#but to the point; we don't want tyranny of the masses; right?

[medicinemane]

Make Puerto Rico a state already, don't like having second class Americans, and that's how I'd describe it when they're out there paying taxes, contributing to the good of the country, but they don't even get representation via things like a senator

Like I'm sat here thinking about it and... do Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico even get to vote for president? Cause... that's never listed in the electoral college vote count, so I'm gonna guess no

Seem to remember hearing somewhere something about "no taxation without representation", sounded pretty good I thought

Make Puerto Rico a state, make them a state. Every year I get more and more pissed off as I think about how fellow Americans are treated like this. I'm extremely pro Puerto Rico, they're clearly a part of the union... you either make them a state or make them their own country, you don't keep people trapped in this limbo state where they've got less rights than I do

[albi-mander]

So back in 2023, you contributed to a thread dragging the ASOIAF series. And for like two paragraphs in the middle of your post, you gave an example of LotR, and how the Ring makes you invisible -> promises freedom from accountability. That's a take I've never come across before, but it makes so much SENSE; do you've a post specifically talking about that? Because I think that that specific point got passed over with, well, the rest of that very long thread, but I want to make sure people see it.

Oh my god I vaguely remember that post—I've probably rambled about the Ring at some point or another on here, but I have exactly zero chance of finding it again tbh. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure it's all in my head though, so, what the hell, let's go over it again.

The Ring can do a lot of weird shit, but its primary ability—or at least the one we actually interact with the most—is invisibility. Which, sure, I guess that's pretty potent if you're clever about it, but that's...extremely mundane by fantasy standards?

It's not exactly something you'd expect the Ring of Power, resident symbolic representation of tyranny and main accessory of Satan, to offer as one of its core abilities. The Ring is supposed to promise its wearer power, control, domination... Surely it has something a bit flashier than invisibility, right? Why is that part of the opening sales pitch?

Well...because that's the first step you take towards becoming a tyrant. You don't start at wanting mind control or mass destruction. You start at, "How can I do this and get away with it?"

THAT is what the Ring really promises. Not just power, but power free from accountability. The power to do whatever you want and not get caught.

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

🎵 Protorave

2. "Better here than in that tent." (Shrug.) "It wasn't safe."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Okay." The lieutenant keeps it laconic.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - What he means is: You're right, actually. The tent was a safety hazard and this place was deserted anyway.

"Noid -- what do you think about the church?"

"What did Tiago tell you about the church?"

"Why are you so suspicious about everything?"

"What's with the clothes?"

"Take care, Noid." [Leave.]

NOID - "It's a miracle of carpentry. Dead bodies carved into *total* shapes. Now it can be something more." He rubs his hands together.

"You say that as a carpenter yourself?"

"How old do you think this church is -- over 300 years?"

"What style is this church built in?"

"What did you mean by *dead bodies*?"

"How do you like the glasswork?" (Point to the stained-glass window.)

"How are you settling in?"

"Let's talk about something else, Noid."

NOID - He shakes his head. "I don't say much anything as a carpenter anymore. They tried to make me into a reckoner and a leveller. Made me a bit manic, y'know?"

"I regret the time I dedicated to that profession, and that worker collective. I say things more as a member of the hard core psi-dance community these days."

"You're not going to ask me how I knew?"

"Understood."

NOID - "Why? You're a cop. I carry carpentry tools."

2. "How old do you think this church is -- over 300 years?"

NOID - "That's right. The first settlers built it, plus six more like it. On the coast here. Was one of the first things they did... must've been really scared of something. But I understand..."

"Alone on an uninhabited archipelago, forced to face themselves and nature. Pre-industrial quantities of solitude. The sea. Perhaps something more... fundamental."

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - He means something para-natural. He must...

NOID - "I would want to build a safe place for myself and my own as well..." His voice echoes in the wooden cavern of the church.

3. "What style is this church built in?"

NOID - "A cop who's into building critique." He taps a floorboard. "Okay then. This is folk Dolorianism, lawmongerer. It's a subset of early *Dolorian* architecture."

"I'm not just a cop. I'm an Art Cop."

"Okay -- and what is Dolorian architecture like?"

"Yeah, enough architecture."

NOID - "Hard of core." He nods appreciatively.

"Okay -- and what is Dolorian architecture like?"

NOID - "*Total*. Everything between an ancient concrete cathedral and a glass cube is Dolorianism. This is just a homespun version of it, folksy stuff, early mass production. They made thousands like this. Does that help you out?"

"What would a Dolorian building look like?"

NOID - "Like that woman there," he nods toward the stained glass window. "Vertical, thin, white, a false image of grandeur. The source of the system is up there, you're at the bottom. They really dug that power vertical."

"Liked to show off large and intricate structures, arches, spires. Put you down with them. They were really into painting everything white too. Virginal shit, you know. Marriage shit. Virtue and tyranny."

"Marriage is shit, yeah."

"Hey, marriage is great. Marriage is sacred."

"This church isn't painted white, as far as I can tell."

NOID - "Right." He takes a bolt from the toolbox and spits on it before shining it.

"This church isn't painted white, as far as I can tell."

NOID - "Stands to reason it used to be white on the outside." He peeks out of a small window in the dark. "Before the sea wind took all the paint off."

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] - Year after year, flake after flake, white washed clean, then covered in green moss...

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - Slowly peeled by the wind... Your skin crawls from the sensation as you look around.

4. "What did you mean by *dead bodies*?"

NOID - "Dead bodies of perennial plants." He taps on the wood. "Sigma functions have left this place. It's a good thing we came along -- the spiritual collapse has been total."

"Spiritual collapse?"

"Okay, then."

NOID - "'I saw some piglets suckling their dead mother' -- have you heard this one, cop-man?" He continues without waiting for an answer: "'After a short while they shuddered and went away.'"

"They had sensed that she could no longer see them and that she wasn't *like* them anymore. What they loved in their mother wasn't her body, but whatever it was that made her body live."

"End of quote. This is a high-quality carcass." He kicks the floorboard. "The power of anodic beats and hard bass is needed to reanimate it."

