#i HATE being on phones lol

[roseband]

also i'm so grumpy i didn't watch record during final photo op, cause that's when i kinda...snuck them their gifts and like, i drew and had resin keychains printed of sammy's three guitars, dojoon's taylor and his keyboard, hajoon's drumset, and jae's two basses (didn't include anything predebut)

but like... sammy was like "ooooo you drew these" and was so happy when he saw that a) i put the sgt pepper's sticker on the back of the brittany one, and b) also made his new guitar that isn't named yet

i will literally combust if they ever are photo'd with them on stuff like how sammy has a pc wearing a necklace a brose made him (the black rose in the kia forum livestream pc lol)

pls.....

[bandtrees]

they would get divorced in one universe just to find eachother in another one

alternatively titled: sometimes you're the level-headed token flesh-head impulse-control-and-polycule-member of a stubborn, eccentric, and hearty telephone-headed drug addict, and there's cruelty in the world you deem fit to suicidally fight, and that either goes about as well as you'd expect it to, or you learn about love and the value of your life and junk along the way

[non-un-topo]

More cishet observations from the past month at work:

- They really fucking buzz off of the TERF wizard book series

- Their favourite place on Earth is Florida (why???)

- If you tell them you're an artist, they will ask you if you've ever "tried out AI"

- They will joke about OCD a lot

- They absolutely hate their bodies and will take any opportunity to talk about food in a toxic way (bonus points if they compare their body/food to yours)

- They hate their spouses and think that this is funny

- They. Do not. Have interests. (Besides the TERF wizard book series)

- They don't watch movies or TV??

- If they have kids, the way they talk about them makes it sound like it was genuinely the worst decision they ever made

- If they don't have kids, they will still fucking talk about having them

- They don't like cats??

In other weird news, I'm gendered correctly at work and I pass to the point that cishets actually talk to me like I'm a cishet guy.

[torchvic]

lucifer surprise guest. i panic. i shove 3 apples in his face. he thanks me and invites me to the HOL for the hundredth time where the apple collection grows because it's all i have to offer

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[nanomooselet]

On Narrators

You know what, fuck it.

I've seen a lot of references to Trigun Stampede having an unreliable narrator, and unfortunately it's activated my media analyst trap card. While there's always a degree of interpretation to these things, there is a difference between interpretation and declaring a banana skin to be orange zest. It makes a difference, especially if you're trying to bake a cake.

That isn't at all what Trigun Stampede is doing. Among other things, it doesn't have a narrator.

Narration, loosely defined, is text (or spoken lines etc) that directly addresses an assumed audience, which may or may not be the actual audience (it depends on the needs of the story). Think voice-overs, think Kuzco in The Emperor's New Groove, think the text panels in a comic or manga that list time and location, or describe the situation. The song of humanity continues to be sung is narration. A narrator is the character who performs narration; sometimes from with the story, sometimes from a position adjacent to it.

Honestly one of the most interesting things about Stampede, in my opinion, is that it makes a point of having neither.

There's no framing device, no presenter, no announcer, no chorus, no soliloquy, not even an internal monologue. There's no direct line to the writers, giving away their intentions. Indeed, the imposition of any text at all is almost entirely absent, save some pointed timing on the title cards, and no character's voice is objective. Zazie or Roberto, who come the closest, can definitely still be wrong - Roberto says Vash is "not long for this world" when Vash is longer for the world than almost anyone else; the man he says would kill with a smile was in fact coerced into becoming a killer. Zazie knows much and is always truthful, but isn't all-knowing, nor operating with complete understanding. And on the other end of the scale you have characters like Dr. Conrad or Knives, where the easiest way to tell they're mistaken or lying is if their mouths are moving. (Outside of brain fuckery. Then you're on your own.) Then there's Vash, who doesn't lie, necessarily, so much as he doesn't volunteer the truth, and tends to dodge giving answers when asked outright.

Now, an unreliable narrator is metafictional, taking advantage of the narrator being a character, and therefore capable of having an agenda.

What makes them unreliable is that they exert motivated influence over what we see - even accidental influence like distorted recollection or misconception. But before declaring such influence is occurring, we need a solid reason to doubt. You don't dismiss an account as unreliable just because it doesn't line up with your own expectations or desires - not without something like a clear contradiction, perhaps, or some conspicuous omission. *

We simply have no reason to believe what we see in Trigun Stampede is anything other than the truth (inasmuch as it's obviously fictional of course). We see some events from multiple viewpoints - here is what Vash experienced, here is what Knives saw, here is what other characters are doing - and what one character sees isn't different from what any other character sees when the perspectives swap. It's just from different distances and angles. The same words are said, the same events play out, and the same reactions are demonstrated by the characters, according to their established values and motivations.

