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iam93percentstardust · 10 months

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On Plagiarism and Academia

Welp, I watched hbomberguy's new video (just like everyone else). And... I loved it! (Go figure) It's a great video, he's genuinely funny and presents the information in an engaging way (I barely even noticed it had been four hours), and we need the information he presented very badly to remind us to independently verify the things we're listening to. But something that he said really struck me because it's something that I'm dealing with in my offline life right now. Disclaimer: this is a hypothesis generated from my own personal observations and experiences and isn't meant to be a sweeping statement of every single academic institution across the entire world.

He seemed really surprised that no one (or very few people) noticed that the Youtubers he was calling out were plagiarizing other people. Like. Really surprised. And at one point, he made the argument that maybe that was because plagiarism was viewed only as a problem in academia, so people assumed it wasn't a problem online and weren't looking for it.

And that hit a chord because the thing is, at least in my small corner of the world, I don't think that plagiarism is a problem in academia. Or, rather, I don't think academia views plagiarism as a problem anymore.

So, if you've been following me for a while, you know I have a whole tag about my struggles in grad school. I've been a grad student for the last six years at [insert major university here], and because my lab doesn't have any funding to pay me, I've been employed as a TA all six years to pay my salary. At this school, in my department, TAs are expected to proctor exams--every single exam for the course and frequently one additional exam from another class.

If we see cheating, we're not supposed to call it out in the middle of the exam. Instead, at the end of the exam, we're supposed to take the student's scantron and hand it over to the professor and give them an estimate on how certain we are the student was cheating so they can pass it on to the university, which, in every syllabus of every class, states they take a hardline stance on cheating and plagiarism. (Yes, I know I'm talking about cheating on exams, which isn't the same thing as plagiarism, but I swear I'll loop back around to it in a minute.)

During the first exam I ever proctored during my first semester of my first year in 2018 (this was three weeks into the semester), I caught a student cheating. Like. Blatantly cheating. Cheating so badly that over a dozen separate people came up to me at the end of the exam to tell me that she was cheating, just in case I hadn't seen it myself. I did exactly what I was supposed to.

I took the student's scantron.

I turned it into the professor and told her that I was 100% certain and had witnesses to back me up.

She gave it to the university.

...And the university came back and said that they weren't going to do an investigation and were just going to let the student take the exam again, this time with a different proctor because they felt I was biased against this student because of the "very serious accusations [she] had leveled against [me] of singling her out for her race." (Newsflash: the student cheated again with that different proctor and got away with it again)

During that first year that I spent as a TA, I reported eight different instances of cheating across six separate exams. Every single one, I was 100% positive that the student had been cheating, and on five of the occasions, I had student witnesses to support my accusation. The university tossed every single accusation out without even a cursory investigation or even filing a report. Oh yeah, really hardline stance there, university.

For the most part (and partially because of distance learning), I stopped reporting cheating, but I tried one more time this past spring to report two cheaters and got back the same result that I did my first year: not even an investigation to see if there was any merit into my claim because they're "busy."

I don't report cheating to the university anymore. They've more than shown me that they don't actually take cheating seriously even when I have more than a dozen people supporting me. Even when I have students half out of their chairs to see what the person in front of them is writing. Even when I have students with their phones out on the desks, looking things up. The university doesn't care, so why should the students?

So how do I loop this back into the discussion on plagiarism? Well, yesterday, while grading my students' final papers, I ran one of them through a plagiarism checker, and it pinged the radar. Two sentences were a direct quote and hadn't been listed in quotations or been cited in the body of the text. If I scrolled through the (long) list of citations at the bottom of the paper, I could find the source, but if it hadn't pinged the checker, I would never have known that those two sentences weren't their own.

The lack of the quotations and the source after the quote is what kicks this over the line into plagiarism, regardless of the source in the later bibliography (the same thing that got Illuminaughtii in trouble on hbomberguy's video). But I was willing to assume it was an honest mistake, and so I emailed the student to ask them to please add the proper citation and resubmit the paper.

This should have taken the student maybe--at most--five minutes to fix. Literally, all it needed was a set of quotation marks and a parenthetical aside with the author's name and year.

Instead, I got a response from the student telling me that they were very busy, it was finals week, and they weren't sure when they could get to it. Oh, and by the way, what grade would they get on the assignment if they didn't fix the source?

It was a stunning lack of regard for the error they'd made on their original submission, and now, because I'd brought it to their attention, if it wasn't fixed, it was willful plagiarism--and we both knew that! They can't claim ignorance or an accidental mistake anymore. We both know that they're passing off someone else's words as their own!

I emailed them back and told them if it wasn't fixed, it would be a 0, and then I messaged the instructor and asked her what happens now? Her response was as disheartening as my previous experience with the university's response to cheating: they'll dismiss it, regardless of their supposed hardline stance, and nothing will happen. Don't even bother reporting it; the most we can do is give the student the 0 I'd already threatened.

So there you have it. This particular university doesn't care if you cheat or plagiarize. Academic dishonesty doesn't mean anything to them--and the students know it. Every year the topic of cheating comes up with my students during my office hours, and every time, the students complain about how their sorority sisters and football team members and fellow classmates get away with cheating over and over and over again because they know the university won't do anything about it, so why should they bother maintaining any kind of integrity? I even asked them if they reported it to their proctors and instructors, and while I got back a few yeses, I got even more why bothers. What's the point of reporting it if nothing is going to happen?

To loop this back into hbomberguy's video, I don't think as few people noticed the plagiarism as he thinks. I think quite a few people noticed (and looking through the comments on the various videos of the James Somerton scandal, not just hbomberguy's, I do see more than a couple comments along those lines). The thing is, I think they kept that to themselves. And though I do think that part of that has to do with the mob mentality of fandoms on the internet and the fear of getting attacked for pointing out something shitty that someone else is doing, I think a lot of it also comes down to this: plagiarism is thought to be an academia problem, therefore the way the academics respond to plagiarism should be what we look to to deal with the same problem elsewhere. But if the way the academics respond to plagiarism is to ignore it and sweep the reports under the rug, then why would we ever think that Youtube, of all places, would deal with it any better?

#long post #hbomberguy #academia #once again my hypothesis is based on my personal experiences not on any amount of fact gathering i've done #other than the comment sections. i did go through those

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fandomhype · 7 months

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Plagiarism Somerton

I obviously didn't watch the new James Somerton apology video ON his channel because I did not want to give that man the views and you shouldn't either! It has been re-uploaded and summarised elsewhere so that he doesn't benefit if anyone wants to see it.

The original hbomberguy video was wild to me because of all the stealing, I found it highly entertaining, loved all the Memes and it honestly did my imposter syndrome wonders! but then I watched the Todd in the shadows video and it really upset me.

He didn't just steal from other LGBT creators he lied to his mostly young LGBT audiance who were looking to an elder gay for guidance and to learn about their history.

Todd's video starts with a clip of James lies being spread by another person on a podcast, there's clips of people discussing his made up gay nazi fanfic he has presented as hard facts. He actively harmed his own community for cash! There are young gay men bringing that subject up in conversation being laughed at for falling for it and that leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

Now I'm not a part of that community but a lot of people I love are so that angered me a lot.

...and then he comes back with another apology video, conveniently within the three months he would have had to post something on his channel to retain his monetisation status weirdly?! In which he blames both a head injury and his ADHD for his theft - at no point does he address the lying in either apology video or any of the apology posts he made that I could find.

I have combined ADHD, when I was first diagnosed the NHS referred to it as ADD with Hyperactivity element but everyone seems to have gone back to calling it ADHD and that is the term used most commonly online so that is what I refer to it is as.

I am medicated but there has been a world wide shortage of my medication and I was without it for some time over winter, which was HELL! I got nothing done.

I am in no way a big creator, Youtube for me is a fun wee hobby that will hopefully grow and allow me to collaborate with other people with similar interests but ADHD is for sure a large part of my journey as a creator.

I've published like 7 videos and currently have around 10 being worked on because, you know... ADHD! *siren noises*

I know that I am forgetful sometimes, just for the record I also had several head injuries and concussions as a child because Lil undiagnosed at the time me truly had no fear of climbing or other dangerous activities so I have my script (because free talking a subject with this brain would be nearly impossible) open in one google doc and my research open in another. It's not hard.

That's the way it was at school, college and Uni too. James claims he went to Uni to do business. Every university uses anti-plagerism software for essays and has done since like the mid 2000's? so he knows not to copy pasta. He's straight up lying there.

