#but these bad faith criticisms do GRATE.

[immaterial-girl]

ill stare. directly. at the sun. but never. in the mirror

[paarthursass]

.

[writergeekrhw]

I just want to offer an alternative take on Kira’s behaviours being queer coded (Is it the short hair? The anger? I don’t know what people mean tbh, sounds… stereotypical and rude to queer women tbh), I never got those vibes as a young person watching her, never would have occurred to me at the time. I’m not judging I just have a very different view the character let me explain.

What I did get from her was that she was young and female and religious and angry and she was ALLOWED to be all those things. And I was ALL those things too, and it meant, and still does mean, the world to me that she was like that but ALSO competent and respected and loveable even though she was so, so angry, frustrated, and DONE at the injustice in her life. I (also some close friends) was going though some dark times myself when I was young, and Kira was a beacon of hope. And as she grew in her character arcs, and faced her own prejudices from Marritza to everything else, to me that was saying you can do it. If Kira can do it, can look her shitty past in the eye and say I will break this cycle and do better and unlearn and grow, you can do it too. Back to dark stuff and queer coding - I’ve seen people blast Kira getting more “feminine” (again, what? The hair? Softer personality? She learned to be gracious, is that so bad? Angry redhead stereotypes aren’t great) over time as bad and anti-queer, but to this young person it was… sometimes young women go through things at the hands of oppressors and making yourself unappealing and masculine is a choice for safety. Men don’t want ugly. So seeing her grow past that too, seemed like a culmination of her safety and maybe by extension bajor’s as metaphor.

Maybe this is a stupid interpretation but I did not see kira queer, I saw her as a hurt person who was allowed to heal and that gave me hope. I’m sorry if this is not what you intended but Kira kinda saved me from giving up and I want to thank you (and all involved) for her. Sorry this isn’t super well organized thoughts. I really am grateful for all of ds9. It was a very good show.

Without getting too deep into critical theory and Writer Intention vs. Viewer Interpretation, this is also a perfectly valid interpretation of Kira's character and it's yet another lens through which we saw her/wrote her, probably even the dominant one (and the one I suspect Nana drew most from for her performances).

Which is not to invalidate people who saw her as queer/repressed or people who saw her as a colonized woman wrestling with her ambivalence about her new, arguably more benevolent colonizers, or people who saw her as a person of faith struggling to see past her religious prejudices, or people who saw her as a terrorist trying to overcome her past sins.

Over 172 episodes, multiple writers wrote her thinking about different things. Sometimes the very same writers would draw from different inspirations from episode to episode or scene to scene or even line of dialogue to line of dialogue. And of course, Nana and the various directors would bring their own takes to every moment.

All of which, IMHO, helped make her a terrific character.

Also thank you for the kind words and I'm glad we helped! LLAP.

[karmarox]

Kallamar the Coward

Thinking about Kallamar in Cult of the Lamb, with how the lore and even his own siblings taunt him for being a coward and he even tries to bargain and sway you away from getting your revenge and killing him, even ready to throw Shamura under the bus to save himself, but then when you finally push him into a corner and he's forced to fight he not only busts out a bunch of weapons and starts quad-wielding them but he was once regarded by the fandom as being among the hardest bosses of the base game.

It got me thinking, was he always like this? Narinder certainly thinks so, but there's bias there. It's easy to just write him off as always being a mess like this...

But there's no denying he's the second in power after Shamura, Anchordeep is known for its beauty, he takes personal pride in the way he took care of his cult/area, and when in Purgatory out of all the bishops he's notably the most lucid/aware of where he is.

So I present this: After Narinder's sealing, Shamura was in no state to lead or give orders. The Bishops all had massive injuries that refused to heal. Who out of the 4 would immediately be assumed to be the one to take a leadership role? Who had comparatively more "manageable" injuries to take care of the other 3? And who would you assume is most likely to have medical experience to at least try to lessen the impact of all of their wounds?

Kallamar, Pestilence and Cure.

Early on after The One Who Waits was sealed away, Kallamar would have had to effectively take over the Old Faith while also caring for a broken beyond repair older sibling, who had always been the "Wise" one that the others blindly followed, yet was now barely even there at the best of times, and two younger siblings, one who was now permanently blind (and young/weak enough that they couldn't even muster a single Curse towards the Lamb before being crushed within days of their resurrection even years after the sealing, so just imagine how new to godhood they were back when this all started), and another who had had her throat torn out, all while downplaying his own wounds.

What if, then, at some point, he simply broke?

He resents Shamura, even potentially sincerely blames them for causing the entire thing (which Shamura confesses to), both leading them to turn on Narinder and also for leading everyone to killing the Lambs. He's still fond of Leshy, but from how quick to take charge Heket is, it's clear that after he proved unable to take the stress of it all, she was next in line as the "leader" of The Old Faith. There's gotta be some resentment there on both ends because of that, particularly with how quick he is to criticize how she took care of her territory.

And then compare how he is as a bishop to how he is as a follower. I think it's very very interesting that he goes from a dirty coward and absolute pathetic mess of anxiety and fear, to pleading directly to his own executioner for help, to being almost perfectly happy and content to simply be a Follower of the Lamb's cult. The others (minus Shamura, due to their condition) are resentful and quick to give sharp words to the Lamb, but Kallamar? It's like all his anxiety is gone with his godhood. He has nothing to fear anymore, and is almost ridiculously quick to be friendly to the Lamb and share his tastes in decor and pride in appearances with them. Not even in the "kissing up" way, he talks like they're equals. Is this what Kallamar was like, before everything? Is he actually HAPPIER as a Mortal now that all of the responsibility and fear of death is gone? Even secretly grateful?

