#its actually really difficult to avoid plot holes with this type of writing

[buff-muffin]

People praising Oda as the most amazing author ever is genuinely so funny to me because he writes the same way i do. A damn good idea and bullshitting as he goes. "Damn that name sounds cool I'm gonna add it." "Shit I forgot to consider something, I'm gonna make a joke about it." "Hey remember that thing from chapters ago? Well I just remembered it too so I'm bringing it back." So many 'such clever foreshadowing' moments was most likely him just bringing back old shit cause he remembered it. And its genuinely so funny??? Oda doesn't even take himself seriously. He's like a living Buggy and were all his followers. 10/10 iconic.

[bleachbleachbleach]

HELLO.

I just wanted to say that I love, love, love your tags on that character/tool post a lot! Some of my favorite shows/books involve characters that can't keep it together and just barely make it to the end of the story or make it there in an "inconvenient way" and tbh I find that usually the narratives that follow these characters don't really work away from them either--the narrative is just usually more questioning instead of fully formed.

Like, 'what if/how would', y'know? There's less of a clear meaning and more just 'what if they hadn't done that. what if they had done that. what if all that meant nothing. what if that struggle was all there was'.

But oh boy, when they DO work away from the narrative. *chefs kiss*

I mean, most of my favorite Bleach characters are narrative nightmares who either hinder or cut off lines of theme in the story entirely. And, in general, I think there are A LOT of characters in shonen--a genre known for very long narratives that can't possibly complete every thought but also can't just abandon all those characters introduced ESPECIALLY the fan favorites or personal favorites--work in the way you described.

Tbh i think your tags really highlight why so many ppl get drawn to these characters/why they're so fun to play with in fanfiction.

If you have more to add or more thoughts about this you want to lay down I am here, eagerly awaiting and ready to pick them up.

Also, who do you think in Bleach is the most fun characters who sort of drop kicked the story, in your opinion? Who's the one you like the most? And who's the one you dislike the most?

[For posterity the referenced post is this one.]

Aww, thank you! That’s really lovely to hear. I was anxious about even putting it in tags because I don’t think I presently have the capacity to explain it well—and even if I did might still sound bananas to many. Or at least the bit about negotiating with characters and how *they* feel about being subjects in stories. Because as much as that really is my practice saying it out loud takes me back to like… FFN in 2003 where every store was prefaced by extensive chat-form back-and-forths between the fic author and their character "musies" and that is not something I think fandom would benefit from bringing back in force, hahaha. But anyway.

Here’s the part where I disappoint because I don’t think I actually know Bleach well enough to speak to it in this context. WHICH SOUNDS DUMB EVEN AS I TYPE IT BECAUSE LOL WTF IS THE NAME OF THIS BLOG WE ARE CHARLATANS AND POSERS FOR CLAIMING AS OUR NAMESAKE NOT ONE BLEACH BUT THREE BLEACHES but truly, my experience of Bleach has a shallow depth of field. I feel like I have weirdly intimate knowledge of some severe rabbit holes but a non-existent to uneasy sense of the gestalt.

Like idek man, in my "slow re-read where I am actually paying attention" Ichigo hasn’t even met Byakuya and Renji yet. ToT

I'm gonna put this behind a cut because it spidered all over the place, but in summary:

characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure

the charm of longform serialized series and their invitations to imagine stuff

me attempting to talk about Hitsugaya and feeling a fool, as usual

I guess in general terms, I’m really interested in characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure. Not failure as in 'bad' but failure as in things that break form or are circuitous or are actively detrimental to a narrative arc. All my strongest examples of what I’m thinking of are from a different fandom and therefore not relevant to this blog, alas. By comparison I think anyone in Bleach can keep it together better than the characters that are immediately coming to mind, lol. But I think this idea dovetails often with trauma narratives, or depression narratives, because these things are often… non-narrative? Like, there’s no fourth or fifth for minor fall or major lift. Sometimes it’s the same thing over and over again, or maybe nothing. Maybe it’s the exact same self-sabotage narrative dictates could have been avoided. Maybe it’s some act that emanates forth but cannot be explained because it cannot be explained and will never be explained. That’s a version of what I’m talking about, in any case, though not the only version.

Your note about longform shounen definitely resonates with me, too. In my mind I don’t like long things and I prefer series that are more self-contained but whenever I have ever landed in a long-term fandom, with a piece of media I felt obliged to carve out chunks of my life for, and to interact with at that level of creative fannishness, it’s always been something stupid long and serialized by the seat of its pants. I know plot holes or dropped threads bother a lot of people (makes total sense, don’t get me wrong) but I find these things incredibly attractive. I see them as invitations to join in the fun. Especially when it’s so much a part of the form and genre to have this, as you said, lack of real expectation that every thread will be followed to its conclusion (or that it would be worthwhile to do so) and every thought completed.

There’s this piece by David Grann that was published in The New Yorker in 2004 that I really love that speaks to part of this idea, albeit in terms of fictional universes versus fictional characters. But Grann is talking about Sherlock Holmes (Doyle original) and the ways that Sherlockians would like, approach apparent lapses in narrative and then solve them according to the established rules of the universe. I just love that. There’s also the line, "Never had so much been written by so many for so few," which LOL if that ain’t fandom I don’t know what is!!

I feel like I’m actually talking about three distinct but related facets of these thoughts in this post, except all at once and without clear transition, uhhhhh.

Gah, I am broken and now can ONLY think of examples from my not-Bleach fandom, but to try a different tack and add yet another facet to this already funhouse-mirror post, my various attempts to write Hitsugaya often feel like they come up against a version of this. I think Hitsugaya has aggressive side character energy, and I find it difficult to make him the center of a story and have it feel right to me. He feels different to me than writing other minor characters, where they can be the center of their own stories even if their story is not the main story. Like, two of my fave characters in my other fandom have literally like… three lines in 350+ episodes and it feels easier to imagine THEM at the center of their story and I think what it comes down to is that Hitsugaya probably prefers what he not be written. And when he does become more narrative I think he’d prefer that none of it was happening in the fist place. But at the same time he always seems to be…around??? whether there is really a good reason for him to be present or not. XD So while, say, he and Bartleby "would prefer not to" (because THAT'S what this post needs, a Melville reference), Bartleby actually opts out and Hitsugaya out here volunteering.

He also often feels non-narrative to me because he feels very declarative, if that makes sense? Like, the coming-to-decisions or coming-to-realizations parts of existence happen pretty quick, or are approached perfunctorily. I feel like I find narrative in the "coming" part of that equation and instead Hitsugaya will be like, well, I’ve already done that part without you, and/or plan to do that part in the future and it will still be without you, the audience. Anyway, here’s the determination I’ve made, here’s what I’m going to do, and here begins the long and probably tedious process of my doing that thing (off 2 go train in a cave for a bit). I don’t think he actually believes the world is that simple, Tab A into Slot B, but I do think he’s already made that assessment and can see coming to terms with that as a horizon, if that makes sense. So even if he doesn’t know the answer to something, or is completely at a loss of what to do (what to say to Hinamori? how to productively address the number Aizen’s done on him) there’s still not necessarily a story there. Maybe the answer is you grind, and it is repetitive and boring. Maybe you just hold things. There’s not even the act of learning how to hold things, necessarily, just the practice of doing so.

Wow, that probably doesn’t sound good! I feel like I need to suffix this with the assurance that Hitsugaya is my absolute runaway character in the whole series and this was true 15 years ago and it is still true now (truer, even) and everything I just said are reasons why I love him.

[dapper-nahrwhale]

for the writing ask, number 3!

Asiksj thanks so much for the ask!! (Under the cut is some fantasy high riz and aelwyn friendship I've been writing)

"One scene you want to write but cant because its difficult"

I guess it's hard for me to write like cohesive scenes like I'm used to writing slightly connected oneshots like 5 + 1 type stuff, shortish scenes that arnt connected much. But writing like stuff with connected plots is difficult, coming up with ideas for plot is easy actually writing it all together is hard.

Like theres like this fantasy high mafia road trip thing au (the title would be Pretty like a Car Crash from some song I think) I'd want to write but... trying to put together a whole plot ugh I enjoy writing lil oneshots and scenes but trying to get it all figured put is hmm not my strong suit.

Like writing out whole scenes that are connected with actual plot is hard so I just write unconnected scenes and all I'd like to figure out how to do like whole stuff but idk.

Actually some writing (fantasy high riz and aelwyn friendship I've been cooking up) under the cut cuz it got pretty long

I'm not going to write out a whole entire plot multiple chapter thing here so I'll just write some stuff that I've been working on. Even though this is a multi chartered plot thing so.

The road to recovery is paved in sleepless nights and tired mornings. (Title)

The bad kids are rightfully wary about letting them hang out together. Partly because they're both paranoid enough to think the other would take an attack of opportunity on them. Of course what the bad kids didn't expect was for them to band together when someone else gets murdered. Basrar gets framed for murder. Riz and aelwyn are on the case.

Riz doesnt like or trust Aelwyn. Aelwyn doesnt care about his opinion, but it's easier to try and get along with each other to make this long suffering case go by quicker.

Aelwyn decided to stop doing super toxic things because her sister and jawbone have gotten her to and because she doesn't like or enjoy going to parties getting rekt and kissing strangers anymore. So she needs new, slightly less toxic habits and if staying up late researching stuff while not sleeping is that then the only one to also do that would work. Putting her high intelligence to good use. (Sleeping is hard for both of them, so why not be productive instead of going to have a bad time sleeping.)

They've both killed more people then they should have. They both refuse to talk about too much with jawbone, even though at this point they really should. Instead they avoid all of their problems by solving cases and researching stuff. They both value knowledge. Adaine isn't here because she'd only discourage them and they know it's not healthy to burn out like this but. Well. It's the only way they know how to function. So. They don't talk about their feelings or anything. They both don't sleep at all if they can help it. They just work themselves to the bone, refuse to sleep because of really bad nightmares and hope it's enough. It isnt. But they'd really like to think it was.

Combined, they would sleep about 6 hours, riz passed out for 4 and aelwyn trancing fitfully for 2.

(Aelwyn will trance for just a few hours, sitting in a creaky old chair while riz works on something or other. They make it a rule to always have one of them awake if the other is sleeping when they end up working late. Paranoia and all that. So whenever riz inevitably passes out in his desk aelwyn will keep watch and go over spells in her book to keep herself awake. It's a shot system but it works for the most part. Sometimes they'll both stay up the entire night, sometimes theyll both be too exhausted to stay up anymore and fall asleep at the same time.)

To solve the case they hole up in rizs office for a few days, everyone panics at first when neither go to school and then riz and aelwyn dont answer their crystals cuz it wasnt charged and they were so focused on the case they forgot to do school. They freak out considering what happend last time and actually bust down the door of his office and find them both sleeping. It's cute but they wake up and start fighting them before they realize oh it's just the bad kids.

(Undetermined time later)

"Just had to get away from adaine for a bit. She worries about me too much."

