#anything and everything he says or does is not my choice

[momentomori24]

[This has been sitting in my draft for a while lol]

When it comes to Curly's failings, I always see people bring up his obvious failure to protect Anya and him prioritising Jimmy, who was the rapist in that situation. Which is completely valid btw and we should rake him through the coals for that alone even more. But I also see too many people saying that Curly "didn't enable Jimmy" or playing softball for his actions. And I could maybe see where that comes from if that incident was the only thing we had to point to-- but that wasn't all he did, is it? Curly being indifferent or not taking Jimmy's mistreatment and belittlement of Anya seriously was hinted at so much earlier than that.

Namely, the very first time we play from Curly's point of view. Let's just skip the fact that Curly was putting everyone in danger by not taking his psych evals seriously and simply giving the same answers to pass them even tho he was shown literal minutes after this scene being clearly not-sane, and go straight to the point I actually wanna get into. Which is this:

These scenes in isolation wouldn't be that bad. From his pov, it's played off as comical and it is. Jimmy being a brony (not really lmao) and getting playfully dragged over it is funny. But unfortunately this is the first example out of many for Curly's complacency. Anya is complaining about Jimmy not taking his psych evals or her seriously, which is easy to believe considering how much he rags on her for "not being a good nurse" (she kept Curly alive on hopes and dreams how dare you). So he keeps making her do silly and inappropriate reports she clearly doesn't wanna do, which is kinda shitty (also borders on harassment). But rather than actually saying something about Jimmy's behaviour or even acknowledging how it sucks he says this:

Mate, that's not a good thing 💀 He's clearly aware that the problem is Jimmy's lack of respect for Anya specifically. He knows that if he, his friend and a man in power, were the one doing the evals Jimmy wouldn't try that disrespect. But it's Anya, a meek woman who ranks lower than him so he thinks he can get away with it (which he DOES), and Curly's shown as comfortable in knowing that. He doesn't chew Jimmy out for making Anya uncomfortable nor does he reassure her that he will do something about it. All he does is take it off her hands this once and helps Jimmy power through it to get a good diagnosis (even tho we know he's DEFINITELY not sane either). He doesn't even mention Anya's discomfort or confront him on his inappropriate behaviour, just teases Jimmy in good fun instead because he doesn't think of it as anything serious. It's subtle and pretty minor in comparison to everything else, but I think it's worth pointing out. Especially because this convo takes place after Jimmy had assaulted her, which makes this so much worse.

If you need any more evidence of Curly being an enabler you need not look further than Anya herself. And I'm not just talking about the way he failed her here-- I'm talking about Anya's own view of Curly and the way said view influences her actions.

Just look at her choice of wording. "What would you have done". This is in response to him saying that she could've come to him if she were feeling stressed, which she-- in his eyes-- didn't. The question itself implies that she had no faith in Curly to actually help despite his insistence that he would've, which I think is significant because it shows that she's very much aware of Curly's shortcomings when it comes to her situation AND it's one of the first (or the first time) she actually verbalised her lack of trust towards him or anyone directly. Prior to this scene she had told him about her rape and the rapist, presumably because she trusted him to handle it. And he dismissed her because the rapist was his best friend, and that evidently deeply scarred her. Enough so that she secretly took the gun and hid it someplace else and didn't even tell Curly were that was, because she knows that if Curly has access to it there's a so much greater chance Jimmy will have too, insinuated by the line "the least I can do is make sure he never gets it either". Speaking about the gun:

It sucks so bad that this perception of him isn't even inaccurate nor unjustified. That despite everything Jimmy had done to her and everything he could still do to her, he'd very likely still not allow her access to the gun for protection. Because that's exactly what he didn't do anyway. He didn't attempt to keep her safe from Jimmy, instead he just pretended that nothing was wrong and still let Jimmy's belittlement of her pass. He didn't give her the gun after the incident, because she wouldn't have hid the case if he had. Despite his desperate reassurance that he'd do anything, he did nothing but make it worse for her and she KNOWS that. It's so frustrating knowing he entrusted the axe to Swansea when he needed it but not the gun to Anya when she needed it too. Also this:

