Exploring Love Through Fan Culture [OWLS September Blog Tour: Lover]

This month, the OWLS are talking about our favorite couples in pop culture as we explore the theme "lover". If you've ever shipped characters in your favorite anime, book, video game, or other narrative work, then you've participated in what reception studies terms decoding and sense-making. When we take in a creative work, we have the opportunity to form our own version of its happenings. These fan-made versions give us a chance to explore meaning in our own lives. For this month's blog tour, I'll be taking a look at fan interpretation related to romance.

No One Struggles Alone, Exploring Dual-Vulnerabilities in The Prince and the Dressmaker [OWLS June Blog Tour: Vulnerability]

Individuals celebrate LGBTQ+ visibility everyday using the seemingly endless mediums available to us, including the narratives found in pop culture. Using creative mediums, we tell the stories of LGBTQ+ characters, and sometimes ourselves, in order to keep that visibility alive all year long and often tell the stories of our own vulnerabilities. One such pop culture work worth celebrating this month is Jen Wang’s The Prince and the Dressmaker.

Sakae’s Human-Made Miracle in Summer Wars [OWLS December Blog Tour: Miracles]

Humans, it seems, love to tell stories about miraculous happenings. Some of these miracles come from benevolent otherworldly beings taking pity on humans during a crisis. Others, however, are the handiwork of ordinary humans like Summer Wars's Sakae Jinnouchi. Welcome to December's OWLS Blog Tour.

Losing Control of Your Strengths [OWLS September Blog Tour: Self-Care]

Being highly skilled at something makes us feel good. It's a confident boost. It's a skill that we can consistently do and know that the outcome will be positive more often than not. Recognizing our strengths, and also recognizing the limits of our strengths, is an important part of self-care that sometimes gets left out, overpowered by the images of hot springs, amazing scented oils, and snuggly blankets to hide in that the term self-care often evokes. The anime This Boy is a Professional Wizard (Kono Danshi, Mahou ga Oshigoto Desu) does a beautiful job of addressing this element of self-care...

Exploring Grief Through Playing Rime [OWLS August Blog Tour: Journey]

People say that life is a journey. Though this saying is true, it's not entirely accurate. Actually, life is made of many different types of journeys starting and ending at different points in our lives. Some of these journeys are fun and uplifting, such as creating a new blog, starting a family, climbing a mountain, or getting a degree. Others are more difficult, and often turbulent experiences. Today, I wanted to take a look at one of these difficult types of journeys as explored in the game Rime: grief...

The Magic of Hands-on Learning [OWLS July Blog Tour: Mentor]

Not every mentor is spectacular, but sometimes we come across one that is out of this world. Today, I'm writing about an out-of-this-world teacher from pop culture who never fails the kids she's in charge of educating: Ms. Frizzle of The Magic School Bus...

Envisioning Worlds Without Hate [OWLS June Blog Tour: Pride]

Pop culture acts a platform for self-expression and provides a space for the LGBTQ+ community to find visibility. There are a number of pop culture works that include and revolve around LGBTQ+ characters. A number of these works focus on overcoming hate and discrimination, raising awareness for what individuals in the community experience in the …

Lost Groups and Shifting Allegiances in Gargantia [OWLS May Blog Tour: Movement]

This month, we're talking about "movement" in pop culture. Throughout this month, we are talking about the movements, organizations, and systems that individuals join that align with their personal values and beliefs. Often, individuals join these groups because they believe that they are doing good and are making positive changes in society. Often, these groups help to shape individual identities, with individuals either aligning with the values of the group, or rejecting them and rebelling against them. Join me in exploring this theme in the anime Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet.

Variations on Tropes and Themes: Competition in Anime [OWLS February Blog Tour: Competition]

I have an embarrassing problem: I can’t help but love tropes. Yes, I even enjoy many of the tired ones like high schoolers putting on a gender-swapped play or two or more characters swapping minds. It’s just such a delight to see the unique twists and theme combinations that authors and creators throw into less-than-unique content and see my favorite story types retold over and over again. Let’s explore the differences that theme combinations can make in repetitive story elements by looking at tropes centered around the theme of competition...

Finding Shared Warmth and Joy in the Rink of Yuri on Ice [OWLS December Blog Tour: Warmth]

The festive season that starts at the end of November (at least, it does in the United States with the celebration of Thanksgiving) runs clear through to the first days of January. With so many holidays back-to-back, December is a time for sharing warmth and joy with family and friends. In the spirit of sharing joy, I wanted to pull out an anime that exemplifies this theme in multiple ways, both in-universe and in our own real world...