#like how can you just cheapen the value of things like this to make a few quid or to go to a free concert

[esta-elavaris]

Had a moment today that exemplifies how my family thinks but like, in a way that’s just very sad and makes me glad I don’t think that way.

Showed a relative the amazing painting that friend did for me, and her first response was “you’d be able to sell that for some good money!!!”

Like. No????

For months I’ve discussed this creative trade with this friend, we’ve talked about what the other wants, we’ve gotten excited about it and traded progress pics as we work on it for each other, gotten stoked over making plans to get to the post office and seeing the other finally get it, and it’s just been a very wholesome and very fun project. It took six weeks for us to complete these projects, and now I have something on display in my room that makes me very happy, that’s objectively beautiful, and that I know a friend put a lot of effort into making for me and was THRILLED when I adored it.

And my family’s immediate line of thinking is “make a few quid from it lol”.

I can’t imagine the headspace it must take to go through life like that.

[burr-ell]

re: bh never having faced consequences, what are some moments/things they've done you think there should've been consequences for? i'm asking because i've realized these past couple episodes that i also fear they won't face any consequences for this, but i haven't been able to pinpoint why i feel that way yet

I don't think the answer is that they've done things that demand consequences so much as it is that a lot of elements of this campaign just don't coalesce or feel like they matter. Things feel important and relevant and cool in the moment and then don't get any kind of followup, nor do they have a meaningful impact on the characters. So much of this story falls to the wayside with no followup, if it doesn't have the wind taken out of it altogether.

A lot of plot points wind up mattering more to the fandom than they do to the characters—even good arcs, like the events of the party split arc, don't seem to have left much of an impact. There are fans who still bring up Hearthdell as a point against the gods or Vasselheim, but Bell's Hells have barely mentioned it if at all since episode 65. Laudna derides it as a "pissant town" with "pissant squabbles" and is far less interested in the village and its people than she is in her own trauma and feelings about the Titans. Ashton only brings up what happened there because they're still sore about being judged by an angel. There's still a chance that they call out Vasselheim's leadership for the whole mess, but at no point during Ashton's rant to the Exandrian Accord did they ever reference the blatant encroachment and attempt at a land grab. Molaesmyr fares little better; Chetney is the only character who ever brings it up, and when he does it's in the context of rattling Ludinus personally—a point that only he ever presses, even though Imogen and Fearne were also there. The fandom has been debating off and on about how much the nature of Predathos itself can be linked to Molaesmyr's destruction, but nothing has canonically explained it one way or the other, in part because the rest of the Hells just aren't interested.

It's also that lack of interest that leads to major NPC villains that are almost completely irrelevant to the story. It does not ultimately matter that one of Ludinus's generals is Otohan Thull or that the Malleus Key was defended by Ozo Cruth. The audience doesn't really know who they are, and they don't know because the party had no reason to care and didn't try to get one. Matt has indicated that there's a story to Otohan that will likely be revealed in a campaign wrap-up, and the same is probably true for Ozo, but in the actual story, all they are to the audience is a couple of overtuned stat blocks with swords, and the characters they killed might as well have been gutted by a pit fiend for all it mattered. About the only death that has any narrative resonance is FCG's, and it feels less like they sacrificed themself to kill Otohan and more like the story had to lose an interesting and engaging character to get rid of Otohan.

Even returning antagonists don't escape; both Ludinus Da'leth and Delilah Briarwood, important villains from their original campaigns, have been done a great deal of disservice in this one. Ludinus peaked in episode 51; his gambit with Vax and Keyleth was great, but the longer he got to keep monologuing, in a campaign already full of talking in circles about the same issue, the more insufferable he became. Even his death, karmic as it was, is cheapened by the almost-immediate implication that he's got a way to come back, which might make sense mechanically but is utterly exhausting narratively. Delilah, on the other hand, could have been replaced by an original character and nothing of value would have been lost; there's potential in an undead warlock whose patron is their own murderer, but any of the emotional juice of that story is outweighed both by how tiresome the pacing is and how overreliant it is on maudlin imagery and nostalgia for the original Briarwood arc. We don't learn about why Delilah is here or what her specific goals are until episode 77, 40 episodes after the party confronted her directly and gave her an opportunity to explain herself that she did not take. The corruption arc, again, had potential, but fizzled out as soon as a level 20 wizard dropped the soul anchor solution into their laps, with little actual impact on Laudna herself.

The actual player characters have, for the most part, barely substantively changed. Chetney has solved the mechanical problem of not being able to control his werewolf transformations and he does push big red buttons when no one else will, but he isn't really moving anywhere as a character. Laudna continues to do everything in her power to bounce back to the old kooky fun-scary bit from episode 1 every time anything interesting happens to her. FCG did actually have a great arc with an incredibly heartfelt and moving conclusion, but is no longer a meaningful part of the narrative and the party's grief over their death was not given the space to breathe that it warranted. Fearne has matured a bit over the course of the campaign but is still largely just as aimless and go-with-the-flow as she was in the beginning. Imogen, at the very least, started to take something close to an actual stance on the gods and what to do about Predathos, but every time she has to make a choice, she continues to ask someone else what she should do and then hem and haw when she's told it's her decision. Orym has finally let himself lean on someone else, but has otherwise remained static. Ashton had a very promising arc after failing to absorb the shard, but has since regressed into doing the exact thing they called themself out for doing: looking for someone to blame and wanting to feel like they were robbed. Moments like Shardgate and Swordgate, which in any other campaign would have been major watersheds, have become functionally irrelevant for all the impact they've had on the actual characters.

The elephant in the room here, of course, is Imogen and Laudna's relationship, which has been a millstone around the campaign's neck from the beginning. Shippers have accused critics of being motivated by bigotry, but the arguments deconstructing it are ultimately rooted in this very same issue: nothing that happens to them truly seems to matter. This is intertwined with the issues with Delilah, because every time Imogen and Laudna actually run into any sort of conflict or difficulty, it has something to do with that plot thread: Delilah broke the gnarlrock; Delilah was reawakened when Laudna killed Bor'dor and Laudna was extremely upset and traumatized about it; and Delilah was the one Laudna was listening to when she tried to steal and absorb Otohan's sword. All of those conflicts fizzled out as soon as the immediate surface issue was resolved: Imogen dropped the gnarlrock issue entirely; Imogen kissed Laudna and insisted that she couldn't be a bad person for killing Bor'dor, and Laudna completely dropped the subject; and Imogen, as soon as Delilah was sealed in the soul anchor, immediately took Laudna back after less than a day of mild distance and they went off to have makeup sex. It feels less like their love is so strong it can overcome any conflict and more like they retreat to the same way their relationship was before as soon as they possibly can. Even starting a romance doesn't seem to materially change anything.

There's no interest in unpacking anything that could cause a problem, either. Laudna canonically has no issue with Imogen floating the idea of siding with the Vanguard, even though it was a Vanguard general who killed Laudna in the street to get to Imogen; in fact, she refuses to take a hard stance for or against Imogen joining Predathos because she doesn't want to "hold Imogen back from her destiny". Prior to Laudna attempting to take the sword, Imogen told her explicitly "if you need [Delilah], then that's my answer"—and then instead of addressing that, Imogen blames herself for Laudna giving into Delilah by wondering if she should have given into her own toxic influence so at least Laudna wouldn't be alone. At no point have they ever had a difficult conversation about any of their underlying issues, like the actual material harm Laudna has done to herself or others or the fact that both Imogen and Laudna have repeatedly tossed aside their actual needs in favor of maintaining their status quo of unending support and presence in each other's lives. They both just attribute responsibility to someone or something else and continue to swear that they'll always be there for one another—just like every other conversation they've ever had. There's no challenge and no movement, not from them or from anyone else; nothing has ever upset the idea that this story could be anything less than idyllic, no matter the increasing evidence to the contrary.

