#crit
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hello here's my little Armand essay. spoilers for season 2 and content warnings for discussions of racism, csa, intimate partner violence.
#interview with the vampire#iwtv#armand#armand iwtv#the vampire armand#assad zaman#tv#dsg#lgbt media#writing#d#crit#this ended up being way longer than I intended but it's like 30% context for accessibility <3
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I just crit on an investigation check😎
#dimension 20#fantasy high junior year#fhjy spoilers#fhjy#fantasy high#d20#dropout#dnd#brennan lee mulligan#ally beardsley#brian murphy#crit#sylvansleuthings#requested#lizznotliz#thank u!!
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There’s genuinely been such much ableism directed at Tubbo these past few days it’s been hard to deal with, just completely open ableist remarks with /rp at then end or I love ccTubbo but… Constant remarks of him not following social ques, being too loud, having issues with tone, mocking him for having trouble reading the signs, saying that he’s neglecting Sunny because he’s not emotionally aware, ect. It sucks, I don’t like having to see so much of the fandom be openly ableist, why can’t people just be normal able disabled people of any kind. Also saying Tubbo shouldn’t rant about his interests because it ruins your immersion is just horrible and you all know it.
#Qsmp tubbo#tubbo#ableism#tw ableism#qsmp fandom neg#qsmp fandom crit#neg#crit#Discourse#Its mainly coming from one specific community you know who you are
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on one hand, very glad my suspicions of burnout and gimmicks as a result of fear of losing viewership were wrong at least as far as we know. im glad the CCs are having fun and their enjoyment is being prioritized, even if i am still not entirely convinced everyone's on the same page.
on the other hand, it's melancholic but this is pretty much the nail in the coffin in me having any interest left in future installments of the series. for those of you concerned: I am forever haunted by my brain diseases and will be continuing to post, write and draw 3L - SL for the rest of my forseeable life (plus completely disconnecting from any need I feel to interact with WL and beyond leaves me with more time to work on. certain larger scale projects I have had plans for)
i respect grians decision-making and he would know better than me how to run a youtube series, however I do question how much of an oxymoron it is to not care about viewer feedback for a youtube series run on viewership (and when so many of the recent behind the scenes decisions we've been privy to - such as Scar and Grian's hesitancy to team up based on comments calling them "boring" -- imply the opposite regarding the cast's mindset). it makes me concerned for the longevity of the series going forward, since those not happy with the direction that I've seen have all been very passionate and old fans, but I've also seen an equal if not louder support for this season, so I digress.
Part of me wonders how much of the "we want last life 2" sentiment (<-- something I've previously spoken about how I don't agree with) the cast has been exposed to, since it felt strange to me that it was even bought up. I have had a thought about this and the consequences of "don't maintag your negativity" e.g. the reasonable people know to hide their critical posts, and what that leaves a creator with are the unreasonable people, and if it's only that feedback that gets processed, then inevitably things tend to go in weird directions. Were any of us actually "tired" of Desert Duo interacting? Were any of us mad at Gem for killing Grian in SL?
It's frustrating to see crit posts get flagged down with accusations of disrespecting or attacking the CCs, or "we don't want you here anyway, just leave," when myself and all the people I've spoken to being not avid haters but rabid fans who feel frustrated and actively want to continue liking the series. Not to mention most of the people also being active members of the fandom ontop of that -- we claim that fanart is important and makes the series even more special than it already is, yet people seem more than happy to sacrifice that just for the sake of not seeing critical opinions.
t-shirt that says blah blah blah. but I reserve the right of feeling disappointed.
#random thoughts#crit#plus i do wonder how much they're treating each season#like a brand new thing. when there was a clear shift in approach#starting with SL and the cast is so ridiculously rigid#whole thing feels like damage control to me I don't know man#reminds me a lot of the direction pokemon went in lmao but i hesitate#to make that comparison because one is grian from youtube and the other one is fucking pokemon
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points. you guys know you can use this instead of cursing ao3 out in your tags right
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hiii how did you like the wild life finale?
This seems to be a really contentious subject for the fandom and that's wonderful! I always enjoy when opinion is extremely diverse on a topic, i genuinely believe it contributes to a safer and more creative environment.
I think a lot of people forget that critique is ultimately derived from hope and love, it takes real time, dedication, and focus to understand and verbalize what they mean. Both parties want to see their series doing well. It would sincerely suck if everyone was so indifferent to the ending that one opinion homogenized the consensus of the fandom. It would be even worse if no one was allowed to voice their concerns or favourite moments in fear of betraying an established community narrative or attacking the ingenuity of the games.
