#in their work then they're satisfied for the viewer to do the work themselves and perhaps that's a truer form of thought provoking

[mostlysignssomeportents]

I assure you, an AI didn’t write a terrible “George Carlin” routine

There are only TWO MORE DAYS left in the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

On Hallowe'en 1974, Ronald Clark O'Bryan murdered his son with poisoned candy. He needed the insurance money, and he knew that Halloween poisonings were rampant, so he figured he'd get away with it. He was wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O%27Bryan

The stories of Hallowe'en poisonings were just that – stories. No one was poisoning kids on Hallowe'en – except this monstrous murderer, who mistook rampant scare stories for truth and assumed (incorrectly) that his murder would blend in with the crowd.

Last week, the dudes behind the "comedy" podcast Dudesy released a "George Carlin" comedy special that they claimed had been created, holus bolus, by an AI trained on the comedian's routines. This was a lie. After the Carlin estate sued, the dudes admitted that they had written the (remarkably unfunny) "comedy" special:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/george-carlins-heirs-sue-comedy-podcast-over-ai-generated-impression/

As I've written, we're nowhere near the point where an AI can do your job, but we're well past the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

AI systems can do some remarkable party tricks, but there's a huge difference between producing a plausible sentence and a good one. After the initial rush of astonishment, the stench of botshit becomes unmistakable:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

Some of this botshit comes from people who are sold a bill of goods: they're convinced that they can make a George Carlin special without any human intervention and when the bot fails, they manufacture their own botshit, assuming they must be bad at prompting the AI.

This is an old technology story: I had a friend who was contracted to livestream a Canadian awards show in the earliest days of the web. They booked in multiple ISDN lines from Bell Canada and set up an impressive Mbone encoding station on the wings of the stage. Only one problem: the ISDNs flaked (this was a common problem with ISDNs!). There was no way to livecast the show.

Nevertheless, my friend's boss's ordered him to go on pretending to livestream the show. They made a big deal of it, with all kinds of cool visualizers showing the progress of this futuristic marvel, which the cameras frequently lingered on, accompanied by overheated narration from the show's hosts.

The weirdest part? The next day, my friend – and many others – heard from satisfied viewers who boasted about how amazing it had been to watch this show on their computers, rather than their TVs. Remember: there had been no stream. These people had just assumed that the problem was on their end – that they had failed to correctly install and configure the multiple browser plugins required. Not wanting to admit their technical incompetence, they instead boasted about how great the show had been. It was the Emperor's New Livestream.

Perhaps that's what happened to the Dudesy bros. But there's another possibility: maybe they were captured by their own imaginations. In "Genesis," an essay in the 2007 collection The Creationists, EL Doctorow (no relation) describes how the ancient Babylonians were so poleaxed by the strange wonder of the story they made up about the origin of the universe that they assumed that it must be true. They themselves weren't nearly imaginative enough to have come up with this super-cool tale, so God must have put it in their minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/29/gedankenexperimentwahn/#high-on-your-own-supply

That seems to have been what happened to the Air Force colonel who falsely claimed that a "rogue AI-powered drone" had spontaneously evolved the strategy of killing its operator as a way of clearing the obstacle to its main objective, which was killing the enemy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee/

This never happened. It was – in the chagrined colonel's words – a "thought experiment." In other words, this guy – who is the USAF's Chief of AI Test and Operations – was so excited about his own made up story that he forgot it wasn't true and told a whole conference-room full of people that it had actually happened.

Maybe that's what happened with the George Carlinbot 3000: the Dudesy dudes fell in love with their own vision for a fully automated luxury Carlinbot and forgot that they had made it up, so they just cheated, assuming they would eventually be able to make a fully operational Battle Carlinbot.

That's basically the Theranos story: a teenaged "entrepreneur" was convinced that she was just about to produce a seemingly impossible, revolutionary diagnostic machine, so she faked its results, abetted by investors, customers and others who wanted to believe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

The thing about stories of AI miracles is that they are peddled by both AI's boosters and its critics. For boosters, the value of these tall tales is obvious: if normies can be convinced that AI is capable of performing miracles, they'll invest in it. They'll even integrate it into their product offerings and then quietly hire legions of humans to pick up the botshit it leaves behind. These abettors can be relied upon to keep the defects in these products a secret, because they'll assume that they've committed an operator error. After all, everyone knows that AI can do anything, so if it's not performing for them, the problem must exist between the keyboard and the chair.

But this would only take AI so far. It's one thing to hear implausible stories of AI's triumph from the people invested in it – but what about when AI's critics repeat those stories? If your boss thinks an AI can do your job, and AI critics are all running around with their hair on fire, shouting about the coming AI jobpocalypse, then maybe the AI really can do your job?

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

There's a name for this kind of criticism: "criti-hype," coined by Lee Vinsel, who points to many reasons for its persistence, including the fact that it constitutes an "academic business-model":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

That's four reasons for AI hype:

to win investors and customers;

to cover customers' and users' embarrassment when the AI doesn't perform;

AI dreamers so high on their own supply that they can't tell truth from fantasy;

A business-model for doomsayers who form an unholy alliance with AI companies by parroting their silliest hype in warning form.

But there's a fifth motivation for criti-hype: to simplify otherwise tedious and complex situations. As Jamie Zawinski writes, this is the motivation behind the obvious lie that the "autonomous cars" on the streets of San Francisco have no driver:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/driverless-cars-always-have-a-driver/

GM's Cruise division was forced to shutter its SF operations after one of its "self-driving" cars dragged an injured pedestrian for 20 feet:

https://www.wired.com/story/cruise-robotaxi-self-driving-permit-revoked-california/

One of the widely discussed revelations in the wake of the incident was that Cruise employed 1.5 skilled technical remote overseers for every one of its "self-driving" cars. In other words, they had replaced a single low-waged cab driver with 1.5 higher-paid remote operators.

As Zawinski writes, SFPD is well aware that there's a human being (or more than one human being) responsible for every one of these cars – someone who is formally at fault when the cars injure people or damage property. Nevertheless, SFPD and SFMTA maintain that these cars can't be cited for moving violations because "no one is driving them."

But figuring out who which person is responsible for a moving violation is "complicated and annoying to deal with," so the fiction persists.

(Zawinski notes that even when these people are held responsible, they're a "moral crumple zone" for the company that decided to enroll whole cities in nonconsensual murderbot experiments.)

Automation hype has always involved hidden humans. The most famous of these was the "mechanical Turk" hoax: a supposed chess-playing robot that was just a puppet operated by a concealed human operator wedged awkwardly into its carapace.

This pattern repeats itself through the ages. Thomas Jefferson "replaced his slaves" with dumbwaiters – but of course, dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, they hide slaves:

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/behind-the-dumbwaiter/

The modern Mechanical Turk – a division of Amazon that employs low-waged "clickworkers," many of them overseas – modernizes the dumbwaiter by hiding low-waged workforces behind a veneer of automation. The MTurk is an abstract "cloud" of human intelligence (the tasks MTurks perform are called "HITs," which stands for "Human Intelligence Tasks").

This is such a truism that techies in India joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians." Or, to use Jathan Sadowski's wonderful term: "Potemkin AI":

https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/

This Potemkin AI is everywhere you look. When Tesla unveiled its humanoid robot Optimus, they made a big flashy show of it, promising a $20,000 automaton was just on the horizon. They failed to mention that Optimus was just a person in a robot suit:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/elon-musk-tesla-robot-optimus-ai

Likewise with the famous demo of a "full self-driving" Tesla, which turned out to be a canned fake:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/

The most shocking and terrifying and enraging AI demos keep turning out to be "Just A Guy" (in Molly White's excellent parlance):

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1751670561606971895

And yet, we keep falling for it. It's no wonder, really: criti-hype rewards so many different people in so many different ways that it truly offers something for everyone.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image:

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

Ross Breadmore (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/rossbreadmore/5169298162/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[justmenoworries]

some unorganized thoughts about Vox and Valentino Hazbin Hotel

Spoilers For Hazbin Hotel episode 2

TW: Discussions and depictions of abusive relationships, sexual assault, extortion and financial abuse

So going by the promo material shown to us, a lot of fans seem to think that Vivzie has changed course on VoxVal and that it's going to be a much more healthy relationship than previously implied.

Not gonna lie, that disappoints me.

Because depicting an abusive romantic relationship with an imperfect and unexpected victim would have been extremely interesting. We already know Valentino is a piece of shit who doesn't care about anything but himself and profit.

The "Addict" music video and the prequel comic "Dirty Healings" make that very clear.

Valentino regularly assaults Angel, keeps Angel's earnings for himself and tries to keep Angel in the studio as long as possible, even getting angry when Angel goes out by himself. Even if it's to get money for Val.

