#authorial intent is not the end-all

[allidopas]

when engaging with fanwork i usually prioritize those that align with canon. at the same time im like. damn who am i, augustine of hippo? and then my next thought is, yeah im reaching my pretentious lit student phase

[theramblergal]

A random thought on accessibility in the Mahabharata fandom. I know a lot of us like to say that the BORI CE is the ultimate version against which all fanfiction/ideas/thoughts measure up to.

But then again, it's a 6000 page document. It's 1.8 million words.

If you can find the time and patience to read through such a long document, kudos to you.

But if you can't, it's okay. Sure, the BORI is the golden standard, but it's not the end-all, be-all. The Mahabharata is more than just itihaasa, it is the culture of us Indians. It is a tale from which we are meant to taken inspiration, interpret it and apply them in our lives.

It's okay if your interpretation doesn't match up with what the original characters are. (And it might be controversial for me to say it, but I feel like it has to be said.) So much time has passed that we are never truly going to know what these characters were originally like.

Besides, one of the main qualities of literature is critical reading. Everyone's viewpoint differs; the way you read one person's actions might not be the same as another's. That's what makes it so appealing.

It's okay if you haven't read the original texts. Just as it's okay if you have, and believe the original interpretations are true to you.

[littleshopofhorrors-confessions]

People who actively dislike the show ending make me doubt their commitment to sparkle motion (anti-consumerist/anti-killing people for personal gain alien plant metaphors)

---

[aq2003]

series 3 is so frustrating because there is like a shining core of pure diamond underneath the problems . like conceptually it rocks so incredibly hard. but the problems

[lafcadiosadventures]

Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew->Proust’s Against Sainte-Beuve-> Barthes’ The Death of the Author

[inbarfink]

Okay, so I’ve seen some Ace Attorney Fans speculate that the screwdriver featured as a minor piece of evidence in ‘Rise from the Ashes’

Is actually the same screwdriver as the one that was a major plot-point back in ‘Turnabout Sisters’. 

Because, well, they look pretty much the same and also it is mentioned the screwdriver is from one of Miles’ previous cases… and Miles was the Prosecutor on ‘Turnabout Sisters’. Plus, it would explain why he’s so cagey about explaining it to Phoenix during RFTA. Obviously he wouldn’t want to bring this case up in front of Wright again.

And, well, the thing is that all of these explanations do make sense and do make it sound like this was the authorial intent, but….. There is one thing that bothers me. 

The whole Thing with the RFTA Screwdriver is that Miles got it from the Evidence Room where the crime took place. And that Evidence Room is specifically mentioned to be a special one reserved for especially violent crimes involving members of law enforcement.

And this doesn't apply to the 'Turnabout Sisters' case but.... feels like it’s meant to be the Turnabout Sisters Screwdriver, y’know? 

So, actually, you know what I think?

Well, after an Ace Attorney trial concludes and we find the real culprit and our defendant gets the ‘Not-Guilty’ verdict… it’s not like the Real Culprit gets Immediately Sent to Jail. They get their own off-screen trial to determine their guilt officially (as we saw briefly with Luke Atmey’s grand larceny trial in ‘The Stolen Turnabout’). 

So I think that after the story of ‘Turnabout Sisters’ ended for Phoenix and Maya and us the players, Miles Edgeworth also took it upon himself to be the one to prosecute in Redd White’s own trial. Either as a way to ‘double-check’ all that Phoenix has proven in his own trial, or as atonement for almost getting this guy off-the-hook in the first place, or because it’s pretty clear that Miles is one person that Redd doesn’t have specific dirt on, or probably because of some combination of the three. 

This case against Redd White is the AI-16 Incident that is labeled on the Screwdriver, and it covers all of the charges that have been put against White - not just Mia’s murder and the wiretapping of her law office but also his empire of blackmail. That we know have involved high-ranking members of the police, some of which have been driven to suicide by White.

As such, this will qualify the Screwdriver to be placed in the Special Evidence Vault for Dead Cop Cases, while still maintaining the connection to ‘Turnabout Sisters’!

