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Fantagiró nebola dokonalá (zvlášť v prvom dieli sa z nej veľmi snažili spraviť NLOG ktorá absolútne nie je ako jej hlúpe, nepoužiteľné sestry), ale nemôžem nenávidieť sériu filmov, ktorá je prakticky celá o tom, ako sa hlavná hrdinka snaží zachrániť svojho himbo frajera. Ako Romualdo nie je celkom nepoužiteľný, ale asi tak, ako nie je nepoužiteľná vaša priemerná Disney princezná. Chlapec proste nie je hlavnou atrakciou, a to ma osobne hreje pri srdiečku.

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Made a chart for sorting fantheories

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While not all "maesters are biased" takes about HOTD are invalid, a lot of them show a profound inability to work with unreliable sources. Like, fine, I get it, most of you aren't even amateur history buffs and even GRRM's own historical expertise leaves something to be desired, I am just saying, if I ever wanted to torture a classicist, I'd have them read some textual analysis y'all produce. And I am not even talking about the showrunners, who basically did to the book what 300 did to ancient historians.

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The discussion about pronatalism bores and frustrates me. M'dudes, what did you think turning away a malthusian catastrophe would look like? Vibes? Papers? Losers.

Seriously, it was always going to be like this. There is always either too many or too little children born. And someone was always going to bitch and whine about it. What we could and should nip in the bud is idiots who pretend they have a solution, and that solution is coincidentally the thing they wanted to do anyway. No! Stop it! A lot of the proposed solutions to raising the birthrates are ineffective, and even if they weren't, they'd risk overshooting the target and cause overpopulation. Just calm the fuck down and make peace with the fact that some people don't want kids, or don't want them right now, or don't want that many. LET PEOPLE LIVE.

The only thing that really makes sense here is trying to arrange the society in such a way that people who want children can have them whenever and as many as they wish. The key to which is raising their living standards in a sustainable way, which, what luck, was what our society should do regardless of birthrates.

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Doing girl math (trying to figure out whether aunt Josephine and her at the time of season 2 deceased girlfriend Gertrude could've been hanging out with Anne Lister and co if they somehow found themselves in England in their youth or something)

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Tl;DR:

I am not on Bluesky and you cannot make me join, but if there was anything that could make me do it, it would be seeing this contrarian bullshit while procrastinating from studying on my Early Modern History exams. Because someone needs to give these historically illiterate morons a reality check.

Listen. I don't *like* Middle Ages. I don't vibe with their art, philosophy, politics, anything. But they existed. They brought something of value to the world. Over the course of the Middle Ages, Europe experienced important societal developments. Without these developments, renaissance literally wouldn't happen. Renaissance was in many ways (art, philosophy, science) a continuation of the Middle Ages, in that there really isn't hard cut between Late Medieval period and the renaissance. In other ways, it was exactly like the Middle Ages AND WORSE. The panic over witchcraft reached its zenith in the 16th and the first half of the 17th century. Lots of unscientific bullshit about medicine, alchemy etc. was still going strong well into the 17th century. In fact, 17th century really was the worst, I'd just despise it with all my heart if it wasn't for a few bright spots like baroque architecture, beginnings of the scientific revolution and the like. And are you seriously calling out medieval Europeans for their silly religious beliefs and tendency for violence when renaissance was THE era of bullshit religious conflicts?! Like, my man! Thirty Years wasn't a medieval thing! Even the thing about "going to war with your cousin" - THAT'S LITERALLY WAR OF SPANISH SUCCESSION WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT

I am not even going to talk about the 16th and 17th century on other continents, because in the Americas it was the era of LITERAL APOCALYPSE. Like how can you talk about any progress when that part of the world saw a brutality that would make the crusaders blush.

It sucks that Early Modern Era still effectively doesn't exist in the popular imagination. Its best parts are subsumed into "renaissance" and "enlightenment". Its worst parts are grouped in with the Middle Ages - not the least because they didn't actually improve that much, and in fact got worse a lot of the time. But you cannot celebrate the art of Da Vinci and just ignore the atmosphere of constant warfare between petty duchies it was born in. That's not how historical eras work. In fact, historical eras aren't really discreet categories with a clear cutoff point, but more like approximate divisions of a continuum. There is very little that separates the art of 1599 from 1600, but by 1650, you do kinda start seeing the difference.

Also! I know I keep repeating this, but Middle Ages didn't suck equally throughout their entirety. "Dark Ages" were the Early Medieval Era, which itself was a several centuries long period by most estimates. High Middle Ages were mostly as good as the Middle Ages got, you get gothic architecture, invention of universities, scholastic philosophy, the works. 14th century is when the things really start to suck again, Black Plague comes, you get wars and peasant rebellions, yada yada. But you also get the earliest "renaissance" art, so if you like that style, you can't disavow the Middle Ages entirely. And the 15th century is also mostly bad, except that one is when the renaissance and humanism period begins in earnest, so.