And for all of his faults, it's very easy for the viewer to feel sympathy for Angel. Angel is a likable character who's been shown to have a much kinder side to him via his friendship with Cherry and him trying to comfort Charlie in the pilot after her pitch for the Happy Hotel flops.

Vox though?

Vox is slated to be a main antagonist. He's a fellow Overlord of Hell. Someone for whom it'd be much harder to believe that he'd let anyone treat him like Valentino treats Angel.

And yet...

To be fair, this artwork is from the in-character Instagram accounts, which were already confirmed as non-canonical. (The accounts themselves are sadly archived now due to some really messed up stuff that happened with the Octavia and Stolas accounts.)

Still, depicting Vox as one of Valentino's victims would have been pretty intriguing. It shows that this kind of thing can happen to anyone, no matter the gender or financial or social situation. It would also acknowledge that just because someone is a victim of abuse doesn't mean they're pure, innocent or weak. And that no matter the circumstances, no one deserves to be treated like Valentino treats Vox and Angel.

I'm honestly hoping that this aspect of the VoxVal relationship isn't entirely gone and I kinda think it isn't.

In episode 2 we see right off the bat that Vox doesn't really like Valentino. And it's easy to see why.

Valentino is a spoiled angry manchild with no self control. He needs Velvette and Vox to reign him in, otherwise he's going to do stupid shit like waltz up to the princess of Hell's doorstep with a gun in hand. Because he can't handle the idea that one of his employees is living somewhere he didn't approve.

If Vox hadn't stopped him and talked him out of it, Val would have gotten the VVVs into some serious shit. His violent streaks can also not be talked down completely, they need to be satisfied somehow. Vox needs to offer Val the lowest earners to shoot at and work out his aggression on or Val's going to continue to go on a rampage and most likely tear apart more of Velvette's models.

Speaking frankly, Valentino seems way more trouble than he's worth. Vox and Velvette appear to be doing all the work in their shared empire while Val just throws tantrums and forces them to go out of their way to calm him down.

So if that's the case, why do the other Vs puts up with Val?

In Alastor's and Vox' duet in episode 2, Alastor has this very interesting thing to say about Vox and his relationship to Valentino and Velvette:

"Is Vox as strong as he purports? Or is it based on his support? He'd be powerless without the other Vs."

What's also interesting is Val's and Velvette's reaction to it.

They're smiling. Like they agree.

Alastor also reveals that Vox was trying to get Alastor to join the Vs. Alastor declined.

Vox of course tries to deny all of that, but in the process gets so worked up he short-circuits himself and causes a city-wide blackout.

If Alastor is telling the truth here (and we don't really have a reason to believe he isn't), that puts everything in a whole new light.

Vox is he brains of the operation but is he also the only thing that's keeping it together? Val and Velvette don't really get along (Velvette insults Val behind his back, Val rips apart her models when he's angry) and both don't seem to respect Vox that much. Velvette lets him deal with Val's bad moods, Val doesn't hesitate to throw stuff at Vox when he's pissed (the fact that Vox nonchalantly dodges the glass Valentino throws at him implies this is not the first time). They both have a look of disdain on their faces when Vox hugs them during "Status Quo".

So why does Vox go to all this trouble to keep these two assholes in line if he doesn't really care for them and they in turn have no love for him?

Maybe for business reasons, but Vox already has a giant multi-media empire, right? So again, what does he need the other Vs for?

I think it has to do with Vox's need to be admired and liked and at the top.

See, another thing this episode tells us about Vox is that he's deeply, deeply, insecure.

He has a dozen different programs where he changes his outfits, approach and demeanor to cater to every single sinner possible, he throws out new business ideas on the fly so he'll always be the newest trend everyone follows. If something (or someone) comes up that cracks his cool confident businessman facade even a little he can't handle it and literally breaks down.

Really, Alastor puts it best:

"Is Vox insecure? Pursuing allure? Between this fad and that, is nothing working? Every day he's got a new format."

So Vox doesn't just want to be powerful and popular, he wants to be the most powerful and the most popular and his shows alone aren't going to cut it for that.

That's why he needs Velvette and Valentino. They provide the content that draws the viewers Vox so desperately craves. Without them he'd be all on his own, might lose large chunks of his viewership. And that's something I think Vox is deeply afraid of.

So no matter how little he might actually like them, regardless how shitty Valentino treats him, Vox needs these two. In his view at least, he can't afford to lose them.

[ghooostbaby]

i saw season 2 of the donghua 'no doubt in us' and i enjoyed it so much :) the first season was about an emperor and empress who dislike each other but are forced by a spell to swap bodies and as they are forced to live as the other they fall for each other ... although that season did the great crime of ending not just after they had acknowledged they really were in love and kissed and changed back - but a scene later where they're being all awkward and then in MID CONVERSATION the episode just ends and its like "come back for season 2!" !!!!!!!! come on! laziest cliff hanger of my entire life.

but anyway season 2 they do act a bit shy at first but mostly the long misunderstanding season 1 is based on is over and its so NICE to spend some time with a romantic pair AFTER the misunderstanding has been resolved and watch them grow together rather than just have the curtains close. there is So Much interesting bits to focus on in a relationship when they're actually together WHY do so many stories seem unable to try anything but keeping them apart (as they repeatedly betray each others trust to "protect" each other) to give the narrative spice. Anyway, it was really cool to see how they gradually got to know each other and trust each other more deeply, and became more comfortable being affectionate. It felt so genuine! but ESPECIALLY because in the political plot, they are able to come out victorious because they choose to trust each other and work together, even in moments where it looks doubtful, it makes their relationship stronger, the plot more interesting, and the ending more satisfying than pointless self-sacrifice and secret keeping between lovers for no reason i can tell but to bait viewers. AHEM FAIRY AND DEVIL AHEM.

anyway there's also something about ... when the series began the emperor was this quiet, rigid, studious man, and the empress was energetic, likes being outside and doing martial arts, uncomfortable and avoids official duties and navigating social niceties bc she's kind of clumbsy. they both kind of don't get each other, thinks the other despises their way of being and so is defensive against them for that... after their body swap is over they have an appreciation for the other it's like they can become more themselves and more confident in who they are because they are loved. there's this part where the empress bursts onto the scene (pregnant) in armour and the emperor (who can barely hold a sword) is just having a major "😍!! that's my WIFE" moment. and he doesnt want to try to subdue her anymore. i mean the empress also appreciates his political cunning and intelligence blah blah, i think it's obvious who I'm here for haha.

there's some iiiiinteresting very softly gendery sexuality playfulness i think too. first of all the emperor becoming so sweet and silly after the body swap and empress becoming so fierce and grumpy ... i was like, oh. and then there's a whole part where the empress-as-emperor goes to meet with a tatar queen and they go horseback riding, heavy drinking, sparring (all the things the real emperor can't do) and they GREATLY enjoy each others company. then later when the tatar queen comes and realizes the emperor is different she finds out the secret of the body swap, and is just like cool, so the empress is actually my soulmate (implied) then she and the empress spend every day together and seem to be very close. and i just think that's neat! (can the empress have a harem? well actually she kind of ends up with one :P)

also the emperor's brother is typical frivolous, chatty, pleasure-house-going, expert fan wielder, who has a very flirty relationship with the extremely sexy and mysterious imperial astrologer purple man who has robes where the sleeves looks kind of like feathery wings in certain angles?? very good!

[animehouse-moe]

Heavenly Delusion Episode 13: The Journey Continues And Begins

Like many, this wasn't the final episode I was expecting from Heavenly Delusion, but it's an episode I'm really satisfied with. As a mystery series driven by character progression, it does an outstanding job of completing important character arcs while giving plenty of teasers as to what still lies ahead for them all. So, it's not anything grand or climactic, but it does an incredible job of capping off the incredibly strong season that it's given viewers, and I'd love to dive into that a little bit.

⚠️Warning: Discussion of Sexual Assault⚠️

The content discussed will not directly reference the actions, but the scene is built upon this act, so read at your own caution/risk if sensitive to these topics.

The episode starts off with Anzu, Taka, Mimihime, and Shiro walking around outside of the academy, believing it's still a part of the test. It's nothing special as it's mainly showing the children's curiosity at the scale of the world that exists outside of their confines.

What's more interesting, and mostly due to comedy and storyboarding, is Sawatari, Aoshima, et al's conversation about Tokio's child. Though they do a rather good job at presenting the idea that Tokio only had one child, and that the other is in fact a clone or some other genetically altered child. But anyways, I like the stretched perspective, and I like how they place the characters in it to isolate Sawatari and Aoshima during their monologues/speeches to increase that sense of anxiety thanks to the people present.

