#the only side of the st fandom that is consistently critical of the show is ours

[stranger-rants]

Billy Antis: I bet y’all hate that Lucas is alive and Billy isn’t! HA HA! Suck it losers!

The Billy Fandom: So, anyway… Here’s our in depth analysis on how Lucas is mistreated by most of his friends, as well as sidelined and villainized by the writers of this show and what could be done to appreciate him more in the narrative

[bedlamsbard]

I totally understand your rage quitting now, although it's exactly the opposite for me! I was *very* into the Asgardian storyline in MCU and I hated Ragnarok with a passion - and the fandom sure made certain I knew everybody who didn't like the movie was an Idiot. Then IW and EG happened and killed all my joy for the MCU. I kinda sorta look at it without flinching nowadays, but it took somewhere around 5 years...

I think I know more people who went MCU --> Star Wars than the other way around! Weird couple of years for both fandoms. I'm a little bit of a weird outlier because I got back into Marvel well after Endgame, but a lot of what people criticize about the MCU is what I find interesting (the puzzle piece aspect). I am well aware that if I'd been consistently in Marvel since 2014 (which is when I drifted off) I'd probably have had the same rage reaction as like...everyone else I know.

I guess it's been a minute and my SW history isn't common knowledge to people who weren't around here between 2013-2021, so the lingering fury is probably confusing to people who only know me from the MCU. I was big into Star Wars from 2013-2021, from 2013-2015 on the PT/TCW side, then from 2014-2021 on the Rebels side (there's crossover), though I was also familiar with...everything. I have forgotten more about Star Wars than your average SW fan has ever known. (I was also in and out from 2007-2013, which is when some of my earlier fic like Oxygen and Rust dates from, but this is a period of time when my big fandom was actually Narnia) I'm quote-unquote "known" for Wake the Storm and Queen's Gambit in the PT/TCW, which have very consistently garnered negative responses since Wake started in 2013, and On the Edge of the Devil's Backbone in Rebels; I also used to do liveblogs of TCW and Rebels and the comics, for a while, so some of those posts are still floating around. I had a very, very bad breakup with a close fandom friend in 2016. I bounced off the ST, had an extremely negative reaction to Rebels S4 (to this day I have refused to do a full reaction post because I hated it so much I can't think about it coherently, and there were years where I couldn't think about it without spiraling), was okay with Resistance, R1, and Solo, hated Mando, hated TCW S7, hated the comics, hated the High Republic, and was still grimly hanging onto the fandom in utter misery in 2021 when the combination of hating TBB's sheer mediocrity (and the way they retconned Rebels) and the first episode of Loki hitting all of my favorite tropes like a fucking train finally knocked me out of Star Wars, to the extreme relief of everyone who knew me.

to this day I have fannish friends (who I met through Star Wars!) ready to stage an intervention if I ever seem even vaguely interested in getting back into Star Wars. I am the only person I know who looked at the Marvel fandom post-Endgame (and the Loki subfandom at any point in time, but especially while the show was airing) and went "this seems like a nice soothing place to immigrate to!" and honestly it is, people aren't as crazy anymore as they were around CW and Endgame. (Except in the Loki subfandom, which has made even me go "hmm. that's a bit much," but then I remember the egg genocide and you guys are fine, actually.)

very amusingly I actually speed-ran the Rebels experience with the Loki show -- really liked the first half, really disliked the second half -- but by that point I'd already gotten back into the rest of the MCU. I hadn't had a dramatic MCU breakup at all; I'd kept up with the films from 2008-2014 (CATWS was the last one I saw in order), but I just hadn't gotten around to seeing more than three odd ones out between 2014 and 2021 (Ragnarok, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and then I saw WandaVision early in 2021). I fandom osmosed some weird stuff that turned out not to be true.

anyway for those that don't know, that's the short version of my sordid Star Wars history! also sorry, you didn't actually, uh, ask for this.

[kurokoros]

I wish ST would have more episodes so that the plot wouldn't be that crammed and we could focus more on characters. I also need the writing to be more consistent. It sometimes appears they write a new season without rewatching their old ones.

Eddie still sucks and Jonathan should have been the Eddie in s4. Thematically, it would have made more sense, and it would avoid the constant criticism of the cast being too loaded.

I hate how they damaged the Steve and Dustin dynamic for Eddie.

The Russian plotline killed the show, I would have preferred it they would explore more the evil American government as the main villain, or at least let Hopper stay dead in s4.

Steve will probably get only reduced to a love interest in s5, and I don't like it. I also don't want him and Jonathan to become besties because it's gonna be another "oh Steve has changed" storyline. I wish, in general, the older teens wouldn't be so friendly with each other. I need more drama after everything.

The s2 Jancy plot was stupid because it was way too easy. I wish their plot had affected the other groups, like sending out agents as a threat. It would have raised the stakes even higher.

Nancy is still a badly written character, with potential if the show wouldn't try so much to make her appear perfect. Characters aren't allowed to be bad at her, and the narrative is always on her side. Thus, I don't get the whole Nancy has so much character growth spiel, when she honestly is the same since end of s1. This is also why I don't get st//ncy, Steve has changed and might be better for her than Jonathan, but Nancy stayed abd same and honestly she wouldn't even have to work for it because Steve available. She could go for it, it's like s2 reversed.

On that note, I don't like st//ncy shippers because they only make this about Nancy and put Steve as other option. (In general, all of Nancy's ships are about her. It's never asked what she can do for her partners)

When it comes to the fandom and fic writers. I don't like that everything is smut now because that's the only thing that gets notes. It feels like there are no more genuine stories because of that. It's a cycle because smut gets numbers, which leads to an overflow, which makes it harder for other stories. Also, it's sad that the fandom is dead/dying after not even 2 years. After s5, nobody will remember the show.

They should have recasted Noah and let Brett Gellmann go. It's only gonna hurt their show. And the way they treated Eduardo was disgusting as well.

I think that's all for now lol.

S1 was honestly perfect in terms of length, but that's because the plot was so contained. Twelve-year-old boy goes missing and every other characters' plot, aside from Nancy's, is directly tied to this event. There was plenty of room to explore Joyce's frazzled state and Hopper's grief over losing his daughter and how that drives him now. Steve got scenes exploring him as a person. The characters were all allowed to interact with others outside of their designated grouping for the season. By S3 and S4 the plots are just so congested. Every group is off doing their own thing and the plots don't connect back together seamlessly like S1, and even S2.

Eddie as a character is still frustrating to me and I don't understand why he was shoved into a Steve-shaped-hole in Dustin's life that didn't need to be filled since Steve was right there.

As someone who grew up in a small town, the secret Russian base under the mall plot actually makes me want to scream. I knew the Duffer brothers were city kids, but man they didn't even try. I'm not opposed to a Russian presence, but like... make it a smaller task force or something, jesus.

