#but broadly speaking the two are separate

[themortaldraw]

i don’t want to be That Guy, but i figured its a good time for a reminder that posting exclusively LU/linked universe content in the general loz/legend of zelda tags is discouraged—the creator addressed it here!

linked universe is a particularly huge linkmeets au, and has become so popular that it is basically its own separate fandom. people who have never played the games read linked universe, but not everybody who plays the games and uses the broader tags for legend of zelda does. the #linkeduniverse and #linked universe tags themselves get a lot of traffic and are generally more appropriate than a “legend of zelda” tag.

[txttletale]

Saw a tweet that said something around:

"cannot emphasize enough how horrid chatgpt is, y'all. it's depleting our global power & water supply, stopping us from thinking or writing critically, plagiarizing human artists. today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools. this isn't a world we deserve"

I've seen some of your AI posts and they seem nuanced, but how would you respond do this? Cause it seems fairly-on point and like the crux of most worries. Sorry if this is a troublesome ask, just trying to learn so any input would be appreciated.

i would simply respond that almost none of that is true.

'depleting the global power and water supply'

something i've seen making the roudns on tumblr is that chatgpt queries use 3 watt-hours per query. wow, that sounds like a lot, especially with all the articles emphasizing that this is ten times as much as google search. let's check some other very common power uses:

running a microwave for ten minutes is 133 watt-hours

gaming on your ps5 for an hour is 200 watt-hours

watching an hour of netflix is 800 watt-hours

and those are just domestic consumer electricty uses!

a single streetlight's typical operation 1.2 kilowatt-hours a day (or 1200 watt-hours)

a digital billboard being on for an hour is 4.7 kilowatt-hours (or 4700 watt-hours)

i think i've proved my point, so let's move on to the bigger picture: there are estimates that AI is going to cause datacenters to double or even triple in power consumption in the next year or two! damn that sounds scary. hey, how significant as a percentage of global power consumption are datecenters?

1-1.5%.

ah. well. nevertheless!

what about that water? yeah, datacenters use a lot of water for cooling. 1.7 billion gallons (microsoft's usage figure for 2021) is a lot of water! of course, when you look at those huge and scary numbers, there's some important context missing. it's not like that water is shipped to venus: some of it is evaporated and the rest is generally recycled in cooling towers. also, not all of the water used is potable--some datacenters cool themselves with filtered wastewater.

most importantly, this number is for all data centers. there's no good way to separate the 'AI' out for that, except to make educated guesses based on power consumption and percentage changes. that water figure isn't all attributable to AI, plenty of it is necessary to simply run regular web servers.

but sure, just taking that number in isolation, i think we can all broadly agree that it's bad that, for example, people are being asked to reduce their household water usage while google waltzes in and takes billions of gallons from those same public reservoirs.

but again, let's put this in perspective: in 2017, coca cola used 289 billion liters of water--that's 7 billion gallons! bayer (formerly monsanto) in 2018 used 124 million cubic meters--that's 32 billion gallons!

so, like. yeah, AI uses electricity, and water, to do a bunch of stuff that is basically silly and frivolous, and that is broadly speaking, as someone who likes living on a planet that is less than 30% on fire, bad. but if you look at the overall numbers involved it is a miniscule drop in the ocean! it is a functional irrelevance! it is not in any way 'depleting' anything!

'stopping us from thinking or writing critically'

this is the same old reactionary canard we hear over and over again in different forms. when was this mythic golden age when everyone was thinking and writing critically? surely we have all heard these same complaints about tiktok, about phones, about the internet itself? if we had been around a few hundred years earlier, we could have heard that "The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth."

it is a reactionary narrative of societal degeneration with no basis in anything. yes, it is very funny that laywers have lost the bar for trusting chatgpt to cite cases for them. but if you think that chatgpt somehow prevented them from thinking critically about its output, you're accusing the tail of wagging the dog.

nobody who says shit like "oh wow chatgpt can write every novel and movie now. yiou can just ask chatgpt to give you opinions and ideas and then use them its so great" was, like, sitting in the symposium debating the nature of the sublime before chatgpt released. there is no 'decay', there is no 'decline'. you should be suspicious of those narratives wherever you see them, especially if you are inclined to agree!

plagiarizing human artists

nah. i've been over this ad infinitum--nothing 'AI art' does could be considered plagiarism without a definition so preposterously expansive that it would curtail huge swathes of human creative expression.

AI art models do not contain or reproduce any images. the result of them being trained on images is a very very complex statistical model that contains a lot of large-scale statistical data about all those images put together (and no data about any of those individual images).

to draw a very tortured comparison, imagine you had a great idea for how to make the next Great American Painting. you loaded up a big file of every norman rockwell painting, and you made a gigantic excel spreadsheet. in this spreadsheet you noticed how regularly elements recurred: in each cell you would have something like "naturalistic lighting" or "sexually unawakened farmers" and the % of times it appears in his paintings. from this, you then drew links between these cells--what % of paintings containing sexually unawakened farmers also contained naturalistic lighting? what % also contained a white guy?

then, if you told someone else with moderately competent skill at painting to use your excel spreadsheet to generate a Great American Painting, you would likely end up with something that is recognizably similar to a Norman Rockwell painting: but any charge of 'plagiarism' would be absolutely fucking absurd!

this is a gross oversimplification, of course, but it is much closer to how AI art works than the 'collage machine' description most people who are all het up about plagiarism talk about--and if it were a collage machine, it would still not be plagiarising because collages aren't plagiarism.

(for a better and smarter explanation of the process from soneone who actually understands it check out this great twitter thread by @reachartwork)

today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools

i mean, this is true! AI tools are definitely going to destroy livelihoods. they will increase productivty for skilled writers and artists who learn to use them, which will immiserate those jobs--they will outright replace a lot of artists and writers for whom quality is not actually important to the work they do (this has already essentially happened to the SEO slop website industry and is in the process of happening to stock images).

jobs in, for example, product support are being cut for chatgpt. and that sucks for everyone involved. but this isn't some unique evil of chatgpt or machine learning, this is just the effect that technological innovation has on industries under capitalism!

there are plenty of innovations that wiped out other job sectors overnight. the camera was disastrous for portrait artists. the spinning jenny was famously disastrous for the hand-textile workers from which the luddites drew their ranks. retail work was hit hard by self-checkout machines. this is the shape of every single innovation that can increase productivity, as marx explains in wage labour and capital:

“The greater division of labour enables one labourer to accomplish the work of five, 10, or 20 labourers; it therefore increases competition among the labourers fivefold, tenfold, or twentyfold. The labourers compete not only by selling themselves one cheaper than the other, but also by one doing the work of five, 10, or 20; and they are forced to compete in this manner by the division of labour, which is introduced and steadily improved by capital. Furthermore, to the same degree in which the division of labour increases, is the labour simplified. The special skill of the labourer becomes worthless. He becomes transformed into a simple monotonous force of production, with neither physical nor mental elasticity. His work becomes accessible to all; therefore competitors press upon him from all sides. Moreover, it must be remembered that the more simple, the more easily learned the work is, so much the less is its cost to production, the expense of its acquisition, and so much the lower must the wages sink – for, like the price of any other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Therefore, in the same manner in which labour becomes more unsatisfactory, more repulsive, do competition increase and wages decrease”

this is the process by which every technological advancement is used to increase the domination of the owning class over the working class. not due to some inherent flaw or malice of the technology itself, but due to the material realtions of production.

so again the overarching point is that none of this is uniquely symptomatic of AI art or whatever ever most recent technological innovation. it is symptomatic of capitalism. we remember the luddites primarily for failing and not accomplishing anything of meaning.

if you think it's bad that this new technology is being used with no consideration for the planet, for social good, for the flourishing of human beings, then i agree with you! but then your problem shouldn't be with the technology--it should be with the economic system under which its use is controlled and dictated by the bourgeoisie.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I’m saving up my Welsh questions so I’m not a total bother!!

1. I can broadly understand why location names in Wales are different in English (colonialism ☹️) but can you explain Castell-nedd v Neath? Maybe I haven’t gotten far enough yet but it seems to be an outlier in that they just dropped a whole part of the name?

2. Cinio v swper, I’m assuming (perhaps incorrectly hence the checking) that cinio = noon meal and swper = evening meal? Is that right or is it backwards?

3. I am deeply interested in the etymology of llun because it appears to be both a picture and (+ dydd) Monday. Are they linguistically connected??

4. Speaking of days. Am I right in inferring that dydd iau means Thursday and ddydd Iau means on Thursday? I can’t quite differentiate why the spelling changes.

5. Speaking of days part two. Nos Mercher v bore dydd Mercher. Why does nos appear to drop the dydd? Does bore ever do the same?

6. Moving away from days. There seems to be no difference between dych chi’n and wyt ti’n as far as I can tell. Are they interchangeable or are they formal/informal like vous/tu? Or is this a dialect thing like different regions??

7. I am learning about eisiau and I have a question about contractions. It appears to be dw i’n mwynhau but dw i eisiau. Why no ‘n?? I know the i’n is i yn so where’s the yn with eisiau? 🤔

Welsh my beloved you are so fun to learn but Duolingo sucks at explaining nuance.

HA okay *cracks knuckles*

1. Location names are always a bit of a wildcard between languages, because sometimes they corrupt differently and sometimes they have wildly different origins and meanings in the first place. Castell Nedd - Neath is actually a relatively mild one; it's just that people abbreviated it more in English than in Welsh. A similar thing happened to Penybont ar Ogwr - Bridgend.

By contrast, Abertawe - Swansea is totally different, with different meanings. Ditto Drefdraeth - Newport, Caergybi - Holyhead, etc. Wild shit.

2. Like a lot of languages, cinio can either mean lunch or evening meal depending on who uses it - the English equivalent is 'dinner'. Younger generations generally mean lunch. Swper is a direct transliteration of supper, though, with the same meaning (I personally use 'te' instead for evening meal). So, in short, you're broadly right, but it's a bit ambiguous.

3. Oh, you'll like this! As far as we know, it's from Proto Indo European lewk, meaning 'bright; to shine, to see' - we also get 'goleu' from it. The theory is that Dydd Llun therefore gets a similar etymology to Monday, because it refers to the moon (lleuad/luna). Llun (picture), meanwhile, is a thing you see, depicting what you see. The fact that they ultimately corrupted into the same word is coincidental.

4. There's some fun stuff here, okay.

So, you are hitting up against everyone's favourite Celtic language quirk which is MUTATIONS ┌⁠(⁠★⁠ｏ⁠☆⁠)⁠┘ These pop up in many funky ways of course. In this instance, it's not a plural but it IS trying to tell you something. So:

Dydd Iau: Thursday

Dyddiau Iau: Thursdays

Fi'n mynd i'r dre ddydd Iau: I'm going to town on Thursday

Basically, the mutation is there to indicate that there's an invisible preposition going on. If we hypercorrected it would be "Fi'n mynd i'r dre ar ddydd Iau", and that's what triggers the mutation; but in modern Welsh it's a quirk of this particular context that we do away with the preposition, because the mutation makes it clear it's there invisibly. Why do we do this? Unknown.

5. This is a slightly weird one and I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the fact that 'night' just means the dark bit while 'day' can either mean the light bit OR a 24 hour period containing both.

But, actually: you can actually drop the dydd for bore, too. It's dealer's choice. BUT, you cannot have the dydd for nos Fercher. In English, the 'day' part of 'Wednesday' is kind of invisible, and just means the 24 hour block. But in Welsh, they're still separate words, and it very much means 'the light part'. So 'nos dydd Mercher' would be like saying 'Wednesday Day Night.'

6. It's formal/plural Vs informal. Chi is formal (or plural), ti is informal.

Occasionally monoglot English Tumblrs make posts about how they reckon we should bring the you/thou divide back to English, and as a person who speaks a language that still pulls this bullshit and occasionally has to play the "How formal am I supposed to be with this person" game, every time it makes me sneer and think about how those same people complain all the livelong day about invisible social rules. You do not want this, folks. Be suitably grateful to your forebears.

7. Ah, yes, eisiau is a law unto itself.

So, the yn/'n in Welsh is normally there because the verb 'to be' gets split in half, and half gets attached to the following verb to make that verb active, right? So for example:

Rwy'n cerdded - I'm walking

Roughly, but not literally, equivalent to the English "I am walking", except if you were to split "Rwy'n" out into "Rwy yn", neither of those words means "I" or "am" - it's not a literal step by step translation.

