#anyway none of these qualities are inherently bad.

[doomed-era]

tbh the main characteristics all versions of ganondorf share are extreme stubbornness, pride, and a hatred of the narrative

[howlsmovinglibrary]

Hello! I saw your response to the "5 things you could talk about for an hour" tag game, and I just wanted to say that I am in fact very interested in your perspective on how fandom/fanfic has impacted media literacy and the publishing industry, if you'd ever like to yap on Tumblr about it!

hmmm... other people have said it better than me in various different tumblr posts but I'm a yapper why not?

(under the cut to save a long post)

fandom/fanfic impacts on media literacy:

media is viewed through shipping goggles first and a critical lens second (both of them are allowed! i love my shipping goggles! but i also like having multiple tools of analysis in my arsenal!)

this also sometimes means that media devolves into relationships and 'fan service' moments, above plot or delivery of a good and satisfactory story (I'm not saying OFMD but I kind of am. I'm not saying BG3 additional content that has focused on popular characters and ships above incomplete and underwritten narratives... but I kind of am)

because fandom now also has a big purity culture kick back, and fandom has become mainstream, that means mainstream media also has a purity culture kick back (for instance, everyone performing scandalised and 'disgusted' reactions to Saltburn, when actually all that is is a... psychological thriller)

fandom/fanfic impacts on the publishing industry:

the Locked Tomb's popularisation of fic-ish writing, alongside the reylo fanfic boom (Ali Hazelwood serial numbers filed off -> romance pipeline) kind of coincided perfectly with the pandemic. as did the success of Travis Baldree's coffeeshop AU, Legends and Lattes. people wanted comfort media, but at the other end, publishing industry professionals were working from home and likely spread thin. I think this created a perfect storm for 'fast fiction' (like 'fast fashion') where basically a fanfic can be quickly changed into a book with minimal editing that doesn't matter anyway bc it provides a dopamine hit. None of this is inherently bad. I don't dislike fanfic-to-published-novel on principle. What I *hate*, is bad editing. Extremely high quality editing is what trad publishing has, in a way fic doesn't. Bc fic can be as long as you want it to be, and can linger, and can have fun - it's not designed for efficiency or quality control bc that's not the point. that being said... quality control can, in fact, improve a work's quality. but trad publishing doesn't have good editing anymore, bc the pandemic proved it didn't necessarily need it, and publishing companies love to not spend money on things, especially if it will make them a profit without that care or attention.

what i will also say, is there is a reason it's easy to file the serial numbers off. reylo fics are very far from canon, for a number of reasons. Legends and Lattes is a coffeeshop AU, without any character work. This doesn't mean they are bad. It just means they feed into a general trend of 'fic as tropes' - rather than 'fic as character study', for instance - which in turn means that romance in particular has also become 'romance as tropes' (or even 'romance as smut' which is another thing I have feelings about, bc bad editing + fiction as smut = really, really bad smut actually lads)

in general 'fiction as tropes' has then obviously been aided by tiktok as the primary marketing platform. rather than provide an explanation of your story, providing an explanation of its tropes encourages your book being read this way

another thing that has happened as a result of fic is 'queer rep' as being 'there is queer people in it' or 'there is queer romance in it'. again, not inherently a bad thing. i love a gay book. but gay and queer experiences exist on a spectrum. a book with queer MCs for the sake of having queer MCs may end up feeling tokenistic, if the writer has included queer rep for the sake of queer rep, or (and we need to admit this happens!) to be trendy!! to hit on the 'queer rep' zeitgeist!!! similarly, a queer book without any romance in it can still be queer, but gods forbid we have *that* conversation.

As I said, all of these things have been discussed in tumblr posts far better than mine. In terms of my personal experience - teaching undergraduate literature classes, this is what I've noticed:

because of fandom or social media with fandom lite edges, a lot of my students are very up-to-date on things such as intersectional feminism, gender performativity, compulsory heterosexuality, queer coding, etc. I don't need to define these terms, whereas they were defined when I was an undergrad.

however, the flipside of this is they often approach the texts I teach only with a contemporary mindset. The biggest example I have of this is Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre actually benefits from a contemporary mindset - after being heralded as feminist in the 1960s, intersectional criticisms in the 1980s/90s by postcolonial critics called out its racist treatment of Bertha Mason. BUT if I have to read another essay about Jane Eyre's relationship with Rochester being 'problematic', I will scream. Not bc I don't agree, but because criticisms of this novel need to also acknowledge that in the victorian era, such a blatant discussion of female sexual desire was radical for its time. That class and sexism was a big enough issue in the 19th century that for Jane to get to marry a man from the landed gentry on equal footing was a big deal at the time. It's fine if you decide Jane Eyre isn't feminist! but you need to prove that through multiple critical lenses and not just a jezebel-article style treatise. (for instance, one essay critiqued the male gaze in Jane Eyre... Jane Eyre was written by a woman looking very disrespectfully actually, and also... film hadn't been invented yet. while the male gaze existed in art, the normalising of female objectification, sexually, required film. also... the male gaze is a term that requires a man with eyes to be making that piece of art.)

the other biggest problem I have when teaching, is the 'queer character as queer representation' thing, and ESPECIALLY "good queer representation means morally good queer characters'. I teach Giovanni's Room. Anyone who has read Giovanni's Room, knows that the main character is both gay... and a bad person. That book isn't just talking about being gay, but about being closeted, trapped in compulsory heteronormativity, and also... 1950s racism. One of the biggest challenges for me as a teacher is to ask students "don't just tell me there's gay people in it, look at what those gay people are doing. is queerness portrayed positively or negatively? what aspects of the experience are being represented? do these aspects have value, especially when it is a queer artist making the art?"

(people also feel like they can't call a gay character mean or bad, because of the whole 'gay is inherently virtuous' part of fandom's mindset. spoilers: gay people can suck too. and are allowed to be portrayed as such in fiction, once you have a tool in your toolkit known as nuance).

anyway, aside from the fact it means i occasionally struggle to find good romance books bc I want not just well written sex but character development - which fanfic has! I'm not saying fanfic doesn't have it! but the fanfic that gets published sometimes doesn't, and certainly very rarely has both! - my teaching is absolutely where I see fandom's impact most clearly.

[jaythelay]

Man as a kid, I took modding for granted. Now I feel like I gotta step up and continue the passion.

I remember using the trainer for GTAIV, at the time, it was The Trainer since there seldom if any were alternatives. It has literally, every conceivable option you'd want, literally think of it, it has it.

Then GTAV came out and...wow. None of these trainers are remotely feature complete. It occurred to me then that, such expected things and standards, aren't guarantees in modding. That someone took their free time to make something for free with no payment, it's incredible.

Then I see that same mentality applied to Paid Products and I'm out of patience to explain the free market a 50th time and how we're the sole and only regulators, the literal half of the free market, yet we just give companies all the power regardless.

Anyways next time you're mad about some mod that's non-inherently bad, just remember, some people pay for that quality or worse, expect it. The modder wasn't trying to garner anything but adding onto people's experiences. The dev much the same, but the publisher, the CEO, considerthat they've effectively ensured you never own a single piece of media without piracy, ever again. We Lost That War because we Believed The Rich Would Be Decent. For 2 decades.

There's a reason Not to have the same mentality with modders, with purchased products. You're no longer 2 buddies playin' games and making stuff for it. You're a consumer enabling, normalizing, and supporting an industry/company who's entire goal and state of being is to lower our standards so much they can get away with worse later.

It's rich people. Not people like you and me. The employee is closer to you than the CEO, understand that, and learn to respect yourself enough not to allow them to swindle you, it is, quite literally, their main skillset and they never shut it off, you're larping to pretend anything otherwise and are doing so thinking you're protecting either friend or ego, but the fact is, you gave them that, and are scared what they'll do with it. Stop giving them trust and power over you, you're literally able to bankrupt them by not buying from them. We've seen it, time, and time, and time, and time again, when the community strikes back, We Win.

We just don't because too many people are unwilling to raise their standards, and instead, take time to defend the undefendable. Sorry but there's no way to defend a company with a streak of SA issues. Maybe consider where your money is going and how that's impacting everyone's jobs and purchases. Comes down to self-respect and demanding better.

Whilst your entire generation became Noticeably Very Poorer, the rich have amassed an absolutely unfeasible level of insane wealth, taking half our dwindling money during Covid. Why the fuck is the only thing improving the graphics? Why are we Crawling our way towards 5% of the 6th generation's standards? Why are we celebrating that? Games went down in price since cartridges, but did not change what so ever for online distribution. We are literally, paying, for the Manufacturing of Physical Copies, for Digital Copies, we Don't Even Own, that's how bad it's gotten, they literally got a free 10-20$ by moving to online.

