#the author being like I will now also exploit you. basically

[friendshiptothemax]

I was on a plane this weekend, and I was chatting with the woman sitting next to me about an upcoming writer’s strike. “Do you really think you’re mistreated?” she asked me.

That’s not the issue at stake here. Let me tell you a little something about “minirooms.”

Minirooms are a way of television writing that is becoming more common. Basically, the studio will hire a small group of writers, 3-6 or so, and employ them for just a few weeks. In those few weeks (six weeks seem to be common), they have to hurriedly figure out as much about the show as they can -- characters, plots, outlines for episodes. Then at the end of the six weeks, all the writers are fired except for the showrunner, who has to write the entire series themselves based on the outlines.

This is not a widespread practice, but it has become more common over the past couple of years. Studios like it because instead of paying for a full room for the full length of the show, they just pay a handful of writers for a fraction of the show. It’s not a huge problem now, but the WGA only gets the chance to make rules every three years -- if we let this go for another three years and it becomes the norm? That would be DEVASTATING for the tv writing profession.

Do I feel like I’m mistreated? No. I LOVE my job! But in a world of minirooms, there is no place for someone like me -- a mid-level writer who makes a decent living working on someone else’s show (I’d like to be a showrunner someday, but for now I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and my husband and I are trying to start a family so I like not being support rather than the leader for now). In a miniroom, there are only two levels -- the handful of glorified idea people who are already scrambling to find their next show because you can’t make a decent living off of one six-week job (and since there are fewer people per room, there are fewer jobs overall, even at the six-week amount), and the overworked, stressed as fuck showrunner who is going to have to write the entire thing themselves. Besides being bad for me making a living, I also just think it’s plain bad for television as an art form -- what I like about TV is how adaptable it is, how a whole group of people come together to tell a story better than what any of them could do on their own. Plus the showrunner can’t do their best work under all of that pressure, episode after episode, back to back. Minirooms just...fucking suck.

The WGA is proposing two things to fix this -- a rule that writers have to be employed for the entire show, and a rule tying the number of writers in the room to the number of episodes you have per season. I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It’s the way shows have run since the advent of television. It’s only in the last couple of years that this has become a new thing. It’s exploitative. It squeezes out everyone except showrunners and people who have the financial means to work only a few months a year. It makes television worse. And that is the issue in this strike that means everything to me, and that is why I voted yes on the strike authorization vote.

[thepersonperson]

Thoughts on JJK's ending and my Dream/Delusion Theory being wrong.

Original Theory

Follow-Up on Characters Feeling OOC

(Written using TCBscans. Click images for captions/citaitons.)

Preface

I want to say that this ending could’ve worked if it were given more time. The majority of my complaints are the rushing which I mostly blame exploitation at the hands of the manga industry and predatory contracts.

Here are my original thoughts on JJK 268 when it released and JJK 269 when it released. I've basically reverted to those opinions.

Examining JJK 268–271 as Presented

When the last chapter of Umineko came out, its author Ryukishi07 very much spat in the faces of fans. He mocked them mercilessly and it was glorious. Every single criticism he lobbed at them was warranted because he targeted the fans that refused to see the love he put into his work or engage with the story on its terms.

“Without love, it cannot be seen.”

Ryukishi gave you all the tools to solve the mystery. He told you exactly how to do it. And yet some weren’t satisfied. They wanted everything neatly handed to them in a bow. Ryukishi denied them that simple ending in favor of sticking to his vision and rewarding the fans that accepted Umineko for what it was.

I have my own issues with the ending, but none of my complaints are related to that. I can also say with confidence what happens is completely in character, it’s just not something I personally vibe with.

When I read JJK 268–271 I feel that same creator frustration. I see Gege’s fatigue with fans who care only about the surface level presentation and nothing else. There’s been so much fun setups and follow throughs. So many subtle characterizations and symbolism that goes unnoticed by those who are unwilling to see the love Gege puts into his craft.

“JJK fans can’t read.” This is a fandom joke that is very true. A massive part of the fanbase ignores subtlety and gets upset or confused by Gege following through on it. The entire Sukuna battle was like that. You could pick out all the reasoning behind their actions if you paid close attention.

But then we get JJK 269 where Gege does something he's never done before—over-explain everything bluntly in a way that adds more plot holes and hinders character development. It feels like Gege is going “You don’t understand what I put down? Ok fine! Here are the answers!” It feels like getting to tell those fans off was more important than everything else.

Instead of doing a Ryukishi where he tears into uncharitable critics and rewards those who gave him a chance, Gege just abandons it all and makes an ending that won’t fully satisfy anyone. 

With my theory, I decided to look past everything I hated. I decided to trust that if a mistake was made, Gege would call it out like usual. I decided to trust that the inconsistent locations were intentional because Gege has not once ever flubbed them. I decided to trust the clever set up and follow through that’s always been there, even when Gege’s health problems were at their worst.

I decided to look at Gege’s work with love and my heart was trampled for it. My post now serves as glaring proof the ending is botched and nothing makes sense. All the plotholes I found solutions for are bigger than ever. JJK 269 in its entirety is utterly pointless narratively. It could’ve been spent on political fallout, grief, or villain backstories, but instead it reads like a defensive Reddit post.

JJK 271 isn't Satisfying

JJK 271 made everything about JJK 269 worse and then added some more nonsense. Sukuna’s last appearance really sucked for me. I found his entire interaction with Mahito to be grossly OOC.

Mahito is a character who finds humans disgusting and doesn’t care about their opinions or what they do. They also don’t like Sukuna. When Jogo believes that the age of curses needs Sukuna to work, Mahito says they can surpass him. The very idea that Mahito would be upset by Sukuna becoming more human goes against their entire established character.

And more continuity errors!

This conversation is actually their 4th. Here are the other 3:

Sukuna warning Mahito not to touch him.

Sukuna punishing Mahito for touching him.

And Mahito telling Sukuna to shut up and watch him be even better.

Their relationship was antagonistic and Mahito desired a world without Sukuna. Why would Sukuna be with them in the afterlife?

And if Sukuna was going to change his mind it should’ve been with someone he cared about. Jogo and Gojo would’ve been great candidates. Or you know…it could’ve been Uraume themself. In the way Yuji voiced his feelings to Megumi and reached out to him, Sukuna could’ve done the same with Uraume. It could’ve been a thing that expanded more on their relationship and how it came to be. But Uraume doesn’t even get to voice how they feel about anything.

What we get is Sukuna talking to someone he doesn’t like about his emotional issues he has been suppressing and then deciding to live for a person whose history we know nothing of.

I knew him being an unwanted child screwed him up. But that kind of stuff takes a long, long time to unpack. And Sukuna, up until this point has given no indication he was ready to acknowledge his trauma, just like Gojo. Even in the end Gojo can’t admit to Toji and Geto traumatizing him. Sukuna knowing his heart and being so casually open about it just flies in the face of the subtle characterization that existed up until that point. (I wanted Hidden Inventory Arc type reveal you know! But tell not show is prevailing seemingly out of spite.)

He dies stubborn and hateful towards Yuji. He lies to him about feeling nothing and not liking flowers. For him to turn around in death and go I was wrong the entire time no problem to someone he has an antagonistic relationship with is extremely OOC because it wasn't earned. 

And since when did Sukuna fear his own curse? When was that ever hinted? All that was suggested was Sukuna having a rough childhood and being exploited by others until he had enough.

Even for all the characters that survived, this isn’t a satisfying ending. Their coping with trauma is unrealistic and contradicts earlier characterization. Their relationships are not explored further. All their arcs or goals are neglected, save Yuji. Nobara didn’t even get to meet up with her childhood friends like she always wanted to. Just the mom letter.

It’s also jarring to see that a series that began with mourning, a series that made itself different by having children deal realistically with traumatic things, end where that heart no longer exists. We have so many characters who are explicitly motivated by their trauma. And we get to see them cope with it in their unique ways and still choose to chase joy through the hurt. 

And these final 4 chapters? It’s gone. Yuta being so distressed over everyone treating Gojo like an object and not acknowledging his personhood? Gone. Megumi, Yuji, and Nobara sucking at dealing with death? Gone. They all act like none of it really mattered and won’t affect them for the rest of their lives. Those who were lost are forgotten quickly and their efforts are not remembered. (At this point, everyone ignoring Choso hurts worse than Gojo tbh.)

The Totally Not Kenjaku surviving decapitation and brain eating makes no sense if that's real. And the implications from that are horrible. All Gojo wanted to do was mourn Geto’s body. All we wanted was to see someone mourn him or acknowledge his efforts. I was hoping they’d be buried together. The idea that Geto’s body is possibly being used by a the master manipulating rapist while everyone is ok with that sickens me. (Does any remember Choso?! But hey, let’s kill all the incarnated culling game players who were victims of manipulation or outright helpful to the protagonists’ victory!)