Another thing he's lying about is his ADHD making him forget he copied things. Now if you tell me a joke that I like it'll stick in my head and I will straight up tell it as my own later, I've been called out for this many times! But entire articles? whole sections of other peoples videos? (he also flipped a fan Vid he had ripped off of another YouTube to avoid detection and tried to pass it off as his own) No that's not something you can accidentally do even with a swiss cheese brain like mine.

Weirdly all the the paragraphs James claims he accidentally copied were also edited to remove aspects of the Trans, Bi and Ace experiences that James markedly does not believe exist. Strange considering he accidentally copied them and assumed they were his own words? Imagine going back through a paragraph you think you wrote yesterday in the edit the next day and finding swarths of things you don't agree with there?!

Why am I telling you all this? Well because I wanted to put my two cents in as a creator with this condition, partly because I felt it was somewhat of an attack on us!? He's put it out there that ADHD creators are liable to steal from others and that's not ok by me. Also I just really like the sound of my own typing!

TL;DR : James Sommerton is a suck ass liar and he doesn't get to use his disability as an excuse for what he did! and...

****** ADHD DOES NOT MAKE YOU STEAL SHIT!!! ******

Also watch Todd's Vid, everyone saw the Hbomberguy one but this one goes deeper:

youtube

#james somerton #actually adhd #james sommerton #hbomberguy

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detaia · 10 months

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"Information itself deteriorates in the process of producing industrial quantities of content. The mask has fallen and the gears of the mill spin naked before us as they wheel and crunch all meaning to dust and Raid Shadow Legends sponsorships. Go to audible.com/repentharlequin to enter a coma and escape this madness!"

hbomberguy, Plagiarism and You(Tube), 1:23:24

watching the new hbomberguy video and this bit is such good writing i fuckin love it.

once again reminded of how much i love hbomberguy. considering how much effort he puts into his own videos, he could be forgiven for being more heated when discussing the topic of plagiarism. but he isn't. he's composed and lighthearted and funny and he lets the evidence and arguments presented speak for themselves. I feel like it would be very easy for a video like this to derail into shitting on the people being exposed, but Harris does such a good job of discussing in depth why people plagiarise, the manipulative ways they respond to accusations to protect themselves, and just how galling it is that people like Brian Deer can dedicate themselves to investigating and reporting the truth, going so far as to defend themselves in court, only to have their life's work constantly plagiarised years afterward. He explores and questions and its always done so in a thorough, balanced manner. Its never "fuck this people in particular" but instead "hey lets take a look at this deep-rooted issue by examining a few relevant examples in INCREDIBLE detail"

I don't know. The appreciation and care Harris has towards not just other creators but also the act of creating an informative, well-crafted video just really comes through to me. Harris brings up that Brian Deer emailed Kat (his producer) to tell them that more people were buying his book after Harris recommended it in a video and it's such a lovely moment of mutual appreciation. yippee!!!

#PEACE AND LOVE #ramblings #hbomberguy #media analysis

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talenlee · 8 months

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Speedrunning the Hbomberguy Plagiarism Video

Plagiarism is bad. Plagiarism is Plagiarism. Plagiarism is mostly vibes.

A bunch of people you don’t need to know and may not have cared about before this conversation started all failed this vibe check.

Plagiarism is bad because it erases the work of a lot of people, who aren’t rich and successful and don’t have huge audiences.

You know about this now thanks to a guy who is successful and has a huge audience.

And Time.

That’s it. That’s all you actually need to know from H Bomberguy’s four hour long video Plagiarism And You (Tube). If you’ve heard people talking about Illuminaughti, Internet Historian or James Somerton, this is why, and if you heard them talk about Lukey Poo, no you didn’t. The video is about two hours of specific examples digging into the work of James Somerton, and the rest is unpacking the story of these other youtubers. Illuminaughti is a content mill producer who is, apparently, an asshole, and Internet Historian is like if a page from KnowYourMeme decided to talk, complete with being a thief and a surprisingly large number of Nazis in the comments. If you didn’t know them, you don’t know them and you won’t know them.

It is a Topic, it is a Discourse, it is something people care about and talk about and are interested about. It basically vaporised James Somerton, who within the runtime of the video went from ‘oh, this is just a hit job’ to ‘goodbye forever’ where he deleted his discord and channels and locked down everything and vanished off the internet, which made sense because everything he had that didn’t have comments locked was full of fans of Hbomberguy saying ‘hey, you’re a plagiarist.’ This is strange because Hbomberguy said that anyone harrassing anyone for their misdeeds would not see heaven. It’s like he told you in the video a thing to do and then a lot of people didn’t do that.

The thing is, it’s four hours long.

It’s four hours long. It’s four hours long and it’s one video about five topics and one of those topics is plagiarism and it doesn’t give a good or meaningful discussion of what plagiarism is, or how to identify it. But don’t worry, after three hours and forty-five minutes, Hbomb gives as a coda to his video, a talk about how all this media being made through uncredited copying of the work of others has caused real material harm, by making it hard to find and connect to that work. Like putting it at the end of three and a half hours of video.

When the video was new, I had a friend approach me and ask what was in it. So I told them. They didn’t know who Illuminaughti is, so telling them ‘hey, here’s a youtube lady who sucks’ doesn’t mean anything. Same with Internet Historian, same with James Somerton, and then at the end the question lingered: Okay, so why watch it?

Which is hard to answer, y’know?

Hypothetically the HBomberguy video is about a bad practice, with examples to try and address it. It opens by spending twenty minutes on someone who already did the bad thing and was caught doing the bad thing and was punished doing the bad thing, and this is important to present an example.

It doesn’t define plagiarism, by the way.

This four hour video presents an explanation for what plagiarism is, twice; once, when criticising Illuminaughti in a conversation with her, around the one hour mark, he says it’s ‘passing off work that’s not yours as yours,’ which counts as a definition of plagiarism but it also fits her definition of not adequately sourcing the work – ie, where she got the words she’s using from. But don’t worry, he also explains that plagiarism is ‘vibes.’

And I can understand only providing this kind of insight into what plagiarism is, and what it does, because there’s so little time in the video to dedicate to clear definitions or explanations of things, what with the tight runtime and focus on clear communication of its ideas.

Before I go on I guess I should clarify that I don’t think that Hbomberguy should bother reading this. There’s nothing in here that I consider useful criticism for him. He’s clearly made a successful career doing the thing he’s doing, and anything I have to say about what he did or should do isn’t helpful. I especially don’t think you, in my audience, should think ‘I can and should do things like that,’ because I think it’s not harder to do a better version of what he’s doing. For example, you could make your point in less than four hours.You could platform and present the people who were hurt on the other end of a four hour video about a liar, rather than on the far side, at the end, after four hours. I’m not mad that Harris Barras Garrus made a four hour long drama video about an interesting topic and presented it interestingly. It’s what he does, it’s literally his job to emerge from the wilds once or twice a year and drop a multi-hour examination of whatever his personal brain worms have been brewing on for and he only has

Nineteen Thousand Paid Backers A Month At A Minimum Rate Of $3.50 A Month?

Ahem.

Goodness me.

That threw the whole meter of that paragraph off, but I was genuinely shocked when I checked that. I thought the guy was pulling down like, 60k a year not 60k a month.

See, I know there’s an element of jealousy and frustration in all this. This is a guy who is getting car money a month to make points on the internet, and he released in 2023 two videos according to his Patreon. That means for about $789,000, those patrons supplied the world with two videos, one of which was only for them, and it was about Myst. Which may be great! It may be great. I have something like six hundred subscribers and teach classes of about twenty people at a time, and I do not get that kind of money, and I have to like, make sure that I’m clear in what I’m communicating and describing and it’s not important to be funny as much as it is important to be correct.

Undeniably part of me is just overwhelmed by how a guy (and a team, obviously, because four hours is a lot of work, right) can make a Pretty Good four hour video which I think does a mid job of communicating its ideas and command a significant fraction of a million dollars, while I am considering how I am going to transfer money between sales platforms to help pay for rent this fortnight. But HBG has a million subscribers. HBG is a big name and a big deal in the space he’s at. HBG is at a level of success that hearing him refer to ‘small creators’ as people with a hundred thousand subscribers leaves me-

Again, a nobody with six hundred subscribers –

agog at the things that seem obvious to me. Things like ‘respect your audience’s time.’ And maybe ‘make your points clearly and well.’

