#people in youtube comments tend not to know how making videos work. a lot of them somehow believe they shoot these like the week before they

[littlekingbergara]

Original promo anon here. Yes I don't have detailed knowledge about advertising/promotion. My comment was just an amateurish assessment.

I myself wouldn't need promotion at all. I follow them on their socials additional to youtube and I'm involved in the fandom. So I wasn't thinking of myself when I messaged you. But I kinda have the feeling (and I don't have hard facts to prove this theory) that we aren't the main part of their viewers. We are just the ones that interact the most and therfore are visible. I assume most viewers only get their information from YouTube. And you already can see it in the comments. People comment that they can't wait to see the rest of the GF season/are confused because they thought it will premiere later this year/ asking for other shows (e.g PH). And they comment like this after watching the episode and they should know it is a one-off episode.

I guess in the end it doesn't matter how confused the other people are, as long as those people watch the shows.

I just wanted to share my thoughts. And it makes me a little bit sad that people perceive these thoughts as too excessive and unnecessary. I think (or at least I hope) it is not wrong to think about this (business related ) part of Watcher. 😣

Hope you all have a nice day/evening/night nonetheless.

oh no it's okay! i hope my response didn't make you feel like you were worrying excessively?? i didn't mean to make you feel bad i was just offering another perspective based on what i've noticed about how they've promoted shows specifically and exclusively on youtube in the past.

no yeah you're right that we who follow them on socials and participate in fandom absolutely aren't the majority of their viewers we're definitely a vocal minority (they have less than 500k followers on instagram and 250k on twitter compared to 2.6 million on youtube).

there are comments on Every video no matter what show is airing that are asking when ghost files (even unsolved) is coming back. before that they were asking when puppet history is coming back. that's why imo it's less confusing to post the trailer before (so on monday in this case) so the comments arent "you said puppet history is coming back what is this" or something like that. idk how to get into the mind of a youtube only viewer or a youtube commentor but that's probably how it would go.

it's totally fine and fun sometimes to think and talk about what the business side of watcher looks like. i hope you have a nice day! im sorry again that the way people including me responded made you feel bad! 🫶

[blind-sheep]

As someone who spend so much time on more lgbtq+ settings on the internet, I tend to forget how much the average joe is, by norm, very heteronormative, as is society.

Like, there was this short video on youtube showing the Falin's resurrection scene and all, and some peoples did some comments about it.

As someone who do ship falin × marcille, and compared to what we see around here, that's pretty mild stuff right?

But as I keep forgetting, some people get quite mad at the simplest suggestion that gay people may exist in their little show.

Tbf, the first comment may just not be into the ship and is finding reasonings to why it doesn't work on their eyes, but they're very defensive still.

The second comment however is at quite a point of hetero delusion. Falin was about to marry Toshiro? What? It was mentioned he proposed to her, not that she had accepted and was about to marry him! But, to some people, a man liking a woman is enough for them to be already together, no matter how she feels about it, bc it's "the norm" for the boy to get with the girl. Like, he likes her, and that's all that matters so they will totally get together at the end?

Sadly, that's one of the reasons I see Laios × Marcille as a boring ship sometimes. By all means, I see why some people ship it, there is some real reasoning behind it, but I just know the biggest reasoning for most people that ship them is just "he was a boy, she was a girl, do I need to say more?" Type of mindset.

This next one just makes me laugh, it HAS to be bait:

Like, Marcille NEVERS blush around Falin AND just blushes around Laios? Fella, I don't think we watched the same anime or read the same manga, even people that don't ship them can see that they are a little gay. Or can they? (Vsauce theme starts playing~)

About their age difference and how race works in Dungeon Meshi, that's quite the big topic, not sure I want to stray too much here (there's too much text here as it is).

And about that part that says "makes me think they're all very straight": if this comment is a joke or not, this bit says a lot. Most people see the whole world like that, everyone is straight till proven other wise, and you gotta prove a LOT in media for characters to be gay, or it doesn't count. To most people, being hetero is the norm, and seeing lgbtq+ ships is very hard for most bc of this.

No one is forcing anyone to ship anything here, but lots of people really do forget being gay is even possible sometimes, and get mad at us for shipping what reflect our realities (at least in our eyes). Especially in the anime community, where the simple threat that their "waifu" may not like dudes send some fellas into a fit of rage and homophobia.

And I know, the focus of Dungeon Meshi is not romance and never was, and we can't see the story only through these lenses, I agree with that. But people will ship anything in any show, and I just used it as an example to talk about this topic. It's something that comes often to my mind and I never had the chance to talk about it till now.

Here's a little Farcille gif as a treat for those that read all this rant of mine:

( so cuute~ )

[anemoiashifts]

mental health check-in for reality shifting.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚.

as we all know, reality shifting is generally neural thing but tends to be glorified & romanized by a select few due to people wanting to have a better situation or a more desirable life.

that in itself is totally fine but this post is created with the intent to make sure the community has a healthy relationship with shifting & if not possible solutions.

if mental health is left unchecked it can lead to destructive behaviors & can worsen preexisting mental health concerns. for me personally, that’s not what shifting is about. you can learn about yourself & grow without even shifting. the expansion of your perspective & becoming more empathetic to yourself is something i believe is extremely important.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚.

♡ how often do you think about shifting ?

while it’s fun to daydream & think about your desired reality — does it consume your life or take away from other tasks that need to get done in this reality? if you’re somebody who has maladaptive daydreaming disorder (like myself!) it can exacerbate the fantasy-like aspect of thinking about shifting.

if you’re someone whose mind wanders a lot do something productive. this could be finishing some homework that you’ve been putting off for a long time or rearranging your bedroom. stuff like partaking in hobbies while listening to youtube videos in the background may help too.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚.

♡ why are you shifting ?

is it because you’re searching for something bigger ? maybe you’re looking for friends ? while you probably aren’t going to be able to meet your favorite characters here, you can meet lots of other people & make new connections at anytime. if it’s in person or even if it’s in an online space , i bet there are lots of people in this comment section or any shifting video who would love to be your friend.

defining why you want to shift can do wonders for uncovering more about yourself. 90% of the things people want to shift for are & can be found here & you’re more then worthy of them. just because you want something like love or a sense of belonging doesn’t mean you have to travel the multiverse for it.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚.

♡ “i want to k!ll myself because i can’t shift.”

while i understand frustration, extremes that result in life altering & ending choices are never good and quite frankly, frightening for a creator to see in their comment sections. most sv!c!des are committed on impulse. we go through so many emotions on the daily & process so much information a day. taking a moment alone to think & break down thought process & long term effects your actions will have is a nice way to come back down to earth.

meditation is also a great tool to calm down. you can even use shifting guided meditations without the actual intention to shift. breath work has also been helpful to me.

i understand these suggestions aren’t long term fixes but if you’re someone who has echoed these words & truly meant it then i cannot recommend therapy & possible taking a break from shifting even more to focus on yourself right here where you are. this may not be the answer you’d like to hear but it’s the one that is possibly needed.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚.

♡ timing.

there is no specific time frame that you have to shift. both children & adults do hold the capability to shift. if someone tells you, you can’t shift because ___ or that you’ll age out of something its simply not true. things take time & it’s okay if your journey doesn’t look like everyone else’s. there’s no need to stress yourself out. try to enjoy the journey as well as being excited for the outcome. essentially, a large part of the shifting journey is meditation & affirmations which are both beneficial to your mental & physical self. try to sprinkle in some self love affirmations or general positive thoughts too. even if you need to take a step away from shifting & pick it up at a later date, i encourage you to do so if it’s stressing you out or you’re only focusing on shifting or neglecting your life / responsibilities here.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚.