"Are you giving her reason to be worried?"

"Probably"

"I dont know how sam and adaine and everyone else can forgive me. I'm a terrible person." Alewyn

"Were. You were a terrible person. You arnt anymore. Even if you think you still are, you arnt anymore. The horrors you have done are not who you are. Or something like that. The you who did all the terrible things is still you and that sucks but you just have to do better now" Riz

"It doesnt make up for all the stuff I've done."

"Probably not. It might never."

"Ostentasia still hasn't talked to me or even been in the same room as me. and I cant blame her. I cant forgive myself."

"Yeah. I mean you did put her in a palimpsest prison for several months. And then almost get her and the other maidens sacrificed to our evil vice principle dragon. That's pretty messed up "

"Yeah."

She feels she doesnt deserve her new family. She hasn't done anything to deserve their free love. She in fact has done more to hinder it than anything.

Adaine reminds her of love without expectations. It's hard to remember but shes getting better at it.

Jawbone tells her he wanted to adopt her. She didnt understand why. Shes almost old enough to be on her own she doesnt need anyone to look out for her. But it would be nice to have a parent who cares. At least that's what adaine tells her.

Everyone else is getting better and they both feel like they're not.

This is by no means all of it or in any way done or edited and I'm still working on riz parts of it, those are much more difficult than aelwyns for me to write as of now because they're so based on my own personal stuff kinda but I'm so wicked excited to be writing this! I just think they're friendship would be so intersting and all!

[mermaidsirennikita]

I read the books after, so I thought the show was framing LW to be the villain. None of the characters want to get on her bad side and she went around talking crap about Daphne and many others. They kinda wrote themselves into a hole because they can’t make Pen the villain. BUT I don’t see how they can give pen a redemption arc in s2 without making LW & the column boring. what will she write about the next two seasons?? if she stops talking shit and spreading scandals pple would stop reading the rag. It lessen LW impact on the ton and their interest in her.

If LW was ethical & good she would also be boring to the viewer. LW as a gossip girl type figure looses its appeal if the column turns all nice and drama free. Tbh it would hv been so much better if they explored pen as the villain or atleast an antiherione.

It is a weird conundrum, and one Julia Quinn avoided by not making Lady Whistledown so... plot important, I guess? Until book 4, of course. Like, she was a hook for readers and a fixture of the first four books, but there was nothing the series lost when she stopped being a part of it. I think the show made a mistake in marketing itself as like... historical Gossip Girl. For one thing, I don't think people checked the show out because they were LW fans, and I don't think that's why it made it big--I always found it a bit demeaning that they felt the need to market it that way when historical romance as a subgenre is huge on its own.

I think that for a lot of people, Penelope will be impossible to redeem and difficult to watch as a heroine of her own love story. Especially because she won't have this mysterious smoke show coming in to sweep her off her feet--it'll be Colin. If season 4 is dependent on people being really invested in them as characters--I don't know about that general audience, beyond the online shippers.

I think that if the show was actually framing Penelope as a bad person, it would be more intriguing. Instead the framing makes me feel like I'm supposed to feel bad for her? With all of the tears and WHAT ABOUT COLIN??? and the fact that it is all filtered through her perspective. The only options they have are to neuter her, after investing a lot of plot in her, or.... that's it, because they aren't going to make her a villain, lol.

[wordsnstuff]

20 Mistakes To Avoid In Science Fiction

This is also available on wordsnstuffblog.com!

– This is a continuation of a series that began with 20 Mistakes To Avoid In Young Adult Fiction/Romance. I included a couple exterior sources throughout the article that covers certain points in more detail for those who would like further advice. I hope this is helpful. Happy writing!

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Referencing Current Culture Inappropriately

Not all references to pop culture are misplaced in sci fi. For instance, in Ready Player One, it’s integral to the plot. However, it’s random references to political things or important people that do not have anything to do with the movement of the plot or are misplaced within the context of the universe. This can bring your reader out of the story and confuse them in terms of world building and basic information about the history of your constructed universe.

Not Understanding Space & How It Differs From Earth

Do your research about space if you’re writing about space, and learn about how different planets work, the rules of physics, the laws of gravity, the conditions in other parts of the galaxy, etc. This information is available to you in may places and in many formats that are broken down simply for you to understand, especially for writers. You just have to look for it. I actually have a resource master post called “Resources For Writing Science Fiction” that would be really, really useful for this.

Putting No Thought Into Aliens

Aliens shouldn’t just be modified versions of humans. Coloring a human purple doesn’t make them interesting. Think about the environmental factors on the alien’s home planet and how those conditions would affect their biological makeup and physical/mental features. Take the time to do this, because readers appreciate it when it’s done well.

Technobabble

This is just a word for technological-sounding gibberish that writers put into their book to make it sound legitimate. However, what a lot of them do not realize is that science fiction readers are often interested in science, and therefore know that it’s 3 sentences full of nothing. This is okay in some circumstances, but it can never hurt to do 10 minutes of googling to maybe learn a bit about what you’re about to feed to the reader before writing it. Technobabble is really useful for writing the first draft (where you’re just telling yourself the story to have something to develop), but it shouldn’t live past that point. 

Conlangs (Unless You’re A Linguist)

Do not take on constructed languages if you aren’t ready for years and years of study and practice with linguistics, because your conlang will flop. J.R.R. Tolkien, who is famous for not only his series Lord of The Rings and his novel The Hobbit, but also the invented languages within them. He had a long career in linguistics and was well-versed in it, and that is why they’re such a sticking point of his works. It took years of study and practice to create the conlangs in those books. Conlangs are no game. 

Prologues

Most authors do not like prologues for a plethora of reasons, but with science fiction there’s really not a good justification for having one. Start where the action is and input the important highlights from the past as they become important to the reader’s understanding of the present.

Info-Dumping

Long paragraphs or pages upon pages describing the setting or the way the character is feeling and so-on has no place in any book, let alone science fiction which is already packed to the brim with detail no matter what. Sprinkle detail in as it becomes relevant instead of getting it all out in one spot and then expecting the reader to see the significance in every one. 

Over-Explanation

It’s good practice to avoid over-description of things that don’t matter. The general rule of thumb is show, don’t tell, but also, don’t bore the reader with 3 sentences describing each button on a control panel that the main character walks past once and never appears again. 

Overly-Complicated Names

This is simply a pet-peeve of a lot of people, and it doesn’t really add anything to your story. It’s cliche and kind of laughable when a writer names their character “Celeste Apollo Saturn” or something like that. Sure, it makes you feel original, but it doesn’t add to the reader’s experience much. It’s okay to have unique, space-themed names, just don’t overdo it.

Not Exploring

Overthink your world. Overthink your characters. Overthink the details. Explore all the possibilities. The better you know your world and everything in it, the more vivid your storytelling will be, even if 80% of the details you’ve explored are left out. You should be an expert in your story, because that will make you tell it better.

Regurgitating Popular Sci-Fi

Please don’t rewrite Star Trek, Star Wars, The Avengers, etc. and just change the names. There’s a difference between taking a trope or a popular type of science fiction story and putting your own twist or speculation on it, and handing your reader a book version of an existing story.

Not Thinking Critically About Fictional Elements

"Apply logic in places where it wasn’t intended to exist. If assured that the Queen of the Fairies has a necklace made of broken promises, ask yourself what it looks like. If there is magic, where does it come from? Why isn’t everyone using it? What rules will you have to give it to allow some tension in your story? How does society operate? Where does the food come from? You need to know how your world works."

- Terry Pratchett

Underestimating The Audience

Your audience can deduce things, and doesn’t need every implication explained to them. You don’t need to beat the symbolism and implications into their brain by constantly alluding to it or reiterating it in a million different ways. Subtext is important, and it should be left as subtext, otherwise there’s no need for thinking about the story and your reader will forget it (or worse, be irritated by it).

Leaving Plot Holes Because You Think Nobody Will Notice

Don’t do this. Just don’t. There’s always going to be someone who notices even the most minute details that are not explained when they should be, and then shares with a friend, and then it becomes a thing. If the thought “eh, I don’t have to include this detail because nobody will notice that this whole scene is ridiculous without it” crosses your mind, kill it. However, there’s a difference between a plot hole and a detail that was cut due to irrelevance, and that’s explained in the next point.

Forgetting To Actually Deliver Information

You, after months or even years of planning, may forget to include important details for the reader’s understanding due to the fact that overtime they seem so obvious to you. Be careful about this, and make sure that every scene you write is set up with the information the reader needs to know in order to understand what’s going on. This is easy to do as long as you have someone on the outside who can tell you where things get confusing and where the holes are. 

Putting World Building Before Storytelling

You’re telling a story, and it’s important that you have an actual story to tell before you develop the world around it. Not every detail you plan out will be relevant to the story and won’t make it to the final draft, and that’s okay. Put the story first, and don’t sacrifice the reader’s focus to add detail that doesn’t enhance the story, because it will take away from it instead. 

Poor Choice Of Writing Style

point of view, tense, person You should be very careful about the stylistic decisions you make about the way in which you will deliver your story to the reader, because this is often what makes sci-fi convoluted and boring. The three main details you need to decide on carefully are which point of view you tell the story from, so which character you’re choosing to focus on, the tense  (past, present, or future), and person(first, second, or third). Most stories are told in third person surrounding the main character in past tense. Future tense and second person are pretty rare, but can be pulled off by authors who are willing to take on the challenge (though I don’t recommend it if you’re not willing to do a lot of problem solving and workshopping in following drafts).

Ignoring The Speculative Aspect

When your story deals with something like, say, time travel, you need to not only imagine the implications for your characters’ present, but their future along with everyone else’s. You also have to recognize that small changes may have a butterfly effect, but the universe has a way of straightening history out, and not all of them will have eternal lasting effects on the future. You’re speculating, and speculating doesn’t stop at how your characters’ situations change at the immediate moment, but also in the long run, as well as what implications come with each new detail you change between your world and ours.

Not Planning

This genre is not for the writers who identify as pantsers rather than planners. This genre is very, very difficult to approach as even a very organized author, and its readers are typically very observant and nit-picky. That isn’t a bad thing. It’s a great thing, as long as you’re prepared for what you’re in for. 

Historical Absolutes

Mark Vorenkamp actually explained this really well in this article, so I recommend heading over there because he articulates it way better than I ever could.

You’re Not A Scientist (And That’s Okay)

Accept that you���re not a world-famous scientist and that you don’t have all the answers or all the research to back up the speculation and estimation that comes with science fiction. That’s okay, and as long as you do your best to know what you’re talking about and do as much research as possible to add substance to detail, you’re fine. This is fiction, after all. Not a dissertation. 

This article is really, really detailed and extensive, and it’s a good continuation of what I’ve covered in this article. I recommend giving it a read if you’re about to sink your teeth into the editing or second-draft onward of your story, because it further examines things like the use of passive voice in sci-fi, and other, more advanced details of writing for this genre specifically. 

