#that's just an example but it's the kind of nuance I wouldn't have thought about

[wallabywannabe]

My sister works in non-profit fundraising, and her biggest complaint is that donors (admittedly, mostly big donors that like strings attached and their name or company promoted) want their money to make a "direct" impact. Which sounds good, but they don't think about the operating costs it takes to distribute that impact.

It takes more than just food to run a food bank. It takes space. It takes people working full-time jobs that need to make a living wage so they can distribute the food, reach out to donors, run the finances, manage volunteers, make the food accessible to the people who need it. It takes people doing publicity and keeping websites running, and other things that I can't think of immediately but are still vital to the mission.

There are charities that are sketchy out there and you should do a little vetting before donating, but all charities have operating costs that are not optional. And almost no one working at a nonprofit does it for the money, since wages are always lower than for the same job at a for-profit company.

Doc, what are the top five items food banks LOVE to receive? I'm doing a collection soon and want to ask for specifics.

MONEY. WE WANT MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY. WE CAN DO SO MUCH WITH IT. WE HAVE ACCESS TO DEALS YOU COULD NEVER. MONEY

That aside.

 I’m only going to talk about food items but if your food bank takes personal items, a lot of times diapers, feminine hygiene products, etc, are very very welcome. 

1) Canned chicken and beef 

looooooove this stuff. It’s expensive, it lasts forever, it tastes good and it can be used a variety of ways. This stuff is fucking catnip to food banks, it’s so hard for us to provide proteins. 

2) Fancy nut butters

Peanut butter is a standby for food banks as a shelf-stable inexpensive protein, but if we have a family with a kid with a peanut allergy that’s not going to work. Non-peanut butters are expensive and it’s something we hardly ever see donated. (we also like peanut butter, but that’s easier for us to buy ourselves than non-peanut butters)

3) Canned or packaged tuna

You may notice a trend here in shelf-stable proteins. And yeah. That’s basically it, so I’m not going to keep harping on it. But this stuff is a godsend. 

4) Easy breakfast things for kids (Granola bars, instant oatmeal, and the like) 

Whatever Donald Trump tells you, most people who get food from food banks are actually working their asses off and so they have to leave Obama to raise their baby or whatever, and they don’t have a lot of time in the morning. Things like this that kids can make for themselves are expensive. (Another trend you may be noticing–donate shit that costs a lot of money. That helps us more than all the shitty green bean cans in the world) But they are so helpful for busy working families where the parents may not have a set schedule and sometimes little Amanda is making her own breakfast before she runs off to school. Don’t let kids go to school hungry. 

5) Shelf-stable juice

This is one people never think of! But if you show up with a bunch of (preferably reduced sugar stuff) bottles of juice at my door, oh man, you are gonna get so many check mark and okay hand emoticons. This stuff is great for kids, and it doesn’t require refrigeration until it’s opened, so it works great for food drives. 

[a-s-fischer]

That friend on another site that I told you about a while ago said that the feminists who first started worshiping Lilith did blame Western religious systems in general for sexism, but they didn't have any ill will towards Jews specifically. Are you willing to buy that?

I am very willing to say that the first 20th century feminists to bring Lilith into the conversation were not being antisemitic, because those feminists were Jewish. Their work is confronting, nuanced, and interesting. I don't always agree with their conclusions, but I certainly wouldn't call this examination of the place of Lilith in Jewish thought antisemitic or unwarrented.

However, almost immediately, once Gentile feminists (and specifically Gentile feminists of a Christian cultural background) got their hands on Lilith, it was a different story, and one that requires an examination of what is meant by "Western religions".

"Western religions" are contrasted with "Eastern religions", or more tellingly "Eastern Spirituality", a framing which posits two diametrically opposed worldviews and approaches to spirituality. This framing by its nature flattens such disparate traditions as Zoroastrianism and Shintoism, and applies what might be termed an orientalizing lens. It is, in other words, a bad model which expresses the biases and assumptions of its proponants, and leads to misunderstanding and bad scholarship, and also kind of racist. It was also a popular model in the mid 20th century.

It's important to note here that feminist spirituality and neo-Goddess worship were becoming a thing at exactly the time when a Western curiosity about "Eastern Spirituality" was hitting the mainstream. And because of a complicated stew of historical and cultural factors, almost all of these Western spiritual seekers approached "Eastern Spirituality" not as disparate living traditions, which are part of their own cultural contexts, and which are the traditions and worldviews of actual societies, which, as human societies, are far from perfect examples of enlightenment, but instead approached "Eastern Spirituality" as a single entity which could be stripped of context and turned into something to be consumed by a western audience, and also as the antidote to a spiritually bankrupt western capitalistic society. These Eastern teachings are just soooo enlightened, maaaan. This very much informed the framework of Western vs Eastern religions.

As for Western religions, this is a category I often see expressed in slightly different ways. I've neen this grouping called "Western religions" or even "Western religion", or Abrahamic religions (by which the speaker typically means the Abrahamic religions they have heard of, given that most don't seem to realize that there are in fact quite a few Abrahamic religions, not just Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) or sometimes it's monotheism or the monotheistic religions. These are all the same group, but the rhetorical focus is slightly different. Western religions are contrasted with Eastern religions or sometimes "non-Western religions,", monotheism with polytheism, and the Abrahamic religions with everything else. And a most cases, which goes up to nearly all cases where a value judgment is being made, what the person doing the grouping really means is "Christianity and the religions I assume are basically just Christianity." It's a framework that makes a lot of incorrect assumptions about what Judaism is, and assumes that anything the speaker objects to in Christianity is present in, and ultimately comes from Judaism. It's also a framing that by contrast assumes that these things which are bad about "Western religions" or "monotheism" are not broadly present in other religions, and are unique to Judaism and its descendents.

That last consideration is extremely important, because it's hard to argue that "Western religions" are responsible for x bad thing, when that bad thing is far from exculsively found in "Western religions" Most polytheistic traditions currently and historically have practiced some form of patriarchy. Worship of powerful goddesses does not seem to make these societies less oppressive for human women. Another popular argument I see is that monotheism brought religious intolerance into the world, but again, the idea that polytheistic societies are inherently religiously tolerant, and we have no evidence of religious persecution until monotheism came on the scene, is a myth. It's also with seeing these other terms for the same goup, and the comparisons people are using this grouping to make, that it becomes possible to understand why Hellenistic or Norse paganism, for example, are not part of the umbrella of "Western religions."

It's important to note here that it's a standard part of the Christian intellectual tradition that goes back almost to the creation of Christianity, that all the good parts of Christianity are from Jesus, and are "True Christianity" and all the bad parts are Jewish things that were insufficiently purged. Judaism-and-the-Jews-as-responsible-for-all-of-Christianity's-flaws is an old antisemitic trope, and one which has gained purchase among critics of Christianity globally.

The 20th century feminists who pioneered so-called feminist spirituality and neo-pagan Goddess worship latched onto an anthropological theory popular in the 19th century, that before the rise of patriarchy, societies went through a matriarchal, fertility, focused goddess worshipping phase. It's really really important to note here that by the time 20th century feminists got their hands on this idea, it had been already widely discredited. Anthropologists and archeologists no longer took it seriously, because after a certain point, it became really obvious that it did not fit the evidence.

Also in its original formulation it was really racist, as almost all anthropological theories popular in the 19th century were. See, the original idea was that societies progressed through stages, and that fertility focused matriarchal goddess worship was an early primitive phase, that societies passed through on their way to "higher civilization". The best and most civilized societies were (obviously) 19th century Western European ones, so societies closest to that were further along and more advanced, while societies further from that could be grouped according to which "stage" they reached.