The fact that his knee-jerk reaction to her admitting that she's pregnant was "Who would you--" is so fucked, especially considering she's already told him what happened. "Who would you" what? Who would you fuck? Who would you have sex with? That choice of wording drives me up a wall-- SHE wouldn't and didn't do anything or anyone. That was JIMMY. The potential sentence implies that she had any choice or agency in her pregnancy. She didn't. And the fact that Curly had to ask "who" insinuates that he's been putting Jimmy's action out of sight and out of mind the whole time, choosing to not think about them or what happened to Anya at all. And considering he still made her do Jimmy's evaluations despite being able to do them himself and literally didn't even think of making sure she gets psych evals done too--especially AFTER getting sexually assaulted--that might actually be the case (I haven't seen anyone make a stink about that piece of info so I'm going to because what kinda colossal fuck up IS that??).

I vaguely had a post like this in mind but seeing so many people be like "well Anya did some wrong stuff too like leaving Curly alone with Jimmy but you don't get mad at HER for that so why is Curly not doing anything about Jimmy being alone with Anya so different??" actually makes me want to blow some people up. Jimmy's an abuser, sure, but Anya has no real reason to believe that he'd actually harm Curly. From her perspective, they were close, close enough that Curly would not only let Jimmy continuously disrespect her but also get away with assaulting her too. That, and she knows that Jimmy was closer to Curly than anyone and more likely to be civil around him than he ever was to her. She has barely any reasons to suspect Jimmy would harm Curly when they're alone. Curly, on the other hand, has every fucking reason on the planet to think Jimmy would harm her when they're alone. He knows he raped her (likely in her room at night too). He knows that he sexually harasses her. He knows that he doesn't respect her at all. And that was BEFORE the crash. Anya tried insisting on giving Curly his medicine, only for Jimmy to keep aggressively insisting that he'll take care of it despite her protests. Curly didn't try to keep them separate at all even though he was the Captain and had the power to do so. And this should go without saying, but leaving your rapist alone with his best friend that he was close to and enabled/protected him and leaving your friend alone with the woman he raped (and might have repeatedly assaulted given his free access to her) is NOT THE SAME and I'm going to start chucking some people down a waterfall because what the fuck is that argument 💀 Actually leave it to the fandom of the game where the rape of a woman is the catalyst for the events that unfold to use her trauma to defend the guy that enabled it in the first place. Bloody hell.

The reason why this whole Curly discourse pisses me off is because it-- from what I can see-- ONLY brings up his failures 1-0 days before the crash and the Dead Pixel scene (or all the discussion around other points are drowned out by those two). Those scenes, while important to talk about, are not the only things he's done, and focussing on those as the only things is a mistake that comes short of understanding the issue. When it comes to Curly the main defences I see for him are "he was trying not to escalate the situation" and "he was trying to keep things under control the best he can" and "he was waiting for the right time to help Anya", but those don't work when you look at the bigger picture of everything he's done.

He half-assed through his psych eval despite clearly not being sane (and KNOWING he's barely sane, he literally admits it to Jimmy's face). He still continued to task her with Jimmy's psych evals. He brushed over Jimmy's sexual harassment of her as a joke. He didn't think about making sure she got psych evals done herself after being raped. He gave Swansea the axe but didn't give Anya the gun despite it being for "unrest amongst the crew" (whatever the hell THAT means). He let her assault slip his mind that she had to remind him. He's literally a blond man. He took no action to hold Jimmy responsible for anything, and prioritised how his violation of Anya would affect him rather than her. He ignored her demands for him to get rid of Jimmy. He still allowed Jimmy free reign of the ship as co-pilot even after he was openly fantasising about killing everyone and had a major motive and the means to do just that. He was potentially thinking of making her miscarry to cover up what happened. He was so accustomed to her sucking up being disrespected and disturbed that he didn't even notice a difference in her behaviour until she hid the fucking gun. There's so much other shit he's done and hasn't done, and not talking about them or glossing over them makes it so easy for people to argue that he isn't actually an enabler or just minimise the severity of his neglect.

