#its the truthiness of it all

[master-gatherer]

"just because you can't articulate it doesn't mean you're wrong" true but also if you want to communicate you have to find some way to articulate it. Not just b/c other people need to understand your ideas, but so you can stress test your ideas to make sure you're not wrong

B/c you can still be wrong, you see. But you won't know where you went wrong unless you can articulate what you're thinking

[mamma-mia-mammon]

HI HELLO SORRY I LOVE SOLOMON X MAMMON AND YOUR ART OF THEM IS SO HHHSJWJWNWJEJD

forever it lives rent free in my mind that solomon was the only one to remember mammon's name in season 4

THEY'RE DYNAMIC IS SO !!!! AAAAA okay sorry for yelling in your inbox ajsjdj

HIHIHI teehee tahnks u so much💛💛💛💛 this piece was in the wips for so long so im really glad to get this sorta response [':

i left obey me like 1/2 years ago so i dont remember the season 4 thing at ALL but of course.....of course he did<3 both thinkin so hard about each other they cannot not be obvious about it

and its completely aight to yell in my inbox, actually if u wanna exchange more mamsolo truthies im all ears ^^

[taylortruther]

I love reading @/taylortruther every day like its a newspaper

me gathering all the best posts and thoughts to disseminate to my truthies

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Bad news for Trump and DeSantis :::  March 13, 2023

Robert B. Hubbell

         Before turning to the real news of the weekend (No, not the Oscars, the failure of Silicon Valley Bank), I wanted to return to a poll released by Navigator Research last week. I mentioned the poll in my “Weekend Thoughts” newsletter, but believe it is worth a second look. The poll is a helpful antidote to the incorrect impression that Ron DeSantis is an unstoppable force with an aura of invincibility and inevitability. Not true.

DeSantis is a small-time politician who is the beneficiary of a gerrymandered state legislature willing to indulge his presidential fantasies. Whether his dystopian view of a fascist America will sell in the marketplace of ideas in the rest of the nation is a question that remains profoundly unsettled. Indeed, that will be the question that Americans decide in 2024.

         The most recent Navigator Research poll suggests that DeSantis’s dreams of a fascist America will fare poorly outside of Tallahassee—the capital of Florida and the nation’s 126th largest city. I don’t mean to suggest that the size of Tallahassee disqualifies the views of its citizens; I do mean to suggest that it is easier to corrupt and commandeer a small, insular political system than it is to succeed on the national stage in a pluralistic society.

         Before examining the Navigator Research poll, let’s recite the usual caveats together: A single poll isn’t meaningful; it’s the trend that matters. Polls can be manipulated, so the quality and professionalism of the polling organization matter. Polls aren’t elections. And, finally, it’s way too early to be consulting polls. In this instance, I would add that Navigator Research is described as a “left of center research and polling organization” by InfluenceWatch—to which I say, “We need more left of center” research and polling organizations to help Democrats communicate the truth about the sentiments of the American people.

         Whew! That was a lot of throat-clearing. Now on to my main point:

         If you were to ask a random sample of Americans which party they trust to keep children safe at school, ensure students access to healthcare, protect them from gun violence, ensure access to clean air and water, and give kids the skills and knowledge to be successful in life, the answer would be clear: the Democratic Party. Frankly, you wouldn’t need a poll to arrive at that conclusion because, as Stephen Colbert would say, “It has the feeling of truthiness.”

         The Navigator poll demonstrates that Americans understand Democrats are more interested in protecting their children than Republicans are and, therefore, trust Democrats more when it comes to educating their children. The main conclusions of the poll are presented in a series of charts here: Americans are Prioritizing Safety and Quality Education While Rejecting Book Bans and Restricted Curriculums | Navigator.

         Most tellingly, Governor Ron “Where woke goes to die” DeSantis has picked the wrong top-line message for his campaign. “Preventing children from being exposed to woke ideas” ranks near the bottom in educational priorities for all voters and is supported only by only 54% of Republicans. Legislative bans on “CRT,” transgender participation in sports, and Black history are losing positions with Democrats and Independents, garnering majority support only among Republicans—which means those positions are losers in national elections where Republicans rank third in voter registration.

         As I said above, these positions have the feel of “truthiness.” And while we should refrain from fooling ourselves to assuage feelings of anxiety, it would have been odd and counter-intuitive if most Americans supported efforts to limit knowledge, discriminate against LGBTQ people, pollute our air and water, and make guns more accessible near schools and in public places.

         I am not saying that we can relax or relent in our opposition to the Trump/DeSantis strain of fascism that underlies their 2024 platforms. I offer the Navigator poll only as a counterweight to balance the unrelenting and unquestioning coverage provided every time the Florida legislature passes another bill to outlaw knowledge, legitimize discrimination, intimidate educators, abrogate liberties, and codify white nationalism. Those may be the beliefs of most members in a gerrymandered legislature in Florida, but they are not the beliefs of most Americans. That is bad news for both Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[elminx]

Energy Update: December 2022

December is a "9" universal month [12 (December) + 6 (2022) = 18 = 1+8 = 9] in a "6" universal year. 9 is the number of endings and completions which is very appropriate for our last month in 2022. Additionally, this numerological energy works well with the astrological aspects of December which are all about evaluation and ending cycles.

The Set Up

We begin the month with the Sun, Mercury, and Venus in Sagittarius, retrograde Mars in Gemini, Jupiter and retrograde Neptune in Pisces, Saturn in Aquarius, retrograde Uranus in Taurus, and Pluto in Capricorn. By month's end, the Sun, Mercury, and Venus will have entered Capricorn and Jupiter will have entered Aries. Additionally, Mercury will have begun its fourth and final retrograde of the year and Neptune will have stationed direct.

All eyes will be on three major astrological energies: our deepening Mars retrograde, Mercury's final retrograde which will conjunct Venus and complete a cycle that has been ongoing all year, and Jupiter's re-entry across the astrological divide between Pisces (the last sign in the zodiac) and Aries (the first sign in the zodiac). We have things that need doing - and moreover - things that need ending and wrapping but - but retrograde Mars isn't going to make the doing easy for us.

The Nitty Gritty

As often happens with endings, there's little easy astrology during the month of December.

The week of December 1st has a lot of tough stuff to get through both before and after the demarcation of the change in months. Mercury and Venus, who are sitting conjunct one another in Sagittarius both oppose retrograde Mars in Gemini all week which means that the energy is going to be quick moving and personal. There may be a truth that needs to come forward and be examined (both Gemini and Sag are concerned with truthiness versus "the lie" in some way) but it is certainly not one that anybody wants to look at.