A common refrain for a very long time, and perhaps one still around in some circles, was a desire for Character A and Character B to "finally talk", and not without reason. In previous campaigns, A and B probably would have talked. This, however, is a campaign centering on profoundly incurious characters with a narrative that is disinterested in those characters becoming genuinely invested in its setting or each other beyond a bare surface level. Of course they won't face any consequences for releasing Predathos when they didn't need to, nor will they face consequences for not communicating their incredibly risky and contentious plan ahead of time. Why would they? It won't matter. Nothing in this story matters, and that's the entire problem.

[dors-ee]

... Fortiche does art.

Riot does content to consume for money.

(my rambles under the cut bc not everyone wants to see me criticize stuff, and read criticism of stuff, and I did say I wouldn't speak about this further. But it's getting in every timebomb fanfic I read so I cannot stop thinking about it and being annoyed by it -no faults of the writers at all. it's the theme itself, not their writing-. As I already mentioned this also does help me process my thoughts/emotions instead of ruminating on them in my head. And distracts me from real life issues I have.

oh yeah also maybe I should have said that sooner : I do not judge the people that liked the song and the sanctify, glorify etc. stuff. You do you and I am genulnely glad you liked it and it works for you!)

I've been reading some new interpretations of the MV. And daaaamn. My heart, Fortiche, my heart. That thing is art and SO GOOD.

And I have been playing inquisition which had me think of Solavellan a lot ofc. and Solavellan has the "I see the person behind the myth." and "the only one to see the true person behind the myth, the persona, etc." so i inevitably compared with timebomb, due to the recent content addition.

And no, I'm still not over riot turning Ekko into a devoted carpet for Jinx, hollowed out and made flat with the new verse. How they cheapened and flattened the whole ship actually with this "sanctify divinise glorify magnify etc." stuff.

Going from "I see you. The true you. I pick you the true you. I see the person behind and I go at your level and chose you as you are including with your flaws" to "I glorify blablablabla"...

And like... he did hate her. He did put a boundary. He did say "nope that will not fly." at some of the things she did. He will help her get better, can see the good in her, accept her with her past as Jinx yes, but if she had stayed a terrorist uncaring and all? I don't think he would have accepted her. Loved, cared, still yes maybe. But not this whole "I pray to you" stuff. Timebomb is made of this dichotomy of "I hate you but I love you" of this difficulty in reconciling the what she did, her persona, etc. Of the forgiveness of her dark side and how Ekko is not a carpet.

Ekko has values. Ekko says "no" to some shit. That's part of what makes the ship what it is. That makes it so complex and interesting. We do not have a carpet man and his goddess woman. We have Ekko, as he is, with his value and personality and his people, and Jinx, with what she did and her issues and complexity.

This ship has a lot of complexity when you go into it. It is what makes it interesting this ennemies dynamic and how complex and deep it is with the whole forgiveness and I love despite what you did but also what you did was objectively reprehensible. And I do accept you as you are, and recognize you aren't a monster, etc. but the things still have been done. And in all cases, healing will be necessary. And more, I cannot put it all into words, this isn't an exhaustive list.

And I'm repeating myself but... he sees the true her, at the bottom of her pit. - And urgh. My heart. - And yes she did some terrible shit, yes she is also Jinx and not just Powder. She is her, herself. Whatever her name is. And Ekko picked this one. Over the idealized version of the AU.

(And isn't that one of the big things of timebomb that he left the AU and perfect AU Powder for his Jinx?)

Isn't all of that beautiful? Isn't all of that so much deeper than just some "I sanctify you my goddess woman" stuff?

Isn't a Ekko that does not idealize her, does not treat her as a goddess so much deeper and more interesting?

A Ekko that does acknowledge the shit she did, her dark sides too? And that said "no"? A Ekko that is the only one truly seeing the person behind? A Ekko the only one being abel to go through her persona, and the idealized past (idealized Powder of the past), to reach Her? To see her? to go down to help her pick herself up?

an Ekko that holds his ground and is his own person? And not just a devoted carpet? That can and do love her and is patient and kind and accepts her as she is, with her quirks and issue but he is not a carpet.

Isn't their relationship so much deeper and interesting without this divine worship/idealization thing thrown in?

The sanctify etc. stuff makes it all so flat,bland, insipid and uninteresting... it hollows it out, cheapen things.

It's really not for me...

... and tua might have rival in being the object of my hate it seems. (that is a joke. I am criticizing. This is not hate.)

I had stopped thinking about it btw, I truly had stopped. But as I mentioned it's in every fanfic now so I keep being reminded of it.

And i think of what timebomb was before this song, and with the MV, and the original song, and the show and the artbook (so Fortiche).

I think of the content vs art issue, I think of the issues with media literacy, anti intellectualism, anti art, rhe dtate of the entertainment industry, the art industry... of AI. And more.

And it gets me.... disappointed. Just disappointed. Just terribly disappointed.

where are we going without art? I mean, our societies? Where are we going with anti intellectualism? With the growing lack of media literacy and the loss of analysis/critical thinking skills?

I do not like the generalizations usually, the big statemwnts about how no one knows how to read or think anymkre and we're all lazy. So that's not what I am saying. But... there are issues with those things nonetheless.

and they do connect with facism and the rise of it, it's all interconnected...

... how did I end up there coming from "I will complain about the shitty song"?

(as I mentioned already btw there's a difference in between what I like in fanfics, etc. playing with some stuff, and what for me can work or not in canon. And this devotion thingy and turning Ekko into a cardboard carpet? that's a no for canon from me.)

same as usual : english is not my native language, my thoughts are not fixed (I started by only slightly disliking the thing and now I'm starting to abhor it. Who knows what's next?), this is my opinion, I do not judge other people for what they like, etc.

[sugarcubetikki]

Okay. I am annoyed by the everything so I’m gonna go ahead and debunk all the arguments against the Francesca X Michaela storyline.

In case you weren’t aware of all the complaints going around, here they are:

they’ve completely changed the storyline from the books! francesca’s infertility storyline was sooo important and now it won’t happen!

eloise would’ve made more sense as the queer bridgerton, her and cressida or some other female character would’ve been great over francesca.

by immediately making francesca attracted to michaela they downplayed john and her’s relationship that was built up this season, they cheapened the book storyline into a cliche love triangle!

michael was the best book hero ever! I can’t believe they’ve changed him to michaela.

I am taking all these criticisms/complaints at face value and ignoring any lesbophobia undertones (for now) just to prove how flawed they still are on their own.

Firstly, saying that Francesca’s infertility storyline has been ruined is far from the truth. Instead it can be done in a different way. Think about Francesca in a queer relationship and wanting kids in the kind of society she lives in. It basically mirrors the infertility storyline from the books except her struggles would become representative of the struggles that queer people who want kids face. If they went for this storyline in her season, I think it would be really really nice, we’ve seen a straight infertility storyline play out so many times, this would be great.

Secondly, I am so tired of hearing that it should’ve been Eloise over Francesca. I don’t think Eloise would’ve made more or less sense as a queer women. I think any and every character has the potential to be written as queer or straight. Being an outspoken women with little interest on marriage shouldn’t make Eloise more queer. I also really liked the idea of a potential Eloise X Cressida romance but that does not mean Francesca cannot be queer. In fact, I’m excited to see this introverted autistic queer girl rep! Francesca, go prove we exist.

Thirdly, Francesca’s season hasn’t even happened yet! Getting mad over one scene of Michaela, saying that John and Francesca’s relationship has been downplayed and that we’re in for a cheapened love triangle story is so unreasonable. It was a single scene and people are choosing to get mad over something that hasn’t even happened yet? Besides, if this storyline plays out, it wouldn’t mean that Francesca shouldn’t have been made queer but simply that the writers didn’t write the storyline to your liking. The fact that there’s this much outrage over this is so ridiculous to me. Wait till her season. We have no idea how they’re going to play out the storyline just yet so stop hating already (there may be some lesbophobia implications to this claim which I have spoken about below).