It’s also why Mei Mei surviving and going unpunished or criticized for her treatment of Ui Ui sucks to see. And I guess while we’re at it. Kusakabe really did tell a 15 year old to his face he should’ve died. (And he was wrong about that like the higher ups. Yuji and Sukuna were a backup plan and the fingers were getting stronger all on their own. Gojo was the only adult who took productive action against it.)

The revolution really did die with Gojo. His dreams were good and noble. Resetting the Jujutsu Society and its exploitation was needed. But he gives up on them and asks to be forgotten. It's done in a way that feels like Gege is addressing his fans directly and telling them to get over him too.

I knew Gojo was suicidal, don’t get me wrong, but he was characterized as someone who had a hard time understanding that others did care about him. I was hoping for the revelation his intuition was wrong via a funeral or mourning. That didn't happen and it breaks my heart. 

Yuta tried to empathize with him. We see it with the Yujo plot that goes nowhere except to disrespect Gojo’s body one last time. We don't even get to know if he was cremated or buried or how Yuta felt about that experience. It is extremely hard to see this all as anything but Gege expressing resentment for Gojo’s popularity.

And I’ll give Gege credit for that. The only theme that stayed consistent was Gojo being seen as an object to be exploited by everyone, except Sukuna. (I’m not even sure if I can include Yuji and Yuta in the cares deeply for Gojo anymore. It’s so OOC for them to be like this that I want to ignore it.)

The balance of the world changed when Gojo was born. We had several chapters dedicated to how this impacted various people's lives from Toji to random curse users. His death should be just as impactful.

But you know. Kenjaku was proven right. The cycle of curses will continue on because the systemic problems were never dealt with. 

The conditions that allowed for Yuji and Sukuna to be created still exist.

Reflection

I understand why people like myself want to reject this ending. It doesn’t feel like Gege put love into it. All the fun little quirks this series had are flattened and discarded in what feels like spite. Not even the final battle has the fun energy that was present just 4 chapters ago. 

I’ve decided that I’ll accept these last 4 chapters for what they are, but reject everything they stand for. They’re more interesting to discuss and pick apart than actually read…which ironically is how I feel about Umineko’s final chapter.

And speaking of Umineko… My favorite thing about the reaction to my Dream/Delusion Theory was this—the people who said, if they can’t handle what’s in the catbox, this is their canon. 

The fans who love the series and want to weave their own tales based on this in a way that helps others cope, please tag me in your creations. (Especially you @rosemaryreality!) It’s all incredibly Umineko and I’m forever grateful I got to experience the Rokkenjima Incident in real time.

Very important to Umineko’s themes, there was a common sentiment type across those that were dismissive of my theory vs those who were receptive to it—their perception of the mangaka, Gege.

To those that believed Gege was a bad writer, the idea that he could be clever and put love into this series was impossible to them, and therefore my theory was impossible. To those that had faith in Gege as a writer, my theory was solid, even if it needed a little tweaking.

I had the most fun with those who cited manga at me to make corrections like @runabout-river. Or those who wanted clarification on the holes I missed.

The ones that were entirely dismissive? It was boring. Their arguments mostly amounted to “Gege bad”. (I won't post screenshots here because I don't want them harassed, but they are there if you want to verify them.) Not a single person offered me an interpretation where the events were literal and took place in reality using manga panel citations in a way that tied it all into JJK’s themes and characters.

That disappointed me immensely. I wanted someone to prove to me my reasoning was wrong with a similar methodology. Instead they drew rebuttals stemming from their perceived flaws or outright dislike of Gege.

This is quite literally what happens in Umineko. It’s a murder mystery that can only be solved if you consider love. Both the love within the characters themselves and the love the author has put into his creation.

Is it magic or is it a simple trick? Is it a delusion or is it reality? Depending on how you answer and solve the mystery, your interpretation of the story itself changes too. 

I wound up being wrong of course, and Gege really did screw up everything in the end. But while that delusion was real? I had a blast.

I’ll be forever grateful to everyone that proved Ryukishi right about Umineko’s core theme.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 165 thoughts

Aqua Hoshigan Status: It's Officially Hoshinover

Chapters Until The Story Ends Without The 143 Kiss Being Addressed Or Acknowledged: 1

damn i guess they really did just kill his ass

I'm gonna be so real with you gamers, I kind of don't have a lot to say about this one either lol. Which I acknowledge sounds completely wild given the Everything that happens in it, but most of my meat and potatoes analysis in these reviews comes from breaking down characterization and we're flying through everything at such breakneck pace that we're barely getting any characterization.

It continues to drive me bugfuck insane that Ai is completely absent from this finale despite the importance of 15 Year Lie. Its imagery is plastered all over but whenever we return to it, we just see Aqua. Not only that, but Gotanda is the one who insists on pushing the movie through for Aqua. 15YL as a story about Ai's true self and her tragedy is now officially taking a backseat to being about Aqua's tragic death and legacy. It was already bad enough that we spent so much time in the Movie Arc not actually focusing on Ai to the extent that, as everyone pointed out, based on what we saw on-page it was basically a Sad Kamiki Movie, but this really is just pissing right in the wound at this point lmao.

The funeral scene also serves as the final nail in the coffin for any Secretly Alive Aqua copes, which is kind of a relief. I still don't like how Aqua's death played out, but I think dragging it out for four chapters then going "sorry you thought i was /srs when i was just /jk" would have been infinitely more insulting. I don't like this ending, but I can respect that Akasaka seems to be sticking to his guns on it, even if we still do have like a whole chapter left for him to whip around and go "I WAS /JK ALL ALONG!!!!" but I don't see it happening.

Anyway, yeah! The funeral! Uh. Is it gonna sound weird if I say I felt kind of like… grossed out reading this the first time? Like, I really don't know how else to explain the visceral "why the fuck is the author making me read this" reaction I had to it. I think it's just because Kana is so fucking distraught here and the drama is just so hammy and so over the top that it feels kind of… ech. I dunno. I just really didn't vibe.

It doesn't help that this is part of a much broader pattern in the back half of OnK of Aka getting us right up close into the gory details of a character's complete mental breakdown and suffering and then spend zero time or focus on their recovery. This happened with Ruby all over the Movie Arc and this many times and with this little runway to the end of the series, it just starts to feel exploitative, like a way to cheaply pull at our heartstrings without doing the work to build everyone back up after tearing them down.

also pre-emptively dreading all the fuel this is going to add to the fires of People Who Are Weird And Misogynistic About Kana but she could die saving innocent children from a burning building and people would find reasons to be shitty about her lmao

we really are not seeing ruby's reaction to finding out her brother was dead huh lol

I will say the one thing I didn't Actively Dislike about this chapter was Ruby, though. I was honestly starting to get pretty skeeved out with how many people were gleefully predicting or actively wishing for her immediate suicide purely for ship motivated reasons and I was also worrying that the story was going to pretend that Ruby doesn't like. Have a life and support system outside of Aqua. Yes, she should absolutely be affected by his death but this period of her shutting down only to drag herself back onto her feet that we seem to be getting feels way more in line with pre-Movie Arc flanderization Ruby and I'll take that W where I can get it.

god. I haven't even talked about Kamiki's supposed serial killer cult. I just don't have the strength. Like… that's self-evidently stupid, right? I don't need to explain to you why that's ridiculous and unbelievable? You don't need me to tell you why it's fucking crazy that we're getting this information about the alleged overarching antagonist of the series not only in the second-to-last chapter of the entire series but after he was already dead, right? We can just move on? Ok good. jesus christ.

FINAL CHAPTER NEXT WEEK…

[fayes-fics]

Innuendo Bingo

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x fem!reader, modern AU

Summary: Crack fic. Modern AU. Someone knows a LOT of stupid synonyms for orgasms...

Warnings: Teen and up. Sexual humour, a lot of stupidity. Non-explicit references to sex acts. Basically, I'm sorry.

Word Count: 0.8k

Authors note: Request fill for @sorryallonsy, who asked for Benedict crack fic with him coming up with stupid names for orgasms (ask HERE). I'm sorry this took SO LONG, especially as it is so short. However, I was in the mood to polish off (heheheh) something silly today, and this was just the ticket. Unbetaed cos it's ridiculous. Thanks, and err, enjoy, I guess? <3

Bridgerton family brunch happens once a month and is always memorable. The family usually takes over some swish eatery in central London for a few hours with their unique brand of noisy, chaotic camaraderie. Being Benedict's girlfriend, you are now a part of this melee. It’s one such Sunday when you are finishing your quite delicious but oversized meal that Benedict leans in.