♡ shadow & trauma work.

answering questions that are meant to make you think & deeply reflect are tools that hi light some issues you may not even realize you’ve had. i have a tumblr post here with some, but for tiktok, ill list some on the next side. these ones are specifically for shifting but i encourage you to venture out to discover some more personal ones to expand upon your answers to these.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚.

i should also mention, i’m not a therapist so take what i say as non-professional advice & mere suggestions & a starting point to truly expand what shifting has done for you, negatively & positivity. im a huge advocate for therapy & if you feel comfortable enough expand upon these conversations in sessions if you feel comfortable.

i understand my audience is varied in age but i do notice a lot of you are younger then myself. it’s hurts to see people who are so young stress themselves out this much over trying to shift. i really do care about you & want to see all of you happy — with or without shifting.

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚.

[mythicalartistx]

KH Japanese Translations Part 6

Part 5

Series where I discuss fantranslations and this time it's on Vanitas

Ever since seeing Vanitas backstory in the novels I became more interested in him, I already loved him as a character but the novels really increased that. So I'm going to look at some of the fantranslated kh3 scenes

Everyone knows how the translations can be off, now translations aren't perfect in general but its kinda odd when there are entirely new meanings or censored in the localization.

I'm glad I looked up translations for his death because it's so much more. It's more about freedom to choose and it's not even about darkness that much.

Sora: That face is—

Vanitas: I am Ventus' missing piece. You made up for the missing part of Ventus' heart. That's why my appearance came from you. I am made from you both, Ventus and Sora. We're brothers who make up for what the other lacks.

Sora: If you think that, why are you fighting us? We should be working together

Vanitas: It's my reason for being born. It is because I am darkness, that you both belong to the light, able to exist there. If that isn't 'working together' I don't know what is.

Sora: But I never—

Ventus: But I never asked for that.

Ventus: There's no need to divide which one is the light and which one is the darkness. I am me and you are you, just live freely the way we want.

Vanitas: Freedom? Ah, I am living freely... like this.

Ventus: Is living trapped in darkness freedom to you?

Vanitas: That's the way I chose to live

Ventus: I see

Sora: Is that really okay? Vanitas!

And it's just great, it's bittersweet. I like it a lot more. It shows that Vanitas decides to be trapped with darkness and is working with them so they could live and exist in the light. And it makes me wonder if he wasn't, would Sora and Ventus be unable to exist or live in the light. That's just something. All three of them affect the others. And these FT explains the appearance better and how they relate to the other.

I spent time looking at fan translations through various websites, people's comments, old posts, YouTube videos comments— and especially content relating to SR because those are the people who tend to care more.

Eng:

Sora: Your face!

Vanitas: I am the piece of Ventus that was taken away. And you're the piece Ventus needed to be whole again. So why shouldn't you and I look exactly the same? You define me Sora, the same way Ventus does. We are brothers who together, make a greater whole.

Sora: Then why don't you stand by our side instead with darkness?

Vanitas: Because I am darkness. And I do stand by your side. I'm the shadow that you cast. How much closer could I be?

Sora: But I didn't —

Ventus: But I didn't ask for this. To be sifted apart nice and neat. We should be free to choose. Not just light, not just darkness. We decide what we are.

Vanitas: But Ventus, I did decide who I am. You see?

Ventus: And what you are is darkness ?

Vanitas: What I am is darkness

Ventus: Okay

Sora: How is that okay? Vanitas?

And there's differences and it's honestly moreso the whole concept about freedom to choose is left out. The official translation focuses on darkness and him being darkness because that's what he is when it's honestly not just that. I feel like he's more than just darkness but that's my take. The JPN also explains how Vanitas appearance is better and the separation between Ven and Vanitas as well was stated better as well.

And I bring it up because I once was talking about how I thought the ships were odd because he calls them his brothers and someone mentioned that it was just an English translation thing, people can ship whatever they want I'm not here to stop that but does that mean the person say something incorrect?

Now I'm going through the monster's inc where Vanitas realizes where Ven is and he says this line.

JPN:

Vanitas: Ventus! So you were hiding in such a place all along, remnant of my heart.

ENG:

Vanitas: Ventus. What a strange place to slither off to... you insignificant speck

Now I want to point out how the phrasing in such a place is said as an insult. It is stated that somewhere like that is worthless as if Sora is worthless. Then he insults him by saying you are little of his heart. Like he isn't worth much. The changes here make sense and it kinda flows better. Like insignificant speck is an insult that clearly from the way the original statement was said.

Final Words:

As much as it would be interesting to have Roxas also there, it wouldn't really fit. The only relation he has to Vanitas is through Sora by looking the same as Ventus. Roxas is a great character but for that scene in particular it made sense that he wasn't present. Now it be cool if we got a reaction to seeing him in another scene.

Sora is the one that helped both Ven and Vanitas. He saved both of their hearts. Vanitas gained his form and appearance by Sora ability to connect with them. Sora saved Ven's heart from being destroyed and Vanitas—a being that was with Ven so long merged with his heart that when he was taken out it affected Ven. This is stated in re: mind, speaking of remind someone said something that I honestly think is interesting:

Post Notes:

I once heard that Vanitas referring to them as brothers was only a localization thing so I wanted to look into that, but I couldn't find anything through all the sources I used. I even listen to jpn audio and he still says kyōdai which means brother. Not sure why someone once said that

And I bring it up because It was about how I thought the ships were odd because he calls them his brothers and someone mentioned that it was just an English translation thing, and they aren't like that in the JPN version people can ship whatever they want I'm not here to stop that but it seems like they still do so why did that person say it?

Unless they're referring the the remind scene when Ven is like we're not brothers we're the same but Vanitas tells him you're naïve for believing that I've been with you for a long time and is another being entirely. But that's all the English version and I didn't really look at any translations for that scene... If anyone does know more about that scene....

Also Vanitas is my second favorite character now 😌

[shinesurge]

ALSO while we're on the topic of audiences and editing: i made some irl comic friends and they're both extremely Colorado Art School Kids, and my own storytelling education is "angry weird child trapped in appalachia making art out of necessity" so we run into a lot of fundamental differences in our approaches (WHICH is good and fine actually! i'm Learnin stuff). One of the biggest ones is oh my god, holy shit, creators have GOT to interact with audiences more.

One thing my Very Seriously Educated Comic Friend keeps wanting to help me with is that kc tends to be harder to parse because I don't hold the audience's hand, which y'all know is a thing I angst about a lot for various disorderly reasons. He's right! There are a lot of places I could improve in that regard. Mechanically. There's nothing for it as far as actual content goes; Kidd Commander deals with a lot of nuance and abstract concepts and there's not much to be done about that without compromising the story, which I personally won't do, so I've accepted it's better to lean into it rather than worry about appealing to a bad faith audience.

When I tell him this, that there's little sense in trying to dumb things down because there IS no point where that will work any better than it does now, we usually argue (like, the way that you argue about art over coffee). He thinks the goal here is much closer than it is, he's proposing a quick detour to the gas station instead of trying to land on the fucking moon lmao. It is. So SO clear that he (and most storytellers I talk to tbh) has only ever discussed storytelling with other educated artists and not the majority of actual comic readers/media consumers, who have never engaged with media analysis in their lives. Even when he's trying to discuss the theoretical Common Denominator Reader it sounds like this

When I quit interacting directly with The Webcomic Ecosystem for my own health I made the conscious decision to immerse myself into the reader side of things, specifically BECAUSE there are always going to be more Readers reading me than other writers, and I feel like that feedback is very valuable. I also want to understand another perspective that is different from mine! It's certainly got its pitfalls but there are a lot of positives that come from this and I do recommend it if you've got the stomach for it. I genuinely think one of the things that has improved my work and my relationship with it the most is spending a decade reading feedback from people who will never, ever, ever understand comics more complex than instagram pop psychology strips. Or relatives who don't understand how sequential pages work, or people who watch youtube Ending Explained videos, or readers who don't know what to do when a protagonist makes a bad decision. I ALSO went to school for storytelling, I was primed to have this exact problem and I did for a while. But being brought up isolated in a creative wasteland irl AND jumping directly from academic media analysis to the fucking webcomics reddit did a great job burning away a lot of that lmao. WE'RE the weird ones for writing papers about books, or caring to learn enough to create functional stories; this is a WEIRD WEIRD THING we are doing and it's important to know that so you can make informed decisions about your creative actions. Read the comments, be horrified, adjust expectations accordingly.