Fourthly, I know it’s not a nice feeling to not get the chance to see a beloved book character onscreen due to this gender swap. It may feel unfair but I mean but…give Michaela a chance? We haven’t seen her personality yet and we don’t know how Masali will bring her character to life. If your qualms are that the love interest is no longer a guy you can fetishise and fawn over, then well…log out of the internet, rant to a friend and stick to the books. Let the sapphics have their wlw romance that we rarely get these days because we keep getting cancelled since streaming services hate gay women. And no that is not an exaggeration but our plain reality. So let us have this.

Finally, to end things off, let us address the lesbophobia aspect to this separately because it is 100% worth mentioning.

The treatment towards queer women onscreen is hardly the same as the hype around queer men.

We can see it in the way streaming services and the internet hype up gay romances whilst sapphic romances are largely ignored and cast to the side (just to make it clear I have nothing against people enjoying mlm romance I enjoy mlm romance all I’m saying that it’s a real shame that wlw romance doesn’t get the same amount of appreciation).

The response to Francesca X Michaela has been largely negative and it’s frustrating. Outside of the cosy gay rabbit hole that tumblr is, there’s just outrage over this storyline/pairing for a number of different reasons that well…all feel ridiculous.

Bridgerton has gone off the books many times yet there’s more outrage than before when it comes to Francesca X Michaela?

Fans are getting a lot more defensive of John and Francesca’s relationship despite knowing he was never going to be endgame all because of Michaela? I’m sorry but I’m sure that if Michaela was Michael and we got the exact same scene with Francesca, do you think there would be as much outrage over John and Francesca’s relationship being downplayed? No. Let’s be honest. People wouldn’t be as mad because there’d be an attractive man involved.

I think the sapphics deserve so much more and better treatment from fellow non-sapphics. Instead of a show of appreciation, we keep getting unreasonable amounts of fire onto this storyline that hasn’t even happened.

What’s worse is that I know that Francesca X Michaela’s romance could follow the story beats of previous seasons that were eaten up by fans and still be bad to people because sapphic romances are just judged more harshly as straight audiences refuse to connect with them. If their romance isn’t phenomenal and just good, then it won’t be enough which is just frustrating.

So yeah, the hate towards Francesca and Michaela is unwarranted and unjust. People need to calm down and realise that their claims are contributing to lesbophobia whether they realise it or not.

[lost-inanotherlife]

Okay so. I've read some comments about Sun and Jin and how they "abandoned" their daughter which. fair point. However, I think that at least three things need to be taken into account for the discourse to have, like, value, imho. Otherwise we just end up spitting bitter moral judgements about characters in the Morally Grey Show and, like, I personally do NOT care about that.

Point 1: Yes, generally speaking, children and kids in LOST are more written like narrative functions rather than, you know, characters with complex interior lives.

Ji Yeon, much like Walter and Aaron, is needed to ADD something to her parents' storylines. Young!Ben is an exception because Ben, in general, carries S5 plot so the insights into his earlier years serve to add plot points for the stories of all characters on the island.

Do I like this writing choice? No. I've also said here that I wish they didn't telegraph that Ji Yeon was Jin's biological daughter. It would've given more depth to Jin's character if he declared her his daughter no matter what, if Sun allowed it, of course. But no, they went the moralistic way and literally told us that Ji Yeon was Sun and Jin's biological daughter whose existence solidified their marriage. So, from the offset, Ji Yeon was just a narrative device and not a character. Again, do I like this? No. But is it true that LOST wasn't interested in Ji Yeon from, like, even before her birth? Yes. Can this be the topic of a discourse about the general shallow portrayals of children in tv series? Absolutely yes.

Point 2: the writers failed to take into account that three years are... well, three years. Not a lot but not exactly three weeks. You can read more about it here, although the topic of that discussion is the Kate/Jack/Sawyer love triangle.

Wrt Sun and Jin three years don't actually mean MUCH. Unlike Jack and Kate, they had spent years together before the island, they were married ffs so it totally tracks that both Sun and Jin obviously still think about each other and want their spouse with them. However, Ji Yeon is also there. Three years with a baby, your baby, kinda mean something, you know? lol. But the writers failed at conveying that like they failed the love triangle: you can see these were quite cheap narrative expedients to get people back on the island and, imho, MEH. This, I think, can also be an interesting topic in a discussion about Ji Yeon and what I can ONLY presume was an incredibly difficult choice that Sun made between her daughter and her husband. I wish they telegraphed that more than they telegraphed Ji Yeon being the baby who saves the marriage.

Point 3: Sun had already made up her mind about her priorities when she left for the island while Jin's mind had always been occupied by Sun because he didn't get to spend three years with his daughter. Something similar happens to Kate, Sawyer and his daughter Clementine. Perhaps let's just say that daughters, like Alex, always end up bad in LOST and maybe one day I'll talk about it.

Sun's choice was a precise writing choice that had to be made for two reasons: 1. Sun and Jin stories are united and can't be separated from a storytelling pov because, as I've said here, they represent the Married Couple, the Lovers; 2. Sun is a character not defined by motherhood but by her striving towards her autonomy (and lack thereof) and her love for Jin. Unlike Jin, however, she was the one who was in a tight spot (like all other characters) before the crash. She's a character who makes Extremely, Extremely Hard Choices and I just don't think that judging her in a manichean fashion is... fair.

Since Ji Yeon was never really a person but only a narrative device, Jin letting go of Sun to go back to their daughter would've cheapened their story. It's sad to say it but it's accurate. If the writers had actually given thought to this parent-daughter relationship then, MAYBE, we could've judged Jin and Sun's choices. But there was no meat there and no sane writer would've missed the chance to write a great tragedy in order to preserve the importance of Family Values for the Good Christian Audience. I'm sorry but you need to consider this aspect when you "judge" Sun and Jin because, surprise!, they are characters in a story where we can trace the reasons behind their choices back to the way they were written. And they were written like The Lovers from the beginning (also, I've established that the 3-year gap meant nothing on an emotional level, the characters remained the same otherwise there wouldn't be a reason for them to "go back". I'd argue that Sayid was the one who tried to change and he got literally dragged back on the island in handcuffs. Much to think about that too).

Okay, I think "rant" is over. For now.

I'll admit I have a weak spot for Sun and Jin (and for deranged, unhinged, insanely in love with each other married couples) and I'll defend their story because they'd be cancelled if LOST aired today and I personally can't have that.

[wunderhawke]

So far I am very disappointed in Cassians story in S2.

We are halfway through the season, apparently a year (2 years?) before the events of Rogue One, and Cassian is no closer to being the man he is at the start of that movie. And its become very clear that the show did not leave room/time to make this a slow, grinding, hard won change. In the movie he seemed like a man who killed because he saw the price of losing. Who was asked to do darker and darker things and who held up the rebellion as a shield against his own conscience. I'm actually annoyed how much they changed that in Andor. That implication of that backstory is what made his decision to follow Jyn so impactful. A man who was shaped by this fight vs a guy who didn't even care about the rebellion until 2 years ago. It also makes NO sense how he treats Jyn when not that long ago he was ignoring Luthiens orders and dropping missions on a whim????? I think if you have a character whose story arc is "went against orders", to make it impactful and earned you cant just bank their obedience on one event. Its a lesson that needs to be learned and enforced. Entrenched. And with the remaining timeline of Andor S2 they simply do not have time to do that. They wasted so much time on meaningless shit (Syril), so in order to take Cassian from S02E06 to Rogue One, they have to take a shortcut and hinge the whole thing on one big event. And after how cheap and lazy Cintras death was, my big fear is that they are banking on Bix dying to be the catalyst for Cassians entire personality change. Further bitching under the cut.

Rogue One is my favorite star wars movie and I actually wish S2 never got approved because it cheapens all their stories to me (except Mon she is soo good this season. Again, they need to cut Sybil out and spend more time on Mon and Dedra). If Andor stopped at S1, I would have been ok with that because I think Cassians story would have flowed into Rogue One better. Luthien didnt even exist when they wrote and released Rogue One, but if you only look at RO!Cassian and ignore S2 Andor, you can clearly see how Luthiens values would have influenced who Cassian became. Cassian was at his lowest at the end of S1, and building him up from that low point would have made sense. Instead, with only a year to go, he is still not fully committed, despite the losses he suffered. I'm soooo scared that the only reason Bix is there is to be the romantic interest who dies.

