#cool. you don't want to learn it. it's a choice

[finalvortex]

Completely overanalysing Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings Episode 1

The opening is a deliberate parallel to the scene leading into Maria's death (images taken here from Shadow '05, although this scene is also in SA2). If you're paying attention you can immediately tell it's a fakeout, though: there's no alarm blaring, the lighting is blue rather than red, and Maria is pulling Shadow along instead of the other way around.

It's the aurora borealis. You can only see them from certain latitudes down there, but up here, we can see the whole...

Maria's a nerd.

Shadow is immediately prepared to catch Maria when she collapses.

The low gravity here only keeps your condition in remission. You should know better than to exert yourself.

This is new information I think? I don't think this makes scientific sense but I guess it provides a justification for why Maria is up here aboard the ARK beyond 'that's where the research is being done'. Only, the ARK was a space colony, there were other civilians aboard it as well, like the future GUN commander.

I can't wait for the day when we can finally return. I was created here. I don't know if there's a place for me on Earth.

I just wanted to highlight this exchange as significant to Shadow's overall character arc across his history, being one where he has carved out a place for himself on earth.

Love the way Maria comforts shadow here.

You and grandfather are doing your best. I'm just as happy to spend time with you here, while you both research-

I think this is just awkward wording, but surely Shadow isn't doing any researching?

My boyyyy

Hull breach in the experimental weapons wing! Multiple subjects are free of containment!

Multiple subjects? Given the events of Lost Impact, things are just escaping from here all the time, huh.

Here's the entries on this incident from Gerald's journal in Sonic Battle:

The higher ups are threatening to shut down this research facility. I had no choice but to hand them the Gizoid to buy more time for my research. I tried to be careful and commanded it to never absorb any dangerous technologies. However, I have heard that other researchers have been making the Gizoid absorb weapons. Apparently, the way to cause the Gizoid to form a new "Link" is to show it power that surpasses that of its former master. While this poses immense danger, I cannot risk losing Maria.

My worst fears have come true. The Gizoid has absorbed enough weaponry and technology that it has started to go out of control. The resulting rampage resulted in the destruction of most of the "Ark." ... I have deciphered the rest of the stone tablet. It says, "When the Gizoid had learned all that it could, it became a god of wrath, and all was destroyed." The researchers somehow managed to subdue the Gizoid and sealed it away.

That robot was heading towards Grandfather's lab! Shadow, you have to save him!

Why was Emerl - uh, well, I guess Project Gizoid at this point - headed directly for Gerald? If he was overloaded with power, like at the end of Sonic Battle, he should just be destroying things indiscriminately, right? So... was this a deliberate ploy by GUN to get rid of Gerald?

Maria grabbing Shadow's hand breaks the illusion briefly and triggers a trauma-induced flashback (forward?) to the GUN soldier shooting her. Compare with the actual scene from Shadow '05:

Again, why is Emerl specifically targeting Gerald here?

Not much to say about the fight scene aside from the fact that it's really well animated, and it happens with no background music to emphasize the weight of the blows being thrown. It's also really cool how Emerl copies Shadow's spin attack - you don't need to know how the Gizoid functions for that to be a cool visual, but it's a nice nod if you do.

Ok this is really confusing me. Is there any mention of GUN having a space fleet anywhere? Where did these things come from? They don't even share the same aesthetic as other GUN vehicles, they look more like the Egg Fleet.

Nice look at Shadow's Air Shoes from below the glass floor.

Next Shadow lands into Gerald's cell on Prison Island, which raises the question: why is this in Shadow's memories? Is this just his memory of the recording from SA2? Or was Shadow not put on ice until after Gerald's execution? We know it wasn't immediately after the ARK was destroyed, since he was around long enough for Gerald to alter his memories.

There is a bit of static distortion here, with an analog effect that implies it might just be the video.

On the other hand, we actually get these very brief flashes of Gerald's execution here, which we don't see in SA2 itself.

The professor gets farther and farther away from Shadow. He can no longer reach him.

Shadow then falls into a red sky, with bits of debris floating all around him, reflecting the final battle against Devil Doom in Shadow '05.

Interestingly, this scene is mixing imagery from both Gerald and Maria's deaths. The image of the GUN soldiers is the firing line that killed Gerald, and the sound of the lightning turns into automatic gunfire, as opposed to the single pistol shot that killed Maria.

Finally, Shadow falls into the giant face and outstretched hands of Black Doom.

Waking up from his nightmare in a panic, Shadow uses that damn fourth chaos emerald* to Chaos Spear this unfortunate tree.

*Okay, the fourth chaos emerald was the white one.

The moon looks so good.

Shadow stands in a field surrounded by lilies, a flower which can be used to symbolise purity as well as death, and is a flower commonly used at funerals. In particular, they are often placed on the graves of children.

That was no mere nightmare. And it all began in view of the ARK. Could he have survived? No, that can't be. I need answers.

Shadow seems to think the sight of the ARK is what triggered this nightmare. I think the only 'he' that makes sense here is Black Doom, since Gerald and Emerl are both pretty definitively dead.

Based on the trailer, I think from here Shadow is going to collect Team Dark to raid an Eggman base so they can obtain a rocket to get up to the ARK.

The song that plays over the credits is a remix of Throw it All Away. I have no idea why it shows footage of the biolizard fight, beyond "this is the Sonic Adventure 2 focused episode".

