#but that we as an audience know to be true | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

honourablejester · 3 days ago

Text

I’m going to respond to this directly, since I’m one of the ones it’s aimed at, but I understand if OP doesn’t have the spoons for direct conversation. This is just running into several related things I’ve been seeing a lot lately, so I’m going to explore this a little.

Fantasy, Religion, War, Genre Conventions, and Portrayal as Endorsement.

So the thesis here is that the crusades should not be portrayed as a good thing. And what I want to know here is what specifically we mean by that.

Why were the real world crusades bad? And this is not some kind of gotcha question, I’m not claiming they weren’t, I’m asking why specifically. They were a series of religiously inspired wars of conquest that involved invading and occupying foreign territories.

Is the issue here ‘war of conquest’? Or is the issue here ‘religiously inspired war’?

Because the specific example in Pathfinder can be argued as a war of defense, in the sense that an army of demons had actually invaded and conquered one country and were looking to expand from there. Now, granted, the country invaded wasn’t the crusaders’ country, at least not the majority of them. This was pre-emptive defense where a foreign army basically occupied one country and walled off another to prevent a second foreign army from using them as staging grounds to invade further. So there is a native country stuck in the middle getting shat on by everybody, which was true of the Holy Land of the real world crusades as well. But if there is a genuine threat, is it wrong to go to war with them? At what specific point does a war stop being justified? (Or, alternately, at what specific point does a war start being justified)? Is the issue here the concept of war?

Or. Since the impression I’m getting is that the issue is the choice of demons, an objectively evil enemy that it is morally correct to fight, as the opponents of said war, is the issue that it’s a religious war? And in that case … Is the issue the portrayal of religion as objectively correct?

What I’m saying is, are we approaching this from an atheist standpoint? While we’re talking about the assumptions baked into our narratives. Is the assumption here that the historical real life crusades were wrong because religion is false and never a justification for war or anything else that would damage another person, and that therefore any portrayal of a religious war as something the heroes might morally take part in is objectively wrong?

Because. Fantasy as a genre. Assumptions, genre conventions of fantasy as a genre. Not universally, but quite often. Magic is real. Gods are real. Supernatural threats are real. If we have those as a baseline of the genre, how do we marry those concerns?

If a supernatural threat does exist, one that is inimical to other life, one that genuinely wants to destroy everything before it, and that supernatural threat is currently attacking, is it morally wrong to go to war with said threat? If you have an another supernatural ally, one that is the enemy of the thing trying to destroy you, is it morally wrong to listen to them? Is it morally wrong to believe in and follow a god if gods are demonstrably real things?

Now. Pulling back slightly, I fully understand that the terms are loaded. Gods, demons, crusades. These are real world words that had often horrific real world consequences. Blood libel, zealotry, genocide. Calling an enemy force ‘demons’ so that you can justify wiping them out has had real world consequences. Historically, the crusaders weren’t fighting actual demons, but people.

So is the issue here calling the fantasy war a crusade while swapping the portrayed enemy from people to an actual demonic foe, and thereby … justifying the real crusades the same way? They thought the enemy were demons, and demons are correct to fight, so actually the real crusades were justified?

The thing is, though, that we know that the enemies the real crusaders fought weren’t demons. The audience knows. (And the parts of the audience that don’t aren’t the part that are going to be critically examining much of anything).

The narrative is not real life. The narrative is operating on certain specific assumptions that, particularly in the case of fantasy as a genre, are held up as impossible in real life. (Whether they’re right to be or not, there is a particularly atheistic, Enlightenment, ‘we’ve progressed beyond such silly superstitions and beliefs’ sort of stripe in the Western approach to fantasy). Demons are a fantasy thing.

And a religious one. Which, yes, is where the danger lies.

So what I’m asking here is … What do you mean when you say ‘fantasy thinks the crusades were good’? Do you just mean that fantasy operates in a world where demons are real, and that makes fantasy automatically wrong? Is the basic premise of a heroic ‘good’ force fighting a supernatural ‘evil’ force just automatically wrong?

And again, I want to clarify that I do get it. The alignment system, creating a fantasy race or species of beings specifically to be your villains and specifically so that it’s okay to kill them. An enemy that you don’t have to agonise whether you have a moral right to kill, because they are inherently, on a molecular level, just … made of evil. That desire in and of itself is problematic.

But. The thing is. That desire also inherently indicates that the writer knows people can’t provide that. If a writer has to make up an explicitly supernatural foe to serve as their fantasy punching bag, it’s because they’re aware that their audience (or at least hopefully most of their audience) know that humans at least are not inherently evil and morally okay to slaughter.

(The question of other fantasy races created to be punching bags is a different one, the orcs, goblins, drow, etc, because those are explicitly meant to be people bred or damned to act a certain way, which goes different directions, but honestly I think demons are actually less fraught, here, because they are explicitly supernatural, a direct force of embodied evil. Which does then get complicated when you then go back and go ‘no, they’re actually people too’, but eh. This gets messy no matter which way you slice it, unfortunately).

So is the desire to fight an uncomplicated enemy and feel righteous doing so just the basic problem? Because I feel we’re veering there into ‘video games make people violent’ sort of territory. The desire to do something in a game in a fantasy environment that you are conscious is not real is not the same as wanting to actually beat someone to death for being different in real life. And even if it is, the desire to seek out a fantasy means of satiating that desire instead of a real life one is, I would argue, a very good sign. Thought police again. Desires aren’t the problem, actions are.

And, well. A lot of people have the desire to just, for once, know for sure where the evil comes from, to see it given a form, and to be able to directly fight that form. That’s just a thing that happens in the bewildering landscape of today’s increasingly stressful world.

There’s just. There’s a bundle of closely linked potential issues in here that don’t all point in the same directions. It’s a very broad statement, ‘fantasy thinks the crusades are basically good’. Potential elements of that:

Fantasy often uses metaphysical concepts like ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as physical, concrete realities, with all the potential loss of nuance that entails.

Fantasy posits a world where traditionally religious elements such as souls, spirits, demons, gods, sin, etc are physically real, which interacts in very messy ways with the history of religion in our world (as well as with current religion in our world).

Heroic fantasy often automatically creates a value judgement of certain violent activities (quests, war, combat, dragon slaying) as ‘righteous’ based mostly on the fact that it’s the hero doing said activities, and either doesn’t examine that value judgement or causes a lot of (sometimes) unintentional implications while trying to justify it.

When a fantasy narrative using the conventions of the genre (evil as a tactile force, heroes as morally justified, violence as the vehicle of righteousness) borrows terminology from real, significantly more dangerous and nuanced real world events, there is a potentially dangerous resonance where the fantasy narrative is (purposefully or otherwise) being read as an interpretation and endorsement of the historical event.

On the flipside, however:

Fantasy as a genre (whether rightly or otherwise) is specifically highlighted as unreal, as divorced from reality.

The conventions of any narrative genre tend to interact very messily with the significantly more complicated real world. (Heroic war movies, unrealistic or unhealthy relationships in romance novels, etc).

