#and to which they are conflating it

[ensoleils]

why are people against publishers earning money? god forbid they have money to publish books…

[mylastmoleculeofserotonin]

Can we talk about how the birthday gifts that Kipo and Wolf got each other were an amazing writing choice? Not only do the gifts match the aesthetics of the one who found them, but they also show how the two of them are beginning to value each other’s perspectives on life. When Kipo was looking for a gift for Wolf, she found something that was small enough that it wouldn’t be a burden for Wolf to keep and would still help her fight and survive, while also being cute, showing that Kipo has now truly appreciates Wolf’s pragmatism even though she doesn’t adopt those views herself and is still as determined as ever to making the world around her brighter and happier. Meanwhile, Wolf found Kipo a gift that really has no survival purposes, and though it was mostly destroyed, still chose to salvage a piece of it simply because Kipo liked it, reflecting how Wolf has begun to value Kipo’s ability to see the best in everything, but not yet having embraced it to the extent where she sees it as not worth spending too much energy to do so.

[flowersandfashion]

sorry let me rant about downton abbey 10 years later

Thomas's conversion therapy plot pisses me off so much. firstly, it's incredibly out of character. he never wanted to change to conform to society, he wanted the world to change to accomodate him. the man who said "it's not against the law to hope is it" and "I'm not foul, Mr Carson, I'm not like you, but I'm not foul" would NEVER

secondly, from a storytelling perspective, the only 'problem' is that he used infected needles. did we forget that Thomas was a sergeant in the RAMC? he knows how to sterilise needles and how to recognise and treat infection. this also shifts the blame to Thomas himself for getting sick and implies that the conversion therapy itself is harmless (Dr Clarkson says it's just saline solution)

thirdly, it's not historically accurate. I'm not an expert but conversion therapy was not at all common in the 1920s, even Sigmund Freud was against it. hormone therapy and chemical castration were barely developing let alone available to the public (I can't imagine what else the 'treatment' was supposed to be). the only practices that I can find evidence of were psychoanalysis and electric shock therapy

Thomas also mentions that he did electric shock treatment - if you really want to make a point about homophobia in the 1920s (and make Thomas suffer as much as possible), show that instead. watching him be literally tortured for his sexuality would have been far more impactful than him just... looking sweaty for a few episodes

[chemsexholmes]

one thing worth noting in the conversation about whether or not college students have "become stupid" is that the attitude of the general public toward academic study has largely shifted in the past few decades away from education as a moral betterment (and also, implicitly, a status symbol), toward totally embracing the idea that education is the Thing that gets you Jobs. which of course is pushed by policymakers and academic institutions, because how else do you sell academic funding in a capitalistic society? but has created an ethos about education as something you have to drag your feet through in order to get your degree, which makes students feel more inclined to use LLM like chatgpt to complete their work because they fundamentally aren't connecting with the material.

[aliusfrater]

i wanted to explain myself to myself in an understandable way. i gave shape to my fears and made excuses. i varied my velocities, watched myselves sleep. something's not right about what i'm doing but i'm still doing it — living in the worst parts, ruining myself.

richard siken, war of the foxes

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

I think there is a really interesting analysis that can be done with v3’s ending and how fiction can hit different people in different ways, Especially depending on conditions outside of the story itself. I think the message v3’s ending was trying to get across was successful, considering the fact that many people did understand and feel it even on a first experience. But for many people it hit in the exact opposite way as intended, which is bizarre. I wish I still had the spoons to write an essay on this

[mollysunder]

The figure at the center isn't Jinx. The figure isn't wearing the right shirt, she's missing Jinx's cloud smoke tattoos, and you can see her dark hair under the blue hair reach her back as it falls in front of her arm and behind her shoulder.

While the braids are black and white to imply that is the figure's actual hair, it's sprayed on blue like the rest of the youths in the background, because she is like them. The figure at the center is just another kid in the crowd, and they've essentially been designed like they're wearing a Jinx wig, all the kids are.

The artist for this mural is showing that anyone can be like Jinx as long as you want to fight for Zaun. Jinx represents an ideology that these kids choose to embody in both style and action. They're united in blue in their rebellion.

