#by case basis as needed

[scoopstrooptm]

maybe if i post a to-do list here then i'll actually be productive.jpg

• spring clean my drafts • write up erica's bio • figure out specifics for d&d verses for robin & dustin • write up an apocalyptic au outline for robin & dustin • finish the robin & russian bunker trauma meta i have sitting incomplete in my drafts • modern verse ????? idk where to start with that aside from giving robin her long-awaited middle aged lesbian icon modern verse • starter call ?????? • write ?????????? • profit

[forlix]

i don’t know what the fuck to think or feel. heart feeling so heavy

[utilitycaster]

Whenever people get mad about the literal discussion of narrative in the context of media analysis, there's always this undercurrent of "Oh? So you want a story with themes and structure and conflict and resolution instead of my booktok/fanfic-approved headcanons? Do you think you're better than me?" And I just want to clear something up: yes. Without a doubt.

[sandwichhour]

Name's Ninni, welcome to StupidTown 🐟👍

[sequencer987]

People sending me DMs asking if I’m a “pro” or an “anti” as though either of those is a reasonable lens to analyze media with. It’s like someone asking you to choose between believing in flat earth or hollow earth. I’d like to be neither, thanks.

Y’all desperately need to learn what ‘framing’ is and how to recognize it.

[kkoct-ik]

yttd spoilies

im still not over how sou could have been The Best My Favourite did representation ever except its not canon and it never will be because nobodys understanding of did extends further than split personality trope. heem heem

[occasionaltouhou]

have we ever confirmed that remilia does actually take blood from people other than sakuya. is it canonical that sakuya isn't simply extremely full of blood that she wants to share so so much

[eggmacguffin]

and are the women who "have it too good" and "get away with everything because of feminism" in the room with us right now?

[djevelbl]

Kill the cringe cop in your head, do what makes you happy.

[panvani]

I actually finished Monster a few days ago but I will state my feelings on it for posterity's sake: I think Monster, while composed of a number of well written and evocative vignettes, ultimately fails to execute its overall emotional arc well. If the story had been explicitly framed episodically with an overarching B-plot connecting these episodes, I might feel more positively towards it, but the fact that it must nominally develop its "main plot" each chapter while devoting most of its screen time to tangentially related stock characters was extremely frustrating. None of the twists or reveals actually felt consequential because information about the main plot is fed to you so painstakingly and in a way that's so repetitive that its conclusion is largely predictable and almost anticlimactic.

Monster ultimately does not do a very good job of developing any of its main cast. Its story and characters warp around Tenma, who is just not very interesting. I was frankly just fed up with him and the unilateral adoration that every character holds for him by the end of the story. Nina was extremely underdeveloped for the character she should have been and supposedly was within the story and any pathos that could have been elicited by her was neutered by first having her be barely present for the vast majority of the story, and second by also relegating her into being a Guy Who Just Loves Tenma. Eva was probably the closest any character had to a real character arc and her writing was just so absurdly misogynistic for nearly the entire story I couldn't enjoy any time she was on screen. Johan should have been an interesting character, but the manga got so long and drawn out that by the end I was just fed up with him.

The story overall was weirdly saccharine in a way that felt almost childish in contrast to its intended tone, and while that's not in itself a bad thing, its attempts to portray humanity as Overall Good felt simplistic and often cheap. It kinda goes hand in hand with how horribly it attempts to address WWII. "Well, The Nazis Felt Really Bad About It" and "If You Think About It, Japanese People Were The Real Victims" are not, uh. Themes that show a willingness to contend with complex morality or any real belief in human goodness aside from superficial self-reassurance. Also Urasawa Naoki is insanely insanely insanely afraid of sex.

Ultimately I think Monster would have been way, way better if it had just been shorter and had treated its main plot in any reasonable manner. It had a lot of interesting, evocative moments, and a lot of the ideas of the main plot could have been really good to chew on if the main plot hadn't lost momentum long before it was actually wrapped up. Nina and Johan are given very interesting treatment on occasion, and I have been thinking about their characters and relationship quite a bit since finishing Monster, but the plot was so bogged down in the Various Extraneous Dipshits and the need to conform every aspect of Nina's character around Tenma that there's no actual interesting conclusion to be drawn from them.

I think on an arc-by-arc level, Monster is quite well written, and it has a few really strong moments. It just makes such poor use of its format overall that it sours the whole experience.

[loumauve]

I snapped today at work, and by snapped I mean I politely commented on a help desk ticket by summing up an mess of an (type of) issue that's come up for at least the fourth time in the 2+ months I've been managing user accounts, and asked the person responsible to fix it (himself for once) because last time I fixed his mess-up it took me two whole days to work out the details with at least four other colleagues from different departments and I really don't want to do it again. there's other shit that needs doing, I've been working 10+ hour days for most of this week already, so I need to cut down not add on more.

(good thing tho - at least we managed to fix the issue where the dataset of a newer employee got mixed up with another one of the same name and therefore wasn't able to apply for any of the access/accounts she needed. technically not entirely my area but it does impact us not being allowed to create an account for her so I figured I might as well track that issue down. took three days and at least three other people, but hey - it should all work out now. yay for that)

[stag-bi]

what a whiplash going to see my 2016 tumblr dash (as linked in that last post) and getting slapped in the face w full blown ace discourse 😭😭😭

[wonder-worker]

"Because Richard (III) usurped the throne, his retinue is inevitably seen as inimical to the crown and therefore in an important sense independent of royal authority. In the context of Edward IV's reign, in which the retinue was created, neither assumption is true. The development of the retinue would have been impossible without royal backing and reflected, rather than negated, the king's authority. Within the north itself, Gloucester's connection subsumed that of the crown. Elsewhere, in East Anglia and in Wales, that focus for royal servants was provided by others, but Gloucester was still part of that royal connection, not remote from it. In the rest of England, as constable and admiral, he had contributed to the enforcement of royal authority. When he seized power in 1483 he did not do it from outside the prevailing political structure but from its heart."

-Rosemary Horrox, "Richard III: A Study of Service"

[butchlifeguard]

its really wild to me that i can be known as just a chill guy. or like soneone who can be generally nice and funny. its not because i have some secret dark interior its just because it felt so out of reach in my recent memory yk

[pokeology]

Do you consider “training” Pokémon for max-damage Frustration to be a form of trainer cruelty? I’ve a friend in the competitive scene who’s been considering utilizing maximum Frustration builds and not only does it seem ineffective it also just doesn’t seem right to me

It is a much more complex subject than people usually assume, but without getting too far into the science of this move and pokemon care, I do not think it is an effective battle strategy.

While not all species necessarily need or are capable of the kind of bonding a human best responds to, a degree of trust is still important to keep. Efficient battle strategies almost always depend on a preexisting mutual understanding for a reason. It may not be inherently abusive depending on species, but it certainly is not something that would actually work for their goals.

[wolvebonez]

theres no ethical way to own exotic pets btw 👍👍