The use or deliberate avoidance of specific terminology within fiction is its own thorny issue, and especially in fantasy given its interesting history of allegory and thinly veiled disguises. Just not using the word doesn’t automatically fix the issue.

Which is not to say that fantasy shouldn’t be examined and criticised and questioned! But. I want a bit more specificity than blanket statements like ‘fantasy thinks such-a-clearly-wrong-thing is good’.

Because. Does fantasy think the real world crusades were good? That likely depends on the writer. Does fantasy create a fictional world where fictional crusades are good? Yes, sometimes it has done. Is fantasy wrong to do so? It depends on the execution.

Because fantasy posits a world where supernatural forces are real, and in such a world, is it wrong to fight such forces if they threaten you? And does fantasy coming to the conclusion that in a world where such things are true, it is right to fight them, does that then mean that fantasy believes that a) such things are true in the real world, and b) such violent actions can be justified on that basis in the real world? Again, it depends on the execution. Because fantasy, as we are told so very often, is not reality, and when we’re judging fantasy (and any fictional narrative), we’re interpreting it both within its own universe, and on how it interacts with our universe.

And, again, going back to that specific example. Paizo, Pathfinder, and the Mendevian Crusades. Pathfinder is carrying a lot of baggage from the history of D&D, the alignment system, the concrete physical realities of good and evil and all the buggy and messy and wrongheaded ways its been implemented. Could they do better, absolutely. But. These specific crusades, as I mentioned before, were portrayed as incredibly flawed, politically and morally messy, and were shown devolving into mindless persecution and opportunism several times. Which means that, in a world where the enemy was objectively evil, where a real and genuine god had mandated the fight against them, and where the survival of the world depended on holding the tide back, the crusade was still shown as complicated and messy and wrongheaded and as harsh on the afflicted people as the demonic invasion itself. There are good demon characters within the narrative. There are intelligent demon characters within the narrative. There are evil crusaders within the narrative. So yes, I’m going to give Paizo some credit here, for interacting with the concept with nuance even with certain fantasy conventions in place.

And again, said fantasy conventions are not inherently wrong in-and-of themselves. Is it wrong to interact with the concept of physical gods? With a physical, supernatural manifestation of dark concepts? If we create a narrative in which evil is given a physical body for us to fight, is that an inherent sign of weakness?

I suppose the other part of what I’m asking, here, is what the solution is. Like. Are we not to interact with these concepts? Is fantasy as a genre inherently wrong for having these concepts as genre conventions?

When you say, fantasy thinks the crusades were good, what is the opposite of that? What is the thing you want to see? Are we getting rid of the supernatural as a genuine force? Are we getting rid of tying inherent morality to supernatural forces (which I can definitely see the argument for, and which to be fair, people are currently struggling with attempting in the genre, and the ttrpg expression of the genre)? Are we dumping the whole concept of the heroic struggle? Are we, say, removing heroic and high fantasy as genres and going exclusively for low/grimdark fantasy?

I realise that this is a very specific example, of how D&D-inspired ttrpg fantasy interacts with the specific concept of religious wars, but as I said this is bumping into a lot of related questions I’ve seen floating around recently. Morality of war, morality of religion, portrayal vs endorsement, morality of violent games, purity culture, etc.

And I am curious, I guess. How do you think a setting with the specific fantasy conventions of pathfinder/d&d, in this case specifically that gods are real and that good and evil can be physically embodied to threaten people, should interact with the concept of a holy war? Just avoid the issue altogether?

Because honestly I think it’s on the audience to draw the conclusion that since the Islamic forces were not actual demons in our world, we’re not going to judge the historical crusades by the same metrics that we judge a fictional world where the enemy literally was an embodied chunk of elemental evil. You know? What might be an understandable and moral course of action in a fantasy world where literal embodied evil trying to destroy the world is a threat you might actually have to face isn’t necessarily a moral and understandable course of action in our world, where things are unfortunately significantly more complicated than that.

I’m not sure if I’m still talking past you, but I figured I’d get my ramble in anyway.

kind of concerning how married the fantasy genre is to "crusades as a basically good thing"

#fantasy #morality #portrayal vs endorsement #other things #i'm too tired to tag right now

3K notes · View notes

literaryvein-reblogs · 4 hours ago

Note

Excuse me, do you have any posts on writing well written female characters/protagonists?

Writing Notes: Female Characters

Conducting research through observation – including self-observation – is the very first step in creating memorable women characters.

We observe the women in our lives. We watch and learn, noticing how they engage relationally with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers.

Creating memorable women characters is much like developing memorable relationships. The only way to have meaningful relationships is to be real:

Be willing to share.

Be honest.

Listen with an open heart.

Love without judgment.

This is all very easy to say and much harder to do.

But it’s what’s necessary if we want to have rewarding and lasting friendships and partnerships. And the same is true if we want our female characters to connect with audiences.

Let your female characters speak to other female characters about something that matters. In doing so, you will make women and girls visible.

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself before writing from a woman’s perspective:

Why are you assigning a female gender to this character?

Are you just doing it to show how cool and hip and progressive you are?

Are you writing a biting, sardonic social commentary?

Do you want to create a realistic portrait of a woman?

Is there an added level of symbolism to your gender choice?

Let the answers to these questions dictate how you assign gender to all of your characters, not just the female ones.

Using men and women to foil each other can create an delightful dynamic in your story, as long as you avoid stereotypes. Here’s a list of stereotypes:

The delicate flower. She barely talks above a whisper, she’s sad, so terribly sad, suffering from the pain of a mysterious past.

The femme fatale. She’s a sexpot, only wears skin-tight clothes, and has a gun with your name on it.

The crazy girlfriend. She’s also got a gun.

The stay at home wife. She’s wholesome, virtuous, and dependant. Her only will for living is to be a wife and a mom.

The career driven. She’s cold-hearted and she wears designer shoes.

The most beautiful girl in the world. She’s so beautiful that she doesn’t even know it, but every other woman around her hates her.

Stereotypes make a character fall flat.

They deflate what could be an interesting character.

Refer to the Bechdel Test. By no means is this “the end all and be all,” however the test is useful in determining whether you story supports two active female characters who aren’t solely wrapped up in a guy and/or his journey. A story passes the Bechdel Test if it has:

two named female characters

who talk to each other

about something other than a man.

The tool is a great reminder that females, even in a love story, can discuss other matters that don’t include a man or romance.

There is no formula for creating complex female characters.

For that matter, there’s no such thing as a step-by-step approach to crafting compelling stories with complicated characters of any gender.

But we can begin to intentionally reflect on how we think about gender representation in film, television, literature, and other media.

We can think about the people we love and consider how the screen stories they see will impact their lives, today and in the years to come. We all want our loved ones to feel confident and empowered and inspired.

We’ve recommended films, television shows, and books to our family and friends not only because we think they’ll enjoy them, but also because we think the stories will in some way be helpful to them. Our stories can help.

