#a retroactive addition

[enlightningbugs]

This was from Cyril Week 2020. Three years... at last... fruition...

The theme for this day was "growth." Tall Cyril agenda.

[mylittleredgirl]

i love "war without end," and how that episode is the one time where sinclair has more pieces of the story than delenn does.

at least the way i interpret the episode, while he told himself about the valen reveal in the letters from 900 years ago, he didn't tell delenn. her letter tells her that he's the one who will take babylon 4 into the past, and what he needs her to do... but he signed it only as jeffrey sinclair.

(perhaps he has naturalized himself to the minbari way of doling out important information in small pieces.)

in her quarters, she's grieving his loss as a friend, not processing a fundamental change in her spiritual understanding of the universe.

then, on the white star, when he tells her (in minbari) that he knows the future...

it comes together.

and then the way she reflexively drops her gaze as minbari do out of respect for someone with higher status... (if only for a moment)

i love this moment soooo so much, please appreciate it with me.

bonus flashback to the very first time they looked at each other face to face, when he was captured at the battle of the line...

i know you. i know who you are. i know you.

anyway if you need me i will be thinking about this and nothing else for the next four to six business days.

(all screenshots from cap-that.com)

[daoforthexbox360]

i really dont get the criticism that bioware "retconned" the qun to include trans people. i feel like gender being inherently tied to your role in society, regardless of whether it aligns with your assigned gender at birth is something that existed since origins. its why sten and morrigan have a whole banter where she asks if sten has a hard time considering her a woman. not because she's in any way masculine, but instead because she takes her place on the battlefield; in the qun, all weird mage stuff aside, she'd be considered a man. i think people only think its a retcon because they give it a special word in inquisition in probably the most groundbreaking yet very messily handled scene involving a trans character ive had the (dis)pleasure of seeing where bull is like "yeah the qun has a word for people like krem" which immediately helps him to understand krem, also.

the difference in sten and iron bull when it comes to adjustment to non-qunari in majority non-qunari spaces is that (probably due in part to the chargers and iron bulls already very thin ties to the qun, and definitely in part due to bull being a member of the ben-hassrath and sten being a member of the beresaad) bull just naturally has an easier time connecting with people, even people who aren't part of the qun. sten has a hard time doing this due to his role as a soldier. he was not sent to make friends with ferelden or spy on them, he was sent to figure out what the blight is. he works through this in origins if you get his approval up but he never gets to iron bull's level as far as the games are concerned. theyre fundamentally different characters, bull does not act the way he does as a means of retcon. bioware's retconned a ton of stuff but this isnt on of those things

[fellhellion]

“Miguel should’ve been testing what triggers actually are catalysts for dimensional collapse” Guys. My dudes. Putting aside the entire ethical fuckery that is non-consensually involving literally billions of people in an experiment which, as far as the characters know, could result in their deaths, I feel like there’s a specific reason why a character who believes they accidentally caused the destruction of an entire world a couple months ago is shying away from playing mad scientist over it.

[pepprs]

mutuals i got myself into a situation so sticky i don’t even know how to describe it (edit: *describes it* lol). please send thoughts of successful escape my way lol

[saunteringvaguelydownwards]

Yelena hearing Natasha tell her not to spike the engine, looking at Natasha with love and regret and then doing what she has to do.

Natasha seeing Taskmaster approaching fast, looking at Yelena with love and regret and then doing what she has to do.

Natasha, letting go, falling to save Yelena.

Natasha, letting go, falling to save everyone.

[zhuhongs]

i know i spoke chinese everyday for like 7 months straight at least but speaking chinese is so hard now oh my god what the fuckkkk.

[heavenlymusickcorporation]

Honestly Aleister Crowley had the right idea changing his name to Aleister. If his name was still "Ed Crowley" or "Alec Crowley" then that's just some guy. You can't be the most infamous occultist of all time and have a name like Ed. That's just Some Guy. Ya gotta be named something more like Aleister.

[misslevel]

watching tlovm and.... zahra ruidisborn??

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

I FORGOT IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS ARE A THING ON HERE NOW. it's been forever since i actually, like, used tumblr in any capacity that would involve uploading images lmao. gonna try to go back and add those into recent posts of mine

[cerastes]

I still think it's really cool how Amuro starts as the shittiest pilot alive (because he's a 15-year old) that only gets carried because he's in the biggest, fattest stat stick in-universe at the time (a few retroactive additions made in the future notwithstanding), enough that even its crappy vulcan guns are tearing Zaku IIs apart, and when he starts getting a bit too cocky, Char and Ramba Ral show up in objectively inferior pieces of junk and absolutely deliver his pizza, they just drag his face across every available surface in Planet Earth like he's a Yakuza mook, all because they are simply that much better at piloting, and the thing is, Amuro takes that very seriously.