[diamondcitydarlin]

Alright real talk now without sassiness bc the whole anti thing against beetlebabes has me thinking about self-indulgent fantasy as a literary/storytelling device and it's something I've been thinking about with different medias lately, so this is topical ig for my current hyperfixation. Specifically I've been thinking about fantasy disavowal and the role that plays in self-indulgent/self-insert type fantasy stories, whether canon or extrapolated within fanfic. I first really learned about this concept in name from this video from contrapoints, so I have to give her credit for discussing this and explaining to me how it works in a way that blew my mind apart at the time, and I think it's the sort of thing that puts a lot of what goes on in self-indulgent fantasy stories into a different perspective, particularly when we're trying to evaluate said stories under an IRL moral microscope (and is why that approach pretty much never works or applies within this kind of story)

(Semi-long post under the cut where I mention Harry Potter as an example of a literary device- as I say within the writeup, I do not condone or support JKR or her beliefs and this is not an endorsement of her but rather a well-known example I think most people will recognize. Be aware if it's triggering for you. I also mention Twilight lol, incase that's an issue. It takes me a minute to get to Beetlejuice/Beetlebabes but I promise this is all relevant to my point, your honors)

Recently I saw a discussion within a Twilight fan group I'm in (yes I'm a Twilight fan and a rattie iykyk) about how toxic certain characters behavior would be IRL, particularly in the way several of them have a habit of making choices for Bella against her will, gifting her with things she's said she didn't want and insisting she use/wear them, etc etc. As a former Twilight hater (cuz I used to be that too many years ago!!!) I knew where they were coming from in being critical of these characters and calling them toxic, because in any other setting that would absolutely be true. Within fantasy disavowal, however, these 'toxic' behaviors are actually a way for the reader/writer (who is living vicariously through the main character) to have the main character get what they think she should have and want her to have without compromising her character or the integrity of the fantasy. Bella Swan, for example, is meant to be modest, selfless, 'not like other girls' and usually uncomfortable with bringing too much attention to herself (which makes her relatable to those who would live vicariously through her story), but of course many of those reading WANT her to have a big wedding and traditional dress anyway so that's where, for example, Alice's insistence she have those things comes into play. Yes, IRL that would be controlling, obsessive, weird, and a complete disregard of someone's wishes and boundaries but in a self-insert fantasy that tactic serves an important role to the purpose and point of the setting. WELL if you INSIST, Alice, I guess I'll just take your very generous and expensive gifts and deal with it, sigh, oh WELL!!! /s In that sense it's less demeaning and more empowering, if you're viewing it from the pov of someone wanting to immerse themselves in the fantasy.

Another example of where this is kinda used in self-insert fantasy is Harry Potter (and many others like it, and this isn't to condone JKR's terfism, this is just the example I think most people will recognize), wherein the children reading are meant to want to live vicariously through Harry and his friends and their adventures. For those children reading (and I know bc I was one once lol) the idea of being in a dangerous environment that the adults don't really shield them from entirely is very cool, it gives them a sense of independence and self-sufficiency and a sense of 'trust' from the fictional adults in their abilities to take care of themselves. From an adult's perspective now, particularly one with a child of first-year age, it's seemingly horrific how neglectful and reckless the adults in that series are with the wellbeing of the children they're responsible for (like, idk, sending a bunch of 11 year olds into the known death forest for their first detention sentence, at night, while knowing some beast is eating unicorns in said forest). But of course, within the story this constant, casual endangerment of children is never really brought up as an issue or as a reflection of some kind of immortality in the adults responsible for them as it would IRL, because it serves the purpose of self-indulgent fantasy for the children reading. It's not MEANT to be seen as a moral failing or child endangerment AT ALL so much as just the adults characters getting the fuck out of the way so the kids can have fun- unless it's like Umbridge doing it, who is established as an villain and immoral even in that setting from the jump. (And again this isn't a defend JKR post, just an explanation/example of what I'm talking about) IDK if this qualifies as fantasy disavowal perse, but it's a similar phenomenon of how behaviors -particularly those of supporting characters- can seem immoral/toxic under a real world lens but within the story serves a purpose to the reader living through the fantasy.

The way this relates to Beetlebabes for me is mostly fanon focused, but I think there are elements of disavowal in the canon as well. A lot of us who ship beetlebabes feel a kinship to Lydia in some way or another, especially those of us who watched the first film and cartoon as we ourselves were coming of age (and also probably weirdo goth kids too at the same time, I definitely was lol) and while it obviously isn't a fantasy for everyone, for a lot of us the idea of a 600-year old demon choosing and becoming obsessed with our weirdo asses BECAUSE of our weirdness is really cool actually lmao. To others, Beej pursuing Lydia so ardently against her outspoken disavowal can only be seen as intentionally toxic because they're not part of the fantasy, nor do they want to be, so seeing the merits (and empowerment) of his pursuit within this setting is beyond them. And of course, there's something to be said for the inherent nature of gothic romance as a setting, as well as the fact that movieverse Beetlejuice isn't really meant to be the pinnacle of moral direction in real life, it's meant to be a creepy, kooky dark comedy that pushes the boundaries of societal norms (not unlike what we do in the shadows). As others have said, this also isn't unlike the film Labyrinth much at all, though I RARELY see anyone coming after the Jareth/Sarah ship despite Sarah being a child in the film and Jareth being, yknow, also an ancient spirit of some kind. Perhaps because most people better understand how Labyrinth functions as a self-insert fantasy, that Jareth's obsession with Sarah is meant to be an empowering thing within that context for the young people like Sarah watching it, not an endorsement of IRL predatory behavior (ofc, Jareth being mostly a creation of Sarah's might aid with the sense of her power over the situation).

Honestly, I think it's also true for a lot of people against Beetlebabes that they identify with Lydia too, but in a way that doesn't include wanting a 600-year old demon to be obsessed with them (you do you boo, more of him to go around ig lmaooo), but instead of seeing and accepting the merits of Beej's obsession in this other kind of fantasy, they instead choose to apply real-world morals onto not only the story but the people who enjoy this story as well as their personal discomfort demands. For as much as they want to accuse others of 'not having media literacy' for shipping it, they sure jump right over the point of this literary/storytelling device. And to that end, I can't wholly blame them, because it was only within the last few years that I really realized and accepted how this works too- but I'm doing my best to explain it now, for whomever is interested.