[celiaelise]

I've seen several posts describe Momo as "a popular girl", (usually in contrast to Okarun's "weird/outcast/nerd boy") which I feel like the story has made very clear is not the case?? Like, if anything, in an American setting, I feel like she'd be more like an alt/scene girl?

Aira is very explicitly "the popular girl"... this is stated outright multiple times! And she has absolutely no difficulty weaponizing that to turn their peers against Momo, which I think would've definitely been harder if Momo was actually popular.

(Honestly I feel like the story has really brushed over the fact that Aira and her friends LITERALLY KIDNAPPED Momo!! Momo comes off as brusque, but tbh she is way nicer than she needs to be about some stuff. If a classmate kidnapped me based on a misunderstanding, and then I saved them from multiple deadly supernatural attacks, and they STILL were rude to me and accused me of being a demon, I would not shut up about it.)

Yes, those guys Okarun overhears are expressing interest in Momo, but they're saying they would have sex with her, not that they particularly desire her attention. They're being dehumanizing and disrespectful, which is why Okarun gets upset. That's not how you talk about someone that you like or care about as a person.

Anyway, that's all, I just wanted to say that Momo is not popular. She and Okarun are both weirdos, just not necessarily in the same direction.

[promithiae]

Hi do you want to read all of Discworld but wow that's a lot of books and books are expensive? Humble has all 38 of them up for $18 in ebook format.

They also have smaller bundles, but $20 for 38 books is pretty good

EDIT: I put this in my tags, but realize I should put it in the actual body of the post; unfortunately this is only available in the US (BOOOOOO), and it's going on (I believe, they don't give an actual date that i could see, just a countdown) through January 21st

[twilight-amber]

One thing that I really enjoyed about the latest Deltarune chapters is how much the reveal at the end recontextualised Ralsei's character and the information he presents to us in his introduction. Below are some disjointed thoughts about that.

When Chapter 1 first released, I remember feeling that his explanation of the prophecy and how battle works (and his encouragement of a peaceful approach to resolving conflicts) seemed almost like an introduction to the rules of the world that might have to be subverted later - sort of in the same way that Flowey in Undertale initially establishes the rules of the world as "kill or be killed", which you then override by choosing nonviolence in order to reach the happiest ending.

This observation created a bit of dissonance between my Undertale player brain ("of course I want to approach all battles peacefully and spare everyone!") and my narrative-focused brain ("is the peaceful approach really the right one in the context of this story? is there some future twist that will completely recontextualise what we've been told about how the world works?")

When Chapter 2 released, I felt the dissonance less - it's painfully clear that the consequences of going out of your way to hurt people are Bad, so I felt much better about choosing the peaceful approach.

But I still wasn't sure what to make of Ralsei - why was he so insistent on us being nice to enemies, if he also believes that Darkners' only purpose is to support Lightners (as per the pre-castle conversation in Chapter 1)? Is it just because the prophecy says it's the way to go? Why does it matter so much to him?

To be clear: I never thought he was like. evil or anything. I figured he was doing the best he could with the information he had. But how accurate was that information? Could he be misguided in some way? He was clearly hiding stuff, and not knowing what he was hiding and why left some uncertainty.

But then we get to Chapter 4, and suddenly Ralsei's motivations become a lot clearer. The prophecy didn't say anything about kindness or mercy - that was his own personal advice, given in the hopes that the prophecy could be changed. He wasn't just acting according to the prophecy; he was genuinely trying to make a difference.

And now knowing that Ralsei has been encouraging Kris and Susie to be kind in hopes of altering the prophecy's narrative... it's particularly interesting in light of the fact that every chapter has a Moment where everyone you've befriended in the dark world shows up to help out - but only if you take the pacifist approach (with the exception of Chapter 2).

There's Chapter 1 with the king being overthrown. Chapter 2 with the Ultimate Group Project (Thrash Machine). Chapter 3's version of this is particularly interesting because it interacts with a part of the prophecy: Susie repairs Tenna offscreen if you recruit enough people to help (or just avoid violence?? reports seem varied on this one). The prophecy about Tenna still comes to pass (he's broken), but it's not the end for him.