Negativity comes from the same place optimism does. I have seen opinions I both agree with and heavily disagree with fundamentally, and I am ultimately very grateful to see both!
Thanks for asking my opinion. I don't think I would've written anything about it if you hadn't asked. Here you are!
The Good
Grian, Jimmy, and the ever present Cain Instinct
"It was always going to be this way, Jim." <- Said by someone who has a very normal relationship with a man hes known and attempted to nurture for around a decade.
I have to remind you that this is the second time Grian deliberately intended to end Jimmy’s life series, the first time is when they were Southlanders and he "snapped" at him for not taking his warning seriously.
I literally can't say anything that Grian hasn't said himself. If you watch his finale episode, he's constantly staring at Jimmy and thinking about how he could kill him right here and now. He switches to his sword, fidgets, stays silent while Jimmy and his group prattle on. Literally licking his lips and thinking about what to do. Ultimately, he chooses to strike without any chance of retaliation in the one place Jimmy feels safe in. And then when Jimmy is dead, Grian assumes he's watching him and says to his literal ghost "I love you"
Zombie Mechanic
I think this was a genius way of reintroducing the members who died early on. I don't think the series would've been the same without their revival. It was a super fun mechanic and their reduced health and commodified status balanced it out for me. You watched them lower your friend's casket into the ground but the next day he's back and he hugs you and you do not see any warmth in his eyes.
The Powerful Homo-eroticism of GemJoel [Canonized Edition]
The influx of gemjoel art was one of the best things in the entire world for me. Can you fucking believe i predicted it too. Now people refer to Joel as Gem's wife. This is everything I could have ever wanted. I've done three lines in celebration. Their dynamic was amazing too and i love that my inbox got flooded with anons as soon as any one of them said something incriminating. it's too bad they didn't battle it out for winner at the end with blood and tongue...
Good-FUCKING-Bye Canary Curse
I started getting really annoyed with how this specific fanon interpretation of Jimmy began to bleed into every single analysis of the series, creating relationships between characters and themes that were not there. I would argue that Jimmy himself barely believes in this supernatural phenomenon. I'm a hater and I only like it when I can fetishize watcher lore in a biblical sense.
The Bad
Leading Cause of Death... Snails
"You either loved the snail mechanic or you didn't" I say as someone who neither loved or hated it. But I think the fact that the snails ended so many peoples finales and contributed to so many deaths is a very valid criticism. I will say that Lizzie's snail and Skizzlemans whole episode kind of make it worth it, because it was just so fucking funny
I Wouldn't Have Attended Trivia Night
This is ultimately the point where I dropped off engagement wise. I think the trivia should have been minecraft-mechanic related and not about traffic life. "How many crafting recipes use wool?" Some of the questions were niche which makes sense because they were about specific moments. It doesn't matter if we think that lilac and poppies were important, no CC is going to, and the pool gets even smaller when you eliminate everyone who wasn't involved in that moment.
Conclusion
Personally, not my favourite. I think it lacks a lot of nuance the other series really cultivated with their simple mechanics which relied a lot on the ingenuity of the player themselves rather than situational opportunity. You could probably tell I lost interest because not even gemjoel could save me when I stopped posting about it. I got a lot of casual enjoyment out of it but that's it. I also eventually started feeling sore that the deaths were very coincidental. If you want a taste comparison, my least favourite life series is Secret Life and my favourite is Limited Life.
Some of the complaints I've heard is that there was not enough time for players to create alliances, flesh out cross-faction dynamics, or hold meaningful conversations. I disagree. There was a lot of motive for the players to collaborate and figure out the gimmicks together. They would even frequently congregate on the field at the bottom of the mountain. I think the wildcards helped make every conversation count and they could've talked at length if they wanted to (the G's did pretty often; as did Cleo and Bigb during the eating episode). There were a lot of chances to immediately take one another out but they decided instead to wait. Alliances were established and kept: the bamboozlers were ride or die for eachother, the spanners were tragi-comedy incarnate, and if cooperation's not your thing, you had team BET barely holding it together. People frequently encountered one another. I thought it was good.