So again, please, Please, understand I am closer to you politically than you are to any CEO or corporate logo. You are closer to your dog than you will ever be to 100k. You do not, and will never, be in this industry as the CEO's friend or company mascot, you are not that. You are a consumer, start acting like the other half of the free market and not a Pay Piggy Useful Idiot.

They even raised the prices. Good. God. We Are Losing.

[eilooxara]

I'm tired of people who pretend categorization is inherently bad

Like sure, bad categorization is bad

But regular old categorization is actually good!

(I know this sounds like it's about gender and sexuality but it's actually about music)

Someone said "genre is fake" and they could not be more wrong

(maybe they were riffing on "gender is fake" but that's ALSO wrong, actually for the same reasons, but THIS POST IS ABOUT MUSIC)

Like yes. There exist genres that are fake. "Pop" is one. That's not a judgment about the relative quality of pop music, that's a statement about the existence of pop as a kind of music at all.

It just means popular, what's popular changes over time, many unrelated styles can be popular at the same time, there's no inherent musical similarity among the set of music that has been called pop

So why is pop music a thing? Well it's an industry category. Broadcasters and record labels care about what's pop music because it fits into their business model a certain way.

So, pop is not a real genre. Alternative rock isn't a genre for the same reason: it's a product category created to be sold to the people who don't like pop music (whatever that may be). These are inventions by corporations for selling products.

(Now, the "genre is fake" person was talking about the distinction between "country" and "Americana", which is a corner of music I know absolutely nothing about. Maybe one or both of those genres are fake. Maybe these categorizations don't tell you anything useful about the sound of the music in question. I suspect the former is absolutely fake, because I keep being surprised at what gets called "country" because none of it has anything in common with the other stuff I've heard called that.)

But most music genres are in fact real! They are based on specific characteristics shared in common among the whole set of music in that genre and, critically, each new piece of music is not created in vacuo but in response to the music that already exists, with characteristics in common with some subset of all extant music

So when new music is made it's going to belong to a genre! If I play power chords on an electric guitar with a lot of distortion and growl it's going to be metal. If I play a bodhrán and sing in 3/4 time with four measure phrases with stress on beats 1 and 3, it's an Irish jig.

"But Xara, what about when someone makes completely new music that's not like anything anyone's ever heard before?" ok well first of all that doesn't happen as much as you're implying, second if it did happen it would be dogshit, and third if it's good enough that anyone cares about it then that's just a new genre, which happens all the time anyway. Many musicians defy categorization; they combine influences and novel sounds in a way that hasn't been done before, amd if anyone cares, a new genre is born.

Like, say, death metal. What happened is that a band called Death played metal in a way that was novel and those who drew inspiration from that formed a new genre called death metal and that proliferated away from the source material as each new death metal band was riffing on the work of all previous death metal rather than just Death

SO, categories are created because they convey information! If I tell someone who knows what death metal is that a band is death metal, they're going to know it involves fast tempo, heavily distorted rhythm guitar played with a palm muting technique, a particular style of growled vocals, and frequent key changes. If it does something ELSE, like say it's also got a bodhrán and 3/4 timing in 4-measure phrases with stress on beats 1 and 3, then I can tell someone it's a death metal Irish jig.

(this is why genre labels get long)

People like to make fun of genre names that start with "post". But that label carries information (with one exception) just like any good category label does. What it means is that musicians who are very familiar with, say, rock, are creating something (post-rock) that is heavily influenced by rock but defies some central element of the genre (verse and chorus structure for example) to an extent that it can't really be called rock anymore. (or punk or hardcore or whatever we're being post of [except metal. Post-metal is actually metal inspired by post-rock, so it IS still metal. If you want a genre that's actually the post of metal, it doesn't get called that but it's whatever Anathema played since A Natural Disaster])

It's like

There's the whole "is a hot dog a sandwich" thing

And the thing is that if I tell someone who knows what a sandwich is that they're getting a sandwich, they'll know it's going to be a food that they can pick up with their hands and take a bite from, probably without getting their hands sticky, and that this is the normal and expected way to eat the food

The category contains information!!

Like sure sandwichness is fake I guess if you think that the existence of boundary cases makes a category fake, but sandwichness is a USEFUL construct that helps people convey information

If I am expecting a sandwich I'd be more satisfied with a burrito than a plate of spaghetti, and I'd be more satisfied with a plate of spaghetti than a concrete brick

Genre is not fake! Categorization is not bad! Nothing is "just a word" (except when it is, like pop music)!

As with all my rants, anyone who tries to pick a fight with me on this is getting blocked, not responded to.

[crystalelemental]

Now for the polar opposite in the second game I played, Triangle Strategy. My last posts on the subject speak for themselves, but as a cohesive whole, I have a lot to say. I'm not in the habit of tagging things without being clear where it's going, so to avoid problems: I do not respect this game.

Starting with an aside: I do not tend to keep track of who made what. I generally don't know, because I don't care to know. The game is either good or bad, I'll take note of consistencies if they keep producing similar stuff that lands. In the case of Team Asano, this game finally got my attention enough to connect dots, and find out that Team Asano are responsible for the Bravely Default games, Octopath Traveler, and Triangle Strategy here. I haven't played all of them, but I have played BD1, BD2, OT1, and TS. Which, to sum up that experience: one of the worst games I've ever played, middling, middling, and one of the worst games I've ever played. I do not respect any of their output. I have officially come to know their names to avoid anything they produce in the future, because nothing they've made has stuck with me. Which is. Maybe a first. I've look at some things as far as like...I can't play Shin Megami Tensei games, I just do not like them. But Atlus games can be great, depending on what I get. This is the first time I've truly felt like an entire team has just made nothing of value to me.

There are two reasons to this, and they both apply to Triangle Strategy. First is that I think their writing quality sucks. Bravely Default 1 is an absolutely garbage story, I liked effectively nothing about it, despite the presence of Edea who should've salvaged something. Bravely Default 2 and Octopath Traveler 1 are mildly engaging while playing, but ultimately left no impact on me and despite the years that have passed, I've never once looked at them as games I would want to replay. A big component of that is story. BD2 is just cookie cutter generic, while OT is too disconnected with its cast to actually come together into anything sane. TS falls more in the BD1 category. Despite some strong scenes and lines, it has a tendency to operate on the mindset of "Why say in ten words when you can say in ten thousand?" It just. Keeps. Talking. Without offering like any new information. It tries to hold a major mystery over you regarding the mines, but if you pay even slight attention to just the main story, you've figured out what's in there before any of the characters open it, then get to spend like 12 chapters of "But how can Aesfrost stand against Hyzante without salt, all they have is the iron in the mines?" There's also a constant issue of over-sharing information in the side stories, presenting the player with information the characters wouldn't have, and ruining suspense and tension regarding decision-making.

Even by the finale, and the way it presents its endings, none of them are satisfying. I've only seen three: Freedom Ending, Utility Ending, True Ending. I couldn't do Morality, I was burnt out by that point. The Freedom Ending presents unifying everything by defeating Hyzante, and granting salt access to everyone with myriad uses, encouraging free trade and development. This ending spends most of its time telling you how awful everything because due to wealth inequality, especially pointing out that the Roselle are freed from slavery, but have no inherent wealth so most are too poverty-stricken to survive anyway. The True Ending, by contrast...does functionally the same thing. Salt is made freely available, but this time Idore and Gustadolph die and Roland remains king, and despite that being just a matter of whose butt is in what chair rather than any change in policy, the game cuts out earlier in the timeline and we're left to assume the wealth inequality issue somehow didn't crop up this time. You didn't functionally change the idea, but somehow the result is completely different for no discernible reason. Oh but don't worry. The Utility Ending where you just surrender everything to Hyzante and accept that there's a slave class being exploited for profit? That one gets a pretty happy ending of Roland reflecting that some orphans can afford to eat even though their parents and dead and internally commenting that he did the right thing. If you're wondering what kind of tone or statement they're going for, me the fuck too.