I don't want to think about what the Duffers will do to Steve, but I would honestly rather see him die as a hero than get back together with Nancy. It does nothing for either of them as characters. I'm convinced that before S4 neither of them had spoken since early November 1984, so like ~1.5 years ago.

Personally, I don't mind smut fics, but I actually prefer to read fics with plots (with the smut sprinkled in, as a treat), so the lack of any decent long-fics kills me inside.

I'm not going to speak much on the casting. Recasting Noah probably just wasn't possible considering the contracts in place, plus I'm genuinely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of learning and growing as a person since he's 19. I also believe that cancel culture is, 99% of the time, incredibly stupid because people need to be allowed to fuck up, learn from that fuck up, and better themselves as a person. So long as those fuck ups aren't a regular, repeated thing, of course. Brett Gelmann should have been let go because I think Murray is a useless character who adds nothing. I'm not upset about Eduardo not being brought back for that same reason, though I do think it was a weird choice and he should have been informed about it.

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor

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As recently as September 2020 David Tennant topped a Radio Times poll of favourite Doctors. He beat Tom Baker in a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine poll, and was voted the best TV character of the 21st Century by the readers of Digital Spy. He was the Doctor during one of Doctor Who‘s critical and commercial peaks, bringing in consistently high ratings and a Christmas day audience of 13.31 million for ‘Voyage of the Damned’, and 12.27 million for his final episode, ‘The End of Time – Part Two’. He is the only other Doctor who challenges Tom Baker in terms of associated iconography, even being part of the Christmas idents on BBC One as his final episodes were broadcast. Put simply, the Tenth Doctor is ‘My Doctor’ for a huge swathe of people and David Tennant in a brown coat will be the image they think of when Doctor Who is mentioned.

In articles to accompany these fan polls, Tennant’s Doctor is described as ‘amiable’ in contrast to his predecessor Christopher Eccleston’s dark take on the character. Ten is ‘down-to-earth’, ‘romantic’, ‘sweeter’, ‘more light-hearted’ and the Doctor you’d most want to invite you on board the TARDIS. That’s interesting in some respects, because the Tenth Doctor is very much a Jekyll and Hyde character. He’s handsome, he’s charismatic, and travelling with him can be addictively fun, but he is also casually cruel, harshly dismissive, and lacking in self-awareness. His ego wants feeding, and once fed, can have destructive results.

That tension in the character isn’t due to bad writing or acting. Quite the contrary. Most Doctors have an element of unpleasantness to their behaviour. Ever since the First Doctor kidnapped Ian and Barbara, the character has been moving away from the entitled snob we met him as, but can never escape it completely.

Six and Twelve were both written to be especially abrasive, then soften as time went on (with Colin Baker having to do this through Big Finish audio plays rather than on telly). A significant difference between Twelve and Ten, though, is that Twelve questions himself more. Ten, to the very end, seems to believe his own hype.

The Tenth Doctor’s duality is apparent from his first full appearance in 2005’s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. Having quoted The Lion King and fearlessly ambled through the Sycorax ship in a dressing gown, he seems the picture of bonhomie, that lighter and amiable character shining through. Then he kills their leader. True, it was in self-defence, but it was lethal force that may not have been necessary. Then he immediately topples the British Prime Minister for a not dissimilar act of aggression. Immediately we see the Tenth Doctor’s potential for violence and moral grey areas. He’s still the same man who considered braining someone with a rock in ‘An Unearthly Child’. 

Teamed with Rose Tyler, a companion of similar status to Tennant’s Doctor, they blazed their way through time and space with a level of confidence that bordered on entitlement, and a love that manifested itself negatively on the people surrounding them. The most obvious example in Series 2 is ‘Tooth and Claw’, where Russell T. Davies has them react to horror and carnage in the manner of excited tourists who’ve just seen a celebrity. This aloof detachment results in Queen Victoria establishing the Torchwood institute that will eventually split them apart. We see their blinkers on again in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, when they take Mickey for granted. Rose and the Doctor skip along the dividing line between romance and hubris.

Then, in a Christmassy romp where the Doctor is grieving the loss of Rose, he commits genocide and Donna Noble sucker punches him with ‘I think you need somebody to stop you’. Well-meaning as this statement is, the Doctor treats it as a reason to reduce his next companion to a function rather than a person. Martha Jones is there to stop the Doctor, as far as he’s concerned. She’s a rebound companion. Martha is in love with him, and though he respects her, she’s also something of a prop.

This is the series in which the Doctor becomes human in order to escape the Family of Blood (adapted from a book in which he becomes human in order to understand his companion’s grief, not realising anyone is after him), and is culpable for all the death that follows in his wake. Martha puts up with a position as a servant and with regular racist abuse on her travels with this man, before finally realising at the end of the series that she needs to get out of the relationship. For a rebound companion, Martha withstands a hell of a lot, mostly caused by the Doctor’s failings. 

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Series 4 develops the Doctor further, putting the Tenth’s Doctor’s flaws in the foreground more clearly. Donna is now travelling with him, and simply calls him out on his behaviour more than Rose or Martha did. Nonetheless the Doctor ploughs on, and in ‘Midnight’ we see him reduced to desperate and ugly pleas about how clever he is when he’s put in a situation he can’t talk himself out of.

Rose has also become more Doctor-like while trapped in another reality, and brutally tells Donna that she’s going to have to die in order to return to the original timeline (just as the Doctor tells Donna she’s going to have to lose her memories of travelling with him in order to live her previous life, even as she clearly asks him not to – and how long did the Doctor know he would have to do this for? It’s not like he’s surprised when Donna starts glitching). Tied into this is the Doctor’s belief in his own legend. In ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ he holds a gun to Cobb’s head, then withdraws it and asks that they start a society based on the morals of his actions. You know, like a well-adjusted person does.

What’s interesting here is that despite presenting himself as ‘a man who never would’, the Doctor is a man who absolutely would. We’ve seen him do it. Even the Tenth Doctor, so keen to live up to the absolute moral ideals he espouses, killed the Sycorax leader and the Krillitanes, drove the Cybermen to die of despair, brought the Family of Blood to a quiet village and then disposed of them personally. But Tennant doesn’t play this as a useful lie, he plays it as something the Doctor absolutely believes in that moment, that he is a man who would not kill even as his daughter lies dead. It’s why his picking up a gun in ‘The End of Time’ has such impact. And it makes some sense that the Tenth Doctor would reject violence following a predecessor who regenerated after refusing to commit another double-genocide.

In the series finale ‘Journey’s End‘, Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his friends into weapons. This is because the Doctor’s friends have used weapons against the Daleks who – and I can’t stress this enough – are about to kill everyone in the entire universe. Fighting back against them seems pretty rational. Also – and again I can’t stress this enough – the Daleks are bad. Like, really bad. You won’t believe just how mindbogglingly bad they are. The Doctor has tried to destroy them several times by this point. Here, there isn’t the complication of double-genocide, and instead the very real threat of absolutely everyone in the universe dying. This accusation, that the Doctor turns people into weapons, should absolutely not land.

