#medium is the message and whatnot

[brbgensokyo]

i wish i could isolate and chemically synthesize the distain i feel when i see when i see a twitter addict meme post about their gacha of choice's deep lore. I'm sure i could make a milly off the patent

[sirfrogsworth]

These folks watched a whole ass movie not realizing the main character was transgender and it was a 2 second kiss between men that made them lose their ever-loving minds.

It's amazing to me that if it weren't for those 2 seconds, many of these folks would have given this movie a 4 or 5 star review. But two seconds of the most vanilla, non-sexy, yet genuine and loving kiss somehow ruined every moment of enjoyment the previous 90 minutes brought them.

Imagine if they realized the trans allegory. I wish I had a way to tell them. I wish I had a way to make them realize they related to a trans character. That they rooted for them. That they accidentally empathized with a trans story.

This was a beautiful movie. In every sense. I really hope between this and Spider-Verse, we can have a moratorium on every 3D animated movie using this style of character design.

It's time to let go of the rubber toy look.

I love Toy Story, but its success kind of doomed 3D animation to never take any risks. I thought maybe it was just a limitation of the medium, and perhaps it was for a time... but after seeing Love Death + Robots and Arcane...

I realized they can make 3D animation look however the hell they want now.

The rubber people were just risk avoidance.

"That's what people are used to and so we're sticking with it."

But the real beauty of Nimona was the story. I won't spoil it but the plot is pretty much, "If you get to know a trans person, you probably won't hate them anymore."

Not knowing any trans people is one of the biggest factors in anti-trans bigotry. And so this movie uses allegory to let an audience get to know a trans person. And you get to experience someone slowly start to understand what it is to be trans from an outside perspective.

It's sad that will probably be lost on those folks above because all they will remember is the kiss. Seriously, it was such a harmless, mundane, blink-and-you-miss-it kiss. But I'm hoping that others will take the lesson of this movie to heart. That you should get to know people before you judge them.

Part of me does wish we could tell trans stories without allegory. That we could just have overt trans characters. But I think this is the best representation possible right now.

It's crazy that Supergirl was one of the bravest shows as far as modern trans representation. It wasn't an edgy HBO drama trying to push boundaries. It was a family-friendly superhero show and they were just like, "Here is a transgender woman with superpowers and it's fine." And I loved that it was part of the character but it wasn't all the character was. Though I think they just missed the manufactured "moral panic" window where that choice would have been extremely controversial causing boycotts of Warner Bros. and whatnot.

My only complaint about Nimona was a small penis joke. It went by very quickly and many may even miss it. But I was surprised to see it in this movie in particular. Especially since those jokes can have collateral damage toward trans folks. With all of the positive messages, wasting a joke on body shaming was a tad disappointing. I mean, it was a fairly lighthearted "Is it cold in here?" joke. I don't want to make it sound worse than it was. But it still registered on my Richter scale of things that bother me.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly give Nimona a 5 out of 5. It helped me understand my friends on a deeper level and it was warm and funny and entertaining. There was a scene at the end that was so beautiful and heart-wrenching and I was crying my eyes out. The animation and the symbolism and the acting were just so perfect.

It's a shame Disney tried to kill this movie. But I am so glad it was allowed to exist despite that.

[kunikukitty]

✐ Always An Artist, Never The Muse

Scaramouche/Wanderer x Fem!reader

xi. covet

The last time you held a pencil was a couple of months ago, and it was used for shading your answers in exam.

You prepared yourself mentally before going here, yet you really cannot run away for too long.

You thought that messaging Mona would atleast ease your nerves, but it's no use, you're still overwhelmed. Being inside an art studio where you're surrounded by different types and brands of mediums is surely taking a toll on your mind.

You're tempted to pick up something, whatever it is, anything could be used to create strokes and form a shape.

But you can't. The materials not being yours is one thing, but the fact that it might cause you to actually give up on art. Because yes, you still have hope, you are still wishing for that talent to magically come back to you, just not yet.

You remember the times of your frustration. A blank paper awaits in front of you to be filled with yet another masterpiece. With a flick of your wrist, you guided your pencil to leave an ink behind. You did it a few more times, but it's not turning out good.

Erase, draw, erase and draw.

The lines ain't making sense, the paper is almost ripped due to the continuous erasing. You're beginning to lose your patience, the image in your head is turning blurry. The more you try to correct the mistake, the worse they get. It is the only thing you're capable of doing, so you have to finish it. You cannot fail.

Silly you thought it was just an artblock, and you told yourself that you cannot have that now. You have to fight it. You have to create something. You did not allow yourself to rest until you manage to draw something pretty.

You tried, tried and tried again and again. Until your hand stopped moving and your creativity dried up.

You remember how your wrists, fingers, and inside your head feels like there's something so itchy internally that you cannot soothe.

"What are you doing?"

You were surprised that you almost let out a gasp. You looked over to the door to see Scaramouche looking at you with a raised eyebrow. "I suggest not to steal anything, I have all of my materials memorized."

The gasp now left your mouth. "Are you accusing me of thievery?!"

He simply shrugged, and when he put down something that's when you noticed he's holding a tray, with food in it.

"Wow, I didn't expect you're the type to give food to your guests."

"Yeah, right? Shocking. Especially to you? I'm too kind." He rolled his eyes at you. "Quick. Eat now so we can start."

"Oh wait, you mean... you'll paint me eating?"

"You just confirmed my assumption of you. You're pretty stupid." He remained indifferent while you glare at him. "I told you I'm too kind, didn't I? I'm letting you eat before making you stay still."

'Oh yes, of course of course...' you muttered irritably under your breath as you walked towards the table where he placed the tray. He managed to hear them, even heard his name being cursed—a predictable response from you, really.

Nonetheless, you're thankful. Although you aren't on good terms(but not really much on bad terms either) with each other, he still prepared something for you. He can choose not to, but he did. Not to mention, you are indeed hungry right now.

You look at the plate and it's a... jelly? Transparent too, but you can't make out what's inside. The most dominant color is light brown, and theres some orange, yellow, white— maybe it's a gelatin cake? You've only seen those in videos, where they decorate floral designs and whatnots inside the gelatin. This jelly is not as pretty, though.

You took the spoon he prepared and sliced a small piece, and the texture inside interests you. The spoon glides easily unto it yet at the middle part it gets a little hard— and inside the brown part is white. You took a closer look by bringing the spoon close to your face, the closeness made the scent of it go through your nostrils.

