#I think that is a piece of media that exemplifies this

[hereforthepotions]

The queer-coding and homoeroticism of fictional murder and the use of bloody violence in media as a metaphor for queer sexuality.

[autisticandroids]

i've been seeing ai takes that i actually agree with and have been saying for months get notes so i want to throw my hat into the ring.

so i think there are two main distinct problems with "ai," which exist kind of in opposition to each other. the first happens when ai is good at what it's supposed to do, and the second happens when it's bad at it.

the first is well-exemplified by ai visual art. now, there are a lot of arguments about the quality of ai visual art, about how it's soulless, or cliche, or whatever, and to those i say: do you think ai art is going to be replacing monet and picasso? do you think those pieces are going in museums? no. they are going to be replacing soulless dreck like corporate logos, the sprites for low-rent edugames, and book covers with that stupid cartoon art style made in canva. the kind of art that everyone thinks of as soulless and worthless anyway. the kind of art that keeps people with art degrees actually employed.

this is a problem of automation. while ai art certainly has its flaws and failings, the main issue with it is that it's good enough to replace crap art that no one does by choice. which is a problem of capitalism. in a society where people don't have to sell their labor to survive, machines performing labor more efficiently so humans don't have to is a boon! this is i think more obviously true for, like, manufacturing than for art - nobody wants to be the guy putting eyelets in shoes all day, and everybody needs shoes, whereas a lot of people want to draw their whole lives, and nobody needs visual art (not the way they need shoes) - but i think that it's still true that in a perfect world, ai art would be a net boon, because giving people without the skill to actually draw the ability to visualize the things they see inside their head is... good? wider access to beauty and the ability to create it is good? it's not necessary, it's not vital, but it is cool. the issue is that we live in a society where that also takes food out of people's mouths.

but the second problem is the much scarier one, imo, and it's what happens when ai is bad. in the current discourse, that's exemplified by chatgpt and other large language models. as much hand-wringing as there has been about chatgpt replacing writers, it's much worse at imitating human-written text than, say, midjourney is at imitating human-made art. it can imitate style well, which means that it can successfully replace text that has no meaningful semantic content - cover letters, online ads, clickbait articles, the kind of stuff that says nothing and exists to exist. but because it can't evaluate what's true, or even keep straight what it said thirty seconds ago, it can't meaningfully replace a human writer. it will honestly probably never be able to unless they change how they train it, because the way LLMs work is so antithetical to how language and writing actually works.

the issue is that people think it can. which means they use it to do stuff it's not equipped for. at best, what you end up with is a lot of very poorly written children's books selling on amazon for $3. this is a shitty scam, but is mostly harmless. the behind the bastards episode on this has a pretty solid description of what that looks like right now, although they also do a lot of pretty pointless fearmongering about the death of art and the death of media literacy and saving the children. (incidentally, the "comics" described demonstrate the ways in which ai art has the same weaknesses as ai text - both are incapable of consistency or narrative. it's just that visual art doesn't necessarily need those things to be useful as art, and text (often) does). like, overall, the existence of these kids book scams are bad? but they're a gnat bite.

to find the worst case scenario of LLM misuse, you don't even have to leave the amazon kindle section. you don't even have to stop looking at scam books. all you have to do is change from looking at kids books to foraging guides. i'm not exaggerating when i say that in terms of texts whose factuality has direct consequences, foraging guides are up there with building safety regulations. if a foraging guide has incorrect information in it, people who use that foraging guide will die. that's all there is to it. there is no antidote to amanita phalloides poisoning, only supportive care, and even if you survive, you will need a liver transplant.

the problem here is that sometimes it's important for text to be factually accurate. openart isn't marketed as photographic software, and even though people do use it to lie, they have also been using photoshop to do that for decades, and before that it was scissors and paintbrushes. chatgpt and its ilk are sometimes marketed as fact-finding software, search engine assistants and writing assistants. and this is dangerous. because while people have been lying intentionally for decades, the level of misinformation potentially provided by chatgpt is unprecedented. and then there are people like the foraging book scammers who aren't lying on purpose, but rather not caring about the truth content of their output. obviously this happens in real life - the kids book scam i mentioned earlier is just an update of a non-ai scam involving ghostwriters - but it's much easier to pull off, and unlike lying for personal gain, which will always happen no matter how difficult it is, lying out of laziness is motivated by, well, the ease of the lie.* if it takes fifteen minutes and a chatgpt account to pump out fake foraging books for a quick buck, people will do it.

*also part of this is how easy it is to make things look like high effort professional content - people who are lying out of laziness often do it in ways that are obviously identifiable, and LLMs might make it easier to pass basic professionalism scans.

and honestly i don't think LLMs are the biggest problem that machine learning/ai creates here. while the ai foraging books are, well, really, really bad, most of the problem content generated by chatgpt is more on the level of scam children's books. the entire time that the internet has been shitting itself about ai art and LLM's i've been pulling my hair out about the kinds of priorities people have, because corporations have been using ai to sort the resumes of job applicants for years, and it turns out the ai is racist. there are all sorts of ways machine learning algorithms have been integrated into daily life over the past decade: predictive policing, self-driving cars, and even the youtube algorithm. and all of these are much more dangerous (in most cases) than chatgpt. it makes me insane that just because ai art and LLMs happen to touch on things that most internet users are familiar with the working of, people are freaking out about it because it's the death of art or whatever, when they should have been freaking out about the robot telling the cops to kick people's faces in.

(not to mention the environmental impact of all this crap.)

[maximumqueer]

One Piece and Media Literacy

So this entire post was born out of me trying to understand why there are certain readings and interpretations of one piece that get under my skin so much. I like to think that I am normally pretty open to different readings of a text. I’m an English major, literally 90% of my degree is discussing different interpretations of fictional media, and that often involves encountering people with different readings than my own. That is good, and I think that as long as a reading can be backed up with good faith textual evidence it’s a valid reading. And that was the sticking point for me,  that the takes that I kept seeing had logic behind them. I could see how and why the person sharing them came to the conclusion they did. But, what I realized is that even though these conclusions did make sense, it also relied on an incredibly literal, surface level take on the scene that also oftentimes ignored the context of how and why the moment was taking place. In other words, a lack of media literacy. 

I’m going to use two scenes that I personally view as getting misconstrued as a result of this as examples. The first one is Shanks' conversation with Whitebeard, particularly this sentence Shanks says in response to Whitebeard questioning Shanks on the loss of his arm. 

I have seen this moment be interpreted as Shanks intentionally losing his arm to teach Luffy a lesson in leadership, that what makes a good captain is one who is willing to put themselves and their life on the line for the people they care about. I do think that is a lesson Luffy took away from this moment, but I don’t think that this scene is framing it as intentional. The meeting between  these two characters is grandiose, and the dialogue they use exemplifies that. Just before this, Whitebeard asked Shanks “What enemy did you give that left arm to?” (One Piece, Ch. 434, pg. 11).  Whitebeard isn’t asking Shanks if he literally gave his arm to an enemy, but rather asking who he lost his arm to, but in a verbose way. As such, Shanks doesn’t mean that he intentionally gave up his arm. And while he could have said that a sea monster took it, he instead switched focus from the thing that took it to the person who he lost it for. It shows Shanks' mindset towards losing his arm, and how he does not actually view it as a loss, as it was lost saving a kid Shanks saw potential in, a kid who would be a part of the new era. 

I will also say that the implication of Shanks intentionally losing his arm makes him a worse person, and cheapens his and Luffy’s relationship. The implication being that the emotional distress we saw him in when Luffy was kidnapped and in peril was at least to a point faked. A person in distress is not worrying about what lesson they can impart onto the person they’re saving, and as such saying that Shanks could have in that moment decided to intentionally give up his arm paints him as a much colder, more calculating character, which I would argue would be to the detriment of his character.

And I know that this reading is in part trying to explain why Shanks, a very powerful character, would lose his arm to a sea monster in the East Blue. But this was Shanks from 12 years ago, I don’t think it takes a massive leap in logic to assume that he simply wasn’t as strong of a character back then. Add to that his attention mainly being focused on making sure he got to Luffy in time, and I think him losing his arm in that moment makes perfect sense. 