“I can't wait to have you naked again,” he rumbles right in your ear.

You almost spit your last mouthful all over the table. After a few beats, you recover enough to reply.

“Your mother is right there!” you chastise sotto voce, nodding imperceptibly across the table, pulling a pointed expression, even as your mind is filled with images of him waking you up just this morning with his tongue between your thighs.

“Please,” he withers good-naturedly. “I have seven siblings. Do you really think this libido isn't genetic?” he jests, a hand on your knee now. 

“Stop it!” you giggle, not wanting to think of his mother that way.

 “Also, she is not paying us any mind,” he points out, crowding closer. 

Indeed, she is engrossed in a chat with Kate and has one of Daphne’s kids ensconced in her lap, diverting all her attention.

“Besides, are you telling me you don't want to have another orgasm today?” he goads, lips warm on your neck as those fingers spider higher up your thigh, knowing precisely what your weak spots are and exploiting them.

“Well, now… I didn’t say that…” you counter, eyes fluttering closed briefly at his onslaught. “But I might need a few hours after all this food,” you mime a bloated stomach.

It's his turn to chuckle, a warm sound that skitters over your skin. “That's fair,” he assesses. “Can't be releasing the Kraken if you have a food baby…”

You can't help but emit a bark of laughter at that. Everyone at the table looking briefly askance at you before resuming their discussions.

“The what?” you wheeze.

“You heard me,” he quips warmly. “Don't like that? I've got a million more,” he vows, eyes twinkling with mischief.

“Don't…” you warn softly, but that just seems to goad him on.

“Making waffles? Popping the weasel…?”

“Waffles?” you frown, “I thought it was whoopee?”

“That too,” he smiles, eyes crinkling in that adorable way as he continues. “Petting the cat? Nulling the void? You can cuff my carrot, and I’ll dial your rotary phone?” each phrase is delivered full of mirth, close to your ear, and you can't help the stupid grin on your face.

“Stop it,” you protest weakly, nudging him gently with your elbow but having to muffle your laughter into his shoulder.

“I’ll stop when you stop finding them funny…” he counters genially. “Marching the penguin? Downstair DJing? Turning on the sprinklers? Debugging the hard drive?”

Each one has you hopelessly sniggering to the point you can't breathe, and little tears form at the corner of your eyes.

“What in God's name are you doing to your girlfriend, Benedict?” Anthony’s voice suddenly rings out from the head of the table. “It looks like she is about to die… hands where I can see them, please!”

Everyone at the table twists to look at you and laughs as both of you instantly raise your hands as if being held hostage; you mortified by the idea everyone thinks you might be up to things in front of them all, even though you know Anthony is joshing. 

But then Benedict murmurs a quiet parting shot out the corner of his mouth. 

��Chastising the family… jewels...”

And yeah, your loud snort is definitely undignified.

—

You are back at his place relaxing on the sofa a few hours later - When Harry Met Sally is playing on the TV - when he wraps an arm around your shoulder.

“Fancy doing a Meg Ryan?” he whispers, his tone laced with levity.

“Bit late for that. We left the restaurant a few hours ago,” you sigh in mock disappointment, a playful smile tugging at the corner of your mouth.

“I don't mind a private performance,” he breezes, trailing a hand over your neckline and nuzzling your cheek. “I rather like the idea of watching you paddle your pink canoe….”

Yeah, no, you definitely lose it at that one. 

Collapsing into him, your laughter does not even subsidise when he unzips your dress with his practised skill.

“Please… one ticket to the solo show just for me?” he implores, kissing along your jaw. “Visit that safety deposit box? Orbit Venus? A little double-clicking?”

“You are going to need to stop…” you object faintly, an odd mix of lightness from giggling so much and arousal coursing through you as his fingers circle over your underwear.

“Never…..” he teases in that gravelly tone that always persuades you.

“Fine, but only if I can watch you polish your bannister…” you throw back, pushing off your underwear with a comic flourish.

His laugh is deep and all-consuming, racking his whole frame as he suddenly scoops you up and strides towards his bedroom.

“Deal!”

Benedict taglist: @foreverlonginguniverse @colettebronte @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry @ambitionspassionscoffee @chaoticcalzoneranchsports @nikaprincessofkattegat @baebee35 @crowleysqueenofhell @fiction-is-life @lilacbeesworld @broooookiecrisp @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @eleanor-bradstreet @divaanya @musicismyoxygen84 @benedictspaintbrush @miindfucked @cayt0123 @hottytoddyhistory @truly-dionysus @fictionalmenloversblog @zinzysstuff @malpalgalz @panhoeofmanyfandoms @kinokomoonshine @causeimissu @delehosies @m-rae23 @last-sheep @kmc1989 @desert-fern @starkeylover @corpseoftrees-queen @magical-spit @bunnyweasley23 @how-many-stars-in-the-sky @amygdtjhddzvb @sya-skies @balladynaaa @urfavnoirette

[memecucker]

The relationship between colonialism and religion is more complicated than the Civilization game where you’re trying to score a religious victory and it’s easier to convert places you conquer.

It’s not a matter of religion being imposed purely for the purpose of religion being imposed even if that may have been the personal motives of individual colonizers because even if there was a truly missionary motive these missions could only exist insofar as it was economically sustainable and oftentimes this takes the form of exploitation of the indigenous population.

Also the flat conception of religious colonialism overlooks how as colonialism progressed as a type of “social technology” there was in many places a shift away from seeking to replace indigenous organized religions (if they were present in the first place) towards recruiting the indigenous religious authorities to the colonial side.

Like for example with the colonies of the Iberian powers there was no separation of church and state and I don’t just mean in the sense of “the state imposed religious dogma and the church officially endorsed the state” I mean basic everyday functions of the state relied upon services of the church. Eg; If a colonial Governor wanted to say, requisition corvee labor from villages for a building project and he wished to know the populations of these villages in order to decide which to pull laborers he wouldn’t be looking at any state mandated census but instead would rely upon the archives and records of the Catholic Church because records would be kept of church attendance. If the governor wanted to hunt some rebel named “Diego of San Juan” he’d look at baptismal records to find examples of people named “Diego” and who they’re related to.

This meant that Spanish and Portuguese colonialism had an actual material interest in enforcing religious homogeneity and Catholic supremacy because that’s how their colonial states functioned. The colonial bureaucracy was in fact synonymous with the Church’s bureaucracy and so if some people weren’t Catholic they existed outside the Church which meant they existed (at least partially) outside the State. One example that’s a bit relevant is the original version the “National Commission on Indigenous Peoples” in the Philippines was set up during the American occupation and was called “Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes” because the groups in question are largely people who existed outside of direct Spanish colonial control (and wouldve been labeled “savages” in the 19th century) and hence “non-Christian”.

Anyway in the case of the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia this wound up being part of the reason for its collapse. By making their state function in the requirement that it’s subjects be observant Catholics the Portuguese had a lot of trouble making allies because if indigenous elites could be persuaded to convert then great but if they didn’t then they were gonna get really pissed off especially when they start hearing the Portuguese are torturing people under their rule that feel the same. And so without a network of allies the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia began to fall apart leaving only Goa, Macau and East Timor. Elsewhere the Portuguese had been replaced by the Dutch, English and French all of whom had systems of governance which was not as so dependent on doctrinal supremacy as the Iberians eg; the Dutch agreed to help the Shogunate put down a Christian revolt in 1638 and the East India Company actually banned Christian missionaries from operating in its territories until 1813 when Parliament forced them to allow Christian missionaries to preach.

Now of course the EIC example is in particular interesting because what you’re basically seeing is the colonial state shedding its reliance on the Christian Church in favor of courting the support of indigenous religious leaders and recruiting them into the colonial apparatus but at the same time you have churches seeking to operate whats can be considered a type of “rival” colonial project that would have an almost parasitic relationship in that the churches profited in their own way while also in a way undermining the local legitimacy of the official colonial state.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

Catra is a Mary Sue.

i can already hear the aggressive clicking of keyboards as fans write an essay on how catra is flawed and therefore not a mary sue. but just stay with me here. here's what TV tropes has to say about this archetype:

“The prototypical Mary Sue is a female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish-Fulfillment. She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing.”

so.. let's run through the list, shall we? the exotically beautiful thing isn't really mentioned much in canon, but it's clear that catra was designed to be seductive and romantically appealing.

she certainly has her fair share of “unique” features with the heterochromia, the freckles, the fangs, the claws, and her other feline features. this isn't inherently a bad thing. it's okay to want your characters to look cool. besides, some of the other characters also have really defining features (except for adora who, despite being the protagonist, has the blandest character design ever. she doesn't even get a wardrobe change, outside of her new she-ra form. and don't even get me started on bow.)

