#argumentation errors

[reflectionspace]

I propose a Rule for Media Criticism Discourse:

If person A makes an evidence-based critique of a video game, movie, book, or TV series, and person B's only response is to skip the arguments entirely and go straight to calling them a nazi, a TERF, a reactionary, cultural marxist, alt-right, woke-left, incel, femcel, rotten girl, or similar:

🎉 Person B just lost the argument. 🎉

You don’t get to skip the part where you engage with the actual points.

You don’t win by yelling “problematic” louder. That’s not a rebuttal, that’s just dodging homework.

Critique the actual points or take the L.

I also suggest we go by Veilguard rules and Person B has to pull a Barve whenever they do this.

Person B has to pull a double Barve if they're the creator of said media, step into the arguments, and instead of arguing or explaining the actual points, cry about how hard it is to face criticism and how hard the creative process was.

[k4ppasta]

The Argument pt6

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[baejax-the-great]

Fanfic isn't a possession.

When an author deletes a work on AO3, they haven't taken anything from the readers. It's not a physical object that can be snatched away, and if readers wanted a digital copy to keep, AO3 made that possible. It is the reader's choice whether or not to keep a copy. The author has absolutely no say over whether or not they do this.

If you have a favorite exhibit at the museum, and that exhibit closes for whatever reason, nobody "stole" art from you. Same thing with whatever play is currently at your local theater--it's temporary, and when it closes, the actors didn't take away your entertainment. Before streaming and box sets of tv shows being sold at Target, all of television was ephemeral, too. You caught it or you didn't.

I don't know why there is an expectation that fanfic should be permanently made available to readers. The archive certainly gives a place where that can happen, but there is no reason to assume that it always will happen, nor that readers are entitled to that.

There are many reasons to delete a fanfic--not orphan, not post anonymously, but delete. It's fine to be disappointed if that happens. It's not fine to harass authors or try to wrest control of the work from them or create archives full of stolen work.

[musy-musy]

“ You talk to much ink”

“OHHH I TALK TO MUCH DO I ERROR?”

( I hope they work this out soon 😮‍💨)

Error sans belongs to @loverofpiggies

Ink sans belongs to @comyet

(Follow and like so I can get them to calm down)

[chronologically-challenged]

One of the funniest interactions on replay is Isabeau Friendship Quest pre doing it the first time and you ask Loop about it.

-

Isabeau: I need time to figure out what we can do!

Siffrin: Oh! It must be super serious and complicated.

(Later if you ask Loop)

Loop: I wonder what he wants to do. It must be difficult and complicated.

Siffrin: (That's what I was thinking!!!)

-

And you know, for the most part, Loop is actually really good at breaking down Siffrin's thought process so he can't hide from their own brain, and when you play the first time, this interaction is just "haha they both thought the same thing" but NO!!! They were BOTH being obliviously Siffrin about it and rotating the same braincell!!!

[yourfaveisqueerandreligious]

micah yujin from error143 is jewish (headcanon) and bisexual (canon)

submitted by anon

[gogandmagog]

✨Anne Blythe’s (Anne Shirley-Blythe’s namesake granddaughter) father is not Jem. It’s Shirley. It’s totally Shirley, you guys. It’s gotta be.✨

And like, Ieading right off by saying of course there’s no definitive answer to be had here, since Maud obviously isn’t available to confirm or refute any hypothesises, but I do big persist in suggesting that a very rational case can be presented for Shirley... one that at least outweighs what I now see as the generally baseless widely accepted assumption that Anne is Jem’s daughter. Keep in mind, I’m in no way trying to dog on this. The assumption is ready and easy to make, and I’d accepted fully this theory too, until about a week agooo.

ABOUT A WEEK AGO, I was poring over various Wikipedia entries for the Anne book series, and inevitably also ended up looking through the edit history of those pages. While sorting through the edit history (super extensive and interesting, by the way), the username ‘blefebvre’ popped into the archive, contributing a ton of information to the Anne pages overall, around 2008 and 2009 particularly. And literally, who else could this user be besides THE Benjamin Lefebvre? Brilliant Maud scholar and essayist, inexhaustible editor and publisher of ‘the Blythes are Quoted’? Welllll, one of these edits, a written family tree of Anne and Gilbert’s grandchildren, mentioned Anne Blythe... and pointedly noted that she was either the daughter of Jem or Shirley.