All of this is happening in t-square to retrograde Neptune in Pisces (a sign that seems to love being lied to) which will station direct on Saturday 12/03.

If you are trying to maintain a lie or keep a secret, this is a week to lie low and say less. If you're looking for truth - whether terrestrial truth or something more esoteric and specific for you - this is a great week to do this week. This is a week to watch what you say. Tempers will be high and retrograde Mars in Gemini has zero off switch.

In the best of times, Gemini and Sagittarius can be great companions. Gemini wants to explore and Sagittarius can keep them moving. Sag wants to expand and Gemini can give them the knowledge to apply their relentless energies. These, unfortunately, may not be the best of times, though, as Mars is never particularly at ease in the mutable air sign of Gemini and is very out to lunch while retrograde in the sign of the twins. If you've got supplies of energy to get things done - get to it. But conflicts are more likely during this time than cooperation.

Neptune's energy is just likely to make things muddy. It may be difficult to feel seen or heard. This is break-up weather (hard aspects between Venus and Mars always are), so say it if you need to; but know the consequences of your actions BEFORE you take them. Some words cannot be unsaid so tread with care if you can.

The first full week of December is still fraught with retrograde Mars energy as the Sun makes an exact opposition to Mars on Thursday 12/08. This is definitely a day to lie low as egos will be high and tempers explosive. Additionally, both Mercury and Venus will both square off with Jupiter in Pisces before transitting into Capricorn (Mercury on 12/06 and Venus on 12/09). We may feel like we are out of luck and out of time.

The full moon at 16° Gemini on Wednesday 12/07 will be closely conjunct to retrograde Mars which isn't helping to cool down everybody's hot heads. Unless you like the flames, get out of the fire. This will be a powerful day to change your mind or take the first steps to change your life, but for little else. Avoid the person that you can't help but quarrel with if you can.

On Monday 12/12, our Sun in Sag makes a constricting sextile to Saturn in Aquarius and Mercury enters its pre-retrograde shadow at 08° Capricorn. We are being forced to face the consequences of our actions - perhaps the consequences of our impulses during the full moon from the week beforehand. Remember that every aspect that Mercury makes from the point it enters its shadow until it begins its retrograde will be repeated thrice - there are lessons here.

The only other significant aspect of the week is our Sun squaring off with Neptune in Sagittarius on Wednesday 12/14 which is just going to make the week feel weird and murky. Don't expect to get a lot done.

The energy will pick up again in the third week of December. On Tuesday 12/20, Jupiter re-enters Aries after its brief sojourn back into Pisces during its retrograde cycle. The next day our Sun enters Capricorn (Happy Winter Solstice!) and immediately forms a square with Jupiter. Luck energy will be high here, but I want to qualify that this doesn't mean "good" luck necessarily - luck goes in all directions. Aries wants to move and explore while Capricorn wants to solidify and maintain - there is often no common ground to be found between these two cardinal energies. If you pick a side (explore OR solidify) and luck is on your side, much could be done with this energy but it will take careful management.

There is a wild card in play as both Mercury and Venus make quick-moving trines to unpredictable Uranus in Taurus on either side of the Solstice (Mercury on Saturday 12/18 and Venus on 12/22) - Capricorn and Aries have seen a lot of action since 2020 and you may need a push to reevaluate and wrap up some of the events that it instigated in your life. It's worth noting that Mercury will form this trine to Uranus three times over its retrograde cycle showing us that something about the ways that we express our Mercurial natures must be revolutionized in some way. Our new moon at 01° Capricorn on Friday 12/23 will still be square with Jupiter in Aries - this is a day for a new start, for good or for ill. Channel the cardinal energy to get things done at this time but beware of being too stuck in your idea of where you are going.

The final week of December will be slow as Mercury will have stalled to a near standstill in anticipation of its retrograde on 12/29. This is business as usual - personal planet retrogrades are always felt both internally and externally in advance of the moments that they change course.

It is worth noting that at the moment Mercury stations retrograde, it will be exactly conjunct to our planet of love, comfort, and getting what we want Venus, and nearly conjunct to Pluto, our planet of death and transformation. This is significant because both Mercury and Venus both went retrograde simultaneously at the beginning of 2022 while conjunct to Pluto. This created a beautiful butterfly effect between what we want (Venus) and how we verbalize it (Mercury) which impacted the energy of the entire year.

Said another way, we still have some work to do. If all went well, we may have a better idea of the lessons we were meant to meet in 2022 but for many of us, they will likely carry on, at least through the beginning of the next year. If you're still lost on what lessons you are facing - you can look at your natal birth chart. Mercury's retrograde cycle will be from 08-24° Capricorn - what house/s does that fall in? Does it make any important aspects with your personal planets? These often offer hints as to how a particular transit will impact you specifically.

The Details

12/01 - Mercury in Sagittarius square retrograde Neptune in Pisces, Venis in Sagittarius opposed retrograde Mars in Gemini, Venus in Sagittarius sextile Saturn in Aquarius 12/03 - Neptune stations direct 22° Pisces 12/04 - Venus in Sagittarius opposed Neptune in Pisces 12/06 - Mercury in Sagittarius square Jupiter in Pisces, Mercury enters Capricorn 12/07 - Full moon 16° Gemini 12/08 - Sun in Sagittarius opposed retrograde Mars in Pisces 12/09 - Venus in Sagittarius square Jupiter in Pisces, Venus enters Capricorn 12/12 -Sun in Sagittarius sextile Saturn in Aquarius, Mercury enters its pre-retrograde shadow 08° Capricorn 12/14 - Sun in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces 12/17 - Mercury in Capricorn trine retrograde Uranus in Taurus 12/20 - Jupiter enters Aries 12/21 - Sun enters Capricorn (Winter Solstice), Sun in Capricorn square Jupiter in Aries 12/22 - Venus in Capricorn trine retrograde Uranus in Taurus 12/23 - New Moon 01° Capricorn 12/24 - Mercury in Capricorn sextile Neptune in Pisces 12/28 - Venus in Capricorn sextile Neptune in Pisces 12/29 - Mercury stations retrograde 24° Capricorn, Mercury conjunct Venus 24° Capricorn

Do you like my work? You can support me on Kofi by tipping me or ordering an astrology report.