The second scene is when Rob Lucci suggests that Luffy’s use of gear 2 is causing him to shave years off his life. 

What Lucci says here is often taken at face value, and then applied to every other gear we have seen Luffy use. This is also information that is stated as fact, more often than not. That every time Luffy uses gear 2 or 3 (pre - ts) or gear 4 or 5 (post - ts) that he is taking a couple years off his life. And as this all stems from Rob Lucci, we have to ask 1: Is Rob Lucci knowledgeable enough to actually make this claim? And 2: Is he a trustworthy source of information? 

The first question is up for debate. Lucci could very well make an educated guess about the strain Luffy is putting on his body. But at the end of the day he is only going off of very limited knowledge about both Luffy and his devil fruit. The second question, I would argue, is a resounding no. Lucci is a member of CP9 (now CP0) an intelligence agency that focuses on infiltration. Part of Lucci’s job is to lie and coerce people. This is also the man that killed his fellow soldiers that had been taken as POWs to prevent the county they were fighting from having the upper hand. That is not the kind of person whose word you can take at face value.

It is also worth noting that the broader scene that this line of dialogue belongs to involves Lucci trying to psyche Luffy out by telling him that there is no hope of him or his friends winning, using the claim that he is shortening his life, as well as information that his crew is in a tunnel that will soon flood, killing them. And while some of this info is true, that is not the reasoning behind Lucci telling him it. He wants Luffy to be discouraged and to feel like there is no possible way for him to win. The information he tells to Luffy does not have to be true for this tactic to work. 

What I’m trying to get at here is that analysis that does not take in the broader context of the story, or the established characterization of the people in the specific scene being analyzed leads to a reading based in ignorance, as not all of the information is being considered. It can also lead to misunderstandings within the fandom, like how I’ve seen it stated that Luffy using gear 5 shortens his life span. There is no canon backing for this, other than the literal interpretation of what a villain said about an entirely different gear nearly 20 years ago in real time. Or it can unintentionally paint a character that has previously been characterized as deeply caring for the protagonist as being cold and distant instead, more focused on making the next generation is strong - both physically and as leaders - than about saving the protagonist's (who at the time was a child) life.

[pinkeoni]

Arguing for realism in Stranger Things

So whenever the take "Mike and Will can't be together because it's not realistic" comes up, usually from twitter or reddit, I often find it met with the argument on here of "Well, this is a supernatural show about monsters so who cares about realism!" or something similar along those lines.

While I understand the the sentiment behind it, and yes advocating for realism in a sci-fi fantasy show may seem silly, but I find this argument to be kind of flawed.

The initial take isn't coming a genuine advocacy for realism, but instead using "realism" as a flimsy cover for their homophobia. The more appropriate response should be to question why they believe a happy resolve for homosexuality is unrealistic in the first place. You countering their argument by claiming that the show is unrealistic is only backing up their belief that a happy ending for gay people is also unrealistic.

Stranger Things is a realistic show.

And, okay, ST does not fall into the same category of cinéma-vérité-dogme-95-esque-hyper-realism that a show like Succession may fall under, but it does try to capture real emotions and real experiences using supernatural elements as a vehicle to explore such things. Sure, alternate dimensions and tentacle monsters are not realistic, but the American government trying to coverup and undermine the suffering of queer people, as well as the constant fear of an encroaching foreign power, is incredibly realistic to that time period.

It's not often caught on from the casual viewer because it's carefully placed under layers of subtext, although in the show's defense for some of these viewers the Reagan/Bush signs from season 2 are purely just set pieces and don't have any further meaning. But the supernatural elements are not arbitrarily placed and the show doesn't take place in the 80's simply for the nostalgia factor, these facets all work together to speak to real experiences.

And sure, sometimes even the non-supernatural elements can come off as exaggerated, such as the Russian storyline, but one could argue that this is a dramatization of very real Cold War anxieties that did exist at this time.

So, when it comes to displaying realistic emotions, why should the way the show handles queer identity and relationships be any different?

And the show does handle queerness in an almost tragically realistic way. The show’s queer characters must adhere to the precedents of the 1980’s, and the supernatural element is one way to exemplify some of those fears. Will lives in fear of something slowly taking over and killing his body, while the Reagan Administration government scientists treat his possible death as a non-issue.

If then, the show is realistic and aiming to portray queer experiences as such, does this mean that byler can’t happen because that would be unrealistic?

Well, I think that people might he conflating “realism” with “pessimism.” I think if the show wanted to have an ending with a pessimistic outlook, then I could see byler not happening. Yes, there are plenty of gay people who died during the 80’s. But there also plenty of gay people who got in relationships and lived too. What people consider realistic may also be influenced by the type of media they have consumed in the past as well. “Well, gay people usually die/end up alone, so that must be what the realistic outcome is.”

So, with all that being said, when considering the ending of the show, it now just comes down to everything else. What is the show trying to say thematically? How has the show handled other character’s storylines in the past? How is the show being written? What kind of ending is being foreshadowed? What type of ending would best serve to fulfill the needs of the themes and storybeats, while still maintaining relatability?

[besttropeveershowdown]

The Most Annoying Trope Showdown: Round 2, Poll 8

Offscreen Breakup

Characters in a relationship break up offscreen.

Propaganda:

Why build up a relationship only for it to end offscreen? I know things can happen to actors between seasons and even episodes, but the one offscreen breakup I'm thinking about right now happened in a book series. At the end of book 1 character A and B weren't in a relationship yet but it was obvious they would be. Then book 2 came along and it turned out they not only had a relationship between the two books they also broke up and in book 2 we the readers found ourselves in the aftermath of their relationship and it wasn't pretty. WHY.

Who Writes This Crap?

A piece of media points out bad writing in-universe.

Propaganda:

Breaking the 4th wall jokes are already hard to pull off and this trope exemplifies why they’re usually not funny. “Oh this script is soooo stupid!!!! Who wrote this LMAO!!” YOU DID! You wrote this script! Pointing out something isn’t funny doesn’t make YOU funny.

[empenvs3000f24]

Unit 4 Blog Post

Hi Everyone :)

With one of my minors being Art History, I have learned to be more of a critical thinker when it comes to interpreting art and nature’s involvement in many of the pieces we view today. How many of these artworks are ethical, original, and ephemeral? I try my best to see the beauty in nature through art, while also giving myself the grace to understand the backstory to the piece/landscape. With today being the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (Orange Shirt Day), I’ll touch on Indigenous art and how we’ve done a disservice to Indigenous talent in Canada’s art world.

In terms of the Group of Seven who really put Canada on the map via showcases in predominantly Canada, The United States, and Europe. Their art expanded worldwide and pretty much dominated galleries in Canada for decades, pushing out other artists and Indigenous works. In hindsight we can understand that their more popular pieces did not exactly depict Canada for what it was at the time. Many of their landscapes were painted in Algonquin, Algoma, and out West; where major logging and pollution was occurring. Some of the artists painted scenes of Indigenous communities, but failed to represent the cultural genocide and residential schools tearing those families apart. Canada was depicted as this abandoned land, solely made up of landscapes and tranquility. Moving forward we can look into Indigenous artists to learn about how they interpret nature through art and the concept of ‘the gift of beauty’ through their lens. 

Interpreting art in nature is a great way to hit more than one of the learning styles. Even in a gallery setting, a painting can target visual learners, the plaque can offer a description for the readers/writers, and there are auditory options available in most galleries. We can also achieve this in nature interpretation; using multiple learning styles can enhance the ‘art’ aspect of nature and allow us to encompass some additional information to a picturesque landscape. This notion ties into the ‘gift of beauty’ and how there is more than meets the eye when it comes to understanding nature through art. 

The importance of immersing ourselves in nature is exemplified in Hahn’s Social Declines of Modern Youth. I feel like the use of social media and abundant technology is the culprit of these ‘social diseases’. We are all so accustomed to being able to see whatever we want, whenever we want it. We can google any image of nature and get a million different vantage points of it. I think this allows us to sometimes take for granted the fact that we could go outside and see the beauty of nature with our own two eyes. A big factor in experiencing nature in person is the stimulation of the senses; as opposed to only sight and maybe sound when we view something online. By stimulating all 5 senses in person, the experience becomes more holistic and memorable. 