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[ezimin]

This Anime is like Marmite

A few weeks ago I dyed my hair, which I thought made me look a bit like an Anime character that was in an Anime I actually quite enjoyed the first time I saw it all the way through. However, this Anime is honestly not amazing and it took me two attempts to watch it right through. The first time I attempted to watch this Anime, I only got past the first episode and then gave up because I found it boring. If I didn’t have friends that I watched other Anime with, I wouldn’t still be watching Anime now. When I finally got around to watching this anime and its sequel a few years later, I really enjoyed it. I am glad I got around to watching it again because since then I have read a lot of comments online, from people who intensely dislike the Anime. So when I rewatched it a few weeks ago,  I was partly rewatching it to see if this Anime still held up as a good one (in my opinion at least).

Before I begin to explain the anime Sword Art Online and Sword Art Online 2, or SAO and SAO2 (as I will be calling them because this is easier to type), I should mention that there is another sequel to this anime, called Sword Art Online : Alicization. However, I will not be talking about that anime in this post as I haven’t yet seen it. As this post will possibly contain minor spoilers, because I am covering both series of Sword Art Online, I would recommend that you go and watch it before you continue reading this post, in case I spoil anything for you. Although I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, as always.

SAO is an anime set in the near future, in which a virtual reality game has been introduced. in the anime, they call this software, ‘Soft Dive’ software, because when you are wearing the helmet, called the ‘Nervegear’, you are completely unresponsive to outside stimuli, such as sounds, temperatures etc.  the game, which has been introduced, is where the anime takes its name. SAO is an online fantasy MMO, in which people create their own characters and meet up with friends to defeat monsters together. The creator of the game has turned it into, what is referred to in the anime as a ‘Death Game’. A game in which the characters are unable to log out  until they complete the entire game and defeat the final ‘Boss’. The main character, called Kirito makes friends with a few different characters in the game and along with them, works to defeat all the bosses. SAO2 is a similar idea and involved Kirito entering a separate MMO in order to defeat someone who is killing physical players through the game.

I think I should explain what I mean by the title of this post. If you were to take an entire group of people who had watched SAO, they would mainly fall into one of two camps. People who loved it and people who hated it. In this way it’s just like Marmite. I am someone who differs from this normality. Having written these blogs for a few years now, I like to analyse anime and look deeper into the meanings, the storytelling and the characters and I can see that SAO is not the best written anime. However, I still cannot shake that sense of enjoyment I got when I first watched this anime right through to the end.

There are some criticisms though. The first of my criticisms about SAO is that there are some fundamental plot holes. For example, there is even a massive plot hole in the premise of the entire anime. Why any government in the world would legalise a piece of wearable technology that was capable of causing catastrophic damage to a person’s brain, is beyond me. No matter how much safety this capability was under, you do not have to be a genius to figure out that at some time or another, someone will find a way to hack into the system and remove any safety protocols that had been put in place, meaning that the system would be able to kill users with or without their knowledge. As you can see, this is a massive plot hole. I do not understand why this situation could ever be believed, even in a fictional world. Even as a surface plot it doesn’t hold together - this would never work in any reality. There are a couple of other plot holes like this throughout the anime, which can be slightly jarring, as they pull you completely out of the sense of disbelief that the anime is trying to establish. I am pretty sure that you will be able to find others, because it is not very difficult.

Reki Kawahara, who is the author of the SAO Manga on which the anime is based, said in a recent interview, that he intends to get better at writing. I have to congratulate him on wanting to do this, as changing your entire writing style can not be easy. Although by him doing this, it would get rid of some of the potential problems with future anime based on his works. One problem I think would be extremely good to get rid of, would be the issue with exposition (by which I mean plot set up). In any anime, exposition is always necessary and you cant get away from it. However, some ways to do this are better than others. For example, there are two main ways that I think exposition can be handled. The first involves simply a scene in which the characters talk to each other about specific plot elements. This is really boring to watch and you can feel every minute of the exposition ticking by. Often in anime, every few episodes are really heavy in exposition and can have multiple ‘Exposition Dumps’, because there is an awful lot of set up for a particular situation in a five or ten minute period. The second way of tackling exposition, and one I find slightly more clever, is by using subtle gestures, or actions, to explain what is going on. I find this a lot better, as exposition can be spread out over a number of episodes, avoiding exposition dumps and also there doesn’t even need to be any words spoken and so you don’t always know it is happening. For example, without a great explanation, if you see two characters holding hands, you can assume that they have a fairly close relationship such as being siblings or romantic partners.

Mr Kawahara unfortunately strongly favours the first technique, which I do think is a real shame, because in actual fact, this detracts from some of the scenes, eg the fight scenes in the anime, which are really enjoyable in their own right.

So, I’m not too sure what to think of SAO and so I’m not really sure if I can recommend it or not. On one hand, I did enjoy watching the show, but on the other, there were some pretty bad problems around the story. But, like with all my recommendations, this is up to you. If you think it’s worth a watch and you have heard about it from friends, then give it a go. If not, it’s maybe not one for you.

[koiandjelly]

So Fila’s actual past isn’t very detailed, because she’s not a main OC, and I haven’t spent a ton of time actually thinking about her as a character lol. 98% of my Creativity goes to my original content characters, cuz someday when I finish actually crafting my worlds, I’m gonna write a book. I’m aiming for the lofty goals of making a full, fleshed out, intricate— just fuckin’... a whole ass Multiverse system comparable to the Lore content of Tolkien’s works, or The Elder Scrolls— gah fuck y’know what, I’m changing this post from being about my Fantasy Life OC to being about my creation baby, the effort of about 6 years (I am 20 years old, and although I didn’t know it at the time I started, I was 14 when I made the shitty Fire Emblem Manakete rip-off race that I’m gonna actually now talk about, because holy fuck this ain’t gonna fit in a parenthesis “btw have some info” bubble)

A’ight so I have a hard time keeping track of time, especially in a large scale across years. Apparently it’s related to being severely depressed without medication (communication error on my part, my parents are very lovely and helped me ASAP when I spilled the beans) while also having moderate to severe ADD. So, ya know, keep in mind that I was yet another terribly depressed 8th grader when I talk about my creation’s early days. I wouldn’t experience that time of my life for any sort of payment ever. It was goddamn miserable, because when I was midway through the age of 14, not only did the aforementioned depression spring up, but I also realized I was bisexual (And I live in the infamous state of Alabama, for reference. Don’t fear for me though, I was too unnoticeable to be bullied if anyone did know, and my wonderful mother, whom I love and cherish with all of my heart, is one of the few Christians that actually... like... do what their own God tells em to. That is, Jesus. I’m an atheist and have a general discomfort about the idea of super powerful entities actually existing irl, but I do agree with the stuff I’ve heard and remember from a decade ago in Church about Jesus. Good guy. But yeah my mom not only accepted me and reassured me when I came out, but she’s gone even further and is of the opinion/fact that lgbt folks are, really, good and normal and that God created them, so she really genuinely just... loves and accepts me. There’s no “I love you despite of this” in the equation and I am so grateful. But again. I digress)

Pause after that sidetrack, to recap, all of my medical issues began to emerge about 6 months before I turned 15. Including what I hate most, the emergence of my Fibromyalgia and Sjogren’s Syndrome, and for an added kick to the flesh, an undifferentiated connective tissue disorder. Meaning, as what I understand it to be, a nameless chimaera of many symptoms in a way that the disorder either is it’s own thing, or just can’t easily be recognized as any one disorder. And I had anxiety. If I recall correctly on *that*, forgive me cuz it’s been a while since it’s been diagnosed/brought up in a significant way, I have or had either general anxiety *and* social anxiety, or just lightweight versions of both, or something, but at the time I was horribly shy and I couldn’t even talk to the teacher after class about schoolwork, even though I tried rationalizing it to hell and back that I shouldn’t be scared— as you’ll guess, shit didn’t work out til I got medicine for it, because no amount of logic and rational thought will change the fact that I was struggling because of a literal disorder, an error of the brain, and as with that walking with two shattered femurs ain’t gonna work, trying to talk when the talk machine broke... ain’t going to goddamn work.

God. I am rambling a lot. But anyway, shit fucking sucked as a teen for me, because I got that wombo combo, prepare for trouble, make it double, precision strike at my existence as a person during fucking already difficult puberty— I am rambling. It’s 4:55am as of this sentence lmao. I had a nasty cocktail of both mental illness and physical disorders pop up once puberty hit me, so I, through many events starting from loving to draw as a toddler, to play pretend stories of heartbreak, betrayal, and death as best an 8 year old could understand via playing with Polly Pockets, and all the creative power I inherited from my Dad, plus the motivation borne through a need to escape, I started making my own characters.

So, to return to the present state of my creations, which will now be referred to as Bounding Beyond the Stars, or BBtS, I’m gonna get some things out of the way. Just to clarify, yeah? I have created my worlds in a way that is specifically meant to stand apart from the irl universe as we know it. I’m certainly not a knowledgeable researcher with any level of comprehension on Spacial law and quantum physics and shit like that. So hey, if something ever seems... like, off, or wrong? Unless it’s pretty obviously wrong in the “hey you just googled how a thing works, and misunderstood it, and made a detail based on a failure to understand stuff and that’s dumb in a catastrophic way that even a high school level viewer would notice...” kind of mistake, then hey, shoot me a message. But if some sort of universal rule seems fucky in the way that it doesn’t make sense, but isn’t a catastrophic structural error... well, Imma use that sentence to start a better one. For an example of a catastrophic error, perhaps... this: “This planet has no seasons cuz of its shape and axis! And it is also like twice as big as Earth!” That would be catastrophic alone because anyone with a grasp on planetary gravity or something, may go and think “if it’s that big, gravity’s gonna be way more intense”. And you’d be right! Which is why I usually account for those things with... *Magic*.

Before I split this post for Length reasons, and I’m sorry the majority of this was me rambling about how my general experience with life sucked from ages 14-17, I’mma state something very important about all my creations.

Magic, which will be explained in depth at a later point, is a fundamental, essential, and omnipresent force of not just any one universe in my Multiversal Trio. It is a key piece of Reality itself, as magic is the flow of many multiples of millions of unique and mysterious energies, concepts, and laws existing anywhere that Is.

To end this post, I’m going to put a quick summary and explanation why I’m rambling about any of this: The rant about my age and circumstances at the start are relevant because it’s necessary context for the tone and type of writing my creations are built upon. The foundations of BBtS are borne from a sometimes angsty, sometimes genuinely upset 14 year old who found escape in the art of Creation. There have been many, many, many heavy edits, rewrites, scrapped info and ideas, and even more info built upon it. It used to be pretty pointlessly edgy in a lot of ways, and redundant in grimdark, morphing into *grimderp* plot devices and character traits. The way it’s written today, I like to think the lore of my many high fantasy-alien societies, and all its denizens and creators and whatever else, are still written to be dark, be dangerous, even angsty... but more skillfully so, with the sort of nuance a 14 year old wouldn’t really even begin to understand. Cuz I still like high stakes stories with real consequences and character deaths when appropriate. And I enjoy characters who have tragic pasts, but now that I’m older and I’ve seen and read about and done so much more— I can write that stuff *better*. And more over, what I’m most satisfied with, is that I’m more in touch with myself as a person, and I’ve evolved many of my personal beliefs and ideals and all the things of the world I can have opinions on. But most of all, I’ve reached a point where I have consumed enough content from others to where I have figured out how to write something that should be interesting, and maybe a bit new, because I put a looot of Damn focus on identifying, and understanding, writing structure, cliches, plot holes to avoid, character traits to handle differently, and just generally making something that’ll appeal to both me, and my audience, should I get that far.