"First, where is that quote from?"

"What you're saying is: you're not a big fan of the innocentic system?"

"What you're saying is: religion has stopped being *hard core*?"

"What exactly *are* you saying?"

NOID - "A Seraise man, who lived a long time ago. An ancient hard core brother."

"What you're saying is: you're not a big fan of the innocentic system?"

NOID - "A three-thousand-year-old tyrannical regime of History, built and maintained by hundreds of generations of self-appointed *intellectuals*..." He looks around. "It's false-core."

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - The way he says it, the *false* in false-core is invested with twenty kilotons of disgust.

"But you guys said the Ecclesiastes were all about love and hard core -- before, remember?"

"I even agreed with you. About the Ecclesiastes being okay with this..."

"And you propose dance music will supplant this system?"

NOID - "*I* only said: *Unity*. One word. Figures of authority always misquote you." He points to his friends.

"Andre doesn't care about the Ecclesiastes. He just wants the operation to run smoothly. And Egg is a demi-beast. You shouldn't listen to what people say, you should listen to what they are."

2. "I even agreed with you. About the Ecclesiastes being okay with this…"

NOID - "But were you wrong? The Founding Party is okay with everything. Look around." He spreads his arms. "They do not have enough love for the *human crew* to oppose anything anymore. We're on our own."

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - That's still a lie! RE-ASSERT YOURSELF.

"Perfidy! You lied to me. I am *tired* of people lying to me."

That wouldn't be cool. I want to be cool.

NOID - "Well..." The young man pushes his chest out, the skeleton of suspenders rattling...

ANDRE - "Noid-man! Mellow out," the dancing hedgehog yelps at his friend. "Stop aggroing the law!"

NOID - His chest returns to its normal proportions. "I'm sorry."

3. "And you propose dance music will supplant this system?"

NOID - "*Anodic* dance music," he nods. "Regular dance music wasn't hard enough. And yes, I do."

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - You know what this kind of stuff goes well with?

"Don't you have to be on drugs for that though?"

I don't need to be a narc.

NOID - "Only a little."

"Cool."

"Not cool." Shake your head.

NOID - "All large human gatherings are narcotic. Ask any such undertaking in history -- this included." He nods toward a human-shaped pillar nearby. "Chemistry is true to its word."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Khm," the lieutenant interjects: "There is a difference between narcotics and group elation. One kills you, the other does not."

NOID - "The supercharged humanism that the innocentic system has been feeding us, on giant city squares? That's not a drug? The sugar and wheat it feeds us is healthy?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "Forget it." He waves his hand. "It would become an imbecilic discussion. You two continue. It's more *hard core* that way."

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He does not feel left out. In fact he probably just wanted to say "hard core."

5. "How do you like the glasswork?" (Point to the stained-glass window.)

NOID - "I don't." He looks over his shoulder. "Fucker giving me the evil eye."

"That's Her Innocence Dolores Dei, mind your words."

"I'm getting some real negative vibrations from her too."

"You wanted to get inside the church and now you don't like the stained-glass window."

NOID - "You defend her, law-minion." He cracks his neck. "She was a *mass murderer* -- what's up with that?"

ANDRE - "Mellow, man! Mellow!" yells his friend. "No one's a mass murderer, this is a house of *love!*"

EGG HEAD - "Mass murder on the floor!"

"But she's the innocence of humanism. Humanism seems to be a pretty big deal around here."

"But she's pretty."

"Yeah, but, like, who *isn't* accused of being a mass murderer these days?"

"The resettlement programs were totally okay. I'm a big fan of resettlement programs, for some reason."

"I *do* feel there is something terrifying about her."

"Isn't she supposed to be an embodiment of the World Spirit?"

"Would you say she was... you know, *human*?"

"Yeah, I'm done talking about her. I don't want to think about her anymore."

NOID - "Humanism leads to eating sugar and pigs. Humanism was invented to mass produce billions of humans. Billions of humans can mass produce *hundreds* of billions of pigs."

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - And many, many more tons of sugar!

NOID - "She liked games. Her legacy, the thing we're living, isn't *real* life. It's a strategy for some kind of victory. Against a long-dead opponent. But -- yo -- I'm only the Noid. What do I know?"

2. "But she's pretty."

NOID - "She invented the beauty you're feeling. She and her glass-cutters and iconographers." He turns to look up at her face. "You set the standard, alright..."

"Then you meet it. It's effective like that. But it is also very soft-of-core, that so-called 'beauty' of hers."

[mask131]

You know, there is one thing that annoys me - and I know that is goes against the current, where everybody praises the "death of the author" concept - but it truly does annoy me how fans sometimes decide on their own they have more authority on a fictional work than this work's author (given I am into liteature, we'll take books as an example).

I am not talking about situations such as "The author forgot that they wrote that in the first book, and wrote something contradicting it in the third, and the fans pointed it out and deemed it bad writing" - no I am not talking about this kind of situation.

I am rather talking about situations such as for example: an author's work gets adapted. The author loves very much the adaptation and finds it faithful or at least that it works well on its own. Some fans dislike it and declare it unfaithful and a bad adaptation. And if the author's liking of the adaptation is brought up, the fans will over-rid it as the author's opnion being wrong, and theirs being right.

The first situation (the one I do not talk about) was about facts, textual facts, internal logic, writing problems - and this is all part of the fan's domain. Because the fan, the reader, is all about accumulating the information given, piecing together the elements created, the fan reflects the author's work in that regard, and thus it is the fan's natural right and duty to point out things such as incoherences, bad writing, plot problems and the like. But the second situation (the one I do talk about) is about opinion, and this changes everything.

We live in an era (well mostly Internet era since it all happens over the Internet nowadays) where, as I said before, the "death of the author" becomes a rule and is encouraged. And the death of the author itself is not a bad thing - in fact, it is the "natural state" of reading a work. When you discover a new author, a new book, a new series, you don't know who made it, what this person is about or for. You just read a story, judge it, and make your opinion out of it. We also live in an era where fan-content (fan-art, fan-fiction, fanzines, fan-games) are even more visible, encouraged and thriving than ever before. They are even reused by the industry (for marketing purpose) and by creators themselves (to share the love and appreciate between them and their audience). But somehow, with such a mass-valorization, with such an effort to make it all common and mundane, something changed, and fans started to think themselves equals, rivals or even superiors to the creators.