They can make viewers/readers laugh when they feel down. They can help them process their feelings and experiences, escape into a fantasy, or visualize possibilities for their future. The benefits of screen storytelling are limitless.

And if we populate our stories with characters that represent all of humanity, in all its complexity … who knows? Maybe someday this conversation will be outdated and unnecessary.

STRONG CHARACTERS. Come in all shapes, sizes, and genders. Every creator has a different idea of how strength is expressed, but there are a few ways to ensure your audience understands the type of character you’ve created when your focus is on writing a strong female character.

Writing Tips: Strong Female Characters

Creating strong female characters is the same process as creating strong characters in general—they need backstory, motivation, and depth in order to cultivate a three-dimensional profile that makes them feel like believable, real people. Here are some ways to write strong female characters:

Give her complex emotions. Vulnerability and emotional depth are important characteristics for good characters of any gender. A strong woman shouldn’t be written as a one-dimensional trope—she can be a stoic warrior who cries when her best friend dies, or a sweet kindergarten teacher who boxes to deal with her rage. People are complicated and often unpredictable, so giving your female character the same complex range of emotions you yourself experience as a human being is a good way to start writing stronger characters.

Give her multiple kinds of strength. Physical strength isn’t everything—even the most hulking adversary can be taken down by smart, tactical fighting—and a female lead doesn’t have to be a bodybuilder or professional athlete in order to be strong. There are different types of strength that female characters exert. They can have confidence, wit, and mental fortitude. They can be brilliant scientists who stand up for themselves when no one else will listen. They can be stay-at-home mothers who won’t tolerate their spouse leaving a mess. Female characters have their own strong opinions and morality and aren’t just generalized for being women.

Give her female allies. Sometimes writers try to make a female character appear stronger by turning her into a “tomboy” who only has male friends. However, your female protagonist can just as easily draw strength from the women who surround her. Giving your female lead character female friends can help her feel more like a real-life person.

Give her more than her looks. Describe the way your female protagonist looks in a way that informs who she is. Does she have a defining physical feature that is integral to the storyline? Does her body language denote a particular personality trait? Brainstorm ways to avoid or subvert clichés (“she was pretty but didn’t know it”), which can weaken an audience’s first impression of your character.

Characteristics of Strong Female Characters

Strong female characters can encompass many different types of women, with varying opinions on what is considered “strong.” In order to write strong female characters, old tropes and stereotypes (like the damsel in distress or the nagging wife) should be avoided, as they can be detrimental to how your female character is viewed as a whole. If you’re looking to write a strong female character, check out some common characteristics below:

She has her own opinions. A strong female lead will listen to her own instincts and make her own decisions based on her own value system (even villains have their reasons for their choices). She’ll make mistakes, but she’ll always try to learn from them. A strong character isn’t immune to influence, but they have their own thoughts and feelings about their world and the things that happen within it.

She is her own person. Strong female characters don’t all have to be single, independent women. They can be in relationships and care about their partners without being weak or codependent. However, a strong female character has her own identity and trajectory that she follows, as well as her own ambitions and goals outside of her relationship with another person.

She has flaws. Strong female characters have struggles and flaws just like everyone else, but what makes them strong is how they deal with their shortcomings. Even the strongest characters have weaknesses, but that’s what humanizes them and makes them relatable to audiences.

She’s tough in her own right. What makes a female “tough?” The term is subjective. Is toughness just a character’s ability to physically bring down foes? Or can it be her ability to think fast under pressure or negotiate with powerful figures? A stay-at-home mother can be just as tough as a soldier—a woman’s role does not necessarily dictate who she is as a person.

Give her conflicting personality traits. Conflicting personality traits make a character interesting. Balance traditionally feminine and masculine character traits, as well as give your characters several flaws and strengths. Conflicting character traits not only make your female character three-dimensional but also provide for interesting internal or interpersonal conflicts in your story. You can imagine characteristics—positive, negative, or neutral—in pairs of opposites, such as:

Bookish & arrogant

Gossipy & trustworthy

Pensive & uninhibited

Kind & tactless

Empathetic & selfish

Examples of Strong Female Characters

Strong female characters are not flawless and unemotional—they’re complicated, just like everyone else. Authors, along with screenwriters for TV shows and film, have portrayed a great number of strong female protagonists in a variety of roles. Here are a few that are especially memorable:

Buffy Summers: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a powerful heroine with awesome fighting skills who can be both tough—even when chasing a love interest—and empathetic—even towards those who have wronged her. She is a three-dimensional character, and she always tries to do the right thing.

Ellen Ripley: Sigourney Weaver plays alien-fighting heroine Ellen Ripley in the film Alien. Ellen Ripley is straightforward, physically strong, and a smart main character—but she also has strong maternal instincts that sometimes drive her decisions. All of those traits coexist with one another without lessening the strength of her character.

Katniss Everdeen: In Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Katniss is a young woman living in a dystopian world, who volunteers her own life in order to protect her younger sister. While sometimes impulsive and susceptible to the manipulations of others, Katniss grows throughout her story arc, becoming a skilled warrior who makes sacrifices to keep the ones she loves from harm. Although she has love interests, most of her decisions are based on survival and not romance—because as long as she’s alive, she can keep her family safe.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Here are some notes and tips I compiled from various sources. It's interesting to see where the authors' advice overlap. Choose which ones work best for your specific story. Hope this helps with your writing!

#writing tips #character development #writing reference #writeblr #literature #writers on tumblr #dark academia #spilled ink #writing prompt #creative writing #writing ideas #writing inspiration #writing advice #light academia #writing resources

30 notes · View notes

beesgobzzzing · 2 days ago

Text

Article translation

Hooja and Käärijä are performing together for the first time in the first semifinal of Melodifestivalen in Luleå. Maybe Hooja will be participating in Melodifestivalen for real in the future:

You never know, Hooja says. [Bees note: Their manager said in a podcast during the fall last year that they were not interested in competing in Melodifestivalen, so this is definitely a politicians answer.]

Among feather boas and pink sequins, dressed in their particular fur hats, baklavas and fleece jackets, Hooja and DJ Mårdhund has arrived in Luleå Energi Arena. [Bees note: Mårdis and myself has referenced this as Coop Arena before, and that used to be it's name. Like many arenas elsewhere, this one also takes it's name from their main sponsor, which changes every now and then.] They are debuting in Melodifestivalen. They do have someone who has a lot of experience from this setting with them - Finnish Eurovision favorite Käärijä. But they're not taking part in the actual competition.

Together they are here as an interval act in Melodifestivalen's first semi in Luleå, where they are performing their new song "San Francisco Boy".

The trio has taken a break in show preparations and sit down on some chairs by one of the arena entrances. Käärijä is not wearing a mask, but does wear sunglasses just like the duo from Gällivare.

You're a bit secretive, and I think it's fun to work with artists who don't only have the music but another level to it. You have nice clothes too, Käärijä says.