There's no denying his cowardice. There's no denying it crossed a line when he was ready to betray Shamura when his nerves reached their limit. There's no denying that as much as he'd like to believe that he is absolved of guilt for The Old Faith's sins simply because he was just doing what Shamura told him to even if he claims he thought it was a bad idea.

But you also have to wonder what caused that cowardice to form, and what other feelings motivate his actions besides fear.

(tldr: sad squid was not ready to become the responsible one, especially not after going deaf and being traumatized. Has a mental breakdown halfway through raising the others due to not being able to actually deal with going deaf or being traumatized because it turns out being the god of physical health is different from mental health. Little sister ends up having to step up and be the mom now. Their relationship never recovered because of it, and he now blames the eldest for failing them and also for his own failures to cope. As a bonus developed an attachment to his own killer out of some weird warped perception of them "rescuing" him from his stress and then from death itself.)

[crystaldivination]

STOP AND ENJOY THE MAGIC 🪄

Your life in a bright light - what makes your life beautiful and how come you don’t see it?

PILE ONE PILE TWO PILE THREE

Sometimes we don’t see what we have in front of us and how wonderful all this is put together. If only we can take a better look at it and only focus on the present… So in this pick a card reading I want to shed a light on what’s so beautiful in your life and about what you can be so grateful for.

◟ପ my other readings • paid services • leave me a sprinkle of magic dust ✨💫

How to choose your pile? As always meditate or close your eyes before looking at each picture. Trust your intuition and pick out a picture you feel the most drawn to.

Disclaimer: this is a general reading which may or may not resonate with you. Take what resonates and leave out anything that doesn't. Feel free to choose another pile if you'd like.

🤍 PILE ONE

Welcome to your pile, beautiful creature. So to me it seems like disappointments were present in your life and have shaped you to a point that it feels like it’s scary to believe in something new.

But don’t crumble to that fear. Don’t let it scare you from experiencing all the beautiful things that you haven’t known before. Life is all about discovering right? So all those feelings and the journey you made were part of it. Some are necessary for you to grow and some just happen to exist so that we can make something out of it. It’s in your hand to create. You have a very deliberate and free spirited soul that is waiting to go on adventures again. Use that to your advantage. You never know what could happen. Even if you trip you can always stand up again but rest assure because all you have learned so far is of use to you. You’d know when to go forward and when to be careful. What a wonderful gift, don’t you think? Everything has it good and seemingly bad side so choose wisely. You can be the one who makes the choice. What you can be grateful for is this and also your ability to go beyond. You have people who are believing in you and even look up to you for the person you are today. Don’t let it go to waste. Stand straight and firm. Be proud of who you are and what you’ve accumulated until now whether that be on a personal or material level. You’re so inspiring to me, pile 1!

🤍 PILE TWO

Welcome to your pile, beautiful creature. To me it seems like you’ve been through a lot. You must’ve faced a lot of delays and having to be patient about things but remember nothing lasts forever especially the things that we want to break free from. There are always new beginnings so have faith in that.

Don’t take life too seriously. Go with the flow and enjoy the journey. You might be someone who is like a perfectionist in a way or someone who just likes to go and do things in order. But you know to exist is to live and experience. Take things as they are while adapting and changing it for the better. You don’t need to always buckle up your seatbelt preparing for the worst. Give yourself a break. Don’t go all in when it’s not necessary or needed. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Allow yourself to be in the moment. You’re a diligent and happy soul that is full of life waiting to feel the best in doing something that gives you true joy. Channel this energy of yours again deep in you and create something wonderful out of this. With this purposeful intention and power you can be anything you want to be. Don’t restrict yourself with your self criticism. Be free and let yourself see a different side of things in life to gain another perspective on everything or anyone you thought to be out or not of use. What you can be so grateful for is your determination and ability to persist. You have beautiful and helpful people who are there to support you at any time. Ask for help or lean on someone when you feel like it. I’m so proud of you for coming this far and believe in yourself, pile 2!

🤍 PILE THREE

Welcome to your pile, beautiful creature. It’s hard to keep up right? Especially nowadays in this time and age. This society is making you doubt yourself even to the point of losing sight of your dreams. You might be confused about what you want but you know what you need right now is peace. Only so you can calm down and ground yourself to gain focus again. It’s not that you’re incapable, it’s just the outside noise that’s clouding your mind at the moment but you’ll come back soon.

Stop and observe. Slow down to see and take in all the things that surround you. Laugh again, go see the sunset you like so much. Enjoy the little things in life to feel whole and alive again. Life is not a race and you’re not competing against anyone. You have your own missions and goals and your own lane with your own speed to do the things you want to do in your life. Ignore all the people and things that are telling you what to do. Ask yourself what is that that you want and remind yourself of what you used to enjoy. Do the things you are good at and most importantly what you truly want. You can get out of your comfort zone to try out new things as well. Focus on what is important to you. Contemplate whether you do this for your own sake or is it just to satisfy others. You’re so talented and have so much potential. It’s time you realize that. This is also what you can be so grateful for. Take your time and let your inner child shine again. There are many people who can help you connect to your creativity. Surround yourself with like-minded people who can uplift you and give you inspiration. Shine brighter, shine like you’ve never before, pile three!

PLS VOTE FOR MY NEXT GAME HERE IF YOU'D LIKE 🥥🦢🌸

ਊ Thank you for reading. Hope you like it!! Leave a feedback, like & reblog are highly welcomed! Have a lovely day <3

© 2023 crystaldivination ── all rights reserved. do not copy, translate, edit, alter, or redistribute my work. Plagiarism in any form is prohibited.