We live in an era where fans believe their headcanons and theories can be used as rightful demands, as words of command, as orders over creators of content. We live in an era where fans are somehow so mad at authors they actually insult them for not following their fanfction ideas and for not doing what the fan wanted. This is a new form of tyranny where fans that get invested too much in something mistake their "fan-creator" rank for "co-creator" and believe in some sort of delusion that the work they are a fan of belongs to them and that they can dictate how it goes, as if it was their story and not one someone else created and placed their blood, sweat and tears into.

I do wonder if this bizarre switch of thought on the Internet wasn't partally due to the "Potter-trauma", when J.K. Rowling's political comments completely destroyed and ruined the perfectly "united, happy and peaceful" Potterdom, this entire subculture that had grown over the Harry Potter books and dominated a few generations. This faced the people of the Internet (but especially Americans, who didn't had centuries of literary wars behind them) with the dilema of "What do I do when I love a work, but I hate the person that makes it?". And one of the many answers, one of the many "solutions" to this problem, that was widely accepted, was "Well, make the work yours. You have centered your life around it, you love it, you study it and know it better than the author herself. Just ignore her, ignore her words, cut her off and make the books yours." An answer that was logical and reasonable at the time, in front of the given situation - it is the very simple "Consider the work, not the person behind it" logic behind fiction that is however still hotly debated today.

But ever since, it seems that people have taken this logic to its most extreme ways, and turned into some sort of mania. A mania where people will claim to know better what the author truly wanted to say than what the author themselves say ; a mania where people will contradict what the author says about their book in interviews, promotions, and the like, and clearly consider that the author's words have no weight outside of their own book ; a mania where people will see whatever they want in a story, and completely ignore things such as the context or the intentions behind the release of the book.

I know things are not all simple or black and white. My example about the author's opinion on an adaptation of their work is one that works generally well - because who is on the better position, and on the first-line, to judge a book's adaptation? The author of the book of course! However, to very example there is a counter-example, and I have one right there. Stephen King hated Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining, despite Kubrick's movie being one of the greatest horror movies ever made in America, and King's book being quite flawed (great book, but there's definitively big flaws typical of early King in there). This is a counter-example where myself include I recognize the author can be wrong about such matters of opinion, due to the author's own biases, own personal involvment and vision of their work. In The Shining's case, it is because there is the very nuanced situation of a movie that is objectively great on its own, but is actually a bad adaptation of a book (it does happen sometimes that you have good adaptations that are bad works on their own, and bad adaptations that are great works).

But here's the catch and the result of this discourse: doesn't matter that the author is right or wrong, the importance is that an author's opinion MATTERS and should be taken into account when it comes to their own work. Because they are the FRIGGIN CREATORS and MAKERS of this work - you are not. It is their work, that came out of their mind and hands, it belongs to them, they can change it and decide its fate until their disappearance from the surface of the human world [not accounting for the editors ex machina], and you can do nothing about it. Because it isn't "your" work". If you dedicate your entire life making excellent fan-content of a book, it won't make it "your book". All the fan-content will be yours, for certain, but the original material will stay "not yours".

Yes an author can leave things open-ended, leave questions unanswered, encourage theories and head-canon, and people coming up with their own answers. But it doesn't mean that when the author eventually decides one day to solve their own mystery or resolve their own riddle, you get to insult them and harass them because it isn't the one you imagined! Of course you can criticize an author for coming up with a bad solution - because as a fan you will note for example how unsatisfying such a resolution is, how anti-climactic it feels, or how a story worked better with an open-ending. But only some spoiled bratty child (or child-minded person) would come up to an author and say "I don't like your idea, because it isn't mine, and it doesn't fit this drawing I made of your character - which by the way is mine now". I said it before and I will say it again - we live in the "Misery" era. Stephen King's Misery, where Annie is walking everywhere down every streets, and where all popular authors are at fear of being locked in a bedroom with their feet broken by some lunatic wanting them to write an "official fanfic" with their OCs and personal planned "happy ending AU".

You can argue one thing against this entire speech: But, aren't critics, and literature historians, constatly imagining new meanings and new messages inside literary works? Aren't university teachers and literary students constantly reappropriating works in new ways the author never intended to? Aren't they all just placing their own ideas and biases and interpretations inside books, and then proclaiming it the "good way" to read it? Aren't they the one who decided that a curtain isn't just blue? And to that I will say yes and no. Yes because, indeed, it is their job, as researchers, as studiers of literature, as investigators of the life and works of authors, as theorizers of the book industry, to constantly bring new things in old stuff, and to unravel ad dig up things the author themselves did not plan to have in their work. So "yes". But also "no", no because such a caricatural view only comes from a simplistic overview of literary criticism and literary studies, and even from some anti-intellectualist ideas.

Because this entire world of literature teachers, and profesionnal critics, and scholars of authors, has something that (at least in French) is called the "fairness of the researcher". These people can say the wildest, craziest theories, interpretations and readings of a work, as long as they recognize that A) it is their words, their puzzle, their solution to a mystery they sometimes make up themselves B) there is a context, a life behind the work and things such as publication constraints that were involved in the shaping of a book and C) they have proof, evident and obvious proof of what they advance, and that encourages such a reading.

People who just waltz in with their own personal theories about why "X author wrote a subtle criticism of the sausage industry throughout their three main novels" need to have something to back it up, else they will be mercilessly mocked, ignored and have the door slammed in their face. This is why literature high-studies is such a competitive and "harsh" world, because people constantly look at each other in a rivalry designed to keep in check those that would go a bit "insane" and make everybody doubt their words and recheck their papers to make sure they are not imagining things. On the bad side, it also explains why university-critics and book studies are so slow to change and evolve over time, because due to this need to take into account every influence and context, and to bring solid proof to back up one's reading or theory, it can sometimes take a century or so to realize what is obvious from the beginning if you know where to look.

