#though i wasn't even criticized

[llittletingoddess]

One awkward situation and I feel anxious about everything I ever wrote and planned to write 🥲

[bixels]

The Ryoko Kui interview's reception is such a disaster over a pretty normal (yet still flawed) interview between a non-Japanese fan and Japanese artistic. This is discourse for discourse's sake, and it's no surprise that almost every Twitter user I've looked at who's using this interview to parade Kui around as a goated mangaka standing strong against Western ideology is anti-trans.

Like, I do think the interview was kinda wonky with its focus on fandom culture, which Kui clearly didn't have much interest in. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes interactions between two people, especially a fan and a creator, two people who view and interact with a piece of media in completely opposite perspectives, don't click. Does this really need to get blown up into a "West vs. East culture war" issue.

Anyways, Kui saying "I don't consider my audience's interpretations when writing. I leave it to their imaginations, but I have my own read on things too" is the healthiest, most normal thing an artist/writer who wants a non-parasocial audience could say. Artists and writers use this line all the time. If Kui didn't enjoy autistic Laius or Farcille headcanons, she would have probably voiced/signalled her discomfort, like she did on the topic of Senshi fanservice. Overall, Kui handled the interview really well. Props to her to sticking to her guns and keeping a healthy disconnect from the fandom. While I think the interviewer could've/should've been more tactful and restrained, the flaws in their questions is not a symptom of the woke mind virus trying to wriggle its way into the pure Japanese psyche. It's the sign of an over-eager fan who sees a piece of fiction differently than its creator.

[rhys-ravenfeather]

Casual reminder that there’s already a ‘dark and gritty’ Scooby Doo series:

So yeah, anyway, if you haven’t watched it already, you should definitely give it a look instead of giving that other show any attention.

[salsa-di-pomodoro]

Ok but can we talk about the absolute horror of being watched and monitored 24/7 that the ancients must have had. The citizenship drones being like an Alexa that's constantly following and listening to you (except it's five pebbles and not Alexa lmao). The fucking OVERSEERS. THEY'RE CALLED THAT FOR A REASON. BECAUSE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING THEIR CITIZENS AS WELL AS THE ENVIRONMENT ALL THE TIME. (I would talk about the fact that they all show arti fucking ads as well but honestly idk what else to say about that. Capitalism got yet another society 😔). That's some fucking nightmare fuel dystopian society settings we are being hinted at. You know the Big Brother Is Watching You thing. The book. Yeah that's what it reminds me of.

The Iterator Is Watching You.

[galaxythreads]

okay, here's the thing about the loki series that I came to the conclusion to a few days ago. If you want a series that explores the aftermath of the Avengers in any meaningful way (or Loki's past actions), then the series isn't for you. Unfortunately, given the timeline that they presented us with, most people who watched the show thought it would be about that (myself included). As s2e5 has shown us though, the Loki series isn't really about Loki. It's about Loki and his relationship with the characters from the TVA, mainly Mobius. If you have no interest in the two, then the show doesn't work and is extremely boring.

Unfortunately, unlike other TV series and movies, the series didn't really delve into Loki's psychology. Moon Knight had an entire episode dedicated to Marc/Steven, so did WandaVision. I think that when a series doesn't have that background dig on a character, that the audience is actually really, deeply unhappy with it. The same thing happened with the Falcon and Winter Solider that has with Loki. The audience doesn't care. Secret Invasion had the same problem. Like the plot is happening, but that's not the point. No one cares about the plot, its' just a nice back drop. We want the psychology dig. I just don't see us getting that in episode 6, though.

One of the things I was personally hoping would happen in episode 5 is that Loki would do more timeline jumping, but timeline jumping on his timeline, not gathering the TVA. I wasn't unhappy with it, but I was disappointed because I wanted to see what they could do with it. I wanted the psychology dig. But again, the Loki series isn't about Loki. It's about Loki and his relationship to the TVA.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

behold: my second least favorite string of words in the entirety of Tears of the Kingdom.

(it's a little less transparent why this time so I'll explain my thoughts under the cut)

So why do I not like this?

In so many words: because if you remove it, the scene still works, but you lose the moral certainty of what is going on.

This single sentence does so much legwork for the entire game (the kind I dislike), to the point where I'm about 60% sure it's the product of a rework that realized how ambiguous Rauru's position was as the Good Rightful King and needed to nervously reassure the players that Ganondorf Is and Always Was the Invader, Actually.