I guess what I'm ultimately trying to say is that self-insert/self-indulgent type fantasy stories are, by design, not meant to be viewed through a real-world moral lens. The entire point of them is to transport a reader/viewer into a world where real-life doesn't apply, where someone like them is loved and obsessed over for the things that they are often disparaged for IRL and within a context where they (and the main character) still hold the reigns of control, as Lydia does over Beetlejuice time and time again (despite being a powerful 600 year old demon Beej sure lets his wife kick him around a lot, doesn't he???). It's not meant to be an endorsement or romanticization or even a depiction of IRL immorality either, as that would ruin the effect of the fantasy.

So yeah, I feel like trying to evaluate most of these stories in a real-world moral context is a fundamental misunderstanding of how this kind of storytelling works- that's not to say one can't evaluate them that way if they want, and sometimes (like other things used within the HP series) it's due, but I think it definitely becomes an issue when this 'moral evaluation' turns into one of the people who enjoy the fantasy too. The fictional flights of fancy that people like to immerse themselves into are just that; fantasy. And what's more, different people like living vicariously through different kinds of fantasies, different people are going to find different things empowering in said stories and just because one thing feels empowering for one person but demeaning to another should not mean the former person is immoral and gross in real life or would even want these things to happen in real way.

I keep trying to wrap this post up and failing, but that's basically it. I'm posting this because I know others will probably have way more intellectual insight and feedback to add about this kind of storytelling and I just think it's really fascinating to talk about. What do yall think?

[cyanide-latte]

Honestly the most gratifying thing about my undercut that doesn't have to do with gender is that now I actually get genuine compliments on my hair.

I have naturally very curly hair. It is also very dark but has been steadily turning white since I was 15 (I'll be 35 in October.) I've had it long before, and most often in my life I've had it cut very short in a boyish style.

And my entire life, the comment I heard most was "is your hair naturally curly?" (always said with a dubious tone even when I was little, because I guess other 5-year-olds must have been getting perms) And it's usually always followed by "I wish I had hair like that, I'd kill for your hair" or some variation thereof.

I was told this was a compliment. As an autistic child who hated my curls for the longest time, this frustrated me. It never sounded like a compliment, it never felt like a compliment, and if they wanted my hair so bad, they ought to find a way to trade with me.

As I got older, into my late teens and early twenties, I made peace with the curls, even though I still got those same "compliments". But since I'd been getting increasingly white hair since age 15, they were now accompanied by people criticizing my "highlight job" and my choice to "mix in blonde". Looking people square in the eyes and saying "I don't have highlights, my hair's just been going white since I was 15" usually got semi-gratifying results when people backpedaled like hell, but a lot of them also would then criticize me for not dying the white to hide it.

I was constantly trying to alter my style for my hair my entire life and I don't even like styling my hair, but it caused me no end of upset to hear these things. I figured I was always doomed to be miserable about my hair. My body is already sensitive as hell to so many things I can only use specific products on my hair safely, but it hurt that my mother and grandmother tried so hard to help me understand people did like my hair, when the comments I heard sounded like criticism and an insinuation that other people deserved my hair.

And then 2020's COVID lockdown meant I couldn't get my summer cut to shorten my hair so I wouldn't overheat. At least, the person I usually went to couldn't do my hair.

So between desperation to find a way to keep all the weight of thick, heat-trapping dark curls off my neck and shoulders, and the desire to try something new as a subtle means of better expressing my gender, I decided to try an undercut. My partner and I looked up photos for reference, used an electric razor that was typically reserved for his hair, and decided what to do. Several layers underneath in the back would have to be shaved off completely (more than we initially anticipated, believe it or not,) and I wanted the shave to come around my left side. Just shave the left half of my head, because for some reason heat would constantly get trapped there as well as at the back of my neck. (Dunno why that didn't happen the same way with my right side, but hey, we've established I'm pretty odd.)

It was a relief, both physically and in terms of gender euphoria when I looked in the mirror and heard my partner's loving exclamation of "oh! there you are!" And it was also a relief when my mother and grandmother loved my new hair, especially when my grandmother said "that suits you best of all. You should always keep your hair that way." (Grandma passed in February of this year, and she never wavered in her love of my new hairstyle.)

But then, it started happening. Not just with family, friends and coworkers, but random strangers, at least once a week, often more than once a week. Someone would come up to me and say "I LOVE your hair! It's so cool!" I'd never heard that before.

I have quickly learned an added benefit of the undercut is that, with the left side of my head being shaved, it's incredibly easy for people to realize that my hair IS naturally curly, and to see my white pattern where my hair is growing back in on that side. And I've gotten compliments on that too! Both people talking about how dynamic my curls make the undercut, and several others telling me that my white pattern is beautiful and they hope I never think to dye it.

It's slowed down a bit since then but it still happens every couple of weeks. A little while ago at work, a regular [teen] patient came in with her mom, who approached me to ask about my undercut because she (the mom) has been hesitant to let her child try an undercut, but on seeing my hair, she changed her mind and wanted to know about my experience. Said kid still doesn't have an undercut yet, but they've been changing up their hair and presenting more queer in their dress, and they've started shyly waving to me when they see me. And yesterday, during grocery shopping, as I was waiting for my partner to get back from grabbing something, an older lady slowed down, came over to me, and just said "Excuse me, pardon me, you just have the most beautiful hair. That style is so striking, and your curls are wonderful with it. That's all. I just wanted to tell you you have gorgeous hair" and then she left.

It's so strange how that impulsive choice to take a shot on a new style not only became something I love for me and my personal expression of self, but is the thing that finally, truly has brought me compliments on my hair for the first time in my life. Real compliments that make me feel good.

So I guess what I'm saying in this overly long ramble is 1: I'm forever grateful this has happened and is happening to me, 2: for anyone struggling with similar, this is a reassurance that things can and will get better, 3: change can be terrifying but this is a very good example of a drastic change that wasn't going to have harmful repercussions for me personally, and the fact it turned out so well is both a confidence- and courage-booster. It's worth taking a shot on, because so far it's brought me nothing but joy. Sure, it requires frequent maintenance to keep up with the shaving part because my hair grows fast, but it's a small price to pay for a cooler head (in more than one sense!) and the positive interactions that have resulted.