But even then - even in this context of encouraged, widespread and even accepted interpretations of text, people still do NOT believe the works of these authors somehow belongs to them! This is the true aberration that is festering on the Internet today, and the apex of the "bad fan" behavior. You own your fan-made content, you own your physical copy of the book, you own your hand-written copy of the novel you took five years writing with an ostrich feather - but you do not actually own the book until you bought its rights from whoever has it! And even beyond a mere question of "owernship" - because we all know how big corporations just buy over the rights to everything and fuck them over massively due to not understanding a single thing about what makes them great - it is a question of the author's symbiosis with their work, something that cannot be questioned and that only truly stops when they die, because the author can't create more of the work or express any more opinion or control over it. But before this death, people seem to have forgotten that authors are creators - that they made the work, that without them the work would not exist, and that they made this work with a certain goal, a certain plan, certain intentions more or less subtle. And that the fate of a work usually should rely within the hands of this author, not within the hands of the fans, who are only here to support, love, criticize, hate or judge a work, not act as some sort of board in a big company!

Authors are not your pals that can do you a favor if you offer them a drink (well... scratch that, there's a lot of authors who would do a lot of things to you if you gave them a drink). Rather - authors are not your employees. Yes, authors will work for you technically because they will write for their audience and for their fans - but authors also write primarily for themselves. They are selfish beings who write because they want to tell the stories they have in their head, and they want to do the work they always intended to, and they only want to use their character with their tory, their world, their plot. If you want to tell your story, become an author, but fans should honestly stop pretending they have just as much authority and owernship of a work as their creator just because they spent too much time daydreaming about it.

[lorz-ix]

"Metal Gear Rising is so dumb"

So I wanted to reminisce about the popular reception to MGR:R with the excuse of its 10th anniversary.

I remember back when the game first came out, the main argument I remember from my group of friends was "this game is bad because it's not a real Metal Gear game", which quickly faded away when we realized it was actually fun as shit and very badass. Still, the compromise was "it's fun, but shallow compared to the real deal".

Funny enough, over these 10 years, my opinion on the game has flipped. I actually think the storyline is severely underrated, while the gameplay has fatal flaws that I only truly started to feel after many repeated playthroughs in an attempt to master the tougher challenges. Regardless, the combat system isn't the rant I wanted to go on today.

I wanted to talk about a pet peeve that I have with this perception that this game is "shallow and dumb", surely not helped by the massive amount of memes. I laugh at them like anyone else would, but they also worry me a bit sometimes. Like this.

Guys, come on. I know these memes aren't that deep, but they show this popular idea that the game is just crazy and it doesn't make much sense. But I think it's the opposite, these memes show miscellaneous lyrics from the game's soundtrack and they could hardly be more explicit about the point they're trying to make.

I'm not going to post every little example here, but many of the game's popular songs use very thin metaphors to comment on the brutality and cruelty of war, how soldiers are made to kill each other with no more motivation than to not get killed themselves, how war dehumanizes you. The individual boss themes are reflections of each character's feelings and motivations, which I will admit can get more esoteric and harder to understand at first glance, but these characters in the context of the story also come with a villainous monologue to help you understand their point and how it links to the broader narrative, for the most part.

In no sense is all of this more blatant than in the final two boss fights in the game. First, US Senator Armstrong greets you with a cartoonish speech laying out his political ideology.

And from the ashes, a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed! The weak will be purged, and the strongest will thrive -- free to live as they see fit, they will make America GREAT AGAIN! (this game came out in 2013 by the way)

His ideal world is one where, seemingly, every person is free to do as they please, with no one to stop them, power completely unchecked. Meaning they would also be free to oppress. A world where tyranny is justified if you can earn your spot at the top. It's extremely unsubtle, with the point of culling the weak being explicitly mentioned several times, because we all know poor and marginalized people are only holding the rest of us back, right? And as if you needed the message hammered into your head any harder, the song that plays during your first round against the senator goes a little something like this:

The unenlightened masses They cannot make the judgment call Give up free will forever Their voices won't be heard at all

Display obedience While never stepping out of line And blindly swear allegiance Let your country control your mind

Live in ignorance And purchase your happiness When blood and sweat is the real cost Thinking ceases, the truth is lost Don't you worry You'll be told exactly what to do I give my people the lives they need The righteous will succeed

The fires of greed will burn the weak So we'll make freedom obsolete Making whole the fabric of society Collective consciousness controlled as you will see

MIND CONTROL

Let your country control your soul Let your country control your soul Let your country control your soul Let your country control your soul

But it doesn't end there! As you could imagine, if you haven't played or watched the game (sorry for spoiling the hell out of it I suppose), there is a round two against Armstrong, and the lyrics during that fight quite literally spells out the point of the game, again with the subtlety of a jackhammer. This is the one that became the subject of many, many memes.

Standing here I realize You are just like me Trying to make history But who's to judge The right from wrong When our guard is down I think we'll both agree

That violence breeds violence But in the end it has to be this way

I've carved my own path You followed your wrath But maybe we're both the same The world has turned And so many have burned But nobody is to blame

Yet staring across this barren wasted land I feel new life will be born Beneath the blood stained sand

Beneath the blood stained sand

Before ultimately being killed by Raiden, Armstrong reflects how, despite finding his ideology of "the strong get to decide" repulsive, ultimately the protagonist proved him right because the only way to stop him was by being stronger than him, doing so by force. This point isn't trying to say that Armstrong's ideology was correct in the end, and they very obviously weren't the same, since Raiden's motivation was to ensure that the weak would not have to resort to violence to survive like he had. I strongly believe this is supposed to be a mockery of Armstrong, who even while dying has to resort to cheap political rhetoric to save face. Stop me if you've never heard a politician try to appeal to everyone by saying "we actually want the same thing".

As it stands, the game is loud, and it couldn't be making its point in a less subtle way. Everyone deserves a life of peace and freedom from oppression, and sometimes the only way to ensure that peace is to commit otherwise unethical acts. Rebelling against the oppressor does not turn you into "the new oppressor" and it sure as hell doesn't put you on the same level of morality.