(no matter that it leaves the gerudos in this awkward in-between state of both invaders and victims, while never dwelling in the specifics of their history and their own agency in the entire thing; brushed off as a sin they have to expiate through loyalty to the winners of that particular strife, but without explicitely blaming them either to avoid the implications of what that would have looked like)

If you remove it, not only do you lose a pretty clunky line that detracts from Ganondorf's intimidating presence (who is he even speaking to? who needs to hear this right now?) that honestly speaks for itself when it comes to his experience with warfare, but also you lose any tension and any mystery regarding why he is attacking in the first place.

You also... kind of rob Ganondorf's motivations of their meaning. "Hyrule will bow down before me" leads to asking... why? What does he want? What does he see in those lands? And what little we get with Rauru and then Link during the final fight begs more questions; why do you prefer hardship to peace? Why do you value strength? What leads you to want to rule a land devoid of survivors, become a king without a kingdom? I don't think we ever get satisfactory answers. If you remove this sentence, on the other hand... Subtextually, it becomes pretty clear that his motivations is that he felt threatened by Rauru's power, which is ripe with subtext and questions about whether this is a legitimate reaction, whether his "no survivor" stance is due to a feeling of betrayal when his own people turned against him post the Demon King shenanigans... I'm not saying it would fix the entire game's writing, far from it, but it would already do *so much more*.

(genuinely, I think he could have stayed completely silent during the Molduga Assault, speaking only in the Show of Fealty before going completely nuts after Sonia's murder, and it would have worked MUCH better in terms of characterization but anyway anyway

EDIT: ALSO!!! that way he wouldn't speak hylian to fellow gerudos, which is weird inherently)

Without this line, the core of the tension between the gerudos and Hyrule comes front in his conversation with Rauru; it allows the cause of his hostility to be Rauru's invitations, that he would have taken as a threat, and would have still made him warlike and domineering without making him cartoonishly flat, because, once again, Rauru is not acting in a particularly more legitimate way when Zelda arrives in Ancient Hyrule; and it would have been... fair to point that out. And make for better characterization for Rauru, and Sonia, and Mineru, and everybody. But the priority was for Hyrule to be pictured as unquestionably holy; always legitimate, always truthful, always beautiful, always just.

Also, and this is more of a nitpick but: why would Ganondorf want Hyrule, specifically, to bow down before him also? Was he at war with the rest of the disparate tribes before, and just carried on his ambitions to the very very newly-founded kingdom as they allied under a new banner? (though it seems to be implies the lands were crawling under monsters in a generic sense, and not Ganondorf's attacks in particular) Why would he even consider Hyrule a legitimate entity worth taking over then, if it is so new, born from the will of a powerful rival, founded by what is basically a stranger to these lands? Why would he covet something so young instead of destroying it and just calling the lands Gerudo Lands II or Grooseland or something?

I don't think any of that was even accounted for, because, beyond everything else: to me, this sentence is so clearly and painfully crammed in here to shield Hyrule from any potential blame and immediately characterize Ganondorf as Bad without having to remove any of the causes that could lead one to side-eye Rauru's little pet project as equally questionable.

Beyond the clumsiness, it is cowardly --and, I think, a little damning.

[chipistrate]

People really need to give Steel Wool a break sometimes, man- They messed up with Security Breach and now people act like EVERYTHING wrong with modern fnaf is all exclusively their fault when it's really not.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Okay I thought I was done but apparently I'm not. I need to talk more about this banter you can get during the Legacy DLC between Aveline and Warden Carver because it makes me want to scream.

Aveline: I'm glad you found a place with the Wardens. Carver: Well, it's not the city guard, but it'll do. Aveline: Carver... it wasn't the place for you. Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well...

In my last post, I talked about how Aveline had no place telling the guard to refuse Carver's application, regardless of if he was "right" for the job or not. But I believe he would've made a great guard, and getting that job not only would've provided for him and his family during a desperate time, but would've prevented him from either fate of becoming a warden or a templar. He was unfairly robbed of a chance to prove himself because Aveline believed he wasn't right for the guard.

This is one of the banters I brought up but didn't go too in depth about. At this point, it's been between 3-6 years since Act 1, depending on if you decided to do Legacy in Act 2 or Act 3, and every line here is important.