“she's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas” — this definitely matches up with catra. she is supposedly the "lazy" cadet, the one who only shows up at the end of each training session and doesn't put enough effort into training. now i understand that she may still have had the potential to be a strong fighter, but you really mean to say that a teenager — who is rarely ever shown training or polishing her skills — easily beats up the evil dictator who conquered several regions and likely killed thousands of people?

i get that catra was just exploiting hordak's disability but if it was this easy to defeat hordak, wouldn't someone have done this sooner? even if he is disabled, he had to be intelligent and calculating enough to do what he did so far. but no, that's not the point here. catra didn't defeat hordak because she was somehow stronger or because hordak was weak. she defeated him because the writers wanted her to. she's a girlboss and she doesn't lose to anybody, not even a centuries old tyrant who has presumably conquered half of etheria.

“she also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing.”

yeah, you get the point. she's not flawless but most of her flaws are either swept under the rug or shown to be this cute and endearing thing. oh catra is possessive over adora and attacked her for making new friends? she's just so in love with adora. catra tried to commit mass genocide because of spite? she's just heartbroken because adora dumped her. catra constantly touches people without their consent and borderline harrasses them? she's just a cute disaster lesbian.

so there it is. catra is certainly a heavily flawed character but she's a mary sue (or a "jerk sue" as some people call these type of characters) because no matter what she does or who she hurts, she is forgiven and coddled. no one mentions angella's death in s5, not even glimmer who lashed out at adora earlier for the same reason.

all of catra's actions are just vaguely put as "she made some mistakes" or "she hurt people". making mistakes and hurting people can range anywhere from accidentally calling a person stupid to murdering someone's entire family, and spop doesn't mention where catra lies on that scale. because at the end of the day, all that matters is that catra gets a happy ending at the cost of the other characters' development and happiness. basically, a mary sue is like a blackhole. they are the “best” character, according to the author, and all the characters around them have to act horribly out of character so that this character gets all the spotlight.

[gemsofgreece]

https://x.com/archeohistories/status/1803838446672449797

Αρχίσανε επιτέλους να μιλάνε για αυτά; Καιρός ήτανε.

- REPLY / COMMENTARY TO THE SUBMISSION -

Adding commentary in English because the tweet in the link is also in English. So, I searched a bit about the author, it turns out the study is not even as new as the tweeter account states (yeah I will probably never start calling it x, old habits die hard, let alone that it was a horrible name change to begin with, anyway!). The link refers to a book actually written in 2004 by historian Robert C. Davis,  “Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500–1800″. The book is legit and was well received  amongst readers and peer review alike. I had to search all that up in order to be sure what I am posting here, obviously.

Of course, when you’re from any place in the North Mediterranean and have the most basic knowledge of history, you don’t need this book to tell you first that there were massive practices of slavery commited by Asian and African muslims against Southern and Eastern Europeans, ever since the Late Middle Ages, especially and usually through piracy, but not only. It’s a well known fact. I was dumbfounded when I read in the tweet that the previous estimations in the American academic circles were on the tens of thousands. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. By studying the Modern Greek history alone, literally just early 19th century Greek history - a span of 30 years tops - there were hundreds of thousands of Greeks sold as slaves by the Ottomans. Now calculate this happening in all the north Mediterranean coast - spanning from Greece to Spain - for over 4 centuries. Obviously the reasons or the perpetrators weren’t always the same - it could be Ottomans, Arabs, Barbery pirates, mixed, it could be a market, it could be a war tactic, it could be retaliation, it could be a lot of things. Byzantine and Ottoman Greece was regularly mauled by pirates. In fact, there were also Ottoman Greek pirates, i.e in Mani. My point anyway is that estimating that number to the tens of thousands is ridiculous when that was even too little for a span of 30 years in Greece alone. Then again, I see that this book didn’t examine at all slavery in Greece and the Ottoman Empire. It is more about southwestern Europe. But still the old American estimations seemed - uhm - “diplomatically discreet”. The new book raises the number close to a million in the southwest alone.

I did well to look it up because I read that this book got almost exploited by far right groups who tried to create the rhetoric of an “eye for an eye”, suggesting the West Europeans and Americans were responding with slavery to the Barbery and Ottoman and other muslim slave traders (no, West Europeans and Americans would not go to such lengths for the sake of South Europeans, let’s put it like that, so the whole “white vengeance” argument is beyond stupid, let alone that it remains problematic). I must thus add that: the writer rejected such arguments openly, saying  "Two such enormous wrongs don’t make anything right.“

This is what I hate the most. People end up behaving the exact same way. Abusing history and the objectivity with which it must always be studied in order to serve their political rhetorics and ideologies. We will never learn from past mistakes, it seems as if we are incapable of doing it. You will NEVER see the topics of European / White / Christian people getting sold in multiple hundreds of thousands as slaves by non-Christian - POC (as Americans like to call them) being big in America. Or at least ackowledged and examined beyond academic circles. But this is exactly also what the far right groups attempted; to minimize the horrific, well studied Atlantic slave trade or “excuse” it! The level of bias and all these groups accusing each other of the very things they themselves commit…!

At some point, in one of my posts about Ottoman Greek history where I added some of the living conditions for a Christian far from the cosmopolitan areas of the Ottoman Empire (AKA lowkey almost any place besides Constantinople) - historically fact checked - at some point I got an impressively vile reply from a self-identifying “activist” who cursed at me and long story short they said I was a despicable liar. Of course, by “activist” we mean a muslim person who said their family history was affected by the western colonization, which I respect, but they could not equally respect that people of the same faith as them (not even the same nation!) could be capable of vile acts as well and their activism was limited only to people who had the exact same experience as they did. Everyone else was a despicable liar.  Anyway, needless to say, I wasn’t lying.

And before someone says “oH YoU taLK abOUt BIas buT ALExandER-”. Of course. We have said this a thousand times over. Ancient Greece practiced slavery, not even just to foreigners or POC but also Greeks enslaving other Greeks, like, top THAT. But so did the Sumerians, the Hebrews, the Hittites, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans and the Persians at least after the Achaemenid dynasty. You know?

But this is exactly the point and this is ultimately the reason I am personally publishing and commenting to this submission; to make a point that who is an oppressor, a slave trader, a wrongdoer of any sort has NOTHING to do with skin, religion, geography and I can’t believe there are people living in 2024 in advanced societies truly believing this. It is not some genetical trait of white people to be slave traders. The only thing it takes is power imbalance and a little touch of convenient propaganda for any human to commit and normalize the most horrendous deed. If they are morally weak, of course, which is also not a genetical trait and unfortunately it is not rare at all, anywhere in the world.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #40 – Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes

This was yet another book that has been on my TBR list for so long I had entirely forgotten what the actual pitch was – I went into it pretty much entirely blind, just ‘sci fi horror’ from the glanced over marketing copy on the back. Which is really the best way to go about reading(/watching/playing) horror, anyway. It was an entertaining enough read? If an uneven one – the first half was really incredibly better than the second, unfortunately.

The story follows Claire Kovalik, the ‘team lead’ of a maintenance crew repairing com relays in the ass end of the solar system – at least until they finish this last run and are officially rendered obsolete. Too psychologically fragile for her corporate masters to trust her with an actual ship, the only future she has to look forward to is a deskbound sinecure revising training manuals on Earth. She’s seriously considering killing herself instead, when their sensors detect an archaic distress signal past the edge of charted space – the Aurora, first and last space liner for the rich and famous, vanished with all hands on its maiden voyage decades ago. The finder’s fee and accumulated bounties would be enough to set everyone on the team for life (not even counting any artifacts they pocket to auction on the side), so the five of them board and reactivate the old hulk, exploring its galleries and aiming it towards Earth. Just a 60 hour burn to reliable communications with the rest of the system, totally worth it for fame and fortune. Even once they start discovering the state of all the former passengers, and figuring out what happened in those last hours aboard the ship.

So! This is Event Horizon but with the Titanic. It’s other things too, but that’s the pitch. Now, I like Event Horizon, and adore exploited corporate serfs being slowly suffocated by looming dread as they explore the gore-stained ruins of past decadence, so that’s no bad thing for me. But still, even from the outset this is not a work that tries to break any molds. This honestly becomes much more of an issue in the third act, when the book basically shifts genre and also has to come up with answers and a resolution to the whole thing and just does not land it for me.