By the look of it, it seems like a— wait... is that...

"Is this meat??? Inside a jelly?!" You were appalled. Is this a joke? Is this a prank? Your eyes are wide open as you looked at him, stunned.

"What?" He clicked his tongue as he shook his head. "That's a traditional snezhnayan dish, kholodets. How rude of you to react that way."

Wait, what? "Oh." You calm yourself. Right, you're in a different country, their cuisine is different from your homeland. Now you feel bad from reacting like that, it's no different from his earlier statements about blind people, you think.

Not wanting to stoop down his level, you fixed your composure and sat straight. "Right, sorry." you say with seemingly matured tone, putting the spoon down.

"I even chose carefully what to serve you, especially after I heard from Caps that you're a picky eater." He said, shaking his head and clicking his tongue again repeatedly. He looked so disappointed, too.

You may dislike him, that's true, but you're a person with morals. You don't like upsetting people unless you're purposely doing so.

So took the spoon again in your hand, the little piece still in the scoop, then you brought it into your mouth.

Your eyebrows contort in disgust as you taste the unfamiliar food. Boiled meat with meaty jelly, complex seasoning and unusual flavor— you don't understand. The jelly... is it supposed to be the broth? It doesn't go well, in your opinion. Disturbing, for you.

Amidst your evaluation of the taste, your ears caught on a quiet chuckle.

You turn your head, only to see Scaramouche looking down at you as if belittling you.

"So it's true," he starts, "for foreigners, kholodets is unappetizing at first glance. I really thought you wouldn't give it a taste, but you did. How surprising."

The face you make is that of someone who just got betrayed. He doesn't even look like a snezhnayan himself! You forced to swallow the bits in your mouth, "You..!"

The remaining chance for your relation with him to be amended is completely gone now. How dare he? You regret playing nice with him. Men are truly atrocious beings. How can Capitano even tolerate this guy?

You're utterly shock. And how did the fucker react now? Giggling, like an ass. He looks too amused, in fact.

While he's in a laughing state, you took the time to drink water.

"Glad to give you fun. Didn't know you're so childish."

He shrugged, unaffected. "You won't eat anymore?"

His sarcastic smile is annoying you. You really shouldn't had agreed to this. "It was so delicious Im already full at first bite. Thank you very much."

You watch him take a round brush and sit sit on the stool with the canvas im front of him. He looked at you, "Come on." he said, pointing at the other stool.

You rolled your eyes before obeying. "Pose?"

"Arms up."

"Fuck you."

He chuckled again and you're beginning to dislike the sound of it. "Try Mona Lisa's."

You crossed your legs elegantly and straighten your back. You faced left a little, mimicked her hands in your memories, and... should you smile too?

"Is Da Vinci your fave artist?"

...Fuck.

You want to slap your mouth at this very moment. That was out of instinct, you guess. You like asking artists you meet their favorite historical artist— well, before.

No, it's alright. Knowing Da Vinci is a basic knowledge, even non-artists knows that. You shouldn't think too much.

"What if I say it's Picasso?"

You don't know how to react to his answer. Would it be obvious that you're an (ex) artist if you react as if you know?

You remember how confused Itto was when he learned that not many artists like Picasso. He's dumb though... but still!

Should you act confused too? Should you act knowledgeable?

You glanced at his artworks on the wall with your peripheral vision, who could he be inspired of? However, when you looked at him again, he's paying attention to his canvas.

Maybe he doesn't care. Good, good. Stay that way.

Wait... His hand is moving. He started now, yet he hasn't told you to smile yet, should your expression remain fierce?

Okay, now you're nervous again. Does your face look asymmetrical? Can he see the texture of your face at this distance? The corner of your eyes do not have gound, right? You want to lick your lips but you're not sure if you should move. It's not chapped, right? You only applied light make up, it's not too much, right?

"Relax." You heard him say. It felt like you were allowed to breathe again.

Right, right. Relax. This is another one of your reasons why tou dislike being a muse, you feel awkward! What are you so nervous of, anyway? This man, asshole one at that?

He doesn't deserve your kindness anyway. You may make funny faces to tick him off, you couldn't care less.

Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. You don't know how much time passed but you guess the painting is going smoothly. It doesn't seem like he's struggling nor does he look stressed.

But what matter is... how long is this going to take?!

You, personally, it takes so much time to finish a painting. Hell— you don't think you were able to finish a piece in just one day.

"Can't you just take a picture of me?"

Not being able to move too much is annoying for most people, you're not an exception. You're an impatient person, too. And you're still on a stool, too!

One word, tiring.

"That defeats the purpose."

Your eyes narrowed and your lips curled inwards. "Everything has evolved, we're in modern world."

"Besyashchaya devushka." You didn't understand what he muttered under his breath. "Shut up and stay still, fix your expression."

There's no point in convincing him, you realize.

Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Being in this room is surely annoying. The emotions you've been trying to reject ever since you step foot in here is resurfacing much stronger now. Especially now that you have nothing to distract yourself and there's an artist painting in front of you.

You miss it— holding a brush, the feeling of relaxation when the process is going well, the challenge of drawing the reference...

You miss all of it. You want to paint again.

"Fix your expression."

You were taken aback of his words. He noticed the slightest change, he must be really paying attention. Artists are truly amazing, aren't they?

Scaramouche. That's his name, right?

He's rich, he can buy as many materials a he like. Based on this studio; he can sculpt, paint, draw with charcoals, color with different types of mediums.

This could've been your life too if you didn't stop drawing, you think. But no. He's much more capable and skillful.

Come to think of it, you never even hang your works on the walls of your house. You don't even have many finished artworks, and the finished ones aren't that beautiful.

You heard him click his tongue. "I told you to fix your expression, don't I? If you're eager for this to be done as soon as possible, then do as I say."

"When did you began to draw?"

"None of your business." He glared at you, "Look, if you have time to kill, waste is somewhere else. Don't start a chitchat with me, I don't have all day."

Wow. Now he's the one annoyed, when he was the one who wasted time earlier by making you eat something he know you wouldn't like? He's funny.

Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. After a while, it was done. You checked the time and it has only been two hours and a couple of minutes that passed ever since he started.

That was fast.

"Can I see it?" When he nodded, you immediately approached the painting.

Honestly, you were expecting it to be a little messy in style with some defined parts since it was just done in two hours. But the painting is a perfect copy of you, as if he took a picture of you. The only blurred part is the background, and your entire image is refined. He caught everything in perfect precision.