And while I'm already dragging Curly through the mud, I might as well just drag Swansea too. I've seen too many people being like "Anya should've told Swansea instead" and "Swansea was the one that actually took responsibility". Like, y'all realise he's not that much better than Curly, right? He already knew about what happened to Anya-- he admits it to Jimmy's face-- but he didn't do shit. He knew, but he still got completely shitfaced for months despite her earlier protestation to that (for very understandable reasons). He knew, but he still let Jimmy have the axe AND be alone with Anya while having it. He knew, but when Anya locked herself in the Medical and Daisuke and Jimmy asked for his help he didn't budge nor really showed any care. He knew, but the reason he finally decided to do something about Jimmy wasn't Anya, it was Daisuke. Her suffering and her eventual death weren't enough for him to take action either.

This game, on top of everything else, is a great depiction of rape culture. It doesn't just include the rapists, but the people (mostly men) that stay silent, do nothing, make excuses for and protect the perpetrator for whatever reason, and Swansea and Curly (Curly way more so than Swansea) are both active contributors to the environment that allowed for evil to flourish and continue unhindered until it destroyed them all. And while that arguably doesn't make them evil themselves or as bad as Jimmy, they are so much more a part of the bigger problem than the fandom likes to admit.

[Ok since this is kinda gaining a bit of traction please consider helping these guys out here, here and here. Thanks!]

[arcane-temp-fandomblog]

I'm going to posit that it's probably the opposite plot wise, I think that the show runners always had ending be this "high concept" pseudo intellectual timetravel loop butterfly effect drivel that fed into the big war, the war of wars, the doomsday war.

I have no receipts for this*, but looking back Fortiche added a lot of symbols. Now these symbols could be anything w/o context of the ending, but with the ending they wrote - it feels like in broad strokes what we would get were there. Ie. Ekko has symbol of the 'infinity' that is broken up partially like Z drive bomb infinity ends up broken, the butterfly symbol in Jayce and Viktor's flashback, there's broken up infinity symbol on card with machine herald when Sevika is playing cards etc. Now 'symbolism' does not a plot make, but I think the writer's thought they would end on this groundbreaking philosophical conclusion about identity and choice alike Ghost in the Shell, but what they were capable of is Age of Ultron level philosophy and that's probably disservice to Age of Ultron.

I think the writer's were attached to this timetravel loop butterfly effect pseudo philosophical concept that after S1 everything becomes sacrificed on the altar of it coming to be the big thing - better than all threads they started - 'coz this will be the groundbreaking point they make. The plot ceases to exist after S2 ep3 because the timetravel loop IS the big reveal that will lead to last showdown and will also give the audience NEW UNDERSTANDING of the show.

Since the big reveal is kept for the end, ep. 4 to 6 are kinda spinning their wheels : Vander finds Jinx, Jinx finds Vi, Vi and Jinx find Vander and they hug, the group find Viktor and they hug, Cait finds them and sees them hug. Jinx/Vi/Cait/Vander/Isha are completely obsolete for the final conflict so they may as well not exist in this story.

There's no tension because 'the timeloop reveal' will create the Big Bad in Viktor, so while there are personal stakes - there's no plot. In hindsight it's obvious there's no overarching plot because half of character's are missing from the show yet there are no consequences, even the ones not missing kinda spawn when needed not impacted with what other character's are doing.