[larsnicklas]

anyway to me evgeny kuznetsov will always be defined by his joy. he really had so much of it; it spilled over often and put a smile on so many faces including his teammates' and fans'. his personality is one of a kind, ebullient and brash and clever. a lot of what he did that people on the outside scorned him for came from a place of love — for his family, for his team, for the game. the flapping bird celly, for instance, that garnered so much bad faith criticism from more conservatively minded hockey pundits and fans — he did that for his daughter. it delighted her! and who was he to deny her just because some people whose opinions he didn't care about said he should stop?

i'll love kuzy forever — like that entire cup team is lodged in my heart, but kuzy gave us the game 6 ot winner against pittsburgh. i think that was actually the moment every single person who was invested in the capitals' success realized this year might be the one. i'll never forget it; for as much as the final game in vegas is embedded into my psyche as a sports fan, that kuzy goal in the second round might actually be one of the single most memorable moments of my life lol. the way i felt, the way hundreds and thousands of caps fans must have felt.... no matter what has happened since, no matter what happens from here on out, we'll always have that game, that playoff run, that magic that kuzy brought to the ice.

at his best, he's so creative and dynamic. one of those guys that can make something out of absolutely nothing, and a really dynamite playmaker. ovi got the conn smythe in 2018 and nobody on planet earth begrudges him that, but the argument kuzy should have gotten it for that playoff run... it's strong.

i understand that kuzy's time and legacy in washington is not an uncomplicated one, but the thing that isn't complicated is this: i'm grateful for all the good times he brought to the team and the fans, and i'm grateful for all he gave of himself along the way. and don't get it twisted, he gave as much of himself as he could. i know people liked to say (especially these past few years) that he wasn't trying, that he was checked out, that he was just a warm body on the ice. i don't know how you look at a guy that's so clearly struggling and come away with that attitude. just zero empathy. nobody wants to be struggling, man. no professional athlete in the world wants to go do what they've spent their whole life training to do and fucking fail at it. i really hope that he got — and continues to get — the support he needs, and i hope he gets that fresh start he wants so badly.

i've missed seeing him in good spirits; i've missed seeing him loose and happy and playful and i want him to feel that way again. i wanted so so much for it to be here with the capitals because i am sentimental to a debilitating degree, but even more than that i want him to feel good and be well, no matter where and how. i hope he gets that. i hope he knows that we're rooting for him always.

[mmmmalo]

this might be a stupid question, sorry in advance. when you perform analysis on a work like homestuck and excavate these levels of, like, racial and social meaning from it, how does it affect your opinion of the work? do you come to like or dislike it more, or have your feelings toward it grown past that over the years into more nebulous things?

i love your blog and your posts, even though i only started homestuck last year and never made it past act 4; when i read your stuff i always learn new things about how one can interact with texts. just got curious about the above after reading your post on caliborn and disability and such. hope you have a good day.

I continue to like the work, in new ways. The feelings evade summary, so here's a few examples:

I lost my initial fervor for classpect ages ago, when it became clear to me that the categories weren't mutually exclusive (depriving the system of majestic power) and that they were not the ultimate key to Homestuck (meaning a new paradigm would be needed to solve the story's remaining mysteries). But I still admire how classpect induces the audience to engage in symbolic reading, proposing this object or that color has an associated abstract significance.

The manifestation system started out just giving me digestible bits of characterization like Egbert being scared of heights, but within a few months it began giving me weirder shit like racist sex dreams. That was difficult to integrate into my impression of what exactly Homestuck was -- for the time, I was satisfied to conclude that Equius was not as much of an anomaly as he was made out to be, and that the comic might be in some measure a commentary on racism. That the racist thoughts seemed to emanate from particular characters, in a game whose modus operandi is making thoughts real, struck me as a distancing maneuver of sufficient strength to rebuff gentle (and not so gentle) suggestions that maybe this all just meant Hussie was racist. Thus when the ARG got posted, instead of joining the outcry against the abundant bigotry I was laser focused on how the alternate-dimension Obama was a surrealist confirmation of racist birther conspiracies. The psychological framing of Sburb had persuaded me to accept the story as a scare quote around "racism" that could be observed at a remove.

I was excited that the manifestation system meant more characterization for Jade, then shocked when it implied she had been raped, then apprehensive of the apparent perpetrator Grandpa's every move, then supremely confused by the revelation that Homestuck's deployment of pejorative tropes meant that all the above had coaxed me into a simulation of satanic panic. Reconciling my sympathy for Jade's suffering with the knowledge that Jake is by some measure an effigy sending out de-fused signals of DANGEROUS HOMOSEXUAL THREATENS THE CHILDREN, it all gives me a headache. The story's ironic scaremongering demands your disengagement, to view the story as artifice, but the suffering of the victim within the bad-faith narrative is nonetheless visceral. Conflicting demands like that make up much of the story for me now: pathos that I once felt and continue to feel, side by side with the need to question the foundations of the sympathy.

It is very rare that anything holds my attention as long as Homestuck has and that in itself is something I'm grateful for. Trying to get a rhetorical foothold on its weird ass games has been my primary motivation for reading new things -- psychoanalytic film criticism, existential philosophy, and academic theorization of assorted bigotries are probably not things I would have delved into were they not connected to the puzzle box. It became my lesson plan for self-study, and it has (slash I have) made me into a better reader in general... or something, idk.