Reading that? Already a huge jump-scare surprise to me. This immediately challenged what I thought I knew about the third generation of Blythes. I sat straight up in bed, brain doing a nosedive, like wait wait wait wait wait… hold on, what? We don’t know for sure? We don’t know for sure? 

Guys. We don’t know for sure. 

Whichhhhh sent me on an immediate hunt to gather up what we do know for sure. The facts we do have. And it wasn’t a huge task, either… there’s really not a lot to collect.

But here it is:

In ‘the Blythes are Quoted’, Anne Blythe is mentioned in only one story, titled “The Road to Yesterday” (not to be confused with the TBAQ abridged predecessor book of the same title 😅).

All we really have of her is her name, and a couple of superficial second-hand anecdotes from a guy named Jerry (who is impersonating a fellow named Dick, but more on this a little later).

Her paternity is unconfirmed, but because her surname is Blythe (not Ford or Meredith), we can logically eliminate the possibility of her belonging to Nan, Di, or Rilla. Walter was, of course, lost in France. This leaves Jem and Shirley. 

Tiny details about Anne.

As a matter of housekeeping, let me try to get the jump on any potential counter-arguments, and clear the air.

The only reason I’ve seen Jem credited with Anne is because…

1. Jem was married.

That’s the entire basis.

And I’ll grant you that. This is more than we got for Shirley. But let’s remember that at the end of ‘Rilla of Ingleside’, we only had a canon engagement between Jem and Faith... it takes getting around to ‘the Blythes are Quoted’ to absolutely conclude that their marriage went through. With the added extra bonus of finding out that they have children.

But even allowing that, ‘the Blythes are Quoted’ as an epilogue isn’t all inclusive. It isn’t a complete picture. It’s half a picture at the very best. Maud, pressured greatly, basically dumped all her disorganised, non-chronological and unedited Anne relevant WIPS + short stories + poems on her publisher's desk two days before she died. This is not a book that Maud put together, as a tailpiece collection. It was an assortment of partial works and in-character conversations that she’d tinkered with over decades. Works she never intended to see being published. They were vague ideas she was forming, little seeds. (It took a lot of effort from Benjamin Lefebvre to put TBAQ together in a readable way that made sense.)

Maud was over Anne. Over Anne by twenty years, at this point. So much so that noticeable character details and world building started slipping in Ingleside and Rilla… for obvious instance, in the lack of continuity around Shirley’s birth year, and the way readers saw almost no closure/representation for Shirley and Di, with varying degrees of near erasure in the original books. 

But this doesn’t mean that Maud didn’t have plans for these two characters... their incomplete or unsatisfying stories certainly weren’t nefariously intended to be that way (there’s no secret meaning to the exclusion); Montgomery was just depleted and had been feeling ruinously dispassionate about the Blythes stories since ‘Anne of the Island’.  

In ‘Reading Rilla’ we see in Maud’s many pages of left-out notes, that an ultimately scrapped journal entry from Rilla indicates that Diana Blythe wrote to their mother of her engagement to a foreign overseas officer. It’s unclear if this officer is the same ‘Austin boy’ that an older Glen woman in ‘the Blythes are Quoted’ privately wonders about (if Di 'really is engaged to him or not'), but this contradictory bit is probably just erroneous gossip from an unreliable narrator.  

Anyway. All of this to say... that just because we don’t have a canon marriage for Shirley, it doesn’t disqualify him from having had a wife and kids in Maud’s post-war Four Winds. TBAQ stories were, to reiterate, half-pictures. Pictures that did/could drop a plot bomb in a single sentence. Looping back to Di, canonly we don’t have a marriage for her either... and yet, we do have two engagements that half-register. One engagement was definitive, reported by Di herself. The other a passing curiosity from someone not close enough to the Blythe family to know.

So... clearly, Maud had active intention, a plan, for Di and her own little happy epilogue. The same can be believed for Shirley. (I’m dying for the day the ‘Rainbow Valley’ and ‘Ingleside’ manuscripts get published, I’m convinced there’s more Shirley be found in the notes.)   Now, let’s dig in to Anne Blythe herself.  