Like for comparison on tension and reveals :

in S1 Finn talks to Sevika wanting her to take part in disposing of Silco

-> few scenes later they come into Silco's office and we're lead to believe that the take over is going to take place REVEAL: Sevika instead of killing Silco, kills Finn

-> the natural assumption is that Sevika is loyal to Silco REVEAL: she says she'll dispose of him is someone better comes around

That's just one small fragment of storytelling in Season 1.

In comparison Season 2:

Jayce comes back from alt future BUT we only see some PTSD flashbacks, he kills Salo and we're not sure if we should trust his judgment or not (knowing last flshaback of ep. 9 where the mage is Viktor would kill the tension)

-> he goes to Viktor and has some more flashbacks and kills Viktor which makes even more of mystery (knowing last flshaback of ep. 9 where the mage is Viktor would kill the tension)

-> REVEAL in a flashback: Jayce went to AU land to learn a lesson while being stalked by mage from his childhood and that's why he did what he did (knowing last flshaback of ep. 9 where the mage is Viktor would kill the tension)

-> the "plot" progresses and Jayce and Viktor have a final show down and then whoa! a REVEAL 15 minutes before end of story in a flashback that has other flashbacks: it was Viktor all along, hah what a TwIsT! what a butterfly effect! and that final flashback that the authors kept from the audience from ep. 6 till ep.9 for this grand reveal has the lesson Jayce learned in AU land.

Like Season 2 has a lot of this very contrived ways the story is kept from the viewer for the sake of this stupid ass reveals and building tension where it's not there.

*my only receipt for this is that when I was scripting my hobby comic in first draft, I did the same kinda flashback reveal.

And if I say Arcane Season 2 is a textbook example of why creators should stay in their bubble, stick to the script and not let fan reception and opinions dictate how they write the rest of their show?

[sturn777]

enemies to lovers w matt sturniolo . | ( female!reader ) wc ?? ( masterlist ) + ( soft hour ) + ( request )

lana's note : if this does well i'll make it a series 🤍.

you’ve hated matt sturniolo for as long as you can remember. not in the way people say they hate bad weather or school cafeteria food. no, your hatred for him is personal, rooted in something stupid and childish but still very real.

it all started with a blue crayon.

kindergarten. you were perfectly content, coloring your picture of a sunlit park with a family picnic under a tree. the blue crayon was crucial—it was the sky, the pond, the little bird in the corner. then matt sturniolo had to ruin everything.

“can i use that?” he’d asked, pointing at the blue crayon in your hand. your mom always told you to share, so, against your better judgment, you handed it over. and what did he do? he pressed so hard while coloring his scribbly little car that the crayon snapped in half.

you yelled. he yelled back. time-outs were issued. cards were pulled. and ever since then, you’ve had it out for each other. now it’s senior year, and somehow, despite years of carefully avoiding each other’s orbit, fate has decided to intervene.

your gaze snaps up, glaring at the teacher as she reads your name along with his, looking up from her clipboard. “you’ll be working together on your senior project.”

you freeze, mid-note, and whip your head toward matt, who’s slouched in his chair like this is all some big cosmic joke. he smirks at you, and you clench your jaw so hard your teeth hurt.

“ms. taylor,” you say, trying to keep your voice steady, “are you sure? i mean, maybe there’s been a mistake?”

“no mistake,” she replies, not looking up. “you two will make a great team.” you glance at matt again. he gives you a little wave, obnoxiously smug. your blood boils.

that night at dinner, you vent to your mom, stabbing at your mashed potatoes with unnecessary force. “out of everyone in my class, matt sturniolo? really? what kind of cruel punishment is this?”

your mom gives you a pointed look over her wine glass. “you know, i grew up with matt’s mom.” you blink, caught off guard. “what?”

“yeah,” she says, like it’s no big deal. “we were in the same friend group. she’s lovely. i bet matt’s not so bad once you get to know him.”

you scoff. “mom, the guy broke my crayon in kindergarten and has been an absolute nightmare ever since. i’m not about to have some big bonding moment with him.”

