#discussing understanding applying

[no1cutiepatootie]

have you ever wanted warmest shade of orange hearts on a brain emoji

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I was probably going to mention this on that post I wrote about the social dance episodes of The Nanny and Frasier, but going to dance classes has given me so many interesting insights, and one of them is the lie --we may call it imprecision, if we want to be precise :P-- that in order to dance well you need to relax.

Because that's not really it. Even from the most basic technical standpoint, dancing depends hugely on things like balance and precision, which you cannot really produce if you are relaxed, really.

What they mean by relaxation is actually that you need to un-stiffen in order to acquire elasticity. And elasticity in action is a form of tension, just not the kind of tension where all the movement stems from you as a motor, and you have a vice grip on. This becomes even more complicated if it is a couples dance, because the tension involved in leading is different from the one involved in following.

In any case I've been thinking about this a lot in the context of my thesis writing. I've always been a very tight, concise academic writer. I'm very used by method to only start when I have a clear scheme in mind not only of the general structure of what I'm writing, but of each part too. That's my only way of reaching flow in writing --I'm writing one section but my mind is already in the next section and is bringing them both to a neat connection. This my advisor with great kindness and elegance calls the metaphysical drive, but tbh with all of you, it's just being a stiff, white knucked gripping writer. And that's just not a viable way of writing something of the length and complexity of even an honors thesis.

(Amusingly, I did write 8 pages of introduction back in December, which advisor called excellent ,in a matter of a few days, which probably gave him the absolutely wrong impression about my normal writing speed. Hence his comments about me sending him 6 more pages whenever I have them, no matter how unpolished. He probably thinks I spend a lot of time polishing before I send. No, siree, my brain just doesn't conceptualize the first draft. I WILL stare at the page for 5 minutes then write two lines. Repeat ad infinitum. Yes, I'm working 15-60 minutes a day on my thesis. That does NOT translate to the reasonable number of words you'd expect from that time.)

So what I'm really musing and grasping after is... what is the writing equivalent to the elastic tension of dancing? Because ultimately when people advice me to "enjoy the process" and to "loosen up", they don't mean that I'll achieve flow when I relax (though they might think that that's what they mean), but when I finally acquire elasticity. The problem is that, in dancing, you have a dance teacher that models the elastic tension of dancing for you, that can even physically demonstrate and show you with actual touch what it means. I don't think there's such a thing for writing, not in any sense that is comparable. I guess part of the process of thesis directing is creating the sort of feedback loop of writing that gives you a mind opposite the way dancing gives you a body opposite, but of course the process is much less intuitive. A thesis director can correct your style, can also give you pointers as to how to cross some rivers and fill some potholes, but they cannot really model for you the skill of writing as a process.

[kindnessoverperfection]

I think a lot of discourse boils down to the idea that there's One Right Answer for everything. But the world, and individual people, are far too complex for that.

For example, a very common pattern of conflict I see is this-

"[blank] was very harmful to me, and set me back a lot." "But [blank] was what finally helped me understand and work through everything."

And instead of approaching the subject with curiosity and compassion, it becomes a fight over which is "correct".

A much more helpful conversation is, "How can we provide fuller information to help people figure out what's best for them?"

[vivika-ka]

I hate to be the person complaining about fanfics, but reading Leopika fics can be a bit difficult when you kin Kurapika more so than the other characters lol.

I feel like there’s barely any emphasis on the fact that he’s grappling with the literal genocide of his people. It’s not one person or some members of his family, it’s literally everyone. Everyone and everything he’s ever known, completely gone yet simultaneously haunting him as parts of them can’t be laid to rest properly (the eyes) and sold as some exotic commodity, completely dehumanizing their bodies even in death--I also wager it is part of their culture to be buried "whole."

He’s carrying that guilt and the fear it’ll happen again to the people he loves and who love him. He’s carrying the legacy of every Kurta clan member on his shoulders. He’s grappling with the disappearance of their culture, sans himself attempting to keep it alive amidst revenge and a quest that may very well kill him. He doesn't want to do the things he's done, but rather views it as a necessity to achieve his goal (to catch a monster, you become one, essentially).*

If this was One Piece, I’d somewhat understand the vitriol in majority of the fics—how frustrating it is that Kura doesn’t open up to his friends, since One Piece begs the characters to trust their friends wholeheartedly (thinking about Nico Robin and Trafalgar Law in relation to Kurapika). But Hunter x Hunter is entirely different in its approach to trauma and interpersonal relationships in general.