'Yn' gets bundled in with the verb, more often than not. And again, while this is not a literal translation, it makes the verb into an '-ing' word. Welsh does not distinguish between "I walk" and "I'm walking" - it's always "I'm walking."

But eisiau is different because it's not used grammatically like that. You personally cannot actively want something in Welsh. But, there can be a want upon you. So instead of "I am wanting", you say "There is a want upon me."

So, "I want to go to town": "Mae arna'i eisiau mynd i'r dre".

Duolingo might be asking you to construct that slightly differently, though; they might want "Mae eisiau arnaf i" or something similar. But ultimately that's what it's doing.

I hope this was helpful! Let me know if anything is baffling, still.

[squinch-depraved]

Jschlatt. But Y/N is being a brat. Thank you for your time. Have a good day.

okok you sweet thing thank you for your patience here we go

CW: killing bugs, aggressive facefucking, he smacks you once but its chill i swear

you had only agreed to a camping trip because you thought you would get to eat s'mores. but you were thoroughly disappointed when tucker forgot the marshmallows, crossing your arms and leaning back on the log you were sitting on with a harrumph, shrieking when you spilled backwards onto the rough pine needles behind you. schlatt helped you up as you giggled, chuckling softly himself.

"i texted you five separate times about the damn marshmallows, tucker," ted spoke through gritted teeth, eyeing his childhood best friend angrily.

"oh, you mean the marshmallows that were your job in the first place? you got everything else for 'em, ted, chocolate, graham crackers, but somehow you forgot the marshmallows for s'mores and I'M the one at fault!" tucker responded, chucking the pinecone he was playing with down at the ground in front of him.

"sshhhh!!" ted glanced at you, deep in a conversation with schlatt, and glared back at the man. "get up, let's walk down the trail to the general store and get some so we can have dessert," he grumbled, standing up and extending down his hand to help steady tucker as he followed suit.

the two men let you and schlatt know where they were going before heading a few dozen yards away to the rv where tucker and emma were sleeping to invite her along. she agreed and they set off, the couple holding hands and listening intently while ted made theatrical hand gestures and explained whatever tangent he was on.

it was quiet for a bit after ted's voice faded away, only the crackling fire punctuating the comfortable silence between you two, and schlatt tended to it solemnly, occasionally adding more wood to keep it big enough to last until they would return. he figured they'd be gone an hour and flicked his eyes to look at you about five minutes in.

you were still on your back, legs draped over the log you fell off, staring up at the brightest stars beginning to appear in the sky as dusk began to fall. he thought you looked angelic, and he startled you when he cleared his throat to speak.

"sorry," he started, shifting to face you more from his seat above you at the picnic table.

"you're good," you mumbled as you shook your head slightly, training your eyes back on the moon high above you.

"do you know if ted was kidding when he said we only have one tent?"

you laughed, remembering the sleeping arrangements, and shook your head. "do you see another one besides the one we have up?" you gestured broadly behind you somewhere, and, sure enough, schlatt saw a rather large rounded tent a small distance away.

he groaned and squashed a beetle on the ground with his boot, grinding the toe into the earth and smearing the bug beneath him. "i shouldn't have agreed to this," he complained. "two dudes above 6 foot in a tent plus you? no offense, toots, but we're not gonna all fit."

you sat up in shock, not at what he said, but at your clear view of his cruelty towards the feeble creature whose home he was invading. "why would you do that??" you shouted at him, weakly grabbing at his ankle and trying to move his foot by force. he picked his foot up and swiftly yet relatively gently shoved you in the chest with it, planting you on the ground once again.

"the fuck are you doin'?" he laughed mockingly. "it was just a bug, y/n, relax." he said it with a cruel smile and turned away to tend the fire pit. you growled quietly in frustration and sat up again, climbing to sit on the surface of the picnic table so you were almost eye-level with the tall man when he turned back to face you. you were quiet, apparently, and he hadn't heard you moving, so when he saw you there, he let out an embarrassing noise at the jumpscare and immediately began pretending it was something in the woods.

"no, i think that was actually a, um. a creature in the wilderness or something," he fumbled when you asked, sniffing his mustache a few times.

you continued to make fun of him, laughing at his stupid jokes and handing him small sticks to add to the burning pile. when he asked you to hand him his drink, just a few feet to your left, though, you said, "no."

he turned around slowly to look at you after adjusting the fire, as if giving you one final chance to pass it to him. "not askin' for much, toots," he warned.

"i don't feel like not killing bugs is asking for much, but here we are," you yawned. it was getting darker now, maybe 20 minutes had gone by since the rest of your friends had left. "reach for it yourself."

he sighed and grabbed the drink, taking a long sip of whatever he and tucker had concocted while ted, emma, and you worked on dinner. it was quiet for what you thought was almost too long before he spoke.

"are you gonna keep givin' me trouble all night?" it sounded more like a threat than a question. he was still facing the fire, watching the smoke, and you couldn't help but flush at his words.

"i dunno, depends what my prize would be," you teased as you slowly walked two fingers up his back. he shivered and whipped around, grabbing your hand so tight it hurt.

"don't do that, you don't get to pull that cutesy shit after bein' a bitch earlier," he chided down at you. "and i know you'll enjoy hearing what i'd do to you, you stupid whore, so i'm not gonna say anything. but i also know you're just gonna keep pushin' til you find out."

you moaned and bit your lip unknowingly, blinking up at him. he groaned in a mixture of disgust and attraction as he dropped your wrist and turned away.

after minutes of schlatt just tending to the fire, ignoring your increasingly desperate attempts to capture his attention again, you saw a beetle similar to the one he killed earlier crawling on the table an arm's reach from you. a wicked smile spread across your face before you composed yourself and reached down to coax it onto your finger.

quickly and quietly, you guided the little creature onto his shoulder and tapped him, stifling a laugh. he turned, huffing, an annoyed expression adorning his face, and jumped slightly when he saw the bug. for the second time that night, he shrieked, and he swatted frantically at his shoulder blade as you cackled at him.

"you stupid bitch!" he laughed incredulously when he was sure it was gone, turning around fully to tower over you. he put his arms on either side of you and leaned in, breath reeking of whiskey hot on your face as he spat his words at you through gritted teeth. "i'm gonna give you one last warning before i fucking ruin you."

he usually wasn't this patient! you smiled coyly at him and ran your hand across the top of his thigh featherlight, mimicking a skittering spider. his leg twitched and he looked at you, dumbfounded by your blatant desire to piss him off. your smile only got bigger after a moment when he rolled his eyes and smacked you playfully before turning to check the fire was still safe. he didn't know how long he had before your friends got back anymore, and he was going to have to take the risk of being caught if he was to punish you like he wanted.

he gestured for you to get off the table and sat down himself, facing outwards and gesturing for you to kneel between his legs. he looked like a god from this angle, chops framing his face perfectly; the firelight cast a glow on him that just called for you to worship at his feet. you shifted your legs underneath you on the cold ground in an attempt to get some friction at the sight of him undoing his pants and pulling out his cock, but he quickly snapped his fingers and pointed at his crotch before saying, "now. choke on it, doll."

you smiled slightly, shaking your head. unfortunately for you, schlatt was done with your little game. "not fuckin' playin' anymore, you stupid hole, i can be mean if that's what you really want. last chance," he almost pleaded. he was really scared of going too hard with you in the middle of the woods and not being able to get you help if needed.

you stuck your tongue out at him and he grunted, shaking his head as he grabbed you by your hair and shoved your head down his entire length. he used your head like a fleshlight, guiltily reveling in the sloppy noises your lips were making, along with the occasional whimper and moan— and don't get him started on the tears that fell from your eyes as you blinked up at him, those would be something he pictured every time he was by himself for years to come.

"god, toots, i should really plug your mouth up with my cock more often, huh?" schlatt let his head fall back and gripped your hair tighter when he felt you nod with him still in your mouth. he scoffed and peeked at the fire again. "yeah, you love this shit. you lil' whore," he mumbled.

in addition to slamming your mouth up and down on his shaft, he began fucking up into your throat, grunting rhythmically with every thrust after a bit. your throat was incredibly sore, but you were the one that asked for this, so you couldn't complain.

schlatt's groans echoed off the trees, and the nightlife of the forest sang in symphony with him as the dark settled over the campsite. "god, y/n, fuck," he panted, staring up at the universe above him. he wasn't sure if the stars were real or from how good you were making him feel.

but, since all good things must come to an end, schlatt froze when he heard ted's voice coming back from what he thought was a good distance away. "fuck," he muttered. he tried to pull you off but you continued to lick and suck his tip. "fuckin' stop that, y/n! i'm serious, they're almost here," he scolded.

"dude, we already saw! you're the only light source for like several hundred yards! it's cool though, take your time!" tucker called from the rv.

a faint, "dude!" and a smack was heard, followed by laughter. you grinned up at schlatt, who looked mortified, and stood up while he put himself back in his pants.

"come over here with my marshmallows, guys! i was promised s'mores!"

ilyyy thank you for your patience part two should be up sometime in the next few days mwahhhh

[fefairys]

"Gamzee alternates capitalizing and lowercasing between entire sentences now, rather than every other letter. Originally, his standard quirk was meant to signify a whimsical—capricious, if you will—typing and speaking style. He's up, he's down, he's up, he's down...like an unpleasant rollercoaster ride at a carnival. But because the alternation was so tight, on the individual letter level, it had a way of diffusing his capricious qualities and averaging them out more broadly across his statements and his personality in general. In a sense, it signified a neutralization of his volatile tendencies. It's like lying on a bed of nails: the more tightly packed the nails are, the less dangerous it is. You may forget the bed even consists of dangerous components. But if you start separating them out, the deadliness becomes more evident. Isolating the capital letters into their own lines is like consolidating all the nails into one lethal, sharp object, like a knife, and then intermittently wielding it to stab you in one line, then sheathing it the next. So it would seem Gamzee's psychological break, whether brought on by "sobriety" or other factors, had a way of sharpening the divide in his mind between his murderous and benign tendencies, whereas in his previous state they all blended together into a vaguely addled, mostly harmless personality. He expresses some understanding of this divide here, by identifying himself as the two messiahs he always worshipped. Also, even though the divide in his personality has crystalized, and he understands this, it seems his murderous persona heavily predominates when he is in this state of mind. It is the more powerful and aggressive version of his personality, which can easily steamroll his chill stoner attitude once it's loose. It should be noted that a personality which is bifurcated between good and evil, and the predomination of one over the other, is a critical feature of the cherubs appearing later, who arguably are a much better fit for his mirthful messiah prophecy." -Andrew Hussie

[notfreetoday]

The Importance of Amae in My Personal Weatherman

Masterlist || Language Analysis Part 1

I have seen a lot of discourse in the English-speaking fandom surrounding Segasaki's apparent dismissal or trivializing of Yoh's desire to pursue his manga, and most of it is negative. His comments about wanting Yoh to remain dependent on him, or that Yoh does not need to earn money are seen as patronizing or controlling at best and oppressive at worst. It appears that Segasaki does not understand nor respect Yoh's need for independence, and that is what strains their relationship.

But what if I asked you to consider that Segasaki's behaviour is actually an invitation to Yoh to reinforce their relationship? And what if I told you that Yoh's withdrawal from Segasaki constitutes a rejection of that invitation, and it is that rejection that strains their relationship instead?

Of course, the end result is the same - a strained relationship - and in reality there is never one side wholly responsible for this. The point of this is to simply challenge the cultural notion that a successful relationship is the coming together of two equally independent individuals, as opposed to the co-creation of a relationship formed by two interdependent individuals.

"If only you could stay drunk forever..." "It's okay to feel down again for me too you know" - Segasaki, Ep 4, Ep 5

This isn't about Segasaki wanting to keep Yoh is helpless and dependent on him, but about wanting Yoh to be able to be true to his feelings and express his own desire for affection honestly, without having to hide behind "I hate you" or rejection.