[too-fond-to-be-fearful]

Been thinking recently about the goings-on with Duolingo & AI, and I do want to throw my two cents in, actually.

There are ways in which computers can help us with languages, certainly. They absolutely should not be the be-all and end-all, and particularly for any sort of professional work I am wholly in favour of actually employing qualified translators & interpreters, because there's a lot of important nuances to language and translation (e.g. context, ambiguity, implied meaning, authorial intent, target audience, etc.) that a computer generally does not handle well. But translation software has made casual communication across language barriers accessible to the average person, and that's something that is incredibly valuable to have, I think.

Duolingo, however, is not translation software. Duolingo's purpose is to teach languages. And I do not think you can be effectively taught a language by something that does not understand it itself; or rather, that does not go about comprehending and producing language in the way that a person would.

Whilst a language model might be able to use probability & statistics to put together an output that is grammatically correct and contextually appropriate, it lacks an understanding of why, beyond "statistically speaking, this element is likely to come next". There is no communicative intent behind the output it produces; its only goal is mimicking the input it has been trained on. And whilst that can produce some very natural-seeming output, it does not capture the reality of language use in the real world.

Because language is not just a set of probabilities - there are an infinite array of other factors at play. And we do not set out only to mimic what we have seen or heard; we intend to communicate with the wider world, using the tools we have available, and that might require deviating from the realm of the expected.

Often, the most probable output is not actually what you're likely to encounter in practice. Ungrammatical or contextually inappropriate utterances can be used for dramatic or humorous effect, for example; or nonstandard linguistic styles may be used to indicate one's relationship to the community those styles are associated with. Social and cultural context might be needed to understand a reference, or a linguistic feature might seem extraneous or confusing when removed from its original environment.

To put it briefly, even without knowing exactly how the human brain processes and produces language (which we certainly don't), it's readily apparent that boiling it down to a statistical model is entirely misrepresentative of the reality of language.

And thus a statistical model is unlikely to be able to comprehend and assist with many of the difficulties of learning a language.

A statistical model might identify that a learner misuses some vocabulary more often than others; what it may not notice is that the vocabulary in question are similar in form, or in their meaning in translation. It might register that you consistently struggle with a particular grammar form; but not identify that the root cause of the struggle is that a comparable grammatical structure in your native language is either radically different or nonexistent. It might note that you have trouble recalling a common saying, but not that you lack the cultural background needed to understand why it has that meaning. And so it can identify points of weakness; but it is incapable of addressing them effectively, because it does not understand how people think.

This is all without considering the consequences of only having a singular source of very formal, very rigid input to learn from, unable to account for linguistic variation due to social factors. Without considering the errors still apparent in the output of most language models, and the biases they are prone to reproducing. Without considering the source of their data, and the ethical considerations regarding where and how such a substantial sample was collected.

I understand that Duolingo wants to introduce more interactivity and adaptability to their courses (and, I suspect, to improve their bottom line). But I genuinely think that going about it in this way is more likely to hinder than to help, and wrongfully prioritises the convenience of AI over the quality and expertise that their existing translators and course designers bring.

[angelsdean]

Honestly I hate that every meta post / analysis / discussion is viewed as "discourse" more often than not. And the idea that one interpretation MUST reign supreme among fandom. That we must all agree in order to get along. Or that one post is the end all be all of someone's takes. As someone who often enjoys entertaining multiple / contradictory takes and angles of interpretation it's...annoying. My opinions also evolve and fluctuate on rewatches / depending on mood / depending on fandom climate at the time / etc.