[the-rookinator-3000]

THE JESTERS ASK GAME IS BACK!!! FT. ROOKIE!! 🌟✨🍕

ask them anything!!! anything at all!!!! like their shoe size!!! they probably wont know, but ANYTHING!!! even if you think its stupid!!! and also rookie!!! ask him stuff too!!!

and rookie is here too!! why? because he's the communicator for JoT! (<- its funny ok)

prob gonna keep this ask game up and running for as long as possible :p so even if everyones basically dead u can always send a lil ask if theres something u'd want to say.. ... cuz iittss funny

"If you make Truthie cry, I will personally give you a brownie in real life!" -JoD

please ignore above statement

[ysabeauwilce]

dipping into the gorgeously thicc "quest for blackbeard: the true story of edward thache and his world" by baylus c. brooks. Brooks is a historian after my own heart never met a nuggety fact he didn't kiss tenderly on the nose before placing its citation neatly in his footnotes, and he loves all nuggets equally so his citations are off the fucking hook, as they should be. no pesky editor here saying oh no i don't think we need to put the Whetstone genealogy exactly here, how about in a nice appendix, but Brooks is his own editor and can do as he like, and so the Whetstone genealogy is staying right smack there, in between Stede Bonnet's trial and the sinking of the Whydah.

Not my point, anyway. Or even the thought I was thinking...my thinky thought, as I read through all absolute mass of information in this chucky boi of a book is that sometimes history is just so fucking disappointing. Not New Thought! But case in point, the whole spark of OFMD was David Jenkins (and others) thinking "WHAT THE FOOKING FOOK was going on between Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate"? And then taking that thinky thought to a Super Fun Adventure (trademark Stede Bonnet) that has now consumed us all. Why did Blackbeard let Bonnet hang around in his nightgown? Why did he hang with Bonnet at all, fearsome pirate and foppety fop? The imagination boggled, and then raced to fill blank with BRAINROT that now consumes us all.

Of course the answer is quite simple, if Jenkins had done twenty minutes of homework, which thank doggess he did not. And has nothing to do alas with Unhinged Lunatic Love, and all with the family connections that oiled the clockwork of the early modern world.

Boring.

So yeah, this is exactly why I gave up professional historydom. ran away to sea to be a pyrate, so to speak. The stark truthiness of history can not compare with the glittering lies of my imagination.

"In my heart it is true."

It's an axiom (well if it wasn't, it is now) that we get the history we deserve. But, what if, instead we got the fantastical lies we desire, we deserve?

Such fun.

Anyway, if you like trivia about the eighteenth century Caribbean definitely pick up a copy of The Quest for Blackbeard. Your abs will thank you, and Baylus C. Brooks looks so sweet in his author photo, and you'll get all the foot-notes you can eat.

Also, fanficcers out there: Ed's mother's name was Elizabeth. Or maybe it was Rachel.

I'm gonna go get more coffee now.

[theobaileypp-archived]

continued from here with @vivienneserrano

That pause before the last words of the verse felt like his throat was held by some sort of invisible force, threatening to choke him with an emotion very particular to Vivienne that he couldn't exactly name. He averted his eyes to the table, then pressed his lips. "... and bleeds and burns," he said as she said it, then meeting her eyes again. "The night is not all dark nor is the day what it seems. But each day may bring me this relief---" He paused that last verse, drinking on the truthiness of it. Under the table, Theo touched her knee that was touching his leg, resting his palm on top of it as if it could reassure him that she was really there, and wasn't a feeble dream of his disturbed mind. "My dreams and dreams." He finished, then, still looking in her eyes. Dreams and dreams, indeed. He allowed her to lace her fingers through his, because there was nothing else he could do but that. He couldn't make demands. He couldn't ask. He feared it, her, them, too fragile to such inquires. He feared she'd fly away, like an injured bird or a feather to the wind, and disappear and leave him- that thought alone was enough to keep him quiet. "Red. Always." He nodded, having known that'd be her answer. "Except when it's white, right?" Theo asked for the whole bottle and an extra glass. He would need it. "Then don't say it. We can live with that, can't we?" He feared he'd sounded a little bit too bitter when he said it, which hadn't been his intention. "We can go on as if it'd never happened, undisturbed like a flowing river running its course..." He made a motion with his hand, "Wherever that leads."

[pazodetrasalba]

Of Dragons and Girls (and 3)

Dear Caroline:

We already started talking about the third iteration yesterday. In a traditional folktale, third time's the charm, and generally, the third brother/sister is genuinely 'pure of heart', usually overtly naive, generous, agreeable and even (according to the ways of the world) 'stupid'. As a daughter of a postmodern world, though, you are seeking for a different type of closure, which would be some witty reversal of expectations with winks to the 4th wall, satisfying the letter but also going beyond the spirit of the initial rules of the game, and updating the moral of the fable to more current values.

One way of subverting 'purity of heart' would be equivocating it with sincerity, with hiding nothing away, with seeing and stating everything 'as it really is' without second thoughts for self, pride or social and moral expectations. I can imagine the third daughter anticipating what the dragon is going to say, and some more, and leaving her soul as an empty room, stashing nothing away. But this is probably how I would have written the scene, with my own obsessions with truthiness. Your take is a different reframing, which also comes with a certain emptiness - a Greek temple without the idol inside, or more appropriately, classic philosophical tropes about the continuity and stability of self. Plutarch talks of the Ship of Theseus, whose general form persists when all of its original elements have been taken away. The Japanese make the same sort of argument with Ise Jingu, the sanctuary to the greatest goddess of the land. The original design and architecture of the place date back to 1500 years ago, in an unbroken thread of continuity that is punctured every 20 years by a complete renovation of its wooden buildings.

Besides a general agreement on our lack of an eternal, inmutable soul (but you'd still get concentrations of traits and tendencies that would warrant the definition of some sort of stable, if not unchanging, personality), I like the notion your character presents as a 'weaver of stories': humans and our actions are inordinately complex, and it is possible to build many stories from the same building blocks of facts. This feels more like a humanities-kind of thing than I'd expect from you, and it is prone to cynicism and abuse. Some narratives feel more coherent and consistent with the world as we see it or conceive it, but then again, anything goes from a story within a story, and there's still a kernel of truth when talking about how humans (and presumably, dragons) react to how we tell stories and how we frame narratives, whether consciously or unconsciously. And we can always recur to a better narrative of ourselves and our purposes in life, which is something that these days it would profit you to be in the process of doing. And that's a treasure for you to find.

Quote:

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.