Outside the glass doors another masked artist, Fröken Snusk [Bees note: her artist name translates to Miss Dirty], appears and waves to her coworkers before she once again disappears into the darkness.

Why are you making a song together?

Why not? I listened to Hooja's music and thought "oh, Swedish music can sound like this". Of course in a positive way, Käärijä says and laughs.

He says it's not always easy to make music with other artists. But the collaboration with Hooja has been painless.

Everything went so quick from meeting for the first time until we had a finished song, DJ Mårdhund says.

It was destiny, Hooja adds.

(Text under the picture: Käärijä has watched Melodifestivalen at home in Finland and is happy that he gets to enter the stage in Sweden with Hooja. "Dreams can become true", DJ Mårdhund notes.)

That the song is called "San Francisco Boy" has nothing to do with anyone from the trio having been there.

We have seen San Francisco in pictures, very nice pictures in my opinion. They have a nice and big bridge, DJ Mårdhund says.

Maybe we should go there together and make "San Francisco Boy part 2", Käärijä says.

Käärijä competed for Finland in Eurovision in 2023 with the song "Cha Cha Cha". He came in second after Sweden and Loreen's song "Tattoo". Being in Melodifestivalen now is not something he minds.

It's fun, I love Loreen, and I like you too, Käärijä says and points at Hooja.

He won the audience vote in Eurovision and quickly became a fan favorite. Not least of all in Sweden, where his song climbed the charts. He wasn't quite prepared for the love from the Swedish audience.

There were a lot of Swedish people who wrote to me and said they liked my song. I didn't think Swedish people liked Finnish music, but it was really nice to see that the song charted so well in Sweden.

The trio has a very full schedule during these few days in Luleå. Hooja describes the whole event as "hullaballoo".

There are a lot of people running around but it's a fun show, he says.

Being the interval act together with Käärijä feels safe, according to the duo.

It feels good having you here, you've done this kind of thing before, Mårdis says and looks at Käärijä:

You're almost being a father figure for us.

But will being the interval act this year make Hooja want to compete for real in Melodifestivalen in the future?

You never know. We are not going to say: No, we would never do that. But we're not going to give a definite yes either, Hooja says.

Wow, what a politician's answer, DJ Mårdhund says.

Maybe I should get into politics instead, Hooja says.

#käärijä #jere pöyhönen #hooja #dj mårdhund #mårdis #san francisco boy #melodifestivalen

33 notes · View notes

bl-inded · 2 days ago

Text

Unpopular Opinion Time!

Jun is right.

Okay! Okay! Put the pitchforks down! I'm not saying what he did was right, but I still think he has a point.

Thame is a 100% green flag. He's absolutely sweet, extremely adorable, and he always makes it a point to make Po feel important. And i fosho believe that for they are good for each other and deserve the best! They are endgame in my heart too!

Buuuut! I think Jun sees things in Po that he isn't even ready to see in himself yet. Idk if Jun likes Po romantically or not, and I'm not gonna speculate (though the delicious angst of that! Oof). I also think it doesn't matter because what we all should be focusing on is that he cares a lot about everyone, and he definitely cares about Po and Thame.

And for some reason, he has this screwed-up logic that making himself the bad guy is the best way to resolve the situation. He did it when he wanted Thame to escape the slave contract and go to Korea, and he's doing it now by making Thame and Po confront their feelings (I bet he probably did that when Dylan and Thame were getting close too 🤷🏽‍♀️ coz let's be honest Dylan- also very rough around the edges).

Now, I will always be a Jun defender. But, we as the audience know what happened to Po in his previous relationship that neither Jun nor Thame know (I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong). And Thame is perfect! But Jun puts in the effort to make Po feel like he's smart, talented and capable- Granted it's by scolding and teasing him- but it's still true.

I love love looovveeee the air hockey scene. Like so many things about it hit!! But I love it when Jun switches sides from being the red flag villain, back to Thame and Po's friend. Oooooooof.

Like, yeah. He's done playing the bad guy because the situation is resolved. Thame might think they both have an equal chance, but Jun knows that that's simply not true. And now he knows the right thing to do, so he does it. He concedes.

I know ThamePo is endgame. I accept it! So tell me WHYYYY!?

Tell me why this scene makes me hurt?!?!

I'm not going to speculate if Jun liked Po romantically. But I'd be damned if I let people go around calling Jun "annoying" and "unnecessary" without saying something about it. Because I think he is doing the best he can for those he loves the way he knows how. It's screwed up, but his heart is in the right place! And the minute he gets told there is a better way to help, he does.

Remember that scene in ep2, the whole perspective switch we got about him being Thame's number 1 hater? He's that kinda guy and I love him!

#istg the number of posts i see about him being annoying #like yes #but we literally have always known that #i saw a post about how everyone either hates Jun or are ready to die for him 😂#i wonder which category im under 🤡#but also all opinions are valid! this is just mine #what is wrong with me #gmmtv #thai bl #thamepo heart that skips a beat #thamepo #jun thamepo #nut thanat #thame x po #bl meta

29 notes · View notes

scribe-of-hael · 1 day ago

Text

Adding to this because the discussion recently of "Starscream has always been evil, it is within in his character to do so."

Ok, buckos, WHERE in Earthspark S1 does it establish that Starscream is evil?

"Well in season 2" no. Nope. Listen to me.

WHERE in s1 does it show Starscream is evil? To LEAD into s2 and explaining his turn?

OH RIGHT IT DOESN'T.

The ONLY thing that is established in Earthspark is that it takes inspo from G1. It ITSELF is NOT g1.

The only thing it shows that Starscream is backstabby (trying to get the Allsparks, and leaving Nova and Skywarp behind which even that is more cowardice) and a COMIC book in world bases off of the events of the war.

And the episode he is formally introduced is set up and executed is to show that Starscream is in fact. Not selfish, or at least not to the degree of leaving a child to die, BECAUSE HE SAVED HASHTAG.

That dweller wasn't going to kill her. But it had EVERY intention of killing Starscream. And he KNEW that. And LURED it away. He had ZERO to gain from this situation. He DID THE RIGHT THING TO SAVE A KID.

That is not evil. That is what "evil" Starscream would do. Yeah he's kinda.

Coward and I suposse even slightly and ass? (Kinda not really we don't see enough of him in s1 to even get a full grasp) like he's not even arrogant to where "oh im better than Megatron" he never says that EVER.

He only says "you don't know the Real Megatron" and thats TRUE to a degree. The kids never saw Megatron the tyrant. They never saw Megatron in the war. They don't know what he was like.

Megatron himself says he used intimidating tactics in his soldiers like he FULLY admits that.

So I don't want to hear "well Starscream has always been evil its within his character"

When its a new continuity, we shouldn't have the same expectations as past ones. And there is literally no where in s1 that shows that is even remotely true.

"Starscream does what he alwayss has"

WHERE. WHERE. You basing this statement of pre established knowledge off of older media. When the purpose of Earthspark was to be a new beginning and introducing it to new audiences.