[naivety]

not to be an ass but if you're giving so much to fundraisers spread around on tumblr dot com that you're out of money that is a you problem. most are asking for single digit donations or a share for other people to decide of they want to do the same. if they are a scam, make sure you lose money you can stand to lose, and if not, 100 people who can afford to donate $5 each will add up real quick for someone who needs it and will absolutely not be a waste to anybody anywhere. if you have time and energy to research multiple fundraisers yourself, awesome, and if you don't, $1 or $5 or $10 is not going to kill you, unless it is, in which case, you can simply not donate! nobody has a gun to your head. ultimately it is your decision and your judgement call if that's something you can afford to spend, scam or otherwise, vetted yourself or otherwise, as a grown ass adult with functioning free will. it is not that complicated, next question.

[ruvviks]

made the realization my vampire story would work best as a video game and now i can't stop thinking about it

[surgeratesfucko]

i hate choice based politics and activism i hate choice based feminism i hate the growing trend of anti-intellectualism and self-infantilization

[annoyingloudmicrowavecultist]

giving a different shout out to the kid in my class who gave a 3 minute speech about how much he hated the monarchy at 12 years old. that was awesome

[elcorhamletlive]

"it would be so emotional and amazing to see Will coming out to Mike and Mike accepting him as a friend" no it would not. shut up

[bazelgeuce]

I can't sleep :(

Rant in tags it's long

[kangseluigi]

There was that scene in Kim's Convenience where the daughter is in her photography class and her lecturer is looking up her website, realises the first page isn't hers, the second is also not hers, she has to go to page 2 of google and at that point just throws down her hands and says at that point, as a potential customer, she already loses interest and gives up cause it's not worth the effort

and lately I just feel like the whole fucking internet feels like that

I want to look up how to use cricut stuff and what that even really is, what can I do with what but when I put their name in i get taken to the fucking shop with no explanations far and wide, then next link is also the shop, next link is ALSO the shop but different, and by the time I finally find a page that has any kind of explanation, i'm so annoyed that the hoops is makes me jump through THEN—e.g. selecting which topic I want to learn more about—I'm no longer interested in doing this shit

the other day I wanted to look up what Nokia is up to in terms of phones these days but they no longer have 1 coherent website. In general, many places seem to not want any coherence in their websites, or sub-menus that you can easily navigate

Like, I come from myspace. I know how to navigate the internet. I played WoW in days of dial-up internet. And yet, everything is so goddamn convoluted and incoherent, there is NO structure or logic to anything and on top of that, google, and with it most other search engines, are fucking fried! A few years ago, if a website was really badly designed, you could just navigate back, google the website + search term you needed and get there somehow, but now that is also useless more often than not!

At this point I am genuinely over the internet. We had a good 15 years with it, let's pack it up.

[keeps-ache]

hmmm. the vibes. they are strange

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Controversial opinion among Dune book fans maybe, but I loved the changes they made to Chani's character. Making her a fedaykin who is already an experienced fighter before Paul arrives was a brilliant choice. Dune Part Two is a war movie, and this puts her at the center of the action, side by side with Paul, and gives her a much more active role than she has in the book.

We got a hint of where things were going in the beginning of Dune Part One. The first thing we ever know about movie Chani is that she's a fighter. She serves as a voice for the Fremen, telling us the story of their struggle from her point of view. I wrote here about the difference this change makes compared to other adaptations of Dune, what a perspective shift it is to have the world of Arrakis introduced not by an outsider, describing it as a dangerous but valuable colonial prize, but by one of its native inhabitants, who tells us before all else that it's beautiful, her home that she's fighting to liberate. I am so, so glad that the second movie followed up on this characterization.

I never found Chani and Paul's love story in the book particularly convincing, because why would this woman, who already has a prominent and respected place in Fremen society, even give the time of day to her deposed would-be colonizer, let alone fall in love and have children with him? Without a compelling reason for Chani to love Paul, she ends up feeling like a prize to be won, and "indigenous culture personified as a woman to be wooed (or conquered) by the colonizing man" is a trope we've seen and don't need to repeat.

But as soon as you tell me it's a barricade romance I get it. Cool cool cool, I know exactly what this relationship is now and it makes sense. Movie Chani doesn't respect or even particularly like Paul when she first meets him, and she doesn't think he's the fulfillment of any prophecy. She comes to respect him, and eventually love him, through his actions. He's brave--sometimes recklessly so. He fights well. He's willing to stick his neck out on the front lines with the other Fremen fighters. He can (after a little help) hack surviving in the harsh desert environment. He's not too proud to learn from others. He seems to genuinely want to be her equal in a common political struggle. All these qualities make sense as things she values.

Fighting side by side as equals is just about the only way I can see movie Chani falling for Paul. And it fits perfectly with the film's pattern of reversals that Paul's capacity for violence would initially be one of the things Chani likes about him, only for her to be repelled later when she sees what he becomes.

And as for Paul, well, he's had people deferring to him his entire life. Someone who doesn't take any shit from him is probably refreshing. He seems to like people (Duncan, Gurney) who challenge him and engage in a little friendly teasing--and aren't afraid to go a few rounds in the sparring ring.

It's easy to speedrun a romance when you're spending all your time together in mortal danger fighting for a shared political cause. Especially if you then start winning in a war your people have been fighting for decades. Are you kidding me? That is the perfect environment for intense battle camaraderie to turn into romantic love, and lust.

It makes sense that this version of Chani never believes Paul is any kind of messiah. Of course a character like movie Chani wouldn't believe in or trust some outside savior to liberate them. She's been working to liberate her own people for years. The more Paul invokes the messianic myth, the more he starts sounding once again like someone who plans to rule over them, and the more uncomfortable Chani becomes. In this way she becomes a foil to Jessica, the two of them representing the choices Paul is pulled between. It's a great way of externalizing the political and philosophical debates that often happen within characters' heads in the book.

