#conjectures ideas

[gigglemugger]

All of these are notes about Meg's character to see if I can make the thing.

[taffywabbit]

so like. at what point are we going to stop listening to game companies saying "the game was poorly received and didn't meet our sales targets, and that's why we're removing it from storefronts and taking down all the servers mere months or even weeks after release" for titles that had a long expensive development, were barely marketed, and nobody knew they'd even released until after they heard they were getting shut down and couldn't be played/purchased anymore?

I feel like the prevailing takeaway for anyone who doesn't just conclude "yeah, game was pretty mid, makes sense to me" has usually been "this company just has unreasonably impossible sales expectations and treats every project like a failure if it doesn't print a trillion dollars". but these ARE allegedly experienced business execs who aren't complete idiots, and after this most recent debacle with Concord I'm starting to wonder if a bunch of these "games getting wiped out of existence when they underperform instead of just being allowed to persist as they are and maybe improve with time" cases in recent years might be more of a Warner-Discovery type situation, like nuking an entire animated series or film that was worked on for years and preventing it from being sold because it has to be officially unprofitable for the company to use it as a tax write-off. I look at a game that was worked on for 8 years and only made available for 2 weeks, and it's hard not to see the parallels.

great work, AAA games industry, really normal and sustainable stuff you're doing over there as usual

[kindaorangey]

recently i've been thinking about rowan omondi in terms of the "supportive black best friend" trope. i've had this idea for a while that it would be interesting to see a story that deals specifically with the psychological effects of being the designated "support friend", especially in cases where that character addressing/expressing their own emotions and advocating for themself would be stigmatised because of their race... and obviously, rowan fits into this neatly, actively repressing and refusing to talk about his feelings because he isn't usually given this sort of support by his friends, it's usually him who's supporting them. and i guess on a metatextual level, once he begins to address his own emotional repression and step down from that support role, you could view it as him becoming cognisant of his own role as the "supportive black best friend".

[athenasplan]

Yeah honestly it’s really hard to guess what Sam means with “If we ever get future seasons we have plans to honor that moment in a different way” bc on one hand Scanlan’s goodbye speech still had his lingering self doubt/inadequacies like him specifying stuff like “We really REALLY shouldn’t have succeeded” and “For the first time in my life I matter” and he’s still the only character the show has done no childhood/family backstory for but on the other hand how would that stuff even play in with him now having left on this journey of self improvement? Maybe Pike confronts him about the “Now I have a real family” line which leads to conflict?

Either way here’s the article, and it really frames it like the sole reason for changing his big moment was the uncertainty of season 4, hence them still giving it buildup despite the lack of payoff which is… frustrating. https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/amazon-prime-video/the-legend-of-vox-machina-season-3-finale-interview-spoilers-ending-explained

Thank you for linking the article!! This part explains a lot about the decisions they made.

And as you said, the self doubt and uncertainty surely were in the speech, but idk if these few sentences could really be ground for a massive fight? It would make sense that Pike felt hurt by his "real family" comment, but still it seems to me that making him leave again would be redundant, and I'm fairly sure they want to avoid that (they even said in the article that the reason Percy was dead for a longer time this season was because they didn't want to just repeat what happened with Vex in season 2)

Also the fact that Sam said that they will "honor the moment in a different way" makes me think it could be a COMPLETELY different scenario.

Like maybe the lament is not even directed towards Vox Machina, maybe it's some other person from Scanlan's past that he realizes knows nothing about him?

I really don't know. But I do have the feeling (and hope) that season 4 will be a bit more Scanlan centric

[pigeonstab]

The vampire Killer /werewolf Cross thing (WHICH I HAVEN'T EVEN MADE DESIGNS FOR YET) has made me kinda maybe want to try writing. A fic. Of some kind of other. Lololol do not take this as a promise I've only done creative writing in middle school T T

[martyrbat]

the batman nobody knows! — batman #250

(ID in alt!)

[qourmet]

aaahm idk i blacked out & suddenly this was on my canvas. wen qing has finally graced my presence tho 🎉

yuan cut it, qing tried to fix it & made it worse, ning came home to a Mess & actually fixed it

[wonder-worker]

"And where it hath pleased [God] to take out this transitory life the most victorious Christian prince of famous memory King Edward the iiijth our king, loving lord, and father, whose soul God of his infinite mercy pardon. The lamentable and most sorrowful tidings thereof was shown unto [us] the xiiijth day of this present month. [...] We intend...to be at our city of London in all convenient haste to be crowned at Westminster."

-Letter by EDWARD V from Ludlow to the burgesses of King's Lynn upon the news of his father Edward IV's death (16th April 1483)

[soft-serve-soymilk]

I feel the problem with texts like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Sunset Boulevard, and The Memory Police is that my analysis feels too off-the-wall compared to what they want us to regurgitate ._.

