agentbaguette

[agentbaguette]

i wish ursula k le guin was still alive for a lot of reasons, but most of all so she could beat JK rowling's ass

[agentbaguette]

No, actually, i want cables and not bluetooth, i don't want touchscreens, i want buttons and knobs, i want to be able to take the battery out of my phone, i want to charge my phone and plug in head phones at the same time, i want a cd drive in my laptop and not have to buy an external drive, i want a car without a display, i want to turn on the lights with a switch not with my voice, i want to have a paper cinema ticket not a QR code, i want to listen to illegally burned music on a 00s cd player, i want to watch movies that i actually own, i want to read news once a day on paper, i want to aimlessly flick through magazines and not doomscroll on social media, i want to write emails and not talk to chatbots, i want to own stuff without hundreds of digital subscriptions, i want

[agentbaguette]

Thank you for articulating every single one of my thoughts on those few chapters

And, as you said, the fights are getting so boring? It feels like the author is just skimming over it, drawing again and again the same poses, without pausing to consider if it technically works or not (it doesn't). Like, at first, the fight scenes were so creative and well written, it was refreshing to read something with this level of care put into the consistency of the fights, without boring the reader.

Also, thanks for speaking out about the numbers because they feel so watered down now, and I don't see anyone talking about it and it is driving me Insane.

This arc just keeps getting worse and worse by the second💔 like its definitely not the worst storyline in the world, but it's nowhere near good. There's a few things I wanna talk about in regards to this chapter, some personal gripes and others general issues

Starting with the numbers💔 I hate how they've been turned into ijins lackeys who come help him instead of being actual  characters themselves. This has been a problem for a while, and I've briefly touched on it before but the numbers characterisation is so fucking bad man. Instead of us getting to see how they cope with life after the camp, like trying to live normally? Or dealing with everything that's happened? Or literally anything else, we get them acting as ijins sidekicks, idk if anyone remembers but I made a post a while back talking about how the story revolves too much around ijin, this is exactly what I mean. I have a lot more to say on this I just wanted to briefly touch on it now, I actually have an essay half way written about the numbers, but it'll take me forever to finish and edit so don't expect it anytime soon😭 

The next thing I wanna talk about was actually inspired by a comment I got yesterday that kinda sparked my curiosity about ijins confusing character arc. The commenter pointed out how in this chapter and one before ijin refers to himself as 001, kinda made me curious on the approach the author is gonna take on ijin, like by the end of the story will he decide his past doesn't define him or something or is he just gonna accept it as a part of him (like how this chapter indicated) both are pretty interesting and good ideas, though I personally like the second better and I think it would fit more. Sorry I probably sound kinda delusional cause there's no way the author is actually gonna end up writing a good character arc but I just wanted to bring it up anyway. This also reminds me of the fact that the numbers (even 006, 005 and 032) only refer to ijin as 001, which could indicate how they feel about their identities and what not but like I said earlier, the numbers have been reduced to ijins helpers so we'll probably never see anything like that

When reading the scene with the major it kinda felt like I was skimming through the story, I wasn't though I was paying full attention but with how that chapter was paced and formatted it felt like I was getting a summary of what happened instead. This kinda relates to my previous post on world building, but yeah there's not a lot of detail on what's happening, the characters just be saying shit and it's kinda confusing and underwhelming to read😭 like I wish we could see the inner workings of the situation instead, like what about all the other characters?? This is such a serious situation but clearly the author doesn't gaf, not like I expected it anyways😭

My next issue is the ijin dickriding💔 the author never misses a chance to tell us how cool and awesome and strong ijin is huh? Like seriously?? This happens like every chapter atp😭 they'll see or hear how talented ijin is and be like but he's just a kid? How could he possibly be so strong? Like i get teenage mercenary is just a power fantasy for incels to get off to, but seriously it's so exhausting to read. There's a bigger issue at play here but I don't really feel like getting into it right now so I won't 

Also the guy who said he carried out missions with ijin??? Can we not know more about that?? About him?? Seriously the writing is shockingly bad atp😭 like I just want a clear understanding of his past💔 is that really too much to ask for? I kinda hope we don't get another arc bases on his past though cause the authors just gonna add in a meaningless character for ijins (non existent) development again😭 which reminds me that I'm gonna be uploading my full thoughts on the mercenary village arc this week, I was supposed supposed do it a few weeks ago but I got busy 