Plutarch, Life of Theseus 23.1

[automatismoateo]

Who created God? God's God? via /r/atheism

Who created God? God's God? A lot of religious peeps argue with the topic of "intelligent design". Intelligence can only be created by intelligence and not by a stochastic processes. My favorite argument: If time and everything starts with God where we assume God is an intelligent being, God was created from a stochastic process OR from God's God. Logic Fallacy: Time and all matter is created by God Intelligence can only be created by God God is an intelligent being God created God Assuming that God created himself, that means we can assume the truthiness of the following: Something that does not exist can with its own currently un-existing will create its existence by will. If we allow for one higher God to coexist, we would end up with a recursive pattern and we would have infinitely many different Gods: Time and all matter is created by God Intelligence can only be created by God God is an intelligent being God created another God -> goto (1.) So that would mean we are stuck in a constant while loop, maybe that's how big bang was caused? /s If we assume that it's impossible for an un-existing being to create itself by its own currently un-existing will and there is no God's God, we would end up with the following logical fallacy, assuming only God can create intelligent life: Time and all matter is created by God Intelligence can only be created by God God is an intelligent being God was created by a stochastic process Stochastic processes can create intelligent beings To me, this "proves" how flawed "intelligent design" as an idea really is. Also, we know by fact that there exists a lot of different stochastic processes in nature which we can study with our own eyes (f.e radiation). Isn't it just logically more likely that a stochastic process also created intelligence, when we know of its existence? ​ ​ Submitted October 05, 2023 at 07:48PM by cajmorgans (From Reddit https://ift.tt/vsfbjQh)

[anarchistettin]

if it were a term being used within communities to describe their experiences there wouldn't be any need to argue with someone about their mindset over it, seems to me

it's a boolean weaponized No Good Scot fallacy which wouldn't be even worth discussing - that is, it'd be fine, unobjectionable to weaponize anything for any reason, all else being equal - if not for the vicious deadly violence being provoked by, like, history books stating anything true or women going to the doctor. it's not a neutral. it's not worth talking about if they're christians or not, if they're 'real' christians or not

the behavior isn't rooted in the bible or whatever, afaict, the "truthiness" of Cultural Christianity is alluring, but it's not a real thing if it's meant to be applied as a label like White or American. Those terms - as provocative as they can be! heh! - have definite meanings that can be disambiguated from other terms.

all that said if your goal really isn't to explain something to the people you're arguing with ………… don't argue with em

don't explain it, don't waste the time, easy peasy!

there are all kind of ways to not bring up how fucked in the head someone is, one of them is to just not talk to those people. if you're trying to educate… well you will have to do some kind of strategizing. you don't have to lie! but I really do think you have to be consistent and socratic if you want it to mean anything real, if you don't mean to just draw battle lines.

if its meaning is clear within community I don't see how there's any reason to contend over it

[theeditorandnarratorcollaborate]

GABBLER RECOMMENDS: Why Family Isn’t Everything—And How We Can Create More Liberatory Alternatives by Sophie Lewis

GABBLER RECOMMENDS: Why Family Isn’t Everything—And How We Can Create More Liberatory Alternatives by Sophie Lewis

Tolstoy famously opened his magnum opus with the truthy formula “All happy families are alike; unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way.” It sounds good, concedes Ursula K. Le Guin: “It’s a great first sentence.” So many families are extremely unhappy! And this extreme unhappiness feels unique, because its structural character—like the structure of capitalism—is cunningly obscured from…

[lynxmuse]

“A company’s purpose is to make money.”

We need, I strongly assert, to stop saying/repeating this.  Because it is false.

Which I think, deep down, we all know.  But it’s weird, ‘cuz it kinda feels true, doesn’t it?  It’s a classic example of both a “false opposite” and an “adjacent mistruth” operating in harmony:  A company that continually loses money isn’t going to be in business for very long* – that’s the true part.  The false opposite is that a company has to make loads of profit to remain in business.  Similarly, to avoid losing money, a company has to think about its cash flow.  Which is fair, but the adjacent mistruth that arises is that therefore the company must think about, and almost only about, maximizing its profit at every turn.  Put those two together and it has got the veneer of veracity.  One that is further burnished by repetition.  We hear this phrase over and over so often that it feels true just through recurrence and agreement.

And boom, there it is.  We get companies that do just that, and we, perhaps unwittingly, encourage it.

However, despite this truthiness it is a falsehood.

A company’s purpose is to produce a good or service that is of value to the community while earning those who provide that good or service a decent living.

That’s it.  That’s what a company ought to be aimed towards.

If a company is in business for 50 years and breaks even every single year while providing a solid living for its employees, it’s doing great.  It may not be “crushing the competition” or “growing by leaps and bounds” or “earning a 50% profit” or “making it’s owner insanely rich” or “producing amazing shareholder value.”  But it’s been around for 50 years, providing something worthwhile that has it stay around for 50 years, all the while with employees living mighty fine lives.

A company need not overcharge its customers so it can pocket the difference.  Or underpay and overwork its employees to pocket the difference.  Or offset costs into the community to pocket the difference.  Or harm the environment to pocket the difference.  Or make detrimental and injurious products to pocket the difference.  It need not impoverish us all, fleecing us to further line the pockets of a select few.

Companies are about people making vital and fun and really nifty stuff for each other so that we can all live and thrive together.

And that’s what we need to be saying.

* Usually – companies/rackets like Uber notwithstanding.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

The shifting narrative of God’s interventism and how it reflects on the narrative on John

This post will ignore the issue authorial intent entirely because I can, but it’s also about authorial intent in a way, but I also don’t like to talk about things as happening “accidentally” because a) a serialized story like Supernatural, especially one that got renewed for much longer than anyone could possibly expect or hope in their wildest ambitions, structurally relies on serendipity, because that’s how stories work when they’re work in progress, b) a television show is an extremely multi-authored text and the chance that something happens out of the intent of any of the multiple layers of creators is kind of... statistically negligible. So, yeah, that’s my stance on the topic. Anyway.

The shifting narrative about God is simultaneously something that hangs on fortunate storytelling clicks on an essentially programmed narrative. At first, we don’t know where the fuck God is. Cas starts looking for him with little success. Raphael says he’s dead, Cas doesn’t believe it. Dean relates to his struggle because he knows the feeling of not knowing where the fuck your father is and going looking for him with little success, not knowing if he’s even alive. Then the theory that gets assumed as the truth is that God has left. He fucked off who knows where, who knows why, leaving his creation to struggle alone. Also essentially how Dean had felt after John had died; in that case there was guilt for his demon deal and everything, but the most cruel weight on Dean’s shoulder was that John left him alone to struggle with his devastatingly horrific instructions he doesn’t understand. The angels are also left with horrific instructions they don’t understand. No wonder Cas does his own ‘demon deal’ in season 6, as he desperately tries to do what he assumes his father wants from him, but he doesn’t actually know what that is.