I know it doesn’t excuse how Kurapika’s coping mechanisms affect the people who love him; if anything I appreciate how fic writers explore the pain of watching someone you love trying to fight alone and fighting in self-destructive ways. This aforementioned aspect in fics is not what I'm usually picky of, but more so how his trauma is constantly overlooked or underplayed.

The comparison to Gon is something I also don't mind in terms of how hard-headed and self-centered they can be when it comes to their goals (tunnel vision). However, it is not a 1-1 comparison. It always goes back to the fact Kurapika is carrying a genocide on his back vs. Gon carrying the loss of one person. Above everything else, grief is absolutely valid. But I do think there's such a thing as someone grappling with a person's death vs. an entire society and subsequently their culture.

(Much is similar when it comes to aforementioned OP characters, especially Trafalgar Law, when their loss is often compared to other characters but it doesn't quite amount to the same level psychologically and physically. For example, his loss to Blackbeard is often compared to the Strawhats losing to Kuma, when it is entirely different given the context of both characters and crews' backstories and world connections).

Killing the Phantom Troupe is one thing I don't necessarily mind when other characters urge him to let go, since killing them won't bring his clan back. What vexes me boils down to the mission of laying his clan to rest being treated as something easy to give up, I feel like it loses sentimentality. Especially when the fics, and occasionally metas, usually entail every single character shitting on Kurapika for essentially not giving that up.

If there’s any character who hates Kurapika with a passion, is Kurapika. No other character needs to do that for him because he does it plenty for himself, given both his survivor’s guilt and the guilt of hurting the people he cares for.

Anyway, I rarely complain publicly like this, nor do I like to. Following etiquette, I don’t keep reading the stories that aren't for me, and choose to work on my personal WIPs, of course. This is a vent, if anything. It’s just hard when the fandom at large seem to mischaracterize the your favorite blorbo 😅

*Disclaimer. I wouldn't even bother putting this here if I didn't see people arguing Kurapika is willfully enabling the upper class' oppression just because he works for rich folk, plus claiming he himself subscribes to capitalist and oligarchical ideologies compared to Leorio, when that's not true at all lmaooo. Kurapika came from a clan that has deep connection to nature, they were far removed from society at large and lived through deep communal relationships and "trade," they used what was available to them; I wouldn't be surprised if there was little to no monetary system in place. His notion of what is honorable and what isn't has nothing to do with capitalism, it boiled down to doing what is right at the cost of yourself, that's why he is literally sacrificing himself to avenge his clan. Him disagreeing with Leorio on reasons why to become a hunter and having to work for the Nostrade are not AT ALL congruent with agreeing to a capitalist and oligarchical view, what are you people on?

[incesthemes]

"their relationship is romantic" "their relationship is familial" "their relationship is platonic" you're thinking too narrow. their relationship goes beyond labels. the family is inherently queer. their platonic love is romantic. the erotic is familial. each one is the other and the other is them

[some-pers0n]

interesting ideas about AI art and by no means am I trying to send hate but I believe majority of people hate AI art is because it's truly just the byproduct of a giant plinko board bouncing through pieces of art made by artists who put love and care and SOUL into their work. A visual product of a math formula. While it's "art" in the most litteral sense, not having a true human behind it putting though and effort into its every detail, for many people (myself included) devalues it from a tradition artists work.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that AI art is inherently unequal to non Ai art, specifically for this reason. (Hope this made sense sorry if it's incoherent)

I agree in that sense there. I personally do not find myself wanting to engage in a work when I purposefully know the creator had used AI to create the entire product. Something something,,,I cannot find myself getting invested in something that is little more than a product. I don't wanna read a fic about my blorbos when it was written by Chat-GPT

I also agree with the idea that a lot of people hate AI art because of this heavily emotional, debatably reactionary mindset that stems from one thing: fairness. It's the same sort of emotion I find one gets if all of the work on a group project gets shafted onto them whilst their fellow peers sit idly by. It feels unfair to sink hours into your craft, spending all this time fighting to develop your skills and flourish as an artist, only to see someone type half a paragraph and have a machine spit back something that looks not half bad. Let's be honest with ourselves here and say that AI art, at least in a visual regard, has progressed quite a bit to the point where most of the mistakes people find can be dismissed as wonky perspective and the line art being a bit fucky, which is something a ton of artists struggle with too