This entire rant had one point: to briefly show people that Metal Gear Rising Revengeance isn't the nonsensical spectacle it's broadly perceived as, it's an action game that wears its political, anti-war influence from the broader Metal Gear franchise on its sleeve, and it does so loudly and proudly. I'm ashamed to admit it took me a while to understand it at first too, but I thought having english as a third language played a bigger role in this. To reiterate, it is a little bit concerning that the broader english-speaking internet seemed to miss the point of the game so hard, and it probably goes to show how generally immature we still are.

If you're still interested in this flawed masterpiece after having the ending spoiled, I was going to stream it all in one sitting this weekend (nice plug, loser), and/or you can get it for 5 bucks on steam right now, since there's a sale ending on the 27th. With all that being said, thanks again for reading through my ramblings 🙏

[archaic-noise]

maybe i am old, maybe i am a wokescold, maybe i am a little too joyless, but i looked at this and felt nothing. and that's kind of what i have a problem with when it comes to AI posting -- this was not a particularly clever or interesting idea. it WAS novel, in the sense that no one has done this before, and it DID tell a story, but i didn't get the feeling that i was interacting with someone's "vision" so much as i was interacting with a shitpost generated by a shitpost generating machine.

my eyes literally glossed over; i couldn't pay much attention to the alleged narrative because of all the discrepancies in the direction and movement of the art itself, as it has no real direction or movement. it's all just a loose approximation of a story, delivered in pieces that are supposed to mimic what you could get out of reading a synopsis: no depth, no intricacies, no character driven purpose. mcdonalds offers a simpson porn art room like the mcrib, it's popular (or at least marketed as if it is), and then takes it away and the world ends, told in 20 disjointed images. we don't even actually see the world end, we just get told it did and have to suspend disbelief in order to allow the narrative to conclude.

the whole thing sounds less like a genuine, original idea, and more like a mashup of SEO meant to signal to audiences of people who couldn't stop quoting the "one fear" comic. funny enough, a 4 panel webcomic could likely have told the same story and been far more interesting to look at -- and maybe more clever, due to its brevity -- but that's not made with "technology", so the people defending this don't think it's as valuable.

value judgments aside, this shitpost in and of itself is not an issue because genuinely, who cares? scroll on to find the next AI shitpost and let your eyes gloss over again. the real problem is that the benefactors of this technology -- the people who are investing hundreds of billions of dollars into its production while driving up the costs of energy on a global scale -- have already used it to start phasing out artists entirely. they are liberating themselves from the "tyranny" of people with good ideas, whose artistic vision is seemingly required to produce art that people want to purchase. entire industries were propped up on this idea that the artists have something the masses don't, and if you pay enough of them peanuts and steal their ideas, you can occasionally find a diamond in the rough who generates you a billion dollar IP.

and instead of us collectively coming together to say "well gee, that fucking sucks, maybe the luddites had a point", a significant chunk of people embraced the tech, calling it an inevitability, shouting down anyone who alleges they might be ethically compromised, insisting they're doing no harm. the artists themselves are hired to program the bots for a pittance compared to what they used to earn. "thanks to the bot, we saved lots of time and money we didn't have. it's not fair for you to have the ability to draw your ideas when i don't."

you're liberating yourselves from a tyranny that doesn't exist, and in the process, you're supporting the people who are using it to rob people of their livelihoods. it's not a matter of what the art means or doesn't mean -- it's not a matter of its technical competency or its ability to tell a complete narrative -- it has never been about whether or not AI art is "real" art. it is about the direct, tangible, realistic ramifications of engaging with the system, and who benefits from your decision to adopt this technology. if you think your life is better by algorithmically developing every shitty idea that pops into your head into a full blown multimedia experience, by all means, go right ahead: but don't sit there and pretend the world isn't a marginally shittier place for your decision to use the tech that makes it possible. Its effects on working artists are real, measurable, and wholly damaging to the pursuits of artists the world over.

[thetristoneera]

In a land of imagination, Planet Saudavet is a special place.  Often referred to as Ole Saudi cause it's just, there.  Strength based with it, with a whole lot of sanctions in place to keep it's peace thus supreme.  Meet their final tool against in humanity, the Illegal Melee.  A group of psych ward permanents that are used to bringing forth the ultimate forms of terror.  In ways of big brother, always in people's business & if they don't act accordingly; off with their heads.  An order brought upon by the Crown, a whole lot of people have been wanting such a world order but it took one year out of many random years for enough people to wish it at the same time.  Doing so, burdened Planet Saudavet with world leaders that want to massively punish those that behave in inhumane ways.  

The twelve of them are locked down in ultra solitaire confinement, all inflicted with the double power gene; to be further inflicted with horrible upbringings.  Instability in the homes was a norm of the worlds at one point, it has since graduated from that; per evolution & all.  These twelve are rare cases that dealt with direct brain damage; that would forever haunt them into adulthood.  To be a total waste, they were given opportunities of mass destruction but their freedom would be separated from general cilization.  Underground to in between the sky, alone & will only see a psycho therapist every three months.  To stay alive for them meant becoming over powered super beings of the ultimate.  Hundreds of years old, replaced if they happen to bite the dust; fitted in blue brick costumes so that we all understand, "Brick Said."  Through your window, at your cranium.  An urban legend that humanity of Planet Saudavet has forgotten.  Always comes back to bite them at their cranium; under great bouts of terrorism, to manipulate humanoids to be right.  