“God has left” is maddening, and everyone is angry about it, but it has its own dignity. God has left us without clear instructions, we are confused and in pain and evil runs amock but at least, we suppose, the evil of it is our own doing. We are alone and we do our best, our best is simply not enough. We wish he gave us guidance, but he won’t. He wants us to figure it out ourselves, possibly. We don’t actually know what he wants. But maybe that’s the point. It’s possible he doesn’t even know what’s happening, he just has left the building entirely.

But then Chuck reveals himself. We find out that he never actually left. He was there. “I like front row seats. You know, I figured I’d hide out in plain sight”. He simply chooses not to intervene. He chooses not to answer. He chooses to be hands-off. He presents himself as a laissez-faire parent, because, he says, it’s better for his children to have the responsibility they need to grow up. He’s absent, but in a different way than we thought! It’s not that he doesn’t know what’s happening or isn’t interested in knowing what’s happening. He’s here, he knows what’s happening, he just stays there and watches as you stumble and struggle and scream. It’s worse, and it pains Dean so much he isn’t even afraid to yell at God. You know we’re suffering and you just don’t give us any support, any comfort.

You’re frustrated. I get it. Believe me, I was hands-on, real hands-on, for, wow, ages. I was so sure if I kept stepping in, teaching, punishing, that these beautiful creatures that I created... would grow up. But it only stayed the same. And I saw that I needed to step away and let my baby find its way. Being overinvolved is no longer parenting. It’s enabling.

But it didn’t get better.

Well, I’ve been mulling it over. And from where I sit, I think it has.

Well, from where I sit, it feels like you left us and you’re trying to justify it.

I know you had a complicated upbringing, Dean, but don’t confuse me with your dad.

At that point of the show, the writing team almost certainly didn’t have the s14-15 twist in mind. So this was probably intended to be Chuck’s truth. Later it gets twisted (retconned?) into a lie, but about that later.

Here, Chuck is really good at manipulating the conversation. Dean has a perfectly valid point, because there IS a middle ground between being overinvolved and not being involved at all. There is a middle ground between enabling your children and abandoning them completely. But Chuck hits Dean where it hurts, plays the emotional card, basically tells him that he’s too emotional to understand, too emotional to think rationally about it, because he mixes his feelings about his father to the issue and thus cannot see it clearly. He basically tells him he’s too close to it to get it. You don’t understand parenting, Dean, because you’re too blinded by your emotions about your own little life and cannot see the big picture.

It doesn’t really matter here if he’s telling the truth or lying, it already says a lot about Chuck that he’s emotionally manipulating Dean, silencing him by hitting the painful spot.

But the thing is, 11.20 immediately presents Chuck as a liar. He makes Metatron read his autobiography and the very first line is a lie (“In the beginning, there was me. Boom – detail. And what a grabber. I mean, I’m hooked, and I was there.” “I’m hooked too, and yet... details. You weren’t alone in the beginning. Your sister was with you.”) and the stuff he talks about his experience as Chuck is not exactly truthful about anything (“That, you know, makes you seem like a really grounded, likable person.” “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” “You are neither grounded nor a person!”). Metatron calls him out (“Okay. There are two types of memoir. One is honest... the other, not so much. Truth and fairy tale. Now, do you want to write Life by Keith Richards? Or do you want to write Wouldn’t It Be Nice by Brian Wilson?”). Chuck SAYS he chooses truth and gives Metatron a different manuscript, supposedly containing the truth, to which Metatron reacts positively. Metatron believes it, and we believe it with him.

Oh! Oh, this! This is what I was talking about. Chapter Ten “Why I Never Answer Prayers, and You Should Be Glad I Don’t”, and Chapter Eleven “The Truth About Divine Intervention and Why I Avoid It At All Costs”.

Nature? Divine. Human nature – toxic.

They do like blowing stuff up.

Yeah. And the worst part – they do it in my name. And then they come crying to me, asking me to forgive, to fix things. Never taking any responsibility.

What about your responsibility?

I took responsibility... by leaving. At a certain point, training wheels got to come off. No one likes a helicopter parent.

This is sort of what he later says to Dean, except that to Dean he talks about “beautiful creatures” “my baby”, talks about helping, none of the harsh tone he’s using here. When Metatron accuses him of hiding from Amara, he retorts “I am not hiding. I am just done watching my experiments’ failures”. What a different language, uh? Then Metatron asks him why he abandoned them, and Chuck answers “Because you disappointed me. You all disappointed me”. Then, he admits he lied about “learning” to play the guitar and so on, because he just gave himself the ability, and then appears to Dean and Sam, after Metatron’s passionate speech about humanity.

So, no matter the authorial intent at the time - the truthiness of Chuck’s words was already ambiguous. He kept lying and being called out, or silencing the conversation with some good ol’ gaslighting.

The season 14 finale introduces the big twist: it was, indeed, all a lie. The whole of it. Chuck didn’t abandon shit. It was all him, minutely controlling the narrative of the universe, putting the characters through all the pain and struggles for his own amusement.

The “absent father” narrative was a lie.

What does this tell us about John? Nothing, according to the authorial intent that shines through Dabb’s Lebanon. But we don’t give a crap about Dabb’s authorial intent about John! He’s just one dude and plenty of other authors have painted a different picture. So I’m going to read the narrative the way I want, because I can, and the narrative allows me to. It’s all there.

I’m suggesting that the fact that Chuck lied when he talked about being a hands-off/absentee father parallels how Dean and Sam prefer to think of their father as an “absent father” when that’s not exactly a reflection of the truth.

You left us. Alone. ‘Cause Dad was just a shell. [...] And I-I had to be more than just a brother. I had to be a father and I had to be a mother, to keep him safe.

Setting aside how “I had to be a father and I had to be a mother” sort of retcons and cleans up the Winchester family picture painted by ealier seasons, the fact that John didn’t really count as a functional father figure and Dean and Sam were essentually alone is not incorrect or anything. It is true that John would leave them to their own devices a lot, thus the long stays in motels, the hunger, the food-stealing, and all. But John wasn’t always absent, at all. He trained them as soldiers, he disciplined them, he was around enough for them to be intimately familiar with what happened when he drank. He drove them around.

It’s almost like it’s preferable to Dean and Sam to spin their own “absent father” narrative, putting the accent on the time they spent alone, painting their childhood as a time they had to grow up on their own, rather than acknowledge they grew up under the thumb of a controlling, looming figure they would regularly live in fear of, even when he was not physically present.

The “absent father” narrative is what Dean and Sam need to use to avoid confronting the reality of the father figure whose moods and whims they had to dance around. “I know things got dicey... you know, with Dad... the way he was. And I just... I didn’t always look out for you the way that I should have. I mean, I had my own stuff, you know. In order to keep the peace, probably looked like I took his side quite a bit.”

John shaped their lives. He shaped their identities. Even in the episodes where he abandons Dean or both children somewhere, he’s portrayed as the figure who drives the car. He symbolically drives the car, you know? John shaped Dean and Sam’s relationship with each other, both on a surface level (the conflicts) and on a deeper level (the parental dynamic).

Heck. The entire first season of the show plays on John’s disappearance as the “elephant in the room”. John is there by not being there, you know? And after he dies, his death - his absence - is again the elephant in the room for Dean, the weight on his psyche that he shatters under.

It is not wrong that Dean and Sam had to spend long periods of time without John. But John structured their lives in quite minute detail. Where they needed to be, what they needed to do, what they must not do, everything had to follow John’s instructions. A drill sergeant, the narrative called him, ordering how his sons needed to live their lives. That’s no absence, except on a level where Chuck not showing himself and pretending he’s not there can be considered absent. That’s a presence, not necessarily always physical, but semiotical and psychological.

John is an absent father as much as Chuck is a hands-off god. He even writes himself into the story around the time Cas has the “season 1” phase (let’s go look for dad/let’s go look for god), which is when John actually was alive and appeared. Then he was no longer physically there, but he was still shaping his characters’ lives, just like he’d always done.

The “absent father” narrative on John is that - a narrative. Spun by the characters themselves because it’s easier and actually kinder on John. Or, better, it allows them not to be crushed by the psychological implications of having to accept that their father was such a looming, minutely formative figure in their lives. They know, but they can wave the “absent father” idea around to avoid thinking about it.

“I had to be a father and I had to be a mother” is something easier to tell yourself. I was the one who did it all. But he wasn’t, and that’s the problem. The fact that John was their father - Dean’s and Sam’s - is the problem. But ironically, blaming himself for every failure is a better option for Dean than fully acknowledging John’s abuse. As long as he blames himself, he has control over it. The moment he acknowledges the extent of John’s influence, he loses control over the entire narrative of his own identity and the family identity, the family dynamics. That’s scarier, just like realizing that God manipulated everything is much scarier than the alternative. “God abandoned us” was indeed a better option, and “John left us alone” was a better option. But neither was true, and the characters faced the implications of the cosmic level, but never got to face the implication of the familial level, because the narrative always danced around it and then Dabb’s apologist version “won”.

But what’s been put in the show is still there. The narrative of John’s abuse is still there. Nothing can take it out of the story.

[scream-into-the-voiddd]

Missing peace's

Hi there 

February is now upon us and I have come from the ashes of last year like a phoenix and one word in on my lips.

DUCKS!!!! 

anyway, I have rewatching s3 (again) and I would like to gather the things that the duck fam and FOWL have gathered (so far) and see what might be done with them. 

List of things so far...

1) the harp of mervana 

what is it?: a herp (duh) 

what does it do?:  It tells the truth. The harp answers any question truthy but it also seems to be able to answer the truth about outcomes.

for example when Louie say’s they need to jump as “its the only way” the herp answers “correct”   

and later with the mervanains trying to build the harp says the thing is going to fall and it does. 

Note that the herp is not asked directly about these things. 

2) Gene the Genie 

what is he?: a Genie (again duh) 

What does he do: grants wishes, BUT he only able to grant them in a way he understands them, like Donald wants “normal family problems” so Gene puts them in a sitcom (situational comedy), he does not change the family he changed the world around them, as 90′s sitcoms is how Gene translates  “normal family problems” so any wish made will have his flare to it.

3) The Third Eye Diamond

(this was modified to do the opposite to its OG intent, However it did work as planned on LP.)

What is it?: a magic gem/ a gun

What does it do?: it enhances someone's intelligences and abilities, It makes them the “best” version of themselves. It also seems to give them insights they may not have had otherwise (LP’s realisation that he wants to be ‘good enough’ LP tends to not have these reflect moments all that often...not on propose anyway) So the third eye also gives you wisdom into yourself and what is happening around you (as Lp found out about FOWL).  

(it also gives people British accents)    

4) The Fountain of Youth  

What is it? : a fountain/ pool 

What does it do?: it seals the youth of one person and the can give it to another. 

not much else to say about this one. 

5) The Solego Circuit

What is it?: a Key 

What does it do?: it opens gateways to other dimensions (unstable ones atm), It can bring things in from other dimensions (objects and people) but it can also make someone be part of another dimension (scrooge jumping on the table) and not think anything is off. 

Dr Waddlemier (Gos’s Grandpa) is the only one (other them MAYBE Bulba) who can figure it out.

6) The Split Sword of Swanstantine

What is it?: a sword

What does it do?: channels inner strength of the user 

(FOWL didn’t care about it so I won’t either, they wanted a feather (dna) from one of the ducks, The only other point I will make on this is that the only people to have had physical contact with FOWL agenesis in this ep was Huey and Scrooge, so the feather is most likely one of theirs)  

7) The Papyrus of Binding 

What is it? a papyrus/ parchment 

what does it do? It grants the statement written on it. It is dangerously literal and must be worded carefully.

at the moment it is lost and can only be found by an heir of Mcduck   

8) the Blessed Bagpipes of Clan Mcduck

What is it? Bagpipes 

what does it do? It brings life into things that don’t have life (eg. sculptures) that is done by playing it.

Ok now that the list is done lets see what we got...

most of these are magical items expect maybe the Solego Circuit, but it seemed to of had a magical origin at least. 

they are for:

the truth, wishes (limited by gene), intelligences and wisdom, Youth / youth stealing, interdimensional travel/ collection, reality warping and life giving.

 So why these Items? why these powers? and how does it tie into what Fenton and Gandra dee have made? 

I am just going to guess what the items will be used for 

The herp- integrations, asking if something will work (like say on the papyrus), making sure things are running smoothly

The 3d eye Dimond- boosting the intelligence of Fowl agents, attach it to the  Solego Circuit, to make it better, 

Gene the Genie- to be used as a redo button if somethings does go wrong (like how Donald undid his last wish), to get the Papyrus (wishing the heir to find it, making something lose its magic (idk tho)

The fountain of Youth- to take the youth of their enemies and give to it themselves, to make the artefacts young or old (does it work on objects?) 

Solego Circuit- to bring things and people from other dimensions, like an heir of Mcduck?  bring in objects in like other artefacts or agents 

The Papyrus of Binding- to change their reality to be under Fowls control, to get rid of scrooge, to make sure that anyone how tries to stop them fail.     

the Blessed Bagpipes of Clan Mcduck- to trap people in their homes, to have eyes and ears on every single corner of the world, to bring someone back to life (can it revive people?) 

but honestly IDK I just wanted to lay down were we are all at.   

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 1: Orphan Black 3x10

Finished Orphan Black S3 today and I’m trying to think of a way to summarize my thoughts. Which is tough because it was a LOT.

I enjoy a good Heist-type narrative, and seeing all the different strands working together, seeing Mark return, seeing how Helena and Alison were involved in the plan, was really satisfying. I can’t say I entirely UNDERSTOOD the plan, but it felt real. Had a truthiness feel to it. I guess they really did want a deal with Ferdinand, that was real, and everything else was just to eliminate Coady and Rudy... I guess I wonder if it was maybe unnecessarily complex, but you know what, it was fun, I don’t care.

The wrinkle in it all for me is this whole Neolution “reveal.” So I am very pessimistic about this and I do not believe it was, like, the plan all along. It has a very seat of the pants feel to it. My main evidence for this is that S2 made this BIG DEAL out of the Topside reveal: that was the twist of the S2 finale, along with the reveal of the male clones. There was another layer of the conspiracy, vaguely defined, an administrative layer above Dyad run by a vaguely shady character who could be deus ex machina and also the source of new shocking info (Charlotte, Rudy). It seemed like Topside was IT, like, a truly big deal.

But then we barely hear about them in S3, the shady character is never seen or heard of again, the purpose of Topside as a concept--what makes it different than Dyad, why we need it in the narrative--is never explained. Was there anything that happened between 2x10 and 3x10 that needed the Topside concept? Could what’s-her-face not have been just another random person in Dyad?

Also revealing Topside as the “entity controlling everything” and then revealing Neolution as the “entity actually controlling everything” reeks of “we picked the wrong entity, we’re gonna try again.”

The thing is that the military’s desire for clones is obvious and easy to understand: they’re easily controlled and (in theory) easily duplicated and, bonus, even the thing that’s killing them could be a weapon. And Neolution’s interest in cloning is also obvious and easy to understand: they’re fringe scientists looking to push the boundaries of humanity, and cloning fits neatly into that. What can you make human mean? What can you make into humans? What can you do with the stuff that makes up humans?

But Dyad was always much vaguer. At first I thought Dyad was just where Neolution lived, but sometime after S1 they stopped talking about Neolution at all. And now they bring the concept back and I’m like ‘oh yeah, what happened to them? what have I been watching all this time instead?’ And I realize Dyad is truly very vague, even before you get into the too-vague-to-mention Topside. I guess they’re in it for the money--as Ferdinand says “Topside has their profits”--but I don’t get how cloning is profitable. I guess it could be profitable down the line, and so could the related science. And they make those vague gestures toward the ‘business’ side of it, like with the “patents” in S1 and Rachel in S2 trying to get cloning legalized etc. And okay maybe they’re playing the long game. But ‘vague entity wants to vaguely make money off science in a vague way’ just isn’t as compelling as ‘wacky scientists give themselves tails’ and, much like Mrs. S’s backstory, I generally feel like it’s more Vibe than it is Thought Out Story. It’s just not sufficiently clear who Dyad/Topside ARE, ultimately.

And that isn’t really actually a problem, as far as my enjoyment goes, until I’m reminded of Neolution. I think bringing them back was a blatant admission that S3 took a wrong turn, and it’s true I’d rather hear about Neolution than Castor. But it also puts into starker relief just how far the story had meandered. In other words, the problem isn’t bringing back Neolution, it’s that Neolutio had to be brought back--because it had been pushed aside and because the stuff that took its place was not as compelling.

Also.. there’s a reason that one of the main things I remember about OB is that its conspiracy was convoluted to no real end. Neolutio is in Dyad is in Topside is in.. Neolution!! Why? What’s the point.

The idea of a wacky fringe group of ideologues infesting a company that’s just trying to play the money long game is interesting but it would work better if the company being infested were more understandable. Maybe it’s just me; maybe I’m just not getting it. Maybe it’s because I don’t believe that the law would ever really touch this stuff to regulate it in such a way that profiting from it is possible, which bursts the whole bubble. I don’t know.

I miss Leekie a lot. He was really the only good villain (and S1 Helena). He had charisma. He had purpose. You could understand how he could simultaneously definitely be a villain but also appear almost trustworthy as an ally too--I see smarmy little pig boy Ferdinand declare them “new best friends” and I’m like ‘but who would REALLY trust this guy as far as they could throw him?’ I don’t know.

Also, I feel like...the stories this year didn’t have really satisfying conclusions. Like it’s not clear what else there is to say, and yet, the ending is abrupt. Like with Castor--a full 60% of this season was about them, but once we got to the core of the mystery of what they were doing, Paul blew up their research, and then we only intermittently heard from them, and now I guess they’re basically done--all but Mark dead and Coady... taken by Dyad or whoever I guess and like.. it’s not that I have questions, specifically, but the conclusion was anticlimactic. Like it was more a story about the audience (through Sarah et al) figuring out what they were doing the whole time. Once that was known, it was wrapped up in like 2 scenes.

Similarly, I don’t really know what the girl clones’ story even was this season, but if it was “Castor and Dyad are on their backs and they don’t like it” then I guess they won? But I’m not really sure how they won against Dyad. I don’t believe Dyad would have kept their promise to, what, not be annoying if they’d gotten Kendall, and as it is, they didn’t get Kendall, and Ferdinand is just looking out for the clones...because he hates Neolution, I guess. It all happened so fast, I’m not really sure. I know this episode had a complex and satisfying Heist-type plot and so I can’t really complain about ends being tied up too neatly, but my overall impression in retrospect is that everything is fuzzy. The stakes, the sides, the methods of getting from A to B to C. I just know there was Danger and now there’s No Danger.

Maybe it’s not fuzzy so much as it’s complicated but I do feel like complex plots have an obligation to make themselves feel clean and neat: at some point, it should all fit together in a satisfying way. The complexity should come from how much info the audience has at any one time, and the order and way in which it is revealed. Once you have everything, you should be able to say “Ah yes, that’s it.”