I like having discussions with friends (sometimes those discussions are public, sometimes they're not). I like trying to see their POV. Sometimes I come away seeing things differently. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I AM more critical of other characters in the moment. Sometimes I give them more grace. Sometimes I'll make a post in a rewatch, feeling big feelings, and then come back later to amend it, with a more balanced perspective. But there have been times when I have been blocked / unfollowed for one angle or take and that ends up not even being my MAIN mode of interpretation but just something I was rotating around. idk sometimes a post is not the end all be all of what someone thinks abt a character / plot point / story arc. Sometimes we can be critical without being a capital H hater. There is room for nuance. multitudes. contradiction. We can have preferences or think something was not portrayed as well as it could have been. We can be annoyed by those things and talk abt them. I also do not need to agree with every single take my mutuals and pals have. Sometimes I heavily diverge, and that's ok! I think having different viewpoints and candid discussions is often beneficial to fandom. But these discussions are not all "discourse" or "fandom fighting." Sometimes people just have different opinions or interpretations. Sometimes what looks like "discourse" is actually just fandom friends discussing differing viewpoints.

As someone who also likes arguing a thesis and citing sources to support an argument and doing analysis and literary interpretation, I can say that even for takes I don't necessarily agree with, effective arguments can be made for that interpretation and supported by canon evidence. I think that's why "open to interpretation" often chafes at some fans. Because it means multiple interpretations CAN exist and be effectively argued. Mine and yours. There is no one singular ultimate truth in literary interpretation. Not even authorial intent. That's the beauty and fun of media analysis IMO. We can each find different meaning from the same source material and diverge. I may continue to argue for my interpretation (in the academic sense of "arguing a thesis") because that's the position I've chosen to align with, but that doesn't mean I think it's the only one you CAN have. And no, not all interpretations are created equal or are argued in good faith. Some ARE more valid than others and better argued / supported. And sometimes an interpretation is only one of many a person can have.

Overall, I don't like the idea that fandom needs to be a hive mind, and that we all MUST have the same opinions or interpretations or come away from the show feelings the same way or else it's "ruining the fandom fun." Sometimes I staunchly disagree with people, especially when takes are rooted in bad faith fanon more than anything that actually transpired on screen. I won't play nice with people that are just Making Up Some Guy to be mad and insisting I must also hate that guy, who doesn't exist. But I can and do have discussions with friends and mutuals where we interpret canon events differently! And I value those other perspectives. They challenge me to question my own viewpoint, to interrogate my takes, to check myself when I get too rooted in Only One Way of thinking. I don't want there to only be one way of interpreting. And sometimes even I will contradict myself and explore other avenues, for the fun of it.

and before THIS post gets interpreted as discourse I would like to issue the disclaimer: that this isn't directed at any individual blogger or any specific post. do not go after anyone. this is just some general thoughts and feelings I've been having about fandom for a LONG time.

[narutouzumakiarchive]

https://x.com/sasusakutruther/status/1775968313656713359?s=46

I will never understand why that fandom wants those damn novels to be canon so bad. Do they realize that it makes their ship look incredibly corny or?😭

They want the novels to be canon because they're the only things that substantiate their ship, and a corny retconned novel is much better than the pitiful lovelessness that Kishimoto portrayed in Gaiden.

It is quite funny to see them reveal that the absurdity that undergirds their notion of canonicity is the same ridiculousness that's present in their shipping dynamic though.

SS always use their bastardized understanding of authorial intent as a shield ("Sasuke and Sakura are canon because Kishimoto made ot like that so they are a good ship") while easily disregarding it when it suits them, which is pretty much all the time, by encroaching on Naruto/Sasuke's narrative since SS is completely devoid of meaningful content.

Let's take this particular user as a small case study and compare the fanon that they peddle from extracanon material to Kishimoto's actual work.

Their fanon: Sakura is Sasuke's "spring sun" according to Hiden.

The actual canon: Kishimoto made Naruto Sasuke's sun and it's supposed to be equivalent to how Team 7, but Iruka and Sasuke especially saved Naruto from the darkness of loneliness and questioning his existence. They have a beautiful, mutual and reciprocal dynamic.

Their fanon: Sakura is Sasuke's "pink." Something that signifies love, protection, and loving someone to the point that it hurts.

This is particularly funny. SS fans having to make up symbolism because SS was never given any in the actual narrative. Said symbolism being taken from Urban Dictionary, a notoriously unreliable website used for trolling. The non canon art they had to use because the Gaiden equivalent was embarassing and Sasuke looked miserable. Them using a definition that would enable a subtle dig at Naruto ("stronger than being someone's yellow" — gee I wonder who that's about) because they're resentful of Naruto and Sasuke's bond.