Not to mention that in this time frame, he only knows K2SO for a few months. When I read the novel I was so moved by the scene where a dying K2 spent his last seconds imagining a scenario where Cassian lives. But now its like, oh, they actually only knew each other for 6 months. I know time doesn't always equal depth of connection (like everyone in RO knew each other for 3 days max and yet 😭) but its still disappointing. I read so many Rogue One fics and fans have done such an amazing job fleshing out the story behind "we all did things were not proud of". And to learn that what he was actually referring to is shooting some guy cuz he saw his girlfriends face. So lame.

[maximumqueer]

One Piece and Media Literacy

So this entire post was born out of me trying to understand why there are certain readings and interpretations of one piece that get under my skin so much. I like to think that I am normally pretty open to different readings of a text. I’m an English major, literally 90% of my degree is discussing different interpretations of fictional media, and that often involves encountering people with different readings than my own. That is good, and I think that as long as a reading can be backed up with good faith textual evidence it’s a valid reading. And that was the sticking point for me,  that the takes that I kept seeing had logic behind them. I could see how and why the person sharing them came to the conclusion they did. But, what I realized is that even though these conclusions did make sense, it also relied on an incredibly literal, surface level take on the scene that also oftentimes ignored the context of how and why the moment was taking place. In other words, a lack of media literacy. 

I’m going to use two scenes that I personally view as getting misconstrued as a result of this as examples. The first one is Shanks' conversation with Whitebeard, particularly this sentence Shanks says in response to Whitebeard questioning Shanks on the loss of his arm. 

I have seen this moment be interpreted as Shanks intentionally losing his arm to teach Luffy a lesson in leadership, that what makes a good captain is one who is willing to put themselves and their life on the line for the people they care about. I do think that is a lesson Luffy took away from this moment, but I don’t think that this scene is framing it as intentional. The meeting between  these two characters is grandiose, and the dialogue they use exemplifies that. Just before this, Whitebeard asked Shanks “What enemy did you give that left arm to?” (One Piece, Ch. 434, pg. 11).  Whitebeard isn’t asking Shanks if he literally gave his arm to an enemy, but rather asking who he lost his arm to, but in a verbose way. As such, Shanks doesn’t mean that he intentionally gave up his arm. And while he could have said that a sea monster took it, he instead switched focus from the thing that took it to the person who he lost it for. It shows Shanks' mindset towards losing his arm, and how he does not actually view it as a loss, as it was lost saving a kid Shanks saw potential in, a kid who would be a part of the new era. 

I will also say that the implication of Shanks intentionally losing his arm makes him a worse person, and cheapens his and Luffy’s relationship. The implication being that the emotional distress we saw him in when Luffy was kidnapped and in peril was at least to a point faked. A person in distress is not worrying about what lesson they can impart onto the person they’re saving, and as such saying that Shanks could have in that moment decided to intentionally give up his arm paints him as a much colder, more calculating character, which I would argue would be to the detriment of his character.

And I know that this reading is in part trying to explain why Shanks, a very powerful character, would lose his arm to a sea monster in the East Blue. But this was Shanks from 12 years ago, I don’t think it takes a massive leap in logic to assume that he simply wasn’t as strong of a character back then. Add to that his attention mainly being focused on making sure he got to Luffy in time, and I think him losing his arm in that moment makes perfect sense. 

The second scene is when Rob Lucci suggests that Luffy’s use of gear 2 is causing him to shave years off his life. 

What Lucci says here is often taken at face value, and then applied to every other gear we have seen Luffy use. This is also information that is stated as fact, more often than not. That every time Luffy uses gear 2 or 3 (pre - ts) or gear 4 or 5 (post - ts) that he is taking a couple years off his life. And as this all stems from Rob Lucci, we have to ask 1: Is Rob Lucci knowledgeable enough to actually make this claim? And 2: Is he a trustworthy source of information? 

The first question is up for debate. Lucci could very well make an educated guess about the strain Luffy is putting on his body. But at the end of the day he is only going off of very limited knowledge about both Luffy and his devil fruit. The second question, I would argue, is a resounding no. Lucci is a member of CP9 (now CP0) an intelligence agency that focuses on infiltration. Part of Lucci’s job is to lie and coerce people. This is also the man that killed his fellow soldiers that had been taken as POWs to prevent the county they were fighting from having the upper hand. That is not the kind of person whose word you can take at face value.

It is also worth noting that the broader scene that this line of dialogue belongs to involves Lucci trying to psyche Luffy out by telling him that there is no hope of him or his friends winning, using the claim that he is shortening his life, as well as information that his crew is in a tunnel that will soon flood, killing them. And while some of this info is true, that is not the reasoning behind Lucci telling him it. He wants Luffy to be discouraged and to feel like there is no possible way for him to win. The information he tells to Luffy does not have to be true for this tactic to work. 

What I’m trying to get at here is that analysis that does not take in the broader context of the story, or the established characterization of the people in the specific scene being analyzed leads to a reading based in ignorance, as not all of the information is being considered. It can also lead to misunderstandings within the fandom, like how I’ve seen it stated that Luffy using gear 5 shortens his life span. There is no canon backing for this, other than the literal interpretation of what a villain said about an entirely different gear nearly 20 years ago in real time. Or it can unintentionally paint a character that has previously been characterized as deeply caring for the protagonist as being cold and distant instead, more focused on making the next generation is strong - both physically and as leaders - than about saving the protagonist's (who at the time was a child) life.

[the-invisibility-bloke]

001 harry potter/albus Severus Potter

WHAT I was not prepared. I have not met any Halbus shippers on Tumblr. We need to talk, my friend. Okay.

-

001 | send me a ship and I will tell you:

when I started shipping it if I did: I. Don’t know. It was sometime early this year and it may have been this classic but that one's not very Pottercest focused so more likely something I just ran across randomly. It’s funny because. My friend was trying to get me into Orion/Regulus and I tried, man, I did (I even wrote one for her birthday, as you can see I had to pad it with Starcest for my own well-being XD) but ultimately I kept insisting “I just can’t get into parent/child.” LOL, cute. Turns out I just needed the right parent/child to drag me in. Enter Harry/Al.

my thoughts: My thoughts have been fueled by a lot of Chardonnay but listen. I take Cursed Child canon with several grains of salt. I use what I like and discard the rest. The idea of Albus as a Slytherin who resents the fact that he’s expected to not only live up to but exceed his father’s legacy and the fact that the whole world sees his sorting as a handicap is so fucking golden because of course he would grow to resent Harry, it’s middle child syndrome on steroids, you’ve got James Sirius who is basically James Potter OG, popular and athletic and probably a bit of a prick (which tbh makes for some prime Al/James shipping but I digress), and Albus who is... good at potions? (Fanon, yes, but well done because of course he’d excel at the thing Harry hated.) What I love about CC is that it creates a very plausible conflict dynamic between them and what I hate about CC is that it completely cheapens that beautiful dynamic by portraying Harry as a tone-deaf bumbling idiot of a father and no. I’m not buying it. He’s a bit thick but he would make every effort to be the most conscientious parent who truly works to relate to all of his children and make them feel valued for exactly who they are. Again, I digress, but if we accept this dynamic on a broad scale and ignore the minutiae, it creates this lovely scenario of James S. being more Lily’s kid and Albus being more Harry’s kid and everything changing when Al goes to Hogwarts and sorts Slytherin and learns what everyone else thinks of his father and befriends the kid of his dad’s nemesis and thus eventually sheds that daddy’s-boy skin and Harry just being heartbroken about it but not really knowing how to win him back.