The second major issue of Team Asano broadly is that their style seems to be "Take this other concept and staple this one (1) gameplay mechanic onto it." Bravely Default is, essentially, Final Fantasy 3 or 5 with a more "serious" story. Octopath Traveler is, more or less, Final Fantasy 6's World of Ruin as far as collecting your guys and moving forward. Triangle Strategy is, from what I can tell of it, just Final Fantasy Tactics. But. Their games have Turn Conservation as a mechanic. Brave, TP, and AP, all functionally identical. Every turn you get one (1) point of turn saved up, and this can be used to unleash bigger attacks, or take more turns, or something equating to "damage number go up." Anything that manipulates this counter is immediately overpowering. This is consistent across every game, and to be blunt, I don't think it's ever worked for them. Bravely Default 2, the one I have a better memory of, can use the mechanic just fine until endgame where every single enemy counters with +1 Brave Point, and then just keeps acting infinity times unless you have perfectly crafted damage teams that render 90% of your classes irrelevant. Octopath Traveler relies hysterically on the super classes for any level of optimized effect. Triangle Strategy isn't quite as bad, but in part because there's less control. You have Julio, but his AP conferral is a much weaker effect, so instead you burn turns just waiting for it to come back.

It's just never a balanced mechanic. It wastes time, and restricts effectiveness of classes. Having replaying Final Fantasy 5 recently, it's kind of staggering to go back to it and feel like damn, a lot of those classes may not be great, but they are functional and do some fun things, even in endgame, compared to Bravely Default 2. But now I'm harping on the less critical aspect of the current game.

Triangle Strategy's pace is absolutely abhorrent. This game wants so badly to be a visual novel. There was a stretch of game, where I shit you not, I went about two hours without ever playing a map. TWO. HOURS! Of nothing but cutscenes, and useless exploration! And I do mean useless.

This is the most wasteful I have ever seen a game be with mechanics. Exploration exists solely to gather information, which can be used to sway your allies to a particular decision as you wish. Except in 50% of cases, those pieces of information don't even work. Hell, probably more than 50% of the time, the solution is picking different dialogue than the special one. So that exploration did nothing. What influences you more is how often you've deployed your ally characters, because they're more likely to listen to you. Alignment matters too, but that one's completely useless.

Alignment comes on three factors: Morality, Utility, and Freedom. Depending on dialogue choices during exploration mostly, you get bonuses to one of these alignments. The first time through, you don't get to know where values are. Things just happen, and it gives the illusion that this matters. But once you're on run two, the illusion shatters, because you know where values are and what their consequences are. For example, my values at the end of run 1 were something like 2000 Utility, 1400 Morality, and 1100 Freedom. I got the Freedom ending by just choosing that path as the sensible one. The only consequence of that being my lowest-rated attribute? It was stated that it would be slightly harder to convince people on that path. I convinced everyone first try. When I went for Utility ending, half the characters wouldn't listen to me. These factors exist for only one purpose, and that is to recruit side characters who have nothing to do with those alignments. Once you have 1500 points, and recruited all those characters, the stat is functionally worthless. It has no influence over anything. It may as well not even exist.

Even the scales are useless. Your decisions have seemingly big shifts in what's happening, but each path loops to the same destination two chapters later. There is a true route that relies on knowing one (1) piece of information from certain decisions, but it really is not significant half the time. I still can't really piece together why visiting your dad is requires for true route. Is it supposed to be Milo? That's my best guess, but fuck if I know.

By actual gameplay during maps, it is painfully slow. No map ever took me more than 15 minutes, but the whole time felt like pulling teeth. I have newfound respect for Fire Emblem. Having a player move all their characters, and spend a good stretch of time engaging in the gameplay before showing how enemies more and letting you react to it en masse, is a good flow. It gives you a sense of control, it lets you feel like you are experiencing gameplay. This turn order shit, where there are like three times as many enemies as allies and your turns are mixed in, results in you getting like three seconds of gameplay before watching enemies move around uselessly for like two minutes, because the maps are too big and nothing happens half the time because you're just in transit to each other. Add in factors like needing to set which way you're facing to avoid back attacks, and going to move only to find out that oops that elevation is slightly too high for them to climb, drags the pace into the mud. It's the least fun I've had with a strategy game.

It doesn't help that the gameplay is too granular to begin with. Elevation is a bad mechanic that takes otherwise simple maps and turns them into a complete stall-fest of getting people to just climb a bit. Anything at Twinsgate is fucking intolerable. Ranged attacks are also a fucking mess, because they bump off level geometry, and will hit your allies instead if someone is standing between you and a target. Not Roland's spear, though. They'll move for his spear, but not Anna's daggers. Which is just...so fucking stupid, and makes the simple act of moving and attacking take longer than it needs for the most frustrating reasons.

As the final gameplay complaint, it's a similar Team Asano issue to Octopath. At the very end of the true route, apropos of nothing and with no warning...you must now use every single character in the game, split across three armies. Now, keep in mind: I mentioned earlier that using your primary cast was highly reinforced. Using them means easily swaying them to your side during voting. There is no reason to ever use the side characters; they have no voice or relevance. You get one or two extra slots beyond the main 8, so you'll likely only train one or two others. The rest of the cast falls hilariously behind the level curve, and suddenly you are told that all of them mattered and you need to level up. There are grinding missions for training! They're exactly as slow as every other map! And now you need to bring all your piddly level 12 units up to 45+ so they can keep up!

I quit. This never happens. I never quit a game when I'm close to beating it. Completionism is my Gamer Sin, and I gave the fuck up. Because I can't deal with that, man. I cannot. Never again. Octopath Traveler had this exact same problem, where suddenly the backups mattered for the first time right at the end without any warning, and I spent so many hours just grinding levels to experience a shitty final boss and no significant story progression past that point. I'm not doing that again. I quit, and watched that story on youtube. And by watched, I mean half-watched, because my wife was playing a more interesting game. I could still follow everything going on. In part because the major reveal of Idore's motivations? You can figure that out no problem with one of the side books. They'll tell you early on that the previous Heirophant took ill during the war and Hyzante fell into chaos. You know exactly what happened and why Idore is acting like this, WAY before his motivation is actually revealed. It's completely unsatisfying, just like the mines.

I could complain about story minutia forever, so we're moving on to cast. The side characters are useless. The main cast is flat. They hint at personality, and can get some development on their respective routes when things have to solidify for the actual story, but prior they're all "strong convictions loosely held." Everyone is so easily swayed off their course they think is sane, that they wind up not holding to any actual values. Frederica can be swayed into handing over her people into slavery. That's how non-committed these people are to literally anything, until the point in the story where they decided divergence was happening, and we could commit.

There were two characters I kinda liked, mostly for dynamic reasons. Cordelia and Avlora. Because Cordelia is her own person, with an actual character growth arc, she's super interesting! Avlora being the super tough general who starts to question her own kingdom and vows to protect Cordelia as someone she respects because of her honorable nature, is super interesting! You get this dynamic for one (1) chapter. Cordelia either then disappears entirely or joins your team depending on your path decision, and either way is written out of the narrative. Avlora "dies" in every decision route, but comes back for the true route only for some reason but is unimportant to the story entirely. Which is. So unsurprising, but so very annoying.

I guess Benedict is the favorite who's actually present? His motivation in the Freedom route is pretty interesting, and his vaguely nefarious plot to get you into a position of power is respectable, at least to me. Moreso than Roland's bitchfit, anyway. Hughette, Geela, Anna, and Erador are functionally without character, operating as side-pieces to the major three driving the ending split. Frederica is fine, but I feel like she doesn't have as much going for her as a person. Her overcoming how she was before is pretty...immediate, in some ways. Things with Erika and Thales just kinda resolve right away on the map, with little more than a brief thought to them at the end of that chapter then moving on. There's one scene in Freedom route where Gustadolph comments on her growth, but I dunno man, there's just not enough fixation on her or her aims. Maybe the Morality Ending does more since that's her path, but I can't be asked.

The side cast is somehow worse. There are side stories! I guess the equivalent of supports in Fire Emblem. They give a little more depth to characters, or at least are supposed to. Probably says enough about quality that every time I saw them come up I groaned about having to read more. The main cast doesn't get much, but side characters, this is all they get for character. I didn't use side characters, so I can only speak to two: Cordelia and Groma, the old punch lady. I hate both of them.

In the case of Groma, it's a matter of the story having nothing to say. Story 1 is her sharing a drink with Geela, recounting the Saltiron War and her time as a general. Specifically, she attacked Hyzante and won a major strategic victory, but in so doing accidentally killed a bunch of Rosellans by burning down what turned out to be a slave encampment. Haunted by the death of so many innocents, she abandoned her station and lives with this guilt, now fully aware that there are no winners in war, and the innocent will always suffer most. ...conversations two is "Haha just kidding, none of the Roselle actually died because they all were freed during Orlaea's uprising so only bad people died then, isn't that a relief?" Like way to undo all of the significant thematic storytelling you might've done there, dude.

