#or if i cant then just make a halfassed attempt to get it over with

[maggot-baggage]

Hrmngnnn

[shiikiyun]

I know ive gone over this before but i need to bring up again how important i think mikoto's 2021 bday tl convo is for futa's characterization (and mikoto as well but thats not my area of study)

Futa is an extremely awkward person that hides behind his aggressive attitude to avoid showing vulnerability to others and he /just/ had an awful fallout/betrayal from people he considered friends right. Having all that present in my head at all times i cant help but read this conversation as futa's genuine attempt at checking on mikoto because deep down he cares about his peers, hes just extremely afraid of showing that at all to anyone else again

I always find it funny he (according to what theyre saying) purposely approached mikoto, told him off for daring to ask if hed wish him a happy birthday, then instead of walking away or halfassing a congratulation he questioned mikoto's attitude because it was nothing like his usual self. futa had beef with the entirety of milgram at this point! nothing but shouting and insults from this guy! he was the first person to get mikoto to sorta drop the nice guy act to make a demand (the "your attitude is keeping everyone on edge can you shut up" convo), you wouldnt expect him to care about mikoto's mood dropping. but he did! and in his awkwardness he tried to relate to it for some sort of reassurance. and then he ran away being rude and condescending again because he was getting ahead of himself by opening up too (and surprisingly got mikoto to actually open up ever so slightly too?!?!)

I just love this convo so much. Such little details that show so much. Im gonna put him in the air fryer

[doebt]

but then again stuff generally seems to work out okay. in life. Like maybe these more distant friends who have been much more kind and have not totally given up on me over the last year, are what i should be focusing on

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also re ppl talking abt things in the concepts of Careers.....just like when it annoys me when ppl start “resume / interview tips” with a tone of “You Fucking Fools” instead of say “this is all a goddamn game and the whole hiring process is a halfassed attempt to weed out the less exploitable at the min wage level and reward the privileged at upper levels and decisions will largely be arbitrary and this is all just about trying to adjust your odds”......it also annoys me when ppl (artists on twitter........) talk abt the necessity of Networking (being considered amicable by ppl you may potentially work with) with a context of “you fucking fools” instead of “again although capitalism pretends its a meritocracy its really not and unfortunately its not necessarily realistic to assume the quality of your work will serve you nearly as well as not just making friends but trying to establish personal connections as a means of making professional inroads”

i mean again even at the minimum wage level, someone whose friend already works at a place and recommends them is way more likely to be hired than anyone else who hands in an application. because beyond hoping for someone who can be scheduled at any and all hours and never say “i cant work then,” they dont really care who gets hired and its kinda just eh fuck it lets call this one. and interview them as if their job here has anything to do w interpersonal skills and the ability to deftly maneuver their way thru interrogation abt how much they might value their family and own personal existence over the company that pays them about ten cents a minute.

anyways its not like i dont think “networking” (seems weirdly euphemistic to me also) or finessing details on your application ISN’T helpful, just that its kind of demeaning if not insulting to talk about it like its all obvious and anyone who doesnt strategize the way you do is incompetent and doesnt deserve to succeed and its their own fault for not thriving. coz thats accepting the whole “this is a meritocracy” lie—that is definitely an assumption found in basically all discussions of anything—that necessitates these ridiculous secret maneuverings to get a foot in the door at places that treat you terribly to allow you to maybe barely survive off your work

anyways like of course i dont think that artists should have to seem friendlier than other artists to succeed & even if thats how it works i’m not gonna accept/endorse that premise yknow......like damn. its an element everywhere that yeah your Social Skills impact how ppl treat you professionally but im not about to pretend the Real Solution is just that those ppl who get fucked over by that fact just need to learn how to Be Different

like to a degree its sort of nice that just being in the same general professional sphere can make artists known to each other......but also like. if ppl around you dont personally consider you likeable, it then might close doors to your career. like damn nobody likes me, i’m glad i dont have to talk to ppl to draw