Yes again its based of g1, but IT'S NOT G1. Its a what if, what if Megatron stopped early , what is they ended the war sooner than later.

Eartbspark was supose to be showing love to the old shows, but have a new TF show for new fans and younger audiences coming into the franchise.

It was setting up SO much and its gone now.

Starscream is sadly an example of the shitting writing and the mishandling of a character within this world and story.

You wanna make Starscream evil? Alright established that from the get go and show us how and why.

You can ko just say "ah well he's evil now"

Fuck off with lazy ass writing.

I think what sucks most about Earthspark is the potential of hitting topics that honestly I feel kids now adays should be able to learn about.

Like what happened with hastag and Starscream's history. Somtimes bad ppl hurt us, it hurts when we aren't believed. It hurts us when we are haunted by them. It is ok to talk about them and even not feel safe around the person that might have hurt us.

Starscream is bewildered that a child of all beings BELIEVES him and wnates to hear him out. He is clearly conflicted and he know she other kids have a bias because of the comics they read and what they know.

Despite being told who he was, he deliberately saved Hashtag when he was the one MOST at risk. The dwellers wasn't going to hurt her, it was gonna eat him. But he risked his life anyway. In that moment, he proved he is not as selfish as they come like Thrash said.

Starscream instead of fighting or even willingly going with Megatron said "no. You hurt me. I do not feel safe with you around me" and fucked off. No fight, no snark. Even wishing Hashtag well.

I legit wanna throw hands with whoever decided to take this moment , and THROW IT IN TRASH. By making it seem it was all a trick, and he never meant it hurts so fucking much.

And yes, I do understand that sometimes people who have been abused become abusers themselves. It happens! But you have NO fucking set up from a writers perspective to pull this shit. And doing it exposition of -

"Starscream does what he always does"

Is the laziest cop out writing i have seen since supernatural s12 is is fucking awful. There is no other word for it. It is striaght up awful writing.

It would have been better if you SHOWED how and why Starscream ends up this way but you DON'T. There for its not earned or even fucking explained other than. Its shoehorned in.

"It's what a Starscream would" STOP. Stop , just stop trying to constantly make the same character in every universe. Or at the very least explain WHY or fucking how!

One reason why I dread watching Armada is knowing that in Energon and Cybertron they just completely reset his character. This WHOLE ARC OF GROWTH, back to what a "classic" Starscream would be.

I do not know why Starscream is unable to be given a better arc than any other character or villain. Esspcially when Megatron is allowed to be better in ES just because and Starscream isn't.

There was so much set up for good lessons and story telling. They just completely trashed it for something less than digestible.

#Lazy ass writing #Yes I'm still fucking mad #transformers #starscream #transformers earthspark #earthspark season 2 #earthspark starscream #earthspark hashtag #Ranting #Text post #maccadam

212 notes · View notes

the-wanderer · 2 days ago

Text

Netflix has seriously harmed it's reputation with how often it is now cancelling shows. What used to be seen as the go-to service for saving cancelled shows, has now become the very thing it swore to destroy {Hello There Obi-Wan Kenobi reference). Netflix likes to repeat it's standard line that they have never cancelled a successful show, but they conveniently never tell us how they measure success, because this doesn't ring true with their shows like Lockwood & Co and Shadow & Bone, that got to both Number 1 and Number 2 respectively in Netflix's own published streaming charts, and that still wasn't enough to save those shows from cancellation. Also Netflix clearly has favourites in terms of marketing, for example I enjoyed the show Everything Now, but you've probably never heard of it, and I searched Facebook - Netflix did one post about it when they dropped the trailer 3 weeks before it's worldwide release, and that was it; but other shows like Bridgerton, you can't fail to know it's there because they post daily about it on their socials for weeks up to and including release and for weeks after too. You even have actors in a new show saying they have to search their show to find it so they can watch and it's not even advertised on Netflix's own home screen, let alone anywhere else, so no wonder these shows get cancelled as they are never given a fair shot to succeed.

It seems unless you go viral or break Netflix's own streaming records, like Stranger Things or Wednesday, then even getting the number one or number two spot is not good enough to save a program from cancellation. Netflix needs to remember that not all releases are an overwhelming overnight success - even some of the best and most popular shows took a while to find their audience, like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, The West Wing, The Sopranos, but then when they did find their audience they became what everyone was talking about, and people who had never seen the show, still knew about them from it's impact on the cultural audience. Somebody else said, and I truly believe it, that if Netflix had made Breaking Bad today, they would have cancelled it after two seasons, and then think what great storytelling we would have missed out on, all because the show wasn't a record hit in it's opening week.

And now Netflix finds itself in a self-fullfilling loop where they have now trained their audience to not try new shows and get attached as they'll likely be cancelled. Think about it, how many new shows can you think of on Netflix that got renewed last year. It only seems to be people will tune in for shows like Bridgerton, Emily in Paris, Outer Banks, as they have had time to grow with the characters, so now Netflix has got themselves in to a model where customers don't try a new show, like KAOS or Everything Now, and they'll wait and see if it's renewed, and when after only a month since it's release, it does indeed get cancelled, the consumer hasn't wasted time getting invested in a show & characters that get cut short, especially nowadays when there is so much to watch across traditional TV and now streaming services too, that just because the audience doesn't come running to watch as soon as it drops, doesn't mean it's not there or interested.

2025 see's the return of some of Netflix's biggest shows like Squid Game, Wednesday and Stranger Things, but 2 out of those 3 also end this year too and then what shows will be left that are associated with the Netflix brand - they had Stranger Things, House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black when Netflix first got going, it'll be hard to say by the end of this year what big shows Netflix will have left to draw customers in

Unless Netflix, and the wider industry, change their perception to not only see massive, viral numbers as success and that shows with strong-moderate success are allowed to grow and widen their audience, then there will eventually reach a tipping point where they will cancel one show too many that either customers leave their service, or creatives will decide that Netflix isn't a good partner to work with where you put years of work in writing, filming, producing, editing a project just for it to be cancelled a month after it's release, so if you have a story that needs more than one film or a one and done series to tell it in, then Netflix probably isn't your best bet any longer.

23 notes · View notes

blue-willow-tree · 2 days ago

Note

I've been watching you for months but you know that. You love being the object of obsession. The idea that there's an audience with you, always watching, that always desires and cares. I desire you in all of those private moments and I watch you when you think I don't. I read what you write and I've thought to myself that I could love you. That maybe through voyeurism we could both be seen and understood. And my attention, the way I watch you with such affection has to be true. I don't know why I haven't been able to look away. Willow I want to kiss you and make you smile. I want to fuck you all night and I want to tell you all the things I've wanted to say. I want to touch you, and make you feel fragile and worship you. I want to make you feel ways no one ever has, I want your heart.

Oh? I "know that", you say? Is this a mutual? Is this somebody that I've interacted with before? Is this a person from my past? You have me guessing, love. And you're lucky that I enjoy games.