One point that HBomberguy’s four hour video on plagiarism returned to was how much money people were making with their videos pumping out a lot of content easily and cheaply and how this deprived smaller channels of attention and money that hypothetically they’d be getting, right? Right? Because they would, right? That’s how the Youtube space works. If James Somerton wasn’t producing his work and getting his audience, the people he stole from would have gotten it instead… right? We have to hope that’s how it works… right?

(Ah, but he platformed a bunch of people who were plagiarised! Great! Cool! Do that more? Do that more often than just once? Especially in a video you say you’re not going to do again?)

I do think that when you’re talking about a video on a topic you think is important, about a serious problem that makes it harder for people with smaller and less prominent voices to get attention, to connect to an audience, it stings a little for the most important thing in the whole four hour video to be a task that you describe as ‘vibes,’ or ‘passing work off as your own.’ That sucks! I’m going to be teaching in a few weeks, and in that, I’m going to have to talk to them about plagiarism. Odds are good I’m going to have at least one fairly online student who’s going to bring this up!

And sure! I should expect the students in a class to reach a higher standard than I expect a youtuber presenting on a subject they care about. But he’s getting paid an absolute shitload more than I am and he’s going to get repeated by more people than I am and he’s going to be seen as giving good advice by more people. I saw after this video dropped other youtubers talking about how they were concerned about their ‘doing plagiarism’ because they quoted wikipedia in a video. I saw other youtubers talking about how ‘plagiarism is illegal,’ and that’s why it was bad, and… it’s not. I’m sure I’m going to have to have a student in my class where and I’m going to have to explain to them how a large language model isn’t ‘complicated stealing,’ and that being funny and witty isn’t the same thing as being clear, or correct.

It’s a good video! It’s very enjoyable. It was funny and had good jokes in it. It’s also made people mostly interested in talking about how much James Somerton sucks and address his actual harms like victimising and bullying people, because sure, the guy was a misogynist and a bully and a liar and a fraud but now thanks to a youtube channel with a million subscribers making a point about how bad he sucks in another way, then finally, there’s some redress and the other people don’t care and won’t change. Oh and we now have a body of new creators who have an incorrect idea of what plagiarism is and how to make a good point cleanly. It could have been ten minutes long and come out half a year earlier and not let James Somerton cash six more cheques from his three thousand Patreon subscribers. This could have been five videos, split apart for easy approach and access, but it won’t, be, because it’s not about being right or communicating well, or distributing good information easily.

It’s about making a four hour drama video for an audience that love to hear the things he does in the way he does them. The immune system of Youtube is poisoned by being Youtube.

There’s got to be a better way to do this.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Media

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irlarcadegannon · 2 years

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Thoughts on Vulpes ? be as detailed as you’d like I love hearing ppl brainrot about him

Oh, you've asked the right person, because I have a LOT to say. I mean, a lot. This post is long and it doesn't even scratch the surface.

hbomberguy put it best in his Fallout New Vegas video when he referred to Vulpes as an "imposing weirdo". It may be the most concise and simultaneously descriptive summary of him I've ever heard.

He's such a vague character that so much is open to interpretation. Ask a hundred people and not once will you get the same answer on who he is. I think that's a fantastic thing for the sake of variety and creativity in the fandom.

So what do I think of him?

I hate him, I love him, he needs to get himself together, I can't take him seriously, I can take him way too seriously..

He's one of the most volatile members of the Legion. He's walking a tightrope line between two extremes: being the Legion's poster boy, or abandoning it entirely—here's why I say that:

Vulpes is standoffish and dramatic. He has some, er, theatrical passion to him that other Legionaries do not. He runs up to you at Nipton to give you his evil monologue you just know he was rehearsing in the mirror for days, anxiously waiting for someone to come along so he can put on a show.

It's comically evil. And he knows that. He wants to be the big bad, because that means it's his chance to shine, and prove to the Legion that he is useful, he serves a purpose, see, you guys, I did it all in the name of the Legion!

It's childish. And I don't say that to absolve him of any guilt, no, this is a direct criticism of him. He's so out of touch and so entrenched in what the Legion has taught him that he fails to recognize the world around him as anything other than a stage for his performances.

If anything breaks that mirage, it's going to completely shatter him.

Talk to Caesar and he'll tell you that Vulpes has been saved from the brink of execution (at least once, I think multiple times) by his word alone. He's too stubborn, too independent. That tells me that Caesar is the one thing keeping Vulpes alive, let alone in the Legion.

He's young, and yet he's somehow the top frumentari? (Reeks of Caesar's interference.) Listen to the way he talks to you, he's so earnest that it's almost laughable. He'll do whatever it takes to give himself a name and credibility, and most importantly, to get the attention of Caesar. That is the foundation of his existence.

I think the rest of the Legion hates him. They can't stand him. He's Caesar's favorite so suddenly he gets to run everything? The man can't even stay incognito on the Strip, that's his one job!

If you took the Legion away from him, he would be nothing. And that would challenge his entire world view.

He tries so hard, yet everyone remains so unimpressed (you know who's the legend among soldiers? Joshua Graham. It's never Vulpes they mention). He's outrageous and horrible, and yet, you can't take him seriously. I've heard so many players say they shoot him on sight. They don't fear him. And if you kill him, guess what? He gets replaced! Nothing changes! The game demonstrates as blatantly as possible that he is replaceable (and will not be missed)!

His ego is so fragile that if it takes a single hit, it will result in the most catastrophic critical failure ego death imaginable.

That's why I like him. Because I'd really like to see that ego death happen. My first few times playing the game, I honestly thought he was meant to be a companion, because he seems so perfectly set up for a character arc that you as a player to influence for better or for worse.

Would you enable him and let him stay in his fantasy land where he gets to play the starring role? Holding his hand through more violence and slaughter? Would you show him (or let him figure out on his own) that the Legion doesn't care about him and watch him fail when he doesn't know what to do without them? Would you give him a reality check and tell him to change or die? That to change he's got to accept that he's caused a whole lot of pain to a whole lot of people that he can never undo and no one will ever owe him forgiveness?

He's a very important character in my fan works, arguably a main character in some of them. I think his symbolic status sets him up for some really interesting dynamics with other main characters, particularly the companions that represent their factions. I assure you I have PLENTY to say about those, too, but I'm cutting the post off here before it reaches novel length.

Vulpes is such a blank slate, with details that are so telling. He is fascinating.

#Vulpes Inculta #Please ask more if you have more questions!#or add your own thoughts #He is one of my favorites. I love him

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kolbisneat · 9 months

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MONTHLY MEDIA: December 2023

And so the year draws to a close! Big movie month and hoping to carry that over into the new year.

……….FILM……….

Turning Red (2022) Late to the game on this but it’s so great! When they talk about the ritual and that the words to the music don’t matter, I knew it was gonna lead to 4*Town playing a key role, but what they did on top of that was a genuine surprise and what takes this to the next level: they embrace the obvious setups but add an extra twist to the payoffs. So great.

The Fate of the Furious (2017) Okay I really love the idea of evil Dom so this movie moooooostly works. I’m still getting caught up on the series but even knowing that Han is alive, it’s still baffling that Shaw is embraced by the crew. He killed that whole hospital wing!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) These are of course Christmas films and I’ve noticed a transition in myself having not seen them for many years. I once liked the earlier movies for how faithful they were to recreating the books, but I now see how that the accuracy is at the expense of the movie’s pacing. Still really impressed with how well cast the core trio is even at this age.

The Santa Clause (1994) Nostalgia overwhelms my perspective on this but, as far as I can tell, this holds up pretty well. Starting Scott off as just...kinda the worst makes his transition all the better and I think is where Tim Allen is at his best. Plus a lot of really great sight gags which I don’t really see anymore (like the Denny’s full of sad dads).

Confess, Fletch (2022) Fun and the sort of movie I wish got made more often. Not all of the humour really landed but the characters were engaging and the mystery lead to a lot of fun. Perfectly decent rainy day watch.

The Night Before (2015) A lot of ups and downs with this one. At it’s best it’s very funny but when it slows down it really grinds to a halt. I wonder if the hangover movies have the same challenge. Also 100% thought the steroid injection was insulin.

Frosty the Snowman (1969) and Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970) Two Rankin Bass classics that really highlight the best that this production company could do.

No Hard Feelings (2023) and Easy A (2010) The former was a pretty fun comedy that didn’t have a lot of comedy and the later was a comedy that I remember loving when it came out but not really connecting upon rewatch. Would I still recommend both? I think so, but only lightly.

……….TELEVISION……….