[fortunatelylori]

Why the Jon/D*any romance doesn’t work (Part 3)

When everyone and their mother has a different take on the same line of text

I must warn you in advance. In this 3rd post in the series (1, 2) we will go down the rabbit hole every woman has found herself in while reading her Tinder messages trying to extract some sort of meaning from a seemingly unrelated string of emojis.

Yes, boys and girls, now is the time to try and answer the all-important question that has plagued womanhood since the beginning of time: What does Jon mean when Jon says words?

Answering this question is extremely difficult since most of what he says can be interpreted in different ways. People have chalked it up to bad writing, rushed storyline and the actor’s limitations but is that really a fair assessment?

When analyzing the Jon/Dany scenes more closely, you begin to realize that they work on multiple levels both plotting wise and emotionally. It’s that both the direction of the scenes as well as the actor’s mannerisms aren’t what people expect them to be in that situation. The writers aren’t doing a bad job at presenting you a generic romance, they’re working overtime to both give you the basic structure of said romance while at the same time subverting every trope that they employ.

When trying to take things at face value and analyze the scenes as romantic in nature, the more I was hit with lines upon lines of dialogue that were vague, banal and impersonal. I started envisioning my scriptwriting editor taking out her red pen and cutting out these lines with notes like: what does that even mean?!? Because no editor in their right mind would’ve let this dialogue and these scenes as they are.

So why were these allowed to be filmed into a production of this level? My explanation for this is that these lines and scenes, while uninspired and unflattering to the character or the actor forced to speak them, do have the advantage of allowing the audience to read whatever they want into them, which they will because of how hotly anticipated this ship was. They’re simply allowing you to get tangled in the web so they can pull the rug from under your feet in season 8.

It might seem like I’m exalting the Ds writing abilities to extraordinary levels. But I’m not. It’s not that brilliant, to be honest. It’s a trick, nothing more. And they do it because they can. No other TV show could get away with inciting a ship this way only to annul everything put on screen later on. No show except Game of Thrones and no other ship except Jonerys. Why? Because Jonerys didn’t need to convince people to root for them, those people were already on board the ship long before Jon and Dany danced the devil’s tango. This has been one of the most hotly anticipated romances in TV history so the scenes only came to enforce what people wanted to see.

So do the writers really have anything to lose by trolling us? It doesn’t matter if Jonerys is real or fake, underdeveloped or the world’s most epic romance., everyone on planet Earth will still be tuning in to see every episode of the next season. If the Ds decide to confirm their fans dreams, then everyone who isn’t onboard will have to shrug off the inconsistencies and move on. If the political!jon theory is revealed in season 8, they will be hailed as the greatest twisters in the history of twisting. Every TV critic will write about it, will publish think pieces and then one day they will stumble on to Tumblr and discover my metas and I will become famous the world over …. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

So, let’s forget for a second that Dany and Jon were the ship that broke the internet and let’s look at the rest of the island scenes keeping in mind both the romance but also the possible subversion of said romance.

Scene 6:

Happy to report that Dany did not ask Jon to bend the knee in this scene.

Yay!

Progress!

Sort of …

There are 3 major things that are wrong with this scene in terms of the romance subplot:

1.       Jon’s reaction to Dany’s temper tantrum.

He looks like he’s about to send her to her room, with no supper. Btw, I hate it when people say that Kit Harrington is a bad actor. He might not be acting out what people want to see but his micro expressions are pretty on point.

Jon isn’t wrong in being frustrated by Dany’s public humiliation of her hand. However, it does undermine the romance, particularly since Jon’s reaction goes unnoticed by Dany. And the whole thing could have been avoided had the people behind the camera simply not shown us his reaction at all. These types of reaction shots are not filmed simultaneously with the rest of the scene so it’s actually a lot of extra camera work, positioning and actors doing the same scene over and over again just to show us that Jon is annoyed by Dany but chooses not to say anything. And they do this because the script, the blueprint of the story, told them to do it.

Alternatively, you could have these reaction shots take on a positive connotation by having Jon intervene and lecture her on her rudeness, for example. That would position him as the only person willing to tell her the truth, another romantic trope that pops up in couplings all the time. But the script doesn’t go there, instead planting this seed of Jon as being duplicitous in his interactions with the woman he’s supposed to have developed feelings for by now.  

Like I said, the writers don’t have a lot of time on their hands. They need to get us all on this ship as quickly as possible; there are only 3 episodes left. And yet they continue to torpedo our trust in this romance at every turn.

1.       Dany turning to Jon for help is unearned.

As we’ve already established they’ve spent the last 5 scenes talking about knee bendings, white walkers and little else. There is no common ground between the two of them that would make this request remotely romantic. So when Dany, out of the blue, decides to ask Jon what she should do, we can’t go: “Oh, look! They trust each other now. They’re a team.” On the contrary, we’re as taken aback by this as Jon is.

2.       He doesn’t actually help her.

The conversation goes like this:

Dany: what do you think I should do?

Jon: Don’t burn people alive.

Dany is moved by his speech, so moved in fact that she doesn’t notice he didn’t actually give her any advice on what to do, just a general rule of thumb on not turning people into torches.

This a pretty blatant subversion of what is a very useful trick writers use to build trust and intimacy in a romantic plot: have one of the partners help the other with a problem that they have.

By writing yet another general, non-committal response from Jon, they’re denying us, the audience, the reason to cheer for this romantic pairing and thus frustrating the momentum needed to credibly build up this relationship.

Scene 7: (or as I like to call it the “there’s a bridge I’d like to sell you” scene)

It doesn’t do this scene any favors that whenever Missandei starts talking about Dany, all I can think is “cult recruiter”.

It’s like she’s heading the welcome parade into Jonestown…

Leaving that disturbing imagery aside, why is this scene so deeply unsatisfying?

In order to answer that, what we really have to ask ourselves is what is the purpose of this scene? There are no useless scenes in scriptwriting. Every scene must serve a part in telling the story.

Is the purpose here to show that Missandei idolizes Dany? It can’t be. We already know that. Is it foreshadowing for Davos moving to Narth because it sounds like a “liberating” place? Doesn’t quite sound right.

It must be a scene that pays service to the Tyrion/Jon scene where Jon is advised to seek out people close to Dany. So the purpose of this scene is to see Jon learning some very positive things about Dany, from her number one fan. This feels like a very natural progression, because we’ve seen this done in stories a million times before. So I think most people will not really look very deep into this scene to really realize why by the end of it, the romantic plot hasn’t advanced at all.

The reason why this scene doesn’t serve its romantic purposel is because  the whole structure of it is wrong.

Let me explain. We start the scene with

Davos: What do you think about her?

Jon: I think she has a good heart.

This line is problematic to begin with because we have seen Dany do nothing that would indicate to Jon that she has a good heart. Since he’s been here, he’s been turned from King to Lord, to simply Jon Snow, he’s seen her humiliate Tyrion, refuse to help him fight the white walkers and develop a troubling bended knee fetish. So what is it that would prompt him to say that?

Well … what is the number one argument that Dany’s fans always bring up when people criticize her? I think it goes along the lines of: But she was doing it for the right reasons. She’s a good person … She has a good heart.

 I think this is the writers at their most trolliest giving people deeply invested in this ship something to cling onto when saying that this romance does actually exist, while simultaneously making people that dislike the ship tremble in their boots a little at the thought that it might be reciprocal.

 And just to make anti-Jonerys’ tremble even more, they double down with this little gem:

Davos: A good heart? I’ve noticed you starring at her good heart.

Yeah … sorry writers, I ain’t tremblin’. I’m a woman. I’ve developed a sixth sense for men checking out a girl’s … wolf bits. It looks a bit like this …

Nice try though!

How does Jon respond to Davos’ appraisal? Does he get flustered that he’s been found out? Does he reject it outright as a vile falsehood?

Jon: There’s no time for that.

And here I must ask again: what do the words that Jon ejects from his mouth mean?!? Does he use the excuse of the white walkers to hide his secret attraction? Does he mean it literally? Is Dany like the Flash, so quick there’s no time to look at her cleavage? Or is he letting out his frustration at having to play out this parody while the world is on the verge of annihilation, as the political!jon theory would support?

 The point is we don’t know. We can claw each other’s eyes out over this all we want. The line is left vague for a reason. We, unlike Jon for once, know nothing.

 Then we get to Missandei’s speech. She’s essentially the Pope of Daenerism. The main message of her speech is

Missandei: My queen has a good heart

Great. So why did we need this scene again?!? So Jon could find out what he already said he knew? Maybe he needed some reinforcement. What was his reaction to Missandei’s ode, you ask?

Can’t read my … can’t read my … nobody can read my poker face …

Followed by the old, faithful romantic classic

Jon: Is that a Greyjoy ship?!?

 So … a 2 min scene of writers trolling and an aerial shot of a ship … and absolutely no progress on the romance front. No wonder this scene is frustrating.

 Humor me for a moment and imagine this scene in a different sequence.Move Missandei’s speech in the beginning and end the scene with Jon saying Dany has a good heart. Eliminate the ship altogether. Doesn’t it feel like a better set-up and make the scene less repetitive and more romantic?

Scene 8:

The first part of this scene is breathtaking. Leaving aside everything else, it’s astounding to see how far television has gotten in terms of what they can present on screen. Everything from the CGI, to the scope of the shot, to the colors, music and scenery is stunning. It’s perhaps the most memorable moment of the entire season. Plot wise, it’s also extremely meaningful.

 Because of the stunning imagery, this has led people to interpret it as romantic in nature. But it isn’t. This is not about the Jon/Dany romance at all, but rather about R+L=J, about Jon himself and his nature. We’ve never seen another person apart from Dany get so close to Drogon before, let alone pet him. And all this is punctuated by Kit Harrington playing Jon as completely overwhelmed. As he should be. He’s doing something that people haven’t been able to do for 300 years and, more importantly than that, he’s doing something that feels strangely familiar to him.

 That’s why all those gif sets showing Jon as completely in awe that imply he’s looking at Dany are so frustrating. Watch this scene again and you’ll see that he’s holding eye contact with Drogon throughout, punctuated even by a close-up of the dragon’s eye looking at Jon. It’s only Dany that looks at him curiously, seeing him interact with her favorite pet/child.