Is this even humanly possible? Two hours is too short for this.

You take back what you thought earlier. This could've been your life too? You wanted to laugh at yourself. Compared to him, your level is way too low— even if it's the you from before.

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taglist. @veekoko @aeongiies @featuredtofu @kodzusmiles @magica-ren @feiherp @beriiov @hiraethhv @kleej @eutopiastar @keiiqq @bananasquash @kuniisvt @tamikahoshiko @scaraenthusiast1 @sketcheeee @xxrougefangxx @luciledreamz @icomeheretolaughnottofeel @sereniteav @lily-lmao @h3xi2g0n3 (i cant tag those in bold)

note. i searched the worst rated russian food and interviewed some russians for this okay, don't come at me (for this ill share something in my country that foreigns would find disgusting— a cup of coffee poured in rice!)

[isa-ghost]

do u have death family headcanons....

NO FUCKING MAMES I HAD 14 OUT OF 15 DONE FOR THIS ASK AND THEN TUMBLR YEETED THEM. I'M GONNA SCREAM AND COMMIT MURDER, IDR THEM ALL. FUCK.

ANYWAY YOU BET YOUR GAY ASS I HAVE DEATH FAMILY HCS.

qPhil headcanons masterlist

Family walks, Chayanne on Phil's shoulders and Lullah on Missa's. Or they do that thing where there's one kid between them and they take either hand and lift/swing them together.

Family gardening. Missa using his reaper scythe to harvest things, Chayanne and Lullah replanting seeds, Phil going full crow brain and hoarding all the harvested crops in crates.

The kids are Phil & Missa's biggest wingmen. Lullah will lead them somewhere and then be like "Oh. Oh nooo, oh noooo my asthmaaaa" and teleport away. And then suddenly there's Chayanne with a table for 2 and an entire kitchen setup with a dinner in progress.

They'll plot "relaxation" days for Phil and Missa too. It's a toss-up if either of them actually relax though. Missa's better at it than Phil at least.

No one cheered harder about the prison kisses than Chayanne and Lullah. They wish their dads a very "do it again. Often."

Phil and Missa are constantly conspiring together about cool things to do with/for the kids. Even when they're away from each other they'll write books leaving the other a message like "shhh don't tell the kids :)"

They'll also plan days Just for one of the kids where whatever the family does is centered around their interests. It's nice for them, because although they have mutual interests and are more than willing to do whatever the other wants, they still have unique interests and it can naturally get tiring being a package deal. Especially when so many of the other eggs are only children and get doted on by their parents with undivided attention

They get separation sadness a lot bc reaper duties and Phil's extremely deep sleep/vivid dreams keep them apart so often, but their little system of leaving gifts (Missa his paintings, Phil misc trinkets) for each other works. It's not as good as a hug or quality time though :(

Everyone's passing each other's accents to one another. Missa finds himself slipping up saying "bewk" (book) or some shit, meanwhile Phil keeps saying stuff with a Spanish accent because of Missa and Lullah and everyone keeps adopting German words into their vocabulary because of Chayanne.

Phil and Missa are both good at pvp, they love sparring with each other and teaching the kids. Chayanne is way more into it than Lullah, but Lullah loves to learn regardless, and she loves hearing Phil infodump about strategy and timing and whatnot.

Missa and the kids will team up and get Phil on one of his Philzaing rants. They'll be like "what do you MEAN you couldn't physically carry all three of us on a flight? :(" and there Phil goes, raving about how weight matters with flying and safety and blah blah blah. And he KNOWS they're getting a rise out of him most of the time. Yet he falls for it every time.

One day,, one day we'll get a 4/4 family build project,,, They want to do it do bad,, So far it's just been 3/4 make it and the 4th is delighted to be shown it by the kids whenever they're around again. (August 2024 Edit: KILLS MYSELF)

Phil and the kids have started half-purposely obtaining as many birds as they have bc it's funny to see Missa come back from reaper duties to MORE birds that he just has to accept live there now.

The kids love Phil's crow murder to death (pun intended) and are used to interacting with them. Missa not so much. Which has made for countless funny moments. He's still bewildered that they're so attuned to throwing something shiny at him and then aggressively cawing. He doesn't understand them like Phil can.

Something something the four of them having a seance together where Lullah taps into her medium abilities to communicate with Kristin bc Goddess of Death is part of the Death Family. She loves to tease Missa (usually about Phil) and she ADORES the kids.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Tumblr isn't letting me find again @fictionadventurer's and my own posts on epistolary novels, but I have been thinking about it again, because I fell down a Goodreads review rabbit hall and I have thoughts again.

So many people dislike the style, and honestly, I don't blame them, because it's so often done... not well. It is in some aspects, a deceptively easy one, and in others, deceptively hard. And because I'm trying to write a novel with this format myself, I have been thinking about what makes or breaks an epistolary novel.

I talked yesterday about TGLPPS, because it is an interesting case to analyze. I have thought many times about it, and cannot think of a single non-merely-aesthetic reason for it to be told in an epistolary style. A lot of it depends on -British- people who have survived some terrible war conditions willingly opening up to a stranger about their experiences, and that's made... even more difficult if the medium is letters? typically writers will appeal to tropes like making the reserved character drunk, or have them share an extreme experience in isolation with the stranger to create sudden intimacy. None of this is possible in writing; if anything, one is much more self-conscious about the things one writes than the things one says; verba volant, scripta manent.

It seems to me the story would have flowed much more naturally if Juliet had been stranded on Guernsey for some reason -like the first author herself!- suddenly Dawsey commenting that he got a book from her library makes so much more sense! Yes, certainly, if you met a stranger out there, and they introduce themselves and you realize you have a book that once belonged to them, you would tell them so! And it is in this way that the epistolary format does violence to a story that would otherwise sound much less contrived.

Another problem is the large cast of characters and multiple settings. For all I complain about Dracula, Stoker manages this pretty well (of course he has the model of The Woman in White, but TWiW has fewer povs), at least on the first half, because structurally the storylines of the characters are converging, and that does a lot to guide the reader in the understanding of the character's relationships. TGLPPS's relationship structure is more of a multidirectional flow chart, and that becomes confusing really fast.