‘The Road to Yesterday’ is a short story about a woman named Susette (a spinster at 28), who is on the brink of an engagement to a wealthy man named Harvey Brooks. She expects the next day to be proposed to. On a whim and feeling nostalgic, she drives to Glen St. Mary, where she lived in her girlhood, for the evening. While there, she runs into a fellow, whom she believes to be Dick, her childhood bully who she hated profoundly. Except now, they’re grown and capable acting chummy over their shared memories. The weather takes a bad turn, and they take shelter and a meal together. Susette spends most of the time, all their ‘do you remembers’, being irritated by Dick’s constant name-dropping of the Blythes. He claims to have been kind of secret friends with Anne Blythe, which is contrary to Susette’s memory that Anne hated Dick. (In the end, it turns out that Susette was right… this isn’t Dick she’s talking to. It’s Jerry Thornton, Dick’s cousin.)

For the official record every Blythe mentioned in ‘the Road to Yesterday’ is as follows: Doctor Blythe, Mrs. Doctor Blythe, Rilla Ford, Jem Blythe [Jr.], Di Meredith [Jerry and Nan’s], and Anne Blythe.

It’s mostly a bunch of school yard talk, but the big takeaway for this purpose is that the Blythe/Meredith cousins all hung out together as school children.

Here’s some direct examples:

*****

*****

*****

The cheap boiled-down version of this exchange, for those who haven’t ‘the Road to Yesterday’ is basically: Susette is having strange feelings during this interaction with ‘Dick’, she’s attracted to him, declaring to herself that she won’t fall in love with him, and is clearly irritated with the near constant Anne Blythe (especially)/Blythe references. Though she herself was very fond of Jem Blythe Jr. herself, during their childhood, ‘Dick’ mentioning Anne Blythe so fondly is increasingly Not Cute to Susette. Meanwhile, ‘Dick’ is enjoying this kind of teasing, and is lowkey successful at getting a rise out of Susette, not matter how determined she is to look unaffected.  

But here’s the kicker... when ‘Dick’ finally leaves off mentioning Anne Blythe, guess what topic he moves on to? 🥁

The Royal Canadian Air Force.

And just who do we all know that was in the Royal Canadian Air Force?  

Shirley.

Only Shirley.  

First, it tracks that ‘Dick,’ soon enlisting (we’re on the brink of WWII timeline-wise), and thinking himself funny, would choose to move on from Anne Blythe to instead a subtler rib… what he, as a once good pal of Anne’s, would know was Anne’s dad’s war faction. It’s also in the realm of possibilities that thinking on Anne so much drew up this correlation. I also ALSO think it’s worth mentioning that the only other time that the Canadian Air Force is mentioned in TBAQ is a very passing drop for Rilla, thinking of her son Gilbert Ford enlisting with the CAF. That’s it. Just those two times.

Additionally important to note is the overall subtext tone in TBAQ, which is Maud’s very greatest collection of double-vision, double-speak and intertextual reference works. There’s a beautiful scholarly essay on this, in relation to TBAQ particularly HERE.

This doesn’t only apply to cultural references in TBAQ. It also adds layers to Maud’s own existing Anne series. It really could be considered a companion piece, with X-Ray vision, e.g. how we got a ton of ‘missing’ insight into Anne and her children’s lives and minds, during the Rainbow Valley era, in Part 1 of TBAQ.

Part 2 of TBAQ (where we find ‘the Road to Yesterday’) asks us to apply what we already know to the new text we’re given.

So, understanding this … if we’re going off what we already know from ‘Rilla of Ingleside’…

What’s the reason we have the Canadian Air Force mentioned in the same story that we learn of the existence of Anne Blythe? The connection?

It’s Shirley. 🥹

A weaker argument that I’ll only mention in mild passing, because it is very weak in terms of convincing evidence, is that the text unambiguously tells is that Anne Blythe has taught ‘Dick’ from Susan’s famous recipes. Susan is another Shirley tie. It’s there to be stated. BUT. I do admit that I think Susan would’ve taught every willing Blythe grandchild with the same zeal, maybe some partiality given to the Little Brown Boy’s kid(s).

BUT, for me?

I’m properly convinced here.

Shirley was a dad, ya’ll.

[saturnniidae]

Saw someone say wakfus animation looks like something made by ai.....imgonna tie you up and throw you down a well. don't even play it's fucking puppet animation tons of studios and series use that it does Not look like modern ai generated slop 💔

[k4ppasta]

The Argument pt5

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[dailyblueberror]

sending you this as an ask cause I think you'll find it funny and I want you to see it

Dominant alpha blueberror kandi cuff vs weak submissive error rainbowloom bracelet.....

Coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb type bracelets idk 😭🙏

GIGGLING WHYD YOU CALL THEM THAT 😭😭😭😭😭

[carlyraejepsans]

for real WHERE does the idea that [utdr humans] are nongendered so that "you can project on them" come from. their literal character arcs are about NOT being a blank slate to be filled in by the audience

i think i understand the assumption on some level for undertale, because there is a very intentional effort to make you identify with the "player character" in order to make your choices feel like your own (the beating heart of undertale's metanarrative lies in giving you an alternative path to violence against its enemies after all, and whether you're still willing to persue it for your own selfish reasons. YOUR agency is crucial).

of course, the cardinal plot twist of the main ending sweeps the rug from under your feet on that in every way, and frisk's individuality becomes, in turn, a tool to further UT's OTHER main theme: completionism as a form of diegetic violence within the story. replaying the game would steal frisk's life and happy ending from them for our own perverse sentimentality, emotionally forcing our hand away from the reset button.

i think their neutrality absolutely aids in that immersion. but also, there's this weird attitude by (mostly) cis fans where it being functional within the story makes it... somehow "editable" and "up to the player" as well? which is gross and shows their ass on how they approach gender neutrality in general lol.

but also like. there's plenty of neutral, non PCharacters in undertale and deltarune. even when undertale was just an earthbound fangame and the player immersion metanarrative was completely absent, toby still described frisk as a "young, androgynous person". sometimes characters are just neutral by design. it's not that hard to understand lol.

anyone who makes this argument for kris deltarune is braindead. nothing else to say about it.

[changingplumbob]

Whoops!

Turns out I forgot to tag a very important SBL post yesterday with any tags whatsoever. Meaning those who were reading by link would have missed the post where Byron asks Serena REDACTED. Sorry for the confusion the void would have created in reading! It is fixed now.

[mochi-kitty]

If I have to do rigorous testing to prove I know the basic 4 subjects so that I can move on to the next grade in school then comic writers should be put through the same process.

“Oh you’re interested in writing for Dc comics Bart Allen? Okay, here’s your test paper. You’ll have 2 hours to complete all 20 questions plus the 4 paragraph essay on the back. Please use a number 2 pencil and no talking while testing. If you score at least a 75% we’ll contact you for an in person interview to discuss your resume, writing background and your portfolio. Good luck.

[rosettyller]

the thing i'm having the most trouble with in tmagp is connecting lucia wright with error.

we know that the magnus institute imprisoned people to use in their various projects, like with darrien:

so it's possible that if lucia came and gave a statement in this universe as well, they could have captured her then. except the events of mag130 occurred in 2008, well after the magnus institute burned down. also, there's nothing really about mag130 that seems particularly eye-y.

the other most obvious answer is that the magnus institute tested her as a kid, and she progressed further than sam and gerry. there is an alexander wright, in the arg spreadsheet, although she doesn't mention a brother in mag130. also, there are several sets of siblings being tested. however, the oldest kids tested were born in 1985, which would put lucia wright at a max. age of 23 in mag130, which seems a bit young to me. (to be fair i am very bad at estimating ages.)

the other thing is, redcanary may have been somewhat transformed into an archivist too? (x) just by visiting the magnus institute? maybe lucia wright visiting the magnus institute or something?

[k4ppasta]

The Argument pt4

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[lamecatboy]

As I thought, apart from that tree, nothing seems to be unusual.

Same here. Well, it would be troublesome if it suddenly changed again, so maybe it's a good thing there wasn't.

Ah, but I did make a new discovery.

New discovery?

Yes. There's a bench over there, and if you sit on the far left, you can see the trees, train, and the starry sky all in one beautiful view.

If I were to take a photo, I think it would be a fantastic sight.

...Fantastic, huh? A new discovery that's so typical of Honami.

...I want to see that view. Um, it's on the left side of the bench, right?

Ah, I was thinking of watching it, too...! Hey, Kaito, wanna play rock-paper-scissors?

...Eh? But when Rin and I were arguing over the snacks, I said, "First come, first served."

Rin is irrelevant now. Look, start on go!