Carver's response to Aveline saying she's glad he "found a place" with the wardens is so telling. Not being accepted by the guard is still on his mind after all this time. He wouldn't bring it up if it didn't still bother him, and implies that he still would've preferred the guard over the wardens.

Which... yeah. Listen, I'm a dedicated "Carver joins the Grey Warden" player. I don't like leaving him behind to become a templar, and I certainly don't like him dying. For me, the Grey Wardens are the best outcome he has. It’s where he seems the happiest and finds the most fulfilment, and it fits well with how I play my Hawke. But it obviously has some tragic issues.

Like the fact that becoming a Grey Warden only delayed his inevitable death within the Deep Roads. Eventually his Calling will come, and Carver will go back down there and fight until the darkspawn eventually kill him. I'm sure that's not traumatic to think about given he was a soldier at Ostagar and then watched Bethany die at the hands of an ogre. Oh, and there's the whole nightmares and voices thing.

Carver didn't choose this life for himself. It was either this or death, but a "what if?" still lingers in his mind about the city guard.

Something Aveline ruined for him.

And continues to ruin.

Aveline: Carver... it wasn't the place for you.

You hear that? In the distance? That's me screaming.

I must reiterate; what makes Aveline believe it's her place to tell Carver whether or not the city guard was right for him? Why did she think she should get a say in whether or not the guard takes him? What's made it HER call?

And still, after all this time has passed, she believes it wasn't right for him and she's unwilling to consider otherwise. Maker forbid she do some reflection and question if she was in the right for interfering at all, too!

Carver is standing right there before her, proving everything she said about him wrong, and she just doubles down. There's no reason to say this to him unless she's trying to remind him of his place; he's a Grey Warden, and she's Guard-Captain of Kirkwall's city guard. But c'mon, Aveline, he's hardly a threat to your precious guard anymore given the whole dedication to killing darkspawn thing he has now.

Maybe if you paid more attention to the threats within your guard, Kirkwall would be a safer place with less murder going around? Just saying!

But isn't that how it's always been? Aveline putting him in his place, making sure Carver remembers she's always outranked him?

Carver: Did you approve my application? Aveline: I can't make you a guard, Carver. Carver: We were both soldiers. Why won't they take me? Aveline: I was an officer. And I follow orders. Carver: [laughs] No you don't. Aveline: I also think of others before myself. You seem tired of that, and that's dangerous. Carver: Just when it's not my choice. You told them not to take me, didn't you? Aveline: Yes.

That he should remember who he's talking to?

Carver: I'm surprised you still travel with us, Aveline. Aveline: Carver, don't. Carver: You're ever so busy with the guardsmen. It must be a burden to slum with the refugees. Aveline: It's oddly comforting that you insult me like I'm family. Carver: That wasn't... no, I didn't mean that. Aveline: I know. But you should be glad that's how I took it.

That she's in charge?

Aveline: Your form's sloppy, Carver. Stiffen up or the darkspawn will take your blade. Carver: Right. I'll keep that in mind. Aveline: And you're angry, why? Carver: You didn't fare any better than I did the last time we faced darkspawn. Aveline: If they take your blade, people die. That's not happening again. Stiffen up. Carver: Yes ma'am.

Oh, and she used to spy on him [and Hawke].

Aveline: I don't like some of the people you've been associating with, Carver. Carver: Talk to my brother/sister. He/She's the one in charge. Aveline:  Maybe, but I know you get around. This city's full of people who are dead set on ending badly. I don't want to see you end up the same way. Carver: Would asking you to stop spying on me help in the least? Aveline: No.

That's their banter.

But sure, she's glad he found a place in the wardens. I don't think she's being ingenuine when she says that, but I think it's a little more complicated than a mere "congrats on doing well, I knew you could do it."

But Carver's response? Oh Maker's ass. It actually hurts me.

Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well...

I... what can I even say?

He accepts it, but you can tell it hurts to do so. It DID cost a lot. More than Aveline will ever understand. And it doesn't matter now! He can't become a guard now anyway, so what would be the point in him disagreeing with her? Carver acts as the bigger person here because he does get it, even if Aveline doesn't.

But it's that last part... that last damn part... Don't be alarmed, that screaming you hear is still me.

Here's the deal; Carver acknowledges that he could be an ass back in Act 1. Hell, he acknowledges it IN Act 1. For example, when you talk to him after finding your grandfather's will, he's an ass to you about Bethany no matter what you say.