Got off my phone and walked around the Arboretum this summer!

We can only learn from our mistakes as people and as a country. Understanding equality in art, risk in nature, and beauty in our daily lives, is built through the experiences of others; we simply have to listen. 

[shuunnico]

Criticism

I try my best to keep a positive outlook on things.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to criticize the things I see and watch because I genuinely believe that we need to be honest and critical of art and media for it to improve.

I think it's especially important to critique the writing for a piece of art because I think the writing is the bedrock of all storytelling.

So you're going to come across me criticizing video games or movies or television when I think their writing is substandard.

Arcane has been my bar for a few years now. It is exceptionally well written on a technical level and that enhances the emotional and thematic elements of the story. Arcane's stupendous writing elevates it to a level where it stands out in today's media landscape.

Unfortunately, so much media today falls exceptionally short of that standard.

Nothing better exemplifies this than Star Wars, a franchise who has been churning out substandard stories for a while now. And along comes Andor, a show that (largely) keeps a high standard of writing and eschews much of the failings of the other Star Wars stories.

Andor stands head and shoulders above any other modern Star Wars media in terms of quality and depth. I wish all of Star Wars was made like Andor, but it isn't.

So yeah, this blog isn't just a place for praise and my own artwork. It's also for me to do, in what small way I can, to push for better artwork and media overall.

[pruning-the-minds-garden]

Disambiguating the two Tradwives

There has been a bit of... "news"... in progressive political spheres the past few months about the tradwife lifestyle. Specifically, about conservative women who dove into - or at least professed to dive into - that lifestyle/aesthetic, and it later turned out that their partners were simply using that as a way to abuse them. Lets talk about that.

This is about how "tradwife" as a sociopolitical/religious ideology relates to "tradwife" as a power exchange/kink phenomenon. Also, this bears on the conversation about guilt by association, as well as conversations about the powers and limits of labels, consent, and community (esp. as it relates to kink). I'm not "coming for" tradwives with this, nor accusing them or trying to disparage that lifestyle in any way as such, and I hope that comes through properly. What I'd like to do with this is elevate the discussion around them a bit, help absolve them of unearned guilt where that guilt isn't earned, and use that as a springboard for talking about larger issues. Yes, that italicized text is important and we'll come back to it later.

So, lets have that conversation now.

To start with, here are a few news pieces about the tradwife phenomenon in mainstream media sources:

* https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/opinion/tradwife-tiktok.html (from 05/15/2024) *https://unherd.com/2024/05/lauren-southern-the-tradlife-influencer-filled-with-regret/ (from 05/06/2024) * https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-trad-wife (from 03/29/2024) * https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-22/tradwife-movement-personal-pleasures-or-extreme-right-ideologies/100356514 (from 08/22/2021) * https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2023/07/14/trad-wife-meaning-controversy/70407456007/ (from 07/14/2023) You can read all that if you want, but its purposes are really to do three things. First, to show you that people have been talking about this well outside of kink/BDSM circles for a while. Second, there have been some recent developments ("rise and fall," "filled with regret" I think demonstrate that aptly). Third, there is some complexity to the label, as exemplified by headlines like "personal pleasure or extreme right ideologies?" or "trad wife meaning controversy." Hence this post, to disambiguate the "tradwife" label, describe what it means, and hopefully get people to put their focus where it is necessary to do so, rather than heaping guilt on undeserving bystanders.

Lets jump to the second part first, and describe what tradwife means. There are, in my opinion, two halves to this. I'll start with the one that anyone reading this is most likely to know.

Tradwife (kink): an aesthetic kink or power exchange relationship revolving around a caricatured view of postwar gender relations, thereby creating a dynamic where submissives &/or wives consensually submit to Dominants &/or husbands while projecting a hyperfeminine affect. The aesthetics of the husband and their emulation of a "trad'sband" are largely unimportant to this as an aesthetic kink. The precise gender of the "wife" in the kink scenario is also often unimportant, with "wife" being a verbal stand-in in this context for "submissive partner" where that partner could be nonbinary or even a man. This latter scenario - or other combinations - is also occasionally combined with kinks like a humiliation fetish, cuckoldry, orgasm control/denial, forced feminization, and others as appropriate to the dynamic in question and individual tastes.

Tradwife (ideology): A far-right, conservative ideology that caricatures and then emulates postwar gender relations, as a vehicle for suggesting that all of society should return to that mythologized time. It posits that such a lifestyle - characterized by hyper-feminine submissive wives in exclusively cis-heteronormative, monogamous (exception: the husbands in such situations are often allowed if not expected to commit adultery), conspicuously Christian relationships with hyper-masculine husbands, using a 1950s era (that is to say, "Mad Men"-esque) vision of such - is the ideal position for all people everywhere, It further posits that any other relationship style or design is inherently inferior, and the cause of numerous societal ills.

In reading through those two definitions, I am sure you can see the overlap. What might be less obvious to some - especially the writers of the above news pieces, who are not familiar with kink culture - are the differences.

The first, BIG difference is consent. Tradwife-as-a-kink requires ongoing consent from all involved parties to be practiced/lived properly. Everyone involved has to want it, or at the very least not be opposed to it, in order for it to work. Tradwife-as-an-ideology does not require this consent, and in fact projects the lifestyle as an ideal upon uninvolved third parties as 'The Way They Should (want to) Live' (tm), thereby discarding entirely the consensual involvement of those third parties in the process. You cannot, EVER, say that a particular lifestyle is "the way people should be" without in the process necessarily ignoring or abrogating their consensual involvement in adopting that lifestyle. Tradwife-as-an-ideology does precisely that, and so it is by definition not an ethical kink practice. Tradwife-as-a-kink does not require that one adopt tradwife-as-an-ideology, however, so it is entirely possible for a person to want to live that lifestyle themselves without wanting to foist it on others and so be performing that aesthetic kink without falling foul of any ethical lines whatsoever. That being said, the overlap exists because some who live that as a kink then come (or have always) to adopt that ideology, or then foist it upon their partners (most commonly in the form of the husbands doing so to their wives, but it's possible to run the other direction as well).

The second difference is not so much one of ethics, as it is of aesthetics. Tradwife-as-an-ideology seems to discourage anything that could be seen as deviant outside of tradwifery itself, and instead encourage an aggressively normative and binarist relationship style, dynamic, and presentation by both participants. That is to say, the men involved are supposed to be Stereotypical Men (tm), the women involved Stereotypical Women (tm), they are supposed to have Stereotypical Sex in a Stereotypical House, a Stereotypical Relationship and the whole thing is designed to live in the Uncanny Valley in Stepford County of Anytown, The South/Midwest, USA c. 1950 (but the 1950s shown in sitcoms not, like, the actual 1950s) where everyone co-exists peacefully and no conflicts arise, ever, because Everyone Knows Their Place. And, crucially, that's as deep as it goes aesthetically. There is no point to that aesthetic other than to ape what is, in their view, an idealized way for all people everywhere to be (one that is conspicuously free of any non-White, non-Christian, non-cishet, or otherwise politically "disagreeable" people whatsoever, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence).

Tradwife-as-a-kink is very different, in that sense, and often (but does not necessarily) involves the inclusion of other kinks into that dynamic such as those named above. Also, it can be (and often is) practiced by non-cishet, non-White people who take that aesthetic and use it to say or do something, as a vehicle to criticize the ideal through caricature even as they live out that caricatured version of it. They add in cuckoldry because of the the implicit assumption that the hyper-sexualized, hyper-masculine Men in that scenario would have to cheat in order to find sexual satisfaction at all, and they want to explore their feelings around that as well as get some kinky satisfaction/jollies from it. They add in forced feminization because they like the idea of being made to be a Stereotypical Woman due to the way society already punishes them for - in all likelihood - not living up to existing gendered expectations they never consented to be held to. But, I also don't want to psychoanalyze this too deeply: they might just add in other kinks because they find them hot, or because they want to. That's okay too, because tradwife-as-a-kink is inherently deviant, and so further deviant lifestyle choices are really no big deal (nor should they be a big deal, when done in a considerate and consensual manner).