I like the story. That's it for feelings for now

[sabakos]

hi sabaki. why does emily wilson's odyssey translation suck

Okay so, while Wilson's translation is very "readable" and praised as such, it suffers from poor prosody and frequently truncates the meaning of the Greek in the name of fitting the count of the meter.

This claims to be a verse translation in iambic pentameter, and it just isn't that - while the lines do have ten syllables, they rarely scan, and are barely ever even iambic.

A few representative examples chosen at random from some of my favorite parts of the original:

(Book I lines 344-348)

Sullen Telemachus said, “Mother, no, you must not criticize the loyal bard for singing as it pleases him to sing. Poets are not to blame for how things are; Zeus is; he gives to each as is his will.

(Book X, lines 465-473)

We did as she had said. Then every day for a whole year we feasted there on meat and sweet strong wine. But when the year was over, when months had waned and seasons turned, and each long day had passed its course, my loyal men called me and said, ‘Be guided by the gods. Now it is time to think of our own country, if you are fated to survive and reach your high-roofed house and your forefathers’ land.’

(Book XXIII, lines 232-240)

This made him want to cry. He held his love, his faithful wife, and wept. As welcome as the land to swimmers, when Poseidon wrecks their ship at sea and breaks it with great waves and driving winds; a few escape the sea and reach the shore, their skin all caked with brine. Grateful to be alive, they crawl to land. So glad she was to see her own dear husband, and her white arms would not let go his neck.

None of this is unreadable, and though I could go into the meaning of some of the lines and nitpick at some inaccuracies, I'm not sure my arguments would be convincing anyway, since Wilson is a classics professor and I'm not! But I hope these examples at least show that it's shoddy poetic work, and frequently veers into bathos and triviality even in these moments of heightened emotion.

Speaking of bathos, she also named the book divisions for some reason, which is just plain weird - they aren't even original to the text! Why bother? They vary from boring, such as "11 - The Dead" to baffling, such as "13 - Two Tricksters." I guess Athena is supposed to be a "trickster" also? Haha. There's much where we're supposed to appreciate Wilson's cleverness, which is... grating to say the least.

And on the subject of tricksters, despite this being held up as one of her great achievements, I don't think that "complicated" is a particularly good translation for "polytropos" - which is often rendered "many-turns." This is mostly a matter of bad English rather than bad Greek - the word "complicated" just simply does not communicate to me someone with many tricks up their sleeve! It's a bad epithet. I am in a relationship with my epic poem and it's complicated, etc.

There's also the manner of the narrative that Wilson sold to PR agencies about how, as the first woman translator, she essentially claims that all of the previous (male) translators had unconscious sexist biases, and that her translations are more correct. This largely requires swallowing the claim that as a woman she's somehow immune to subconscious biases, which I'm not willing to accept. Again, I could go into detail about how her "feminist" translations distort the meaning in the face of legitimate scholarly interpretation (such as Helen's "bitchface" etc.) but I suspect getting into the weeds of this wouldn't be value positive. But I hope that in 2023 moreso than 2017 more people are willing to raise an eyebrow at this ludicrous claim on principle.

[inventors-fair]

Updates and Expectations

Hey folks. Couple of important notes before we get into the meat:

To accommodate spoiler warnings, we generally ask that future set mechanics not be used until a set has had its prerelease—i.e. don't use Duskmourn mechanics until the contest announced on September 15th, since the prerelease will be on that Friday the 20th. Again, this is minor, something we'd prefer, but not the end of the world. We've talked about this on Discord but not on Tumblr, so some folks might not have heard about it. Our bad.

If you're somehow not submitting from a Tumblr account, please add some way to tag you, or literally any information whatsoever. We've had a couple folks submit from email addresses and, well, it's frustrating when we're not even sure if you're gonna see comments later.

As everyone knows, all cards need artist credit for discernable pictures. If it's a random set of pixels like what I usually do, don't worry about it. If it's a text art description, also don't worry about it. Original art? Credit yourself, you gorgeous maestro! Mashup art from other MTG cards? Gotta credit 'em all. Stock photo? Find the original photographer and/or credited group. Game screenshot? Credit the developer. Use your critical thinking skills and find solutions; we have faith in y'all's abilities.

Alright. Now for the other stuff.

Commentary on cards, as everyone knows, can range from some quick snippets to a massive essay-long series of thoughts and opinions. I range from about 4,000-8,000 words for mine. Now that I'm working on Saturdays, it's going to be a bit tight to get things in in the afternoon, but that's what Friday (and the week in general) is for. I'm in a fortunate position regarding time, space, and experience in writing.

As some folks might've noticed, commentary isn't always on time with the contests in question. The long story short is that there's no easy solution to this. If I was running this full-time solo, I would barely have time to write for myself during the week. Even divided, commentary is a massive undertaking—and it isn't always tenable.

Going forward, the winners and runners should still be around their right time barring extenuating schedules and circumstances. Commentary will just not always be available for the rest of the entries, especially if there are larger numbers. I don't think that limiting the number of entries is a good option, and there are just too many factors for this position to warrant that every judge fulfill commentary every week. I'll try to get in commentary as much as I can, and in this position I'm grateful that I'm able to get it all done to the degree that I have over the years. Not everyone has that time or energy, and it's more of a toll than meets the eye.

In the #fair-talk in Discord, Judges can ask any questions you might have about the card and offer their opinions and insights. That way, you can get some in-depth comments on your card that may not be available in lieu of full commentary. If full commentary is available, then feel free to read up and read away!

One last note: THE EARLIER YOU GET YOUR CARD IN, THE BETTER! Late entries are totally fine, but speaking from experience, doing commentary over the week becomes more difficult when we have multiple entries down to the wire. Sometimes timing and schedules make things difficult! The fact is that timing still matters. Help us help you.