Another novel I read reviews for recently is one set in WWI, composed of back and forth letters between two lovers torn apart by war, and one common complaint was... that the climactic scenes, the times they meet, etc all happen... off-camera. It is a fair complaint, but also one I cannot really blame the author for, because that's what usually happens with real life compilations of letters of that kind. Sure, usually the editor/compiler will fill in the blanks sometimes and add an epilogue of sorts explaining what happened afterwards, and that is possible if you are writing it fictionally too, but some may think it spoils the effect of immediacy and whatnot, which, fair too.

But it makes me think of how aware Jean Webster was of these difficulties, and how deftly she managed them in both Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Both novels have aged badly in terms of content and message, but they are very interesting stylistically.

DLL is a bildungsroman with a dash of romance; through Judy's letters to daddy long-legs we can see how she grows as a person, gaining independence intellectually and economically, and as a writer, as her grammar and vocabulary change and grow. Between making Judy an orphan who hates the orphanage where she has lived her whole life, and one where she lived past the usual age of being thrown into the world, Webster does away with the need for letters between Judy and her friends and family: all her friends and family are her college roommates and her benefactor, who is the person she writes to. The benefactor scheme also makes it so that she doesn't have to write dll's replies, which in turns makes it much more natural and acceptable for the reader when Judy writes him the ending's love letter describing the feelings and impressions of their finally meeting in person and in truth; Judy has become a writer, and she is so used to write to him as another person all the time, that it just makes sense for her to write to him one more letter at the point where her benefactor and her lover become one and the same person. She has written a novel where the core is the correspondence between lovers AND managed to include as well all the moments of their meetings that we would otherwise miss.

Dear Enemy is a similar, but longer and more ambitious story. Instead of one relationship-connection (Judy and Daddy's), we have Sallie as a nod of connections: she's Judy's friend, Jarvis' "employee", the boss of several characters, has a tense colleague-boss relationship with the visiting doctor, a boyfriend of sorts in Washington, and a family we have met before. It is, in that way, a similar setup to TGLPPS: a urban girl of means becomes a fish out of water in a different setting till she ends up assimilating to it, and settling definitely through marriage. But Webster does a few things differently to make it click.

For starters, it is clear to her that this is the story of Sallie's maturation -I have sometimes talked of Dear Enemy as a novel where a Mary Crawford-like character undergoes a transformation arc. The happenings and stories she meets and tells Judy about along the way serve this arc, besides standing on their own as case studies to illustrate the problems, ideology and solutions proposed to the secondary themes of the story (education and social reform). I feel like TGLPPS is much more interested in Guernsey's survival through the war, in which case Juliet's story is already a frame, which, again, makes the epistolary format cumbersome rather than complementary.

Dear Enemy adds more correspondents, but it is very austere/economical with them, and narrows the letters we see to only those Sallie sends. YMMV regarding if it was too much cutting or not, but the undeniable effect is structural soundness; you are never confused by what is happening or who is writing to whom. We can guess the Honorable Cyrus Wykoff probably wrote some indignant letters to Jervis, and those would be funny to read, but... would they be worth the break in the flow of the narrative? I don't think so. To this effect, just having Sallie write a line to the effect of "I expect at this point you have at hand an irate letter from the Hon. Cyrus" is enough to paint a picture for the reader. Perhaps a letter or two from Dr. MacRae would have helped develop his character more -definitely a first read of the story obscures how much misdirection there is in Sallie's narration to Judy, which in turns tends to create an impression of suddenness to the closing letter that doesn't come across well to the reader.

The choice of Sallie mainly writing to Judy is, IMO, a really good one too. It not only establishes a connection with DLL, but it also allows for the intimacy that makes disclosure believable (something TGLPPS struggles with, as I mentioned above). When you add a few letters to the doctor and Gordon and Jervis, you also get a better perspective of Sallie's personality, how she deals not only with a friend, but with acquaintances, romantic partners and coworkers.

From all this it is pretty evident that for Webster the main function of epistolarity as format is aiding in showing psychological and moral development. But that's not the only thing the format can be really good for: perspective is another, and Austen uses it to great effect in both Lady Susan and Lesley Castle.

Both stories deal with mainly static characters, but who have very strong perspectives of the same situation, and it is this singularity of setting and story that anchors the narrative to avoid confusion, while the variety of perspective brings interest. In Lady Susan, we are dealing mainly with the marrying off of Frederica and seduction of Mrs. Vernon's brother, Reginald. There where Lady Susan paints Frederica as an undisciplined, irrational and ungrateful daughter, her sister in law, Mrs. Vernon, paints her as a sweet girl and a victim of her mother's ruthlessness and lack of love. Both agree that Reginald is being seduced, but, of course, with opposite goals: Lady Susan wants him to succumb, Mrs. Vernon, to escape, and this is a delicious struggle for the reader to follow!*

Lesley Castle being an earlier effort, and unfinished, does show some of the defects I have mentioned before (mainly, the relative confusion of having several correspondents in separate storylines), but illustrates well this same perspective effect: Margaret writes to Charlotte about the new Lady Lesley, and the new Lady Lesley writes to Charlotte about about Margaret and her sister... and in these contrasts lies the main interest of the narrative.

Some conclusions to these musings, then:

Not every story is suited to the epistolary format.

The epistolary format seems to work the best when it is used for either A) showcase psychological and moral development B) to play with perspective on people and/or events.

One of the main difficulties of the format is finding a narrative element to anchor and structure the letters around.

It must have a core couple of correspondents, or at most, two. More than that will make it confusing (unless, perhaps, the story is very short and about a single event or two).

A delicate balance must be found so that the secondary correspondence doesn't cut the flow of the main one, and if possible it must feed into it.

*It is interesting how Love and Friendship, being such a delightful -and I sustain one of the best ever- Austen adaptation, is by force of the perspective switch towards a more impersonal third person, more about a love story between Frederica and Reginald than a struggle between Lady Susan and Mrs. Vernon. Which isn't dissimilar to how adaptations of DLL end up being more about the romance between the leads than Judy's coming of age in college; tropes aside, I feel like if the epistolary format is well embedded in the story, it's going to be nearly impossible to reproduce the effect in adaptation.