[padfootastic]

not to be rude or anything but i wanted to ask, why do you like james so much? i love sirius almost unhealthily, but james always gave me the ick. idk tho maybe i'm over analysing it, but he always gave me slightly creepo vibes because of the whole asking lily out constantly thing yk?

:o

no one’s ever asked me something like that hahaha

idk, man. i guess it’s like sirius—the traits that james has (and what i envision him to be like) kinda just speak to me, yeah? i mean, obv we don’t have a lot of stuff about him, but i fill in a lot of blanks on my own and the rough picture i came up with, i adore. he’s also a character that i can relate to & project on, which is always fun.

it’s also like—if i go to my earliest works, it’s all about james and his friendship with sirius so that dynamic if is what really, truly drew me in. like the j/s relationship (platonic or romantic) has me in a literal chokehold and i think everyone here knows that lol in addition to that, i adore james as a dad and a son & i think he just lends himself to some really good interpersonal interpretations ykno? the centrality i believe he held in the marauders, is another thing.

also like the barebones traits he has—loyalty, protectiveness, moral fortitude, generosity, helpful—i just find him to be a really decent guy lol.

the lily thing—i mean, fair ig. he was kind of an ass in SWM but i personally just don’t believe he was asking her out constantly, ykno? like. it doesn’t fit what i think of him; it doesn’t exactly feel like something a 11-15yo would do; and i’m so sure that this perception of him came from all those jily fics (and even r/s let’s be real) where he’s portrayed as a near stalker bc lily has to be deified and morally superior. i mean, i personally believe most of the fics with james in it have done him a great disservice and entirely ruined his character for the sake of fandom or wtv (but again, it’s a character we never saw alive in real time lol so what leg do i have to stand on anyway)

so that in mind, i’ve personally always hated the lily connotations of his personality and tend to stay away from that.

in general, i’d say, i love the possibility/potential that james has? a bit like sirius, he feels like a larger-than-life character, a little fantastical. and it’s just downright fun plying around with him ykno? there’s also this, element of subversion with him for me. one, how close he is with sirius. (how close i write him to be). him being such a caretaker contrasting w his cool dude jock vibes. being the protective mother hen in jily. being emotional and sensitive and crying and not being ashamed about it. he just. seems like a much deeper character than what we get on the surface *shrugs*

[czolgosz]

the "blue used to be a girl color and pink used to be a boy color until after ww2" factoid is so bizarre. it's based on one singular newspaper article... and besides that you can find more on pink being a girl color and blue being a boy color pre-ww2. who comes up with this stuff

[maliciousalice]

So many people in the spaces i lurk will be be thiiiiiis 🤏 close to an interesting and valid point , and then it's like oop here comes the delulu

[arodrwho]

hoooo. okay. i feel better knowing she's crossed the threshold there w the delegates

[doloneia]

we need to abolish the idea that ancient greek myths and legend have a coherent timeline. they do not. for any given myth there are like 10 heroes mentioned that feasibly could not have been adults or even alive. herakles keeps showing up in places where he should probably be dead. anyone could be a suitor of helen. even herakles. even theseus if you count that kidnapping stint he did. nestor is alive for 10 billion years. time is fake and anything beyond vague generational outlines is conjecture

[jedi-order-apologist]

Pacifist doesn't mean that they can't restrain people, they just aren't going to be killing them.

I think it's also very likely that the new mandalorians greatly outnumbered everyone else. These were the farmers, the laborers (whether free or enslaved), the every day people who'd seen their home torn apart. Meanwhile the warriors kept killing each other off, whittled down to almost nothing until Satine could retake her position, and the ones that were left were probably mostly tired of it and glad to put down their weapons when the time came.

The ones that refused were few in number, and I'd reckon that Death Watch is mostly made up of a handful of the old guard and then many more radicalized youth that weren't actually around for the wars and have an idealized view of it. When they were first exiled they were probably not nearly as numerous as they were by the time of the Clone Wars.

someone needs to explain to me how satine and the new mandalorians "won" the great clan wars. how did they enforce the exile/banishment of the insurgents to concordia. who was doing the fighting for the new mandalorians and defending against the insurgents. how did they enforce the exile.

george lucas didn’t do enough deep thinking on the naboo government, and dave filoni did seemingly no thinking before throwing in mandalore's backstory exclusively through obi-wan’s dialogue as a function of his own romantic backstory with satine.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

View on Twitter

Since it came up recently, link to that therapist on twitter 👆 who was discussing Bucky's terribile therapist in TFATWS and how they should’ve been. 

Transcript:

"As a therapist myself I've had a lot of feelings about Bucky's therapist on TFatWS, and have decided I need to rant a little to let it all out. I've worked w/active duty, trauma survivors, and court ordered clients, so here's some therapeutic conjecture on Bucky's therapy:

Aesthetically her office and presentation don't fit for someone who has been through the trauma that he’s been through. A client like this would need something non-threatening and safe- the whole vibe is overly formal and official in an office building, not at all therapeutic.