We're all here for the love of the game. We all understand that mental taxes are just as taxing as anything. And, I hope we all understand that writing is really hard. Be well, stay sharp.

@abelzumi

[prettyboykatsuki]

✮ this blog is 18+. i block minors and ageless blogs. yk the drill.

✮ please do not recommend me on any other platform, especially tiktok. i like to keep my mental illness contained

✮ every character i write is aged to be over 18 no matter what their canon age is, usually early 20's. if this makes you uncomfortable block me.

✮ putting dni if ur a bigot seems kinda pointless but ill block you if ur vibes r weird. terfs ESPECIALLY dont fucking interact you are not welcome here

✮ okay. the basics are out of the way. here's what else you need to know.

one ; i am a personal blog before im a writing blog. i post about my life and whatever i want. this is my diary and sometimes there's fanfiction in it. i shitpost like 100 times a day.

(this blog is in general, super disorganized. i have literally 30,000 posts. my bad)

two ; i post dark content frequently. im a gross freak so it's a lot of incest / yandere and dubcon / noncon will make the appearance as well. just block if you hate it but i will always tag with ___ cw (i.e. noncon cw, yandere cw, incest cw, stepcest cw)

three ; i am a top and a dom and i want to make men pregnant. i talk about it a lot. i am also a switch though so you'll see whatever im feeling at the time and it wont go tagged. sorry about that. just how it be.

four ; i get a lot of asks in a day (which im grateful for) but im only one person and responding makes me very tired so sometimes it takes a while. i also don't take requests.

five ; this is a big one but i am media critical and like analysis which means you will see me post a lot of meta about characters and worlds and my opinions about things. im pretty vocal about what strikes my mind so please approach with good faith

you're always welcome to disagree with me. im not infallible im just some guy with thoughts.

bonus ; any weird asks about my faith is an immediate block! it's only on my blog because it's a visible part of my identity!

i have other blogs you're welcome to follow.

@fang-wife - a general nsfw blog that you'll see me rb from sometimes.

@denji-s - my aesthetic blog

@bkgism - another nsfw blog but for more like not dom stuff lol

i also have a personal blog it is mutuals only. if u see another guy with my name its just me.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Idk y'all I get that seeing all those posts that go like "hmmm you're excited about the Barbie movie? Don't you know it's actually just a commercial to sell toys? ',:^)" as if they're offering some important new revolutionary perspective and not just stating an obvious fact everyone's aware of CAN be very grating

but

I'm also kinda weirded out by that post I've seen circulating a few times on my dash that's like "are you gonna treat top gun or the transformers movies the same way, or do you think it's just the dumb girls who need to be warned they're getting tricked into watching a commercial?" because like. At least on my corner of the internet I DID see a lot of people criticize shit like the new Top Gun Movie and the michael bay transformers movies for being nostalgiabait, glorified toy commercials, and thinly veiled propaganda for the military, and like I did see it very frequently?

Like I'm not gonna deny that there's definitely a degree of misogyny going into bad faith criticisms of the Barbie movie, but it also kinda rubs me the wrong way to see so many people agreeing with "well you guys only pretend to care about this because it's a GIRL MOVIE, y'all would never scrutinize these BOY MOVIES the same way" when people very much DID do that. like. a lot too.

[utilitycaster]

Oof, the first half of the episode is a little rough ngl. I like the second half with Aabria a lot more. The first group does get better as the episodes go on if that helps at all.

Also, to add a bit more context to Kollok: the creators - Hyper RPG - are filmmaking nerds and are mostly known on Twitch for their various virtual productions.

So Kollok has a lot of those post production visual effects and sound effects, which is them using their strengths to create a show, similar to CR and voice acting and D20 and improv comedy.

Obviously that's not gonna be everyone's cup of tea and it can get a little too much I admit, but it's not that bad of a show.

Hi anon,

I am...not sure if you read this in the necessary context (this provides some, and this some more, and if I'm being totally honest based on this I don't feel like you read my entire weird rant, which to be fair, it is long and weird but covers quite a lot of issues I have) but I am coming in with the premise of "I think heavy post production of actual play is a poor choice." It don't care that it's their strength; I think that if that's your strength you would do better to apply it to scripted works or to improvised non-actual play shows.

I will freely admit that I went in expecting it not to be my cup of tea for that reason, and with an added grudge of "being hyped up and cited as brilliant by Polygon's AP/TTRPG team, with whom I almost always disagree," but did genuinely want to give it a shot in as good faith as I could muster, instead of solely talking shit about. I hoped the acting, premise, and GM-ing might shine through even though the effects were unlikely to win me over and indeed were likely to annoy me.

That was not the case. I found the GM-ing (Driving?) style profoundly grating and pretentious (and I have a very high tolerance for pretension), the premise nothing to write home about, and honestly I don't know jack about sound mixing but I do know I have perfectly good hearing and had to crank my laptop speakers up to higher than I have to for CR or D20 for the prologue to the prologue only to subsequently hear some of the most irritating static sounds at top volume for the prologue, so I'm not even impressed by the production.

And to be clear: that's all fine. I think people are drawn to different aspects in actual play, and there's room for all sorts of shows. I might even finish this episode simply because if I were recommending something to someone else, and they quit an hour into a 3.5 hour episode, I'd feel a little miffed. But I really don't expect it to ever be my thing, and I watched it mostly because it felt uninformed to be criticizing heavy production in actual play without watching a notably deliberately heavily produced actual play show.