Now let's look at the canon: It is Naruto, who is explicitly associated with Sasuke's sharingan of love on multiple occasions, not Sakura.

Made even worse by the fact that Kishimoto could have easily thrown a sharingan transformation Sakura's way since Naruto would have already had a sharingan transformation and still been associated with the mangekyō sharingan anyway; Sasuke and Sakura's moment before Sasuke left the village would have been the perfect moment to do so. Yet, Sasuke could only think of Sakura as a comrade, even after she individuated him and stated that even though she had friends and family she would still feel alone if he left. Then Kishimoto replicated the same scenario of Naruto confessing the weight of his his feelings and intentionally made Sasuke be extremely moved to the point of evolving his sharingan and repeating Sakura's words to Naruto.

This brings me to my next point. Sasuke cared about Sakura as a comrade. He felt pain for her as a comrade. But there is a reason why Naruto is textually/visually isolated when the topic of pain comes up.

And that is because once Sasuke left and that comradeship with Team 7 ended, it was only Naruto who he retained his care for and feelings of pain for, to the point that it hurt, because it is only Naruto who held importance for Sasuke outside of Team 7.

There are panels upon panels of Sasuke experiencing pain for Naruto, getting angry at seeing Naruto emotionally despair, and all around being associated with feelings of pain regarding Naruto. Naruto and Sasuke's entire resolution in 698 hinges on their shared feelings of pain. If being someone's pink is stronger than being someone's yellow, where is the Sasuke and Sakura dynamic associated with a shared pain in the narrative? There is not one mention of Sakura because Sasuke cannot individuate as her an individual entity and reflect on her importance to him, because she isn't.

Now compare that to Sasuke not caring enough to save Sakura from being blown up during the 10 tails bomb that was going to obliterate the shinobi alliance or even expressing any concern for her, being okay with using Sakura as bait to get to Madara and not expressing any concern when she was distraught, putting her in a crueler genjutsu than he put the tailed beasts in, and more. I mean it's not even a competition.

And this isn't even including this user's other greatest hits like, "Sasuke was smiling at Sakura here" while showing a picture of Sasuke saying "usuratonkachi," you know, the nickname specifically reserved for Naruto Uzumaki alone.

I limited my post to this user but this behavior is reflective of how SS shippers act as a whole. Their version of sasusaku is not the ship as presented in Kishimoto's writing, but a smorgasbord of things from filler, databooks, merchandise art, fanart, statements from people who aren't Kishimoto, Naruto and Sasuke's canon dynamic, and of course, novels copy pasted onto characters that only resemble Sasuke and Sakura in likeness. There's no use in expecting sensibility from them.

[batbeato]

having watched I Saw the TV Glow recently, I'm... not sure people understand how much of it is metaphor.

like, yes. Owen is literally trans because Owen is literally Isabel. but the Midnight Realm is a metaphor for cissexual society; the Midnight Realm is not real because cissexual society is constructed on the false premises of patriarchy and white supremacy and so on, such as the false gender binary that Owen faces in the movie: men like women, The Pink Opaque is for girls, etc.

similarly, The Pink Opaque is a metaphor for queerness and the queer community, which is seen as false and artificial by cissexual society and does not conform to the 'rules' created by it (for example, the fantasy/magic elements). even there, however, the threat of the cissexual society is present in Mr. Melancholy, whose plan to use the hearts of 100 awkward kids connects back to how cissexual society abuses and makes use of any who don't fit in. Isabel and Tara's hearts being in an industrial freezer reflects the large-scale societal nature of their oppression.

the need to kill their Midnight Realm selves is because their queer selves have already been killed. in this metaphorical murder of their false cissexual identities they are able to be reborn as their true selves. all identities conferred upon people in cissexual society are based on false presumptions and enforcement of gender and sex binaries. the coffin is not meant to reflect actual suicide. leaving cissexual society and embracing your true self is as "crazy" as suicide. and, of course, when people come out as queer, their families may mourn their false cissexual identities rather than acknowledging their living family.