Blue Eye Samurai (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) A good chunk into the season and really digging it. The characters are rich and layered and the show is doing a good job of exploring those layers in an engaging story. Plus the setting/time period allows for a lot of really great visuals. Definitely making the most out of the premise and stoked for the rest of the season.

Poker Face (Episode 1.08 to 1.10) Such a satisfying series. The majority of the episodes stand on their own but the bigger picture occasionally pops up, until the end of the season where it becomes the main focus. Just like TV used to be! Really beautiful wardrobe and set design, all the actors seem to be having a great time, and each episode feels thoroughly realized. Big fan can’t recommend enough.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Episode 1.07 to 1.08) Came into it expecting something else and it’s gonna take some time to adjust to what it was. Gotta rewatch but really no complaints!

……….YOUTUBE……….

Plagiarism and You(Tube) by hbomberguy Yes I did watch a 4 hour video on plagiarism and you should too. VIDEO

when the director is overqualified for the job by CinemaStix I never really considered how similar the early Harry Potter movies but it all makes sense. VIDEO

Stop Taking ANY Advice From TikTok by Extranet Shaquille A quick and light reminder that social media isn’t worried about truth or accuracy in any way. VIDEO

The Marvelization of Cinema by Stories of Old This succinctly explains (to me, at least) why some modern remakes/sequels/reimaginings land and some don’t. In short you gotta ask if it’s purpose is to tell a story or maintain a brand. VIDEO

……….READING……….

There is a Tide aka Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie (Page 122 of 224) Picked up a bunch of old Agatha Christie books at a thrift store (partly because of the cool covers, partly cause I like mystery as a genre but never read it). Turns out this is EXACTLY what I needed right now. It’s been a while since I was this stoked to keep going with a story and this specific story feels like a great influence on the first Knives Out movie in that it’s centred around a lot of family drama vying for control of a deceased benefactor’s money. So stoked and gonna grab more of these when I can. Hey do you have old DELL copies of Christie novels you don’t want? Lemme know.

Tiger in the Stars by Zach Hughes (Complete) Okay so I picked this up while thrifting. There were DOZENS of these Laser Books and figured I’d try one and see what they were like. Turns out...not that great. Some fun ideas but moved at a snail’s pace and felt like there was a lot of padding. Something like this feels like a Goosebumps book (short, quick output, somewhat formulaic) but in comparison, I think I’d prefer R. L. Stein.

Delicious in Dungeon Vol. 2 by Ryoko Kui (Complete) Again rereading as the series draws to a close and it’s still such a joy. These characters are fully formed right from the beginning and it’s such a good study in dramatic escalation as right now it still feels light and fun and I love it.

The Michael Moorcock Library: The Chronicles of Corum Vol. 1: The Knight of Swords by Mike Baron, Mike Mignola, Rick Burchett, & Kelly Jones (Complete) Love these illustrated retellings of the old pulp fantasy novels. Sometimes the limited page count leads to pacing that feels rushed and a scale that feels smaller than the grandiosity of the subject matter, but every adaptation requires sacrifice. Gonna keep going with this series and also try to find the original books!

……….AUDIO……….

Cold & Blue All Over (Demo) by Blue Freezie (2023) A little punk, a little surf rock, a little rockabilly, and all a good time. Big fan of this album and hoping there’s more to come.

……….GAMING……….

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Tuesday D&D crew is back in Neverland and sorting out this Elf problem! They’ve killed one and are on their way to killing some more. It’s more nuanced than that and you can read all about it here.

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Mof1 D&D crew just robbed a funeral and started a riot! Who knows what’s gonna happen next.

And that’s it. See you in January!

#Monthly Media #Kolbisneat #Andrew Kolb

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gloriaris · 10 months

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okay so i know I'm some random. guy. on the Internet but my stupid brain finds all of my opinions important enough to post on aforementioned internet so I wanted to weigh in on hbomberguy new video because it's really fucking funny. here are some disorganized thoughts.

first off, hi. I'm Shroomi, I'm 16, and I'm a video essayist. i was inspired to pivot to video essays around a year ago by (originally) illuminaughtii, Harris Boober the Guy, and mainly Philosophy Tube. video essays are some of my favorite things, and I watch a lot of them.

im homeschooled, so I end up spending most of my time on YouTube. when you watch as much as I do, it's normally really easy to tell when someone does not care about what they are doing. i inevitably discovered James Somerton around a year ago through his Killing Stalking video, and it became very apparent to me that he was using a genuine crisis of media literacy to push a misogynistic agenda. that's all I remember from that video (and I'm not rewatching it)-- he made no good points, no clippable quotes, just... really hated teenage girls? for some reason?

this is a common thread in specifically white queer media, to direct an unreasonable amount of hate towards straight women, or those we perceive as such (the author of Love, Simon is a good example of his contempt). it's rooted in misogyny, as is everything. this is a common thread in Somerton's videos, it seems. I'll admit my knowledge of his videos is meager at best, but I have watched enough of his content to tell he is stuck in this phase of the white queer journey. he still has many internal (though he externalizes them quite a bit) biases to work through before he can even be a good video essayist. good media is unbiased media, and he has a clear bias. bro hates women. well, that may be an overstatement, but he seems to have this contempt and disregard for women and their ideas.

I'm not going to pretend the Killing, Stalking video and his contempt for the fanbase wasn't at least a little deserved. for those who aren't fatally online, Killing, Stalking is a gruesome account of a (fictional) abusive relationship. the fanbase, however, treated it as a love story. since Somerton's video on the subject came out, the fanbase has largely died down, which is honestly a good thing, but the amount of hatred Somerton seemed to have for these teenage girls who failed to understand the true meaning of Killing, Stalking was unprecedented. I found it odd to look at his subscriber count and find it over 100k; why would such a large YouTuber cover something so niche? but it is clear now to me that he was trying to push this gentle version of misogyny.

this isn't even mentioning the true subject of hbomberguy's video, plagiarism. as a previously dedicated Illuminaughtii fan, i should be talking about that. but I'm stuck on the contempt for women.

I'm probably gonna rewatch the video and reblog an addition after I sleep I've been awake for like 20 hours so apologies if this is poorly worded

#james somerton #txt #hbomberguy

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timemachineyeah · 2 years

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Watching the latest hbomberguy video. And this Tom guy is making me think of so many people I have met, especially in the entertainment industry. They are a Type. There’s one in Toonmakers Sailor Moon pilot video too. Honestly sometimes Trump comes across this way. Not just men, though I do think it might be more common among cis men. Especially white privileged ones.

But you know them. The ones that lie about cool they are. That can’t help but lie about their own achievements even when the truth is staring them in the face. Like, I can think of half of a dozen I have met over the years in my life. A friend’s brother, an old boss, a teacher at my school who even the staff seemed exhausted of…

People go “that’s narcissism” or “compulsive lying” and listen, I’m not saying there’s not a neurodivergence underlying some of this behavior. Also potentially traumas or a need for introspection and therapy. I’m also not saying there is. This isn’t about that.

This also isn’t about the social/cultural/political environment that might foster the kinds of anxieties or expectations that contribute. I am not seeking to explain or diagnose this pattern of behavior. I don’t care if it’s psychological, sociological, or just being an asshole. That’s not the point.

The point is: it has always made me deeply uncomfortable. Not just angry or manipulated or whatever. But, like, secondhand embarrassment? Firsthand embarrassment? Unsettled in horror movie way? And I used to attribute that solely to, like, it’s desperate for approval, isn’t it? And I was willing to let that be the end of it. But that always felt incomplete.

No, I think the thing that makes me uncomfortable is, it feels like, to me, it feels like they’re daydreaming??? Like they are playing out their fantasy version of their life, the cooler one the rest of us (or, me at least) just privately pretend to have and never share with anyone.

Like who hasn’t listened to a song they love on repeat and pretended they were on stage singing it and pretended it was their song and they wrote it. Like, I do that. Maybe I’m weird. But I think lots of people do that. When I was a teenager I used to fantasize I had a double life when I was on school breaks, working in New Zealand for the Lord of the Rings movies. All the actors and writers were my best friends. And obviously I provided tremendous insight to the project and it really depended on me. But I didn’t tell anyone at school for convoluted daydream reasons.

But like, as much as I can vividly bring back the fine details of that fantasy (and how, while it had been a secret, it wouldn’t be secret any more when all the hottest members of the cast showed up to my school to take me to an awards show with them), this is the first time I’ve ever told anyone else about it, because why the fuck would I?

