#the point is progress not perfection

[curiosity-killed]

a while back I had lunch with a couple of coworkers, one of whom asked me why I like public transit and public libraries—in a genuinely, sincerely interested fashion. it was not the first time I've been asked—or had people express bemusement about this—and so, despite being caught totally off-guard the first time, I did actually have an answer this time, which was I try to support things I want to see in the world.

and i felt (and feel) like this is extremely obvious. if we all assume that someone else is going to make sure the things we care about exist and exist well, so that we don't have to do anything—chances are good they're not going to get the support they need and they, in fact, won't exist or improve. So, the counter to that is to take the steps you can to provide that support. (duh)

but I feel like there is this mindset (that is heavily class [and likely race and gender] influenced) of like....someone else will take care of it. And it's about public transit or libraries and independent bookstores and it's about voting and advocacy and community. All these important things that require maintenance and perpetual engagement—the same way that you can't just wash your dishes once in your life and never have to do them again (unless you switch to disposal dishes, but then you still have to take out the trash).

I get that there are a lot of reasons why people feel disenfranchised and fatigued but...at the end of the day, life is composed of an endless series of actions that influence what options are available to you in the future. whether it's voting or going to the library instead of amazon or taking the bus instead of an uber....like. yeah you're gonna have to keep doing it if you want to have an impact. there's no silver bullet that's going to magically land us in utopia with only perfect choices, so you're just going to have to keep choosing the best option you've got to get you that next step closer.

if there isn't a bus that takes you from doorstep to doorstep, you still take the bus that gets you closest. if the dishes are dirty, you wash them. if you want the benefits of society, you show up.

[blackkatdraws2]

I have a lot of leftover drawings in my gallery. [Blank Scripts AU]

[Content Warning: Images below contain Gore, Death, and Disturbing/Uncomfortable Imagery]

I find it a bit cute knowing they start out as crazy and then slowly settle into something calmer and relatively healthier after learning to adapt to each other's lust-turned-love. [Stanley did it first but hey :3]

[runawaymun]

I'm just going to say it. the attitude I'm seeing in the Silmarillion fandom from those who have never watched the ROP show, but are enjoying gifsets of the Annatar/Brimb scenes and expressing that it has them interested in those portrayals, while continuing to loudly assert that the Celebrimbor casting is atrocious because he's 'old and blond' fucking disgusts me.

[uwo-kun]

wankabu in which kabu is nervous to admit the things he thinks and wanderer isn't sure kabu's ready to hear the things he's thought.

[bywandandsword]

I'm also eagerly awaiting the day that we don't start off the semester with a publication by Boas or Malinowski. Sure, read their stuff in a theory class, get a basis for how anthropology theory developed, but in every other class? For fucks sake, there has certainly been better introductory writings on these topics since 1926, you know?

[compacflt]

I've just started watching The Queen's Gambit and it got me wondering: does Iceman play chess? Cause I can totally see it happening

yeah

this section of my wips got preemptively deleted for being boring and “who cares” and not well written

but yes

[carcarrot]

wonderful news: im crafting things

[just-hyde]

On progress, styles and magic

Every damn time I draw lineart, I think it's finished.

Finished, just ugly af.

But noooooooo....

Approximately at 4am a couple of days later ma arse dramatically lits up a cigarette and whips out a metaphorical bottle of Vanish outta thin air.

Like, "Aight, lemme look at this nonsense."

And there we go again. Biting the bullet.

"His nose is too flat. Let's add some blush and use shadows to show the form. Yep, just like animators do, no need in thick lineart strokes here. Nahuuh... Sharper. And a cute cheek coz he looked older last time. Mm-hmm... The colour is kinda dull, no? A better reference would be nice... Let's add some pink here. I know it's monochrome! Just for fun, like a reflection of something. Humans have blood, duh. And chins. And-a... Focus on the eyes for a moment."

Sometimes it even takes 1 mug of coffee and a good music playlist to push forward:

....and a couple of extra hours. Yep, I had to add a new canvas 'cause that one was already laggy.

...and a complete change of brushes/style mid-drawing.

No matter how hard I tried to opt for a sharper comic-book look I have on paper, some hatching, "The style chooses the artist, Mr. Potter."

Oh f#ck...

I had to redo it from scratch and it's still not good enough.

Hits hard, aye? Still, it's progress.

At least this is worth it.

Or so I hope.

#immadramaqueen

[teafiend]

Reviews (summaries) of a few of the drama adaptations for [Legend of the Condor Heroes]/ 「射鵰英雄傳」 from the last three decades:

*Drama posters are from oldest to latest (from left to right, top to bottom)

1983 version (starring Barbara Yung and Felix Wong):

Too young to remember and never rewatched. A feted classic from Hong Kong TVB’s heyday. The only thing I will unequivocally say I love about this version is the iconic theme songs, which are the only musical tracks I can easily recall and identify when it comes to the numerous adaptations.