And of course this version of Chani would leave Paul at the end of the film. It's not just the personal, emotional betrayal--although that stings. What common cause does she have with someone who just declared himself emperor and is sending her own people off in a war of conquest against others? Given the important role she plays in Dune Messiah, I am super curious to see how they get her back into the story, but girl was so valid for being willing to just gtfo. Given that she has the last shot of the whole movie, I'm sure she'll be back somehow, and I can't wait to see what they do with her character in any future installments.

[phantomrose96]

The conversation around AI is going to get away from us quickly because people lack the language to distinguish types of AI--and it's not their fault. Companies love to slap "AI" on anything they believe can pass for something "intelligent" a computer program is doing. And this muddies the waters when people want to talk about AI when the exact same word covers a wide umbrella and they themselves don't know how to qualify the distinctions within.

I'm a software engineer and not a data scientist, so I'm not exactly at the level of domain expert. But I work with data scientists, and I have at least rudimentary college-level knowledge of machine learning and linear algebra from my CS degree. So I want to give some quick guidance.

What is AI? And what is not AI?

So what's the difference between just a computer program, and an "AI" program? Computers can do a lot of smart things, and companies love the idea of calling anything that seems smart enough "AI", but industry-wise the question of "how smart" a program is has nothing to do with whether it is AI.

A regular, non-AI computer program is procedural, and rigidly defined. I could "program" traffic light behavior that essentially goes { if(light === green) { go(); } else { stop();} }. I've told it in simple and rigid terms what condition to check, and how to behave based on that check. (A better program would have a lot more to check for, like signs and road conditions and pedestrians in the street, and those things will still need to be spelled out.)

An AI traffic light behavior is generated by machine-learning, which simplistically is a huge cranking machine of linear algebra which you feed training data into and it "learns" from. By "learning" I mean it's developing a complex and opaque model of parameters to fit the training data (but not over-fit). In this case the training data probably includes thousands of videos of car behavior at traffic intersections. Through parameter tweaking and model adjustment, data scientists will turn this crank over and over adjusting it to create something which, in very opaque terms, has developed a model that will guess the right behavioral output for any future scenario.

A well-trained model would be fed a green light and know to go, and a red light and know to stop, and 'green but there's a kid in the road' and know to stop. A very very well-trained model can probably do this better than my program above, because it has the capacity to be more adaptive than my rigidly-defined thing if the rigidly-defined program is missing some considerations. But if the AI model makes a wrong choice, it is significantly harder to trace down why exactly it did that.

Because again, the reason it's making this decision may be very opaque. It's like engineering a very specific plinko machine which gets tweaked to be very good at taking a road input and giving the right output. But like if that plinko machine contained millions of pegs and none of them necessarily correlated to anything to do with the road. There's possibly no "if green, go, else stop" to look for. (Maybe there is, for traffic light specifically as that is intentionally very simplistic. But a model trained to recognize written numbers for example likely contains no parameters at all that you could map to ideas a human has like "look for a rigid line in the number". The parameters may be all, to humans, meaningless.)

So, that's basics. Here are some categories of things which get called AI:

"AI" which is just genuinely not AI

There's plenty of software that follows a normal, procedural program defined rigidly, with no linear algebra model training, that companies would love to brand as "AI" because it sounds cool.

Something like motion detection/tracking might be sold as artificially intelligent. But under the covers that can be done as simply as "if some range of pixels changes color by a certain amount, flag as motion"

2. AI which IS genuinely AI, but is not the kind of AI everyone is talking about right now

"AI", by which I mean machine learning using linear algebra, is very good at being fed a lot of training data, and then coming up with an ability to go and categorize real information.

The AI technology that looks at cells and determines whether they're cancer or not, that is using this technology. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is the technology that can take an image of hand-written text and transcribe it. Again, it's using linear algebra, so yes it's AI.

Many other such examples exist, and have been around for quite a good number of years. They share the genre of technology, which is machine learning models, but these are not the Large Language Model Generative AI that is all over the media. Criticizing these would be like criticizing airplanes when you're actually mad at military drones. It's the same "makes fly in the air" technology but their impact is very different.

3. The AI we ARE talking about. "Chat-gpt" type of Generative AI which uses LLMs ("Large Language Models")

If there was one word I wish people would know in all this, it's LLM (Large Language Model). This describes the KIND of machine learning model that Chat-GPT/midjourney/stablediffusion are fueled by. They're so extremely powerfully trained on human language that they can take an input of conversational language and create a predictive output that is human coherent. (I am less certain what additional technology fuels art-creation, specifically, but considering the AI art generation has risen hand-in-hand with the advent of powerful LLM, I'm at least confident in saying it is still corely LLM).

This technology isn't exactly brand new (predictive text has been using it, but more like the mostly innocent and much less successful older sibling of some celebrity, who no one really thinks about.) But the scale and power of LLM-based AI technology is what is new with Chat-GPT.

This is the generative AI, and even better, the large language model generative AI.

(Data scientists, feel free to add on or correct anything.)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Pick One: Magical Girl Show or Rom-com. You cannot be both.

Early in season four we get the episode Gang of Secrets. An episode that ends with Marinette outing her secret identity to Alya. A touching moment that sparked outrage across the fandom because it meant that Marinette had made the choice to reveal her identity to her best friend while keeping her hero partner in the dark.

This choice spat in the face of the exceptions that many fans had for the series. Thousands of pre-season-four fanfics feature moments where Ladybug and Chat Noir promise each other that they'll be the first to know each other's identities. After the Alya reveal, scores of fanfics were written to salt on Marinette's choice to tell the "wrong" person.