The main twist on the formula is that Claire is the only survivor of a Martian colony that was annihilated by plague (and a missed resupply) when she was a child, the physical and emotional trauma of which left her partially deaf in one ear, terrified of emotional connections and (most pertinently) already possessed of significant experience with hallucinating the bloody corpses of people she cares about wandering around when she’s stressed. Which turns out to be a very useful life skill, when they turn the ship back on and everyone starts having to deal with that. Which is mostly pretty fun! The paranoia and terror as everything goes to shit at the end of the first act are great. Sadly, the book then decides to keep going.

The first half of the book is the story of the initial salvage crew’s discovery of the Aurora, as relayed through Claire getting debriefed/interrogated by a couple of corporate goons after being found half-dead in an escape pod. The latter half is those same corporate goons conscripting her for a return journey to the ship, now guiding three platoons of mercenaries. It’s like if you watched a double-feature of Alien and one of its bad sequels. The book slips from well-executed to paint-by-numbers, and the big reveal is basically the most boring possible answer you could imagine. This is not helped by the book’s action sequences just not being very...good.

Part of that is just the book’s complete lack of faith in its audience, or understanding of subtlety. Several twists are telegraphed so obviously that it’s hard to believe Claire is actually surprised by them, and character beats are just repeated so often you want to grab the author and scream you get it already. Claire’s tragic backstory is repeated something like half a dozen times, and the surprise villain spends half the final confrontation basically giving a monologue about how he’d drown a nursery full of babies if it topped up his 401k.

Villains aside, the supporting cast is mostly fun-if-one-note. Decently executed, but all very much walked out of sci fi central casting. Which more or less works, in that they’re all energetic and mostly fun to have on page. The unfortunate and singular exception is Claire’s love interest, the team medic. Whose...nice? Has a daughter back on Earth? Might as well be a statue carved from literal white bread? You know the cliche about hollywood action movies where the hero’s girlfriend has zero personality or arc and mostly exists to be hot and motivate him by being imperilled? Basically the gender-flip of that.

One thing the book kind of teases but absolutely never really explores or tries to resolve is the fact that in addition to all the hallucinations and madness with (boring, but) mechanistic and materialistic explanations, ghosts might also just be real? There’s several points in the book where Claire sees the body she doesn’t recognize hovering around someone, and when she describes it to them, they know who it is. It’s also a recurring thing that her visions of her dead mom are supposed to be how she even knew how to send out the SOS that got her rescued from the dead colony as a child. You might expect that this would eventually build to something, or be key to the final resolution. You would be incorrect.

So yeah, would have been a very solid horror novella if it just cut the entire second act. As is, I mean I’m not angry I read it, but not sure I’d go out of my way to recommend it either.

[devilsskettle]

I just watched The Love Witch for the first time and would love to know your opinion (if you have seen it)?

i have mixed feelings about the love witch tbh. on one hand, it’s visually stunning and i would love to see more movies embrace the style and production value of older cinema, especially these older horror movies that i love that are so atmospheric. it’s so whimsical and dreamlike

i also like MY interpretation of the movie, which is about elaine’s desire for agency and power to protect herself from men, but she tries to do so by appealing to male desires thinking that if she gives them what they want, they’ll give her what she wants, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the exploitation of women under the patriarchy — you can’t gain your freedom from the patriarchy by submitting to it. she wants love because she wants control, and she conflates her hatred and bitterness with an excess of love because that’s the narrative that makes sense to her. but if you watch her interactions with any man in the movie, she really does fucking hate them. at the end, after her appeal to the male gaze fails to protect her from sexual violence, she realizes that manipulating male desire isn’t enough — her repressed desire to hurt the people who hurt her is finally expressed by direct violence. i find that to be a tentatively hopeful ending for her

however. i don’t necessarily think that is the “correct” interpretation lol (in terms of author’s intent) and the fact that i’m not sure if the filmmakers intended this story to be like a tradwife manifesto or if it’s being critical of that rhetoric is already a problem because that means the messaging is extremely muddled. i see people quote this movie completely uncritically, i think a lot of elaine’s idea that she can achieve agency by being the perfect traditional woman appeals to a lot of young women, it certainly is in line with the popular 2010s trope of female characters who can be feminine AND strong, she has eyeliner so sharp she can cut you with it and she’ll kill you with her high heels on and she’ll make men underestimate her by seducing them or acting dumb. which of course is a way to repackage the sexy male gaze token female character into an acceptably “feminist” character so we don’t question it anymore. that was peak Strong Female Character -ism and i think that’s widely regarded as a regressive trope now but this movie speaks to that logic, and now it speaks to the “coquette” trend as well which doesn’t even purport to be interested in female agency (not even “feminism,” just basic agency lol). anyway my least favorite criticism of satire is that it’s not clear enough that it’s satire because sometimes people are just being dumb when they say that, but in this case i really can’t tell which perspective the audience is intended to agree with and that’s a problem to me. idk if it’s even intended to be satirical at all lmao

the part of the movie that illustrates the tradwife-esque narrative for me is the character trish. she voices the perspective of female equality with men especially within a romantic relationship as a partnership, and not only is she shut down by elaine, but she’s framed as this naggy, jealous character who turns on elaine and is just as much a participant in elaine’s victimization as the men in her life. her relationship with her husband is actually insecure despite her insistence that they have mutual respect and her repressed desire to be the same type of woman as elaine is manifested as rage and violence towards her. they model two types of womanhood and we are not supposed to side with the model where women demand mutual respect, because the movie doesn’t believe that men are capable of that or that women actually desire that. it’s such a standard tradwife perspective that feminism is for ugly women who can’t be women the “right” way so they can’t be successful within the patriarchal status quo

and it’s such a bummer because i think the movie taps into such a real experience of rejection and powerlessness and being at the whims of shitty, deeply pathetic men. the movie has a sharp, derisive, sarcastic humor that i think goes under-appreciated, because it’s hard to tell what’s being said genuinely and what’s being said with a wink at the audience

all that is to say, i’ve watched the movie a couple times and i really enjoy what i got out of it but i don’t know if that says more about ME or the movie itself. upon first viewing i thought it was absolutely genius, i kind of wish i had preserved that experience by not reading what other people have said about it lol but i think it’s kind of a product of its time — we’re continuing to navigate gendered power dynamics and trying to figure out the best way to approach being a woman interacting with a male dominated world. i’m not convinced that this movie has it figured out but i want to be able to enjoy it for its merits and take what i want from the story

tl;dr: the way i interpret it, it’s one of my favorite movies. but idk if i’m interpreting it “right”

also: it reminds me of the haunting of hill house because of the main character’s sublimated loneliness, anger, and jealousy, the narrative doubling (elaine + trish are so theo + eleanor coded to me lol), and the 1960s aesthetic sensibilities

[altocat]

CW:

I noticed that one of the main themes of Sephiroth’s character is dehumanization.

It got me wondering, did he ever experience or deal with SA or harassment when under Shinra? R&D stuff or just the way he was paraded around like a public idol? How would he have handled this type of issue?

TWs below the cut just in case.

There's a lot of uncomfortable aspects about Sephiroth's history with Shinra. The way he's treated like a weapon. His fucked up conception. The fact that he was a child soldier who had apparently never really been around people at all before the age of 14.

One of the more understated bits is the very disturbing fixation that Hojo has on his own son. Silver Elite had the whole shampoo infodump of course, but the basic theme of Sephiroth's private "club" (which is RUN by Hojo) is emphasizing how attractive he is. Rebirth added extra grossness by having Hojo further expand on his idea of a hero needing to be "attractive" in order to be beloved by the populace. Whether intentional or not, especially when you take into account that Silver Elite has been around since Sephiroth was a child, it creates the idea of Hojo having some...less than wholesome perceptions about his son and who he needs to be. I'm not saying that Hojo has directly SA'd Sephiroth as I don't think Square is leaning into this idea. But bear in mind that Hojo is implied to be Sephiroth's personal caretaker and physician, on TOP of being his parent and in a position of authority over him. Hojo has access to Sephiroth's medical history, access to private information that no one else will ever have. And he dumps this information out for the public, with a special focus on how "attractive" and "beautiful" his son is.

At the end of the day, I think Hojo has sexually harassed Sephiroth throughout his life. We now have confirmation that he's physically and medically abused Sephiroth over the years. But the sheer presence of "Chairwoman H" coupled with Shinra buying INTO it and exploiting it to keep Sephiroth popular is just...really disconcerting. Sephiroth is completely indifferent to his fame and his fans, so he's not sanctioning this information. But the fact that he doesn't stop it either suggests that there is still a level of control and authority over him by Shinra's upper management. And keep in mind that they RAISED him. This is basically your "parent" violating you every single day of your life while you're also told to go out and kill people and also kill your friends while you're at it. And there's nothing you can really do about it because there's nowhere to go and no one to be. They are all you have, all you have ever known. You have to obey them, even when you absolutely despise them for what they're doing.

