#it's nuanced

[anneapocalypse]

It's not so much that I think writers never do anything by accident (good or bad or just weird or interesting) as I think that, if you're going to claim that something wasn't on purpose, you should provide support for that thesis just like you should support any other argument you're making about a text. I don't think that, for example, "Bioware is too stupid to have been exploring that theme on purpose," is a good enough argument. First of all, "Bioware" didn't write anything, individual people working for Bioware with a general common goal of creating a game but different styles and influences and life experiences did, and I think that matters when you're talking about intent. Maybe a writer made a specific statement about their influences when writing a character or plotline. Or maybe a theme in a story seems in conflict with other themes in the story (the tone of Return to Ostager vs. the tone of the rest of Dragon Age: Origins with regard to the nobility and royal blood comes to mind for me) and you want to consider why that might be. Maybe it's because the narrative comes across in a way the writers didn't intend. Maybe it's because different parts of the game were written by different people with different ideas about the themes they were exploring in a game that didn't really have a cohesive worldbuilding vision across all departments (which Origins notoriously did not, as David Gaider has discussed before). In some cases, maybe there's an intentional dissonance that itself brings up another theme. There could be a lot of reasons, and that in itself can be interesting to discuss, and I don't think we have to go into discussions assuming that writers never fumble the ball. I just think we should have better reasons for claims about authorial intent than "writers too stupid."

[gayvampyr]

no offense but you guys need to learn the difference between someone implying their experience is universal and a post simply just not being about you

[wizardnuke]

"i hate microlabels" yeah i also kind of dislike the idea of putting ourselves and our identities into very specific boxes, i think it can be really isolating- ohh wait you mean you think they're invalid. ohh no that's not the way to look at it. killing you

[justicewasserved]

tma is a show which spends the first 100 episodes going "look at these monsters. aren't they fucked up. yeah and they're all so happy being monsters who hurt people monstrously" and then the protagonist who you've spent hours listening to at this point becomes one of those fucked up monsters, forcing you to either dismiss him as evil or you have to fully change how you view all the previous monsters. and then they spend the next 100 episodes dealing with that

[mwagneto]

aint no WAYYY THEY JUST TRIED TO SAY THAT. not even "the doctor's" but doctor who's in general 💀💀 so now that they have a disney contract every single gay thing (which they've had for fucking decades) is gonna be a huge big huge first gay thing ever!!1!1!1!! event??? like yeah there's a very specific significance to it i get it but what the fuck do you mean😭 jamie pull up the files

[valtsv]

are we still doing this because i have a late submission

[qiinamii]

we'll do fine.

[lgbtlunaverse]

Obsessed with characters who portray themselves as worse than they are. Who are lying to everyone including themselves about it. People generally assume if someone's lying about themselves they're trying to look better but sometimes they're trying to look worse. They attribute agency to where they had none, add intent to accidents, try to convince everyone that this is something they did instead of something that happened to them.

[achamocha]

english is not my first language please have mercy

[asturlavi]

a hell of your own making

[i-eat-mass-blog]

people are mad at chappell roan because she pointed that the "lesser than too evils" party and still in fact very evil and we shouldn't let them continue to be evil just because of the other party is more evil

[heartorbit]

if we could stay connected, just like this

[koolaidashley]

The worst part is he’s being 100% genuine

[tobiasdrake]

My understanding of evil, age 0-10: MY NAME IS SMOG SMOKESLY AND I RUN THE POLLUTION FACTORY, IT PRODUCES POLLUTION!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

My understanding of evil, in my teens: You can't really boil things down to good and evil. People are complicated. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and someone who seems evil to you is actually doing their best from their own perspective. If you could walk a mile in their shoes, you'd understand. There is no such thing as evil.

My understanding of evil, in my twenties: Look, it's basically just tribalism. We are all necessarily thrust into competition with one another. There are always going to be winners and losers. Whining about evil is just being upset that you lost the game.

My understanding of evil, in my thirties: MY NAME IS SMOG SMOKESLY AND I RUN THE POLLUTION FACTORY, IT PRODUCES POLLUTION!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!