The narrative itself is unadorned and unchanged by their viewpoints. Whether a character is being truthful is simply a judgement you're given to make as the events that occur and their actions reveal more about them.

The term for this isn't narration; it's focalisation, and it's hardly some avant-garde artistic statement. It's intrinsic to telling even the most simple story.

For instance, the way Knives evolves from his initial presentation. His introduction as an adult is as a wrathful would-be god and a merciless killer before his more nuanced motivations and origins are slowly revealed. It would have been different if he'd been introduced first, discovered Tesla and was then depicted destroying Jeneora Rock. He'd come across as more of a protagonist. Instead, because the central character is Vash, we see him first, the humanising struggles of Jeneora Rock's people and Vash's efforts to help them, his anguish when it's rendered moot, and all the ways he suffers as a result of Knives's actions. This is focalisation that makes Knives the antagonist, representing what Vash must overcome. A complex, compelling and perhaps tragic antagonist, but still - not the guy the story is about.

Oh, and that has nothing to do with their respective moral positions, good or evil. It's structural. A protagonist attempts to achieve while an antagonist obstructs, and both by nature will transgress.

Stampede isn't exactly free of ways to manipulate sympathy, and exerts strict control over the perspectives it presents. You could argue it misdirects, or lies by omission - but that's not the same as an unreliable narrator. A narrative is always going to impose some kind of order on events to produce a specific effect, and that does come with bias. But it's the nature of storytelling never to be entirely objective.

I'm not sure that I really have a point, honestly, except that Trigun Stampede is a show that's exceedingly careful to show the characters exactly as they are. It doesn't lie. Personally, I find that more interesting to contemplate than the alternative. We have everything we need to know why the characters do as they do. Certainly far more than some would rather have us know.

* There are two times I think something like this is happening. One is Wolfwood's flashbacks to the orphanage, which are coloured as memories of the softness the Eye ripped away from him. Hence the different art style, and the title of the episode they occur in: once upon a time. It's a fairy tale, more emotionally true than literal to highlight the harshness of his life since then by contrast. There's likely more to that story than Wolfwood is recalling at that moment.

The other, big surprise, is within the memory world. It has manipulative editing, clips taken out of context, video noise, ADR, everything. All you'd need to make it more obvious it can't be trusted is a disclaimer in the corner or inconsistent timestamps or something.

[traaumaa]

when i have to constantly distract myself because if i think about what i let my life become i start crying

[mel-is-genderfluid]

-Yeah....... Maybe I'm back with Crk...?

[twinleafsystem]

yall rm when people on here would soooooo seriously block and/or make callouts abt their beloved mutuals because they reblogged a post Not from them but from another earlier point in the chain

[aeolianblues]

'oh I cannot say horrible things because of the Woke' well boo hoo, I cannot say mean things about bands I dislike because they love my show and will beat me up if I slag them off

[diverbots]

Oh fuck bro I completely forgot I drew this page.

[cranberrymoons]

.

[ox1-lovesick]

hi

[saviorpilled]

having hetchless au thoughts again. i rlly need to start writing

[lynne-monstr]

hi blog I'm back from vacation! it was a lot of fun but there was a bit of a mishap at the end and I'm trying not to be meh about it. long story short, you never really know what it's like to travel with someone until something goes wrong. on this trip I learned that my friend and I have very different approaches to dealing with mishaps.

like when the rental car has a problem and it takes 3 hours for the roadside assistance to send a tow truck. and then it arrives and cannot tow the car because the car rental company did not listen when you described the problem. my friend is very laid back and was happy to wait for the next tow, however long it might be. I prefer to call the rental place and let them know i'm unhappy that it took 3 hours to get a tow truck and that I want the next one faster, and also we might have to stay the night and I expect the car company to pay for it since they sent the wrong tow truck.

anyway it was a bit tense but I finally got home and I am glad to be back. I'm going to do nothing for the rest of the day and enjoy every second of it.

[gingerbreadmonsters]

not even panicking . idek what ur saying why would ever be worried abt this