Despite how I personally feel about it, I actually think its one of the best life series "objectively" in terms of content and watchability. There was genuine anticipation in seeing what happens each week. Each perspective was very personal because at that point it was about reactions and adaptability. If this was my first introduction to the life series, I'd be really pleased. But it does set up a kind of false impression of what the general theme of the series is. I guess you can think of this season as like... the beach episode [extended edition]. I did not get the impression the players were tired of the mechanics. The advent calendar format kind of does lend itself to a forced and rushed wrap-up finale.
#wild life smp#crit#wild life spoilers#traffic life spoilers#trafficblr#life series spoilers#life series#we as a community need to settle on ONE tag#talk tag#ask#thank you anon :) 💗
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after talking with other people i feel like there really is a disconnect between everyone who has other povs they still have left and everyone who just lost all of their povs (the french)/lost most of their pov's lore (bbh with dapper and pomme). like everyone is stressed and some people are making jokes and i get it i really do i like humor in dark situations, but like... this is the worst case scenario that's happened for everyone who did lose everything. pomme said she wasn't coming back to the server and the french cc all said they wouldn't be coming back if she didn't. i don't feel like joking right now. this situation isn't like the previous two cc who were removed for their own actions, this one was because the studio didn't attempt anything to try to retain a whole language after frequent year-long workplace abuse. this doesn't feel like goofy lore drama anymore it's like, wow we really did lose everything. all because nobody in the upper staff knew how to dm an admin. i wish them well is a nice sentiment and all but i feel a little bit callous to it when the reason they're leaving is that no one talked to them. it was all preventable. no shit sherlock of course i'm upset and my posts reflect that. i wish every post i made being critical of this didn't come across like doomposting. even if qsmp recovers all of the parts i loved most got uselessly cut off in the process. there's not much left i can go back to. even if they replaced pomme's actor there's not going to be cc to come back for that. there's just going to be a hole in the server now when i watch. i feel like i'm going through every stage of grief. i don't want the server to burn down, i'd love to see it continue, but i'd be lying if i said i wasn't terribly bitter about everything.
#discourse#crit#neg#qsmp crit#qsmp neg#negative#qsmp discourse#qadmin situation#fandom neg#fandom crit#is that enough tags#posts from the aether
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For all of Wild Life I have seen the "if you don't like it, don't watch" opinion shared towards any hint of negativity, treating all criticism like a personal attack on the creators, and it's been very......annoying.
Criticism of the mechanics doesn't mean the person is blaming the CCs (or other fandom memebers who made the gimmick) for their own lack of enjoyment. Person in question is just voicing their own opinion. Not being 100% on board with the wild cards doesn't mean people hate the series and the CCs and they want it to die, it just means they didn't like the wild cards. They are not posting hate in the main tags by posting a personal opinion. It's not that serious man calm down and let people have different opinions from the majority.
(I'd also rather the CCs see criticism than just blind positivity all the time. I'd rather them see criticism so they know what features might need to be improved upon next season, if we have one, so that life series can be enjoyable for them and for us. Saying a gimmick was bad is not hurting Grian’s feelings be honest with yourself.)
#ren posting#trafficblr#life series#wild life#I would argue that in some cases being critical of media can prove how much you enjoy it and want it to improve but. I digress#crit#discourse#<- just in case idk
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and I just can’t stop thinking about how. fuckinggg. okay, you run a multilingual minecraft server, first EVER multilingual minecraft server, yeah? french is one of the languages on this server. you currently have One french admin and she has been unwhitelisted from the server and stripped of all her roles on the discord with no explanation (apparently due to some sort of unspecified investigation, whatever) and ALL of your french players have told you that if she is not given her job back they will be leaving the server, aka you will be losing representation for an ENTIRE LANGUAGE on your multilingual server. and somehow one of your priorities isn’t like… making sure that she’s being communicated with properly ? ?? like if she’s really being investigated for something I get it, you don’t have to add her back right away, you don’t have to promise her that she’ll get her job back, just like…. at least make sure she’s not just being COMPLETELY IGNORED?? like this is a whole entire language on your multilingual server hanging in the balance and yet somehow this admin went THREE WEEKS without being told squat about her job (even though she was regularly checking in for information), to the point where she got so sick of being ghosted that she quit ?? LIKE WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU PRIORITIZING OVER MAKING SURE THAT EXACT THING DOES NOT HAPPEN ????