Most of these fics feature a betrayed Chat Noir quitting or otherwise punishing Ladybug for breaking their promise to be each other's first, thereby destroying his faith in their partnership. But that promise was never made on screen. It only existed in the realms of fanfic and, when Chat Noir finally found out in canon, his reaction was largely neutral. He never once blamed Ladybug for her choice or pushed for a reveal or even asked for the right to tell one of his friends.

So what happened here? Why did the fans have such wildly unrealistic expectations of canon? Were their expectations even unrealistic or did canon betray them? The answer to that is not as straight forward as you might think because it all comes back to one of Miraculous' many, many, many writing problems: Miraculous is trying to be both a Magical Girl Show and a romantic comedy, but those are not genres that mesh. You can only be one (or you can be a third thing that we'll get to at the end as it's the easiest way to fix this mess, but I want to mostly focus on where the anger is coming from and why the writing is to blame.)

To discuss this mismatch, we're going to do something that breaks my heart and talk about some of Origins flaws. While I love that episode and unironically refer to it as the best writing the show ever gave us, it's not perfect and its flaws are all focused around trying to set up both genres. Do note that I'm going to use a lot of gender binary language here as magical girl shows have a strong focus on gender segregation and rarely if ever acknowledge gender diversity.

Let's Talk Magical Girls

Magical girl shows are shows that center on young women and their friendships. While male love interests are often present in these shows, the boys tend to take a backseat and function primarily as arm candy while the girls save the day and carry the narrative.

A great example of this is the show Winx Club. This show features a large cast of teenage girls who save the magical universe from various threats with their magical powers. Each girl has a love interest, but the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship. I don't even think that we see the guys fight or, if we do, it's a rare thing. They are not there to save the day. They are there to be shipping fodder.

Like most magical girl shows, Winx Club starts with the main character making friends with one of the girls who will eventually become part of her magical girl squad. This brings us back to Miraculous.

Did you ever find it weird that Origins implies that Marinette has no friends? She doesn't even have a backbone until new girl Alya shows up to become Marinette's First Real Friend:

Marinette: I so wish I can handle Chloé the way you do. Alya: You mean the way Majestia does it. She says all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. (pointing at Chloé) Well, that girl over there is evil, and we are the good people. We can't let her get away with it.

This is a bizarre opening because Miraculous is not about Marinette making friends or learning to stand up for herself. If you skipped Origins and just watched the rest of the show, then you'd have no clue that Marinette wasn't close with her classmates before this year. You also wouldn't know that Alya was new in town and you definitely wouldn't know that Marinette had never stood up to Chloé before this year. So why is this here? Why waste screen time setting up elements that aren't actually important to canon?

Miraculous did it for the same reason that Winx Club did it: magical girl shows traditionally start with the main character making friends with at least one of her eventual female teammates because Magical Girl shows are all about the girls and their relationships. The boys are just arm candy.

But Miraculous isn't a magical girl show. The writers have explicitly stated that it's a rom-com and romantic comedies aren't about female friendship. They might have female friendships in them, but that's not where the focus is. The focus of a rom-com is on the romance and Origins is very clearly all about the romance.

Origins as a Rom-com

Origins has a lot on its plate. It has to establish the villain's motivation for the first time, show us how the heroes got their miraculous, show us how the heroes first met on both sides of the mask, show us how they met their respective best friends, and show us how the heroes dealt with their first akuma. It would be perfectly understandable if this 40 minute two-parter didn't do anything with the romance. They have a full show to give us that!

In spite of this, Origins has some incredibly touching moments for both Ladynoir and Adrienette because romance is the heart of Miraculous. It is the main focus of the show. The driving motivation for both of our leads and the majority of the show's episodes. To tell the story of how their journey started without at least one of them falling in love would feel wrong. That's why we see both of them fall in love!

First we get Chat Noir giving his heart to his bold and brilliant lady, then we get Marinette's heart being stolen by the shy sweet boy who never once thought to blame her for her snap judgement of his character. We even get a touching moment where Chat Noir inspires his lady to accept her role and be Ladybug, leading her to boldly face their enemy and call him out:

Roger: I have a new plan, unlike you! Move aside and let the pros do their thing. You've already failed once! Ladybug: …He's right, you know. If I'd captured Stoneheart's akuma the first time around, none of this would have happened! I knew I wasn't the right one for this job… Cat Noir: No. He's wrong, because without you, she'd no longer be here. (they look at Chloe) And because without us, they won't make it, and we'll prove that to 'em. Trust me on this. Okay? Ladybug: Okay.

I love this moment, but it does lose a little of its power when you remember that we had an Alya-driven variation of this exact same thing five minutes prior:

Alya: HELP!! (Marinette suddenly gets filled with courage. She gets the case out of Alya's bag and puts on the Miraculous. Then, Tikki appears, happy to see Marinette again.) Tikki:(raising her arms) Mmmm! Marinette: I think I need Ladybug! Tikki: I knew you'd come around! Marinette: Well, I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but Alya's in danger. I can't sit back and do nothing.

This scene initially confused me because - if Miraculous is a rom-com - then why would you make Alya the reason that Marinette became Ladybug? Why wouldn't you have Chat Noir be the one in danger so that Marinette chose to fight because of her love interest and then encourage that bond with the later scene of him encouraging her? Why split the focus like this? Why give Alya so much attention?

In case you haven't figured it out, it's because Origins is trying to establish two different genres of show. Two genres that will continue to fight for the rest of the series (or at least the first five seasons).

Magical Girls Vs Rom-com

Why is Alya the one to shake off the nightmare dust and inspire the others during the season five finale? Why is Alya the one that Marinette trusts with all of her plans while Chat Noir is kept in the dark? Why does Alya and Marinette's friendship get so much more focus than Adrien and Nino's? Why was Alya the only temp hero who got upgraded to full time hero?

It's because Alya is Marinette's second in command in a magical girl show and magical girl shows focus on female friendships while the boys are just there to be cute and support the girls.