Or, let's try and talk about how Segasaki and Yoh reinforce their relationship through the use of amae (featuring a brief mention of tatemae/honne) who am I kidding this is not brief at all

First: Cultural Context

The way people conceptualize and make meaning of the Self differs between Western and East Asian cultures, and this plays into the differences we see in the basis for our self-esteem, the personal attributes that we value, and even what constitutes the behavior of a mature individual. Broadly speaking, Western cultures tend towards the Independent Self Construal (whereby the Self is a distinct entity separate from others) whereas East Asian cultures tend towards Interdependent Self-Construal (whereby the Self is connected to and defined by relationships with others). Thus, in the West, expressing one's individuality is very important for one's self-esteem, and being able to communicate clearly and confidently is valued and a sign of maturity. Conversely, in the East, one's ability to integrate and become a member of the group is prized, and contributes significantly to one's self esteem. In order to be seen as a mature individual, one must learn not only to read a social situation but also how to modify one's behavior in order to respond to the changing demands of that situation, with the ultimate goal being to maintain group harmony.

tl;dr - In East Asian culture, behaviors and attitudes that emphasize interdependence and promote group harmony actually play a big role in reinforcing relationships and one's membership towards the group.

Segasaki is an expert at this - his "public mode" that Yoh refers to actually shows us how good he is at social interactions. This is the Japanese concept of tatemae/honne (crudely translated as public self/private feelings) - which I could link to a bunch of articles for you, but I'm going to suggest you check out this 9 min street interview instead. At 6:41, one of the interviewees comments that another is sunao, or "honest" (we'll cover this later too) and at 6:49 specifically talks about how reading situations is important as an adult. Segasaki reads the room well, but most importantly, he reads Yoh well.

Yoh is not good at this, at all. In Ep 6, we see that he does not integrate well with the group, and he doesn't realize how he might appear to others when he stares and sketches from afar. Yoh does not read the room well because he doesn't pick up on social cues and does not adhere to social norms (I'll point these out in Ep 6's corrections). He cannot read Segasaki, and especially cannot read Segasaki's amae, or his attempts at reinforcing their relationship. Part of this is because his low self-esteem causes him to withdraw from Segasaki's affection as a means of self-protection, and so he valiantly tries to deny his feelings for Segasaki. As Man-san commented in Ep 4, Yoh is not sunao - he has difficulty with being true/honest about his feelings, even to himself.

Sunao is another term that usually pops up when talking about feelings/relationships. It can be used to describe one's relationship with oneself, as well as the relationship with another/group. With oneself, it is usually used to mean "being honest/truthful/straightforward/frank/open-minded about one's feelings". With another person/group, it is usually used to mean "to cooperate/listen/be obedient, or "to be humble/open-minded". In essence, the word encompasses an ideal virtue that is often taught from early childhood - that we should treat both ourselves and others with humility and honesty, because that is how we accept ourselves and stay in harmony with other. This is what becoming an adult, or gaining maturity, means (not gaining independence, as adulthood is often equated to in the West - do you see a running theme here 😂). Of course, that's actually really hard to do, so you'll often hear children (and immature adults too) chided for "not being sunao" (this can therefore sound patronizing if you're not careful). We'll revisit this in a little bit.

Second: What is Amae?

Amae is a key component in Japanese relationships, both intimate and non-intimate. It happens every day, in a variety of different interactions, between a variety of different people. But it is often seen as strange or weird, and those unfamiliar with the concept can feel uncomfortable with it. This stems from the difference in self-construal - because independence is tied so strongly to an individual's self-image in the West, it is very hard to fathom why behavior that emphasizes interdependence could be looked upon favorably. It is telling that every possible English translation of the word "amae" carries a negative connotation, when in Japanese it can be both negative or positive. The original subtitles translated it as "clingy", for example. Other common translations include "dependence", "to act like a child/infant", "to act helpless", "to act spoiled", "coquettish", "seeking indulgence", "being naive" etc.

From A Multifaceted View of the Concept of Amae: Reconsidering the Indigenous Japanese Concept of Relatedness by Kazuko Y Behrens

*Note - the word "presumed" or "presumption" or "expectation" or "assumption" used in the above definition and in the rest of this post, can give the impression that all of amae is premeditated, which adds a calculative component to this concept. Whilst amae can indeed be used in a manipulative manner (benign or otherwise), it is not the case for every single situation, and often amae that seeks affection is often spontaneous and without thought, precisely because the situation allows for it to appear organically. This is the amae that Segasaki and Yoh most often exchange - so think of these assumptions and expectations as "unconscious/subconscious" thought processes.

Third: Amae Between Segasaki and Yoh

Yoh shows a lot of amae when he is drunk:

He whines, buries himself into Segasaki's embrace, refuses to move or let go of him, and keeps repeating "no". In these interactions, Yoh wants Segasaki's affection, but instead of asking, he does, well, this, and he presumes that Segasaki will indulge his behavior. Leaving to get some fresh air might not be as obvious - but it is a form of amae as well, because Man-san is his guest, not Segasaki's, and he shouldn't be leaving Segasaki to entertain her. The expectation that this is okay, and that neither of them will fault him for it, is what makes it amae.

Segasaki obviously enjoys indulging Yoh when Yoh does amae, because he recognises this as Yoh's request for affection from him. It's not that Segasaki enjoys Yoh in this drunk, helpless state; it's not even that Segasaki feels reassured by Yoh's requests for affection. Segasaki knows Yoh likes him, and recognizes that Yoh is struggling with those feelings. That Yoh is actually able to do amae to Segasaki is what delights him the most, because it is something that requires a lot of trust in Segasaki and a willingness to be vulnerable in front of him. This is how amae reinforces relationships - when a request for amae is granted, both the giver and the receiver experience pleasant feelings.

That said, an amae request can also be perceived negatively - if amae is excessive, or if the person responding feels they are obligated to do so. In Ep 5, Man-san chides Yoh for his amae - the fact that he expected to do well from the beginning, and became upset when he failed. He told her about his unemployment, presuming that she would comfort him, but alas.

Segasaki also does amae - but unfortunately Yoh misses many of his cues, and so neither of them really gain pleasant feelings from the interaction (ok so maybe Segasaki does, but I will argue that is more because Segasaki also enjoys it when Yoh obeys him - see @lutawolf's posts for the D/s perspective on this!).

Did you catch it? Segasaki wants Yoh to pass him the Soy Sauce, which, clearly, he is capable of getting himself. He tells Yoh to feed him, because he wants Yoh's affection. And the real kicker - he asked for curry, and expected Yoh to know he wanted pork. In all these interactions, Segasaki presumes that Yoh will indulge him and do for him things he can do himself perfectly well (and even better at that) - this is what makes this amae. But look at Yoh's reactions:

Yoh just stares between the Soy Sauce and Segasaki, between Segasaki and his food, and then just at Segasaki himself. He doesn't recognise any of this as amae, and in the case of feeding Segasaki makes the conclusion that this is somehow a new slave duty he's acquired. And therefore, he does not gain pleasant feelings from it.

In Ep 3 we see a turning point in Yoh's behaviour - his first (sober) attempt at amae (the argument in Ep 2 is debatable - it's not amae from Yoh's POV, but Segasaki responds as if it were, with a head pat and a "when you get drunk, you talk a lot don't you?").

Here, Yoh wants to express his desire for Segasaki's affection, but he can't bring himself to say it aloud. Instead, he dumps bedsheets on Segasaki's lap, as if the bigger the scene he makes the greater the intensity of his desire he can convey. It is the presumption that Segasaki will understand him that makes this amae. And then, we get this:

Not only a happy Segasaki and a sweetly shy Yoh, but also a Yoh who's emboldened by Segasaki's response, and who finally, for the first time, reciprocates touch, and considers the possibility that Segasaki might actually like him.

With every episode, Yoh gets more and more comfortable with doing amae towards Segasaki, because Segasaki picks up on his cues and always responds to them. In Ep 5, Yoh's amae comes out naturally, triggered by the stress of his unemployment, and we see it in all those moments he sounds and acts like a child, and as I mentioned, Segasaki spends the whole episode reassuring Yoh that his amae is welcomed, and that Segasaki likes responding to it. If you've been wondering why the relationship between Segasaki and Yoh can, at times, feel somewhat parental in nature - this is it. It's because Segasaki sees the contradiction between Yoh's childlike insistence that he does not like Segasaki and his desire for Segasaki's attention and affection, for what it really is - Yoh's struggle with accepting himself. When Yoh is able to be sunao, he does amae naturally, and Segasaki responds to him in kind.

Now, all we need is for Yoh to recognize when Segasaki does amae, which will likely happen soon, given that Yoh has grown with every episode.

As always, thank you for reading :))

[queerfables]

The Rules of the Twist

Given the themes of deception and sleight of hand in Good Omens season 2, I think most of us agree it's at least possible there's some kind of twist waiting to be revealed in season 3. We're bouncing around a lot of theories, but I wanted to take a step back and look at the general shape of what we might expect.

The big twist we've seen before in Good Omens is Crowley and Aziraphale's body swap. (Okay, technically it was an appearance swap. But that just doesn't sound as pithy.) Rather than anticipate an exact repeat of this trick, I'm considering the swap as a sort of model. What does it tell us about the rules Neil plays by when he pulls a twist in this story? What clues can we expect, and what can we not count on? Sure, there's no guarantee that a season 2 twist is going to map exactly onto what we've seen in the past, but I think it's a reasonable place to start. Take these as guidelines and take them with a grain of salt, but if you're sorting through all our fascinating Good Omens theories and trying to decide what you think, you might find them helpful.

So then, what are the rules?

Broadly speaking, Neil plays fair with twists. He foreshadows and includes enough hints for the audience to make a reasonable guess at what's going on, or at least to look back after the reveal and go, "oh, of course". But he still keeps some cards close to the chest.

During the body swap, there are two big gaps in the information we're given:

Key events happen off screen The swap happened between scenes, during a time that it was only suggested, not confirmed, that Crowley and Aziraphale would be together. The transition between these scenes also used film and tv conventions to make that passage of time "invisible" - we see Crowley and Aziraphale get on the bus, and then we see them in the morning going about their days separately, and we're conditioned to think nothing important could have happened in between.

Key tools (eg abilities, items, information) haven't been shown before The swap was not something we'd ever seen Crowley and Aziraphale do, and it wasn't something they'd ever talked about either. It fit comfortably into the established world building but it hadn't been specifically signposted as a possibility.

The other big twist that Good Omens pulled was the romance between Gabriel and Beelzebub as the explanation for Gabriel's disappearance from heaven. Both of these information gaps are involved here too. The offscreen event is obviously the meetings between Gabriel and Beelzebub that lead to them falling in love - up until Gabriel's flashback sequence, the only indication they'd ever met each other was a brief conversation at the airbase during Armageddon. The tool that we haven't seen before is Beelzebub's ability to create a fly vessel for Gabriel's memories (protecting him in much the same way that Crowley and Aziraphale protected each other with their body swap, in fact).

These are pretty big gaps, really. And given that Neil knew there'd be years between seasons 2 and 3, I expect he would have leaned pretty heavily into them if he wanted to hide something. So how do we predict a twist if we can't know where it is and haven't seen what it might involve?

Unanswered questions

This is the big one. Looking at where the furniture isn't, you might say.

What's interesting is that the questions that point to a twist aren't usually subtle or ambiguous. For the body swap, the two converging questions were: what did Agnes' last prophecy mean, and how could Crowley and Aziraphale survive their executions? In season two, some of the unanswered questions signposting Gabriel/Beelzebub were: how did Gabriel lose his memory, why was he carrying a box, what was the significance of the song he kept singing, who was he at the Resurrectionist with...

I think guesses about upcoming twists are most convincing when they seek to tie up loose threads from the show. For this reason, I'm a little skeptical of theories proposing the kiss between Crowley and Aziraphale involved some kind of twist. It isn't impossible, I just don't see any unanswered questions there. (Savvy readers may note that I too have speculated about a twist hidden in the kiss. I do find the possibility fun, but it's not a theory I'm seriously committed to). If I was going to really buy into one of these theories, I'd want it to explain one of my big unanswered questions other than "but how could they get into a fight that hurts me so deep in my soul?" That's definitely a question I have, but not technically a mystery.

It's worth noting that in the case of the body swap, we were initially given a false answer to the question "how did they survive their executions?" The angels and demons watching attribute it to Crowley and Aziraphale having "gone native", believing that their natures had fundamentally changed, making them immune to holy water and hellfire. It might be the case, then, that some of the apparently resolved questions this season warrant further investigation. Is there more to the story of Gabriel's disappearance than we know, for example?