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subjective + critical (NOT CRITICISM) wild life thoughts (no spoilers for winner, spoilers for finale gimmick)
Sorry for being back again. Anyways after watching Wild Life, I came to the conclusion that it's very... Grian. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. In a way, it's always been very Grian (understandably so because it's his server and he picks the cast)— server wide event that gives everyone an opportunity to be involved, mechanics that toss you around haphazardly, random factor for funsies— I've watched Grian's minigames since HC6 Tag, Demise, etc, and there's a Grian-ness that I can't explain but I feel and recognise with my soul. This isn't Grian crit, I respect him massively for coming up with engaging gimmicks, I loved Demise 1, he definitely changed the scene of Hermitcraft 6, etc.
I previously talked about the experimental nature of Life series and how the emotional investment in Third Life was somewhat unintended. Wild Life is an experiment that's giving the expected results of Third Life— Grian-esque experimental gameshow about hanging out with friends and reacting to insane shit flung at you. The finale gimmick is all of the wild cards (seemingly individually chosen because of fun factor, no wider theme that connects them) together at the same time. It's fun! It's dramatic! It... doesn't have to have a deeper meaning!
Then comes the fandom's Swiftie tendency to connect everything (it's me, I'm the Swiftie), which is an inevitable and fun part of engaging with media. Famously, the LimLife winner symbolism debate. Coincidentally, the first three winners fit into celestial symbols, but it starts to fall apart with Martyn. But we love connecting stuff and making up symbols/blessings/curses, so we stuff Martyn and the following winners in anyway to honour them.
But there comes a point in which hyperanalysing everything sometimes feels like a stretch. This is a natural part of the life cycle I suppose. You can't recatch the lightning of 3L in a bottle, much like how All Stars Blue Bats doesn't hit the same as MCC9 Blue Bats. Wild Life is perfectly entertaining on its own, but to me it feels weird that it's tacked onto the Life series, like it's an afterthought. It has all of the cast so far, we get a lot of nostalgia bait, existing duos, but... it personally, subjectively doesn't feel like The Life Series TM. Like, it sure is A Sequel and Continuation of the plot but it feels like a Beach Episode. It's fun to watch! And... yeah!
And then you start to think. So maybe it's us who've been assigning a lot of Meaning to the first generations of Life series and now with Wild Life, it's finally reached its intended vibe of Fun Experimental Grian Gameshow. I remember someone said "what you're missing in the OG Life series was never there in the first place" and I see that viewpoint, it was like a collective hallucination. I'm gonna spitball if Wild Life was written by the fandom with attempts to "script coherent themes":
Fixed six sessions, first five gimmicks refer to previous five seasons, sixth sessions is every gimmick all at once
Clear "wild life" theme, which would keep the snails and superpowers probably, add possibly Origins, and cast members are encouraged to play into the theme (like BigB this season)
Dice theme, something about rolling 1-6, ties in with people starting with 6 lives
And we got the Gameshow. Individual gimmicks are quirky but don't seem really tied to each other. And there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just have a bunch of fun ideas and throw them into a pot. But the fandom expects to have something to work with due to the meta starting from 3L. Even if it doesn't fit perfectly, it's fun to make it fit! That's why we do analyses and symbolism! It's the bread and butter of fandom!
This is where I bring up the Life Seriesification of Hermitcraft, which is probably related in ways I cannot fully explain. The Life series isn't just a fun gameshow, it's a JOB. It brings you clout and views and fandom relevance and fandom propaganda which brings you views and income. The Life hermits have generally become a closed circle, with exceptions like Ren who hangs out the most with non-Lifers. The fandom's desire to connect Life series meta becomes so overwhelming that it seeps into non-Life series stuff, prominently HC, and the non-Life hermits start to get sidelined. Okay, it's more like Life series meta is interesting, so your Lifers become more interesting, so you care about them more, so you care about their HC POVs more. It's a weird reinforcing circle. And if you step out of it for a while (Ren), your clout decreases (Ren), and even when you come back, you kind of.... don't get the same level of mainstream attention anymore even though your personal fanbase is going insane (Ren). (BigB also gets sidelined, although that is a different discussion.)
Anyways it Isn't That Deep and the main reason is probably The Novelty/Interest Is Gone. That and the segmentation of the HC fandom, which I am absolutely guilty of. I don't "need" to post or watch popular POVs because I get to know about them through osmosis anyway. So I end up only "caring" about a few POVs.
I am aware this doesn't make a good deal of sense and I'm sorry for being a party pooper of sorts. This is not criticism, just trying to analyse it through a critical lens.