the ending of the movie is about looking at what's inside you and then still needing to apologize for it. not because Owen will never transition but because it is a slow process that takes a long time. also note how Owen mentions trying a new medication - still insisting on a pathological wrongness. the director went over the ending in interviews as well. not that authorial intent is everything, but this is a movie clearly shaped by it in every detail.

there's more I don't really see people talk about. exchanging the old TV for the new, and specifically showing it being LG, shows the swap of the real for the artificial and glossy. the arcade has Mr. Melancholy theming to reflect how society makes light of oppression and turns it into a simplified narrative where the oppression is already over, and then commercializes it. the birthday party has a shot of the "Boy" on the hat, further showing how it is a gendered event that reinforces the horror of the Midnight Realm. the fact that Tara leaving her heart behind with Isabel's is because we are not free until we are all free.

[deramin2]

The most important thing to me about Critical Role: Downfall is that it did not actually give an authorial intent answer to "Are the gods good or evil?" Or "Did Aeor deserve to be destroyed?" The audience is certainly giving their opinions, but the story itself is not, which really allowed Bell's Hells' opinion to be organic.

The gods are at their core intelligent creatures uncomfortably thrust into reality through traumatic origins and are trying to survive along with their family.

The Aeorans are at their core intelligent creatures uncomfortably thrust into reality through traumatic origins and are trying to survive along with their family.

They both do incredibly destructive and horrific things to keep surviving at all costs. They are fundamentally not that different. Even those among gods and mortals that operate from a place of compassion do horrible things through that compassion in the name of protection.

The main difference between the gods and mortals is the scale they operate on. How long they live, how expansive their beings are, how much power they can access, etc. This is the same difference a human and an ant have. Should humans die for violently repelling ant infestations because it's a genocide from the perspective of the ants?

Are the gods helpful or harmful? Is a wildfire helpful or harmful? They simply are. They are beings that exist and through existing shape the world, and sometimes that's very helpful and sometimes it's very harmful and often whether it's helpful or harmful depends on perspective.

If you try to live without the destruction of fire in a fire ecology, you mostly end up with core native species struggling to survive (because fires aren't clearing debris, sprouting seeds, and controlling populations) plus bigger and more destructive fires. Exandria as mortals know it are a god-based ecology. Even the Primordials before the Pantheon were basically god ecology. There is no definitive answer to what Exandria would be like without the gods. It would simply be different.

[marmota-b]

Glitch IS meant to be Force sensitive, here's why

Clone Trooper Glitch Who Is Definitely Force Sensitive.

As far as I can tell, everyone has fallen in love with that idea and everyone is now saying "Glitch is Force sensitive and you can't convince me otherwise."

Listen, what if I can actually convince you he is, with literary analysis?

I don't think I've ever seen this particular angle discussed (not that I have looked too hard, but no one ever brings it up when talking about Glitch). Everyone just loves the idea that he's Force sensitive because it's a lovely / exciting idea. And, okay, it's never stated outright in the source material, so there's some room for doubt. (And it was obviously intentionally left open-ended.)

BUT

I think the subtext, for those who know what it is, is so thick it might as well be an open admission of authorial intent. You see, Glitch's comic, Defenders of the Lost Temple, is drawing heavily on the Knights of the Old Republic comics in its lore. The Gauntlet they're sent to recover comes from that series. The moon where it resides is named after one of the characters from the series and likely is the moon he moved to at the end of his arc, and there's a statue of him there. There are all these deliberate, easily proven links to the series.

And there's also the less direct but still present parallel of questioning whether Jedi should be fighting in a war at all - Knights of the Old Republic (comics) takes place at the beginning of the Mandalorian Wars when some Jedi went to fight and others argued that wasn't their place, and some people get caught in the conflict without ever wanting to. That's a more dubious connection, and may not have been deliberate, but...