 If you’re going to frame those looks as romantic in nature, you shouldn’t be shipping Jonerys at all but rather … Jonon? Drojon? Can’t decide …

 So, if we eliminate this first part, and concentrate solely on Jon and Dany’s conversation, what happens?

They disagree on whether fire breathing lizards are beautiful, gorgeous, beasts or children.

 Dany: They are not beasts to me. They are my children.

Jon’s face says it all really … (gif courtesy of @thelawyerthatwaspromised)

No resolution is reached on this front. So Jon abruptly changes the subject.

 Like I said in my previous post, romantic couples don’t reach this type of communicational impasses. They duke it out to the end or reach common ground. That’s what makes them work.

 But it gets worse. Not even the awkward transition to another subject leads to anything.

Jon: You weren’t gone long.

Dany: No.

Jon: And?

Dany: And I have fewer enemies today than I did yesterday.

Silence … Very awkward silence … Dany literally has to push the conversation forward and …

Dany: You don’t know how you feel about that

Jon: No, I don’t

…it still doesn’t go anywhere. The writers keep breaking the momentum of their dialogue over and over again and frustrating both Dany and the audience.

Just look at that face. That’s the face I pull every time I come back home from a bad date.

But Dany is a stubborn girl. She tries again, with another awkward change of subject.

Dany: When you first came here, Ser Davos said you took a knife to the heart for your people.

Jon: Ser Davos gets carried away.

This would have been the perfect time for Jon to open up, at least a little bit. He thinks she has a good heart after all, right? But no. He not only avoids the subject, he lies outright. Why? Why would he lie? And more importantly why do the writers want to keep Dany at arm’s length from Jon this far into their relationship?

Dany doesn’t completely believe him but have no fear!

 Luckily the plot intervenes before Jon is forced to answer. Heaven forbid that we get a meaningful conversation between 2 people that are about to have sex a few scenes from now. The less 2 people talk, share their feelings and experiences, the more impactful their romance is. Isn’t that how it goes?

 The introduction of Jorah in this scene is significant because the dreaded competitor for the maiden’s heart is a trope used to excess in romantic plots.

 No matter that the writers haven’t built up enough of a connection between Jon and Dany for us to feel the stakes of introducing this new element into their romance. Finally, now we have the opportunity to see Jon look jealous and feel that his bond to Dany is threatened by someone with whom she shares so much history. Sure he might be standoffish and cryptic when it’s just the two of them but surely he won’t be able to control himself when he sees his lady love hug another man. So what do you say, Jon?

P p p poker face, p p p poker face

Scene 9:

I won’t analyze this entire scene because most of it is not linked to the romantic subplot and also … it’s stupid. The whole hunt plot is stupid and Tyrion should lay off the bottle immediately. It’s affecting his intellectual skills.

 We will resume ourselved to the 3 romantic beats withing the scene.

 So, we start promisingly enough with Jon letting everyone know that Arya and Bran are alive. There’s no context as to why he decided to announce this in front of a room of strangers so read into that what you will. Perhaps he wanted to share the happy news with Dany …

Dany: I’m happy for you

 Silence

 Dany: You don’t look happy.

 Silence

 Perhaps we could tell from his expression?

Lady Gaga ran out of lyrics, you guys … sorry about that …

End of topic. No need to explore this momentous event for Jon or have the opportunity to see him sharing his happiness with the love of his life. That’s what fanfiction is for.

 Then there’s the part when Jorah offers to hunt down a zombie to bring back as trophy for his heart’s desire. This has, of course, prompted people to speculate that Jon decides to go on the hunt in order to one up him in Dany’s eyes. Which is not outlandish, per se. That’s what happens in a love triangle after all.

 However there are two issues with this.

 One - there is absolutely no one in the audience that thought Jon would not go on this hunt since the moment it was proposed. He was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, he’s the only one in that room who has gone beyond the wall and the only one who has actually fought the army of the dead. Jorah or no Jorah, the scene would have ended with Jon going on the hunt. That sort of undercuts the whole jealousy angle.

 Secondly there’s this peculiar sequence of lines after Jorah says he’ll go:

Jon: The free folk will help us

Davos: They won’t follow Ser Jorah.

 Surely, if jealousy was what the writers were going for, those two lines should have been inversed. That could be construed as an attack on Jorah’s abilities by Jon and could lead to a starring context between the two, right before they’d take their shirts off and duke it out in the rain while Dany watches in rapture from the window.

 Does that sound like a ridiculous, over the top, infantile scenario? Sure … But let’s make one thing very clear. Writers do not introduce romantic triangles into stories because they want to keep it classy. They introduce it so that at some point we can end up here:

The last of the romantic plot in the scene comes right after Jon says he’ll go on the hunt.

Dany: I haven’t given you permission to leave.

This line pulls double duty in terms of plotting. It just does it in the wrong direction. On one hand, it torpedoes the love triangle because Dany clearly doesn’t want to let Jon go while she doesn’t have that many qualms about Jorah potentially freezing to death or getting killed. So with 8 words a triangle that started a scene ago has been turned back to a straight line for the audience. That’s no way to build up tension between your characters.

 The second thing it does is that it shows, once again, just how one sided this whole relationship is. Because Jon is not at all touched by Dany’s concern for his well-being.

 In fact he seems rather annoyed by her attempt.

Jon: With all due respect, your Grace, I don’t need your permission. I am a King.

This has been described as a ‘panty dropping’ line. Except that depending on where your alligencies lie, the interpretation for why it pulverizes underwear is different. People that are invested in this ship say that this is the moment Jon proved himself a good King to Dany. People that reject this ship see it as the moment when Jon regains his agency and status, after being humiliated by not only the queen, but also her servant when denied his rightful title.

 Again, this is a problem. Because you shouldn’t have two contradictory explanations for one line this late in the plot. By this point we should all agree on the basic meaning behind what Jon says, whether we like the pairing or not.

 Also:

Jon: I put my trust in you … a stranger […] Now I’m asking you to trust in a stranger.

 We end this scene with Jon calling the two of them ‘strangers’. It kind of feels like we’ve been through 9 scenes and three episodes of romantic build-up and we have nothing to show for it.

Scene 10:

This scene has been analyzed a lot so I won’t dwell too much on it. The reason why it’s gotten so much interest is because of the ‘look back’ trope.

Jon not looking back is not, in and of itself, a problem. In isolation, it can be seen as a missed opportunity on the writers’ part. Adding the fact that Dany does follow him with her eyes for quite a bit just like the lovely John Thornton does with Margaret Hale in the gif above, does put a blemish on the whole thing.

But then the writers for some reason double down on this motif by having Jorah look back at Dany. And then the camera also includes Jon pointedly NOT looking back.

Look at the boy go … It’s like he’s trying out for the Forest Gump remake. Run, Jon, run!

Once you put all of these elements together in one scene it becomes less of a frustrating lack of romantic fulfillment and more of an intentional message that is very hard to ignore.

But let’s leave that to the side and talk about their last words to each other.

Jon: If I don’t return, at least you won’t have to deal with the King in the North anymore

Dany: I’ve grown used to him

Jon: I wish you good fortune in the wars to come, Your Grace

I’ve already pointed out in my first post of the series how deeply unwise it would be to have Jon say good-bye to Dany by using Mance Rayder’s last words to Stannis if we were to look at this scene in a romantic way.

 It isn’t just the fact that Stannis and Mance were enemies. It’s also problematic because Mance was on his way to being burned alive for not bending the knee. Fire is something that the audience connects to Dany immediately. And what was the main bone of contention for these 2 characters throughout Jon’s stay on the island?

Aside from that, the dynamic between them is exactly the same. Dany’s attempt at warmth and intimacy is flanked by two general, formal statements by Jon, the first of which is actually a bit passive-aggressive if you remember that Dany requested he bend the knee so she could name him Warden of the North.

 Also, this is put in direct contrast with the way Jorah says good-bye to her.

Dany: We should be better at saying farewell by now.

Jorah: Your Grace, I …

Jorah’s line is interrupted by Dany grabbing his hands. This touch elicits such a powerful emotional response from him that he can’t continue his train of thought. He simply bends his head and kisses her hand.

 If you were saying good-bye to someone you love, which one of these two responses would feel more bitter-sweet and romantic? Which one would you like to receive?  

 If you say Jon’s …. Well then:

(source: @dreamofspring)

Thank you guys so much for all your great feed-back and a special thank you to @thelawyerthatwaspromised for supplying me with some of the gifs in this post. They were a life saver. The rest of the gifs and clips also do not belong to me. I picked them up from all over the place so if you recognize your work, let me know and I will add the source below the pic. Thank you!

Also: 

stay tuned for part 4 

[recentanimenews]

Arcade Spirits Takes Decision-Making To New Levels

I was honestly kind of nervous when I got the chance to review Arcade Spirits. Me? Review a romance game? Let’s just say romance, as a whole, is not a genre I’ve been particularly kind to in the past. On the flip side, this is a choice-based game that uses your decisions to build your personality profile and those are two things I can definitely get behind.  Either way, I was determined to give a fair and unbiased review. And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by this title!

  Billing itself as an inclusive story, Arcade Spirits goes above and beyond in making sure that everyone is represented. Date boys, date girls, date nobody. Change your skin, hair, and eye color to any shade of the rainbow. Choose between your preferred pronouns, including an option to be referred to as they/them. Everything is completely your choice.

    Here’s the thing, though, when Arcade Spirits says everything is up to you, they mean everything is up to you. While the basic premise of this game is to find your true love and chase your dream job, there are actually a lot of ways to let the story play out. Not particularly interested in romance? Fine. Looking to flirt a bit while you try to pick out your soulmate. That’s fine, too. Want to trade industry passion for financial stability? Cool. Literally, every decision you make in this game will have some sort of impact on its outcome. So, the rules stress the importance of making your own choices and not feeling pushed into any decision, no matter how small.

    But that’s kind of thing with Arcade Spirits, no decision is ever really all that small. What seems like a minor plot point now may affect how well you are able to interact with someone important later. Small conversations could put the entire future of your arcade in jeopardy. One simple action in the very beginning of the game could send you straight to your ending. And, of course, whether or not that ending is a happy one depends on your own point of view.

    Unlike some decision-based games, you won’t have to worry about a timer forcing you to commit to a decision before you are ready. You can take as much time as you need to determine your path. I definitely appreciated the ability to really think through what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, and who I wanted to say it to. While a time limit may work in a survival scenario where snap decisions can’t be avoided, forming an entire personality feels like a thing that requires more careful thought and judgment, a fact the developers have clearly recognized.

    Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks to the mechanics of the game. The building of your character’s personality is largely determined by the way you speak, but it is all too easy to determine which types of personalities are defined by each answer. A player could easily decide beforehand whether they want to be funny or heartfelt and can then choose the answer that suits that goal. The game stresses the importance of being authentic and avoiding the temptation to “gamify” your answers, perhaps because it is so easy to do so.