So, is it possible to be both? Yes. Obviously.

Is it necessary to be both? No. Equally obviously.

Finally, is tradwife-as-an-ideology a problem while tradwife-as-a-kink is not? I think, by now, you know my answer to that question. I wouldn't have even asked it if I thought my answer was in doubt.

Much like "Your Natural State" I think we as a community need to understand both the kink side of this practice, and its ideological implications. That's not to say we should condemn the kink practice when/where it is conducted properly and with the consent of all parties, but I think we need to understand it in order to put blame and guilt where it is right that it go and not outside of that place.

The people who practice the ideology and not the kink are obviously an issue, and they deserve to be called out for the toxicity they bring to the community. The people who practice the ideology and the kink... well, I think they need to at least be made aware of what they are doing, and given the opportunity to thoughtfully reject the former while they live the latter. We should not paint them with too broad a brush, because honestly we in the hypnokink community know all about the consequences of broad brushes and guilt by association. Credit card companies restrict the use of the word "hypnosis" by adult actors and adult mixed media artists with that same guilt-by-association zeal, assuming that anyone who uses hypnosis for kinky purposes is doing it to evade or elude the consent of their partner. That is not the case, but they do it anyway, and we should not seek to emulate their behavior.

Like I said at the top, labels have power. By adopting and then appropriating that label, right-wing groups and personalities have enabled themselves to abuse their partners, to hide behind the innocent members of their community and use them as a shield, and to evade due criticism for a while. It's time that stop. It won't stop by treating all persons who live that lifestyle as guilty, but rather by focusing guilt where that focus is due - on the people who practice it non-consensually, as an ideology rather than a kink, and to draw a line between the two wherever possible. Some people will straddle that line, and those people should be made to ask themselves the hard question: "which is more important to you?" because the answer to that question will be revelatory, and instructive of what our next steps forward should be in approaching them.

[thegodcyclecomic]

Hello again! Thank you for your post that covered my question on what sources of inspiration you used for Athena. It was super enlightening!

I know this is a tall order because the myths are broad, but could you discuss what aspects of characterization and dimensions you feel are often ignored about Athena? This is me practically begging for a meta post, but I genuinely love hearing your thoughts on her because I agree with your assessment that roughly most media tend to lean to simplistic aspects of Athena. I like hearing from your inspiration notes that you thought of Athena’s childhood with Pallas and how she is more of a pragmatic character that has agency.

I have a lot of thoughts on this so this post won't be as comprehensive as I originally intended, I will be briefly covering the points I want to list out. I try my best to base my writing of Athena on the canon source material, but there will be aspects that veer into my own interpretation/headcanon territory. All Iliad passages here are from the Robert Fitzgerald translation.

Anyway, here are the aspects of characterization I think are normally ignored when authors write Athena.

Her calculating nature / intelligence

This one sounds weird because it's paradoxically the first thing that comes to mind when writing Athena. The issue with this is the same issue when amateur authors try to write characters who are smarter than them: They resort to cheap shortcuts and stereotypes to show a character is "smart".

Examples of this would be the overusage of chess imagery. It's a game that wouldn't exist in Ancient Greece anyway, and it's a measure of spatial memorization rather than strategy. In real warfare, everything is variable to change. Chess pieces don't have motivations or biases that could influence their actions. Opening moves in chess have their counters, but real-life tactics allow you more freedom on how to engage with it.

The next writing shortcut people resort to re: Athena's intelligence is how they use her reading books to show she is "smart" but don't really elaborate on what kind of books she reads of what topics she specializes in which is already in the mythos that can give you lots of ideas.

I mentioned this before but when I started TGC I had a hard time characterizing Athena at first because I didn't understand her domains too well. So you know what I did? I picked up books about military history, Ancient Greek laws, political theory, philosophy, and similar. Learning about these things gave me a perspective of "how would the personification of the state act if they were a person?". Ancient Greece was big on the Social Contract, as exemplified in Socrates's speech in Plato's Apology.

There's a lot more to it, I'm not doing it justice at all in this post. But that's the idea. In the Oresteia, Athena created the practice of cross-examination for murder trials, and then immediately proceeded to undermine the entire justice process by attempting to bribe the prosecution (the Furies). In the Iliad Book 4, she disguises herself as a Trojan soldier to trick Laodokos to shoot Menelaus to break the ceasefire-- essentially enacting what we in modern day would call a False Flag Operation. It's so quintessentially Politician(tm) of her to do.

Athena's intelligence comes from how she seeks to improve and make efficient current systems, like her strategy to Ares's warfare. Or her various inventions in mythos. Another one would be her ability to manipulate people and situations to push for the outcomes she wants. You can see this in her various dialogues in the Epic Cycle:

Athena grifting in the Odyssey in a speech she makes to Zeus about why she should be allowed to assist Odysseus.

520: Athena kept the pace behind them, bearing her shield of storm, immortal and august, whose hundred golden-plaited tassles, worth a hekatomb each one, floated in air. So down the ranks that dazzling goddess went to stir the attack, and each man in his heart grew strong to fight and never quit the melee, for at her passage war itself became lovelier than return, lovelier than sailing in the decked ships to their own native land -Iliad Book 4

and this

100: “Son of Lykaon, I have in mind an exploit that may tempt you, tempt a fighting heart. Have you the gall to send an arrow like a fork of lightning home against Menelaus? Every Trojan heart would rise, and every man would praise you, especially Paris, the prince— you would be sure to come by glittering gifts if he could see the warrior, Menelaus, the son of Atreus, brought down by your bow, then bedded on a dolorous pyre! Come now, brace yourself for a shot at Menelaus. engage to pay Apollo, the bright archer, a perfect hekatomb of firstling lambs when you go home to your old town, Zeleia.” That was Athena’s way, leading him on, the foolish man, to folly. -Iliad Book 4

from what I can understand, Athena's domain of wisdom is not just limited to giving insight to people-- but also in obscuring the truth and leading others to their ruin. Which is in line with one of Athena's epithets which is Απατουρια (Apaturia) "Deciever".

Often times in other adaptations, they relegate Athena's intelligence to spouting random facts or a "nerdy" personality. Or they nerf it so that she doesn't solve these braindead plots in 2 seconds. Take Athena from Lore Olympus for example, the Athena of canon would've never allowed any of this shit with Persephone and Apollo undermining Zeus to happen TT_TT if you have to make your characters stupid for the story to work, then it is a bad story hands down.

2. Interpretations regarding Athena's relationship with heroes

This is something I see a lot where Athena is written to have a personal investment in her heroes like they are "her blorbos" (actual words I've seen people on this hellsite use for this). I'd like to direct your attention to this passage from of Athena speaking in Iliad book 8.

My father, now, is full of a black madness, evil and perverse. All that I strive for he brings to nothing: He will not remember how many times I intervened to save his son, worn out in trials set by Eurystheus. How Heracles would cry to heaven! And Zeus Would send me out of heaven to be his shield. Had I forseen this day that time he went down, bidden by Eurystheus, between Death’s narrow gates to bring from Erebos the watchdog of the Lord of Undergloom, he never would have left the gorge of Styx!

The way I understand this passage is that Athena does a lot of "NPC questgiver" tasks for Zeus in an attempt to curry favor from him. It's a calculated choice on her part and not something she does out of the kindness of her heart. A similar situation occurs when Orestes asks Athena for aid, she helps him on the insistence of Apollo.

Regarding Odysseus, I'm sure there is some fondness she has for him-- but that doesn't stop her from allowing him to be struck by storm (as collateral damage for the crimes of Ajax the lesser for raping Cassandra in Athena's temple). Or from her setting up the suitor problem so she could convince him to murder them all.

If you've noticed, all of Athena's champions are some kind of high-ranking warriors. A king or general or prince. You would think that the goddess of wisdom would favor the philosophers more, or would choose more often to avoid violence. But Athena is very quick to choose violence, it's who she is. And she needs a tool that she can use as a blade.

(these are my interpretations, if you disagree thats fine) 3. Athena as a "peaceful" goddess

This one makes me laugh and also drives me insane.