[kinardsevan]

this was actually a Send Me Asks list I posted back in June, but I'm bored and want to answer these anyway sooooo. enjoy.

🫓 What is your most popular fic? -this really depends on which metric we base it on. hits: empty bones. comments: empty bones. kudos: the saboteur (in terms of WIPs and not one shots, aneurysm fic is first) bookmarks: it's gonna be alright (piece by piece) [aka aneurysm fic] that all said, these two get just about equal attention (which is why I love them both equally)

🥘 What category do most of your fics fall under? 😂😂😂😂😂 emotional angst, hurt/comfort. my friends have a lot to say about it too 😂😂😂😂

🍲 When did you start writing and why? literally as a little kid, because my mom told me about her writing poetry as a little kid and gaining recognition for it. i thought that was cool. given the fact that I'm now a published poet and have had a group exhibition, I'd say my artistry is paying off.

🍱 Do you read your own fics? yes and no? I don't read all of them, but with stories like aneurysm fic and empty bones (and a little bit the devil doesn't bargain), I need to refer back to them for information. Plus, I tend to write shit I end up being really proud of, and I like to read those scenes back to myself.

🍛 Have any comments, tags or reactions to one of your fics every made you laugh or cry or both? make me laugh? all the time. @im-turnip and @girlwonder-writes always entertain me with their responses. I haven't really ever had one that's made me cry, but every time I've gotten a review on Empty Bones (or Lost That War in the PLL fandom) about the way people could relate... I screenshot and save those babies as memories that someone else understands it too. Makes me feel less alone and more understood.

🍜 Do you ever feel pressured to write? fuck yes. I thrive off of positive reinforcement, and at one point last summer I was posting EVERY. FUCKING. DAY. Waking up to those reviews drove me to write even more. Now that I'm back in school and have less time to write, it's harder to generate content, but I still crave that attention. But even beyond that, I know there are people waiting to see what's going to happen (fun fact: you and I are going to find out together 😂), and I don't like the idea of letting them down.

🍠 How long does it take you to write one of your fics or a chapter/part? ....depends. if I have the time, an 8-10k chapter can be cranked out in about 3 days, sometimes less. For something with chapters the length of aneurysm fic (which started at 10k and now have some as long as 20k)....weeks? chapter 6 probably won't be done before November. Honestly it just depends on how much detail goes into one scene and how much I've mapped that dialogue out in my head.

🍢 Have you ever gotten hate on a fic? yes. not in the 911 fandom (yet...that i can remember lmao), but way back when I was a teenager writing in the tslotat fandom, I got it more than once.

🍣 What helps you focus or get in the mood to write? music. youtube videos. little 'what-if' scenarios.

🍥 What's your favorite fic you've written? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

DON'T ME PICK BETWEEN THE TWINS, OK?

Ok ok, though... it's empty bones. BUT. It's my heart and soul and I just... you know?

But also, it's aneurysm fic, because of the level of work and research and it's my little baby and and and. So.... you know?

🥮 Do you have any writing milestones you're working toward? I know at the end of the summer I was closing in on like 400k on the year. I'd like to hit 5 and maybe even further. in the depths of my depression in 2013, when I quit writing, I'd done roughly 750k that year (for a fully calendar year), and there's something enticing about breaking that record, especially knowing my mind is in a completely different place these days.

🍡 Which of your fics was the most emotionally difficult to write? One Tear At A Time. I wrote that entire series off the heels of my friend dying when we were 21. I had a really hard time dealing with it, especially because I was living at home with unmedicated, severe depression and no prospects for my future. He was married, in the army, with a baby on the way. I used that story as a vehicle to really face my issues with the fact that I was angry about my own situation and also talk about what it's like to lose someone you were once in love with at such a young age, but I still cried while working on it.

🍘 Is there a fic or idea for a fic that you've abandoned? oh absolutely. 40 Days was supposed to be a 4 story arc. I wrote two of them and started the third....and then fell off hard.

in terms of what I'm working on now.... I mean I still have my list of ideas. I wouldn't say I've abandoned anything newer, mostly that I'm just super busy and haven't found time to get back to them. even with Your Arson's Match, I know what happens next. I just have to get around to it 😂😂😂😂

🍙 Is there a fic you wish had gotten more attention? I mean selfishly I want them all to 😂😂😂 However, I realize that I write a particular brand of fic (angst) for a ship that, while it's doing well, isn't the #1 ship for its show. That all said... empty bones and aneurysm fic 😂😂😂😂😂😂

🍚 What genre do you have the toughest time writing? .... .... .... ( @girlwonder-writes no one asked you 😂😂😂) ...fluff.... LIFE IS PAINFUL OK. I NEED TO PROCESS THE ICK. 😂

[petewentzisblack1312]

question coming from also a third world supremacist (i think?) figuring out political ideology: how did you form yours?? i think i remember you saying you used to go off of empathy before forming a more solid worldview and i'd wanna know how to start that. apologies if i'm completely off base and you didn't say that in that case it's just nice to follow someone who's not from a first world country thank you for that

sorry this is quite meandering. i dont have a clear cut answer of a specific turning point, its just been a journey of learning ive been on as ive come of age. as for how to go about doing it yourself, id say to stay curious, but also stay skeptical. learn about the patterns that repeat in history- the way outsiders are blamed for problems, the way the world tends towards complicated answers, the fact that things are more often implicit than intentional- and be wary of them when you are confronted with an answer. remember that 'common sense' is not an edict passed on by god, its the culmination of a lot of decisions, some made with ulterior moments, so interrogate who benefits from you believing certain things that 'everyone knows'. and try to get some bearing on the theory behind certain philosophies and modes of thought. it could be a video essay, if you just need to get your foot in the door. my mentor is wary of documentaries and video essays because he thinks they can lie to you easily, but a book can do that too, especially if you think it cant! still, the audiovisual language is very easy to take at face value, and its more difficult to assess the legitimacy of a youtube video or documentary than it is with a book thats been cited by other authors a lot.

anyway, my own journey. i did in fact say my ideology is founded on empathy first and foremost. i was already pretty left leaning (but without a framework, just very 'live and let live') at that point but one of my teachers in secondary school (who ive known since my sister went to that same secondary school over 10 years prior) (hes the guy i call math dad occasionally) used the times allotted for christian education and christian family life education which were basically free periods during which were supervised by our homeroom teachers (though its not really supposed to be that) to teach the basics of anarchist philosophy (like what can or should be considered violence) to our class, and i was really engaged in that framework. there were only two people in the class who were interested in that myself included so he eventually stopped but hes always been something of a guide to my beliefs, and this introduced me to anarchism as a philosophy.

i have to say what radicalized me beyond just my love of my fellow human was curiosity. i wanted to know why the caribbean is poor. i wanted to know why certain people are mistreated. i wanted to understand racism. and it was a gradual process for me but eventually i learned that pretty much all real bigotries are systemic, but i didnt fully understand why those systems were in place until i started to understand the 'flaws' inherent to capitalism, or rather, the way its supposed to work. all these systemic injustices are in service of capitalism.

i was still quite imperial centric until fairly recently in my life though, id say like the past 5-7 years ive become more and more critical of modern empire and more disillusioned with its manifestation worldwide and as you might imagine especially in the caribbean. i hate tourism now, while it tends to be something both major parties invest in to some degree (its the liberal position). while im a little less superficially patriotic than the average st lucian, im very invested in our politics, though i find it difficult to navigate as a lay person for a myriad of reasons that frustrate me. as much as i have opinions on politics and policy, im not an economist or political scientist or commentator and have auditory processing issues that make it just hard enough to sit and watch parliamentary debates and things like that that i dont.

i would be remiss if i didnt shoutout the tumblr community for also informing my politics. ive been introduced to all sorts of people and all sorts of problems and all sorts of ideas by being on this website for as long as i have, and listening and learning and looking into things myself.