[tanadrin]

@snazzyjazzsounds

it’s weird how for much of human history “democracy” was just like. technologically unfeasible within a medium sized state.

on the one hand i’m a big fan of, like, material conditions as an explanatory factor for social and political structures. on the other, i’m wary of letting the dicks of history off for their dickishness, as if it was impossible to know or nobody ever suggested that war and slavery and exploitation were bad, because, y’know, they did.

i think the paucity of something we might call democracies in the ancient world is due to several factors:

1) states originating as wealth-extraction machines. the earliest states seem to have approximately in common the monopolization of a valuable resource, as in hydraulic despotism, and a degree of keeping people in place by force, so elites can glean the excess of farmers and live without having to do food production themselves. sometimes this supports things people consider to be socially valuable activities, like the upkeep of temples, and sometimes not. but if you want to live in an egalitarian society, even one with villages and farming and whatnot, your best option is the extremely vast territory outside the control of organized states, which at least back in the beginning of Sumerian civilization is, like, most of the Earth. States compete over resources and optimize for better resource extraction, and more sophisticated hierarchies and ideologies that enable them to control larger territories, but the goal of “roughly egalitarian society without a ton of coercion” is exclusive with the goal of “live within the boundaries of a state.”

and i think a lot of ancient commentators noticed this; this is why the Tao Te Ching seems so down on the whole idea of statecraft to begin with, and why it paints the picture of an ideal society being one where the people of one state can hear the dogs barking in the next state over, but have never met those people face to face in their lives. because it was written in a period of fierce inter-state competition, and it did not escape the authors’ notice that states were mostly a bad deal for the people who lived under them.

(as we might also notice of the Roman Republic and Ancient Greece, even “democratic” forms of government were ways of brokering power-sharing between elites; most people living in ancient democracies had no ability to participate in their political systems.)

2) infrastructure is expensive, communication is hard. as you note, how the fuck do you coordinate a medium-sized democracy when it takes days to get a message from one end of your state to the other? on the one hand, yes, very big states did exist in this period, like persia. as did states with comparatively well developed apparatuses, like rome. but a lot of how big states operated historically was delegating to local elites--you tax the big men in the province you just conquered, and trust them to figure out how to get the most money out of their peasants. our modern idea of democracy is in many ways predicated on our modern idea of a state, which is somewhat different an animal than an axial-age kingdom!

and a big part of why this is so difficult i feel like has to be linked to the small size of towns, which is linked to the fact that most of the population had to be farming, because the amount of extractable surplus from the rural population was small.

for centuries--longer than the industrial revolution itself, maybe since the late middle ages--my sense is that the yield per farmer has been gradually increasing, which in addition to the population growth enabled since the industrial revolution itself has really vastly increased the amount of time we can spend on things other than producing food. and i suspect that that means states have a lot bigger pool of manpower available to them to assist in their administration, and gives them the capacity to do things like be run for the benefit of a larger subset of their population--and in turn for the population to demand that they be run that way.

3) i suspect lots of ancient societies were run in ways we would approve of, i.e., comparatively egalitarian, not terribly exploitative. i also suspect these societies didn’t look much like (their neighboring) states. you’re not building pyramids for the pharoah if you don’t have pharoahs after all. your court officials are not writing histories of your dynasty if you have no court and no dynasts. so these societies, along with very many others, leave less of a historical impression.

but i don’t want to overly romanticize the past; lots of societies that left no lasting historical record also probably sucked ass. slavery is observed even among hunter gatherers. humans can be real dicks, and we have, as terry pratchett noted, a really unfortunate tendency to bend at the knees.

[mod-jazzy]

The crowd goes mild ! ! 🍅 🍅 🍅

> Under cut talk<

So medium update on things, for anyone who glances at this post.

They’ve been mostly settled for now.

Reports filed n whatnot. We good.

I shan’t get too into it here cuz to be blunt, not something I entirely wanna discuss publicly further

But it’s, settled down for now.

I’ll be around again i guess (I know booo get off the stage tomato tomato tomato)

I’ll be doing things mildly different for a bit just as a precaution but.

It was settled. We are fine and safe. I exist on this platform once more 👍

Hope everyone has been well, happy to be able to like, view y’all’s work again.

So if I like spam stuff, apologies I’ll be trying to catch up when I am able/comfortable.

AND a thank you to everyone who left kind messages for me.

Checked up on my partner and I

Etc etc

I appreciate it greatly.

I don’t deserve kindness of that level but some of y’all still went above and beyond for us, so thank you ♥️

[weedstoner]

interestingly I'm one of the few people in my family who doesn't believe in ghosts, my dad's sister is very new age spiritual and she's had many "encounters" and apparently can feel people are going to die before it happens and whatnot. so my mom and sister both believe in ghosts too. and I think the whole ghost thing is so interesting when approached logically. like let's assume every single human who dies will leave behind a spirit of some kind. how long does that spirit stick around? are there homo habilis spirits hanging around with WW1 era fighter pilots? is the spirit stuck in one place? if so, how is that place decided? is it the place they spent the most time or the place where they died? do they know they're dead or are they just oblivious and trying to live their normal lives? if not all people leave behind a spirit when they die, why? are there factors that would increase someone's probability of becoming a ghost when they die? are all ghosts capable of interacting with the material plane (eg. turning lights on and off, giving people sensations of coldness, moving objects, etc) or does it take some amount of "power"? what factors affect how much "power" a ghost would have after death? why are some ghosts more "powerful" than others? why can some ghosts appear visually to people while others can't? why are they limited to such random acts of interaction? why could a ghost flip a lightswitch or move a chair across a room but not pick up a pen and write a message on a piece of paper? you'd think if these were quantifiable phenomena someone would be asking these questions. mostly I just get told "we don't know! it's spooky and mysterious, conveniently so, so that we can sell you psychic medium services to decipher the cryptic ghost messages"

[cimmerian-chaos]

A rant on stupid people's ideas about poverty:

We as a society really need to stop shaming people on benefits. "B-but people on benefits are going out and buying steak, and they have a nice phone and things!" Since you probably don't even know how benefits work beyond "people are getting free food that I'm paying for" (along with all kinds of other things) here's the 2019 benefit amount state averages, courtesy of the USDA. The national average is $239 a month for two people btw. Just let that sink in a little.

But let's talk about that steak, because that's what's important, right? On Walmart's site, cheapest price I can find for a pair of steaks is $17.97. 10 lb bag of russet potatoes is $5.97, that's the best price per unit. And you can stretch that for another meal or two. $2.74 for a 32-oz thing of frozen broccoli. Two medium russet potatoes are about a pound. So you're looking at $24 for this one meal. So what if someone on benefits can get themselves a nice steak dinner? We're all having to try to streach the rest of our meals across the week. You're lucky if you can get together a balanced meal, because the rest of them are going to be unbalanced. And only getting one, maybe two filling meals a day, if that. If there's a food pantry, that'll usually help a bit, depending on where you live and whatnot.