“I often pretend I am more interesting and important than I really am” is so common as to be dull. And also has a reputation for being childish. And also it’s not cool to want to be cool. And also if you say your wish out loud it can’t come true. But regardless of why, I don’t tell people about my daydreams. And I think that’s true of most people. Rich fantasy lives are common and largely never shared.

But when I watch the people with this particular quirk and feel kind of awful in this visceral way - I think that’s the thing that’s off-putting to me. It feels so private. I recognize myself in the behavior, in that, in my very silly daydreams, I too have done great things and made notable contributions that are far beyond the truth of my life. But to me those things are so secret. They are the most private of private thoughts.

When I watch these people talk, it feels like they are LARPing that same kind of self-indulgent fantasy world, in their real life. And simultaneously I feel like I’m invading someone’s privacy and like they’ve coerced me into something I didn’t agree to. They’ve cast us in their LARP, and they are gonna play out their fantasy version of their life, and made it awkward or dangerous for anyone to ruin it for them.

And so on top of all the many other very good reasons to not enjoy listening to that kind of self-serving lying, I get to hate it for secret bonus reasons of Immense Psychological Discomfort stemming from ???? associations my brain makes with the act of daydreaming ????

#timemachine wuz here

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applestorms · 1 year

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i just binge-played off over the course of a couple days so let's relate that back to homestuck now

exactly what the title says. WARNING for spoilers of off, undertale, & omori (and homestuck. obviously), all fairly minor but involving some of talk about endings, as well as warning for canon-typical suicide talk (distri moment)

TLDR: off & undertale both use meta elements in a neat way, especially for their more horrific/fucked up parts, ult. dirk is definitely being puppetted by something (lord english, it's lord english).

so just as the title says, i've recently spent the last few days playing through the game off (also yume nikki but i haven't found a homestuck connection there so i guess you all will have to wait for that essay), and after poking around a bit for other interpretations of the themes & story i stumbled across this video that's given me some ideas about the post-canon content again, since i apparently can't stop relating everything back to that. specifically, the conclusion that he comes to near the end about the "real" story of off being a kind of parody of other rpgs where you mindlessly follow a protagonist's divine mission while actually just brutally exterminating/destroying an entire world of beings reminded me a lot of a criticism i heard of the epilogues that said it felt like the creators just watched the hbomberguy undertale video and decided to do that, but badly.

i talked about this a bit in my last essay about the post-canon stuff (don't be surprised if you missed that one btw, i got nervous and buried it under a mountain of reblogs ;v;), but one of the things that really fucking gets my goat about the epilogues & hs^2 is the fact that the creators both 1. talk down to the audience so goddamn much, and 2. are actively antagonistic to the audience, in a way that even homestuck proper never really felt, which, just to say, is also weird as hell to me because homestuck wasn't exactly nice to its audience either?? there has always been this back and forth between audience & creator in this fandom that is a prominent underlying dynamic in both the story itself & responding fanworks (a notable example being theater of coolty, which i personally interpret to be more of a character study of hussie rather than dirk), but even ignoring the history of twitter battles & literal petitions to get creators off the team, post-canon homestuck wants to make you fucking hurt and it refuses to be subtle about that fact.

anyways, here's a couple sections working through my thoughts on all that into something slightly more coherent.

1. off & purification (ft. undertale, omori, & yume nikki)

one of the things that really stood out to me throughout my playthrough of off these last couple days is the ways in which "purification," as a concept is associated with the mission of the batter, and, more broadly, all of the heavily religious connotations associated with his extermination of/destruction of the world.

a cool feature of the games that i've been playing recently (e.g. off & yume nikki) is seeing retroactively how they influenced other wildly popular games that i've played before that came out after (namely, undertale & omori). in particular, this more recent generation seems to take huge inspiration from the previous specifically in some of their most fucked up/horror-related elements, largely through the use of similar imagery/ideas that are then incorporated into the context of a new, clearer storyline. a good example of this is how black space in omori takes a lot from the imagery/mechanics of yume nikki (sleeping, doors, fucked up rooms with weird floors, etc.) but re-contextualizes it within the storyline of sunny's trauma/mental state as presented through the earlier sections of the game.

undertale does this too, taking both from yume nikki and, for what i'm focusing on here, off. from what i can tell, undertale seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from off in the creation of both its genocide route and the more meta elements of the game in general, which is interesting to me specifically in the interpretation of off it gives back retrospectively.

if you haven't watched it (though you really should it's only like ten minutes long) the key point that the hbomberguy video about undertale revolves around is the idea that at some point the game actively wants you to stop playing it and let the story & characters go. this is most obvious throughout the genocide route where characters in the game repeatedly & explicitly tell the player to give up, go back, and leave them the fuck alone, but notably also at the end of a true pacifist run where upon reopening up the game flowey pops up to tell the player to leave everyone be & let them enjoy their happy ending.

the divine quest of purification that the batter goes on throughout off (as is implied through his own words) is a lot less overt about the fact that its just murder & destruction but that element is definitely there, especially when revisiting the zones post-purification. the batter, bluntly speaking, gives no shits about the fact that he destroying everything in his path, even when enemies start switching from ghostly specters to "burned" people (or coughing children). if anything, destruction of the world is his outright goal as evidenced by the ending w/ the titular flipping of the switch "off," and he seems more surprised to come across people that claim to be happy when running through the area of cannibalism sugar drugs in zone 3 than all of the typical misery elsewhere. the repeated use of the word "purification," & heavy religious symbolism found throughout the game give this path of destruction a very different connotation to undertale's genocide route, however.

this ties into the use of meta elements in both games, which are also quite different: where undertale explicitly appeals to the player in quite a few instances when it's trying to get players to stop playing/taunting them about saves & whatnot, off only breaks the fourth wall in a few notable places, primarily through the judge & batter's dialogue at the start & end of the game as well as the character zacharie, all of whom directly refer to the player as a separate entity in control of the batter, slightly different to how undertale distinguishes the player character both as frisk vs. chara but also as powerful player/human vs. npc/monster* (since flowey is also equated w/ the player through his ability to utilize saves).

*deltarune also hammers this shit in even more w/ the opening character creation sequence & the fact that you have to enter two names, for creation & creator.

so- how does all of this relate to homestuck's post-canon? one word: puppets. (and dirk. it's always dirk)

2. homestuck^2 hates you & wants you to know it (dirk & puppets)

the epilogues begin with a nightmare wherein john watches the entirety of paradox space, reality as he knows it, begin to fall into a crack in the void. the meaning of this dream is made very clear over the course of a conversation with rose soon after: the story is in danger of becoming "non-canon," after too many years without an official continuation, and if john wants to stop that from happening he's going to have to make a big decision. meat or candy: either john directly tries to deal with the leftover major plotholes of the original story, enacting the previously foreseen events of the masterpiece in order to stop lord english, or he can choose to stay on earth-c and continue with the rest of his life as is.

one thing that only gets more and more overt the more i read through the post-canon content, whether that be the actual material released or authors notes from the patreon archive, is the fact that these two timelines were built from the start to be nightmares of slightly different flavors. i've talked about this many times, and there's honestly so many things pointing to this that i think it'd be more helpful if i just wrote it out as an actual list by this point, so here you fuckin go:

calliope compares the decision between meat & candy to a coin flip, invoking the image of terezi's coin flip that led to the killing of vriska & thus the game over timeline (HS^2:406)

in the smut drawing conversation, caliborn strikes down the idea of a dirkjake drawing specifically because the colors green & orange invoke the image of pumpkins which he doesn't like, instead preferring meat & candy (A6A3:4971), thus tying the epilogues to the whims of homestuck's biggest endgame villain

another connection to caliborn: despite having 43 & 40 chapters for meat & candy respectively, each route of the epilogues is split into 8 sections, reflecting the fact that LE gets 8-ball eyes midway through act 7

meat & candy also reflect the kind of content that caliborn (as a stand-in for the kinds of annoying fanboys hussie hates) loves, w/ brutal violence, death, & a power-struggle involving alt. calliope in the meat route, and the horrors of heterosexual marriage & reproduction in candy

ult. dirk in particular seems to take a lot of influence from the more LE/caliborn-connected splinters of himself- the fact that there seems to be more of a focus on dirk & jake's relationship in particular in the post-canon content also points to more of caliborn's underlying influence since they're very connected to him (both thematically through their struggles w/ masculinity & their literal connections in the lore as the boys that caliborn is the closest to as he literally looks up to them as inspiration e.g. LE's outfit matching jake's, etc. etc.)