And yet, with the Tenth Doctor, it does. This is a huge distinction between him and the First Doctor, who had to persuade pacifists to fight for him in ‘The Daleks’.

In ‘The Sontaran Strategem’ Martha compares the Doctor to fire. It’s so blunt it almost seems not worth saying, but it’s the perfect analogy (especially for a show where fire is a huge part of the very first story). Yes, fire shines in dark places, yes it can be a beacon, but despite it being very much fire’s entire deal, people can forget that it burns. And fire has that mythical connection of being stolen from the gods and brought to humanity. The Time Lord Victorious concept fits the Tenth Doctor so well. Of all the Doctors, he’s the most ready to believe in himself as a semi-mythic figure.

Even when regenerating there’s a balance between hero and legend: the Tenth Doctor does ultimately save Wilfred Mott, but only after pointing out passionately how big a sacrifice he’s making. And then he goes to get his reward by meeting all his friends, only to glare at them from a distance. His last words are ‘I don’t want to go’, which works well as clearly being a poignant moment for the actor as well, but in the context of Doctor Who as a whole it renders Ten anomalous: no one else went this unwillingly. And yet, in interviews Russell T. Davies said it was important to end the story with ‘the Doctor as people have loved him: funny, the bright spark, the hero, the enthusiast’.

It’s fascinating then, that this is the Doctor who has been taken to heart by so many viewers because there’s such an extreme contrast between his good-natured front, his stated beliefs, and his actions. He clearly loves Rose and Donna, but leaves them with a compromised version of happiness. They go on extraordinary journeys only to end up somewhere that leaves them less than who they want to be, with Russell T. Davies being more brutally honest than Steven Moffat, who nearly always goes the romance route. Davies once said to Mark Lawson that he liked writing happy endings ‘because in the real world they don’t exist’, but his endings tend towards the bittersweet: Mickey and Martha end up together but this feels like they’re leftovers from the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. The Tenth Doctor doesn’t, as Nine does, go with a smile, but holding back tears.

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It’s a testament to how well written the Tenth Doctor is that the character has this light and shade, and with David Tennant’s immense likeability he can appeal to a wider audience as a result. It’s not surprise he wins all these polls, but I can’t help but feel that if the Doctor arrived and invited me on board the TARDIS, I’d want it to be anyone but Ten.

The post Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[pip-n-flinx]

Castlevania Spoilers pt 2

Again, tagged and below a cut. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Alright so in our second installment of pissing off half/two-thirds the fandom, we arrive at what is probably the most egregious decision I feel the writers made. Before we start: No, I don’t hate happy endings. Nor do I like plot twists that serve only shock value and not the narrative. I just happen to believe that a licensed story using someone else’s intellectual property should probably be at least internally thematically or narratively consistent. Without further ado -

Why the Fuck is Trevor Belmont Still Alive?

Yes, he killed Death itself. Yes, they did tease St. Germain using the key to open the infinite corridor as his last act. I’m not talking about how you justify or rationalize it, or if there were enough frames of animation dedicated to saving him. I’m asking why he lives on to make an ass of himself and imply that he’s been slutting it up for years and bailing when he realizes the girl is pregnant. More importantly, why they would ruin his ‘final’ great speech to death? I don’t think we’re talking enough about how poignant that last conversation with Death is.

*Trevor, looking lovingly down at Sypha, who is safely away from Death*

T: I love you.

S: Trevor... I know.

T: You better know. Just remember: Trefor is a terrible name.

*Trevor turns to face Death himself*

T: Oi, Death. I want a word with you.

D: You know me?

T: I’m Trevor Belmont of House Belmont. Of course I know you. Finding things and recognizing them is what we do. And you are absolutely a thing.

D: I was put here at the dawn of life on earth to feed on the last breaths of every one of you fuckers. I’m a little more than a ‘thing’

T: No. You’re only a thing. You’re only an old killer. You don’t make anything you don’t live. You just eat and hide.

D: Is there a point to this? Are you dictating you fucking obituary to me, Belmont?

T: It’s time to give this place back to people who know how to build things. You and me? We’re just killers out of history. It’s time for us to go.

D: And whose going to make me go? You, with your bit of string in your hand?

T: Probably not. But let’s just give this one last go.

This above is the most powerful statement the show has made so far, and definitely the most direct. We're just killers out of History. It’s time for us to go.

I’d like to take a moment to speculate on the ‘bit of string’ line. I expect this is a reference to the Moirai in greek mythology. Specifically to the string of fate, eventually to be cut by Atropos, which defines the length of a mortal’s life. Here Death references the morning star whip as string. While it could just be the most derogatory thing Death could come up with, since this is written dialogue I think it’s safe to read at least a little into it. Chains are also rife with symbology, so the choice to refer to the Morningstar Whip as string instead of chain is interesting.

There are a couple of different ways to read this IMO. The first being that Trevor is serving as Atropos here, cutting the string and ending Death’s life. But the Moirai don’t have power over the gods, and while in this adaptation Death is certainly not godly in the judeo-christian sense of the word, I think it’s probably fair to compare him to the greek pantheon.

The second, and I believe more fitting interpretation, is that Trevor holds his own fate in his hands. It’s the Morningstar Whip he found in the old Belmont hold. Trevor takes several major blows throughout the course of his fight with Death, but even when he suffers wounds that might prevent him from carrying on the fight, he still has his grip on the Morningstar. His bit of string, his fate. Despite the obvious power of the weapon, it by itself is unable to take down Death. Trevor is only able to kill Death when he lets go of the whip, and instead takes up a dagger. A dagger that even Trevor describes as being designed as part of a one-sided-murder/suicide-pact-with-god, but who’s questioning that right? Trevor relinquishes his string, his life, his fate. And only by accepting that he must die. Acknowledging that he’s just another killer himself. Declaring that the world should be preserved for those who know how to truly live, as he never truly has. That is how he kills Death.

So why for fuckssake did they bring him back??? It undermines his character arc. It undermines all the writing and development they’d given him. It cheapens his great speech, the crux of the whole show!

But he killed Death. With Death dead, surely no one can die anymore right? WHAT ABOUT LENORE?! More to the point, Death himself states that he doesn’t interact with Hell. Death needs human hands to pull people out of Hell. He seems critical of his own powers as Death, observing to St. Germain that his inability to influence events in Hell is “fucked up.”

Here’s the other thing that infuriates me about this though. When he miraculously returns to Sypha and Alucard, he admits that he knew Sypha was pregnant 2 weeks earlier. Before his fight with Death. His last words to Sypha are intended to be a warning not to name his son Trefor. Lets set aside that the writers chose to play this off as experience from getting countless unnamed women pregnant before leaving them. I don’t want to, but I don’t even know where to start with this one. But perhaps more importantly, the Belmont line lives on! You don’t destroy the continuity of Castlevania by killing off Trevor here, because he isn’t the last of the Belmonts anymore! If you were going give me Sypha grieving for the loss of her love, coming to grips with the fact she bares his child, seeking comfort in a man she once described as being ‘like a cold spot in the room,’ why bring Trevor back? The final episode already delivered gut punch after gut punch. This was not a universally happy ending. This was not an ‘Everybody lives!’ finale. Learning to live with grief, to lean on friends and support eachother, would have been a perfectly poignant ending! Seeing a shot of Trevor and Sypha’s kid would have made me much happier than cheapening Trevor’s sacrifice by miraculously saving him!