Cordelia's is infinitely worse, because it operates on the notion that the citizens are constantly hounding her for being a puppet queen of Aesfrost. While this could be interesting, note that Cordelia is only recruited on the Roland Path where you clean up the Royalists in Glenbrook. You know. Where they reveal that most of the citizenry was on board for Aesfrosts' social mobility plan, and seemed to like their reign, criticizing Roland for being someone who would revert the positive social change. So the citizens of Glenbrook are pro-Aesfrost when we need Roland to be torn, and anti-Aesfrost when we need Cordelia to be. The socio-political climate of Glenbrook may as well not even exist with how wishy-washy public opinion is. It's extra stupid because the bitching at Roland is over him killing Patriatte, a dude who was using his wealth and influence to extract state aid for his personal coffers, and killed two people in the streets. And it's like man, I dunno, if President Biden came out and killed a state senator in public for embezzling funds and then proclaimed everyone would be taxed fairly, I'm pretty sure that would only do positive things for his approval rating. It would get my vote, is all I'm saying.

There is one last thing I feel like needs to be said. I only knew about this game due to all the old comments and complaints about this trying to copy Three Houses. It was a huge talking point when it came out; that this was trying to ride the success of Three Houses, and copying that game's style. I don't think that's fair. This game is very distinct and similarities are mostly incidental. It is different, but if we're willing to compare them, it is worse. Three Houses has a stronger opening hook, a more colorful and engaging cast, smoother gameplay, a side cast that actually matters, a main cast with more serious convictions, and broadly just more to offer. The only real similarity they share is that they completely fall apart on a second playthrough as you realize it is not fun to progress through this visual novel's poor map design for a couple scraps of new information. Which was not the element I imagine they wanted to replicate here.

All that to say: Bad game. Would not recommend.

[mercurygray]

hi . me again . another question because I am curious and this is fun and I’m like a little yapping dog in ur purse or something ANYWAYS ‼️ what are some of your favorite things to see in fanfiction? Because I know a lot of people talk about “bad cliches” but I’m curious as to what your favorite reoccurrences / themes are that might be a little more common :)

To see??

Gosh. That is a question.

This is going to sound like the most pejorative, demeaning, pedantic, elitist answer ever, but -

Punctuation.

I have opened up so many stories with fascinating-sounding summaries and found - not a wall of text, but that I cannot read the story because the author has decided that a) periods do not need to be included in dialogue or b) capitalization doesn't matter.

Now, I am willing to accept a certain amount of flexibility in poetry, but in prose? "Please," Merc begs, "I IMPLORE you - punctuation in your dialogue. It helps give structure so my brain can process it correctly. I am a descriptivist in many ways but this is one thing I cannot work around. I recognize that you may be learning, but there are so many good guides on the internet for how to do this."

Ahem.

In terms of 'bad cliches' - for starters, a cliché is just a trope that forgot to brush its hair today. Tropes are the bedrock of a writing tradition - I LOVE reading things where I recognize storytelling elements. I don't think there's an inherent goodness or badness to tropes - there's disliking them because you've seen too much of the same thing, but that's…slightly different.

I can't say that any one particular trope or theme jumps out to me in the things I'm reading- so much of what I enjoy comes down to the quality of the writing. Looking at the last couple of fics I've really enjoyed reading, I'm seeing

a good eye for detail and the character's surroundings.

consistent characterization

a really good sense of the canon, or at least, if ignoring it, an acknowledgment that the author knew what it was to start. I saw a fic the other day where the author's note started with "So, I didn't watch this show, but - " Mm, no. None for you. If you didn't actually watch the show there's nothing here I want.

[briefcasejuice]

NOT my iss but a friend's and I've been sitting through it

So there's this girl, I'll call her J, who's been being absolutely fucking awful to my friend , K. This shit started back on Halloween and is still going on so like? Holy fuck yk?

Anyway. Background. J had bought her costume off temu. So shitty quality, looks bad. The works for a cheap costume and wig. K and a few friends (who are mutual friends with J) were making jokes about the crappy quality, not about the girl. (Normal in the friend group, from what I've seen. They make those jokes to eachother and it's never taken seriously) but j took it seriously. Treated it like "You must fucking hate me, huh?"

So she's been being a DICK towards K. Like J knows what she's doing, because she's trying to getting all off K's friends away from her, and not saying annoying to K until anyone who would stand up for.them is there.

BUT J went to K's b-day party. J had pulled as much attention away from K as she could at k's own party !!! Like I went to the thing and most of the people there are crowded around J and K is just sitting by the speakers by herself. At her own party. A party J knew was a big deal to K btw. And from what I've heard , J was talking about HER birthday party there.

This shit between them has gotten so bad to the point where K won't do things he likes bc J is there. K's had actually panic attacks because of the shit J has said to them. And you what else just boggles me?

The entire group knows she's doing this. None of them like her. But she's still the queen bee. They all still talk to her ??? Like holy fuck man

high class toxic relationships. ill never understand why people don't treat toxic plutonic relationships as seriously as they do toxic romantic relationships. well. i mean. i do understand why it happens but my point is that it shouldn't. this is bullying and honestly if you're a bully past an age where self awareness about your own behaviours is inherent, i have 0 respect for you. i understand that j was upset about her costume being made fun of despite the fact that friendly banter was normal among that, but friendly banter being normal but hurtful calls for communication, not bullying lol

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2023

#97 - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong

Rating: 3/5 stars

Way back in college, when I tried to be a member of one of the many, many student-run literary magazines on campus, I submitted a poem to them. All the submissions were judged anonymously--only the head of the group, who collected the entries, ever saw the names attached. As a group, we knew that any given poem we were reading and debating might be from one of our own members, and to be fair, the person in charge during my time there mostly sat back and let us talk it out ourselves, without much input, because her input might be interpreted as favoritism once the poems were chosen.

When we were debating my poem (which was clearly not going to be published in that issue, they were tearing it apart) another member said something that I had never heard so clearly expressed before: "Shouldn't we be judging it by how good it is, not how much we like it? Because this is good, it's really good, it just makes me feel bad."

I know that doesn't sound earth-shatteringly brilliant to most adults, but I was nineteen and incredibly insecure about my skills, and to have anyone call my poetry good, and to clearly demarcate the difference between inherent quality and personal emotional reaction, felt life-altering.

That poem of mine was not published. None of the ones I submitted were, and after that year, I quit the magazine, understanding both that it was not what I wanted, and I was not what they wanted.

I'm not even sure, more than two decades later, that I actually believe there is so clear a difference; does any work of art have inherent quality that isn't dependent on how the audience reacts to it? A seemingly throwaway line from a Stephen King novel convinced me that any music is good music if you like it. I've used that argument to convince myself to stop labeling certain artists as my "guilty pleasures," because for whatever reason, I feel like I'm not supposed to like their music, or I'm not allowed to. But I do anyway. So is the quality of art tied directly to the audience's reaction, instead?

And that ever-shifting goalpost on the spectrum between "is it good?" and "do I like it?" is precisely why I'm having difficulty corralling my thoughts about this novel.

I've never read any of Vuong's poetry before and had no clear idea what to expect. After reading it I find myself in total sympathy with the young woman who thought my poem was good, even when it made her uncomfortable; that is most of my reaction. I can see the skill and care taken in choosing the right words, composing the right phrase, to express complex and uncomfortable topics. I even think reading things that make us uncomfortable is a good thing, when done with intention, and with an eye towards protecting our mental health when that's necessary.

But I didn't like it. I'm trying not to listen to the leftover voice in my head that tells me when something is "pretentious," because I've been moving away from that word as useful for criticism--it's too easy to use it as a shield, an excuse to belittle something we didn't connect with. But I can see why some reviewers are throwing "style over substance" at this work; I didn't personally understand all of the imagery, and the constant shifting of perspective can be confusing and frustrating. If you see the primary goal of an author as storytelling, then the style most certainly can get in the way of the substance, and I'm not going to blame anyone for bouncing off this work for those reasons. I had to make myself keep reading, early on, when I wasn't convinced this was anything but a mishmash of emotional imagery without a story underneath it.

I suppose I might also feel less conflicted if it didn't feel quite so autobiographical. The appeal of this novel to so many (and the selling point, if we want to be more cynical) is the "unique" intersection of so many different identities in the text, and also in the author; but because of the style, and because modern poetry is generally deeply autobiographical, and because there is a long history of literary novels using idealized self-inserts as protagonists, I had to keep reminding myself that Little Dog isn't necessarily supposed to be Ocean Vuong. Clearly Vuong is writing about deeply personal experiences, but I also shouldn't assume his first love was a boy named Trevor he met on a tobacco farm. But the line isn't clear, and maybe it's not meant to be; but I wouldn't react to or review an autobiography the same way I would a novel.