“maybe it’s time you let that go,” she says, shrugging. “you might actually like him if you give him a chance.”

the next day, you find yourself standing in front of matt’s locker, the words just do it for mom looping in your head like a broken record. “hey,” you say when he looks up, already suspicious. “what do you want?”

you take a deep breath. “look, i don’t like this either, but my mom and your mom are apparently childhood besties, so…”

he raises an eyebrow. “so?”

“so,” you grit out, “let’s just work together and get this over with. no drama. deal?” for a moment, he just stares at you, like he’s trying to decide if you’re serious. then, to your surprise, he nods. “fine. deal.”

you walk away before he can say anything else, already regretting every life choice that led to this moment.

taglist : ( @emely9274 ; @bluestriips ; @loveparqdise ; @flouqissss ; @st4rcs ; @starwebber9 ; @conspiracy-ash ; @sweetrelieef ; @chris-hallelujah ; @leoslaboratory ; @matttsangel ; @awnmaneez ; @heartss4clauu )

divider : @issysh3ll

[halforresterluvsford]

if you wish for stancest asks may I please humbly present to you: I hc that Ford has a sketchbook FULL of drawings of Stan that vary from doodles to full on portraits, and when they finally confess and Stan is finally clued into the sketchbook’s existence, Ford can use him for a…live model, shall we say 🤭

Ford so has a Stan Journal™️ where he catalogues every detail of Stanley, he draws him on every page. This man is like me, I fear.

“Ford, c’mon-“

“You promised me, Stanley. Now go on.”

“Ugh, fine! But no promises I’m doin’ this again!”

Yeah, Stanley promised he’d model for Ford, his journal was full of sketches of him and Ford has begged for a live model. Naturally, Stan agreed. He can’t exactly say why he did, but he knows the thought of Ford spending hours just looking at him in great detail sent pleasant shivers down his spine. He didn’t expect to have to wear this though.

Ford had pleaded for him to put on the outfit of his choice, and Stan would do almost anything for his brother. But he didn’t think Ford would want him to wear lingerie. The red lace hugs his hips and prominently cups and shows off his half hard dick, the baby doll top actually holds his chest well, giving his some actual cleavage instead of just sag, and the rest of it flows down over his large stomach. He protested showing off his stomach at first, but Ford made a compelling argument that night, spending hours worshiping Stan’s belly. And yeah, Stan can’t argue with that.

“Now spread your knees just a fraction, Stanley. And pull your shoulders back, the emphasis needs to be on your chest there!” came Ford’s demanding voice as he gives Stan a once over in their bed, pillows and blankets tossed to the side for a blank background.

Ugh. The pose is worse than the lingerie, he thinks. Ford had him pose leaned back on his knees, slightly spread, hands clasped behind his back, thrusting his chest out. In this pose, Ford can see everything. Every twitch, every adjustment, and the slow hardening of Stan’s cock as he’s dressed up and posed so lewdly.

“Can I at least have a pillow f’ my knees? They’re killing me over here!” Stan grumbles, an embarrassed blush spreading up to his ears, his face a faint shade of red.

“Of course, Stanley. I’m sorry, I should’ve thought about that beforehand.” Ford gathers two pillows tossed of their bed and stacks them together before helping Stan kneel on the, adjusting his outfit to better show him off as he goes. Ford’s adjustment of Stan’s burgeoning erection cause him to choke on some spit and twitch. Ford just gives his clothed cock a little pat and heads back to his chair.

Stan just grumbles and settles down, trying his best to get comfortable, knowing this will take hours to do for how obsessed Ford can be about things. It does bring a warm feeling in his chest, thinking about how much Ford cares about him to draw him so much and so carefully detailed. Maybe Stan will model for him again, if it brings these nice feelings to the forefront.

“Straighten your back, Stanley! This doesn’t work if you slouch! And remember, keep your head tilted! And your hips angled-“

Yeah, maybe he won’t.