So again. Salty and bitter. Here’s a link to my first post.

[sleepymarmot]

A couple of months ago, after finishing COUNTER/Weight, I spent about a week in a total hangover, relistening to scenes and having feelings. I took some notes, but procrastinated posting them, and then finally got distracted. But, a) I hate leaving things I intended for tumblr unposted, even if they have value only for me, and b) I also hate posting things out of order, and there's a big TM liveblog incoming. So, here's a bunch of really random thoughts about C/w from past me.

The gnosis virus did go nowhere huh. I was hopeful for a minute when one of the finale intros mentioned it, but that was it. What was the purpose of that arc even. [Note from present me: Lol. At least I feel better about this one!]

Oh, and the patch AuDy left never reappeared either. And the idea from the faction game that Aria's images owned by EarthHome/Petrichor transmit Rigour code… That's the flip side of the coin. On the one hand, it's really cool to see the creative process – on the other, it sometimes feels like you're listening to people write a script for the tv show, but only get to see a half of the finished product. It's fascinating to see the universe grow organically and the players to come up with new ideas and get excited about them – but that means numerous retcons, some of them not even presented as such, because the creators forgot what the previous revision was or didn't thought it was important. It's a unique feature of the medium that player choice directs the narrative and it's not bound by railroading – but that means some roads lead nowhere, and some branches dry and fall off.

It's a bit harder to make peace with something that could have easily been developed more within the existing plot of the show. How come there's a player character whose consciousness consists of three different people in various combinations, but nobody seems to be curious how that works? No PC or NPC ever asked “Which one of you is speaking right now?” or something. The final episodes made a lot of things clearer, but it still felt too little, too late. Hard not to be reminded of that gripe about certain two characters sharing one character sheet one of whom was left underdeveloped and half-forgotten… Both are very ambitious concepts that require a double amount of work from the player, so I feel bad complaining they weren't realized to full potential, but…

Speaking of L&D… I still want to know how the hell did that one engineer all by herself design 4 gods, one of which became a basis for technology that was advanced even for the civilizations 80,000 years later? This woman singlehandedly surpassed any technological achievement of humanity before and after. Who Is She

I saw a “Wake me up: before you go go / when september ends / wake me up inside” meme and thought “heh, this sounds relevant, which member of the Chime is which?” and it already made me sad, but then I realized that I'd never actually heard the september song and looked it up and. The lyrics fit so well. What the fuck. It's an old song everyone keeps joking about. Why is it appropriate for a legitimate fanmix. What. I guess the word “September” will never be the same again for me.

I looked up the rules for Firebrands, the game used for the finale. Oh my, challenges for the dance minigame are so overtly romantic when you see them in a list together! Imagine this cast of characters having to answer to “do you place your hand upon my elbow, shoulder, waist, or hip?” lmao. Also I didn't realize “May I?” was part of the rules for “stealing time together”. (And I found out there's a party version of that minigame with bug-themed challenges. I might have dug too deep…) "Tactical skirmish" is a really fascinating concept, I've never seen such a masochistic combat system! Really faces the player with the violence they're inflicting: sure, you can always fight on, but are you ready to live with what you'll have to do? But for it to work fully, you need a lot of non-expendable NPCs on both sides. The one with the most likeable team wins! (Like Mako did.)

I'm relistening to Three Conversations and it's pretty interesting that Ibex has a bunch perfectly lifelike android bodies, right? There is no such technology seen anywhere else. Did Righteousness develop and privatize that? Are they so complex that only a Divine would have enough computing power to successfully mimic organic life? Can Aria convince Righteousness to help her perform on stage without leaving her duties? Also, like with AuDy, I wonder how Ibex & Righteousness' consciousness works. Is it a single mind, spread across every body he has, or even anything Righteousness is running on, having a bunch of different conversations at once if he needs to? Or is the original Ibex just gone, and what's left is a personality imprint hanging on to the connection to his still living body, imitating his former self like the automated recording Cass saw wore his face? In other words, has Ibex completely fused with Righteousness, or assimilated and destroyed by it? Does he not exist anymore as an independent singular being, or does he not exist at all? Most info indicates the former, but there was also “You’re not in there anymore” “No”.

If Orth and Jace are anime fans with their Kingdom Come and Panther, then Ibex is the guy who's way too into dinosaurs or paleontology. It's as if the heads of various confessions were called Triceratops, Stegosaurus etc. and only one of them knows wtf that means, and also he compares his Divine to… Were there scavenging dinosaurs? I'm looking at an article that suggests T. Rex might have been a scavenger, so yeah he would compare Righteousness to a goddamn T. Rex.

Hey what do you think is the most thematically aproppriate part of the Hieron anime for Orth to watch alone at night during the Kingdom game. What's the best thematic parallel for when he turns off the episode and thinks he made a mistake. Do you think that he once, after a long day and a long month and maybe a long year of feeling helpless and doomed, sits down for a distraction but ends up sobbing “How could they let this happen to Mother Glory”

On Joypark, there are definitely statues of Eidolons, ancient and holy, that were repainted and repurposed as Hieron deities. Imagine a giant Greek or Roman style marble statue of Apote – and it’s painted over as Samot, with an anime face and in really bright plain colors like these “reconstructions of original coloring” that actually only use base colors so they look like cheap action figures.

I was reading Austin's top ten games of 2016 list on Waypoint and he gave first place to The Sprawl! Aww!

The Downloads folder in my phone gallery is funny bc it mostly consists of every freely available f@tt map and also that one photo of Tristan Walker (because I tried to redraw it, very unsuccessfully). I go check a map and every time am met by Ibex just. staring at me. It's unsettling

Some of the many options for how Apostolosian gender could have been presented:

Apostolosians prefer to be addressed by the most neutral available human pronoun, represented as "they" in English, because the human languages don't have anything close enough

Apostolosian pronouns are represented in English by a set of real-life common pronouns and neopronouns

There's a list of Apostolosian pronouns and they're just used in English verbatim (Really impractical because the players need a cheat sheet, but the most fair)

Humans apply human genders to Apostolosians. Apostolosians may be offended, may find it convenient, or something else

As Austin said in the post-mortem, the Eidolon system is not gender. It's represented in English by titles/honorifics/etc

Any of the above, and the creators are aware of the difference between personal pronouns, grammatical gender, and social gender