Ultimately, in order to decide on a rating, I went with my gut. I didn't like it overall, but there were parts I enjoyed, and I respect the craft, so I'm going straight down the middle.

[dykeulous]

1.) acknowledging that socialization plays a big part in how someone turns out as a person is not a gotcha, you’re right. what is a gotcha, however, is then attempting to put down, ridicule, and paint every empathic woman/female activist as some naive bad feminist. caring about marginalized people who might not share the exact same experiences with us is not “naive” or “sad”. “feminine” traits such as empathy, gentleness, softness and eagerness to compromise are not inherently bad traits– what is bad, however, is the deeming of them as feminine & pushing women & girls to possess those traits, while letting men & boys be assertive & dominant. in fact, i’d even go as far as to say that the traits the patriarchy deems “feminine” are actually natural human traits. empathy, gentleness, softness, and the eagerness to compromise are what make up a natural human. the natural human, free of any cultural constructs & artificial social influences, is an empathic, artistic, and creative one. the natural human wants & seeks out peace. societal conditioning of men into unnatural & artificial unjustified violence & brute force is a separate topic to deal with. humans are inherently empathic. that’s where “the desire to compromise and avoid conflict” comes from.

2.) there are horrible people within every movement. in no way am i justifying the disgusting reality of certain trans people actively working to harm women. i am in full support of female-only spaces, and i actually talk about this at lengths on my blog. does this mean that the majority of trans people, who are genuinely & sincerely just trying to live their lives & improve their life quality as well as attempting to survive under a heavily capitalistic society, should pay the penalty for the loud minority? i’m sorry that your view has been so blinded due to the recent boom of straight-up insane trans rights activists, that you no longer want to have any empathy for the genuinely marginalized & mentally hurting people.

radical feminism, at its’ core, is gender abolitionist– first and foremost. trans people agree with this, and even if they vocally say they don’t, they do not hold any real systemic power that will go in their favor from the gender system anyway. no matter your personal beliefs on trans people, no matter whether you are pro or anti-transition; it’s just nebulous and laughable to claim otherwise. the gender system actively works against trans individuals. trans people are going against the core of gender in a very meaningful way, and even if you disagree with the way they are doing it & would propose a different strategy to doing it, they still are doing it. conservatives would not be creating a moral panic about “the tranzes poisoning and grooming innocent children” if this weren’t a fact. conservatives would not be sweating and looping around in utter fear of their neat little gender system crumbling if trans people weren’t, in their own unique way, going against the idea that gender is this fixed & scientific biological truth. trans people gain no benefits under the patriarchy. absolutely none [no, this is not me trying to say that trans people cannot ever have male privilege– that is another discussion. i’m merely stating that they are uniquely persecuted & discriminated against for deviating from the strict gender binary, similarly to how gnc & gay people are]. both trans women & trans men receive wonders from radical feminism. true radical feminism, anyway. the kind that wants to dismantle the patriarchy & abolish gender. the kind that wants to see the world return to empathy & eagerness to compromise. the kind of radical feminism that comes from love, and not hatred. one that is motivated by genuine desire to change, improve, rebuild– not merely destroy, take down, and burn. indeed, both are necessary for the reconstruction of society from the roots; but the difference here is how certain radfems are willing to do the next step after the destroying ends.

trans people are often heavily disordered people who have certain triggers. dysphoria is a debilitating condition that can disable someone for life. i find it quite funny that you would deny ableism allegations like the plague if i were to accuse you of it; but what else is it, if not ableism, when you blame people directly & inherently harmed by gender in such a deep way that no other but trans people themselves can truly understand, for developing such triggers & conditions? of course their lives are “going to revolve around their gender being performed”, when the world we live in places people in such unhealthy gendered boxes, that undeniably plays a large role in why social dysphoria develops in the first place. that being said, i’m sure there are trans people out there who do not have any sort of social dysphoria whatsoever. and i think you would be even more of an ableist if you were to shame them. there are multiple types of dysphoria– neurological sex incongruency, sex dysphoria, social dysphoria, and more– the fact that you believe all trans people can be placed in one same box tells me enough about you.

the fact that you are unable to differentiate between a person with a clear paraphilia [and i’ll say something that will make you see me as a tra bootlicker even more here– paraphilias are not inherently bad 😳! shocker, i know!] whose motivations are malicious & are coming from a bad faith heart, and a person genuinely suffering from lifelong sex dysphoria, not being able to alleviate it any other way than by transitioning– also tells me all i need to know about you. you are engaging in the moral panic the conservative-right is constantly pushing about trans people. not all of it is a fetish. have you considered that some people are genuinely just suffering and want to live their lives like the rest of society? or are you that poisoned by hatred that you cannot even try to conceptualize it?

3.) [since you didn’t have notes for my third point i’ll just treat your fourth as third here] trans people do not benefit from the gender system. they do not benefit from “gender being written into federal law”– and the fact that you even phrase it this way tells me that you are one of those radfems who believes gender is something The Left created. gender cannot “be written into federal law”, because it isn’t something newly created. it has been part of the law. it’s not “just recently” being added on. you might want to talk about how self-id harms women, and go ahead. i’m not going to stop you. but this does not give you the right to blatantly revise history & twist it to your personal liking so you can justify your reactionary hatred. you are free to talk about liberal misogyny, about misogyny in lgbt spaces, about liberalism commodifying gender & creating a new subset of it, “progressive” gender or whatever– but what you cannot do, however, is claim that this “progressive” gender is what created gender itself. if anything, this tells me that you hold the belief of gender being biological, and strictly tied to someone’s sex– which is inherently antithetical to both general & radical feminism. in that case, you are no gender abolitionist. and i have, unfortunately, seen that be the case for several radfems.

yes, it is indeed true that many trans people are misogynistic. it is true that many of them make inappropriate jokes. by all means, call them out on that. call them out on blatant social unawareness, call them out on the “these women are actually trans men and they don’t even know it haha” bullshit. i’m not saying “don’t do that”. i’m saying that you cannot base your entire opinion on a systemically oppressed group by a few edgy morons you saw be in rigid support of gender roles. a lot of young trans people go through a phase of idolizing gender roles, and they often leave that phase. let children be cringy. they will grow out of it.

as for the “totem” claim– i genuinely have no idea what you are talking about. mature trans people who actually know what the hell they’re talking about & have actually read their gender theory, will often say that gender is a performance & a way one expresses their own self. when faced with the, “so, gender is just clothes?” accusation from radfems, they will often say that gender has nothing to do with clothes, and that it’s just something meaningless to fuck around with & experiment with. they often misunderstand the oppressive nature of gender, yes. they lack the part of class analysis. but don’t let this make you believe that they think gender is genuinely something important to one’s personhood. they don’t. they agree with us that it is not– they, just like us, believe that gender is a social construct. we keep yelling at each other, when in actuality we are both saying the same fucking thing. we want the same thing– the abolition of gender. we just have sort of different ideas on how to get to that point [and i’ll go out of my way to say that recently, from what i’ve seen, both tra & radfem approaches & strategies have been dogwater. but to be a bit more graceful to y’all, i do think anything that leaves out the importance of a proletarian revolution is dogwater].

using gender euphoria as a “gotcha” against trans people is cruel. again, dysphoria is debilitating. don’t be shitty. trans people experience exciting emotions when they transition because they feel they can finally be happy in their own bodies after being forced to lead a life they never wanted to for so long.

4.) i will agree that my argument of “those are actually just cis people speaking over us” does seem like a no true scotsman. i apologize for that. i was genuinely just so angry at seeing so many radfems make up wild generalizations & accusations about the trans community– when i myself am trans & know so many wonderful trans people. i agree that the disgusting behavior directed at radfems specifically at the hands of trans people needs to be controlled & called out. i apologize on the behalf of all of us, and i myself have gotten such threats before. that still does not wake even a little bit of hatred in my heart, but i guess that’s merely because my activism is primarily love-motivated [che guevara enthusiast here 🖐️]. i will still note that since the trans community has recently been trying to label everything as transphobia, it is generally true that there are many cis people out there wanting to be seen as good allies, to the point of throwing women under the bus. i still also believe that your view of “predatory men who claim to be trans” is deeply flawed and rooted in some internalized hatred & disgust at gender nonconformity. why are you more disgusted at & get the ick from a “man in a dress” than you do at a normie cishet dude? why are you so quick to assume someone has a womanhood fetish & a paraphilia when they let you know certain words trigger them & they want to transition to alleviate their pain? why do you trust a gender conforming man, more than you trust a [what you in your head register as] gender nonconforming man?

i genuinely do not care that your radical feminism is primarily female-driven. that is completely fine with me. i think it’s stupid that trans people believe they have to be included in everything all of the time. i believe we need different kinds of activism to do actual cultural, world-wide change. we need female-driven activism. but, guess what? your female-driven activism should still be done from a place of love. your hatred for men should not be put above your love for women. your female-driven activism should not be equated with, “people who also focus on the issues of the patriarchy more broadly and talk about gender abolition on a wider scale & include male people in their activism are naive, stupid, and Not Real Radical Feminists™”. that honestly just reminds me of the way manosphere functions. constant shit being thrown at people with more empathy, constant undermining of empathic & altruistic values, constant viewing of them as a weakness. constant hate, hate, and hate. constant complaining, and, yes– whining.