And - I just found this out a day or two ago, actually - something similar happens in Chapter 4??? It seems that Jackenstein straight up falls to his death(?) in the scene just before the finale if you choose to be violent, but all the Sanctuary Darkners come to his rescue if you stay pacifist the whole way through.

Susie's comment about being nice paying off seems a lot more pointed in this context. Whether you choose a pacifist or violent approach is starting to have more obvious, more significant consequences.

At the end of Chapter 4, Ralsei makes it clear that he believes his own efforts (in guiding Kris and Susie towards nonviolence) have failed, because he was hoping that what's written in the prophecy would change, and it hasn't. But there's a big difference between "Tenna gets broken and stays broken forever" and "Tenna gets broken but is patched up and can still have a happy ending", even though both follow the letter of the prophecy. Maybe there's more than one way for that final prophecy to play out, too.

Susie's the one who has the conviction to fight against fate, but I want to believe that Ralsei's efforts had some meaning as well, even if we can't see it yet.

[instantpansies]

life is hard for us oz fans who are only meh about wicked. have half a meme.

[my-name-is-apollo]

Speaking of coins, I think it's neat that we have a trinity of Apollos with uncommon characteristics:

Apollo Karneios with ram horns and ram ears, Apollo Soranus with a star diadem and a pick-axe and Apollo Vejovis with winged head, a trident and a dagger. (The last two are the results of his syncretism with Roman deities)

What's more fun about the coins of Apollo-Vejovis is that some of them put a thunderbolt under his bust or straight up show him holding it:

And I can't help but think of this being equivalent to a girl wearing her mom's makeup for the photo day

[antisocialxconstruct]

man who can literally read minds but can't conceive of someone genuinely enjoying his company 😬 I did most of this with act one of GC in mind but I couldn't resist doing a little bonus Ilya from later in the story lmao

original template by kogoyun, I did slice it up a bit because trying to view tall images on desktop is hell

[dykedvonte]

There is a big difference between the idea Curly thought he could fix Jimmy vs Curly thought he could handle him and whatever he could possibly have going on at any given moment.

Curly as a person thinks he can fix or alleviate circumstances. That he can make things slightly better and more bearable. It gets conflated with his view of people which is distinctively something he views as being handled. He doesn’t really try to fix Jimmy so much more put himself around him as a sort of handler in lieu of an outlet. He can handle any outburst or criticism from Jimmy. He knows how he responds. He can handle it but he can’t fix it. Doesn’t try to fix the stemming issue with people but the situation they are in so it doesn’t make matters worse.

The issue is he can’t fix those situations cause they aren’t things he can handle. The source is not something he can handle even if he believes he could. The word fix and handle are not used interchangeably in the story but swapped. Curly doesn’t attempt to fix things, but handle them, in the absence of someone who would/could otherwise.

It’s a semantics if the difference of these words matter in wake of the actually effect but it does change perspective.

[hussyknee]

Western analyses of imperialism is like a frog's analysis of a well.

[mollysunder]

Where did the idea that Shimmer would make Jinx's mental state worse next season come from? I know she had a big break down around the end, but that seemed more situational, i.e. she has reason to believe the two people she cares about most will betray her, I'm pretty sure she hasn't slept in over a day, and she just went through traumatic invasive surgery awake without any anesthetic.

So far, we've only see shimmer amplify aggression, not hallucinations. Some might argue that during Jinx's shimmer infusion surgery the shimmer caused her paranoid hallucinations of Vi and Caitlyn, but I argue those were caused by the fact that she was dying. Vi experienced similar hallucinations after she was stabbed by Sevika and again when Sevika had nearly beaten her to submission. Vi had a full conversation with her hallucinations with Vander, no shimmer necessary.

The only person that suffered from an increase in dissociative hallucinations after exposure to foreign material was Viktor with the hexcore. And Viktor was already being affected by hexcore before he even infused it with shimmer.