He goes from shitass kid in an unfortunate situation that doesn't want to get in the robot to the most unwell child soldier in the war, which is really saying something, but most importantly, becomes so good at piloting the Gundam that the Gundam physically cannot handle Amuro's piloting. They need to apply "Magnetic Coating" to its joints so they don't fucking snap away from the main frame because Amuro, one, moves too damn well but also in too extreme a way for the frame to handle it, two, despite being equipped with two sabers, a shield, a beam rifle and vulcan guns, Amuro is a stern believer in introducing most everyone in thagomizer range to his Rated Z for Zeon hands, the single most official pair of hands in the business, tax free. He KEEP going Ip Man on these dudes, he does NOT need to do a Jamestown on these mother fuckers but he INSISTS. Somehow even the Gundam Hammer, which is a giant Hannah Barbera cartoon flail-- Ok, look at this thing, words do not do it justice

Even this god damn Tom and Jerry prop is less savage that whatever Amuro decides to do the moment he's done throwing his shield to get a free kill on someone and it officially becomes bed time forever for the unfortunate sap at the business end of his ten-finger weapons of mass destruction.

The RX-78-2, "Gundam" for its friends and family, even has a top of the line cutting edge Learning Computer that 'learns' alongside the pilot and their habits. This data extracted from it was so absolutely fucked up that it completely revolutionized Mobile Suit combat afterwards, which is a wholesome thing to think about when The Best Combat Data Ever came from a really angry, really stressed 15 year old that doesn't even like piloting. He was 15! He made Haro with his own hands! Amuro literally just wanted to make funny cute spherical robofriends! Amuro was out there trying to make Kirby real, but fate had other plans for him. His cloned brain put in a pilot seat is one of the setting's strongest 'pilots'.

They made fucking Shadow the Hedgehog with his brain, god damn.

By the end, Zeon is rolling out Gelgoogs out of its mass production lines. These things are in the Gundam's ballpark in terms of overall specs (or "power level"). Amuro is bodying them as if they were episode 1 Zaku IIs.

AND THEN HE GETS FUCKING PSYCHIC SPACE POWERS. Not that he needed them, he bodied a couple Space Psychics without any of those powers before awakening to them. But heaven's most violent child was not done evolving, whether he liked it or not.

Char bodied him in a souped up Zaku II at the start, a machine objectively inferior to the Gundam. Amuro more or less one-sidedly beats the shit out of Char when he's in a custom Commander-type Gelgoog that you could consider to be equal spec-wise to the Gundam. Amuro is the embodiment of Finding Out. He is Consequences. You tell him he better make it hurt, better make it count, better kill you in one shot, buddy, he needs half a fucking shot. The complete transformation. One could consider the central 75% of the show as long drawn out training montage turning a kid into the Geese Howard of giant robots.

[wyllsravengard]

there's a lot of discussion and speculation about the fact john doesn't speak of arthur in rdr1. logistically it's not hard to understand that rdr1 just came out years before rdr2 and thats why but . But.

but when you think of rdr1 with the additional context two, there is something quite... in line with john trying to forget arthur. wanting to. or burying him. not just in metaphor or in soil but in his memories and in some way failing to do it but in another succeeding

you think of john and his commitment to his son and wife and you think of his willingness to do anything for them. moral or not. righteous or not. and you think of the fact that john didn't know at the time the sort of man arthur believed him to be, but he perhaps modeled himself in the image of his older brother. near incidental. he has so little in common with arthur really. john's broody and lacking remorse and at twenty-six he's inconsiderate entirely in a way arthur never was.

but time is a thief and one day, he turns 38. he's older than arthur when he dies. and john doesn't remember well what he looks like, and all he can feel when he thinks of arthur is grief. grief that never ends. thats the thing about all of it, you'll realize - is that john knows arthur best in the retroactive.

the sort of complicated, odd man arthur was revealed to him in the creases of pages and keepsakes. in the carving of his guns that john finds after arthur is gone. in the ring of the woman arthur loved long ago. in the confessionals to his son isaac and the regret in the letters he wrote to their psuedo father. you realize john knows more of arthurs stagnant ghost that can't guide john into manhood the way he so desperately needs. and it's all he has to go by to make a man of himself.

john never finds out what kind of man arthur believed him to be and he has to infer the real good man arthur was. in grief there is love. john loved arthur enough to want to be like him. and in burying the living, breathing man arthur was he's forced to cling to his spirit. has to piece together the kindness of his older brother through memories and diary entries and secondhand stories. and that's how he models himself in rdr1 to me. where arthur is moral john becomes dutiful and where arthur is kind, john is helpful. he becomes the shadow of arthurs best qualities. he can never be arthur. no one could ever be arthur, even if arthur had given them the page by page instructions of how to do so. this is all he has. all he knows. all he can do.

john misses his brother. so he tries to embody him. but he can't really in the same way he can't grieve him. so he makes a home for arthurs ghost to return to in himself. john never mentions arthur because it dregs up painful what-ifs, but they share so many mannerisms and bastardized qualities. john has fashioned himself based on those loose memories.

one day, a stranger meets john and says. "why would you remember me, friend? you've forgotten far more important people than me" and john will remember all the ghosts he's ever loved briefly. there will be a blurry face and a forgiving voice and it will sound like a memory and it will linger in johns ribcage like a moth. and john won't remember. he won't. he can't. he buried his brother without ever doing it.