Sephiroth is responsible for so many reprehensible acts. But he is justified in hating Shinra for everything they did to him. And I think his reactions in canon are his own little way of getting back at what they did. Sure, Sephiroth has let go of a lot of his humanity. But what remains still seems to remember the people who made him what he was. And in destroying the planet, he destroys THEM as well.

[scotianostra]

I love days when I get an excuse to post music hre, and I hope you enjoy the third helping, the tale bhind the song is a cracker too......

Johnny Ramensky, the Scottish safe cracker was born on April 6th 1905 in Glenboig, Lanarkshire.

His father was a Lithuanian immigrant miner who died when Johnny was young and the young Ramensky also became a miner. It was while he was down the pit that he learned his skills with dynamite which were to prove so useful to him in later years.

Johnny drifted in and out of trouble from the age of eleven and moved to the Gorbals area of Glasgow during the Depression with his mother and two sisters. He developed an amazing physical strength and acrobatic ability but in order to obtain some money, he became a burglar, specializing in robberies involving climbing up external rone-pipes to gain entry to premises. He also developed skills in picking locks and safe-cracking with explosives.

He won the nickname Gentle Johnny because he never used violence. And he escaped from prison several times, even staging a rooftop protest at Barlinnie in 1931. Johnny was what you would call now a career criminal, his life of crime saw him spend an estimated 40 years in prison, which was only punctuated by his extraordinary service during the Second World War.

When the war started he wanted to contribute something. He went to the governor of Peterhead Prison, where he was being held at the time, and asked for help to join the forces after he got out. The governor recognised he was something special and that he could be extremely helpful to our secret services. He served his full sentence and was collected by MI5 agents at the gate.

Ramensky was known for his athleticism and aced basic military training before he was parachuted behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Europe. One early success was at the Italian port city La Spezia.

Johnny was able to hide himself in the mountains and used a compass to direct RAF bombers to the harbour. He was also a smashing saboteur and blew up a lot of railway lines. And after the Germans fled Rome, Johnny was able to recover a huge volume of secret documents from locked safes, which were very helpful in the conclusion of the war.

Ramensky also spent time in North Africa and almost had the opportunity to kill Nazi military commander Erwin Rommel. He broke into Rommel’s headquarters and unfortunately Rommel was on the front line. Had Rommel been there the course of the war would have changed because he would have been prepared to kill him. Of course, he did also break into Rommel’s safe and got plans that were helpful.

Mr.Ramensky’s wartime exploits formed the basis of the 1958 film ‘The Safecracker’, starring Mr.Ray Milland.

After the war Johnny went back to his old ways, even jumping off the train to blow open a safe on the way back to Glasgow hours after he was demobbed. . He went to blow a safe at a bank in York because his criminal contacts tipped him off. He has been described as an adrenaline addict. He seemed to like danger.

When he got back to Glasgow he became a folk hero because people had heard about his exploits in the army. Various people offered him employment, including one of the big demolition companies. But that wasn’t exciting enough for him.

Even in his declining years when his physicality began to leave him he still couldn’t settle down. He tried to be a bookie but lost all of his own money, because he was a gambler. He never really went straight.

Ramensky died aged 67 in 1972 while a prisoner in Perth. He kept diaries which were burned by prison authorities, but one early extract survived.

It read: “Each man has an ambition and I have fulfilled mine long ago. I cherish my career as a safe blower. In childhood days my feet were planted in the crooked path and took firm root. To each one of us is allotted a niche and I have found mine. Strangely enough, I am happy. For me the die is cast and there is no turning back.”

There has been talk a fmovie about Johnny being made, but it is still to happen.

There’s a 7 minute film bout Johnny with the author of his biography, Robert Jeffrey, who I sourced most of the info for this post, and retired Glesga polisman, Les Brown, who tells of his dealings with Gentle Johnny. The Roddy McMillan song is playing throughout the clip.

That’s not the end of Johnny Gently though, he lives on at Peterhead Prison, now a museum where Ramensky served so many years behind bars, has created a exhibition space which highlights different aspects of his career.

You can get his biography by Robert Jeffrey for only £3.39, kindle version and £5.56 hardback at Amazon, I have also seen it on Ebay uk delivered for as low as £2.11

Let Ramensky Go.

There was a lad in Glesga town, Ramensky was his name

Johnny didnae know it then but he was set for fame

Now Johnny was a gentle lad, there was only one thing wrong

He had an itch to strike it rich and trouble came along

He did a wee bit job or two, he blew them open wide

But they caught him and they tried him and they bunged him right inside

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh

Open up your prison gates

And let Ramensky go

And when they let him out he said he’d do his best but then

He yielded tae temptation and they bunged him in again

Now Johnny made the headlines, entertained the boys below

When he climbed up tae the prison roof and gave a one-man show

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh

Open up your prison gates

And let Ramensky go

But when the war was raging the brass-hats had a plan

Tae purloin some information, but they couldnae find a man

So they nobbled John in prison, asked if he would take a chance

Then they dropped him in a parachute beyond the coast of France

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh

Open up your prison gates

And let Ramensky go

Then Johnny was a hero, they shook him by the hand

For stealing secret documents frae the German High Command

So Johnny was rewarded for the job he did sae well

They granted him a pardon frae the prison and the cell

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh

Open up your prison gates

And let Ramensky go

But Johnny was in error when he tried his hand once more

For they caught him at a blastin’, and it wasnae worth the score

The jury pled for mercy, but the judge’s voice was heard

Ten years without remission, and that’s my final word

Ten years, my lord, that’s far too long, wee Johnny cried in vain

For if you send me up for ten I’ll never come out again

Oh give me another chance, my lord, I’m tellin’ you no lie

But if you send me up for ten I’ll sicken and I’ll die

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh

Open up your prison gates

And let Ramensky go

Now Peterhead’s a fortress, its walls are thick and stout

But it couldnae hold wee Johnny when he felt like walking out

Five times he took a powder, he left them in a fix

And every day they sweat and pray in case he makes it six

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh

Open up your prison gates

And let Ramensky go

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh

Open up your prison gates

And let Ramensky go

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh

Open up your prison gates

And let Ramensky go………

[hypokeimena]

do you have a post about b a b e l? I haven't read it yet but would loooove to hear why you personally dislike it

legend thank you. some spoilers below.

good things about babel

(sort of a good thing): interesting magic worldbuilding conceit. the idea is that lexical gaps across translation power magic, and that as europe gets semantically linguistically closer, magic is fading - time to for the institution to exploit east asian languages! this concept conceptually fucks. however every single thing about the execution was awful that this actually pisses me off more, because i want to read the book that actually does this and now i never can because this came out first.

bad things about babel, in approximately ascending order of how agonizing they make the experience of reading it

literally the basic execution. the prose is clumsy; it's historical fiction that's trying to be historical-voiced and the character voices are completely indistinguishable from 1. one another 2. your average twitter user. this is incredibly embarrassing for the author but it doesn't even seem to be something on her radar to be embarrassed about; this is the first thing i noticed as off and the thing that kept me closest to DNFing throughout. if she would like to teach intro colonialist theory seminars with modern jargon and terms then the author could have done that as an academic. it would have been really lovely to have something of a window into how this issue was being discussed at the time! what frameworks contemporary colonized and colonial people used to understand their own resistance to british rule... but absolutely no research on this was done (if it was, none of it was in the text)

apes the craft of more effectively written books without understanding what made them effective, which is just genuinely agonizing to read. particularly notable here are its attempted utilization of footnotes but it is not jsmn. yk. there's a chapter that's just one sentence, with a footnote that takes up the whole page with a bunch of diagrams, and then the next chapter repeats the previous sentence with a comma and goes on into the prose... you didn't have to do that... (this one is admittedly kind of BEC-y) (also the copyediting was not great throughout i found a number of problems. that is not really the author's fault but it felt like the book was trying to literally precisely gaslight me about what good prose looks like)

ahistorical in the extreme. again, i cannot express this effectively but it really demonstrates a lack of basic effort and care throughout. as this reviewer notes regarding oysters, the author seems incapable or unwilling to imagine how people might have thought or felt about something if it's different from how she feels about it. the author's note devotes like 7x as much page time apologizing for slightly altering how long it takes to get from oxford to london as it does for CHANGING THE CORONATION DATE OF QUEEN VICTORIA in a book that's in large part about the expansion and impacts of GLOBAL COLONIAL EXPLOITATION. one of these things impacts the part of the world she can clearly imagine - her oxford, where they serve oysters - and the other one has massive global implications.