So much ramble, and I’m not done. Quick hits on the characters in alphabetical order:

Alison - I love her as always and she was adorable today. I liked that she was totally in on and cool with the larger plan, that she wasn’t the “weakest link” at all.

Art - You know what there’s a lot less Art in the show in general than I remember. A shame.

Cosima - This rewatch is really driving it home to me that she does not have much of a role outside of being The Science Exposition and being sick. Her role this year was much more minimal than in S2, because she was mostly healthy. Maybe I’m not being fair, but looking back on it, I feel like the whole Shay romance was just kinda... negligible. Sort of half fluff, half red herring. But at least there was minimal Cosima/Delphine content.

Delphine - Hey remember when she was actually gone for most of this season? Also when I thought she died? Lol. I do like this Delphine more vs s1 because at least she’s more interesting but I just, and I know I’m a broken record about this, hate C/D so much and the insistence of the show on making it a soulmate thing is just exhausting. Like Cosima literally finds out in one scene that Delphine tried to slit the wrists of some random innocent girl, and then 20 minutes later she’s like “everything is so hard for you... I’m sorry you have to make hard decisions.” What?? Girl. Stop. Anyway, repetitive rant over.

Oh but also I will say that that scene of Nealon trying to spit a worm (oh, worm) in Delphine’s mouth was super creepy and good, and how she wiped the blood off her face, like “is it in me? did it infect me?”--chilling. (Then it turned out that the death threat was about the shooting, which is disappointing.)

Donnie - Nothing to say about him but I love him!

Felix - Looking very stylish today. I’ll just say here that everyone looked great at the Obligatory All Clone Dinner, but Felix had some of the best clothes overall. His role was minimal today, aside from some door-kicking, but at least he looked good. I miss his apartment... feels like we haven’t seen that set in forever.

Ferdinand - I don’t get what he does in Dyad and I don’t get what he does in the story. Generic enforcer of company profits without any weird tail people getting in the way? Interesting that he’s still obsessed with Rachel even after learning that Sarah was the one he was really playing with. Also funny that he has seriously spent THE WHOLE SEASON thinking Sarah was in custody. I should probably find him more amusing than I do but...eh.

Helena - I’m so glad she got to reunite with Jesse Towing. See, I remember being afraid when I watched the first time that she was really overselling the relationship in her head, since it wasn’t a relationship in any objective sense, but then he shows up again, thanks to Donnie and Alison, and it turns out she was kinda right? He still likes her, and he doesn’t even seem all that phased by her weird stories or her “science baby” or anything. He’s just sweet, and they’re cute together.

The scene of her and Rudy was probably worth talking about but it was just too sad for me.

Kendall - Nothing to say here... As before, I don’t like that Sarah and Mrs. S did not randomly find each other, but that it was all Arranged--all part of the conspiracy, in a way. The scene where Kendall admit she basically gave Siobhan a gift of a child to apologize for killing her husband was like... it was nice by itself but I didn’t like what the revelation does for the overall story. “It’s all actually connected and nothing is random or serendipitous” doesn’t really work for me generally. It’s too forced. Kendall as a personality is okay but I don’t know what she really brings to the story. Though Mrs. S’s wild rage for her (”hey mum want to bathe in SULFURIC ACID?”) did amuse me.

(Chekov’s Sulfuric Acid, as it turns out...)

Krystal - So like is anyone going to set her free or what?

Mark - He didn’t have much to do other than contribute a role to the overall Complex Plot, but I did like how they used the jump cuts and the boy clones to good effect. Also he and Gracie remain cute as heck.

Rachel - Love the design of the bionic eye. Pretty hilarious that she’s just being given Charlotte as a daughter. It’s never really clicked for me why motherhood is such a big goal for Rachel but I think that’s a me problem; the pieces are there (that her emotionless robotic attitude was foisted upon her, that she did have a happy, loving childhood, actually, and she clearly yearns for it), but I just don’t understand. Maybe it’s because fertility-anxiety story lines don’t do anything for me, ever. I just can’t relate. Anyway, her scenes were mostly a set up for S4. I remembered that Susan was alive so I was not shocked by her entrance. In general, I think pulling the “but wait a Duncan is alive” card twice is kinda lazy and the second time is not so shocking, but I don’t remember enough of her character to know what I think of her specifically.

Rudy - RIP

Sarah - Was looking very hot today. She actually didn’t have as big a role as one would expect given that she’s the Leader Clone but I enjoyed her and her moments of bad ass pretending-to-run-the-show at Dyad and so on. I’m glad the episode ended with her reuniting with Kira. They deserve it.

Scott - I’m so glad he gets to be part of clone club because he’s clearly enjoying! himself! so! much!!

Mrs S - Still looking so hot! She’s at the top of her fashion game this season lol. As I said before, her constant menacing to her mom amused me.

So, that’s it for S3. I remember feeling at the time like this season was rather bad and frustrating, that it was mostly about the male clones, and that it had gotten too complicated and gone a bit off the rails. When S4 started, I was initially really excited and I liked it a lot. I liked the stuff about Beth; I liked that the girl clones were the real focus again (which actually did surprise me, because I thought the boy clones were going to be near plot equals still... most of them were killed off in S3 but I guess I felt like their story wasn’t really tied up? Idk); and I felt like it was getting back to basics in a way. But then at some point it slowed down again and became less interesting and I actually, at least according to amazon, didn’t even finish the season. I seem to have watched only 8/10 of the episodes. I don’t entirely remember that but it seems plausible. I was watching week by week, so it wasn’t necessarily that something annoying happened that made me abruptly give up, which is usually the only reason I’d quit partway through a season, but rather that one week an ep came out and it wasn’t a priority to watch it and then I just... didn’t watch it and didn’t watch it and didn’t watch it.

That said... that was my feeling at the time. Rewatching S3, I feel like I was correct to discern a notable drop in quality versus S1-S2. Certainly these episode notes have become MUCH more critical. And it’s true the boy clones take up too much time and distract too much from the girls, and that the conspiracy becomes overly complex at about this point. But the last 4 episodes are really barely about the boy clones at all, and they’re also very good episodes, and that’s 40% of the season! I think it’s just that the problems were overarching and so in the hiatus between S3 and S4, I tended to remember the general issues with the previous season, rather than the more specific good things.

So I’m curious to see how I’ll react to S4, watching it again and putting some thought into it. I really don’t remember very much so it’ll be almost like new.