#a faux pas or something

[mightaswelljxmp]

hm ok so interestingly, bdubs’s courthouse is built on an odd number of blocks. note the roof of the facade coming to a point, but more importantly, the nine pillars….

you don’t use an odd number of pillars. like ever.

let me get this out of the way first: i get why you’d build with odd numbers in minecraft. i usually do it myself, to not run into problems like double doors or two-wide pointed roofs or frustrating spacing/symmetry between decorative elements. however. to not even out the design of something so unequivocally done in every other example of columns and pillars…. fascinating implications…

every other example guys. every other building with columns like this has an even number of them.

doing so sets the line of symmetry at an invisible point between two pillars, an even number on each side. but an odd total number of pillars makes the central pillar itself the line of symmetry. this does a couple things.

one, it upends the sense of community and equality. which i know sounds crazy, but really, a group of columns are all put there to hold up a structure. there’s no focus on one because they are all are working as supports.

symbolically, at least when first used in ancient greece, pillars represented people. and it makes sense for courthouses, especially, to want to show an even, fair, equal number of people on each side. no focus on any one, no inherent bias right off the bat just looking at it.

with an odd number of pillars, though, one will always be placed front and center.

and THEN. and then you walk in the courtroom itself (also odd-numbered blocks) and you are immediately opposite the judge, bdubs, located exactly centrally. and true, courtrooms are often set up like this anyway. but bdubs ups the ante and reaffirms that no, focus is on him by staging it all as a daytime court show, boom mic just over his head, cameras pointed in, spotlights on him.

literally by design, it was not built for justice. it’s built for show, for entertainment. and just look at the credits to know exactly what sort of message you’re supposed to be getting from this show.

the biblical story he used, with king solomon. it’s about king solomon. isn’t really about the trial itself, or the babies, or the women. it’s about showing (off) how wise and just he is. that’s the point. hm. interesting.

now, getting to the second point that etho also picked up on: it feels like a prison.

it’s not just the color palette. when your eyes naturally draw to the center point, you aren’t seeing an open space. instead of feeling like an arch or gateway or otherwise some kind of opening, the pillar there makes it feel closed off. the overall effect is that of prison bars. not pillars lining the entrance to a place of order or a temple. bars of a cage, a cell.

imagine the lincoln memorial were set up with 11 or 13 pillars. he’d look so much more trapped in there.

having a central pillar blocks the entrance. it’s not welcoming. you have to go around it; it’s immediately inconveniencing you. and when you go to leave, it’s there blocking you again.

this courthouse was not designed and built to be fair, nor accomodating, nor equitable, on any terms. even if unintentional, i wouldn’t call it so much coincidental as i would… subconscious.

after all, y’know. form follows function.

[avephelis]

if you like silly gay people in love read @phantom-does-a-thing's They Ain't Casing Out Weddings the clothing descriptions have me in a chokehold

[spicyraeman]

I could be having so much fun rn if I didn't fumble conversions like it's my profession

[everyurlithinkofistoolong]

on reddit and realizing there is a whole demographic of people who think you should not drink milk past the age of 18 and are very judgemental about it

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

i stand with you in the face of a defensive misunderstanding of what critique is.

i think understanding what a critique actually is is a skill that increasingly is not taught. i remember going through freshman art courses feeling the frustration that all negative, nasty, unhelpful, and missed-the-point-entirely feedback is so commonly conflated with critique, and then critique gets a bad name because everyone remembers the time someone said their painting looked like an asshole (true story, altho now i think i would take it as a compliment) instead of the time a teacher or friend or classmate helped them uncover a hurtful bias or think of new ways to explore the same idea or how to connect it to related ideas or how to look up and understand other people's ideas on the same topic.

anyway i think you're great.

ahhh you're so kind to me!! i appreciate your support, and i think you are great also.

i have experience with giving and receiving critique as a student myself, and i think it was the best part of my degree! i majored in creative writing in college, and critique was just a generally accepted part of learning to become a writer. i don't even remember people being especially worried about receiving critique on their work. we had guidance on what kind of feedback was useful, but we were still at liberty to give it as we saw fit as like messy 19 year olds. the standard was that we gave it both written on printed copies of the work AND aloud in front of the whole class, and the writer receiving it was not permitted to speak during the critique. understanding how people are perceiving your work is important!