So this is semi unrelated but I'm gonna talk about it anyways. The fights are so fucking boring now, while this wasn't the biggest issue in this chapter its something I've noticed for a while now, Obviously there's the fact that the fights are repetitive and are just the same format over and over, the main problem this time actually lies with the art which I tend to leave alone. The way the fights are presented just aren't fun anymore, I was rereading a few old chapters (I think the one where seokju and ijin beat up a gang to save their friends) and it was just so fun to look at, the way the action was drawn was so engaging, I genuinely didn't even realise the art was the main reason I don't enjoy the fights anymore until I reread the old chapters, it's a whole other level, just in general tbh, the old chapters were so good.  I don't know what it says about teenage mercenary if it can't even get the action right despite that being its only strong suit at this point

Finally, this is more personal and I've talked about it before I think?? But there isn't really that much suspense in teenage mercenary anymore, I remember in older chapters the cliffhangers would keep me on the edge of my seat but now I already know what's gonna happen lmao, like when I think of this plotline it seems like it should be such a big deal but it just isn't. Also there's just no struggle in the story, like in this arc EVERYTHING fell into place for ijin, which is like so boring, though I guess this has kinda always been an issue

I ended up writing a lot more than normal this week, 1000 words I think, which is weird cause this chapter was so underwhelming, today was fathers day but I skipped it to write this instead, sorry dad but slandering teenage mercenary will always be more important😛

[agentbaguette]

It doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, or even dead. I just simply don't care.

[agentbaguette]

if you wiped every ICE agent off the face of the earth, a hundred million people would become safer overnight. if you wiped every furry off the face of the earth, the entire internet would collapse for good in a matter of hours. i know where my allegiances lie.

[agentbaguette]

i read CS Lewis’ A Grief Observed one time years ago and i’m still not recovered from it

[agentbaguette]

being so staunchly anti generative ai while everyone around you is "i used chatgpt" and "i asked grok" and google search is useless and every company is implementing ai and every single celeb is taking ai money and partnering with ai is like... it's so jarring. why can't you see the harm like i can? why are you so lazy? why are we making society this stupid? can we please stop? it's killing people does that not matter to you?

[agentbaguette]

you used to be able to go onto a tag after finishing a movie and see all sorts of gifsets. now you have to comb through reader insert fanfiction. we used to be a society

[agentbaguette]

Every year since 2016 I’ve gone “this is it, the world is somehow a parody of itself now, Peak Incoherence has been reached” and every time the next year makes the previous one look normal by comparison.

[agentbaguette]

Shout out to people with auditory processing disorder!!!

[agentbaguette]

online communities are so strange because people slip away so easily. you can be on here for years, folding people you've never met into the fabric of your daily life, and then they disappear, leaving only ghost posts scattered across tumblr behind. or their blog stays dormant, for weeks, months, years, until you're only still following them because you remember that they love sunflowers or they were kind to you when they didn't have to be or the last thing they posted was sad and raw and you still worry about them sometimes.

and sometimes they come back when you least expect it, years later, even, and there's this sudden rush of relief like there you are, there you are, even though you barely knew each other.

there's a strange kind of love to it. i don't know you and i want to hold your hand across miles and time zones and oceans. i can still see the imprint of you in this community you left. you don't think anyone will notice or care when you're gone, but we notice and we care and we wish you well.

i hope you're all okay out there. i hope the sun is shining on your face and you are breathing deeply. i miss you.

[agentbaguette]

I want one of those scenes in a dude bro film where “tomboy” chick has to wear a dress to go undercover or whatever, but instead of the guys drooling as she walks down the stairs, they’re like “k. U need to stop. Go put the cargo pants back on. You look super uncomfortable and awkward in that. Brutus, you go be the fake prostitute.”

[agentbaguette]

at some point you have to realize that you actually have to read to understand the nuance of anything. we as a society are obsessed with summarization, likely as a result of the speed demanded by capital. from headlines to social media (twitter being especially egregious with the character limit), people take in fragments of knowledge and run with them, twisting their meaning into a kaleidoscope that dilutes the message into nothing. yes, brevity is good, but sometimes the message, even when communicated with utmost brevity, requires a 300 page book. sorry.

[agentbaguette]

i don’t think people understand how much of life is grief. not just people dying, but losing the version of yourself you thought you’d become. grieving the city you had to leave. the friends you lost not in argument, but in silence. the summer that will never come back. the feeling that maybe you peaked at 12 when you were reading books under the covers and believing in forever

[agentbaguette]

I think it's actually very buddhist of me to have no object permanence. No emotional attachments when I physically can't make myself keep anything in my mind. "It's all in your head" nah ain't nothing in my head. Can't hold grudges or resentments when people who wronged or annoyed me just stop existing for me the second they're out of my field of vision. No thoughts head empty, I am free.

[agentbaguette]

Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur; France, 15th century; Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 134, f. 49v

[agentbaguette]

From here.

More from the piece here but Read the Whole Entry and subscribe to the Substack.