Life series can keep on being a gameshow. It can be whatever it likes at this point. I'm just sick of it invading Hermitcraft fandom and tilting the balance overwhelmingly in favour of the Life hermits. It's suffocating.
Final reminder to myself, but replace "yourselves" with "Life series fandom":
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new on my substack
#film#elia suleiman#Annemarie jacir#Lena soualem#basil khalil#hiam abbas#Palestinian cinema#crit#recs#film recs
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Quite interesting the amount of posts I’ve seen here and on the reddit about how gimmicky wild life is and how out of place it is. I agree with these takes but I’ll hold off on mine until the last episodes.
I am enjoying it but it and secret life feel like a different series. Unless wild life can change my opinion, it’s not going to be a nice one.
#grim talks#trafficblr#wild life smp#wlsmp#crit#life series#life series crit#wild life spoilers#I am enjoying it but I’m missing the drama the builds the alliances#it just feels off and I’m not the only one who’s said this
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Bagi is not a masculine character, I’ve noticed a trend where fandom tends to depict her as way more masculine leaning then she is (similarly Pac in the opposite direction) to fulfill this need to have her and Tina take up a very traditional straight relationship. Bagi is way more feminine leaning than masculine, though I would argue the closet read is her presenting androgynously. It feels that people have taken stereotypes about a traditional straight relationship and have molded her and Tina to fit those relationships.
Bagi’s intelligence being heightened, treated as less something that also regards emotional intelligence to fully be puzzle centric. While Tina is depicted as way more clumsy, and often times just eye candy for Bagi, when Tina is a very competent planner and resource management both things you need to be incredibly intelligent for. Tina is drawn as small and frail, while Bagi has focus on her muscles and a more square build.
Anyone can have these traits regardless of gender, but it seems so pointed how people have squashed and stretched Bagi and Tina’s character traits to fit more traditional standards. It’s the placement of Tina as Bagi’s prize, this making her useless and even at times making her more motherly than Bagi, that feels so off to me. It’s this you see Bagi as too intelligent to see her in any feminine way.
Tina can’t cook, clean, and she’s not good with children, while Bagi owns a farm cooks all the time, and wants to have so many kids to raise. Straight up ignoring these traits because Tina’s into clothes and has a softer voice, feels kinda gross. This attitude towards womenhood as something that can not be breached by perceived masculinity, which inherently is a statement of how people think womenhood is just looking pretty. Tina is feminine that’s how she chooses to present, and Bagi is more androgynous but people can’t have a relationship like that. Tina needs to be the girl, and Bagi needs to be the guy.
Don’t you think it’s much more engaging to think of gender as an incredibly complicated thing, that can be presented and follow in many different ways. To think relationships don’t need someone to be the man, and instead can just be two people who love each other. That Bagi and Tina are complicated people who don’t just exists to fill stereotypes you have given them.
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okay one last thing i do think it's incredibly naive to believe grian just wants his friends to have fun when the life series is one of the biggest mcyt phenomenon to hit the fandomsphere in ages, the main source of viewership (therefore income) for most of the cast, the series is branded with overpriced, mass-appeal-centred designed (except cherri's snail stickers I'd argue) merchandising, the last two seasons released during peak youtube interaction period (just before christmas for merch sales too!) and has only become more and more youtube-y with each season (gimmicks and reacting to them provide a lot more content potential than just straight up a vanilla hardcore smp)
when I see these points being bought up it's usually met with "oh so you think grian is an evil mastermind who plans everything for the algorithm etc etc" and, no, I don't think that's the case either. What I do think is that Grian is aware "having fun" is what the viewers want to see and when there is pressure to "make fun" and "have fun" that really isn't the same thing as actually just "having fun"
not to mention the fact that these all have to be, at the end of the day, presentable youtube videos. It all loops back to my thesis for c/cc divide and how your behaviour in front of a camera is always going to involve a certain level of performance compared to off-camera.
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maybe controversial opinion. idk. but i don’t understand people who complain about evo in the traffic series and say it “should stay fanon and not canon”. because uh. it is canon. it’s been canon since i believe last life. martyn has canonized it to his character for multiple seasons now. evo/watchers isn’t fanon or semi-canon, it’s straight up heavily important to martyn’s lore and character
#icarus speaks#neg#crit#idk like??? it’s BEEN canon#seeing evo stuff isn’t fanservice it’s an important aspect of his lore???#yea people can be overbearing about it but. it’s canon.
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