#thoughts on media

[juneiper-art]

thinking more abt da/v and RT and something i like abt RT is that its not afraid to be melodramatic? like the emotional stakes for the characters in their personal quests are SO HIGH and the game isn't shy about having them striken by grief or rage or self destructive desires (Heinrix and Idira e.g.). The personal quests in da/v have emotional stakes too but the game seems embarrassed to have the characters really react about it? Dav gets pretty upset about what happens at Weisshaupt but his emotional outburst is cut off with a joke..Emmr. is terrified of death except he never...breaks down about it? this fear that has plagued him his whole life? even rook is denied multiple opportunities to react with grief that crosses over into devastation (the final section of the game, which i think is the best written, actually finally confronts grief without this sort of embarrassment and thats...why its the best part to me...)

i wonder if its this sort of contemporary idea that melodrama IS embarrassing... but in fiction a lot of the catharsis comes from the high stakes and being able to take part in what the characters experience. i think the best media is the kind thats confident in itself and takes its own themes with a kind of earnest gravity even if that steps into the melodramatic.

[talekk]

Just stayed up all night watching what I assume is the final season of umbrella academy and while I thought it was good some sections of it felt rushed or too contrived and I wish they'd had maybe two more episodes to work around. I get that there were a lot of spinning plates and they had to get from plot point A to plot point B but this season was only 6 episodes whereas all the others had 10 and I think this one definitely would have benefited from that extra runtime.

[noodles-and-tea]

Our hextech dream….

[tariah23]

Oh brother

[fanaticalthings]

Bruce Wayne except he texts like an ominous boomer

wdym you can't tell if he's threatening them?

Based on this post by @mysterycitrus :)

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Bonus:

Happy birthday, Tim 🥰

[crimsoncold]

Ah yes when authors or creators totally fudge the execution of their story and/or view their character in a way that is not actually supported by the very content they have created...

Complex and flawed characters are often more interesting than ones that are "perfect," whether or not they get the opportunity for growth or change in the story. Anti heroes can be refreshing and more compelling than traditional heroes. Villains themselves can be extremely entertaining, and occasionally are the best part of a piece of media...

But the author and narrative needs to have some coherency in their understanding, treatment, or presentation of their characters.

(When I say this I don't mean an author should be expected to explicitly condemn their character or their character's actions ....that is where one's basic reading comprehension comes in)

But rather I mean that when a creator doesn't understand or has an incredibly inaccurate view of their character or their character's actions- one that is totally unsupported by their actual body of work- it becomes incredibly frustrating as a reader or viewer.

I start to become irritated with the story, suspect the author is incompetent as a storyteller/incapable of engaging with media (even their own) in a thoughtful in depth manner, lose faith in their ability to make an engaging well thought out narrative, and often no longer feel its worth my time to continue to watch or read their story.

Truly I'm fine with a narrative or character that an author purposefully makes and understands is dark/disturbing/monstrous/satirical/misleading or unreliable

... but please, please just give me anything other than an author sincerely (i.e. delusionally) presenting or believing something or someone is virtuous and good when everything in their body of work indicates they are really just awful...

(Being you know a typical reasonable person I posess the ability to analyze and separate the content/actions/words of fictional characters from the opinions and values of the author... and I can appreciate dark stories or character without feeling like it says something bad about my own morals and without requiring the author to justify their choices by either incorporating some sort of moral lesson or explicitly condemning/critiquing something within their work itself... e.g. I am still unapologetically a huge fan of hannibal (series) and hannigram- awesome dark show/dark pairing...)

or on the other end of this same scale (and another pet peeve of mine) when it's not the author or story with a disconnect but rather fans who are interpreting a character in a manner distinctly unlike how the story actually presents them.

Being totally in denial about the flaws/mistakes/darker aspects of a character, badly misinterpreting the author's story, rejecting or outright ignoring all the obvious canon evidence that their favorite character made a mistake/was in the wrong/or is much darker than they are willing to admit, or harassing fans whose interpretation/opinion does not match their own heavily biased one...

(Guys just accept/embrace a character's flaws or even their villainous aspects and enjoy whatever story or character you want to...you can like a fictional character without having to deliberately/inaccurately interpret them as always in the right or perfectly virtuous... you don't have to have/fabricate moral justifications to support you liking a character ... they are fictional characters ... you are free to like/appreciate/critique/dislike/or otherwise engage with characters... but they don't exist and their actions aren't real ...you don't need to purposefully bury your head in the sand or go to other extremes to defend someone/something that doesn't exist)

Here's the thing I keep trying to articulate and possibly failing: I don't actually mind characters who are terrible people. I have enjoyed many. What I mind is characters who are terrible people while the narrative keeps trying to say that they are wonderful, often contradicting what the narrative shows us, with no self awareness

[badolmen]

People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.

For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.

So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.

Edit: if you are able, use $5 you would otherwise use for a streaming subscription to donate to a GazaFunds campaign.