also when it comes to narrators, note that in meat the fight is between ult. dirk & alt. calliope for control over the story while in candy (as the archived patreon commentary notes very pointedly) it is unclear who the narrator actually is

the routes are also just. fucking bad, to an extreme that is both phrased initially like a joke through the numerous ao3 tags & very carefully, thoroughly executed. we begin with a timeskip and every character is just spontaneously the absolute worst version of themself w/ quite minimal explanation as to how they got that way other than "adulthood is just Like That". even ignoring Absolute Horrors like the dirk suicide chapter & the gamzee/jane breast milk thing, you don't tag and execute the concept of gerrymandering for no reason

anyway, there are two main ways that this connects to the undertale genocide/off discussion from before: meta elements & nightmarish world destruction. but first, speaking of meta elements:

2.1 the post-canon creators don't understand the concept of what "canon" means and they ain't gonna let us forget that

homestuck is really fucking good at making up the weirdest shit imaginable but presenting it in such a natural, meticulously careful way that by the time you're saying sentences like, "He took the hammer which had been captchalogued into his sylladex and made it his strife specibus," you barely even realize you're doing it. the singular exception to this is the use of the word "post-canon" in all content created after the run of the original comic, which fails so incredibly to establish itself as a new term that it's honestly kind of embarrassing. every single time i have to write the term "post-canon" in relation to homestuck i cringe a little bit inside at just how unnatural it feels and frustrating it is to type. imo there are a few distinct reasons why the attempt to call the epilogues/homestuck^2 post-canon fails so badly:

"canon" as a term already has a very strongly established practical use within fandom: namely, to distinguish between original ("canon") works & fan-made creations like fanfiction, fan art, etc. this is to the point that an alternative, related term, "fanon," is also used to distinguish creations on the other side of the line.

the use of "canon" in fandom is thus typically quite intuitive, in that a creation is either "official," (created by the same person & set within the same universe, created by a person closely related to the original creator & clearly established to be connected to the original work, etc.) or not. there is no in-between of canon vs. fanon, it is simply a clear line distinguishing between what is considered official and what isn't.

in the cases where it isn't necessarily as clear if something is canonical, whether that be due to the work being done by a different creator, long after the work is over, etc. (e.g. the yume nikki comic, jk rowling's dumb baseless twitter ramblings, etc.) the word "canon" is often dropped entirely with the context of the new works instead being invoked to clarify the distinction

people tend to only feel the need to distinguish between the original/"canonical" run of a story & its new content/additions when they fucking hate the new additions. nobody says that deltarune is not canonical just because it doesn't connect to the original undertale universe, they just say its in a different universe & take note of the implications. on the other side of things, even ignoring rowling's stupid ass tweets, people have been ignoring the epilogue to the final book of harry potter for ages simply because it sucks & many people hate the kind of future it presents

"post-canon" does not make any goddamn sense. no amount of ao3 formatting or desperate pleas from the creators can take away from the fact that the epilogues & hs^2 show up on the official website, were in part outlined by the original creator, & pick up the story right from where the comic ends. i can turn around in my seat right this second & look to my right to see a shelf where the words "THE HOMESTUCK EPILOGUES" is printed twice on the spine of the official goddamn book (don't ask why i bought that thing. i was in a distraught mental state in 2019 okay) printed by viz fucking media, come the fuck on you guys.

this is all to say that the meta elements of the epilogues & hs^2 (okay i'm gonna start saying post-canon again but remember. remember) is pretty fucking weird to begin with, and that's not even accounting for the direct antagonism that the continuations take when addressing the audience.

a key quality of the epilogues that make them come across as particularly nightmarish comes from the fact that so many aspects seem to be specifically designed to hurt the audience as much as physically possible. characters like jane & dirk fall into villainy and become the worst versions of themselves and more with very little regard for the reasons why they might've been sympathetic originally. even outside of those two obvious examples, there are a lot of elements that seem to only exist to make the audience hurt. the most overtly edgy example of this is the chapter in candy where dirk very graphically commits suicide (which comes entirely out of nowhere with basically no warning- the trigger warning wasn't added until later), but there are a shitton of minor examples that slowly build up to make even just reading through the epilogues an agonizing experience if you ever bothered to care about any of the characters involved. imo even characters like dave, karkat, & vriska, all of whom are generally considered to have gotten through alright by the greater fandom, suffer when it comes to characterization, dave & karkat from how much it feels like they've backtracked on character development when it comes to self awareness, and vriska because the creators are frankly unable to face any of the major character flaws that made her actually interesting, instead preferring to depict her as this tired hero above everyone else come back to earth to save everyone from the horrific versions of themselves the authors twisted them into to create plot.

what really stands out throughout all of this though, and is the reason why that connection between the epilogues & the hbomberguy undertale video was originally made, is the fact that the epilogues contextualize all of this suffering as a punishment for the audience wanting more out of the story- a point which especially stands out since, as far as i can remember, end of comic homestuck fans really didn't give that much of a shit about a continuation? while the response to act 7 & homestuck's ending was fairly disappointed, and there was some talk about a continuation after it got teased by some elevated fans with a closer connection to hussie, the consensus that i remember was that the epilogues were the snapchat update and that was it. lasting homestuck fans from 2016-2019 seemed to have come to understand that the ending was unsatisfying due to being planned far in advance and/or executed quickly so that hussie could get the story fuckin finished already after the last few years of long breaks & legal disputes surrounding what would be hiveswap, and many of the people who stuck with the fandom after the comic ended were late fans that were already well-acquainted with archive reading & thus cared much less about the original ravenous upd8 culture. the epilogues coming right out the gate trying to punish readers for wanting more therefore not only felt cruel, but confusing considering the more recent vibe of what the fandom felt like.

so, to link this all back together- between these three stories (off, undertale, & homestuck's post-canon) we end up with three different takes on how to incorporate meta elements w/ horror:

for off, meta elements are largely incorporated through the separation of the player & the batter, with certain notable characters referring directly to the player (or even referring to the game itself, as in the case of zacharie). the destruction of the world is given the connotations of a religious crusade through the batter's talk of "purification," with the supposed "official" ending of the game leaving the world entirely destroyed and gone, and the "special" bonus ending (where you pick the judge) leaving it desaturated and depopulated. a potential interpretation of this can thus be that the game acts as a meta commentary on other games of the same genre, twisting the typical routine of, "play as a dude going a something something vague mission for justice while destroying/murdering everything in your path," into something more explicitly horrifying. the path of divine destruction that the batter goes on w/ little to no regard for the suffering of the world is something that typically makes players quite uncomfortable, many people choosing to side with the judge by the end of the game despite siding with the batter being the "official" default ending.

for undertale, meta elements are utilized through characters like flowey & sans, most obviously in the genocide route where characters actively ask you to stop playing but also in true pacifist where flowey asks you to let them keep their happy ending. the horror of the game comes from the fact that the player has power unmatched by any of the characters in-game through the use of saves, clarified within the lore as a distinction between humans (players) & monsters (npcs) with some timeline fuckery thrown in for flavor. "punishment" of the player is introduced through sans & his genocide-run boss battle following the judgement of the player, which notably only happens when someone explicitly goes through and grinds out the killing of every single major & minor fight in every area of the game.

for homestuck's post-canon, meta elements are utilized through characters directly engaging with the concept of what it means to be "canon," and narration fuckery, as seen most notably through the character of ult. dirk taking over the narration in the meat timeline. nightmarish elements are present throughout the structure & content of each timeline largely through how they relate to LE, homestuck's main villain. "punishment" of the reader is introduced by contextualizing the inclusion of the most terrible elements as a way of punishing audiences for wanting more, enacted by the continuation's creators.

