#Telling Tales

[telltaletypist]

i think there is something to be said about the way a lot of popular western media (both within fiction and outside of it, now that i think about it) uses the pretense of nuance to obfuscate existing power dynamics.

the example i'm mulling over at the moment is netflix's Arcane, which depicts a pretty straightforward conflict between a brutally oppressive ruling class and an underclass that is out gunned, out manned, and lacks even the means to support its own population. despite this, the show takes a very even-handed "everybody's flawed" approach to how it portrays this conflict, one that seems to be increasingly popular in popular western media. this makes for a compelling story, the show takes the time to make sure we understand all the characters involved, their motivations, their flaws, their hopes, their dreams etc, but i think when people engage with that kind of narrative uncritically, they tend to miss the forest for the trees and get lost in pointless debates over which characters were more in the right or who's actions were more justified by their trauma etc. this kind of weightless, individualist approach seems to always lead to the same conclusion: that changing society is scary and traumatic and everybody is too flawed to be trusted with leading such a shift. how convenient that this always seems to benefit those already in power.

i'm thinking about this in regards to the reactions to the latest developments in the story of Arcane, which sees caitlyn supporting a military dictatorship, in part as a response to the trauma of losing her mother in jinx's terror attack. the reactions are pretty typical fandom discourse about whether or not her actions are understandable given what she's going through as a character, but what no one seems to be considering is that she's only able to undergo this change in the first place because of her class position, not just as a member of the wealthy elite of the overcity, but also as a respected member of the overcity's law enforcement. see, while the individual characters involved might be complex, the moral dimensions of the overall conflict really are not. one side has all the power and resources, as well as a vested interest in keeping the other side subjugated to maintain its dominant status quo. just because the dominant side is populated primarily with skinny attractive people a who're shown to be doing their best with the situation and the other are mostly grotesque caricatures of poverty stricken degenerates doesn't mean this is a difficult choice.

it remains to be seen how the actual show will play out, but i can't help but see it as continuing a trend of what i can only describe as a kind of smug liberal nihilism, crafting a brutal class conflict only to revel in the horrific spectacle of it all, basking in the complex moral greyness of its protagonists, uninterested in taking an actual stance. there's a point when nuance becomes a form of cowardice, imo

[howifeltabouthim]

And could one tell such a story about a girl, especially if she asked you not to?

Iris Murdoch, from A Fairly Honourable Defeat

[halukturgutmenguc]

©all rights reserved / htm.studios/2023/377

Fragments of...!

[thegirlfromtheislands]

I lived such a sheltered childhood. I became a naïve adult but at least I knew I was naïve and there were so many things I didn't know. The issue was that I didn't know what I wanted to know first, finding out the harsh realities of life is so different from all the books and movies. After living independently for a while I found that I preferred reading about life or watching movies about life because descriptions of happiness or love were always more beautiful and fantastic than the real thing.

In life, when we fall in love we also fall into doubt and insecurity and jealousy and uncertainty about the future. While living in the uncertainty and hoping to end up with the person forever, we miss the little moments. We miss the defining memories. I have anxiety about events that I anticipate. Whenever I find myself wanting something so much I try, with all my might, to make the days go faster so I can have the thing I want so badly.

This means that so many of my best adventures have become a blur. So many of the moments I should have breathed in have become incomplete memories in my mind. But with books, with movies, we get to savor the moment. We get to live in it. We get to go back to the page or rewind to the scene we want to experience all over again. The descriptions of life, in books, are always given the correct words, words that don't come to us in the moment in real life.

In books, I can read about a love and a man who professes it and a woman who doesn't want it but quickly finds out she actually does. In real life, I have always held on too tightly to men. I have to tried to love them so much they can't turn me away. I have tried to make them feel so good about themselves they don't want to be away from me. And when they tell me they don't want me or they don't love me, I try to squeeze the love out of their hearts. I try to persuade them. I try to change. In books, it's so simple. The man falls in love before the girl even knows it and when he tells her, it's a magical surprise.

I prefer the simplicity, the honesty. No games, no confusion. Just two people standing in a street in a big city confessing their undying love for each other. When I finish the book, its words endure in my mind for years. I think about it and savor it and reread the pages to taste the story all over again so I don't have to think about real life and the very real moments happening to me.

[telltaletypist]

i think one of my least favorite genres of posts on here is people making dismissive jokes about media they haven't even engaged with, like how do you know your jokes are even landing if you don't know what you're talking about? a true hater doesn't avert her eyes

[telltaletypist]

another key moment for me was seeing badmouse's video giving, i think, a cogent critique of electoralism and how prioritizing election campaigns just serves to sap valuable time and resources away from other radical projects that could have a more immediate and tangible impact, and he concludes his video by offering an anarchist alternative and... it's just opening coffee shops. he even cites the example of a shitty coffee shop his group ran that went out of business after a few months as like, an aspirational organizing goal

[telltaletypist]

i think the subtle thing that a lot of homestuck fans miss when trying to copy rose's verbose dialogue is that she's kind of just showing off. she doesn't actually talk like that naturally and there's plenty of times when she drops it and talks more like a normal person

[telltaletypist]

[0] days without getting hard watching chess analysis videos

[telltaletypist]

i hate that i had the classic anarkiddie to tankie character arc. it's such a cliche. it could be said that i never understood anarchist theory to begin with but tbh i think learning anarchist theory is what tankie-pilled me

[telltaletypist]

i am a woman at war with herself, torn forever between my love of detective fiction and my hatred of cops and cop media

[telltaletypist]

reading toxic yuri in public and nodding in approval so everyone knows i condone codependency and mutual abuse in real life

[telltaletypist]

i think people who complain about paragraphs being too long should just read/write screenplays instead. some of us actually enjoy reading

[telltaletypist]

the beatles are an infuriating band to me as a relentless contrarian. liking them is cliche, hating them is cliche, being indifferent towards them is cliche. it's impossible to have an novel or interesting take on the beatles in current year. like how am i supposed to win here?

[telltaletypist]

your favorite youtubers and content creators are about to be offered some tantalizing tv/streaming deals so we're all about to find out who the real working class allys are

[telltaletypist]

transphobic music fans be listening to he or she might be giants

[telltaletypist]

i think it's important not to act like the harassment imane khelif experienced is merely misdirected transmisogyny. it really can't be separated from the racism at play. transphobia was the cudgel she was beaten with for the crime of being visibly non white