What makes me happy about them: I think at their core they are so, so very alike which is why the conflict exists in the first place. I think they share the same sense of humour, the same ideological passions, the same deeply sensitive core, the same need for that desperate hungry all-consuming love that Harry hasn’t had since Sirius and Albus had but never quite trusted because he always felt like an outcast and he was probably always a bit jealous of James and definitely jealous of Teddy (...rightfully so but NEVER MIND). So they are a bit Drarry in the sense that they both need the same things but are coming at it from wildly different angles, so lots of room for conflict and misinterpretation. Yay. :)

What makes me sad about them: I mean, well, if they carry on long-term, they will never be able to flourish, they will never be able to hold hands in public, they will be imprisoned in secrecy the rest of their lives, and Harry will suffer unbearable guilt over that because all he wants is for his children to have the normalcy he never did, regardless of how many times Albus assures him he doesn’t give a fuck about normal. I think they also both have the potential to truly wound each other because of the depth of their love and their volatile personalities. They both have a temper and they both need each other so desperately that one misstep can leave them feeling very unstable. They very much know how to push each other’s buttons which can lead to a very toxic albeit passionate relationship.

things done in fanfic that annoys me: Eh, don’t want to offend any fellow writers.

things I look for in fanfic: Canon compliant/adjacent is always my preference; as with most cross-gen/incest I prefer Al to be the instigator and for Harry to suffer the Burden of Unfathomable Guilt™. I love bratty but intelligent Al who just literally does not give 0.5 shits about social mores and, hey, if his dad is fit af and the only person who truly gets him and makes him feel safe and protected and cherished, why shouldn’t they get it on.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Scorpius is probably the best choice for Al, but I’m a guilty Dralbus and Drarry/Scorbus OT4 shipper. I also love the idea of Harry/Albus/Teddy, i.e. Harry/Teddy are together but when Albus finds out he gets wildly jealous because he always had a crush on Teddy and Harry is his daddy, tyvm, so all the feelings get muddled and Teddy’s the one to eventually invite him in and mediate to help Al and Harry realize their feelings for each other.

My happily ever after for them: Best case scenario, they have to hide forever. They’re not exactly a happily ever after ship. :/

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Daddy is the big spoon. :))) But but but also I think Harry still occasionally has nightmares or just needs some of that cuddly comfort he never got as a kid, when work gets really stressful etc., and he’d never vocalize it, never admit it, but Al is very attuned to that need for occasional role reversal and knows when to simply hold him and stroke his hair and tell him everything is going to be okay.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: I think they bond over films and music and maybe dueling. Lots of Muggle things, I think Al is curious about that world because he’s curious in general, which makes Harry feel relevant because that’s what he grew up with, and none of his other kids or friends (besides Hermione) really relates to it.

[gigidragonbbxxx]

a personal struggle + an education

this is all just gigi's opinions + thoughts

Reader, I'm struggling with empathy right now.

Don't worry, I'm not suffering from a personality pathology, I promise I am quite sympathetic and empathetic. It's just battling the feeling of wanting to be kind but also seeing a major problem and knowing I need to get it off my chest.

Let me give it to yall straight (with tweaked/paraphrased details to protect privacy and not to out anyone):

I saw a favorite loass coach/twt account/subliminal creator make fun of an "old timey" English sentence either from Neville Goddard or Edward Art. They proceeded to say that they "hate" it and "why can't they just say it simpler". and then someone else commented "they're talking bullshit fr".

The convo thread on twt devolved into an echo chamber that essentially boiled down to the old fool's adage "If I don't understand it, it must be stupid and not worth it."

This really triggered me because

The phrase quoted was not that hard to understand.

It was clear these women were not educated

Why am I judging or mad at people for their ignorance? (this is why I kept quiet on twt and went here to vent. I acknowledge that two things can be true, I can be kind and still be honest.)

I was and currently am still wrestling with these things within me.

On one hand I don't want to judge. I want to be inclusive and welcoming and supportive.

On the other hand - yall don't look educated, yall wind up looking dumb.

I'll say a harsh truth yall and you can go argue with a damn wall but I know I'm right: stupidity is not cute.

My Hot Take (not so hot when you think about it)

The Law of Assumption rewards those who feed their mind with knowledge

Before you argue with me, think about it. Seriously.

I don't want to seem ableist if someone suffers from dyslexia or if someone struggles in school. It's totally okay to have different paths to learning. The importance is still obtaining the information. You can read or listen to the audiobook, etc. The paths to knowledge are varied but in the end the result is the same - THE KNOWING.

The "old timey" sentence that the creator complained about COULD BE READ BY NINTH GRADERS BECAUSE OF SHAKESPEARE EXPOSURE.

That's why I was exasperated. They were complaining about English (the only language in which they are fluent) that is regularly taught to 14 year olds.

Guys. Stand up. Please stand the fuck up.

Who in this world is gonna take you seriously without BASIC COMPETENCY in literature or math?

Lemme roast some of yall if you want to disagree:

Yall wanna be master manifesters and claim to understand the double slit experiment but can't even name the fundamental laws of science or explain them.

Yall wanna be successful in your businesses and don't know how to calculate your profits.

Yall wanna be seen as intellectuals who "understand" more than the majority of the population and yall can't even fucking read Descartes or Shakespeare.

Yall wanna be content creators and don't know how to proofread.

One time I bought an affirmation tape that came with a pdf with all the affirmations listed. The tape itself was excellent but the pdf was riddled with errors! It makes me sad because something that can help change your life, like a sleep tape to saturate, "cheapens" in its authenticity at the price of minor errors. Sigh.

Let me tell you that 100% you can be successful in this world just by going to the end and claiming it.

BUT YOU LOSE A LOT OF TREASURE BY NOT GIVING YOURSELF THE TOOLS TO DIG FOR IT.

THERE IS SO MUCH FOUNDATIONAL INFORMATION WITHIN THESE "OLD TIMEY" TEXTS.

and if you don't like any of it and just wanna watch sammy ingram and manifest like that THEN GO AHEAD BUT DONT CLAIM TO NOT UNDERSTAND A SENTENCE AND THEN CALL IT BULLSHIT.

just be honest and own it!

be honest that you don't wanna read, that you don't wanna be academic and that's 100% okay and you're still beautiful and worth everything but

do not put down the value of what is being said just because you don't understand it

That's why I am frustrated, reader.

I am educated enough to recognize when someone's ignorance is just that - ignorance.

But I am human enough to be annoyed.

So please give yourselves some grace and take the time to appreciate knowledge. Without the knowledge of the law of assumption, we wouldn't all be here interacting with one another.

xx, gigi

p.s. for those of you who are more familiar with reading the Bible via the law of assumption lens - I beg you to think of Solomon. He was asked by God what he would like and Solomon chose wisdom over material things. Why is that? Because through wisdom comes the ability to know how to obtain all one's desires. Food for thought.

[bringthekaos]

Gunna take a break from Arcane for a moment to talk about Our Flag Means Death, because I am extremely disappointed and I have to put these thoughts somewhere. Putting it under a cut, because I myself forgot to filter the OFMD tag while I was working and got it spoiled for me. So ye be warned, OFMD SPOILERS AHEAD.

That ending was genuinely one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time. The only other time I can recall being this sickened and angry about a show’s ending was Game of Thrones. And it’s not because I’m sad or mad or confused by Izzy’s death, yes that’s partly it, but because a character who was experiencing massive change and character growth was ONCE AGAIN rewarded with death. I am so goddamn sick of rooting for people to do better, to be better, and then FINALLY get that catharsis only to have it thrown away for shock value.