People develop a sort of a superiority complex over it. I can't blame them honestly. A number of times I've felt it too when people tell me they're using Chat-GPT as though it were Google and when I see my family members and friends playing around with AI art. I gotta bite my tongue and choke back a chortle, both because it's kind of a dick move and also because I don't want to relish in this feeling. It's infectious though to feel as though you have an edge over another person just because you abstain from using Chat-GPT or whatever. Not to be all "grrgrgrr you should LOVE Chat-GPT and if you dare to say anything bad then you are EVILL!!" of course though. It's emotions. They're messy, intense, and oftentimes you don't really realize when you're feeling since you get locked into your perspective. Yet, I think it's important to realize a lot of hatred of this generative AI stems from emotions. Reactionary ideals and claims stem from emotions after all

I think ultimately what the conversation about generative AI should revolve around is about the concerns of labour. The several strikes from a while back from VFX artists and scriptwriters come to mind. They are most at stake from generative AI as tools like Chat-GPT are cheaper and more cost-effective than paying an actual employee for their time and effort. I would also mention the environmental issues, but if we were to talk about that we would also have to acknowledge the fact that so, so much water is being used up daily to generate power for servers. Hell, this post alone will probably contribute to drying up some marsh in the greater scheme of things

Anywho yada yada TL;DR: I agree yes but I also think it's important to recognize that a good chunk of your hatred to Chat-GPT stems from feeling cheated and a sense of pride and superiority over others for simply not using it. There is no quality to Chat-GPT that makes it inherently evil. I can't get upset at my grandma for sending me a photo of her and her dog that went through an AI anime filter. I can feel maybe some exhaustion when seeing a fellow classmate using Chat-GPT to write their essay, but ultimately I write my own work for the love of the game. I can get upset however at those in higher power who use it to push artists out of jobs. Chat-GPT is a tool that has its pros and cons and I think it's reductive to just basically sit there and hiss like a vampire when presented with a cross when faced with the mere word "AI", especially when your only big argument for disliking it is based purely in feeling cheated when someone types a prompt into a program and art that would've taken you seven hours to draw gets spit out in about a minute or two

[rouge-the-bat]

some people are so weird about talking about opression as if its just a very cut-and-dry idea that ONLY EVER affects These people and never anyone else. when thats. really just not how anything works.

and then people act like saying this is trying to silence people and not let them have a word to define their oppression or something and its like ??? thats not what is being said ??? have words for certain types of oppression absolutely! its good to be able to have a term to use to spread more knowledge about what certain groups tend to go through!

but oppression for different groups overlap. to claim that x thing only ever happens to y people is just fucked up, because then YOURE the one trying to silence other peoples experiences.

and of course, just having a word to define what oppression a certain group goes through isnt inherently saying no one else experiences it, but some of yall certainly act like thats what it means and that perception is only going to divide you from other people and what things they also go through that are the same or similar to yours.

and it can easily influence the idea in ones mind that x people is The Most Oppressed and everyone else is The Oppressor (when oppression is an action, not an inherent quality of any individual of a non-ideological group), even when theres so many people that are hurting right alongside you and yall can be supporting one another and FIGHTING FOR EACH OTHER instead of with each other. remember, people that are actively trying to oppress others will ALWAYS benefit from people being divided and infighting.

[chipjrwibignaturals]

It’s weird how reactionary and non open minded you are about the criticism of men. If someone is lighting someone’s house on fire, we shouldn’t ignore the person whose house is on fire and who is calling for help. People like you who have issues with the public discussion of women’s issues need to take a long hard look at yourselves and wonder why you become so irate and struggle with the idea of women voicing concern about physical violence, rape, assault, fraud, etc.

so first off anon, this was never the point i was making?? these are the only 2 posts i can think of in recent memory this ask could be about and in BOTH scenarios i am NOT complaining about people voicing real and valid struggles and concerns. i am complaining about people openly and solely declaring that they Hate Men, because i feel like it adds absolutely nothing productive and only harms the overall feminist journey towards progress by alienating/villianizing half the population for something they cant control. saying 'i hate men' is not a "public discussion of women's issues", sorry! venting? sure-- but so was my post.