Following the waffling of this pair, we return to Maru who's left anxious and concerned about Kiruko not returning yet, which produces some really great scenes.

This part of the episode gets somewhat sketchy and stylized, as smearing is used very liberally throughout to further the feel of movement through the scene, and Maru's mission of finding Kiruko.

Here's just one example of that smearing. It's very strong and noticeable, but since it's used so much, it blends really well with the episode at large. Though being action heavy it also gives the episode plenty of opportunity to use it.

I think a more interesting example is the piece of Maru's shoes coming over top of the camera as he walks into the facility. Very easy to not smear here, but it adds a lot of feel to the very short cut, with the relative speed of Maru's foot as it comes right overtop of the camera being conveyed very well before the shoe properly comes into view and returns to being on model.

And then there's the combat, it does a great job of blending, and the direction works great in drawing out the best in the smears. We're not getting a look at this fight from a distance, but rather up close and personal, focusing on the specific pieces of it, so that smearing really helps with the perceived pace and strength of it all.

Also, I love how they approach the combat here. Whether it's tied to the overall idea of how Maru should fight, or if it's because he's seeing red, he's obviously outmatched by the challenger in this fight. The way he holds himself, and how he dodges and reacts. It's all very inhuman, which I think is a really great detail.

Now, for the hardest part of the episode, Kiruko. Truthfully, I think they do a good job with the scene. Not the best, given how it plays out in the end, but with all the pieces and possible outcomes, they convey a very candid and emotional experience that peers into Kiruko as a character.

So once more, content warning for this area, but I'll try to keep it as clean as I can.

We start this sequence with Kiruko beneath a spider's web, which is an unsurprising piece of symbolism to show how they're trapped in this situation.

The imagery quickly changes though as Kiruko retreats further into themselves to find their big sister Kiriko, and a really great piece of symbolism occurs. Trapped in the body of their sister, a body which still retains memories of its past, Kiruko wants nothing but to be with their big sister. For Kiriko to return and say everything's going to be alright, that you'll be okay.

And it's also one of the first and only real pieces of Kiruko accepting their feminine body, as the bedsheets that hide Kiriko's body and separate it from Kiruko's mind turn into something akin to a pink and fluttering dress. For how terrible the act is, and how harsh it is to Kiruko, it does a surprising amount to push their character forward and allow them to face the identity crisis that they've been putting off this entire season.

Though we don't linger all too long on this sequence as Maru finds Kiruko, and shortly after Robin stumbles into the picture as well. The following scene has two really big pieces that I think are crucial to our characters here.

The first is how Maru ignores Kiruko to go after Robin to make him pay. He leaves Kiruko vulnerable and alone in that room to hunt down the man who put her there in the first place, rather than helping and freeing Kiruko. It is the arguably incorrect choice to make in the situation, but it's very in line with Maru's character and so plays into the moment quite well.

Then there's this one of Kiruko shortly after. Knowing that Maru's arrived, and that they'll be safe, Kiruko frees themselves. It's a bit of a terrible piece of symbolism for Kiruko's submission to Robin through these acts. That because of their past, because of the terrible things Robin's done to them, and the hatred they have for themselves, they further avoid the situation by remaining passive through it.

Now, they wouldn't have escaped in the first place thanks to the staff/guards, but there was nothing that was stopping from them attempting to flee in the first place, which is the important piece.

Anyways, in a cathartic moment for viewers and Maru, Maru nearly brings Robin's life to an end, but Kiruko stops them. Kiruko does the (sort of) right thing in this moment, but it's clear that the feelings and emotions tied to Haruki's childhood remain engrained in their mind and influence their decision.

What I really liked here though was the use of the theme of hands once more, making a call back to episode 8 with Maru's comment on how he only brings death and violence with them. I really really love their commitment to this overarching theme that appears through the season.

But, we don't stick with Robin and Maru for long, as we return to Tokio and Sawatari through the Noah Project. There's not a great deal of stuff to talk about here, other than Tokio's "ability", if you can call it that.

At a glance, it's cool, but I think if you dive deeper you get a lot more out of it. Tokio is the first of the Takahara Academy children to give birth. She's the first mother of these genetically engineered children for the sake of immortality. Her ability is awakened/used to protect her child, and encases the both of them (alongside the director) in some sort of protective layer almost. It's pretty clear that Tokio's ability is tied to her existence as a mother/parent, but I also think it's a sign or symbol of how the Hiruko came to exist. Tarao's died, and he's left behind that core, but we haven't seen anything about him turning into a Hiruko just yet, so there has to be a trigger that causes them to turn into Hiruko. So what if, and this is just a big if, Tokio's powers awakening/being used is the catalyst for the birth of Hiruko from these children to begin?

Of course, we don't find out in this episode what it is that's happening to Tokio, as we move onto Mimihime and Shiro who are trying to make their way back to the academy. Nothing of great importance to viewers that I want to pick apart, but I love how neatly they tie up the beginnings of romance between Mimihime and Shiro, with this really beautiful shot.

It's actually really cool, as the director of photography has been extensively chatting about it over on Twitter. Highly recommend checking out what they've got to say (in English!) about the moment.

And back to the future, for the rest of the episode basically. We find Kiruko perched at the edge of the river with Maru waiting behind her. This is the part that I find a bit of trouble with, as Kiruko says a lot of important stuff in her monologue about their childhood and the challenges of coming face to face with the reality of the situation and having that dreamy past to look back on come crashing down. But Maru ends up talking about how he loves Kiruko. And don't get me wrong, the idea of sharing love and cementing Kiruko as their own person that's separate from Haruki and Kiriko is important, and I really admire that piece of Maru's speech. But I think conveying it as a romantic love puts a stain on what's just happened. Yeah, I do know that not everything will be perfectly displayed by fictional characters that aren't perfect, but I also feel that if you're going to include those more terrible aspects in your work, that you need to fairly and properly address them, and mixing romance into a heartfelt moment that builds upon those darker pieces doesn't feel like the best thing to do.

Anyways, here's a nice piece of symbolism of Kiruko feeling alone in the world now that she's seen who Robin really is, and how he was only ever looking at Kiriko, and how after Maru's speech of accepting and loving Kiruko, she feels like she has someone in this world to lean on. Really endearing piece that finalizes the bond this pair have shared since the start of the story.

Similarly, the shift in colors is a really nice touch as well. The first image is very gray, dim, and dull, while the second is far more vibrant and colorful. Reflects Kiruko's emotions and mental state quite well, in my opinion.

Now, the episode may be on its way to finishing, but that doesn't mean that this story is over. No, there's far more mysteries and curiosities to it, starting with the locked door Robin was trying to get into.

That's right, a monster. Not a Hiruko though. Think back. Carefully consider the pieces that we've seen through this season so far. There's not been a single Hiruko with black skin. They've all been white, and had discernable eyes/features that mimic prior aspects of themselves. This.... thing has none of them and is directly linked to the dismembered person next to it. Could it have something to do with the plant studies they found in this building? Could it be Robin's own attempt at a Hiruko? I'm unsure, but it opens the door to a new atrocity.

Similarly, at the very end of the episode, we see a slightly older foursome of Anzu, Taka, Shiro, and Mimihime being taken to shore. This confirms that the Takahara Academy we know of is on an island, and that in "saving" these children, they're effectively introducing the Hiruko to the mainland.

What I find interesting with this is that it introduces a max of two Hiruko, in Taka and Anzu, but we also know that this isn't true. Only one out a pair of children will become a Hiruko in the way that we know them, and we know that Shiro helps stave off Mimihime's transformation. Because of that, we have a maximum of a single transformation between Taka and Anzu, which definitely doesn't account for all of the Hiruko that we know of. Considering the fact that these Hiruko are based around the abilities of the children themselves, we know that at some point, characters like Kuku and maybe Ohma (? Forget if it's been confirmed that they're the Hiruko from the underground garage) make their way across to the mainland at some point or another.

And with that, the season comes to a close. It's not an 11/10 episode that knocks your socks off with crazy revelations or curtains being drawn open, but I absolutely think it's still deserving of praise for how well it closes out several character arcs while continuing to expand the world that our two eras of characters explore. Endless mystery and oddity continue to unravel from the incredible tapestry that Hirotaka and Ishiguro have woven together through this story and its adaptation. I'm incredibly hopeful for a second season in the future, but I also hope that they take all the time in the world to produce it, especially as the anime is hot on the heels of the manga, which provides incredible opportunity for tighter cooperation on the material.

And if my statement wasn't clear in this episode or the previous, Heavenly Delusion is absolutely the crown jewel of this season, and the frontrunner for the standout anime of this entire year.