I do want to wrap up, and this isn't specifically directed at you but: when it comes to my opinions on a work, I'm not going to say I'm never going to be swayed by an anon ask because who knows, it could happen, but it's very unlikely. If I dislike something, I don't really care if other people like it - I'd never send anons or get on their posts or maintag something like the post I just made (and which I made nonrebloggable specifically to prevent it from spreading into fan spaces) but I hope that people who like something can show me the same respect and permit my dislike. If you're a fan I will not be offended nor resentful if you unfollow or block me or whatever you need to do, but I can pretty confidently say that new cast members or improved acting will not change the fact that this is extremely not for me.

[opinated-user]

I'm genuinely grateful Lily is too ignorant, too uneducated and too willfully so to know about Central Asians so I don't have to hear her shit takes on my part of the world. The way she talks about East Asians alone is disgusting and the way she talks about black people is undisguised dehumanization. I genuinely wish she wouldn't talk about races other than her own white one because she has such ugly, misinformed, willfully bad-faith takes on other people. It's especially repulsive because she then talks over real people of those races while holding up her black OC as if writing one makes her a great person and makes up for what she's said.

I do have a question I was hoping you could help me with, though. How do we normie, non-YouTubers fight fandom racism? Like, the Lily brand where she won't shut up about white characters, acts like writing a black OC makes you immune from criticism, etc. How do we as normal people amplify black voices (and Southeast and East Asian voices, since she's talked over them) and avoid becoming yet another fan who says they're progressive but don't do anything to help anyone? I want to be part of the solution, not the problem.

fight it when you see it is the very first step. people liking a white character is not a thing that anyone can realistically fight and get any results, but you can pin point the double standard when a POC character is treated harsher, completely ignored or dismissed for no real good reason. i already gave this example, but on the TOH fandom this was exactly what was happening when Camila made Luz promise that the next time she came back she'd stay on the human real. at the time the fandom reacted to this insisting that Camila was a bad mother, borderline abusive even, and Eda (the white woman) was the best and only mother Luz should stay with. LO expecting a black child to get over everything that happened to her and turn into a vengeful violent fighter out of the blue... that's racism, because, and i want to emphasize this, i have never seen her treat any other white protagonist child on the same way. not even steven. she of course hates steven because she thinks he's a sanctimonious perpetual pacifist through which Sugar wants to forgive nazis and abusers, but i don't remember her ever dismissing his emotional responses and keep going at it with the same viciousness she has for Luz. have you noticed too that she never has this same "advice" for Amity regarding her mom, even though she was actually abusive? on the Encanto fandom, when people want to treat the grandma as a monster without a heart and willfully ignore how her actions are based on a trauma response. those are all examples of fandom racism and you need to identify it like it is. if you ask the question "would this people react the same way if this character was white and nothing else changed about them", and the answer is no, then it's necessary to point that out. once you do understand what the issue is and how it perpetuates the same racism in which POC are never enough or have to be extraordinary to receive half of the attention that other characters get, then is when you can pass to other actions which should include: -elevate POC characters and help to their visibility. make fanart for them or share it from other artists, especially POC ones. write for them, have fun with them, enjoy them as the characters they are. -elevate POC voices in fandom. people who write metas about fandom racism already always need new eyes. the biggest mistake of LO about this regard is that she openly admits she stick to only one single black content creator and doesn't look to any other, completely missing the many other POC fans that have been speaking and begging to be listened to for decades, since fandom first was invented. try to diggest what those people are saying and share it, donate to them even if it's possible. -this should be obvious, but just in case... try to inform yourself on regular everyday racism so you're able to call it out when possible. for this, likewise, you'll need to hear and read a lot of different authors. you don't have to agree with all of them right away, but at least try to see what they're sayin and, more importantly, why they're saying it. these are just people. regular and normal people who all want the same dignity, same compassion and same understanding that you or anyone else wants when it comes to talking about something that actually hurt them, not tools to be used or quoted just so you can look "woke" for social clout. respect that experience even if you personally can't understand it. this is also something that LO just tends to forget way too much. -finally... just be kind to yourself while you're learning, because the fact you want to learn does matter and that'll come through.

[cookiemom6067]

I know you’ve done a lot of snw podfics. But I was wondering about your opinions on the actual show.

Your favourite thing?

Something you wish they would explore?

Favourite character or episode?

Where would you rate it amongst the other Trek shows? 

A pet peeve?

(Not gonna lie, I put this last one so I could complain about the boots. I live in the city where the boots were designed and I can tell you from wearing them (you can buy them at the artist’s store)They are a nightmare to walk in incredibly uncomfortable. I hate them, it’s truly the most unrealistic thing about Strange New Worlds)

I've been sitting on this ask for a while, so I'm sorry about that.

Favorite thing: I really love the work the actors are doing. Ethan is a standout, and I love the work that Jess has done with Chapel and, of course, Anson.

I wish they would explore: They really fell into the Spock Chapel romance, but I liked her better in the first season when she was more independent. So, I guess that means I wish they world expand on Chapel's individual journey. I really don't see how they get from here to their TOS relationship (or lack of same).

Favorite character/episodes: I really loved Subspace Rhapsody, honestly. And the Those Old Scientists. I also loved The Elysian Kingdom. I guess I like the unusual ones, where the cast can do something fun and different. Among the regular episodes, Lost in Translation and All Those Who Wander are faves.