What did this add to the story? Narratively, I mean. If this is indeed the end of OFMD, and it doesn’t get renewed, what the absolute FUCK kind of message does that send? Izzy was postured as some kind of obstacle between Ed and Stede in Season 1, but in S2, he was allowed to grow outside of that weird and fucked up love triangle (term used incredibly loosely, because his love was pretty much one-sided, and most of the time it was selfish and toxic). In S2, he went on an incredible journey of coming to terms with the fact that Ed would never be his again, not in the way he wanted. Even if it was never romantic or sexual (I do not see it), he wanted Ed to himself, and he had to accept that it would never happen. And he fucking DID, that’s the pisser. He learned to see the value in Ed’s transformation, the good that Stede was for him. And he learned to appreciate it and even start playing with it and teasing the two of them. And the worst/best part was that he embraced the crew, put them into that hole in his heart that Ed left. His speech to the Prince about them being family, and that you give up your wants and dreams for them, because being a pirate is bigger than any one person alone. GOD, his fucking character growth was incredible and heart-wrenching all at once.

And then to just throw all of that away, for what? To remove him as an obstacle between Ed and Stede? He already did that himself. To make the title of the show mean something (that the flag truly means Death?). That is just so fucking cheap and backhanded. Oh, Our Flag Means Death, but no one has died yet, better kill somebody; quick shoot Izzy Hands. How about you just make the word ‘death’ a symbol for change? The death of who you once were, the death of old biases, the death of toxicity and selfishness.

Because what would have been the problem with making Izzy the new captain of the Revenge, and letting Ed and Stede go off and do their thing? In the grand scheme of the narrative, why did two characters’ happy ending have to come at the cost of another’s?! It cheapens that happy ending, puts an asterisk on it. Especially when Izzy had JUST come to the realization that that crew, those people (no matter how ridiculous and soft they were) were his motherfucking family and he would do anything to protect them. He should have gotten to, and I just… I cannot forgive that. I’m not saying you can’t kill off characters, we shouldn’t expect anyone to have plot armor. But for god’s sake, at least make it make sense, give it a reason beyond shock value.

If OFMD gets a third season, I may or may not watch. It’s more than likely I won’t. And not because I don’t love the Stede/Ed story, or any of the other beautiful ones on that ship, I do. But because I’ve lost faith in the story.

[fyeahnix]

I keep forgetting to make my comments here but here's my initial thoughts on the MHWilds demo so far:

Out of the weapons I've tried so far—SnS, IG, SwAx, CB, LS, and HH—they all feel REALLY good so far. Got some good stuff from Iceborne and Sunbreak in there. It's a bit weird trying to relearn weapon button mappings again with the new moves and combos but that's not horrible.

Focus mode. I saw a lot of people complaining about it on Twitter and it doesn't make sense to me tbh. It feels like Dark Souls discourse all over again. I'm still very new to the Monster Hunter series compared to a lot of other players but I'm also not bad at the game and have just over 1400 hours between World and Rise. I know what monster hit zones are, I know what weapon motion values are, and between those I know where would be the most effective places to wail on a monster for the most damage. I know how to manage my positioning, I know how to roll through and guard/counter roars. I know what guard points are. Basically, I know what I'm doing.

HOWEVER, people are acting like Focus mode is the absolute worst thing they've added to the game because it "cheapens" the experience and idk I just don't agree there? I'm seeing it as a way for people who have previously not jived with the game to have a way to help them correct their positioning mistakes on the fly and improve.

I think there's something to be said about the way people love to make themselves feel more self important because they're good at a video game and any attempt to make it more approachable to fans who may otherwise not even try it is...idk embarrassing? I used to have this mindset but when I approached it from the angle of accessibility, I saw the point. Monster Hunter is definitely not an easy game to get into and you absolutely might get filtered out when you hit that first wall monster. To me, focus mode feels like something that players will eventually grow out of relying on once they get better at the game and for the rest of us (or at least how I'm using it), it's a nice way to see wounds on the monster and use move that destroys them. But it's not required!! Like at all! You can destroy wounds by repeatedly attacking them. So for people to get upset about it being included is just weird to me..but that's just my opinion. The devs seem to be including this for the purposes of being more approachable but that doesn't mean the game's difficulty has changed at all.

Anyway moving on. My biggest complaint in the game was the Seikret movement. I LOVE the Seikret a lot, from a design and implementation perspective, but one thing that annoys the FUCK outta me was how hard the game pushes you to be in auto movement mode. I prefer having full control over the thing so I found it annoying. I even tried changing some settings and have realized that exiting out of auto mode into manual actually might be bugged. In any case I decided to give auto mode a fair shot and I'm starting to see why they included it. When chasing the monster, I do want to do things such as sharpen on the run, heal, and grab supplies on the way, and with the changes made to the slinger, that is NOW POSSIBLE. I can multitask on giving chase and I do think that's valuable so my mind might be changed there.

Last thing. My current complaint is that the weapon attacks don't feel super impactful. I feel like I'm slicing through butter. There's no real oomph the hits and I wish there was. Maybe it gets better in the full release idk.

Also the game is a beta but the optimization has to be better on launch. I'm hoping it will be.

[multibodied]

I know it's not the same thing, but the spread of generative ai poisoned my relationships with desire to create pretty much anything. I found a note where a few years ago I was writing down all kinds of ideas I wanted to realise in a drawing or 3d model (was actively making 3d models back then) or just thought are cool to rotate in my head. I looked at it now and unintentionally, without meaning to, imagined them being fed as a prompt for some picture/video generator and how it would look like. And it killed it, in an instant all of them felt like a slop. Informational and visual garbage that was never created and now it doesn't even feel nice in theory.

The knowledge of it being something that in theory could be generated with a few clicks of a button feels like it kills the purpose of it being created in any way at all, despite me logically realising that it's not the case, and the value of it in the act of creation itself is higher than the end result. But whoever end up seeing it after it's done would only see the end result, and that's the frustrating part. It'd be a drop within the context of an ocean full of generated slop that be receiving the same amount of attention, slop that by its presence alone devalues the effort put into genuine creative work because it takes away the attention from something real to something that's not.

I curate my internet bubble to minimise the presence of anything ai generated, but I still see it, and even the knowledge of its existence alone is enough to cheapen the relationships I, and people in general, have with art in a general sense. Now I can't just enjoy a pretty picture I stumble upon without looking at it closely. Not for the purpose of appreciation but scrutiny. And it's a really unpleasant, pretty damn tiring way to exist and experience things.

The art made by less experienced artists suddenly feels more pleasing to an eye because you can at least be sure in its authenticity on a glance, but it's also a depressing development, because you still want to see professional-looking things created by people who worked hard to achieve this look, but now it's always "Oh, that's nice!" but then you open it to look closer and sometimes realise that there wasn't any actual effort behind it whatsoever because it's all generated, and you are left with a feeling of being fooled. Like you just had a friendly interaction but the moment you replayed it in your head, you realised that every single part of it on the other end wasn't at all genuine, a person didn't care or even liked you but just had a goal of getting something from you. And it poisons your interactions with other people you meet after the fact, because you start to expect those ulterior motives, which in return makes you more of an unpleasant person yourself and only makes you more miserable. That's what ai generated things feels like, and I don't know what to do about it, because the damage is done, and it continues to be done each time I encounter it, and it accumulates within me like microscopic except within my mind and perception instead of body. It sucks.

It kinda reminds me of this old post...

[bug-the-chicken-nug]

sorry to beat this dead horse again but it really is like. irritating that so much anti-ai sentiment and humor still misses the point in a really reactionary kind of way.

And I'm not just using "reactionary" as a synonym for "people saying stuff i think is mean, bad, or unfair".

No, I *literally mean* it is the *definition* of reactionary: a person who favors a return to a previous state of society which they believe possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary society

Damn near all of it revolves around that.

The idea of not using AI art so that we can go back to some kind of imagined "good ol' days" when people "respected" things like art, academic integrity, and people's time and expertise as a greater whole.

Except.

The entire reason AI (specifically, LLM-based generative AI) got to the point it's at is because these "good ol' days" DIDN'T EXIST.

People disrespecting those things outside of a few special exceptions that manage to sufficiently "prove their worth" is already baked into and incentivised by our culture and economics, and already has been for centuries!

It is not a *cause* of decline or "brainrot" or what have you, it is a direct symptom of how our system already was.