[moltensmusings]

With the GMG arc almost wrapped up i feel it's now a good time to give my overall thoughts about it, mentioning the things I did and didn't like. Note: this will be more negative than positive as unfortunately I was disappointed by this arc in a way I haven't been with the others. This will be a beefy post as the arc is longer than any others before it.

I want to start by saying I went into this arc with positivity towards it. I may be critical of the show but when I read the arc as a teenager I genuinely adored it. And I feel that, while rocky, the arc started off fairly strong. The first test to enter the games was a fun concept. We got a bit of focus on one of Lucy's silver keys which is always a treat and the nature of the maze itself was great.

I loved getting to see more guilds for once and the choice to include GMG as the first major post time skip arc isn't a bad idea. The thought to give fairy tail a fall from grace isn't terrible (the execution of it is another story entirely) as it adds some stakes to the games themselves with fairy tail aiming to reclaim the public opinion.

Sabertooth as a foil to fairy tail was again, a solid idea even if the plotting didn't fully do them justice. A sanctioned guild built on the idea that strength and power are all that matter is something that could've worked but unfortunately fell flat.

Acnologias backstory is one of my favorite reveals in the show. As is the twist that two people appeared from the future and Ultears magic only getting 1 minute back. Erza vs 100 monsters is always going to be a highlight.

Unfortunately I'm going to now shift into criticism territory:

The issues with this arc start from the timeskip itself. First none of the fairy tail characters left behind were allowed to get stronger and begin to hold their own. They still could've been a much worse guild with the lack of members and harassment from other guilds in the area but we can't have anyone outside of team tenrou hold any weight so instead fairy tail gets to be pathetic unless a specific group is there. This ties into Mashima generally just ignoring his side characters that don't have immediately obvious strong powers.

Even Romeo suffers from this and that's such an intense level of disappointment for me because he's been going on missions with Bisca and Alzack for years at this point. Let the kid be capable of holding his own in some way.

Next: the 3 month time skip, there was no reason for Mashima to skip over yet another bit of time and avoid a training arc for his characters. Them training hard to get stronger and their work paying off in the games would've been way more satisfying for the audience and (if the group separated for it) allowed for some really awesome reveals of what everyone accomplished in their time apart.

But we didn't get that so we go into the games and have a few episodes that while not perfect, do a decent job of exciting the viewers for what's to come. Then we get to the games themselves and it starts to have problems. People cheating and nothing coming of it other than fairy tail getting brutalized for the sake of angering the fan base on their behalf. The guards and council being essentially written as incompetent unintentionally so that we can make sure dramatic story beats happen. Raven tail being a mockery despite how it's been built up since before the timeskip as a force fairy tail will need to face down.

Endless fights that are written to "prove fairy tail is just superior because they're stronger" with the same tired cycle over and over again. Natsu specifically is the worst offender of this with him going from being destroyed by sting to somehow being able to take both him and rogue on all by himself in spite of how worn out he should be. The audience of the games similarly being given a mob mentality of apparently wanting fairy tail obliterated because they kind of suck at some arena games? The games themselves having a pretty unclear set of rules that is adjusted based on what Mashima decides will happen. Villains, as always, being written as heavily sadistic monsters who care about no one without thought to future potential redemption arcs mashima will opt to add in.

Lucy being humiliated at every turn because we can't allow her to have any level of success. The ridiculous level of red herrings that are just outright lies told by Mashima to trick his audience in the most childish way he can. He basically beats his readers over the heads with how they should feel about his plot rather than just writing it and allowing consumers to form their own opinions.

I can't even really enjoy Sabertooth being a foil to fairy tail because the very thing they're supposedly different for, a focus on strength, is something mashima prides fairy tail on as well. How often do we get shown characters being pathetic and uninteresting because their powers aren't as good as the main characters? How many times does the writer himself depict people in the guild being made the butt of the joke for not being as battle savvy. I mean fairy tail itself falls out of favor and the story shows us that them being stronger than everyone is how we should know they're worthy of our attention. The message doesn't work.

Raventail was absolutely wasted as an antagonist and building them up for so long only to take them out in the most boring way possible makes it feel like Mashima wasted his audience's time. I don't understand how time travel magic works since half the time they tell us time magic takes your life and the other time it actually takes no life at all to do, bringing in confusion on what stakes we should even take away from using it.

The guilds themselves also feel incredibly empty as Mashima gives them almost no members outside of the ones named who compete. I don't need a bunch of named extras, but if you're going to give us boxes for the guilds at least show us the full boxes of the rivals and have them working with their guilds during the final battle.

This arc cemented that Levy was fundamentally changed as a character in a way that doesn't line up with her original depiction and angered me since she's my favorite character. She was literally shown to be the most competent member of Shadowgear who saved jet and droy in tense situations and yet now she's apparently someone they need to protect and save because she can't take care of herself despite testing to be an S-class wizard.

This arc was also not helped by the animation changing half way through and the budget seemingly decreasing along with it making the story issues much more prevalent when the art isn't something the series can fall back on.

I wanted to like this arc, I expected to have far more highs than lows and was sorely let down in every capacity. I know I actually missed specific mentions of things that irked me and that's largely due to how much their was.

[mickimagnum]

Before Sundown Interview

"Hey, everyone! Welcome to Devin's Dude Ranch: Before Sundown. I"m your host, Venessa Jeong and here with me is the star of our upcoming series, Devin's Dude Ranch, our Bachelorette, Devin Delaney. Welcome, Devin!"

"Thanks, Venessa. I'm excited to be here. Honestly, I can't believe this is happening," Devin said with a nervous laugh.

"Well, you better believe it! We've hand-picked five single men, especially for you, and they're all chomping at the bit for a chance to win your heart."

"Nice. A horse pun," Devin replied, trying to distract from the crimson that began creeping into her cheeks.

"I thought you'd appreciate it," Vanessa smiled before moving on, "Now, tell me, Devin, what made you decide to look for love as a Bachelorette?"

"When I was first approached about doing the show, my first reaction was 'no way,' but after thinking about it, I couldn't deny it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You know, I really don't have time to go out and meet people, but I do want my happily-ever-after just like everyone else. And I figured, why not try it? Plenty of people have found love doing the show, so I'm going into this with positive expectations."

"I like that. And, I for one, cannot wait to see how your love story unfolds and who you choose."

"Yeah, me neither," Devin joked and sat back in her seat.

"For many of our viewers, this will be their first time meeting you. How would you sum yourself up for them, Devin?"

"Oh, gosh, you're coming with the hard questions," Devin replied as she draped her arm across the back of her seat to carefully consider her answer before continuing, "My life has revolved around training horses and my nectar business, Echo Valley Nectar, came about only as a way to fund it. All I've ever known is hard work, which I think has kept me humble and my feet planted on the ground. Really, Venessa, at the end of the day, I'm a simple girl. Just give me open sky, good company, good food, good nectar, and horses. Then I'm happy."

"Don't forget Mr. Right!" Venessa laughed as she shuffled through the cards in her hands.

"If you can find him, I'll take him," Devin grinned.

"Speaking of Mr. Right," Venessa continued, "As you know, our experts have matched you with five single men who we feel are of excellent compatibility. But, what will it take for them to impress you?"

Devin paused a moment before answering, "Honestly, if they can just come in and be themselves, that will impress me more than anything else. Like, don't put on airs and try to impress me. That's one of my biggest pet peeves - you know, when you can tell someone isn't being genuine," Devin then turned and looked directly into the camera, "Just be yourself, guys. It's better we find if we actually click up front than a year down the road when we're engaged or whatever. Let's be real. From day one."

"Well said," Venessa replied with a bob of her head, "I feel like more people could use that advice."

"All I'm saying, is I'm going to be upfront about all this shenangiousness," Devin then gestured to her entire person, "so I would respect the hell out of any man that is willing to do the same."

"Did you just invent a word?"

"I very well might have."

"I love it."

"Me too."

"Besides someone who's confident being themselves, what else are you looking for in a partner?" Venessa then asked.

"Someone who likes horses, obviously," Devin laughed before continuing, "But also someone who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty and sees themself living and enjoying the ranch life with me. Someone who is real-world smart but kind. ..And will he definitely need a good sense of humor to survive any time me."

"After having just met you, I can second that last one."

Devin shrugged, "Life's too short. We might as well get silly with it."

Venessa's laugh rang out as she shook her head and Devin settled back in her chair again, as if satisfied that her job was done.

After glancing at the last queue card, Venessa said, "Alright Devin, last question, ultimately, what is it that you're hoping for from your experience?"

"I mean, the same thing everyone says. I want to find my person. Down the road, hopefully marriage and a family. That's it."

"And I hope you find it," Venessa said sincerely, "Devin, thank you so much for hanging out with me and answering the burning questions I know we all had."

"Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me!"