The proposed list of crimes against humanity will have them unleashed: littering, offspring neglect, withholding resources, molestation, rape, slavery, capitalism, indecent exposure, murder, impatient driving, dangerous driving, racism, bigotry, speciesism, rallying, bullying, mobbing & inappropriate use of magical might.  Sometimes people forget that they are actually being watched in this world.  In order for them to be watched, a great curse was created.  Anyone ordained by the world leaders can astral project at an infinite capacity.  This is the only reliefe the twelve get, as they are just projections of their mind; with no connection to their body.  They get to exist without that constant void in their mind that sucks their moral compasses dry, that inflicts physical pain, that they only know as absolute pain.  Then return to their bodies once they have caught an atrocity, to assemble a death order for the inhumane.  When you really think about it, there are tons of inhumanes getting away with a slew of offenses.  We'll never know, but they'll know; as they can fly in any direction, through absolutely anything.  Their licenses to kill are specific & only to the twelve that have been plucked out of psych wards; with a no limit capacity.  It has to be that way because the worst atrocity of humanity is people knowing something wrong is happening; but not holding their fellow man accountable.  Innocents view them as a purge order...  For those that aren't contributing members of society will eventually be weeded out.

Base of Operations: Planet Saudavet / Alliance: World Leaders of Planet Saudavet / Occupation: Admitted Patients of Various Facilities & the Population Control Unit Known as the Illegal Melee / Their Order: Iron Fist Tyranny Brought Upon By the World Leaders of Planet Saudavet

[desertdragon]

I had some writing I was working on for here that I'll be finishing but leaving in drafts for now, just because the subject and themes contain talk on child killing and mass murder etc because it's part of Vaste's character, and I don't want to put more of that out there when Israel is committing those same crimes in their genocide of Gaza right now it just feels insensitive to pile on even if I started writing my piece before Oct. 7th

Instead I'm outing my personal blog with my Reference tag over there, where I post every bit of information I can find on what's happening and the Western role in funding, arming, and propagating the killings

Inshallah the US is destroyed, the IOF is destroyed, Israel as a settlers project is destroyed, and all aggressors and Zionists face justice or are executed, from the river to the sea may we see a free independent Palestine state

I want to add that the only true route for change USAmericans and other privileged Westerners can do is not pay taxes, not vote, refuse to work, then march on their leaders after starving them of funds and labor in an insurrection that makes corpses of government officials.

Withhold all you do that gives them power. There is only revolution under this one party tyranny masquerading as two parties in typical American extravagance. There is only the commitment to risking and giving up your first world privileges and convenience and safety as others have before you in movements at home (Black Panthers, 80s AIDs protestors holding Die-Ins etc.) or abroad.

The people you let your government kill by indulging this charade endure extreme suffering so it's only fair that in revolt you may get your turn and understand them. Material changes may only happen when you have given up everything that once allowed you to live comfortable, which was bought at the price of the global millions your nation has slaughtered who pertetually are forced into barbaric deaths and squalid living. Retreating because you can't be bothered and are afraid is free license for these warmongers who shape the world to know they will suffer no tangible consequences.

Nothing is birthed in this world without some pain to be born, be it life or a movement. This is true now, true for every ancestor, and true for those who'll come after we are dead. Things cannot always be "someone else's problem to do" at crucial points the time will come when you have to do the work. Learning the history and preserving the present are meant as the first steps toward radicalization, not the beginning and end.

I don't expect this drastic change overnight or, pessimistically, even in my lifetime, but it is my hope that people are increasingly galvanized into further and further action. Those who are suffering genocide because of the powers we live in cannot afford anything less. We must do our part.

[raccoonshinobi]

As a feminist, wouldn't it be anti-feminist to tell a woman what she should and shouldn't do with her life - as is the talking point regarding the patriarchy?

Both garner expectations… And it's not 'gaining and protecting agency and inclusion' by having strangers stockpile and demand expectations on other strangers under threats and slander.

You know what that's called? Tyranny. The fear of volatile people is just as bad as the fear of a single dictator - both possess a death toll one way or the other, either by mass murder or suicide by excommunication and ostracization. And both are weak without asserting power over others.

The Greeks called it 'Ochlocracy' - Government by Mob Rule.

The sad part is this form of mob mentality isn't new. It just adapts in the worst form of people when they realize they share a common goal of literally bullying others to death and coming together to do just that.

We never evolved. We just have better opportunities.

Evolution operates on global survival, not personal desire.

Evolution can't fully be controlled; it develops what you *need*, not what you want. Artificially changing anything can do more harm than good.

And as it happens, the ancient Greeks celebrated a LOT of what the louder and violent 'woke' lgbt proclaim and the result would just be the same - complete utter resistance and the changing tide that follows deep into obscurity. History has repeated itself just at a large enough sale to be acknowledge due to social media.

And this weaponized peer pressure - online or offline - has long since overstayed its welcome. Some folks can't mentally get out of childhood and high school…

Even sadder is that the game plan never changed: Tyrants Weaponize Mobs.

Tyrants and Shills NEED mobs to beat the opposition and the silent majority for them, And they always attract those who can't think for themselves or those who refuse to think for themselves.

It's worse than a hive-mind; at least a hive-mind has clear standards and above all else a working system. Structure.

The only coherent rule the woke/lgbt/radfem movements has is 'Worship everything I demand beyond all reason or actually die mad about it."

There IS no system behind these movements, there are no standards, only grade-school-level bullying from incredibly miserable folks who hate others (straight, bi, gay, etc) for having any shred of joy that has nothing to do with said miserable folks.

Being a malicious center of attention is not how you make friends, it's how you make lackeys.

Miserable people do not know the difference between friends and lackeys. Both required loyalty; only one require mutual love - and miserable people are devoid of mutual love by all means.

Either THEY OR THEIR VIEWS matter at all times -or- no one else and their views should matter at all; that's the only setting they run by.

For the record, I don't accept nor trust the left or the right. I'm not even centrist - They're ALL shit. I'm as apolitical as they come.

Not anarchist. I believe a form of rulership is necessary for humankind. I just don't believe in people… It's easy to bullshit your way to the top when you're privileged enough.

When was the last time we had someone from the bottom rung of society - or who cared for the bottom rung - speak out against the hypocrisy of current-day politics on either side who wasn't silenced, or vanished without a trace? Those kinds of people have little use for both sides but can damage a lot of good faith… That's why they're kept in their places.

I'll take benefits from either side and pay what's due - but I spare zero loyalty for any of either side's rancid bullshit.