[ananke-xiii]

Some speculations about the power of stories, cycles and karma and... Boyd.

***FROM spoilers (although it's mainly just my predictions lol)***

One of the things that I like about FROM is how they use different forms of art to help people remember things about their past.

Miranda used paintings so that she could remember and so does her son, Victor, who draws so that the pictures would remember for him. And it's precisely his sister's drawings that help him remember what he had removed.

Then, there's music, obviously, that make Tabitha and Jade remember not exactly their lived past but their karmic past.

There's also dance in the show but it hasn't worked its magic yet, I'm very curious to see how the ballerina is connected to Boyd and... Tillie? It's still minor compared to the previous two but I think we'll see our ballerina again pretty soon.

There's, finally, the power of stories. Ethan is the key-figure here because he's our go-to guy for all the crazy meta-ness of the show. But also Kenny and Kristi were reading a story together (cute and very Lancelot and Guinevere of them), they got stuck at chapter 6 or something before shit hit the fan so... I hope they won't forget about that.

More importantly, I'm very curious about one specific aspect: season 3 ended with Ethan saying that a story that has been told can't be changed so everyone is talking about how FROM is following LOST rule of "Whatever happened, happened", aka: you cannot change the past. Okay. But.

But I wonder if this is going to be the case with FROM since we now know for sure that the main theme is breaking the cycle of abuse. Since the show has introduced the concept of reincarnation I'm wondering if this means that yes, okay, the past cannot be changed, the story has been already told and there's nothing that we can do about it BUT isn't breaking it the whole point of karma?

I mean, a lot of major characters are starting to remember their trauma so this is good news but this also means that the show is faced with the three narrative choices, I think:

keep to its genre and let everything end in horror and blood. I think this type of ending can only be satifsying in movies but in shows where people invest a lot of time across multiple seasons spaced out over long years? Mmmm, it's very tricky to pull off. I mean, it can be done but I think it's very hard to convince people who have watched a show for over 5+ years that yeah, everybody dies horrendously, hurrah!;

the LOST way: some people manage to escape the town and go back to their lives and they all (more or less...) met there because they needed each other to move on from their past. I think this won't happen because of Harold Perrinau. He specifically accepted the role because he was promised it wasn't gonna end like LOST, so... Either FROM's ending will be a huge embarassment for everybody involved or it won't end the same way as LOST (fingers crossed);

since we've been shown that art has healing powers, stories too will be healing for the characters, aka they'll manage to change the narrative/the past. Now I think this is where the money's at and why I'm so intrigued by the introduction of time travels.

My istinct tells me that it's going to be a mix of 1 and 3: I think the show will end with the breaking of the cycle but I don't think that one particular character will make it to the end. The character is Boyd and I think that in season 4 he'll be key to understanding if the show will have a happy ending or not. So far I think it's not gonna be happy-happy for everyone.

I don't think Boyd will make it to the end because the elements so far tell me so:

1. The ballerina dance didn't help him remember anything, as a matter of fact he destroyed the music box to save people. This is a huge red flag: will he destroy his chance to break his cycle for the sake of other people?;

2. He's got two sons in the show: his actual son Ellis and his putative son Kenny. Kenny's father, Bing-Qian suffered from dementia and has been associated with feelings of confusion and with not being understood. He also talks about another form of universal language, that is chess. He unfortunately dies (Boyd seems to suffer from Parkinson's and he's convinced it's that because his father had it but he was never actually diagnosed with it. Or it's not been shown yet). Abby, Boyd's wife, also dies by none other than Boyd's hand. She was described as "confused" and people believed that she had started to show signs of some sort of paranoia, I think (we know now that, perhaps, she was remembering her past life). She wasn't understood/believed, too. Kenny's mother, Tien-Chen, dies as well and her death is also connected to Boyd. So, I mean, as far as parental figures with whom he's paralleled/paired go, things don't look good for our sheriff;