Why do most of Marinette's talks with Alya focus on Adrien? Why is Chat Noir the only other full time holder of a Miraculous for the first three seasons and then again for the final season? Why do Marinette's friends become more and more obsessed with Adrienentte as the show goes on? Why is the love square's identity reveal given so much more narrative weight than any other identity reveal?

It's because Miraculous is a rom-com and the love square is our end game couple, so of course the story focuses on their relationship above all else!

Are you starting to see the problem?

Circling back to our original question: no, it was not unreasonable for the fans to expect that the Alya reveal would have massive negative consequences for Ladynoir. That is what should happen in a rom-com and Miraculous is mainly written like a rom-com. But the writers are also trying to write a magical girl show and, in a magical girl show, Alya and Marinette's friendship should be the most important relationship in the show, so it makes perfect sense that the show treats the Alya reveal as perfectly fine because the Alya reveal was written from the magical girl show perspective.

When it comes to Miraculous, if you ever feel like a writing choice makes no sense for genre A, re-frame it as a thing from genre B and it suddenly makes perfect sense which is fascinatingly terrible writing! It's no wonder there are people who hate the Alya reveal and people who will defend it with their life. It all depends on which genre elements you've picked up on and clung to. Neither side is right, they've both been set up to have perfectly valid expectations. Whether those expectations are valid for a given episode is entirely up to the mercurial whims of the writers!

How Do We Fix This Mess

At this point, I don't think that we can, the show is too far gone, but if someone gave me the power to change one element of Miraculous, that element would be this: scrap both the magical girl stuff and the rom-com stuff and turn Miraculous into a team show where the friendships transcend gender.

At this point, I've written over a quarter of a million words of fanfic focused on these characters (the brain rot is real) and one thing I've discovered is that it is damn near impossible to keep Adrien and Alya from becoming friends. They're both new to their school while Marinette and Nino have gone to the same school for at least a few years. Alya and Adrien are both obsessed with Ladybug plus Adrien is a natural hype man who loves to support his friends and Alya loves to talk about her blog. Alya is dating Adrien's best friend. On top of that, Alya, Adrien, Nino, and Marinette are all in the same class, meaning that they pretty much have to be spending time together five days a week unless French school don't give kids a chance to socialize or do group projects. If so, then judging them for the first issue, but super jealous of the latter.

Given all of that, why in the world is does it feel like Alya is Marinette's close friend while Adrien is just some guy who goes to Alya's school? Along similar lines, while canon Marinette barely talks to Nino, I've found that Marinette and Nino tend to get along smashingly, especially if you embrace the fact that they have to have known each other for at least a few years.

If you embrace this wider friendship dynamic and scrap the girl squad, replacing it with Alya, Adrien, Marinette, and Nino, then the fight for narrative importance quickly goes away. It's no longer a question of is this episode trying to be a magical girl show or a rom-com? Instead, the question is: which element of the friend group is getting focused on today? The romance or the friendship?

A lot of hero shows do this and do it well. I think that one of the most well known examples is Teen Titans. That show has five main characters and the focus is usually on their friendships, but there is a very clear running romantic tension between the characters Robin and Starfire with several episodes giving a good deal of focus to their romance. I'd say that this element really starts in the show's the 19th episode - Date with Destiny - and it all culminates in the movie that capstones the series: Trouble in Tokyo. The character Beast Boy also gets a romance arc and, while it's more short lived, it's further evidence that you can have strong romances and strong friendships in the same show and even the same episode. You just have to own the fact that boys and girls can be friends with each other, a very logical thing to embrace when your show has decided to have a diverse cast of heroes instead of imposing arbitrary gender limitations on its magical powers.

I couldn't figure out a way to work this into the main essay, but it's relevant so I wanted to quickly point it out and give you more to think about re Origins. Have you ever found it weird how Origins gives both Adrien AND Marinette the "I've never had friends before" backstory and yet wider canon acts like Marinette has this strong amazing friend group while Adrien doesn't seem to care about making friends and instead focuses all his energy on romance? Why give both the protagonist and the supposed deuteragonist this kind of origin if it's not going to be a major element of the show? It makes so much more sense to only give one of them this backstory and then focus that person's character arc on learning about friendship.

[sxorpiomooon]

What does your older self wants to say to you? A pac reading<3

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Pile 1-

you need to let go, this is so funny to me given the pile that you guys have chosen has a tattoo of "amor fati" which literally means this. If you've chosen this pile you might have an anxious attachment and some of you need to go off a relationship that you are holding. A japanese song is playing in my head? Sometimes you only hold onto things very tightly because deep down you know that the moment you let go they are going to leave you. Your older self wants you to let go of such relations one particular scenario that I'm getting is of someone being in a toxic relationship being completely dependent on their significant others knowing that the other person might not choose to stay with them once they let go or once they are given the choice to do so. Stop being dependent on people and allow them and give them the space for them to leave you if they wish to do so the only way to understand how much they love is by giving them the space to leave then only you know that they truly do love you. The other people in this pile need to know that all relations require space and time for both individuals to grow individually too. Only when you have enough space and time to grow individually you can contribute something to the relation. Some of you might have ashlesha nakshatra. Also take care of yourself by yourself your older self really wants you to take care of your hair lmao I keep hearing "wash up wash up" I'm also seeing fishes for some reason those orange ones I don't know what they're called? You might love them now or definitely own them in the future. Your older self also wants you to know that the cycle ends with you. Breaking off from the generation trauma cycle seems to be a very important theme here. I see y'all are already very cool but are even cooler in the future man I'm not gonna lie I also keep hearing alt for some reason whether it's for songs or fashion but y'all are gonna be fucking cool in the future man. Be resilient I have full faith in you pile 1 do it for the super cool you. I also see this pile moving out of this house if they haven't alr I keep getting japan again and again but y'all gonna live a pretty great lifestyle also reminded of lucky from the blue sisters novel? Thankyou!!