You're right, I happen to enjoy an audience here in my blog, but I'll always be more of a voyeur. In person, I don't like attention. I watch. But knowing that there's one person watching me, out of all the others that are focused elsewhere in their own lives, well I can't help that it would peek my interest.

What you describe sounds so wonderfully heavenly and utterly sinful at the same time, but unfortunately, dear love, my heart is not up for grabs at the moment. For now, it's locked away with me for a while x

I like knowing these thoughts of yours. Don't disappear please, sweet anon. My ask box is open. I'm keeping my eye on this.

#<3 #anon ask #hmm #Interesting.#lesbian #sapphic

20 notes · View notes

canmom · 3 days ago

Text

Hello me from November. I don't entirely disagree with the ideas I expressed back then, but I do think I was neglecting the socially inflected process of consumption of art, where the viewer brings interpretations that may not be intended or considered by its creator, as a fairly integral part of the process. I still think art is basically about communication, but the noisiness of the channel in combination with a lot of feedback cycles is a feature, not a bug.

I would say that the significance of Impressionism to humans can't really be separated from its history - the context in which these works were made, what they were responding to, how audiences interacted with them. The context in which we make expressions is continuously evolving. A 'simple' utterance can have a lot of significance in context. For audiences in the 19th century, familiar with the conventions of academic painting, impressionism entered as a challenge to that paradigm, proving by example that another form of expression was possible in this medium. We can think of it like an utterance in a conversation - one whose participants come and go, listen in for a bit, and speak up when they're ready.

So, with the example of the calligrapher adjusting the line weight of characters - it may not require much sophisticated technique to adjust the line weight of characters. But the master in question apparently discovered that a certain technical move (fiddling the line weight) evoked a certain emotional effect. That is part of a feedback process - both the artist interacting with their medium and themselves, and then interacting with their audience.

If aliens came along and trained a neural network on human artworks, and then sent us the results of this process, assuming they paid attention to how we responded and didn't just spam up our networks, our response would also create a feedback loop. We might get bored of one type of the aliens' output and favour another, form personal relations to what it creates, etc. etc.. If the aliens have their own art, and we could perceive them, it could go both ways. It is similar to the process of two people from different cultures meeting each other and figuring out how to communicate. At first you start with just 'point at thing' and figure out basic vocabulary. You copy sounds made in the target language, gradually filling out their context so that they start to acqurie meaning.

The aliens may not really understand what emotional responses they are invoking, but in a way that's true of all art - as an artist I can't know exactly what people will think and feel when they encounter my creation, just try to infer it based on how they communicate back to me and extrapolation from my own experience. Perhaps as they got to know us better, the aliens would form a more sophisticated model of different things that humans respond to...

So I don't think it's ultimately corrosive for some categories of artwork to reproducible by surprisingly simple means. Any more than it is corrosive for it to be possible to photograph a painting really. Every form of meaning is contextual. And indeed, a lot of "expertise" in art is actually in finding effective ways to simplify and distil - the expression might seem simple but knowing which simple expression is appropriate to the situation and executing it cleanly is a trick.

As far as creating impressionism algorithmically - while diffusion models have been one way to generate novel 'this looks impressionist to me' art on the computer, there is a parallel strand that has been seeking to replicate 'painterly' visual styles through the more traditional type of computer art - that is, figuring out ways to generate that 'coarser brush work' and render it controllable by artists. The main purpose of this is to apply 'painterly' looks to computer animation and games, so computational efficiency is a major concern. Numerous techniques have evolved in this field, with slightly different nuances, slightly different characters of glitch, etc. etc. - in part because the problem is not perfectly posed, and we discover nuances as we try different approaches. Here's one that I find quite good:

youtube

Typically approaches start with a traditional rasterisation render, and then apply the painting as a post-processing effect, e.g. by layering up textured Bézier-curve arcs based on the contents pixel buffer. But if you do this, you need to figure out how to best handle the noise introduced by a moving camera and objects, to maintain some notion of 'coherence' frame to frame.

Another approach is to treat the brush strokes as 3D data in the scene, which artists can modify; this is the basis of a new tool recently added to Blender, developed through 'Project Gold':

youtube

Here there is a strong emphasis on artistic control; the strokes are generated algorithmically but the tools give humans an intuitive way to direct the strokes and adjust their properties. It is all about that feedback loop between the artist and their tools.

Another approach still involves painting onto an object-space normal map so objects catch light in a brushstroke-like way, and feeding that into a toon ramp.

youtube

All of these approaches have slightly different effects, dimensions that humans immersed in this field can become familiar with; then they can be chosen and applied in games and films etc., suiting whatever is being conveyed in that piece (from at least Ōkami onwards). Far from reducing painting to simplistic application of algorithm, we've opened up new avenues of expression, inspired by previous human expression, and our close study of the paintings that inspired these efforts in computer graphics leads us to appreciate the paintings' nuances in new ways. I think humans tend to inject complexity into everything we do; every effort to simplify tends to result in new complexity springing up, because we are terminally, delightfully restless creatures.

And also we still paint, because it's fun, because making paintings lets you relate to light and colour and shape differently - even if we don't attach so much prestige to creating new Impressionist-inspired paintings as we did when Impressionism first arrived on the scene. But fuck prestige tbh. Art is a game and a conversation.

Reasoning such, I am ultimately not too worried by AI fundamentally disrupting humans' respect for our own creations by revealing it to be a sham at heart - though of course its economic effects on the context in which artworks are made and distributed is another story.

Thinking about that that "slop accelerationism" post, and also Scott's AI art Turing test.

I also hope AI text- and image-generation will help shake us loose from cheap bad art. For example, the fact that you can now generate perfectly rendered anime girls at the click of button kindof suggests that there was never much content in those drawings. Though maybe we didn't really need AI for that insight? It feels very similar to that shift in fashion that rejected Bouguereau-style laboriously-rendered pretty girls in favor of more sketchy brush work.

But will we really be so lucky that only things that we already suspected was slop will prove valueless?

As usual with AI, Douglas Hofstadter already thought about this a long time ago, in an essay from 2001. Back in 1979 he had written

Will a computer program ever write beautiful music? Speculation: Yes, but not soon. Music is a language of emotions, and until programs have emotions as complex as ours, there is no way a program will write anything beautiful. There can be "forgeries"—shallow imitations of the syntax of earlier music—but despite what one might think at first, there is much more to musical expression than can be captured in syntactical rules. There will be no new kinds of beauty turned up for a long time by computer music-composing programs. Let me carry this thought a little further. To think—and I have heard this suggested—that we might soon be able to command a preprogrammed mass-produced mail-order twenty-dollar desk-model "music box" to bring forth from its sterile [sic!] circuitry pieces which Chopin or Bach might have written had they lived longer is a grotesque and shameful misestimation of the depth of the human spirit. A "program" which could produce music as they did would have to wander around the world on its own, fighting its way through the maze of life and feeling every moment of it. It would have to understand the joy and loneliness of a chilly night wind, the longing for a cherished hand, the inaccessibility of a distant town, the heartbreak and regeneration after a human death. It would have to have known resignation and world-weariness, grief and despair, determination and victory, piety and awe. In it would have had to commingle such opposites as hope and fear, anguish and jubilation, serenity and suspense. Part and parcel of it would have to be a sense of grace, humor, rhythm, a sense of the unexpected and of course an exquisite awareness of the magic of fresh creation. Therein, and therein only, lie the sources of meaning in music.