3. The point of the show seems to be that parents must avoid the sacrifice of their children. Boyd has two sons and he has martyr-like tendencies. Sooooo..... again, things don't look good for him;

4. Boyd-as-husband is connected to Henry and Jim. They're all husbands who didn't believe their wives and didn't support them. Henry and Jim are also heavily associated with the Man in Yellow who seems to be the primary abuser of the show (or he's very strongly related to the cycle of abuse that's been happening for who knows how long). Henry and Jim (and Boyd too, by extension) are portrayed as ambiguous figures, they're clever man who're also very morally skewed. There's something dark about Henry, I'm not sure about his intentions, his talk with Donna about thinking that, for a moment, he hoped that Victor were dead... I mean, it was a human moment but it was also ominous. (Let's also not forget about Boyd being a former-military and how the Civil War is a sleeping theme in the show. Henry was doing hard drugs with Miranda in the 70s so this tells me he wasn't sent to Vietnam? There's a latent element of actual war here. I don't know how it'll pertain to Henry, Jim (Jim's father was an alcoholic, is PSTD from war related to this?) and Boyd in the town but I KNOW there's something going on. I unfortunately don't remember much about my American History class at uni so I can only pick up the vibe without really explaining it, it's so frustrating).

While I'm more confident about points 1, 2 and 3, I'm not so sure about point 4. I think this will be the gordian knot of the story.

For whatever reasons, time travels are associated with grand-fathers/fathers and their assassination or impossibility thereof. On one hand, with the introduction of Henry (who's got the same function as Jim), Jim seems to be redundant and therefore his death is final. On the other, if his death is final it means that Julie, as a story-walker and time traveler, cannot change the past. This doesn't bode well for my hoped-for happy ending.

The shows seems to tell us: it's not about whether or not you can kill your father when you time-travel because it's about saving your father! (Julie saved Boyd-as-father in the well by handing him the rope).

So we have a story about parents saving their children and children saving their parents! Isn't this beautiful? I literally can't wait to see if I'm right or not about this, lol.

It all boils down to Boyd: so far the story is telling me that parents will most likely save their children but they probably won't be able to save themselves. However, Julie did save one father-figure so far, will she be able to save her own father? Can children save their parents?

These are very interesting questions but I truly hope they will stick to the "art has the power of changing people" theme (parents, children, everyone!) and give us a healing story rather than a hopeless one. Can we make it through the horrors or not? More importantly, can we make it together and stop this sacrifice madness??? I think we need stories that heal and give us hope!!!

p.s. for posterity: Season 4 will have "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" playing in one of the diner's jukebox. Mark.My.Words.

[aifasdoesthings]

I think this addition is very interesting!! There are lots of ways to refer to people from the USA, which brings the question: why do we not use anything other than the term "American"? Why anything else sounds wrong or forced? Mostly the issue lies on two things: (1) how "economic" they are linguistically wise, and (2) the opposition systems languages are built in.

(1) Wikipedia does a good job explaining this, so I'll attach the explanation here:

Basically, when we speak, we search for the most simple verbalization that's able to convey what we want to say in the clearest way. Almost always, we have to sacrifice one to get the other. If I use, say, "Usonian," instead of "people from the US," I'm getting a shorter, easier verbalization, but most people will not understand what I mean because let's be honest, it's a rare term in comparison to the widely-used term "American." I'll probably have to explain why I'm using that term, and probably risk getting called ugly things in the process because it's interpretable as (a) me being uncooperative in communication, and/or (b) me trying to distance myself from the other person. Either way, negative feelings are involved, just like in the "Usamerican" case. The difference probably is in the fact the later is more similar to a particular Spanish verbalization that makes it more familiar and less "mean" to foreign speakers with this first language.