Pile 2-

this pile might have the tendency to overreact at that exact moment when they are faced with a problem. Their emotions at times might make it hard for them to actually get a good grasp on the situation. Your older self wants you to learn to differentiate between illusion and intuition lmao. I also had a vision of someone journaling so I think the older self might want you guys to write it down before reacting or coming to a conclusion on any sort of situation. I also think that writing it down might make it easy or better for you to feel and understand your emotions better and the problem as well. This pile also needs to focus on their unconscious mind? If you are manifesting something you might have some biases already that you need to pay attention to. This pile might also easily interpret things and get confused. Your older self wants you to follow your heart I heard "it will lead you to the right path" and right after this "sometimes to run is the brave thing" played in my head from its time to go by Taylor swift. You need to act on whatever feelings you have some of you might write and be confused about whether it's good or not or some confusion related to it here's your answer- it is<3 go ahead and follow your heart pile two it will never lead you to the wrong path in the long end. I also heard "beauty and art is everywhere" this pile needs to follow their passion. Lord this is ending on such a good note. Your older self also wants you to know that you should not fear bc all your hardwork will pay off<3 all your hardwork and sacrifices will pay off and you'll get the success that you desire and want. This was also a pile that I chose and I needed to hear this<3

Pile 3-

The time or whatever you are going through will not be wasted. The journey is there to prepare you and give you the experiences that you need to get to the level that you want to achieve in your life. This pile might be going through some hard things. This pile also needs to know that you cannot force anyone to grow early or to change early or hurry up some process everything has its own time be patient a delay does not mean a no. This pile also needs to come face to face with their problems and fear only then they'll be able to move past it. "The only way out is through" "change is the only constant thing in life" "no one else can do it for you" are the things that I'm hearing. This pile knows what's needed to be done but might fear the unknown. A big transformation that is much needed is coming after that I see a wonderful new beginning for you<3

thankyou!!

[our-trans-punk-experience]

THE BATTLE JACKET MASTERPOST

FINALLY PUNKS IT'S HERE

a battle jacket (also called battle vest, cut-off, punk jacket, patch jacket, and probably other stuff) is a jacket (duh) usually made from denim or leather with DIY additions of patches, studs, flags, painted panels, chains, and other bonuses, used to signify subculture. Punk, metal, and biker scenes all use patch jackets, but I'll only go into specifics about how they're used in the punk scene. Metalheads, I think, almost solely personalise with music/band shit. Bikers use them to signifying which club you're riding with. Punks started using them in the 70s and they've remained a staple of the subculture's style since. They're good for signalling your politics, bands you like, and other information you might want to get across. They also look cool.

HOW TO START

If you're here I assume you wanna learn how to make your own so I'll cut the history lesson short and get on to the practicals.

1: first you're going to want to get a plain jacket, probably denim or leather, but you could get a canvas jacket if you're nervous and new to the scene because it's way easier to stitch canvas, so you could experiment with that as you're building confidence. The jacket should be at least a bit oversized because with all the stitching and painting or whatever you'll be doing, you could run into fit issues with a very form fitting jacket. also, this jacket might frequently be worn over other jackets or layers so that will help with that too

2: start making choices. namely whether you want to keep the sleeves. obviously you can remove or reattatch the sleeves later but I think making that big mod first is a good starting point to help you feel like it's a work in progress. so if you're going to chop the sleeves I say do it now

3: brainstorm. I know, I know, coming up with your own ideas is hard, but this is your own totally literally unique piece, so think about what sorta look you want

4: you don't have to brainstorm alone though. search tumblr or pinterest for punk jackets, punk patches, punk clothes ect for inspiration. you might get a good idea for an individual patch, or for a broader layout

PATCHES

1: the big deal. this is what will make your jacket into a battle jacket. there are some unofficial rules/sayings in the scene about what sort of patches you should put on your jacket. some people get dickish sometimes about if you put a non-punk band on your jacket? however i think that is bollocks and you should do whatever you want forever. one saying i do personally mostly stick to is "politics up front, bands on the back" with the idea you stick your politics on your front so you can see the punches coming

2: where do you get the patches? you make them yourself. You can buy ofc but don't get shit off amazon or shein or whatever the fuck. If your fav band or small artist is selling patches go for it though. You will have the most choice if you make your own patches. Do you have scrap fabric (maybe the sleeves of the jacket, which is where i got a lot of my patch material)? Do you have paint and paintbrush? good. you can make a patch

3: how do you do that? well depends on whether you stencil or freehand. stencil means you cut out an outline, of say a band logo, out of card, and use that as a stencil. freehand means you paint whatever tf you like

4: paint?? yes paint. messy as you like. start maybe with simple slogans or symbols often found in the punk scene like "ACAB" or "eat the rich". maybe an anarchy symbol. i also like to paint a layer of mod podge over my designs to waterproof them.

5: great, you've got a patch, what are you going to do with it? sew it onto the jacket. unless ofc you bought an iron-on in step 2, in which case iron that shit on and be careful punks. most likely though, you're sewing it on. a lot of punks use tooth floss to sew on because its cheaper, easier to find, readily waxed and waterproof, and does a better job sewing shit down onto heavy duty material like leather or denim. I use a combined running stitch and whip stitch personally

STUDS n SPIKES

1: all those punks you've seen have metal sticking out their jacket eh? yeah, theres a whole lot of options here. spikes of many different sizes and shapes, which within that can be stitch on, screwback, or have fold down prongs on the back of them

2: where do you put them? probably the front or top of the jacket. you can put them on the back but that might be uncomfortable, or rip up someone's upholstery

3: where do you get them? you can still DIY these by cutting up a metal drinks can [whole other post] but BE CAREFUL. i suggest checking out the internet for these, same buying rules as patches though. no shein. no amazon.

OTHER SHIT??

1: go wild

2: other common additions would be chains, lighter caps, badges, and can tabs

HAVE FUN PLS ASK ME QUESTIONS AND SHARE IF YOU START A BATTLE JACKET