Venessa then turned directly to the camera, "Thanks for joining us for this episode of Before Sundown: Devin's Dude Ranch. Don't forget to tune in tomorrow, Monday December 4th, for the premiere of Devin's Dude Ranch, where Devin will meet her five contestants for the first time! And now, here's a sneak peak of the full cast. See you tomorrow at Echo Valley Ranch, SimNation."

Stay Tuned: Devin's Dude Ranch Begins Tomorrow, December 4th!

[david-talks-sw]

So there's this study that was done in the early 1920s (that was shown to me during two separate "film editing 101" courses) called the "Kuleshov effect."

The experiment was simple, and rather than trying to explain what it was, I'll just link a modern remake below, it's only a minute.

The actor has an expressionless face.

But depending on what we're shown once we cut away - be it a kid in a coffin, a woman on a sofa or a gourmet meal - we, as viewers, will project our own emotional reactions to the sequence of images, and the actor's impassive face.

In the absence of context, we create it ourselves by hanging on to what little information we have to then form a narrative.

In the Prequels, we either aren't shown or aren't shown in an emotionally-satisfying way:

How the Jedi teach all younglings to love without becoming attached.

How the Jedi's culture works.

What their status is, in the grand scheme of the Republic (not very high, and they're powerless to change it).

The Jedi's day-to-day, mediating between planetary leaders, helping them find compromise.

The Jedi's various interactions with Anakin.

The Jedi having fun, laughing, eating lunch, being shown in a normal, humanized light.

We know that most of this stuff is happening because GL says so, but the Prequels aren't supposed to be their films... so he only shows just enough of the Jedi Order to serve his stories of how Anakin and the Republic's gave in to their greed and fear and became Vader and the Empire.

AKA, the absent context, the blank expression on the actor's face.

So an audience that wanted to know more about the above-listed items but instead got a whole lot of "politics" talk will either reject the movies entirely out of disappointment, or attempt to engage with the material, in which case they'll go:

"The Jedi forbid love, that's what their whole culture is all about, repressing emotions, they can do more but can't, they always mistreated Anakin and were trying to purge themselves of all humanity in service of logic and the greater good."

AKA, the projection, like with the Kuleshov test.

That's not what the films say, nor is it the narrative intent.

But in the absence of context explicitly disproving any of this in an emotionally-satisfying way, the audience won't help but project their own impression of the Jedi ("holier than thou, hypocritical assholes" - an opinion formed because the Jedi were not developed or humanized enough on-screen) onto the narrative.

And there's only so much legwork Lucas' commentary, comics, books and TCW can do.

[magnolia-sunrise]

so what drew me to the original illustration and the pose is just how i guess, suggestive it is, first time i saw it i was immediately convinced this is simply a Wolfgang pose to a t. its just sooooo - in your face, completely on display as if daring you to react, but at the same time watching very closely what that reaction might be.

picking the natural candlelight and really warm tones for this really made it all come together for me, there is just something so satisfying about painting a mechanical body in that light and in this setting, with the cracked oil paint as if they sat for a portrait rather than examination

the part that was probably the worst headache to paint and figure out is the transluscent and shimmery element of the muscles, the light shining through and illuminating their insides. my main aesthetic inspiration points is the natural iridescence of fish scale and oil spill, which are both strikingly beautiful (and also kind of gross). i didn't want to get bogged down in minute details like every single blood vessel as much as to give you the viewer a feeling of like "i want to know what it would feel like to touch that"

which is where the whole theme of the painting comes together alongside with the caption/title. seeing an android body like this and feeling like -- its uncannily familiar yet at the same time just different enough to feel alien. how do you begin to comprehend that human hands supposedly made something like this? how is this not god's work?

part of that is the way android bodies and anatomy is regarded in the society they live in, where a lot of knowledge of how they work or how to build androids is considered lost to general public, and forbidden to pursue outside of specific professions. even most androids themselves don't actually know how their bodies were put together or how they are maintained, outside of the basic energy necessities for functioning. if they get damaged or malfunction, they have designated hospitals they can go to and they are put to "sleep" for all procedures. of course this is part of the way their population is controlled.

Wolfgang's body is a couple generations older than the most common type of android currently alive, there is a bit more of an intricacy to their design and it differs from others in some plot relevant key elements. there's of course the transgender element of this was not their original design. and they took ownership of their body into their own hands, but given how they were built it was extremely arduous and difficult for them to find ways to change parts of their body to fit with how they wanted to look. not to mention this is seen as the highest sacrilege against the human creators (despite the hypocrisy that most humans dont even know how to make an android anymore, they still feel ownership over their designs).

last little thing i want to point out because they're not meant to draw too much attention but its a neat little detail i think : ) but in each corner of the frame there is a small bud of magnolia in different part of the lifecycle of the bloom. until their hand interrupts that cycle, by breaking into the frame itself, the last corner, that would have been the death of the bloom, is broken off

[just-1other-nerd]

I noticed something about myself and I thought some of you might relate.

I hate liar reveal stories cause you know from the narrative that something bad is going to happen and they're gonna get exposed, that's why I'm never gonna watch Dear Evan Hanson. Like Aladdin (spoilers I guess, also I like Aladdin a lot in geneal but just not a fan of the trope), you just have to watch how he is making all those wrong decisions and you can't do anything about it and just want to shake him and tell him he should be honest. You just don't want this generally good person be corrupted by their lie or see them disappoint their loved ones. I simply don't like the consequenses of the lie and how it can butcher a character because it was avoidable. Even worse if the character was outed by the villain and thus had no chance to come clean by themselves just before they were going to or if they had all those chances in important moments and didn't take them.

But in contrast to that I love it when a character is secretly badass but has to hide it for ✨️reasons✨️ like being executed for having magic. It creates hilarious situations where they have to cover their actions up or everytime someone treats them like shit I think "you bitch wait until the reveal then you're gonna be really sorry for what you just said".

Merlin does this quite well and the few times it was revealed were super satisfying. Six Crimson Cranes (and the fairy tale "Die sechs Schwäne" on which it's based on) did it even if in part 1 the reveal was limited to a few people (not finished the 2nd part yet so don't know how much is coming there).

Mulan does it a rare combination of both because she is openly a badass but has to hide something for good ✨️reasons✨️ and this creates hilarious situations. And there is the reveal (because she tries to save everyone) with it's consequenses but the ✨️reasons✨️ justify having to live through them (like no-one thinks "that was so avoidable"). But I think she should have been more like "yeah well you know what I'm better than everyone of you and I just saved your asses so how about a thank you"

Alchemy of Souls does the combination too (spoilers) where the ✨️reasons✨️ the characters have are "good"/relatable, the situations are hilarious and the reveal at the end of season 1 was so satisfying because the information was suddenly out there but also the consequenses were just horrible like even worse than expected and while the lie was justified towards the viewer the mere existence of the reveal was so unsatisfactory and felt so bad because it was initiated through the bad guy and not because the main character was trying to do something good or save themself or someone else.

Yeah so I guess that's another oddly specific trope I'm into.

EDIT: and I don't mean that protagonists can't be flawed, mess up, lie or make mistakes (even those that could have been avoided or which's consequenses they should have seen coming) like Anne from Anne with an E constantly messes up but she is one of the best protagonist I've ever seen. She always puts the work in to make it up and she doesn't mean to harm people.

[itsclydebitches]

How do you feel about official retcons? RvB had its final season announced and with that retcons seasons 14-17 (which got increasingly poor reception with 17 being like the death nail in the show basically) Retcons those as simulations and really seems to be picking up after 13 where many fans said the series should have ended and has the perfect ending. Should poor seasons or moments be retconned or just seen as part of a imperfect story with some good and bad writing?

For me it's really a case-by-case situation. I greatly dislike smaller, internal retcons as they tend to make the viewer lose trust in the story, but retconning entire seasons? I suppose it would depend on just how bad the fandom considers those seasons to be. I mean, how many times has the RWBY fandom talked about wanting a reboot, a time travel reset, or more work akin to Ice Queendom? I do think poor seasons/moments should be embraced in the whole of an otherwise strong story, especially given the long runtimes of so many shows. It's inevitable that there will be at least one season that's the pits, so if we start rejecting that across the board, every show will have retcons as a matter of course—even if they don't really need it because the rest of the story is good. That's how I feel about Volume 5 prior to those mistakes getting exacerbated in 6-9: it's a poor season in many respects, but the annoyance of that is greatly lessened by my enjoyment of 1-4. However, I likewise think there is a threshold where fans go, "Nope. That's not salvageable anymore and it's been so bad for so long that it's tainting the story as a whole. Scrap it and start again, lest the whole thing stay ruined."