2. Unexplained details

If examining an unanswered question is looking at where the furniture isn't, then this is where we take all the pieces of furniture piled up in storage and see if we've got anything that fits. Everything is fair game here: script, acting, music, props, sets, costumes, editing, camera angles, audio effects, visual effects, everything. If it's on the screen or coming through the speakers, it was put there on purpose by multiple teams of highly skilled and attentive creators all working together to create the final product.

I think you could probably do an entire meta on all the little details pointing towards the season 1 body swap, but here are some of the big ones:

"Crowley" sees the restored Bentley, but takes a taxi instead of driving it

"Aziraphale" circles "Crowley" when they order their ice creams, the way Crowley more typically moves around Aziraphale

"Crowley" says "tickety boo", an extraordinarily Aziraphalean phrase

The collar on "Crowley's" jacket is a beige tartan rather than its usual red

There are general differences in the ways David Tennant and Michael Sheen embody the characters throughout the swap

Similarly, Gabriel and Beelzebub's romance has lots of small details pointing to it. The big one that keeps showing up is the connection between Gabriel and flies. He mentions them and interacts with them repeatedly, and although it isn't obvious at first glance, there's a fly in the box that he carries to the bookshop. This all culminates in the reveal that it's the same fly, Beelzebub's gift to him.

Here's the problem, of course: if everything in the show is intentional and crafted with meticulous attention to detail, how do we know what actually matters? This is why I think it's so important to look at the unanswered questions first. There's a joy in seeking out Easter eggs and connecting all the dots, and sometimes you might strike gold this way, but there's also a lot of noise in the signal. It's helpful to know the general shape of what you're looking for, so you'll know when you've found it.

You can reverse engineer this. Start with details that jump out at you and then look for a puzzle they might explain. This works, but it's a little easier to get lost in the weeds, struggling to sort out what's significant and what's a fun reference to another piece of media or a hint to a question that's already been resolved. Going back to the twists we've already seen on this show, the unanswered questions around them were really big and obvious, so I think it's a good idea to ask: if I hadn't noticed this detail, would I have thought this was a mystery that needed solving?

Okay, but what do we do with this?

Well, maybe nothing. These criteria can't confirm or rule out any theories, after all. I'm laying it out like a rubric but it isn't really, I'm just describing a few storytelling patterns we've seen before and making some rough guesses about how they might show up again. If I were really serious about this I'd probably take a look at other examples of Neil's work and see how well my model holds up there, but the truth is I'm not really familiar with enough of his other works to do this. (Confession time: I was always more of a Pratchett fan).

The main reason that I've laid everything out like this is it informs my thinking when I stress test my own theories, and I figured other people might be interested in it. I'm also hoping it will help me to be able to refer back to this when I write meta in the future. For my own purposes, I find a breakdown like this helpful because it gives me a sense of how a writer approaches their story, where they'll tip their hand and where they'll hold things close. It's no guarantee and it wouldn't be any fun if it was, but in a lot of cases we're not aware of our own patterns, so it can be surprisingly illuminating.

[beannoss]

Off the back of this great post by @hermy-97 about Endo's choice in Twilight's alias last names and specifically the comedy therein, I had MANY THOUGHTS! But in a DIFFERENT DIRECTION! I didn't want to hijack the original post though, so am jumping off separately. (Manga spoilers discussed herein)

Following in OP's footsteps and borrowing here from Google's definition, here's what Google says for 'forge':

1. make or shape (a metal object) by heating it in a fire or furnace and beating or hammering it. (eg: "he forged a great suit of black armor") 2. create (a relationship or new conditions). (eg: "the two women forged a close bond") 3. produce a copy or imitation of (a document, signature, banknote, or work or art) for the purpose of deception. (eg: "the signature on the check was forged")

As OP covered off meaning three, I wanted to look more at meanings one and two!

I’d personally argue number one also applies if taken as metaphor.

1. make or shape (a metal object) by heating it in a fire or furnace and beating or hammering it.

I think it works broadly for how trauma can sometimes feel (for better and, more often, for worse), but more specifically in the context of Twilight & SxF, I think about how 'forged' is often used as a metaphor for people's experiences of war, speaking to how those experiences shape them (particularly: 'forged in the crucible of war'). Indeed, ash is a frequent motif throughout Twilight's backstory chapters:

Personally I'd say its reasonable to extend the metaphor back further into Twilight's adolescence and childhood, given how (understandably) angry, hurt and grief-stricken it left him, leading him into the military (undoubtedly though he also, ironically, joined the army as a means of survival: food, shelter, a desperation to do something and have some form of regularity even if it was within the context of the military and a war campaign, etc). Of course this could also apply to many other adults in the series, and their experiences of the two wars.

I’d say definition two applies as well; OP noted Twilight's honeypot missions in this instance, and I think it carries further, outside of either honeypot or other missions.

2. create (a relationship or new conditions).

It can be taken as a whole within the Forger household, after all Twilight did create the Forgers. But more importantly to me, this meaning applies particularly by way of what Anya and Yor are doing within the family, their choices and aims, and how they’re influencing and shaping the Forgers. And then, of course, Twilight’s choices in return, both under the explicit guise of for the mission and those times when the mission is curiously (ahem) absent from or delayed in his thought process. They three are forging something real, regardless of what the family began as, and regardless of how they may be looking at it presently.

I'd tend to say that, of our three, Anya is doing this most intentionally: I know Twilight does a lot as Loid, and I think the tone he set for the family actually does impact this collective act of creation fairly substantially. However, he still tells himself the family is temporary: maybe it's nice while it lasts but it will end and that's that. Whereas Anya is, insofar as she can conceive of it as a five year old, very deliberately trying to create bonds and smooth possible fissures, with an explicit view of everlasting. Which makes sense, since she's the only family member who knows the full circumstances, even if she doesn't and can't (and shouldn't) understand how complex it all is.

Yor, of course, also does a lot but again, I don't think she sees it as a specific project; in part because our favourite assassin isn't known for her forward planning, and also because it's simply how she moves through the world. And that's speaking: that Yor's impulses, instincts and choices build into forever-types of foundations, without her necessarily thinking of them that way. There are many tragedies within SxF but the one I think of with Yor particularly is that she is such a community person and particularly a community builder, but due to her traumas and circumstances, she hadn't had the opportunity to live that part of herself. It's one of my favourite things, watching her come into her own and live out her values and priorities inside and outside the home. /side track. All of which to say, she is, definitionally, a forger. As here, where she creates bonds with not only her colleagues but demonstrates connecting threads across generations and individual experiences.

The definition around creating something also applies to Twilight’s mission in Strix — preventing war actually also necessitates the forging of bonds. It’s unclear how things will shake out with, for instance, Yuri, but Twilight-as-Loid-Forger is already a positive presence in several circles (his hospital job for instance) and Yor’s presence is also increasingly positive (at work and it seems possibly/probably with Melinda) and Anya’s also making positive waves in her circles (with Becky, and while I think Damian's trajectory is a bit less linear, I know others argue that she's positively influencing him as well).

(If I wanted to go deeper, I'd also borrow a Watsonian perspective and chat a bit about what it says about Twilight to choose the name Forger, given his clear wants for family and his equal surety he can't ever have one, even from the first few pages of the manga... Perhaps in another meta.)

I think it's also worth noting that although Endo goes to this particular joke well a few times, Forger stands distinct. Neither 'Phony' (def: not genuine, fraudulent) nor 'Spoof(y)' (def: imitate for comedic effect; hoax or trick someone) have any sort of additional meaning along the lines of actual creation. And of course, in the case of Spoofy, Twilight is tricking the military; and with Fiona, bless her, any sort of romantic relationship with Twilight would only ever be fraudulent.

I wanted to round things out with one more definition, this time taken from duckduckgo's:

"To advance gradually but steadily."

If that isn't the tune of the Forger family and Spy x Family generally, I don't know what is.

[centrally-unplanned]

this may be too deep a cut but in a post that argumate recently resurrected from 2022, you said one of your favorite bands was a post-rock outfit from wuhan. would you mind dropping their name if you can remember who you were referring to?

Lol I have two separate asks in my inbox ( @phaeton-flier ) about the off-hand reference to Wuhan post-rock bands in an @argumate reblog post, something in the water today for people to tease that out!

I was almost certainly referencing A Hidden Trace, a solo instrumental post-rock outfit by Xu Bo, a Wuhan native. His music captures a sort of minimalist, harmonic glossolalia for me, speaking the language of the rooftops and back alleys of the Wuchang district where my days were spent, such that they will forever be one of my favourite bands. Funnily enough, in my off-hand reference I remarked that one would never had hear of them in the West; this year Xu Bo's primary band, Chinese Football, had a really successful album release in Win & Lose (which I also love dearly, +1 vinyl collection), and just had their first US/NA tour last year:

I don't know if any of that trickled back to A Hidden Trace, but probably some of it did! They are eminently discoverable today, my claim no longer holds - alas, another hipster point taken off the board.

Anyway "I Like To Make Friends With People Who Like Wes Anderson" is absolutely the best title of A Hidden Trace albums, and albums more generally, but "Boy With Slingshot" is more truly my jam.

If you want to broaden your horizons beyond what I specifically had in mind, Hua Lun is one of the most iconic Chinese post-rock bands from Wuhan, and one of the groups that "kicked off" the scene there. And to get back some hipster points, if you wanna have some fun you can try Wuhan psychedelia collective Acid Lumo.

Honestly even when I made that post my flippant aside was slightly out of date - starting in the late 2010's Chinese bands started more heavily cross-promoting their music on western sites, doing tours, getting press, etc, and meanwhile the boom of both "Asia beyond Japan" (K-pop being ground zero) and the continued rise of more extensive sampling, remixing, and "playlist culture" on YouTube/Spotify closed the awareness gap on the Chinese music scene. Certainly none of these bands are famous, but when I lived there in ~2010 international awareness of the Chinese indie music scene was threadbare, let alone the Wuhan bands. That isn't the case today.

As for the rest of the music I was alluding to in that post, I honestly do not know what the 2010's Canadian free jazz group was? But that might be because I am thinking heavy on post-rock right now, and 2010's Canadian post-rock band Tunturia is a band that forever lives in my head. And they are undiscoverable these days, their internet presence long abandoned - some of their music isn't even on YouTube last I checked. Finally, shocking no one, the "side-gig of an anime youtuber using vocaloid synths" was Hazel's band Twinkle Park (now renamed Smiling Broadly), whose best album "touched, or been touched by" I just got on cassette, NEVER doubt my hipster points again you peasants:

[danvillecheese]

the dwampyverse and all its timelines

welcome to the analysis i've been promising for like two years! this will be phineas and ferb centric simply due to the sheer amount of episodes compared to milo murphy's law and hamster and gretel. with the inclusion of hamster and gretel, i will admit this has gotten a little less easy to navigate, but i'm hoping with a bit of analysis and suspension of belief, it'll be okay. ready? lets go!

the best way i can describe this first part is by providing a visual of how i see it. and using a three-circle venn diagram makes perfect sense with all of the overlapping and individual parts.

so - pictured above is said venn diagram. each part is its own timeline. ones where each show is their own timeline, ones where pnf/mml overlap, mml/hng overlap, pnf/hng overlaps and the one right in the centre where they all overlap. this doesnt include timelines where "endings" are separate (read: quantum boogaloo, act your age, doof 101, owca files... any ending that isnt last day of summer. but i'll get to those ones later). make sense?

1. where only phineas and ferb exists.

this works best before 2015. this timeline is the one that has zero murphy crumbs on it. dan and swampy haven’t yet had the idea of doing a show about a kid with awful luck and time travelling shenanigans. this is the most nostalgic timeline, for phineas has reigned over the disney channel cartoons for eight years. the lumberzacks dont exist, hamster and gretel dont save danville each week. pnf is its own show. no other shows have an influence on it.

adding to this - if you ignore any of the alternate timeline episodes and stop at last day of summer, you get my personal favourite way of watching the show. this one is basically just ignoring owca files, doof 101, all of mml and most importantly - act your age. I love the idea of an open book ending for these characters, especially for ones we saw on our tvs for over eight years [when it aired]. the events that take place after last day of summer are simply giving an idea of what COULD happen to our beloved cast, and without them, they really make no impact on the original story. the events before the end of summer are in no way impacted by the other alternate ending episodes.

