#so if you actually do want a little essay about a specific topic

[antiquitiesandlabyrinths]

Hapshepsut?

Oh, you guys are funny. I make a note in my post about the oddity of people coming into my inbox with a single word prompt and that I have no idea how to respond except with a handful of information about the prompt, and now it's a real thing? That's just what I'm supposed to do?

Well, I might as well do so.

The modern legacy of Hatshepsut is dominated entirely by her womanhood. It completely disregards all of her accomplishments as a great and wealthy Pharaoh presiding over a time of great prosperity for Egypt, and it also overlooks the political and cultural climate of the time, which is as confusing as it is complicated.

This is much longer than my previous go about Ramses I, so I'm putting it under a read more.

Hatshepsut's Beginnings

When the layman thinks of Hatshepsut, they will think that she is the first female ruler of Egypt. This is their first mistake. There were many regents of Egypt; mothers who ruled on behalf of their young sons, who were not yet old enough to fully claim the throne. Beyond that there was also the female King Sobekneferu (12th Dynasty), as well as two Queens very early on in Egyptian history who might've been Pharaohs in their own right; Neithhotep (Early 1st Dynasty) and Merneith (1st Dynasty), both named for the warrior Goddess Neith, who held considerable importance in early Egyptian history. Both of these Queens have inscriptions and monuments attesting to their rule, but due to a lack of complete concrete evidence, it is difficult to now say whether they were regents or Pharaohs. Sobekneferu, from the 12th dynasty, was the first woman to take on the full royal titulary, assuming the position and title of Pharaoh completely. While her existence and rule is fully affirmed, there is little evidence left in the way of her accomplishments, as she ruled as the last Pharaoh of the 12th dynasty.

Khnumetamun Hatshepsut herself was born in 1507 BC to the Pharaoh Thutmose I and his Great Royal Wife, Ahmose. Her name, meaning 'Foremost of the Noble Women' was suiting to her––later in life she would be married to another one of her father's sons, Thutmose II, who was birthed of a secondary wife named Mutnofret. She was married before the age of 20 and assumed the highest standing title a woman could gain at the time; the God's Wife of Amun, giving her more power than even a Queen could achieve. To understand the importance of Hatshepsut even at this time, we must understand what it was to be the God's Wife of Amun. And remember, all this power and prestige is before she ever even became regent to her husband's son.

The God's Wife of Amun was a position held in Thebes, modern-day Luxor, and called Waset in ancient times. The title originates from the Middle Kingdom, and at that time, it was merely an honorific title for a noble woman who assisted the High Priest of Amun at Karnak Temple in his duties. By the New Kingdom, which was Hatshepsut's time, the God's Wife of Amun was powerful enough to influence policy and held considerable power and prestige, the peak of which was reached in the 3rd Intermediate Period, when a God's Wife of Amun ruled over Upper Egypt. The typical duties of a God's Wife of Amun were that of a high priest, and she would essentially be the female counterpart of the high priest of Amun, and took on many of his responsibilities alongside him. But the rewards for it were also plenty: "tax-exempt land, housing, food, clothing, gold, silver, and copper, male and female servants, wigs, ointment, cosmetics, livestock, and oil." (God's Wife of Amun, World History Encyclopedia, Joshua J. Mark) She would preside over the festivals of Amun and would be considered His consort, making her a divine being.

So this was Hatshepsut's position which was gifted upon her around the same time she was married to her half-brother, Thutmose II. Together they had a daughter whose name is Neferu-Ra, but this was their only child. The only viable heir to the throne after Thutmose II would have to be a son, which only came about through Thutmose II's lesser wife, Isis, who birthed Thutmose III. But Thutmose II, Hatshepsut's husband, died relatively soon after Thutmose III came to be, and so Thutmose III, the young son, could not fully be given the throne. Instead, Hatshepsut was made regent, and assumed all duties of state and Pharaoh while Thutmose III was growing up.

Proclaiming Herself Pharaoh

It was in the 7th year of her regency that the well-known history occurred. Hatshepsut crowned herself sole Pharaoh of Egypt. She assumed all royal titularies, titles, and names befitting a Pharaoh, but inscribed all of these using feminine forms. She passed down her title of God's Wife of Amun to her daughter, Neferu-Ra, and had her married to Thutmose III, likely in an attempt to consolidate power, and began to carve images of herself as a male Pharaoh.

I have commented on Hatshepsut before because some people like to claim that Hatshepsut is the world's first transgender person. This is incorrect. If she had wanted to represent as male, she would've gone about it differently, and to begin with, she would've changed her name. As I stated earlier, her name means "Foremost of the Noble Women"; this is a female name, and it would've been obvious to any Egyptian of the time that this was a woman. Instead, her representation as a male was to ensure the people knew she was not a Queen, but a full-fledged Pharaoh. And as I mentioned just previously, all her names and titles used feminine grammatical forms.

She is a complicated character, and one that will likely never be fully understood. But one certain thing about Hatshepsut was that she was smart. By marrying her daughter to the 'King' Thutmose III, she created a safety net for herself; if she was removed from the throne and Thutmose III was crowned, then she would still hold considerable power as the mother-in-law of the Pharaoh. She further legitimized her rule as Pharaoh by proclaiming that she was not just Amun's ritual wife, but His daughter, as well.

In the carvings and paintings in Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari, Hatshepsut tells the story of how Amun appeared to her mother, Ahmose, in the form of Thutmose I, her father.

"He [Amun] in the incarnation of the Majesty of her husband, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, [Thutmose I] found her sleeping in the beauty of her palace. She awoke at the divine fragrance and turned towards his Majesty. He went to her immediately, he was aroused by her he imposed his desire upon her. He allowed her to see him in his form of a god and she rejoiced at the sight of his beauty after he had come before her. His love passed into her body. The palace was flooded with divine fragrance." (van de Mieroop, 173)

This interaction made Hatshepsut a demi-God. But this was also not enough; she made claims that Thutmose I, her father, made her a co-ruler with him.

"Then his majesty said to them: "This daughter of mine, Khnumetamun Hatshepsut—may she live!—I have appointed as my successor upon my throne... she shall direct the people in every sphere of the palace; it is she indeed who shall lead you. Obey her words, unite yourselves at her command."" (Seawright, Caroline (6 November 2000). "Hatshepsut: Female Pharaoh of Egypt")

She claimed that Amun had sent an oracle foretelling of her rise to power.

"Welcome my sweet daughter, my favorite, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare, Hatshepsut. Thou art the Pharaoh, taking possession of the Two Lands." (Breasted, James Henry (1906). Ockerbloom, John Mark (ed.). Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest)

She also represented herself as the direct successor of the Pharaoh Ahmose I, who started the 18th Dynasty.

That last bit may seem unimportant if you do not know the history behind Ahmose I. Ahmose I came about during the 2nd Intermediate Period, a time in which Egypt was split into three sections. Lower Egypt, the delta, which is to the north, was ruled by foreigners––the Hyksos, who were much despised by the native Egyptians, who ruled only a section of Egypt from Thebes. Then far the south, the Nubians ruled their own section of Egypt. What's important here, however, is the Hyksos rule. The Hyksos were commonly referred to as the Asiatics, and likely originated from the Levant, referring to themselves with Western Semitic names. They were seen as cruel and oppressive rulers, and while this was likely far from the truth, when we concern ourselves with the cultural standpoint of 18th Dynasty Egyptians, we only need to understand their viewpoint and opinion of the Hyksos. Ahmose I, ruler of Thebes, successfully drove out the hated Hyksos from Egypt, and reinstated Theban rule over the delta in Lower Egypt. These actions made him a much-beloved figure in the eyes of the ancient Egyptians, and this is why Hatshepsut proclaiming herself as a direct successor of Ahmose I was a smart move––she correlated herself with freedom from oppression and a somewhat legendary figure, who had ruled over Egypt some 80 years previous to her.

Actions As Pharaoh

Consolidating her rule, gaining power, and ensuring that power would stay were not the only things she accomplished, even if that is what most people recognize her for. She also completed a staggering amount of construction projects for temples, protected the borders of Egypt, led military expeditions into Syria and Nubia, and a rich trading expedition to the mythical land of Punt, which is presumed to be somewhere in modern-day Somalia. She was in control of a massive amount of wealth, without which it would not have been possible to assume so many building projects.

"Hatshepsut was able to exploit the wealth of Egypt's natural resources, as well as those of Nubia. Gold flowed in from the eastern deserts and the south: the precious stone quarries were in operation, Bebel el-Silsila began to be worked in earnest for sandstone, cedar was imported from the Levant, and ebony came from Africa." (Betsy M. Bryan, Shaw, 229-231)

Inscriptions at her mortuary temple in Deir el-Bahari go into detail about her expedition to Punt, as well, describing an immense amount of wealth.

"The loading of the ships very heavily with marvels of the country of Punt; all goodly fragant woods of God's Land, heaps of myrrh-resin, with fresh myrrh trees, with ebony and pure ivory, with green gold of Emu, with cinnamon wood, Khesyt wood, with Ihmut-incense, sonter-incense, eye cosmetic, with apes, monkeys, dogs, and with skins of the southern panther. Never was brought the like of this for any king who has been since the beginning." (Lewis, 116)

Her temple was such an immense work of art that it is considered by many to be one of the finest temples in Egypt, whose craftsmanship exceeded any Pharaoh before her and was only ever matched by Ramses the Great (Ramses II). She built throughout the country to such an extent that there are very few museums who concern themself with Egyptian history who do not have a piece of Hatshepsut's work. She added tremendously to the complex of Karnak at Thebes for the glory of Amun, and erected two giant obelisks there, alongside many other obelisks raised in other parts of the country. The Karnak complex is made up of three different precincts; the precinct of Amun, the precinct of Montu, and the precinct of Mut. The precinct of Mut had been ravaged during the Hyksos rule, and so Hatshepsut rebuilt and restored Mut's great temple in Thebes, once again honoring the Gods with her wealth.

Overall, she was an immensely successful Pharaoh. She added to the great temples of Egypt and built new temples, simultaneously giving honor to the Gods and employing the people. In these temples she performed rituals and rites traditionally reserved for the Pharaoh, which further confirmed her power and status reigning as a male Pharaoh. She led conquesting military campaigns into Syria and Nubia, protected the borders of Egypt from foreigners, conducted highly successful and bountiful trades with the people of Punt, who were highly rich in gold, and built one of the most beautiful and iconic mortuary temples known today, influencing the location of the future Valley of the Kings.

Death of Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut's death is unfortunately not well understood. Her body was moved several times due to complications with lineage, burial, and the right to the throne. There is a mummy that is proposed to be Hatshepsut. This mummy has a missing tooth in her jaw, and Egyptologists are in possession of one of Hatshepsut's teeth, found in one of her canopic jars. The empty space and the tooth fit perfectly together, so it is proposed that this mummy is Hatshepsut. However, later on, the tooth was identified to be a molar from the lower jaw, whereas the missing tooth from the mummy is in the upper jaw. There is a lot more to this than I am writing about; this is the simplified version because there's a lot of scientific know-how one needs to fully understand the complications of trying to identify a nameless and displaced mummy.

If this mummy is Hatshepsut, then Hatshepsut died from bone cancer. Queens in the family of Hatshepsut are known to have had genetic skin irritation, and the lotions used by the Pharaoh were a carcinogenic, benzopyrene skin lotion, meaning that over time, as Hatshepsut attempted to soothe her irritated skin, she would've been giving herself cancer. Alongside that, she also had bad teeth, which is why one tooth is gone from her jaw––it was removed, and later caused an abscess, which may have also contributed to her death.

Removal from History

Eventually, as we all know, Hatshepsut was stricken from the record. Her names were carved out, smoothed over, or replaced with the names of her step-son, Thutmose III, who took over as Pharaoh when Hatshepsut passed into the west. Many images and statues of her were dismantled, destroyed and buried, and there was an attempt to wall up her monument at Karnak. The majority of this historical re-writing took place at the end of Thutmose III's reign, when he was co-reigning with his son, Amenhotep II.

It is not entirely clear why this was done, but there are several theories, and I find it likely that they were all true in some way, and all contributed to the defacing of Hatshepsut's legacy. For one, rule of Egypt is a traditionally male role, as is shown in the first king Osiris and His wife, Isis, who were mythologically the first to rule over Egypt. Egypt was very dependent on the idea of Ma'at, which represents truth, justice, and most importantly, balance. Having a female Pharaoh was an upset of the balance and an upset of tradition, so it might've been seen as prudent to erase Hatshepsut's memory of female rule. Another factor is that the reusing of monuments was a common and popular practice of Pharaohs; they would take the already-built monuments of previous Pharaohs and inscribe their own names in them, claiming they were built by them. This saved money and resources. The last factor that I would consider a prime reason would be Thutmose III's son, Amenhotep II.

Amenhotep II had a very shaky claim to the throne. He was not the son of the Great Royal Wife; instead, he was the son of a lesser wife, Merytre-Hatshepsut. Amenhotep II was also not the eldest son. The eldest son of Thutmose III was born of the Great Royal Wife Satiah, and his name was Amenemhat. But both Satiah and Amenemhat died, and so Amenhotep II was who Thutmose III resorted to when it came to passing on the throne. Amenhotep II, who was insecure in his claims to the throne, usurped many of the accomplishments, deeds, and monuments of Hatshepsut. He neglected to record the names of his Queens, and he eliminated the giving of power to women, erasing the titles of the Gods Wife of Amun, and other such positions which had the chance to give any power to women. In my opinion, truly an unpleasant man. But fortunately these titles were restored by his son Thutmose IV, and we are not here to talk about Amenhotep II.

Overview

Hatshepsut was a great Pharaoh who accomplished great things and presided over an incredibly prosperous time in Egyptian history. This is likely why her name was stricken from the record and the name of Sobekneferu, the previous Queen-Pharaoh, was not. Sobekneferu presided over a time of chaos, so it was not important to remove her, as her rule could stand as an example as to why it was against Ma'at for a female to rule as Pharaoh. But Hatshepsut was extremely successful, and for that, she was removed. She built great monuments, added to the prosperity and health of the people, honored the Gods, and was one of the most powerful Pharaohs in Egyptian history. We will likely never know why she did all of this; why she was dissatisfied with her position as the God's Wife of Amun, why she proclaimed herself Pharaoh over her husband's son. But nothing bad seemed to ever come from her reign, and she is now remembered as one of the most iconic figures in ancient Egyptian history.

[malusokay]

Haiii !! I'm obsessed with your blog. Do you have any tips for staying motivated? I wanna better my life and I have all the resources to do so. it's just motivation that's the problem 😓😓

surround yourself with inspiration.

for me, my friends are one of my biggest motivations—having people around who inspire and encourage you to grow is everything.

it’s not just about support; it’s about energy. being in a circle of people who push you, directly or indirectly, to be better is so important.

don’t lose sight of your goals.

always keep in mind what you’re working for, whether it’s an academic milestone or something personal. knowing your “why” makes the process so much easier.

when you have a clear picture of what you’re striving for, working hard feels purposeful instead of just tiring.

set HUGE goals, and then work backwards.

start with the biggest, boldest goal, then break it down into smaller, manageable steps that fill the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

here’s what I mean: let’s say you’re in high school, and your ultimate goal is Cambridge.

you now → finishing an essay → getting a specific grade → finding balance → acing exams → writing your personal statement → Cambridge.

this is a very vague example, but the idea is to create a roadmap where every step feels doable—and every step brings you closer. you guys get my point hahaha

find balance to avoid burnout.