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I am not on Bluesky and you cannot make me join, but if there was anything that could make me do it, it would be seeing this contrarian bullshit while procrastinating from studying on my Early Modern History exams. Because someone needs to give these historically illiterate morons a reality check.

Listen. I don't *like* Middle Ages. I don't vibe with their art, philosophy, politics, anything. But they existed. They brought something of value to the world. Over the course of the Middle Ages, Europe experienced important societal developments. Without these developments, renaissance literally wouldn't happen. Renaissance was in many ways (art, philosophy, science) a continuation of the Middle Ages, in that there really isn't hard cut between Late Medieval period and the renaissance. In other ways, it was exactly like the Middle Ages AND WORSE. The panic over witchcraft reached its zenith in the 16th and the first half of the 17th century. Lots of unscientific bullshit about medicine, alchemy etc. was still going strong well into the 17th century. In fact, 17th century really was the worst, I'd just despise it with all my heart if it wasn't for a few bright spots like baroque architecture, beginnings of the scientific revolution and the like. And are you seriously calling out medieval Europeans for their silly religious beliefs and tendency for violence when renaissance was THE era of bullshit religious conflicts?! Like, my man! Thirty Years wasn't a medieval thing! Even the thing about "going to war with your cousin" - THAT'S LITERALLY WAR OF SPANISH SUCCESSION WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT

I am not even going to talk about the 16th and 17th century on other continents, because in the Americas it was the era of LITERAL APOCALYPSE. Like how can you talk about any progress when that part of the world saw a brutality that would make the crusaders blush.

It sucks that Early Modern Era still effectively doesn't exist in the popular imagination. Its best parts are subsumed into "renaissance" and "enlightenment". Its worst parts are grouped in with the Middle Ages - not the least because they didn't actually improve that much, and in fact got worse a lot of the time. But you cannot celebrate the art of Da Vinci and just ignore the atmosphere of constant warfare between petty duchies it was born in. That's not how historical eras work. In fact, historical eras aren't really discreet categories with a clear cutoff point, but more like approximate divisions of a continuum. There is very little that separates the art of 1599 from 1600, but by 1650, you do kinda start seeing the difference.

Also! I know I keep repeating this, but Middle Ages didn't suck equally throughout their entirety. "Dark Ages" were the Early Medieval Era, which itself was a several centuries long period by most estimates. High Middle Ages were mostly as good as the Middle Ages got, you get gothic architecture, invention of universities, scholastic philosophy, the works. 14th century is when the things really start to suck again, Black Plague comes, you get wars and peasant rebellions, yada yada. But you also get the earliest "renaissance" art, so if you like that style, you can't disavow the Middle Ages entirely. And the 15th century is also mostly bad, except that one is when the renaissance and humanism period begins in earnest, so.

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#SAY IT LOUDER FOR RIDLEY SCOTT

For comparison - what Ridley Scott thinks Caracalla looked like:

And I mean, it's not just the pale skin, though to be clear that is also very wrong and problematic considering it perpetuates the stereotype of Rome as a "white" civilization and Africa as a periphery of the Roman world - made even worse by the fact in Gladiator 2 Rome is JUST CONQUERING NORTH AFRICA, which by that point has been part of the empire for two fucking centuries, as evidenced by the fact that a North African had high enough of a status in Roman society to become a provincial legate and subsequently an emperor. And the only Africans in the movie are current or former slaves, which. Doesn't THAT have some really unfortunate implications fellas.

But that's not the only thing wrong with Caracalla's depiction here! Honestly, it's almost impressive how wrong this guy is. Basically the opposite of real Caracalla. And I'll just borrow this passage from Bret Devereaux's blog post about Gladiator 2:

"[Caracalla] grew up in the military camps of his father, who was a Roman general before he was emperor and clearly preferred that environment to the comforts of Rome or any other large city. [...] He was also, to judge by his imperial sculpture, not a slight man; rather he’s shown with a scowling expression, a thick muscular neck, a soldier’s haircut and a generally threatening demeanor. Far from being decadent, Caracalla was active, energetic and physical. Herodian has him as eager to engage in physical labor when with the soldiers, frugal in what he ate and scorning luxuries (Hdn. 4.7.4-6). He even preferred, supposedly, to march on foot rather than use a chariot and was evidently quite physically strong (Hdn. 4.7.6-7). He liked to wear military dress, including a cavalry cloak – called a Caracalla – after which he took his nickname (Hdn. 4.7.3; Dio 78.4)."