2. where both phineas and ferb and milo murphy’s law exists

this is the canon, everything-exists-all-at-the-same-time timeline, pre-hamster and gretel. every piece of context works together, and everything is all connected. everything is canon! everyone is friends with each other! the pnf effect works! doof moves in with the murphy's, and this timeline is basically if you watched pnf and mml chronologically, without any of the alt ending episodes (in case you forgot which ones: quantum boogaloo, act your age, doof 101 and the owca files). this is the one i think we're all familiar with - it also includes candace against the universe (mostly uh... broadly speaking, the lumberzacks are the only mml thing in there).

3. where only milo murphy’s law exists

a timeline where pnf and hng are nonexistent. this timeline would probably exclude anything past season one, really. the crossover would not work. maybe even in this timeline the pistachions take over everything and the human characters cease to exist. (eleanor shellstrop this is the bad place!.jpeg) this further pushes the point (that I haven’t made - I’ve been thinking it I just haven’t said it lmao) that you can’t have milo murphys law without phineas and ferb. the crossover plot proves it. both in the real world AND in mml.

4. where just hamster and gretel exists

this one is a little hard to explain, especially since hng has only just finished its first season. there are a few pnf references in this show but it stands on its own feet much more than mml did. i think the likelihood of hng existing in its own timeline works a lot better than mml - but the chance of there being a surprise crossover is moderately high. like i said, it's a little hard to analyse this since its that much more removed from its predecessors.

5. where milo murphy’s law and hamster and gretel exist

this is a very unlikely scenario, but there is a chance a timeline like this exists somewhere. it’s a bit difficult to analyse or even prove since there haven’t been any kind of references or even characters that pop up in hng from mml. I wouldn’t expect the opposite either, considering that mml ended in 2019 and hng didn’t exist until after that, so hng within mml is basically impossible without a third season.

these last two timelines make a lot less sense, especially since hng still has stories to tell and we havent seen mml characters there yet (well... unless you count doof. hes technically a mml character, right? as much as some of us dislike that fact? haha. ahahaha.)

6. where phineas and ferb and hamster and gretel exists

this one works. i think it’s basically how dtva thinks it works (basically completely ignoring mml’s entire existence lmao) but this is basically the canon timeline of hng currently. but we’ll wait and see if there’s a crossover.

7. where all of phineas and ferb, milo murphy’s law and hamster and gretel exist all at once

like I say, a surprise crossover could happen (but based off what happened with the pnf effect I can’t even imagine how messy this would get) so yes, they could exist all at once. and they probably do, just that hng is a lot further removed from its predecessors in terms of references and characters popping up out of nowhere (doof and his inators don’t seem to have much importance yet, but who knows how it’ll end). this timeline, basically, is for those who don’t really mind that everything’s in a collective universe, and it seems like the easiest one to comprehend if you aren’t pedantic about all of this.

but what about the episodes where timelines end?

you’re probably here thinking okay, so what? there’s different timelines. this isn’t news. what about the other individual episodes that are within the umbrella timeline? I like to think of them as individual timelines within the show, along with all the other ones mentioned above.

quantum boogaloo

timelines have been a thing pretty much since season 2 of phineas and ferb, notably in the episode quantum boogaloo where they go forward in time and see a potential future where stacy is the president of uruguay. this is an example of something ‘canonically’ happening after last day of summer, 20 years in the future. this episode has a couple of potential timelines - the one where everything is fine, and the one where doof is emperor and everyone is named joe. the first timeline has candace ending up with jeremy and having three kids, along with ferb at camp david and phineas at an awards ceremony in switzerland. however, this particular timeline doesnt match up equally with act your age, since their ages dont line up. in quantum boogaloo, pnf are aged 30 twenty years later, in aya, pnf are aged 18 ten years later. this means they could either be 8 or 10 in the original summer, depending on the timeline. the second one is pretty much null to me since they time travel back and both of the future timelines cancel out.

doof 101

so. this is an episode i havent seen for a while. however, this is one of the perfect examples since the theme for doof 101 says "and this all takes place in fall so don't let the timeline throw you" like hiiii thank you for acknowledging that this is a separate timeline! there's a short bit in the title that shows doof facing either prison time or teaching at the high school in court, and its something we don't see the events leading up to. sure, he's done crimes against humanity but there weren't ever any consequences during the show. who turned him in? why is he on trial? what happened between him being evil and becoming a high school science teacher? and why does this monobrow edward rooney ass guy have beef with him and charlene out of nowhere? timelines, dude. got me stressed out and its not even my show.

act your age

[through gritted teeth] this episode also shows another potential canonical ending for the cast. phineas ends up with isabella 10 years after last day of summer, showing that this particular timeline has the kids aged around 8 or 9 in the original summer. we all know my thoughts on this particular ending, notably posted here. this timeline is easy to ignore if you dislike it, like the majority of us.

what does line up with the original summer, however, is doof's b-plot in act your age. I'm not a huge hater of his arc in this episode, and honestly, it might be his most in-character timeline ending out of all of them. yes, you heard me, theres something i dont dislike about act your age. like i said in the post linked above, i dont find it hard to believe he would bowl with perry and carl and monogram every week. he would totally have a mid-life crisis that wasn't real, like this guy canonically can't even hate christmas. this is so in character for him! in terms of it being a different timeline though, the only proof i have is that it's one of many different timeline ending episodes.

last day of summer

this episode is kinda like a flagship for the timelines, and as mentioned above, my favourite ending. i don’t think I need to reiterate it, but it really just provides an open ending for the entire cast, and makes room for anything else to happen. I’m curious to see how it pans out in the reboot; if they keep the continuity and acknowledge that ldos happened, or if they just kinda skip over it if it’s true that the new seasons will happen in the summer after the original one. but don’t worry - if the reboot adds any kind of canon divergence (I’m literally counting on it) You Will Certainly Hear From Me About It. lol

the owca files

I'll admit i haven't watched owca files for a number of years but i still remember bits of it. its a very strange timeline to me. i understand that doof is legally an ocelot and can be an agent but it does feel like the beginning of that out-of-characterness he displays in mml. and i guess the owca files is canon there, right? the bit with monogram during the pnf effect?

this also includes the pine tree. it feels like a way of letting us know owca files is in a different timeline. the flynn-fletcher house gets blown up, they get new plates, and we have symbolism of the end of an era with a pine tree in their backyard.

milo murphy's law

this one in particular is mostly just the pnf/mml overlap but ensures that doof ends up as professor time. if you've seen mml i don't think i need to explain it - after last day of summer (and owca files if ur nasty) the events of mml occur chronologically as if its one continuous timeline.

wait! what about the other canon divergent episodes?

ones that aren’t necessarily an ending but are set smack bang in the middle of the show with no explanation? don’t worry. I got you.

phineas and ferb christmas vacation

this episode features doof being evil in the middle of winter. dan povenmire has said he relapsed, but this is a perfect example of different timelines. a lot of the “ending” episodes were written and aired well before last day of summer so the chance of them knowing how the show was going to end was likely very little, if not zero. so, let’s imagine that last day of summer doesn’t happen. none of that arc happens, it’s just doof being passively evil throughout the year and then this christmas event happens. i don’t think he ever stopped being evil in this timeline. the chance of him just getting less… violent with his schemes is probably the best way of thinking about it. hell, he got perry a present. yes, it was a vase, but would the s1 heinz have done that? probably not. he’s definitely less evil as the show progresses, and even an episode like this one that aired in season 2 shows how quickly they turned it around.

on the other hand - the boys make their santa clubhouse invention and candace stresses what to get jeremy as a gift. does she try and bust them? surprisingly, no. her main focus is jeremy, and when it all goes south she’s in on what the boys are doing when santas elves show up. she mentions “what’s different this year than last year?”, insinuating that the boys weren’t inventing anything before the summer that the show is set in, and that this episode is definitely set after that summer. the B plot is definitely more solid proof of the alternate timeline, with heinz “relapsing” although I struggle to believe that with all the canon divergency that happens within the show and in mml/hng the chances of it just being a relapse are very remote.

that’s the spirit!

this one is similar in that it diverges from our last day of summer ending. doof is still evil, and candace - wait, she doesn’t even try and bust them. she’s keen to trick or treat with the gang and then go to jeremy’s party. she doesn’t even try and bust them. (man, it’s almost like it’s another timeline or something.)

back to doof though - he might have relapsed like in the christmas vacation episode, but he’s not necessarily evil here either. sure, he declared war on grass for an unknown reason and turned himself into a were-cow, but it’s not established that he wants to take over the tri state area like usual. if anything, it’s the opposite. he runs from the masses like it’s a witch hunt.

the curse of candace

this episode is all fine until the end where candace turns to dust and phineas says "we're gonna need a dustpan and some glue." there isnt much else to say about this one, but it indicates another timeline where candace is glued back together afterwards. and she’s also a vampire.

happy new year!

this is set after the summer the show is set in, considering that jeremy and coltrane are at the party as candace and stacy's respective dates. doof is still evil as his plot is to become ruler of the tri-state area. candace makes one last attempt at busting her brothers. this is definitely another timeline, and also apparently one where gangnam style exists. pretty easy to understand - doof doesnt have his giving-up-evil arc and continues to be passively evil like always. this could also work chronologically with christmas vacation, where he tries his naughty-inator and then a week later comes up with the resolution-changer-inator. candace's arc is a little different, she could have stayed consistent and tried to bust the boys from summer onwards, only getting to new years and wanting to change her ways with a new years resolution.

for your ice only

evil doof is back again in the fourteen days of winter vacation that fall between christmas and new years'. for him, this could be an evil scheme that takes place at some point in between christmas vacation and new years, or it could be its own timeline altogether. candace also attempts to bust the boys again, as per usual.

what's interesting about this one though, is the fact they refer back to football x7 when talking about hockey z9. and you're probably thinking 'obviously? whats ur point' and yes. obviously they bring up the original episode when referencing the sport with the same name format. but this also implies its in the same timeline as the football x7 game, meaning there's at least two timelines that divert off my fair goalie - one that doesn't include hockey z9 and one that does (this episode). and this one (i'm circling back) includes evil doof. bam!

escape from phineas tower

what! this is a normal episode, right? if that was your reaction upon reading that subtitle, you'd be thinking the same as me, until you remember the ending where the tower extends its forcefield around the entire milky way galaxy. but here's where things get really interesting. what film, may i ask, has a plot where the ensemble cast has to fly to another planet to rescue two other ensemble cast members? thats right, candace against universe! this means that catu is set in a timeline that doesn't include the escape from phineas tower episode, since they're able to exit the milky way galaxy and enter the vroblok cluster. this would be impossible if it were in the same timeline as this episode, since they would have stopped at the dome and wouldn't have been able to get to feebla-oot.

she’s the mayor

honourable mention to this episode since it features time travel and timeline fuckery and I never see anybody talk about it!

"Back at the golf course, Roger is astounded at how fast the game is going as Dr. Doofenshmirtz points out that the slight chance that the Accelerate-inator could destroy the very fabric of space-time and possibly the entire universe is a small price to pay to get done with the game. Perry then breaks the Accelerate-inator using a golf club, causing time to flow backwards at the exact moment when Linda and Candace are about to bust Phineas and Ferb, also undoing all of the day's events back to the announcement in City Hall and causing an alien from another universe to appear.

At City Hall, Mayor Doofenshmirtz prepares to announce the winner of the Mayor-For-A-Day Essay Contest. The alien destroys the Accelerate-inator, causing the time-line to be altered once again as the new honorary mayor is announced: the old coot and telling everyone that any gold that they find is now his, causing Candace to lament, "I was robbed."" (from the pnf wiki)

what would’ve happened if doof's machine wasn’t destroyed and set the timeline back into place? the fabric of time and space would have been destroyed, and there is a very high chance there would have been a last-day-of-summer-esque situation where everything within the void would cease to exist. right from the start of the episode, it begins with a clock chiming, so from the beginning we are made aware that time will somehow have significance, which it does. after the timeline resets, we hear the clock chime again, which lets the viewer know we're now in a different timeline. there don't seem to be any repercussions of this timeline fuckery later in the show since it doesn't get mentioned again.

night of the living pharmacists

second honourable mention goes to this ending that @momphineasandferbmadeablog reminded me of (tysm bestie) where it "ends" with stacy turning off her tv as if the entire episode was a horror film the whole time. however, even before verifying, i had a feeling it was debunked and its just the ending of the grievance film. and i was right.