i don't have any particularly negative recollections of the critique process, although once in a high school writing class, the boys in the class told me that my male characters touched each other too gently and real boys are more rough with each other. in particular, they took issue with me writing that one boy nudged another. nudging is too soft. nudging is for girls. that was more than 20 years ago, and i still think about it sometimes because it was such an interesting perspective! i did not take their advice, though.

i should dig up that piece and see if it reads queer in any other ways. i think that's what they were getting at. (actually i once had a non-fiction class tell me i was in love with my roommate after reading an essay i wrote about her)(i did not listen to that advice either, but having 12 acquaintances tell you that you're gay in 2006 before you realize it yourself is Truly Something!)

i think people have conflated criticism and critique and think that being more openly analytical is the same thing as being negative. but analysis is so fun to me! analysis is why i joined fandom in the first place, and it's why i write fic! can we trust each other to be respectful and to speak in good faith even when we're not singing each other's praises? for me fandom would be better if we could.

oh i also want to clarify that i don't think it's impossible to demonstrate that you've thought deeply about a piece of fanwork while remaining completely positive. people do it all the time and do it very well!

i know i sometimes have tunnel vision wrt my own perspective. in a lot of situations, i wish it were more acceptable to be more direct, and i know people sometimes find the way i express myself to be kind of shocking. i know a lot of people like to be spoken to more indirectly than comes natural to me, and i don't mean to imply that my perspective is the only correct one or that there's no good reason to err on the side of gentleness/politeness in our responses to amateur art and writing. i just think that at a certain level of circumspection, it feels like we're all holding each other at arm's length.

i think for people who can't bear to feel exposed, making and sharing art is always going to be painful and difficult, and maybe too painful and difficult to enjoy the process unless they're sure of a soft landing. but like. the rewards of being loved only come after the mortifying ordeal of being known, right?

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

More Nonsense from My Ambrosius Stan Account Post:

As someone who got on Tumblr a couple years ago not really knowing the culture and rarely posts because I don't think anyone cares about the silly worms in my brain I'd like to give everyone who thought it was funny and left a like or a tag or a reblog a very I Love You and here is some more thoughts about it I had through the day that I thought nobody would care about but am posting now

The account was named @gold_loin_love and gained notoriety for being the only stan account Ambrosius actually followed

During the live stream Ballister answered the questions (that he had his followers submit beforehand) while still in character, despite the fact that he was laughing his ass off and Ambrosius was with him.

Example: "'Do you think Ballister and Ambrosius are going to get divorced?' Absolutely. They're terrible together and honestly not even cute. They probably had some cringy beach wedding with their weird pink child officiating. Ew, next question"

Ambrosius would frequently interject

"Do I think Ambrosius was toxic for cutting off Ballister's arm?"

Ambrosius, stealing the phone: "Yes he needs to be cancelled immediately."

Ballister, taking it back: "Wrong that weird creep deserved it to be honest"

He read a couple questions that were defending him and after giving them his joke answer about how they were wrong, thanked them sincerely

(sad time) The first thing he posted after the events of the movie, during which he obviously wasn't posting although how fucking funny would it have been to be Ambrosius and see Ballister's fake stan account post "lol get his ass I hope he died" over footage of him MAIMING HIM in light of all that was happening was "I'm sorry that I've been gone, the death of the Queen really took a toll on me, she was a real role model and inspiration of mine. I'm especially sorry to Ambrosius. I wish I hadn't run away. I wish I'd been there for you through all this, I know it must have been so hard. I really hope everyone forgives him."

(sad time over, silliness resumed) He'd use the account to make fun of Ambrosius and himself in every capacity imaginable

"Check out what Ambrosius wore to the national conference, I love how it's so shiny you can't tell how busy and incongruent the patterns are 😍 we love a maximalist king!!!"

"Ballister Ballhard surprises nobody wearing armor he got at the emo booth of a Renaissance Fair."

There is so much potential for this and I'd love to see more of Ballister being a silly goofball

[bonefall]

Now I'm curious, I need to know how many bloodlines are dead, like Bluestar's is just tragic

WELL, it's a question without a straight answer. Bluestar's bloodline isn't "dead" but it's not "alive" either. It's a secret third thing. I'm calling it Schrodinger's Bloodline in my head.

In RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan, there's a "missing generation" gap in-between TPB and TNP where a ton of "Orphan Warriors" suddenly appear. For a series that's hypothetically supposed to have legacy as a major theme, in practice, only ThunderClan is allowed to remember their grandparents lmao. So that means that Reedwhisker COULD have had children... but we don't know.

The only direct lines that cross that Missing Generation Gap we have tracked outside of Thunder and Sky are;

The Palebird Line (Tallstar, Onestar, Heathertail)

The Hickorynose Line (Deadfoot, Sorrelshine, Whitetail. Completely absorbed by the Palebird line)

The Scorchwind Line (Rowanstar)

So, any other non-ThunderClan family tree that you can think of is "gone", or more accurately, in the Schrodinger's Bloodline box. Yellowfang's entire family is gone. Blackstar's family is gone. Crookedstar's family is gone.

The TRULY DEAD lines in Warrior Cats are within SkyClan and ThunderClan. And by the way it's INSANE how inbred SkyClan, The Kittypet Guys, became in less than 3 generations. It's AWFUL.

This is because the writers have a really bad habit of "quantity over quality" in terms of which cats they choose to "breed." They'll pick "super parents" in a generation, essentially, have them produce 4 - 7 kittens, and then choose 3 of them to become the parents of the next generation. Clovertail, Snowbird, Robinwing, Swiftbreeze... and basically they irrevocably fuck up the genetic diversity completely.

(and then they forget they did it and ignore their own shitty tree, because if they didn't, they would completely prevent shipping within several generations. Dustpelt being Ferncloud's uncle, Spottedleaf being Tigerclaw's aunt, Brightheart and Swiftpaw being 1st cousins, Thrushpelt being Thistleclaw's brother, all things the writers completely forget... if you treat canon like scripture, you'll eat yourself alive.)

But anyway, tangents aside, lines that are entirely dead within ThunderClan;

Thrushpelt, Dappletail. This little branch is dead.

Sunstar's line is dead

One-Eye's kits, Runningwind and Mousefur, had none of their own

Doestar's line is dead

Not to mention the orphan warriors. Hollypelt, Rockfall, Weedwhisker...

So, in a nutshell, the list of "living" lines is shorter than the list of 'dead' lines. This is because the lines in most side clans aren't tracked, and in Thunder and Sky, bloodlines bunch up through genetic bottlenecks like Adderswift/Robinfuzzy/Clovertail.

[awkwardbros]

Doh!

That’s OK boys. There are only so many Speedo prints on the planet. It was bound to happen.

Well then… In the spirit of this blog you’re both 9.5 out of 8 without further explanation.

[unma]

Sometimes I wonder if I'm being annoying (in a bad way) to my moots and I kinda hope y'all tell me if I step on any lines or boundaries or anything. It might be anxiety or something (and given how often I think that to the point of it coloring all my interactions... maybe it is that? idk enough about anxiety the disorder so who knows) but I do like to assure that I mean well and can be a little awkward/stupid sometimes. Often. A lot, actually. But I am trying my best.

[lunar-years]

Logged onto Twitter and they’re cancelling taylorswiftstyle for her book of opinions on clothes now 😭 I had to click right back out omg

[jerevision]

Talking to a French patient at work in French (duh). As he gathers is things to leave I tell him:

PALJON KIITOKSIA

😭

[afaroffsong]

Words suck I suck at words therefore I should be allowed to communicate exclusively through pictures.

[royallyprincesslilly]

[m0thisonfire]

Somewhere in Powell's building:

Faux Pas, coding:

Masterson, coding:

Mosquito lands on Faux's thigh

Faux:

Faux:

Faux, slowly raising her hand:

*Smack*

Faux: AGH- OW-

Masterson, not looking up: This is just like that saying with the mosquito and the guy's nuts

Masterson: What was it?

Masterson: You learn to solve problems without violence when there's a mosquito on your testicles?

Faux, writhing in pain: SHUT Up.

[chradi]

I HATE playing social interaction chess warfare, but sometimes you genuinely have to play other peoples' games by their rules to get them to understand

[madame-cookie]

Trying to have a conversation with Kas about her wavering faith and mentally putting a pin in a potentially necessary conversation about personal space with Rytlock here. Is this why they call you cuddles?