The violent (and practically mainstream) portion of LGBT/Woke/Inclusivity/Feminism don't truly want justice and equality. They want worship.

And before anyone calls me a weirdo for 'making this religious'… Definitions:

A feeling of profound love and admiration

Love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol

When you have a problem with ANYTHING less than this, even mild indifference or avoidance and it manages to piss you off and want NO ONE to question you on anything remotely concerning, you're craving worship and nothing less than that.

[bthump]

Do you have any thoughts about neogriff's political reform in Falconia? Specifically, why you think he's interested in building a fairer society. Is this Griff's cynical ploy to create a honeytrap for mass sacrifice? Or is this a callback to human Griff's disdain for nobility and his struggles of being a poor self-educated orphan? Was Miura going to explore the ethical consequences of Griff merging the astral worlds to create his utopia? Or was he going to explain it away by blaming it on the

moonlight boy affecting Griff's actions? I've been thinking about this since Miura had the other characters react with shock over Griff agreeing with Charlotte's orphanage proposal and showing how the nobles were reluctant over educating the poor, which I'm pretty sure was suppossed to be significant moment.

I completely think it's NeoGriffith fulfilling human Griffith's utopian dream. I have a post here about what we learn about Griffith’s ideals and what he wants out of a utopian kingdom if you’re interested in that. But yeah basically it 100% tracks that Griffith’s original dream includes providing for children imo, I fully expected that from NeoGriffith’s utopia.

(Frankly the weird thing to me about that Falconia politics chapter was how milquetoast it was lol, I was expecting NGriff to actually, yk, use his power and influence to lay down the utopian law and go full benevolent dictator, not politely ask a panel of nobles to agree to fund an orphanage. Still not sure what to make of that, but whatever, the direction was right even if the sense of incrementalism was a little weird to me.)

Anyway like, I don't know if NeoGriffith still has those ideals, but he's still obsessed with his dream and that dream was to create a utopian kingdom, so imo that's what NeoGriffith is going to do. I think the popular theories that NGriff is manipulating people into being sacrificed/feeding people to apostles/eating babies in his downtime/etc are based on absolutely nothing and don't make any sense or fit the themes of the story at all.

And the idea that it’s secretly Moonlight Baby advocating for orphanages is just funny as hell to me lol.

I think that Falconia just doesn’t make sense thematically if it’s not genuinely a much better place to live than any other city we’ve seen in Berserk. The point seems to be “is this utopian place free from all the sources of suffering we’ve explored so far throughout this story worth all the shit that went into creating it,” and that doesn’t work if it’s secretly an evil trap to sacrifice everyone or whatever. Not to mention everything that logistically makes no sense about that theory, like why would griffith, who is already a demi-god, need a mass sacrifice again? what would he sacrifice his dream for at this point when his dream is his entire reason for being? etc.

And I did assume that Miura was going to explore some ethical consequences of the whole creating fantasia to create falconia thing, we saw that warlock in Elfhelm complaining about it, and we got hints of the philosophical argument when Silat and Jarif had their polite disagreement about Griffith and tyranny in chapter 294. It seemed like he was setting it up.

So yeah, those are my general thoughts on Falconia’s politics. Thanks for asking!

[kellyvela]

That "might burn your family" tweet is indicative of what I know is going to happen in fandom: sure, people are indignant now about Dany but most people don't like to be rebels; they like to be co-signed by authority (the "I'm right b/c its canon" crowd"). And no matter how it was sugarcoated, GOT canon is that Dany is a mass-murderer. Those who are not stans will slowly but surely fall in line with this reading of her, not the least b/c they don't want to be wrong AGAIN when the books come out.

If you didn’t see it already, this is the HBO_UK tweet the anon refers: 

You sound very hopeful Anon. I agree that, in general, most people don’t like to be wrong, and certainly they don’t want to be wrong again about the same issue. 

But this fandom is something else…

Certain part of it just decided to live in denial and delusion (oh the irony): “I would never post a pic of dead dany”, “dany belongs to her fans that really love her and not to the misogynist show/books creators” (copyright what?), “I would never read the Books if that is the final”, etc, etc, etc.

We also have the actress that played dany saying/doing things like these:

I stand by Daenerys.

Clarke revealed that she met Beyonce at an Oscars after-party hosted by the musician and her husband, Jay Z. There, she was approached by the host herself, who gushed about Daenerys Targaryen. Beyonce, however, like the rest of the world, was at that point ignorant about Daenerys’ dark turn in Season 8. “All I wanted to scream was ‘Please, please still like me even though my character turns into a mass-killing dictator! Please still think that I’m representing women in a really fabulous way,’ ” Clarke said of the encounter. [x]

About the backlash on the final season: “It was profoundly flattering. Is what it was, because when someone cares that much, that they’re ready to make such a noise about how they believe the characters should have been… should have been finished, and how the story should have been gone. That’s just enormously flattering, that just shows how much everybody loved it.”        

She is using Dany and Drogon images to promote her charity.  Dany is not bringing fire and blood for once, she is a cute little nurse bringing help to those in need.     

We also have certain group of “asoiaf experts“ so called BNF, that decided not to watch the Show years ago, because it’s “sacrilege“, only the books are canon (in this I agree), but they have created their own canon, the way they interprete and understand the Books, and their followers buy everything they say as “the canon”. They still believe in their 20 years old theories that include Dany is the hero, maybe she would have a brief “dark phase“ but then “enters Jon” and they gonna fall in love, make love, celebrate life, have a baby, defeat the big bad guys walk walkers and sacrifice themselves to save the humanity. Tyrion will be the third head of the dragon, etc.  

As you can see Anon, that very human sentiment to hate being wrong, sometimes includes the belief that you can’t be wrong. So all these people (fans/stans/experts/etc) will stand by their beliefs and theories till the very end (when the books are at last published and they read them). And even after that they would say that GRRM is wrong, just like right now they are saying D&D are wrong.  

Dark Dany is not new. It have been theorized for years, And according to Elio García, co-author of the World of Ice and Fire, GRRM himself complimented that Dark Dany essay: “(…) he referred very specifically to the Meereenese Blot website and the knot essays. He said he was told about them, read them, and was very pleased that someone was able to get his difficulties and his intentions perfectly.”