And that’s not even touching the core problem of what the concept of gender in a futuristic, techonologically advanced society would look like. Yes, I'm complaining about this for the third time but I'm just. So tired of native English speakers' takes on gendered language. They could have made Apostolosian gender look like anything and they made it look like that fucking mess... God, I really hope TM is good enough to make me forget and forgive the experience of listening to “he... sorry, they” for 100 hours. [Note from present me: Well… mostly]

Here’s my take on this: eidolons in Apostolosian language are absurdly broad noun classes with associated classifiers (which fits both the idea that they’re gender but not actually, and that each of them is a patron to several unrelated aspects of life) Apostolosian: the word “(Apo)thesa” is used to refer to people who follow the corresponding eidolon, as well as for counting buildings, heavy machinery, military units, specific strategies and tactics, log entries, historical documents and chronicles, history textbooks and monographs, and eras :) Human: what the fuck

Very critical, imaginative worldbuilding in which 80,000+ years into the future humanity somehow has 21st century gender and 21st century capitalism! TBH, I find any sci-fi set in the far future inherently silly – we can’t really imagine the future technogy and its effect on society. But it feels like C/w barely even tried, and to hear it boast about “critical worldbuilding” is kinda strange. I assumed that meant they build the world critically, not that they recreate modern society or some aspect of it and criticize that! It’s just another Star Trek then! And it was already clear right during the setup when they said “We don’t want Star Trek aliens” and immediately created Apostolosians.

I haven't seen a single piece of fanart with Taako and Mako. Come on, does nobody want to see these two next to each other! Especially considering the outfits artists like to put Taako in!

I really don't understand how and why people do fandom activities on Twitter and Discord where the creators also have accounts. It gives me so much secondhand embarrassment. I can barely peek at Twitter posts before running away. Old-fashioned opinion apparently but I strongly believe the main fandom space and the interaction-with-original-creators space should be separate. I need a space where I can voice my opinions, especially negative ones, with complete freedom. I need to be able to say exactly what's on my mind. But I wouldn't want any of the people on the podcast to read something unfiltered like my complaints above. Being in the same space as the source content creators obliges any decent person to be diplomatic and constructive. And the creators, in turn, need a space where they don't come across complete randos yelling at them about something they said in a podcast three years ago. I'm already feeling uncomfortable because hearing to strangers pour their hearts out for hundreds of hours gives me way too much insight on who they are as people. Of course, nothing’s stopping them from lurking on Tumblr or AO3 and even reading this very post, but a platform where they have official accounts is still a different thing! I even feel uncomfortable talking about the podcast creators using their first names so much. To my ear, referring to a total stranger by first name, especially if it's a shortened form, sounds so rude! I'm not their friend, I don't have that right! But, of course, writing something like “Mr Walker” in my liveblogs would have been even weirder, nobody does that...

Is it a common experience to not even think about fanfiction after listening to Hieron, but going straight to AO3 after C/w? I feel like since Hieron is still a work in progress, writing/reading about it is stepping on the GM&players' toes, and C/w is finished so it's like they gave us the keys to the playground, it's the fandom's turn now. This story has so much blanks and they must be filled! In one of the early episodes they joked that something cute they said would encourage people to ship Mako/Cass and I was like "Bold of you to assume they aren't already" and, indeed, I was right and it's the most popular C/w ship on AO3. Too bad I’m so indifferent to it…

It’s a shame we never had a full scene with Ariadne or even learned what they were up to during the finale.

I still don't understand how Ibex went from “evil CEO” to “leader of a proletarian revolution”, these sound like completely opposite concepts to me

I probably have talked about this too much and have pretty much given up on ever getting a clear picture due to all of these reimaginings but… Righteousness and Voice… Ibex takes Righteousness out of Mako but he still has Voice, that was pretty much openly stated, correct? So how does that work? I’m guessing Righteousness is hidden somewhere in Voice’s code. But if so:

Did Maryland know? On the one hand, she’s too competent not to. On the other, why would she ever allow or accept that?

How did Righteousness not get corrupted by Rigour too? Maybe it did, but broke off the connection with the rest of itself to contain the damage? Or maybe, on the contrary, it kept in contact and was sending intel to Ibex the whole time? But in that case he would have provided more help in the finale.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 101 - Truth Cannot Contradict Truth - Part 5

With images:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/catholic-physics-reflections-scientist-part-101-truth-harold-baines-4/?published=t

Can Computers Have a Soul? - Part 2

SECTION 3: Science Fiction Stories about Computer Souls

INTRODUCTION

A scene from the play “RUR” (“Rossum’s Universal Robots” – Capek, 1923) whence the term “ROBOT” for a mechanical man. - from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)

Science fiction abounds in tales of robots, androids and computers with intelligence. Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” and his robot/android stories come to mind. And who can forget HAL 9000 in “2001.”

In this section I’ll focus on stories that deal with the notion of robots or computers having a soul, because these stories come closer to defining soulhood than do many of the philosophers and scientists dealing with artificial intelligence.

Since philosophers and AI scientists have not given definitive answers about the souls of computers, consciousness and such, let’s go to a realm where imagination holds sway, unlimited by hard facts. It will certainly be more entertaining (and possibly just as insightful) to hear what science fiction (SF) authors have to say about this. So let’s suppose, as do SF authors, that consciousness is possible by some means or another for computers and robots and see what consequences might ensue concerning ensoulment

I WANT TO BE A COMPUTER WHEN I DIE

As a transition to considering machine intelligence, let’s examine how SF treats the transfer of human intelligence or personality into computers or robots. Note that one theoretical physicist, Frank Tipler, in his book, The Physics of Christianity, posits that heaven will consist of personalities transferred to software as the universe reaches its end in an “Omega Point‘ singularity. Since it is a black hole type singularity, time is slowed down and the intelligences transferred to software thus have essentially an eternity to enjoy their virtual life.

Among the many SF stories that deal with transferred human intelligence, there is one by Norman Spinrad that especially focuses on the question of soulhood, Deus X. Spinrad treats the question with respect, although his attitude to the Catholic Church is less than reverent (there is a female Pope, Mary I). Below is a summary of the plot, as given in McKee’s excellent survey, The Gospel According to Science-Fiction:

“…thousands of people exist in an artificial afterlife called ‘Transcorporeal Immortality’, having copied their consciousness onto a worldwide computer network called ‘The Big Board’….Catholic theologian Fr. Philippe de Leone argue[s] that this creation of an artificial soul, which cannot have true self-awareness, dooms the actual soul that is copied to damnation. Pope Mary I, hoping to settle the controversy, orders Fr. DeLeone to have his soul copied upon his death, so that his consciousness can argue against its own autonomous existence from the other side.” — As quoted in The Gospel According to Science Fiction. p.43

Superficially, Pope Mary’s plan seems to contain a paradox. If the downloaded Fr. de Leone changes his mind and says “yes, I am a real soul,” how can we trust what an artificial soul might say? The solution to the paradox is that all of Fr. de Leone’s beliefs have been downloaded to his program. If these beliefs are changed, it means that the entity in the computer has free will, and is thus autonomous and a real soul.