In RvB's case, it sounds like there's the added issue of fans already being satisfied with the 13 ending. It's maybe less about whether retcons themselves should be a thing and more about writers learning to conclude their stories when they've hit on a strong ending, rather than continuing for the sake of profit until, inevitably, fans become so disgusted with the show they don't want to support it anyway. But that aside, if the show has to continue... yeah, better in my opinion to backtrack, retcon, and start fresh, rather than continually digging the failure hole. RWBY's in the same position. At this point there are so many problems that have gone unaddressed for so long that I don't think it's possible to produce a Volume 10 that feels satisfying. So if they announced tomorrow, "We're insisting on continuing RWBY, but we're going to reveal that everything in Volume 6 onwards was a vision induced by the Apathy" at least we'd have the chance of a better story moving forward. Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of "It's all a dream/vision/simulation." There are stories that have absolutely pulled it off, but the writers have to really know what they're doing and plan everything around that reveal, rather than using it as a, "Gotcha!" crutch. But if the show has faltered badly enough, I'd personally take that get-out-of-jail free card over continuing a bad story. Let Volume 10 start with Ruby jerking awake at home in Patch, the day before she heads to Beacon. "Damn, what a crazy dream I had in which the good portions may or may not prove to be prophetic" lol.

Of course, the other issue with retconning any series is that, presumably, the same people are still writing the revision. Unless they've taken a real hard look at what went wrong the first time around, back-tracking won't amount to much if it's just used as an opportunity to repeat those mistakes.

[leothil]

i feel like people would have been able to swallow this episode better from an eddie standpoint if kristen or oliver was asked about the significant lack of eddie in the episode and why that was the case and if it was intentional will it be explored later in the season, depending on the answer we probably could be excited. Instead we have no idea and more likely is no it will not be explored because this is Kristen and we're still waiting on them to talk about the shooting, sperm donor, now coma

No. It's a good thing they weren't asked about that, because they would not have been able to give any answer that would satisfy the fandom. And they've been very quiet about what's in store for the rest of the season overall, which to me is a good thing.

If people are watching the show only for Eddie and/or buddie, they're doing themselves a big disservice and will likely continue to be disappointed week by week. This is an ensemble show, and as such, we as viewers have to understand that not every character will be featured equally much every week. Different relationships will be in focus at different points in time. This week, the focus was on Buck's familial relationships, and as such, buddie shippers should be happy that Eddie wasn't featured as much, because his absence also tells a story (that's not to say I wouldn't have been happy with more Eddie on screen - as an Eddie girl™ I always want to see more of him). Frankly, I think a lot of people are whining because they got so used to Eddie having a lot of screentime in 5B, as that whole season was focused more on him and his eventual breakdown and healing. Season six has been more focused on Buck and Hen, and now Bobby.

Have you even asked yourself why they haven't talked about the shooting and the sperm donor thing? The writers aren't out there to just tell an isolated story in one episode, they're telling season-long and multi-season stories that are allowed to take time, and that's a beautiful thing to see in a procedural show! And if KR or anyone else went out in an interview and said "by the end of the season all these things will be discussed" - well, what would be the point of that? Look at what happened with 6x11 when the fandom had some pieces of information, created own spec and headcanons... and a concerning amount of people decided that what the show actually gave them was worse than what they'd made up in their heads and got mad (sadly, I'm expecting something similar for 6x13 now that people have gotten into their heads that there will be a fake dating storyline based on one (1) picture that told us nothing). As long as this fandom has these kinds of people in it I'd prefer that neither Kristen nor anyone else said anything about the rest of the episodes at all, but sadly that's not how reality or PR works.

I get that it can feel frustrating just having to wait and see, but that's... how a show on air is supposed to work, actually. We're not supposed to go in knowing exactly which direction they're going in. If you don't like that, then I'd suggest to wait until the full season is out, reading all the spoilers you want, and then bingeing it.

[utilitycaster]

You watched 3 seasons of a show you liked? You enjoyed yourself for several hours, more if you got into the fandom? Why do people go to concerts if they're going to last one night and then be over? This attitude is not inconsistent with telling streaming services to stop doing this (you should)* but this was a problem with network TV too. A complete and satisfying ending is never a guarantee. Sometimes you as an individual like a show that genuinely never really finds an audience, or the creators get tired of it and move on to a more interesting project, or it doesn't get canceled and gets 12 seasons and the last 7 of them are fucking awful. Maybe the creator gets revealed as an awful person ten years after the fact and you no longer want to rewatch, but you still enjoyed it at the time. Maybe ASOIAF or the Kingkiller chronicles will never be finished, and I think many people who have been in those fandoms for years will still count that time as enjoyable and well-spent. Lost media, or works that you cannot return to for other reasons have always been a reality. Do we count a friendship a pointless failure if one of the people within it dies young?

*Though it is kind of irritating that the main reason streaming services do this is because they're specifically doing it to fuck over the actors and writers by avoiding mandated pay raises, and a lot of people focus more on how wronged they are as viewers who believe themselves entitled to closure, not realizing that a 6 season show that paid everyone involved extremely well could still end in a way they didn't like.

"why should I get invested in shows if they'll just get canceled" I was deeply invested in Heroes (2006) and it was not canceled, it just got really terrible. I also got really invested in the sandwich I had a few weeks ago despite it only lasting like 15 minutes. You must embrace the ephemeral. You must be willing to love things that may not love you back, that might betray you, or that may die an untimely death. As the great philosopher Mr. Mitchell Lee Hedberg said "I'm not gonna stop doing something because of what happens at the end."

[onesemesterfilmstudentta]

Film #6: Ugetsu Monogatari

It's interesting how the movie twines several tales (the Ugetsu Monogatari tales but also Tobei's original(?) tale) into one plot and keeps the most sentimental or interesting scenes (the last night with a wife, the ghostly mansion, etc). Otherwise, the original tales certainly meander…

The professor introduced this as a ghost story and considering the movies we've watched so far I was pretty certain this movie would end up a tragedy. There are certainly moments of tragedy and horror absolutely but the ending was much happier than I expected. Writing this now, I'm not very satisfied with the plot. This is probably after having sat through two movies where the female characters are so obviously more trapped in their circumstances than the men. Because of men's actions, women are left to fend for themselves as prostitutes, singers, and beggars or die altogether.

It leaves a sour taste in my mouth thinking that the men in this movie can say, "Oh, woe is me! I only realize now that I only wanted to be rich and famous because I wanted to make my wife happy too!" Genjuro, I know you were "bewitched" but you laid down with another women, you gave kimonos to another woman, you gave yourself to another woman, so pardon me if I relished him having all his money taken away and trudging back home to a broken-down house. It's also laughable that the "enchantress" all along, while yes she did suck his energy, was NOT a fox spirit (tricks men like a succubus) like I thought but an actual innocent girl who just wanted to experience true love! He not only cheated on his wife but also shattered the heart of a girl who is already a ghost! I did NOT expect to sympathize with the ghost of a ghost story this way.

That being said, the scene with Genjuro's wife, now a ghost, who had to contend herself with one last night of happiness there with her family, was still a little sweet. It was probably intended to make the viewer just as angry as sad. At least, it made me very angry. The way she still cares for her husband, laying a blanket over him and making sure his feet are covered; how she had to hide her tears from him; how she sat by her husband and son and worked on clothing until the morning came- all through the movie, all she wanted was to live happily with her family. Your wife is dead, Genjuro! Tobei, you're not much better!

I'd rather not talk any more about the plot. What I do like is the director's confidence in using long shots that track the actors through a scene. Because of the war background and the seriousness of the violence, Ugetsu Monogatari feels shockingly realistic at times. Yet these tracking shots are incredibly beautiful as well. My favorite scene is the dream-like fog that surrounds the four central characters as they're on a boat. It is as if the background is painted in soft shades of pink, grey, and blue. Diegetically, Tobei's wife is singing too and everyone seems so content. Genjuro's wife even says she is glad because she feels sure taking this boat was safer than taking the road. The scene at this point is peaceful and serene. This serenity is quickly broken as another boat comes into view. The boatman, before dying, warns them of pirates on the water. So quickly, even as the music, background, and characters seem to feel safe, the chaos of war rears its ugly head again and the cast are scurrying for safety once more.

Another example is the first time Genjuro enters the ghost girl's mansion. As he and the girl's nurse walk through the hallways, the camera follows them from a distance as Genjuro looks obviously nervous. Their path is guided by the rectangle frames of the screen doors and Genjuro himself is positioned in an open rectangle when he sits down to await the ghost girl's entrance. This scene is an exceptionally long shot and it drips with Genjuro's nervousness (which is becoming the audience's because the girl and the nurse are very strange).