20th feminists took this debunked, discredited formulation and flipped it on its head. Instead of matriarchal fertility-focused goddess worship being a phase societies passed through on their way to higher (patriarchal) forms of civilization, it was actually the natural state of humanity that we had fallen from, and needed to reclaim. It became a feminist Eden.

And who was the serpent in this feminist Eden, offering the fruit of the tree of patriarchy? Why, it was those first monotheists, the Ur-Abrahamic* religion, Judaism.

It's likely that a lot of the people reading this saying, hey, you are going way too far and reading way too much into this. Christianity is included in "Western religions", and nobody is being singled out, and that's a whole lot of well-meaning and progressive people that you are accusing of deliberate antisemitism. To which I say, I'm not actually accusing anyone of deliberate antisemitism here. I am saying that in a society where antisemitic tropes are a bulwark of the intellectual tradition, it's easy to accidentally and unconciously incorporate those tropes and narratives into any new, or not so new, ideas. As for whether Judaism was singled out, the fact that all these gentile feminists picked Lilith, a figure not present in Christianity, or Islam, but only in Judaism, shows who, consciously or not, they were holding responsible for patriarchy in "Western religions".

*According to the Torah, Abraham came from the city of Ur. This is a joke. I am very funny. Please take this opportunity to chuckle in a sensible and dignified manner.

[noxiatoxia]

is komaeda as self deprecating in japanese as he is in english? in his introduction he’s moreso humbly denying hope’s peaks offer than saying he wasn’t worthy. so i was wondering if komaeda comes off as incredibly humble more than self deprecating. or if the translators just really went ham on the self deprecation and got rid of any nuances

Hi! Thank you for the ask and I'm sorry it took so long for me to get to it! I had actually written a reply a few days ago, but Tumblr deleted it...😭 I was too mad to re write it then and there lol. But also, I think I could have been more clear (I wrote it while still recovering from being sick), so I'll try my best this time.

Firstly, if I'm understanding right, you're wondering if Komaeda is NOT self-deprecating, but instead just humble. There's a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is no, he does just blatantly put himself down in the text. The long answer is it may not be as bad as it is at certain parts. So now, I'll explain.

Firstly, let's re-visit the prologue. I've spoken about this specific line more than once.

KOMAEDA: Um, honestly, at first...I was humbled, but I refused. But, well, they wouldn't stop insisting on it…

In this scene, yes, Komaeda isn't putting himself down...necessarily. So, the word in question being used here is 恐れ多い. This word seems to give translators trouble. Back before there was an official SDR2 translation, there was a fan-translated version on the SomethingAwful forums by user orenronen.

Generally, I consider orenronen's translation to be more faithful at times. But NISA actually was closer in this case.

恐れ多い literally translates to "extremely scared", but it's really not used in that way. Think of it like any phrase or idiom...."You can't have your cake and eat it too" isn't meant to be literal. It's just a way to say "you can't have both things at the same time".

恐れ多い is a common phrase in Japanese when declining a big offer. For example, your boss gave you the chance for a big promotion, but you declined. You would use 恐れ多い. It can be used to indicate you feel you aren't good enough for the position - this is not a weird thing to say, as being humble is a core part of Japanese culture.

However, at it's core, 恐れ多い just means "I'm very sorry, but no, thanks".

Back to that example. Your boss gives you a chance for big promotion. You would take it, but your boss needs you to move cities for it. You don't want to move. So, you say, "Oh...Thank you so much, but I must humbly decline."

In the past, I explained this phrase kind of poorly and made it sound like it's only used to say you feel you don't deserve the position...what I meant to say was that the word gives the feeling of you not feeling good enough to accept, but that doesn't mean you actually don't feel good enough. Does that make sense? It's like saying "Sorry" as a courtesy when you do something wrong, but maybe you don't actually feel sorry.

In short, this line is ambiguous. The text literally says, 恐れ多いって断ったんだよ, which means (literally) "I refused by saying "No, thanks (humbly)"." Komaeda tells us what he told HPA verbatim, but he doesn't elaborate on why he said that. Did he decline because he did feel undeserving? Maybe he actually was scared to accept, maybe because of his luck? Or did he simply have no interest, and declined without much thought? - It's left to the player to speculate on his reasons.

This is a big part of Komaeda's character, I think. As discussed, he speaks very softly - sounding unsure, or making his statements sound less forceful. The SDR2 artbook itself states that they went back and redid all of his sprite work to make his emotions appear more ambiguous. It's very apparent that not knowing what Komaeda is truly thinking or feeling is a big part of his character. Hinata himself laments about this in many FTEs with him.

I think the writers simply took advantage of the humble culture in Japanese to drive this home. Is he simply humble, or does he really mean what he says?

Now...don't get me wrong: Komaeda does go beyond being humble. He does outright insult himself in a way that is unmistakably not humble.

Take the chapter 1 Trial:

KOMAEDA: ボクは決定的に最低で最悪で愚かで劣悪で、何をやってもダメな人間なんだ。 KOMAEDA: I am, without a doubt, an awful, horrible, ignorant*, inferior, worthless person, and that will never change no matter what I do.

*Komaeda isn't calling himself stupid necessarily. I don't really know how to put it, but it's like...you do stupid things, but you yourself may or may not be intelligent. It's kind of like no matter how smart you get, you will always make dumb mistakes. I hope that makes sense.

This is not being humble. This is very self-deprecating stuff and things nobody would (or should) say about themselves in any sort of casual setting. This is a very shocking turning point because, up until now, Komaeda was just humble. Putting himself down lightly, saying his talent "isn't much" and that he's not as important as the Ultimates sound reasonable, sounds humble. This isn't reasonable or humble, and he says it with very strong assertion, indicated by なんだ and the end.

Also, he never says he's "made peace" with it (which I take to mean he's okay with it?) but that may have been this NISA translators' answer to the なんだ at the end, as it makes Komaeda sound like he's stating a fact. I don't agree simply because I feel like his feelings should be left ambiguous as said earlier...but I understand the mindset.

By the way, before that...the team totally mistranslated a line that had me tilting my head for five minutes trying to figure out how the two connected.

KOMAEDA: 夢や希望を持つのもおこがましいほど・・・努力をするのもずうずうしいほど・・・

I couldn't quite figure out why the NISA translation felt so off to me but the Japanese didn't, and it took me a bit of thought but I figured it out. It's because NISA got the topic of the conversation wrong.

See...Komaeda never says "I'm" in this sentence. It's normal not to say "I'm" in Japanese, though. Topics can be inferred. But then, the next line, where he talks about how he's awful, horrible, etc., he does start with "I am" (ボクは) indicating a change in topic. Meaning the topic of the sentence before it is not about him but about the subject of having dreams and hopes/trying hard.

That might sound confusing, but let me write what this line should look like:

KOMAEDA: It'd be pretentious of me to have hopes and dreams...it'd be audacious of me to try and work hard...

Basically, Komaeda is saying having hopes and dreams is too good for someone like him, and that him working hard to strive for something would be an insult to others.

This definitely makes sense for the next line, where he then says this will never change no matter what he does.

The official English gets it backwards, and now it sounds like he's too...good for these things? To me, at least.

To be fair, because of how it's written, it's easy to make that mistake. But I feel like they should have realized it makes no sense translated that way. Hm...

Anyways, as you can see, Komaeda does say things that are not merely being humble. He truly does have awful opinions of himself, or at least states them in a very pointed, factual manner.

You can argue that his humbleness is an extension of his self-deprecation...or maybe he's just both at the same time. Up to the audience to think.

Lastly, Komaeda often times says ボクなんか or ボクなんて (boku-nanka and boku-nante), which translates literally as "someone like me". It puts yourself down, like, "Someone like me can't be in such a cool club..." or something. This can be humble as much as it can be self-deprecating. It depends on the context of its usage, which I think does hit home with that ambiguous vibe.