(Source: Collections: Nitpicking Gladiator II, Part II – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)

To reiterate: Ridley Scott took a big, burly man of North African/Middle Eastern descent so devoted the military life they LITERALLY CALLED HIM A "SOLDIER CLOAK" and made him an effette luxury-loving white man who wears makeup. Yes I know he had like a weirdo teenage cousin who later became an emperor who was kinda Like That. No I don't care. There is absolutely no reason why they couldn't portray Caracalla accurately anyway considering he'd still make for a good antagonist.

Like, real Caracalla was by all accounts a massive dick, and if Ridley Scott really meant it with his themes of Roman Imperialism Bad, a big burly soldier man who shanks anyone who talks too kindly about his deceased brother (whom he himself killed) could be like an embodiment of all the worst aspects of Roman military - just as a contrast to Pedro Pascal, who would be like his good, honourable counterpart. Like an Ares vs Athena thing, if you will.

But I guess that wouldn't allow us to queercode our villain for absolutely no reason.

Reconstruction of bust of Roman emperor Caracalla.

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Move over, olympic stadium in Šamorín, we have the new most Totally Gonna Happen thing now, a GP 500 in Orechová Potôň.

[English translation: The invitation to the F1 race in Abu Dhabi, which [Minister of Interior] Matúš Šutaj Eštok attended, was an open invitation, according to Andrej Danko [Chairman of the Slovak National Party]. “We are working together to bring the GP 500 race to Orechová Potôň in order to take this race away from the Czechs,” he said about the ambition to win the organisation of the international race.

He estimates that 100,000 people could attend the race. “It is certainly not a wasted trip,” he said about the trip to Abu Dhabi. He said that Sports Minister Dušan Keketi had also received an invitation.]

Orechová Potôň, the commune of around 1,600 people in total. I legit thought that this was satire at first, then I remembered what a joke of a government we have. 🤡

(Context for those who are not familiar with the Slovak circus — Minister of Interior Matúš Šutaj Eštok appeared at the F1 race in Abu Dhabi despite our country being in shambles and the parliament approving legislation that helps ban doctors from protesting against low pay and force them to continue working under the threat of imprisonment. He even appeared on the footage from the race on television. A lot of people are outraged, and so Šutaj Eštok tries to come up with an excuse to explain his trip. Also, the surname of Minister of Sports is very similar to a popular Slovak swear word/insult, so people are essentially using his surname to highlight what a bunch of morons these people are.)

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Oh, so the new American president/government promised to lower the prices of groceries in the runup to the elections, while also running on policies that would make the inflation worse, and are now admitting that the groceries probably won't get cheaper after all?

(I hate that I have to keep using this meme. USA learn from our mistakes for once challenge.)

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Minette Rates Love, Death & Robots, Vol.3

THREE ROBOTS: EXIT STRATEGIES - Look, I want to love these little fuckers, I really do. They have appealing designs and distinct personalities, so if you're going to work with the premise of "robots commenting on the now-extinct humanity", having these three as your protagonists is a great idea! It's just that the material they gave them this time around just plain wasn't very funny. Also, the dumbshit cats geta cameo, which instantly makes me take away a whole ass point from my rating. 6/10

BAD TRAVELLING - This is one of those that I have nothing to add, because it's just so damn good. Absolute banger of a story where every piece of the puzzle falls in its place perfectly. If there is any kind of minor complaint I'd have towards it, it's that while the horror and gore are S-tier, overall the short isn't very interesting visually, and the monster is basically a giant crab, which is pretty lame, even though the atmosphere is good enough to mostly make you forget that. 9/10

THE VERY PULSE OF THE MACHINE - I have even less to say about this, because like. It's absolutely fucking perfect. Everything in it works so well: the story, the characters, the visual, oh my God the visuals... This, my friends, is what high art looks like. 10/10

NIGHT OF THE MINI DEAD - I can only assume this is what people mean by sociological storytelling. Seriously, maybe it's because I was a bit sleep deprived when I watched this, but while the presentation of this mostly fairly standard zombie apocalypse thingie was indeed novel, I am not sure what the point of it was. My best guess is that it was meant to be funny, which... I guess I did chuckle a bit? But not a lot. Honestly, the whole thing just felt gimmicky, although the animation was admittedly impressive. In the end, it's mostly just pure spectacle, but also so good in this regard that I can't hate it too much. 8/10

KILL TEAM KILL - This one was basically just Sucker of Souls with a slightly more dynamic story (in that they didn't spend the whole time in one place just shooting at the monster) and more attempts at jokes. And I say attempts, because while some of them did land very well, those that didn't were pretty painful. Like the honey badger thing was repeated so many times, and I am just thinking, what do these dickbags think honey badger even is?! Then there's also the little fact that these attempts at humor completely undermined any story tension, and the characters didn't make for this, because the characters were another bunch of wisecracking military dudebros, which is a character archetype that fucked up a whole lot of my investment in Vol.1. 3,5/10 for the few good jokes, and because it was ever-so-slightly less terrible than Sucker of Souls.