1.) for the love of science, please, please stop using the theory of gendered socialization as some “gotcha” against all female people. stop trying to constitute that just because a person who happens to be female is only empathic because they’re female. stop making us all look bad, stop proving the dumbasses who say we’re trying to claim all women have some universal spiritual bond that connects them & that we’re using the theory to constitute & declare all women as inherently this and all men as inherently that, right. stop misunderstanding the theory. yes, socialization has impacts on how someone turns out as a person. yes, socialization does influence personality, and yes, the reason why women are more likely to be empathic is because of socialization, not because of some inherent biological magic; however, this doesn’t mean that having basic human decency & choosing not to be a piece of shit is somehow alien to male people. this doesn’t mean that women should throw away all their learned personality traits & tendencies. just because empathy is more forced & pushed onto women, doesn’t mean women need to get rid of that. instead, women should work on unlearning passiveness & unhealthy self-consciousness– female people should unlearn the process of female socialization that taught them to think low of themselves, that taught them to constantly feel like a burden, that taught them not to have any boundaries & to stay quiet and meek– empathy & human decency are not something to be thrown away. those are valuable & natural human traits.

2.) the trans movement is not inherently anti-feminist. the commodification, commercialization, and pinkwashing of it is. if we look very closely, trans people a lot of the time agree with the core elements of radical feminism; they just phrase their beliefs differently. there are gaps within ideologies, and both sides can be obtuse as fuck. both sides can be annoying & unwilling to learn. both sides can do legitimate harm in the real world. both sides need to learn from each other & stop vilifying & caricaturing the other as some pesty inherent danger that should be hidden from the rest of the world. gender critical women and trans rights activists need not always be “at odds”. we can, and we will, bridge the gap; no matter how many times annoying people like you fly around our ears like & whine. buzz all you want. there are people out there working on bridging the gap & are efficiently doing so. if you want to lock yourself up in an echo-chamber while also insisting trans people are doing that very same thing, then well done. have your hypocrisy cake and eat it 🤷🏻. me personally, i’ll keep having meaningful discussions with people who don’t necessarily share the same worldview as i do. nevertheless, radical feminism does wonders for trans people, and there are so many radical feminists out there insistent on proving that. if you’re going to sit back and whine about “men in dresses”, “those disgusting tranzes invading women’s spaces” and “moid xys fetishizing women”, while not doing anything whatsoever to improve the conditions of your local women– then don’t bother calling yourself a feminist of any sorts, yet alone a radical feminist. gncphobia does not look good on a person claiming to be pro-feminist. seriously.

3.) “no one is arguing that we should make trans-identified people’s lives worse” this is just, like, blatantly untrue. bans & limits on self-expression, bodily automony & self-determination, do in fact, harm trans people, a deeply vulnerable & targeted group in many societies. the same societies that tend to be extremely intolerant of trans people are also extremely intolerant of women. this is not a coincidence. it’s not a coincidence that the worst misogynists are also very often transphobic. it’s not a coincidence that conservatives, the people working to tangibly oppress trans people, are also anti-abortion, anti-divorce, pro-nuclear family, and anti-lgb. it’s almost like, hey– trans people are oppressed on the gender axis! and if you’re going to say that you said this in regards to radfems; you’d also be wrong. i will agree that tras often unrealistically portray radfems as fashies capable of systemically oppressing trans people, and that they very often create conspiracy theories on how “terfs are running the world” & “terfs control the governments”, exaggerating the “power” radfems may have– but this does not mean that there are no transphobic radfems. i’ve seen many deny dysphoria being a thing, many are unnecessarily & inhumanely cruel to dysphoric people & constantly try to purposely trigger someone’s dysphoria, many are exceptionally cruel to trans men (which is funny because they like to claim we are their “lost sisters” or whatever), many straight up mock surgeries & call people “mutilated” which extends to the hatred & bigotry against detrans folk. you cannot complain how trans people refuse to excommunicate genuinely awful people in their community if you yourself are going to ignore the genuinely awful people in your own community. you just cannot.

4.) “we are pro gender abolition and they are pro gender”– i mean, making a wild claim like this just proves you’ve locked yourself up in an echo-chamber. you sound exactly💯 how those tras who portray radfems as The Incarnation of Devil Himself sound like. you believe you know everything about a group & the group’s beliefs without conversating with anyone from said group. that’s exactly how many tras behave, making up wild claims & false caricatures of radfem beliefs, exaggerating them up to the point of nonsense. like, i’m sorry– but i’ll call bullshit on the “they are pro gender” stuff. i just cannot bring myself to believe that a group uniquely oppressed by gender is capable of meaningfully supporting the existence of it. sure, there are trans people who will vocally say they are against the abolition of gender because they personally feel it helps them because want to assimilate/it helps them express & understand themselves or whatever– but this doesn’t erase the reality of gender inherently repressing & oppressing trans individuals. certain, individual trans people can do & say wacky shit, they can hold horrible and stupid beliefs– but this does not reflect the universal reality of trans existence. trans people deviate from the gender binary. trans people do not fit into the system of gender, and as such, they can only benefit from the abolition of gender. gender hurts us in a very specific way, and we are going against the very existence of it, just by existing. this isn’t to say some trans people aren’t genuinely dumb & misogynistic/bio-essentialist/neurosexist/assimilationist/homophobic/awful/whatever– i’m simply saying that we as a group do not fit into the gender system– obviously, we still have to prove that we truly are against it, but we defy traditionalist way of thought merely by existing. of course, we still have to do actual work to be considered activists, and we aren’t immediately some punk blood-pumping political figures simply on the basis of not fitting in.

5.) any person who sends rape & death threats to anyone is despicable. the phenomenon of this specifically happening to radfems is real, but we cannot base our moral beliefs & opinions on an entire group off of this. oftentimes, it’s not even actual trans people sending the threats, it’s cis people [particularly cis men to be clear] who want to speak over us. calling out homophobia & misogyny in the trans community is a worthy endeavor & definitely, desperately needs to be done. being hateful and assuming all trans people are this disgusting caricature in your head, is not. again, we will bridge the gap, and there’s nothing you can do about it. activists of all kinds will come together & reshape the world from the roots of it. they will pull out all the toxicity & take down all the oppressive structures & institutions, stomp on them violently & mercilessly– they will rebuild the world from its’ roots, all over again.

[rxttenfish]

legitimately think the state of media literacy on this website would increase if nyall actively seeked out and consumed disgusting media. the vilest media. the gross shit.

[secretmellowblog]

Part of the reason I have a complicated emotional relationship with Javert is because— Javert is BAD. He is a BAD person

But adaptations often don’t understand why he’s bad, and make him bad for the wrong reasons.

In the book, Javert is bad because he’s a cop. He is the “Best Cop It is Possible to Be,” he’s honest and completely obedient to the law, and he’s TERRIBLE, because you can’t be “good” when you’re enforcing a system that is inherently cruel.

But like... in Les Mis 1998 Javert is portrayed as being an unusually evil person who just has a weird obsession with Valjean, unlike other cops, who are Good. Les Mis 1998 even adds a Good Cop side character who lets Valjean go free in Montreuil-sur-Mer, while joking with Valjean about how Javert is unusually evil and none of the other cops like him.

???????

And as I’ve ranted about a lot, BBC Les Mis Javert’s desire to enforce the law is portrayed as a good honorable quality, and there’s an entire precinct of “good cop” side characters who help him.....while BBC Javert’s actual “moral failing” is what Andrew Davies calls his “twisted love” for Valjean.

and I’m just like...eh? Javert is bad, yes!! But that’s noT WHY he’s bad. He’s not bad because he’s gay, he’s bad because he’s a cop. He’s not bad because he’s an unusually evil cop, he’s actually an unusually “good” cop— and being a “good cop” is why he’s bad and cruel!

Anyway....my problem with these adaptations isn’t that they make Javert a bad person, it’s that they completely misunderstand why he’s a bad person. They turn a critique of the police as a whole into “one guy was weirdly mean, and then he died and everything was fine”

[lesbiansforboromir]

Please could you explain the Peter Jackson hope thin?