But y'know what? You can be the biggest piece of shit to him and have Hawke literally call him a "lazy brat with a chip on his shoulder," and Carver will still be the one to be apologetic for what he said and attempt to explain his feelings.

"Brother/Sister... I feel... I don't know. It's like Mother taking things out on us. She was just scared. I don't have a place in the life she's trying to bring back…"

Carver can be an ass, but he's aware of that and actively tries to change his behavior. If you bring him and Fenris with you on the Mark of the Assassin DLC, there's a moment where Carver says, "You still don't like me? I've tried to change." And if you bring Varric, he once again acknowledges that he used to be an ass.

BUT... that being said. If you don't remember, "I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I?" is referencing back to this conversation in the barracks of Act 1:

Hawke: This must be a very different pace from serving King Cailan. Aveline: It's just one more change, though. The real end for me was Ostagar. What about you Carver? You were there. Do you feel something similar? Carver: No. Aveline: All right, then. Bit of a tit, your brother.

Now, I've already expressed my beef with Aveline over insulting Carver in the middle of the barracks just because he doesn't agree with her view point on Ostagar... but consider the fact that Carver says nothing. He just lets her insult him without a complaint! Carver Hawke, who tends to complain! And he says nothing!

Not only that, but he actually internalized that insult enough that years later he's able to repeat it back to Aveline word for word, and all she has to say is, "Well..."

This isn't the same thing as him reflecting on his past behavior and acknowledging his flaws. This is Carver accepting a snide jab Aveline made that hurt him because apparently he was wrong for not wanting to discuss any trauma Ostagar left him with as openly as she does.

Oh, and don't forget that any other companion you brought along dogpiles on, too!

Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well... Varric: No shit. Fenris: Insufferable. Isabela: Legendary. Anders: Maker, yes. Sebastian: I've heard as much. [If Hawke has a humorous/charming personality] Hawke: Spoiled, annoying, thick-headed, brattish little nitwit of a... oh, have we stopped?

Y'all ever wonder why he's so on edge or hostile with the other companions?

Also, I have to point out that Merrill is the only companion who doesn't say anything in agreement if she's there. In fact, across all their banter, Merrill's never been rude or insulting toward him. All she does is ask him if he's talking dirty to her and compliments him on what a great sworder he is. It's pretty obvious why Carver develops a crush on her, c'mon.

But to wrap this up-

This banter strikes a nerve due to how telling it is about both characters involved.

Carver has grown and done what he can to improve himself, but there's regret that lingers, a longing for a better life he could've had if given a chance. Maybe he would've failed, maybe he would've succeeded. But there's nothing he can do now, so he looks forward, just as he's always wanted to do. He's a damn good Grey Warden who wants to do right.

Aveline remains stagnant. She hasn't changed, nor has she improved, and maybe she would if she could figure out how to dislodge her head from her own ass. She still believes she was in the right to tell the guard not to accept Carver's application despite knowing the Hawke's were desperate and that Fereldan refugees couldn't find work. She knew Carver's a skilled soldier who fought at Ostagar just as she did. The guard wasn't the place for him so she's in the right to deny him any chance. Aveline knows best.

And y'know what, I think all I have left to say is...

Fine, Aveline. You're right. It wasn't the place for him.

Carver was too good for your city guard.

[fvckw4d]

The concept of queerbaiting annoys me. I was told that it refers to a work of fiction pretending to cater to a queer audience but then pulling back from it to avoid alienating homophobes, which is an incredibly specific thing. But a lot of people seem to think that it instead means "any time there's any gay subtex, metaphor, or ambiguity" or "whenever something from 1995-2012 was being a normal amount of homophobic for the era."

[clairenatural]

the only people whose opinions on 10x05 fan fiction i respect are people who were high school theater kids when it aired

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

The thing about Charles that most enrages me, vis-à-vis his plotlines and development, is that his crimes and his punishments are mostly entirely disconnected. He gets comeuppances all the time, but only occasionally are they a consequence of him being Bad, as opposed to just being annoying—or, sometimes, just being an easy target. And then sometimes he does or says something utterly heinous and the narrative gives him nothing but a slap on the wrist. Hawkeye and BJ (and sometimes the entire camp!) will torment him for minor, petty things, like destroying his French horn because he was bad at playing it. But the things he said to Margaret in the supply room in Mail Call Three were so vile that the scene is usually cut from syndicated airings. And what does he get for it? She jabs him with an elbow and pushes him out of the room and then nothing bad happens to him for the entire rest of the episode. 

I have a whole half-written essay on the utterly nonsensical way Charles’ bigotry is portrayed on the show—the way it had to be portrayed, really, in order to make the character function—but this is the single worst result of that whole mess, to me. Because this mismatch between actions and consequences affects all the other characters, too. If Hawkeye, and by extension the narrative itself, gets angrier at Charles for snoring than for yelling about keeping his family’s bloodline pure (not to mention being racist against Max—you know, Hawkeye’s supposed fucking friend?), then that says something about both the protagonist and the show. Something extremely unflattering, to put it lightly.

[durzarya]

Okay having checked out critical role today on twitter and now I am once again wondering if the cast sleeps at all

[starlight-bread-blog]

Alright now let's go back to blaming Viv for this shitty writing in the latest episodes.

[inky-evergreen]

The cynical trio!! Aka the fuckers whose lives are going to get screwed by a company who pretends to care about animals

[flightfoot]

ChatGPT produced material embodies the concept of "Death of the Author" in its purest form

I've heard "Death of the Author" invoked many times throughout my years, but I had never actually read the essay that created the term and laid out how the concept worked before. I did so recently, as well as an analysis of that essay, which I will also reference because Roland Barthes original essay (well, translated essay, the original is in French) on "The Death of the Author" is an impenetrable mass of purple prose which can be very hard to follow, despite the essay's short word count of just over 2000 words.

If you wish to read it for yourself, here's a link to a pdf of the Death of the Author essay.

Basically the idea is that authors aren't really creators at all, but instead merely regurgitate and string together already existing writing, that "scriptor" would be a better term in fact.

The Author, when we believe in him, is always conceived as the past of his own book: the book and the author take their places of their own accord on the same line, cast as a before and an after: the Author is supposed to feed the book — that is, he pre-exists it, thinks, suffers, lives for it; he maintains with his work the same relation of antecedence a father maintains with his child. Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.

and as the essay puts it later on:

We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single "theological" meaning (the "message" of the AuthorGod), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture. Like Bouvard and Pecuchet, those eternal copyists, both sublime and comical and whose profound absurdity precisely designates the truth of writing, the writer can only imitate a gesture forever anterior, never original

Or if you want to read something a little clearer, I like how this essay on filmslie puts it:

The use of the word “quotations” expresses the idea that a text cannot really be “created” or “original”—it is always made up of an arrangement of preexisting “quotations” or ideas. Therefore, the “author” is not really an author, but rather a “scriptor” who simply puts together preexisting texts.

And as it puts it later on:

The death of the Author is the inability to create, produce, or discover any text or idea. The author is a “scriptor” who simply collects preexisting quotations. He is not able to create or decide the meaning of his work.  The task of meaning falls “in the destination”—the reader.

As such, the author's actual presence as a person is not required, as the speech they utter, or rather the words they write, exist independently of a person to actually write them. From the Death of the Author essay:

Finally, outside of literature itself (actually, these distinctions are being superseded), linguistics has just furnished the destruction of the Author with a precious analytic instrument by showing that utterance in its entirety is a void process, which functions perfectly without requiring to be filled by the person of the interlocutors: linguistically, the author is never anything more than the man who writes, just as I is no more than the man who says I

Meaning is derived not from what the author intended, as their existence is unneeded, but instead from whatever meaning the reader chooses to impose on what they read.

Doesn't this fit well with what ChatGPT and other AI "writers" do? There is no question after all that they merely copy and string together writing that already exists, creating a "tissue of citations", as Barthe puts it. There is no particular "author" of a work in this case, but merely the tool that strung them together, a "void process" that does not need a mind behind it. The meaning of a piece of writing that ChatGPT produces doesn't lie in anything that it intends, as it has no meaningful intentions to begin with, but is instead given to it by what the reader interprets from it.

ChatGPT and other AI like it make a reality what "The Death of the Author" posits that all writers do. When looking to apply the concept of Death of the Author to a piece of literature, simply pretend for a moment that instead of a human mind behind it, an AI created the work instead, and analyze the work's meaning accordingly.

[soubiapologist]

ok so i've speculated on what kind of home environment[s] mimuro and mei might have before but like the kind of home environment that produces people who just like lie like that. well. smiles.