In the story Fr. DeLeone’s soul is “kidnapped” (how do you kidnap a program?) by a group of downloaded personalities that wants to convince the Church, using Fr. de Leone’s download, that they have a real soul. As McKee points out in his synopsis, there is a reverse Turing Test applied here. Fr. de Leone does change his mind, the downloaded personalities declare him a deity (“Deus X”) and a new controversy arises: Church officials declare this deification to be blasphemy. To still the controversy, Fr. de Leone sacrifices his downloaded personality (dies), Pope Mary declares him a saint and recognizes that the downloaded souls are “real”.”

In my opinion, this is not a satisfactory exposition. I hold with the Catholic interpretation (see above) that souls do not function without a body and that a soul and body comprise one person.

THE CHURCH AND AI: ST. AUGUSTINE AS A COMPUTER — “GUS”

There are many SF works in which the Catholic Church plays a role. In some, the Church and its teachings are treated with respect; in most, not so much. As Gabriel McKee points out in The Gospel According to Science Fiction

“SF, arising as it does from the secular humanism of the Enlightenment, is critical of religious institutions. SF frequently argues that if organized religion is to be a positive force in the future of humankind, it must change drastically to meet the spiritual challenges of the future.” — Gabriel McKee, op.cit., p. 183

A sympathetic view of how the Church might interact with artificial intelligence is given in Jack McDevitt’s fine story, “Gus“. In this beautiful tale, the newly installed rector of a Catholic Seminary interacts with a computer simulation of St. Augustine of Hippo, purchased (the simulation, that is) to help students understand St. Augustine’s teachings. The Rector, Msgr. Chesley, is at first greatly displeased with Gus’s (the program’s) dicta:

” ‘The thing must have been programmed by Unitarians’ Chesley threw over his shoulder. ‘Get rid of it'” — ”Gus” in Cryptics, p. 373.

The relationship between Chesley and Gus becomes warmer with time, as they discuss the problems of being a Catholic in today’s world:

“ ‘Why did Augustine become a priest?’

Chesley asked.

‘I wanted,’ Gus said, with the slightest stress on the first words, ‘to get as close as I could to my Creator.’ Thoughtfully, he added, ‘I seem to have traveled far afield.’

‘Sometimes I think,’ Chesley said, ‘the Creator hides himself too well.’

‘Use his Church,‘ said Gus. ‘That is why it is here.’

‘It has changed.’

“Of course it has changed. The world has changed.’

‘The Church is supposed to be a rock.’

‘Think of it rather as a refuge in a world that will not stand still.’ “ — op. cit., p. 382,

Gus’s sayings to the students become so unorthodox (he decries the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) that other faculty decided he should be downloaded to storage and traded in for a computer simulation of Thomas Aquinas (plus business software). Gus asks Msgr. Chesley to hear his Confession and then destroy him, so he can have peace:

” ‘I require absolution, Matt.’

Chesley pressed his right hand into his pocket. ‘It would be sacrilege,’ he whispered.

‘And if I have a soul, Matt, if I too am required to face judgment, what then?’

Chesley raised his right hand, slowly, and drew the sign of the cross in the thick air. ‘I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

‘Thank you… There’s something else I need you to do, Matt. This existence holds nothing for me. But I am not sure what downloading might mean.’

‘What are you asking?”

‘I want to be free of all this. I want to be certain I do not spend a substantial fraction of eternity in the storeroom.’

Chesley trembled. ‘If in fact you have an immortal soul,’ he said, ‘you may be placing it in grave danger.’

‘And yours as well. I have no choice but to ask. Let us rely on the mercy of the Almighty.’

Tears squeezed into Chesley’s eyes. He drew his finger- tips across the hard casing of the IBM. ‘What do I do? I’m not familiar with the equipment.’

‘Have you got the right computer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take it apart. Turn off the power first. All you have to do is get into it and destroy the hard disk.’

‘Will you — feel anything?’

‘Nothing physical touches me, Matt.’

Chesley found the power switch… He found a hammer and a Phillips screwdriver. He used the screwdriver to take the top off the computer. A gray metal box lay within. He opened it and removed a gleaming black plastic disk. He embraced it, held it to his chest. Then he set it down, and reached for the hammer. In the morning, with appropriate ceremony, he buried it in consecrated soil.” — op. cit., pp. 388-389

As always, I asked my wife to review this article. I asked her whether she was moved by the story of Gus. She replied, “If it were St. Augustine on his death-bed talking to his confessor, yes; but a black plastic disc – never.” Even though I was moved to tears when I first read the story, I raise the same objections as I did for downloaded human personalities: the Catholic teaching that soul and body are one.

DOES DATA HAVE A SOUL?

Commander Riker removes the arm of Data, the Android, to show he is only a machine. - from Fandom (Caption for linked image)

For those who aren’t Trekkies, Data is the android navigator in the second Star Trek series, Star Trek: the Next Generation.  He aspires to humanity and sometimes reaches and even surpasses that state.  There is a problem, however, in that whether Data has a soul is never considered in any of the episodes, possibly because the word “soul” is anathema to writers and producers of popular entertainment.  So in the episode, “The Measure of a Man”, the question “Is Data a sentient being” is asked, rather than “Does Data have a soul”.

The question is addressed in a trial, to see if Data, as a “sentient being”, has the right to refuse to be disassembled for study and refitting.  Captain Picard acts in Data’s behalf and Commander Riker, under duress, as the prosecutor.  Riker attempts to demonstrate that Data is a machine by switching him off and taking his arm off:

“[Riker is doing his duty in the courtroom]

Commander William T. Riker: The Commander [Data] is a physical representation of a dream – an idea, conceived of by the mind of a man. Its purpose: to serve human needs and interests. It’s a collection of neural nets and heuristic algorithms; its responses dictated by an elaborate software written by a man, its hardware built by a man. And now… and now a man will shut it off. [Riker switches off Data, who slumps forward like a lifeless puppet]

Commander William T. Riker: Pinocchio is broken. Its strings have been cut.” The Measure of a Man, Quotes.

Captain Picard gives a stirring defense, arguing that the question of whether Data is conscious — self-aware — has not and cannot be settled, any more than whether one can be certain that another person is conscious except by external behavior.   And finally the question of soulhood is addressed minimally:

“Captain Phillipa Louvois [The Judge]: It sits there looking at me; and I don’t know what it is. This case has dealt with metaphysics – with questions best left to saints and philosophers. I am neither competent nor qualified to answer those. But I’ve got to make a ruling, to try to speak to the future. Is Data a machine? Yes. Is he the property of Starfleet? No. We have all been dancing around the basic issue: does Data have a soul?[emphasis added] I don’t know that he has. I don’t know that I have. But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself. It is the ruling of this court that Lieutenant Commander Data has the freedom to choose.” [notice the shift from “it” to “he”] ibid.

And so Data is left free, and the question of whether he has a soul, undetermined — as in the Scottish verdict, “Not Proven.”

