smidgingtonblogs

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So I finally got to see Hadestown yesterday, which I've wanted to do for years.

Today, I open Tumblr for the first time in months and see very second post us about Hadestown.

What's up with that?

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Work vacuum died. This is the fifth one since I started working here five years ago.

The first one died because my coworker vacuumed up rocks.

The second one died because my coworker vacuumed up rocks.

The third one died because my coworker vacuumed up rocks.

The fourth one died for unknown reasons that involved my coworker vacuuming up rocks.

The fifth one died a few minutes ago and it was a big mystery and my coworker was like “oh I don’t know what happened it just overtaxed for some reason” so I looked inside the hose and—get this—it was jammed with rocks.

He keeps buying bigger and more expensive vacuums and complaining about how shitty and faulty the last ones were and every time I suggest something like “what if you didn’t vacuum up rocks” he’s like oh no it is the vacuums who are wrong.

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How could you, Pluto?

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So it's 3am and I can't go to sleep because I'm freezing and I can't warm up because my jumper needs to dry in the dryer and I have work in 6 hours. How are y'all?

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I have a lot of thoughts and takes on the live action Avatar. Like, a lot. But one i really need to get out of my system right now is Sokka. I really feel like they striped so much of his character away. And the point this became clear to me was when he encountered the Face Stealer.

Already, they had stepped away the sexism that in the original show Sokka had to learn to outgrow and be better from. And that's... fine. It's a choice. At least they were going to instead focus on other aspects of his character, right? Right?

They then give Sokka the new arc of learning to believe in himself, which again is... fine. Except they really half-assed it. The one moment they had to show us this new arc, to drive it home that Sokka has crippling self doubt and trauma that he needs all the seasons to work on and overcome, was when meeting the Face Stealer Koh. Let's see how they did.

We start off strong by seeing Katara's darkest moment, the night her mother was killed. Katara saw it happen, may have even been the reason for it. Like damn, that's extremely traumatic. And she's still a child. We now understand Katara's anger and drive.

Then we get Sokka's darkest moment. One time, after a rite of passage went wrong, Sokka's dad didn't believe in him. That's it. He was even really nice about it, hoping Sokka would get better in the future, he just wasn't ready NOW. Like, what? How is this Sokka's darkest moment, when shortly after this would have been the night Sokka also lost his mother? It's so weak when compared to Katara literally watching her mother burn to death. And such a disservice to Sokka's character. Sokka's self doubt was present in the ordinal show too, and was tied to his inability to do anything when the Fire Nation raided his home.

Sokka's darkest moment should have been that night. Imagine that night playing out from Sokka's point of view. The raid begins. Sokka is too young to fight, but he wants to help. Hakoda doesn't want him to fight, and asked him to gather the other children and run. Sokka doesn't understand but does so anyway. He gets the other children away, they bunker down in an ice cave to wait out the raid, and that's when Sokka realises that his baby sister Katara isn't there. Where is Katara? Then Koh turns up and attacks.

This change would put Sokka's trauma on the same level as Katara's, it's stronger, and says a lot more about his character. We now understand why he is so protective of Katara, he almost lost her before. We understand his self doubt and trauma without other characters standing around stating it out loud. You can then back up this trauma by showing Sokka heedlessly running into danger to protect others, because he felt so ashamed on the night of the raid when Hakoda made him run and hide. He was a child, he didn't understand why Hakoda asked him to do that. And that could be Sokka's lesson.

If you're going down this route with Sokka, commit. When you stripe away an entire arc from a character, replace it with something stronger.

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Man, what a cute meet for Comms. Guy and Engine Guy.

Aang: All life is sacred. I cannot, and will not, compromise my values. I mustn't take even just one life. Even if it's a monster's life, my philosophy – my culture's philosophy – is to avoid taking life at all costs. As much as you'll try to drill it in me, it's not who I am. I'm not going to kill the a single living creature, not even the Fire Lord.

Meanwhile, Sokka:

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I feel like a lot of peoples research into bee-keeping began and ended with The Bee Movie.

vegans make peace with honey

no shut up do it

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What is Hilda and why am I suddenly in love with her?

Hilda by Duane Bryers

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In my defence, I think I did quite well keeping up...

Saw Seed FREEDOM tonight with my sister, who's never seen the show or it's sequel. I did try to give her a brief rundown of the plot but I couldn't even get half of Seed, there's so much stuff. My sister said it would be fine though.

After the movie, as we were leaving, she said to me maybe the movie should've had a recap of the show.

My response was immediate.

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I want 100 of them. Like right now.

Little fucking guy alert!!

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i don’t mean to be political, but what if everyone had basic human rights

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pro-AI in the sense of "they taught a bread scanning computer to recognize cancer cells" etc etc

against AI in the sense of "we stole artwork from hundreds to thousands of artists, didn't credit them and didn't financially compensate them"

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Oh no. The nostalgic man doesn't want to do the movie any more. Guess that means no more movies.

I'm going to very boldly make an unpopular opinion and say that making a Pirates of the Caribbean film with a new cast is probably a good idea.

Like, the Depp fans are saying that 'you can't do it without Depp,' but he was one of the worst elements of the fifth movie, and wasn't great in the fourth either. And since they're never going to bring back Norrington and make the entire series about him, this is probably the best they can do.

Besides, what're they meant to do? Say 'no more movies about pirates because Johnny Depp doesn't want to do them?' Come on, man.

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Are the tapes bebop?

Ineffable Parents

// OOC a sec. I know it's a lot of ifs: but what if they were parents and what if their children were the Bookshop and the Bentley and what if they were child shaped - what then?//

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“Australia Day” is almost over and I haven’t even seen the photo of Burnum Burnum planting the Aboriginal flag on the cliffs of Dover and claiming Britain for the Indigenous people of Australia on my dash yet

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A Matter of Principle: Rejecting ChatGPT

This week has been a really difficult one on a number of levels, but chiefly because my primary client has decided to embrace ChatGPT. This may not seem like that bad an issue to you, but it's devastating to me because I see it for what it is—regurgitated plagiarism.

I'm not a fancy writer. I've published articles and even once wrote a cookbook for a nonprofit. But I am a copywriter, a Digital Marketer, a screenwriter and novelist who hopes someday to make something out of those pursuits. And I don't think this is an issue of writers versus technology, but rather principle versus plagiarism.

I don't see AI as inevitable. I see it as a choice that we can make, and I choose not to feed into it, not to endorse it, not to proliferate the idea that there is somehow any "intelligence" at work.

Writers' work fed the machine. Without permission. Without payment. Without proper protocols. I refuse to work alongside it.

So, for the first time in seven years, I put in a job application today. I had to update my resume and rewrite my cover letter.

I wasn't planning to jump in so soon to a job search, but a friend sent me something that would be a perfect fit that was posted 5 hours before I asked for suggestions.

So, I took a leap and gave it a try. Nothing may come of it. I may be hunting for a while before I find something to replace my current situation. But I refuse to give in against my principles.

I made that mistake early in my career when I was so afraid of not being able to feed my family, I would take any abuse and roll with anything that came my way. I decided then that I would never allow that, again. Because, who are we if we don't stand for what is right?

It's scarier this way. But, oh, it feels so much better. So much truer.

Onward.