1994 version (starring Athena Chu and Julian Cheung):

First love. Good performances. Beautiful and ultra-cute JingRong. Favourite balance of visuals for JingRong. Solid production (HK TVB). Newish classic. Faithful to the main storylines. The version which made me fall for Guo Jing and the saga. Sometimes, however, first love only goes so far.

2003 version (starring Zhou Xun and Li Ya Peng):

Gritty. Jiang Hu. Sweeping epic. Mature vibes. Tragic and heartbreak-tinged. Faithful to the main storylines. Brilliant JingRong. Elegantly cultured Huang Rong. Earnestly chivalrous Guo Jing. Love both the portrayals of Guo Jing and Huang Rong (despite the many criticisms received). Loved the veteran gravitas of many of the supporting casts. Performances were fabulous. My only gripe is with Yang Kang (and his actor, Zhou Jie, whose performance I was not especially partial to, but he did okay though). The best Mongolian segment(s) out of all adaptations. Favourite drama adaptation (to date). The main and ending theme songs are fantastic, and the opening track has quite an epic saga feel.

(Some audience disliked ZX’s portrayal, and criticisms abound about her using her own voice during the show - which is a bit husky - but I had absolutely no issues with it. I thought the criticisms weirdly petty, actually. As someone who does not find dubs at all nice, I appreciated her using her own voice/dub for the series. LYP also received his fair share of criticisms for his portrayal. Personally, I enjoyed both tremendously).

2008 version (starring Ariel Lin and Hu Ge):

An adaptation I skipped as neither mains appealed to me, and Liu Shi Shi as Mu Nian Ci was not enough of a draw to make me trudge through an adaption I read was not particularly faithful to the novels. Visuals and vibes wise, I just could not see Hu Ge as Guo Jing - which is simply a personal preference - but I do not doubt that his performance/portrayal would have been fine. That goes for the rest of the cast and their performances.

2017 version (starring Li Yi Tong and Yang Xu Wen):

Pretty. Vibrant aesthetics. Wuxia vibes. Relatively youthful. Commendable production. Sweet, lovey-dovey and affectionate JingRong. Cutie - and handsome - Guo Jing. Excellent Huang Rong. Faithful to the main storylines. Highly enjoyable. Main instrumental track a clever nolstagic callback to the classic Hong Kong songs/themes. Good production. Superb performances overall.

(I found this version’s GJ a bit too prettily handsome, which is lovely but also felt a bit not-GJ. Still enjoyed his portrayal a lot though).

2024 version (starring Bao Shang En and Ci Sha):

Strong Wuxia vibes. Solid aesthetics and production. Youthful. Squee-worthy JingRong. Adorably devious Huang Rong. Favourite Guo Jing and JingRong (to date). Wonderful performances all around. Faithful to the main storylines. Some distinct emotional beats.

Especially noteworthy was the beautifully shot and conveyed scenes from near the end during GJ’s mental and spiritual struggles with his grief and martial abilities. Superbly done and went to the heart of the novel’s themes.

Flaws included pacing and issues with storylines length. Uneven focus. Lack of epic-ness.

(Ci Sha is not really my cup-of-tea visuals wise but he looked and felt like what Guo Jing *should* be and his performance was compelling and layered. His portrayal embodied the 靖 of 郭靖, and I think that meant something significant. He truly came into his own by the last third when the confidence and composure GJ cultivated throughout the series made his nuanced portrayal fangirl-scream worthy. *fainting away* Love his steady, gentle and devoted GJ to bits. The focus and complexity they afforded Yang Kang in this version made him a much more complex and conflicted antagonist, which was fascinating. This Wanyan Hong Lie inspired major feelings for a character I already found especially interesting and tragi-complex since the 2003 adaptation. The soft-spot I have for him is too real).

[valmnera]

One of the worst things they did to Richter was giving him a generic backstory where a woman is fridged. There has been many animes where the main character's mother dies. They literally created an oc for the sole purpose of killing her off.

What's worse is that Richter's arc in the games doesn't involve fridging! But sure, what a progressive show.