There are two Homeric hymns that directly and clearly contradict this idea.

(HOMERIC HYMNS 5 - 33, TRANSLATED BY H. G. EVELYN-WHITE) a. The Homeric Hymn to Athena

Of Pallas Athene, guardian of the city, I begin to sing. Dread is she, and with Ares she loves deeds of war, the sack of cities and the shouting and the battle. It is she who saves the people as they go out to war and come back. Hail, goddess, and give us good fortune with happiness!

b. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

...Yet there are three hearts that she cannot bend nor yet ensnare. First is the daughter of Zeus who holds the aegis, bright-eyed Athene; for she has no pleasure in the deeds of golden Aphrodite, but delights in wars and in the work of Ares, in strifes and battles and in preparing famous crafts. 

What I find insightful about the second one is that it gives a specific reason for why Athena cannot be moved by romantic love. It's because war occupies the space in her heart that love would normally be. Both hymns specifically name drop Ares, so the idea that Athena finds Ares's violence to be repulsive is just blatantly untrue. If anything, she adores it. The time it would become an issue for her is when his rampages act against her greater interests, which is the source of all their duels in canon.

Other proof for Athena being generally violent can be inferred from her characterization in the Iliad, the instances of which are too numerous to list here.

4. Athena's personality defined by her lack of childhood.

I mentioned this in another post, but Athena was born from Zeus as an adult (though in TGC I changed this to being born as a pre-teen. This is intentional and serves a purpose). What we know about psychology today is that for normal social and emotional development, young children need to form an attachment with at least one primary caregiver. Athena being born as an adult means that she would've missed out on important development milestones that other gods would've gone through.

I will preemptively say that before you bring up the "theyre Gods they're not like humans" that as far as mythos is concerned, the way that gods behave and think is almost exactly identical to that of humans. They experience the same range of emotions humans do, as well as grief and trauma. So I will consider that their psychology is also the same with the difference being that they might experience mental degradation not typically seen in humans because of cumulative negative experiences over a long period.

Back to Athena, the only framework she would have to start from literally being born yesterday would be the fragments of memories she gleaned from being inside of Zeus's head. I think this would be confusing for her, as these are from the first-person perspective of Zeus, so using his memories but lacking context for those experiences might lead to an early identity crisis. Athena would then have to play catchup in learning extremely fast everything to fill those blanks.

This is why I think Athena has a hard time forming personal connections. She doesn't have a true equal. Athena's relationships are defined by power imbalances and transactions, and that is how she understands relationships in general to work.

5. Athena's humanity.

I think what bothers me the most about Athena in adaptations is the lack of humanity given to her character. I know I just went over why she's a manipulative machiavellian character, but what I see is that Athena often gets relegated to the Unfun Stick in the Mud character. She exists to ruin the fun of the Fun Chaotic Dudes Dionysus, Hermes, and Apollo. She doesn't have anything going to her except being a snitch and a daddy's girl, or worse, she exists to be "put in her place" by other male gods. This is why I really dislike Fedini's and "incorrect greek gods" take on Athena. I think there's this underlying biases that an ace-coded goddess can't have anything interesting about her, because all media on tumblr and fandom these days are broken down to fucking shipping instead of seriously engaging with the source material. I've seen people call her a Mary Sue or act like she is an annoying bitch for exhibiting personality traits that would be praised in a male character (the traits of a Byronic Hero).

Portrayals of Athena go one extreme or another, either she is a wholly Good goddess or she is a Villain/mere annoyance. It's a real shame to see, because I hope I can show you now that she is a wonderfully complex and morally grey character. I want to see Athena's curiosity and how she tries to understand the world from her own perspective. I want to explore her relationships with Zeus and her siblings like Ares and Apollo outside of the Meme'fication of Greek mythology.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now, I hope this answers your question. If you have any point you'd like me to explain more, I'd be glad to make another post in greater detail.

[littleguyshowdown]

Welcome to the little guy showdown!

Voting has ended!

This blog is heavily “inspired” by @/weirdgirlshowdown and @/nonbiney-swag-competition and is a tournament style competition to decide which fictional character best exemplifies the traits of a little guy.

The bracket and some general things to keep in mind listed below:

The first round of characters was set up by myself in a way to where I think each competitor has a decently fair chance, but the rounds after this will be randomized to avoid bias.

Only one character from each piece of media is allowed to compete at a time, which unfortunately means that multiple characters who would’ve made the cut otherwise had to be disqualified.

Guy, in this context, is meant to be taken as gender neutral, so any character of any gender can participate!

All characters listed below the cut.

Top Row, Left to Right: Greg (Over the Garden Wall) VS Zim (Invader Zim), Boyd Gearloose (Ducktales) VS Small Fry (Splatoon), King Clawthorne (The Owl House) VS Lancer (Deltarune), Kirby (Kirby) VS Anya Forger (Spy x Family).

Second Row, Left to Right: Tony Tony Chopper (One Piece) VS Catbug (Bravest Warriors), Pugsley (Dead End: Paranormal Park) VS Perrito (Puss in Boots II: The Last Wish), Mono (Little Nightmares II) VS Webber (Don’t Starve), One One (Infinity Train) VS BMO (Adventure Time.

Third Row: Spike (My Little Pony) VS Dave (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts), Paddington (Paddington) VS Snoopy (Peanuts), Alfur (Hilda) VS Apollo Justice (Ace Attorney), Dendy (OKKO) VS Yellow Guy (Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared).

Bottom Row: Ghost (Hollow Knight) VS Slugcat (Rain World), Pikachu (Pokemon) VS Kururun (Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure), Wander (Wander over Yonder) VS Miles “Tails” Prower (Sonic), Sprig and Polly Plantar (Amphibia) VS Timmy and Tommy (Animal Crossing)

Thank you all for the submissions! This list wouldn’t be complete without y’all.

[regrator-the-ninth]

Muzan and Chronic Illness: an Essay of Sorts

Part of why I love Muzan in KnY is because I relate to him. While his objective actions in the story are obviously evil, I think he’s a lot more sympathetic than the writers want him to be. This essay explores Muzan’s backstory, his treatment by the narrative, and my feelings toward the use of his character. As such, it contains MAJOR MANGA SPOILERS. THIS IS YOUR WARNING. This piece is not trying to “cancel” KnY for ableism or to say anything about the views of the mangaka/anime screenwriters/etc. I enjoyed KnY, and if you’re thinking about giving it a shot, I do recommend it. This is just a self-reflective piece that I wrote to process my own experiences with chronic illnesses in my own life and analyze the nuances of a piece of media that I love.

To begin, we need to establish what a “chronic illness” is. For the purposes of this piece, a chronic illness is defined as an illness that significantly impacts quality of life and lasts for an extended period of time. The reason most chronic illnesses are chronic is because they either have no cure, or the cure is slow-acting, incomplete, or otherwise unable to completely remove the effects of the illness in a short period of time.

The state of “being a demon” in KnY falls under the label of chronic illness. When you are a demon, you cannot go outside in the sun, you cannot be in close proximity to wisteria, and you cannot survive without killing humans. Your mental state is also compromised, causing you to undergo personality changes and behave in ways you would not if you were a normal human. Demons such as Akaza and Gyutaro become demons due to wanting to protect those they love, but end up committing horrible crimes and mistreating their loved ones after the transformation. Rui, for example, hates his family that he once loved due to the transformation and deeply regrets it once his human memories and emotions return. The mental change is depicted by the narrative as the worst part of becoming a demon, as it takes a person’s goals and emotions and turns them into twisted, cruel versions of themselves. The many negative changes caused by becoming a demon can be considered symptoms of a chronic illness. This is confirmed by the fact that Nezuko’s demonhood is written essentially as an illness to which Tanjiro is seeking a cure. However, demonhood itself acts as a cure to many chronic illnesses due to the regenerative abilities it grants. In that case, the negative symptoms of being a demon can be considered side effects of an imperfect treatment.