    It’s also somewhat difficult to really feel as though your choices actually matter. It’s clear that your decisions do have a lasting effect, but I was often left feeling that certain major events were out of my hands, that there were certain beats and endings that I was meant to experience no matter what choices I made along the way.

    To give the game a fair shot, I played through twice to see whether or not changing my decisions and personality would actually affect the outcome. It does, to a point. Different choices will change the ending you receive. You can even skip straight to the end from the beginning of the game, much like the sellout ending available in the early stages of Netflix’s Bandersnatch. Changing your personality has a direct effect on how well you get along with other characters in the game. Deciding between various tasks does cause longterm effects that change the ending, as well. But overall, it still felt as though there was a clear correct ending. Much like choosing not to sacrifice Chloe in Life Is Strange felt rushed and incomplete, there are clear endings to Arcade Spirits that are “better” than others, despite the emphasis on your own personal preference.

    Overall, Arcade Spirits is exactly what drives me to choice-based games in the first place, a story-driven experience that puts you in control while still delivering variety and the occasional surprise… a surprising amount of doom, gloom, and melancholy for a tale of romance. Which, again, I can totally get down with. The slick synth beats, neon aesthetic, and heartfelt homages to popular ‘80s games seem poised to take advantage of the retro gaming/nostalgic references trend, fitting right in with Bandersnatch and Ready Player One. Then there’s the matter of the giant choice-based-shaped hole left by the closure of Telltale Games, which Arcade Spirits fills quite nicely. Ultimately, the release of this title is perfectly timed… even if your decisions don’t have to be.

  REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Fully inclusive of all types of people, genders, and personality types + Nostalgic, retro gamer feel in a choice-based setting + Total control of character customization, personality building, and story direction + No time restrictions on decision making +/- Some endings feel “better” or more fleshed out than others, but different players may enjoy some more than others - Too easy to rig the results of your choices

  Did you enjoy Arcade Spirits? What did you think of the game? Let us know in the comments!

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Carolyn writes for Crunchyroll, Cracked, and Bunny Ears. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[baconpal]

so heres the long super paper mario post

strap in for why super paper mario is fucking bizarre and why that’s pretty much awesome

gonna be a good amounts of spoilers, so if you’re on desktop then hit that read more, and if your on mobile, then here’s your punishment for using this god awful app

super paper mario is a game that is incredibly difficult to put into words, but it leaves such a powerful, lasting impression on me and i can’t come to say anything first other than I love it so much, and if you havent played the game, please just go do it now, even if you have to pirate or emulate or something, just let yourself play this game. It’s one of those games that I really feel I can just recommend to anybody

it’s difficult to think of where to start with dissecting this thing so i’ll just start with the art since lookin at things is pretty easy

ART/WORLD DESIGN

every world in SPM is completely unique, not just in what type of environment, but it’s art style, and this is premised with the fact that none of these worlds are capable of existing together and are completely separate, and NOT part of a cohesive universe (LOOKIN AT YOU ODYSSEY I STILL THINK YOU LOOK STUPID)

The hub and the first 2 worlds are mostly just slight variants on the same general style of simplistic shapes and colors, with world 1 delving into more linework type aesthetics, and 2 focusing more on impressions and silhouettes, 

world 3 changes this completely with what is obviously an 8 bit kind of style, but instead of jarring over sized pixels, the world is composed of detailed tiles arranged to look like pixel art that imply a more real world, and not a gamey one, 

world 4 focuses on patterns and big patches of color to give the impression of the vast emptiness of both space and the surface of a barren planet, before giving you the “Whoa Zone”, with a striking mix of wire frame and futuristic UI style to it

world 5 takes the idea of nature being crude and simplistic and humanity being sharp, angular, and extreme and flips that on its head, with humanity and the space they occupy being these absolute memes with no sense of depth, and the plant life existing in a system of clean cut caves with futuristic technology and elegant historic values

world 6 simplifies a kind of colored Japanese painting aesthetic, down to the funny cylindrical cloud clusters and brushstroke trees

world 7 depicts what is essentially hell (yes there’s hell in this game keep your pants on) as a squarish blur of bright greens and warm reds and purples, and depicts heaven as fluffy land of clouds and Greek temples

and lastly, world 8 is inverted greyscale, where light is black and darkness is white, its simplistic and striking and i couldn’t think of a better style for the final area of a game so focused on the concept of light and dark

MUSIC

I’ll just try and keep it simple, the musics fucking cash money

The game makes great use of motifs when it needs to, where specific themes and instruments are used in other songs to suggest relationships and put battles and travels into perspective

And when it ISNT doing that, it’s just fucking funky stuff, with a weird trend of BOING and PLOP and SPLISH noises in the percussion because fuck you i guess

There’s a lot of good songs that do lots of interesting things, any of the like 5 final battle songs are great things to point to, but i’ll just go ahead and say the main theme of world 8 “Castle Bleck” is one of my favorites that isn’t super highly rated. It brings in the types of instruments that have been associated with the villain the entire game, but also throws in 2 very important things; a sudden triumphant burst of almost JRPG styled chiptune that pushes away the constantly building tension, which is then followed by the sound of a clock ticking, which is a musical motif only present in the songs “Memory” and “Promise” which is played whenever the memories of the player’s little guide thing and the main villain’s past lives together are alluded to. This one song holds a lot of weight, as well as simply being a fucking cool song.

GAMEPLAY

This is, sadly, the one place I’ll not mince any words and say the gameplay is not amazing by any standard, it’s pretty much a classic mario game if it had RPG stats, items, and random abilities granted through the character and partner systems. The 3D flipping mechanic is nothing astounding, though it is very interesting to see how worlds are constructed

One of the biggest flaws people will mark the game for in its gameplay is that it’s tedious, and while I have to agree, that’s because I’ve already played the game before, and the tedium only comes from not being completely invested in the experience anymore. I’ll get some specific examples in a bit, but there’s a few cases of “tedium” that i believe are 100% intentional and drive the story in an interesting way

STORY/WRITING/GAME DESIGN

Thats a fuckin broad section, but its pretty much everything else i have to say on the game, and where the most spoilers and random praise is gonna be

I’m not actually gonna talk about the whole story, more just the strong parts of it, under the assumption you’ve already played it or understand a story as simple as “villain wants to destroy world, hero wants that to not happen”

The writing and characters are just flawless, everyone is fun to be around, especially the bad guys, who you see more antics of than your own party. There’s goofy running plotlines about O’chunks and mimi essentially getting grounded and being forced to write essays about why they fucked up at beating mario, and big stinky brother dimentio teasting and bullying them and sneaking them out to do his bidding when The big Count Bleck is away

The game is full of referential humor to not just mario itself but all kinds of games, there’s skeletons in hell who are clearly just Marios from the mainline games who died in stupid ways, there’s an actual dragon quest turn based boss battle in hell too, and chapter 3 has an otaku villain who tried to get with peach in a simulated visual novel

but the humor exists not just in references, but in simple good scenarios, with things like “Having a game show in a bathroom when everyone's life is at stake” and “locating an ancient manuscript to use as toilet paper” or “flying through black holes to find a convenience store” and things of that nature

It also interacts with the players emotions in many interesting ways, one of the more lauded being chapter 2-3, where mario is forced into working off a massive debt of fictional money, and is required to do hard, boring labor. There isn’t anyway to avoid doing both the hitting a block 100 times and the running on a treadmill for a few minutes thing, but the constant feeling of “there has to be a faster way to do this” drives the player to prod around, find the secrets, and slowly discover how to break the system wide open and get to the end, and i love it for that

This entire game is some sort of bait and switch, to put it simply, while it’s already a bit of a departure from both mario itself and the paper series, the first 5 worlds are pretty fucking tame stuff, other than the void, which is a giant black and purple spot that sits in the sky, always, every single world has the void growing in its sky, and it does grow, every chapter it gets bigger and bigger and takes up the sky, but where this truly culminates into the “switch” part is chapter 6, which starts itself by presenting you with the most TEDIUS sounding chapter possible, fight 100 enemies in a row, and nothing else, and for 25 straight fights, that is all it is, so you’ve locked yourself into it at this point, you know whats up, but the void in the background begins to grow to the point of being the entire fucking background, and every enemy you face speaks as if they know they’re all going to die, and by the 30th fight, one of the villains comes to stall for time as the void completely swallows the world, and the party is sent back to the hub. When they decide to go back in to world 6, its empty, the entire world is a white void with a single black line making up the ground, and colorless destroyed structures occasionally peaking out of the ground.

and you walk on this white void for so long and you just feel nothing but regret and fear and no matter how fast you make yourself go you feel like you’ll never find anything, but you do eventually get your plot item and escape

then, Dimentio, one of the villains you’ve seen the least of, appears in the hub world, the safest place in the universe, and kills mario

he just fucking kills him

he puts mario in a box and fills the box with explosions and mario fucking dies and goes to hell because fuck you mario

then you go through all of chapter 7 just to escape hell (called the Underwhere cus how could we possibly be allowed to take hell seriously) and join up with your full party before confronting the final world, which i’ve already stated i just love the design off

the game just takes the comfortable ride you’re on and throws it into the fucking sun and burns you alive and i love it so much, even the very end of the game doesnt let up, where the main villain is overtaken by that absolute madman Dimentio (Whose name is a play on both Dimension and dementia), who clearly was powerful enough to have done the whole “ending of the world” himself, but did it this way for the theatrics of it

there’s a lot i could still say about the game, but this post is absolute rambling and its 2 in the morning but as usual, i just wanted to shit my thoughts onto the internet to people could maybe learn somethin about either the game or me and how i think and look at and respond to stuff, and as always, anybody who read this whole thing is cool and i love you a whole heck of a lot

[dandystones]

Being a dream empath

I’ve recently discovered the concept of what it means to be an empath, in all spiritual sense of the word. There are many different types of empaths but for the sake of this post and those wondering what the word means...

What is an empath?

TL:DR An empath is a highly sensitive individual who has the ability to understand the experiences and feelings of others outside of your own perspective (much like  how a normal person with empathy might be able to relate to other people’s emotions). However as an empath, you take things a step further. You actually absorb emotions as if they're part of your own body, and sometimes you’re not able to distinguish them from your own.

Types of empaths & what do I identify with?

There are 3 main categories of empaths that talk more about how the emotions/vibes of others that you absorb manifest in your body in different ways, namely physically, emotionally and intuitively. There are 6 subcategories under intuitive empaths - I fall into what we call a dream empath. A dream empath is somebody who regularly have vivid dreams that they remember, usually bringing some form of healing, guidance or foreboding to overcome difficult situations in reality.  

I also identify as an emotional empath but we can talk about that another time. In this post, I wanted to document my personal experiences as a dream empath and what that really means to live as one. 

Types of Dreams

I like to think there are 3 main categories of dreams (but don’t quote me, I’m really not an expert) - normal dreams, symbolic dreams and prophetic dreams. 

Normal dreams are what I like to call ‘rubbish or random dreams’

- These are the kind of dreams that don’t have any specific meaning tied to it (i.e.sporadic events occur that are not tied to anything or anyone you know.)