I think that's it...I really hope this answered your question! Thank you for the patience!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Your most recent post about how you would(n’t) use Lila was interesting, because after I read how you’d handle a Chloe redemption I thought Lila would make a good counterpart to Chloe for Adrien, an object lesson about how some people can’t/don’t want to be redeemed.

Start out before or near the beginning of the redemption arc with Chloe as the bully with a long history of misdeeds to make up for, and Lila as (Adrien and the audience thinks) a nervous newcomer who told some lies for attention/popularity. Adrien might even think of her situation as Easy Mode or good practice for helping Chloe. Then time goes on, and as Chloe shows signs of improvement, Lila gradually reveals her true nature.

(Chloe post and Lila post for context)

I don't totally disagree. There are versions of canon where Lila and Chloe would be good choices for a nuanced discussion on redemption. For example, if canon was all about the teenage characters and had no adult villains, then Lila would be a great choice for damnation! The problem is that canon didn't take that route or really any route where Lila feels like a good addition to the cast, let alone someone worthy of being Chloe's counterpart in a lesson about the nuances of redemption.

The main plot of Miraculous should have been Gabriel's reveal and downfall. The point of Chloe's redemption should have been prepping Adrien for said reveal and downfall. Through her, Adrien first learns how to cut off someone you love and then learns how to decide if you want to bring that person back into your life. That is a full and complete lesson. Trying to repeat the lesson or supplement the lesson with Lila feels unnecessary for the same reason I don't like her as the new main villain: she's no one. A total rando with no close ties to Adrien or anyone else. Adrien wanting to help her is fine in theory, but hard to see as a valuable addition because she doesn't matter to his character. We have his father, his close childhood friend, and a random girl he barely knows. One of these things is not like the other. That lack of depth removes most or even all of the emotional impact that a failed Lila redemption would have on Adrien. It's not going to have much of an impact on the audience either unless you make some serious changes to Lila.

One of the show's biggest flaws is that Lila is not a functional character. She has no clear motivations, backstory, or even a strong tie to the main plot of seasons one to five, making it hard to care about her. To have her damnation have any sort of emotional impact on the audience, you need to give her those things and have her develop actual relationships. Without that depth, she's an incredibly weak addition to the story who is only here to be a two-dimensional villain. The audience doesn't want her to be redeemed. We want to see her go down! Those are the wrong emotions for a lesson on failed redemption. Failed redemption should be a tragedy if you want the lesson to hit properly. It's easy to give up on people we don't really care about. It's hard to give up on people we love.

Add in the facts that Miraculous already has too many characters and that Chloe's redemption would be a subplot amidst everything else that's going on and I just don't see Lila being worth the screen time it would take to let her have a proper damnation when you're already giving Gabriel a damnation. Plus it's kind of depressing to have one redemption against two damnations and I like to keep the sad elements limited so that they really pop. Damning Lila and then Gabriel would make Gabriel's damnation feel less powerful.

Even if the plan was to redeem Gabriel, I still wouldn't use Lila as our damnation case study. I'd use Nathalie. She's far more interesting and has an actual tie to the overall plot, making her super easy to involve. Her and Gabriel share the screen constantly, making it very easy to contrast them as the story goes on. You can't really do that with Lila and Chloe because Lila and Chloe would never team up in a story where Chloe gets a redemption arc. Canon had to add Chloe's Marinette obsession to make the Lila & Chloe plot work and Chloe's redemption doesn't work if she hates Marinette to that extreme. I don't think that version of Chloe is beyond redemption, but I would never redeem her into Marinette's friend group. Seasons-four-and-five Chloe needs a fresh start with people she hasn't hurt. I don't know if she could ever be friends with Marinette and I don't particularly care to see it.

I love a good redemption, but part of writing those is knowing that there are lines that a character can't cross if you want them to be forgiven and accepted by your core cast later on. It's that whole romanticizing the cycle of abuse thing that I've discussed before re enemies-to-lovers stories and the general concept of redeeming Gabriel. I get why people like it, it's a wonderful fantasy, but for me it's an incredibly hard sell. My suspension of disbelief almost always breaks, leaving me feeling sad and unsatisfied.

[gold-rhine]

btw another thing i noticed from the fics i read is that celestia's imperialism is actually a really key driving force in shaping fontaine, and most of neuvi's mischaracterizations can be traced to people ignoring it.

for example. everyone knows neuvi is sad. rains as tears is the most popular cliche fandom has for him, so most fic writers will try to incorporate neuvi being deeply sad into their AUs. but now they need reason for why he's sad. in canon he's sad because celestia invaded his planet, wiped out his race, put humans there instead and he now has to live between them and pretend to be one of them. but ppl dont want to deal with colonialism in their fics, so instead they invent other reasons, most often that like his family abused him. they also love using scylla as like abusive relative, i guess bc hes the only named hydro vishap we have, as if my man scylla wasnt at egeria court telling her to kill herself every single day so his sovereign can be reborn. but even aside from scylla's slander, this also completely changes neuvi's dynamic from being Sovereign in exile - position of power and responsibility, adored by his people, but forcibly removed from them, - into being shy flower who needs protection bc he cant stand up for himself. that changes character into complete opposite. now they have to erase his other obvious main trait emphasized in canon - being intimidating and stern, because it wouldn't fucking make sense for him to be scary and commanding if he supposedly can't stand up to his mean bully uncle scylla. this is not to say anything about real victims of abuse, its just that all fics i saw made it completely one dimensional stereotype that absolutely does not track with neuvi's actual role of a ruler who knows how to command, but was taken away from his people.

on the other hand, some fics do emphasize his intimidating presence, in these he's usually in positions of power like a judge. in these cases they attribute his sadness to just like general burden of his position and responsibility, which is tbh fine, whatever. but then another conflict arises. first of all, now as a judge he has to love the laws. which btw canon neuvi openly says (voice lines) that he thinks a lot of fontaine laws are ridiculous and overall the whole law codex is unable to reach real justice. trials are his 9 to 5 wage slavery, not his passion. but even ignoring that, even bigger problem is that fontaine is like hugely and obviously fucked up. even if you erase the metaphor of trials as performances, the fleuv cendre and just overall obvious inequalities still stand. so now you have to answer the question why didn't neuvi do anything about these problem if he has position of power?

the canon answer is again celestia's colonialism of course. he didn't do anything bc he never saw humans as his own people bc they were not. in fact, they were against him at the beginning of his career, they ostracized him and melusines, he thought of himself as a hated outsider up until his story quest. and he's naturally kind, so he helped when asked, and he was moved by human emotions which is why it rained at trials, but he never saw it as his place nor responsibility to try and reorganize humans, esp when they already had their own god. but we can see that with melusines who he does see as his own, he is very proactive, the only laws he passed were for their protection, he staked his unstable reputation to integrate them into society, he dropped everything to go investigate threats to a single melusine, he never shuts up about how you must be nice to melusines. as authority figure, he's very involved, but only when he sees something as belonging under his authority. he's very particular about boundaries of authority, its his fundamental character theme.

but if you remove all this nuance and internal conflict, then in these fics he becomes just kind of stubborn, inept judge with very black and white worldview, whos too pedantic and loves laws too much to see how they are flawed and how the whole system is dysfunctional. and he also loses his kindness and empathy.

so like if you ignore celestia's role in fontaine's narrative, its a lose lose no matter what role you want to put neuvi in

[nebrasska-alasska]

Hello Nebraska!! I just want to say that your Sonadow fanfic, The Secret In Your Quills, is one of the best Sonadow fanfics I've ever read in my entire life! The writing is so epic, and I'm so excited for the final chapters!!