THIS is the post anon's talking about. But so. The films are very black and white in their portrayal of the story. Hope is the 'theme' of the films, because all the good characters have it and all the bad characters don't and the good characters often say 'we have to have hope' and the bad characters say 'there is no hope' (with Boromir being this oh so tragic character with his 'she said even now there is hope left, but I cannot see it' which implies that Boromir tried to take the ring entirely because he had no hope etc. Amusingly they even give Boromir Faramir's line of 'it has been long since we had any hope' continuing this shift of hopelessness = bad and all who have hope good with the angelic softboi rewrite of Faramir's character). And then of course Denethor, with his hopelessness, is this evil crazed caricature of a person.

But that isn't how hope works, it isn't how hope should be viewed at all and neither is the lack of hope some inherent failing. Gondor in the books had so much application to themes of trauma and to me personally the most intimately warming concept was the idea that 'fighting on, even when you know you will come to a terrible end, is in itself worthy and admirable, it justifies it's own effort. You do not need hope to be good or for your life to mean something'. In the book Denethor and Boromir and Gondor as a whole were figures of immense courage and expertise and judgement and wisdom but they were failing anyway, they still did not have hope of succeeding. But all the good qualities of these figures are minimised or non-existant in the films, ending in this trite 'well we all have failings, poor boromir just wasn't strong enough, probably because of his evil father' which I know is good for some but falls incredibly flat to me.

Essentially, the book engaged with the concept of hope in many many varied ways, none of which were clear cut but still had a lot to say about humanity. Whereas the film turned hope into a currency that characters used to buy a happy ending.

[antianakin]

I think that, regardless of how we feel about Bo-Katan and her politics, the person in charge on Mandalore is a SITH (I know that Maul says he's "no longer a Sith" in Rebels, but that's also complete bullshit, he's always a Sith). Bo-Katan cannot and will never be as bad of a leader as Maul. I think Bo-Katan's probably a shit leader, that her political expertise is lacking in the extreme, but she'll never be as bad as leaving a SITH LORD in charge. I know Maul is using Almec as a puppet and so they are deposing a Mandalorian leader, as well, but Almec was not put in that position by anything particularly democratic or traditional. He doesn't win a duel (with or without the Darksaber), he isn't ever said to have a bloodline/birthright that gives him the right to rule the way Satine/Bo-Katan do, and he wasn't elected. MAUL puts him in place after he wins a duel against Pre who got his position as leader by being leader of the terrorist group that "defended" Mandalore from an invasion by the crime organizations. None of this is ever particularly legitimate in any shape or form. Bo-Katan is at least part of that royal bloodline that got deposed when Satine's government fell, so you could argue that they're just re-instating the last government that WAS legitimately ruling.

We know so little about how Mandalorian government works that it makes it really hard to decide whether Bo-Katan is a legitimate ruler or not. Satine is a Duchess, but Bo-Katan calls herself a princess and discusses her family as royalty, but none of them EVER wielded the Darksaber legitimately because Pre Viszla says it's been handed down in HIS family for generations, and Satine has a Prime Minister who seems to do most of the actual governing. We don't know whether Satine got elected into the role of "Duchess" after the Civil War, or if she ended up Duchess by birthright but then chose to create the role of Prime Minister which WAS elected, or if the role of Prime Minister is chosen by the reigning monarch, or if the concept of a Prime Minister whether elected or not existed before Satine ever ended up ruling to begin with. I have no fucking clue. Mandalorians seem to decide who is a legitimate ruler most often just on who comes in with the biggest army and says "I'm your ruler now." So if Bo-Katan wants to get herself an army and declare herself ruler, that's just as legitimate as anyone else I guess. Mandalorians run on coups from what I can tell.

So Ahsoka choosing to help Bo-Katan depose Maul could be argued to be about helping the people of Mandalore because it's always better NOT to be ruled by a Sith Lord, even if putting Bo-Katan in place as a leader isn't guaranteed to be THAT much better given who Bo-Katan is and her lack of good leadership qualities. At least Bo-Katan's easier to defeat and remove by someone else if the people decide they don't like her than Maul is. I dunno, Mandalore DID need the help and I do think Ahsoka believed that what she was doing would help the regular citizens of Mandalore, but you're not wrong that there's an inherently political aspect to literally assisting in a coup even if it's a coup against a Sith Lord.

If she were a Jedi, we could argue that defeating Sith Lords is her job anyway, but she's not, so. Whatever.

So I recently rewatched Clone Wars, and season 7 was complex for me (mostly because it felt like too much Ahsoka away from the actual Clone Wars). The "Jedi don't care about the common people idea" coming from the sisters wasn't a bad worldbuilding thing since we know canonically Palpatine was trying to build dislike of the Jedi.

But the Mandalore arc where Ahsoka throws a fit because Obi-Wan and Anakin don't have time to go on a side quest for a planet that's not even part of the Republic when the literal Capital and Head Of State are being attacked? "This is why people don't trust the Jedi you only care about the core worlds." Girl took that to heart in the worst way possible.

Yeah, I think my feelings on the season 7 underlying theme is that it went too far in the direction of "the Jedi have lost their way, but Ahsoka realizes that instead of just abandoning the Jedi ways, she should re-discover the TRUE meaning of being a Jedi, unlike those OTHER Jedi who are being too political."

We all know that Filoni likes to try to promote Ahsoka as "better than the other Jedi," it's a reoccurring theme at this point and one that shows up for the first time in season 7 (chronologically at least, it would've shown up first in Rebels actually but it was slightly more subtle then. Slightly). So when Trace and Rafa bring out their sob story and then seem to blame the Jedi for what happened to their family more than, you know, the CRIMINAL WHO BROKE OUT OF PRISON IN THE FIRST PLACE, and the moral of the story at the end of both this arc and continuing into the Siege of Mandalore seems to be that the Jedi have "lost their way" because they no longer really care about the little people in the face of the war.

I think you're right that there's a germ of a good storyline here about how Palpatine's manipulations are working on the regular citizens, but the issue with this is that in order for that to be the story, the story needs to reinforce that what Trace and Rafa feel about the Jedi is WRONG, that the information they think they have is WRONG. But what we really get by the end of the arc is that they're RIGHT, the Jedi HAVE lost their way, and it's ONLY Ahsoka who realizes that and understands the true meaning of being a Jedi.

This continues into the Siege of Mandalore arc when she accuses Obi-Wan (and the Council and the rest of the Order through him) of being too political when they refuse to supply her with an army on a whim. She claims she's "not being fair" which should be an indictment against her entire argument, but it doesn't really feel like it is. It feels like we're supposed to be cheering her on, like "yeah, that's right, Ahsoka, you don't HAVE to be fair because the Jedi aren't being fair!" The Jedi no longer care about the little people and THAT'S why they won't help Bo-Katan take back Mandalore, they ONLY care about the elite in the Core and THAT'S why they prioritize Coruscant.

The issue with this entire theme is how contradictory it is across all of season 7. They claim that the Jedi only care about the elite of Coruscant when they choose to prioritize it except that the entire last arc was about the little people of Coruscant being abandoned by the Jedi in favor of going out to help other planets affected by the war. And the claim is also made in this episode that the Jedi SPECIFICALLY only care about the Chancellor's life, but then Ahsoka advocates for prioritizing Palpatine later because he's Anakin's friend or something like that. So what are we supposed to understand? That protecting Coruscant is only about helping the little people who live there when it's Ahsoka doing it? That defending and protecting Palpatine is only righteous and not about politics when it's Ahsoka doing it?

And THIS is where we get back to Filoni lifting Ahsoka up as better than all of the other Jedi. Ahsoka gets to get away with shit that no other Jedi is ever allowed to get away with. Ahsoka can be contradictory and hypocritical because she has to be right all the time no matter what the situation is because she's Ahsoka and better than everyone else. Specifically, obviously, better than all those other dumb Jedi in the Prequels Jedi Order.

I've seen people try to give benefit of the doubt to this season and claim that Ahsoka being contradictory and hypocritical is the point, that Ahsoka is still young and struggling with her feelings about the Wrong Jedi arc and figuring out who to trust, how to trust herself, and so she's being unfair on purpose and making mistakes, etc etc. And I understand that theory, but I just can't share it because at no point in either arc does it feel like I'm supposed to understand that Ahsoka is WRONG. I'd love for that to have been the story, because honestly I think there's a lot of merit to finally giving Ahsoka flaws again via the Wrong Jedi arc, showing how it's really impacted her and how much she still struggles with it and how it makes her unfair and unkind and lacking in compassion and understanding sometimes when it comes to the Jedi. That it's not necessarily the JEDI who've lost their way, but AHSOKA. If we stayed with the path that the Wrong Jedi left us on of Ahsoka saying that the person she no longer trusts is actually HERSELF, not the Jedi, that could've been great! But season 7 turns around and says "actually no, she just straight-up no longer trusts the Jedi completely but totally trusts herself just fine."