[angrymadsygin]

Hi... In a notice to your mutuals, you apologize for sometimes posting AI stuff. You declare that sometimes you aren't as "vigilant" as you should be and thank them for pointing it out to you and go on to say that you will "delete" it. (AI) Why is posting AI bad? In these times, it is very difficult to determine what is AI and what isn't. If you KNOW, for certain, that something is AI and say so in the comment that goes with the post isn't that OK? If you THINK something might be AI and say so in a comment with the post, isn't that OK? Which brings me to a specific post in your archive... I posted a short video clip of a "Black Sicklebill Bird of Paradise" which you now have in your archive (recent post). I think it's real... (I Googled it and there are videos on YouTube) one person flatly declares it is AI and another says it may be based on a real bird but the video is "clearly" AI. In your opinion, is it AI or not? If you believe it is, how can you tell? I don't want to get into an argument with those guys about it but I could use some clarification. I am 72 years old and sometimes I can tell right away that something isn't "real"; sometimes it takes a lot of "Googling" to make a determination about "real" vs "AI". Any insight you can offer, about this one post specifically, and posting "AI" stuff, in general, would be greatly appreciated. Thank You, Nifty

Hello Nifty! First of all, I'm not a spring flower myself any more 😉 and I don't have any special skills of detecting AI. Second: your "Black Sicklebill Bird of Paradise" video is most probably real. There's more than one video available to prove it. Third: don't get into arguments on the internet. You are, as they say, feeding the trolls. It's just a waste of your precious time in which you can do something pleasant (unless arguing with people is pleasant to you 😅).

The video I reblogged was of an owl carrying her owlets on her back. A mutual pointed out that it was AI and, indeed, it even had an AI watermark in a corner I, sadly, didn't notice. 😔

It is bad to reblog AI because it helps to replace real people's art and work, photography and videos included. AI puts no soul, no heart and makes no real effort to create something and tends to spread misinformation.

I hope I could be of help and excuse my mistakes, I'm not a native English speaker.

Siggy

[dearweirdme]

https://www.tumblr.com/dearweirdme/765058991672934400/httpswwwtumblrcomdearweirdme7650482772804075

Hi. I’m who one who sent the ask about the lemon and the point I was trying to make is that Jungkook doesn’t seem squeamish or disgusted with sharing utensils or food like that anon said. The reason I used the lemon example wasn’t to show how naturally that particular food was shared but to show how he still sucked on a lemon that Jimin had sucked on even though anon thinks he gets disgusted by sharing food. Unlike biting something off, sucking on something tends to leave more saliva on the food and imo is more “disgusting” to share and if Jungkook really had an issue eating after people, he wouldn’t have accepted to taste the lemon Jimin had sucked on to the point where there was barely any juice left it in and Jimin saliva was allover the lemon, Jungkook knew that but he still sucked on it instead of maybe making a disgusted face like that one time Jimin tried to feed his already sucked lollipop to Hobi but hobi straight up looked disgusted and refused to suck on it. That’s the point I was trying to make.

I feel like there is many other things you could use to show the difference with taekook but using something like them feeding each other just doesn’t work imo especially because it is their culture to feed each other and share meals and eat after each other. To them they don’t necessarily see it as something that is inherently romantic but just a gesture to show love and affection, they call it taking care of each other. We see mothers feed their kids all the time, friends feed each other, them eating after each other or dipping their already used spoons and utensils in the same soup bowl so isn’t it kinda funny to claim that Jungkook doesn’t like using other people’s utensils or food?

The members all naturally feed each other and just like any normal people, they are not always in the mood to be fed or to feed. In the video that you posted from YouTube, you can see Jin and Hobi very naturally feed Jk and he accepts it with a mouth full of food just like he did with Tae and Jimin in AYS (Tae while they were at the restaurant and Jimin while they were in the car in Sapporo on their way to the ski resort) but you can also see him refuse to be fed sometimes or see him try to feed Jin and Namjoon in that video and they decline. They don’t decline because they are grossed out by his utensils or his food. They decline because they are probably not in the mood. Someone mentioned that the members probably feed each other for FS, and I think that is a pretty disrespectful thing to say about people who grew up in a culture where feeding each other is one of the most natural things. We often view things so much from a western lens and that is why some people are trying to put so much emphasis on something like this forgetting that they don’t interpret their feeding each other the way you do and resorting to things like this requires a lot of cherry picking because you are basically picking some moments that work for the narrative you are trying to push while ignoring moments that don’t. A simple search on YouTube would show you just how much the members feed each other and how naturally they do it and how much Jungkook is a foodie that he doesn’t mind eating food directly from his members’ mouths. In the same AYS we saw Tae try to feed Jk Ham at the restaurant but Jk didn’t let him put the food in his mouth and instead took it with his chopstick and fed himself.

There is quite a few examples but we are not going through a back and forth here so let’s leave it at that. I think it is important to consider the cultural significance of certain actions before making conclusions because some things could come off abit disrespectful, like the person who commented saying that the members feed each other for FS because they know fans like to see it. Yes they are idols who do fanservice but sometimes it seems like people just can’t see the members being nice and sweet to each other without chalking it up to fanservice. There is so many things that is natural with all of them regardless of whether they are infront of the cameras or not.

Hi anon!

No, I do understand what you mean. I think if there is a difference between Taekook sharing food and the others and Taekook sharing food it’s a very slight one which would be very hard to make visible.

I agree that there other stuff that makes the difference between Taekook and the others more clear.

[felassan]

Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -

Chat asked why Marvel's Avengers and Fallout 76 are still being supported yet Anthem isn't. Mark replied, "Two reasons, but they're basically the same reason. EA is definitely not something that likes to support things that they consider to be failures. But the other reason, which is kind've the same thing, is that because BioWare has so much going on, there is a tendency, there's always a lot of pressure to move people onto the biggest need, and Anthem is not the biggest need. If BioWare was allowed to add fifty to sixty people that wouldn't be the case, well at least it wouldn't be in the short-term, but it isn't because EA is very cost resistant, resistant to spending costs, so it's really about corporate structure and culture than anything else. If you look at something like Battlefield or other games at EA that have failed and then recovered, it's usually because the studio that made them literally had nothing else going on so the only option was to let them fix it or to basically shut the studio down. In the case of BioWare, there's always something else they could be working on and as a result, when things don't go as well people tend to get moved onto those other things. That's essentially what happened with Mass Effect: Andromeda as well, though in the case of ME:A there was also pressure from Jade Raymond's studio to steal all those people, which is what ended up happening. So it's really about the approach to these things at a corporate level."

Chat asked "Can you make a video about development hell and how games with long production cycles like Dragon Age Origins avoid that?". Mark replied "The short answer to how do games avoid development hell long production cycles is basically that they don't. It's probably worth a video to talk about what happens in the middle of long projects, but the short answer is what often happens is that they spend some period of their time kind've going in a big circle because the time is so long that projects can get lost. DA:O added and took out multiplayer three different times. Anthem spent a ton of time not being able to admit that it was making Destiny. ME1 spent a ton of time trying to figure out what it wanted its combat to feel like".

Chat asked "What do you feel about the revival of the Griffons?". Mark said "I think it's going to be hard to pay griffons off in gameplay but I'm glad that they are back, it's an interesting addition".