john says a lot of things. feels a lot of things. he shoots his gun to the stranger who calls his memory into question and the thing jams and the bastard roams free. john will taste blood in his mouth. he'll feel a cough in his lungs and well, he won't remember his brother still. buried men must stay buried.

of course. of course john never mentions arthur. he can't remember him, even though he's inherited so much of his manner. to speak it of him would be admitting to his existence. its admitting: i miss you. im sorry. it was my fault.

of course john never mentions arthur. he's made all this effort in forgetting him that even when his body and his gesture and his character betray the fact he's forgotten - his mind will soothe the pain and blur out his face.

and instead of remembering in life even once, he'll die the same way arthur did. alone. protective. contented. redeemed. john loves arthur like most brothers do - with muscle memory.

even if john cuts the necrosis of arthurs memory off of him, his body will twitch at the phantom feeling of his existence. john remembers even when he can't. arthur his only brother. the most important man he's ever forgotten.

[hey-hey-j]

Death is the best retroactive addition to the Shrek canon actually. Do you think he was in the room during King Harold's death scene.

[tossawary]

I don't have the right term for this, but I enjoy the... retcon sliding effect that new additions to a fictional universe have on old entries into that universe. I kind of love the mess of new story elements that have you asking, "Wait, if this new thing has always existed in this universe and is relatively well-known, why wouldn't the characters have used it earlier in an older plotline?"

Where the Doylist answer is just, "In real life, this story element was invented and added to the universe later," but the pro-writers and fanfiction authors alike have to scramble for Watsonian in-universe explanations as to why the characters didn't use that convenient solution to an older problem. These plot holes are an inevitable part of sprawling franchises being passed from writer to writer! (And sometimes solo authors do it to themselves, like, "Huh, this new story element I have invented has retroactively destroyed almost all of my earlier plots. Whoops.")

One of the most pronounced sufferers of this effect, I think, is "Star Wars", which did one trilogy of films, then went BACK and created a direct prequel trilogy of films, multiple television shows, comics, books, games, and so on. I think it's SO funny how often the prequel films and shows add something to the universe and suddenly everyone (the makers of these SW stories especially) has to scramble to cover up a new plot hole, big or small. This problem can be really, REALLY frustrating at times, but I also think it makes a great fandom playground if you're willing to play with such a malleable canon.

I was talking about "Revenge of the Sith" with someone and then realized... "The prequels have it so that Obi-Wan and Yoda both knew the Emperor personally... and Yoda even fought him... I think the prequels accidentally retroactively made it a REAL DICK MOVE that Yoda apparently never, like, told Luke about Palpatine's Force Lightning abilities or told him how to counter the lightning specifically in the original trilogy... Whoops."

[artbyblastweave]

So I was rereading the Lung interlude, and it really is astounding the extent to which the behavior and mindset on display in the interlude matches perfectly to the largely unremarked-upon idiosyncrasies he displays earlier in the book when he's less of a character and more of an obstacle (the disconnect between his ambition and his overwhelming firepower, his extremely specific vulnerability to drugs, his weird pan-asian gangbuilding project, a couple other beats that jumped out at me that I now forget.)

This, coupled with the fact that the Lung interlude is kind of a very tertiary addition to the flow of the action in the main story, is the kind of thing where I find myself wondering whether this is a situation where Wildbow had an entire Lung Dossier sitting somewhere on a hard drive and was just waiting for the slightest excuse to deploy that information in an interlude, or a situation where he decided to go back and retroactively flesh out a tertiary antagonist, or what.

[transfaguette]

always sucks when one of the biggest companies in a space is also The Worst

Unity, which for a long time the majority of indie games and several AAA titles have been developed in, recently announced a new “Runtime Fee” that would charge developers $0.20 per install of their game, starting January 2024. Retroactively!!!! Yes you heard that right. Got a new computer and want to reinstall your favorite game you bought 3 years ago? That’ll cost the dev $0.20, when they themselves make no additional money. A bad actor could, in theory, install a game hundreds of times just to hurt a developers bottom line. But even just in benign scenarios, its enough to threaten the viability of small indie studios. Even if devs wanted to jump ship now, number one they’d have to port all their games to a new engine, a monumental task on its own, and they’d have to learn a new engine and new workflow, new pipeline, etc. This is catastrophic to the indie scene.

And this isn’t handled through the platforms they sell their games on like steam or itch.io, it’s woven into the backend of the engine itself. Unity claims they have systems to detect piracy (but they’re proprietary and secret!) and developers won’t be charged for illegitimate installs. But none of us can be actually sure of that. They are literally making “piracy costs the devs money” a real actual legitimate argument.

And to top it all off, their ghoul of a CEO dumped his shares right before the announcement. They Knew this would be hated and they’re trying to get away with it anyway.

Do note, this only applies to games that already meet the threshold for profit sharing. If you are a hobbyist or making a project for school etc, this won’t affect you.

What can you do? Keep in touch with your favorite developers and indie publishers on social media. Hopefully with enough backlash and support for indie developers, they will retract.