"Dan Povenmire made it clear that the entire episode was canon instead of a film Stacy was watching, and that the "The End" card on Stacy's TV was merely the "The End" title card of the Grievance movie she was watching." (from the pnf wiki)

there isnt a citation for it and none of his tweets showed up while i was looking for actual proof but i definitely remember him saying it somewhere, but please, absolutely feel free to think of it as a separate timeline! without dan saying it's a canon episode, there isn't actually any proof within the episode that it isn't its own timeline.

across the second dimension/tales from the resistance: back to the second dimension

and for our third and final honourable mention, this one is basically the existence of the second dimension. I haven't added it as its own since the concept is pretty obvious - its another dimension where a different timeline occurs. i mean, idk if i need to fully explain it, if youve seen the film and the s4 episode you know what happens. it's explicitly stated to be another dimension, however the specific mention of timelines is nonexistent. semantics, yes, but i do really feel like atsd is separate from all of it.

it's certainly a timeline that could happen - doof could lose his choo-choo and eventually take over the tri-state area and the events of the film would occur, but the fact that the main characters cross over and meet each other puts it into a different category for me. but by all means, feel free to think of it as yet another timeline!

I want to specifically mention: this list of episodes is not at all an exhaustive number of timelines. the way I see it, this is just the ones that are “labelled” (for lack of a better word) as their own timelines. there can be as many or as few timelines within the dwampyverse as you like. this analysis is not a rulebook, but rather answering the conundrum with one solution out of an infinite number of possibilities.

the dwampyverse and its "current year syndrome"

i think we can all agree that phineas and ferb is a relatively timeless show, in that you could watch it at any point in the past fifteen years and it wouldn't feel particularly out of place. that being said, the technology used in the show makes it feel aged or weirdly out of time. most notably, the switch between candace having a flip phone in the first three seasons and a touch-screen phone in everything post-season four. this is clearly influenced by the smartphone boom that occurred in the 2010s when iphones became mainstream, and thus impacted everyday life, including in tv and film.

so, when the animators jumped on this trend, phineas and ferb became a lot less timeless. candace owning something like a flip phone, something that didn't even exist for a long period of time in real life, felt less like something that was trying to keep up with the times than when she suddenly appeared on screen with a smartphone. not to mention the alexa joke in candace against the universe. now that was a jumpscare.

if you did want to carbon date the summer that the show is set in, like this post did for example, and if you're like me, you might headcanon phineas and ferb's summer taking place somewhere between 2009 and 2012. the other times where they've crossed over is set whenever it makes sense. the pnf effect? i think its pretty much canon that it takes place in 2017, what with all the pop culture references like pokemon go, dabbing, and uptown funk. definitely things you can date back to that mid 2010s era.

milo murphy's law also makes sure it stays current too, like specifically mentioning the year 2016 when the lumberzacks formed, milo's bag of toothbrushes labeled 2012-2014, and king pistachion doing a selfie with everyone which is like the most 2016 thing ever. (you guys remember the oscars selfie?) there's certainly some purpose behind dating some of the events within the show, since its entire B-plot is about time travel, but it doesn't feel like its really trying to be a current show. at least, not until they have references and allusions to pop culture things like ducky mo-go.

hamster and gretel has what is unfortunately the worst display of the three - there's a lot of social media references in the show. not necessarily memes, but just a lot of display of the characters using social media. the first one that comes to mind is the destructress, where her typical Thing is her doing a livestream or some kind of story update announcement with her phone, clearly showing that this is a 2020s cartoon, and it feels the need to be very current. hell, eight year old gretel has an iphone in this show, but i won't go down the track of why that fact alone is so weird to me since it'll derail this entire analysis.

granted there are a LOT of inconsistencies throughout these three shows but the current year syndrome, although sometimes unavoidable, proves the fact there are multiple timelines - and they can be traced back to candace's flip phone.

so, what do we do with this?

I personally love cherry-picking the parts of canon that exist, purely from a selfish point of view but also because this universe allows for it. there are a lot of different endings or alternate paths these characters can go down, and as exemplified by act your age, we can either ignore them or embrace them. sure, it’s unlikely but there are some people who like the aya ending and say it’s their own canon, and others who like the ending where doof becomes professor time. or there's others, like me, who absolutely adore last day of summer as their timeline end. the openness of it in such a positive light makes it feel like it’s not even the ending for these characters.

it also begs the question - does everything go back to the status quo at the end of every phineas and ferb episode? well... it can't, really. most character arcs within the show are tied to events that happen, like monty and vanessa getting together, or buford joining the backyard gang, or even doof's slow arc to being a good, if not morally grey character.

no, it’s not a big deal that there’s a lot of different timelines in the sense you have to constantly think about it as you watch it. but it does present us with the classic conundrum: which one is actually canon? and to this, i say, pick your own ending. if you like cherry picking as much as I do, indulge yourself. skip episodes you don't like. ignore parts of canon that don't actually have that much impact on the timeline. hey, its not like the show doesn't allow for it!

[canmom]

dog day

went down to a local queer film thingy today and saw Dog Day Afternoon, in which Al Pacino plays attempted bank robber John Wojtowicz (nicknamed 'Sonny' in the film) who in 1972 ended up running a hostage situation and siege he really didn't intend to be in - someone who's a bit of a cause célèbre in these parts because honestly what's more iconic than robbing a bank to pay for your trans wife's bottom surgery?

(this is the real Wojtowicz during the event)

as a movie it's absolutely really solid. Pacino definitely does a fantastic job giving us a sympathetic portrayal of the increasingly harried Sonny trying to juggle all the competing elements of the robbery - reassuring his partner Sal, negotiating with the cops outside, managing the hostages. on a pure narrative level, it's a great screenplay, both full of escalating tension and capturing the humour of the unlikely camaraderie that forms between the robbers and their hostages. they get a lot out of the contrast between mundane concerns (not swearing) and the extreme situation, and it generally works really well.

the film portrays Sonny accidentally stumbling into being a folk hero - his televised calls in which he mentions the Attica massacre, and interactions with the crowd outside, becoming central the narrative that forms around the attempted robbery. it's compelling stuff even today - indeed the whole sensibility of it, the sympathetic bi and trans characters, the sympathy for all the characters, felt very modern.

speaking of, not really quite knowing the timespan of Al Pacino's career (I've still seen very few of his movies), I kinda assumed this movie would have been made, say, a couple decades after the robbery. so I was very impressed with how well it nailed the 70s period aesthetic... which turns out to be for a very simple reason, this movie was made in 1975, just three years after the events it portrays. which is wild to me, don't filmmakers normally wait a bit for it to be less 'the news' before they fictionalise the events? anyway it was a big deal in its day, scooping up a bunch of oscars.

this makes it quite interesting to look back because it really is a slice of how people felt about shit back in the 70s - as edited by the filmmakers of course, but every sentiment in this film is a genuine 70s sentiment by definition, right? the justified distrust of the police, the highly political gay angle, that's all shit we're hashing out today still. all these characters feel very much like real people out of their depth, and it's interesting to read about the process of filming it involving a fair amount of improvised elaboration.

anyway that all has the fascinating consequence that Wojtowicz was alive and watched the movie made about him. apparently there was a whole campaign to get the film screened for Wojtowicz in prison, which meant he could make a critique of it. as a result, he could write to the newspaper criticising their portrayal (via wikipedia). evidently the filmmakers took quite some liberties for drama - Wojtowicz calls it 'about 30% accurate'.

for example they portray him as still having been with his cis wife 'Angie' (irl, Carmen) at the time of the robbery, and add a fictionalised meeting with his mother where she is dismissive of Angie for weight etc., suggesting that it's somehow her fault that Sonny should go and do something as unseemly as have a relationship with a trans woman. as I took it, it's a portrayal of his mother's prejudice which the film broadly rejects - but in any case, all of that was just straight-up made up for the film, presumably because of the drama that the trans wife vs cis wife angle brings. in reality it seems that Wojtowicz separated from Carmen two years before the robbery, and he disputes her characterisation in the film (he's actually quite rude about the actress who portrays her, who to me looked like a regular-ass woman).

A third scene shows me speaking to my female wife, Carmen, on the telephone. (The actress who portrays her in the movie is an ugly and greasy looking women with a big mouth, when in real life my wife is beautiful and very loving wife.) I did try to call her, but the F.B.I. cut the phone lines and air conditioning before I could get to speak to her on the line. I did not like the horrible way they tried to make her the blame or the scapegoat for everything that happened, especially because of the Gay aspects involved. (...) First, the actress playing my wife, Carmen, made her look horrible and inferred that I left her and winded up in the arms of a Gay man because of her. This is completely untrue, and I feel sorry for the actress for having to play such a horrible role.

this is perhaps something of an aspect where values drift between when the film was made and the present. to us the idea that 'cis woman is ugly/unloving so guy is gay' is just laughable homophobic nonsense, something that the mother or the unfortunate estranged wife might believe but clearly not true - but Wojtowicz apparently felt that was a plausible editorial angle being suggested by the film, which he needed to correct.

but honestly it's Sonny's partner Sal who truly gets the short end of the portrayal stick here. he is pretty much set up with death flags from the early on - he's got greasy hair, he's taciturn, glowering, religious, kinda ignorant, and the one who's actually willing to go through with killing the hostages - in contrast to the charismatic, beleagured Sonny who definitely is framed as being in over his head and not likely to actually do it.

so when Sal's killed abruptly at the end of the film it's essentially framed as tragic but kinda inevitable, the only way they were going to get him to stand down. according to Wojtowicz, he was actually already immobilised when the FBI killed him, and Wojtowicz disputes that it was necessary to kill him.

the only photo I have of the real Salvator Naturile is a grainy police mugshot which is inevitably far from flattering! in this portrait he has somewhat similar hair to his film portrayal but the actor in the film is 39-year-old John Cazale.

the film has the main FBI goon (truly the most FBI looking FBI goon you've ever seen) warn Sonny that they're going to kill Sal; Sonny hides this from Sal as the group make their way to the airport in the bus he demanded, allowing Sal to be tricked into lowering his weapon so the FBI can suddenly kill him and arrest Sonny. the way the film suggests it played out, Sonny implicitly figures out that flying to maybe Algeria was not really on the cards, but makes an effort to keep the ball rolling all the same, to stop Sal from killing anyone and perhaps from some delusional doublethink hope they'll all manage to fly away in the end.

the real Wojtowicz was pretty appalled at this implication. he writes:

Now to one of the most despicable parts of the film. In it they hint very dramatically that I made some kind of a deal to betray my partner, Sal. It hurt me that the same F.B.I. who cold-bloodedly killed an 18-year-old boy can be depicted as having me help then. This is not true and there is no human being low enough in this world who would let the F.B.I. kill his partner in order for him to survive. It can be labeled as just Hollywood trying to sell a movie or just to increase the drama, but I call it sick.