[antirepurp]

holding pokemon bw/bw2 in my arms shaking and crying im sorry i didn't know how to appreciate everything you did when i was younger i promise to cherish the risks you took the gameplay elements you brought the story you told now that i know better

[falinscloaca]

pisses me off so much much that i’m not immune to people arguing about steven universe

[calico-kiwi]

i have been learning taekwondo for ALMOST A YEAR ALREADY so how come it wasn’t until LITERALLY TODAY it dawned on me I can now use my newly acquired fighting knowledge to WRITE COOL AND BETTER FIGHT SCENES FOR MARIBAT OH MY GOOOODDDD IVE LITERALLY BEEN TOO AFRAID TO REALLY WRITE FIGHT SCENES BUT THIS IS LIKE SO PERFECT

anyways catch me daydreaming abt writing maribat stuff again, hopefully we can turn the daydreaming into daydoing (or maybe nightdoing)

[isan0rt]

Hey crazy thought but maybe Kairi wouldn’t seem like such a ‘wasted character’ if this fandom would quit taking everything of narrative and thematic significance about her and assigning it to Riku constantly all the time.

(The evaluation of the ways in which Kairi and Riku are important and vital foils for each other got kind of long so it’s under a read more; to be clear, I love Riku so much, and it makes me super mad to see his narrative also being undermined by this trend, this is not a hate post.)

Kairi and Riku serve opposing but complementary purposes in the narrative. Kairi represents light, but she also represents the stagnation of the light. Many characters who are associated with just light are also associated with stagnation and a resistance to change. Hoder and Eraqus are particularly extreme examples, but Aqua exemplifies this as well. They want a predictable world where things stay as they ‘should’ be and they are threatened by changes to the status quo. Eraqus in particular refuses to change anything about himself for 60 years, only taking on students at the last minute because he’s running out of time. Kairi, like Eraqus and Hoder and Aqua, stands as the bold, sharp light that casts others into shadow.

However, the other side of “resistance to change” means that Kairi represents restoration. She is able to restore Sora in KH1, pull them home in KH2, and hold Sora back from death itself in KH3, because her power is one of restoration. She holds so tightly to their old way of being that she can stop death itself in the interest of not changing too drastically. But she is unable to move forward on her own, because she fears change too much. She wants to chase after the boys when they keep leaving her behind…but she isn’t able to keep up, because what she actually wants is for them not to run at all. 

She wants to go home, and restore their previous status quo. This desire is consistent in her for the entire series; this is also why she is unable to let go of her childhood crush for Sora, even though he’s obviously not the person she wants him to be anymore. For Sora, Kairi is the rock, she is the home that will always be there, he feels that she is the secure dock he can always return to after the storm. He relies on her not changing, which reinforces her fear of change. Lea is similar, and they can bond in KH3 over both their mutual desires to restore a prior, idealized status quo where their friends were reliably there and not at risk of disappearing on them or running away from them or changing.

Riku on the other hand embodies transformation. He represents change to the status quo, growth and development and a new way to be. Too much change is as much of a problem as too little; Kairi in KH1 sees Riku wants change, and it scares her, and he does in fact go too far. At the same time, she’s the catalyst for Riku’s desire to change their circumstances. Kairi’s arrival at the islands in the meteor shower incites Riku to dream of going to the outside world. This too is a tension that creates an anxiety in Kairi - in a way, she can see herself as to blame for Riku’s desire to change. But Riku was always going to change, because that’s who he is. He is radical change, the change that cuts away restrictive dogma so that the world can advance. Riku drives Sora to also want to grow and change, to excel and challenge himself. Sora wants to be like Riku, whose strength and internal drive he admires.

Ultimately Kairi and Riku are in BALANCE with each other. Ironically, while Kairi is themed as ‘the sea,’ her narrative purpose is to be steady as the earth. Riku’s name is ‘the earth,’ but he is changing and dangerous as the sea. They are one another’s reflections in the narrative. Kairi’s arc is about learning to let go and move forward, even though it scares her. Riku’s entire arc is about finding balance, not throwing away the comfort of the past, that inoculates him from falling too far the way Baldr and Xehanort do. Riku can drive Kairi to join them by giving her a Keyblade too. Kairi can pull Riku back from fleeing from them by seeing him even under Ansem’s face. He is able to be in contrast with Kairi in a healthy way, in a way that honors her fears while also refusing stagnation. They have to work TOGETHER to find Sora, because they are one another’s narrative and thematic opposites. Kairi is too stagnant on her own, and Riku too volatile. Sora is the healthy middle between them, the center-point that can bind the light and the dark TOGETHER for one purpose. 

Kairi is narratively and thematically important to Kingdom Hearts. She represents something, and trying to take the things that reinforce her narrative importance to the story (her representation of the light, her narrative purpose of ‘disruption’ in her arrival via the meteor shower, her position as the one who grounds Sora in opposition to Riku’s position as the one who drives Sora to push himself and achieve more) not only undermines her story, it undermines Riku’s.

[deceptive-daydreams]

my brain fighting itself on if they should finally kiss or if i should keep the slow burn going

[driftingballoons]

Mom: “God why do you give up so easily you can’t expect to be perfect immediately”

well you see mother when I’m not perfect immediately you burst into flames and bite my head off