Chat asked "Did you know about the Netflix show? If not what are your thoughts?" Mark replied "I did know about the Netflix show so I'm not going to comment on it at this time, I'll wait and see what it looks like. It's been in the works for a while" [note: this video is from before Absolution released]

On the reason why Dragon Age has so many multimedia things e.g. books, comics, compared to other IPs: "I mean Witcher has tons. BioWare actually has a dedicated business development group which looks for opportunities to make money with the IP".

[source]

He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -

[on the lyrium spirits/ghosts that provide the riddles during the Gauntlet] Chat asked "I've never been sure if these spirits are accurate memories of these people, or just how the masses believe them to be. I presume that's deliberate?". Mark said "Yes, definitely the accuracy of these memories is definitely up for debate and that is on purpose. Definitely DA:O, Dragon Age in general is filled with the unreliable narrator"

If you go the Gauntlet with no party members, the game gives you a bunch of indestructible ash wraiths instead. "It's super weird"

Chat asked "Is there an answer to the question of what the Ashes and this whole [thing] are really about, or is it left deliberately unknowable?". Mark said "It's left unknowable, I don't think that the Ashes is ever discussed. It doesn't really fit in with the magic of the rest of the setting does it?"

"Definitely there's a lot of 'Andraste taking over old elven temples' throughout the world"

The Queen of the Blackmarsh "was definitely combat design firing on all cylinders"

Chat commented "I noticed recently that many character models in BioWare games have a 'collar' on clothes even when it doesn't otherwise fit with what they're wearing. Is there a reason for that?". Mark said "The collar is probably to cover a neck seam. That's usually why there's something weird going on with the head"

Chat commented "I still don't know how I feel about the 'every class gets their version of lock pick' in DA:I". Mark replied "The reason for the every class gets their own lock pick thing in DA:I is, the problem is that what you usually end up with is rogues get a bunch of stuff to do outside combat and nobody else does, so the goal was to try to get a variety of activities for different classes. I don't know that it was super effective because I don't think that it was used widely enough, but that was the thinking. 'It's useful to have a mage along because a mage will let you get into these spots, it's useful to have a warrior along because they can lift heavy things and reach jars on high shelves'. But I think there's a lot of established game design around locked doors and locked chests, and I think the things in DA:I, people just weren't used to introducing them"

"I think the reason why you can't recruit anyone into the Wardens in DA:O is you don't know how to do that and Alistair doesn't either I guess. But there are a couple of opportunities in DA:O where you could sort've imagine, 'hey, we could use some more of us'." Chat commented that it's also a blood magic ritual and Mark said "It is totally, I mean it is fairly obviously blood magic, but yes it is not really ever [addressed]"

"Jade Empire had gay romances, that's probably the first mainstream game that had them"

Chat commented on the difficulty spikes in DA:O being a bit random at times. Mark said "There's only limited auto-balancing in DA:O so things are triggering on certain assumptions and those assumptions are definitely not always being met." Chat mentioned character movement speed and hardware engine speed at the time and Mark replied "Speed is most likely a limitation"

"I don't know if inventory limits are worth it. It's an interesting question. I get the idea but, I don't think everyone loves inventory management. It's been done better but I don't know that it's ever been done good. Especially for stuff like this where it's just, y'know, punishing you for not having sold stuff. I think having a weight limit on what you can equip, maybe, because then it's more you just can't carry around everything and the kitchen sink, but punishing me and my treasure-gathering for not having bought the extra backpack, kinda stupid, honestly. From Baldur's Gate 1 to modern games, inventory is pretty similar"

Chat asked "Were the Warden Colors (from DAII on) not decided on in DA:O? The mods prove the engine can handle the graphics". Mark replied "The art direction in DA:O is a little loose. So it's really about art direction in future games, it's not about technology, I mean you have to remember that this thing was supposed to run on a much crappier console, but yeah it's really more about art direction than anything else. DAII is where the art direction starts to establish a look for Dragon Age"

"Infinite healing is problematic. But yeah toxicity works, some other form of limiting works, but if you can heal infinitely then every single combat needs to be able to threaten you all on its own which is a problem"

Chat asked "How do Sha-Brytol and Golems function in terms of Titan connection? They're identical minus the rocks right? Instead of rocks Sha-Brytol are bound to armour?" Mark replied, "I don't know lore-wise the difference, I mean it's possible that golems are sort've a broken construction in comparison, the lost lore kinda thing"

Chat commented "I asked Mike [Laidlaw] about the golems and I got the impression that there was some sort of implementation difficulty that he couldn't easily explain". Mark said "I do think there was an ask for golems for DA:I from an art perspective and we didn't have the model, the time for the model, so that's part of it for sure". Chat mentioned that we fight golems in The Descent. Mark said "If so they were created after the fact, I don't really remember though"

Shale is small for a golem so they can walk through doors in gameplay. That's why they are the size they are

Chat said "I'd be curious to know how the global metrics break down, what the most popular race and class people choose is. I imagine BioWare has those numbers." Mark said, "I don't know if we have numbers on DA:O because our telemetry was so bad, but yeah, humans are usually the most popular. Dwarf is a pretty niche one but people who play dwarves pretty much always play dwarves. Elf is probably the second most popular. I think human is just sort've the choice that people who don't understand fantasy well, so it's also I would say often the one that's often chosen by people who are less engaged in the game. I'm not saying everyone who plays human is doing so because they don't want to engage n the system, not to deride that, but it includes that group as well". Chat commented, "The order was Human > Elf > Qunari > Dwarf. Dwarf was the least played race in DA:I". Mark replied "Yeah, I think that's probably right. Dwarf is sort've a 10 percent sort of thing. It's got a very strong group that play it any opportunity they can ever have but it doesn't get a lot of play otherwise"

[source]

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

[dreams-required]

[ᵖʳᵒᶠⁱˡᵉˢ]GANYU MAIN

Park Gunwook x Fem!Reader SMAU

Streamer!AU ❀ College!AU ❀ Non-Idol!AU ❀ Strangers-to-Lovers

▹ Park Gunwook a popular genshin streamer decides to watch a video from newly popular youtuber RizzyRicky on stream and accidentally makes a flirtatious comment to who seems to be RizzyRicky’s girlfriend, Yn.

❀GENRE-O-METER: Fluff:60% / Crack:60% / Angst:5% / Smut:0% / Horror 5%❀

Yn |05| College student & Gaymer

❀ sometimes streams, but she’s not very popular has been doing it for 2ish years

❀ Ricky’s childhood friend, people often thought they were together during middle/high school and she finds it the funniest thing ever.

❀ kinda a troll tbh

❀ Majors Furbyology (biology, but don’t ask her about it or she’ll cry)

Ricky |04| College student & Vlogger

❀ tried streaming when Yn did but got bored after 2 months without blowing up

❀ Jokingly posted a vlog under rizzyricky after a dare, somehow the video blew up and he couldn’t change his name (Yn the person who dared him wouldn’t let him)

❀ Had gotten use to the name since there's no changing it now after gaining 500k subscribers from 3 viral videos

❀ Has gained the “viral Touch” since all his videos go Viral somehow, no ones sure how.

❀ Majors in rich (he’s a business major but already rich)

Hanbin |01| pre-school teacher & mother father of yn

❀ Met Yn when she was having a breakdown about starting college in the middle of a parking lot, he tried to cheer her up with Ice Cream and accidentally adopted a child.

❀ A hopeless romantic who goes on a lot of dates trying to find “the one”

❀ Was the main target for old jokes until Jiwoong joined the group, now he only gets a few strays

Taerae |02| Fashion Taerrorist & streamer

❀ Has been a music streamer for a year, plays his guitar and sings, Ricky and Yn found him randomly streaming one day and requested songs, starting with taylor swift ending with the gummy bear song.