That is - the writer knew what he was doing here, in relation to previously published material.

The main protagonist of that series is Zayne Carrick.

Zayne is a sort of off-beat Jedi (well, almost-Jedi). He is just about Force sensitive enough to be admitted to the Jedi Order. He has "a special relationship with the Force." His special relationship with the Force mainly manifests in him being very clumsy and having the worst sort of luck. No one really thinks he'll make it as a Jedi. His own fellow padawan friends don't think he'll make it as a Jedi. But he's so good and caring and trying. And in the long run, he learns to work with his bad luck, and it turns out it's not so much a bad luck as the Force working... as a sort of swing, around him, with a balance of good and bad events. Things rarely work out as expected, but he learns to expect the unexpected. And once he does, and learns to ride the waves instead of trying to swim against the current, it actually works mainly in the heroes' favour.

Does that remind you of anyone?

Yep.

I'm pretty sure Glitch is a deliberate callback to Zayne Carrick and his special relationship with the Force.

I don't know if he started out that way from the start, or if the idea of "what if a clone was Force sensitive" came first and this theme just slotted into place later (honestly, the latter is probably likelier). But it's undeniably there; with all the other references to KOTOR, it's unlikely the author would have missed the main protagonist's character arc re: Force sensitivity.

Glitch has a special relationship with the Force exactly like Zayne's. He just has, unlike Zayne, also the bad luck of never having been tested for Force sensitivity. (This is all EU/Legends. Don't expect New Canon to stick to any of the above.)

[shin--soukoku]

i've seen a lot of debates and arguments about the recent asagiri interview, specifically in regards to skk — so i just wanted to quickly make a post saying that no, asagiri is not trying to get a "one up" on shippers, or discourage people from shipping skk.

the quote being called into question in particular is this one:

here's the thing, however.

this is not meant to be about soukoku.

the focus is about, well, how they're not the focus.

asagiri is expressing frustration over being made to focus more and more on skk rather than kunikida and dazai. they are not the focus.

the point of this is that it is not up to asagiri to elaborate and focus on the skk dynamic, as they are not the focus, nor who he wants to focus on.

he even encourages fan works! a lot of this quote is being taken very out of context!! just before this quote, asagiri says this:

dazai's feelings are not simple and easy to understand. obviously saying that he only hates chuuya and nothing else is an exaggeration. asagiri does not want to focus on them, but is being pressured into doing so by his producer. that's the reason behind the frustration.

in fact, asagiri says at another point during this interview that he wants to leave his work up to fan interpretation!

asagiri's words are not the end all be all. he is not anti-skk or against shippers. you are free to continue shipping skk (as i myself will continue to do!!!), there is nothing wrong with that.

bsd as a story is not a love story. romance is not the focus. skk is not the focus. but it's okay if your fanworks are. that is the point of fanworks. have fun with it!!! this interview is not the end of the world.

even so, death of the author is a thing — whilst authorial intent is important to understand and recognize, you should not kill your own interpretation of the media in question just because the author told you to do so.

i'd encourage you to read the post for yourself, in fact, and make your own conclusions:

[nuttersincorporated]

Mickey Mouse does not need your protection

Since Mickey Mouse became public domain, I’ve seen some really wild takes and misinformation going around. Yes, Mickey Mouse is public domain. No, you do not need to protect him. It’s fine if people other than Disney make Mickey Mouse stuff, even if you don’t like the things that are made.

You are not protecting Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse is not real. Even if he was, you STILL wouldn’t be protecting him. You’re just sticking up for a megacorporation. Disney has more money and resources than you will ever have and they horde them. You shouldn’t be trying to help them do it.

Disney is a company that loves using public domain properties to make things. They have just tried their absolute hardest to make sure that nobody else could do the same thing. If you think Mickey Mouse should only be used by Disney, you should be upset that Disney made money off public domain stories like Snow White and Rapunzel.

What about things like Winnie the Pooh? Disney didn’t come up with him but they were happy to make money off him. They bought the rights to him and then didn’t share.

‘Ah!’ I hear you say. ‘But Winnie the Pooh actually helps prove our point! When Disney – that poor poor super rich company that should be protected – lost the exclusive rights, a Winnie the Pooh horror movie was made! That’s not in the spirit of the original character!’

Firstly, you can just ignore that movie if you want. I did. Nobody is making you watch it. You are responsible for your own media consumption.

Secondly, there are nice Winnie the Pooh stories out there that aren’t by Disney or the original author. The Pooh books by Jane Riordan are lovely. Her stories are much more in the spirit of the original character than a lot of the Disney comics were.

This is an official Disney comic with Winnie the Pooh

This is a picture from one of Jane Riordan’s Winnie the Pooh books

One of them is sweet, kind and in the spirit of the original character. The other is Disney owned and approved.

What would the original author A.A. Milne think of the different adaptions and new works? Well, we don’t know because, at the end of the month, he’ll have been dead for 68 years. However, I can quote one of the original Pooh books about sharing,

And really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.

Thirdly, Disney does not respect authorial intent.

PL Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, did not want Disney to make a movie based on her work. She got coerced into letting them make one. She hated the movie and refused to let them make any more.

What happened after she’d died, the ban on them making more Mary Poppies movies ran out and they got their hands on the rights? They made a sequel.

I think you should be more upset that Disney went against the direct wishes of an author than the fact regular people can now use a character that megacorporation uses. PL Travers was a person. Disney is a company. There is a difference.

I love the original Mary Poppins movie. I don’t care about or like the sequel. However, PL Travers died in 1996. People should be able to use the character now, no matter how you or I feel about those newer stories. Again, you can just ignore them if you want.

The original stories are still there.

Royalties are different to public domain. The profits from PL Travers original books go to her descendants and the Cherry Tree Foundation. They will continue to go there for 80 years after her death and then the royalties will be shared out among any decedents who are alive at that time. The money from those books will continue to go there, no matter what new stories with Mary Poppins get made.

You all seem okay with Disney making money off public domain stories and buying the rights to other stories. Why can't you extend that right to other people?

No one has stolen Mickey from Disney. Disney can and will continue to make money off him. All that’s change is that other people can now do that too.

[it-lives-within-the-dark]

I really do love SBCL and I really feel like when you read the manga it SO blatantly in your face…but when I read Yana’s old blog it seems like she’s so dead set against Sebastian and Ciel caring for each other at all…that it’s like does she even see what she writers or and I just delulu… or are antis just cherry picking what they translate 😭😭

Hey Nonny!

Short answer:

I'm not familiar enough with Yana's old blog to make any judgements on what her intentions/feelings are for her story and characters based on her posts (not to mention, it's old - people can change their minds).

Long answer:

I go back and forth when it comes to authorial intent and death of the author. I've literally been on both sides of the issue. As a fan, it's easy to say that what the author intended doesn't matter and that my interpretation of their work is 100% valid, even if it's the complete opposite of what the author intended. On the other hand, I've been in the author's shoes. I took a creative writing class in college where one of our assignments was to write a short story and then the class would discuss it. Simple, right? Easy. Except I wasn't allowed to speak the entire time my work was being discussed. I had to bite my tongue for forty minutes while my classmates completely butchered my story, listen to them miss the main theme completely, focus on a random detail that meant nothing, and walk away at the end of class not understanding anything I tried to convey in my work. I never got to explain what it actually meant; all the little clues and details that they missed - nothing. And it sucked. A lot. But at the end of the day there was nothing I could do about it.

All that to say, I think it's up to you to determine what holds more importance: what Yana says in her old posts (keeping in mind the context in which those remarks were made - what year did she make those comments, and where does that line up in the publishing of the manga? - are you taking into consideration that she is a public figure and that she might need to watch her words so that she doesn't jeopardize her job? etc.), or how you personally interpret the work.

I also think it's important to keep in mind that there can be (and is) a difference in what you, the fan, want to see happen, and what you want to actually happen in canon. There's a tumblr post floating around that discusses this topic but I don't have it handy.