[captaingimpy]

Roko’s Basilisk and the Broader AI Conversation: A Reflection on Fear, Control, and Human Nature

Hey everybody! Recently, I watched a very long YouTube video, on the thought experiment “Roko’s Basilisk” merchandising posted to a YouTube channel called Aperture. For your convenience, I will include the video here. And if you guys wanna watch and discuss, I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments. Recently, I watched a video that expanded on the infamous thought experiment,…

[mroddmod]

they are like puppies. 2 me

[juneiper-art]

this is a tangent but i think one unfortunate side effect of media focusing on 'morally good people' or whatever is that it denies us the chance to see characters who are incredibly fucked up and who do terrible things to themselves and others like... healing. Like idk man maybe its just me but sometimes i feel hopeless about my own path to healing and making these characters who survive horrible things in horrible ways like...helps me. It doesn't really help when i see a person who is always good doing good things through horrible events and having a good ending, I guess. it's not that simple to me. really caught up on this idea that sometimes what we do to survive can't be considered 'good' but i'm trying to find grace for that in my own life and for others in their lives, you know.

[laddersofsweetmisery]

I don't see enough people mourning over the slow death of physical media. And I don't just mean TV shows, video games, or movies--which don't even get me started about how we don't really 'own' anything anymore. It includes notes, journals, and letters to one another...so much of our history is lost when we lose a password, a website goes down, a file/hardware is corrupted, or a platform disappears. History that doesn't seem important until you no longer have access to it. Physical media does a lot for memory recall. How many memories will we lose because we don't have something tangible to tie it back to? Something to hold in our hands and stir up those memories we thought were once lost? Sometimes I wonder what the difference between burning a book and losing access to physical media is when someone can pull the plug and remove your access so easily.

[jellolegos]

older korrasami

[sharks3ye]

Oh i didnt post this here yet?? Hi

[nekhcore]

HEY YOU!

Yeah, you! Are you trans? Do you like reading books? Or watching movies?

Do you like media about trans men/transmasculine characters but don't know where to find it?

That's sooo crazy because I have this little spreadsheet I'm working on where I'm trying to document all media with protagonists/major characters who are FTM or transmasculine.

The spreadsheet currently has 400+ entries spread across the following categories:

Books

Manga

Memoirs and non-fiction

Movies

TV Shows

Graphic novels / Comics

Webcomics

Audio dramas

Books and movies are also sorted by:

Which character is trans (MC, love interest, antagonist, etc)

If the trans character is POC

The trans character's sexuality (Because I saw lots of transhet guys sad about only being able to find gay romances)

If the author/actor is also trans (if we know for sure)

It's free to use, and free to add to as well! Editing permissions are on, and I check on the spreadsheet every now and then to make sure everything is in order and to clean up.

If you know something that isn't on the list, please add it! You don't have to fill in every single column, but fill it to the best of your abilities.

If you don't want to use the big ass long link below, you can also use: bit.ly/FTM-protags

I made this because I want it to be a community resource. So even if you're not a trans guy or transmasculine person, please reblog!

[theriverbeyond]

tbh I can't stop thinking about how i went into Hadestown being like "this is a tragic love story based on a greek myth I enjoy :)" and I came out the other side covered in blood being like "this is a thesis about how capitalism inevitably leads to both personal and global ruin, and so we are duty bound to resist it even as we lose, again and again and again. no matter how impossible it feels or how many times we fail and hit a wall and fall, we try again"

[vivitalks]

can't stop thinking about brennan saying "i'm going to describe something very heartbreaking now." how often does he break the kayfabe just to warn one of the players about the next thing he's going to say?? so much tragedy in dimension 20 but it's here, this moment, that is devastating enough that brennan takes a moment to give a warning: i'm going to describe something very heartbreaking now.

adaine abernant grew up lonely and abused in the shadow of a cruel, perfect aelwyn who could do no wrong. adaine didn't even want to find aelwyn, and every step their adventure took in her direction was a step adaine asterisked with a loud proclamation that she hated her bitch sister and didn't care about finding her. and only after discovering that aelwyn had been a months-long prisoner, tortured at her parents' hands, only after hearing a destroyed aelwyn apologize, does adaine consider that maybe aelwyn was a victim, too. and she overcomes her childhood resentment. she sees the bigger picture. she rescues her sister. she protects her as they sleep, and aelwyn's magic protects them in return. it is, maybe, the first time adaine truly feels that she has an older sister. and there's hope now. aelwyn has been broken down, but also redeemed, and they're together now, and adaine can help her, and they can be a family, because people aren't perfect, but aelwyn said she's sorry. and adaine goes into her mind and sees all the self-loathing she never knew about, and even more than that the fear of their parents, and she understands aelwyn so perfectly in this moment, all bitterness and spite dissolved, just a young woman taking a leap of faith and being rewarded with family, finally, a sister she never got to have, who actually loves her and believes in her and wants to keep her safe.

and then aelwyn's memory resets.

and in an instant, adaine loses everything she never knew she could have.

pretty heartbreaking.