❀ They were his only viewers for a few months and never missed a stream and they all became close friends, he blew up a bit afterwards 

❀ Use to be the target for old jokes until Hanbin joined, then he joined in

❀ Has actual professional music out and is signed with a label but still streams because he likes it

Jiwoong |98| Actor & old Money Hungry

❀ What is he doing in a group chat with a bunch of children? Jiwoong still doesn’t know Taerae added him one day accidentally and Jiwoong didn’t care enough to leave

❀ He’s an actor because he likes it (and for the money)

❀ He met Taerae for work as they did an ost for a drama he did together once.

Matthew |02| streamer & music maker

❀ Hanbin’s college roommate who turned popular music streamer, Hanbin and him stayed close and when Mathew was sad about not having enough friends in the same career got added to the group chat

❀ the newest member of the group

❀ Goes by Mattchu online & Recently released an Album.

Gunwook |05| Genshin Streamer & Ganyu main

❀ Gunwook got popular from league like 4/5ish years back, Transitioned into Genshin when he found LoL no longer fun

❀ Ganyu Main since her release, has a phone of her, People tend to think he’s a meta slave but no he just really liked Ganyu, He C6R5 her and her bow the day she came out, the only time he spent in Genshin but gets made fun of for being a whale.

❀ Not in College, Lives with Dog Union

Junhyeon |04| gaymer & always streaming

❀ Got popular from his League Trolling videos around the same time Gunwook did, he actually first met Gunwook in a game when Gunwook was very green at it.

❀ They had great chemistry and the video blew up so they started collabing together and being friends

❀ Gunwook got him to start streaming and now he’s always live, Junhyeon no longer plays league that much like Gunwook

❀ when Gunwook, Gyuvin & Junhyeon did a face reveal to each other they found out they all went to the same high school and just didn’t notice

❀ DILF lover

Gyuvin |04| League streamer

❀ He streams League, that's it.

❀ Well sometimes he does the occasional Among Us/new game collabs with his friends

❀ Begs for them to come back to league

❀ Also got popular when Gunwook & Junhyeon did, Reached out for a collab with them and during the stream they got the Dog Union name.

❀ they did many collabs after and became good friends and recently roommates.

Zhang Hao |00| streamer that doesn't stream & has a real job

❀ Wants to give up his kids (Dog Union, never Yujin)

❀ He was next door neighbors with Gyuvin growing up and introduced Gyuvin to streaming because Hao is an OG Streamer, though he mainly streamed Single player games.

❀ Gyuvin dragged him into a game with Gunwook & Junhyeon and his children count multiplied by 3

❀ He use to stream a lot but now has a real life job and doesn’t care to much anymore about streaming

❀ never uses twitter but somehow knows everything that goes one (hint: he just lurks)

❀ Lives alone

Yujin |07|Streamer & baby high schooler

❀ The youngest, still goes to high school where most people don’t know who he is (somehow)

❀ Streams League and blew up very massively somehow and is now the biggest streamer in the group

❀ but back before that Gyuvin had managed to convince Gunwook, Hao & Junhyeon to play League with him in four stacks and they met Yujin who was streaming to around 50 people. Yujin was a fan of the four and asked for their discords and they would only give it to him if he hard carried. He did, they won very fast. 

❀ Yujin is a very good player, Gyuvin and Yujin became friends since Yujin was always willing to play league with him and he was adopted into the family.

❀ He lives with his parents, but they’re often really busy and most of the time he has the house to himself.

▹ Previous ❀ MASTER LIST ❀ Next

「 ❀ AN: if the pictures are blurry no they’re not <3 ❀ 」

[bisexualbard-writes]

A few weeks ago in the comments section of The Miserable Art @nyxelestia brought up how much of a mess it would be if Chay and Kim’s relationship got out, what with Chay doing porn and all. So then I panicked for six hours about how I’ve doomed them, then realized that as the author I could just come up with why they’re not doomed. I thought I’d share my response here now, as kinda an epilogue epilogue to the open and honest communication series:  So first of all, I think Chay never really grows a large following. He never really spends a lot of time promoting himself to try and get new viewers, and he doesn't spend a lot of time responding to comments, or doing personal request videos, or doing much in the way of trying to retain viewers. He mostly just does whatever he wants without worrying about how much he's making off of his platform. So because of this, I think he flies under the radar a lot of the time.I think a few of the other college students/med students at various points learn about his videos, but a surprising number of them are like "oh, you're funding your way through med school? Respect, man." Gen Z's superpower of disregard for outdated notions of sexual shame or whatever. 

Chay's agoraphobia was never really about being socially awkward - his brand is being shameless after all - but more about fearing for his own safety or the safety of the people he loves. When he is worried about the social aspect it's mostly in relation to Kim and that's because things did spectacularly fall apart with Kim once before.

I also think that anyone who DOES present an actual threat to Chay's happiness and career... tends to stop being employed at that particular facility shortly after. There's almost certainly a professor somewhere along the way who tries to extort Chay for sexual favors in return for not telling the rest of the faculty about his side gig and that professor disappears before Chay’s next class with him. Chay feels a little bad about it, but also knows he's not the only one on campus with an onlyfans and those people could have also been targeted if said professor stuck around. I think after that though he does talk to Kim/Kinn/Porsche/Tankhun about how Chay needs to be able to fight his own battles, and they compromise that no one will interfere unless Chay's problem could potentially be harmful to others too, and no one is super happy about the compromise but sometimes that's just how compromises work.

So that's how Chay makes it through his years of schooling and training. And by residency he's probably too busy to update his channel regularly and it just falls to the wayside as other interests take priority.

As for Kim, that one is definitely harder if word of their relationship gets out. I do think that both of them are fairly happy to stay closeted from the public. It may be annoying that Kim can't take Chay to red carpet events, but they're both aware that there are security risks associated with being a public couple, and they're very interested in staying out of the public eye. That gets them through a number of years. And from there... I don't think Kim wants to be an idol forever. He likes the freedom and the music more than he likes having a huge fanbase and filming corny commercials. I think eventually he gives up idol!wik to become producer!wik - he settles down out of the spotlight to write music and help other young artists break into the scene. He has a soft spot for youtube kids with parents who don't support their music careers but are ballsy enough to try for it anyway. I think he still drops albums occasionally, because writing and singing is still his preferred method of communication when he's overwhelmed with emotions he doesn't know how to process. So by the time his and Chay's public relationship drops he's a little less famous, and his target audience is people who enjoy his music as opposed to people who want to try and date him. And then it's just a news cycle of "can you believe this celebrity who used to be huge is dating an ex porn star, how juicy" and then maybe some of his fans leave in a huff but the rest are like "hey are you ever gonna drop a studio version of why don't you stay, we've literally been asking for it for years"

SO that's how they get through living life on their own terms and relatively unscathed by scandal.

[animentality]

I haven’t read your books yet, you know how it is, money~, but I bet they’re pretty good and I am planning to buy and read them, they’re on The List, and I hold you in high regards as a person I kinda vaguely barely know. I say this first to preface, because, from the kindest most adoring place of my heart okay, this reminded me of you, no offense: https://www.tumblr.com/pjackk/721300009283420160/whats-up-tunblr-basically-i-just-wrote-this-book

Ouch.

Glad you preceded this with a compliment...

But brutal.

For what it's worth, I also hate having to reduce my books to tropes...and I try not to, with any of my promotional posts...

But uh...good to know this is how I come across :S

But in my defense...and in defense of other authors... it's super easy for people to make fun of how we have to promote our books, but in this terrible digital economy...I mean.

It's hard to keep people's attention, and it's hard to sell books.

It's not like selling art, doing commissions, making animations, or well-edited videos. Books are inherently harder to sell and market and build an audience for, because they're an investment of time and focus.

They aren't as easy to dive into and enjoy. A webcomic chapter you could read in twenty minutes. A pretty picture you can reblog, and you can commission the artist if you love the style. A Youtube video can be ten minutes of investment. Maybe an hour, tops.

But a book?

Books will always struggle more than shows or animations, because it takes a certain kind of person to read books, and in this day and age, attention spans are shorter than ever.