How would I rate it among Star Trek shows: I would rate it pretty high. My previous favorites have been the original series and Voyager. I watched TNG when it first started, but we stopped before it got good. It was several years into their run before I watched it again. I didn't really like the Dominion War and the prophets in DS9. I did faithfully watch Enterprise, but it had its issues, too. I also loved Discovery (especially S 2). I thought a lot of the criticism it got was made in bad faith due to racism and misogyny. I'm not best at the rating thing, but it's definitely one that I love and rewatch. It also pulled me back into active Star Trek fandom in a big way, so I'm grateful for that.

I have a peeve that is growing, and that's when they make Spock the butt of so many jokes. I loved Charades when I first saw it, but as I rewatched few times, I got annoyed at the way they want to make his dedication to "the Vulcan Way" all down to biology. Why would his ethical and cultural values just go out the window (looking at you, bacon scene)? The teachings of Surak are a choice that is made. No child is born reserved and logical. See: the bullying that he went through. We've known Vulcans can reject Surakian logic as far back as "The Final Frontier."

I've seen the first look we got from SDCC, and honestly, I hated it. Now, they are saying bigotry (and hairstyles) is in the DNA, as well? Doubling down in the problemmatic part of Charades? I really dislike his closest friends treating him that way. I hope the rest of the episode redeems it, I'm trying to be optimistic, but how could Spock trust them after that?

[princeescaluswords]

One thing I don’t think I saw much of in the pushback against ‘the curtains are just blue’ refusal to analyze media is how much of those spaces had been filled with extremely forced meta. So much of tumblr had seen the ‘there’s going to be a REAL final episode/season of Sh3rlock here’s the clues!!!’ Bad faith analysis on here that it’s the least shocking thing to me that people turned against it. But I love analysis, and am so glad to see accounts discussing media, themes and characterization honestly.

Having said that, the intensity of st3rek shippers trying to force readings on the movie is… very indicative of why I distrust a lot of so called fandom academics.

I have two anecdotes that might provide insight into how I approach "bad meta" which might be useful to you.

In second grade in music class, I got into a meaningless argument with a classmate about the Bible -- I think it was about the proper day of worship; he was a Seventh Day Adventist -- and it got so loud that the teacher scolded us. After class, the teacher talked to me about the right way to argue, and she said something that stuck with me. I was complaining about how me and the other boy could see two different things in the same book, and she said "People can make the Bible or any book mean anything they want if they take a small enough piece of it by itself. You can only find the real meaning by looking at the book as a whole." In other words, context matters. The blue curtains cannot signify depression unless the narrative is at least partially about the evolution of mental states.

Flash forward to graduate school, and I'm taking a course in literary theory, and out of frustration with Derrida, I ask the teacher how anyone can possibly tell if a reading has any value or not. and he replied "Ask yourself if the interpretation holds up over the course of the narrative." In other words, if the blue curtains mean something specific in a particular scene, does that meaning remain consistent?

I use these ideas when looking at media criticism. Does the proffered meta fit within the overall context of the narrative and does the proffered meta remain reliably applicable?

Let me give you an example of a meta that simply fails to meet both criteria: "Stiles helped Derek, Peter, and Isaac search for Erica and Boyd over the summer between Seasons 2 and 3." This should have immediately been dismissed as fancy but it has become almost a given among Sterek shippers.

The idea doesn't fit within any aspect of the show. It doesn't fit within the context of Stiles's character. Even if you believe that he had a change of heart about leaving Erica and Boyd with the Argents as he did in Master Plan (2x12), why would he choose to try to find them with Derek (who got them into this as well as tried to kill Lydia), Isaac (who physically attacked him and wanted to kill Lydia), and Peter (who actually attacked Lydia and used her to resurrect himself)? Why wouldn't he ask Scott? And if he was convinced that Scott wouldn't help -- even though he had several conversations with Scott about helping in the past -- why would he not tell Scott about the threat of the Alpha Pack?

In addition, none of the other characters' actions make sense in that context either. Derek "Not you." Hale doesn't act like he welcomes or believes in Stiles's help. Peter "And yet you've only had an hour" Hale doesn't mention that in their scenes together. Isaac doesn't use it when he's fighting with Stiles for Scott's attention. Vernon "But we're not friends" Boyd doesn't seem grateful, unless you think that none of his pack mates would tell him about what Stiles did for him and Erica (or you think that Stiles wouldn't remind him.) The premise doesn't fit with anything we see on the screen.

So, it's just a meaningless, harmless head canon that people do for fun, right? Except this meta -- and others like it -- turned out not to be meaningless and absolutely not harmless.

This meta and other metas like it fed into the Sterek relationship but it also transformed that relationship into a scheme designed to undermine Scott McCall's place as lead protagonist. Alongside such meta as "Ultimate Sacrifice Stiles," "Spark Stiles," and "Sinister Tree Wizard Deaton," it created a phantom dichotomy -- that the true conflict of Teen Wolf was between the usurper Scott and the rightful rulers, the Hales, and that Stiles's loyalty was the key which would ultimately determine who came out on top. These bad metas justified worse metas such as the Schism (where the central relationship of the show would end in violence) and the Anakin Complex (where the essential themes of the show -- the power of compassion and the rejection of revenge -- would be revealed as sources of corruption). It culminated in the Unreliable Narrator Scott theory, which argued with an entirely straight face that everything we watched for 100 episodes was ... not actually what happened in the story.

And they caused harm. This meta complex's desire to decenter and delegitimize a hero of color played into every unjust trend that has ruled Hollywood since there was a Hollywood. It led people to dismiss entire seasons as incapable of value because a secondary antagonist-turned-protagonist wasn't in it and made people hate the movie vehemently before it even premiered. It caused Poseygate, where the lead actor of the heroic protagonist finally came out and said those interpretations were wrong and that wasn't what the story was about and certain viewers lost their fricking minds. No one can say that real people -- including Tyler Posey -- haven't been attacked socially by individuals supported and encouraged by this supersystem of bad meta.