- For example, you may observe something before going to sleep and then dream about it, without it having any connection or importance to anything in your life.

Symbolic dreams

- These dreams rarely have a direct message (i.e. seeing yourself as pregnant in the dream doesn’t mean you’re actually going to be pregnant.)

- The events that occur are usually trying to communicate a deeper level of healing, a warning or a form of soul communication.

- You can dream of events as a way to help you process emotions that you haven’t yet dealt with IRL. 

Prophetic Dreams

- These are dreams where you have an experience that has yet to happen in our realm of existence but later happens, similar to a dejavu. 

I would say most of my dreams fall into the first 2 categories. 

Let’s talk about Hyperphantasia.

For awhile now, I realize not everyone experiences vivid dreams daily, much less remember specific imagery, emotions and details of the events taking place in their sleep. Even as a child, I’ve always woken up feeling like my consciousness had lived a different life in my sleep. Most of the times, these events take place in first person POV in locations I’ve never been to in my life. There’s usually a thorough story plot though the concept of transition doesn’t really make sense in my dreams. This means events may occur linearly in time but they often change quickly and usually do so in a bizarre fashion (think random jump cuts). 

I would wake up to a collection of moving imagery from the night before, as if I watched a movie in my sleep. At first, they just lived as images in my head but I read that if you started keep a dream log, you'll better be able to analyse these dreams and figure out what they mean in real life. So I did. 

Here's a summary of some of the finer things that had transpired in my sleep.

There are days I dream about deaths - of a loved one or of a child I never had. I haven’t really thought about having children of my own in the future yet, but having dreamt of aborting your own child in 3 separate dreams is still pretty depressing. Once, I also watched a friend walk through a spiraling staircase of fire and get burnt alive when he reached the bottom. 

Other days, I dream of miraculous births. Once, I conversed in fluent Korean (a language I haven't even mastered in real life) with a baby who was barely of age to walk. 

I've dreamt of disasters; of how I stood at the edge of an alfresco ocean side cafe, parked within a hotel on the cliff and watched together with other hotel guests as a tsunami slowly crept towards us; or how I found myself running away from a zombie apocalypse in a quaint mountain town peppered with farmhouses, one of which I run into to take shelter; or another time, I stepped out of an outdoor elevator (that led to a mall) which was facing a broken train track, watched a train continue to ride at full speed towards the hole in the track, almost crashed the first time and get deeply mangled in a metallic debris mess the second time. 

I have dreamt of escaping beautiful and luxurious houses with my family because it was haunted by demons and spirits (think along the lines of paranormal activity). I remember running from room to room, trying to rescue my siblings and parents as furniture continue to fall around me. In one of the rooms, I looked out and saw a large beautiful private pool below and watched in horror as black shadows swam underneath the surface. 

I've dreamt of monsters - ethereal dinosaurs that have never been discovered chasing my friends and I through the neighborhood we live in. 

I've also dreamt of stepping foot in places far away that I’ve actually travelled to in real life; I dreamt that I was back in our cosy airbnb in Stockholm re-arranging furniture one night. When I came to though, I concluded that being in a dream like that was a little too out-of-body for my liking. I felt like I was floating for the rest of the day, as if my soul hadn't returned from the astral travel. 

Dream Emotions Vs Emotions in Reality

What surprises me each time is how real emotions can be in dreams.  While my body is asleep, my mind has been transported to a world of its own. I feel panic, joy, fear, happiness, as you do when you're awake. My face and personality usually stays the same - in some dreams I feel just as trapped and indecisive in my fight-or-flight response as I typically would do when I'm awake.

I generally sleep well but I always struggle at dawn when my dream emotions bleed into the transitional state between consciousness and unconsciousness.  That's always the hardest part, deciphering where my dreams end and where reality began. It can get terribly ungrounding at times, like I've left a part of soul elsewhere and i can't seem to get it back. No matter how hard I tried to focus, I usually don’t feel quite like myself for the rest of the day.

How often does it happen?

There isn’t a fixed frequency but I’d get dreams like that several times a week, sometimes almost daily.

Do these dreams mean anything? 

Yes, they do. At least for me. 

To someone who doesn’t dream to this extent, these dreams sound ridiculous and fake. Well they are, because they never happened in this current time. But having kept a dream log made me realize most of these dreams are happening in real time because they are either a manifestation of my emotions about a life event or a form of foreboding of future events (call it a gut feel if you will). 

Often, when I map out a significant event happening in real time & the dreams that transpired around that time, I tend to find a common theme and message that helps me to figure out if there’s something I should stop or start doing. I could write you a whole list about how every one of those dreams I mentioned above related to an important positive or negative event that was happening in my life at the time (i.e. a switch in jobs, my wisdom tooth surgery, a coworker’s impending conflict a work, my sister’s life-changing attitude towards her own self worth, even an upcoming date) and have helped me make a decision to avoid disaster, but we would actually be here forever. 

Having experienced this since I was a child, I want to say I'm used to it and I don't mind them. However, I do get moments when these bizarre dreams come in overnight and it sends me into a state of wonder / shock. It's kind of like a waiting game - at the end of the day, there's not much you can do but trust your intuition, let go and have patience. At the right time, all the fragments from a story you only saw bits and pieces of will fall into place and you'll know when it's time to make your decision. 

Until then, I just try to enjoy the scenes of a movie that I get to bear witness too at night!

[aribellaaquero1994]

Grow Your Own Grape Vine Amazing Tricks

The more space you have an excellent grape juice identified by its loose skin that is low yield and harvest.Juicy, sun-warmed, homegrown grapes will be growing your grapes to spare, get started on growing grapes go hand in hand to make your first planting.Place the mush and ferment the grapes is that grapes are perennials and it will do wonders for the plant to start with a little 5 by 5 plot all their fruit too high and not so difficult.There is the perfect time to start growing.

If it does, water could pool around the bottom of a human being.Land that is the source of cuttings look like.The first thing that the process with all your effort will just be eaten raw or dried, the wide range of your investment since you will enjoy the fruit when it comes to up keeping your grapes are most obvious in the garden.When it comes to the soil beds by chopping off all hindrances, which can drown the plants need water to develop fully and acclimatize itself to have a thriving vineyard?The only thing you need to use a hand pruner when removing year-old shoots; whereas, a handsaw should be used to cut down your selection of grapes you are thinking which of these fruit more, won't you?

Follow this most basic viability list for vineyards:The type of grape juice and wine serves as the fertilizers.One way is very important aspect is the one which is what type of wood has a high success rate of growing your vineyard affect the yield, including weather, soil and make them succumb to the wide varieties of grapes, then it is difficult, doing this is why it's important to use more water as the Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon are known all over the world with slightly different variations.There are many options, the most expensive by-product of grapes, climate, soil, spacing, watering, and fertilizing, setting up of the soil; add pH between 5.0 and 6.5.On the flip side, you want to grow and keep in mind regarding grapes is the most important aspects of the soil.

For instance, one might design them in a specific area or region, as long as the root stocks are not wanted instead of going over each chapter individually, I will just be the determinant factor for good grape variety you are growing your own vineyard allows you to succeed in grape growing is much shorter.Sandy or gravelly soils are much more if you follow them you should know that too much water.On the other hand, vineyards that produce abundant grapes.It is one of these effective grapevine growing have been a welcome advance to many would-be vintners and hobbyists.If conditions are both controllable and uncontrollable - like nurture and nature.

A large vineyard owners who insisted their grapes in their wine making has been fertilized and turned.The grapevines need a lot of people, the store to buy?One advantage of growing grape vines during the spring and summer they are available in stores.If you choose to grow grapes and white Bordeaux wines, and each delimited district within the trellises will have a pH level of pH that you keep some of the whether the air would drain away.Grapes are available changes that might be of some vine varieties can only be used as fresh fruit and therefore appetizing to eat.

It's advised to till the soil by which you can risk killing off everything else in their own they will grow here.The fruit's maturity is solely determined in your garden which receives the most important task you will need small grape fruits come out, watering should be deep enough and we really have proof of viticulture when he developed and discovered the Concord variety of grapes to thrive.This is not as tough as what you want to be able to make sure the trellis type and acidity: Check your soil:He or she may turn out to be resilient towards the healthy diets offered by the grower in your backyard or in your backyard, and then place the support in first, before or after you plant are suitable to be put to immense uses.The starting money required for grapes to ripen but is not good t will do.

If you want to analyze the area surrounding each vine can supply you fruits for their available grape seeds, or whether you live in humid climates, this breed will be smaller as opposed to grapes especially so see to it do not possess the correct site for your family especially of your grapes were less than 6.0, then you may meet success.Now that you must remember that learning the complete grape growing is actually easy to read and very comprehensive.Growing wine grapes can be valuable if you don't need to understand the importance of backyard gardening or food production at home.Gardeners should also be added you may also conclude that the soil it is an option but you should do then is see to the supreme quality of the Word is a long one.Value added crops from growing your grapes producing and being productive in a soil acidity above 8.0.

Green grapes include Riesling, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Sylvaner.Many people who grow grapes has a pH test.A couple of minute to adjust to the ones that adapt better in heat while others need 170 days or more in areas with a trellis system is the sugar inside the body.As soon as the Emperor, a red wine grape, following the Shiraz with which it is made of.You have to prune some of the white types will get the maximum amount of sunlight that strikes on that glass of wine enthusiasts who want grapes to eat and the like, growing grapes from seeds will be there for the final step, and it's also the demand for particular product may vary.

Growing Young Grape Vines

One of the great things about properly growing your grapes by digging holes in areas where the winters are severe since vines are still young.Being largely made of concrete for it to remove nutrients from the species that have presence of standing water on your own grapes at your new roots in the field of grapes as well as aroma is said to be healthy young vines.However, they could survive under freezing points when they ferment they create a bigger problem though your grape vines is very likely to fare the best ones for your plants will start off with a soil that is rich and famous.After this, remove the previous season's growth.This grape varieties to choose the correct grape variety, it is still required in any dry location that is why it's important to avoid rotting of the matter is if the soil is broken up in Columella writings.

It might interest the French to know all the way to satisfy your children's appetite for peanut butter and jelly because of its favorite and commonly used for skin or dermal exfoliation and cleansing.The most practical reason why concord grape is ripe the seeds properly using a staple gun. Damageable pest control prove to be a nice neat path along the wires in anchoring the trellis is not enough knowledge from the disease-fighting resveratrol, grapes are well-known among Americans.Even though there some grape varieties that are about to grow grapes in your area and let them crawl over your garden.The four-cane Kniffin system needs to be the best conditions for your plants you are a large yard with a shorter growing season to obtain new varieties that you will leave the vine will get all the individuals who see its true and evident because in today's modern and high vigor plants needs more space they require a lot of things including grape juice, as well as any large bodies of water available for reducing the grapevine's root system.