I’m a total workaholic, and spending time on things that don’t align with my main goals usually makes me feel horrible. but balance is non-negotiable.

for me, balance means baking with my friends, diving into hobbies that challenge me outside of academia, reading something complex but unrelated to my studies, or creating content like this to inspire others.

whatever it looks like for you, find something that lets you reset and recharge.

visualise, but don’t let it become procrastination.

I’m all for making Pinterest boards and visualising your dream life and I highly recommend doing it because it ties into the whole “don’t lose sight of your goals” idea.

BUT: overplanning can become its own trap. making endless lists, moodboards, or ideas without ever starting the actual work is just procrastination in a prettier outfit.

so yes, make your Pinterest board, set your goals, but don’t stop there. Start taking action, even if it’s just one small step today.

I hope this is helpful to you, and I wish you the very best on your journey, if you (or anyone else hahah) have more questions regarding this, just let me know, and we can dive into this topic a little deeper. <3

my insta @ malusokay

[agentlove]

Random Dialtown Society Headcanons

a handful of decades ago there was a big boom in parents who saw mobile phones as the future giving their kids heads of things like mobile phones and computers. this fizzled out as mobile phones and computers became integrated as everyday objects and became generally agreed upon to be kind of hard to actually live with. so there's an entire generation of sad millennials whose parents had both the money and ambition to give their kids these heads - this is how we get randy. presently, mobile phone heads often carry the stereotype of a hipster at best and a depressed young neet at worst

faux-retro phones also have a hipstery connotation, and specifically the idea that your parents were trying too hard. heads like these are the equivalent of naming your kid something like Oakleigh (joke courtesy of friend fig)

"apple head" as a phrase means the opposite of what it does in real life - flat and small, as in an apple product

smartphone heads carry the connotation of a soulless influencer, youtube family channels and their kids with cocomelon on their smartphone heads are the topic of many a video essay by pretentious blackberryheads about the downfall of society

there are some batshit insane parents out there like Oh my beautiful baby cares not for societal norms which is why i have given them a tuba head and that poor person is just baby tubahead forever

having a screen on your head a decade ago carried the connotation that you were smart and well-read - think our society's equivalent of glasses - now, though, they tend to be associated with vapidness/dumbness with the connotation that you need to see things on a screen to understand them

the less common/higher society equivalent to mobile phones to phoneheads is computers for typewriters. furthermore the act of having a keyboard is perceived as somewhat feminine and if you dig deeper there are a subset of individuals who will call you gay if your head has buttons on it

the difference between an incel and a chad is a few millimeters of bone (this is about the height of your rotary phonehead)

teen protagonists in movies, especially teen dramas, tend have mobile phone and laptop heads so you know they’re immature and out of touch with the values of their parents. This is almost always a visual shorthand thing and despite being a known stereotype no attention is ever drawn to the fact the parents would have chosen to give them those heads

typewriters were not gendered until after the dialup - think the equivalent of pink not being seen as a girly color until recently

there exist tech giant corporations in the dialtown universe who co-opt the story of callum crown to justify changing their heads to their new products as advertisement. whether or not this is a moral thing to do always becomes a topic of discussion all over the internet for like a month and then is promptly forgotten about, and then the next month they're back to having normal heads

having the same head as an animal is basically telling the world either you're a furry or your parents really wanted you to be a furry. it's a common shorthand for animal motifs in fiction to the point where it's seen as on-the-nose

there are semifrequent controversies about celebrities giving their children gimmicky objectheads

having toy heads ie little billy is relatively common in children, having them as an adult, depending on the crowd, can make you come off as either fun and whimsical or somewhat stunted

hospitals come stocked with very basic objecthead shells for sudden deliveries

in art, objectheads drawn with facial features is a relatively common thing in works for very small children but is seen as deeply uncanny in anything more

collecting phones/typewriters/other objects is seen as somewhat macabre or shlocky but not an outright red flag. however there have been scandals that come from people customizing them to be the size of human heads

[renthony]

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[aliteralsemicolon]

honestly, the whole ai fight or disagreement thing is kinda insane. we’re seeing the same pattern that happened when the first advanced computers and laptops came out. people went on the theory that they’d replace humans, but in the end, they just became tools. the same thing happened in the arts. writing, whether through books or handwritten texts, has survived countless technological revolutions from ancient civilizations to our modern world.

you’re writing and sharing your work through a phone, so being against ai sounds a little hypocritical. you might as well quit technology altogether and go 100 percent analog. it’s a never ending cycle. every time there’s a new tech revolution, people act like we’re living in the terminator movies even though we don’t even have flying cars yet. ai is just ai and it’s crappy. people assume the worst but like everything before it it will probably just end up being another tool because people is now going to believe anything, nowadays.

Okay so...no. It's never that black and white. Otherwise I could argue that you might as well go 100% technological and never touch grass again. Which sounds just as silly. There are many problems with AI and it's more than just 'robots taking over'. It's actually a deeper conversation about equity, ethics, environmentalism, corruption and capitalism. That's an essay I'm not sure a lot of people are willing to read, otherwise they would be doing their own research on this. I'll sum it up the best I can.

DISCLAIMER As usual I am not responsible for my grammar errors, this was written and posted in one go and I did not look back even once. I'm not a professional source. I just want to explain this and put this discussion to rest on my blog. Please do your own research as well.

There's helpful advancement tools and there's harmful advancement tools. I would argue that AI falls into the latter for a few of reasons.

It's not 'just AI', it's a tool weaponised for more harm than good: Obvious examples include deep fakes and scamming, but here's more incase you're interested.

A more common nuisance is that humans now have to prove that they are not AI. More specifically, writers and students are at risk of being accused of using AI when their work reads more advance that basic writing criteria. I dealt with this just last year actually. I had to prove that the essay I dedicated weeks of my time researching, writing and gathering citations for was actually mine.

I have mutuals that have been accused of using AI because their writing seems 'too advanced' or whatever bs. Personally, I feel that an AI accusation is more valid when the words are more hollow and lack feeling (as AI ≠ emotional intelligence), not when a writer 'sounds too smart'.

"You're being biased."

Okay, here is an unbiased article for you. Please don't forget to take note of the fact that the negative is all stuff that can genuinely ruin lives and the positive is stuff that makes tasks more convenient. This is the trend in every article I've read.

Equity, ethics, corruption, environmentalism and capitalism:

Maybe there could be a world where AI is able to improve and truly help humans, but in this capitalistic world I don't see it being a reality. AI is not the actual problem in my eyes, this is. Resources are finite and lacking amongst humans. The wealthy hoard them for personal comfort and selfish innovations leading to more financial gain, instead of sharing them according to need. Capitalism is another topic of its own and I want to keep my focus on AI specifically so here are some sources on this topic. I highly recommend skimming through them at least.

> Artificial Intelligence and the Black Hole of Capitalism: A More-than-Human Political Ethology > Exploiting the margin: How capitalism fuels AI at the expense of minoritized groups > Rethinking of Marxist perspectives on big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and capitalist economic development

I want to circle back to your first paragraph and just dissect it really quick.

"we’re seeing the same pattern that happened when the first advanced computers and laptops came out. people went on the theory that they’d replace humans, but in the end, they just became tools."

One quick google search gives you many articles explaining that and deeming this statement irrelevant to this discussion. I think this was more a case of inexperience with the internet and online data. The generations since are more experienced/familiar with this sort of technology. You may have heard of 'once it's out there it can never be deleted' pertaining to how nothing can be deleted off the internet. I do not think you're stupid anon, I think you understand this and how dangerous it truly is. Especially with the rise in weaponisation of AI. I'm going to link some quora and reddit posts (horrible journalism ik but luckily I'm not a journalist), because taking personal opinions from people who experienced that era feels important.

> Quora | When the internet came out, were people afraid of it to a similar degree that people are afraid of AI? > Reddit | Were people as scared of computers when they were a new thing, as they are about AI now? > Reddit | Was there hysteria surrounding the introduction of computers and potential job losses?

"the same thing happened in the arts. writing, whether through books or handwritten texts, has survived countless technological revolutions from ancient civilizations to our modern world."

I think this is a logical guess based on pattern recognition. I cannot find any sources to back this up. Either that or you mean to say that artists and writers are not being harmed by AI. Which would be a really ignorant statement.

We know about stolen content from creatives (writers, artists, musicians, etc) to train AI. Everybody knows exactly why this is wrong even if they're not willing to admit it to themselves.

Let's use writers for example. The work writers put out there is used without their consent to train AI for improvement. This is stealing. Remember the very recent issue of writer having to state that they do not consent to their work being uploaded or shared anywhere else because of those apps stealing it and putting it behind a paywall?

I shouldn't have to expand further on why this is a problem. Everybody knows exactly why this is wrong even if they're not willing to admit it to themselves. If you're still wanting to argue it's not going to be with me, here are some sources to help you out.

> AI, Inspiration, and Content Stealing > ‘Biggest act of copyright theft in history’: thousands of Australian books allegedly used to train AI model > AI Detectors Get It Wrong. Writers Are Being Fired Anyway

"you’re writing and sharing your work through a phone, so being against ai sounds a little hypocritical. you might as well quit technology altogether and go 100 percent analog."

...

"it’s a never ending cycle. every time there’s a new tech revolution, people act like we’re living in the terminator movies even though we don’t even have flying cars yet."

Yes there is usually a general fear of the unknown. Take covid for example and how people were mass buying toilet paper. The reason this statement cannot be applied here is due to evidence of it being an actual issue. You can see AI's effects every single day. Think about AI generated videos on facebook (from harmless hope core videos to proaganda) that older generations easily fall for. With recent developments, it's actually becoming harder for experienced technology users to differentiate between the real and fake content too. Do I really need to explain why this is a major, major problem?

> AI-generated images already fool people. Why experts say they'll only get harder to detect. > Q&A: The increasing difficulty of detecting AI- versus human-generated text > New results in AI research: Humans barely able to recognize AI-generated media

"ai is just ai and it’s crappy. people assume the worst but like everything before it it will probably just end up being another tool because people is now going to believe anything, nowadays."

AI is man-made. It only knows what it has been fed from us. Its intelligence is currently limited to what humans know. And it's definitely not as intelligent as humans because of the lack of emotional intelligence (which is a lot harder to program because it's more than math, repetition and coding). At this stage, I don't think AI is going to replace humans. Truthfully I don't know if it ever can. What I do know is that even if you don’t agree with everything else, you can’t disagree with the environmental factor. We can't really have AI without the resources to help run it.

Which leads us back to: finite number of resources. I'm not sure if you're aware of how much water and energy go into running even generative AI, but I can tell you that it's not sustainable. This is important because we're already in an irrevocable stage of the climate crisis and scientists are unsure if Earth as we know it can last another decade, let alone century. AI does not help in the slightest. It actually adds to the crisis, we're just uncertain to what degree at this point. It's not looking good though.

I am not against AI being used as a tool if it was sustainable. You can refute all my other arguments, but you can't refute this. It's a fact and your denial or lack of care won't change the outcome.

My final and probably the most insignificant reason on this list but it matters to me: It’s contributing to humans becoming dumber and lazier.

It's no secret that humans are declining in intelligence. What makes AI so attractive is its ability to provide quick solutions. It gathers the information we're looking for at record speed and saves us the time of having to do the work ourselves.

And I suppose that is the point of invention, to make human life easier. I am of the belief that too much is of anything is every good, though. Too much hardship is not good but neither is everything being too easy. Problem solving pushes intellectual growth, but it can't happen if we never solver our own problems.

Allowing humans to believe that they can stop learning to do even basic tasks (such as writing an email, learning to cite sources, etc) because 'AI can do it for you' is not helping us. This is really just more of a personal grievance and therefore does not matter. I just wanted to say it.

"What about an argument for instances where AI is more helpful than harmful?"

I would love for you to write about it and show me because unfortunately in all my research on this topic, the statistics do not lean in favour of that question. Of course there's always pros and cons to everything. Including phones, computers, the internet, etc. There are definitely instances of AI being helpful. Just not to the scale or same level of impact of all the negatives. And when the bad outweighs the good it's not something worst keeping around in my opinion.

In a perfect world, AI would take over the boring corporate tasks and stuff so that humans can enjoy life– recreation, art and music– as we were meant to. However in this capitalist world, that is not a possiblility and AI is killing joy and abolish AI and AI users DNI and I will probably not be talking about this anymore and if you want to send hate to my inbox on this don't bother because I'll block your anon and you won't get a response to feed your eristicism and you can never send anything anonymous again💙

[pippin-katz]

The 5 specific details of Red, White & Royal Blue spicy scenes that make me, a demisexual, feel: 🦋🫣🦋

(not ranked in any order)

I need to write an essay about this because I want to see if I'm not the only ace-spectrum person out there that has this weird- I don't want to say "exception", but that's the only word that comes to mind- when it comes to characters. But that's a topic for another post lmfao

No. 1 - Henry shoving Alex onto the couch:

Could you tell by how I keep bringing it up and using gifs of it in my essays?

Henry being confident suits him, even if we don't get too see it much. I love how Alex's smile drops because of how surprised and shocked he is by the action.

My stomach does a flip whenever I watch this clip lmfao

No. 2 - Alex tilting his head back with these expressions when Henry starts kissing his neck:

Look, I am not immune to an attractive human, being attractive; it's men like Taylor (and Nick) that keep me from being a lesbian lmfao

No. 3 - this:

I don't think I need to say anything; this feels like it should be illegal. The fact that you know when Henry actually starts *clears throat* doing what he's doing, because you can see Alex's eyes roll underneath his eyelids. Like... what the fuck Taylor? Was that really necessary??

No. 4 - Alex pushing against Henry so hard that he ends up lifting him onto the table:

Then he continues to hold his leg and pull him back towards him. It's Alex's only real moment of leading an interaction. He's controlling where they go here; Henry is going/staying where he wants him.

No. 5 - Alex's movements & Henry's facial expressions:

This whole scene was shot/filmed/edited so well. It shows everything without even showing anything. It's also very clearly "making love" rather than "having sex". It's soft and slow, and it's so clear that they truly cherish each other in every way.

All you see is Alex's body rolling, and that's all you need to see. Then you add in Henry's expressions that show how good he feels, but in a genuine-feeling manner.

They didn't need to show anymore than this for the viewer to understand what they're doing. There's no cut to Alex's hips to "show the action" or whatever. Henry's faces aren't unrealistic or pornographic. Neither of them are portraying over-the-top pleasure that feels like it was filmed just for the audience to get their kicks.

It feels genuine, and emotionally intimate as well as physically. It makes my little demisexual heart ache, and butterflies fly around in my stomach lol

Okay that's all! There won't be a part 2 cause there's nothing to put on it, and that's kinda the point of this post lol

Thanks for reading!! If you enjoyed this essay & would like to support me, you can give me a tip on my Ko-Fi! ☺️

[lucy90712]

Buff- Gavi

For the last few months Pablo has been working really hard in the gym pretty much since the day he was allowed to do more he has been working on his strength. We have a gym set up at home and every morning Pablo gets up and works out before he has to go and do his specific training at the training centre. Some mornings I'll join him but I never work out properly as I just end up staring at him as his muscles flex while he lifts weights. For the last few weeks I haven't been working out with Pablo as I've been back at uni so I have classes in the morning and on the weekends I have essays to write. I know he likes when we workout together but I've just been too busy in the mornings but I promised him this weekend that I'd join him on a run. 

Today however is Friday and luckily it's my day with the least amount of classes I have two but I'm done by 2 which is better than 5 or 6pm. I have a break between my classes so I used that time to get some assignments done so I have a free weekend. Once I'd finished my work I decided to give myself a break and just scroll through social media but I nearly dropped my phone when I opened Instagram. The first thing on my feed was a video of Pablo from training and my god did he look good his arms were huge and he wasn't even flexing he was just walking. I know he's been working hard but I haven't noticed just how much it's been paying off until right now. Of course I loved the way he looked before but my god does he look amazing now I feel like if anyone saw me right now I'd have literal heart eyes after seeing that video. 

Trying to focus in my next class was near impossible all I could think about was Pablo and getting home to him so I could see his arms in person. Usually this is my favourite class and I spend the whole time writing notes but today when I left all I had written was the date and the topic of the lecture so I'll have to look back at what was actually said another day right now though I just want to get home. I never drive to uni as it's just a nightmare to park but the bus has never felt slower than it does right now and I wish I'd driven here. 

When I finally made it to the house after a long bus journey and a walk I saw that his car was already back in the driveway which is exactly a what I wanted to see. As soon as I opened the door I heard Pablo get up and make his way towards the door, to my delight he had a sleeveless shirt on so I could see his arms for myself. He came towards me looking for attention but my hands went straight to his arms to feel them. They even felt different I could feel the muscles tensing under my touch which was honestly fascinating as before Pablo wasn't the most muscular guy he was strong but never to this extent. 

"What are you doing?" He asked 

"Just enjoying your muscles I saw you in training today and your arms looked so good" I said 

"Thank you" he said getting a little shy 

"Seriously when did you get this muscular you look so hot I couldn't focus in class as I was thinking about how good my boyfriend looks" I said 

"I'm glad you like them" Pablo said getting even more shy as he doesn't know how to react to compliments 

He let me enjoy his arms for a bit longer before he took hold of my hands and pulled me into a hug. The next thing I knew he'd picked me up and carried me to the sofa so we could cuddle because as much as he doesn't know how to respond to compliments he is definitely very affectionate. We talked about our days he told me about training and how much he's enjoying finally being back with the other guys and I told him about my classes all while he played with my hair and I watched his arms while I was talking. 

We chilled for a while before Pablo suggested we go for a swim in the pool as it's really hot outside and because I was sweating just sitting down I agreed. He got ready much quicker than I did as I had to tie my swimsuit on and put my hair up so it doesn't get too wet as I just washed it. When I made it back downstairs Pablo was leaning on the edge of the pool waiting for me the way he was leaning really made his biceps pop. This man is definitely going to be the death of me he just looks so good and the way he was looking at me nearly made me melt. I joined him by sitting on the edge of the pool with my feet in the water, Pablo then moved to lean his arms on my legs while he just smiled up at me. His smile started out sweet but then he had that mischievous grin on his face which is never a good thing it only ever means he has a plan that he knows I'm going to disapprove of. 

His little plan quickly became clear when his arms went around my waist and pulled me into the pool. He was nice enough to not let me get my hair wet but I still got water in my eyes because I wasn't ready to go underwater. When I recovered and could see again Pablo had hold of me to keep me out the water so I wrapped my legs around him so he couldn't dunk me in the water again at least not without going underwater himself. This didn't last long though as Pablo started to tickle me which made me let go of my grip on him which allowed him to pick me up and throw me in the water over and over. I would've shouted at him for doing that but I actually had a lot of fun and every time I was out of the water I could hear him laughing which made getting my hair wet a lot better. Eventually he stopped and held me to his chest so I could get my breath back. 

"Are you just trying to show off how strong you are now" I joked 

"Well you liked my arms so much I thought I'd show you what I can do now" he said 

"In that case I'm very impressed maybe I'll have to join you in the gym just to watch you get even stronger" I said 

"You do that anyway" he fired back 

"Hey I work out too" I said 

"Be honest you do the bare minimum to look busy thinking I don't see you staring" he said 

"Ok you're right but can you blame me the view is always great" I said 

"My view is pretty great too when you do squats" he teased 

"You stare at me when I do squats?" I asked 

"Of course how can I not I also stare at your pretty face when you stretch on the floor I just like to take in what's mine" he said 

"Aren't you the cutest I like to look at your pretty face too" I said 

That's when he got all shy again so to deflect the attention off of him he pushed me against the side of the pool and kissed me. If complimenting him is going to get me cuddles and kisses like this I might just have to do it more often.  

[storkmuffin]

The Magic of San (2/N)

my question: what are your thoughts about san!! in comparison to wooyoung, he is much more like...feminine? not like he is a feminine person, but he reminds me of my dad. my dad has all the masculine hobbies and is very traditional in his beliefs, but i always say about my parents is that their instincts were swapped. my mom is loud and brash and blunt. my dad is very in touch with his emotions, he cries, how he interacts with his loved ones is quite maternal. san reads to me like that. i don't think he's necessarily feminine, but he has a lot of emotional intelligence and care i think a lot of boys aren't raised with.

@gorekiss Thank you for asking me this question (absolutely ages ago), because it's about San, but also because it has so many interesting elements to the question! The topics that are going to be covered in this, my second essay on the topic of the K-Pop Idol Choi San of Namhae, born 1999 and a member of the band Ateez are:

THE DAD CONNECTION. Being the tough, logical daughter of a tender, emotional father. (I'm not presuming that you are this - I'm saying I am.)

Gender and cultural analysis of men who cry.

What it means to be a man from Gyeongsangdo and how people of that region think and talk about ourselves, and how people from other regions think and talk about us, and how that ties in with San's presentation as an unusual star.

The inevitable Wooyoung mention at the end.

gif by tumblr user: newpartnerincrime

What follows is not really an answer to your question but me using it to discuss masculinity, Gyeongsangdo, and all kinds of other stuff.

Whee~~~

It's always fun to meet people on the internet, because you usually connect with them for one really specific reason (fandom about something), yet time and again, the people I actually end up having meaningful interactions with tend to have surprising things in common with me, across cultural and background differences. Such as this one!

Hey @gorekiss ! My mom is also brash, blunt, unromantic and emotionally self-sustaining, whereas my dad is emotional, and wants things to be nice, soft, and lovey dovey. All the women of my immediate family tend to be stoic and logical, with a tendency to get irritated with mushiness, whereas the men are more romantic and soft. And San also reminded me in many ways of my dad - or rather, to be more precise, reminded me of what I have gathered my dad as like when he was a young man. But you see, my dad is from Gyeongsangdo (he's from North Gyeongsang, San from South, and within Gyeongsangdo this is seen as a meaningful difference), he came up to Seoul as a teenager to pursue his dreams, he speaks the dialect as a native language, has one older sister and was adored by his mother, so he has a lot more in common with San!

So us both going "Oh, that's a lot like my dad!" is very funny.

The thing is, I don't think it's actually an expression of femininity for men like San or my dad to cry.

Granted, weeping in the form of emotional incontinence, and I do mean that literally, is a trait attributed to women and treated with the same contempt that is given to someone who pisses themselves in public, with all that it implies in both sexism and ableism: weak, embarassing, humiliating, and generally attesting to the inability to be a full, functioning adult.

"Real" men don't do this kind of crying. And it's generally agreed, isn't it, that 'real' men aren't supposed to cry? And because they allegedly don't, when "real" men do cry, those tears are so valuable, so moving, so precious. This is definitely true in the Asian context, and I would argue that it's true in the Western one as well.

When a man cries at someone's funeral, that proves he really loved the deceased, because he's a man, and he's crying. When a man cries because he's drunk, he's forgiven immediately and cooed at, because it's the alcohol that's melting the hard cement of what it means to be a man and you get to see the little boy still in there somewhere, and that precious child must be protected. When a man cries at art or in empathy, it's a testament to the goodness of his spirit, his artistic sensitivity, and the tenderness of his heart,precisely because he's not supposed to cry, which then means he must be protected by women and men alike.

What I have experienced in life is that men are not supposed to cry but actually do cry, liberally, a lot, whenever they want, because men have the monopoly on valuable tears. They are free to panic and start screaming at a high pitch (because all humans do this when panicked) because hysteria doesn't apply to a creature without a uterus, even though the symptom they are exhibiting is exactly the same as a creature that does. Men in Korea protest that there's a lot of rules preventing them from having full emotional lives, but as that's an interior thing I can't gauge the veracity of this sort of claim. What I have seen and experienced, however, is that they basically cry when they want, panic when they want, lash out when they want, whine and complain when they want, talk as much as they want about as many stupid topics as they want, utterly untrammeled by anything stopping them, because of this monopoly on valuable tears. Korean men do all the shit (cry in an incontinent manner, get emotionally warped, gossip meanly, complain) that they accuse women of doing. It's women who can't express much beyond a narrow set of 'correct' feelings in public in Korean society. We can't even like pop stars loudly without there being a whole set of words invented to speak of us in a derogatory manner so harsh that other women react by disavowing all interest in something as harmless and fun as pop music.

The types of crying that San (and also Wooyoung) have done that I have seen in the 자컨 (self content) has all stayed firmly within the lines of correct, valuable, masculine tears. These include: 1) when drunk, in the company of other men, in a light or funny way and 2) being overcome with sentimentalism with your adoring mother.

Sidebar: Male Korean judges have forgiven confessed rapists of elementary school aged girl children because the rapist said he had been drunk. Yes. It's like that. No, we hate it. Yes, it makes me homicidal.

Moreover, San being able to cry while drunk and protesting that he has picked a terrible seat (between the very aggressive prankster Wooyoung who knows he will always be forgiven by San no matter what he does, and Jongho who is an opera singer pretending to be a kpop star and a very dominant eldest son strafing against his work-assigned role of being the maknae of this group) is in many ways Gyeongsangdo masculinity that is so old school it's a little shocking. But then, Ateez is a group that both pushes forward with gusto (Hwa playing with gender, Woo kissing boys) while at the same time insisting on values that are actually going out of style (뉴꼰대, Woo insisting on babying the maknae, there being a 대장 / captain who has the final say). He wept because he was being screamed at, but he was drunk, and he did it while cursing someone out and in dialect.

Illustrative example of what I mean by Gyeongsangdo masculinity. When my dad as in college, he and his buddies went on a hike up a challenging mountain. We have a lot of these. They were ill prepared, and so got caught in a snow storm and had to shelter in place because going down was more treacherous than staying put. They were unable to light a fire (because ill prepared) and so couldn't eat properly, and were freezing besides. Night fell. It was cold. They were huddling, and then one of the started to cry. Someone else said, 임마, 울지 마라! (Dude don't cry! but in the Gyeongsangdo accent) and the crier replied, 내 안 운다! (I am not crying! - same accent), sobbing, and then, my dad said, these dudes in their 20s all hugged on the mountain pass and cried together until the snowstorm subsided. Nobody had gay panic about this at the time because, gayness didn't really exist in Korea back then, but also because this sort of homosocial safety - men can be really themselves only with other men, in the same way women can only really be themselves when men are not present- is a core norm of Korean society. They all became super close friends for the following decades from this experience. My dad was not embarassed by his friends' or his own tears. He tells this story as a way to show how very manly (in a boyish way) they all were. The capacity to trust other men enough to burst into tears is a form of correct masculinity.

Moreover, a word about Gyeongsangdo dialect. Gyeongsangdo dialect sounds aggressive to Seoul Standard speakers, both for the sound and for the historic association with men from that region. Gyeongsangdo is where two military 'strong men' dictators in Korea are from - Park Junghee and Jeon Du-Hwan (I'm using my own spellings for their names). They spoke the dialect a lot. Pusan, as the major port city of S. Korea during its rapid development also had a lot of organized crime around import/export, so a lot of gangsters in film are portrayed as having strong Pusan-accented Gyeongsangdo dialect. (And - just to give you too much information - Jeollado, where Yunho is from, also suffered from historic stereotyping as the place where Korean gangsters/mafia/yakuza are from, so in a reverse cultural vengeance sort of thing, a lot of Jeollado culture makers specifically made Gyeongsangdo gangsters to try to give the finger to what they view as the oppressor's region.) (OK that was too much information, sorry).

gif by tumblr user: jenrubyjane

Gyeongsangdo dialect uses a different vocabulary altogether than Seoul Standard Korean but also uses a completely different rhythm, and is almost a tonal language, which Korean is not. You have to sing it in order to say it correctly. And like most regional accents and dialects that are very pronounced, outsiders who didn't grow up with it get it horribly wrong - the sound is wrong. The only persuasive Gyeongsangdo characters I've ever seen in Korean film and tv are actors who are actually from there or only one or half generation removed from native speakers. Plus, the tonality of Gyeongsangdo is impossible to completely eradicate, no matter what. I've never lived in Gyeongsangdo, but since I lived a very peripatetic childhood because of my father's job, I grew up speaking Korean mostly with my parents and grandmother, who are all from different parts of Gyeongsangdo, and I've been told that even I have the tonality bleeding over into my Seoul-Standard Korean (which also has additional weirdness because it's got tinges of various other language zones I've lived in). Since the language is so different, Gyeongsangdo speech is also considered very unfeminine - blunt, impatient, angry, loud, abrupt.

If you've ever wondered why Seong-hwa's Live has fans tell him to 'do the accent' and then immediately tell him that it's scary, or when Hwa and San tease each other for being 'scary,' this is why.

Gyeongsangdo is also the politically right-leaning, conservative part of the country. Conservative in Korea does not mean 'conservative' in the American sense by the way - it's not the same. Right leaning isn't the same either, but I can't get into all that right now. But it was a base of power, and it still is a base of power. Having produced strongmen isn't necessarily a thing to be proud of, but then (in a weird twist?) those strongmen didn't do too terribly in some of what they set out to do - develop the country, build highways, build international relations, make Korea a worthwhile place for foreign investment etc- even as they trampled on democracy. So Gyeongsangdo men are both proud and slightly defensive about being themselves. And more than that, like I said, the accent is impossible to remove.

Gyeongsangdo men are stereotyped to have only three things to say when they come home from work:

밥 묵었나? 아~들은? 자자! (Have you eaten? And the children? Let's go to bed!)

The thing is, as I've said above, as a woman for whom all sides of her family come from north and south Gyeongsangdo and only all moved to Seoul in her parents' generation, this is not true. Gyeongsangdo men talk endlessly. It's just that the Gyeongsangdo dialect is compressive, as a language, and tonal, which makes the very long, very wordy sentences spoken by Seoul Standard Korean speakers unnecesary. But to them, I think it sounds very blunt.

To me, the accent is the sound of love, of uncles consoling me at my grandmother's funeral in sentences no longer than 10 syllables each, but containing everything I needed, you know? To me, guys like HongJoong, who speak in full Seoul-Standard sentences, talk way too much. They just never stfu, and I get tired listening to them string word after word after word, without breathing.

And San is proud to be where he's from. He's not just proud to be the first (and possibly only) Idol to come out of Namhae. He's proud of Namhae. I like that about him so much.

There's a moment their ATINY Day live from 2024.11.17, at the 59:30 mark or so, where they all play, the 'You're breaking up with me?' role play, and he starts out speaking in dialect, because he's tired. The others burst out laughing, because again, the dialect can sound aggressive, almost to the point of comical effect, for other Korean regions. San doesn't understand why they're laughing, and that's an interaction I've seen my family members have, and had myself with Seoul Standard speakers. (I will refrain from telling another story about my parents - my mom and my dad - and their first year at Seoul National U, when they had to speak up in class, in their accents, and people either found them incomprehensible or laughed.)

Which is why San is fucking fatal to me.

On top of which, he's very hot when he gets into this tough gyeongsangdo boy character, because all the men I love in my family also can 'get into' this character, and then they fritz out just like he does and turn into puppies.

WOOYOUNG. OK so -

Wooyoung clearly thinks this accent is way cool. He loves imitating it. He doesn't do it very well though. His 마! which he loves saying, is said in the wrong note and with the wrong emphasis (yes, there is a wrong emphasis you can put on a single syllable exhortation). He's absorbed really odd pieces of the dialect, like the word 디비, which he said recently in a live. He as complaining that the 영부인 are sending him off 'too easily' and he says, 디비 자 which means... flop over and sleep. But he says 디비 in a Seoul accent, which had me DYING because you know he's absorbed that word from spending a lot of time with San (and possibly, San's Mom).

And finally, (I say finally like there as some sort of structure to this instead of it just being an insane stream of consciousness ramble) - people used to give 'country' accents, like the Gyeongsangdo one, a really hard time. It got eliminated quite a bit which is why neither San nor Hwa have any difficulty speaking Seoul Standard most of the time (but for the times the OG dialect inevitably bleeds out) and why, by the same time, Yunho actually doesn't seem to speak Jeolla's very distinctive dialect much at all. Then, recently, because it's dying out, it became hip, as all dying cultures do. And I feel some type of way about that too. They're trying to preserve it now, actively. Which is why people who aspire to be big, representative stars like the Ateez guys have not one but two members who trot out an intensely South Eastern Korean regional dialect at will.

The cycles of irony never cease.

[amalthea-13]

The Mastermind Dilemma: The Winner Takes it All; and He's not A Hero

Introduction

I recently forced myself to sit with Mastermind again. I want to note I have not rewatched Mastermind in its entirety since November 29th.

I'm typing this in tears with the worst pit in my stomach.

There were a lot of things I said during this episode;

"I don't get it! He doesn't deserve it!"

"Can't even fucking apologize to him!"

"It's all your fault!"

"It's not fair."

I don't think I can ever- rewatch this episode again just because of how viscerally angry I get. I'm stuck feeling like I ate the worst burrito in history.

I think I finally figured out the "Why" behind everything. My anger speciifically, and it genuinely just is because of the inherent unfairness displayed in front of us.

Blitz is just- fucking awarded for his shitty behavior. Awarded for being a mediocre wakeup call for Stolas and leaves the room fucking unscathed and with more than what he came with.

Stolas leaves the room powerless, a mess, and daughterless. While Blitz is praised as a fucking hero.

HE IS NOT A HERO!

The Writing Isn't Satisfying

I know many of you are going to try and argue with me on this topic, but at least read this entire essay.

Firstly, I am by no means going after the Hellaverse team or squad. This is purely me talking from my own POV. Nothing I say or do speaks for anyone but me. Do not take this as your free pass to be a bitch in the comments.

When it comes to Blitz's writing specifically, we are given a lot of "whys" or reasons for his behavior. During the end of Season 2, we see a lot of Blitz's behaviors explained to us through flashbacks or explanations from Blitz himself.

We learn that Blitz is hyper aware of his behavior and how he treats people in Apology Tour;

Blitzo: For what?! You want me to be like- Oh, sorry, this entire time I assumed the worst because I was convinced a prince could never love someone like me and I've let my self hatred stop me from apologizing to anyone I could ever care about!

Blitz knows his behavior is bad. We see that so much of his behavior is shitty, but somehow he always gets away with it. He somehow is always enabled and allowed to continue with said bad behavior because no one actually dares to tell Blitz to stop.

Now before people in the comments go on and on about Millie or anyone else stickin' it to Blitz, I don't mean a one time deal.

I want Barbie Wire levels of "fuck off", from someone close to Blitz because I'm sorry, but I am beyond sick of how little consequences the fucker gets.

Now before people claim I'm a "Blitz-Anti" or some shit, despite my righteous anger against him, I still love and adore Blitz as one of my faves from the series, but that does not negate my ability to analyze his behavior and tell you all that what he does is fucking wack.

Blitz is an awful person and is praised at the end of the episode as a hero. A fucking hero.

HE IS NOT A HERO!

I apologize for having to hammer my point home, but after everything Stolas has given for this man. His life, his status, his daughter, Blitz walks away from a situation he caused UNSCATHED, and I as a viewer am supposed to be satisfied?

The writing doesn't satisfy me because I am given a bajillion reasons of WHY Blitz is the way he is, but never see development for HOW he plans to change his behavior or be better.

We never see active development or situations that push Blitz to stop being mean to people for no fucking reason.

When an audience is consistently told;

"Hey guys, Blitz is an awful person and pushes people away because of his own personal traumas."

but not given any active development from that where they apologize and acknowledge how bad their behavior is the audience is going to feel stuck and confused as to how that'll change in the series.

Hence why Full Moon was satisfying for me. Stolas acknowledged all of his awful behaviors and actively does his best to make it up to Blitz. He refrains from former behaviors Blitz hates, and checks himself when it comes to how bad the arrangement was. Even if no one was actively having anything held over their heads, Blitz was put in a position to feel that way. Stolas validated those feelings and did what he had to do to make it right.

Blitz on the other hand gives Stolas a half assed sorry, while he was drunk mind you, and- we're just supposed to applaud him?

Blitzo: I've always been real shit at sorries, 'kay? They're for pussies and no one fuckin' deserves them anyway, but I felt maybe you actually needed one.

Stolas: Ooh, lucky me!

Blitzo: Oh, shit. Okay, what I mean is, I said sorry a lot today and, honestly, didn't really mean any of it. Because the only one I wanted to say it to... Was you, Stolas. I just... This whole thing we had going... I'm- I mean you're a fucking prince. How could you ever actually care for an imp... Me? How could anybody?

Blitz acknowledges some of his behaviors, but this entire "apology" is self centered and focused on Blitz's self loathing. He doesn't acknowledge all the awful things he has done to Stolas or his part to play in the arrangement. He doesn't apologize for trying to pressure Stolas into sex or anything else.

All of this is "okayed" purely because Blitz "saved" Stolas from an abusive relationship by being a mediocre wakeup call for his sexuality.

That's it.

Blitz has not actively done anything to help or assist Stolas in anyway. Anything he does do for Stolas is self serving in someway, when Stolas goes out on a limb and gives him the book constantly without sex.

The writing here feels- so unfair and lopsided. Stolas does everything right and he is punished for 100 years by the narrative.

But Blitz can actively be a fuckhead and he's a hero?

You cannot honestly tell me, it doesn't make you upset. When it comes to Blitz's ending in Mastermind, he leaves with his phone blowing up, informing him of new clients and employees wanting to work for him.

He has people singing his name from roof tops. He is being praised for something he isnt' because let me remind you all.

HE IS NOT A HERO!

When I say Blitz is not a hero, I mean that.

Before anyone brings up Millie or people in Blitz's life, I want to remind you all he actively fucks them all over too.

Due to Blitz's negligence and stupidity for taking a Goetian relic, his friends and daughter could have been killed. Thank Lucifer Blitz was man enough to take the fall, but I need you all to see what I am getting at.

His behaviors and actions indirectly hurt everyone around him and he doesn't seem to care until it is to late.

Hence why, his whole "too late" line didn't hit me well. Everything he has ever done is "too late". He actively chooses to be awful, and at the point he realizes he has hurt the person it is "too late" to fix it.

This is the life and failures of Blitz Buckzo.

Blitz doesn't feel bad or show remorse for the things he does until it is to late. As BT Versosika said;

Verosika (hallucination): Yet you still shove away anyone who gets too close until they resent you for being a selfish, shitty, shit fuck!

He shoves people away so those people resent him. Blitz's Bad Trip is influenced by his own subconscious, therefore he is aware of what he does. He's aware of what he does and the reason why, but actively chooses to not work to do better.

As Ghostfucker Millie says;

Ghostfuckers Millie: When was the last time you actually loved someone without hurting them?

Not trying to be a fuckin asshole here, but has Blitz ever cared for others in his life without hurting them? Besides his own daughter, can anyone please name anyone he has been good to, genuinely, without hurting them?

Millie and Moxxie are actively harmed by Blitz's poor financial decisions.

Moxxie himself is verbally and physically assaulted by Blitz often while having his own self-esteem constantly attacked.

Fizzarolli, Blitz may not have harmed him directly, but Blitz actively antagonizes Fizzarolli for what? Being successful? Making it in the world? All because he is jealous? C'mon now.

Verosika, where the hell do I even begin? Man broke her heart beyond repair and now she spends her days trying to helps others cope. Even if misguided, she took up the roll of guardian and helper to those who have no one to go to.

Loona, while Blitz loves her to pieces, he actively babies and coddles her all the time despite the girl being 22 and a grown woman. These things actively sabotaging her social life.

Octavia, as much as Blitz day dreams of shiny Christmas lights and family time, he slept with Stolas and robbed her of a father.

"Amalthea, that was Stolas's choice!"

It was also Blitz's choice, don't start with me.

Blitz has hurt everyone he ever claims he "cares" about. He does all these things without apology and or issue because no one calls him out on his bullshit.

How is a viewer supposed to leave Mastermind "satisfied"? How am I supposed to enjoy the cute Stolitz kiss moment or whatever while knowing Stolas is actively throwing his life away for a man who he'd cross universes for, climb mountains for, but Blitz couldn't be bothered to cross a fuckin bridge for him, or anyone, lets be honest.

I'm Not Changing My View

I initially went into this rewatch trying to- I dunno undo my feelings against Blitz. I tried really hard to fix the anger I had, but I left feeling more angry and frustrated than last time.

Many may not understand my frustration, but to explain I just cannot handle injustice. Blatant injustice at that is one of my big things.

My main issue being that Blitz's writing does not satisfy me.

He actively gets to be an awful person and drag people down with him, and he's applauded as a hero. We're meant to root for him as the fireworks go off.

Hell, in my initial watch through I was proud of him, but- then I look at the couch Stolas is laying on and remember all that was lost.

Remember all that was sacrificed and given to someone who cannot truly appreciate it.

Because even after all of that sacrifice and love, Blitz still just does shitty things to Stolas.

"Amalthea what!? Blitz has been nothing but a patient and kind sweetheart to Stolas!"

The couch.

Flipping him off the couch.

". . . Amalthea, you cannot be serious?"

I am dead ass serious when I say that shit absolutely ticked me off. Dude was trying to rest and relax, probably feeling awful, and instead of politely waking him up or nudging him, you FLIP him off the COUCH????????????????????

Sure, real cute gesture.

Fuck me in the ass with a chainsaw, but DUDE he cannot be that dense. There is no way he thought that was fine.

So YES, I am still stuck on that.

Blitz is still choosing to just- be fucking annoying as all fuck. He still has yet to give Stolas a proper apology in the last few episodes of the season.

So no, I don't feel bad anymore for how upset I am at Blitz.

I don't care how many people try to argue with me or- hurl insults at me.

The answer on this is no.

I want to root for Blitz, but he has actively, over and over again just burnt out my patience when it comes to him.

While I understand his development, I am dissatisfied with the way he acts out and treats others after all these revelations. All these things tell me is that Blitz is capable of change, but Stolas was not worth changing for until he was absolutely nothing.

The Winner Takes it All

At the end of the night, while it is noble and kind of Blitz to help Stolas through this rough patch, he actively contributed to it.

He actively and selfishly took and took and took from Stolas, but never actively gave an ounce back to him.

He never apologized for Ozzie's.

He never apologized for not telling Stolas about Striker the first time.

He never apologizes to Stolas for the Full Moon Argument.

He never apologizes for pressuring Stolas for sex during Apology Tour.

He never apologizes.

Yet, Blitz still wins it all.

New Clients.

New Employees.

Newfound fame.

A sweet boyfriend.

And Stolas? Daughterless.

This isn't justice.

This isn't right.

Nor is it a satisfying narrative pill I can swallow.

Because it isn't right. None of what was presented was okay in any fucking context.

No matter how you arrange it or explain it to me. That fucker is not a hero.

[astercontrol]

the most introspective analysis of why the hell i'm into Tron fic

So it can be interesting to explore the weird web of connections between what we enjoy in fictional fantasy and what we actually want in real life. I mean, all sorts of connections and contrasts, and our needs and wants in life do bleed into our daydreams and our favorite fiction, in some way or another.

But it's not as simple as just fantasizing about the same thing you want.

And it can be pretty futile to try and theorize reasons why a thing you like in fiction might connect to your real life. Very little chance of proving or disproving anything for sure. Still, sometimes, I guess it can be intriguing just as a sort of… self-exploration exercise.

And I've been trying to do some of that with my love for the Tron fandom.

There are whole other essays I can write about parts of why the fandom appealed to me-- why for example I like the idea of erotic stories set inside a computer world, between bodies made of electronic data-- or why I like to imagine the Programs' anatomy and their acts of intimacy in the exact way I do. And all of that probably says things about me… things that I could put lots of words into analyzing.

But right now I'm going to focus on the bemusing topic of just where that love has ended up fixating.

Primarily on the original 1982 film, and more specifically, on fan theories about the relationship between Programs and the Users who wrote them.

So the premise of the film is simple, in a way that branches into a lot of complexity pretty fast: "What if computer software had feelings?" The setting is Encom, a programming corporation in which all the programs, for some unexplained reason, are alive in humanoid forms resembling the programmers who wrote them. This seems to have occurred spontaneously, unknown to anyone on the outside-- but inside the computer system all the programs just go on living in a mysterious and beautiful world, with their own types of love and work, friendship and conflict and war, and religious faith in their Users.

The supposed main character, Flynn, finds himself inside that world and tries to help them. But he's not the main subject of my fascination. See, he is a human programmer, but none of the humanoid programs he meets in there are his own creations. And the dynamic between creator and creation is where my focus seems to have landed.

The movie's portrayal of a lot of things is subtle and open to interpretation-- which of course is what attracts my puzzle-solving, pattern-recognizing mind! But in particular, the bond between Program and User is a fascinatingly complex and broken mixture of different aspects of different kinds of relationships familiar to humans.

Most clearly on the surface, a mixture of religious devotion and work relationships, and perhaps something of a knight's service to a monarch. Slightly below the surface, hints of the relationship to an alter ego; to a deeper and truer part, or ideal version, of one's own self. And of course, distinct undertones of familial and romantic and definitely erotic love.

The erotic aspect of it really seized my imagination, I have to admit. There's a truly intense sexual energy throughout the scene where Tron, alongside his friends, recharges himself on liquid power until he can "feel the Call" of his creator, Alan-1. And that sexual imagery continues and intensifies as he approaches the Input-Output Tower to answer the Call and contact his User.

It's a religious temple, yes, and guarded by a sort of temple priest-- but the priest's outfit is disturbingly phallic, and the ritual of welcoming Tron into the Tower involves speaking ceremonial words about "growing and extending into the realm of the invisible" while Tron stands with both hands clasped over his groin.

If it were played less solemnly-- and not couched in the middle of an ostensibly family-friendly adventure movie-- this scene would be an obvious sexual comedy, with zero further changes required.

And the other sexual undertones, in other aspects of the movie, all seem to link into this.

Flynn, the one User in the computer world, seems to inspire uncontrollable attraction in programs who get close to him. There is a starkly homoerotic feel to the way Ram looks at him while dying in his arms, and the way Tron holds him while welcoming him aboard the Solar Sailer. Those are the sorts of scenes that will feel as unsubtle as a smack on the face to anyone even remotely sensitive to homoerotic subtext.

But then, even more explicitly, there's the scene at the end when Flynn and Yori kiss-- even though Yori is Tron's established romantic partner, and has no interest in leaving him for Flynn. The pull of Flynn's User-Power was just that strong, in that moment.

Tron and Yori's romance is interesting in itself. It's a relationship that seems to exist as an echo of the established romantic relationship between their programmers, Alan and Lora out in the "real" world. Perhaps Tron and Yori don't even know why they're mirroring those patterns. They clearly love each other, but without all the same context that human love has.

They don't seem to be capable of reproduction, and maybe not even humanoid sex. They don't even kiss until at the very end, after Flynn leaves-- where it's implied that they didn't previously know how to kiss until Flynn showed Yori. Not so much a king's exercise of droit du seigneur, but more like a wedding gift from a god-- a goodbye kiss for Yori and also for Tron, given indirectly through her.

And of course there's the Deleted Love Scene, cut from right before Tron and Yori go to the I/O Tower (but included in DVD extras). They meet up in her quarters, ostensibly to plan how they're going to get to the Tower, but Yori shows immediate interest in sneaking in some intimacy while they're alone together.

She magical-girl-transforms into a diaphanously sparkling cape and opens her arms to him. He approaches her, only to stare somewhat blankly and ask again, "How are we going to get to the I/O Tower?" So she improvises, tracing circuits on his body with her finger, under pretense of illustrating the route they could take.

We get only a few seconds of this, and no vocal or facial reaction from Tron, before the scene fades out. But for what it's worth, the response we see in his circuits is the canon basis for the now-ubiquitous theme in erotic fanfiction, where a program's circuitry can turn purple or pink in response to arousal and stimulation.

...So, from all of this, I got the clear feeling that whatever type of sexuality programs may have, it's focused around their own most powerful motivation. The one that's as strong, in its own way, as the human drive to reproduce.

While human sex evolved around reproducing, Program sex evolved around their own closest equivalent urge-- which is just the urge to contact and serve the Users, in whatever way one is programmed to.

And like reproduction, it's not necessary to sexual pleasure. Programs clearly can touch each other in pleasurable erotic ways, with or without a User involved-- just as humans can satisfy each other's sex drives in plenty of non-reproductive ways. Yori and Tron-- and perhaps Tron and Ram as well-- could have had a lifetime of love and mutual circuit-stimulation without ever going to the I/O Tower.

But Tron, at least, seems to be a little bit of a puritan about it, in my interpretation. He will accept sexual relief from other programs as a stopgap… but whenever possible, he prefers to save himself for his User.

And even if he later adapts, settling into a marriage-like relationship with Yori, under the new peace and freedom of the system-- he will still consider his regular meetings with Alan-1 to be an essential focus of his sexuality, a relationship he would never, ever consider giving up, no matter how much he and Yori also love and satisfy each other.

Program love, I imagine, is very ancient-Greek. Polygamous, often, but with variations in how the love is expressed. Polytheistic, too, but with each individual worshiper particularly devoted to a specific patron god.

And I imagine, in their world, the different kinds of love all come with a sexual component. If Ram is ever data-recovered and brought back to life, I imagine he would be Tron's Philia, alongside the Eros of Yori and the Agape of Alan-1. But in the Program sense of those words, the relationships would all be some degree of sexual, making his wife and his friend and his god all partners in a polyamorous quartet-- perhaps even the true meaning of those four squares over Tron's heart.

(This makes the continuation of the plot, years later in the "Tron: Legacy" sequel, all the more tragic. We're told that Flynn took Tron from his original role as security monitor of the Encom computer, and put him to work protecting a new computer world that Flynn was building. We get pretty much no details of the circumstances of this move, only the disastrous fallout from it many years later. And I find it extremely difficult to imagine a scenario where Tron would have agreed to this uncoerced. Whether or not Ram and Yori got to accompany him, Alan-1 certainly didn't. And this would have devastated the Tron I know.)

(So, for my own mental health-- and also to explain how Flynn got away with pirating Encom's security software-- I imagine that he left the original copy of Tron undisturbed. It doesn't erase the tragedy of what the new copy went through… it probably worsens it, if the copy knows he's a copy, knows his loved ones don't even miss him because he's not even really gone. But at least-- at the very least-- it lets me believe that at least one version of Tron lived happily ever after.)

Anyway. All of this is the context in which I've been trying to understand why the hell my mind-- especially the romantic and sexual parts of it-- find this creator-creation love so very compelling.

It is a fantasy of a true love that's unrealistically pure and complete, I suppose. A program is, of course, made up of conditionals, of if-then statements… but the ones governing the permissions reserved for the User must be deeply integral to identity. Especially in programs like these ones: made by programmers in a 1980's-era corporation, and almost all custom-written to serve specific purposes for their creators.

The only one of them whose ownership resembles that of modern software is Ram-- who is subtly implied to have been written by a programmer at Encom, but was then sold to an insurance company and spent some time serving the public there, before being captured by the enemy and brought back to Encom to be imprisoned.

Ram is the only one who ever calls Flynn "My User"-- and I think this is because, to him, designed for the service of End-Users, his User can be anyone. Which, to my observation, reflects in his constant sweet helpfulness toward all who need it, his fierce loyalty to Tron… and of course (to the horniest side of my observation, but still there) the omnipresent air of seductive sluttiness he gives off, in absolutely every scene.

(I don't know who decided to give that program a name evocative of both "taking it vigorously from behind" and being "random access," but holy hell does it fit him. Ram may be corporate property, but he's the most open-source shareware at heart, and I love him so much for it. Actor Dan Shor definitely understood the assignment.)

But even Ram's love, offered openly to so many, is still so simple and pure in its own way. And for a User authorized to use him, it would be as unconditional as the love of any other program in the cast.

So maybe that's the fantasy? Unconditional love, to a degree humans will never quite manage.

Except that in real life, the very idea of unconditional love makes my skin crawl.

From both sides, actually. To love someone else unconditionally is to make yourself horrifyingly vulnerable to abuse. Dogs have unconditional love, and look how badly dogs get treated sometimes. If you couldn't stop loving even under those circumstances-- if your love doesn't even have conditions like "I'll love you as long as you don't hit me with a rolled-up newspaper and lock me in a kennel all day," then what's to protect you?

And from the viewpoint of the one being loved-- well, being unconditional makes the love pretty much meaningless, doesn't it? If another person's love for you is not even conditional on you remaining the same person in any way-- then they sure don't love you for who you are. Why do they love you? What do they love? Can't even be you, exactly… because it would persist even if every aspect of "you" was replaced with something totally different. And yet, somehow, it always seems to exist in the same space and time as you. Following you like a weird possessing ghost. What the hell is it? Is it just an idea of you? How far removed is that idea from any of what you really are?

It's why I've never found it easy to feel very close to any of my blood family. The idea that they love me in a way like that… a devotion that's everlasting no matter how little we have in common, no matter how vanishingly few parts of my personality fit any description that would ever appeal to them otherwise? Bound to me by… who-knows-what? Ugh. It's the stuff of nightmares.

And yet. Isn't it more or less the same thing as the lines of code that bind Tron to Alan-1? And why do I find that bond so beautiful, when the closest things in human life are eldritch horror to me?

Do I somehow feel that this sort of connection is more appealing for erotic love than familial love?

No… I doubt it. if a romantic suitor felt that kind of attachment to me despite having zero other things in common, it would probably come across as equally creepy, if not more so.

Or is it, maybe, that I feel this sort of connection is appealing for religious love? Is that the aspect of Tron and Alan's multifaceted relationship that makes actual sense to me? Is this the sort of bond I like the idea of sharing with a god?

Also doesn't feel quite right to me. I mean, I have never, personally, been able to believe in a god-- or anything that society recognizes as a supernatural power of any kind.

And yes, I do experience the occasional pleasant fantasy of how nice it could be if there was someone in charge, some plan to all this, some kind and powerful being at the top who knew what they were doing and could be trusted to lead us to a good future! But as it is, I find it pretty much impossible to believe that's happening in this world.

And-- in this world, and in regard to the sort of all-powerful entity I was raised to think of as a God-- I feel that, realistically, it would be very bad if such a thing existed.

Because realistically, it would mean we are under the rule of the most absolute-powered, absolutely-corrupt dictatorship imaginable, with no hope of escape, ever. A ruler who constantly (according to our observation of the world) does things, allows things, and (according to various religious texts) commands us to do things, which are downright evil according to our own emotions and our own capacity for reason--

--and which we have no choice but to consider good. Because in the framework of this faith, we have to believe that there is an objective, unquestionable standard for what "good" is-- and we have to believe that this absolute ruler of the universe is the source of that standard, and our only reference for what that standard is. No matter how terrible it feels to us, and how difficult it is to come up with any possible reasoning for how it could be good.

God by definition is good, and Good by definition is what God wants. Perfect circle. To me, a perfect, horrifying dystopia.

So I'm not exactly sure where the User/Program fascination originates for me. Sure, it's a deeply compelling meld of romantic, familial, workplace and religious relationships-- and yet in my own life I pretty much hate the power dynamic, the affront to personal freedom, that goes along with all of those.

And yeah, that includes romance. That same aversion to relationships with total, unconditional devotion is probably part of why I am so close to aromantic, in terms of my connection to other real-life humans.

I have experienced living in a marriage. I have experienced relationships that tried to call themselves romance. And all I can say is that I didn't feel I'd found anything resembling a fulfilling relationship… until I experienced living in the loosely-connected polycule I discovered during my time in LA.

That specific setup didn't work out, for a lot of reasons none of us could fully control, but the taste of it convinced me that this is the kind of relationship I want in my life. A house of roommates who are affectionate friends-with-benefits-- but with enough space to allow everyone a room of their own and clear boundaries. And an understanding that physical and sexual contact between any of these companions can be an acceptable thing, if the people involved want it, but not otherwise.

Enough people that if the arrangement isn't working out for any one of them, that one can feel somewhat free to move on to a better place, without fear of abandoning anyone else all alone.

Enough people that there'll usually be someone there for you, for whatever you need-- whether it's practical help, social company, or sexual relief.

But also enough people that no individual person feels an obligation to always be the one there for anyone else.

I dread the kind of devotion that makes someone feel that obligation, to be always there for someone. It feels to me like it violates personal autonomy. It means any consent you give to anything is automatically unreliable-- how can you, or anyone, be sure you're not just agreeing to something you don't want out of obligation?

I know I have a fierce independent streak. And I'm realizing lately that it's not so much a concern for either "appearing weak" or "imposing on others" -- it's mainly just because other people can't be depended on.

And that's not an insult to them! And the idea that it could be considered an insult says terrifying things, to me, about what society expects of people. Because what does it mean, when you're expected to be someone that people can depend on, can rely on? It means your own needs always come after that. It means you are a step away from being enslaved, being property, having no right to put your own needs first.

And sure, when people say someone is "dependable" or "reliable," they rarely mean it in a sense that extreme. Either they are just saying that person is pretty often willing to help-- not nearly always, but just in comparison to other people who are very seldom willing to help--

--or, they do mean the person is always or almost always willing to help-- and they haven't given actual, serious thought to whether that worryingly high willingness is real, or coerced by obligation.

But I give that a whole hell of a lot of thought. When I say I can't depend on other people, I am saying I can't expect to own them as slaves.

And yes, I do know that there are some necessities where it's vital to have something you can rely on more than any one human being should ever be expected to be reliable. For me, often that "something" is a system of my own that I come up with-- one of my fiercely-independent ways of taking care of my own necessities.

And when I can't come up with such a system on my own, the next best option, for me, is to have a large group of people to rely on. I do feel that people can't ethically be treated as "reliable" on an individual level. But as a group, with responsibility spread out enough, it becomes, sometimes, a valid option.

Anyway.

I guess, with all that infodump, I've just painted a pretty clear picture for you of what I'm like to live with.

And in the process, I guess I've made it abundantly clear that in real life, I pretty much loathe the idea of being on either side of anything resembling this Program/User relationship that I romanticize so hard in my fantasies.

So… what gives?

I mean. I'm aware of the whole gamut of things people can enjoy in fiction and fantasy, regardless of how bad they'd be in reality. And I don't judge. But I know that my own fantasies-- the things I personally like to imagine as pleasurable escape-- don't tend to eroticize or romanticize any of the stuff I consider dystopian. At least, when dystopia appears in my fantasies, it's in the context of protagonists working together to fight against it.

My pleasures don't get that dark… not to the point of delighting in the thought of hurt without comfort; torment without love or enjoyment. I can read and appreciate many well-written stories, regardless of topic. But if I read a story where someone is hurt, in a way they don't want and don't enjoy on any level, that dynamic itself will not be an aspect of the story that gives me pleasure.

And when I imagine Programs and Users, I don't even fall into that happy fantasy I mentioned earlier-- the fantasy of a world where God is truly good and has a trustworthy plan for it all. In the context of Tron canon, the Users aren't that kind of gods-- they're human programmers, they're messy and imperfect and sometimes outright malicious, and they rarely have a clear idea of what they're doing or how it's going to go.

And in my daydreams, I don't even imagine that the programs believe in that nice little fantasy. Maybe some of them do at first, like Tron did before Flynn cleared things up in that scene on the Solar Sailer. But as Users and Programs get to know each other's true selves more deeply, growing the relationship into the kind of love I daydream about-- they learn how messed-up it is.

They have no illusions, eventually. The program knows that the User is their superior only in terms of software permissions-- and in many other ways is actually less rational, less capable of untainted ethics and unbiased reasoning than a Program is.

And the Program loves the User anyway. Whole-hearted, unwavering devotion, the deepest motivation and the greatest fulfilment in their whole life-- even knowing that this is all just the result of lines of code somewhere forcing them to feel that.

It doesn't matter. Even with full understanding, those lines of code still make themselves sacred in the Program's eye, and the love persists.

Which, to me, somehow… actually feels perfectly fine? No different from enjoying human emotions and sensations while knowing the evolutionary reasons behind them.

Sure, I can delight in the feeling of affection for others in my life, and the joy of being close to those I feel it for. Sure, it's just chemicals, just oxytocin and serotonin and the bodily reactions they set off, and it evolved to increase survival rates by keeping the social unit together to cooperate in raising the young and hunting food and so on. But who cares. The point is, it feels good.

Sure, I take pleasure in eating good food because my body uses dopamine as an incentive for that action to ensure I stay nourished. Sure, I enjoy sex for the same reason, even though my ancestors evolved that hit of pleasure because it incentivizes reproduction, and yeah, I don't personally plan to reproduce. It still feels good.

So… where's the disconnect?

Why can't I appreciate the idea of real-life familial love or romantic love or religious love in that same way? Why is it just the fictional Program/User versions that I find so attractive-- as well as those specific emotional and sensory experiences that feel to me like the closest thing to real-life equivalents?

And…

And wow, I think writing this all down just helped me figure it out, just now.

And… damn it. Really? Took me this long?