But when you're poor, you do your damndest to not look like it. You sit and rationalize everything that you do with your money. It's not easy to stay within your means, even if you keep an eye out for things like plasma donations, things that people who have money seem to consider beneath them or not worth the hassle. You might try to tuck money away in case of an emergency, but it's rarely enough. The rise of people turning to strangers online isn't a sign of "everybody's looking for a handout these days." It's a cry for help because they're out of options. The system is antiquidated and broken, and yet rather than making something better for everyone, you feel you deserve everything since you've made yourself a diligent bootlicker for a company for 20 years. It doesn't matter if we have nothing because you think "that'll never be me, because I have a plan for my life."

About that iPhone, or whatever nice thing someone who's poor might have. When you need something, it's a fact that you get what you pay for. Case in point, I bought what has to be the 100th crappy $30 keyboard and mouse combo, and started to save up my money, because I was tired of having them die left and right for well over a decade. So when the craptastic one predictably died a few months later, I bought myself a mechanical keyboard. I thought for a while about what I needed. It'll hopefully be the last keyboard I'll ever have to get. And yet, I beat myself up over it long after the money is gone, just because I have it. I haven't set up my macros because I couldn't figure out the web based configurator that even @dragongirlcock struggled with. ADHD plus memory loss means that I'm doing it with zero experience in coding in general, nvm QMK. And yet, the part of my brain that comes from a lifetime of poverty says to me, "Why did you even get this? It's so expensive! You're not using all the features right now. If you're not using it for every single thing that it's good for, then you're not really appreciating it. If you hadn't done this, then you'd have money for this other thing. You should be 'practical' (aka only spending money on adulting related things) "

All of this, all of these messages that are passed from society to poor people, who teach it to their kids, who often also are in poverty and with people becoming poorer all the time, we need to stop perpetuating the message that you only deserve nice things if you're middle class. Everyone deserves nice things that they enjoy.

[omniliquid]

I would hope that anyone looking at any literary medium from such a standpoint would have that in mind as they use said medium to push their own interpretation onto it. Or, at least, I can only speak for myself, but I am currently working on an analysis of Final Fantasy X and while I am going to focus on particular themes I see within it, I also am constantly questioning myself as to what is authorial intent vs what is my own biases being thrown onto the work, and I don't think I'm qualified to make that distinction, but I know 100% I am reading more into the work than the author(s) intended. And I also know that even if my analysis is somehow 1000% in lockstep with the authors, it doesn't explain half of the plot, let alone the backstory stuff and lore and whatnot.

But that's not the point. I am (perhaps selfishly) using a work to make my (pro-anarchism, far-left, absurdist-activist) propaganda appeal to a broader base of people, and I am hopeful that the author(s)have a similar intent to the message they are intending to send with the media itself.

Because whether the author(s) like it or are aware of it, their media is sending messages, and that should not be lost on them (and I'm sure for most it isn't). I suppose you could say we're all playing with dolls, but we're playing by different rules and the important thing is that we acknowledge this. I can't speak for anyone else, but I am wildly aware that the rules for writing and the rules for interpreting are wildly different.

So obviously, the most obnoxious and useless sort of science fiction criticism is provided by angry dumb guys screaming into microphones about things being “woke”; but I also get annoyed by the people who insist on applying a sort of “roman-á-clé” reading, where everything in the story is merely a disguised stand-in for some real-world human political issue. Like, yes, obviously, sf is used for social and political commentary a lot of the time; but it’s *also* used to just kind of play around on the frontiers of possibility. And it frankly seems kind of demeaning to the genre to pretend that its alien, its bizarre, and its inhuman features are necessarily just stand-ins for some mundane, real-world concept. Like, yes, clearly The War of the Worlds is about colonialism; but it’s also about alien life; it’s also about evolution and ecology; and it’s also about “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if THIS happened!?” And all of these are irreducible from the genre. Is your robot autistic? Well, maybe you can read it that way. Maybe it’s a sincere attempt to imagine a nonhuman mechanical intelligence. Maybe it’s both. Sometimes, you write a story strictly for “Wouldn’t it be fucked-up if…” purposes and it ends up shedding a whole new light on the human condition; in fact, I think that, if you’re taking your concept seriously, it should do this by default. But you have to take the bizarre on its own terms or you might as well be reading realism.

[maybe-i-will-fandom]

Would it be legal if I made transcribed versions of comic books and posted them on Ao3? Like taking the dialogue word for word but describing the panels and using page breaks and pacing and whatnot in an attempt to simulate the panel layout.

I read the entire Ao3 TOS and OTW FAQ. But I'm wondering if to a legal body this would be enough of a transformation to count as "adding something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the source with new expression, meaning, or message)"

I think it would be a completely new expression (text-only as opposed to comics being a primarily visual medium). But I am not sure if a lawyer would agree.

[text-chemistry-pdf]

Text Chemistry Texts Examples (Created By Amy North)

A short while ago, my dating life seemed non-existent. It was a terrible phase. The guys that were showing interest weren’t exciting enough and the guy I had a crush on didn’t seem to be into me at all. I could have let things be and regret it years down the line or take control. I chose the latter. After looking for answers on almost all kinds of dating websites, forums, social media, and whatnot, my days of search bore fruit. Specifically, you can know how to capture your soon-to-be lover’s attention, develop the “chemistry” with him through emotional and powerful words, and make him obsessed and passionate about you. Text Chemistry, by best-selling author and relationship coach Amy North, teaches women how to keep men interested in them via text messages. A text message has become extremely common for men and women to communicate with each other when flirting. But if you fail to manage how you texting with your partner, it could seriously damage your relationship. One of the beautiful thing about text messages is that they can be highly private and intimate. As a medium, you can practically say anything you want. We agree that texting is an ideal way to boost emotion and intimacy in a relationship. Overall, this course’s objective is to help you add spice in your love life and get that romance scale to go up more than just a notch!