The composition of many of the shots is also beautiful as well. One shot that comes to mind is Genjuro "escaping" the mansion. He crashes out into a courtyard and falls onto his back. Tree branches are jutting into the foreground so that his figure is enclosed by them. I'm sure there is some symbolic meaning I am missing but as an image it was pretty.

The panning was also interesting as well! The best examples came from Genjuro's time with the ghost girl. The panning blended with transitions from shot to shot of the two enjoying their time together. The most interesting one was the transition from hot spring to a field. I am used to most pans being incredibly quick - the blur is used to make an easy transition - but this pan was much slower than that! The panning would also be used to block out violence or scenes that would be hard for a viewer to watch too. Even if it's hard to watch, these pans let the imagination run in the worst ways.

I also liked what little music there was is often diegetic. One of the cast is singing and playing an instrument or someone else in the background is. For example, there was a flute player in the background of a market scene or at least when Genjuro was in the market one of those times.

On a technical level, this film was simply amazing and I enjoyed "watching" it even if I didn't enjoy the plot very much. I would also like to end by saying both Genjuro and Tobei displayed maidenless behavior. I have already elaborated.

[randomingoftherandomness]

I have mixed attitude towards c-dramas, i don't really like them, however there are such gems of a pairings sometimes - like Jiang Cheng and wwx, or scorpion and his yifu. They often have intrigueing premise and idea, and absolutely DON'T follow it through. The only chinese drama i enjoyed throughly, without ignoring a mess (because there wasn't any mess) is "Ruyi's love in the palace". It was amazing not because of brilliant acting, or costumes, even tho it did have all of that. It was amazing because every word had a weight, and every action had a consequence, every issue was addressed, and there wasn't even a hint of 'modern values'. characters felt real. real people of different time. And human feelings are universal. 99% of ancient puppets genre c-dramas fail to deliver that. I know they aren't historical they're fantasy at best and idol cosplay show at worst, but they don't even try to create athmosphere of 'old times'. I guess they really are made for teens, but when i was a teen i also couldn't watch it without cringing - they were too juvenile for my taste. They don't make me care about anyone as a viewer - any wounded will heal, any thousand years old evil will be easily defeated by rag tag team of boy band members, they bleeding from their mouths and go about their day. They constantly talk about immense sacrifices like waiting for a lover for billion years, meditating for another billion, but it's so unrealistic and impossible to take seriously especially when characters never deny themselves anything even on small-scale everyday level. 1)

MJTY is also guilty of this. FL is supposed to be villain protagonist yet they're so afraid for her to be treated like a villain. When she gets discovered her targets start defending and saving her? This craziness alone turned me off of this show. Yet GSJ and GYZ get accused of all crimes for breathing. They're doing and saying the right thing in majority of scenes but everyone looks at them like they are demons. The director loves BL and incest (considering his previous works) so it's given that shangzhi is his faves. So evil angle they get probably is for fetish fuel reasons, to make their hotness too hot to handle. And still, i hated that. They're treated like enemies in their own family for working hard on its prosperity and actual enemies get love and protection. YWS never openly renounced her evil ways, never asked for forgiveness, she just acted like nothing happened, her spy and killer nature is swept under the rug. It's a big fail of the show. All other characters are just fools who want to destroy their own clan. That's what it looks like. Now, as i gather from weibo, they're testing the waters for second season and milking the second cp. Obviously, there's nothing more stupid than to make qian someone's housewife, and as if shangjue will bring home such devious and morally corrupt person to play happy family with (the very home she worked hard to destroy, to the people she worked very hard to hurt). That's murder and disrespect of their respective characters. Betraying everyone and yourself for insane "love" is a good plot for a tragedy, but it has to be perfectly written. there wasn't love between these characters and they're both level-headed people so logical possibility of that storyline is zero. But they will be molded into meaningless happy end romance, with everyone cheering. In my opinion, the ending of MJTY is satisfying as it is. Does anyone really need baby drama and love brained shangjue? That's the opposite of what he's like and why he attracted fans in the first place 2)

My brain is empty because wow that is one wall of text lol

I'm not saying that this is a 'reason' or an 'excuse' as to why certain promising premise falls through in cdramaland, but honestly speaking, censors and cash play a VERY big role in what ends up on screens and this isn't something we can deny. How many shows and movies have filmed scenes/scripts/sequences/storylines that were completely dropped at the Nth hour for "reasons"? Profit pays a big role in what gets aired, and from the get-go, cdramas aren't the places to be if you're looking for morally grey/villain MCs that allowed to be morally grey/villainous/unrepentant (or in YWS's case, allowed to work for redemption). That's not the way it works. Which sucks, admittedly if you (like me) enjoy that kinda of stuff.

In response to your statements regarding 'Does anyone really need baby drama and love brained shangjue?', I may be kicking the hornet's nest here, but just as I was the intended audience for Word of Honor, I am not the target audience for The Untamed. And that's okay :) Your Mileage Will Vary when it comes to what's 'good' and what's 'bad'. Someone will enjoy the baby drama and love brained shangjue, though that someone will not be me and I am thinking it won't be you too.

And again, that's okay. As long as you're not going around being a dick to people who would and will enjoy that content, you'll be fine.

After all, as I've heard said by some people who say it with their whole chest with no regard to how entitled it can come across, variety is the spice of life :)

[immortalmint]

15 Questions (Don't Have) 15 Mutuals

I got tagged by @childlikegoblinqueen to answer a 15 Questions thing, so prepare for TMI! Are you ready? Here we go!

Are you named after anyone? Nope. I'm named after a local-ish street. Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways again? The English language is bonkers.

2. When was the last time you cried? Bill and Frank from HBO's The Last of Us. I ugly cried. Hard. Skip rest of question if you care about spoilers and somehow haven't watched it yet. The show introduces this conservative survivalist nutjob Bill--not my usual go-to character--and makes me sympathize with him instantly through the elegance of his hidden bunker design. It's obvious how much love and care this man has put into his work. And he just keeps going with the competency. So competent. I'm enamored now. Then they introduce Frank, and floor me with how delicately they handle the reveal of Bill's closeted gayness. Bill has never gotten to be himself with other people. The whole god damn world has to end before he can just exist. Then we get to the bedroom scene and I'm like "HBO, don't you dare put this sensitive, private man's first sexual experience on display to satisfy your voyeuristic audience. It would be violation of his character and the carefully earned intimacy that's meant only for Frank. Just Bill and Frank, not for the audience!" And then HBO, which has thrown T&A at us too many times to count, politely leaves the room. Bill gets to be Bill with the man he loves. We the viewers don't intrude on it. The writers did something so right and shockingly respectful. And then Bill and Frank grow old together. Frank is Bill's whole reason for existing. The man that gave him permission to be himself. And in the end they die together. Bill is satisfied with the life he had with Frank. And I'm a complete ugly mess of tears.

3. Do you have kids? I write a very ace-spectrum ('spectrumy in general) Hunter, so naturally, yes! I have kids. Us darn asexuals keep confusing the rest of humanity by existing. Equip 2x to procreation (or I have 2 children and am tired enough to make bad RPG jokes). Gotta keep the weird genes circulating in the human population. How else are we to survive these strange times?

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? For the right opportunities, oh yes. (Who, me? Never! was too bad of a joke to make. But I'll admit I was tempted.)

5. What sports do you play/have played? Only those I was forced to participate in during PE. I did karate and kung-fu for a bit (mostly to write better fight scenes) but I didn't like getting hit or approve of the general injury risk. I prefer hiking and gardening.

6. What's the first thing you notice about people? Hair and eyes. And how they're treating other people / interacting with the world.

7. What's your eye color? Light Brown. Basically Flapjack's / Hunter's new eyes.

8. Scary movies or happy endings? Not particular about it, provided the characters are good, the plot is interesting, and it manages to make me feel something. Greater fondness for characters that have been through shit and still make something good out of themselves in the end. Soft spot for sympathetic monsters and well-executed suspense.

9. Any special talents? Making relevant observations and troubleshooting issues. Nothing for a talent show, but useful for employment.

10. Where were you born? Despite rumors to the contrary, Earth. In the absurdly wealthy country the US of A, that still can't seem to provide medical care or food to all its people. Baffles me daily.

11. What are your hobbies? Gardening and writing. Drawing on occasion. Getting deeply invested in media that portrays atypical people or experiences (sci-fi and fantasy work quite well for this). The Owl House is my current media passion (particularly Hunter & Willow, Eda & Raine, but I love all the characters). Used to be Final Fantasy 7 until they did Vincent dirty in a spinoff game. I haven't touched the remake. Waiting to see if they screw up my favorite character again.

12. Do you have pets? 3 chickens named after Owl House characters. We had 4 and it was… a very cruel life lesson. They're sweet, social birds, and after they get old enough, are very aware of their flock. My oldest chicken took her sister's death really hard. As did I. Lots of ugly crying. I take writing Flapjack very seriously, as you might imagine.