SWARM - A mostly good episode with a fascinating premise and philosophical conflict at its heart, it's just that I was pretty confused about the ending. Like is the asshole who wanted to clone the Swarm going to die or not, is all I want to know. Still, I am very happy to be assured that the Benign Tyranids will be fine no matter what, since Benign Tyranids are more likeable than most of the military men that star in some of these. This despite the fact that Benign Tyranids sorta killed and assimilated a woman that was actually on their side. 8/10

MASON'S RATS - Maybe I am taking this one too seriously, but did this old fucker just attempt to commit a genocide on an obviously sentient race?! And then had a change of heart, after which said sentient race forgave him immediately??? What I mean is, not bad, but it needed a longer runtime and some more scenes showing the perspective of the rats. 7/10

IN VAULTED HALLS ENTOMBED - Okay, the Horrors weren't bad, but they weren't that amazing either, and certainly not enough to make up for the fact that the protagonist were ANOTHER GROUP OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, FUCK ME. And not particularly interesting ones either! I mean I guess making the protagonist so unlikeable that you do actually want them to die is one way to do horror. 3/10 just for the semi-decent eldrich beings.

JIBARO - This one was just plain WTF. Some things, like the gold basically being the Siren's skin and river filling with blood after she's hurt made sense in a sort of fairytale logic way, but others, like the dickish knight randomly regaining his hearing, were just plain confusing. Also what was that editing. What was that pink filter. And most importantly, why the hell did Siren apparently want to fuck this dude?! Still, I guess the story made some sense as an anti-greed parable running on pure dream logic, and the design of the Siren is just as instantly iconic as her constant presence in promos for the show would suggest, so. 8/10

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I still can't believe they downplayed that incident, like in the show he just throws in on the ground, but historically Ibrahim fully intended for the kid to drown.

ibrahim with Mehmet:

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You know, I've suspected a long time that this stupid ass website would cheer for those 19th century anarchists who broadly achieved nothing but make a few rich people paranoid (as if they needed some idiot with delusions of grandeur for that, lol), so it's nice to have that confirmed.

And I mean at least 19th century anarchists were technically leftists. That Luigi dude isn't a victory for the American left, he is its biggest shame. For years I've watched leftists dream about a glorious revolution, death to tyrants, blah blah blah, meanwhile when someone actually does something that could generously be called revolutionary violence? Of course he is not an actual leftist. You people can't even do your own terrorism, you just sit on the sidelines cheering while some nutjob with completely incoherent politics does the actual work.

You pathetic little fucks are sometimes so annoying, you can't even imagine.

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I am sure sending over 3000 doctors to prison for refusing to not quit their jobs, or alternatively, forcing them to work against their will, is totally not gonna cause us problems in the long run

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Actually, not in this part of the world it wouldn't! In the Early Modern era, there were essentially three inquisitions - the church-based Roman Inquisition and state-based Spanish and Portugese inquisitions. Neither of them had much reach in Hungary, where recatolization was instead in the hands of secular authorities, either the central government in Vienna or individual feudal lords. You see, the feudal lord had power over things like choosing local priests, and so if they converted, their subjects basically had to convert too. So in the 17th century, what the catholic church would do is try to sway the most powerful feudal lord (most of whom have converted to protestantism at this point) to their side, convincing them to convert and help them with religious repression on their estates. Jesuits, who were exceptionally well-trained in theology and rhetoric, as well as fiercely loyal to the pope, could be of great help in this - but they still had to be invited by the secular authorities. They also founded schools that provided free education, especially in cities, and in the process indoctrinated them in catholic orthodoxy - a tradeoff many protestant parents were aware of, and willing to make, especially in the second part of the 17th century, when protestant schools were systematically starved of funds (among other kinds of repression, basically, the persecution of protestant became much, much worse in the second half of the 17th century, thanks LEOPOLD).

Basically, jesuits being the agents of the pope actually makes MORE sense, but not by a lot. In a big city ruled by a non-christian elite like Istanbul, they were basically at the mercy of secular authorities. Murat could've just kicked them out if he really wanted to - hell, a whole lot of governments *in Europe* literally forbid the order at one point.

I mentioned the dominicans just as an example of an order that has just as much of a chip on their shoulders, but isn't subject to nearly as many conspiracy theories as jesuits. It's not as common these days, but in the 18th century, jesuits were often portrayed as basically illuminati, before they were literally banned by the church (surviving in Russia of all places) and replaced in these deranged fantasies by the freemasons or whatever.

despite the Jesuit conspiracy in the show i forgot europe existed until the venetian showed up