Text Chemistry is founded on the initial research that Amy North conducted while studying psychology at university, which she then refined through her experience as a dating coach observing how couples communicated through texting. The curriculum does cover a lot of male psychology and how to use it to your advantage. The Zeigarnik Effect states that when things are left unresolved, the human mind is more likely to remember/think about it, this course will focus on how to use cliffhangers, incomplete information, and curiosity to capture someone’s attention.  It works well in bringing singles and married people together and everyone else with a better communication mechanism. The online course Text Chemistry makes use of the concept of a “magic text.” Men become psychologically triggered by these texts, which makes them text back and carry on the discussion compulsively. You’ll discover well crafted text messages throughout the guide.For this training to be effective for you, there are a few critical requirements. Getting your preferred man’s undivided attention is the aim. You do this through psychological triggers, or what North refers to as “Attention Hooks.”This Attention Hook grabs the man’s attention and has him thinking about you. What I liked most was how practical it is. Amy doesn’t waste time reflecting on the modern dating world and the hardships it presents. We all know the game here. Instead, she dives in and starts offering up strategies to help you deal with any text message situation that comes your way. She addresses it from every angle, going through the dos and don’ts of text messages, exactly what you should be texting at each stage of your relationship and how to respond in almost any scenario. You are immediately thrown into a flurry of practical solutions that you can put into action straight away. 

Amy is an expert in male psychology and the text messages she reveals demonstrate this. I feel that Amy North has a great understanding of how men work, and she essentially wants to give women the right tools to tackle dating confidently. Given that we are all spending more time at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, texting is more crucial than ever. If you want to improve your texting skills, I believe Text Chemistry will be able to help you do so. Women who want to spark attraction with a guy they’ve recently met and be in a relationship with him It’s also a good fit for those who already have a partner but want to make sure their texting adds value and desirability to a relationship. In conclusion, if you're looking for a comprehensive guide to help you improve your texting skills and form meaningful connections with men, Text Chemistry is definitely worth considering. Women who have used the program have reported feeling more confident and in control when it comes to their dating lives. While it may not be a magic solution to all your dating woes, it can certainly help you to take control of your dating life and achieve the results you desire.

Click here to visit “Text Chemistry” Official Website

[jlemonster]

rant i hope nobody that knows me irl ever sees bc I'm trying my best to be nice but at heart im. a bitch

(hi this is future me after writing it all: it turned into a longass ramble, someday I'll make an essay about it xoxo)

context, im studying at an Visual Arts school to be a Professor.

so

i have this teacher, who's a gay balding fat man (listed here as all positive traits), that had the potential to be one of the best kind of people, and a immensely good reference point for me as a young queer, but terribly ruined his chance of having a great personality by being Such A Cunt- he's pedantic in a way that's extremely clear he's upper class? his connection to art is so, academic, sterile, rehearsed, unmoving.

his view of art sucks so much ass, his politics are lame as hell, he doesn't like me bc I'm too outwardly queer. I feel like that's where we differ.

He's a cis gay man and I'm a fag.

He's a contemporary artist, his work is up in museums, for the 2001 crisis he was in Spain, his husband owns a restaurant, his art costs him millions of Pesos to make. The mediocrity of an upper class privileged white man transcends barriers.

It feels as if he came to teach us, at our public, falling-apart school just so he could be Better? bc back in his social circles, of high-paid artists and museum curators, he's just, another artist. But here he can come and talk about being in chapels and museums, and getting private tours and whatnot. And still not get it.

We had a debate in class, which i accidentally started by asking him if he tought the things that little kids made were art. as in, finger painting, spontaneous scribbles and doodles and so on.

He said no. He then went on a hour long explanation about his perspective and i hated every second of it.

In his eyes, for something to be art, and somebody to be an artist, there has to be extensive studies. of the medium, of the message, of the materials, of their meaning and associations and history. and a longass etcétera

so i asked a bunch of questions, one of them being- if i sing to a baby while holding them, rocking them to sleep with a lullaby, am i not singing? isn't it music? well, not for him!

at my core, the structural belief that paints everything i ever feel, is the intrinsic, base perspective that Art is an extension of humanity. that it is inevitable, that it is a beautiful thing and simultaneously, the most mundane. you cannot have humanity without art, it will always be a consequence of Us.

I've always struggled to feel human, to connect with my peers under the label. but there is not a single thing that brings me so close to it as art- as the footprints of billions of no-longer beating hearts that needed to exteriorize that impulse. to me art is a necessity, it is a heritage, its culture, its a language, a constant part of our lives, the best thing we will ever have. its the medium in which we trust to connect with ourselves and others and transcend tongue, reach across it and feel-

i tear up with cave paintings, with the sheer humanity of reading about how we can discern somebody was being taught to paint. Inmensurable lifetimes ago, a kid was held up on a caretaker's shoulders to reach up the wall, and they left a little drawing by which they're remembered here, now.

across everything we've been, we've had this beautiful thing- and to hear a pedantic fuck categorize it with the most, eurocentristic language possible BOILED MY BLOOD SO MUCH STFU DUDE

I tried my autistic best to be respectful and have A Conversation, but ultimately i caved in and confessed in a murmur: "that's so sad". the idea that you'd look at a child's painting and think its not art. the idea that you have to be Good to be considered an artist while you sing, dance, perform, create.

he obviously didn't like that i said that, and took it personally.

the day after this, i learned this info that he, the snake, said to one of my friends the Ever So Old discourse of being One of the Good Gays, that doesn't have to Shove It into People's Faces. That he doesn't need to validate his identity in front of others (bullshit. you do nothing besides seeking a public to which profess how great of an artist you are). so i feel less bad for dunking on him so hard :] as i said to my class while we were complaining and gossiping about it: sad that the 12 years he spent in therapy trying to convince himself he was a good enough artist didn't leave any room for him to work on being a better person.

so yeah. im making the 7 pieces for next class all about me being a faggy lil tranny, and about the inherent nature of art and humanity as a symbiotic conversation. and present them while wearing a skirt n thigh highs- maybe get a facefull of make-up while im at it! idk the night's young and im full of queer and artistic rage

[pickceldigital]

What should your organization's internal communication strategy look like?

What is an internal communication plan?

The workplace we know today is different from what the earlier generations knew.

A few things have changed.

For starters, globalization has opened doors to overseas collaboration, making internal communication a borderless, proximity-defying affair.

Secondly, the pandemic has positioned the atypical working models of work-from-home, freelancing gigs, and hybrid hours as practical solutions.

A part of your team is working remotely; a few employees are even sitting in a different time zone, and you, as an HR manager or the communications officer, have to ensure seamless communication from the top-down to bottom-up and sideways.

You need to have an internal communication plan!

An internal communication plan helps coordinate the activities of every unit within a corporate structure. The larger the company, the greater the need for an effective communication action plan.

