interested, then start reading it inbetween the different comic books he's into and then get really into historical armor. He comes from wealth so I think he'd probably try to collect historical armor and maybe try to make some cosplay historical armor. Like, I feel like he'd watch those videos online talking about female fantasy and sci-fi armor and how it isn't protective and would learn about some of the arteries and organs that you'd need to protect and then be oddly knowledgeable about armor and like, protecting the human body with it. Like, he's no med student, but I think after a while he'd be painfully aware about how some of the team's suits don't protect them as much as they could. How I would think this is funny is that what if Hiro was trying to do some repairs on their suits and needed some new ideas and Fred just brings up some historical armor pieces, and maybe point out how like, Gogo's suit doesn't protect a lot of her vital organs on her abdomen or the arteries in her thighs, or how Wasabi's fails to protect his legs all that much while his upper body is protected, which considering that Wasabi uses Plasma blades he'll be closer up to opponents and would logically need leg protection and more fully body protection. I think it would be so funny if Fred just randomly brought up how their armor isn't super protective or covers vital areas and everyone just looks at him dumbfounded for a moment that he said something very smart yet very obvious, because like, nobody expects Fred to bring up how their armor isn't protecting certain areas. (I know this is sci-fi and they could be using materials on that area that are protective, but like, for example, Gogo's black body suit type thing is skin tight, the black parts on her abdomen are skin tight and inherently less protective than if the yellow plating type armor went further down her abdomen to protect the vital organs there. Hiro: This is going to be a pain to fix *looks at his computer trying to look at the models for the team's suits* Fred: *Peers over Hiro's shoulder* "You know Gogo's suit doesn't protect her Femoral Artery or her vital organs, you should put some protection there." Gogo: "Since when did you know what the Femoral Artery is????"