I don't know if you are active on Twitter/X, AI has recently become one of the most talked-about and controversial topics there, and I’d like to know your opinion, especially since you are a wonderful writer.

To you, is using AI to improve and/or correct writing and grammar mistakes considered cheating?

Here’s the thing: I have a friend who is currently writing a book. He built the entire foundation, he came up with a good story, characters, the plot, and everything. But there’s a problem: he’s not very skilled in writing and doesn’t know how to write certain parts. He struggles to describe certain scenes, forgets words that could be used, and makes many, like really, many spelling and grammar mistakes. Not only that, but he also tends to drift off from certain contexts, making parts of the story confusing or nonsensical.

Because of that, he asks ChatGPT to help him with his writing. For example, he writes a section of his book and asks the chat to improve that part, like making it longer, more detailed, and most importantly, correcting grammar mistakes and polishing the writing. When ChatGPT finishes generating the revised version, he reads it to see if it matches what he had in mind. If it doesn’t, he tweaks a few things. And when it finally fits what he wants, he adds it to his book.

But this made me think, and the question kept spinning in my head, so I’d really like to know: is AI actually helping him, or not? I don’t have many friends, and the ones I asked didn’t give me any solid opinions about him using ChatGPT to assist with his writing (assist and improve, not come up with ideas or write it for him).

So I decided to bring the question here to you: Is using AI to help or improve your writing considered cheating or unoriginal?

He doesn't have Tumblr, and since I'm sending this to you anonymously, he will never know that it's me LOL, but I'm serious. What is your opinion about this?

Oof, AI is kind of a tricky subject, and I certainly have a lot of thoughts/opinions on it.

Overall, I don't think AI has a place in writing fiction when it comes to the actual process of writing. Creative writing is an art form, a way of sharing something you've created with others, and having something else nonhuman create that art kind of takes away from the whole purpose. What this means is, when I write, I embrace all of it. The good, the bad, the ugly. The highs of exciting, juicy, and emotional scenes, and the lows of the less fun stuff that comes in between. If you cut corners by having AI write parts of it for you, you're not really growing or evolving as a writer because you don't ever challenge yourself (and listen, you don't have to want to improve your craft while writing fanfiction, but at the same time, if you're incapable of writing the whole thing without having AI fill in the gaps, then it's probably time to reevaluate what you're trying to get out of your writing, if it's not completely yours). It might be a harsh opinion, but at the same time, writing is a form of expression, so why wouldn't you want everything you share with the world to be completely yours in your own unique voice? Isn't that kind of the whole point?

But there's nuance. Having AI help with grammar is a feature that has been in writing softwares since the dawn of the dinosaurs. I tend to ignore grammar suggestions more than half the time because they're either incorrect or because I'm intentionally breaking the rules, but it's still nice to have when reviewing/editing chapters. And idk. AI probably has other nice and innocent features I don't know about because I've never used it before out of principle.

I hope I didn't ruffle any feathers. I'm pretty anti-ai, but that's because in a lot of ways, I see it as an insult to art and the creation process that is innate in us as a species. It has its places in society, but the creative world isn't one of them. Truthfully, I count my lucky stars that I completed my English Literature degree before AI was a thing... I would have hated to navigate that through my courses.

[fictionkinfessions]

Ok so I've been annoyed about this for fucking ages, so now I'm going to complain about it. This isn't prompted by some ask sent in or whatever I've just decided that Today's The Day.

There's been a lot of talk about the difference between fictionkins and fictives on here; a lot of "how can I tell if I'm a fictionkin or if we have a fictive", and "this character is a fictionkin'type but they might be a fictive/I'm not sure if they're a fictive/I might be a fictive", etc. And there's been a not-insubstantial amount of people responding to that in a way that we feel is pretty close-minded. So we're going to complain about it now.

There is a lot of responses to those kinds of questions and thoughts that are all just "There's actually a huge difference between the two and you'd know right away". This is incredibly fucking annoying to us, as a system with a lot of fictionkintypes. This may shock you, but there's a nuance to this, which nobody seems to care about.

For certain people, the difference between a fictionkintype and a fictive could be really clear, and they'd immediately know "Oh okay we have a new John Egbert fictive, neat" and "One of us is a fictionkin of N from Pokémon". The problem is though that for a lot of people (ourselves included), it's not that clear at /all/. For example, we have previously had a lot of issues trying to figure out where the line between kintype and fictive was drawn, due to the way we function. We're very homogenous, in a lot of ways, for a lot of reasons. Ergo, sometimes, it'll take days, if not WEEKS, of deliberation to figure out who is what.

People also seem to forget that terms exist that, obviously, point to this not being nearly as clear-cut an issue as it's thought of. Fableing, for one, being an identity which / someone who is both a fictive and a fictionkin of a particular character at the same time. Or kinforms (a kintype-turned-fictive), or Kin systems (https://pluralpedia.org/w/Kin_System), or median systems or monoconscious systems. Etc. If it was as simple to figure out as it's portrayed; these terms wouldn't be there to use, I feel like. Am I making sense so far?

And while we're here; not the biggest fan of how. Medicalist, I guess, the responses tend to feel. Gesturing at the close-mindedness I mentioned. The very black-and-white view on it gives off Bad Vibes, we'll say. Not a fan.

Regardless; sorry for the essay. Just that my patience has worn thin on this and I'm so, so sick of it.

-#sharkfeed.

2

[utilitycaster]

(you don't need to publish this because a) it's not a question and b) I don't want that maybe you're getting attacked/vagueblogged over it) I just wanted to say, that I originally came to your blog because of your nuanced, deep and really really good Caleb meta and that Imogenfans are missing out big time. I think, if Im/odna fans wouldn't have acted the way they did and talented people hadn't stopped writing meta about them, at least I would have warmed up to the characters way more....

Hi anon,

I hope you don't mind me publishing it anyway just because it's a good opportunity to elaborate on a few rather fanwanky feelings in one brief-ish statement.

I don't really care if people vague me and I think people who don't like being vagued are valid, but people who don't like being vagued, whine about it, and then continue to vague others are, understandably, idiots making the situation worse. Most people who had issues with being vagued re: the above simply stopped writing meta, which is why there's not much of it. Also a lot of what people call vaguing is just meta that disagrees with theirs, to be honest. I mean I do vague, a lot, and I'm very good at it, but I've also written 100% good faith meta about things I was thinking about the narrative without consideration of other peoples' opinions and it was called vaguing because I used aggressive tactics like citing my sources.

I've covered the fact that Imogen was actually treated very similarly to Caleb with the key difference that people who wrote meta about Caleb were treated badly by his haters, whereas people who wrote meta about Imogen were treated badly by her then-supporters who are now mostly defending Ashton and Dorian because Imogen started saying things they don't like and don't want to address. I just want to reiterate that if someone ever says that The Male Characters Played By White Actors Never Receive Hate you should just block them and stop taking them seriously. The hate is obviously not motivated by bigotry against real people, typically (though some criticism of Veth was certainly misogynistic even though Sam is a man, for example) but they still did receive pretty intense hate. It is kind of telling, personally, re a certain lack of backbone that people will bring up the horrible things people said about Liam or Travis or Taliesin in their own defense and then turn around and willingly engage with the people making these accusations they clearly know to be false, but you know. Unsurprising.