funny story actually once i was in a situation where im pretty sure nearly everyone was assuming i was a serious artist with a serious project. it wasnt at all a formal setting or even relevant what everyone did like just ppl hanging out / chillin but i still like, got automatically accepted by random nearby ppl in a way i was like oh god no i dont do anything lmfaoo...i got drunk followed on twitter by an artist i actually vaguely knew of & i think it took them a couple weeks to realize their mistake......i had a guy who wasnt an artist but was still involved in working w/ them talk to me a few times, increasingly somewhat drunk which is probably why he was talking to me (not in a nightmarish oh no a drunk guy is talking to me way, luckily, it was fine actually) & at one point he mentioned some artists who were there who i definitely knew of & how he never knew them to hang out w ppl after events or whatever & he was like idk are they too good for us or w/e & i was like lol nah i kinda know of them & i think theyre both just pretty shy (which was true lol in my head im like ive seen their diary comics abt being a bit socially timid.) and also i was thinking abt how ppl will and have assumed i think im too good to hang out / talk to them or are generally snobby, when actually i’m just anxious, and then doubly uncomfortable when i find out abt the stuff ppl have said abt me (like an unrelated family friend talking abt me when i was like, 11 or something lol; ppl talking abt how i wouldnt take up their invitation to join a group chat, since they make me nervous and if i do show up i cant say anything and probably feel worse; ppl talking abt how i accepted hanging out w a group i mostly didnt know but like brought stuff to do quietly in the corner like draw and write and stuff & had just kind of been making fun of me in the bg for the subsequent months i continued to hang out w them w increasing misguided confidence lol)

its funny (no it isnt) that ppl will think their specific brand of social language is the one that gives them the only accurate reading of other ppls social cues, & that everyone else has to learn to accommodate that, instead of ever considering the fact that its actually not a flat universal constant & maybe THEY need to learn more that some kind of subtle facial cue doesnt mean the same thing for everyone, that everyone doesnt verbally communicate in the same way, that there are cultural differences in various forms of communication, that avoiding eye contact doesnt always mean someone is full of contempt or lies, that people dont express affection in the same ways, that ones immediate impression of someone isnt always equivalent to their truest essence laid bare, etc etc

like everyone has their own language really & there can be mistranslations & nuances that are lost b/w ppl & you can’t always blame the other person for your own misinterpretation unless you consider yourself constantly superior mm

like its definitely all a lot of personal connections everywhere but that doesnt mean it should be

and the personal appeal of someone to strangers l o l . . . which can be a largely harmless advantage to a huge one. smdh. well it all stretches into a larger topic and many things annoy me

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Been thinking about Jesse Moynihan’s work. How I’d have criticised it as a fellow creator, rather than as a fan.

In my opinion, the best episode he ever worked on was The Vault, while the biggest miss was Something Big.

Yes, I have much more issues with Breezy, but that wasnt so much to do with its completeness as an episode as it was to do with whether the content belonged in the AT world. If Breezy was in Jesse’s own show, it’d be beautiful, but as an Adventure Time episode it’s plain uncomfortable. Something Big, meanwhile, is… Disappointing in general, and the easiest highlight of Jesse’s weaknesses.

So let’s first talk about why The Vault is Jesse and Ako’s best episode, and perhaps my personal favourite in the series. This ep has decent visual imagery from the start with the Magic Hexagon joke. It has a solid beginning with Finn breaking his house at the ghost vision, leaving us curious. It slowly feeds this curiosity by showing us his past lives. Then we get onto the middle section where we see what happens with Shoko, which has its own tense conclusion, hitting the climax of the ep. Then we have the end, where we are back to Finn retrieving what was lost and returning it.

The entire storyline was filled with a sense of mystery, suspense, and tragedy. Shoko’s story could have worked as a standalone by itself, making her a sympathetic, interesting character to follow, but AT took this several steps beyond… It was *jampacked* with interesting lore that the series had been building up to for years, and it executed this *perfectly*. How could we have expected The Vault to give us an important glimpse of the Candy Kingdom’s creation? To show us the younger Princess, interacting with past iterations of Finn and Jake? To give foreshadowing and hints of what was to come, from Finn’s life as a comet to PB’s amulet? The whole arm shit? It connected so many things together, leaving an overwhelming sense of payoff.

The ep, importantly, was hilarious too. Jesse and Ako’s humor is so *on point* when they work together. Finn vibrating at the beginning and breaking the floorboards at the end, PB bragging about being a technical wonderchild and wanting to do two-arm stuff, Shoko beating up that one bath boy… It made the tragic end to Shoko’s tale hit that much harder, followed by the bittersweet melancholy of Finn making amends in his new life.

Now, let’s talk about Something Big.