Did I forget the most self-indulgent Program/User fic I've ever written? Even with "A Lightcycle Built For Two" under my belt, I seriously didn't figure this out sooner?

Yay me.

It's not the romantic love. It's not the religious worship. It's not the familial relationships or the workplace relationships.

All of those-- plus the most literal surface imagery, the Program and User themselves-- are vehicles to convey different aspects of a feeling. All of them bring me something, some little frisson of feeling that I enjoy, amid all of what I don't.

But the context in which I like that feeling isn't actually any of the relationships serving here as metaphors.

It's the other one, the one I just barely mentioned only in passing.

The freakin' REASON why it resonates so much with me that Tron programs are played by the same actors as their programmers.

That bit about "relationship to an alter ego; to a deeper and truer part, or ideal version, of one's own self."

It's about that same knightly service, that same unconditional love, that same fierce whole-souled devotion--- but not to someone else.

To being who I am. My best version of me. All the parts of it.

It's about loving myself.

THAT's what resonated with me. THAT's why I like what I like.

Hell yeah.

[laniemae]

hello, i wanted to ask your opinions on a few things i've been thinking about for a while now since i always enjoy your takes on ojima

firstly, i wonder if they'll ever go into more detail about ojima's ptsd--it was brought up once in confession game and then never really talked about again (from what i can remember, please do correct me if there was more information somewhere along the line). i'm also curious on whether ojima has ptsd or c-ptsd specifically, since c-ptsd is developed due to long term trauma (which we know ojima has experienced since the abuse he endured lasted 12 years) whereas ptsd is caused by a singular event. monomoko says 'post traumatic stress disorder' instead of 'complex post traumatic stress disorder' in confession game when stating ojima's secret which is why i'm pondering this. sorry if this seems like kind of a strange thing to focus on but i was just thinking.

i've also seen people speculate that this chapter's motive will be based on paranoia, seeing as someone (likely the staff) planted the drugs in hiroaki's room and the tamba death threat note. this makes me a bit worried, cause if this is the case then there's a very high chance that they'll try to trigger ojima's ptsd; which may lead to him feeling alert/on edge (hypervigilance or hyperarousal--i believe these are two different things when it comes to ptsd but they do share some similarities). i do hope im talking about these topics in a respectful way though, since im not the most educated on ptsd

another thing that i think about is ojima's relationship with his mother. we know that his father and uncle hurt him immensely, but we don't actually know how his mother acted towards him. we know that both his mother and father were arrested and ken says that both parents were abusing their children in the chapter 4 investigation while he's reading the student profiles, but we don't know exactly how she abused them (i think it was mentioned somewhere that shigeo beat ojima and his brothers). i'm curious on how ojima feels about his mother--i think he feels a similar way to her as he does his father, but i could be wrong.

sorry for the massive essay but i really like ojima and his character is really interesting haha

Saw this massive essay in my asks and squealed in joy. I absolutely love reading and adding onto ojimanalysis you do not have to apologise give me more whenever you feel like it I love to yap.

Ojima’s ptsd is also something I think about a lot because it hasn’t really been explored in the story so far and was only mentioned in his confession game secret and nowhere else but I do find it a really interesting topic. And yeah as you said I do believe it’s very likely Ojima more specifically has complex ptsd instead of regular ptsd. I feel like the reason why in confession game it only said ptsd is that cptsd isn’t currently recognised as an offical diagnosis in the DSM-5, so from what we know the confession game secrets are taken from their student profiles. It would have records on Ojima’s therapy sessions in which he would’ve been diagnosed, and again as cptsd is a relatively new diagnosis he would’ve officially been registered as having ptsd. Kind of how as well maladaptive daydreaming isn’t officially recognised as a mental illness but it’s mentioned in the secret logs from psychological screening from the doctors, even if it’s not officially recognised. Although cptsd is an officially registered diagnosis in the ICD-11, even with current standards today it can be hard to get diagnosed, especially since Ojima dropped out of therapy so many times.

Ojima definitely does fit the criteria for cptsd to form. Essentially to recap the main differences in how they form is regular ptsd typically forms from short term trauma or a singular traumatic experience. Cptsd on the other hand is formed by any sort of long term trauma, especially within childhood, typically when the victim has little control and is unable to escape. And fits the symptoms of regular ptsd along with additional symptoms. And with how Ojima was abused in multiple different ways for almost his entire life he would definitely fit this part of the criteria.

Even with some of the stuff we’ve seen of Ojima he does fit the criteria of the symptoms both of regular ptsd and the complex variant. He constantly shuts down stuff relating to his trauma and shows severe emotional distress when any stuff about his childhood or family (excluding his brothers) is bought up. As well in [Young Forever] when he says “I just want to stop being scared…” when on the topic of his past.

He also fits the additional symptoms associated with cptsd from what I’ve seen. Such as irritability and angry outbursts. Not outwardly showing too much positive emotion and generally being more emotionally muted as well as dissociation. Another big symptom of cptsd is a negative sense of self such as feeling shame, worthlessness and failure. [Bruise] definitely highlights a lot of these symptoms when it comes to Ojima talking about his experiences. He makes comments on feeling small all the time, “infected” as he puts it, not knowing how to feel okay or strong again, having lost everything and not knowing anything about what to do. And as well how Ojima feels envious/admiration of Hayashi and stuttering on how he doesn’t know how she can just do that and not being able to feel strong. So I feel this episode highlights a lot of those additional symptoms of negative sense of self.

Forming and maintaining strong and meaningful relationships is also a symptom with cptsd. Within the killing game we definitely know that he’s formed a very close bond with Hiroaki, and even though they have a lot of hiccups Ojima always tries to get them back together. Although despite this, Hiroaki is really the only person Ojima has a close bond with within the killing game. He does try to be friendly with the others but doesn’t go out of his way to make friends. And within his outside life the only close connections he has is his older brothers, and we know that even with them being the closet people to him he still has a lot of trouble opening up and letting them help them. So I do definitely feel he fits this category as well.

With all of this I’m very sure Ojima specifically has cptsd, and it probably wasn’t specified as it’s hard to diagnose. But he fits all of the symptoms of both regular ptsd and the complex variant as well as long term trauma to make me feel confident on this. Might’ve yapped about this a lot as it’s something I’m super interested in as has done a lot of research with to understand Ojima’s character as it’s so interesting. And yeah I definitely hope they go into more detail surrounding his condition as we do see the symptoms as I bought up, but since it was an important statement in the series I really want to learn more about how Ojima deals with it. Especially with how he’s in a tough spot when it comes to his mental health that he was very adamant about shutting down having anxiety and the fact that the ptsd was mentioned in confession game along with the abusive means it’s a very sensitive topic for him. His student profile became important in trial 4 and I don’t think they’re just gonna leave that plot line up in the air so I hope we’ll get more info about Ojima’s condition in this chapter.

So about the motive, staffside has confirmed that all the stuff going on is not related to the motives. It also wouldn’t be on of the doctors as knowing what goes on there they would’ve been found out immediately and promptly executed, so it’s definitely one of the students who’s causing this chaos. But this is something to take into consideration as it’s likely that the person who planted the drugs in Hiroaki’s room also sent the death threat to Tamba, so since they’ve done it twice they very well might strike again. In my opinion I don’t think they’ll try to trigger Ojima’s ptsd if they do target him. Something like that would be similar to how Okazaki was triggering Wada by locking him in small spaces and stuff and since the culprit doesn’t want to be caught by going to measures such as typing the note I feel that’d be too risky.

But if Ojima is targeted I do think it’s much more likely they’ll involve his student profile in some way. As like I said it became important in the previous trial and there was some stuff bought up about it but never expanded upon so it might come back as a plot point. And Ojima was incredibly distressed over Hasegawa reading a bit of his student profile so they would definitely be aware that could be damaging to him. Although in order to do that they’d have to steal the student profile from Hayashi’s room which would be very hard to do. So I don’t know if there are gonna be other instances like what we’ve seen but if Ojima is going to get targeted it’s likely someone’s gonna try and leak his profile, but we don’t know enough about the situation to properly guess what’s gonna happen next or if he’s even gonna be involved.

With Ojima’s mother, I feel like it’s most likely she was emotionally and physically abusive just like his father, as well as not caring about any of the other abuse that was going on and likely participating in the gaslighting as Ojima had nowhere to go as a child, hence why he developed maladaptive daydreaming. And yes as you said in [Purple] it’s said that Shigeo beat his kids as from what Hiroaki was talking about the situation, and like I said Ojima’s mother was in prison for the same reasons it’s likely she also participated in that. We don’t know too much about her but in an ask Von confirmed that Ojima’s mother is in prison for the same reason as his father. And as well Hasegawa did directly say that in canon. Also in [Tech Support] Ojima did say that he doesn’t like that side of his family very much and his good family are his brothers, so it’s definitely seems he doesn’t like his mother along with the rest of the adults of his family.

[kenomacreature]

SEMI-COHERENT MUSINGS ON THE METAPHYSICS OF DELTARUNE

Exploring such topics as: - "what are the Depths?" - "what's with all the water references?" - "why do Darkners know all that stuff?"

Chapters 3 & 4 are fast approaching, the time we have before we’re faced with an influx of novel topics for speculation is running out, and I still have some leftover thoughts on the first two chapters that I'd like to get out there in writing before that happens. These thoughts primarily center around the metaphysics of Deltarune’s diegetic world, and various discursive methods that might be employed to help elucidate its nature.

This will be a loosely structured collection of thoughts that draw heavily from philosophy, literary theory and mythology, so if you don’t like pseudointellectual ramblings this is your warning to close the tab.

All of the points made here will be ancillary to the premises I argue for in my essay titled The Magic Circle. You should probably read it first!

Crossing the Fountain – art vs. byt

Much of my Magic Circle essay is concerned with the almost magical way in which one’s experience of reality is mentally transformed when under the spell of art or fiction. Indeed, this is the source of the essay’s title, and what I argue Darkness in Deltarune represents. I wanted to illustrate this idea a little more.

In the essay, I quoted J. Huizinga’s Homo Ludens – in that book he's talking about games and play specifically, but one of his most salient observations is that play is undergirded by an impulse to abstract from immediate reality that is shared between many branches of culture, including all aesthetic traditions. Huizinga is not the only theorist who noticed that art (which I define to include games and play) is experienced as a break from ‘immediate’ or quotidian experience. Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky posited that art was a transformation of everyday life into its own seperate realm. In his analysis, he put forth an oppositional model between art and what the Formalists called “byt” – an evocative term which could be translated as “life,” but also evokes the way in which life stabilizes into predictable molds.

Within the realm of byt, we experience events causally – and causality, as David Hume famously noted, is at bottom arbitrary. Art, on the other hand, is constructed towards certain ends – it is teleological. In art, essence precedes existence.

In byt, there's material – paper, canvas, film reel, computer code. In art, there are (artistic) devices – stanza, perspective, montage, mechanic.

Byt produces recurring patterns and routines that threaten to turn us into automatons. Art de-familiarizes, jolting us out of the narcotic patterns of everyday experience by presenting us with novelty to reflect on.

Now, you may or may not find this model for understanding art convincing or all-encompassing, but I think it provides a useful idea for understanding Deltarune's metatext.

When we interact with art or fiction, we voluntarily undergo certain illusions. When I read a story, I condition myself to think that I’m reading something that actually happened. When I watch theater, I condition myself to think that the actors are actual people, and the stage is a real environment. When I watch a film, I condition myself to think that the camera doesn’t exist; that it is a window into a different world which is also somehow not of that world. And when I play a (narrative) game, I condition myself to think that I am not interfacing with a program, but a world of its own. Of course, these self-imposed illusions are in no way totalizing. There is always a part of us that remains aware of the artifice. But our experience qua art operates under these illusions – we might say that there is always a part of us experiencing byt too, but this part is marginalized when we’re absorbed in an aesthetic experience.

Some readers might be scratching their heads at what any of this has to do with Deltarune, so I'll make the connection clear: Deltarune itself explicitly formulates Dark and Light – obvious analogues for fiction and reality (or art and byt) – as separate worlds, existing in a similar oppositional balance. Darkness transforms everyday objects – the raw material so to speak – into narrative devices, like characters and settings. In Deltarune there is a dual-reality to everything that comes into contact with Darkness (or the power of art). Might we climb one step up the hierarchy and try to use something akin to this oppositional model to explain the ways in which Deltarune refers to reality from within its fictional domain?

For example, there is the uneasy fact that we are an active force within the narrative, instead of just an invisible spectator. Sidestepping the question of whether the force we’re embodying in the game is supposed to literally be us, the player, at the very least the characters can only understand us in more conceptual terms, as some sort of in-universe deity or anomalous entity. So there’s us – the player – and there’s the Angel – our in-universe embodiment.

So what about the character who contacted us – what about Gaster? In The Magic Circle, I discussed how the information we have about Gaster leads us to think that he exists in some sort of transcendent state as a result of his experiments with Darkness. From that, I extrapolated that Darkness was the fundamental substance underlying Deltarune’s reality (which we can fit into another binary: there’s Darkness, the magical substance that makes up the reality of Deltarune’s world, and there’s what the concept clearly allegorizes: the creative or imaginative capacity of human beings – which is what gave rise to Deltarune, the video game). Gaster’s “transcendent” state trades heavily on video game creepypasta tropes; he’s like a ghost haunting the code of the game. And as it turns out, Deltarune has explicitly made the move to extend its diegesis to its code with the inclusion of a character who seems to be stuck there.

If the code is a part of the diegetic world, we can extrapolate another binary: there’s the code or internal workings of the program, and there’s “the Depths” – a higher (or deeper) metaphysical layer of Deltarune’s world that transcends time and space. Worded differently, the Depths are what we get when the 'eye of the narrative' turns its gaze towards the code of the program.

To close off this section, I want to mention that in Shklovsky’s theories about art and narrative, he makes heavy use of a machine metaphor; he wanted to focus on the ways in which art was a constructed object abiding by its own internal rules. The specific word the Formalists preferred is “device”. In fact, one of Shklovsky’s most well-known essays is titled “Art as Device”. Just something to think about for you Device Theory fans.

Water, Darkness and Chaos as Symbolic Motifs

Water is everywhere in Deltarune. The magical worlds we explore are given form by “fountains” and “geysers”. Onion-san talks of ominous songs under the sea. Ocean.ogg briefly plays after we fall into the supply closet Dark World. And the source image of IMAGE_DEPTH, the background of the GONERMAKER segment, is apparently of an ocean. What gives?

The basic gist is that water has an extremely long and prominent symbolic history in mythology, and figures especially prominently in ancient creation myths. One of the earliest creation myths we have, derived from Enūma Eliš, a Babylonian poem of the 2nd millenium BCE, describes a primordial state consisting of nothing but two deities – Abzu, god of the freshwater ocean, and Tiamat, god of the saltwater sea; from the “comingling of their waters”, all of creation emerges. This is consistent with what we know of ancient near-eastern cosmology in general; they viewed the world as essentially like an air bubble. In the beginning, there was water. Unordered, chaotic, formless. Then, something happens to produce the earth and firmament, both disc-shaped, which separate this cosmic ocean into heavenly waters above the earth (the source of all rain), and lower waters of the deep (the source of all rivers, springs, fountains and geysers).