In modern internal comms, technology has a prominent role to play. Nowadays, several useful internal communication tools can facilitate team collaborations and top-down messaging and help bring transparency to communication.

Internal communication strategy vs. internal communication plan

The internal communication strategy is created with the objective of achieving a broader goal. For example, increasing the company’s gender diversity by 2%.

On the other hand, the internal communication plan is a more detailed, Tactical plan for short-term goals. For example, An internal communication plan within the above strategy will have goals like:

Finding out the current male-to-female ratio of employees

Conducting an internal survey to determine what percentage of female employees are interested in leadership roles.

Encouraging more female candidates to apply for leadership positions

Once the internal communication strategy is clear, the communications team can outline an internal communication plan.

Why do businesses need internal communication strategies?

If you could map all the internal communications with an organization, it would look as complex as the geographical map of a busy city. There are highways that allow long-distance delivery of packages. There are small alleys for quick movement between streets and houses.

So, within your organization, you can compare the critical messages (policy updates, events, etc.) as those cargo-delivered packages that journey over the highways. These messages have to be circulated across all the departments (often at national or multinational scale) and delivery needs to be ensured. Similarly, there can be instant communications like birthday wishes, daily team communications, and newsletters that will involve a constant flow of information.

The objective of a communication strategy is to prioritize, organize and streamline the flow of communication in the direction of the organization’s goals. An internal communication strategy may involve plans regarding:

Employee engagement

Employer branding

Employer-employee communication

Employee-employee communication, etc.

8 Examples of internal communication strategy

Your internal communication strategy will depend on your organization’s goals. However, the following examples can provide a rough blueprint of what to expect from a winning internal communication strategy.

1. Ditching emails for daily internal comms

This goes mainly for small to medium-sized organizations. You must have an agenda in your internal communication plan that discourages the use of emails for daily work-based transmissions and reporting.

Do you know why I insist on that?

Because every Tom, Dick, and Harry knows your official email addresses and sends you thousands of promotional, sales-y messages daily. Every app you sign up for sends notifications, verification emails, newsletters, and whatnot!

2. Incorporating infographics, videos & microlearning

If your internal comm materials are overflowing with words, you must change your approach. In this busy age, expecting employees to read prosaic messages is as good as asking them to keep financials noted on a physical ledger. Studies have shown that people retain 95% of video messages compared to only 10% of textual communications.

Infographics, images, videos, GIFs, slideshow presentations, and comic storyboarding are some interesting examples of visual communication that you can incorporate into your organization’s internal comm plan. Visual communication is also a fantastic tool in microlearning initiatives for employees.

3. Using digital signage

One of the key objectives of any internal communication strategy is optimizing internal communication within an organization. Optimizing internal communication means employees have information at their fingertips. Digital signage can be a handy tool for optimizing workplace communications.

The versatility of digital signage can be exploited for both cases: engaging by entertaining and engaging by informing. The digital screen in your office can show a wide range of content, such as:

Digital notices

Welcome messages to visitors and new employees

Employee wall of Fame

Meeting timetables

Conference room availability

Industry news and RSS feeds

Business intelligence and KPI dashboards

Sales and project management dashboard

Events live stream

Virtual meetings

General infotainments like live weather, AQI, traffic maps, digital clocks

Digital building directories and visitor management systems

Employer branding content like CSR videos, company mission and vision statements, messages from the CEO, etc.

For more, please click, Internal communication plan.

[elftwink]

i do agree with the writing advice “write for yourself” and i personally am always self-indulgent in my writing before i am anything else— idk how i’d write anything if i didn’t indulge myself, since that is what storytelling is. but i do wish we put more weight on our audience; not pleasing them (again, you won’t please everyone and that’s just a fact of life, within writing and without it), but just.... knowing they’re there. stories don’t— can’t— exist in a vacuum. they’re inherently connective, social things, the way we are inherently social, connected beings. a story doesn’t Exist until you tell it to someone, really. before that it’s an idea or a plan, a thought train idling at a station. a draft. it’s a secret, even, if you’ve put in the work and made a novel that you only show to yourself. it becomes a story when it’s shared. 

and i think some of the best stories are the ones that know this. that are acutely aware that what is being written also has to be read— that aren’t assuming that you personally will like it or even finish it, but that know that someone, somewhere, is hearing it. do you know when you read a story and it knows you’re there? that understands, and makes you understand —maybe with a joke, or a wink and a nod, or a call to action, or a moral, or a direct address if the medium allows for it— that fiction is and always has been a two way street? that you, the reader, the watcher, the recipient, the listener, do not take a passive role in the storytelling process. stories that leave room for you, that include you in them.

there’s something incredibly powerful about stories like that. i am heard, therefore i am. i think in a way, most stories are like that. most stories want to be heard. but there’s a specific kind that knows it’s being heard instead of just wanting it, and that’s really something.

anyway write your stories down and show them to people. they don’t have to be, and they probably shouldn’t be, FOR those people. but the fact that they’re there is something you should let into your works, cause there’s no point in telling stories at all if no one gets to listen to them. 

[ot3]

honestly as a person with a severe set of migraine triggers that means i am physically unable to play or watch the majority of 3D video games... i really don’t think ‘every game should have enough accessibility features that anyone could play it’ is quite the take people think it is. obviously i think that devs should be adding in as many accessibility features as they can. but i also think that with stuff like Videogames where the medium and the message are so deeply dependent on each other, saying “the gameplay needs to be x in order to best convey the experience this is intended to convey as a work of art” is completely legitimate.

like, it reminds me a lot of the era of this website when shitting on academia for being ‘inaccessible’ was the big thing, and, rather than focusing on the socioeconomic factors that systemically bar people from academia, the priority was mocking academic language. And yeah obviously a lot of academic texts are denser than they should be, but there really was a point in time in this website when a bunch of teens and twentysomethings were wholeheartedly convinced that if something couldn’t be read by the layman it was because the author was either elitist or incompetent. but some stuff is created for specific audiences.

i think the vast majority of video games DON’T fall into this category - off the top of my head, there are very very few video games i can think of that would lose artistic integrity if they were “”easier”” to beat. difficulty and artistic integrity are both highly subjective as well. i just think that despite it being an outlier it’s just something that’s really worth thinking of, especially if you’re advocating for video games as a Legitimate Art Form. Art as a whole need be accessible. not every individual work of art needs to be. Video games as a whole need to be accessible. not every individual game needs to be. etcetera etcetera and whatnot.