Wojtowicz's trans wife Elizabeth Eden is portrayed in the film with a male name 'Leon', by Chris Sarandon. As I read it at the screening, the film portrays a time the line between 'gay' and 'trans' was far less clear-cut; Sonny is declared a 'homosexual' for his relationship with 'Leon', and refers to her with male pronouns despite calling her his wife. This appears broadly to be accurate: in Wojtowicz's letter, he refers to Eden as Ernie, and calls her his 'male lover'. He praises Chris Sarandon's performance, writing:

I feel he did it perfectly. If in real life Ernie had said those things and done those actions, he would have done them exactly as Chris did them. In the telephone scene between Pacino and himself his performance was unfathomable and a tribute to his mastery of an unbelievably difficult role. I was moved to tears by it because the realism was there and so professionally done.

the film paints 'Leon' as not supporting the robbery and actually wishing to escape from the increasingly erratic and violent Sonny - there's a compelling scene where they speak on the phone while the cops tune in. but is any of that actually true? Wojtowicz doesn't defend himself from any of that portrayal in the letter beyond briefly saying that 'some of what they both said ... were true statements of facts', even though they weren't discussed during the actual robbery.

all these inaccuracies notwithstanding, some good did come of the film for the main couple. consistent with Wojtowicz's stated intent, the film portrays Sonny as motivated in large part by paying for Leon's bottom surgery (in the film they call it a 'sex change operation', and the suggestion seems to be that Leon will only be a woman after that), and a scene near the end sees Sonny dictating. in reality, the filmmakers paid Wojtowicz $7500 for the use of his story (though he says they had agreed to give him more and did not honour that deal), and he used some of that money to pay for the real Elizabeth Eden's bottom surgery so... in a sense robbing a bank does pay, if you do it in a stylish enough way to get a movie made of you!

looking back on this whole thing nearly 50 years after the event... both the main characters portrayed in it are dead. Elizabeth Eden died during the AIDS crisis in the mid 80s - by that point Wojtowicz was out of prison and was able to give her a eulogy. Wojtowicz himself made it to 60, dying of cancer in 2006. both seem to have lead pretty regular lives. and now what remains is this movie, which found in their lives a suitably dramatic 125 minutes of screen time, where they could both come to represent something bigger.

most films I tend to watch depict entirely fictional events, so it's interesting watching a film which purports to portray something real. I end up thinking about all the ways in which turning it into film makes it artificial, simplifies people into characters. the way camera angles and lighting are arranged to inform us of a character's emotional state. the way the chaotic events are organised into a series of arcs of rising and falling tension, the rhythms of tense confrontations on the street and quiet moments inside the bank, the sense of space it creates between the outside (full of crowds and cops with guns where every movement is risky) and inside (where people can, ironically, play around with guns or have mundane medical problems). everything gradually escalating as new problems arise and their consequences play out - and all the boring hours of the robbery are elided, but still suggested by the changing costumes and lighting.

sifting through the chaos of life and making narrative out of it is what films do of course, and this film does it better than most, but it's weird to think about that. to try and imagine what it would be like to have a film made out of me, what dramatic choices they would make. biopics of 'great people' are well established, but this is a film about pretty ordinary people who did something kinda crazy once, and about the systems that they acted within.

very interesting movie, definitely holds up very well, much to think about. big shoutout to Small Trans Library for screening it, really looking forward to whatever they have for us next in a couple weeks.

[aro-culture-is]

i’m like 99% sure you can ask for advice here so here goes

so, basically i have a queerplatonic/platonic crush on my band president. AND I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT KNOW HOW I DEAL WITH IT. so, for some context we started talking last year because i just joined the school and the bad and we started talking around mid-year and we weren’t that close orginally but there was this night we had a long, deep convo and after that we started to get really close. after two months, i started to have strong feelings for her (but not romantic) and i think it’s a platonic or queerplatonic crush and i didn’t really go to school and band that often for a while because of autoimmune disease and when i was there i tried not to make it seem like i’m too excited to see her which kinda makes me worried that she thinks i’m iggoring her but we text a lot so. anyway, even though we usually don’t interact irl that much [:(] we still do sometimes, and whenever my score has a rest i always look at her. especially when she has a solo. one time we went to experience this colleg band thing and i asked for a hug and she accepted❤️ i wanna hug her again. i do kinda wanna get touchy with her but not TOO MUCH, y’know? besides, i’m shy/nervous around her and anyway, she’s alloromantic. but anyway, today during our cca fair we kind of kept on kinda locking eyes (accidentally?? idk. but i know i was doing it on purpose) and it made my aromantic heart flutter

anyways so i don’t know what to do should i say i have a platonic/qpr crush on her? though i can’t tell which one it is…..

uhhhhh so, as a nonpartnering sort, I think I'm gonna give some general advice, and leave the specifics to the crowd.

broadly: do you know her views on queer stuff? could you casually bring up "oh, I was reading a queer story --", or if you know she's queer-friendly, "oh, out of curiosity, how many of the flags do you know?" type of stuff? Just, get a general vibe of her views of 1) queer people, 2) what she does and doesn't know or think she knows, and 3) if she knows about aromanticism, what she thinks it is and how she feels about aro folks.

I like to start there personally, because it gives you a lot better of a place to start a conversation about your own identity if you have a common ground on what feelings and definitions are being used. It's really easy, I find, for someone to confidently state they know what something is / what you mean, and be totally off base to the point that you're having totally separate conversations and don't even know it.

To use an example: in high school I had a friend who... lovingly, he grew up rich and sheltered, and probably only was not diagnosed as autistic because he was low support needs. His social skills were, lovingly again, as well informed as he could make them, but executed like a train wreck that most everyone attributed to "boy genius is a little weird". (He was, simultaneously, the heart throb of our school, and a lot of guys realized some queerness because of him, but that's a whole other funny story)

He was super nice about me coming out as trans, but clearly in a "he's confused but got the spirit" way. No idea what I meant, but he knew it meant a lot to me. A few weeks after that, he quietly admitted, "I thought it was about like, gender roles like cooking and cleaning and stuff, and I'm starting to get the impression I might not be right about that."

...

So, I now recommend everyone start with "let's get on the same page about what things mean" before having any big identity chats lol. It often leads to a quiet revelation on their side that you're guiding it to "Hi, I am that identity", but also puts it in a place where they're free to ask questions, and in my experience, treat it a little more thoughtfully and seriously than if it were a fly-by "heyyyyy i am aro and i am scared of this conversation, bye!" that can happen with enough anxiety. totally (/sarcasm) not speaking from experience.

hope that helps? from there, just... keep up communicating, leveling the knowledge field, and if a relationship is what you want, do the work. talk about what that means for you. ask what it means to her. talk about if that's compatible, and how conflicts might be navigated. if that goes well, congrats! if not, congrats! you've probably avoided the messier options, even if it isn't what you'd like.

[dresshistorynerd]

@bubbletea4ever I'm responding to your comment in a separate post since my answer got too long and I then just decided to properly make my case.

(For anyone else stumbling here, here's the post in which comments we were discussing. There's couple of comments before this, so if you want more context, you are free to check them out.)

So here's @bubbletea4ever 's comment:

so you can understand that regimes can control and influence how people dress, but you can’t see that a culture does the same? If you ask women who veil their faces why they do it, how many of them do you seriously think are going to say ‘to protect me from the sun’ ? covering your face is dehumanising to yourself. you can pretend it’s neutral but it’s not. there’s not a world where this means nothing, it’s inherently oppressive that women just so happen to be the sex whose awra seemingly includes everything but the face and yet even some believe they should cover that. It is inherently oppressive that there are women who choose to swim in clothes that puts them at further risk of drowning in the name of piousness. And I said it’s cultural imperialism because that’s precisely what it is. Not every niqabi is from the specific region of Saudi where this began. This sort of regression only had a resurgence because of petro-Islam.

Of course people don't usually actively think about their clothing's origin or practical purpose. Culture forms around the practice and assigns symbolism and meaning to it. If you ask most people of the world "why are you not going out in your underwear?" they will probably not answer by "because of western hegemony we are all wearing clothing that originates from Europe and in European climate layering is the best strategy to keep you warm but not overheated or sweaty". They will most likely answer "it's not appropriate". Yes, the reason today many Muslim women wear any kind of veil, including niqab, are usually religious reasons (weather by choice or not), but my point in my original response was to show that these clothing are not just tools of oppression or just religious symbols, they are also practical useful garments which have long history, just like any other traditional clothing item from different cultures. My point was that while they can take different meanings, none of those meanings are inherent to them.

When I mentioned enforcing and controlling how people dress I of course mean also other means of control than just legal means. But there is a difference in controlling societal structures and cultural norms, though the line between those two is often hazy. All cultures ever have had some social standards and norms for dress. My previous example works here as well. In modern globalized culture it's deemed inappropriate to be naked or even in just the underwear in public. However, there is nothing inherently inappropriate in it. In many cultures thorough history, mostly those originating from hot and at least semi-humid climates, it has been entirely appropriate to appear almost or fully naked in public, and the concept of underwear itself is not even universal. Even in Early Modern Europe it was very appropriate for certain women in certain situations to appear in public their breasts fully exposed (I have a post where I explain the phenomena). However, in modern globalized culture it's not. I wouldn't call that inherently oppressive though. Historically using veils (even face coverings in desert climates) was often more of a neutral cultural norm like the one I just described rather than a tool of societal control, including in Europe, where veils and other head coverings were for a long time part of the standard dress (also originally for practical reasons). (I'm not saying this was always the case thorough history, I can already think of some examples which cross the hazy line to more of an oppressive standard, but broadly speaking.) Of course, I do know that in many modern Muslim societies, even when there's no outright laws enforcing it, there is very much societally enforced pressure especially for women to wear certain clothing, which is oppressive. Still the garments themselves are not oppressive.

I think it's interesting you say covering your face is inherently dehumanizing. Why is that? What makes covering your face specifically dehumanizing? Is covering your eyes dehumanizing? For example would you consider using sunglasses as dehumanizing?

I'll give you an example to better explain how I see this. In Victorian Era western societies it was societally enforced standard for women to only wear skirts and never pants. That was oppressive. Are skirts then oppressive? I certainly wouldn't agree with that. Some feminist women did push against this oppression and wore pants. There were also women who agreed that it's oppressive to control what women wear but still choose to wear skirts. Was the only reason they choose to wear skirts because of this oppressive standard? For some it certainly was because they were afraid of the backlash, which was severe at first. But for others it clearly wasn't, because some of them did dress in very unconventional manner directly contrasting the contemporary beauty norms, but still wearing skirts. Would it have been a good way to dismantle this norm by demanding that no woman ever wears a skirt? Absolutely not. There would be just another type of control. (I write a bit more on that history in this post.) Another example. At the same time men were not allowed to wear skirts in public (outside very specific situations like when they were small children or when they were a Scott wearing a kilt). During Victorian Era many countries had laws against cross dressing, but even to this day it's not socially acceptable for men to wear skirts in western and most westernized countries. Even if there's no longer laws against it, our oppressive social structures still enforce that. So are pants then oppressive? Of course not. Should all men stop wearing pants? No, they should be allowed to wear skirts or pants. Should I assume that every man ever wearing pants is only doing it because they are oppressed by the societal standards of dress? I do not think so. My thinking is exactly the same about niqab and other Muslim and Arab garments.

In your previous comment you said the prevalence of face covering as a whole is due to imperialism, which is what I disagreed with, at least with the "as a whole" part, because as I said, face coverings have long been used in many arid, especially desert, environments, not just Arabia. Niqab term and the specific form comes from Arabia, but very similar types of face coverings are not exclusive to Arabia nor even to Islam, nor do they originate with either of them. There's even historical examples from Europe of the practice of face coverings in certain areas (for example in parts of Germany during the Renaissance, but this is veering quite off the point). Face coverings have been recorded in Levant in pre-Islamic historical accounts as well, as this academic article on the misconceptions about nicab explains (this paper informs my opinion in this subject a lot). Coptic Orthodox women, who are Christians who originate around Eqypt, traditionally wore black veils and face coverings as seen in the photo from 1918 below. Tuaregs (one of the Amazigh peoples of North Africa), both men and women, but particularly men, have also worn face coverings called Litham for centuries, as seen in the second image from 1897. Litham is a veil that also covers the face, and is often worn by men as a turban. In Central Asia face coverings have also been used for a long time, chaderi has been used in Afghanistan for several hundred years, as seen in the third image, an illustration from c. 1840.

These are just a few examples and my point with them is to illustrate niqab style face coverings are not exclusive to Saudi Arabia, and certainly not to Najd alone, so calling all face coverings outside Najd Saudi imperialism is simply not true. Saudi Arabia is certainly an imperial entity and historically Arab imperialism has been in a cultural hegemony position in the MENA area. However, Arab imperialism is certainly not the only kind of imperialism effecting MENA societies. Similarly as Arabic cultural products are pushed on many Muslims outside Arabia and even Arabic countries, so are western products. Would you think the only reason an Arab or a Muslim more broadly, man or a woman, would wear jeans or other western clothing is that they are oppressed by western imperialism? Would you condemn that usage of jeans?

It was also the western colonialism which enforced western cultural norms in many Arab and other Muslim countries, which led to the wave of westernization across MENA in the 20th century and the decline of the usage of traditional clothing, including veils and face coverings. Western world of course framed it as progress, because in the colonial framework the burden of the white man was to "civilize" non-white non-western societies. Everything non-western was then backwards and uncivilized. The Islamic backlash against this led to another kind of oppression, which is fueled by the continued western imperial presence in the area. Even Saudi Arabia is in the end just an arm of American imperialism. My point is traditional Islamic or Arab garments are not inherently more oppressive than western garments, what is oppressive when either is forced upon a culture and upon it's people.