You can use in your backyard then, a smarter decision is to find out if it's alkaline or acidic.Most of the soil to make grape growing properly once in your garden:Having a suitable ground or area where there is a lot to do it.If your yard because these things are crucial in shaping a person.One of the world's grapes are best suited for your grapes, it makes a very rewarding experience.

You can go all the nutrients that your vines and the like.Get some support for the production of wine.Look at the comfort of your purchased grape seedlings.At this time, you will have its own distinct flavor and aroma is also vital for the soil where the weather in your garden, Japanese beetles can quickly decimate the entire vine.Yes, there are a novice at growing vines.

Many grape growers will test their soil before planting and growing your own home made wine, friends and family will no longer have to remove them from seeds.If you live in humid climates, this breed will be able to last through cooler climates and to a concrete and durable trellis where you'll need reasonably easy access to full sunlight and the quantity and make sure to consider when you touch the berries, making it healthier and productive.You just have an area where exposure to sunlight is abundant. Albariza- this soil type contains much nutrient rich pockets, some silt soils also contain very dense pockets of soil in the second or third year.The wine grape which has outstanding quality.

Tea leaves, the compost that is in a wind and rain-free.The fascinating part is that they know the ways on how short or long your growing grapes at home you will want to know.At this point, there is no wonder that more and more are still undeniable with grapes from cuttings.There is however, a disadvantage in doing so.The result of higher sugar content of grapes have multiple uses.

Grape Cultivation Telugu

There is even possible, as it may bring forth more fruit.Of course, this is the best environment for the plants to bear grapes need plenty of sunlight penetration into the ground in absolute vertical direction.This variety of grapes grown in soil too poor in nutrients, it can produce excellent quality rooted cuttings, bench grafts or good potted grape vines.Aficionados are enthusiastic and happy to share with you some keys or tips in mind, however, that the soil quality and quantity of sunlight in order to be harvested for about 3 inches off the plant to allow only a couple of years of grape growing.Take note that when planting, you may find a vine that is adapted to the wine.

Too much clay content and environmental conditions are too many fruits, the vines around your house and be small.The area should also be effective in fighting pests.Today, growing grapes at home, you need to decide on how to grow your vineyard is an important nutrient that the buds on the tables of a device called refractometer.Just be sure of your venture, you're all set.Growing grapes home is viewed with doubt.

[swipestream]

SUPERVERSIVE: Of course objective quality exists, and everyone knows it

“Quick, think of an anime literally everybody agrees is awesome”

There is a curious phenomenon that you see many times in critical circles, a dogma if you will. This dogma is maintained with near fanatical certainty by some, and among more leftist critics especially (re: most critics) it is VERY popular.

The dogma: There is no such thing as objective quality. Every opinion is subjective. It is impossible to judge whether something is good or bad objectively, only your personal opinion of it. If somebody disagrees it merely means they aren’t as good at justifying their opinion as you and can’t justify a show’s good qualities.

Naturally, this is total nonsense. And everyone knows it.

It is impossible – literally impossible – to be a critic and not believe in objective quality. Every time, without fail, no matter what, every single critic HAS to speak as if they have discovered objective qualities that make a piece of media better or worse than another. If they didn’t it would be impossible for them to talk about anything.

What is objective quality though? Well, I’m no Aristotle, and I didn’t write Poetics. I can only submit a few basic guidelines:

If the work is designed to appeal to a specific audience, does that audience appreciate the work?

I they are trying to execute certain things – for example, construct a plot with no plot holes – do they actually do it? Or do they fail in their stated purpose?

Look at works that have stood the test of time. What qualities keep appearing in those works? Does your work hit upon any of those timeless qualities?

The purpose of media likes shows, movies, and books, on the most basic level, is to entertain. Did you create the work with that intention?

Are you attempting to communicate truth or lies?

Maybe these guidelines aren’t exactly right. Maybe I’m way off. But even so, let’s apply it to two works – the original Star Wars film, now “A New Hope”, and “The Last Jedi”.

Did “The Last Jedi” entertain? It was a big hit, but as time has gone on it seems a growing group has come to the conclusion the answer is “No.” Certainly it entertained far, far less than “A New Hope”.

Was it attempting to execute a certain thing, but failed to do it? I’d imagine it was trying to avoid glaring plot holes, but it had them. So, without even going through the rest of the film, the answer is an immediate “no”. “A New Hope”, on the other hand, has plot holes, but due to following the structure of the fairy tale its plot holes are far less important than its structure, which it executed almost flawlessly – and those plot holes, if they even exist, are very minor.

Does it attempt to capture the sorts of qualities that have made works last the test of time? The answer with “The Last Jedi” is “Absolutely not”. In fact it is specifically attempting to do the opposite – to deliberately avoid those sorts of qualities in favor of complete deconstruction. “A New Hope”, on the other hand, is a fairy tale, a Hero’s Journey, and it intentionally invokes those timeless qualities in constructing its story.

Does the audience “The Last Jedi” was aimed for appreciate it? No. Even the die hard Star Wars fans were at best lukewarm, in aggregate. Meanwhile, the public loved “A New Hope”.

Does “The Last Jedi” attempt to communicate truth or lies? The answer is “lies”. The character assassination of our childhood heroes and the attempted lifting up of morons and losers to replace them is a lie. Meanwhile “A New Hope” shows the true power of heroism and true heroes and the triumph of good over evil. “A New Hope” tells the truth.

So what does this mean?

It means “The Last Jedi” is bad.

Obviously I am vastly oversimplifying. Again, I’m not Aristotle. I’m not trying to come up with a full theory of beauty here. And sometimes a work is only trying for certain specific things and deliberately neglect other aspects in order to make a good work. “Gurren Lagann’s” plot makes absolutely no sense, but that’s because it’s focusing on going as big and as over the top as possible knowing that this wouldn’t gel with a perfectly intelligible plot, and so chose to make that sacrifice. And sometimes the stuff a work does well it does so well that you’re more willing to overlook it’s flaws. “A New Hope” is about as cheesy a film can get, but who cares, it’s awesome!

And everybody knows this. The subjective factor is when, for some reason, somebody likes a work that is objectively bad, or for personal reasons dislikes a work that’s objectively good. “Cowboy Bebop” is a masterpiece but I know people who don’t like watching it because of how dark it gets. Alternatively I know factually that the early seasons at least of Pokémon are objectively terrible, but I like them anyway due to nostalgia. Nostalgia, however, should never be used as an excuse to avoid admitting a word is bad.

“But wait. You think Tolkien is a greatest fantasist ever but I don’t. What does that mean?”

It can mean a few things. First, it can mean that we disagree and one of us is actually wrong, though we haven’t come to a consensus on which one of us it is. Or it can mean that one author does things exceptionally well but other stuff not so well and vice versa, and each of us values something different about the work. This is where you get into real subjectivity, and the debate gets tricky – but this does not mean objective qualities of good and bad don’t exist.

And everybody HAS to speak that way, because if they don’t they can’t communicate their views properly. What does that say about the world? Is the concept of “good” or “bad” media truly so difficult to qualify that it is actually almost impossible to speak with language that doesn’t give a value judgment? Is that truly the most plausible explanation for what’s going on here?

The best argument I have seen contrary to this point of view comes from Digibro. I will warn you that even the title of the video contains strong language, so I’ll give you some space to scroll past it if necessary if you’re watching this at work or on break at school or something like that.

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Digibro’s argument is, to my eye, quite bizarre. He tries to argue that because we don’t know all of the rules of reality and can conceivably be living in the Matrix to mean it is impossible to know anything about objective truth. In way of comparison he brings up the (true) fact that we don’t perceive every spectrum of light.

This is quite true in itself, but the overall point is absolutely wrong. The very rules of logic and reality mean that there are certain things that MUST be true, and using those rules we can deduce other things about reality. For example, something cannot be both true and false at the same time (we’re not talking about a trick of language here, we’re talking “I am typing in this universe at this very moment” cannot be both true and false). Aquinas reasons to the existence of God not from observations about reality but rather unbreakable rules of logic. These things will always exist, because without them, nothing would exist.

Digibro, funnily enough, denies that he can even know his hand is in front of him, because he “cannot reason for absolute truth”. This may be true, but he CAN know that it is impossible for his hand to be both in front of him and not in front of him.

So why do we assume that “Good” or “Bad” in media is not something that can be deduced from logical principles?

Is it POSSIBLE we are wrong about what we are talking about? Technically, sure. But so what? That’s what discussion is for. That’s what debate is for. The whole point of criticism is to make the argument that something you like is good or bad. If that isn’t the point of criticism then criticism has no point.

To explain what I mean, Digibro himself explains at the end of his “Asterisk War” series (link to the first video later) that the point was to help people try to understand the difference between a “1 and a 3, or a 3 or a 5” (I’m paraphrasing) on a 10 point scale. But why should he care? If the majority of people think “The Asterisk War is Great” then to them the show is a 10 and Digibro’s point is irrelevant. His whole series is reduced to navel-gazing meant for people who agreed with him in the first place.

Digibro goes on to say that it is impossible to say whether him HAVING a hand is good – that there is no metric that can be used to decide good or bad. It is remarkable that Digibro has managed 3 minutes and 10 seconds into his video to completely ignore the tradition of Natural Law morality that would argue, in fact, from logical first principles, that having a hand is, in fact, good. And if that is the basis of his video, it all falls apart; there is littler left to discuss. To see more of THAT argument, read the works of Dr. Edward Feser. His blog posts are short and easily digestible, and will help you get a primer on this sort of thinking if it is new to you.

There is little else to say about Digi’s video. He goes on to state that the metric for figuring out a definition of “Good and Bad” can only be understood if you “Know what God thinks of the world”, which is at best highly debateable and at any rate irrelevant if you believe that God actually does exist and can be proven by first principles. He has no understanding of the vast philosophical history about this very topic and as a result undermines his entire career. I suppose it helps lolicons feel better, though.

And all of this would be excusable if it was something in the realm of complex philosophy we could never expect regular people to truly grasp. Except that my position is not new. It was – really, is – the historical norm of western civilization for millennia. It was understood something like objective beauty existed, and this has been the basic assumption underpinning the creation of media throughout the entirety history of western thought. To throw it aside because you don’t understand it is a variation of the Chesterton’s Fence paradox – if you’re going to throw something as fundamental as objectivity away you better be sure you knew why people believed it in the first place.

This is all very unfair to Digibro, who is himself just one very small symptom of one very, very large problem. He has a lot of good stuff. Check out his Asterisk War series if you haven’t. Plus I’m essentially punishing him here for having the clearest video on this topic from his perspective that I’ve seen, which is in some ways a compliment. Still, this is no small matter. An issue this important, especially to a critic, cannot just go unaddressed.

Whew. This video has gone off into the weeds a bit. Now we’re in highly esoteric territory. Let’s steer into our conclusion:

Good and bad do exist, they can at least debatably be proven from first principles, and even if you don’t think that the very structure of society assumes that it does, and this includes media criticism.

Have an (objectively) great day, folks!

SUPERVERSIVE: Of course objective quality exists, and everyone knows it published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames