#in the same sort of nuanced and deep way

[danburys]

i genuinely loved the eliotparker convo at the end sm, but once again i keep seeing takes that attribute something to eliot that - in my view - isn't entirely accurate?

he didn't entirely stay out of her business. he was skeptical from the jump (he tells that to sophie explicitly). he had to ride to harry's rescue and could only do that because he was tracking harry's phone. he told her - very firmly - that it's time to stop the con.

i think eliot and parker have a unique sort of understanding of each other, but in the same way, i do also think that sophie's relentless work (looking through her notes the whole night, asking her questions and trying to gauge her reaction to get a clue of what's going on) speaks to a different sort of unique understanding. it's actually harry who stayed away, who told her he was going to (who she verbally acknowledged doing this), and who had to be brought in by parker personally because otherwise he would not have come. it's breanna who just did what parker asked without any strings attached. (and this is all without even mentioning hardison.)

it had to be eliot talking to parker in the end but she never would have got to this point if she hadn't had all kinds of different support over the years.

[feathersandblue]

So, full disclosure, I haven't been a Solas fan before.

I am now.

And that's because of Veilguard and the many, many ways in which I felt let down by this game.

The aspect that bothers me most is the reduction of nuance and complexity.

Rook's hero's cakewalk (because “journey” really isn't the right word) is a ready-made path that offers no deviation at all and never challenges the player in any meaningful way.

Sure, you can spend some time pondering the pros and cons of saving Treviso or Minrathous. Ultimately, it makes no difference. Rook does their best, they just can’t be in two places at once.

Same with the companion character arcs. What does it mean if you decide to you turn Emmrich into a lich? For the most part, it's idle musing. Indulgence. He’ll be happy either way, there are no real stakes. Yeah, your actions do have consequences, just not the sort of consequences that make a substantial difference. It’s the illusion of choice – reduced to cosmetics.

The problems with decisions that cost nothing is that they don’t feel like an accomplishment. They also don’t allow for character growth. Rook doesn’t change, they remain static. Even the section in the Fade where Rooks faces their regrets is easy and comparatively lightweight. Varric was killed by Solas, Harding resp. Davrin died in combat and either Bellara or Neve was abducted by Elgar’nan. It’s not like Rook’s decisions actually caused these events, it’s not like Rook actually failed through a choice they had to make that turned out to be the wrong one. Everyone was there willingly and volunteered to fight the good fight. Rook’s regrets are not about real guilt, they are about feeling sad and guilty. And that – it needs to be said – is not the same thing. At all.

At the same time, the story carefully avoids any kind of true ethical dilemma.

It's not even about the lack of mean or edgy dialogue options; that’s just a symptom. The cause is the writers’ unwillingness to let realism intrude in Rook’s fairytale – the lack of anything that would require Rook to compromise on morals, or fight temptation. Rook is never faced with any sort of moral conundrum, or allowed to act out any kind of vice that realistic characters have. In its straight-path simplicity, Rook's story is apparently written for children and people who remain child-like in their yearning for simple, uncontested truths.

Of all the sorts of conflicts that a story can offer, Veilguard carefully avoids the most realistic and (in my opinion) interesting ones: Character vs. self and character vs. society, aka, politics. The game firmly refuses to go there. To the point where it creates a completely unrealistic consensus on all sides that eliminates yet another sort of conflict: character vs. character.

If Rook and their companions would talk politics, they’d all be on the exact same side. In a two party state, they’d all cast the same vote.

I am sure that there are many players who feel comforted and reassured by that fact, who sincerely believe that this is how stories should be written. That stories should reflect the world not as it is but as they think it should be. But for everyone who likes their stories a little more realistic, that lack of meaningful interpersonal conflict, that lack of real diversity which comes not from appearance but from different cultures and opposing viewpoints amounts to a frankly cringe-worthy, artificial and juvenile surface-level interaction between characters. Or, to phrase it differently: the diversity remains skin-deep and doesn’t extend to the philosophical, and even in the few instances where it does, it shies away from the political.

Which means that the only conflicts that remain are the most boring and stereotypical ones: character vs. monsters resp. the supernatural, where all foes are evil in the blandest way (Supremacist Venatori! Fascist renegade qunari! Power-hungry necromancers!). These conflicts are resolved through exploring maps and endless, repetitive combat.

The only thing that brings a bit of nuance to the game is Solas’s story. And there is an element of character vs. character in Rook’s and Solas’s relationship, but the sad truth is that what could have been a fascinating mirrored character journey falls flat for all the reasons already explained – because where Solas is a character as layered and controversial as it gets, Rook is anything but.

Solas’s story shows how even people with the best intentions and the greatest integrity are ultimately broken by what life throws at them, both by the decisions that are forced upon them and the choices they make on their own. It shows how a prolonged war is always a sunk cost fallacy: I’ve gone this far, if I stop now, it was all for nothing.

Rook’s victories, on the other hand, come without a cost – both in terms of moral corruption and in accountability. The guilt Solas bears is real. The fight against the titans, followed by his war against the Evanuris, requires compromising his own morals, one day at a time, one century after another, he’s trying to save the world yet doomed to fail. Sacrificing the spirits to win a battle after the war has gone this far? Every single war leader around the globe would make the same decision. In fact, all of them do: They do sacrifice the lives of others if it will help them win, they do send soldies into the trenches to die, whether these soldiers want to or not, and they are rarely, if ever, truthful about the reasons why.

In a certain way, the story of the spirit of wisdom turned flesh is reminiscent of the biblical Fall of Man: the original sin. Solas has fallen, and he’s broken. In trying to heal the world, he’s trying to heal himself. The burden is too heavy, the responsibility to great, the knowledge that he is responsible for all of it too devastating. Solas’s greatest conflict is character vs. self. It has the potential to be great. In a way, it is. It’s the single redeeming quality that, depending on your interpretation of what went on behind the scenes, the writers managed to salvage from the original concept of Dreadwolf or the lone pillar that withstood all their attempts to bring it down.

Only sadly, infuriatingly, in the end, that fallen hero’s ending is put into the hands of a protagonist who judges him from the perspective of someone who has never even stumbled – not because they are wiser, braver, or kinder. No, just because the writers were gracious – or cowardly? – enough to never let them fail.

The game gives Rook a moral high ground which isn’t earned in the slightest because Rook never had to walk even a quarter of a mile in Solas’s shoes. They don’t know what they would have done in his stead, they have no idea what it actually means to see the sorry shape the world is in and know that it was your hands that shaped it. And even where Rook might actually be culpable – the interruption of Solas’s ritual that freed the remaining Evanuris – anyone is quick to assure Rook that it wasn’t their fault.

Whatever regrets Rook carries, they’re born from self-doubt and trauma response. Survivor’s guilt, mostly. When compared to Solas’s immense guilt, Rook’s regrets are, for lack of a better term, insignificant. That Rook manages to face them doesn’t mean that they are more truthful or emotionally mature, it just means that Rook’s story is a tale for children and Solas’s is not.

It’s not that I’m necessarily opposed to the idea that the player decides Solas’s fate through their actions. It’s the injustice of it all that bothers me: The player is led through a game that provides a safe space for their character, one that is devoid of any interpersonal conflict and any ethical quandary. Rooks succeeds through kindness and heroism and taking their companions on team bonding exercises.

As if Solas could have won the war against the Evanuris if he’d taken the time to take his companions on coffee dates.

The juxtaposition – Rook vs. Solas – fails, simply because of this deep divide. Rook’s story is detached from reality and yet Rook gets to be Solas’s judge, jury, and executioner. On what grounds?

As I said, right in the beginning, I haven’t been a Solas fan before. But by the end of Veilguard, I was firmly, irrevocably, Team Solas, just because I was so annoyed that the narrative put Rook in a position of moral superiority. I detested my own character. Jesus, what a goody two-shoes! I was rooting for Solas simply because his story was so much more: a genuine tragedy, a study in complexity. Rook, on the other hand, remains bland, snotty, unchanged. Untried.

The thing is, I don’t believe that my reaction was one the writers had intended. I strongly feel that they didn’t mean for me to pick up on their double standard, that they expected me to walk away fully satisfied, convinced that Rook and The Team were the Good Guys because they went on picnics and petted the griffon, their final victory well-earned and just. If only Solas had had a Team and taken care of their emotional needs – he could have taken down the Evanuris with nary a scratch!

It’s all so very disingenuous.

Rook and, by extension, the player exist in a bubble of sanitized content. That is clearly deliberate. The player is meant to like it there. (In that sense, it’s only logical that they changed the title from Dreadwolf to Veilguard.) And clearly, it does resonate with a certain kind of their player base: mostly with people, I think, who would like their real life to be a bubble too and whose only experience with moral corruption is when they find it in others.

[gossippool]

hi welcome back to leanne rewatches deadpool & wolverine and goes insane about every single detail in this movie. in this edition: how logan's clothes reflect the trajectory of his character

1. the suit—inside

so we start off with the scene in the bar where logan appears to be wearing what we're used to seeing him wear. flannels, leather jackets. his outfit and even the setting is not at all unfamiliar for him. but, as we later find out, he was wearing the suit underneath all those layers the whole time.

during his talk with laura, he reveals that he wears the suit to remember those he'd lost, and as a reminder of what he'd done. he's had the suit on permanently for god knows how long, hidden under his clothes. at this point he bears the suit like a cross, suffering in silence under the guise of normalcy, yet sacrificing what's left of his identity by reducing himself to what the suit represents; by taking all the jabs and nasty looks people throw at him that he thinks he's too deserving of to combat.

2. the suit—outside

after wade pulls him out, he has the suit on display for quite a while. on one hand, it shows the fight that's in him now as a contrast to his passivity in his own world. on the other hand, it's also a sort of vulnerability: what that suit stands for and by extension what he himself is is now laid bare to the world. out in the open for people to question. maybe that fight that's in him now stems precisely from this vulnerability.

this vulnerability is both good and bad for him: it causes him to lash out at the questions from wade that he's not ready to answer. it also leads him to open up to laura and finally speak about what happened—who knows if he's ever said any of it out loud before. fun! even with just the suit, we're already seeing some development.

and THIS is where it gets interesting.

3. the white shirt—his mind

the first time we truly see him without the suit is when cassandra nova looks into his mind. i've been going back and forth on whether this is logan's own manifestation of himself or if it's cassandra's, and i still don't know. i think the distinction does matter, but in the end what it conveys is the same.

firstly, another layer of vulnerability again. he's already on his knees for cassandra, submissive—now in his mind he's also stripped as bare as he can be (i think we all know white shirts can sometimes leave little to the imagination). cassandra looks at him and says "you're hiding ... from all the ones you let down." how interesting is that?? if we go all the way back to the first scene, he hides his suit under normal clothes. and he hides this version of him in his mind even further underneath all of that.

secondly and as an extension of that point, white symbolises purity. cleanliness. even a promise of new beginnings. let's tackle this from the two possible perspectives.

if this is logan's manifestation of himself, it would be so intriguing that this is how he appears. maybe it means that despite it all, there's some good in him. maybe it means that deep, deep down, past all the shame and the guilt and the grief, there's still a part of his mind where he can just be.

on the other hand, the white could also symbolise a second chance—like i said, a promise of new beginnings. i made a post about this scene here, but the basic point is that cassandra is offering him something that no one else may ever be able to offer him. a chance to fully be himself, to silence the voices. the white is such a stunning visual representation of what she is saying logan could be if he stays with her. which makes it even more poignant that he doesn't.

4. the time ripper

after this scene, he's in the suit again, necessarily. but then! BUT THEN!!!!! the time ripper!!! y'all need to understand the significance of this scene in all its nuances FR! here you can look at his abs again:

but the thing is we know by now what the suit represents. all his failures, all his guilt, his inability to let go of his past. it represents him. isn't it just so fitting that it's at this point where he saves the fucking world that the suit breaks away. it breaks away from him. he's free. this not the same as him just taking it off, because with it breaking into pieces he literally cannot wear it anymore. this is not just a hugh jackman body appreciation, this is logan finally moving on. this is him realising that he is not a failure, that he is not his failures, that he has something else to live for.

5. him

and oh my god, we finally make it to the extremely satisfying ending. after all of that, we finally come full circle. he's in his normal clothes again, the wife beater and the flannel, except this time without anything underneath. he's no longer defined by that one incident, defined by his mistakes and the people he let down. he is just him.

[fleurdelucienne]

Look, I absolutely adore Theresa as a character, and the Woman’s Lot DLC gave her so much depth and humanity, but I really don’t see her as an endgame for Henry (and she sort of seems to acknowledge this in KCD1, too!). I’m very happy for everyone to play KCD2 however they want, but I so tire of the Theresa loyalists/truthers who are CONVINCED that Henry would’ve stayed true to her and who eschew the romance options in KCD2 as a result.

Their romance is completely optional in KCD1 and has such a “puppy love” vibe to it that feels very steeped in their trauma, immaturity, and lack of life experience. Which is perfect for Henry’s development as a person, warrior, etc. at that time. KCD1 Henry IS bashful Henry. I never tire of the delivery of the line “I’d like to, uh, order something?” at the Bathhouses in the first game. 😂 And hell, Henry also has to be told by Nightingale to court her?

Compare that to KCD2 Henry, who is so much more confident, seems so settled in himself, and has experienced so much growth in a short period of time (though under duress as it may have been). I think that’s why part of the reason the Hans romance hits so hard - it feels like something Henry has grown into and actually wants. And it plays out over a much longer timeline than any other romance, which gives it that delicious slow burn we all love. He knows he cares for Hans, and we see the ways in which he tries to communicate this to Hans in increasingly emphatic ways throughout the entire course of the main quest.

And then, when it finally culminates, it feels like a deeply mature and meaningful love, and one that is truly chosen not because it was born out of mere circumstance and ideas of romance and courtship (how all the female romance options feel to me across both games), but because of a deep love and respect between two people. It’s SUPER wild to me that Hansry detractors claim it “came out of nowhere” when it has the most groundwork of any romance. It is also baffling to me how those complaints co-exist with how easy it is for Henry to accidentally sleep with women when it isn’t explicitly clear in the dialogue (Lady Stephanie? Klara?).

Anyway, the point of this manifesto that no one asked for is - the Hans romance works so well and stirs up such incredible feelings because of how well and how intentionally it is written. It adds nuance and subtext to other elements of the story and honestly makes the game BETTER through its inclusion. The narrative payoff is so incredible and moving because it is so well-earned. And while Warhorse did create a secret ending for the Theresa loyalists, I don’t believe her romance was written to have the same impact. And, to me, her place in the story, while important, isn’t necessarily to be Henry’s one true love. If that’s how you see it, great, but I also feel like it’s a disservice to Theresa’s bravery and tenacity to just imagine a future where she just settles down with Henry by default. I could go on for several more paragraphs about how Warhorse writes women, but that is a different manifesto that I’ll save for another time.

[tharizt]

i'd say interstellar song contest falls somewhere in between the zygon inversion and kerblam on similarly iffy politics.

actually let's compare this in more depth. because both the zygon inversion and kerblam feature revolutionaries who are presented as extremists who have "gone too far". but i still love the former story and hate the latter.

kerblam has charlie. inversion has bonnie. both are explicitly framed as rebels who want to overturn what they perceive as oppression. and both are framed as extremists whose ideologies are quickly dismissed as irrational and dangerous.

neither story meaningfully explores the root cause of rebellion. charlie’s automation-focused ideology is undercut while bonnie’s grievances are left vague or incoherent (treated like cattle how, bonnie? the story doesn't care enough to ask).

kerblam ends with vague reforms and no structural change. judy may propose the organisation becomes majority-organics, but there’s no guarantee anyone will listen. all of the worker characters die. the two bosses survive.

the background worker characters get one month off but only paid for two weeks. and instead of the horrible minimum-wage jobs being automated, they'll just hire more human workers to inflict further misery upon.

meanwhile; inversion sees the doctor enforce a fragile truce that resets the same failed peace repeatedly. kate’s memory has apparently been wiped multiple times. people keep getting slaughtered. each time, the doctor resets it to more or less how it was at the start.

both feature climaxes with the doctor confronting the antagonist; in both, the terrorist gets an appeal to emotion and neither seriously proposes alternatives to the existing system. radicalism is treated as inherently flawed or harmful, not a potential source of systemic change.

so, where do they differ?

first of all: kerblam addresses real-world issues like amazon-style capitalism, automation, and labor exploitation head-on. inversion uses metaphor.

zygons can never truly be about isis or refugees or imperialist wars or dysphoria, but it can orbit that territory. which lends the story to ambiguity, multiple possible readings, and prioritising a more coherent moral purpose.

inversion follows a clear moral arc with bonnie’s redemption paralleling the doctor’s trauma. she’s equated with him in the time war, framing her feelings as valid. she just needs to find a non-lethal third way, which ends up being stepping into the role of the missing osgood.

charlie gets no such treatment. he is killed off with no emotional payoff, no redemption, and framed as a generational pariah. he’s radicalised by being a millennial.

kerblam is cynical. it lacks any emotional sincerity. it undermines its initial setup with a confused message. but inversion is constructed with nuance, ambiguity, and clear intent by harness and moffat the entire way through with a coherent, optimistic moral.

it also helps that inversion is a major narrative climax in series 9, led by capaldi and coleman, who are the two greatest lead actors in the history of the show. they both deliver all-time nuanced and emotionally devastating portrayals.

so; the main difference comes down to empathy. the zygon inversion has deep empathy for bonnie even if it doesn't have an interest in her specific motives. it has deep empathy for the issues it explores. it has deep empathy for its audience. moffat (+harness) prioritizes empathy.

kerblam has no empathy for charlie and randomly kills him off in a blaze of fire. it has no empathy for the issues it explores and actively inflicts further misery on even more workers. and chibnall (+ mctighe) seems to despise the disaffected youth that is its own audience.

so, where does the interstellar song contest land? well, sort of in between.

there's nothing as explicitly fascist as "the systems aren’t the problem", it does have empathy for the oppressed, and it does end its story with giving the group a voice at eurovision.

naturally; none of this is enough. the story is still about how one individual person of a genocided group went "too far for his good cause" instead of being a story about the oppression.

the doctor still tortures this "evil freedom fighter" but does nothing about the corporation that is behind their oppression (if he's even aware of it).

and the liberal solution to the problem doesn't imply that the material reality of their home planet has actually changed at all, so the killing will likely just continue.

it's a horrible move to write this sort of story in this current political climate. rtd's entire modern doctor who era is deeply cynical in how it tries to faux-appeal to its liberal audience.

but there's just enough wiggle room there that i think you can place it between the zygon inversion and kerblam on this specific axis. moffat's attempt isn't as leftist as it should be, but it's still the best shot so far. let's hope future doctor who stories do better.

[heiheiheli]

Here's my Sinners take on Remmick, because I'm seeing him be too watered down by EVERYONE.

I'm very open to criticism, please let me know what y'all think!!

I'm going to be so honest, some of y'all takes on defending Remmick and also hating on him are making me clutch my pearls.

The unwillingness to listen to black voices from the non-black folks defending remmick, just blindly adoring him because he's attractive, and ignoring THE ACTUAL MESSAGE OF THE FILM, is low-key disgusting me.

But ALSO the way Remmick haters (I feel like hater isn't the right word but I'm tired🤦), completely separate and disregard his Irish heritage is baffling.

Because he's not JUST Irish, he's an Irish man from the 5th century who WITNESSED Catholicism be forced on his people, and as he mentioned stole his way of life and land. Y'all seriously need to educate yourselves on Irish history BEFORE making a take without realizing he's a nuanced character.

THAT BEING SAID, while he did genuinely think he was doing a service to the folks in the Juke Joint by turning them into vampires and becoming a sort of "undead family", he still became the oppressor and forced black folks into submission despite his intentions. He tried to make the community he so desperately wanted, but by doing that he forced folks to assimilate in the same way he was forced to. He's evil, selfish, and manipulative but don't gloss over his motivations.

Let's also not forget, and this is important to me as a Native woman, he doesn't side with that KKK couple because he liked their values. He distinctly called the Choctaw who were hunting him, "Choctaw", not "Indians" not "redskins" not "injuns". That's a big deal considering much like black folk in the Jim Crow era, we weren't seen as human beings.

He switches to calling the Choctaw hunters, "Injuns" only AFTER he sees the KKK hood. It's not because he's genuinely racist, he's a manipulator and opportunist.

Let's also not forget, he mentioned he was going to kill the Klan right after he killed the Juke Joint. He didn't target them because they were Black folks finding joy, he targeted them because he heard Sammie's music. While he could have been lying, but I doubt it based on how flustered he seemed, he was scandalized by the idea of being assumed to be Klan.

He's a complex villain, look at all sides, and CERTAINLY DO NOT erase black voices ESPECIALLY when it comes to takes on oppression.

I'm only writing out my thoughts after seeing this film four times, and having conversations, analysis sessions, and listening to the opinions of with my Black friends who saw the film with me. Listen to Black voices y'all I'm begging you, don't be stupid and tone-deaf.

My credibility when it comes to this topic is, I'm a Native woman living in the deep south and my family was also terrorized by the KKK (dont get me wrong, obviously not to the same degree as Black folk down here), and I'm also Irish with a grandparent who was a former IRA member straight from Belfast. So it frustrates me to see non-Irish folk, who completely water down his character to either being Klan level racist, or a man who did nothing wrong/"a poor meow meow".

Please research black history, Irish history, southern history, native history, before making surface level character takes IM BEGGING Y'ALL.

He's a great example of Ryan Coogler making a "the oppressed becomes the oppressor" trope, he's truly a film genius.

[elizakai]

I like thinking about their more canon adjacent dynamic (character wise)

MINI ANALYSIS TIME

Because while I love the soft interpretations, even WITH those let’s be real; that’s not how they’d act off the bat

Horror would be extremely judgmental (fair) and hate Dust for what he did. He’d despise him and probably be very passive aggressive. Making jabs and making his disdain apparent when they have to interact. I think getting a read on Dust is also difficult and would piss Horror off. Horror is unpredictable and has a sadistic streak, if he was mad or manic and had Dust in a corner he’d have no qualms about manhandling the guy. (And Dust probably wouldn’t do much to stop him.)

Meanwhile, Dusttale’s creator was asked once how Dust may feel if he met Horror, to which they said he feels bad for Horror. He likes him, sees him as someone who went through something horribly undeserved. In my mind Dust is somewhat protective of Horror.

I interpret these clashing of dynamics as Horror’s just utter disdain for this guy, and Dust’s resigned acceptance of Horror’s judgment. He’d agree with him if he were to judge himself, but I think a part of him wants Horror’s approval. He doesn’t EVER expect to get it, but Horror is….

While he’s seen hell, he’s almost a less tormented version of Dust himself. Deep down they are the same. Horror has suffered greatly, but even still hasn’t hit the deep end dust has, and I think he’d want to protect that sort of innocence he’s granted. One could think of it as him protecting a piece of himself he himself has already sacrificed. And wanting APPROVAL from him, wishing to be forgiven, craving that small piece of validation or understanding as he tries to reconcile with himself.

Horror’s formed opinion makes sense, he agrees with it, and simply wishes he disagreed, that he could have proof of himself being a FRACTION worthy of forgiveness or understanding.

The judge in both of them has both formed an opinion of the other, and they happen to differ greatly. Horror sees Dust as an abuser and Dust sees Horror as a victim.

I like to imagine that, while reluctantly thrown into the same general vicinity, Horror would grow to be more understanding (again if we are going with a PROGRESSIVE plot line) and come to understand that, yes, he wasn’t WRONG, but there is nuance to the situation. They both have a very grim understanding of what it’s like to be trapped. I think he has the capacity to understand Dust better if he was given time. His hands aren’t clean after all, and he knows what it’s like to be forced into a situation and to feel backed into a drastic decision. He knows what it’s like to lose your autonomy and to feel your mind break itself under pressure.

I think the simple fact that Dust wouldn’t TRY to change his mind or justify himself would be part of why Horror could come to understand him. He’s devestated by his actions, he is by no means a sadist.

Horror coming to understand Dust and sort of reconcile/forgive him I think would be rather BIG for Horror, especially if you factor in other situations he now has to consider. (For example, his Undyne and her drastic attempt at freeing the undergroud…) reconciling his OWN arguably cruel decisions he has made with pure intentions, when he feels there’s no other choice (like his Papyrus and tricking him into doing something so outside of his beliefs, to protect him)

It would also be healing for Dust to get that reconciliation with Horror because again…Horror’s opinion actually may MATTER.

And in the same way that Dust may see Horror as a sort of person to be protected from further harm, Horror would probably pick up on all of the VERY bad habits Dust has that (in my observation at least) are EXTREMELY similar to his own habits/past habits (isolation, obsession, deprivation, paranoia, bringing harm to self etc) and I could see him being sensitive towards those and trying to prevent it worsening (it’s a sore subject💔) Horror is shown to prioritize taking care of those he cares about, even when he’s a bit mad, and he has the capacity to grow an understanding for someone he doesn’t like initially :))

I think they have potential to be VERY good for one another, Horror (while being fucked up) encourages (and maybe forces) better habits and actually has an opinion that matters to Dust, and Dust is inclined to be VERY loyal (Horror needs someone to show him loyalty.) to anyone who cares to give him the time of day, as it’s far beyond what he’d expect, and he’s got the sympathy/protective streak towards Horror as an actual in character detail.

And from there it would be wonderful to explore their dynamic in whatever way you like to interpret it🤫💥

I could go on but I’ll stop here, if you read this all CONGRATS!!!

Share your thoughts I love it

[skywalkr-nberrie]

I absolutely get wanting more Padmé centric content and deeper character dives of her from official material, and don’t get me wrong - i’m 2000% on that bandwagon too and I’ll die on this hill, like give me deep thoughts ranging from her survivors guilt and ptsd of becoming a child queen to basic silly and trivial fun facts about her life, hobbies, and antics.) and to this day I’m disappointed and dissatisfied with the lack of content we have on her, despite that she’s the center to the whole saga and and plays a pivotal role in the start and finish of the whole story from being the sole purpose of Anakin’s fall to being the reason why her babies were the last hopes of the galaxy and lastly being one of the founders of the rebellion. However, I just can’t agree that the ROTS novel didn’t do a good job at portraying her.

In it’s raw nature, the ROTS novel is where the starting point of Padmé begins along with the TPM, and AOTC novels. I don’t see her role as solely associated to “just” Anakin and I seriously doubt that GL and Stover intended for it to be read that way either. What feels intended is the emphasis that Anakin is as equally enjoined to her character as he is to hers. While I can understand undoubtedly that it may come off to some people that Padmé only exists to be Anakin’s wife, I feel like the book very clearly offers much more nuance and depth in the writing than just what’s interpreted on the surface.

A Padmé stan will always see her moments and begin analyzing every detail and inch of it no matter what, (guilty) and while I do agree that the novel should’ve included extra bits about Padmé as well, and that there are some passages provided by the book that gave us an opening to fully dive into more of her character and story arc, I still firmly believe that what we got is amazing work and content.

Like first things first is that loving Padmé means also loving and appreciating that a big part of her character is heavily associated to Anakin, if you can’t accept that, it’s sort of hard to fully accept Padmé. And I get that Anidala isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fine and I’m not saying you gotta ship them to love Padmé, but it is what it is that some characters are so heavily intertwined that sometimes it’s impossible to separate them. You have be able to understand character A if you want to understand character B, and Anakin & Padmé are these types of variants.

However, this doesn’t mean her dialogue being about him and her life with him is meant to undermine her independence and individuality. Padmé is already a well established iconic, feminist like character that can balance both her lover girl side and warrior side. The previous movies/novelizations drove the point home to show us just WHO Padmé Amidala is. So the ROTS novel gave us the chance to see the side of Padmé that’s hopelessly in love and finally at the tip of earning her well deserved, fairytale happily ever after.

When we first get introduced to ‘Padmé’ in the novel, we get the full rundown of all her accomplishments, achievements, and even a poetic composition of Padmé’s talents and her power and impact through out her career. She’s very young and she’s already pretty much achieved everything a very career oriented person could strive for. Even in the same paragraph- it highlights how compared to Anakin, Padmé is much wiser and she can understand him better than he can understand himself, levelling or even somewhat heightening her stance in comparison to the main character. If anything, this passage doesn’t undermine her character but uplifts it more.

And even throughout the book, despite that Padmé is now at a point in her life where she wants to settle down, leave duty, run away with her husband to have their child, her passion for democracy, and being a fierce advocate for freedom doesn’t let her just walk away from the chaos. A lot of her story that was included in the novel is about how Padmé can be a lover and fighter at the same time. She’s out here forming rebellions with her colleagues, trying to help her husband out with the issues he’s facing all while carrying twins inside her womb.

The novel focuses on what a strong person Padmé really is not just in political terms but also out of all that, which is part of what made Anakin fall so deeply in love with her. Even her own colleagues such as Mon Mothma rely on her to help them out with founding an entire rebellions because they know she’s the reason why there’s any semblance of humanity left in the Galaxy, and basically admitted that she carries the Republic on her shoulders. This passage right below is basically what sums Padmé up and I gotta shout out to my girl Mon for saying it loud and proud:

And Anakin is written to be the same way as her, completely and utterly obsessed. His entire arc and story in the novel, is centred around Padmé, no matter what situation he finds himself in, whether it be a meeting with the Jedi council, or a discussion with OWK, or a weird encounter with Palpatine, Anakin thoughts always lead back to Padmé. Bringing us back to my previous point that their characters are heavily interconnected.

And when Padmé discovers that Bail and Mon along with the rest of the Delegation of 2000 are making plans to move against Palpatine’s rule, Padmé doesn’t only find concern in the fact that she’ll have to keep this secret from Anakin and that breaks her heart, or that she’s planning to go against her husbands somewhat “father figure” (mentor) but she herself finds disappointment in the fact that a friend and mentor of hers is being suspected and she even argues with the rest of her Senator colleagues about her disagreement. It wasn’t just about Anakin for her, it was also about herself and the fact that she’s finally coming to terms with the truth that maybe her ally isn’t actually her ally.

There’s even a point where she comes to the realization that she would vote against Palpatine and find others to do the same because she acknowledges how corrupt things are getting under his rule, and she would do it despite the fact that she knows it would hurt her love, which showcase Padmé’s ability to dissect corruption and evil even when it’s delivered in a well wrapped confetti paper package like Palpatine and also demonstrates her ability to do the right thing even when it pains her to hurt someone she deeply loves. She’s resilient, powerful, and strong!

And of course how could I do a Padmé study without mentioning her most important and climactic moments that mark the end of democracy in the Republic and the rise of the corrupt Empire which was artfully delivered in a poetic prose that can only be attributed to Padmé herself:

Before this powerful scene, Padmé graces us with yet another glimpse inside her intelligently crafted mind by the way she advises Bail to pretend to ally himself with Palpatine’s government and asks him to encourage the other members of the Delegation of 2000 to do the same so that there’s preservation for them to continue to root the seeds of the rebellion against Palpatine’s Empire in the future. (Painful as it is, she’s fully aware that she may not be alive much longer due to Anakin’s visions.) Only someone as articulated and calculated as Padmé would’ve been able to think of a plan so long term like that and it actually work in the end. Proof of what a political genius she is and a true warrior or champion of democracy.

Overall, I just think there are many moments in the novel regarding Padmé that could really speak to the person who loves her, and all of this is fuel to understand and analyze her in ways that enhances her character to the fullest. Do I think there are points that could’ve added a bit more? Absolutely! But I’m also happy with the results we have because Padmé is such a well packaged character that even her smallest moments reveal the best of her.

[devalius]

Suddenly thinking today about the sheer gravity of Miraak’s existence in relation to The Last Dragonborn beyond just the conflict. He was the one other person in existence made like you, the one person who would really get what it’s like to have the same level of responsibility and power, who would understand what it’s like to get tossed around by fate and destiny all the time despite all the agency you supposedly have. But he doesn’t give you a second thought, and just perceives you as an obstacle in the way of his impossible gambit for freedom.

Like all Skyrim fans regarding one part of the story or another, I am now wishing there was more depth to this actually in the game, because all these ideas are just sort of sitting there, since Miraak isn’t exactly written as a deep and nuanced character you get to interact with much in the actual plot. Man has like two major scenes and he just talks at you in each of them. Alas, I am yet another victim of wishing Skyrim lived up to its damn potential.

[skywalkerthrawn]

What color palette(s) do you use for thrawn/chiss

I can never seem to get the right shades.

And yours are always so spot on and amazing!

*claps with glee* color picking for chiss? you mean my favorite subject to ramble about ever? don't mind if i do 🔴〰🔴

this will be primarily for chiss skin. for anyone who wants to know how i do chiss eyes and haven't seen the tutorial i made, here it is

so for thrawn, i go the self-indulgent route and pick the brightest, most saturated cerulean blue as my base color:

then, before i add any shadows or highlights, i add the blush to his nose and cheeks/general middle third of the face. even if you're not trying to make your chiss look like they're blushing, it's good for adding some life/variation to the skintone

my chiss blush is, naturally, purple

your blush should be slightly darker than your base color. seeing as this saturated purple is naturally darker than the base blue i picked, i don't need to worry about manually picking a deeper shade, but in a lot of other color palettes, i would.

then for shadows, i shift the hue a little towards the royal blues with each darker shade, while maintaining max saturation

this is key if you want your chiss to be So Blue It Burns Your Eyes

for highlights, i like to shift my hue in the other direction, towards cyan, but after a certain point it doesn't matter as much as it does with base color and shadows.

for darker thrawn paintings, i will pick a darker base blue, but every other principle remains the same

and finally, if your chiss is not turning out blue enough (i've been there, despite my best efforts), try slapping an overlay layer with a midtone blue-grey on top. play around with the exact shade and the layer opacity based on what you're looking for and your chiss should become Even Bluer

i did it with my lesser evil fan poster

(and also in the very first example, from the thrawn and nuso esva painting)

now for other chiss, i like to add some variety in skin color, which does make my approach to color picking a little different. for example with ar'alani, i tend to choose a lighter blue

and then when it comes to shadows, i do pick more saturated shades as i go darker, as well as shifting the hue the same way as i do for thrawn

when it comes to blush, i pick a darker and more saturated purple. for characters whose base skintone is more cyan, i go for a more indigo color, and for characters whose skintone is more in the deep blue/royal blue category, the blush color is more purple

in this case, even if bomarmo's skintone is light, its hue is still less cyan than borika's, therefore his blush is more purple than hers

for darker or more grey skintones (like i do for samakro and my oc vuarum respectively) my principle is still the same, except the less saturated the base color, the less saturated the shadows are going to be. (even though we're still going slightly to the right and shifting the hue. i even do this when i'm painting evereni or other grey skintones)

there is a stopping point to the hue shifting though. i stop shifting the hue for my darker shadows once it reaches that cusp between indigo and purple. i generally don't put purple shadows on my chiss unless the lighting specifically calls for it

then for chiss hair, there's a lot less nuance to my process

the white circle is where i like to start if i'm doing a low committment sketch or very bright painting, but if i'm doing a darker painting i'll usually just start with black and every other shade is sort of a highlight after that.

generally you can go more saturated but i find the less saturated color selection creates a very nice contrast between the Very Blue skin and more muted blue-black hair. i do occasionally like picking more saturated base colors for some chiss though

in general i like to treat chiss hair colors similar to humans except if their undertones were blue instead of yellow and their version of "ginger" was purple.

finally, just a disclaimer: don't color pick from any of these. they're not going to be accurate to the colors i picked on my art programs. between screenshots and file compression, the colors are Slightly Off. that's also why i didn't just drop a bunch of color swatches and skedaddle. it's much more fruitful to learn how to pick your colors :3

thanks for reading! if you have any more questions, feel free to reply or send me an ask! i love talking about this stuff 💙

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The Miraculous fandom has some of the most creative people I know in it. I mean this, positive sense.

However that same talent becomes a problem when people cannot distinguish between a narrative beat and their own post-hoc justification.

The second is useful now and again when any sort of media misses a beat or takes a leap. ML fans carry the narrative on their backs.

It's telling that you have so many fanworks out there that are equally or more valid readings of the canon when they were published that have been completely obliterated by future development.

I'm not talking the wild takes. I'm not talking ML suddenly turning shonen, or coffee shop AU. I'm not even talking 'Adrien gets equal screen time.' Just 'with what we know, what comes next?' type fanfiction.

It's like canon is deliberately trying to dodge anything remotely predictable... but narrative beats are predictable for a reason. They work. They're good storytelling. A twist can be good storytelling, but only if it is better in every way then the not-twist.

You combine the shock-at-all-costs mentality with ML fandoms devotion and creativity and you get leaps of logic that would make a crypto seller blush. It ends up going downright unhealthy places at times.

I know their hearts are in the right place. I know they just care about the show they've sunk time and self into, but there are times you have to step back.

It doesn't mean you have to give up or turn away from the media. You just need to be willing to admit 'This episode/throughline/season/beat sucked'.

Then you hope it gets better.

Not doing this now and then is engaging in cult behavior.

(Post that spawned this ask)

I fully agree. People liking "bad" media doesn't bother me. What gets under my skin is people defending bad media. I'm in a book club and we all own that we like books that are objectively bad. We don't defend them as good, we just like the good parts enough to drown out the bad stuff. That's normal and fine. You don't have to limit yourself to perfect and pure art if such a thing even exists. I can name flaws in most of the things I like, I just think the good far outweighs the bad.

Miraculous is not some deep and complicated show that requires you to watch every episode. The writers have flat out said it is supposed to make sense even if you miss seemingly vital episodes. This means that trying to go the deep and nuanced route to explain the flaws doesn't work. This is a show for young children. It is supposed to be easy to follow. If it's not, then it has failed at its job! Little kids have no expectations to subvert. Shows like Miraculous are supposed to teach them how stories work so they can go on and watch more complex stuff when they're older. (For us adults, shows like Miraculous are supposed to be cute escapism that lets us feel like kids again.) If no one can possibly predict where a story is going next at a high level, then it's probably a bad story.

To be clear, I don't mean that every plot beat should be obvious. It's just that the longer a story goes, the more obvious things should feel as all the little elements of the story build and come together. This allows the audience to get excited about what's going to happen next and keeps them engaged. Stories where literally anything can happen no matter how little sense it makes aren't fun because you can't get invested in anything. I'll take a predictable ending over an impossible one any day.

A perfect example is the season three final. That final was all about Gabriel winning because he knew Chloe's identity. This is spelled out in the episode and the episode setup.

Miraculer set up:

Gabriel: Chloé Bourgeois must become Queen Bee again! Nathalie: Are you still considering making her an ally? I'm afraid Ladybug has grown reluctant to giving Chloé the Bee Miraculous. She's being very careful. Gabriel: Then I will get Chloé to force Ladybug to give it to her. All I need is for her to lose all hope in Ladybug. To become angry enough so I can akumatize her. (smirks evilly)

Ladybug: I'm sorry, Chloé. I should've told you this a long time ago. I might never be able to let you be Queen Bee again. Queen Bee: What? But I did everything you asked me to. Ladybug: I know. But this is for your own safety. It's too dangerous for you and your loved ones because Hawk Moth knows that you're Queen Bee.

Final pay off:

Hawk Moth: Try it and see for yourself. You're Ladybug's greatest fan. You've helped her, you've trusted her. And what has she done for you in return? Chloé: (gets angry) Nothing! She couldn't care less about me! I'm done with her. She's irrelevant, utterly irrelevant! (reaches out to grap the Miraculous, stops) I want you to de-akumatize has my parents first! Hawk Moth: Whatever you say, my queen. (Chloé takes the comb and puts it in her hair, releasing Pollen)

Since the final also includes every other temp hero being outed this should mean that season four will go on to have Ladybug and Chat Noir starting from scratch, but is that what happens?

Nope! The mass identity reveal means nothing and everything is fine to keep going as is. Chloé's identity reveal being a problem was a one-off fluke we don't need to think about.

There is no justification for that. You can decide that you're willing to let the flaw slide and keep watching, but there is no way to make this a good choice for the story. It was the start of the secret identities holding less and less weight to the point where a lot of people no longer care about the love square reveal because it's been so incredibly cheapened. Marinette keeping her identity from Chat Noir no longer makes sense when it was once pretty reasonable.

[yourislandgirl]

you're such a social blog, friends with many 💕

i'm curious to know if your moot's blogs were run by idols, who would be running whose 🤔

I- YOU THINK IM POPULAR??!!? ahem thanks 😌

anyway this is such an interesting question ????

ok let’s go

(and i’m not just gonna pick your biases bcs . that’s just obvs)

⋆ ───── 𝜗𝜚 ───── ⋆

@hyuckworld (or more accurately her sideblog that i’ve been a dedicated follower of for two years now @jayflrt)

i feel like her humour and also the nuance she carries in her stories and fics screams heeseung to me, ya know? like it’s the sort of creativity that heeseung has, whether it’s when he’s making a joke or executing a very precise vocal run ? he’s very much a “never let em know your next move” typa guy and that’s kinda what alice’s fics and smau’s feel like, the whiplash between humour and plot goes crazy and afterwards you kinda don’t wanna leave behind the world she created

@enjakey

darling mootie who feels like a fated twin (we’re so fated bro, alexa play fate by enhypen every time me and hg interact) anyway, she really gives me ni-ki vibes ?? there’s always a lot of freshness with her fics, every time i finish one i’m like “wow, i’m gonna be thinking abt this for a while..” and that’s exactly the vibe ni-ki gives on stage? he just stands out when it’s his time to shine and it’s the same with this incredible writer here

@yeonmuse

one of my first moots i adore her !! alright, musie gives sunoo ok?? her plots? her ideas? they’re alluring !! and esp her smau’s have this snark and sass that sunoo gives, his facial expressions, the way he has this warmth and sweetness that can switch up so instantaneously ?? i can’t explain it but there’s smth abt musie’s works and musie’s blog and her aesthetic that gives me sunoo vibes, like his range as a performer and artist mirrors her range as a creator ya know?

@tobiosbbyghorl

OOP WE GOT AN ACCURATE QUEEN HERE — rie really gives me sunghoon vibes im sorry she won guys >.< like idk smth abt the way her fics pull me into a mental movie every time i read, and i can see the scenes unfolding in my head so vividly, it’s truly giving sunghoon when he’s acting in enha’s concept trailers, actor!sunghoon who brings so much emotion and depth to his scenes so naturally, that’s rie

@hoondrop

ok here me out, jake !! every time i’ve spoken to moony i’ve always come out of the conversation with a smile and a good laugh, she literally has the same energy as what i assume being friends with jake would be like? if that makes sense? there’s also smth really funny about how she switches so easily from hard thoughts to like being all cute in the dms like the dichotomy gives me whiplash, so similar to jake on stage vs off stage

@jaylaxies

another queen who got her bias bcs she really does give me jay vibes? i think it’s the dedication? i’ve been following aria’s work for YEARS bro like she’s an OG enhablr legend to me so idk that sort of dedication and hard work screams jay to me, and like you can tell she takes extreme pride in her work? we always hear about how jay is so ambitious and has big dreams for himself and enha so yeah aria’s blog is giving jay

@taetebebe

lucky number three of my moots to get her bias !! rose totally gives jungwon omg, the way i instantly clicked with her and she and i have so much in common, i feel this way abt jungwon too like yeh i have a crush on him but seriously speaking, i could see us being good friends legit ?? also rose’s humour is really cheeky and kinda sweet wrapped up in sarcasm while also having the ability to be really deep in conversation? like it reminds me of jungwon’s lives where he’s either a meme or my unofficial therapist icl

[bogkeep]

Would you recommend the SSSS comic? I know little of it beside the very beautiful artstyle and premise

to answer the question of if i would recommend SSSS as a comic: yes, yes i would.

a description for those who don't know: Stand Still Stay Silent is a post-apocalyptic horror + adventure webcomic set in the nordics (norway, sweden, denmark, finland, iceland) that have been isolated from the rest of the world and gone back to their old gods. the the world outside of safe zones is full of trolls and beasts - humans and mammals that got infected by a horrible virus and turned into monsters. the story follows a ragtag crew that ventures into the old world (derelict denmark) on an expedition to collect books.

the comic updated every workday until it concluded in 2022, and consists of two Adventures. the creator had plans for many adventures with these characters in this world, but ended it after two when she wanted to take a new direction with her life.

what i love about it:

- the art is GORGEOUS. it's been a huge source of inspiration for me. open any page and it's a masterpiece, and you will ask yourself "how the FUCK did she update this FIVE DAYS A WEEK"

- the characters are wonderful and endearing. i just, i love them so much. i am so thankful lalli hotakainen exists he is one of my #1 blorbos forever

- the world is so cool. the blend of chunky sci-fi and norse mythology fantasy magic slaps. it goes so hard. i fell so hard for this comic when i got to the big ferry ship with a viking style dragon head prow added to it. it's everything

- it really really gets nordic cultures. it's difficult to explain all the dynamics and nuances but it just gets it. it brings me as a scandinavian a lot of joy to read a story that speaks to my heart this way. the attitudes, the language barriers, the cultural differences... it was so refreshing to me in a media landscape dominated by american stories. when the pandemic hit, i decided to reread the comic because i found such an odd comfort in seeing how it depicted the scandinavian countries reacting to, well, a pandemic.

- there's kittycats

what i don't like about it:

- the most glaring and obvious flaw is that everyone in the comic is white. there's not a single character of color anywhere, not even i background shots or the prologue. there's no mention of the saami people (the indigenous people of northern europe), either. i believe this was done in ignorance more than malicious intent, but the implications are Extremely Bad and it's been bothering me (AND MANY OTHERS) since day 1. that is the number one caveat i will give to anyone wanting to check this comic out. i've been in the discourse trenches and i am not going to excuse this. it's just bad!

- you can tell in the middle of adventure 2 that the creator has kind of lost interest in the work, around the time when she found jesus i guess. like, very few people can keep up work on the same creative project for years and years and years and i think it's fine that she wanted to drop it, but it's a bit sad to see the comic dragged to its end like a limp corpse, and feeling like the creator no longer really cares about the characters.

- minna sundberg has said and done some questionable things, presumably gotten somewhat radicalised over time, and has also converted to hardcore christianity which is what her new works are about. there's nothing about this in SSSS - there is a moment of christianity represented in the story in a sort of mythological sense, just like the other religions, but this was written before minna's conversion. her new works... are a Choice. i have much to say about them, and i have, and im not gonna rehash it now.

SO YEAH hopefully this will help you take an Informed Choice! i got into this comic in 2015 and was deep in the fandom and it's for better or for worse part of my soul foundation now.

i also recommend A Redtail's Dream, minna's "practice comic" before SSSS, based on finnish mythology and the kalevala.

[blughxreader]

The thing is, in the yandere-purge-world, there would probably be some advocates for reducing darlings wages in order to increase the wages of yanderes. The whole system depends on the classification of a yandere and their darling, like, how is it recognized?

If someone has to register as a yandere and register their darling before they get the purge letter, then maybe there should be some immediate procedures, such as the darling getting fired? But that would complicate companies, so it would become a communism vs. Capitalism debate, right?

The response would be governments placing darlings as ‘unable to work’, and yanderes would climb the banner, since the majority of the government would be yandere.

It would result in systematic oppression of darlings, so the darlings would be unable to work, and even if they retained their allowance to vote, the yanderes might not even let them outside.

Really, it’s just like the 1940s for the men vs. Women thing.

Oo this ask begs an important question—since suppression in this society is based off of yandere/darling/and unchosen & not-yet-crazy people, how heavily do personalities play a role in job opportunities/first impressions/government assistance/etc?

From this point on, i will call the third group of people Normals (ie the group of unregistered yanderes and people who haven’t been chosen as a darling by a yandere. All darlings and yanderes start out as Normals.)

In the Ye Old Era, circa 1800s and earlier, there was a zero-nuance understanding of Darlings and Yanderes, in the same way that men subjugated women.

Yanderes killed and pillaged to get what they want, and Everyone Else either murdered them back or were forced into submission. I doubt there was a registry of Yans and Darlings, because you were either someone’s bitch or you weren’t.

As the world globalized, societies modernized, technology developed, capitalism spread… Yanderes had to reel it in or face capital punishment. It was no longer acceptable to butcher your neighbor for their daughter/son.

Kind of like prohibition, there was a time in society where all murder, kidnapping, etc was illegal. This had unintended, bloody consequences as homicide and suicide actually increased.

Thus the Purge was born.

To answer your questions, I don’t think a darling would face any repercussions from being claimed by a yandere. The yandere has to actually kidnap them during the Purge before Darling loses any rights. Because up until Darling received their claim notice, they were Normal.

I bet there’s also laws to protect against discrimination based off class and personality type. Businesses are not allowed to discriminate, however I bet they’re also notified that a Darling has received a claim notice just in case they go missing after the Purge lol.

Systematic suppression runs deep. There’s no way around it. All the most powerful families and businesses are headed by yanderes. They own the economy, write the laws, etc.

Fortunately there are yanderes sympathetic to darlings, so eventually Darlings got their rights.

However!!! Imaging you’ve been held captive for a decade. What sort of job prospects do you have? Why would anyone want you when your degree is stale and you have insane therapy requirements.

What if the government gave willing Darlings to darling-less yanderes? Like, you’re incapable of integrating into the real world after being imprisoned, and there’s plenty of lonely yanderes out there, so why not pair up?

It could be a 6-month rehabilitation contract, to a lifelong “marriage.”

[cynthiav06]

Annabeth stans and Percabeth shippers are talking about how ooc Annabeth is in WOTTG with her thinking Percy is stupid as if she hasn't constantly made fun of Percy's intelligence since the very beginning. As if she doesn't do it in every book, multiple times. Rick's characterization of Annabeth isn't changing, people are finally just growing up and realizing their fave ship when they were 12 isn't healthy. But instead of actually acknowledging that it's a bad ship they just blame the author.

Warnings: This is going to be a rant; bear with me. People from the "take everything as a personal offense" group stop reading. Will give us both the luxury of a peaceful mind.

It's easier to blame Rick, I think, given his series of shit decisions. The Wrath of a Triple Goddess is a complete abomination, and so is Chalice of the Gods in many ways. But at least it has helped readers understand the glaring flaws of Percabeth as a ship. How Percy's character is butchered to hype up Annabeth.

And I am completely exhausted of trying to get any of them to think rationally and in an unbiased manner. I can't make a willfully blind individual see sense after all.

But yeah, Annabeth has many, and I mean many character flaws throughout the series. The number of times I have made a post on Annabeth's flaws or even why Percabeth is incompatible.... At this point, I believe open-minded and careful readers are going to see and make their own conclusions, and the blind shippers will keep doing their own thing. This , I think, was my most recent post and will probably be one of my last ones on a similar topic. Unless I get newer asks that have some different viewpoints that I can actually explore cause, all has been said so far, I think.

I had a feeling that things would get better as they got older, more mature, you know, an Annabeth character arc of some sort. Maybe exploring the positive and negative nuances of Percabeth or even Percy's suicidal thoughts, non existent self esteem and how Annabeth has been unknowingly feeding into those.

She is one of the more iconic characters to people even outside the fandom. One from a very, very , and exclusive pool of actually strong female characters and the way her character is devolving isn't helping anything.

-------------------------------------------------------

All of Riordan's characters have such high potential, and the amount of plots he could explore is staggering, and yet he still dishes out the same generic plot again and again. He is in it for the money now, has been for a while, and so there's no hope there.

This might be a very hot take, but I think romance ruined the series. Rick kept slapping romantic relationships on every character as if that would suddenly make things better. Give them a relationship rather than explore their trauma. I guess it's the easier of the two.

But seriously, Caleo? Jiper? Solangelo ? (I can see the hate comments already). Whatever he was doing with Reyna, but at least she wasn't completely butchered.

Rick's problem is that he keeps giving more importance to romantic relationships and makes that the entire personality of a character.

He butchered Percy, even Jason at times, Leo bloody Valdez and Nico more prominently.

The way Percy and Nico's very deep and volatile bond and heavily dynamic relationship was butchered and distorted to feed into Solangelo and Percabeth, and I can't possibly understate how highly that's been going on.

Then Luke and Thalia's relationship was completely butchered for no absolute reason. I have no idea why. They were in love or at least had romantic feelings for each other, and Thalia just woke up and wanted to kill him? He literally gave all the angst to Annabeth even though Thalia had known him longer, and they had a more nuanced bond.

Jason's relationship with Camp Jupiter individuals was completely scrapped, his and Reyna's dynamic completely watered down, or even his and Leo's great friendship discarded all for Jiper or whatever else was shoved at him.

-------------------------------------------------------

As opposed to this whole shit show, I loved the relationships in the Magnus Chase series and Kane Chronicles. That was good stuff. Both character relationships and romantic ones even though I am pretty sure he got a lot of diverse representation wrong or so I have read recently.

Then there's the stupid, blind, bigot part of the fandom that just can't help themselves. I mean dumb Percy takes, Annabeth stans ruining Percy's character arcs and overinflating Annabeth's character, which in turn made Rick do the same.Then the boring Jason thing? What the hell was that? It's like everyone missed the point of why Jason is the way he is. I am going to make a post on that soon, but seriously, the shit that's been going on.

Then the shippers. Solangelo stans and Percabeth stans. They have single handedly ruined the ships for me with their distorted ideas of character dynamics. And their blatant and brutal hate against other Percy or Nico ships is just ridiculous and heavily toxic.

It's a fandom, not a monopoly. Everyone can have their own little thing as long as you don't meddle in someone else's own thing. Let everyone enjoy their own thing.

And for all our sakes, at this point, just pick your own version of canon. Choose which books to stop at. Trust me, it's less frustrating that way.

[alpaca-clouds]

We need to talk about AI

Okay, several people asked me to post about this, so I guess I am going to post about this. Or to say it differently: Hey, for once I am posting about the stuff I am actually doing for university. Woohoo!

Because here is the issue. We are kinda suffering a death of nuance right now, when it comes to the topic of AI.

I understand why this happening (basically everyone wanting to market anything is calling it AI even though it is often a thousand different things) but it is a problem.

So, let's talk about "AI", that isn't actually intelligent, what the term means right now, what it is, what it isn't, and why it is not always bad. I am trying to be short, alright?

So, right now when anyone says they are using AI they mean, that they are using a program that functions based on what computer nerds call "a neural network" through a process called "deep learning" or "machine learning" (yes, those terms mean slightly different things, but frankly, you really do not need to know the details).

Now, the theory for this has been around since the 1940s! The idea had always been to create calculation nodes that mirror the way neurons in the human brain work. That looks kinda like this:

Basically, there are input nodes, in which you put some data, those do some transformations that kinda depend on the kind of thing you want to train it for and in the end a number comes out, that the program than "remembers". I could explain the details, but your eyes would glaze over the same way everyone's eyes glaze over in this class I have on this on every Friday afternoon.

All you need to know: You put in some sort of data (that can be text, math, pictures, audio, whatever), the computer does magic math, and then it gets a number that has a meaning to it.

And we actually have been using this sinde the 80s in some way. If any Digimon fans are here: there is a reason the digital world in Digimon Tamers was created in Stanford in the 80s. This was studied there.

But if it was around so long, why am I hearing so much about it now?

This is a good question hypothetical reader. The very short answer is: some super-nerds found a way to make this work way, way better in 2012, and from that work (which was then called Deep Learning in Artifical Neural Networks, short ANN) we got basically everything that TechBros will not shut up about for the last like ten years. Including "AI".

Now, most things you think about when you hear "AI" is some form of generative AI. Usually it will use some form of a LLM, a Large Language Model to process text, and a method called Stable Diffusion to create visuals. (Tbh, I have no clue what method audio generation uses, as the only audio AI I have so far looked into was based on wolf howls.)

LLMs were like this big, big break through, because they actually appear to comprehend natural language. They don't, of coruse, as to them words and phrases are just stastical variables. Scientists call them also "stochastic parrots". But of course our dumb human brains love to anthropogice shit. So they go: "It makes human words. It gotta be human!"

It is a whole thing.

It does not understand or grasp language. But the mathematics behind it will basically create a statistical analysis of all the words and then create a likely answer.

What you have to understand however is, that LLMs and Stable Diffusion are just a a tiny, minority type of use cases for ANNs. Because research right now is starting to use ANNs for EVERYTHING. Some also partially using Stable Diffusion and LLMs, but not to take away people'S jobs.

Which is probably the place where I will share what I have been doing recently with AI.

The stuff I am doing with Neural Networks

The neat thing: if a Neural Network is Open Source, it is surprisingly easy to work with it. Last year when I started with this I was so intimidated, but frankly, I will confidently say now: As someone who has been working with computers for like more than 10 years, this is easier programming than most shit I did to organize data bases. So, during this last year I did three things with AI. One for a university research project, one for my work, and one because I find it interesting.

The university research project trained an AI to watch video live streams of our biology department's fish tanks, analyse the behavior of the fish and notify someone if a fish showed signs of being sick. We used an AI named "YOLO" for this, that is very good at analyzing pictures, though the base framework did not know anything about stuff that lived not on land. So we needed to teach it what a fish was, how to analyze videos (as the base framework only can look at single pictures) and then we needed to teach it how fish were supposed to behave. We still managed to get that whole thing working in about 5 months. So... Yeah. But nobody can watch hundreds of fish all the time, so without this, those fish will just die if something is wrong.

The second is for my work. For this I used a really old Neural Network Framework called tesseract. This was developed by Google ages ago. And I mean ages. This is one of those neural network based on 1980s research, simply doing OCR. OCR being "optical character recognition". Aka: if you give it a picture of writing, it can read that writing. My work has the issue, that we have tons and tons of old paper work that has been scanned and needs to be digitized into a database. But everyone who was hired to do this manually found this mindnumbing. Just imagine doing this all day: take a contract, look up certain data, fill it into a table, put the contract away, take the next contract and do the same. Thousands of contracts, 8 hours a day. Nobody wants to do that. Our company has been using another OCR software for this. But that one was super expensive. So I was asked if I could built something to do that. So I did. And this was so ridiculously easy, it took me three weeks. And it actually has a higher successrate than the expensive software before.

Lastly there is the one I am doing right now, and this one is a bit more complex. See: we have tons and tons of historical shit, that never has been translated. Be it papyri, stone tablets, letters, manuscripts, whatever. And right now I used tesseract which by now is open source to develop it further to allow it to read handwritten stuff and completely different letters than what it knows so far. I plan to hook it up, once it can reliably do the OCR, to a LLM to then translate those texts. Because here is the thing: these things have not been translated because there is just not enough people speaking those old languages. Which leads to people going like: "GASP! We found this super important document that actually shows things from the anceint world we wanted to know forever, and it was lying in our collection collecting dust for 90 years!" I am not the only person who has this idea, and yeah, I just hope maybe we can in the next few years get something going to help historians and archeologists to do their work.

Make no mistake: ANNs are saving lives right now

Here is the thing: ANNs are Deep Learning are saving lives right now. I really cannot stress enough how quickly this technology has become incredibly important in fields like biology and medicine to analyze data and predict outcomes in a way that a human just never would be capable of.

I saw a post yesterday saying "AI" can never be a part of Solarpunk. I heavily will disagree on that. Solarpunk for example would need the help of AI for a lot of stuff, as it can help us deal with ecological things, might be able to predict weather in ways we are not capable of, will help with medicine, with plants and so many other things.

ANNs are a good thing in general. And yes, they might also be used for some just fun things in general.

And for things that we may not need to know, but that would be fun to know. Like, I mentioned above: the only audio research I read through was based on wolf howls. Basically there is a group of researchers trying to understand wolves and they are using AI to analyze the howling and grunting and find patterns in there which humans are not capable of due ot human bias. So maybe AI will hlep us understand some animals at some point.

Heck, we saw so far, that some LLMs have been capable of on their on extrapolating from being taught one version of a language to just automatically understand another version of it. Like going from modern English to old English and such. Which is why some researchers wonder, if it might actually be able to understand languages that were never deciphered.

All of that is interesting and fascinating.

Again, the generative stuff is a very, very minute part of what AI is being used for.

Yeah, but WHAT ABOUT the generative stuff?

So, let's talk about the generative stuff. Because I kinda hate it, but I also understand that there is a big issue.

If you know me, you know how much I freaking love the creative industry. If I had more money, I would just throw it all at all those amazing creative people online. I mean, fuck! I adore y'all!

And I do think that basically art fully created by AI is lacking the human "heart" - or to phrase it more artistically: it is lacking the chemical inbalances that make a human human lol. Same goes for writing. After all, an AI is actually incapable of actually creating a complex plot and all of that. And even if we managed to train it to do it, I don't think it should.

AI saving lives = good.

AI doing the shit humans actually evolved to do = bad.

And I also think that people who just do the "AI Art/Writing" shit are lazy and need to just put in work to learn the skill. Meh.

However...

I do think that these forms of AI can have a place in the creative process. There are people creating works of art that use some assets created with genAI but still putting in hours and hours of work on their own. And given that collages are legal to create - I do not see how this is meaningfully different. If you can take someone else's artwork as part of a collage legally, you can also take some art created by AI trained on someone else's art legally for the collage.

And then there is also the thing... Look, right now there is a lot of crunch in a lot of creative industries, and a lot of the work is not the fun creative kind, but the annoying creative kind that nobody actually enjoys and still eats hours and hours before deadlines. Swen the Man (the Larian boss) spoke about that recently: how mocapping often created some artifacts where the computer stuff used to record it (which already is done partially by an algorithm) gets janky. So far this was cleaned up by humans, and it is shitty brain numbing work most people hate. You can train AI to do this.

And I am going to assume that in normal 2D animation there is also more than enough clean up steps and such that nobody actually likes to do and that can just help to prevent crunch. Same goes for like those overworked souls doing movie VFX, who have worked 80 hour weeks for the last 5 years. In movie VFX we just do not have enough workers. This is a fact. So, yeah, if we can help those people out: great.

If this is all directed by a human vision and just helping out to make certain processes easier? It is fine.

However, something that is just 100% AI? That is dumb and sucks. And it sucks even more that people's fanart, fanfics, and also commercial work online got stolen for it.

And yet... Yeah, I am sorry, I am afraid I have to join the camp of: "I am afraid criminalizing taking the training data is a really bad idea." Because yeah... It is fucking shitty how Facebook, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and whatever are using this stolen data to create programs to make themselves richer and what not, while not even making their models open source. BUT... If we outlawed it, the only people being capable of even creating such algorithms that absolutely can help in some processes would be big media corporations that already own a ton of data for training (so basically Disney, Warner and Universal) who would then get a monopoly. And that would actually be a bad thing. So, like... both variations suck. There is no good solution, I am afraid.

And mind you, Disney, Warner, and Universal would still not pay their artists for it. lol

However, that does not mean, you should not bully the companies who are using this stolen data right now without making their models open source! And also please, please bully Hasbro and Riot and whoever for using AI Art in their merchandise. Bully them hard. They have a lot of money and they deserve to be bullied!

But yeah. Generally speaking: Please, please, as I will always say... inform yourself on these topics. Do not hate on stuff without understanding what it actually is. Most topics in life are nuanced. Not all. But many.