[dingodad]

Can we hear about some buwai'i culture, maybe some before and after contact with the trolls?

it's hard to speak of a unified "Buwai'i culture" because they are so widely spread geographically and varied in their social groups. but there are a few broadly unifying features stemming from their shared biology.

Buwai'i are born in clutches contained together in one thick, leathery sac called a birthskin. while the exact practise surrounding the release of young Buwai'i from their birthskin differs from group to group, the emergence from the prenatal microcosm into the world at large bears great cultural significance in a Buwai'a's life, and the preserved birthskin is a significant artifact to the Buwai'a.

as such, leathers or skins are sacred material to the Buwai'i. within the broader Buwai'i society, groups of Buwai'i collect together in complex kinships called "Hides" or "hide groups" - but the name Hide can also be used to refer to the symbolic hide structures that are central to each group. by gathering together in one skin, the Hide become symbolic clutchmates. adding to, subtracting from or altering the communal Hide can be used to symbolise birth, death, marriage, ostracism, or any number of cultural events important to the hide group, and the practise of sewing two or more adult Buwai'i back into their birthskins can similarly be used to emblematise kinship or rebirth.

because Buwai'i optic nerves run through electrosensitive sledges either side of their head on the way to the brain, a Buwai'a can also essentially 'see' disturbances in nearby energy fields, which similarly plays a role in their spirituality. differing electromagnetic regions on the sea floor have been used as one basis for socio-political borders since time immemorial, and common Buwai'i lore asserts that the Hide is just one small part of a great skin - or "Brane" - which separates one world from the next, and that the spirit of the young Buwai'a struggles through various such layers on its journey from the primordial spirit world into the realm of the living.

it is difficult also to generalise the colonial Buwai'i. for many hide groups, like those dwelling primarily in the deep sea, culture hasn't changed, or is at least only just beginning to change. the coastal peoples, however - particularly those custodians of the areas around the primary settlements of Bitizgaki and Pumptunnel - have endured sweeping disruptions and even the total annihilation of their traditional hunting and fishing calendars, and thus been forced to adapt to the industries that now dominate Gracilia. the Alternian Schools established by the Sisters of the Outer Caverns early on in the colony's history provide opportunities for Buwai'i to become involved as labourers in the extraction and shipment of the planet's signature palm spore oil, but other roles more suited to traditional Buwai'i knowledge - such as the native police who use their ancestral wisdom to enforce Alternian law deep in the Gracilian rainforest, or the trawlermen who fuel the growing colony's ever-expanding hunger for cheap seafood - only push urban Buwai'i deeper into conflict with their kin.

[nocandnc]

I saw some discussion floating around on what Momo and Okarun might name their child if they had one, which got me thinking about it as well. This inevitably led me down a deep rabbit hole of Japanese wordplay and research that really needed its own post, so here goes...

Naming hypothetical Dandadan kids!!

Fandadan kids...?

I'll be covering Momo x Okarun, Aira x Jiji and Kinta x Vamola below the cut for those who're interested - it's very long and very silly.

Momo x Okarun

If it were up to me, I'd name their child Tou. Why?

Well. You. See! Okarun's real name is Ken, written as 健 - meaning 'health' or 'strength'. However, 'ken' is also how you pronounce the word for 'sword' - written as 剣. This refers broadly to swords of many varieties. A more specific word would be 'katana', written as 刀, which refers to Japanese-style blades in particular. Another way of pronouncing 刀 is 'tou'.

Momo's name means 'peach' and is written as 桃. An alternate way of pronouncing 桃 is also 'tou'. Furthermore, the word 'momo' is also one way to read 百, the kanji for the number 100... as in the number of kilometers an hour a certain old lady can run.

So Tou feels like a wonderful name to me, as it loops all in and around Momo and Ken's names and even Turbo Granny to boot. It's a masculine name, but I feel like they'd still go with Tou even for a girl. A very tough girl!!

Aira x Jiji

Whether these two end up becoming a proper pairing in-series remains to be seen, but I've become totally hooked on them recently ^^;; and they're both so good with kids, I can imagine them having two or three... but I think the first one should be Buyuu.

Aira's name is written as 愛羅, which is a nod to the phrase 愛羅武勇 - read as 'I love you', or アイラブユー (ai ra bu yuu) - said as if one were speaking in English, rather than the Japanese line 'aishiteru' for example. A very fun line that showcases Aira's passionate side!

'Buyuu' would make for a very nice boy name to match his mother, written of course as 武勇 to follow Aira's 愛羅. Jiji is a fun and sentimental guy, so I think he'd be fully on board with this kind of wordplay!

武勇 can also be read on its own to mean 'bravery', 'military prowess' or 'valour'. Jiji's real name is Jin, written as 仁 and means 'benevolence', 'compassion', 'charity' etc. - while not directly related, 'jin' and 'buyuu' both point towards virtuous qualities that often go hand-in-hand. Buyuu refers to warrior-like traits especially, which also serves as a nod to Jiji's power both with and without the Evil Eye.

I can certainly think up good names for more kids too... but let's move on for now >///<

Kinta x Vamola

This ship might be a bit polarizing, but I honestly think they'd be so sweet together once they have time to grow! Another reading for Vamola is Bamora, written either way as バモラ - neither reading is right or wrong from a technical standpoint, but I prefer Vamola as it sounds more alien to my ears.

It also matches with Vega, which is the name I'd choose for her and Kinta's daughter!

Vega is the brightest star in the Lyra constellation, and is known in Japan as 織姫 or 'Orihime' - as in Orihime from the popular folktale of Tanabata. The story is about two lovers (Orihime and Hikoboshi) who are separated by the Milky Way and can only meet on the 7th day or the 7th month. A lonely maiden from the stars... almost like a certain alien girl!

But the connections don't stop there. Sakata Kinta (坂田金太) also happens to be a folktale reference! 'Kintarou' (金太郎) is the name of a very famous figure in Japanese myth, particularly known for slaying the fearsome oni overlord Shuten-douji. He also may or may not have served Minamoto no Yoshitsune under the name of Sakata Kintoki (坂田 金時). Folktale father, folktale daughter.

Kinta is such a bombastic guy, Vega just might be on the normal side of his naming preferences... but I think Vamola would find it all very sweet and moving. That said, Vega herself might choose to go by Orihime amongst her peers to avoid the questions and weird looks >.>

(And of course, if they had a son it'd be Altair instead!)

So... yeah! Those are my thoughts and ideas on the matter ^^;;;

I love researching Japanese terminology etc. so this was really just an excuse to ramble about all that... Hope some folks enjoy!

[silverview]

below the cut is a long and overthinky post about in9, mostly

i need to start by talking about sitcom finales, which fortunately is a straightforward place to start. i've probably written this exact bit before, so i'll recap it as briefly as i can

when creators are knowingly bringing a sitcom to its end, they use the final episode(s) to ask and (usually) answer the question: are we getting out of this situation? since the characters aren’t going to be onscreen anymore, they don’t need to be funny anymore, so they have the option of ‘graduating’ out of whatever sit(uation) has been keeping them hilariously unfulfilled. (the sit might be a literal location or simply a social circle, pattern of behaviour etc.) they have the opportunity to be happy, offscreen, after the show ends

characters can graduate by changing their circumstances: for the worse e.g. death (blackadder) or for the better (cabin pressure). if they don't graduate, they're doomed to remain in the sit indefinitely (peep show). or they might realise that the sit has become a place where they feel fulfilled, and they have no need to graduate (spaced). how to classify any specific show can be up for debate & i won't go into detail justifying these examples, but broadly speaking and for the sake of argument, these are the categories

you can mix and match these endings for different characters within the same show, so that some graduate and others don’t (community). this will often be the case when there is a ‘striver’ character who has consistently shown greater ambition/potential to escape than the others. this is going to be bittersweet, in fact all graduations are going to be bittersweet, because – no matter how awful the sit and no matter how nice the graduation – the audience has come to know and love the sit, and the characters/relationships within it, and we’re sad to see that come to an end. the characters left behind will inevitably have strong feelings about a split ending, one way or another – either supporting or attempting to sabotage the striver's graduation

so i’ve been thinking about plodding on as a sitcom finale. as you can tell, it's clearly using this framework. it takes the emergent meta-characters of 'steve' and 'reece,' largely implied presences up to this point, and puts them up onscreen for a very traditional sitcom finale. the show itself is the sit, and we get all the classic struggles to escape, all the ensuing clashes brought on by guilt/resentment/the pain of separation. through this lens, the ending is... well, either a peep show or a spaced ending, depending on how optimistically you read it. but those are just two sides of the same coin – the 'nobody graduates' coin. 'the adventure continues indefinitely.' they move on to a new show, but their circumstances are effectively unchanged, for better or worse. the audience are invited to enjoy the cosy feeling that this is for the best. they know we love the sit, that's only natural, and we don't want it to end. so they very kindly wrote an ending that keeps it alive forever, even if that leaves their characters somewhat unresolved/unfulfilled in some respects

tlog apocalypse is also a sitcom finale, in a sense. it uses a curiously similar formula – manifesting the meta-characters 'steve,' 'reece' and 'mark' onscreen for the first time, and making tlog itself the thing from which they want to escape. like plodding on it even shows us a fictional 'next' project to represent their escape attempt. the difference is that they are not the protagonists; the residents of royston vasey are, represented by lipp & geoff & briss. those guys get their own unique graduation arcs, which all fit the traditional sitcom model to a greater or lesser extent. some are aborted and some are fulfilled, but overall, we get a similar ending to in9: the town goes on, the sit goes on, the adventure continues indefinitely. ('it was all a dream' ambiguity notwithstanding.) because that's basically what the audience really wants.

in both these cases, what we're really rooting for is The Show; The Work Itself. i've said this before, but one of in9's favourite themes is the danger and difficulty of creative work/entertaining people, the damaging effects on the body and soul. but in the end, despite all that, it comes down in favour.

if psychoville had run its course, would the r&s meta-characters eventually have made an appearance? i suspect not, for two reasons. 1) unlike tlog & in9, psychoville has a substantial recurring cast of other actors, so the r&s meta-characters are not such a ubiquitous implied presence. 2) maureen & david are (or ... were) a prominent stable unit that can easily stand in for the creators, i.e. represent their respective aggregate presences on the show. (tubbs & edward can fill this role for tlog; they just didn't in the movie. in9 doesn't have a version of this, or it didn't until the finale.)

i'm talking about meta-characters all the time. i linked to my original post about it above, but i want to try & expand on it. r&s, the implied actors/writers. they're a sort of thin layer between the explicit fiction of the show and the reality of the actual guys. they're emergent, unscripted, unseen, unheard, and largely unknowable. they're made up of the viewer's conscious & unconscious impressions as she watches the show. the easiest way i've found to think about it is this: they're the same as the actor characters on the show that goes wrong – recognisable characters who are actors, themselves playing a variety of characters – the only difference is that 'reece' and 'steve' don't ever break onscreen. we always know they're there; we always know we're watching 'reece' & 'steve' playing tommy & len; we are never just watching tommy & len. we build up a familiarity with 'reece' and 'steve' just by watching them act, and that inevitably shapes our perceptions of the individual explicitly fictional characters

the meta-characters are who the audience is tuning in for week to week, to see what they do next. not the explicitly fictional characters who change every week (although once we know & love them, we return to see them again of course<3). not the real human men, because those are too far removed for audiences to develop an impression of them from the show alone. there is a fictional construct of a man which is never intentionally written or acted, but which nonetheless accretes organically in the viewer's head, until she has a vague sense of a character behind the characters. that's the meta-character.

many such cases, when actors repeatedly work within the same circumstances/ensembles. very similar effect in the carry on films, for example. hancock's half hour features an odd version of the same phenomenon. sketch shows like mitchell & webb look and jfsp repeatedly bring their meta-characters onscreen, and in fact both explicitly acknowledge what they're doing by having the meta-characters point out that their lines are scripted. especially in jfsp, this creates ANOTHER layer of fiction – there's the fully fictional character simon kane is playing, there's the 'simon kane' who has scripted lines in a fourth-wall-breaking sketch, there's the meta-character 'simon kane' who is implied to be reading those lines, and finally there's the flesh & blood human man. this is all getting a bit much

anyway, imagine if in9 had included more ‘backstage’ scenes/episodes throughout its run. imagine how plodding on would hit if you’d been seeing those guys interact onscreen for the whole ten years, sloooowly building their meta-story to its finale