I think this is helpful in pinning down what we would have liked to be true. Because in 1995, somebody wrote a program that generates music by applying simple syntactic rules to combine patterns from existing pieces, and it sounded really good! (In fact, it passed a kind of AI turing test.) Oops!

The worry, then, is that we just found out that the computer has as complex emotions as us, and they aren't complex at all. It would be like adversarial examples for humans: the noise-like pattern added to the panda doesn't "represent" a gibbon, it's an artifact of the particular weights and topology of the image recognizer, and the resulting classification doesn't "mean" anything. Similarly, Arnulf Rainer wrote that when he reworked Wine-Crucifix, "the quality and truth of the picture only grew as it became darker and darker"—doesn't this sound a bit like gradient descent? Did he stumble on a pattern that triggers our "truth" detector, even though the pattern is merely a shallow stimulus made of copies of religious iconography that we imprinted on as kids?

One attempt to recover is to say Chopin really did write music based on the experience of fighting through the maze of life, and it's just that philistine consumers can't tell the difference between the real and the counterfeit. But this is not very helpful, it means that we were fooling ourselves, and the meaning that we imagined never existed.

More promising, maybe the program is a "plagiarism machine", which just copies the hard-won grief, despair, world-weariness &c that Chopin recorded? On it's own it's not impressive that a program can output an image indistinguishable from Gauguin's, I can write such a program in a single line:

print("https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gauguin,Paul-Still_Life_with_Profile_of_Laval-_Google_Art_Project.jpg")

I think this is the conclusion that Hofstadter leans towards: the value of Chopin and the other composers was to discover the "template" that can then be instantiated to make many beautiful music pieces. Kind of ironically, this seems to push us back to some very turn-of-the-20th-century notion of avant-garde art. Each particular painting that (say) Monet executed is of low value, and the actual valuable thing is the novel art style...

That view isn't falsified yet, but it feels precarious. You could have said that AlphaGo was merely a plagiarism machine that selected good moves from historical human games, except then AlphaGo Zero proved that the humans were superfluous after all. Surely a couple of years from now somebody might train an image model on a set of photographs and movies excluding paintings, and it might reinvent impressionism from first principles, and then where will we be? Better start prepare a fallback-philosophy now.

#ai #art #long post #Youtube

125 notes · View notes

utilitycaster · 1 day ago

Note

Can I ask what would constitute a critical role/actual play post-mortem, and how likely it might be for us to eventually get one for C3? I am relatively new to critical role and actual play in general (I came in during exu prime, and haven't had time to venture out farther than Candela and like 2.5 D20 campaigns) so I currently have a very limited frame of reference. But while I would love to hear the cast discuss the problems with the campaign and get their perspective on the issues the audience has noticed, it strikes me as an unusual thing to do publically. Is there precedent for such a thing, or do we hope but not hold our breaths?

so to be honest I don't expect anything formal nor anything for a very long time, but I am hoping there is some behind the scenes discussion, and that down the road we as the audience get some subtle "I expected things to go in a different direction" or "I'd have made a character that was more XYZ" in panels.

I will note: a lot of Actual Play journalism such as it is 1. doesn't cover CR as a narrative in depth because it's such a time commitment for very little money (less specialized entertainment journalism a la Variety focuses more on the company and cast and is always necessarily in broad strokes) and 2. has a tendency to bash Critical Role as the popular one on the scene without any true analysis behind it, while pulling its punches and indeed kissing with tongue works like D20 and WBN even when they too have their flaws, so while I don't know if the CR cast would ever share this, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea for a fan to pitch a year or so down the line as "I talk to CR with a look back to Campaign 3 and what they might have done differently." It might go nowhere, but if it does have something to say I think it would be a genuinely important piece.

#cr tag #answered #anonymous

18 notes · View notes

gothamgossipcorner · 2 days ago

Text

-Log in successfully-

01/02/200X

Welcome back my fellows Gothamites!

I'm sure you all missed me,And believe me, I missed them too, but student life is exhausting,And as many of you know, being a student in Gotham is praying that the Joker or some lunatic blows up your school.. Nvm, let's talk about the obvious,the topic of this entry: Lunatics in costume.

We all know the lunatics in costumes here,for example, I just mentioned the Joker, there's his well-known assistant Harley Queen, Poison Ivy [Although I think her skin is green, does it still count?] and a big etc.

Now, the second point of this entry:

>Why dress up?

Well, personally I would say the most obvious thing, to avoid making their identity public, ironically most of them are well-known people.

Taking the former prosecutor Harvey Dent as an example. (⁠ー⁠_⁠ー⁠゛⁠)

We all know what happened, which is a shame. But moving on, we can clearly rule out my theory, the identities of the villains in this city are more than known.

So...what is it? What is the reason for most of them wearing flashy and strange costumes?

There are several theories on the internet, and as the incredible being that I am, I will summarize some of them:

1. Identity and Persona

Distinctive Look: Costumes help villains stand out and create a unique identity that audiences can easily recognize.

Symbolism: Many costumes symbolize the villain's powers, goals, or personality traits, enhancing their character depth.

2. Psychological Impact

Fear Factor: A dramatic costume can instill fear in their opponents and the public, making them more imposing.

Alter Ego: Costumes allow villains to adopt a persona that is often darker or more villainous than their everyday self.

3. Storytelling and Themes

Visual Representation: Costumes visually convey themes such as power, chaos, or rebellion, enriching the narrative.

Contrast with Heroes: Villains’ costumes often contrast sharply with heroes, emphasizing their opposition and highlighting moral conflicts.

4. Practical Functionality

Enhanced Abilities: Some costumes are designed to enhance the villain's abilities, like armor for protection or gadgets for combat.

Disguise: Costumes can help villains conceal their true identities, allowing them to operate in secrecy.

In short, it depends a lot on the villain, whether his identity is secret or not, his powers, etc.

So there will never be an easy answer that addresses them all, I guess.

So that's it, I'd like to hear your own theories in the comments, how are you doing in class or at work? It's also nice to hear about you as people. (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)

For now,Billy Vendaline says goodbye and wishes you good luck! Stay hydrated, don't leave home after 11:00 and remember: Metropolis may be nice, but nothing like Gotham.

>Gothamgossipcorner logged out

15 notes · View notes

too0bsessedformyowngood · 8 months ago

Text

Do you think the general public in the dc universe knows all the superpowers of each hero in their own city (or the bigger heroes). I just thinking, heroes probably don’t advertise their powers or what abilities they have so the flashier and more used powers are more well known, but the subtle, or not outward powers are probably more obscure knowledge or speculated on.