NONE OF THESE CHARACTERS WHO ARE TRANSLATORS CARE ENOUGH ABOUT LANGUAGE TO DELIGHT IN LANGUAGE. all of the discussion of translation is pretty rote, but also like... my friends who are into language and i joke, we play with sounds and words and cross-language puns. none of the characters seemed to actually enjoy their academic passion. stressed me out on their behalves (also no one, like, studies, but this is typical of the genre)

this isn't really a full point but it annoyed me SO badly it's going in here. MC describes a later-revealed-to-be-bad female character as something like 'giving feminists a bad name'. A) it is set in the like 1830s and the word feminist makes no sense in context B) yOU WROTE HER ACTING LIKE THAT, SHE IS NOT AN INDEPENDENT PERSON WITH FREE WILL. YOU MADE HER DO THAT. basically you can clearly see the author's strings moving the characters around, the author tries SO hard to make sure you like and dislike all the correct characters that it is like can you please just let them move around and act like human beings.

by extension - incredibly flat characterization. the characters move to the beat of the plot, rather than seeming internally consistent. the MC's father is villainous in a very specific way - condescending white man's burden pushing for economic/cultural influence and assimilation of talented ~colonials into the imperial core - right up until the MC needs a justified reason to murder him, at which point he is magically revealed to have been a virulently racist war hawk trying to spur on the deaths of thousands. like, sure, okay, racist one way will be racist another, you could do this effectively - but again, you can see the author's hand in these matters and the timing of these revelations, and she is clumsy with her dolls.

i am not an expert in these matters personally but i definitely did find it ironic that babel's thesis is "empires are bad!" and then it immediately undercuts itself discussing china like "unless they are empires run by poc, then the protagonists should root for them" like skill issue all empires are bad definitionally. thanks.

i was thoroughly underwhelmed by its attempt to engage in class politics. really embarrassing.

it's dark academia with no homoeroticism in sight

[canmom]

Feel free to ignore considering it’s a very messy topic. Why do you think SFF communities (especially book communities) attracts so many bad faith actors?

my apologies anon, I took a minute to answer this one.

I think the most parsimonious answer is that they don't, especially, it's just that bad faith actors are basically everywhere. like, is it really true that there are more bad faith actors in SFF than in say, music? film? 'literary' fiction, or other genres like crime or erotica? i think if I was as immersed in any of those worlds as I am in SFF, I'd know about just as many stories of petty cruelty, exploitation, bizarre dramas...

still, some speculations about factors playing into it, that aren't necessarily specific to sci-fi.

the thing about SFF is that it's a subculture, and one that's pretty niche. not quite as niche as like, BASE jumping or something lol - most bookshops around here will have an SFF shelf, and obviously SFF films and games are almost as mainstream as entertainment gets - but for dedicated sci-fi fans it's seen as a sort of refuge of 'people like them' (generally some variety of autistic nerd archetype), and there is a lot of anxiety that comes with maintaining that.

this sort of attitude is commonly associated with the old guard of reactionary fandom - the infamous Puppies - but I think by now we've seen that the current overtly queer/progressive/whatever you wanna call it generation is just as capable of lashing out at perceived intruders. (for an obvious example, this kind of sentiment was a major factor in the Isabel Fall incident.)

besides that, what are people fighting for anyway? what are the 'stakes' of scifi/fantasy fandom? intuitively, they're tiny. but...

within any niche subculture, it is possible to achieve a certain degree of fame and influence. if you can play the rhetorical game, you can establish yourself as a microcelebrity/tastemaker, promote your friends and make a show of casting out the enemies, and set up the rules of the discourse... in your small bubble. until sooner or later the wind changes and you get knocked off the pedestal, anyway. so part of it is just people wanting to rule an insular little fiefdom.

but then there's also like... 'being an author'. SFF lit is not especially popular these days. you can't really make a living from short stories anymore (too few magazines that pay, too hard to get in, too little reward). however, if you get very, very lucky, make the right connections (probably at Clarion), you might just be able to get some novels published, and maaaybe they will find an audience and earn out their advances... and if everything goes perfectly, you might just manage to make a reasonable middle class sort of income.

and that's not nothing! especially if other forms of work are inaccessible. i have a friend whose circumstances were changed very dramatically when they got a big advance on their novel. but ultimately I don't think it's about that, nobody would sensibly try to become an author for the money, it's an obviously terrible gamble.

however, within the subculture, being a published author is a still big deal. it's a sense that you've 'made it', people will look up to you, or resent you if they don't feel you deserve it. there is a strong divide between 'authors' and 'fans' that structures interactions between the two. I don't get the impression that this is actually very fun for the authors, but it's easy to see that from outside and think "I wish I was worthy of that kind of respect too".

much the same applies in other fields - for example animation. maybe it pays shit and demand insane hours with zero job security... but for the fans, you come to have immense admiration for the 'real animators' and want to feel you could be their equal one day. and people are willing to sacrifice a lot for the sake of that idea of accomplishment, even if it's still very unlikely.

so with all that in mind... science fiction authors are usually science fiction fans. there's not really any other reason you'd write it lmao. so could speculate that for the ones who have 'made it', the situation is still precarious, or seems like it. there's little guarantee you'll get published again if a book doesn't sell. and you depend on a good reputation to stay in the game. so you have a bit of power (enough to go to your head) and fear of losing that power and sense of accomplishment... that's probably sufficient to motivate a whole lot of horrendous behaviour that would seem incomprehensible from outside.

none of this is really specific to science fiction/fantasy. but then I don't think SFF is really all that unique.

[scarefox]

Just found out that the clinic therapist srsly diagnosed me with the psychological term of: personality disorder of passive aggressive, defiantness, doesn't want to bring performance at work and always feels misunderstood for no reason, has issues with authorities, jealous of others happiness

Just because one of those "multiple choice tests" and I said at the very beginning that:

some of my former jobs were bad and made employees sick (which is a fact), one of my boss overstepped contract agreements and I don't want to work in those jobs conditions anymore but was always too anxious to defend myself against mistreatment at work and needed the money, so I still did all of what they wanted from me (on the cost of my mental and physical health) so I need to learn to step up

I have issues at work being 8h forced in a room to focus on one single, often boring, activity while my mind is jumping everywhere and I struggle to recharge energy and serotonin (due to potential ADHD or autism)

I am afraid of people judging me wrong or discriminate me (because I am a nerd and queer), which happened!! I literally got bullied for not fitting the norm...

I often feel misunderstood (due to potential ADHD or autism) because I sometimes think different than other people and can't voice my thoughts properly sometimes

I don't want to be put into normative cliche boxes because I don't feel fitting into many social norms (especially gender related)

My main issues with work are literally my anxiety disorder, mental overload and low frustration & serotonin level...

Now I get why they treated me the way they did and always acted like I wanted them to free me from going back to work ... so I guess my mistrust to fully open up to them was valid.

Like it basically started with me "I am worried people misread / misunderstand me", therapist misreads me and accuses me of judging people, me trying to correct that and she "you are very defensive of your image and feel misunderstood" uhm yes because it was wrong??

I remember the one question that also confused me "Could it be that since you have such issues with your father, that you are against masculinity and since masculinity often stands for efficiency you are against that too?" I denied that because literally no?? But she was like "Guessed you wouldn't agree right away."

I am genderqueer and transmasc! I literally was among the best students in design and media school (except for math related stuff)??? I worked freelance ontop of my other part time jobs! I always am ready to work hard, efficient, am a perfectionist (which is an issue), I just DON'T want to work anymore for exploitative assholes who deliberately ruin my health for profit... And I am currently just out of energy and down and anxious which gives me panic attacks thinking about working in bad circumstances again which made me lowkey suicidal at the end.... I told them all of that but hmmm yea guess I am just allergic to efficiency.

Could have as well asked my parents opinion about me, they would have diagnosed me the same bs.

Now I am aggressive and pissed. BISH this diagnosis was deleted from the DSM-5 but is still in the ICD-System since WW2 based on soldiers who denied going back onto the field. It's also described as "being stuck in puberty" but also "There is no large-scale research yet, so the diagnosis should be handled very cautiously, if at all." and "This diagnosis should not be made if the behavior occurs during a depressive episode" (which I have... a major depressive episode she confirmed herself)

Are you fucking kidding me....

It also says I have to check for 5 points of the criteria list.... I only check 2 from 9....