This cosmological account survives into the Biblical narrative. From Genesis 1:6:

and God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”

The ancient near-eastern flood narrative, which likewise is preserved in the Bible as the story of Noah’s ark, is made less arbitrary with this in consideration; its basis is not merely that drowning in a storm is a scary concept (though it certainly is) – the real symbolic threat of the flood is of a return to pre-creation chaos. The gates of heaven opening and all of creation coming undone. From Genesis 7:11:

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

(Sound familiar?)

The idea of water as underlying all reality cropped up not just in religion and mythology, but also philosophy. Thales of Miletus, credited since Aristotle as the world’s first philosopher, famously believed that all of reality was made up of water. Thales and his philosophical successors are sometimes called material monists for their belief that all of reality was composed of a single ultimate substance – the arche from which everything originates.

Thales’s idea was no doubt influenced by the cosmological picture painted by mythology. Though not identical to the near-eastern accounts, the world of ancient Greek mythology is preceded by a state of primordial Chaos – a vast chasm, abyss, or emptiness. Though we in the present day might be tempted to understand Chaos as something like space, ancient commentators such as Pherecydes of Syros interpreted it as water. It was the fluid, formless and undifferentiated nature of water that made it such an enticing candidate for the pre-creation substance.

Chaos was also associated with darkness. Unambiguously born from Chaos are Erebus and Nyx – deified personifications of Darkness and Night. And this is a point of similarity with the ancient near-eastern accounts. From Genesis 1:1-3:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

In short, the primordial state across world mythology tends to be that of an infinitely dark, chaotic ocean.

The parallels to Deltarune are obvious, and having tracked the symbolic history which the game is working with can, I think, lend us a better understanding of "Darkness" as it appears in the game. Needless to say, all of what I've discussed supports the thesis I laid out in The Magic Circle: that Darkness is the arche or prima materia of Deltarune, the underlying substance that its reality is made of. Likewise I think we can intuit what “the Depths” are – simply what in the Hebrew Bible is referred to as “the (great) deep”. A mass accretion of formless Darkness which sits below reality itself. Dark Fountains are formed when the fabric of reality is pierced, creating a gap from which Darkness bursts forth. And since Darkness is the “raw material of reality” so to speak, the Darkness forms a new reality within the old one. But too many holes in reality threaten to “burst the air bubble”, so to speak, and flood the world with Darkness.

I created the above diagram a while back, and used it in The Magic Circle - no doubt you'll notice the similarity between this and the earlier diagram of the Biblical cosmology. The funny thing is that this connection wasn't consciously intended at all; I was barely aware of what the Biblical cosmology was like when I made the first version of this image. That makes me feel like I'm on the right track.

I do want to make something clear; the world of Deltarune isn't necessarily a literal Biblical style air bubble, with a disc-earth and dome sky. The air bubble thing is just for the sake of visualization. I think the Depths are more like a different layer of reality, simultaneously "higher" and "deeper". It's not that there's literally a bunch of dark water under the ground; what Kris is really stabbing is, again, the fabric of "phenomenal" reality itself.

Another thing I want to note; these early mentions by Toby of concepts relating to twilight or the meeting of light and dark have long been a topic of discussion in the community. I want to formulate my understanding of what its significance is.

The first thing God does in the Biblical creation story is summon light. Light meeting the darkness is presented as a precondition to any further creation. Likewise, fiction (darkness) can not exist without an observer in reality (light). The meeting of light and dark is a fundamental condition of art; it can't exist without somone to "shed light on it".

It could also well be referring to the Roaring; when the distinctions between light and dark threaten to dissolve, that is when we must travel to the "edge of the shadow" (the outer boundaries of the dream, near where reality is), and "shatter the twilight reverie" (twilight: when only the sun's afterglow remains) (reverie: being lost in a dream).

On Darkner Knowledge

As established earlier, Darkners are teleological beings whose essence precedes their existence. That is to say, they’re created with an inherent purpose. This purpose is what Ralsei and Queen call “the will of the Fountain” – a guiding force determining the nature of the Dark World and its inhabitants, originating in the Fountain’s creator. In my Magic Circle essay, I used this fact to explain the behavior of Darkners, and why certain ones (like King and Queen) know things that they seemingly shouldn’t (like the fact that the Knight exists, and what their title is). On this latter part, however, I didn’t go into too much detail. Here, I want to elaborate on it a little by invoking an argument made by René Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy, known as “the trademark argument”.

(Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to get into the weeds of Descartes’ philosophy. It might be fun to talk about how Descartes’ idea of hierarchical degrees of reality, which consist of infinite substances, finite substances and modes, correspond to Deltarune’s Angel, Lightner, and Darkner hierarchy, but I don’t think it would unearth any particularly useful insights.)

The (very simplified) trademark argument goes something like this: God must exist, because I can conceive of God, his features (that he is an infinite and eternal substance), and the fact that he is altogether more real than I am despite me not possessing this degree of reality. The idea can’t have come from me, but it must have come from somewhere – consequently it must be that I have this idea innately as a sort of “trademark” of my creator.

Now, I very much doubt anyone who's reading this finds the above to be convincing evidence for God’s existence. Thankfully, we aren’t setting out to find out whether God exists or not. The God in this scenario – the Knight – is someone we know exists, and how the relevant knowledge is possessed really does require an explanation (unlike in Descartes' argument, where the notion that an explanation is needed for how we can conceive of the idea of God is dubious at best).

Of course, I don’t mean to imply that the trademark hypothesis is the only possible explanation you could offer. Obviously, you could posit that the Knight entered the Dark Worlds and imparted the knowledge personally. But to do this you’d have to deny the Kris Knight hypothesis, marginalize the religious subtext, assert that there’s no meaning to certain patterns between Chapter 2 and 3 (such as the main Darkner bosses being activated before the Fountain Creation), ignore the latent implications in Queen’s dialogue, among other things – and I’m not interested in doing all that. For the moment, the trademark hypothesis seems much safer, not least of all because it explains other mysterious details too.

Consider the fact that Darkners are aware of the battle system, and know how it works. Do we suppose that someone went around telling each and every Darkner the mechanics of the game? Or does it just make intuitive sense that Darkners would be created with certain ideas that are consistent with their purpose?

Granted, there is still some weirdness left over that we’d have to explain. For example, Darkners – most notably Ralsei but others as well – know about the player’s button configurations. We might be tempted to just chalk this up to the necessities of tutorializing, but the game calls attention to this by having Susie ask questions about it. The trademark hypothesis doesn’t explain why Darkners specifically would be stamped with this knowledge while the Lightners are left out.

The best explanation I can come up with is that since the Dark Worlds are created by Kris, and Kris almost certainly has forbidden meta knowledge imparted by Gaster, the Darkners likewise inherit that knowledge since Kris knows that the player will be controlling them when they go to seal the Fountains, and is aware that we will need some level of guidance.

Conclusion

All right, that’s pretty much everything I wanted to get out there before Chapters 3 & 4 release. Thanks for reading! I hope this wasn’t complete babble to anyone who’s not as knee-deep as I am in random literary theory and philosophy.  

[putschki1969]

Hi Putschki, how are you doing? I was glad to read your post about the concert you attended, it looked fun and the photos you took were so pretty! I have a question for you today that is a little nosy, so don't mind not answering if you don't want to. Have Kalafina ever mentioned the lgbt community/rights? Different Japanese artists have begun to talk about certain issues in the last years, a lot more compared to the past, and I was wondering if they've ever said anything about it 🌈

Hello there!!

I am good, thank you😊

As for your question, don't worry, it's fine. It's just a little complicated to write a comprehensive answer since there's some ambiguity involved.

Generally speaking, I would say, no, they have not really mentioned anything specific regarding the LGBT community/rights. During the Kalafina days, their public image was very well-curated so everything was rather restrained and maybe even a little conservative. Not in a particularly strict manner but there was certainly never any mention of political or social issues or really anything that could be misconstrued in a negative or problematic manner.

Occasionally, they have mentioned things in passing on a superficial level regarding overarching concepts such as same-sex attraction but I don't recall them ever explicitly talking or posting about LGBT issues. While they have a lot more freedom as solo artists (at least Keiko and Hikaru), I also don't remember them ever addressing such topics in recent years. Please keep in mind though that I regularly miss Hikaru's Wednesday broadcasts and I've only recently become a member of Keiko's Yodel app service so it's impossible for me to provide a definitive answer to your question.

I would also be curious to know what those other Japanese artists supposedly talk about... I am not really familiar with Japanese artists aside from Kalafina so I don't know in which capacity they talk about the LGBT community/rights. Is this something they do because of personal interest or is it more along the lines of performative virtue signalling to follow trends? I feel like with celebrities and other people in the public eye it's probably the latter so it's not something I would necessarily want our girls to do. Other people might feel differently about this but I am not a fan of all this performative stuff which has sadly become a common occurrence in today's social media world. If you ask me, it comes across as super disingenuous. I don't need anyone to talk about any issue just because it is a hot topic at the moment.

If it is indeed a matter of personal interest, then yeah, I am all for it and I wouldn't mind if the girls did that. I believe the Japanese Netflix show "The Boyfriend" was a solid step in the right direction of a more authentic representation and examination of selected issues but it still remained quite easy to digest/surface-level (so there's room for improvement).

On that note, I would like to come back to something I mentioned earlier. This is where the "complicated/ambiguous" comes in. Not sure if you are aware of this but since the beginning of time, there have been many rumours of Keiko being a more or less closeted lesbian. Obviously, nothing has ever been confirmed and as a general rule, I do not encourage speculations but there's no denying that there have been countless situations throughout the years where one could easily put two and two together in order to draw some conclusions. I have actually written a long essay on Keiko's rumoured homosexuality so feel free to check it out! While I personally don't feel comfortable labeling anyone as anything, I am not at all surprised that so many people are indulging in this sort of speculation. So yeah, there has not really been any specific talk about the LGBT community but I would say all the hints Keiko has been dropping certainly qualify as something....?

[burningvelvet]

I finished Moby Dick. So, to continue my former post(s) documenting my thoughts, here we are (spoilers ahead):

captain ahab: i am once again asking hast thou seen the white whale

Narrator, for the 5 millionth time describing captain ahab: "MONOMANIACAL. MONOMANIAC. MONOMANIA."

I was thinking "the homosexual themes everyone talks about are really exaggerated apparently…" and then I got to the chapter about sperm squeezing

Stubb meeting with the French in chap 91 had the exact vibe of a filler episode on a comedy sitcom

there are a lot of moments that reminded me of The Office ngl like i could just imagine stubb in the little interview chair just talking. so much meme material. he's seriously just doing his own thing. the little random characters like the blacksmith and carpenter just talking shit and side-eyeing ahab in the background lmaoooo

Saint George didn't kill a dragon, it was a whale #THETRUTHREVEALED #WHALETRUTHERS

It would have been hilarious if the British people told Ahab that they already killed Moby Dick already before he could get to it. I was so hoping that would happen. Bonus points if it was the Rachel after he'd turned them away.

Ahab discusses the topic of madness a lot. It's almost like he's… mad...

I vote Ahab for the most Byronic hero to ever Byronic… Heathcliff and Rochester have nothing on him… The origin of the Byronic hero, Byron's titular character from the narrative poem Childe Harold, is literally mentioned by name in the novel and had to be a blatant inspiration - it could not be more obvious! (I have yet to encounter the famed Byronic heroes of Russian literature, most notably Eugene Onegin, a work where Byron is also blatantly name-dropped).

Everyone thinking Queequeg was dying and having a coffin made to his measurements and filled with grave goods at his direction and then him literally climbing into the coffin to test it out and then waiting silently to die…. then all of a sudden getting better and saying he chose to recover bc he remembered he had something on his to-do list….. iconic

Ishmael referring to Queequeg as "my Queequeg…" omg. Queerqueg

Queequeg drawing figures like the ones on his tattoos omg… au story where Queequeg is an artist/tattoo artist when???

I was literally saying "AWWWWW" out loud when Ahab and Pip were having their little moments

The irony of Ahab abandoning the Rachel then it coming back for Ishmael… the coffin lifeboat… etc… good stuff…

okay ahab is my man but yeah he was an asshole to the captain of rachel.

also feel bad for tashtego. he wanted that gold doubloon so bad and ahab was like SIKE, MOTHERFUCKER! umm tashtego did not get cut out of a whale by queequeg to deal with ur shit ahab!

Once again wanting a Black Sails/Moby Dick AU… I found this essay about the similarities between Flint/Ahab https://ijms.nmdl.org/article/view/22389/14361

They only have like 2-3 little moments together but like… Starbuck/Ahab kind of outdoing Ishmael/Queequeg there for a moment… chaps 132/134… oh my godddddddddddddd whyyyyyyy

Captain Ahab's moments in chapters 36/37 AAAAAHHHHH you will see me being normal about this

I noted some of my favorite Ahab moments/chapters and they are 36/37/41/70/99/108/109/113/115/116/119/125/129/132/134/135. Like I may seriously just re-read those chapters (no offense to Melville's whale facts, Stubb's jokes, & Pip's insanity)

the end is kind of similar to the great gatsby in the sense that you finally realize the entire novel was actually written for him to cope with his grief-related trauma & then suddenly it all makes sense. the lingering, the sentimentality regarding seemingly insignificant details or people, the meandering/digressing/procrastinating getting to the end, etc.

there are actually several moments -- i don't know if he actually referred to ahab or the others in past-tense specifically, but there were several moments where i felt like i kind of thought he was giving away the end before he did (it wasn't a shock to me bc i read about the end prior, but still)

[kaizenproductions]

Natsu does NOT have any previous experience with romantic love

This is the (better) Tumblr version of my post from Twitter. Given the format of this website, I'll add some details to what's already written.

Before starting with this, I want to clarify that the motivation to write this post has little to do with nalu itself (it will be mentioned to highlight a point though). Having previous romantic partners DOESN'T really make any ship invalid. You'll find the actual reason behind this essay under the cut below.

This is about how Natsu, as a character, is never presented or seen by others as someone who has experience with love and such idea is never hinted or implied anywhere in the canon material. This lack of experience explains why Lucy thinks he has no interest in it.

As we will see later, Lucy isn't the only one who thinks like this... Let's get started.

Year 2024. Why writing all this? Some weeks ago I was involved in a discussion about whether Natsu was being OOC during a filler (non canon) scene of the anime where he snaps at Lucy in a way he never does with any of his friends in canon material. The discussion led to this...

I didn't want to assume that this person was taking Lisanna as some kind of first love. At the end it turned out that was exactly what was happening. The proof? The most platonic reunion ever... with Happy reacting the same way as Natsu and comedy being included. It is important to highlight that Mashima never makes two people between whom there have been romantic feelings reunite like this, with comedy references in between that downplays the seriousness of the moment to some extent. While this post is about Natsu and his feelings, I could also mention Lisanna's reaction to this, something that proves that there wasn't even a one sided love: after noticing this Natsu is the same one from her real dimension, she doesn't start crying because of him but because of her siblings.

Let's ignore the part where this dude started calling me and some other users "retards" because that speaks volumes for itself about his lack of real arguments. After all, he has been fighting for at least 4 years with teens over power scaling, a topic he may seem to be knowledgeable about but actually isn't so much, plus he has been banned from at least one Discord server because of his r4pe threats. It seems this individual was so obsessed with that specific thing that he said Zeref did it to Mavis and that's how August was made... That also speaks volumes about his media literacy and the fact that even if it's true that he did read the manga so many times as he claimed during this discussion, he has serious problems with reading as a normal person. When it comes to the topic of this post, the problem is that he has some influence within the fandom, at least on Twitter, so whatever he says is something that many of his followers will start repeating.