Just imagine like people making Wiki articles or known powers of each hero and getting in debates of what powers so of them have. Like on Reddit there is a long ongoing article of weather or not Superman has super-hearing and x-ray vision or has echolocation. Like when Batman first showed up some people adamantly thought he was a shadow demon or could control darkness, and there still resents of that with like people trying to spread ‘gotcha facts’ that Batman can actually control clouds and that is why it’s always overcast in Gotham. Or like ‘Top 10 Superpowers you didn’t know these Justice Leaguers had’ videos and on there is like, “Martian Manhunter has Telepathy, there has been reports from people who he has saved of him talking to them in their mind while saving them.” Even misconceptions of what group a hero is a part of. Like some people adamantly believe Starfire is a Super just from a different family and that’s why her powers are just slightly off, like they confidently believe that Tamaraneans is just the group of Kryptonians she is from and refuse to do any research or listen to new information.

Just the general public in the dc universe speculating on things about the heroes that wouldn’t be as well know or known really at all by the general public.

#dc #dc comics #justice league #jla #titans #titans dc #batman #batfam #superman #starfire #martian manhunter #i just imagine the hot takes people would have and heated debates over information they only have scraps on #but that we as an audience know to be true #just the hot takes and speculation people have about celebrities in real life #but just applying it to the heroes in the dc universe

156 notes · View notes

silcobrainrot · 6 hours ago

Text

It also just has too many songs. Season one had 11 songs (12 if you count Get Jinxed). only two episodes had more than one song (eps 7 and 9). Season two has I think 21 songs? And where season one used songs as supportive and complementary to the visuals, settings, and story, reserving them for places where dialogue isn't necessary, season two has to bend and contort itself around needing to get at least two songs into every 40 minute episode. It critically injured the pacing, character, and plot progression.

the only real "montage sequence" in season one imo is the intro to episode seven, but the way it was used is much different. "Misfit Toys" is an introduction to the firelights, knowing they have a limited amount of time to get across who these people are and how they got here. it's characterization, NOT plot. The music is helping communicate their identity and culture because we spend very little time with anyone other than Ekko. But the lyrics and mood of that song, especially the full version, tell you everything you need to know about how they came together, how they feel about the PvZ conflict, and how they see themselves within that conflict.

We miss out on so much character interaction and potential plot lines because the songs eat too much runtime. Season two is 21 music videos stitched together with a few vague and tropey connecting threads. and i like the music, don't get me wrong, most of it is great, but it doesn't feel like it's part of the story. it feels like an undergrad student's first editing midterm where they chose something kinda catchy and fit the vibe even if the lyrics were completely inappropriate for the visuals they chose.

"Welcome To the Playground" invites us into the underground and presents us with the stark contrast between topside and undercity. it's evocative and seductive with just a hint of an edge. When they transition from the overworld into the Last Drop, the song transitions to playing on the Drop's jukebox. we can still hear it under the entire scene with Vander, Huck, and the shady traders. The jukebox is used three times to keep the music feeling like part of the characters' world and reflective of their internal emotions instead of just a Top 40 track slapped on top for lazy audience identification. season two feels like they just slapped the tracks on top, but it's worse, because it was actually WRITTEN like that.

Likewise, the original score also suffered, because there wasn't as much room for traditional music composition. which is, again, supposed to complement the visuals, and can play under dialogue because they have no singing, so they don't get in the way of character and plot progression. scores exist to heighten the emotion and communicate musically what can't be communicated verbally. characters' true emotions under what they're saying and acting out physically. season one had such a jaw-dropping original composition that, again, meshed organically with the original songs they wrote because they were designed around the script. some places needed traditional composition, others benefited from modern music. You wouldn't introduce the firelights with a full brass and woodwind orchestra, nor would you have the councilors performing shady illegal business deals at a rock concert.

so much thought and care and love was put into how music was used in season one. it's some of the most seamless combinations of modern music with traditional composition i've seen so far because both the score and the soundtrack were written specifically for the show. season two's music doesn't sound written for the show, it sounds like those "ost" soundtracks movies release that are vaguely inspired by the vibes and the already-famous artists got a massive payout for writing a song for it.

So I was thinking about the whole music videos situation in Arcane and guess what, I once again have something to say. No surprises there.

Arcane soundtrack is absolutely amazing, that's true for both seasons, but compared to season 2, season 1 contains significantly fewer montages. In season 2, music isn't just a background for current events. Instead, we get montages, which are basically used as a skip forward button for the show's time skips of unspecified length. A mandatory "Hey, that's what's going on in the world, but we don't have time for that. Now, back to our favorite character!"

Visually, they're gorgeous, but that's not what Arcane was originally praised for. They're more eye-catching music videos than actual storytelling. Good for Riot's promotional material, but when you put them in the middle of an episode? It makes the originally full world of arcane feel like an empty board on which characters play without any real impact on the world around them. Sure, it can be done well, like they did with Firelight's introduction in season 1, but not when it's used to tell very important parts of the story that SHOULD have an impact.

It's abundantly clear in episode 3.

Yep, that infamous part. We montage through Caitlyn using the Grey in Zaun and move past it. That's it. No real influence on the story, characters, or the world.

Imagine if they used the same approach on Jayce and Vi storming the Shimmer factory. If, instead of a mission going wrong, they showed us a montage of them taking over one factory after the other.

I know someone will come screaming "Oh, but they Grey wasn't used on civilians!" Well guess what, Jayce and Vi didn't want to hurt civilians either, that wasn't their intention, just an accident. Are you telling me that during Caitlyn's Strike Team Adventures™, no kid suddenly got in the way? No one was running away in panic and got punched in the face? They were dismantling Shimmer factories too. What happened to all the kids there? None of them panicked at the sight of five fully armed Enforcers?

That is exactly the issue with how they handled that topic and why people are so quick to defend this and Caitlyn's actions and honestly, i get the thought process. It's the writing's fault. Everyone is always screaming about media literacy, show don't tell, you don't have to be shown every single detail, the show shouldn't dwell on it, etc. But the moment they don't literally show us this on screen, people forget about the consequences of the last failed strike attempt at Zaun's criminal underground. They're are quick to say that everything worked out fine, no need to nitpick. But is it nitpicking, if the show made that clear before?

You can't just storm in and take over. Innocent people will get hurt. That's the conclusion Jayce walks away from this. That's the reality of the situation. But it's conveniently forgotten about when the writers don't want to deal with said consequences.

#i am so sorry if this got off topic op #but this whole situation makes me so frustrated #music is SO important to film and tv #always has been #it's not talked about as much as acting directing and cinematography #but it's the first thing an audience's brains notice if it's off #and a big portion of what made s2 such a massive letdown was its shit handling of its music #im just saying they should have reserved the second songs for the credits #hell make the credits a music video instead #arcane critical #arcane s2

79 notes · View notes