I tried to write something longer that really dug into the outline of events but it really comes down to this: a lot of the direct harassment (not vagueing) of meta writers, especially with regards to Imogen or Laudna, occurred during episodes like...20-50 of this campaign, and I think those doing the harassment either thought this would somehow make meta writers go "oh my god you're so right about the thing that you said I should die for not agreeing with, I'm going to write meta for you now" or that this would shut them down but wouldn't make other meta writers say "oh this environment has become hostile", which obviously it would. Coupled with the fact that this is when a lot of meta writers realized the campaign pacing was fucked and the party wasn't clicking in the same way past ones had and it really turned into a case of high risk of unpleasantness for a not really worth it reward for many of the meta writers who were around in earlier campaigns, and that in TURN meant that it's harder to have a good conversation without having existing chats so it's a less pleasant place for new fans. Anyway uh. I think the lesson here is that those C2 meta writers ARE around for Midst and Candela Obscura so it's also kind of a waiting game in the event that there is a future campaign (and if not, they will still be here for Midst/Candela/Possibly Daggerheart or future EXUs); they're just not here to write about Imogen or Laudna because it's not worth the trouble.

[thesophistiicate]

im not trying to act all high and mighty, im just genuinely confused by this... i truly dont understand girls who allow themselves to be put in degrading situations the same as the last anon? surely its glaringly obvious that man just wanted a body to use? i know i sound so mean but im genuinely actually confused whenever i hear or read girls talking about experiences like that i find it very hard to understand what would make them give the most undeserving men access to their bodies and souls like that... i can kind of understand if you sleep with a man for the first time and he treats you badly after but what i dont understand is going back again and again and expecting a different result. at that point maybe youre a little to blame as well? why would you even sleep with someone who youre not even in a relationship with? im just very lost i thought by now we all know better than to give just anyone our time. i see this even in my girl friends, theyre all so beautiful and intelligent yet they date terrible men that shouldnt even be allowed to breathe the same air as them and when they inevitably cheat or hurt them they genuinely get heartbroken and then they start to tell me about things the man has said to them and show me their text conversations and in my head im like "hes telling you right there in that message that he doesnt care about you..? what did you expect..?" sometimes it feels like girls get into situationships and relationships just to get themselves hurt on purpose because, and this is gonna sound so mean but i dont know how else to word this, but theres no way people can genuinely be this blind and stupid. i just find it so hard to feel sympathy for girls who numerously get shown and told theyre only being used for sex and still stick around for a different outcome. is that what love supposed to be? am i the one with the twisted understanding of love? am i missing something? i hope im not coming off as heartless or conceited, im genuinely confused i just dont know how to express or word it well

i'm happy to hold space for expressing thoughts imperfectly or even harshly, so long as we are willing to find understanding and not stay stuck in judgement 🤍 i would say the challenge for you here is learning to stay out of judgement (it is all right to acknowledge that's not how you would act, but attaching value statements and labels like 'stupid' don't help you be kind and don't help anyone else thrive either), and leaning into empathy (finding understanding when someone acts in a way you wouldn't, rather than judgement and frustration).

i say this as someone who used to be really judgemental, not to tell you off, but because it's so good for the soul to learn this growth. judgement and labels are easy, it's far more difficult to build the emotional intelligence to hold space for nuance and complexity, to extend compassion and nurture even when somebody is making imperfect decisions.

i think that you're someone with a really good level of self worth and self respect who cares about others too. that's so amazing! the best thing you can do is continue to hold your standards and lead by example. you aren't the one who has it wrong at all. healthy, respectful relationships aren't like this! keep your standards high, show your friends examples of high standards. as much as it will feel like they aren't listening, sometimes a simple, fairly neutrally toned: "wow, you deserve better" or "geez, i wouldn't put up with that" or "that's not normal" will linger and have more long-term impact than you realise.

i know it's easy to look in from the outside and say, can't you see it?! he just sucks!! or to look at the end of a crazy story and be like, girl, there was SO many red flags wtf!! (lol me at my past self!) but when you're in the middle of it, it's actually really hard. these people are master manipulators and they know how to keep their victims hooked. love bombing, mixed signals, disrespectful treatment to lower self worth... it's a wild ride inside the storm, you simply cannot see clearly because they are committed to obscuring the view.

at the core women get themselves into these situations because of low self worth. it's why i talk about it ALL THE TIME, it's SO CRUCIAL. when you don't value yourself, you put up with being disrespected. the more you are disrespected, the lower your self worth drops and the more bad treatment you accept. it's a toxic cycle. it's the exact same dynamics as in any abusive or domestic violence scenario (even if the relationships aren't abusive and he's just casually disrespectful - that is the beginning of abuse), and it's pretty well researched why women stay, how they get in those situations, why they find it difficult to leave, why the cycle keeps repeating with new partners. i'd highly recommend researching it if you want to understand it better. every woman should be educated on this topic.

you are right to some extent: if you want to get out of the cycle you do have to take responsibility for your own behaviour. you have to ask why you're accepting being treated that way. what led you there. why you are obsessing over their behaviours but not questioning your own.

but to confront all this is very difficult and painful and often related to trauma and neglect. yet another reason why so many can't escape the cycle, to face all of that can be more painful than putting up with a shitty guy who just wants sex without commitment... the crap treatment is easier to face, until it isn't.

it is a form of self-harm, a kind of self-destruction as a way a broken mind and spirit tries to cope with trauma. to end the relationship would be to limp out and finally confront how broken you are. when you stay in it you can stay delulu. it's a form of escape.

of course, to a healthy person it doesn't make sense. why would anyone ever willingly hurt themselves? and yet, it's a psychologically observable phenomenon and unfortunately the solution and path to healing is far more complex than just not doing that or getting into those situations. if only!!

but the way out DOES involve making a decision that you deserve better. which is why we need to keep talking about these things, bringing them to light, being compassionate, creating safe spaces for women in these relationships to talk about what they're experiencing without judgement, shame, being called stupid or asking for it etc 🤍

i could speak for a long time on this, but i'll leave it there for now... it's all right to not understand it. i actually think that's a good thing in a way, it means you're in a good place. but certainly if you really want to understand it, the research is there!

[funnywormz]

I think this shitshow with Toshiro stems from the trend of people INSISTING that interpersonal conflict must be a moral failing. Like I think there's something to be said about how people afford so much less patience to people who are autistic in the "wrong" ways, but also Laios and Toshiro just clash on a fundamental level that has nothing to do with that. Hell, you could read Toshiro as autistic as well. People related to Laios' side of the argument but instead of getting any nuance out of it they started projecting their experiences with ableist people onto Toshiro.

AGREE AGREE AGREE. i think that Fandom Brain gets people very used to thinking of conflicts in terms of "who is the bad guy and who is the good guy", so when they encounter a more nuanced conflict they don't really know what to do. i don't think toshiro is a bad person at all, in his conflict with laios he's just exhausted and starving and has been pushed to the limit and from his perspective, laios doesn't even seem that emotionally affected by the situation. i don't think what he said was right and it was pretty cruel, but i don't think he's a villain or deserves to be permanently hated as a character just bc he fucked up this time lol

also yeah you could definitely read him as autistic, and i think that highlights an issue in the autistic community in general bc like....... a lot of autistic people have conflicting needs which can lead to conflict between them/make them unable to stand being around each other. and it's not because either of them are neurotypical or bad people, they're just incompatible. like autistic people who loudly stim vocally and autistic people who meltdown when they have to be around loud noises, for example. it doesn't mean either of them is bad or not autistic, just that they have conflicting needs

i 100% agree with the last part too. i disliked toshiro at first myself bc i had been (and still do ngl) projecting onto laios hard and the conflict they had reminded me of times when people have been mean or angry at me irl for social blunders i've made unintentionally, or when someone i thought liked me/was my friend turned out to actually hate me. it's a common experience for autistic people and that scene resonates with that! but i think it also helps to take a step back from projecting our own traumatic experiences onto the scene and just look at it objectively. laios isn't perfect either and he's the one who actually starts the physical fight by slapping toshiro (i feel like i don't see many people mention this lol). i feel super bad for him in that scene but he's not a perfect victim and has done things wrong himself too

as an autistic person i've also been in situations where i can relate to toshiro too lol, like where someone is overly physically and emotionally familiar with me when we don't know each other well and i've wanted them to back off but haven't been sure how to say it without hurting their feelings. this kind of conflict is far from just being a "neurotypical vs neurodivergent" thing as a lot of people portray it in the fandom

idk i just wish people would think a little more deeply about the scene and put their own emotions and experiences aside to instead consider the conflict with the added context of the individual characters and their respective cultures + the situation they're in. people don't have to like toshiro but i wish they wouldn't paint him as a villain or make up awful shit about him just to justify their feelings when he isn't even that bad of a dude in canon yknow 😑. also we literally see him at rock bottom struggling and freaking out and i think that's important to remember. in a different context i doubt he would have ever said those things to laios