To explore that concept, we can look at Tamayo and Yushiro, demons who have managed to correct the need for killing humans but are still harmed by the sun. Their actions exemplify the most moral way of dealing with demonhood being the only cure to a chronic illness. Yushiro would have died if he were not transformed into a demon, so Tamayo transforms him while making sure that he survives on consensual blood donations and does not cause excessive harm. This is shown to us as the “correct” way of using the demon transformation process to cure illnesses that have no other cures available. To properly use the process, one must provide sufficient medical care and mental support to allow the newly created demon to regain their mental humanity and successfully integrate into society, mitigating the side effects of the treatment.

The narrative thus provides a framework for the “proper” medical treatment pipeline:

if (person has chronic illness):     turn person into demon     use Tamayo method so they become a good demon

else if (person is a demon):     if (cure to demonhood found):         turn person back into a human     else:         use Tamayo method so they become a good demon

else: do nothing

This all seems great, right? Well, not really. The battles between Tanjiro and the demons he faces show that demons who are left untreated for too long cannot be stopped in a peaceful way and must be killed. This means that if no one intervenes in the early stages post-transformation, there is nothing you can do about a demon. The tragedy of KnY comes from this fact, as audiences are let in on each demon’s backstory and the unfortunate circumstances that drove them to becoming so evil that there was no turning back. Every demon other than Muzan is portrayed as a victim whose burdens are lifted via Tanjiro crying in sympathy at their stories and gently guiding them to the afterlife, showing the sad inevitability of their death.

Using this canonically established framework for “proper” use of demon abilities, we can apply our knowledge to Muzan. Him choosing to pursue a cure to his own terminal chronic illness was not morally wrong. He didn’t even know the consequences, as it was an experimental procedure. After becoming a demon, the correct process would have been to receive proper treatment to make him retain his humanity and reintegrate into society, but no one was able to provide that treatment. He killed his doctor before the doctor could come up with such a treatment, and Tamayo was not in the picture at all at the time. Within the constraints of the universe, there was nothing that could’ve been done.

As Muzan himself said, he was like a natural disaster, an unlucky confluence of various uncontrollable factors that led to a huge amount of destruction. He commissioned a cure for a yet incurable disease and tried said cure on himself, which was not an unreasonable thing to do. Unbeknownst to him, the cure corrupted his mind and changed his body to be hungry for human flesh. He obviously could have received no further treatment from the doctor after he killed him, which meant that by the time he killed the doctor, he was already a demon. As a demon, he had no medical or mental support, which meant that he likely forgot most of his human life and became driven by whatever vestiges of his strongest emotions remained. As a terminally ill patient with little hope for recovery, his strongest emotions were likely fear of death and frustration with his own body. These emotions, amplified by the demon transformation process, took over his body and mind and made him the evil demon we see in KnY. At the end of the day, he needed to be stopped, and the only way to stop him was to kill him. By the time he died, his evil actions far outweighed his good intentions. Despite all of this, we need to acknowledge that none of this was intentionally evil, but rather a result of an experimental treatment not being what Muzan nor his doctor had expected.

All of this is well and good, as demons having understandable backstories is par for the course in KnY. However, my issue with this is the way Muzan is depicted. Unlike every other demon in the story, Tanjiro fights him to the bitter end and shows him no sympathy or respect. The ultimate message at the end of his story is that your life is memorable and important because of the impact you make on the world, not because you are physically alive at all times. Tanjiro fights for his humanity while Muzan fights for his life, and we are supposed to think that this is a battle against evil. Muzan’s fear of death and regret is framed as the epitome of him being a bad person. The fact that he became a demon and caused all of this harm is not portrayed as an inevitable consequence of an experimental medical treatment, but as a conscious decision from his cruel and immoral mind. That is where I disagree with the writing, because it simply isn’t true. He became a demon because he was seeking a cure for a terminal chronic illness, an endeavor that would have made him an objectively good person had it gone according to plan. He followed the Canonically Approved Demon Protocol as well as he could have given his circumstances. He did nothing wrong before his transformation began, yet somehow, he is cast in a strongly negative light. Why?

Honestly, I think the reason Muzan is depicted this way is because the author wanted a pure evil villain and made one. I don’t think they thought long and hard about the medical and moral considerations of Muzan’s backstory, they just wanted him to come across as super evil and wrote him that way. However, as a person who has had my own struggles with chronic illnesses myself, I see a lot of myself in Muzan’s backstory. I’ve signed up for many different medical trials, tried experimental medications, and read medical articles and resources in search of a better understanding of my own body. I understand his frustration with his progress and with the medical industry. A lot of my doctors ran a bunch of scans, tried a bunch of things, and came back with “idk man, let’s figure this out together,” and I won’t lie and say that it was a satisfactory answer. I volunteered for trials and did my own research not just to help myself, but to hopefully help other people who may be in the same situation as me as well. If, for whatever reason, one of those treatments unwittingly made me into a murderous demon, I don’t think that would make me (human me, as I stand today) a horrible person. Yes, I would need to be stopped and yes, that treatment would need to be significantly reworked before it was trialed again, and yes, that would probably count as medical malpractice in the year of our lord 2023, but at the end of the day it wouldn’t have been my fault. And I don’t know, maybe I project onto fictional characters too much but the fact that KnY so strongly insists that Muzan had no redeeming qualities throughout his entire life just rubs me the wrong way.

I dedicate this essay to everyone who says Muzan’s backstory isn’t tragic, because it is. But it’s also hopeful. Despite our physical shortcomings, our chronic illnesses, our disabilities, we continue to contribute to science, fighting on in the hopes that we can be remembered for making a difference.

Addendum 1 - Rui:

I know some of you might mention Rui as “Muzan but sympathetic” but I don’t think that’s true. The only difference between their circumstances was that Muzan was the catalyst for making the demon transformation process whereas Rui just accepted the transformation. Neither of them had given fully informed consent to the treatment (Muzan because no one knew at the time what would happen and Rui because he was not told the full story), and neither of them responded well to it. If your argument is that Muzan is less sympathetic because he killed the doctor, then why isn’t Rui less sympathetic because he killed his family? The reason why the narrative treated Rui as more sympathetic is because he was knowingly duped by Muzan, but by the time he turned Rui, Muzan was definitely way too far off the deep end of demonhood to be making reasonable decisions. Also, Rui also contributes to the same issue as Muzan because the writing makes it seem like he should have just accepted his own illness and weakness and let his family take care of him as opposed to exercising what little agency he had and seeking treatment on his own.

Addendum 2 - “Alternative Medicine”:

Another read might be that the demon thing is a warning against “alternative medicine” and miracle cures that are too good to be true. Even if this is the case, it doesn’t explain why Muzan’s actions were evil as opposed to just misinformed. Furthermore, the existence of Tamayo and Yushiro prove that the moral of the story isn’t just “don’t trust weird doctors who say they can fix you” because Tamayo definitely falls into that category. Also, becoming a demon does actually fix most chronic illnesses so it’s not a very good metaphor if that was the intention.

[midnightlovestories]

I realize that not every piece of media created within a fandom has to appeal to me, and that is especially true within The Addams Family fandom. Say, imho the '77s Halloween with the New Addams Family is atrocious, I just ignore its existence and the same goes for the 90s TV show for which I managed maybe half an episode. Or the Addams Family Reunion. I never watched the musical and I don't intend to.

And this is fine. There's no requirement to interact with every piece of media just because you're in the fandom. I stick with 60s TV show and 90's movies, The Addams Family and Addams Family Values because this is what I enjoy.

When it comes to Netflix's Wednesday, I didn't hate it but I completely didn't vibe with it. Still, I don't mind if other people enjoy it. Except, I can't get over how they've completely missed their mark with Morticia because I think Catherine Zeta-Jones could have been a perfect Morticia.

They had the perfect actress.

She is an ideal Morticia, she's got the look and the vibe and everything. That woman is Morticia but the writers on that show absolutely killed that amazing opportunity to explore that character through such a brilliant actress. There was nothing CZJ could do with that atrocious writing. Nothing. She had nothing to work with. ( I'm not even going to go into that scene with the policeman, where she tells him he doesn't know what it feels like not to be believed - I have no words to express how stupid it was. )

No, Morticia is not just the goth vibes and the rest you can just make up as you please. No. For all its inconsistencies within the fandom as to what's canon, Morticia has one very vivid character trait and that's she's incredibly supportive towards her children. She's just incredibly kind and supportive in general.