You spend fucking years writing your books, and you edit, and you revise, and write some more, and edit some more, and revise some more, and then you have to promote.

All the time, in every way you can imagine. Using whatever tools you have... all the time, every way.

Otherwise, you don't see any sales at all, and then it's like you wasted three years of your life fiddling around, while everyone you know is making bank on crypto or whatever the fuck.

If I was good at fucking BookTok? I wouldn't be fucking here promoting at all.

I could leave my blog as the little meme machine it's always been.

But I'm bad at fucking TikTok.

And I mildly resent being compared to a TikTok author, because if I was any good at that, I WOULD NOT BE HERE promoting my books at all.

Tumblr is the worst place to promote anything, ever.

That's part of why I like it...but at the same time, that's why it's such a torturous practice, trying to promote my novels here.

No one here gives a fuck. And I'm fine with that.

I'm ok with that.

But I can't throw away hard work without at least trying.

I don't really get the criticisms of authors in those comments anyway.

What have those people tried to put out into the world?

You think self published authors are just jokes, or that they aren't marketing themselves well?

Maybe both are true, but someone who makes something, no matter how shit, has still MADE something.

It's easy to tear others down. It's not easy to make something that you care about, and put out into the world for others to see and judge.

And for those people in the comments too, I have to ask.

Is a book only good, if it's published by a company?

Because books that are self published are actually a LOT LESS likely to be made up of tropes and cliches.

People who self publish tend to write weirder and more out of the box things. They RESORT to tropes because they feel you won't pay attention to their books without them.

they feel you won't give their concept a try, unless they dumb it down for everyone.

They pretend the book is something it's not, out of sheer desperation.

I market 7 Deadly Habits like it's a fucking adventure action romance comedy...?

It's actually pretty fucking dark and grim and sad.

the main character is fucked up, and so are all his exes. So is the entire world they live in.

It's really not a funny book. It has dark humor, but it's hinged on an unhinged concept, one that I find darkly interesting.

But I lie and say it's a funny adventurous romp of sex and violence.

Because that's how I have to market it.

I try other things, of course, but I have found most people would rather read a romance than an anti-romance, which is more of what it is.

People don't want to try new things. They want more of the shit they already have.

to make something new, or different, or non-conventional, is to accept that you will have to water it down when you're trying to offer it to people.

So yeah.

I get it. Authors who blaze their book promotions are desperate losers and weirdo freaks with very bizarre interests and isn't it funny, how hard they're trying?

But you know.

What else can we be?

Leigh Bardugo?

Trust me. I wish I was a good writer. I wish I wrote straight YA fantasy books that kids and adults and everyone can enjoy. I wish I had a literary agent and five star publishing houses giving me 20 million dollars for my next book.

I wish I was a multi millionaire white woman, in an industry of rich white women, who write sexy murder mysteries and cozy thrillers and steamy vampire eroticas.

But I am what I am, and that's a queer self published POC author, who has no one in my corner, but me. Whose only means of promotion is my own efforts.

So no, I don't really look at other self published authors with disdain or wry detachment.

I know how they feel.

I know how much it sucks.

[heybaetae]

what do you think the member's myspace profiles would've looked like? who would've made it look pretty and who left it on default lol

LMFAO THIS QUESTIONNRHEJJS. i fucking loved myspace so much. let me think on this ok let’s get into it.

namjoon would have a layout, but a very clean, neutral one with meticulously organized photo albums for nature photos, museum photos, and book quotes he likes. his about me section would be some philosophical quote and his profile song is probably something by nas. he writes a lot of cryptic blog posts

jin has a layout but he changes it every week because he gets bored with how it looks, so you never know what his page is gonna look when you click on it. he tends to troll jungkook and hobi’s comments with “w4w???” because he knows neither of them know what that means. in true jin fashion, his default pic is him holding up a giant fish. he thinks the games on myspace are lame and he has no problem commenting on tom’s page to let him know

yoongi keeps his page pretty minimalistic like namjoon, but he likes darker, cooler tones on his layout and he posts videos from his studio a lot. he’s friends with a lot of athletes and producers and whenever he changes his profile photo, people go absolutely insane. he receives thousands of marriage proposals a day and his favorite feature is the “who i’d like to meet” section of his page where he lists all the people he’s a fan of and wants to work with some day

hobi has the most colorful layout of everyone and he LOVES those flashy glitter text gifs, so he has one that says “I LOVE U ARMY” and little animated snoopy graphics. he spent the most time making his page look perfect and he’s very organized with his photos. everything fits an aesthetic and he comments on all the tannies photos, statuses, profiles, bulletins, everything. fashion brands are spamming his inbox on the daily.

taehyung doesn’t have a layout at all because he doesn’t have the patience to learn html, but he does a have great jazzy profile playlist and yeontan is his profile picture OBVIOUSLY. he doesn’t have a top 8, he has a top 1 and it’s just jimin. he really likes posting bulletins to share youtube videos of old movies. his photo albums are kind of a mess but people love his chaotic, grainy images of random stuff around his house, his mirror selfies, or his paintings. the wooga squad leave him really sweet comments

jimin has a profile, but he rarely logs in. his layout is pastel colors and he often confuses the status update box with the little description next to his profile photo. he spams taehyung’s comments with hearts to bury the ones of certain others. when his “online now!” thing comes on, it’s a major event and his comments get flooded so much that it overwhelms him and he logs out again for a few weeks. he’s not sure how to comment back directly, but he’s really grateful everyone says hi to him.

jungkook has an all black page with galaxy-like animations. he learned how to do html so he could design it himself. his playlist is all demos/covers he made himself because he figures army would much rather hear him sing on his own profile than someone else (he’s right!). he goes MIA a lot too, so his “last login” date sometimes becomes a meme amongst the fandom which results in counting exactly how many days we last heard from him. when he remembers his password though, he’s on there for hours posting lots of bam photos, boxing videos, and doing bulletin surveys for fun. he threatens to block jin literally every time he comes online because he genuinely has no idea what he’s asking and he whines about it in hobi’s inbox too.

[powerofmettatonneo]

Hi, i’ve been looking at your post, talking about it, and sharing it with some friends. Honestly i’d even say i’m a fan of you and your work despite how little of it there is right now. I have a couple question.

First, I was wondering if you had any other accounts that I could follow your work on, like twitter and such.

Second, I saw that you took classes in etholgy and talked about advocating for the personhood of animals. I mean, I know they’re smarter than we sometimes give them credit for. Take for example the recent study with scientist communicating with whales with their own language for the first time. But I was hoping to get your insight in what you mean by personhood of animals and thoughts on the topic. (And also table napkin thought on how anthropomorphizing can harm or help our understanding of animals)

Third but a little more obscure, is that you use humanity, personhood, and the being of « more human » a lot. I was hoping if you could expand on the differences of these terms and how they interact with one another.

Sorry for all the questions, just honest to god fascinated with your perspective of things and the topic in general.

Here’s the whale communication study I mentioned: https://globalnews.ca/news/10182116/humpback-whale-conversation-talking-to-aliens/amp/

Oh my gosh thank you so much for your kind words! This, AO3, and YouTube are actually my only accounts online that I post anything on, and I just use my YT account to reupload other people's deleted videos. I used to use Reddit but I'm trying to distance myself from that account since half a decade of hot take type comments starting when I was 15 isn't exactly the best look for anyone.

Your last two questions are linked so I'm going to address them at once. Human is simply the term used to refer to a member of the genus Homo. There's nothing all that special about it philosophically when separated from personhood, which is more or less the description of what beings do and don't fully matter morally. Speculative fiction and philosophy tend to equate it with sapience, which is more or less a meaningless term made up to separate humans (or worse, specific groups of humans) from other animals and make ourselves feel superior. There have been attempts to give it meaning, but nearly every definition uses traits that are found in at least one other species of animal and/or are not universal to every group of humans (with the notable exception of artistry but I frankly find it absurd to discount something's moral worth over that). As such, if we're going to approach the topic logically, then some animals at the very least have traits of personhood.