13. How tall are you? Tall enough to reach the top shelf in my kitchen. I consider that good enough.

14. Favorite subject in school? Lots. Math, Science (Genetics, Physio-anatomy, General Bio, Engineering), Philosophy of Religion, Art, Behavioral Psychology. I very badly wanted to major in "Mad Science" in college. Sadly, it is not offered.

15. Dream job? I had it, but ended up with a shitty boss that wrecked it (verbally abusive to multiple people on the team, attempted to sabotage my assignments several times, removed my name from the credits when circulating my work… or "Why is this grown adult acting like a toddler throwing a tantrum?"). Found another job that was pretty close, then got reorged to a shitty boss that wrecked it. Very tiring. Found another job, and the team + boss is amazing. Hoping company leadership doesn't f-it-up too much, as I like where I am. I've hit the point (probably much earlier than normal) in my working life where I realize the reason most people are so eager for retirement isn't because they don't enjoy working. Many of them do! It's because they're sick and tired of the jerky politics. My next dream job is a sabbatical.

[trees-speak-latin-butidont]

As always brilliant analysis. It reminded me of true crime stories I listen to. There are 2 types of criminals in the stories for me: the one's who are obviously results of their environments and the one's who are just fucked up and we dont really know why (the story is not known or its biological). I noticed that narrators and viewer very often have very little understanding of how people develop. Since they grew up in "normal" families they clearly have no idea how what you experience around you makes you see things as "good" and "bad". A child will adore a person who takes care of them if they dont have any previous experience. In normal/safe/caring situations the child learns good behaviours. But in bad situation they will learn the same way. A human as an animal doesnt really have such a strong natural instinct of what is "good" and "bad" so why would a child know? Through contact with other people? But Riko is sheltered, living in the stadion and he is, since day one, told he is special and better that everyone alse, so why should he listen to other kids. And he trusts the person that takes care of him and he adores. He is fed and dressed and given opportunities so the abuse creates the 2 way thinking that @stick-ball described of "they hit me and it hurts but they do it so Im better and stronger and I did sth bad so i deserve". A child doesnt have ANY understanding of how the world works. And this way its too late when the child, maybe as a teenager, realises that sth is not right. Because they do but have no way to understand what. They just see theyre hurt, they hate themselves, nobody cares about them, they're not satisfied, people insult them etc. So they go back to their toxic mechanisms of behaviour cause they dont know anything alse

Hi! I'm about to end my whole career!

Here goes the Riko rant that dear @capcavan asked, demanded and begged for.

You know, I get it.

So here's the thing. I get it, Riko sucks. He is the bad guy we all got hung upon. Why? Because he is a rival for our protagonist. He is an angsty, young guy, born into wealth that came from money laundering and human trafficking. It's despicable, the Ravens are bullies and he himself makes lots of bad things happen. Yeah sure, I get that, whatever.

Being raised as a superstar must've been really, really difficult for you.

But I want to really dig deeper right now, this is a Riko rant after all, and you need to really know your fighters. So, to start: a huge trap in toxic families is that the children, even when grown up, will refuse to identify their parents and guardians as negative and toxic people. Not even outside influence can really sway them, usually. Kids that get away from a sinister situation can later tell they were abused, that it wasn't right, but still, they don't get the specifics of what and why, and they are doomed to repeat the same abuse and call it good. Call it right. And sometimes that's substance abuse, sometimes thats domestic abuse, sometimes that's racism and sexism and xenophobia they will grow into believing as the way the world works. Sometimes, thats nepotism and sadism. Only thing that can help is therapy and an environment removed from the control of the original abuse, lots of therapy, lots of space, years of it. A perfect case of a typical toxic family is Aaron.

A perfect case of that could also be Riko.

And here you can call bullshit because Neil had such a fucked up, abusive father and he *knew* it was wrong. Yes, he knew it was wrong for his father to hurt him to the measure he went. Why? Because his mother protected him, because his mother feared his father, not adored him. Because his mother took him away and kept running. A mother, a role model a child feels very strongly about, subconsciously.

Riko was taken from his mother. He was pushed aside by his father and left in the care of a family member, who was easy to glorify for an impressionable child. Because he was a legend. In fanon I often see Tetsuji's character taking a very background role in everything, and sure, he seems pretty background to Neil, because every bad guy seems background to Neil in comparison to his Father - besides Riko, who is the one dangling that threat in front of him. Tetsuji just wants his property back, Riko is playing with fire though. So yeah to us, reading the story, Tetsuji is a total asshole among many such men in the book.

But to Riko he must've meant almost everything for a long time. A crucial thing about Tetsuji is, he is a sadist. Oh sure, sorry, it's only called sadism when done against his team, right? Against Jean or Kevin or Neil? When it comes to Riko, who was in his care for all of his formative years, it was just strict childbearing right? He is a Moriyama after all, so he is evil from birth.

Yeah, I must've mixed something up about Riko being beaten to unconsciousness several times being mentioned in extra content. You think that was a one, two, third times the charm occurance?

Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you’re worth a damn off the court— yeah, sounds rough.

I always wondered how sarcastic Neil was saying this. I mean, he definitely meant to land a punch where it would hurt. And he actually knew Riko as a little kid, so he knew more than most.

Stockholm syndrome is very common among victims of childhood abuse. I would know, anyway. It's like the most logical option - the survivior is living in a dual reality. These people are my family, the care for me. They provide for me. They want me to be the best. They also abuse me. They hurt me, but it's for the best. Hurting me is a expression of love. I am grateful to them.

I often wonder how many people who read the books know what a commodity is. A commodity, in the most basic terms, is a basic good that can be used in ccommerce to interchange with goods of the same type. A commodity is not a king, or a queen, or a bishop or a knight, or even a rook. It's a fucking pawn. It's cannon fodder.

Riko is worthless to his family. Riko is just a tool to Tetsuji to generate profit. Riko wants to be worthy to his family. Riko most likely loves his uncle and is ready to do the most insane thing if only it gives him the one thing he desires, which is being seen as worthy by his family.

Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time.

Then there's grooming. Grooming is more obvious when it's done by a stranger who sees the child randomly or in some intervals of time. It's much harder to resist when it's constant. To Riko, Tetsuji is a good person, he is a hero, he is his family, he cares for him, they have a common goal. Riko wants to be what Tetsuji wants him to be. There is a price to pay for it, of course. There is a price for everything. But the price doesn't matter. Riko wants to pay the price he has to pay, to be what Tetsuji wants him to be.

And the thing is, do you think Riko learned how to use his money and crime connections to control others? How to gain power through fear and pain? You think spending his whole life locked in a fucking stadium he taught it to himself how to break people in body and spirit? That torturing them was his special interest? Or maybe are you forgetting that amongst valid responces to trauma, besides fight, flight and freeze there is also fawn? Don't you think it's much more likely, being groomed and enamoured with his captor (bcs thats what Tetsuji is to me, their captor) he impersonated him to the best of his ability? That he learned every leaf in the book from him, because he was his only connection to the family, to his father, to his brother. He was a legend, the creator of exy. Wasn't he always trying to be worthy of him? To be good enough to be loved and wanted? To be great full enough?

I am not saying this absolves him of any of the things he did, but people do insane things under lesser influence, things they would never do otherwise. And I am not talking of people groomed from early childhood, I'm talking of sane adults, being dragged into dangerous and destructive ideologies.

I know it’s not entirely your fault that you are mentally unbalanced and infected with these delusions of grandeur, and I know you’re physically incapable of holding a decent conversation with anyone like every other normal human being can, but I don’t think any of us should have to put up with this much of your bullshit.

Because it isn't, is it? The things HE does ARE his fault, definately. But the reason why? That is not that easy to pinpoint. And Riko is so unstable it hurts. He is so far removed from real life he is completely incapable of conversation. He is a child brought up in a grave, but...

Pity only gets you so many concessions, and you used yours up about six insults ago.

To me Riko is besides all other things, wasted potential. All the things he dreamed of? He could have had them. He was talented, he was determined and had a lot of courage, but all of that was utterly wasted in the violence and malice he was soaked in. In all the violence and malice he created in return.

So please, please, just shut the fuck up and leave us alone.

The most interesting thing about All for the game though is, that in every other book Riko dying would've been the big bad wolf being defeated. But here, that's just a bleep on the radar. Because Riko was a product, not the producer. What I love about All for the game is it shows none of the madness and evil in life started or ended with me or you, with Riko or Neil. Not even with Keylight or Tetsuji. Fuck it did not even end with Nathan dying. It all ends how it begun. With a deal with the devil made in the back of a car, bought with blood money.