What they've done with her in Netflix Wednesday could be perfectly filed under: Morticia Would Never. They've used her as the agency for a cheap teenage trope mother / daughter conflict and this such a huge huge disservice to this character who for so many years exemplified the healthiest, emotionally intelligent and supportive parenting style in the history of television, and they just ruined it.

They had Catherine Zeta-Jones on board as Morticia. Catherine Zeta-Jones. And all they gave her to work with was that shit writing.

[heliopauseentertainments]

@jariktig

Alrighty.

So, disclaimer 1: I am working in an IDW1 context.

Disclaimer 2: there is functionally very little evidence of either Primal Vernacular or Neocybex in canon. Everything is necessarily treated as translated or localized into English (original text) for the convenience of the reader (those robots are NOT speaking to each other in English with no humans around, c'mon). Even Cybertronian place names and personal names are this way. I already have voiced some opinions on this.

Disclaimer 3: the alphabets and scripts you see in TF media are all just English ciphers (substitution alphabets), used to write English or other Latin script words, sometimes just gibberish. They didn't even bother trying. This is lazy and I hate it. Either conlang like you mean it or fucking don't.

Disclaimer 4: I'm ignoring the Micronauts data because it's just "Ancient Aliens" History Channel nonsense.

Disclaimer 5: I'm a rando on the Internet, not the arbiter of everything. Hasbro, hire me to conlang for your damn robots. This is also not laid out in any particular order.

Anyway, onto the relationship between Primal Vernacular (PVN) and Neocybex (NCX) - language codes I just now made up for convenience.

Firstly, I am of the opinion that based on the limited available evidence, that PVN is not a direct ancestral language to NCX. It could still be related, but more likely a branch of the same language family. Here's why:

In-universe, NCX is rendered as legible English, but PVN is not. On one hand, this could just be a convention for ease, but on the other hand, it further exemplifies that the character do not understand it in really any capacity. Most characters that are not explicitly speakers of PVN respond to seeing or hearing it with mostly utter confusion other than being able to identify the language and maybe a word or two. One character (Trailcutter if I remember correctly) remarks that he only knows the swears (which can be quite stable vocabulary over time - indicating that the languages might be from the same language family). Example: a modern English speaker can look at Old English and, with a little effort, identify some features, structures, and words that look familiar. Full understanding? No, absolutely not, but bits and pieces of recognition are there. You see something similar when looking back between modern Romance languages and Latin.

Given PVN's repeated religious associations, it was likely at one time largely restricted to liturgical or other limited uses. This may have been either natural societal developments, but it would more likely have been intentional on behalf of groups like the Functionist Council. Who could learn what or had access to what could be readily restricted. Translations could be changed or reinterpreted readily, especially if the knowledge of the originals were highly controlled.

Another (probably already extant, possibly from a prestigious locale such as Iacon) language, such as NCX could readily be introduced and enforced as a means of social control. Tailgate refers to PVN as the "mother tongue" even though he doesn't know it, but it had clearly already been displaced by the time he was forged.

Cybertronians like Vos and Cyclonus are the exception to the rule, due to either age, isolation, privilege, and/or other unusual circumstances, retain a solid command of a language that fallen into (likely intentional) disuse.

I think it is also likely that some PVN loans form portions of high-status vocabulary in NCX. I.E. medical, technical terminology, and words/names rendered as Latin loans in English (names like Pharma or Pax or names ending in -us or words like Conjunx or Amica) are likely loans from PVN. High-status loans are likely the most familiar modern Cybertronians ever get to truly understand PVN.

This, if Hasbro had any intentionality at all, would be a clever way of localizing these features for the human audience.

This happens often enough in human languages: I.E. Hellenic, Latin, and French (Latin but newer!) loans in English for specifically high-status words. Old Church Slavic (before the Hellenic, Latin, and French trio also joined the party) did this in Russian as well.

Anyway... in summary:

PVN is likely not the ancestor language to NCX, but may be on a related branch of the language family.

PVN is likely the source of many loanwords and names for prestige vocabulary.

I haven't even gotten into my entirely unfounded headcanons yet.

[hwd405]

Spyro 3 - The GameSpot Build and Lost Media

I've been actively researching and documenting early builds of Spyro 3 for something like 7 or 8 years now, and while I feel like I've made a significant impact, there's always going to be people that have never seen any the content that I've helped to document - so, every now and then, I get the urge to infodump about one piece of my research to a new group of people, to help make sure that the documentation I've done isn't only known to a very small group of people... that'd defeat the purpose of documentation, to an extent, I think.

Sometimes, outreach ends up being extremely important to the research and preservation of prerelease content - and this is no better exemplified than with Spyro 3's "GameSpot build".

On June 23rd, 2000, several websites and publications revealed early previews of Spyro: Year of the Dragon - this date was probably some sort of online embargo date.

The "April preview", an early build which seems to match the one used at E3 2000, was used by most of these publications. A few of them, according to accounts from those that wrote the previews, received exclusive gameplay sessions from the likes of Mark Cerny - these previews apparently took place quite close to the embargo date and certainly would have used a later build than the April one. We know that IGN received one of these sessions (but, according to the author of the preview article, was allegedly unable to record gameplay during this session, which resulted in IGN having to use the same build everyone else did in their preview articles), and it's a pretty safe bet that GameSpot did, too. In GameSpot's case, we actually got to see what this build looked like:

As expected, it's a later build than the April prototype - this one seems to be from around the same point in development as the earliest demo disc version, though we're not sure if it's an earlier build or a later one. Three main characteristics stick out in these screenshots:

We don't ever see what the eggs looked like in this build, but the fragments use this bizarre ornate gold texture.

The HUD uses a green egg sprite similar to some of the eggs seen in the April build; the earliest demo disc version also uses this sprite.

For some reason, transparent polygons are a solid black colour, making some screenshots look sort of ominous and weird.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about this build is that the gold egg fragments it uses, which to most players would be completely unrecognisable and unlike anything they've ever seen before, actually do appear in the final game. And they hatch from every egg in the entire game. In most cases, the fragment flies off screen before the player can spot it.

The earliest demo build, which seems to be from around May 25th, 2000, does not include this texture at all, which has called into question the timeline placement of the GameSpot build. On one hand, they might've used the final egg texture momentarily, switched to the gold one, and switched back, accidentally leaving one of the textures intact. On the other hand, there have been cases in many Spyro builds of random early assets weeding their way back into the game via means that we don't really understand. Look no further than the August 27th, 1998 localisation prototype of Spyro the Dragon, a post-final build which inexplicably re-uses an early Gnasty Gnorc model, textures, and animations, from around 2 months earlier in development:

The info we have on this build doesn't just stop at screenshots, though! GameSpot kindly uploaded 5 videos of the build - labelled "Movie 2" through "Movie 6" (thanks GameSpot. that's not confusing at all) - to their website. Most of these videos were later temporarily put behind a paywall, and in 2014, 4 of these videos were deleted during a server move, with only Movie 2 (the one never put behind a paywall) remaining. The one movie that remained didn't even play properly in GameSpot's video player for years, so I had to download the video from the API to view it at all:

While the video is an important piece of history, and did reveal to us that the early Sgt. Byrd theme heard in some old IGN videos of the April preview had a previously unheard guitar section (this was prior to the public release of the April preview), it doesn't tell us very much new about the build. If we really wanted to more precisely date the build, we'd need to know what the eggs looked or sounded like - but the egg collection section was entirely cut from the video. As of yet, we just don't have this information.

As for Movies 3 - 6? These are now lost media. They were up on the site for 14 years, we know that people saw them, and I suspect there were people that downloaded them. However, since they were deleted nearly 10 years ago, nobody has come forward to say that they have one of the videos and to show what was in it. Anyone that does come forward with this info should be met with some scepticism, of course, but I think the only way we'll ever see more of this build is with a greater outreach and more widespread knowledge of the missing videos - the videos were readily downloadable from the website, and so someone still has the videos, I'm sure.