[annabtg]

Anna, you’re so right(i love you). It’s so annoying that all these woke yaoi-shipping sjws have taken over the fandom. You cannot put characters like James and Sev through modern lenses(“Snape was a child abuser” teachers were allowed to hit students with rulers at 90s british schools but being a little mean to a troublemaker makes you satan🙄) and understand them fully. You also cannot make James Potter into a bisexual adhd-having MOC and keep true to his character(everything about him relays on him being very privileged in society)

Love, an old man.

I don't know how you can read this post and conclude that my problem is "woke, yaoi-shipping sjws"? My problem is, like I said, the complete lack of reading comprehension skills, of creative and analytical thought and of the ability to empathize with the characters.

Indeed, modern social media seems to favour performative activism, but that's not what fanfic suffers from. I've engaged with fandom enough to understand that the prevalence of non-nuanced takes comes from younger fans who have grown up in a world massively different from the one I grew up in as a millennial with boomer parents.

Nevertheless, I don't think you're doing it right either, my love. Teachers might have been allowed to hit students with rulers in the 70s (they weren't allowed in 90s Greece, though, and I have been informed neither were they in the UK) - and an example of a strict but good teacher in the books is Minerva McGonagall, who would dole out harsh punishments and use her sharp tongue on students, but still gives you the feeling that she cared about them and loved them. That kind of "tough love" was how boomers took care of their kids. Not Snape, who had beef with a student because he didn't like his father. That's fucked up. But the thing is that Snape is supposed to be unlikeable and mean and come off as the villain, to make his arc all the more surprising and impactful. He's supposed to be a fucked up dick who works for the side of good, because the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters.

As for James, I don't think his portrayal as a bisexual ADHD-having MOC is inherently incompatible with his character, even if it's not the authorial intent (indeed, James is supposed to be the picture of privilege). For instance, one aspect of HP I find fascinating is how being a POC doesn't descend into racism in the books - I think there's one single instance of it, where Pansy tells Angelina she's got worms on her head, but that's obviously Pansy being a dick, and other than that there is no casual racism thrown about to people like Dean or Lee or Cho or the Patils. Whether their portrayal is nuanced or stereotypical is a different discussion, but I think it's obvious that we're supposed to take out that if you're a racist wizard, it's not colour that matters, it's blood. James Potter could reasonably be a POC and it wouldn't matter at all in the world he lived in.

That he would struggle with ADHD or sexuality is also not implausible, and in fact I think it makes for very compelling portrayals of him to be going through that in an era-adequate way. Have people around him be annoyed because he just won't sit still, show him confused by his attraction to Sirius and downplaying it with semi-homophobic remarks. I'm personally not so much a fan of a Hogwarts that reads like you're at Pride, but it was the era of hippies, after all?? I think that Hogwarts would be on the conservative side of things, but at the end of the day it *was* the time when queerness started to gain visibility and I understand how people feel at liberty to use that. Everyone seeks to connect to these characters through fic to some degree; for me, who grew up as a gifted (and probably undiagnosed autistic?) kid in a conservative society, the canon portrayal of people like James and Lily and Sirius at Hogwarts resonates enough to keep me intrigued.

I don't lament people trying to project their own struggles with queerness or mental illness or idk just the fun conversations they have with their friends on the Marauders and Hogwarts; what bugs me is when it's being done in a way that cancels canon aphoristically, and you're suddenly idk toxic for shipping Jily because "James was an abuser and Lily had Stockholm Syndrome" - that's not what happened. Showing off like a peacock was the men's standard flirting technique, and playing hard to get was the women's standard flirting technique, and even with that Jily contains a LOT of nuance - and frankly, even through a modern lens I find it very difficult to miss if you have the first idea of reading between the lines. Which is why I keep saying: lack of reading comprehension skills and critical thinking beyond understanding straightforward text messages and cheap quips is the bane of these readers' existence (or, you know, our existence, for having to put up with it).

[infamous-if]

Is that why the members voted MC instead of Seven? Because Seven wouldn't let themselve be pushed around like mc does? They did both fought a lot about how the leadership goes 👀 and Seven is kinda everyone's problem too though. Iris said it herself. It's giving me mixed feelings for the band rn

No, the members voted strictly on what they thought was beneficial to the band. I may have worded my last answer wrong lmao but yes, Seven is everyone's problem, just not in the same way they are for MC.

We have to remember that the vote wasn't the only thing that broke them apart. It was also the following fight at the party, which was between MC and Seven only. It adds another layer of resentment between them two compared to the band. It's been three years; Iris, Rowan and Devyn are kind of over it by now. They're not very happy with Seven and would rather avoid Sev if they can help it, but they're not actively hating them the way MC can (optional), which kind of goes back to the scene in which MC says "you're being surprisingly forgiving" (or something like that) to Iris.

They're all adults, they're not going to kick someone out based on whether that person is a pushover or not. They've all had arguments before, even before the vote. Rowan and Iris* had their fair share of blowouts. (edit: I meant Iris, haha, but also Sev.)

The mixed feelings likely come from the fact that the nuances all change based on what type of MC you play. For example, an MC who hates Seven versus one who misses them etcetera etcetera. It's never really a straight-forward answer.

Also, the band have their own agency and do what they like so maybe you may not like what they do but they do not live based off the likes and dislikes of MC hahaha they're their own people.

Hope that kind of answers that! Sorry if it doesn't!

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

Hello! Really random but I was talking to a friend about the deal with the “evil altean” alternative universe that unfortunately exists and knew you had some thoughts on it!

I want to be able to explain it better but you have a better understanding than I do! I hope you don’t mind me asking your thoughts on it!

Hollow-dweller has explained it much better than i ever could here and here, and most of my reply is just giving out the same points they made. Anyway in my opinion Hole in the Sky is a shit ass episode and i deeply resent it.

To start with this episode is another example of Reverse Racism the vld writers love so much and one of the many many many many Many examples of the fact that vld is very much written by white writers for a white audience and focusing on a white UsAmerican narrative that pretends to be progressive and inclusive but is absolutely shallow in its ideals and is not at all sympathetic towards minorities, victims of oppression, and those who are not white american. Furthermore this episode is yet another example of this shows contant need to criticize and punish Allura for wanting to reconnect with her dead people and culture.

First of all lets look at the motivation of Empress Allura that led her into making a colonizing mind-washing empire out of her once peace loving diplomatic people. Apparently it is similar to main reality in that the Galran attack and Alfor was killed, however this time they went with Allura's plan in the first episode to bring voltron together which leads to the Galran empire's defeat and Altea becoming the colonizing force instead (i rewatched that stupid episode just to answer this ask, so yes this is literally what happened in that episode. While the evil alteans dont say that Empress Allura brought the voltron together, it was jds who mentioned in an interview that that's what happened)

Problem with that is we already know how Allura would react to such situation! In canon! And sure she was (rightfully) hurt and angry about it, but she never let go of her kindness because of it! She lost her father And her planet And everyone she ever loved and still remained a kind and giving person to her own detriment.