Sorry this was all a bit rambly!

[shigayokagayama]

The Beach Omake And Authorial Intent

initially i was going to save this for a big teru analysis i had cooking however i eventually ended up deciding that it would feel like a really long tangent in its original context and probably deserves a separate post.

when it comes to the whole "teru's parents" thing i generally see two competing ideas on it

a. terus absent parents are the real villains of mob psycho and are the direct cause of everything wrong with his life and any and all teru analysis must center around this fact

b. terus parents being absent in the first place is only revealed in an omake and only exists for plot convenience and is not something that should be focused on at all when writing him

and whenever i see either of these my mind always drifts to the question of authorial intent. i know how people are reading this information, but how are we supposed to? i know death of the author is becoming more of a common thing in fandom spaces (albeit usually misused) but i feel like a better understanding of why this omake exists and how we're supposed to read it might help to better synthesize two takes that seems to be completely at odds with each other.

okay first i want to go over the actual placement of the beach omake in the update schedule of the manga because, unlike most other omakes, i feel like this ones placement in the schedule of page releases is actually super relevant

the vast majority of omakes come at the end of weekly updates. you finish reading the usually 15-20 pages ONE put out and then you get a little bonus comic at the end, usually something funny or a slice of life but but occasionally more serious. multi part omakes are usually spread out over multiple updates, making you wait a couple weeks for a punchline.

beach omake is not that. between chapters 99 (mob gets hit by a car) and 100 (the whole rest of the omake) there was a 6 week hiatus from normal pages and in this hiatus is where we get beach omake. reading it all together immediately cuts away the sort of "slice of life sunday paper comic" tone other multi part omakes have and make you read it as a part of the actual main story, since that's how you're used to reading these weekly updates.

now the actual tone. generally the multi part omakes exist to be long punchlines and the rare emotional ones are a single page for maximum impact. beach omake has a very different structure compared to, say, the haunted doll omake or the pot of happiness.

off the bat from the first two pages there's not really a joke. the tone mostly seems kind of melancholic. mobs expression for the middle section of the second page (maybe purposely) is obscured by the panel breaking off, it's hard to tell his reaction, all our attention is directed at teru. with all of the panels taken up by dialogue (primarily his own), we're being asked to focus on what he's saying:

-teru lives alone

-he lives alone because his parents live overseas

-he hasnt seen them in a while

-he doesnt like having nothing to do

-he doesnt like being alone

all of this information is delivered with an extremely casual expression from him, implying that it's not something that seems ll the out of the ordinary for him. mob, on the other hand...

the hesitation before he says anything and the way his expression is obscured seems to imply something is... off... about this information to him. this isn't a handwaved "oh mob is walking home from school after passing out because he needs to for plot reasons", we're reacting to this information like it's weird.

the next two pages are, mostly, a lot more of what we expect out of a mob psycho omake. the first one works as a standalone joke page, teru is bad at identifying animals which leads to him showing reigen a roach, something reigen is terrified of, instead of a beetle.

the second page starts similarly, we get a dumbass joke about reigen trying to pick up women at the beach (note: i think this is the singular time we get an indication reigen is even into women) but then the next two panels take on a more melancholic tone again. we get a small panel of mob and ritsu playing on the beach and a much, much larger panel of teru sitting on the beach, watching them. the dialogue bubble forces us to pay attention to the fact that he is silent.

the ending of this omake is where we bring it home. generally the last panel centers the punchline of the page, or of the whole omake, but the final panel of this isn't really what was being built to in this case.

we start our second page on teru. his expression is obscured, reigens speech bubble is shoved to the side so we can see that teru's hat is being held in his hands.

when we see his face in full view he looks... confused. he looks like he doesn't know how to react to someone going through all this trouble for him. teru is a character who, up to this moment, we have seen as extremely independent. he always rushes into things alone, he always has to be the hero, he always has to be the one to save the day. hell, this omake is immediately followed by the confession arc. where... you know.

so what are we supposed to get out of this omake?

teru's been doing everything on his own up to this point

but he doesn't have to anymore