SO. puppets fuck i forgot about the puppets

3. what kind of villain is dirk trying to be, actually (okay we're actually talking about the puppet thing now)

at the end of off, the separation between the batter & the player is again emphasized through the final decision where you choose between siding with the batter (the "official" ending) or the judge (the "special" ending). no matter what you choose, the battle ends up fairly easy, affirming the fact that it is up to your choice as the player to decide who wins the fight. the player is fairly explicitly denoted as the puppeteer, and if the batter succeeds in his mission to destroy the world, the blame is placed on the player for going through with playing the game.

in undertale, the identity of the human moving through the underground is different depending on which route you take: frisk in the pacifist route, and chara/the player-entered name in genocide. at the end of the genocide route, chara takes over entirely, stopping the player from even being able to get the final hit in to kill the final boss before killing the player themself.

there is a pretty distinct difference between how off & undertale are able to tell their story in the context of a game vs. how homestuck tells its story as a mostly set-in-stone comic (at least now), but the key theme continuing throughout all of these stories as far as i see it comes down to one thing: puppets. WHICH is especially significant considering the fact that dirk, The Puppet Guy, is now one of the big post-canon villains, in part taking on the role of LE in parallel to jane taking on the role of HIC.

this post has been fucking long enough so i'll get to the point already: the whole path of destruction and quest to purify the world that the batter goes through in off feels very reminiscent of some of dirk's actions in the post-canon content, and that seems significant when considering who dirk is likely being puppetted by, LE (homestuck has a reader, but no player, so who is controlling who is marginally less obvious).

that's probably not too big of a surprise, especially considering that long ass list i wrote out a couple sections ago, but i think it could be notable in trying to contextualize dirk's actions throughout the story. in particular, it stands out to me that dirk's first big action within the meat timeline before going totally batshit is helping jane with her political campaign against karkat, which as we can see in the candy timeline is a terrible fucking idea considering she seems to be going right down the same path of fascism & troll eugenics in meat.

dirk isn't stupid, but here especially it's weird that he would be so down for jane getting political power, considering 1. he knows jane very well (very well, if we consider his heart aspect & ability to read people due to that), and 2. he knows the condesce very well. dirk is a fucking historian combing through documentation of the end of humanity, he's aware of what a global dictatorship looks like. he's smart, but as i said in my plato intelligence post, he's not necessarily on the same level as other omniscient narrators. it's the same problem as before, dirk is pretending to be the puppeteer but really has very little control over the actual situation. the idea that his "ascent to power" in the epilogues is actually just him becoming everyone's brain ghost has a lot of merit to me because of this.

in a similar vein, i've been thinking about this post a lot in terms of how ultimate dirk has taken on a lot of the traits of dave's bro (who also could fit in w/ the "who's the puppet/really in control" theme w/ how he is potentially being puppetted by a literal puppet. god there's too many fucking puppets). that leads me to a pretty major & interesting question to consider too: does ultimate dirk even have a soul? lots of implications depending on how you answer that. i made a joke not long ago about ult. dirk being just another dirk splinter that he created while attempting to deal with all the dirk splinters, but that idea might have more weight to it along these lines.

counterpoint though, i have to question if ult. dirk's goals really fall along the same lines of "purification" as the batter. his goal of creating a new sburb session (? iirc)/world creation is pretty much the direct opposite of the batter's world destruction, but i think we all know the prince's relationship with destruction by now. conclusion: the baby is 2 was the correct timeline all along. babies are the true ultimate creation, let's make this shit text already. (sorry, i've been watching a lot of evangelion lately.)

anyways. this post has been a WIP for a couple days and i'm starting to seriously lose the thread of the original thought, so i guess i'll just cut this off here with a couple minor sidenotes. this all came to kind of a simple, somewhat obvious point, but i think the exploration itself was decently interesting so. yeah!

sidenote1: sugar & lollipops

what is it with sweets being the most fucked up drugs imaginable in these stories. actually no, i get it, sugar is the closest you can get to the idea of drugs as a child, that kinda works. homestuck does have a surprising lack of cannibalism though, like even the trolls-eating-grubs thing is pretty weak. sad.

sidenote2: jake & religion

just thought it was interesting that the batter's purification quest has so many religious undertones (the add-ons having the roles of "father, son, & holy spirit," the names of other characters, etc.), though i don't have much of a connection here other than that jake (& karkat, really) also have a lot of the same thematic associations. not that big of a deal considering, but kinda interesting to note nonetheless (maybe w/ some interesting implications for ult. jake???)

sidenote3: davesprite & namco high

absolutely could not find a place to shove this in but the davesprite route in namco high is so fucking meta, has anyone still in this fandom even played that thing? the justification there is that davesprite gained meta awareness as a sprite & game guide, which i guess carries over to namco high too. feels very reminiscent of a lot of ideas to show up more prominently later, at the very least. hm.

#fuck this was a long one #long to read but also a long time to write for some reason??#sorry if it feels especially incoherent this time i had to take a break from writing for a bit for irl stuff #oh also #if anyone is still interested i AM reading the timaeus now #so that dirk plato post is a WIP. a slow WIP but a still a WIP #astronaut rambles #hs #off #nut dealer

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inthe-neighbourhood · 2 years

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Fighting Creativity Block

Recently I've been feeling a block in my creativity, with my writing and art, with a massive lack of motivation, so I thought it would be good to list a few ways to get over this block. Tactically both writer's block and art block.

Feel free to leave suggestions as well, I'm still trying to get past this block so any help is appreciated! <3

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Ways to fight Creative Block

Taking a Break

You can't always have unique ideas, that's just a fact. Instead of forcing new ideas, it's better to take a step back and come back after some rest. Creative block can come from tiredness and overworking; sometimes you don't realize it until you can't keep going.

Remember it's essential to take care of yourself, and sometimes a good nap, a hot meal and some self-care go a long way.

2. Consuming Different Media

One of the best pieces of advice I got as a writer, was to look at different media for inspiration.

If you are working on a particular project, for example, a story about the Wild West (defiantly not what I'm working on hehe) and you don't feel passionate about it, or just feel stuck. Watching a cowboy movie can help, or reading about the history of the American Frontier, lets you make new ideas and sparks your creativity.

Or, if you have no ideas at all, but you want to write or you want to draw, watching a new movie, or playing a video game can get your creativity going. Sometimes we're so busy in our lives, working on our projects, that we forget what inspired us to do these things. Also, don't feel guilty if you think what your writing is too similar to another story. Originality is dead, but I'm not sure if it was ever alive. All stories are reiterations of other stories or a melting pot of multiple.

3. External Creativity

I did not know how to word this, but you know that feeling when you have a concept that really interests you, but when you open the google doc, your mind is blank. The words aren't wording.

To deal with this, exploring the concept is helpful. Cultivating a playlist that encapsulates, a character you are interested in writing, or a scene you really want to write helps it become more than a vague concept. Also, make a Pinterest board, for either your character or an area in your story, it helps you visualize your story, making the writing process easier.

This also applies to art, I can be in the mood to draw or have a good drawing day, but I don't know what I want to draw, having an interesting board helps. I have one that has random images I thought were cool for if I ever just want to draw. It can also help with finding references for poses, buildings, faces, etc.

4. Try Different Activities

I'm stubborn, and I hate doing anatomy practice, or writing exercises, but they can help you bully your creative block. This is for the creative block, where you have ideas but your writing is bland or your art formatting is bad, it can just mean you need practice, it happens to all of us. It's boring, but it is necessary.

Look at videos for writings, pertaining to what you are struggling with particularly. For example, what I'm struggling with is planning and show don't tell, giving the reader an image in their mind.

For artists it's relatively the same, look at what you're struggling with and find videos or websites that help with that. For example, I'm struggling with formatting my sketchbook pages. I haven't been able to find many videos to help me with this, but just looking at other artists' sketchbooks helps.

5. Background Noise

We all listen to music, youtube or a show in the background while writing or drawing. If you don't, I'm scared of you. I find what you listen to can help with what you're doing. This isn't an exact science, but try it out and let me know if it helps.

Writing, I believe while writing it's more helpful to listen to informative videos in the background. While writing this I was rewatching Jacksepticeye's "Youtube has some serious issues..." and hbomberguy's "Vaccines and Autism: A Measured Response" Listening to more wordy content, puts me in a more professional headspace, making it easier to form paragraphs and sentences.

Drawing, I find it more helpful to listen to music, maybe it's because it's a visual art form, although listening to youtube and watching shows can help as well.

Again, not an exact science, I'm curious how people focus now so let me know.

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I hope this helps! Feel free to give suggestions on how to deal with creative block and I'll make a part two.

#writing #creative writing #writers block #artist block #drawing #digital aritst #writers on tumblr #ao3 writer #creative block #writersupportingwriters #artistsuportartist #creativity #helping

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blake-wukong · 2 years

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Unfortunately one thing the anime does worse are the fights. The improved narrative flow and quality of animation came at the expense of several iconic fights. Most notably the intro fight between Cinder and Glynda and the docks fight debuting Sun and Penny. I hope the story makes up for this.

Okay I have a very unpopular opinion when it comes to the fights in RWBY.