And inspite of what your average Allura-hating Keith/Lotor/Klance stan would have you believe, her hatred towards Galran was never this deep to the point of enacting unjust violence on them, let alone destroying the universe because of it. Yes she was distrusting of Ulaz except he also broke into her castle and beat up her teammates which most likely did colour her opinion. Yes she was cold towards Keith except it only involved side-eye and a cold comment for which she apologized in the very next episode without anyone else's prompting. And people bring up her actions against Lotor after his reveal and rage against good!Zarkon to say she's a bigot, and i am sorry i don't have to explain how that's just plain stupid, all i can say is that even after everything the stans still think that she didn't deserve to kick both their asses let alone genuinely consider she was in the wrong then i am sorry but there really is no hope for them.

Also even if she had a damning corruption arc, do you really think Coran and the paladins of the old who very likely were alive to defeat the galran would have let her go that far? Do you really think she wouldn't have crumbled immediately if Alfor's Ai had come to know about this and looked at her with shock, pity, and disappointment?

Not to mention Alteans were established to be a peace loving diplomatic species. How did they end up being this colonizing brainwashing race? This was certainly not written to be a nuanced take on topics like "trauma and tragedy causing a massive shift in a culture causing continued cycle of violence" or "Oppression is relative in nature", because this was only one episode. One episode and the only thing we get is "All Alteans in this reality are evil" with no "it's not black or white" notion this series wants to preach but absolutely fails at.

This show does this thing a lot where it's much more critical of victims being angry at their treatment while coddling the perpetrators. Galra get the "They are not All Bad, they were just following Zarkon's orders who is also Not All Bad poor baby just got corrupted by bad quintessence and also if you are mean to them you are just as bad uwu 🥺🥺🥺". Meanwhile Alteans are just, "All Alteans in this reality are evil", and there's certainly no corrupting purple quintessence involved cause otherwise everything would be purple.

And yeah i knowww it's because it's one off episode vs entire series but it still could and should have been better. Have Sven be an Altean which actually makes sense given Guns of Gamara represent Blade of Marmora in this reality, or make it so it's not Allura who created this empire, or better yet! Just Don't Write that episode! One of the links i added above talks about an alternative dark!Allura which i found to be much more interesting and provided for a much more meaningful introspection and possible arc for Allura without turning into another "Oppressed can be as bad oppressors" shallow life lesson white people seems to think is height of nuanced truthful worldview. You could have had a Galra-won bad end timeline to establish multiple realities. There were just so many options.

And of course this episode is another example of putting down characters of colour to put fucking Keith on pedestal. All throughout the episode is Keith as this "logical, voice of reason who's always correct" white-coded man, While making Allura out to be "illogical dumbass who nearly handed clearly evil alteans an ore that would threaten all the realities all because she wanted the help from those Alteans 🙄🙄🙄" Black-coded woman. Maybe it was her trauma and wishful thinking talking but i feel like the moment she heard them call her Empress Allura while a Shiro looking hates Alteans, she should atleast some suspicions. But nope, Allura has to be an idiot specifically because she wants to get in touch with her culture while Keith is the extremely Specialist Boy who is always right. I fucking hate it here.

And of course the shit cherry on the top of this enormous shit pile of tone-deafness, you have this episode framing Alfor's decision to hide the lions be that if they had formed it.... It would result in evil altean reality. Not because the head of voltron is controlled by Zarkon, not because it's an extremely powerful weapon with very high chance of falling into wrong hands, not because they did not have enough paladins to pilot the whole thing, not because it was literally a losing battle. Nope! Apparently it was possible to win the war 10k years ago, but there was a possibility that living Alteans, including his own daughter would go on to take over the universe for asinine reasons so he pretty much hid the weapon so that the Galran can take over the universe and take over the universe and destroy multiple planets including his own. Yup this is totally a normal and logical thought process to have, nevermind that Alfor's ai literally says they should have gone with Allura's plan in the very first episode. Yup this a totally normal and logical thought process to have/s

Tldr- it's a shit ass episode

Honestly if you want to improve on it/keep it's elements here are my suggestions-

Make it a Lotor focused episode instead of Allura focused episode. Let other reality Lotor be the one who formed the empire instead of Allura. Especially if you want to redeem him. He's the one this obsessed with Alteans and this hateful towards Galran. He's the one who believes in sacrificing as many people as there needs to be in order to achieve peace. (In this episode it is implied he cause the death of many pilots while trying to get the Ore). Let him see this version of him who has achieved what he could only dream of, except he can stare in horror seeing a version of him has become just like their father

Or

2) Make Sven and Slav be unreliable narrators being lied to by Guns of Gamara and the two Alteans we see as lying liars who lie. Make these two Alteans extremists lying to Allura because they truly believed that she would agree with their plans and wanted to impress her. There's no Altean empire just Altean planet ruled by one of Allura's descendant who's trying extremely hard to arrest this extremist almost cultish group. No they haven't captured entire planets but instead kidnapped few aliens and brain washed them and the descendant is trying their best to stop these idiots. Have Sven and Slav be ex-victims of brainwashing by the extremist Alteans only to be "saved" By Guns of Gamara, who is anti-Altean faction who lied to them that the Alteans have colonized the entire universe whereas the truth is Alteans are just.... Alteans. Nothing sinister going on.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

While "the network wants an episodic kids show, the authors want an epic dark complicated narrative" would explain A LOT about ML's problems, I'd still like to note that there are kids' shows that can do both, going full range from "mostly episodic with a sprinkle of narrative" (Kim Possible, MLP), to "heavily narrative but with episodic breather/filler episodes" (Gravity Falls, WITCH, the Owl House), with many variants in-between.

Even the transition from "fully episodic" to "more narratively-connected" that ML attempted to do can be done successfully - the aforementioned Gravity Falls and WITCH were more episodic in season 1 and more narratively driven in season 2.

However, I'd say there are a few other key problems that can be inferred from what we have:

The show tries too many things at once - as you have pointed out repeatedly. Magical girl and rom-com, single-hero, duo and team stories, wacky comedy and serious trauma, even trying to give several characters a redemption and a damnation arc at the same time (and failing with either). Apparently, it's not just TF vs writers: it's writers severely disagreeing with each other (see Thomas and Vincent's opinions on Chloe), and also trying to one-up the fans. Also, simply thinking too much of the work, which leads us to...

ML's total lack of self-awareness. Another famous case of a show that was almost entirely episodic is Phineas and Ferb. They use the same formula (the brothers build, Candace busts, Doof makes an Inator and is thwarted by Perry) over and over for four seasons. And by mid-season 1, the authors have been making fun of the structure, lampshading it, spoofing and twisting it, playing with "What if" episodes and never taking itself too seriously. When ML tries to be self-aware, it becomes either insulting to the fans (Animaestro), horrifically dark (Chat Blanc) or plain cringe (Simpleman). This is exacerbated by Astruc's arrogance and inability to ignore critics.

Is it possible to make a highly complex, genre-busting, yet kid-friendly story and succeed? Yes. But it needs to be better thought-out - if not from the start, then at the moment the network allows one to deviate from the formula.

And if all else fails and the story becomes too complicated and too repetitive at the same time... Well, self-awareness and the ability to make fun of one's own work can turn a sad mess into a hilariously fun disaster.