Unlike The Vault, where we only knew about the green ghost lady (admittably an exciting premise) and got a huge surprise, Something Big was approached with enormous expectation only to be disappointing to just about everyone. What we knew was that Maja was planning to finally attack the Candy Kingdom, using the magic from PB’s tshirt she traded for in Sky Witch. It was implied that Maja was conducting a huge plan using the enormous magical potential Peebles had given her. When Something Big finally came, the preview promised an awesome battle between Maja and the Candy Kingdom, showing off the episode’s more actionpacked moments and a bit of humor. Excitement hit the roof!!! How was the princess going to deal with this threat that she helped create, even?

Well when the episode came out, it suffered from serious structural, pacing, and tension issues. The start was promising with showing multiple casualties, and pb saying she didnt want to use her ground troops, but it’s hindered by the distracting and pathetic death of Root Beer Guy. This random execution of a character we thought to be important reeked of Homestuck level immersion-breaking insensibilities, and Jack Pendarvis’s weak justification for the decision did not help at all. I’m not sure if Jesse or Jack was responsible for how poorly it was executed though.

Then we cut to a flashback of Maja summoning Darren, and this is where the episode’s structural weaknesses start to show themselves off. The way Darren is summoned is deeply intimidating and Maja’s explanation about the shirt is interesting, but too much time and focus is drawn on Darren himself considering his role later in the episode.

Then we cut back to the candy kingdom, where Colonel Candy Corn employs his defensive strategy and does something cool. Yay, i guess? It’s funny and I enjoy seeing candy people do their thing but once again, the episode loses focus, and doesnt put enough on these guys for it to have any real stakes. Then FINALLY we cut back to Peebles, who realises the boys are gone and decides to defend the kingdom herself. The only truly tense scene in the episode occurs when PB gets knocked off her swan and nearly *erased* by Darren, but this is interrupted before it can be processed by Finn appearing straight out if nowhere with the Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant. Now, this is where the ep *really* gets off the rails.

Darren and Eli talk about the old days, which in a better episode could have been an amusing addition. Finn defeats Darren by going up his nose and punching him. Thats it. No drama, no investment, he just does that and it’s over like no big deal. Everybody EXCEPT RBG is healed by miracle juice and doesnt care anymore. Peebles doesnt give a shit either and everyone celebrates, then we go to the Elephant having some sort of breakdown over being nothing but a weapon. Finn peptalks it and he goes to help Mahja recover from a coma, saying you cant light a candle without a match. The ep ends with two cards that go “In memory of Root Beer Guy” and “Crunchy is OK”.

Jesse said that this ep was originally going to be the start of the movie. This makes sense considering how poorly structured it is, and how much content it tries to cram into a short 11 minutes.

The ep’s humor is… Decent at best, not the most lolworthy but ice seen worse. However the biggest criticism I have is, what - and who - was it *about*? It wasnt about Maja cos she just hovered in the background and had no meaningful dialogue. It wasnt about PB, even though it looked like it should have been, because despite the character study Maja gave for her, she had no development, serious dialogue, or real action in this ep. It wasnt about Darren cos he unceremoniously died. It wasnt about the Elephant cos it only appeared for the last few minutes of the ep. It wasnt about the Candy Kingdom cos Finn, Jake, and Eli withdrew any focus from them at the end.

The only theme I can identify that applies to most of these things is that it’s about old people not being able to move on. Peebles harbored the shirt and built the kingdom, empowering them with the sentimentality of her past hopes and regrets. Maja was hellbent on destroying the Candy Kingdom to use one of her dumb spells. Colonel Candy Corn was moping about his exes and not talking to girls his age. Eli and Darren explicitly felt stuck in the past and unable to veer from their original purpose, but after uhh talking to tje goddamn Sun, Eli decides to take a new path. He becomes the candle and the match, caring for the person he comatised until she heals.