[mariacallous]

The island of Svalbard, about halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, is warming twice as fast as the rest of the Arctic, which itself is warming up to four and a half times faster than the rest of the planet. Scientists just discovered that the island’s retreating glaciers are creating a potentially significant climate feedback loop: When the ice disappears, groundwater that’s supersaturated with methane bubbles to the surface. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, 80 times as powerful as carbon dioxide. This groundwater can have more than 600,000 times the methane of a cup of water that’s been sitting with its surface exposed to air. 

“What that means is that once it hits the atmosphere, it’s going to equilibrate, and it’s going to release as much methane as it can—quickly,” says Gabrielle Kleber, a glacial biogeochemist at University of Cambridge and the University Centre in Svalbard and lead author of a new paper describing the discovery in Nature Geoscience. “It’s about 2,300 tons of methane that’s released annually from springs just on Svalbard. It’s maybe equivalent to something like 30,000 cows.” (Cows burp methane—a lot of it.) 

“These numbers, I honestly thought that they were even wrong, but they cannot be wrong,” says Carolina Olid, who studies Arctic methane emissions at the University of Barcelona but wasn’t involved in the work. “Wow, they are really, really high.” 

The methane is also coming out of the ground in some places as pressurized gas that Kleber can actually light on fire, as you can see in the video below. “This is a widespread methane emission source that we previously just hadn’t accounted for,” says Kleber. “We can safely assume that this phenomenon is happening in other regions in the Arctic. Once we start extrapolating that and expanding it across the Arctic, we’re looking at something that could be considerable.”

As the Arctic warms rapidly, scientists are finding ways that it’s both suffering from climate change and contributing to it. Like a freezer that’s lost power, the Arctic is thawing, and the stuff inside it is rotting, releasing clouds of greenhouse gasses. When frozen ground known as permafrost thaws, it creates pools of oxygen-poor water, where microbes chew on organic material and burp methane. The warmer it gets up there, the happier these microbes are and the more methane they produce. (In some places, the permafrost is thawing so quickly that it’s even gouging methane-spewing holes in the landscape.)

Elsewhere, vast deposits of the gas are hidden in the ground beneath glaciers. When temperatures get low enough and pressures get high enough, the gas freezes into solid methane hydrate—basically, methane trapped in a cage of ice. That ice, of course, can melt as temperatures rise.

The melting of the glaciers also exposes darker-colored land, which absorbs more of the sun’s energy and accelerates the warming of the terrain—a dreaded climatic feedback loop. 

Methane is a fundamental component of buried fossil fuels—the “natural gas” we burn contains methane, in fact—which can migrate through cracks in rock. When it reaches groundwater, the liquid readily absorbs the geologic gas. “We find that the higher-concentrated springs are much more prevalent in regions that have really high organic-containing rocks, such as shale and coal,” says Kleber. “This is millions-of-years-old methane that’s been trapped in the rocks and is now finding a way to come out by exploiting these groundwater springs. And so that means that the capacity for these emissions is quite large, since it’s being fed by this very large reservoir.”

But it’s hard for researchers to quantify how much methane and carbon dioxide are coming off the warming landscape. For one thing, it’s extremely difficult to do fieldwork in Svalbard and the rest of the Arctic. For another, some of the microbes that inhabit the region might be methane producers, but others could be methane consumers, which help sequester it. Methane-producing microbes love thawing permafrost because conditions are wet and oxygen-poor, or anoxic. But when a glacier disappears and the land dries out, microbes that eat methane might proliferate instead.

“In some cases, it can be a small sink of methane in the landscape,” says Gerard Rocher-Ros, an ecologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences who studies Arctic methane but wasn’t involved in the new paper. Because there’s a lot of land in the Arctic, those small sinks might add up to some significant sequestering. Plus, as the north warms, it’s greening with new vegetation, which absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows. Scientists have also found that watersheds fed by glacial meltwater can soak up CO2.

It’s not clear whether the natural mechanisms that trap these greenhouse gasses can keep up with the ones that are releasing them, including the newly discovered geological methane bubbling up from groundwater. The Arctic isn’t an easily characterized monolith: Scientists have to do meticulous fieldwork to figure out how one area might produce and sequester methane differently than even a neighboring ecosystem. 

But it is now becoming evident that an environment that was once reliably glaciated is thawing out as the Arctic freezer wavers. “People studying carbon cycling have long hypothesized that basically unavailable methane—that is capped or locked or frozen in permafrost or below glaciers—at some point may become available to the surface environment,” says Emily Stanley, a biogeochemist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison who wasn’t involved in the research. “What I find depressing is that this is one of a handful of papers that are saying: ‘Yep, here we go. It’s coming out.’” 

The release of groundwater methane is a bad sign that more warming is ahead. “It’s happening now,” Stanley says. “We are beginning to see this positive feedback loop.”

[timefortwig]

Twig - Arc 3 - Chapter 3

Finally! After 10,000 years, I'm free! Time to... read Twig. Sorry guys, exams and family stuff have kept me from updating in ages, but I'm back! Now, on to the reading.

Last time, our heroes were sealed in the bowels of the Radham Academy with Sub Rosa and the other murderous experiments. We last left them backed into a corner by a locked door, hounded by convicts turned monsters. How will the Lambs get out of this one?

The Lambs consider splitting up to run from the experiments, and we see their bond by how they decide that either they all run or none do. Despite being hunted by experiments, there sure is a lot of dialogue. I guess talking is a free action. Speaking of which, does anyone know a good ttrpg system to run a game set in the world of Twig? I've considered using a tweaked version of Call of Cthulhu, but I'm open to other options.

The Lambs, my friends, my gang, my family.

I didn’t want to see them get hurt.

Sy, your soft side is showing. Really, he's been very protective of Mary this chapter

The convicts surrounded her.  I could only barely make out their eyes in the gloom, as they stared down the hallway at us.

I heard a snicker.

Oh God, the convicts are still sapient

“Academy brat.”

Oh God, they can talk, and they sound like kids. Just when you think you know what to expect from Wildbow, the guy throws something completely out of left field

Sy, in either an uncharacteristic moment of bravery or very characteristic moment of recklessness, puts himself in Sub Rosa's path, knowing full well how likely this is to get him converted into chunky salsa. The convicts apparently blame the Lambs for what happened to their bodies, or maybe the Academy as a whole, and one is having a whale of a time describing how he's going to brutally kill Sy.

Sub Rosa walks right past Sy, smoothing down his hair. Maybe she was a mother in her previous life and still holds some basic "don't kill your children" instincts? The soft-spoken convict, who I'll call "Baby" for the sake of convenience, tries to stab Sy with his hand spikes. Sy, for some reason, opens his mouth to Baby's attack and gets electrocuted I think. Wonder what bullshit Sy is pulling this time.

apparently he's trying to exploit Sub Rosa's motherly instincts to get her to kick the shit out of Baby, but concludes that it was a dumb idea afterwards. He spits out a bit of broken tooth and stares Baby down like a badass. While he's analyzing Baby, Sy runs through several methods of trying to convince him that I remember from a class I took on rhetoric a while ago, Ethos with the appeal to authority/building connection with Baby by staring him down, discounting Logos, and settling on using Pathos if the need arose.

Baby menaces Sy with spikes of electrified metal, and then electrocutes him again. But Sub Rosa appears to be coming to Sy's rescue, and Baby backs off. Meanwhile, the rest of the Lambs are stoically cowering in the corner. Sub Rosa reaches into the door and pulls out an... intestine. Ok. That also appears to be causing major structural damage to the building. This whole building is alive, isn't it. Sub Rosa then proceeds to methodically tear down the door with her bulging muscles.

Am I weird for thinking that Sub Rosa is kind of hot? I can't be the only one who thinks that right?

anyway, a tenuous peace forms between the Lambs and the mutilated convicts. Sy, even if Sub Rosa is protecting you, you might not want to piss off the convicts with electro-spikes. The new party walks into an area populated by scientists, and the Lambs just sort of awkwardly stand around while Sub Rosa and the cons kill them all.

Sy then... uh... reaches under Mary's skirt. However, he only does this to steal one of Mary's concealed knives. You know, Sy, there are times where I absolutely adore you, and others where I really don't like you. Mary is understandably pissed, but can't say anything because of the con standing right next to them. Fuck you Sy.

Ok, Jamie silently conveys to Sy that that one dead scientist's relative is in the part of the lab Sub Rosa is headed for. Sy takes his knife and strides up to take the duty of "killing" the next target. And the chapter ends there with Sy musing on how fucked they all are.

And that will be all for today, I hope to update again sometime this decade, but no promises lol. Until next time, vile experiments of the Academy.

By the way, Special thanks to Wildbow for writing Twig and to Kim Dauber for voicing the audiobook I use to do these posts.

One question, will the nutshot counter even be needed in future chapters? or am I just wasting time?