First off, I think Monty was absolutely amazing when it came to animating fights. Now while I have not watch RWBY pass volume 6 nor have I interacted with the fandom as much; I STILL come back to all of the old fights of RWBY & his other Halo videos. I usually do not like to praise authors or other types of creators by saying that bullshit about them being the one & only type shit, but I will say that Monty had a creative way of incorporating rhythm, story telling along with dance into his fights that made things flow together beautifully.

What do I mean by this? Well in the later seasons, most of the fights lack creativity & expression. An example would be Cinder vs Raven, now while I did enjoy this fight (I believe it was the music that carried it), you’ll notice that when fight with their weapons, it’s always just swing & block. Swing & jab. Swing & maybe land a good hit. There’s no creativity despite their weapons being multiple things. The first three volumes? Ruby used her gun to land safely, she was able to navigate through Weiss’s semblance beautifully by flatting her scythe & slicing through grimm left & right. Weiss? She used her semblance as a boost & didn’t just stab & rely on her minions. She was able to incorporate dust to her techniques? Blake, don’t even get me started. Using her katana & turning it into a gun, flinging her gun to save herself from falls & using her semblance as a boost as well? Her other weapon being able to be both her second sword & carry her other katana sword? Her weapon was the best, fight me. Yang fighting style was the weakest, but with her style you can the dance style more.

Needless to say, Monty was able to execute HIS characters & their personalities beautifully & effortless through their fighting styles. Monty was very unique in this aspect. This is the part where I think criticism against the fights in volume 4 & up are unfair & unjust. Because like I said, these four girls, along with others expect for maybe Velvet, belong to him & he knew how he wanted to execute the story. He seem to really be the only to know how to like I said incorporate rhythm & dance into his fights & YES while the fights in the newer volumes have been very difficult to watch because they move to fast, forget where the characters have been, (seriously some constantly disappear? Or just don’t fight? Or they forget they were fighting like Qrow & Raven in V5?) & overall hard to tell what is going on; again these are all very valid criticism, what isn’t valid or even remotely okay is demanding that the animators make the fights like how Monty would.

Again these characters were Monty’s & he knew what he wanted to do with them. They were fighting styles before they were characters. If you need a better explanation please go watch hbomberguy’s video “RWBY is Disappointing and Here’s Why.” He breaks it down much better than I currently could. ANYWAYS, back to topic; demanding that the animators need to animate said characters or any fight like Monty is such a stupid criticism to me. It doesn’t make any sense. Because just by simply watch his old fighting videos isn’t gonna give the animators some kind of new knowledge that’s they can now incorporate when animating fights. It’s hard to study these videos anyways because I’m sure not a lot of people know what exactly it is they’re looking at. How did Monty show case their personalities through these fights? How did he manage to make these fights forever watchable? How were these characters always on beat? I don’t think a lot of people on the team actually know that type of knowledge. Fair enough, because it was Monty would was passionate about fights & he took the time to study such things so yeah. That’s why his fights stand out. Idk if the animators having time to study such knowledge or if they even want too with how rapidly it’s declining (Has volume 9 even come out yet?). So again, is it fair to say that the current fights are shitty & lackluster? YES. Is it fair to demand & expect the animators to animate just like Monty? No. It’s fair to compare, but to expect such fights when again it was only just Monty animating these fights? That’s unfair.

And to circle back, it is subjectively easier to animate fights in 3D than 2D. Now expecting the Japanese animators to animate like Monty when they don’t even know the guy? Throw that idea out the window, PLEASE. In 3D, you do not have to sit there & constantly draw the same movement with detail characters over & over again like in 2D. Not saying 3D isn’t difficult, but I am saying it’s different. I don’t expect the 2D fights to be on the same tier as the first three volumes of RWBY. After all, these are two different types of styles. Maybe they’ll get better or they might just be another generic fight scene. So I will say that the faster more people accept that we might never get another fight scene animated by Monty, the less disappointed people will be when seeing any new fights the RWBY franchise produces.

#rwby #is this rwde?#rwby ice queendom #monty oum #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #asks #anonymous

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incorrectsmashbrosquotes · 4 years

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So I finally caught up to RWBY and there’s a major problem with it.

So, I finally got myself up to speed on RWBY after so many years of ignoring it, and there is a major problem storytelling wise.

Writing has never been this show’s strong suit. Even at my most devoted to the show I recognized this as a problem. Now, I’m not here to talk about the really major problems with RWBY, for that please avail yourself of Hbomberguy’s video: “RWBY is Disappointing and Here’s Why”. No, I’m here to discuss my biggest problem with the show, that is to say its treatment of its characters. Particularly the side characters.

Watching the show, Volume 1 - 8, I’ve noticed an upsetting trend in regards to the show’s characters. That is to say, the fans start to like a side character a whole lot, and then they get either a major downgrade or their character is hamstringed entirely. The three biggest examples for this I’m using are Adam, Raven, and Ironwood most recently.

Adam is the first case of this occurring and, in my opinion, one of the most upsetting because Adam’s character had so much potential. The Faunus in the show are supposed to be a stand in for marginalized real life groups and the White Fang were obviously meant to stand in for a Civil Rights movement gone South. Adam and Blake were at the epicenter of this story, Blake wanting to walk a more peaceful route and Adam believing that force was the only way to invoke change. That is a fascinating character dynamic, especially when you take their backstories into account, Blake being born into a wealthy or at least well-off family and Adam being poor and orphaned.

There’s so much you can do with that. Make a commentary on how it’s easier for the rich to buck injustice because they can literally afford to. Write how good intentions can spiral out of control and end up with horrific consequences. Play off Blake’s academic idealism and Adam’s down to Earth realism. People liked that! And they liked Adam. He felt like a real and interesting character.

But, instead, the writers chose to completely demonize Adam and make the conflict between Blake and him not about their differing worldviews, but about their relationship problems.

This happened with Raven, Yang’s mom, as well. She was mysterious, morally ambiguous, and had a complex motivation. She sees the world, not as good or evil, but strong and weak. The struggle to survive separates the two and by being strong you’ve earned the right to exist. There’s a lot to explore there, and a lot of conflict created between her and Yang who is much more about that classically heroic stuff.

But, rather than pursue any of that, they also go out of their way to demonize Raven and pretty much say, directly to the audience, that you aren’t supposed to like this person.

Finally, we get to Ironwood. Ironwood was a fan-favorite character, especially after Volume 7. Ironwood was both likeable and relatable, and was an authority figure who genuinely cared about human life and doing the right thing. His core character trait has always been empathy. His motivations are always towards protecting life and helping others. He’s not a glory hound and he’s not some sneering imperialist, he’s always been about helping others.

In the early volumes he creates an army of robots to minimize human casualties which is a tactically sound move, making your own force of disposable cannon fodder against another force of disposable cannon fodder. And when everything goes wrong, he doesn’t hesitate to act. During the invasion he tells it like it is to the students but goes out of his way to assure them that they can run if they must because they are, in fact, children.

Not only that, Ironwood consistently stuck up for the little guy, defending Weiss against snobby aristocrats and sending Yang, a girl who’s he’s interacted with precisely once, a brand new arm.

The ultimate irony of Ironwood’s character is that, for being based on the Tinman, his most defining character trait is his heart.

And now, as I’m sure you’ve seen the pattern by now, we come to his complete character assassination. In Volume 8 they pull a GoT Season 8 on us and make Ironwood go crazy. He turns on his friends and allies and threatens to commit genocide to get his way.

None of this makes sense. It completely contradicts all of the story beats and character development that was made in the previous volume. The only real explanation given is “his Semblance is driving him crazy”.

(side note: I genuinely hate what Semblances have become. They were originally to add character and style to each character’s fighting abilities but now they’re just another bullshit writing tool for the Authors to get out of a tight corner with)

So frequently we see characters, far more interesting than the main cast, get sidelined or character assassinated to make us like the protagonists more. Not even Team JNPR was exempt from this. People liked JNPR a lot more than they like RWBY. So, they killed off one of JNPR’s central characters and the rest got turned into Ruby’s sidekicks.

If you’re a Ruby fan and you’ve made it all the way through this, WOW, this post is way too long. I won’t say RWBY is meritless, there are things to enjoy about it. And you're not bad or dumb for engaging with it positively But it genuinely saddens me to see real and interesting characters get fucked over so the central protagonists can look better.

#incorrect super smash bros #super smash bros #incorrect quotes #smash bros #RWBY #JNPR #Adam #Adam Taurus #Raven #Raven Branwen #Ironwood #James Ironwood #character #characters study #character analysis #media critique

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