I don't HATE season 7, there's plenty I like about it, and I honestly do like Trace and Rafa and their arc (which seems to be a minority position), but it's also got a lot of things I dislike about it and it'll NEVER be within my most favorite seasons of TCW, honestly.

[blorbosexterminator]

I believe a lot of fanfic writers would be massively disappointed if they were to try and publish their fanfics (having changed the most identifying characteristics to present it as original work). bc one of the reasons why we never say anything when someone's writing is full of spelling mistakes or bad grammar or, imo the most serious flaws - plots, characters, the low quality of the story itself, the themes, the subtext, the deeper meaning, etc - the reason, besides the whole participating in fandom communities and the fact it's free, is that we easily overlook some of those things because we get to read more about the characters we already love. I know my ff standards are fairly low. and who hasn't found themselves in a situation where they've read through everything they initially wanted to read and then started reading even the fics they first disregarded bc they can't get enough of their otp. do you know how many times I've scrolled past some especially cringy parts of fanfics, but I still love them. when you publish it, you immediately lose that aspect and most reviewers and readers won't be particularly generous. I just think publishing ff has a very high chance of being a mistake, and if publishing houses are approaching ff writers, I don't think they're looking for high quality and I wonder how much they'd invest in serious editing. IMO those who write ff and want to be published should consider working on an original piece of work, or at least reworking their ff significantly. thanks for reading through my message.

Again, I can't say I disagree at all. Fanfiction doesn't hold a grasp in all of those aspects you mentioned against actual published books [and of course nothing at all against the few of those books we would actually dare to call literature] and we allow it and are fine with it, not just because it's free and about the community and about the basic delight in sharing more of the characters we care about, but because none of those things are the primarily function of fanfiction. You don't judge Ikea and an apartment you're going to rent in the same mannar. Ikea isn't a house. At least to me, fanfiction is only about the source material. If there is a fic that has a well-thought out plot and decent prose, but the characters are mischaracterized and/or the dynamics are inherently misunderstood, then it still fails at being a good fic to me. Because, simply, if what I'm looking for is a good plot and decent prose, then I'll just pick any, even a mediocre, book [and it'll be better than said fic]. So not only does fanfiction fail by large at competing in those elements, in the average ratio of good to bad fics, it's also the fact that even a good fic that does all of those things decently still won't hold a chance against an actual good book.

It's the same from a writing's perspective too. It's not exactly about effort but what sort of effort it is. If I feel like it, I can just post a fic because I want it out without spending millenia editing it. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But the point is, with fanfic I have the choice and it won't matter. And it's not just about the editing, the grammar, etc.

Anyway, yeah. They aren't looking for quality. It's still a capitalisic endeavor. Bad books, unfortunately, do sell. Fifty Shades of Grey made millions to an average fanfic writer. Doesn't make it a good book [and I doubt even a good fic before that]. And it's understandable with this current twitter and tiktok book market; honestly the things twitter authors write and tiktokers promote aren't at all that much better than fanfics. They are well aware of what makes them money, and if they're pursuing ao3 writers then they know the money they'll put in editing, they will get back tenfold. But if anyone thinks that's a win for fanfiction, they are mistaken. It's just an insane downgrade in published literature. And dare I say [while risking sounding like a Harold Bloom-like boomer] it's an insane downgrade in the generation/public's reading taste.

[iamanartichoke]

(Posting this as its own meta post bc I keep thinking about it and, idk, just some food for thought. [Originally posted as a response to an ask meme here.])

Loki: Hero, Antihero, or Villain? 

Honestly, none of them.

Loki is very much not the hero. Which is a complicated statement to make bc Loki does have a lot of the qualities that make a traditional hero (such as bravery, courage, etc), which make it all the more frustrating how many people dismiss him as just being evil. He’s not evil, but he’s not motivated by a noble need to do the right thing, either.

He’s a sympathetic character, in that he’s not malicious or cruel. He doesn’t do bad things for the sake of it, but he still does do bad things. He’s very intrinsically motivated, which gives a deeper context to his misdeeds but also colors his good deeds, too. He usually isn’t doing the good deed for pure, noble reasons. I think that Loki’s nature doesn’t really allow him to have too many of those “I just have an urge to do the right thing” moments; the way his mind works, I feel like he’s constantly weighing every angle and may often be acting from a place of “how can I make this work for me” even when he’s doing something that is, objectively, heroic.

But Loki is not a villain, either, and I don’t think I have to get too far into an explanation of why. He just isn’t.

I feel like, then, there’s a tendency to say, okay, well Loki isn’t the hero but he’s not a villain either so he must be an antihero, but to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that’s accurate. The prefix “anti” literally means being opposed to or against something; in order to be an antihero, one must be opposed to and in objection of the things that make one a hero (such as bravery, selflessness, a strong moral compass). Loki is not opposed to those heroic traits; he possesses a lot of them himself, in fact.

That said, a lot of arguably good characters are the antiheroes because they’re doing their shitty things for the greater good. They’re willing to cross boundaries and may tend to be morally gray. The villain has no qualms about doing awful things, bc they’re often cruelly motivated; they either start out as morally bankrupt or get twisted that way somewhere during the journey.

The antihero, on the other hand, has qualms about doing awful things but will do them anyway bc the ends justify the means; to them, if they need to get their hands dirty on the way to accomplishing some larger goal, then they will. I think in this sense, Loki’s actions in Thor 1 - in letting the Jotuns into Asgard to prevent Thor’s coronation - are the actions of an antihero, but I think he generally shifts away from that “the ends justify the means” mentality after he falls. If that makes sense.

So I think that, like the hero, Loki embodies some antihero traits but isn’t actually an antihero character.

I think that the best way I can frame Loki is simply that of a foil to Thor. This is part of why their relationship is such an important part of their character developments - they’re foils to one another, really. They’re literally night and day:

Thor does things for the noble reason, out of the need to do the right thing; Loki does things for any number of reasons, and rarely are they particularly noble.

Thor outwardly and loudly embodies everything that an Asgardian warrior should be; Loki’s ferocity as a warrior is much more subtle, graceful, and fluid.

Thor  is very idealistic, whereas Loki tends to be more cynical.

Similarly, Thor is optimistic and pretty naive, whereas Loki is pessimistic and untrusting. While Thor kinda takes things as face value and accepts the narratives he’s handed (Odin as a hero, Asgard as the protector of realms, etc) Loki’s general inquizitive nature in addition to often being distrusted himself lends itself to a natural tendency to dig deeper and ask questions.

In my opinion, neither of them is better than the other; Thor’s qualities aren’t inherently “good” any more than Loki’s qualities are inherently “bad.” They’re just opposites and it’s why they work so well together.

Unfortunately, in a hero vs. villain story, the nuances of the foil relationship are sacrificed for a much more black-and-white view, and that’s why we are where we are in regards to Loki.

I don’t know if I’m explaining this particularly well ... but yeah; to me, Loki is neither a hero nor a villain nor an antihero, he’s basically Thor’s foil but he’s also just Loki.

[a-room-of-my-own]

Random thought but all you need to know about Americans is that if you look for books on Asian history on Amazon, the first 20 results are all about, like, the Korean War and stuff.

The US are not that special. Something that really strikes me as very American, is American exceptionalism, the conviction Americans have that their country is inherently different. Most of the time it's about the country's qualities, but when Americans are depressed, because of an economic crisis or maybe just the crushing realization that maybe their country is Not That Great™ (just like any other) it turns into America is the absolute worst and no one understands how bad it is.

Well it's not worst, and it's certainly much better, than in many other countries. Of course, what we call in french "le roman national" - the national storytelling, the way you teach your country's history to match a certain ideal of what it should be - is very important in the US and has many blind angles. But in France too, our history isn't just made of grandeur, and it's fine.

Both attitudes - "everything is perfect" and "everything is terrible" - are sterile because none will bring change. What a country needs is shared ideals, it's the conviction that it can evolve, that it can be better. And both of these opinions pave the way for false prophets that will either promise to bring back an idealized past that never existed, or to destroy everything to build a purer future, and history has showed us many times where these ideas lead.

Anyway I'm sorry for writing an essay under a simple post, but you know, law of proximity. People are primarily interested in what's close to them, and algorithms reinforce that instinct. It's not specifically American.