And for those that paid attention, it was clear that the Show was taking that route at least since season 2. Her conversation with the Spice King is very telling. There is also this conversation with Hizdahr Zo Loraq in season 5 that is very much the same conversation she had with Jon just before he killed her. 

The Battle of the Bastard’s script says: “She doesn’t have to look. She only allows the faintest hint of a smile. A smile that says: my tyranny is not ended, motherfucker. It’s only just begun.”

People also have season 7 and even after watching those seven episodes, they believed that GOT was going to have a happy ending, a Disney one, with Targaryen restoration, jonerice wedding, king and queen coronation, boat baby and all. 

But you are right, the sugarcoat was real. They change season 7 - episode 2 title from “The Mad King’s Daughter” to something more poetic/whitewashed: “Stormborn”: 

What I was impressed by was the little hints that we saw of potentially her (Daenerys) becoming like her father in those conversations ( her talking with Varys). You know, threatening to burn somebody alive, in any universes, it’s not great.

Bryan Cogman: She has dragons, an effective form of execution.

But knowing what her father was doing to people that line sticks in your ear and also when inviting him ( Jon) down and she wants him to immediately bend the knee

Bryan Cogman: Yeah, I mean, she sees this as her birthright… it’s plain and simple, you know, they took this from her, it’s hers.

And so much of the episode ( really the whole season) not just for Daenerys but for a lot of our characters is dealing with the legacy of their families and the generations that preceded them and dealing not only with how they feel about it and what they might share with some of those ancestors but how other people perceive you.

That legacy it’s kind of why I wanted to originally call it the Mad King’s daughter (I like Stormborn, I think is a great title actually), I really wanted to call it the Mad King’s daughter and actually it would have made more sense.

In the original edit there were more characters referring to her like this in pretty much every scene and I think some of that was lost in the final edit but in the original script and in the original edit ( which was longer) pretty much every character that wasn’t in the Daenerys‘s circle was referring to her as “the Mad King’s daughter is here” .

Considering this idea that she’s got a reputation before she has ever set foot there, because she has a brother’s reputation too, that first scene is definitely about her reconciling with that, wrestling with how much of that legacy is good for her brand and what isn’t and certainly that is a big part of the no-fire bombing strategy.

It’s like: you could come in here and torch the whole place and everyone would be horrified and what have you achieved? If you want to rule, you need to take a different approach.

But under that, and I think you picked up on something in that first scene, is that she’s got a real kind of need and desire to go in guns blazing and from an emotional point of view the scene has to set up this.

Game of Thrones’ Writer Bryan Cogman: In Conversation (Part 2)

The Mad King’s Daughter, she’s got a real kind of need and desire to go in guns blazing. 

Yeah, hero material you all.

And even during season 8, after episode 2, Bryan Cogman made this really telling comparison between Sansa and Dany:

Sansa knows that of all the Starks that were ripped from Winterfell, she suffered the most to get it back. She’s the driving force for getting it back. Now she’s being told, “It’s not yours, and it’s not the Starks’ anymore. It belongs to Hitler’s daughter, the worst person in the world’s daughter, the daughter of the person who murdered your grandfather and uncle in the worst way possible. And guess what? Your brother, who you convinced to step up when he wanted to fuck off because of his death experience, bent the knee to her and is telling you that she’s your queen.” What part of Sansa’s reaction to any of this is irrational?

At the same time, if you’re Dany, this is the family that stole your family’s legacy. You grew up as a child living in constant fear that you were going to be murdered the next day. Then you’re married off to a warlord, and you’ve scraped and suffered and endured, and here you are. You’re going to help these people who destroyed your life and your family’s lives. Where’s the gratitude?

Even if he described both sides’ positions and sentiments, if you say one side’s reaction is not irrational, and then call the other side “Hitler’s daughter”, you know exactly who is the good guy and who is the evil one. 

D&D surely sugarcoated Dany, they were not calling her plainly “The Mad King’s Daughter”, but they were subtly telling us that she indeed was Aery’s pretty version: 

Jon: She’ll be a good queen. For all of us. She’s not her father.

Sansa: No, she’s much prettier.

—GOT season 8 - episode 1

In that “I stand by Daenerys” article, the interviewer recalled Kit Harington’s words about Jon killing Dany, during season 8 filming:

“I think it’s going to divide,” Harington says of the finale’s fan reaction. “But if you track her story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive. This has been building. So, we have to say to the audience: ‘You’re in denial about this woman as well. You knew something was wrong. You’re culpable, you cheered her on.’”

Harington adds he worries the final two episodes will be accused of being sexist, an ongoing criticism of GoT that has recently resurfaced perhaps more pointedly than ever before. “One of my worries with this is we have Cersei and Dany, two leading women, who fall,” he says. “The justification is: Just because they’re women, why should they be the goodies? They’re the most interesting characters in the show. And that’s what Thrones has always done. You can’t just say the strong women are going to end up the good people. Dany is not a good person. It’s going to open up discussion but there’s nothing done in this show that isn’t truthful to the characters. And when have you ever seen a woman play a dictator?”

After reading what Kit said, Dany stans gone rabid. They said things like HBO forced him to say those words and others simply insulted and hated him. Because, you know, he is wrong. D&D are also wrong. They are just a pair of white misogynist dudes that can’t stand women in power… SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

I mean, look at these headlines. Dany stans/targ lovers are now justifying genocide. They are making/selling/buying “Her Satanic Majestic” T-shirts. 

So there you have it Anon. Some of them decided to believe Dany will still be the hero in the Books, because she ended slavery you know, that’s not what villains do, if you think different, you are a slavery apologist, also misogynist, and surely a Stark stan, those fucking classists xenophobes…   

Some others just joined “Her Satanic Majesty” cult. Those ungrateful peasants deserved to be burned alive because they didn’t love Dany. it was their fault that Dany had to go in guns blazing on them. Burn them all! Dracarys! Fire and Blood! 

It would be a long ride Anon.