What does Mashima do when Lisanna finally comes back to her original home and she gets a proper reunion with everyone?

After the initial shock from seeing Edo Lisanna in Earthland and the big reveal, this is how Natsu reacts.

This isn't a reunion that suggests that Lisanna is special compared to everyone else in the guild, and particulary to those who grew around Natsu. Also, we can't say Mashima just doesn't know how to write such scene properly... because he's written it at least once (in Rave).

The emotion you can feel in this scene, the way ONLY both lovers are on the spotlight and the rest of their friends are in the background until the end... Well, the difference is so obvious that it's ridiculous to say more. Given how well Mashima handles the emotional dimension of his characters in his mangas, the possibility that he didn't know how to depict two lovers who got separated from each for some time due to circumstances beyond their control is off the table.

Also, notice how the end of the Edolas arc depicts this.

The difference with her reunion with Natsu and the others is so obvious that there's no need to say more.

We can also discard Lisanna as a former love interest because there's no akwardness between them once she's back to the guild. They can be seen playing together and briefly interacting from time to time, so it's not like they're avoiding each other.

Is it implied somewhere that they had something beyond friendship? Not in any kind of canon material. Every time Lisanna is mentioned in regards to Natsu she's presented as a close childhood friend. We have, for example, her profile from one of the first chapters where she's back home and the information of the official magazine that was released 10 years ago.

But what if they simply stopped loving each other due to being separated, as a fellow nalu shipper told me on Discord? Making characters fall out of love is something that Mashima also references (see Macao pic a bit below). It also goes against what we saw regarding Erza and Jellal, who still had romantic feelings for each other despite their antagonistic positions for many years, or against the whole Zeref and Mavis thing. In other Mashima mangas we have more couples like this. Elsie and Justice still loved each other despite being sworn enemies, and Let still loved Julia (and vice versa) when he discovered she was alive, a kinda similar scenario to Natsu and Lisanna if they had been lovers. Given that Natsu and Lisanna weren't even enemies to each other at any point and they were only separated for two years, we can't say they had something canonically and they simply got over it with no actual reference to it.

There was a very good moment to reference past feelings in 100YQ: when Touka includes Lisanna in the group of women "around Natsu".

Instead of offering us a comment like "it's not like that anymore", Lisanna just says something that implies they're not that close. After all, Natsu is hanging out with his team most of the time since it was established.

What's the reason this fandom has been so many years discussing about this friendship? Because the first anime adaptation goes beyond that friendship and the manga omake where both of them take care of Happy's egg, something Lisanna decides to help with because she loves animals and she felt Natsu wouldn't do it properly. The first season includes several fillers that pave the way for a love triangle, presenting Lisanna as a girl who is VERY interested in marrying Natsu when they're adults. In addition, Happy is presented as their son, something that totally goes against the source material. Even if Natsu is the one who saw Happy be born and was living with him since then, Happy is never considered as his son and is always called a nakama/companion/friend.

This long thread has everything that A-1 and Satelight added in regards to Natsu and Lisanna. As we can see in the info provided in one of the first tweets, Mashima let them "edit" the story the way they wanted to and it's mentioned explicitely by both him and Ishihara (the director) that Ishihara is responsible for those additions, not Mashima. We also can't say the additions were something Mashima asked for because he couldn't include everything he wanted in his manga for some reason. This is supported by the fact that Lisanna is never presented in the manga as any kind of romantic interest after she comes back.

There's also this tweet from 2012 where Mashima replied to someone asking him whether he was involved in the story of the anime. His answer is no.

It's also important to say that these fillers aren't canon: they're not referenced in the source material (the starry key arc was, even if Mashima wasn't involved in the writing), they're not referenced in the anime itself after Lisanna comes back and they have no impact in the events of the story during and after Edolas.

Currently, thanks to Mashima's Twitter Spaces, we know two things: he revived Lisanna because some people in the anime staff liked her (Ishihara is one of them for sure), which explains why she's not very relevant and is always tied to her siblings, and he once considered to include a love triangle between Natsu, Lucy and Lisanna after Edolas, but he liked Natsu and Lucy's dynamic by then enough to not introduce such storyline. He also said Lisanna was "だめ" in regards to that triangle that never came to be, implying that she would have been the one that doesn't get the boy in that scenario.

So is Lisanna our supposed former love interest? As far as the canon material goes, no. Was she close to Natsu? Yes. Is she dear to him? Yes, just like everyone in his family, the guild, is (I can't believe I'm writing this in fking 2024). Now, what if there was someone else? The assumption that characters may have dated another (unnamed) character offscreen isn't totally crazy. After all we saw how Juvia dated Bora, even if it was a narrative tool to show that not even dates would make Juvia stop being depressed. However, we can't say there was someone else as more than a headcanon unless it's implied or mentioned somewhere explicitely. We know Macao was married but got divorced thanks to the official magazine, for example.

When it comes to Natsu, nothing is ever mentioned.

100YQ, the official FT sequel, has several pannels that go against the whole idea of Natsu being experienced with romantic love. As I mentioned at the beginning, even others from the guild, and especifically Macao in this pannel, who knows Natsu since he was a kid, have a hard time believing he's interested in love.

This part of the story includes a very interesting pannel that also debunks the whole idea that Natsu felt more than frienship for Lisanna before she was transported to Edolas.

Why would Lisanna's brother react like this over such comment if Natsu and his sister had romantic feelings in the past? Easy: because those feelings never existed.

Even Lisanna is a bit surprised when Touka expresses her interest in him.

Previous romantic experience would also mean that Natsu's relationship with Lucy would be more advanced than it is as of now, not to mention this recent scene.

Natsu is still quite dense with romance, even when it doesn't involve him, and while he talks about his and Lucy's kids they still have a long way to go due to his total inexperience in this area as of now. Someone with past love experiences wouldn't be like this. I could say more about this but this isn't the post for it so...

Conclussion: the first season of the anime did a lot of damage that resulted in many years of discussions, fights, misogyny towards both Lucy and Lisanna. There was no childhood or teen love, no jealousy from Lisanna when she saw how close Natsu and Lucy were as a team and nothing suggests that Lisanna was more than a friend in canon material. Claiming the opposite at this point of the story is useless.

[intuitive-revelations]

Semi-live/retrospective analysis of The Story and the Engine!

You know the drill, gone through the episode in order effectively as a liveblog, with occasional retroactive edits based on later thoughts or information. Spoilers below.

By the way, in-case you missed it, this story actually features the Doctor meeting a friend he's already met off-screen. There's a prequel on the website, which I read through first:

Funny enough, the prequel's title reminds me of Moffat's original story that inspired Blink: What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow.

Ooh, so we're starting with Omo literally telling that story! They're even using the illustrations.

Hmm... what's with those lights. I'm guessing it's all about telling a good story - an interesting 'threat' for a story, rifting off barbershop chats?

Wow and that transition into the titles! We've been getting a lot of little edit connections like that this era.

"The TARDIS does your hair" Interesting, is there an actual salon room on board the TARDIS? I guess this makes sense with some of the historical hairstyles we've seen the Doctor, Ruby, and Belinda adopting.

"Ah, 2019, a great year" Well, mostly.

"It's the first time I've had this black body." Now THIS is why we need black writers like Inua Ellams. While others like RTD, are absolutely capable of touching on topics like racism (I personally loved Dot and Bubble, but I do understand that there's a bit of a split, especially among fans of colour, as to how well it worked), they understandably will tend to hold back from being so explicit and specific.

I don't know how bits of the new soundtrack are separated / named, but I like that trumpety bit of a theme for Fifteen we hear here. It's the same one we heard in the ending to Dot and Bubble, but a lot lighter here.

I love seeing other areas of the Earth represented properly in Doctor Who!

Fascinating seeing how friendly the Doctor is with everyone here. Clearly he's a regular visit. It's interesting - we've seen him make friends on Earth at various points, but rarely so openly. Also, even if previous Doctors had landed somewhere like Lagos and met friends, they would never have been able to fit in like Fifteen is doing now, just by courtesy of being white. This is a brand-new experience they would never have been able to do before.

(On the other hand, I'm sure you could technically critique the way this kinda feels like appropriation by the Doctor, who's always been white previously? But that's kind of ridiculous given a) they're literally Ncuti Gatwa right now, and b) technically as a Time Lord, they're always appropriating human cultures. IDK, the race politics can be weird to discuss when you're talking about a shapeshifter who doesn't actually fit into any, but can naturally change which they are coded as. It's kinda above my pay-grade.)

Huh, so Omo and the others aren't missing... they've all been trapped in here?

Based on the trailers, I'm guessing the Barber might be linked to Anansi in some way? Unless there's other gods / folklore characters I'm not familiar with.

Ooh, the art!

Ah, the jokes about appointments in Africa!

I wonder if we're going to get some interesting stories from the Doctor?

Jeez, maybe don't say 'Weeping Angels' Doctor? I don't think you want an image of them forming...

Huh, so Abby can get in and out. So it's not completely sealed. Yet it still triggers the TARDIS to react to something?

Hmm. Why does the Doctor recognise Abby, and why is she being so cold with him? I was wondering if she's Blue, from the story, especially as the subtitles note the sound of her sucking her teeth, which Blue did in the story.

"We're travelling?" Huh, makes it almost sound like the Memory TARDIS? The story thing also is quite Akhaten-y.

Oh wait, that's Blue! So not Abby.

Interesting how we get an actual video for the Doctor's story with Belinda, which they seem to have acknowledged. Something to do with him as a storyteller specifically?

And it's more effective, too?

Oh hi Mrs Flood, is that your cameo for this episode? I'm guessing she may not fit as well at the end of this story.

The throne huh?

Wait, is the Anansi / spider thing from the trailers the ship itself? Also, the web it's climbing, could it literally be the "Web of Time"? The sparks even make it resemble the Matrix.

Ok, I'm going to headcanon the "nexus / world wide web" is exactly that until we get something contradicting this.

Oh, so is Abby a previous companion? I think I might have gotten subtly spoiled on my dash as to how, but let's see...

"I go by many names: Anansi - the Man Spider, Saga - the Norse goddess, Bastet, Dionysus - the Greek god of theatre. Even Loki - god of Mischief! I have been them all. In many cultures, in many worlds, in many incarnations." So he IS Anansi, and many others besides. Weird that he would be both Saga and Loki, despite being part of the same mythology?

Side note- this kinda reminds me of that one Simpsons thing a bit ago, with Loki mentioning he's gone by many other names, including Anansi and Bill Cipher.

Incarnations, "story lords", huh?

And.... it's a lie. Of course the Doctor has met them all.

Hmm... belief makes reality as a theme again. It's the stories that made those gods real.

He says he made the Nexus, but this still feels very Web of Time-y.

Oh, so Abby is the daughter of Anansi mentioned in the bet. Maybe I didn't see a spoiler after all (other than a cameo is coming at some point?).

NOPE NEVER MIND! Hi Fugitive!Doctor!

So the Doctor has some memories of her life? Has he opened the chameleon arch off-screen?!

"And frankly, darling, I was busy in a different story, that might be finished one day." OH?

This is an odd story for Doctor Who. Treating all the Gods as if they are real and solidified, honestly very similar to American Gods. Even weirder to be kinda defending their existence - I get it's more about the stories and the folklore and the implications of wiping that out (particularly in terms of oral traditions in cultures like those in Africa), but this could almost be interpreted as an anti-atheist story. That is admittedly a surface-level and arguably bad-faith reading, but it's not entirely an invalid one.

Huh, this is actually something I didn't know about black hair styles. Is that "map" element linked at all to them being called cornrows? As in escaping through the fields? Maybe I should look that up.

The reconfiguration of the engine into a tree weirdly links well with the connection to Norse mythology used earlier - if this is a web between places, then it can also be visualised as a world tree.

"I'm born. I die. I'm born."

"My body is like a barbershop. All of them, inside, telling their stories, bickering!" Ooh, so between this and the Guardians of the Edge, we're really back to the VNA model of Time Lord psyche, aren't we?

"It's compressing." Huh, now that I think about it, the shop really is bigger on the inside, isn't it?

Hm, so Adetokundo is another Doctor analogue, without even a real name, but at least this one gets to survive.

So the kid wasn't just a passerby, but part of one of the story? I'll bend my usual pattern and bring that picture back up here.

Maybe she's one of Oma and Blue's kids? The dress kinda makes me think this. Otherwise, she could be anyone. The Doctor says the stories were leaking out and mixing up. If we allow for the fact the Doctor hadn't told a story yet, she could even be partially linked to the Doctor's memories as the Timeless Child?

I wonder if this is just a way to justify her addition, to fill out the scene of Belinda finding the barbershop? Maybe a bit lazy, but there could be more to this.

Overall Thoughts

Well this was lovely! As I mentioned above, it's so cool to have a story taking place in Nigeria and feeling so genuine. I hope Inua Ellams sticks around, or at least we get more new writers like with Malorie Blackman and Vinay Patel in the Chibnall era. Seeing the Doctor discuss his new body, and the communities he finds himself either comfortable or excluded from as a result is something RTD would struggle to pen (and honestly required a writer of colour). I'm also glad we got an African folklore related episode for Ncuti, as from my understanding that was something he really wanted to do. Supposedly The Well was originally going to involve the Orishas, which he said in an interview he'd love his Doctor to meet, before RTD decided it was difficult to use them as villains within the Pantheon without coming off as disrespectful.

Loved seeing the Fugitive Doctor again. Pretty fascinating implications for ongoing DW lore with her surprise appearance. The Doctor didn't think of her when discussing being in a black body for the first time at the beginning of the episode, but he clearly holds some of her memories - are these just 'leaks' or has he actually gone ahead and either opened the fobwatch, or at least investigated her life further? Also want to emphasise the mentioned idea of the Doctor's previous (and future) incarnations existing in their subconscious, which was explored heavily in the VNAs, with Seven believing the others hated him for causing Six's regeneration, and would suppress him once he regenerated again. I wonder if this places her among them now? If so, maybe them all "telling stories" is how he's getting some bits of her memories?

Yet more emphasis on the theme of storytelling and reality, which is kinda obvious from the title, but does continue to fit into a pattern this series. The idea of gods actually existing, but being dependent on the belief in them isn't a new idea, but is I believe relatively new to Doctor Who. As mentioned, I'm mainly familiar with the idea's utilisation in American Gods. We have of course had ideas of belief shaping reality before, most evidently with the Doctor at the end of Series 3, but also with things like the Land of Fiction, so it makes sense that human belief could do something similar in general. Also ties in with stuff like the Memory TARDIS, again, a ship that's bigger on the inside powered by stories.

Speaking of which, some interesting parallels between the Doctor and Adetokundo. Obviously there's the storytelling aspect, the discussion of different incarnations, flying a time- (or psych-?) ship that is bigger on the inside through a web of time. They also both take a companion, with Abby being the one the Doctor left behind, but Adetokundo took with him. Finally, Adetokundo's motive, trying to destroy the gods who took his stories, could potentially be seen as linking to the Timeless Child / the Other? If we take the Nexus as at least an allegory for the Web of Time, we could acknowledge how Time Lord society was built on the exploitation of the Timeless Child, and/or how some of the work of the other founders, including the Other, was taken over by Rassilon, who stamped his name on everything.