also

[skitskatdacat63]

Feels weirdly fucked up when you're majorly putting yourself out there by doing smth scary and then someone younger than you is also doing it, like hey what the hell man 😭 why do you have your shit figured out already

[aropride]

i really dont understand studying at all like genuinely i don't know what it is . i know about "taking notes" and "reading the textbook" and that's it . quizlet doesn't do shit for me because i don't know what to. do. with the cards. look at them ? am i supposed to just look at them . No one bothered teaching me actual skills bc i got good grades when i was 8 and now i am so hopelessly lost . why did no one think to teach me this for when stuff got harder than four plus three

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Really wish that discussions of media criticism understood subtext not as ‘something the reader is assuming that has no true basis in the text’ but instead ‘information that is implied by the text that the reader is meant to infer.’

Once again, something Robert Jordan excels at. Characters in wot are constantly learning information that means nothing to them and that they don’t understand but that fits into the larger view of the story that the reader is piecing together. One character hears part of a prophecy that a different character on the other side of the continent enacts. The section of text from that character’s point of view is not fully reliable and lacks in context that has already been made available elsewhere to the reader, and thus the reader infers information that is not directly written in the text but has been narratively implied.

That’s subtext.

[key0-m0ve-al0ng]

Me pondering: kids are capable of going through and understanding complex problems and their feelings should be taken seriously when it counts.

Me practically: who are all these annoying fucking kids in the milgram fandom and why are they posting the worst takes and most irrelevant bullshit I've ever seen ever???

I think these are valid to coexist.

[ebitenpura]

It's pretty funny what the show that starts with Ah and ends with what rhymes with okra is doing bc Eight also has a sword that belonged to force-users. He also knows how to use it. He has a history entwined with them but he is in no way a force-sensitive and would never call himself that, and no amount of training would open him to it nor make him one. He's a tourist in their history and a custodian out of respect for the love put into this single weapon one of them once put the crux of their beliefs in, and his relationship with it, being able to choose what the Force and what its people mean to him while being non-force sensitive makes it special, not having the latent ability at all and appropriating a culture he doesn't belong to, especially when he has his own.

Chirrut Imwe was imo the best and only example of how non-forcies could forge their own relationship and interpretation of the Force without needing to be a part of it and it's really a shame that the need to be "special" makes certain writers override that when being a non-force user who gets to participate in their own way without powers is a severely underrated and interesting topic that gets cast aside in favor of a superpowered gene lottery or retcons to make everyone powerful

[wutheringmights]

what is wars diagnosed with. I know he has them I just don't know which ones.

I would prefer if we didn't pathologize Warriors

[knxfesck]

I've been seeing this huge disconnect between how a specific genre of white queer people vs queer people of color are responding to the current political situation, especially on apps like tiktok. You'll see a vaguely androgynous white person making videos about how theyre scared to go out in public now and then right after a black trans woman at a protest.

I'm not saying it's injust or not okay to be concerned about the current political climate and how it regards LGBTQ+ people. But I am saying it's interesting how easily certain people will fearmonger and doomerpost in response to the concept of oppression directly affecting them compared to people who are maybe used to dealing with systematic oppression 24/7. Because a lot of people have to keep going and can't just... not go outside because of the threat of being attacked or discriminated against or targeted by police.

Obviously there's nuance and intersectionality to this but if you're a white queer person and you know you're somewhat priveleged on the graph of racism to misogyny to homophobia to transphobia, think about your other gay and trans peers- especially your black, brown, and indigenous peers- and how they're responding to this before making another post about how you're going to die instantly upon stepping foot in a majority republican state.

Obviously the takeaway here isn't that white people are less justified in worrying, but that as queer people we are stronger together. Solidarity forever etc etc. And building solidarity does not happen when you avoid thinking about how anyone different than you in your community is affected and choose to wallow in your own perspective instead of working together with them.

[stillfruit]

it's so difficult to articulate the feelings i get when i see my friends engaging in healthy and good behaviors like asking for emotional support and taking the time they need to arrive because i just can't and i know i'm wrong for it but it still feels incredibly isolating