Whether Data has a soul is more difficult judgment than for the previous stories: Data has a body, and if his body is disabled then he, as a unit, doesn’t function.  This condition satisfies the Catholic teaching that body and soul are one. On the other hand, Catholic teaching tells us that the soul is given to us at conception by the Holy Spirit. Would we say that the Holy Spirit instills a soul into Data when the first circuit was implanted? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m wrong.  What do you think, Dear Reader?

FINAL THOUGHTS

It seems from the above that Catholic teaching has more definite things to say about ensoulment and what the soul is than do science and philosophy. There is much disagreement amongst the advocates of AI and philosophers about who and what might be endowed with consciousness and real intelligence, much less who or what might be given a soul.

If one defines a God-given soul as the capacity to wonder where we came from, what will happen when we die, who made all this and why, then I believe that is unlikely that computers, machine intelligence will have that ability, despite the science-fiction stories to the contrary. Nor will animals, even though they have intelligence in some degree. Could there be sentient beings with souls on extra-terrestial planets? Possibly, and even the Church is interested in that possibility, as attested by a Vatican sponsored conference on the possibility:

“Just like there is an abundance of creatures on earth, there could also be other beings, even intelligent ones, that were created by God. That doesn’t contradict our faith, because we cannot put boundaries to God’s creative freedom. As Saint Francis would say, when we consider the earthly creatures to be our ‘brothers and sisters,’ why couldn’t we also talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother?’ He would still be part of creation.” — Fr. Gabriel Funes, Chief Astronomer to the Vatican, Osservatore Romano, 2014

Well, maybe — but we’ll very likely not know in our lifetime.

SECTION 4: Science Background — Elements of Neuroscience

Why (Some) Scientists Say there is No Such Thing as a Soul

If one believes that everything can be explained by science (which I don’t), then only that which can be measured or observed in replicated experiments is “real”. Accordingly, many scientists regard the “soul” as a fictitious entity, since it is immaterial and has no measurable properties that can be observed in replicable experiments.

Rather than speaking of the soul, scientists focus on the mind as a function of what goes on in the brain. Such functions can be localized in various regions of the brain (see the figure below). - Click link for image

Brain Areas Controlling Different Functions from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)

The various actions governed by the brain can be localized by observing behavioral changes when different parts are injured or with modern imaging techniques: MRI, SPECT, PET scans.

SCIENTIFIC MEASUREMENTS OF BRAIN ACTIVITY

“Interestingly, the average human brain weighs about 1.5 kilograms, has about 160 billion cells and about 100 billion neurons connecting the cells… One can look at the brain and see the incredible complexities and the miracles of the Divine … or one can respond … that this has nothing to do with G-d. Some people will be inspired with belief in the Almighty; others will claim that somehow billions of cells and neurons working together can be created through random evolution.” — Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, “Jewish World Review,” 17 January 2014

The basic unit of the brain is the neuron, depicted in the figure below. The average human brain contains about 86 billion neurons. They act by release of chemicals (neurotransmitters) to adjacent neurons across a synaptic junction (gap) and thereby generate electrical signals, nerve impulses, that travel along nerve fibers and thereby generate electrical signals, nerve impulses, that travel along nerve fibers.

Diagram of a Neuron; inset is diagram of a synapse between transmitter (A) and receptor (B) neurons. (Caption for linked image)

1: mitochondria; 2. vesicle containing neurotransmitter molecules; 3. autoreceptor gate; 4. synaptic cleft (3/10,000 of paper thickness); 5. neurotransmitter molecule receptor; 6. calcium gate; 7. fused vesicle releasing neurotransmitter molecules; 8. neurotransmitter molecule re-uptake pump.

Here’s a nice video explaining in more detail how nerve transmission works.

Since there is electrical activity in the brain due to nerve impulse transmission, this can be measured by EEG (ElectroEncephaloGraphy) which can be used to detect abnormal brain behavior, as in epilepsy. The state of water in the brain, and the corresponding state of brain tissue—normal or abnormal—can be studied by high resolution CAT scans (x-ray tomography), or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging)

MRI of Brain with Tumor - A: Feb 2005, before treatment; - B,C: Later in 2005, after treatment; - D,E: Recurrence and treatment with radiotherapy - F: Treatment with chemotherapy. - from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)

Chemical activity in the brain can be detected by Positron Emission Tomography (PET scans), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), or functional MRI (fMRI). The first two techniques use radioactive tracers attached to molecules which will be metabolized (e.g. sugar molecules) at areas of localized brain activity. fMRI relies on increased blood flow to areas of the brain that are active; the blood contains oxygen molecules, which are paramagnetic and affect the MRI signal. (Caption for linked image)

The picture at the left shows an fMRI scan of a subject watching “a complex moving visual stimulus and rest condition (black screen)”. The activation (yellow-orange) is shown against a “regular MRI corresponding to the brain region scanned.” The left-hand side of the image corresponds to the occipital region of the brain, where visual images are processed.

NEUROIMAGING AND THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

An interesting application of SPECT imaging is reported by Professor Andrew Newberg, Jefferson University Hospital. He showed, comparing images from religious (nuns, monks) and atheists, what brain regions and thus what brain functions are activated or deactivated by such religious acts as prayer, meditation, contemplation.

A detailed account of this is given in Professor Newberg’s web site and here; briefly, the account is this. When people with long experience in contemplative prayer (for example, Franciscan Nuns) pray, the frontal regions of the brain — the area of higher mental activity, forethought, etc — are activated and the parietal areas — which give a sense or orientation, bodily location — are deactivated. The latter result, according to Professor Newborn, corresponds to a feeling of losing self, of oneness with the environment, a feeling often associated with deep meditation and contemplation. On the other hand, the brains of atheists do not show such changes.

One point should be emphasized here. Although location of brain activity, locations correlated with function, can be found by these imaging techniques, such results in themselves do not give a complete understanding of mental activity, a proof that this activity is purely a consequence of material goings-on. It’s very much as if we have a computer with unlabeled inputs and outputs. After some trial and error we discover that one output goes to a display, one input for commands to move a cursor, etc. We’ve determined location and function, but we do not have a complete picture of what goes on in the internal workings of the computer.

A FINAL THOUGHT

We can conclude, I believe, that scientific measurements, including modern imaging techniques — fMRI, SPECT, PET — show us where in the brain functions are performed and what electrical and chemical processes occur for such functions. However, they do not tell us why we know who we are, why “cogito ergo sum” is true for us, but not a computer.

From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist

[thesinglesjukebox]

MEGHAN TRAINOR FEAT. NICKI MINAJ - NICE TO MEET YA

[4.18]

Meghan, you need no introduction...