P. S. Love your posts as always, you are the main reason I'm still in the fandom!

Thank you for the kind words! I'm so glad that you're enjoying my stuff and I agree with all the things you brought up.

A big part of the reason that Miraculous is so fascinating to me is that there ISN'T a single cause of the issues. There are so many valid ways to discuss the show's problems. It's a masterclass in bad writing and what not to do!

It's why I'm able to run this blog. If it was as simple as, "here's the single reason why it's bad and here's how you fix that" or if the show never had any potential, then there wouldn't be much to talk about. But it did have potential and there is no single reason why it's bad. The causes are multitudinous as are the potential fixes! It feels like investigating some complex wreckage or an elaborate murder mystery in order to understand what the hell happened, which is really fun if you like talking about writing.

I find it much harder to discuss writing in an informative way if you only have good examples to draw from because that path risks stifling creativity. Just because a popular story did a thing well doesn't mean that story showed us the only way to do the things or even the best way to do the thing, but that's often the lesson people seem to learn. They see a thing that they like or even just a thing that audiences liked and want to copy it without understanding the full nuance of why they liked it.

A great example of this is Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. He was such a well-written and popular character that all these properties started copying him even though the properties in question did NOT have a setup that worked for a Zuko. Praising Zuko won't really tell you all the ways that Zuko could have failed. Meanwhile, a case study of Chloe vs Zuko or even just a general discussion of Chloe lets you actually talk about the various styles of redemption arc and what you have to do to make them feel real. It's also far more interesting than talking how Zuko could have failed because Zuko didn't fail so why are we even talking about this? It's also far more interesting than talking about a bunch of properties that did redemption arcs well because that would require you to have seen all of those properties. But Chloe is from a single property and she did fail and people understandably have wildly different feelings about what the failure was because the writing was so bad, which means that digging into her writing is way more likely to hold your interest and teach you something.

This gif really does sum it up perfectly:

[Image description: scene from the movie Knives Out where the detective Benoit Blanc exclaims "It makes no damn sense! It compels me though" to explain his feelings on an ongoing murder mystery that he's trying to solve]

As does the old adage, "failure is the greatest teacher." Of course, no one ever said that it had to be your failure!

[kerizaret]

Keep in mind it's just the opinions of the people I've been exposed to haha. The Generic Elitist type™, there's definitely more classical people who like or at least neutral at pop music and are more open-minded in general. But being in the industry does inevitably come with biases and thought he is not fully in that black and white mentality I do believe Harumichi is a rather severe case.

Does he consider Saki's career choice as better than Toya's and set her as an example?

In the terms of her hanging out with more "straight-laced" people, maybe. Musically, probably not by much, if any. I think Harumichi is more preoccupied with the kind if music Touya played rather than if he was successful, so a lot of it ties in into classical being superior to other genres. Leo/need is (irrc) a pop-rock group which isn't that much better that street (a mix of freestyle, rap, and seemingly pop - keep in mind that street music is either only a genre in-universe or isn't meant to be a genre as much as the style of performance, so it's kinda hard to tell what they mean by Harumichi hating street music. Kohane's solo from KIUAN is pretty much just pure pop).

Does he value the keyboard and think of it as a worthy instrument like a classical piano or would he think she should've sticked to the latter?

Synth/keyboard isn't even considered a "piano" in classical circles, per se. Which does have it's reasoning, as the key weighs, spacing, and the technique is very different from "acoustic" piano and a lot of finely-tuned skills from piano playing won't transfer to keyboard and vice versa. It's kind of how classical violinist don't usually consider electric violinists worth their salt because acoustic anything is much more unforgiving in terms of technique than the respective electric option (but also provides additional challenges that acoustic instrument don't have, especially depending on the genre. Not one option is inherently better or worse unless we're going into specific situation at hand in which a preference might be discussed). So, we can safely say Harumichi doesn't respect keyboard, either at all or at least as much as he would a piano.

What does he think of the music she plays, since it's not classical?

A wide spread opinion is that all pop music sounds the same, basically. Pop music, including rock, rarely diverts form 4/4 time and common chord progressions. It doesn't need to, because what it can't express through complicated music, it compensates for lyrically. However people heavily immersed in classical lyrics, which typically doesn't have lyrics and voice, find music with lyrics redundant in a way. Which is also among the reasons why so many classical musicians are actually not fans of opera. So there's both no appreciation for the instrumental which is likely not impressive to them and no desire to dig into the lyrics. This is something that is held against the genre overall rather than individual artists. There's some nuance for this in (pop)rock and I think some classical elitists are actually willing to give rock music a pass, especially one that's innovative and creative with their instrumental part, but Leo/need probably wouldn't be one of them all things considered.

Has he actually ever listened to leo/need?

Unlikely. He doesn't even take the time to listen to Touya's work until he literally begs to. This is somewhat explained in-universe, but I do think his prejudice goes deep enough that he'd not willingly engage with Leo/need, if he was even aware if their activity, except maybe out of politeness.

I'd be pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong though. Like I said, I think there's more to him than his character archetype of overly strict classical musician dad.

Harumichi forced to listen to leoni by having tenpapa play the leoni soda advertisement 15 times in a row during a joint dinner sobbing his eyes out about how proud he is of his daughter /silly

But thank you!!! This is very insightful and really cool :0 all that is to say though it's moreso unlikely he'd be very enthusiastic about Saki's music. Tenma-Aoyagi dinners must be so funny what does this man even see in the Tenmas I need to know. Is it only tenmama and harumichi talking about classical 2 hours straight

Poor guy saw three kids with so much classical potential and one went to sing in the streets, the second switched to an electric counterpart and changed to pop and the last one decided being a clown is a better career choice. I'd be bitter too /silly /j

[williamrikers]

i love that you were right about mut and rak's kink dynamic only intensifying as the show progresses and how the show cleverly uses their NC encounters to further show how their relationship also progresses. for example, i love that the show has been building off of and using "eating meals at home" as an obvious metaphor for how they approach this new relationship.

mut has made a big deal about eating meals prepared at home instead of ordering food and rak has been embracing that concept because he is finding that food prepared by mut tastes better than anything else he can get.

now i don't speak thai, so perhaps the nuances of the language don't quite mean what the subtitles insinuate, but that new scene where mut confronts rak about going out only seems to hit it's big boiling point when rak says that he's going "out to eat".

it's clear that mut draws a hard line in the sand with that, and truthfully i don't know if mut's Dom signals were crossed that he thought rak was deliberately being a brat to get a rise out of him or if mut genuinely just got mad, but when he manhandles rak, mut is still doing his due diligence by checking in throughout this encounter to see if this is okay. OH BOY WAS RAK INTO IT LMAO.

it's so obviously a shift in how they've done things before and dear friend, i fear i could go on forever about this, but just know that i am simply unwell.

hello my dear anon 🤗

haha, i love being right 😌😌 but yes, i am so happy to see the show going in that direction and showing the two of them getting more comfortable in their kink dynamic—in all of their recent intimate scenes, mut started out by holding rak's hands down on the mattress and every time it made me so damn happy. these two know what they like! and they are very much compatible that way, which is just so much fun to watch.

about the "eating" thing: "eating" someone is thai slang for having sex with them. tongrak was blatantly telling mut that he was going out to find someone else to fuck him and that's what mut reacted to by telling him he would fuck him so good he wouldn't be tempted to think about anyone else 🥰

rak was confronted with mut confessing his feelings, tried to put more distance between them by going out and having sex with someone else and mut was absolutely not having it. i adore their dynamic because it's very easy to see that rak needs the kind of love mut gives him, that he thrives on it and that he's very much in love with mut as well (although not yet at a point where he can admit that), and it's just so much fun to watch rak's walls breaking down piece by piece 😏