Which takes me to (2), which is: forgive me if I'm quoting the wrong book, it's been a while since I last took Phonetics and Phonology, but in the study carried out by David Brazil in his book "The communicative value of intonation in English" (1985) [A/N: I searched for the book everywhere without luck, it's very interesting if you want a good Linguistics read!!] he proposes that, when making a word prominent (by phonological accentuation of a syllable), you're placing that word in contrast. It could be between two or more choices, like, e.g: "I want CHOcolate" (in the context of having to choose among ice cream flavors); or directly between that term and everything that is "not that term." Taking the previous as an example, the speaker chooses "chocolate" and contrasts it with not having chosen "not chocolate" (i.e., anything that is not chocolate).

So having said this, if I choose anything other than "American"—for the sake of the example I'll say "Usamerican"—I'm unwillingly creating an odd, unwanted distinction between "American" and "Usamerican" as in "Usamerican" ≠ "American". Same happens with "Usonian," even with "Yankee," which a lot of Americans consider a rude word when it's not referring to New Yorkers. So.

[A/N: Mr. Brazil's study isn't oriented towards word acceptance, it's oriented towards the use of the systems of intonation to achieve our communicational ends, to convey choices, etc. I hope I'm not making bad use of his excellent teachings.]

The point of this is not that I'd sound unpatriotic, it's that I'd cause confusion with my words, or even rejection, if I were to use any of these terms. It is happening with "Usamerican" already, of course. But the difference has to do with how terms from other languages start to permeate English, especially on the internet, because it's a two-way phenomenon (referring to what I said in my other, previous reblog to this same post).

In the end, it's a matter of clarity, simplicity and the complexity of opposition systems that are very difficult to break into. And very much one of the complex problems this globalized world with a huge focus on the anglosphere has, that we don't often stop to consider.

And remember: it's not that we "speak wrong", it's that we were forced to speak a language that's not ours to not fall behind and we do our best to make it ours too. Cheers.

[Thank you OP again for bearing with me fdhdhf]

usamerican is a stupid term why does this site use it so often

[longagoitwastuesday]

Kusakabe, dear, you're too beautiful to be saying that kind of stuff

[helpimstuckinafandom]

Me starting another bg3 run where I will make virtually all the same decisions in mostly the same order as if there isn't different branching paths

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Come on, you know you want to, give us the character bingo for Viktor.

don't mind if i doooo

[saintknightley]

i feel like i abandoned comics but i just have a tumultuous on and off again relationship with marvel and we are currently going through a divorce

[the-acid-pear]

These two lines really make me feel like Susie is only a bully for, let's say, survival reasons. But that's as coherent as i can get so i'm going to ramble the rest of my thoughts on the tags.

[remyfire]

In old roleplaying circles, I used to have people get really angry at me because they found a lot of catharsis in taking their characters those agonizing angst without necessarily giving them an end point of healing whereas my characters would always try to prompt that moment of healing—would be an end point they could come to whenever they were ready, would love them through the pain instead of drive it higher—and I don't think I've really changed at all in that regard, and I hope that ends up being all right.

[astrxealis]

sometimes i think about g'raha tia's little speeches where he goes on about how much he wants to go on an adventure with you and take to the skies upon the eternal wind and i fall in love with him over and over again

[salsflore]

going 2 sleeepppp... its not even 11 pm yet but ueueue i have to go out tomorrow (bring my cat to the vet + mom wants to take me to the clinic after going to the church) ueue

[msfcatlover]

Working my way through these comics, and I gotta say…

…at the very least, I’ll be able to throw all this canon out with insufferably smug authority by the time I’m through.

[featherymainffins]

On one hand I get how Jayce's astral plane speech can sound kinda ableist and it do be kinda funny because he goes "Imperfections aren't something to cure" about a progressive chronic illness that seriously worsened Viktor's quality of life.

On the other hand no no I get him. Let him cook. He gets it more than anyone has ever gotten it in the history of mankind.