6 months working together she calls him Mr. Barnes and then James-he has identity issues and is struggling with who he is, so I think that one of the 1st things they would have done is figure out what he is comfortable being called, by whom and what that means for him.

He is still full out lying to her about pretty much everything including PTSD sx—I’m not saying clients never lie if they have good therapists, but if after 6 months he still doesn’t feel like he can be truthful at all then they haven’t built any trust/ solid therapeutic rapport

The pen and notebook thing-that’s clearly a trigger for him, there’s no reason to antagonize him and take notes in session like a punishment, it’s a power play on her part and it only emphasizes his lack of control in being forced into therapy (she should know his hx w/notebooks)

The whole little arm motion she made when she said “they need to make sure you don’t…” – that made so much light of what has happened to him, he probably feels like his arm is only good as a weapon and things like that will not help him accept it as part of his body

The rules, UGH the rules—from how they were talking about them clearly not something he actively created for himself, more like directives that he’s been ordered to adhere to—something fed to him and reinforced, feels like a way to sign off on liability only

THE AMENDS—this is probably my biggest issue. Amends are for people who need to take accountability for their actions and the repercussions of those choices. He had NO choice. He was a victim of horrific crimes against him, and framing it in a way that he needs to make up for

the crimes that others used him for is abhorrent. The lack of trauma informed care as astounding in the way it is being framed that he has to atone for sins that weren’t his. Its clearly reinforcing the idea in his head in ep 2 when he says “HYDRA were my people".

NO, HYDRA were your captors. They were not your people. That type of thinking needs to get deconstructed and challenged. He can dedicate himself to bringing good into the world and righting wrongs that happened WITHOUT taking on the responsibility of those actions.

Her whole attitude and demeanor were condescending and demeaning. I know some people have said “I love how she calls him out on his bullshit!” That’s not what I see happening. I call my clients out on their shit all the time—this was not that.

And I can only do that with clients ONCE we’ve built the type of relationship where it’s going to be therapeutic for them to hear it, and it’s done intentionally and with purpose. She just came off shaming and mean because they don’t seem to have any form of therapeutic rapport.

She said “you have no history, no family”- there is no therapeutic reason for that, and she’s wrong. He most likely has family alive (he used current tense when talking about his sister) and he was close to Shuri and TChalla, his history is vital to understanding him

When she said “Look, I know that you have been through a lot, but you’ve got your mind back. You are being pardoned. These are good things. You’re free.”—Yeah this feels really dismissive and like toxic positivity. “I know you’ve been through a lot BUT BE HAPPY!!??”

He certainly doesn’t seem to feel like he’s free (especially having therapy mandated), and you can’t just tell someone they’re free. I felt like she was pretty much just like, “shake it off, look to the future!” which feels really shitty when you’ve experienced excessive trauma.

HELLO breach of confidentiality, just introducing herself to Sam as his therapist and confirming it to Walker and the whole police station, it doesn’t matter if they know he’s in therapy you do not break someone’s privacy like that, he still deserves some control over his tx.

Ordering Sam into a session, NO, he’s not your client and you don’t know him well enough to know if that’s appropriate or if it would be harmful to either, and you haven’t asked your client for his consent to have another person in his session

Forcing a trauma victim who was stripped of his bodily autonomy for 70 years into a physically intimate exercise with a coworker that he’s barely interacted with in the last several months? NOPE, just reinforcing to Bucky she has control over him the way his handlers used to

To me, I think she is more focused on signing off on his psychological eval that he isn't a liability rather than any actual healing or attention to his trauma. This unfortunately isn’t unusual in the military where “mental health treatment” is focused on being mission ready.

They are making sure he’s ready to be an “asset” w/ mandated therapy, which he shouldn’t even be forced to do as part of his pardon because he shouldn’t have needed a pardon at all because he was a victim of horrific war crimes, brainwashing, and dehumanization for 70 years.

I’m just saying, if that was me he would be on my big squishy couch, bright open windows, bowl of Hershey kisses, random fidget toys, and two therapy dogs laying all over him while we work through that trauma and he builds back his identity and finds the calm he wants so badly.

And yes he would probably need someone who would see through his BS, call him out when he needs it, not be overly "touchy feely", but only if he feels safe and there is trust, where he gets to work on what HE wants, not what others think he needs.

Anyway thanks for coming to my TEDTalk, I❤️my work and I think being a therapist on retainer for the Avengers would've been a fucking trip, they all needed a team of mental health professionals at their disposal 24/7 and things would've been so much better🤣

ps. They can be a good therapist and just not be a fit for the client, that happens regularly. We know when to make it part of the conversation and when to refer out. Nothing good is going to come out of a contemptuous therapeutic relationship, mandated or not.

pps. That whole situation and the scene with Zemo was so rough. I can't imagine how much it brought back the violation, humiliation, anger, and helplessness of when he was the WS. I'm just imagining him having a therapist he trusts and being able to process that afterwards 😭😭😭"