Language, for example, isn't exactly common in animals, but it isn't unheard of either. Bats, cetaceans (whales and dolphins), pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), elephants, songbirds (a group that contains crows btw), hummingbirds, and of course parrots all learn different "words" that they apply meaning to and then use. Cetaceans, parrots, and some songbirds even use something akin to grammar.

Ritual behavior has been shown in chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants as they grieve for their dead.

Self-awareness, the trait most commonly held up as making humans special, is hard to measure due to the language barrier, but there is still some evidence for it in certain animals. The mirror test isn't perfect when it comes to discounting a given animal's self-awareness, but if an animal can identify itself in a mirror, it's hard to argue with the idea that it has a sense of self. Animals that passed include various dolphins, great apes, elephants, magpies, and even certain fish. Furthermore, an African grey parrot named Alex once asked a question about himself, being the first recorded instance of an animal asking anything, and bottlenose dolphins use names for themselves and others in their pod.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. I don't really have a definitive list of animals that I believe should be considered "people", especially given all the legal implications of that sentiment, but you've probably noticed that same groups of animals showed up again and again. Dolphins were there in all of the different categories, and elephants only failed the grammar category because they largely communicate using vibrations which work so differently from regular sound that they're hard to meaningfully compare to human languages. Parrots, corvids (crows and relatives), and great apes all have stand out members that showed up in two or three of the categories in the African grey, magpie, and chimpanzee respectively, and the other members of those families as well as whales are all intelligent and social enough that I am of the opinion that they all deserve certain philosophical rights and even legal protections. It's so easy for us to see personhood as a black and white thing that something either has or doesn't have, but like most things, it really is more of a spectrum.

To answer your "table napkin thought", while I won't deny that anthropomorphizing real animals can often lead to a lack of true understanding of them, the harm done by people trying to avoid doing so is both more common and so, so much more horrific that I hesitate to critique it too much. I mean, I have straight up seen very influential people say that acknowledging the extremely well supported fact that other animals are capable of feeling pain is "anthropomorphizing" them because one specific area of the brain that is partially responsible for processing pain in humans is only present in primates, and that of course can, and historically has, lead to horrific abuse.

I really don't mind all the questions! I love talking about things I'm passionate about, and this topic is certainly up there among the the things I care most about.

[duhragonball]

Nanwum VII Update: 72,197

I'm starting to run out of gas, which is probably not a big deal since I already cleared 50k, but this bears out my whole strategy of building an early lead. My intention was to pull down 2k per day from the 13th to the end of the month, and I'm still on track, but on the 14th I fell a little behind and only got to 1709. It's not a problem, since I got caught up, but I need to be careful from here if I want to make it to 100k. Not that I need 100k, but I like bragging rights.

To reward myself for the insane wordcounts I put in earlier this month, I decided to watch all of the recent DBZ review videos that TotallyNotMark put up. You know, the ones with the new Team Four Star DBZA clips in them. I'd already watched the "Buu Bits" in a separate compilation video, but now I'm finally checking out the review and...

I don't know, there's a lot of good material in these things. The editing is top notch, and you could play these videos with the sound off and still enjoy it just as an hours-long DBZ highlight reel. And Mark has a lot of salient insights on the series. I particularly liked his analysis of Gohan and Videl's dynamic, and it's also refreshing to see a DBZ fan who, you know, actually likes the show. Like, he's gushing over Vegeta's character arc, or talking about how great the androids and Cell are without a bunch of qualifiers, and it's just refreshing to see that.

That having been said, the writing for these videos often ends up sounding like this:

Like, arguably, you can't do a six-hour review of a cartoon show without being a little pretentious, but there's sentences in these videos where it feels like YouTube is paying Mark by the word.

Also, he tends to make these off-the-cuff style remarks, like he's discussing creative decisions about making the video in the video. I get that too. I write my blog with that same stream-of-consciousness energy, because I really am making this up as I go. It's a blog, there's not gonna be a second draft. But he's doing a YouTube video, and there's a lot of production values involved and the work is pretty polished. I don't think it makes a lot of sense for him to talk about how the sausage is made. Just give me the sausage, which is footage of the cartoon with a guy telling me what he liked about it.

I've sort of had this fascination with the writing style throughout the series, and I think if I had to spoof it, I'd go with something like this:

"Again, as I said before earlier in this video, when I started this review, I wanted to avoid sounding pretentious, an attribute the likes of which can be disastrous for the making of a successful review. But, having established that fact firmly and decisviely, perhaps even conclusively--not withstanding earlier comments made about the length of Piccolo's cape, which is a subject for another day-- I can say with great certainty that Goku and Vegeta do indeed comprise a dramaturgical dyad, not only upon which the series depends upon, but through which we can see the true genius of one of the most influential manga authors of all time."

And while you hear this word salad, there's a cool shot of Vegeta beating up Pui Pui or something.

The weird thing is that I didn't really pick up on this in his GT, Super, or OG Dragon Ball review videos. It's almost like he's purposely writing more stuff so he has room for all the cool footage.

Right now I'm in the tail end of the Buu Saga, and while I give him credit for being diplomatic about it, Mark still falls into the same trap I see with a lot of critiques of the Buu Saga: They keep comparing the existing text with some hypothetical better story that they assumed Toriyama was planning to write instead, before he changed his mind.

I think everyone has run across this before. People saw Gohan take the main-character role after the Cell Games and assumed this was a guarantee. When Gohan gets demoted and Goku takes the lead again, they cry foul and complain about how Toriyama failed to make it work, or he just plain gave up. There's an old fan rumor about how he was "forced" to put Goku back in charge because of backlash from angry fans, but this is absurd on its face.

This leads to critiques of the Buu Saga that operate on the premise that there's some idealized "correct" version of the story, where Gohan trains really hard, beats Buu all by himself, and so on. Whenever the published version of the story deviates from this "correct" version, critics suggest that Toriyama got his wires crossed, and blame everything on the awkward pivot back to Goku.

To me, that doesn't make sense. "Gohan and the Next Generation defeat Buu" is a what-if fan theory. Maybe it's better than what we ended up getting, but it's not fair to review the published work by comparing it to a hypothetical draft that may never have existed. That's like if a food critic gave a steakhouse a bad rating because he thought it was a pizzeria and he's still mad that his sirloin didn't have anchovies on it.

When you look at the Buu Saga as it was actually presented, the throughline is clearly not about passing the torch to the kids, because they all get jobbed out and killed. So it's dumb to review the thing and complain that the Gotenks stuff is pointless, and Gohan's power up is unearned, and his loss to Super Buu really sucks the life out of the story, and gosh, this is a really terrible passing-the-torch story. Well that's because it's not a passing-the-torch story. It's a story about Goku trying to pass the torch, failing, and discovering that he still has a place in the world after all. The "torch" he was trying to pass was his identity and personal responsibility, things he can't just confer on someone else.

You can't just tell someone else they're the new protagonist of your story and now they have to go do your job and feed your pets while you play video games. Everyone talks about Vegeta going Majin as a manifestation of his mid-life crisis, but Goku's mid-life crisis was him dying at age 30 and nope-ing his way out of life to train in Valhalla for the rest of eternity. The Buu Saga forced him to accept that this was a mistake, which is why he doesn't just drink a vial full of heart-virus juice after the story ends. He's back in the world of the living and this time he knows he needs to stay there.

And when you look at it from that perspective, suddenly all the Gotenks/Elder Kai Ritual stuff makes a lot more sense as awkward farce. It's anticlimactic and unsatisfying because none of those plans were ever going to work. Nothing worked until Goku and Vegeta both got their heads out of their asses and worked together. The world didn't need martyrs or torch-passings or a 'next generation', it needed adults to put their personal feelings aside for the greater good.