So, yeah, there should be more pushback against bad faith meta, against the idea that 'head canons' can never cause problems, against racist (and sexist and homophobic and decadent) ideas being introduced into fandoms, against the idea that any and all fandom behavior is permissible. And it's not an onerous request to suggest that we test meta against the standards of context and consistency.

[pumpkinblossoms]

OK, in the spirit of positivity, here are my top reads of 2022!

A bit in the way of context: I am a librarian, I read a lot, and, for better or for worse, I live and breathe books/publishing buzz/ARCs/etc. The list below is purely based on my own fully biased opinions, though those biases have nothing to do with whether I had early access to a title, a connection to the publisher, etc. and everything to do with whether a book is sad, gory, or gay. And thanks @explosionshark for suggesting I write this up!

DEAD COLLECTIONS by Isaac Fellman: holy fuck was this book good. The whole “trans vampire falling in love and solving a quiet, sad mystery in the archive where he works” angle is catchy, but this is definitely not the fluffy or straightforward story some people are after. I really loved how vampirism is depicted as a life-ruining weakness rather than a cool and sexy superpower. I also really loved the multimedia aspect of including forum posts and TV scripts and listserv chains.

BABEL: AN ARCANE HISTORY by R.F. Kuang: I think some criticisms of this one, like that it’s slow and repetitive and a little didactic, are founded. However, I couldn’t care less. R.F. Kuang excels at unhurried school stories that slowly and brutally dismantle themselves over hundreds and hundreds of pages, and the formula she establishes in the excellent Poppy War trilogy is perfected here. This is what actual dark academia looks like–The Atlas Six could never.

KISS HER ONCE FOR ME by Alison Cochrun: I used to read a lot of contemporary romance, specifically f/f romance, but after being burned over and over and over and OVER by bad books I’m incredibly selective about what I read and recommend in this genre. I gave Alison Cochrun a ton of shit for her incredibly mediocre debut, The Charm Offensive, but I am totally willing to say that she’s improved, and this book–while still definitely goofy and even grating at times–was probably the best f/f romance out in 2022 from a major publisher other than Delilah Green (which I read in 2021 and therefore did not include in this list, but also whose sequel sucked so much it honestly made me like the first one less). Do me a favor and don’t even read the back copy because it doesn’t make any fucking sense and will turn you off the book.

THE PALLBEARERS CLUB by Paul Tremblay: hoooo boy. OK. So this one got dismal reviews from the Goodreads crowd, but I believe fully and genuinely in my heart that everybody is wrong about it and should feel bad about how wrong they are. The thing is, Paul’s books are slow and atmospheric (are you sensing a theme to what kind of books I tend to like best) and there are no easy answers or moments of triumph or anything you might be led to expect via publisher-created blurbs or taglines. And going into a book with one expectation and having that expectation remain unmet is one of the quickest and simplest ways to have a bad-faith negative reaction to said book, in my personal experience. Like, could this book have been scarier? Definitely. But I loved it regardless, and I loved that the physical format of the book–Art’s memoiry fiction draft, or fictiony memoir draft, depending on your perspective, plus his best friend Mercy’s commentary written in red in the margins–is the sort of embodied story that I love because it fucking sucks to read on a screen or an ereader. You’re tied to the format, either print or audio (which I hear was well done for this one, though I haven’t heard it myself), and that’s great to me.

THE THOUSAND EYES by A.K. Larkwood: In my opinion this duology is criminally, WOEFULLY underrated. Csorwe is a grumpy butch orc warrior and she spends most of her time getting herself and her terrible frenemies out of trouble and also falling in love with a powerful sorceress. This book is the second one and is gloriously angsty and everyone gets middle-aged and sad and yet they all still pine for one another across time and space. I cried. I’m not sorry. It’s GOOD.

AN ARCHIVE OF BRIGHTNESS by Kelsey Socha: ok, full disclosure, this is my wife’s book, but it came out in August and it’s a lovely group of interwoven weird little gay stories. I would’ve loved it even if I didn’t share a mortgage with the author, I promise. Like, people live in houses made of scorpion corpses. Come on.

Honorable mentions: I didn’t really feel like getting too much into YA here, but I really liked CONFESSIONS OF AN ALLEGED GOOD GIRL by Joya Goffney, which was a really honest and interesting exploration of purity culture and religion; HOW TO EXCAVATE A HEART by Jake Maia Arlow, an interfaith winter holiday f/f romance (what a year for holiday romances, sheesh); and HELL FOLLOWED WITH US by Andrew Joseph White, a really gross and sad book that also manages to be incredibly, gleefully YA even as the protagonist morphs into a horrifying monster.

I also didn’t want to mention anything that hasn’t been released yet, so HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE by Grady Hendrix and SOME DESPERATE GLORY by Emily Tesh are both out, even though both were SO GOOD and you should be foaming at the mouth to get your hands on them next year. And lastly, I didn’t think The Locked Tomb series needed any extra hype and if you haven’t picked it up yet it’s not like I’m going to convince you, so I didn’t bother saying anything about NONA THE NINTH although it was really very good.

And finally: I’m currently reading WHEN THE ANGELS LEFT THE OLD COUNTRY by Sacha Lamb which absolutely fucking rips so far, very much Good Omens meets Spinning Silver, but I haven’t finished it yet so it didn’t seem fair to count. I recommend it based on the first half, though!

PHEW ok that’s it! Send me your recs please!!