And therefore, getting rid of it and mocking everyone who ever uses it does not and fundamentally cannot cause something that never actually existed on a societal level to magically somehow "return".

All it will do is stop providing you with a phenomenon that acts as a magnifying lens that makes it easier to see what's already there, and will not actually go away if you get your way.

Also, individuals you anecdotally know who respect these things are not the subject or point here. This is about what capitalist society overall values and incentivises.

However, there is a way to actually get a world where people respect each other's time, effort, and expertise more, and are not heavily incentivised to constantly cheapen and devalue those things on a systemic level.

It's just not to go back to a time where it could more easily *seem* like they did because of the inherent limits of individual perspective.

It's to let go of the reactionary individualist ideology and collectively work towards socialist systems that can offer a fairer value on what on current society is inherently incentivised to reduce to the absolute minimum value it can get away with, LLMs or not.

Even if you don't/can't do that, you should at the bare minimum acknowledge that if you claim to be progressive, you'd be a hell of a lot more progressive if you avoid sentiments that are, by literal definition, reactionary.

Which means that honestly. You probably should at least stop reblogging jokes that rely entirely on the sentiment of "lol guys, aren't these Dumb Lazy AI Bros soo pathetic? Aren't we ~better~ than them?"

Because if you're just parroting a reactionary sentiment, you're not.

You're really not.

[thewomancallednova]

Elementary, Dear Data

That was nice!

Didn't really feel it at the start, but got better and better as the episode went on

To be honest, I don't know how I feel about the whole sail ship nostalgia

Also Geordi storming out on Data felt kinda weird. Like I get your criticism of Data immediately solving every mystery because he's read the book already, but you didn't have to go to Ten Forward to tell him that (except of course, so Pulaski can listen in)

The sequence where they play a mystery generated by the computer in Holmes' style is extremely interesting to watch in this current era of ai that we have the misfortune of living in. Like okay, the computer can generate something new based on previous inputs, but it's just gonna be a remix of what was done before with no new value that does not at all challenge anyone familiar with the original works.

Although, in fairness, the Enterprise compute can apparently just generate sentient life if you tell it to, so that's something that modern day ai categorically can't.

I'm of two minds, regarding the sentience of Moriarty. On the one hand, the episode does him extremely well. He starts off with this programming, but as he is sentient, he learns and evolves and isn't really evil by the end of it, he is just a somewhat frightened (yet still confident) man who is scared of getting killed. And he believes Picard immediately too, when Picard tells him that they can't extract him from the holodeck. And frees the Enterprise upon learning that. He has no desire to kill everyone, just because he can't continue living. I think that's pretty neat. And Picard promising to try and find a way at the end is very nice too. Just really well done, the whole thing.

But on the other hand, I feel like this cheapens the portrayal of previous holo people in The Big Goodbye. One of the central aspects of that episode that I adored awas the "are these people actually sentient and what happens to them when you shut off the program." And now this episode says pretty clearly, only Moriarty is alive. Everyone before was just the computer simulating people thinking they are alive. And I think that sucks a bit. I think it could have been easily fixed too, by not having Troi feel Moriarty's consaciousness. IMO Troi's being able to sense stuff is really unhelpful when it comes to episodes dealing with whether something is alive or not, because it gives clearly defined boundaries to what should be a fairly vague concept.

But really that's just a nitpick that could be removed with one single line.

I find it very funny that Picard's response to Geordi explaining how he accidentally made a person is "shit".

And everytime he curses in French I am reminded of the absolutely worst take I have ever read, regarding swearing in Star Trek, that Picard swearing in French is not an issue (as opposed to characters swearing in new Trek series) because he swears in a foreign language, which makes it classy.

The

Worst

Take

Anyway, sorry, yeah, this episode. I actually had the plot of this tangled up with the follow-up, where they have the simulation in a simulation thing going on and was convinced that the final scene in engineering was just a part of the ruse until I saw "Executive Producer Gene Roddenberry" plop up.

[houliburns]

read an interesting post by a mutual that got me thinking about mash’s tonal shift (+ frank's role in it). i dunno if i’ve talked about it much, but i’m not the biggest fan of the later seasons. some of that has to do with the cast changes, admittedly, but a lot of it has to do with the tone shift (which is also ofc reflected by the characters). namely, mash to me is quintessentially a satire. when it decided to be more serious, i think it lost its core value of ‘war is fucking awful and so is the army, so we’ll be damned if we don’t make a laughable joke out of it all’. there’s a powerful anger behind that that i think is invaluable, and i get the angle of ‘it’s hard to laugh once it goes on too long. it stops being funny’, i do, except the show never stops being a comedy, there’s still moments of levity, it just stops taking the piss out of war and the army. it almost becomes complacent. and a lot of that happened when the bumbling draftee CO who didn’t wanna be there got replaced with a loveable regular army one, and when the incompetent boot-licking conservative moron got replaced by a significantly lesser evil. early seasons mash has several antagonists; namely, frank, margaret, and all the military higher-ups sitting pretty while war wages below them. later seasons mash, on the other hand, has one clear antagonist; the war itself. and personal differences are set aside to defend against that common enemy. i know everyone has a personal opinion on which they prefer, but i prefer a villain you can make a joke out of than one that’s just plain devastating and nothing else. might be my jewish sensibilities. in the 40s and 50s, jewish comedians didn’t know how to cope with the shoah, so they made a mockery out of the nazis. and mash does the same thing, until it gives up on the mocking and starts to despair.

at the same time, i think it was ultimately necessary - albeit semi unfortunately, if you’re me. mostly because i think satire is something that works best in small doses. most of my favorite examples of satire are films, as well as shows that chose to have only three or four seasons. two long running examples of satirical shows, the simpsons and south park, manage because they take from current events. same with snl. neverending well to pull from; real life. on the other hand, mash is a lot more limited. so frank as a satirical tool works about as long as he’s able to. as much as i enjoy him, i’ve honestly never considered a hypothetical where he stays on the show, because i don’t think there really is a way for him to work. i think another satirical character with different mockable qualities taking his place would’ve been the ideal - but then again i do love charles. but i also can’t help but resent that he’s presented as a classist republican worth respecting and liking, because it contradicts the message of the show, to its detriment, imho. cheapens things. 

so mash couldn’t stay a satire, which makes frank obsolete, but could he evolve? generally, i tend to think the answer is no. frank at his core IS satire, that’s his role and honestly there’s very little to him without it. and, imho, it’s what makes him likeable (to me and the five other frank fans, anyway); if he was any less ridiculous, he’d feel a lot more dangerous, and it’d be a lot harder to feel endeared by him. don’t get me wrong, he’s still dangerous, but he’s pathetic and whiny and stupid, for the sake of satirizing what he represents, and those traits also appeal to a small minority of tumblr girlies (gender neutral) lol. i don’t think an earnest frank burns could ever exist on television, and tbh i don’t even want to see him in fic i read. it’d detract. (and, again, be less appealing to me.) so my next thought would be, is there a happy medium? and i don’t really think there is. satire is based in exaggeration, obviously, so it’s hard to dial it back. especially with a character as heavyhanded as frank. subtle satire exists, sure, but i don’t know if you could try to make frank more subtle without rendering him ooc. also, mash satire is a specific breed that’s fairly, uh, unrestrained, and changing that particular tone would feel kind of blasphemous fhsdkf. 

the writers ofc didn’t want to let frank evolve, as he’s trapped by his essential role in the narrative. but it makes sense for the character, too. frank gets extremely flanderized in s5 (and into s4), and in-universe, you can attribute it to him regressing under the stress of the war + losing margaret. which makes me wanna examine frank as a character for a moment. him and margaret in the early seasons are notable as being the absolute only ones who, on occasion, insist they like the war. this is partially because it’s what brought them together, sure - but it also allows both of them to serve an ideal. for two people their brand of insufferably patriotic, serving their country is the highlight of their lives. and their devotion to that concept is what keeps them in higher spirits than everyone else. it’s a form of faith, really. and it’s as duty-based as what hawkeye’s doing, it just stems from a different place; duty to country rather than duty to one's responsibilities as a doctor (although margaret manages both).