And before anyone asks, yes, the WayBack Machine has been very extensively searched for these videos - we can't find them, there's just no trace of them on there.

Judging by the video descriptions, Movie 3 would have focused on Bentley, Movie 4 on either Sheila or Agent 9, and Movies 5 and 6 on Spyro gameplay.

I've only ever encountered one person who claims to have seen these videos, and whether they're to be believed or not, they claimed that one of the videos showed Sunny Villa using Fireworks Factory's theme (levels using the wrong themes was very common in early builds of these games! Additionally, Fireworks Factory's theme is very likely to have been present around this point in development), and another showed Agent 9 gameplay using a track that didn't sound very Spyro-like, but more like "something from James Bond".

When the April preview released later on, it was discovered that early Spyro 3 builds actually do have a number of entirely non-Spyro themes, all by µ-Ziq and Propellerheads, left unused in their soundtrack data. The tracks in these builds seem to line up with the levels present in an earlier build of the game, and by this metric, it seems that "Spybreak!", a theme from the Matrix soundtrack, would have (fittingly?) lined up with Agent 9's Lab, and possibly would have been used in that level in internal development builds. Sure enough, my contact agreed that this was the theme they heard, when I sent them the track - if this is indeed the case, then this build is very very weird indeed.

It remains to be seen whether we'll ever learn anything new about this build, but we can only hope. I've linked to an archived 7z file containing all the screenshots uploaded to GameSpot below, as well as a link to a TCRF article detailing some of the known differences spotted in this build:

Archive.org

TCRF

[pinkrelish]

Prev anon here! You’ve done a great job in keeping reader non specific. I think part of the reason it resonates is because you’ve done a great job at keeping her relatable to so many people, which is not an easy feat. And I know this is a tricky topic(but an important one) but I do see the effort you put it and it’s def appreciated.

And you SHOULD rb all the amazing fan art that’s been made!! Every single one has been so so lovely!! And it’s lovely that people are inspired to make such art. It’s certainly not in your control how others want to depict anyone.

On that note, Idk where the line is in “we’re all just individuals making things!” And “wow somehow so much of the fanart within the fandom is white-centric” there is no easy answer, and it’s not one persons issue to shoulder or even address, but there’s certainly an awareness that can be had around it.

thank you for coming back! i realized after reading over my last response that i talked a lot about myself, and my fic, because i wasn't sure how to react to TYP specifically spawning this larger conversation, and didn't mean to put the sole focus on myself.

i've only contributed to one fandom before this and it was OC heavy, so the idea of people drawing reader inserts—who should be written as vague—is new to me. i've seen three other pieces of fanart for other writer's RI stories, and in two of them the skin tone was left blank and the head was cut off so no hair style could be depicted, and in the third it was chosen to be a white RI.

and even though i haven't been in a fandom as large as this, media in general leans, favors, and worships skinny white women as the ideal, and it's sadly not surprising when i scroll past header after header on fics that exemplify this. do i think writers do this maliciously? no. that's why i reach out in private with the intent to educate. do i also think poc have made RI art, written RI stories, and don't get as much engagement, and have received racist anons saying their art is not inclusive, and made to feel unwelcomed? absolutely. not even a question.

not too long ago when a big blog was pointed out for having an extremely white-coded fic, their response was to double down, call the poc trying to educate them "aggressive", and ultimately ignore them, and acted obtuse about the issue when all they asked for, at minimum, was for the fic to having a warning at the top.

and how many stories on here *don't* have warnings, but have multiple word choices indicating how pale the reader is? ....many. again, i'd wager most white writers aren't even conscious of these decisions until pointed out, but, yeah, poc have spoken up in the eddie munson x reader tag many times about getting part way through a story only to read something white-coded, and get thrown out of the immersion.

i'm not sure how to address the fanart with TYP specifically, and artists choosing to insert themselves, or representing themselves by choosing a skin tone close to their own to give miss mouse, other than to say i hope i'm making this blog a comfortable space for anyone to contribute art if they feel inspired and have the time, and know that i will defend anyone's interpretation because, in essence, she exists as a vehicle to tell a story about eddie finding love. i would love to see more representation for her so everyone can picture themselves in the story.

i'm clearly not an eloquent speaker, but i wanted to answer this with the audience i have, and as you said in the ask, bring awareness to an issue that exists in all fandoms, and is much larger than my story or fanart for my story, and is more about poc not feeling comfortable contributing, or even existing, in fandom spaces.

[ungoliantschilde]

Powerage, 1978.

Worked all day, spent most of it thinking about how to articulate what I want to say about this album.

This is the album where Cliff Williams joined the band as the bass player, and Phil Rudd solidified himself as the third piece of the band’s bedrock: the rhythm section. Malcolm Young is regularly called the greatest rhythm guitarist of all time. Just a brilliant, brilliant player and a riff-writing machine. Phil Rudd’s drumming has a swing to it that perfectly matches what the band does when they’re at their best. And Cliff Williams on bass just locks in with Phil and Mal. Mal, Angus, Phil, and Cliff are the best AC/DC lineup. All of them just seem to know exactly how to play with each other in perfect lock step.

Now, for Bon’s work on Powerage, I am gonna talk about the lyrics.

Let There Be Rock, lyrically, exemplified everything enjoyable about Bon Scott. He was a wild-eyed, mischievous good time at his best. Powerage exemplified the dark side of that personality. It has the most personal, emotional, and directly confessional lyrics of their entire catalogue. For a band that is defined by seeking commercial success, an album comprised of almost entirely first person accounts of heartache is noteworthy. Bon was beloved for being a lewd, lascivious, rabble rousing ring-leader of a band of miscreants.

But Powerage was Bon as a broken hearted poet.

When an interviewer asked Angus what Bon was like, he said “what you see is what you get”. That is what Angus remembers about Bonny: that you could absolutely judge that book by its cover. In another interview, Angus was asked about why Bon drank himself to death, Angus answered in his typically terse style again, “it’s in the songs, mate.”

The songs on Powerage, to be specific.

From “Rock and Roll Damnation”:

-you say that you want respect, honey for what? for everything that you’ve done for me, thanks a lot. you say that I act the fool, well honey I’m a fool for you.

From Brian Johnson’s favorite song, “Down Payment Blues”:

-feeling like a paper cup, floating down a storm drain

From my favorite track, “Gimme a Bullet”:

-she had the word, had the way, the way of letting me know. She said ‘you go your way, and I’ll go mine, and that’ll be the start’. Come tomorrow, come to grips with being all alone. Give me a bullet to bite on. Something to chew. Give me a bullet to bite on and I’ll make believe, I’ll believe it’s you.”

From, “What’s Next to the Moon”:

-it’s your love that I want (background: your love that I need)

From, “Gone Shootin’”:

-Bought a ticket of her own accord… …I stirred my coffee with the same spoon… She never made it past the bedroom door, what was she even for? I took a lover in another town, she took another pill. She was runnin’ in an overdrive, a victim of overkill. My baby’s gone Shootin’… I used to love her so.

According to what I’ve read, Bon once had two separate women in the maternity ward, and they were unaware of each other. Bon was not a guy that would have done well in the age of social media and cellphone cameras. His point was that he found a girl who loved him for being a rock star, and he was not gonna quit being a rock star for her. He was a gross, lascivious and carousing womanizer. And she knew it. When she did the same things back to him, Bon didn’t like being on the receiving end. He was drunk and high most of the time, living out of hotel rooms and the beds of welcoming lovers in every town.

The end was coming, and his family and friends all knew it. No one that knew Bon was shocked when he drank himself to death. The tragedy was how inevitable it was at this point in life.

Powerage was the last of the Aussie made albums. The finale of their time as a bar band. And it’s their most personal, most poignant, and most heartbreaking.

Sad lyrics aside, Powerage is the album that every rockstar that grew up with AC/DC cites as the band’s best. Slash, Joe Perry, and basically every guitar player that was in a band formed after 1983 says the same thing. Powerage is packed with virtuoso performances from every band member. Every track is an all time favorite guitar riff.

Listen to it. Pay attention to it. It’s AC/DC’s breakup album. There’s a reason it’s so well regarded.