Alfred Soto: The pairing is quaint -- how 2014! Meghan Trainor attempts a makeover that vaporizes the essentials of a noxious image. Now she sounds like nobody at all. Nothing. [1]

Katie Gill: I can't decide who she's trying to be in this song but she's certainly trying to be someone ELSE. The pivot to a more heavy R&B sound, the whispered hook, the Nicki guest verse, this has "I am trying to reinvent myself, can we all finally forget about 'Me Too' now" written all over it. Pity that the reinvention comes with a distracting amount of vocal modulation and at the expense of anything actually Meghan Trainor about it. [3]

William John: A mishmash of instagrammable aphorisms, with a tired trope like a whispered chorus, is an improvement on undermining your self-empowerment aesthetic with a genetics polemic - but only just. [2]

Thomas Inskeep: Trainor's flailing, desperately trying to get her career back on track, but she's not up to the faux-dark trap-pop she's attempting here. Minaj, meanwhile, will clearly do anything for a check, except exert effort. Both of them should be embarrassed by this. [1]

Tobi Tella: I'm not saying Meghan Trainor was good when she was doing doo-wop pastiche, but at least it was a gimmick to hide the soullessness. The highlight of the song is Nicki's listless verse referencing monsters, reminding us of simpler times and much better songs. [3]

Kylo Nocom: Meghan Trainor is pop's biggest joke. Her demographic gets dragged daily: stans always have aversion towards anybody that dares to fill a niche for "soccer moms" or "the GP" (one of pop fandom's biggest mysteries; what makes you so different from "normal people that listen to music"?). The homogeneity of publications' takes on pop is less a side effect of poptimism than it is of stan culture; nobody wants to ignite the wrath of Twitter fanbases, so it's best to come after Ed Sheeran and P!nk as easy targets. Meghan's career of empowerment anthems is not amazing, but has never been enough to warrant the bandwagon of shit-talk she receives across the board. Any attempt at trying to justify her value as a musician feels as if it immediately starts off with contrarian intent rather than out of sincere enjoyment. Yet out of her hits, I'd be hard-pressed to say she's ever even had a truly horrible song. I've suffered through some of the worst of radio overplay and still can't remember ever changing the station whenever one of her songs comes on. My tolerance for her sincerity, no matter how poor the messaging ends up being, is high enough to find Meghan dumb fun. Her latest single expectedly doesn't fascinate lyrically, even if "I am blessed by the heavens" is remarkably badass in the two ways it's delivered, but nobody wants to talk about how fucking weird this is. The DNA of "Nice to Meet Ya" is loaded with referents: "Tongue" (the whispered chorus), "Loyal to Me" (millennial R&B revivalism as filtered through perceived "Spotify-core"), "Wasabi" (the ridiculous grinding bass), "Beez n the Trap" (though more "Soap," I'm not telling anybody to respect Melanie Martinez, plus Nicki's entrance completely re-contextualizes the drop), any Zedd song that used the dumbass vocoder. It'd be easy to shit on this as desperate if it actually sounded like any hit on the radio right now; as is, it's a complete Frankenstein of various tropes catered directly to my tastes. Meghan Trainor provides a lesson for us all: being perceived as pop's biggest tryhard might just means she's trying more than 99% of people out there. Looks like her hard work has paid off. [9]

Katherine St Asaph: Can you have a consistent identity -- "brand," we'd say now -- if The Discourse has decided your identity is actually something else? Meghan Trainor has been made into a punchline, all her music just elaboration on the joke. (To be fair, that weird horny press release for the EP didn't help.) But that music, the actual sounds on recording, is a consistent string of millennial R&B singles as faithful and nervy as Rina Sawayama or Kehlani or LIZ or Raye, all of whom this would be praised for releasing this exact song minus the Meghan tag. The "blessed by the heavens" hook and faux-brass backing would be celebrated if this were a single by Ariana Grande or Fifth Harmony, for whom it may well have been written. (Camila would do the whispered vocals, right?) Critics may even like it, if only for the near-quote in the synth hook of Cassie's "Me and U." [7]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Given the delightfully entertaining chaos of Meghan Trainor's career as of late -- from that crazy UTI-inducing press release, to the catchy (eu)genetics song, to her somehow being involved in the comeback reunion of the Pussycat Dolls --- I really wanted to like this. But my actual reaction aligns more closely with what Nicki says halfway though her verse: "Ha, ha, ha-ha, ha, ha-ha-ha." [4]

Brad Shoup: Trainor's uncanny chorus makes this one feel like it's 70% percent Minaj. It's actually better than Minaj's cashed-in favor of a verse, which opts for the safe syllabic choice every time. Still, mark another square on the bingo card: Trainor's made throwback snap-pop. [4]

Joshua Lu: Treat Myself being a decent album isn't particularly surprising, given how most of Meghan Trainor's 2019 releases showcased her affinity for making easily digestible but pristine pop music. "Nice to Meet Ya" isn't the best offering, but it is emblematic of its parent album's general formula: histrionically sassy lyricism, production that doesn't skimp on vocoder or random bloopy noises, and a general feeling of datedness, best brought in with Nicki Minaj's most genuinely carefree verse since the Roman Reloaded era. Maybe it's a sign of my aging taste, or just sympathy for a struggling pop star whose career I've enjoyed observing for the past six plus years, but I find myself entirely willing to appreciate what this fun little pop song has to offer. [7]

Jackie Powell: Meghan Trainor has been through the wringer in the lead up to the release of her third album TREAT MYSELF. According to an interview with the Zack Sang Show, Trainer was stalled during a time where there was a lot of "traffic" in the market. But also, she was told that she could simply produce a better product and Epic records could afford to give her that time. Almost two years ago, TSJ reviewed "No Excuses," which had a memorable chorus but fell flat, more like a Fifth Harmony B-side than a Trainor track. "Nice to Meet Ya" is sonically more dynamic than "No Excuses" but at times sounds like a structural carbon copy of Ariana Grande's mega-hit "Problem." Whispered hook: check. Bridge formed by a female rapper: check. (Nicki Minaj's verse works, but its main function has been for hip-hop choreographers, which is fine I guess.) Although I wonder what would have ensued if Trainor's husband and former Spy Kid Daryl Sabara took over the whispering duties from his wife on the post-chorus, akin to Big Sean on the Grande cut. But apparently, he is credited for backing vocals? Trainor has been notorious for "repetitive pop," and lately has leaned into her song titles too much. While "Genetics" was upgraded with a Pussycat Dolls feature, I can't help but cringe when the word is spelled out. And don't get me started on "Evil Twin." Trainor has difficulty with her lede. Her lede is either forced or buried, which is something that transpires on this latest single. What would happen if she didn't begin her songs with the title? What would "Nice to Meet Ya" have sounded like without its hook, which consists of the whispering? This single could have easily been named "What I Want to Be" which might be less cutesy than "Nice to Meet Ya," but it's a bit more appropriate for where Trainor is in her life. Something that's unfortunate about Trainor is how she consistently forces the issues she's bringing to the surface. Don't get me wrong, her message is vital for her audience, but maybe she can use a metaphorical editor or another producer or songwriter who can relate to and understand her message, altering it so that it isn't oversold. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]