but the other thing about that blinding loyalty to their patriotic duty is it makes it easy to ignore the ugly realities, which is how they're able to romanticize the war; they’re both repressed and deluded. which is why i like them, lol, i love characters who are weird freaks like that. and frank of course does it most of all. see, frank’s trying his damnest to live out a boyhood fantasy. in his head it’s all toy soldiers, it’s all a radio program he grew up listening to, a comic book. and obviously his refusal to acknowledge how fucked up it is constantly seeing mangled bodies always comes across as a callous lack of empathy, but it’s possible it’s partially a coping mechanism because he doesn’t know what to do with it all. none of them do, but we know frank’s childish, he’s extremely emotionally immature. and there are scenes when you can tell he’s affected, there’s scenes where he’s flustered in the OR and he starts yelling at everyone and picking fights, but i think a lot of that’s some extremely deep-set and completely subconscious reaction formation. i don’t think canon frank is even capable of acknowledging that he’s honestly just a scared little boy. 

like, imagine it. you’re frank (god forbid). your whole life you had conservative values and pro-american propaganda shoveled down your throat. you were never taught to think for yourself, you were never encouraged to be your own person. you’re deeply neurotic and insecure and as a result you rely on rules and institutions you can devote yourself to wholeheartedly without question because you find comfort in having guidelines. and mostly it’s gone well for you, it took some work but you got everything you were ‘supposed’ to get. and then one day you get sent over to the middle of a warzone, and you’ve been told that’s a high honor, except it’s not, it’s terrifying and it’s stressful and isolating and you wanna go home, just like everybody else. but admitting that would be cowardice and even treason, which you’ve been told is completely unacceptable, and you’re a deluded little freak, so your twisted little brain manages to warp the situation into something palatable for yourself. until one day the only thing, the only person, actually keeping you afloat abandons you, and the bubble pops. implodes, even.

i’ve often thought about what happens to frank after season 5. namely, does he learn a fucking thing? or does he go back to exactly how he was. the sad answer, and the realistic one, is the latter. but as someone who actually likes frank, of course that idea bums me out. i do want to naively believe that canonically having a mental breakdown and being institutionalized for it would be eye-opening for him. like, if nothing else, right? but is that me underestimating just how impressive his ability to delude himself is? i dunno. that’s something that can be explored in fanfic, where we can make that choice without consequence, since we’re not obligated to treat frank as a tool for social commentary. ideally, he would be forced to question everything, as much as he’s capable of, anyway. and then what? beats me. unfortunately frank needs guidance, he’s incapable of not looking to others for answers, which means sending him home, back to domineering cruel people, might just render him brainwashed again. but, honestly? the 4077th isn’t really any better for him. obviously it’s not remotely a healthy environment for anyone, but it’s especially bad for frank, because he’s so very alone there, and he’s constantly being told he’s worthless and incompetent. it’s essentially his childhood all over again, but with bombs and bodies. maybe if he came back different and ready to be better he’d get treated more gently, but tbh that might be overestimating everyone’s kindness and compassion. i don’t know if there’s a world where anybody in the main cast is able to set differences aside and get along with frank. let alone enough to sort of.. condition him into being a more decent human. i’m a hawnk fan, so i’d like to think hawkeye could, but i also know canon hawkeye has zero interest in bothering. it’d be nice to see hawk actually devote time to a ‘project’, but i don’t think his personality really allows for it.

so frank could undergo character development, ideally, but not at home and not at the camp, so where? i dunno. i’ve been trying to determine that myself so i can write a fic about him actually growing as a person. i want that challenge. but that’s the point; i think that’s the sort of thing that only works in fic form. i don’t think it could’ve worked on tv. but 🤷 i dunno. just some misc thoughts fhkdsjf

[shdwtouch]

While I absolutely agree with the sentiment and think oc positivity is sorely needed, comparing writing canon muses to fast fashion sounds a bit icky to me. I know you don't mean it in a bad way, but it does kinda sound like you're implying that people writing canon characters are putting less love, effort and creativity into their portrayals. Just because there are multiple people writing the same character doesn't cheapen their value, so I'd personally look for some other metaphor.

firstly, just want to say: I have so much anxiety about this message. like I know you're coming from a good place but its confrontation and alarm bells in my head so let me see if I can articulate. ; ; also, I'm posting this from mobile so I apologize for any weird formatting etc owo;

I'm going to stand by my statement (tho I deleted the tags [edit: I did take a screenshot for context sake]) honestly because I definitely was not implying that canon portrayals have less value, in fact I specifically stated that both canon and original characters have value, just like fast fashion and couture have their own values.

let me explain my thought process.

you walk into, say, Walmart and pick up a pair of Levi's. why ? because you've probably worn them before and like them, or heard of them from others and want to try them out. or because you're simply browsing and like the style and color and they're in the right size so why not ? canon muses have that ease of access, whether it be knowing the fandom or simply having a range of content and reviews to go off of as a "consumer".

original characters don't have that luxury; I don't know about other people, but for me sometimes engaging with original characters - and this is coming from someone who writes predominantly fandomless original characters and agonizes over how accessible their lore is - is, well, bottlenecked by my own energy and willingness to engage with the information and content the creator had provided. it's much easier for me, energy wise, to play a video game and then gravitate to muses from it because I'm already familiar with them, so I already have a foot in the door so to speak.

I fucking love reading original lore tho ! I also FUCKING LOVE canon divergence and headcanons ! but it isn't always easy to engage with or incorporate, and I think that's something that impacts a lot of people in how they view ocs compared to canons. original characters just often take more effort to engage with and understand, and that's not a bad thing ! but in a busy life it's understandable that folks want to go to what is comfortable and what they know, so they pick up a pair of Levi's instead of going to get a tailored pair of pants.

next, I should clarify that the characters are clothes, and we, as writers, are the ones who wear those clothes. which is to say, our own personal style and actions play into the overall appearance and feel of our portrayals. two people can take the same shirt and make completely different outfits with it ! maybe one of them decides to crop it, or bleach it, or cut it up and sew it into something new. and all of these things are valid ! and they all have value. you may be wearing the same shirt as someone else, but you still style it the way you want to. you still look different, still unique, still beautiful. there is nothing bad about liking fast fashion or canon characters. fast fashion is convenient, so are canon characters. some canon characters are poorly written and need to be dressed up or fixed to be worn, while others are quality and wonderfully made ! just like clothes ! and honestly, the same applies to original characters too !

the pants I'm wearing right now ? my favorite pair of pants. I've had them for like... four years. and they're still going strong. fast fashion isn't necessarily cheap, just like couture isn't necessarily haute. but again, it's about how you wear it. and everyone in the BG3 rpc wears their clothes, whether they be canon or original, in their own unique, beautiful way ! we all have our own style, and that style provides value to what we're trying to portray. neither canon nor original characters are better than the other, they BOTH have pros and cons. just like fast fashion and couture. they both have value, and their mode or means doesn't detract or add to the value of the final product.

I apologize if it seemed I was implying canon writers aren't as valuable as original writers, or somehow cheaper due to volume, in my tags. I definitely see where you are coming from and that's a valid perspective. However, that was not my intention and I hope I've managed to clarify my stance and explain myself a bit better. thank you for your message, I hope you're well ! sending lots of good vibes ♡

also, in case anyone was curious, my pants:

they are incredibly soft and flowy, very nice. I sleep in them and wear them out. I know they're winter themed but I think they're subtle enough to be worn outside the season, plus they have polar bears on them and I love polar bears !

also, if it's of any value, I have written my fair share of canon characters. I wrote extensively for assassins creed and marvel, in fact that's where I got my start in the rpc ! if I had to carry the metaphor, my "fast fashion" would be my (canon divergent) cli.nt bar.ton. I may have gotten him from marvel but I have since sliced him up and incorporated the pieces of my portrayal into my original projects ♡