This theme is so halfbaked and scattered that theres no way any person would care for it. The characters they use to express it are unimportant and get no focus throughout the episode. Was it really right to hamper the expectations fans had, also crushing many other things like poor root beer guy, just to try expressing this poor idea? Eli could have had their own episode pitched at the very least… Consequentially, Something Big fails to be anything more than a series of poorly connected events with no emotional core and not nearly enough humor to pull it off like Apple Wedding did. It wastes the potential that focusing on Maja vs the Candy Kingdom could have had. We could have seen Maja and Peebles antagonizing each other, elaboration on why the latter carries so much sentimentality into everthing she owns to the extent that it nukes Hambo in comparison… We could have seen more candy people being candy people, the gumball guardians having a non halfassed reason for fainting, Root Beer Guy having a meaningful sacrifice, Darren having a satisfying defeat… The ep wastes avenues for lore, tension, emotion, and character development, wasting it on a poirly built premise that it fails to deliver effectively. Its attempts to poke fun at itself with the cards at the end only serve to further jar the mood and insult the audience, rather than be funny.

This is why Something Big is the worst episode Jesse has ever storyboarded. Future work like Astral Plane, and the previous episode Breezy, despite also having poorly built philosophy and that general author mouthpiece vibe they had cohesive beginnings, middles, and ends, focusing on specific characters and showing at least limited growth. Astral Plane was funny and followed the adventures of numerous people, and Breezy nearly made me cry, so they definitely had some emotions in their core.

The Vault, meanwhile, highlights the best of Jesse’s potential. The philosophy presented in this ep is directly meaningful to a relationship between two major characters, and the payoff delivers perfectly for *seasons* worth of work. It is a x3 combob origin episode and one of the best Adventure Time has ever had to offer, humorously, analytically, and emotionally.

[waterloggedsoliloquy]

bioshock infinite

-do not let ken lavine touch this game ever

-that being said, i dont want to see a creepy “reverse racism” message at all in this game. white people are not equipped to writing racism and therefore…. shouldnt. 

-vilifying Daisy, the only named black lady in the game, to be killed by elizabeth in order to fuel her narrative is frankly disgusting (and burial at sea made it worse by making it Daisy’s fault??? what??) im not black so i cant really say anything more in depth on bioshock infinites antiblackness w/o parroting or overstepping

- “bioshock infinite’s art direction is beautiful” kiss my ass steampunk is almost always boring and bioshock infinite is not the exception 

-the plot was all over the place, and the elements within it too. The Tears became some deux ex machina to explain shit, like references the characters couldnt get away with either, or an excuse to bring back plasmids in the form of vigors, which is one of the only mechanical ways this game constitutes as a bioshock game in the first place.

-the pacing is awful

-booker is absolutely end of the line boring and unlikable when he’s not actively reprehensible as a character

-the game doesnt even MEAN anything! the choices you make don’t change anything or even give alternative character perspectives, the game’s ending is the same no matter what you do, and the political commentary that Bioshock is known for  isn’t even brought to Columbia in a good or exciting way. the message of the previous two bioshock games is that Utopia is inherently flawed as an idea and is unsustainable. 

The collapse of Rapture, and then the subsequent second collapse of Rapture, is proof of that. Bioshock 1 and 2 build up this narrative of people trying to envision Utopia– on a big scale like Ryan and Lamb, or on personal scales– all the characters having some ultimate thing to strive towards, for their own slice of Utopia. Cohen’s artistic immortality, Tenenbaum’s pursuit of discovery turned pursuit of atonement, Grace being a mother, countless people just trying to turn a buck (Augustus, Frank, Poole, etc). 

But that doesn’t HAPPEN in Infinite! in Infinite, Columbia’s defeat isn’t at the hands of a faulty philosophy to live by, because the destruction of Utopia happens in the background of Booker and Elizabeth’s adventure, not through/because of it. Jack’s entire purpose was to collapse Ryan’s ideology of man/slave, leaving Fontaine to reap the spoils, only to be felled by the same prodigal son. Delta and Eleanor actively rebelled against Lamb’s idea of the Truly Selfless Self, the pinnacle of the Rapture family, and their rejection of it caused her and its downfall. 

The dangerous ideology was part of the conflict and what spurred on the antagonists. But in Bioshock Infinite, the flawed ideology that made Columbia, while given halfassed attempts to be like Oh…. Religion and Nat/ionalism Bad (and later Reverse Racism Bad) ….. don’t actually end up meaning anything to the protagonists. It’s straw at it’s most bare bones, at its most boring, at its utmost fake deep bullshit. At the end of the day, Bioshock Infinite just doesn’t hold up as a game, let alone as a Bioshock title. It’s prissy, self-serving, and perfect intellectual wank for gamers who think they abound on ‘logic’. 

-Not enough scenes with the Luteces.